nyc choss

just got back from the big apple. this trip confirmed what I learned on my first trip there--I will have to live in this city at some point. basically we had a blast excepting the cat pissing on molly's sleeping bag, which has now been rectified (the cat was euthenized).

here are some bullet points:

>small, ultra-cool sake bar called decibel, with ben.
>staying up until the sun got up with jim and ben the first night, up eachother cracked.
>brunch on a patio on st. mark's place, surely one of the best people-watching streets in the world.
>moved uptown to go to the garth clark gallery, met mark del vechio.
>went to MoMA and saw the new Serra exhibit. jaw dropping. saw the 5th floor during target free friday nights. the crowds and the art equally jaw dropping.
>hung back at apartment, drank beers on back patio and strummed the evening away.
>dinner at banjara indian, wonderful indian that made howard halucinate.
>connoy meets up, we all make way back to midtown for karaoke.
>karoake was cathartic and drunken
>?
>breakfast at ben's, listening to records, washing up, then to
>coney island for the "mermaid parade," half naked women painted like sea creatures, drunken and bikini-clad men shaking all for the crowd. literally hundreds of thousands of people, and we randomly spotted liz ensz (she didn't see us though)
>hanging out at tompkins square park, throwing baseball. ate falafel then a veggie dog.
>geared up to go out (more music and beer in the back patio)
>hanging out in front of de la vega's and getting free t-shirts ("lettuce pray" and "ny is perfectly unperfect") and cookies (chocolate chip)
>out to more beers and food, meeting up with some friends of ben and jim's.
>ate at japano-noodle shop of unremembered name but memorably great food and more beer
>KGB bar
>onwards into the cool night with only jim, other's falling back to sleep at the apartment
>tile bar, more drinks
>hanging out with jim on back patio, can't remember what we said but I remember laughing so hard and the next morning jim had written down the word "trungus" and I had vague stirrings of memory, fought through hangover
>eating slowly at a nice veggie cafe huevos new yorkos.
>after resting and jim leaving for work, subbing over to brooklyn to check out neighborhood I would most likely actually be able to live in (unlike beautiful, impossible east village).
>brooklyn is wonderful. determine liveableness immediately.
>meet up with ben's old business school friends on their brooklyn stoop over beers and a bag of jalepeno chips which I bought (one of the few things I paid for all weekend) and ate.
>dinner at izakaya (japano-bar with bar food--not clean sushi) with brian's friends
>early night (1am)
>next morning breakfast with ben after goodbyes with brian (flying away) and jim (off to work)
>casualy stroll through tompkins, stopping at dog run, onward through the east village stopping off at several comm. gardens for cigarettes (ben) and musings.
>joe flys away

hard to leave, but good to be back to molly and kitty (who doesn't pee on me) and studio. I think I caught jim's throat bug but I might just be recovering from plane air to desert air. either way, jim keller is a dirty disease spreader. just kidding, I would suffer ebola to hang out with those guys in their elements.

I picked up "the national" from ben--pleasant and plaintive, hard to get into at first but we'll see maybe. also the new wilco, can't get this one out of my head. seems like a really solid album, a bit soft but not simple, a bit dorky but not self concious.

read the 4th dune book, god emperor of dune, exclusively on plane rides this weekend. by far the worst so far in the series. a slow and confusing fizzle into nothing. I'd like to say it's completely unnecessary but it seems to heavily precipitate the next book, which had better make up much lost ground.

this week continue to ceramify, eat nice cold meals with molly, and prepare for the much anticipated journey to minnesota. maybe I'll look to get aquatic at some point. it's starting to blaze here.