last dayzzz in Gotham [pt. II]: LINEar bucket list SEQuence before shipping off to die in Roma what follows are the chronicles of our last fortnight in NYC before emigrating to Italy: 5|1|10: went to 1st [of 3] going-away parties [2 of which are related to j's work]—this one out at «Chedro»'s house out in Nyack [a hired bus shuttled us out which made it feel like some sort of field trip] | this party was of the more laidback aggie camp of the Earth Institute & the wine & aged Haitian rum [for mint Julep's since the Kentucky Derby was a running] was flowing & the bbq was a grilling | i took that huge can of salsa shown in the last post but i don't think much of a dent was made in it | j posted some pics from the party here || DUMBO trolley line pointing E to Rome
rail lines [Ellis Island museum]
our loft [red dot] as seen from Manhattan
5|2: ran over the Manhattan bridge through the LES & back over the Williamsburg but then had to backtrack the whole length of the bridge as the south entrance was closed & then back over the north ramp then merged into the 5-boro bike race which was so packed with riders some of them were walking their bikes | watched a few Fellini films then the NY Tyrants Gian & Luke came by in the evening to relieve me of excess mailing supplies [so now when you buy Firework you can thank me for the envelope & label || scene from Metropolis
Metropolitan Life building
5|3: closed out all Amazon books [so they stop ordering from me & get them from SPD] & updated all the pages on the Calamari site [all books are P.O.D. now] | spent a few hours with the Italian Rosetta stone as i have been most every day | made perhaps the last home-cooked Mexican feast with the last of the chipotle salsa [that we picked up way back when we were moving our shit from New Mexico to here] || Ariel Pink at Mercury Lounge
5|4: made the last trip [hopefully] to the post office to both send boxes of books but also retrieve lost packages to no avail then chased down driver but he didn't have it either [not gonna miss our American postal system though i don't expect Italy to be much better] | lots of Rosetta Stone & watching Fellini movies riding the stationary bike | went to 2nd [of 3] going-away parties—this one down in Tribeca with a balcony overlooking WTC [which is being resurrected at an astonishing rate now that they got their shit together] | drank one of the best wines i'd ever had called Jackson Triggs [from Niagara] that had a spicy bite to it | afterwards we went to see Ariel Pink at Mercury Lounge ||
beginnings of new world trade center in the ashes of the former
5|5: more Rosetta stone | walked across bridge to Soho to meet j & we went to Adidas stores [got red Sambas] & then to Uniqlo for last minute clothes & also to Muji | those 3 stores pretty much sum up my fashion sensibilities || St. Marks tomb
5|6: long run across bridge & up East side of Manhattan | walked across the bridge again with j to have a late dinner at Hasaki [*****] after some friends flaked on us elsewhere | i won't miss Americans that are so consumed in their jobs they can't find time to eat dinner || piece of Berlin Wall in NYC
rusty pylon along East river
5|7: ran to Red Hook | walked across bridge to Soho to get sleeping bags & pads to sleep on | i found a $20 bill on the street but i have a weird superstition about spending found money so not sure what to do with it [didn't run into any homeless people asking for money] | j came home from her last day of work & we drank a bottle of proseco | started taking things off the walls | walked across the Brooklyn Bridge & up by the courts past the old African burial grounds | met G & P for Vietnamese at Phở Bang on Mott & Grand [****] || downtown Gotham
African burial grounds [what the downtown was built on]
gotham sea horses
severed pigeon head [peregrine falcon food]
5|8: woke up & read Ten Walks/Two Talks self-portrait with karmic hat at Casa
5|9: last day of prep/packing | lunched on tacos at the Loading Dock [***][nothing special but an interesting gallery sort of space with an eclectic collection of kitsch] & donated our bikes to Recycle-a-Bicycle | our landlord found a tenant for our place & we shared a bottle of wine then j & i went to Henry's End [***] to have some American fried chicken || York subway station in DUMBO
decaying plaque along east river
5|10: movers [essentially Larry Curly & Moe] came & boxed all our shit | had to negotiate the freight elevators [in Spanish] with the building maintenance guy to get them to work | in a few hours they loaded the truck & were off leaving us in a big empty apartment | feels good | had lunch at DUMBO General store then we walked across the bridge to Canal [j got her watch fixed] & through lower Soho to the Film Forum to see Metropolis [****][restored with original scenes found in Buenos Aires]—truly remarkable film especially considering it was made in 1927 | had dinner at Papatzul [***][not bad for shi shi Mex] || old piano & Ellis island ephemera [note similarity to Darger below]
5|11: flâneured up across Delancey through LES & East Village [stopping to get various chile & cilantro seeds to grow our own in Italy] & ate late breakfast at Veselka [**] | one last visit to The Strand [got I, Fellini Darger girls gore scene
Darger collage
Charles Benefiel
Melvin Way
Picasso «Still Life with Bottle of Rum»
Egon Schiele etching
Big Bambu over central park skyline
5|12: fresh baked goods & coffee from Almondine bakery [*** though zagat gives it a 28] then into Manhattan to the Storefront for Art & Architecture | La Esquina was closed because of some sort of structural problem to the building so we had fish tacos at Cafe Habana [****] then went & saw the Skin Fruit exhibit at New Museum | weather was too drizzly & cold so ducked into El Secreto des tus Ojos [***] at Angelika then sat in Florencia 13 drinking micheladas then met B & E at Dos Caminos [***] || Tim Noble & Sue Webster's «Masters of the Universe» [from Skin Fruit exhibit]
interborough subway
wall somewhere in NYC
5|13: ran Man-bridge to W-burg-brige loop for perhaps last time then got some tacos at Calexico cart [*****] in Soho | walked from Soho to MOMA & saw the Kentridge exhibit which was phenomenal | there was probably at least a dozen of his films—some of his older ones from the Felix Tietelbaum & Soho Eckstein series that i'd already seen in DC a while ago & a bunch of new ones [«Welt Detektiv» & «The Magic Flute»] that went beyond his charcoal drawing stop-motion animation to display 3-d elements with opaque screens cut out & robotic puppets that would interact with visuals | there were a bunch of stills [charcoal drawings] as well as some collages that were spectacular | besides his usual erasure style elements he also seems to show more influences from physics & biology—a lot of imagery resembled particle physics bubble chambers & also motion elements that micmicked ant swarming patterns [& were so well done i can't imagine they were faked but had to be real ants somehow pixelated against a white background & encouraged to cluster using honey—i don't know how he does it but it's mesmerizing & magical | a lot of the newer stuff was inverted [negative] to have white lines against a white background | & entropy is another reoccurring theme with a lot of the filming done backwards like in «Journey to the Moon» [which he is in] | «Tide Table (2003)» is another great one i hadn't seen | besides Kentridge there was another Picasso exhibit [this all prints] & a Cartier-Bresson exhibit & Marina Abromovic | then i walked through the park & met j at Yakitori Totto [*****] & had a bunch of yummy delectables || William Kentridge as himself [Journey to the Moon]
street art [Mars Bar East Village]
5|14: air deflated from my air mattress leaving me to wake up on the hard floor | ran the Brooklyn Heights promenade through Cobble Hill to Red Hook | breakfast at General Store [**] then searched around DUMBO to get internet as Americans are paranoid these days & everyone puts a lock on their wifi | went to Battery Park & got the Statue of Liberty ferry with the hordes of tourists | long lines then through security surrounded by annoying tourists & cheesy street performers | but worth it for the trip to Ellis Island [after doing a drive-by of Lady Liberty | we went there before when we first got to NYC [pre-911] back when it was carefree & you just hopped on & off a ferry to get there | i have a photo of j even on Ellis Island with the twin towers in the background from 8|2001 | the museum is cool—lots of paraphernalia & records of the immigrants to Ellis Island | & applicable [inversely] as here we were emigrating to Italy a few generations after j's relatives passed through Ellis [found them in the registry] | it's a crazy thing to think about standing on Ellis Island & imagining it all happening & here we are going through an emigration of our own | we walked up along the east river through the Lower East Side to Takahachi [****] to get one of our last sushi fixes || anchored arks on the east river
Ellis Island document
Ellis island graffiti [messages for the next suckers passing through]
more Ellis Island graffiti [depicting immigrations officer?]
Italians coming to America
Ellis graffiti in Italian
Ellis Island ephemera
old map
columned graffiti
Mulberry street before our time
Italians leaving Italy for America
document #X
Ellis Island blueprints
5|15: pancakes at Choice [***] then subway to Coney Island | walked around Coney Island then along the boardwalk to Brighton Beach which was all very Requiem-for-a-Dreamish | came back & had lunch at Junior's in Brooklyn [*** for what it is—Jewish deli meets soul food under the guise of Italian cheesecake—a truly Brooklyn establishment] | walked towards Red Hook & had tacos at Calexico [*****][they accidentally brought me hand-pulled pork tacos but then made good & brought me 2 carne asada tacos—the best tacos in NYC] then went to our going away party that L & A organized at Last Exit [to Brooklyn] bar —thanks to all that showed up || the Cyclone
Coney Island scene
bathroom wall at Last Exit
milagros at Calexico
the ghost of Coney Island
5|16: NY bagel for breakfast then for a run across W-bridge to M-bridge | we wanted to go into the city one last time but the trains were all fucked up for second day in a row [not going to miss the MTA] so just walked through pretty much all of Brooklyn ending in Park Slope where we ate our last dinner at Blue Ribbon Sushi [****] || trains with nothing running [typical site]
5|17|10: waking up today was like waking up on X-mas when you were a kid | no more nights trying to sleep in this noisy city—the city that never sleeps [but as a consequence never wakes up] | no more noisy inconsiderate neighbors & dealing with shyster landlords | i don't know if it was seeing the Kentridge exhibit but the past few days i've been really realizing that every facet of American society is governed by greed | i won't miss all that one bit | there's convenience sure but that convenience is a drug & now it's time to kick it & be a stranger in a strange land | there'll be things i'll miss sure most notably diversity & some cool people but for the most part i hate 99% of Americans & am ready to leave | even American diversity is not all it's cracked up to be | Ellis Island used to be a symbol of such hope & but no matter where you are from after a few years some sort of American blood-sucking virus gets under your skin | i was born with it [as far as i know my ancestors landed on Plymouth rock] & it's gonna take one hell of a blood transfusion to exorcise myself of it | but i am ready | was going to run to Manhattan one last time but then started thinking how ironic it would be if i got hit by a car or asshole bikers on the bridge so just ran up to Williamsburg without crossing any roads [superstitious i know but i thought the thought] | had a last egg & cheese on everything bagel then unlocked my blackberry battery & now i'm writing this & we are about to go to the airport | yesterday Dublin airport [where we are flying through] was closed because of that damned Icelandic ash but now it appears to be blowing north so i think we just might skinny out | see y'all on the other side || j saying arrivederci to lady liberty
(c) 2010 Derek White
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by Jon Cotner & Andy Fitch [***]—Bashoesque peregrinations on NYC | i was saving it for one of my books to read whilst in limbo but ended up reading it all in one sitting | it's an easy read that describes [in great detail] Fitch's observations as he flâneured around Manhattan & subsequent conversations with Cotner | 1/2-way through it i realized some of it or something similar was sent to me for Sleepingfish | it seemed a relevant enough book to read as my last one in NYC & as inspiration for some of our flâneurings these last days | then i ran to Greenpoint | then we walked to Manhattan & downtown to Battery Park | it was insanely windy | went up & saw the progress on WTC & had Oysters & Beer & watched the Yankees vs. Red Sox | then up through Tribeca & Soho where i found a cool hat that happened to be $20 so it seemed justified as an object to transfer the karma of found money | then to the West Village where we met Y & a bunch of others at 
] up through Union Square & up Park through Grand Central went to see what's there now on 47th street where Warhol's factory was & it's just a parking garage | went to St. St Bartholomew's church then tried to go to MOMA [Kentridge exhibit] but it was closed so went next door to American Folk Art Museum which had an exhibit on Darger that was awesome [included some of his collages i'd never seen] | there was also a bunch of stuff by other self-taught outsider artists that was cool { John J.B. Murry | Charles Benefiel | Melvin Way | Carlo Zinelli } | then had kim-chee ramen at Sapporo [****] on 49th & walked up through the park to The Met & saw the roof-top Big Bambú thing by the Starn brothers & the Picasso exhibit which was pretty comprehensive | in particular there were a bunch [for example «Standing Female Nude (1910)» & «Man With Hat and Violin» that displayed concrete/textual/dada elements that i'd never seen before in Picasso | then had an hour left to sweep through & see everything one last time realizing how much shit is actually in The Met | crossed the park to the west side to some wine bar & bumped into Terese Svoboda then went further uptown to Washington Heights to have dinner with P & R [who run the 
