GENEROUS FEASTS & ENCOUNTERS

I've just walked in the door, through snow and chill, returning from a short trip to New York. Snow delays at both ends mean my flight arrived about two hours late, but somehow there was amiability rather than short tempers at the airport and on the plane, so it felt relatively painless. Another treat was a pleasurable conversation I had at a bar at JFK while waiting for the flight, with a young woman who was also headed to Toronto.

SO what about flight hassles, when the day's been so wonderful. Earlier today I got to the Met and saw the exhibit of photos by Stieglitz, Steichen, and Strand. SOme are soft and tender, other formalistic; Georgia O'Keefe's hands and breasts and neck and everything; reflections and buildings and geometries, as the images moved through the first decades of the twentieth century. I loved the effects Strand got by using a gum something-or-other to add colour, hints of colour, to some of his black and white silver prints. I know nothing about printing techniques, but the results were haunting, some of them. The most famous image using this technique are the three versions of the Flatiron building print, each coloured differently.

It was a major shift of gears to walk from that into the Gossart exhibition. He was an early Renaissance painter from the Netherlands, late fifteenth and early sixteenth century (he died in 1532). There are Mary and Christ-child images, some very intimate-feeling, others more formal and stylized, but also portraits that are astonishingly humanistic and modern in feeling. Worth a long look, both exhibits, though a little indigestible viewed in the same visit (like eating oysters and chocolate ice cream in one sitting perhaps?)

In for a penny... so I hurried on to MOMA to see the "On Line: Drawing in the Twentieth Century" exhibition. It ends February 7; get there if you can. You begin with line and gesture, Picasso and Braque and then Jan Arp and Sophie Arp and lots of names I don't remember... Calder is there of course, line suggesting volume, and Agnes Martin and others in pure linearity but nuanced and thoughtful, deeply absorbing. Then the more recent works by still-developing artists are another surprise: Julie Mehretu's huge piece there grabbed me, and so did a huge layered hanging web of threads connected by small beeswax balls that hangs in the entrance to the show (artist's name not in my mind right now, sorry).

I am going on and on, apologies, but it was just one of those "art is so transporting!" days and I am still bursting with it, as you can tell.

My last stop before heading to JFK was to hang around in T's welcoming kitchen for an hour. Such a good friend. She fed me an array of yummy leftovers and made me a neatly wrapped sandwich to take on the plane. What a great thing to have when the plane is delayed, a prosciutto and dried tomato and mozzarella sandwich on multi-grain bread.

And there was a bonus to arriving late in Toronto: no line-ups at passport control.

I came rushing out of the airport at nearly midnight, my handcarry slung over my shoulder, to see the TTC bus just rolling past the terminal. I waved and the driver took pity and stopped for me. What a lovely thing that is, when a bus or streetcar driver stops specially! It makes me feel rescued, cared for, attended to. And tonight after that delayed exit from NYC, the driver's flexibility felt like a extra-welcome gift.

Now here I am snug at home with Tashi and with Silky the cat. No energy to make tea or do anything but lumber to bed, feeling grateful.

HEADY SPRING AROMAS AND EXPLORATIONS

Late last night as my taxi turned down my street, in through the open window came the heady scent of May on Henry Street, a mingling of chestnut blossom (the blossom-candles are out in pinky-whiteness on the towering horse chestnuts all across the city); lilac; and lily of the valley. Parfum de printemps is the name of this scent, intoxicating for sure. The heat has brought everything along quickly, so the blossoms are early. They come early and then as quickly fade. This is spring in fast-forward mode. Blink and it's gone.

Well I did blink. I went to New York City for three days for the James Beard Food Media and Cookbook Awards, now very successfully combined in one gala evening. It turned out to be a great chance to see people I've known for a long time but not embraced for awhile, as well as to meet those I know through their work or the internet, but whom I hadn't seen face-to-face before. It's often a solitary life, writing, and these kinds of events are a treat. For those of us who come in from outside New York, it's also a chance to get energised by New York and reminded that however complicated life seems to be, other people's lives are even busier and tighter and more difficult.

The scenes on the street were wonderfully distracting, with some people out in flip-flops or sandals for the heat, others clinging to "May-appropriate" wear and looking sweaty. It was hard to go inside when the weather and the scene outdoors were so engaging, but I did make it to MOMA for the Marina Ambramovic' show "The Artist is Present". I've been tiresome ever since with friends, urging them all to go and take it in. And now I'm telling you, too: go and see it if you can, right away!. I was stunned by the artist's focussed energy, her urgent insistence on attentiveness and on the present moment. It is shocking and moving and awe-inspiring. The show closes at the end of May.

Speaking of the present, Tashi is in Athens, where there is a general strike on and where people are demonstrating how angry they are. I have sent him an email saying please stay out of crowds and tight corners, but do try to find a vantage point from which you can watch some of what is going on. He is lucky to be there to catch some of what it feels like when politics becomes urgent and people are frustrated.

The calm back-waterish feel of Canadian politics does not give our kids any idea of how different politics can be in other places. I was lucky enough to be in France in the spring of 1968 when les evenements unfolded. It was a crash course in politics for a seventeen-year-old from Ottawa. Through the winter there was the commentary in the French papers about the Vietam war, especially once the PAris Peace talks started. And then in the spring I got to watch the optimism and idealism of the students and some workers and then the undermining of their enterprise by the true hard-core pols from the far left, who preferred to stick with the status quo rather than risking giving any power or legitimacy to other political parties or to the students. It was a lesson in the fundamental conservatism of those who have senior positions in the institutions of government, including the oppostition. Conservatism is not always a bad thing. It does help maintain stability. But it can be such a dead hand, holding back social evolution and dampening hopes for change.

I came home that summer with fresh eyes and with my ears unplugged for the first time. Suddenly media bias and issues around point of view and deeper agendas and all those strands that are now raised in media courses etc, were clearer to me, and that marked the start of my adulthood, I think.

Tashi has had a year (it's such a difficult language!!) of Ancient Greek, which he loves, but he does not know any modern Greek, so he'll be depending on English-language-speakers and -news-coverage. He has a Lonely Planet Greek phrasebook of course. I don't think it stretches to "is the demonstration today peaceful or violent?" or "when will the strike be over?"!!!!


POSTSCRIPT: I had an interesting excursion to Queens yesterday with an eating-explorer friend named Jacob, to eat Malaysian food at a small resto called Good Taste, on 45th Street near the Elmhurst train stop. The bendi belacan (okra in a pungent sauce/coating made of shrimp paste, onion, etc) was outstanding, the Assam laksa not as sour as it might have been, but good, especially once it had cooled to room temp. We were given a taste of beef short ribs in a dark sauce which were fab, succulent and tender. It was a problem being only two; on an excursion like that it's more fun and more satisfying to have a lot of people, so you can really explore the menu. The place is owned by Chinese from Kuala Lumpur. From there it's an easy walk along Broadway to the predominantly South Asian shopping near the Forest Hills station (where I caught the E-train for four stops and then the Air Train to JFK, so easy and inexpensive). I just had time for a superficial look around one large grocery store and a peer in to some shop fronts. It's a great place to explore.