My week in review

Sunday: We returned to the Metropolitan Museum to see the rest of the Turner exhibition, that we started the previous week. I was most impressed with his watercolors. Afterwards we had a few minutes to go to their roof-top sculpture space to see the Jeff Koons works they have up there. They're marvelous--especially the balloon dog.

Wednesday: My LGBT bar association board meeting was cancelled, so I had to improvise. First, I grabbed a bit to eat at the Zipper Factory Tavern. Then I went downtown to the Parkside Lounge to hear R.U.B.--Robert Urban's 80's rock cover band. Though the air conditioning had failed, it was still a lot of fun.

After that I went up to the Monster Bar, where I was joined by some friends for some dancing and Jesse Volt's drag show.

(At the request of one of my readers, from now on I will add a note listing what I wear when I present as a woman.)

Wardrobe: Yellow V-neck t-shirt with poofy sleeves, and a white flower-print skirt

Thursday: To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we started with a nice dinner at Marseille, followed by a performance of Boeing, Boeing--a revival of a 60's comedy about an American in Paris with three fiancées, all airline stewardesses, as they were called back then. It was very silly, and the main character (who, it became apparent, was the friend of the guy with the fiancées, not the guy himself) was not terribly well-defined, but it was hilarious. Christine Baranski was great as the French housekeeper, but my favorite was Gina Gershon as the Italian fiancée (the other two were American and German). My fantasy would be to look like her in this part.

Friday: We took a sunset cruise to look at the Waterfalls. I wasn't terribly impressed, but it was a nice night to be out in the harbor, with a beer in hand. My wife had never taken one of these cruises before so the whole thing was new experience for her. Afterwards we stopped and bought a real balloon dog to remind us of the Jeff Koons one. Then we went back up to our neighborbood Italian restaurant for a pasta dinner.

Saturday: We went downtown to the Joyce Theater to see the modern dance group Pilobolus. We used to see a performance of their's every year, but they got rather repetitive. But after some 10 or 15 years we decided to give them another try, particularly because one of the pieces' co-creators was Basil Twist, whom we both like very much. "Darkness and Light" mostly used silhouettes seen on a white cloth sheet, which were created by dancers moving in front of colored lights. There was also a short segment that seemed to be sparkling lights projected directly on the sheet--I'm guessing this was the main contribution of Twist's. There were some interesting parts, but whole thing was rather weak.

This was preceded, though, by "B'zyrk." This was a long, wild dance piece with 6 performers dressed and dancing crazily, to some crazy-sounding music. (We couldn't decide if the lyric was in some real, Eastern European language unrecognizable to us or completely made-up.) It was my favorite. It combined humor with Pilobolus' trademark acrobatic balancing.

After intermission there were a couple of older pieces, which reminded me of why we stopped going to Pilobolus for a decade or so. But I'm glad we stayed, because at the end of the curtain call the almost naked dancers took turns sliding across the stage on a thin sheet of water, sort of like an old slip-n-slide (except it was just some water on the bare floor!), holding various poses and doing stunts. They seemed to be having a great time, and the audience had one also just watching them.

We followed that up with a pretty good dinner at a sort of French restaurant up the street. The dessert soufflé was very yummy.