Wednesday:
-mental soundtrack --> the Stone Roses
-Marilyn's awesomely enviable 9th Ave apartment
-subway ride to Brooklyn
-cheese plate + fresh veggie ravioli + lemon tart + glass of red
-back to Manhattan, with Marilyn's dog Calvin in tow and garnering attention from cute girls and boys alike
-the Rakes and the Pigeon Detectives stage a proper British invasion at the Knitting Factory as part of the In the City of New York festival
-Newcastle Brown Ale
Thursday:
-mental soundtrack --> Jens Lekman
-Dunkin Donuts
-Neo Rauch's genuinely great new paintings of misplaced memories and failed utopias at the Met
-not to mention the new Greek and Roman galleries, the Poiret exhibit, that Manet painting...
-the awning of Mom's former apartment on the Upper East Side
-soul-stirring examples of conceptual photography taken from 1964-1989 at Zwirner + Wirth Gallery, including favorites by Sol LeWitt, Vito Acconci, Marcel Broodthaers, Carolee Schneeman, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Ana Mendieta, Gilbert and George, Bruce Nauman, and a Bas Jan Ader falling picture it was downright painful for me to leave in the gallery
-warm asparagus mesclun salad, mushrooms and avocado + codfish roasted with marinated vegetables in an aromatic sauce + blueberry soup with lemongrass sorbet
-Dan Torop's photographs at Derek Eller Gallery of sublime winter landscapes from Iceland and the Rockies and upstate New York
-Dike Blair's sculptures of everyday objects paired with beautifully detailed gouaches at Feature Inc
-my longtime heroes Peter Fischli and David Weiss at Matthew Marks Gallery with a behind-the-scenes video about the making of The Way Things Go, as well as a huge collection of photographs capturing their precariously balanced objects
-evocative sculptures and black-and-white photography by South African artist Robin Rhode at Perry Rubenstein Gallery
-chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting and an entire half of a Reese's cup baked into its center, consumed under the watchful eye of the Abingdon Square pigeons
-lecture at the Architectural League about recent award-winning museum and exhibition designs...and about how to design a Chelsea rooftop terrace with the clients' cats in mind
-mixed green salad with Coach Farm's triple creme goat cheese, toasted pumpkin seed and apple cider vinegar + wild salmon with horseradish crust, cabbage and Riesling
-a nightcap in the bar at the Hudson
Friday:
-mental soundtrack --> Bjork
-sesame bagel with butter
-Cuban artists interpret the revolution in works created from 1980 to the present in the Killing Time show at Exit Art
-Harlem and the beautiful Abyssinian Baptist Church
-up through Morningside Park to Dad's former apartment building...and the first-floor window he once broke with a tennis ball
-dry spaghetti with black olives, capers and tomato sauce + a glass of Syrah
-Gego's drawings and wire sculptures at the Drawing Center turn my brain on its side as they find the space between transparency and the invisible
-window-shopping in Soho and a delicious blondie
-Jasmine Dellal's utterly enchanting new documentary Gypsy Caravan at the Angelika Film Center, shot by Albert Maysles and featuring music that made me tingle all the way to my toes
-dealing with an unexpected and heart-wrenching flood of emotions when confronted with the intersection where Brian and I first met, but at least with my sunglasses on no one could see me crying
-cheese plate and half a bottle of Syrah
-more pints of McSorley's than I can count
-a slice of cheese pizza
-the office cats of the shipping company right next to my hotel
Saturday:
-mental soundtrack --> Godspeed You Black Emperor
-eggs Benedict with lox + Mimosa
-Adam Simon's riveting 2000 documentary The American Nightmare at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the film series "It's Only a Movie: Horror Films from the 1970s and Today"
-a sweet American Eskimo dogger named Jojo
-another slice of cheese pizza and the parlor's resident kitty
-a gorgeous sudden, brief thunderstorm
-the addition of Tom, fresh in from D.C., to our merry band
-sundried tomato flour tortilla filled with broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, rice, beans and cheese, topped with enchilada sauce and sour cream
-pachinko machine in the bathroom stall at Tao
-impressively snappy dialogue and acting, not to mention intense catharsis, in Nina Raine's play Rabbit, performed at 59E59 Theater as part of the Brits Off Broadway series
-multiple screwdrivers imbibed under the shadow of the Empire State Building with the Chrysler glimmering in the distance at rooftop bar 230 5th Ave
Sunday:
-mental soundtrack --> Stars
-Times Square, pre-dawn, from the window of my SuperShuttle
-light slowly filling the sky over Manhattan
-one last Dunkin Donuts fix