Category: Happy

Francois
Our quite wonderful new friends from Bordeaux, Francois and Nicolas, left for home Wednesday night, and we missed them immediately. They are smart. They are artists. They are charming. They are interested in everything about this city and its people. This was their first trip to the U.S., and it was Francois’s first trip outside of France. They chose only to visit New York this time. Of course we wanted to see that they were happy while they were here.
There is only one reason for us to be grateful their visit did not continue into the next day: Thomas L. Friedman.
Barry has already written about what they said was their one encounter with local Francophobia, and it was a doozie. Days before they left they returned here after a visit to Times Square, very upset about having seen t-shirts for sale that read, “IRAQ FIRST, THEN FRANCE.” They told us that they had heard that Americans didn’t like the French, but that it was the first time they had seen the evidence. I think we were able to cheer them up again by telling them that it only meant that some miserable souls are very stupid and thoughtless, even in New York.
The day after they left Friedman showed us all just how stupid and thoughtless even appointed members of the Gotham elite can be. The NYTimes columnist (how’d he get that job, and when did the Times editorial pages start to read like The Wall Street Journal‘s?) declared that we were at war with France, because France wants us to fail in the occupation of Iraq.
Nicolas and Francois do not wish us ill, and the vast numbers of their countrymen are no more malevolent. The French government is not our enemy. All do join every thinking American in wanting us to stop acting like fools – and worse. The best response to an appallingly stupid Op-Ed piece which really deserves none (except for the importance of its medium) appeared the next day in a letter to the editor.

Thomas L. Friedman’s assertion (column, Sept. 18) that “France wants America to fail in Iraq” is akin to saying that someone who separates a drunken driver from his car keys doesn’t want him to get home.

I want us to get home, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to make it.
France certainly has its own problems, and Nicolas and Francois were not shy about discussing them, but at least they are home. We wish them and that home the very best.

Friday afternoon, surfboards on University Place

Nicolas
When I left the little group with Reza yesterday afternoon I wasn’t quite ready to go home while these thoughts wandered around in my head, so I walked through Battery Park and headed toward Battery Park City by way of West Street, the western boundary of the World Trade Center pit.
The main events at the site had already ended by this time, but along that strip, parked in the path which is reserved for pedestrians, runners and bicyclists, rather than docked in the street itself, were literally dozens of large TV trucks sent to cover the “news” of the second anniversary of the events of September 11. Obviously lots of people are making lots of money from this thing still.
While I waited for what seemed like forever to be permitted by the traffic cop to cross West Street, frustrated because I didn’t want to be there anyway and my exit was now being arrested, I mumbled, “fuck this,” to myself. Just then I noticed a very patient, bright-eyed guy to my left, and his appearance calmed me.
A minute later I saw him referring to his tour guide and looking a little puzzled, so I asked if I could give him some direction. I mean, why not? I’m very familiar with the entire area, having both lived and worked there at one time, and I have been a very sad and very regular visitor for exactly two years now.
He wanted to know where he could find an elevated position to see into the pit. I could only think of the huge window in the back of the Winter Garden, just above where we stood. The entrance was difficult to locate yesterday, so, feeling some responsibility by now, I went with him.
Well, we ended up spending the entire afternoon and early evening together moving about the city. Heck, I had nothing else scheduled. Nicolas is from Bordeaux, in the middle of the two weeks of his first visit to the U.S., and we hit it off pretty well.
Like Barry and myself when we travel, he tries to engage the locals when visiting new places. I guess that was my attraction, since I’m pretty local here. On my side, it didn’t hurt that he’s very smart, had recently graduated from an arts college and is now continuing private music study to pursue a career in progressive jazz/rock, and delighted in the fact that many of his friends are gay. One is even bi [pronounced “bee”]. He’d down his homework on New York. Already seen the “classics,” he said, and it turns out he had. He had made every major art museum, including Brooklyn’s, done the Empire State and walked the Brooklyn Bridge. When I met him he had just returned from a trip on the Staten Island Ferry. Now he was ready for the streets and neighborhoods.
He, his friend here in the city, Barry and I now all have tickets for Tonic’s Monday night concert with fabulous John Zorn and Fred Frith – yes, the two together!
We’re going around to galleries with Nicolas tomorrow.
He’s fallen in love with New York, he says. I think he really means it, since he seriously claims it’s quieter, and less rushed than Bordeaux, and the people are calmer!
Yes, we talked a lot about politics – French, U.S., world.
We really do love the French!

Two nights ago we enjoyed a vegan meal – at home. Of course there was wine, a Nebbiolo D’Alba.
I know, it doesn’t sound like our table, but I assure friends that it was a coincidence, if not an accident. While we were still enjoying the wonderful fruits of an early trip to the Union Square Greenmarket, for some reason it occurred to me that what we were eating was totally consistent with vegan principle. As it happens, this sort of meal was not an exception for us, since most of the time we find ourselves dining simply on some southern Italian arrangement of vegetables and pasta, and only occasionally do we include smallish amounts of fish or meat. Cheese however is a more regular visitor.
I’ve been omnivorous all of my life, while always respecting, even contmplating alternative approaches. I have to say however that among my most memorable negative experiences with food are the meals in the 60’s I shared with friends who virtually lived on brown rice and overcooked vegetables. The memory still gets in the way. But at least they were fond of the grape.
For us wine may be the ultimate argument against vegetarianism. Without traditional European foods, the wines developed in these meat, cheese and fish-eating cultures are usually just fermented grape juice. We like wine, and wine likes food.
The menu Monday evening:

Heirloom tomatoes, nestled close to a spray of purslane, both drizzled with olive oil and lightly sprinkled with fleur de sel
Crusty Puglian bread
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Woodland Chanterelles sautéed in olive oil and garlic, on flat Italian noodles, and sprinkled with wild thyme.
Mixed peppery greens a with light Balsamic vinaigrette
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Italian green grapes

and so would John Irving, I expect.
Socrates Sculpture Park was very quiet yesterday, but there were compensations.

Chelsea, August 28, 6pm, SGS Hardware, 157 8th Ave., between 17th and 18th Sts.
Our tiny neighborhood hardware store has always had interesting windows, but this special end-of-summer-2003 set excels. The guys tell me it’s a work in progress, so I’ll be going back.

TABBOO!
click here for more pictures
On Saturday my Wigstock experience began on a sour note, and it had nothing to do with wigs. As Barry and I were about to cross Avenue A at 8th Street I spotted a small, dedicated contingent from ACT UP with their table of literature on the sidewalk. They had been thrown out of Tompkins Square Park by the HOWL! Festival organizers because they had not paid a concession fee.
ACT UP doesn’t pay concession fees, and ACT UP has always been a part of Wigstock. [In the interest of complete disclosure I must say that I have been a member of ACT UP almost since its beginnings, but in recent years I have been more neglectful than supportive.] I understand the costs of the festival have to be met somehow, but I also understand that, at least the last time I checked, Tompkins Square is a public park. Surely something could have been arranged for the inclusion of genuine public service organizations in a celebration of the creative and radical tradition of the East Village.
Now feeling a little like contraband myself after hearing of their experience with the authorities, we entered the park which had once been a very major civic battleground.
Wigstock’s return to the park where it was first conceived (and delivered) 18 years ago by a gaggle of not-so-mad drag queens was of course wonderful – with at least one, no two or even more, reservations. The Lady Bunny emceed of course, operating in the customary, tired bitchy form she shares with too many of her sisters, and significantly she had even managed to sorta witches-kiss and make up with Mistress Formica in consideration of this momentous occasion. But where were the new artists? The question could, and should well, be asked of the entire HOWL! enterprise.
The Dazzle Dancers wound up the afternoon’s program with a spectacular salute to the ultimate irrelevance of costume as a quantity – except of course for the glitter, which they generously shared with the first hundred feet of the fans packed around the stage.
I was sorry to see that in spite of the good vibe among those in the bois propre below the latest Wigstock incarnation had attracted far less spectator hair, makeup and costume involvement than those of legend, and yet I have to admit that I didn’t wear my wired golden pigtails this year myself.
The tiny ATM Gallery on Avenue B (yes, it’s behind the ATM machine), just north of the park, was showing what was billed as the “First Annual HOWL! Invitational” through late Sunday. Just inside the door on the right in this group show were Chris Tanner’s three colorful works on fabric with built-up patterns which suggested chenille bedspreads gone mad. They were pretty wonderful.
The Festival’s community-driven “Art Wall” around much of the park was, not surprisingly, very political, and some of its statements managed to ignite tempers, arguably a good thing even for a festival. Much of it had something to do with Bush, Israel, police states, etc., and we can report with satisfaction that Michael Stewart has not been forgotten.
The East Village today is not your father’s East Village, and ironically the best evidence of that may have been the strong presence of child-friendly elements in the HOWL! Festival schedule.
Local color to straddle the two generations: At 8pm Saturday night, while we were walking about the neighborhood, we passed a barely-30-something mother and her young 7-something son out “walking” their house pets. The mother was pushing a folding grocery cart which supported a gold fish in a stormy bowl of water on its lower shelf and a hamster merrily racing on its treadmill in a cage on the upper.
As darkness replaced twilight, we slipped into the Sixth Street and Avenue B Garden for a few minutes to walk through the green stuff and to listen to the music of Mr. Raga’s Neighborhood players (a very nice ECM-ish ambience).
As we started to go out I realized the beautiful tree we had been standing under was a perfectly healthy and fructiferous fig, something I am still not accustomed to, having lived most of my life in northern temperate zones. Do the magnificent branches and the perfectly-formed fruits reveal gardening care or betray global warming?
We managed to find a table at Raga on 6th Street for a leisurely dinner, followed by a slow walk home.
The next afternoon we returned to the same scenes to meet our friend Kate, who is visiting from Antwerp for a few weeks. We went back to the ATM Gallery, which was just then cleaning out the bottles from what appeared to have been a very successful opening party the night before. We talked to Bill Brady, the delightful artist behind the space, and we easily became somewhat enchanted with his very adventurous curatorial choices.
Aside from the work of Chris Tanner, the show, which was created especially for the HOWL! Festival, included UFO-imaged work by Ionel Talpazan, the geometric devices of Vince Roark, the sweet/scary world of Min Kim, the graphite Altamont of Mike Paré, Karen Finley’s efficient, Titian-esque nudes, and her menstrual blood flower drawings, the delicate collage-drawings of Yuh-Shioh Wong, Jack Davidson’s cloud landscapes which were oil paintings passing as cottoncandy pastels, David Leslie’s wonderful soap sculpture of a not-quite-successful Evel Knievel outing, and Bill Brady curating himself with an exciting, strangely iconic, somehow-non-objective, neo-op oil in very primary colors.
We lingered at the music lot on Avenue A and 11th Street for a bit, unfortunately missing the magnificent John Moran but very pleased and provoked by Rebecca Moore and her band, Prevention of Blindness. We bought her CD. We already owned all of the recordings of John’s operas spread out on the table next to it, and a good thing, too.
Passing through the willow tree oasis of La Plaza Cultural Garden we hung out for a few songs by a wonderful [unfortunately unidentified to us] performer who was part of the WOW Café Cabaret, before we had to leave to call our friend Anees to settle on a time and place for dinner, always the day’s paramount event for the both of us.
We now four soon found ourselves at Gnocco on 10th Street, in their beautiful back garden sheltered by Trumpet Vines and heating ductwork ready for the winter. Anees had arrived bearing gifts from Palestine, two keffiyahs and a beautiful CD of a young Palestinian oud player, Samir Jubran.
And so, after another hike home to the northwest, to bed.

The 2003 Ford ITU New York City World Cup Duathlon [sic], a “dry-tri,” because of the polluting effect of recent perpetual heavy rainfall in Manhattan, was staged completely within Central Park on Sunday, incidently making it easier on the spectator, and especially the spectator’s eye. Who’s designing the boys’ and girls’ costumes?

We [heart] Spain! Ivan Rana (Esp), described before the race as a favorite, came in eighth in the men’s. Well, he’s probably still a “favorite” for lots of us.

Pip Taylor (Aus) was second in the women’s.
Hot, but except for the wonderful ribbons, the costume just can’t compete with Ivan’s.

The spooky Empire State thing rising above old Chelsea tonight

Jessie, a smart Blogger acquaintance of ours, needs help with new swim goggles.

My crappy Speedo swim goggles broke. So i taped them for this super hot goggle photo. And these less than hot goggle animations – 256-color, 16-color, 4-color.
Any brand/model recommendations? I like blue. And things that don’t break.

Make sure you click onto one of the 3 animation choices on his post.
He’s right.