There is Too Much To Do (A Lament)

And not enough time to fit it all in. I wish I could divide myself into five and go and have all these experiences and make it to everything. But if I started off with five Lizzles in New York, then it would rapidly expand to a hundred Lizzles, not just taking on a city or dotting a country, but covering the entire globe.

I'm slated to go to a Yankees game tomorrow night, and then I've committed myself to activities on Wednesday and (possibly, still thinking about it) Thursday. But look! There are so many other things to do! Inconveniently scheduled at the same time, hence the need for a multi-corporeal unified experience.

Welcome Back Mr MacDonald seems like an interesting film - I'd never heard of it before, but after reading a brief synopsis (a radio actress wants to change a small part of an otherwise perfectly acceptable script, which results in all the other members of the cast and crew wanting to change parts of it - on air - and a completely different drama) I really, really want to see it.

Or see Jeremy Chan, who plays the likes of Stravinsky, Schubert, and Arvo Part. I'm half in love with Part's music; not like Stravinksy and Schubart aren't masterful, but Part's music is so compelling. The 39 Steps is playing in Bryant Park tomorrow, there's Steindler's Thanks for a Good Morning (also something I hadn't heard of), Rufus Wainwright performing... There are opportunities for Saturday afternoon activities, like surf lessons(!) and jazz parties (among other things). Not to mention I still need to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Metropolitan and the Alhambra exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. Somebody kick me.

Thus, lament, oh lament, that I am just one singular person in this singular cacophonic slurry of lights, sights, sounds, breaths, and sighs.

Fireflies in Central Park

No, unfortunately there were no sightings of Nathan Fillion or Gina Torres, but something much more common.

Just as the title says, I saw fireflies in Central Park last night, little glowing lights flashing every now and then, hovering above the grass in the dusk. Sporadic, estival,, organic. Green, simple. Magical.

All's Well That Ends Well: Not an Unrelated Title

I actually did see All's Well That Ends Well on Friday with three friends, and it was a delight. Two of my friends had waited in line for four hours at the Shakespeare in the Park office, and graciously got two extra tickets, one for me and another for a friend of mine.

The show had very, very fine acting. It retained the Shakespearean acting, but some of the inflection and delivery on throwaway/transitional lines (i.e. something flippant a character might say as s/he was exiting) was very modern. Never having seen All's Well before, the delivery made the lines understandable. The ending, too, was ambiguous - did he really fall in love with her, or was he resigned to make the best of the situation? That's one for contemplation and discussion.

The best part was the setting. There was the stage, and just beyond it was a pond with rushes and algae covering  part of the lake. But the set of the play - a double collonnade hung with a few curtains - was beatufil. So simple, yet so elegant, and it was like living alfresco and having a constant view onto the lake.

And the very best part? Getting to see fireflies light up every now and then, either above me or over the water. Truly magical.

Living in NYC 101: Blisters

Living in New York City, there are many options for public transportion: subway, bus, taxi. But the cheapest, and by far the most frequent, way of transportation is walking. Most of the time, wearing comfortable shoes is not a viable option when working at an office, and so I've been wearing simple but appropriate shoes.

Which still thrash my feet. I walk almost a mile to work, and then any activities I do after work is just icing on the cake. Of metaphoric blisters. I didn't know that the skin on my toes could bubble so much, or how many layers of skin could be worn away.

The remedy, the blessed remedy - or at least source of relief - is the Duane Reade, the druggist which dots the street corners. There, I purchased for a grand total of $13 Dr Scholl's arch support insoles and heel cushions and the generic Duane Reade corn and bunion cushions. (I was in Sports Authority the other day and saw foot support for runners; would probably also help, not sure if they'd go inconspicuously with your 5-inch stilettos, and didn't check the price point.)

These things help. Help. Not cure. There is no cure to blisters, other than completely staying off your feet and letting your cells work their regenerative magic. Even then, when you do decide to walk outside again, the problem will just reappear.

I suppose alternating shoes, and thus the areas which are rubbed raw, should ease the concentration of pain on any one area, but that would be spreading the "joy" of blisters to all parts of the foot. Monday and Tuesday might be pain-free, but by the end of the week I don't know if I'd be able to walk...

En fin du compte, blisters constitute a ceaseless struggle with the City. To be continued?

Eh, Can't Move... Mermaid Parade and Bubble Battle on Coney Island

I took myself down to Coney Island today and met Melody and Vicki there to watch the annual Mermaid Parade. We arrived about 1:45 pm for a parade that was supposed to start at 2 pm, stood around until the parade actually started at 2:30, and then left around 3:45 - though there were many lovely mermaid costumes (and just as many less-lovely costumes), there are only so many mermaids I can handle in a day. And there wasn't any end of mermaids coming any time soon.

(Favorite mermaids, by the way, were probably a group called the Kung Fin Fighters. They were separated into red and yellow fin fish, and they did a dance routine to "Kung Foo Fighting"... I also really liked the costume of a  pregnant woman who dressed up as a clam: her round belly was a pearl! How cute.)

I went to a Jamaican bakery (the Golden Krust?) for the first time, and had a spinach pita pocket which was tasty, and then the three of us went out to the boardwalk.

At 6 pm, joy of joys, there was the bubble battle! Free mini-canisters of bubbles for those of us who didn't come prepared (me), and people shooting bubble guns at one another, and ginormous bubble wands and the entire boardwalk filled with effervescent, shimmering spheres of summer perfection. A sea of people were thronging beneath a sea of bubbles.

It was a good day :) -- topped off with bangers and mash from an Australian pub (Eight Mile Creek) eaten in a charming beer garden in Little Italy and a cupcake from a bakery just a few blocks down the way. Charming.

This One Has Pictures IV

Here are photos to catch you up a little on what I've been doing and seeing.

First night in the city, picture taken near the UN.

More sights from my first night in the city.

Grand Central Terminal. It reminds me a little of Big Bridges, and then surpasses it in so many ways.

Tram to Roosevelt Island.

Octagon Garden

...

This is as close as I got to Yo Yo Ma. 

Evening cityscape from the Central Park Reservoir. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art at night.

Me and K in the rain right before the Black Eyed Peas concert was cancelled.

Being incredibly gauche and eating Wafels & Dinges waffles in front of Bergdorf Goodman while it was raining. Across the way is FAO Schwarz and the Apple Cube.

Leaving Central Park on a rainy summer evening.

Other notable things I have seen: a stretch Hummer limo that was pink, a girl with bleach-blonde hair sticking out of two foot-long perpendicular planes in her head (think Rufio from Hook x7) and dyed to look similar to an owl-moth.

Um, I also met a street performer. Well, thanks to the religious connection. He plays the PVC pipes. Isn't that neat?

Also, my sister K and I were getting off the Times Square shuttle when the woman who had been sitting directly across from us asked if we were non-identical twins. Point to Lizzle for thinking that K and I look alike, and 10 points to Dumbledore and all additional parties that neither of us look our age.

"No Poem No Song" is a No Go

In my never-ending quest for cheap or free things to do around the city, I found that Club freeTime had a listing about a play called "No Poem No Song" by the Subjective Theater Company at the Kraine Theater down in the Novelito-East Village area. The playbill said it was a combination of Hindu storytelling, music, and theater; being interested in the culture that has arisen along with Hinduism, I was intrigued and so reserved some tickets.

The Kraine Theater is a tiny hole-in-the-wall venue, probably once a very deep and spacious apartment. Thus, it was intimate and probably held at most 60 patrons. It was like being transported to the old movie theaters of the 1950s, with red faux-velvet chairs and low-rise seating.  I settled into my seat next to my friend, excited and apprehensive for what I was about to see.

The play opened with some bongo-like music, and the spirit Eshu narrating about the gods and the beginning of the universe, bidding us to come follow after him into the story. An intriguing start, to be sure - all of a sudden, three revolving panels at the back of the stage opened, spitting forth about twelve more characters, and the stage was suddenly awash with people. With little further ado, the story jumped right into the middle, with the god Ganesh stepping up to confront Eshu, his ostensible uncle/spirit/guardian of "the Crossroads" to show him the way to Mom, the ultimate creator of the universe whom no one ever saw or talked to because she was too sacred. Ganesh announced that he was the god Ganesh, so the audience was able to tack a name and character to face and body, but immediately, the scene changed.

A snappy young businesswoman steps onstage between Ganesh and Eshu, asking if this were the beginning of the story, and if it were, why she wasn't in it. I suppose it wasn't the beginning of her part in the larger story, but the play did not make that clear. Instead, she goes around looking for her mom, who begins to tell her about her day. The daughter, Amy, must confront her mother about a "manifesto" her mother has written about the people who watch her and want to kill her and her family: her children Amy and Mike, who has an unexplained past which probably deals with insanity. Mike, who is a homosexual, breezes onstage (like he has breezed out of his sister's and mother's lives, Amy hints) and calms his mother down by telling her what she wants to hear.

At about this time, the scene shifts again, going back to "the beginning" when the goddess Parvati-Kali sees that her husband Shiva has killed their son Ganesh by beheading him; it was a mistake, as Shiva did not know it was his son because he had just been born three hours before. But somehow, this is still not "the beginning" and they go back to the time when Parvati-Kali and Shiva were throwing a party for their firstborn child (also somehow Ganesh). This child is also killed because a spirit attending the party looks at him and turns him into wool.

Back to the mortal family. The mortal mother details the destruction of the universe in her manifesto, saying that a god who keeps poison in his throat is controlling demons which will hang about everyone and somehow destroy them. The storyline was very similar to the creation of the universe Ganesh and Eshu mention earlier, but that connection was not drawn out. Exactly how the mother arrives at her manifesto is unclear, as well, and we are left wondering if she is a spirit in mortal form, if she has been possessed, or she is just crackpot-crazy. With further information revealed in the play, one might suppose she has been possessed by a god or spirit, but her role in the play remains unclear, as she is meets her death and is buried by her two children in her native West Indies on Grenada.

Is it about here that the storyline switches again? Or was it earlier? You can see how much whiplash this play has given me. And we aren't even to intermission yet. We still have to talk about the destabilization of the gods (when things go south, to whom do the gods themselves pray? ... Exactly, says Lord Brahma), the fact that mortal Mike is really the reincarnation of the poet Vyasa who has been lost for 3,000 years but whose soul has been hiding out in Brooklyn which the gods conveniently cannot see, Ganesh wants to end the suffering of all people and thinks that by destroying Shiva's opium fields he'll make his father hear and see clearly the pain in the world, Mara the spirit of attachment's bid for sovereignty, and Mike's attempted suicide. Oh and a war between gods and spirits, which somehow Ganesh and Mike can solve together.

There was simply way too much going on in this play. I thought about how the play had multiple beginnings, dealt with multiple narratives and whose stories are important, asked about the gods' powers and why things are the way they are, and it would have been interesting to talk about stories, narratives, and voices, and how we determine whose voices are heard. Those questions would have been enough to occupy the theoretical component of the play, but I had no time to process them before we were on to another scene and the play asked yet more half-coherent questions. It was far, far too much.

The acting was fair; sometimes it was difficult to understand what someone was saying, and better staging choices could have been made for some of the characters to make their ideas and intentions clearer. I saw the play with a dramaturg, and she was especially interested in Mara, spirit of illusion and attachment, and how much more could have been done with him. In the middle of the second act, I realized that this was a pastiche of a play - little character depth and little connection. It was more like puppets were being moved around on a stage. (For example, the goddess Parvati-Kali and Shiva were fighting and destroying each other's followers all because Parvati-Kali felt snubbed that Shiva had forgotten her birthday 3,402 years before.) At this point, I kind of checked out and was anxious for the play to end.

The ending seemed like the beginning to me. Ganesh ended up possessing Mike, and through him revolutionized the world, freed people, broke down barriers, opened their minds. It sounded like a load of hippie crap that a seventh grader would put into a play: alluding to abstract ideals without concretely showing us how those ideals were achieved. Ganesh and Mike becoming a composite being should have been at the beginning of the play, and how they "liberated" people should have been the plot of the play.

Content aside, the costuming was simple, a few motley tokens which stood for what plane of existence the character was on - be it god, spirit, or mortal. The same goes for the staging - practically an empty set except for a few chairs. Inexpensive and dynamic.

Overall, the content of the play got 1.5 stars out of 5 because it tried to do too much. Costuming got a 3.7 and staging a 3.0, and acting a 3.4.

One of the writers of "No Song No Poem" is a zen master. One of the methods of zen is to get you to let go of attachments and accept emptiness (a theme briefly touched upon at the end of the play) by shocking you out of the way you typically think. If the multiple beginnings, multiple stories, and whiplash back-and-forth scenes between gods and mortals were supposed to shock me into a new way of thinking, it was not successful. If that was the director's/playwrights' intents, it should have been clearer (let go, let go, let go of these attachments and illusions). Otherwise, the writers were being too zen and too postmodern for their own good.

This is an instance that proves the old adage, "You get what you pay for."

Rice to Riches - Experiencing Rice Pudding

I have a confession. I want to be like Lindsey Galloway, who writes about staying in a beagle-shaped motel that was made by a guy who carves things with a chainsaw. In order to practice my writing skillz, I'm trying my hand at reviewing the things I see, try/taste, and do. Most of it is for fun, which is why I go off on many random tangents. Thanks for indulging me.

Because I live under a rock, I hadn't heard about Rice to Riches before going down to the SoHo-Nolito-East Village area of New York and actually walking past it on the street. Someone in our party of seven commented that it had been in a movie or two, like Hitch, and also that it was noted for its pudding. Note to self, I need to try Serendipity from Serendipity - almost went there with a friend to try their frozen hot chocolate.

Some spacebar-esque features.

Rice to Riches, if anything, is an experience. It was like eating at a spacebar, or at least what people from the 70s imagined a spacebar would be, complete with white, black, and "That 70s Show orange" plastic seating; the only thing it lacked was more chrome. There were four or five tables to sit at, and a standing bar that looked like two surfboards had been brought into the world as siamese twins. Four television screens made a column in the wall, and I felt like Derek Zoolander at the daiye spa when a bison frise' dog spun around on the screens. Certainly, the most memorable part of Rice to Riches is the atmosphere.

The rice pudding was pretty good, too. Like any good dessert shop, Rice to Riches lets you have endless taster spoons of their flavors. I tasted the Hazelnut Chocolate Bear Hug, and thought it good but heavy on the chocolate and hazelnut for a rice pudding. This could just be me, but the French toast was lighter, less bitter, and sweeter. My taste buds felt less like I was hit over the head with a brick.

Vicki and me eating our French toast rice pudding.

I got the French toast flavor to split with my friend Vicki, as did two of my other friends, and yet two of my friends got Mascarpone with cherries. However, there were four cups of rice pudding bought and shared among seven people; we got two Mascarpone with cherries and two French toast flavors. We may simply have similar tastes, or that could say something about the rice pudding and the quality and variety of their flavors.

My experience at Rice to Riches was pretty delightful overeall, but alas, it is not the best rice pudding I have ever had - unfortunately, there are no Pudd'n on the Rice joints or blueberry-white chocolate rice pudding to be had on this Coast.

I was, however, outrightly impressed with their sizes. A small cup worth $4 got me a palm-sized cup, and by splitting both the cost and the cup with Vicki, I ended up getting what I wanted for the price I was willing to pay. Also, the cups and spoons were made of edgy, spacebar like plastic; certainly modernity coming to your cutlery, because it was like a fashionized tongue-depresser. I also liked the fact that you could ask for tops and make your pudding boat-bowl into a little space capsule for safe transportation home.

The one major drawback to Rice to Riches was some of their decor. Most of it was clever and witty enough, but some of their signage did not sit well with me. They had a sign saying something on the order of "Man invented agriculture and rice pudding. Woman invented diet." They also had on their doors "No skinny bitches." I disagree with the message of these signs because they encourage an aesthetic based on image, rather than cultivating a healthy ideal, and placing blame on women instead of citing it as a broader societal ill which males and females both suffer from. They took the idea of having some rice pudding too far; a place like Rice to Riches sells a luxury commodity and should highlight the fact that it is a luxury, an indulgence, to come to a place like this, instead of encouraging an attitude which was borderline gluttonous. It is meant to be funny and lighthearted, but I was not very amused. And to top it all off, the message their decor is sending is exclusionary. Those "skinny bitches" need to have rice pudding, too - perhaps they need it most of all to put some meat on their bones.

Overall, out of five stars, Rice to Riches gets 3.8 stars for their food, 3.2 stars for their decoration, and 4.2 stars for their service. Were I in the area, I would certainly go for rice pudding again; if I had the especial hankering after rice pudding, I'd make a trip down to Nolito just to buy it from Rice to Riches.

Disclaimer: I might just be unsatisfied with everything because this is New York City, and I expect it to be absolutely delicious and am disappointed if it is not the best food I have ever eaten. My expectations are waaay too high. For a more balanced and evenhanded review, and frankly some better pictures, check out the Eatconomist's review.

Tasting New York in Lombardi's Pizza

For Kristen. See? I told you, you general pool of readers, that I would take suggestions on what to do and see so you could vicariously live through me.

Lombardi's - the name inspires interests, piques curiosity. It smacks of an Italian-American heritage, someplace far away from my Midtown abode. A place worth a journey.

Seven of us journeyed from Times Square on Saturday down to Lombardi's to try some of its best-in-New York pizza. Arriving at the corner restaurant, there was a line seven or eight people deep, and I hunkered down for a long wait, I surmised at least 30 minutes. To my surprise, thirty seconds later we were called, and all seven of us sat down at one table to await our Lombardi's delight.

We ordered a large margarita and a large spinach-garlic pizza, and after a short wait we delved right in. The crust was nice and flavorful, and easy to manipulate and fold so you could fit it all into your mouth. I noticed, most of all, that it tasted healthy - it was not too greasy, the cheese on the margarita pizza tasted light and fresh. It was tasty, but my Lombardi's pizza felt like I was eating any other pizza. The taste did not grab me by the taste buds and say "Listen, Lizzle, you are eating a Lombardi's pizza. Pay attention or I'm gonna slap you down to Brooklyn!"

Akshata and me at Lombardi's - stay tuned for "Rice to Riches" to see round 2 of the crazy-happy-I'm-going-to-be-eating-soon mouth gap.

I was impressed, though, with the speed and quality of service: our waitress was prompt but not pushy and very smiley for one of the most lauded pizza joints in town. Almost too impressive was the bussing service: as soon as we had finished the last slice of pizza, the try was gone; as soon as we stood up to leave, someone was clearing our napkins and glasses. And I don't blame them; they wanted to get people in and out, so they economized and made themselves efficient.

Overall, out of five stars, I give Lombardi's 4.1 for food quality, 4.5 for service, and 3.9 for atmosphere. If I had a similar wait time and was in the SoHo-East Village-Nolito area (still getting my bearings), I would probably go again. But as for best pizza in town? Their claim was too big. It was a good deal for this kind of pizza - I ended up paying about $8 for two slices.  Note to self, I need to try that $0.99-a-slice pizza that I walked past earlier this evening and compare it.At "Taste of Times Square" last week, the pizza I had from one of the stalls (possibly John's Pizzeria?) was cheesier, greasier, tastier, kickier. Better. It was good, but I couldn't taste New York in this pizza.

This might not be the final review of Lombardi's pizza; with more pizza under my belt (actually above it), my opinions may change. Not likely, but they may change. Stay tuned for what's around the corner.

I Can't Remember What I've Done

Um, social events like dinner parties and dessert parties have happened, going down to the Strand and unfortunately not meeting Melody and Vicki or Simon Pegg, picnic in Central Park, and doing laundry tonight. (And going to bed early! And finishing Emma before the week is over!)

I still need to post about going to Lombardi's and Rice to Riches on Saturday before I forget my mental notes. And about being happy as opposed to having feelings projected upon me because I feel like I'm having the experiences I'm supposed to have.

This City is exhausting. I can't get enough of it - or so I think right now. Check back later.

"Jazz Chat" Saturday: AMNH and Times Square

Here is a late night "Jazz Chat," a time to catch up with a friend on a Friday (shamelessly taken from Hamish and Andy). However, since it is not Friday, the music I suggest you listen to while reading the post is not jazz, and I'm telling you what I did instead of engaging you in conversation, the term "Jazz Chat" is entirely a misnomer.

Yesterday, I met with a friend at the American Museum of Natural History. Our visit was so good for so many reasons, because we got to talk and swap ideas more than anything else. Due to a few mishaps using public transportation, we both arrived late, so our tour of the museum was curtailed, but we got in a good number of dioramas. The AMNH could be synonymous with diorama-rama. Oh ho ho ho, I'm sure that joke hasn't been made before.

Apart from being made of taxidermied animals, the dioramas were well-done and informative. The plaques on either side of the frame, though, made for some confusion; if I wanted to know about the bongo, I might have skimmed the plaque on the right side of the exhibit, learning briefly about the plants and perhaps a small mammal in the exhibit, while the information I wanted was on the other side. (Not a major qualm.) The dioramas helped me re-appreciate the biodiversity on our planet, yet still keeping in mind how related we are. Good times.

And today, I met up with some other friends in Times Square. It was about noon and we needed some lunch, so we headed down to SoHo for some Lombardi's, famous for being the best pizza in New York, and grabbed some rice pudding at Rice to Riches; reviews to come. SoHo was certainly a different part of the city; the highest buildings were possibly six or seven floors high, and I felt like I was stepping back in time to the turn of the 20th Century - yet somehow with all of modern convenience. It's energy was slower, a bit more upbeat, but more gentrified than the bohemian it once was.

After filling ourselves sufficiently with tasty food, we hopped on the subway and made our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I did not get to see Alexander McQueen's "Savage Beauty" exhibit, but did go to some old favorites like the Temple of Dendur of the statue of Diana in the American Wing. I wandered into the furniture and Mesoamerican sections, and afterwards went to the Pacific Islander exhibition for the first time. I was struck by how recently made many of those artefacts are, and how fragile they seem. People may have been creating art like that for thousands of years, but we don't know about them because such pieces couldn't survive that long.

I was also struck by the need for humans to create. There was a bark painting which caught my eyes; the caption talked about aboriginal myths of "the Dreaming" when bird-men walked and created the earth and all things in it. "The Dreaming" gives me chills; it recalls the thought process of creation which humans follow with connotations of subconsciousness, timelessness. Potential.

Anyway, the bark painting, especially, made me think of creation and this urge humans have to create, to make things, to made abstractions and think, no matter where they are or what time period they live in, whether it's a pot from 6000 years ago or a blog post, and everything in between. More thoughts and tentative conclusions to come later.

I Love Food Trucks

I fess up about food trucks. Here in the City, they dot virtually every street corner. Most of them are fairly generic halal-type trucks or stands, but every now and then something special comes up. For example, the other day I saw the Mexicue truck, which was exciting to me as a NYC newbie because it was different from all the other carts: it was larger, red, and had a line 15 people deep. I've tasted the delights of a Mr Softee truck, and earlier today I had my first waffle from Wafel and Dinges. I've already set my sights on finding the Dumpling Rickshaw truck, regardless of their quality of food. It's safe to say I'm addicted to food trucks.

The food is usually pretty good from these trucks, but the real fun of it lies in their effervescent nature. They're on wheels, they're mobile. One day the Mexicue truck could be there, the next, it could be gone for a week, popping up on the other side of town where you didn't expect it.

The food truck concept is genius because it is essentially a massive game of hide-and-go-seek, only with food as the reward. (I suppose that's what hunting is...) Like my friend TropeGirl's Youtube video states, it adds the extra incentive of prestige - finding the food truck and attached bragging rights - to the reward of eating reasonably tasty food for a low(er) price. Genius.

We have food trucks in Los Angeles, and they're good when you hap upon them, but Los Angeles is such a sprawling city. There's not one on every street corner, to my limited knowledge. I know finding them is as easy as merely punching in the food truck's location, driving to it, and finding parking, but I'm in an LA suburb and getting into downtown is a bit of a trek. For here and now, I prefer the food trucks here in NYC.

I am aware these food trucks have Twitter accounts which tell you where they're going to be. To be a hardcore food-truck-hide-and-go-seeker, you find the food trucks without Twitter.