Meet the Beatles!

You go to places like the Yucatan to visit the sites of Mayan civilization or to Rome or Petra for the layers of archeology. But excavation can proceed on a less glamorous, more quotidian basis down the block at the site of the old Lyric or Aphrodite diner or even in your own backyard, where the footprint was once the foundation for another house—or civilization. The Leakeys famously discovered early ancestors of man inTanzania's Olduvai Gorge and “Lucy,” an example of Australopithecus afarensis dating from Pliocene era 3.2 million years ago was unearthed in Ethiopia. Best Buy on Union Square is located where S. Klein once stood. Remember Orbach’s and Korvette’s on 47^th and Fifth and Sam Goody where you may have purchased “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” “Meet the Beatles!,” or “The Rolling Stones.” There are certain structures which will outlive you like the Metropolitan Museum of Art  (an iconic piece of architecture that’s the centerpiece of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch), Central Park, The Arch de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, The Gateway Arch in St Louis and Berlin Alexanderplatz (the title of the Doblin novel and Fassbinder film). Only time can eradicate a place.

Read "A Taxonomy of the Goldfinch" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by The Beatles