NY Mysteries Oct. 25, 2019

 

 

A Judsonite group attended Alice Elliot’s Miracle on 42nd Street. The documentary about Manhattan Plaza is part of the architecture & design film festival. It tells the saga of Manhattan Plaza, a 484 West 43rd Street residential complex that opened in 1977. The majority of the tenants are in the performing arts.  Director Alice Elliot captures the drama, the angst of neighbors afraid they’d be kicked out of their humble dwellings, performers at first loath to live in that neighborhood (Hell’s Kitchen) and then clamoring to. There are interesting interviews with Angela Lansbury, Giancarlo Esposito  and a slew of other celebrities who have lived there. We saw it at Cinépolis Chelsea.  Have you noticed that movie theaters are installing upscale, first class allurements? There are reclining leather seats you can adjust. Legs up? Press a button, Want your backside warmed? Press a button. Airport-like bars, an ad suggesting delicious food  (popcorn, more popcorn) delivered to your seat.

 

 

 

 

Manhattan Plaza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s always a joy to see a legend in action. Wendy Whalen retired from the New York City Ballet a few years ago. She is now the Associate Artistic Director of the company. At the Joyce she danced in The Day, a moving and moody piece, conceived by Maya Beiser and choreographed by Lucinda Childs. 

 

 

 

 

 

Wendy Whalen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alicia Alonso the great Cuban dancer, has died. She was 98. In the late 1930s Alonso and her husband, Fernando, traveled to NYC to establish dancing careers. Alicia Alonso was a soloist with the American Ballet Caravan which became New York City Ballet in 1940. She suffered detached retina which put a hold on her dancing but she persevered. !n 1943 she was asked to dance Giselle at Ballet Theatre. She danced the role until 1948. Other roles included:  in Swan LakeAntony Tudor‘s Undertow (1943), Balanchine’s Theme and Variations (1947) and  deMille’s dramatic ballet Fall River Legend. She returned to Cuba in 1948 to found her own company, the Alicia Alonso Ballet Company. It eventually became Ballet Nacional de Cuba.

Alicia Alonso

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 ? Remorse over screwing up an important case? His corrupt boss being a trustee of the Windsor School?  His girlfriend marrying his boss? 

NY Mysteries Oct. 18, 2019

Judson’s blessing of the animals (many dogs, one stuffed snake called Eagle, several other stuffed animals) was a hoot. They broke bread in the form of  animal biscuits distributed by Minister Micah Busey who was loving every minute of it.  I asked a friend if she’d brought an animal and she named her husband. Well, he has a cute tail.

 

 

Musical dog in a musical family
Another musical dog
Musical dogs hanging out

A friend and I went to the Frick concert: Les Bostonades. It’s stepping back into the 18th century with the music of Clerambault,  Rameau and Telemann. If only the violinist didn’t sway and swoop as she played. If only the superb voiced tenor didn’t display his winsome smile so much. If only the Music Room wall paper were mended but I think this sweet, not old room will be destroyed in the new building plans. After, we went to a Peruvian restaurant on Second Avenue. The food was fine. I’ve probably forgotten the restaurant’s name because at the end of the meal when we were settling our bill, the waiter approached and gave my friend her card. He leaned over me and said mine was rejected. A little piece of paper floated from his hands confirming this. As you all know, tables are on top of each other in dear Manhattan which is great for eavesdropping as long as you’re eavesdropping. The look from the inches away table suggested a slight pity and certain curiosity in the older woman who’s card had been rejected. 

 

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 ? Remorse over screwing up an important case? His corrupt boss being a trustee of the Windsor School?  His girlfriend marrying his boss? 

NY Mysteries Oct. 11, 2019

On a perfect fall day last Sunday friends and I went to Wave Hill. One of my friends is a keen gardener and had planned the day so we’d go to a lecture in Wave Hill House (1843) being given by her friends and then walk around the 28-acre Riverdale estate. It has horticultural gardens and overlooks the Hudson. 

Wave Hill
Dahlias in the Wave Hill Flower Garden
Dahlias in the Wave Hill Garden
Wave Hill Grasses
Wave Hill

 

 

 

 

The next evening at the National Arts Club friends and I celebrated two birthdays and reproached one friend for returning to Florida.. Over drinks and dinner we had lots of good conversation and laughs.

 

 

I belong to Stubbs, a free service of the AMC movie chain. The purpose is to lure in customers. Every Tuesday in any AMC movie house you can see any movie for $6. Even at that low price, I want to warn you. Ad Astra is a ghastly movie. I went, noble me, because a gay pal has a crush on Brad Pitt. It’s a guy movie: lots of wheels, lots of futurist jeeps plowing across Mars or was it Saturn. Poor Brad, loaded down in his immaculate astronaut suit was searching for his father, a boring old duffer who had disappeared in space. Brad Pitt was the main and practically only character and producer. It’s a  film with lots of special effects and Hollywood profound thoughts.

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? 

NY Mysteries Oct. 4, 2019

Friends and I went to see Midnight Traveler at Film Forum. Aside from us three, there were four other people at the screening. In 2016 the Taliban put a bounty on Afghan director Hassan Fazili’s head after he made Peace in Afghanistan. He and his wife and their two young daughters fled Kabul. They first went to Tajikistan for an agonizing 14 months of filling in futile applications before being sent back to Afghanistan. Both filmmakers, Fazili and his wife, started recording their life on three cell phones. The documentary records their journey with two small daughters across Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia. The courage and fortitude of the family is extraordinary as they endure refugee camps, escape from gangs and hide in forests in winter. 

Girls have to have fun, right? That’s why two of my other pals and I went to the Met. We went to the Roof Garden. It was an autumnal sky surrounding Alicja Kwade’s ParaPivot I and II. The massive spheres appear weightless. We then went to the Dutch Masterpieces at the Met. 17th Century Dutch Art was collected at the Met soon after the museum opened in 1870. The current exhibit is luscious: buxom ladies at prayer, equally buxom servants

Alicja Kwade’s ParaPivot I and II

preparing a meal, comic painting, pastoral scenes, flowers, fruits, pealed lemons. It’s delightful.

The Met Roof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to the New York City Ballet Tuesday night and was bored to death. I’ve been a fan of the NYCB for many years and was dismayed at the mechanical presentation of Valse-Fantaisie and Kammermusik No. 2. Recently, I’ve been going to the Joyce where the theater is alive with excitement both on the stage and in the audience. 

Have you seen Judy? And why not? Everything positive people say about Renée Zellweger is true. She’s caught Judy Garland’s nervous walk and talk. She’s also caught what a difficult person Judy Garland was to be around plus her heartbreaking vulnerability. Rupert Goold, the director, flashes back very effectively to Garland’s gruesome upbringing in glamorous old Hollywood. 

 

 

 

 

 

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?