Woke up it was a Brooklyn morning and the first thing that I heard
Apologies to the great Joni Mitchelland Judy Collins . I did wake up to a Brooklyn morning this morning and I've woken up to one since the end of last week. I have a couple more of these Brooklyn mornings to go before I trade them in for my usual St. Pete mornings.
I'm up here because the amazing Saxon Henry offered me the use of her sofa bed in exchange for sitting on a panel of experts in a panel discussion about using social media effectively at the annual conclave of the American Society of Journalists and Authors yesterday. I sat next to no less than Dominique Browning . Joining us were Michael Cannell and David Farley . We had an overflow crowd of enthusiastic writers who wanted to hear what we had to say. It was a peak experience. There were people in the audience I've been reading for years and being taken seriously by a room full of the smartest people on the planet is something I'll never forget. I am the most fortunate man on the planet, I swear.
After the ASJA was over yesterday, Saxon, Rich Holshuh and I went to the Oyster Bar in Grand Central to suck down bivalves and decompress.
I've known Rich through Twitter for the last few years but we'd never met in person before. A couple of years ago I wrote a profile of Rich on this blog. Apartment Therapy scraped my content and essentially re-ran my post. They kept the link back to me even if they removed all of my polysyllabic words. That act of content scraping made Rich a household name and I can't think of anyone more deserving. Anyhow, it was really great to have the chance to meet and get to know Rich these last few days.
With the ASJA out of the way and before I dedicate my next two days to more shameless self-promotion in front of the New York public relations and advertising industries, I took a day for me yesterday.
I shook myself out of the idyll of my Brooklyn morning and took the educate lower back into Manhattan. My first-rate buddy Tom Miller and I had arranged to spend the afternoon meandering through Midtown and to take in the Pompeii Exhibit at the Discovery Expo Museum. Tom writes the outstanding weblog Daytonian in Manhattan and it is the final word in Manhattan ancient structure. No one is aware of the history of New York in addition to Tom Miller does and to walk around that city with him is to experience the large sweep of the entirety it is ever took place on that island filled into what for maximum people is a day walk.
I share Tom's love of church architecture and we walked through a good number of the notable churches in the middle of Midtown. He rattles off the names of gilded age architects the way I do mid-century industrial designers and we're a terrific counter balance to each other. If you have never read Tom's blog, stop here and click this link . Subscribe to that feed and you will never see New York the same way.
The Pompeii exhibit is worth seeing by the way . There were a couple of things I'd never seen before and there were more than a few things I learned today that I wouldn't have known had I not gone. Again, good call Tom.
I took the educate back to Brooklyn to meet up with Saxon and Rich and the three people met some other one of my digital pen pals for the primary time, Demir Gjokaj.
Demir and I actually have the most not likely of connections and understanding him proves to me over again just how small the world is.
Three years ago, I stayed for a week on this villa in Sorrento.
Ten years ago, Demir was working to renovate it along with its owner Andrea Azzariti. Two years ago, Demir was back in the US and working to promote that amazing villa through a new website he'd produced and he wanted my help and advice. Hint: go to the website and watch Demir's video . Holy cow!
Demir and I struck up a friendship then it's persisted until now and of all of the strange, high-quality coincidences inside the global, he and his girlfriend stay some blocks from Saxon in Brooklyn. It become really cool to take a seat in a Mexican restaurant on Lincoln Road and inform Mediterranean tales about an area half a international away.
That ultimate morning I spent in Sorrento I stood on the railing of the villa's patio and stared across the Bay of Naples at Mount Vesuvius. I swore that I'd be back and that I'd stand on that identical spot before my life become over.
Thanks to Demir and the power of the internet, it looks as if I'll be lower back there in the fall. As if that were not sufficient, I'll be back there with Saxon and my loved brother Steve. Again, I am the most fortunate man alive.
It's type of a cliche to talk about New York because the crossroads of the sector but if you spend any time here you realize it's not a cliche. Everything that takes place within the world has a few connection to this remarkable city.
I've been everywhere in the region but there may be no other town within the international it really is so inclined to make a stranger feel welcome or a vacationer sense like a native. Everybody right here is from somewhere else but the identical aspect's genuine in any international capital. New York has something else the others lack and I cannot quite positioned my finger on what it is.
I come returned right here each couple of months to see if I can determine out what that some thing is and within the act of looking, I get my batteries recharged and my religion inside the future renewed. Maybe that's what it's miles, each person comes right here to locate that elusive some thing and given that we're all looking for the equal component, maybe it's that shared quest that offers the welcoming bond.
Man I love this town. Where else are you able to begin in Brooklyn, roll via St. Patrick's Cathedral more than one hours later, wallow in the glories of Ancient Rome, leap back on a subway, eat Mexican food with buddies, then plan an Amalfi break out, all in the equal day? Everything is possible right here.