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Yatagan raised its falafel price to $2.50. It hit me like a fist as I crossed MacDougal Street.
It is still the best falafel I've tasted in the city, but with the price gap closed I'm free to try others.
Even with the culinary freedom this creates, my heart is broken.
But, it does relive the time pressure Wally has been under.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Obscene wealth for the arts?
Between 7 and 9 p.m. on Fridays, The Morgan Library is all kinds of free (for a listing of other free days at other museums, check the calendar at the bottom of the NeoFlaneur main page). I love free stuff and art stuff, so I packed up and hiked to Lexington Avenue and 35th Street.
The place was built by J.P. Morgan -- a really freakin' rich guy back in the day -- to keep his books and other pretties in so they didn't clutter his castle next door, is huge.
The exhibit I saw was Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors, because I like kids' books. They are usually easier to read, so my lips don't get tired. Not this time. Apparently Jean de Brunhoff and his son, Laurent, are French. Not only that, but they wrote their books in French. It was not easier to read at all.
It was, however, pretty. And there were subtitles. And it was free. And there was a highbrow drum circle. And three ... count them ... three Gutenberg Bibles (the meek may inherit the Earth, but rich guys like Morgan get all the hot bibles).
It all got me to thinking, not about French colonialism -- which may be what the Babar books were all about -- but about obscene American wealth -- definitely what J. Pierpont was all about.
How much is too much and how much difference does it make that I can look at all the pretty stuff for free two hours a week? For the record, the rest of the time, admission is $12.
I'll admit I'd rather the cash go to art than to the fifth generation of J.P.'s pet poodle (I don't even know if he liked animals), but is the legacy enough to override the damage caused by the pillaging Robber Barons and their bankers? Or should we just have eaten the lot of them when we had the chance?
The place was built by J.P. Morgan -- a really freakin' rich guy back in the day -- to keep his books and other pretties in so they didn't clutter his castle next door, is huge.
The exhibit I saw was Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors, because I like kids' books. They are usually easier to read, so my lips don't get tired. Not this time. Apparently Jean de Brunhoff and his son, Laurent, are French. Not only that, but they wrote their books in French. It was not easier to read at all.
It was, however, pretty. And there were subtitles. And it was free. And there was a highbrow drum circle. And three ... count them ... three Gutenberg Bibles (the meek may inherit the Earth, but rich guys like Morgan get all the hot bibles).
It all got me to thinking, not about French colonialism -- which may be what the Babar books were all about -- but about obscene American wealth -- definitely what J. Pierpont was all about.
How much is too much and how much difference does it make that I can look at all the pretty stuff for free two hours a week? For the record, the rest of the time, admission is $12.
I'll admit I'd rather the cash go to art than to the fifth generation of J.P.'s pet poodle (I don't even know if he liked animals), but is the legacy enough to override the damage caused by the pillaging Robber Barons and their bankers? Or should we just have eaten the lot of them when we had the chance?
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