No Regrets

Wed. Rot.: Hand, Nose, View and Hurricane

In New York last week, for one of our periodic infusions of culture and vodka. The hurricane was a bonus. We toughed it out, just like the natives; here Answerjack pits a rapidly deconstructing umbrella against 50-mile-per-hour gusts howling along 58th Street, near Columbus Circle.

The wind won, all over the city. Early in the morning after the worst of the storm, street sweepers used shovels to clear up all the umbrella carcasses.

Waiting for The Nose to appear at the Met...go ahead and click on the link, it's fantastic! Answer is justifiably proud of his uncanny ability to score terrific seats at the last minute. It's a gift.

The seats were so good at The View From the Bridge that the big fight scene at the end nearly took place in our laps.

A Behanding in Spokane featured a large suitcase filled with severed human hands, which elicited a strong reaction from the audience when its contents spilled across the stage. At home, we have enough hands lying about to fill maybe a computer case, and none is human.

Happy Hour at the Russian Vodka Room. Answer looks awfully serious for a man who just downed a few 2-oz. shots. It's great not to have to drive.

Still serious, at the other Met...

The Freud Feature.

Deer of the Week, in the Sculpture Garden at MOMA...

Sheep O' The Week. O.K., perhaps it's a goat. Hotwire booked us into the Über-cool Hudson Hotel: twee wee rooms and devastatingly hip public spaces, just the spot for a bit of droll taxidermy.

The view outside, from in there.

She's Come Undone

The view from the island. It's a treasure, all right.

It was a great weekend to get unpinned from a punishing packing schedule and flee the hinterboonies: unusually warm weather in the City, tickets to Lucia Di Lammermoor at the San Francisco Opera, and a day on the Bay with Jessica and John in their boat.
Lucia was one of the operas I cut my teeth on, back at the dawn of time when mastodons trod the boards. Joan Sutherland worked the Lucia franchise hard and long, endowing the role with sublime soaring vocals and static stagecraft.
These days, jumbo divas have given way to singers whose physical abilities are more closely aligned with the suppleness of their voices, which gives the visuals a dynamic upgrade. Natalie Dessay, a wee pixie of a soprano who has critics swooning over her quicksilver voice and finely drawn acting skills, delivered a dewy and perhaps slightly dim Lucia who skipped about the stage with girlish abandon until she was driven bonkers by the machinations of the men in her life. Her Mad Scene was accompanied by the beautiful, unsettling sounds of  the glass harmonica, an instrument aptly nicknamed  "the ghost fiddle."

I'm awfully impressed by how Jessica and John got it into their heads one day that they'd like to have a sailboat and then set about making it happen. If you read John's blog then you know how much pleasure they get from it (or her—all boats are female), and this weekend we got a hefty dose of it ourselves. We left from their slip at Treasure Island, where a day-long festival created an obstacle course getting out of the marina, and sailed over to Angel Island and Paradise Cove, where we anchored for lunch.

Answerjack and I were staying near the foodies-nirvana Ferry Building, and bought what the family calls beef porn to grill on a cunning little propane contraption that hangs off the side of the boat. Here the seductive steaks are ready for their double close-up: Jessica is in the galley, shooting it for John's blog, and I'm on deck shooting her for mine. Just a typical family outing in the 21st Century...

Answerjack, looking toward our new home. This is the Bay side of Marin County; our house is further inland.

Apparently seagulls love stale hamburger buns, and once they figure out it's feeding time respond with a photo-op frenzy. Here they're trailing John's buns back to Treasure Island.

Supporting the Fecal Face brand. Hope you do, too!