U Pick - Franco-American Relations - Delicatessen - On The Plaza - WTC - 14,557 Steps and 19 Floors - My French Is Horrible

I'm exhausted. Good thing I have to go to work this afternoon so I can get some rest. Two old guys do Manhattan and take a lot of photos. Jack, who helps manage City Daily Photo, asked for some pictures of the two of us. Pick your favorite. From top to bottom, at Rockefeller Center, The Oculus at the World Trade Center and Katz's Deli on Houston Street. Pick your favorite.

Home this afternoon. Sunday's stair climbing efforts were due to many subway rides - most of it isn't accessible. The language issue was still a bit of a struggle but we got by with the help of AI systems. Next year in Paris, I hope.

Manhattan - High Line - 16,592 Steps - My French Is Terrible

LONG day with Olivier. We met on Roosevelt Island (never been there before), a long, thin residential sliver in the East River. Then took the tram to Manhattan. Then subway to the High Line. Then walk and walk and walk. Then to the Whitney Museum. 

The health app on my iPhone says I took 16,592 steps, probably a one-day record for me. My legs hurt - Olivier is in better shape. I think I'm hot stuff when in France because I can get something to eat or drink, buy something, pay the bill and, on a good day, ask directions in the street. But general conversation with a Frenchman? Non. Olivier's English is equivalent to my French and it was a struggle at times. The noise level of the city didn't help. We tested Google Translate's bandwidth. 

These shots only scratch the surface of what I took yesterday. 

Queens

I have been in New York City for seven hours as I write this and have not left the Borough of Queens. (Tomorrow will be different, of course.) The first two pictures look east along Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside, the neighborhood where I grew up. Mon bon ami Olivier Perrin is on holiday in the city and met me here. We walked through the area, took some pictures of my old apartment building and dined at my favorite local restaurant, Soleluna,

Back to the hotel to edit. The bottom photo is the view from my window. (My little Olympus camera just doesn't do low light as well as my big Canon, but that's too heavy to walk the streets.) Tomorrow Roosevelt Island, The High Line, the Whitney Museum and, if time permits, the International Center of Photography. Dinner at a French cafe and wine bar in the West Village.     

Therapy

There are more pictures from STL's Halloween party on Flickr here and I may edit others. But today I need out and I'm getting out. Been a bit crabby lately with work, clients and certain other people. As Sartre said, l'enfer, c'est les autres, and I'm looking for some mental refreshment.

By mid-afternoon I will be in New York City, my point of origin. Now I wouldn't tell a Scot this to his or her face, but Sir Walter Scott, whose poetry I think is mostly awful, wrote

Breathes there a man, with soul so dead

   Who never to himself hath said

This is my own, my native land!

I still miss the place. Of course, living is St. Louis is far more affordable but going back here always gives me a boost. It hits my reset button. It's therapeutic. Later today I will meet up with Olivier of Evry Daily Photo. We will walk the streets, photograph what passes before us and use Google Translate a lot. Can't wait.

By the way, the photo here was taken in the Staten Island Ferry terminal last summer. The concept works for me.

Silly People

I'm running through some more Central West End Halloween pictures before I head to New York for the weekend tomorrow. You have to wonder whether these people are simply being creative or expressing something about themselves that doesn't have another outlet. Probably some of both.    

City Daily Photo November Theme Day: Rock 'n' Roll

I finally remembered a City Daily Photo theme day but had to go back into the archives for material. Above, St. Louis' late, great Chuck Berry, performing in the amphitheater at the Missouri Botanical Garden. No city but ours can claim the father of rock 'n' roll as a native.

The picture below was taken out of the jurisdiction, as Jack says. It's a Kiss tribute band in Calgary, Alberta, at the Stampede's Grandstand show, probably the greatest entertainment spectacular I've ever seen. 

I used to be a rocker. May have seen the Greatful Dead more times than I have fingers. My sister and I went to the second Beatles concert at Shea Stadium in New York. Lots  of shows at the Fillmore East when home for the summer during early college years. And I was at Woodstock. Really. 

Eventually, though, I got bored with it. There was only so much the genre could say. My family was very middle class but my father's boss was a rich man and on the board of the New York Philharmonic. We were exposed to that at an early age (how I remember Leonard Bernstein's Young Peoples Concerts). Now my wife and I subscribe to the superb St. Louis Symphony, three opera companies, and have visited opera and concert halls from Sydney to Berlin. So much more to chew on, not that I mind listening to Sgt. Pepper once in a while.

Don't We All Have Days Like This?

I do, or at least I feel like this looks. Checking at the picture more closely, I wonder if this man is supposed to be a stalk of broccoli. Don't much like that although people say it's good for you. Maybe if this person ate more of what he's dressed like he'd feel better. 

No mistaking the second costume. If I feel that nasty I usually cover it up.