Perfect Autumn

Sometimes things just turn a corner.  The first day of autumn was much different than summer's end.  The sky was clear and blue and the air soft and cool.  I walked up Madison from my hotel on 51st to the Guggenheim on 89th.  There is more space here than downtown, more air.  I stopped here and there thinking how badly I looked, dressed like a redneck or hillbilly or worse.  I haven't paid attention.  I used to.  And walking up the East Side, I knew I would again.  I have become lazy and fat, and fat does not look good in any clothing.  I will become thin again, I whispered, and I will dress the way I should.  I will exercise by day and exercise by night.  I will run away the years, scurrying back in time.

At the Ralph Lauren store, I let them know I was rich and powerful with haughty eyes.  I'd learned this from my very wealthy girlfriend who said they all lived in trailer parks outside of town.  No, she didn't say that, but that is what she might have said if she had ever deigned to think about it at all which was really an impossibility.  She used to live in this neighborhood, the top two floors of one of the buildings with wrap around balconies.  Funny that I did not think of her, though, until now.

I put on a pair of sunglasses and looked into the mirror.  Wow!  They were sharp.  I took them off and looked at the price.  $375.  The style was Keyhole.  I wanted them badly in black.  I picked up another pair with round frames.  Holy shit!  I wanted them, too.  They were cheaper.  $350.  It was going to take a lot of money to look good again, I could tell.  The beautiful English girl with her cute boyfriend looked my way and smiled.  I grinned back.  "Nice?"  She giggled and nodded.  Perhaps, I thought, she was looking at my belly.

Most of the Gugg was closed for the installation of the next show opening in October: Picasso in Black and White.  Later, at the Rizzoli Bookstore, I saw the exhibition book the Guggenheim had published.  It doesn't look like a show I care to see.  There were two exhibits, Rineke Dijkstra and Kandinsky.  The Dijkstra prints were large and sharp, and there was no doubt at all that they were one artist's vision.  The style would be easy to copy, but there would be little point.  She has done it to death.

I'm not a big Kandinsky fan, but I was stopped in my track by two very small paintings, perhaps 4"x5", that were oil on glass.  They just stopped my heart.  I'd never seen anything ever like them.  They were early works, and I guess he passed on to more avant garde things, but I wished he never had.

Then to the Met where I saw the Warhol exhibition.  So-so.  It does make the point well, though, of Warhol's influence on almost everything we see today, the retarded genius of a generation.  I will go back to my studio and use some of it, too.

After wandering through the 19th century, I went to the bar in the main dining room and had some champagne and a cold cucumber soup.  And then another.  Through the big windows looking out on Central Park I could see the glory of the day.  And after the luxury of the wine, I headed off for another hour of looking.

Outside, everything was brilliant.  I haven't time to tell it now, for I must get to the Impossible Store and to try the new 8x10 film.  I don't want to be late.  I'll finish up later, I'm sure, but for now. . . I must dash.