NYC Dec 2 and 3, 2005
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2005
1
3
8
Trip End
Dec 13, 2005
New York City,
New York,
United States
Sunday, December 4, 2005
We slept in, and staggered off to the American Museum of Natural History all of 2.5 blocks away, and taking up an entire block next to Central Park. What a joy... Holden Caulfield said in Catcher in the Rye it was his favorite museum because every time he went there everything was in the same location. You still can see (smell) the old exhibits, the stuffed things in their cases, the dark room full of giant totem poles, coupla statues of Teddy Roosevelt, the last great trophy hunter who also was a President.
The Darwin exhibit was first rate... but too neutral on the subject of "intelligent design," Creationism, even Social Darwinism (apparently not a good thing because it's not scientific). In fact, everything was first rate..
01 At home at the Milburn
. and the place is HUGE and the most common question I overheard, all day, from everyone, starts with "How do I get to...?" Joselyn was funny... she went slower and slower through the exhibits as she got more and more interested..,. by the end of our long visit, when we both were low blood sugared and foot sored, searching fruitlessly for a bathroom, then a bathroom actually open...as we stood in front of a bank of elevators I saw her drifting into the nearby Room of Giant Extinct Hairy Mammoths. "I like mammoths," I heard her say... she also liked turtles, dinosaurs, butterflies, more turtles, and so forth.
The Butterfly Conservatory was the big hit. It runs October to the end of May. It's a smallish room stuffed full of flowering tropical plants, nectar feeders, heat lamps, and hundreds and hundreds of multi-hued fluttering butterflies. It's the first and only time I smiled all the way through a museum exhibit.
I fixated on what I think were Julias, perhaps Queens. But then a large Blue Morpho morphed by, and I followed her flight over to a bunch of Isabella Tigers and Banded Orange guys. What a lovely room, and the only place in the museum guaranteed to be 80 degrees all day long.
A friendly docent informed us the plants, while nutritious, are not the ones any of these species use for raising their larvae; the USDA won't allow the museum to risk introducing these butterflies into the city environment. Of course, on a day like today, clear and cold and about to snow, any of these would last about a minute outside
02 Reflection at Metropolitan Museum
.Tonight we're going to a revival of Sweeney Todd at the Eugene O'Neill Theater on West 49th Street. Getting out of the subway at W 50th and walking down Broadway - wow. Welcome to Disneyland. At 7 pm the sidewalk crowds are so dense you can pick up your feet and let the people carry you across. Amazingly, the facing waves of pedestrians at each corner manage to pass through each other like cheese in a grater, or two cheeses in a grater, or something like that.
I had heard that Sweeney Todd was a bit gruesome, but it turned out to be bloody in a neat and interesting manner. The buckets of blood stayed in their containers. The blood did not slop onto the stage, nor was it cast out to the audience, staining our overcoats. The actors were the musicians, the musicians were the singers, the singers were the stage technicians, the back wall turned bloody red each time ST slit another throat, the singing was magnifique, as was most of the acting.
Earlier, at the Met Opera, when we applauded our hands clapping made discreet flapping sounds that disappeared almost as soon as they left our laps. At the Eugene O'Neill Theater (built in 1925 as The Forrest, renamed The Coronet in 1945) the ceilings are low, the seats more crowded than economy in American, and when the audience applauded it was LOUD
03 NYC skyline from Great Lawn, Central Park
. The production received a standing O and you could feel the heat and noise as everyone cheered. It would take a thousand young lungs and pumped up abs at the Met to come near to that level of noise. I felt sorry for the opera singers, who came out to do their calls with only faint, weepy clapping to greet them.
So many similarities to the London stage - the theater district itself, the aura of excitement, the history, the fleas, the no place to put your cold weather wraps, the knees in the chin, the gilt, the ancient burgundy rugs, numerous taxis -- the excitement of live theater in the heart of theater land. Wonderful.
Afterwards we stopped in at what has become our local, Niko's Med Grill, for hot Metaxa brandy and Greek red wine, plus their specialty dessert, which is a kind of delicious baklava but different, with raspberry and honey dressing and warm whipped cream. On the monitor a silent TV documentary on the Greek landscape. Ahhhh.... wonderful. We've booked ourselves there for Monday's Greek Food & Wines -- A Tasting -- Five Menu Courses & Six Wines for $40 a person, $35 pre paid, and yes, they offer several vegetarian dishes, and it's time to find out how many ways they can serve Retsina
04 Twilight, Central Park
.It's supposed to snow Sunday night.
December 3, 2005
We've settled into a routine now... sleep in, one of us takes a bath, the other washes up in the kitchenette sink. Check email, look outside to see if it's sunny, check outside temperature on the Internet ("cold") because that is easier than opening a triple-locked window. Read the museum listings and feel pangs about what we're missing. Pick a museum based on the quality of its refreshments (the Neue Galerie wins for its Viennese pastries but MOMO sounds good, too.) The Dino Diner was closed when we visited the American Natural History museum yesterday.
This morning I had a chance to check the ship manifests at Ellis Island for relatives.
Jan Miksak arrived at Ellis Island, age 38, in 1912, from Nagydiveny, Hungary, on the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm out of Bremen.
Jan Miksak also arrived at Ellis Island, age 26, in 1923, from Velka Divina, Czechoslovakia, on The President Fillmore from Bremen
05 Joselyn, Central Park, 31 degrees, night
.We got younger fast in my family.
Not to mention young Zsuzsa Miksak from Palharna, Hungary. She arrived at Ellis Island in 1912 at age 17, on The Grosser Kurfurst from Bremen.
Whichever of these Miksaks may have been my ancestor, I can assure you she or he sailed from Bremen.
Everything suddenly became a lot easier when I talked Joselyn into a quick visit to the nearby North Face outlet. I now possess a waterproof all down hooded parka, and for the first time I can laugh ha! ha! at the cold... and actually enjoy walking around. What a pleasure; I needed something this extreme, and I found the last one in black. Smiled all day as the temperature hovered at freezing and snow continued to promise to fall.
Spent midday at the former Vanderbilt mansion on Central Park East, the Neue Galerie, "the museum for German & Austrian art" which had pulled out all stops for Egon Schiele. I've admired this Austrian artist since the 1960's and this was a chance to see a great deal of his work in one place
06 it snowed overnight
. All the exhibited art belongs to the Neue Galerie, but usually it's not all on display.We took the inadequate audio tour, and joined the free in person tour which was much more informative. Saw a movie about Schiele put together some years ago by one of the museum founders.
In the museum's store I found a copy of "A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888 - 1889" by Frederic Morton. Reads very smoothly. Also got some Schiele cards.
The Café Sabarsky was recently opened in what looks like the former Vanderbilt parlor. It's all Vienna all the time, including the Austrian waitress. Coffee mit schlag, Sachertorte mit schlag, Marzipan Orange torte mit schlag. Outside, the sun gradually set over Central Park and a young couple kissed for a very long time on the sidewalk.
Tonight we dined on Zabar's soup, cheese and crackers, then walked down to Lincoln Center, found Avery Fisher Hall, and prepared to hear the NY Philharmonic featuring conductor Ivan Fischer, conductor, and Leonidas Kavakos, violinist. We found ourselves sitting in lousy seats, facing 90 degrees away from the orchestra, one seat broken
07 from our window
.The nice ushers ushered us downstairs, into the orchestra seating, and half way down in front, row Z seats 1 and 3, on the aisle. Fantastic. They've fixed the famously bad sound, we sat next to two librarians (she runs a library in Connecticut; he is an editor for Library Journal)... and enjoyed the music tremendously.
This is not the place for a review, just some quick observations. The cellos were sitting center left, facing directly into the audience, and sitting "theater style" so instead of two long ranks in two rows, they were staggered. From where we were sitting we could see the first six players, instead of only the first two.
The violas were in front, right, and for once plainly visible and audible. How refreshing. The fiddles numbered at least 30. The Bartok dances went by too fast (seven minutes; the Dutilleux was interesting, pyrotechnical but over long; and after intermission we heard what the NY Philharmonic was invented to play - the lush orchestrations of Rachmaninoff, Symphony #2 in E minor. Wow.
The standing ovation was vitiated by the 20 per cent of the audience on its feet speeding toward the exits, not clapping
08 in the neighborhood
.I hate the way standing ovation has taken the place of normal appreciation. We've experienced standing O's at every performance we've seen here: Met Opera, Sweeney Todd, NY Phil.
If people stand at every performance, every venue, every time, how will they honestly express themselves when the performance truly is amazingly outstanding? Next stage will be standing on the seats and shouting, like the SF Chronicle's Little Man.
By the way, we heard the Philharmonic's 14,174th concert tonight. Like the Opera, many in the audience looked as if they'd attended the 1,000th concert, too.
Joselyn bought some musical socks at the intermission, and we sipped champagne (to celebrate) and coffee (to stay awake). To be continued... please drop us a comment.
