Now at New York University checking email and posting to this site while Jim does some special collection stuff. I'm starting to get a bit of a collection of temporary library cards. Jim has loads from all over. We'll have to do something with them some day. NYU is in Greenwich Village just off Washington Square so a rather neat area to explore. Big news yesterday was about a student in creative writing here actually managed to live in the library for the last eights months undetected. He got found out because he was posting his experience to his weblog! With tuition at just under 30K US and residence another 12K he didn't have the money to live in res. Seems the university officials were pretty good about it and gave him a free room in residence until the end of the year.

Weather is sunny and coolish today so makes for great walking weather. We heard LA was 102 F yesterday...glad we aren't there now.

We've done the bus, metro, taxi, and walking and it really is great that NYC is such a wonderful pedestrian city which means lots of transit. Manhattan is really easy to get around and taxis are unbelievable cheap although I read in the New York Sun (great little newspaper for only 25 cents) that next week fares go up 26%. I think the cabbies really deserve it...seems they clear around $75 a day with no benefits paid. One fellow interviewed said the only doctors he sees are the ones he has in his cab as passengers.

Yesterday Jim had to spend the whole day at the New York Public Library (found lots of great stuff) so went to Lincoln Centre and also to the annex of the American Museum of Folk Art which is in the region. Will go to the new main building later in the week. The annex had some very interesting quilts as well as the a special commenorative 9/ll quilt, decoys, weather vanes, and various other quite neat things. I'm looking forward to the main exhibit. Then actually walked 50 blocks back to where our apartment is in the upper west side. Walked along Central Park Avenue for most of the way. It is a most magnificent park. Also, fun to see all the doormen calling cabs for their wealthy tenants. And of course the ubiquitous brownstones have a quality all themselves.

Got to the Guggenheim after Columbia the other day and certainly the architecture is rather impressive. Lots of strange modern stuff (mainly in the minimalist genre) in the spiral. One piece I thought was quite fun was a very large bunch of cellophane wrapped licorice bars and the viewer was invited to "take one". I took a couple and have an illicit pix of someone taking one (didn't realize you couldn't take photos). I liked this because a number of the other exhibits had to have special guards making sure you saw what the exhibit was and didn't step on it or something. Also had some good impressionist and modern stuff in the Thannhauser collection.

Greetings from NYC! We had a great flight...only about 1/3 full on the plane so could spread out and everything on time. We're very pleased with our apartment here and he owner was very nice and helpful. Lots of markets, restaurants, and services in the area so fun to shop and feel like a part of living in NYC. I'm always amazed about how friendly and helpful New Yorkers are. Raining today so impossible to get a taxi so took the bus but unlike LA where you can use bills, here only quarters, which, of course, we didn't have. Someone on the bus immediately pulled out a bag of quarters to help. And it continues on with all sorts of people helping us find our way, chat, etc. At Columbia University right now killing time as the rare books area isn't open until noon. Think we'll try to take in the Guggenheim after that.

Aa few pix of our visit to Beaconhill Park. Now I know why I haven't been there since making trips to the petting zoo with Richard. It is sooo dull...! The petting zoo is still the best thing about it.



The alapacas were very cool...don't remember them being there.



I'm quite sure this is the first time I've seen a white peacock.



Richard and me taken by holding the camera in front of us. Great thing about digital cameras is you can always take another one if it does't work.

Practicing uploading to blogger from Jim's laptop.

A few pix of these great poppies that seem to come up every year around our house.

This is the only painting I did when we were in California. Forgot I did it actually...just came across it when trying to get rid of clutter. I'm not going to bother taking paints on our next trips since we're moving around too much. I must work on simplifying what I take when I do think I will do some painting.



Fox Cinema - acrylic on paper 8" x 10"

I've been impressed with the art I've seen at Toronto's new Terminal I. I particularly liked this aluminum-plate sculpture of five flying figures by Jonathan Borofsky called "I dreamed I could fly". Perhaps Toronto's airport will make it in the top ten in the world.

Vancouver is #8 and is the only North American airport to make the list. I think it's a wonderful airport and feel very proud every time I enter it. I notice it took a few hits from the evaluators for surly over-zealous customs agents...I can testify to that!

Hong Kong's relatively new airport shares top spot with Singapore's. Ten years ago I was very surprised and disappointed by HK's very dingy airport...glad to see they have something world class now.


"I dreamed I could fly" by Jonathan Borofsky
Location: Terminal I - Toronto Pearson International Airport

This is a canvas mat I just finished. I've been wanting to do sunflowers and a black and white check border for a while now for a mat to go in front of the sink. It didn't quite work out the way I had in mind but I'm quite pleased with it and it goes well with the terracotta kitchen floor.



"Sunflowers and checks"
Canvas floor mat - 23" x 29"

Books I'm NOT reading...all rather disappointing...glad I got them from the library!

"Consider This, Senora" by Harriet Doerr. As much as I liked her first novel (Sontes for Ibarra), her writing style seems to have gotten worse in this rather than better...too many happy coincidences and not very authenic sounding. I did like the painting on the cover, though.



"Island" by Jack Hodgins. I heard him read from this and although I enjoyed his reading I figured I wouldn't particularly like the book. Picked it up on a 7 day Fast Read to give it a try.

"Cat's Pilgrimage" by Marily Bowering. Didn't get past the book jacket on this one. Also had read a bad review.

"Tell No One" by Harlan Coben. Thought I might find a good mystery writer here but his style isn't for me.

I'm really pleased with the way the Victrola came up and it's working great as a wine and liquor cabinet. I changed the design a bit from the canvas I did first.

I don't seem to have been reading that much lately. Too busy with travel and travel plans I guess and I don't seem to do a lot of reading when travelling. Read another No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency called "Tears of the Giraffe"...simple, charming, delightful as always. I guess I will tire of these stories because there isn't really much to them but for the moment I really enjoy them.

When we were in LA I picked up Shirley Hazzard's memoir on encounters with Graham Greene called "Greene on Capri". They both had houses there and met frequently over the years. I bought it for Jim really but surprised myself by reading and liking it. Generally I'm not thrilled with memoirs.

Noticed the Shirley Hazzard had a new book out (first one 20 years after "The Transit of Venus") called "The Great Fire"...all about the aftermath of WW II. I think it quite captures that end of war chaos and people left adrift to re-create their lives again after the war and in the shadow of the prospect of another war. I enjoyed it and was engaged by the characters and story even though I sometimes got the feeling the author was using up material that wasn't really necessary. Something about the atmosphere in the book that I quite liked and I found I didn't mind these faults. Also enjoyed some very insightful comments by the male protagonist on the nature of women. Always rather interesting when a female writer writes through the male point of view and comments on women.

"Stones from Ibarra" by Harriet Doerr...another of my Christmas books that Jim feratted out.
Most interesting writer. She was the ultimate "late bloomer" - finished her Stanford degree at 67 and won a National Book Award for "Stone..." at the age of 73. Story about a California couple who sell everything to reopen a copper mine the husband's grandfather was forced to abandon during the Mexican Revolution. More a collection of insightful vignettes about the Mexicana and American cultures than a novel although it does hang together as a novel as well.