On Friday night, Suzy and I headed over to Manhattan to the Crocodile Lounge, to meet up with some of Suzy's classmates. It was an interesting place. It seemed very pub-ish, though with a heavily 20's-aged crowd. The really unusual thing about the place is that with every drink you buy, you get a ticket. With the ticket, you can get a free 7- or 8-inch fresh-made pizza. For free, it's just a cheese pizza, but if you like, you can add toppings for $2 a piece. There were two guys in a back room of the bar (where we actually hung out all evening) that are constantly making pizzas. It's quite something. Anyhow, it was nice to get out with the Pace crew again -- having some socialization outside of work is good, and they're a nice crew.
Saturday was relatively quiet during the day, as once again Suzy had a lot of reading and course work to do. I frittered away my afternoon trying to make a PC game work on my laptop (still to no avail -- oh well, it's basically a pastime in and of itself at this point...). We headed out for dinner to a nearby restaurant, the Jack the Horse Tavern. It was a nice place, and definitely hopping, but not noisy or crowded. There were lots of families there, which is the first time I've seen that at any of the sit-down restaurants we've tried out.
I opted for a "comfortable" meal, with a mac and cheese appetizer, a burger, and a glass of Honkers Ale. It was all really good. The mac and cheese was made with a very rich, creamy cheese sauce -- I don't remember the cheeses, but they were more on the gourmet end of the cheese spectrum -- over-baked with some bread crumbs on top, and really good. The burger was also really good, on a ciabatta bun with cheese (again, not sure what, but it was white and sharp) and pickled onions, which gave a tangy, relishy taste. Suzy had crispy oysters, which were very different, but quite good with the tangy greens they were served with, and a beef short rib main course that was fantastic. Feeling pretty good about the place, we opted for dessert, and while my ginger and pear upsidedown cake wasn't the best thign ever, it was quite good and, unlike many resturant desserts, it didn't disappoint or bring the feeling of the meal down. Suzy had a tiny chocolate cake, but I don't recall what the verdict was. All in all, Jakc the Horse was definitely a Will Go Again experience.
On Sunday, after the usual ritual of the laundromat for me, we braved the crowds to go to IKEA to pick up a few more odds and ends for the aparment, like more wine glass racks and a new floor lamp for the spare bedroom. Suzy's mom is visiting this week, so we wanted to square a few thigns away in advance of her arrival. I will say that, while the crowds were thick, the cashs were quick and once we had what we wanted, wewe were able to get out easily.
On Monday, I worked through lunch and left the office early so I could get to Pace before the 7pm start time for Inside the Actors Studio. This time around it was Laura Linney. Suzy was quite excited for her, and I was looking forward to it as well. Once things got started I was actually amazed at just how many shows and movies she had been in once Lipton started to list them. Whithough going on and on about it (watch the episode!) I'll just say the Linney is an amazingly professional and dedicated actor, aside from simply being a great one (which I already knew). She had some incredibly interesting and insightful things to say about how to approach roles, how to use your time to great advantage, even if you're stuck in a bad job, and from it all, you could realyl see how she would be a fantastic person to work with. She was simply great.
Nam, Horror Directors, Atlantic Antic, Anthony LaPaglia
While I started the weekend with a quiet night on Friday, Suzy got to go to a talk with Alice Munroe, part of the NewYorker festival, which she said was quite enjoyable.
Saturday started quietly as well, since we had plans for the evening. In the late afternoon, we took a train over to Manhattan to have dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant called Nam. Since we were going to an event at 7:30 that evening, we got to the restaurant for a 5:30 reservation, and when we arrived, they were just opening for supper. The server seemed to think it was funny we were eating so early -- and we were the only people in the restaurant the entire time. It made us think that we're not quite into the NYC groove ... New Yorkers who are out-on-the-town for an early show probably tend to go eat afterward, I think.
Anyhow, we each had a drink (the mohitos are very good) and for appetizers we had a dish of beef and greens (lettuce of some kind and cilantro) in rice paper wraps with peanut dipping sauce, and a dish with spicy grilled shrimp on a bed of vegetables in a vinegar sauce (sort of pickled, but fresh and crisp). Both were very good. For entrees, I had a crispy duck breast, with jasmine rice on the side. Suzy had a dish with grilled pork in a dark broth with noodles, veggies, and leafy greens on the side. Hers was definitely the better dish (though I liked my duck, it wasn't very crispy). All-in-all, Nam had very good food, and very reasonable prices. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than the Vietnamese place we went to in China Town last month. I think we'll definitely go back.
After Nam, we headed to the IFC Center for another New Yorker Festival event: A panel on horror movies with directors Wes Craven and Hideo Nakata. It was really interesting, hearing both of them answer the same questions about making movies, what inspired them, the differences between horror movies and traditions in the East and West, and so on.
Poor Hideo Nakata had some stumbles with the language barrier at times, but he was still very interesting. The highlight moment for him was after the moderator asked the directors something along the lines of "How young is too young to watch your movies?". Hideo talked briefly about the cultural differences between Japan and the US, but ended up telling a story about how a friend of his watched Ringu (or part of it anyway) while holding his one-year-old son, and the child was frightened by one of the visuals in the movie. This lead to Hideo finishing his story by proudly proclaiming that "it was so scary it even scared a little one-year-old child". Hee hee.
Wes Craven was also fascinating, of course, but one thing I noticed about him is that I think he has a bit of a cheesy sense of humour. He'd often answer the moderator's questions with some sort of fake-out answer or gag. He even stuck a corny, setup-and-punchline joke into one of his answers. It was pretty funny to have this legendary guru of scary cracking goofy jokes like a kid. But he did say at one point that he was a class-clown in school...
There were only a few questions at the end, and one was posed by a woman who sounded extremely eager to talk to Wes. She gushed about how brilliant Scream was, then once he had answered her question, she (having stayed hovering bythe mic apparently) thanked him for his answer and then mentioned how she was writing a script for something similar right now. Heh. I think she was hping he would say: "Well gosh, let me read it!" Anyway, it was cool evening.
Sunday was a another quiet day, with school work for Suzy and, uh, work-work for me. We did go out to see some of the Atlantic Antic street fair that was taking place not far from us. We walked around and had a bite to eat. It was interesting to see. It was sort of like the Canada Day street market in Saint John, but with a lot more people, a lot more food, and less of a giant yard sale vibe.
We headed over to Pace at around 6:00 to see a taping of Inside the Actor's Studio. Thsi first one (for us) was going to feature Anthony LaPagila. Once we got there, Suzy headed in with the other students, while I took my freebie balconey ticket and went in to find a seat. As luck would have it (well, for me, if not for the show) it was a quiet night, and they told the balconey-dwellers that we could go sit in the downstairs audience. I took a seat a few rows back and off to the side at first, but then one of the show-runners came around asking us to move into the center section to fill empty seats in ones and twos. I ended up sitting in the front row of the regular seating, just behind the chairs where many of the students were seated.
Once thigns got rolling, I found it quite interesting, however Anthony LaPaglia, though he certainly seems like a nice guy, had a tendancy to ramble on in his answers, going of on tangents, or giving multiple answers to the same question. It ended up making the taping drag on a bit, and by the time the main segment was finished, we had been there for three and a half hours! They took a short break, then returned for the 10 questions, and the student Q&A. Once again, LaPaglia had some interesting things to say, but tended to take too long with each of the 10 questions. Again, he tended to give multiple answers and change his mind, etc. Then due to the late time (I think), James Lipton cut things off after probably only 5 or 6 questions from the students.
In the end, despite the length of the taping, and a few times where things really dragged*, I found hearing what he had to say interesting for the most part. I'll be interested to watch the finished show, and see how they edit it. I wonder if many guests are really long-winded, rambling, distracted, or otherwise bad at impromptu public speaking, but then end up being saved by editing? Still, cool to be there for a taping.
*The dragging pace wasn't entirely LaPaglia's fault either; the clips they used weren't always the best. They probably showed three or four just from Without Trace, and they were almost all of him getting angry -- hardly demonstrating his range. Plus, the clip they showed from his upcoming movie avout East Timor, called Balibo, was a scene where his character is seeing fields of dead people, victims of genocide, and he is crying and breaking down. The thing is, for a scene like that, you can't got to extreme emotion without the context; it just seemed weird and goofy without any lead-in beyond a brief description.
Saturday started quietly as well, since we had plans for the evening. In the late afternoon, we took a train over to Manhattan to have dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant called Nam. Since we were going to an event at 7:30 that evening, we got to the restaurant for a 5:30 reservation, and when we arrived, they were just opening for supper. The server seemed to think it was funny we were eating so early -- and we were the only people in the restaurant the entire time. It made us think that we're not quite into the NYC groove ... New Yorkers who are out-on-the-town for an early show probably tend to go eat afterward, I think.
Anyhow, we each had a drink (the mohitos are very good) and for appetizers we had a dish of beef and greens (lettuce of some kind and cilantro) in rice paper wraps with peanut dipping sauce, and a dish with spicy grilled shrimp on a bed of vegetables in a vinegar sauce (sort of pickled, but fresh and crisp). Both were very good. For entrees, I had a crispy duck breast, with jasmine rice on the side. Suzy had a dish with grilled pork in a dark broth with noodles, veggies, and leafy greens on the side. Hers was definitely the better dish (though I liked my duck, it wasn't very crispy). All-in-all, Nam had very good food, and very reasonable prices. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than the Vietnamese place we went to in China Town last month. I think we'll definitely go back.
After Nam, we headed to the IFC Center for another New Yorker Festival event: A panel on horror movies with directors Wes Craven and Hideo Nakata. It was really interesting, hearing both of them answer the same questions about making movies, what inspired them, the differences between horror movies and traditions in the East and West, and so on.
Poor Hideo Nakata had some stumbles with the language barrier at times, but he was still very interesting. The highlight moment for him was after the moderator asked the directors something along the lines of "How young is too young to watch your movies?". Hideo talked briefly about the cultural differences between Japan and the US, but ended up telling a story about how a friend of his watched Ringu (or part of it anyway) while holding his one-year-old son, and the child was frightened by one of the visuals in the movie. This lead to Hideo finishing his story by proudly proclaiming that "it was so scary it even scared a little one-year-old child". Hee hee.
Wes Craven was also fascinating, of course, but one thing I noticed about him is that I think he has a bit of a cheesy sense of humour. He'd often answer the moderator's questions with some sort of fake-out answer or gag. He even stuck a corny, setup-and-punchline joke into one of his answers. It was pretty funny to have this legendary guru of scary cracking goofy jokes like a kid. But he did say at one point that he was a class-clown in school...
There were only a few questions at the end, and one was posed by a woman who sounded extremely eager to talk to Wes. She gushed about how brilliant Scream was, then once he had answered her question, she (having stayed hovering bythe mic apparently) thanked him for his answer and then mentioned how she was writing a script for something similar right now. Heh. I think she was hping he would say: "Well gosh, let me read it!" Anyway, it was cool evening.
Sunday was a another quiet day, with school work for Suzy and, uh, work-work for me. We did go out to see some of the Atlantic Antic street fair that was taking place not far from us. We walked around and had a bite to eat. It was interesting to see. It was sort of like the Canada Day street market in Saint John, but with a lot more people, a lot more food, and less of a giant yard sale vibe.
We headed over to Pace at around 6:00 to see a taping of Inside the Actor's Studio. Thsi first one (for us) was going to feature Anthony LaPagila. Once we got there, Suzy headed in with the other students, while I took my freebie balconey ticket and went in to find a seat. As luck would have it (well, for me, if not for the show) it was a quiet night, and they told the balconey-dwellers that we could go sit in the downstairs audience. I took a seat a few rows back and off to the side at first, but then one of the show-runners came around asking us to move into the center section to fill empty seats in ones and twos. I ended up sitting in the front row of the regular seating, just behind the chairs where many of the students were seated.
Once thigns got rolling, I found it quite interesting, however Anthony LaPaglia, though he certainly seems like a nice guy, had a tendancy to ramble on in his answers, going of on tangents, or giving multiple answers to the same question. It ended up making the taping drag on a bit, and by the time the main segment was finished, we had been there for three and a half hours! They took a short break, then returned for the 10 questions, and the student Q&A. Once again, LaPaglia had some interesting things to say, but tended to take too long with each of the 10 questions. Again, he tended to give multiple answers and change his mind, etc. Then due to the late time (I think), James Lipton cut things off after probably only 5 or 6 questions from the students.
In the end, despite the length of the taping, and a few times where things really dragged*, I found hearing what he had to say interesting for the most part. I'll be interested to watch the finished show, and see how they edit it. I wonder if many guests are really long-winded, rambling, distracted, or otherwise bad at impromptu public speaking, but then end up being saved by editing? Still, cool to be there for a taping.
*The dragging pace wasn't entirely LaPaglia's fault either; the clips they used weren't always the best. They probably showed three or four just from Without Trace, and they were almost all of him getting angry -- hardly demonstrating his range. Plus, the clip they showed from his upcoming movie avout East Timor, called Balibo, was a scene where his character is seeing fields of dead people, victims of genocide, and he is crying and breaking down. The thing is, for a scene like that, you can't got to extreme emotion without the context; it just seemed weird and goofy without any lead-in beyond a brief description.
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