Three months in New York

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Three months in New York

So I'm back to, as Bad Bunny would say, Nuevayol.

Like last time I was here, my base of operations is Yonkers, north of the Bronx. A generous friend offered me a guest room in her nice house, in a residential neighborhood close to the Hudson River.

Because I already knew the area and planned this period as a rest stop, it wasn't a time for exploring and wandering. Instead, I stayed home for days in a row, working and playing on my computer. Here are some of the things I did in these three months.

My main project was reorganizing my photos and rebuilding my master catalog in Adobe Lightroom. Since the 2024 computer crash, my photos were scattered across different external disks, and some were missing. After approximately 350 hours of work, I now have about 85,000 photos all on the same disk, all imported into Lightroom, and all sorted in the correct date order. Of course, I still need to tag and process them, but at least the most tedious part is done.

With the help of AI, I developed three browser-based applications: one to track my travels, one to track the movies and tv series I watch and the books and graphic novels I read, and one address book to keep my contacts organized.

I read quite a few books, including the last few by Stephen King (he writes faster than I read). I wouldn't call myself a fan, but at this point I have read all of King's books, except the Dark Tower series (I went through the first one and didn't like it). I read other books as well, and the ones I enjoyed the most were, for non-fiction, Empire of Monsters, by Bill Schelly, a biography of James Warren, the man who published the magazines Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958-1983), Creepy (1964-1983), Eerie (1966-1983), and Vampirella (1969-1983), among others, and for fiction, O Quatrilho, by José Clemente Pozenato, a novel about Italian immigrants in the South of Brazil in the early 20th century, something I had read for the first time when I was in college (yes, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away).

But I didn't stay home the whole time, because the museums' calls were strong. 

At the Whitney Museum of American Art, I saw Roy Lichtenstein: Like New, his first major New York retrospective since 1993, with 130 paintings, drawings, collages, prints, and sculptures. Lichtenstein was my favorite artist when I was in college.

At the National Museum of Mathematics, I saw Mathematics and the Art of M.C. Escher, his first major Manhattan exhibition, with more than 65 works. Escher was my favorite artist when I was in high school.

At the Museum of Modern Art, I saw The Surrealist Book: Tomorrow Lives in Mirrors. But, as usual, you go for an exhibition and end up entangled in the marvelous permanent collection. Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Magritte's The Lovers and The Menaced Assassin, Matisse's Dance, Van Gogh's Starry Night and The Olive Trees, Carrington's And We Met the Daughter of the Minotaur, Signac's Opus 217, Hopper's House by the Railroad, Wyeth's Christina's World, and so many others.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is another museum that is a world in itself. Centuries of art history right there. Cycladic sculptures, Roman columns, Egyptian tombs, Medieval armor for the knights and their horses, glazed terracottas from the Renaissance, Victorian armoires. Then you turn a corner and find a fireplace surrounded by two El Grecos and a Rembrandt. Not that famous artists are a surprise there. They have Velázquez, van Dyck, several El Grecos, five Vermeers, twenty Rembrandts, Canaletto, Turner, Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, it never ends. When I visited this time, they had two interesting exhibitions on display. The Face of Life was a collection of 20th-century portraits, with 80 works, including Picasso's portrait of Gertrud Stein and Leonora Carrington's Self-Portrait. Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous brought together over 120 works by the couple, showing how their art converged and diverged throughout their careers.

And the food?

Being in the USA, I had my quota of burgers, pizzas, and burritos, nothing remarkable. The highlight was La Bella Havana, a Cuban restaurant in the center of town, where I had a very good Havana paella (shrimp, calamari, mussels, clams, chicken, Cuban sausage, all mixed in saffron rice). Also, in a neighboring town called New Rochelle, I went to Roc N Ramen, where they make an honest tonkotsu ramen (noodles, chasu, scallions, bamboo shoots, fried onions, nori). In another neighboring town, Port Chester, I went to the Salvadoran restaurant Rinconcito Salvadoreño and ate a simple but delicious chuleta frita (fried pork chop) with rice, beans, and a generous amount of cilantro. I also had some good home cooking in Yonkers, including a very tasty lasagna.

One thing that changed here was my alcoholic diet. Instead of sampling local wines as I do in many places, I reverted to my local cocktails. When in Manhattan, I appropriately drank Manhattans (whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters, but I prefer to replace the traditional rye whiskey with Maker's Mark bourbon). When in Yonkers, I drank Jack and Coke (Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey with Coca-Cola, preferably Mexican Coca-Cola, which is made with real sugar cane and not corn syrup like the current American version). Also, because there are Puerto Rican influences in the house, I was introduced to the delicious Coquito (Puerto Rican rum, coconut milk, cream of coconut, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon).

Any side trips?

I spent the first week of October in Massachusetts, visiting friends. They live in a place called Medfield, about 30 km southwest of Boston. It's a small town (12,000 people) in the middle of the woods, founded in 1649. I was surrounded by New England's autumn colors and its large population of squirrels and chipmunks.

From Medfield, I visited Boston because I couldn't miss seeing the Museum of Fine Arts again. This time, they had an exhibition called Picasso, Miró, Dalí: Unbound, with art books created not only by the artists in the title but also by Juan Gris, Antoni Tàpies, and Eduardo Chillida. They also had Maverick Kings: Three Visionary Pharaohs of Egypt's Golden Age, with sculptures and other objects from the time of three pharaohs: Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III, and Akhenaten. Plus the usual jewels in the permanent collection, like Gauguin's Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, Van Gogh's Postman Joseph Roulin, Hopper's Room in Brooklyn, and so many others. I ate at the museum cafeteria and enjoyed the traditional New England clam chowder: a thick, cream-based soup made with milk, butter, potatoes, pork, onion, and, obviously, clams. A very good meal.

Another place where I ate in Boston was Chinatown, near the train station. I had a good shrimp fried rice, a fine choice in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.

Also from Medfield, I visited a city called Framingham, which has a high concentration of Brazilian immigrants. We went there specifically to eat Brazilian barbecue at a Brazilian bakery-restaurant, and it was delicious.

What next?

With winter approaching in New York, I have to move south to warmer locations. For the first half of November, I'll be in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. For the second half, I'll be in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. ¡Nos vemos! (That's "see you" in Spanish.)