Suzanne: “I went to a Seussical”

I collected my last New York City borough: the Bronx. Before we went there, we had a day on Museum Mile and Central Park.

A relaxing bus ride took us to the Upper East side. Suzanne went to the Jewish Museum, I went to the National Design Museum. We went into Central Park – hoping for a place to have lunch as well as to experience the views.

The Reservoir was very calm.

Sadly, the food selections we found weren’t so great. There were a few snacks at the tennis club, there was less at the nearby recreation centre. We bridged the gap with a banana each and made our way back to Central Park East and the Guggenhiem.

Looking up from the ground floor

Only performance art was missing – until we turned up

A piece that encouraged people to dance

As we left, I saw that New York’s outsourcing has gone a lot further than I imagined:

Although we had a nice snack in the GuggCafé, we decided to follow a tip from Jenn: Little Italy in the Bronx. The trip started smoothly. The express subway train arrived quickly. We got up to 180th street easily. Although we seemed to miss two buses, another came two minutes later. Then there was a little wrinkle: we were told to go to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to try some of the best Italian food in New York.

When we got off the bus, we found that Arthur Avenue was a back street in a poor area. We weren’t dressed correctly for this excursion. As I caught a bit too much sun yesterday, I was wearing trousers and a shirt for the first time in 40 days. Suzanne was covering up too. We felt more out of place than we wanted to be.

We walked four or five blocks south. We ran into a park. We asked advice in a local eatery. We had turned the wrong way a few blocks earlier. Luckily the correct northbound bus was there for us. A few blocks later, we were in Little Italy in the Bronx. Not long after that I sat down to a big plate of pasta:

Later we got a cab to the local overground line and soon found ourselves at Grand Central Terminal:

Suzanne: “Mum, I won’t go to the Bronx”

On the way out to Coney Island

Suzanne and I took the opportunity to go out to Coney Island. It seems as if developers are going to turn this old-style funfair resort into a slightly sanitised tourist destination.

They’ll keep some of the rides, add some hotels and expensive accommodation, and clean up some of the odder aspects. I’d be suprised if the new security arrangements will allow the following:

As we were walking along the pier, we saw some people making some links for film about strange tales of Coney Island. If this were happening in a couple of years time, it could be that CCTV cameras would see the odd goings and send security to move these people along. ‘We can’t have odd people spoiling the holiday experience for our valued tourist customers.’

The host of the film was ‘The World Famous *Bob*’ – a burlesque performer. Suzanne and I were a little shy of taking pictures of the shoot, but Val Killmore, the director asked us if we could take pictures for them. They had forgotten to bring a camera.

Suzanne said that this building looked ‘dramatic’

The big wheel where the cars swing in loops as they go around.

The closest thing to an old-time funfair stall: on a disused patch of ground between to buildings on the broadwalk – an opportunity to shoot paint pellets at a live human target. We asked why we should want to shoot at the quiet young man who was sitting there. The barker replied: ‘If you were down there, he would shoot you!’

Later we walked on to Brighton Beach, which was more genteel by the sea, with a much busier Russian high-street. We went on to Alphabet City for a lovely meal with production copmany maven Jenn.

Suzanne: ‘Is it a rat garden?’

At Jean’s invitation, Suzanne and I took the Long Island Railroad out to Bellmore to visit the Long Island International Film Expo. We were a little late for the screenwriting panel. Sadly the panelists, representatives of Writer’s Bootcamp didn’t turn up. That meant a 45 minute gap in the schedule which was very ably filled by three short films:

A Relaxing Day was a conversation on a beach between two people: an actress and a barman. Their talk ranged from pilot season to the power of self-delusion to a choice between love and a career. 4/5

The Wine Bar featured a young man walking into and asking for a beer. Those in the bar judge him immediately. He strikes out with an attractive woman at the bar, but goes on to learn and teach a lot more about relationships than he or us in the audience expect. 5/5

Wonderful Wonderful explored eating disorders and the issues of control they bring up. The daughter who can’t control her starve/binge cycle and the family and friends she controls by her self-obession. 3.5/5

We then wondered along the high street, soaking up the ‘non-New York’ atmosphere, which Suzanne and I had been looking forward to.

We then caught three more films: two shorts and a feature.

Afterwards we took the chance to explore further afield: just outside the border we found a bookshop filled with books. So many that it was difficult to walk between the shelves without knocking piles over. The books were jammed into the shelves so that it was difficult to get the books out to look at them. They were priced ‘not to sell’ – a book that was $13 fifteen years ago was only discounted to $8. To the owner all his books are collectors items. He didn’t seem to want to part with any of them.

On the way back to the station I said one too many things about film editing and my two friends snapped:

Jean gave me a slap

…and Suzanne strangled me.

Oh well. At least Suzanne managed to look a little wistful on the way back to Manhattan:

Suzanne’s message to the world is “Buy Buy Baby!”

Suzanne and I met at a bar in the East Village to witness ‘Another Night of Awesome’ – an amazing caberet evening. Four hours of fun and frolics for free.

Our host kicked off the show with a song entitled ‘Dinosaur Cowboys in Space’ – one of the few songs I’ve seen arranged for acoustic guitar and light sabre. He went on to introduce a wide variety of acts.

The first was one of the best: Michael Wagner. He performed beautifully written songs with great heart and style. Suzanne and I immediately bought CDs off him. Old-fashioned, I know, but we’re looking forward to playing his music to many people. He had star quality. Visit his myspace page. He can make a single tiny ukulele sound like a wide variety of instruments.

I recommend ‘Spooky Uke.’

Michael Wagner in some Gordon Willis-style lighting.

Then we had the first incarnation of Dave Burdick. He played the part of a laconic stand-up comedian. His material didn’t seem fully formed, but it didn’t seem to matter. He had the audience in the palm of his hand.

Then we had a virtuouso classical acoustic guitarist, sketches from Better than the Machine, and a debut ukulele performance featuring Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls…

Waiting for the ukulele tech

A patriotic debut

Better Than the Machine did a song called “Give a Shit” that featured the following lyrics “Fuck You! Children’s laughter! Fuck You! New Orleans! Fuck You! Starving Nations!” – follow the link to their video to see more.

I also got a lovely kiss on the mouth from a very nice lady – whose act Suzanne described as ‘unsettling.’

After two hours of on-stage marvels, there was a short break. Then the Awesome short film show began. To give you an idea of what the many films were like, check out one of my favourites at the site run by the organisers of the evening: The Big Things. They showed a couple of other films shown on that website, including one where the only dialogue allowed was titles of Woody Allen films. Dave Burdick turned up again in very different form in some of the sketches on video.

The whole evening was almost too much to take. I hope that Gio and the others decide to have half as much material shown twice as often. If you are in New York, you owe it to yourselves to witness all future Nights of Awesome.

I also liked the double-wipe film and the story featuring the fairy penguin.

As we’ve been putting our reels together in class, I’ve been spending less time on the blog, but here’s a link to a old entry that appears on my editing reel. A film I edited for Miles Maker in September 2005: Street Sense.

We had wonderful barbeque food and watched highlights from each other’s DVDs. Then it was over all too quickly. I hope that we all keep in touch – at least they have a place to stay next time they are in London.

You’ll be seeing the product of our labours soon on the web: The Manhattan Edit Workshop will be posting our reels on their YouTube page. I’ll post a link as soon as they go up.

Thanks to Josh, Jamie, Kim, Amber, Maurice, John, Mark, Kenya, Jason, Steve, Derek and Valentine for helping me learn so much more than I expected.

Now there are no more excuses – time to get that job!

I’m doing something pretty ostentatious: I’m sitting out front. On the front steps of the place I’m staying in in New York. These steps are sometimes referred to as ‘the stoop.’

The weather has cooled down a little – 29°C (84°F) is more than enough for today, and there’s a gentle breeze. I’m here waiting for Suzanne, who’s coming here for a short break from London. She’s having some screenings of her documentary ‘Out of Time’ at the Soho Shorts Festival in the coming weeks.

Tomorrow is the last day of the six week intensive course at Manhattan Edit Workshop. My next decision is how long I’d like to stay… What wonderful problems to have!

Another thing I’ve learnt in the last few weeks: 4th July is a public holiday in the USA. I thought it was like bonfire night – a reason to have a party on the Fridays and Saturdays near the actual date.

Went to a wonderful barbeque at Nina’s. One of the dishes was a chicken stuffed with a beer can…

Night has fully fallen by 9pm at this time of the year, so we went up on the roof of her building.

Few people were out and about. They were at parties or organised firework displays. It is illegal to private individuals to buy fireworks in many US states including New York.

Sadly there was a big building between us and the largest display that was happening in the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Going back down to the 21st floor, I took a picture from the balcony during the firework display:

Twenty-five minutes later, the smoke from the display had reached us:

The view reminded me of the opening of Blade Runner.