Across 110th Street
The Bronx is up. The Battery is down and the Bronx is up. I was thinking about that days ago. I was thinking about that when Criterion streamed a restored version of On The Town (Frank Sinatra bored, Comden and…
I Happen to Like New York
I’ve never arrived in NYC on a Saturday evening. That was a trip. But I’ve definitely never arrived at Penn Station, which is the Madison Square Garden subway stop, on a Saturday, with a UFC fight on tap, for which…
Substance is Style
So it goes; another spectacular trip down. Spettacolare. Didn’t ever post any pics of the Yard hotel, bar and restaurant common areas. Bric a brac meets shabby chic meets a reactionary aversion to minimalism meets hoarding meets collectible obsession. Hats…
God in the Middle & Verdi’s “Ugliest Opera”
We didn’t go to a church today, literally, but we did go to the high temple of opera. More on that later. First, let’s go to a museum of a church! Diptych of the Five Parts from the 5th century…
Plastic Dynamism, Synthetic Definition and Historiographical Taxonomies
It was all art, all day. All art baby. Cans of Love in Preserve art. You might not even see a church in today’s post. Mid 20 c Morandi. Early 20 c Kandinsky. We did a tour of the Museo…
Old News & Other Oxymorons
We checked into a quirky hotel in Milan. Make of it what you will, it’s not run of the mill. Rooms have a theme; ours is hunting lodge. Go figure It’s enough to make you go ethical vegan. We have…
I Don’t Know Why You Say “Goodbye” I say “Hello”
That’s the thing with ciao, isn’t it? Only less confusing than I Am the Walrus. Worse is prego. If you bother to say thank you, grazie, you are virtually forcing an Italian to say prego; often you can hear the…
Sunshine Enough to Spread
We decided to go to the beach. But which beach? SS found a decent lido nearby with a website; they had a bar graph which showed typical client traffic, hour by hour, in real time. At 8 a.m. on a…
Changing of the Guard
Namaste Nardo. Nakemiin Nardo. Nagemist Nardo. When you really think about it, nothing happens when the guards change; the same uniforms, the same job descriptions, the same duties, one sentry called Oliver is replaced by another called Charlie replaced by…
Melonville, Springfield or Porpoise Spit?
Who knows. Who knows? Was yesterday’s post two days ago? Is today the fourth day we went to the beach or the seventeenth day we looked at a church? Was it 36.5 degrees yesterday or was that the day before,…