NYC Christmas

I had a week back from Thanksgiving and then headed to NY for a project. It was cold and we had a packed schedule, but we did get to Eataly again (yum) and Trattoria del'Arte (also yum) and Carnegie Deli (excellent open face beef with gravy). Saw Neal Degrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy in the hotel bar having drinks in tuxes, and was too nervous to go up to them. Sigh. I was able to squeeze in a stroll to see some of the decorations along 5th Ave as well as the Rockefeller Ctr tree.

Photos here.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Photos from New York

Here are the photos I took during the trip.

The Metropolitan Museum

Saturday was my last full day in the city.  I checked out of the hotel, left my luggage with the bag captain and hitched a cab to the Upper Eastside.  I saw on the web that the Met had an interesting sculpture on the roof made of bamboo and that you could line up for tickets to climb up.  This was the last weekend before they started taking the sculpture down.  When I got to the museum, the place was packed.  I asked about where to line up for the roof sculpture and they pointed me to another exit.  After wandering around trying to figure out what they were talking about, I found the wheelchair entrance with a bit of a line of people.  I was able to get one of the last tickets (yay!) and some time to check out a few other exhibits.  The first place I headed was the Khubilai Khan exhibit.  They had some beautiful examples of pottery, textiles, paintings and many other decorative objects.  I focused mainly on the decorative objects, I didn't have the energy to focus on the paintings.  In many of the pieces on exhibit, I learned about how the art during this period brought together artistic styles and techniques from all corners of the Mongol empire.  They were also very open to just about any religion, which also influenced the art.

From the Khan exhibit, I headed up to the roof to check out this sculpture that I was going to be walking on.  It was stunning and huge!  Walking underneath it was like being in a dry bamboo forest (but with climbing rope scattered throughout).  A lot of people were up on the roof having a drink, taking pictures of the sculpture, looking at the colourful foliage in Central Park.  I would be up on the sculpture in a couple of hours!

I took a brief break in the cafe in the American Wing.  This is one of my favourite places in the museum.  I just love the light in here and the way it shines on the various sculptures.

The tour of the Big Bambu sculpture met downstairs.  While I was waiting for it to start, I noticed a familiar face taking her kids to the museum.  Turns out it was Marcia Gay Harden! 

In order to walk on the sculpture, they required that we leave our belongings in lockers (so that nothing could accidentally drop on someone below).  We got to walk up the bamboo paths, on this amazing structure that was just sitting on the roof, not bolted down, creating this wave-like form, with various sizes of poles tied together with different colours of climbing rope.  By the time we were at the top, we were 50 ft above the roof of the Met, looking out over the Park and across at the Penthouses surrounding it.  The bamboo underneath our feet flexed as we walked.  The rock climbers who worked on the structure created a place for a beer cooler, places for bamboo lounge chairs and a small bamboo wind chime.  It was an amazing feeling being up there!  The wisteria on the roof's trellis had started growing up the bamboo.  It was an incredible feeling to be within and a part of this beautiful artwork, knowing that it was going to be gone within a few weeks!

After I got back to the hotel, picked up my bags and headed to Wilson and Ming's coop, I was pretty tired.  Instead of heading to the theatre (to see Cedar Lake at the Joyce) I decided I needed a Shake Shack burger and fries and a frozen custard.  Plus, it would give me a chance to reexamine the light sculptures in Madison Square Park.  It was a fitting way to end a busy week.

Lincoln Center, MAD, and Fela!

On Friday, I had only a few meetings, so I planned a tour of Lincoln Center.  The whole place has been renovated by Diller Scofidio+Renfro with a new fountain in the plaza and a new 'grassy knoll' on the 65th Street side.  The tour guide was an older gentleman with a very deep and dramatic bass voice.  He took us through David Kock theatre, where NYC Opera was doing a rehearsal for Intermezzo by Strauss.  There was no music, just people running around a stage with props.  In the Met Opera House, the Opera was rehearsing Carmen with full costumes and sets.  We were only allowed into the Director's box, but from there we could see and hear everything.  That place is huge!  The final venue we toured is Avery Fisher Hall, where the Philharmonic performs.  This venue was empty so we sat in there as our guide told us a little about the place.  Apparently Avery Fisher paid to have the whole thing taken down and rebuilt shortly after it opened because that was the only way to fix the sound problems.  They really don't make rich people like they used to, do they?

From Lincoln Center, I headed to MAD, the Museum of Art and Design.  I had read about the building that this museum is in in the New York Times.  The building now looks like it says 'HI' on the top. The museum was between exhibits and had only a jewelry show and a pottery show, but their open studio housed Ruth Marshall, who knits cat skins.  She has some small knitted wild cat skins on display (ocelot, etc) and is working on a tiger.  Her knitted skins are based on actual skins in the Natural History Museum collection.  The tiger is from a female from a zoo who was donated to the museum upon her death.  The knit work is beautiful (colour work, shaping, etc) and it was cool to talk to her in person about her project.

Since I was in Columbus Circle, I decided to have lunch at Bouchon Bakery in Time Warner Center.  I had their short rib sliders at the bar and a cookie with ice cream.

After lunch, I strolled down to Times Square to see what was happening at the TKTS booth.  It sure has expanded since the 90s when I visited D while he was at Columbia and we saw Metamorphosis with Baryshnikov!  The line was quite long, and the booth is now several windows wide and located under the glowing red stairs near the Father Duffy statue.  I was able to get a seat for Fela!, a musical based on the life of Fela Kuti.  He invented afrobeat music, but I had heard that the dancing, choreographed by Bill T. Jones was phenomenal.  I went back to my hotel for room service dinner of french onion soup (and the remainder of the cookie from lunch) and a bit of a rest.  I got to the theatre as they were letting the line in.  The crowd was heavily African-American and the theatre was plastered all over with hand painted signs to give it some atmosphere.  My seat was in the very first row!  The cast is all black, and the performer who plays Fela! is pretty much on stage the entire time.  He talks to the crowd as if we are all seeing one of his shows in Fela's nightclub in Nigeria.  The music is amazing of course, but the dancing was phenomenal and it was so cool to see it so close up.  I could have reached out and touched some of the dancer's feet.  The show includes a lot of audience participation and the dancers often move into the aisles as they are singing and dancing.

Broadway, Dance and Food

I think the title pretty much covered the evening activities during the week.  Our days were packed solid with meetings, and there were a couple of business meetings over dinner, but I made an effort to fill the rest of the evenings with seeing live performance. Our offices here are very well located for access to Broadway and City Center.

One of my evening meals included drinks and dinner at Rue 57 at the bar.  The bolognese sauce was delish and I should have take some back to the hotel, because I wasn't very hungry during east coast dinner time, but got hungry later, during west coast dinner time.

A second evening meal was at Mike's Bistro, a kosher restaurant on the Upper West Side for a group dinner that included Warner Bros., our design firms, ADI from NY and BDA from Los Angeles, our contractors, and MEP engineers.  The food was excellent, great service, fun company.  After dinner, a few of us stopped at a nearby Irish pub, P.D. O'Hurley, for a drink.  Pretty authentic too, the bartenders all had real Irish accents.  The food being brought out to fellow patrons smelled really good!

On the third evening, Holly and I went to see Billy Elliott on Broadway.  We got tickets at the box office in the front row of the mezzanine.  We had a little time to kill before the show (but not enough for dinner) so we headed to Times Square.  A couple of years ago, the city blocked off a chunk of street for pedestrians and people were hanging out all staring at the side of a building and waving.  Turns out one of the stores had a camera mounted pointing to the crowd, and people were waving at themselves, which seems like a pretty universal human response to seeing yourself projected on a large screen.  The show itself was great, the Billy I saw (Joseph Harrington) was exceptionally talented (I suspect all of the rotating Billy's are).  Apparently there is a special 'camp' for the various Billy candidates because they need to know ballet, tap, singing and acting, plus be able to speak in a Geordie (or northern English) accent.  After the show, the audience is let out at the back near the stage doors and there were several pre-teen girls waiting for Billy to come out, which he did and signed autographs and had pictures taken with girls and parents alike!  After the show, Holly's brother met up with us (he was at a dinner nearby) and we found a Greek restaurantm, Uncle Nick's, that Holly had been to before and enjoyed.  They were clearly getting ready to closed but there were some 15 to 20 staffers milling about.  They agreed to serve us so we ordered moussaka, pastitsio, flaming cheese and a tray of dips.  The food was excellent, we scarfed it down and Holly's brother had leftovers to take home.

By Thursday, I was exhausted, and I suspect our design team was as well.  We wrapped a little earlier, and I spent some time sitting under the Columbus statue at Columbus Circle.  We watched high school kids milling about.  We had a drinks meeting with our contractor and one of our subtenant contacts at Whiskey Park.  After a little bit of chit chat, I headed back to my hotel.  The day before Holly's brother told us the Thai restaurant, Topaz Thai, near the hotel was quite good, so I got in line and had myself a delicious plate of pad thai with seafood, plus creamy thai iced tea.  The restaurant was tiny and packed, with a line out the door.  The service was fast and pleasant and I paid and was out of there in plenty of time to walk down to the next block to see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at City Center. I've seen the touring company in LA, but I loved this performance even more.  I thought the dancers were superb and I love his choreography.  And odd thing happened just as the house lights dimmed though.  I was in the rear mezzanine, and there was a major stampede of people up in the rafters heading for empty seats in the front of the mezzanine.  They made a major racket and it was really unpleasant.

Sunday in New York

Today I took it easy in the morning as my knee was bothering me (probably a consequence of too much walking and my calf muscle still being weak from the injury in June). Wilson and Ming were heading home to Long Island, so I hung out while they got themselves packed up. I then headed to the Parker Meridien where I would be staying during the week. After a quick burger at the Parker's burger joint (a weird little shack like corner of the hotel serving only burgers and fries and taking cash only), I headed to MOMA. They have a show of Abstract Expressionism in New York. Turns out MOMA was kind of the epicenter of this art movement. This is not one of my favourite kinds of modern art, but there were some amazing pieces by Jackson Pollack, Philip Guston, Barnet Newman, and many others. The audio tour is free at MOMA and that always adds something to the experience, especially when viewing less familiar pieces. The sculpture garden had some new pieces, including a wishing tree by Yoko Ono which drew a lot of attention as participants could write a wish on a tag and add it to the tree. The second floor atrium featured a Kara Walker piece ("Gone...") which I've seen before. Another show that drew my attention was one called Small Scale, Big Change which showed several projects by architects designing to improve impoverished urban environments. Many of the projects were residences (either houses or apartments or rehabilitation of existing buildings) but there were also schools and community centers. Not only was the story of each project interesting, but the displays of models, drawings and other documents really added to the understanding of each project. This was one of those wonderful surprises that I love stumbling on when I visit New York museums.

Before heading back to the hotel, I took a quick stroll through the permanent painting collection and spent some time with Monet's Waterlilies. The audio tour talked about how these paintings were viewed with very little appreciation at the time they were created, but that a curator at MOMA discovered them in the 50s during the time when Abstract Expressionism was in full bloom in NY and felt a connection between Monet's works and the current art. Who knew that the Waterlilies were pre-Abstract Expressionist! I loved that the museum made that connection for me!

After MOMA, I headed back to the hotel and rested (including a quick nap). I waited for Lalida, who is our main contact at DCE in Burbank, to arrive from the airport so we could go out for dinner. The hotel recommended Trattoria dell'Arte which is right around the corner. As we walked there, I realized that we are literally next to Carnegie Hall! The restaurant was wonderful. Warm and friendly service, delicious food, and amazing desserts. We started with burratas (huge pieces!), tried two different pasta dishes (bolognese and a cacio e pepe) and cannoli and tiramisu. Everything tasted good and the cannoli really was the best I've ever had.

Tomorrow is the start of a busy week of work.

New York City

As part of a large project to relocate part of DC Entertainment to Burbank, a group of us are travelling to DC's offices in New York to conduct programming interviews. I wasn't about to let a trip to NY pass without some personal time, so I tagged on a weekend before and a Saturday after the official business.

I arrived on Friday, coincidentally around the same time that Wilson and Ming were returning from a trip to China to show off their 5 month old daughter Penelope to Ming's family. I had a set of keys to their coop in Chelsea so I was waiting for them when they got in. We ordered in Chinese take out and I got to meet Penelope who is just adorable, and catch up with Wilson and Ming.

On Saturday, I headed to the West Village to a restaurant called 'ino that was recommended to me by a friend who had just been to the city. I had a delicious sausage, egg and fontina panino washed down with capuccino.

After brunch, I walked east towards Washington Square Park, which was packed with people since it was a beautiful warm fall day. There were all kinds of performers in the park including an a capella quartet, a violinist standing in the middle of the dry fountain, a piano player with her instrument on rolling carts and with the case open to show the hammers and strings, and a trumpet player among the trees. An artist was painting with coloured sand poured onto the pavement with his hand.

From the park, I headed north to the Morgan Library. Although the permanent collection was closed for renovation, they had a couple of wonderful shows. The first was a small show of Degas drawings and sketches, including several studies made for paintings. The subjects included dancers, horses and people, and several of the drawings included water colour. The second show was of black and white Lichtensteins. I'd only ever seen his full colour works, which look like they are machine printed. The black and whites are mostly using graphite, pencil and other similar materials. They also show how he tried various methods to create the look of the Benday dots that are his trademark. Not all the techniques worked, but you can see smudges and other mistakes. The cartoonish quality of the drawings are somehow transformed by the lack of colour. These two shows made me appreciate the way that drawings and use of pencil and graphite really can reveal an artist at work. The third show at the Morgan was of Mark Twain documents, which were interesting historically, but although the writings are there for you to read, I ended up mostly reading the captions, which somehow made me feel like I was reading a history book.

From the Morgan I headed back to 5th Avenue and up to Rockefeller Center. The skating rink was in operation, and the area was packed with people. A newly married couple were getting their picture taken in front of the sign. After hanging out with the crowds for a bit, I walked over to 6th Ave. for the long walk back to Chelsea.

For dinner, Wilson suggested checking out Eataly, which is a new Italian marketplace and restaurant complex by Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich. The place was packed with lines everywhere. It's divided into sections like meats, fish, pastas, cheeses, and each section has its own restaurant. The seafood restaurant seemed to have the most reasonable wait time, so we put our names in. Half hour later, we got our table. We started with the crudo plate, which is basically Italian sashimi. The fish being offered were fluke, skipjack and sea trout and I thought the skipjack was incredibly tasty. I'm not a huge raw fish fan but these pieces were so fresh you could practically taste the ocean in them. My entree was a roasted bronzino. The fish came whole with the skin just opened up in the middle. Again, unbelievably fresh and delicious for a very simply prepared dish. Dessert for me was pistachio and hazelnut gelato, again amazingly good, strong nut flavours and wonderfully creamy. The lines here would be daunting for a regular visit (and the market prices are very high) but this was a wonderfully delicious and unique dining experience.

Last day in New York

My day today is mostly at our New York offices. It's always a treat to see our folks here and we have a lot of work going on so they showed me around. After work, I met with a friend back in Chelsea at Bar Stuzzichini. Nice little place for a drink and during happy hour (from 4:30p to 6:30 weekdays) they offer one little plate for each drink ordered. The selection includes delicious little meatballs, sheep cheese, rice balls. I was stuffed from lunch so this made for a nice light meal.

Old paintings and new dance

Today started with a visit to the Met where I met up with Lilian. Among other things, they have a Vermeer painting on loan from the Rijksmuseum and are making a show around it. Since there are so few Vermeers out there, I'll take whatever opportunity to see one. The audio tour does a nice job of giving some background. The painting, The Milkmaid, is surrounded by other work by Vermeer (owned by the Met) and other works by contemporaries of Vermeer. It's really interesting to see not just his evolution as a painter but also how he and his fellow painters were working through issues at the same time (and learning from each other). The use of light and depth in the paintings is always amazing to me.

After our taste of 17th century Dutch, we headed to the roof to have a look at the sculpture up there. It's a piece by Roxy Paine, who did a similar sculpture in Madison Square Park a few years ago (which I took a picture of). He creates branching metal forms that appear to grow out of the roof. This piece is low and long and we can walk in and around the branches (unlike the one in the park which was more compact but very tall). The early pack of runners were starting to come into Central Park (for the NYC Marathon) and we could hear the cheering down below. My goodness, those runners were really fast! Amazing after 26 miles.

After our roof foray, we decided to explore the American Wing via a guided tour. They recently renovated this area and the courtyard is exceptional. It's one of my favourite places in the museum. They have also installed a series of period rooms starting with the 17th century and it was quite interesting to see these. A great deal of the art is set up in glass boxes in library like rows. Picture frames, portraits (Washington by Gilbert Stuart! Madame X by Sargent!), furniture, grandfather clocks, and all presented in a much more casual way than you normally see with such treasures.

After lunch, Lilian had to head home and I killed some time checking out items in the wing that had an audio guide symbol. Then it was time to catch a bus for City Center. I didn't have coins and the bus driver was kind enough to let me stay on (who says New Yorkers are rude?). Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company was performing. The review of their Thursday performance was not so good but this was a different program. I love City Center because it's so small and compact. From my seat near the front of the first balcony it felt like I was on the stage with the dancers. The company draws dancers from many different places and I was interested to see that Melissa Barak was with them. She used to dance with NYCB and is now with the LA Ballet. Wendy Whelan is also part of the company and it was a real treat to watch her in such close quarters. She is one of the 'elders' of ballet and it was a joy to see her dancing and more than holding her own with much younger partners. The first piece was to music by Georgi Ligeti which did not appeal to me and I found this makes it hard for me to enjoy the dancing. I loved the second piece and thought the 2 dancers were absolutely beautiful, fluid and instinctive. The third piece was also great, although I'm not sure what the deal was with the cones floating in the air above the dancers. The costumes by Francisco Costa, designer with Calvin Klein, were quite interesting. There was a lot of very unusual and beautiful partnering but maybe my favourite part of this ballet was the sequence for the men only.

Both the Boston program and the City Center program had a piece danced to music by Arvo Part. Somehow this Estonian composer has become the darling of contemporary choreographers. I can see why, the music is haunting, lyrical and beautiful. The Boston piece was choreographed by Helen Pickett and the NY piece by Lightfoot Leon. I believe there was another ballet I saw in the last few months danced to Part's music as well, I'll have to try and remember what that was. 'Spiegel im Spiegel' seems to be the piece that is drawing the dance makers.

Dinner tonight was at a Lebanese place called Ilili. The food is an upscale take on Lebanese and was delicious. They have a kibbeh in yogurt soup which really makes the meat moist and the duck kabob was so rich and flavourful. Dessert was essmalieh, which is shredded filo with creamy filling and an orange blossom syrup and tasted like eating crunchy flowers!

Balmy day in NYC

It was really warm for much of the day today and I had a pretty packed agenda. I started in the morning at the Gaynor Minden showroom. I wear their pointe shoes, but wanted to see if they could help me tweak the fit. It turned out to be really quick, just needed softer shanks. I'm excited to try these shoes at home. Next was a visit to High Line Park. This is a new redevelopment of an old train track into a public garden and park. It's elevated and a really interesting way of reinventing something that was otherwise probably a bit of an eyesore. The track goes through or under a couple of buildings, including the Standard Hotel which has developed a reputation as a place for voyeurs (in the park at night) and exhibitionists (in a hotel room overlooking the park with the drapes open and the lights on). There are benches and wooden lounge chairs scattered throughout the park, and at one area, the designers have built in a theatre style seating area for park goers to watch the activity on 10th street, below. The plantings along the park appear to change from one end to the next, however I'm not much of a plant person so I'm not sure what the themes are. It being late fall, it was mostly in decay stage, although some hardy plants were still showing off.

My next stop was International Center of Photography, located in mid-town, not far from where Ming and Wilson used to live. They are presenting a show called 'Dress Codes' which seemed like it would be interesting. The area appears to be mostly a business district and was very quiet today. The show was a bit disappointing however. I was hoping for some interesting takes on fashion, clothing and photography however I found the pieces in the show to be too much about ideas and not enough about emotions. The one piece I found intriguing was a series of photos of an elderly Moroccan woman who showed how she smuggled clothing across borders by wearing them in layers under her clothes. There's nothing wrong with art meant to express ideas, but very few of the pieces brought out any kind of visceral reaction in me. The museum includes both still and video images in their shows.

My final stop of the day was at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. This museum is in the Bowery and the neighbourhood is really interesting. Lots of high fashion shops and smaller boutique-y places with street vendors all around. The museum is showing pieces by Urs Fischer who was profiled in the New Yorker, where I learned about it. I found this show much more appealing. The artist pretty much took over the museum (3 floors of large gallery spaces). Each floor had a different feeling. The art had a certain obsessive quality to it, which is something I am always drawn to. Each gallery had a very different feel from the others and it was amazing to consider it all came out of the brain of one guy. The museum offers free iPod tours, which is a nice way to give viewers additional information and helps in the appreciation of the pieces.

I was pretty pooped at this point and my feet were ready for a rest. One of the big problems with living in LA is that there are so few opportunities to walk. I had a couple of hours of relaxation at Wilson and Ming's. For dinner, we headed to Bar Breton, near their place. I had a nice ham and cheese crepe (with a sunny side up egg in the middle) and we shared a mousse with rice crisps and fleur de sel. The traditional beverage with crepes is cider and I tried a delicious pear version. By the time we were done and heading home, it started to rain pretty hard. I had been thinking of heading down to the Village Halloween parade but decided that I didn't care enough to get wet in it.

Speaking of Halloween, all day I saw people in interesting outfits. Half the time, I wasn't sure if it was their usual weird outfit or a costume for the holiday. Is that guy in camouflage for Halloween or is he really in the military? Was that guy a real doctor, or is he going to a costume party? I'm pretty sure the 3 zombie nurses and a few people with blood stains were for today only. The David Bowie standing outside the restaurant was pretty convincing, but the real guy is a lot older!

Boston Ballet and back to NYC

Yesterday started with another ballet class, different teacher and this time the intermediate/advanced class. It was much more intermediate than it was advanced, but a nice challenging and small class. The teachers here all are very aware if you are a new student. When I told him I was from LA, he immediately asked about LA Ballet. Before heading back, I stopped at Taste Coffee House for lunch and had a pretty good crepe. As I was getting bundled for the walk back, who comes walking down the street but The Flash! Grown man with full head-to-toe red outfit with the wings on the head and the fake muscles. Walking with a normally dressed man. Going to get something at the coffee shop. Very interesting.

In the afternoon, I took the subway into downtown to meet Julie for dinner and the ballet. We chose a place called Teatro the night before, based on menu (Italian) and mosaic ceiling. It's located right off the Common and very close to the theatre. We had a very nice dinner (prosciutto and fig appetizer, linguine with crab meat, tiramisu) and I had a wonderful chance to catch up with Julie one-on-one, which is a rare treat! The ballet was performing a repertory of Paquita, 2 new pieces and Jorma Elo's version of Carmen. Paquita is a ballet I've always wanted to see because the variations come up a lot but it's rarely performed. It's really a combination of groups of dances, duets, trios, eights, just strung together for entertainment. The story is fairly unimportant (something about a gypsy girl discovering she's noble). The dancing is very nice. The two premiers are beautiful, very different. The first is much more balletic, very romantic and sensual, completely captivating. The second is much more modern but also engrossing, beautifully done. I enjoyed the Carmen, although they did not provide a complete synopsis and so I kept getting confused as to who was who. The men's costumes looked like pajamas to me, and did not differentiate the 2 main characters very well. The music helped (it's a modern version based on and using themes from the original). The principal ballerina, Lorna Feijoo, was amazing. Some parts of the ballet are so beautifully choreographed and the company really did a great job with it. All in all, a great way to end my Boston visit.

Today, D and I took a walk with Boo through the local woods in the morning and then headed downtown. We planned to have lunch in Chinatown before he dropped me off at the train station. We found a new dim sum place to try (Winsor) and had a great lunch (they do a nice xiao long bao, soup dumplings).

When I got to NY, I walked out onto the street and immediately was struck by the energy in this place. Wilson and Ming live a few blocks from Penn station. Walking down 7th Ave to their loft I'm struck by the variety of people and activity happening in such a small area. There really is no city like this. Ming wasn't feeling well, so I had a nice dinner with Wilson and a chance to catch up. We headed out afterwards to the Shake Shack where I got a frozen custard for dessert. I've got a jam packed weekend here. The past week in Boston was a really great, quiet and relaxing time. I'm ready to jolt myself back to explore NY this weekend.

Walking NYC

If you are in NYC and want to explore it by foot, I suggest you look up Big Onion Walking Tours. This is a company that has walking tours of all different kinds of neighbourhoods in Manhattan. Their guides all have advanced degrees in history or related fields, and they design their own tours. I took a 2 hour tour of Harlem. Our guide brought photos with him showing the various people he was telling us about, or places as they looked 'in the day'. During our tour, he showed us sites of some less well known history, such as the offices of militant activist Marcus Garvey. We saw a street of older rundown homes, but another a few blocks away was lined with gorgeous brownstones. As with many working class neighbourhoods in NY, this area is being gentrified and much of it's history is in danger of being bought up by outsiders. As we started our tour, a local resident, seeing a pack of mostly white folks (2 young black women and I were the only minorities) led by a young white guy, immediately came up to us and started asking us questions. We later learned that it's not uncommon to find a realtor leading a bunch of potential investors through the area, and the gentleman was concerned that we were such a group.

NYC's smaller museums

I discovered a couple of small museums in NYC. The first one is the Tenement Museum. It's located in the Lower East Side, where tenement buildings are primarily located. Living in a tenement was a fact of life for just about any immigrant to NYC in the late 1800's. Every immigrant group has had a stronghold in this neighbourhood. The Museum is a reconstructed tenement and they use historically accurate objects, as well as research on actual families who have lived in the building where the Museum is located. Visits to the Museum are by scheduled tours which are thematically arranged around specific populations who have lived in the building over the years. The area is currently being gentrified (as is most of working class NYC). A wonderful ice cream shop, Il Laboratorio del Gelato, is right next door.

The second museum is the Noguchi Museum and Studio in Queen's, just on the other side of the East River. It's in a so-so neighbourhood across the street from a Costco. Isamu Noguchi was a Japanese American sculptor who is probably best known for his unique paper lanterns and iconic mid-century coffee table. The studio includes many of his rock sculptures in a serene little concrete building with a Japanese garden. When I was there, there was an interesting exhibit on his friendship and collaboration with Buckminster Fuller (of geodesic dome fame). The little shop inside has many mid-century classics and many books, and a fascinating video showing how the paper lanterns were made.

Chihuly at the New York Botanical Gardens

One of the highlights of my NYC trip was a visit to the New York Botanical Gardens to see the Chihuly glass art installations. The NYBG is located in the Bronx and is very easy to get to via a 20 minute train ride from Grand Central. Dale Chihuly is a glass artist based in Seattle. He has many pieces in art museums however he may be most popularly known for the glass flower ceiling installation at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The installation at the NYBG included Reeds, Chandeliers, Towers, Ikebana and balls scattered throughout the grounds but mainly inside the beautiful conservatory. This place is worth visiting all on its own, and the Chihulys were spectacular in this setting. Particularly noteworthy were the installations in the two lotus ponds. The lotus and waterlilies were just starting to bloom in late June and their bright pinks and oranges were accented by a profusion of glass shapes floating in and surrounding the ponds. Each pond had a different colour scheme, and each one also had a wooden canoe filled to the brim with various glass shapes. Some of the towers and chandeliers were made of hundreds of individual pieces. I've often felt that Chihuly's work could be a little over-the-top, however in this setting, they just fit.