Tag Archives: Patricia Highsmith

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? 

New York City Blog January 18 – January 23

Hello, snow! I’m sitting in my twelfth story aerie with icy patterns on the windows, cosy and warm inside and peering out at a deserted, white world. I’m pulling a Nero Wolfe, aside from orchids, and reading The Gazette, the Wolfe Pack journal.

Have you seen Janis: Little Girl Blue? A friend and I went to one of IFC’s tiny theaters and sat nose to nose with the screen. During her career, Joplin scared me. Her raw emotion and sound invaded parts of my subconscious I was avoiding. To this day, I sidle up to friends and ask if they liked her. The response has always been a resounding and unanimous yes. I went to the documentary to see if I’d grown up. Yes and no. Joplin no longer scared me. Instead, I was fascinated by her middle class background and revolted by the unkindness she encountered. For me, she was a social phenomenon. I’m still waiting to appreciate her music. The documentary had great shots of 1960’s San Francisco and Woodstock. Afterwards, we trotted down Sixth Avenue and had an afternoon snack, the best pork buns in town and lovely green tea.

 

G Y G's Answer to Salad
G Y G’s Answer to Salad

Gonzalez Y Gonzalez is a great guacamole/tequila/chips joint that’s two feet from the Angelica movie house. A friend and I tucked into everything fried and alcoholic before seeing Carol. It’s a very pretty movie, that turned a good book, The Price of Salt, into a soap opera.This time, Patricia Highsmith has eluded the director, Todd Haynes. If there’s an academy award for props like fur coats and cigarette lighters,  Carol is a shoo-in. I was more interested in the luscious clothes, hair styles -those straight parts are such a turn on – and vintage cars than I was in the women.