on the way to the pierpont morgan library . . and afterwards

i left the apartment today at 1 pm to walk to the pierpont morgan library, to meet my friend kendall and view the tennessee williams exhibit.

 at fifth avenue and west 13th street i passed a labor demonstration in front of the new school. the demonstrators were bouncing around and dancing and getting everyone's energy up. the guy's sign reads "honk for labor."

 i usually can't resist a pic of the empire state building . . the woman in front of me couldn't either.

 enjoying a perfect day . . not too hot . . not too cold . . 

 david glasgow farragut . . was a flag officer in the united states navy during the civil war (later in life he became the first admiral in the us navy). though he was a southerner born and raised, he believed secession to be treason and was loyal to the union and moved north with his wife to hastings-on-hudson just before the war broke out (just up the river from manhattan). he is remembered for an order he gave at the battle of mobile bay in alabama, 1864, paraphrased as "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" wikipedia tells a story sourced from james p. duffy's book, lincoln's admiral, that farragut was entering the bay with his fleet of ships, when they started to slow down. he yelled out to the uss brooklyn, and the reply came back that there were torpedoes ahead (mines). he then yelled to the captain of his ship (uss hartford), "damn the torpedoes, four bells captain drayton" (a signal to the engine room for more power) and then to the commander of the metacomet (the ship lashed to the hartford's side), "go ahead, jouett, full speed!"

anyway, i thought that was a fun story to relate. farragut is a station on the washington dc subway line. new yorkers aren't really familiar with his name, so i doubt if any of these people above are fully aware of what the statue behind them is all about. i certainly wasn't until now.

at the pierpont morgan library . . 

 waiting for kendall . . 

 perusing the tennessee williams exhibit: no refuge but writing.

 tennessee with his maternal grandfather, reverend walter e. dakin.

jessica tandy's script for a streetcar named desire . .

 and her notes. kendall and i had fun trying to decipher her handwriting . .

 tennessee's well worn copy of the collected poems of hart crane, his most prized possession; filled with all his different addresses so it could be returned to him if lost.

 where is this? now i'm at the whitney museum. i stopped by on my way home after saying good-bye to kendall. they had two lectures/talks this evening that i wanted to hear (it was members' night, and they were short little talks). one was about two edward hopper paintings: new york interior from 1921, and a woman in the sun from 1961 . .

 and the other was a talk about zoe leonard's installation survey . . 

 which was helpful as i wasn't making the connections between the different groups of photographs.

 the sun was setting when i left . . 

heading home . .

emily at the morgan

greg and i walked to the pierpont morgan library today to see the emily dickinson exhibit.

on the way we passed the nepal day parade marching south along madison avenue.

you never know what street fair or parade you'll run into now that it's spring.

they were all having a good time and the music was fun.

i had never been to the morgan library before, though greg had. it was exciting to see the gutenberg bible and all the beautiful old books in the library. the dickinson exhibit was in a small room on the second floor. we both really enjoyed it and found it informative. i loved seeing her papers and comparing her writing from when she was a young girl to her adult self. above is a fascicle (books of her poetry that she sewed together) containing her poem i heard a fly buzz.

(sorry for the shadows!) she often had several words that she was considering in a poem, so she would put small cross marks to their left, indicating they were all possibilities.

she led a reclusive life when she was older, but her young self attended schools and parties, concerts and lectures. she corresponded with friends and family prolifically, and she wrote approximately 1,800 poems! she also had auburn hair, which you can see in this portrait of her with her brother austin, and sister lavinia, painted by otis allen bullard in 1840 when she was nine years old. the exhibit also had a lock of her hair, and the famous daguerreotype which is the only known picture of her young adult self.