Wow! The new Cooper Hewitt is amazing @CooperHewitt @SebChan

Another Side of Bob Dylan cover shoot at 52nd and Broadway

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
- Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages"


I’d forever talk to you
But soon my words
They would turn into a meaningless ring
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring
Everything passes
Everything changes
Just do what you think you should do
And someday maybe
Who knows, baby
I’ll come and be cryin’ to you
- Bob Dylan, "To Ramona"


Album cover shoot of Another Side of Bob Dylan.

Location: Southwest corner of 52nd Street and Broadway, Times Square, New York looking east. Dylan is looking west.

Good morning NYPL ...ROAR!!

After changes upon changes / We are more or less the same / After changes we are More or less the same - Paul Simon #QotD

Asking only workman’s wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there
Lie-la-lie . . .

Now the years are rolling by me
The are rocking easily
I am older than I once was
And younger than I’ll be
But that’s not unusual
No, it isn’t strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are
More or less the same
- Paul Simon, "The Boxer"

As my college friend Mark always said (he was a Jersey Boy), the whores were on 8th Avenue, not 7th. a fact the Tom Waits clearly knew:

Got no time for the corner boys,
Down in the street makin' all that noise,
Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,
Cause tonight I'm gonna be with you.

'Cause tonight I'm gonna take that ride,
Across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival,
And I'll take you on all the rides,
Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.
- Tom Waits, "Jersey Girl"

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway ... #QotD

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway (on Broadway)
They say there's always magic in the air (on Broadway)
But when you're walkin' down that street
And you ain't had enough to eat
The glitter rubs right off and you're nowhere (on Broadway)
-  Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in collaboration with the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

And they certainly are! Times Square is pretty much daytime all the time. "On Broadway" (originally by The Drifter, had perhaps the definitive cover by George Benson and an inventive cover by Neil Young.

I'm running on the bad side / And I got my back to the wall / Tenth Avenue freeze-out, Tenth Avenue freeze-out - The Boss #QotD

10th Avenue now features the High Line, renovated elevated railroad tracks that are now an urban park and offer great views of the lower West Side.

---

Tear drops on the city
Bad Scooter searching for his groove
Seem like the whole world walking pretty
And you can't find the room to move
Well everybody better move over, that's all
I'm running on the bad side
And I got my back to the wall
Tenth Avenue freeze-out, Tenth Avenue freeze-out

I'm stranded in the jungle
Taking all the heat they was giving
The night is dark but the sidewalk's bright
And lined with the light of the living
From a tenement window a transistor blasts
Turn around the corner things got real quiet real fast
She hit me with a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
And I'm all alone, I'm all alone
And kid you better get the picture
And I'm on my own, I'm on my own
And I can't go home

When the change was made uptown
And the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city
All the little pretties raise their hands
I'm gonna sit back right easy and laugh
When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half
With a Tenth Avenue freeze-out, Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out...
- Bruce Springsteen, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out"

Now the bricks lay on Grand Street / Where the neon madmen climb / They all fall there so perfectly It all seems so well timed - B Dylan #QotD

Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb
They all fall there so perfectly
It all seems so well timed
And here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice
Oh, Mama, is this really the end
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.
- Bob Dylan, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again"

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel / you were famous, your heart was a legend. - L. Cohen #QotD

The famed Chelsea Hotel is undergoing a transition ... as is all of NYC!

Once the home of, well, just about everybody from Dylan Thomas to Bob Dylan (and Thomas Wolfe, and Arthur C. Clarke, and Leonard Cohen, and Patti Smith & Robert Mapplethorpe, and Joni Mitchell ... and and and...) it's now under renovation that will probably turn it into a Kimpton or somesuch boutique spot ..

* * * * *

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."
- Leonard Cohen, "Chelsea Hotel #2"

Oh, and we should mention Bob Dylan's lyric to the famed Chelsea Hotel:

I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells
I’d taken the cure and had just gotten through
Stayin’ up for days in the Chelsea Hotel
Writin’ “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for you
- Bob Dylan

---

Good morning New York, Chelsea shoe dying spot, Shoepocolypse!

Secaucus / Lincoln Tunnel -- keep left!

"Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike / They've all gone to look for America" P Simon #QotD

I had a window seat on the tree side, so no car counting!

And it's a Vamoose bus, and, I didn't get on on Pittsburgh or hitchhike from Saginaw.... But, like, same thing, right?

#####

"Kathy, I'm lost" I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike
They've all gone to look for America
All gone to look for America
All gone to look for America
- Paul Simon

Vamoose: ARL to NYC

Happy 2015 and Feliz Año 2015!!!! #HappyNewYear

Happy New Year and Feliz Año 2015. Caught this photo when in Mexico City early in 2014.