SMASHING

It's an old English superlative. Smashing. The word occurred to me as we toured the newly-renovated Museum of Modern Art yesterday. As did a long-forgotten, delightfully euphonious phrase from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake: "chalkful of masterplasters..."--from "Starry, Starry Night" and Monet's audacious "Water Lilies"...

... to Picasso's "Demoiselles d"Avignon" ...

...and Matisse's "La Danse" and the "Red Room" to two magnificent drip paintings by Jackson Pollock and... and, and... From one gob-smack to the next. Amazing. We made the tour of international art from the 1890s to the present in six exhausting, non-stop hours. Also amazing is that despite the huge numbers of visitors the vastly expanded space did not feel crowded. A little disorienting, perhaps, for anyone who knew the "old" museum as we did. But there was even no significant wait for the pleasant Terrace restaurant at lunch time, nor for a coffee break at the cafe. Kudos to MoMA for a stunning rebirth.

A joy, too, to hear from our very old friend, the artist Gary Lloyd, who was by sheer coincidence in New York at the same time as ourselves. He'd read my post on Facebook--which does, after all, have uses!--and contacted me via text message. He and JoAnn were kind enough to make the trek to mid- from downtown to meet up with us for dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. It was too noisy, too expensive by half, but a huge pleasure to spend time with them. Now that they have moved from Los Angeles to New Mexico, it was even more of a surprise and delight that our visits here coincided.

Even the weather is friendly for now, here in New York City. Sunny, and not too cold. And elsewhere, the agony of this benighted nation persists...