Man: You all set here? Me: What?

A whole week has flown by since I last posted anything here. That seems impossible, but then again there haven’t been any dull moments, which would account for the slippery swiftness of time. I left you dangling on the eve of my presentation to the house of Paul Mellon. At the allotted time I was removed from the safety of my library carrel and marched to the lecture theatre, one senior curator in front and another behind in case I made any sudden dashes towards the emergency exit, or knowing my luck, a broom cupboard. We walked into the lecture theatre and my blood ran cold – it was vast and the seats were filled with many people. I felt my heart rate increase as I was seated in the front row and told I was first on. My mouth went dry, my palms started sweating and felt a little giddy. I was announced and I went into autopilot. I remember scanning all the faces in the audience and wondering how on earth I got here, while a stream of words came out of my mouth. At some point the words stopped. I even managed to make a little joke and they all laughed politely and then I was amazed to receive a warm round of applause. I left the hall feeling unexpectedly elated, and went off to find some strong coffee. Not an easy thing to find.

At midday I was taken out for lunch by a senior curator who specialises in maritime art. It was a sushi restaurant, and while I can just about manage the chopsticks without too much comedy, I seemed to have ordered rice with everything which turned out to be almost impossible to eat in a civilised fashion while holding an intellectual conversation about the spaces of modernity in mid-eighteenth-century London with somebody I am more than slightly in awe of. The rice refused to travel from dish to gob in any polite fashion or via a socially acceptable route. I said I wasn’t all that hungry actually, snapping my chopsticks and throwing them across the restaurant. In my mind.

The next day I had another meeting with another person who I only know through books she has written and exhibitions she has ‘curated’. She was the font of all knowledge, and I felt like a double-or-drop contestant as she passed me open book after open book, files, photocopies, maps, photographs, notes and cabbages until I fell off my chair in a heap of intellectual paraphernalia and ephemera. I left with a Crackerjack pencil.

Enough of all this. On Saturday morning I set off for Boston. I caught an early train from New Haven and was soon sitting back watching New England’s coastline slide past. The train sped past harbour after harbour, all filled with neatly-moored, expensive-looking yachts bobbing up and down on the perfectly blue water. White church steeples poked up above huge, detached houses with vast porches overlooking the sea. As the train left Providence and headed inland towards Boston the scenery gradually became more Hopper-esque, deep red abandoned buildings with broken windows in windswept bush, overgrown roads and the occasional warehouse where people hung about smoking in the bright sunlight. Can you tell I didn’t get much reading done on the journey?

In Boston I found my hotel – a great little family-run place converted from an old brownstone boarding house in the South End. I then set off to walk the Freedom Trail – well, it has to be done. It wasn’t just me doing it though, and what with the heat and the crowds , and the route which seemed to take me into the most ‘touristique’ parts of the city I began to question the validity of this walk. By the third graveyard I was flagging, but I made it across the bridge to Charlestown trying to ignore the burning hot wind and the sensation that the tops of my ears were developing the consistency of pork scratchings. Once at the top of Bunker Hill (no relation to Benny) I could think of no reasonable excuse not to climb up the obelisk, until I got halfway up and remembered it was about 40C. I emerged after 292 steps (and rather attractively dripping wet with a quantity of sweat more commonly associated with horses) at the top, only to be rewarded with a view of Boston through some rather murky and yellowing perspex windows. I won’t do that again in a hurry.

The Freedom Trail ticked off the 'things to do in Boston' list, I made a bid for my own freedom and wandered aimlessly. This way I discovered some far more interesting and pleasant parts of the city, well away from the tourist hotspots, although I did happen upon the ‘Cheers Bar’ – yeah, right. The further into the South End you get, away from the fashion houses and fancy restaurants, the more interesting Boston becomes. I began to like it, but I had been walking for nearly 8 hours and my knees were beginning to buckle. I stocked up on beer, wine and food from a deli and headed back to my hotel room/studio. Feeling refreshed, I headed out onto the mean streets and found a bar where I sat in a corner drinking Sam Adams and no one seemed to notice me. I was like a ghost. Boo!

Sunday was hotter than ever. I don’t think I have ever experienced weather like this. I dashed from one patch of shade to the next as I made my way to the Museum of Fine Art. And what a fine art museum it is – quite possibly the most outstanding art museum and collection I have ever visited. I walked in at opening time (10am) and handed over my $20. Only stopping briefly for a coffee I lost track of the time until a security guard told me the museum was closing now. Seven hours had passed and it was not long enough. I sauntered back to the harbour, cooking the back of my neck in the process, and ate a picnic of olives, cheese and crusty bread while watching the dozens of yachts peacefully gliding across the still water. As afternoon turned to evening I made my way back to Back Bay station and found an empty seat on the Amtrak train back to New Haven, slightly redder than when I set out.

So, that was Boston. And this week has been paintings paintings paintings, with a few more paintings for good measure. It’s all good.

Are you going to let these idiots make me miss my connection? Well, are you?

New York beckoned. Then winked. Then said, ‘I’m not going to ask you again.’ So I packed my overnight bag and hopped on the Metro-North Railroad from New Haven to Grand Central Station. Arriving in Manhattan mid-morning and stepping into the cathedral-like arrivals hall wasn’t a bad feeling. I went in search of coffee. Damn un-fine coffee. I then sauntered a little along Madison before meeting up with some New York friends at the The Morgan. What an amazing place. This incredible building houses the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum and has to be seen to be believed – such opulence. More Gutenberg Bibles than you could shake a cross at, medieval and Renaissance illuminated texts and manuscripts by anybody who was anybody. And as for his study... Then there were the exhibitions: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Netherlands, Jim Dine’s Glyptotek Drawings and Lists. We headed downtown to the East Village and a cracking little restaurant called Westville. Delicious food and a good time was had by all. I was only sorry I had booked a hotel in the midtown – a soulless place, but cheap (you can’t knock $99) and that’s the thing folks. What was great about it was if you found the back staircase from the top floor you could make your way out onto a rooftop terrace complete with white picket fences, Astroturf and wooden benches. The perfect place to enjoy a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc before heading up to 60th street to catch the latest Woody Allen film, Midnight In Paris. This film has been very popular in New York (which is unusual these days for a Woody) – so much so that certain cinemas have been showing it on multiple screens with punters having to arrive early to secure a ticket. I wasn’t disappointed. The cinema was full and the film was a corker – I can’t remember the last time I was part of a cinema audience which burst into spontaneous applause at the end of a film – a great sensation for a long-time Woody Allen admirer like moi. Afterwards I retired to a bar where I pulled up a stool and drank some very cold lager and pretended to be interested in the rugby on the tv screens – not an easy one for me to pull off.

I was up with the police sirens and took my tea on the rooftop terrace before wandering across to the Morning Star diner on 57th between 8th and 9th for old time’s sake. Next stop MoMA. She told me not to come, but the German Expressionism exhibition was about to finish and I didn't want to miss this one. It was superb. I even had a free tour while admiring works by some of my favourite artists. Deeply moving. Afterwards I spiralled around the galleries to shake hands with a few old mates – Matisse, Chagall, Derain, Brancusi...they were all there like celebrities posing for the paparazzi as tourists armed with digital cameras snapped away – few people stopping to look at any art unless it was on the screen of their phone. I grumbled and mumbled and shuffled away.

Too much German Expressionism can curdle the brain, so I bought a wrap and a yoghurt and found a good spot to people-watch beneath the statue of Shakespeare (I know!) in Central Park. Revived, I carried on walking uptown to 86th street where I was pleased to find the Neue Gallery open and I managed another two hours in the company of Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka – and oh yes, hello – don’t I know you from somewhere? Of course it is - Mr Gustav Klimt how the devil? My, you are looking well, and I love the way you’re working that golden look. Whoops – half an hour to go before my train so I whizzed down to Grand Central on an express train and then I’m on my way back to New Haven. There’s never a dull moment – a fight broke out in the carriage and it all became a little tense. Then the guard came and the driver stopped the train and came out of his compartment and the police were called and people who were going to miss their connections got all excited and started yelling and before you could say ‘I’m afraid of Americans’ there was a heated debate about displaced people and ‘...Oh my oh my oh my’ said Mole. The baddies were arrested and left us with a torrent of ‘motherfuckers and fucking faggots’ pleasantly echoing in our ears as we continued on to New Haven. And so to bed.

Monday and it's back to er, 'work'. My days consist of sleeping badly in the intense heat, getting up, walking 5 minutes down the road to the Yale Center for British Art, looking at amazing things, going for lunch, looking at more amazing things, going back to my apartment and writing up all my notes, making dinner, having a few cleansing lagers and then repeat to fade.

Tomorrow I must make a presentation to the entire staff. That’s the entire staff. All the staff. Every one of them. Even Rosemary the switchboard operator, and Henry the janitor. Hold on – could be!

Chicken and Biscuits

...and it was a good party and I survived! I met up with a senior member of the Yale staff and her friends for a very informal gathering at her impressive old-town apartment. Once the champagne started to flow people seemed to loosen up (funny that) and we sat in the garden eating fried chicken and potato salad before heading off by foot to a high point above New Haven to watch the fireworks as they exploded all along the coast, a sideshow to the main display from the nearby rocky crags. Afterwards I was given some rudimentary directions before being cast adrift to face the long walk home alone. I was totally disorientated, jetlagged and a trifle giddy from the champagne and I began to feel a little lost. Fortunately my built-in compass was working for once.

The following day I presented myself at the Yale Center for British Art as instructed and was soon being inducted into the use of the massive library and assigned a working space and a 'carrel' (oh come all ye faithful). I was introduced to another ‘fellow’ who clearly wasn't and during a lull in the proceedings we went to drink what Americans call coffee but is really dirty water. The afternoon’s activities included a tour of the whole of the center and introductions to the many staff, which meant explaining my research subject over and over again. I started out with a carefully constructed and detailed description of my thesis and a summary of the subjects of individual chapters, but by the end of the afternoon this was reduced to ‘Er, yeah, 18th century images of the Thames’. Lots of new people and information made my head spin, so I went shopping. Managing to find an out of town supermarket (it would appear that all the shops in the centre are for rich kids, and I can’t claim to be either) I staggered back in the intense heat bowed down by the weight of my gallon of milk and gallon of juice and supersize everything else. I thought I might expire. Fortunately I survived long enough to find the local wine shop where I was happy to discover, amongst other things, a cheeky little Bergerac which I am sipping right now. Delicious.

Wednesday was the first day proper and I made the most of the library and the prints and drawings room. After a terribly civilised lunch at a nearby Italian tratorria, the Prints & Drawings staff helpfully dug out sketches by Samuel Scott for me to view - stunning. I pored over these for hours. The rest of the day went by in a flash (and I didn't even doze off), and was rounded off sitting outside enjoying some chilled Italian wine on a nearby terrasse until the staff told us that actually they'd really like to go home now if it was all the same with us.

Today has been a bit of a highlight and I have been like a kid bull in a sweet china shop. I've handled drawings by Canaletto, William Blake, Willem van de Velde, Louis Philippe Boitard and John Cleveley to name but a few stars of the eighteenth century firmament. To see these things at all is a priviledge, but to be trusted to handle them is, for me anyway, breathtaking. I can't explain it. Perhaps I should ask Brian Cox.

It’s very hot. I’m sweating profusely. I’d like to leave you with that image. Chinchin!

Ahead no shoulders

Sitting up and writing this is a desperate attempt to ward off the jet lag by staying awake until at least 11pm, even though it’s now only 9pm which is really 2am, bearing in mind I got up at 5.45am. Now take away the number you first though of. I feel a little strange it's true, and I have no wine to take the edge off.

As I write this I can look up from my desk at this very view – impressive ha? Well, I think it is. It makes a change from the Thames at any rate. The journey was a breeze – although the shuttle driver who took me from JFK to New Haven drove like a demon, lurching from one side of the road to the other, swerving up embankments and making liberal use of the hard shoulder. As we drove away from Queens and over the bridge onto the interstate 278 to Connecticut I caught a tantalising glimpse of Manhattan, then on we bounced to Greenwich (can’t get away from it), Fairfield (impressive university), Milford (I think there might be money there) and finally New Haven - my stop. I had a bit of a Larry David moment when I hesitated over tipping the gargantuan driver – needless to say we did not part on the best of terms. Then my lower lip had a wobble when the concierge at the apartment building told me he had no record of my booking and there was nothing that could be done about it. I sat down in the foyer and wondered if it would be OK to stretch out on a sofa and sleep there. Ten minutes later a light bulb came on and the guy remembered there was a parcel for me with keys – nice touch.

It’s blinking humid. I’m playing the noisy air-co off against the more traditional open windows at the moment. I think open windows wins. I took a stroll around the block and peered in at some of the imposing university buildings. I even located the Yale Center for British Art, so at least I’m definitely in the right place. Tomorrow is Independence Day – and I’ve been invited to a party thrown by a senior Yale academic...I'd better watch my P's and Q's or it could all kick-off before I've even started.

Stop me if you've heard this before

Welcome back. Where in heaven's name do you think you've been? I've been sitting here on my wall for over 6 years. No I haven't, but - my - hasn't the time flown?

Anybubble, I think it's time to resurrect Neppytune after all these years of moth-balled dormancy. Other blogs have come along and faded without a trace, or simply been overlooked or swiftly forgotten, none of them quite capturing the essence that was Neppytune. But I think it can be revived to live and breathe again as I set out on adventures new, lurching, crashing and burning all in the name of art - the history of art to be precise. Oi - stop snoring at the back - I only mentioned it once.

Tomorrow I fly to New York and then take a shuttle to New Haven where I'll be staying for the rest of the month in the lup of lixury. The purpose of my being, and, more to the point, the purpose of my being there is to research the Paul Mellon collection of eighteenth-century British art held at Yale, and hopefully unearthing some delights along the way: all grist for my PhD thesis-mill-on-the-floss. More (or less) of that later. Now I just have to finish packing which involves kneading the air out of my cornucopia of clothes and other assorted items while my suitcase gently weeps.