Thank you, Garry Nichols , for a most enjoyable afternoon walking the streets of the LES, exploring the galleries that remained open in late August. The absolute gem of our tour was the Tibor de Nagy exhibition of West Coast collages and assemblages made in the 1950's-60's. I actually had never heard of most of these artists, and I love being introduced to new, authentic and intriguing work. The group was not a movement, but was a tight group, with the older Jess (Collins) more or less at the head. Just about everything in the show had strong internal form and structure supporting some kind of narrative, often surreal or dreamlike. At Steven Harvey, Clintel Steel had some strong black-&-whites, and Julian Barnes had some political pieces, but the knockout was an Elaine de Kooning delicate portrait drawing of Anne Channing, Fairfield Porter's wife, informally hanging out on the back desk. And at Derek Eller Gallery we saw large drawings by William Downs and small paintings by Andre Ether. I felt the Downs drawings most successfully interconnected parts within sections and medium-size drawings, and the Ether paintings reminded me of Guston in color palette, cartoon-quality and sometimes even imagery. Sorry, I seem to have neglected to photograph Ether's work.