Hot Fun in the Summertime

An unexpected invite took me places I'd never been before, even though they're within a day's drive of the Big Apple.

Independence Day Flags, Poconos

Thom's nephew Jimmy participated in a Civil War battle re-enactment at Gettysburg.

I also joined Thom for a week of blue skies, traffic and homelessness in Los Angeles.  As much as I enjoyed the trip, if California is America's future, we're in deep trouble.

Getty Center Gardens

During all the summer weekends I drove to Jones Beach in Herr Cucaracha with David and Barnet, I never checked out the splendid boardwalk and pool.  Swimming in the ocean and cruising the dunes were higher priorities in my youth.

You can't escape pickle ball.

Afterward, Anthony & John hosted Thom and I for another beautifully presented, delicious meal.

In South Boston, Magda & Joe gave birth to their third child and first son.  Audrey and Tom are over the moon and the D-Girls couldn't be more delighted with their baby brother.

Can't wait to meet Desmond in person at Thanksgiving.

Florian travelled to Quebec and Ontario.  He and Arko celebrated Pride in Montreal.

Call me jaded, but seen one Pride parade, seen 'em all.

More bespoke parades ring my chimes.

But that Arko is one photogenic pooch.  He turned six in the spring.

This photo recalls the infamous hot dog soup Florian cooked up the summer we spent together in the Pines.  Flashback to come soon.

I took surprisingly few photos in Central Park this summer.

Steven joined me for one of my routine walks.  I showed him a new wooden structure erected just below Belvedere Castle.

Groundskeepers are wrapping some tree bark in plastic.

This guy had all the accoutrements of fatherhood but I never once saw him glance at his phone as he lovingly fed his infant son.  Now that's what I call being present!

These sunlit leaves got a head start on autumn.

While reading The New Life one morning on Central Park West after my bike ride, a pretty bug landed on me. I soon discovered that you're supposed to stomp on them mercilessly, no easy task for someone who finds Jainism appealing.  Spotted lanternflies, a beautiful but invasive species, could decimate California's almond crops if they go west.  That's one way to reduce the state's water consumption.  Did you know that it takes three gallons of water to produce a single almond?

Here's a unique view of the park from Steven's roof deck.  Since he had Randy and me over for drinks, he's retired.  At age 52!

Randy reminded me to get my butt to the Avedon retrospective at Gagosian before it closed.

Blue Cloud Wright (1979)

As much as I admire Avedon, methinks the under-appreciated Bruce Davidson may have given him his inspiration for "American West."

Wales (1965)

Davidson trains his lens on ordinary people as intently as Diane Arbus focused on "freaks," which probably explains why her work is so much more famous (that and her back story, of course).  I find his work just as compelling.

Washington, DC (1963)

Brooklyn Gang (1959)

Bronx, NY (1963)

I caught Davidson's show in the Fuller Building, an early example of multi-use urban architecture on E 57th Street, just off Madison.  The things I learned from the Art Deco tour that Thom and I took in downtown LA increased my appreciation of it.

Inlaid marble floors and a stunning elevator bank sent me straight to Google after a security guard shooed me away.  The Fuller construction company, which built the Flatiron Building at the turn of the 20th century to house their headquarters, moved uptown in 1929.   Art dealers clamored for gallery space in the lower six floors before the scene moved to Soho and then Chelsea.

Stunningly detailed bronze reliefs illustrate the buildings trade.

Speaking of construction in New York City, have you visited the new LIRR station beneath Grand Central?  It's truly a marvel and contrary testament to the conventional wisdom that big things don't get built here any longer.

Bright mosaics cheer commuters.

Yet even the much-maligned subway continues to surprise.  I'd seen these mosaic hats many times in the subway station at 23rd Street and 5th Avenue yet had no idea that they depict haberdashery worn by specific individuals, including Harry Houdini.

If unreconstructed New York is your thing, take a stroll on Lexington Avenue in midtown. The Roger Smith Hotel, where I think my parents may have honeymooned in 1946, is just south of these buildings with vintage signage.

Of course the theater district is also well-preserved.  The Belasco, where Thom and I caught the final performance of Good Night, Oscar (shame on you, Jesse Green!) is roughly contemporary with the Flatiron Building.  I saw The Rocky Horror Show--starring both Tim Curry and Meat Loaf--there with Tom, Audrey and Cynthia in 1975 before it flopped after just 45 performances.

New York walkabouts reveal statues both new and old.  When I first passed Carol Feuerman's "Sea Idylls" in the spring, I didn't notice any male swimmers among the nine sculptures on lower Park Avenue.

The Golden Mean, 2012

Force and wisdom face off in front of New York State's Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.

It seems like they're about to do so in the next Presidential election, too.  Wisdom does not look particularly reassuring.

I was in the area to see an auction of LGBTQ+ items at Swann Galleries.  This remarkable woodcut by Adrian Lee Kellard, felled by AIDS in 1991, sold for $4,000.

"Holy Face" (1987)

Randy used to work for Kenn Duncan, the photographer who shot Joe Dallesandro, my first celebrity crush, in his prime.  But even $800, the expected minimum for a portfolio of five portraits, seemed like a lot to pay for something so easily reproduced in digital format.

The Met threw me for a loop with its new "virtual line" system.  A guard kindly allowed me into "Karl Lagerfeld:  A Line of Beauty" without an advance reservation.

Chanel Ensemble (Autumn/Winter 2016-17)

By the time I went to see "Van Gogh's Cypresses," I knew the drill and spent some of my 115-minute waiting time on the roof which took me right back to Karnak, with an African-American spin.

"the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture"
by Lauren Halsey (2023)

"A Walk at Twilight" (1890)

Although this isn't a representative work,  the Pepón Osorio exhibit at the New Museum induced an extraordinary sense of childhood wonder at the symbolic, overstuffed and meticulously re-created Puerto Rican environments he has created over the past three decades.

 

"If I Remember Correctly" (2023)

Chris & Thom kept me company during several Saturday afternoon museum visits.  "The Sassoons" proved once again that the Jewish Museum mounts some of New York City's most interesting exhibits.

The Three Amigos also paid a visit to New London, where Randy showed us a great time.  Again!

Retirement gives you plenty of time to fool around with new Apple apps that mysteriously appear on your phone without your consent (remember when U2 got in a lot of trouble for that?).  Freeform seems to be competing with Pinterest but it did provide an easy way to let Pines neighbors know when to show up for my 70th birthday celebration at Victor's house.  Little did I realize it was a "collaborative" app, not my strongest characteristic.

Fire Island seems fresher now that my visits are few and far between.  What kind of bird do you suppose lives in Venus Envy?