Christmas in New York

If shopping is not your favorite contact sport then you have no business walking along Fifth Avenue or anywhere near any department store in Manhattan these days. They are like greyhounds. Be alert or else you'll get mauled by the sea of down-to-the-wire shoppers. It is also gridlock alert day in the city. Buses crawl you probably can outwalk them. I know, I know. What am I doing in the city if I'm not shopping? I just happen to be here among the hordes of tourists for my annual holiday pilgrimage to watch the holiday displays.

The towering tree at the Rockefeller Center and the horn-blowing angels are a New York tradition. And that would not be complete without Prometheus and the crowded ice skating rink . From my front row seat at the coffee shop I was amused watching skaters take pratfalls and run into each other head on. I shouldn't laugh, I remember being traumatized by this humiliating experience many times in my younger days.

As usual the stores are competing for the best dressed windows with their holiday displays. Some have gone high tech with digital screens playing computer generated animations like Saks Fifth and Macy's. I've whittled down my favorites to a few stores with traditional decor. Bergdorf's antique looking props, Mikimoto's strand of pearly white balls, the elegant windows of the Plaza, Cartier's mainstay - the building gift-wrapped in red ribbon as if it were a giant present and Van Cleef & Arpel's garland of magnolia leaves adorning the entrance.

And who says FAO Schwarz is just for kids? I was smitten by the neatly-stacked Teddy bears and other big cuddly toys.

Walking into a crowded store in New York can be overwhelming but don't panic, there are other options. The streets are full of vendors hawking everything you can imagine. No need to trek to Chinatown for those Louboutin and Fendi knock-offs. The sellers compete for the best spots on Fifth right outside of Armani or Tiffany.

There's always something different on the street stalls each year; this time they are the earflap beanie hats and fingerless gloves. They may not be the Rolls Royce of winter knits but they sure look like the real thing and they're cheap. I think they are intended for one-time use as in disposable, or as in I won't cry if I loose them thing. They'll serve the purpose for travelers who don't want to pack their good woolens or those who've packed them but lost their luggage in transit.

"One of Andy Warhol's favorite stories about Dom Perignon was when he and his friends founded the 2000 club - a group of 20 people coming together to purchase 2000 bottles of Dom Perignon and will be drinking them together to celebrate the millennium. For them, the running joke was who would be around to drink it but sadly, Warhol wasn't there to celebrate the millennium by popping a copious amount of champagne".

Below is a liquor store display featuring Dom Perignon's exclusive bottle as a tribute to Warhol:

Christmas Fair, yes we do have them too but don't you worry. There's nothing in our Christmas Shops at Vanderbilt Hall or Bryant Park that could cause the Germans or Austrians to sweat. The Christmas markets in Germany are known to be the best in the world.

It's a pity I couldn't take a picture of the Christmas tree and the Neapolitan baroque creche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's another tradition - a twenty-foot blue spruce decorated with a collection of 18th century Neapolitan angels and cherubs. The groups of realistic creche figures flank the nativity scene at the base of the tree. With Christmas music playing in the background it is simply breathtaking. How I got in the museum for free is another story. That's for another post if I ever get around to it.

Last but not the least; it's often easy to forget that Central Park is a man-made wonder. The landscape behind the museum is a delightful sight for an invigorating walk especially on a crisp winter day. I roamed around for a bit soaking in all that beauty around me.

A walk in the Upper East Side occasionally means crossing paths with Toto, Coco and friends on their daily excursions through the streets of Manhattan. What a sight! And they're all perfectly behaved. With 10 to 12 dogs at once, you'd think that it's the dogs walking the walker. I heard it's a lucrative job, so if you want to earn some extra cash while on vacation in NY, here's one for you.

Off I walked towards the subways, merrily snapping away photos of beautifully decorated entrance doors to some of the most elegant brownstones along the way. The #6 train whisked me away towards Lexington Ave. where more of the holiday festivities take place - music, music, music underground. It's Christmas time in the City. For the outsider it must be dizzying but not for us.

Except for bedbugs replacing roaches, what's not to like about New York City?
New Yorkers are flexible. We give you oodles of choices in everything. We don't do things in half, remember? New York, New York.

We can be congenial and sometimes obnoxious. We are guilty of rolling our eyes and sticking out a middle finger, but little is known about how good we are at heart.

Merry Christmas.

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine

I can explain.
I don't have a drinking problem. I couldn't be more sure of this given the fact that I grew up with rum and gin as staples in my grandfather's house and the boys in my family celebrate their silly little basketball tournament victories not with a measly six-pack but by consuming cases of beer found stacked up high against the backyard fence.

Before the days of the H1N1 virus scare, at most I'll take a sip during communion. Definitely, a glass of bubbly to welcome the New Year. Yesterday was an exception.

It's time for the quintessential winter office party. Something tells me I have to show up with my arsenal of retorts to save myself from embarrassment once Scott starts picking on me. He is a seasoned sales manager, nice guy but annoyingly persistent and is on a mission to win me back or so I thought.

The party started with hugs and greetings, introductions of the big kahunas and the yearend thank you speech from Santina. Another productive year, yeah, yeah, so where's the bonus? To tell you the truth no one was paying attention to her, we were busy stuffing our faces with the tasty appetizers served up at this Greek restaurant Ammos Estiatoria.

Seated to my right was Jimmy, whatever dish he did not recognize ended up on my plate. He is not allowed to drink alcohol so the bottle of wine got shoved next to my plate also. For some strange reason I didn't mind. I guess I knew I needed some help fending off Scott's relentless pursuit of his prey - yours truly.

Alcohol! That's it - that'll help dust off my defense skills. Let's see.

Averoff Fresco Nemea Red. It's all Greek to me. I never had wine so smooth and fruity. It was love at first sip. Then another glass, followed by another until I became talkative. Maria couldn't believe her eyes, Scott and Mary were amused and Jimmy thought I was a natural. You don't mean natural drunkard, do you now? I started to feel tipsy.

Scott started teasing me about this returning to work bit. I'm never good at repartee but in this case the alcohol worked its magic. The answer is a flat No! I'm not returning to the workforce ever. Little has changed since I left. Val is still Val, Meaningful Use requirements, whatever, just means more work and less pay, so why bother. I'm not knocking you down my good old colleagues, I do enjoy your company but let's keep it this way - once or twice a year is plenty. I'm so totally embracing my retirement and I have no plans of giving up the good life.

And who are you kidding, Scott? I smell a big fat referral bonus behind all this recruiting business.
Everyone laughed. He was busted.

Aha! There is indeed some 3 or 4K incentive. You're so full of it! All along I thought I was being courted for some hard-to-fill-in job. Did you really have to burst my bubble my friend?

At this point I'm feeling woozier. Still determined to have a good time.

The food was great. Jimmy stashed away three of the chocolate gift boxes, I got one. Val won the raffle prize for the third year in a row and I'm convinced it was rigged. So what if it's a Kindle? Val can't even read. I don't care for e-readers. I'm a dinosaur remember? I love my dead tree books. The world must march on I agree but death for the printed books? That will never happen. There is no digital equivalent for rich printed images, woodblock prints, calligraphy and words.

The fun was not meant to end at dinner. Unbecoming as it was, I shuffled my way to the theatre which was six blocks from Ammos. Michael led the troop. Fela - the genius of Bill T. Jones' choreography and the life story of Nigerian music star and political rabble-rouser Fela Kuti. The Afrobeat music was very loud, the dance routines wild and exotic, beautiful black women wriggling and swaying their hips at times snaking down the aisles.

It wasn't as good as I hoped. Many times there were lengthy monologues, nothing seems to be happening, then suddenly followed by the same music and dance. It was monotonous. Come to think of it, I fell asleep most of the second half of the show. Or was it the wine?

Jimmy blatantly ignored theatre rules, I saw him recording one of the long dance numbers. He disappeared after the intermission. I wonder if he was picked up by the theatre police or he just died of boredom.

Our parting words:

Scott: When are you coming back to work?

Me: If you can promise me a party like this every Friday, maybe I will. But then again I might drink myself to a stupor I'd be totally useless to you.

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine
When you gonna let me sober
Leave me alone...... (Scott)

Playing like the other half

Well, la dee dah, what have we here?
All kids love to play, yet some not just in any playground.


Tucked away in the gut of the Financial District, they named it Imagination Playground. It's a kid's paradise, a state-of-the-art playground equipped with all the cutting-edge extras I have never seen before. Complete with fancy restrooms, sunning areas, beach volleyball and tennis courts, skateboarding ramps, etc., it is enough to make even a professional athlete weep.

It is hard to imagine that this was a former parking lot now transformed into a playground for the children of the privileged few. It's all in here, no need for their parents to flee to the suburbs for the weekend and get away from their affluent digs in TriBeCa. The esplanade surrounding the playground runs along the Hudson River offering postcard views of the New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island all for joggers and walkers to enjoy.

Aside from the play equipment you should see the fencing used to enclose the play areas. The materials used don't come cheap even for those with deep pockets like the residents of this community. My problem with this is the money spent to build this playground came from my pocket too.

They mean it when they put up the sign Dog-free area; Sally ended up carrying Oliver as we wander inside the grounds. Walk in like me with a camera and start clicking away and you'll get those strange looks from the parents or the nannies. It worked - I was able to steal only a couple of shots. Such snobs. The kids look happy but it felt like a world away from where I came. We don't have the Climbing Boulders or the Challengers. Kids have to wait their turn to get on a slide or to swing from a monkey bar but just the same they immerse themselves in pure, wholesome play.

I kid you not, this is not the cookie cutter City playground. I learned a lot about playgrounds when Philip and I surveyed our neighborhood before we installed our own at the Condo. Those found in Queens and possibly in Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx are way inferior to this Imagination Playground. They are non-imaginative and many have the old crumbling asphalt flooring. None of them are enclosed either.

One recreation center in Queens and the adjoining soccer field sits above ground of a waste water holding facility. It is hiding sludge and I can't say for sure if the swimmers and runners above are even aware of this. If they are not complaining of any smell emanating from underground, then it's fine. For about two years during its construction we were wondering what could possibly be coming out of this structure and I already had suspected it's got to be a treatment plant of some sort. Hide it if you must but I commend the Mayor for maximizing the use of city land for both recreation and sewer overflow mitigation. However in a wealthy community the residents will be outraged if this was even attempted. None of these are the children's faults and I'm happy for them, but what an inequity. And who am I to challenge the Dept. of Parks or the system?

How did I discover this playground? Sally is visiting New York for Thanksgiving and staying at her daughter Emily's flat in TriBeCa. She asked us over for lunch soon after which we took Oliver for a walk in the nearby playground and park. Lucky dog, I could get used to this. My heart stops when I think of the asking rent for this super-sized one bedroom apartment. It's a homey pad with picture windows and loads of space for entertaining. I did enjoy playtime with Cliff and Oliver.

The rooftop solarium serves up a 360 degree panoramic view of a world of skyscrapers. Like meticulously arranged matchboxes, some of the neighboring buildings are glass-wrapped with multi-million dollar views of the city and more. It's simply breathtaking.

Movin' on up? Not in this lifetime.

My friends know me well enough to know that it is not likely that I struck it rich. Let's hope they don't get confused if they see me up here on this landscaped rooftop terrace.

The vision of a genius

It was raining Dali.
We're clear on one thing, that New York always puts a fantastic glittery on anything and it does it with a thunderbolt. But a Salvador Dali Exhibition in a mall? This may be the mother of all art show and sale. I felt like I was in a gigantic duty-free sale somewhere in Dali-land.

We stopped to have lunch at Whole Foods which is at the Time Warner Center - a high-end vertical mall in the heart of Columbus Circle around Central Park West. I couldn't believe my eyes. The giant Botero sculptures Adam and Eve were moved to the other end of the corridor on the first floor. 16 of Dali's original monumental sculptures, 40 paintings and drawings took over. They made a museum out of this glorified shopping mall, how about that? The show is free and the public is allowed to wander among the sculptures and paintings, all these lovely things people can not so easily snatch and take home! Of particular interest to me are a series of three studies for Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 movie Spellbound. That I'd like to own, ha.

It is no surprise that Dali's work would get more attention than Botero's bronze naked male sculpture Adam whose male body part has turned so shiny from constant handling by some perverted gawkers. This is a rare opportunity. These works would've enjoyed their pride of place in a more sedate and intellectual venue such as the MoMa but the owner of the collection and the Galeries Bartoux chose this unconventional setting.

How did they even get these huge and heavy pieces through the door and believe me Time Warner Center has big doors. I certainly hope that none of our European visitors who will be running the New York City Marathon tomorrow (and there's a swarm of them around), knock over these art pieces.

In case you'll be in New York for some shopping, Dali's work await you at the mall. Throw in a thick wad of money in that knapsack, you'll be needing a lot. Their prices range from $20,000 to close to 7 figures.

But you know what I'm thinking? Security doesn't seem to be tight, if I tear off a piece of one painting then sell it, that may be enough to buy me a charming pied-a-terre in Manhattan or even support my retirement. Me and my imagined lifestyle... Ah, to dream and wake up possibly behind bars?

Enjoy!

Edward Hopper and friends

That's it, blame it on the rain. You could've walked the few blocks.

Celine was half an hour late for our date at the Whitney Museum. She took the LIRR from Long Island (where else) and hopped on the bus at Penn Station to get to the east side. A huge mistake on a rainy day. What you get in Manhattan you just can't get anywhere else - horrible traffic and slow-moving crosstown buses. The city streets are transformed into endless parking lots. It doesn't help that New York pedestrians forget how to walk fast on wet days.

So if it's a choice between having the subway doors close on your face, or if you're lucky enough to make it inside, getting whacked by backpacks loaded with every high tech gadget Apple can offer and spending an hour on the bus trying to get to the other side of town, I'd easily cherry-pick the underground. And you can forget about hailing a cab, the big-tipper hedge-fund guys have monopoly of those vehicles.

I didn't mind waiting for her at the lobby. People were friendly, even as they shook off the rain from their bodies like dogs and were politely handed plastic umbrella bags by the museum attendant. Being 5 feet or less, Celine boasted that she was in perfect company in the bus - all the riders were short. I could only wish that it was a short ride too! Knowing her, nothing could've stopped her from striking a pleasant conversation with the person next to her making any long soggy bus-riding experience with midgets interesting. Oh, she's going to hate me for this!

After a quick and rather late lunch, we rushed to the second floor gallery. The sign reads: Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time. With her vast knowledge of modern art and being a Hopper enthusiast, it is like having Celine as my personal docent. Move over audio guide, she can help me untangle the mysteries behind every painting here.

We will recall Edward Hopper and his most famous and recognizable painting Nighthawks that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. Often without figures, his paintings can depict loneliness and isolation. The streets are empty of cars, the colors soft and the unusual lighting captures the lonely mood of his subjects. There is a clear disconnect among the individuals as in Soir Bleu where the cast of characters appear to be detached from one another. Hopper did it like no other, how to convey what it's like to be alone in a crowd.

The central point of this exhibition examines his work in the context of his relationship to his contemporaries, the artistic community of the Ashcan School. Most of the works on display were drawn from the Whitney's extensive permanent collection. Some of his most iconic work include scenes from the bustling streets of New York City at the turn of the century and later, the small-town landscapes and cottages around Cape Cod in Massachusetts, which are among my favorites. Born in New York and a solitary man always at home by the sea, it is clear where his inspiration came from.

Two of the most striking work by Hopper are prominent in my mind. Above, New York Interior and Seven AM. His simplified shapes and details and bleak setting speak plenty of his feeling of solitude.

And from among his contemporaries, my pick is Martin Lewis and his print Shadow Dance.

Hopper and his friends, they were the realist painters who were willing to paint what they saw on the streets.

Celine and I walked out of the Whitney Museum saying very little to each other but very much in awe with what we just viewed - some of the rarely exhibited works of Edward Hopper and the painters of the Ashcan era.

Das Rheingold

Mention the name Wagner and some of us get anxious. His intense and lengthy works are not for everyone. I don't fall in the category of the learned opera goers like Celine and her late husband John who must have started the love of the operatic genius of Wagner when they were probably in their 8th grade.

One day at the Avery Fisher Hall cafe, a dignified white-haired gentleman sat next to me. His tote bag gave him away as a "Wagnerhead". He was joined later by his wife then they engaged in a discussion about the upcoming Das Rheingold production. As I eavesdropped I felt not only so small but also like a fish-out-of-water gasping for breath. These two are not dummies, they know their Wagner. It was intimidating. I tip my hat off to the loyal Wagner fans who seem unfazed by the composer's massive, challenging and very, very long operas.

The new production of the four-part Ring Cycle launches with Das Rheingold in a joint effort by James Levine and director Robert Lepage. Something I'd rather not miss. Sadly I had to give up my chance to watch it live since the scheduled performance coincided with Patrick's wedding held out-of-town. All attempts to exchange our season tickets for the same opera were futile. Those lunatic Wagnerites are quick to snap up tickets for the Ring as soon as the Met programs are released.

Thanks to the Met Live HD Performance which is broadcast in movie theatres across the world, I had a second chance. It was an encore presentation of a screening that took place earlier this month and not a simulcast.

The prominent feature of this multimillion dollar production was the set made of a long row of 24 planks built out of fiberglass-covered aluminum that can rise and fall powered by hydraulics and can rotate 360 degrees. Even the Rheinmaidens appeared scared as they climb a 45 degree angle close to the ceiling. The planks looked like giant piano keys that twist and turn into different forms - undulating to represent the River Rhine or descending into the Nibelung as a flight of stairs and all sorts of clever tricks. It was humongous and at times drowned the music and the voices of the world's premiere opera singers Bryn Terfel as Wotan, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka, Wotan's wife and Eric Owens as Alberich.

It's a mythical story of gods and dwarves and the magic gold in the River Rhine protected by the Rhinemaidens. The long story rolls on into a series of adventures and misadventure, love, killing and betrayal. But it wasn't the same as seeing it live in many counts.

First off, who eats popcorn at the opera? In the second place, I expected some pretty singing without amplification. Third, Lepage who once again brings cutting-edge technology did not do much to impress me. The sets were bulky and lack depth. In the absence of the live stage I had trouble imagining scale and proportion. I liked his work on the Damnation of Faust.

I wonder what it was like had I attended it live. The state-of-the-art set at times was a distraction from the beautiful music and great voices onstage. I also thought that Eric Owens playing the ugly dwarf stole the show from Terfel as Wotan. Despite all these, Maestro James Levine who could barely walk at curtain call carried the orchestra through an inspiring performance soon after his surgery due to back problems. He is a true star.

I won't say I'll never see another Wagner opera again. I don't have to love him, I just have to enjoy his music. And while it's true that the Met Live HD project paid off as it is now being utilized to foster new interest in the opera, I prefer to attend the performances at the Met.

Boris Godunov

I was put off by its length. At roughly four and a half hours, the opera dragged for most of the first act. Worse than that, the story was hard to follow not having read the synopsis ahead of time, a spoiler one might think, but not in an opera; I need to know what it's all about.

It was even tougher for Celine who was seated next to me and whose subtitle screen had malfunctioned. Sung in Russian and with no Met Titles to translate, it's hard to fake an applause when you had no clue what just went on!

I do not have photos to prove it but Celine dozed off a bit and I don't blame her. There's something about staring at the stage from our Family Circle seats, focusing on the singing while intermittently stealing a view from your neighbor's tiny screen, that interferes with one's ability to stay awake. No, this is not made up. You try it with the dim lights inside the opera house. As we say in New York, "What are ya gonna do?" She moved to the empty seat to my right, after intermission and by this time already terribly annoyed.

There was no impassioned romance or a plump diva belting out high notes. It's a story of power and guilt, Russian history in the making. Boris Godunov is based on Alexander Pushkin's play of the same title which details the rise and fall of a remorseful tsar who ordered the murder of the rightful heir to the throne to clear the way for his own gain.

The set design was spare and quite traditional. The historical idea was reinforced by showing large maps. Most striking was the use of an oversized book which laid open onstage on which the monk Pimen was recording the history of the time, in whose pages sometimes the characters literally wrapped themselves.

There was a wealth of good voices. With the German bass Rene Pape as the lead character, the production came much more to life as the chorus delivered its best. It was a big part for them.

There was no prelude, no memorable arias but enough monologues were barked out. One just has to concentrate on the beauty of Russian music more than the story itself. There is no question in my mind, the stars of this opera are Rene Pape as Boris and the Met Opera Chorus - the tsar and the mob.