Tag Archives: Caterpillar

New York City Blog January 10 – January 16

Ever read the Nancy Drew series? Nancy Drew’s father, Carson Drew, had a shiny black roadster. I felt like a Nancy Drew character as my editor and I, in her shiny blue Honda, drove from East 20 Street to 125 Street, crossed over to the westside and zoomed south to Wall Street. We were citing the locations of my next mystery, Graphic Lessons. Gigi Hernandez, a young Puerto Rican girl attending the Windsor School (90 Street and Park Ave.) as a scholarship student, lives at East 124 Street with her Uncle George, a Winslow kitchen worker who got her the scholarship, her father, Manuel, who also works at the school as a handyman and who takes incriminating photos of a NYPL department captain, Richard Holbrook (domicile: 114 East 90 Street) and his secret squeeze (1088 Park Avenue). Detective Steve Kulchek (20th Street Loop, Stuyvesant Town) is the lead investigator of a murder at the Windsor School.

Alan Rickman died at 69. In 2005, Rickman directed the award-winning play My Name is Rachel Corrie, which he and Katharine Viner – now Guardian editor-in-chief – compiled from the emails of the student who was killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer while protesting against the actions of the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip. This was not mentioned in the American media.

A friend and I attended Alwan for the Arts for the fifth annual Maqam festival. Maqam is an Arabic melody type.Tareq Abboushi and his musical band, Shusmo, filled the room and probably most of Beaver Street with the sound of enchanting, exotic music. Remember the tambourine? In elementary school, if you had zero musical talent you played the tambourine or the triangle. Zafer Tawil who plays at least five different instruments, made the tambourine rock not to mention the strap of bells around his right ankle, a yellow gourd filled with seeds and a drum.

Zafer Tawil, king of the tamborine and Arabic percussion
Zafer Tawil, king of Arabic percussion

 

New York City Blog April 12 — April 19

A friend and I went to the last performance of My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre. Rachel Corrie was a Palestinian peace activist from Washington state. She was killed by the Israelis as she protested the demolition of a Palestinian dwelling.Rachel Corrie was bulldozed by a Caterpillar and died shortly thereafter. Alan Rickman, the English actor and playwright, and Katharine Viner, the journalist and playwright, adapted Corrie’s diaries and emails.Charlotte Hemmings did a fine job portraying the articulate, combative, idealistic twenty-three year old.

To the west of the Lynn Grave theatre on Bleecker is the only building Louis Sullivan, the Chicago architect, built in NYC. The Bayard Condit building opened in 1899 and is glorious. No wonder Frank Lloyd Wright called Sullivan his mentor.

We went to Bleecker Kitchen & Co. for supper. What a delightful surprise. The setting doesn’t suggest the sophisticated menu. I had a whole but small bronzino, served with the tail and head, the way Europeans and Asians eat fish. It was surrounded by roasted potatoes and fresh, well seasoned greens. My friend had the halibut and said it was great. Rather than dessert we had a delicious cheese dish – real cheese, not prepackaged rubbish – and fresh fruit. Everything worked: a comfortable table, great service and, most of all, memorable food.

Dior and I at the Film Forum is fascinating for anyone interested in the glamorous couture world of Paris. It’s a well done documentary about Rif Simon, the Belgian designer who heads Dior. Afterwards, I looked him up on Wikipedia and was horrified to learn that he won’t hire models of color.

My chatty taxi driver told me he was an habitué of the Film Forum but being straight and never caring about clothes he’d pass on the documentary. He reminded me that 1915 was a banner year for American entertainment. Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and Orson Welles would all be 100 this year.