vip in the city, page 46

After SYB and I were thwarted in our attempts to dine at Tia Pol, we were left with little time to settle upon an alternative that would deliver us to the the theater in time for our show. I’d just been to Bombay Talkie, so we ended up at the Chelsea outpost of Thai chainlet Spice, which had the benefit of being fast, cheap and a short block from the Joyce.

Tonight, one of the final performances in the week-long engagement of Philippe Decouflé‘s intimate and alluring Solo: Le doute m’habite (The Doubt Within Me).  French-born Decouflé is an internationally renowned director, choreographer, and dancer. His choreography credits alone include the opening ceremonies for the 1992 Albertville Olympics, the 50th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and the official bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution in 1989. On the pop cultural front, Decouflé is the director behind the music videos for Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy”  and New Order’s “True Faith“.

The arc of the show was semi-autobiographical, almost confessional, and drolly self-effacing: there was a montage of faded family photographs taken from the artist’s carefree youth, and through his adulthood to include his two daughters (and their mothers. Quelle sophistication, eh?) But the show did not dwell on sentimentality, focusing instead on Decouflé’s considerable performing skill (accompanied by trombonist and sometime ukelelist Joachim Latarjet) and multimedia theatrical work. The performance made use of projected video, light and shadows, transforming the stage into a literal kaleidoscope of movement and images. Decouflé skillfully manipulated imagery, employing numerous eye-popping strategies to reveal himself as a creative artist exploring new ideas.

In my favorite sequence, Decouflé’s impressive technical arsenal was made to seem even more intricate as his movements were projected as shadows, and then inverted and re-projected as time-delayed doubles, triples, quadruples, and so on, until the entire screen was crowded with swirling, dancing Decouflés.

Burlesque-a-Pades wasn’t scheduled to start at Joe’s Pub until 11:30PM, so we had time to cross Eighth Avenue for Pinkberry — “the taste that launched 1,000 parking tickets.” (Have I made a new convert?)

With some time still to spare, we cooled our heels at the bar at the Public, which was empty at this post-theater hour save for us, the bartender, Philip Seymour Hoffman and his cohorts. Just before our evening’s organizers M & L pulled up in their cab, the bartender sent us over a couple of G&Ts, which try as we might, we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to guzzle. Tragic waste.

My first burlesque show! The stars of tonight’s program were the “World Famous Pontani Sisters,” who in 2005, were named the #1 burlesque attraction in the United States. The three showbiz “siblings” Angie, Tara and Helen Pontani — actually, blond Tara is a recruit from Detroit — have toured the world with their act, and were the subjects of Showy and 5’2″, a documentary by Rebecca Shapiro, chronicling their unique career and showbiz success, which premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

The evening was emceed by Murray Hill, who introduced the saucy acts by Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey, Peekaboo Pointe and… one young and limber woman who looked strangely familiar. Hmm.  As Miss Harvest Moon arched backwards into a full bridge, reached upside-down with her mouth for a champagne glass set on the stage, and drained its contents without spilling a single drop — all to the howls of an appreciative audience — it occurred to me that I first saw Miss Harvest as a guest at MC’s holiday party in December. Though admittedly, not quite so very much  of her.

Haha! I love New York.

My local Starbucks has been closed all week. Every morning on my way to the Lincoln Center subway station, I come across at least a couple of people poised perplexedly before of the brown-papered window. Young professionals, bleary-eyed mothers and their Peg-Peregos, ABC Studios staffers, Reebok Sports Club members… the scene always plays out the same way: a double-take, a narrow-eyed reading of the posted sign, a second, sometimes a third, reading, and a palm shielded squint inside the darkened windows. How can this be?  Over the next three seconds: disbelief becomes dismay, followed by a quiet, slow-building desperation. Now  where will I get my soy chai frappuccino/half-caf mocha/nonfat triple caramel macchiato? Where? Where?!

Oh, right. Everywhere.

Incidentally, the changes “brewing inside” are to convert the Columbus/67th Street location to a 24-hour(!) Starbucks. Which, given the sugar/caffeine content of their concoctions, makes some sense.

Interesting piece in the New York Times  on the coffee bars in Brazil’s Rio de Janiero, a country whose total coffee consumption is second only to the United States. Naturally, SBUX is all over that, opening its first two shops in São Paulo last November, making Brazil the 38th country to host the chain.

Resistance is futile.

Tonight, the CURB Arts Group held the opening reception for its Fifth Annual group exhibition, “Beyond Borders.”

Established by Kiril Tarpov in March 2002 as an artist-run enterprise to support and promote international artists in the New York art scene, CURB has been presenting artists from all over the world individually and in group shows. For these international artists, the annual CURB exhibit has become a cultural tradition. This year’s event included works by featured artists Robert Aitchison, Illiyan Ivanov, Joey Kilrain, Chris Parkman, Ina Tumova, and Mark Wiener — an eclectic mix of abstract painting and multimedia collage, cut-out works on paper and square foot paintings assembled into geometric sculptures.

I headed west from Penn Station, and then just kept on walking… and walking… and walking. The pedestrian traffic thinned out as I approached the West Side Highway. By Tenth Avenue, the storefronts were mostly darkened warehouses — until there it was, across the street from the Copa, Copacabana (the hottest spot north of Havana): the Curb Art Space, tucked almost incongruously inside a leafy courtyard from which the tinkling sounds of the party could be heard.

The pieces are presented in a “chamber” format: small galleries, intimate spaces. In the main space, the tunes of jazz guitarist Darius Melendez mingled with the multi-lingual chatter as servers with trays of icy caipirinhas circled the room.

The exhibit will be on view through April 16, 2007.

For once, I didn’t have to rush back to the office after lunch, so we took the opportunity to venture a little farther in our eating adventures — east and south of Chinatown’s historic core, to the Fujianese-dominated quarter. We’d made a couple of noodle-inspired trips to these streets before, and in this cold, a bowl of some much-lauded spicy beef noodles seemed like just the thing. It was my first midday, mid-week jaunt to Super Taste, and I was surprised to find the noodle shop teeming with slurping diners — not an empty chair in sight.

Plan B brought us across Eldridge and down the stairs to Sheng Wang for the second time. The scene wasn’t much less crowded there, but ultimately we were able to snag the last two seats in the far corner table. From our chairs, we had a clear view into the rather dingy rear kitchen, where the Fuzhou fish balls are churned out en masse, and stacked on trays to dry out under oscillating fans. (Noodles seem to be pulled or cut by chefs in the second, smaller kitchen at the front of the shop.)

We ordered our bowls of the specialty hand-pulled noodles, which arrived in minutes, steaming hot and topped with chunky slices of tender beef, tangy pickled greens and those tasty pork-stuffed yu wan.  (SYB was missing out.)

Are there better places to enjoy a bowl of noodle soup? A recent round-up of the city’s Asian noodle soups in Paper  cited nearby Golden Dragon Restaurant (7 Eldridge Street), in addition to Super Taste and Sheng Wang. And if the Chowhound boards are to be believed, family-run Eastern Noodles, a.k.a. Eastern Authentic Noodle House, is another worthy contender, and located just west on Forsyth – where the shop relocated after departing the noodle epicenter that is Eldridge Street.

There will be other Thursdays.

At the The Gallery of the SoHo Grand for a reception for the new exhibition by celebrity photographer Jeremy Kost’s “Not a Play Area.” Kost, who was the subject of a recent New York Times profile, is known for his unique use of a clunky Polaroid camera to capture scenes from the vibrant and gritty New York City nightlife and fame culture. Kost’s low-tech and intimate approach to celebrity portrait photography has earned him the reputation of the new “anti-paparazzi.” He is regular contributor to GIANT Magazine and is the sole artist behind his site, RoidRage.Com.

Provocative, blown-up Polaroids and sculpture lined the walls of the paneled gallery, which began to fill over the course of the night. It occured to me that this was just the sort of event Kost himself might mine for subject material; his previous coverage has included the Mission Impossible 3  premiere, the Independent Spirit Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards. How meta. Kost did eventually make an appearance that night to mingle among the crowds – albeit without his trusty camera.

Interspersed among the snapshots of famous faces, there are glittered club kids and elaborately made-up drag queens, offering a colorful representation of New York’s nightclub denizens, reminding us that somewhere, “the scene” still means much more than “models and bottles.”

“Not a Play Area” is on view through April 15, 2007.

Attended a reading of Christina Masciotti’s new work, Adult, as part of The New Group/New Works readings series. Masciotti’s previous works include 2004’s Hello School and The Collection, which had its run at chashama in Fall 2005.

Adult is a spare, two-character drama about the struggles of becoming an adult, and how it’s never too late to undertake the process. Stanley, a working class gun shop owner, is resigned to a solitary, aimless existence in his depressed Pennsylvania town. His life changes almost overnight when his formerly estranged daughter Tara decides to leave college to stay with him for a while. New York singer/songwriter Jimmie James (who wrote the songs for last year’s Everythings Turning into Beautiful ) gave a sensitive rendition of a man navigating the sometimes fraught relationships between fathers and daughters. NYU student Halley Wegryn Gross, who appeared with Ethan Hawke, Parker Posey, Bobby Cannavale, and Wallace Shawn in HurlyBurly in 2005, read the role of daughter Tara. The performances were directed by Ian Morgan, Associate Artistic Director of The New Group.

The event took place at the 4th floor studio theatre of Theatre Row, on 42nd Street between Ninth and Dyer Avenues, the last of which exists primarily to direct traffic and exhaust to and from the Lincoln Tunnel. Theatre Row — actually a five-theatre complex — premiered on the block in the 1970s when this stretch of 42nd street was a strictly low-rent neighborhood, rife with prostitutes, porn shops, massage parlors, and tenements. Playwrights Horizons moved to the area, west of the traditional theater district, in 1975, where it was instrumental in the revitalization of Theatre Row. Several more smaller theatres followed, opened by the state-sponsored 42nd Street Development Corporation to renew this desolate block.

The theatres are protected by a land-use covenant, but they were gutted and entirely rebuilt in a 2000 project that included new revenue-producing residential towers, a new Playwrights Horizons space, the Little Shubert, and a handful of smaller theatres, studios and rehearsal rooms.

The Atlantic Theater Company was founded in 1985 by playwright David Mamet and actor William H. Macy. Tonight, the theater was staging a reading of excerpts from Olaf Olafsson’s new collection of stories, Valentines.

New Yorker Olafsson is the acclaimed Icelandic émigré author of Absolution  (which was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize in 1991), Walking Into the Night, and The Journey Home  (soon to be filmed starring husband and wife team Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany, under the direction of Liv Ullmann). Olafsson is a true renaissance man; he began his training as a physicist, but abandoned a Ph.D. program to eventually found and head the Sony digital entertainment division that was responsible for introducing the PlayStation. A vice-chairmanship at Time Warner Digital Media followed, where he currently serves as an executive vice president… all while the man continues to churn out critically-acclaimed novels and serve as chairman of award-winning Off-Broadway theater companies. Very impressive… though that last explains in part why the Atlantic chose this particular work to spotlight.

Valentines is a perversely titled collection — the name suggests hearts and cupids and happily ever after, but based on the excerpts read this night, it’s doubtful that any of the characters will know such Hallmark endings. The readings offered a grim look at three of the dozen thematically-linked stories — one for each month — casting an unwavering eye on the heartbreak and disappointment lovers and family often dispense. These couples destroy their relationships with a breathtaking minimum of fuss, mired in infidelity, infertility, alcoholism and simmering resentments — and that’s just in the selections featured tonight. The pieces were read brilliantly by Larry Bryggman (Tony-nominated for Proof ), Jonathan Cake (Bridget Moynahan’s weaselly British ex-fiance Roy on Six Degrees ) and Haviland Morris (from Sixteen Candles!)  Emily Mortimer was scheduled to appear originally, but had to drop out at the last minute due to conflicts with her film shooting schedule.

Listening to these stories, I found Olafsson’s writing reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s in its spareness and understatement. The stories chilled my heart with despair; the biting winds on the streets outside froze everything else. Luckily, I did not have far to walk for dinner.

I’d read about Chelsea’s Bombay Talkie in the Times  a couple of years ago; Bruni’s review began rather memorably with: “I have tasted the bitterness of unrequited love…”

No such bitterness tonight — I had the mango lassi. I arrived at the restaurant just as CS did, and within a few minutes, the rest of our party had found their way.

The loungey, low-lit space was clean and modern, with just a hint of Bollywood kitsch. These murals just beg for a backstory, no?

The menu is a take on Indian street food, divided into three sections: “Street bites” (appetizers); “From the roadside” (entrees); and “Curbside” (sides). We made our selections, and soon enough, our long communal table was covered with small dishes of chicken, lamb, pork, wraps, naan and rice — all prettily presented, and fragrantly (if not aggressively) spiced. What better way to get to know our new friends than over shared plates of tasty food? In the background, a large flatscreen television broadcast an endless procession of real Bombay Talkies as Indian music piped cheerily over the restaurant sound system. It may have been the food, or perhaps it was the company, but over talk of faraway places, I felt the beginnings of a thaw set in.

The boys and I were tossing around ideas for our Sunday outing when HH came across a writeup on the Gazillion Bubble Show, the American debut production by Fan Yang, “World Renowned Bubble Scientist.”

That Sunday also happened to be the first day of the week-long 20at20 event — during which participating Off-Broadway shows were pricing tickets at $20 apiece, beginning 20 minutes before each show. SYB checked, and lo and behold, GBS  was one of the offerings, effectively cutting the cost per bubble by 2/3. So there we were.

We met at New World Stages — home of the former $2.00/$2.50/$3.00 movie theater — to stake our spots on line this chilly afternoon. By show time, the line stretched a block-long, but we had no problem snagging our quartet of seats.

GBS is promoted as “the first and only multi-million dollar, high-tech, interactive, audience participation, scientific, entertainment stage production, created by using the bubble media, fantastic lighting, lasers and incredible bubble special FX!” Sounded pretty cool, and for a double sawbuck, definitely worth checking out. We entered the auditorium, and as the front rows started filling in, we found ourselves in the funny position of being the oldest in the audience without children in tow. Ha!

Fan Yang took the stage, and opened by introducing how he fell into his unusual line of work. A low production value video, projected onto a pair of screens flanking the stage, narrated Fan Yang’s life story (born in Vietnam and raised in Yugoslavia) and his “philosophy of bubbles.” It was interesting by way of background, but not the main reason we were there.

Bring on the bubbles! Giant and small, bubbles inside bubbles, square bubbles, smoke-filled bubbles, towers of bubbles… it all would have been more impressive had we not already seen much of the same before at Spiegeltent last summer. There were a few neat tricks, though: the laser light “Bubble Rain & Snow Extravaganza” and “Celestial Cloud Rings,” giant soap bubbles sprung like rainbows from giant hoops, towers of bubble domes — all generated with Fan Yang’s own secret formulation of non-toxic, non-staining bubble solution, and accompanied by music from what could have been the Yanni/John Tesh catalogue.

The kids in the audience were thrilled; after every call for volunteers, watching them erupt into shrieking pandemonium, scores of little hands shooting up and waving frantically in the air, was a show in itself.

Fan Yang is the world record-holder in a dozen Guinness categories, some of which sound pretty impressive: “Biggest bubble ever blown” (7.5 feet in circumference), “Most bubbles within a bubble” (11) , and “Largest bubble wall ever created” (156 feet in length). But some of the others are weirdly specific: “Largest number of people linked in a bubble cage” (15 pairs) and “Passage into a bubble hemisphere” seem more like stunts than records.

It is heartening that someone like Fan Yang would be able to parlay his childhood passion into a viable adult career, when he could just as easily have become “that weird guy who really, really, really  likes bubbles.”

March 20-26 is National Bubble Week — who knew?

Early dinner at Hells Kitchen standby Pam Real Thai: Fried curry puffs, steamed chive dumplings, Beef pad key mao (stir-fried flat noodle with meat, chili, basil and garlic) and Chicken pad naam prik pao (sauteed with sweet chili paste, chili, scallion and onion.) Not pictured: Green curry chicken.

There was some talk of a post-dinner movie, but at 160 minutes, Zodiac  (the one film we could all agree upon) was deemed too much of a commitment. Netflix to the rescue! I had Mad Hot Ballroom  waiting at home in a red envelope, and within minutes we were gathered around my suddenly quaint television set to watch the trials and travails of New York City public school kids in citywide ballroom dance competition.

Watching these pre-teens learn invaluable life lessons through swing, tango, rumba, meringue and foxtrot, we couldn’t help but be enchanted. (In DK’s case, for the second time.)  For many of the youngsters — particularly at Washington Heights’s P.S. 115, where an astounding 97% of the student body lives below the poverty line — the dancing represents a rare chance to excel. I would have liked to see more of the students in their home environments (as in Spellbound )  but the filmmakers do a fine job capturing the feelings of these fifth graders in their playground interviews: we get some glimpses into how they process the places where they live, the pressures they are under, their relationships with the opposite sex, and their hopes for the future. Their dreams are as varied as the kids themselves: from assimilating into a new country, to breaking into the entertainment industry, to finding a husband who is “not into drugs.”

Over the few month period covered by the documentary, we actually get to witness firsthand the changes dance brings into these kids’ lives. Those chosen to compete find themselves embracing something far beyond themselves, driven to accomplish more than their limited understanding of the world ever led them to believe was possible. The effect is profound, and one can only hope it outlasts all the bittersweet tears or the gleam of any trophy.

Week #4 of the 7 train construction. This weekend, subway trains were only running to 61st Street-Woodside, essentially cutting off half the line into Queens, and eliminating service from all but one transfer point. There was mass confusion at Times Square, which the erroneous MTA signs didn’t help; brochures distributed in subway stations incorrectly directed riders from Queens to take the E train to 53rd Street/Lexington Avenue, followed by an uptown  6 to reach Grand Central (even though Grand Central is south  of 53rd); station posters featured a map schematic showing the R train stopping at Grand Central (which it doesn’t.)

After a couple decades of experience navigating mass transit detours, I took the changes in stride. That morning, on the way to the N/R/W, I came upon a group of perplexed looking tourists, scrutinizing a transit map. Since it’s never too early to perform the first good deed of the day, I approached them, offering some assistance. How do we get to Queensboro Plaza?  I directed the group to the N train and as I was about to follow, an elderly couple approached tentatively. How about to Grand Central?  (Hint: not the R, and not the uptown 6.) As I was pointing out the passageway to the shuttle, another couple came up behind them. Within ten seconds, I was surrounded; soon I was doling out alternate routes to no less than three different groups of riders, like some Ritalin-addled auxillary transit worker.

The suspensions will continue every weekend until early April — with the exception of Saint Patrick’s Day weekend, when the Flushing line will be reopened to accommodate revelers attending the parade in Manhattan. (But what of our  parade? Where is John Liu?)

Shuttle bus fun in Jackson Heights:

On the way back into the city, the detours brought me to Central Park — icy, but pretty… furthering the axiom that it’s the journey, not the destination.

Later that night, dinner at Public, which has become our default dining destination, due in large part to M’s wine mailbox program membership and the group’s devotion to Adam, Brad and Jasmine, et. al.

BK was famished, and we ended up ordering one of almost every appetizer on the menu: the Mushroom Ceviche, the Herby Lentil Salad, the Grilled Scallops, the Cured Wild Boar with Garrotxa Cheese, the Pan-seared Foie Gras and the Grilled Kangaroo on a Coriander Falafel; the chef even added his own Vodka-cured Salmon to the mix. Such a feast, plus a brief surprise visit from B and his artsy cohorts… and all before my red snapper main course.

What food, what memories, what friends.

After the success of SYB’s orange-themed dinner party, yellow was the next color on the menu.

SYB prepared dishes inspired by his birthday cookbook: a chickpea pasta and a mushroom ragout. (I contributed a yellow pinot gris.) For perhaps the first time, vegan friends JL and TS were able to sample almost everything on the menu.

The assembled group settled in to marvel at Fox’s latest offering, “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?,” which the network touts as “The Most Embarrassing Game Show on the Planet.” The show challenges one adult contestant to answer questions based on content from the first through fifth grade curricula. He or she chooses from a crop of eager, bright-eyed actual fifth graders to assist. There are three, one-use only “cheats”: “Peek” (contestant can look at the fifth grader’s answer, but does not have to accept it), “Copy” (contestant must take the child’s answer) and “Save” (if the contestant gets the answer wrong and the child gets it right, the adult stays in the game.) The prize amount increases with every correct answer, up to one million dollars — for the adult only, presumably.

Some cringe-worthy displays and yet… we couldn’t turn away. Clearly, we weren’t alone in our fascination: Nielsen Media Research reported that with 26.5 million viewers, “Fifth Grader” was the most-watched series debut in Fox network history.

I’m happy to report that those gathered in Sunnyside that night are, in fact, smarter than fifth graders. But maybe not as mature.