Daily Blague

Yesterday afternoon, I went out for another long walk. The sun was out - and so was tout le monde. The air was mild, and it would have been a crime to stay home. I had no plan, but once again, I headed west. This week, I turned left when I reached it.

At the Metropolitan Museum, I was confronted by a guard who insisted that my tote was too big for carrying around the museum. When I played the invalid card, lying that the bag contained "mediations" that I must carry with me at all times, he suggested, heh heh, that I put them in my pockets after checking the bag the bag. I hated his Mitteleuropäischen guts and left the building. To be sure, there was nothing in the Museum that I had set out to see. But I am afflicted with an inconvenient stubborn streak, particularly when being told what to do by our brave new world's security personnel.

So I felt out of synch with the rest of the world. For one thing, my shoes were killing me. It had been a mistake to buy them, and a bigger mistake to wear them. (Finding non-clunky shoes in my size is not easy.) The pain kept me reminded of my swollen ankles, mortal evidence of hypertension. Here I was, taking exercise in order to attack a problem that it only seemed to make worse. These dolors undoubtedly primed me to sense that almost everything around me seemed to refer to the world of Never Let Me Go? To see anything the slightest bit sham is to think that Kazuo Ishiguro's novel is about everything, not just a bunch of clones.

The most chilling thought of all is that art has become merely decorative and amusing. This is a very old complaint, often made by civilization's discontents. Kazuo Ishiguro never comes close to any such statement, but by seducing us into identifying with his flesh-and-blood characters, he prompts some very uncomfortable questions. I felt the currents of a quiet but deadly nihilism in the wonderful spring air.

Set into the park's wall at 71st Street there's a monument to Richard Morris Hunt (1828-1895), the Beaux-Arts architect who designed the central façade of the Metropolitan Museum and Biltmore, the Vanderbilt retreat in western North Carolina. I don't know who designed the monument, which was erected by the many arts institutions that were housed in buildings designed by Hunt, but it was probably not John Russell Pope, the elegantly restrained "last of the Romans" and architect of the National Gallery in Washington and, interestingly, of portions of the Frick Collection, right across the street. While pulling out my camera, I looked over the park wall and realized, even in the shadow-making sunlight, that the towers in the distance were part of the Time Warner Center. Most interesting of all, however, was the brass plaque sent into the floor of the Hunt monument, or at least as the strong light fell across it.

By this time, I was more pliable, and prepared to submit to a not unreasonable protocol; besides, checking anything at the Frick is a breeze.

Believe it or not, I walked all the way home after my brisk tour of the Frick. I even made a detour to Shakespeare & Co, on Third Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets. I went to look for a healthy-heart cookbook (in vain - I'm not ready to eat that stuff, much less make it) and ended up buying The Adventures of Augie March, which I've never read, in cloth.