Jane Brocket's Blog, page 20

new york top 7:6

6/7 architecture

Mind-boggling, mind-blowing, mind-bending:  the architecture of Manhattan is ceaselessly interesting and spectacularly varied. 

This book is an excellent companion, but what is really needed is a modern-day Pevsner to cover every last building of interest and create a whole series of books about the city which could now, of course, be carried about very easily on a Kindle or iPad instead of in thick, heavy, shoulder-sapping volumes.

[These two buildings are both in Chelsea. The second one is HL23 which is next to the High Line. Also mentioned in this excellent blog.]

new york top 7:5

5/7 flowers

The flower displays outside the shops on many Manhattan streets are some of the neatest and tidiest I've seen. At this time of year there are masses of roses, like these in pastel shades that match the frostings on the cakes in the equally tempting bakeries and cake shops (best one: Billy's Bakery).

solid as a rock bun

Twenty-five years of marriage. I've been thinking about the numbers and have worked out that since 4 June 1988 we've lived in remarkably few houses (six) in three countries, spent six years living abroad, had one doubly successful cycle of IVF plus a little miracle, watched three children grow up, been through several careers (me)/worked for just three companies (Simon), been out for hundreds of curries, enjoyed x bottles of wine, filled a house with an uncounted number of books, planted thousands of tulips, had innumerable good conversations, shared millions of laughs, and eaten a lot of rock buns. As you'd expect, there have been a few difficult times and several bereavements, but we have been lucky in that so far with the family we have created it's been mostly calm and there has been only one serious illness (Tom) and only one set of stitches (Tom). Since we have a very peaceful life together I can't even count or recall a number of blazing rows or door-slamming moments although I would guess there must have been a few off-days. 

We still get on incredibly well. I still look forward to Simon coming home after work every day. He's still my best friend. He's still as brilliantly enthusiastic about life as he was when we first met in 1984. He's still as kind and generous and supportive as ever, still game for anything that involves bikes, raisins, Booker T and the MGs, Tom, Alice and Phoebe. We both still forget/almost forget our anniversary every year which is why Simon came home with 25 beautiful roses last night and I have just baked 25 rock buns today, and we have agreed to overlook the silverware.

If there is one thing that is a constant in our life together, it's the rock bun. We'll be having some with a glass of wine later and while we won't be getting all sentimental about our 25 years of marriage, we'll still express some surprise at where the time went, then get onto planning what comes next. More of the same with rock buns, please.

new york top 7:4

4/7 painting

[Stenographic Figure (c1942) Jackson Pollock]

MoMA is full of people enjoying themselves. Even though it's a serious place with serious art, visitors move about, talk, and react with animation and energy; it doesn't feel like a place where you have to be all reverential, hushed or overawed. I'm sure it's to do with the nature of the collection as sometimes you just can't help laughing (a shiny pink plank = sculpture?/what looks like the contents of a huge mattress = meaningful installation?), but you just can't get too bogged down when you are looking at Campbell's Soup Cans and odd collections, and seeing people queuing in the pouring rain to get into the Rain Room. 

At the moment there's a wonderful exhibition of Bill Brandt photographs, but the highlight for me was this painting by Jackson Pollock. It makes me laugh, the colours are wonderful, it's witty and strange and clever. 

And my second favourite was this painting by Matisse which I hadn't seen before. In fact, coming out of MoMA, the overwhelming impression for me (once again) was that Matisse changed everything and that he was the great artistic genius, not Picasso.

[The Rose Marble Table (1917) Henri Matisse]

new york 7:3

3/7: walk

The High Line

It's just as fantastic as ever, and still one of my very favourite places in New York - or anywhere, really. It's public, it's free, it's popular, it's an astonishing transformation of an abandoned railway line. The planting is incredibly well done, and the effects are lovely.

The views vary enormously along the line and are some of the best in the city mixing old and new, dilapidated and shiny, tall and small, business and residential.

[Phoebe's spot]

Every step creates new vistas that are framed or edged or blurred by the trees and flowers and shrubs. If you get there at the right time - first thing on weekdays - you can have the place almost to yourself, and when daylight fades the clever lighting along the path comes on.

The free information about the High Line is great and you can download monthly plant lists and a couple of excellent self-guided tours including this historical tour. Seriously, I could spend weeks up there, only thirty feet above street level but with my head in the clouds.

(There's also a very good book.)

new york 7:2

2/7: construction worker

Love the way even the NYC constructions workers are camera-ready. This one only had to see my lens pointed his way and he obliged with a Village People pose without waiting to be asked. But then this is the High Line where everything's fabulous.

new york 7:1

1/7: book

The Catcher in The Rye

I hadn't read this book since I was fifteen and over-identified with Holden's sensitivity and depression. It was so raw and direct it made me feel physically ill (all that chest-crushing, painful breathing, sickness and fainting) and as though I too were standing on a cliff-edge waiting to be caught. I couldn't believe someone aged sixteen could spend so much on taxis and drink as I knew little about privileged schoolboys in America, but it created an indelible image of  a cold, edgy, New York City where you could be beaten up or socially frozen out at any moment. And I loved Holden's love for Phoebe, and now wonder if the book was where I first came across and started to like the name Phoebe (I'd forgotten that her middle name is Josephine which is also Alice's middle name).

This week I bought a new copy with the classic cover in Posman Books and decided that it's definitely a book to read first as a teenager in order to see that you're not the only one, then again as an adult/parent to be reminded that although teenagers are up and down and all over the place, they really do see the world intensely and clearly, and are phenomenally good at detecting phoniness. I'm now better able to appreciate the genius of the writing style, the humour (last time I was too bogged down in being an adolescent to recognise the ironies and contradictions and inadvertent self-revelations), the brilliant digressions and the tear-inducing sadnesses. I found a foretaste of the icy downtown New York of Bob Dylan and the neurotic, uptown New York of Woody Allen, and echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird which also has a central but elusive titular theme that defies any definitive interpretation.

The book held me even more on this reading, now that time has lent some distance and comfort to the view and I wasn't rushing to find out what happens in the end. When I first read it, I hadn't quite realised that Holden is describing what it's like to teeter on the edge of a breakdown - I thought all adolescents spent much of their time feeling this way - and although it's still a painful read, I can now see the glimmers of hope and optimism that just about sustain Holden and catch him in time.

As Holden would say, it really knocks me out.

round in circles

Time for something sweet. At the weekend, Phoebe and I went to a short cake decorating class run by Carlo's Bakery of Cake Boss fame (Phoebe's favourite programme during exam revision). It was supposed to be a Memorial Day cake, but I went circular instead of starry. We didn't get into the bakery - we couldn't believe the queue to get in and didn't join it. But I was happy enough just to have a look at the amazing Hoboken Terminal (even though it's not yet back to normal after Hurricane Sandy), imagine Marlon Brando on the waterfront, and see Manhattan from the other side of the river.

We're back from NYC now, tired and with jet-lagged eyes that feel like they are going round in cricles, but having had a wonderful time.

tiffany's of manchester

[Any Wintry Afternoon in England (1930) CR Nevinson]

I was wandering round Manchester Art Gallery yesterday wondering why I felt so reassured to be there. It brought back memories of my visits as a teenager when I went to look at 'my' paintings, to make sure they were still there, to rediscover a few constants in turbulent teenage times. Once again, I found I could look at Work for ages and still find something new, I could float in Albert Moore's pale, lush colour studies, and I could almost smell the burning leaves in Millais' painting. It's like finding old friends; you pick up where you left off and they don't seem to have changed. 

[The Schoolroom (c1937) Vanessa Bell, lithograph still available]

All the while, I was searching in my mind for a quote that explained the security I always feel in this gallery, and today I've just looked it up. It is of course from Breakfast at Tiffany's when Holly Golightly explains how she copes with the 'mean reds' and the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's: 'The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there'. This is how I feel about Manchester City Art Gallery: nothing very bad can happen in there and in fact, like Tiffany's, it's such a grand, solid building that holds so many beautiful things that I'd like to be more able to get a taxi to it in times of need.

[The Eiderdown (1928) Sydney Carline]

It was always free to get, imposing, full of Manchester industrial pride and money, with a famous collection of over-heated Pre-Raphaelite paintings which appeal to teenagers and a lesser-known but tremendous collection from other eras and genres. Now it also has one of the few modern extensions I like a great deal and think works perfectly, and thus huge amounts of exhibition space.

[The Picnic (1924) Mary Adshead, painted to look like a tapestry]

These two assets - space and collection - come together in the current exhibition which has brought out all sorts of paintings I've never seen before. It's large but focussed and although there may not be many masterpieces in there, it's full of famous names and gives a clear and comprehensive overview of the period. It's a simple theme done well. It doesn't cost a penny to see - and you really can see it as there are never too many people in there at any one time. Plus, there is a transcendentally lovely painting by Winifred Nicholson on display, and nothing bad ever comes of looking at her paintings.

repository

[punts, a couple of weeks ago in Cambridge]

This blog has proved to be a useful distraction and source of consolation in recent weeks and months when terribly difficult things have been happening. It's a little repository of good things, small highlights, and positive moments. These are by no means representative of my days, but I put them here to remind myself that they still exist. The thing is that life goes on, that it's counterproductive and not good to be completely submerged by sadness and despondency (that way madness lies etc). Better to acknowledge the bad parts, know that good times will return, and endeavour to keep a balance. 

[famous for its buns]

So I collect beautiful, simple patterns in punts on the Cam, nicely proportioned, plain Georgian windows contrasting with a 1920s 'handwritten' sign,

[Botanic Garden]

and pure white magnolia against a pure blue sky. 

[Magdalene College]

I put in tulips planted to match rubbish bins (I sincerely hope this was the case and that it's not just a happy coincidence...),

[church opposite Kettle's Yard]

plus little hidden gems of Englishness.

I store all this and more in my repository of miscellaneous goodness.

[detail of 'Youth' by Kathleen Scott outside the Scott Polar Research Institute. Great biography of KS.]

And really, really, really hope that it will be warm enough to go without socks soon.