Seattle, March 2013

It has been several years since we visited Seattle, a town we love, but this year the Pac 12 women's basketball tournament played at Key Arena, Seattle Center.  Deb is a member of Rebounders, the OSU women's BBall rooters, and since the club had arranged for hotel rooms at a discount, we reserved seats on the Coast Starlight and showed up at the Albany Amtrak station in typical Oregon sunshine.

The train was delayed—2 to 3 hours—so we took in the local antique stores and found a Dehillerin copper mixing bowl.  Toward 4 we stepped out on the platform

and were soon headed north, enjoying views one does not get from I-5.

In no time, it seemed, we were running under Burnside bridge in Portland

and into Union Station, one of the finest train stations architecturally in the U.S.

Then on to Seattle.  Because we were so late, we couldn't go to our usual haunt, F.X. McRory's, and instead took a cab to the Mediterranean, grabbed a bite, hit the sack.  Next morning to Pike Market to eat at Lowell's.

Beside the best corned beef hash one can find anywhere, we like the view—and we liked to feed seagulls from the windows, which annoyed no end other tenants and passers-by on the street some four floors below.  The sash windows have been replaced with sealed double-paned glass, obstructing one of our pleasures but the view is still great: Elliot Bay cranes, ferries, and now the Seattle Great Wheel, a smaller version of the London Eye.

We wandered the market, full of flowers, fresh food, fish,

then back to the hotel and Key Arena for the bb game where Benny was waiting.

The ladies played well, despite the officiating (three Beaves fouled out), but faded at the end.

The Rebounders met at a Queen Anne street bar to drown their their sorrows, then adjourned to Ten Mercer for a scrumptious "Dine Around Seattle" meal (3 courses, $30):  for me, stuffed eggplant rollotini, halibut with lobster hash and sherry aioli, followed by a vanilla bean custard (actually a crème brûlée); Deb chose lobster bisque, parmesan crusted sole, and profiteroles, shown here.  Yum, yum, yum.

After, a few of us took to the Mediterranean's roof patio for the night sights.

In the morning, Deb and I went to the Seattle Art Museum for its special "Treasures of Kenwood House, London."  Kenwood House, a great house on the northern boundary of Hampstead Heath, has been undergoing restorations, and fortunately for us, much of its art is on tour.

We had been to the SAM more than once before, but I had forgotten its impressive ethnographic collections, especially from Africa and the Pacific Northwest, which we examined before and after the Kenwood exhibit.

The Kenwood exhibit included van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Frans Hals, Turner, and a late Rembrandt self portrait—which I photographed, much to the consternation of a guard who had been after me earlier for looking too closely at a painting.

We returned to Pike Market, enjoying the sights and smells but found the antique stalls had all disappeared, so we headed down to the bay and on the way discovered another bronze pig.

At Ye Olde Curiosity shop, Deb paid Madam X for a fortune:

                                                 Round and round the ball will spin
                                                 Till it draws your good luck in 
                                                 Ah, I can foretell for you
                                                 Good luck in a month or two.
Madam X went on to say "Put another 50¢ in the slot and I will tell you more," but Deb settled for the good luck.

We had to ride the "Seattle Great Wheel," at 175 feet tall, the largest observation ferris wheel on the west coast (they claim, but still less than half the height of the London Eye), three revolutions for $25.19 (senior rate).

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Throughout, the gondolas stop to let passengers on and off so the ride is not continuous, making photographing easier for novices—and the views (though continually interrupted by wheel structure) are fine.

One of my goals this trip was to sample Olympias, Ostreola conchaphila, the only oyster native to the Pacific coast, once so plentiful that on the east shore of San Francisco Bay, shell middens were reported to be more than 60 feet high and 350 feet in diameter.  Olympias were driven almost to extinction by over-harvesting and water pollution, but are now enjoying a slow resurgence and are again available at a few specialty houses.  One of those is Elliott's Oyster House on Pier 56, where we headed next.  We sampled a number of oyster varieties, but the Olympia was by far the tastiest, and at $33 a dozen, probably the most expensive.  We tried other seafood: mussels, scallops, calamari, washed down with Genesis chardonnay and finished with chocolate souffle and Courvoisier.  Yum.

We wandered Pioneer Square, looking for antique stores that used to be scattered through the neighborhood but alas, have with a few exceptions shrunk or disappeared.  We found that the State Hotel was still advertising rooms for 75¢ but I suspect that the sign has been left more for atmosphere than for clientele.

We found Pacific Galleries antique mall on South Lander, 30,000 square feet of stuff that kept us busy for an hour or so.  Nothing leapt out at us but at least we found where some of the dealers have gone.

Back to Amtrak and a smooth trip, this time in daylight the entire way, along the shores of the East Passage, the Columbia, and finally the Willamette to Albany and home.

NYC for New Year's

Christmas afternoon we drove to Portland, spent the evening at an almost deserted Radisson, and the next morning flew nonstop to Newark, an easy flight, caught the airtrain to Penn Station, and walked the cold ten blocks or so to the Metro Apartments.  After checking in with the hotel and with the kids, we caught a gypsy cab to meet them at the White Horse Tavern.

It has not changed much in the 20 years since we were last there, or in the 50 years since I used to go there to drink 50 cent beers and eat 25 cent pickled eggs.  The gas lights, long since converted to electricity, still light the place.

After we split up, Deb and I walked around the corner to 99 Perry Street.  My apartment was one floor up, with two front windows at the left, $125 a month.

We caught a cab back to the Metro, then despite the rain and the late hour, walked the few blocks to Times Square to enjoy some of the city's ambiance.  We got soaked.

The next day, we met the kids at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along with tourists from around the world and more vacationing students and their parents than you would have imagined.  Despite the packed galleries, we each found our favorite areas.  Deb was taken by the antiquities,

especially jewelry,

Maren was most interested in the arms and armor,

I found old favorites and some new.

That evening, we took in another old favorite, which has changed some since we used to go there for lunch--two mugs of ale for 50 cents, Leiderkrantz and onion on saltines.

Women have been allowed in for years now, Leiderkrantz is no longer served, and two mugs are $5--but otherwise it seems much the same: sawdust on the floor, servers carry up to eight mugs in a hand, tables are shared.

We met drinkers from Ireland, England, Australia, as well as a bass player from Brooklyn and a New Jersey bartender on vacation.

The Museum of Natural History was next on our list.  I confess to always wanting to visit but never having done so even when I lived only a few blocks away.

Lots of people, lots of fascinating dioramas (characterized as dead animal exhibits by some to-remain-nameless members of our family), lots of ethnographic displays.  I was surprised to discover fish fossils from the Green River formation near Kemmerer, where we had just been fossil digging last summer.

Friday evening we went to the Gershwin to see Wicked, a delightful upsidedown Wizard of Oz,

in which the "wicked" witch Elphaba tries to expose the injustices of the current Oz regime and the "good" witch Glinda is a ditzy sorority queen who wants to maintain the status quo and her mindless reign.

We ate at the Carnegie Deli, crammed in with a lot of other gourmands, to eat some of the best, or at least the largest, sandwiches imaginable.

Deb and I wandered the Times Square area, enjoying the crowds.  We managed to take in the test-drop of the New Year's Eve ball and tests of the confetti as well, a few pieces of which we snagged before the sweepers vacuumed them off the street.

I don't know what the day-to-day atmosphere is these days, but at this time of year, it definitely was a carnival:

mummers enticed tourists, hawkers peddled cut rate tickets, we found ourselves projected onto a giant composite TV screen.

We went to the Frick but cameras are not allowed so the only photographic record of my favorite New York museum is a shot of the snow falling across the street in Central Park.

We visited Obscura, an antiques and oddities shop on the Lower East Side that has been featured in a TV show.  Definitely some oddities: stuffed two-headed calves, antique medical equipment, quirky stuff.

We wandered Rockefeller Center, and ate at Bombay Palace under carvings of illustrations from the Kama Sutra.

We visited St. Patrick's, undergoing renovations, during a service.  Still an impressive edifice, and lovely inside as well.

We attended George Balanchine's production of The Nutcracker, a special treat for Matthew who performed in the Huntsville Ballet's production.

We got to MoMA--New York's Museum of Modern Art--when it opened, and the crowd was already waiting and got worse as the day went on--especially in front of special exhibits such as Edvard Munch's Der Schrei der Natur, on display from October 2012 to March 2013.

This is Munch's fourth version (pastel, 1895), which sold for $119,922,600 at Sotheby's on May 2, 2012, the highest price ever for a painting at auction.  Viewers crowded in, took photos, then made way for more photographers, never really looking at the painting itself.  I joined them, I confess.  Nearby, ignored by many in the crowd, was one of the lithograph versions, equally interesting, I think.

MoMA has many other fascinating works, many of which were ignored by the crowds,

Starry Night,

Water Lilies, a Picasso goat.

New Year's eve, we jointed the Circle Line sightseeing cruise of the water front, from the West 42nd Street pier, down the Hudson by Liberty Island (closed to visitors until damages from the Sandy storm surge are repaired),

up the East River, under the Brooklyn Bridge, then turn around and in the dark, back to 42nd Street.

The rest of the evening was Deb's party.  Months before, she had purchased party passes to some ten venues in the Times Square area and about 8 p.m. we started to the first, Frames Lounge, an up-scale bowling alley and night club where bowlers wore coat and ties.  Food and drink was all included, and it was excellent, but we moved on.  Police had barricaded every crossing, and our spendy entry wristbands swayed no one--half the people in the crowd displayed them.  The police said the crowd was already too big, they were letting no one in at that crossing, go north a block--which we did, and heard the same story.  Finally, we slipped around a barricade, and headed east toward Seventh.  A cop stopped us, asked how we had gotten in.  I said, the cops back on Eighth had let us through.  He shrugged, and we wound up at Chevys Fresh Mex on 42nd, which we had walked by every day on our way to Times Square, a two-floor night club with too-loud music spun by a d.j.  The drinks were covered, including tequila shots, and everyone was happy and getting happier.

We gave up on the idea of fighting our way to see the ball drop--after all, we had seen the practice drop, it was cold out, and rest rooms were handy.  At about 11:55, the bartenders lined up champagne glasses--plastic, of course--along the bar, poured the bubbly, and at the sounds of the horns, we toasted another year.

And a few minutes after 12, we braved the cold two blocks back to the Metro and fell into bed.


At 11:09 the next morning we walked into the Guggenheim to see a display of some 110 black-and-white works from 1904 to 1971 of Pablo Picasso, paintings, sculpture, and works on paper.

Except in the foyer, photography was not allowed as was announced in signs throughout the museum, although many in the crowd, art lovers though they might be, clearly could not read.

We took the elevator to the top, then walked down the spiral display area, seeing Picasso's development

from representational early work to later abstractions such as The Milliner's Workshop (1926).

In the afternoon, Deb and I went down to the Village to walk around the old neighborhood

and discovered we weren't the only ones looking for nuts.

That evening, we met the kids for another great meal.  And then in the morning, we met everyone at Penn Station and Maren, Deb, and I took the airtrain back to Newark, Maren to fly to Alabama, Deb and I to Denver, then Portland and the drive back to the ranch.  A good trip.

John von Hartz at his house party he invited us to.  Thanks, John, it was great seeing you again.

I'm trying to figure out where we are at the Met.

            
                          Happy 2013!