At the Pho Hung

Last Sunday Bill and I sat once again at our beloved Pho Hung on Spadina in Toronto.

I've never noticed that squirrel before. Interesting. 

 Bill wrote our order

and is waiting for it to be picked up.

 This is my C10 -- stir-fried vegetables on rice. I order this a lot. The ingredients are always different.

 Mister X had chicken and vegetables on vermicelli -- same vegetables but a whole different world of flavour.

Later we bought our own vegetables and fruit at our fave corner grocer. That's Bill in red on the left and me in the mirror at the back of the store.

 Bill and I walked up Kensington Avenue as we do so often

 to the cheese gods on Baldwin.

Gotye

Gotye. Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra.

Bathurst Streetcar Southbound

I often take the Bloor subway to Bathurst station on my way home from work.

Sitting in the station there's not a lot to look at.

The sun going down in the west gave a great light to the east/west streets. Here's King Street.

  I get off the streetcar at Fleet Street. I always have to wait for the light to change at Lakeshore Drive.

 Almost home, where Bill is waiting with the last of this week's Moroccan Stew.

Heritage Restaurant with Reta

Reta was as elegant as ever today when Bill and I dropped in for a visit. We watched Woody Allen's To Rome With Love. Reta liked it and loved the soundtrack. Its uneven but Bill and I liked it more the second time through.

We all had a yen to repeat the fish and chips of two weeks ago, so we went back to The Heritage.

 I handed Reta the camera and asked her to take a picture of us. It's very heavy for her but she was game.

Soon the food arrived -- classic Canadian fish and chips with cole slaw and tartar sauce. 

Saul Leiter: In No Great Hurry -- trailer

Bill and I became fans of Saul Leiter's work when Graham Jackson and Gareth Bate gave us a copy of Leiter's stunning collection: Early Colour (Steidl, 2006). Leiter's quiet, private street photographs from the 50s burned themselves into our minds. When this documentary comes out Bill and I will line up to see it. Leiter is one of our heroes.

Family Day with Reta

Bill and I always enjoy the bus ride to St Catharines.

The different kinds of light and all the reflections are always fascinating.

We've become friendly with Randy, our driver.

 Randy knows that Bill is an illustrator. When he asked Bill how the job was going Bill told him his new book, Tommy's Angel,  had just been published and showed him the copy he'd brought to show his mother. Randy loved it and then the woman sitting behind Bill asked to see it, then two Brock students had a look. The woman behind Bill said, "Now we've had our morning devotion."

We got underway. The onramp to the Gardiner Expressway makes me feel urban.

Bill and I like to sit up front where we can watch the action.

Lots of snow in St Catharines. 

As usual Bill was drawn to the houses. 

We found Reta in fine form and sporting a new do.

She posed for her close-ups before we went down to lunch. 

Then it was time for wine, movie and conversation. Try and get a word in edgewise in this group!

We finished the day with fish and chips at the Heritage Restaurant -- a family favourite.

Meanwhile, back at MOMA

 After a busy New York morning in the fall of 2012 Bill and I arrived at the Museum of Modern Art hungry. We paid our entrance fee and walked straight past the art to their great cafeteria.

We split this chickpea, beet and mesclun salad

and this delicious sausage and rigatoni pasta dish. We can't look at art on an empty stomach.

 Nice display of bentwood furniture. Must be mostly sixties designs.

We had a good look at this new purchase of de Kooning drawings too.

 That's Bill with an early Alexander Calder mobile; Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, 1939.

The Century of the Child show on the top floor

was both fun and eccentric.

Bill's view from the MOMA escalator. 

We always visit the 4th floor Twentieth Century art galleries. Here's Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907.

 and here, Henri Rouseau's The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897.

We always enjoy the many views from floor to floor created by Yoshio Tanaguchi's renovation.

 Bill and I are new to the work of Christopher Wool. Nice oil on linen painting, Untitled, 2007, over the MOMA members' information desk.

 Deiter Roth had much of his home life videotaped as an art piece in Solo Scenes, 1997-98.

Roth died in 1998.

Keith Haring's long ink drawing, Untitled, 1982 and Jeff Koons' Three Ball 50/50 Tank, 1985 in the Contemporary Galleries.

                            

Senga Nengudi's R.S.V.P.1, 1977, is made of panty hose and sand.

Another Christopher Wool on our way out.  MOMA has been featuring him lately. Hope you enjoyed our little stroll through this gem of a museum.