Back to Rome

Richard Meier has taken some heat for his design of the museum which surrounds the Ara Pacis. Without getting into it too much, the controversy seems to revolve around the juxtaposition of contemporary and ancient, and the naysayers have been kind of nasty. Julian Schnabel hated it; one of Rome's mayors threatened to tear it down. There have been defenders of the work too, and plenty of them.


It's a tricky thing, putting up a building around an altar dedicted to peace over 2,000 years ago. Trickier still, replacing a structure that was erected by one of Mussolini's designers. Even yet still trickier, being the first work of modern architecture to go up in Rome's Historic Center since the 1930s.

The museum is situated on the banks of the Tiber, very near Augustus' tomb. Meier found the lines and light to frame the arches and panels of this celebration of the Pax Augusta.





The surviving panels (from the altar originally built in 9 B.C.) are in various states of preservation.



Some are astoundingly well-preserved.



Others needed some reconstructive help, in the form of best-guess line drawings.



Myself, I was very impressed. I thought some of the track lighting instruments may have been on the cheesy side, though I wasn't there when they were illuminated, so I don't know how they affect the experience. The natural light in this glass-and-travertine museum was brilliant, and provided a clear landscape for this incredible ancient altar, and its amazing details.



Meier's building went up in 2006, and the entryway included this minimal take on the tradition of Rome's fountains. I guess someone who's predisposed to resist contemporary design in a city justly renouned for ancient architecture is not going to be persuaded, but this was a clear and illuminating frame for this significant ruin.

By the way - you've probably figured this out already, but you can get a lot more detail from these photos if you click on the images. Knock yourself out.

Guess What I Did Last Night?

Badlands
Adam Raised a Cain
Outlaw Pete
Radio Nowhere
She’s the One (!)
Working On a Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Raise Your Hand
Growin’ Up (!!)
I’m Going Down
Prove It All Night
Waitin’ on a Sunny Day
The Promised Land
The Wrestler
Kingdom of Days
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born To Run (house lights turned up throughout the arena)



And THEN:
Hard Times
Thunder Road
Jungleland (!!!)
Land of Hope and Dreams
American Land
Rosalita (after a false 'final ending,' with the lights up again)

And Max's son Jay Weinberg, who is 18 (and goes to school in Hoboken, thank you very much) was playing drums, and he was great!!

Sometimes, life is actually very, very good.

More fun with Mel & El

I know I just wrote about this yesterday, but I heard from Amy Groeschel at Ars Nova and wanted to follow up a little bit on Mel & El - Show and Tell.

First of all, she sent me some rad pix of the chix:


Dancing away in the Little Pink Box.


And here they are in full-out croon mode.

Also (and this is very exciting) she has offered to give away tickets to readers of Love Minus Zero who get in touch with her and mention that they heard about it here. That's right, I said 'give.' As in free.

So, THAT'S pretty cool!

If you want to see the show (and why wouldn't you?) shoot Amy an email at agroeschel@arsnovanyc.com and let her know you read about it on my blog. There's no catch, but there are a couple things to consider:

• She's not giving away unlimited tickets (duh) so don't try to claim a pack for you and 20 of your closest friends.


• You may want to request sooner rather than later - both in terms of asking soon (so they don't run out) and going soon (so you can spread the word.)

In other news - I just got cast as Claudius in a production of Hamlet up at Columbia. Too early to tell what kind of production we're looking at (other than short - the director claims it will come in under 2:30, which believe it or not is short for Hamlet) but rest assured I'll keep you posted.

Ok - that's it. I'll leave you with one last shot of the gals in their glory:

Mel & El

I'm interrupting the posts about Rome to bring you news of a show that just opened that you may want to go see: Mel & El {Show and Tell} Oh yes - it rhymes: that's kind of a theme for them. It's happening at Ars Nova (way west on 54th Street - by where they shoot Colbert) and it's running through May 30. I know, I know, I haven't given you enough notice. Leave me alone - things have been hectic.

The basic deal with this show is that Mel & El (Melanie Adelman and Ellie Dvorkin) have known each other since they were about 12 - for reals, yo. And they've been making up shows about it for a while now. If you are (or were) a girl, or happen to know any girls, you may be aware of this phenomenon wherein girls get together and sing and dance just for fun. They may reenact pop songs and/or tv commercials. They may even make up some of their own. And as they get a little older, the material they come up with gets a little... randier. This tends to happen in bedrooms but has been known to occur in other locales as well (the singing and dancing, silly - get your mind out of the gutter!) I haven't really done my homework on the subject, but I think this happens kinda all the time. Certainly it happened with Mel & El, and they're here to tell you all about it. And sing about it, and dance about it. I'm tempted to say they just started out making up these skits in their bedrooms and just never stopped, but that doesn't do them justice: they are trained singer/actors and have been developing this show for years. And it's really good! They have recreated that bedroom ('80s-style, dubbed the Little Pink Box, walls covered with photos and posters of all your favorite pop icons of the era. Well, maybe not all. I didn't see any Billy Idol, but the decade is well represented.) The show is witty and vibrant and clever and creative - and very funny. It is immediately engaging, even before they step on the stage: the set really is a blast, it establishes the scene and entertains you all on its own. And then the performers show up and blow the doors off the joint with their energy and talent.

Sadly, there aren't really any photos of the show, or any current ones of the duo, available online to speak of, so I can't offer up any visual stimulation. But I think you should consider checking this show out, especially if you have an affinity for musical theater and/or pop culture of the 80s. Ars Nova is a great spot too - good space, high quality original programming, I've done a bit of work there myself. Last but not least, if you're strapped for cash, I think there are some ticket discounts floating around out there too.

If you want an advance peek, here are Mel & El riffing backstage with the creative team.

The Tour Guide

When we first decided to go Rome, Cory went into research overdrive. I had come to realize that this is rather typical for her, but as a relative newbie I still found it impressive. Within minutes, I was presented with a list of hotels in various price ranges, websites for consideration, restaurants to look into, and sightseeing options. I did some of this homework too, and together we assembled a very good dossier to refer to while were planning (and while we were there - it turned out to be a great reference for food choices) but in truth there's really no comparison between my work and hers - when it comes to this stuff, Cory is a machine, and a high-performance one at that.

Another thing she found was a tour guide for a couple of our events: Jason Spiehler, whose advertising flavor claims he's the Best Tour Guide in Rome, and based on our experience, I wouldn't put up an argument over the title.



We first reached out to him via email, which allowed us to plan visits to the Vatican and to the Forum well ahead of time (the email connection also got us a discount on what was already a pretty darned good deal.) I'm the first to admit that guided tours can be thoroughly deflating, but under the right circumstances and with the right guide, they can add immeasurably to an experience. And, for us at least, Jason was definitely the right guide: originally from Louisiana, he's brilliantly spoken and charismatic; he has a background (and an advanced degree) in Historical Theology, and knows his art history inside and out. He's funny, too - those subjects may sound dry, but Jason has a really good sense of humor and brought things to vibrant life.

We met him on the edge of St. Peter's Square, where we joined a large-ish group (30 or so of us.) He used a little microphone/transmitter set up to talk to that many people without being loud or obnoxious, so if you see little black things coming out of our ears in any of the Vatican photos, that would be why. He talked us through the architecture of the Holy See, the history of the Papacy and its relationship with Rome, Italy and Europe, including the creation of the nation-state of Vatican City (complete with anecdotes about the efficiency - or lack thereof - of the Italian postal service relative to that of the Vatican's, which is run by the Swiss. We don't want to engage in cultural stereotyping too much, but organization really does not seem to be Italy's strongest suit.) His discussion of the buildings, land and infrastructure took us through the layers of history which are evident in the Vatican, as virtually everywhere in Rome - the walls, the monuments, the fortifications, the military actions, the artistic commissions.

We stopped at a caffe for a pit stop, and for Jason to collect our fees (which, again, Cory had negotiated well ahead of time) I had another of the fantastic espressos which I now seem destined to seek futilely until I return to Italy, and then we trekked over to the entrance to the interior and the museum and were greeted by one of our only undeniably negative experiences while we were there: it was unbelievably crowded, because of the huge number of visitors (Italian and foreign.) And it was raining. Oy. But here again, our tour guide came to the rescue: because we were in a group, we got to use the preferential (i.e. shorter) line to get into the museum. And because we were in his group, it was shorter still, as he haggled our way to a prime spot on that line. Still, it was a half an hour of standing in the rain, and the 3-Euro umbrellas that were all over the place when the sun was shining were suddenly nowhere to be seen. By the time they finally did appear, they cost 5 Euro, and we were wet enough that they wouldn't have done us much good.

Listen, the Vatican is incredible no matter how you slice it. Bernini, Michelangelo, Rafael - you can't really go wrong. But when there's someone there to tell you about Pomodoro's Sfera con Sfera, and joke about how it looks like the Death Star, it helps.

And it enhances your experience of something like, oh, the Sistine Chapel if you know something about the historical context; about Michelangelo's career, his professional relationships and rivalries and how they fit into his work there; about the physical process of creating frescoes, and the challenges of learning this process, on a ceiling, under a Papal order, when you've spent your life training to be a sculptor. Jason was able to give us this and then some, in a way that was entertaining and alive. And he talked us through the imagery on the Ceiling and in the Last Judgement fresco behind the altar that Michelangelo painted 25 years later.

And he talked us through the statuary, the tapestries, the trompe l'oeil, the architecture, the Pieta... Of course he didn't cover the whole Vatican, nor the entire Forum: no one could in a day. But let me tell you, people - finding this guy was more than worthwhile.

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...

Archetypes and Icons

You all know that image, right? What? You don't? Well, it's all over Rome.

For those of you in need of a refresher, this sculpture depicts Romulus and Remus, who according to legend were the twin sons of Mars and the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia (gods didn't have the same respect for the Vestals that people did) and were floated down the river in a basket to save them from being killed by their mother's uncle (remind anybody of anything?) They were protected by a river god and nursed by a she-wolf, then discovered and raised by a kindly shepherd and his wife. We found out in Rome that lupa means not only she-wolf but was also slang for "prostitute," so some people interpret the legend that way, but the 'raised-by-wolves' version holds much greater currency, and you see variations of the image in that statue repeated endlessly in the Eternal City. The legend continues, you see, with the twins growing up and killing that jealous great uncle (d'oh!) and reinstating their grandfather as king (I guess some god or other must have told them the deal.) They then decided to build a city of their own on the spot where the lupa had nursed them, but then had an argument about how to do that and Romulus killed Remus (d'oh!!) named the city after himself and established the three tribes that would populate it.

We saw this piece at the Capitoline Museum, which is one of those places that we could have blown off, but it's so good we didn't. Amazing pieces in there, including this Etruscan beauty. (Well, there's some debate as to whether the Etruscans actually made it, but for now I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.)

This is one of my favorite shots from our trip. It's the Temple of Saturn, from the Forum.



And here's the curve of the Colosseum, streetlights and all.


And finally (for now) a shot of your friendly neighborhood blogger continuing the conceptual continuity of dancing in front of churches he started more than 10 years ago in London, this time in front of the Holiest of Holies.

More on the Vatican later...

Viva Italia

Back from Rome. Miss it already.



What an amazing place. A lot that impressed me is exactly what you'd expect: the art, the fountains, the churches, the ruins, the food and wine. This all was framed by trips that were very smooth in both directions and all-but-perfect weather. And it was brought to life and shared by the fantastic people: a friendly driver named Giuseppe who gave us an impromptu tour of the city on the way from the airport to the hotel; Tiziano, the concierge who gave us our first shove in the right direction; our Roman friends Claudia and Valter, who took a huge chunk of their holiday afternoon and evening to spend with us; the many hosts and waiters and cooks and barristas at the various restaurants, trattorias, gelaterias and pizzerias we visited; Jason Spiehler, who has a reputation for being the best tour guide in Rome that just might be deserved.

It was an astounding experience. You may have read about Agrippa and Augustus and Hadrian and Boniface IV, but none of that really prepares you for seeing the ceiling of the Pantheon.



I also had the benefit of traveling with someone who's done it a lot. Cory helped me negotiate the jet lag by encouraging sleep on the way out (allowing us to power through our arrival evening.) She was a great travel partner right through the airplane movie and the two times she kicked my ass in scrabble on the way back. I'll probably post a bunch more shots and hopefully some video in the next few days, but for now I just wanted to let you know that I'm back and very much savoring the trip.

What's Opera Doc?

I'm afraid we may have to wait awhile for the next two Ring installments. Even though I saw the fourth and final installment of the Cycle this weekend, I am mightily distracted. Distracted by what is in my near future. Things like this.


Mmmmmmm... Gelato...

Baseball Blog

These days, Keith Olbermann is mostly known for his political reporting/editorializing, and for good reason. But you may remember that he started out doing sportscasting/reporting. So it's rather fitting that this season he's started up a baseball blog. Happy reading.

And enjoy the Sox/Yanks series this weekend!

The Ring, Week Two

Ok, I'm way behind on my Ring posts. Last week was totally crazy and I didn't have a chance to post. I'll try to make it up to you this week.

Practically everybody knows Die Walkure at least a little bit, if for no other reason than that it includes the Ride of the Valkyries, which has been all over popular culture for the last, oh, pretty much since it was written. You know, that music that Robert Duvall plays when his Hueys drop napalm in Apocalypse Now. You know - the tune Elmer Fudd uses to sing "Kill the Wabbit."

Well, here's where it showed up first: in the second installment of Wagner's Ring, to herald the arrival of the Valkyries, warrior goddesses who transport fallen heroes to Valhalla.

It's an amazing piece, and once again, we had a great experience. We introduced ourselves to our box-mates: Christian, a student of Epic Poetry at Bard who'll be going to grad school at USC this fall; and Mark, who was much less chatty, but brought along his own copy of the score - he claimed that he is not a musician or a conductor, so at this point I just think of him as a serious music fan.

This week was special because it was supposed to have Christine Brewer in her first Brunnhilde at the Met.

But Ms. Brewer couldn't do the cycle for undisclosed reasons, so instead we got Irene Theorin looking and sounding great in the role.

Anyway, I thought she was great. Some of the press and fan-reaction has been less than rapturous. And it was disappointing not to hear the more famous voice. But her acting (which I'm better equipped to assess than her voice) was as good as anyone's up there. And this was her first appearance at the Met, and I think her first time singing in the U.S., so that's exciting.

Also very exciting (at least for me) was the last-minute appearance of Gary Lehman, who was covering the role of Siegmund (his first time in this role at the Met, too!) I usually get geared up by performances that include understudies/covers, because they tweak everybody's attention to a higher pitch, and just add some energy to the air. The Times had an article about this phenomenon in opera last week too, by coincidence as far as I know.


This is the Ring opera that I am most familiar with, having seen it before, and listened to recordings several times over the years. It has to be the kinkiest of the four: we have the handsome and virile stranger whose name is Siegmund but who goes by the name of Woe showing up at the door, to be tended to by the kind woman whose name is Sieglinde and who is clearly cowed by her husband; she puts sleeping potion into the husband's drink and comes out to visit the stranger in the middle of the night and show him the magic sword hidden in the ash tree in their living room (they have a tree in the middle of their living room.) They fall in love. Then they discover that they are twins... so they have sex. True holy love, you see, triumphs over ALL: morals, ethics, laws, plain healthy good sense, the whole kit and kaboodle.

But this forbidden incestuous love is the one thing that might save mighty Wotan and his league of immortals: for, as his in-the-right-and-many-times-cuckolded-but-palpably-shrewish wife Fricka reminds him (after they rehash pretty much the whole plot of Das Rheingold), he is Guardian of Laws and Treaties, and he can't help his children (did I mention that Siegmund and Sieglinde are his children from an adulterous affair with a mortal?) either in battle or in the quest to regain the Ring, because that hero must be someone unaided by Wotan and the Gods. So he has to have the Valkyrie Brunnhilde (one of his other children, from a totally different adulterous affair - this one with Erde, Goddess of Nature) go disrupt the impending fight between Siegmund and Sieglinde's husband Hunding (they are planning to fight to the death over something having nothing to do with the adulterous, incestuous affair. Naturally.) take away his magic sword Nothung, and bring him to Valhalla to live with the Heroes. So she goes to do it, but she's charmed by his valor and sees through Wotan's law-abiding instructions to his true wishes to help his son and so leaves him to win the fight. Happy ending, right?

OF COURSE NOT! Wotan shows up at the fight himself, shatters Nothung with a wave of his spear, and leaves Siegmund, defenseless, to be killed by Hunding. Wotan then kills Hunding. Naturally.

After all of this has happened, we finally get to hear the Ride of the Valkyries as Brunnhilde meets her sister Valkyries, but bringing Sieglinde instead of Siegmund. She (Sieglinde) is so distraught over the death of her warrior brother/lover that she wants to despair and die until Brunnhilde tells her that she is carrying Siegmund's child. [On a side note, I like to think that when Mel Blanc and Carl Stalling were putting together 'What's Opera Doc' and such, they were thinking of this couple and the expression 'the rabbit died' when they decided to use the Ride of the Valkyries as the theme of 'Kill the Wabbit'] Sieglinde runs off to hide and have her baby, and Wotan shows up enraged with both his daughters. Brunnhilde knows she has to be punished, but talks Wotan down to a punishment of being put to sleep behind a circle of fire that can only be penetrated by a warrior who knows no fear. Awesome.

Speaking of fire, I wanted to make mention of this last week, but forgot: Loge, God of Fire, is one of the most vibrant characters in this piece. He loomed large in Das Rheingold, helping Wotan, Odysseus-like, outwit the Niebelungs. He is also the one responsible for building the Ring of Fire surrounding Brunnhilde. I was hoping to find a good image of him to post here, but I guess he's not a big enough character to warrant a good photo-op. Instead, have a look at his doppelganger:


That's right, he looks just like that icon of more recent popular culture, the Heat Miser. I was hoping to show the two of them next to each other, but you'll just have to take my word for it.

So what do we make of this bundle of confusion? One question that seems to come up a lot when I talk to people about this story is "SO - the twins: did they know they were twins when they did it, or did they find out after the, um, fact?" Oh, they know. They share backstories and real names and put two and two together. As it happens, they look at the consummation of their love as twins and lovers as something right, true and inevitable. A common follow-up question is something along the lines of "What the fuck?"

I don't know. I'm not a Wagner scholar. I've done a little bit of the reading and a little bit of the listening, but I don't know too many of the answers. But I think it has something to do with bringing up some of the tough questions that don't come up all that often. Is there something more important than Law and Morality? Something that triumphs over even Nature? Something beyond what people want and need? Maybe you believe there is such a thing, maybe you don't, but I'll bet you know someone who does. What would you call that thing? God? An Ideal? A nation? Who gets to decide? A Priest? A Judge? An Artist? An Ubermensch? What if, as some people say, "God is Love?" What if, on the other hand, "God is Law?" What in each case would be the repercussions? What would Oedipus have to say about it? What would some of the people Wagner was reading (Nietzsche, Engels, Schopenhauer) have to say? What would Woody Allen?

And, most importantly, let's not forget that the text (all written by Wagner himself; no outside librettist for Richard) is only a fraction of this work. The music does most of the heavy lifting. And it does so right from the top: the Prologue to this piece shimmers, it's thrilling, maybe even more so than Ride of the Valkyries. The music grabs hold of you before the curtain opens and doesn't let you go until well after it's closed up again. Die Walkure weighs in at well over 5 hours when you factor in the breaks at intermissions, and while it wouldn't be accurate to say it's over before you know it, it flies by more than you think, and feels a lot shorter than the timing would suggest. The leitmotifs that are introduced in Rheingold are developed in this piece and inform the argument, the drama, the characters, the themes. But that's another box of wine: I'll discuss the music in a some more detail in my next post, but I want to get this one out, as it's so late already (and I sense that I'm already at risk of going on too long...)

Meanwhile, did you notice all the holidays this week? Patriots' Day on Monday, Earth Day today, and (because it's especially important this year) the Founding Date of Rome yesterday.

The Return of The Singing Cowboy

It is scarcely news if you pay attention to this kind of thing at all, but Bob Dylan is releasing his new album Together Through Life on April 28. I'm guessing we'll have more to say about that then, but for now, take a gander at this interview with Bill Flanagan, which covers Gods and Generals and Presidents, and which includes one of the new songs. Good stuff.

Cory's Birthday

This weekend was Cory's birthday. The beginning of the Month of Cory. Also baseball's opening day, the end of the NCAA hoops tourney, and some lion vs. lamb weather activity.

Cory's birthday is April 4th, which is also memorable as the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated. As my sister noted, "4/4 - that's easy to remember." Of course, she then proceeded to forget it, but it's been a hectic couple of weeks for her.

The birthday celebration started off mellow enough on Friday at Midnight, with some prosecco over mashed blackberries. We didn't get too far into the bottle that night, as we were kind of tired, but we finished it off the next day over a game of Scrabble (it was a rainy day, so going out into the park or even to a cafe didn't really float our boat.)

In the late afternoon we headed to Hoboken, where we had some tea before walking down to Cucharamama, an amazing South American restaurant. I had arranged a sort-of-but-not-really surprising array of Cory's friends to meet us there, and we had some good cocktails featuring rum and pisco, and lots and lots of good food. There were squid and octopus appetizers that rocked the house, as well as a fantastic tamale and a very good spinach empanada; my main dish was a sort of chicken and beef pot pie with, among other yumminess, olives, onions and raisins - very good; the birthday girl had an excellent roast chicken dish; a whole bunch of people went for the Argentinian skirt steak, which was almost too big to handle. There was chocolate flan with a sparkly candle at the end of the meal for the Birthday song and wish-making. Very fun. Props to all the Brooklyn types for crossing two rivers for the event!

After dinner, we took the PATH back into the city and some of the crowd split off for home. But Kristin joined Cory and me at the Flatiron Lounge (which I believe I've written about here before.) Such a good place, and I elbowed us some seats at the bar. Sue B joined us, which seemed apt, as her birthday had been a week before, so we were able to treat her for that a little belatedly.

By the time we left, it was rather late, but not too bad. And a good thing too, as Cory had a spa date the next day, courtesy one of her really good friends. I was a bit envious, but Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous afternoon so that made me happy.

Cory is the Ultimate in Camera Shy, so no photographic evidence of this event. I'll have more in the way of visual stimulation next time.

iHam

In their continuing efforts to provide premium technology with a focus on contemporary style and intuitive, user-friendly interface, Shackleton introduces... the iHam 5J

Happy April Fool's, everybody.

The Ring, Week One

Think I may have mentioned this before, but this Spring, I am going to my first-ever Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera. It is a pretty major splurge for me, but I'm very psyched about it. I am not one of those "The Ring Cycle is The Greatest Thing in The History of Performing Arts" guys, but I do think it is a pretty incredible achievement that just gets better and deeper the more time you spend with it, and I'm really excited and awed to be able to experience it live. Which experience began on Saturday afternoon with Das Rheingold, which you heard live on the radio if you make a habit of following the Live at the Met Opera Broadcasts.

So where to begin? How 'bout with our seats? Carrie (an unexpected opera fan friend who dove into the Ring with me) got into the game pretty late and have fairly limited budgets, so we ended up with Balcony Box seats. We're in the first box on house right, meaning we are very close to the stage and can look down on the singers and the orchestra pit. We're in the box number 2 in the second (yellow) rung on this chart:

This graphic gives a sense of HOW high up over the stage we are. But it doesn't do such a good job at showing how much CLOSER to the stage we are than we would be if we were back in the balcony proper. This next chart does a slightly better job at that:

In this chart, picture us sitting where the number 2 is in the goldenrod 'Boxes Even" column on the left. This comes closer to doing justice to our proxmity to the performers. And sort of gives you an idea of our sightline...

You see, when you're in our particular box, there are some pros, and some cons.

The pros:

• You're really close to the stage - MUCH closer than in the balcony proper.


• You can see the conductor and the orchestra, so you can watch all the musical goings-on. And let me tell you: that adds something. I appreciated being able to see the harpists stand their intruments up when they were finished with their section; I appreciated being able to watch the incredible conductor James Levine doing his thing; I certainly have an appreciation I didn't have before of Maestro Levine's endurance: Rheingold has no intermission, and no breaks in the orchestral music, so the one guy who isn't able to take even a 3 second break in the whole 2 1/2 hours is the conductor.


• You can see some of the 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' parts of the stage magic - you can see the little slide built in behind the 'rocks' for the Rhinemaidens to 'swim' down; when the Niebelungen are getting ready to climb up from underground with their bags of gold, you see it; when Donner and Froh are piling up gold as high as Freia between the giants' staffs, you can see Freia kind of crouching down and taking a rest behind the pile. Not everyone would be into that, but I think it's a treat.


• You have your own semi-private hallway leading to the boxes. Not a big deal at all, but it does add a kind of fun approach to the experience.


• The sound is great. This is true throughout the Met, and while I'm sure we're missing out on the balance that's audible in the front of Parterre, it still sounds amazing.

The cons:

• You are WAY HIGH UP THERE. The stage is big enough and deep enough that you're not just looking at the tops of people's heads, but they aren't really singing to YOU unless they're raging at the heavens or something.


• There's no sitting back in your seat. Unless you don't care if you're not seeing anything. The angle is so extreme that you have to sit up at the edge of your seat if you want to see, and have to lean over the railing if you want to see much. At first, this seemed like a REALLY BIG CON. But as the day went on, I appreciated the way it sort of enforces active observation: sit up to see this, lean in to see that, shift over to glance at the surtitles, sit back and take a rest. I found a repertoir of optimal postures pretty quickly, and by the end of the fourth opera, I'll be playing them like a virtuoso.


• The sightline is seriously compromised. In fact, it kind of sucks. There's no way to spin this as anything but a big fat compromise to get to all the good stuff (including the relatively affordable - but still really expensive - ticket price) You can see a lot, but there's a lot you miss no matter how much you lean over the rail. You can't really see the upstage wall at all. This is a big problem. Opera at the Met is larger-than-life spectacle, and this production is an emphatic example of that. And while we can see a lot, there is a lot we miss. For instance, Das Rheingold begins with a discussion of the completion of the construction of Valahalla, the palace/fortress of the Gods, and it ends with a coterie of Gods and Goddesses walking off to the Rainbow Bridge that will take them there.

See how that gorgeous image is painted/projected onto the wall up there? Yeah, we couldn't see that. At all. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that this is going to be my least favorite thing about this whole operation.

And then there are some things that may be pros or cons depending on how they pan out. For instance: these boxes are set up for four people. There are the two of us, and two other guys. SO there's potential for that to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, or an awkward intimacy. Das Rheingold has no intermission, so we didn't really talk to the other two guys at all, but I'm guessing that by the time we get to the Valkyrie's "Hojoto Hos" we'll know something about each other.

Don't get me wrong guys: pros and cons weighed, this was an awesome event. And I am not using that term lightly - the amount of effort and artistry involved, from so many people, in service of such an amazing musical and dramatic creation, is truly... awesome.

Stay tuned for more next week...

Restaurant Racism

The results of this study of expensive (i.e. lucrative to work at) restaurants in New York were just released.

"The tests showed:

- Nonwhite job applicants were 54.5 percent as likely as white applicants to get a job offer, and were less likely than white testers to receive a job interview in the first place.

- The work experience of white job applicants was less likely to be subject to scrutiny.

- Accents made a difference — with white candidates. White applicants with slight European accents were 23.1 percent more likely to be hired than white testers with no accent. However, accents in nonwhite applicants made no difference."

This is New York? Massive Fail.

One quibble with the writing here: the reference to "white testers with no accent." No accent? What does that sound like? Are they using sign language? The New York Times should know better.

Thanks to Cory for referring me to the article.

One Economic Perspective

Paul Krugman can be a curmudgeon, but I think the points he makes sometimes deserve a lot more widespread attention and discussion than they receive at the decision-making level.

...But the wizards were frauds, whether they knew it or not, and their magic turned out to be no more than a collection of cheap stage tricks. Above all, the key promise of securitization — that it would make the financial system more robust by spreading risk more widely — turned out to be a lie. Banks used securitization to increase their risk, not reduce it, and in the process they made the economy more, not less, vulnerable to financial disruption...

Much discussion of the toxic-asset plan has focused on the details and the arithmetic, and rightly so. Beyond that, however, what’s striking is the vision expressed both in the content of the financial plan and in statements by administration officials. In essence, the administration seems to believe that once investors calm down, securitization — and the business of finance — can resume where it left off a year or two ago...

Fallon Fan Club?

Well, sort of. But not exactly.

But Daniel, Maria, Rashmi and I did go to a taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the other day, largely because we all love The Roots, who against all conventional wisdom took the gig as Fallon's house band. Very smart move by NBC, which guaranteed that there would be a strong, solid life force keeping this patient going, at least through the first few weeks, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, have seen our host bearing more than a passing resemblance to a deer caught in headlights.

I'm happy to say that the program we saw was funny and engaging. Jimmy still seems too nervous for someone who's ostensibly running the show, but he is doing way better than he was during his first week. They may want to figure out some clever alternative to the traditional Tell-Jokes-at-the-Audience-Opening-Monologathon, because he really is working too hard for that to be as effective as it needs to be. And I think that it's well past time to set that aside as the unalterable formula for late night television.

The best, funniest, most alive moments happened off the cuff, when Jimmy was chatting with us, or his guests (which included Rachel Maddow - he had an really good bit about mispronouncing her name while shooting a local-tv promo. If NBC is smart, that made it to air on at least one of their affiliate stations.) in between the scripted segments. And when he was at his best, it was really good stuff. Keep plugging, Jimmy - we're on your side.

Oh, and The Roots were amazing, natch. A-maz-ing.

Thanks to Susan for the fun cameraphone photo, Times Square flaring up in the background!

Real Gone

Another much-belated post on a more-than-worthy event. Saw the Armitage Gone! dance company perform its Think Punk! progam at the Kitchen.



Raucus and rockin', the Armitage dancers celebrated the energy of punk culture and downtown art, and the place of their own company in that history, while creating work that is still hyper-vital today. The music came recorded from Jimi Hendrix, David Linton, Mozart and X-Ray Spex; and also from live musicians including the amazing TALIBAM! (All these exclamation points everywhere. Sigh. I think the energy of the artists is self-evident without added punctuation, but whatever.)

I loved this performance. Elegant, athletic, sexy, powerful, inspiring. Made me want to create pieces, stage them and perform them, especially in rooms as bitchin as the Kitchen.

Sis Viz Redux

Remember how my sister was visiting last weekend? And we're both fairly active photographers (she's really active, actually) but neither of us took many photos? Add to that the fact that she doesn't really like having her picture taken and we have a recipe for very very few images indeed of her enjoying her trip.

But I did get one that I like, in spite of its technical suckitude:



Kind of captures the whirlwind nature of her visit. Plus she's, you know, cute.

and then...

...right after the good news, some really bad news follows.

Suddenly, sadly, and unbelievably ahead of schedule, Natasha Richardson died. Just took a fall while taking a skiing class. We'll learn more as the days go on I'm sure, but it looks like it was a simple fall, nothing horrific or brutal or ghastly. Except...


This just hollows me right out.

New Mexico Repeals Death Penalty

Governor Bill Richardson today signed a bill abolishing the death penalty in New Mexico. This is good news for Human Rights and the groups that work to defend them, and more evidence for people who are seeing a sea change in American public opinion regarding this subject.

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!

Depression-Era Photos, in color

Here's a site where you can see some Farm Security Administration photos. (Thanks to Jessica for the tip.) You've seen things like this from people like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, but it's almost always in black and white. These are in color, and they're more than worth a look.

Kindling

Is anyone else a little weirded out by the Kindle? The digital book-reader thing that they're pushing this week.

Not necessarily the device itself, which actually appears to be pretty cool (though vastly overpriced and somewhat underachieving, but that's pretty par for the course with new-ish technology). I'm bothered by the name. "Kindle," as in kindling; as in the wood that you use to start a fire; as in go burn your books now that we have this nifty new computerized gizmo; as in Fahrenheit 451 nightmare city.

Phhheeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuw! File under: craptastic.

Exciting News

My sister is visiting New York next weekend! This is the most exciting news I've had since I booked my trip to Rome.

She's going to be in Philadelphia for a business meeting, so I invited her to come up and stay with me for a couple days. And that's what's happening! Woo Hoo!

The thing you have to realize is: I haven't had time with Lori one on one (no kids, no husband, no parents) for... a really really long time. Like, longer than I want to admit. Like, since the first Bush administration.

So if you want to claim time with us next weekend, you better get on it!

Insanity

Yesterday, the dayjob boss proclaimed to us "Don't bring in any food tomorrow - group lunch!"

Which is really nice and generous and all that. One of the things we all really like about her.

But then she left a meeting at noon to wander the building without her phone or blackberry and was not heard from for a long, long time. (Time slows down when you're hungry.) In fact, she ducked attempts to contact her.

Meanwhile, our tempers were shortening and our mutinous spirit grew.

Those of you who know me know how I get when I become too hungry. It is a sad and unlovely part of my personality. But it's there, and people have learned how to deal with it.

Not, however, the dayjob boss. She finally came back and was making jokes. Jokes that at this point were not funny. At all. The (unannounced) meetings she had been bouncing among were not of the serious, economic downturn emergency variety. They were off-the-cuff "why don't we talk about this now" type meetings.

I walked her into her office with the menu and our food orders and told her she couldn't leave until she had ordered our lunch. Then I walked out of her office and shut the door behind me.

Yep. That's what I did. To my boss. Those of you who don't know me now have a sense of how I get when I become too hungry.

Out of my mind. That's how I get.

Just got the phone call from reception. It is now 1:50. Food's here.

New York, New Music, New Hall

The other night we went to the "New York, New Music, New Hall" program at Alice Tully Hall. The revamped hall has been getting a lot of press lately, having recently re-opened after a major mondo monster renovation that took almost two years. Most of this press has been very positive, though I did read a naysayer regarding the acoustics for large orchestras (I have read only good things about the acoustics for smaller ensembles, and pretty much unanimously favorable reaction to the visual design elements).

Now, I'm no acoustician, but I flatter myself that I have a pretty good ear. My perspective on the 'room sound' thing is that it's largely a matter of opinion, though there are certain things that most everyone agrees on (too echoey is bad; if you can't hear the soft parts it's bad; if the street noise is too audible it's bad). After that it gets a little yitzy - most everyone agrees that some resonance is good, but there can be a lot of debate about how much is the 'right' amount. And, if I may be so bold, I think that when these discussions begin, I think we start to see posturing pretty quickly. My personal priorities in terms of acoustics tend toward the realms of audibility and clarity - I do like some warmth, but I want to be able to hear the distinct instruments and voices without too thick a bassy boom or a whole bunch of mush.

But the bottom line is: the acoustics are there in service of the music. That's what we're going to the hall to hear.

Cory scored us our tickets pretty last minute, so we didn't make it to the free opening performance by the string quartet Ethel in the rather vast lobby, but it looks like it was pretty cool. We had seats in different parts of the auditorium, but thanks to the kindness of a solo traveler, we did end up sitting together. John Schaeffer was the host, providing a bit of chat at the beginning of each act. The first ensemble he presented was Alarm Will Sound.

They were the youngest group of the evening, and while I know we like to avoid cliches I will admit that catchwords like 'hip' and 'energetic' do spring to mind. More importantly, they're really fucking good. Ah, New York: a place where you can put out the word that you want to start a contemporary music ensemble and you end up with a stage full of world class players. Or you can if you're Alan Pierson, anyway. Their first piece was Derek Bermel’s “Three Rivers” which pretty much leapt off the stage and grabbed my attention. If you look for images of Alarm Will Sound on the internets, you'll run across a photo of them playing in front of a projection screen featuring a Frank Zappa aphorism. That seems appropriate, as this piece of Bermel's reminded me of nothing so much as some of Zappa's compositions - ones done by his groups, yes, but more so pieces that groups like Ensemble Modern have performed.

Their second piece, Oscar Bianchi’s “Mezzogiorno,” didn't blow me away as much, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was working hard through much of the piece to stifle a tickle in my throat that was fighting to turn into a cough. That cold still hasn't gone away. It is making me lose my patience. However, I was better off by the time their third piece, Caleb Burhans’s “oh ye of little faith ... (do you know where your children are?),” began - which is a good thing, because it was lush and beautiful.

The Bang on a Can All Stars were up next. Love them - pretty sure I've written about them here before. Oh, that's a sad, small picture of them, but I didn't want to use the old out-of-date promo shot you see everywhere. They opened with Julia Wolfe's "Lick," which was amazing; moved on to David Lang's “Sunray,” which was zippy; gave us the world premier of Michael Gordon's “For Madeleine,” which he wrote for his mother and which was appropriately moving; and wrapped up with Glenn Kotche's “Mobile.” Glenn is the drummer for Wilco, and he joined the Can Bangers to perform his piece on a second drum set (amidst jokes about Little Feat, the Allman Brothers and other 2-drummer combos) - it's not terribly surprising that his piece was the rockinest of the night, and I'm happy to say that it was also a complex and wholly effective composition. Probably wouldn't give much hope to the "Give me A.M. or give me death" crowd of Wilco fans, who are in for more of the "sonic exploration" incarnation of the band if Kotche's work is any indication. After the set, Glenn came out and sat right behind us, which gave Cory some palpitations. Blah, blah, blah. Girls and drummers. Did I mention that the Bang on a Can pianist, Ning Yu, is really cute?

For the last section of the night, John Schaeffer rhapsodized, at some length, about the legendary status of Steve Reich's “Music for 18 Musicians.” It's true - not many contemporary 'art' compositions have such lofty status or are so well known. I've heard "...18 Musicians" bunches of times, but never live.

Gotta tell you, folks, if you ever wanted proof that live music just exists on a whole other, better, plane than the recorded kind, you could have done worse than showing up at Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday night. This piece worked so well on so many levels, and gave us things to appreciate that just don't exist in recorded form. Simple things, like being able to see with your own eyes the attention and endurance of the marimba players, and being able to see things that you have to guess at when you're listening to recorded versions (where do the voices end and the instruments begin?) But also some of the more esoteric, harder-to-define things that work 'room sound' fanatics into a lather: the clarity, the subtlety of the dynamics, that (fuck it, I'll just say it) magic that happens when you've got those air molecules wiggling straight from the musicians to your ears.

And that brings me back around to the Hall renovations. The warm appearance of the room (and the improved comfort of the seating) helps in ways that seem at first to be extra-musical, but actually add quite a bit to the experience. And that experience began pretty much as soon as I stepped out of the subway stairs and saw the facade of the building, the interior visible through huge glass wall/windows. I overheard a couple different groups of passersby murmur impressed comments, along the lines of "Wow. That looks really... great." And it looks great from the inside too, and - most importantly of all - it sounds great.

'Twas a good night out.

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.

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.

Lou & Me

Cory and I went to see Lou Reed read from his new book of collected lyrics at the Paula Cooper Gallery. It was a good event; interesting to hear what he did with the songs without the element of music, and I really liked the moments when a line would remind him of something and he'd stop the reading to extemporize on the memory/free association. And there was a little discussion with Hal Willner afterward, where they sifted through questions that had been written on little scraps of paper by audience members and dropped in a bowl.



Then afterward a ton of people waited on line for Lou to sign their books and records (he also had some photography books for sale) and get some photos. He refused to look at the camera even when we assured him there'd be no flash (ok, I'll be kind: he declined to look at the camera), but we talked about Poe a little. A very little.

Hey - you don't go to Lou Reed for warm and friendly, now do you?