3/3/02

In my dream last night, there was a restaurant in New York that was still allowed to use Fen-Phen. They put it in a special stuffed pepper recipe, for its aromatic qualities. The restaurant was on the top floor of a subway complex in midtown Manhattan, with lots of intricate transfers between lines possible.

Last night and the night before were the final, the very very last (for now, anyway) performances of "69 Love Songs." I felt like my last 10 years' worth of taste had been slightly vindicated in a strange way, though a lot of the arrangements seemed strangely gentrified. (I'll have to dig up my tape of the '98 or '99 show where Stephin Merritt played solo with a ukulele and debuted 15 or so of those songs--imagine "Zebra" being played in public for the first time.) Got to meet Ernest Paik for the first time, and to see Paula Puhak and Tom Kitson for the first time in a very long time. At the afterparty last night, we stood around in a gay bar on 75th St. for an hour, waiting for the Magnetic Fields and entourage to arrive. On a bulletin board toward the back, the bar had pinned a review from a guide a few years ago that's one of the worst reviews I've ever seen ANYTHING given (the essence of it was "the bartender is a clueless junkie who took 10 minutes to pour us two Cokes"). Lisa and I stood around and chatted with Elisabeth Vincentelli and a few friends of hers. Finally, the Fields showed up--Daniel Handler handed out Thin Mint cookies to everyone as he worked his way to the back of the room, and then again as he worked his way forward. ("One for the road? You don't have to leave if you don't want to, though, I'm just leaving...") Claudia Gonson lasted about three minutes in there--we vacated slightly before she did, and found Neil Gaiman outside under an awning that was sheltering him from the rain, holding a bag of water bottles for her...

Remember, the more names you drop, the plusher your carpet will be!

Douglas

 

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