Life's a Beach

So we are visiting friends and family in Sydney and trying to spend at least one hour a day at the beach. The Australian sun is too fierce to have whole days at the beach, as we did in my childhood. You would burn to a crisp, factor 30 notwithstanding. We try for an hour or two from 10 - noon or even better from 3 onwards, where you can end up eating fish and chips, as you sit all sandy on the steps, and feel the good life around you.

We usually go to Maroubra beach (pictured) - closer, with great waves, but rougher and windy; or Bondi - further, much more glam but very expensive parking and half an hour away. I love the waves, and jumping through them fills me with a child like glee. It's wonderful to jump the waves in my childhood beach with my son. I always say that Sydney is a great city to grow up in, because even though it's as urban as any other metropolis of five million souls, the beach keeps it from getting too detatched from nature. In the city of Sydney, you are still aware that nature is bigger than you, with awesome thunder storms and the every day majesty of the surf.

Good bye Umbrella...

To continue our quest to see as much performance art pieces as possible, we went and saw the last act of James Thierree's show at BAM.

It was everything you'd want it to be - lyrical, amazing, visual, intense, with the most fantastic acrobatics, climbing up and down those huge industrial swathe of ropes. I loved it.

We've been really lucky and seen some dazzling shows lately. It had a totally different feel from Fuerzabruta - sadder and sweeter. Feurzabruta - I've told everyone I've met to go see that show, and I still can't pronounce it! - is more experiential and rave like, AU REVOIR PARAPLUIE, is more emotional and lyrical but both were fantastic in the truest sense of the word, weaving new fantasy, with amazing images. DH sees these shows and says how lucky we are to live in New York...

It's also great to see shows with another sensibility. These were not performed by American's and you can tell, there is something different about the energy or the intent. And it's great to see different perspectives.

We went and saw a very american movie last night - no country for old men, make by the Cohen Brothers, and I also thought it had a European sensibility to it, because it was about aging, and losing hope, and there was no neat happy ending, and it lacked that insistent optimism and sentimentality that I often find in American films. It was a terrific piece, wonderfully acted and directed, and sad, also...

A Fan moment

I didn't mention that we had also gone to see Chita Rivera at Feinstein's, on the Upper East Side. Now the ues is not a place I often or even occasionally go to. And when ever I do go there, I scurry back home pronto, as it's too... too something for me - too refined? too rich? too old? too formal? Something.

We go to this tiny cabaret venue, it seats about 120? maybe a few more. Not many though, and sit and eat our horrifically overpriced but really quite delicious beef and wait for the main event. We are the youngest couple by far in the room, and all the women there, of a certain age, have a certain look - vaguely stretched out faces, perfect noses, teased hair. They all look like sisters (or clones) thin and bony and bejewelled.

And then Rosie O'Donnell walks in and waits impatiently for the maitre d' and I think how much rougher she looks in real life, and how shiny her hair is. Then Chita comes on from the back of the room and puts her hand on my shoulder as she walks in. I wasn't in new york in the 70's and 80's so I don't have a history with her, but I love seeing someone who has real charisma at work and she was so charming. She can still belt it out and made charming allusions to her age (when I played in West Side story in 1964 when I was an egg) and a pleasant evening was had by all. It was clear that she loved performing and was so happy to be there, that we were happy to be there with her.

Afterwards I did the female thing and rushed to the loo and while I was safely locked inside my cubicle Rosie and another woman walked in, the woman trying to sell her something - involvement in her latest documentary, something like that, and they turn to talk about Barbara Walters and Rosie says something like 'she's really not a very nice woman at all' and I thought, it could have been Barbara in this cubicle, how would they know..

Anyways, I go out, and cross the foyer to go back to Feinstein's (we're in a fancy upper East side hotel, and as I walk, who should walk in front of me, I could have touched him we were so close, but Bill Clinton.

I was so surprised and delighted and astonished. I rushed back to the room to tell DH - I just saw Bill Clinton! I was gushing. As I told it to a friend later, he said, Chita was expected and Rosie didn't mean much to you, but Bill, he gave you a real fan experience. And I have to say he was right. I felt like a real fan. Seeing him, so unexpectedly, made the night for me.

Dreams Made Flesh

On the w/e we went and saw Fuerzabruta from the same folks who brought De La Guarda - this dream like dance visuals, it's hard to explain. You stand the entire time, and the event goes on around you. Actually, it felt like going to a rave, with that music and lights and then there were people swooping from the ceiling (on wire) and doing amazing things with water. It was both dream like and edgy. I said to DH we really have to go to Argentina for a rave one day, because what they are bringing to us is just amazing.