Around NYC
Various encounters in a various city.
New York brings to mind one of my favourite poetic quotations, from Louis MacNeice’s Snow:
“World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and fee
The drunkenness of things being various.”
Christopher Street was the site of the historic 1969 Stonewall Riots, in which members of what was not yet called the LGBT+ community forcefully demonstrated against police harassment. The offspring were interested, as befits those who comfortably took their place in this year’s Pride march through London, although to be honest they were a bit more fascinated by the puppies in the shop window next door. That’s the triumph of free will. The Stonewall bar is in the background, with the rainbow flags above the fluorescent character posing for selfies.
Not entirely sure this is a rounded appraisal of my home city, but it’s nice to be namechecked.
Exiting Christopher Street, we came upon these characters from behind, so to speak. Our first guess from a distance was that they were military figures, but to put such a monument in the Village might seem weird. Not as weird as the real answer, though…
…they’re Paparazzi Dogs, called Joel, Charlie, Rocky and Samuel. Created by husband-and-wife Aussie artists Gillie and Marc, they had been moved from Down Under — more specifically the Brookyln area known as Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) — to explore the “pack mentality of the media and how we hunt celebrities to get their photo.”
A name which may lack accuracy but has no dearth of chutzpah.
From the beautiful lobby of the Empire State Building. It’s exquisite within, all inlaid gorgeousness and archaic behatted way-pointers. And we got to enjoy it twice in five minutes, after discovering the cost for the four of us to hit the viewing platform would be nigh on $150.
What to call the wifi when your mother’s easily confused.
The beautiful Art Deco venue known as the Radio City Music Hall.
Fountain/dandelion mashup.
The Upper West Side from Central Park.
“He’s doing WHAT?!”
A big valve. Dunno why. Doesn’t matter.
From certain angles in New York you get so much sensory input that it’s almost too much to take in. But it has been a pleasure, and the girls have had their horizons widened. Travel like this used to be beyond people like us except in life’s extremes — escaping famine, rebooting entire existences. Now we can get there, and it can inspire.
Originally published on Facebook, 18/22 Aug 2017.
