Recently in New York Category
There was supposed to be snow in Manhattan while we were there. Washington got snow. Philadelphia got snow. New York? Horizontal snow at 4AM that added up to an inch, melted by morning. Sigh. Then it snowed wildly the day after we left. Double sigh. No snow dose for me. It was bejesus cold though and that means comfort food.
In the interests of full disclosure, I collect comfort food all over Manhattan even when it’s 85 degrees outside and the thought of carbohydrates repels your average resident. Freezing winds and grey skies just make me look less crazy while I’m going about my usual business. And it convinces R to join me, which is always nicer.
First stop, Clinton Street Baking Company for pancakes. Their pancakes are already reviewed as the best in New York but every February they take it up another notch by declaring Pancake Month and offering different over-the-top pancake confections every few days. Like pancakes with fresh blackberries, pecan streusel and warm apple butter or chocolate and blood orange pancakes with candied orange glaze. Sadly, all these tasty offerings + cold weather make getting a table well nigh impossible. One hour and 45 minutes wait in 12-degree weather? Forget it. (I have less and less patience with popular places that take no reservations. The least you could do is offer some of the tables up for people who think ahead. Stupid pancake people.)
So we cabbed over to Momofuku Noodle Bar for some ramen goodness instead. Not that waits there are often much better, but we got lucky, hitting the sweet spot between the early eaters and the late lunchers. Momofuku gets a lot of press already, so I don’t need to tell you what a hot ticket their pork buns are or their ramen or just a seat in any of the locations in general. David Chang’s East Village empire consists of the Noodle Bar (er, noodle specialties), Sämm Bar (oddly ham-focused + oysters), the Milk Bar (take-out bakery and small savories), and Ko (newest posh destination, impossible to get in, voted Best New Restaurant last year by Time Out). He’s opening Má Pêche downtown later this year.
The menu can be off-putting for a non-foodie, featuring a lot of words like “belly” and “tendon” and “skate” and other things that don’t sound either edible or yummy, but push on: nothing looks like what it is and everything is ultra-flavorful, so it’s worth a little courage. The house ramen is indeed delicious, a big bowl of slightly chewy noodles nestled in a rich broth with a perfectly poached egg, pork, seaweed sheets, scallions. The ginger scallion noodles, albeit broth-less, are equally comforting and have a little more kick. You can’t go and not get one of the buns and if you’ve never been, you should start with the pork ones, two to a serving. They’re not the doughy blobs you get on the street in Chinatown. The soft steamed bun is a partial wrap around super-tender slices of pork, scallions, crunchy pickled cucumber and a ridiculously tasty hoisin sauce. They’re legendary and deservedly so.
If you don’t like crowds, are toting bags, a baby or your bushels from the farmer’s market, you shouldn’t hit Momofuku until you’re over it or unburdened. Seating is at bar tables or shared tables, period. We sat sandwiched between two mid-40s ladies trying to lunch and two guys who turned out to be chefs themselves. We talked to the chefs. One is a side man at Morimoto (you know: Iron Chef Morimoto) and the other is the executive chef at Seasonal, a one-Michelin-star midtown restaurant specializing in modern Austrian cuisine. I know, right? What the hell is modern Austrian? Here’s the thing: Austria is a huge hospitality industry machine. They have hotelier schools, excellent restaurants and lots of great hotels. Think of Wolfgang Puck. And this guy, Eduard Frauneder, is all up on the entrepreneurial food thing too. The food looks amazing and we’re definitely going. Anyplace that serves spätzle State-side has my vote.
Afterwards, we braved the wind for a couple blocks to collect crack pie, strawberry milk and a cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookie at Momofuku’s take-out Milk Bar. Breakfast cereals provide the base and inspiration for a lot of the offerings, like the cereal milk soft serve, which is fine by me. Predictably, I can’t get enough of the crack pie which is essentially just pie base without the interfering fruit or nuts: sugar, butter, eggs in a chewy layer over crumbly cookie crust. It’s a good thing Momofuku’s so far into the East Village or I’d be stopping by there all the time like the addict I am. I thought about buying a whole pie, but at $40 it’s a commitment. (You can tell I’d make a really bad crack addict.) I might have to serve it at my wedding though.
I love New York in winter even if I can’t have my snow.
OK, so if someone asked you, “Do you want to go to the Friars Club for dinner? It’s fish night, so there’ll be 90-year-olds on oxygen wearing lobster bibs in the corner,” what would you say? You’d say, “Hell yes, I want to go to the Friars Club! Let me grab my chest-high pants and I’ll meet you at the front door!”
The Friars Club, for those of you not in the know, is a members-only club in midtown Manhattan that is most famously host to the Friars Club roasts where old-school insult comedians say terrible, sometimes funny things to and about some poor celebrity sap who has to just sit there and take it. (Between you and me, roasts make me cringe more than they make me laugh, but I seem to be in the minority.) Membership is invitation only and is all show biz types. Carol Channing, Milton Berle, George Burns, Billy Crystal type place. Heavy on the comedians but including Frank Sinatra and his ilk too.
The place is so much more than we could have every hoped. It’s like a Poconos resort threw up 1950-1955 all over the place. It’s a five-story mansion with curved carved staircases, tiny elevators, ornate dark wood paneled walls, a billiards room, a sauna, and headshots everywhere of all the famous members, from Jerry Lewis to Tom Hanks.
No cell phone usage is allowed: if you need to take a call - I’m not kidding - they bring you a cream-colored rotary phone and plug it into the jack in the banquette. Every table has one. Think Rock Hudson/Doris Day. Each bathroom has an old-school glass pump with blue mouthwash in it. The men sport big rings. The ladies have all had face lifts. It is, in a word, awesome.
So we went for dinner.
The waitstaff wears ill-fitting polyester suits and when you ask about their red wine selection, they say, “We have a burgundy, a pinot noir, and a merlot.” None of this modern bullshit about grape blends organically grown in Australian or Argentinian or Sonoma going for $12 a glass. You’ll order by type and you’ll like it.
The dinner menu’s the same. Appetizers? Shrimp cocktail, crab cocktail or salad with blue cheese. The shrimp cocktail comes with red cocktail sauce. Same for the crab. None of this frou-frou garbage with anise-seed consomme and sea nettle foam. You’re having the shrimp, you get the shrimp. That’s it. Fuck you.
Dinner? Steak, lobster, roast chicken or sole. And that’s exactly what you’ll get: nothing else, just a giant 20-oz. steak, a freakishly large 2.5-lb. lobster or the largest sole I’ve ever seen. It’s like they were bred at Costco in the steroids aisle. If you want sides, you order them but no one’s bringing you your fish on a pressed disc of maple-glazed pork molars. Spinach? Steamed. In a white dish. Done. Potatoes, brocolli or french fries. Enjoy. No white asparagus, no bamboo stems, no essence of baby swamp grass.
Dessert? This is the best part. Peach melba. That’s right, there’s a place in 2010 that still serves peach melba. Vanilla ice cream, peaches (listed as fresh but clearly Del Monte cling from a can), and raspberry sauce served in a cocktail glass. Brownie. Or ice cream. I was really hoping that a bowl of Jell-O might be an option, but no such luck.
I gotta tell you: everything was really good. Straightforward, uncomplicated and tasty. It was kind of refreshing. Don’t knock 1952, people.
Monday was different. On Monday, I got a notification that the Guggenheim Museum was following me. That’s right: THAT Guggenheim. The round one in New York. My favorite museum. Is following me. (Not literally - I’m still talking about Twitter. I’d have noticed if a block-sized museum was lumbering after me in the street.)
I’m sure it’s not personal - I just posted something that caught their spider or whatever - but I’m choosing to ignore that practical knowledge in favor of irrationally basking in the fame that goes along with being followed by a major world institution. I just know someone important - maybe the Director - is sitting in a curve of that rotunda checking his iPhone every few minutes to see if I’ve tweeted.
Don’t ruin my dream. It could be true. You don’t know.
Where are all the holiday markets and the Christmas buzz? Snow, please? Pretty please?
I need some tourists crowding in front of the Saks windows on 5th Avenue and snaking out of Radio City Music Hall so that I can look native and disdainful while secretly feeding off their excitement. I would like to be caught without gloves in Central Park so I can jam my hands in my pockets and dodge into an overpriced cafe on the Upper East Side for a cocoa to go so that I won’t lose my mind while I shop for boots and gifts at Bloomingdale’s. I need some weekday time on the street in SoHo to do some strike team snatching of holiday baubles before heading to the Angelika to catch some uplifting film on otter breeding that no one outside New York even knows was released. I want to wander the West Village in the winter chill and a long coat, thinking about the exciting year ahead, feeling the pull of Right Now! and What’s Next? I miss my Christmas market in Union Square with its red stalls and garland, and its mix of happy treasures and useless trinkets.
Home. Mmmm.
This happens every year and I usually dash off eastward in mid-December to get my pre-Christmas fix so everyone doesn’t have to listen to me whinge about the seasonally inappropriate sunny days and lack of aggressive Christmas cheer here in San Francisco. But this year we’ve been on the road for what feels like the better part of the last six months, plus my holiday heart is pumping an extra four quarts of shiny red Christmas blood around for this baby of ours, so I may be bound to the snowless slow lane for the time being.
If I were going to New York, here’s a list of what I’d do. If you’re there, you should too.
- Hit as many holiday markets as possible. Key one: Union Square. I’m also really fond of St. Bartholomew’s on Park Ave. because I grew up going to that church. You can score a silk tie for dad, jewelry from Brooklyn for your best friend, and a ridiculous overpriced hat for yourself because your mama didn’t dress you warmly enough. Full listing of markets, here.
- Check out Manhattan User’s Guide (MUG) listing of blogs covering holiday doings. Especially the events on the skint and Brooklyn Based.
- Seriously consider schlepping up to St. John the Divine for one of their Christmas concerts (they got Sting - apparently dressed in a cowl, no less - this year). Dress warmly: that place is freeeeezing in the winter.
- If it snows, take the A up to the Cloisters and wander about in the park a little before or after to get some winter stillness. Have tea. Maybe duck into a concert. Come to think of it, this is a good thing to do in January too. Maybe save the stillness for post-holidays.
- Go see a non-Christmas show. Screw Scrooge and the Rockettes: get cozy at Joe’s Pub (Happy Endings reading series is tomorrow), catch theater divas Lynn Redgrave at MTC or Anna Deavere Smith at 2nd Stage, or any of MUG’s 5 Off-Broadway Shows to See (see bottom of page).
- Get a good night’s sleep and head to midtown. Mind you, I never go to midtown unless I can help it, but the Grand Central Terminal shops, including the MTA store for New York-centric stocking stuffers (see also: New York Public Library gift shop), are a good place for gifts. And cheer. As long as you’ve had your coffee and not a lot of stress before you show up. Likewise wandering up 5th Avenue to furtively glance over the tourists’ shoulders at the windows at Saks and Barney’s and the tree at Rockefeller Center. If I’m feeling deranged with festive spirit, I might even go into FAO Schwarz for a few minutes. A word of caution: only brave this outing if you can feel happy window shopping and picking up the odd inspired gift. If you’re on a buying mission, the crowds and price tags could be your downfall.
- Hit Wollman Skating Rink. Think ahead re: crowds and events, but yeah, skating outside in Central Park is excellent.
If you’re there, I’m jealous, so maybe don’t tell me about it. Or you can tell me about it but you have to bring/send me a gift to accompany your tales of joy. That seems fair.
In the meantime, I’m sorting through New York First to see if I can import everything I like and set up a mini Manhattan in our apartment. Wish me luck.
This is quite possibly the only time in your life that you will ever want to have sex with Geoffrey Rush. He didn’t get all Wolverine-buff or have work done or anything. He’s still scattered looking and a little creepy intense. But praise Jesus is competence sexy. And this is beyond competence. This is take-me-now excellence.
You have to go. You must. I don’t care what excuse you have to give your Aunt Delia who’s in town for a weekend show, but scalp your Wicked tickets and go see some absurdist theater instead. She might even accept “celebrities” as a category trade-in for “endless mic’d singing about my feelings.”
The celebrities in question are Rush as the King, Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) turning in a very good histrionic performance as the King’s younger wife, Susan Sarandon anteing up a with an unconvincing offering as the original wife, and William Sadler whose resume you won’t remember but whose face you will (Die Hard II, suit-wearing villains on small and large screens) as the doctor.
I was disappointed with Sarandon. I’ve generally thought that she was better than her on-screen material, that she had an authority that would play well on-stage. Her work here doesn’t support either of those assumptions. She is definitely the weak link and Rush would have done better to cast someone with a stronger, weirder hand to match the rest of the performances.
The play is not easy. It’s absurd and bleak and funny (think Godot but with more running around) and about death, which is not a straightforward sell. Ionesco said, “I told myself that one could learn to die, that I could learn to die, that one can also help other people to die. This seems to me the most important thing we can do, since we’re all of us dying men who refuse to die. The play is an attempt at an apprenticeship in dying.”
Entertaining stuff, right? In point of fact, yes. Really. Rush is very, very funny and very, very good at it. He’s had the original production in Sydney and a run in London to perfect his performance and it’s a tour de force. Suffice to say that there’s a lot of dancing about interspersed with the pathos. See video clips here.
Rush and the director, Neil Armfield, did a new translation for this revival and it’s impossible not to see the relevance of the play today after eight years of criminally bad leadership (in this country anyway) and the popular obsession with self-expression (blog, anyone?) and with leaving your mark on the world. Sarandon’s uncertainty with the material undermines the crucial final path to the King’s demise and the text itself becomes more if-y and out of reach, but I’m not sure I could do better and I can’t imagine a better production, so plan for an evening of drinking afterwards and go see this one.
Interestingly, they’re both directed by the same person, Matthew Warchus, which gives him a better than average chance of winning that Tony, since he’s two fifths of the five man field rather than just one. Good plan, Matt. Get the math on your side. That’s what I always say.
The Norman Conquests, Table Manners, by Alan Ayckbourn at Circle in the Square. The trilogy part is tricky. Each play takes place in a different room of the house over the course of the same day with the same cast but can be seen independently. Table Manners is the one in the dining room.
In brief, a weekend with three sibling couples at their invalid mother’s country home. Norman hits on everyone.
Even briefer: Go.
This is the British half of my domestic disaster double bill and it’s the one to see. The British start from a position of repression, so devolution into their lesser selves still keeps them entertaining, interesting to watch, and above that Jerry Springer bar. You will not feel the need to drink heavily or never get married/immediately seek a divorce when you leave the theater.
Overall, I agree with everything the Times reviewer said, most prominently that this is not a brilliant trilogy of plays that can survive an American cast or a poor staging well, so this is the time to see it. It’s a great production with an outstanding British cast and you’ll like it even if you don’t much like theater.
The weak link, unfortunately, is the titular Norman (Stephen Mangan, inexplicably nominated for a Tony last week), but he’s more than made up for by Ben Miles and Paul Ritter who make brilliant business of being, respectively, wincingly awkward and hale fellow well met. Amanda Root (remember Persuasion?) is excellent as the worried, pushy wife trying to keep things on track and off the inevitable, dysfunctional rails.
Full disclosure: I saw this at a Wednesday matinee, which is often a recipe for disaster because the audience is packed with can’t-sit-still, I’ve-been-dragged-here, don’t-you-love-gum? classes of teenagers to supplement the usual weekend matinee crowd of out-for-the-day, in-from-the-suburbs, lunching-with-friends, don’t-really-“get”-the-play ladies. (To whom, for the record, I am - when not sitting next to them and their comments - grateful for supporting live theater with their full-price tickets.)
Even allowing for the matinee distraction factor, I didn’t think much of the play. It’s been a successful and well-received production, but I chalk that up to the presence of screen stars (James Gandolfini, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden and Jeff Daniels) and Reza’s talk-show script, both of which make it highly accessible. Sadly, they don’t make it meaningful or even really very entertaining, unless, like my matinee crowd, a.) you have never before thought about the potential vacuousness of middle-class marriage and this play is therefore a revelation, or b.) you think profanity is hilarious.
Imagine Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? without the cleverness, the pathos or the dialogue. That’s God of Carnage. There’s nothing particularly tragic or even interesting about pretentious couples being mean to each other about nothing much. And by “mean”, I mean yelling and throwing tulips and saying nasty things about cell phones, which just isn’t that mean. Watching it was like overhearing a particularly vicious squabble in a restaurant: it’s uncomfortable, you’re embarrassed for the participants, but there doesn’t seem to be a point beyond a Seinfeld-ian, “What is the deal with people? Geesh!” No new ground, no hidden meaning, not even a buried skeleton.
I knew I’d like Hope Davis, and she did the best with the script of any of them, but I was disappointed with Gandolfini who I know has a range beyond Tony Soprano but has the diction of a drunk second grader, and Harden who seems to be having too much fun throwing herself around to be believably distraught. Maybe it all comes back to the script, but the production felt like everyone was waiting for the editor to fix all the sloppiness before the final print.
All of that said, there’s a silver lining to new plays of inferior quality being produced on Broadway: it makes success that much more realistic for the rest of us. Hooray mediocrity!
My evening with Christopher Durang started on a happy note: I scored the last rush ticket after tearing up from Washington, ditching my bags at the apartment and sprinting across town to get there.
It turns out that that rush ticket saved me more than $50. It saved me the pain of regretting spending an extra $50 to see what is, let’s be honest, a wildly uneven offering. David Mamet got away with bringing November to Broadway last year just on the strength of his name, and Durang’s following suit.
I can’t blame him. If I were famous and could get anything I doodled on a napkin published and produced, who’s to say I wouldn’t take advantage too? This is why you have to make honest friends before you get famous, so they’re there to tell you you’re writing garbage but that they love you anyway and you should go back to your desk and work for another month or so to tune your jokes and get it right.
The characters are supposed to be absurd, over-the-top stereotypes (the earnest daughter, the possible terrorist, the out of touch suburban mother, the rabid Republican dad, etc.) in an absurd, over-the top plot about (what else) torture in the Bush years, but, what with the script being so weak, everyone founders. Only one of the cast - Kristine Nielsen, a Durang favorite as the mom - is able to raise her performance above the script’s faults and be truly bizarre and entertaining. She made it worth the price of admission, but barely, and I wouldn’t recommend the show to anyone but a die-hard theater go-er.
(If you are a die hard theater go-er, by the way, you will enjoy the mother’s dumptruck of insider references to recent plays by other playwrights. The audience I went with did, as did I, but I knew while I was giggling knowingly that those kinds of references, like the political ones elsewhere in the play, have a short shelf life and a limited audience.)
To top off my disappointment, I did not run into Oskar Eustis (profile here), the artistic director of the Public. I like his hair and I have a crush on his steamroller energy, but no such luck. Not that I’d have had anything to say to him if I had seen him. I should come up with some cocktail patter for those situations. Like, “I love your hair. My, you are energetic!” Do you think that would work? If someone said that to me, I’d probably let them into my Emerging Playwrights program. Wouldn’t you?
No? Really? You didn’t? You have no plans?? You don’t know what to see or who’s in it?? You’re not getting on a plane to New York just to catch a show? What?? You are not one of the eight people outside New York who watch the Tony Awards? Not possible! Are you being honest with me or are you putting me on??
Huh. Well, that hurts me a little. It pains me, I won’t deny it. But I’m here to help. Really. I saw everything. Nearly everything anyway. And I have things to say about even the things I didn’t see (naturally), so let me help.
Let’s get one thing clear right up front: I loathe musicals. I see them because R’s brother is an actor, a successful one and a good one, and he is sometimes in musicals and we love him, so I go. (See here, for Manoel’s latest.) Some of the voices are amazing. I can appreciate that. But all the stopping and dancing and singing about feelings gets in the way of the narrative and drives me batty. Which is to say that I didn’t see anything musical in New York, so if you’re looking for my thoughts on Shrek: The Musical or 9 to 5 (even though it does star Allison Janney), you’re out of luck.
Also, while we’re on the subject, let’s be clear about a couple of other things I can’t stand. Times Square and the tourists who crowd the sidewalks gawking at the things that are not cool about New York, the terrible restaurants up there, people who wear printed T-shirts to the theater, and the new trend of clapping at celebrities’ entrances and exits and speeches and so on as if they’re doing something above and beyond by just showing up.
There. I’m done. Now let’s move on.
Also on the menu: a British breakfast not drowning in grease. Simple: poached eggs on toast, a sausage, bacon, perfect grilled cherry tomatoes, and a paddy of shredded potato. Their coffee is outstanding, which is a crucial exception to me. I usually don’t even order coffee in restaurants for brunch because it’s usually bad or cold. Main point? 202’s breakfast menu is standard stock done well and carefully.
Couple of other notes: they’re open at diner hours in the week (well, 8:30AM), even though they’re located inside a chic retail store that opens later, so that’ll give you a chance to score your French toast without a wait. Their tables are narrow antique rectangles which are surprisingly conducive to both conversation and light writing, but this is not a free-wireless place packed with hipsters typing on their laptops: breakfast will set you back $20. Lunchtime gets trendy - it is in Chelsea Market - but mornings in the week or brunch a little on the early side on the weekend (10:30) are ideal times to get some real food, a little time with your coffee and sort yourself out.
75 Ninth Ave. nr. 16th St., 646-638-1173
Hours: Mon-Fri, 8:30am-11pm; Sat-Sun, 10am-11pm
Disclaimer: These are brief descriptions that do not do the neighborhoods justice. They are rife with vast generalizations.
Harlem.
Clinton has replaced the Globetrotters as the most famous resident of Harlem and that says about all you need to know. I once went home with a guy who lived in Harlem just as it was starting to re-emerge. He had a pit bull and his roommate paid the guy at the parking garage Viagra to watch his car ‘specially. There’s just not that much up there yet but what was once considered a dangerous neighborhood has, with the rising wealth of the city, become just another front on the battle for quality real estate on the island of Manhattan. Harlem had a ton of beautiful and neglected brownstones and underdeveloped (read: abandoned) buildings that are now renovated brownstones and office buildings (one of which houses Clinton’s offices).
The Upper East Side.
Generally speaking, this neighborhood is the one east of Central Park up to about 86th St.. It’s home to two populations: old money and new graduates. The old money lives along the park itself (5th Avenue), and up and down Madison and Park Avenues. The homes are huge and beautiful and insanely pricey. It’s a pretty place to be and is home to some of New York’s best museums (The Met, The Guggenheim, The Frick, Cooper-Hewitt, The Whitney) but is not so excellent for street life or anything unique. There are, however, a lot of very expensive stores along Madison if you’d like to damage your credit score in a single transaction.There is a figurative set of railroad tracks running up Lexington Avenue, on the other side of which live the ex-frat boys and ex-sorority girls. They have all congregated here because they hope to inch a few blocks closer to the park if they marry well or rake in some financial industry bonuses by working 173 hours/week, thereby becoming uninteresting enough to move into a brownstone on 64th and Park. As a result of this homogenous colonizing, there are a lot of binge drinking bars, baseball hat stores and nondescript housing. If you’re moving to New York without a trust fund, chances are about half of the places you and your nine roommates can even remotely afford are going to be up here. Avoid it if you can help it. It’s not the New York you’re moving there for.
(The far east side is not as bad as the Lex/3rd Avenue area because it’s not convenient to the subway. If you have a bike or a chauffeur, you could do worse than living on York Avenue. Also, if you live on York, you can hit my favorite pizza place on the corner of 85th and York. Don’t move there right away though because they’re digging the new subway line right now, so it’s going to be noisy for a couple of years. Of course, after it quiets down, the subway will be in and the rents will go up, so yeah, maybe you should move in now and just plan on getting a lot of exercise and no sleep.)
For those of you from San Francisco, The UES is the equivalent of the Marina + Pac Heights + Twin Peaks, only with older money.
The Upper West Side.
West side of the park. The accessible and interesting part of it runs further north than on the east side because of Columbia University’s presence on 115th St.. The neighborhood is also more accessible because it’s narrower, so the red line (1/2/3/9) can get you closer to where you’re going. Besides Columbia, the UWS is home to the Natural History Museum (fantastic) and the best selection of grocery stores in the city (Zabar’s, Citarella and Fairway).
All of the psychotherapists have congregated up here, so if you haven’t been feeling yourself lately and you can muster the inner strength to reach out, this is probably where you’ll end up. It’s nice to be able to get a decent eclair on your way to or from therapy (depending, I guess, on which end of your session you need custardy comfort). I like the UWS a lot. It’s close to the park and is also home to a lot of money but the university and Lincoln Center have brought in the academics and artists, so it’s not staid like the UES. There are flea markets on the weekends and it’s a little grittier and the shopping and dining are more interesting. If you’d like to stroll around and hit some shops, get off the 1/2/3/9 at 72nd St. and walk up Amsterdam or Columbus. It’s not edgy or boutiquey like the downtown neighborhoods but you will be able to get tea and scones at Alice’s (reserve or take out if you’re going at peak times) or pick up some half-pound, best-ever cookies at Levain.
Midtown / Times Square
Don’t ever, ever, ever let anyone tell you this is a nice place to live unless you are a.) going to school in the immediate vicinity, or b.)…. never mind. There is no second reason. Likewise, if you are visiting New York, do not stay here unless you think the Magic Kingdom is the best darn place on earth. In which case, I am not your best source for information about New York, so you should probably stop reading. You will visit Midtown during your stay/life, no doubt. Grand Central is here (train station). Port Authority is here (bus station). The Theater District is here. Columbus Circle. Flagship Macy’s. The Empire State Building. Madison Square Garden (train station below, events above). The Daily Show. Bryant Park and the NY Public Library. MoMa. Radio City Music Hall. The part of 5th Avenue that you think you want to shop on. St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Chances are your first job will be here. Yada yada yada.
The main point is that it is the most un-New York neighborhood of New York, populated as it is with a crazy number of tourists who would love nothing better than to eat (again) at TGI Friday’s, be crowded by a bunch of people just like themselves and buy overpriced T-shirts. It’s the Midwest of Manhattan at New York prices. If you want to see people just like you - visitors, that is - you could have stayed home. Also, you will pay a premium to see them, so it’s a double whammy.
There’s a 50/50 chance that anyone who looks like s/he knows where s/he is going is not in fact a New Yorker but a bridge and tunnel-er, which is the New York phrase for someone who had to cross the water from somewhere to get there (New Jersey or Long Island usually). You can tell who they are by the size of their hair (her), their track shoes with a skirt (also her - Working Girl, anyone?) or their lack of interesting clothes (both him and her). These people are also like you only local. My advice? Don’t go to midtown unless you have a specific destination in mind, like your job or a show or a movie in Bryant Park in the summer. And H&M is not a destination.
If you’re some kind of Daniel Boone and can navigate by the position of the sun, you can stop reading. Unless it’s nighttime and you can’t see the stars because you’ve come to the big city, in which case feel free to come crawling back. I’ll trade you my instructions for your deerskin pants. Hand ‘em over.
Uptown/downtown orientation
I have no sense of direction at all. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. So how do I move around with confidence in New York? Traffic, that’s how. Most of the avenues (north/south) are one-way, so you just come out of the subway (which all drop off on corners) and check which way traffic is moving. For instance, if I get off the Lexington Avenue green line (4/5/6) at 57th St. and I’m headed for 59th, I walk against the flow of the downtown traffic and know I’m headed uptown (north). Of course, this presumes that you know that Lexington Ave. is one-way downtown. Any self-respecting map will show the arrows for one-way on the avenues.If you don’t want to do that, you can use buildings. When the World Trade towers still stood, they were the downtown landmark. Now I use the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building (which, to my mind, is much less pretty than the Chrysler, but no one asked me). Since they’re both in midtown, for this to work, you have to know where you are in relation to where they are (43rd and 34th Streets, respectively). (If you think that’s self-evident, clearly you haven’t met my kind.) That is, if you are on the corner of 72nd, you know the Chrysler Building is downtown from you. Likewise, if you’re on 14th St., the Chrysler will be uptown.
East/west orientation
Once you know whether you’re facing uptown or downtown, you can sort out your east/west orientation. (As Manhattan is an island, it’s pointless to use the water as a determiner of where you are. Also, I have yet to identify a building that is on the eastern or western edge of the city and is visible from just about anywhere.) If you’re facing downtown (south), and you need to go west, turn to your right. Since I have a lifelong handicap of thinking that whichever direction I’m facing is north, this method does leave me hesitating on streetcorners fighting my instincts for five seconds, but it’s worth it to head confidently in the right direction.Please do not stand in the middle of the sidewalk while you sort this out. There is nothing more annoying to New Yorkers who do know where they’re going to have their paths blocked by puzzled newcomers. It will (and should) make you feel like a a gauche intruder to break the rhythm of the city by standing perfectly still in the middle of a busy sidewalk staring at the direction of traffic. Step aside. Step into a doorway (NOT a store doorway where you will still be in the way) or around the corner to where you can breathe and orient yourself.
Addresses
Knowing that a bar is on 9th Avenue is pointless. You will not know what to tell a cab driver or where to get off the subway. You must know where on 9th Avenue. First stop: most restaurant guides or store web sites will note the cross street when listing their address. If they don’t, call and ask. That’s what I do.For those who would like to be more self-sufficient or are just weird about asking for help, using phones or whatever, here are some guidelines. First, get a hold of yourself and just call the place already. Geez. Second, if that’s out of reach, here’s what you have to go through instead:
- If you’re looking for an address below Houston Street (pronounced “How-ston”, not like the city in Texas) or in the West Village, give up. Google maps is your only hope.
- If you’re in the numbered streets, you have an advantage. If you’re online, go here for reference or to have them sort it for you. (Why you won’t just use Google Maps is beyond me.)
- If you’re not online, check the actual street names again. “West 14th St.” or “East 51st St.” are distinctions that start at 5th Avenue and go up by 100 each block. That sounds confusing, but it’s not. If you need 52 East 57th St., it’s on the block between 5th Avenue and Madison (the first street east of 5th). 152 East 57th is on the next block, between Madison and Park. And so on.
- If you’re heading to an address on an avenue, there’s a formula for that too. It’s here. I never learned this formula and I did fine.
I’m not recommending learning all this math, but if you’re a numbers nut, be my guest.
Cabs are fine. I like cabs. But cabs are the #1 money sink in New York and, if you’re not used to the steep costs of the city, you will already be begging for mercy. Cutting out cabs should be your first stop when trying to cut costs. Save your duckets for tickets and drinks and wildly expensive clothing. Also, do not be fooled into thinking that a cab will be faster than the subway. This is a common non-native mistake.
Cabs 101:
- Cabs have lights on the top. Take a look. See? If the lights are off, the cab’s occupied. Don’t run after it swearing. It won’t stop, and you will look silly. If the center light is on, it’s up for grabs. (If all the lights on top are on - side lights + center light, the cab’s off-duty. Also no running and swearing.) Max capacity is four passengers in a regular cab, no arguing.
- Just getting in a cab will cost you $2.50, even if you change your mind and get out a block later. After 8PM, tack on a night surcharge of an additional $1.
- Bearing that in mind, always catch a cab going in the direction you’re headed. For instance, if you’re on 17th St. between 6th and 7th Avenues and you’re going downtown to meet your pals in SoHo, walk over to 7th and grab a cab there. (7th is one-way headed downtown - see Part III - Orientation). Otherwise, you’ll pay $5 to basically drive around the block.
- Cabs are definitely faster at night - say, after 8:00PM - when subways run less frequently and you might spend an extra 5-10 minutes on the subway platform.
- Late at night (after 11:00PM), I’d jump in a cab. This isn’t because the subways aren’t safe (they are), but mainly because I’ve usually had a drink (or many) and the long waits underground combined with the super-bright lights on the cars are a downer.
- Flip side is that during rush hours, cabs are to be avoided entirely. You will be paying to sit in the backseat of someone’s car while they take your money. It’s like being mugged very, very slowly.
- Cabs from the airports are brutally expensive. From Newark, expect $65 minimum. From JFK, there’s a fixed rate of $45 into Manhattan + toll + tips, so you’ll come in around $60. La Guardia’s the cheapest. You might get off with $40 total. That said, I still cab in from the airports because I don’t like flying, so I’m usually worn out and am willing to fork over the cash.
If you have time and patience and not much luggage, there are definitely public transportation options to all the airports. The subway runs to JFK. See here for directions. There are efficient and cheap shuttle buses to/from Newark or you can hop New Jersey Transit (train), both of which will drop you in/near the subway system once you’re on Manhattan. (Your best bet to getting on the right bus with the right ticket in your hand is to go to the info booth in your terminal - they’ll hook you up and point you in the right direction.) The M60 bus to La Guardia is the preferred non-car route. See here for options.
- When I’m going to the airport, I don’t try to catch a cab, since that usually requires that I schlep my luggage to a corner. Call a car service: it’s the same price as long as you don’t opt for a luxury car. Call 212-777-7777 and tell the dispatcher where you’re staying and they’ll collect you at the right time to make your flight.
- Speaking of airports, if you can help it, don’t book your flights to New York to depart or arrive between 8-9:30 AM or between 4-7PM. That’s rush hour, kids, and your commute to/from the airport will suck.
Subway
The subway rules in New York. It goes pretty much everywhere except the far east side and they’re digging up 2nd Avenue to solve that one right now. Get a subway map, buy a MetroCard from any station, and you’re good to go. Fares are $2 each time you go into the subway + free transfer to/from a bus within 2 hours. You can swipe four consecutive people - your kids, strangers, bandmates - through on the same Metrocard. If you load your MetroCard with $20 or more, you’ll get a free ride for every $20 you spend. (But don’t go too wild: MetroCards have expiration dates, so if you thought you’d buy $800 of rides for your weekend and be good to go for the rest of your life, you would be wrong. $760 wrong. Which is a lot of wrong.)Cab vs. Subway Showdown: when in doubt, just get on the subway.
Buses
I don’t take buses much, but they’re a great idea when trying to get across town when Central Park’s in your way - say, from the Met over to the west side for dinner. Buses are also great if you have a lot of time (they stop every couple blocks) and want to see the city as you’re getting to where you’re going.Note to self/you: getting across town (east/west) is tough both on subways and in cabs but I think cabs are worse. This is because most cross-town streets are one-way and one-lane so you sit in traffic a lot. The cross-town artery streets that aren’t one-way and have four lanes (14th, 23rd, 28th, 34th, 42nd, 57th - don’t try to find a pattern ‘cause there isn’t one) are wildly busy.
Rather than cab it to get crosstown, I’d take a subway to one of the few crosstown subway lines: the L runs across 14th, the S across 42nd St., or the N/R runs up/down Broadway diagonally. The “N/R” stands for “Never/Rarely”, so be warned on that one. It’s an annoying line. I know. I used to live on one of its local stops. Don’t ask. It hurts to talk about it.
Walking
The standard wisdom is that it should take about 1 minute to walk one block, which is about 1/5 mile. This presumes you are walking and not looking around. It also presumes that you are not wearing high heels, so don’t count on making that kind of time on your way out to dinner or the theater. An avenue is about a ¼ mile so it’s gonna take 2-3 minutes to walk.I walk all the time in Manhattan. It’s the best way to see the city and there are very few dead spots in central Manhattan where a brisk walk won’t be interesting. (Once you’re on the far east or west side of the city, things get farther apart and duller.) If you have evening plans, think ahead though: walking around for eight hours will take it out of you, so if you’re tourist-ing it up, pace yourself.
- With the possible exception of going to Sweden, you will spend more money than you think humanly possibly within your first 24 hours in New York. Plan accordingly. And by “accordingly” I don’t mean what your dad would tell you, like, “Watch where you spend your pennies because they add up to real dollars.” I mean, you may well have spent all your pennies and their associated dollars before you even make it out of your hotel, so brace yourself and multiply what you think you can afford by x4 before you even get there and plan for that as your budget.
And don’t try and lower costs by joining up with some insane package deal run by a bunch of yahoos in Duluth. It will just mean that your trip to New York will be exactly like the trip you took to Branson, Missouri with your grandparents when you were eight (i.e. featuring people who can’t hold their liquor and shows that you can catch on tour in just about any medium-sized city a year from now).
- Nowhere you stay will be larger than your average closet. I don’t care if it’s an Ian Shrager hotel off Times Square or on the floor of your college buddy’s walk-up in the Village, the shower will be within reaching distance of all major room landmarks. Remember that it is a privilege to be in New York and 8.2 million other people think so too (1.6 million if you stick with Manhattan, not counting you and all the other visitors) so y’all are competing for some seriously limited space (23 square miles, to be exact).
- If you are not from San Francisco or the Third World, New York will seem dirty to you. It’s not. It is, but it’s so much better than it used to be + you need to keep those 1.6 million people in mind, so pull yourself together and, as my high school physics teacher used to say, “Quit’cher bitchin’.
Basic geography.
Location, location, location. Learn your geography. You will be nowhere without it, pun somewhat intended. When I went back to New York as a college student, I was with friends who knew their way around, so I paid no attention, which left me looking uncool when people chatted about uptown, downtown, crosstown and pretty much any neighborhood.
For starters, New York City has five boroughs: Manhattan (an island), Brooklyn (an island), Queens (same island as Brooklyn, namely Long Island), the Bronx (not an island) and Staten Island (predicatably, an island). These are not neighborhoods and they do not share the address of “New York, NY,” or the area code 212, as I discovered when I moved into my studio in Brooklyn as a novice New Yorker. The island of Manhattan is the only New York, NY. The boroughs are all governed by the same mayor (currently Michael Bloomberg) but each has a borough president, plus representation at the neighborhood level. It’s complicated. All you really need to know is that if go to New York, you probably mean Manhattan with a possible hipster sojourn to Williamsburg (a neighborhood in Brooklyn) or a trip to the Bronx Zoo (in, um, the Bronx).
I recommend this map. It’s the Filofax-sized version of the Streetwise map series and it kicks ass. I got my first one when I moved there in 1994 and still carry one with me all the time (when I’m in New York, that is. Don’t be a smart aleck.) It’s small, it’s laminated and it has all the subway stops, a bus map, an index and everything you need (except a view of the other boroughs which you can also get from Streetwise but which aren’t in the handy small size).
The whole island of Manhattan is only thirteen and a half miles, north to south, and about two and a half miles wide, less in most places. The Hudson River bounds Manhattan on the west and separates it from New Jersey or “Jersey” as you should now call it. The East River bounds it to the, er, east.
Central Park. Find it on your map. It runs from 59th St. up to 110 St. and is the boundary for the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side.
With the confusing exceptions of the financial district all the way downtown and the West Village, the city is pretty much a numbered grid of avenues that run north/south (or uptown/downtown) and streets that run east/west (or crosstown). Naturally, there are exceptions to this, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Basically, it’s a grid.
The avenue numbers start on the east side and increase as you move west: First Avenue is on the far east side and 11th Avenue is on the far west side. The exceptions you should learn right away are Madison Avenue, Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue which disrupt the avenue numbering system on the east side of the city. Memorizing their order is a minor task: from the east, it goes 1st Ave., 2nd Ave, 3rd Ave, Lexington, Park, Madison, 5th Ave., 6th Ave. and so on.
Broadway is the only diagonal artery in the city. South of Central Park, it runs west-east diagonally across Manhattan. Once it hits Central Park it straightens itself out on the Upper West Side.
New York was a mystery to me when I started looking for a place there and I could have used a hand. I know there are already roughly 1 million guides to New York on the bookshelves, but I didn’t need one of those. I needed a.) someone to tell me the non-touristy basics that I wouldn’t even have known to ask about, and b.) someone who was roughly like me to tell me what was worth doing once I sorted myself out. That’s why I wrote this.
Who Will Benefit
- If you have never been to New York and desperately want to go but are just a leetle beet afraid of the city or are overwhelmed with all the options.
- If you have only been to New York for that bus trip/dog show/bachelor party that one time but have been meaning to go back.
- If you have been a bunch of times but still don’t feel comfortable or want to look more like a native.
- If you are up and moving there (hooray!) and have no idea where to start.
So far, it’s been a trip marked by reversals. You know when you know you’re scattered and you can give the people around you a heads up, “Hey - I’m scattered. Don’t count on me to return the ball after the first bounce”? That’s not where I am. Where I am is racket back, watching the ball come over the net, I’ve got it covered and at the last minute realizing we’re playing water polo.
There are two sides to every story though, right? Same day, two stories.
Thursday: Red eye. ‘Nuf said.
Thursday - the other version: I do not die.
Friday: Feel desperately tired and overwhelmed. In an effort to regain equilibrium, walk so many miles around lower Manhattan that I practically maim myself.
Friday - the other version: Find stripey hat for $16 at Muji. Cannot stop wearing it even though it’s very possible I look deranged. Go see Mike Birbiglia (funny) and have excellent sandwich.
Saturday: Regain equilibrium. Have great dinner at Raoul’s in SoHo with friends.
Saturday - the other version: Same.
Sunday: No sleep. Equilibrium lost track of again, possibly under bed. Make plans to be in three locations at the same time with three different people. As am not able to bend laws of time/space continuum (still), spend the day making excuses on my cell phone. R leaves for Baltimore. Attend Oscar party featuring a woman I used to loathe but have not seen in several years. Turns out, I still loathe her. Some things do not change. Good to know. Lose all my Oscar bets. Go to bed at 3AM upset about not having neutralizing ray gun to take down enemies.
Sunday - the other version: Discover the French toast at 202 (squishy, tasty) and their perfect cafe au lait. See my brother, which could be fraught but isn’t. Help R with some of his work, which never happens because he is Señor Executivo and I am the one who usually needs assistance because Excel is stupid, stupid program and R is a genius. Have play time with friend’s perfect baby (after convincing said baby that I was not a kidnapper). The Academy Awards show wins Most Improved.
Monday: Finally get some sleep. Have lunch, write, scrap all plans outside a 20-block radius. Chat with David at 19 Christopher (which is not going out of business like their neighbor, Hus, thank God). Do not buy the Serge Thoraval necklace I desperately want at Destination. Nice British dude at Tea & Sympathy with ‘70’s hair makes me an excellent cup of tea to go in the bitter cold. Overcome urge to buy everything at Murray’s Cheese due to personal recession incurred by leaving job. Instead, pick up red velvet cupcake at Amy’s Breads. Have more Pegu drinks with bro. (Is there any liquor in the Pisco Punch at all? Or has the sustained stress of the last month upped my tolerance for liquor somehow? Does your liver also process stress?) Have dinner with excellent friends at Stanton Social. Order everything on the menu + many cocktails. Get 25% off total bill because we rule. (Also because that is, in fact, their rule: after 9PM Mondays, 25% off.)
Monday - the other version: Same.
Tuesday: 202 breakfast. Writing. Good start. Downhill from there: go to Met, decide against Calder jewelry exhibit as being too blah to justify $20 entrance fee ($20?! I know everyone else got upset about this a long time ago, but the sticker shock has, um, stuck.) Do not buy snowglobe I wanted as, like many celebrities, it is not good looking up close and in person. Go across the Park to UWS. Lose wallet. Recover wallet. Am unable to find the hoodie I want. Go back downtown hoodie-less. Have walked self lame (again). Hurt shoulder injury due to overpurchase of heavy things like books and conditioner (don’t ask). Go to Hable, which is closing their store on Perry St. this Saturday. (So you should go now and get that cool bird lamp I didn’t buy. You’ll know which one I mean: it looks like I made it for you in shop class.) Kristen Johnston is there (and ridiculously too thin). Cannot tell if she is drunk, wildly insecure or just super annoying, but she takes up all the air in the place. Have 100 crossed wires with friend re: evening plans. Have emotional tantrum because am overtired and have had only Levain cookies and no lunch. Get very depressed. Go out anyway. Have wine with friend at Riposo 72. Lose wallet again. Am too tired to care.
Tuesday - the other version: 202. Write. Recover lost wallet (twice). Levain cookies. Find Banksy book at the Strand. Get bag at Hable. Get time with friend, despite Oscar fiasco + tangle of crossed wires + tantrum. Do not die.
Wednesday: Pack. Feel organized and self-satisfied. Leave apartment for leisurely breakfast and to write. Realize will do no such thing as have miscalculated schedule despite checking itinerary four times because that’s how I roll and am bad at math. Panic. Call car service. Car service goes to wrong address. Car service drops me at United. United says flight is with USAir (one mile away, other terminal) despite ticket having been purchased from United and stating United flight number. Miss out on together time with the shuttle lounge, which is a happy place: plugs, comfy chairs, business men who know how to travel (quietly). Have somehow permanently scratched my glasses. Arrive in Boston. Find out that R is attending a conference for the next two days. Have mini breakdown contemplating re-planning next two days.
Wednesday - the other version: Have superior latte (albeit speedy). Score rugelach at Amy’s. Catch flight. Find R. Am definitely not dead.
When you go to the Bleeker Theatre - which, by the way, you should, because, if my 2-for-2 experience is any predictor, they put up entertaining shows there - you should hit the NoHo Star on the corner of Bleeker and Lafayette, just across the street. It’s a little too trendy and expensive to be a destinaation dinner spot for me, but the drinks are good, they have boiled eggs on the bar (and who doesn’t love that?), and the baguette sandwiches are reasonably priced ($10-12) and super delicious. I have no other sample set from their menu because I usually only drink there, but those sandwiches should be enough to get you in the door for an early or late light dinner. (It’s mad crowded with what appear to be locals at dinner hour.) The rest of the menu trends towards the $20-$28 range and I just don’t want to eat pricey in a locale that loud and that central. But if you want the best toasted baguette with sliced hard-boiled egg, tomato, greens, capers and aioli, this is your stop. Put a little salt on it before you munch. The bar is good and the house prosecco + raspberry Stoli is a pretty drink for a lightweight evening out.
Macbeth, at the Lyceum Theatre, New York. Tickets at Telecharge.com.
If you haven’t read Macbeth, this is your show. If you haven’t seen Macbeth, this is your show. If you’re a fan of Macbeth, this may also be your show. It’s big, it’s accessible, it’s well-done from casting to staging and it’s original enough that it’ll keep you interested.
It’s set in the first half of the last century in a chilly basement, so no moors and highland mania. The institutional staging is excellently suited to all the blood: dingy white tile and metal furniture on wheels. (The sink downstage stays put, which is just as well given the aforementioned blood.) The tile provides a backdrop for projections of bloody smoke and the forest, among other things. Nice work there. Less so with the extreme sound effects. They are so jacked up that they lose whatever original effect they might have had and register only as, “Goddamn that’s loud.”
Lady Macbeth wears those silky bias-cut dresses that only women with no thighs can rock and her sexy ambition is a convincing reading of the pushy missus. Patrick Stewart is a solid thane and king and does not tug his jacket down once. I appreciate that his Macbeth unravels with sanity. Macbeth is too-often wild-eyed and wild-haired (not an issue with Stewart, needless to say), as if he were not the maker of his own demise. The wilder Macbeths are sexier but Stewart’s makes more sense. The witches are standouts, creepily decked out as nurses, white whimples and grey dresses and all. Their sinister incantations are all the creepier for the saintly uniforms and their handling of the ill and injured and, finally, the dead.
It is big and bloody. It is timely. (Macbeth is a Shakesperean for the Bush age - blood and torture and ambition in the face of clear error.) It is all the things I hope Shakespeare will be. It will draw new fans; it explicates the play. Why, then, was I unmoved? Why did I check my watch every fifteen minutes? Why did I leave with the feeling that I did the right thing but did not enjoy doing it?. After thinking about it for a while, I don’t think it’s the production. I think it’s Macbeth. I’m just not that into him.
As I tried to pin down why, something I’ve noticed in corporations came to mind: the skillsets that make a good worker are not the same set that make a good manager. Good workers get promoted to management because it’s the natural next step up the corporate ladder. They fail because they are unsuited for the role - a role for which they were not hired.
So goes Macbeth. Suited for the battlefield, he brings only battle skills to his promotion, with predictable results. I prefer my heroes paralyzed with misgivings (Hamlet) or evil but clever (Richard III). There’s more drama in their predicaments, more suspense. Macbeth is tragic but not that interesting because the deterioration is so predictable. Given the choice, I’ll go for a story whose ending is less obvious, a story whose progress is less foreordained. This is probably the same reason I’ve never enjoyed the Greek plays much either. Where there is choice, there is agony but where there is no choice, there’s also less interest for me. Macbeth feels to me like a particularly brutal children’s story, a cautionary tale about what will happen when you overreach…or slaughter kings and kids…or listen to witches and your wife…no, wait, that’s not it. Just witches. Which I wasn’t going to do anyway. So I’m in the clear.
Now that I’ve sorted that out, I’m still sticking with my recommendation: if you’re ever going to see Macbeth, see this one. Also, don’t kill your boss. Or children.
Experiencing the usual re-entry anxiety. I met myself on the plane and she was lovely, so that was touching. (More on that later.) While I collect my thoughts and get some sleep, have a look at Sigur Ros’ video “Glósóli” if you haven’t before.
Paul Ford put it better than I could: “What you’re seeing in that video is your grandparents going to heaven when they’re kids.”
Edward Albee is the man. He was my gateway drug into modern theater. When I read The Zoo Story in high school, it almost convinced me to go to Rice because that’s where Albee was teaching at the time. Rice. In Texas. Texas, people. Where the weather is hot and where our President picked up that phony accent. And we all know how I feel about hot weather and our President.
Anyway, a few years ago, Albee wrote a lead-in play for The Zoo Story called Homelife. It covers the hour or so Peter spends with his wife at home before he goes to the park and meets Jerry. Homelife and The Zoo Story are up as a double bill at Second Stage in New York and, if you can, you should go. They close this weekend, so you’ll have to get on the stick quickly.
Oh - and avoid a matinee if at all possible. I didn’t manage that and was subject to a long line of horrifying, substantial matrons waiting for the bathroom and saying things like, “Well, that was strange,” “What happened?” and, “We can talk about it in the cab.” I know these women are the life’s blood of the theater - they like an afternoon out and the play’s the thing - but Lord save me. Also, these women take forever to pee, with their wraps to unwrap and girdles and jackets and pantyhose. So help me God, when I am 70, I will be trim and quick and wear excellent, bold jewelry, swish pants and well-cut sweaters.
The Zoo Story is just as good as it’s always been and the acting is top-notch. Dallas Roberts* carries the day with a pitch-perfect, insistent Jerry. He threatens and sulks and dodges around the minimal set looking scruffy and sad and frightening all at once. It’s a performance to remember. Bill Pullman as Peter is appropriately conventional and nervous and uses his long stretches of silence to good effect.
I can understand why Albee wrote Homelife. The subjects of The Zoo Story - alienation, artifice, failures of communication - attract expansion, as does the nearly silent character of Peter. Despite very good performances by both Pullman and Johanna Day, the execution felt too explicative, which seems to be a feature of the aging male, onstage and off. The pauses in the conversations between the married couple felt more like failing momentum than breakdowns laden with meaning. However, I was glad to have seen the piece and it is still a far stretch better than a lot of what’s out there.
(A day later, I talked to a young actor who had seen the show and thought the reverse - that The Zoo Story was the weaker link and Homelife a triumph. He was by far the most pretentious person I have met in the last few months however, so I’m sticking with my opinion. Perhaps it’s a guy thing, this preoccupation with bringing the point home. I’ll have to think about that one…)
*Google would have us know that Dallas Roberts is also the name of an Academy of Hair Design and Aesthetics in Provo, Utah. In case you look up Dallas, let me remind you that I am referring not to the hair design but to the actor. Despite being preoccupied with Aesthetics, the Academy does not feature in this production.
Dressler in Williamsburg got a star in the new Michelin guide to New York! Go Dressler! We ate there in August on the recommendation of our excellent Brooklyn friends and it was worth every penny.
The place is decorated in what I’d describe as high-end cozy Gothic. A lot of ironwork, ultra-cool chandeliers that look like hand-carved metal. Some places with cutting edge decor balance it out by serving cocktails that taste like they were mixed with the metal polish and food that was looks and tastes like it was designed and cooked by the architect. Not so at Dressler.
The waitress talked me into La Bicyclette, a drink made with St. Germain Elderflower (?!), lemon and cava that was not the fruity, girly confection it sounded like. The heirloom tomato appetizer was perfect (local produce! organic! and so on…) and the wild bass entree was both subtle and flavorful, the accompanying vegetables and sauces a perfect complement to the fish and not at all overwhelming. (In my experience, there’s a lot you can do wrong with white fish and they did none of them.)
Even though we had a box of Magnolia cupcakes under the table, we ordered dessert. How could we not? The place was fantastic. The oven-roasted peaches with brown butter cake and black pepper ice milk did not disappoint. Oh my Lord how they did not disappoint. They did not disappoint the way Paris and Christmas don’t. I swear the brown butter cake was the best cake I have ever had. And the peculiar black pepper ice milk - about which I had another word with the waitress (I’m not sure she loved me…) - was ideally light and cool with the warm cake and peaches.
And then we had cupcakes on the sidewalk. Hooray!
On Monday, after having lunch in SoHo at Rice, my friend Sharon and I looked around for dessert. Our first thought was gelato, but then she thought of Rice to Riches, a rice pudding emporium right around the corner. Having just consumed a large bowl of rice with lemongrass chicken, the wet bowls of rice and cream in shades varying from cream to fawn to brown didn’t pique my appetite, but I liked the place anyway. It reminds me of the old-school New York diners I miss so much in California. Rice pudding is honest. It has about four ingredients, none of which are on the Atkins list and all of which taste excellent. So I’m taking the unorthodox step of recommending a place second-hand. (Reviews from Sharon, Time Out, the Times and New York Magazine are all glowing.) I will note, however, that large bowls of rice pudding just are not visually appealing, especially after a substantial meal, so arrive hungry if at all possible. Or drunk, as I hear people often do.
Rice to Riches is open all hours (until 1AM on weekend nights, 11PM other nights) and serve every imaginable flavor of rice pudding. Actually, they have several that I wouldn’t have imagined, including French Toast and Tiramisu. For an extra fifty cents, you can get whipped cream or coconut on top, among other things, and for a dollar, you can have oven-roasted fruit with your six, eight or fourteen-ounce (or, if you’re awfully peckish, eighty-ounce) bowl of niceness. The décor is hip retro-modern with wavy surfaces, a few tables and a curved bar. What’s not to love about this place?
The birthday party I attended on Thursday was for a friend I met at a wedding. In the bridal twilight over Long Island Sound, she and her husband had stood out from the mass of blazers and rep ties. He wore a lip stud, a purple shirt and shaded glasses. She wore a head scarf. She’s a professor and author and theater producer who writes and works for the rights of South Asian women. He motors around the art world in various capacities. The next time I went to New York, I called her up, we all had dinner and we’ve been fast friends ever since. That’s Story #1.
The closing party I attended on Sunday followed the final Broadway performance of Sweeney Todd (in which R’s brother starred). I’ve met one of the actresses at least half a dozen times, including at my birthday party. She squeeled when she saw us, ran over, said several things I’ve completely forgotten and squeeled away. I spied one of the producers about six feet away. He and I and R had talked at length on the opening night of the show and at the post-Tony party when all of us were somewhat drunk. He didn’t acknowledge either of us. That’s Story #2.
I have one question: what is wrong with people in the theater that they cannot be human beings unless what you can do for them is stamped on your forehead and preferrably also your T-shirt and your business card?
Home. And a damn hot home it is too. It’s a testament to this city that, as much as I hate heat, and I do, I love New York more. When I was a kid, I had heatstroke three times, all of them terrifying, so I kind of lost interest in all things hot, including beach vacations (which also tax my patience with lying still - I would have made a really bad Victorian bride) and summer in general. Give me spring or autumn.
Living in San Francisco has changed - or at least moved - my opinion of hot weather. The uniformity of the weather in California freaks me out. Endless days of the same half sunshine/half overcast weather grate on my nerves the way I imagine endless daylight drags on the Scandinavians. It’s like eating the same thing day after day: no matter how pleasant it seemed in the beginning, after 300 times, it’s lost all appeal.
New York in August is usually about 85 degrees and 70% humidity which make it feel like a warm bath. With your clothes on. Oddly, this adversity rarely bothers me. It’s inconvenient and you have to plan around it - don’t wear a suit to work, plan on being sticky - but I prefer it to the suffocating uniformity of San Francisco’s non-seasons which make me feel like I’m being pacified for nefarious alien purpose. (If they come, they could take California without a glitch. Seriously. No one out there?s paying any attention. Go for it.)
Not to be religious, but I think there’s something about the adversity of seasons that keeps you alert. Snow for a few months, sweltering for a little while, a few thunderstorms, falling leaves, budding leaves. They remind you that mobility and rejuvenation are essential. Mild heat and clear skies convey a sense of suspicious well-being, encouraging you to believe that all?s well, that there’s no need to press forward. Blech.
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On "To The Mean Lady in the Bathroom",
em commented: What a lovely sentiment and so kindly worded. I, too, have been on the receiving end of such nonsense - though in a som... (continues)