Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday

 A while ago I took you on an architectural tour of Manhattan--this will be a literary tour through some of the classics of children's literature. One of the best things about parenthood is reading to children--holding a small person on your lap with a book in your hands is pretty close to Heaven. My favorite place in the world, Manhattan, is the site of many great books--so, put on your walking shoes, pack your metro card and let's go. We'll start at the very bottom--the southernmost tip of Manhattan--the Staten Island Ferry. We were very tired we were very merry. We rode back and forth All night on the Ferry.                                    Edna St. Vincent Millay. Yes, I know, Edna St. Vincent Millay is not a poet for children, but I believe in getting as much as possible as early as possible into those little brains, so this is a good start. Then over to Battery Park City...

One Spring day when Jessie was very little she looked up and said, “Oh, look, the leaves have come back from where they go in the winter. I think new leaves do look kind of like butterflies resting on the branches. And oh that shade of green really speaks to me. One of the joys of parenthood for me was the way my children played with language as they learned. There’s a quote I can’t find, I think it’s Nabokov in Speak, Memory, or maybe it’s Tolstoy, about the private jokes, mispronunciations that become standard usage, little sayings families share that bind us together. Listening to other people’s baby-talk can be obnoxious, so I won’t go any further, except to share the time I said to my father, "Where's the  garbage can?" and he said sternly, “In this house we say Bo-Bo Can.” Now that we’re practicing social distancing, long walks are one of the things we can still enjoy as long as we wear our masks and New York is looking great. Did you hear me com...

When our beautiful library lions were dubbed Patience and Fortitude it was not meant as a compliment.  Critics thought they lacked regal splendor. Compared with other lions around the world they may seem a little relaxed;  But I love them just as they are. My friend, June, reminded me that Fiorello Laguardia, in the midst of the Great Depression, said what was needed to get through that terrible time was Patience and Fortitude. What will it take to get through our present terrible time?  Patience and Fortitude, sure.  What else? We've been through many crises, and each time we come through we think, well, that's over and we learned how to cope  And then something else happens.  It reminds me of when Jessie was two and I couldn't get her to leave the playground without a battle when it was time to go home for supper. I hit upon a plan. I said, "I'm leaving now,"  and walked away.  She ran after me crying "Don't leav...

Tom Otterness at the A, C, E, and L Station. at 14th Street and 8th Avenue Tom Otterness  (born 1952) is an American  sculptor  best known as one of America's most prolific public artists.  His sculptures of chubby little creature allude to sex, class, money, and race.          Tom Otterness studied at the Art Students League in 1970, the same time I was there but I don't think our paths crossed.  He would have been 18 and I was 22; a big gap at that age.  Besides, he would have worked in the sculpture studio in the basement, and I in the graphics class on the third floor. I've found a terrible story in his past that makes me revisit the old saw,  "Don't get too close to an artist, he might smell bad."  If you look behind the curtain, or more closely at your heroes, you might not like what you see.  It's a twist on "Love the sinner, hate the sin."   It becom...

I said last week that I'd share with you another of our grandfather's great works.  Here it is. The Float There it is in the background, with my Dad and little brother Robby, throwing stones in the bay. .  It was  a wooden platform with a ladder and diving board that sat upon empty oil barrels.  Here we all are enjoying it on a beautiful calm day on Peconic Bay.  It sat high above the water so you could swim under the barrels and come up beneath it, where everything had a green hue from the reflection of the water, and your voice echoed off the empty barrels.  It was a magical place.  Unfortunately, it was quite top-heavy so it could turn over with too many people on it, but that was exciting, too. Launching the float every spring was a huge job.  Here's how Uncle Dan describes Float Day. "The Float was kept on the beach without barrels during the winter. The putting in the water days and the taking it out of the water d...

Here's another wonderful subway station installation with CROWS, The A,C, and E at Canal Street and Sixth Avenue.   Canal Street used to be a regular haunt for me and many other artists because of the late lamented Perl Paints; four or five floors of art supplies staffed by artists who really knew their stuff.   I once told a friend I was headed there and she said, "You're going to the candy store."   But, alas, Mr. Perl forgot to pay his taxes and that was that. Life will never be the same. I don't get there much anymore, and so it took me a while to discover these guys. This is one of the cooler among many cool art installations in our subway system. I was talking about it with a woman I met at Ellen Grossman's opening at  The Yard , a co-working space that's probably not open now.  and she told me that she once found a crow that had fallen off his perch.  She didn't know who to alert and admitted she was tempted to t...

Houston Street After my post about the Weimaraners my friend, Louanne, reminded me of these amazing mosaics at the Houston Street station on the number 1 line. Designed by Deborah Brown in 1995, they show marine creatures frolicking in our subway cars and stations.  In 1995 it was amusing, now in the age of climate change and rising sea levels it’s ominous. But at the moment we have other things to worry about.  let’s just enjoy that we have a subway system that believes art is important and if you're avoiding the subway right now, here they are. A manatee looking over a reader's shoulder.  This one may be my favorite. I'm sorry not to have the whole picture in some of these, but standing with my back to the subway tracks gave me flip flops in my stomach.  Let them inspire us to be active in saving our mother, the earth.