A New Decade Begins and the Big Bosomed lady with the Dutch accent who tried to change my point of view

Well here came the new decade with almost as little fanfare as possible (getting used to it) and finally this goalie was knocked out of the box or off of the bus and he flew south literally in short order to recuperate and attend to business.  After a brief whirlwind through Connecticut and Massachusetts including to introduce a friend to the excellent Indian restaurant in Wilton, Ct named Thali (other locations are New Haven and New Canaan) where the lighting and sound space are just right as to perfectly delight.  Meanwhile a culinary highlight was the fried okra.  Though the waiter did accidentally make a boo boo on my card charge causing a void which he ill explained sending me into a grounded tizzy.

So after the stop for dinner in ct into was onto the southern Berkshire town of Great Barrington, Mass.  There a prep school hockey tournament was being held nearby so the hotel room rates were jacked up accordingly. The next morning we caught some of the hockey at the nearby Berkshire academy though it was pretty sparsely attended and frankly boring and we left after a few goals in a lopsided affair.

Then driving west and south we stopped at a classic white clapboard inn placed a the head of a road convergence in the town of Salisbury , Connecticut (where ski jump competitions  are held and a few weeks later the actor Rip Torn would be arrested and charged with breaking into a bank) called the White Hart Inn for lunch and I did the unthinkable had a cheddar cheese burger plus a black bean chorizo soup.

The dining room was filled with a boisterous yet not overly rowdy crowd and was pleasant as pleasant could be staring either at wood in the fireplace burning or seeing children outside playing in the snow which fit in with the white of the inn.

Soon this trip was over and despite wanting my friend to make the journey south with me again he had to stay and attend to his business while I made the transformative recuperative journey south once again to restore, revitalize, and remember don’t wait until you get sick to get healthy.

So on the way south this time this voyager stopped more seldom than usual the first time being at another Ruby Tuesday for another healthy salad bar with soup for lunch and only water to help it go down.  Meanwhile, it was a this moment that he began planning a side trip to Aruba for his late father had come to him in dream which also featured his father’s also departed younger brother (and though they were not twins they were twin collectors) and he told him to go to Aruba for mineral deposits.  This blogger than googled “Aruba” and found that indeed there had been Gold there and today there were phosphates.  Further the name Aruba itself means Red Gold (in named in Spanish in sort of a portmanteau with “ore” being for gold and “ruba” for red) and so he had it set in his mind though there were other places he wished to visit far and wide he felt he heard a call as with to the vortices of Sedona when a search result entry leading to his blog mentioned Boynton as in Boynton beach but it was Boynton canyon in Sedona (where Senator John McCain has a home) and he was headed in the general direction of where he had this dream about this time. Meanwhile this sometimes now forgetful perhaps middle-aged ponderer and wanderer forget to tell you he stayed in a very nice and inexpensive motel six in North Carolina which was like an enclave and watched the silly “Mama Mia” movie and remembered Meryl Streep waiting for his parking space on Madison avenue in nyc and like others noted Pierce Brosnan really cannot sing (but neither can I just take my bus tour and I will show you unless of course  you  ask me not to).

The next significant stop was South of the Border which in my world is most hits on my blog plaza.  Though not going for a massage of to visit the fantasy dancing girls (which could perhaps contribute to my entry for the sometime forthcoming ”Unbearables”, “ Sex Sells ” being brewed up  by Ron Kolm and Jim Feast among others now) this sombrero visitation specialist finally went up the rise to the brim of the 200 feet in the sky Mexican hat.

The elevator operator was biting her nails and was seemingly very  very disaffected.  I asked her if she was alright and she said that “it was a very very boring job”.   It was a warm day and a couple of Amish people were upstairs.  I wanted to take a pic but they were gone before I could say  Speedy Gonzalez  and the taco bell tolled for this missed photo opportunity I-phone picture on the sly taker and he looked out the highways and the countryside of two states who meet just about where he stood and surveyed.

Meanwhile “the man for all seasonings” had sent out a group email advertising if you could call it that a certain establishment where they celebrated high calorie creations which might send you to the great beyond.  Our man for all seasonings our tour guide for one story for every calorie had previously traveled to Las Vegas with another of our larger specimens and boasted about eating, greeting, roasting, toasting, boasting , and even posing in Wadizlu Valentino Liberace’s robes at the museum dedicated to him at the East Tropicana Boulevard strip mall that the glitziest pianist once owned.  Now he found this restaurant grille which I dare not speak its name and said nobody could be headed to it even though the other large talker was in the vicinity taking up family matters.  But I was the officer of blog headed in that general direction and said why not celebrate the wonder of instantaneous reference.  Though when I got down there you will see they did not absolutely fall in love with me so this forces this blogger to use what Swiftian skill he doth posses and speak of them as if they created there culinary would be to die fors and to die froms as if they were made in a kitchen stadium on a distant isle perhaps even red meat and red gold or a giant reuben had on Aruba.

So back to time flow the next real driving hiatus was to stop again at the Red Roof Inn once again on Jacksonville airport road (which had raised its rate but not changed the highway sign).  Though it is a great, inexpensive, and convenient stop which also allowed me to try the fried pickles at Saxbys. The strange  taste yet to come  this driver finally learned how to circumnavigate the complicated multi direction traffic light serving Jacksonville airport road and the service roads on either side of it (or its perimeter).  He drove all the way down west then made a left went under a tunnel and cam out behind the Jacksonville airport road in the middle.  Then when he was finished with the fried pickles  he repeated the vehicular gesture and never once had to use the main road in this fast food journey to try the modified vegetable which had been modified once before it was modified again.

In the morning when he rose he then stopped in St Augustine at the outlet shops which were now were on both side of 1-95 where once they had only been on one.  He did not buy anything at Ralph Lauren polo but amazingly fit into a size 36 waist pair of jeans classic fit from the clearance rack which turned out not to be twenty dollars as he thought but sixty and so he declined but not without being made aware of his slimmer waist line.  This writer than went over to the  Gucci store which was on the other side of the interstate and admired the riding boots which were about eight hundred dollars but which of course he did not by.

The next stop was at a very reasonable Mexican restaurant for lunch and then a straight drive to Boynton Beach to the Marriott courtyard where presently he blogs he had arrived.

He checked in and then googled a location and after reconnaissance went right over to the next town south for the high Calories chest pump offing venue which turned out to be in a strip mall.  First he asked a passing nurse or medical worker in a blue uniform if she knew where it was she did not  but then there it was right in front of him.  I saw the sign for it. I walked in.  I started taking photos for this blog.  I saw all the hospital elements the wheelchair seating , the waitresses in nurse uniforms (maybe some of them are nurses in real life who knows?) he saw three diners two young men and on older woman who sat by the door.  The three diners sat in the wheelchairs near the iv’s hanging and the medical lights.  He passed the hall of fame for big eaters .  He  sat down at the bar he ordered an ice tea they had only ice d green tea.  A manager had been call she asked why I was taking pictures.  We had a brief discussion I took no more photos.  Meanwhile the nursetress at the bar had made a phone call  and stated we have an emergency– I was not finding any of this amusing – I am no going to name the place, I am not going to post the pictures of the nursetresses, I am not ever going to order a multiple patty cheeseburger 9( but full disclosure i had two paties of sausgae at the quality inn in Daytona Beach on the way back as to be full enough not to have to pull over for lunch), I am going to continue to do Bikram Yoga, if I am going to make light of mine or anyone else’s mortality I am going to do so in good humour as so I go so shall we all.

In leaving I left a large gratuity and the nursetress asked me why and this respondent said “because I wanted to tip the scale”

Then I finalized my trip to Aruba ( the flight for which I had pre-booked earlier) .  Then the prices on the telephone line of www.hotels.com which I was connected to by American Airlines seemed a bit steep so  being adventurous I tried the internet.  Here looking for hostels I found a place called an appartment complex youth hostel which seemed to have reasonable rates.  My I-phone not being set up for international calls i thne had to go over to a local gas station and get an international calling card.  I got a man on the other end in Aruba who said he was the boyfriend of the woman who ran the place so Ileft my number and she then left a message for me saying to call her back the next day and book it.  The next day I called back and perhaps a bit late so she said she would have to put me at anoter property for one nigt and than for two back at the main place called harmony.  I had to email like five times to get a confirmation nmber and by this time I was calling her Barbara and she was calling me Mr.  Klein.

She would also pick me up at the airport.  So the week went on i had a day or so more to kill and so I went to bikram yoga classes in West Palm Beach to which as given by google maps were excellent and landed me right in this large and comfortable studio run by a very friendly staff.   Then right down the strip mall from the Marriot Courtyard Boynton Beach was what seemed to be a new bar of the cosmo local well to do crowd who drink cosmos like thy are on Sex in the City but when I returned they were having musical open mike with the de rigeur local guitar wielding songsters with guest vocalists.. Called the living Room they have an exciting and varied menu from which the cross training waiter bartender husband of the owner really wanted me to have the fish and chips which I did despite having just gone to hot yoga it was batter up.  The meal also came with a very pleasant cole slaw seemingly cut from very fresh cabbages.

Soon it was time to check out of the marriot for the first time leave my car where it was get a taxi cab to the Tri-rail (the southeast coast of Florida’s inter city rail system) to Miami airport and jet off to one of the abc islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curcaco) my stop being A for a pirates favorites destination Arruba).

I got to the airport good and early and was rewarded not only by being relexed ( my version of very relaxed) but with an exit row seat.  There was much time for me to decide what to  including not eating at an overpirced version of Chillis to go, eat at a very reasonably priced chinese takeout, over hear some internal IT  discussions between tech principals from the cell phone sector, retrace my steps from my last trip back from ART Basel Miami Beach such as where I had the Bloody Mary and the excellnet portrait of a tropical bird done by a student

(by Antonio Garcia Miami Area Student)

and included in airport art show.  Up close you can see its fine sense of design, contour , and shading.

So then it was off and I sat next to very nice couple from the part of Utah near the Nevada border who like many I met on the island was returning to this place nicknamed on the island’s liscence plates “One Happy Island”. They had one long day driving from utah to vegas, flying from Vegas to Miami, and then while they were suposed to stay overnight in Miami there were seats available on this flight that night joining me in flying from Miami to Aruba.

So we set down and when I got out where was Barbara with the Mr. Klein sign she promised nowhere so I  scurried to call her not having been able to acquire any Aruban florins either here or in Florida so I got a Dutch cruise officer to phone her.  She didn’t answer buth then minutes later called back and said she wuld be there in seven minutes and she wasn’t there yet because my flight had come in early which it had.  And then ther she was all dressed up and with her boyfreind.. Then they took me where I was going a maroon and yellow appartment complex partially under consturction which was an ample walk to the town of Oranjeistad.  We had passed bars with named like mumbo jumbo and she warned me about Colombian girls who put the date rape drug in your drink and take everything you have.  She thought I was younger than I am or perhaps she was just flattering me.    I was upset at where I was staying and she said she would try to get me to the main villa in the morning (which if you read on she did).  So she then ventured if i wanted to be dropped off to get a drink she would do so and she brought ne to a fancy golf resort and I went in by myself.  She said she would wait to see if I wanted to stay she then said she would come in and join me and that the drink was on her.  And she and her boyfriend had beers and I had a bloody mary and then a beer (the second one I paid for) and then she brought me back to the construction site and the luxury apartment where I took a shower and went to sleep.  She had asked me what time she wanted her to pick me up and I said nine and she said nine thirty and a few minutes early in the morning there she was .. She said that she was taking me to harmony and for ten dollars making me breakfast and she quizzed me on what I wanted and we settled on sardines.  She told me of several of the guests i would meet and then we arrived at the lovely villa with a swimming pool in the middle of the courtyard and I settled in for breakfast.  She told me just where to sit and I got a pancake, and coffee, and more coffee, and the sardines and I was very happy.  I told her that I wanted to take  tour and she had already told me that I could now stay at harmony and she gsave me the huge honeymoon suite and said  that she would move my stuff from the luxury apartment at the construction site here and I could enjoy it all after returning from the tour  and the one that day of which I booked two was happy hour on the boat for snorkeling.

She gave me two recipets and I sat in her office and admired her Chinese purchases includung a large multi colored Jade dragon sculpture.  This lady had a lot of styke wearing fancy sun dresses with her hair put back in a bow and she was the very definition peripatetic a whirlwind she could wait on a dozen people at once and conduct many matters of business she was truly amazing.   Though she was a  lot to handle she was always one thought ahead of you (but I was at it tit for tat) and after a while she seemed to be that line from Rod Stewart  and I had  met the ” big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent who tried to change my point of view”.  In the end my trip would have been much less if I had not met her.

So soner than i thought the bus was on the security television camera and it was time for me to go and I brought my bicycle shorts (which i had lost in the bahamas and had to buy on Ebay again and the towel she had told me tot ake from the luxury room at the maroon and yellow apartment complex overlooking the construction site that it is.  The driver who was early was in a rush than scolded me .  I did not appreciate this and I told him I never scold the tourists unless the situation absolutley threatens mine or someone elses safety.  He was a pain in this ass but he was only dropping me off at the hotel from where to walk to the covered stand and bar dock from where the catamaran for snorkeling off would be leaving for the happy hour trip.

meanwhile in usual fancy resort fashion they would have no lockers on board and that meant where to leave my pasport, watch, wallet , and I-phone.  The lady at the kiosk said I could trust her if iwanted and I left it all with her.  Of all the situations that cna come up on a trip traveling alone goign into the water with no place to secure valuables can be the most tricky as in Cairns, Queensland, Austrailia where my stuff got locked inside the room safe and I was compensated with free drinks in the lobby bar.  On board there was pleny to drink of rum punch and sanwhcihes and for snorkeling they made two stops onde atop a German u-boat service boat which the crewmates said the Germans had sunk on purpose themselves. The  sea-life was teeming but the quality of the  light in the water on the reefs seems to be less everywhere whether in the bahamas off of Nassau, The Great Barrier Reef nothing seems to the aqua and electric light color show I remember from  St .THomas growing up or later in Eliat in Israel on the Red Sea.

onboard ther was a disintrested mix of people including a couple from Westbrook , Conneticut, a man and hiswife or girlfreind from Missiuaga, Ontario (near Toronto) who saw food and said grub and i said you were only supposed to eat before swimming or eat  lightly before swimming and he said or  die lightly or maybe he said dive but i think he said die.  and two guys traveling together in matching shortie wetsuits wearing Armani accessories.

On the way back i laid out on the deck and upon docking I gathered up my stuff to get back to the desk to retrieve my valuable and lady pretended to not have my passport which she then returned.. I got on the bus to go back and upon returning to the compound who was waiting  for me but  the big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent who tried to change my point of view.

She wanted to hear what I did and I told her and then she said the people who had checked out so as to leave me the opportunity to stay in the large honeymoon suite had returned and she had taken the liberty of moving my stuff to my new headquarter and immediately agreed ok but now I had two women in the same suite as me in two different rooms.  But I just shut the door and watched television while there.  Meanwhile she was driving into downtown Oranjestad and I asked if I could get a ride and she said of course.and she met me with a glass of what she said was their finest local rum and offered me a free breakfast in the morning as compensation for my most recent move.  Meanwhile she directed some other guests in another car to a bbq restaurant and then further twoards town she saw the two women who I would be sharing the suite with and told them to get in the car and then she let us all of downtown.  I made my way through the shoping district to the Renaissance hotel to try to use the internet no go I  didn’t need to be online that bad.  After walking around I decided to try and take the bus back and I had the address of where i was staying in the neighborhood of pontoon but nobody seemed to know where it was.  But when I got ther i tried walking into the neighborhood and finding it but it was getting dark and dogs both guard and stray were barking and I saw an ambulance corps outpost on the main road and they gave me directions which didn’t pan out and so i asked them to cal me a cab and when the cab came he said he couldn’t take people in my condition which means he smelled Aruba’s finest rum on my breath of which i drank only one glass and the ambulance crew agreed i wasn’t drunk and I walked over to the Chinese restaurant across the street and asked them to call me a cab which they did and it came and I went in took a dip in the pool watched television (including the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the hilarious Betty White) and went to sleep.

The next morning I woke with the express purpose of not being late for the discovering Aruba tour bus.  Meanwhile the large bosomed lady with the Dutch accent had written me two reciepts (one for each of the two tours or departures I would be making or taking) and she had taken one back when I left for the happy hour snorkeling cruise.  So when I woke making sure i would get the reciept she began by starting to prepare me the day she had promised me after moving this toruist out of the honeymoon suite to other quarters whwen the airline personel had unexepectedly returned. However the tour bus suddenlyshowed up a half an hour rearly and she had to give it to me to go.  stillIwas unable to obtain my reciept until the tour guide/driver explained that he needed and I went ovver and explained that i needed it now and by now she had also handed me a breakfest to go.

The driver was an amiable Afro-Aruban who knew his stuff was mild mannered and very professonal.  he explained he was early because he had to pick up passengers along the shoreline. The next people aboard were a two blondes, a mother and daughter from Kansas.  As they got on i got out to pay the remainder of my balance and observed a wonderful metal sculpture of the fabled Divi-Divi tree.

Back in Nyc Again Before Going to Florida again- Art Basel Miami Beach 2009- And then back in Nyc Again and the Decade Ends

Back in Nyc nights were filled by raucous celebrations and howling at Yankee victories as jubilant crowds hailed the coming back of a world championship to post  911 Gotham.

When the pinstripes won our bus company gray line did the double decker buses for the Canyon of Heroes parade, but, I was not an extra it was my day off and then not feeling that well I missed it entirely (besides seeing photos of it on yahoo and Facebook).  I resolved to go the new Yankee stadium at the next crack of the bat in spring and once upon a time on the night that Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in one game I was there with my now deceased father standing at one point right next to John Tesh when he was local news reporter interviewing fans in the bleachers (I mentioned this game during the eulogy I’d never thought I’d give at my father’s funeral in Boynton Beach attended by myself my friend Deborah and two women I had never met before who were mostly quite lovely).

Though at the parade streams were teeming out of the church clock or so it would seem in a pop up book about a great team but “enchanted “was for another day and the next Broadway show I saw was David Mamet’s newest  drama “Race”.

Early one morn the gray line tour guide Marion Brash( who had achieved earlier notoriety as an actress  ( and she can be seen on a full episode of Ironside with Raymond Burr here @ http://www.us.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2537357849/) had told me her opinion of the production and then later walking by the theater on West 47th street I saw some of the cast(James Spader and David Alan Grier)

James Spader at the Stage Door Greeted by an Adoring Fan

come out of the  stage door after the matinée and so I bought a ticket for the same day’s evening performance.

I was a bit tired and thought the work a bit tired as if everything Mamet has to say about everything is to be held in such high esteem.  Didn’t Phillip Roth already  cover some of this ground in”the Human Stain”?  Brash had not lied the work of Kerry Washington in the role of the young lawyer who misleads the two main partners (Grier and Spader) because she is sure of the client  they are to defend’s guilt was demure. I chalked this up to her naiveté not her ineffectualness in that the character was being played not the actress playing the audience or not being able to play the part.  However, in agreement with Brash, Richard Thomas, was just awful his performance had none of the airs of the billionaire accused of the crime.  The sequence of puns on the sequins of the dress which were much of the evidence in the rape allegations was Mamet’s best artistic flourish here though the repartee between Spader and Grier was quite well done and throwing in Washington it might have been a good play had the subject not been so tired.

I came way with a big feeling of who cares probably the lawyers who stood around after saying they were lawyers and how accurate or not it all was.  Maybe this is a problem that these functionaries need be THE definers of reality and have to have existence catered around there experience of it and of us.

Sooner or sooner I was back down to Florida to take in Miami Art Basel while my art press pass is still good. I was not especially planning to go but having skipped both the Venice Biennale and Miami Basel last year it was time to take another crack at the art high life.  I got a ticket on priceline after many tries at my timer parameters and finally succeeded in finding flights, a car , and a room and so I was off.

I had to leave early and finally discovered the m60 bus which I decided to get in Morningside Heights by Columbia university.  So with the A train running local that time of night  got off at 116th only to find that the train let  out below Morningside Park then steps  of which I had to climb up in the cold and the dark.

I got to the bus stop along Broadway and after a short wait the bus arrived. The bus  quickly filled up with airport workers and some travelers (which included a group of young men projecting into the partying they would soon be engaging in).

I got to the airport after careful planning good and early and with the help of a very thoughtful Delta check in person found two exit row seats which surprise were obtained at no extra charged.  Physched by my early victory and with time to kill I enjoyed an oatmeal with all the toppings at a LaGaurdia airport Starbucks.

I was connecting in Memphis and was soon there.  And once there I flirted with the thought of having a southern down home meal at one of the airport joints and looking at the pig freestanding statue in  a cooks hat

BBQ Pig Chef at the Memphis Airport

and I passed.  There was an Elvis store in the terminal and soon I was aloft again.   There was couple next to me on this flight that were not properly upgraded as per their frequent flier status and they complained and thought the stewardess was not able to help them there she realized the attendant at the gate had been wrong and they were presented with a bottle of wine.

When I landed having brought only a carry-on this writer headed straight for the pre-arranged car rental.  The parking space for the alamo was blocked by a woman who refused to move her vehicle from where she did not belong and thus it took this blogger a little while longer to get the shuttle which he missed once,

Once aboard he met some New England Patriot fans down to watch their squad play Jimmy Buffet’s Dolphins and so arrived at the car rental where the check in agent couldn’t have been more blase as to only wanting to check in senoritas.

This driver got a full size car and when presented with the choice with the key stuck in a slot read by computer and not ignition which a push button start he opted to go ahead whereas the football fans switched four doors (I should have known better).

He found his way very easily to Miami Beach right onto the cruise ship causeway on a sunny day and only at the last-minute did he hit traffic.  The main public parking lot which last time he couldn’t find on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach (and he thought was knocked down) was full and so he paid the fifteen dollar flat rate.

So he was at Miami art Basel armed with a press pass an I phone and a rental car.  He headed right for the press check in, checked in, said hello  to the woman who always does the checking in

Check in time

, ran into Anthony Haden Guest

Anthony Haden-Guest Hard at Work at Art Basel Miami Beach

,stated to type, became witty,  drank too much coffee, and went down to the fair to begin scoping it out.

One of the first works that really caught this writer’s eye was Dennis Hopper’s embellished photographic portrait of Jaspar Johns

Jaspar Johns by Dennis Hopper

at the Tony Shafrazi booth .  The gallery person on the floor was going on about how many years they had represented Dennis and how good of friends he and Tony are (Hopper had done an event at Miami Basel a couple of years back which I had seen a beaming Teresa Valla racing towards) but beyond the chatter the work is most beautiful.

Running into the salon I decided to make that my focus rather than constant partying as I was driving alone (so excursion to the far off fairs in other sections of Miami would be off-limits to this fair goer perhaps not fair going fair goer but still going).

First at the educational room i caught Collier Schorr the artist known for sexualized portraits of youthful wrestlers talking about her new flower series.  She said something interesting about working in Germany to paraphrase that she liked working there because it was easy to take over because nobody really says anything.. which I thought hey we could say that about the bus company where I work but that turned out not to be true as I found it is possible to repel a political brute.

Time did what Miami time does I looked and looked at art and cannot really remember whether every piece was seen on day one or day two.  There was a bevy a works done on the theme of a departed Michael Jackson who has now been iconized ala Elizabeth Taylor by Andy Warhol and the gloved one now by the likes of David LaChappelle and Kehinde Wiley.  LaChappelle’s piece had Jackson as his namesake the archangel Michael slaying the Devil

The Archangel Michael by David LaChappelle

–while Kehinde wiley’s piece at Jeffrey Deitch (which sold for around $180,000) has an armored Jackson after an equestrian portrait by Peter Paul Reubens

Meanwhile as the day wound down I managed to find out where a party was at the penthouse at the Raleigh hotel, but, I got there too early and got tired of the scene nonsense and went to dinner at Tiramisu my favorite lincoln Road Italian food hot spot.  Well man for all seasonings I had Lobster Soup ad swordfish salad washed down by a good Chianti waited a while and went back to my car.  Then like an idiot I decided to go back to the Raleigh turned around went to my car again which I had pulled out into the street and parked.  I did all i could do it wouldn’t start it kept saying brake (which I tought meant the emergency one) and the dashboard light s went on like a pinball machine and this driver gave up.

His phone was dead so he walked over to the lincoln Road Starbucks to give it a charge. Then once charged (…and hopefully not) he called the car rental company and told them what had happened.  They left him on hold and what came on the call waiting Pinball Wizard by the Who and his mind went into a synasthaesic rock musical flourescent mode and the bumpers and the light all aglow in a neon pastel discharge.   He then as he waited by the car watched Elton John on the Red Piano in Vega play Pinball Wizard with all the lights a flashing ring those buzzers and bells. eventually the roadside assistance came and he was given a new Lexus or Infiniti or whatever it was and made for the Ramada Marco Polo Beach Resort in North Miami Beach to call it a night.

After much ado about extra facility charges and getting my car parked I indeed called it a night.  In the morning I had breakfast in the cavernous room close to the beach and then returned upstairs to ready myself for the beach.  I took a nice dip into the ocean and did not realize until a lady asked me if I had been bitten by a jellyfish that there had been warning flags flown at the lifeguard station as indicated at the resorts pool exit to the beach.

I had been then after checked out and headed back to the convention center but after stopping at the bank and seeing lots of charges this fair goer headed back to the resort to question them.. The hundred dollar extra charge was pending and then released upon checkout and so then this car driver headed back fair bound again.  This writer wanted to stay to see the Ryan McGinley talk at the salon but time would only allow for James Rosenquist’s.  This time the municipal lot had space and this lecture going car replacement driving driver landed.

Wit a little time for looking around and visiting the press room the hour of the pop stars talk was at the hand.  In all these years I had never met are seen the NorthDakotan native though this onetime frequent reviewer often mentioned him when writing on David Salle, Damien Loeb, or Jeff Koons and had attended his retrospective at the Fifth avenue Guggenheim flagship earlier in the soon to close decade.  This blogger got there earlier and took a bevy of I-phone phots of the amusing septugenarian who told funny stories of being a billboard painter in his early pre  Castelli gallery years

James Rosenquist at art Basel Miami Beach 2009

.

On this jaunt this traveler was also able to take a couple of photos of Frank Gehrys campus for the New World Symphony currently under construction just off Lincoln Road

Frank Gehrys Campus for the New World Symphony Going up!

So now it was off to the airport for a myriad of gate changes and delays but not without a sartorial moment when this delayed customer was able to say to a Port-of-Spain bound woman his bad one liner “its Sizzling down in Trinidad and Tabasco”.

But the flight had a mighty surprise when the pilot announced that we would probably be able to see a spectacular sight on the right side coming out of Titusville.  And indeed about a half an hour later he said that launch of the space shuttle I told you about is visible now.  And though I was seated in the aisle seat there was nobody between the well dressed Frenchman at the window and I and looking over there it was a bright orange flame rising against black the form of the shuttle clearly visible.  Need I anymore so until next time.

But next time was so soon for about as soon as I got home it turned out Anhtony Haden-Guest was throwing a book party for the updated edition of his Studio 54 book “All Tommorow’s Parties”.   Word got around and I joined photographer Linda Obuchoska and her friend Edwin Torres (the poet not the judge) who it turned out i also knew for the rooftop dancethon , paparazzi shot, hor d’oeuvre and drink festival, and in the high pitch colored rooftop restaurant nightclub at 230 Fifth.

Who was not there the hosts were Steven Greenberg (of nightclub fame who was at the table when I soiled my burgeoning friendship with Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth) and Kelly Cutrone, who did I recognize artists Joe Coleman, Mike Cockril, Brian Gormley, Arnold Wechsler (looking 150) dancing it up, Marcia Resnick , Niel Frankel, Walter Robinson, RPM Man, Anton Perich, designer Mary McFadden looking twenty years younger than she did twenty years ago and half the world I knew half a lifetime ago.

Linda introduced me to Chic founder Nile Rogers who also achieved infamy as the producer of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance Serious Moonlight period and Madonna’s Like A Virgin he is one of the most noted producers in pop history.  Ever since i have been on the double decker buses playing court jester for the masses at the expense off my long-term lung capacity I have been imitating AHG reading at my long ago reading series “The Literary Life” at the long defunct nightclub Life (the old village gate now le poisson rouge) reading from his book in saying to paraphrase “there I was outside Studio 54 with Nile Rogers who would later be the lead singer of Chic..then I got inside there was Princess Farrah of Iran, Elizabeth Taylor, Bianca Jagger, and Andy Warhol.  So I repeated this to Nile as i posed for the lenswoman Linda’s photo and here it is you can almost here him laugh.  Then in the first photo also by Linda is this blogger with the great scribe of the night himself.

Anthony Haden Guest and Lee Klein at Anthony Haden Guest's Book Party: Photo by Linda Obuchoska

Nile Rogers and Lee Klein at Anthony Haden-Guest's Book photo by Linda Obuchoska

Back to Florida Again

The next trip was back to Florida for a little more foraging.  This time I had the timing down ; finished work, parked the car, took the A train all the way from Inwood to Howard Beach for the train  to the plane, and got to the JetBlue terminal with more than enough time to savor a dining choice.

I was drawn right into Deep-Blue the Japanese eatery and had salmon salad and Crab fried rice with lots of Green tea (greatly reduces the occurence of prostate cancer studies suggest five cups or more of it therein a day that is) http://www.nowfoods.com/HealthLibrary/HealthArticles/Massey/077109.htm.

I was in deep heaven and discussed deep heaven with my fellow diners. Jay-Z  says that New York “will slip you an ambien” well hey this was ambient.  On the plane it was the Yankees in the playoffs and JetBlue to Florida is so good seems that it almost makes you want to love those ladies from Long Island worried about the power in Syosset with the painted enamel fingernails.

Meanwhile everybody on the way to the Avis car rental seemed to be a college or high school jock in the company of their father down to fish or play athletics.  The rental shuttle driver was really annoying and would not shut up like he was hosting a tour of the parking lots. Finally I got my compact car and was pleasantly surprised to find it had maximum choices with a third band of xm radio onboard.

So I drove right to the Marriott Courtyard Inn on South Congress avenue in Boynton beach which used to be the Catalina Holiday Inn.  Soon after getting right on the net there in their California contemporary style lobby with the alligator skull (which turns out not to be calcified at all but a complete well done forgery- anyone come to mind perhaps?) this traveler found out that the true life television legend Soupy Sales had passed (wrote a couple of bad soup nazi one liners in honor of him to be used later like leftovers on the bus remembered his role in the opening pages of my initial shopping mall poem and his sons Hunt and Tony who played in David Bowie’s Tin Machine band).

This was a quick trip and mostly I read of on the the Maktums the ruling family of Dubai. surprisingly my mind was at ease and  this reader made great inroads into both  ”Dubai: The Vulnerability of success by Christopher M. Davidson ‘ and “The Great Bridge” by David McCullough.

I ate once in Bonefish the seafood house which s part of a chain owned by the people who own outback the steak house and remember “

Out in the Outback
The Outbacks’ the Outback
But out of the Outback the Outback’s a steakhouse
And down under they build Westfield Shoppingtowns
from which you may need to backdown

Back out to back down to be out of the Outback
I might as well be back out or back out form the Outback
Well at least I am out -out of the Outback’

it was quite pleasant and nice to observe the Boynton Beach haute bourgeois social scene which I may or may not be applying to join depending upon my future literary , social, and or financial success.  I had the
Spinach Bacon Gorgonzola Norwegian Salmon and some chowder and was quite happy. I keep meaning to look up a location for this seafood house near me and forgetting.

My other side trip was to the Boca Raton museum of art and there this time I focused in on a mural once done for Olivetti.

One morning resplendent with bright sunshine there was a very large gathering in the Marriot Courtyard lobby made up of a Puerto Rican baseball squad readying for battle in what seemed to be a reunion gathering which was in turn a subtext for sports.  To no avail they would not quiet down.

on the way back this blogger got going early and made that aforementioned stop at the  Boca Raton museum of art and then tried to find the Palm Beach Zoo.  Also interested in another in endless series of back massages he ran into a overpriced shiatsu joint but not before accidently going into a youth theater which he thought was the place and asking the wrong question and being directed tot he therapeutic ripoff.

Then at the airport I had a few hours and bargain shopped for a meal between the Irish pub where I had had their onion soup in bowl before with fish and chips and the Sam Snead golf restaurant sports bar with its own on-site putting green where I went a nd heard a gambling and love loss tale of woe.  Though these were not only woes the whole airport seemed to be bemoaning the loss of tourist payola and in general looking for something to do.

Through to the gate then the flight was delayed and it was that upon this day this traveler would make it to the chillis nearby before final call.  he had lemonade and coca cola with tortilla chips and salsa and saw one customer return her meal and her money was soon refunded by the affable staff. 

Though in Florida it was not in Nyc it was raining so the playoff clincher had been called and so it whatever was on on the personal entertainment system aboard JetBlue.  The weather had hit parts of  the Nyc metro area hard and ladies from places like Hewlett and Syosset returning to them were going on and on about it but some were i even dare say it charming.

Off with Your Heck! , What the Heck?, Off to Quebec!!!

After Jude Law and Shakespeare’s existential movements and after the Danes and other Scandinavians got off the stage I was left feeling ok again.  So what did I do ?  This writer ventured over to Greenwhich, Ct. (where in the library on a personal computer he sits typing this blog out faithfully now) to meet Neil at the Greenwhich Y.M.C.A where he had been watching local water polo teams compete at the olympic size swimming and spectator water polo pool.

Meanwhile, it was time to eat and we got select items as per Neil’s nutritional reccomendations at Greenwhich’s branch of the Whole Foods Supermarket chain.  So some stuff was eaten and Neil began working on me to drive him to Montreal.   You know there is no way I can do that this blogger indicated though when it came time the next day to leave he said his bags were heavy and to take him to Penn Station.  Then having driven him to Montreal before I knew I had go the Palisades mall in West Nyack, New York to send out my rent from the post office and other bills so why not keep going.  Only problem my slight cold started to get worse and thought this writer thought he had it beat after a stop at the whale whopper super strong man qigong practicioner at the aging Nanuet Mall dinosaur… but in the end it was really getting worse.

Meanwhile, our duo had to drive much of the night and in looking for a hotel (there was no way I was going through passport control in the middle of the night) at one point there was a stop in an Adirondackian town at an over priced honeymoon bed and breakfest which was passed up for the laquinta inn  in Plattsburgh (where I really began to suffer.

So after a long delay in checking out and going through French Canadian Passport control (no problem) it was time to pull over and eat at a roadside restaurant.  We had escargot, onion soup and some silly meal then made our way to Montreal though the jardin de Papillions which I had wanted to see along the roadway was now fermez .

Then after having stopped earlier at the tourist info center this dummy said lets keep going lets go to Mount Tremblant (trembling mountain in French) which I knew of from the horrible Nastasha Richardson  mishap .

So this erstwhile traveler still thought that he could make it back to where needed to be on Sunday but this was Saturday already and having made it past Montreal on rte 15 we went past space camp Laval and a strange flying saucer type of theater complex where having to  use the toilette this bathroom goer saw that the hottest ticket inside for the Quebec culturati was to see the Metropolitan Opera perform live on the big screen via a  remote satellite link.

So it turned out from the rest stop that we had stopped at at the beginning of the Laurentian mountains (the chain of which Mt. Tremblant is a part which similar in geological ancestry to their southern neighbor the Adirondacks in New York State, U.S.A) we were only forty five minutes away…. And then after many magestic turns and blazes of fall color we were on a straightaway into Mt . Tremblant centre-ville.

Once in town Neil found an Esso/Exxon station with gourmet food and this was all very exciting though I was in a rush to get to the ski area to take the tramway up the mountain if it was ouvert.

When we got there it was still light out found the tram with the car but had to go back to park it and by the time we returned it had closed for the evening.  So after just walking around especially enjoying the Helly Hansen Danish Skiwear store and a trip over to a very expensive lakeside faux chateaux hotel it was time to make it out of town which was the next adventure.

Though Neil was supposed to be  going to go back to his father’s place in Montreal that night  I could not possibly make it all the way home now at this late hour and having given up on the possibility of making it to work I held out hope that at least I would make it to the book launch at the Queens museum for Salma Arastu’s The Lyrical Line for which I wrote an essay (http://www.amazon.com/Lyrical-Line-Salma-Arastu/dp/0971955298) but all things considered we again decided to get a hotel.

Most of the hotels including the one where we ate dinner were completely booked for the evening as it was Canadian thanksgiving or the eve of therein.  Finally we found a comfort inn on a bluff off the highway in the foothills of the Laurentians on the way back to Montreal .  The room was a confrence room during the day and a hotel room at night (this suited us fine).

The next day I suggested going back to Mt. Tremblant to go up the damn tram and Neil said that I had had that planned all along.  So with plenty of time we parked saw a small church by the parking lot  and went back into the  simulated European alpine village.  Neil sat the rides out and I took first a short tram where you stand while going over among other things  a hotel, its’ empty swimming pool,  and a miniature golf course to the large enclosed cable car where I joined a Russian family for the trip up to the summit.

So when I had enough wandering around at the top of the mountain and as it were tempting fate this blooger came down he’ll being coming down the mountian when he comes… repeat….. we returned to Montreal and had dinner with Neil’s father (soup and tea for me thats all and then headed around past a million traffic pylons on the way to t he border where my filled to the max car caused me to get searched while almost out of breath from my asthma also seemingly becasue it was a quiet night becuase everybody had already come in for the Night of Canadian thanksgiving this was sunday.  So I settled in and listned while asked a million questions and then after about an hour drove into the US got gas and a sandwhich and made the ride home  while listening to the Yankees on the radio and then got home slept a bit and went to work the next day.

A Night in Svizzera, Back to work, up at the Kennedy Wake, and Jude Law in Hamlet

So I really did not look at my ticket well enough as the night flight from Zuhrich to New York turned out to be a morning departure.  So with a fourteen hour layover this traveler thought it was perhaps right to get a hotel room.  So after taking the tram shuttle to the gate and making it through passport control into the main airport he went to the hotel reservations desk and witht he intention of staying in downtown Zuhrich.

Then upon finding it was cheaper to stay at the airport Ibis he went over there with the free bus in order to save about forty swiss francs.

The woman at the desk who booked him into the hotel was nice but he thought that he still had enough time to take a train into Zuhrich and then cab it back from downtown but that was before he got to the hotel.  First he got reprimanded by the Somali shuttle van driver for climbing into the vehicle without permission but then met a  nice couple returning to the U.S on seperate flights.  He saw the train which he could have taken into town while leaving the airport and upon arriving at the hotel got his room but they refused to take or even exchange U.S money thought the bartender took euros in the lobby bar.

So after going up to my small but ample room and still wanting to go out I ventured to the Esso next door and hoped that I could buy a train ticket with my gas card which didn’t work there.  Then I decided to hoof it as far into town as I could get.  After passing the usual airport nothingness i began to get into the northern fringe of Zuhrich though by the time i made it to the Swissotel and begged the front deskman to do change money for me which when he finally did it seemed too late to take the train into downtown and so I walked looking at the quaint architecture and finally settling into a restaurant open late for a couple of kebabs.

Then after taking many I-phone pictures of the a train station, a tunnel, houses , and the Swiss I went back to the hotel and watched a bio on Prince Albert of Monaco followed by a circus where crazy horse drawn clown vehicles circled the ring.  I enjoyed very much switching channels between French, Italian, and German on Swiss television.  I also shaved and then went to sleep (the bed was quite comfortable and i felt very safe).

In the morning I received the wake up call brought my bag down checked out and then appeared for the overpirced breakfest buffet (but as everybody kept saying this was Switzerland). I then paid and caught the quite reliable shuttle van to the airport and and then there some great fun began.

The people at check in who I thought were airline employees were security so I guess accordingly I was perhaps a bit too jovial. They asked what I was doing in Switzerland and I said connecting flights from Dubai and they said where is my luggage and I said it was checked through and this they wrote down and replied with wasn’t it and then hey said it might be indicating that I had to receive the bag there and recheck it even thought the airline said it was checked through and the claim ticket attested to that nonetheless they said when I asked where it was to paraphrase perhaps lost and found.  They then asked for my hotel receipt from Dubai which I could not furnish but i did have plastic electronic door key from the Hotel Delman in the Emirate and upon producing that the supervisor said shouldn’t I have returned it to the front desk..Eventually this ordeal was over my passport got a sticker and I was onto flight check-in and I asked to locate my bag which was indeed checked through.

Afterwards I had a much needed cappucino and told the barista my ordeal and he said laugh it off as some people on a power trip. I then made it through security looked at the surrounding countryside through the large windows in the departure gate wing and eventually boarded the plane.

On the way back over to the US this tired flier had an entire back row to himself and watched the HBO movie version of “Grey Gardens” starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as the two Edith Bouvier Beales and the soloist starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.

Going fowards a bit I then worked two day on the double decker bus and then Senator Edward Kennedey died. I got off the night before the last day of the wake and I drove up to the John F. Kennedy Presidential library at the the University of Massechussettes Boston campus on the back bay staying over night at a hotel in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on the way up.  I met a lot of great people got in and shook the hand of Jean kennedy Smith the last remaining JFK generation sibling (children of joseph and Rose Kennedy) and she said “hi i’m the sister) (of course Eunice had dided a few days prior).. I signed the registry I thought I should go as it was the passing of a whole U.S political dynasty and I recite Ted’s closing words to “the dream shall never die” speech everytime I pass Madison Square with the microphone on the Double Decker bus. I also shook the senator’s widow Victoria’s hand as she entered the building and of course saw the honor gaurd and the coffin.  My I-phone had died on the way up but to take pictures of the family at such an event might have been in bad taste anyway.

After attending the wake I drove over to Castle Island which this traveler had never remembered seeing before.

Sometime after this I saw three biggies with my groups on the tour bus starting with director  Oliver Stone on East forty ninth street in the Turtle Bay section of Manhattan where he was posted filming his sequel to “Wall Street” startring Michael Douglas (reprising his role as Gordon Gekko) and Shia LaBeouf.   There was a detour and the buses were forced to take third avenue from forty second to forty ninth thus bypassing the United Nations complex on first avenue and forty ninth street  between second and  third (the street Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis,  Steven Sondheim, and Erfem Zimbalist Jr.  once lived upon).  Oliver Stone this erstwhile man with a  handheld microphone attached by chord to momma bus spotted the provocative social legislator standing right at the police barricade pointed him out to the tourists (who were oh so appreciative) and immediatley went into the voice of George Plimpton saying Oliver ! Oliver! Olive {for once he had been with the late sportswriter at the night club Life after GP had read from his Capote tome for his series “The Literary life” and after George asked if he could get a tour he asked the owner Roy Stillman if he wouldgive Gerge a tour and George and Roy started making small talk and Roy indicated that he had seen him here for a party for Oliver Stone and George had said “ah yes Oliver” and all these years later at a different time I was able to repeat this line]

Readers please sit back down now (even though this writer is in Florida in sight of the calcified alligator skull [[which upon further investigiation was found out to be a well studied and almost consumate replica]] and in the red, yellow, and brown Marriot courtyard lobby).   The next sighting was again witha double decker and it was perfectly set up.

We had left the South Street Seaport stop and headed past Schemerhorn Row (a former fish chandelry some of whose structures date back to circa 1807 but on the net I could only find a date firmly established for them starting in 1812) and coming up about to the Cafe Paris (circa 1873 and where Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, and Teddy Roosevelt at one time or another had all once eaten and where they had thrown a big party the night of the opening of the establishment’s neighbor the Brooklyn Bridge) in the cobble stone area between many buildings once visited by a transported Spock and Captain James Kirk on the original Star Trek series was a film set.  Then within the mass of crew was aman in a suit.  Then this tour guide, this urban scout was able to differentiate and say there is a film set ahead the man in the suit is the celebrity look.  Getting up closer it was a done up Matt Damon (I had known he was around as another tourist on another bus had shown me a picture of him on a digital camera speaking after receving some award or citation from Mayor Bloomberg on the steps of City Hall).  I was able to say to the tourists ladies and gentleman Matt Damon and have him not look up.  He heard the intro of course went about finishing what he was doing and after a delay looked up at the bus waved and then walked onto his next piece of business.

Next on the Manhattan Comprehensive all day tour going past the San Remo on Central Park West on a beautiful sunny day and giving the list of famous residents of the Emory Roth Building Victor Emanuel style celebrity tower multi tiered birthday cake Bono from U2, Billy Squier, Steven Spielberg .. right on the name Steve Martin there he was the back of his head and of course with the information flowing and the look I knew it was him he turned around  with a big smile but didn’t wave and went back into the second of two entrances along the avenue.

At some point this blogger realized that he wanted to see Jude Law in Hamlet on Broadway.  So he walked over to the Broadhurst theater where it is playing until December 6, 2009 and all seats were $116.50.  I said “no seats would be at the tkts booth?” and the woman at the ticket window returned the  no “and probably not for the entire run”.  I winced at the cost and walked away.

Later I made jokes about it in front of the Standard and Poors ( or the lack of standards and now we’re poor) building coming by on the red double decker bus after saying” this is where they say over croissants and coffee in the morning … to bbb or not to bbb” ..”now you can hear Jude Law say that on Broadway for a hundred and sixteen fifty and I will say it as part of the price of your bus ticket”.  Then one day coming off my second downtown and landing in front of the tkts booth in Times Square across from our stop at forty seventh and seventh there it was on the board only one performance for the Thursday matinee Hamlet.  The tickets at tkts are no longer exclusively fifty percent off and this matinee was thirty percent off ($83) and with the service fee eighty seven. I jumped at the oppurtunity having read glowing review after glowing review.

And boy were those reviewers right Jude Law in Hamlet is a tour de force!  First of all his physical presence the way he is able to move his frame to extend for all the remonstrations, the introspection, and action in this Shakespeare play which is above all else about the whole deck of cards.

Sure we travel with him back to remember how many figures of speech come from this great work:” this mortal coil… neither a borrower or a lender be….to be or not to be…Alas poor Yorick I knew him well”.  Alas the staging is spartan but not so stark as to replace artifice  His star in the heavens is justified bravo!

Onto Dubai Again Never Go Backwards Against Time

Well so the weather had had it out for me and so it was to be for the beginning of the trip to the U.A.E.  The stewardess from Seville on the plane the fabulously appointed Emirates air jet reminded me that it was humid in August in this Emirate and so it was .  When I got off the plane this far going goer had to catch his breath and was not even set up to enjoy the passport control semi inquisistion on the way in.  The new airport had been finished since last August’s visit and the columns were glittering schmaltz like the nightime sky in the plane I had just left when the onboard lights had been turned off.   No problem, I picked up my bag which had been checked through and went to the hotel office which was in a new space coughing {and another tourist a  woman said “are you sure you don’t have the h141?’ and “who let you in?” I wanted to return in question for the anwer- but I am on my best behaivior in the Emirates and just booked my stay at the hotel Delman again and I was off (though my Emerati currency which I had left over from my prior was not enough and I covered it in dollars)}.

I checked into a nice room and dropped down it was the middle of the night and turned on the BBC to hear an endless tape loop about the elections in Afghanistan (which is very poppylated) and the possibly to be released Libyan Al Megrahi).  A Longines watch which I got after many years it had been ticking in a bucket on top of pennies and other small increments of America currency had been stopping and  and first I had to change the time in Frankfurt and then in Dubai and so now I sped it ahead and and when I went  too far I spun it  it back and it broke and then I found a small earing on the floor which might have been a diamond (but probably not and thought that the genie must have spoken).

I slept all night and got to breakfest late so the lady let me on that day dine for free (love the chicken sausages).  I went back up and continued to watch the tape loop and read the gulf news which I had picked up in the lobby where the free Arabian coffee from last time was now gone.

Finally late in the afternoon I gathered my ambition and my stregnth and cabbed it over to the new Mall of Dubai and immediately sat down set  on penning my “Emirates shopping mall poem” picking a seating area where a whole admix of foriegn nationals rested and socialized.  There was an aquarium here but somehow seeing Arabs in robes and bhurkas staring at sealife when I had seen people staring at it other endless aquazones did not pull me in and it would only be another day until I would see Russians pondering other fish at the Atlantis on the man made Island sandbar Jumeriah palm as it is  known.

Meanwhile I had to do what I always do nowadays immediatley try to repurchase whatever item I had just lost or ruined on ebay so as not to loose my loose grip on my momentarily self-created identity.  I was successful; and purchased a 1963 longines watch with gold numbers which now that Iam in posession of it surely as it stopped running almost immediately seems to be a fake (will email the seller through ebay after this blogging which means soon who then assured me it only had to be shaked to work and so it is true and that after all I bought it “as is” and so it just needs to be wound or motion stimulated).

But before going to the computer store and staying on one of their laptops for hours I saw an ellipse above a  Roberto Cavali store and wouldn’t go into until I had gone all the way round without going backwards which meant having a macchiato at twelve  o’clock in mall atrium pedestrian placement time  before descending into the second rate Versace’s outpost and explaining that I was only a browser which did not light up their eyes.  I did not go backwards before completing a circle because I realized that the lesson now was never to go backwards against time.

Later I left saw the Burj al Dubai against the nightitme sky  getting a cab from the long line of taxis parked next to the Galleries Lafayette  department store and went back to the hotel blogged and went back to my room and watched the news.

The next day I got up had breakfest again went back to the room booked a trip the following day to the Eastern Emirates of the U.A.E and the Omani enclave within their grasp went back to sleep got up later and went over to the Atlantis Resort hotel theme park attraction on Jumerah Palm island which I had practised visiting by visiting the Atlantis on Paradise Island in what was it April (not to mention watching the most expensive fireworks in history which went along with its’ gala opening over and over on  youtube where the fans and strands of pyrotechnics went along with the shape of the mega deposits of sand dumped back into the sea which eroded their forefather stones shells to begin with first).

I would have gladly surrendered the dihrams to go sliding on aqua slides through whatever mythical land Sol Kerzner had transported to Arabian Shores had not my breathing made it impossible.  Instead Iwalked through watching Arabs and Russians scan the sealife before them and settled for a hugely overpriced cappucino at a  French Bistro and watched the endless parade of Russkis taking a summer break which for the Romans would be Ferrogosto when they come some of them and ride the double decker buses in Manhattan and make lots of noise and I say “Sotto Voce… Sotto Voce..” which of course I picked up from Tom Wolfe.

Afterwards  this blogger cabbed it over to the Mall of the Emirates where  he  had gone skiing on his first jaunt to the Emirates with the  initial intention of having a drink in the lobby bar of the Hotel Kempinski lobby bar and when he found there was really no such animal he settled for a thin blue and silver hotel pen to make peace with the experience.

Once inside he wandered around first stopping at the Virgin Mega Store (which while listening to Morbid on the music selection listening staion he renamed the forty virgin megastore “Virgin reccomends Virgins” but as we will hear a little later Virgin doesn’t necessarily reccomend seconds) for through the music he hoped to rev up his engines.  Soon he was off trying to fufill his goal of having lots of coffee in lots of places and he distinctly remembering the Cafe Havanna to the side of an escacaltor’s final landing and in sight of the ski hill construct of Ski Dubai he went over there for what he hoped would be strong Cuban Coffee. They had no bean from Castro’s farms but Turkish was on order and they were having a piece of cake and Java special from which the writer partook (here I am starting to sound like “”The Man for All Seasonings”).

Then he finally went up to the top level of the mall and down its one side stret to where he had marveled at a Dolce & Gabbana inmate fetish quote almost exactly a year ago and stopped at Ralph Lauren Polo to see the large Swoops and horses allover the shirts which surely made one look like a Target (and thought how he had left his own orange and yellow one which made him look like a leisure time road worker at home).

Later down at Borders he saw a  sign that Thaksin Shinawatra the exiled Prime Minister of Thailand would be doing a book signing there the following night which should be just after when he was returning from the tour of the Eastern Emirates and the Omani enclave and he resolved  to attend.

At some point he also inquired a the Thrifty car rental desk in the mall about renting a car which he found was rather easy but then decided would be against his better judgement as he was there alone and not feeling all that well at the time.

So again he cabbed it back to the hotel and heard some political mumbo jumbo about Pakistan (the driver said it was better to like everybody otherwise your throat might be cut in the morning).  So once back he relaxed for the early morning pickup which would be at the Taj Palace  (across from the Delman) where he had been picked up for the Desert Safari on the last visit last August last time.

I was picked up by a minivan which took  us (I and a few other tourists) to a roundup of minvans in a parking lot which eventually accounted for the 21 passengers who would be on the bus.  The tour guide was a pleasant if not intermittently swarmy Sri Lankan man who had all the attributes of the well documented over the ages confabulated tour guide persona( “when I was living working and scuba diving in the Maldives or the Seychelles…” perhaps) and he gave the tour in both English and German.  The tour would bring us to several of the Emirates including Sharjah, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, and as a bonus briefly into the Omani enclave.  Soon we were going across to Sarjah which is very close to Dubai and through something called a freezone the tour guide told us how it is much cheaper to live in this emirate than in Duabi but that it is dry no alchohol no alcohol that is even for tourists and if you get caught your not getting an appearance ticket you are going to jail.  He gave us the lowdown of how we would be traveling through which emirates and not that long later we were in Ras al-Khaimah for a “Friday Market’ whch are open on other days but friday but friday refers to the sabbath day kept in the muslim world friday is for they what Sunday is in the west or Saturday for Jews.

Bangaladeshi fruit stall owners descended on you as soon as your departed from the tour bus.. I immediatley chose a clump of lychees and had fun cracking their thin sells open devouring their flesh and discarding the pits.

We got back in and soon we were coming around past the source of Masafi bottled water which according to our tour guide was to paraphrase the Perrier of the UAE and saw all the largess the water company bestowed on their neighbors such as the small but ample Masafi stadium.     Then we came to some small mountains which were colored sort of a  hot desert muted red and got out to see smaples of rocks such as Mica and copper.  The tour guide enlightened this blogger as to Mica being used for solar panels and later back at the tour guide terminal “the man for all seasonings “..was astonished that they had besides black gold the source material for converting energy from the sun into power for humans and others as well.

Meanwhile I got to meet some of my fellow travelers as usual people on a layover or stopover here two Scots who were living in Lockerbie I was talking to this time who since they went away did not know that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing had been released (though they such a deal might be in the offing).  They were flabbergasted as was much of the Western world but there seemed to be a lot of deal making going on and the real people living and dead seeemd as usual to somehow get lost.

Finally, we came down out of the mountains and were on the coast and the Emirates had enclaves and it was explained that before oil Sarjah was perhaps the most powerful enirate and thus they had land allover the place so we shuttled betwen Sarjah, the Omani enclave , and then Fujairah.  The company had said bring your passport because sometimes the Omani officials will check it (but not in this instance) though this part of Oman is not contigous to the main nation.  We past around a lot of traffic circles with Dolphins and sharks , and magic lamps during the coastal part of the tour and the visit to Oman was very brief and there was really nothing to signify that I had been to Oman other than that this tourist was told that he was now in Oman.

Later in Fujairah we visited a hotel called Sandy Beach on the Indian Ocean for lunch and for swimming.  I decided not to eat and enjoy the pool and do yoga moves while floating and this loosened my muscles and all of a sudden I felt sort of alright and an Austrailian woman told me why didn’t I also visit my hotel pool (which at the Delman is on the roof).

I swam in the pool heard more Russians in the abound and also took a dip into the Indian Ocan here in the lagoon  even thought they told me there was a Rea Algae alert.

This was sort of the zenith of the tour though we later visited what was said to be the oldest mosque in the UAE later (but only the outside for the inside was reserved for Muslims only) and past a sand spit out into the sea island supposedly inspired by those big jobs in Dubai but it hadn’t really been developed and just looked a little bit like Robert Smithson’s spiral Jetty in sand.

When it was time to get off the bus I asked the guide to let me off perhaps at the mall of the Emirates and he told me to get off at the Alcazar hotel and cab it over there (which brought back the palace in Seville the  image of seen so many years before by these eyes in Andalucia was still fresh after talking to the stewardess on the flight in from Frankfurt).  so I did walked around saw a giant black doorman and copies of the famous horses wandered around outside and looked at the Persian Gulf and then cabbed it over to meet Mr.  Thaskin the exiled Prime minister of Thailand.

In the meantime it was a bit early and I walked the mall going by the free date promotion from Royal Crown (dates) and enjoying them and wlaking through some prefume stores to choose a new emblmatic fragrance to savor and this trips’ winner was La Nuit De L’Homme by Yves Saint Laurent (which is apparently not available in the U.S yet).

So after browsing one store which had moving sidewalks running through it like an airport and seating also evoking a terminal this mall historian made his way back to Borders and found that the Prime Minister was late and meanwhile one seemingly prominent Emirati asked for my table in the cafe for his group was large and I of course obliged.  This writer made his way to the seating area and met a French woman who had lived in Thailand and some Fillipinas whom he had thought were Thai but later found out were Fillipinas.

Eventually the former Prime Minister and ex-owner of the Manchester United Football squad arrived and and was quite pleasant greeting the small crowd as several including I stood up to shake his hand.  I had purchased his book (published in the U.A.E) earlier as to have it signed and after he iterated how he had performed an economic miracle in the formenr Siam and that he could do the same for the world if the planet just let him (via putting capital in the hands of individuals on a mass scale and encouraging them to seek wealth as if to paraphrase ) he signed my copy.  I asked him to sign my copy in Thai  as well(as he had for several Thais in attendance) and since I was not Thai he did not do so.  He and the the large security guard behind me thanked this this blogger and he was back off into the precincts of the mall.

The next day he slept the entire day only emerging for meal once this in this 24 hour period and that was  had at a neighboring hotel and then  he to tried to go to the Palazzo Versace on Dubai Creek that he’s been reading about back in the States but to no avail after calling some palce named Versailles he googled and saw that it was still under construction so he returned to his room to rest for the next days journey to Abu Dhabi.  Later I found out that there was a Roberto Cavlai restaraunt/nightclub in the Emirate and this shopping mall poet wished that he known this all along.

So then this day being almost gone he went over to a neighboring hotel so as to have a different buffet including the highlight of lamb in  yogurt and though more expensive it was quite pleasant as beign in sight of a winding stone staircase where a fountain of water wound down around from and as if it were a snake I was charmed.

So briefly this blogger thought of making it over to the Marriot in two parts crossed by a skybridge but decided to rest.   He also inquired about making a bus to Abu Dhabi (since the only tours there as I forgot to inform you earlier in this posting were “a Capital City” on Wendesday which I had missed by a few hours even coming close to making  and though they had it listed as going out twice in the current economy it was going out once).  Meanwhile I had changed my room a day back as this guest was asked to voluntarirly surrender his room so it could become the place for prayer during Ramadan Kareem and in doing so he got the second of three free Breakfests which would be awarded to him during and after the trip plus a room discount.

So the next morning having been warned to take a large bus he got a ticket where the taxi dropped him off and it wound up being for a van where he should have taken the front seat but not moving fast enough got the next row back behind the driver and wound up sitting next to an Asian woman who took a handkerchief to avoid the smell fo what must have been Arabian foot or body odor which I didn’t smell much as the van made its way along the coast getting a view of the skyline and many projects underway in Dubai and then as we approached Abu Dhabi. There several large projects with some of the large unusal buildings which I had seen in pctures at architectural symposiums on the forthcoming architecture of the Emirates in Manhattan, such as the Yas Hotel, and Ferrari World  part of the Alador Corporation Yas Island development, The Capitol Gate Tower Hotel (supposedly to be when completed the worlds  tallest leaning Tower Hotel) and most impressively the new Alador headquarters itself which is a huge glass circle standing upright which in turn like a tetrahedron contributing to other shapes then in turn breaks back down into triangles.

So after passing the offices for the Sorbonne UAE and letting off a afew voyagers we pulled into the central bus station which luckily was next to a shopping mall.  Having been out in the mall before Ramadan I had not really adventured out during the day during Ramadan since the last day I had  been out during  the day was the day before Ramadan.  But now here I was and all the food and drink places were closed but luckily a chocolate store was open and a Chienese woman though she wasn’t supposed to sneaked me a bottle of water in a shopping bag and I went upstairs and bought a book and a map and decided I would try to make heads or tails of where I was via the map and find Saadiyat Island where they are to be building the Guggenheim and the new Louvre respectively by Frank Ghehrys and Jean nouvel as well as a cultural center by Zaha Hadid and a museum dedicated to Abu Dhabi’s connection to the sea and its maritime history by Tado Ando.  So buying a bottle of water at a time and sustaining nasty looks I kept going with water gotten at groceries usally owned by Indians or Bangaladeshis I walked towards what I knew was the sea made one stop near a Marks & Spencers where a European big wig waltzed in and there was a sign for women and their drivers and tried to walked twoards the tower with what seemed to be a giant golf ball driven into cemtent onto it atop.  I got to the waterfront and across was the a beautiful  unharmed strech of beach where  could be worn the bhurkas made from materials which are suitable for swimming which I spied at the watersports store run by asians in the first mall by which I had been let off.

Meanwhile before I had gotten to the waterfront and its tiled esplanade this writer had stopped at a Jewelry souk to see if the tiny earing he had found in his hotel the room which had been surrendered to become the prayer place for hotel guests during Ramadan Kareem was worth anything and the jeweler used a device and renedered a decision that it was not.  But here I am on the espalanade and I took out dihram coins and risked having a coke which was flavored by lemon and sat by fountains and doused myself in water and kept walking and then saw the fishing boats which the photographer Daniela Sessa had taken pictures of which she had shown me while we were all involved in our would be tour guide limousine buisness disaster.

So then I made all the way down walked over saw a funny building project saw it was for a private concern and then walked back across again another highway and wound up in the vegtable market which was supposed to be across from the island where they are to build the museums as well as the Persian Gulf campus of NYU and the shoreline was still blocked and so I kept walking and wound up in a freight storage area where a sign threatened that if you used an unoccupied space for your own cargo and it was found out it would be removed and there was a health clinic within these grounds and then this blogger decided he would not be able to gain sight of what he wanted to see and there was no bridge and so he walked back to a corner back by the main road and no cab would pick him up guessing due to the undesirable location in which he was standing and he might have tried to make it over to the Emirates Palace which he hadn’t seen but he was tired and when from afar he saw a cab driver who had pulled up to an onion seller’s location he made small talk and arranged for a voyage back to the main main bus station to go back to Dubai.

He was lucky and got a back seat on a big bus and when he got back he got juice and water and in the cab he got the cab driver asked him what country he was from? andf he said the us and why? because here it is ramadan and we do not drink water in public you can do what you want in a hotel room and so I drank not another sip got to my hotel and gave him no tip.

This was very well the end of the trip (I thought about walking over to the marriot but did not) then I emailed my freind and fellow tour guide Max Naegeli that I had met Thaskin the former prime minister of thailand and he said to get him a present from Dubai and I decided to oblige since he had gotten me a series of trinkets from Siam where once we had had mango pizza and I had said  that things were what they were and a leaf had fallen on me in the outdoor courtyard of a cafe.   I decided to go to the airport very early by prearranged transport van and after a night of sleeping had breakfest and prepared to depart.

Once at the airport I found out that I would be having a long layover in Switzerland and that probably  this traveler would need to get a hotel.   Meanwhile at the phone recharge station after buying Max a camel and shedding a few pounds he met a Indian Muslim man living in Saudi Arabia who explained marriage in his world and working in the kingdom.   Soon it was time to board and on the flight the movies did not work and the arm-rest for the exit-row seat fell down but I finally saw the sand Islands of the world formation of Dubai from the sky and the Swiss man next to me said that it would  ”probably never be finished”

The World Islands of Dubai by Andreas Gursky

. Meanwhile I saw Saudi Arabia, followed by Jordan, Syria, and Turkey form up on high ( they flew in Saudi territory along the Iraqi border and never once went over into the latter’s air space as well as avoiding Lebanon and Israel did not exist on the onboard navigation screen and the area instead was marked with the word Gaza).  The Emirates air stewardess who sat in front of me during takeoff and landing was a beautiful Kenyan and we talked about that nation which I have always wanted to visit

In the days Before Leaving the Country and Leaving the Country

So auspiciously before leaving the country once again (and not a moment too soon as ninety five degree farenheight days with 100 percent humidity descended upon us making it almost impossible for this blogger to breathe) for yoga  he visited the Sivinanda Ashram in upstate Woodburne, New York for a second time to do yoga while his freind Neil was (is) taking a permaculture  certification class .  His dinner included more than an ample helping of kashi.

Then after all the pre-requisite meditating, excercising  and eating had been done Neil and I drove over to Ellensville, New York in the Catskill Mountains from the yoga ranch to see what we could find.  Meanwhile, I had remarked upon the black convertible Corvette which when while I was entering the compound in my toyota was exiting on the road which leads in and out of the Ashram.

Then I noted while tangentilizing how it once would be unsual to see an expensive sports car with a vanity liscence place exiting such a place  but that was when yoga was not what it is today  as far as  the popular U.S concioussness. “Remember when”… I said in my monologue Rupert Holmes sang in his hit “Escape” , “if your not into yoga{“as a guideline for meeting in a song about a personal add with a twist}…..

Well instant karma was soon upon us and swift.  Coming  into town a few blocks down there is an old theater called Shadowland.  Then on the Shadowland marquee there on the billboard was the sign announcing “The Accomplice”  by Rupert Holmes.  And when I asked the woman in the ticket office if that wasn’t the same guy who wrote the Pina Colada song (often cited as one of the worst songs of all time)… sure it is- buthe has since  had a string of successes on the Great White Way  including “the Mystery of Edwin Drood” which kind of tones down his cornball classification of long ago.

In te meantime before the show started I had a couple of Maragaritas, chips, gaucamole with Neil as small planes flew into the local airport.  Meanwhile the ladies at a nearby table spilled their avacado nectar onto the sidewalk an it was soon replaced by the affable waiter who also acting as the establishment’s host.

Meanwhile our wait was now over and we walked across the street to the theater for act one of  “The Accomplice”.  As we came into the production we found out that one of the main players had almost walked into our car as we came in..  just the more reason for staying you see.

The play itself started out as a witty farce until it devolved into a series of staged devices into who was about to be killed by whom whichj in turn tried to render everybody( including the audince) so so really in on the kill that they are about to be a witness to it actually happening and thus an accomplice (I might try this on my bus).

But it turns out that the the theater itself which seemed to be moldy became a big time accomplice to my pre-existing asthma (and boy did I pay and stay awake up all throught the night and then out in the morning {with the initial  hope of going down to tthe Addison Ripley Gallery in Wdc to recent  pastels by Manon Cleary } driving over the bridge and drinking the first of upteen cokes I was coming up with it all like the human who becomes a “Prawn ” alien in the the movie District 9 which I would see later that night.

So after one more day oon the bus it was time to go to Dubai.  The day of my departure it was 100% humidity and 95 degrees  and so not be able to make it all the way to the Port Authority for the shuttle bus I forked over $70 dollars for a car service vehicle which I hailed down on the street.

 

I asked the driver for air conditioning which he turned on but when I asked for the radio the driver said his mother died (or I don’t know maybe he said motor) and so I akked waht about your motor-in-law?  So I just played Duran-Duran’s Rio on my I-Phone and then just as we were making it past the George Washington Bridge his car started to overheat.  “My car go hot” he said and he (we ) had to open the windows.

Soon traffic was backed up by a police pullover but this too was passed

(The Car Service Driver to the Airport)

and soon I was at Newark Airport.

 

Here I waited on line and was deposited at  a self-check in kiosk with no idea what to do since I had gotten there early specifically to get an exit row (which i did not gain but later did on the routing on Emirates air from Frankfurt to Dubai).

My flight did not leave for hours so I spent it charging my I-phone at the new Samsung phone trees and in Brookstone on the massgae chair.   .

Once on the flight the woman next to me was returning to Germany from visiting her brother who is in the German air Force in New Mexico where he was trianing at an air base there.  .  I saw Wolverine X-Men origins with Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber .  All the while I slept not a wink and spent the whole flight drinking black tea with lemon or more coca-cola.

Once over England and then continental Europe looking down I could see London and the Thames, the O2 arena, and London Bridge , then the white cliffs of Dover, coastal Belgium, Germany with some hills and mountains, and finally Frankfurt as we landed.

Once I got off the plane (and I had a sizable layover ) this blogger went stumbling into a Starbucks with his ten euro bill and ordered a venti one tea bag green one tea bag mint tea with lemon and honey and read the papers.  Eventually he walked over to the Emitrates Air club where though he was not able to talk himself into a sit down he was able to get the receptionist reservations check in lady to get him an exit row seat (and he was happy if only for a bit).

Thne I went over to the shopping area of the Frankfurt aiproprt and saw one of those airport day spas and decided to get a chair massage for $31 euros which was fine enough and admistered by an Asian woman (anything to get the breathing going on this long distance two part flight into the shopping mall sands of Arabia).  The lady then asked me if I would like an oxygen treatment (which I wanted to try out first) for eight euros and once she applied it I realized it was nothing but a nose tickle but she and the other day spa commanding officer this one a native blonde insisted since they had brewed it up I had to pay for it and I sat back and was slightly stimulated in the nostril passages and took their pictures for this blog so of this oxygen service you will beware

.

(Oxygen Bar back Massage lady )

(And Her Associates)

Out of July and into August

Winding throught the now humid days of summer since last I wrote after that bizzare dream starring the Clintons which was had after a day going around every which way on the roller coasters at Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania the highlights have been have been sparingly accrued.

The highlight of  highlights had to have been attending the Robert Wilson benefit for his project in Watermill. During the auction the famed maestro Phillip DePury trotted around and during his sale of a portrait of Ingrid Bergman (sold to the Countess Von Bernstein for 100,000 dollars or so) got her daughter Isabella Rossellini who just happened to be nearby to stand up during the proceedings (the fact that the Blue Velvet star soon ascended the stairs out of there afterwards could have been done due to the spotlight having been shown upon her perhaps in the wrong context).

Later after dessert had been served we were up in the silent auction area where looking at the bid sheet on a small Neo Rauch the last signatory was $9,000 by one Rufus Wainwright and I looked up  and said oh Rufus Wainright .

Earlier in the day we had attended a party at the Starn Twins studio in the old Talix foundry in Beacon, New York (where they had made Leonardo’s horse anew several times from the original design) and observed their Bambu project which had climbers executing there plans from computer generations for the giant structure.  Their work abounded  throughout the giant space.

The day’s tragectory taking us from Portchester, New York to Beacon to Water Mill on Long Island took us onto highways multiple times which the next day claimed twelve lives.  In every instance we escape danger how greatful we should be .

One Starn Twin on one side of the Studio

And the other Starn Twin on the side other than the other brother

A Midsummer’s Night Dream of the Clintons

Returning from Buenos Aires in a dream to a small town of vaccation respite such as by the seaside or in the mountains where locals abound and all of a sudden…… members of the press and onlookers are huddled around a barber shop……  It turns out that former President William Jefferson Clinton is inside the establishment getting a haircut with the now Secretary of State Hillary in tow watching.. People say not to go in and I am checking my my hair to see if this is an oppurtune time to get it cut…..but it turns out that the secret service will not just let you in but then Chelsea exits walking with a cane and then word comes that that the Clintons en famille have all gone into the restaurant next door…..and God only knows how they got there perhaps using the back doors unseen by the dreamer….Then I go into the eatery via the front door then go to the rear of the counter and though not hungry I eat something  and sit at the far end  and across the way at a circular booth are the Clintons …. Hillary is giving a monologue consoling Bill that she is glad that they are together and worked through it and made it through the experience.  ….. She is most expressive  and has longer hair than we know her to wear….   they rise to leave and he looks older now and has a goatee looking like an aging hippy  and then I tell Hillary “great speech” and the whole restaurant breaks into applause.. Then I shake Bill’s hand and the Clintons leave the restaurant but soon return in sort of hippy hill billy gear and then Bill speaks and says “Whenever in Texas we have a ho-down and then the roof comes down (not literally as in party time) as he launches into a song doing the vocals on a number called “Mountain Moonshine”.

Getting Around to This Summer’s Exhibitions

After settling into summer the season which nevers seems as if it will be as long as it will turn out to be in the discovery of its’ true depths it was finally that this blogger set aside time to voyage to the various art exhibitions blockbuster and otherwise which he wished to see.

He started in this latest round of museum going with his first visit to the New- New museum of Contemporary Art (which as of this going is relatively new but not brand..) to see the ennial (tri or otherwise or section of their international survey) for the exhibition of artists of the age of thirty three or younger and catchingly named “Younger Than Jesus” (Madonna who already has a boyfriend named Jesus who is younger than his namesake by a decade and all of 23 may or may not be invited in or her presence allowed).

It was a noisy collection of works with loud instillation upon instillation and by the time he departed this blogger was practically running out the door.  Yes there was the girl sleeping in the bed with the artists materials being described as to paraphrase human female, sleeping pill, and bed.  Lets leave it there take two like these people must have had to in order sleep through the noise and read my blog in the morning……

But , later, I thought hey why not propose a new exhibition a new ennial for artists and viewers who are not  deaf  yet but who cannot quite take the rebounds of sound mashed together in inter-instillation chaos and are older than Jesus but are of less years than the most famous tour guide of them all or  in other words are  younger than Moses (at the time after he left Egypt  and was going around in a circle for forty years waiting for his entrance into the Promised Land which  in the end for him never came).

Next it was off to Washington DC to see an exhibition works of the works of the very same Spanish Still Life virtuoso from which I had turned around from on the voyage to just a couple of posts ago, Luis Melendez.

First stopping in New Jersey after working all day and trying to get over the urban air conditions I had just left  behind I finally stopped in Penn’s Grove (a town between the the turnoff after the last exit toll on the New jersey Turnpike and the Deleware Memorial Bridge) for the night (with a stop for dinner at at an Appleby’s which consisted of a Mexican Salad and a French onion soup).

Waking in the morning I headed straight for DC and once there popped into Armands’ Chicago Pizzeria on Capitol Hill for lunch (and the congressional staffers all look  so young because I guess they are).

Then when driving along the Mall are for a parking spot within walking distance of the National Gallery in spotting one in a moment it was gone when at a stop light this museum got caught behind a turning bus and a vehicle from another direction swarmed in and swiped it.

Aftera couple hours of driving around in a circle and lacking the change for the seven  minutes  a quarter meter finally this driver drove over to the parking lot beside the  Potomac Tidal Basin which in turn is across from the Jefferson memorial parked and walked over.

The paintings were light and delightful thoguh the room they were placed in  seemed rather dark. The thirty canvases were brought together with some real models of the period wares the painter employed in his works.  The largest suite of works as a sub group here were the works he did on commission (his only major royal one for a the Prince of Austrias) done of the edibles found in the new world so here we have cauliflower , chocolate, and other wonder such as watermelon. These works were in a special exhibition in I.M Pei’s timeless West Wing while in the East Wing was  The Art of Power : Royal  Armor and Portraits from Imperial Spain” which though I took in some of the Imperial Battle wear and the Velasquez and Reubens Portraits of Phillip the Second of Spain my visit was not in depth so this blogger must vow to  return to the John Russell Pope’s stately marble East Wing where this display temporarily resides.

Soon thereafter I made my way back over to my car parked beside the tidal basin and drove  north.  In White Marsh I stopped at the mall which being one I had never stopped at before called for browsing and so I did.  Here after getting some much needed quick cash this along the highway stopper acquired some  phone accessories and got a qi gong back massage folowed by dinner at P.F Changs (sauteed spinach in garlic and shrimp with candied almonds and honeydew).

Later feeling tired this traveler pulled over not to the side of the road but at a rest-stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.  When after resting he returned to NYC via the Holland tunnel he took one of three exits off the rounding curve out of the fluvial traffic corridor and headed for Brooklyn to see the Gustave Callibotte exhibition just before it closed.

Having waited almost to the end to see the work of this sometimes overlooed impressionist whose work often communicates presence and a transtemporality like time travel (the works are so alive).  As well his works of oarsmen on brooks and stream capturing that soft summer ligh though when the sun is at its hightest though dappled in the forrest and reflected in the water ah!

There was one particular Calliebotte painting “A Traffic Island Boulevard Haussmann“: which this writer had not seen before and was quite taken with.   This work like many of Callibottes reflects a sense of timelessness and ease as it is as much about the entrance and exit  and what as is beyond as it about the works spherical center it is about light moving across time perhaps and that the soul exists as it starts, stops, and moves on.