vip in the city

Riverside Park performances

After a hearty lunch, I dragged my full belly (and leftover chilaquiles) through the Upper East Side. Out of habit, I peeked across at 94th Street, to check in on the old high school.

AC’s friend SC called while I was inside the East 86th Street Barnes and Noble. After exiting the store – because I know how it irks me when people persist in holding long, loud telephone conversations in a bookstore. And yes, I realize that a bookstore is not a library, but can we show some consideration? – we started comparing notes on books we’d read recently. Naturally, “The Da Vinci Code” came up. I explained — again — that no, I hadn’t read it, but that I was meaning to very soon. (And really, I am: current inertia to the contrary.) SC suggested that to better appreciate The Code, I should first read “Angels & Demons.”

What? There’s a prerequisite for this thing? Is this true? I’m even further behind than I thought.

By the way, I just learned that author Dan Brown made over $88M in 2005, earning him a top ten slot in Forbes’s Annual Celebrity 100. I’d like say that I learned this from a studious reading Forbes magazine, but the information was actually gleaned through my random viewing of VH1’s “Forbes Celebrity 100: Who Made Bank.”

Passed by Central Park’s Summerstage on the way home, where Maldita Vecindad, Konono No. 1, Daara J were performing to a raucous and appreciative crowd. I’m seeing Konono No. 1 in concert at S.O.B.’s on Monday, so more on them tomorrow.

At Red Shade Plaza in Riverside Park South, Chashama, the not-for-profit NYC arts organization, presented the last of their “Site Specific Sundays” performances this summer.

This interpretive dance piece — accompanied by zither and harp — was titled “Three Elements”. I think this was the “Air” segment…

…but I may not have been the only one the “interpretation” eluded.

The dance performances that followed were more mainstream, and accompanied by piped in Brazilian music.

About half a mile North, on Pier I, The talented Howard Fishman Quartet (plus two) performed two jamming sets, fresh off their three night stint at Joe’s Pub earlier in the summer.

Midsummer Night Swing

Sunday Jazz @ MoMA Summergarden

Arrived at The Museum of Modern Art Summergarden just before doors opened at 7:00PM for the 8:00PM concert. By then, there were a couple hundred people ahead in line; luckily, that night the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden was set up to accommodate over 800 people. We ended up with seats between one of the reflecting pools and Donald Judd’s Untitled (1968). Despite the oppressive heat of the waning day, by concert time, the garden was standing room only.

On the program was a jazz performance by Steve Coleman and Five Elements. The alto saxophone, trumpet, trombone, bass, drums and vocal ensemble played an impressive 90-minute suite as night shadows descended upon the space. I would have enjoyed the concert much more had we not been beset by infuriating rudeness on all sides: in front, one man decided to use the Judd sculpture (a series of large, open, painted green rectangles) as his personal shoe rack, until ordered by one of the guards to kindly remove his socks(!) and sneakers from the artwork, thank you; to our right, a pair of eurotrashy women co-opted the section’s one walkway for their personal lounge area, laying fully supine on the marble tile next to the water, while everyone else was forced to navigate precariously around them to pass; and in the row directly behind, a French couple prattled loudly and obliviously through most of the performance with complete lack of regard for those around them who were there to listen to the music. Mon Dieu!

EH was friends with the singer and introduced us to her after the show. After parting ways with the others outside MoMA, we got to introduce AC (aspiring dentist, whom I met that night) to the joys of late night burgers at Burger Joint, one of my favorite no-longer-secret places in New York – now almost entirely ruined, thanks to write-ups like the one in GQ Magazine, naming theirs among one of “The 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die.”

Aristide Maillol’s The River :