The City & the Country nos. 25 and 26

First, the country, and a much-anticipated day: Claire’s portrait exhibition at the Uptown Gallery in Kingston. We were hoping that a few of her subjects might be there (for a photo opportunity!) but through bad luck and also a case of bad management – I failed to get Michael Esposito to the exhbition (St. Michael the archangel as I think of him, a man of supernatural sweetness and humility, who shed the trappings of rock music success to mend bicycles in Woodstock) – the portraits alone had to represent their sitters. It’s something they did ably and vividly, and the many visitors to the opening came away entranced, as always, by Claire’s mastery of the medium. This goes beyond draughtsmanship: I had the honor of introducing her, and alongside others’ comments about Claire’s capacity to render the true person, ‘the faces behind the face,’ I maintained that she paints the person not only as they are but as they were and in some cases will be. In other words, it was time itself, not just portraiture, that hung on the wall before us. For good pictures of her art, proceed to Clairelambe.net

Then back to the city, via bus and the 2 line, once known (you hear it rarely these days) as the African Queen, as it sheds white folks when it goes under the East River (do they drown?) into Brooklyn, and becomes more and more the train I love, a country unto itself. On my working Tuesday with John we late-lunched at Nizam’s tiny, wonderful Indian restaurant. Nizam is himself a writer, and the 3 of us commune about this. Nizam’s books concern politics – and inevitably corruption and mismanagement – in his native Bangla Desh. He’s safer here with us, in Brooklyn, feeding us wonderful food. (Goan shrimp, in my case; it’s so good I can’t bear to sacrifice it for any of the other marvellous dishes.) Then back at last to catch the bus home, via the old Gethsemane, 42nd Street with its underground crowds mirroring the above-ground ones – literally parallel universes.