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Saturday, July 20, 2013

A BITE OF THE APPLE











  Don't worry about Ward and Scott Shelly.  The Miami brothers are doing fine on their farm in western Connecticut. 


 Scott, an Emmy-award winning cameraman, lives in the 18th-century farm house while his older brother Ward bunks nearby in this converted barn.




    

 
 They were nice enough to let us camp there this week.  Both were busy.  Scott left today to film bike racing in France.  



Ward is working in his studio on one of his intricate time-line paintings.  This one maps out the history of  consumerism.

 



 His creations are drawn in pencil, transferred onto Mylar, then painted.
 This one will be exhibited in Vienna in October.
     
When Scott's not behind a camera he is helping to raise his kids or working on his '63 split-window Corvette.




 
 Isn't his pool gate great?  (that's Scott in the background
looking a little like Freddy Mercury)
    






Ward took a day off to give us the Big Apple tour.  Our train arrived in Grand Central Station which is celebrating its 100th birthday.  This city is huge, crowded and somewhat intimidating.  People rush like ants with a purpose, going this way and that. We were fortunate to have Ward-o leading the way.

 


 
A twenty-minute walk took us over to the 34th Street Ferry Terminal which was designed by Francesca's brother, Frano, and his wife, Sheila.  The fabric ceiling dances with lights at night.

 In the American Museum of Natural History I saw  slice of "The Mark Twain Tree".  Felled ing 1890, the tree rings go back 1382 years.  

    The Bahama reef diorama made me both happy and sad. I had never seen anything like it because reefs like this now rarely exist. 
   It was was created in 1930 when a museum crew took these underwater wonders for museum display. The accompanying text admits that greed (taking coral) and pollution have destroyed the beauty I witnessed here.  The same thing happened to South Florida's reefs.  They are in a such a sad state now.




It was 99 degrees when I wandered through Central Park to visit the Met. Seeing General Washington crossing the icy Potomac helped slack the heat. 

Our next stop was Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown. The dumplings were delicious,

  and the haircuts, cheap.     

 Dragon Fruit, probably from South Florida,
were piled up for sale



 




 Walking past a park we heard Chinese violins. When they spotted us gringos their tune changed from some sad, oriental number to "Jingle Bells".  That sounded pretty sad as well.

 



It was time to head to the subway (Francesca was having so much fun she was dancing in the street)

















The train home served very cold beer.  It was
the perfect way to toast making it out of the Big Apple alive. 


 




























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