The Japan Society (333 E 47 in NYC) sponsored this spring a lecture given by John T. Carpenter “Amusements in a Samurai Mansion: Male Youths as Actors, Escorts, or Outcasts in Early Edo Art”.

This mysterious mention led me to Wiki, where this was revealed:
“Although any person would be clearly classified as a child, wakashū or adult, the timing of both boundaries of the wakashū period were relatively flexible, giving families and patrons the ability to accommodate the development and circumstances of the individual boy.

The concept of wakashū contained several partially overlapping elements: an age category between childhood and adulthood; the social role of a pre-adult or adolescent boy, usually conceived of as a subordinate (student, apprentice or protégé); and the idea of the “beautiful youth”, a suitable target for homosexual desire and the subject of wakashūdo, “the way of youths”. As boys were considered eligible for homosexual liaisons only when they were wakashū, their patrons occasionally delayed their coming of age ceremony beyond socially acceptable limits, leading to legal efforts in 1685 to require all wakashū to undergo their coming of age ceremony by age 25.^[3]“

Sources such as Ihara Saikaku‘s Nanshoku Ôkagami (“A Great Mirror of Male Love”, 1687) indicate that “in the past” (when is not precisely clear), wakashu were typically “ostentatiously violent, and thus manly,”^[2] and that at that time, a young man who was too weak, gentle, or feminine in his manner would find it difficult to find an older samurai with whom to engage in shûdô. This emphasis on martial manliness is somewhat understandable, given the martial nature of life in the Sengoku period, and the idea that wakashû were expected to grow up to become fathers, warriors, and nenja^[3] themselves.

Saikaku indicates, however, that by his own time (the Genroku period, 1688–1704), wakashû came to be valued more for their youth, beauty, and artistic abilities (e.g. in dance, music, and poetry), and less for their physical strength or martial prowess, in conjunction with the rise of the feminization of young actors on the kabuki stage.^[4]

Brooklyn Botanical Garden is a good first choice. Accessible by subway, there is parking nearby on unmetered side streets.

It’s next to Prospect Park, Brooklyn Museum, and Park Slope. It has a great Japanese garden among a dozen specialized gardens

Smaller means a more manageable visit. It’s more formally organized, a set of Victorian gardens. Result? More integrated into surrounding neighborhoods means more access to shops and especially to reasonably priced eating places in Park Slope or on Atlantic Avenue. This is the same spirit that its neighbor holds, the Brooklyn Museum – notably in their First Saturday events where they throw open the doors to their neighbors from 5-11pm with food, dancing, movies – and of course tours. Overall the two are more an everyday park for residents instead of a destination park with all the expense, crowds, focus on entertainment that entails. Count yourself lucky if you live nearby.

NYBG is more naturally designed, including a stand of the original forest that used to cover all of Manhattan. It has a rock garden, a conifer collection, and a tremendous rose garden with 4000 plants abloom June throughout the summer – a total of 50 special gardens. Its conservatory is far larger than the BBG – a consideration on rainy, cold, windy, snowy days.

NYBG focuses on Great Shows, the train show, orchid show, Chihuly – big themes with lots of entertainment, merchandise and crowds. With 13,000 plants having to be grown & cultivated for a show – with a philosophy of going over the top to attract crowds – the result can be pricey.

Like most other museums & public attractions in NYC NYBG gives a little. The grounds are free all day Wednesday and from 9-12 on Saturday morning. But no entry to the Conservatory where the shows are. Frankly, NYBG is the elephant in the Bronx’s living room: it draws from Manhattan – and apart from providing menial jobs ignores local yokels.

Membership makes economic sense. Entry on weekends is $28. Night shows are currently $35. Four visits recover the cost – and include a few perks. Seniors are $68/88 single/couple. Otherwise it’s $85/110.

Eating can be pricey too. The old cafeteria is now the ritzy Hudson Garden Grill where a ham, egg & cheese sandwich can run you $23 and appetizers range from a salad at $10 to asparagus at $17. Luckily there’s a kiddie snack shack {with beer & wine for parents!) and a pizza hut. Arthur Avenue is not far (187th and Arthur Avenue) but it’s a trek of 1/2 mile across Fordham University’s grounds to get there – but you can get a B&D train at 182-183rd Streets on the Grand Course to get back to the city.

NYBG is not far from Pelham Bay Park, three times the size of Central Park, with many paths and bikeways, right there on the sea. And not far from that is City Island – a piece of NYC history frozen in time.

Whereas BBG is accessible by subway, NYBG is accessible via MetroNorth from Grand Central or 125th, every hour on the hour only, and with a more expensive fare.

Membership at NYBG gets you visiting privileges at the BBG’s Japanese garden and greenhouses.

And of course there is the Queens Botanical  Garden. www.queeensbotanical.org.

There’s also the Staten Island Cultural Center and Botanical Garden on the grounds of Snug Harbor.

Wave Hill is located a few miles from Yankee Stadium. Its Kerlin Overlook gives 180 degree views of the Hudson. They have many programs, a small greenhouse, art shows – and though located in the north Bronx are a fun place to visit – especially if you have a car.

At the far end of brooklyn near the Verazano Bridge is the Narrows Botanical Garden on the Upper Bay in Brooklyn.  http://www.narrowsbg.org

The surprise garden in NYC is the 6BC, located as you’d imagine on 6th Street between B&C Avenues – a throwback from the days of the squatters and squalor of the LES. http://6bc.org Truly a delight especially for the neighbors who keep it going for whom it is an oasis.

And let’s not forget all the pocket parks in Manhattan itself many of which have artificial waterfalls in addition to the abundant sitting area and beautiful design and flowers galore. Plus the atriums especially in midtown but also in the financial district which encourage people to sit, play chess, and have a quiet conversation. An entire book has been written about these – and they prove you don’t have to have hundreds of acres to provide the pleasure and peace that a flower garden offers.

Lastly let’s not forget the promenades, notably the east river promenade especially from 80th Street up and past the bridge to Randall’s Island – itself a bike haven. And the wondrous bike and sports path that starts where the ferry goes to visit the Statue of Liberty all the way up the upper west side – a pleasure path that has kyack rental, trapeze practice, roller blading, biking, and pocket parks along the way.

A postscript: Cherry Blossoms are beautiful in both the BBG and NYBG parks of course but for that don’t forget Branch Brook park [www.branchbrookpark.org] a short 15” trip out the Holland Tunnel – for it has more cherry trees in a 1920s setting than all of Washington D.C: 4000, the largest collection of Japanese flowering trees in one location in the US. Its expanse of 360 acres stretches nearly 4 miles from US Rte 280 in Newark to Mill Street in Belleville

Mykhailo Deyak: Recent Works March 17 – April 2. I’ll let the Ukraine Institute whose palace on 79th street and fifth avenue get credit for bringing this Living Artist onto the concrete pedestals of New York. What a fireball with color he is! His later work is three-dimensional, popping off the canvas. He is definitely a painter turned sculptor. I shall include here photographs of his huge work which has up to now been only shown in Europe. He makes color into an actor on the stage – and makes color and texture dance as no dance company has ever imagined. In fact one small annoyance is that someone decided to fence in three of his Great Floods of color with black tape. That should be easily dispensed with. I knew I’d lucked out when he opened his phone to show me the gargantuan creations – living creature of color – that have invaded the grand exhibition spaces that only Europe still offers. The high culture setting of the Ukraine Institute is truly a great place to see this work. Please hope this Living Artist stays for now in the Khusts region he comes from. Let him simply derive his color and atavistic constructions of color-come-to-life from the wilderness surrounding him. The translator he had at his disposal did him aa superb service. She waited for the whole thought to come out – and gave me a considered response. This man knows what he’s doing. He’s courageous. He’s strong. He brought to mind the Picasso who had yet to move to Paris. I know Deyak will – but I hope he delays the move and instead visits Paris and all the other world capitals who need so desperately the art he creates. He seems still above it all, simply in love with art – capricious, and “artful” – full of art – and all that promises much to come.