New York: Three Boroughs, Two Days, Lots of Pastry

I got into New York in the afternoon and made my way to my site of annnual Pilgrimage: Dean and Deluca, a cathedral of food. This temple to the palate has wonderful selections of cheese, meat, fish, bread, pastries….sigh. All ridiculously expensive, but the sushi isn’t too bad, so I got some to go and decided to eat it in Washington Square Park while reading my book and killing time before meeting up with Kai and Gabi.

So, I sit in the park and eat my sushi and watch the people and read my book, when I notice that the busker nearby is arguing with a guy who seems somewhat deranged. The deranged man is all up in the busker’s space and acting very strangely. He lies on the ground. The busker drags the deranged man by the feet about 5 feet to get him away from his spot. I decide this is a good time to move to a bench around the corner. I do. I read my book. Suddenly, an altercation erupts – the busker starts yelling at the deranged man, and then he is grabbing his guitar and beating the deranged man in the head with it. Pieces of the guitar fly through the air. Everyone in the park collectively stand up from their benches, turn, look, gasp, and then there are people rushing forward to separate the two men. Someone gets the busker away and walks with him out of the park. Ten minutes later, the five police cars show up. A woman who witnessed it close-up gives testimony. The police are talking to the deranged man. The busker is nowhere in sight. DRAMA. I decide, as my time to meet Kai is nearing, that I should move on from this scene.

So I find myself waiting for Kai at a café near NYU where there is supposed to be a poetry reading. It is called, “Haiku Not Bombs.” It looks promising – nice space, crowded. But then it starts, and there is mood lighting behind the reader, ambient music, and a reverb effect on the mic projecting very bad haiku. Kai arrives. We are horrified. Time to split from this artistic disaster also. Though this one was at least good for a snickering chuckle at the pretentious and ridiculous heights of bad poetry

Kai and I meet up with Gabi and Joseph at a bar called VON on Bleeker and Bowery, which is very cool, but loud. I watch a couple on a date. She giddly talks with her hands in every direction. He stares hungrily at her with an expression of desperate hopefulness. Eventually, I realize I am exhausted, and Gabi and I head back to her parents’ house.

This is the first time I have ever spent any time on the Upper West Side, and I have decided I am definitely a fan. Gabi’s home is an apartment in an old building built in the 1890s, and her family has lived in their apartment since the seventies. I was fascinated by her descriptions of the long time residents: the woman whose living room is a shrine to Sai Baba, an Indian Guru. The architect who has a book of drawings of the upper west side buildings. The Italian couple who used to bring out their lawn chairs and sit with the hot dog guy across the street all day long. Fascinating.

The next day, Gabi and I have a decadent brunch at Café Lalo – where one feels transported to Paris in the soft glow of the enormous pastry case housing cakes and croissants and other buttery delights. (Also the site of filming for You’ve Got Mail) The café au lait is just what a café au lait should be – not too milky, rich, and perfectly crowned with foam. The chocolate croissant was also flaky and perfect. With our bellies full, we head uptown to visit the Cloisters museum – the branch of the Met that houses the medieval art collection, including architectural structures – pieces of European chapels and churches reconstructed on the northern tip of Manhattan. We cavort around the medieval gardens doing silly photo shoots among the plants.

We return home, and I decide to go visit Kai in her new apartment in Queens. On the train. Change trains. Walk. SO MUCH WALKING IN NEW YORK. Kai and I have a good time catching up, and then I get the train back. Traveling in New York is so tiring. I was exhausted every night and just fell on the bed and passed out.

The next day, Gabi and I head out with the intention of doing some studying, which we do in fact accomplish. We walk up to a Hungarian Café on Amsterdam, right across from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which is one of my favorite places in New York. After working in the café for an hour or two, we walk through the cathedral and then head back to the café for a pastry. We split an apple tart and make it into another silly photo shoot.

After dropping our computers and books back at home, we head to midtown to meet up with my cousin Emily, who works at the Strand bookstore. Though I like the pace of uptown, downtown is SOOOO overwhelming. So many people. So fast. Crazy. We grab Emily from the hive-like buzz of the bookstore and get some Vietnamese food for dinner together, then drop her back off at work and head for the F train, walking briskly through the East Village, in order to meet our friend Chris in Brooklyn. We find him at a bar called Trout in Carol Gardens, and catch up on all the grad school gossip that has mushroomed over the summer. Chris has to go, but then we meet up with Gabi’s sister Shevi for a bit before heading back to the train and the Upper West Side. We got a slice of pizza from Big Nick’s, and a haze of satisfaction descended upon me as I sprinkle peppers and oregano and garlic salt and parmasean all over the huge thin crust slice.

Whew. I can’t believe I covered so much ground. Invigorating. Exciting. Don’t know if I could live there, but what a crazy fun two and a half days!!! Now I am heading up to my grandmother’s house bearing gifts of bagels…though in a fit of confusion at the bagel counter, I ordered 6 cinnamon raison and 6 pumpernickle. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I get sesame?

Swimming in Paradise

Today was a fabulous day. I studied french for an hour or two, though when I went to read Le Monde, it still seemed like greek. Then I headed up to Livingston Manor where there is a wonderful bookshop called Hamish and Henry, in search of some good books on the Catskills that might be useful for my project. LO! I happened upon a relatively new book, published last year, called: Making Mountains: New York City and the Catskills. THIS is a FIND. Almost exactly what I was looking for - a study of the inter-relationship between urban and rural places and the history of the development of their identities. A windfall from the Gods.

Then I ran into my friend Kurt, and we had an interesting discussion about my ideas and grad school and the catskills and the radio station. You know, one of those conversations where you wish there was some sort of cosmic tape recorder you could just press play on when you wanted to. As it was, I scribbled down some of Kurt's comments, quickly reconstructing them after he left on the back side of a receipt.

The afternoon was hot, but I was restless, so back home in Jeffersonville, I took my new book and went for a walk in town and peeked in the windows of a print shop just down the road. I had hoped to stop inside and look around, but it was closed. You can see straight into the huge glass windows, though, and see three or four old iron printing presses, and shelved and shelves of type, all in labeled drawers. Hanging on the walls were cards and posters, examples of wedding announcements and invitations. They looked beautiful. I'm hoping maybe they will be open tommorrow so I can stop in and find out more about the place. It is called Echo LetterPress.

Walking home, my phone rang, and it was my friends Kurt and Challey asking if I wanted to go for a swim at Crystal Lake. I think I had been waiting all week for someone to suggest it! Kurt gave me directions over the phone, and I drove up into the hills, past North Branch, past Fremont Center. I missed the turn the first time and had to turn back, looking for an unmarked road in a hay field. But I knew it was the right one when I saw the big bright red hay wagon. The gravel road led back into the woods, and there, on what must have been the grounds of an old resort that has since vanished, are the shores of a beautiful clear lake. There are a few other people there, but mostly it is empty. Challey leads me down the path to the spot Kurt has set up, and along the way we pick blueberries off the bushes and eat them - all tart and sweet. Challey brought a little feast of a picnic - crackers and goat cheese and peach jam and wine. But first, we put on our bathing suits and wade out into the lake. It is so clear, it is like a mirror, surrounded by forests of birch and maple and pine. But where we are must have been the yard of the old resort, because there are brilliant red japanese maples, and the remains landscaping - a giant conifer that is certainly not native to the area. But these artful domesticated species have been gradually surrounded and absorbed into the landscape, so that you almost don't notice. A barely perceptible ghost of past habitation.

The lake is perfect. A layer of water on the top is warm, though just below, it is chilly. We swim out into the middle of the lake, float around, and then go back to eat our picnic. Twilight slowly falls, coloring the growing mist a faint purpleish pink. The birds chatter. We have the lake all to ourselves. We go for another swim. And then suddenly, HEAVY METAL starts blaring from a car that pulls up. Ah well. Such is the interaction of human and nature.

On the road

I started out on the road on Sunday. Getting through Ohio is always a drag, but after I got past Columbus, things seemed to roll smoother. One of my favorite places to stop on this drive is Wheeling, WV. I don't do much else except get out of the car and walk by the river, but what a river. The Ohio River.

I've seen a few stunning rivers on this drive. Ohio. Delaware. But the one that always stuns me is the Susquahanna. As you are driving through the mountains in Pennsylvania, the highway veers around till it is hugging the side of a Mountain Range, until it finds a gap and passes through, and then you are in a maze of ridges until suddenly, as you approach Harrisburg, you are on this massive bridge crossing over the Susquahanna as it emerges, wide and magnificent, from between two mountains.

This time, my trip has a different sort of flavor. I am neither going to something nor escaping from somewhere. This place is so much a part of my life now, that the trip seems merely like a necessary distance to be crossed. Though this distance itself is interesting. I stayed the night in a hostel on the Appalachian Trail - an old brick mansion from the early 1800s that belonged to the owner of a nearby iron mine.

There were two girls there who were hiking the trail - they had started in late March. This hostel happens to be at the middle point of the trail, so they still have a long way to go. I asked them why they decided to hike the whole trail, and one girl said, "Cause I like walking." The other responded, "It's a good transitional activity, to help you figure our what comes next." And then they were off down the trail. The hostel keeper said they get about 100-120 trail hikers a month at the hostel.

The hostel itself was nestled in the Michaux Valley. Once I got off the highway, I drove through beautiful little roads dotted with interesting old farmhouses between the towns of Newburgh and Newtown. Prof. Glassie would have been proud. All my vernacular architecture class memories rushed to the forefront of my mind. Two front doors + symmetrical facade = German vernacular housing!!! They were everywhere. Almost every old house followed the model, and they almost all faced east, regardless of their orientation to the road. And as I navigated through the last rays of twighlight and an oncoming rainstorm, I passed an Amish buggy gliding down the oncoming lane.

I am now in Jeffersonville, and my mind is full of thesis ideas and gossip.