in which my art illiteracy becomes apparent...

Most of the time I forget about my corporate discount privileges, but lately I've been flashing my badge to get into some worthy museums, most recently the Whitney and the Guggenheim. Of note:

William Eggleston at the Whitney through January 25. You know how some hipsters manage to take really gorgeous, unpretentious snapshots? That's what this guy was doing in the '60s. He loved playing with color and capturing moments. There's also fun with early portable camcorders. And we saw Chris Parnell at this exhibit, who looked sort of old and short in person.

Alexander Calder at the Whitney through February 15. You know him for his mobiles. What you don't know are his fantastically witty mechanical toys, his whimsical motion-art and his charming crayon sketches. I can't quite put my finger on what was so delightful about everything on exhibit, but we did overhear one lady say, "Well, he must've been a lovely person." And I think that about sums it up.

Theanyspacewhatever at the Guggenheim through January 7. Granted, we started at the bottom and worked our way up, and it wasn't until we were exiting that we noticed the "Please begin at the top" sign. I felt like a lot of the installations went right over my head (possibly because I was missing the posted signs), but I did love the evocative phrases stenciled at random on walls and supports. They said things like "You're closer than you think." and "It's better not to know." Also, the Pinocchio floating face-down in a pool.

I'm not great at describing art, but all were worth checking out. Go see!

Vampire weekend

So, Thanksgiving. Julia's and my first chance to return to our childhood home, hang out with family, eat too many roasted root vegetables and relax around the fire. Having taken care of the first three, we were working on the fourth, dreamily discussing the economy as the fire burned down to a pile of glowing coals.

And then Julia, who was sitting next to me on the sofa, started screaming and wouldn't stop. She was sort of clutching at me and crawling up the couch as she screamed, and my parents, uncle and I all stared at her in confusion. Then my mother (whose view wasn't obstructed by the coffee table) gasped, "It's a bat!", stood up from the loveseat, grabbed a nearby box and smashed it onto a lump of black fur about the size of a flattened softball, lying on the hearth a few feet in front of the fireplace.

My dad and uncle leaped up and began to discuss their next move. A net? They needed a net. What about Dad's fishing net? No, the holes were too big. Mom, meanwhile, stood pressing down on the box (not a box TOP, mind you, but a full box), smashing the struggling bat flat underneath. (The last thing we wanted was for him to become airborne.) Julia and I were told to shut up and both sat on the far end of the couch, gasping.

Finally, Dad went into the garage and came back with an open box, an Amazon box I'd just opened. He dropped it on top of mom's hand, the box she was holding and (presumably) the bat, and she pulled her arm out with a bit of a struggle. I noticed that in the second Mom withdrew her hand, the bat had tried to escape and was now smashed by Dad's box, half-under and half-out. I pointed out his mistake and he lifted the box and dropped it again a few inches forward, just as Julia, Mom and Uncle Tom took off in search of a piece of cardboard to slide under the new cage.

There was a moment of frozen suspension, as Dad pushed down on the cardboard, the cats and dog looked around bewilderedly and I stood useless. Then I saw motion. Dad was facing the fireplace, so no one could see this but me, but somehow that bat had escaped from the box and was half-hopping, half-dragging itself across the living room floor toward the kitchen at breakneck speed. I pointed and screamed and again couldn't come up with a coherent sentence, but I did grab the now-interested dog as she prepared to lunge (my one and only helpful contribution.) The rest of the family came running and Mom, again displaying her quick thinking and total bad-ass-ity, reached down just as the bat scooted across a rug and folded the fabric on top of him. My uncle grabbed my sister's nearby vest and dropped that on top, rolling the whole thing up and dashing outside with it. He and my dad released the evil thing, and they reported that after a few minutes of dizzy walking, it flew off into the night.

Back inside, we were all wide awake and pumped on adrenaline. Julia explained what she'd seen--she'd been absent-mindedly watching the fire when she saw something drop and then flop onto the bricks. For a second she'd thought it was a piece of wood, and then she'd noticed it struggling to move, probably knocked out from the smoke. (Her reaction was pretty understandable. A few years back her roommate had rolled over and been bitten by a bat that was sleeping in her bed...and the same bat tried to flatten itself and enter Julia's room one night later.)

"Well that did it, I'm going to bed," Mom said after a few minutes, waving goodnight. But fifteen minutes later she was back, eyebrows furrowed, to announce, "I'm bleeding, and I wasn't bleeding before." We all took a turn inspecting the tiny speck of fresh blood on her forearm, most likely a scratch from the cardboard. But you don't really take chances when it comes to wild animals, so Mom drove herself to the ER the next day for six extremely painful shots. There will be a whole battery more in the coming days, including one on Christmas.

So, this year, I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for my health. But most of all, I'm thankful for the rabies vaccine.

Good eatin'

One thing I like most about NY is the quality and quantity of eating. Not that Philly didn’t have great restaurants, but people didn’t seem to make meal-time quite the priority they do here. In just a few months I’m able to think fondly back on multiple memorable meals. Here’s a listing of where some of these meals took place, if you are in town and looking for a bite...

Barking Dog: One of the first places Andi and I stumbled upon, their claim to fame is that Aidan wore a Barking Dog shirt in an ep of Sex and the City (actually a cute one, where Carrie accuses him of hoarding deo and being a “crazy bag man.”). Really great brunch.

Inoteca: A cute Italian tapas place in the LES. Generous glasses of wine. Also, good for people watching: our waiter reminded us of an ancient Greek lutist, and a table of new money males visually lusted after a small group of new bottle blondes displaying themselves by the bar.

Alta: Oh. My. God. Props to L. for telling me about this place. Every tapas dish that J. and I tried was like another step to food nirvana.

Press 195: I love me some paninis, and these were perhaps the best that I’ve tasted. Man, I’ve been planning to go back (it’s in Park Slope) ever since a quick pre-writing group dinner, but BK’s kind of a hike for sandwiches. Soon though. Soon.

Bread: Also great paninis, and much closer to home (or at least work). As O. mentioned, it’s also filled with amazingly attractive people.

El Paso Taqueria: I think this is my fave place so far, perhaps because it’s one of the few restaurants in SpaHa that people will travel to specifically from downtown. It’s tiny and always packed on the weekends. But the homemade guac, the fajitias, the burritos…delish.

Joy Burger: There are lots of places to get a good burger action in NY. However, there really is something joyous about Joy Burger—the cute 60’s era tables and chairs, the array of free toppings, the friendly dude behind the counter who asked about our lives and welcomed us to the neighborhood. The burgers come in several sizes—splitting a large and a salad with a friend makes for a great and cheap meal.

Old Devil Moon: This was all thanks to my girl J. Great brunch spot in the East Village that a certain charming musician frequents. The décor is great: X-mas lights, a giant moose head, a disco ball, etc. And you can even order a cake from the affiliate group the Masturbakers if you’re so inclined.

Café Steinhof: Another BK eatery, this place offers Austrian comfort food and music and movie nights. We ended up there on Monday night, when the only choices are goulash and trout. (That’s an easy one.) For $6, that’s one of the best meal deals around.

Addends of Awesome

Things I have loved as of late...

• The Banksy exhibit. Everyone's favorite guerilla graffiti artist took over a storefront designed to make you feel really, really bad about the way we treat our animals. Brilliantly entitled "Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill," it really did make me feel bad about the chicken dish I ate afterward.
• The Disposable Film Festival. Several hours of clever films shot entirely on nontraditional cameras like webcams and cell phones. Such things have advantages over regular cameras. For example, they can be attached to kites and balloons.
• My awesome new Charlie Brown Flip camcorder. For obvious reasons.
• Sia and the chick from Le Tigre DJ'ing at Le Poisson Rouge on Saturday. Actually, they just picked out songs and looked adorable and another guy did the mixing. Talking our way in without paying ruled as well.
• The three-gazillion thread count sheets I ordered on Overstock.com. They're changing my life.
• An Evening with The Believer (earlier tonight!) at Symphony Space. Three actors reading three awesome stories hand-picked by Believer editors. The final reading was from none other than Mr. Alec Baldwin himself.
• Netflix's "Watch Now" function, and Season One of 30 Rock. Pure brilliance.
• Fall.

Lifestyles of the rich and the famous

Guess I’ll pick up the story where Julia left off. After the fashion show, we went our separate ways, with Julia hanging behind and A and I catching a cab to a swank West Village launch party for that new Google iPhone. A college friend had invited her, and we figured we might as well try to get me in too. We waited in a sprawling line with endless beautiful, groomed, well dressed twenty-somethings for longer than seemed necessary (“Is there a separate press entrance?” we demanded at one point) before finally being let in.

It was a huge white space with soaring ceilings, two separate stages, long white couches and (another) open bar. We got ourselves some specialty cocktails and wandered about, exploring the space, chatting with the male models who’d been hired to show off the phones (hilariously, none of them knew how to use them), eating little hors d'oeuvres and admiring the wealthy and beautiful people around us. After a while, we heard guitar strains from the stage behind us and turned around, 20 feet from a band.

“Who is this?” I hollered to A over the music.

“The Raconteurs! That’s Jack White.” She pointed. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt and looking inexplicably sexy.

Elated, we sang along, dancing full-out to the music. They were fantastic live, full of energy and spot-on musicality, but apparently dancing is not the cool thing to do these days, because we were literally the only two people in a crowd of about 60 who were dancing.

But care we did not. A friend who was standing near us (holding still, as per societal norms) leaned over and hollered, “See that guy behind us?”

We both turned. There was a cute guy with dark hair about four feet back, standing with a friend. We stole a glance and then nodded.

“That’s Jason Biggs.”

Oh.

A portion of the evening was then devoted to making contact with Jason Biggs. He smiled at us, and we all shared a “WTF?” gesture when a tall blond girl planted herself in front of us, blocking all our views of the stage. He and his friend headed for the bar with a very slight head-jerk in our direction, so we followed.

The problem was that there was still a show going on behind us, so the conversation was clipped and shouted.

“WHERE ARE YOU FROM?”

“MISSOURI!”

“WHERE?!”

“MISSOURI!”

We excused ourselves for a bit to say goodbye to our departing friends and prepare ourselves to leave, stopping in the bathroom first. There, A had a rather gutsy idea.

“Do you have a pen?” she demanded. I didn’t, so she asked the bathroom attendant and two other guests before I discovered one in a hidden pocket.

“I’m going to give Jason Biggs my number,” she announced, scribbling.

We exited the bathroom, coats in hand, and found JB and his friend relaxing on a white couch. I chatted with his friend (who I believe is a castmember of the same Broadway show Jason’s in) while Anna leaned down and began, “OK, I never do this, but I think you’re really cute and I wanted to give you my number before we left.”

With obvious regret, he replied, “I’m actually married, and I don’t think my wife would be happy if she found your number…”

We accepted this sad truth as he gave us both a combo handshake/kiss on the cheek. (“What’s your name?” I inquired as he grabbed my hand. Like I didn’t recognize him.) And we slipped into the night.

The next day, we both hurried to Google to track down the Mrs. She’s pretty, a lesser-known actress whom he married last spring. Still—if you put A on a real person scale, and this woman on a Hollywood scale, A clearly comes out ahead. So lord only knows what would have happened had Jason not been sporting a ring.

Simon Says Part Trois

This time I was really going to talk to him. Really.

Andrea kindly invited me to a Moroccan fashion show in Chelsea, which was held inside a giant, super-hip, barn-like structure (can barns be hip? The answer is yes). I didn’t know until we got there that the show was being thrown by another Real Housewife—the feisty Bethenny. So, of course, the suave Simon/Alex combo were there sipping away at cocktails and looking slightly uncomfortable. Andrea, A. and I also began taking advantage of the free Grey Goose until we were ready to talk to anyone. But then the fashion show started, and we watched and discussed, and then we began planning the rest of our nights, and my bold, fearless meeting seemed best kept…for next time.

The Litterati

So I’ve been slacking on my author readings lately, but there have been a few memorable ones that I will share with you here:

Franzen: I’d heard from P. how awkward Jonathon Franzen, author of The Corrections, is in person, but I had to see for myself. The Brooklyn Book Fest hosted tons of writers—I also wanted to see Joan Didion but I think it was at the same time—of which JF was just one. Andrea, B. and I went early and were not disappointed. Admittedly, the first sentence out of JF’s mouth was “I don’t want to be here,” but it made sense when he began talking about the death of his close friend, David Foster Wallace, who’d committed suicide two days before. Throughout the talk JF became more enthusiastic and light-hearted, and at the end he apologized for his earlier statement and said that there was no greater way to commemorate DFW than to get together and discuss writing with people who loved books.

Myla Goldberg/Rick Moody/Josh Ferris/Sean Wilsey/etc: This was quite a coup—several young, contemporary authors whom I admire coming together to discuss a book they’d helped write and screen the documentary it inspired. State by State includes 50 essays by writers about their home states, or about states that they lived in or traveled to. The doc was pretty fun to watch, though it was strange to see them reading on screen when they were sitting in the audience. (Apparently strange for them as well. One of Rick Moody’s sparse but hilarious statements hinged on how nauseated he’d become since seeing himself chow down on barbeque onscreen.) The moderator was pompous and the resulting discussion a bit forced. But oh well. My crush on the beautiful Josh Ferris remains.