The Evangelist

Sundance 2012 Roundup

2012-02-01T19:31:00.004-05:00

The Surrogate *****
This film is based on the autobiographical writings of journalist, poet and polio victim Mark O'Brien. At age 38, O’Brien decided it was time to lose his virginity, but recognizing that this was going to be a challenge for a man largely unable to move his body and housebound in an iron lung for most of each day, he elected to engage a sexual surrogate.

This is a brave, bold film that goes head-on with a tough subject and makes it work. The Surrogate does this largely by dint of a fantastic cast all firing on all cylinders, particularly John Hawkes (as O’Brien), Helen Hunt (Cheryl Cohen Greene, the surrogate), Bill Macy (O’Brien’s confessor) and Moon Bloodgood (Vera, his nurse). Filmgoers who saw Hawkes’ riveting performance as Teardrop in Winter’s Bone (2011) will be blown away by the contrast to his portrayal of Mark O’Brien and will be left asking themselves, “Is there nothing John Hawkes cannot do?” Answer: probably not.

The Impostor *****
Oh, what a ride. Cross Man on Wire (2008) with Unknown White Male (2005) and you might have some sense of what this documentary is about. This is a plot beyond simple summary, but let’s give it a go: a young teen boy disappeared in Texas only to turn up several years later in Linares, Spain. Only that can’t be possible, right? The Imposter is largely narrated by the imposter himself, as well as by the family that swore he was their missing son and brother. Why would a family insist this young person was their son, when so many warning signs seemed present from the outset? Why did the US government patriate him to the US? Why did the FBI go along? What motives are involved?

Twists and turns abound and you’re not likely to ever know where it’s all going next. Fascinating.

The Ambassador ****1/2
Speaking of unusual documentaries, The Ambassador is right up there. Danish investigative journalist Mads Brügger learned that African nations sell diplomatic status (for a pretty penny). So he bought himself the post of Liberian ambassador to the Central African Republic. The CAR is, incidentally, a country without a functional government. What it DOES have is a lot of diamonds. Tragicomedy ensues as Brügger struts about sporting riding boots and a cigarette holder, wheeling and dealing with shady characters from all over the world, and trying to do what any other white man would do in the CAR: build a bogus match factory, acquire a pair of pygmy sidekicks, buy some blood diamonds…and get out alive. It must be seen to be believed.

Your Sister's Sister ****1/2
The simplest plot summary of Your Sister’s Sister would be to say that this is a story of what happens to a guy (mumblecore master Mark Duplass) when his best friend (Emily Blunt, escapee from Hollywood) accidentally throws him together with her sister (the always fierce Rosemarie Dewitt). Naturally, there is some rivalry as well as some attraction.

There are plenty of other relevant details one might share, but I think this is a film best seen with zero expectations because it’s not going to go where you expect it to go. In fact, writer/director Lynne Shelton seems to be specializing in just that kind of film. Her last Sundance effort was Humpday (2009), a gloriously edgy, loose comedy. She returned this year with a film that not only maintained the best parts of what the Seattle scene’s process (building films through structured improvisation) frequently delivers, but Your Sister’s Sister adds a significantly greater sense of maturity and groundedness. The result feels loose and free without actually feeling improvised. You would be forgiven for thinking there was a script.

Safety Not Guaranteed ****
A number of years ago, an advertisement appeared in a survivalist magazine which read, “Wanted: someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid when we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.” Using this actual event as a jumping off point, screenwriter Derek Connolly and director Colin Trevorrow tell the story of jerky journalist Jeff Schwensen (Jake M. Johnson) and his emo intern Darius (Aubrey Plaza) who set off to find Kenneth Calloway (Mark Duplass), author of the ad, and determine just precisely how nuts he is.

Once found, Kenneth may or may not be sane, but he certainly appears determined to return to his past and right a (very romantic) wrong. Darius follows along gamely trying to determine what’s really going on until she, like the audience, begins to hope against hope that somehow Kenneth can achieve some form of satisfaction regardless of whether or not he can actually achieve time travel.

This slightly comic, but largely straight role is quite a departure for Duplass and it’s his commitment to it that ultimately holds this film together. Despite the rickety nature of the script, the hard work of Duplass and the natural charisma of Plaza (with a tremendous assist from the production team) ultimately had Sundance audiences cheering at the film’s finale. I’ve rarely heard such unbridled enthusiasm.

The Invisible War ****
A simple and straightforward documentary can sometimes pack quite a wallop. The Invisible War reveals an awful truth in the starkest terms: the US military, US military justice system and the US courts treat rape by one’s fellow soldier as a form of friendly fire. Worse, because the military is comprised of men and women who are taught to value violence, the culture tolerates not simply the horror of forcible penetration, but breaking the victims’ bodies into pieces while being raped. Inevitably, as in cultures that tolerate rape, it is the victims who are blamed; often with the outrageous charge of adultery if their assailant was married!

Fortunately, despite its painful subject matter, the film is entirely watchable. It spares us lengthy re-enactments and focuses on the testimony of the victims, combined with data (all extracted from government reports) that make manifest the scale of the problem that needs to be addressed. Even more fortunately, the filmmakers, both in the end credits and via Twitter and their website are working to allow interested viewers to actively support the victims our country has so terribly betrayed. Thank God.

Queen of Versailles ****
The shortest review of this film would be “OMG!” And it would be an appropriate one. Lauren Greenfield began to document timeshare mogul David Siegel and his trophy wife Jackie’s process of commissioning and building the largest home in the United States of America, both modeled and named after Versailles.

What follows is the most strange and alienating Greek tragedy I have ever witnessed. You see Siegel’s parents were Vegas gambling losers and Siegel made his fortune (most recently in Las Vegas!) selling timeshares, effectively a variant on a sub-prime mortgage, to folks much like his parents. When the market crashed, partway into the making of the movie, so did the Siegels’ fortune.

From there on out, their lives and household fall apart much in the way the rest of America did. It’s the American national economic tragedy writ small in the sense that it’s about what happens to one family and simultaneously writ large because of the incredible scale of that family’s spending habits.

The Atomic States of America ****
You really don’t want to know what this film has to tell you, but you really do need to hear and learn what it has to say: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now totally controlled by the nuclear energy industry. And America’s nuclear plants are aging. And, much like Fukushima, they are built in the wrong places. P.S. – they leak hazardous waste nearly every year. P.P.S. – they’re 30-40 years old. YIKES.

The good news here is that people have taken action, lives have been (and still can be) improved, and there’s more we can do. See it and learn about what you might want to do.

Robot & Frank ****
You’ve never seen this film before. That’s because it takes place in the very near future.

In the near future, if your parent needs a home healthcare aid, you can buy them a robot. And that’s precisely what Hunter (James Marsden) does for his father, Frank (Frank Langella), whose memory is fading fast.

Predictably, Frank doesn’t want a home healthcare aid robot. He wants his independence. But he begins to discover that his robot (voiced by Peter Saarsgard) has a very unexpected set of values and that he might use that to find a kind of freedom he had not anticipated. Funny, sad, improbable, and also totally captivating.

Under African Skies ****
Twenty-five years later, Paul Simon finally confronts the ghosts of his masterwork album Graceland, which he broke the UN cultural embargo on South Africa to make. The movie offers the opportunity to hear several sides of the story; to meet the musicians then and now; and to witness Simon’s first real attempt to make peace with Dali Tambo, the founder of Artists Against Apartheid, and a key member of the ANC. A must for Simon fans, and still very interesting for those who are not particularly, but are interested in the intersection of art, culture, music and politics.

Love Free or Die ****
If you don’t already know and love the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church, this is your chance. If you do, here’s a great opportunity to spend more time with him. For me, they had me at “Gene Robinson.”

Young & Wild ***1/2
In Chile, a young teen in an evangelical family authored a blog called (in translation) youngandwild.blogspot.com (jovenyalocada) which broadcast to the world her intense and myriad sexual activities of which her family was unaware. Director Marialy Rivas decided to turn the story of that blog into a movie. Amazingly, it works far better than you might have imagined.

The film is extremely explicit (it would never get anything less than an NC-17), heartfelt, and formally inventive. Rivas’ techniques for visualizing Internet interactions and emotional states are original and constantly engaging. Despite its graphic sexuality, this is really an existential story of love: how both religious believers and non-believers struggle to make meaning within the same mysterious universe where both the feeling of love and those people we love are prey to disappearing at any minute.

Sleepwalk With Me ***1/2
Comedian and off-Broadway hitmaker Mike Birbiglia has translated his first one-man show into a charming ensemble comedy. For those who don’t already know, Birbiglia suffers from a disorder that leaves him vulnerable to extremely dangerous episodes of sleepwalking, especially when his life gets stressful. Naturally, his rise to success as a standup comedian, paired with his stop/start progress towards engagement and potential marriage creates a lot of stress.

(FYI, for those who have already seen the stage show: it’s a little odd the first time you hear the protagonist called Matt Panamiglio, not Mike Birbiglia. Birbiglia shared in the Q&A that he felt it was better to change the names of the characters because once fleshed out by other actors, e.g., Carol Kane as his mother, the characters clearly evolved rather far from the actual people in his life.)

The House I Live In ***
Binding together both personal (from Eugene Jarecki’s own life) and historical strands, The House I Live In helps us to understand how and why so many Americans have been jailed during the War on Drugs without any lessening of the ills our aggressive system of drug prosecution was meant to address.

Jarecki starts out with the story of his childhood housekeeper and the effect of drugs and the drug war on her family. Then he expands out to follow the young offenders who receive startling sentences due to mandatory minimums, a judge who is forced to impose draconian penalties, and a prison guard who ends up as the custodian of a warehouse of lost souls. Along the way, he finds some great talking heads, including a Lincoln biographer who emerges as the voice of justice, to help us to better understand the origins of the drug war and where it went awry.

Eugene Jarecki has a wonderful mind and is a very compelling filmmaker. Why We Fight (2005) was an extraordinary example of what he can do. I expected to give this film five stars (or at least four), but I found that The House I Live In really did not bind all of its various theses together until the last 20 minutes (at which point, I found it extremely powerful). With a careful edit, abbreviating some stories and deepening others, I think it could pack a real wallop.

Slavery By Another Name **
This is a story that must be told: not until 1942 did slavery truly end in the United States. Hard to believe for some, but the historical evidence is available for those who want to know. Unfortunately, the important information contained in this film (based on a book of the same title) clarifying what actually transpired for African Americans post-Emancipation is clouded by hokey re-enactments and a repetitive narrative style. Edited down to its core, this documentary might be useful in schools; most adults, however, will grow impatient. I sincerely hope someone else eventually tells this story more effectively. Americans need to know. In the meantime, a far better film on a related unwritten history of US slavery is Traces of the Trade (2008).

We're Not Broke **
This documentary focuses on the tax shelters and havens which enable US-headquartered multinationals to avoid paying any significant US taxes. This is a shame indeed. Unfortunately, this earnest film is not particularly insightful about the issue and suggests no real path to solution. It wants to be a call to action, but I fear it’s simply preaching to the choir.

My Best Day *
A rickety endeavor from start to finish, My Best Day is one of those films where the ingredients thrown into the mix (a small town lesbian community, separated half-sisters, refrigerator repair, a nerdy younger brother, a Latino police officer, and a father who came out late in life) simply refuse to gel into a meaningful narrative. Better luck next time.

Sundance 2011 Roundup

2011-02-14T09:17:00.004-05:00

This year I’ve decided to do something a little different with my Sundance roundup. I’ve listed the films by day, and in the order in which we saw them. I thought this might give non-festivalgoers a sense of what our annual 4-day, 16+ film blowout experience is like.

Thursday, January 27th
Resurrect Dead ****
Have you ever been walking down the street in the city and seen a strange tile in the road, most often in a crosswalk, that reads something like, “Toynbee Idea in Kubrick’s 2001. Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter”? I have. Many times. And I’ve always wondered what the heck they were.

Filmmaker John Foy has created a captivating and scrappy documentary that solves the mystery. He followed three “Toynbee tile” enthusiasts for 5 years until they uncovered the secrets of the tiles’ creation, including why no one has ever seen one being placed into the tarmac!

Beyond its literal detective storyline, however, Resurrect Dead brings other, more subtle joys as Foy contrasts the personalities of the hunter and the hunted. His lead detective, Justin Duerr, turns out to bear many striking resemblances to the person he seeks. But rather than bang you over the head with the resonances, Foy is content to let the patterns emerge without stating them plainly, leaving attentive audiences to draw their own connections and conclusions.

The Lie ****
When chief Sundancer John Cooper introduced this film, he noted that director Joshua Leonard has quite literally been raised at the festival. Debuting in The Blair Witch Project in 1999, Josh has returned to the festival in many other films, notably in one of the most wonderful high notes of the “mumblecore” genre, Humpday (2009).

A young couple with an infant is struggling with what their lives are becoming. Clover (Jess Weixler) is an activist and community organizer who has gone to law school and now finds herself confronted with a plum job “working for the man”; and not just any man, a large pharmaceutical company who her youthful compatriots view as the problem, not the solution. Her husband Lonnie has sacrificed his rock ‘n roll dreams for a stultifying job editing bad commercials. In the midst of this existential crisis, a pressurized Lonnie tells a whopper of a lie to his screaming boss and thereby launches their safe making-ends-meet existence into a slow motion crash. That process occupies the majority of the film and it is drawn with extreme empathy and liberally salted with humor that is both au courant and extremely Chekhovian.

The Lie shows just how much the actor turned director has learned over the years. In addition to the technical details – beautiful crisp images, great sound design, tight editing - Leonard’s performance as an actor feels effortless and as a director he pulls strong performances from his entire cast; most notably a stunningly lucid performance from Weixler, quite possibly the best of her career to date. [Disclaimer: The director is a friend and I have a financial stake in this film.]

Gun Hill Road **1/2
Gun Hill Road tells pieces of a story that we’ve heard before, but we’ve never quite seen them assembled in this way. Enrique (Esai Morales) returns from prison to discover his only son is in the process of transitioning. Protected by his mother (a very grounded Judy Reyes), Michael/Vanessa has had the space to begin to find himself and a community. But Enrique is an O.G. and, despite the fact that his friends seem to accept Michael’s evolution, Papi understandably cannot get his head around the new configuration of his family.

What makes Gun Hill Road fly when it flies is the attention to the details of Michael’s transformation. What stalls it out is the attempts to give Enrique a justifiable backstory to motivate his homophobia. Nonetheless, this is a valiant first effort, lovingly and sensitively directed, and worthwhile viewing for anyone who is interested in the subject matter.

Another Earth ****1/2
There’s a remarkable Sundance story to be told about this film and its mate, Sound of My Voice. Brit Marling (remember that name) and two Georgetown University friends moved in together in LA. Marling co-wrote both screenplays, working with one director all day and the other at night. The product? Two very interesting, challenging, philosophical films.

In Another Earth Rhonda is bound for a full ride in MIT’s astrophysics program. After a night of partying, she heads home and hears on the radio that an astonishing discovery has been made. A planet that looks exactly like Earth has been revealed due to an axis shift of the sun. (It’s been mirroring our orbit and thus been invisible to us.) She leans out the window to see this surreal sight in the night sky and causes a disastrous car accident.
Another Earth charts Rhonda’s reentry into society after imprisonment and her subsequent unintentional embroilment with her surviving victim John Burroughs, a Yale professor and composer (the fine William Mapother) who lost his pregnant wife and child in the accident. Filled with twists and turns both in the lives of Rhonda and John, and in the unveiling of a small portion of the mysteries of Earth 2, Another Earth is a compelling exploration of the roles of sorrow, chance and forgiveness in our lives.

Friday, January 28th
The Future ***
If you enjoyed Miranda July’s Me You and Everyone We Know (2005), you will definitely enjoy The Future. Like its predecessor, The Future is a fragile, ethereal film full of moments of extraordinary poetry. Also like MYAEWK, it’s full of twee humor and odd sex.

There’s not much point in describing a Miranda July film. The plots are not literal and the logic is sui generis, but here we go: a young couple is about to adopt an injured cat (who narrates the film). They are concerned that the cat will dramatically change their lives and therefore they decide to abandon their current lives in order to explore as many possible options for their futures as they can before they have to take delivery of the adopted cat. Along the way, he stops time and carries on a conversation with the moon. She has an affair with a man she probably should never know. At the end, they have to decide what future they wish to have. Odd, right? Right. Yet, for some, this will probably be the most beautiful film they have ever seen.

Sound of My Voice *****
Peter and Lorna are following driving directions to a nondescript suburban house. Upon arrival they are stripped, made to shower and change into hospital gowns, and then transported blindfolded to another location and into the presence of Maggie (the superb Brit Marling once again.)

Maggie has a remarkable claim as to her origin and what she is teaching her acolytes reeks of EST. Her story is so very hard to believe, but her manner is so compelling. At some points you are sure you know the truth…and then not so sure. It will keep you guessing right up to the last frame.

This deceptively simple, well written, directed and performed tale has a hold on my imagination. I cannot stop thinking about it.

The Details ***
The Details is a gonzo black comedy that begins with an obsession with destructive raccoons and ends with murder. In between lies a plot of mayhem. Tobey McGuire stars with an underutilized Elizabeth Banks (will she ever get the script she deserves?) and a magnificent Laura Linney. Linney’s performance as a sex-crazed, cat-lady-next-door is simply not to be believed, even after it’s been seen. The rest of the film is pretty standard indie black comedy at this point and not at all special, but Linney is the price of admission. She simultaneously steals this film and any film screening in the same multiplex. Sheer genius. Somebody introduce her to Christopher Guest, pronto!

The Bengali Detective *1/2
The Bengali Detective is a documentary that sounded so very promising in the description, but which unfortunately fell flat in the viewing. In seeking to find someone whose own story and profession would branch out in ways that would help illuminate the story of a city, Philip Cox discovered Rajesh Ji, the titular character. Mr. Ji has a small detective agency which primarily investigates and shuts down the distribution of fake consumer goods. He also takes on the business of any PI in any city; the odd adultery, etc. More interestingly, he attempts to solve murders where the police are dragging their heels. What would seem to be the final ingredient in the mix (it’s not, but I’m saving you an exhaustive list of what is covered in the film) is the fact that Mr. Ji is also enamored of Bollywood and enters his detective force into a local TV dance competition. All of this sounds like the recipe for something fun, funny, and extraordinary. This is why it has already been optioned to be remade as fiction. The reality presented in the documentary itself is much less satisfactory and the film simply doesn’t gel.

Flypaper **1/2
*Sigh*. What to say about this one? This was the first spec script from the duo that went on to write The Hangover. It became clear during the post-screening Q&A that this script was more intended to show their writing chops than it was ever intended to be produced and it shows. Flypaper is nearly 8 movie genres mashed up. It’s a bank heist, a pseudo-Coen Brothers character comedy (including Tim Blake Nelson in one of his wacky hick roles), a romance, a whodunit a la Clue, and on and on.

Saturday, January 29th
Hot Coffee *****
Docs like Hot Coffee are part of why I go to Sundance. Made by a first timer attorney-turned-filmmaker, Hot Coffee will open your mind on a topic you only thought you understood: so-called “frivolous lawsuits.” Starting with the infamous McDonald’s coffee lawsuit in Texas, the movie explores how corporations have systematically removed your access to the courts. It’s enraging, remarkable and enlightening. See this movie! (HBO bought it.)

Win Win ****
Another well-made, character-driven feature from Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor), starring Paul Giamatti and the wonderful Amy Ryan. The accidental result of a desperate deception leaves a lawyer/high school wresting coach in loco parentis for a troubled teen. A terrific cast makes this well-worn tale new again.

Old Cats *
We did not enjoy this film. The dramatic climax of the film involves an elderly woman walking down 8 flights of stairs. ‘Nuff said.

Like Crazy **** 1/2
A bittersweet romance about the emotional scar many of us earn in our first significant relationship. Jacob, an American, and Anna, who is British, meet at college in LA and fall madly (and quite believably) in love. Visa problems thrust them into a long-distance relationship. Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are so committed and affecting that one wishes someone would give them a chance to star in Romeo & Juliet together.

Drake Doremus impressed with his Sundance debut Douchebag last year. Whilst being a vastly more commercial effort, Like Crazy manages to live up to the directorial promise he showed without selling out. It’s a heartbreaking film (in a good way) and I predict that some will put it on their list of all time great indie romances. It clearly ran away with the jury’s heart, earning it this year’s Grand Jury prize for US drama.

Sunday, January 30th
Being Elmo ***1/2
A very sweet bio-doc about Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Elmo. Thoroughly heart warming.

Kinyarwanda ***
The “first dramatic feature film conceived and produced by Rwandans”, Kinyarwanda educates us about the complexities of the genocide in Rwanda in a completely non-exploitative fashion. While not ultimately a great film, Kinyarwanda is still a very good film on several levels. An extremely worthy effort that should be seen by anyone who wants to begin to understand the pros and cons of being homo sapiens.

Buck ****1/2
The inspiration for The Horse Whisperer, Buck Brannaman travels the country most of the year teaching people how to engage with their horses in a completely new – and vastly more humane - way. Watching Brannaman with horses is indeed something to see. And he quite literally (and quietly) radiates good, solid American values of the kind that make myths. Spending time with Brannaman and listening to his gentle philosophy, born of years of private pain, is, if you let it truly sink in, inspiring. His demeanor is that of Atticus Finch, only looking out for the horses, not the people. His words are those of a Khalil Gibran of the American West. Watch, listen with your heart, and learn.

Project Nim ****
Another tale of people and animals, only this time without the redemption. In the 1970s (of course…) a bunch of feckless, self indulgent academics decided it was a good idea to try to raise a chimpanzee as a member of a family in a brownstone on the Upper West Side. Their alleged goal was to see if they could teach it enough sign language for an interspecies breakthrough. The result? Individual agendas clash, the convenience of the humans quickly supersedes any sense of moral obligation, and we are left with what is simultaneously a sad comedy of errors and a classic example of man’s inhumanity to animals. As a study in human fallibility, Project Nim is fascinating. As for the original wrongheaded experiment? Madness.

Sundance 2009 Roundup

2009-01-26T23:05:00.007-05:00

Overall, the quality of the films we saw at Sundance 2009 was quite good. While there were fewer lifechanging standouts than past years, there were fewer total stinkers and almost every film we saw was a worthwile investment of 90 minutes.

Feature Films
Humpday **** 1/2
You heard it here first: Humpday is the next Sundance comedy that is going to nail the zeitgeist in a big way. Two 30-something straight guys reunite after their lives have diverged and end up accidentally challenging each other to what is essentially a game of gay chicken. Verbal pyrotechics flare as they try to determine who's going to top whom, psychically and maybe even physically.

World's Greatest Dad ****
Bobcat Goldthwaite's junior directorial effort can be summarized as a cross between "Election" and "Pretty Persuasion" and it is a dark, transgressive, misanthropic comedy of the first order. I won't summarize the plot for fear of ruining any of its constant surprises. The film successfully keeps you off balance throughout with its combination of comedic and tragic shocks. But this is not Farrelly Brothers territory as Goldthwait's script has significant meaning woven intricately into it, although some viewers will be too freaked out to take those meanings on board. Unfortunately, as of the Saturday screening the film hadn't sold despite having Robin Williams in the title role.

The Greatest ****
The pre-title sequence of Shana Feste’s first effort as a writer/director features the best 10 minutes in film I’ve seen in a long time. Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon play the parents of a family coping with an untimely death and the enchanting Carey Mulligan (who clearly made a Sundance breakout this year) plays the teenage girl who forces the family to collectively confront their loss. Feste’s debut is remarkably assured: well scripted, well directed, and beautifully lensed. She’s one to watch.

An Education ****
A well made Brit-pic scripted by Nick Hornby and based on a memoir of a young woman's youthful awakening in 60's London. 2009 Sundance It Girl Carey Mulligan illuminates the screen whilst Peter Saarsgard charms her and her parents into foregoing her potential for an Oxford university education in return for a life of seeming glamour. It's a modern day fable in the tradition of Austen and exactly the sort of film you'd expect Emma Thompson to be in and lo, she is.

Lymelife ****
The Martini Brothers' autobiographical tale of the dissolution of a Long Island family treads the extremely familiar grounds of suburban dystopia blazed long ago by "American Beauty," "The Ice Storm" and countless other indies in the last decade. What distinguishes this effort and makes it a four star flick, however, are the performances of a stellar cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Cynthia Nixon, Rory Culkin, Kieran Culkin (who given his repeated excellence on film and stage should be more appreciated), Emma Roberts and Tim Hutton, all of whom are very good indeed. The only person who struggles a bit is Hutton, but this is the challenge with having more of a plot device to play than a fleshed out character.

Paper Heart *** 1/2
A quirky exploration of what it means to give in to love. Nerd queen Charlayne Yi and a young director friend have done what may turn out to be the post-millennial version of “When Harry Met Sally," only this time there are documentary interviews not only with couples, but also with singles. To make matters even more au courant, the documentary exploration is paired with a parallel “scripted reality” plotline regarding Michael Cera’s attempt to win Yi’s heart. It has its own totally peculiar (and probably entirely unrepeatable) alchemy that somehow works.

Adam ***
A young man with Asperger’s is suddenly cut adrift in the world by the loss of his parent and simultaneously finds his first romance at the time when he most sorely needs it. A terrific performance by Hugh Dancy in the title role makes this film worth seeing, and the rest of the cast also acquits itself quite nobly: Rose Byrne does a lovely job as Adam’s love interest; Amy Irving is always compelling in a role of any size and her role as the mother is smaller than I’d have liked. Peter Gallagher does what Peter Gallagher does best: gently nibble some scenery in a role that suits him well. It is clear director Max Mayer struggled a bit with the film’s ending and even while it’s not quite perfect, it’s good enough and doesn’t compromise the movie.

Arlen Faber ***
Arlen Faber wrote a book that changed the world called “Me & God” and his life has never been the same. A philosophical romantic comedy quite well played by Jeff Daniels (in what would once have been the Albert Brooks role) and Lauren Graham (in the Lauren Graham role). Extremely enjoyable all around, although the largely zingy soufflé of a script falls in the end.

Push ***
Recipient of multiple awards this year, “Push” is something of a glorious mess, not dissimilar in its strengths and weaknesses to Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” (1991). “Push” tells the story of Precious, a teenage girl whose kitchen-sink full of dire circumstances includes poverty, pregnancy, obesity, and even incest. The film’s weaknesses lie in its structure (there is a fair bit of trite plotting and more than one false ending) and overly familiar characters, e.g., the saintly (albeit lesbian) teacher who saves the day. But there are remarkable performances here; most especially Mo’Nique whose rip-roaring performance as the Mother from Hell might do for her what the role of Gator did for Samuel L. Jackson. And newcomer Gabby Sidibe’s performance as Precious suggests she might have a long career ahead of her. (For the snarkiest of moviegoers, the most shocking thing in the movie will be Mariah Carey’s remarkably competent turn as a social worker.)

Mary & Max ** 1/2
This film’s style is greatly indebted to Hillaire Belloc, Roald Dahl, Edward Gorey and Tim Burton - all sources I enjoy. Yet I was quite conflicted about this stop motion animated pic about an unfortunate Australian girl and her adult American pen pal who has Asperger's syndrome. I enjoyed parts of it greatly, most especially Phillip Seymour Hoffman's voice acting, but nonetheless left the screening unmoved because the whole (five years in the making) enterprise seemed overwhelmed by a surfeit of twee.

Against the Current *
Joseph Fiennes mourns his wife and unborn child. So he decides to swim the Hudson River with two friends alongside in a boat before he commemorates his beloved’s death with his own. Veering between road movie, buddy comedy, and mumblecore, this is a total drear fest whose primary feature is that it refuses to sell out at the very end. There is also a superb cameo by Mary Tyler Moore, who just might be the patron saint of getting a handful of otherwise unproduceable indies funded.

Once More with Feeling *
Chazz Palminteri and Drea de Matteo star as father and daughter on the verge of breaking their respective marriage vows with the hope of injecting needed change into their lives. He is suddenly obsessed with karaoke as a proxy for the singing career he might have sacrificed in becoming a psychiatrist and she's consumed with the possibilities of recapturing her groove via lipo and the hunky cop who would like to collude with her in committing a serious moving violation. K. summed it best when she said, "I liked it better the first time when it was called 'Moonstruck'."

Documentaries
The Cove *****
A heartrending must-see that combines the best elements of “Mission Impossible” with Jacques Cousteau. A team of activists learns that the insane machismo of some powerful Japanese men is inspiring a small town to slaughter 26,000 dolphins a year. Their motivation? Apparently, largely because the West told them not to harm whales. Of course, there is also the fact that they can get $150,000 per dolphin caught for adventure parks. But that only accounts for a small number of the dolphins captured. The rest are herded into a secret cove and slaughtered en masse like a scene out of “Gladiator." (The mercury laden dolphin flesh having no real market is sold off as whale meat to an unsuspecting populace.) An A-Team of activists assembled high technology spy equipment and captured the horror on film in order to prove what is going on and to inspire us all to action. See it. Take action.

The September Issue ****
For many viewers this well-crafted doc will simply put proof to "The Devil Wears Prada." (And indeed, it is fascinating to see how well Streep nailed Wintour.) But the true value of this film lies more in its portrayal of the social issues universal to all human endeavors great and small. The struggle between creativity and pragmatism. The fact that those who display superiority complexes in one context (e.g.., the workplace) are inevitably prey to the inverse effect in another (e.g., their personal lives). And the need to create and find some form of existential meaning from our professional lives, no matter what it is we do for a living.

The Yes Men Fix the World***
The Yes Men punk corporations and government via brilliant hoaxes that demonstrate what those organizations should be doing if they had a moral compass. For instance, one Yes Man poses as a Dow Chemical spokesman and announces Dow will fund the eco cleanup and also pay reparations for (their Union Carbide subsidiary's) catastrophe they created in Bhopal. Piquant political fun for the Stewart/Colbert set.

Sergio ***
A great story and a good film, Sergio recounts the heartbreaking story of the fiendishly handsome, suave and charming UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello. Killed shortly before he meant to remove himself from active nation-building in order to be with his lovely paramour, de Mello was a dashing figure targeted by al Qaeda for his role in freeing East Timor from Islamic Indonesia. Remarkably successful and abstracted recreations give an excellent sense of the dramatic and prolonged attempt to rescue him from the rubble of the UN compound in Baghdad.

We Live in Public ***
Call Josh Harris what you will: damaged sociopath, stupid idiot, vainglorious visionary, and/or full-blown narcissist. What Ondi Timoner’s “We Live in Public” (which won best doc) demonstrates clearly is that all of those labels apply equally well. Harris made himself a multimillionaire with his dotcoms and spent the money in strange experiments such as “Quiet” where he built a compound where everyone was filmed all the time doing everything people do and everyone was watching everyone else do those very things. Yet he also clearly predicted the power of the Internet in society and how we would collectively come to accept and willingly participate in the diminution of our privacy.

Big River Man *
Sherpa Dan and Chris liked this one. The rest of us DID NOT. It has so much promise. Martin Strel, the world's most successful long distance swimmer decides to swim the insanely dangerous Amazon. It sounds like a Herzog film, right? And, in many ways, it is. Strel goes nuts, along with some of his helpers. But in the end, too much goes unexplained (why does Strel connect his head to a car battery exactly?) and what we get is a maddening portrait of madness rather than a revealing one. Strel remains a cypher.

The Buddha Asked Me Where to Shop

2008-12-01T00:04:00.027-05:00

A number of friends and colleagues have asked me about where I shop for clothes. Finally, a lovely man who happens to share the Buddha’s name importuned me repeatedly and I began to assemble this information. Some of it repeats from older posts, but most of it is new.

The focus here is a shopping list for men, but I'm sure that an equally lengthy list of recommendations of places for women to shop will spring out of my head (like Athena, to mix metaphors and pantheons in the same post) eventually.

On Your Body

Bags
OK. Look. I’m a total whore for murses. (That’s a man’s purse, if you didn’t already know.) I have a ton of them and I have bought cool ones in several countries when I happen to have stumbled upon them: Spain, Japan, Italy, wherever.

Where to find one for yourself? Honestly, the easiest way to find good murses is to scan the coolhunting blogs as they show up there all the time under the guise of “messenger bags” or “laptop totes”. Check out Josh Spear, Cool Hunting, and Uncrate for leads.

Casual Shoes
There are so many casual shoe brands with style. Stroll into any Otto Tootsi Plohound (they have locations all over The Blessed Isle) and you’ll find at least 4 or 5 brands you’ve never heard of. I recommend taking a look at whatever you can find from Tsubo (for comfort and edge) or Mark Nason (for edgy style).

Dress Shoes
When it comes to dress shoes, if you want the traditional styles, shop the traditional brands. You don’t need me for that. If you want something that combines comfort, quality and has more style, then I recommend checking out the offerings of Donald J. Pliner. You should be able to find his product in boutiques, major department stores and online.

If you’re willing to pay for truly superlative comfort and style, then brace yourself and put on a pair of Michael Toschi. The technology in his shoes makes them insanely comfortable. There is no other description. But be prepared that even on sale, they’re going to set you back at least $250.

Eyewear
Hedda Szmuk at The Eyeman at 84th and Broadway is your answer. Hedda will find you an excellent pair of frames within minutes. And then if you want to continue, she'll spend as long as you like finding other truly excellent options. As you explore the spectrum of spectacles available, you will be treated to Hedda's saucy commentary along the way. You should be forewarned that if a pair doesn't look good on you, Hedda might just snatch them off your face and absolutely forbid you to buy them.

Fragrance
If it’s time to get educated about scent, then there are only two masters you must know: Chandler Burr and Luca Turin. Start by reading Burr’s biography of Turin (The Emperor of Scent) and then read Burr in the Times (he writes Scent Notes) and buy Turin’s book “Perfume: The Guide”.

Fragrances are a personal thing, so let me recommend fragrance houses to explore that you won’t find every guy wearing. (Remember Drakkar Noir and your college squash team?). First, go smell the scents at L’Artisan Perfumeur and Bond No. 9 (outlets available around Manhattan) for some excellent androgynous options. If you’re feeling like you want something edgier, drop into Bendels and check out the scandalously named fragrances of Etat Libre d’Orange.

If you want something custom, go to Le Labo on Elizabeth Street in SoHo and they’ll mix something up for you special.

Leather Goods
I think everyone needs a friend in the leather business. Me, I go down to see Memo at The Village Tannery on Great Jones Street between Broadway and Lafayette. If you want a backpack, a purse, a belt, pretty much any utility piece made of leather, drop in.

Shirts, Pants & Essentials
Keep in mind as you review this section that while I focus on shirts in my descriptions, each of these outlets also retails pants, sweaters, jackets and suits, etc..

My hands-down favorite place for menswear in 2008 has been Italian designer Eredi Pisano at 54th and Madison. It’s going to have the latest patterns, tailoring, collars…and price tags. Although, if you go during a sale, you’ll obviously be able to do better.

If Italian high-end is not your style, well, there’s no denying the influence of Jermyn Street on men’s fashion in the last five years. And it’s hard to go wrong shopping at Thomas Pink if you have the income. If you want to a lower price point with Jermyn Street styling, go for Charles Tyrwhitt. Both of these stores have retail locations near Eredi Pisano on Madison, as well as websites and catalogs.

The key with shirts, as with all clothing, is the fit. So if you want a more reasonable price point and a good fit, I recommend the Land’s End custom shirt process. You can input your measurements into their website and they will tailor a shirt just for you. It’s somewhat more costly than a standard Land’s End shirt, but you can be sure it will look great on you. And their customer service is to die for.

If you’re in NYC and you want to a boutique experience with multiple brands, I have three different recommendations, two are designer discount shops and the other is a boutique. Designer discount shops can be a hassle because these guys are out to move merchandise fast. On the positive side, you can haggle.

The first, relatively well known, shop is Riflessi, which has a shop on Madison Avenue and another on 57th Street. Long a staple of New York Magazine’s Best Buy column, Riflessi carried European and American designer brands a season or so behind the department stores and at a lower price. The less well-known shop is Valenti at 50th and Third Avenue. In addition to discounting designers, Valenti buys Italian fabric lots that European designers have elected not to use for one reason or another and they do their own private label shirts in the latest styles.

Finally, my favorite menswear boutique in Manhattan is Frank Stella. They have a store on 7th Avenue above 58th Street and another on Columbus and 81st. John Hellings stocks his store with a wide array of what’s hot, from the edgier brands like Ted Baker to more staid labels such as Tommy Bahama. Shop his seasonal sales and you’ll do very well indeed.

If you happen to be in Providence, Rhode Island, the only place to shop is Marc Allen on South Main Street. Marc moved north from NYC to raise his family and he’s got the best shop in town by a long shot.

If you happen to be in Los Angeles, you must go find menswear genius Marc Callo! For those of you connected to me on Facebook, Marc is the man who created The Jacket: my gorgeous platinum leather motorcycle-style blouson that magically elicits positive appraisals from peoples of all races, ethnicities, genders, and gender preferences when and wherever I wear it.

T-Shirts
We live in the age of the screen printed T-shirt. There are many sites that follow the Threadless model of having the public vote on the designs they would like to see produced. I happen to prefer Design by Humans.

If you're an NYCer, there are several local designers worth noting. My favorite is Severyn. If you go by his table in Union Square often enough, you'll eventually meet his whole freakin' family manning it at one point or another. (I'm particularly fond of his wife Natalie, who calls everyone "Babes".) And, although they're so hot they need no promotional support from me, it's also worth mentioning the guys at Barking Irons whose funky designs are all about forgotten elements of the history of our fair city.

In Your Home

Art
My personal philosophy is that there is nothing more important to me than ecstasy available through art. I really don’t think there are many endeavors that man engages in that matter more. I’m also a big believer in buying the work of living artists and I have met most although not all of the artists whose work I own.

Buying art is a very personal activity, so far be it from me to tell you where to buy it. If you’re already into buying art, you’ll have your own ideas about where to get it. If you’re new to buying art, this entry will hopefully provide you with a starting point for how to find art you might like at a price you can afford.

First of all, I’m a big believer in craft as well as art and you can find both at the best juried craft fairs: Lincoln Center has two craft fairs per year and Art Rider produces craft events nationwide.

Second, if you’re just beginning to explore buying art, I recommend buying the work of art students. There are two great ways to do this: 1) either attend the juried shows at a local art school or 2) go to Art Student Showcase on Lafayette between Prince and Spring. Art schools generally have an annual juried show in June and/or sometimes even a holiday art/craft fair for alumni (RISD has a fantastic holiday show!) in December. These are great places to go, meet young artists, and make acquisitions at any price point that works for you. You might find a lovely still life for $25 by a current student, a stunning pencil nude for $75 by a recent graduate or perhaps an oil landscape by an established alumnus for $7500.

Invitations
If you just want any old invitation, go to the stationer. If you have a significant event that you want memorialized in a one-of-a-kind way, I’m a tireless promoter of Ceci New York. Lisa Hoffman is truly brilliant and working with her and her team is like having any great graphic piece produced for your company. You establish a creative brief, likes and dislikes, key themes, and they’ll make magic. You’ll pay for the privilege, but I guarantee you that you’ll want to frame it when it’s done.

Furniture & Lighting
For me, there are always two places to start furniture shopping: Maurice Villency on 57th and 3rd and Lee’s Studi0 on 57th east of 7th (above Lee’s Art Shop). Both have highly opinionated help available (I recommend Ed Silverii at Lee’s and Norman Teitelbaum if he’s not yet retired at MV) and lots of high-end design.

Being the CFO of our family K. feels strongly that I have to include three less pricey options for finding contemporary furniture options: NYC's own Scott Jordan, Manhattan retailer Jensen Lewis and the national chain Room and Board. All of them are great places to look as you seek out just the right piece. If the piece in question is a sleeper sofa, check out this 2005 post.

I'm Big on (and in) Japan

2008-07-20T21:48:00.016-04:00

It's fun to be able to say that I am writing this from the Osaka Kansai airport business class traveler's lounge. Being able to say that means that I have now finally been to Japan!

I've wanted to to Japan all my life and I've finally had my first taste. My employer needed me to be in Tokyo and Singapore across two weeks. Now I've been to Singapore before, so that in itself was not so exciting a prospect, but Japan...that was something I got quite excited about.

My time in Tokyo was limited but very enjoyable. And the Tokyo trip had the added bonus of coinciding with a Japanese holiday. So I my concluded my meetings on Thursday, the office was closed on Friday and I bulleted up to Kyoto for a long weekend with my friend Jonah. He lives in Vietnam and flew in to meet up with me in Kyoto.

Kyoto is a great city and I look forward to coming here with K. (Jonah said the same thing about wanting to bring Phoung.) It has some commonality with two very disparate cities that I also enjoy: Amsterdam in that it has canals, geishas, bars and Siem Reap in that it has a truly profuse number of dazzling ancient temples and shrines. And like those cities, Kyoto also has great food at both high and lowbrow levels. (Come to think of it, I think that Siem Reap is actually only excellent at lowbrow/local cuisine as opposed to haute cuisine.)

I'm a little exhausted now, so I'm going to do a fuller post on Kyoto later. But for now I'll just share some fun images.

As you can see from this Buddha against a backdrop of power lines, Kyoto is a city where the old and the new sit side by side. You can be walking in a covered outdoor shopping passage in downtown Kyoto and you will suddenly stumble into a temple, graveyard or shrine. It appears that the modern city of Kyoto was simply built around the ancient city's constellation of sacred sites. So those sites site untouched, tucked in admidst the concrete sidewalks, endless storefronts and and high rise construction of downtown Kyoto. The next two images carry forward this theme of ancient and sacred side by side with the new, novel and profane.

Here's a shot from the wonderful Ryoanji: a Buddhist temple with a very famous Zen garden. This is a wonderful site to sit contemplatively. You may even begin to understand what a Zen garden is for because the scale and the arrangment of this extraordinary place cannot help to provoke some desire to look inward. Once again though, I found the sacred butting up against the profane at Ryonji because in order to contemplate the garden properly, you have to be able to ignore the constant chatter of your fellow humans who have come to pay the stones a visit.

Here I am with a Japanese soda. I'll have to post some photos of Japanese soda machines later. There are an endless variety of sodas with odd names and flavors that are extremely hard to discern from the bottles. Which of course means its fun to try them. This soda had an odd light green color. I can't recall the name. I may have simply chosen it for the image of boy and his dog in the style of Picasso 's Don Quixote. Anyway, I drank a sip. Jonah looked at me quizzically.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't immediately clear what it was, supposed to taste like either. Fruit...hmmm....mild fruit....urrrr...slightly sweet without being overwhelming...huh...rather refreshing, I guess....familiar...but what IS IT?

And then, it suddenly dawned on me. And I was so glad that my darling K. was not present or she might have wretched being that this is her least favorite flavor ever. I was drinking melon soda. Somewhere between honeydew and cantaloupe, I think. Colored like honeydew, but the flavor was a bit more cantaloupe. Fascinating and nice on a hot day (if you're me). Anyway, more on Kyoto and Japanese sodas at a future date.

The Measure of America

2008-07-09T16:10:00.000-04:00

Through a happy accident, I had a very small role to play in the development of an exciting new book that will be launched July 16 in Washington. I was on a business trip and met an author who needed a special breed of partner to help her express some very important ideas based on research about the state of our nation. As it happened, I knew the good folks at Humantific who helped Kristin Lewis communicate her data through the design of a compelling and understandable book. Below is some information about it. I hope you'll take an interest.

The Measure of America is the first-ever American human development report. Carefully crafted by the authors to be nonpartisan, we are hopeful that The Measure of America 2008-2009 will become a significant catalyst for societal change in the United States.

You can see the announcement trailer on YouTube and you can become a fan of Measure of America on FaceBook.

Icoa: A Little Foodie Heaven on Grand Cayman

2008-05-20T23:45:00.000-04:00

We knew for certain that we had hit the jackpot when the beautiful little artisanal bread board arrived and practically begged us in audible human language to be savored immediately. A brief glance in its direction and we knew we would have to oblige it.

It all started back on Little Cayman at the Southern Cross Club. When we realized that we had no way to avoid a long layover on Grand Cayman on the way home, we figured we'd better ask Terry Thomson what to do about it. Terry is SC's masseur who also doubles as the bartender (and in earlier days was apparently also the boat captain and a divemaster). Having spent a little time at the bar with Mr. Thomson it was pretty clear that he's a very well rounded hedonist. So Terry gave us the eye, considered our foodie tendencies and spieled through a few options for lunch on GC. Watching our reactions carefully, he finally pronounced, "Yeah. You know, I think Icoa Cafe is the place for you. It's in the Seven Mile Shops strip mall. Don't be fooled by the appearance of the mall. The food is really good."

Now the strip mall is seriously unpreposessing, so the warning was very much needed. One would never imagine that there was a purveyor of food porn present given the humble setting, but as K. began using a cute little spoon to put some tapenade on the freshly baked bread, we were thinking that this was going to prove to be a serious find.

Because the appetizers looked so fabulous and because we had been eating and drinking a lot more food than we are accustomed to for the past week at Southern Cross Club, we elected to order a whole bunch of appetizers and forego the main dishes.

Dish after dish, we were not disappointed. Two tender scallops were in an unctous mushroom broth (definitely cream in that "broth!) with a few beautifully shaved pieces of parmesan. I honestly was a bit skeptical about the cheese in this context, but I loved it in practice. Or more specifically, in my mouth. And that bread basket required a refill so that we could sop up all that yummy broth!

A cylinder of chicken liver pate arrived with toasted pistachio nuts, fig compote and most interestingly a pot of honey and a honey dripper. Ohhhhhhh.....so unbelievably superb. I would have never thought to combine honey and pate myself, much less fig compote but it turned out to be an inspired combination.

After a sip of crisp Australian Pino Grigio, I would spread a little bit, consider whether or not with this taste I had accomplished everything I needed to in this world and whether or not I could depart with this swallow as my last deed on earth. I have to say that the chicken liver pate was truly unbelievable. I loved the texture and it's robust but not overpowering flavor. Both the honey and fig compote managed to be complementary without repetitive in the ways in which they added sweetness. And the simple, but inventive presentation of the honey in a shot glass with the mini-dripper struck me as delightfully pragmatic and still surprising at the same time.

After raving about the pate, I don't want to give too short shrift to the Blue Crab cakes with lemon verbena, sweet pea & mint "Gazpacho". It too was lovely and flavorful. Yet another win on the menu.

So the moral of the story here is:

a) Listen to your local hedonist when it comes to island food (which in the Caribbean is so often a crashing disappointment in comparison to the beautiful environs)

b) Never mind the strip mall because most of the islands are not generally known for their glorious architecture to begin with, right?

c) You dont need entrees when the appetizers rock the house. You have the advantage of being able to try many more items and see what the chef is all about.

The next time we're passing through Grand Cayman, we might just engineer a little layover at lunch hour on purpose!

Missing Robert Graham

2008-05-04T11:40:00.007-04:00

When we moved to NYC in the early 90's, K. discovered Fairway. Soon after, she bought our place on 75th Street between Broadway and West End Avenue to be near it. $185,000 for a 2 bedroom apartment? We were both starving actors at the time and I thought she was freakin' nuts. Could even our combined earnings for our entire lifetimes ever equal $185,000? (Thank god my advice was listened to and then completely ignored.)

Back then, Fairway was about 1/4 of the size it is today, which meant that the cheese counter was proportionally humungous. It took up the whole back corner on the northwest side of the store.

Now cheese is important to us. (So incidentally is pudding. At least pudding is particularly special to me, which prompted K. to have this t-shirt specially designed for me. If pudding is special to you, too you can order one for yourself here.) And as K. is of Dutch descent, she is particularly concerned with how cheese is sliced. (At least she tells me this is a Dutch thing, but maybe it's just one of her RULES.) A wedge of cheese you see must be turned so that the fat part sits on the counter and the thin edge stands in the air. You then take the cheese plane and shave off tiny slivers from the thin edge. To do this correctly, you want a cheese plane with the shallowest angle you can find so that your slides are wafer thin.

Having recently moved around in together and being in the process of stocking up on specialized kitchen utensils, we were in search of a cheese plane with the properly shallow angle on the blade. Given that Fairway had a cheese counter that completely blew our minds, we thought we'd ask for some advice there while we were shopping.

That particular day in 1993, there was an elfin man behind the cheese counter. He was bald, African-American, sparkling eyes and a smile that lit up the store. K. explained her quest and he said, "Wait here!" He bounded into the back for about 3 minutes and then darted out from behind the wheels of parmesan. With a flourish, he handed K. a cheese plane. K. looked at it, agreed it looked like a plausible tool for the purpose and inquired as to it's price. "Take it!" he said. Really? Us starving actors loved a freebie. "Sure! It's from one of my vendors. I hope it works out for you." He laughed with a tenor laugh that was sweet and infectious.

"Who are you?" asked K. of her cheese angel.

"Robert!" he replied and stuck out his hand.

For the next decade, K. always greeted Robert with a hug and a kiss. She loved to surprise him by sneaking up behind him and hugging him when he wasn't looking. Everytime we went shopping (and being NYCers we go the store nearly daily because it's so convenient), part of our consciousness was occupied with keeping an eye out for Robert.

We got to know Robert pretty well in the intervening years. Like all of Robert's customers, we became friends, too. We consoled him after the death of his wife and the mother of his children due to hospital malpractice. (Another customer provided legal counsel.) We left anonymous holiday gifts for the girls in the first year after that sad event. I dropped off research on therapy options for him in the hopes he could find the right support for his youngest. We asked after his social life, his girlfriends, his family every time we saw him.

For the last week or so, my consciousness keeps an eye out for Robert. But I know he's not there. As our neighbor and food critic Ed Levine noted, on his blog last week Robert passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.

It's a senseless tragedy and my world is smaller for his passing. My neighborhood is less for his absence. But my heart is full of gratitude for having known him for 15 years. For having known his smile, his greeting, and his heart. I didn't know it was the last time I would ever see him when I gave him a big hug a couple of weeks ago. But I'm grateful that was our last moment together. That is the way I will remember him.

"Porno Pie" Slices at Artichoke

2008-04-30T15:05:00.009-04:00

The pizza theme continues.

We went to see the Duplass Brothers' Baghead at the TFF tonight. We'd missed it at Sundance and both Sherpa Dan and Josh Leonard told me it was worth seeing. I was a bit concerned because I generally agree with Sherpa Dan, but Mr. Leonard and I seem to have completely opposite tastes in film (much to my consternation). Anyway, they were both right. It's a smart and nice little piece of film making that manages to be both a satire of indie films while staying totally within said genre.

Realizing that we were near the newly opened and much lauded pizza joint Artichoke on 14th near 1st Avenue. Pretty much every NYC cool hunting email (thrillist, urbandaddy, et. al.) has blurbed this place, so I've been itching to give it a go.

It's a tiny place where more than five people on line means the line stretches out the door. The line is also hard to gauge because you don't know if all of these people just walked in and ordered whole pies or only slices that need to be cut and/or heated. We stood in line, chatting with some other fun customers and eyeing the folks exiting to try to determine if this experience was likely to live up to the hype. K. noted that it looked like a pretty cheesy pizza. (Pre-WeightWatchers, this might have excited us.) There were only three choices: plain, Sicilian and the house style of spinach and artichoke. We opted for a slice of plain and one of the house.

We hopped in a cab and headed uptown while munching as neatly as possible. K. declared it "pornographic": super-cheesy and a volcanic explosion of rich flavor. I have to agree. In some ways, it's like an open faced calzone.

On both slices, the bread is doughy with massive bubbles, the sauce is strongly flavored and seems to be heavily dosed with some nice olive oil. The house slice comes across as if it's pizza that is actually made with bechamel sauce. (K. said it's like that artichoke dip you used to get when "white trash food" got trendy again at parties a few years back.) The plain slice is much easier to manage. In either case, I cannot manage anyone having more than one slice unless you'd just exited the Mojave and were starving...in which case these would be too rich for your stomach anyway. This video of the Artichoke gang making an "off the menu" broccoli rabe sandwich speaks volumes about their food ethos. If it were a piece of furniture, it would be shabby chic and overstuffed.

Bottom line: I'd have a plain slice there again but K. would rather go to a place with a more sparing approach to ingredients and where you don't feel the immediate need for a Lipitor chaser.

Slice of Life

2008-04-28T15:30:00.012-04:00

So last Thursday, K. said, "Let's take a walk" after we had dinner. I built on her idea and said, "Let's go to a wine bar!" So we hied ourselves over to Bin 71 on Columbus where we had a nice Banyuls and a very nice Auslese.

Dessert proved to be less nice. We ordered a molten chocolate dessert (what restaurant doesn't have one these days?) and it came burnt. Burning the chocolate cake did not enhance the flavor whatsoever. Now I should note that I frequently like burnt things (which seems to be genetic), but my beloved does not. And in this case, I had to agree.

Our waitress was rather shocked that we asked to return it. We had perhaps gone too far in sampling its burntness for her to feel it was appropriate. But she took it back and grudgingly brought another. Which revealed the problem. The center was cold, solid chocolate. And the bottom was only a bit burnt. Egads, Dr. Watson! They're making the cake, refridgerating it and then firing it when it's ordered! No wonder the bottom is burnt! They have to make the solid center turn liquid and they have to do it fast. So they broil that m*f'er until the bottom is charred. Ick. Unfortunate, because other than that silly dessert, the food at Bin 71 is quite good.

We left Bin 71 at about 10pm, feeling strangely unsated after our dessert failure and as we headed West back across 72nd Street, I noted that if Grandaisy were open I would actually opt for a slice even though we'd technically had our dinner. K. pointed out that our beloved City is the city of the slice. I agreed and said something to the effect of, "Some Saturday we should just wander around all day long splitting single slices from each joint we pass."

K. said, "Why don't we do that right now?"

We were just walking by City Pie which we've never actually tried before and I said, "Fine!"

We stepped in and looked over their selection. The plain in particular appeared to have an unusually thin crust. We ordered up a slice. Why haven't I tried this place? Is it the generic graphics? That thin crusted slice really rocked my world. It was one of the thinest crusts I've had that managed to be incredibly crisp, hold the pizza up just fine and was in no way charred. The sauce and the cheese were in terrific proportion. I found myself unexpected describing it as "a remarkably elegant slice".

From City Pie, we walked up Broadway a bit and then headed over to T&R on Amsterdam. Most Upper West Siders who grew up on the UWS are a bit religious about T&R. I've never been sure why because while I like it fine, it has never blown my socks off.

That said, we did have a bit of a fond NYC moment with with T&R when the blackout hit. T&R was furiously cooking off all of their ingredients because they had a working gas stove but no refridgeration. K. and I bought a pie and then trotted across the street to Nice Matin where they were only able to serve drinks (until the ice gave out) and had no food. Nice Matin allowed us to bring our T&R pizza inside and order up drinks.

We sat in the open doors of Nice Matin on that hot summer day watching the waves of fellow New Yorkers hoofing it uptown on foot the way we have to do when our beloved city breaks down. Suddenly, we heard what sounded like a parade and there appeared a few flatbed 18-wheeled trucks, giving a ride uptown to as many of our stranded denizens as would fit. Those folks standing up on the truck had taken to waving as if they were a parade and those of us on the sidewalks took to waving back and cheering. It was a strangely only-in-NYC moment.

Returning to our original story, the T&R slice was both enormous and workmanlike. It was of moderate thickness and pretty darn cheesy. I found it mostly impressive for its size, but perhaps I was just still flying from the City Pie slice. K. seemed to like it better than I did.

Now we were into double-dare-ya territory because there was still New Pizza Town between us and our apartment. Neither one of us was willing to back down and so our third $2.50 slice of the night arrived out of the oven just as my brother rang my cell. I explained what we were doing at what was now about 10:30pm and he was pretty amused.

The NPT slices are a sweeter sauce than most and thinner than T&R, but not qualifying as "thin crust" in the way that City Pie did. I like NPT a lot. There's something bright and happy about the sauce and it all comes together quite nicely.

All of this to say, we really need to do that wandering pizza walk one Saturday this summer. Anyone care to join us?

If there’s one thing I could happily eat every day it’s...

2008-03-16T23:13:00.011-04:00

...Pizza! I have been kookoo for pizza as long as I can remember. My sister worked at Vinne’s Pizzeria in Scarsdale when I was a kid in the 70's and while I have no idea if their pizza was any good (it’s long defunct so there’s no way to know), I thought that it was cool she worked there. Growing up, Pizza & Brew became the destination of choice for pretty much every birthday party in elementary and junior high. When I went to boarding school, Sunday nights were awaited with bated breath because that was pizza and Pepsi night. (I suspect that’s an unthinkable menu for a boarding school today.)

My pizza obsession came into full effect when I was released into the pseudo-adulthood of college where you can choose your own food night after night. Napoli Pizza in Poughkeepsie delivers so many pies to the college that the Napoli’s go on vacation when Vassar is on break (at least they did in the 80’s). And every year there’s an article in the campus newspaper about the extreme volume of pies ordered during exam week. For me, exam week was hardly an exception to my pizza consumption. There were any number of weeks that I ordered (or scrounged) pizza every night of the week. Ah, the metabolism of the young!

Fortunately, now that I am arguably in full-on real adulthood I have chosen to make my home in The City. Here there no reason to suffer bad pizza. The City has lots and lots of great pizza. (And a remarkable number of blogs devoted to purely to pizza!)

Since this is The Evangelist, this is yet another list of my highly personal and idiosyncratic choices…only with a twist. This is actually cribbed from an email K. wrote to her friend who was coming to town while we are away (I write this from the comfort of the Southern Cross Club) and that friend just happened to have a serious hankering for pizza.

So here is our list (I have embroidered on the original so consider this co-authored), working south from our nabe.

Upper West Side
If you're on the UWS, and want to drop in somewhere for a slice, we love Rigoletto on Columbus around 70th street. Our favorite kind there is called "Garlicki" which doesn't have cheese on top, just a chunky tomato sauce with garlic and stems of parsley. Love it. Their stuff is best eaten on the spot -- when you get it delivered, you always have to throw it in the toaster oven to crisp the crust back up.

Also on the UWS is Patsy's (Columbus and 74th), which also makes a damned good pie. You just have to time your visit to avoid the stroller set because this being the UWS, it can be overwhelming.

Lots of locals rave about T&R on Amsterdam at 80th, but frankly we just don’t get the appeal. It’s not bad per se. It just seems unexceptional. If you want a classic NYC slice on the UWS, we much prefer the unexceptionally named New Pizza Town on the corner of 78th and Broadway. Slightly sweet sauce with the whitest of white crusts.

Now the real excitement at the moment for us is that as of a few months ago, at 72nd and Broadway is Grandaisy Bakery! For some, Grandaisy may fall too far into the "fancy" category of pizza, but their little thin-crusted rectangles of Roman-style pizza are world-class and not to be missed. You can do the very simple, cheeseless pomodoro, or we also pine over the zucchini and the cauliflower. As a special taste sensation, go for the which is not pizza at all, but a kind of bread somewhere between a focaccia and a ciabatta.

In fact we first went to Grandaisy specifically because of the bianca con pecorino. We were staying in LA at a friend’s home while they were away. (Thank you Lee & Josiah!) Lee reads Vogue and we stumbled upon a Jeffrey Steingarten piece about his obsession with true Italian pizza bianca. He went to Italy to learn a whole historical baking tradition that includes baking the pizza on humongously long boards (nine feet as I recall). Of course, after failing to recreate this comically improbably experience in his tiny apartment he learned that the folks at Sullivan Street Bakery in SoHo had long ago mastered it. As soon as we returned to NYC, we hied ourselves downtown to check it out pronto. (The Sullivan Street partners split up into two companies, one of which is now Grandaisy.) We have been obsessed ever since!

Midtown West
At West 57th Street (and another outpost at 54th and Broadway) is Angelo's Coal Oven Pizza. Their pizza is an excellent exemplar of traditional coal oven pizza - we usually get one with sausage and olives which comes with nice big leaves of fresh basil on it. A perennial favorite and very satisfying. How it ended up on 57th Street is a bit of a mystery. It doesn’t seem to fit into the neighborhood exactly, but that’s New York for you.

Soho
In addition to the downtown outpost of Grandaisy (which is in the original Sullivan Street storefront), there is Lombardi's on Spring Street, reputedly the oldest pizzeria in the New World and considered by many to be the best in the city. Lombardi’s is a coal oven pie with a thin, slightly blackened crust. Oh, so delicious.

I'm on vacation in the Caribbean...and I can still find joy in writing about NYC pizza! :-)

Pluggin' for My Posse: The Back of the Napkin

2008-03-12T17:59:00.010-04:00

Dan Roam is one of my friends that I can easily refer to "totally frickin' brilliant." His excellent book The Back of the Napkin is available today on Amazon.com.

Not surprisingly, the book has been reviewed really well thus far. Business Week already did an article and an online slideshow about it and apparently the April issue of Fast Company will have an entire feature article on the book.

You will recall dear readers that I predicted that The Intellectual Devotional would be huge and then it became an NYT bestseller and since then has even had progeny!. So trust me when I confidently predict that you're going to be seeing and hearing a lot about Dan Roam.

Noodling in New Paltz

2008-03-03T18:28:00.004-05:00

So I was kinda freakin' out on the runup to President's Day weekend and desperate to get out of Dodge. K. realized that this is not at all like me as I love The City more than anywhere else and generally dislike leaving the Blessed Isle for short excursions. I'm great for longer term outings such as vacations, but otherwise I kinda like to stay put.

Our dear friend Christina decamped from the Isle for New Paltz some time ago in order to procreate. One of those weird things that people do. We hadn't seen her in an awfully long time so we decided to head up.

Among the little inconveniences that your lovely progeny bring to us non-breeders is often the loss of the guest room. So we set about using our favorite planning tool: TripAdvisor. In doing so, we discovered the glorious Maplestone Inn: a three room gem that's opened in the last 18 months or so. Sean and Patty Roche have done a gorgeous renovation to the property and our room (the Jenkins) was absolutely perfect. Patty's excellent cooking - the breakfasts were totally pornographic - was clearly not exactly WeightWatchers friendly, but who can resist a tasty egg concotion ON TOP OF A PANCAKE? I mean really now!

We did a bit of our usual vineyarding (a new hobby in the last year) and then discovered that all roads lead to Beso when it comes to dinner. Not only is it raved about online, but Sean and Patty recommended it and...so did Sherpa Dan. Turns out he discovered it a while ago (hence the Sherpa title). Given that convergence, we were absolutely determined to eat there. They have a New American menu utilizing in-season ingredients and a terrific wine list. It was a fantastic meal that included an onion and goat cheese tart (house specialty), a yummy beet salad with Humboldt Fog (there's never too much cheese!) We split unbelievable short ribs with braising greens and cornbread complemented by a very nice tempranillo. Dessert was an unusually rustic tarte tatin alongside a glass of poire William liqueur.

I usually order poire eau de vie and didn't realize that I was ordering liqueur as it just said Pear William on the dessert drinks list. K. can't normally stomach eau de vie but I bullied her into trying this and she was immediately obsessed. When we returned the following week I went to the source of All Things Rare: Park Avenue Liquor. It turns out that Massenez no longer makes the liqueur but they had a few bottles. Of course, I had to buy two.

Now despite all of this culinary goodness, K. has maintained that the highlight of the meal was...the cornbread. I know, it seems so pedestrian. But the butteryness of Beso's cornbread is simply not to be believed. We overheard our server tell another table that someone actually drove 2 hours and called first to be sure there was going to be cornbread. It is that darn good!

Grand Central Frozen: Poor Man's Time Travel?

2008-02-13T10:42:00.003-05:00

In the past, I've posted several times about my interest in time travel related fiction. This Improv Everywhere prank suggests Nicholson Baker's The Fermata. How surreal it must have been to be there in person!

2008-02-10T17:01:00.000-05:00

I have been getting regular complaints from certain parties for quite some time about the fact that The Evangelist became defunct.

This blog originally arose out of my fears of joining a large corporation some four years ago. I was concerned about a general lack of/loss of creativity in my life and I launched this site to keep a certain spark alive.

As it happens, I ended up enjoying both my corporate gig and keeping this site alive so both prospered together for quite some time. Then I accidentally got promoted two years ago. Being less interested in “tidbit blogging” and given to writing essay-style posts, I found it too hard to maintain the dedication required for keeping this site current. And – like going to the gym – once out of the habit, it became quite daunting to getting back in the game.

In any case, I wanted to share an update about this year’s Sundance pilgrimage and it seemed like this site is really the best place to do it, so I’m back for the nonce. We’ll see if any more posts squeak out of my brain in the coming weeks.

So on to the topic at hand. In the tradition of Sherpa Dan, I will force rank this year’s flicks from favorite to least favorite.

Young@Heart *****
This documentary is the rare film that runs the entire emotional spectrum: I laughed, I gasped, I groaned, and I sobbed. Quirky modern day saint Bob Cilman leads a chorus of 80+ year olds in renditions of songs by Sonic Youth, The Rolling Stones, James Brown and Coldplay.

It’s a tough repertoire that they don’t always relate to at first and Cilman gives no badges for showing up or for just trying. These choristers are made to work and work hard. He stretches their memories, their cultural boundaries and their minds; challenging them to stay vital members of the Y@H community of performers who tour in the US and abroad.

The documentary form is stretched a bit in fun ways by the inclusion of music videos where the Y@H team gamely showcases their theatrical skills in addition to their vocal ones. But truly the price of admission is Fred Knittle’s heartbreakingly gorgeous solo performance of Coldplay’s “Fix You”. I can hardly read what I’m typing through the tears as I recall it even now.

Man on Wire *****
“Man on Wire” is the compliant filed against Philippe Petit for wirewalking between the Twin Towers. This gripping, amusing documentary is pretty much guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser in the art houses. One of the few docs that have ever used dramatic recreations to brilliant effect, “Man on Wire” takes us from the early plotting of the caper through its daring and successful execution; a story combining artistic obsession, Keystone Kops slapstick, acrobatic talent, megalomania, and the blissful naïveté of the pre-9/11 world to unleash an extraordinary moment of breathless grace into the memory of the city hat never sleeps.

Traces of the Trade ****1/2
Brave documentarian Katrina Browne confronts her family’s legacy as the largest slave trading family in the history of United States and uncovers the implicit complicity of much of the population of the northern states in the process. Uncovering the uncomfortable truth about their past, Browne invited 9 members of various branches to join her in retracing the Triangle Trade from Bristol, Rhode Island to the slave trading ports of Ghana and the sugar cane plantations of Cuba.

This movie (and an accompanying book) will make great centerpieces for all American communities who wish to set up programs to actively discuss, explore and potentially redress the repercussions of human bondage in American history.

Towelhead ****
Alan Ball’s feature film directorial debut is going to piss lots of folks off. First of all, it’s going to annoy many simply by its content: a half-Lebanese tween discovers the power and perils of her emerging sexuality with the help of her mother’s boyfriend, her Army Reservist neighbor, and her more age appropriate African-American boyfriend.

Tackling teenage sexuality, racism, pedophilia, and misogyny in one blow is pretty much what we might expect from the screenwriter of “American Beauty” and the creator of “Six Feet Under”. And this leads to another group of folks who are likely to be annoyed: those Ball fans who feel he’s repeating himself here. While he didn’t write the novel on which the movie is based, it’s clear that he has favorite themes and he’s far from done dramatizing them. (I couldn’t help feeling that “Towelhead” represented Ball’s desire to have directed “American Beauty” himself.)

Those reservations aside, “Towelhead” is still a compulsively watchable film. There are standout performances from Summer Bishil as protagonist Jasira, Maria Bello as her mother, and Aaron Eckhardt as her neighbor Mr. Vuoso (and I’m not normally a fan of Mr. Eckhardt at all). I’m also a fan of quirky Peter Macdissi who plays Jasir’s father Rifat. He stole every single scene he was in on “Six Feet Under” as the bisexual Svengali art teacher Olivier. And I was thrilled to see him given a leading role here. (Now my friend Josh is an experienced Hollywood denizen and he not only walked out of the film, he found Macdissi to read as blatantly gay. I understand his take. But I find Macdissi’s energy to match with my experience of any number of Arab and/or Muslim men, who while may come from a macho culture, can still read as metrosexual or gay vague to a Western observer.)

Choke ***1/2
Choke is adapted from “Fight Club” scribe Chuck Palahniuk’s novel of the same name and represents a solid debut directorial effort from Clark Gregg, one of my favorite unsung actors. Starring Sam Rockwell as a sex-addicted, historical recreator (think Colonial Williamsburg) who’s struggling with his oddball mother’s decline. Full of puzzling plotlines, chockablock with outré sexual shenanigans, and pulled together by a strong case, “Choke” is a very credible effort to bring a challenging script to the screen. While not ultimately moving in the way it had the potential to be, it’s still full of fun and interesting bits and pieces and I suspect that it may well find itself a cult audience amongst the Palahniuk and Nicholson Baker fans.

Sleep Dealer ***
In the near future, outsourcing is accomplished by importing foreign labor without the foreign bodies: Mexican laborers remotely operate robots performing blue collar work (such as construction) in the United States. Building on the cyberpunk concepts of William Gibson and others, writer/director Alex Rivera has crafted a really neat little science fiction film that manages to successful cram a ton of political questions between its opening and closing titles, including water scarcity, immigration, free trade, globalization and the visible imbalance of wealth between nations. While it ties itself up a little too neatly at the end, it’s still a valiant effort.

Be Like Others ***
“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” So speaks Fabian in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night” and so will you feel too when you learn about this peculiarity of the gay life in modern Iran: you may be stoned to death for being gay, but as the result of a fatwa made by the Ayatollah Khomeini himself you are allowed to have a sex change! Yes, indeed. This documentary takes us to a gender reassignment clinic in Tehran where hundreds of surgeries are performed so that homosexuals can continue to reside in their native country. Truly unbelievable until you see it for yourself.

The Black List, Vol. One ***
Elvis Mitchell interviews notable African American’s for Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ documentary. While not every interview is riveting, many of them are. Mitchell is off camera and unheard, but his probing questions brought some new and unexpected responses out of many familiar faces, including the Reverend Al Sharpton and Colin Powell. Highly educational on a number of levels and well worth seeing for those of us who enjoy the occasional festival of talking heads.

Phoebe in Wonderland ***
An unsuccessful effort overall, but full of wondrous elements nonetheless, not least of which is a terrific performance from young Elle Fanning as Phoebe.

A young girl struggles with an unnamed challenge that seems to incorporate hallucinations and compulsion. Phoebe is only “normal” in the context of rehearsals for a school production of “Alice in Wonderland” (presided over by the always wonderful Patricia Clarkson).

A talented cast that includes Felicity Huffman and Bill Pullman as Phoebe’s parents, Peter Gerety as her shrink, and Campbell Scott as the principal of her school, work very hard to try to string the pearls on the necklace of this fantastical script and often succeed. In the end, however, first timer Daniel Barnz resorts to some tired clichés in both script and direction that are overly calculated to pull heartstrings.

Sunshine Cleaning ** ½
Let me start by saying could probably watch Amy Adams read the phone book. She stole my heart in 2005’s “Junebug”(for which she won a special jury prize at Sundance) and I thought Disney’s “Enchanted” would have been nigh impossible without her miraculously transcendent and emotionally transparent performance.

“Sunshine Cleaning” allows Adams, partnered with the fine Emily Blunt, to do the thing she’s proven she can do well: present a vulnerable character struggling to make a life for herself. But beyond showcasing Adams and Blunt, it is simply yet another Sundance story of how people make sense of life when life doesn’t make sense. Nice enough if you happen to catch it on cable, but not essential viewing

American Son **
A young soldier is called up to Iraq and has 72 hours for a whirlwind affair and separation from his family and friends. Nick Cannon and Melonie Diaz as the star-crossed lovers acquit themselves adequately. But the overall effort has a workman-like aura and the story, while quite timely, still manages to feel somewhat shopworn. Quite watchable, just not extraordinary.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? **
Morgan Spurlock’s sophomore effort, this falls far short of both “Supersize Me” and his also his strong docu-TV series “30 Days”. It’s a shame because it starts out very strong and then declines throughout the film. Part of the problem here is the premise: Spurlock decides that in the time that his long-suffering partner is pregnant (!!), he will run off to try to track down OBL. In order to forgive this blatant megalomania, he’d have to have come back with a much stronger film. Instead, we get a lot of what the choir being preached to already knows: man-in-the-street interviews that demonstrate they hate our government in the Muslim world and some of them forgive “the American people” for electing it; others do not. Duh.

Roman Polanski *
A documentary on the case that sent Polanski out of the US forever, this film is primarily of interest for revealing how peculiarly the wheels of justice turned in this instance. Polanski, while guilty of having sex with an underage girl, was clearly also himself the victim of judicial misconduct. Given this revelation, this could have been a fascinating movie, but I found it shockingly bland.

Savage Grace
I have rarely seen such a beautifully photographed failure. I think this script wanted to be something along the lines of “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, but instead the best that can be said for this truly awful film is that it does stand a chance of becoming a camp classic.

Based on a true story, this Julianne Moore feature is overrun by Kabuki-style acting and a plot bloated with sexual misconduct. Jacobean dramas were noted as bloodbaths where most of the characters murdered each other in the final moments. This overwrought misadventure is some sort of nihilist Jacobean sex drama where most of the characters fornicate with each other in various combinations until the increasingly frenzied plot climaxes (pun intended) with mother-son incest on the living room couch.

The audience I saw this with laughed in all the wrong places. Enough said.

Greendimes: How We All Can "Put Out for the Planet"

2006-11-01T19:42:00.000-05:00

So way back in the early summer of 2005, I fell into a depression about the state of the planet and took a hiatus from The Evangelist.

After a restorative Memorial Day weekend with close friends on Nantucket, I wrote a (rather dark) post titled Putting Out for the Planet in which I discussed my dispair and described New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert's role in my falling into that mental black hole.

Towards the end of that post, I mentioned that K. and I have a lovely friend named B. who was then being courted by a rich enviro. I had hoped that via B's romance, we might influence said enviro to save the earth and thereby redeem our otherwise not-nearly-green-enough existence. (Although interestingly enough, recent studies indicate living in NYC is actually a surprisingly green move! So we got that part right.) Well, B. did put out for the planet for some period of time, but alas that strategy ultimately did not come to fruition and she and the enviro parted ways.

Determined to do her part however, B. recently emailed me to let me know that she took a job with a very cool, very green organization called Greendimes. They stop your junk mail, protect your identity AND plant trees in your name. HOW COOL IS THAT?

I signed up immediately!

TID Hits the NYT Bestseller List!

2006-10-29T20:42:00.000-05:00

It's official! David's book is #6 on the NYT Hardcover Advice list! What else are people reading? Apparently, lots of folks are getting their advice from Donald Trump and Suzanne Somers. Yikes!

Going Undercover Part II

2006-10-26T21:00:00.000-04:00

This is a long overdue post for my colleague, Christine. She has a thing for spies. We were talking at the beginning of the summer and I mentioned some of my undercover experience. When I went to send her the link to the Going Undercover post I wrote way back when, I realized that I hadn't really given the whole story. You see, I've actually been paid to go undercover in an investigation.

Way back in my acting days, not too many months after I moved to The City, I was contacted out of the blue by a woman who called herself Eve. She was very mysterious and wouldn't tell me how she'd received my name and number. She said something to the effect of "I guess you have a friend who wants to help you out." Mystified, I asked what this call was all about. Eve said she had heard that I might like to have access to a certain kind of information valuable to actors. Information known as "breakdowns".

Suddenly, I felt like I was in a Hitchcock movie. An innocent man receives a call from a stranger who claims to know who he is, claims to have something he wants. She spoke to me in that kind of spy patois, a code that I couldn't understand. What were breakdowns? How would having them benefit me?

Eve explained in a very seductive way that once I had this information, I would have the inside track on which casting agents were working on what projects and I could submit myself for their consideration. There was a cost for obtaining this information, of course. And that cost was a lot of money to a journeyman actor.

As it happens, I had just heard the word "breakdowns" in passing from a lovely woman named Lynne. We'd been cast in the same show. I remembered that at the first read through of the play she'd said something about working with breakdowns being her survival job.

To be honest, none of the details of what I'd learned that night stuck with me. It was a crazy situation and I couldn't focus. I'd been cast in an autobiographical show - primarily because I looked like the director/playwright as a young man - and suddenly I found myself rehearsing this off-off-off Broadway show in a townhouse that belonged to Mike Nichols (!) because the auteur in question was dating Nichol's personal assistant. It was weird. But somewhere in the back of my head, I remember Lynne saying something about "temp job" and "breakdowns".

So the next rehearsal during a break, I said casually, "I got this odd phone call and I wondered if you had something to do with it." Lynne looked at my quizzically and said, "Not likely. What about?"

"Someone called - said her name was Eve - and said I could buy breakdowns. I remembered that you said...."

"WAIT. DON'T SAY ANOTHER WORD TO ME." I was completely shocked. "You don't necessarily want to tell me anything else about this phone call."

"I don't? Why? What is this about? What are breakdowns really? The first time I heard of them was when you said at our first readthrough that you worked for some company that did them or something like that." Lynne must have looked at me for a full minute with her piercing blue eyes and then I guess she realized that I wasn't putting her on. I really had zero idea what we were talking about.

"Okay. Look. That woman. What she's doing is illegal. Breakdowns are the intellectual property of the company I work for. Actors want the information because they think it will help them. But really it won't. It's a scam.

Breakdowns are sold to agents and certified managers so that they can submit their clients to casting directors. If you send your headshot in to one of the casting directors for one of their projects and your headshot doesn't have an agent's stamp on it, they just throw it out."

"Uh. Ok. But what exactly IS a breakdown?"

"When someone wants to cast a film or a play, they send the script to Breakdown Services. Breakdown Services reads it and writes short summaries describing who the characters are that need to be cast. Then they circulate the breakdowns to agents."

"Got it. But it's not helpful to actors?"

"Look at me. I read breakdowns every day. I'm in the same off-off-off show you are."

"Right."

"Look. If you want, you could get hired to help Breakdown sort this out. I mean, if you're willing to...um...help catch these guys."

"Really?" My head started to spin. My father was a prominent intellectual property attorney. I knew enough about IP that once I understood what breakdowns were, I understood that what I was being offered was stolen IP. "Ok. What would I have to do?"

"Let me talk to the folks at work. I'll get back to you."

The next thing I know, I've been hired to subscribe to breakdowns. I call Eve back and now that I have more information, I can speak spy patois, too. We arrange "the drop". Breakdowns will be delivered for me to a Mailboxes Etc. in my neighborhood. I will leave an envelope with cash each week. I will get a drop every week. Secret agent that I am, I bring my weekly drop to my new employer. They're furious. These are very current breakdowns. This week's, in fact. And they're on the street within 24 hours of their release.

Within weeks as they are trying to crack this case, the team pulls me into a second investigation: a manager who has lost his license still seems to be getting breakdowns. And he's showing them to actors - a big no no. Is his source Eve? Or someone else?

I get sent to sign up with the manager. He's such a loser manager, he'll take pretty much anyone. Even me. (Sadly, I think I had to pay him to sign me.)

Anyway, now I'm seeing breakdowns from two angles, the "Eve subscription" and my new crooked manager. I have mixed feelings about my manager because he IS sending me out on auditions, after all. Actors love that. However, the auditions he is sending me out on are pretty low rent. (I may or may not have made the final cut in Vampire Vixens from Venus. I've never had the courage to watch it to see if my little bit as an extra made it in or not. If you watch it and there's a bit in a restaurant with a flying fork and Detective Oakenshield, I'm the one who launched the fork.)

What had started oddly, became increasingly odd. This creepy manager is representing me and every week he's letting me comb through breakdowns, asking me what I would like him to submit me for (this is not the way a legit agent or manager works). And meanwhile, I'm combing through them looking for dummy breakdowns that will tell my employers where the leak is coming from. I'm wondering if the manager is on to me. He's constantly emphasizing the need for secrecy (as is Eve) and I'm doing everything I can to play along.

As time goes on, I am starting to feel uncomfortable in this game. I'm using my real name (unlike the other gig), but in both cases my objectives are not what I am claiming they are. And in both cases, I'm looking to shut down my source. While I'm sure I'm doing the right thing from a legal perspective, I am fascinated by the breakdowns and I can understand why actors want them. They definitely make you feel in the know, even if you can't get any closer to a real job than by reading them and imagining yourself in all the cool parts that will eventually go to Brad Pitt or whomever. But there isn't too much time to think about all of this, because soon enough we shut down both leaks and my job is done.

Next, "Eve" and her husband (I've forgotten his code name if he had one), they get detectives combing through their garbage, a cease and desist order, and a court case. I retire as a spy at this point and exit the picture. Finally, I exit acting altogether. At which point, I'm sure I thought that none of these people would ever intrude on my life again.

But apparently Eve and her husband, they decided to get out of the acting biz, too. Neither of them was working as an actor, hence the thievery to make ends meet. So what do they do? He decides to get out of acting and goes on to reinvent himself as one of the founders of one of the seminal web agencies in Silicon Alley.

Me? I got out of acting and two years later, where am I? Competing with him at another seminal web agency in Silicon Alley.

I swear, we must know about 200 people in common. But to this day, we've never met.

The last post finished by offering the "Double Life Film Festival". Since Christine is particularly a lover of books, here we have the Breaking the Code Book Club wherein we explore the eternal saga spies and their codes, mostly through the lens of WWII.

Breaking the Code
This was my introduction to thinking about spies and codes. Derek Jacobi starred on Broadway. I saw it twice and met him briefly once. (He was delightful.) Alan Turing was the genius of the famous UK code breaking facility at Bletchley Park during the war. Breaking the Code is a bioplay about Turing, a man who not only cracked both the German "Enigma Code", but also broke Britain's social code by accidentally outing himself. (Being homosexual was a punishable offence at the time.) Another tremendous performance of a character who stutters by Jacobi.

Between Silk & Cyanide
Most books about code breaking tell the story of Bletchley Park. This is the opposite story and by far my favorite book on this list.

In addition to being the scion of the Marks family of Marks & Spencer bookstore fame, Leo Marks was the head code maker for the Brits during the war. When he appeared on the Leonard Lopate show promoting this book, he told a story about falling in love with a beautiful female spy during the war that so broke my heart that I went straight to Amazon to get the book as soon as I was near my laptop. Marks' story is one that defies all expectations: it is chock full of poetry (literally), humanity, comedy and ingenuity. Read it.

The Code Book
My brother in law Charlie turned me onto this one. A layman's primer on the history of making and breaking codes from the dawn of time. The Code Book somehow manages to weave in history, philosophy, political science and quantum mechanics and keep you interested all the way through. A lovely micro-history.

The Weight Loss Revolution and the Resistance

2006-10-21T17:30:00.000-04:00

I've lost 33lbs and I'm down to 190lbs this week.

I think perhaps the beginning seeds of my undertaking this was when I saw Super Size Me at Sundance 2004. (Yes, I know that's a looong time to incubate an idea.) It's not so much that I ate fast food much. Just that I began thinking about what I wanted to eat and what I wanted to weigh.

The other thing that began to get into my head was Bill Maher's constant ranting about America's obesity issues being driven by the kinds of food we now eat: overly processed, fully of corn syrup...crap, basically.

As I've been both thinking about the issue and subsequently taking personal action, I've been interested to note that there's clearly a building cultural trend evidenced in the popular media.

It probably kicked off with the publication of Fast Food Nation got larger with Super Size Me, Jamie's School Lunch Project, and it's built to a head with the nutty Honey, We're Killing the Kids on TLC, where frighteningly nutrionally uneducated Americans are given rather tacky kind of shock therapy help them reform their family's eating habits. (You have to watch it to believe it.)

Perhaps most inspiring sign of the trend, however, is chef Jamie Oliver's campaign to reform school lunches in the UK. It is a laudible, remarkable project where maybe Sisyphus may actually get the rock up the hill. In a similar vein, the September 4th issue of The New Yorker contained an article titled "The Lunch Room Rebellion" profiling Ann Cooper, an American chef attempting to revolutionize school lunches in California.

For me, these are hopeful signs that perhaps we might migrate our culture's eating habits towards something more healthy (just in time for global warming to wipe away all evidence of humanity). But for every step forward, there's always some folks determined to take ten steps backwards. This is highlighted this week the New York Times article discussing the ongoing controversy in the UK over Oliver's program, including rebellious parents actually vending junk food through the school gates to the children! Yowza. We humans really are hellbent on making our lives harder, aren't we?

Julia Sweeney’s "Letting Go of God"

2006-10-17T23:44:00.000-04:00

I can't believe how long ago it was that I originally began to author this post. Probably eight months ago, honestly. Actually, I think it's more because I remember when I went to Sundance I read Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven and I made all these connections and...wait, I'm getting way ahead of myself.

So here's the deal. A while ago, K. and I went to see Julia Sweeney perform at Ars Nova. Ars Nova is a great space over on the West Side of The City, slightly north of Hell's Kitchen. It's a really intimate venue and we've seen someinteresting folks like The Petersons and Sarah Silverman perform there. We also saw Julia Sweeney workshopping the piece that became her one-woman show "In the Family Way" there a few years ago for something like $10 and we loved it. So when we saw that she was trying a new show out called "Letting Go of God", we thought we should check that out, too.

Sweeney's fascinating because while she's in the confessional vein of Spalding Gray, she really has her own voice and it's a very human and very humble voice. It's less about verbal pyrotechnics (Bogosian) and character work (Leguizamo) and more about vulnerability and the voyage of self discovery. And given that her life has been quite tragic (she and her brother were both diagnosed with cancer and only she barely survived), the healthy does of comic timing she brings helps mightily to leaven the proceedings when her real life drama heads into the territory Aeschylus preferred to trod.

"Letting Go of God" picks up after the cancer story ends off and focuses on her subsequent quest for a better spiritual understanding of herself. The events of the show are set off when two Mormon missionaries show up with the news that God has a message for her. When she learns the Mormon's version of history, she begins to question her own Catholic faith because - let's face it - pretty much all religious stories strains the credulity of modern humans.

And so Sweeney set off to do some real research and decide for herself what she believed. It's an amazing story and, perhaps most importantly, an intellectually honest one.

I don't want to give to much away about the show. Except to say that while it's not perfect, it's pretty damn good. And her story is really worth hearing. No matter what your faith is.

So if you're in The City, go get yourself some tix to see her reprise it at Ars Nova this weekend. It's 9 performances only!

For those readers who are out of town or can't make it, you can listen to a clip of it here in the most popular episode of NPR's This American Life ever. (NB: If memory serves me correctly, I think you want to go to 38 minutes and 45 seconds into the broadcast. Their site is down right now, so I can't confirm that.)

And if you do go, you might be interested to read the Krakauer book afterwards since it was the Mormon theology that set her on her quest...

TID is Going to be Big

2006-10-16T17:30:00.000-04:00

So I have this amazing friend named David Kidder. When we first met, he'd recently sold his first company. He was 23.

Since that time, David has done any number of amazing things (including selling other companies), but his most recent accomplishment is a wonderful side project called The Intellectual Devotional.

I think it was about 18 months ago and K. and I were last at Castle Kidder and David was showing us this prototype for a book that he was thinking about creating. The idea was compelling: a simple way for those of us who love knowledge to fill in the inevitable gaps in our educations...one day at the time.

Based on the concept of the relgious devotional (a prayer book with a new piece of scripture to be meditated on each day), The Intellectual Devotional pulls together information from seven "fields of knowledge", to wit: history, literature, philosophy, mathematics & science, religion, visual arts, and music.

I've been buying lots of copies for my friends, and after David and his coauthor Noah were on The Today Show, it seems that others are turning on to it as well.

Maybe it's your turn?

www.i_lost_24_lbs!.com

2006-08-05T09:47:00.000-04:00

I'm a pretty big guy. I'm 6'3". And for something more than the last decade, I've weighed anywhere between 215lbs and 230lbs.

Now I knew I was fat when I was up to 230lbs. That was somewhere back at the end of my career at my first startup and I immediately dropped 15lbs when I left the company. (In fact, I was so happy at my next employer that I dropped those 15lbs in about 3 weeks.) But I've basically hovered around 220lbs, plus or minus five pounds ever since. And if you asked anyone (other than my mother), they would have told you that I wasn't fat. Because when you're my proportions, you can haul around a fair bit of weight - as much as 20 pounds in my experience - without the average person really noticing the difference. But I knew my weight was not a good thing and I would never own up to the fact that often I weighed over 220. I would just round it to 220 if the subject ever came up.

Back in April, Sherpa Dan suddenly began shedding pounds. Now I've never thought of Sherpa Dan as needing to lose weight. At all. But as the weight fell off, it was undeniable that he looked better and better. K. took a look at this and asked him, "How the heck are you doing this?"

Now Sherpa Dan always has a system. Always, always. (That's what makes him such a good sherpa!) And he replied, "Weightwatchers.com."

K. wondered, "Are you going to those meetings?" Her distaste for the meeting concept was evident.

"Nope," he said smiling.

"Do you buy their food?" We both knew there must be a catch. Sure you lose weight, but you have to eat icky food, right?

"Sometimes. Not much."

"So you don't buy their food and you don't go to meetings? What exactly do you do on this website?" We were mystified.

Well, we now know the answer. Because shortly after that, K. signed up for the site. I watched the pounds fall off her for about six weeks and I caved, too. I signed up in the beginning of June.

It's now exactly eight weeks after I started and as of yesterday morning, I weigh 199lbs. I started at 223lbs. (Of course, I did my usual fibbing and listed my weight as 220 when I signed up.)

So....what's the secret to this website? Here's how it works: you sign up, you use it to track what you eat. It assigns a number of "points" worth of food that you can eat each day (daily points) and it also allots you points you can use any time during a given seven day period (weekly points).

Often you won't know what the value is of a food you are considering eating or have already eaten. The site has a searchable database that enables you to determine the "point value" of most foods that can think of. If you can't find it, a Weightwatchers devotee named Dottie usually has the answers on her "Weight Loss Zone". (DWLZ is perhaps one of the least navigable sites on the Internet, but she's a dear for putting it together and the information she provides fills in critical gaps in the WW site's database.)

Here's what I've learned in this process:

1) I consumed way more food in any specific meal than I could ever have needed.
It's astonishing to me to think about it now, but if K. and I ordered a regular pizza, I usually made sure there was nothing left. Now I eat two pieces and I'm happy. I cannot imagine eating four or five pieces of pizza, especially given that that would have been only part of what I ate for that particular meal. Honestly.

2) It's much easier to do this as a couple.
It's hard when only one of you is changing their eating habits. K. and I find it's so helpful to have your partner doing it at the same time. Your expectations of the answer to the fateful, "What's for dinner?" question are synchronized. And you have someone to keep you honest, help you remember exactly what you ate. (K. has what must be near photographic memory for meals. It's insane. She can remember where and what we ate in whatever city we might have been in - going back years.)

3) Balsamic vinaigrette is a highly deceptive thing.
Remember Clinton's "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is?" Well, "I'm eating healthy food" turns out to be a similarly complicated issue. Seriously. So many foods you think of as "healthy" turn out to be tricksters.

Balsamic vinaigrette has become the poster child example for me in my newfound understanding of good eating habits. Formerly, I would douse a salad in balsamic vinaigrette as a "light and healthy" option vs. say blue cheese dressing. All good. Except balsamic vinaigrette (if it's not going to be inedible) needs to contain a LOT of olive oil. So you slather it over your salad greens and you've just created a pretty "pointy" meal out of a simple salad.

Often it comes down to a matter of volume; of portion size. You say to yourself, "I'll put olive oil on my bread because that's a healthier choice than butter." And perhaps that's correct. (Who knows? Every year they decide something that was bad is now good or vice versa.) Except that I know that in my case I would then proceed to happily ingest a tablespoon of olive oil soaked into each piece of bread...and clean out the whole darn bread basket in the process.

Here's another example: I love Pret. There's one downstairs in my building and I think their food is great. And it's all fresh, organic-y goodness, right? Sure. But find me a lo-cal sandwich there. Good luck with that. No problem, get a salad, right? How about some balsamic vinaigrette with that?

You see how easy it is to eat yourself into a doughball if you're not paying attention? And that's what this whole Weightwatchers.com phenomena comes down to for me: it helps me stay awake, to stay conscious of what I'm eating. Because if I know, if I'm conscious of the fact I'm about to make a bad choice, I won't do it. Logging what I eat into the site helps me to do just that.

So - in case you hadn't noticed - that site is the new thing I'm evangelizing. Because it's the first tool I've ever found that has made achieving my goals in this arena so easily achievable. (Now I just hope I never have to eat those words.)

Jamie Cullum Rocked Montreal

2006-07-13T11:45:00.000-04:00

K. and I have a thing for Montreal. Even though the exchange rate is not what it was, Montreal is such a great deal for those looking for a long weekend away from The City.

What makes Montreal special? First of all, it's only a 50-minute flight to what is, for all intents and purposes, a European city. Given the power of the Euro and the time required to jump across the Atlantic, Montreal is a much more reasonable destination.

In terms of feel, there is Old Montreal which, while a bit touristy, looks and feels like the older sections of any number of European cities (say Barcelona or Basel) and it has newer sections which feel like the more modern sections of the European cities that have managed to steer away from clustering their skyscrapers and instead spread them about amongst buildings of a more human scale (again, Barcelona and Basel are good approximations). Most importantly, Montreal has great restaurants, cultural offerings and...I must admit...fabulous shopping. While the exchange rate no longer makes an American feel that Montreal shopping is pillaging St. Catherine Street Viking-style, the summer sales do make it hard for someone of my acquisitive nature to leave the city empty-handed.

We have been to Montreal over the Fourth of July weekend before and this trip was something of a dare. The last time we were there was the summer of 2002. We had just wandered out of a terrific bagel brunch at the famed St Viateur when my cell rang. It was a friend and colleague warning me that executive management had just decided to declare a “pre-packaged bankruptcy” and that if I wanted to stay employed during the transition and sale, I had best call in any favors I had left. As it turned out, my favor currency must have run out because I was laid off shortly after my return.

Returning to Montreal then, was something of a superstition-buster. Thus far, it seems to have worked as I put in a three days of work last week and Wile E. Coyote did not appear to drop an anvil on my head. We’ll see how this week goes before we declare the 2002 event a one-time happening and not having been the fault of the Canadians; neither French nor Anglophone.

We had some great meals on St. Laurent at two places we have frequented on other trips: Med, and Globe. Med has received a bit of a makeover in décor, but mostly in name (it used to be Mediterraneo) and maintains its beautiful, underdressed servers and outstanding menu. Globe does great food in an ambiance I could really skip (I abhor restaurants with DJs), but at the hour we wished to eat (after 10 on a Monday night), only the in-crowd places were serving.

The reason we were eating so late on Monday is that Fourth of July is Montreal Jazz Festival and we had just come from an unbelievable three-hour tour de force by brit-jazz/pop wunderkind Jamie Cullum.

I had no idea what to expect when we bought the Cullum tix. Mark and Cory had turned us on to Twenty Something, shortly before Catching Tales was released. I liked some of the tracks (the purer jazz ones). But, as you know if you read the Thomas Dolby post, I’m not much into pop or rock music and some of the songs are much more in those genres than jazz. Nonetheless, the majority of it won me over.

As we were planning our trip a few months ago, I was scanning the list of performers for the Montreal Jazz Festival and most of it didn’t interest me. But then I saw that Jamie Cullum was performing. I said to K., “Whaddya think?” She said, “Let’s give it a go.” So I booked a pair of what appeared to be the worst possible tickets: in the last row of the orchestra. It was all there was without heading up into balconies and I couldn’t remember what the Place D’arts theatres were like well enough to risk going upwards. (If you go upstairs at The Beacon, you can end up fainting from the altitude.)

When we arrived, we happily discovered that there really isn’t a bad seat in the orchestra of the Theatre Maisonneuve. We were fascinated to see that the audience ranged through a remarkably broad set of demographics” from eighteen year old women to groups of retirees. (The young women obliged their stereotype during the show by throwing their underwear onstage. The retirees blissfully restrained themselves from breaking any stereotypes.)

So things looked pretty promising as the opening act came onstage. A few songs later, K. and I simultaneously turned to each other with variations on “If I’d wanted to see Sarah MacLachlan, I would have bought tickets for her.”

Fifty frickin’ minutes later, she finally left the stage. She seemed nice enough, but she left us cold. Then there was a 20 minute intermission.

Finally, Jamie Cullum took the stage. And I mean took the stage. From the moment he came out, he was in control. He launched into “Photograph”, a song whose lyrics I’d never listened to that closely, but he articulates clearly. And through the power of his performance, what is essentially a juvenile pop effort suddenly became compelling.

From there on out, it was a wonderfully unpredictable affair. He continually varied the pace and the instrumentation. He played piano for some songs, only sang on others, got out an acoustic guitar for another. For one song, he looped himself live in front of the audience; laying down a beatbox rhythm like and then several vocal harmonies with the élan of someone like Kid Beyond. He then played piano live and sang against the tracks we’d just seen him loop.

There were guests partway through the show. He brought his older brother Ben (whose written some of Jamie’s hits) for a duet, and he even generously brought Sonia Kitchell back out to do an unrehearsed duet of “What a Difference a Day Makes”. (She apparently started her career as a vocal jazz performer and I thought she was far more compelling in that genre.)

Now it’s about 2 hours into the show, and we’re wondering, “How much has he got to give?” Because he had spent almost every minute bouncing about 3 feet off the floor. His energy was boundless. It got him jumping on the piano, off the piano, over the amplifiers. He’s a little jumping bean – in a fun way, not an annoying one.

But he kept delivering song after song, style after style in endlessly creative ways. At one point, he grabbed his bassist Geoff Gascoyne and jumped into the audience. Gascoyne played a stripped down electric bass while Cullum sang “Nature Boy” – without a microphone - from the center of the house! He wandered down a row halfway back into the orchestra seats, hands cupped as an impromptu megaphone, and sang the whole damn song. It was nuts.

At about 2 hours and 30 minutes into the show, he taught the audience a three part harmony and had us all singing along in a way that actually felt additive to the performance instead of awkward and stagy.

By the time he shut the show down, he had rocked the Montreal Jazz Festival for three hours in what is one of the most generous displays of natural showmanship that I think I will ever see. Old and young, everyone left feeling high. In fact, coming near the end as it did it colored our entire trip with a positive haze. If there was anything we hadn’t enjoyed before that Monday, it was entirely eclipsed by the experience of Cullum’s performance.

P.S. – Speaking of fun shows of a different kind entirely….For those of you who missed [Title of Show], it is back at The Vineyard for a limited 8-week run!

Shopping Sherpa Update

2006-07-03T17:15:00.000-04:00

Back in '04, I posted about Shopping Sherpas. I'm always on the lookout for them, and they are truly hard to find.

A few weekends ago, K. and I headed down to Soho to The Original Leather Store. They used to have a store on the UWS, but it closed about 18 months ago. At their closing sale, I picked up a great Seraphin shearling at a shockingly good price. In addition to its style, it's a great quality coat. In fact, every time I have walked into any other leather store, the salespeople have remarked on what a great product Seraphin makes. (Several of them have explained to me that Seraphin is the manufacturer for Hermes leather coats.)

I'd put some wear on the Seraphin and it needed some minor repairs. So we headed down to the Soho store as part of our weekend errands.

I should confess at this point that any day of "running errands in Soho" is usually our great excuse to drop into a few favorite places. Most frequently, we find ourselves drawn inexorably to Sullivan Street Bakery for a slice of their special Roman style pizza. If it's winter, we can usually be counted on to be magically transported to MarieBelle for some of their high quality heroin...I mean crack cocaine...I mean hot chocolate, for goodness sake. But it might as well mean some other more devilish substance because MarieBelle hot chocolate is (to date myself and quote the long defunct Crazy Eddie) INSANE.

Given the warm weather, we just did Sullivan Street Bakery and managed to avoid MarieBelle. Ah, Sullivan Street, how much do we love thee? If you are a foodie and want to get a sense of why we love it so much go here and click on the link that says "Pornography". These are people who really understand K. and I.

So, the main point of this piece is really our experience at The Original Leather Store. Sated by Sullivan Street, we went to drop off my coat for repairs. But once there, we fell under the spell of Indira Heffner. An exotic woman of West Indian heritage with cafe au lait skin and butterscotch tresses, she engaged us immediately with her extremely sociable manner. Without being pushy - or even directly engaged in selling - she led us on a romp through their leather collection. It was fun trying on the various things she found to show us. Some of it was just to goof around trying things on we weren't ever likely to wear in real life. OL sells to many celebs and rock 'n rollers, so some of it is more over the top than you or I might desire. Some of it was to appreciate the workmanship of OL's own line of goods, which is quite high.

We must have hung out with Indira for over an hour. She was charming, we had fun, and...it may not surprise you to learn (although it certainly did surprise us at the time) that we walked out of OL with more than one new acquisition.

So I am officially adding Indira Heffner to my list of NYC Shopping Sherpas: those amazing folks who can help you find the things you want as well as the things you didn't even know you wanted.

Christa Kirby: Giving an Actor Her Due

2006-06-25T20:50:00.000-04:00

I opened up Time Out NY late Thursday night and read the following:

"...Kirby may be the best NYC actor that almost no one has heard of..."
The actor in question here is my friend, Christa Kirby. She is indeed a brilliant actor and I was certain that I'd already blogged about a mind blowing performance I saw her give in Burning Habits back in 1993. In fact, I was 100% certain I had covered it in The Price of Admission because it was a moment that entirely changed my perception of what I like about theatre; indeed it changed my perception about what is possible in the theatre. So when I read the review, I thought, "HA! I am two years ahead of Time Out!" But if I ever Evangelized Christa's brilliant performance, I myself cannot find it amongst my posts. It's high time I corrected that.

Christa and I met back in the hot, steamy summer of 1991 at The Astors' Beechwood. We did "living history tours" together. We spent day after day pretending to be robber barons from the 1890's; giving tours of one of Newport, RI's mansions on Bellevue Avenue.

It can be a dizzying experience spending your day as someone else, not breaking character for hours at a time. But we pretty much thrived on it, especially Christa. (For careful readers, this was the same summer I ended up pretending I was someone else for money during my off hours, too.) She was great at deep character work and frighteningly daring. She really loved to push the envelope.

In fact, I always knew if we were at a party and someone was referring to her by any other name than her own (most often she went for the stupendously unlikely name of "Bathsheeba"), that she hadn't liked them and decided to "enjoy" their company by pretending to be someone else. (I don't want to give the sense that Christa was kooky. Just too smart not to seize the opportunity to goof on a drunken oaf trying to pick her up and to use it as a chance practice her acting skills at the same time.)

We were both young and inexperienced actors, but I had a lot of work to do on my craft. So I went to spend the next two years at Trinity Rep Conservatory and Christa was drawn to the actor-magnet that you call New York and I call (with as much joy and pretension as all of the millions of thronging co-habitants call it) The City.

By the time I arrived in NYC, I was a competent actor. Not brilliant by any stretch, but given my past history as a yawner, a vastly improved actor thanks to Conservatory. In the meantime, Christa had flourished into a force to behold onstage. Agents weren't flocking to her door, but her choices weren't likely to allow that. She was doing very downtown theatre and agents don't generally have much interest in that. There's no percentage for them in it.

During its original run, Burning Habits was being performed at a tiny gay bar called Crobar (or maybe Crowbar). Young actors generally flock to each other's shows to be supportive, and so I trekked from the Upper West Side down to the Lower East Side and then walked East for blocks into Alphabet City. The decor of Crobar, like many gay bars that I recall from the era, consisted mostly of black paint. There were never enough chairs for Burning Habits and I recall sitting on the floor for at least one performance, maybe several.

The night in question - the night that should have been hallowed in The Price of Admission post - was a night where Christa was forced to switch back and forth between her evil nun character (Sister Godelieve Machiavelli) and her sweet Southern housewife character (Thelma D'Gretts).

If it isn't plain from this introduction that Burning Habits is a campy soap opera, I think the character names spell it out pretty plainly. In fact, BH is performed as a serial every Monday night. (Monday nights are when most theatres are dark, which means that actors can do labors of love - e.g., perform in shows like BH - and the rest of the theatrical denizens can go see them. If you have any interest in seeing "insider" performances, find shows that only run Monday nights.)

So...returning to the performance. I cannot give you all the plot details. But I will give you a summary of what I recall and tell you why it mattered to me.

The parts of the show where Christa was performing as her evil nun character were raucously funny. I recall hooting and hollering until I was in a sweat. And the crowd was going nuts in response.

In a scene immediately following the mayhem, Christa came out as sweet, loony Thelma. In a typical plot twist, her no-good husband Otis began to brick her into the basement. At first, this nonsense was funny. Thelma was standing still. In her childlike way, she had fallen under some simply ruse of Otis' and was simply standing still while he began to build the brick wall.

As the wall came higher, it began to dawn on Thelma that she could not escape. And suddenly, the room lurched from comedy to deep tragedy. Thelma began to cry and I found myself weeping for this poor imaginary character standing not ten feet in front of me. To make matters more interesting, my memory says that there was in fact no wall being built on the stage. The wall getting higher was represented by a spotlight that got smaller and smaller until it was only on Thelma's face.

I recall leaving the performance that night with a sense of catharsis I'd never experienced before. Something about ricocheting back and forth from hysterical laughter to crying left me feeling free and alive. It had never occurred to me that these states could be created in such close proximity by a stage performance. It opened up my eyes to a whole new variety of theatrical possibilities.

Soon after, I rushed off with my friend Robin to see her friend Sturgis Warner in Jeff Weiss' Hot Keys after it moved to PS 122 from Naked Angels. Talk about pushing boundaries! From a description in the New York Times in 1993:

In Jeff Weiss' "Hot Keys," recently reopened in the East Village, a father and his teen-age son, both amateur wrestlers, strip off their shirts to debate the need for brutality in their incestuous relationship. They also reminisce about the various boys -- schoolmates of the son -- they have raped and murdered.

And by the way, the scene is played for laughs, as this continuing soap opera -- with a new episode presented each weekend -- spoofs the stuff of tabloid headlines and the outlandish daily parade of confessions on TV talk shows that are no less disturbing for their ludicrousness.

I recall that Weiss ended each performance of Hot Keys that I saw by singing "Where or When" with a ferocity of raw emotion that poured out over the audience and left everyone in tears. It was truly shocking.

In any case, this all started as a paean to Christa's remarkable talent. She's turned it into a true force for good. She rarely acts in public now. Instead, she does drama therapy in war torn lands, helping to heal individuals and society.

I know this is a higher calling, but I can't help hoping that the current slew of positive notices for the Burning Habits revival will attract the attention of the right kind of producer. Someone who will find a great piece for more people to experience Christa's talent on stage. Because I know that for me, ever since I saw what she could do in that 1993 performance of Burning Habits, I go to the theatre in the hope of feeling the unexpected. A possibility I had never considered until that time.