Cloistered

Sunday: By 7.30am I was back on the train and heading towards Grand Central Station. Soon after 9am I was sitting on the steps of the New York Public Library, munching on a croissant, slurping coffee and leaning back on the plinth that supports Fortitude, one of the stone lions that flank this iconic building within which I had spent many a happy day back in 2004. But this wasn’t a day for libraries. Instead I took the subway up to 86th Street and headed across to the Met where 2½ hours were mysteriously lost as I wandered through room after room of European paintings. The crowds of camera-wielding tourists were at the Met alright, but they had come for the Alexander McQueen exhibition, leaving me to enjoy the incredible art collection with only the occasional sleepy security guard for company.

I had arranged a rendez-vous at the Cloisters for 2pm (sounds dodgy, but I'll leave it in), but my carefully planned journey fell apart at the seams when, like a disoriented tourist, I was unable to find the necessary bus stop. I abandoned the bus option and legged it across Central Park to grab a subway train that would take me all the way up to 190th Street – I’d never been so high! The discomfort of melting on superhot underground platforms was quickly forgotten when I emerged from the station to magnificent views across the Hudson from this unexpected vantage point. It was nothing like the Manhattan I am familiar with, more like being suddenly transported to some tropical island. I made my way through a peaceful park until I came to The Cloisters museum. This place has to be seen to be believed. I can’t do justice to it here. Suffice to say if I'd been taken there blindfolded and then asked me to guess where I was, I would have said Tuscany. If you go to NYC, go to The Cloisters – I guarantee you will be amazed. Next time, I’m going there for the whole day.

After the museum had closed for the day, I reluctantly made my way back downtown, where I was pleased to discover the delights of the Strand Bookstore near Union Square. More time evaporated so that I managed to catch the 9pm train back to New Haven with only minutes to spare – quite fortunate given that the next one would have involved a 1½ wait and a seriously late arrival time. So that was the last New Haven/Manhattan trip, and the following day marked the beginning of my final week at Yale, a week which involved a frantic struggle to complete my research, lunches and evening drinks with curators and academic staff, and then reluctant goodbyes to new friends and to Yale. On Friday morning I was back on the train and on my way to upstate New York via Massachusetts.

New Haven, new heat

It’s been a busy period. Period. During the rest of the time I spent in New Haven, which was up until last weekend, I barely stopped to think, let alone to write anything on this here blogarithm. I’m fairly sure that nobody would be interested in a blow-by-blow account of those days, so here are some edited highlights.

As if there wasn’t enough for me to do and see at the YCBA, I decided that what I really needed to do was to pay a visit to the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington. This involved catching an early morning train from New Haven Union station to Hartford. Once there I took a taxi for the 20 or so mile journey to Farmington. Here the houses are big, and Palladian columns on the front of your house are de rigueur, as is a flagpole sporting the stars and stripes, the bigger the patriotic-er. Wilmarth Lewis was a 20th-century collector of all things Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill-related, and, as I understand it, he bequeathed his fine collection to Yale. I received a warm welcome at the library, and I was astonished to find the thirty or so works in which I had indicated an interest (in an email sent the previous day) all set out ready for my inspection. The reading room was already occupied by half a dozen studious scholars and I tried to unpack my things and start work as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the hushed and reverential atmosphere. I started up my laptop, and for some unknown reason – this has never happened before or since – it suddenly began to emit a loud high-pitched and continuous bleep. The scholars looked up from their work and glared at me as I frantically tried to stop the excruciating din. In my acute embarrassment and frustration I was on the point of resorting to smash the laptop against the edge of the table when the noise finally ceased. The scholars shook their heads and returned to their dusty tomes as I tried to recover my composure. Apart from that, I had a most excellent time and found some fine Thames –related images, especially caricatures and paraphernalia relating to the building of Westminster Bridge and the Adelphi.

I managed to choose the hottest day in the history of New England hotness for this trip, and when the only train back to New Haven was delayed for an undetermined length of time (Amtrak seem to take a very flexible approach to timetables) I was stuck between a stifling waiting room and a platform which promised to fry passengers in the unforgiving heat while they waited. For once I was deeply grateful to get back to my air-conditioned apartment.

The following day I tried out the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Yale. This extraordinary-looking building houses 500,000 volumes and several million manuscripts, enough to send any researcher into paroxysms of delight. I set up shop at a desk between painted portraits of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas while the most obliging and accommodating library staff delivered 17th and early 18th-century documents for my inspection. There was even a research assistant ready to help with any questions, so helpful that I think he might have drafted a chapter for me if I’d asked him nicely.

I had planned to spend the weekend in Manhattan, but the heat had reached an intensity that made even short forays outside of air-conditioned environments incredibly uncomfortable. For the first time I was stuck inside my apartment. By midday I’d had enough of that, and headed off to the Yale Art Gallery. I had no idea what an amazing collection was held here, practically on my doorstep. Housed in a Louis Kahn-designed building (Kahn was commissioned by Paul Mellon as the architect for the YCBA) which is intriguing enough in its own right, this gallery is stuffed full of fine examples by major artists representing everything from early Renaissance to modern and contemporary. My day was saved. Later that evening the temperature seemed to drop a little and I took the opportunity to wander around the Yale campus, something I hadn’t previously had the leisure time to do. The clock towers rang out a succession of tuneful chimes, and across the road on the green the sound of a soul band filled the air, attracting a large and appreciative audience. I found a nearby restaurant terrace where I sat and ate delicious slices of portobello mushroom pizza washed down with ice-cold New England lager. Not a bad day but it was no Manhattan adventure. I resolved that the following day I would head off to the Big Apple come what may.

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.

Err..apples anyone?

It's been a good year for the roses

Oh dear, we were running late and kept Jacqui and Glynis waiting outside L’Enfance de Lard in the cold – not funny, not clever, and nobody was very impressed. We hurried up through the market to the coffee shop for stimulants (caffeine) and fuel (croissants and pastries), before taking one final spin around the market, then we said our goodbyes.

Back to the house for some final packing up before setting off for Bergerac International Airport, via André’s mum’s to say au revoir and merci for all the fish. We checked in, had a couple of beers and before I could say ‘I can’t believe I’ve just spent five months in Bergerac, can you?’ I was watching the little town shrinking into the distance. Then the plane rose into the cotton wool clouds and the snaking Dordogne which was glistening like gold in the evening sun slowly faded to just an imprint on my retinas. We drove home in blizzardy-sleet, and then we were back indoors and reunited with Sammie – and just in time to watch Coronation Street. Well, not really, because it was Saturday - but you get the idea.

So that was the six months that was. Thanks for sticking with this if you have, or if you’ve just joined me – then you’re too late. It's done. Go back to the beginning and start over!

I am in two minds whether to continue with Neppytune…or to start something completely new and infinitely more exciting. What do you think? Or shall I just go back from whence I came, and stop boring everybody rigid? Your comments will help me decide.

Oh, and if you would like to place an advance order for my book, then you’re in a minority and you really should get out more. Add your name here and I'll send you a signed copy...one day.

So long for now. It’s been fun, but now there’s nothing left to say so I’m going to shuffle off into the sunset (clutching my hurting ribs). As a special ‘end of the road’ treat, here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last six months.

Toodlepip then.

Geoff x

September...who's the dude in Central Park?

October...cheeky waiter

November...the royal visit

December...it's that bloke from Central Park again...and who can forget the performance of the Ching-a-ling Song later that same evening?

Cheers. Great, Thanks a lot.

January...the folks sup up