November Yankee Charlie
Photos from New York City
New York, New York, a city so nice they named it twice. Manhattan is the other name.
—Michael Gary Scott
On this day 19 years ago, Michael Scott, regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Products of Scranton, PA, travelled to its corporate headquarters in New York City to do a presentation of the branch to the new CFO David Wallace. The rest is history. To honour this historic day, I’ve decided to post a few photos of the Apple. And there can never be too much celebration of Valentine’s Day.
I visited New York in 2016 en route to my friend Corey’s wedding in North Carolina. I love New York, its buildings, museums, and the fact that its racists are more straightforward, which is criminally under appreciated. Good memories!
My wife and I mostly did touristy things. It was our first visit, so duh! I got to do a morning run in Central Park. We got to witness a group of drunken teenage Mets fans trash a train coach with half drunk beer cans. Real classy! We went to MoMA and I overheard the most insightful art critic of my life: a middle-aged Chinese man walking past the Starry Night said to his friend in Chinese: “this painting is not bad.” I was certain Van Gogh was cutting off the other ear in his grave when he heard that. We went to a taping session of Late Night with Stephen Colbert and the Oscar slapped was the guest.
In Washington Square Park I got to talk to a quick chess player, who wanted me to play chess with him. He was surprised when I told him I don’t play chess. “You are Chinese. How can you not play chess?” The stereotyping borderlines racism, but it was good racism I guess. So I didn’t really mind. We talked about the blind Chinese lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who, at the time, had an office on the NYU campus next to the park. Then about Trump. And we agreed that he wouldn’t last, that he was just a bad dream that was gonna end come November. Boy oh boy, were we optimistic and naive! And Mr. Chen since then, has become a Trumpian lunatic himself. He went to the Capitol on Jan 6. What a world!
What else? We were caught in a rainstorm in East Village, saw Wicked on Broadway, and an evening session at the Village Vanguard.
Too many words. It now feels like an assignment. Here are some photos.
That’s it for today! Happy Valentine’s Day again!
Really like the photo of the paper umbrella. The one thing that floored me the first time I went was the trash, just piled out front, blocking sidewalks. Everyone has trash, but in New York, they aren’t hiding it…
Oh and Happy V day.