NADA SURF!

and so Matthew, head guy, front man, of Nada Surf, and my very own beloved son, is for the moment  in Brooklyn with Emily Bidwell, his lovely and adored-by-us-all wife, waiting for a work visa, so she can work at ETSY in the UK, because Matthew is at the moment based in Cambridge, and that is NOT the Boston one... His son, now 12, is in Cambridge and Matthew and Emily also.

So we were treated, myself and Emily's mom, to a tour of the gorgeous new Brooklyn Etsy, just fantastic... And we go tôt see Alex Wright, our friend from as long as Matthew has been alive, son of my always best friend...It felt like a sort of working haven, with conférence rooms and lounge places, and you could take your computer to any floor and have coffee and do your work and preojects  alone or with others ... I guess this is the way I would envision academia if I could set it up, with places and time to speak with students and friends -- the same thing, actually -- and colleagues, ditto... I wasn't just dreaming, I was thinking, why not?

Piers 92 and 94

My and everyone's goodness!, the Art Show on the  piers! this was pier 92 and pier 94, and enormous in every way! So I went with Michele Cone, friend from always, also went to Bryn Mawr, also writes on art, but she is a réal art historian, and I a happy interloper
occasionally
..
So there on the piers, was everyone you ever knew in the world of art,  and Michele knows -- in her élégant way-- just about everyone, what a joy to attend something so IMMENSE with someone you love,  and you can just wander from place to place... I loved most the group from St. Ives, with a lovely John Wells (many years ago, when I was there in St. Ives with our beloved friends Ann Aslan and Clive Blackmore, I had exactly enough to purchase, for my NY ait, a small and lovely John Wells, .horizontally-shaped, like this one at Pier 92.

 I had not seen his picture until today, in a major catalogue of the gallery exhibition him, and ah, of course, exactly the kind of face I would have  -- why say "would have," let's just say, did -- fall in love with. Red Grooms, who lives with his gorgeons wife, the daugher of a totally staggeringly beautiful  woman I met, of course,  with Raymond Mason so many years ago , friends of Yves Bonnefoy, in Paris or London or somewhere -- anyway, Red loved also this piece of art, and we talked about Arthur Dove: I HAVE SELDOM HAD A CHANCE TO TALK WITH ANYONE ABOUT ARTHUR DOVE! --  and also, to the left of the John Wells, was a Ben Nicholson, instnatly recognizable among millions of simple , well, "simple" works.

If I were starting all over, indeed I might, if I could have the over the years developed expertise, write on American art and pietro. But you would have to do it well, and not just from enthusiasm, the way I write and I guess live... I loved teaching, and yes, it was always about poetic-type students, like Maggie Nelson, who OF COURSE won a MacArthur award, and that kind of excited poetic reaching-after intellect, like a récent friend-student, JoJo Karlin, like that...

and Red Grooms and Michele like that also -- many years ago, in the Tate, I think, I found a sort of reproduction of a Nicholson which instantly  purchased, and have hanging, and regard with affection. And then , a centuries-old hand, which I found in Bangkok, there with my husband Boyce, and have in the not much daylight, on a table by the window, in case any light makes its way in, which it does from, say, 12:35 to about 3:15 in the winter months.. .

let me end this, then, with affection, for our friends and the works of art we care about, not for the commercial aspect, but for the réal thing, apologies and actually, hommage to Tom Stoppard also,

How fortunate I  have been!