Books and other stuff I feel like discussing
By education and experience - Accountant with a specialty in taxation. Formerly a CPA (license has lapsed). Masters degree in law of taxation from University of Denver. Now retired. Part time work during baseball season as receptionist & switchboard operator for the Colorado Rockies. This gig feeds my soul in ways I have trouble articulating. One daughter, and four grandchildren. I share the house with two cats; a big goof of a cat called Grinch (named as a joke for his easy going "whatever" disposition); and Lady, a shelter adoptee with a regal bearing and sweet little soprano voice. I would be very bereft if it ever becomes necessary to keep house without a cat.
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A few days in New York - Tuesday
For quite a few years, I've wanted to see the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York in person. The package tour operator I used to visit Yankee Stadium in August of 2008 has me on their email list, and when I saw their options for New York during the week of the parade I booked a trip.
I got there on Monday afternoon. Traveling from the mountain time zone, with a four hour flight pretty much manages to consume the entire day, so late Monday afternoon I had time for a long walk in the neighborhood of the hotel. I was in a small hotel in the Murray Hill neighborhood - that's a few blocks south of the Empire State building. I noticed carry out, buffet steam table places by the dozen as I strolled around, so I got some dinner, and went back to the hotel, and went to bed early.
Tuesday I took an uptown bus to the area where museums are thick, Cooper Hewitt, Guggenheim, Metropolitan, and many more. I was only in the Cooper Hewitt for a short time, somehow it didn't quite live up to my expectations. They seem to be in the middle of a large expansion and upgrade project, and I gathered that some of their display space was closed off and galleries being reorganized. Perhaps I just went on the wrong day.
The Guggenheim, however, was a delight. The main exhibit space was devoted to works in various media produced in Germany and Italy in the years between the two great wars of the 20th century. Many of the artists and some of the works on display had been included in the exhibit of "degenerate art" which the Nazis mounted in Munich in 1937, to show people what they should not like. Much of the content of the Munich exhibit was confiscated from various museums, and of course, many people who left Germany or who were arrested and sent to camps were forced to abandon their treasures, and many of those items were stolen by the Nazis as well.
The Guggenheim is only able to display a fraction of the works in this category, but it was still a very instructive and entertaining afternoon. Wright intended (I'm pretty sure I'm right about this) for visitors to his iconic building to go to the top of the corkscrew ramp and walk down. The little booklet we received, and the audio tour provided with the price of admission started at the bottom. Well, bag that, I went to the top and came down.
Works were displayed in thematic groups, not by year of creation, so my method didn't play havoc with the organization.
Then on to the Metropolitan. That place is so huge - By that time I was hungry, and I was looking for a room where I had lunch with some friends about 10 years ago. I never found it, perhaps the space is no longer used as a dining room. But I did have a "sit down and be waited on lunch" anyway, in another cubbyhole I found. I love the large courtyard in the American wing, with the granite facade of a demolished bank building facing the large light filled area with small sculptures here and there. And just around the corner from that space was a large, make that huge, Christmas tree decorated with medieval ornaments.
I had a ticket for an Off Broadway play in that general area of Manhattan, so I found a Starbucks, got a cup of tea, and read until it was time to have dinner and go get my theater ticket.
FREUD'S LAST SESSION - an imagined conversation between Sigmund Freud and the theolgian C S Lewis. Playwright Mark St Germain worked from a book titled THE QUESTION OF GOD by Nicholi. He places the action on the day Britain declared war on Germany, and about three weeks before the end of Freud's life. The play is funny, challenging, and by the end, heart wrenching. Freud was very seriously ill by this time, and in the script, the realities of his condition touch Lewis deeply. The two actors playing the two men carry the entire thing on their shoulders - there are no other cast members.
At this point, I was quite some distance from my hotel, and it was well into the evening. Here in Denver, you get a taxi by phone, unless you happen to be at the airport or at a hotel. I wasn't sure about how successful I would be at finding transport, being new to the big city and all. Not to worry. While I was strolling over to Starbucks and waiting to cross a street, I observed ten people successfully hail a cab. Since that corner was less than a block from the theater, I headed over there. I raised my arm, and THREE cabs screeched to a halt. Trying to be fair, I got in the first one that stopped, and was tucking myself into bed about 30 minutes later.
I got there on Monday afternoon. Traveling from the mountain time zone, with a four hour flight pretty much manages to consume the entire day, so late Monday afternoon I had time for a long walk in the neighborhood of the hotel. I was in a small hotel in the Murray Hill neighborhood - that's a few blocks south of the Empire State building. I noticed carry out, buffet steam table places by the dozen as I strolled around, so I got some dinner, and went back to the hotel, and went to bed early.
Tuesday I took an uptown bus to the area where museums are thick, Cooper Hewitt, Guggenheim, Metropolitan, and many more. I was only in the Cooper Hewitt for a short time, somehow it didn't quite live up to my expectations. They seem to be in the middle of a large expansion and upgrade project, and I gathered that some of their display space was closed off and galleries being reorganized. Perhaps I just went on the wrong day.
The Guggenheim, however, was a delight. The main exhibit space was devoted to works in various media produced in Germany and Italy in the years between the two great wars of the 20th century. Many of the artists and some of the works on display had been included in the exhibit of "degenerate art" which the Nazis mounted in Munich in 1937, to show people what they should not like. Much of the content of the Munich exhibit was confiscated from various museums, and of course, many people who left Germany or who were arrested and sent to camps were forced to abandon their treasures, and many of those items were stolen by the Nazis as well.
The Guggenheim is only able to display a fraction of the works in this category, but it was still a very instructive and entertaining afternoon. Wright intended (I'm pretty sure I'm right about this) for visitors to his iconic building to go to the top of the corkscrew ramp and walk down. The little booklet we received, and the audio tour provided with the price of admission started at the bottom. Well, bag that, I went to the top and came down.
Works were displayed in thematic groups, not by year of creation, so my method didn't play havoc with the organization.
Then on to the Metropolitan. That place is so huge - By that time I was hungry, and I was looking for a room where I had lunch with some friends about 10 years ago. I never found it, perhaps the space is no longer used as a dining room. But I did have a "sit down and be waited on lunch" anyway, in another cubbyhole I found. I love the large courtyard in the American wing, with the granite facade of a demolished bank building facing the large light filled area with small sculptures here and there. And just around the corner from that space was a large, make that huge, Christmas tree decorated with medieval ornaments.
I had a ticket for an Off Broadway play in that general area of Manhattan, so I found a Starbucks, got a cup of tea, and read until it was time to have dinner and go get my theater ticket.
FREUD'S LAST SESSION - an imagined conversation between Sigmund Freud and the theolgian C S Lewis. Playwright Mark St Germain worked from a book titled THE QUESTION OF GOD by Nicholi. He places the action on the day Britain declared war on Germany, and about three weeks before the end of Freud's life. The play is funny, challenging, and by the end, heart wrenching. Freud was very seriously ill by this time, and in the script, the realities of his condition touch Lewis deeply. The two actors playing the two men carry the entire thing on their shoulders - there are no other cast members.
At this point, I was quite some distance from my hotel, and it was well into the evening. Here in Denver, you get a taxi by phone, unless you happen to be at the airport or at a hotel. I wasn't sure about how successful I would be at finding transport, being new to the big city and all. Not to worry. While I was strolling over to Starbucks and waiting to cross a street, I observed ten people successfully hail a cab. Since that corner was less than a block from the theater, I headed over there. I raised my arm, and THREE cabs screeched to a halt. Trying to be fair, I got in the first one that stopped, and was tucking myself into bed about 30 minutes later.
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