New York City | The Casual Blog

August 5, 2021

New York, Showy Florentines, Black Egyptians, and the Ghost Forest

Ghost Forest, Maya Lin, Madison Square, New York City

Last week we visited our old stomping ground, New York City, for the first time since the pandemic. It was a little strange to wear masks for the flight, but not bad, and certainly smart, given the persistence of the clever and dangerous Covid virus. We were pleasantly surprised to arrive at the finally completed Terminal B at LaGuardia, which was full of light, with whimsical tile walls. When we left , we saw a performance there by the new fountain, which made dancing patterns with lasers and thousands of gallons dropping from the ceiling.

The prime objective of our trip was Jocelyn’s baby shower, celebrating with friends the soon-to-arrive little girl. Our old friend Kathryn created a feast with many delicious vegetarian options, and we enjoyed chatting with other friends of the happy couple. It was sunny and mild, a very pleasant day.

We stayed in the West Village, parts of which have not changed much, though we noticed storefronts that had been vacated and graffiti and garbage that had arrived. It was certainly not depopulated! On Friday night the crowds of young folks made it challenging to stroll on the sidewalks. But we managed, and had an excellent Thai meal.

We spent most of Friday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’ve spent many happy hours there in years past, and know parts of it well. But the collection is truly gargantuan, and there’s always something new.

We started with the current exhibit on the art of the Medici in Florence in the 1500s. The paintings were mostly portraits of the ruling elite of that period. I could appreciate the craftsmanship, but was more interested in the meta message of the portraits, which was, roughly translated, this person is super successful and powerful, and you’re not.

Art history as taught to me was mainly about aesthetics, but now I’m focussing more on what the art is trying to communicate about its culture, as well as what it conceals, intentionally or unintentionally. I was grateful for the bits of history in the exhibit’s labeling. It gave some helpful background about the ruling Medici princes and Florence’s battles for wealth and dominance.

I also spent some time with the Met’s collection of ancient art. Recently I’ve been listening to lectures from Audible on the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, as well as those of Greece and Rome. We take for granted a lot of the ideas and inventions of these cultures, and sometimes forget that there’s so much that even specialists don’t know about their world. Anyhow, while wreaking havoc on competitors, they left behind a lot of beautiful objects, and it’s fun to try to figure out what they might be saying.

I also visited the Met’s enormous Egyptian collection for the first time in many years. The ancient Egyptians were amazing builders and artists, and created a remarkably powerful and resilient culture. Looking at their art this time, I was struck by something I hadn’t registered before: they looked Black.

Of course, our American ideas of race were not theirs. But once I focussed, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before: the facial features of the ancient Egyptians looked like many of our Black brothers and sisters.

From some quick Google research, I gather there’s vigorous scholarly dispute on the race of ancient Egyptians. My evidence is subjective, and plainly I am no expert. But it would not be surprising in our culture if there was unconscious resistance, even by scholars, to acknowledging that Black people were the creators of this impressive civilization. More research is called for.

Finally, I visited and took some pictures of a thought-provoking art project temporarily in midtown by Maya Lin called Ghost Forest. Lin is best known for her Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. Ghost Forest features 49 cedars that lived in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and died from climate change. Lin brought them to Madison Square Park, which is a green oasis just north of the Flatiron building and south of the Empire State Building, and arranged them into a little forest.

Part of Lin’s message is easily decipherable: humans have heedlessly destroyed entire ecosystems, including beautiful forests, without even noticing. But I was surprised to find other messages. The dead trees made me look at the lush and healthy trees of Madison Square and the life around them with new gratitude and affection.

September 28, 2019

Jocelyn got married to Kyle! With some street photography

The Vessel at Hudson Yards.

Our daughter Jocelyn got married in New York City last weekend. I have a new son-in-law! That’s Kyle DePew, and he’s a good one! It was a truly happy day, including a superfun party, though also a little drama.

Even for former New Yorkers like us, NYC is a tough town — hard to take in and hard to get around. It’s really big and loud, and it can make you feel small. Some of it seems expressly designed to intimidate, like the new Hudson Yards high rise area on the West Side (pictured above), which I visited for the first time, and felt like the merest ant. There are always unexpected flashes of beauty in the city, but even the intimate views tend to have some grit on them.

Flower stand

On Friday morning I went to the Whitney Biennial, and took in some very new art. Almost by definition, bold new art is hard to like, and there was a lot of work there that was not cheery. There were several artists working on themes relating to racism and discrimination, and also some work relating to climate change — themes that regular readers know to be of interest to The Casual Blog.

At the Whitney, Joe Minter’s sculpture involving racism and southern yard art

In the afternoon I walked down to Battery Park for the NYC edition of the worldwide student strike for climate action, with tens of thousands of students and others. I normally find large noisy crowds unsettling, but I was glad this one was large and noisy, and hoped it would be unsettling to the politicians that are still failing to mobilize to address our crisis. The signs and chants expressed a lot of anger about the mess adults had made of the environment, but there was also hope for change.

Student protest at Battery Park

That evening, Kyle’s mom, Debbie, hosted the wedding rehearsal dinner at San Marino Ristorante, a lovely Italian restaurant in the West Village. The food was really good, and we enjoyed talking to some old friends, and meeting family and friends of the happy couple.

A sunny day for the protesters

The wedding was at sunset on Saturday at Sunset Terrace, at the end of Pier 61 on the Hudson. A string quartet was playing as the 130 or so guests got seated. The groomsmen and I wore black tuxedos, and the bridesmaids had champagne colored long dresses. Jocelyn was radiant in white! She gave Sally and I just one warning before we walked her to the front of the room for the ceremony: be sure not to step on the trailing veil, which was attached to her hair. We walked slowly up the aisle with no accidents.

Then, as Jocelyn turned to Kyle and we turned to find a seat, a shoe went the wrong way, and out came the veil. In a fraction of a second, I wondered: can we get it back on, and if not, is Jocelyn going to freak out? It took only another couple of seconds for all this to be clarified: she smiled and said, forget about it, just keep going. I rolled up the veil and put it under my seat. I watched carefully for any signs of bridal distress, but there were none. She seemed completely happy. I was so proud of her!

A fruit stand

The officiant was Dylan Goldberg, a good friend of the couple’s. His remarks were a sweet and highly personal appreciation of Jocelyn and Kyle and their love. As he noted, the ceremony was an important symbol of the partnership they had built and the promises of their complete commitment. It was really touching; I got pretty misty. They had a really good kiss at the end.

Then we had drinks, dinner, and an epic dance party! Jocelyn and I managed our solo dance (to Stevie Wonder’s You Are the Sunshine of My Life) with more grace than expected, and I got some laughs in my toast to the couple. As I meant to say (though I’m not sure I quite got out), I was grateful to our guests for serving as witnesses and helping to consecrate the new marriage. I thought about talking a bit about Martin Hagglund’s theory that love is precious not because it is eternal and unchanging, but rather because it is grounded in time, finite and fragile, and its existence depends on continuing devoted care. But it didn’t quite fit with the vibe, so I figured we could talk about it another time.

Flowers and ice

But I must say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much radiating love! It seemed to be coming not just from Jocelyn and Kyle, but from everyone! I hadn’t danced to pop music since ancient times, and had almost forgotten how much fun it can be. It was a blast. DJ Blak did a terrific job with the music, which was curated by Kyle, and managed to get just about everyone moving. A lot of the guests boogied right up until the last song at midnight.

While I wasn’t really surprised at how excited and happy Jocelyn and Kyle were, I was surprised at the intensity of my own happiness. Our little girl! With Kyle now part of our family! Lives full of promise! And on the horizon — grand babies!

Crossing against the light

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March 17, 2019

New York: art, music, traffic

Tenth Avenue

We got up to New York City last weekend, where we visited Jocelyn and Kyle, did some wedding planning, saw some art, and heard some great music.

New York never stops changing. More and more, once common and likeable little businesses, like Greek diners and pizza parlors, seem to be disappearing, while other less-lovable ones, like towering luxury condos, are expanding. When we went down to Chelsea, we went by the new Hudson Yards skyscrapers, and noted lots of bigness. This week the NY Times architecture critic did a scathing review of the project, with some fantastic animated graphics. I recommend checking it out.

On Friday, Sally and I went to the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Guggenheim, and liked it. His mature work was mostly black and white portraiture of famous or beautiful people, done with classical rigor and exactitude. Mapplethorpe’s subject matter included unashamed homoeroticism and S&M, which was, and still can be, shocking. He challenges non-gay people to be more tolerant and receptive.

A Mapplethorpe portrait

We also went to the Matthew Marks gallery to see some new work of Jasper Johns. The artist is now 88, and I was not expecting anything particularly new from him. But the work was strong! It was inspiring to see such vigor from an almost nonagenerian. Afterwards, we looked in several other Chelsea art galleries.

One of the new J. Johns

On Saturday Sally and Jocelyn did wedding-related shopping, and I went to the Armory show. This annual four-day art fair, located on piers on the West Side, featured galleries and contemporary artists from all over the world. The crowd included international jet setters, students, and all types in between. There was a lot of art I didn’t care for, though some of the things I didn’t like I still found worth thinking about.

That’s one of the things serious art does: gets your head and your eyes working. You start seeing lines and curves, lights and darks, colors and textures. And of course, you experience a gamut of emotions, from joy to disgust. You may also consider the social aspect of art, from its relation to status and hierarchy to efforts to discover and convey truth.

At the Armory show

On Saturday we went to the Metropolitan Opera to see Verdi’s Rigoletto. This production was set in Las Vegas in the 1960s, with the main characters part of a casino-based crime family. I didn’t love the concept, but I did love the performance by Nadine Sierra as Gilda. Her famous aria, Caro Nome, was really touching and beautiful. The wonderful opera podcast Aria Code, with Rhiannon Giddens, had a segment on the music and psychology of this aria a few weeks back, with Sierra as the featured singer. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the music, though I have to say, I thought her live performance was much better than the podcast one.

On Sunday morning we went to the Metropolitan Museum and spent some time looking at their exhibit of Dutch painting of the 17th century. I have a minor obsession with Vermeer, and usually find other great work of that period enjoyable. We also had a look at the pioneering photography of Giraux de Prangy, who, in the early 1840s, traveled around the Mediterranean taking the first ever daguerreotypes of the major architectural monuments of western civilization.

Finally, we looked through the Met’s abstract expressionism exhibit, which had a lot of wall size art. Some of these paintings still work for me, but increasingly they seem as uncontemporary as Vermeer. Artists are still mining the abstract expressionist vein, along with every other prior vein from Impressionism onward, and people are still enjoying and buying such work. But more and more, I’m on the lookout for a path to a new kind of artistic language.

There was an essay in the Washington Post this week by Robert Kagan entitled The Strongmen Strike Back, which I hope will start an interesting discussion. Kagan argues that there is a common thread connecting the various authoritarian regimes that have emerged in the last couple of decades, including in Russia, China, Egypt, Hungary, and elsewhere. Instead of ideology, these regimes are founded on idealization of traditional cultural touch points of race, religion, values, and status hierarchies. He suggests an answer to something that’s really been puzzling me: the acquiescence and even support of a lot of American conservatives for Vladimir Putin. He thinks it isn’t just a bloody-minded rejection of liberalism, but a defensive embrace of traditionalism.

Kagan thinks that traditional liberalism has offered individual rights and freedom, but hasn’t offered enough to those who feel their religious and other cultural preferences need protection. That seems possible. But Kagan doesn’t say much about the fearmongering and disinformation that seems to be a common thread among the new authoritarians. His vision of liberalism seems to embrace traditional American imperialism and preferential treatment for elites. I don’t think he’s really proposed a workable solution to authoritarianism, but he’s given some helpful new vocabulary.

In these fraught times, I’m always on the lookout for cheering news, and was really cheered this week to read about the young students around the world who mobilized to address climate change. There were protests in a hundred different countries and 1,700 locations, according to the Washington Post. As some of the students pointed out, adults have created a dire environmental crisis, and the world they threaten to leave to their children looks distinctly worse than the one they themselves got. This is part of the moral imperative for addressing climate change — protecting the next generation, and the ones after them.

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June 12, 2016

Flying, flowers, a fund raiser, Pavlensky, and secret condos for the superrich

I got a flying start on Friday at the 6:00 a.m. Flywheel spin class . Last week I had a discouraging outing (scoring 162) and wondered if I’d started the inevitable downward slide. But this week I made a comeback, getting off to a good start and staying strong for 45 minutes. After trailing just behind the pacemakers, I pulled slightly ahead with about 6 minutes to go. But the fellow just behind would not concede. I pushed hard, but he pushed a little harder. Final score, Tiller 320. Rival 321. It would have been good to get two more points, but I was happy with my performance.

On Friday afternoon we drove over to Chapel Hill for a fundraiser for Roy Cooper, the democratic candidate for governor here in NC, fighting the good fight to unseat incumbant Pat McCrory. Roy is our attorney general, and I also know him personally a little, from sometimes having the same early morning schedule at the gym. (He’s a good stretcher.)

He seemed cheerful on Friday. I told him I was glad to see he was standing strong against HB2 (the anti-transgender bathroom bill), and referred hm to my op-ed piece on the First Amendment violations by its supporters. He said he expected a tough campaign, andd I told him I expected him to sweep in while McCrory got swept out in a massive Trumpigeddon.

We had a nice chat with one of Roy’s daughters, and caught up with some old friends. Afterwards, we had dinner on Franklin Street at Lantern, a fine restaurant. They only had one vegetarian entrée, but it was a good one: wok-seared rice noodles.

I took most of these photos at Raulston Arboretum on Saturday morning (the others are from last week). I’d been looking forward to watching the insects there and trying to capture some images with my Tamron 180 mm lens, a hefty tool that I use with a monopod. I had some successes, but a lot of misses, with some bizarre over- and underexposures. I took the lens back to Peace Camera in the afternoon. They agreed there was a problem and said they’d send it back to the factory for repair.

This week I learned for the first time of the shocking and awesome work of Pytor Pavlensky, a Russian dissident performance artist. In his most recent work, he set fire to the front door of Russia’s principal intelligence agency, then waited to be arrested, which he was. Per the NY Times, “He has described his art as consisting of two parts: his actions and the reactions of the government, which he says tend to be mutually reinforcing.” His Wikipedia entry describes several even more shocking gestures of protest, such as sewing his mouth shut and nailing his scrotum to a crack in Red Square.

With this strange art, the point is completely clear. Pavlensky’s combination of extraordinary courage and imaginative vision is singular. The thuggish government of Vladimir Putin is a great target, of course, though there are aspects of our own government that could benefit from the abrasion of Pavlensky’s spirit.

Every Sunday, one of my guilty pleasures is examining the full-page condo ads in the New York Times Magazine. These super-high-rise apartments have stunning city views, exquisite modernist decor, and multi-multi-million dollar price tags. They are sprouting like mushrooms in Manhattan. Who lives in such digs? Well, the Times sent a reporter to find out, and he found out remarkably little. Some of the most expensive real estate on earth is owned by Anonymous – that is, mysterious shell corporations.

What is there to hide? Could these super-luxury apartments amount to wealth storage containers for loot from first, second, and third world countries’ assorted dictators, authoritarian party leaders, and kleptocrats, along with their families and cronies? They could. Could they be the trophies of the lucky one percent of the one percent, mostly born with money and augmenting that through procurement of favorable tax laws? They could. It’s natural to be envious of such luxury. But just think of this gift: our lives are not burdened with fear that others may learn that our wealth is unfairly grifted and throw us in prison for corruption — or worse.

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November 3, 2015

In New York — FOSS, museums, Broadway, and the marathon

A window table at Stella 34, with the Empire State Building in the background

New York City is still the greatest! It’s so energizing. I went up Thursday night to attend the Software Freedom Law Center’s fall conference on Friday, and for the weekend we did some fun city things – museums, Broadway, sports, and food.

The conference at Columbia Law School was in part a celebration of how far free and open source software has come, but also discussed less pleasant things, like copyright trolls and security. I enjoyed seeing a number of business friends from leading tech companies and catching up.

Jocelyn picked out some fun places to eat, including Stella 34, which is on the fifth floor of Macy’s. The Italian food was good, and we had an epic view of the Empire State Building.

On Saturday morning Sally and I went to the Metropolitan Museum and saw two special exhibits – Kongo: Power and Majesty (art of central Africa), and Ancient Egypt Transformed: the Middle Kingdom. After our recent Africa trip, I’ve been listening to African music, and was eager to learn more about its art.

Slavery and horrendous colonial exploitation is what I think of first when I think of central and western Africa, but the exhibit demonstrates that there was an elaborate and well-developed culture and artistic tradition before Europeans arrived. There was extraordinary craftsmanship in their carvings and weaving, and something powerful in their religious objects. If you can’t get to the Met, you can see all the objects here.

As for Egypt, the Middle Kingdom ran from 2030-1650 BC and from the 11th through the 13th dynasties. This exhibit also changed the way I thought of this society. It’s strange, of course, to think that pharaohs were viewed as gods, but all religions have their quirks. I’d thought of the sculpture as normally cold and formulaic, if well crafted, but was struck by how tenderly human and individual some of it was. Here again, you can check it all online.

I’ve generally avoided museum audio guides, on the theory that it’s good to struggle with finding the message of objects than to be spoon fed. But it was well worth using the Met’s audio guide for these exhibits. The commentary was usually intelligent, and it was helpful to hear the pronunciation of the unfamiliar African and Egyptian words.

Afterwards, I went down to the Museum of Modern Art to see a special exhibit of the sculpture of Picasso. Apparently Picasso did not think of himself as a sculptor, but used sculptural tools for exploring new ideas. These were often witty and lively works, in a variety of styles and media. Picasso is really inspiring in his never-ending curiosity and energy.

That evening we went to see Hamilton, a big hit on Broadway about the life of Alexander Hamilton told in the hip hop vernacular. Jocelyn had seen it twice off-Broadway, and was hugely excited about seeing it again. Her enthusiasm had motivated me to do a bit of homework beforehand, including reading the Ron Chernow biography of Hamilton, listening to the cast recording, and listening to some of the big hip hop hits of the last three decades.

I really liked the show. Hamilton’s life story is richly dramatic, and his achievements were extraordinary. That’s a good start, but to bring them into the present with an urban vernacular is such a great idea! At the same time, to take on some complicated history, with a spirit that is both playful and serious, is remarkable! The creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda is surely brilliant, and seems to understand that history is not something that is fixed, but rather always subject to reexamination and new understandings. Anyhow, it’s both a fun show, and richly thoughtful. How often does that happen?

On Sunday morning we walked up to Central Park South to see the New York City Marathon. It is, of course, remarkable that people can run 26.2 miles at any speed, much less the pace that the elite athletes do. We were privileged to see the top finishers approaching Columbus Circle, close to the end. They looked focused, but not miserable. I read the next day that the men’s winner, Stanley Biwott of Kenya, ran mile 21 in 4:24, and only a few seconds slower for the next two miles. That is beyond amazing!

Winner Mary Keitany of Kenya, with about a third of a mile to go

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May 27, 2015

Our Memorial Day weekend in New York — great ballet, art, and ethnic food

The New York Palace (that’s our place on the 32nd floor) and St. Patrick’s Cathedral

For Memorial Day weekend, we went up to New York City to see our sweet Jocelyn and get an infusion of arts and food. I’d bought tickets to both the NYC Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre, and wanted to see the new Whitney Museum. We designated Jocelyn as the food concierge, and she booked us into some fun ethnic restaurants. After going back and forth, I decided not to lug along my big DSLR kit, and instead took my compact Canon G16, with the results shown here.

Sunset right after we checked in at the New York Palace

The flight up went smoothly (storage room remaining in the overhead bin, on time departure, seatmate not apparently infectious). I read a piece in the last New Yorker on Marc Andreessen, the famous Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist. It was a good primer on what VC is and does, and seemed like a fair portrait of Andreesen and his firm (Andreesen Horowitz). He is, of course, intelligent and richer than Croesus, but, it turns out, sort of inexpressive and unadventurous in his personal life. (His likes watching television.) And for all his successful bets on where technology is about to go, he seems in complete denial about the big economic changes technology is bringing, like rising inequality and unemployment. Cognitive dissonance, perhaps?

We stayed at the New York Palace on Madison and 50th. This hotel opened in 1981, when we lived in Manhattan, and was known as the Helmsley Palace, with ads that featured a then-famous dragon lady named Leona Helmsley touting its remarkable luxuriousness in a loathsome way. Now rebranded (thank goodness), it is quite a fine hotel, and from our room on the 32d floor we had good views of Manhattan towers and a sliver of the East River.

We had dinner in Curry Hill, the little Indian restaurant neighborhood at 28th and Lexington, at Chote Nawab. It’s a lively place, and the food was good, but our server was amazingly inattentive. Even so, we had fun catching up.

It was remarkably clear on Saturday morning and a bit chilly when we went down to the meat packing district to the new Whitney, which is situated on Gansevoort right where the High Line starts. It took a minute to absorb that the line to get in was a block long, and we kicked ourselves for not buying tickets in advance. But the line moved quickly, and we were inside in about 20 minutes. The place was crowded, but with a little patience we managed to get close to the pieces that interested us.

Eva Hesse’s last work before her death at 34

The current exhibition is called America is Hard to See, which is so true, and is a loosely chronological survey of some of the key examples of the Whitney’s permanent collection. It starts on the eighth floor (the top) with the beginning of the 20th century, and comes down and toward the present. The works were given a good amount of space, and where there were narrative labels, they were helpful.

At this point in my own art historical education, Abstract Expressionism from the 50s seems more like an old friend than a shocker. But I found myself moved and shaken by some of the political art of the 60s (some of the big issues of that time are still big issues). I also engaged with the minimalism and conceptualism from more recent decades. It struck me that this was art intended to be discussed, to expand out into a social dialog. It wasn’t about just looking — it was also about talking.

The Whitney’s decks

In addition to the fine display spaces, the new museum has large outdoor decks. We lucked out, with beautiful weather, and after each floor, we stepped out in the sun clear our heads and enjoy the wonderful cityscape views.

Looking south from the Whitney at the new Freedom Tower

We’d thought of visiting some galleries in the area after the museum, but after two and a half hours at the Whitney I was more than sufficiently stimulated, and a bit wrung out. Jocelyn met us outside the museum, and we walked up to the Flatiron District, where we had good lunch at a Korean place called Barn Joo.

Then Jocelyn gave us a tour of her offices in the Flatiron Building. This iconic triangular building at 23d and Broadway, completed in 1902, was one of the first skyscrapers in New York. J’s employer, Macmillan Publishers, is now the sole tenant. The offices were nothing fancy, but still fun to see. It reminded me of our offices at The New Yorker in the late 70s. There was a great view of the Empire State Building from the northern point of the building.

The Flatiron Building

We poked around in Eataly, a giant gourmet grocery and restaurants space, which was very crowded and fully of delicious smells. Jocelyn promoted the cookies at a bakery a few doors down as the best in New York, so we bought three and ordered coffee. The barista for some reason had trouble with our order, and took ten minutes to produce various beverages we had not ordered. We consumed them at a table near Madison Square Park. My cookie was a good mix of smooth and crunchy, and I enjoyed it very much.

The Empire State Building, from the Flatiron Building

We had dinner at Boulud Sud, a Mediterranean Restaurant at 64th St. near Lincoln Center. The place was bustling. There were no veggie options on the menu, but they proposed a gnocchi dish that was good.

We finished dinner with enough time (barely) to get to our seats at the Metropolitan Opera House to see the American Ballet Theatre perform Giselle. I was interested in Giselle in part for its historical significance as one of the oldest ballets still in the common repertoire. It was first performed in Paris in 1841, with Carlotta Grisi as Giselle and Lucien Petipa as Albrecht. It must have been astonishing at the time to see the women rise and hover en pointe.

This production had Stella Abrera as Giselle and Vladimir Shklyarov as Albrecht. Abrera was not previously known to me, but I will not forget her. She was sublime. Her gestures seemed somehow to be magnified and extended, with a remarkable emotional intensity, without being overstated. Shklyarov was also excellent. In the second act, the ethereal Wilis were spookily graceful, and when they tried to dance Albrecht to death, Shklyarov was so fervid that it seemed on the verge of real danger. The ovation was tremendous by New York standards, with the audience clapping for about 10 minutes. After I drafted this, I saw Alastair McCaulay’s review in the Times, which was a rave for Abrera.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

On Sunday morning we took a taxi up to the Metropolitan Museum. I’d been looking forward to seeing an exhibit of the art of the plains Indians, but it had, unfortunately, closed. But there is always a lot to see at the Met. We started with a tiny exhibit of Van Gogh’s irises and roses, which had four paintings. The signs explained that the red pigment in the paintings had deteriorated and changed the colors of the paintings, and a video offered an interpretation of what they must have looked like. We spent time with the Lehman collection of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, thirty or so great paintings that sum of the field amazingly well.

A Vermeer that just kills me

Then we made our way to the galleries with the Vermeers and Rembrandts. I listened to an interesting podcast the previous week with a debate on whether Rembrandt or Vermeer was the greater artist, and confirmed that I’m more of a Vermeer man. The Met has 5 of the 35 or so existing Vermeers, and I particularly love a couple of them. We also spent time looking at the pre-Colombian art, which is getting more and more interesting to me, and African art.

We met Jocelyn for lunch on the West side at Nanoosh, a Mediterranean spot, and I had some delicious falafel. Then Jocelyn came with me to Lincoln Center to see the New York City Ballet perform La Sylphide. This was, again, for me partly about ballet history, since La Sylphide is another path-breaking early work, from 1834 by August Bournonville. Lauren Lovette was the Sylph, and Anthony Huxley was James. The corps of Sylphs in Act II was, like the Wilis in Giselle, all in diaphanous white tulle, and entrancing. Lovette danced beautifully.

Jocelyn outside the David H. Koch (aka “El Diablo”) Theater

After the ballet we went down to the west Village, where we found an outside table and sipped wine, then had dinner at Pagani, an Italian restaurant. We liked our food, and the service was good until dessert time, when things suddenly came to a halt. The staff regrouped, though, and comped our tiramisu.

On Sunday morning we checked out and took a cab out to Jocelyn’s place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Her area seemed sort of Village-like, at least on a sunny Memorial Day holiday. We met up with our and J’s old friend Kathryn M, and ate at a South African restaurant called Madiba, which had a lot of funky charm, though it took a while to get a beer. I had the vegetable Durban curry, and liked it, and heard about Kathryn’s new admin job at Victoria’s Secret.

Then we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, where there were things that were blooming and things that were not. I didn’t see a great diversity of species, but the landscaping was pretty. We also took a stroll through some of Prospect Park. There were hundreds of Brooklynites picnicking, playing, and soaking in the sun.

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November 4, 2012

Code Orange: Superstorm Sandy, climate change, and security threats

When Superstorm Sandy devastated the northeast earlier this week, Sally, Gabe, and Jocelyn were caught in New York City. Their planned short fun visit turned into a week-long ordeal. They were staying in SoHo when the storm hit and their hotel lost power and water, and stores, restaurants, and transportation systems all closed down. Thousands of flights, including theirs, were cancelled.

My sweet Tillers eventually made their way to the upper West Side and found a down-market hotel to stay in until LGA came back online and they could get flights out. As I write this, millions are still without electricity, water, food, and transportation, and dealing with enormous personal and financial losses.

I expected that the superstorm would get climate change and what to do about it onto the front page. Could there be any more dramatic example of what rising seas and increasingly severe storms could do to our coastal population centers? Wouldn’t the climate change-deniers find it impossible to deny the reality of such a catastrophe?

But the superstorm showed once again how difficult it is to get this difficult conversation going. It is not an issue politicians or editors, or ordinary people for that matter, usually like to talk about. Why? Because it is disturbing and depressing. We don’t have a comprehensive solution, but we can be pretty sure addressing it will require massive funding and considerable sacrifice. Some are receptive to voices that tell us we don’t need to sacrifice, because science is not 100% certain (which it never is). Humans in general, and Americans in particular, are usually good at recognizing and addressing emergencies like sinking ships and burning buildings. But if we’re not entirely convinced there’s a real emergency that has a direct impact on us, we generally prefer to kick the can down the road, and think about more cheerful things.

While New York was in the midst of the huge storm, it struck me that this disaster could be compared to a terrorist attack, and that it might be a good idea to use that comparison as a conceptual tool. It seems reasonable to think of climate change as a security issue. Massive storms threaten our lives and economy in much the way that bombs do. In terms of financial loss and dislocation, Sandy was far worse all of the terrorist attacks we’ve ever seen.

And the vocabulary of security seems to be one that gets people’s attention and inspires action. We’ve probably gone overboard in exaggerating the threat of terrorist attacks, as I’m reminded every time I get on an airplane, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to address it.

To be sure, as to climate change, an important part of the worry is about the well-being of future generations, and it’s likely that most people give greater weight to the lives of living humans than to future ones. But as Superstorm Sandy showed dramatically, it’s also affecting us today.

Another thing that might help is basic science education. A lot of people don’t understand that science is in an important sense probabilistic. The most accurate conception we can ever form of nature includes a considerable range of uncertainty. There will never be a day when we can say with certainty that climate change was the sole or primary cause of a particular weather event, because of the inherent complexity of the ecosystem. But probabilities are also realities. Once the probability of rain gets high enough, we’ll take along an umbrella. If we can get a reasonable level of scientific literacy, we won’t use lack of complete certainty as an excuse for kicking the can down the road.

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Tag: New York City