Flying visit to New York

While we were staying at Kathy's idyllic place in the woods in North Carolina, I decided I should take this opportunity to visit my friends in New York - who knows when I'd be so close again?

Loathe to add yet another flight to our already carbon-intensive trip, I opted for the 11-hour train, which for 2 full days in New York was worth it, but only just.

I'd been to New York once before, on a disastrous work trip, and I was determined to rewrite those memories. Wandering around Washington Square Park, I sat down to listen to some jazz, and while enjoying the music I was offered some free pizza "in honour of world Bitcoin day". Eating my crypto pizza, I felt like I'd just gotten a complete authentic New York experience in the span of about 5 minutes.

On the second day, I was given a tour by my friend Dominic of Brooklyn. We walked through the famous hipster areas (stopping for a coffee), through the orthodox Jewish district (stopping for a bagel), then continued as the city became less fashionable and clean, and more grimy and industrial, until we reached the pier at the far south west. We then went to meet the artist/engineer Chico MacMurtie in his studio, a converted church full of bizarre, beautiful wireframe robots, semi-mechanical musical instruments, and other fascinating objects he has built (he requested no photos, sadly, but look him up). While there, we met a troupe of french puppeteers, one of whom talked at length about the Vatican and stage magic, somewhat opaquely but with great fervour.

That evening, I went to a jazz club, because I was in New York. Never enough jazz!

-AlexRead more