Author: Jeff Tabaco

Rather than taking forever to record every detail of our New York trip (or waiting for Thom to write it up, which he has conveniently done in the past), I’m just going to go quickly over the highlights in bullet outline format:

Saturday:

• lunch with Tina and RK at Havana NY (27 W. 38 St., between 5th and 6th Aves.); photo here by RK
• The Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Imperial Theatre)
• drinks at Barrage with Jon, JP, Jeff, Matt, and Mike

Sunday:

• brunch at Cafe Europa (205 W. 57 St. at 7th Ave., catty-corner from Carnegie Hall)
• Museum of Modern Art (see also yesterday’s entry)
• The Gates
• dinner at Thalia (828 8th Ave. at 50th St.)

One more thing: since we had made our plans at the last minute, it was slim pickings for accomodations in Manhattan. Thom found us a Comfort Inn in Long Island City, which turned out to be a good deal; while not in a fabulous neighborhood, it’s sort of new and reasonably priced, located one block from the Queensboro Plaza subway station, and closer to some cultural sites in Queens that we might not have visited otherwise.

I’ll be uploading more of my photos soon. All in all, a fabulous weekend. Next time, though, I’ll be sure to wear more comfortable shoes. Ouch.

Much of photography, mine at least, is serendipity. Yesterday at the newly redesigned Museum of Modern Art, I took a number of photos, including three of museum-goers around Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk, all taken from the same vantage point. I hadn’t meant for them to be a series, but I then thought to run them as a slideshow in iPhoto just for kicks. I cropped a bit where necessary, added some music (“Down Slow” by Moby, from Play), looped it three times, and exported as a QuickTime file. It’s relatively low-tech, but I like the result. I was joking with Thom that I should set up a TV in the living room with this slideshow on a loop as some kind of art installation. Check it out (652KB). I like how there are a few people in the shot that stay in the same place in all three photos (taken about eight seconds apart), like the couple just to the right of the vertex. Off to the far right is Monet’s Water Lilies, unfortunately dwarfed in this soaring atrium. Here are the individual photos:

More photos from our weekend trip to New York are forthcoming.

As you may know, I can’t get enough of Mike Albo and his character The Underminer, succinctly described in the subtitle of his new book as “the best friend who casually destroys your life.” A few days ago I posted his Valentine’s Day piece to my del.icio.us links, and yesterday Thom told me that he and his co-author, Virginia Heffernan, were on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to promote the book. I listened to the show on headphones earlier today here at the office, while trying to do some work, and at one point I was so on the verge of laughing out loud that I had to pause it and compose myself.

» Previously: “And what’s going on with you?” (Sept. 9, 2003).

Just so we’re all caught up: last weekend Thom and I took on a couple of cooking projects. On Saturday I decided to make a popular Filipino dish, chicken adobo. It turned out all right, not exactly the way mom used to make (and still does), but a valiant attempt, I thought. Then on Sunday, mostly thanks to Near East products, we made a feast of falafel, tsatsiki, and taboule. Yum.

Also on Sunday we went to Arlington Cinema ’N’ Drafthouse to see The Motorcycle Diaries. I thought it was pretty good, especially the acting and cinematography. However, as a Che Guevara biopic, it’s difficult for me to judge. Certainly it romanticizes and idealizes his youth, a portrayal which has been sharply criticized. For me it was far more enjoyable to watch it just as an anonymous road-trip movie (though that’s obviously not its intent); in fact for most of the movie, I forgot it was about Che and not simply some ordinary young men on an extraordinary journey.

Upcoming plans: tonight we’re seeing Fallen from Proust, a new play by Norman Allen at Signature Theatre. (Allen is also developing a musical with Matt Conner based on the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I caught a preview of one of the songs, “Annabel Lee,” last fall.) And this weekend we’ll be in New York for The Gates, the new MoMA, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and whatever other diversions we can find.

Gay Arkansans protested Gov. Mike Huckabee’s hetero-only “Celebration of Marriage” on Monday. From Salon, “a dispatch from the culture war“:

There was only one interruption all night. During Huckabee’s speech, a group of young activists unfurled banners saying “Queer Rights Now.” As security guards moved in to hustle them out, two young men embraced. They stayed put as the rest of their group moved into the aisles, looking a little scared as they clung to each other as people jeered them and called for their arrest.

It was the most romantic thing I saw all night.

Also, I came across another interesting article: on SFGate, “Same-sex marriage in the ’burbs,” about two gay couples who sought marriage licenses on Valentine’s Day in the East Bay city of Martinez, Calif.

Like a good boyfriend (sing it with me, “State Farm is there”), Thom already wrote a comprehensive report about our wonderful Philadelphia trip a couple of weekends ago, and all I have to do is link to his entry. Go check it out. I’ll wait right here.

Okay. I will reiterate his take on 11:11, the Rufus Wainwright ballet pieces: it was the strongest set of the evening. Fresh and alive, they seem to flow effortlessly from the music and they bring out nuances I hadn’t noticed before. For example, near the end of “Oh What a World,” choreographer Matthew Neenan sets his dancers in rotating circles like a carousel, picking up on a short, faint thread in the orchestration, a run on the xylophone (or glockenspiel?), and the sight and sound come together so well.

“Poses” has been one of my favorite Rufus songs, and the dance is perhaps my favorite, too. It’s set for two trios of dancers, and with the lighting design casting speckled light all over the stage, it looked like they were running and dancing through the shade of trees. Gorgeous. The other day someone from the Pennsylvania Ballet posted on the Rufus message board to say that photos from 11:11 will be up on their website soon, and that the company will be performing it again next season.

We had a great time in Philadelphia, and will be back again soon for sure. Thom‘s photos and some of mine are up on Flickr; I’ve yet to upload my photos from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is the last site we visited before leaving town.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom hosted an event on Saturday at City Hall to mark the anniversary of the same-sex marriages performed there last year:

“Happy anniversary,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said to the cheering audience. Unquestionably the star of the party that one celebrant compared to a “family reunion,” the mayor was repeatedly drowned out by wild applause during the defiant speech he delivered from the rotunda staircase.

“This door is open and nothing the president of the United States can do will ever shut this door,” said Newsom, who made the weddings possible when he issued a directive one year ago to grant marriage licenses to gay couples.

“It’s no longer acceptable for politicians to come to you every election cycle and to ask for your money and to ask for your support and then say it’s too much, too soon — ” here, a thunderous roar rendered his words inaudible, but a few moments later he raised his voice to say: “Civil unions are not good enough. Civil unions are not marriage. Marriage is marriage.”

» Article and issue coverage at SFGate.

[Addendum: On last night’s re-run of Law & Order (“Gov Love“) the exclusion of testimony from a key witness hinged on the defense’s claim of spousal privilege within a same-sex marriage performed in New Paltz, N.Y.; the prosecution responded by asking the state’s highest court to invalidate those marriages.]

Last night I arrived home to find that Thom had bought me orchids for Valentine’s Day.

Aww. What a sweetheart.