surprise Tuesday culture

Today was supposed to be a day of working late and cleaning.  Instead it was a day of working late and seeing the last two acts of the Royal Danish Ballet performance that a friend of a friend couldn't make.

Her loss was my gain - the performance was very good, and also different from the sorts of things I'm used to seeing (although I think I probably say that often enough that it's never really true).  It was a series of short repertory pieces, which I prefer to long ballets because I have no attention span.  The costumes were more elaborate than I'm used to, the dancing seemed to have a lot more jumping, particularly by men, and because my friend and her friend have more important jobs than I do, I was sitting close enough to see the subtle details of the dancers' movements.

That is all.  I'm not very smart about ballet.  But I went, I saw, and soon I will sleep.

a very busy week

The last week has been busy, although mostly not in interesting ways.  There was a lot of working and a lot of running and a lot of socializing, all of which I enjoy, which is a good thing since most of the summer will be spent on those activities rather than high-minded cultural exploration.

A few notes:
- Barcibo Enoteca is a wine bar (that also serves small plates and paninis) near Lincoln Center.  It's a nice place to meet someone you don't know very well because it's anonymous in location and atmosphere without feeling impersonal.  Also the waitresses are friendly, the wine list is long, and there's just the right amount of noise.  However, I've been using it as a default first date spot for most of the time I've been living in New York and none of those first dates led to second dates.  Maybe I should find a new spot.

- La Vela on the Upper West Side continues to be very good, very simple, and very relaxed.  It's the type of place you can order just an entree - no wine, no app, no dessert - and still feel okay about sitting there all evening.  However, their prices have increased about 25% in the last three years.

- Went for a very early morning run on Saturday - twelve miles starting before six a.m.  The most notable feature of this (other than the fact that I actually had some energy left at the end of the run) was seeing the start of the Mini women's 10k as I was leaving the park.  It made me just a tiny bit jealous that I wasn't running with them - until I realized that it was only going to get warmer and more humid, and that I was too hungry to do anything but go home and eat yogurt.

- I rode the Staten Island Ferry, for the second time since I moved here (although the first, right after finishing the Five Borough Bike tour in the pouring rain, was mostly memorable for its abject misery) because some friends were in town from South Dakota. It was pretty awesome - it's free, easy to get to, and on the trip out you get a better view of the statue than you probably would if you actually went to it.

- Also, I somehow convinced said friends to trek all the way up to the Upper West Side to join me in my first visit to our new 16 Handles (okay, okay, the original destination was the AMNH...).  It was predictably awesome except that, probably because it was drizzly, their chairs weren't out.

- Went for my first outdoor bike ride with my pedals-with-clips.  I thought it would be scary, but it wasn't, maybe because I didn't ride anywhere with car traffic.I just went about 50 blocks in Riverside Park, stopped and read the paper for a bit, and then turned around and came home.  I could see doing that repeatedly, should I ever have a free weekend morning again.

- Museum of Art and Design.  About half the museum is devoted to temporary exhibits, while the other half is the permanent collection. As on my other visit about 18 months ago, I found the temporary exhibits much more interesting, in that they challenged but did not entirely violate my idea of what constitutes art.

- Balade.  Lebanese restaurant.  Went there for a meeting of my serious book club.  I ordered poorly, as I frequently do, but the food was very good quality and reasonably priced.  I'm making my unserious book club go there later in the week.

You see?  I'm tired just from *typing* all that.

A highly cultured weekend

• Friday evening I watched The Big Sleep at a friend's apartment.  We read it the novel a couple months ago in a book club, and I guess she was curious about the movie.  I liked the novel a lot, partly for itself and partly because it was interesting seeing an early example of a hardboiled detective novel - basically, what the stuff I filched from my father's bookshelf as a kid was based on.  The movie was less interesting to me - I'm not much for classic films, and they cut out some of the highly-controversial-at-the-time plot elements and made Marlowe's character much more of a ladies' man than he seemed in the novel.  But I'm glad I saw it - I'd been envisioning the story as if it were a Kinsey Millhone novel set in the 1980's and this really helped put it in context.
• Saturday morning I painted at a Boys' Club in Alphabet City.  On the way there, I walked past a new restaurant that caught my eye because its name was similar to the Thai restaurant we'd ordered takeout from the night before.  It was in a location that used to house a diner called Rockin' Robin, which I went to frequently for brunch the first winter I lived in New York, with my East-Village-dwelling then-boyfriend.  We were both sad when it closed suddenly, in part because it was one of the few places we both liked.  I've never lived anywhere long enough to be nostalgic for things that used to be in it, and I haven't been in New York that long; Meg Ryan's character in You've Got Mail notes that New York changes quickly, and derides the type of people who like that, of which she knows she is one - but then, her bookstore has just gone out of business and she fears it will be replaced by something "really depressing, like a Baby Gap".  One of the odd and constantly surprising things about living here is how much my life looks,visually, like the movies.
• Saturday evening I saw the American Ballet Theater production of Lady of the Camellias.  It was a really unusual ballet, I thought (although I'm getting the sense that ABT productions are more varied than and in general very different from NYCB productions, which come in only two major flavors).  The plot was very intricate - which makes sense because it is derived not from a fairy tale but from an actual play - and the choreography was unusual and very good.  I thought the pas de deux in the first act was completely amazing - most slow, romantic dances just look like the man is moving the woman around, but this one looked as if they were actually in love.  And I loved the pieces with Manon and her lover, and especially when they interacted with Marguerite and Armand.  The structure of the ballet was also unusual - instead of opening with an overture, it began with a character walking onto an already-lit stage, and the audience only gradually realize that the show was beginning, and the house lights going down a few minutes later.  It was also a memory play, but not solely in the memory of one character.  And I have never seen copulation simulated with such flagrancy in anything remotely this highbrow.  On the whole - well, it could have been a bit shorter, but I definitely liked it.
• Today I saw Jerusalem.  Apparently the play is likely to win a Tony, which it will not deserve, and the actor playing the main character is likely to win another Tony, which he also will not deserve.  It's not a bad play; actually it's a good play.  It's funny and well-acted and the dramatic structure is very tidy and it makes some interesting allegoric references to Shakespeare.  But it wants to be a great play, to make alarming, trenchant observations about the dehumanizing effects of modern society, and it fails at that, which makes it less good than it could be.  I was not sorry that I saw it, because I enjoyed the first two-thirds of it and because it was interesting, but (unlike Lady of the Camellias) if it is still around, or around again, in five years, I will not go and see it a second time.

Quoth the raven, "Chocolate Madness!"

This evening I met up with a friend for what was supposed to be a drink after work.  We were going to try Thalia, the cafe/bar/music venue at Symphony Space, but it was closed for a private event.  Neither of us knew anything else in the area, and he said he was sick of places further uptown, so we headed south in search of somewhere low-key.  We settled on Edgar's, a cafe on 84th Street that was introduced to me by a long-gone gentleman caller, who described it as "like Cafe Lalo but better", although I rather thought of it as Lalo's scruffier, less exciting cousin.

The 84th Street location - on Edgar Allen Poe St., in what I think must have once been the lobby of a hotel - was boarded up, and a signed directed us to Amsterdam & 91st.  The new location has the same quaint ambiance, but the space is much nicer - high ceilings, attractive decor, lovely open storefront (sadly, no outdoor seating, at least yet).  The menu - before the move, mostly comprised of salads and cakes - has been expanded to include several pasta dishes, and although I didn't try one, my friend did and it looked pretty good.  I had a salad, which was serviceable (for $11, I would have liked a bit more than greens and goat cheese and two olives, but I do like my goat cheese) and we both enjoyed dessert.  The staff was friendly and didn't rush us, the bathroom was clean, and the tables weren't two inches apart like they are at Lalo.  On the whole, it was a good meal at a reasonable price in a great setting.  I'll be going back.

Things I Have Not Blogged About

When I first came to New York, it was only going to be for two years, and I kept a list of all the New York-y things I did.  It included shows I saw and restaurants I went to and long rambles around town, and because I was so unused to living in a large city some of the things on it - things that seemed worthy of being recorded for posterity - were, well, lame, at least by the standards of NYC.  And then - even more lamely - I got used to New York, and I decided to stay here a while, and I stopped keeping the list.

I'm going to start again, although not in list form.  This time, of course, I'm going to blog, and since I haven't done anything remotely blogworthy in the last 24 hours, I'll start by reviving the list format to jot down a few of the things I've done in recent weeks that won't be getting a further description.

• Don Quixote at ABT.  I'm not generally a fan of plotted ballets, but this was more to my taste than NYCB - very sprightly.
• Brooklyn Half Marathon, which I rocked.  Someday I'll actually hang around Coney Island afterwards instead of traipsing home in a daze.
• Liz Taylor marathon at Lincoln Center Film Society... Father of the Bride was odd and iffy, but Cleopatra was stunning.
• My first-ever pedicure (seems like something girls in New York do often, right?).  Quite possibly my last-ever, too.
• I have a bike now!  I rode it to a Memorial Day barbecue at Morningside Park, and did not die.
• There are lots of wine bars in New York.  Also, gay bars. Probably gay wine bars, too, but I haven't been to any.
• I went to a comedy club on Saturday, which I'd never properly done.  It was very crowded, very expensive, very tasteless, and very funny.
• Plays I've seen this season: Good People (awesome), Birds on Fire (okay), The Dream of the Burning Boy (very good), Driving Miss Daisy (very good), Merchant of Venice (okay).  
• Last month was Film Festival Month.  As always I felt the need to go to a Tribeca screening, which as always was overhyped and a lot of work.  I also went to two Downtown screenings, which were cheaper, lower-key, had free wine, and the movies were at least as good.  Probably a lesson somewhere in there about New York.

That's all I can remember right now, but I have a full week ahead of me so I'll be back with an update - a more bloggy, less listy update - soon.

Last day in Paris (and my trip home)

Friday was my last full day in Paris.  I spent the morning at Starbucks, writing about 4,000 words.  (My trick at Starbucks has been to buy their drip coffee, which is around $3.60 for a grande, and bring a croissant or other pastry from a boulangerie.  I don't feel bad about this because (a) their pastries are so cheap - almost as cheap as at boulangeries - that I think margin has to be largely in the coffee, and (b) the place is so empty in the morning that it's not like I'm taking up valuable real estate... it gets crowded in the afternoon and stays so until evening, which makes the 9 p.m. closure even weirder.)  In the afternoon, I met up with my British running buddy for a very un-aerobic afternoon of sitting at a cafe, sitting in a park, and discussing how her fiance proposed to her (yes, it involved Russian nesting dolls, although not in the obvious ring-in-the-small-one way).  In the evening, we continued our un-aerobicness with wine, cheese, and tartallettes.  So, on the one hand, a highly unproductive day.  On the other hand, highly Parisian, and the kind of day I need help having.

Saturday morning I woke up early (the inevitable result of too much wine the night before) and walked around a bit.  I got breakfast from the boulangerie on Ile St. Louis (where I bought the almond tuile... I discovered, a bit too late, that this is the best pain au chocolat of my whole trip, although perhaps this is partly b/c I ate it so early in the day.  Then I picked up a sandwich for lunch and headed to the airport, with plenty of time to spare before my flight.

Ha ha ha.  Those are the thoughts of an American.  Since lines and lateness are such a big part of life in Paris, I will tell you what happened next.  First, of course, I had to get on the train to the airport, in a train station roughly the size and annoyance level of Penn Station (although not, actually, a major train station of Paris).  Then I had to sit on the train as we trundled through endless rail yards and came to endless unexplained stops, of course becoming increasingly concerned.  But I told myself I was still in plenty of time; when I got to the airport, even after taking the shuttle to the correct terminal and figuring out where to check in for my flight, I still had almost two hours before takeoff.  I figured I'd check in, go through security, then spend my last 12 euros or so on souvenirs and snacks for the flight (from first takeoff to second landing was scheduled to be eleven hours and I generally can't sleep on planes, so a sandwich was not exactly sufficient).

Until I saw the line.  Basically, there were around 240 people on the plane, about 2/3 of them had gotten to the airport before me, and they were all standing in line.  I did some investigating and discovered that they were being serviced by ONE man at ONE counter (in Europe, the thing seems to be to have separate counters for each flight, rather than having everyone flying on a given airline check in at the same counters; this means you also can't check in before they open the counter for that flight) while meanwhile the man next to him, manning the counter for a flight to Athens, had no line and nothing to do.  So I waited in that line for one hour and forty-five minutes, much of which I spent in a state of anxiety that I would not get checked in on time, which would have been far more intense if any of the French or other European people around me had been remotely concerned (they weren't).

There were no restrooms or stores in the check-in area, so after checking in I hoped to see one... nope... just long hallways, moving walkways, and no people anywhere.  I proceeded to my gate, where they had, about ten minutes before, started boarding the plane, by which I mean letting people through security - which they have a separate instance of at each gate.  The line for security was pretty short, however, since they don't particularly care if you take off your shoes or have liquids or computers.  One through, I managed to locate a restroom, but of course the gate agent told me to hurry.  There was a coffee shop, but it didn't sell anything packaged and I was hurrying, so after I'd gotten some water I got on the plane.

Where, of course, there was no action.  About half the passengers were on the plane already, with the rest dribbling on, and they periodically made announcements that we were delayed for an unpredictable amount of time due to a "computer problem".  Which is interesting terminology for "poor allocation of labor".  Fortunately, I wasn't at all worried about missing my connection, since Iceland Air, which I think does most of its business through (rather than to or from) Iceland holds its connections until incoming passengers can get on.

And, also, even though we landed an hour late, fifteen minutes after my flight to JFK was supposed to start boarding, there had been no activity.  Everyone was standing in line at the gate, which is the only thing there is to do at that airport as there is almost nowhere to sit and or buy things.  Seeing the giant line, I knew I had plenty of time and was hoping to buy something else to eat (although of course I wouldn't be able to spend my euros... they took them on the flight to Reykjavik, and I bought an interesting "wafer bar", but am just going to have to be stuck with $15 or so of unspendable money now, and no crappy airport souvenirs) but this turned out to be not really possible; my options were the Duty Free Shop (chocolate in large packages and alcohol) and the Iceland Souvenir Shop, where I ended up buying an Icelandic chocolate bar.  Being in Iceland, looking at Icelandic souvenirs, felt strange; it seemed a long time since I was in Reykjavik.  Very weirdly, there were no nuts or crackers or chips or protein bars or individual candies (i.e. that last forever, useful when you're on your second many-hour flight) or any of the many foods that you can buy in the newstand of even the tiniest American airport.  There was a cafe, but even though it was 5 p.m. it was closed.

Anyway, that was the end of the interestingness.  The second flight was not bad at all, for a six-hour flight on which my seatmate did not wear shoes and had clearly never washed his feet, and my across-the-aisle neighbors had a child who was pushing the upper limits of lap-babyness.  I watched a movie called Stay, which was quite good.

And now I am back in New York.  My apartment seems huge, and my non-netbook computer seems huge, and I can make my own coffee, and I can converse easily with people around me (i.e. in English).  It seems a bit sudden.  I was sad to leave Paris, and (as is typical for me) often felt like I wasn't doing a good enough job, whatever that is, of properly experiencing and appreciating Paris, whatever that would mean.  But I saw many museums, took many pictures, did a lot of writing, and ate several pounds of cheese and butter and pastry.  And, most importantly, I was somewhere else, somewhere very different, and for a month I had a very different life.  The last time I did a big trip like this, I think I changed a lot as a person, grew up a lot, which I don't think happened this time - but I'm also a lot older now.  I do feel, however, more myself than I did before I went, if that makes any sense, which is maybe one of the primary purposes of travel.

Paris was a great place to spend a largely-idle month because it is so much about idleness.  While I was very active for much of the trip, the things I was active with were fundamentally leisure pursuits: walking, eating, writing, going to art museums, looking at architecture, and people watching.  Those are all things I enjoy doing, and all things I do to some degree in my life in New York - but Paris is a place, and one of the few places, I think - where it's easy to do those things full time.  The city is set up for it.  I relearned, to the extent I had forgotten, how much I appreciate these things, how much I like art museums, how the reason I don't write much fiction anymore is mostly lack of dedicated time and laziness (rather than lack of inclination or ability), how much I can enjoy unscheduled wanderings.  The whole month was an unscheduled wandering, and while scheduling would have optimized it in many ways, in its unscheduledness it was pretty damn cool.

In two weeks I will start my new job, and who knows what life will be like then?  In my passport, there are quotations on all the stamp pages.  One is by Lyndon B. Johnson:

For this is what America is all about.  It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge.  It is the star that is not reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground.  Is our world gone?  We say "Farewell."  Is a new world coming?  We welcome it - and we will bend it to the hopes of [wo]man."

Last Paris photos