March 25 – March 31

Via Quadronno: a slice of northern Italy on 73rd Street and Madison. We tuck ourselves into a little table parked under a bookcase. I had beautifully cooked and served asparagus and a boiled ege. My friend had minestrone and a panino American style i.e. more prosciutto than you’d have in Italy. I looked at his food hungrily then consoled myself by sopping up the oil in my plate with toasted bread. He handed me James Rebanks’s THE SHEPHERD’S LIFE Modern Dispatches From an Ancient Landscape and told me to speed read it for our Arsenal Book Club on Wed. Reading a book about shepherding in the English Lake District? I assumed the prosciutto had gone to his head. I was wrong. Rebanks’s story of home and staying there is compelling. It’s about preserving a way of life that is difficult to sustain and as moving as the old movie about Lassie. Rebanks is on Twitter: Herdwick Shepherd.

I confess. I read The Nation recently. I was waiting in a doctor’s office. Did you know that The Nation like Ted Turner Classics has a wine club? Did you know, courtesy of The Nation, you can go on an Alaskan tour with Ruth Messinger?

An artist friend and I wandered through the Whitney’s Grant Wood exhibit. We admitted grudgingly that Wood was a superb craftsman. In addition to being an artist he was a silversmith and he had a streak of whimsy. Maxfield Parrish and Norman Rockwell came to mind.

An Altar to the Home, Grant Wood
A Screen, Grant Wood

Are they American Regionalists like Wood? His art celebrates the American farm. His attention to detail is extraordinary. There’s a uniformity of expression and of gender. The men are big, usually in overalls and engaged in the manly arts of mechanics. The women are small, usually in an apron and engaged in the womanly arts of polishing the furniture. We walked down the outside stairs from the eighth floor cafe to the fifth floor exhibit. Wonderful views of lower Manhattan and the Hudson.

A view from the Whitney

 

 

 

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie.

Graphic Lessons: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a failed marriage? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case? It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.

March 17 – March 24

Busy week.

Starting with St. Patrick’s Day and ending with the Morgan Library & Museum’s Now and Forever: the Art of Medieval Time where I learned that St. Patrick’s Day like Christmas harkens back to the middle ages when fixing a holiday on a specific date was done to keep track of time.

Now and Forever: The Art of Medieval Time

 

Now and Forever: The Art Medieval Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A memorial in New Jersey was followed by a birthday dance at the Joyce. The Stephen Petronio Company celebrates choreographers of the past. Tuesday was Merce Cunningham night. Petronio scored. Reverence for the past did not rob his pieces of their freshness and sexiness. The Butcher’s Daughter on Hudson is vegan, in spite of the name. I dote on their breakfast menu, especially soft boiled eggs and soldiers. Don’t tell me you don’t know what soldiers are.
A friend and I drifted across the Morgan corridor from the medieval to the modern. We went to the Peter Hujar: Speed of Life. Hujar was one of the many AIDS victims who died in the eighties. For me there’s a sadness that hangs over the exhibit of a very young, very talented photographer.

Peter Hujar: Speed of Life
Peter Hujar: Speed of Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie.

Graphic Lessons: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a failed marriage? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case? It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.

March 10 – March 16

 

A friend wanted to celebrate his birthday at Hangawi, a Korean vegan restaurant on 32nd Street. Leaving our shoes at the entrance, we walked along a narrow corridor filled with rustic charm to our table. The menu’s descriptions are mouth watering. We shared the silky tofu, leek pancakes, spicy baby dumplings, all presented in beautiful containers. A member of the agile staff knelt beside us and explained different dishes. We toasted each other with a cocktail called Mindfulness. It’s freshly squeezed orange juice, citron paste and makgeolli, a Korean milky rice wine.

Hangawi’s Interior

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Frick Concert: Forma Antiqua. transported us back to seventeenth century Spain. The extraordinary musicians Pablo Zapico (baroque guitar), Daniel Zapico (theorbo), and Aaron Zapico (harpsicord ) were joined by Carlos Mesa the countertenor. The music complimented the current Zurbaran exhibit, Jacob and His Twelve Sons.

A Theorbo

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friend and I went to an open rehearsal at The Joyce Theater.  Brian Brooks Dance is currently performing. The choreographer, Brian Brooks, explained the setting and the music created by Jerome Begin. After the rehearsal, Brooks and Begin talked about the post modern NYC vibe of the various pieces. Brooks explained that he finds beauty in the natural and enjoys playing with the ordinary. Is there a bad seat in the house? If there is, I’ve never sat in it.

 

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie.

Graphic Lessons: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a failed marriage? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case? It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NYMysteries March 4 – March 10

Have you seen Abacus: Small Enough to Jail? It’s Steve James’s documentary about the only U.S. bank prosecuted in relation to the 2008 financial crisis. Cyril Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, made an example of the small Chinese bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank run by the Sung family. Vance didn’t go after the big banks. After five years in court and ten million dollars later the Songs were exonerated.. It was nominated for an academy award for the best documentary feature.

On Wednesday I was supposed to go to a Juilliard event, Choose Your Own Adventure. A participant is given a choice of hour long classes such as Ballroom Dance, Alexander Technique, Drama Movement, Drama Voice. It was to be followed by a champagne reception. Wednesday was the day of our second blizzard and Juilliard wisely cancelled.. This is what occurred: watching a great morality play, I mean TV show, for the second time: Breaking Bad.

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie.

Graphic Lessons: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a failed marriage? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case? It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.

February 25- March 4

Present day hikers and past hikers meet every year to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The Evergreen at 38th Street has Shanghai influenced dishes that spin around on the gigantic lazy susans. It’s great fun flashing your chopsticks and connecting with people you’ve known for years. The Chinese friend who organizes it has it down to a science. She’s so busy directing traffic, that she herself eats very little.

The Morgan Library and Museum, that gem of books, art and culture has the exhibit, Tennessee Williams: No Refuge But Writing through May 13. It’s a beautiful homage to, in my opinion, our greatest playwright.
Recently, I had the perfect lunch in the Morgan cafe: deviled eggs sitting on tiny cucumber circles and a bowl of black bean soup. Then, I took the glass elevator to the exhibit on the second floor.

Tennessee Williams
1939 Self Portrait

 

The Rose Tattoo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tennessee Williams celebrating The Glass Menagerie’s 10th Anniversary

 

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

 

 

 

 

 

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie.

Graphic Lessons: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a failed marriage? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case? It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.