Another man's treasure.

The Victorian Doctor of Madness, aka GQ

 I haven't seen my friend Guy in many years. According to the World Distance Calculator, we live 7817.03 miles apart. But every year around Halloween, I look forward to seeing what him and his wife are getting up to. I haven't met Sabrina yet, but I know that she is a make-up artist extraordinaire. The other day Guy posted an album of photos of these dressmaker's forms or Judies. I pored over them with delight.

Originally from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and destined for the trash, thankfully they have been saved. Most of them are dated, so Guy has kept two for his office, with the date of his arrival in New York. The rest are looking for new homes. Objects worn by the ages and hundreds of hands, by pins and by scissors.

This morning I saw these photos of an abandoned movie theatre in Brooklyn.

Love old-time grandeur.

Time Flies at the Bellevue Lounge and one morning in New York City.

There's something about having a party at a house on a Saturday night, with an almost full Sugar Moon... something pretty wonderful. The Time Flies must be one of my favourite bands. They evoke that feeling you get just before lift-off. They ended their set with a rocking dirty version of "Blue Moon". A young girl said to me, breathlessly: I always thought he was cool, but John Trafford is GOD!

DJ Appletart dusted off the decks and played for the first time in two years. I'd forgotten how nice it is to fill a dance floor.  Halfway in, the tall drink of water joined on percussion and MC Mr Nimbus had the crowd shouting. Thanks to the Cutie with the eyeliner for keeping me cool and watered for two hours and to Be, for twiddling the controls.

2h30 Found me... still at the party. Knowing that I had to get up at something to do with a four again. 

Is this what people mean when they talk about a midlife crisis? If so, I like this part. 

I felt like a teenager with no curfew.

Like an egg in a whisk.

Dawn in the city. We shot an iced tea commercial in a play play New York.

The day passed by like a dream.

Cape Town New York

These are my parents, dining out in New York City. I'm there too, three months new, waiting to be born. They were staying with friends on the North Shore of Long Island, in the village of Great Neck. My mother remembers trekking out to the city in the bitter cold, visiting the Statue of Liberty, walking down the stairs of the Empire State Building. This is how she ends a post card to my eldest sister: "We are enjoying the T.V., which is in colour."
New York calls to me. It pops up everywhere. I trawl the internet, friends send me links and it feels as if all the interesting people in the world live in Brooklyn.

Let's do a meaningful comparison:

 Cape Town has a land area of 2,499 square km (965 square miles) with a population of 2,893,251 and a population density of 1,158 people per square km (2,999 per square mile)

Cape Town is about three times the size of New York City, but has 5.25 million fewer inhabitants. That puts about 23,000 fewer people in my particular square mile.

My pond feels so incredibly small right now.
Hello New York. See you soon.