Speaking of Croatia

Pierrot and Pierrette. “It is truly unlikely that the occasion for this masquerade had anything to do with Halloween. This holiday has no tradition that I know of in Croatia.”

Just cause a place was a point of your origin, does not mean you haven’t overlooked some of its finer points.

For Instance, I never heard of a dessert called the bayadere which apparently is a specialty from my mother’s neck of the Balkans. I encountered one at Les Gateaux de Marie and have to admit it’s very addictive. I am a huge chocolate mixed with nuts fan.

The coffee at this little French bakery Cafe is far from solid. It’s the bajadera I come back for from time to time.

Speaking of La Bayadere, it’s also the name of a classical dance. While I never fully understood its virtues when I was the audience, it is an elaborate and much admired work. I think my imagination is stymied by the appearance of ghosts.

Marius Petipa conceived this dramatic tale of exotica and eternal love set in ancient India for a large troupe of his dancers. The title refers to the Indian temple dancer, Nikiya, whose ghost returns to seek vengeance and be reunited with her noble lover, Solor.

How the name for an Indian temple dancer came to grace a Croatian sweet, I cannot tell you. I will attest that the pastry is, like an Indian Temple Dancer, an exotic treat.

The ghost or a wraith of some sort is an oft seen character in ballet, from Giselle, Les Sylphides to the apotheosis in Swan Lake.

Thus closes this Halloween-themed episode….

Changes

Looking at old pictures, I am stricken
By how we've changed. Even those I 
Did not know, never encountered but
In photos, are amended as they age.
My mother was so dewy, so fresh as
A girl, as a young woman; that sad 
Speculation in her eyes, now in mine,
Reflected time passing. Her mother,
Staring out of a frame, shows me a
Likeness that pleases me, as much as
My mother's eyes in my mirror do. It
Is heredity, my own, depicted in my 
Face. Even if it is not the same face
I find in that photograph from 1990,
There is something I recognize there.
Something of my own. As we get older
I have said there is something generic
In our appearance. It is harder to hold 
The individuality of youth; harder to
Maintain the vibrance of middle-age.
I am stricken by how we've changed.

Scenes

The L.A. Planetarium plays a prominent part in Rebel Without A Cause.

The teens from Rebel, watching the dire predictions of collisions and booms, are more engrossed in their own life angst. The adults in their lives can’t seem to provide them the guidance they need.

Officially named the Griffiths Observatory, it makes an interesting cameo in La La Land. It has appeared on TV episodes as well and some dozens of other films.

The Griffiths Observatory’s presence in Rebel was dour. In La La aery.

On a tangent that leads away from L.A. but still features a planetarium, I recall how much I loved stargazing. At least from the comfort of plush seats.

New York City has a well rated world-class planetarium of its own adjacent to our often-in-films dinosaur museum. The American Museum of Natural History is the setting for A Night In The Miseum, a series that is neither dour nor aery.

The observatory here in New York City is called The Hayden Planetarium.

And we’re once again back full circle to films. If not quite back to L.A.

Shorter this way

Trees are having their coming out party.

Why is it a shortcut if I cover the same distance? It definitely feels shorter when I turn on Cherokee to get 1 block down.

I still have to get from Cherokee Place to York. Why does it feel so much less arduous?

Sometimes even this longcut (sic) feels shorter.

There’s a jazz club just off 86th and Second. That’s exciting.

https://jeremysnyc.com/
501 East 79th emerges

There was scaffolding shrouding this corner for ever so long. It’s a pleasant surprise having this building come out into the daylight.

The Fall

It’s the best season.

Not just for the color on the trees or the crispness in the air but for its promise. The spring will overwhelm with expectation but the Fall has wisdom. It’s a temperate time of year, sometimes breezy, others balmy.

This bronze stag has taken its stand in our neighborhood for some time now.

This dental practice seems to be on a mission we as New Yorkers should appreciate. The goal, I gather, is to put a smile on our faces.

The return to school in the Fall used to require a visit to the dentist.

On the subject of: names

Names like Silverman have a history that connects the named with an occupation. Surnames were a later development in the human community.

It used to be that you would be directed to find Max. He’s the blacksmith. Max the blacksmith might become Max Smith in a shortening of his trade.

The mob, if gangster films teach us anything, will use a trait to identify a comrade in arms. Joey Triggers or Tony Safes might be a moniker in use. Since Joey and Tony come from a long line of Capistranos and Conamores they already have a last name. If they’d lived in the middle ages, the nickname would stick for the next generations.

Names connect us to our past.