Museums and Churches

Notes from 7/14

While at the United Nations yesterday, we noticed (because we're unusually keen, clever & observant) about 4 million cop cars lining the streets in front of the U.N. Turns out, those cop cars are part of something called a "community response vehicle surge," and the cops do this sort of thing all the time just to remind New Yorkers that yes, they are safe and no, they can't park here.

Before we left this morning, I had a genuine New York bagel. I have to say, while I could tell a marginal difference, it just wasn't worth getting all het up over. It's still a big hockey puck.

We left and went to 7th St. to catch the 2-3 to the Financial District, but we got ourselves turned around the wrong way. After a few blocks we stopped and got out our map, and a helpful toothless guy came up shouting "Where are you going?" over and over. We told him, and he pointed out that we could get to Wall St. on the R line, and it would get us to Wall & Rector, a few blocks away from our destination. I told him that we'd already gotten lost just on the way to the train, and he helpfully pointed us to 42nd St. where we could catch the 2-3. Very nice man.

Fashion Notes

The style of the East Coast is legendary, and I expected the place to be crawling with supermodels, but that really isn't the case. In that regard, San Francisco isn't much different, but there are a few things that stand out.

First, there's the tendency to wear shorts (or short skirts), short-sleeved or sleeveless tops, strappy sandals and giant pashmina scarves. As though from the ground to an altitude of four and a half feet it's summer, but there's some kind of arctic air layer at neck height. I see the look everywhere and it's uniformly disconcerting. It's a lot like miniskirts and Ugg boots, which I thankfully have not seen.

Second, and much nicer, are strappy sandals with gladiator ankle straps. Funny, they seem to be offered on the West Coast every year, but I never see anyone wearing them. Here they're everywhere and they're very fun looking.

Third, men in women's clothing. I'm not talking about actual men trying to pass as women. I'm talking about men wearing some mix of men's and women's clothing to disastrous effect because apparently they don't realize that men and women are, in fact, built differently. Twice we've seen men wearing women's clamdigger pants, and both times they looked awful. They were the right length (for clamdiggers), but they didn't have quite enough rise. They fit okay in the waist, but the hips were nearly flapping with extra fabric. Both men looked as though they had just undergone hip-removal surgery but hadn't bought a new wardrobe yet.

Lastly, eyebrow shaping for men. I've never in my life seen so many carefully manicured, well-tended eyebrows. Plucked, shaved and beautifully sculpted into smaller, tidier versions of men's eyebrows. I saw it on the Dominican kid sitting next to me on the Staten Island Ferry, I saw it on many of the men walking around Wall St. in suits, I saw it on two out of three of the men working at the FedEx on Wall Street. It's everywhere. And it looks sharp, boys - very sharp!

With that last bit of fashion advice, I'm heading for bed. Tomorrow, we take on Central Park and the MOMA, with a side trip to The Land of Finding the Pirate New Dress Shoes.

And what does this have to do with museums and churches? Well, we saw many of them today. Go look at the pictures.