I'm making it a mission to eat in every Hard Rock cafe I can. I've been to the ones in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Washington D.C., Cleveland, and now, Times Square. I also had a brain lapse there and nearly left my camera bag behind. It's a tricked-up Case Logic haversack that doesn't make me look like a tourist. My feet were nearly out the door when I realized I didn't have it on and ran back for it. Whew.
The next stop: The New York Public Library. Books are not the main attraction. After studying a couple of special collections, including one on old maps of New York, I went and mooched some Internet access in the upstairs reading room. I had to apply for and get an access card, but it didn't take long, and the access was free.
Let me pause here to tell you how ridiculous the Internet access situation has been over the past few days. That first post from Saturday night cost $11 to publish, because the only Internet access I could find was in the Park Central Hotel's business center -- and that runs about 40 cents a minute. Fortunately, I found access Sunday night for 19 cents a minute. It only cost me about $5. Then I had that monster post on the CBS visit the next night which cost $15! Ouch. I can get 10 minutes of free time in the Yahoo! booth at the Times Square Information Center, but that's not going to cut it for the way I blog. To save time and money, I have been writing out these blog posts longhand and then typing them like mad whenever I can get access for reasonable money. I tried to make another post in the library but the connection went bad during the process and I lost it all. I'm not trying that again. Tonight, I'm typing this in from an Internet cafe on 42nd street which gives you four hours of access for five bucks.
After the library, I rode the subway up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and even though I had only about an hour and half to work with, I saw what I wanted.One of the star exhibits there right now focuses on ancient Egyptian art. You'll see, among other things, a complete stone temple that has been carefully rebuilt inside the museum.
Go ahead, walk inside it. What's amazing is you can see early 1900's graffiti inside there!
In other rooms, you'll also see all sorts of jewelry, weapons, body armor, figures of gods, burial cloths and even a few toys. Remember the "Hounds and Jackals" game played during a scene in The Ten Commandments? That's based on an actual game, and you can see it here.
Good knight! One room features armor from Dark Age warriors and their horses.
Now, let's go up the way to the American Art sections. Get a map, whatever you do, because the entire museum is a maze.
My patriot persona is kicking in again. I counted at least three different paintings of George Washington, including the famous one of him crossing the Delaware. Unusually enough, you can take pictures of the paintings in these rooms. I didn't. That's right, I didn't. Some things need to be appreciated with the naked eye and not the camera lens.
I can't tell you anything about classical artwork to save my life. But walk up to some the paintings and you'll wonder how anybody could make something of oil and canvas look like Kodachrome. It staggers my mind. Great art is great art for a reason, and you don't need to be an art critic to figure that out. When I was in grade school in Kansas City all those years ago, the "Picture Lady" used to come around once a month. She'd show us a giant color copy of a classical painting and she'd talk about who painted it, where the real one was hanging, and what the artist was trying to say. We would see three paintings and then vote on which one we'd like to keep in our classroom for a week or so.
While I marvelled at the European artwork, the Dance of the Guards began. This end of day ritual is what we used to call a "soft close" when I worked at Six Flags Over Mid-America. The idea is not to announce, "The museum is closing in five minutes." Instead, the guards start directing people away from the outer edges of the Met, letting you browse but pushing you towards the door with the finesse of a prima ballerina. So even though closing time is 5:15, you may not be out the door until well after 5:30.
Central Park is right across the street. It's time for a walk. My feet really don't need any more walking with my Dr. Scholl's gel inserts wearing out. But I can't resist this. Everybody's jogging past me, wearing iPods and sweating it out. People walk dogs everywhere, often two at a time. You can actually make decent money as a dog walker, I hear. It's probably not enough to live on in New York, but it's money.
The movie shoot in Times Square continues tonight. Part of Times Square is blocked off again. That's squeezing pedestrian traffic outside the Giant Toys 'R' Us. One thing this town does not need is more congestion. But we'll tolerate it. Los Angeles tolerates it. Tucson tolerates it too -- even though we say we don't.
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