2026 May 5, Tuesday - Cinco de Mayo

     The New-York-City part of my journey of family, friends, and culture started with a three-kilometer (two-mile) walk through green-springtime Central Park to the Guggenheim Museum, the Frank-Lloyd-Wright, big-helix walk where the building and the environment are more of a draw than the art. There is a non-helical gallery on what would be the second floor with some excellent art and I believe that display does not change.

     This was followed by lunch with friends Olga and Anthony on the upper east side of Manhattan, a break from their new, exciting, rapidly-growing Novapetal flower shop.

     After an afternoon nap in anticipation of a late night I went to a 3.5-hour performance of the opera Eugene Onegin where the lead male charaters engage in a duel fatal to one of them. In the pre-opera talk I learned that Pushkin, the author Alexander Pushkin died that way himself. The music was by Peter Tchaikovsky, so no disappointment there. After five hours of pre-performance talk and a long opera with two intermissions I stumbled "home" across the street to my hotel.

     2026 May 6, Wednesday, Revenge of the Sixth (more Star Wars humor)

     I went downtown to the Whitney Museum of American Art which had a lot of interesting and enjoyable works from the Twentieth Century and a little earlier followed by a brief visit to the Museum of Illusions, which was mostly bigger versions of the optical illusions we saw in primary school. I was going to see the Illusions museum first as it was on the way to the Whitney, but the receptionist warned me that a group of ninety small, screaming children were scheduled then and it would be quieter the other way.

     On my way out of the Whitney I stopped in a boring-looking room that had a live jazz band playing. That was a nice touch of Americana in this American-art museum.

     I did the Top of the Rock, one of several skyscraper-view tours on this trip, views from Rockefeller Center near the Prometheus ice-skating rink and Radio City Music Hall.

     This evening was four "Eclectic" dances at the New York City Ballet with the middle two accompanied only by piano and violin off to the side rather than a symphony orchestra.

     The last ballet was a piano concerto. From my vantage point in the front row I could see the conductor did not direct the piano soloist during his cadenzas. This may be normal behavior during a symphonic performance, but in ballet the orchestra is normally in the pit and the conductor is the only one who can see the dancers whose movements the music has to keep time with. Sometimes those movements are in the hands of Sir Isaac Newton in that gravity determines exactly when the dancer is going to land. The pianist had no way of seeing or knowing this. I asked a few of the last-remaining musicians about this after the show and they pointed out specifically that the candenzas were specifically choreographed for the dancers to follow rather than to lead the music so it would work. I thought that was cool.

     2026 May 7, Thursday

     I started my NYC-tourist day at Hudson Yards with a skyscraper tour of the Edge, the 100^th floor with a glass bottom like the Skywalk at Grand Canyon West where tourists look down between their feet through the glass at the rocks half a mile below. I went across the street to see the Vessel, a cool network of stairway rhombi tesselating its cylindrical shape.

     The evening was more-modern dance, Dave Parsons at the Joyce Theater, a lovely evening of human movement in a smaller theater. The show was six short ballets ranging from 1982 vintage to two world premiers. They did one old one, "Caught," I've seen two or three time before where the lone dancer with a flashing strobe appears to float in the air and then, on the last flash, is seen jumping up and is caught in the light. This time the dancer didn't seem to be caught the same way.

     2026 May 8, Friday

     I started my Friday having lunch with a friend Walter who came from Brooklyn to join me at Fiorello's Italian restaurant. My lawyer-friend Dick going back to 1978, when he did the patent for my LOCI tonearm, has become interested in biotechology. We believe computer advances will lead to medical advances.

     I went to the top of Times Square with another elevator to the top of another place where tourists can walk on a transparent, glass sidewalk and take in good views of the New-York-City skyline.

     The evening was the New York City Ballet "Innovators & Icons" with two ballets "Voices" and "In Memory of..." that I sort-of liked and George Ballanchine's "Diamonds." I saw the epic, three-part "Jewels" in Philadelphia several years ago, "Emeralds," "Rubies," and "Diamonds," and this show was the amazing, wonderful, terrific, third-and-final part.

     2026 May 9, Saturday

     Out of my hotel on my way to see the Broadway show "Wicked" I was reminded how New York City keeps us safe from threats. There were guys in brown-shirt outfits carrying black boxes and then I noticed the white hearse with the Ghostbusters logo. Either the city has seriously-expansive patrol programs or somebody liked the movie enough to buy a hearse and to replicate the movie with logos, outfits, and detectors. It was a lot of fun.

     I stopped in the Carnegie Diner & Cafe, no connection to the now-defunct, formerly-famous Carnegie Deli. The decor was artistic fun and my meal was a terrific pastrami sandwich.

     Almost everybody I know saw the movie "The Wizard of Oz" whose characters are central in the show "Wicked." This show takes serious liberties with the Frank Baum characters Glinda the good witch and Elphaba the wicked witch with good songs, fun stories, and a moving ending. I saw the matinee show.

     My evening was "La Traviata" at the Metropolitan Opera, almost three hours of the heroine dying of some medical ailment while she falls in and out of love.

     2026 May 10, Sunday, Mother's Day

     I decided to take in a Broadway show on my only day without an evening concert and the Rocky Horror Show seemed a good choice. I enjoyed the movie on last-Saturday-night Sunday mornings, I saw a minimal-sets theatrical version in Phoenix and figured the Broadway version might be better.

     Before the show I decide to return to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) where they had the whole sixth floor devoted to the art of Marcel Duchamp.

     By the way, I recall a story about this artist. Nobody else there seemed to remember it and I can't find anything on the Internet. I recall some artist, I think it was Duchamp, slept outisde in the Eiffel Tower. Somebody said he must love the Eiffel Tower and replied, "No, I hate the Eiffel Tower and this is the one place in Paris where I can't see the Eiffel~Tower." I think it's a great story, even if its veracity is questionable.

     He made some real, good, terrific art including the famous "Nude Descending a Staircase." He also elevated ordinary things by putting them on pedestals. The one I remember best is the bottle rack, which appeared here, but also there were urinals and bicycle wheels.

     The famous painting du jour was Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" which was hanging on the fifth floor amid other paintings of similar artists and vintage. People were taking selfies like they do with Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," so I went with the flow and took some of my own.

     From there I went to lunch at a great burger place and stumbled into a used-vinyl-record store called RPM Underground right next to the Studio 54 Theater on, you guessed it, 54^th Street near Sixth Avenue.

     The Broadway version of "The Rocky Horror Show" was terrific and audience call-outs were handled well.

     I went back to the used-vinyl store and bought a few records.

     After that I made it to The Summit at One Vanderbilt near Grand Central Station, another New-York-skyscraper tourist attraction. This one had a sequence of fun rooms beyond just skyline views, a room mirrored top and bottom, another room of mirrored beach balls, a glass floor space, and a glass elevator going up and down the last twelve floors up.

     2026 May 11, Monday

     On my way to get my hotel-room munchies I stopped and gazed at the beauty of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on Ninth Avenue.

     After meeting my friend Anthony I had just enough time for a nice Chinese dinner at Shun Lee restaurant about a block from my hotel and Lincoln Center. My positive impression of New-York-City Chinese food was bolstered by my good meal there.

     At Carnegie Hall the Oratorio Society of New York played a single work, George Frideric Handel's Alexander's Feast or The Power of Musick HWV 75. There were three singer soloists in front and a gorgeous large choir behind the orchestra. It was an evening of joy.

     I saw the news on Facebook that Philadelphia-Ballet conductor Beatrice Jona Affron is moving to the New York City Ballet. She has been on the podium in Philadelphia's Academy of Music for thirty-three years. I've enjoyed her work and a few conversations we have had. I guess I'll have to see and hear her in Manhattan from now on. My friends in the City of Brotherly Love tell me she will be doing a show there next season.

     2026 May 12, Tuesday

     My morning walk took me from my upper-west-side hotel 3 Km (two miles) to my friends's upper-east-side apartment. My knee and back were fine for this morning walk, but not later on in the day. Olga and Anthony and young Anthony were fine and happy.

     We had lunch at one of these cook-your-own-meal restaurants and then we parted ways. On my way back uptown I stopped in two churches, St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Thomas Church, both of which had organists playing lovely music while I sat and enjoyed the music while my knee and back enjoyed sitting down.

     I strolled by Rockefeller Center and Trump Tower. The zoo in Central Park was closing soon, so no tickets were for sale, and I sat on a bench watching people going back and forth. I ended up back at Carnegie Hall were I had the same seat as the night before.

     This time it was The Orchestra Now (TÖN) playing three pieces by Richard Strauss, not the Viennese-waltz Strauss but the Space-Odyssey Strauss. There were a piano-cum-orchestra piece Burleske, a four-times-of-day piece Die Tagezeiten, Op. 76 with a chorus behind the left side of the orchestra, and a longer piece, less-interesting to me, with tone poems describing a long-full-day hiking adventure. I think it was a student orchestra, more than competent enough for Carnegie Hall.

     After that my adventure began as I had a ticket to Ballet Arizona "Ballet in Bloom," an outdoor performance in our Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix the next night. I walked back to my hotel (with some knee pain, even with my multi-legged cane), I got my luggage, and the bellman hailed me a cab to Hotel Indigo near LaGuardia Airport (LGA) for an early flight the next morning. Wake-up call and airport shuttle van were perfect, I had plenty of time for scrambled eggs and French toast in the American-Airlines Admirals-Club lounge. (Is there a Midshipman-Third-Class lounge for coach-economy passengers?) My first flight took me Chicago Ohare (ORD) where I waited four hours for my next flight to Phoenix (PHX). (There was a sooner flight to PHX that was sold out, so I would have to go standby in coach.)

     2026 May 13, Wednesday

     My flight to Phoenix started off with the gloom-and-doom spectre of a mechanical problem, but it was just a half-hour delay mostly made up by landing. With the connection hassle I had checked my luggage, and had no problem getting it after landing. I took a taxi as all my Uber and Lyft rides seem to have a terrible time communicating about pickup points at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHX) with no problems at all. I got home to find six happy, healthy cats and not too much mess for nearly two weeks. My old cat lady of twenty years is actually getting old, about my age, being alone with fragile bones on my stairs is a concern, so I have a new cat-care person who did a fantastic job.

     New York City Niceness

     Everywhere I went in the city folks were nice, maybe more to me since I was walking with gray hair and a cane, but just generally helpful. I always got or was offered a seat on crowded subway trains, people opened and held doors for me especially if I was carrying a bag in my otherwise-free hand, and help was usually offered before I had time to ask for it. The slap-in-the-face occasion of that was when I was coming back on the subway from Brooklyn and got off on the first 14^th Street stop and not the one at Seventh Avenue. I was looking around for the red circle with the number 1 and the woman nearby asked what I was looking for. I told her and she said I have to go one stop further to Seventh Avenue and connect there. This all happened fast enough that the doors of my train had not yet closed and I had time to hop back on board. The women still on the train affirmed the next stop was the #1 train. I also liked the Illusions-museum receptionist who suggested I come back a couple of hours later as there was a large crowd of presumably-noisy children scheduled in a few minutes. There's a similarly prescient intelligence in the way New Yorkers pedestrians and drivers share the streets.

     As we used to say when I spent more time here, back when the World-Trade-Center towers were still standing, these nice things could happen anywhere, but they seem usually and more-often to happen here.

     The usual example that applies to lots of places, usually good restaurants, is getting up from the table, hesitating too long, and being told, "It's down that hallway on the left side." The look of a customer looking for the bathroom is unmistakble, even outside the city.

     The expectation is I do the same, open doors and hold elevators for approaching people, giving directions when I'm lucky enough to know enough, and offering to take cell-phone pictures for other people. One patron couldn't find her credit card for her intermission snack at the opera, so I just paid for it.

     I recall stories from decades ago of that sort of thing. My favorite was a friend who walked into a shoe store he had never been in before and the fellow said, "I have your shoes." Excuse me? "Well, didn't you call two hours ago asking if we had size-eleven Hush Puppies?" Yes, but how did you know it was me? "How many people walk in here wearing a pair of worn-out size-eleven Hush Puppies?" Yeah, somehow, mysteriosly, there is a magic about this place and I'm glad to see it's still alive and well.