Tag Archives: Always at the Carlyle

NYMysteries June 24 -June 30

Pride Sunday. In the late seventies, when it was called the Gay Day Parade, my boyfriend and I would arrive at a gay friend’s apartment on Hudson, drink champagne at ten a.m. and smoke perfectly rolled cigarettes. I was titillated by the largely homosexual crowd expressing surprise that I was gay. Then we strolled up Fifth Avenue, slightly stoned. It was a leisurely walk, hardly a march.

 

 

For this Pride Sunday, The Judson Memorial Church’s staff created  evocative and heart breaking posters of the past LGBT community.

 

 

 

Saint James Baldwin
Saint Christine Jorgensen
Saint Alan Turing
St. Harry Hay

A friend and I go to the movies in hopes we’ll break the spell of choosing long, boring movies. The three most recent stinkers: The King, Phantom Thread, Gone Girl. 

The King, at IFC, ropes you in because it’s supposedly about Elvis Presley. Actually it’s a self serving vehicle about the director, Eugene Jarecki, who informs us that he’s anti-Trump and supports Black Lives Matter. What does this have to do with E. P.? Jarecki criticizes Presley for not participating in civil rights marches. Presley was a musical genius. That’s it. He might have been a dope but who cares? Speaking of vehicles, Jarecki has the usual tired celebrities such as Alec Baldwin ride around in Presley’s Rolls Royce.  Avoid. 

Paul Taylor Anderson’s Phantom Thread is so boring. Daniel Day-Lewis walks on water for some. In this long affected movie he treads on cloth. If you suffer from insomnia, this is the flick for you.

We saw David Fincher’s Gone Girl in a glorious Amsterdam art nouveau movie theater, Pathé Tuschinski. I’m a fan of Gillian Flynn’s flinty, non-flinching descriptions of everyday life and of her sense of humor. None of which is present in the film adaptation. And to put the nail in the coffin Ben Affleck wanders through the plot in his usual sleepwalker’s stance. 

I had to meet a friend for drinks at Bemelmans Bar after seeing Always at the Carlyle. Sitting in the twilight of Bemelman’s wall paintings, listening to someone slinging Cole Porter and sipping champagne is certainly the way to spend the cocktail hour. 

 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned a 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? 

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

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. 

Mary Jo Robertiello

http://www.nymysteries.com

NYMYSTERIES MAY 2 – JUNE 8

 

Off to Yonkers. We decided to go to Untermyer Park and Garden and ignore rain threats. It paid off. We had a delightful sun filled stroll around the forty plus acres. To the west is the Hudson and the Palisades. The fragrant gardens are being restored. We visited the mysteriously named Persian Garden which is filled with copies of Greek statues and columns. Around us, restoration work was being done on the 1899 structure. So quiet, so green: a perfect antidote for the NYC bustle. 

Untermyer Park and Garden
Untermyer Park and Garden

I confess. I saw Always at the Carlyle. I can claim I’m a native New Yorker and the Carlyle is part of my DNA. The real reason I went to the restored Quad was to see all the celebrities in the documentary who can afford $10,000- $20,000 a night.

 

 

 

 

 

Studio 5 Celebrating Bernstein and Robbins

Boo-hoo. We attended our final Studio 5 presentation. It was dedicated to Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein, as everyone knows, would have been one hundred this year. We were treated to music and dance created by Bernstein and Jerome Robbins. 

 

 

 

A friend and I planned our visit to the Cloisters’ Heavenly Bodies so that we’d arrive early and escape before the crowds arrived. After going through several cloisters, halls, and rooms to look at and drool over the fabulous and enormous exhibit which is part of the Fashion and the Catholic Imagination at the Metropolitan and the Cloisters, we felt peckish and went to New Leaf, a charming restaurant in the park.

It’s been a week filled with gardens and views of the Hudson.  

 

Now: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination at the Cloisters

 

 

Then: Tomb of a Lady and probably a saint. The Cloisters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned a 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? 

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

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.