My days in New York blur into a glorious amalgamation of sunlight and subways, streetlights and sidewalks. What I remember about Tuesday is the Museum of Natural History, on the 5th Ave side of Central Park.
Remember Holden Caulfield?
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move... Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone...
I knew there was a huge model of a whale hanging in there somewhere. I searched and searched for that whale and suddenly, there it was: looming from the ceiling of the great blue hall. 94 feet long, weighing 21,000 pounds, it is based on a female found in 1925, sculpted in fiberglass and polyurethane. It is the largest model of the largest creature that has ever lived on Earth. Amazing.
Underneath the Museum of Natural History runs the Green line: subway trains 4, 5, 6. I headed back to Brooklyn to find Williamsburg and Earwax Records. Brooklyn is the most attractive part of New York to me, especially around Bedford Ave. At Earwax I bought cds: Yo La Tengo & Sufjan Stevens, and vinyl: Neil Young (Tonight's The Night brand new for $7.99!!), Dylan & Cash (Nashville outtakes!), and Van Morrison. 
Tuesday night was a sentimentally & musically nationalistic evening: I went to see Auckland band The Brunettes at the Mercury Lounge on the Lower East Side.
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They were as sweet as ever, a level of bubblegum pop sweetness I believe only they can achieve, especially when the NZ accent sneaks into a line.
Talking to them afterwards was somewhat surreal, as we chatted about mutual acquaintances in Auckland City Libraries etc. Here in New York City. Walking home, leaving fellow countrymen/women, was a blue moment. But my Italian pals in the hostel soon cheered me up.
The Brunettes @ Mercury Lounge
