I'm back from New York, and not quite in the mood for essay writing, so instead here are a few photos from the trip.

A view of the old Plaza Hotel, taken last night:

And the Waldorf Astoria, this morning:

Reflections on a typical skyscraper:

Central Park Zoo visitor with baggage:

Yesterday morning I wrote about how tough it was not thinking about elephants. I assumed that I'd gotten it out of my system -- at least I thought I had. I figured it would be easy not to think about elephants while in New York.

With elephants totally out of my mind, I attended the International Art and Design Fair, held at the Armory:

As it turned out, elephants weren't out of my mind for long. I went inside and it didn't take long for me to run into the following sculpture which one of the exhibitors had for sale:

Even though I like it, I was a bit shocked. Seeing this gracefully disproportionate elephant by my favorite artist (Salvador Dali) made me wonder if I could ever stop thinking about elephants.

And things weren't made any better this morning when I saw the front cover of the New York Times Magazine!

(Not only can't I put elephants out of my mind, apparently "we" are driving the elephants out of theirs.)

A commenter mentioned the piece while I was away, and I forced myself to read it. Author Charles Siebert's argument stretches the communitarian impulse to unheard-of new heights; he argues that "we" are all responsible for the actions not only of tyrannical Third World countries, but that the "we" should also include elephants. The elephants are waking us up with their dysfunctional behavior, which includes things like rampaging, killing people and (I am serious) raping and killing rhinoseroses."We" must ensure that people in Africa "live with wild animals like humans used to do." (Good luck with that!) The author also seems to be forgetting that elephants are semi-domesticated in Asia, and domestication as well as working on breeding techniques might very well save them. But I'm sure he and most of his readers think such things are profoundly evil. Man must become more like animals, and not the other way around.

And in the name of "we"!

Communitarianism nonsense on stilts. Siebert's a great writer, but his idea is about as sensible as Dali's surreal elephants. (The problem is, when bad ideas are well packaged, people are more likely to fall for them.)

Well, I'll say this: the elephants did manage to resonate.

And New York is always fun, whether you encounter elephants or not!