It's said that if you ride the subways of New York, you will see a little bit of everything. After 18 days of riding the subway daily, I do believe that it's true. Generally, the subways are some of the quietest places in New York. People speak softly on the platforms, and most people don't even carry on a conversation in the cars - usually. The exceptions, of course, are when there are young people involved.
You can always tell when school has just let out - lots of pent up energy and noise invade the subway tunnels. You see very young children being schooled in the ways of the subway, and mostly, by the time there are 5, they don't even need to hang on anymore. (Unlike me - a drunken sailor without sea legs in the subway. I'm always so grateful for a vacant seat.)
I've rarely seen anyone eat or drink on the subway, and when they do, it's very furtive. If you make eye contact with an eater, you get this look: "I know I'm breaking the rules, leave me alone." People don't eat sandwiches with gusto in the subway cars, they nibble them out of paper sacks while looking at the floor. There's not even that many drinks in the subway - in this age of giant soft drinks, and cappuchino, machiato, mocha, soy milk, latte, double whipped cream with an extra shot of expresso, that's pretty amazing in itself. One of the things I've never seen is anyone smoking a cigarette in a subway car.
One of the things I have seen are the wandering entertainers - one step ahead of the transit cops. (You can entertain in the tunnels, but not on the platforms or inside the cars.) A guy gets into a car with a guitar (not in a case, but rather slung over his back), and the next thing you know - a Spanish love song is being crooned. These guys usually sing one song at one end of the car, then walk the length of one car with their cup or cap, and then dash into the next car, and do it all over again. Let me tell you, I WOULDN"T even think about going out the end door and stepping across to the next car while the train is barrelling along and swaying at 50 MPH. They seem nimble as deer, and about as concerned.
Fortunately, I haven't seen anyone riding the subway OUTSIDE the cars. The reason I know about this is there are placards up in the cars explaining that this is courting death. Apparently, stupid teenage boys try this - perched with a tiny foothold and clinging with their fingers clenched around some protuberance on the outside of a moving subway car. They are like butterflies or moths caught on your car by the motion of the wind. You know it's going to end in disaster. This is as stupid as driving while drunk. Actually, probably more stupid, since you can stop your own car by taking your foot off the gas pedal. If you wake up from your insanity attack during your outside the car subway ride, woe is you.
I've also been subjected to abject begging. This has only happened twice. Once, the guy just shuffled the length of the car asking for change. The second time, the guy had a spiel ready to go which involved getting out of prison, his mother being ashamed of him, and other pitiful recitations. The transit authority is trying to put a stop to this by deliberately making loudspeaker announcements asking people to NOT give out any money. They are right, of course. If you're a rider on the subway, you're a captive audience, and you should have some right of privacy - which would include not being solicited, sung to, or smoked on.
Tonight, however, took the cake. We were on the subway riding home after an excellent dinner at LaRevista and watching a wonderful Tom Stoppard Play (Arcadia). It's a Friday night, and everything is hopping - lots of people. As we pull into a station a group of 20 somethings get on - there were 4 couples. All of a sudden, right in front of Drake and I, a boy (22, 23, maybe) drops down on one knee in front of the girl he is with and begins to propose. She covers her mouth with both her hands initially, and then jerks back - saying, "But this is the SUBWAY! You can't propose on the subway. Stop! Stop!" His answer: "But, I have the ring." She keeps shaking her head, no, no, and saying, "But it's the subway," until a flash of despair crosses his face quickly followed by petulant anger. I don't think her reaction is what he expected. He jumps up and stalks away to other end of the car with her following him trying to placate his feelings. The other friends huddle around, and I don't know the outcome. Did she finally accept? Was this a performance piece? Drake and I both agreed that it didn't feel performance, but who knows? After all - it's the subway, anything can happen.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Yankee Stadium
The only thing that could have made this day any better is if the Rangers had won. But, alas, they lost in 12 innings with a score of 3-2. That was the only down side to this day. Here's another myth debunked: Yankee fans were all cheerful, helpful and went out of their way to make us feel welcome. Some of them even complimented my Ranger shirt! They took photos of us, and all they wanted in return was for us to admire their stadium.
That was easy to do since it's lovely. It's sleek, and has the latest technology, and crowd control methods, so even though the place was almost completely full, the concession lines were manageable and the bathrooms plentiful. Every seat has an unobstructed view of the field (very important for baseball fans). There was ooodles of leg room and the seats were comfortable.
We took the subway train - a pretty straight shot of about 45 minutes to get to the park. We left plenty of time to see Monument Park (see pictures), find our seats, (front row Mezzanine - between home plate and third base), and eat lunch (Nathan's hot dogs and corn dogs). It was just a tad warm, but if you've been to a game at Texas Stadium in July - this was nothing.
Enjoy the pictures - they tell the story
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/NewYorkCityYankeeStadium?authkey=Gv1sRgCMuM7uHwxsaWoAE#
That was easy to do since it's lovely. It's sleek, and has the latest technology, and crowd control methods, so even though the place was almost completely full, the concession lines were manageable and the bathrooms plentiful. Every seat has an unobstructed view of the field (very important for baseball fans). There was ooodles of leg room and the seats were comfortable.
We took the subway train - a pretty straight shot of about 45 minutes to get to the park. We left plenty of time to see Monument Park (see pictures), find our seats, (front row Mezzanine - between home plate and third base), and eat lunch (Nathan's hot dogs and corn dogs). It was just a tad warm, but if you've been to a game at Texas Stadium in July - this was nothing.
Enjoy the pictures - they tell the story
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/NewYorkCityYankeeStadium?authkey=Gv1sRgCMuM7uHwxsaWoAE#
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Anything Goes!
We saw a Broadway musical yesterday evening that met all our expectations of what a Broadway evening should be. "Anything Goes" is a revival of a 1934 musical. Music by Cole Porter and Book by P.G. Wodehouse. OK - for my friends who have NO clue who these people are: Cole Porter is one of the most famous American songwriters of the 20th century. You've probably heard "I Get a Kick Out of You". P. G. Wodehouse lived into his 90s and wrote prolifically for 70 years. Before Hugh Laurie was "House", he was Bertie Wooster in the Jeeves stories that Wodehouse wrote about the clueless British aristocracy of the 1920s. PBS produced an entire series starring Hugh Laurie - check it out (at the library).
OK - that said - we saw the kind of musical in which the audience breaks into spontaneous applause when the leading lady appears for the first time on stage. Reason: Sutton Foster just won the Tony award for her performance in this revival. She's reprising the role first done by Ethel Merman in 1934. And, let me tell you, she did Ethel proud. The musical is silly - which I think is the definition of musicals - people sing and dance instead of talking. The songs were terrific: "Anything Goes", "You're the Top", "Deloverly", "I Get a Kick Out of You" to name a few. There was tap dancing! The first act finale was a tap dance/song number "Anything Goes" that people again spontaneously applauded.
The story is: Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl - see, I told you it was silly. I would have loved to be in the opening night audience in 1934 and heard these songs for the first time. Even in 2011, we left the theater humming the music. That's what tells you that the musical was a big success - you can't get the tunes out of your head. I was humming them TODAY on the way to the Metropolitan. Oh, and there's a 1936 movie with Ethel Merman, Bing Crosby, and Ida Lupino.
We (our friend Russell is here with us) started the evening with a wonderful dinner at Osteria Al Doge - an very impressive Italian restaurant in the theater district. Everyone loved their dinner. That's certainly a recommendation. Plus we had a lovely bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio. Finally, any meal that ends with chocolate mousse is a winner. It's thanks to Russell that we got tickets since he arranged for this evening.
We ended the evening by marveling at Times Square at night. I'll just post the link, as usual. https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/NewYorkCityTimesSquare?authkey=Gv1sRgCIvr3Imv7MrC4wE# As you can see, we all had a wonderful time. Yes, Times Square at night is just like daylight. I haven't seen so much neon since Las Vegas.
Today was Met Day, or perhaps I should say the FIRST Met day. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the most visited attraction in New York City. Yes, more visited than the Statue of Liberty. It's massive, and will take days to see. The goal when it was founded was to become the national museum of the United States. When it was the puny little brick building, that was probably a pipe dream, but now, it covers an entire city block on 5th Avenue in New York City. It's not a pipe dream anymore. This is a museum on par with any great museum in the world. You can flip through your basic Art History textbook, and today I saw lots of those pictures in person. Russell actually has a friend who works at the Met, and she was gracious enough to give us a quick tour through part of the collection - especially the part she's responsible for the communication about. We concentrated on the antiquity art this morning. This afternoon, we looked at SOME of the period rooms in the American wing as well as some American silver, pottery and glass. This is a drop in the proverbial bucket. Everything is so amazing here. I can hardly wait to come back - probably Friday. They have rooms and rooms of European paintings - can anyone say Impressionists?
Russ, Drake and I just discussed 'photographs'. I take too many. My rationale is that as long as I keep up by labeling them and downloading/uploading them - it's OK. Truthfully, though, as Russ points out - the only pictures that will matter in the long haul are the ones that include your loved ones. I guess these pictures I keep embedding in my blogs are my way of saying - LOOK AT THIS!!!!! Wish you were here to enjoy this with me. That said, here are the Met pix from today. https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/NewYorkMetropolitanArtMuseum?authkey=Gv1sRgCLXEkN2_6uemigE#
OK - that said - we saw the kind of musical in which the audience breaks into spontaneous applause when the leading lady appears for the first time on stage. Reason: Sutton Foster just won the Tony award for her performance in this revival. She's reprising the role first done by Ethel Merman in 1934. And, let me tell you, she did Ethel proud. The musical is silly - which I think is the definition of musicals - people sing and dance instead of talking. The songs were terrific: "Anything Goes", "You're the Top", "Deloverly", "I Get a Kick Out of You" to name a few. There was tap dancing! The first act finale was a tap dance/song number "Anything Goes" that people again spontaneously applauded.
The story is: Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl - see, I told you it was silly. I would have loved to be in the opening night audience in 1934 and heard these songs for the first time. Even in 2011, we left the theater humming the music. That's what tells you that the musical was a big success - you can't get the tunes out of your head. I was humming them TODAY on the way to the Metropolitan. Oh, and there's a 1936 movie with Ethel Merman, Bing Crosby, and Ida Lupino.
We (our friend Russell is here with us) started the evening with a wonderful dinner at Osteria Al Doge - an very impressive Italian restaurant in the theater district. Everyone loved their dinner. That's certainly a recommendation. Plus we had a lovely bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio. Finally, any meal that ends with chocolate mousse is a winner. It's thanks to Russell that we got tickets since he arranged for this evening.
We ended the evening by marveling at Times Square at night. I'll just post the link, as usual. https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/NewYorkCityTimesSquare?authkey=Gv1sRgCIvr3Imv7MrC4wE# As you can see, we all had a wonderful time. Yes, Times Square at night is just like daylight. I haven't seen so much neon since Las Vegas.
Today was Met Day, or perhaps I should say the FIRST Met day. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the most visited attraction in New York City. Yes, more visited than the Statue of Liberty. It's massive, and will take days to see. The goal when it was founded was to become the national museum of the United States. When it was the puny little brick building, that was probably a pipe dream, but now, it covers an entire city block on 5th Avenue in New York City. It's not a pipe dream anymore. This is a museum on par with any great museum in the world. You can flip through your basic Art History textbook, and today I saw lots of those pictures in person. Russell actually has a friend who works at the Met, and she was gracious enough to give us a quick tour through part of the collection - especially the part she's responsible for the communication about. We concentrated on the antiquity art this morning. This afternoon, we looked at SOME of the period rooms in the American wing as well as some American silver, pottery and glass. This is a drop in the proverbial bucket. Everything is so amazing here. I can hardly wait to come back - probably Friday. They have rooms and rooms of European paintings - can anyone say Impressionists?
Russ, Drake and I just discussed 'photographs'. I take too many. My rationale is that as long as I keep up by labeling them and downloading/uploading them - it's OK. Truthfully, though, as Russ points out - the only pictures that will matter in the long haul are the ones that include your loved ones. I guess these pictures I keep embedding in my blogs are my way of saying - LOOK AT THIS!!!!! Wish you were here to enjoy this with me. That said, here are the Met pix from today. https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/NewYorkMetropolitanArtMuseum?authkey=Gv1sRgCLXEkN2_6uemigE#
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Chicago and Argentinean Food
This one will be short and sweet. We went to see Chicago, the musical, today. It was in the Ambassador Theater built in 1921. It was another postage stamp theater with the stage hardly being bigger than a stage in a modern high school. In fact, I would wager that Birdville High School, a new high school close to our old Hurst house, has a better stage than this Broadway theater. Anyway. Best things: Live music, full orchestra - but it was on stage because there's no 'pit' for the orchestra in front of the audience. That left about 12 feet of stage room for the actors to put on the musical. Therefore, the staging was quite inventive with actors lined up on the sides of the stage and appearing from the center of the orchestra. The conductor of the orchestra even had a few 'bits' in the play. Second, the 'star' of the performance (Christie Brinkley) did not perform today which we both considered a first rate piece of luck - she's rumored to sing very little and when she does rather badly compared to the others in the cast. The singers and dancers were just first rate. It was thoroughly entertaining and rollicking nonsensical fun. Such a contrast to yesterday.
In keeping with trying to eat different foods, today we went for Argentinean. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I know it was good. One of the things I really like here is the Prie Fixe Menu concept. You usually get an abbreviated form of the menu with 3 courses (choices in each category) for a set fixed price. Today we had beef empanadas with chircurria sauce (spicy and tasty), followed by salmon with couscous/spicy salsa topping for Drake and a chicken cutlet with tomato bruschetta and french fries for me. We both had cheesecake. Everything was first rate, and the price was under $100 and that included glasses of wine with dinner. For New York that's a bargain.
We also had two experiences today with New Yorkers. First, we took a new subway line (for us), and we couldn't figure out how to make the transfer to get into Manhattan. We were standing around, looking frustrated when a guy on his way to the Puerto Rican Parade asked us if he could help us. Since we were going his way, he said, "Oh sure. Just follow me." He led us right to the exact place we needed to catch the train, and amused us with some light conversation. Turns out he's just moved to Brooklyn to save some rent money, and he wants to get back to Manhattan where the trains run more frequently. He left us with a fun riddle: What goes up and never comes back down?
Our second experience was on the way home today. We've discovered that the most crowded trains are not rush hour, but the weekends. It's due to some trains not running on the weekends as well as large numbers of people moving about all throughout the day and night. It's actually harder to get a seat on the subway train on the weekends than during the weekdays. I'm still having trouble remaining upright on the subway - especially when it lurches suddenly. Today, it lurched and I stumbled. I didn't knock into anybody because I've learned to hang on with two hands. Anyway, a young woman noticed me and simply got up and offered me her seat making it gracious by saying she was about to get off anyway.
Those kinds of occurrences have been commonplace and has been a pleasant surprise. The level of civility between strangers is much, much higher here than any other place I've ever been. It crosses all color lines. When I was here in the late 60's, people would literally run you over on the sidewalks and would shove you out of their way. I never heard an apology or anyone offering to help. Now courtesy and consideration seem to be the norm here. Who would have expected it?
Tomorrow will be a light day - I have to clean this house in preparation for our friend arriving. Drake wants to wash the car - ironically, there's a 24 hour manned car wash about a block from this house. The real trick will be to back down this tortuously narrow driveway. My job will be to stand behind the car and yell, "STOP!"
Tomorrow night - Little Italy - I've already picked out a place to eat.
In keeping with trying to eat different foods, today we went for Argentinean. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I know it was good. One of the things I really like here is the Prie Fixe Menu concept. You usually get an abbreviated form of the menu with 3 courses (choices in each category) for a set fixed price. Today we had beef empanadas with chircurria sauce (spicy and tasty), followed by salmon with couscous/spicy salsa topping for Drake and a chicken cutlet with tomato bruschetta and french fries for me. We both had cheesecake. Everything was first rate, and the price was under $100 and that included glasses of wine with dinner. For New York that's a bargain.
We also had two experiences today with New Yorkers. First, we took a new subway line (for us), and we couldn't figure out how to make the transfer to get into Manhattan. We were standing around, looking frustrated when a guy on his way to the Puerto Rican Parade asked us if he could help us. Since we were going his way, he said, "Oh sure. Just follow me." He led us right to the exact place we needed to catch the train, and amused us with some light conversation. Turns out he's just moved to Brooklyn to save some rent money, and he wants to get back to Manhattan where the trains run more frequently. He left us with a fun riddle: What goes up and never comes back down?
Our second experience was on the way home today. We've discovered that the most crowded trains are not rush hour, but the weekends. It's due to some trains not running on the weekends as well as large numbers of people moving about all throughout the day and night. It's actually harder to get a seat on the subway train on the weekends than during the weekdays. I'm still having trouble remaining upright on the subway - especially when it lurches suddenly. Today, it lurched and I stumbled. I didn't knock into anybody because I've learned to hang on with two hands. Anyway, a young woman noticed me and simply got up and offered me her seat making it gracious by saying she was about to get off anyway.
Those kinds of occurrences have been commonplace and has been a pleasant surprise. The level of civility between strangers is much, much higher here than any other place I've ever been. It crosses all color lines. When I was here in the late 60's, people would literally run you over on the sidewalks and would shove you out of their way. I never heard an apology or anyone offering to help. Now courtesy and consideration seem to be the norm here. Who would have expected it?
Tomorrow will be a light day - I have to clean this house in preparation for our friend arriving. Drake wants to wash the car - ironically, there's a 24 hour manned car wash about a block from this house. The real trick will be to back down this tortuously narrow driveway. My job will be to stand behind the car and yell, "STOP!"
Tomorrow night - Little Italy - I've already picked out a place to eat.
The Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
Yes, that's really the title of the play we saw yesterday. This is a Pulitzer Prize nominated play that opened in Los Angeles and came to Broadway in March for a limited run until July 4th. This was the most sparsely attended performance we've been to, in a pretty unremarkable theater. The performance, however, did not disappoint. It was completely different from everything else we've seen.
My initial attraction to this play was exactly what the backers hoped: I wanted to see Robin Williams perform live. (His role is the tiger.) The play overshadowed him which gives you some idea of how powerful a vehicle it is, and he was very good in his role. This is a serious play asking the viewer to think about serious questions. The setting is the chaos of Baghdad in 2003 right after the American invasion. The play is populated by the tiger, American soldiers, and Iraqis. It's not unremittingly grim, and the running joke about the stupidity of lions helps relieve the seriousness of the subject matter. This play is about the insanity of war, the stupidity of greed, the loss of innocence and innocents, evil, and corruption not to mention the afterlife and the purpose of life. After Drake and I debated what we thought were the themes of the play for about half an hour, I checked in on the NY Times reviewer's take on the play.
The thing he thought of which we hadn't considered is how different this play is from the other offerings on Broadway. As he put it, this play stands out from the nostalgia craze (revivals), the let's be teenagers again shows, (Book of Mormon), the straight musicals (Chicago), and the let's make a show out of a movie (Lion King). Only Jerusalem (play) comes close to this one, and Jerusalem was hilarious in a serious situation and ultimately a fantasy. I would definitely recommend the Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo if for no other reason that it was nice to be able to think about something we saw. My only complaint was that it seemed to lack an 'ending' which was perhaps deliberate. After all, we are STILL in Iraq, aren't we?
After theater dinner last night was potluck. I had originally thought to eat Mediterranean food, and had pre-picked a place. When we walked over to it, it just didn't look good. We discovered that 46th Street in the Theater District is called Restaurant Row (each street has an alternative name in a separate, albeit smaller, street sign under the official name). 46th Street is restaurant after restaurant of everything you can imagine from the traditional Italian to Brazilian, to Thai, to Sushi, to French, to American, both traditional (burgers) to contemporary (novelle) and a Turkish restaurant. That's the one we picked.
I was also amused to note the competition for customers is so fierce that the restaurants have 'shills' who stand outside and try to entice passer-bys (especially tourists like us) to come in and eat at their restaurant. They address you directly just as if we were marks at the traveling carnival and they were barkers luring us into a girlie show. It works, though because when we rejected out pre-picked choice, we remembered the nice girl in the red shawl who invited us into her Turkish restaurant.
Sometimes you just get lucky. After the disappointment of City Lobster and Steak of the previous evening, "Symrna" was terrific. I think my first clue came that this was going to be good when I noticed that initially we were the only people in the restaurant who weren't speaking Turkish. Always a good sign when you're eating ethnic food. I won't bore you with what we had - pretty standard stuff followed by pistachio filled baklava - but it was all first rate.
Today we are off to the theater again - this time a musical that closes June 19th - Chicago. We both liked the music in the movie, and expect to juvenile entertainment. We did our grown-up duty at the theater yesterday. Today we have picked Argentinean/Italian food - what a combo. I have discovered that Italian food is to New York as Mexican food is to Texas. We are kind of holding off for Little Italy before we indulge in a big Italian feast.
My initial attraction to this play was exactly what the backers hoped: I wanted to see Robin Williams perform live. (His role is the tiger.) The play overshadowed him which gives you some idea of how powerful a vehicle it is, and he was very good in his role. This is a serious play asking the viewer to think about serious questions. The setting is the chaos of Baghdad in 2003 right after the American invasion. The play is populated by the tiger, American soldiers, and Iraqis. It's not unremittingly grim, and the running joke about the stupidity of lions helps relieve the seriousness of the subject matter. This play is about the insanity of war, the stupidity of greed, the loss of innocence and innocents, evil, and corruption not to mention the afterlife and the purpose of life. After Drake and I debated what we thought were the themes of the play for about half an hour, I checked in on the NY Times reviewer's take on the play.
The thing he thought of which we hadn't considered is how different this play is from the other offerings on Broadway. As he put it, this play stands out from the nostalgia craze (revivals), the let's be teenagers again shows, (Book of Mormon), the straight musicals (Chicago), and the let's make a show out of a movie (Lion King). Only Jerusalem (play) comes close to this one, and Jerusalem was hilarious in a serious situation and ultimately a fantasy. I would definitely recommend the Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo if for no other reason that it was nice to be able to think about something we saw. My only complaint was that it seemed to lack an 'ending' which was perhaps deliberate. After all, we are STILL in Iraq, aren't we?
After theater dinner last night was potluck. I had originally thought to eat Mediterranean food, and had pre-picked a place. When we walked over to it, it just didn't look good. We discovered that 46th Street in the Theater District is called Restaurant Row (each street has an alternative name in a separate, albeit smaller, street sign under the official name). 46th Street is restaurant after restaurant of everything you can imagine from the traditional Italian to Brazilian, to Thai, to Sushi, to French, to American, both traditional (burgers) to contemporary (novelle) and a Turkish restaurant. That's the one we picked.
I was also amused to note the competition for customers is so fierce that the restaurants have 'shills' who stand outside and try to entice passer-bys (especially tourists like us) to come in and eat at their restaurant. They address you directly just as if we were marks at the traveling carnival and they were barkers luring us into a girlie show. It works, though because when we rejected out pre-picked choice, we remembered the nice girl in the red shawl who invited us into her Turkish restaurant.
Sometimes you just get lucky. After the disappointment of City Lobster and Steak of the previous evening, "Symrna" was terrific. I think my first clue came that this was going to be good when I noticed that initially we were the only people in the restaurant who weren't speaking Turkish. Always a good sign when you're eating ethnic food. I won't bore you with what we had - pretty standard stuff followed by pistachio filled baklava - but it was all first rate.
Today we are off to the theater again - this time a musical that closes June 19th - Chicago. We both liked the music in the movie, and expect to juvenile entertainment. We did our grown-up duty at the theater yesterday. Today we have picked Argentinean/Italian food - what a combo. I have discovered that Italian food is to New York as Mexican food is to Texas. We are kind of holding off for Little Italy before we indulge in a big Italian feast.
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