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Fire & Ice
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Politics, culture, and other oddities.
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Saturday, November 18, 2000
Okay, stick with me on this one, I swear I'm going somewhere with this...
When I was little, and first watched the Judy Garland musical "Meet Me In St. Louis," I identified with the littlest sister, "Tootie," played by Margaret O'Brien (I think). There's a part in the movie where Tootie is extolling the virtues of St. Louis and then comments, "Aren't I lucky to have been born in my most favorite [or best?] city in the world?" (Or something to that effect.) I always thought that was a little ridiculous. You know, "The grass is always greener..." Most people don't appreciate so much where they live. At the time I first watched "Meet Me In St. Louis," I didn't either. (I've spent most of my life in New York City, including my early childhood.) I had no specific complaints about NYC, but then again, I would never spontaneously exclaim how lucky I was to live there. My point is (I do have a point, however long it took me to get to it), now I would. I truly appreciate how wonderful it is to have the opportunity (and it IS an opportunity) to live in (now right outside of) the greatest city in the world. I ought to take advantage of it more than I do, but I have to say that I'm never bored with the city at my feet. Today, after my midtown acting class, I had two hours to kill. I got lunch and ate in the refurbished Bryant Park, enjoying the mild weather, the greenery, and the first-rate people-watching. Then I strolled up and down Fifth Avenue, window shopping/window drooling, before settling into a cozy room in the massive New York Public Library. Then this afternoon, I went to the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval art collection. It was truly extraordinary. The story behind the Cloisters is that Rockefeller funded this project to transport all these fragments of European medieval monastaries and the art inside of them to New York. Then, they put it all together to recreate an authentic medieval monastary, right on the edge of Manhattan. How amazing is that? Walking through the Cloisters, you're totally transported back in time, and the art is phenomenal. Rockefeller even bought the land that the Cloisters overlooks, so that even the view could be frozen in time.
Now tell me, where else in the world could I have done all this in a day?
Sorry, Tootie, you were wrong: Mine's the best. How lucky I am!
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