vip in the city

Lady in the Water

June 2006 was the fifth rainiest June recorded in New York City. Three years ago, 10.27 inches of rain fell in Central Park, making it the wettest June since record keeping began in 1869.

July’s weather, by contrast, has been drier, but much more volatile: the heat wave earlier this week melted parts of NYC’s public transportation system and contributed to widespread — and still ongoing — blackouts in Western Queens. Just before 5:00PM, the skies suddenly blackened and torrential rains came in, clearing the streets and sending rivers of water pouring down the sides of buildings, just in time for Friday evening rush hour.

The view from my office:

So much for my plans to hit The South Street Seaport Museum and “Chicken Run” at Pier 46. Plan B: After a celebratory drink with JB, ST, RM and the summer interns across the street, I met SYB in SoHo to begin our “secret rock star” itinerary. Thankfully, by then the rain had tapered off.

First stop: pre-party bites at Verlaine on Rivington. According to the New York Magazine Bar Guide, the place is popular with “a less ostentatious breed of LES hipster.” Summer rolls, calamari, spinach dumplings and happy hour (until 10:00PM!) sangrias. Yum. CL and his friends began trickling in as our food arrived, and we made our way to the reserved area after dinner, where someone had brought in cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine. Chatted with JL, and got to meet IL about whom I’d heard so much over the years.

Next stop: Lolita on Broome for SK’s sendoff. From bisexual French poets to American nymphets! Got to watch SYB break out his origami bar trick for SK’s friend, Lauren. Tonight’s feature: the Kawasaki star. Not wanting to pull a WGY, I diverted my attention to SK’s friend DG, the Québécois attorney, instead of joining in the folding lesson.

An hour later, we were in a cab headed uptown: SYB on to party number three; me, home to call it a night… which I suppose makes me only two-thirds as cool. I can live with that.

From Joe Morgenstern‘s review:

M. Night Shyamalan’s “Lady In the Water” was inspired, we are told, by a bedtime story the filmmaker told his kids. I’m here to tell you that this cloying piece of claptrap sets a high-water mark for pomposity, condescension, false profundity and true turgidity — no small accomplishment for the man whose last two features were the deadly duo “Signs” and “The Village.”… [Mr. Shyamalan’s] first success in the genre was the genuinely creepy “The Sixth Sense,” with its signature line “I see dead people.” But that was seven years ago. Now everyone is dead in “Lady In the Water,” and they aren’t meant to be. They’ve simply been suffocated by super-seriousness in the telling of a small, murky fable.

Ouch. But aside from that: has it really been seven years since “The Sixth Sense”? I remember going to see that film in Great Neck with DK, HH and JC — a night I still recall with much fondness, despite everything that came after.