serinde

Two and a half weeks after my return, I am finally writing up my trip before I forget completely...

Setup: A year or so ago, I had come to the conclusion that if I did not commit to travel every few years, I was never going to see anything I wanted to see in this world. As this was coalescing, solomita was looking to plan a trip too, so we joined forces (which ended up as "Ethan did most of the legwork"--not my intent, but he is a master at it) and started drumming up trade. Final roster: us two; college friend Joe; Ethan's Californian friend Debbie; nedlnthred; her mom; and Beth's old chums Cindy and Kevin. Final trip length: 1 week. Final venue: Florence, with one day of day trip to San Gimignano & Volterra. (But with personal flexibility; Ethan flew out a week earlier and went to Venice and Lake Como; Joe left us a day early to spend a few days in Lucca and Pisa, etc.)

( Day 1: Saturday )

Some several months ago, nedlnthred were enticed to hitch our wagons to Ships and Dip, the fourth of that name. The concept, if you do not feel like making clicky, is that the Barenaked Ladies and a bunch of bands they like / are friends with get on a Caribbean cruise ship and invite you, yes, YOU along. So it's like a regular cruise, except that awesome music is constantly breaking out all over. And, as Tami (our Pied Piper) put it, wouldn't you rather go on a cruise with a pack of alt-rock fans than with blue-haired old ladies playing shuffleboard?

Yes. Yes I would.

( Saturday: Miami )

( Sunday: Getting on board, settling in, music! )

nedlnthred has the congenial July 4th custom of drumming up a group to go watch the NYC fireworks display, which gatherings I've usually missed in the past. This year, being as how the display was over the Hudson, the obvious viewing location was the Frying Pan, which is an old rusty boat with a bar in it. The problem is, that particular venue has been Discovered this season (to the point I heard some Joisey Boyz talking about it on the train), and we learned that they were charging a C-note just to step on board, let alone the food and booze cost.

I took to the intarwubs to find an alternative, and came across the Liberty Belle Spectacular, at the rooftop bar of the Empire Hotel. Jazz Age party, cocktails, dancing, burlesque, and only $20 to get in; yes, that will do nicely. The more so as the word was that there would be only 25 at-the-door tickets, so it seemed likely that it would not be a goddamn crush.

[We pause while the audience laughs uproariously at my charming naïveté.]

The doors were to open at 7pm, so we (a party of six) rolled up about 7:20; whereupon we were taken aback to see a line of people extending around the corner and down the block. Was this for non-ticket-holders, we inquired? No, it's for everyone, and the line would split further up. ...Well OK then. We got on line, and chatted, and waited, and slowly shuffled forward, and waited some more, and... [Time passes.] Some 40 minutes later, we made it to where the line split, where they checked for printed receipts/confirmation numbers. Those which had same got blue tickets and went left; those who did not, got red tickets and went right. At which point both types of guest were passed through the velvet rope in equal numbers--or indeed with a stronger preference for the non-advanced ticketed, much to the chagrin of those of us who had planned ahead[1]. Indeed, after the third batch of hoi polloi were permitted up to the exclusion of ticket holders, a lady behind us confronted the gatekeeper to ask, in essence, What The Fuck, Dude. He claimed that he was letting people in equally. We all stared at him with the "you're lying, we know it, and you know it", but it was left at that and in the next batch he did let equal numbers in. (Lord knows what he did subsequently.)

At length we made it up top. The bar is a big space, with a terrace on either end (though of course only the western-facing one was going to be immediately relevant), and a decent amount of lounge seating, though not nearly enough for the mob of people. The band was excellent, playing jazz and swing tunes, and in old-style Navy uniforms, which I thought was a nice touch. As we rolled in, they were having an impromptu fashion show of ladies who had come in period rig[2], and there were many fine-looking outfits indeed, though the biggest hit was a Rosie the Riveter look-alike. The drinks were $14, which is a bit high, but they were at least good and unusual; in-house creations, not "here's your vodka and cranberry juice in a Dixie cup". If you managed to stab someone and get a seat, you could order food (and bottle service if you're that kind of idiot). Anyways, it being twenty to nine[3], we got drinks and immediately fought our way onto the terrace to try and get a decent view for the fireworks, which would start around 9:20.

And we stood. And stood. and stood. And were crushed by people. And couldn't see anything but an admittedly gorgeous sunset. There was burlesque and dancing where the bar let onto the terrace, which we could only perceive by the cheering and flashbulb popping. I was particularly woeful because I was wearing shoes that are not for standing in--I can wear them all night, but not for hours of nothing but standing on concrete--and I was hitting the agony point; and we were crushed in behind a group who had a table and seats (those stupid square hassock things that bar/lounges like), and the party in question weren't even sitting half the time. Indeed, one of them was having words with Beth because our party was maneuvering in the gap between their table and the next one and I guess he felt we were harshing their mellow or something.

At length, the fireworks started. Upon which we realized a few things:
1) Fordham Law School was in the way.
2) A really tall fingerlike apartment building was in the way.
3) The tasteful palm fronds along the edge of the terrace were in the way.

We could still see a good portion of the show (except elibalin, who was directly in line of the palms), but it was not the unimpeded front-row view implied on the tin, as it were. At one point "This Land Is Your Land" broke out, and the whole crowd was singing, and that was kinda cool. Later, the band and one of the singers was striking up "God Bless America", which I am regrettably far less fond of[4], but eh.

As anticipated, the instant the fireworks were over there was a mass exodus, and many of the remaining guests surged indoors to the air conditioning and the entertainment; and thus, after about ten minutes of vulching I managed to land us a table on the patio. Which was good, because I was reaching the end of my little fraying rope... A half hour of sitting, drinking, excellent conversation, and a snack restored comity and joy. We decided to move back inside to check out (and perhaps partake of) the dancing, but upon standing up again I realized that I was quite, quite Done. I really would have liked to have stayed and seen the actual party we were here for, but a dispassionate assessment made it clear that misery was right around the corner, so I took myself unto the crosstown bus, and thus home.

So, Lessons Were Learned:
* Do not, do not, believe that any event that looks cool and claims exclusivity will not be mobbed to alt.hell and back. Wear comfortable shoes. Get there early. Stake out turf.
* Investigate the exact barge locations of the fireworks well in advance.
* If you want to take a Night on the Town, and actually be up to all of it, don't start drinking Pimm's cup at noon (unless you're arranging a disco nap in between).

As I explore the nightlife world, I am more and more getting the sense of that classic Yogi Berra line, "No one goes there, it's too crowded". I really don't like forking out the brass for the privilege of being crushed like a sardine in a noisy environment where you can't see or talk to anyone but who's standing directly beside you. Beth reports that, after I left, the party reached the sweet spot of good music, good dancing, and enough space to actually enjoy all of these things, so that's good to know; but, I mean, argh.

[begin footnotes]
[1] Beth spoke to the organizers upstairs on this head, and was told that yes, they'd had a lot of complaints about it. I notice that this is not the same as "...and we'll do something about it next time we hold an event".

[2] We had plenty of time to observe a lot of these outfits while on line and then once upstairs; we noticed that, first, many weren't actually Jazz Age at all, but were much more 40s or 50s, which is okay with us, because there's only one body type that looks good in flapper gear; and second, most were more theatrical/passing-the-squint-test than true period outfits. Now, many still looked very, very awesome...but not to the knowing eye. (I'm not the knowing eye, but I was in company with several.)

[3] And there was still a huge line behind us waiting to get in. I can only imagine what the reaction of the ticket-holders who were still on the street when the fireworks started was.

[4] I may be unjust to the song, simply because its sentiments and chorus have been appropriated by assclowns.

In defiance of the current mental desire to duck and cover, I met elibalin at MoMA yesterday, an institution I had never previously set foot in. The chief objective was an exhibit on the punk movement and its pollination across music, art, design, and writing (and an excellent exhibit it is, too), but the sleeper hit of the visit was the Ron Arad exhibit. I had never heard of this man, but his shit be awesome. I only reserve judgment because you cannot actually sit on any of his chairs or other furniture on display, so I can't say whether they are useful as well as nifty, and I am insufficiently post-modern to accept a chair that cannot be comfortably sat upon. That exhibit is on until mid-October, and you should go see it.

Also on 'til mid-October was the exhibit on design which is Good but Un-Pretty, which had some interesting things in it (we both highly approve of the...London?...security firm making star-shaped razor wire and huge security chains of heart links with a teddy-bear-faced padlock). We saw some good photography, too, and took a quick dip at the trot through the Ensor exhibit but by that time my foot was killing me, in spite of wearing correct shoes, so we repaired to Aquavit for a restorative, and thence home.

I am favorably impressed by the in-house cafe. It isn't any cheaper than you're used to paying at a museum, but the food quality is actually commensurate. And the museum shop kicks the Met's ass up one side of the field and down the other.

nedlnthred and I had a scientifically-generated plan to go down to Asbury Park the day after the local Springsteen show, poke around, see what it was like. (And maybe, if we were super super lucky, he would drop in to play at one of the local clubs, as he is occasionally known to do...) So we did this thing yesterday. We got a late-ish start, were further delayed by major accidents, etc. etc., but finally rolled into town around 1:30pm.

I should back up to note that I have been to Asbury Park once before. It was, hm, maybe 7 years ago; we were invited to a party of a particular kind, so the redheads and I tootled down, and lordy, were we appalled. The hotel the party was in was clearly a classic establishment from the shore glory days, but the room we entered into had indelible marker on the walls, a used condom in the sheets, and a dead mouse under the bed. (And that was before the party started.) The beachfront was all run-down and almost entirely closed. We survived, we escaped, and the experience passed into legend. Although I had vaguely heard that, in the interim, the town had become something of a gay mecca, my expectations were for an entertainingly trashy kind of day.

Thus, I was pretty surprised to find that the place (well, at least the boardwalk portion) is entirely under a makeover. The beautiful old arcades on either end are being refurbished and cleaned up without being torn down and replaced with something appalling; the burnt-out abandoned buildings have been torn down, and new shops are being built; and the vendors they've rounded up are artisans, not the Usual Beach Crap. We had a long chat with a fellow who runs a pottery shop, and he was telling us that the corporation masterminding the whole affair figures this way: every town along the Jersey Shore, nearly, is aimed at families and emphasizes quantity/low cost over quality. They aren't going to be able to drag that demographic away from whatever its normal vacation spot is, so instead, they're aiming at the singles or dual-income with disposable income. So: fine dining, good cocktails, cute or quaint or artsy shops, and an emphasis on classy. It's clearly still very much a work in progress, but I quite like what they've done so far. (And I'm happy to say they do not seem to have meddled with the music venues at all. So, not your usual mode of gentrification which gets rid of anything that does not conform.)

I do wonder what the locals think of all this.

We also stumbled upon an event at the Stone Pony, being thrown in cooperation with the only non-shitty commercial radio station in NYC. It wasn't a big whoop--there was cheap bad beer (but at least you could get decent bottles, if for $5) and chili dogs and a giant inflatable King Kong--but they had local bands playing, and the one we stuck around for was not bad. I understand it was supposed to get much more lively around 7 or 8 (and if we were going to see The Bruce, that probably would have been when)--but Beth needed to get further down shore to meet her family and I needed to embark on the 1 hour 45 minute train pilgrimage back to the city, so we missed all that. But, anyways, a lovely day all around.

I'm sort of feeling anti-"fleshy things with their mouth noises" at the moment (I guess I have for awhile, at that; but it's marked tonight) so this will consist chiefly of unadorned information.

1. Yes, I signed on Apartment #12. I will, barring extreme WTFery, be moving the first weekend in April. Various, but mostly high, levels of psycho-emotional ulaeulaeulaeulae are being generated from these small, bare facts.

2. I was in London this past weekend, as some knew, some intuited, and some had no idea on. I went to sbp's birthday party, which was groovy; missed simonb's birthday party, which I deeply regret; went down t'pub with pir, which was most pleasant; and missed connections with reddragdiva, which I also deeply regret. I also got mired in a bog, discovered an 18th c. house in Hampstead Heath, and continued my trend of walking into pubs frozen to the core (and then got stared at like I had three heads when I asked for tea with whisky--did not you people invent this shit?). Ostensibly the purpose of this adventure was to see a number of the members of Hawkwind recreate the legendary 1972 Space Ritual tour, which is literally a once-in-a-lifetime chance, but Nik Turner fucked up his back using a chainsaw last week (!?!?) and so it's postponed til June. Because of the nature of the exceedingly cheap ticket I got, trying to change my travel time or even cashing it in for a credit would have been a giant lose, so I just bloody well went, and why not? Also, I really like Camden. And I feel slightly lame for not heading down to Brixton on Sat. night to see Alabama 3's all-night dance party: on the one hand, yes I'd been up for nigh 40 hours at that point, but on the other, when would I have a chance to do that again either?. Anyways. Returned last night, am still awfully flat.

3. I need to re-dye the teal in my hair but I just don't have the energy or will. I find this mildly distressing, but hope and trust that a few days' sleep will set me up right.

It was warmer today, but of course by the time I swimsuited up and sauntered to the pool, it was partly-cloudy (the part in front of the sun) and exceedingly windy. Which is fine as long as you are in the water, but upon exiting for some serious lolling around and maybe reading, it was insanely chilly. So I swam for awhile and then came back to the room and, oh dear, played Ultima IV which there is a Mac OS X port for. But that's relaxing! So it's okay. NYAH

I was not going to spend the whole evening doing that, however. So I have installed myself in the patio bar (which is empty, mua ha ha ha; there is some kind of convention or gathering here at present but it is all oldsters so they are not so much with the night life) with a fruity drink and a jerked chicken snack and am alternately intarwubbing and working on the D&D character class Dr. Nick and I have been giving painful breech birth to for the past N months; something that I love to do, but never have a block of time at home that I am not urgently doing something else.

It is a very nice fruity drink. The weather is chilly and windy, but I have a jacket and I am wearing pants now, so that is okay.

Tomorrow: Happy World Land!

The Sheep and Wool Festival is in a couple weeks. Who's going, and which day, and who needs a ride or a pick-up from the train?

I think nedlnthred and I were intending to go Saturday.

Yesterday I took the day off and, with massive amounts of help from caelfinn and Husband-of-sedai for which I am eternally grateful, moved a bunch of STUF over to nedlnthred's (if I think I'll need it in the next N months) and sweh's (if I don't). Most of it was not so very bad, but my dresser is about 5x heavier than I thought, particularly when moving up Beth's narrow, U-turning, 1880s-era staircase. Yerg.

However, the job was completed, and we rested, ate, and refreshed ourselves before I came back into town to attend the first iteration of this year's Midsummer Night Swing with elibalin. This was fun, but with many "but"s. The dance floor was insanely crowded, so that one could barely move, and so we kept getting stepped on and kicked and what not. This is bad enough by itself, but I was also feeling extremely out-of-my-element, having never swing-danced before, and uncoordinated as I am, I was pretty nervous and high-strung about the whole thing. Also, I wore very wrong shoes: I selected for "slidey soles for dance floor", but they are not long-term comfortable at all, and the dance floor was not very slidey anyways, so I would have done better to gone for comfort instead. Finally, I would like to express my disapprobation at the bunch of people who were standing on the dance floor, not dancing, in the middle of the stage, just to listen to the music. NOT A CONCERT, JERKS. Anyways: after while, I was feeling tired, and my leg and knee and feet were aching, and I was starting to get a headache, so we packed it in early with an intent to come better prepared for our next attempt. This proved wise, because by the time I got on the train home, I felt like my head was clamped in a vise with extra spikes stuck through my eyeballs, interspersed with flashes of nausea. Would this be a migraine? Whether or no, it was really unpleasant and I'd like to not have any more of that--but I don't know what caused it so I don't know how to avoid it. Bah. Got home, took Vitamin I, went to bed with a damp cloth over my eyes. (Thankfully, I seem fine today, if exhausted.)

elibalin and I are going to the comics con today. Will probably be there in the 10-5 range if you want to meet up; text me. And I can tell that I am utterly damaged because I am fretting about what to wear. As dariodevil put it yesterday, "the neckbeards won't notice anything but your breasts anyways". (He is not going, as some sort of masochistic exercise.)

...I just discovered that feeding "Nerd Prom" into Wikipedia does, in fact, take you to the San Diego Comic-Con page. <3

Edit: For those with a deep emotional involvement in my quandary--I think I've gotta wear my Suicide Squid t-shirt. OBSCURER THAN THOU, motherfuckers!