Sacramento to JFK via jetBlue
We wound up leaving a little late so the day really started at the Sacramento airport. The flight was great. Sat next to an interesting woman who was a recruiter of physicians for the Mercy hospitals. Interesting to hear her take on how much the different specialties make and the kind of people who seem to best suited for them. I only watched a tiny bit of tv and actually slept for most of the way.
Arrival in NYC for CSPA year 7!
Even though we got off late, the plane arrived at JFK at about 8:20. I had my luggage and had met up with Crystal by 9:20. We caught a cab ($60 with bridge fare and tip) and arrived in front of Carman at almost exactly 10 a.m. We had an interesting tour of East Harlemnd he came up south of Morningside bark to Broadway.
We checked in with no problem; the rooms were ready, at least mine was. I am in room 801 A on the corner. I can see the library and the walkway between the library and Carman and a little bit of 114th street. Weather is supposed to be in the mid 80s. We will see how it goes. I have my room all set up and I' m on line so life is good. I saw Merle and apparently had prostate surgery three months ago and his little 10 year old grand daughter passed away unexpectedly with pneumonia.
I'm here by God's grace and we will see what today brings. Crystal is currentky taking a shower and we will head out at around 11 or so.
Welcome to Carman 801A
The corner suite
Ahhh. Dorm life.
View toward 114th treet
View out toward the Lowe Library and the Quad
Facade of the Library
Students pay over $50,000 per year for this luxury.
Commode Elegance.
Heading out to see the city
As we were getting ready to head out at about 11:20 we ran into Mary Kay and Linus out in front of the elevators so we decided to head down to Times Square together to see what we could find.
Lowe Library
Heading out with Crystal, Mary Kay and Linus.
Waiting fot the 1 train at the 116th Street Station
Times Square view from 50th Street. Notice the Closer starts July 14.
Show Tickets from TKTS. We scored tickets to Gypsy with patty Lupone for about $64 each.
Delicious luch at Cafe Europa. Smoked Turkey on Baguette with Brie
The Downes enjoy a relaxing lunch
Ring a ding. Three yearbook advisers of the year show off their rings. Although MK got her as a gift from Herff Jones, the Walsworth customers had to but their own from Jostens.
70 years of yearbook experience. I'm actually in a picture. We were in line waiting to use the one bathroom at Cafe Europa. Linus won the contest–in and out in 20 seconds!
Gypsy with Patti Lupone 2 p.m. matinee at the St. James Theatre.
New York Times mini review by Ben Brantley
Watch out, New York. Patti LuPone has found her focus. And when Ms. LuPone is truly focused, she’s a laser, she incinerates. Especially when she’s playing someone as dangerously obsessed as Momma Rose in the wallop-packing revival of the musical “Gypsy.” In July, when an earlier version of “Gypsy” starring Ms. LuPone had a limited run as part of the Encores! summer series, this powerhouse actress gave a diffuse, narcissistic performance that seemed to be watching itself in a mirror. What a difference eight or nine months makes. And yes, that quiet crunching sound you hear is me eating my hat. As directed by Arthur Laurents, this latest incarnation of “Gypsy,” the 1959 fable of the last days of vaudeville, shines with a magnified transparency that lets you see right down to the naked core of characters so hungry for attention that it warps them. — Ben Brantley
Even though we were high in the second level, the show was amazing. Three Tony award winners on the same stage. Patti LuPone for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical; Boyd Gaines for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical, and Laura Benati for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. Not sure I have ever heard a broadway voice with quite the power of Patti LuPone's. Right before the show started the announcer said something like "Due to a foot injury, Patti LuPone will…be wearing Isotoners (little sock things). Everyone sucked in air as they thought he was going to say that she wouldn't be singing this afternoon. But not to worry.
Patti in the tour-de-force moment at the end of the play. The house rose to it's feet in awe of what they had just witnessed. No doubt she won the Tony last Sunday night.
Back to Columbia for a rest.
We discovered too late the the 1 train which we got on at 42nd Street stops at 96th Street then wouldn't stop again until 137. Because of weekend construction it wouldn't top anywhere near Columbia. Once we figured out what was going on we got off at 137 and then took a 1 back down to 116. Really worked out pretty well.
We got back to Carman and I puttered with my blog ad then took a little nap.
Sunday in the Park with George at Studio 54
New York Times mini review by Ben Brantley
Directed by Sam Buntrock, this glorious revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Sunday in the Park With George” uses 21st-century technology to convey the vision of a 19th-century Pointillist to truly enchanting effect. The great gift of this production, first staged in London two years ago, is its quiet insistence that looking is the art by which all people shape their lives. As a consequence, a familiar show shimmers with a new humanity and clarity that make theatergoers see it with virgin eyes. And while “Sunday” remains a lopsided piece — pairing a near-perfect, self-contained first act with a lumpier, less assured second half — this production goes further than any I’ve seen in justifying the second act’s existence. — Ben Brantley
We actually bought these ticket on line through an offer from Playbill.com for $70. The best part was that they were in the third row!
The show was amazing. I was speechless at the end of the first act when he puts on the finishing touches and composes the painting. Now much of the second act is quite a let down when they move to modern times. But the final seen brings it all together. What a treat to have such great seats. I adored Jenna Russell as Dot.
The actual Georges Seurat painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
"Seurat's Grande Jatte is one of those rare works of art that stand alone; its transcendence is instinctively recognized by everyone. What makes this transcendence so mysterious is that the theme of the work is not some profound emotion or momentous event, but the most banal of workaday scenes: Parisians enjoying an afternoon in a local park. Yet we never seem to fathom its elusive power. Stranger still, when he painted it, Seurat was a mere 25 (with only seven more years to live), a young man with a scientific theory to prove; this is hardly the recipe for success. His theory was optical: the conviction that painting in dots, known as pointillism or divisionism, would produce a brighter color than painting in strokes.
"Seurat spent two years painting this picture, concentrating painstakingly on the landscape of the park before focusing on the people; always their shapes, never their personalities. Individuals did not interest him, only their formal elegance. There is no untidiness in Seurat; all is beautifully balanced. The park was quite a noisy place: a man blows his bugle, children run around, there are dogs. Yet the impression we receive is of silence, of control, of nothing disordered. I think it is this that makes La Grande Jatte so moving to us who live in such a disordered world: Seurat's control. There is an intellectual clarity here that sets him free to paint this small park with an astonishing poetry. Even if the people in the park are pairs or groups, they still seem alone in their concision of form - alone but not lonely. No figure encroaches on another's space: all coexist in peace.
"This is a world both real and unreal - a sacred world. We are often harried by life's pressures and its speed, and many of us think at times: Stop the world, I want to get off! In this painting, Seurat has "stopped the world," and it reveals itself as beautiful, sunlit, and silent - it is Seurat's world, from which we would never want to get off." text from Sister Wendy's American Masterpieces.
Dinner at Ray's
Back to Ray's for a quick bite.
Pepperoni and mushroom at Ray's. This one's for you Gary.
Next year's theme. We walk past this place every year and make the same jokes. We did have to get off at 96 and walk 18 blocks up to Columbia. Were got back after 11:30.
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