I Heart NY, I Heart LA

Friday night I went to a barbecue; sat on a couch in a backyard in Glassell Park, surrounded by melon and corn growing in raised beds and people drinking beer, and had a moment to stare at the sky.  Last night, it was Culver City, where the streets were overflowing with amazing people(watching), all out to see what the area's rapidly expanding gallery scene had to offer.  We went out to support Taylor De Cordoba Gallery and the boys from Austin's Okay Mountain collective at Mark Moore Gallery.  Tonight, my only visit to the Hollywood Bowl this summer.  Summer's not over, people.  And I love my Los Angeles.

This morning, I couldn't tear myself away from my laptop, listening to the names of victims being read, getting choked up, eventually recovering.  Then they show a man folding down to kiss his wife's name etched into the new memorial at the site of the World Trade Center, and the crying starts all over again.  After that, it was Paul Simon singing "The Sounds of Silence".  More tears -- Simon and Garfunkel are New York, and the lyrics of this song that has felt haunting to me since I was a kid were eerily appropriate to the situation.  The kid who was in his mom's belly when Dad died, the Puerto Rican accents, the firefighters, the guy in the yarmulke mourning his brother: "May God wipe all the tears from all our faces," he said, first in Hebrew, then in English.  I love New York, too.  I really do.

I'm working on a post about our day-long Istanbul Eats walking tour, but it's growing into an epic, and requires a couple more days' work.  In the meantime, read both of these:

 - a love letter to LA by a man who grew up in Atwater Village, "that strip of land in between Intelligentsia and Armenia."  It's so correct.

 - a beautiful piece from the NY Times highlighting the "hour of human decency."  It's sad and important.