New York City Blog Sept. 23 – Sept. 29

Word of the week: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy, 26 letters that spell a word that means examination of the esophagus, stomach and duodenum. It was learned while I was undergoing a procedure that is far more pleasant than the prep. I’ve spared you photographs.

Studio 5 at City Center: Damian Woetzel hosts a series that examines various aspects of dance. The series is held in a space that reminds me of a high school auditorium. It holds about 200 people. On Sept. 24 he introduced Analia Centurion and Gabriel Misse. Both are extraordinary tango dancers. They demonstrated how the tango has changed over the years. According to Mr. Misse, the 1950s were the golden age of the tango. You can’t see Ms. Centurion’s very high heels.

Gabriel Misse watches Damian Woetzel and Analia Centurion dancing
Gabriel Misse watches Damian Woetzel and Analia Centurion dancing

Damian Woetzel, Gabriel Misse, Analia Centurion
Damian Woetzel, Gabriel Misse, Analia Centurion

 

 

Off to the Met to see the Balthus show.He’s so much an artist of his time, so European, so bourgeois – even his landscapes seem interior. The artist’s focus on naked young girls gave one of my friends the creeps.

Balthus's The Cat of La Mediterranee
Balthus’s The Cat of La Mediterranee

And, finally, a bouquet from Lila Acheson Wallace’s bequest to the Metropolitan to contribute fresh flower arrangements.

Lila Acheson Wallace floral bequest to the Met
Lila Acheson Wallace floral bequest to the Met

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In and Out of New York City Blog Sept. 16 – Sept. 22

IMG_0148There were glorious fireworks on Sept. 19. They were as good as the ones on July 4th, but no one can tell me what they were in honor of. What was the occasion? It was a full moon but so what.

 

The bride and her father
The bride and her father

 

The Father of the Bride, the Bride and the Groom
The Father of the Bride, the Bride and the Groom

The fireworks were nothing compared with the beautiful wedding I attended in Bucks County. Near the banks of the Delaware is a beautiful farm house with an oxblood red barn. Only a few minutes late thanks to the Pulaski Skyway, we sauntered across the lawn,  greeting different family members not seen in years. We were gently herded passed a shimmering pool and the jazz band. Then, the ceremony began. The bride floated across an open field toward the groom and us. It was in Spanish and English, adding an inclusiveness to the occasion. The rain had the good manners to hold off until late in the evening. By then we were fortified by great company, delicious food, a heavenly setting and an open bar.

New York City Blog Sept. 9 – Sept. 15

New York has switched into high cultural gear. From music and drama: Juilliard, Carnegie Hall, New York City Ballet to architecture and history: Municipal Arts Society, the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation.
At Judson Memorial Church’s The Gym, Al Carmine’s THE BONUS ARMY is being performed. This photo is of Tony Perry, one of the wonderful singers and dancers in the production.The contortionist at the piano is the production state manager, Morgan Eisen.
Morgan Eisen
Morgan Eisen
Tony Perry Cutting a Rug
Tony Perry Cutting a Rug

Here’s Elijah Tucker, the Rock and Soul musician,  giving an impromptu West Village performance on The Backpacker.

 

www.elijahtucker.com
www.elijahtucker.com

New York City Sept. 1 – Sept. 8

Uptown has the semi-annual fashion week. Downtown has the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit.The former was started in 1943 during WWII. Since the fashion world couldn’t get to Paris, New York fashion invented the Press Week. The art exhibit is 83 years old. It too is held twice yearly, two weeks around Labor Day and two weeks around Memorial Day. Centered around University Place. with tourists, NYU students and the

Washington Square Art Show
Washington Square Art Show

 

Glass for sale!
Glass for sale!

Union Square crowds from the north bustling past, it’s a busy area.

Remember the song, “Autumn in New York”?  It might have been written before Lincoln Center was merely a twinkle in some developer’s eye and when Broadway was the glitzy, glamorous place to be seen, but the song’s lyrics still ring true even if cultural events are now shared by the two locations. One of the most prestigious of the Lincoln Center organizations is Juilliard. You know it’s fall, when you receive your on-line Juilliard catalog.

New York City Blog Aug. 26 – Sept. 1

NYC Blog Aug. 26 – Sept. 1

 Want to hear French? Go to the Guggenheim. Want to be part of the Millennium generation? Go to the Guggenheim. The building’s architecture means more to me than its exhibits. I get a thrill romping up the white painted rotunda’s incline, poking into niche exhibits and then looking down from the top at the circles I’ve just climbed. The James Turrell exhibit has drawn such large crowds that looking down from the top tier was impossible. So I contented myself with shooting a photo of people basking in the irridescent colors of Turrell’s other world- E. T. installation.

Sun bathing at the Guggenheim
Sun bathing at the Guggenheim
This is the time of year the Y does its spring cleaning. The pool is emptied, cleaned and then refilled with 180,000 gallons of water.

Now you see it.
Now you see it.

 

Now you don't.
Now you don’t.

New York City Blog August 19 – August 25

 

 Hands up everyone who has wanted to take an axe to the computer, smartphone or Kindle. I lost my Kindle on one of the seven planes I took this past July. Never put anything into those plane pockets on the back of the seat in front of you. Well, I did. I have replaced it with a paper white in Japanese, I think – unless it’s Korean. I don’t think it’s Chinese. Since everything is in Japanese, Korean, or Chinese it’s difficult to follow directions. Help! Amazon! Welcome to my Kindle…
  Welcome to my Kindle
The Dickens of Detroit, Elmore Leonard, died this week. Anybody who reads American crime fiction knows what a fine writer he is. Some of his distinctive features are:  snappy dialogue, wit, ordinary but unusual settings, characters below the fashionable radar screen. He was known for being cool and that’s what his writing is. It will be interesting to see if his work weathers well.

This past Thursday a friend and I invested most of our 401Ks in a meal at Locanda Verde. It was worth it. The restaurant is south of Canal. Who goes there? Apparently, buffed, toned and successful people. On Sunday I took this photo in a Brooklyn butcher shop. Isn’t meat glorious?  Aren’t those #10 cans cute? To prove I do have a conscience (I’m thinking of all the cows, pigs, and chickens I’ve eaten) I’m posting a cottage in Portland, OR. that was built with recycled materials including #10 cans.

Meat Glorious Meat
Meat Glorious Meat

#10 Cans
#10 Cans

Recycled Cottage
Recycled Cottage

 

 

NYC Blog August 12 – August 18

I flew back to NYC from Portland,OR. in under six hours, took a taxi and headed from Newark to Manhattan. After being away, isn’t it a thrill to see the jagged skyline? The old beauties were there: the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building; the newer, less lovely Citigroup Center and MetLife Building and the newest, Bloomberg Tower and New York Times Building. What a hodgepodge! Gotham City, Big Apple, Megalopolis: home.

The latitudes of Rome and of NYC are about 40 degrees north. Having lived in both cities, I concur with the Italian saying, autumn begins in August. NYC harkens back to pre-WWII images of women in dresses, hats and gloves and men in suits and fedoras, all because of the slanting light I associate with 30’s movies and NYC in August. And jazz.

 

On Tuesday, a friend and I attended the Baha’i Center at 53 East 11th Street, dedicated to Dizzy Gillespie who became a Baha’i in 1968 soon after Martin Luther King’s death. It is a small auditorium that sponsors, on a shoestring, wonderful Jazz Tuesdays. Mike Longo, the jazz pianist and composer who played with Gillespie, and the tireless Dorothy Longo, run it. For more about Jazz Tuesdays visit the website: www.jazzbeat.com.

 That evening we heard The Makanda Project, a Boston jazz group. 14 – Fourteen members -14 on that tiny stage. The place burst with the compositions of the late Makanda Ken McIntyre.  Some members of the audience, knowing the players, cheered them on.

Jazz Tuesday: The Makanda Project
Jazz Tuesday: The Makanda Project
Autumn light, looking toward the West Side.
Autumn light, looking toward the West Side.

What a way to come back to NYC : supper in a nearby Italian restaurant,  a jazz session and then a stroll home in the balmy evening.

 

Out of New York City Monday, Aug. 5 – Sunday, Aug. 11

Portland, Oregon could be in the land of  OZ.  On a wallIMG_0287IMG_0289IMG_0273in Fred Meyer Supermarket these words are quoted from the London Times:  Portland is a bracing mixture, vital without being precious, laid-back without being starry-eyed. More than that, Portland is funky, not in a self-conscious way but as a reflection of how the locals choose to live.
Remember the wonderful Oz characters: Jack Pumpkinhead,  a jack-o’lantern, and his live Sawhorse, Tick-Tock, the Nome King and of course the Cowardly Lion, Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, Dorothy, Toto, the Wizard and Ozma of Oz? They’re unique and sometimes weird but always appealing. Their modern day counterparts live in Portland. Here’s a photo of Toto who’s known as Indie in Portland. She’s going on a bike ride with Ozma of Oz.
Benson Bubblers and Roundabouts are unique Portland features.

 

Out of New York City Monday, July 29 – Sunday, August 4

On Monday I arrived in Portland, went to the Warren; that’s what my landlady calls her charming basement apartment. It has three windows looking out onto the hedges and garden. I feel as if I’m in an Impressionist painting. Unlike Santa Fe, bikers wear helmets. I also noticed people reading books. Remember those? Dear friends took me to one of their favorite haunts, Jimmy Mak’s, to hear the Dan Balmer trio. While Balmer made hay with the guitar, I tucked into a divine chorizo and beef hamburger, carefully avoiding the n. g. designation. If Santa Fe represents opera for me, in Portland it’s jazz and folk. Next day we went to Jantzen Beach to visit a floating house. Unlike a houseboat, a floating house is moored to its site.

IMG_0242

That evening we went to a leafy Dawson Park picnic to hear the singers, Lorranda Steele and Linda Hornbuckle. Ever use a salt block? Me either, but after Powell’s City of Books hosted a cook talking about the magic of salt, I’m sorely tempted. The next day we had a wonderful party at my friends’ enchanting house which they bought when north-west Portland had not been developed.  On my daily walk to the Portman pool I saw a sweet and sad message that I photographed. “Whoever stole my skateboard you suck that was my bday present”.

IMG_0248

IMG_0257 Our latest adventure was to Mount Hood.

IMG_0255We went to Timberline, the WPA lodge built in 1937. It’s a timber framed structure that reminds you of the glories of native woods, stone and murals. As a kid I Ioved the Oz books. With its quirky charm and singular pleasure in its own identity,  Portland could be a town in Oz.

Out of New York City Blog July 22 – July 28

For the past four years I’ve spent a few of the summer weeks in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon. They are two cities so different from each other and so different from NYC.

Santa Fe has the sobriquet, the city different, but its original name is far grander: La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís  “The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi”

As most people know, there’s no such thing as a direct route from NYC to Santa Fe. It’s more of a squiggle:  Newark to Houston to Albuquerque to Santa Fe. The Pony Express would have been quicker and the service (United) much better.

The minute I’m in the southwest, I’m aware of space and sky. It affects my mood. I become less NYC tense, competitive, suspicious, pushy. My manners improve. I use cuss words far less often. Friendly, laid-back and courteous describe most of the people.

I like to cook and usually rent a place with a kitchen. It’s a good way to become reacquainted with Santa Fe friends. A gluten free meal was requested. I headed to Sprouts, a Whole Foods lookalike. We had the usual snacks: mozzarella balls, olives, crackers (gluten free), followed by cucumber, tomato, dill, arugala salad, ravioli (gluten free) in a mushroom, edamame, garlic, shallot sauce with parmegiano on the side. Imagine my horror when I tossed the ravioli into boiling water and they dissolved into a slimy mess. Ravioli made with wheat are a cinch to cook. Put them into boiling salted water and they’re done when they float to the top. Dessert was a gluten free cake. Never again.

On July 26, friends and I went to a buffet dinner at the Santa Fe opera site and under a huge and sturdy tent watch a storm rage around us: lightening, thunder, the works. My umbrella was tucked away in my suitcase, of course. We were lucky. There was a perfectly timed break in the storm. We scurried up the hill to the opera house. The stage is open on three sides to make use of the glorious New Mexico landscape. As the opera unfolded, the sun set leaving streaky light across the western sky.The seats are as comfortable as the ones in Alice Tully. Last night’s performance was wonderful. DiDonato and Brownlee were spectacular. They had just flown in from performing the opera at Covent Garden. The big surprise (to me) was Mariana Pizzolato a mezzo-soprano who was as good as the other two. Tomorrow we’re returning for another buffet supper and Oscar.

July 27: Talk about contrast between stormy weathered but deliciously anticipated La Donna del Lago and tonight’s balmy weather and sizzling but well bred excitement about a new and politically motivated opera. At tonight’s buffet, an Engllsh woman with the improbable name of Electra/ Brunhilde (?) did what she’s been doing for years. She gave a talk about the background of the opera. Being Oscar’s opening night, she and the crowd were fired up by the significance of gay rights and the coincidence of the Supreme Court decision. The English accent does help. Once again, Wilde was proclaimed a great writer (Oh?) and we went through his tragic tale. I could do without these adult education courses at dinner, but most of the crowd seemed to like it. I’m so glad I attended the performance with a retired singer and was I grateful for my own private tutorial. Oscar’s composer is Theodore Morrison, quite young. This is his first opera. The music was big and green – exciting in a modern way. Most modern music sounds similar to me: John Corigliano, John Adams  and to my tin ear you could include Morrison. David Daniels sang Oscar. A dancer represented Lord Alfred Douglas. He flitted in and out of the scenes contributing not a whit. Most opera dancing makes my blood boil. It was thrilling to be at the event and quite moving to see how happy so many couples were. Lordy, it could have been a Judson Memorial Church Sunday. On to Portland!

 

Mary Jo Robertiello's mysteries and life