Brooklyn is immense and we only scratched the surface. Didn't make the Mermaid Parade on Coney Island, Brighton Beach or Little Poland in Greenpoint. Although we didn't eat red sauce on Atlantic Ave., there was a wonderfully evocative Sopranos-esque joint right behind the hotel (off the BQE, natch). Peroxide blonde wives and black SUVs with Jersey plates - photos of Pat Cooper, Louis Prima, Connie Francis and the de rigueur Sinatra and De Niro - and a very very dark bar.

The people were wonderful. Old Italians by the VFW and bicycle shop, the Guatemalan driving the livery car, young people giving us directions and tips on the subway. Everyone with a story and willing to share.

Williamsburg is a bit of a bore on Bedford Avenue which is overrun by tourists on the weekend and a few too precious and overpriced shops and too much new construction but if you're willing to wander a few blocks, there is a successful mix of new and old, a delightful entrepreneurial spirit and real community. Bushwick was recently referred to (on a Dutch director's blog) as having an analogous feel to Berlin, arts-wise. DUMBO is a mini-Manhattan with soul. Fort Greene is real neighborhood, too; and Cobble Hill still retains its proud African American heritage.

Everywhere in Brooklyn, there was street art with Obama's visage and on Sunday, dozens of local "bake sales for Obama." (Hillary and her supporters couldn't have had that.) I know that you're a McCain guy but the energy and hope (even if naive) there (yes, it's NY) was something I haven't experienced in a while.

We did Chelsea galleries on Friday. Zhang Huan: Blessings was impressive and affecting. One or two others including Delia Brown. My friend David and I are big contemporary art fans but even we had to question how/why some of the work on display is "better" than much other. Although he was very engaged by Chris Finley and we both like the spirit of the Honeyspace Gallery.

Friday night we grabbed a pizza and saw the popular (of the moment) Brit duo The Ting Tings at Southpaw where the bouncers were amazingly sweet to me but I was annoyed that all the young girls were led through the crowd by their male counterparts.

Saturday we did the New Contemporary on the Bowery (great space, great views, the Paul Chan exhibit wonderful and others intriguing if not totally satisfying). Then lots of galleries in Williamsburg and dinner in Bushwick - 9pm far too early for the locals). One artist resonates - Darina Karpov whose show Infinitely Small Disasters was at the Pierogi Gallery.

Sunday, we went to PS 1 in Long Island City - what a great place! Admission 5 bucks, two for students. The Olafur Eliasson light work was subtle and affecting; the Finnish group exhibit Arctic Hysteria had more high points than low. And, we wandered around the very amazing graffiti site (huge beyond my knowledge thru sons Zeb and Eli who have been in the building and on the roof) 5 Pointz which is across the street.

We had a wonderful dinner with my friend Alison at Superfine in DUMBO - Grilled Branzini with fennel and bok choy and then off to St. Ann's for TR Warszawa's Macbeth. What a location and a good try with great production elements. Well acted and directed but very forced and more heavy handed than I may have hoped. Too much agenda and too little depth. And too many (two) people in rabbit suits. That's where we became irrevocably lost. Like one of those obtuse French films we saw in the late 60's, early 70's when we hoped that the big bunny really meant something we didn't understand but strove to integrate so that our lives might have more artistic and imagined (Eurocentric) meaning.

Monday, low key revisits of Williamsburg, a visit to a Montreal transplant milliner (and if I have $300 to blow on a wonderfully designed and shaped hat, that would be the place), a fine brunch of Country ham from Col. Bill Newsom's Hams in Princeton, Kentucky served on a biscuit with homemade fig jam, Grafton cheddar, and a side of grits.

Many valuable small moments. The elderly African American "guards" in some high end Chelsea galleries who had great pride in and took equal joy in making sure we saw the entire exhibit, the young gallery owners whose dogs provided essential companionship for the empty parts of their days, the DUMBO restaurant owner who has a dance troupe to counter her stress and displays the Mermaid tails of years past over the weathered wooden bar, the hardware store that may be the best traditional hardware store I've seen in decades that has an "art show" with work hidden within the Bounty paper towels and pet food...the mom on the subway with three kids on Sunday night still paying attention and the guy we met in the breakfast room of the hotel who has brain cancer, his left leg and side riding shotgun but who is traveling cross country and back and talking to his tumor every night - telling us this while the CNN story (with bad coffee and stale muffins and croissants in our mouths) reports on teenage pregnancy pacts.

Funny how busy it all seems in retrospect but plenty of time for conversation with my friend and some silly tv at hotel.