Are you there world? It's me, Friday.

Home in Hoboken after a long week, and a good long night of moviegoing at the Tribeca Film Festival, listening to some Caroline Shaw and sinking into not-unpleasant exhaustion.

Saw a program of documentary shorts - fantastic, love this fest if for no other reason (and there are other reasons) than that I get a chance to see things like this instead of just making a stray comment while watching some awards show that "we ought to go see things like that."

Then hustled over to another theater and watched Adult World, which was fun and funny as hell (and I'm not one to give an automatic nod to the latest member of the Roberts Dynasty).

Tomorrow is an appointment in the morning, followed by I hope another film or two, followed by a performance of East Side Stories.  Sunday is a breakfast/rehearsal date, then more movies, then another show.  And then a week of work, auditions, rehearsal, and performances.  Nobody ever said a weekend had to be restful.

Sunday in the Sun

Yesterday Cory and I met Rashmi, Mark and Michele out at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow for the practice day before the tournament started today. It was a beautiful day, though a hot one, and we had a a great time running around the grounds, watching some top players and doing some stargazing.

One of the highlights for me was seeing one of my personal tennis heroes out of retirement and in action (at least for the moment.)


Yup, that's Johnny Mac himself, whacking a serve. He was playing an informal game with some guy nobody seemed able to recognize. I'm thinking maybe a contest winner, silent auction for charity, something like that. The guy was pretty good too, but what a treat to see one of the guys who got me really into tennis in the first place.



We moved over to the Louis Armstrong stadium and saw Dinara Safina hitting with Carla Suarez Navarro.



It was just practice, of course, but that's the number one women's tennis player in the world and we were there on a beautiful day watching her for free. Pretty rad.


I like this shot a lot. [As usual, clicking on these shots lets you see a bigger, more detailed image. I recommend it.]

And over on the practice courts there was some guy who really grabbed Rashmi and Michele's attention:


Ok, ok, he's not just 'some guy.' That's Marat Safin, Dinara's older bro, and a former U.S. Open Champion and World Number One himself, walking onto the court with his hitting partner. I guess for some reason certain people find him sort of watchable, because there were some fans tucked into a little corner where there was a gap in the hedge bordering the practice courts, and a whole group of fans crowded up to the top of the bleachers for court 4 that let you peek over that hedge.



I eventually got tired of slipping on all the drool that was collecting on those bleachers and wandered around the compound on my own a little.



Fun way to spend a Sunday. Thanks to Rashmi for the invitation!

Weekend Update

Haven't posted one of these for a while, but this was a good weekend for a general update entry.

Friday -

was a quiet night in. Kind of perfect.

Saturday -

we slept in then went for a fantastic brunch at City Bakery. It was the last day of the Month of Hot Chocolate there. Mmmmm... The food there, while kind of pricey given that it's a serve-yourself buffet, is exceptionally good. Also, as Cory observed, if you don't have kids, it's the type of place that is apt to reinforce your attitudes toward childbearing, whatever they happen to be: it will appeal to you if you want to have kids (so many hip, elegant, interesting-seeming young families) or if you want NEVER to have kids (they are clearly a handful and a half, and it turns out they make a certain amount of noise).

Then I met Terry at MoMA, where we walked through the Martin Kippenberger exhibition. It was very very good - an ambitious retrospective of a wildly prolific artist who burned out and died way too young.

He comes through as a sort of Picasso-obsessed Duschamp disciple by way of Gerhard Richter with a heavy dose of cult-of-my-own-personality Warhol thrown in for good measure. But more original than that slapdash description implies. Also fascinating to me is that he came from a theater/acting background. You should see the show go if you have a chance.




One little note here: kudos to MoMA for overhearing what I (and surely several others) had been saying for some time and offering some audio tours online as podcasts. But why only some of them? If they're already set up for it, I'd think that all the tours (the current ones, at least) would be uploadable. I see why they'd be reluctant to post images of all the works, but it would be quite the useful convenience to be able to download the recorded tour ahead of time, maybe even listen to it between visits. They could restrict some of them to museum members, and make it a selling point. There's got to be somebody at MoMA whose job it is to follow blog alerts - got an answer for me here? Art partisans want to know.

Then Terry and I went to his studio and looked at some of his recent work. Some really good stuff. He's in the process of setting up his website - I'll be sure to link to it when it's running - and looking to get some gallery exhibitions going. If you've been to my place in the last couple years, you probably know that he's responsible for the big multi-panel piece I have up. I'll be shooting that for Terry's site, and maybe I'll post some of the images here too.

We went out and had some food as we watched Duke win a perilously close and hard-fought game against unranked Virginia Tech. Then we headed down to the Village to see Gomorrah, an Italian film which was the darling of all the New York critics last week, about the Neapolitan crime organization Camorra. Problem was, it was sold out. Sad. This is what happens when a movie gets to be the critical fave du jour. SO - we made a call and bought some advance tix at Lincoln Plaza so we could see a later showing uptown. It was good; maybe not really worth the hype, but I was in an especially Italian mood.

Have I mentioned that Cory and I are taking a trip to Rome? Well, we are. I reckon I'll be more than usually enthusiastic about things Italian for the next little while, at least.

Sunday -

I woke up early for some reason and went to the gym for the first time in over a week (I had been sick, and then had a procedure done on my tendonitis-ridden elbow) So that felt good. Then I moved Lola and ran some errands, made a good breakfast, read part of the paper, did a bunch of housework, listened to some great music, talked on the phone a LOT, including the all-important call to my sister, whose birthday was Friday (hey - I called her a bunch of times before I managed to get her on the phone). Also got to watch a good chunk of a Red Sox pre-season game: Beckett and Wakefield both looked strong, so that's good news. Whipped together what was actually a pretty fab dinner (ziti with a chicken, mushroom & artichoke cream sauce), watched a great episode of the Simpsons, did a little reading (including some out-loud Julius Caesar vocalizing - told you I was getting enthusiastic) and went to bed not too too late.

And that was my weekend. So there.

Memorial Day Rundown

Once again, a big weekend. Here's the rundown:

Friday Night:

- Went to jackson heights to meet jon & kir's new baby boy! Had a great time with those guys and beckett, read a story to joseph and met dean for the first time.
- Jon & i went to brooklyn to check out the club WWIX will be playing in late june - wouldn't you know it's matchless, where we saw easy anthems (and creaky boards) last weekend. Jqln met us out there - always a plus.

Saturday:

- Bit of a sleep in, but not too late. Way too much to do for that.
- Went to the gym for regular/non-yoga workout for the first time in a while
- Installed air conditioner for the summer.
- Picked up tim (dear friend and colleague writing a book about the living theater) at newark airport, caught up with him over a bite at home in air-conditioned comfort
- While tim met with other colleagues, went to elysian park to read a bit.
- Into NYC for a bit of dinner theater featuring a friend.
- Up to the heights for a birthday party. Not only that, a toga party. Leslie's friend's roommate was turning 19, and togas were the order of the evening, though not everyone wore them. Moi, no sheet, but i certainly appreciated some of the toga creativity - and a polish couple there made a remarkable drink from an herbal-infused vodka called 'zubrowka' that tastes like apple pie!

Sunday:

- Brunch with tim at amanda's - yum!
- Some baseball on TV. (Remember people, every loss for the yankees is a victory for civilization.)
- Into town to meet lori at a park by the river. On my way up 9th ave. in my finest faux boston/irish catholic outfit (red sox cap, notre dame t-shirt), i stepped into a bar briefly, not for a drink, but just to watch derek jeter strike out in the bottom of the 9th with two outs, a runner on third and the yanks down by one. Tee hee!
- Good conversation with lori at the park. Watched one of those gigantic cruise ships pull out. Were all those cops and heavily-armed soldiers there because of the ship, or for fleet week?
- Changed clothes at lori's place, then met tim to see 'beyond glory.' This show was excellent - stephen lang one-man show about medal-of-honor winners. Seriously good; deserves its own entry - maybe another time.
- Cheesesteak and beer after the show, then back to the 'boken.

Monday:

- Woke up early for some inscrutable reason. The good news was that i caught a reading of howard zinn's voices from 'a people's history of the united states' with a bunch of good actors on democracy now!
- Bagels with tim, which he couldn't eat because of a visceral reaction to cornmeal (he gets really sick if he eats it.) Yet another reason i hardly ever go to the shitty bagel place across the street - who bakes bagels on a pan with cornmeal???
- Took tim back to the newark airport so he could fly back to indy.
- The day that was supposed to be all rainy turned out very nice, so, back to elysian park for some sun and reading.
- Into NYC to see adrienne shelley's 'waitress;' not necessarily the kind of movie i'd normally gravitate toward, but because of adrienne (you read all about that here - and everywhere else - last november) i could not miss it. And it was good, if unexpectedly sentimental and hollywood for such an indie gal.
- Back to hoboken for a quick shower/bite/change before heading back into town for melissa errico at birdland. Shit, she's good. So relaxed and comfortable, and what a voice. Plus beautiful, radiant, funny, charismatic - who could ever like a girl like that? Damn patrick mcenroe...
- Nightcap with leslie.

There it is.

Whew!

Full Weekend

This was a busy, action-packed weekend. Maybe not as relaxing as some weekends in recent-ish memory, but i'm not complaining. Had a good time, and got some stuff done.

Friday: after work, met with marianne, lisa, amye, dan and rashmi at a bar for some happy hour action and catch-up conversation. After which i walked with rashmi to meet some of her friends at a bar by madison square, then we rolled down to soho - they had a fancy dinner at l'ecole; i caught the end of leah siegel's show over at rockwood music hall on allen st. - v/good, as always (though that room is too fucking small!) Then i subwayed up to morningside heights for katie's housewarming party - which was very fine indeed. The apartment is great, the guests were fun (j.p. and sherin were there) the food was remarkable (especially a mushroom pate that was really mouthwatering, and a plate of brownies made with hot pepper that snuck up on you in a slow-burning, extremely delicious way) and of course the hostess (and hosts!) were scintillating.

Saturday i finally went to see 'journey's end' in the afternoon; not my favorite time of day to see straight plays, but it was damned good. Go see it before it closes next month. But be warned - it kicks you in the gut. Mary jo made the mistake of traveling by cab on the day of the big dance parade on 5th ave, and barely made it to the belasco on time.

After the show i literally had to RUN to an audition on 8th ave. - set my phone to vibrate at me at 4:35, stuck around until the curtain started lowering at 4:38 then hightailed it to 36th and 8th for a 4:55 audition. Not something i recommend, but i made it. I found later that i missed out on an unusually moving curtain call. Small price to pay. Then i walked down to chelsea as it started to rain to meet up with mj again. She was going to introduce me to bikram yoga, but the rain and the aftermath of the show swayed us to chill at her place instead. Then sherin came into town and we had some italian food before heading out to williamsburg to see the band easy anthems at matchless. They were really good (as was the pseudo-80s power pop/art rock band before them, whose name i can't remember, to my shame) and we were joined by terry, jackee and j.p. That part of town is SOOOOOOoooo hipper-than-thou, but they do have some fun stuff going on.

Sunday i slept in a bit, then did laundry and grabbed some bagels and lox. Mmmmm... bagels and lox... Read part of the paper, checked out email and such, listened to the 'new' elliott smith: called 'new moon' it's a compilation of outtakes and alternate versions, which description does not do anything like justice to what an amazing record this is. One of the most important songwriters of his generation; we all miss him muchly.

Then rashmi came out and we played a set of tennis, then cleaned up and went into town for the grand unveiling of happy sunshine kung fu flower, which rocked the house. Good, forceful, funny satire nicely done to a packed house in a club setting - in your face and below your belt all at once. Glad to have been involved in an earlier incarnation, aim to return to the ninja fold when the union sitch gets worked out. But for now, they are going strong and a swell time was had by all (though there were some rumblings about the offensiveness factor, i don't know how one could do a show like this without some of that.) My main complaint was that after we used up our comp drink, the featured beer cost 9 bucks. Ouch.

So, yeah, full weekend.