Mark B Borg Jr

For years ands years--OK, a couple of decades now--this spot (we've always referred to it as the Gandhi Garden) has been the par excellence place in Union Square for a meet-up!!! It is a gorgeous garden with trees and flowers blooming off and on all year---and, well, Gandhi's praxis (philosophy-meets-action) of Satyagraha is an absolute requirement for living with/in the throngs of humanity here in Downtown New York City!!!

I've been looking out at the East River from my Peter Cooper window for years and, more recently, have been witness to the numerous ferries zipping to and fro--Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens! What a blast! Only recently were we--my wife, kids and I--able to get ourselves down there to the 20th Street ferry to experience how lovely (and affordable) it is now to be ferried about the East River!!!

My wife know the artist Sacchi Shimoda from attending a monthly meeting for Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan. Sacchi invited her to the Prince Street Gallery as there was to be an exhibition of her work spanning the last several decades. The space was beautiful, the design perfect to house Sacchi's work. But it wasn't just the skill--the brushwork, the detail, the clear artistic talent--that blew my mind. It was Sacchi's description of her analysis of, especially DaVinci, that had us riveted--"I had to get into the painting, the mind of DaVinci," she told us as an explanation of the numerous studies she presented of "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa" ! What talent! What a mind! What a wonderful space to see, feel and experience these coming together! Brava!