Day 41:
Wednesday, March 29
The weather was
much nicer, so I figured my trip out to Queens to visit Houdini was back on. As
I was lying in bed looking at my phone, though, I accidentally scrolled too far
left and was exposed to my calendar, which showed I was due to see a matinee at
Lincoln Center at 2:00.
Under normal
circumstances, I’d have walked the 50 or so blocks, but I made the discovery so
late that there wasn’t enough time. I showered and shaved (one thing I will
welcome about the show being over is that I won’t have to shave every day;
Mondays are a real blessing …), then headed to Union Square to catch the train
uptown. (Astor Place is actually a better option for catching the train, but I
wanted to get as much of a walk in as I could as well as stopping at the comic
store.)
I took the
train as far as 40th, then realized I had enough time to get out and
walk the remaining 25 blocks or so, and got out. Walking through Times Square
used to be one of my favorite things in the world, but in the last decade or
so, it’s been turned into a pedestrian and shopping mall, full of “characters”
who demand to have their pictures taken by tourists before strong-arming them
into paying a “gratuity.” Walking through there is just unpleasant now, what
with all the crowds, so I (surprisingly to me) try to avoid it when I can. I
walked up Broadway, past the ghosts of businesses and buildings come and gone
(the old wraparound billboard on 47th and Seventh; Colony Records
(which was wildly overpriced, but a mecca); a Chock-Ful of Nuts on 51st
and Broadway that was one of the first places I went to when I came to New York
(it’s now, of course, a Duane Reade); the Times Square Church (which was the
Mark Hellinger Theatre, one of the great Broadway houses that an idiot producer
sold); and countless others. I passed the Ed, and people were already in line
for the Colbert show, then up to Lincoln Center.
The plaza was
more crowded than usual. I’m guessing Samsung was introducing some new
(non-combustible) phone, since there was trade dress all over Avery Fisher
Hall, camera crews everywhere, and techy-looking folk as far as the eye could
see. I fought my way to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre (where I’ve seen some very
good things—The Coast of Utopia, South
Pacific—and some very bad things—Macbeth),
got my ticket, and proceeded to my crow’s nest seat in the last row of the
mezzanine. I could have gotten a much better seat, but was damned if I was
going to pay twice as much for the privilege. Before the show, there was an
oddity. An usher came along and demanded to see the tickets of someone two rows
ahead of me. After much consultation, the usher informed the patron that, not
only were they in the wrong seat (as were others), but she was in the wrong
section. She was supposed to be in the orchestra. How she or the other ushers
had missed this, I have no idea, but she sat and sat, as if considering if she
really wanted to move (like she had a choice), then left.
The show was Oslo, by J.T Rogers, a three-hour drama
about the backroom negotiations behind the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and
the PLO. I know it sounds like a slog, but it was riveting and made me realize
that, as my favorite movie genres are newspaper pictures and capers, one of my
favorite play genres is long, detailed examinations of historical events (Frost/Nixon, The Great Society, and the
aforementioned Coast of Utopia come
immediately to mind), and this was a prime example. I was literally sitting on
the edge of my seat to watch. It was absolutely superb and I loved every
minute. I felt it was as good a way to end a trip as any I could imagine. (As
it turns out, it won’t be, but that’s for the future.)
I have no idea who that guy is
The view from the nosebleed section. My sherpa is not visible.
After that, it
was still a lovely day, so I decided to walk through Central Park to get to the
theatre for our show. I hadn’t been to the Park for a few weeks, so it was nice
to get out. As I left Lincoln Center, I saw hordes of waiters in Avery Fisher
ready to pour gallons and gallons of wine for the people attending the Samsung
event, and as I was on a side street on my way to the park, a lone cameraman
for WABC, just hanging out in front of an apartment building waiting for …
something. (His camera was about 15 feet from him, so whatever was going to be
happening wasn’t imminent.)
I called Pidge
on the way over, and we chatted until I got to the theatre. I went up and got
ready for the show, trying to concentrate on my punctuation and where I could
pick up the pace (we’d added about four minutes to the show over the run;
mostly through my thoughtful pauses. Acting!)
The crowd was
pretty good and lively (the Times
bump?), and the show went reasonably well. Afterward, I had to leave to head
down to the Times itself and pick up some copies of Tuesday’s Arts section
(with our review) that my friend had gathered for me. She was working on an
obituary, so didn’t have time to hang out. I was hungry for supper, though, and
remembered that, earlier in the week, when Beth had posted solicitations for
things to do in her last week in New York, our fight director had suggested
Lombardi’s Pizza, between SoHo and Little Italy. Lombardi’s claims to be the
first pizzeria in America, and I assume it is. It’s a total tourist trap, but
I’d never been there, so I figured it was time to go. If I played my cards
right, I could just make it.
It turned out
that I did. They close at 11:00, and I walked in about 10:20. I ordered a
margherita pizza and a beer, figuring that I could eat half and take the rest
home. The pizza arrived really quickly and it was one of the best things I’ve
ever eaten. Perfect crust, perfect sauce-to-cheese ratio; just the Platonic
Ideal of Pizza. I ended up eating the whole thing (I hadn’t really eaten yet
that day, so I had the calories to spare—barely). As I left, though, I was
still actually a little peckish, especially for ice cream, and remembered a
place I’d ridden past on the bus Sunday night: Van Leeuwen’s. I checked Yelp,
saw there was another one not too far from the apartment, so I walked up 2nd
Avenue, passing many, many good-looking restaurants in the process.
The perfect pie
I got to Van
Leeuwen’s, and was in back of a group of kids who were apparently baffled by
both the menu and the process of actually buying ice cream, rather than just
trying samples until they were full. They realized I knew what I wanted,
though, and kindly let me go to the counter ahead of them. I ordered two
scoops: cookies ‘n’ cream and banana cream pie. It was as good as any ice cream
I’ve had—maybe even better than Mitchell’s in San Francisco?—and the perfect
accompaniment to the pizza.
The perfect accompaniment
My belly more
than full, I waddled home to prepare for Thursday and a trip to Queens (or was
it Brooklyn?)
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