Stricken: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  July 27, 2011]

Stricken.  By what?  By journal is silent, except to say that I was.  Four or five days so I expect it was just on of those miserable summer colds.  Not much, therefore, to report on what happened to me in the persistent June rain ten years ago.  A bit of eating and gallery-going nevertheless.

The Whitney and the Frick, in any case,  ignoring forked lighting, for Calder, Van der Rohe, El Greco and Roni Horn.

Roni Horn, born 1952, has infiltrated my attention slowly but surely over the years I've lived here.  One would see her works here and there and think, oh that's a New York artist, interesting; and gradually one realized that interest in what she was doing hardly remained local.  At the Whitney I saw a remarkable work, now in the permanent collection, "Ellipsis" (1998).  Just photographs from a public swimming pool in Iceland - she adores Iceland - but arranged in a grid.  Formally satisfying and leading the eye back and forth as if through a two-dimensional maze.  It was lovely, and almost a movie.

As for Alexander Calder, that wonderfully playful sculptor, the Whitney had bits from the "Circus" project - not, as far as I can recall, the work itself.  Mies Van der Rohe was represented by an extensive - almost tediously so - assembleage of plans, photos and... well, why doesn't architecture show well in galleries?

At the Frick, a concentrated show of El Greco - the best way to learn about any artist:  competing versions of his "The Cleansing of the Temple" and "Saint Jerome" (try Google if you're interested).

Of food?  I managed a bite or teo.  Café DeVille had a long run on Third Avenue - it has now been replaced by some kind of "British-ish" "gastropub."  Simple brasserie nosh - a platter of fruits de mer, steak tartar, a bottle of rosé.  Pretty safe.  At home, I stewed veal with cream and prunes and a splash of Armagnac - obviously a good idea, cutting it with the tannins of a simple Corbières.  Next evening, lemon chicken - au citron, as my diary would have it - with peas and chopped lettuce.

Finally, a dish from my childhood - commonly recognized as English, except that anyone who has waded through the countless homely beef recipes in Escoffier's Ma Cuisine will know he'd have recognized it:  boiled beef with carrots, horseradish sauce and some chopped capers.

That's a whole way of treating red meat we've forgotten.  A '96 Aloxe-Corton 1er Cru was not embarrassed to be in its company, and I finished the bottle with some Pont-L'Évêque.

Next week I get better and visit Tocqueville and Jean-Georges.