San Francisco at Christmas time

I spent the few days around Christmas up in the Bay area with Mei's family and we took a day to visit San Francisco, skating in Union Square, checking out the gingerbread and sugar castle at the Westin St. Francis, taking a cable car ride and eating ice cream at Ghirardelli's. It's been unseasonably cold but the day we visited was clear and sunny and beautiful. Here are some pictures I took over the weekend. There are also pictures of a giant silk lantern show from China and quite a few of the buche de noel (Yule log cake) that Mei and I made for the family Xmas eve dinner.

The Artist

I'm playing a little catch up here. I saw this movie just before heading into the Xmas break. This is a black and white silent movie and I was curious about it because it's gotten amazing reviews. I loved it! Without words (there aren't even a lot of intertitle cards) the movie becomes all about visuals and music, making it almost more akin to opera than a typical movie. The facial expressions of the actors are so much more important and this movie has two great acting faces. The basic story is of the "A Star is Born" variety, where a big movie star of the silent era crashes into the dawn of talkies and is unable or unwilling to adapt while a young upstart gets a few lucky breaks and becomes a huge star. The two main stars are French actors unknown to us in the US. In addition to the expressiveness of the actors faces, the movie uses movement in all kinds of ways to tell the story (movement of the actors across the scene, or of the camera around the action).

This is one of those movies that I don't think will work as well in a private home on your own TV. It is critical to see this movie in a theatre where the sound can truly surround you, as well as with an audience where the shared reactions can become part of the 'sound environment' contributing to the movie.

Pina

We had an opportunity to screen this movie by Wim Wenders as a fund raiser for City of Angels ballet. This is a documentary in 3D which includes scenes of Pina's own dances along with her dancers talking about her influence on them as well as performing in various interesting locations (warehouse, factory, field, street median, etc.) throughout the city where they company is based. The 3D was wonderfully done and a great way to capture dance. Pina's own dances can be joyful, angsty, violent, funny. Pina Bausch passed away very suddenly a few years ago, while this movie was being planned. Rather than cancel the movie, Wenders and Pina's dancers decided to continue, to make a movie as a tribute to her. What is most emotionally affecting in the movie is hearing her dancers talk about her, her influence on them, how she made them the dancers they are. They all clearly idolize and adore her and you can feel very strongly in their on-location dances all of the things they feel about her and what her loss means to them. There is an amazing scene where old footage of Pina dancing in Cafe Muller is inserted into the dance with her current dancers. This is a terrific use of 3D technology and a wonderful documentary of a creative genius and the people she inspired.

Joffrey's Nutcracker

At this time of year, the Nutcracker parade can get a bit tedious. Thank god for the beauty of Tchaikovsky's music. I am planning to see a local production this year because my friend Suzanne has a role in it. An opportunity came up to see the Joffrey version at the Music Center. I'm really glad I went, because this is a terrific version! My teacher, Joan, said it was maybe the best she's ever seen (and she's seen a few)!

The sets and costumes are gorgeous, making for a visually pleasing ballet. The Act 1 party scene moves well and never gets dull which can often happen. The mice are terrifically cute and the battle scene is fast moving, slightly chaotic. Drosselmeyer is appropriately creepy. The whole ballet moves very fast, and there is a lot of complicated patterning in the Snow and Flower scenes, with a lot of asymmetry to keep your attention.

This company does not rank their dancers. The Nutcracker Prince (Fabrice Calmels), Snow (Victoria Jaiani) and Sugar Plum (April Daly) that I saw were clearly top rank but all of the dancers in the various divertissements of the second act were wonderful. The company has a lot of tall men, and they use them well in both the Snow and Flower scenes.

This was definitely worth seeing amongst the long parade of Nutcrackers during December!

Nudes at the MFA

I was in Boston visiting D, Julie and the kids during Thanksgiving week, mostly hanging around their neighbourhood, but I did make one trip into Boston to take a look at the Degas exhibit at the MFA. The exhibit is focused on his nudes in various media (pencil, pastel, paint, etc.) and in various periods of his career. The first few items in the exhibit are examples of his academic nude model pencil sketches and they are astonishing in their detail and shading. Most of Degas' nudes aren't depicted showing their faces, being viewed from the back and most of them are in everyday settings, particularly dressing and bathing. One room of the show includes nudes in brothels and are of a more graphic nature than anything I've seen in previous shows. Several of the nude sketches are shown near a final work where you can see the way he has used the sketch in the context of a bigger work. Several sculptures are included of his dancers in various positions, including three versions of one my favourites of a woman contorting herself to look at the bottom of her foot.

The MFA also has a small exhibit on Aphrodite, which is interesting to see in context of the Degas show, as the Greek goddess is a popular nude figure in Western art, and there are many beautiful examples in the show of sculpture, vases etc. that can be contrasted with the more worldly women that Degas depicted. Both of these exhibits is on through early 2012.

The MFA has a beautiful new Art of the Americas wing. A large atrium space with a small restaurant and some contemporary art pieces joins the new wing to the main museum. This atrium space reminds me of a small version of the American Wing at the Met, which is one of my favourite spaces in NYC. The MFA has a terrific collection of American art and to see some of the paintings and other pieces related to Colonial times is particularly appropriate in this city. I didn't spend a lot of time here, but there is much to explore.

Carnegie Hall

I made it there and didn't even need to practice! Hardy har.

I ended up having another business trip to NYC and decided it was about time I took in a concert at this famous hall, since the hotel I always stay at (Parker Meridien) is on the same block and I walk past it every day. The Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique was in town playing two nights of Beethoven. On Thursday, they did a Prometheus overture and symphonies 3 and 4 (Eroica). This group is a period instrument group and the orchestra was a lot smaller than I've seen in groups with a less 'period specific' focus. The other major difference that I could see was that the horns and trumpets didn't have valves (and the horns in particular really sounded like the hunting horns from which modern French horns evolved). It's likely that the wind instruments also differed from their modern counterparts, although the only thing that was clear to my eyes was that the clarinets and oboes were mostly in a light coloured wood, rather than the typical black of modern instruments.

I don't know if it was the hall or the ensemble (maybe both), but the instrumentation was particularly clear, with particular solos easily picked out. A couple of times, the clarinetists played with their instruments lifted so the bell faced the audience (rather than traditionally pointed down) and it made them sound almost brass like, but with a beautiful reedy quality. The hall itself was lovely, in a deep horseshoe shape. The stage doesn't have wings or back drop so the performers sit in front of a beautiful paneled wall. The first two tiers are entirely composed of six seat boxes.

I had dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant, Trattoria del'Arte that I'd been to before, and enjoyed. Again, I was treated with a wonderful friendliness and warmth (the host shook my hand when I entered), the food was superb and I had a lovely chat with a couple in town from Michigan.

Pianomania

I didn't know much about this movie when I went to see it, but I definitely recommend it for anyone who is interested in piano playing, concert pianists or grand pianos. It's a German documentary following a Steinway piano technician (i.e., he tunes concert pianos). Several renowned pianists are scheduled to perform in a few halls in Vienna and our hero has to meet with them, help them find the piano that will fit the sound they are looking for, and then tweak it to get each note just right. I don't have a great ear, but I was even able to pick up some of the very slight nuances as the technician and pianist figured out how to get the piano just right. When I was growing up, we had an old upright at home that had to be tuned about once a year and I remember seeing the tuner with his tuning fork and various tools playing notes over and over again. Tuning a concert Steinway is beyond anything I remember from watching our humble old piano being tuned. The snippets of various piano pieces that are played throughout the movie are a wonderful bonus (although it will make you want to hear them in full in a proper hall). I also came away from this movie with a whole new appreciation for the amazing instrument that a grand piano truly is, unlike any other (both in scale and in technicality).

Maui pictures

Here's a link to the public photos from my Maui trip.

Last day in Maui

Today is our last day and we started it with one last snorkel by Black Rock. This time, we arranged to meet Sharon and her family at the beach. I figured out that the snorkel mouth piece I was using the other day was leaky, plus we brought along better float gear, so I was able to get out deeper into the water. The turtles were back again. There were 3 today floating around by the rocks, eating, being buffeted about by the tides, swimming among all the gawking people. It's kind of amazing that they are so calm about the whole thing. I accidentally touched one of them when it swam under me from behind. I thought there was a rock all of a sudden that I didn't notice before! You're not supposed to touch the turtles and I wouldn't have if I'd realized what that was. At one point, I was watching two turtles swimming together and it just felt like I was in Finding Nemo. The variety of fish is amazing, with little weird noses, long trailing fins, stripes, fluorescent purples, long skinny ones. I was also able to check out some brain coral, anemones, and sea urchins that live amongst the rock. It was a really hot day today, the trade winds have died down, so the water felt really good. Mei's kids and Sharon's kids got along famously. You'd never know that this was the first time they'd ever met. By the end of the day, the girls were holding hands.

After snorkeling and the exhausting task of washing the sand out of every nook and cranny, we headed back to the Westin where Bryan and Vivian had an informal grilling party for their guests. The hot dogs, steaks, tortilla chips and cookies really hit the spot. The grills are set up by the hotel for their guests and it's first come first serve, a very nice set up. It was really hot and sunny though so the crowd kept drifting along with the shade. After lunch Mei, Sharon, Shih Ah-yi and I headed with the kids to another pool area where there was a shallow kiddy pool complete with giant pirate ship full of slides, nets and other fun things. The kids invented all kinds of amazing ways to get down the slide together. After a few hours in the pool, we headed up to Shih Ah-yi's room to get the kids changed and head to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I was still stuffed, so I didn't eat much, but it gave us a chance to catch up with Sharon and GP, who we don't get to see often. After dinner, we all walked down Front St. to Ulalena's Shave Ice for one last taste of the island treat. Before we got in the car to head home, we stopped at Hilo Hattie's for a last shot at souvenirs and I finally found a nice flip-flop pendant at a good price, something I've been looking for all week! It was a nice way to end the day. All that's left is the packing, heading to the airport tomorrow with a brief stop at Costco for some Macadamia nut chocolates for Mei.

Wedding

Today was Bryan and Vivian's wedding. The ceremony was planned to take place on the lawn at the Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas. This is a beautiful time share property with a lovely lobby, landscaping and pools. We got there early to take pictures and ended up waiting around for the bride. It was a very warm morning. When the bridal party was finally ready, most of the guests stood near the back while first the kids and then the attendants processed past. Finally, the bride arrived accompanied by her parents. The music was provided by a local Hawaiian singer playing slack key guitar. Bryan's brother-in-law, GP, was the officiant and he performed an amusing but also short and effective ceremony. After the ceremony, some time was spent taking pictures with the newly married couple and then everyone was free to go off and spend the afternoon as we pleased. I took my nook to the cabana and read with the sound of waves crashing on the beach below me. I felt like I was in a Corona commercial (but with more people, and no beer).

We re-dressed for the reception and headed back to the Westin. This time the dinner was in a tent a little further down from where the ceremony was held. Table seating was free for all. The formal events started late, so there was a lot of milling about and chit-chatting among the guests. Apparently, Bryan went surfing with a few of his buddies and ran late! Dinner was a very nice buffet spread including saffron rice with seafood, teriyaki steak, bbq ribs, and a cream of potato soup. Dessert included fruit tarts, guava custard tart, banana cream tart, coconut cookies and peach lychee cobbler. A small wedding cake sat among the various mini dessert tarts. They also provided an open bar with mixed cocktails, beer and wine, fruit juices and sodas. As we ate, we watched a beautiful sun set over the ocean. After dinner, there was some speechifying by the attendants. Then we were treated to a wonderful show, including Hawaiian hula dancing! The dancers were wonderful and we all got a chance to try our hand at doing some hula. The highlight of the evening was a samoan fire dancer. He was amazing, touching the fire to his hands, feet, tongue, twirling it all around. I could tell it was the genuine article because he walked near us quite a few times and I could feel the heat from his torches.

Following the show, Bryan and Vivian's friends put together a slide show with music of old photos from both their lives. It was a good 35 minute show, probably one of the longest wedding slide shows I've seen. After this the couple finally cut the small cake and we got to sample some tasty fruit flavoured cake (as opposed to fruit cake). It was a very long but lovely day and Neve and Mason lasted through the entire thing (with a nap in the afternoon to tide them over).

Turtles

Today we went snorkeling. We learned from the concierge that Black Rock, just down the beach, is a great place to see fish and even turtles. A golf cart from the office took us to the beach cabana, and from there a short walk took us to the Sheraton, which is right in front of Black Rock. We could already see a lot of people in the water. The weather was overcast and very windy which made for rough seas today. There were a lot of fish swimming very close to people and in shallow waters (where I could stand up in it). Among the fish I saw were damsel fish and sargeant majors. The fish were in little schools and were being buffeted about by the waves just like the people. A couple of Israeli tourists were throwing some kind of food in the water which attracted the fish in large numbers right near their feet (I later learned the food was cookies, and that cheerios were really the best thing to use). You're not supposed to feed the fish but we enjoyed the results of this illegal activity. After we got out and were starting to head back, Stephen heard that turtles were spotted. We ran back to check them out. The waves were much stronger at this point. A giant turtle was swimming right by the rocks and when I popped my head under water to see him, I realized that the waves were going to shove the turtle right at me. It was a giant creature (at least 4' diameter) so I tried to scramble out of the way, which then caused me to lose my balance and get tossed around by the waves a bit, but I managed to regain my footing without getting bashed into the rocks. The turtle seemed really comfortable around people and kept popping its head up to breathe and then would dart back in the water. Neve later saw a smaller turtle swim under the boogie board she was laying down on! It was a really remarkable sight.

At this point, we had to get ourselves out of the water, head back to the hotel and get ready to meet the Huangs for lunch. Boy, I can't believe the places that the sand got into. I had clumps of it stuck behind my ears, in my bathing suit and in pretty much every nook and cranny. It took awhile to rinse it all out and I'm not sure I got all of it! We met the Huangs at the Westin Resort Villas where they were doing a rehearsal of Bryan and Vivian's ceremony. Sharon and her kids were joining us for lunch. We drove up to Napili to The Sea House, which like most of the restaurants we've been to has a view of the ocean. I had some delicious pork tacos as Mei's kids and Sharon's kids all immediately got along. After lunch we headed to Lahaina for shave ice. Bryan had told Sharon about a place called Local Boys so we went there. Well, we learned that Ululani's is really the best. The Local Boys product was coarser, icier. The server didn't poke holes in the ice before pouring the syrup, and the syrup flavours were not as nice as Ululani's. We ate the treats under the giant banyan tree, then strolled back up Front St. on the way back to the car. I stopped at a small jewelry store and got myself a plumeria lei Hawaiian ring to replace the one I lost that I'd had since my last trip to Oahu back in the 90's for my friend Shaun's wedding.

After a brief stop at home, we headed off to Whaler's Village to have dinner at Leilani's. This restaurant is beautifully situated right on the beach, with torches lining the sand and looking out over the water where sail boats and catamarans of all types were heading back in from a day out in the ocean. I had a delicious shrimp scampi, my first Mai Tai of the trip in a cool tiki glass, and we shared a delicious tropical cheesecake. After dinner, we headed back to the condo, where we did a brief check of the night sky, seeing the Milky Way, Cassiopeia, and the tail of Scorpio, which is called Maui's fish hook among Hawaiians.

Surfing!!!

Today I finally tried something I've been wanting to do for a long time-surfing! I refuse to get in the water in the LA area because it's cold and filthy, but the water in Hawaii is warm and so clean! There's a ton of places to take surfing lessons, but the concierge at our condo complex suggested Maui Wave Riders. I stopped by in the morning at around 9:30a to sign in and wait for the instructor. An older lady showed up a little later with her husband (who was clearly not about to go ride a wave). Turns out they are from New Brunswick and are here with a whole group of people, although she is the only one trying out a surfboard. Our instructor is Sonny. He walks us across the street to where the surfboards are stored and shows us how to carry them to the beach. The first thing we do is learn about the water we'll be in-it's a rocky bottom, but only about 4' to 5' deep so we will be able to stand up. The next thing to learn is the move we'll need to get up on the board. After practicing that a few times, we drag the boards to the water, place the leash on our ankle, get up on the board and start paddling out. Right away I realize that my weakling arms are going to be getting a real workout today! Paddling is hard work and it's 95% of what you do when you surf. We take turns paddling out to where Sonny is, waiting for a proper wave. He sets us up, tells us when to start paddling and gives us a little push to get started. I had a hard time staying up the first couple of times because I kept wanting to look down! When I finally was able to get up, another beginning surfer was heading straight towards me and we crashed. But what an exhilarating feeling, standing on a surfboard riding the waves! Although it's tricky for me to get up and balance, the hard part is really the paddling part. I was able to get up quite a few times, but I was never able to figure out how to sit back down. The water was beautiful, perfect temperatures, clean and clear and I felt totally safe the whole time. I'm going to be super sore tomorrow, but I'm so glad I did this! The company has a guy who takes pictures of you from the beach with a nice long lens, so I have documented evidence of my experience.

After the surfing, I met up with Mei and family to have lunch at Kimo's. We got a nice table on the second floor with a beautiful view over the water. There is a cruise ship docked out there today. The food was great, I had a grilled fish with a delicious sauce. We all shared their famous Hula pie, which is basically a giant mound of vanilla ice cream on a chocolate cookie crust topped with chocolate shell and whipped cream, sitting in a pool of chocolate sauce. We pretty much scarfed it up. The service is a little slow (or perhaps over worked, as there was one server for the entire upstairs) but it was a lovely lunch. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and everyone took a nap. In addition to my arms being sore, my back muscles are as well and I've got rashes on my knees and hips! We planned to have dinner at home today, but first we wanted to research some good snorkeling. The concierge suggested Black Rock, which is just at the next hotel south of us. We head to Whaler's Village to check out equipment rentals, but the shack is closed. This is a really nice mall, and we'll probably be back to do some souvenir and gift shopping, but for now, I picked up a few trinkets for friends.

Dinner is the opah fish we bought at Costco, steak and broccoli from Safeway, plus the various leftovers from our meals here. The kids thought it was the best meal yet!  The opah is a really nice fish, very thick, white mild flavoured meat, excellent with just a seasoning of salt and pepper.

After dinner, I took out my Google Sky Maps on my phone and headed out to see the stars. Although the sky is not all that dark, it's still much darker than LA and I can clearly see the milky way above us. I can also see the constellation Cassiopeia very clearly. There's probably a bunch of other unique constellations that we don't see from North America. I'll have to check them out another night.

Maui Arrival and Haleakala

Bryan and Vivian decided to get married in Maui, so provided a great excuse for some of us to pay a visit! I arrived in Maui yesterday, flying over the Pacific for the first time in probably over 2 decades. The first thing I had to do when I got to the airport was take off the layers I'd worn on the plane to ward off the air conditioning. It reminded me of my first visit to Hawaii, on Oahu, way back in the 90s. I met up with Mei and family at the car rental (wow, talk about crowded!) and after a brief visit to Costco to stock up on a few things as well as for a quick lunch (consisting of the exact same menu as you'll find in your local Costco) we headed for Kaanapali where we'd rented a condo. The unit turned out to be really nice. The pool is right outside our back porch, I have a separate room which includes a sitting area, TV, sink and mini fridge and coffee maker. The main room has a huge bathroom, living and dining areas and a fully stocked kitchen (everything but the food). They even have some pool float toys and a laundry (which will come in very handy). On our first afternoon, after settling in, we headed for Lahaina, the main little town in the area. We strolled around lots of shops selling the usual Hawaiian fare: patterned shirts, sun dresses, jewelry and beach paraphernalia. We stopped at a shop and Mei and family picked up a set of matching shirts/dresses for Bryan's wedding while I got myself a sun dress. We stopped at Longhi restaurant for dinner, a place with an unexpectedly pricey menu. We weren't all that hungry because our stomachs were still on PDT but we got a little bit of food in us as we watched the sun set over the island of Lanai. After dinner, we headed back to the car but stopped for shave ice at a stand that our cousin Hao recommended. Good call! They have a ton of great flavour combinations plus you can get ice cream with it and they have a mini size which is just perfect. You just don't get this kind of fine shave ice anywhere but Hawaii, and they have the best flavours including all kinds of tropical fruit.

Today, our first full day, we planned to get out early to head to Haleakala, the dormant volcanic crater on the eastern side of Maui. It's a long-ish drive but we're all still on PDT so we expected to be up early. The drive was challenging, very winding for the 26 miles up the side of the mountain. As you climb, you see yourself getting higher than the clouds. There are pastures with goats, cows and horses scattered along the mountain side. The higher you go the more desolate the landscape until it's mainly just dark brown rock with a few hardy plants. We made it to the top of the summit and immediately had to pile on the layers-it's really chilly and windy up at the top! Apparently we lucked out with a sunny day, because I was told it does get a lot colder. There's a series of observatories on the top of the mountain (two run by the University of Hawaii and one by the US Air Force). You can see the big island of Hawaii from the top with its two active volcanoes! The clouds below are big fluffy piles pushing up against the sides of the crater. The Visitor Center, a little farther down from the summit, has better views of the crater.

After the long, slow, winding drive back, we rested for a bit before hitting the pool. After snacks and showers, we drove again into Lahaina for dinner. We chose a spot called Cheeseburgers in Paradise, that has casual food and views of the ocean so we could watch the sunset. It was really very spectacular. Another round of shave ice and a stop at the grocery store for fresh fruits and veggies ended the evening.

Scottish Ballet

This company came to LA recently for the first time in over two decades. They brought an program that included a new work by Jorma Elo and a piece by Kenneth MacMillan, Songs of the earth. The Elo piece started the night and was a lot of fun! The choreography is set to Steve Reich and Mozart (an interesting combination). Elo mixes technical ballet movements along with more modern steps in a fast moving piece with a dash of humour. The audience loved it. The dancers were strong and wonderfully varied in their body types. The Macmillan piece was beautiful. We don't get to see a lot of work by this choreographer, he is more popular in Europe. His most well-known piece is Romeo and Juliet. This piece is set to Mahler's work of the same name, which used German translations of Tang dynasty poetry (talk about multi-culti!) and there is a sense of foreboding and doom throughout. However among the various songs that make up the piece, there are instances of silliness and humour to break up the melancholy mood. The dancers were superb in this piece, with the primary female and two males being in just about every song. The final duet is classic beautiful Macmillan. It was a pleasure to be introduced to this wonderful company, and I loved that they brought such a unique and meaningful program.

dineLA October 2011

For this most recent dineLA, I went to 3 places: Border Grill, Bouchon and Mas Malo. None of these really stood out for me. I've been to Border Grill, so it was not a new experience. Frankly, this is a great place to go for a margarita, some tacos and tamales, but their entrees are nothing really special. Bouchon is Thomas Keller's bistro recently opened in Beverly Hills. The food was top notch for bistro fare, but you can get a lot of top notch bistro fare in LA. The service was fine but not outstanding. The decor of the dining room is really nice but the prices are high and I'm not sure it's all worth it. Mas Malo is a fun little mexican restaurant in downtown. The food is inexpensive, the room is noisy but fun and they have a lounge-y bar downstairs for nightcaps. We were rushing to a show afterwards, so I appreciated their quick service. I would come here again with a group of people to share drinks and food.

Great food, great dance

I was in NYC for a short business trip and was able to squeeze in a night at NYCB. I hadn't made any dinner plans, figuring I'd just find some place cheap and close to Lincoln Center. Before heading up there, I checked Google Maps for what was in the area. I noticed the Jean Georges restaurant has a bar area and that Bar Boulud is across the street. I walked up to the area, stopped first at the Jean Georges, found they were full, walked up to Bar Boulud, they had a table right at the front in the traffic path but that didn't bother me. The wait staff was wonderful, very attentive which is always nice when you are dining alone. I planned to order the boudin blanc (I read great reviews about it) and the waiter suggested a viognier to go with it. Amazingly, they presented the bottle to me, let me taste a bit of it before pouring the glass. I've never had that kind of presentation of wine ordered by the glass (and a tasty glass of wine it was). The boudin blanc was amazing, tender, moist, soft, it was beyond just a sausage. The sauce it came with was rich and delicious. I ordered a vegetable jardiniere as a side, and the only misstep by the restaurant was that the vegetables I expected were not in the dish. I ended up going ahead and eating the veggies because the boudin sauce made them taste okay. For dessert I had the Figaccio, fig ice cream with speculoos crumbs (a type of Belgian biscuit) with fig sauce. Unbelievably delicious, I finished the whole thing. I even had some entertainment during dinner, listening to the conversation occurring at the next table. I left the restaurant with a silly grin on my face, ready to watch some great dance.

The program at NYCB started with Square Dance by Balanchine, well danced by Ashley Bouder with a young corps dancer, Taylor Stanley, partnering her. This was a great piece, lots of Balanchine's wonderful patterning, strong dancing to beautiful baroque music. The second piece was In Memory Of by Robbins to music by Alban Berg. Before the dancing started, the orchestra pit raised up and the conductor gave a brief lecture, with musical examples, of the structure of the music and the way the story is reflected in the music. It was so great to have had that information prior to watching the dancing. It added a lot to my understanding of what was being conveyed, but mostly I was focused on the dancing because we had Wendy Whelan in the lead role. I love her dancing, it always feels like she's not doing choreography, but rather that the movements are just coming out of her. And then on top of it, to have her dancing Robbins' choreography, whose style is very naturalistic was amazing.

The final piece was West Side Story Suite, which Robbins adapted from his choreography for the musical and movie. What a wonderful piece! The steps are not technically challenging, but I loved seeing dancers doing them, rather than show folk. And the piece included singing (by singers off stage) as well as the dancers shouting, snapping, clapping. It was a wonderful way to end a difficult trip and was truly inspiring.

A-frame

I had dinner at this WLA restaurant located in an old IHOP. The chef is Roy Choi who is credited with reinventing the food truck industry with the Kogi taco truck. The decor is 'picnic' with communal tables and benches, mismatched tin plates and knives and forks kept at the center of the table. The food is meant to be shared with small, medium and large portioned dishes. The items we tried were all very inventive and delicious. The sesame leaf wrapped tempura shrimp come on skewers with a dipping sauce and cucumber. Heirloom tomato salad was perfect at this time of year when tomatoes are at their peak of ripeness (I really only ate the tomatoes and not the greens that came with it). The fried chicken was tasty and juicy with a crispy skin (again, I skipped the sauces and the accompaniments). The mussels came in a wonderfully flavourful broth. The pan de sal bread could be a meal in itself (studded with all kinds of seeds and nuts). We had the ice cream sandwich in the cinnamon and oatmeal version and both the ice cream and cookie were top-notch. They have some fun creative cocktails, a nice outdoor area. Fun place to go for a casual meal with friends.

My latest NYC trip

I traveled to NYC for work projects and was able to squeeze in a few great eats and one fabulous museum show. I got in very late on Monday, due to a lightening storm shutting down JFK (3 hours waiting it out in Richmond, VA) so dinner the first night was a late call to room service. The Parker Meridien does a custom pasta dish, pick your own pasta, sauce, meat and veggie. I don't really recommend penne with pesto, italian sausage and mushroom at midnight, although it helps if your stomach thinks it's 9:30p.

We had lunch with our NY colleagues at Serafina, a nice little Italian place near one of our NY offices. We shared a nice pizza. They did a grilled squid on skewers that was delicious, and some tasty bruschetta.

Dinner on Tuesday was at Craft, Tom Colicchio's (of Top Chef fame) restaurant. This was a fabulous meal! The restaurant features ingredients sourced from local farmers and is organized by ingredient and preparation method. We had the crispy bacon as a starter, which was basically a large square of pork belly, with perfectly crispy skin, melting fat and succulent meat all layered together. The eggplant agnolotti was a nice non-meat starter with a creamy tomato sauce. For my main, I had the normandy duck. Wow! This may be the most perfect duck I've ever had (and I've had me some duck over the years). The breast was cooked just to a pink interior, with the skin slightly crisp and the meat melting in your mouth. I've so often had over cooked duck breast that this was a revelation. The leg was confited, and was so tender I barely had to chew, just letting the duck-y goodness melt into my taste buds. My dining partners had the suckling pig for two which consisted of taking the pig apart into about 6 different pieces, and cooking each section in a different way so as to bring out the best flavour and texture in each. For dessert we had the sugar and spice doughnuts, little baby donuts (plus their holes) served with an incredible chocolate sauce and peach jam, and the s'mores, which was my favourite, a chocolate peanut butter mousse topped with toasted marshmallow creme served with smoked salt sorbet. The saltiness of the sorbet combined with the mousse was just amazing (if you've never had chocolate with salt, go try a chocolate dipped pretzel). The wines were absolutely perfect with the meal and the service was impeccable. The room is dark, with just a minimal level of conversational hum so that we could talk to each other without shouting.

On Wednesday, we had dinner at Boqueria, a small Spanish tapas restaurant in Chelsea. This was a fun place, with lots of people stopping in with friends for an after-work bite. They've got some lovely jamon hanging in the window. Among the plates we tried were the quail egg on chorizo, garlic shrimp, croquettas (mushroom and jamon), lamb meatballs. They've got a nice selection of cheeses and jamons, of course we had to have some of the iberico. For dessert, the churros were very nice in a great chocolate sauce. The flan was a light version, not carmelized enough for my taste.

I was able to find some time to visit the Alexander McQueen show at the Met before it closed over the weekend. This show has been making news all summer due to the crowds that have waited in hours long lines to see it. I was able to get in with a friend who had a Met membership card, allowing us to skip the 2.5 hour line! As it was, the exhibition space was incredibly crowded. I'm pretty good about elbowing my way through a crowd, and we had the audio guides, which helped tremendously and included interviews with people who worked with McQueen or wore his clothes. I'd heard that the show had brought some people to tears and I found that interesting as I couldn't imagine clothing causing that reaction. Well, I will admit that I got choked up at a couple of points in the show. His clothes are impeccably tailored and that's not something that you can see in a photograph. But he takes his skilled tailoring and adds something slightly askew to everything. Perfect jackets have a tail on one end, or pants have a hem that flips at the bottom. Some of the clothes are very dark and disturbing but even in those, you see the skill in the craftsmanship. He puts together materials in the most amazing way, combining light and ethereal with rigid and shiny or feathers with satin. Some pieces were so beautiful they took my breath away, but the beauty always had a dark edge. The show included videos taken from runway shows which gave a sense of his brilliant theatricality. In one small box, you can see a hologram of Kate Moss floating in a stunning gown. The music in the show was all coordinated with the music that McQueen used in his runway presentations. McQueen's clothes are intensely emotional and the music adds to that effect. After we came out of the exhibit, it felt like we had been in a dark cave for a very long time, but the experience was unforgettable.

The Gorbals

I'm playing catch-up on this post, as I had dinner at this restaurant a couple of weeks ago. This is one of the first of many local eateries opened up by a Top Chef contestant, in this case, Ilan Hall. The restaurant is named for a neighbourhood in Scotland where the chef's father grew up. The food is a meat-centric melange of various cuisines, including the famed bacon wrapped matzo ball. The restaurant is located in an old hotel (recently renovated into lofts) in a still slightly seedy part of downtown that has become fashionable and popular during Downtown Art Walks. The food is primarily small plates organized by animal (literally), and the flavours are all interesting. We enjoyed the baby back ribs and the grilled octopus, which was cut into french fry shapes and had a great chew. Their burger comes dressed with onion done 6 ways (I lost track of what the different ways were). For dessert, I recommend the sticky toffee pudding, which is the best I've had among local offerings (this appears to be a popular dessert right now).

Toronto

I was able to time my visit to Ma and Ba in Toronto to coincide with Julie and D's visit over the Canada Day/Independence Day long weekend. The weather ended up being beautiful throughout my stay. I got in on Thursday and was picked up by D and Julie, as Ma and Ba took Austin and Mari to the Lion Safari for the day. D wanted to check out a new Mel Lastman square area that he'd heard about in North York. When we got there, we discovered it wasn't so much of a square but we were directed to Baton Rouge for dinner by two different groups of passersby.  Despite the name, the restaurant turned out to be a rib place (with very little connection to Louisiana cuisine). The food was pretty good, very substantial with D and I sharing a big plate of ribs.

The next day was Canada Day and we headed down to the Harbourfront where there were a lot of free activities lined up. I was amazed at the number of new condos and apartment buildings in the area. It was a beautiful sunny day and the crowds were out in force, with various musicians, performers, booths and other activities, both commercial and non-commercial. We saw a magician who did a nice routine with some traditional tricks, a competitive jump rope team who did amazing things with a couple of ropes, had ice cream, sipped coconut water from a fresh young coconut and did some crafts with the kids. The jump ropers encouraged audience members to join in and Julie and I gave a go at double dutch and did okay! York Quay Center had a glass blower working in their open craft studio that drew a small crowd. All in all, it was a fun and very inexpensive day.

On Saturday, we all went to ROM in the afternoon to check out the Toga Party and the Water exhibit. The museum had invited some members of a Roman legion re-enactment troupe (similar to Civil War re-enacters) in full Roman military regalia and set up tables for kids to try writing their names in Roman alphabet, do some mosaics and learn Roman numerals. The military gear was mostly hand made by the re-enacters and they all spoke a little Latin! The water exhibit was quite interesting, showing all the ways that water is important, various critters that live near or in water, and how humans have affected our water systems. In the evening, Ma and Ba took the kids home and Julie, D and I went to the Distillery. We were planning to see "The Glass Menagerie" and hoped to grab a bite to eat before. There was a jazz festival on site, so the place was crowded with pockets of great music floating around. We just managed to snag a table at the local brew pub where I had an amazing burger and D and Julie tried some local beers. The play was excellent, well acted, interesting staging and of course you can't top Tennessee Williams' writing. After the show, there was a cabaret evening in the adjoining room. We stopped in briefly to see what that was about. They had a couple of guys on stage chatting in between performances by a Canadian Opera tenor (of Randy Newman songs, of all things), a string/piano trio playing Bach, and a video of a Canadian TV personality ragging on a respected Canadian modern dancer over government funding for the arts. This promised to be an unusual evening but we had to leave as it was getting late. A thunderstorm was brewing on our way out and we were treated to a cool lightening show.

On Sunday, D and Julie and I went to Ontario Place with the kids. Boy, how this place has changed! It's the 40th anniversary of the opening. Now there's a water play area with slides of varying degrees of scariness, a zone filled with squirters and mini-slides and a huge bucket that would fill and dump onto eagerly waiting kids. Another area has mini-rides for smaller kids (as well as games where you can't lose) and a big room where kids can shoot little foam balls at each other! The IMAX was still there, but we didn't even have time to see the movie, there was so much to do! I tried to remember what we used to do at Ontario Place when we went as kids, since most of the activities that Austin and Mari enjoyed didn't exist back in the day! In the evening, I met some Iroquois friends for dinner. Three of them, Julie, Linda and Deb, were also at our last Iroquois reunion a couple of years ago. We added Anne-Marie, Jo Ann and Lisa. Despite the years, we had a great time reminiscing about the past and talking about our current lives. Deb is moving to Kitchener this summer so we don't know if she'll be back for the next time.

Monday looked to be a quieter day. We had lunch at Asian Legend with the Yangs and Huangs. The food was excellent and the adults got to talking making for a long lunch. Since July 4th was also Huang Shu shu and Ma's birthday this year, we ended the meal with a nice cake, a light chocolate sponge with an unusual jello filling. D prepared a barbecue chicken dinner on the complex's grills and we ate at the table in back. The grilled veggies, fruit and chicken were delicious, capping off a nice extra long weekend.

I flew home on Tuesday, enduring a ridiculously long customs line and just making the plane boarding.

Here are some pics that I took during my visit.

As an aside, I saw Unknown (with Liam Neeson) and Unstoppable (with Denzel Washington) on the plane to and from. Both were enjoyable big entertainment movies. Unknown had a plot twist that caught me completely by surprise, and Unstoppable was a terrific chase movie with just a touch of real-life events to make it interesting. I highly recommend both. The third movie I saw was "Win Win" with Paul Giamatti. I found this to be a heartwarming story with some wonderful performances, but it was not so much a comedy as advertised.

Ballet Nacional de Cuba

This ballet company is a bit of a legend here in the US. It's partly due to Alicia Alonso, who is its director. She was a dancer at ABT and although is now 90 years old and has been blind for many years, still runs the company. It's also partly due to the number of prominent Cuban dancers who have left their home to grace world stages (Jose Manuel Carreno, Carlos Acosta, the Feijoo sisters, etc.). I think a great deal of the mystique can be attributed to the state of relations between Cuba and the US. In any case, I was so excited to hear they would be performing in Los Angeles and doing Don Quixote! That should be a ballet that highlights the Cubans famed charisma and passion.

Unfortunately, the company and performance were a disappointment. Although there were wonderful moments by the lead male and female dancers, she with wonderful jumps and balances, he with great ballon and lifts, as a whole everything felt a little shabby. The feet were sloppy all around (weak fifths in landings, not fully pointed), the costumes were ill fitting and in some cases, completely swallowed up the dancers so that any feet and legwork were hard to discern, the corps was poorly coordinated, and everyone seemed to be sleep walking through the performance. The choreography did not help in the least. Don Q is one of the most non-sensical ballets (and that's saying a lot) so if there's nothing special or unique in the variations, there's not much point in it.

It was sad to see this audience, so wanting to support these dancers, with very little to cheer. Any time there was the slightest bit of excitement, the roar of the crowd was deafening, but too often throughout the night, the crowd's applause was merely polite.

Perhaps when the torch is eventually passed to a younger generation to lead this company, they will regain their power and be worth watching again.

Neocon 11 in Chicago

I went to Chicago this past week for Neocon, which is a huge trade show for vendors to the commercial interiors community. The show takes place in the Merchandise Mart, which is a gigantic building on the Chicago River. Before the show starts, many people get into the city a little early to take advantage of the wonderful restaurants, sightseeing, art and architecture in the city. The last time I was in Chicago for Neocon was about 3 years ago.

This time I stayed at the JW Marriott. The hotel is beautiful, with comfy mattresses and a gorgeous bathroom (separate shower and gigantic tub). After our group settled in, a few of us headed to Ribfest which was located north of the downtown area. We didn't really know what to expect and the weather was overcast and chilly, plus we were starving, having had only airplane food. Turns out this is a fantastic food feast! Lots of rib cooking restaurants in the area had booths providing all kinds of ribs, both pig and cow, as well as related foods (sliders, cornbread, etc). The air was smoky with the smell of all the meat cooking. We tried 2 different spare ribs, corn bread, pork sliders and some maple bacon doughnut holes. The ribs were better than expected but the doughnuts were a little disappointing. After we had our fill and as the temperature continued to drop, we headed back downtown to meet the rest of the gang for deep dish pizza. I had no intention of eating any more but when the beautiful pies showed up, it was impossible not to at least take a few bites.

On Sunday, a large group of us had brunch on one of the lake cruise ships. The food is served buffet style in an indoor deck with access to the top deck for views of the skyline. The weather remained changeable so it was nice to have the protected deck to retreat to. Eventually the skies cleared and we were able to get some beautiful views of the city. After the boat came back to dock, a few of us headed to Michigan Ave to get mani/pedis and then do a little shopping. Some of us needed some warmer clothes, plus I wanted to bring the girls to Nakamol, which I was introduced to a few years ago by my friend Beth. The store has moved since then and is in a smaller location. Their sale tables were as wonderful as last time, and we all came away with unique jewelry pieces as souvenirs of the trip. For dinner, we tried to get into The Girl and the Goat, but it was packed and we were starving, so we had steaks at Rosebud Prime. Megan and I shared a giant ribeye, barely finishing half of it between us, along with mussels, chased down with a delicious Chateau Margaux. The wait staff in this city are like many you find in New York, they are professional service people and it shows. After dinner, we took a cab to the Hancock building to try and get into the bar for a view of the city at night. The skies were crisp and clear and you could see for miles.

During the trade show, the days are spent walking from showroom to showroom, taking tours and learning about new vendors, but a person has to eat, so I had lunches at Nick's Fishmarket (inside the Mart, which was nice) and Coco Pazzo, a delicious Italian place I'd been to a few years ago. On Monday night, many companies have cocktail parties both in the showroom and at outside venues. One of the best is the Interface party at ZED 451. They seem to have their event here every year and they always do it up right, taking over the whole place, providing a huge spread of noshes and a signature cocktail. This year's was Bourbon Lemonade. A nice treat was the wine tasting provided inside their wine closet, with paired cheeses. Delicious! From the Interface party, we hitched a ride to a warehouse district that is apparently becoming gentrified (like the meatpacking area in NYC or the warehouse area in downtown LA) where Coalesse had their party. I ran into someone I used to know in LA! What a coincidence. Dinner on Monday was at Red Canary, a small gastropub. We pretty much took over one side of the restaurant. The food was delicious, pot pies, fried chicken, mac and cheese, etc. It was a table full of interesting women of all ages. On Tuesday, dinner was at Socca, with a crowd of about 50. This time dinner was served family style, which was nice as it allowed for some measure of portion control after so many days of huge feasts. The food was fantastic and the company equally wonderful. A few of us headed to the bar at the W Hotel afterwards for drinks. The beauty of this location was that it was across the street from our own hotel, making for an easy stumble back to our rooms after.

On Wednesday, we were scheduled to leave on a 1p flight, but it was cancelled so after some finagling we were scheduled on a 7p flight to OC. That was not a pleasant thought, but it did allow for some time to go for a walk and to visit the Art Institute. They had some wonderful new things on display, but we concentrated on the masterpieces in their collection, including Edward Hopper's Blackhawk diner, Seurat's Sunday on the Grande Jatte, Monet's haystacks, etc.

By the time we all got home, everyone was pretty exhausted but I'd bet we'll all be looking forward to Neocon again when it rolls around next year!

Here are some of the photos I took.

Paris, art and movie

I had a Paris weekend in LA!

On Saturday, I went to see the Paris Life & Luxury exhibit at the Getty. We went on Saturday evening, which means the parking is free, and the crowds are smaller. Our picnic lunch came from Bay Cities Deli (order online and avoid the never ending long lines at the counter!) although it was a little chilly to be eating outside. As we were walking to the exhibit building, the sun was setting and the combination of the ominous clouds, the low angle of the sun and the white buildings of the Getty Center was just spectacular. Everyone was lined up at the balcony railings to take it in. The exhibit is a wonderfully coherent way to display a particular way of life at a particular time and place (mid-17th century Paris among the wealthy class). They had paintings, sculpture, furniture and various objects of daily use organized by the routines of the day-bedroom, women's powder room, entertainment room, etc.-which gave meaning to even the smallest object. The level of artistry and craftsmanship is exceptional but what was surprising to me was the interest in science and technology (represented by a microscope and mechanical devices). The curators include sound in some of the rooms with chiming clocks and recorded harpsichord music which adds a lot to the atmosphere.

On Sunday I went to see Woody Allen's new movie, Midnight in Paris, which is on the one hand a love letter to Paris and on the other a cautionary note to avoid living in the past.  Owen Wilson makes for a much more likeable 'nebbishy intellectual' than Woody ever did (at least for me) and the cameos by various luminaries are hilarious. For me, there were so many aspects of visiting Paris that I recognized from my past trips-hanging out on a bridge at night watching the Eiffel Tower light up, walking down random streets with no real aim (although not at midnight), checking out the book seller stalls along the Seine, and totally getting caught up in the cities illustrious past.

Paris is certainly a more beautiful city than Los Angeles could ever pretend to be, but on Saturday night as we were leaving the Getty, we got a view that is essentially LA-a clear night and the lights in the LA basin are sparkling with the ocean just beyond and a crescent moon darting behind the clouds. It's good to appreciate the past, but there's a lot to enjoy about the present, as well.

Royal Danish Ballet, this time, closer to home

Last year, I visited Copenhagen and saw two performances (see my posts here and here) by the RDB at the Operaen. This year, they are traveling to the US and their first stop is in Orange County at Segerstrom Hall. I went with Joan, my 90-something ballet teacher and my friend Ronnie. It's a long trek to Orange County from WLA but luckily it's a holiday weekend so a lot of people are out of town.

We had a lovely dinner at Silver Trumpet restaurant, where we can park the car for free and then leave it there and walk over to the hall. The food was wonderful, and except for some difficulty with serving espresso (my guess is they usually do cappucino) the service was fine.

The performance tonight is Napoli, which is a light-hearted ballet by the founder of Danish ballet, August Bournonville. His style is particularly noted for the lightness and clarity of the men's petit allegro. When I was in Denmark, I saw the company in repertory pieces, so this will be a first for me, to see them in a story ballet. The Pacific Symphony provided the musical accompaniment.

The story revolves around a poor fisherman and a young village girl who are in love. Of course there are obstacles (her mother's objections and competing suitors) and danger (she drowns in a grotto and is lured by a demon to become one of his naiads), the saving power of true love (the fisherman gets her to remember her real self through dance) and a celebratory wedding at the end. The artistic director of the RDB is Nicholaj Hubbe who is well known in the US as a principal dancer with NYCB prior to his retirement. He's taken the middle act (the grotto scene) and updated it with interesting video projection effects and more modern choreography. The first act is mainly to set the scene for us and introduce the characters. The village people do some dancing and show off the fishermen's lovely footwork. In the middle act, the modern choreography identifies the demon and his naiads along with lighting effects that make them look cold and blue. The fisherman is lighted with a warm light, and he dances the choreography that we saw in Act I, the traditional Bournonville, and as his love starts remembering who she is, she starts getting the warmer light and dancing the traditional steps. This act is a wonderful bridge between the first and third act, giving us a slightly darker and more moody atmosphere and allowing the bright quick dancing of the third act to really shine. The final act is a series of groups and solos where dancers get to show off their lovely lightness and beautiful feet. The interesting thing about this choreography that makes it so different from standard classical story ballets is the complete lack of show-off pyrotechnics. There's no posing, in fact the dancers barely stop dancing,  transitioning in and out of center stage with barely time to take a bow. There is a purity to their dancing that is so refreshing. Plus they all look like they are having a lot of fun.

We had a great time but the glow of the performance did not last, as we got stuck on the 405, which was shut down completely at Long Beach with all traffic being diverted off the freeway. We later found out that two men were found shot in a van and the police investigation is what closed down the freeway. Our relatively quick 1 hour trip home turned in two hours.

Atlanta

I went on a very short but fun trip to Atlanta and La Grange, Georgia to visit a carpet mill. La Grange is southwest of Atlanta and used to be a center of textile production but all of that moved to parts east (China for one) and now they have Interface and Milliken carpet tiles and a Kia plant. I was visiting the Interface facilities with 3 other designers. The company owns a beautiful 'FLW'-esque house on a hillside in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, there was no one around, it was so quiet at night, most of us city folks were a little uneasy and I was woken up in the morning by a racket of birds calling (at least 10 different kinds, singing so loudly I felt like they were in my room with me). The company provides a cook to make breakfast as well as dinner our first night. The food was hearty and delicious, especially the Brunswick Stew (apparently a local specialty). On our flight over, we shared the plane with Stevie Wonder, who was so gracious after he deplaned, taking photos with just about anyone who wanted and making sure to pull his famous braids out as well. His handler was going nuts trying to keep the star moving.

Stevie Wonder!

The mill tours were fascinating, I've always loved seeing the 'behind the scenes' in factories and the like, everyone was wonderfully polite and the design center was really cool. We happened in town during a 13 year cicada season. They were not out in huge numbers so we were spared the loud racket but we did see quite a few of the red eyed buggers around the plants.

13 year Cicadas

There is one 'fancy' dining establishment in town called Carriage and Horses and it's run by a Lebanese-French man who owns a stable full of horses. From the dining room, you look out on a small pond and fields where the horses are hanging out. The food wouldn't stand up to what you'd find in LA, but it was delicious and clearly prepared with love.

Before we headed back to Atlanta, we stopped at Callaway Gardens, on property formerly owned by the family that ran most of the former textile mills as well as built the house we stayed at. They are relatives of the golf equipment family. They had a conservatory full of tropical butterflies, hot and humid, with some giants flitting around. The gardens include a golf course, pond, and walking trails.

In Atlanta, we spent a couple of hours at the Aquarium near Centennial Olympic Park. I was very impressed with this Aquarium. The displays include a river ecosystem to show local water creatures, an arctic area with giant, white Beluga whales, a deep ocean section with a shark and ray tunnel, and a tropical area with some of the most vibrantly coloured sea creatures I've ever seen. If we'd had more time, we could have participated in some special tours, such as a behind the scenes look at the tanks and research areas.

One of the large tanks at Georgia Aquarium

By the time we got back to the airport, most of us were pretty exhausted and I for one was ready to be heading home. It was a fun few days with a great group of people.

(The rest of the photos from Callaway Gardens and the Aquarium are here.)

Mark Morris Dance Group

Mark Morris is one of my favourite contemporary choreographers primarily because he is exceedingly musical. I always feel like you can see the music in his dances. This year his group is touring and performing 'L'allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato' as a celebration of 30 years in the biz (not an easy thing to accomplish). This piece was created in the early 80's when Morris was the director of a theatre in Belgium.  The music is a Handel piece for chorus and solo singers, the libretto is to poems by John Milton and the scenery is based on the paintings of William Blake (although in a very abstract way).

This work was considered a masterpiece almost immediately after it was first performed, and after experiencing it, I can see why. The music is composed of 32 sections and split into 2 parts with an intermission. The scenery is composed of scrims of various colours and at various depths on the stage, each dropping or lifting away to create different colour moods. There are also a few panels composed of vertical lines or squares that interact with the scrims. The costumes in the first part are muted, earthy colours. In the second part, the costumes are vibrant, lively colours. The various sections go back and forth in mood between 'l'allegro' (joy) and 'il penseroso' (melancholy) and the occasional attempt at 'moderato' (balance between the two). The movements vary from simple (walking, running) to sublime (one section had a series of turns and swooping motions that brought tears to my eyes). Unlike much of contemporary dance, there is a great deal of humour (the fox hunting scene and the men's slap/hug dance, for instance) alongside the serious.

The singers and chorus were fantastic, the intertwining of the music and dance so complete that there were moments when I forgot that the singing was not coming out of the dancers' mouths. As with other Morris pieces that I've seen, there are moments when the structure of the music is so clearly reflected in the choreography that it feels they must have been created together (when in fact they are separated by hundreds of years).

My dance friends and I were all in agreement that we felt the urgent need to jump up on stage with the dancers and join them. I wanted to see the whole thing again, as soon as it ended. I wanted to be part of it.

NYC in April

I missed posting about this trip because it happened very last minute and it was a busy time. I had to go to NYC with a designer from a Burbank job due to the schedules of some executives on the project. Luckily, Steven has been spending a lot of time in NYC over the last few years working on a high end residential project and we were able to explore a few things downtown, where I tend not to go very much.

We spent some time shopping at Uniqlo and Muji. Both shops are from Japan and have a very strong Japanese aesthetic. Uniqlo sells men's and women's clothes at a budget price similar to our Gap but with stronger and more cutting edge design. Muji is a place for kitchen and desk top gadgets of all kinds and all packaged beautifully.

We had dinner at Cipriani, a classic NY Italian restaurant. I recall I had a pasta with a osso buco sauce which was amazing, and we had a meringata alla crema, which was a cake with an unbelievable combination of lightness and richness, not too sweet with the flavours of eggs and creme.

Our second dinner was at Quality Meats, a wonderful steak house with an old warehouse-y feel inside, warm friendly service and delicious meats.

We also had drinks on day at the W Times Square. The main hotel reception and lobby bar is upstairs in and entirely interior space (no windows to the outside). The ambiance is super cool (as you would expect in a W) but with nice little seating niches for some great people watching.


Dinner at Quality Meats

Wordle

This is what my blog looks like as a Wordle. You can make all kinds of word pictures and edit them at this website. From the looks of mine, I'm all about food and dance!

Lazy Ox Canteen

We had dinner here before going to see NDT. This place, in Little Tokyo, has a casual pubby atmosphere, with wonderful food.  We had some delicious sugar snap peas and roasted cauliflower. We asked that the chef send us out a surprise small plate, which turned out to be beef tongue with polenta. All were delicious. The family style special for the day was a pork porterhouse, which turned out to be a giant piece of perfectly roasted pork with a delicious sauce. The best dessert was the butterscotch pudding-unbelievably rich, caramel-y and creamy. Service here is friendly and quick. We had to get in and out in an hour and they did that without our feeling rushed.

Nederlands Dans Theatre 1

I went to see this contemporary dance company last week with a couple of friends. I've been wanting to see them for a few years, as they were supposed to be in town a few years ago but had to cancel due to the economy. This company is one of the top contemporary dance companies in the world, working with the most interesting contemporary choreographers, who create dances especially for them. For this visit they did a piece by Crystal Pite and one by Lightfoot & Leon. The Pite piece had some beautiful sections but I didn't feel like all of it hung together. The piece starts with a mannequin (like the kind of models that artists use) manipulated by the corps of dancers. The best section of this piece was near the end when a dancer replaces the mannequin and the other dancers appear to be echoing her movements. The second piece by Lightfoot & Leon was stunning, danced to Phillip Glass, whose music is always gorgeous to dance to (although I don't much like listening to it for its own sake). The piece uses video projection, stage manipulation and a beautiful effect with a black fabric. Since some of the men were bare chested, rather than wearing suits, you could see their bodies much better and you could see how beautiful their movement quality is, how elongated and stretched they are. They are also incredibly strong, hitting their positions precisely and with no extraneous and unnecessary movement. Watching them made me wish there was a way for me to dance with them.

LA Ballet turns 5

I saw the Celebrations performance of LA Ballet yesterday with a few dance friends. We've all been attending performances to support this company since its inception. This program consisted of two Balanchines (Raymonda Variations and Western Symphony) and a new piece created by Sonia Tayeh, who most people know from So You Think You Can Dance.

Sonia's Piece was beautiful and very moving, called The Greatest Fear, choreographed to Arvo Part's music. The lighting was very dramatic, adding to the drama on stage. The dancers were all wonderful, fully committed and completely involved in the piece.

You couldn't say the same for the two Balanchines. Raymonda Variations is wickedly difficult and the dancers were not up to the task, but even in the easier passages in both ballets, they seemed to be going through the motions, without any of the emotional connection that I thought they had with the Tayeh piece. Aside from Melissa Barak, very few of the dancers were familiar to me from previous seasons. It's a shame that the company appears to lose their best dancers to companies with longer seasons.

I'm looking forward to their next performance of Giselle. I'd like to see what they do with a non-Balanchine story ballet.

Two LA dining experiences

This was one of those weeks when dinner invitations seem to pop up unexpectedly. I had dinner on Wednesday with a couple of designer friends at Whist Restaurant in the Viceroy Hotel. The restaurant is just to the right as you enter the hotel lobby. The hotel is designed by Kelly Wearstler who has made quite a name for herself with her distinctive flair for hospitality design and the decor is very dramatic and interesting. A small lounge area near the dining room looks like a great place for drinks and happy hour. The menu is fairly eclectic, with a selection of small plates, seafood and pastas.We shared a crispy potato appetizer and figs with burrata. Both were well done. For my main, I had the black sea bass. The sauce had a mild curry flavour to it, which set off the fish nicely. The dessert was a standout. We had the pear tart tatin with goat cheese ice cream and kumquat preserves. The crust on the tart tatin was not great but the pears were perfect. The goat cheese ice cream was quite an interesting flavour and texture combination on the tongue and the kumquat preserves had a nice sourness to it, but it was when all of the flavours were combined that the dessert really came together. Each flavour brought out something in the others that weren't apparent before. The service was fine but not exceptional.

On Thursday, I had what may have been the best all around meal that I've ever had in my life at Providence. This restaurant is one of the few in LA with Michelin stars (receiving 2 in 2009) and I think I now understand what kind of experience is expected at such an establishment. The restaurant is located in an out of the way part of LA, a mostly residential neighbourhood east of La Brea. The interior is a nice dark taupe colour with interesting shell and flower decorations on the walls. The specialty of the house is seafood. They feature several versions of tasting menus as well as an a la carte menu. We ate off the a la carte. We started by sharing the cold dungeness crab appetizer and the Santa Barbara spot prawns. Before we get our appetizers, the server brings out an amuse bouche for each of us, consisting of parsnip soup with a port reduction and parmesan foam. Wow, what an amazing little taste. First you get the essence of parmesan via the foam, then the sweetness of the parsnip soup followed by the wallop of intensely concentrated port sauce. Great way to start the meal!

The crab came layered with grapefruit, pine nuts and cilantro with a sheet of jellied grapefruit on top, all of the flavours just sparkling off the tongue. The prawns arrive at the table via serving cart, in a copper pan and covered in salt (so just their antennas are poking out). The server brushes the salt off of the giant prawns, cuts the heads off of each, slices the bodies and heads in half and arranges them prettily on the plate. The freshness and slightly salty flavour, bringing out the sweetness of the prawns is amazing. Yes, I tried a little of the head.

For my main entree, I had duck (not really seafood, but they do swim). They serve it medium rare (this should be mandatory, really). It comes with braised cabbage, chanterelles and bacon. The acidity of the cabbage really sets off the fat of the duck, and the chanterelles and bacon add agreat texture. Our first dessert was a beautiful chocolate mousse with gingerbread crumbs and an amazing sauce. The second one was a combination of peanut butter, banana and jalapeno, the heat of the pepper just enough to bring out the flavours of the other components. Again with both of these dishes, the whole was much greater than the parts. Before receiving our cheque, the server brought out three small confections to end the meal-beet sugar macaron, chipotle chocolate marshmallow and thai jelly. My favourite was the marshmallow.

Although the food is clearly exceptional here, what really makes this restaurant stand out is the service. There is a main server who describes the menu and takes your order. There were at least 2 or 3 other servers who brought dishes out, supplied bread if you wanted it, cleared plates. One gentleman handled all of the prawn preparations. The sommelier suggested an insanely good red wine from Umbria, which was decanted at the table, and he continued to keep the glasses filled throughout the night (no one else touched the wine, and our glasses were never empty). Service was professional, subtle and at a level I've personally never experienced.

This is definitely a place to go for special occasions and I'd love to be able to try the chef's tasting menu some day-just leave yourself in his capable hands. There is an option to have a wine pairing with all of the tasting menus (2 oz pours of each wine) and they also have a dessert tasting menu.

Paul Taylor Dance Company

This venerable modern dance company was in New York when I was there on a business trip. They were performing at City Center, which is just one block north of the hotel that my company puts us up in, so I took advantage to see them perform. I didn't know much about the company, but Paul Taylor is one of the founders of modern dance in America. He's still running the company and creating pieces for them. The program I saw consisted of Company B, Phantasmagoria and Promethean Fire. The company uses the same three people to design costumes, sets and lighting for all of their pieces.

The first piece was set to music by the Andrews Sisters and the costumes had a war-time look and feel to them. The dance was composed of various vignettes that captured that mood of each of the songs, ranging from fun to melancholy to sexy. The second piece was set to Renaissance music, with a mish-mash of costumes from peasants to a nun to an Irish step dancer and an East Indian Adam and Eve. Again, the piece was a series of vignettes although in this case the various odd and mismatched characters went in and out of each other's stories. This piece had a lot of humour in it, which was a nice change of pace from so much of modern dance.

Up to this point in the evening, I had been enjoying the performance and the strong dancers but not overly impressed. The final piece blew me away. The music was Bach, starting with the Toccata and Fugue, the preferred theme of all organ-playing villains everywhere. The costumes were black full length camisole suits with a silver chevron pattern and the stage was set with dark backdrop and dark floors. The music is enough to make you kind of sit up and take notice, but as soon as the dancers started moving, you could feel the entire audience become electrified. This was one of the most remarkably emotional dance pieces I've ever seen. And I'm not the only one who felt this way, as I saw another woman wiping her eyes after wards. This piece also has some of the most beautiful corps patterns I've ever seen in modern dance (which is not much known for choreographing for a group like that). This is one of those pieces of performance that makes me glad to be alive and to be able to experience it.

At the end of the evening, Mr. Taylor came out and took the stage with his dancers to bow to the audience.

Dining in New York

I was in New York for a short business trip and of course we took advantage to try a few new restaurants. Our first location was Geisha, on 61st between Madison and Park. The food is Japanese. I'm not a sushi fan, so I stuck to cooked items. I started with lobster dumplings and shrimp lollipops, both quite good. My main was a salmon in miso, perfectly cooked. Dessert was a chocolate cake with a delicious ginger-y sauce and tiny dollops of ice cream along with some fresh oolong tea.

Our second evening, we had booked a table at OTTO Enoteca, one of Mario Batali's places. It's one of his many restaurants in NY and located at the end of Fifth Ave. where it meets with Washington Square Park. This is a casual pizza and pasta restaurant, with a large bar area in front and characteristically loud dining room. Because we had a pretty big group (6 people) we decided to order a bunch of things and share. We started with the sformato di parmigiano, which is basically a mini parmesan souffle, but that doesn't begin to describe it. It's the most delicate, creamy, airy cheesy thing you'll ever taste. For pastas, we did the short rib with tomato sauce and a special agnolotti with fennel seed and a cream sauce. The short rib was very good, but the agnolotti was exceptional, with a very light fennel aroma. Our pizzas were the funghi and taleggio, prosciutto arugula, and the special with lamb. My favourite of these was the funghi (of course) but the prosciutto was also very good. The special thing about the pizzas is the crust. Very very thin, but crisp all the way through, even at the points of each triangular slice, which tend to flop over on a thin pizza. For dessert, I had the Black and White, which was mint chocolate chip gelato, creme fraiche gelato, hazelnuts and chocolate and caramel sauce. Apparently this is the favourite dessert in the house, because after I got it, I realized the wait staff had been bringing these out of the kitchen past our table all night. Wine was a delicious Tuscan recommended by the sommelier. We were well stuffed by the time we left, so we walked back to our hotel at 56th Street via 5th Ave., taking in all the wonderful sights of NY along the way (Flat Iron building, Madison Square Park, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, etc.).

For lunch on the 2nd full day, I joined a colleague at the Burger Joint in the Parker Meridien where we were staying. This is an odd little place. The hotel itself is very European chic. The burger place is tucked around the corner, a little room covered in plywood with patron's graffiti all over it, cash only and it carries only burgers, fries and sodas. The burgers are exceptionally juicy and the fries are amazing. The place was packed, we barely grabbed ourselves a couple of stools, and by the time we left, the line to get in was around the corner and almost to the hotel lobby.

My final meal had to be a relatively quick one, since I was seeing a performance at City Center, so I grabbed a seat at the bar at Rue 57 (at 6th Ave.). They have a nice cocktail menu, food leans towards French bistro fare, and service is friendly. The bar was a popular place it seems for the after work crowd, grabbing a beer with their buddies before hopping on a train to go home.

San Francisco Ballet

I went to a performance of San Francisco Ballet last Friday with my mom. Tickets here are expensive, so we were up in the first balcony. The program consisted of 3 ballets performed to Tchaikovsky's music. The first piece was Balanchine's Theme and Variations. This is a notoriously difficult piece. Frances Chung and Taras Domitro were in the lead roles and they handled the difficult and very fast steps admirably.

The second piece was Kenneth MacMillan's Winter Dreams. I love MacMillan's choreography in Romeo and Juliet. This was a premiere of this piece at SFB. The story is based on Chekov's "Three Sisters". The program didn't give a lot of detailed information on who all the characters were, even though they were all listed by cast in the program. It would've been nice to get some kind of summary for those of us who are not so versed in Russian theatre. The role of the sisters were performed by Sofiane Sylve, Maria Kochetkova and Lorena Feijoo. The ballet did have a very strong theatrical feel to it and even without knowing the story, you could see that this was a family of people and they were not a happy bunch. The heart of the story is sister Masha and Sofiane Sylve was exceptional in the role. This ballet was performed on a dark floor with very low lighting, which unfortunately made the men, in their dark costumes, very difficult to see from our seats.

The final piece was a new one by SFB's Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson. This piece was lighter, brighter and a lot of fun. It's divided into 3 sections, based on Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, with a slower middle section. Sarah Van Patten was wonderful in this part, with her two partners, Tilt Helimets and Vito Mazzeo. The costumes in this piece were beautiful.

dineLA Feburary 2011

dineLA happened again right around my birthday!  This round I visited two new places and revisited a favourite with a new chef and menu.

The first new place is Cleo at the Redbury Hotel.  This is another SBE property.  The hotel is located at Hollywood and Vine, in an area that doesn't look like a promising spot for a hip hotel.  The building is a red painted brick building.  The restaurant is on the street level.  The food is Mediterranean and the decor is very dramatic. The dineLA menu starts with your choice of 2 mezzes, including dips, veggies roasted in their wood burning oven or what they call 'delicacies'. We tried the babaganoush and muhammara dips, roasted cauliflower with vadouvan spice and cashews, and shrimp briouats (like spanikopita but with shrimp filling).  Warm toasty flatbread comes with the mezzes. The babaganoush was some of the best I've had, with a smoky flavour. Muhammara is a red bell pepper dip with pomegranate and was also delicious. I'm not a big bell pepper fan, but the combination worked. Vadouvan is a french version of curry, and it added a wonderful spice flavour to the roasted cauliflower and cashews. The briouats were delicious with its flaky filo crust and wonderful shrimp filling. My main dish was a daurade(black cod) with cumin. The fish was broiled with the skin on so that it was flaky and crisp. We tried two desserts, the sticky toffee pudding and a milk chocolate bar with orangesicle cream.  While the toffee pudding was good, the chocolate-orangesicle cream was unusual and delicious. Cocktails are expensive here, as they are at all SBE properties, but they are fresh and unique and you can taste the quality of the ingredients. By the time we left, the small bar was packed and the restaurant had a noisy buzz. I'd definitely come here again and it would be fun with a big group of people to share a bunch of mezzes.

The second restaurant was First & Hope, which I have been to twice before, but they have just got a new chef and a retooled menu. Some of the southern influenced dishes remain, but the menu is now organized more traditionally and there are some lighter fare. I had the oyster-brie soup to start. The soup comes with a poached egg in the middle and the soup was creamy and deeply flavourful (how could it not with both oyster and brie!) and the egg added a wonderful texture. My main was trout, which came whole (yay! really the only way to eat a small fish) and butterflied. It was done to perfection, just cooked through and almost melt in your mouth tender. It came with a topping of cranberry, pine-nuts and spinach (or it could be another similar green, I don't really eat those much). The sourness of the cranberry was a perfect foil to the tender fish and made the spinach go down much easier. We tried all three of the desserts. My dining companions loved the apple crisp but I preferred the chocolate bread pudding which was paired with a bourbon sauce. Overall I'd say the desserts were the weakest part of this meal. The ambiance at this restaurant is very elegant with a 30's or 40's feel and the service staff are all dressed to match. The location is perfect for dinner before or after a show at Walt Disney Concert Hall or any of the venues at the Music Center.

My third restaurant was XIV on Sunset. I'd been here for happy hour on their outdoor deck but hadn't been for dinner. This was the highest end of the restaurants I visited this week. The decor is French-ish but in a very eclectic way, with mismatched chairs, chandeliers and sheer drapes. The service, as at most of the SBE venues, is very well-trained, friendly and knowledgeable. I started with the butternut squash soup. Wow, so good! The plate comes with spiced marshmallow, peanuts and apples on the plate and the waiter pours the soup in from a small carafe. The add-ins really add a wonderful texture to the creamy sweet soup. My main was king crab risotto. It came with a whole half of the crab leg and a foamy lemon emulsion with fresh pea pods and herbs adding a wonderful fresh bite. This was probably my favourite dish of the week, the flavours were so wonderful and surprising together. My dessert was bourbon donuts with banana ice cream. The donuts came as small donut holes with a glaze, and they were delicious with the ice cream. This is an expensive restaurant and I'm not sure I would be able to come here on my own dime much, but that's the beauty of dineLA.

Brazilian and Russian dance

Over the last couple of weeks, I've seen two very different dance performances, but both were wonderful. The first was at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, which is changing its name to honour its biggest patron. The program was Reflections, bringing together 6 ballerinas who trained with the Bolshoi Academy.  A few of them are now with other dance companies, while the rest perform with the Bolshoi.  The best known of these are Natalia Osipova, Polina Semionova and Maria Kochetkova. Four men who also trained with the Bolshoi joined them, including Ivan Vasiliev, the best known of the four.  Each of the women was able to choose a contemporary choreographer to work with on creating a new piece. The evening was completed with Remansos by Nacho Duato, Pas de Trois by Balanchine and a wonderful new piece by Mauro Bigonzetti. This program made for a very long evening.

I had different reactions to the various premieres, some I loved, others were not so strong, but the dancing was of such a high calibre by every dancer that it took your breath away. They have such complete and total control over their bodies that they make every move look easy and fluid. One of my favourite moments, though, came from Vasiliev. The men's roles in the program were mostly supporting, but he danced in the Pas de Trois, and when it came time for his solo passes, he brought such amazing elevation, it was like gravity had no pull on him. Of course, the audience went wild! He made sure that in this female-centric show he brought some attention to what strong male dancing can be.

And then for something completely different, Grupo Corpo, a Brazilian modern dance company came to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I really didn't know what to expect from this group. I had read good things about them, and I figured, there would be at least some good Brazilian music.  Well they were a wonderful surprise. Their dancing is completely unique, absolutely Brazilian and not like any modern style I've seen. There was very little posing or falling, and the dancers were almost in constant motion. Groups would form out of the same 3 or 4 people on a stage just by changing who was doing the same choreography, and dancers came in and out of groups simply by changing what they were dancing. The dancing was very light and airy, not grounded and earthbound, with lots of turning, jumping, some martial arts-like movements mixed with very balletic steps. The costumes were very simple and body-revealing, and the stage was mostly set with lighting (changing colours in one piece, dramatic use of spotlights in the other).

They performed two pieces, both very compelling, but there was a strong similarity to both pieces which made me wonder about how different their various pieces might be.

The audience was filled with Brazilians. There was a lot of chatter in Portuguese during the interval and the audience definitely had a distinctive dress code, very different from the usual ballet crowd!

Killer onion rings!

Earlier this week, I went to The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with BDA, a design firm we are working with (and where I actually worked before coming to WB).  The evening started at the Library Bar, which is a dark little room off of the Hollywood Blvd. entrance. This is not a place to go if you are in a hurry for a drink. Luckily, we were there on the early side. There are no drink menus. You tell the bartender what you like (either flavours or preferred drinks) and he mixes something up for you, which takes some time. In addition to the usual mix of liquors, the bar top is lined with all kinds of fresh herbs and various ingredients from the local farmer's market. The room is black and silver, with two small seating areas.

After our drinks, we needed some sustenance. We first headed to the Tropicana, which is the pool side bar, but it was a little chilly. We'll have to check this place out when it gets warmer. On the way to the Tropicana, we had passed 25 degrees, so we headed back there. This is a diner-y place for drinks, burgers and the like. The walls are covered with red velvet flocked wall paper and leather booths line the back. Burgers can be custom made, with any of 3 patties (sirloin, turkey, veggie), a long list of artisanal cheeses, toppings and sauces. I had a sirloin with a goat milk gouda from California. We also ordered onion rings, regular french fries and sweet potato fries for the table.  The sweet potato fries were quite good, and the burger was delicious with that cheese, but the onion rings were insane! The batter was flaky and crisp with a definite bite, which was from cayenne pepper. We all agreed these may be the best onion rings we've ever had! I only got through about half my burger so I'm looking forward to leftovers this weekend!

Hair!

A tour company of this show is playing at the Pantages this month. What a fun show! And so much more contemporary than I imagined. I pictured a fun show with hippies and cool music, which this was. However, the show was also surprisingly relevant. Yesterday was the memorial service in Tucson for the victims of the mass shooting. I had been listening to President Obama's speech just before dinner. The very first song, Age of Aquarius, starts by predicting a time of peace and love. Apparently we're still waiting for that time. The things that made Hair! shocking in 1967 (drugs, sex, nudity, irreverence towards the flag, etc.) may not be so shocking to us. People can wear their hair at any length now, but there's always something that young kids are wearing that leads their elders to despair. And we may not have the draft anymore, but there are still young people who are in the military because they have very few choices in life who are fighting wars in strange and far away places.

The performers come off the stage and into the audience a lot throughout the show, sometimes talking to audience members or dancing with them.  The Pantages is a huge theatre, so the effect of this is more muted than if we had been in a smaller theatre (for example similar to my experience at Fela! in New York in October). Many of the people in the audience looked like they could have been around to see the original show back in the late 60s. At the end of the show, which ends with the refrain Let The Sunshine In, when the lights come back for the cast to take their bows, they play the refrain over and over again and wave the audience onto the stage and the entire stage fills up with people dancing. Those of us in the audience sang along swaying from side to side. A really amazing experience.