Harlem Sun & Moon

Miami Beach International Fashion Week

by baad lamb

Last night we attended the kick-off event for Miami Beach International Fashion Week, held at Mondrian South Beach, and sponsored by Tiffany & Co., as a benefit for the Miami Fashion Week Foundation.

Now before all you New York fashionistas jump on a plane thinking you’re missing this showcase of international fashion design talent, take note that the dates for Fashion Week are March 3 through 6, and then plan accordingly. (Although with the huge piles of snow burying New York, you may still want to book a flight for immediate departure.)

Last night’s prelude, the Second Annual Humanitarian Awards, was an evening to honor ten outstanding philanthropic members of the South Florida community, and raise money for the foundation that will provide scholarships to aspiring young fashion professionals.

But there were plenty of designers in attendance, and a fun crowd enjoying the poolside setting overlooking Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami’s bright lights.
Lots of fun and fashion fotos follow….

Snow Day, January 27th.




Churchyard at W. 139th St and Hamilton Blvd.

 

Thai Restaurant, 135th and 12th Ave.



Jefferson Market Library, the Village.



This Day In Gay History

For the past year or so, sometimes with a few interruptions, Bo Young and Dan Vera of the White Crane Institute, the publisher of the venerable White Crane Journal, have been putting out an online column called "This Day In Gay History."

It is fantastic. Truly amazing. Not just because it's informative—there have been a lot of glosses on this topic over the years, and many of them never get too far away from Madonna's birthday—but because it's such a passionate assertion of what I have called for ages "gay tribalism." This is the idea that there is an invisible cord running through the soul and spine of queer men and women that links us. Christopher Isherwood referred to this as "our kind," as in his wonderful book Christopher and His Kind.

This does not mean that we all have something in common, like Judy Garland (OK, maybe we do all have her; who can look at Meet Me In St. Louis or The Wizard of Oz all the way without tearing up?) but that we have an understandable, common core of sensibilities and feelings that we can tap into and that are indeed the real "gay roots." I love this idea; it feeds me every day. This is our own family, and it has sustained me all my life. It is seen in a line of glbt writers, thinkers, acters and actors, explorers, scientists, martyrs, lovers, fighters, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, philosophers, artists, dressmakers and artisans, and just plain common folk who were brave enough either to come out or not be hidden totally at a time when hiding was forced on us.

So get to This Day in Gay History. Bo and Dan run it on the White Crane website, and it also runs on their FaceBook page. You can reach it at:

http://www.facebook.com/l/e4fbbh-zovzPFisRD3_u7nPB03A;GayWisdom.org 


And let them know how much it means to you. 

How I Got Here: Patrick

This is part of a series.  You can read other contributions, here, here, here and here.  If I've failed to link to other entries, please let me know.  (Thanks to Tony for giving me two more links; are we still missing people?)

 For years I swore I would never live in New York City.

Sorry ladies, George says he won't get married again....

Awwww. Does that mean we fellas may still have a chance?

Videos of My Two Latest Musical Obsessions

By West Village Bill

The first time I saw this video of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" over at Joe.My.God. last month, I was immediately hooked. My favorite part of the video is when she shimmies in her chair and sings (backed by the sound of clapping hands?), "Throw your soul through every open door. Count your blessings to find what you live for." Nice! And I dig the sword-wielding dancer kicking up dust. And the bouncing glasses of water set in motion by the insistent bass drum.



I bought the song and video and played them almost obsessively. And then I played it for my friend Jen, who also got immediately hooked and bought Adele's first album, 19. Adele's second album, 21, which includes "Rolling in the Deep," will be released on Feb. 22.

The New York Nicks

Which one do you prefer? NYC model Nick Ayler or Calvin Klein boytoy Nick Gruber?

If you had to choose....



(Nick Ayler photo by Richard Gerst / DNA Magazine September 2010)

Calling all gay chefs........

NEW YORK’S “TOP GAY CHEF” COMPETITION -PREMIERE EVENT FOR THE GAY COMMUNITY



Contact Information: SHARMAYNE WESLER- Show Manager

RDP Group, 152 Simsbury Road, Avon, CT

800-243-9774 sharmayne@rdpgroup.com www.originalglbtexpo.com



Looking for professional chefs from the GLBT community to compete for the title of New York’s Top Gay Chef at this year’s 18th Original GLBT Expo.

Where: Javits Center-W 38th St. & 11th Ave. NYC

When: Sat. March 12, 2011-12n-7pm & Sunday March 13, 2011-12n-6pm



The Original GLBT Expo will premiere their latest feature, New York’s Top Gay Chef competition, for chefs of the GLBT community.

PANIC! ATTACK

by Charlie Vázquez

Hello and Happy New Year, Queer New York!

Better late than never (I hope). I've been trying to figure out something to post for the last few weeks, and it was under my nose the entire time. Some of you may know that I curate a reading series called PANIC! at Nowhere in the East Village every last Wednesday of the month. As we began to approach our third year, I decided to begin anthologizing it. The Best of PANIC! ¡En vivo from the East Village! is alive...

I spend a lot of time going to other readings trying to find the right people for PANIC!, and this first volume is a bold testament to Gotham's rich queer lit underground, and one that makes me proud. Featuring established writers such as Sam J. Miller and Lee Houck to burgeoning voices from the LGBT NYC Latino/a writing scene, this is by no means your average collection of queer writing. If you'd like to know more go to this post on my blog.

All Human Wisdom, a new series by Perry Brass: "Men"

“All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope.”

Alexandre Dumas Pere, last words in The Count of Monte Cristo.

Men. 

Men of late have taken a horrible rap in this life. Testosterone, aggression, and every kind of gross stupidity and wild-hair-up-the-ass chauvinism have been linked to them. Everything they do is suspect, and linked either to a crime or a social misdemeanor. They are out there alone, unstable, and barely able to make a living in this unbrave new world where neatness counts, “style” is looking exactly like every other stylish person, and labeled as either a sports-nut lughead, a vacuous yuppy, or an airhead pansy. Dad, who used to know best, is gone. He was thrown out of the house after his company was sold from under him, even though it was no fault of his own; he’s feeling utterless powerless (see “God” in next episodes). So unless he’s bringing in a secure, regular, and always increasing paycheck he might as well fly off to the Moon. Our consumer culture is now geared 90% toward women who do that much of the actual buying. If you look at TV, it’s about shampoo, hair coloring, Maybelene mascara, and how to make a 30-ton SUV can look feminine enough for a woman who will have the ultimate say in its purchase.

Man—as the silent ballast, bastion, balance, and security of the world—is over.

Museum of the Moving Image

by baad lamb




I had never been to the Museum of the Moving Image, expecting that it would be a dusty collection of cinema and television memorabilia, and lots of photographs of “celebrities”. As the endorphin addicted East Village club kid Margaret says when dismissing suburban living (Liquid Sky, 1983) “Oh how boring”.
But the press surrounding its recent addition, along with its inaugural day events highlighting both interactive and creative artistic video convinced me I should check it out.

Samuel Steward Visits New York In 1930

From Justin Spring's wonderful biography:

"NYC is fun," he observed to a friend at the end of his life, "but it drains you quickly (or it always did me) and the entanglements and cross-purposes and switchings and turn-arounds make it seem like an emotional railroad yard, with everything working well but not much actually getting done."

All Human Wisdom, a new series by Perry Brass

“All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope.”
Alexandre Dumas Pere, last words in The Count of Monte Cristo.

People often feel that wisdom is something associated with age. Not true. Some of the smartest people I have ever known have been young. In fact, they got dumber as they got older because thinking that idiocy was the way to survival, and needing the protective coloring of crowds, they put aside their own important and native beliefs and became as passive and self-satisfied as the rest of the docile masses. Therefore, hold on to the wisdom of youth, but take it with a grain of learning, patience, experience, and even cunning.

Life. What do we mean by life? Is it simply existence, or something deeper and more meaningful and, of course, more satisfying? Life does mean that period of time when we are occupied with sustenance, with existence, with being alive, and with surviving and even overcoming numerous daily problems. But more important life is about being aware, about being present in the moment of existence. If life has a religious significance, and most of us believe it does, that significance is certainly of being aware, being conscious of who we are, what we are doing, and how it effects others and the world. This consciousness is what puts God in life. Therefore life without consciousness is pretty dead, although strictly speaking all of us know a lot of dead people walking around.

QNY Levity.

This is one NYC license plate you'll probably never see.

A QNY Movie Review: I Love You Phillip Morris

By West Village Bill

The Squeeze Boy and I caught I Love You Phillip Morris on New Year's Eve. I was motivated to see the movie partly out of a desire to send a tiny, $13 message to the executives in Big Hollywood that they were foolish to balk at distributing a gay-themed film with frank depictions of man-on-man sex. I ended up enjoying ILYPM quite a bit. It turned out to be a fun, touching, and genuinely sweet movie.

Jim Carrey plays Steven Russell, a con man and escape artist who falls hard for the title character, who's played by Ewan McGregor, when they meet in a prison library. Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa do a pretty good job of reining Carrey in and preventing him from turning Steven Russell into Edward Nygma. And Carrey and McGregor have believable onscreen chemistry. (Unfortunately, hunky McGregor doesn't show much skin even though he's prone to doing that.*)

QNY's Eric Leven Will Read

Even though we rarely hear from QNY contributor Eric Leven, you can hear him read his short story  in What We Brought Back: Jewish Life After Birthright if you go to the Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway at 12th Street, 2nd floor, Tuesday, January 11th, 7-10PM. Here's the announcement:

Join us for a reading with Eric Leven, Shoshana Rubin, Mordechai Shinefield and Jake Marmer, some of the contributors to What We Brought Back: Jewish Life After Birthright, the new anthology project of Nextbook Inc. and Birthright Israel NEXT, edited by Wayne Hoffman. The book includes essays, poems, photos, graphics and more by alumni of Birthright Israel Trips. This event is sponsored by Tablet Magazine, a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas and culture.

Island House - When The City Gets Just Too Cold

A brief stay at Island House is the best way to thaw out. Here's my profile in this week's South Florida Gay News.

QNY recommends: Eating On The Hump

The sometimes midtown and sometimes downtown Ken Browne has organized a regular Wednesday group of gay and gay-friendly folks who meet for dinner at a pre-selected restaurant of the inexpensive-and-I've-always-wanted-to-go-there variety that abound in Manhattan. The group is open to you, and is a good way to make some new friends and experience a new eatery.

Ken sang for many years with the sadly defunct acapella group called Mystery Date. Such a voice, and he's a great guy. Here's the info.

The next outing will be Wednesday, January 12th, 7-9PM, at the Mesa Grill in the Flatiron District.  Go, and then tell us all about it.

Michael Hartney

(via JoeMyGod)

An acquaintance of several QNY contributors, comedian Michael Hartney, is in a new AT&T commercial. And his laugh is getting noticed. (You may recall his So I Like Superman from the golden age of gay New York blogs.) It's great that his career is on the rise!

ABBA 1980

"No more champagne
And the fireworks are through..."

HAPPY NEW YEAR QNY !!

Happy 2011!

From Tony Adams and The Baad Lamb

(photo by JoeMyGod)

QNY Review: Eric Yves Garcia - The Chance To Sing

By Tony Adams

I strongly recommend this beautiful album by equally beautiful New Yorker Eric Yves Garcia. And before I go any further, let me give you the good news that you can download it here on QNY for free!

Let's get the obvious out of the way. He's handsome, no? We all harbor private speculation about who would play us in a movie version of our lives. Eric tops my personal list for the musical version of that assignment. He's an actor/singer who weekly entertains the guys at the piano of The Townhouse at 236 East 58th Street. You'll find him there on Mondays, 6-9:30PM. (Check out his other regular NYC gigs.)

I'm picky about coverage of American Songbook and jazz standards. Love the purity of Ella Fitzgerald, the roughness of Etta James, the velvety Diana Krall, the dreamy Chet Baker, the accents on Mel Tormé and Michael Bublé, the sadness of Billie Holiday, and the quirky surprise of Cyndi Lauper, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell or even Miss Ross. (Hate everything by Bobby Short and Rufus Wainwright.) A good cover of a classic is like a bus driver who tells his passengers "I'm taking a different route today, folks. Hope you like it." The detour takes you home, but the scenery is fresh. "The Chance To Sing" is a spectacular detour you'll want to take more than once.

Eric's delivery is bright, clean and spirited. I don't think we should fault him because his voice doesn't have that "I've been through recovery" wisdom of the rebuilt Rosemary Clooney, for example. He's rather a classic crooner, at this point in his career. Just better than most. I was especially satisfied by the perfect balance and interplay between Eric's piano playing and his voice. Neither bends to the other and both are equally dazzling. It's really more of a duet rather than voice with accompaniment.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I do, and please stop by his FB fan page. I've got a hunch that we'll be seeing and hearing a lot more from Eric.

I've included a shirtless pic after the jump because I know you want it.

Mummenschanz at NYU's Skirball Center

By West Village Bill

On Sunday, I'm taking my sweetie, Tony P., and my friend Jen and her kids, Abbe and Zane, to see Mummenschanz at New York University's Skirball Center. Tony saw Mummenschanz live when he was a kid, and I remember being entranced by the mime troupe's performance on The Muppet Show back in America's bicentennial year. Mummenschanz is appearing at the Skirball Center through Jan. 8.

Dominance and Submission by Blue Öyster Cult; The Best New Year's Eve Song Ever

By baad lamb

There are literally thousands of Christmas songs, and many hundreds of them get played over and over again throughout this holiday season (which now conveniently starts in October). The repetition makes you so crazy you want to jump in a time machine and go back about 2010 years  to delay a certain family’s departure from Bethlehem on their way to Egypt.

But New Years Eve songs? There can really be only one. And for nearly three centuries it’s been Auld Lang Syne.

It’s really time for a new New Year’s Eve song, don't ya think, and I’ve got one everyone should agree on. It starts with one of the best screams in Rock n' Roll, has plenty of fun, Times Square-centric lyrics; a bouncy call and response chorus that practically forces you to sing along; and contains not one, but two ridiculously fast and furious finger-melting guitar solos.

And it’s from the 1970s, a decade that everyone loves, right?

It starts innocently enough, with an ascending minor key, choppy-chord introduction. But then an emphatic “OH YEAH!” aggressively grabs your earlobes, pushes you to your knees, and sets you up for the fun n’ fear that might happen next. Or not. 

A Winter Wonderland in the Village

By West Village Bill

An angry snowman on Christopher Street. It looks like he's mad that he can't get a cab to stop for him.

The intersection of Christopher and Bleecker

My height-challenged dogs, Rudy and Emme, on Charles Street

A Christmas Tradition

By Tony Adams

My  QNY friend BJ (who is also my bloggodfather) over at the very NSFW BJland has posted, for a seventh year, my favorite Christmas clip in which Dawn Davenport does not get the CHA-CHA heels for which she wished. (For a less NSFW route to the clip, go here.)

Miracle on 22nd Street - A QNY interview with the Gay Santas

By Tony Adams

You've watched the video and read their story. Here's my QNY interview with the new gay Santas.

What happens when two guys living in New York City’s Chelsea gayborhood mysteriously begin to receive an avalanche of mail addressed to Santa? That is the premise of the beautiful and touching story of Jim and Dylan, a gay couple who have inadvertently found themselves at the center of this year’s biggest Christmas miracle. How and why hundreds of letters to Santa from kids in various New York neighborhoods ended up in their mailbox is still a mystery, but their response to this situation has done us all proud. Rather than ignore the letters, they decided to answer them and to send gifts to the children who wrote them. They enlisted friends and co-workers to help with the daunting task. Their story was featured in the Christmas Eve edition of the New York Times, and I had a delightful conversation with Jim soon afterwards.

Happy Holidays!

From Tony Adams and the Baad Lamb

Miracle on 22nd Street

[Update: I've had a chat with our new gay Santas!]

Please take a moment to write a thank you note to these guys for doing us all proud.

Santa Claus
(Jim and Dylan)
W 22nd Street
apt 7A
New York City, NY 10011




(Sarah Klein - New York Times)


Something tells me the post office will know the street address.

A Christmas Card Requiring a Backstory

This is from Eric and Asaf of NYC. Eric is one of the best writers/bloggers in the world. For an explanation of the card and for a wonderful read, go to him. Often.

Ladycop

I have a fondness for videos made all-in-one-take. Here's a fascinating one of the Brooklyn indie group Ladycop.

A QNY Interview With Joel Derfner

By West Village Bill

After Joel Derfner commented on my post about Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, the docu-reality TV show he's appearing in on the Sundance Channel, Tony A. suggested I interview him for QNY. Here's the resultant Q&A: 

How did you come to be on GWLBWLB? Did you have trepidations about being on a reality-TV show? And was it hard convincing Mike to be on it?

I’m a musical-theater composer, and a guy I know from that world e-mailed me and said, Hey, I’m the executive producer of this show about the friendships between gay men and straight women; you should audition for it. So Sarah and I went and auditioned, which basically consisted of having a conversation on camera. We thought it would at the very least be good exposure for our books (she’s the author of For All the Tea in China, the story of how England stole tea from China in the greatest act of industrial espionage in history, and I’m the author of Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Happened Instead and Gay Haiku, which are about what you’d think they were about) and for my music.

It’s interesting; when we started filming, we were told, this is going to be a different kind of reality show, more documentary, less manipulated that what TV audiences are used to. But then, as far as I understand, halfway through filming, Sundance Channel got bought by people who were interested in making a more traditional reality show, so it’s been fascinating to watch the changes that have happened and are happening.

Mike was actually incredibly resentful and hated being on the show. He was willing to do it because the exposure would be good for my book and my music, and every time they filmed him he was miserable. We’ve had some good sessions with our couples therapist, though, and everything seems to have worked itself out—but he’s not watching the show.

Lightlining a Frank Gehry Building

Even in plain daylight, I love the IAC HQ building at 550 West 18th Street in Chelsea, but this really makes it come alive.

Thirty years ago, I attended a "Son et Lumière" show in Egypt at the temples of  Luxor. This takes it to a whole new level. Wouldn't it be great if this happened constantly all over the city? I know a certain drab Huntington Hartford building on Columbus Circle that could certainly benefit from it.


The LightLine of Gotham from seeper on Vimeo.

A Small Fire

"A Small Fire" at Playwrights Horizons, December 21, 2010

Adam Bock returns to Playwrights Horizons' main stage with this story of a callous construction contractor as she deals with unexplained health issues.  Emily (Michelle Pawk) thrives in the rough and tumble world of commercial construction.  She seems most comfortable with her employee Billy (Victor Williams).  Her connection with her husband, John (Reed Birney) has reached a working balance of love and dysfunction, but the same can't be said for her soon-to-be-married daughter Jenny (Celia Keenan-Bolger).  A prophetic "We'll work it out." repeats over and over on the presumption that there's always time to resolve issues and difficulties.

Raspberry "Pop-Tarts" and Some Other Christmas-Morning Breakfast Treats

By West Village Bill

I enjoy making breakfast treats for my family to eat on Christmas morning. Sometimes I make them ahead of time, and sometimes I'll bake them at my Granny's house. This year, I'm making a riff on Pop-Tarts that I found in Bon Appétit magazine back in April. I started the process on Sunday here in the city up to the point of freezing the filled tarts, and I'll take them frozen to South Jersey to bake on Saturday.

For the filling, I used raspberry jam I made when I visited my blogger buddies Mark and Rodger out in Portland, Oregon, over the summer. I doubled the recipe for the tart dough, and I used the kitchen scale Dad and Jean got me for my birthday to make sure the four portions I needed to separate the dough into were equal: Each weighed about 9 1/2 ounces. I shaped the four wads of dough into discs and chilled them in the refrigerator. The very buttery dough had come together pretty easily.

I goofed up when I made the first bunch of tarts. For some reason, I was thinking I needed to make only two tarts instead of four from the first disc of dough, so those turned out extra large. I made out much better with the remaining three discs and so got 12 tarts with the desired 3-by-5-inch dimensions. I froze all of the tarts in plastic containers with parchment paper separating the stacks.

Yesterday morning, I heated up one of the extra large tarts for my breakfast. I really dug it. The crust was nice and flaky, and the jam tasted wonderful in combination with its buttery shell. It was much better than an actual Pop-Tart, which my Aunt Marian always likened to two pieces of cardboard with jelly in the middle.

***

Perhaps my most popular breakfast treats with my family—and certainly with my Dad—were the Chocolate-Orange Sweet Rolls With Orange Glaze my nephews helped me make at Granny's House back in 2006. The recipe still isn't up on Epicurious. Maybe that's because it appeared in the R.S.V.P. section of Bon Appétit in which readers request the recipes for dishes they've enjoyed at a restaurant or, in this case, a B&B: The Acworth Inn on Cape Cod. If you want the recipe, you can Google it, and you'll find it on a site that credits a blogger who says she got it from a friend. Who got it from BA but didn't say that she did. :-)

Is There anything more Christmasy

than a Central Park card?

SENATE VOTES TO REPEAL DADT!

by Maurice Michaane


SENATE VOTES TO REPEAL DADT! G-d Bless America,

More to come, till then leave your thoughts here.....

A Christmas Card From QNY's Fave Media Whore,

Mike Diamond

Christmas in Key West

photo series by baad lamb

Though it almost seemed cold enough to snow on my first-ever day in Key West, New England-appropriate jackets and hats kept us warm as we temporarily left behind the Island House luxury to stroll the streets and admire the tropical-Christmas color. There is no evocative song expertly expressed by Ella to accompany these photos, but the bright hues and southern sunshine-saturation should have you feeling the heat that we could not. Things are back to almost normal now, as daytime temperatures tomorrow are expected to be mid-seventies.

Above, orchids and amaryllis nearly obscure Santa at a lovely private-house patio on Fleming Street

Bows, wreaths, ribbons and garlands galore after the jump.

Is There Room in Your Heart, NYC?

by Charlie Vázquez

This is not your typical musical production, but proceeds from tickets sales and donations will go to help fund Sylvia’s Place, a Manhattan shelter for homeless LGBT youth. My boyfriend and I attended last night’s performance, and I’ll admit that neither of us are fans of musicals, but Is There Room in Your Heart? transcended all of that and opened a Pandora's Box of humanism that dazzled with good old in-your-face New York City realism. For many in the cast are indeed homeless.

The strength of this experimental musical is the way in which it dissects homelessness, from a monolithic condition, to a wider span of individual circumstances that transform everyday working people to folks that lose everything; jobs, homes, families. Forced to wander and depend on the charity of others and of the government, even more is lost: health, pride, confidence.

Each story will stay with you for a long time—plus the singing is fantastic!
It's estimated that nearly half of the homeless youth on the streets of New York City fall under the LGBT umbrella, so attending one of the four remaining programs will help us to help our own! And plus, it's that time of year.

For tickets and information click here.

73 and sunny

The Baad lamb and I are in Key West where the big chill of the last 48 hours is almost over. We are sharing a very comfortable two-bedroom apartment with JoeMyGod at the fabulous Island House.

QNY Free Laurie Anderson song

Laurie Anderson's Grammy award nominated song Flow from her Homeland album is available as a free download through QNY because we luvya and we luv Laurie.

Got a Christmas card from Robin Kradles!

The Empress Eternal of NYC

Writer/Composer Joel Derfner Is One of the Boys in "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys"

By West Village Bill

I hadn't planned to watch Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, the new docu-reality TV show on the Sundance Channel, until I saw that Joel Derfner was one of the boys. You may know Derfner as Faustus, M.D., writer of the blog The Search for Love in Manhattan. Or as the author of Gay Haiku or Swish. And he's also a composer of cabaret and musical theater songs.

Tony and I watched the first two episodes of the eight-show series on Thursday night. We immediately liked David, who dressed up as a mime for his girlfriend Elisa's 45th birthday party in the hope that that would help him keep his mouth shut. We also saw him start teaching Elisa how to run. After he hurt his knee, he took to a bench and smoked a cigarette while she continued going around the track behind him.

Joel came across as sweet and fun, and he and his boyfriend, Mike, have a nice rapport. But his girlfriend, Sarah, is so self-absorbed she told him it should have been her getting engaged instead of him when he announced that Mike had proposed to him. (That's Sarah and Joel in the photo.) Tony and I decided to cut her a little slack—a little—after it was revealed she spends a great deal of time taking care of her ailing mother.

Lucy and Mary

While watching White Christmas tonight, I was once again mesmerized by the curious Mary Wickes who played the busybody housekeeper. I remember her also from I Love Lucy. Here she is in one of the few non-housekeeper roles of her long career. (Lucille Ball who studied acting briefly (and performed on Broadway equally briefly) in NYC is brilliant in this episode.

A Pre-Christmas Visit to Columbus Circle

By West Village Bill


On a day off yesterday, I went to the Columbus Circle Holiday Market, like my co-worker Joyce had done on her day off on Wednesday. Because I've simply got to keep up with my friend who was featured in one of my first posts for QNY. :-)

I bought a couple of small Christmas presents for my Granny and some made-in-Queens Raaka chocolate bars for myself. And I listened to a delightful trombone quartet that performed the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah and other standards in four parts. (This was yet another occasion when I wished I'd had my camera with me—or a camera phone with video-making capability—so I could have recorded a snippet of their performance.)

Like Joyce, I got a chicken biscuit from the Pies 'n' Thighs stand. It was sinfully, but not life-changingly, good. I'd asked for only the hot sauce on it, not the hot sauce AND honey butter it's supposed to come with, because I was thinking that combo would be just too damn much on top of the fried chicken and whatever fat is used in the biscuit. Maybe my life would have been changed if I'd gotten the honey butter too. :-)

I also enjoyed the slice of sweet potato pie I got from PnT. I'd wanted to get a cup of ginger tea to cut through all of the richness, but the guy working the counter said it wasn't hot yet.

While I was up that way, I also hit Columbus Circle Wines & Spirits, where I picked up a few bottles of wine to replenish my almost empty cabinet and Crème Yvette, the violet-flavored liqueur produced by Rob Cooper, the same dude who makes St-Germain.