It’s a big week. The city is full of spark, with bus shelters on Park Avenue adorned with Trump innuendo, creative graffiti throughout the village, and a random open-top truck driving around covered with ‘making America great again’ and blasting out ‘Born in the USA’. So the timing was perfect for Martin Luther King Day on Monday and to celebrate by seeing the Muhammad Ali exhibition at the NY Historical Society. The show is themed on the photographic and illustrative work of Leroy Neiman, who followed Ali most of his career, recording his life and even teaching the boxer to draw. But the show nevertheless belongs to Ali. His drawing style was as distinctive as his character. The only surprising thing was that his boxing gloves were in much better shape than his gown. There were predictable shots of fights and the stories we had heard before. But for the timing, and for the record, it was a reassuring thought about how he wanted to be remembered. If not as a black man who won the heavyweight title and if not as a Muslim, then as a champion of his people, ‘and I wouldn’t even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was…’    Thank you Ali!