Musings: Scrapple from the Apple: The Whining Stranger's Back from NYC

So, Friday night I landed, tired, back into my quiet college town, after ten days in the greatest city in the universe. It's over: I took Manhattan, the Bronx, and the Staten Island ferry too. A good trip overall. I was sufficiently productive with the library research I was supposed to do, and I maximized my time in the city, enjoying ten days as a flaneur in midtown, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, SoHo, the financial district... Baseball brought me to Queens and the Bronx. The unlimited-ride MetroCard I bought on Day 2 was my greatest resource. Some highlights and things I did, and discovered:

1. Midtown Manhattan hotel rooms at twilight invite shadowy self-portraits:



2. Ms. Liberty's a looker, even on an overcast afternoon, as viewed from the tip of Battery Park. (I also saw her from the Staten Island ferry, but didn't have my camera to record that first meeting of wayfaring intellectual and gigantic female icon.)



3. My favorite on-the-go lunch is, without a doubt, gyros bought on the cheap from the vendors around the corner from Radio City Music Hall, where I stomped on the avenue in bad sneakers, but sans transistor or large sum of money. A good lunch: greasy, sloppy goodness in a pita with an ice cold can of Coke, and all for five bucks.



4. This unassuming basement venue is--as I knew it would be--the greatest jazz club in the world. The staff could be a little more personable, but man, I sat three feet from Greg Osby (who was fantastic) and couldn't settle the litany in my mind of famous musicians who'd played (and recorded seminal albums) on the stage before me ("Trane!" "Sonny Rollins!" "Bill Evans!" etc.).



...but I also heard amazing jazz from the Mingus Dynasty group here, at Iridium, on Broadway on Tuesday night. A great pick-up performance, and a personal highlight for me, when Ku'umba Frank Lacy acknowledged my applause from the front table with a nod and a finger pointed in my direction.



...and the best serendipitous jazz moment of my visit was getting to catch the Dave Holland Quintet for free at Castle Clinton in Battery Park on my last night in town. Chris Potter and Robin Eubanks were particularly otherworldly.



5. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is overwhelming in its grandeur. I had to limit myself to my bread-and-butter, the modern and contemporary collections. While I can't pretend I wasn't disappointed that they didn't have Romare Bearden's The Block on view, I was moved at seeing Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein in person for the first time.



6. At Yankee Stadium, you get this for forty-five dollars:



...but at Shea Stadium, you get this for only sixteen:



So what if Shea's a dumpier ballpark. I like the Mets better anyway. (Though I did have a blast joining the boo-birds in the Bronx when A-Rod struck out three times. I could strike out for less than 25 million bucks a year, dude.)

And those are some highlights from my time in the big city. Sadly, now I'm staring at a mess of work to do in the next three weeks. When-oh-when will those syllabi be finished?