Social Media Week - New York/ A Boy in His Bubble.

Social Media Week was here in New York on Feb 7-11.  It was also in London, Singapore, Paris, San Francisco, Rome, Seattle. Almost any place you would want to chill and be fab with an iPad.

I managed in my continuing great tradition of "What Would Lucy Do?" to make my way into the opening party at the New York Public Library.  Fab place for just about anything. It is such a cool space, it has Bryant Park for a backyard and appropriate lions guarding its entrance as opposed to the lions on every ramshackle in Queens ("Every man's home is his castle" - I know,  I know.)

I met a woman who works for an app called BarSPace.  She was 28 and lovely and right in it. She explained so much for social media to me except how to connect because I cannot find her info anywhere.

Then on Thursday I went the Far East to 1st and E29th for the Digitas party on Webcams and Tweeting at the Apella event space. I didn't want to go because I was in midtown west and had to get the Flatiron district after and then back to the West Village so this was Siberia.  But I told myself  I was not ready to be a provincial neighborhood-as-ghetto New Yorker. I am SO glad I went.  It was a very cool space.  Some futuristic vibe but in a "What's Up Doc" 60's party scene vein.  I sat in a hanging circle and Tweeted.

At the bar area this guy came up to me and said "I read you."  ("Reed" you or "Red" you.) It was RED you. Or maybe it was REED you.  I felt like a New Yorker columnist. But it turns out he reads my posts on LinkedIn.  He recognized my face and my name at a Social Media event! How amazing was that? And it gave us license to talk and for me to introduce Stan Friedman whom I met from Conde Nast.  (Stan knows my friend Tom Kulaga a the New York Times!) The man who recognized me from the internet was former NBC reporter Glenn Zimmerman who is now the CEO & President of MadBear Productions. But it doesn't stop there. He knows my good pal Susan Kiel from NBC days and his business partner Julian Williams' wife grew up in Scotland with Peter Morris from BAFTA LA.  They grew up in Scotland not far from where my mum grew up! 

Social Networking, New York, me, it is all just a party! I love it. Would never happen like this elsewhere.


Thank you #smwny!!

Bad Weather

Have you ever heard that expression, "There is no bad weather, just bad clothing choices"?  I embrace that. 

Facebook posts from friends in Southern California have them basking in superlatives about the 80 degree weather in January and "Ooh, I am cold, I think I will turn down the air conditioning." (I thought that one was pretty brilliant.)  But I did not feel any envy- none. 

One of the many things I like about living in New York is the weather.  If you don't like this weather just hold on another kind of weather is just around the corner.  I thoroughly enjoy the seasons.  I was just ice skating in Central Park with the chill in the air, a scarf around my neck, warm gloves on my hands and the sun on my face.  The other night I came in from the chill of the icy rain and ate hot soup as the rain clattered against my window.  How do you get that feeling when it there are tank tops and flip flops passing by outside?  You don't.  And tank tops and flip flops will be soon enough.

In my mind January is for snow and chill and slush and layers and scarves and soup and taking a hot steam at the gym.  I do not desire 80 degrees. I desire wool and hot cocoa.

Yefim Bronfman at Lincoln Center

 A view from my fenetre at intermission.

My good friend Ellie and I went to hear our fave pianist Yefim Bronfman at Philharmonic tonight.  (There is no apparent need to say New York Philharmonic when you live here I am learning, but for purposes of my vast worldwide audience, it is the New York Philharmonic.)  Like filing into a Yankee's game or the New World's Vatican of Tennis,  the US Open,  or wandering around the Met (Museum or Opera), the experience starts the moment you alight from the taxi or emerge from the subway.  You will not only have a wonderful experience attending the thing you are paying for, but you will also be part of a collective New York experience.   You will be one of the gleeful huddled masses.  There is a lot of "huddlage" in New York.  It is indeed a rat race, but I find, it is one where everybody wins.

I am off topic again.

What IS the topic?

I have two:

1.  People watching.  The Phil offers amazing people watching.  It is for music, but also for looking at interesting faces, imaging the state of those two over there's marriage, queens in fur coats, ladies in fur coats and comfortable shoes, men who look like they would rather be elsewhere, wondering if a new generation will come, picking out people from Westchester.  It is not for star sighting though last time I was there I body checked Caroline Kennedy on my way back from the men's room.  I am endlessly fascinated by all of us.  And I am not alone.  We love it. And it a funny thing in New York, the giant metropolis, I ALWAYS expect to know someone, or recognize someone, everywhere I go!  And quite often I do though not tonight.

2. Yefim Bronfman.  I wish I could call him Yeffy, but we are not on that level yet.  I first heard him at here last January playing Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op 16 and was so blown away.  He is a genius.  And I use that heavily.  The Yefster rocks my world with his playing. Tonight was no exception though you never forget your first time.  If you ever get a chance to hear this man where you are do go.  (See his link above for international schedule of future Yef sightings.)

The Subway

This evening I was sitting on the E train heading for a meeting in an office downtown.  I was properly bundled and I was reading a torn and crinkled issue of The New Yorker saved from the crowded mess of my book bag.   I am a New Yorker and I know it. After three years here I know the subway lines, I don't get offered double-decker bus tours anymore and I give directions to strangers and hail cabs.  I am comfortable in my skin. As long as it is properly attired for the weather.

A woman sat next to me. She was carrying a step ladder. Folded.  It didn't look like she just bought it from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  It didn't have a security sticker; it looked like she just took it to use places.  I could feel my body wanting to lean over and say something like "Do you need that to read the adverts on the subway?"  But I just could not think of anything that was either 1. funny or 2. not too obvious.  Unlike a REAL New Yorker, I felt compelled to engage with her.  Just to engage? Well, I think I want to know someone who carries a step ladder with her.

She would always have a seat places.  She could reach things at the grocery.  Or a library.  A liability at the airport surely.

I then thought about how great it would be to carry a seat with you wherever you went because you would always have one!  I used to think it would be great to carry a parking space.  And I also used to think of how great it would be to be able to shrink so tiny that you could carry your house with you and live anywhere!  But the fear of cats would multiply.  And unwanted grasshoppers knocking on your door with a loud bang.   Don't think I would like that. I almost figured I didn't carry my house out of fear of getting eaten.  I never even regarded that it was a real non-issue since I couldn't shrink.

My stop. I got off the train. The woman with the step ladder had farther to go.  I mentally thanked her for getting my thoughts to go places.  But I will never know where she is from and why she carries that step ladder. And I guess that will just have to be okay.

Blizzard, New York City

Jeff and I came home from Christmas in Poughkeepsie.  We left early because, like everyone else, we heard a storm was a brewin'.  I immediately thought of a movie I had never seen  - "Twister"   But instead of racing from the eye of the storm we were driving into it. Still, Jeff thought of me as Helen Hunt and he as Bill Paxton.  This time I didn't argue as we had to make tracks.

As we rolled into Astoria to Jeff's, the flurries were not yet furies (I just made that up right here on this spot. Damn!) so we had time to shop for pork tenderloin with baby spinach in sesame oil.  What. A. Relief.

What a night. My first blizzard. I was so excited. As caramel swirls of Haagaen Daz Caramel Cone reached my lips I could see swirls of sideways snow passing by the window.

We downed two movies and some maple cookies and headed for a long winter's nap.  As I drew the sash and pulled open the shudders in the morning, my wandering eyes saw a s*#t-load of snow!  I was in love. Again.

While Jeff's car was buried outside we had scrambled eggs and coffee and downed another Beverly Hills Housewives ON DEMAND. That Camille is doing my head in! But Kyle! I thought she had way more sense than to argue back, especially with a drunk psychic at the dinner party. Disaster of blizzard proportions in Malibu I tell you.

 It was time to say adios to Jeffy and head into the big city. I delighted in all the snow around me.

 Because I don't have to shovel or dig I love the snow and a good blizzard for me is a good thing.

Pipes of Christmas Past

My friend Merri from California invited me to see her perform in "The Pipes of Christmas" at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church at 73rd.  It was SOLD OUT and got listed as one of the MUST DO Christmas things to do in New York.  Well I did it. 

First, what a venue.  The place was decked like an Upper East Side deb and just shone. 

And the show was wonderful. A lovely blend of pipes and organ and song and brass.  I think I could be moved by a kazoo in this church, but wow, this was moving. And Merri is such a lovely person it filled me with even more joy.  Joy, I tell you, Joy! 

 After the concert there was a reception with Robert Burns' "Address to a Haggis"  It was wonderful. 

You Better, You Better La Bête

What a fantastic New York night.  A night where I am in the 1940s and the city is buzzing and I am a three dot journalist...Met Cooper and Paul-Louis in from LA...Jeff got to meet them which I loved.  Cooper and PL have a great deal to do with why Jeff and I even met...Job and all.  We went to the Music Box Theatre to see our friend (well theirs and he knows who I am and he is totally a lovely guy) David Hyde Pierce in La Bête.  A modern Molieresque play all in couplets.  Harder sell than "Cop Rock"

I digress.  I really enjoyed the play and David was excellent. Other David and Charlie met us there.  I adore both of them and it had been a long while since I had seen them...Sitting in the row back were Cooper and PL's neighbors from LA.  Small world.  And Jeff and I saw our friends Henry, Peter and Charles... How does that always happen here?

The core group went backstage and I introduced Jeff to David and we hung out for a while. I peed in the same toilet as Lionel Barrymore, I imagined. Or at least Bert Lahr... Unfortunately David could not make dinner as planned and the 8 of us went to Orso for a late apres theatre supper like they did in the old days in my mind  And next table over was Stockard Channing...Perfect...I wanted to tell her the last time I saw her (in that dreadful production of Pal Joey at Studio 54) was the night I got sick and got Bell's Palsy and Vertigo, but I think she might have taken it more wrong than historical...

Another grand night in Gotham.