Actually, there was another reason I wanted to walk. There's this old spindly guy set up on a corner sidewalk who's building paper mache statues off Broadway near Grand Lake and I wanted to get some shots. What is this? Part of the art gallery that seems to have opened at 33 Grand? They have an opening this coming Friday, I think I'll drop by.

The opening last week or last month or whenever consisted of photographs by young local photographers and they have an interesting framed print in one of the windows, naked young Asian women bathing is what seems on first look to be a shallow Asian lake, Asian because you think “rice paddy”, although anyone who knows anything about rice paddies knows they're not a place to take a bath. On second look they are bathing on what looks to be the flat roof of an industrial building with its ventilation pipes scattered among the potted palms.

Potted palms? A juxtaposition of modern life and rural life, rural Asia in modern America, the calm of the East inside a Western nest? You notice one of the women in the foreground has a tattoo just visible through the folds of her towel, her back turned to the observer. A vision of slick good looking topless ladies schlock (think paintings done on velvet, two for five dollars at the local five and dime) that takes you right to a place you weren't expecting and you realize this thing is a whole lot more than you could have hoped, more, perhaps, than you understand. Probably a well known piece they've put in their window, but who knows? Maybe it's by a local. Local or no, I'd like to see more.