No-one ever sleeps here any more

It's hard to sleep in cities. As ever the general level of existential angst rises with the hours of the night. Now it's 3:30 am and apparently every significant other across the way is raising 'issues' and not for the first time. I detect the well-worn tram tracks of old disputes trundling to whatever clapped-out conclusions they generally arrive at. If only it could be done in silence like the butterfly in the forest. Ooops.. or was that a tree falling in the Amazon? After several days on helicopter overflight early morning wake-ups and sitting by the window at night to catch tales of the neighbourhood as well as a bit of free wifi on the breeze, I've slept less lately than an international traveller returning to Hobart.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS ALWAYS DIVERTING

But I did have an excellent day yesterday, full of bad timings and happy misadventures. By stepping onto the wrong bus I lucked into an accidental tour of 5th Avenue accompanied the entire journey by out loud suggestions of many old Jewish women. I eavesdropped (how was it possible not to) a continuous whine from the hugely overweight woman sitting behind me. Finally after 30 years she'd forced an elevator onto the subway stop at 96th. As the traffic log-jammed around its construction she gazed upon her work with satisfaction. Because of her knees she hadda keep catching the buses. But all these handicapped people took all day to get on the bus. Sometimes it was 50 minutes to go four blocks. The wheel-chair passengers slowed her day up even more. Now the subway is quick. Ten minutes at the most. But the stairs are too much for her. She can't get up and down those stairs. A voice suggests knee replacement surgery. Has she looked into that? No no no, she's not gonna get inta knee replacements. Once you haddem done you hadda keep doing em. She was taking better care of her health than to have that surgery. The elevator would solve her problems. Once the elevator was in, no more buses. Finally she got off and the decibel level reduced. I wondered had she thought things through. What if her destination was a subway stop without an elevator? How was she going to get up those stairs and then down again to return. There was much to mull over.


Finally we passed the Metropolitan Museum, distinguished by the swarm of people roosting on its steps (how strange that the pigeons should be so out-numbered). Then I made a happy discovery, the Age of Rembrandt exhibition was on, with a huge collection of Dutch painters: Vermeer and Jan Steen, Albert Cuyp and Breughel and of course the great Rembrandt himself.



The Rembrandts were all portraits, none of the later interesting paintings of his old age. I've always loved the Rembrandt and Hals portraits (who doesn't) and the Dutch landscape painters. I came across a painter I have to confess I've been ignorant of, Hobbema, whose beautiful landscapes converted me to instant Hobbema fandom. I sneaked a picture, which does the original no justice at all.




And I pinched this image off the Metropolitan's website. It's a painting called The dissolute household, and Jan Steen used his wife, his mother in law, and his children as its models!

Although I now have a pre-paid USA SIM (cost me $10.00!) when I made my arrangement for dinner last night I was using a public phone. It was a struggle to hear, and then to write down the details coherently. Not being able to write intelligibly is a disadvantage in so many ways. Others complain to me about it, but they don't know how I too suffer. As well as that, while jotting notes in the noisy non-booth and on the slippery non-platform for writing, the receiver fell from my ear several times. Crucial bits of information vanished unheard. So I managed to wind up at Times Square instead of the other end of 43rd.

Finally, after much use of my newly acquired 'cell' Rosemary and I actually met, at the mid-way point of the Algonquin Hotel and an hour later than we planned.


But we had an excellent evening, dining Cuban (it was that or Russian), drinking Sangria, and nattering away like a pair of well, middle-aged librarians. My previous last meal with her was in Moscow, where we ate an adventurous cuisine from one of the 'Stans' (Uzebeka, Kazakha.. I can't recall any longer except that one of the soups came served in the shell of a gourd, like a halloween pumpkin). After the delicious Cuban food and wait-staff with sliding Desi accents, Rosemary drove me home. I took the opportunity to get some questions resolved, questions which had kept me awake for years e.g. "Is the New Jersey turnpike really a turnpike?" and "What exactly is the beltway?" She had all the answers, as any good New Yorker would.

THIS PICTURE IS FOR YOU DARL, LOVER OF BEATRIX POTTER FROM INFANCY

Apart from the misadventures of the day I took a turn through Columbia University's beautiful grounds (I'm staying right next to it), roamed the edges of Central Park, ate a good lunch at Nussbaum's and generally enjoyed myself altogether.