Strolling in the Park

Here are some photos of our wanderings in Central Park on the day we saw The Capeman a few weeks ago. (Click to see the full-size images.)

Boston photos

Here are some photos from our trip to Boston. Click on the album to enlarge.

A good line

As I passed through the turnstile to exit the subway station at 2nd Ave. this evening, I yawned. A young man loitering there remarked that I looked "so tired" and offered to carry me up the stairs. I laughed.

This reminds me of an incident from earlier this month. Walking down 2nd Ave. carrying two bags of groceries, I was approached by a forty-three-year-old man (a journalist, no less!) who said that he would offer to help if it wouldn't make him seem like he was trying to follow me to my door. He then proceeded to hit on me in a (relatively) un-creepy way. (He gave me his card and I Googled him later, which is how I learned that his is forty-three.)

The message: I look old and tired? Or that I am most attractive when harried?

Blogger Guilt/Summer Recap

So I've officially done it. I've become one of those people who starts a blog, writes enthusiastically for a few weeks, and then lets it languish for months at at time. I have no doubt that there is a special circle in blogger hell reserved just for us.

I have no good excuses to offer, except to say that that sometimes one is too busy having adventures to dutifully record them.

But never fear! I'm back...er...on the wagon, or something. And I'm offering the following list as penance. 

Summer Adventures (Abridged)

• It's been really hot. I learned how to make mint juleps.

• Thanks to the sweet perks of Ian's job, we saw both Shakespeare in the Park productions (and went to two opening-night parties!) on two almost unbelievably beautiful summer nights. We saw The Merchant of Venice first, and at the risk of sounding like a squealing schoolgirl I'll say that it's one of those theater experiences I'll remember for the rest of my life. I thought it brought Shakespeare's words to life in the best possible way, and it's going to Broadway, so you should go see it. (Yes, you.) The fancy after-party was up at Belvedere Castle, were I felt like a movie star. And if I were any good at recognizing movie stars, I could tell you which ones were there. Winter's Tale had its lovely moments, too, but it couldn't compare with Merchant, and it's such an odd play anyway. (Tragedy and then comedy? And so much divine intervention. What were you thinking, Shakespeare?) As a follow-up, we watched that weird Al Pacino movie Looking for Richard. Against all odds, it seems that Al and I are on the same page about many things.

• I traveled to the homeland for a lovely visit with: my parents, my sister, and Arthur, the world's cutest and most magical dog; the Entrekens, who cooked us breakfast and let us watch soccer at their house; darling Wesley, who attempted at this late date to teach me to play Mario; and the best grandparents (two sets!) in the universe. The best thing about not living in Florida anymore is that I get to have Florida vacations.

• While I was away, Ian badly hurt his knee playing soccer and had to hobble around on crutches for a while. He's much better now, but the recovery has been slow.

All in the family

Just got back from a show featuring my really awesome cousin Michael Hurder and his really awesome band, Green Grocer. Took the L train way out into the wilds of Bushwick/Ridgewood and had the first Budweiser of my entire life (it's true).

In case anybody actually reads this thing, I should say that Green Grocer will be back again on Sunday, playing at Piano's with Invisible Circle (very strange, somewhat wonderful, involves oboe), and also on Monday, playing outdoors somewhere in connection with Make Music New York.

Woot. If not for Michael, I might never have an excuse to go out and pretend to be one of the cool kids.

Eric's visit

My good old friend Eric breezed through New York this Tuesday in between visits to other friends in Connecticut. Because we needed to pack all of our fun into just one day, I had to choose our adventures carefully.

I collected Eric from Grand Central (I love going there!) at around 11 AM, and then we stopped at the Mouse House for a (very) brief tour, a rest, and a glass of cold cider. Next, we met Ian at Katz's Deli for lunch, where Eric ordered brisket and made his mother proud. I had a giant potato knish and half of Ian's corned beef, plus about a million pickles and a piece of (amazing) cheesecake, which we shared for dessert.

 Hal, with brisket

Because Eric is a science guy (going to be a doctor, you know), I thought the American Museum of Natural History would be fun. It was fun, although many of the galleries were closing early that day, so we had to hurry a bit. We dashed around and looked at the dinosaurs and other strange creatures, and Eric made a ridiculous video of himself going into space. My favorite part was when we got to jump up and down to make earthquakes that could be measured by a real seismograph. (Mine weren't very large.)

 My favorite creature in the whole museum: primitive Stereospondyls?

After the museum, we met Ariell in Central Park and lounged about for a while, because it was actually nice and not muggy. We even walked all the way around one of those giant lakes. (I never know quite where I am in that vast park.)

Finally, we met Ian, found Eric a few slices of yummy New York pizza, and then put him back on a train to Dane and Debby in New Haven. If only all Tuesdays were so lovely.

Breaking News

WE HAVE A BOOKSHELF!

Our days of living like highly educated savages are finally over. $20. Real wood. Found on craigslist. Fits perfectly in the corner.

Next order of business: a TV stand. Preferably free. (The TV was found on the curb in front of our building. Yay!)

 Doesn't it look cozy? The plague rat has a new home.

The minor downside to buying craigslist furniture is that you often have to transport it (more or less fully assembled) yourself. We ended up carrying this bookshelf AN ENTIRE MILE from Bayard St. and Bowery (in Chinatown) back to our apartment. The friendly couple selling it had taken the shelves out, thinking that would make it easier for us. I carried the shelves, and Ian carried the giant frame. We looked ridiculous. It was ninety degrees that day. Afterward we went directly to the Crocodile Lounge.

Happy books—home at last.

Coney Island

Because we are crazy fools whose tastes oscillate between the snobbishly refined and the firmly lowbrow, we went to Coney Island on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, although very hot, and the crowds were flocking to the newly re-opened Luna Park. We bought $15 wristbands and rode as many rides as we could without throwing up. Some weren't even running yet. I've never seen so many people in one place.

Highlights of our trip:

• I almost threw up on a kiddie ride. It was torturous. Who ever got the idea that spinning is fun?
   
• We rode a very silly, brand new roller coaster ("The Tickler") that goes BACKWARDS at the end! Our companions were a very cute, very serious little boy, and his mother, who giggled and shrieked the whole time. I loved them both. The little kid bonked his head when the ride screeched to a halt at the end, and I worried about him all day.
   
• Those strange men who dance on the boardwalk had actually drawn a crowd this time.

• Ian made me ride some terrifying thing where you sit in a tiny swing and then are lifted into the sky, where you go into rapid orbit around a pole. I closed my eyes.
   
• The hot dogs (and fries!) turned out to be totally worth the chaos that is waiting in "line" at Nathan's.
   
• We changed $2 into quarters at an ancient arcade, failed miserably at skee ball (the only game we remembered how to play), and won a pitiful amount of tickets, which we proudly exchanged for two plastic treasures: a spider ring and a purple frog.
   
• We made it to the very front of the line for the Cyclone, that famous rickety wooden roller coaster, and then they closed it down. The grizzled ride operators gave us our money back and shuffled us out as fast as they could, as though they didn't want us to ask questions. Quite sinister.
   
• Half of the people waiting in line for the Wonder Wheel were under the impression that they were waiting in line for the bathroom. Confusing discussions ensued.
   
• The Wonder Wheel, which opened Memorial Day weekend in 1920, is not your ordinary Ferris wheel. Each little cart is held from its own curvy track, so that at certain points during the ride, the whole cart and its occupants go lurching forward, sliding to the end of the track, and then abruptly heaving backward again. This cycle continues, getting faster and faster, until you finally come to rest and begin trying to slow the frantic beating of your heart to a non-lethal rate. Depending on where you are on the circle, the lurching forward can make it seem like you're going to be deposited into the bowels of the ride and digested by the gears, or flung off the machine entirely and dropped to earth several hundred yards away. Remember going to your own humble county fair and braving the Ferris wheel with a boy who insisted on rocking the little cart back and forth to scare you when you were stopped at the top of the ride? This is nothing like that.
   
• I got the second sunburn of 2010—a dusty pink on my shoulders. (The year's inaugural burn came about six weeks ago, when Schuyler and I sat on the roof of her apartment building for hours while we thumbed through library books and fretted about—but did not write—our final papers. It was near the end of the semester. We were starting to crack up. I got a pretty serious burn on one knee and the opposite shoulder. Very attractive.)

• At the end of the day, we finally escaped the throngs of screaming (now exhausted and dehydrated) children and headed to a peaceful spot called Beer Island. It's just an enclosed sand pit with some umbrella-shaded tables and '90s hits playing over the loudspeaker. An outdoor bar painted in cheerful colors offers an impressive selection of beers on tap; apparently Coney Island has its own brewing company. (We approve.) We sat in our plastic chairs, enjoying the (relative) quiet, the pretty, late-afternoon light, and the hint of a breeze while sipping our beers and admiring our skee ball loot.

•  Back in the city, we went to Polonia, our favorite funny little Polish restaurant around the corner, and I ordered a starch-lover's dream: sauerkraut and mushroom pierogi with potato pancakes and a blintz. Mmm hmm.

I'm not an html whiz (yet), and when I embed a slideshow, the pictures come out the size of postage stamps. I think if you click directly on a photo, you'll be taken to the Picasa web album where the images are more reasonably sized.

Time Out also has a really great slideshow of Memorial Day weekend at Luna Park. See if you can guess which ride is which.

Cheers!

To New Jersey, with love

Much as it pains me to associate myself with any sports franchise sponsored by a toxic drink, Ian and I have decided that it is our duty as soccer fans to support our local MLS team, the New York Red Bulls. One recent Thursday night, we made our first pilgrimage to the shiny new stadium in Harrison, New Jersey to watch a game. We bought Subway sandwiches before we left town, hopped on the PATH train, and were at the stadium in a little over half an hour. The weather was beautiful, the beer was (relatively) affordable, and I even found a new player to hate—curly-haired Columbus Crew forward (and brute) Steven Lenhart. Not bad for a weeknight adventure. We weren't even too depressed that our, er, beloved Red Bulls lost 3-1.

Rainy days are for books

It is cold and raining and I am without an umbrella, having left mine at Lolita Bar after the Columbia Journal's launch party there last week.

This morning, braving the elements, I donned rain boots and a hooded sweatshirt and trudged to the public library, where I reluctantly paid $4.75 in fines to the Mulberry St. branch catchpole.

Freed from debt, I headed to the smallish fiction section in the basement to begin stockpiling novels for blissful summer reading. I selected:

• Candace Bushnell's One Fifth Avenue, because I had a hankering for something junky and far-removed from my own life;
• Henry James's Washington Square, for the 19th-century equivalent of the above;
• Grendel (John Gardner), because it's been on my list for years.

I read at the Think on Mercer for a while, cozy with a mug of Earl Grey and a mediocre parmesan and sun-dried tomato scone, before heading to one of the abandoned upstairs study rooms at Bobst library. During the semester it's impossible to get a seat there, but now that it's summer, I was able to snag a big table near the windows overlooking Washington Square.

Before heading home, I walked through the drizzle to meet Ian for a slice of pizza. He threatened to come home early today, having gone in early yesterday. We're to make something with spinach.

I'm now about a third of the way through One Fifth Avenue, snug in the mouse house, listening to Django Reinhardt and to the wind outside. We should ditch the spinach and eat something with gravy.

St. Paul's Catchpole

When my poor cousin Michael came to visit the week after I'd moved into our little mouse house, he had to sleep on a makeshift pallet of blankets atop the hardwood floor, between half-unpacked boxes and piles of books. This past weekend, we had our first houseguests since then-- our dear friends Dane and Debby down from New Haven-- and with an air mattress and a coffee table, we felt a little more civilized. The piles of books, of course, are here to stay. (Michael, you must come back! I'll cook something appealing and serve it on real dishes; no more leftover vegetarian glop out of aluminum tins.)

It was a lovely weekend from start to finish. Our guests arrived bearing gifts-- a box of whimsical, tiny frosted donuts from Tastease in Hartford-- on which we merrily munched before heading to brunch around the corner at the Mission Cafe, a friendly place where you can get a great Mexican-style brunch for just $9.99-- plus $2 for mimosa or sangria. After a week of terrible weather, it was gorgeous outside, and it was nice to sit inside with the breeze coming in through the open doors.

 Connecticut donuts

Next we headed up to the Met; Dane had read a review of the Mourners exhibit we saw last week and was eager to see it. (Great minds think alike!) While we were there we also checked out the Byzantine religious art; giggled our way through the fantastic luxury of the Wrightsman Galleries' period rooms; and made an arduous pilgrimage to the Temple of Dendur, which is on display in a spectacular glass room alongside Central Park. 

  Just like our living room

When everyone was thoroughly exhausted and sore, I led a forced march back through the maze of art and up the elevator to the roof garden where, once again, no overpriced cocktails were purchased.

After a crowded but scenic bus ride back downtown, I threw together a dinner involving spinach pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, roasted asparagus, and feta cheese, and we got to show off our adorable folding table from Ikea. It's advertised as a table for two, but we fit three easily, and might even have been able to squeeze in a fourth if we actually had four chairs. (Ian had to sit on the couch.)

Finding room for four to sleep proved a bit more of a challenge; we moved the coffee table so that it was blocking the front door, and even then the air mattress filled the living room completely, with one edge touching the couch and the other edge touching the endless row of books along the opposite wall. 

Endless Row of Books, abridged

It felt like a grand sleepover for grown-ups. At one point the four of us ended up clustered around the kitchen sink with mouths full of toothpaste, fighting over who would get to spit next. We had all begun brushing our teeth at once, and hadn't considered the consequences.

In the morning, over tea and bagels, Dane mused aloud about what to call a new committee tasked with being friendly to newcomers at the church where he works. He wanted something with more oomph than "welcoming committee," thought anything involving "community" sounded euphemistic and empty, and disliked the connotations of "ambassadors." I searched the thesaurus for "ambassador" synonyms and came up with two delightfully inappropriate solutions:

• plenipotentiary- a person, esp. a diplomatic agent, invested with full power or authority to transact business on behalf of another. 
• catchpole- a petty officer of justice, esp. one arresting persons for debt.

The meaning of "catchpole" is almost the exact opposite of what he's looking for, and yet it has such a great ring to it: "The St. Paul's Catchpole" (always singular, never plural, in my view). I picture a group of jolly, cackling spinsters roaming the church, jingling coin purses, ready to pounce on any hapless visitor has the misfortune to wander in.

They owe us no debt, of course, but I hope we'll get to go visit Dane and Debby in New Haven before the summer is over. Those two are so much fun, and I am eager to have my impressions of New Haven as a blighted post-industrial wasteland dispelled. (For the origins of said impressions, read the first chapter of William Finnegan's Cold New World.) Until then, I pledge to use (and misuse) the word "catchpole" as much as possible. 

Oh, Alan Gilbert

Check out this very strange (and wonderful) e-mail marketing campaign from the New York Philharmonic:

Subject: Alan Gilbert Flirts with Death

SIGHTINGS: Alan Gilbert and a tall, dark character sharing ice cream on the pier. http://www.youtube.com/breughelland

hair

Some people get fashionable haircuts every few months. I travel to an Aveda Institute every year or so to be shorn, like a sheep.

Yesterday was the day for my annual shearing: here is the "before" photo.

  
I walked to the Aveda in Soho in the rain, the humidity did wonders to make my mane even larger than usual, and the girl assigned to me did a poor job of concealing her terror. Everything turned out fine in the end: the irony, I think, is that my hair is actually hard to mess up. I just have them cut it to a single length-- no layers or anything fancy-- and if it were to come out hopelessly crooked, who would ever know?

After:

Most people will never even notice that it's been cut at all.

Still, I was glad this girl had plenty of instruction. She was sweet, but not the brightest of lights. Over the course of the two hours that it takes to get a haircut there, she:
-Asked her instructor if it was alright to use the same comb for curly-haired people as for straight-haired people;
-Cut one side of my hair significantly shorter than the other, and looked perplexed when her instructor pointed out and then corrected the error;
-Had to be repeatedly reminded, first by her instructor and later by me, that the end of the hairdryer is hot, so it is best not to rest it directly on someone's scalp.

I'm not sure why all of this fills me with such glee. I even dutifully bought some "product" on the way out.

My annual Aveda pilgrimage feels like a good deed: once these poor fledgling hairdressers have conquered my hair, nothing will be able to scare them down the road.

Oh, and another thing: they've started serving a strange fennel-tasting tea in little paper cups. I'll have to come back for a "trim" and investigate further.

Logic

Last night, at Crocodile Lounge: a bunch of drunk people announced that Ian looks like Eli Manning, remarked that I do not look like Eli Manning's wife, concluded that I must therefore be his mistress, and then made a joke about Tiger Woods.

I love Crocodile Lounge (free pizza!), but if I were Eli Manning's mistress, I'd expect to be taken somewhere a little fancier. Maybe even someplace without a skee ball machine. 

Classical Gaga: better with bassoon

Australian group Aston's classical cover of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" is probably old news by now, but last week Eastman's Breaking Winds bassoon quartet gave the world something even better.

Check out their Lady Gaga Saga for a medley featuring "Telephone," "Poker Face," and "Bad Romance," complete with costumes and choreography. Everything is funnier with bassoon, and these girls can really play.

I'm proud to say that I know the Gaga on the far left: Erin Bauer and I both studied with Mark Sforzini in high school. To think we once played an opera together...

The Cloisters

Ian and I went up to The Cloisters yesterday. I'd been itching to leave the city, and the threat of thunderstorms caused us to rethink our plan to go hiking near Cold Spring. But taking the A train up to 190th St. was just as good as leaving the city; we ended up 187 blocks from our apartment but might as well have been on another planet-- we found the world's most peaceful spot, not to mention the best museum in New York.

 

From the train station we strolled through Fort Tryon Park, a revolutionary war outpost turned enchanting grassy knoll with spectacular views of the Hudson. Everything was green and dewy-wet after the rain, and as we walked up to The Cloisters, there were no sounds except for chirping birds.

 

"Museum" doesn't really do the place justice; it is a convincing recreation of a medieval monastery that actually incorporates bits of architecture (doorways, ceilings, columns, arches) from historical sites. It feels less like you're looking at art carefully preserved for centuries and more like you've stepped into a time machine.

 

I neglected to bring my camera, and taking pictures in a medieval monastery would have seemed wrong, anyway. But here's my impression of the place, expertly rendered using Microsoft's Paint.

 

 

The Unicorn Tapestries are, for the record, magnificent, but they are by no means the only things to see. I was charmed by a bunch of statues that feature the Virgin Mary standing with baby Jesus on her left hip. Both mother and child look cheerful, alert, and ready for anything. I don't know what art historians label these, but I'm calling them relics from Mary's Sassy Period, and I like them a lot. Here's one example from the Met website-- I looked for but couldn't find a postcard.

 

After wandering through the galleries on our own and marveling at such treasures as St. Michael trouncing a particularly gnarly-looking devil, we took a guided tour of the museum's many gardens. Carol, our delightful docent, not only described the function and layout of monastery gardens, but also lectured to us about the representation of plants in medieval art. Best of all, she quoted medieval gardeners' practical advice on a variety of subjects, including: planting shade trees (not too close together or spiders will weave webs between them); flowering meadows (nice to lie about in on spring afternoons); and pomegranates (lots of seeds, good for fertility treatments).

 

After a garden-side sandwich lunch at the museum's Trie Cafe, we headed back out to Fort Tryon Park. It had turned out to be a beautifully sunny (but windy!) day, and Ian snapped an iPhone photo of me in one of the park's gardens.

 

Because The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, buying a ticket to one gets you free admission to the other. We decided to get our money's worth and took a long, sleepy bus ride down to the Met (open until 9 PM on Saturdays!) where we visited a few of the special, temporary exhibitions. In keeping with our medieval theme, we headed first to The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy, an arresting collection of thirty-seven foot-high marble statues depicting a funeral procession. As we wandered around and glanced at the other medieval art, we realized that we'd become experts: I spotted several other pieces from Mary's Sassy Period, and Ian was able to identify St. James the Greater by sight.

 

Next we headed up to the rooftop garden, where there is currently a strange bamboo sculpture. Despite the lovely breeze and the beautiful view, we refrained from buying $8 bottles of Brooklyn Summer Ale. Here is Ian among the bamboo stalks:

 

 

On our way out we walked through American Woman:  Fashioning a National Identity, because fashion is always fun, and the newly re-opened hall of musical instruments, mostly because I wanted to gawk at the funny old bassoons. Summary: Stradivari violins, says Ian, are probably more fun to play than they are to look at; also, there have been some pretty crazy-looking instruments over the years.

 

Back at home, we had the distinct feeling that maybe the Middle Ages weren't as bad as the history books say. We ate bread and cheese by candlelight, listening to the wind roaring outside. Oh, and to the Decemberists playing on my laptop.

 

It was a good day, all around.

Hey, y'all!

I've done it: I've started a blog. I'm stepping into the 21st century with one hesitating foot. (Last week I learned how to use Skype. The horror, the horror!)

I've just finished a particularly grueling semester in NYU's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program, I've realized that my mouse-sized East Village apartment is on the PERFECT block, and I've become a regular at a well-stocked cheese shop with scandalously low prices.

In short, it's spring in New York, and life is good. I've suddenly got the urge to document my adventures.

But first, some tea.