From LGA, cab to the Bowery via the Williamsburg bridge (that much I’ve learned), the 6 train to 51^st, walk to D. Wigmore Gallery in the Crown Building on 5^th Avenue at 57^th to see the 1960’s Op Art of Tadasky, eye wobbling crazy candy in a serene and classic mid-town gallery, then a short walk to the Fuller Building (remember the Fuller Brush Company?) on 57^th and up to the Alexandre Gallery, the walls chock full of great stuff, including a show of Emily Nelligan’s elegant charcoal drawings paired with her late husband Marvin Bileck’s etchings, an understated antidote to the Tadasky’s psychedelic-lolly-pops– Nelligan’s charcoals are small wonders, foggy and mysterious, yet detailed and evocative, they come from a 90-something year old Mainer who has really only been discovered in recent years and is one of the many fine Maine or part time Maine landscape artists (many of whom the Alexandre Gallery seems to handle) such as Lois Dodd, Neil Welliver, Fairfield Porter (even Alex Katz in his landscape mode), and worth a visit as are, I’m sure, other mid-town “academic” galleries, but time to cram my way onto the 6 back downtown to meet at Primi, corner of Bowery and Bond for, what else…a Manhatten, some food and a visit.

Day 2 and a nice walk cross-town to pick up the Highline and saunter North to whatever stairway takes you down into the steroidal world of Chelsea and to the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery at 19^th Street and 11th Avenue where Alma Thomas, deceased, African-American, mid-century abstract expressionist painter who painted in multi-color daubs, streamed into perfect rectangular or circular paintings that make you want to be a hedge fund manager so you could afford one or two, and it wouldn’t really matter which ones because they’re all great and they make you smile and the space at Rosenfeld is sunlit and beautiful and New York and on and on, and not a panhandler in sight, not at the street corners with their hand lettered cardboard signs like at every other corner here in Cincinnati, where the unemployment stands at 4.5%, but that’s hard to believe because 4.5% of the city is standing on street corners with cardboard signs and at least another 4.5% must be just hanging out smoking weed, and I’m sympathetic and probably give them a buck 50% of the time, all of which has very little to do with Alma Thomas’ great art, but does have something to do with Manhatten getting so scrubbed-clean in the last couple decades so the masters of the universe can stroll around and buy beautiful or gimmicky art without guilt, and walk, as I then did, to Eately at the corner of fifth and 23^rd street, a massive market, where all manner of foodie hysteria abounds, the huge space broken into a maze of small specialty markets and restaurants, be it pasta, olives, fresh produce, pastries, wine, meats, fish, sauces, coffee and you’re lost in this maze, doubling back and spiraling out, then sitting for a soup and panini and scurrying out to the relative sanity of the street, but already wishing you could carry a sustainable bag of fine groceries home, except you’re not headed home but to the hotel and then an early show at the Jazz Standard, Vijay Iyer, a pianist and his band, a unique jazz trio, very rhythmic, at times avant-garde, at times melodic and forceful, building on the same theme to a near-frenzy, and they serve pretty-damn-good BBQ, so it’s a fine day’s end.