I am Odysseus

The first line of Homer's Odyssey goes, if I remember:

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.

All by way of asking, have we discussed my recent, possibly temporary/possibly permanent, move to Troy? In any case, I'm here to report that it is the loveliest place imaginable on a number of levels (it's like Brooklyn with no people!) and I could see myself hanging here (the geographic symbol of my mostly mental sabbatical) for a while.

All by way of saying, I'm on my way to the train; then on my way to the Apple Store on 14th St.; then on my way to the Peter McManus Cafe for my usual (now unusual) Friday afternoon beer. New York calls like those people on those things calling to those other people.

Sirens, rocks and sailors?
Exactly.

Feel free to tell whomsoever you choose. I'm an open book.

And a closing note regarding Michelle Obama, who you can see in the post below: Art is a struggle. A number of struggles, actually. The biggest one for me is re-finding the expressionist aspect of my painting that I think, in recent years, I have lost in my quest to make my paintings look more like the subjects themselves. This, my friends, is a slippery slope. It's like that Japanese climber in "Into Thin Air" who got out of his tent one morning to take a pee, forgot to put his crampons on and, presumably whilst in mid-stream, slipped into a bottomless crevasse.

So I'm very much liking her the way I see her now.