.....

LET'S GO TO THE LIBRARY!



And not just any library. It has to be the New York Public Library, that majestic Beaux-Arts building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street (remember the lions in Ghostbusters?). And why, you ask? Well. There are probably lots of books, lots of maps, lots of old dusty volumes dealing with arcane arts. Giles would love it here. But Sam? Sam was interested in only one thing in this building (a building that seems to be made entirely of marble)

The magnificent marble staircases.

This boy just had to climb every staircase he saw. And there were a lot of them! He didn't even care that the stairs were so high that they faded into the far off distance, or that his shoes were untied.

I found some great depression-era photos and prints.

Sam found more stairs.

Fortunately we had to meet Mom, take a cab uptown to a doctor appointment, take the subway home... If not, Sam would have stayed there climbing until......

At least he has his memories of a great afternoon. And the t-shirt.

....


FUN IN THE AFTERNOON



Don't you wish that you were as lovely as this boy?

-----A half hour in the life of this boy:

Says Sam:

"This is just too too darned exciting!"

"Hey, I'm gonna play with my ear."

"And show my yoga asana, down dog, to dad."

"And play grandpa's guitar.

"And enjoy my grandma's nuzzles."

----Sam then re-discovers Aunt Deb and Uncle Adrian's car and decides to go for a ride, with no hands.

----He gets a friend to come with him:




----But starts driving, gleefully, dangerously fast.

We are all so grateful to everyone for their good thoughts and their compassion when Sam was sick last week. I hope these photos are nice evidence that Sam is back to his old self. I have to say that, to me, it seems that immediately after his illness he made some huge developmental leaps. Perhaps I just noticed every little thing he was doing, so glad was I to see him back with us. But he's now walking all over the house, talking up a storm.... Mary and I took him to the Museum of Natural History and he literally walked the whole length of the place, including climbing four flights of stairs by himself: He would give this wicked gleeful laugh and throw his hands onto the next step, pulling himself up, then repeating it. Hand over hand for three flights. And he was so upset when it was over that we had to go back down the stairs for him to do it again. The stairs were beautiful and wound underneath a giant blue whale. Fishes all around him, and Sam is climbing mountains. There are three photos of the Hall of Marine Life here. In each of them you can see Sam's mountain. I mean stairs.

Towards the end of this afternoon's play, Sam snuggled with his friend.



And all is right with the world.

SAM'S COURAGE



Sam and Grandma were walking in the park and two photographers asked for permission to take pictures of the little guy. Grandma was somewhat surprised since Sam was sick with a virus, and wasn't at his best. Their other photos are here (sardonic sam) and here (love those flowers).

We didn't know just how sick he was. That night he had some trouble sleeping, and breathing. After trying everything Mom and Dad took him into the hospital. By that point he was really having trouble. It was clear that he was having a bad allergic reaction. They gave him some treatments and kept him overnight. He's back to his old self now, but it was scary. Now we have to figure out what caused this. The most likely is an allergy to the virus (coxsackie) that he had.

There was a moment, when Grandma, Mom, Dad and me were in the car going to the hospital, that will remain with me to my dying day. It was the most extraordinary instance of courage, trust, and a true buddha nature that I have ever seen: Sam was having real trouble breathing at this point, his neck muscles were pulsing, and you could see his trachea swelling. And then. This magnificent boy looked at each of us and gave us the most beatific smile I've ever seen...

A CHELSEA GALLERY WALK

Let's go!



Sam decided it had been too long since he'd had a good downtown adventure, like in the old summer days of Central Park, beaches, the zoo, museums.....

So Grandpa and Aunt Desiree traveled with Sam to an afternoon of art gallery hopping.

First we stopped off at Uncle John's video store. Sam was a bit suspicious of the blatant capitalist iniquities going on there, under his very nose. He was glad that John was keeping him safe from temptation.

We met Grandma, hopped the bus to a part of New York, midtown, near the Hudson river, known as Chelsea (not sure why). It used to be a meatpacking area, with slaughterhouses galore. Now it's full of very expensive lofts, and galleries. Visiting the galleries is a great (and free) way to spend an afternoon.

First stop was the David Zwimmer gallery to see the works of a fellow named Jason Rhoades.

A lot of it involved neon signs.



Not surprisingly Sam loved it.

Along with the neon, Rhoades apparently is particularly enamored of Legos. Unfortunately, my camera went on the fritz before I could get a good picture of the Lego house under construction (it took up most of the gallery floor and you can see a partial view of it on the web site link above). It's being constructed of more than a million Legos.

Next stop was the Gagosian gallery, where we met Mom, to see a new show by one of my favorite artists, Richard Serra. It was Serra's huge cor-ten steel structures that we saw at the Dia Beacon, where Sam was attacked by the wasp (see the Aug 31 entry).

It's hard to describe the size of these things. Imagine a battleship in your living room and you have a sense of the material used, and the intense feelings the sculptures generate.... One of the largest pieces was essentially a 15 foot high, 75 ton maze. The walls curve and lean into you, and it's an unusual sensation, to say the least, when you are in a tight space with that battleship-in-your-living-room about to fall on top of you.

But never fear. Sam beckons us in..



I was awed not just by the size and the power of these things, but also by the electric slashes, the welding marks on the steel (hard to describe, but this photo has a hint of them.

Sam takes a minimalist breather. He is walking on another Serra piece; this one a two ton slab of steel placed on small risers on the floor such that when you walk on it the steel vibrates and undulates. A steel trampoline.

The excitement of two shows left Sam in deep contemplation.

PEEK

A

BOO