For our fourth day in this fantastic city, we checked off a few more touristy things including Grand Central Station (or Grand Central Terminal, officially) and Times Square.
Grand Central is really quite gorgeous, and it is certainly unlike any train station I’ve been to, the ones in Europe included. Even in photographs, my eyes were always drawn to the three giant, arched windows that stand on both ends of the building, and this didn’t change when I saw them in person, their grandiose and majestic appearance commanding attentions of everyone. This grandeur continues throughout the whole structure with polished stone walls, unassuming yellow lights, and above it all, a beautiful ceiling of a kind of blueish/greenish/sea-ish color, and inset within that were golden recreations of constellations including Orion, Taurus, Gemini, and others. Unfortunately, they’ve got a ridiculous American flag hanging on one side of the main concourse that ruins the aesthetic perfection of the building, so try your best to pretend that it’s not there.
All things considered, I do believe Grand Central is the only train station I’ve been to where I highly recommend you go out of your way to see. You usually go to train stations to go somewhere else, but Grand Central was marvelous just to see in its own right.
Time Square, on the other hand, is one of those landmarks that you’ll just see once and then probably never see again, unless you prefer the hustle and bustle of lots of boring people looking at overly photographed and overly hyped, um, things, and I can’t bring myself to write properly about it anymore because each keystroke is becoming increasingly difficult to muster energy to complete, much like how Times Square sapped all my energy from ever wanting to see touristy things ever again. I guess the least I can do is link a picture of the damn place in case you want to see it because I don’t want to go on explaining it anymore.
Following all this, we made our way back to the southern part of the island, stopped at a fine little restaurant called Kottu House (kottus are street style Sri Lankan dishes made with a type of flatbread called Godhamba roti, and I opted for a dish called the Crispy Prawn: spicy curried prawns all complete with all their little legs that I got to tear off and their little eyes that I got to avoid), which was a nice way to have a late lunch, and the food was quite good with the perfect amount of spicy heat, but I wouldn’t by any means go out of your way to seek this place out, but if you happen to happen upon it, then by all means go on inside and enjoy some Sri Lankan cuisine.
After lunch we made our way to a place that reminds us all of something that still seems difficult to understand actually happened. It was a surreal experience heading there, heading to ground zero, the site of something terrifically awful, where nearly 3000 people needlessly died at the hands of ridiculous religious extremists who believed in a mythical god, just like all those delusional Christians during the Crusades. 11 September is a day burned on the memories and minds of so many, and it was very strange remembering the television images of the attacks that I saw that day while gazing at the National September 11 Memorial. How something so horrible happened right on the very ground I walked…
The memorial itself is strikingly beautiful and poetically simple. Where the two towers once stood are now giant gaping holes in the ground, tremendous square voids reminding us of what once was and is now lost. Water continuously flows and falls on all four sides of the sunken cube into a pool of shimmering water, and in the center of all that, an even deeper but smaller cube-shaped void within the pool of water where everything continues to fall, the falling water a touching metaphor for the day when so many people fell to their deaths or succumbed to death in flaming, smoking, and collapsing.
As you walk around the giant square space, you can read and touch the names of those who died on this day, their names cut out of a dark metal and set at a gracious incline, lectern-like, above a stone barrier.
Sadly, the whole experience is severely distracting because of so much inappropriate behavior from those around. I was absolutely horrified and shocked and annoyed and embarrassed that in this solemn space there were entire families posing and smiling for the camera, individuals taking selfies, children running around as if in a play park.
Is this really the time and place? Is this what you do at the grave site of someone you love? Is this how we choose to forget? Apparently so.
There are days when I am so ashamed to be a human, when I see the idiocy of other people and their lack of regard for their actions and the effects it has on other people, when I see a 9/11 Memorial Museum Store profiting as the result of a horrific day, when I see a gorgeous memorial become not only a reminder of the idiots who caused detrimental harm to their brothers and sisters, but also a reminder of the idiots who have no sense of simple decency, taking their selfies, taking their family portraits, letting their children misbehave, buying their 9/11 knickknacks.
Don’t be those people. Just don’t. The whole affair was so distressing that we forewent going into the museum, because even that would be much more of the same: people forgetting what happened when there are artifacts shouting at them, right in their face, reminding them of the idiocy of it all. I will not spend money at these places. It is disgraceful.
But, I suppose that’s why some people are idiots, because you have to be at least somewhat intelligent to realize how idiotic you actually are.
After taking a breather, lamenting the whole experience for the wrong reasons and venting our frustrations to each other, we made our way to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in the Garment District where we were in store for a real treat, a show that ended up being my favorite one of the six we saw while in New York: The Daisy Theatre by the Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes. The show, like Empanada Loca, was a one-person show, except the sole performer, Ronnie Burkett himself, was joined by many, many marionettes.
All the action took place on a stage about 10 feet across, and Burkett was clearly visible to the audience as he manipulated the marionettes. Before everything started, however, he gave us a brief introduction about the show, telling us that normally his work touched on more serious topics like AIDS and suicide, but that The Daisy Theatre was a much more lighthearted affair.
And a much more lighthearted affair indeed! The whole evening was an eclectic celebration of vaudeville and cabaret, highly improvised, the length of the whole show dependent on how much the audience participated and cheered the marionettes and Burkett on. And Burkett was sure to make sure we all did want more, making fun of us if our responses were weak or timid.
The first scene introduced us to fairy child Schnitzel and muscle man Franz. Schnitzel was the most adorable character of the evening, a small baby- and freckle-faced child, bald, with a single flower growing out of the crown of his head, voiced in a squeaky, innocent pipping cheep. Franz was, as you would expect, a typical muscle man making fun of Schnitzel’s timidness and lack of bravery. The whole conversation came to a head when Franz talked about how the right side of the stage was so much better than the left side, this all becoming a metaphor for polarized politics, with Schnitzel moving from the left side to the right, only for a moment, before returning to the left side where he felt more comfortable.
We also met such other colorful characters like Edna Rural, a small town Canadian woman who regaled us of life in the sparsely populated countryside; Major General Leslie Fuqwar, a retired solider who now dresses in women’s clothes and sings cabaret; and Jolie Jolie, a old Parisian singer who probably once graced Moulin Rouge with nightly appearances. By audience applause, she won out over Esme Massengill as the one to close the show.
Jolie Jolie had to teach us all how to react to someone as famous as her, telling us all to “nudge nudge” the person next to us when we heard the announcer mention Jolie Jolie’s name, then exclaim loudly and colorfully, “Could it be? Could it be?” only to cheer, “It is! It is!” when Jolie Jolie appears. It was all quite marvelous fun, even for people like me who get a little embarrassed when the audience is asked to participate in such things like this.
Burkett’s delicate skill in moving the marionettes was absolutely marvelous, and his various voices were expertly performed, each marionette coming to life in believably funny and serious ways. The marionettes themselves were perfectly crafted as well, each one created in a way that recalled expressionistic theatre where each character was an overly-charged representation of some human condition, except presented comically rather than dustily serious. (But don’t get me wrong, I love dustily serious when it comes to such gorgeous expressionistic works like Lulu or Pierrot lunaire.)
Three of the audience were picked to participate in the theatre at separate points during the play, one a handsome young man (who Burkett insisted take of his shirt and who obliged) who helped manipulate one of the marionettes; another young man who was supposed to be a eunuch, who Brukett asked to lie down on the stage, but as Esme Massengill felt around his crotch could tell that he was in tact; and then me of all people!
I got to open up a small 2 foot by 4 foot wooden box at the front of the stage, turn a crank to raise a miniature orchestra of puppets, and turn another crank to make the puppets move as they played music. This was all happening while Jolie Jolie told us of days long past, asking me to look away from her, then look at her, then look away from her in quick succession as she said, “Oh, Tom. Tommy Tom Tom Tom,” in a French accent before beginning on with another story.
The whole evening ended up being about 2-1/2 hours of absolutely transcendent comedy, but unlike Fondly, Collette Richland which felt about an hour too long, The Daisy Theatre was a perfect length of time. And unlike the comedians from the previous night’s show at the Comedy Cellar, I went away from this play knowing that I saw absolutely and positively comedy and cabaret and vaudeville at its very best.
So bravo, Ronnie Burkett! It was a real pleasure attending the closing night of your show, and I do hope that perhaps you might be able to maybe come to Minneapolis’s own Open Eye Figure Theatre to grace audiences here with your wit and charm and charisma with all of your wonderful little marionettes.
Following Ronnie Burkett, we made our way to the Comedy Cellar for a second night of comedy. We were very sure to arrive in plenty of time so that we were the first ones to enter so that we might get to sit in the front row. Amy and I frequently look like we’re on dates, even though it’s very clear that I’m gay, but I always wonder about how we might confuse people. “Doesn’t she know?” people might whisper, or “That poor guy’s still trying to stay in the closet!”
And we surely did confuse one of the comedians, Kevin Brennan. The exchange went something like this:
“So, what’s your story? You guys on a date?”
“No, we’re just friends.”
“Well, what’s the matter with him?” he asked Amy, and Amy said, “He doesn’t play on that team.”
The comedian misheard her, I believe, and asked, “He doesn’t play games?”
And then she had to spell it out, “He’s gay!”
I was giggling away way too much to help respond to anything, but Kevin Brennan was really quite wonderful when he said something like, “By the way, I know some people get weird when you bring up the gay thing, but I’m all for the recent supreme court ruling.”
So, good on ‘ya (as they say), Kevin Brennan.
In addition to more of Brennan who we saw the night before, we were also treated to standup by Mike Yard, Jermaine Fowler, Jeff Leach, Liza Treyger, and Paul Mecurio, but I’ve been so slow to post these that it’s been so long ago now that I can’t quite remember their schticks. We had a good time nonetheless and laughed a lot, I just don’t remember very much of what they said that made us laugh. Jeff Leach is British with long hair, so he did this schtick about Game of Thrones (or something) and how Americans always cast British in evil roles (which is kinda an old joke), but I can’t remember much else.
At this point in our journeys, we pretty much confirmed what we feared before we headed out to NYC: that a week in this city is not enough time. Even when cramming as much in as we have (but not cramming too much in that the moments are cheated of their worth), there was still so much to do and so much to see. We were keenly feeling the brevity of time by this point, even with 2-1/2 days still to go while here.
But, until I write about our final day in town, it’s far from being all over… yet…
Stray Observations (a la AVClub):
- I was surprised to see the Times Square globe on display. For some reason I thought they only took that out for New Year’s Eve.
- I was also surprised by the ceiling of the Grand Central Station. I always fixated on those giant windows and never cared to seek out photographs of that gorgeous ceiling. Make sure you look up!
- I also am still so surprised at how everyone behaved at Ground Zero. Clean up your act, people. It’s disgraceful.