Memorial Day in New York

Memorial Day is the best holiday weekend in New York. It is not so much that people empty out of the city, although that does happen. But it's not like those left disappear. They pack the brunch places, barbecue in the parks (riding the bike on Monday through the Latino sections on the trail along the Hudson was tortuous with the numbers and, even more, the numbers that let their two year and younger children wander on the path while they chat away with their object of flirtation) or just spill out into the parks. But the difference really is the change in traffic volume. Streets are as deserted as they ever get in New York. And those people remaining again, they move differently as they flood into the streets, restaurants, and parks. There is no rushing pressure, no hassled or worn faces. Summer has now yet broiled us down. It's an emergence after winter -- particularly this year with the very cool April and May --, a stretching and a civic languor. It's a brief couple of days when New York is not quite New York.

A Bad Day at the Hospice

I biked to the hospice yesterday to find that three of the patients I visited had died. One was very unexpected; I'd left her a crossword from the Times to work on and said we'd do it together Friday if she had trouble with it. She was sitting up in her wheelchair then, she was eating heartily, she was having less pain. I told her I'd take her outside Friday if it was a nice day (and it was the best spring day we'd had in weeks.) I had an article for her in my backpack, walked into her room and it was empty. It made no sense. And then it made the sense that empty rooms there always mean. I have taken to spending a short time in the rooms where my patients last were, as a kind of chapel to say goodbye. In her case I got a better chance because her family was visiting and the social worker introduced us. "Oh, yes," they said, "the crossword guy. She told us about you." Days like yesterday need those kind of reminders that it is really true -- in our small way, we do make a difference. The families always thank you; the patients always thank you. It should be the reverse.

Fashism and Belief

A couple weeks ago we did two museum special events in the same day, starting with the preview of the Superheroes and Fashion at the Met, which to me felt minor, pumped up, and an ill-advised effort to MOMA-ize the Met. The superhero stuff was OK, especially those costumes, like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man gear and Michelle Pfeiffer's Cat Woman, that had been used in movies, but the fashion clothes were ludicrous and mostly unwearable except on October 31. That night the new members reception at the Guggenheim highlighted Cai Guo Qiang: I Want to Believe. Visually stunning, at the very least, but in fact considerably more. He understands, and utilizes, violence and randomness in art, life and the planet. He understands too that they are the forces driving constant creation. He uses gunpowder in his works, large canvases that in fact are the residue of burnt gunpowder. Like Cristo he also utilizes outdoor locations for one time artistic events. The Guggenheim had a loop tape of a moving fireworks float that Cai had, apparently, driven through Times Square. He's also big on installations here, hanging tigers shot full of arrows; a hundred running wolves suspended in pack chase and finally crashing against a thick pane of plastic. The spectacular show centerpiece is eight compact Chevrolets, suspended floor to the 60 ft or so rotunda ceiling, with spears of flashing neon coming from each of them but the first one at floor level. All of this was exhilarating but exhausting. Where Cai, born in China, goes wrong, I think, is his embrace of revolutionary violence and particularly Mao's Cultural Revolution. Because far from the violent natural, the violence employed in the Cultural Revolution, or in any revolution or even that in the name of anarchy, seeks only to overthrow one system and implant an equally regimented other. No planned violence made by man can ever be nature. These are the sorts of conclusions reached when you get too involved with the American Museum of Natural History, when a million years seems an eyeblink and Cosmic Collisions the motif.

From New York to Richmond

LaGuardia, US Airways terminal, a storm moving in that will drop over two inches on the city, Manhattan through the gray in the distance across the runways and river, Bowie Heroes on the Bose. We were going to Richmond for Colin's birthday and Mother's Day. Flight got cancelled, terminal full of crabby people, crabby agents, all flailing and reduced before nature. We got out several hours later to Charlottesville, dumped the idea of USAir-paid cab ride, got a Ford Fusion for 30 bucks from Avis and headed 80 miles east on 64, giving a lift to another passenger. Many years since I'd been in Charlottesville. Today, at least, it managed the neat trick of being small and remote, yet filled with big box stores and slow-moving traffic. Sissy Spacek and Dave Matthews can have it. We dropped our fellow traveller at her mother's retirement community and, a mere six hours late, got close to the kids' place, stopping first at one of the BBQ joints we love. Sometimes all it takes to turn around a stupid day is a sandwich slathered in slaw and sauce, a cheap Budweiser, the unfamiliar language of NASCAR in the generational chatter, and -- best of all -- a Where's George bill handed back in change in a restaurant that doesn't take credit cards, but will accept an out of town check.