NYMysteries Feb. 23

KGB is at 85 East 4th Street. Its speakeasy bar, the Red Room, is squashed into the second floor up a steep flight of stairs that would have given Alfred Hitchcock ideas for another Psycho sequel. I went to an open mike session sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America. Nervous? Yes. Excited? Yeeees. I read the first chapter of my revised version of Graphic Lessons and received an enthusiastic response. KGB features nightly performances of writers of different genres: fiction writers, mystery writers, trumpet writers. (What’s that?) Monday night is poetry night. The atmosphere is prohibition cozy: dark, crowded with lots of chairs and a bar that runs one side of the room.  It’s a rainy fall or winter night atmosphere twelve months of the year.

 

 

 

KGB
KGB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isn’t it fun to surprise friends with a restaurant that’s different in design but great in what counts: delicious food, efficient and friendly service. IchiUmi at 32nd Street and Fifth fits the bill. Its buffet runs for miles and don’t forget desserts and other goodies on the other side of the restaurant. 

IchiUmi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IchiUmi

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

NYMysteries Feb. 16

We’re sitting in tiny $100 seats in the Minetta Lane Theatre on Minetta Lane waiting for Colin Quinn’s show, Red State Blue State to begin. But wait. A vagrant in a hand-me-down shirt, Salvation Army jeans, and a batch of new whiskers moseys onto the set.  Should we call Security? No. It’s Colin Quinn, everyman’s everyman. Quinn dives into the state of the nation. He has a pleasant edge. If you were arguing with him, bar stool to bar stool, he would make you listen even though he’s pro-guns and pro-death penalty . He’s also pro-choice and pro-marriage equality. In other words, he’s a mix. Colin Quinn for vice president on the Howard Schultz ticket! 

Red State Blue State is a one man show with a cast of thousands. Well, a crew of nineteen including Quinn. Edward T. Morris’s set is great. It’s a  back wall of wooden planks with splotches of U. S. states. Quinn has a great riff describing the various qualities of all fifty.  Red State Blue State is 75 minutes of manufactured simplicity and honesty and it works.

 

 

Edward T. Morris’s Red State Blue State set

 

 

 

 

An annual event I dearly love is our Chinese New Year’s dinner at Evergreen. I have all the fun. A wonderful friend from hiking days does all the work. We were twenty four old friends who spun with gusto the gigantic lazy Susan laden with Shanghai-influenced dumplings, noodles, pork buns and more.

 

 

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

NYMysteries Feb. 9

 

 The February 3 Frick Sunday concert was given by Calefax, a woodwinds ensemble from the Netherlands. The five musicians played the oboe, the clarinet, the saxophone, the bass clarinet and the bassoon. As if this weren’t enough, they switched to other instruments throughout the evening. It was  marvelous fun. The reed quintet enjoyed itself and so did the audience. The pieces ranged from César Franck to George Gershwin. 

 

Calefax at the Frick

 

CALEFAX

 

 

 

 

 

 I saw Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War. What’s all the fuss about? I liked the black and white photography and the period quality of post World War ll. The story of two people madly in love didn’t work for me because the woman was a retread of troubled, talented singers. Remember Judy Garland? The man in love meant it. He returned from Paris (de rigueur fifties jazz) and landed in a Polish prison under Soviet rule so he could be close to the love of his life. 

 

 

 

 

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and san eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

NYMysteries – Feb. 2, 2019

It was at a book launching that Georgia Clark, writer, performer, storyteller and engaged person, asked me to perform at Caveat as part of Generation Women: wit and wisdom from ladies of all ages. Since then I’v been invited to occasional parties at her apartment very near the Williamsburg Bridge. Georgia is an Australian dynamo whose third book will be published by Emily Bestler Books/Simon & Schuster. Not bad, eh? Last Sunday evening a small group gathered in the cozy apartment with the amazing view of the East River.  Georgia and her partner, the gorgeous Lindsay, gazed lovingly at our drinks. They are indulging in a weird ritual called Dry January. 

Georgia and Lindsey

 

 

 

 

 

The remains of dessert: Assorted cookies and Affogato

 

 

A dear friend’s birthday was a perfect excuse for going to Maialino, a restaurant that shares a corner of the Gramercy Park Hotel. Drinking cherry colored Aperol, I parked myself in the hotel’s elegant lounge to wait for my friend. No tipping is the Maialino mantra. It’s a restaurant with a bustling Friday night bar. The service and food were great. When I called for reservations I was asked if it were a special occasion. Nightmare visions of waiters gathering around and singing Happy Birthday filled my troubled brain. I said we didn’t go in for celebrations.  The crafty staff overheard me toasting my pal. When her dessert arrived there was one discreet candle and, as I discovered in the photo, Happy Birthday scrawled in chocolate. 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook?