New Year's Cheer...

Sometimes when you go on a Walk Around The Block, things go way wrong. I headed out to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Rembrandt show. I had my camera so I could take a few candid shots. Along the way on Third Avenue I came upon a street vendor who was selling 2008 party hats and glasses. I found them quite amusing so I stopped to take a photo. I took the one above and then was set upon by the crazy vendor, who screamed, that I could not take pictures of his property. I said, 'What?'. 'You cannot take pictures of my property! It is the law!' he screamed in broken English. I said very calmly,'This is Third Avenue and 84th Street, you do not own it, I can take a picture of anything I like.' 'You like! You liar! You know nothing! You aren't a lawyer!" I asked him politely to see his permit. 'You have no right to see it," he yelled half crazed. People were stopping, looking, gaping. I decided to leave. I walked on but instead of going to the show at the Metropolitan I went to Barnes and Noble for some new book buying and crazy vendor forgetting. After I finished spending my Christmas gift card I left feeling lucky. I stopped at a local magazine shop and bought a couple of scratch cards and actually won 25 dollars, but while I was there a man disturbingly drunk and irritated by something I was not responsible for pushed me and yelled 'Get out of my way you fucking asshole.' Surprised I asked 'what was wrong?' 'I'll show what is wrong. Come out onto the sidewalk. I like to fight. I've won three purple hearts. I was a Ranger in army.' I looked at him, wanting to say, if you are a hero and an Army Ranger you would not be acting like this? Instead I just shook my head as the cashier started yelling at him to get out. He left yelling something about my mother and leaving a scent of cheap booze. I actually at that time was about to jump into the fray. I've been in a couple fights in my life and my anger after the earlier vendor run-in and now someone talking bad about my dead mother almost got the best of me. But I calmed myself and noticed as I walked out the door the drunk growling at another passer-bye. I looked down and shook my head remembering my father's famous words, 'don't sweat the small stuff.' I walked on and will continue to into the New Year...

My Favorite Things...

The holiday season is here and going out for a walk can be a magical thing, especially on The Upper East Side. Some of my favorite walks during the Yule Tide include walking slowly through the Christmas trees that are for sale on various sidewalks. I close my eyes and take in the aromatic pine smell and imagine I am walking in a forest looking to find and cut down my very own tree. Another great place I walk to take in the festivities is the Metropolitan Museum. The decorated Grand Hall is spectacular and you can enjoy it with out paying, just sit,relax and watch the people enter and leave and imagine what they do, taking special note of the din of the magical murmuring. Bloomingdale's is an extraordinary holiday destination. It is electric with excitement and you don't even have to buy anything, just take the escalator up and down and let the spirit and buzz send tingles down your spine. I also just like to walk down Madison Avenue taking in all the windows that are decked out like no other place in the world. And on the return trip I like to walk up Park Avenue taking in the lights that don the divide, jumping into any church along the way to take in the special and unique holiday decorations and lights. It's always been my practice that sometime during the season to stop into the Heidelberg Restaurant and Bar for a wheat beer. The decor is inspiring and the beer frosty cold. And in keeping with the enjoyment of holiday spirits during the holidays I also like to stop into any of the many Irish pubs in the neighborhood for a warm Irish coffee; for some it is egg nog but the mixture of Irish whiskey and caffeine laden joe with a little whip cream on top puts me in the holiday spirit before I finish it. Then there is always walking around markets in the area, to glide through and be lifted by the aromas; whether it be, Eli's, Agatha Valentina, or the Pickle factory they all make you happy and make the mouth water in anticipation of coming holiday meals. Finally, its always nice to come home and turn on the lights on my small tree and enjoy the spirit of the season in the warmth of my own living room and think about all that there is to be thankful for...

Johns, Dubuffet, Debauchery...

The day after ugliness. The snow is gone, the icy conditions melted away so it is time to get out of the apartment and where better place to walk but to the Johns, Dubuffet show at the Leo Castelli gallery on 77th Street. I met a friend there. It's an old brownstone mansion that brings about a feeling of nostalgia especially after reading the article in the New York Times by John Stausbaugh "In the Mansion Land Of the 'Fifth Avenoodles'" A raucous look at the history of the Upper East Side and all that it was, is and probably will be. As I got into the two person elevator with my female companion it was so intimate that we had to fake the obvious sex scene. We fell out of the elevator laughing and were immediately sobered by the small but mercurial show. My curiosity of putting these two artist together was immediately solved. It was like two people having sex in a small elevator as much sensual as it was obvious. Their work together falls into a synchronicity that elevates both of them. Even though most of the Dubuffet pieces are from the 60's and 70's and the John's pieces are from the 70's, 80's and 90's, they all display a sense of humor and simpleness that lead you to recognize and then amuse and then reassess and then amuse again. They are two artists that are made to be shown together as I guess the geniuses at Castelli knew. We left walking down the three flights of stairs out into the sunny, crisp weather that heightened the holiday spirit. We walked up Fifth Avenue and I fell into an imaginative historic contemplation thanks to Mr. Stausbaugh's article. Back to a time when all the Upper East Side was meadows and swamps and the only way you were able to get here was by boat from the lower lands of New Amsterdam. It must have been a great trip as is the walk up Fifth Avenue with someone you like, taking in all the subtle histories that rise from the concrete like magical, erotic ether...

Let It Snow...

I woke up at 6 am and felt restless so I put on my clothes and headed outside for a Walk Around the Block, without looking out to see what the weather was like. When I got outside it wasn't frightening but it was the first snow of the season to hit town. It was still darkish out but the dusting of white harmony made things glow. I headed to the 24 hour coffee shop to get a cup of burnt coffee to go. The streets were somewhat deserted so it was basically me and the snow and hot caffeine. I walked west on 88th street and suddenly without forewarning I slipped and fell on my ass but did not spill the coffee. As I sat on my ass a very nice stranger walked by and asked if I was alright, all I could do was laugh because all I could think about was that commercial about the elderly person that falls down and keeps saying 'I've fallen down and I can't get up' 'I've fallen down and I can't get up' which isn't really funny but it just makes me laugh, plus I hadn't spilled a drop of coffee. It was a miracle, so I sipped from the brown buzz nectar. And then I laid down and looked up at the brackish sky and building above and decided to do what is appropriate to do when you are laying in the snow, make a snow angel. I did and I cursed myself for not having brought my camera. I stood and admired my work and then walked on and started hearing the symphony of scraping shovels as shopkeepers started their citywide responsibility of clearing their patch of sidewalk, doing the dance of pushing the snow to the curb. It's a great opera in the dawnish hours. I walked by Ruppert Park and stopped to watch several early rising toddlers playing in the white fleece, some who it seemed it might be the first snow they had ever seen or touched. A snowball fight broke out between a gaggle of giggling girls, not a lot of the cold spheres met there mark most of them fell apart before they even arrived. I picked up a bit of the whiteness and touched it to my tongue, it was cold and tasted a bit like spearmint. I looked over the wintry scene and felt good about it mostly because it would be melted before nightfall and not be an ongoing slushy mess. I strolled along and whistled a wintry tune blowing out an icy steam that led me home...