Once upon last Saturday

Permission to gush?

I loved the movie, remember? I've been looking forward to seeing the musical ever since it was announced, all the while crossing my fingers that it would live up to the spirit of the original. 

Well, hallelujah, it did. I cried happy tears from the first notes. Looking down the row, it had the same effect on my girls. At the end I narrowly avoided getting to ugly, loud cry mode (You know the kind? where your breaths come in hiccups and you're no longer in control of your throat noises? That kind.). There's something about this story, that music, that just resonates with my heart: the healing power and joy of music, the gentle powerful difference one person can make. It's a heartfelt, joyous story that never crosses over the border to sappy. 

I can't resist sharing some clips:

Are you rolling your eyes? At least definitely watch Steve Kazee's moving Tony acceptance speech. Please?

Are you rather interested? Take a sneak peek at scenes from the show:

For fellow (slightly obsessed) fans, a longer look at the making of Once and the recording of the music:

. . .

More here:

- Steve Kazee's interview with the New York Times

- Cristin Milioti's interview with the Wall Street Journal

- More about how Cristin Milioti learned the piano in 10 days to nail the audition

. . .

If you go:

- get there early! The stage set is set as a Dublin bar and it also serves as the actual, pre-show bar so you can go up on stage and order a drink or bottle of water until show time. Even better, the musicians and actors come out and perform as a little warm-up gig. You can stand up there right next to them on the stage.

- know that there is some language. In my book Irish swearing is in a different category (and you can pretty much convince yourself they're saying forks, for instance) but it's definitely PG13 in the language department so you should know that going in.

- oh, enjoy, enjoy. Hopefully the loud-yawning guy doesn't sit behind you like when we went. Also, he blew on Maddy's neck to get her to move to the side. Annoying!

- go meet the cast at the stage door afterwards (just turn right when you exit the theatre, it's right there). The cast was so warm and engaging, every one of them. Cristin Milioti was as lovely as she seemed on stage. Steve Kazee gave us his best Australian accent and chatted with us like he had all the time in the world. I like to think we made a deep personal connection but really, they were equally lovely with each person on the line. We were starstruck.

24 hours

What to do when your husband's overseas on business for a couple of weeks, you need a little boost, and you have a relatively empty weekend calendar, a brother & sister to visit, hotel points to use, and a gorgeous weather forecast in the northeast? 

Take a spur-of-the-moment road trip. A 24-hour energizer. 

John's Pizzeria.
Last-minute, cheap Phantom of the Opera tickets.
Listening to RadioLab, helping Sam learn his lines, laughing together in the car.
Bryant Park, Rockefeller Center, Macy's, and the rest of the city decked out for Christmas.
City walking, walking, walking. 
NY Public Library.
Exploring Wired magazine's awesome pop-up store (with an amazingly high quality photo booth!). 
Meeting Chris for brunch.
Watching Harry Potter on tv in the hotel. 
Good talks and (after the kids fell asleep) nice quiet thinking in the car on the way home. 

It was just the thing.

Those 24 hours will fuel my next 24 days.

p.s. Miss you, G. Miss you, Lauren. Come home soon!

Great speeches and other outbursts

If you're strapped for time, here's the summary:

It was a great time in the old town Monday night.

And I'm getting too old to try down-and-back-in-one-day trips to NYC, by the way. 

. . .

All in all, it was a fun night, very hipstery & New Yorky. I met Nancy at Hampton Chutney on the Upper West side and then we walked up to Symphony Space for the show.  Good to have some sister time: lots of laughing and good talks.

I won't try to review the whole night (you can get a feel for it in this blog post I came across).  It was a great selection of speeches, from lots of different political and historical perspectives, hilarious at times and moving at others. I geekily got out my trusty Moleskine to jot down the names of speeches, since I knew I wouldn't be able to recreate the whole list from my rusty memory. Here goes, with links where I could find them in case you're curious:

1. John Winthrop's City Upon a Hill speech (delivered by John Oliver)
2. Chief Seattle's "We Will Haunt You" speech (Sarah Vowell)
3. Mario Cuomo's Democratic Convention speech response to City on a Hill (Bobby Cannavale)
4. Washington's letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport (Sarah Vowell)
5. Interview between Woody Allen (Bobby Cannavale, who does a perfect impersonation) and Reverend Billy Graham (Eric Bogosian)
6. Abraham Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural (Ira Glass)
7. Theodore Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life (John Hodgman, complete with push-up breaks and "bully!")
8. Queen Elizabeth to her troops before defeating the Spanish Armada (John Oliver)
9. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's battle pep talki (Ira Glass)
10. George Patton's address to the 3rd Army, 1942 (Sarah Vowell; George used some salty language)
11. Dick Gregory's speech after release from Birmingham jail (Wyatt Cenac)
12. Don Rickles and various other oddities and outbursts (Amy Sedaris)
13. John Cleese's funny eulogy for fellow Monty Python-er Graham Chapman (John Oliver) following the Undertaker sketch by Cleese (John Oliver) and Chapman (Wyatt Cenac)
14. Eric Bogosian's own spiel on normalcy in the Reagan era
15. John Hodgman's own speech at 2009 White House tv/radio correspondents dinner with Wyatt Cenac playing Obama

 . . .

Afterwards, I walked the 30ish blocks back to my car (I do love city walking but I had parked at Lincoln Center mistakenly thinking that the theater was in that neighborhood) and started back for Boston around 11:30. Big mistake. There was a ton of construction on the way home, lots of stop-and-waits and traffic narrowed to one lane.

It reminded me of the night I went to Philadelphia for dinner with Nancy and Chris and back home again. But this time (older?wiser?) I gave in.  At 1:45, when I realized it was going to be after 4 a.m. before I made it home, I found a little cheap Comfort Inn in Connecticut, texted G not to worry, and declared defeat against my drowsy eyes.  Note to self: do not kid yourself. You cannot pull all-nighters anymore. 

Still, it was worth it.

The mystery of you...(and where I've been)

As luck would have it, my brother Matt planned to come east from Denver right during the same weekend G and I were planning on heading to NYC.  So Matt stopped by Boston, visited the kids, and then drove to the big city with us. G was busy during the days with a conference but the four siblings managed to get together a bit for a rare together time.  So hyggli, so lucky!
 

 How could I resist? Thank you Mr. Elbow Toe.  So true. 

 Matt, Nancy, and I went to L'Ecole, the restaurant for the French Culinary Institute where students run the show. It was lovely. (Thanks to stephmodo for recommending it.)

 

We walked all around the city (I think I walked 12 miles one day), did The Highline, went to a couple of movies, ate at Hampton Chutney, browsed windows and a used bookstore, talked and talked, attended evensong at St. Thomas Cathedral. 

Yesterday I was on my own so I spent the day at the Met and in Central Park. And I might have gone to Pinkberry for breakfast and dinner, ordering my favorite: original with mango, raspberries, and pineapple.

G was international law guy by day, handsome companion by evening. We ate and wandered and talked and laughed and slept in. Twas a good few days.

As for re-entry? Number one on the to do list: get a replacement retainer for Sam. Louie ate the old one yesterday, if you call 6-days-old "old."  How many jobs does it take an 11-year-old (or a dog) to pay off a new retainer?  We'll find out soon enough!

Big City weekend

My mom and I spent Labor Day weekend in NYC, seeing shows, eating good food, and visiting with my sister Nancy, who lives there. I know I've said it before but New York is something of a pilgrimage for us. My parents lived there and loved it, I was born there, yada yada lalala. I grew up hearing NYC stories and feeling like it's home. It's one of our happy places. So when my mom came to Boston for a visit with us, we jumped on the chance to sneak away to the Big City for the weekend.

Big Apple, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways (and share in case others are looking for some NYC tips, especially since I got a lot of guidance from others' blogged suggestions. Isn't blogland grand?).

Good eats:

~ italian pre-theater dinner on 9th Ave at Roberto Passon : warm beet salad with goat cheese + veal scallopine

~ pear, brie, and honey sandwich at a french bistro I can't remember the name of but now I have a new favorite sandwich

~ Moto in Brooklyn: artichoke with saffron mayo + side of mashed potatoes + heavenly date cake

~ Pinkberry: coconut fro yo with dark chocolate and shaved coconut

~ Mother Burger: late night (post theater) lemonade and shared fries sitting in a courtyard and people watching

~ Magnolia Bakery (the one near 30 rock): devil's food cupcake with cream cheese frosting

~ junior mints at every show (to be expected when you're with my mom)

The Theata:

~ Billy Elliott, (with David Alvarez as Billy) Amazing.

~ West Side Story (we loveloveloved Anita and Maria and Bernardo but Tony was having an off night, although he is very handsome)

~ we decided to see The September Issue, the documentary about Anna Wintour (you know, the inspiration for the Devil Wears Prada) and producing the September issue of Vogue. I am now a huge fan of Grace Coddington; she steals the show

~ the 39 Steps (I had seen it before with G but it was still great fun. Kind of a mystery and a farce all in one)

New York moments--priceless:

~JLo and Marc Anthony sat a couple of rows in front of me at Billy Elliott. Totally surreal! He is tiny, she is gorgeous. They left with a bodyguard a little before intermission and again a little before final curtain.

~ sitting in Bryant Park with my mom, Nancy, and Nancy's boyfriend Dave. The fashion week tents were up, people were playing ping pong, and a quite crazy, slightly dressed, bearded woman nearby (she looked like Pan) made for a memorable afternoon

~ eating yogurt breakfast on a bench in Central Park

~ exploring the Brazil Day street festival on 5th Avenue, complete with mechanical bull riders, street food, loud music, and lots of yellow and green

~ hitting the candy bar at FAO Swartz

~ pretending we were guests at the Plaza Hotel (i.e., snooping through the lobby and smelling the flower arrangements to see if they were real)

~ watching the swing dancers in the center of Times Square

~ admiring the rooftop views from Nancy's apartment building in Brooklyn. Breathtaking.

~ listening to the Mad Jazz Hatters at Moto (see photo, far right. I was right next to them and loved every minute of it). Very cool early jazz + jugband + klezmer sound

~ seeing a guy in handcuffs on Times Square, standing next to some policemen. On closer examination, we saw that the guy was wearing a tshirt that said "Doesn't play well with others." Classic.