Tomorrow morning I board the train for Pittsburgh. If it’s not as bad as the last time I rode Amtrak 2-1/2 years ago, I might even do it again.

I wouldn’t want you to think I spent five days in New York without going to an art exhibit, my entertainment of choice. On Sunday, before I went to New Jersey for the seder, Renee and I went to the Asia Society where we saw wonderful Japanese prints. Yesterday we went to the Met and saw the Courbet. He was the penultimate avant garde artist of his time, but it’s a little hard to think of him that way. Everything has been so much more avant in recent years, unless you understand what came before, he seems a little dull. I really loved his self portraits, especially the one on the show poster. Maybe I’ll do some of my own: Fat Old Artist with piano, or Fat Old Artist with White Dog. (I don’t know any black ones.)

Today we went to Brooklyn, first to the botanic garden to see the cherry blossoms, magnolias and the wonderful Japanese garden. It was a perfect day, warm, sunny with a great breeze. Renee is a great companion in a garden; she knows so much about plants.

The Brooklyn Museum is next to the garden and was our next stop. The featured exhibit was by Murakami, a contemporary Japanese artist, but the exhibit I liked best was more Japanese prints. I think I can never see enough of them. This exhibit had prints I’ve never seen before–a great treat.

I won’t get home until late tomorrow; the train crawls–for 10-1/2 hours. (It’s only 7 hours driving.) I’ll try to post pictures on Friday.

Yesterday I went to a Kwanzaa celebration at the Natural History Museum with two quilting friends. We didn’t stay for much of the celebration–too crowded–but we checked out the vendors. I bought a great jacket with an African patterned woven cotton. Also took pictures of the museum’s Origami tree; I’ll post them next week.

Today Renee and I went to the Whitney where we first looked at the Jacob Lawrence Migration Series exhibit that included only a small number of his paintings. I would have liked to see the entire series in one place. Unfortunately half of them are owned by MOMA. The paintings on display were a powerful statement about the movement of African Americans from Southern to Northern states between the two  world wars.

Equally powerful, and much more dismaying, was the work of Kara Walker. While I agree with the New York Times review: "Brilliant is the word for it, and the brilliance grows over the survey’s decade-plus span," I know that Ms Walker has caused much controversy within the black community. I do not care to make judgments, but as I walked through the exhibit the thought struck me: much as I hate it, I was grateful that the stereotype of Jews as rich, smart and running the world, at least gives us who are nearer the poverty line something positive to aspire to, and few endemic cultural excuses for our failures.

Today was back-to-the-Met day. When I was here over Thanksgiving I never got to see "The Age of Rembrandt," which it turns out, is only incidentally about Rembrandt. It’s really about the collectors who contributed to and built the Met. I found myself getting more than a little bored with the Dutch painters of Rembrandt’s era, but developed a new appreciation for Franz Hals and Jan Steen. Information on the Hals painting said "indecent lovemaking and smoking were both bad for the soul, but only the latter was bad for the body." Steen was similarly lively.

More to my taste was "Bridging East and West," in the Chinese galleries. This show was also about collectors and their contributions to the museum, but the art was more to my taste.

After lunch in their cafeteria, which is quite good, I spent some time drooling over books in the museum shop, then took the bus down to 53rd St. and the American Museum of Folk Art, another lovely place overlooked by the tourists, thankfully. The exhibit,GILDED LIONS AND JEWELED HORSES: THE SYNAGOGUE TO THE CAROUSEL, had some lovely wood carvings and even more interesting papercuts.

Sated with art I went over to Rockefeller Center to go shopping at Kinokuniya, only to find they were closing that store and had moved across from Bryant Park. I got an interesting book on Japanese quilting at 50% off, then went over to the new store. Beautiful place with lots of wonderful Japanese art books. I resisted the temptation to buy still another one; I’m trying not to collect more books, ha ha.

From there it was only another block or two to visit the bead and trimming stores on Ave. of the Americas, but did not find anything I wanted. Finally, exhausted, I went to meet Renee and we had dinner in a Japanese restaurant.

Last year I was here in New York and Renee and I went on a "noshing" tour. We ate our way through three synagogues and a performance space. This year, with both of us trying not to eat so much junk food, we opted for theater. First we went to a kosher gospel concert by Joshua Nelson at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a blend of Hebrew words, prayers and psalms with gospel and roots music. It was a rousing hour and a half.

From there we taxied to Chinatown and looked for a place to eat, along with many other Jews and Chinese. We finally found a place that didn’t have a line going out the door. Not a great lunch, but OK.

We walked around Chinatown killing time. Our next event was not until 6:30. It was a beautiful day, sunny and not too cold. Nice walking weather. Finally took the subway uptown. With more time to kill we had coffee in a Subway (sandwich shop) and people watched for half an hour–always good in New York.

The play we went to–another Jewish theme–was called Dai, Hebrew for enough. It was a one-woman show by Iris Bahr who portrayed a number of Israeli and Arab characters and their reactions to the current political situation in the middle east. She changed her persona as easily as changing her shirt. Some of it was funny, all of it tragic. Each skit was punctuated by a bomb blast and realistic sounds from after such an attack, giving the audience (me) a taste of what it must be like to live in Israel, never knowing when the next bomb was coming. It gave me a lot to think about–I’m still feeling a little shattered.

Renee and I spent the day viewing art. This evening we’re staying in to watch for Santa Claus. We ought to be able to see him from her living room windows if we can remain awake that late.

We went to the Museum of Modern Art to see the Seurat drawings, which have been highly praised. After walking through several other exhibits we went to lunch at a little Korean restaurant on 56th St. Yesterday Renee was talking about a place called Soft Tofu, in Fort Lee near my old apartment. It was a cute place with a limited menu: soft tofu in very hot soup with mushrooms, or seafood, or plain, and could be had very spicy, medium spicy or mild. The Korean place on 56th had soft tofu soup, making Renee very happy. I had a soup made with Kim Chee, tofu and some meat. I never thought about cooking Kim Chee. It was good.

We went back to 53rd St. to the Museum of Art and Design, where we saw an interesting exhibit of "extreme embroidery." That’s one of my favorite museums in New York. They almost always have something I enjoy.

We concluded our day walking down to Bergdorf Goodman to look at the windows. I took lots of pictures but can’t post them until I get back to Pittsburgh.

Happy holidays to all.