Category: new york city

what’s going on

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

tis the season, and all that. lots of fun stuff coming up:

» dreamgirls tickets on monday. we got them at the ziegfeld, which is the best movie theater in manhattan. great popcorn, enormous auditorium, huge screen and great sound, red velvet curtains, serious patrons. and, for special engagements like this, reserved seating. the tickets were $25 each, but they are treating it like an old-fashioned road show movie. you get a special program, and they have all the costumes and memorabilia in the lobby for you to look at. plus, it’s one of only three theaters in the country showing the movie, and the only one in new york. so, expensive, but exclusive too. i can hardly wait.

» kiki and herb christmas show at the bowery ballroom next wednesday. i’ve rattled on before about kiki and herb, and i won’t bore you again. but this is the event of december, if you ask me.

» we saw the radio city christmas show this past wednesday. i never miss this–i’m a sucker for the pageantry, the excess, and the splendor. great new “twelve days of christmas” tap number. plus there’s all your old favorites–the wooden soldiers, the dancing santas, the midgets blurting “christmas” from behind the little doors of the midget house, the kick line, the 3-d movie, mrs. claus singing “man with the bag”, and of course the nativity scene. and of course i get there 45 minutes early, so as not to miss a minute of the mighty wurlitzer. i’m a big pipe organ fanatic.

» finally, there’s kirk in “taming of the shrew”, part of the pied piper children’s theatre’s season. that’s not to be missed, either.

thanksgiving pictures and more

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

here are a few pictures from our pennsylvania dutch thanksgiving goodness, from haag’s hotel:

« click on thumbnails to view pictures »

thanksgiving
food fest

thanksgiving
food fest

thanksgiving
food fest

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food fest

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food fest

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food fest

thanksgiving
food fest

thanksgiving
food fest

haag’s pumpkin pie

haag’s cherry pie

let me see if i can get this list right and complete. tapioca pudding. apple butter. chow chow. cope’s corn. pickles. stewed fruit. applesauce. homemade cottage cheese. sweet potatoes. pinto beans. ham. green beans. potato filling. pepper cabbage. pot pie. rolls. gravy. grilled vegetables. pie (your choice of apple, cherry, pumpkin, or shoo-fly).

oh, and turkey. it was all you can eat, $12.95. amazing place, amazing food. it’s one of my favorite places in the world to eat–the breakfasts are good too.

a couple of cuisine notes. pot pie, pennsylvania dutch style is really kind of chicken and dumplings, except the dumplings are thick noodles. shoo-fly pie is a molasses pie with a crumby topping. and cope’s corn is dried corn that has been reconstituted when cooked.

and a technical note: these pictures were taken with my new fuji finepix f30 digital camera. no flash used–this camera is amazing in low-light situations. i bought it to take food pictures on my upcoming paris trip, and this was the dry run. pretty successful, i’d say.

a week after thanksgiving, kirk dressed as hedwig for our friend george ennis’s fiftieth birthday, at the red lion pub in the village. george was the sound guy for hedwig, and has had quite an interesting life. he referred us to the jeweler who made our hedwig wedding rings, so we have a special place in our hearts for him. he sang with his band, which was a real treat. he kicks ass, vocally.

hedwig waits for the train

george ennis sings

and afterwards, one more evening at danny’s. kirk sang “my romance” from billy rose’s jumbo, and “have yourself a merry little christmas”, which is my favorite christmas song and which was a great and welcome surprise for me.

and 87-year-old oscar winner celeste holm sang with her 43-year-old opera singer husband.

only in new york, kids.

time off update

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

quite a bit of time off work–last thursday through yesterday (tuesday). back at work and getting caught up, so this’ll be a quick one.

» thanksgiving dinner was excellent. i’ll post some pictures later–outstanding pennsylvania dutch food in large quantities, followed by a turkey dinner at home. yummo, as rachael ray would say.

» the closets are organized. i spent too much money on plastic containers, and put all the loose items in my closets into them. so much better.

» the christmas cards are in the mail. kirk and i do a custom card every year, and this year’s version is amazing (if i do say so myself). if you know me well enough to get a card, and you don’t get one, let me know and i’ll put you on my list. hint: this year’s card is round, shiny, metallic, and full of bits and bytes.

» kiki and herb’s christmas show is at the bowery ballroom this year. we have tickets–you should too.

more to come later. stay tuned.

evening of planned excess

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

it’s not my fault, really. it just worked out this way.

tonight is the first night of beaujolais nouveau. “beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!” as the french say.

and kirk and i will be sampling tonight at le jardin bistro. we got an emailed invite from them–buy dinner and have as much beaujolais nouveau as you want, straight from the barrel.

sold.

it’s among our favorite french bistros in new york, so we like going there anyway. the beaujolais nouveau is just a bonus.

dinner is going to be followed by a late night performance by kiki and herb at joe’s pub. i’ve written a lot about kiki and herb, but my recent viewings have been in broadway and off-broadway theaters. joe’s pub is a tiny (by comparison) performance space seating maybe 200 people. i’m really looking forward to seeing them again in an intimate space, where kiki can again walk on my table and throw matches at me.

nothing like it.

and, best yet, i have the day off work tomorrow. good thing, since kiki and herb don’t even get started until midnight. but i have to be up by 2:00 or so, because we have tickets for the new bond movie, “casino royale”, at the ziegfeld. great place to see a great movie. probably the best moviegoing experience i ever had in my life was seeing “moulin rouge” at the ziegfeld. they have real red velvet curtains that open to reveal the screen, and when they parted, the movie started, and the first thing you saw was red velvet curtains parting, in the movie, to start the film. amazingly cool.

but i digress.

it’ll be a great night. more detail to come, assuming i can remember it.

evil dead, the musical

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saw the early show (7:30pm) of “evil dead, the musical” friday night.

i was slightly skeptical, to be honest, as i’m not a fan of horror films. but after reading a ny times review i was a bit intrigued, and we got a deal on tickets, and there you go.

thankfully, our seats were toward the back. the first three rows are splatter central–even though the fake blood washes out, it’s still a pain and i didn’t feel like dealing. plus, the younguns were clamoring to be splattered, so let them have the fun.

and even though i wasn’t splattered with gore, i still had a tremendously good time. the attitude of the book and the music is just right–it’s a complete parody, never takes itself or the genre seriously (and the actors don’t, either). the tunes are especially catchy and hilarious, my favorite being “what the fuck was that”.

went home humming that one. and others, too.

grey gardens-style high art it ain’t, and it’s not supposed to be. it’s just meant to be a lot of gory, bloody, funny, silly fun, and it succeeds at this wildly. we’ll probably go back at some point, and take some friends.

a nice surprise was seeing our old friend kenny working in the box office–he used to work with kirk at the westside. we like kenny quite a bit.

and afterwards we had a few (o.k. then, more than a few) at danny’s. gotta go there every chance we get, before it closes in january. i’ll miss that dump.

eucharist, and a movie

~ jamie ~ 3 Comments

the new york times has a new daily email they call “urbanite”. i like it quite a lot; yesterday, they had a blurb about a presentation of a movie by paul festa at st. bartholomew’s church called apparition of the eternal church that sounded fun. all i knew was that it was named after a strange and rarely-performed classical piece written by messiaen for the pipe organ, and it had justin bond of kiki and herb and john cameron mitchell of hedwig and shortbus. and also that the strange and rarely-performed classical piece would be performed on the church’s pipe organ (the largest in nyc) after the movie.

i love me some pipe organ. it’s the only reason i go to the radio city christmas show every year–to listen to the dual duelling pipe organists before the show.

good enough for me. i got tickets.

so i buy my tickets, and in the process i discover that st. bart’s is an episcopal church. who knew, and me episcopal and all. and we had time to kill before the 7:30 movie start time, and they had a 6:00 eucharist.

hence, eucharist and a movie. actually it was quick dinner at lou’s cafe, eucharist, and a movie.

this is what my life has come to. big night on the town for jamie. woo-hoo. it’s a blowout. church, followed by church.

anyway.

the movie itself was fascinating. various people, famous and not famous (infamous?), put on headphones and listened to the piece. and described in words what they heard, and felt. you couldn’t hear the piece yourself, only the words of description.

and only at the end of the movie did you get to hear the piece itself. it was a brilliant setup–a perfect way to get at the meaning of a piece of music without being intrusive on the piece itself.

and the stories were funny, moving, stirring, wistful, frightening, hopeful–the gamut from a to z, or a to at least q or r.

i bought a great t-shirt with the movie info and a picture of miss kiki du rane on it, along with the dvd of the movie. it’s not likely to play in your town–it’s a small movie without any real distribution–but if you can get a copy it’s well worth the trouble and expense.

the performance afterwards? a bit disappointing, to be honest. the people in the movie, who were wearing headphones, kept talking about how loud it was, and how they could feel the notes in their spine, and all. and while the organ was powerful, i kept wanting the volume to be louder. i didn’t get blown away.

i love the piece, though. it’s all sustained notes and harmonics that build on each other in a fascinating and disturbing way.

i’ll definitely be getting a messiaen cd, and putting on the headphones.

steve reich’s “the cave”

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i saw a performance of this work on saturday–the ny times had a great review (free registration required). according to reich, it’s a “documentary video opera”. sounds dense, you say?

it’s not. and it was surprisingly engaging and enjoyable.

kirk was the assistant stage manager for touring “cave” performances for a while, so he was familiar with the piece (though until saturday, he’d never seen it from an audience perspective). he’s been going on about it for a while, so when it came to nyc as part of steve reich’s 70th birthday celebration, we got tickets.

the three-part “opera” asks (in turn) jews, muslims, and americans/christians five questions: who is abraham? who is sarah? who is isaac, who is ishmael? who is hagar? the answers go a long way toward explaining why there’s still so much tension in the middle east.

there are five video screens showing snips and clips of interviewees’ responses, and there’s an orchestra, singers, and a performer “playing” a computer keyboard that puts relevant bits of scripture (the torah, the koran, and the bible) up on the screen, underpinning the answers. the answers aren’t linear–the responses are edited down to one or two words–and the meaning comes from the repetition, and your assemblage of the clips, the chanting, the scripture, and the music into a narrative thread in your mind.

i admit to a large degree of complete ignorance on this subject. i barely even knew the basic story, so i learned quite a bit of fascinating info from this piece. i won’t bore you with vast detail, but here are some very salient points:

abraham’s first wife was sarah, and his first-born son ishmael was born not of sarah, but of her handmaid (sarah couldn’t conceive). isaac, abraham’s son with sarah, came later (guess she could after all). this is oversimplifying matters, but jews descend from isaac and muslims from ishmael. four thousand years later, jews and muslims are still fighting battles over holy sites (such as the site of the cave where abraham, isaac, sarah et al. are buried) because of the complications that ensue. jews claim primacy because sarah was the first (and legitimate) wife. muslims claim primacy because ishmael was the first born son.

reich’s piece underscores how immediate this still is for jews and muslims–for them, the four thousand years might as well be yesterday. most westerners can’t imagine this concept, a point which the third act makes.

and to complicate matters, there’s the story in scripture of abraham’s abortive sacrifice of his son on an altar at god’s bidding. the torah says that this son was isaac. the koran says that this son was ishmael.

it’s no wonder there’s so much conflict. but “the cave” itself makes you really understand how sticky and intractable this situation really is.

i can’t stop thinking about it. “the cave” is presented intermittently, and is well worth seeing if you get the chance.

grey gardens on turner classic movies

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the film, and the stars of the broadway production:

David and Albert Maysles’ 1975 documentary, “Grey Gardens,” will appear on cable’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) Oct. 29 in a presentation that includes the stars of the new Broadway musical of the same name.

The film portrait of Jackie Bouvier’s aunt and cousin, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little” Edie, is a cult classic – a portrait of social and personal decay and perseverance. It airs 8 PM (ET) Oct. 29. Check local listings for channel on your cable system.

The TCM premiere comes just days before the Broadway opening of the Grey Gardens musical on Nov. 2 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Previews began Oct. 3.

of course, the story’s dateline is yesterday, october 30, and the airing was sunday, october 29.

mark your calendars. thanks, playbill.

grey gardens: a fresh triumph

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

the old grey gardens? the best show i saw last year.

the new grey gardens? one of the best shows i have ever seen.

many people thought (and i did too, on reflection) that the first act needed tightening. they’ve done it with fairly extensive changes, while plumping up everything thematic and dramatic. the second act is largely untouched, but the staging is much improved, and the ending is better.

below, i’ve scanned the old & new playbill covers, and the old & new song lists:

« click on thumbnails to view pictures »

grey
gardens
old cover

grey
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new cover

grey
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old songs

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new songs

changes?

» “toyland” out, “the girl who has everything” in. to be honest, i don’t remember toyland, but “the girl who has everything” works perfectly as a recurring theme; playful with a dark undertone at the beginning, devastating and haunting at the end. verdict: improvement.

» “body beautiful beale” out. great song, but the message is communicated in the book. verdict: no great loss.

» “better fall out of love” out, “goin’ places” in. the new song does a better job of foreshadowing joe kennedy’s eventual departure, and is more believable overall. verdict: improvement.

» “being bouvier” out, “marry well” in. it seems like a lot of major bouvier’s first act part was cut, or at least that’s my impression. that’s probably ultimately good, as it focuses attention on the beales. the new song gets a lot of the points across that formerly were in the book, or were not part of the original song. verdict: there’s no such thing as too much john mcmartin, but on the balance a slight plus.

» novelty numbers trimmed. “hominy grits” and the oriental featured number with the young bouvier girls have been considerably shortened. they don’t need to be any longer. you could cut them further if you wanted. in fact, you could lose “hominy grits” altogether if you ask me, although it does add to the character development somewhat. verdict: huge improvement.

» “tomorrow’s woman” gone. don’t remember it. didn’t miss it. verdict: improvement.

» horrible anachronistic lyric about howard hughes and the spruce goose gone. my complaint with this in the original was that the action took place in 1941, and the spruce goose flew in 1947. it’s gone. verdict: enormous improvement. the details count.

» sara gettelfinger out, erin davie in. i liked sara gettelfinger, the original young little edie, but erin davie does a great job. there’s a moment when she’s singing “daddy’s girl” when the tone shifts. the lyrics have to be delivered perfectly to avoid a false note, and davie does it wonderfully. verdict: a wash.

» moppets out, moppets in. sorry to be rude or crass, but the kids (jackie and lee bouvier) are largely background. the new moppets didn’t pull my focus, which is a good thing. the old ones didn’t either. verdict: no verdict necessary.

all these are first act changes which have helped things immensely. there’s a more even flow, the character development has improved, and there are lighter moments which contrast well with the darker ones.

the second act songs are the same, with the exception of the end:

» “peas in a pod” out, “the girl who has everything” in. i realize now it’s now a much, much better ending. “peas in a pod” was ironic, but lacked a certain gravitas. the new ending doesn’t sell out a bit. it’s relentlessly consistent with the action that immediately precedes it. verdict: improvement.

they’ve also echoed christine ebersole’s first act big edie in her show-ending turn as little edie, and that’s a good thing. they’ve done a marvelous job–changing the staging at the end and adding lines and the new song really reinforces the way that the edies are so much alike. and the end is so haunting–christine ebersole is such a presence, and you really could hear the proverbial pin drop.

the rest of the cast remains excellent. mary louise wilson was good in the original, but is more focused here, it seems. she’s settled in to a great interplay with christine ebersole–their time together on stage really crackles.

kirk says i tend to speak in superlatives. it’s a fair statement. i cheerlead a bit for the things i like. but i mostly don’t blather on about the things that stink, because they aren’t worth my time. and i don’t even mention a lot of the things i like a lot. i saw “the prestige” this week, and liked it a lot, but it ain’t “shortbus”, so i’m not going on about it.

usually my opinion settles out, and i’ve had a year to digest the old version of this musical, to give me a basis to compare it to the new version. and while my opinion might change over time, right now i’d say that this is one of the top five theatrical events i’ve seen in my lifetime. i haven’t been this completely thrilled in an audience since i saw elaine stritch at the public theater. it’s that level of engagement, and that level of amazement.

grey gardens tonight

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

tonight is the night of my return to the splendor of grey gardens. i can hardly wait.

i’ve blathered on extensively about this show, and about how much i loved it when i saw it at playwrights horizons last year.

and now it’s on broadway. and, instead of hearing myself sing “la da da da da” in that perfect five-note sequence that cracks me up every time i think of it, i get to hear christine ebersole sing it. it’s part of the first song (“revolutionary costume for today”) of act two, or at least it was, and it’s the first time you see ebersole as little edie instead of big edie, the character she plays in the first act. she’s describing her inimitable clothing choices–it’s the most memorable performance of a song i’ve seen on broadway in years.

you gotta see it.

like me, tonight.

and, as a side note, we’re seeing a preview performance of the little dog laughed on friday, which we’re really looking forward to. kirk knows the playwright from back in the day in hometown pennsylvania, and we’ve heard good things about it. we’re looking forward to it.

but not like i’m looking forward to tonight.

thanks, mets

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

no, i mean that. no irony, no sarcasm, no bitterness.

it’s been a great season, full of highs and ups, and very few lows and downs. i had fun when i went to shea, and i’ll miss the creaky old place when it’s gone. i even enjoyed the food, especially since i found mama’s of corona in the concourse. great subs, and excellent salads and antipasto.

i watched the new mets tv network, sny, quite a bit, and enjoyed the commentary, the personalities, and the coverage. it was a great first year for them, and they are to be congratulated on how much they improved from an admittedly rocky start, and how quickly they got up to speed.

thanks to omar minaya, for getting us good players and giving us a very competitive team ahead of schedule. and to willie randolph and rick peterson, who pulled all the right strings and got the best out of everyone even through the ghastly year-end injury fest.

i got up this morning ready to be cranky about the mets’ heartbreaking last-minute game seven loss, and to dissect all the details about who did what, and why, and whose fault it was, and what should be done, and all the other technical analysis that runs through my head all the time, but especially at times like these.

and then i realized that none of that really matters. they did their best, got further along than anyone ever expected given the injuries and pitching woes–and in the end got a bit unlucky.

i’m convinced that the best team did not win, and that the mets would have had a far better chance against detroit than will the cardinals. it pains me to see success come to a team that is so obviously rancorous, with scott rolen not talking to tony larussa, and outfielders running into each other from a lack of communication and yelling at each other afterwards. they are the living embodiment of james woods’ great quote from this season’s new show shark: “there’s no team in i”.

but all that’s water under the bridge now.

the mets have the core of a team–players, coaches, and front-office staff–that will be competitive for years to come, and winter trades and free agent acquisitions will only make it better. the seeds of a dynasty to rival the braves’ long run are in place.

next year can only be better than this year.

thanks, mets.

ya gotta believe, period

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

ok, i’m through with my dithering and waffling and prevarication. i’m a believer.

after the last game, in which oliver perez did well enough and the mets hitters did more than well enough, i’m breathing a bit easier.

and it’s probably going to rain today in st. louis, which means that the game may be rained out. and if it is rained out, it’ll give glavine another day of rest, and he’ll pitch at full strength. even if it isn’t rained out, i’ll still take tom glavine on short rest over jeff weaver, who lost to glavine in game one.

and in any case, last night’s victory ensured that the series will return to new york. yesterday i said mets in seven games.

i’m thinking it might be six. after last night, i think the mets are finally motivated enough to get this thing done. the slump is over, the hitting is back, and the pitching will hold up enough to get the job done.

we may even have el duque back for a world series start, which would just be a bonus. please, though, no more steve trachsel. anyone but trachsel. start darren oliver instead of trachsel. start aaron heilman. leave trachsel off the world series roster.

let me repeat that, willie, and omar. leave trachsel off the world series roster. you aren’t going to start him, if you have an ounce of sense, which you do, and you sure as hell aren’t bringing him in for relief. don’t waste the roster space. sorry if that sounds cruel, but the mets would be better served with an extra position player, or heath bell in the bullpen, or dave williams instead of trachsel. you aren’t re-signing him anyway–so what if his feelings are hurt or whatever.

and, as a footnote, the mets-tigers world series won’t be seven thrilling games. it’ll be six thrilling games and one blowout game. probably the mets getting blown out at home. but, still, mets in seven.

ya gotta believe!

tell me again i gotta believe

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

i know the mets are only down one game. i know it’s only two games to one.

and i know i gotta believe. and i still do, mostly.

but i am worried.

the mets looked bad last night, excpt for darren oliver, who probably should have started the game in the first place. i know that steve trachsel deserved a start and all, but he looked doubtful about his prospects from the first pitch, and he pitched that way. tentative, and not at all commanding.

hey willie. i don’t care how much we pay this guy. leave him off the world series roster, assuming we get there. or immediately yank him at the very first sign of trouble. even though he barely pitched more than an inning last night, willie still left him in too long.

we’d better win tonight, and oliver perez had better pitch the game of his life. if he doesn’t, this thing might not even get back to new york.

tell you what, though. i’m been sportin’ for the tigers all season, and telling everyone i know that they were the team to beat, even with their end-of-season swoon. and the tigers’ league championship clinching win yesterday was a classic game in every respect, from the come-from-behind tying of the game, to the heads-up gutsy play, to the walk-off ninth inning home run. they are the big story of the post-season, the yankees-and-oakland-slaying davids, and they are in my estimation the team to beat this post-season.

in all honesty, i don’t see either st. louis or the mets geting anywhere against them. and i don’t think that many other people will, either.

which puts the mets in an underdog position, both in the league championship and in a possible world series berth.

exactly where they need to be. exactly where the mets always function best.

ok–with a little circular logic, i’ve talked my way through this. here’s my revised prediction: mets in seven for the league championship, and mets in seven thrilling games in the world series.

ya gotta believe!

ya gotta believe, and all

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

ok, i’m breathing a little easier. the mets got it done last night, with a combination of brilliant pitching (from glavine, the one pitcher you expected to get brilliant pitching from) and one timely hit (from beltran, the one guy that you hoped to get a key hit from). it wasn’t an offensive onslaught, but beltran’s home run, the only meaningful hit all night, got the job done.

i’m breathing a little easier. but just a little.

tonight is the test. the mets are battling the cardinals’ chris carpenter, this year’s likely nl cy young winner, with john maine on the mound. maine needs to step up and shut down albert pujols, and especially the hitters in front of him, like glavine and company did last night. pujols never came to bat with anyone on base, and that’s what needs to continue to happen on a regular basis.

if john maine steps up, and the mets can somehow win tonight’s game, then i’ll nearly totally relax, because that means the mets will, barring a historic collapse, go to the world series. with a win tonight, they’d only need to win two out of five against a depleted cardinals team. they could even ice it, and not have to face carpenter again.

which would be wonderful.

and i’m very happy that it appears that detroit is going to the world series as well. i love it when small market teams with miniscule salary totals do well, and detroit’s success is a feel-good triumph, what with their losing 119 games a couple of years ago. coming so close to the mets record of 120 losses in a season, and not that long ago.

detroit is the one team in the playoffs that the mets could lose to, and i’d still be somewhat ok with it. i love jim leyland, from back in the day when he managed the pirates and i was a braves fan. classic playoff games between those teams. he, along with bobby cox and larry bowa, is the prototypical manager-type for me. grumpy, irascible, cranky, demonstrative, and unfraid to throw the book of research away and go with gut instinct. wille randolph, for all of his recent brilliant managerial moves, could be a bit more like that, for me.

and you gotta love detroit’s young pitchers.

anyway, i shouldn’t be looking ahead. first things first.

maine beats carpenter. let’s hope it happens, and this thing gets a bit easier.

mets versus mets

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

i don’t think the mets are playing the st. louis cardinals in the national league championship.

i think they are up against themselves, with something to prove. there’s a lot of history to overcome, a lot of conventional wisdom to prove wrong, and a lot of naysayers to be enlightened.

because, truth be told, st. louis really isn’t much competition on paper, other than albert pujols. a lot of their key players are out, or playing hurt. unlike the mets, who are at full strength and completely healthy.

right.

the mets have just as many problems as st. louis, if not more. but i just get the feeling that the world series this year is meant to be detroit vs. new york. it would be the best possible remaining combination for tv ratings, for fan interest, for historical significance, and for great baseball games in october.

but the mets, to live up to their end of the bargain, are going to really have to reach deep. they are winning postseason games through power hitting, and not through good pitching, and that’s a dangerous thing. great pitching trumps great hitting, right? so, to continue to win, the mets are going to have to keep their hitting hot, which won’t be easy, and they are going to have to have some second-line pitchers (john maine? steve trachsel? oliver perez?) really step up with career-defining performances. if this happens, they will mow down st. louis, and detroit as well.

it’s going to be tough. it’s a tall order.

mets vs. mets. 2004-type mets versus 2006-type mets. who will win?

jittery but fine

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

it doesn’t take much for a new yorker to get taken back mentally to 9/11.

especially when a plane crashes into a manhattan high rise.

on 10/11.

i know that the human mind puts concidences together, and makes logical sense of them. and the 10/11 date is just that–a coincidence.

still, it was an odd feeling, watching tv and seeing a plane crashed into a building. been there, done that, and have no need to repeat.

odds and ends

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

finally someone actually gets the importance and quality of the movie “shortbus”. the movie had a $21,000+ average per screen in its first weekend, so i have a feeling that the ride on the shortbus is just beginning.

the folks who run the website for grey gardens, the musical were kind enough to link to my original post about the play, when it ran at playwrights horizons. i’ve written a lot subsequently as well–this is a must-see if you are in the city.

i finally get to see “the cave”, steve reich’s piece that

explores the sacred locations of the burial plots of Abraham and Sarah from the perspectives of Arabs, Israelis, and Americans.

kirk worked on this show when it toured jerusalem, and i’ve always wanted to see it. it’s at lincoln center as part of the composer’s 70th birthday celebration. we’re seeing it on saturday, november 4, when there’s a post-show discussion with reich himself. should be fascinating.

i had my very first “i want my apple itv moment when watching the first episode of the new show ugly betty. it’s amazingly good, and i didn’t have the second show on the dvr. if i had an itv, i could just watch it on my tv. as it is, i’ll have to watch on the computer, which isn’t nearly as satisfying. hurry up apple.

kirk and i have booked our flight to paris next january–we’ll be in strasbourg from the 12th to the 14th, and in paris after that until the 21st. and kirk, knowing how i love cheese, found the restaurant with the world’s largest cheeseboard in strasbourg. i am so there. and i’ve posted a list of possible paris dining destinations on egullet. it’s the new post, at the end of the thread. if you have any suggestions, let me know. we have our favorites, but there’s always room for exploration.

shortbus: instant classic

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

kirk and i saw shortbus last night, and loved it. the times has a great review (registration required).

i’ve written about it earlier–it’s the new movie from john cameron mitchell, the creator of hedwig. he wanted to make a movie that celebrates sex, and depicts it graphically and honestly in the context of story, plot, and art.

and wow, did he succeed.

the characters are all on a journey to reorder their lives for a variety of reasons. and through sex, they embark on a voyage of self-discovery that is honestly and beautifully depicted–more so than in any film in recent memory. it’s the movie that robert altman should have the guts to make, but probably doesn’t.

and the sex is real, human, hysterically funny, tender, shocking, outrageous, and occasionally degrading–just like sex in real life, and most unlike most cinematic sex.

but ultimately, the movie for me wasn’t so much about sex as it was about control. self-control, the difficulty with reclaiming control ceded to others, and the difficulty in knowing when to cede it yourself. sex is the vehicle that’s used to flesh out the concepts (so to speak), but to say this is a movie exclusively about sex is to miss the point entirely, i think.

and, oddly enough, it’s the feel-good date movie of the year, a movie with its heart on its sleeve, with the happiest of happy endings that sends you from the theater on an emotional high, more appreciative than ever of the relationships in your life. after seeing the process that the characters collectively go through, and where they collectively are at movie’s end, you know that, with someone you love at your side, there’s nothing you can’t work out, together, ever.

the movie is clever, honest, beautifully filmed, riotously funny, tender and tragic, and above all, real. really really real. and a poignant love letter to new york city as well–through the content, the characters (the faux ed koch is perhaps the best character in the movie) and through the device mitchell uses for scene transitions (i won’t spoil it for you, but it’s stunningly gorgeous).

in these times where so much is repressed that we no longer have the perspective to determine the extent of our represssion, this movie is the perfect reset button. go see it, get some perspective back, and be reminded of just how wonderful life is.

oh, and how wonderful sex is, too.

a chorus line, and ted’s, and danny’s

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

kirk and i saw the new broadway production of a chorus line last night.

and we are impressed.

kirk had seen the original production, with the original cast.

twice. sometimes i just get so jealous of him.

anyway, he thought that it compared favorably with the original. i’d never seen it live (only the movie and the soundtrack), so i was a tabula rasa in regards to my experience. standout performances for me were deidre goodwin (sheila), mara davi (maggie), jessica lee goldyn (val), but especially jason tam (paul) who gave a devastating performance that brought tears to my eyes.

it’s a bit unfair to single out people, though, because everyone in the chorus line gave outstanding performances–some ever so slightly better than others, but no one was weak or ineffective. i’m not so much impressed with michael berresse (zach) who was so great in “light in the piazza” but here is far too sensitive with his character. zach, to my mind, needs to be a svengali-ish dictatorial force of nature. and that’s not conveyed at all. maybe it was a conscious choice, but i didn’t like it. his disembodied voice was not evocative of much emotion at all, let alone the right emotion.

everything else though? magnificent. you know all the songs and most of the dialogue, but it doesn’t matter. the production sweeps you away and effectively takes you back to a specific period of time. i didn’t find the show to be dated in the least, any more than a good production of any period piece would be.

if you’ve never seen the show, it’s a must see. and if you saw the original, you won’t feel that your memory is being trampled on. it stands on its own, i think.

dinner was at the new manhattan outpost of ted’s montana grill. to paraphrase a famous lyric from “a chorus line”:

food? 10. service? 3.

well, maybe in reality it’s food: 8 service: -1. i had a new york strip bison steak, kirk had a delmonico bison steak, and we shared. both were perfectly cooked and flavorful, tender and juicy and hot off the grill. the sides were good as well–i had a squash cassserole that was particularly good.

the problem? in-your-face, overtrained, upsell-happy, corporate-approved servers and workers. i felt like i was in a tgi fridays that was on steroids. the waiter was way way too chatty; kept at us to get a bottle of wine instead of two glasses; kept asking if we wanted appetizers and sides; didn’t give us time to peruse the menu; asked less than halfway through dinner if we wanted dessert, then brought the check immediately saying that “his manager liked it that way”.

i haven’t felt so rushed, discomfited, and unrelaxed in a restaurant in ages. maybe it’s just opening week jitters, but somehow i doubt it. i think that’s just their style–everyone chatted with us constantly, from the waiter to the hostess to the busperson. i don’t care to hear that you had salad for lunch and are jealous of my dinner. i don’t care to hear that you just moved to new york, and how cool is it that you live on a street that’s the same name as the city you came from. and so on.

i want to eat my dinner at my own relaxed pace, in a relaxed atmosphere.

maybe i’ll give it another try–the food was great and the prices weren’t bad. but if that service is endemic, i’m outta there.

the end of the evening, post-theater, was spent at danny’s, our favorite piano bar/watering hole. kirk sang (expressively and beautifully, of course) and we laughed with our friend stephen until the wee hours.

what a great night.

overall.