Category: Travel

New York, Day 4, part 1 (Day 243/365)

Posted on by Dale

New York, Day 4

Today was our museum day. I got up early to catch up on blogging for the last two days, but by 9:30 it was time to move out the door. We encountered the Honeas and Carol Lee on the way out; everyone marveled at Ginny’s new haircut.

Off we went to the Cooper-Hewitt, a design museum which is part of the Smithsonian and housed in Andrew Carnegie’s luscious Fifth Avenue mansion on 91st St. The main exhibit was the design triennial, and there were lots of pretty things. The exhibit that had attracted my attention was an exhibit of model staircases that apprentice designer/carpenters had to complete to join their guild in the 19th century. Almost all were wood, and almost all were spiral or double. Quite nice.

We dropped by the Guggenheim, but it’s being renovated. I glanced up at the atrium, saw it with my own eyes, and we were out of there. They had some special exhibits, but we didn’t care about seeing any of them. The main collection is on tour while the main building is being refurbished.

Next was the Metropolitan, where we caught two special exhibits, the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit and the Barcelona/Gaudi/Picasso/everybody else exhibit.

The Tiffany exhibit drew together objets and photographs from his country estate, which he designed from the ground up, inside and out. He was truly an amazing artist, one I had not appreciated until today, and he must have drawn/painted/sketched/whatever every waking moment of his life. His artistic output rivals Schubert’s in terms of volume and quality. I was most impressed.

The Barcelona exhibit was also quite lovely, with many recognizable works from that crowd, the Modernistes that revolved around Barcelona but also gravitated to Paris.

The only other area of the museum we really wanted to see was the Costume Institute, but of course it was closed. We have this knack of getting to costume exhibits only when they’re closed.

Next was the Frick, but we were hungry, so we walked over to Madison Avenue and stopped in the first little café we came to. It was called the Café Ambroeus, lovely northern Italian food, but heavens to betsy the clientele was the most insanely pretentious you have ever seen in any movie parodying upper West Side behavior. It was great. It was not until we were seated that I realized that I was wearing jeans… and no one else was. The ladies were of the variety that lunched. The men were the kind who said things like, “I think the foundation needs to…” and “…why would I pay a million dollars for a smaller apartment that wasn’t as nice?” Yes, I overheard both those phrases.

We hoped to stop at the Whitney, since we were on Madison, but it’s closed on Tuesdays.

On to the Frick, which I had never visited. It’s Henry Clay Frick’s Fifth Avenue Mansion, and it’s gorgeous. The museum is not called a museum; it’s the Frick Collection, and it is essentially his home as he decorated it. It’s huge, it’s lovely, and the man had phenomenal taste. And money.

I did develop a theory, however. There was a quite nice “Portrait of a Man” by Hans Memling. I know it from art history books, and that’s what got me to thinking. How much of our iconic art history, i.e., those paintings that are The Works That One Should Know, the ones that you see in museums with a pleasant little shock of recognition, how many of those are actually the most outstanding of their kind, and how many are those which were bought by the rich Americans of the last century and are now in museums and printed in books? In other words, is Hans Memling’s beautiful little portrait part of my artistic knowledge because it’s perfect, or is it regarded as perfect because Henry Clay Frick bought it and it entered my cultural bloodstream thereby?

Something to think about.

New York, Day 3 (Day 242/365)

Posted on by Dale

Nothing is open before 10:00 in NYC, and MOMA is the only art museum on Mondays. Plus, if you have a lunch engagement at 11:45 down on 3rd Avenue, what can you really do between 10:00 and 11:00? So the coolest plan for us all, we thought, was to get up and go to the Empire State Building, which is open seven days a week and opens at 8:00 a.m. We could do that in plenty of time to walk over to the restaurant to meet Nancy Willard.

We were therefore surprised and disappointed to waken to a great NYC fog which obscured even the tops of the more lowly buildings up in Times Square. What to do?

The Honeas decided to go squeeze in MOMA, which opened at 9:30. We decided to walk back down 8th Avenue to a hattery that Ginny and Carol Lee had discovered on their way to Hell’s Kitchen yesterday, because they had… wait for it… hats. And they did: bowlers, homburgs, porkpies, knit caps, mukluks, Stetsons, even boaters, for pete’s sake.

We were there because Grayson, having worn a bowler in Beauty & the Beast last year, had expressed an interest in owning one. We had called him yesterday to get him to measure his head, and not only had he done so, he had done so with astounding accuracy: 22 and 13/16 inches. A little too precise for hats, but hey, it demonstrated an enthusiasm one sometimes does not sense from the young when you’re trying to do them a favor.

We got him the black bowler (as opposed to the more pimperific purple, green, red, or baby blue), and threw in a madras patchwork driving cap. I myself picked up a nice tan straw Panama for my car rider duties in the afternoon. Of course, I don’t know how we’re getting these nicely packed boxes back home, but hey, it’s fun walking down the Avenue with your hat boxes. I would wear mine here, but it’s really not warm enough yet.

Soon it was time to hop the train to our lunch date.

This was the most exciting part of our entire trip: we were going to meet Nancy Willard. Heck, forget everyone else. I was going to meet Nancy Willard. One of the world’s most gifted children’s authors has allowed me to use her work as the basis of my piece, and I get to meet her in person.

We arrived at Docks, seafood restaurant corner of 41st and 3rd, right after they opened at 11:30. We were shown our table, a nice large round one in a corner by the front window. We had just divested ourselves of coats and stuff when I saw Nancy and her husband Eric coming down 41st and getting ready to cross the street. It was a thrill to look out the window and recognize her.

Nancy Willard is a total delight. Everything I thought I knew about her from the video, from her poetry, from my correspondence, is more than true. Conversation was far-ranging and fun. I even got her to acknowledge that we did have business to discuss at some point, although that’s all we got, an acknowledgment. I told her I’d mail her (and her agent) some contracts, and in her case, the Grippo book she’d need to understand them.

We talked about the creative process a lot. She was surprised to find that I am completely untrained as a composer, although I’m sure I’ve confessed that at some point. Both she and I work out of order, and both of us have been known to write the equivalent of “abortive attempts” at the top of a blank page, to forestall the perfection demons.

Many of her “creatures” and the Inn itself are now at Ann Arbor, at the University’s Rare Books Collection, which amuses Nancy. She and Erik both thought that they would be more than willing to arrange a loan for an exhibit for the premiere. Cool!

(Not to cheat Eric out of his due: he was as charming as she, and it is easy to see why they are a match.)

When it was finally time to go, we presented her with our gifts: Carol Lee had brought a sunflower to give her, and she was of course delighted with that. Ginny and I had Coweta County books to share: Herb Bridges’ postcards book, and of course A Taste of Georgia.

Carol Lee presents Nancy Willard with a sunflower

She in turn had brought me a copy of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which she had covered in a nice music score fabric, and The Ballad of Biddy Early, illustrated by the same artist (Barry Moser), and a collection of poetry that is denser than William Blake’s Inn.

Finally, I pulled out my copies of William Blake’s Inn and asked if she would autograph them. Ah, she said, she would have to take them with her. That kind of thing couldn’t be done on the spot. She would have to paint something. Oh. My. God.

Oh, and she said, she thought Alice Provensen was at home; she’d get her to sign it as well. OH. MY. GOD. Alice (and her late husband Martin) not only illustrated William Blake’s Inn, they also illustrated my favorite book as a child, The Color Kittens. Oh. My. God. Those of you who know me know that I am not easily rattled, shocked, or impressed. But Oh. My. God.

Well, what can top this? Nothing. We could go home right now and this would be the greatest trip ever. Nancy Willard and Dale Lyles

But not until Ginny had her hair appointment at Nick “What Not To Wear” Arrojo Studios in Chelsea. Off we went, finally switching from subway to cab to make sure we got there in time.

I had no such appointment, and of course galleries are closed on Mondays, so I asked if there were a spa in the neighborhood which offered massages. There was, so I walked over and got a massage. Not the best I’ve had, at all, but a massage is always relaxing. Ginny was waiting for me when I got out, and we hurried back to the hotel to change for dinner.

We were meeting our friend Robyn Ice and her husband at the Algonquin. Yes, Round Table, and all that. I thought we were meeting for drinks at 5:30, but Robyn and Donnie didn’t show up until 6:30, which was absolutely fine. We had our drinks in the lobby with Mathilda the Algonquin cat and just relaxed for a while.

Robyn is our friend from the old days at UGA, we had reconnected back in February out in L.A. and had agreed to get together on this trip. She started as a puppeteer at the Center for Puppetry Arts, but left to become a lawyer after a couple of years. She worked for Alston & Byrd in Atlanta and then in New York, but now is with a different firm. Last year, she married Donnie Kisselbach, bassist with The Turtles, and he’s a really neat guy. We had a lovely dinner and great conversation.

They live in Connecticut, so we let them go early, and we walked down Fifth Avenue to the Apple Store. {cue: hosannas}

Dale at the Apple Store

This was a pilgrimage, pure and simple, because there is not a thing I need. I played with the Apple TV display, but it’s not something I want at this time. If I were actually exercising, I would want a new Shuffle, but I know myself well enough to know that buying one as a bribe to start working out is a false hope. My promise to myself is that if I actually exercise for a week, I’ll reward myself with a Shuffle.

We caught a cab back to the hotel and hit the sack. What an incredible day!

New York, Day 2 (Day 241/365)

Posted on by Dale

The shower is pretty weak. But we persevere.

Ginny is off to the flea market in Hell’s Kitchen. I’m off to find coffee downstairs, see if the wireless signal is stronger in the lobby, and wait for Barbara Petzen to call.

Barb Petzen was a student of mine way back in the 1980s. She hooked up with NCTC, and I taught her both AP Art History and AP English. She was probably the most brilliant student I’ve ever had. She was State STAR Student in 1983, and I was her STAR Teacher.

She went on to Columbia, then became a Rhodes Scholar, ending up at Harvard for her doctoral studies (women in the late Ottoman Empire). She married the online editor of the Christian Science Monitor, I was her matron of honor, and now she and Tom live in Boston with their four beautiful children.

So I really haven’t seen Barb since, what, her wedding? And she hasn’t changed a bit. Still the wonderful, funny, supersmart woman that we knew and loved since high school. We caught up on her insane siblings, were saddened to hear of her mother’s death last fall (also Barbara, aka Bobbie, and a fabulous broad), and figured out exactly what it is she does. (She’s newly hired to an educational outreach position of an Islamic studies group in DC; Tom is now in charge of blogs for NPR.)

And here’s Barb:

Barb and us

We all headed off to the Museum of Modern Art. MOMA has built a new wing since we were there last, and it’s a beaut. Of course, it’s the collection that counts, and it’s like walking through your art history textbook to tour the museum.

So many beautiful works, so many glorious successive approximations. I hesitated to take photos, well, because I have all these works in books one way or the other. But there was one: “Broadway Boogie-Woogie” by Piet Mondrian. I use this painting in my information skills training for the third grade. One of the teams is challenged to answer the question, “What does the painting “Broadway Boogie-Woogie” by Piet Mondrian look like?”

And so:

Dale and the Mondrian

We sent Barb off to catch her bus back to Boston, then we walked back to the hotel, scouting restaurants along the way. We stopped for a quick restorative at Louis’ Café on 53rd, then had time for a quick rest before heading out for supper. We ended up at Thalia, a nice André’s style restaurant on 8th Avenue. Good food, great décor.

Spring Awakening was right around the corner at the O’Neill Theatre, one of those wonderful older theatres in which all the seats are great. The set is bare brick, plastered with frames and ladders and lights and photos. Very pomo.

I liked the show, a fact which is fairly bizarre, since the score is totally alternative rock. But the harmonies are very interesting, very complex, and the orchestration is unexpected, with a string quartet in addition to the guitars and basses.

I was also sucked in by the teen-angst theme, which is also unexpected. I empathized for those poor children, and yes, they’re ridiculous, but we forget at our peril that it’s not ridiculous for them.

The main thing that we all find to admire is the staging. Very stripped down, direct to audience, great use of rock concert energy and movement. This is where the disjoint between the 19th century costumes and 21st century attitudes works best for me: the gracefulness and innocence of what the children are wearing contrasted with the sexual anxieties and alternative rock sounds of today make for a compelling mise-en-scene.

New York, Day 1, part 2 (Day 240/365)

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Our further adventures

Having gained LaGuardia without any further incidents, we snagged our driver and headed into town. Marc and Mary Frances met us at the front desk, we checked in, headed up to the 18th floor, and unpacked.

The room is small, of course; it’s an older NY hotel, and we look out onto the other wing. There is daylight, and if we crane our necks we can see Sardi’s on 8th Avenue. The wall opposite the bed is totally mirrored. Perhaps this is the honeymoon… cubicle?

First concern is the lack of outlets by the bed. The room is small, but not so small that the power cord of my C-PAP will reach across the room. I call the front desk (this is at 5:15ish), and they promise to put engineering right on it. Great, I say, we’ll stop by the front desk when we get back in tonight.

Within 30 minutes we were down in Garvey’s, the bar attached to the hotel. Life-sustaining drinks were in order, along with large amounts of appetizers. (They’re open till 4:00 a.m., but only serve food up till 8:00. After that, it’s little bags of potato chips.)

And before you know it, it’s 6:30 and time to leave. We’re catching the closing night of the tour of Edward Scissorhands, choreographed by Matthew Bourne (he of the all-male Swan Lake) and set to music based on themes from Danny Elfman’s score for the movie. This is very exciting, because it’s the first time I’ve been to Brooklyn. Neither has anyone else, of course. And everyone relies on me to get them where they’re going.

This is not a problem. I explain to everyone exactly how to read the map, how to follow the signs, what the different versions of the A train mean and when that’s important. Tra-la-la, they say, we’re following you.

BAM is a gorgeous building, built in a fit of Civic Pride almost exactly 100 years ago, and it has always home to a great deal of the exciting, forward-looking musical events in the city. We have second-row seats in the loge, stunning seats and I thought I was lucky to get them, since we didn’t order tickets until the day the show started advertising in the Times.

Edward Scissorhands is a treat. Beautifully designed, witty and pretty costumes, and imaginative sets that come closer to Broadway than to NYCB (a fact about which dance critics grumble, usually saying that “others grumble”). Dancing is great, and the choreography is terrifically interesting. Bourne clearly has a ballet background, but he’s willing to throw in anything that works, and it does.

One of the problems he had to solve was Edward, encumbered as he is with those huge blades on his fingers. The final pas de deux between Edward and Kim was lovely, a combination of ballet and contact improvisation.

The storytelling was flawless. I had not seen the movie, but that was not a hindrance in the least. I had just read a scathing review of Ralph Bakshi’s old Lord of the Rings abomination, and a major issue with that movie (besides criminal direction, animation, and editing) was that if you hadn’t read the books, you would have had no clue about what was going on .

This was not the case. Of course, as I look at the program, I don’t really know which characters were named what, has any ballet had so many people with first and last names?, but during the event, that didn’t matter. No ballet has had so many distinct and recognizable characters, either.

Both Marc and I found ourselves enjoying the show and admiring it and at the same time filtering our experience through the William Blake’s Inn workshop experience. We both could imagine the process behind the results onstage. The creative process that leads us to the Inn, the Sunflowers, the Milky Way, is clearly the same that led to the Topiary sequence or the Suburbia sequence in Edward Scissorhands. My question now is whether we have what it takes to push beyond our own boundaries, both in terms of our own creative freedom and of financial support, to produce something that is equivalent on the stage of the Performing and Visual Arts Centre. I think we, the William Blake team, are quite capable. Is Newnan capable of rising to the challenge? That’s where my doubt lies.

Back to Manhattan, where we walk around Times Square and admire the over-the-top gaudiness of it all. I spot the theatres of the shows we’ll be seeing, and we all just generally play tourist. We walk over to Radio City and down to Rockefeller Center, but they have the rink and the Promenade blocked off for some reason.

St. Patrick’s looks gorgeous at night, all lit up. We stroll back down Fifth Ave. and head back to the hotel. So many shows, so little time!

The plan had been to have a quick drink or two in the bar before heading up, but in our absence the place has turned into a very loud twenty-something hangout. All these pretty young things appear to be having a reunion of some kind, so the Honeas go on up. Ginny, Carol Lee and I tough it out for one drink, but then flee.

I stop by the desk to see if they have my extension cord, but of course they don’t. They’ll get the manager on it. After a while, I call back down (it’s after midnight at this point) and they’ve got engineering on it. I ask if there’s some place nearby that I could buy one; there is, of course, a Duane Reade pharmacy two blocks down, open 24 hours. We’re heading down the hall when the engineer shows up. Not supposed to do this, he grouses, fire codes. Blah blah blah.

And so to bed.

New York, Day 1 (Day 240/365)

Posted on by Dale

And we’re off to New York City for five days. Shows, museums, dining with friends, all kinds of goodness coming up. I probably will do nothing on the music, but I will certainly blog about the days. We’ll call it creative writing.

By the time we got to Hartsfield International, my morning coffee was bursting to get out, so I headed off to the men’s room while Ginny and Carol Lee got in the line to check in. By the time I got back to them, Carol Lee was trying to type in her confirmation number in the little electronic kiosk thing, and it was rejecting her.

Customer service appeared and took her ticket. Then came back and tried checking in Ginny. And then finally tried my ticket. Then she took all three and disappeared into the back. When she returned, it was with the news that the tickets had been cancelled.

Well, this was exciting. I pulled out all the paperwork and called the toll-free number, and was a little surprise when BB&T answered. Of course, I thought, I got two tickets with my VISA® TravelPoints® and paid for one. I told the nice person in Mumbai that I was standing in line at Hartsfield International and that my tickets had been canceled and he needed to fix it.

As he waited for the computer to get in gear, he started to give me some kind of sales pitch, I think. I told him that it was hard to hear and that if he were giving me a sales pitch, stop; if he was asking me something, he needed to start over.

Not a problem, he was going to transfer me to a travel specialist. Yanni for on-hold. This was starting to be a good hell.

After a while, my Mumbai friend came back online to apologize for the delay, but the travel office was not open on the weekends. I should call back on Monday.

Please connect me to a supervisor, I asked tersely. More Yanni followed.

After a while, he came back online to apologize for the delay, but there were no supervisors. If I could call back in 30 minutes…

Well.

There I was, standing in AirTran’s check-in line, with printed tickets that were no good and a 10:00 flight leaving without me. And no one at BB&T could help me until business hours on Monday.

Meanwhile, Marc and Mary Frances were in another line, working out what to do about Molly’s not having photo ID.

Ginny went over to our nice customer service lady and simply bought tickets on a 1:00 flight. So now we have three hours in the terminal before we get to New York. I called our limo people to let them know of our delay.

So what’s the deal here? I ordered these online, everything was fine, they sent me tickets. How could they be canceled? And if they were, how was I not notified? And why the hell does BB&T not have people working on weekends when travel is heaviest??

Perhaps I could work on a few more pieces while I sit here. I need to find an outlet.