Do The Right Thing@20

Twenty years ago this summer Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing hit movie theaters and sparked immediate controversy. Some saw it as a bold and insightful expose of race relations in NYC (and America beyond) and others saw it as nothing more than an angry Black Power rant.

Of course, when it was made, who would have ever thought there would be black a president within a generation?

Widely considered Spike's best movie, Do The Right Thing is still being talked about two decades later. Love it or hate it, it's made a lasting impact -- and is therefore one of the most important movies about NYC.

NYC In Abstentia

I love a good Latin turn-of-phrase. Thinking about, and planning, this blog post, my first substantial one in several weeks, I thought about not only what I'd write but about what its theme would be.

You see, living in NYC during this pandemic, it feels like the city we love is so close and yet so far. It's there, right out our windows, the concrete and steel and parks and everything we love exists but ... not really. We're here, it's there, we live in it and we love it, but so many of the things we love to do and enjoy in NYC are either closed, cancelled, or, if they are open, extrememly burdensome, not to mention potentially dangerous, to enjoy.

So much of NYC right now feels in absentia -- its there but not here, its in our minds and memories and hopes and dreams but currently unavailable in our reality, our daily lives. 

Scanning the media these last several weeks, these stories defined for me this peculiar sense of absence. What makes it peculiar is that some of these absences are most definately permament but others either aren't permament but ... they might be ... we don't know ... they exist in a kind of purgatory ... in absentia ... forever for or (at least) for now. But some of these things also give me hope that a better day, Annie's "Tomorrow", is only a day (or few) away. 

Here goes, Mr NYC's peculiar feelings about COVID-19 in NYC, the feeling of being "in absentia":

- There's the great musician Johnny Mandel, a child of NYC, who wrote many great songs including "Suicide is Painless" from the classic movie MASH. He died last month at the age of 94.

- There's the memory of the legendary "Black and White Ball" that occurred on November 28, 1966 at the Plaza Hotel. This was the party of the century thrown by the great writer Truman Capote for Katherine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post. It was also Capote's re-entry into New York society after he had spent years researching and writing his masterpiece In Cold Blood, living mostly in the mid-west. Everyone who was anyone went to this party, a list of legends. This oral history gives a full account of what was, in many ways, the last time high society was openly celebrated by the world. In captured a moment in time before the horrors of Vietnam, riots, Watergate, and so many other body blows would hit the American spirit and psyche -- the legacies of which we still grapple with today.

- Then there's the funky world of NYC theater. Who knows when it will ever live again? Live performances will be the last thing that can "reopen" for obvious reasons, so it may be a year or more before not only Broadway but theaters and shows and performance spaces of all stripes will be able to come back. That's why this other oral history, written in 1985 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Off-Broadway, is both a joy and also sad a thing to read. It reminds you of another NYC, a NYC that lives and breathes and performs and explores creativity. That NYC is on hold for the moment but we can always remember and honor it -- and that it returns ASAP.

- And then we come to the present moment. Many New Yorkers have left the city, quarantining in the country. An estimated 400,000 plus people fled. Some have already returned, some hope to soon -- but others think they might never come back. Others did stay (like yours truly) because the idea of abandoning their city in its deepest moment of need felt wrong. But I  shall not cast any stones. In a difficult situation like COVID-19, there's no right answer to any of this, no right thing to do, no perfect solution to a problem that persists and endures for the world. Should I stay or should I go? That's a question in a time and situation like this that only individuals can answer for themselves -- and we should all reserve our judgements of whatever decisions others have made. 

- And yet ... whatever you're doing during this pandemic, wherever you are, it's probably involving a lot of TV, particularly streaming shows. The wife got me watching this ridiculous show on Netflix called The Politician about a young man who aspires to one day become president and plots out his climb. In the first season he ran and (sorta) won the student presidency of his high school in California. In the second season, he and his friends move to NYC and take aim at unseating a powerful New York State Senator (most of which involves this young man giving speeches next to bridges in freezing cold weather). The plot is absurd but the acting, the writing, and the production values are first-rate (it also has Gwenyth Paltrow). It's a total guilty pleasure. Also, it's a total NYC love-fest, with numerous scenes filmed in restaurants and places that we love -- the kind of places that we can't go to right now. If you've seen or plan to see the second season of this show, you can find more about the glorious places where they filmed it in NYC here. 

- And yet, into the absence, into the void, comes some pure joy: a new show called Central Park on Apple TV. It's an animated musical show, pure fantasy, about a family that lives in Central Park and is trying to savev their home from a developer. The voice talent on this show is insane: Kirsten Bell, Daveed Diggs, Tony Shalhoub, Fred Armisen, even Ed Asner! And so many more! It's a wonderful new edition to the culture, an act of creation in a time of so much loss, that reminds us of why we eternally love NYC, even in the worst of times.

- Finally, there are the saviors. There are the front line workers healing the sick and keeping our city running at a time when it feels like it's frozen. They are saviors all. These saviors include the people at The Public Theater and WNYC radio who, for four nights, broadcast Shakespeare's Richard II in lieu of Shakespeare in the Park that was obviously cancelled. It's an amazing, beautiful experience hearing this great old play read by today's top talent. My family and I listened to it every night and loved it. You can listen to it here. Hopefully, in this time of destruction, Shakespeare on the radio becomes a new creation, a new light in the darkness, that lasts and shines on brightly.  

NYC is in absentia for now ... but never forever, and never totally. 

The Speech of His Mayoralty

That Mayor Bloomberg is one tricky SOB. He does one thing after another that annoys me (just read this blog) and that means I bust his balls on here on a pretty regular basis. Then he turns around and gives the most impassioned, sensitive, and amazing speech of his career -- a profound calling for religious tolerance. Wow.

NYC's mayors are not necessarily known as great speechgivers and, in his 8 1/2 years as mayor, our Mike has rarely said anything particularly memorable. But this speech was. Read it here:

“We've come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that more than 250 years later would greet millions of immigrants in this harbor. And we come here to state as strongly as ever, this is the freest city in the world. That's what makes New York special and different and strong.

“Our doors are open to everyone. Everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it's sustained by immigrants -- by people from more than 100 different countries speaking more than 200 different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here or you came here yesterday, you are a New Yorker.

“We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That's life. And it's part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001.

“On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn't want us to enjoy the freedoms to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams, and to live our own lives. Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that even here -- in a city that is rooted in Dutch tolerance -- was hard-won over many years.

“In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue, and they were turned down. In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies, and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.

“In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter's on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.

“This morning, the city's Landmark Preservation Commission unanimously voted to extend -- not to extend -- landmark status to the building on Park Place where the mosque and community center are planned. The decision was based solely on the fact that there was little architectural significance to the building. But with or without landmark designation, there is nothing in the law that would prevent the owners from opening a mosque within the existing building.

“The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

"For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.

"On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, 'What God do you pray to?' (Bloomberg's voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) 'What beliefs do you hold?'

"The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.

"Of course, it is fair to ask the organizers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation, and in fact their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. But doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our city even closer together, and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any ways consistent with Islam.

"Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith. And they are as welcome to worship in lower Manhattan as any other group. In fact, they have been worshipping at the site for better, the better part of a year, as is their right. The local community board in lower Manhattan voted overwhelmingly to support the proposal. And if it moves forward, I expect the community center and mosque will add to the life and vitality of the neighborhood and the entire city.

"Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God's love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us can attest."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2010/08/bloomberg-stands-up-for-mosque.html#ixzz0vg8bMZMo

Interview: Amy Sohn, NYC Columnist & Novelist

Back in the late 1990s, as the world was falling in love with the fictional Carrie Bradshaw and her friends, and their fictional friends’ dating adventures (in a mostly fictional NYC), a real columnist named Amy Sohn was writing about her real dating adventures in the real NYC.

First at the New York Press, then at the New York Post, then at New York magazine, Amy wrote with a blunt, hilarious honesty about the vicissitudes of not only sex and romance but also about the challenges of being a human being in a city that worships money, power, and vanity. I first discovered Amy in 1999, right after I’d returned to NYC from college, and her original New York Press column, “Female Trouble”, was an eye-opening look at the NYC single life that I was entering into. More than just entertaining and funny, her column was educational.

Amy’s work has evolved from those days, and she is now a successful novelist. Along the way, she’s also become a wife and mother. Amy was kind enough to share with Mr NYC some background about her life and work, as well as her thoughts and feelings about #MeToo and relationships and life in NYC today.

Tell us a little bit about your background and what made you want to become a writer?

When I was 19 I was a summer-camp counselor and my boyfriend at camp, the cook, turned me on to Bukowski, Fante, and Algren. I started writing autobiographical stories, mostly about dating and sex, in the vein of Buk, my hero, in a big unlined notebook. Around 1994, when I was a junior at Brown, I began performing the stories downtown at a performance space called AS 220, at open mics and variety shows. It was a vibrant scene filled with music and provocation. I felt I fit in really well there. I always wrote for the purpose of reading my stories aloud.

Your New York Press dating column "Female Trouble" from the late 1990s was shocking and groundbreaking. It was honest and raw, very personal and intimate, and I don't remember reading anything quite like it at the time. Then came along "Sex and the City", blogs, etc. and shocking became mainstream. What made you want to write this column back then and do you view "Female Trouble" as the precursor to a change in the culture?

I was a temp and actress (temptress) living with my parents right after graduating and my dad used to bring home this weird paper. I got into it and was taken by the first-person columns, especially Howard Altman and Jim Knipfel. The stories felt real and honest and they were painfully funny. I wanted to get published. I think my first actual published story was in Playgirl but that’s another story. I sent a piece to John Strausbaugh at New York Press and he sent it back with a note in the margin that said it might be right for SWANK or Penthouse. I had never heard of SWANK but I got the idea. I tried a different story, “The Blow-Up Boyfriend,” and sent that one to John. It was about my fantasy of having an inflatable boyfriend that I could deflate whenever he talked about his band too much. They bought that one, and one or two more, and a few weeks later they offered me a column. I wanted to call it Maidenhead, a terrible title. Sam Sifton, John, and Russ Smith convinced me to call it “Female Trouble.” Of course they were John Waters fans, Russ and John having come from the Baltimore city paper. (They later taught me what a "Baltimore round" is.)

I agree that the term “sex and the city” was very shocking at the time. Just the word “sex” was arresting. The nineties were very odd in the mainstreaming of sex. In my column I tried to be honest and self-deprecating. When I was grandiose it was done with a big wink. Behind my pathetic stories there was really a lot of rage. I didn’t understand why men my age were so cruel and disinterested in love and connection. But I picked very bad paramours. Thank God no one I was obsessed with in the 90s reciprocated. It would have ruined my life. I would be mother to a lot of elusive rocker boy babies and figuring out how to deal with my co-dependence. Did I really want to be a member of any club that would have me? Probably not.

“Female Trouble” had good timing. I think women my generation, dating in the recession, in the “reality bites” scene, were frustrated with these narcissistic guys. I can’t speak for why “Sex and the City” the column came along when it did. She was chronicling a different demographic but I think we were both struggling with a feeling of anger and powerlessness. Why did men control the stories? Why did men always get to pick? Why didn’t women get to pick?

You went from the New York Press in the 1990s to the New York Post and New York magazine in the early 2000s. What did you do at those jobs and what was it like working for those publications as the Internet was changing the journalism business?

I was at New York Press for 3 1/2 years, sometimes writing weekly, sometimes biweekly, and at one point also writing an advice column. I left for the New York Post, thinking it could be a chance to do more pop-cultural writing but it was a very bad fit. They wanted the sentences short because the typeface was big. I also made the mistake of posing in a nightie, lying on my stomach, feet kicked up behind me, with no shoes, and even though I have wide, flat feet I got fan letters from foot fetishists for years. I quit after about four months. I had also published my first novel, Run Catch Kiss by the time I left New York Press and wanted to devote time to writing a second novel.

At New York my column was first called “Sex Matters,” then “Naked City,” “Mating,” and “Breeding.” In it I interviewed New Yorkers about their sexual predilections. I learned not to judge people. I also learned that under the cover of anonymity people will tell you almost anything. Some of the people I interviewed are really famous now in their chosen fields - composers and stylists. They would talk to me about how there were no bottoms in New York or what it’s like to date two people at once. I enjoyed the chance not to write about myself but I also felt that the short length allotted to the column made it hard for me to dig deep with my subjects. The magazine was never quite sure where the sex fit in, I remember the column moved around, from the back near penis-enlargement and personal ads (when New York had its own personals) and later to the front when I was writing more about marriage and kids. I was at New York from 2001 to 2006.

You've published five novels (Run Catch Kiss, Motherland, My Old Man, Prospect Park West, and The Actress) about relationships, parenthood, and the challenges of life in NYC. Do all of these novels relate to your experiences that came with the stages of life in NYC, i.e. going from single woman to wife and mother?

Some of my books are less autobiographical than others. The Actress was mostly set in LA and I did a lot of research for it. I wanted to break away from social satire and try melodrama. It didn’t really work because the novel needed a murder and my editors and I did not agree about that. I also learned that modern novels about marriage and divorce are troubled and troubling because divorce is so widely accepted, even if upsetting and expensive.

What does feminism mean to you? Do you consider yourself a feminist and does your work relate to it in any way?

I have called myself a feminist since I was a teenager. I grew up in the progressive Jewish Reform movement and progressive values went hand in hand with religion. I attended a big pro-choice rally around 1992. I never thought “feminist" was a dirty word. Years later, in the 90s, I interviewed a celebrity who was uncomfortable when I asked if she was a feminist and I found it absolutely bizarre. That was another era, when the word itself was something women feared.

What do you think of #MeToo?

My feelings are incredibly complicated. It’s important that women are sharing their stories and bringing sexual harassment and rape into the national conversation. As a strong believer in due process, I'm concerned about the cases in which men have lost their jobs based on extremely limited evidence, sometimes just one story that has two sides. I worry that we are in a moment of sex panic. None of us know the ultimate outcome of the movement. I also think about women who need to be mentored by men to advance in their professions (because men still hold the vast majority of the power) -- and men who are now afraid to spend one-on-one time with them for fear of false accusations. As with so many things, women are the ones who pay the price for that. What do you hope to write about in the future? I’m now writing narrative non-fiction (historical) for Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done but my book deals with women’s rights in the 19th century and I find the stories deeply gratifying. This was a time when marital rape and forced pregnancy and childbirth were the norm. It was just called “marriage."

How do you feel about how NYC has changed over the years? Do you ever get nostalgic for the old days?

Of course I do - I’m a native New Yorker! The money bums me out. The people bum me out. The phones on the subways. The phones everywhere. The corporate stores. But when I get depressed I walk up and down Church Avenue in Brooklyn. New York is still alive, you just have to know where to find it.

Finally, tell us something about Amy Sohn that we might not know.

I was a child actress and got my Actors Equity card at age 12.

Thanks Amy!

Interview: The Dateable Dork

Dating in NYC is like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car in an amusement park -- your strives towards perfection is continually interrupted by the realities around you (Stanley Kubrick said this about making movies but I think it's an apt comparison). And talking about movies, movies like When Harry Met Sally ... and TV shows like Friends and Sex and the City make dating in NYC look really glamorous -- everybody's rich and beautiful, with great jobs and apartments and oceans of free time, and the weather is always perfect.

These movies and TV shows might be fun to watch but they sure ain't reality. The realities of dating in New York is both funnier, scarier, and a lot more complicated than any fictional rendering could ever be. And no one talks about the realities of dating in NYC better than the Dateable Dork. Her blog has to be the most honest and most hilarious forum about love and lovin' in NYC that I've ever read. With great wittiness and energy, she takes you into her life and makes you laugh and think about the craziness of love in NYC. The Dateable Dork reminds you that not all New Yorkers are characters straight out of a Candace Bushnell novel but are people who can be more interesting, more intriguing and, yes, more dorky, than anyone could imagine.

She agreed to answer my questions about what makes her a dork and why dating in NYC is a such a crazy adventure.

I have a hard time believing that any woman can really be a dork. Convince us that you're one of my breed.

You've never met a female dork? Wow, you don't know what you're missing! I really am a total dork, in all the typical ways you would imagine for a male. I'm uncoordinated, too tall, I snort when I laugh, my fashion sense is always two (or ten) seasons behind, I talk about science at cocktail parties (which never fails to get groans from the crowd), etc. The only thing I'm missing is the pair of glasses with the Band-Aid in the middle. Believe it: I'm a dork.

According to Jerry Seinfeld, 95% of all people are "un-dateable." What makes you part of the other 5%?

First of all, I love Seinfeld. Just had to get that out of the way. Despite my dorky persona, I really do think I'm totally dateable. The caveat is that I'm dateable to other dorks. I'll never get the super slick guy who dates supermodels, but for the average, normal, somewhat nerdy guy, I think I'm a great catch! I'm smart, interesting, educated, fun to be around, and I look great in heels and a miniskirt. I'm the girl you can bring home to your parents and then have all sorts of kinky sex with afterwards. I've got my shit together, I have a dorky but respectable job, and I'm not afraid to laugh at how ridiculous I am. What's not to love, really?

So tell us how your blog the Dateable Dork came to be – and why it went away and then came back (that is, if you want to tell us about that).

I started the Dateable Dork because I realized that I need an outlet for all the crazy dating drama that had completely taken over my life. I had been emailing my dating stories to my friends on a daily basis, and I think they were getting really, really sick of it. At first they were interested, but eventually I could tell that they were about to disown me or something. So I started putting all my drama out into cyberspace, and it made me and my friends much happier people.

Now... do we really want to get into "the incident?" I'll make this short and sweet: when a guy I had been dating found my blog, read all the dirty details about my dating/sex life, and dumped my ass in a raging ball of flames, I kind of went into a state of shock. It was as if my whole world had imploded. I lost a guy that had real potential, my secret identity had been discovered, and I was pretty much a total mess. I didn't know what to do... so I just deleted the whole thing. It was the only thing I could think of that made any sense.

I always knew that I'd be back ... eventually. I just needed some time to get over the shock, which (to be perfectly honest) took a lot longer than I thought it would. I spent a lot of time being sad and depressed until I finally decided that I was overreacting and needed to get over it already. And I did. I started writing again, and it made me feel so much better.

Books, TV shows, movies, and now blogs like yours have made dating in NYC a cottage industry, and it seems like finding love in this town is a frustrating, time consuming, expensive, hopelessly complex adventure in Social Darwinism. Do you agree? What are your thoughts?

Yes, I completely agree - dating in New York is very much akin to survival of the fittest. It's so hard just to come out of it in one piece! Despite all my adventures in dating, I never seem to come out of it with anything to show for myself (clearly I am not at the top of the evolutionary scale) except for credit card bills filled with cute outfits and my half of expensive dinners. But here's the thing: I have a theory about dating in New York. It's so simple, but so true. There are millions of people in this city, which you would think would make it easy to find someone. However, in reality, the abundance of available dates makes every one's standards impossibly high. I'm guilty of this myself. If you don't like someone, throw him back! There are millions of others. Too short, too tall, too much of a mama's boy? Next! Realistic standards go out the window when there are just so many people to choose from. The perfect one has got to be out there, somewhere... right?

The (sad but true) joke is that "nice guys" finish last, and it does seem like a lot of women prefer to date "bad boys" who end up making them miserable. As a woman, why do you think that is? Are most nice guys just too boring?

I don't know how much stock I take in the whole "nice guys finish last" adage. A nice guy is exactly what I'm looking for, and I think most of my single female friends would say the same. Yes, most women have that irresistible desire to hook up with a "bad boy" -- we love the taboo and the drama of it all. But we don't want to date bad boys, we just want to use them and then throw them away (sorry, boys). If I'm looking for an actual relationship, I want a nice, normal, stable, professional guy who will actually enjoy my dorky science jokes and who my mom will be crazy about. Nice guys may be more "boring" than bad boys, but "boring" is not necessarily a bad thing.

What do you, the Dateable Dork, look for in a guy – or are your standards too high?

Oh my god, my standards are way too high. I'm just as guilty of this as everyone else! Earlier this year, I wrote a post about exactly what I look for in a guy, and everyone seemed to think that it read more like a job interview than anything else. My standards are focused on narrowing down the pool of available men to those that meet my basic dating requirements. From there, I just cross my fingers and hope that the chemistry is right! "Requirements" include things like never being married before, no kids, a college degree, non-virgin, non-smoker, lives close to my apartment, and the ultimate deal breaker: does not live with parents. What's hilarious is that I actually manage to find these date-worthy men, and I still always wind up striking out! Clearly I have no idea what I'm doing and am just as hopeless as everyone else.

Your blog is very funny and has generated quite the fan base. Is being funny a help or a hindrance for you and other funny women when it comes to dating?

Hahaha, it's so strange to hear people say that I'm funny because I am so NOT funny in person! I guess it comes out in my writing but not so much in my real life. I have a weird sense of humor in person, and no one really seems to get it. Oh well. In fact, I think that if I were funnier in person, it would probably help me out in the dating world. Guys like funny chicks, right?

As for my blog generating quite the fan base ... I'm flattered, really. : ) It's amazing to me that anyone is actually interested in reading about my dating drama, but whatever, I can roll with it. I love my readers -- everyone I have encountered in the blogosphere has been totally awesome. Thanks, guys!

Tell us something about the Dateable Dork we don't know.

Hmm ... this is a tough one because I usually spill everything on my blog! Here's something that I know I've never written about - I didn't lose my virginity until age 20. I just had absolutely no interest in sex! I was so busy studying (I'm a big dork, remember?) and concentrating and being productive that sex was just not even on the radar. Sure, I dated, but I probably frustrated the hell out of all my boyfriends because I would never sleep with them. Aww, poor guys. If I only knew what I was missing.

Finally, what do you love about NYC.

Although there are endless things to love about New York, the thing I love most is that it's home. Cheesy, I know, but it's true. I love that every time I cross Houston street I think of my grandmother who grew up downtown. I love that office buildings in midtown remind me of my mom working as a secretary in the 80s -- it's all very "Working Girl." I love that some people think of Bryant Park as the home of fashion week, but I think of it as "that park where I had a great second date." It's not surprising that, after all these years, I'm still here in New York - it's home, I love it, and I'm here to stay. (Oh, and I love that New Yorkers are angry. There's nothing like some good old-fashioned angst to wake you up in the morning. Hahaha. Move aside, bitches! I'm late for work!).

Thanks Dork!

Farewell to Funkytown: A Tribute to Ed, Lou, Al and Stan

As 2013 ticks away into 2014, our city is poised to get its first new mayor in over a decade. At the stroke of midnight, the Bloomberg era ends and the De Blasio era begins.

WNYC radio has had a great series of reports called New York Remade: Before and After Bloomberg. A lot has happened, both in the city and beyond, during these past 12 years. As the series' website explains:

On Jan. 1, 2002, when Michael Bloomberg was sworn into office, these things barely existed: iPods, Blackberries, pocket digital cameras. These things didn't exist at all: the Barclays Center, Citi Field, One World Trade, or the Gehry NY building.

People smoked, all the time, in restaurants and bars. Almost no one rode bikes, and T.V.-less yellow cabs drove down Broadway right through Times Square. Back then, a market rate apartment in Harlem was about $1,200 — about half of what it is today. Pizza was $1.50 a slice, same price as a subway token.

Carrie Bradshaw lived in a Manhattan brownstone, drank cosmopolitans and typed onto a black and white computer screen. The High Line was a rusted and weedy hulk, not the locale for furtive kisses for the "Girls" crew before they head home to Brooklyn. Adlai Stevenson High School still existed. The Success Academy and six hundred other schools did not.

You could be anonymous in 2001. Now, not so much. We are watched, everywhere, if not by security cameras, then by each other.

New York has been transformed in the last 12 years, in ways that are wrenching and huge and intimate.

Might I add: the city was also still reeling from 9/11. Ground Zero was a smoking hole with clean-up crews moving away the rubble of the old World Trade Centers and still finding bodies.

Back then, our city's biggest fear was getting hit by another terrorist attack. Now it's being able to afford to live here.

The first decade of the 21st century has been a profound transitory time for our city. I don't recognize the town I was born in the 1970s, and grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. The 20th century is but a faint memory now, another time that is both feared and fetishized in our collective memory. If you go back and watch movies made in NYC back then, movies like "Taxi Driver", "Do the Right Thing" and "Bad Lieutenant", it made NYC look like a nightmare. Now we go to movies like the recently released "American Hustle", set in the late 1970s, and you'd think the city was simply "funkytown" back then.   

Perhaps it was better, perhaps it was worse. Perhaps what we've gained in public safety, health, and schools has been lost in a sky-high cost of living, a bleaching of the culture, and a loss of communal spirit. The debate rages endlessly on. But one thing is clear: maybe we don't actually want to live in Funkytown anymore but we still want to talk about it.

And in 2013, four notable New Yorkers died who lives embodied the late 20th century city, who rode high during the era of Funkytown: former mayor Ed Koch, rocker Lou Reed, pornographer Al Goldstein, and news reporter Stan Brooks. They were four very different men, occupying quite different spheres in this city's life and imagination, but their lives and careers are essential to understanding that time in our city's life that is now so definitely over.

Ed Koch was mayor from 1978 to 1989. In his time, he improved the city's disastrous finances and built affordable housing. He had a proud legacy but was also very divisive. He was famously irrascible, screaming at anyone who disagreed with him, and he seemed to relish conflict with anyone who wanted it. Koch's natural successor was not his actual successor, David Dinkins, but Rudy Giuliani: both men polarized the city, setting black against white, rich against poor. The Bloomberg era has been markedly different both in tone and governance: race relations have greatly improved and he has openly supported gay marriage. As for the poor, Bloomberg hasn't played rich against poor: he's simply forgotten about the poor and forced them out of the city. (Problem solved.) So a governing style of quiet ruthlessness and embracing diversity has replaced the divisive, rough-and-tumble governing style of Funkytown -- and the man who embodied its spirit left us in 2013.

Lou Reed made his musical career in the 1960s and 1970s writing songs about drugs, death, bondage, and drag. His music was about the dirty and dangerous city -- and it was brilliant. As NYC changed and Lou Reed got older, his music became legendary not only for its great experimentation but also for its memories of the vanished city. The city of "Sally Can't Dance" and "Dirty Boulevard" is gone and now, sadly in 2013, is Lou Reed. But we'll always listen to his music and remember that time and its poet, a man who made lyrical beauty out of the decay of Funkytown.

Today, anyone can get porn on the web. My generation was the last that had to work hard to get its porn (usually by begging an older friend to buy a magazine from a creepy vendor and then hiding it under the bedroom mattress, stressing out that mom would find it when making the bed or discover us reading it when she called us to dinner -- let me tell you, it was stressful) but today's "yutes" can simply go online, search vast amounts of naughty content, and then hit the "Clear History" tab on their browsers when mom calls. The man who represented the mattresses-hiding time of porn was Al Goldstein, the foulmouthed pornographer and provocateur and New Yorker extraordinaire, who founded "Screw" magazine in the 1960s and then, from 1974 to 2003, hosted the racy cable show "Midnight Blue" on Channel J. He was gross and offensive and wanted you to know it. He was "the man" during the time when Times Square was a bastion of porno theaters and drug dealers. Al Goldstein became the symbol (for many) of everything that was wrong with NYC back then, the filth that Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" so desperately wanted to wash away. Giuliani started the scrubbing in the 1990s with raids and new blue laws but, in the Bloomberg era, it was washed away by the Internet and gentrification. Goldstein's magazine and TV show didn't survive, and he literally became homeless as a result. But his recent death is a reminder of that time, of the sleaze of Funkytown, when the city was a wild place -- fun for some, revolting for others -- that is now clean and, for many, very boring.

And finally, Stan Brooks. You might know his name: he was a reporter for 1010 WINS radio news for decades. He had a great voice, one that was born for radio, and he reported on everything from the 1971 Attica Prison riots to the recent election of Bill De Blasio as mayor. Any history that was made in NYC over the last 50 years, Stan Brooks reported it first. If you ever saw the movies "Goodfellas", it's his voice that reports on the Lufthansa heist made famous in that classic film. Stan Brooks was the memory bank of this city, the man who explained what was going on in Funkytown to its residents. Now Stan Brooks is gone, along with the city he reported about for so long. We've lost a great reporter, a great New York voice, and a living link to our city's past.

As another great New Yorker, novelist Don DeLillo wrote: "It's all falling indelibly into the past."

The song "Funkytown" was a one-hit wonder released in 1980, a year when the city was deep in the era of Ed Koch, Lou Reed, Al Goldstein, and Stan Brooks, and when yours truly was just three years old. The song was written by a guy named Steven Greenberg for a band called Lipps, Inc who were all from Minneapolis and dreamed of moving to NYC. The song was an open love letter to the dream of this city, to its spirit and danger, to why people wanted to live here, even back then, the so-called bad old days. Just remember the first few lines:

Gotta make a move to a
Town that's right for me
Town to get me movin'
Keep me groovin' with some
Energy

You can't be funky without some energy, and energy was the essence of the Funkytown era -- the era that the Bloomberg years have so definitively vanquished

Now our city moves into a new era. Sadly, these four great New Yorkers won't be there to see it. But they made NYC an interesting place in the last decades of the 20th century, they gave the city its unique energy, and for that we thank them. 

Now, firmly in the second decade of the 21st century, and the dangerous energy of that time has been replaced by a safe apathy. We may not be going back to Funkytown anytime soon, but we need to shed the apathy and re-find its energy. That's the way we'll honor their legacies in the new era that's about to begin.

 

Review: "The Real Thing"

“I love love. I love having a lover and being one. The insularity of passion. I love it. I love the way it blurs the distinction between everyone who isn't one's lover.” 

There are few greater playwrights in the English language than Tom Stoppard -- Sir Tom Stoppard, that is to you. 

For nearly half a century, he has crafted some of the finest language ever to have crossed the stage. From the balls-out, awesome inventiveness of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in the late 1960s -- a reworking of Hamlet from the perspective of the doomed prince's doomed sidekicks -- to the massive Coast of Utopia trilogy in the mid-aughts -- about, of all things, 19th century Russian intellectuals -- Tom Stoppard finds inspiration in the most unlikely material and brings it to life on stage with words of great beauty and power, the most dazzling language created this side of Shakespeare. Indeed, Stoppard is one of the Bard's true blue successors. 

I've seen some of Stoppard's plays over the years -- Arcadia, The Invention of Love, Jumpers -- and they never cease to amaze me. That was why I was so happy to go to the Roundabout revival of Stoppard's 1980's hit The Real Thing -- the second time it has been revived on Broadway since 1985 and the second time I've seen it stage. This is a very good production with one glaring problem.

The Real Thing is about a playwright named Henry (Ewan McGregor) who has been having an affair with Annie (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the wife of his actor friend Max (Josh Hamilton). Henry is married to Charlotte (Cynthia Nixon), an actress who is currently appearing in a play written by Henry. It's not giving away much that Henry and Annie run off together. Most of the play is devoted to the complexity of their relationship while Annie tries to negotiate her acting career while at the same time working on the "Free Brodie" (an imprisoned political activist) committee and Henry tries to keep writing while grappling with the challenge of being a divorced dad. Like all Stoppard play's, the plot is a device to encourage a larger discussion on the nature of truth, love, sex, family and how we understand them through the beauty and challenges of ... words. Also, The Real Thing has a big plot twist -- some might even call it a trick -- and it appears at the beginning of the play, not the end. Like all Stoppard plays, not only is the language sublime but so is the plotting.

This production is beautifully staged. The set is very modest and the actors really move around and use it in a way that helps to make the story compelling. There's a lot of music in this production, with the actors even singing along to a diverse number of songs like "Do Run Run" and "Whiter Shade of Pale." And, of course, the acting is great (well ... almost all of it). Cynthia Nixon, as always, is great. As wonderful as she was on Sex and the City, she really is one of the great stage actresses of her generation and is a joy to watch on stage. Josh Hamilton is very good as Max, making the most of the one of the most thankless parts I've ever seen in a play.

The biggest revelation is Maggie Gyllenhaal. Man, she is a GREAT actress. I've seen her in some movies like The Dark Knight and she was good. But on stage, with a great material like Stoppard, she really shines. Her Annie is such a complex, sexy creation that you can't take your eyes off her for a second. She generates so much power from the stage that you leave the theater thinking not just about what a great writer Stoppard is but what a great actress Gyllenhaal is. She inhabits Annie so completely that I'm still thinking about her performance. She's just a joy to watch.

The same, sadly, quite can't be said about Ewan McGregor. He is a very good actor and I loved him in Trainspotting (who didn't?). Also, he was the only decent thing in the Star Wars prequels. But he's a less than compelling Henry. In the play, Henry is supposed to be a great writer and a lousy human being. In fact, he's kind of a prick. That's part of what makes his evolution in the play into a good husband and father so important. But McGregor is just too likeable, too decent, too ... unprickish ... that this evolution doesn't really register with the audience. I will, however, admit a bias: in the revival I saw in 2000, Stephan Dillane (better known today as Stannis Baratheon in Game of Thrones) played Henry and he was incredible (won a Tony for it, in fact). McGregor just doesn't compare. I tried to seperate the two performances in my mind but just couldn't: while McGregor's Henry is passable, it just didn't work for me the same way Dillane's did. 

However, these feelings aside, this Real Thing is a production worth seeing. 

“Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.” 

P.S. This production is appearing at the American Airlines theater on 42nd street. It's a great theater and it has a secret 5th floor bar that is a great place to go during intermission. When the wife and I went there to get a drink during intermission, there were hardly any people but there were lots of tables and chairs plus a beautiful open-air balcony. It's a real gem and worth checking out if you ever go to a show there.

Interview: Alexander Zalben, Managing Editor of Decider.com

These days there's more pop culture than ever before -- more movies, more TV shows, more music, more celebrity gossip and cultural trends, that's it's impossible to keep track of it. Thankfully, Alexander Zalben is here to help us make sense of it all!

A professional pop culture junkie and commentator, Alex runs Decider.com, a website that helps all of us fans out there figure out what and what kind of pop culture we want to consume and what shows we want to stream. He's worked at MTV, TV Guide, AMC, and he appears often on TV and radio, as well as at numerous conventions, to give fans the latest news as well as provide commentary about their favorite shows.

Alex was kind enough to tell Mr NYC about how he came upon this very cool, very unlikely career as well as what pop culture means in 2018 (the Trump effect, #MeToo, etc.) as well as his love for the show Riverdale. 

Tell us briefly about your background and how you managed to forge a career as a professional pop culture junkie/critic/commentator? 

I kind of fell into it by accident! I was working as the Artistic Director of a comedy theater, and started doing a weekly, live talk show about comic books called Comic Book Club, which I still host/produce every week. That led to some comics critic and writing gigs, which led to a full time gig writing for MTV, which is now my whole life! Career paths are weird, man! 

What's Decider.com, the website that you're the Managing Editor for?

Decider is an entertainment journalism outlet focused on TV, and streaming TV in particular. So Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video... But also you can stream anything nowadays, so it's all fair game.

Quickly, what are some of your favorite movies, TV shows, and bands?

Oh boy. I've been into Game of Thrones and Walking Dead for a long time, but recently have fallen in love with Riverdale and The Good Place. My favorite movies are pretty basic, too: Star Wars, Marvel movies, and I had a birthday party screening of Labyrinth last year, so that probably counts. What are these bands of which you speak?

In the "Golden Age of Television" and streaming shows, has TV become more cultural relevant or dominant than movies? Has TV become equal or more prestigious than movies in the pop culture hierarchy?

I'd say they're different. TV definitely had the volume at the moment, but there's still a cachet to doing a movie in a movie theater. The line is eroding - peak TV shows are often encroaching movie length every week anyway. But you can't match the experience of being in a theater with hundreds of people experiencing the same thing. That said, as movies get more expensive, there's more of a "coin" to watching TV... Not everyone has seen every movie, but the availability of Netflix and others means that everyone can easily watch Maniac "opening weekend," for example, where if that sort of thing was in theaters, it would be seen by a fraction of the audience. Short answer, for the time being they're different... But I definitely watch exponentially more TV, than movies. 

In your opinion, how has the Trump presidency affected pop culture? Does pop culture have a role in keeping people sane during an insane time? 

Well these are two opposing questions, in a way. Trump has absolutely affected pop culture, for better or worse. It's frustrating to watch nearly every TV show make the same "fake news" joke, even if it ostensibly takes place in a world different from ours. But that said, I do think people retreat into pop culture regardless of references and thematic ties, because it offers a brief respite. I was talking to a colleague earlier today about Riverdale, arguably the craziest show on television. But what I like about it is that it's a crazy that's enjoyable, that's manageable, and ultimately one that impacts the characters but is thrilling for the viewers. The reality show we're currently stuck in is the opposite of that: it's crazy, but it'll ultimately impact you in the real world, whether you like it or not. I'd prefer to live in Riverdale, all things considered.

Has the politicization of everything made pop culture better, worse -- or just weird? Is it possible to simply enjoy something because it's funny or well-done or does it feel like there's this dark cloud over everything in the culture today?

I don't think there's a dark cloud over everything. There's a need to feel relevant, but that varies by show, and some do it better than others. Don't just do an episode about #MeToo because you think you should... Do it because it fits the context of the show, the tone, the feel. For example, not TV, but a recent X-Men comic tackled border separation, in a shockingly timely and powerful manner. It worked because the X-Men have always been a metaphor for the "other," whatever that other may be. Or on TV, something like The Good Fight that's inherently a political show can dive right into that. But seeing say, Sofia The First's take on international trade would be a weird fit. It's the responsibility of art to mirror the world we live it, and to shine a light on injustice. But it's not the responsibility of everyone to do it, or in the same way. 

Where does pop culture go after Trump? Can it ever be just fun again? 

I'm having a blast, man! Ha ha, just kidding, I'm depressed every day. But there are those pockets of hope that keep us going. I recently watched The Flash premiere, and it was full of fun and good people being good to each other. Or something like Game Night, that has nothing to do with politics and is just a delightful break from the outside world. There's a lot happening, and I think it's okay to take a break for an hour or two and decompress. Going forward, the world will be different, and entertainment will be changed; but ultimately there are fun things that are fun, there are things that are not fun, and there will always be variations between the two. 

Any other thoughts you'd like to share? Is there anything about pop culture in 2018 that most people don't understand?

I don't think people should feel bad about using pop culture as metaphors. Yes, it's a simplification, and not everything can be broken into Harry Potter vs Voldemort. But that's how people process overwhelming emotions and events, through things they do understand. I love fans. I love that people love things, more than anything else in the world. I am a fan of fans! And there's this mass misunderstanding that people can't like what they like. That's what leads to toxic fandoms, versus the understanding that there can be more than one thing, of a thing. Star Wars can be for girls, and boys, y'all! Sometimes even at the same time! That's okay! The world is a burning hellfire and we have maybe 10 years before the climate collapses. Let people enjoy what makes their heart soar, and as long as they're not hurting someone else it's a-okay. They'll let you like the thing you like, too. 

Thanks Alex!

Review: "Six Degrees of Separation" and Its Legacy

In 1981 a deeply disturbed black seventeen year-old named David Hampton ran away from Buffalo to NYC to start a career as a con man. He had nothing, knew no one, and was lost in the big city. But he was determined, in his own scary way, to "make it there."

He did -- sort of. 

A decade later his bizarre story resulted in a hit play, a movie, and the popularization of the "six degrees of separation" concept into American culture.

In 1983 David Hampton showed up at the home of a wealthy Upper East Side couple, claiming that he had just been mugged in Central Park. He said that he was friends with their children at an Ivy League college and that he was also the son of Sidney Poitier. David "Poitier" was extremely charming, funny, insightful, and he won over the couple instantly. They allowed him to stay the night at their apartment -- only to wake up the next morning to find him in bed with a gay hustler.  David vanished before the police arrived and soon the couple found out that David was a con man who had infilitrated their lives. The playright John Guare knew the couple and, after learning their story, wrote a great play about it -- Six Degrees of Separation -- that eventually became a so-so movie.

The fictional drama expands upon the real story. In the play, David's name is Paul and, after he escapes, the couple try to help the police to find him -- meanwhile he continues to seduce men and con them and others out of money (Paul/David had found this couple in the first place after he had, earlier, randomly seduced a troubled rich kid who really did know this couple's children). But Paul's interuption of this wealthy couple's life makes them realize how fragile, how fake, and how empty their existence truly is. They realize that Paul has, in a strange way, made them examine their lives, their marriage, their relationships with their children, and the whole world that surrounds them -- a world that people like David covet without truly understanding, a world that this couple comes to realize doesn't give them any real happiness. The couple comes to understand the pain that motivates Paul and the pain that they feel but can't acknowledge to themselves -- until Paul forces them to. They come to realize that everybody in the world feels pain, and that randomness, that chance meetings between people, plays a huge role in everyone's lives, and changes their fates. The climax of the play is a monologue that the wife gives. It concludes with:

"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that A) tremendously comforting that we're so close and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close. Because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It's not just big names. It's anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It's a profound thought. How Paul found us. How to find the man whose son he pretends to be. Or perhaps is his son, although I doubt it. How every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds. Six degrees of separation between me and everyone else on this planet. But to find the right six people."

Heavy.

The play takes the always uncomfortable issues of race, class, privilege, socioeconomic advantage and envy, and puts them front and center. It makes people look at themselves, think about themselves, in ways that are both uncomfortable and illuminating. And thirty years ago, this was an even bolder thing to do than now -- John Guare was ahead of his time. 

I remember as a kid when this play was being staged at Lincoln Center. I was going to school near there and remember seeing the enormous banner for it on the street every day. I also heard ads for it on WQXR -- "See ... Six Degrees of Separation" -- and on TV. It ran from the fall of 1990 to early 1992 -- and a straight play that runs for more than a year is a big hit. The movie came out in 1993 and wasn't a big hit -- but the legacy of Six Degrees of Separation is immense. 

The success of the play caused David Hampton to threaten John Guare with violence, try to get a cut of the play's profits, and eventually sue the playright (unsuccessfully) for $100 million. And Hampton continued his con man life well after the play and movie were produced, using his newfound celebrity as well as new identities to con people. Eventually he migrated, at least for a time, to Seattle but wound up back East, dying in New Jersey in 2003 from AIDS. His life was tragic, obviously, and ironic -- the most legitimate and successful thing he was ever a part of was something he didn't create, wasn't actually involved in, and didn't get to enjoy the money from. He was like the gangster Henry Hill -- a truly bad guy who's life inspired a truly great work of drama. 

The original 1990-1992 NYC run also inspired a lot of careers from actors I love and who found great success afterwards. The most famous person in the cast at the time was Stockard Channing who had already done Grease and would later be on The West Wing. She was one of the only people from the play to do the movie -- and got an Oscar nomination for it. Courtney B. Vance originated Paul, and others in the cast included Anthony Rapp (Rent), John Cameron Mitchell (a huge actor and playright), Evan Handler (Sex and the City, Californication), David Eigenberg (Sex and the City), and Robert Duncan McNeill (Star Trek: Voyager). Later on Kelly Bishop (pre-Gilmore Girls) replaced Stockard Channing, James McDaniel (pre-NYPD Blue) became Paul, and a very young and totally unknown actress named Laura Linney also joined the cast. Another replacement actress was Deidre Lovejoy would later be on The Wire. In the movie, a young actor nameed JJ Abrams had a small part -- and now he's one of the biggest directors in the world. 

But the legacy of Six Degrees of Separation goes beyond the life of this man and the real and fictional drama he inspired: the concept of "six degrees" became popularized, it became conversation fodder, it became an idea, a meme, part of the popular lexicon -- that we're all seperated in this world, in this life, by only six people. It gripped the public imagination. So much so that a popular game called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" was created (finding actors who worked with him or worked with other actors who worked with him) that has saved many an awkward conversation. There was even a bad TV show called "Six Degrees" several years ago (that had nothing to do with the play).

Before social media and COVID-19, Six Degress of Separation reminded us that we're all connected to each other, directly and indirectly, one way or another.

I'm pretty sure David Hampton didn't realize, in 1983, that so many great careers would be spawned, and American culture altered, by his one-night con. 

The world truly is a random place. 

Postscript: I never saw the play when it ran in NYC but I saw it a couple of years later in Washington, DC with Marlo Thomas in the lead role. She was great but sadly I don't remember much else about the production.

You can read all of the various articles The New York Times wrote about Six Degrees of Separation here. 

Near Rests the Lodging: Tales of China

Yeah!! I'm blogging again. Limited Internet access plus difficulties logging onto Blogger in China (think the government had something to do with that? Hmm? Hmmm??) made blogging impossible but I had a great trip and am here to tell all.

Right now I feel like Ross Perot's 1992 running mate -- who am I? More specifically, where am I -- and what time is it?

Got back from China last night and right now the body is suffering some major jet lag. My mind and the clock say it's 3:30 PM but the body says it's 4:30 AM and, like so often in life, the body will probably triumph over the mind shortly. Anyhoo, a short recount of my trip, then this blog will get back to its regular NYC-oriented business:

1. First stop, Beijing. Saw the usual tourist sites: the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Mao's Mausoleum, and the Ming Tombs. Climbed the Great Wall and walked around some of the city's lovely parks. Engaged in a Chinese tea ceremony. Beijing certainly has great stuff in it but, as a city as a whole, it's pretty dull.

Thing learned: the Dragon is the historic symbol of China's power, hence the Emperor's Dragon Thrown. The Chinese Dragon is actually a composite of the following most powerful animal parts: the head of a lion, the antlers of a deer, the claws of a bear, the body of a snake, the tail of whale, the wings of a bird, eyes of a hare, the scales of a fish, and some others I can't remember. Also, the number 9 is the symbol of power since it is the highest individual number. Go into any Chinese palace and most staircases will have no more than 9 steps. Hence the reason old world China didn't have many tall buildings.

2. Next stop: Pingyao. This is an ancient city, almost 3000 years old, surrounded by a 700 hundred year old wall. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the city is largely preserved as originally built. We visited the enormous Wang family compound and walked on top of the entire city wall, looking at this amazing piece of living history from every vantage point. We also visited numerous temples and learned more than I can remember about each Buddhist god. As we were leaving, we visited another old compound where they filmed the movie Raise the Red Lantern. To top it all off, this city surprisingly offered some of the best food on this trip. Pingyao Beef is easily one of the very best dishes -- Chinese or otherwise -- ever created by man. In NYC they'd charge $40 a plate for it or something but it was less than a $2 a plate in Pingyao.

Thing learned: Pingyao is located in Shanxi province, one of the most polluted places in the world. If you ever go there, take a mask for your face and lots of facial and body scrub.

3. Yantai: my family has some connections there and this was the most emotional, happiest part of the trip. I may write about this sometime in the future but, for now, would prefer to keep private.

Thing learned: Chinese Communist officials can be very nice people.

4. Tsingtao: this a gorgeous coastal city that was once a German colony until WW1, then later was occupied by the Japanese until after WW2. Thanks to German influence, Tsingtao is most famous for Tsingtao beer and the highlight of our time here was a visit to the Tsingtao Brewery where, amongst other things, we saw the bottles being processed, went through the drunk walk, and samples some beer. We also visited the German Governor's mansion (beautiful) and Mount Lao which is one of the highest points in all of China.

Thing learned: people off the street in China will come up and talk with you like they've known you forever. Be prepared.

This short recap doesn't do justice to the full experience of this trip but it gives you a good idea. I hope that every person in the world has a chance to visit China once or twice in their life. It's a life changing experience.

P.S. You might be wondering about this blog entry's odd title "Near Rests the Lodging." This was from a sign I saw in Pingyao giving directions to a hotel. Most store fronts and street signs in China are both in Chinese and English but the English translations are poor and sometimes incomprehensible. Hence we saw signs directing us to "Beauty Saloons" and other interesting non-existent things. A couple of other favorites:

• A beauty salon in Beijing that was probably trying to say it was a unisex salon but, instead, billed itself as "a sex shop."
  
  
• Another sign at a restaurant in Pingyao sold what it simply called "a round mass of food."

A good English proofreader could make a fortune over there.