Mom, I'm a real blogger now!

Today, I just got publsihed on Virgin.com as a guest blogger writing about New York City. If you came from that link, welcome to my personal blog.   I used this for 3 years as a test kitchen to learn about blogging. Still lack some focus for this destination, but that plays perfectly into my personality and NYC itself. I like to write stories about my gratitude for life in New York and I try to maintain some remaining puppy dog enthusiasm for the place. 

Please check out my post on Virgin.com and rate or comment there if you can. I would love it.

Sing to me and bathe me in your beauty.

More churches.  Tonight I went to hear my friend Ron sing in a concert at The Basilica of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry St. in Little Italy.  St. Patrick was supposedly Roman so I guess it makes sense. But this was the Cathedral of New York City before they built that swanky new place on Fifth Avenue in 1878. I did not know that.

Ron sings with a group called Cerddorian.  They are a chamber vocal ensemble.  I went alone. I sat alone and I listened to the beautiful voices fill up this lovely space with everyone else.  It was freezing inside, but quite peaceful. I needed some peace and calm.  It had been a tough few weeks.  Ron urged me to come out with his friends afterwards. I didn't want to but the voice inside said "Go!"  They were mostly doctors like Ron and his best biking buddy whom I recognized from Facebook.  I even got to meet his parents.  The night out at the tapas place afterwards was just the ticket for the blues. Even though the choir did not sing blues, they sang choral pieces both new and old, but for me they were the blues.

I had such a laugh. We just laughed and gabbed and ate lovely tapas. It was worth the big grease stain down the front of my nice midnight blue dress shirt.  I had a good time.

A $4 Million Dollar Organ?! Why Thank You, Doctor

So much goes on in one's neighborhood and one doesn't even know it.  That is why we have friends, neighbors, Time Out New York and doormen. 

For example,  I had no idea the most expensive organ in the United States was being built right under my nose.  By the French! Like the Statue of Liberty before, the French were gifting us once again.  Well, actually it is the Manon Foundation. And the church did $2 mill in renovations so your total costs are more like $6+ mill.  For really good organ music.  If this doesn't get 'em going back to God, I don't know what will.  God knew (first hand) that the guitar Mass was never going to do it.

But back to this organ.  A friend told me that though the premiere is going to be in May (The organ's débuts officiels) there was a preview concert today and we should go.  And we did.

Do you know an Episcopal service is just like a Catholic one?  I mean they have the same playwright! The dialogue was almost word for word.  And they sing more, well with a new organ and all, so it was even longer!! But the music was beautiful and the place is stunning.  It is a jewel.

Anyway, lovely, lovely church with this most amazing mural by John LaFarge.  There is a great New York Times article on the church.   But organ, smorgan, Mark Twain was here?! 

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.