Dog Day Afternoon

A little touristy advice: if you plan on visiting the amusement park in Coney Island, do your best to approach it from the beachfront entrance. Otherwise you will be totally discouraged at just how shabby, seedy and, yes, just plain dirty the fringes of this world-famous location prove to be. Circumventing this area can be accomplished by parking in the lot at the Aquarium and walking down to the boardwalk or, if you are going by subway, get off one stop before the end of the line and take the skywalk over the bustling avenue that fronts Astroland.

Once you are refreshed by the bracing sea air you can slope into the amusement park and take a look at the stomach churning new rides being offered this year for the first time. They are truly fun to watch but if you choose to actually participate make sure you go on an empty stomach because a couple of these rides will surely empty it for you. Of course the more doable rides are available (I still like the Wonder Wheel; and the Cyclone is a relatively benign roller coaster as compared to the ones at 6 Flags or elsewhere). There are also a variety of kiddie rides that are geared toward toddlers and, thus, also fun to observe.

Another observation: sometimes tradition just ain’t what it used to be. That would be the fare at the world-famous Nathan’s hotdog stand. It’s a given that when you go to Coney Island you have a dog at Nathan’s. In this case, if your palate is not challenged (was it ever?) you can at least say you did it. Frankly the dogs, along with the tradition of eating them, really aren’t what they used to be. It’s obvious that if you order a chili-cheese-dog you will be greeted with the same familiar tough-skinned tube-steak you expected but I’m afraid the chili comes from a five-gallon can and the cheese from a squeeze-bottle. Not the mustard; the cheese. And the mustard and ketchup now come in those little plastic packets that really, you know, suck. The french fries seem to be the same—that is, thick cut and exceptionally greasy (not a bad thing to my jaded tastes).

More advice: also return to your car or subway via the boardwalk. Even though it looks like a straight shot from Nathan’s and would be shorter and, yes, easier. But the new restrooms are positioned on the ocean side of the boardwalk and the ocean breezes might clear your head along with the vague physical unease caused by eating food you shouldn’t have. I can understand the possible stomach upset engendered by flying around in impossible positions on the rides. But having a fling at a stationary table at Nathan’s really shouldn’t but you in jeopardy in the same way.

Harry Trumps Harper

I think I might have mentioned this before but, in light of recent events, it bears repeating. Stated as a question it’s simply this: what the hell do you give an elderly person who pretty much already has everything he or she could possibly want? Do you give ‘em tchotchkes they feel obligated to put on display? Tablecloths; napkins; or subscriptions to TV Guide? Gift baskets with fattening foodstuffs or fresh fruit that inevitably goes bad?

This is really a trick question because the recent event I’m talking about was the 94th birthday of a mother-figure I’ve treasured since 1971. So for 40 years I’ve been giving her all of the above plus other perishables or sometimes not-so-cheap tokens of my love and appreciation. This year a mind-boggling major change took place. I discovered that this woman, since the passing of her husband and the one-year obligatory grieving period, has taken up reading in a serious way. What a revelation. And what a gift-giving resource!

It also put me on the horns of a dilemma in that I have no idea what she might like. She’s been reading biographies a lot including, oddly enough, historically important baseball players and she went through the Dan Brown‘s pop-novel oeuvre (The Da Vinci Code, et al) in a flash.

One of the things this made me think about is what books do I hold in reverence that I should recommend to her? Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was the first thing to leap to mind and I gave that to her for her birthday. What I didn’t count on is that she seems to be loving the Harry Potter books and is now already deep into #3 of the series. For an individual who hasn’t read a book in probably 70 years (insert exclamation point here) she is making up for a lot of lost time and, although she has set aside Mockingbird in favor of Hogwarts, it’s just damned wonderful to see her, daily, with her feet up and her nose in a book.

Show-Biz Notes

Just a show-biz related word or two here about a couple of plays I’ve seen recently. I hadn’t planned on besmirching the blog-waves about them but the awards season is upon us and both plays have gotten some press because of it. Good People by David Lindsay-Abaire is a Tony nominee for Best Play and Frances McDormand as Best Actress and, although I think McDormand could win, the play might not. Frankly, the play is just this side of wonderful and I am sure it will be extensively remounted at regional theaters for years to come. One thought I’ve had is that I wonder if another, equally boffo, actress without any name recognition would have been nominated. I’d like to think so but it’s a futile speculation since McDormand does have the name recognition and she does deserve the nomination and I hope she wins.
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Update June 12, 2011: Frances McDormand did indeed win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and it was well deserved despite her getting the freak on in both her choice of what she wore and in her acceptance speech.

Peter and the Starcatcher (now closed after several extensions) was an off-Broadway success at New York Theatre Workshop and some poop on the street has seeped my way that it is being retooled for Broadway. This might be a mistake because it seemed, when I saw it, a perfect small musical that belongs in a small theater downtown. One never knows, or particularly understands, the urge to reach Broadway heights (at the cost of many $millions) with a stage production that might not belong in that rarified air but, again, my perception has proved wrong before, e.g., Avenue Q, which went on to win the Tony for Best Musical (but has since, sensibly, returned to off-Broadway). The directors of Starcatcher, Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, won a 2011 Obie and Christian Borle won a Lucille Lortel award as Best Actor. If the original excellent reviews and this new ready-made publicity is grounds for expanding the show into Big-Buckville, well who am I to say nay?

Couch Athletic Supporters

This is a great time of year for sports couch potatoes. We are witnessing some thrilling professional basketball now with the season-ending playoffs in full sway. For some reason there seems to be more superstars than ever this year and their play is so spectacular they might as well be trained acrobats. We can also observe how the baseball season is shaking out with the cream not necessarily rising to the top as yet but there are glimmers of what might occur. Only about a fifth of the season is under our athletic supporters now and all of the teams still have their hopes and dreams so it’s pretty great to watch them struggle with the vagaries of what weather, health, stamina and luck can do.

There are as many as four games on television at the same time and I, for one, keep my right hand in the chips bag but my left thumb on the remote control as I switch between the venues. I must say this capability is pretty amazing and, really, there seems to be no reason, for about four/five hours straight on any given evening, to actually watch a commercial.

It’s also the time of year for high-end hockey and--whatever that other round-ball world-sport is--oh yeah, soccer--vying for our attention. Sorry, my jock doesn’t have room for more than two, er, sports.

Echo

Having an errand to run on East 21st St. I took a little side trip over to Madison Square Park to take look at “Echo” which, The NY Times informed me, has been placed there by Jaume Plensa who, “Over the last decade has become one of the world’s most celebrated public artists, best known for wondrously monumental figurative sculptures that can be seen from Calgary to Dubai.” Well, excuse me!

In the age of Google I was able to bring myself up to speed about Mr. Plensa and, sure-enough, his stuff seems to have been placed all over the place. I just wish we could have gotten one of those instead of Echo. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Echo is kind of cool and certainly, at 44 feet, monumental. I don’t know if it was just the dreary, rainy day or just my mood (which was, I thought, pretty much one of benign congeniality—I had downed an excellent bagel and still had my latte clutched firmly in hand). I love public art of all kinds, especially when it’s quirky and amusing (or sexy) but Echo didn’t move me to much emotion of any kind. Maybe it doesn’t belong in a small park; perhaps the canyons of Park Avenue North would have served it better. I know not. I did go right up to it and gave it a good knock to see what it was made of but was unable to decide what the material is; probably some kind of resin amalgam. Back to Google.

Pears & Muffins

Most catalogs I receive in the mail are unwelcome and they hit the recycle bin without even an interim stop on the kitchen counter. There just seems to be no way to stop their flow except by attrition and eventually, it says here, you will be removed from the mailing list. I’m pretty good about this and have noticed I don’t quite get the volume of tree-waste I used to. But then I read about an old friend whose catalog I always liked looking at (although rarely ordering from) just because the product is just so damned expensive.

This would be Harry & David, the folks that bring you those fruit-to-nuts gift baskets. And boxes. We mustn’t forget about the boxes because they are so sturdy and useful for presenting (or mailing) other stuff to various and sundry people with various and sundry occasions to be celebrated. Unfortunately Harry & David has filed for a “prearranged Chapter 11” bankruptcy and, among other things there I suppose, they have either stopped or cut-down on the production of their catalogs. I wouldn’t be all that alarmed by this because it was rare-to-never that I bought anything from them (their Royal Riviera pears are/were sensational) but, wouldn’t you know it, a couple/three years ago Harry & David swallowed Wolferman’s, whose catalog I did utilize to order some out-of-this-world (in my opinion) English muffins.

And, now, the Wolferman’s catalog has also stopped coming. I know, I know, I could probably go on-line as we speak and order a muffin supply but when a company files for bankruptcy who knows what effect that has on production (and reliable deliver)?

This sort of thing has happened a lot over the last two or three years as the economy tanked but, upon some cagey research, I learned that H&D (and thus Wolferman’s) was taken over by Wasserstein & Company and Highfields Capital Management in 2004. These companies (and other investors) subsequently sucked out all of the profits without reinvesting anything in the company. This is my opinion anyway and, whether it’s true or a wobbly version of the truth, it means my favorite muffins have bitten the sawdust floor. I guess there’s hope that Harry & David can pull out of these dark, dank, days but in the meantime all incentive to purchase, based mostly on receipt of the catalogs, is gone.