Mi casa es Schnabel's casa

Woke up with the realisation that I had but a few short days in NY and had as yet failed to visit an art museum of any description. Being that MOMA has probably the best art collection in the world and had recently been refitted I decided to head there. The art was as extraordinary as ever - an unrelenting sequence of art historical superstars hung tightly together, giving the impression of being repeatedly slapped. The new building was outstanding - large, open, public spaces full of light without any sense of intimidation. The most successful part was the flooring and the way the walls ended half a centimetre before touching it which gave the whole gallery a sense of lightness. Very Japanese, no surprises as it was a Japanese architect, Yoshio Taniguchi who was responsible for it. Perhaps the only bad thing was the way the paintings were hung - too many high imapct paintings on the top floor made the next floor down a somewhat deflated balloon of American works. I liked that the paintings were on the top two floors though - meant I saw more of the prints etc than I otherwise would've bothered with. Didn't like the paintings being on the top floor cause I nearly passed out walking across one of the elevated walkways with their glass walls. I soon learned to keep my eyes fixed straight ahead and not look either side.

Also realised I hadn't bought ANYTHING during my whole trip and so stopped at SAKS on my way out. Brief flash round, brief acknowledgement of how cheap I am and back onto the pavement. Then took a long walk from 55th to 27th street looking for somewhere to eat and ended up at a random Vietnamese place that was both cheap and tasty. After that was invited round to the Duke's house and spent a happy couple of hours dipping and drinking beer. Alas the Saint had heavenly duties in Harlem and so I headed to the Bowery solo where the beer drinking continued and delicious lobster bake was ordered from Nolita. Foxley came and joined us and we headed out to Marie's Crisis. Marie's Crisis is a gay piano bar and is principally known to me as the place Parker Posey's character works in Adam and Steve. As show tunes and live music are my ideas of fresh hell I was dragged along to get my hackles up and to endure the experience. I can see the appeal, the bar itself is great ... underground shame hole with some great behind-the-bar art and a massively saggy-bosomed proprietress. If only they'd just stop with the singing. After that we headed to the Rusty Knot on the West Side highway a particular favourite of Foxley's. Was pretty fun ... drank $11 Mai Tai's till they were coming out of my ears and pinnochio's nose was coming out of my face.

On the way out we'd walked passed Julian Schanbel's insane 17 storey mansion Palazzo Chupi [above] and Foxley was telling us about how it had been renovated and the spec of the place. On the way back, under the influence of much booze, James disappeared through the front door said to the doorman 'Hey, I'm Jean, I'm here to see Julian' and swished into the lift. A short while later he opened the garage door and we all crept into his house. Having been used to the boxy rooms and tight living space of most NY apartments it was very unusual to be in a place where entire rooms, nay entire floors, were given over to the installation of art. After four or so floors of art installation mania (eg the garge had two giant 15ft high figures fighting with what appeared to by giant needles) I started feeling guilty about being in someone else's house and so left. Corty and James powered on up and got high enough to hear footsteps and a dog! Eventually the doorman came to get them, seemingly very relaxed about the whole thing saying 'I hope you guys had a good time' and they were lead back onto the street.