A quotidian amount of pastry pain

NYC has a very good bakery called Pain Quotidien --- but the people who wait on you are uniformly stupid and evil. You might even say that it's the Kim's Video of pastry. The other day, I went into the east-side branch to get my wife a French Cream Bun. I asked the guy behind the counter what was inside the bun. "FRENCH CREAM,'' he snarled, pointing at the sign. This cream bun was beautiful to look upon --- two wedges of pastry with a finely sculpted layer of goo inside it --- but when I told the shmuck that my order was to go, he took out a little plastic cup and squashed the pastry inside of it, literally pounding the cup with his fists until the pastry flattened out and spewed its custard-cream guts all over the packaging. It was still edible but looked very bad by the time we brought it home. If you go, bring your own packaging.

"Company On Broadway,'' and why won't my neighbors just leave?

Everyone should see the great new production of Sondheim's "Company'' on Broadway. Raul Esparza, as Bobby, may be the Broadway performer of the year. His Bobby is shifty and enigmatic and you can't quite get a bead on his sexuality. I loved the youngish performer doing the Elaine Stritch part (when she's in the piano bar, feeling bitter, ordering vodka shots and singing about the 'ladies who lunch,' and it starts out sultry and sarcastic and turns into a shriek.) My parents took me to see this, and I worried they wouldn't like it because they've seen it twice before, but they liked it a lot. Esparza, playing piano and singing "Being Alive,'' near the show's end, was incredible to watch. Also stunning, but in a bad way, are my nightmare neighbors who blast Enya-type music so loudly and thump around and play Loreena McKinnit-like Eurodirges and have mercifully short (10 seconds is their all-time world record) bouts of lovin' upstairs at a million decibels -- "ook, ook, eek!" --- and use the floorboards as a trampoline at three in the morning, and drag their furniture hither and yon like Troglodytes. Naturally they are sticking around during Christmas break to make life miserable for everyone else in the apartment building. It may take a village to stop these noise polluters.

Preview of "Shipwreck, Coast of Utopia.''

The first half was quite boring and too expository. Too much blah-blah-blah. The second half was outstanding. I think Brian O'Byrne is a marvelous actor. He carries the entire thing as far as I'm concerned, especially near the end when he delivers a wrenching speech about the death of a child. Ethan Hawke did very well, too -- portraying a gruff, boisterous scalawag (forgive me, Russian history buffs; I can't remember which scalawag), and I thought he was very engaging, although my wife thought he was doing a Jack Nicholson imitation up there. This one has gunshots, betrayal, nudity, flag-waving, you name it. In case you haven't heard about the plotline, the play (by the great Tom Stoppard) is a prequel to the Russian Revolution; you get to know the six friends who helped set the thing in motion. Or something like that. I liked the second half because politics, romance and friendship get conflated in ugly and unpredictable ways. In case you are wondering (both of my readers) how a grad student can afford to go to Broadway so much, the answer is: I wait out in front of the theater and wait for desperate theater goers to sell me their extra seats for dirt cheap.

Whaat a horrible computer keyboard s ystetm this is1

Dear bloog reaaders, (the boththt o of you) I am atatempting to file a message to my own blog, uusining a terrirble computer keyboard w ith sticky keys. As you can see, the result is kinid of embarrassing... thte compuutter keeps insertinig all kinidds of rididculoous erroors, addititionaal l etters and strange spellings i nto the text. Anyhow, I hope thattp eoplel whoho check the blog don't think I'm typing while drurnk. You'd thinkn the city governmentn would spring for a a more sopohiisticated computer system!!

Columbia University's friendly rat

It's true --- my university has a friendly rat. He lives in the bushes outside the School of the Arts, and I see him every single day, just chilling out in there, enjoying the fall weather. He doesn't really bother anyone.

I still can't come up with an ending for my experimental fiction

What can you do. My experimental fiction remains unfinished, and it's now reached the seven-month mark. Maybe I should try to write something that has some sort of logical structure.

Experimental fiction and more rats

OK --- I just got some good advice from a couple of people about my experimental fiction. Make it longer. That makes sense -- the piece is very, very short. Nothing happens. The question is --- how do I make it longer? It's hard to lengthen something that is virtually plotless, but my writing professor and two of my fellow students gave me the same advice. Also, you wouldn't believe the rat I saw yesterday at the corner or Broadway and 125th. It ran out of the street, collided with some guy's shoe, and then raced right back out into traffic! I hope the rat is OK. (Live in this city long enough and you start sympathizing with everyone who shares space with you, even vermin.)

'High Fidelity' on Broadway with high-low results

We liked the Nick Hornby book and the Jack Black/John Cusack movie very much so the idea of a Broadway version seemed appealing -- especially since my graduate school doled out 150 free tickets (close to the stage.) The sets were amazing (a nicely apppointed Brooklyn walk-up apartment transforms before your eyes into a scungy record store, complete with The Clash, Sex Pistols and Springsteen posters, a beat-up cash register, and, above the glass front window, a fake NY skyline rising up. The actors were all good -- the lead was terrific, and one of his sad-sack pals (the skinny one who is not trying to reprise the Jack Black role, and who could transform himself into Snoop Dogg) was hilarious --- but the song lyrics were often excruciating to the point of distraction. You have only just recovered from one groan-worthy line when, boom, another plops in your lap. One character emotes that the record store "smells like ass.'' The female lead, complaining about her brand-new, tantric-hippie boyfriend, sings that "when he's mounting me, I feel a mounting sense of insecurity!'' Ugh. That's what you call Au Bon Painful. While it was an enjoyable evening, I can't help but worry that someone's going to lose a bundle on this one.

Who is cannibalfan?

Cannibalfan, identify thyself!

Hand to hand combat with rats -- a true story

I forgot to mention that three smallish rats somehow got into the apartment over the past year and a half. I hate violence in all forms but it was them or me --- and they are vicious, so what could I do? Since I don't believe in chemicals, I finished off one of the creatures with a copy of a famous work of borrowed experimental fiction (a thin one, not a fat one like Infinite Jest hardcover, which would have been easier to use.) The question is, how did three rats get inside the apartment in the first place? It makes me wonder if the rats were there all along, just biding their time, or if they were living in the walls and somehow got out.

Guggenheim-Spain/James Bond

Everyone (if you are here) should see the Guggenheim's Spain exhibit (huge, overwhelming, arranged by strange themes instead of chronology, i.e. crying women, skulls, dead animals on display, saints, martyrs, etc.)The only difficult part of the exhibit is the fact that it is on a slant and, therefore, tiring. Afterwards we walked through the park, got on the C train and went to Soho for tapas at Pixshos, which was fantastic, and we were the only ones there. In fact, there were no harrowing New York experiences afterward, no loud cell phones, screaming couples or filthy creatures to hamper my enjoyment of that day.

The new James Bond is worth seeing although it has about four endings, one after the other, and the script has some silly aspects. For example, I don't understand why they have the worst villains competing against and sometimes killing each other to provide deux ex machina escape opportunities for the good guys. The best part of the movie is the extended gambling scene, and I liked the heavy who looks like Freddy Mercury and cries blood when he is upset --- he is creepy and striking, like a young Udo Kier --- but I thought they could have done more with him.

Philip Roth's visit

Philip Roth visited the program to talk about his latest book, "Everyman.'' I thought his reflections on this dark book were inspiring and bleak at the same time. When asked if his vision, with every book, is getting darker, he said, "well, I know more people who've died -- colleagues, friends, family members falling off the ledge. If you're a writer, you are in tune to what is around you. I'm just trying to stay on top of my experiences. It's strange how you fail to understand things throughout your life, how you fail to understand deeply what you haven't experienced, even if you've watched somoene go through something and felt empathy toward them. Your (direct) experience piles up.'' In his book, he has the narrator 'converse,' or think he is conversing, with lost loved ones. "We do know (these conversations) take place all the time but they are imaginary,'' he said. "People push aside the fact that this is themselves talking to themselves.'' He also has a scene in which the narrator has a "moment of buoyancy'' when his best, most sensual memories flood back to him just before he goes under for an operation, and dies. One student asked if those good memories help to end the book on an 'optimistic' note. Roth said no. "The joke's on him,'' he said. Though the subject matter was bleak (because his latest book is so bleak), there were some (somewhat) lighter moments when he talked a bit about his process. For one thing, as most people know, he writes standing up, at a stand-up desk. "I walk around a lot,'' he said. "I walk a mile for a sentence. When you're a writer, you're kind of like a beggar, begging for the next sentence. You should walk around with a cup in your hand.'' He also spoke about the writers that formed him. (Henry James, ''elaborate style, ridiculous and grand,'' Faulkner ('a devastating discovery, rich, comic, and mean' ) Thomas Wolfe ('elegiac, lyrical, sometime bombastic, a great portraitist)'' and dozens of others.

Grey Gardens, loud snack eater, and Kiki Smith

Hooray. The inconsiderate bozos upstairs have stopped stomping around on our ceiling! They have stopped moving their stupid desks and chairs and dragging their big mattresses all over the place for no reason at three in the morning! In a celebratory mood after defeating the "Thump-a-linas' once and for all, my wife and I went out to see a Broadway musical called "Grey Gardens.'' We were way, way, way up in the oxygen-mask seats --- New York theaters are strange in the sense that they are often small but have ceilings that soar so high above the main floor --- but "Grey Gardens'' was still fantastic. Christine Ebersole's performance is a sleight of hand. She plays both the social-climber mom and, later on in the play, the older, decrepit daughter, making retro-flapper outfits out of curtains. The first half shows the Grey Gardens house in its East Hamptons heyday; by the second half it's a hovel, overrun by cats and raccoons. As usual there was a not-very considerate person seated near me -- in this case, a young, but by no means petite, woman who elbowed into me and kept checking the time on her cell phone, eating gloopy snacks with crinkly crankly wrappers, murmuring to herself and loudly leafing through the pages of her Playbook (!) She also spoke loudly to her pals through most of the first act. Mustering all the diplomacy I had within me, which is not much, I asked her to please stop it, and she did.
Today I also saw the incredible, if disturbing and sometimes quite disgusting, Kiki Smith exhibit at the Whitney. It is not to be missed, and makes amazing use of space and craftsmanship. Her various papier mache, glass, plaster, paper and wax creations dangle from the ceiling, crawl up the walls, crouch on the floor and make insanely clever use of space. I think it's one of the most powerful 'body as metaphor' exhibits I've ever seen, though I must admit that it freaked me out and will probably give me nightmares, with its images of wolf children, intestines rendered in ductile brass, and mounted beeswax figures in uncomfortable poses. There is a 'Little Red Riding hood' installation in which the girl herself is part wolf. When you walk past the installation, the sculpture -- equipped with a motion sensor and a hidden music box-- starts playing loud and atonal chamber music tape. See this exhibit now, even though you might need therapy afterwards.

More about historic cannibals

On the other hand, if I was in the same situation as the aforementioned pioneers, (i.e. the Donners from last month's blog) I can't say for sure what I'd do. At the International Studies library, I found a hair-raising book called the "Cannibal Within,'' which claims that cannibalism is "evolutionarily sound'' and that "everyone has cannibal potential." The book also makes the case that Americans, in particular, are preoccupied with cannibalism. In America, there are cannibal-themed rock bands, a one-hit wonder band from the eighties (Toto Coelo) with a stupid song on the subject ("I eat cannibals'' -- remember it from KROQ?) and thousands of zombie or cannibal movies (Silence of the Lambs, Soylent Green (famous line: "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!'', Cannibal Holocaust, Shawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead, etc.) There are at least half a dozen cannibal-related episodes of "Gilligan's Island,'' and at least one movie -- the not very good "Ravenous'' -- that is directly inspired by the Donners. So it's possible that I'm being unfair about the Donners when I say they are "not true pioneers." Maybe they were pioneers in terms of pop culture.

Grey Gardens nosebleed seats and imploded rat

Every once in a while I get to take advantage of "hot'' events at NYC, though usually I need to sneak in, get a student discount or wait in the rain for rush tickets. This time I am going to see "Grey Gardens,'' about eccentric Kennedy in-laws living in a hovel with cats (did I get that right? I hope so.) The theater is small but the ceiling is very high -- and we will be up near the ceiling, with binoculars, and wearing oxygen masks. I'm also hoping to see the new "Spain'' exhibit at the Guggenheim (the one that's been in the news; one of the Goyas was stolen en route to the museum!) The city is its usual combination of incredible opportunities and stomach-churning squalor. Just as I was walking home with the New York Times, its 'events' page crammed with amazing gallery shows and performances, I almost stepped on an imploded rat with its innards strung out in the street -- easily the most disgusting thing I've seen in months.

Thumpo-Lena Hell

In case both of you readers were wondering, the Thumpo-Lena problem (new arrival in my apartment building moving chairs, furniture, etc., at 3 a.m. above our heads, shoving things around, banging, pounding, ) continues. It's just like "What's He Building In There'' by Tom Waits, but in an urban environment. One night at 1 a.m. I went upstairs and knocked on the door. I non-giant -- actually a petite woman --- answered. I asked if she was moving furniture around. Meekly, she said yes and apologized profusely. The next evening at 11 it sounded like a couple of rhinocerouses were consummating their relationship upstairs. Thump stomp crash kick stomp stomp crash. I went upstairs and this time it a defensive, but, fortunately for me, a thin and not very tall man, answered. He said he was "quite frankly surprised'' that I was hearing so many noises. "Really, I truly am surprised,'' he said. "i mean, what could be making the noise? Us dragging a chair around? It just doesn't make any sense.'' He was taken aback and wondering if the sounds ''were coming from the floor above me and somehow reverbertating downstairs,'' which strikes me as Voodoo Physics --- if that is true, why wouldn't he hear the thumping -- but finally he said, "Sorry, guy. We'll work this out, man. If we make a noise, just thump us with a broom handle.''' I love that sort of reassuring language, and the problem was solved -- for a few minutes. Last night the stomping and banging woke up my wife at 1:30 a.m. Indeed, we got out the broomhandle and thumped their floor pretty good and the banging stomping etc. stopped for a while. Stay tuned.

Thump-o-lena

Some guy, probably a big, dumb, hulking giant, moved into the apartment right above our heads. Every night he stomps around so hard up there that our whole bedroom shakes and dust falls out of the ceiling. It sounds like he's up there crushing grapes with his feet. The problem is that NYC is not designed for neighborly communication --- or any kind of interpersonal communication whatsoever. No one talks to anyone for any reason in this city. I plan to knock on the door and talk to the guy but it worries me; there is no context for this around here. This is not California, where people dump their personal issues and encounter-group stories on complete strangers. Last year I knocked on someone's door just to borrow a half-cup of sugar and he looked stunned, as if no one had spoken to him for the last 20 years. But it's gotten to the point when the thumper is waking us up. Stay tuned. If you read in the newspaper this week that some guy on Morningside Heights got stomped by a big, stupid giant, look for my photo next to the article.

More about Del Toro

I forgot to mention that Mr. Del Toro had quite an animated response to an audience member who asked, "So, who is your target audience? You've just made a movie with a child protagonist, but it's scary and there's lots of gore.' Del Toro responded: "(Who cares about) the target audience. I am the target audience. If I thought about such things, I'd be out there making 'X-Men Part Four. The rules of commercialism are pleasurable to subvert. If you try to 'appeal to both quadrants,' if you let that lingo seep into what you do, you will domesticate your imagination. In the long term, all that is false anyhow. Besides, you can see a lot of Jennifer Aniston movies that failed to appeal to any of the 'quadrants.'''

By the way, I was very impressed that he storyboards his entire movies himself -- including his own elaborate pen-and-ink drawings of every character. But he also says that 'preparation should not be a straitjacket. Film is about capturing the accident even at its best, while orchestrating a bunch of things that do not seem to relate to each other.'

Columbia MFA story in latest Poets and Writers

Columbia got written up in the latest Poets and Writers study of the top 5 MFA programs. The article was highly entertaining, and there was a great quote from Michael McAllister. All in all, it was a great read.

Sneak preview of "Pan's Labyrinth''

One of the great things about Columbia's MFA program is the free events at the School of the Arts building (Dodge Hall.) The Film Division, for example, has screenings almost every week, featuring first-run movies, including many that are in the sneak-preview phase. The film division lets us know about these things, in the form of flyers and emails, but we get so many emails about goings-on that it's easy to miss the best offerings. Last week I saw Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth,'' a strange but potent blend of horror-movie images, Grimm-style fairy tales and Franco-era fascist nastiness. The movie focuses on an 11-year-old girl whose stepfather is a cruel and overbearingly macho Franco supporter. He's in charge of an outpost on the edge of a vast forest, where guerrillas are hiding out and mounting attacks against the Fascists. Trespassers and curfew breakers --- including two hapless rabbit hunters -- are gunned down on sight. The interweaving of fantasy sequences (from the girl's imagination), and the Fascists-fighting-the-guerrillas sequences, is extremely well-done. The girl's imagination takes her to some increasingly dark places, including the lair of the "Pale Man,'' a cannibal with eyes in his hands. He presides over a banquet table. If a guest dares to take any item of food from the table -- even a single grape -- the Pale Man, a dead-ringer for Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Children,' springs into action and devours them. De Toro himself was on hand to talk about making the movie. In an eye-opening and profanity-laced interview, he said he was trying to create a film about disobedience in the face of an overwhelming power. This movie is a "Harry Potter'' for adults. (Impressionable kids should steer clear. It's full of sudden violence, torture sequences and some pretty off-putting horror imagery.) If nothing else, it's a reminder of a nasty (and recent) episode in Spain's tragic past. De Toro spoke of Generalisimo Franco "dying happy, in bed,'' in the mid-1970s.