And so it goes...

Some follow-up may be required.  Last weekend saw a trip to Wisconsin for my Grandmother's memorial.  Yes, she died back around New Year's, but the family made the call (an overall wise one, in my opinion) to hold the memorial event with a lot of notice, making it easier for people to come from far and wide, with the added bonus of not needing to contend with last winter's unremitting frigidity. Which was wonderful in its way, but which of course carried a certain amount of grief, sadness, pain, and family agita (always a healthy dose of family agita).

And, because fate is bitter and mocks us all, a few days before the trip, one of my friends from growing up lost his battle with depression and killed himself.  I can't bring myself to call it luck, but the circumstance of being out there meant that - while still prevented from attending his memorial, I was able to pay my respects to his father and brother, and take said brother out for drinks on a night when I think it's fair to say he could use some out-of-the-house amusement, or at least distraction.

As if that weren't enough (it was quite enough, thank you very much) my extremely-robust-but-there-ain't-no-getting-around-it-OLD Grandfather, who mourns in a way that I don't suppose anyone who hasn't been married for over 70 years can really identify with, had a couple health events of his own.  The first happened the day he arrived: after a 14-hour drive, he and Mom stopped at my aunt's house for supper.  On a trip to the bathroom he stumbled, lost his balance, and fell into the tub - had to go to the emergency room for X Rays. No real damage, but he scraped the hell out of his arms so it was good he was in a place where he could get them bandaged by a pro.  Then, the day after the memorial, which was a celebration but still heartbreaking, a group of us went out for breakfast and grandpa had a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA, sometimes imperfectly referred to as a mini-stroke) about two-thirds of the way through his french toast. His 8-yr-old great-granddaughter (my niece, shown feeding that calf in the last post) was sitting right across from him, eating french toast of her own, and I have to say she held it together remarkably well as I went over and got his attention, helped ease him back to alertness, went through some of the "rule out a for-reals stroke" steps, unhinged his fingers from his coffee cup, and got him standing and out into the parking lot with my cousin Wally. 

That fresh air did him good right away, as he recovered from the overheated sweat he’d broken into.  But of course it also meant another trip to the hospital, which he wanted about as much as a hole in the head.  Once we got him there, kicking and screaming, the visit went about as well as it could have, and it only took a small chunk out of what was going to be our last day in that part of the state before he headed east with one of his daughters.  And Cory and I headed to Madison to take care of the understandably unhinged friend whose brother had died the week before.

So that happened.  And believe it or not, I’m leaving out some of the nastiest stuff.  Now it’s Friday the 13^th and it’s raining.  Ruby Dee died, almost exactly the same age as my Grandmother, and I’m listening to some Duke Ellington and we’re seeing Macbeth tonight because fuck curses and fuck bad luck.  Power poses all around.

Wisco Weekend

A lot went on last weekend, a lot of it pretty dark, and the effects will resonate for a while.  But there were some streaks of light.

Next Day

Last Sunday looked something like this...

Times Square, natch

Promethean Zamboni

Petting Patience (not to be confused with Fortitude) for luck.

More Patience, more luck.

New York Niece

Yes, our big project last weekend was hosting my lovely and talented niece Mary.  We actually have been working up to this project for weeks ahead of time, planning bunches of things  while keeping our options wide open.

And so, I present to you some of the highlights:

The arrival on Friday night was smooth.  Picked her up at JFK and brought her back to Chelsea.  Cory ordered dinner that got there within minutes of our arrival.  Minutes, I tells ya - minutes!

Next morning, we had bagel breakfast, and then headed out for the big Day One:

A sight Mary got to know well: the good ol' 23rd St. stop on the 1 train.

Thence, we went to see The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was most excellent, at the fancy theater with barcoloungers on the UWS.

Hoofed it across town, stopping to grab treats at a fine establishment named Treat House [I believe Cory grabbed a shot; I'll plug it in if so] which we then ate in Central Park, near the Delacorte and the Great Lawn, before moving on to the Museum district.

Poked our heads into the Guggenheim.  

Then moved on to the Met, where we spent a while in the Marville/Paris photography exhibition before doing a highlights tour with one of their docents - that covered a good bunch of ground in terms of time and space, from ancient Greece, to Rome, to Assyria, Africa.

Then down to Little India in the East 6th environs.  Had dinner at one of the more aggressively colorful places, before wrapping up the day with the Neos.

1/4/14

Just a few words to ring in the New Year/celebrate this numerically rare date.

This Holiday Season was up and down, to say the least.  To cut to the most important chase, my Grandmother died last Sunday at the age of 91.  It wasn't what you'd call unexpected, but the grief has been nonetheless profound.  At the same time, there is a lot of life there for all of us to celebrate, and as my dad put it: "By now, she'll be directing the choir up there."

That said, there was a lot to celebrate in general too.  A fantastic T-Day in the Catskills; wonderful Thanksgiving and Chanukkah celebration with Joe and Andrew in L.I.C.; great music from Lucius at Bowery Ballroom and Yo La Tengo at the Bell House (though of course those shows gave me more than a few pangs of a different kind of grief over Maxwell's and the YLT benefit shows); stunning Shaw from the Bedlam company; impressive original work (again) from the Representatives; brilliant poetic theater from Dominique Morriseau and the LAByrinth in Sunset Baby; another moving musical from the Public with Fun Home; Mark Rylance's Richard III to bookend the Twelfth Night we caught last Thanksgiving week in London.  Good movies and friends and New Year's Eve with Les & Megan in the Village.  And the warmth of the Christmas celebration in New Jersey cut through both my and Cory's colds.  (Well, kind of.  We're still struggling to shake those off a week and a half later...)

Speaking of London I haven't even gotten into this year's (well, last year's, at this point) trip!

So, just a little on that now - a few shots from early in the trip, and one from the end of it.

The Saturday after we arrived, we took a walk over Tower Bridge to visit the Maltby Street Market, where we enjoyed, among other things, some food and libation.

Little Bird gin bloody mary.

And on the last day of the trip, we took a trip to the National Portrait Gallery.  Here's a shot Cory snapped of me and my rally beard with a picture of Will Ferrell.

Miss you, Grandma.

Birthday in Hotlanta

For those keeping score at home, last week was Jules' 7th Birthday.  Cory gets down to Atlanta for the kids' birthdays pretty much every year, and I join in when I can.

Saturday was the Big Day - not her actual birthday day, but the day of her big party (which involved karaoke, a scavenger hunt, a piñata, and a dancing video game I don't remember the name of.)

She's a lot happier here than she looks.  A fierce dancer for sure.

As if that weren't enough, in the morning was also a basketball game for Joe.

Here he is, rockin' the D.

He claims he had an off-day, but he was pretty amazing for an 8-year old.  And you ain't seen nothing till you've seen this kid play pop-a-shot.

Last Weekend: or, The Much-Needed, Absolutely Essential Return of T-Day

Yes, it was time once again for the Best Holiday of the Year to roll around.  T-Day made its triumphant return, to Cape Cod this time.

I did not take many photos this year, and those I did were on the phone camera rather than the camera camera, but here's Ye Olde Cape Cod Beauty in action:

We didn't know how much we needed it until we were there, but we really had to get out of the City in the wake of the Storm and the emotional agita of the Election.  [Do I need to tell you how much more tolerable it was to deal with the removal of our car and the reconstruction of the 'boken knowing that We the People had won victories for women, gay rights, reform of drug laws, access to health care, and so on?  I don't think I do.]  

The drive up was late and great.  We left after work last Thursday.  Definitely emotional pangs picking up the rental car.  Yes, yes, I know - it's just a car, an inanimate object.  Sue me for having a sentimental weakness for her.

I will paraphrase an email I wrote to the T-Day crowd: 

Lola was hit by Sandy, Lost in the Flood, shot down in a Meeting Across the River (although that probably actually refers to the other side of the river), caught in My City of Ruins, drowned in the Land of Hope and Dreams, and probably a half dozen or so other Jersey Strong Springsteen songs that would make some semblance of sense.

I'm not saying I'll never mention her again, but here is the last photo I took of her, going off to the Scrap Auction for Charity in the Sky:

Not for nothing, there is a wrong way to do this.  We had a very good experience with the NPR/Car Talk donation program, but not before we had a very bad experience with these other guys.  To recap: these guys good; these guys very, very bad.

But I digress.

We rolled into the Big T-Day House at about 12:30 Friday morning.  Hugs, food, drinks, banter started right away and lasted for four days.  Also pinochle, poker (for the first time at T-Day! I did alright.), a Murder Mystery Role-playing game (another T-Day first.  Turned out I dunnit.  I also invented a drink called the Dead Louie.  Recipe available upon request.)  And even yet still more food.

This year featured the central turkey meal, naturally, and the increasingly count-on-able Shrimp Bahaiana, Rosemary Bread, Kentucky Chocolate, etc.  I made a sweet potato soup, but didn't take a photo of it.  It looked just like a pot of soup.

I did consider the frittatas I made the morning after the big meal to be suitably photogenic.

This is the meaty-one, with two kinds of linguica (many thanks to Rich!)

And here's the veggie one, after it was cut. 

Both had onions & shallots, peppers, portabella mushrooms and plenty of cheese.  The veggie one also had olives to fill it out a little.  No potatoes or turkey, because in an attempt to minimize leftovers we only made two turkeys and about 7 pounds of potatoes.  The potatoes were gone the night of the Feast. The minimal remains of the turkeys were scraped from the container by the time I got the veggies chopped.  So be it.

And that's that.  All hail T-Day.

Holiday Festivities

Are you rockin' the Holiday action? I know you are.

Quick rundown of some of what's been going on:

Hanukkah Nights 2 and 7 were spent with Yo La Tengo - great shows, natch. Please send lots of good healing mojo to Ira the K.

Christmas Eve in Dumont with Cory cooking and eating the Feast of the Seven Fishes with Cory's Italian Family. All went well in spite of a small, shall we say, disagreement with a can opener.

Christmas morning I woke up way too early and couldn't fall back asleep for a long time, so I watched the last hour and a half of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Of course I did.

Later on, after waking up for real and having some steak and eggs (for some reason, I was craving a cowboy's breakfast) I called the folks and the grandfolks and then it was out to Paramus for Christmas presents and dinner with Cory's Extended Italian Family. Jollity ensued.

Boxing Day was chill; bit of running around looking for a place serving brunch food in the 'boken on a day that wasn't technically a weekend day but sure felt like one. Wound up at the diner. Later on, caught War Horse at the cinema up the street from BoHome before going to Maxwell's for dinner and the show.

And now it's back to work. I'll leave you with this holiday message from the world of Pop.



If my eyes and the internets don't deceive me, this is a poster from 1972 wishing "Season's Greetings from Ardent Records" We can only hope it's the real thing.

Celebrate

In honor of Thanksgiving, which will see me with my family for the first time in a looooooong long time (since high school? Is that possible? I can't think of a time since then that I spent Thanksgiving with my blood relatives except for Freshman year of college, and that was when Dad came out to Boston to have Turkey Day bachelor-style):

And also in honor of Carrie, with whom I saw La Boheme last night, and who I think would approve:

Go the F*#k to Sleep

Perhaps you've heard of Go the F#*k to Sleep, the new Not-Really-a-Children's-Book by Adam Mansbach & Ricardo Cortes. It's been getting more than a little media attention these days, and its press run has already crept up toward the half-million copies mark. Why? Because it's f*^king brilliant is why:

Mansbach, according to the official version of the story, was frustrated for the umpteenth time by the time and effort involved in getting his 2-year-old to go to sleep for the night, and posted on Fbook a joke to the effect of: "Be on the lookout for my forthcoming children's book, GO THE F%&K TO SLEEP." The reaction from his friends and fans (he was already an award-winning grown-up fiction writer) was so fiercely positive that he decided to write the book for real. He got himself an illustrator and, well, here we are: smash hit children's book that is utterly inappropriate for children, but all kinds of fantastic for adults.

And now, plug in your headphones and take a look at this little slice of amazingness - Werner Herzog (yes, the Werner Herzog) reading along with America's new favorite book.



After the bizarre media events of the last couple weeks (will there come a time when people look back and ask if we really spent all that time talking about a congressman's kinks when there was a war on? Sorry - three wars?) this just about made me weep tears of joy.

Long Weekend

Beautiful day in New York today: hot, sunny, mimosa-worthy; kind of perfect for what is treated as the unmeteorological-yet-quite-official First Weekend of Summer.

Relaxing morning followed by a nice walk to brunch followed by a lingering and even nicer walk to run some errands and now we're back in Chelsea listening to Django Reinhardt and about to get ready for a Sweet 17 birthday party for one of Cory's clan.

Very sad to read about Gil Scott-Heron last night. He had a hard life in a lot of ways, but did some very good, very important work. Very happy to have shared some time on this earth with him.

For him and for the day, here are a couple shots of a sculpture in a park in San Francisco - called Ecstasy in its current incarnation, it's a repurposed and reclaimed piece that Karen Cusolito and Dan Das Mann originally did for a huge Burning Man project. Fortunate to have crossed paths with this beautiful work while it was out in public.

Even yet still more birthdays

"What?" you say, "Haven't we had enough of these incessant birthday celebrations you keep babbling about? Is nothing going on in the world besides celebrations of the day somebody happened to be born? Because, you know what? I think a few other things are going on!"

Yes, you may say that, and you'd have a point. But let's look at the data from another vantage: today is not simply the birthday of Ira Glass of This American Life. It's not just the birthday of actresses Miranda Richardson and Jessica Biel and the 100th birthday of Jean Harlow. It's not only the birthday of inventor Alexander Graham Bell and athletes Herschel Walker and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Nay - it is also the birthday (and not just any birthday, but his 13th birthday: that luckiest of numbers and his entree to the world of teenagedness) of my very own nephew Sam, who's way out in Phoenix and I won't be able to see him, but it's worth celebrating anyway, wouldn't you say?

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Being thankful for friends is one of the most fundamental forms of gratitude for me; my family of friends is an amazing source of support, and I can't believe how lucky I am to have them.

Family family is also something to be thankful for; mine dealt with a rough event last week, and have been going through a lot in general, but all are well, thankfully. Please send good mojo as they swing through another transition.

Health is one of those things it's important to keep in your conscious gratitude too - it's all too easy to take it for granted until it slips. I write this as I fight off a cold with a carving knife and a machete.

Last night I finally went down the rabbit hole to the world of fancy phones. And now I know what makes those birds so angry...

Kanye's new record may not be quite as good as all the hype, but it's pretty effin' good.

If you have a taste for theater, you should go see Mistakes Were Made at the Barrow Street. Seriously, it works on a bunch of levels, is funny as hell, and you won't see better acting very often than you'll get from Michael Shannon.

I'm thankful I live in New York. And New Jersey.

Zoo Time

As you know, my sister's family moved to Long Island a few weeks ago. Their first visit to the city since that move came a couple weekends ago, when they drove in to celebrate Mary's 11th birthday.

The current vagaries of my life are making it tricky to devote sustained time to creating a post, so for now, enjoy this mini-series, shot by Cory, detailing our side-trip with Anna and Jason to the children's zoo:


Anna trying to feed a llama. He was pretty blasé.


She had a little better luck with a sheep.


The sheep thanking me with a nuzzle to the noggin.


Cory's closeup of a llama.

There was much fun that day. Maybe I'll get to posting more about it later.

But first... I'm off to Paris. Au revoir for a few days!

The Big Takeover

No, I'm not talking about the so-funny-I-forgot-to-laugh management transfer at BP. Nor the fact that Bernadette Peters is stepping into the role that Catherine Zeta-Jones started in the current production of A Little Night Music.

I'm talking about the punk/indie/lo-fi music magazine Jack Rabid started some 30 years ago. The anniversary got some press, and they had a concert/birthday party last weekend too.

"This was the most accidental 30-year career I’ve ever seen."

Not that I went to it or anything. My weekend was spent (quite happily, thank you very much) with Cory and my sister and my father, who were resting up (sort of) from setting up her house on Long Island. In addition to the resting, Dad and I saw Winter's Tale at the Delacorte, we went shopping for air conditioners for Lori, and we all hit Citi Field for the D-Backs Debacle (Ugh. Argh. Yikes.) Plus, you know, good ol' family time.

I also missed the Bill Schimmel Accordionarama that Carl was playing in. Sigh. You can't do it all.

Pix

Ok, not really an expansion of the Hotlanta post, but I uploaded a bunch of shots (mostly from Atlanta, with a couple others thrown in just to confuse you) to a flickr page. Enjoy, if you're up for that sort of thing.

Oh, all right, here's one for the time being. For your trouble.

Hotlanta

I'm back from the conference in Orlando. (Dayjob stuff. Lots of work and no small amount of pressure this year for a variety of reasons. It went well enough, all things weighed.) Between there and here I stopped in Atlanta for a visit with Cory's family on the occasion of Cory's nephew Joe's 6th birthday. We stayed with her brother and his wife and kids. I'll see if I can muster a full-on entry about that mini-trip, but for now, here are a few shots documenting the festivities.

We'll start with a shot of the birthday boy:

There was a smaller family party on Saturday. Cory and I gave presents to her niece and nephew and a couple of their cousins. We gave harmonicas to the older kids, but baby Maya really took to the instrument...

Kind of amazing how thoughtfully she treated it - sounded great! I swear she was even bending notes a couple times - that open channel of breath in natural action.

On Sunday, a bigger group joined us at a minor league baseball game. We had a picnic, and the group all joined in on a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.

Joe's sister Jules got into the game too. Here she is with her cousin Ryan and her uncle John.




I like this shot of Joe a lot.

And here are a couple of the family dogs. Nothing earth-shaking here, just a young dog Blondie with a LOT of energy...



...and an older dog, Joplin, who gets a lot of rest.

I know she looks a little, um, hungry there. She's an Italian Greyhound - they all sort of look like that. And Joplin, well, she's sort of losing interest in food. Cory thinks maybe she's trying to do that thing where you lower your calorie intake so you live longer. I don't know. Could be.

Each is extremely sweet in her own way. Glad I got to know them.

Lost and Found

I've been pretty busy with rehearsals and a bunch of other things lately, so my input here has been on the sketchy side. And I won't be able to catch you all up on everything now either, but in the spirit of putting something out there...

Cory and I hosted a party for the finale of Lost last weekend. We don't qualify for the most serious category of Lost fan (those would be the ones who have whole blogs devoted to dissecting the inner workings and mythologies of the show), but we took it seriously enough to do some cooking and put together some design elements.

Our notion of design for a party was not nearly enough for my sister Lori, however. Although she has never seen a single episode of Lost, she insisted that we 'theme it up' a notch or two, and put in more of an effort than would have occurred to us.

Cory ordered some custom M&Ms. BIG UPS to Cory for the notion, and seeing it through! If you know the show, these are pretty cool; if you don't, they're probably just baffling.




The inscribed candies got little bags to be handed out to the partiers. The skull image goes with the show at least a little bit ("Adam and Eve" in the cave; the general sense of foreboding and rampant death in the last few episodes)




And the simple Black and White candies went into coconut shells.



We also got a pineapple to fit with the Pacific Island theme, used the top as a centerpiece and skewered chunks with toothpicks decorated with banners Lori made, inscribed with character names.


Stole this photo from my sister, as I somehow managed not to get any shots of the pineapple spread.

Check out her work! She picked out the tropical paper, and we gave her a list of names (with the name crossed out for characters who were dead in one timeline or another.) She used special paper and ink for the names of the "Candidates." Pretty good for someone who has never seen the show, and doesn't care about it at all.



We made a fish stew. Lori helped a lot with this on the sous chef end, but she doesn't really like fish (as in - she runs screaming from the kitchen when seafood is cooking), so she didn't stick around for the completion of that.



It was a good stew - I used cod and mahi mahi in a garlic lime marinade; peppers, onions, tomatoes, scallions, cilantro; coconut milk made it extra-special island-y; and the secret ingredient was oil simmered with annatto seed. Yum.

Also a special blend of spices, including a hands-across-the-water conjunction of hot sauces.



Here's the food table before people arrived. The dips haven't been put into the bowls yet, and a lot of food was yet to come.

This shot gives a sense of the party in action.

Off to the left is the corner of the now-fully-loaded food table. You can see the platter with Lia's corn, black bean and quinoa salad, and the sesame-peanut sauce that went on Daniel and Susan's buckwheat noodles. Sadly, I did not get a shot of Sherin's broccoli-mango salad or Shannon's bread bowls, but trust me: all was extremely tasty!

Also, Sherin put together a game of Lost Bingo. She gathered a bunch of possible events of varying likelihood, and arranged them into a bingo board to check things off as they happened. They were really great!

Cory had the first winning card. She won a mango! Here's the Great and Glorious Card of Victory:

I love this shot - lots of joy in the faces of Shannon, Leslie and Cory.

'Twas a fun party. Maybe see you at the next one - in another life, brother.