Wednesday 7th November 2012

Too late, too late! I’m just about to be engulfed by Berlin hotel life.  I gain at lunchtime tomorrow.

New York, New York – we must say Good-bye!

We visited the Cloisters. Harry Rollo arranged it, having pre-visited and grown wild for the Cloisters. It’s medieval art, right at the top of Manhattan island. Medieval art’s all right, in my view, but later is better. They got better at Art later.

Well, was bowled over by The Cloisters. There are some tapestries there  you should travel from the ends of the Earth to see.

Had no idea of their existence even.

We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the company of Reggie Cresswell, the Ghanaian ceramicist. The Gay Mother elected for the American rooms. That’s all she’s ever seen there and, at 88, the Renoir and Monet Suites are likely to have been slashed out for good.

But as she says, We’ve got those here.

The American rooms grow more and more impressive. Reggie pointed out a new, rare artist called Julian Church. Loved all the American art.

Reggie said he’d had the most awful time in Flat-Bed Business Class to Jo’burg the other day, whence he was going for a festival of ceramics. Couldn’t have been more disappointed with it.

There was a scary moment when the Gay Mother disappeared in a classic Poor Little Rich Gay quest for a missing picture, one seen before and elusive on this visit. The missing picture more potent than any on view usually. It was the Winslow Homer of the sodden battlefield.

She found it and we found her. Loved the Winslow Homer and others by that artist. A bit gay, as well.

Oh – I’ve forgotten to put my American thoughts. So important to think about America.

New York’s Poor Little Rich Gay. New Yorkers are Poor Little Rich Gay.

Absolute cradle of Poor Little Rich Gay.

Final View of the Empire State Building as Our Car Forged Towards JFK: Would the Gay Mother Ever See it Again, I Asked the Last Time, When She was 82. And She Did