NYC Bones.

My wife trained and prepared for nine months to run 26.2 miles across the five boroughs of new york city. The goal involved exhaustive fund raising, countless miles in predawn dark and countless more on the sleepy saturday and sunday mornings. Her preparation left her glowing and excited as she exited the hotel room at 5h30am on November 9th, looking strong and confident. Her eyes were clear and sharp, focused into the work ahead. And once begun, she smiled from the first 5k to the 26^th mile (a fact documented in dozens of photographs along the route). She savored the experience, relished the difficult passages as well as the vibrant neighborhoods and their various characters. She absorbed the goal and lived it and nailed it. In grand fashion in fact. An admirable feat.  Congratulations on a great run darling.  I am proud to be a part of your experience.

From there it was de kooning, chirashi, war horse, patsy's, nj transit, flat tires on airplanes, east village, soho, noho, coffee black as soot, orange brioche at maison cognac, katie holmes' black denali chased by guys with toenails for teeth, the grand spires and churches of manhattan, the smells of bleeker (cigar, espresso, pomodoro con aglio), 5th avenue diamonds, sunrise miles in central park, chinatown's smells of garlic & hot soy & glass noodles beneath inkbrush calligraphy, cattelan's entire oeuvre hanging like a mobile from the ceiling of the guggenheim. . . . artschwager, beuys, warhol, monet, modi, klee, miro, kadinsky, prince, (some shit I skipped), segal, serra, fischl, oldenberg, pearlstein. . . . rembrandt, rauschenberg, titian, tintoretto, sargeant, turner, steiglitz. . . twombly's sculpture (rustic implements painted white), les desmoilles d'avignon (picasso gets me everytime with that one).

the de kooning retrospect. . . the early figures, the ghostmen-- self-modeled, his hungry years, bubblegum pink furniture on acidgreen backgrounds.  next, a newspaper pushes through glossy black wrestling a flat black, powdery white grinding against form, against formlessness. his black and white paintings- the charcoal of a new york nocturne. the architectural build of ashy vapors from which a seated figure emerges. pastel choruses where breasts heave like labia or hang heavy like pale, velvet curtains.  de kooning's women: Blistered pink, scorned paint, a folklore of oilpaint flesh. Cats hiss through linseed teeth.  the sag harbor nudes. the massive, yearning canvases that came after the door paintings, pastorale with fields and beaches and skies.  the clean arias of his final alzheimer years.

small drawings by kiefer, basqiaut, close. The tear of a french cigarette package on a motherwell collage. The endless bakeries of manhattan, the delectable goods crowding windows. . .

Language of lionesses, sex of commerce. Tiffany's yellow diamonds. Wall street heels clog vivace, leather that matches a briefcase. Sex of tangerines, sex like tangerines. Mists of perfumeries walking in the upper 60's. bikes cruise the hudson with thumb-bells. ghost bikes off delancey ave (a visit and a remembrance, RIP rasha). Fifth avenue dazzles and haunts, the mix of armani empires, lindt chocolates, st. patricks catheral's squaring up against cartiere, the mixture of languages like a postmodern opera-- debase the verbal with cacophony. The rollicking admixture of grandiloquent churches and mirrored glass skyscrapers. Steam of morning sidewalks, the grates where subways roar like engines of time, swallowing a lone saxophonist's "take five" solo.

overall, a week in nyc.