I still miss New York. I didn’t have much time; once I decided to do Intercon, I figured I’d bookend my trip with Canada and Mexico. Then I noticed there was a Warhol retrospective at the Whitney and very cheap flights from JFK and figured I could sneak in a night in the city.

I made the most of it, no doubt. But there are a dozen more things I’d like to have had a chance to revisit, and a dozen more people I’d have liked to hang out with, and I’m just not going to get the chance to do that until I burn off a little more of my wanderlust. So I got a day. And did what I could.

The original plan was to come in Sunday late and crash, maybe after a relaxed dinner, then Monday morning check out the Warhol exhibition before rushing off to the airport. But then I found out there was a Tolkien exhibition at the Morgan Library, and a friend pointed out that I could replace my passport the same day at the passport agency in New York.¹ So I caught an early bus from Providence, got to see both exhibitions in the afternoon, then showed up at 8am to get a replacement passport.

Getting a same-day passport issued was surprisingly painless. It’s the same horrific DMV decor and ambiance and “Now Serving” signs you’d expect. But it took maybe 20 minutes to turn in my paperwork and photos, and I was walking out the door with instructions to return in 3–4 hours. And when I returned all I needed to do was show some ID, sign my receipt, and I was on my way.

I mention this because I think it’s important to acknowledge when the bureaucracy does work the way it’s intended. You get a lot of people complaining about horrific lines and interminable waits and unreasonable amounts of red tape.² But we need the bureaucracy. When it does badly, demand better. When it does well, at least try to make a note.

Both the exhibits were good, although the Warhol was much more extensive and revelatory. It covered three floors of the Whitney, and had his Pop Art stuff,³ lots from his Death and Disaster series, a whole room of commissioned portraits, prints from Ladies and Gentlemen, some of his collaborations with Basquiat, and a whole slew of video and artifacts and ephemera from his career. I’m still not much of a Warhol fan — I think he cultivated such an ironic distance between himself and his work that it’s nearly impossible to have a honest emotional reaction to it — but it was a fantastic exhibition, and I’ve very glad I went.

Otherwise, NYC was an opportunity to visit a lot of people I’ve missed. I met up with a friend when I went to the Whitney, got a chance to eat dinner with some more friends,⁴ and even managed to hang out Monday between dropping off my application and picking up my new passport. I may have wanted more time. But if I could make every 24 hours count as much as that one did, I wouldn’t need much more of it.

Next: Mexico City to Zitácuaro
Prev: Providence to New York City

Footnotes

¹ Maybe not surprisingly, I was running out of pages. Normally, you just fill out a form and mail your passport in, getting a new one in about three weeks. Obviously, that doesn’t work if you’re living overseas. In that case, you need to go to a consulate and turn in the paperwork, and then three weeks later they’ll have a new one for you. Obviously, that doesn’t work if you’re not living someplace for three weeks.

I was expecting to deal with this by going to the consulate in Mexico City at the beginning of my trip, starting the process, then returning to Mexico City at the end of my trip to pick it up. Getting it done in a single day, and not having to worry about it, made far more sense.

² And let’s be honest, I can’t even imagine the active malevolence being enacted on certain groups by some elements within the State Department, under the current administration.

³ The Campbell Soup cans were a highlight, and surprisingly fun to see.

⁴ Dinner was at La Rossa which I’d been kind of jonesing to try ever since I heard about the Cacio e Pepe pizza cooked with ice cubes. Maybe it’s silly. Maybe it’s gimmicky. But that pizza was also fantastic.