Expedition to New York, then off to Oslo

Just a couple of quick notes as to the last couple of days in New York City.

We went to see the musical On The Twentieth Century. It was very fun, and like most musicals, a little silly. But then again, what else is musical theatre for?

Here we are at half-time:

We were lucky enough to meet Jack (our Broadway producer friend) and Bruce (his husband and an esteemed academic) for lunch at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal

We also made it to the New Whitney.

It is quite a place! 

With some amazing art:

And some great views:

If you look closely, you can see the Statue of Liberty: 

The Empire State Building: 

We stayed in this hotel once. You can see right into the rooms. 

This is a Calder circus diorama. Very cute! 

You might find me photo bombing this sculpture: 

Basquiat

Claes Oldenburg. 

Chickens! 

We moved hotels for Doreen's last couple of nights in New York to the New Yorker. Quite a place! Here is the view: 

and that is our window (second from the right)

A zoomed out view: 

The I had an expedition to Oslo.

The tulips were out:

An Expedition to Storm King

Storm King is a collection of outdoor sculptures over about 450 acres north of New York City about 60 miles. We took a bus from the New York Port Authority (which is another story in and of itself) that took this route:

I was lucky enough to have a nice new cap from Stetson:

It is hard to describe the setting of the art. It is in the Hudson River Valley, and very pretty. It would be fantastic to be there in the fall, when all the trees are turning colors.

There was a lot of art, and a lot of different types of art.

Fountains:

Columns

HUGE steel structures, some of which moved:

Stuff that looked like wet sand art:

More HUGE steel structures: 

Dry set stone walls. It doesn't look like much here, but just wait. (Doreen didn't want me to touch the wall. But it was a wall)

Landscape art. Forgive the motion. It is Land Waves by Maya Lin (the architech who did the Vietnam War Memorial) 

This is better:

You can see how the wall weaves amongst the trees here:

This is a three legged Buddha standing on his own head.

For scale:

I was enchanted by this piece:

that you could sit in. I was telling some kid outside that he had to pay $20 to get in. (he didn't)

This is a beetle:

More big art:

Here I am, recreating art:

I loved this piece as well. Mirrored Fence:

Cool!

I was holding up this piece for a while:

Doreen did it via levitation:

This piece was supposed to look like waving seaweed. It did.

Here we are, resting:

And finally, going home.

We were very tired when we got home.

It was a good trip.

An Expedition to New York City and Beyond

I had another Board meeting in Oslo last week, so we took a quick trip to New York City while I was on my way.

As usual, we had an uneventful airplane ride:

and has become our habit, we stayed in the London NYC, and even in the same room that we have stayed in for the past three or four trips (4505. Nice room, high enough for a nice view of Central Park)

 We had a VERY early flight (we took off at 6:30!!!) and landed about 11:30. Everything worked perfectly for us and we got to the hotel at 12:30.

We had lunch at the Bouchon Bakery. It was just delicious.

After that, we headed down to the Stetson headquarters. One of Doreen's fellow alumni is now their CEO:

It was a great visit! That company has quite a history. You think of them today as a cowboy hat company. And indeed, they make plenty of cowboy hats. But their history is much broader than that: 

Just a few labels from famous hats.

Some good looking fedoras

Some famous old hats

And then, of course, we had to walk through Times Square:

and I had a new Hat!

 That night we had a late dinner at Nougatine, and it was well worth it.