The Sounds of Saturday

Not unpredictable to spend a cold-but-not-quite-as-COLD-as-it-has-been Saturday mostly indoors.

What it sounds like is: opera on the radio + the "let-me-out-of-here" hiss and gurgle of the steam from the last few drops of coffee in the thermos + the "what-the-shit-is-going-on?" rattle clank and hiss of the radiator racketing valiantly against the weather.

Snow just starting to fall.  Again.  Cory taking a nap trying to shake the head-throat-and-chest cold that came along with the stupid-cold temperatures.  I've been going back and forth between the paper, magazines, a book, and the multitude of screens.

Squeezing shows in wherever we can.  Did a BMI reading on Wednesday.  Last night was a Bud Light- (for the performers) and Murphy's- (for me) -soaked Hank V, with nary a Hank Cinq joke to be heard, as part of Sherin & JP's going away extravaganza in honor of their imminent West Coast relocation. Tonight is the Gob Squad at Skirball.  Tomorrow Cory presumably will rally for a seminar she needs to attend; I may hit a matinee, and then the Oscars tomorrow night.

Anecdote from this morning:

Cory asked about the music I'd put on.

Oh, it's a compilation Fast Folk put out in the late 80s.

"Have you played this before?"

No, I just found it a little while ago.  Frank used to read & listen to the Fast Folk stuff a lot - I just found all these streaming versions of their releases. I was looking for a dulcimer player we used to listen to.

"Of course you were."

Photo K. Devine for SpeakEasy Musicians' Cooperative

The Waste Land of Area X

 More on London later.  For now, here are two images for the Dante fans out there (and you know you're out there...)

This is the "Area X" that has sprung up in Port Authority since the Storm, to allow for all the extra people taking the bus to the 'boken while the Path is out of commission.  What does it have to do with Dante?  There's a big ol' hint in the title of this post.

Frankenstorm

The Storm is on its way and everyone knows it is on its way.  You've pulled out the E. Power Biggs, stocked up on the water, beer, and snacks, and hunkered down, Northeast.  So now, we need to focus on the gravest danger of them all: Storm Zombies.

This is surely the riskiest Storm Zombie moment of our lifetimes, with landfall scheduled to come mere minutes before Halloween, and the freakish Frankennature of the colliding hurricane, cold front and low pressure center almost certain to lead to Electrical Incidents of the kind that are simultaneously lethal and re-animating.  So take the precautions and protect yourselves and your loved ones as much as you can.  A few things to remember:

• As with all zombies, the only sure way to stop a Storm Zombie is decapitation.  A machete is your best bet, but if, like most city dwellers, you don't have one of those lying around, make sure you know where your largest butcher knife or cleaver is.  The undead flesh and bone is much easier to cut through than a live person's, but you'll still probably need to get in three or four hacks - be persistent!
• They're after brains.  In the event of a zombie encounter, wear a hat or, better yet, a helmet.
• The subway is probably the most dangerous place for the next few days - all that rampant electricity, plus those dark damp tunnels are already a natural home for the zombies.  Use your head (without being conspicuously brainy - see above).
• If a family member or loved one does get Zombified, eschew impulses of mercy.  Put sentiment aside and be strong - remember, you'll be saving them from an interminable future of insatiable brain-lust.
• That said, be very certain before you start getting all stabby and slashy with family members.  Your brother-in-law is probably not a Storm Zombie.  His usual, hollow-eyed look is not enough of a symptom.
• Under no circumstances should you have sex with a zombie, no matter how tempting.  It almost never ends well.

That's it for now.  There's lots more information out there if you are still craving defense strategies.

Be safe, be well, and may all your problems be imaginary.
 

Touches of Autumn

There has been a lot of summer in the air (still so hot and humid!), but little flashes of fall have been peeking through.

Related topic: this Van Gogh painting of an almond tree in blossom clearly represents a springtime event, but the red background makes me think of autumn.

Discuss.

Goodnight Irene

Easing out of what was a great week of vacation, capped by a very intense couple of days of travel and hurricane-fatigue.

We had a wedding to attend in Connecticut yesterday. And although it was a four hour drive (plus a ferry ride from Martha's Vineyard) to get there, we made the somewhat questionable decision to leave the reception early enough to get back in the car and bolt to New York before the really heavy stuff hit. That's right, we figured our best bet was to drive into Hurricane Irene, on the logic that we wouldn't be able to get through if we waited until today, and, well, we really wanted to get home.

In retrospect, it was the right call. The drive was hairy (lots of rain, roads already flooding, defogger overworked) although I have to say the traffic was lighter than I've ever seen on those roads. As in, scary empty on I684, the Hutch, the Saw Mill and the Hudson. As in, one of those spooky apocalypse movies "empty-but-for-other-crazy-people" empty.

Hoboken was closed off altogether - evacuated, cars off the streets (including the parking spaces), so that wasn't even an option. As it happened, we made it to Chelsea in a couple of medium-tense hours, got a parking spot for Lola on reliably high ground, unloaded and unpacked (including the four gallons of spring water we brought home from Massachusetts), filled the tub with water, made sure the flashlights were handy, and absorbed from TV and the internets all the reasons why we probably should have stayed away. We had considered staying with friends in New Paltz and just sticking it out until Monday - it's doubly good we didn't do that, since New Paltz actually seems to have been hit with at least as much flooding as New York.

Woke up to see the rain mostly gone but the wind still in full vigor. Laid low for a while, then went to Kelly's for a bad weather movie party. Exhausted now, and not sure if the trains will be back up tomorrow. Watching the VMAs for some reason and about to fall asleep. Kevin R. Free gets some points for pointing out via Twitter that pop culture itself jumped the shark. Take a moment to mull that with me.

And while I love what Anthony King tweeted about the storm ("If Steve Jobs was still CEO, iRene would have been HUGE.") if we're going to be disappointed that this storm wasn't more disastrous than it actually was, that's the kind of disappointment I can live with pretty easily.

Goodnight everybody.

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.

Happy Opening Day!

It's not feeling too springy, but it's the first day of the baseball season! Woo hoo!

Gotta tell you though, this kind of thing just feels weird and wrong.

Equinoctial

Happy First Day of Spring, everybody!

So far, I've been celebrating by not even leaving the apartment, but that just seems wrong, so I'll shift gears soon. but first I wanted to say I hope you all had a good winter (as uncooperative as the weather tended to be) and that you're in good health (no small wish in this era of earthquakes and tsunamis and wars and floods).

This week was a full one, with networking and socializing on Monday, a kind of a night off on Tuesday, Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met on Wednesday (great! It's part of the HD broadcasts too, so you can catch it at a theater near you...), The Motherf**ker with the Hat on Thursday (which evening included dinner with a couple of my good friends who had somehow managed not to be in the same room with Cory until now), the Premier of the Mel & El webisodes at Ars Nova on Friday (featuring yours truly as a Mean Man, according to the credits; my bitchy gay character was rechristened by Kevin and Carl as one of the Mean Girls. I'll take the career boost.) and the Martha Graham Dance Company at Jazz at Lincoln Center last night (featuring the company of out-of-town guests from both Virginia and Italia)

Whew!

How do we do it? The secret is to sacrifice cleanliness.

Anyway, it's clearly time to change over the wallpaper photo on my phone from the snow-covered branches outside our window to something more printemps. I'll try to grab something this afternoon.

Night Off

It's thunderous in Nuevo York. We just watched a viddy (Dream of Life) on our only night off this week, and now the thunder is raising a ruckus. We have to clean up from dinner before we crash - very good simple meal: brown rice pasta with red sauce with lots of garlic, onion and mushroom, green salad with mushrooms and kalamata olives, a surprisingly excellent sourdough, and some predictably excellent cheeses to round it out. Oh, and some a Wisconsin beer I've never had before called Eastside (don't know why, but it's kind of hard to get non-mass-produced Wisconsin beer out here). I also got us a bottle of acqua minerale because I've been thinking about Rome, in part because our Roman friends are coming to NYC in a couple days.

Anyway, it's good to have a night off sometimes. Rain will turn up as we sleep.

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.

Life Is Good

Yes, there will be naysayers (there are always naysayers.) You could mention how the Health Care Bill is selling out the working poor (again), delivering even yet still another affront to women's health, and a form of political suicide for the already unfathombly divided Democratic Party. And you'd have a point. You could refer to the Global Climate Conference ending in a toothless accord. And there'd be something to that. You might wonder: whither the American Left? When they're reduced to playing "gotcha" about commentators spatting over whether the First Family was polite at a Christmas Party? And you would very, very sadly be on to something.

But I maintain that in these days between Chanukah and Christmas, joy is alive and magic is afoot. Mike Daisey delivered an astounding show - I'm telling you, people: when this man is in town, drop what you're doing and go see his show. No kidding. Bob Dylan's Christmas record is amazing - irrationally fun (thanks for a great holiday present, Cory!) The Ailey Season is driving forth with full vigor. This past weekend's Snowgasm left us with a Winter Wonderland.

And as if that weren't enough, enjoy this video confection. It's latter-day Bad Lieutenant Cage, diving deep into translation on behalf of pinball gambling sensation Pachinko. And now, I present it for your comfort and joy.



You're welcome.

Whether the Weather is cold...

A bizarrely saddening set of statistics, courtesy Sherin:

Average June rainfall for New York City: 3.84"

2009 June rainfall for New York : 5.41" and counting

May had 14 days of "light rain" and 6 days of "heavy rain."

Sherin's conclusion: NYC needs some sun lamps and prozac. Whatever the prescription, this weather is unnecessary, wouldn't you say? It hath made me mad. Share the wealth, Mother Nature!

Snow Day

But not for me.

This is the last-gasp storm of the winter in New York (because I say so), and I am in the office for no good reason I can think of.

I feel like everyone else has a snow day and my school is the only one that didn't close.

Took some rather basic and uninspired photos before I left my apartment. Could have gotten some nice blizzard shots, but I had to, you know, go to work. Sad.

By the way: the boss did not make it in today. This after her 'don't come in until the roads are safe' - i.e. DO come in eventually - message. Shocking, I know.

This is Seattle?

Hehehe.

10-Day Forecast for
Seattle, WA

			High / Low (°F)	Precip. %
Today Sep 06		Partly Cloudy	71°/57°	10 %
Sun Sep 07		Sunny	75°/57°	20 %
Mon Sep 08		Sunny	77°/55°	0 %
Tue Sep 09		AM Clouds / PM Sun	68°/53°	10 %
Wed Sep 10		Sunny	70°/54°	20 %
Thu Sep 11		Sunny	72°/55°	10 %
Fri Sep 12		Sunny	72°/54°	0 %
Sat Sep 13		Sunny	70°/54°	10 %
Sun Sep 14		Sunny	68°/53°	20 %
Mon Sep 15		Sunny	69°/54°	10 %

Missing Mambo

Well, i ended up not heading to williamsburg last night for jackee's party, which i'm pretty sad about, especially after emailing a couple friends about how i wasn't going to let the weather hold me back, and how lame i thought my partypartner was for bowing out due to something as petty as driving wind and hail biting into your face. I was all ready: dressed up in my new shirt, flat front slacks, houndstooth jacket, gene kelly tie and freshly shaved head (the oxblood shoes weren't going to make the trip in any case), and looking, well, i suppose about as good as i ever get to look. Then i got a call from a friend who wanted me to join her and her roomie for dinner right out here in the 'boken. I declined at first, figuring i'd just nosh at home then get out to billyburg, but then i thought - hey, why not trade in the cancelled dinner out for a different one, and ended up joining them. And as i was leaving my apartment, i got a call from jackee saying it was really bad out and maybe i shouldn't come after all. I was like, 'no, you're having a party, i want to go.' And she was like, 'really? You want to cross two rivers and trudge through the tundra?' So we left it that i'd check in after dinner and see how things were going.

Dinner, by the way was fantastic - met at zafra with caroline and nicole, whom i'd met at their housewarming party last weekend. Hadn't been to zafra before, and it was great: a cuban place with excellent food, pretty good service and a fab atmosphere. We had a potato appetizer with an incredible sauce; a main dish of roast pork -perfect: some of the best i've ever had - and one of spicy chicken skewers and sweet potato that was also very nice; and side dishes of kale and fried plantain. It's a BYO place (which i love) so we had some pinot grigio that we brought along, and skipped dessert (as even with only two main dishes, it was enough food for there to be takehome leftovers). I'll SOOOOO be going back there; let me know if you want to make the trip.

Anyway, as we finished up and stepped back out, the hail was as bad as ever and there was a surprising amount of accumulation. The gals had talked me into watching a movie with them, so i called jqln to let her know when we got back to their place. Of course, the party was rockin'. D'oh! But at this point, it just wasn't going to happen - it was already 10:30, i was a half mile from the train station, the train ride(s) would take a minimum of a half hour, and then another half mile walk through the snow to get to her crib. Still, i felt lame as hell about missing it.

On the other hand, it was great hanging with nicole and caroline. They're very cool, have a great place (ah, the 'boken), and we finished off the magnum of pinot and watched 'half nelson.' Which was great; one of those movies that fuck your shit up.

In one scene, a character puts on the 'free to be you and me' lp and plays it's alright to cry, sung by rosey grier. I giggled a bit, and caroline said "what is that song?" She'd never heard it, or heard of 'free to be...' And why should she have, i suppose, that film being a total product of the height of women's lib circa 1973? It was a part of the childhood of a lot of people i know, though, of a bunch of age groups: i've met people in their early 20s who appear to know every word, and people older than that who've never heard of it.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, check out rosey.