In the afternoon I stopped by the Frick Museum. Now THAT was a real place of escape for me when I was fewer than half my current years. Back in the early seventies, I’d take a notebook, scoot over to the Frick cloister, sit on a stone bench and write (amidst artwork that I occasionally looked at).

Today I did not write. I’m not even sure I still know how, given my addiction to the keyboard. And I am certain there’s no wireless at the Frick. They don’t even permit flashless photos let alone machines that don’t fit in your pocket.

But I did spend some time in front of a painting that I’d always felt perversely *proud* of: the Polish Rider by Rembrandt. Yes, it pained me when, not too long ago, critics claimed it could not have been done by the great master. But now I hear we’re back on track: that gorgeous Slavic face was almost certainly painted by Rembrandt. And what beyond the face may be attributed to Rembrandt? No one knows for sure. At the Frick, they tell you that the canvas is among the most beloved in the collection, possibly because of the aura of mystery that exists about it. It is a simple painting and it is surrounded by tremendous canvases done by Bellini, El Greco, Renoir, Titian Gainsborough, Degas, Millet, Constable, Vermeer, and more. All good, all wonderful, but none depicting those classic features of a face that belongs to people from my neck of the woods. Brushed onto a canvas by a seventeenth century master. Maybe. Almost for sure.