Missy | June 28, 2005
Ugh, the heat. I was all set to try out a class at legendary Mark Morris tonight. Now I can’t make myself move and all I want is for my AC to kick in. Next week? Next week. Hold me to it. (The ABC morning weather guy used the word “soupy” multiple times today. That’s just what I want to imagine: a soup of 8+ million people and grime.)
I know, it’s boring around here these days.
Missy | June 24, 2005
I have one goal for this scorcher of a weekend: see Rize. Either that or the penguins. (I hear this one’s good, too.)
UPDATE: Or, I can knock them all out in one day, and do all of my laundry, and go to dance class, and have dinner & drinks with Josh (he accompanied me to 2 of the 3 films). Excuse me, but I now have some sleeping to do. And tomorrow I have some nothing to do.
Incidentally, I am “positive” to “mildly enthusiastic” toward all three films.
Missy | June 18, 2005
Overheard this morning among a group of women at Starbucks, talking about an acquaintance who had a baby last weekend: “Knowing her, she’ll be able to be in a bikini, like, next week.” “Oh, I know! My sister was like that, in size 27 jeans about two weeks after giving birth.” Ah, New York, where women refer to jeans according to designer label sizing. (Anecdotes aside, I love it here so, so much.)
This morning I’m flying to Chicago for this evening’s wedding of Scott and his lovely bride Ali. Many heartfelt congratulations to them both. (I know, timing is tight for me, but not too tight–luckily there’s nothing but beautiful weather on both ends.) I’ve got my Saturday NYT crossword packed in my bag for the flight, except that I keep thinking of this David Sedaris story that I read in the most recent New Yorker.
UPDATE: I thoughtlessly left my camera in my hotel room when I had some time to walk, basically across the street, through Lincoln Park and to the beach on a most perfect day, and then again when I went to the wedding festivities. Good one. The ceremony was beautiful–probably the most moving ceremony I’ve ever attended. During dinner I got to sit between Zach (whom I’d met before, at last year’s Toronto Film Festival) and Donna (whom I’d never met in person but was thrilled to finally do so, along with her husband/groomsman/film nerd & music brain Noel). The conversation only occasionally revolved around cinema. Later, Josh and I slow-danced to Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You”. It’s no “I Want to Know What Love Is” but, still, one should never pass up the chance to slow dance to Foreigner. I was questioned on two separate occasions about my alleged Republicanism. Josh must have been spreading lies, LIES! (okay, half-truths) about me at Thursday’s bachelor party. Congratulations again to Scott & Ali. You have a wonderful life ahead of you. And you threw a terrific party.
Missy | June 13, 2005
The trailer for Terence Malick’s The New World is online. (Thanks to Kevin.)
Next week on PBS, see Kevin’s sister Gillian perform in Swan Lake, taped earlier this year at the Kennedy Center.
Missy | June 12, 2005
Car wash & lube station, Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn.
(I couldn’t take the pic straight on was because there was a savvy hand wash happening next to the sign. “Bad Apple Bail Bonds”, located down the same street, would have made a nice companion photo. They don’t have a nice display sign, though.)
Missy | June 9, 2005
Hallelujah, I finally got my new air conditioner installed yesterday. While my apartment was cooling down, I took a yoga class that was held on their building’s roof and the teacher led us through a bunch of ashtanga second series poses (lots of twisting = supposedly cleansing). Needless to say, last night I got the best night’s sleep in about a week.
Missy | June 5, 2005
Liev wins! Yes! And Christina Applegate cannot sing. UPDATE: And Glengarry Glen Ross wins Best Revival! I thought Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf had this one in the bag.
My apartment is boiling, but that’s not enough to keep me from watching the Tonys and writing about my cool weekend. Happy houred and houred on Friday with Mihow & Toby at Botanica and Vasmay (formerly the home of Meow Mix). In a continuing series of “What unothodox music will Ezra use in dance class”, this week it was Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”. But I should add that in using “unorthodox”, it’s not because his tastes do not align with my own. Just the opposite. In good news, his brutal warm-up is getting easier and I’m finding I have more confidence. The same can be said for my job.
Saturday Josh came over with some upcoming DVD releases burning a hole in his pocket and, after deciding against Bresson’s masterpiece Au Hasard Balthazar (would that be a mASSterpiece?)*, we settled on the AWESOME Danger: Diabolik, spoofed by the Beastie Boys’ “Body Movin” video (the Fatboy Slim version, and it’s included on the DVD). Out of context, my new favorite piece of dialogue in all of cinema–”Dry up, stupid!”–is not that funny. But it is so, so funny.
Today we brunched at Frankies before going to see the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center (Peter Boal’s send-off) and our favorite moment was the terrifically difficult pas de deux (especially when paired against Stravinsky) in “Agon”. On a whim, we trekked deep into Brooklyn to Midwood for dinner and, more importantly, the best pizza in the five boroughs, that being Di Fara’s. Zagat gives it a 27 out of 30, and you can read about it at Slice. After waiting forever, we finally got what turned out to be the best pizza I’ve ever tasted. Seriously. And I should add that I watched Dom remove a pie from the oven with his bare hands. The man is hardcore. And a pizza genius.
* I’m so sorry. But surely I can’t be the original author of that awful pun.
Missy | June 3, 2005
Thom Pain (based on nothing)
Although playwright Will Eno is the guy who wrote the words, it’s James Urbaniak’s unusual delivery that gives those words a pulse, which is funny, if you’re at all familiar with Urbaniak’s work–Crumb in American Splendor, Simon Grim in Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, for example. The guy comes off as an oddball without even trying, with pasty skin and a voice that “deadpan” and “unsentimental” don’t go far enough in describing. And here he is, portraying a sad-sack character in a sort of existential conversation with the audience, pivoting around bitterness, contempt, tenderness, and the mundane. Sometimes he’s smart-alecky, sometimes his most penetrating questions are simple asides. He moves the audience in and out of various levels of discomfort, and I found that to be a rare quality. He & Eno aren’t manipulating the audience to feel suspense or merely empathize with a well-written character. No, in telling his story Thom Pain messes with your very own memories–of childhood, of love–and turns it around on you by alternating between empathy towards you and complete disinterest. Still, I can’t really get my hands around the peculiarity of this character. What Eno and Urbaniak are giving us is more than guardedness, and certainly more than a prop piece to provoke larger questions. And yet, it’s more a thinkpiece than a story woven together over 100 minutes. (But not an “Ow, my head hurts” kind of thinker; maybe, actually, it’s a feeler for the cerebral types.)
I’d love to see it again.
