[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: August 4, 2008]
At which point we slide into two lazy and quite uneventful weeks spent mooching around New York, ten years ago: innocent times between wars, when the dollar still bought something and global warming was a scientific theory rather than what was screwing up the weather. I look back fondly.
I spent a long Sunday cooking to impress my house-guest. Risotto with morels and chanterelles, pork tenderloin braised in madeira with a potato and ham hock galette.and a light mustard sauce, pears marinated in honey liqueur with cream.
Monday was a good day for a slow walking tour downtown. At home again in the evening, working through the rest of the braised pork with a bottle of '95 Gigondas. Next day, to the Robert Miller gallery for a clutter of battered cardboard and other objects put together by one of the old Fluxus crowd, Robert Filion. An evening in Tribeca finished up at a restaurant called The Independent, in the premises which now house Landmarc. My main memory of the place is its utter darkness; one could see neither menu nor food nor fellow guests. It seems I ate mixed seafood cakes - crab, scallop, and cod - followed by chicken roast with lemon and garlic, and mashed potatoes. I never went back.
I made some discoveries in midtown too: The Grolier Club on East 60th - a private institution whose membership is drawn from serous book-collectors, but which has a wonderful ground floor exhibition space open to the public; and the Argosy bookstore on East 59th. With the passing of the Gotham Bookmart, the Argosy is the only remaining bookstore of its kind in midtown - a good resource for used, hard-cover, good condition reading copies.
The next evening, I dropped by a comedy club which had established itself in a room of the Gershwin Hotel, then being in Chelsea ate a forgettable supper at Pacific East - lobster and shiitake dumplings, cedar-planked cod. I can't imagine ordering that meal now.
The week closed on an arty note. Two exhibitis: the extensive Aleksandr Rodchenko show at MOMA, and "Urban Encounters", an entertaining anthology of installations by activist groups at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. And two contrasting concerts: the ageless Patti Smith at the Bowery Ballrooom, supported by Tom Verlaine in abstract guitar-doodle mode, and the exuberant Broadway vet Jerry Herman presenting an evening of his songs at The Booth Theater.
In case you think I had stopped eating, I followed the latter concert with a hefty steak at Sparks.
