Queen Anne's Place

There’s a fairly new “arts project” in Lower Manhattan and a story about it in The Times recently caught my eye. It’s a “donated” space of about one city block (37,000-square-feet at the northwest corner of Canal and Sullivan) and is being used as an outdoor exhibition space for various art and sculpture installations. It is being called “LentSpace” but this is what caught my eye, and interest:

The land is owned, and was recently cleared of a bunch of old buildings, by Trinity Church (on Wall Street) and its development company, Trinity Real Estate. Since the real estate market is so depressed right now, they decided not to rebuild (yet) and have “donated” the land to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. As the Times put it rather snarkily, “in addition to the public spiritedness of the gesture – and to the tax write-off it earned the company” it has been given to LentSpace for a “generous length of time.”

All well and good and nothing too surprising here. But what did bludgeon me over the head was the fact that this site is one of several totaling about 300 acres of “farmland” along the west side of Manhattan that was given to Trinity Church by Queen Anne in 1705! Say what? Queen Anne ruled England for a fairly short time at the beginning of the 18th century and, somehow, despite what we call the American Revolutionary War a bit later, Trinity somehow hung on to the property. Well, hey, I guess it paid off to be Protestant at that stage of the game and I suppose I could research this transaction but, well, I’d just kind of rather take it for granted that some royal butt-kissing worked out for all concerned.

Certainly LentSpace has benefited and, presumably, the cultural life in our city too, even though some of the art has already been defaced with spray-painted protests. Ah, the joy of outdoor art. What I want to know is just who is growing tomatoes on the rest of this farmland. And are they paying taxes on it?

...some like it haute

Once in a while I can participate in the rituals of “fine dining” and even, on special occasions, seek it out. In Las Vegas there is a new branch of Lawry’s that drew me in and both the food and the service were excellent, but their attempt at holding on to the niceties of another era, and the rituals thereof, is a tad annoying while, at the same time, interesting and bemusing. It’s a type of gustatory show-biz in which certain restaurants are still desperately trying to appeal to the snob in all of us, and Lawry’s mostly succeeds.

Here are the rituals upheld: although it was a Monday night and only 6:00, and the restaurant was glaringly about one-eighth occupied, we were nonetheless asked to wait approximately 20-minutes, which was just fine since having a drink was part of our intended dining experience anyway and the bar was sufficiently dark, murky and opulent. When the required 18-minutes passed congenially, and we were called to the dining room, I didn’t entirely do my part because I carried my own drink to the table but I got even by elegantly lifting my feet when our table for six (we were two) was glided back into place after allowing us total freedom to sit down comfortably in our heavily upholstered banquette. When any wait-staff asks to carry my drink I never know if it’s a genuine offer of service or if it’s just because they think a dodderer like me might inadvertently heave it into the lap of a fellow diner.

Anyway, the salad was prepared at the table in a pair of whirling metal bowls, one inside the other (the top bowl rests on a slush of ice). The gentle metallic noise was a background for the sing-song presentation from our salad wench who explained every step. Two things made me chuckle at this point. One, we were grandly and pretentiously presented with pre-chilled salad forks and, two, instead of the usual giant pepper mill fluttering over our leafy concoctions, a little rack of plastic jars containing various Lawry’s spices was placed within our line of vision. Yes, that Lawry’s. The spice people.

Lawry’s, the restaurant, is primarily a prime rib joint (I saw lobster afoot), albeit preciously so. The meat is served from a very large, handsome, rolling serving cart (with a brushed metal lid) which displays standing prime rib roasts in various stages of rarity. I chose the “English cut” which consists of three thinly sliced pieces of very juicy meat, served (with cloying flair) by a chef in an haute toque. He then crowded the beef with a large mound of mashed potatoes (with a generous lake of gravy) and fresh peas. I also had a side of asparagus (nicely steamed) with hollandaise. It was a very nice meal and I think as typically American as you can find anywhere; despite the sideways swipe at the old sod. Substitute a really good meatloaf for that prime rib and it would be a classic. As it was the meal was fine but expensive, but maybe worth it depending on one’s mood. The portions were more than adequate and sated the appetite and, since I’m a typical victim of branding, it did give me a hankering for some good Lawry’s garlic pepper to take home. But darn it, there’s no gift shop or, at least, I didn’t see one. I’ll pick up some of those spices at my local Key Food supermarket this week; they’re probably cheaper there anyway.

Goal!

I had several goals in Las Vegas and was able to achieve most of them. I had some crowning moments, some basic low class (and quite satisfactory, thank you) crudeness, a good deal of hilarity (at the expense of others mostly, but I can take a good joke on me if it’s not so infinitely stupid it requires retaliation) and I still, somehow, stayed within budget; which was pretty much a miracle.

Believe it or not, the event that tested my physical resources to the utmost rewarded me with a dust-catcher to call my very own. I must take this opportunity to thank the people who were my basic athletic supporters: Dan, Duane, and Richard. Without them I was nothin' but a poor excuse. Since this trophy is made of etched and curved glass it’s difficult to get a clear photo of it. The figure at the top is a Carmen Miranda-like show girl and the circle around her says “Las Vegas * Showgirl * Invitational * Bowling * Tournament.” Below is etched: Congratulations; First Place – Team Event; Las Vegas Showgirl Invitational 2009. Yeah, we won! WooHOO!

Civic Duty

I did my civic duty and cast my vote(s) in today’s Primary for three or four useless vagabonds running for various offices in NYC. I always vote. I even try to match the candidates’ avowed policies to my own preferences which is sometimes difficult since a lot of them seem to try to match theirs to mine, without regard to their personal beliefs. I guess it’s a matter of whom do you trust; but, unfortunately, the answer is “nobody.”

Voting in my precinct is easy since the turn-out is always fairly sparse (with the exception of the presidential race last November which was festive). You can fire off a cannon in my polling place there are so few participants. But it’s the American way to bitch and moan about government and then not take the time to vote.

This year there seemed to be excessive vote solicitation without regard to my being already committed to single candidates. You would think when I tell a candidate, or his staff member, that he has my vote that he would have the grace to put a check mark beside my name and not call again. Har-de-har to that! Yesterday the barrage of phone calls (both landline and cell) got to be just this side of sticky and the blizzard of leaflets/flyers/exhortations that fell into my mailbox piled up in an unprecedented, and somewhat alarming, manner. This overload of calls/mail always makes me wonder about any single candidates fiscal responsibility overall. If they send me ten pieces of mail and make seven phone calls asking for my vote is that really a good usage of their time and money? Will this misdirection of funds continue when/if they are elected?

I am also bemused by the fact that our government saw fit to let us opt out of phone solicitations of any kind with the exception of themselves. Ya gotta love it.

But, hey, it makes me feel good and even patriotic to vote. And I await my jury duty summons with aplomb. What a good boy am I.
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Update September 29, 2009: Unfortunately, since no one got a majority of the votes, two of the offices up for grabs needed run-offs. Consequently the barrage of phone calls, mud-slinging television exhortations, ringing doorbells and flyers continued. It really does border on harassment! To top it off, this morning when I went to vote I noticed someone had plastered the windshields of all of the cars on my street with vote-for-me flyers twice; on both the passenger side and drivers side (hiding the registration) and, since they got rained on, they became adhered to the glass and will no doubt require some strategic scraping. What the hell?

gamboling in the desert

Texas Hold ‘Em is a game I could get used to, if not hooked on, if I’m not careful. Although I didn’t actually enter a tournament, I meant to and to that end I took a “seminar” on how it’s played. After a five-six minute lecture from the dealer, which really only assured him that all of his students (about 20 in number) understood the rules of basic poker, we actually sat down and played a complete one-table tournament. The house gave us $2,000 in chips and we were off. Of course this free money was a big factor in our strategies (at least mine) and some of us bet like we had a never-ending source of cash hidden somewhere. Unlike real tournaments when a player loses his chips and has to hit the trail, the losers were given more to continue the learning experience.

I won the table for two reasons; I bet like a maniac (not my money) and got lucky on the flop several times. My individual triumph was being able to drive seven players out the door on one individual hand which, it seems, is highly unusual. The Texas Hold 'Em manager even came over and took my photo which was posted in the casino for a minute or two and then during the tournament the next day; which I missed because of a previous engagement. Actually I’ve always thought that breaking even makes you a winner, and not playing at all assures that status.

...vegas is smokin'!

If it smells like stale cigarette smoke you must be in Las Vegas. Nevada has bowed to the tobacco industry and smoking is allowed almost everywhere except where food is served. What that tells me is that the Lords of the Strip not only want to take you for all you’re worth financially, they also have no qualms about endangering your heart, lungs, teeth and toenails. So be it. However, another, less, dire result is an odd one, but inevitable and logical. That is, even in the newest, most garishly spectacular of these casinos, and I must confess I was blown away by some of the architecture and décor therein; there is a subtle scent of stale tobacco smoke and, in the older ones, a frankly pervasive odor. Even though the air conditioning and, I guess, smoke filters must now be the best, you can’t escape the insidiousness in the carpeting and drapes and anything that can harbor this stench (like lobby furniture and barstools).

Upon further consideration I realize that a lot of the floors, especially in the newer casinos, are not carpeted but are hard-surfaced with some very elegant, eloquent and quite beautiful inlaid marble; works of art really. It makes me wonder if this wasn’t some clever interior designers’ effort at curtailing this phenomenon-that-dare-not-speak-its-name, that really cannot be totally obscured chemically. Although I don’t think marble harbors scent I’m sure that strange, spreading, brown stain has to be constantly monitored.

Further to this topic I read recently that, to combat the recent fall-off in windfall tax profits, the State of New Jersey lifted the ban on smoking in New Jersey’s casinos. Since there is just no shame left in the world I suppose I shouldn’t be faulting Las Vegas and Atlantic City in particular but, hey, taxing sin is one thing but taxing second-hand death is really gruesome.

Le Reve; KÀ

When Daniel Gauthier and Guy Laliberté opened their first version of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal in 1984 it would have been clear to really wise observers that, even then, they and Las Vegas were destined for each other. Spectacle is the norm for these shows and spectacular is what they’ve become within the confines of Sin City.

I saw KÀ first and I was blown away. Four days later I saw Le Reve and my world was rocked again but in an entirely different direction. Amazing shows both and only alike in their reach for the stars in talent, production values and, yes, spectacle (there’s no other word for it).

KÀ, although basically plotless, has a tenuous storyline which follows an epic tale of twins on a Candide-like journey. It uses incredible acrobatic and aerialist skills, the action of martial arts and various multimedia and hydraulic techniques (including dangerously tilting stages) to tell the tale of twins on a perilous journey to fulfill their shared destiny (that sounds like a program note but, really, I made that up). Even the individual acts within-the-act, like the best baton twirler in the world and the cage-of-steel walkers you might have seen at Ringling, are intertwined within the storyline, albeit sometimes tenuously. Regardless of how everything is presented you can rest assured your heart will be stuck in your throat a lot (along with your popcorn if you’re not careful) and your eyeballs will flow with tears and astonishment. The color palette is continuous and fascinating, being ochre and sienna and every shade of brown invented; the flash comes in the performances.

Le Reve is more of the same with the riot of colors being mostly in the blue/green spectrum. It also leans toward bizarre spectacle but is totally coated in water, if not immersed in it. This time a single, young, beautiful woman, apparently abandoned by her paramour (maybe his departure symbolized death or maybe she’s dreaming the whole damned thing). Anyway, the beginning of her quest includes the appearance of not only some bizarre otherworldly creatures, but four clowns (who could only be French Canadian to my eye--and street performers to boot) and some mighty flashy synchronized swimmers wearing bright red high heels, mostly thigh deep (head down) in sparkling water. For Las Vegas flash there’s even some totally drenched samba dancers twirling and swirling their way through a couple of inches of water on an encircling platform.

It’s actually a good thing when our heroine gets scooped/swooped away by some sort of Obi-Wan of the Waters and proceeds on her quest for…er…what? Happiness? Her lost love? A pair of those fabulous heels? Her particular journey (through time; through the heavens, through her libido?) includes the worlds greatest hip-hop-dancer, who does his stuff in six inches of water and the balancing act of two giant, muscular men in seemingly impossible (and sometimes compromising) positions, also soaking wet. As in KÀ, Le Reve features incredible aerialist feats on various types of apparatus; all disguised as birds or winged creatures of another time (both the future and past).

Trust me; both shows have happy endings and nobody gets hurt. At least I didn’t see anybody writhing in pain even though there seemed to be every opportunity to call 911 at any given moment. In both shows people seem to fall from great heights to heart-stopping effect. In Le Reve they at least hit the water with a satisfying splash; in KÀ they just plummet out of sight, hopefully caught by a net of some sort. Whatever; it was gasp-inducing every time, wet or not.

The music in both shows is opulent and complete; sometimes achingly remote and beautiful and sometimes eccentric, eclectic, electric and sometimes vaguely ethnic; but always appropriate and interesting (and loud).

The Cirque shows are now worldwide but I think there is something like eight of them in Las Vegas alone. In today’s economy those production budgets must be crushing and I’m sure they are feeling that crunch since tickets are being offered right now at what seems to be almost bargain rates. The shows continue to soar even though they, like the prices, are plummeting, sometimes wetly; sometimes without a whisper, hopefully into safety nets below.

Another long, sad, rainy day...

Hoover Dam Bypass

Hoover Dam in Nevada has always been a daytrip destination when visiting Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon. It’s pretty damned spectacular and certainly worth the 40 mile trek (southeast) from Vegas on a clear summer’s day. But right now there is double the bang for your basic travel buck in that you can now observe the two sides of a $240 million bridge as it sprouts seemingly out of shear rock above and in front of the Dam. It is 900 feet over the Colorado River and is slowly taking shape almost before ones eyes. At that height it looks to my untrained eye as about 200 feet higher than the top of the dam. Started in 2005, it should be completed next year but at this point you can easily visualize what it will look like. It’s pretty spectacular as is.

The bridge will be the bypass for US Route 93 that right now crosses the dam itself and creates a traffic bottleneck of the first rank. When complete, it will provide a new and faster link between the states of Nevada and Arizona

It looks like an incredible feat of engineering, almost equaling the dam in that regard. The road will be supported on two massive concrete arches jutting out of the rock face. The arches are made up of individual sections which are being lifted into place using a high-wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge but once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed.

They are gambling that the 17,000 cars and trucks that presently cross the dam every day can be accommodated by the new bridge and it will alleviate major hang-ups. I’m not sure that will be the case since the new bridge is so spectacular I think people will want to pull over to take a look, and therefore become a Catch 22 traffic-wise.

The Dam gift shop didn’t have any literature about the new bridge other than a not-very-good postcard. From the postcard: “Although the bridge is known as the Hoover Dam Bypass it is officially called the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada and an American football player from Arizona who joined the Army and was killed in Afghanistan.”