Veal and Wurst

I thoroughly enjoyed Fellini’s I Vitelloni at the Film Forum Friday night. The guys, i vitelloni, or the big veals, were a bit long in the tooth to be such layabouts, but different community standards apply, I guess (and still do: unmarried Italian men still live with their Mamas). The grays of the print were gorgeous. And now to some color. In our continuing effort to metaphysically “map” Staten Island, we journeyed to Clay Pits Ponds State Park Reserve on the southwestern end of the island Saturday. Tracks of gloomy suburban circles of hell had to be passed through before we got there. But this was worth it:
There are only about two miles of trails, but nobody was on them. Sassafras, sweetgum, black birch, and numerous oaks (black, red, and white for starters), were pulling back their greens to reveal the colors of fall. There were many different mushrooms out and about. There was a perfect, lightly-throbbing early fall woodsy vibration.
Many years ago I hiked up Mt. Snowdon, the highest point in England and Wales. We didn’t go to the very tippy-top, we went up to the pub. How very British, eh, a pub on the mountain? I was reminded of this because our little trip yesterday put us right next to Killmeyer’s Old Bavarian Inn, and Oktoberfest is always a good way to end a walkabout.