Tuesday night Guilio Cesare , Wednesday MoMA

I thoroughly enjoyed the opera last night. It was a mix of comedy, tragedy , wonderful singing, dancing, amazing costumes, interesting, sometimes quirky sets.  It was long – started at 7pm and finished at 11.45 with 2 intervals.  

After a slow start this morning, I went to another area of Central Park to look at a few more bridges. There are less people around in the morning.  Then I stopped in at another wholefood shop I had heard about. It was even better than the last with a huge range of products.

Today’s aim was MoMA – Museum of Modern Art.   I paid my entrance and went to get an audio guide, groaned at all the signs saying ‘ photo id necessary’ . When it was my turn, I politely said I had no photo id, but I did have my National Trust card with my name on it. She said, without any hesitation, ‘that’s fine, we know overseas people often do not have photo id with them’   Quite different to the Whitney  and Morgan Library.

I first looked at the paintings of the artists I have been reading about. There were several Jackson Pollacks, several Piet Mondrians and a few Rothkos. I looked at some other paintings and then it was time for lunch.  I went back and looked at an interesting exhibition of a French architect Henri Labrouste 1801 to 1875. I had never heard of him but he was hugely influential in all sorts of things.  This exhibition focussed on the 2 big libraries ( public I think)  he designed in Paris. He was the first to make spaces for ordinary people to go and read books and to even borrow them. Before that,  books  and libraries were usually only available to people at the institution where the library was  situated e.g. university or church.

I looked at a few more things and was on my way out when I saw in the last gallery – ‘a modern design that is useful ‘ gallery - what looked like a big ball made out of sink plungers all sticking out of a central hub with the black plastic bit on the outside edge. I got closer and saw that the ‘handles’ were bamboo and the outside bits were flat and a bit more complicated.  It is a Mine Kafon Wind-Powered Deminer designed by a Dutch man born in Afghanistan Massoud Hassani in 1983 ( quite young)  . ( Kafon means explosion in Dari) . It rolls over land, powered by the wind, has a GPS chip in it recording the safe path. If it detonates a mine, it partially destructs but is salvageable and easily fixed in the field.  Large scale they expect the cost to be about $40.  How good would that be?

I spent time in MoMA’s gift shop.  I get annoyed with myself every trip. I have enough money to buy each of my family members a nice token from my trip, but not enough confidence or shopping expertise  or colour and style observation to know what is a bit different here and what they would like.  Maybe I am just not good at risk-taking.

I got the subway back to this part and stopped at one of my favourites for coffee and cake. I was going to finish writing postcards, but got talking to another lady who , though a bit younger than me, probably late 40s, travels on her own.  We were talking of the difficulties single women have . She had lived in Switzerland and said that there it was not done to sit in a bar to wait for someone even if only 5 minutes.  She had chosen New York as a city to live in, primarily because of its acceptance of single people. She had read Alain de Botton’s Art of Travelling, as I have,  and agreed with the comments made about the benefits of travelling on your own.

I have changed my guidelines on my café ‘research’ . I have been to the 6 places to get food in my block. 1 is a pub – i.e. emphasis on drinking and OK, but ordinary food. 2 are take aways. Nice, but I can get takeaways in the suburb I live most of my life in.  Of the 4 blocks I can get to by crossing 1 road, I have been to 8 of the 18 eating places.  I will go to a few more if I want to , but I have decided that  I donot have to go to a takeaway just because it is there, nor a noisy pub, nor a new café/restaurant. Tonight I went to one of the small nice places in my block. I think it was a week ago I was there and the lady greeted me  ‘ Hullo, I’m pleased  you’ve come again’ .

Now it is knitting time  before bed– I have a garment on the go , but not socks. The saga of the socks can wait for another time.