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.

Giving me goose bumps

So we went to see Annie Lennox at the United Palace Theatre way up in the stix - around 165th St in Washington Heights. It was in this funky, huge converted Church (maybe it's still a Church, but that night it was a concert venue.)

I just love Annie. It's personal, I feel if we met we would be friends. And seeing her perform - this is the 5th time I've seen her live, is just wonderful. She always gives me chills, she's so good. Her voice is effortless, just soars up, so strong and clear. And the melodies and lyrics, so haunting. It was a great night.

We also had that small new york moment, when, as I was watching the seats in front of me - I don't know if you play this game, but I often watch people and try to figure out the connections between them. So two women, roughly the same age (mid 30's) came in and sat in the 3 sets before us, and chatted. And then this quite dashing man, 10 years or so older, came and sat between them, and I was trying to figure out who was whom, with the more vibrant girl nodding so attentively to him and the quieter girl fluttering her hands, not quite touching his shoulder. And when the man and the quieter woman went to get more drinks, the more vibrant woman turned to us and said directly 'so you're probably wondering how we fit together' and I laughed, startled, and said, actualy we were. It turns out she's the dashing guy's sister and she's trying to help him with his new girlfriend (who she doesn't know) but frankly, she was more charming and if that the level of women he's used to, the new girlfriend won't cut it. But it was so sweet to actually have one of my connections verifed.

A great night out all round.

the saga continues

It's veteran's day, combined with the shift in daylight savings after Halloween, and suddenly it's dark dark at 5pm. I've got a beef and wine stew scenting up the house. We're cooking stews because, you guessed it, the house is till a total mess. Everything, books, papers, wine glasses, is covered in a fine white dust. I clean and the next day it's as if the dust pixies came out at night and dirtied everything up again.

Sorry to moan, but really, that's the only thing going on in my life right now. Someone emailed me the other day and I said 'I can't do another thing, my plate is absolutely full!' with that weird pitch mother's can get in their voices before the shrieking starts. Luckily, they can't hear my tone in the email, but they didn't answer back either...

I feel that after December 1st and my last big event for the school, I can start to calm down (though December 7th is another smaller event) Okay, after december 7th, I'm officially calm. Except that we leave for Sydney on December 17th - always lovely but not necessarily calming. So by Jan 14 (after the 4th grade ELA exams) I will officially be calm. There, I've set myself a deadline, and I'm sticking to it.

Did go to dancedancepartyparty again, for the first time in a long time, and enjoyed it. Still regret that they no longer let my son come with me, because he loved it and he's coming with me meant a) no whose going to stay with him worries and b) we both did exercise that we enjoyed. Still, I will try to make it next week because I do love dancing, and I miss it.

Next posting, the bathroom will done and the moaning will be over! I'll have photos to prove it :)

When Head is Stupid, Whole Body is Sick

Isn't that a great saying? My contractor (Jiri, call me George) said it to me today, after he mistakenly took my son's keys, in addition to the set I had given him, causing some concern... I have those stupid keys which only the Managing Agent can have cut for me, and as she and I are currently at war, if I lost those keys, I wouldn't be getting any others any time soon.

The bathroom is dominating our lives, and certainly dominating our flat as the rubble and weird boxes grow and the space shrinks. We are down to the sofa and the coffee table, all other space is taken by these huge boxes.

Shall I tell you my restocking saga? Suffice to say that you better read the small print carefully. Some websites charge a 25% restocking fee - it's going to cost us over $200 to return the stuff we ordered that was too big. The pitfalls of the Internet! Well, at least we have all the right equipment now (or its getting here) and I feel that in 2 weeks time, we'll have this jewel of a room and space in our home once more.

Other than that, I'm still enjoying Life, but not watching any of the other new fall programs - they didn't seem to grab me. I am loving one new show which didn't get any media attention - my sister told me of the Israeli version first, but they have a sort of American Idol for psychics - America's Psychic Challenge (the first being how to spell the word psychic, as I misspelled it 3 times in a row!) The premise is in each episode, four contestants who claim to have psychic abilities compete in a series of tests designed to illustrate their clairvoyance, such as finding a man hidden in the trunk of one of 50 cars, correctly pairing up five brides and five grooms and precisely identifying a series of specific details in a police investigation of a violent murder scene. At the end of each episode, the two weakest contenders are eliminated, while the top two return to face two new challengers in the next episode. (don't even know who I'm quoting here, but they summarized it nicely)

DH keeps going - but they got it wrong, and I say, look at how much they got right. There was one where they took the psychics to the room where Janis Joplin killed herself, and the psychic goes... I'm getting the name Anne or Annie with the letter J. I thought that was amazing, and he's scoffing from the sofa. Some of the contestants are way off base, but some are freakishly accurate. As you can no doubt tell, I'm enjoying it a lot!

So it's television and renvoations - except for last night, which was the Candy explosion that is Halloween. I have to say that Tribeca does a very nice halloween, such cute costumes, and kids going shop to shop and collecting candy. Some apartments really get into it, and have wonderfully spooky lobbies, some shops can barely give out Tootsie rolls, but the restaurants are getting more into it, giving out far too fabulous cookies that the munchkins reject but their parents gratefully accept. Disrespectacles did it's traditional thing of handing the parents a glass of wine - very cizilized indeed.

We ended up having a bowl of pasta at Max's, a newish restaurant on Duane St which serves really nice pasta - and more importantly to our son, he got an amazing amount of booty, and loved walking around in his purple alien costume.