Nassim

"It's like a pop-up book," said my friend Peter, about the play we'd just seen--NASSIM--which is named for its Iranian author, Nassim Soleimanpour, and has to do with, among other things, the challenges he's faced in getting his work into the world, and the need to overcome the barriers of language and culture that divide us. It was an astute observation:  NASSIM wasn't like anything else I've seen--but it was a bit like a picture book, and I ended up seeing it twice.

The first time, late last year, I thought, my sisters (both educators) would love this.  Then in January, my sisters were coming to town for a long weekend, and discount tickets were available, so I seized the opportunity, knowing that the show would be different since the guest actor would be different from the one I'd seen.  But there would be Farsi lessons, there would be tomatoes, and there would be audience participation.

My sisters loved the show, and, once again, I did, too.

It's running through April 20 at City Center, and for some performances you can find out who the guest actor will be.

https://www.nycitycenter.org/pdps/2018-2019/nassim/

Animal Sightings

Birds (and some people) do it--and it's not falling in love

On an Upper East Side street, headed for the Met,
Jim spots a Blue Jay, baby bird in its mouth,
snatched from a nest.

The Jay drops the baby, then swoops around,
coming back for the kill.

Oh, look at that bird! says mom to daughter,
seeing the Jay,
but not what it's up to.

Jim tells them.


Weeks later, I'm thinking we have more than a few Blue Jays in Congress, prepared to sacrifice the young of their fellow citizens to feed the appetites of bigger, richer birds.


Head Dress

Sunday, post-dim sum,
we pass a guy carrying a cat on his head,
leash dangling from collar.

Man and cat cross Canal,
keep going.

I wonder who trained whom.


Seen on a 10-minute truck ride

through John and Kristine's place
in the U.P. of Michigan,
last morning of my visit:

three sandhill cranes flapping,
ten deer a-leaping.

They know it's not hunting season.

Subbing in New York--a fringe benefit . . .

. . . is finding yourself on a new block in a new neighborhood.

For all the years I've lived in New York, all the streets and blocks, especially downtown, that I've walked along countless times, there are many more, in other neighborhoods, that I haven't.

Yesterday, maybe for the first time ever, I exited the A train at Dyckman, and certainly for the first time ever walked east on Dyckman from Broadway to 10th Avenue.

A thrilling reminder of how much of this city is still new to me.

Farm Dinner in NYC

Who'd have guessed that the longest continuously farmed site in New York State is in New York City?

Dating to 1697, its 47 acres now make up the Queens County Farm Museum, which I only found out about one Friday when I bought some scrumptious veggies at their stand at the Union Square greenmarket.

I'm eager to visit the farm itself, but unfortunately won't make their Summer Feast in the Field--that's happening tomorrow, August 11, at 7:00 pm.

Those lucky folks who do will first tour the farm and then dine on farm produce, mostly gathered that day. The chef is Tamara Reynolds, who hosts the Sunday Night Dinner in Astoria and co-wrote Forking Fantastic! Put the Party back in Dinner Party.

Here's her menu:

Kale and Cucumber Salad
***
Eggplant, Summer Squash, and Lentils with Pomegranate Molasses
***
Queens Farm Free-Range Chicken bathed in Adobo, wrapped in banana leaves and slow-roasted "Robert Rodriguez Style"
served with
Salt-boiled Potatoes
Collards in Spicy Potlikker with Smoked Pork
Panzanella, made with Heirloom Tomatoes
Turkish Beans, slow-cooked in Olive Oil and Garlic
***
Stone Fruit in Queens Farm Honey and Rum with Basil Whipped Cream

The dinner is BYOB and costs $75. As of today, tickets are still available.

Queens County Farm Museum
73-50 Little Neck Parkway
Floral Park, New York 11004-1129
(718) 347-3276

http://www.queensfarm.org/index.html

My favorite bonnet. . .

. . . at the Easter Parade was one Jim didn't manage to snap: with fuzzy yellow balls covering the crown and a wide brim of tapered ivory petals (cotton canvas?), drooping a bit,

it was a giant daisy.





Make mine a sunflower. . .

Kickstarter Update

Congratulations to the City Reliquary, which just met their Kickstarter funding goals, thanks to backers like you and me.

Can't wait to get my street sweeping bristle!

http://kickstarter.com/projects

http://www.cityreliquary.org

A Great NYC Weekend

Who'd want to fly from California to New York City for a short Labor Day Weekend? My sister Joanne did, and thanks to her and her ex-sister-in-law and friend Alyse, I'm still basking in the afterglow of the weekend's delights.

Here's what we did:

SATURDAY

Joanne and Alyse arrived late, or rather early Saturday at one in the morning, and we stayed up a long time drinking wine and eating Afghan bread and tasty tarmosalata from International Grocery on 9th Ave.

We didn't begin our sight-seeing day till after 11 a.m. when we took the subway to

The Cloisters

I may not have been back to the Cloisters since the first time I saw them--with Joanne and our sister Kristine, when they visited me while still in high school.

"I'd never seen anything like them," Joanne remembers, and she'd been eager to see them ever since. But somehow we'd never managed till now.

Joanne and Alyse are both ardent gardeners and wanted to take the Cloisters' garden tour (free with admission)--something it wouldn't have occurred to me to do on my own. The tour turned out to be one of the best I've ever taken.

Not only did we see, smell, and touch many plants, but we learned about the history, philosophy, and symbolism of medieval gardens, garden archaeology, medieval pharmacology, and the medieval dyeing industry. Inside we examined the plant life rendered on several tapestries and learned about the plant dyes that colored them.

Our tour guide recommended that we come back the first week in June for special programs presented when the gardens are at their peak.

Plutus

Looking for outdoor theater that might still be going on, I'd found a listing in Time Out of a troupe that was new to me--Curious Frog Theatre--doing performances of Romeo and Juliet and Aristophanes' Plutus in various parks through September 20.

Luck for us, Plutus was being done in Inwood Hill Park, not far north of The Cloisters, that very afternoon.

Our tour guide happened to be heading home to Inwood as were leaving, so we enjoyed her company along the way. At 204th St. and Broadway, she pointed out the Dyckman House, the oldest house in the city, which I've never visited. ( Maybe I'll go with Joanne the next time she's in town.)

www.dyckmanfarmhouse.org/

Plutus, in which the god of wealth, who'd been blinded and thus can't tell whether he's giving money to good or bad people, gets his sight back, turned out to be a lot of fun, with timely additions related to our current economic plight.

You can see it this Saturday at 4 pm Queensbridge Park.

http://www.curiousfrog.org/

Good Shepherd Church

Walking along Isham on the way to dinner, we came upon the Good Shepherd Church, where an iron cross from Ground Zero has been installed in a memorial garden honoring those who died there.

Bistro Marrakech

Figuring we might as well eat in Inwood while we were there, I'd picked a promising sounding Moroccan place. We arrived at 5:45, 15 minutes before it opened, but they steered us to the inviting garden of the place next door, where we lingered until my friend Roz joined us. I'd be happy to end up there again one of these days.

We had a fine dinner at Bistro Marrakech--terrific humus, succulent squid, and fragrant fish tagine. All wines served there are $24 a bottle; we were happy with the red our server recommended.

4959 Broadway | Btwn 207th & Isham St , 212-576-2828
http://www.bistromarrakech.com/

The Confidence Man

Well stuffed, we hastened to the second round of our double header of free theater: a play inspired by Herman Melville's Confidence Man, performed on a historic steamship, the Lilac, docked on Pier 40.

I'll have more to say soon about this unique and charming show. For now, catch it if you can--you have till September 26. Information at

http://www.woodshedcollective.com/

River Walk

Unfortunately, my friend Christine arrived too late to get on the boat, but she watched some of the action from the shore, then joined us for our walk home along the Hudson--a fine ending to a great day.

Our only regret was that none of us had remembered to bring along her camera.

SUNDAY

After a leisurely morning, we headed up to the Hirschfeld Theater to try our luck at the Hair lottery. We didn't win, but enjoyed witnessing the excitement of those who did.

In the Heights

After a half hour or so in the TKTS line, with 20 minutes till curtain, we got tickets to In the Heights--a great New York show and the perfect show to see after our uptown explorations the day before.

For a late lunch, we had a few tapas at Sangria 46, then headed downtown to meet my friend Catherine at the Ganesvoort Hotel.

The High Line

Catherine, who's a professional tour guide, had offered to give us a tour of the High Line. Living near it, I'd of course seen it a couple of times, but it was great to have the benefit of Catherine's knowledge of its history, current development, controversies over its future, and scandalous doings at the Standard Hotel overhead.

With their knowledge of gardening, Joanne and Alyse were especially appreciative of the High Line plantings.

Dil-e Punjabi

By now it was close to nine. For dinner, we picked up food from one of my favorite Indian take-out places, the all-vegetarian Dil-e Punjab, 170 Ninth Ave. at 20th St.

We'd thought about going out to a comedy or improv club, but decided we'd had as much stimulation for the day as we could handle. So instead I introduced Joanne and Alyse to Mad Men, and we called it a night.

MONDAY

Bagels and Nova

from Murrays for breakfast.

MOMA: Ensor and Waste Not

After dropping Alyse at Penn Station, Joanne and I headed to MOMA, where we saw the show of James Ensor's work. I'd seen a bit of his work over the years, but the show is revelatory, and we had the good fortune to see it without craning through a crowd. (It closes September 21.)

Somebody should make a poster of Ensor's bawdy and sardonic rendering of beach life.

This was the last day for Waste Not, which I'd seen before and wanted to show Joanne. Deep and moving, it's all the stuff saved by the artist's mother, and arranged by the two of them on the museum floor.

We stayed as long as we could, wandering around the exhibit, reading the commentary on the walls, and taking pictures with the cameras we had at last remembered to bring.




Waste Not seen from above