A New York Love Song of an Evening

At 4 pm I get an email from Flash Rosenberg. She says, "Wanna go? My treat. 6 pm Cornelia Street. I'm one of the performers tonight." Tonight being the monthly MONOLOGUES & MADNESS (organized and hosted by the talented Tulis McCall) where 17 people each gets 4 minutes before the incredibly friendly audience of fellow readers in the cozy black and red performance space underneath the Cornelia Street Cafe.

I showered in about 4 minutes threw on the safe West Village camouflage of black sneakers, black socks, black tee shirt, and black vest. Did I mention I wore black? We hopped on a downtown 1 train and arrived on time. And there was Flash with two seats saved for us, we refused to let her treat us and paid our 7 dollars admission and got our glasses of wine. What ensued was in turns funny, sad, hilarious, moving, and totally unpredictable stories and storytelling. One piece required audience participation with Kazoos. Perfect.

We met her dear friend and dramaturg Maxine Kern. Maxine was great to talk to between sets. She and Jim between them know a lot of theatre folks. And on top of that, fun coincidence that Maxine teaches dramaturgy in the theatre masters program at Stony Brook. So of course I had to tell her that Deb and Val (who teach in the undergraduate theatre program at SB) had been huge helps to my daughter Natalie and clearly taught her the skills to get into the Actors' Theatre of Louisville intern acting program.

Flash was great. She wrote her piece earlier today! How can she possibly do that? She delivered humor, wisdom, a touch of Chaplin's sadness, Coco Channel's wardrobe on crack, and Dorothy Parker's wit spun into the electronic age. She has that great ability to turn the world upside down and get everyone to look at it that way with her, while laughing.

Flash challenged me, Jim, and Maxine to write monologues and get into the event. So we are on!

And if that wasn't fun enough we ended up sitting into the next set, thanks really to Robin Hirsch (owner of Cornelia) for letting us, with some of his delicious wheat bourbon, and this set was unbelievably terrific. We got to hear the legendary David Amram, with piano, french horn, flutes (two at a time even), play composition & surprises--beat poetry, scat and all that; Kevin Twigg, drums, glockenspiel; John de Witt, bass; Adam Amram, percussion; and John Ventimiglia, an actor reading from Jack Kerouac's Visions of Cody.

A day ago Amram was playing the huge Madison Square Garden. He told us he really loves playing small places. He wore a necklace festooned with metal stars, 5 and 6 pointed, and metal bits that could have come from brass instruments.

I now feel that my poetry readings would only be enhanced by having this top notch jazz group back me up. Our table also had the very funny and talented Carl Kissin, who had read the piece with kazoo.

I did my best to sketch the players by candle-light. Got an autograph from John Ventimiglia. Fun. Wine and spirits on a dinner of humor, heart, jazz and beat, but scant on food, left us tippy and delighted. We took a cab home. Are eating pizza. Am thinking this is why we live here. You know, this crazy city life, when it isn't maddening it is a delight.

When Flash calls, we go.

Wine tastings and other adventures

It has been sad that I've been too busy to blog for awhile. I temporarily went to work in an office--nice pants and button down shirts instead of jeans and silk pajama tops--for a client this past week. While the project has been fun to work on and everyone lovely to work with, I am reminded of why I work for myself. So many meetings and projects going at once. Rush rush rush. How do people do it? I work best on one project at a time. Everyone seemed to be working on a gazillion things at once.

Some of the best things in life happen with an unexpected call. Last week a friend of mine had been invited to come to a wine tasting and asked if I could come too. The founder and co-owner of the Cornelia Street Café, Robin Hirsch (also an author, performer and poet with a British accent), was in the midst of his once every 6 months tasting and buying of wine for the restaurant. Apparently having someone like me and my friend along, the average (read ignorant) cafe patron, was helpful.

"Great, sure, I'll be there," I said. I went over the few things I'd learned at a wine tasting I'd been to a few years ago. There was something about sniffing it and swirling it in the glass before you took teensy sips. Rather like the cat approaches food: Poke-poke-sniff-sniff, what is it? Is it dead yet or twitching enough for playtime? And I remembered that people spoke of legs and aftertaste, which doesn't seem at all appropriate for a mealtime beverage but who am I to challenge jargon?

When I arrived in the decidedly upscale offices of the wine wholesaler, Monsieur Touton, Selection, Ltd., near the flower and fabric districts, I was led to a back wall with an enormous room-wide counter that held a thicket of wine bottles and a view of New York sky and brick. A tray of french bread and plates of tasty cheeses were on the right. Robin and his sales rep Allan Trelford, in yellow, were on the left sipping and spitting wine into beautiful round copper sinks that dotted the counter at regular intervals. A large glass urn held a cord of corks.

I was amazed by the wall decor, porcelain spittoons and antique wine objects that I can't name. The center of the large office was filled with desks and hooded computers, even the desks held some bottles of wine since everyone here was in the business of selling it. They spoke on phones in hushed voices with various accents, wine being an international enterprise.

We were given glasses and tasted the various types of wine along with Robin. Whites and then reds of many varieties. I have to admit that I didn't seem to find any of the wines objectionable and most of them tasty. Maybe it was the novelty of drinking in the middle of the day but I swallowed. No spitting for me.

Robin and Allan have a working relationship that speaks of years of respect and ease. Robin was witty and Allan affable. Their discussions on place and product sometimes flew over my head.

At one point two tall young merchants in impeccable suits with French accents stopped by and one of them was able to name off the cuff the nine varieties of one French vintner. This was part of a lively discussion of how different one variety of grape, grown in the same region, can taste. I supposed out loud that micro-climates and the vintners taste buds had their effects on the product. The experts politely acknowledged I'd uttered a basic truth and moved on. After that I kept to a more general "yum, delicious" or "sticks to the roof of my mouth dry" for me. Also noted that the California wines tended to a sweeter and blander "Disneyland" mix that I didn't like as much as the more subtle and sophisticated tang of the South American bottles.

I discovered the taste difference between a good wine and a very very good one was not an exponential leap. Only the price took such a jump.

The best part was when Robin and Alan talked about wine pairings, rather like setting up a dating service for a red and a white wine. Since I can attest that the food at Cornelia Street Café is excellent, I will now have to go back and have it with that pair of wines, I'd love to see what meal would compliment the two Robin selected. He staggered out with a box filled with the opened bottles of the wines he had bought, to share with the staff and to help them devise the latest wine menus.

My friend and I walked out and complimented ourselves on being such excellent representatives of the average customer. We were like the non-foodies that help judge the meals on Iron Chef. Except we weren't twenty-something Japanese actresses. And I didn't giggle until the very end. I estimated I'd had one very full glass of wine. How sparkly the plants and cheap jewelry looked through well scrubbed windows, how light, how red and white, my mood.