New York, New York

"The Bronx is Up and the Battery's Down."

This is midtown Manhattan as seen from the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway taken a couple days before Christmas.

My wife and I spent Christmas and a few more days in the Big Apple. I lived there some 40 years ago - drove a cab. While much has changed in the city, much remains the same.

While there is much to love in New York, it is also a really tough place to live and work. It's really hard to be middle class there.

We did and saw a lot in the 5 or so days we had: We saw "Fela" the new Broadway musical, we saw the movie "Avatar." We attended a Christmas Eve service at "The Marble Church" to hear my wife's cousin sing a great solo. We went to the "Top of the Rock. We walked around the Battery and Ground Zero. We toured Trinity Church and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden where my son works. We strolled around Central Park and had eats at The Boat House Restaurant. We also toured MOMA which was absolutely packed.

But mostly, I guess, we spent a few great days with our younger son. Both of our kids live well away from home. We see them only rarely.

What takes a midwesterner's breath away about NYC is the cost. We stayed at our son's apartment in Brooklyn, so we didn't have to pay for lodging. Still, everything costs a bunch. Eating at restaurants can be really expensive, although it doesn't have to be. Transportation is very costly. When I lived in NYC the subway cost 20 cents. There were no monthly passes or anything. You just plunked down 20 cents for a token. (Hell, the Staten Island Ferry was a nickel.) Now a single subway ride is $2.25 (or $2.50, I can't remember which.) Now you can purchase monthly passes for $80., but for a variety of reasons, subways just weren't going to work for us. Most subway stations are 2 to 3 levels below ground. My balky knees just don't do well with steps. Cabs are really pricey. A cab ride from LaGuardia to my son's apartment would likely have cost us in excess of $60. The alternative? Car services. You call a car service and usually they appear within 10 to 15 minutes - sometimes far less. The cost? The LaGuardia to Brooklyn trip was $35. The trip from Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan was usually $25. The same for the return. Still, after a few days it became apparent to us that we were spending a bunch on these cars, but there just wasn't any reasonable alternative. They are generally far better than cabs in that they are usually late model Lincoln Town Cars or something similar; far more comfortable than the average cab. They actually have suspensions. The car service drivers tend to be less manic than most cabbies - I know. Remember, I used to be a NY cabbie.

My wife had what she called her "New York" moment when an older woman accosted us down by the Battery asking for money. I didn't hear what my wife said to the woman, but the woman responded by calling her a cunt. Welcome to New York!

Good times.

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Failed Aspirations

I've always regretted leaving show business.

The Scourge of Nationalism

While we are now deeply concerned and in conflict with radical religious fundamentalism, it is also true that nationalism is essentially equal to religious zealotry in its destructiveness. The wonderful British philosopher and essayist A.C. Grayling stands in agreement having stated that "Nationalism is an evil. It causes wars, its roots lie in xenophobia and racism."
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The notion of "American exceptionalism" is not only bunk, it is at best insulting to the rest of the world. At its worst it marks us as delusional in the irrational belief that we are inherently superior to everyone else which sets us up for a hard fall. We are all Americans simply by the accident of our birth.

While we have long felt - and perhaps rightly - that our particular constitutional system is superior to any other, as we know all too well, it has been so bastardized in practice (if not in print) over the years that it is hardly recognizable. George, Thom, John & Ben would probably shake their heads in dismay at what we have wrought out of their hard labor in the Philadelphia heat.

However, I am not one who hankers back in the belief that we should return to our supposed governmental roots. The fact is, this country and the times in general have far outgrown our founding documents. That there are those who would amend our constitution for the sole purpose of depriving citizens of basic rights is perhaps a harbinger of worse things to come.

We are on the verge of being a global society. I won't live to see it, and perhaps no one alive today will witness it either, but it is coming, like it or not. It will be necessary to human survival. If it doesn't come, it will mean that we have blown ourselves back to the stone age to start again (if any humans do survive.)

Its coming will no doubt be violent and painful. If we think getting health care reform has been difficult, wait until the battle begins over the notion of a "one world" global government. Warning shots have already rung out with the collapse of the WTC. Nationalism and its cousin, regionalism, won't go quietly, not to mention the ongoing tussle over whose god can beat up all the other gods.

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We Are All Connected

This is neat.

Swans! Woohoo!

A day for swans. These two majestic fowl ambled across our yard and settled for a time in a neighbor's front yard to calmly preen. I couldn't get any really good shots owing to their incessant preening, the little bastards! Oh well.

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Something Special In Indy

The above photo is of the Indianapolis Children's Museum. This place will flat knock you out!

I know Indianapolis is not a place many would think of to vacation, and rightly so. Our weather is hardly tropical. We have no water to speak of. No beaches. No surfing or sailing. It's not cold and/or snowy enough through the average winter to support winter sports.

But, there are some things of interest - primarily indoor sporting events which do draw fairly large numbers of visitors here. I believe Indy is hosting the NCAA Final Four next spring. We are hosting the Super Bowl in 2012. Of course, every year we have the very outdoor Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 auto races. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is now also hosting a yearly motorcycle event and we have drag racing national competition every year.

Outside of sports Indy does sponsor a national violin competition every couple of years. There are a number of a variety of conventions and other gatherings of large groups here throughout each year. However, I'm not writing here to boost those events. They seem to do all right without my help.

So, too, does the Indianapolis Children's Museum. It is, I believe, the largest children's museum in the world, and some will tell you it is the best. That, I don't know. I have visited only one other children's museum in Winnipeg. While that visit was several years ago, I will say that it was a pretty great place, and my wife, Jo and I enjoyed our tour of it. But, the ICM is, I believe in a class by itself.

Earlier this evening, Jo and I took a "behind the scenes" tour of portions of the ICM with my sister in-law and her husband. It was a pretty great evening. At one point I stood holding like a 65 million year old triceratops tibia. How cool is that?

During their teen years, both of my kids were active at the ICM working on a children's newspaper - The Children's Express - and otherwise volunteering in some of the exhibits. It had been several years since either Jo or I had been there. I was vaguely aware that the museum had been undergoing some expansion and general remodeling, but we were not prepared for what we saw earlier this evening.

I don't know the exact figures, but it seems to us that the museum has perhaps doubled in size. As the above photo illustrates, this is one damn big museum. But its size is only part of the story. The ICM hosts an ongoing rotation of a large variety of traveling exhibits every year. They have been hosting a King Tut exhibit since last summer which, unfortunately, will end next week. In December, they will be opening a "Barbie" exhibit in honor of her 50th birthday. While I can't say that Barbie is exactly my cup of tea, it should be remembered, it IS a children's museum.

But the museum's permanent exhibits are, for the most part astounding and at the very least are usually very interesting and masterfully presented. They are big on dinosaurs. If you look closely at the photo a bit left of center in front of the glass building is a very large dinosaur reared up on its haunches, whose head is actually protuding into the main lobby of the museum. There are other dinosaurs busting through walls and generally cavorting on the museum lawn.

The permanent ICM exhibits run the gamut of natural history, science, and all manner of stuff of interest to kids. They have a monster toy train collection, not to mention an actual well over 100 year old steam locomotive and caboose in the lower level. We toured a portion of their collections which has every toy any kid ever imagined having.

In the inner lobby is a fascinating "water clock" installed several years ago. One can stand and watch it operate for several minutes or even several hours. In the very center of the museum proper is a huge blown glass sculpture designed and largely executed by Seattle's Dale Chihuly. On the lower level is a great planetarium and on the top floor is a full size, fully operational carousel. Of course, this list just skims the surface.

The point of this little bit of shameless hometown promotion is that, while I doubt that many people would make a special trip to Indy just to visit the ICM - although, I'm sure some have, and it would not be a bad choice to do so, anyone who may be coming to Indy for whatever reason - sports, music, a convention, visiting friends and family - make a mental note to include a trip to the Indianapolis Children's Museum whether you have kids with you or not. You won't be disappointed.

In fairness, I should also note that the Indianapolis Museum of Art is rather amazing in its own right as is the Eiteljorg Museum of Indians and Western Art and the Indiana State Museum just a couple of blocks further west. We also have the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum and what I think has been dubbed the Hall of Champions at the national headquarters of the NCAA. There's probably more, but that's all I can come up with right now. If museums are your thing, Indy won't disappoint.

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Who's That Uh... whatever

An opera singer only a mother (and father) could love! My son in his role in Wurzburg production of The Magic Flute.