The Public Theater 2006 Gala

By some stroke of luck, I was invited at the last minute to sit at the company table at the 2006 Public Theater Gala, held on opening night of Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. To be honest, I was just as excited to be there for all the glamour of the event as I was was for the performance of Macbeth, and the opportunity to watch Shakespeare under the stars.

To put it plainly, I knew Jennifer Ehle would be performing, and I've had a huge crush on her since her turn as Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice in the mid-90s. And I also knew that this particular event tends to be studded with celebrities who support theater (but are often better known for their film work) and Big New York Personalities, so I couldn't resist.

The event did not disappoint. A quickie roll-call of the folks who were there: Jessica Lange (sitting at table 26, just next to us!), Candice Bergen (who has an aesthetic eerily similar to Martha's), Mayor Mike, Anna Quindlen, Julianna Margulies, Diane von Furstenberg, Sam Rockwell (with whom I shared a bench with one day in Tompkins Square Park, and saw him wearing a Williams College athletics tee-shirt), Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber and my personal old school favorite, Bronson Pinchot, better known as Cousin Balki from "Perfect Strangers."

At the risk of seeming less like a cool, collected person accustomed to these kinds of events, and more like a teeny-bopper, I'd like to share some incredibly blurry photos taken with my trusty spycam of a few other fun folks at the gala:

* Tom Hanks (sitting with the black cap) and Steve Martin (sitting with the green-grey cap just beyond him). They had what looked like their kids in tow, and at some point ol' Tommy introduced his sons to Chelsea Clinton. awwww. They were all sitting in the center section just a few rows behind the night's honorees, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline.



* Cynthia Nixon's back. I had a much better view of her in real life, and I thought she looked beautiful in a cream dress with a black sash, but a combination of embarrassing my boss and pissing off "Miranda Hobbes" kept me from snapping when she was looking.




* And of course the life of the party, President [Bubba] Clinton! What a stud.






Finally, I must mention that I met my teen idol Ethan Hawke (who has a solid handshake, but was otherwise distracted and strange), due to the good graces of my boss' guest, Dan, who like a White Knight also saved my dessert macaroon from being prematurely bussed, and rescued a fly from drowning in my water glass.

Yes, it was a complete and lovely June evening, here in New York.

I really love... (for Cyndi)

Yesterday my friend Cyndi gave me some advice to live by, citing her yoga instructor [with a sense of irony in her voice]. This yoga instructor was telling an end-of-class story about an interview with Amy Sedaris (notably of Strangers with Candy) she'd heard on the radio, during which Sedaris listed, with child-like wonder, all the things she "really loves." The yoga instructor, and then Cyndi, and then I reflected on this for a while, and took from the story that no matter how grim things get, and how lacking in wonder and excitement and happiness the days may seem, there are always the things we "really love."

Well, I'm going to give the exercise a shot, starting with this weekend. I really love:

* my new apartment. We moved this weekend to our beautiful new spot in Carroll Gardens, and boy am I a happy camper. (And camping is what it feels like in my massive room with little furniture.) It's a little spooky for an apartment-bred Manhattanite like me to be living in a big old house, but I'm sure I'll adjust just fine. Pictured left, my coworker Cindy (a different Cyndi than "I really Love"-Cyndi) sitting on the newly lacquered floors.

* Feist. I went with Eliza to see her play at Central Park Summerstage yesterday afternoon despite forecast thunderstorms, and it was a great concert, with some beer drinking, running into new and old friends (from my days working at the festival), and a solid hour+ of my favorite vocalist.

* office buddies. They'd probably kill me for posting this photo, but these girls constitute some of the executive assistant corps (read: my life support at the office). Last week the company hosted the annual Spring party on the roof deck of our Chelsea office location where we drank white wine sangria and made an informal rule not to talk about work. It [sort of] worked.

What else?

* getting snail mail (This should be at the top of the list.)

* cotton tees and linen pants

* friends who tell me uplifting anecdotes on Sunday nights

* house plants

* staying cool when it's hot out

* Hainanese chicken rice

If you're ever down, do try this exercise. It does make things seem not-so-bad after all.

Refugee All Stars

If I feel that I have sufficiently packed my entire apartment by this evening, I plan on going to see the Refugee All Stars play tonight at Central Park Summerstage. The group consists entirely of refugees from Sierra Leone who found each other in the neighboring country of Guinea, and started to make music. Their story was documented in a film with their namesake, and it will be screened tonight in between musical performances by the band.

So, here's hoping that the boxes get filled and the thunderstorms hold off. Happy weekend everyone!

(The Refugee All Stars will be playing from 7-10pm tonight at Summerstage, located at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park. Enter the park at 69th Street and 5th Avenue on the east side or at 72nd Street and Central Park West on the west side.)

midsummer art

Midsummer in New York, and yesterday, on the longest day of the year, I was lucky enough to attend the opening reception of the New York Historical Society's first contemporary art exhibit entitled, "Legacies: Contemporary Artists Reflect on Slavery," which opened to a rave review from the New York Times. It is the second installment of a three-part series devoted to the theme of slavery -- the first, which I was not able to see last night, is devoted to historical artifacts related to slavery in New York -- and was curated in part by the president of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

I brought Eliza with me to the exhibit, since much of her art is informed by her perspective on racial issues and how they affect her life. We realized very quickly, touring the three galleries in the ground floor of the grand building on Central Park West, that this is what we wanted our lives to be filled with: art, diversity, creativity and politics, hors d'oeuvres and wine. Pictured here, one of the artists explaining her homage piece to Seneca Village, a community of African-American landowners established in the early 19th century on a stretch of land located from 81st to 89th Streets, and later razed to make way for what is now Central Park.

The exhibit is wildly varied, from installations bedecked with random neon lights to Kara Walker's signature black and white cutout silhouettes, and does not speak to the viewer as a group of voices "wronged by the system." (Again, I refer you to the Holland Cotter's review in the Times.) All told, it was a lovely way to spend the evening, and I highly recommend a visit.

Father's Day presents and Finding Movers

I haven't posted in a while because I am having a helluva time finding movers. I am excited to move to Brooklyn, but where have all the recommended movers gone? Anyone got anyone good for me?

So Happy Belated Father's day, everyone. I hope you all spent it well, and spent it air-conditioned, because boy was it a hot one yesterday. My sibs and I watched home videos and had a grand old time trying to recall memories of being little and opening each other's birthday presents.

What did you get your fathers? I'm curious because I found this today in the blogosphere, and if my Dad were still around, I think he might have gotten a good laugh out of receiving it; I also thought you might all like to know the kind of "innovations" Apple and its cohorts are coming up with these days: Now, I would never purchase this because it promotes loitering on the toilet. Besides, who's in the bathroom for this long?

I'm having a grand old time sitting in my "cubicle" thinking of what would be on my Little Girl's Room playlist.

Off to move more stuff to our "country house" in Carroll Gardens. More soon.

Puerto Rican pride, Eva Hesse and Dorothy's birthday

This past weekend held the city's annual celebration of Puerto Rican pride. Dorothy (who turned 25 while she was visiting), Eliza and I found ourselves in the thick of it up in Spanish Harlem on Saturday afternoon.

MTV2 tried to interview us, but found this guy instead:

We walked,

And stumbled upon Central Park's Conservatory Garden on 104th Street at 5th Avenue, where we witnessed a private wedding under a willow tree.

This is our new favorite spot in the city.
After stopping in the garden, we walked down to the Eva Hesse sculpture retrospective at the Jewish Museum (free on Saturdays in honor of the Sabbath!). Pictured left, Eva Hesse's Repetition Nineteen III (1968). The whole installation is a lovely, calming and pristine exhibit, filled with the artist's interest in randomness as it affects work, and tactile, real media (e.g. latex, string). I enjoyed it very much, though I didn't know anything about the artist beforehand. Eliza did.

On the subway later to the Lower East Side, this service car passed through the station at 125th Street. Anyone have any idea what the praying mantis is about?

Anyway, the point of this post is that there are plenty of fun, free things to do in New York City this summer, and somehow I needed a good friend visiting from Boston to open my eyes to most of it. Happy Birthday, D!

Photo of Repetition Nineteen III from http://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/16994/index.html.

10x10

I posted my HK Magazine profile of Hong Kong-based photographer Michael Wolf when I first started this blog, and my former flatmate (because they're called "flats" there, not because I'm affected) recently sent me a link to this post on the NY Times technology blog, coincidentally, without remembering that I'd ever met the man:


To browse the pics yourself, click here.

Summerstage is here, Summerstage is here!

Those of you who know me well may know that during the Summer of 2001, I was the Assistant to the Executive Producer of the Summerstage Concert Festival, held in Central Park every year. And those of you who are forced to spend time with me this summer will know that I am SO excited for it.

Having lived in Hong Kong for two years, where the muggy weather forced us all to stay indoors (barring the month of November when the weather was good and EVERYthing that is held outdoors is crammed into four weeks of glorious, crisp days), I have missed proper seasons, and *this* season in particular. New York is at its cultural best when it's warm out; there are hundreds of lectures, concerts, events and they're all FREE and OUTSIDE. Can you think of anything better?

This year, Summerstage has got some heavy hitters: Damien Rice, Bonnie Raitt, the New Pornographers, Joan Didion (for a spoken word night), but none more painfully exciting for me (Josefine, you know what I mean) than Feist on June 25th, for Canada Day. Yay! Feist is a vocalist who was introduced to me about a year ago by my Swedish buddy, frequent blog commenter, music connoisseur and up-and-coming journalist, Josefine Hadell. The album is a soft one, but you can hear a little punk and a little passion in her voice. And since I'm generally terrible at music reviews (I don't know why HK Magazine ever let me write them), I'll just recommend you download, "Secret Heart," which I believe she's released as a single here in the U.S.

For a kind of rock-y version of the single, click here as she performs on the Carson Daly show (does anyone actually WATCH this?).

Yay Summerstage!

Shock Magazine

Today's ubiquitous photos of dead al-Zarqawi reminded me of the recent launch of a magazine I find remarkable, both in its audacity, and its predicted popularity. It's called, simply, 'Shock.' It's filled with the kinds of rude, disgusting, censored, terrifying, and disturbing images you might find on older, pioneer websites like rotten.com. Or the kinds of photos that People and US Weekly just can't bring themselves to publish, like Kate Moss sitting in front of lines of coke.

I haven't seen it on the newstands yet, though its official launch date was May 30th. There was some controversy about the company not buying the rights to one of the images on the cover, and so there was that. But I'm not sure.

I suppose I'm wondering if anyone else has heard of it yet. See, as I find myself more and more immersed in the navel-gazing world of media, I also see its influence on the world. And I worry, with the launch of magazines like 'Shock,' that big publishers are forgetting a responsibility to readers. I don't mean to get on a high horse or anything -- I know full well that I work for a lifestyle company targeted at affluent women, and that we're not changing the world, or making big-picture improvements -- but I've idealized "The Magazine" as a medium for special interest groups, where one can, for instance, explore a passion of theirs, or sit in an armchair with a cup of tea and immerse themselves in a issue's beauty or completely esoteric jargon, or something.

Take for example, the company that is publishing 'Shock,' Hachette Filipacchi. They also publish titles like American Photo, Car and Driver, Premiere, Cycle World, the Elle titles and Woman's Day, so 'Shock' seems a real deviation from their normal editorial expertise. Will other big publishing companies go this route, because it's where the newstand money is?

Ultimately, I can't decide if the success or failure of this publication would be a commentary on publishers, or consumers. Newstands really *sell* US Weekly, People, Star and Hello!, while magazines that sell mostly by subscription include Harper's, National Geographic, ArtForum, The Paris Review and even Entertainment Weekly (too much text, I think). The rise of the internet has meant that magazines are a bit of a dying breed, and I wonder if new genres like this will save them, or if it's just leading us down a very slippery slope.

* Read Gawker's mini-review of the mag.

* Check out the Shock general website.

two postcards.

Big event in my life as a proponent of snail mail: I received two postcards in a single day. I love mail! To commemorate the day, I thought I'd post them here.

This is the front of the card that Lisa sent me from Alaska, where she's camping out for the next couple of years, reporting for the "oldest, continually published paper in Alaska." beautiful, ain't it?

The other card is from my mother, who is in the middle of her three-week motorcycle road trip out West with her boyfriend and motorcycle enthusiast, Billy. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
Note: my mother has the most amazing handwriting EVER. This is actually rather messy, for her.

Isn't it great? I think everyone should send postcards to everyone, any chance they get. Nothing beats a handwritten note.

The Alumni magazine: Will you ever read it?

Got a good one today: The Wall Street Journal published an article about alumni magazines and what a load of crap they are.

Alright, that's not exactly what the article's about. But the point is that colleges have viewed the publication of editorially-independent alumi magazines as a threat to their fundraising efforts, particularly if those publications are focusing on administrative scandals rather than the college's "achievements." The article primarily cites Harvard as an example of this; the university's development office has begun publishing a separate alumni magazine, *The Yard* -- competition, I suppose, for the presumably far more interesting, *Harvard* magazine. I've gotta get my hands on these.

Williams College (my alma mater) gets a shout out in the article, which I mention because I find it a little funny: "Current and former editors at alumni magazines across the country, from Williams College to Columbia University, say that tensions with their schools have grown in recent years as fund-raisers increasingly try to gain control of communication with graduates."

"From Williams College to Columbia University"?? Well, that's not a very big range, now is it?

Another notable line from the article, "The alumni-magazine landscape at Harvard is poised to become even more cluttered with the September launch of 02138, a private publication named for Harvard's iconic ZIP Code."

Maybe I'm just uneducated, but 02138 just doesn't quite ring for me like, say, 90210.







Anyhow, Williams' alumni magazine, if you're curious, is usually full of foliage and sports blurbs and incredibly tedious articles about new buildings on campus. There are some interesting bits: new academic programs they've established off campus, books that kooky and loved professors are publishing. But the fact is, the Alumni Review is such a throwaway publication that they actually *removed* the Alumni News from the magazine because that was the only piece of it that people cared about. Now all the class notes and wedding photos are published in a smaller digest called, simply, "People." I have to say, I don't care for that one much, either.

So, you should read this piece. Makes you think a little bit about what kind of literature our colleges would have us consume.

Now I'm off to sign a lease on a new apartment in Brooklyn. hurrah!