Casa Comalat

Not Gaudí this time.

Casa Comalat was designed by Salvador Valeri i Pupurull

One question possibly worth asking: does your building (painting, photo, poem, music, play, work) make the world more interesting, or less?

Holly Daze

Well, I've been fairly lousy at keeping up with this particular outlet recently. I didn't even bother to celebrate (or even notice) that my last post before this one was my 500th post. And I am NOT one to miss out on an opportunity to celebrate something.

That said, I have my excuses (there are always excuses). The holidays were busy as all get out; I had out of town guests of various shapes and sizes; there were social engagements at every turn; we had to go to Paramus; we had a blizzard; I was short-listed for a Nobel Prize; it was chaos!

I'll fill in some of the blanks in the coming days, but for now, here are some headlines:

• Yo La Hanukkah - the annual Maxwell's 8-night orgasm of music and fun. We caught two of the shows: one was great, the other was unbelievably awesome
• Real Hanukkah - fewer latkes this year, but we still brought out the celebration for the Festival of Lights
• Alvin Ailey - I got to go to a few shows this City Center season, including by great good fortune both opening and closing night. Both were great, although Judith Jamison's farewell show was really over the top special and wonderful
• Julie! And her family. We had pizza and saw Lombardi. Nice.
• Davin! In town on a mission or three
• Wedding in Westchester
• Holiday music and movies - in both live and recorded form, it's an annual tradition and a half. This year's highlights included: the choral group Angelica on the UES; a Renegade Cabaret performance on 14th Street; Oy to the World, volume 13; The Bishop's Wife at Chome on Christmas Eve; Christmas in Connecticut with Kelly (at the beginning of the Blizzard!)
• True Grit in Bkln w/Dominic
• The Big Christmas Gathering
• Black Swan with Susan & Daniel
• The Big Parental Visit - delayed along with several thousand of our closest friends by the same Blizzard, but still very fun
• New Year's Eve - Ailey for the folks, Patti Smith for us (along with Sue and Steve and Beth B.) A splendid time was had by all, in spite of some in-crowd obnoxiousness (did they forget what show they were at?)

So - there that is. I'm sure I'm forgetting some really important stuff. More to come...

Heaven is in the Details

Well, you knew this day was coming. This was a pretty churchy trip, and eventually we made it to the most famous Church of them all. (Well, other than that one in Rome.)

Notre Dame de Paris. Nearly 200 years in the making, many hundreds more as a gothic inspiration.

They say that heaven is in the details. Lately, I've taken that to mean that if you want to get to the crux of the thing, anything, look closer. See the big picture, sure, but keep looking until you see the things that go into it.

I would say that that approach works particularly well at a place like this cathedral. It has survived the Hugenots, the Revolution(s), Napoleon, the Commune, the Nazis and, well, just hundreds and hundreds of years. And it is Massive.

And awe-inspiring.

And ornate.

And see, just in these few images so far - the details start to emerge and tell a story that has more impact than what happens if you just go and get overwhelmed by this Big Huge Obligation of a Church. You notice the way the vast Rose window works from the outside, and you see the light pouring through it from the inside. You take in the Holy Mother ("Notre Dame" refers to her, after all) with her baby, flanked by angels in the front window. You might take a look at some of the other 36 (!) representations of her in and around the Cathedral. You look at the other figures sculpted into and onto the edifice.

And then you climb up to the top.

The way that happens is that you climb a bunch of stairs and then they make you wait in a holding area (which also serves as a gift shop, of course! They wouldn't want you to miss a chance to buy stuff.) until enough time has passed that some of the people already up there have gone back down, then you climb a whole BIG bunch of more stairs. We positioned ourselves so that we were at the front of the line when they opened up the door, so we wouldn't get caught behind any slowpokes, and Cory took the opportunity to charge up those steps. She seriously was on a mission. By the time we were about halfway up, it was she and I and one other guy who decided to keep up with us, and the rest of our group was way back behind.

And of course once we made it, Paris was there to greet us.

Sacre Coeur through the fog.

And the gargoyles were, if anything, even more amazing than I'd imagined.

Those of you who know your Gothic architecture (I, of course, am now an expert on Gothic architecture, having read at least two online articles and a few tourbook entries) realize that most of these guys are actually chimeras, rather than gargoyles (which are only properly so called when they function as water spouts) and that they were added as part of a 19th Century renovation.

What's incredible to me is how many individual treatments there are - each with its own character and, again, its depth of detail. This one may be the most famous, situated to greet you as you emerge from the stairs, and having been so often referenced in other art works. (Including, my nephew was quick to point out, The Simpsons.)

So many characters, each one unique. These are all full color photos, by the way (though that teaser from the earlier post was a B&W)

Now that you're fully involved in attending to details, you're surely wondering something along the lines of "Hey... wait a minute! If this was such a gray day, what's up with that blue sky and those cottony nuages in the establishing shot for this entry?"
Well, you caught me. We did stop by the Cathedral on two separate days. on Saturday, when it was bright and sunny, we took in the outside, and strolled through the sanctuary (that's also why the colors in the stained glass are so vibrant.) On the day we went to the top, Paris was muted by clouds.

Here are a few 'true gargoyles' from both days, with their functions as drain spouts still active.

One other thing before I go. Compare this last shot with the other two images of the most iconic chimera in this series (we'll call him "Moe") See how he changes depending on the light, on the juxtaposition with the other figures, or with the horizon and Sacre Coeur.

It's a pretty nifty world. Look closer.

Vive la France

We got back from Paris a couple days ago. As cities go, Paris was, you know, ok.

I am lying my ass off, of course. It is amazing. As beautiful as you imagine it is going to be, and with a bunch that you couldn't have imagined.

For those of you who kept track of international events while we were gone, the Mick & Cory-specific headlines are:


We were not involved in the bomb threat at the Eiffel Tower, although we were at the Eiffel Tower the day before. Whew!

We were indeed involved with the Transit Strike/national protest of the proposal to raise the French retirement age to 62. These days French strikes would appear to be more for show than for real shut-down, but the fervor and popular involvement is impressive. [As election day approaches staggeringly quickly, I crave some of this passion here in les Etats-Unis. Seriously. Please do not consider not voting this November. And maybe do a little more than vote. Don't make me start whipping out the reasons why it's important not to cave to racist, hate-filled fear mongers.] What this meant to us was that we had to do some extra work getting from the airport to our hotel in the Latin Quarter. We'd done some advance homework, so were fairly prepared - made a train transfer that wouldn't have been needed on a non-strike day, which sent us to a different station that was a little farther away. And when we approached the location of our hotel, we saw a mass of people up on Boulvevard St. Michel. Like - a BIG mass of people. It soon became clear that the demonstration going on pretty much surrounded the place we were staying. We had a perplexed-tourist moment, noses in the map, trying to figure out how to get around it, when a very friendly student asked us (in English, no less) if we needed help. I said, something to the effect of "well, we need to get to Rue Sommerard, and we're trying to figure out how to get around the demo," and her smiling response was "just go through it." So we did. I have yet to go through most of the photos I took, but here's this shot I snagged with a phone camera of the scene:



Lots more to come...

More Fun than It Looks

We went to Buffalo last weekend for a memorial service for our good friends' father. I know, that does not sound like fun. That sounds like the opposite of fun.

But as it happened, Cory and I actually had quite a bit of fun. This mostly has to do with the fact that our friends are the Funnest People in the History of Everything. Yes, that sounds like I am saying an awful lot. I realize this. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The memorial itself was very moving, as everyone knew it would be. Lots of stories, and memories, and music. And food and drinks, natch. Great to see Molly and Chris and all the assorted people who came forth to share the day with them.

The day before, Cory and I explored Downtown Buffalo.



We had arrived on Friday night, rather late. Even though Buffalo is the 2nd biggest city in NY (albeit a pretty distant second), and even though our hotel was smack in the middle of downtown, there's not much going on there after 9 p.m. besides bars, so we just finished the Scrabble game we'd started at LaGuardia and called it a night.

Then on Saturday, we braved the cold and hit the town. And if you know Buffalo at all, you know that when I say cold, I mean cold. The guy at the front desk was friendly and pointed us in the right direction to try to find some brunch in a brunchless land. We made our way to Spot Coffee, which turned out to be great - cool people, good food, good coffee, great vibe: only too happy to give it a shoutout. After that (follow along on the map, if you please) we wound our way over to City Hall, which is a big beautiful art deco building, past the obelisk (the obelisk and City Hall Square are outlined in blue on the map. There are a lot of obelisks in Buffalo.) and some crazy film students shooting a mockumentary about Android Rights protesters (it was a very small mock protest, but cut 'em slack: the temperature was in single digits), over by the library, and to a really depressing mall that nonetheless had a cool sculpture of a life size buffalo climbing out of a much much bigger than lifesize buffalo nickel. Then, based on a flyer we'd seen in the coffee shop, we followed our freezing noses to the Western New York Book Arts Collaborative. Which was amazing!! A collective of printers, paper-makers, artists and book-makers have made great use of a couple floors of space to experiment, create and display work. There had been an opening the night before (we'd arrived to late to have attended even if we'd known about it) and there were plenty of examples on display and for sale, as well as really cool people there to show us around, and take us downstairs to the workshop where most of the magic happens. Really, really cool operation - very glad we stumbled on that flyer.

Not only were the printing co-op types good at showing us around their shop, they also gave us good info about exploring the city on foot. And on subway. There is a somewhat limited subway "system" in Buffalo (it's just one line that goes from the Harbor out to the University. Some Buffalonians call it the 'Subway to Nowhere') that we used to go out to the Allentown neighborhood because it was just too cold to walk the whole way. Anyway, it did get us from point A to point B, and then we walked over to the Hero gallery (which had been the nexus of the opening at WNYBAC the night before) and beyond that to a used book store and past some bars and music venues. We discovered that we were near the Anchor Bar, which is by unanimous account the Original Home of the World's First Buffalo Wings, so we went there too.

Now, here's where it got really cold. Turns out that we weren't quite as near to that spot as we'd been led to believe, and the last quarter mile or so was up hill (a very gentle hill, but still...) and into the wind. Holy crap it was cold. Cory turned to me at one point and said "Are you sure we're going in the right direction? I can't feel my feet. And I think this finger is going to break off." But we made it there and had some wings and some fries and a beer. How could we not?

Took the subway back to the hotel and crawled under the covers to warm up and watch part of "I Am Legend" on TV, and then met Sue & Kevin & Max for dinner. Jen showed up later on, and we had a nightcap with her before turning in. The next morning we broke fast in the hotel and all smooshed into Sue and Kevin's car (which isn't normally a clown car, but they made an exception for us that day) and went to the memorial, and you know the rest.

EXCEPT - on the way back home, we had to go to the airport extra early because Jen's flight was more than an hour before ours. But as we checked in, Cory noticed that an earlier flight to NY hadn't taken off yet, so we zipped through security as fast as we could and luckily they let us on the almost-empty plane. Such a stroke of luck! We walked through the threshold of Cory's apartment at almost exactly the moment our original plane was scheduled to be taking off. Nice coda to a nice weekend.

And, above all, for Fran: requiescat in pace.

Magic 8 Pod

I haven't played Magic 8 Pod lately, so let's give it a whirl today.

How will this upcoming Big Weekend of Theater go? Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Whatever Happened to My Rock & Roll

Well, it's true that this weekend promises to be a little highfalutin, with the Clown Show, the BAM dance performance, plus Strindberg redux and heady fringe. Maybe I have been neglecting the rockin' side of things. But I am not ignoring it! Let this lead me to my next question, but let me also take this opportunity to mention that B.R.M.C. will be releasing a new batch of live music and video this fall.


What about next weekend's Yo La Tengo show? Johnny Cash - Country Boy

This may not seem to rock all the way out at first, but it's a good sign for the show. A boom-chicka-boom early Cash song, simple in a way that YLT would love, and the kind of song they might cover. "When it's quittin' time and your work is through/There's a lot of life in you."


Will my dad be out for that visit next month? Paul Westerberg - Things

Huh. Umm... well... Paul's a great songwriter and musician. This song doesn't really illuminate anything. It's kind of a love song. Or an "I love you but never know how to say it right" song. Guess dad's trip will remain a mystery for the moment.


What about the work on my apartment? Alanis Morissette - Ironic

This has kind of come to pass: they stripped the paper, fixed the walls and repainted, which is great BUT now there's a leak in one of the pipes. Let's call this one a prophesy that's been altogether, completely fulfilled already and move on. (Yes, yes, I have Alanis Morissette on my iPod. Get your laughter out of the way.)


Will I be making a trip to Boston this fall? For, you know, the right reason?? Elliott Smith - Almost Over

Aha! This is a deceptive one. It looks like bad news for the BoSox at first glance, until you realize that the gist of this song is that the worst part's almost over. Not the season. That part of the season where it's increasingly clear they won't win the division and they're in trouble for the wild card. Yes. That's definitely what this is saying.

How this factors in to me getting tickets to the postseason at Fenway is less transparent...

Il Giorno Primo

On our first day in Rome, after Giuseppe's mini-tour and Tiziano's orientation, we took a walk around the neighborhood. Actually, I guess it's fair to say we walked through a few neighborhoods - over to the Fontana di Trevi (not the same visit as in the video - quite a different place during the day), the Fontana di Tritone, the Quattro Fontane (there are a lot of fountains in Rome); had some pizza (SO good, and only 1 Euro per slice!) and some espresso; visited a beautiful church designed by Borromini; made an informal visit to the Palazzo Barberini; had gelato (omigod omigod); stopped by the Spanish Steps - by dumb luck approached them from the top rather than the bottom and saved ourselves a climb.

It was great to breathe that air - this may sound crazy, but it felt different from other air. It seems to me that every place has a unique atmosphere: metaphorically, yes, but also literally. I do a lot of breath work; it's interesting to me how people breathe in different places, and the Roman air was clean and vibrant. The sun on piazza di Spagna was golden and beautiful, and we had the good fortune to be in Italy when azaleas were in full bloom, covering the Steps in reddish purple. The Steps were also covered in people, of course - May Day is the European Labor Day, and virtually everyone in Italy had a long weekend. Our day of arrival was the day before the Holiday, but the city was already beginning to fill up.

I didn't bring my camera with me on this first afternoon, wanting to experience my first few hours without concerning myself with capturing images. We did, however, bring the Video Flip that Cory picked up a few weeks prior, and did manage to record a few moments, including this one:



How's that for a Welcome to Rome?

Turned out that everything was ok. We went around the block and met another carabinieri, and between his broken English and my broken Italian we figured out that the fire was in what was technically the building next to our hotel, though it was accessed through the same entryway. By the time we got into the hotel, we could barely even smell the smoke. Still, this incident combined with the fact that we had no water the next morning to make us wonder if we'd picked the right place.

Actually, I think we did. Despite those rough patches, our room was cheery and comfortable, the people there were pleasant and helpful, and the location was fantastic. What's a little fire next door among friends?

Fountain Story

I was trying to post a viddy we made on the first day we were in Rome, but ran into some complication with the video camera we used and ended up with this one instead. SO - here's a little anecdote about a sculptural afterthought at the Trevi Fountain.



More fountain fun to come...

Celebration City

I've had a lot to post about lately, but have been too busy/distracted to get to it. Massive shoutouts needed for the Martha Clarke Garden of Earthly Delights (running through April - go see it!) and The Cherry Orchard & The Winters Tale which were performed at BAM through The Bridge Project (those have closed - hope you had a chance to see them.)

But for now, let me take another swig of coffee and recap the headlines from this past weekend.

My sister was interviewing with a company in Philadelphia. SO let's start with the first big cause for celebration: she got the job! This wasn't really a surprise (we were pretty sure it was going to go down that way) but it's still REALLY good news. And may develop into even better news if one of her future promotions brings her and her family out east.

They love Lori so much (how could they not?) that they arranged for her to fly into Philly, but out of Newark, just so she could have a chance to come up and visit me. Which brings us to the second big cause for celebration: she came up to the city and stayed the whole weekend! Lori got into town at about 8:30, and we went over to a new wine bar near where I live that I really like for some formaggio e vino. Yum! Then back to my place for another bottle of wine and more catch up.

Next morning, we met Richard and Peter at Good Enough To Eat on the UWS for brunch. Peter mocked us for calling a Saturday meal with a 10:30 start time (which he couldn't be bothered to make) "brunch." Whatever, dude. We had things to do. You better watch out - you're on my sister's list.

After brunch, Cory met us and we walked with Richard across the park to the Met. Went in and checked out the Beyond Babylon exhibit as well as parts of the permanent collection, then grabbed a cup of coffee and went out to meet Rashmi and take a bus downtown past the sights of 5th Avenue until we arrived down near Union Square Park. Then we walked West and did some shopping (my sister is a paper nut, so we went to a couple of those stationers in Flatiron) and met a bunch more people at City Bakery: Sherin, Molly, Rudy, Susan, Daniel. Oy, am I forgetting somebody? We ran the gamut of their offerings, and even had a small confrontation with a guy who wanted to steal one of our tables. Silly nastiness. Then we split off in a variety of directions, with 6 of us headed over to 5 Ninth for dinner. Mmmm... I've written about that place here, and once again, it was SO good. Try the wild mushroom gnocchi. And, of course, the pot de creme with bourbon infusion.

Pause for a moment to look at an image from the Met exhibit, from the Hittite Empire, 14th–13th century B.C.


It's a mug. Those Hittites knew how to party.


Then we went over to the Village Vanguard for the Lou Donaldson Quartet. Lori got a "let's not think about what would happen if there were a fire" kick out of how much of New York happens in what are essentially basements, and this spot was the epitome of that for her. The show was fantastic, of course.

At this point, Susan and Daniel headed home, and Rudy went back to his hotel to nurse a sprained ankle. Lori was wiped out and crashed, and Molly & I walked with Cory for what was yet another cause for celebration this weekend: Kristin's birthday! The meal part of her party had happened at a Brazilian place in Midtown, but they were at the Half King at this point, so we went over there and met them all dressed up in their birthday regalia and reveling in the occasion.

And then we put Molly in a cab, and that was Saturday.

Sunday had some of the wrong kind of drama. We went to brunch at 202, which Lori really loved for its Nicole Farhi design elements. But we had a late start, given that we still had to accomplish the acquisition of souvnenirs for Lori's kids. Dominic met with us for a small slice of time, then we did a couple loops on foot through Meatpacking, the Village and Chelsea. We were under the gun, but we managed to grab the needed "I Heart New York" t-shirts, and the snow globes, and... well, we couldn't manage the 'teeny tiny koala bear' that Anna wanted, but we got her a pretty damned cute stuffed penguin.

Then, a little later than we'd hoped, I drove Lori to EWR for her flight. Which was cancelled. Yup. We didn't find this out until I had almost found myself a parking space in Hoboken, but there was some kind of mechanical error, and the airlines being the fonts of customer service that they are these days, they offered my sister nothing to make up for her time or inconvenience. Well, that's not quite true: they offered to put her up in a motel in Newark, from which she would have been able to pay her own way to JFK the next morning in time for her 7:45 flight (this would be a $100 cab ride, for those of you who don't know the area). Gee thanks USAir!

Instead, she took a train back to Penn Station (it wouldn't have made sense for me to pick her up and drive her to the 'boken so we could then take a bus into the city) where I met her and brought her back down to Chelsea, where... we had a fantastic evening! No friends, no schedule, we just went out for pizza and beer (And what pizza! You can almost believe the hype about Co.) and walked around the neighborhood and went back to Cory's place to play Scrabble and have some beer and Kentucky Chocolate. It was actually kind of perfect.

The next morning, Lori got up really early to take a car to Kennedy and the rest of us went to work. All was well with her trip, and it turned out that Annie was pretty happy about her penguin. I know I haven't put much into this entry in the way of images (kind of funny that two fairly avid photographers didn't want to be bothered with taking pictures this weekend), but hopefully this one taken from Lori's cellphone will help make up for that.

So that was our weekend. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Oh, and by the way - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Use Traveloshitty to book your next flight on Northworst Airlines

Ok guys, ready for a rant?

Big family reunion in the old country last weekend. BIG one - Grandma turns 85 this year; Grandpa turns 90; they just celebrated their 65th Anniversary. Not only that, but mom and dad both turn 60 this year and are celebrating their 40th anniversary. So it's a big year for the fam, and a bunch of the extendeds came from far and wide to a park near what remains of the family farm in Wisconsin (not to be bucolic about it all, that's just what it is).

Booked my flight through Travelocity, which I've used several times and had no problem with. This time however, they didn't email me the itinerary, and every time I tried to get it from the website I'd get an error page. Every time. Finally navigated voice mail to the tune of half an hour to get the info. So, ok, inconvenient and bad service, but nothing serious.

The night before my trip, I get a voicemail from Northwest Airlines: my flight connecting through Detroit has been cancelled, but not to worry, they have rerouted me through Minneapolis, and I'll only arrive about 45 minutes later than I would have. Fine. Good to know. I appreciate the call.

I even sign up with Northwest for frequent flier miles when I do the online check-in the next day.

But when I get to LaGuardia that evening, just after I call my friend in Madison to let him know things are going swell, they cancel the Minneapolis flight too. Huh. I look at the Departures monitor and notice they've cancelled an Indianapolis flight as well. So I look at the weather monitor: there's some storm action going on down south, and maybe a bit near Cleveland, but the Midwest is looking pretty clear. Call the 800 number and get a person who seems helpful at first.

"Yes, that flight has been cancelled, but we've already rescheduled you."

"Great! When's the new flight?"

"Tomorrow morning leaving at 11:30, arriving Madison at 5"

See, here's the thing. The party starts tomorrow at 10 a.m. It's a 2+hour drive from Madison. And we're talking about some elderly folks; they'll be wrapping up around 5.

So I try to impress upon my increasingly unhelpful customer service agent the importance of arriving in Madison tonight.

No flights available. Maybe they can get me into Milwaukee on Midwest Airlines. Hold please.

So I do, for about 20 minutes.

I should mention that at this point, the reasons given for the flight cancellation have been: 1) no crew available, and 2) air traffic control has forbidden the flight (no reason given)

When customer service gets back to me, she explains that her supervisor won't approve purchasing me the ticket with Midwest because the cancellation was weather-related and thus out of their control.

"What weather? I am looking at the radar - it's clear. What invisible weather system is reaching from Indy, up through Detroit and over to Minneapolis, but allowing the Midwest plane to land in Milwaukee? Plus, it looks like other airlines have been flying to this part of the country just fine."

She stopped even trying to be helpful at this point. Told me I could get a full refund, and that I'm free to book that last-minute fare on my own, at my own expense.

After many more minutes on hold with Midwest, I found out what that expense was (suffice to say: it was high), and tried Northwest again. This time, after even yet still more time on hold, I got someone more contrite who offered to find me a trip in on a different carrier, but by this time that evening's Milwaukee was totally booked (hmm. wonder why?) Best she could do was put me on a plane next morning at 7:15, through Kansas City, getting to Madison at 2:30.

So ok, that's what we did. Stayed the night in Astoria with a friend, cabbed at the crack of dawn back to the airport and slogged into America's Dairyland in the middle of the afternoon.

45 minutes away from the park I get a call from my folks that the party is in fact breaking up.

Shit.

Still had a good time with the immediate fam, thankfully, but missed out on the many 2nd and 3rd cousins and such, the barbeque (complete with corn on the cob that had been picked that morning!) and the games in the park with the kiddos.

Oh, and the true reason the flights were being cancelled? Northwest has been trying to schedule too few pilots for too many hours, and the union is responding with sickouts. Why not cop to that? Well, oddly enough, labor disputes aren't on their list of reasons it's ok to cancel flights without being liable to the customers. Guess what reasons are on that list: being forbidden by air traffic control, and weather.

Pretty lame, guys.