Back again. The weather has taken a 180 turn and today I am shielding my coupon from driving hard sleet and the sidewalks are white with slush. When did the iconic WALK / DONT WALK pedestrian lights get taken away?
Sadly my timetable of sinister lechery has been compromised by more innocuous and cultured activities. Random highlights follow.
people singing and prancing about
With Caitlin’s new media contacts we get freebie access to various Broadway things. Hence we went to a tiny, informal performance where the understudies – i.e. the kids who only get to perform when the stars are KO’d – got to perform some numbers. Some of the songs from a wee show – 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – were hilarious, so off we went to see the full show last night. It was excellent, with great mileage from unexpectedly Pythonesque definitions of obscure words.
I saw the inside of Madison Square Gardens for the first time – we saw The Shins there on Wednesday. Why did I think they were from Australia? And why didn’t they have any support acts?
I can also report that I highly enjoyed 2 hours of a man shouting WE! ARE! SPARTANS! and sometimes for variety, THIS! IS! SPARTA! It’s the loving adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300, and it’s great. But it’s also the most indulgently testosterrific film I’ve ever seen. Don’t take the girlfriend chaps.
arcades by god
This is always a priority in foreign countries for me – check out the state of the coin-ops. NYC isn’t far from the UK in terms of duffness here. The one near Times Square I remember from years ago got closed down because of too many fatalities (i.e. real ones, not Mortal Kombat). Shootings not so much of a problem in Arbroath’s Pleasureland.
However we did check out the absolutely priceless Barcade in Brooklyn. Imagine a cosy bar with an excellent beer selection, a pool table and all walls occupied by the best hand-picked selection of 80s gems I’ve ever seen. And all in original themed cabs, i.e. the artwork, screen-side instructions and custom controllers. Ghosts n Goblins, Toobin, Star Wars, Rampage, Gauntlet, 1943, Tapper, Galaga-family shooters and so on. I would live in this place if it was my local.
shopping
I hammered my credit card in the Giant Robot store on East 9th. Got some lovely collections of 70s gekiga manga and some other plastic doodads. Off to Midtown Comics this afternoon to see what else I can lug back over the ocean – hoping to pick up the next in the series of Japsploitation comedy Were-Slut.
A great deal of my time has been spent wandering the streets of Manhattan, as mentioned before. It’s much, much more fun being a tourist in NYC than in London. As a result I think I have a more realistic handle on the place now. I could definitely live here.
nittteliffffe
To return to the theme of violence, we witnessed some highly amusing security at the Black Pussycat (much more nondescript than it sounds). Before you get anywhere near the bar and a sniff of booze, you have to get your passport scanned, while the titan doorman shines a torch in your face and takes a digital photo of you for good measure. Comforting and intrusive.
And if Caitlin ever suggests going to the Bushwick Country Club, smack her immediately. The specialty is the “pickle shot”, where you deck a glass of spirits followed by another of ‘pickle juice’ (that is, the genuinely vomit-inducing green vinegar from the gherkin jar).
the future is an unopened kinder egg
This evening I believe it’s a night in to meet some of Caitlin’s and flatmates’ chums. Am considering the Clint Eastwood double-bill (the new ones, Flags and Letters) on Sunday, and am exercising extreme willpower not to see INLAND EMPIRE before I get back.
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