We Had a Wonderful New York City June

June 7: A big, big day. The day we loaded a summer’s worth of stuff up into Liz’s car and drove over to New York City. With a cat in the car! He was pretty well behaved, although irresistibly compelled to head for the pedals beneath the driver’s feet. But we made it to the smoke covered city (after a little stop at the amazing Vince Lombardi rest stop) nice and easy and started up our New York City summer . . . as you see below, Cornelius got right to his usual tricks (though he did not care for how loud Inwood was compared to Hardest Heights)

Also of important note, Night One in the city and we had Visitor One of the summer — BYU friend, neighbor, and roommate Brandon! He was in town with his family and came up to 207th street say hello all on his own. A much appreciated visit, a big instance of things not changing so much over the 20ish years since we last saw each other.

June 8: Getting right to New York City business, we head to the Met on one of the last nights of the season to catch a performance of the Magic Flute. Gotta make sure Liz sees those chandeliers rise up while we can! — And I always enjoyed a trip to the Met, it would be hard for me to figure out how many times I went there as a New Yorker . . . here let me take a second to count (this is a list where I’m not doublechecking any names or spellings): The Little Mermaid Opera 2 times, Tales of Hoffman, Don Giovani, Rigoletto, Marriage of Figarro, Madame Butterfly, The Rosencavalier, the one about the Carmelites…something this one time at Christmas…2 ballets…ok honestly pretty sure went to more than 10 operas there but that’s what I can think of right now. I know I went by myself at least one time, with friends at least 4 times, with my Dad (+/- additional Barnes family members) at least 6 times…okay that only adds up to 11 . .. ANYWAY — Always glad to visit the Met, what a blessing.

June 9: We’re on the road again! This time headed to Rochester, along the way we enjoy a totally cool visit to Watkins Glen (which is a gorge). I visited Watkins Glen when I was 14 and am glad to say is still a great place to walk all around, up and down, left to right and right to left.

From Glens to Groves … approaching Rochester we realized we were driving right by Palmyra so we thought we better have a look. You might not tell from these pictures, but most of them were taken from the Sacred Grove, which it turns out you can just go into at like 9 o clock at night even though everything is closed. Hadn’t been here since I was 14 either, still holds up!

June 10: So why were we in Rochester! For the annual convention of the Mormon History Association, of course! At which I was presenting my Finnegans Wake paper, like I had done in Logan a few weeks before. This Mormon History convention, it’s like a real convention! So many people, so many panels, so many vendors. If you have even the mildest interest in ever attending, I suggest you really ought to go. And if you have the mildest interest in presenting, I suggest you submit! It’s fun!
I only tuned up my talk a tiny bit, but I think I delivered a much better presentation than I did in Logan . . . but great news, I’ll be presenting in Logan again at the beginning of October, so you still have a chance to hear what might be my best presentation yet (or ever?) of this material — I say “ever” because I think I’ve given this presentation enough, time to focus on publishing AND preparing the next presentation. Something new!
Oh and maybe you can tell from these photos, maybe you can’t, but I attended this one panel where a presenter was speaking about LDS cinema and showed a clip from/spoke for a moment about my brother Greg’s Sundance winning short. Barnes boys taking over Mormon History Association Convention!

June 13: Well here’s something pretty cool … Friend Alexis hooked us up with tickets to the premiere of Asteroid City and Liz and I decided we were not against showing up early to watch the celebs arrive.

Bryan Cranston was the first to arrive, extremely friendly to the crowd, he walked around shaking hands and giving friendly greetings to everyone and sharing an exchange with anyone who talked with him. NBD at all to get the selfie.

From then most of the stars cruised right in or spent a little bit of time with the people right at the entrance, but still, pretty fun to be there (and even more fun to leave the line and go inside and watch the movie).

Below: Adrian Brody, Jeff Goldblum making a real Jeff Goldblum appearance, Jason Schwartzman and Wes Anderson, Maya Hawke, Jeffrey Wright Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Greta Gerwig, and Noah Baumbach.

June 14: Cornelius and I enjoy some bonding time while Liz zips home to Columbus and back — look at her and the cat, so happily reunited! Also, apparently I went to Times Square while she was gone? Probably to see a movie.

June 20: Liz sings in New York at Silvana in Harlem. She’s a big hit! It was great!

June 21: Here’s a few photos from a severely under-photographed trip to Six Flags Great Adventure — we made quick work of the under-attended park that day (or perhaps it made quick work of us? — our resistance to dizziness isn’t what it used to be!), getting in rides on the Runaway Mine Train, Nitro, Jersey Devil, the Dark Knight, the up-in-the-sky swings, El Toro, and the Harry Houdini House (WOW!) by 2 or 3 and saying “You know what? That was good.” and heading out to eat a late lunch at Chili’s and watch Elemental at an AMC somewhere in New Jersey.

Visitor Number Two: Former New Yorker Dave was in town for business and stopped by our crib before taking us to dinner at Taqueria Emilio’s. It’s a fine thing to get to visit with Dave again.

June 23: On a cloudy, misty, foggy day we venture out to Long Island City to visit Matthew Barney’s studio where his latest major work is on display. It is . . . a football game? Re-enacted in the studio, filmed, and shown there. Art! It’s wonderful stuff. From there we walked up to the Socrates Sculpture Park which we found to be a little under-sculptured, but always nice to have a look at.

June 26: This is just a picture of what I looked like when we were at home, eating dinner, and talking about a book someone had given us.

June 27: Liz’s boss was in town from Ohio with family because her daughter was singing at Carnegie Hall. We ate pizza with them and then Liz watched the performance. Imagine how cute that second pictured would be if my Ricoh understood that people standing right front and center in front of it are what it should focus on!

June 28: Liz had her second NYC gig of the summer, this time at the Rockwood on the Lower East Side. She sang so great that night! Those people walking by on the street truly did not know what they were missing.

June 29: Looks like I went down to Midtown that afternoon and sent resumes out from the Library as a nice little change of scenery. I imagine I went to a movie after this.

I’ll be back soon to post pictures from our Amazing New York City July!