Today, the Guggenheim exhibit “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” closes here in New York City.
I did not go expecting to see any works of great beauty. To be sure, there were none. But so, too, did I not expect to see a view of China’s artists straining so mightily—and exclusively—under the weight of the CCP regime. That is the singular narrative. Portrait after portrait, list after list, needle after needle, video after video: oppression. I wondered: could there not be even just one alternate voice, one perspective from a slightly different angle that had turned its head not to the sun but, instead, toward the sky?
I’ve been feeling in-between lately. I’m not young but I’m not old. I’m not rich but I’m not poor. I’m not the smartest but I’m not the stupidest. I’m not super healthy but nor am I laid out. I don’t have a ton of friends but I’m not a total loner. I am trying.
It is possible to write your heart and your mind, both, to the point where they meet each other. There, they will shake hands and say “hello”. They will make small talk and exchange pleasantries. They will ask about wives and children. They will laugh. And you will shake your head at their fine demeanor and grand talk. Because you will know them for what they are, for they are yours. More 
When life gives you cooling weather, I say, smash a duck inside the wicked confines of a duck press. These and other thoughts on the change of the seasons, the need for inhumane yet nourishing sustenance, and much, much more in 
This past weekend I dragged my ass out of bed (it had been a bestie’s birthday the night before), put on whatever was on the floor (not what I wore to bestie’s birthday), and walked down to Hillary Clinton’s campaign office on 103 and Broadway. About thirty people were already there, milling around outside. They held coffee cups and the little green ticket the office had handed out—a ticket down to Pennsylvania for a day of knocking on doors and canvassing for Hillary in Bustleton, a struggling blue collar neighborhood in the swing-state of Pennsylvania.
Because everything is ephemeral and nothing lasts forever and if you want to keep it around you’ve got to build it yourself, I’ve grabbed 
Channeled the original Doyen of the Plaza for 
Thrilled to have a new piece up on the freshly revamped yet ever-glorious 
What fun to 
What is it about the oblique kindness of strangers in a city that is otherwise so straightforward, so full-on committed, to its aggressions?
Caroline M Cooper 