Now I’m staying at a friend’s house for a few days over on Long Island. Long Island is a bit of a misleading title because it gives you this impression of a little biddy island and actually it’s more like the size of a couple of UK counties joined together, or at least one large one. It takes over an hour to cross it by train from Manhattan.

Nevertheless, it is long and it is an island so it’s not a false description, just another thing to think about in the scale of things United States-wise. The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day, if a little chilly, so we’re heading to the beach in a minute and my camera is at the ready.

Yesterday we went to a prize-giving ceremony at the local school and I tagged along because, well basically I’m a nosey sod and wanted to see what an American high school looks like. This one is really good and you can tell the standard of teaching is excellent.

I found out that school days here start at 7.20 and finish at 2.30pm by the way, unlike the UK where the schools start at the same time as the offices. This means they don’t get that insane traffic congestion caused by both parents and commuters. Here the insanity is all commuter-driven! Anyway, back to the school…

Prizes were being given out for art and writing and the standard was impressive. Inspiring even. One girl had created a mural based on sounds and music in the city. A really incredible piece of work where you could see all kinds of things going on and incorporating some really interesting techniques.

Then there were prizes for poetry and two of those really stood out to my mind. One was about how you can’t have a proper relationship if you don’t enter into it fully (captured in three short stanzas) and the other was about the writer’s life from the time of his birth up to age 16 using the metaphor of a train. They obviously have very good teachers to be able to draw out these innate talents like this.

These kids are good — all of them, not just the ones I’m mentioning here. Oh and not all American kids are the pretentious so and so’s the British like to portray them as. They can be humble and shy whilst also being incredibly talented. People are people.

A good learning experience.

Yesterday I went to the American Museum of Natural History which is also home to the Rose Center. This is another huge building in a classical style and one of those lobbies where the ceiling is so high it has its own weather systems.

The Rose Center looked appealing from the website because it’s the big space exhibit. That’s space as in the solar system and the universe as opposed to the wide open spaces of America. The Center looks really impressive from the pictures consisting of the giant Hayden Sphere and it’s all shiny and new.

New. Hmmm. Yes. Guess what? Just like anywhere else in the world, most of the stuff didn’t work and was broken, it was full of schoolkids on trips from the time the doors opened and the main Big Bang exhibit is closed for renovation. It’s ALL designed for kids though — nothing tilts up to adult eye level and the descriptions are pretty simplistic. I liked the walk around the edge which gives you the scale of the universe and our place in it and goes right down to atoms. That was ‘neat’.

There’s a planetarium type space show in the top half of the sphere but I was feeling in a pikey mood so I didn’t want to pay the admission and therefore didn’t go in.

The rest of the natural history museum reminded me of the one in London, some bits better and some not as good. The evolution timeline is very well done and I spent ages looking at the pretty shiny things in the crystal display, mainly because there were places to sit. Everything is sponsored or donated and I did get a sense of various politically messages being pushed especially in the environmental exhibits. They were messages I’d agree with so I didn’t have a problem except the sheer blatantness of it.

Eventually my legs got tired from all the walking and I tried to find my way out. Haha. I was lost. By accident I saw the Native American displays and the giant whale exhibit. And lots of dead ends. Ironic really when there are so many dead things in there to look at. Was I going to become another exhibit? The Missing Link perhaps? Fortunately not and somehow or other I did get back to the main lobby.

After I went to see the latest Robert DeNiro movie 15 Minutes which is all about the American obsession with getting fame through television. Supposedly. Actually it’s just a solid cop buddy movie with a few interesting ideas, carried by the direction and the editing trying to make up for a totally average script.

They also showed the trailer for the new Tim Burton Planet of the Apes remake which is due out here in July and looks awesome. Plus lots of other stuff which will reach the UK sometime around Christmas in all probability or maybe not at all.

Talking of movies I noticed a crew had taken over a street yesterday and were filming. I guess this is pretty commonplace around here. And watching a New York based film like 15 Minutes when you’re actually here is odd in a sense because all those shots of big big skylines they use to establish how impressive and important it all is lose a lot of their impact when you see them every day. My first impression here was that NY dwarfs everyone but actually that soon gets accepted and then ignored to be replaced by your normal human awareness of people-sized things.

Also on the subject of filming, I noticed the light here when I first arrived. Because of its latitude, the NY sunlight hits at a really steep angle which is why the huge towers don’t actually put the roads into the shade (the roads are pretty wide too which helps). On a clear day, it’s a very hard harsh light with shadows filled by bounce from the surrounding buildings. Filming here in the daytime must take a lot of grip trucks with big daylight balanced halogen lamps just to balance that out.

The sharp downward sunlight also explains the popularity of wide brimmed baseball caps and dark glasses. So now you know!

So I’ve ridden the subway (Metro) and marvelled at its shininess (with maybe a little hint of rust treatment around the edges or is that paint?) I’ve also marvelled at the fact that the platforms are about two blocks long — that’s looooooooooooong! Especially compared to the London Underground. $17 for a one week pass. I’m not sure London’s transport system competes, although London makes up for it in other ways, I guess.

Anyway, I took a ride up to Central Park yesterday, which is exactly like you’ve seen in all the movies with a reservoir in the middle surrounded by a fence, signs saying ‘This is the City’s drinking water’ and a jogging track. Why do people do this walking thing in a tracksuit, btw? It’s WALKING for crying out loud. I do it every day. Not a real sport.

Over on the East side of the park is the famous Guggenheim Museum of modern art. You know the one (even if you think you don’t). It is a white lopsided cake of a building has the distinctive spiralling gallery going up on the inside.

So I did what every visitor to a museum of modern art does. No. Not just buying a ticket. I looked carefully at the first few things. Admired the Picasso, walked around the big wooden totem pole thing, wondered why there was a huge white rubber plant upturned and hanging down from the top floor.

Then I got tired.

So I did the next thing every visitor to a modern art museum does. I invented my own names for the works I didn’t appreciate or understand.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know much about art but I know what I like. Kind of. I think. I liked a lot of the metal sculpture and various paintings. I definitely appreciated Albert Giacomelli’s honestly titled pieces — the Nose, Spoon Woman, that sort of thing (although not Woman With Her Throat Cut which just looked like a large farm implement badly welded).

However, if you’re going to have fun in galleries, you’ve got to admit that nearly everything by Vasali Kandinski could be titled This Way Up and not lose anything by such labelling. Many other works by other artists seem to scream out for plaques dubbing them Childish Scrawl, Random Blobs and Aesthetically Pleasing Doodle. There’s a lot of pleasing doodling has gone inside the Guggenheim.

Andy Warhol’s 150 Marilyns made me snigger and on the top floor is a glass igloo cleverly titled to make you think it might possibly be something else. It isn’t, it’s definitely a glass igloo. Oh, and there’s a piece of sculpture called Elipse which if it isn’t a kiddies climbing frame then I don’t know what is. How they keep toddlers from scaling it is a mystery.

The distinctive gallery building itself is the best thing and there’s a huge exhibit detailing the proposed new architectural insanity that the Guggenheim is planning to build on the Manhatten Waterfront. It is to be a huge confection of flowing titanium, wonky glass walls and limestone which will stand on its own island and is on a scale to compete with the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the world’s highest building. That’s big. Huge. A monster!

It simply says New York is mad. Everywhere are massive buildings whose very scale dwarves and diminishes the human spirit to antlike proportions. Yet still people try to make a mark here, perhaps because of this very challenge. I can see where Ridley Scott got the inspiration for the cityscape in Blade Runner. More, I can see why — to show human life as somehow small and transitory on the face of such a world.

Notwithstanding that, I enjoyed the Guggenheim. I loved the little touches around, like a keyhole shaped door and offshoot galleries and the shiny brass drinking fountains that people just can’t resist using. I didn’t much like the vertigo-inducing low balcony that runs around the spiral. Although it gives you glimpses of what’s above and what’s below, I just had to look the other way when people sat on it for a rest!

Sometimes weird, sometimes wonderful and if you look at it all in the right way, definitely something funny about the whole thing. I resisted buying anything from the souvenir shops however, despite the temptation of a Picasso domino set, a Mondrian mouse mat or a marvellous mobile. The search for something tackier continues.

And now I must go to walk off a Guinness inspired hangover, but that’s another story.

Got up with the sunrise in Manhattan. My body has slipped easily into its natural diurnal rhythm so by 8am I was out on the sidewalk enjoying a beautiful sunny spring morning.

Cold but not too cold and lots of people walking dogs. Seems to be a big thing around Chelsea (which is where I’m staying) although the strange thing is that there’s no dog poop to be seen. Very different to England. Also the sidewalks were trash free, although I’ve walked down to Soho now and there are streets where that isn’t so, but generally, Manhattan is squeaky clean. I wouldn’t eat my breakfast off them, but I’m weird about stuff like that.

Everyone tells you the US is very cheap to eat out. It’s no cheaper than London BUT the food I’ve had so far has been more delicious and bigger portions. Okay, so I’ve had one meal in a shiny metallic diner around the corner from the apartment where I’m staying. It was good.

Getting from John F Kennedy airport to Manhattan took three freaking hours from the time the plane touched down. Customs and immigration were fine but the baggage handling took about three quarters of an hour. Then the inaptly named Express Bus takes another 45 minutes (or so it seems) going around every terminal to pick up passengers. And there are a lot of terminals at JFK!

The expressway… hahahaha, good name! No, it doesn’t go very fast all the time. Sometimes it’s solid traffic. But the air at the moment is clean and clear so it was nice to sit and look out of the window at the diamonds and rubies (headlights and tail-lights) as we drove.

‘But what about beer?’ I hear you say. I know you people! Beer — one day so what can I say? I had a Samual Adams which tasted pretty strong and didn’t really have the flavour of either a bitter or a lager. Nice. Mind you at $4.25 a bottle plus tax it should be bloody marvellous. Maybe I need to try some of the bars for more reasonable prices.

I digress. It is a beautiful day and I’ve walked up to the Empire State Building and caught the express elevator to the 96th floor, ears popping all the way. Fantastic views and surprisingly good quality souvenirs along the lines of pewter miniatures and snow shakers. Nicely sculpted models, I mean. So I didn’t buy any. I must find the nastiest Statue of Liberty cigarette lighter in existence to take back as a gift! Hehehe

Going off to look for the Guggenheim next. Maybe I’ll log on again, maybe I won’t. Who knows?