Cities of 2019

I'm a bit late to recording the places that AA & I visited, for work or vacation, in 2019. We have some more travel coming up, so it made me realize I had yet to take stock and express how fortunate we are to be able to travel and take in these new experiences (e.g. here is the 2018 list). I've always said that the more you travel, the smaller the world becomes, in ways that are rather humbling. We as a people have a tendency by our nature to see ourselves myopically as being at the "center" of our world, and when you see how many other people out there are existing simultaneously and contiguously, many of whom coincidentally also see themselves in their own "center-world," you realize how short-sighted such a view can be. For some people travel is disheartening or uncomfortable, as you're forced out of a comfort zone, but once you learn to embrace that sense of new-ness, exploring and embracing new cultures and seeing the wonders of new places out there, it's that experience that becomes the most comfortable.

This past year we made a return visit to Iceland because we loved it so much the first time. We saw so many beautiful natural wonders along the southern coast (picture at right of me with a glacier in the distance), but we still never saw the Northern Lights, so at least one more winter visit is in order! Having an opportunity to visit Vienna in November also was very nice (picture above of us on the grounds of the Schoenbrunn Palace). Vienna is a sophisticated city with some great museums and the coffee house culture is more relaxing than I anticipated. It was a long-awaited opportunity for me to see 4 major works of art I had waited a long time to see: Pieter Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow; Benvenuto Cellini's salt cellar; Antonio Canova's monument to the Archduchess Maria Christina; and Gustav Klimt's The Kiss. None of them disappointed.

Within the USA, I was able to get to know Chicago a lot better after we made two visits there together, and I made first-time work-related trips to Minneapolis and Santa Fe. The first city surprised me for its lush greenery (it was June and they had had substantial rain beforehand), and the second surprised me for its dry-desert serenity. I have to confess I'm more of an ocean person than a mountain/desert person, so returning to Ogunquit again gave us a few days of R&R without worrying about site-seeing.

Here's the list of cities I visited in 2019, and ever onward for those of 2020...

Chicago, Illinois (2 visits)
Leeds, England
London, England (2 visits)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
New Haven, Connecticut
New Orleans, Louisiana
Northamptonshire, England
Ogunquit, Maine
Paris, France
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Reykjavik/Hella, Iceland
Santa Fe, New Mexico
St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor/Tarpon Springs, Florida (2 visits)
Vienna, Austria

Cities of 2018

The past few years (e.g. here and here), I've been recording a list of all the cities outside NJ/NY that either I visited for work-related purposes, or that AA and I went to for a vacation. There is little doubt that the two most remarkable places we visited in 2018 were the furthest north and the furthest south I've ever been before: Iceland and Costa Rica. Both of these trips were remarkable for being very nature-oriented. 

Reykjavik is fine city, but it was our Golden Circle tour that brought us to Thingvellir National Park, where we saw the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates crashed against one another--a humbling experience--as well as the site where their Parliament met for over 1,000 years until they built an actual building in Reykjavik in 1930. The waterfalls and geysers were spectacular as well. Iceland is like being on another planet; it's completely desolate but remarkable for its unusual geological formations and hot springs. We missed the Northern Lights and the spa experience, so another visit is in order! Save money if you're thinking about going, though, because it's not cheap!

On the complete opposite spectrum, Costa Rica's southwestern Pacific coast was unlike anything I ever experienced, with spectacular views and wildlife that made me smile non-stop. Monkeys howl in the trees around you and greet you on your patio (and, yes, try to steal your food!), and there are giant iguanas, tropical birds, and actual crabs that walk right past you too. We went zip-lining while we were there, among other adventures--something I never thought I would do (picture at right, climbing stairs to the next zip!)--and I loved it. It was an incredible outdoorsy trip with a wonderfully relaxing hotel at the top of a mountain.

We also had wonderful opportunities to visit with family, and another great adventure happened in our own backyard when, in one day with AA's family, we toured NYC by boat (Circle Line), land (walking the streets), and air--a helicopter tour (photo at the top!). The helicopter tour was exhilarating...if also admittedly a tad frightening...but that's what these adventures are all about...pushing yourself just a little further to experience all that life has to offer. We always take stock and remember how fortunate we are to be able to travel, and we are forever grateful for these experiences of the world. Here are the Cities of 2018...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Athens/Atlanta, Georgia

Fairfield, Connecticut

The Hague/Delft, The Netherlands

Kansas City, Missouri (leaving for here tonight!)

Leamington Spa, England

Liverpool, England

London, England (2 visits)

Manuel Antonio/Quepos, Costa Rica

Montreal, Canada

New Haven, Connecticut

Ogunquit, Maine

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Quebec City, Canada

Reykjavik, Iceland

St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor/Tarpon Springs, Florida (3 visits)

90 Years Young

Last weekend AA & I went back to Florida to help celebrate with family & friends Uncle Eddy's 90th birthday. He's the last of the brothers & sisters from that branch of the family that produced all of us, and he's been so generous and good to all of us that he deserves this milestone marker of his life and times. What's the one favorite thing we all love about his life? That he worked at the Bronx Zoo! These days, he is settled in an assisted living facility, uses a wheelchair most of the time, and is rather thin, but he's still got his "marbles" moving around properly in his head and he hasn't lost his hearing or his sense of humor, so overall he's doing pretty well. Here's to Uncle Eddy...90 years young!

Cities and Projects of 2017

Anyone who has been following bklynbiblio for many years now of course will have noticed the general decrease in the number of posts coming from me. It's not intentional. Time (or lack thereof) has been a key factor, but I will admit that I've discovered a shift in my own attitude about life, which also has affected my blogging. That sounds a bit obnoxiously existential, but what I mean is that I find myself focusing more on living in the moment and enjoying experiences as they are happening, rather than attempting to record things afterward as a memory of an event or experience. I believe I've noted elsewhere, too, that as the world of social media has increased with various platforms, blogging is no longer my only online outlet. Facebook, Instagram, and work-related blog posts, all somehow now come together in conjunction with this blog to provide the snapshot of activities, thoughts, and events. (I still have a Twitter account, but I've largely dropped it; Pres. Tyrant has ruined it for me completely.)

I've also discovered, though, that as I'm getting older I'm having a more difficult time just remembering things the way I used to. I read a book and six months later sometimes I can't even remember the name of the protagonist. That never used to happen before, but I hear it is normal aging. (It better be!) In the spirit of commemorating good fortune over the past year, in that I have been able to see more of the world, this post is a revisit of my travels of 2017 (here is last year's post). I thought I would add this time a section of highlights of professional projects (some related to work) over the course of the year as well. I have a tendency to disregard my past professional activities, because I'm always looking toward the next one (and criticizing myself that I haven't done enough, despite what others say to me). So consider this post also an attempt on my part to slow down and recognize what I have actually done the past year, and why there have been fewer blog posts as a result. And to those of you who have been contacting me the past few months commenting how happy you are to see me blogging again, THANK YOU!

I do want to add that with all the travel either AA & I, or I alone, have done, some of the best memories have been celebrating events with family. For instance, this year AA's parents came out to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, and after that we went to Florida to celebrate Uncle Eddy's 89th birthday and then visit Epcot Center with my godchildren. Good times, indeed, were shared by all.

Here is the 2017 alphabetical list of visited cities outside of NYC...

Cambridge, England
Charlottesville, Virginia
Dieppe, France
Fairfield, Connecticut
Houston, Texas
Leicestershire/Northamptonshire, England
London, England (2 visits)
Mexico City, Mexico (well, technically, we haven't gone yet, but we will before the end of the year!)
Ogunquit, Maine
Paris/Versailles, France
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Portland, Maine
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Rouen, France
Salem, Massachusetts
St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor/Tarpon Springs, Florida (3 visits)
Toronto, ON, Canada
Washington, D.C.

Professional Highlights of the Year (in no particular order):

• Co-taught with Prof. Robert Harrist an undergraduate, semester-long seminar at Columbia on "Public Outdoor Sculpture at Columbia and Barnard" (including watching a bronze pouring of sculpture at the Modern Art Foundry, which was utterly fascinating and almost transcendental; see the picture at left)
• Took a professional development course on "Basic Drawing Techniques for Art Professionals" at NYU
• Published an essay "Before Rome: John Gibson and the British School of Art" in the book The British School of Sculpture, c.1768-1837, eds. Burnage & Edwards (Routledge, 2017; this project took seven years to see to completion, if you can believe it)
• Published a review on the exhibition Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity, at the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (which you can read here)
• Took two research trips to the U.K. and did work at the National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Victoria & Albert Museum and National Arts Library, University of Cambridge, and in a private collection
• Gave a paper at the "New Scholarship in British Art History" conference at the North Carolina Museum of Art
• Gave two separate talks on the sculptors John Gibson and Auguste Rodin at the Florence Academy of Art in Jersey City
• Co-presented with Stephen Brown (The Jewish Museum) about artist Florine Stettheimer and her world for the EdelHaus Salon
• Organized & led a round-table discussion called "The Power of Political Protest Art" for the exhibition ...Or Curse the Darkness at the Atlantic Gallery
• Served on the selection committee & jury for the Graduate Student Symposium co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art and the Dahesh Museum of Art
• Participated in a study day on Pre-Raphaelite art and design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Participated in a workshop on the care and preservation of paintings, sponsored by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts
• Attended the College Art Association conference in NYC
• Attended a Q&A talk with Jed Perl and the Calder Foundation on the release of the first volume of Perl's biography on sculptor Alexander Calder
• Had outpatient surgery with a relatively lengthy, painful recovery (okay, so this wasn't a professional event, but it did take its toll on me this year), and
• Went to see on Broadway Get on Your Feet!, Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close, and Hello, Dolly with Bette Midler (again, not professional, but definitely worth recording as important events)

Cities of 2016

Following up on last year's list of cities, here is the 2016 list. When I think back on the cities AA and I visited (or that I traveled to solo mostly for work-related reasons), the highlight of the year was related to the picture you see here. AA took this of me at the top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, northeast of Mexico City. The temple was constructed over 1500 years ago and although one assumes it is related to the Aztecs, in fact it was constructed nearly a thousand years before the Aztecs rose to power. The views from the top at over 240 feet high were breathtaking. The height wasn't what made the climb so daunting; it was the steps that were treacherous and steep, with all these people clutching onto a rope ahead of you. If one person dropped, you knew in a moment all of you would be tumbling down the pyramid like a set of dominoes. I'm not exactly the most physical-fitness-oriented individual, so having reached the top was quite a challenge and it was a great personal triumph. Our long weekend trip to Mexico City over Memorial Day was really fantastic; I look forward to a return trip and to see other areas of Mexico.

The other vacation highlight of the year was our trip to Amsterdam and Copenhagen over Thanksgiving. These were two cities I had never been to before. I loved Amsterdam; the picture here is a selfie of us with one of the canals behind us. I have been jokingly referring to Amsterdam as Brooklyn with canals and 17th-century "brownstones." It's a very laid-back city, easy to get around, and everyone speaks English. The scent of marijuana floats through the air in different sections of the city, coming from the numerous coffee houses, so you can't help but be relaxed. It will be great to go back one Spring in the near future to see the tulips and windmills in other areas of the Netherlands. Copenhagen, in contrast, was quite posh (and expensive!), with one Neoclassical palazzo after another lining the streets. The New Harbor area is absolutely charming, and there is a great new food market and rising arts scene too. There was construction taking place everywhere in the city while we were there, which was frustrating, but on the positive side of things the Christmas markets were open and I drank a lot of gløgg, which was delectable in the chilly weather.

Here's the list of the cities outside the NYC area I was fortunate to visit in 2016...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Charlotte, North Carolina
Copenhagen, Denmark
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
Liverpool, England
London, England (2 visits)
Mexico City, Mexico
New Haven, Connecticut
Ogunquit, Maine
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Portland, Maine (2 visits)
Provincetown, Massachusetts

St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor, Florida (3 times to see family & friends!)
West Palm Beach, Florida

Cities of 2015

Last year I wrote a blog post highlighting all the travel I did in 2014, but this time I am just doing a recap of the cities I visited over the course of the year. I realize on some level this may seem like I'm bragging about my travels, but this blog has involved me writing about my travels since the very beginning, so consider this an encapsulated list rather than an extended post on places I have been. One reason I decided to do this is because 2015 has turned out to be rather exceptional in terms of travel, with more than half of these cities related to my job and career (conferences, talks, courier trips, etc.). The rest was vacation or family visits. The picture you see here is of AA and me on the wall of San Gimignano with the rolling hills of Tuscany behind us. God, what a beautiful day it was and what a beautiful memory it is. Even though I have visited almost all of these cities before (some many times), three were first-time visits (Monteriggione, Beacon, and Kansas City). When I visit these cities, I always strive to visit museums or galleries to see exhibitions or permanent collections, all as part of expanding my knowledge-base on artists, art works, movements, styles, and the materiality of art. I frequently like to go back to museums I've seen before to see old favorites and what may have changed. Every one of these trips, then, becomes a learning experience. But perhaps the most important reason why I am posting this list is because I realize how fortunate I am to have had the opportunity to visit these places and to engage with cultures, no matter how similar or different they are from my own. For me, life is about experiences and encounters, and travel helps make that happen. Here is the list, in the order in which I visited them.

• Munich, Germany
• St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor, Florida (March visit)
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (April visit)
• Cattolica, Italy
• Venice, Italy
• Rome, Italy
• Florence, Italy
• San Gimignano/Siena/Monteriggione (day trip through Tuscany)
• Milan, Italy
• St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor, Florida (May visit)
• Liverpool, England
• Southport, England
• London, England
• Oxford, England
• Washington, DC
• Provincetown, Massachusetts
• St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor, Florida (August visit)
• San Francisco, California
• Beacon, New York
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (November visit)
• Kansas City, Missouri

Travels of 2014: From Maine to Munich

I enjoy traveling. Well...to be more accurate...I enjoy all the experiences I can gather when I visit a new city or country...but getting there isn't necessarily something enjoyable. Nevertheless, it is a necessity and worth enduring for the end result. I am about to do this yet again as I return to Munich on another work-related trip. Not all travel is a vacation, as the trip to Munich was work (although, as I will comment on below, I did have the opportunity for some site-seeing). And then there are the personal family-related trips, such as the 7 I made to Florida in 2014 that were all largely associated with my father's care. As bklynbiblio readers know, he passed away in July, and although I miss him terribly, I am fortunate that I was able to be with him for his passing. We had his services in August, and it was truly a celebration of his life. On my March visit, I was very glad that AA joined me to meet the family and my father, and a year ago on my January visit I also made a short jaunt to Jacksonville to see my dear friend SVH and meet my canine nephew Winnie, a rambunctious young greyhound. October saw me back again for the SECAC conference in Sarasota, and I took a day to see the family again, and I made another quick trip back for Christmas as well. As emotionally challenging as these visits were to endure while my father was getting worse and worse, it always has been a comfort to know I have family and friends there to help create balance and give me the opportunity to also enjoy some parts of those trips.

In May I made a 60-hour trip to Seattle for the AAMG conference, about which I blogged here. My memory of Seattle from 1997 was better than I experienced this time, but that was because my colleague DCM and I weren't in the downtown area but in the university district, which was removed from the things we would have wanted to see, like Pike Place Market. Over Memorial Day weekend, AA and I joined the FF-POs for a few days in Montreal and Quebec City, which I absolutely loved. I blogged about that trip here. I still have fond memories of Quebec City and look forward to visiting again in the near future.

Over the long 4th of July weekend, AA and I went to Chicago, one of the American cities long on my list of places to visit. I loved it! And I cannot stress to readers how difficult that is for this NYer to admit to! The one thing I did hate was the pizza. Fortunately everything else outweighed that. The city is clean. The architecture is magnificent. Lake Michigan is simply amazing. (We spent 4th of July on JK's boat on the Lake and watched the fireworks from there--just awesome!) Millennium Park is tons of fun; the image you see here shows Anish Kapour's interactive sculpture with the skyline behind it. And then there was the Art Institute of Chicago, where I finally was able to see the work you see at the top of this post: Georges Seurat's Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884-86. I think my photograph of viewers staring at the painting demonstrates well how observers inevitably become part of the melange of social classes intermingling in the park in true pointilist fashion, as Seurat likely intended. On our last day in Chicago AA and I climbed the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and I confronted my fear of heights by climbing out onto the glass ledge. I can't say I am no longer afraid of heights...truthfully it terrified me even more...but it was important that I did it. (AA of course strolled out there like it was nothing. He is fearless. So annoying!) We also took a day trip to Milwaukee, which I wasn't so crazy about, although the Calatrava-designed wing on the art museum is spectacular, particularly overlooking Lake Michigan.

After my father's funeral, I needed to get away for a few days and have a truly relaxing trip with very little to do, so AA and I flew to Boston then drove to Maine. I had not been in Maine since about 1998 or so, and I had only visited Ogunquit at that time. We went there our first night and it was everything beautiful I remembered. Walking along the rock paths overlooking the Atlantic was just breathtaking. I love the fresh smell of sea air, the cool breeze blowing off the water, and the sound of nature's ferocity as waves crash against the rocks like the crack of a slap but with a magnificent electric sting. With each passing day we moved up the coast further and visited Portland, Cape Elizabeth with its famous lighthouse (seen here), Camden (so adorable...best clam chowder ever!), Belfast, and Lincolnville...an adorable little spot with nothing to do...exactly what I needed. I hated having to leave, because we only made it 1/3 of the way up the coast, but I do look forward to visiting again. I really loved that relaxing summer weekend in Maine.

As for Munich, I was fortunate amidst all my days of work to have some free time to hit so many of the museums. The Lenbachhaus, where the exhibition was held, is close to the Glyptothek and the Alte and Neue Pinakotheks, so I was able to see all the masterworks of ancient, Renaissance, and modern art that I was eager to see. One of the photos you see here is a zoomed-in shot of the glockenspiel, the mechanical life-sized music performers that play a few times a day in the main square, Marienplatz. Munich surprised me frequently. The old streets wind like concentric circles in a way that as soon as you assume you are walking east, suddenly you are walking southwest. I got lost so many times it was ridiculous. However, it gave me more of an opportunity to see much of the city as a result. I was also surprised at how German and Italian it was. There is Germanic architecture, but there is a surprising amount of Italianate architecture as well, and indeed I found myself able to communicate using Italian more than English with various people. The Oktoberfest was starting while I was there, so I had a chance to visit the grounds. It is basically a giant beer festival, but family friendly (and gay friendly--another surprise!). lederhosen and "beer wench" Bavarian costumes were everywhere. The pastries and pretzels were divine...(why don't we use pretzels as bread? it's ingenious!)...I devoured about 3 of these plum tarts that you see in the picture below. I definitely enjoyed Munich much more than my trip to Frankfurt last year. Rumor has it there is about a foot of snow on the ground in Munich at present, and potentially more coming this weekend....it better not ruin more chances to see the city over the weekend before work starts!

What's on the travel agenda for 2015? I have a work trip to Fort Worth coming up. I may do a pop-over to London to see a few exhibitions I'm very interested in. But the big trip I'm very much looking forward to is Italia in April. I have not been since 2009, so I am going first to visit family, and then AA is flying over with the DPG-JBs and we are going to visit Rome, Florence, and Milan. I'm even scheduled to give a talk at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome while I'm there. More details coming soon....

The Video: Florida House for Sale

In case my previous post with pictures didn't tempt you enough, check out the fabulous video The Home Team made of my Padre's house! If you can't see the video below, then click here to watch it on YouTube.

Florida House for Sale

If you or someone you know is 55+ and looking for a beautiful, quiet place to retire or use as a vacation home in a community with lots of amenities, including in-ground swimming pools and a golf course, consider my Padre's house in Pinellas Park, Florida! The house is 1600 square feet and has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, living & dining rooms, plus an extra family room and a Florida room (that's an indoor sun room). Special features include bamboo flooring, new carpeting, fresh paint, and it comes fully furnished (Momma had good taste). We're asking only $123,900! Here are all the details for the official listing with James E. Tuten, Charles Rutenberg Realty. For those of you in Florida, there's an open house today, Sunday 3/27/11. Spread the word. Here are just a few pictures of the interior (more via the link).

Miami Beach and Delray Beach

I returned today from another trip to Florida, spending the first 4 nights in South Florida visiting my old stomping grounds. I spent 2 nights in Miami Beach rooming with my friend NV. I shot the photo you see here from his balcony on the 15th floor. Standing out there, if you look to the left, you get a glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean between other buildings, but this incredible view of Indian Creek and Biscayne Bay from his balcony is simply spectacular. We sauntered up and down Lincoln Road, and while parts of it are striving for cosmopolitan sophistication, by and large Miami Beach has become glamor-less bling. Even the gay scene that once dominated the area has been reduced to a few insignificant bars. NV and I did meet up with my friend CF for lunch on my 2nd day, visiting Coral Gables which, oddly, I don’t think I had ever visited before. Later that night NV and I got together with CB, and the 3 of us headed to Wilton Manors, near Fort Lauderdale, where we used to hang out almost every week some 6 to 7 years ago. We ate at our old standby, the Thai restaurant Galanga, which still has good food, and had drinks at Georgie’s Alibi. Wilton Manors has easily taken over from Miami Beach as the new South Florida gay mecca. There's even a fantastic new place called The Manor Complex, which houses a martini bar, a lounge, a restaurant, a cafe, a Latino dance room, and a 2-story nightclub. We had lots of fun that night.

On the Sunday, I made my way north to Palm Beach County, where I stayed with the AKs. Half of the AKs is Library Director for the Delray Beach Public Library, a beautiful 47,000-square-foot building built 5 years ago in a Key West style with levered shuttered windows and pastel colors. The inside has an impressive loft ceiling on the second floor, a public meeting hall and a café, lifelong learning classes in a computer room, and an adorable children’s section with hand-painted scenes of Floridian nature scenes on the walls. It looks like a great library in which to work. I also went back with the other half of the AKs to visit the main library at Florida Atlantic University, where I previously worked for more than 7 years. After I left, they broke ground on an extension to the main building, and one of the best parts of this project has been the expansion of The Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts. Now incorporating space for lectures and workshops, this area has helped generate an incredible amount of interest in the Jaffe Collection of thousands of artists’ books and related works, many of which are 3D sculptures unto themselves. Jaffe curator John Cutrone and I co-wrote an article about the collection that was published in Art Documentation in 2004. It’s exciting to see how the collection has increased, not to mention the popularity of the numerous public programs and events held there. The rest of my visit to the library itself was fine. It was good to see so many people I had once worked for and with (and those who once worked for me!). But if ever I needed affirmation that I had made the right decision to move on, it was confirmed for me that day, simply because I realized how I personally had evolved into a different phase of my life and that my time there was now officially my past. We came together for a time, but even they have moved into their own future.

The rest of my trip was spent in Pinellas County visiting family, but mostly celebrating the Padre's 79th birthday and helping take care of him with some of his health issues. I did get to see a few old friends (and I made one new friend…you know who you are!). I’ll be back there again in a couple of months, probably for a longer period of time, but for now I’m back home in Brooklyn and looking forward to my next adventure.

Return from the Sunshine State

My trip to Florida was filled with lots of events. The picture you see here is one I took of The Pier, a complex with shops, restaurants, and an aquarium in downtown St. Petersburg that stretches out into Tampa Bay. There has been some public building on this site since the 1880s, but the upside-down pyramidal structure was built in the 1970s. I was told that there are plans to start doing major renovations here--possibly even eliminate the building--because the actual pier foundation needs a major overhaul in its support structure. Although the building is a bit kitschy, I do hope they keep it, as it's been a great landmark for decades now.

My primary reason for going to the Sunshine State these days mostly revolves around the health and well being of a few seniors in the family, notably Padre, my uncle, and my aunt. Thus, there were almost daily visits to either one doctor or another and hospitals. No sooner after I arrived, for instance, my aunt fell and broke her hip, needing a partial hip replacement and subsequently physical therapy at a senior rehabilitation center. The good news is that by the time I left everyone was doing well, so that was a comfort. I also had a few dinners with cousins, and on one very hot and humid afternoon I went with my godchildren to Lowry Park Zoo. While there, we rode the carousel, saw lots of fun animals (loved the meerkats and penguins), and enjoyed a delicious chocolate ice cream cone (I say that because I'm not a big fan of ice cream).

The planned "Gay Boys Weekend" at the Flamingo was great fun. I had coordinated this trip with friends to belatedly celebrate my 40th birthday, the passing of my Oral Exam, and the submission of my dissertation proposal (which has been accepted with some minor changes...more on that in a future post). In the picture below are some of my friends and I at tea dance (notice a few Bears in the background...don't ask, long story). My friends came from NYC, Miami, and Houston. The "resort" itself was basically a roadside highway hotel, but the pool area was great, and their local drink special was a deliciously fizzy $3 concoction that (if I remember correctly) had Smirnoff pomegranate vodka, seltzer, and some sort of sweet syrupy flavoring (pink in color, of course). We ate out all the time, going one night to Central Avenue Oyster Bar for some great seafood and going twice to Pia's Trattoria for some of the most delicious, simple Italian cuisine with wonderful ambiance and service.

My trip ended with a few days in Jacksonville visiting SVH for her birthday and to see my canine nephew George the Greyhound. I've never been completely comfortable around large dogs (not sure why exactly), but he is the one large dog that I absolutely adore. We went to the dog park one morning and got a bit muddy playing with all the dogs. We also went to the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, of course to see the animals, but also so that SVH could photograph the public displays of poetry that relate in part to the "Poetry in the Branches" campaign led by Poets House (actually located here in NYC). She is one of the organizers at the Jacksonville Public Library for this NEH-funded program to encourage people to read poetry.

All in all, it was a great trip, but it's good to be home. I'm already back to work and settling back into my groove here in Brooklyn and on bklynbiblio.

Sunshine State

I'm heading to Florida for a couple of weeks, so bklynbiblio posts may be infrequent. I'll be in St. Petersburg visiting Padre and la famiglia. The image above is a great shot of one section of the downtown area of the city along Tampa Bay (image courtesy of Annalisa Weller's blog). Next weekend, friends of mine will be meeting me in St. Pete for a "Gay Boys Weekend" at the Flamingo Resort, which promises to be loads of fun. At the end of my visit, I'll be spending a few days with SVH and my canine nephew George in Jacksonville. I'm looking forward to sunshine, swimming, partying, zoos and dog parks, and just plain old relaxing! I even have my next novel ready for the plane ride: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Now to finish packing...

MOCA NOMI

After my friend NV from Miami Beach called today, I started thinking about the art scene in the Miami area, considering I lived in South Florida for a while. I don't want to make comparisons between Miami's and New York's art scene (because obviously New York's is superior!), but I think it's worth mentioning some aspects of Miami's cultural world. It really has a unique flair unto itself. The revitalization of South Beach in the 1990s was amazing, with so many formerly dilapidated Art Deco houses and hotels now flourishing as major hotspots. Art Basel Miami, held every December, is one of the largest art festivals in the world and has spawned numerous galleries throughout the city. I could go on, but for now I thought I would write about the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, aka MOCA NOMI.

The building was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, a major New York-based architectural firm that has worked on institutional projects from the expansion wing of the Guggenheim Museum to the Mina S. Rees Library at the CUNY Graduate Center. MOCA NOMI was constructed in 1996, and the company writes on their website that the museum "transforms an existing parking lot into an urban art plaza and redefines the town center as a cultural complex. The building is composed of four articulated and interconnected elements, which are assembled as a composition of cubist objects to form a dynamic visual collage that provokes curiosity, engagement and an appreciation of both art and architecture." As the photograph by Steven Brooke shows, it has a colorful array of geometrically-shaped parts, and it incorporates aspects of Floridiana with terracotta tiles, water features, and palm trees. Oddly, the colors do make it stick out like a proverbial sore thumb in an urban area. The interior has 23,000 square feet of gallery space akin to a warehouse with movable walls, which works perfectly for a contemporary art museum.

Looking at the museum's website, I realized that while I didn't go on a regular basis and now regret not having seen some exhibitions, I did see some fantastic shows through the years. In October 2004, I saw one of the performances of Pablo Cano's The Toy Box, a marionette performance inspired by Claude Debussy's 1913 children's ballet La Boîte à Joujoux. The Miami-based artist Cano is known for his innovative use of puppets and marionettes, and is commissioned frequently to do work for the museum, including a new exhibition of his work opening this month. Earlier that same year, I had seen the Louise Bourgeois exhibition Stitches in Time which focused on the cloth work she does now later in life (some of which was also in the retrospective I also saw at the Guggenheim this summer). In late 2002, I saw the YES Yoko Ono exhibition that had been organized by the Japan Society in New York. I found the exhibition a fascinating introduction to fluxus and performance art, although admittedly scholars still aren't always sure where to place her in the art history canon. I found much of her work to be very clever, but other works, such as Cut Piece (1965), still can make you shiver, watching men (and women) cutting away her clothing on stage while she does nothing to stop them. And of course I cannot forget the Gianni Versace exhibition, The Reinvention of Material, from 1999. Versace's association with South Beach is well known, so it was appropriate this exhibition was there. They had a section where you could handle samples of his materials, which made sense considering the exhibition's theme. I took my ex, DFG, and my mother to see that show. Needless to say, my fashionista mother absolutely loved it; I had to watch her that she didn't run off with anything.

But, ultimately, I have to say probably the most memorable show I saw there was my very first in 1998. It was the Keith Haring retrospective that had originally been at the Whitney Museum. My memory of it was that it was jam-packed with his work, encompassing everything from his early sketchbooks to his later cartoon-like figures on enormous canvases. It was dazzling and eye-opening in every sense imaginable. There was even an entire room set up recreating Studio 54 with televisions everywhere playing the Grace Jones video "I'm Not Perfect" (1986). You'll notice Haring designing her dress at different parts in the video. Check it out (you really can find anything on YouTube).