The toddlers of Tribeca deserve a better class of high priced clothing boutique, or at least a high priced clothing boutique that can spell.
Z'baby needs zome help with ze zpelling.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am aware that "scarry" is a word. According to the Free Dictionary:
Scar'ry
a. 1. Bearing scars or marks of wounds.
1. 1. Like a scar, or rocky eminence; containing scars.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.
I am assuming that Z'baby meant to advertise a scary sale and not a sale like or resembling scars and wounds. I could be wrong. Maybe wearing wounds is the latest crazy, right up there with pogoing. You be the judge.
It's funny. Every time it rains in the city the aftermath is written in the scattered skeletal remains of broken umbrellas. Their spines twisted, nylon skins ripped and flayed, their bodies lie crumpled and forgotten on the sidewalk or in the street or else ingloriously dumped into trash cans.
It occurs to me whenever I witness this carnage that the cost of more expensive, durable umbrellas is totally justified. After sacrificing a couple of cheap drug-store umbrellas on the altar of the stern New York winds, spending $30 or $40 for a umbrella that will last not only seems like a good idea but a prudent one. A gentleman should not be without a good umbrella.
If I'd been drinking coffee at the time, I would have spit it out. Thank goodness I wasn't, since I was standing in a crowded subway car at the time. That time was when I casually flipped open the June 19-25 issue of Time Out New York to find my nemesis Zach staring back at me.
“Do you like the Rolling Stones?” Zach, 50, asked me as he pushed buttons on the jukebox. “Hell, no!” I shouted. “Only old people listen to that shit!” Zach frowned. “How about the Beatles?” I shrugged: “They’re okay. Why do you have stains on your shirt? You need a bib,” I said, tucking a cocktail napkin inside his i love ny tee. Zach stepped away: “Fuck you! Go home to your rich boyfriend!” I upped the ante. “Go fuck yourself and stop playing shitastic music!” Zach took his middle finger and began sucking on it, and then stormed out of the bar in anger. Cheers, mate.
Source: "Tippler Tolerant" by Alexis Tirado (TONY)
Stained "I Love NY" t-shirt? Sound familiar? Here's what I said about my encounter with the Zachster:
He stumble-bumbled, stumblebummed into us and forced his way into our conversation. He looked vaguely like Sloth from The Goonies in a wine-spattered "I Love NY" t-shirt. He claimed his name was Zachary...
I am now more disturbed than ever. Who or what is Zach? Does he only wear a single, perma-stained, "I Love NY" t-shirt? Or is he some sort of apparition, a souse caught in a Möbius strip, forever gamboling in and around the Mars Bar, an East Village Enkidu yet to be tamed by the ways of civilized man. With some luck, I'll never find out. With some luck. But I stand by my statement: he looks like Sloth (post a bit of Hair Club for Men action).
I went a-wandering for lunch today and paid the price. Not the ultimate price, thankfully, but a price.
I don't remember now where I had intended to go but I found myself on Chambers street and very, very hungry. By chance, I was standing in front of the Soda Shop. The front was all glass so I took a peak: it looked like a cross between Beefsteak Charlie's and the candy shop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in other words, an old school ice cream parlor. I went in.
I ordered a burger because, among the hodge-podge of mundane fare, I figured this at least would be safe. I was wrong, so very wrong.
When I got the burger, it came on the bun with some sort of sauce and nothing else. Nothing on it, nothing on the side. There was no onion, no tomato, no lettuce, no nothing. The burger did come with a salad. I could have converted the side salad into fixings but that would only have multiplied this burger's crime. Besides the salad, there were fries, a few fingers of somewhat warm steak fries. They weren't good.
When I flipped off the top bun to take a look at the burger I found, staring back at me, a homogeneous gray-brown mass. I don't know if it was boiled or processed by some other infernal means but there were no char-marks to indicate any sort of grilling or pan-frying. It was a mass of moon meat, a protein hockey puck. And salty. Dead Sea salty. It was pure ground evil.
This bad a burger, in this town, I did not think was possible. I thought the forces of culinary darwinism would have pushed this monstrosity to extinction long ago. No. Some La Brea like tar pit abyss has hid and nursed this burger away from the world... until now. It was the broodwich made flesh: the Harmburger. And I ate it. I ate it because I was filled with Sinistar-like hungers. At that moment, I would have eaten the One Ring with Frodo's finger still attached. There are prices to be paid for this trespass. I am prepared to pay them.
There was one bright spot. Being that I was in a soda parlor, I ordered an "Old Broadway" which had iced coffee, vanilla creme, and whipped cream. It was quite tasty. But not nearly enough to overcome the harmburger. Only years and years of therapy, prayers, and electric-shock therapy can do that. Excuse me while I go burn off my tongue.
As is my weekly wont, I was up at midtown during lunch today. On my walk, I passed by a now open MUJI on 40th street. I could have sworn that it was still under construction last time I was up here. I could be wrong before though. It's happened. Shocking, I know.
Having no idea what MUJI is, I hit up the website. Here's what they say about themselves:
What is MUJI?
MUJI is not a brand whose value rests in the frills and "extras" it adds to its products.
MUJI is simplicity - but a simplicity achieved through a complexity of thought and design.
MUJI's streamlining is the result of the careful elmination and subtraction of gratuitous features and design unrelated to function.
MUJI, the brand, is rational, and free of agenda, doctrine, and "isms." The MUJI concept derives from us continuously asking, "What is best from an individual's point of view?"
MUJI aspires to modesty and plainness, the better to adapt and shape itself to the styles, preferences, and practices of as wide a group of people as possible. This is the single most important reason people embrace MUJI.
MUJI - in its deliberate pursuit of the pure and the ordinary - achieves the extraordinary.
It reads like a series of marketing haiku. Maybe intentionally. And it doesn't tell me much about what's actually inside the joint. Anybody been inside?
Is it just me or are a lot of Japanese chains opening up stores in the city? Not that I mind. I still need to go back to Uniqlo. They've got some bad ass t-shirts.
Oh yeah, it's still ridiculously hot. I thought I moved away from Houston to get away from heat like this?
After the movie on Saturday, my friend and I ended up at the Mars Bar. The place is a wonderful shit-hole, wallpapered in graffiti with strange photos of rabbits and words like "Smegma" written in magic marker on the wall behind the bar.
We sat down at the bar. I was intrigued by a couple of punk girls in rainbow faux-hawks but someone was watching us. He stumble-bumbled, stumblebummed into us and forced his way into our conversation. He looked vaguely like Sloth from The Goonies in a wine-spattered "I Love NY" t-shirt. He claimed his name was Zachary, that he was Australian (his "accent" came and went like the tide), and that he was in New York for his mother's wedding (for the fifth time, he said). He was creepy but, at that moment, harmless.
You could not engage Zach in conversation. You could only wait, looking at his blank, slack-jaw face, his body swaying like a tree with a beer-gut in a breeze, and attend to his oracular monosyllabic outbursts. He also played punk songs on the jukebox and gyrated in something approximating a dance. After awhile, we tried our best to ignore him.
This didn't work for long. When Zach pilfered a dollar from the bar under the guise of groping for an empty wine glass. We decided things could only go downhill from there. Rather than risk provoking ersatz Aussie ire, we decided to retire to another establishment.
As I rose from my chair to go, I extended my hand in an honest attempt to leave on good terms. Zach did not take my hand. He just looked at me. His mouth was slightly open. The wine-stain on his shirt, in the dwindling afternoon light, took on the cast of drying blood. His body swayed slightly. His eyes, with only the merest glint of life in their dull depths, spoke of something like betrayal. I wasted no time making my exit.
I'm afraid that some way, some how, I have made an enemy on a far-off shore or, if not there, than in the East Village which, in some ways, is a far-off shore. So perhaps it's all the same. Whether I misplayed some dark custom of the southern hemisphere or whether he just didn't like the cut of my jib, I'll never know.
...No, I'll never know. The bar was pretty cool though.
I kinda sorta overspent on lunch today but I had a hankering for some Vietnamese food today so I splurged on Viet Cafe.
I hadn't ever eaten there before but it's very conveniently located vis-a-vis my job and it scratched the itch I needed to scratch so I gave it a go. I just had Vietnamese over the weekend in Philadelphia so it's weird that I wanted it again so soon. Who can say why our inner mysteries move the way they do? In any case, I didn't fight it.
I had an order of crispy spring rolls (Nems) and a bowl of beef fried rice. Both were very good but the Nems were a bit overpriced, I think, for the portion that I received.
Or maybe not. The whole thing ran me $16 before tax and tip which isn't too terrible but equals about three lamb-over-rices from the Halal street cart. It was good enough that I would definitely go back for more but it's a bit too pricey for more than a once-a-month lunch-type thing. Still, it definitely answered my inner gourmand.
Things that I had forgotten from Friday night have risen like bubbles of gas from the dark depths of my brain. I already mentioned the mega-visor but I forgot to mention that I spent part of the afternoon floating around Bryant Park. Pictures were taken. Of course.
While I was at the park, I picked up a schedule for the Summer Film Festival:
| Film Schedule | |
|---|---|
| June | |
| 6/16 | Dr. No |
| 6/23 | Bride of Frankenstein |
| 6/30 | Hud |
| July | |
| 7/7 | The Man Who Came to Dinner |
| 7/14 | Fail-Safe |
| 7/21 | Arsenic and Old Lace |
| 7/28 | The Apartment |
| August | |
| 8/4 | Lifeboat |
| 8/11 | The Candidate |
| 8/18 | Superman |
Right about now, I am tired, dead tired. It's been awhile since I've gone out two nights in a row early in the week. This morning, I'm paying the price. Ian, a friend of mine, is visiting. He came for his sister's wedding and used the occasion to come down into the city. Monday night, we just hung out at Rope on Myrtle. Last night, we went to meet up with his friend Baba and a few others at the Indian Cafe. The food was excellent but the talk was even better.
I usually avoid getting into geo-political discussions with people because it tends to get emotional in all the wrong ways. Baba has no such qualms and jumps into that murky pool full-bore, yelling "Cannonball!" as he goes. Ian, having past experience, tried his best to stay on the sidelines but, worn down by gin and tonics, he finally couldn't help himself. My own views were closer to Baba's than to Ian's which made things a bit more interesting at the end when, as the restaurant closed around us, the heat went up a few notches.
The battleground was a rocky wasteland of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and the moral prerogative of nations. It was interesting, fun stuff to discuss that I don't get to do much. I loved it.
A wrinkle was provided from a Columbia U. history professor who happened to be at the bar and became a second front of battle: the professor, being British, and Baba, being Indian, made for an interesting back-and-forth. I enjoyed just listening to them fence with each other.
In the end, a good time was had by all. Not counting the chickens and other animals that died to make our feasting possible, the only casualties were our own (mis)conceptions. That, and my sleep, my precious, precious sleep. I need some coffee.
I saw this while walking to the Virgin Megastore on Broadway by Times Square. As an avid watcher of "The Wire", I immediately recognized Michael (Tristan Wilds) pimping the Roca Wear on the giant billboard.
While, I'm happy that the guys from the show are breaking out since the show is over, there is also something disconcerting about seeing the actor outside the Michael persona. It's not quite as awkward as seeing Bodie Broadus (J. D. Williams) delivering pizza for Domino's (or was it Pizza Hut?) a few years ago but still, it's odd.
I was lucky enough to get out of work a bit early today. I walked out of the office and noticed a small film crew working cross the street. It turns out they were filming a segment for As The World Turns. I snapped a couple of pictures:
I don't anything about the soaps other than Victor Newman, Susan Lucci, and a few random characters from Days of Our Lives (my grandmother's husband watches it religiously). Unfortunately, none of them were there.
The weather was so nice today that, when I emerged from the bowels of work early, I decided to walk a bit in lieu of rushing headlong to the subway. Ere long, that idea morphed into a plan: I'd walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and then pick up the subway on the other side.
As I got across the bridge, I realized that it had taken less time than I anticipated. I decided to press my luck and go all the way home. It was a perfect day for a walk and I made it home in about an hour.
I took some photos on the bridge:
I went to lunch at Sophie's on Chambers Street with an ex-coworker. He had introduced the place to me last month. That outing, I had a good fish stew. Today I had a steak sandwich and I was blown away. It was awesome. I almost ordered a second one to take home with me. On top of that, it's a seriously cheap eats. I think my sandwich, soda, tax and tip came to nine dollars. What-a-bargain. That is a bargain for me.
Apparently Hancock was doing very late reshoots in New York City yesterday, most likely as a result of the ratings troubles they've encountered...
I had seen the trucks and equipments for the reshoots earlier, as I arrived at the theater, but I had assumed that it was for background work, 2nd unit type stuff. It was only when I saw a crowd gathered around a trailer that I thought Smith might be there.
As I left the theater after the show and walked down Broadway, however, I was surprised to see Smith, dressed in his black leather Hancock unitard, jog passed me, waving to the crowd. I didn't get any pictures of the Scientologist star (I wasn't ready) but I did take a few shots of the shoot related stuff earlier in the evening:
I can't say I had much enthusiasm for this film. However, I can't see how doing such late reshoots (the film opens in July) can be spun into a positive. If the film is trying to chase the coveted PG-13 rating this late in the game, how much of their original vision have they already compromised and how much more will they to get there? That the principals may say otherwise means exactly nothing. What are they supposed to say? They have to promote the film. Now is not the moment to get an honest answer. And it doesn't matter. No matter what they say, they're running around doing reshoots a month before the film comes out. Does that sound like a good thing to you? Didn't think so.
The set design for Rupert Goold's MacBeth is very spare. The white tiled walls, smooth black floor, and bare metal appliances envision a bunker, a prison, or an asylum- all fitting for this play of blood, madness, and war. The stage is left visible before the curtain, perhaps so that we can contemplate it's clean but cruel sterility before chaos comes to call it home.
My excitement and anticipation for the show had been rising ever since finally getting tickets for the play during the week. From what I could see, the show was completely sold out but I luckily managed to get what I consider to be a good seat: first row of the mezzanine, near the center. I'm not too far away and I get a good, clear view of the entire stage. When the play began with a thunderous bang (literally), I was ready to go.
I came to see Patrick Stewart as the titular thane and I wasn't disappointed. MacBeth is a man who succumbs to raw ambition and is consumed by it, from the inside out, even as he must reap its bitter harvest. Stewart easily navigated MacBeth's fluctuating states of being: strong and powerful, weak and fearful, crazed, calm and contemplative.
Stewart was matched with Kate Fleetwood as Lady MacBeth who provides the prod to push MacBeth to action and then becomes proxy for his madness. She was excellent also. I have no complaints about any of the cast*. They each do what the roles required. I must, however, give special praise to Christopher Patrick Nolan as Seyton and to the three witches, here transformed into nurses, whose physical but silent presences on the stage in key moments gave palpable life to the dark fates they had foretold.
While the play concerns itself with the power politics of medieval Scotland, the setting and costumes reflect a Stalin-era communist state. It's an interesting choice that works very well. It took me a few minutes of the first scene for me to reconcile the Shakespearian English to the much more modern look on stage but, once done, I was very comfortable with the fusion in styles.
By using a modern era, the play was able to use sound effects, such as artillery bombardments, medical instruments, and gunfire to accent the action, signal changes, or provide subtle ambiance. Images were also projected onto the back wall of the stage that heightened the drama. In particular, the video of blood flowing into water as Banquo's ghost arrived to confront MacBeth was an excellent use of the technique.
This was a great show and I'm glad I finally made time to see it. Playbill's Ruth Leon calls Stewart "the greatest MacBeth of my lifetime." While I don't have the points of reference to make that claim (this is the first MacBeth I've seen on stage), there is no doubt that Stewart puts on a riveting performance. His work, coupled with the rest of the cast, great stage, costume, and sound design, makes this a must-see play. I'm just happy I finally got to see it.
* A cast-related note: in one scene, Lady McDuff (Rachel Ticotin) was speaking and I thought to myself, I swear that woman looks like Melina from Total Recall. Sure enough, when I checked IMDB this morning, there she was. The Playbill doesn't mention it, or any films at all. Do the actors create those bios or does someone connected to Playbill or the theater do it?
