Rural Life in the UP of Michigan Some stories about life on 160 rural acres in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

I think when it comes to movie watching, demographers would have to make a special category for me. For one thing, we haven’t owned and have seldom watched television for many decades now, so my ability to watch the tube is limited. When we travel, I do try to flip through the channels, but often give up because nothing of interest is on. When it comes to movies, we do get DVDs in the mail from Netflix to watch on the computer, but I often only watch the first 5-10 minutes of them before I get bored and go do something else.

That said, when I find a movie I like, I tend to watch it over and over. One of my all time favorite movies is “Angels in America.” It is a long movie too, and I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve watched it.

Because of this, I had a couple of goals when we traveled to New York City several weeks ago. I wanted to ride the subway, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and see the fountain in Central Part that surrounds the statue of Bethesda. If you’ve watched Angels, you know that this place in Central Park plays an important part in the movie.

We were able to blend several of these goals together on our trip. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on 57th street. It is possible to walk from the hotel to the Met… I know because we did it a couple of times. But one time we did go through the steps of riding the subway to the museum, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. There is something fascinating for me about mass transit. In your car, you are in your own little bubble, but on the trains, you see life being lived by your fellow travelers in ways that are impossible any other way I know of.

One thing I noticed this trip was that many if not most people had their noses in their smart phones when they were waiting for the train to come. I’ve ridden the subway decades ago too, and remember that in those days, fellow passengers were either reading something, or had mastered the far-away stare. No eye contact was possible, because what passed before the eye just didn’t register, it seemed. Modern folks seemed to be using their wait time on their phones to play games, surf the net, or text their friends. Is this progress? Good question.

Once at the Met, we spent part of one day, and most of another viewing that amazing place. Sometimes we had to sit down and just get that far-away stare on our faces to relax from all the input. I clearly remember entering one room that had a lot of brass sculpture in it, including one peculiar wall sconce. It was a realistic human arm holding the light fixture in its hand. This was a bonus for me, because the dream sequence from the Angels movie had a hallway of these sconces holding torches that moved aside as the main character walked past them.

After our day at the Met, we decided to attempt to find the Bethesda statue in the park. There was some daylight when we started, but it quickly faded and we wound up wandering around the park in the dark until we found her. It was a great moment and a culmination of a very nice couple of days in New York City.