Weekend ("Weakened") in New York

What can you do on a long four day weekend, in New York?

Among other things, you can:

1. Eat two Greek dinners near Times Square, one at a middling restaurant called Kyma on 8th Avenue, one at a terrific restaurant near Carnegie Hall, Mykovos.

2. Eat one seafood dinner in Soho, Aquagrill

3. Eat a Japanese dinner off Broadway at Rio and You (what kind of a name is that?). Don't order the yam and salmon roe appetizer, but get several orders of the hijiki (hikiji?) salad (a seaweed). And try the vegetable rice stew.

4. Have two poppy seed bagels with coffee. Not as good as what I get at home.

5. Have eggs three times, once scrambled with toast, once scrambled with turkey sausage and once scrambled with lamb sausage. Still looking for the equivalent of the lamb boxie at Gallaghers, Temple Court, Dublin.

6. Have lunch in the garden of the Cooper Hewitt, for the ambience, not the food.

7. Have a delicious bottle of blackberry juice at Juan Valdez, from Columbia (but then again so is Juan Valdez)

8. See two great plays, "The Lieutenant from Innishmore" (a comedy starring blood and guts, and a black cat), and "Avenue Q", x-rated Sesame Street. Both very clever, and very, very well done.

9. See your step nephew and his wife (combine that with Aquagrill if you like)

10. Go to the Museum of Natural History for the Darwin Exhibit (and be complemented by the ticket taker when you tell her you are eligible for a senior ticket), and trace his entire life, including the extraordinary Beagle voyage (I must re-read Alan Moorehead's book), and learn that Josiah Wedgwood was his mother's father.

11. Go to the Rubin Museum and learn about Himilayan Art. So the Rubins gave a building, 900 pieces of art, and an endowment to build this museum. (He made the money off health care premiums)

12. Go to the Jewish Museum for Eva Hess and Max Lieberman. Hess was 2 when she left Germany and came here, and died of a brain tumor while still in her 30s. She sculpted non-representational, but surprisingly evocative and pleasing pieces. LIeberman, who painted for a long career in pre-Nazi Berlin before being made a non-person, created extraordinary, non-religious works of art.

13. Go to the Cooper Hewitt to see an exhibit on the history of tableware, as well as an exhibit on the relationship of American landscape painting to tourism. The first exhibit was better than the second; it was excellent. In the basement, there is a small exhibit by French furniture/audio designer Matali Crasset, which I enjoyed a lot.

14. Go to the Met and see special exhibits on Raphael and his madonnas, photography as annotated by Susan Sontag, the history of late 20th century English dress, the art of Girodet, Queen (King) Hatshepsut of 2nd millenium BCE Egypt, and Mayan creation myths and artifacts. Enjoy Girodet the best, but be amazed at the Mayan and Egyptian exhibits. Yawn at the Raphael's, and be stimulated by the photography.

15. Go to Strand used book store, as well as several thrift shops to look through their books. This is where I found the Zencey book (see above, or is it below?)

16. Walk, take a cab and a subway

17. Buy a pair of old Italian coral earings at the Chelsea Antiques Center from 84 year old Shirley.

18. Pay too much for everything.