Recent Posts
Walking Off the Big Apple
Return To Blog Listing
Walking journal and art reviews by a Texas-born New York resident with entertaining commentary on the cultural life of the city.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'writers'
The Classic New York of Mame Dennis: A Coda, on Bank Street
At the time I set out on the recent Mame walk (see related posts following), I was trying to decide between Mame Dennis and Lily Bart, the heroine of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, for the walk's...
Classic New York: The Algonquin
From Times Square, making my way east along 44th Street, the crowds dispersed as I crossed 6th Avenue. It was a noticeable break between Frantic and Serene. The block along 44th, between 6th and 5th A...
Classic New York: The King Cole Bar at the St. Regis
A 20-dollar bill doesn't go far in Manhattan, but it's enough to cover the price of the signature Red Snapper at the King Cole Bar inside the St. Regis Hotel at 2 E. 55th St. and over which you can se...
The Classic New York of Mame Dennis
Patrick Dennis, a pseudonym for writer Edward Everett Tanner, gives the straight and narrow an alternative role model with his witty 1955 bestseller, Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade. When young Pa...
The Liberation Theology of Mame Dennis
I can't remember the year I first saw the 1958 movie Auntie Mame, starring Rosalind Russell, but the persona of the wildly eccentric aunt made an enormous impression on me. Curled up on the floor in a...
Grand Central Theatre, and A New Walk Begins
After scouting new walks around Midtown East today, I made my way back to Grand Central Terminal to catch a downtown train home. When I entered the terminal I noticed that the light looked particularl...
In Search of the Lower West Side: Before Tribeca
I've started to collect older guidebooks to New York so I can understand shifting perspectives on the city. Guides published in earlier decades provide an excellent window on how visitors understood N...
Reflections on Reviewing Art and Culture in the Blogosphere
Google Alert! Here's a post with your name on it!During the glamorous days of the New York theater on opening night, actors would head to a swell place like Sardi's after the performance to anxiously ...
Pack Arts Journalism in the Age of Un-Art: Writing About the Whitney Biennial
Though I have yet to see the newly-opened Whitney Biennial, I enjoy my biennial hobby of reading all the reviews before I go. I'm always looking to test my thesis that something I call "pack arts crit...
Call for Volunteer Contributors: Attention Far-Flung Flâneurs, Walkers, and Peripatetic Writers
If you have been reading Walking Off the Big Apple, you know that the site has started to receive serious attention. Manhattan User's Guide in October described the site as their favorite pastime, and...
Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge and The Paterson Strike Pageant
From the walk, Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge, Georgia O'Keeffe and New York City. The walk explores the worlds of Dodge and O'Keeffe, their intertwined biographies, and their ind...
Gertrude Stein, The Big Bear Buddha of Bryant Park
Part of the walk, Fifth Avenue & The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O'Keeffe, and New York City"In a large studio in Paris, hung with paintings by Renoir, Matisse and Picasso, Gertr...
Ladies of the Canyon: Mabel Dodge and Georgia O'Keeffe
"Trina wears her wampum beadsShe fillls her drawing book with lineSewing lace on widows' weedsAnd filigree on leaf and vine"-Joni Mitchell, "Ladies of the Canyon"See the post Fifth Avenue & The Hi...
"Opium-Eating is Not Congenial to Walking," Says Virginia Woolf's Father
Thumbing through my vintage walking books and reading descriptions of the routine perambulations of the most famous writers in literature, I hang my head in shame over how little I walk. Essays about ...
Fifth Avenue & The High Road to Taos: Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O'Keeffe, and New York City (A Walk)
IntroductionYears ago, in the plaza of Taos, New Mexico, my mother and I struck up a conversation with a guy who ran a sandwich stand. He told us he was a New Yorker, a former business executive who d...
Washington Irving's Solitary Walk Through Christmas
"Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land,--though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold,--yet I fe...
List of Walking Off the Big Apple's Printable Maps
What follows is a list of links to Google maps I've created for Walking Off the Big Apple. These are all self-guided walking tours built around a theme and designed for visitors and residents alike. T...
The Specter of Holiday Attributions, and The Nick and Nora Walk
I was all set to design a Christmas walk involving the wealthy Chelsea scholar and poet Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) when research led me to arguments that Moore did not write A Visit From St. Nic...
Walking to the Strand Bookstore
After writing the previous post and contemplating an alternative life as a recluse, I became despondent for three minutes and so had to leave the apartment to walk anywhere or somewhere. The somewhere...
Shakespeare, Always in New York
"How many goodly creatures are there here!" - Miranda, The Tempest (bonus points if you know the next line)I always have it in mind to see every Shakespeare production in New York, because it seems li...
Holiday Books: Tony Duquette, Andy Goldsworthy, Eric Clapton, Edith Wharton
Image: One of the windows at Bergdorf Goodman (754 Fifth Ave) inspired by the fantastical work of the California-born designer Tony Duquette (1914-1999). The lavish book, Tony Duquette, by Wendy Goodm...
Writer's Guild of America Solidarity Rally in Washington Square Park Today
Members of the striking Writer's Guild of America, East rallied in solidarity with other unions today at noon in Washington Square Park. Speakers included labor union leaders, actors Danny Glover and ...
Favorite New York and Texas Novels
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. - Ecclesiastes 7:4This week, The New York Times publishes their 100 notable books of the year, and I...
In the Study Today, and Goodbye, Norman Mailer (1923-2007)
Walking Off the Big Apple has vanished into her secret study to research the next walk.Farewell, Norman Mailer, who died early today at the age of 84.Visit the full website for updated November listin...
Setting the Weekend Agenda for a Walker of the Streets
I'm going to wrap up the Bowery Walk 2007 with a few more posts today, but my thoughts are already turning to the agenda for the weekend. In looking over the copious amount of cultural activities that...
Weekend Frivolities: The Ho' Made Cupcake Melting in the Rain Edition
CHORUSMacArthur's Park is melting in the darkAll the sweet, green icing flowing down...Someone left the cake out in the rainI don't think that I can take it'cause it took so long to bake itAnd I'll ne...
John Butler Yeats (1839-1922): Painter, Father and Personal Trainer to the Stars
Irish painter John Butler Yeats moved to New York in 1907 at the age of 69 and enjoyed what is sometimes referred to as a second childhood. He befriended the Ashcan painters, or the "Eight" - Robert H...
"The Burning of Los Angeles" and the New Yorker Nathaniel West
"I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." - Andy WarholTo recover from a busy few days of guests, I've been sitting in f...
WOTBA New Poll This Week
This has nothing to do with anything, but when the great mime Marcel Marceau died a few days ago, were you as surprised as I was? I was sure that he died a long time ago, and I thought he would have b...
