Okay, so this says a Day at the Met, and this is clearly not the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's Times Square, and I'm enjoying myself in a chair in the middle of the street. Since this is NY, you'd think that they had actually invented chairs, there's so much hoopla about putting this couch-potato friendly area in the middle of the street. You can even buy a T shirt that, instead of saying I (heart) New York, says I (chair) New York. Anyway, that was Monday. We also went to Chinatown and had gelato in Little Italy. Weekly subway passes are now $27 I think. Ouch.
Tuesday, we went to the Metropolitan. I've been emailing a woman in NY who I met in cyberspace by way of the harp, and we decided to meet while we were here. She lives in NY and has started playing the harp in the past year. Her name is Laura. We were to meet her, and I sent her a picture of John and myself, and she told us she had short salt and pepper hair and would be wearing a green blouse.
It was pouring rain when we left the apartment. Usually Martha has a whole can full of umbrellas, but this morning there was only one. I found a poncho in the closet, and I wore that. Thank God for coat checks. Anyway, I guess we all arrived at the museum at the same time and went to opposite coat checks. John and I stood at the door waiting for her to arrive, but she was already there. Finally she recognized us from the picture I had sent her. We had a wonderful day. We opened the museum and closed it.
First we went to see the Francis Bacon exhibit. (The modern painter, not the English writer). Many of his pictures are very disturbing. He had a fascination with butchery, and included a lot of gory details of butchering in his paintings of people and religious subjects. It seemed to me that in the last years of his life, he may have been somewhat happier, but that would be quite relative. He did at least start using some lighter colors. From there we took in the New American Wing, which I think is the New new American Wing, because didn't they call it the New American wing before? They have a wonderful exhibition of American crafts from colonial times through the early 20th century. The old favorites, Tiffany windows and that great Tiffany fountain, are still there, but in new digs, and they've trucked out a lot of silver that I haven't seen before, and all of it is in a light almost atrium-like room.
From there we visited the Afghanistan exhibit, a number of things that were in the museum in Kabul 25 years ago, and were buried by brave curators to keep them out of the hands of the Russians and later the Taliban, and have just been unearthed. They are a treasure trove of ancient Afghan culture, and seem to demonstrate that they had a certain amount of trade and commerce with Greece and India.
From there we wandered through the Impressionists, some Renaissance rooms, some other rooms where we were simply there because we didn't know where we were, and finally went through the modern art section. Here we are reflected in one of the pieces of art.
Laura chose not to eat with us for dinner -- I might add we had a really good lunch at the Met -- and John and I went to one of our West Side favorites, Celeste's, and had pasta. It's a really cute little neighborhood restaurant. I think we eat there every time we are here.
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