Tag Archives: Alfred Hitchcock

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  Sept. 2 – Sept. 8

A lovely Sunday: Film Forum twofers: Purple Noon and Strangers on a Train. Alain Delon was gorgeous in the 1960s French version of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley mystery. The Hitchcock was like a much loved story being told to children, this time the children were 50+ and packed the Film Forum. I assume that most of the audience had seen the movie a million times. There were giggles and guffaws when Robert Walker was his most awful Bruno self. Afterwards, a bar on Second Avenue and Thirteenth street to celebrate an Australian friend’s birthday, followed by supper of pork pie, tomatoes.

On one of those ghastly NYC days with humidity 1000 %, a friend and I dove into a movie house with a.c. like a refrigerator and saw Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. It was serious and entertaining. The KKK was presented in its ridiculous outfits. I appreciated the scorn Lee heaped on them and the way their racial slurs were ridiculed. 

A shout out for Via Quadronno on East 73rd Street. Ever other Monday I have an early lunch of their beautifully cooked asparagus and divine olive oil. 

 

Early lunch at Via Quadronno

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friend and I took a short walk in Riverside Park. He very patiently explained to me the mysteries of Instagram. Here’s an effort.

Riverside Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Graphic Lessons: What do a teacher, 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, the only witness to the stabbing 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 while Kulchek was buying cigarettes? Escaping an attempted car bombing?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

NewYork Mysteries May 21 – May 27

After a tasty Dominican supper, we went to the very baroque Church of St. Michael’s on West 99th Street to attend Amor Artis chorus and orchestra perform Handel in Italy. Handel worked in Italy from 1706-1710. Among the cantatas, mezzo-soprano Sarah Nelson Craft enchanted us with Armida Abbandonata.

Sarah Nelson Craft and Ryan James Brandau performing Handel in Italy

 

 

 

#WhiteLoveListens Potlucks are meals sponsored by Judson Memorial Church members to discuss how to make racial justice work. I joined a Brooklyn group of people all white, mostly elderly. We each talked about being raised in a white environment. To quote the expression, you don’t know what you don’t know. The evening provided a launching pad for further thinking, for getting out of the box.

 

“Welcome to one of the few places in NYC where cell phones and people are silent, food and drinks are for after the movie and everyone has a wonderful time.” This message is flashed on the MOMA screen before the movies that attract packed audiences. Mr. Cary Grant is a wonderful collection of the suave one’s various charming movies. Since he and Alfred Hitchcock are among my most admired movie pros, I paid one dollar to see “North by Northwest.” It’s such fun living in NYC and going to a 1959 movie that features 1950s Manhattan: Cary Grant strolling into the Plaza where in real-life he had a suite; Eva Marie Saint in couture chosen in Berdorfs for her by Hitchcock; the aerial shot of the UN; the Bernard Herrmann music.

New York City Blog – Aug. 15 — Aug. 20

The Film Forum has had a stroke of genius. It’s offering twofers. For the price of one movie you can see two. They have quite a lineup, starting with Rear Window and Vertigo. I ordered my ticket online. By the time I arrived at the Film Form, sold out signs were posted. Something you don’t often see at the Film Forum. Rear Window was packed. Extra chairs were set up at the back of the theatre. I am an Alfred Hitchcock fan. Rear Window is a great favorite and I’ve seen it numerous times over the years in movie houses, drive-ins and on TV. There’s nothing like an old fashioned movie house packed with fans. The audience was hushed, like children listening to a well loved fairy tale. There’s always something new in a Hitchcock film. This time I concentrated on clothing: Grace Kelly’s lavish Edith Head wardrobe, Wendell Corey as the best dressed NYPD detective ever, the spotlessly attired 21 Club waiter who delivers a lobster dinner, just the thing to serve the world famous photographer and temporary invalid, James Stewart. Hitchcock made his American movies when many people were wrapping their tuxes in mothballs and switching to jeans. Hitchcock preferred bespoke costumes especially for his blonde stars. Didn’t he escort Eva Maria Saint on a Bergdorf’s shopping exhibition for her North by Northwest wardrobe? Rear Window was made in 1954, pre-air conditioning, which is underlined by the couple sleeping on the fire escape but there were Kelly, gossamer in her divine confections and Wendell Corey, dapper and cool in sweltering NYC summer humidity, Thelma Ritter, in a very cute summer dress, dragging a large shovel up and down stairs and ledges as Kelly climbs a few stories in a princess like outfit to the murderer’s lair. Was Hitchcock obsessed with clothes? Wendell Corey comments on the victim’s wardrobe as dated but serviceable. James Stewart comments on the impossibility of Kelly and her wardrobe making do in the wild. The last scene shows Stewart snoring away with two broken legs, while Kelly, dressed down – in jeans! – sneaks a look at Harper’s Bazaar. I didn’t stay for Vertigo. Unlike many people, it’s one of my least favorite Hitchcock films.