10.21.04
New York: A Day in the City
Tuesday, October 19, 2004 11:50 PM
Manhattan, New York
The drive from Vermont back to Providence was completely in rain but still quite beautiful. The Vermont hills are full of little hidden valleys each with a rich forest of reds, yellows and greens and with a white chapel poking its head out from among the trees. Some construction aside the drive was without any incident and we arrived in Providence ahead of schedule. Lunch was at Paradox with a lovely waitress who was able to advice me on the route to take down to Manhattan after which I was off.
I-95 gave a clear ride all the way down to New York and with only five miles to go until my exit it suddenly came to a stop. I spent forty-five minutes on a mile of freeway and was starting to really worry about my schedule but managed to get into Manhattan with time to return the car without being charged an additional day, have a quick bite of soup and get to a performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Carmen was magnificent, particularly due to the spot on performance by Marina Domashenko in the title role. I have heard it said that Franco Zeffirelli has received some criticism for his stage production but found no fault whatsoever with this rich and vivid production of the opera.
Monday, October 20, 2004
A lazy morning checking and answering email and posting to this and other web sites left no question that I am on vacation. Lunch was delivered from one of the Chinese-Cuban restaurants that abound the upper west side after which I set to work installing memory and doing maintenance work on my Dad’s computer. After that we zipped down to the Angelica theater in time to catch an evening performance of Primer (2004) (a review of which I hope to post to Film Roar soon.)
Dad has a brand new Sony Flat Sceen HD-TV which has a really great look. We watched The Daytrippers (1996) with Parker Posey on The Independent Film Channel on it and I truly noted the difference a big crisp screen makes. It very much made me want to upgrade my home system, but alas that will have to wait for a time when I have more money.