OK....report on the weekend.
*cue alliterative summary*
Fucking Fantastic!
Lover Late.
Singer Short but Sweet.
Hotel Heavenly.
Breakfast Brilliant.
Wandering Wonderful.
Dinner Delectable.
Show Spectacular.
Meandering Magnificent.
Parting Painful.
*end alliterative summary*
My sweet girl was a few hours late to NYC, due to hellish traffic all the way to the city (which was probably exacerbated by it being Gay Pride weekend)
On her arrival, the handmade mystery costume was unveiled. Marvellous idea...one of those bras designed for backless, strapless dresses festooned with bird feathers round the cups. Alas, she hadn't had time to finish it properly owing to the Machiavellian manipulations of her demanding employer. So the costume was abandoned for an enticingly-thin blue dress.
But damn, that other was a good idea. Hooray for crafty girls!
We went to see folky Charlottesville singer Devon Sproule at Niagara, which turned out to be not quite what we expected. It turned out to be primarily a promotional tour for author Davy Rothbart (as heard on NPR)'s book. It opened with a half hour or so of Davy reading entries from his magazine Found, which is pretty cool--it's made up entirely of found text that people send in to him: abandoned love notes, lost letters, interesting flyers, and the like. Then his brother sang a few songs, and then he read a short story. At last Devon Sproule came on, but she only played four songs. But we did not leave disappointed. It was short but sweet, as is Devon herself.
The hotel was amazing. Huge marble bathtub. Fresh flowers in the room. Massive room. Free internet. We slept very well. When we actually slept.
Next morning, a stroll through Central Park to breakfast at Norma's. Happy couples everywhere, many of them gay. We sat down to breakfast with huge smiles on our faces and arose with even larger ones. Three words: chocolate french toast.
After this, a lot of aimless wandering. Soooo nice. We had nothing planned until the evening, so we just wandered the streets around the park, then up Broadway to Times Square, along 34th to Penn Station, then over to Park Avenue, and on and on. So nice. We ducked into shops occasionally, but mostly we just meandered. Hooray for unstructured bliss.
We went back to the hotel to change, then dinner at Aquavit. There are no words for that...one of the finest meals I have ever had in my life, and it was only the abbreviated pre-theater menu. So good in every detail.
After dinner, we walked to the Broadway Theater to see the final evening performance of Baz Luhrman's La Boheme. Yes, the director of Moulin Rouge was actually brave enough to stage an opera on Broadway. The show was magnificent...there are so many details it's a ccompletely overwhelming sensory experience. Especially the second act, at which there was much contented sighing from me. At intermission...
Joy: You're easy.
Me: Huh? What do you mean?
Joy: You keep sighing at things. You probably like insipid Hollywood romantic comedies, too.
Me: No it's not that, it's just the story and the music and the spectacle all of a piece. All together it's very moving.
Joy:
Baz himself came out for the curtain call.
It's really a pity the show didn't run longer. I think their choice of the Broadway, one of the largest theaters in the district, was part of the problem. Yet I cannot see how they could have staged it in a smaller theater...it needed to be big to accomodate BL's sweeping vision and massive sets.
Anyway, I'm so glad I didn't miss it.
Sunday we did more meandering, this time in Lower Manhattan. We finally spent the last hour or so cuddled on a park bench in Battery Park, with a Cuban music festival providing accompaniment from the other side of the park.
Then she dropped me at Penn Station.
But she did the most awesome thing this weekend...she gave me a journal she'd written a poem in and said we should keep writing in it and pass it back and forth. Does this woman know the way to my heart or what?
So I wrote in it on the train back to Princeton.
Oh, yeah. That reminds me. She's either very perceptive or very lucky, because at one point during the weekend she did that thing girls love to do where she asked "What are you thinking right now?" And I used the L word, because it's precisely what I was thinking.
Hmm...Naturally, there were other entertainments interspersed throughout the weekend, but I prefer a degree of discretion to the tell-all approach. I will give you this statistic, though:
Word most used by me in the course of the weekend... "WOW!"
I truly love this girl.
-ff
*cue alliterative summary*
Fucking Fantastic!
Lover Late.
Singer Short but Sweet.
Hotel Heavenly.
Breakfast Brilliant.
Wandering Wonderful.
Dinner Delectable.
Show Spectacular.
Meandering Magnificent.
Parting Painful.
*end alliterative summary*
My sweet girl was a few hours late to NYC, due to hellish traffic all the way to the city (which was probably exacerbated by it being Gay Pride weekend)
On her arrival, the handmade mystery costume was unveiled. Marvellous idea...one of those bras designed for backless, strapless dresses festooned with bird feathers round the cups. Alas, she hadn't had time to finish it properly owing to the Machiavellian manipulations of her demanding employer. So the costume was abandoned for an enticingly-thin blue dress.
But damn, that other was a good idea. Hooray for crafty girls!
We went to see folky Charlottesville singer Devon Sproule at Niagara, which turned out to be not quite what we expected. It turned out to be primarily a promotional tour for author Davy Rothbart (as heard on NPR)'s book. It opened with a half hour or so of Davy reading entries from his magazine Found, which is pretty cool--it's made up entirely of found text that people send in to him: abandoned love notes, lost letters, interesting flyers, and the like. Then his brother sang a few songs, and then he read a short story. At last Devon Sproule came on, but she only played four songs. But we did not leave disappointed. It was short but sweet, as is Devon herself.
The hotel was amazing. Huge marble bathtub. Fresh flowers in the room. Massive room. Free internet. We slept very well. When we actually slept.
Next morning, a stroll through Central Park to breakfast at Norma's. Happy couples everywhere, many of them gay. We sat down to breakfast with huge smiles on our faces and arose with even larger ones. Three words: chocolate french toast.
After this, a lot of aimless wandering. Soooo nice. We had nothing planned until the evening, so we just wandered the streets around the park, then up Broadway to Times Square, along 34th to Penn Station, then over to Park Avenue, and on and on. So nice. We ducked into shops occasionally, but mostly we just meandered. Hooray for unstructured bliss.
We went back to the hotel to change, then dinner at Aquavit. There are no words for that...one of the finest meals I have ever had in my life, and it was only the abbreviated pre-theater menu. So good in every detail.
After dinner, we walked to the Broadway Theater to see the final evening performance of Baz Luhrman's La Boheme. Yes, the director of Moulin Rouge was actually brave enough to stage an opera on Broadway. The show was magnificent...there are so many details it's a ccompletely overwhelming sensory experience. Especially the second act, at which there was much contented sighing from me. At intermission...
Joy: You're easy.
Me: Huh? What do you mean?
Joy: You keep sighing at things. You probably like insipid Hollywood romantic comedies, too.
Me: No it's not that, it's just the story and the music and the spectacle all of a piece. All together it's very moving.
Joy:
Baz himself came out for the curtain call.
It's really a pity the show didn't run longer. I think their choice of the Broadway, one of the largest theaters in the district, was part of the problem. Yet I cannot see how they could have staged it in a smaller theater...it needed to be big to accomodate BL's sweeping vision and massive sets.
Anyway, I'm so glad I didn't miss it.
Sunday we did more meandering, this time in Lower Manhattan. We finally spent the last hour or so cuddled on a park bench in Battery Park, with a Cuban music festival providing accompaniment from the other side of the park.
Then she dropped me at Penn Station.
But she did the most awesome thing this weekend...she gave me a journal she'd written a poem in and said we should keep writing in it and pass it back and forth. Does this woman know the way to my heart or what?
So I wrote in it on the train back to Princeton.
Oh, yeah. That reminds me. She's either very perceptive or very lucky, because at one point during the weekend she did that thing girls love to do where she asked "What are you thinking right now?" And I used the L word, because it's precisely what I was thinking.
Hmm...Naturally, there were other entertainments interspersed throughout the weekend, but I prefer a degree of discretion to the tell-all approach. I will give you this statistic, though:
Word most used by me in the course of the weekend... "WOW!"
I truly love this girl.
-ff
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
sorry about the botched plans...promise to try harder next time, i know, i suck...
in the meantime, email me an address so i may send some cd mixes your way.