Inspired by the opportunity to see Patti LuPone at Carnegie Hall and the cheap airline tickets and the gloomy grey London weather I hopped on a plane for five days of play in New York City. It had been three years since I had been and wanted to feel the excitement and heady joy of being a tourist again.
I arrived early in the evening and after checking into the fantastically japonais Roger Williams Hotel set out to wonder the streets of midtown. It was bitterly cold and it was getting dark (or as dark as Manhattan ever gets) but the shops and restaurants were just starting to throb and I was happily preoccupied by the parade of cosmopolitan businessmen on their way home or out. Businessmen seemed to come in two variations -- the youthful agressor with his Abercrombie and Fitch profile and poorly fitted suit and the slightly wary, swarthy I've-made-it-and-am-trying-to-enjoy-it-in-my-mid-thirties man. I lapped them up euqally (well, visually anyway).
Thursday, I walked for most of the day until it was time to see Patti LuPone at Carnegie Hall. The hall is impressive, but I hadn't realised its height. I had to climb five flights of stairs to sit at dizzying heights above the auditorium. The acoustics are amazing, but from my seat Patti was merely a dot on the stage. Her concert included songs from roles she could have, should have, would have played. It was fantastic to hear her re-work famous Broadway songs -- from Don't Rain on My Parade to the fantastically difficult Trouble from the Music Man. Watching her sing both parts (simultaneously and comically) from West Side Story's A Boy Like That has to be one of the very best things I've ever seen. As a surprise, the soprano Audra McDonald joined her on stage and they recreated the infamous Judy Garland/Barbra Streisand "Happy Days are Here Again" as a valentine to New York to tumultuous applause. At the end of the show she dropped her mike and serenaded the crowd, her voice easily and beautifully reaching the very back row. It was definitely worth the trip.
Walking around on Friday (well, walking from shop to shop on Friday) I was struck by the wide, clean avenues of Manhattan that allow for stunning long-distance views in the midst of a densely populated city. Manhattan opens and arcs to the horizon. London cramps and closes down on you. It may have been the shock of such undiluted sunlight, but the city seem to be gleaming, even if the shadow of 9/11 still hangs in the air. I won't make generalisations about the emotional state of New York, but you feel it in and hear it in the voices of people who live there. The city's scarred, but graciously recovering.
I had the opportunity to meet up with Daniel Leonard, a dear friend from college who seems to have the annoying ability to not age. He took me to the Folk Art museum where we toured a most bizarre show of the work of Henry Darger. Darger was a reclusive scavenger who probably had emotional disabilities and who obsessively traced and painted hundreds of drawings of doll-like girls and boys to illustrate his 15,000 page fantasy about a war of good and bad based loosely on the Civil War. It was all found in his apartment when he died in 1973. The figures in his work were all traced from popular publications of the 50s and 60s but are all compositionally striking. One wonders, however, if this fantastical material was found in 2002 instead of 1973, would we consider him a strange and daring folk artist or a pervert?
After the museum I begged Daniel to take me to a Mexican restaurant -- the one thing which London lacks -- and we gorged ourselves in a Hells Kitchen Restaurant, eating so much that it took several hours of walking before I felt well again. We had drinks in the East Village and he went off on a date and I went to the theatre to laugh until I cried at "Noises Off" -- starring, who else, Patti LuPone and a beautiful Peter Gallagher. I tried desperately to appears as if I belonged in a Chelsea bar, but after a couple of drinks and glares from the steroid-riddled he-bots I gave up and left.
Sunday Daniel and i brunched in the Upper East Side and went to see the Brazilian Art show at the Guggenheim (who've inexplicably painted the interior to this fantastic museum black which gave the impression of seeing art in a seedy video arcade and not a world-famous Frank Lloyd Wright building. Hours later I was back on a plane (sitting several rows behind Lourdes, Madonna's daughter) to London, poorer, tired, and walked out.
I happen to like New York. It's a big grown-up playland with expensive trinkets and beautiful crowds and curious sights. It's not home, but I like it.
I arrived early in the evening and after checking into the fantastically japonais Roger Williams Hotel set out to wonder the streets of midtown. It was bitterly cold and it was getting dark (or as dark as Manhattan ever gets) but the shops and restaurants were just starting to throb and I was happily preoccupied by the parade of cosmopolitan businessmen on their way home or out. Businessmen seemed to come in two variations -- the youthful agressor with his Abercrombie and Fitch profile and poorly fitted suit and the slightly wary, swarthy I've-made-it-and-am-trying-to-enjoy-it-in-my-mid-thirties man. I lapped them up euqally (well, visually anyway).
Thursday, I walked for most of the day until it was time to see Patti LuPone at Carnegie Hall. The hall is impressive, but I hadn't realised its height. I had to climb five flights of stairs to sit at dizzying heights above the auditorium. The acoustics are amazing, but from my seat Patti was merely a dot on the stage. Her concert included songs from roles she could have, should have, would have played. It was fantastic to hear her re-work famous Broadway songs -- from Don't Rain on My Parade to the fantastically difficult Trouble from the Music Man. Watching her sing both parts (simultaneously and comically) from West Side Story's A Boy Like That has to be one of the very best things I've ever seen. As a surprise, the soprano Audra McDonald joined her on stage and they recreated the infamous Judy Garland/Barbra Streisand "Happy Days are Here Again" as a valentine to New York to tumultuous applause. At the end of the show she dropped her mike and serenaded the crowd, her voice easily and beautifully reaching the very back row. It was definitely worth the trip.
Walking around on Friday (well, walking from shop to shop on Friday) I was struck by the wide, clean avenues of Manhattan that allow for stunning long-distance views in the midst of a densely populated city. Manhattan opens and arcs to the horizon. London cramps and closes down on you. It may have been the shock of such undiluted sunlight, but the city seem to be gleaming, even if the shadow of 9/11 still hangs in the air. I won't make generalisations about the emotional state of New York, but you feel it in and hear it in the voices of people who live there. The city's scarred, but graciously recovering.
I had the opportunity to meet up with Daniel Leonard, a dear friend from college who seems to have the annoying ability to not age. He took me to the Folk Art museum where we toured a most bizarre show of the work of Henry Darger. Darger was a reclusive scavenger who probably had emotional disabilities and who obsessively traced and painted hundreds of drawings of doll-like girls and boys to illustrate his 15,000 page fantasy about a war of good and bad based loosely on the Civil War. It was all found in his apartment when he died in 1973. The figures in his work were all traced from popular publications of the 50s and 60s but are all compositionally striking. One wonders, however, if this fantastical material was found in 2002 instead of 1973, would we consider him a strange and daring folk artist or a pervert?
After the museum I begged Daniel to take me to a Mexican restaurant -- the one thing which London lacks -- and we gorged ourselves in a Hells Kitchen Restaurant, eating so much that it took several hours of walking before I felt well again. We had drinks in the East Village and he went off on a date and I went to the theatre to laugh until I cried at "Noises Off" -- starring, who else, Patti LuPone and a beautiful Peter Gallagher. I tried desperately to appears as if I belonged in a Chelsea bar, but after a couple of drinks and glares from the steroid-riddled he-bots I gave up and left.
Sunday Daniel and i brunched in the Upper East Side and went to see the Brazilian Art show at the Guggenheim (who've inexplicably painted the interior to this fantastic museum black which gave the impression of seeing art in a seedy video arcade and not a world-famous Frank Lloyd Wright building. Hours later I was back on a plane (sitting several rows behind Lourdes, Madonna's daughter) to London, poorer, tired, and walked out.
I happen to like New York. It's a big grown-up playland with expensive trinkets and beautiful crowds and curious sights. It's not home, but I like it.
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