Walking Through the Met, Thinking About America

There’s often a guy outside the Met, playing saxophone. You can hear him from the steps sometimes — just a practical guy, sometimes playing Hava Nagila, trying to make a buck. I like that.

I like heading up those wide stairs into the museum, brushing past tourists, people hanging around deciding where to eat lunch or dinner. His music floats in the background. It’s the soundtrack of a city that never stops becoming something new.

There’s nothing like walking through the Met’s majestic corridors, the murmur of voices echoing against marble and stone. It makes your ears feel warm. It’s familiar. It’s comforting. It’s magnificently beautiful. Inside, time bends.

There’s a sword from 1430. A siddur from 1280. A group of students in uniform — religious school kids maybe. Then, the medieval hall opens up around me, lined with Madonnas, baby Jesus in arms, on cradles, at her breast.

I’m heading to my favorite spot: the café.

I love that café. You can sit in the plaza, sip a drink, and gaze at Rodin sculptures. The corridor glows with Tiffany light. Today I’m feeling kind of Parisian. So I walk into a re-creation of an 18th-century salon — wealthy, ornate, decadent. Chandeliers, carved furniture, elegance from another time. A time they could never have imagined would lead to this one.

And then — the Robert Lehman Collection. Through a pyramid-shaped dome, light spills down onto Pierre Bonnard’s 1947 work. Pure impressionist genius. Then Edward VI, muted and welcoming. Then Vuillard — darker, mysterious.

And suddenly: bam. There she is. An almost pornographic image by Balthus. Nude Before the Mantel, 1955. It’s beautiful. It’s uncomfortable. It’s strangely inappropriate by 2025 standards. The lines we draw now are tighter, harsher. Balthus pushes them. Always did.

Back to the masters — wait, wrong gallery.

But honestly, can anything beat this? Walking through the Met a little buzzed, letting the art wash over you, composing thoughts into your iPhone? Maybe — just maybe — a glass of red at the café down the hall. Eventually, I find the light. I find Perseus, holding Medusa’s head — Canova’s masterpiece. It’s like arriving. The European Sculpture Court. Sculptures go wild here — powerful, brutal, tender. A total reckoning of human form and feeling.

Eventually I exit the Met.

I always pause at the fountains. Water arcs skyward, then crashes back down. It means something — I just can’t remember what right now. The wind is brutal. It’s cold as hell. I keep walking. Keep walking.

And then this feeling hits me — deep in my gut, in my heart: The world I loved? It’s changed. We’re never getting it back. And the one we’re walking into? I’m not sure it’s any good at all.

Let me ask you something. How does it feel to fire 16,000 federal employees… …get a stay on the firing… …and then watch the Supreme Court uphold it?

How does that make you feel?

Why do you want to hurt people?

I know I’m not going to change your mind. But we can’t just steamroll each other anymore. There are too many of you for us to win that way, and vice versa. So I’m asking — genuinely: Can’t you see the path you’re on? It doesn’t serve you. It doesn’t serve any of us. It’s a path of cruelty. Of lies. A path that lets you excuse the terrible things this administration is doing — then come up with creative nonsense to justify it.

What are you going to do when Social Security is privatized? When Medicaid is slashed by 50%? When your Medicare requires co-pays just to see a doctor? This is going to hurt you as much as it hurts us.

So help us.

Help us get back to some version of decency. Sit down at the table. Bring your list of issues. Let’s bang our heads together and come up with something minimally acceptable to both sides.

That’s the only way forward.

Not as Democrats or Republicans — but as Americans. People who support democracy, or a constitutional republic, or whatever you want to call it.

Because what we have right now, this Trump, Musk-fueled mutation?

That’s not it.

Let’s come back to the table. Let’s talk. Let’s write a new chapter — together. Thank you.