the early evening drinks date

Apparently, there’s something about me that says “please set me up with your attractive (but crazy) female friends.” Whatever the reason, going on blind dates has become one of my biggest hobbies, and by now, I’m about ready to go pro.

Over time, I’ve evolved to favoring the early evening drinks date. It’s intimate, sophisticated, and easy to cut short if things turn sour. More importantly, it encourages cutting the date short even if it’s going well. (Keeping up the thrill of the chase is the surest path to a second date.)

The world’s best location for an early evening drinks date is the Campbell Apartment, a bar located in New York’s Grand Central Station, accessible only via an untrafficked side door. Originally built in the 1920s (during prohibition) by a rich businessman as his private, upscale speakeasy, the bar was covered over in the 1935 renovation of Grand Central, and only rediscovered a few years back when Grand Central was again renovated. The decor is the same as it was in the ’20s, making the place about as Gatsby as possible. They mix perfect martinis (Grey Goose, dirty, straight up) and the bar exudes a sophisticated secrecy, as if it’s the last bastion of an otherwise forgotten New York high-life.

While quite effective, however, the short early evening drinks date has one serious flaw: it compresses the first date quite a bit and thereby increases the pressure. With only an hour to get the job done, the intrepid dater must move through being charming, witty, interested, sensitive and seductive fairly quickly. Slipping up on any given step sets back the schedule and probably botches the entire relationship.

|   
February 17, 2002

vaseline

A friend is curating an upcoming NYU exhibit of young New York photographers reflecting on the city in the wake of September 11th, and asked that I put together two or three prints for the show. Flattered, I accepted before realizing I had no idea what I might photograph. After spending about a week racking my brain, I finally reached a mental image of what I wanted: crowd scenes, the city’s hustle and bustle, but viewed through a dreamlike haze in darkly exposed black and white. I blew through several rolls and hours and hours of darkroom time experimenting with different techniques that might yield what I wanted, but none of the prints looked right to me. On a lark, I decided to buy a very cheap filter, cover it with a thin layer of Vaseline, and shoot a few rolls through it. It came out perfectly.

I’m still trying to decide which shots to use for the show, but as soon as I do, I’ll scan and post them. As several visitors have pointed out, the newest picture in my gallery is about six years old, and at that point I was mainly shooting color wildlife and nature photography (to sell through a stock photo agency) rather than the black and white portraiture and street photography I mainly do now. I’ve been meaning to add more recent images to the site for a while, but good medium format scans are expensive and difficult to come by. Time to bite the bullet and get some scans done.

|  

skiboarding

A shot from Whistler with my brother

(left) and I putting on our skiboards. For more information

about skiboarding, the best winter sport I’ve tried (more fun than snowboarding, nordic skiing, or telemarking), head to skiboards.com.

|  

scuba diving

This picture of me was taken by my father and dive buddy Andy
at about 45 feet below on Maui’s South-West coast.

Joshua in scuba gear

|  

urinetown

With my parents still in town, we met up last night with one of my father’s oldest childhood friends, Fred Miller (with his wife and daughter in tow). The three of them are a fun and exceedingly musical bunch: Fred grew up with my father, playing protest rock together in Washington Square Park (it apparently scarred them both for life, as the two continue to accumulate guitars and play folk music to this day). Fred’s wife Bess is a professional singer and actress, and it appears his daughter Lauren has also unwittingly been dragged into the fray, as she’s performing in a production of Fiddler that goes up this coming weekend.

With such a group, we were naturally gathered for a Broadway musical (in this case, Urinetown). But we joined up first for dinner at Utsav, an upscale Indian restaurant. The food itself was great, but the concept was a bit off. Indian food is usually served family style, but the high prices seemed to dictate more intensive waiter service. Rather than simply leaving plates of food in the center of the table, the waiters circled us with each dish, divvying up everything we had ordered as they saw fit. While we were forced to surreptitiously redistribute food while the waiters weren’t watching, we did manage to leave the restaurant full and on time, which is pretty much all you can ask from pre-theater dining.

For those not following the current Broadway scene, the oddly named Urinetown is the ‘hot’ musical of the moment. Which is a bit odd, considering it’s basically a neo-Brechtian absurdist melodrama unapologetically espousing the political philosophies of Thomas Malthus. On the other hand, the show is exceedingly campy and funny – it’s sort of a meta-musical, a biting and insightful send-up of the hackneyed formulae for creating successful musicals.

The music itself wasn’t terribly memorable, but the writing was great, and several performances were standouts: two-time Tony winner John Cullum as Caldwell Cladwell, the evil, bunny-obsessed CEO of the equally evil Urine Good Company; Jeff McCarthy as the narrator, Officer Lockstock, who has one foot each in the imaginary world on stage and the real world of theater patrons, translating between the two; and Spencer Kayden as Little Sally, who serves as a foil to Officer Lockstock by questioning the absurdities of the show (and musicals in general).

To be honest, the play felt more Off-Broadway than Broadway, but as the first decent musical since The Producers, it’s been hyped up to the height of Broadway success. Still, it’s definitely worth seeing – just think of it as an extremely well executed MFA thesis project and you’ll be thrilled.

|  

bed bath and nyc

My parents are in from San Francisco, staying with me for the weekend. Which means, of course, that I get to take a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond. Thank goodness they’re here – I never knew how empty my life was until I got a suction cup sponge holder for the side of my sink!

Still, the BB&B here in New York is worth the trip for anyone from out of town – very few other bedroom superstores feature uniformed doormen hailing taxis for exiting bag-laden shoppers. The highlight of the store, however, is the shopping cart escalator. Next to each person escalator, a narrower parallel track hauls shopping carts between levels. Nota bene: riding in the carts on the cart escalator is apparently discouraged.

|  
February 16, 2002

il vecchio castello

Last night, I was lucky enough to attend the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Mussorgsky’s Picture from an Exhibition. Good god, Phil Smith can play the trumpet. And apparently the flugelhorn as well – they played Gorchakov’s orchestration of the piece, rather than the well known Ravel version, which gives the alto sax solo in the Il Vecchio Castello movement to flugelhorn. I’d never heard the Gorchakov but really liked it. Harmonically simpler, but more intense. Still, after hearing the NY Phil’s trumpet section, I left not sure whether to hit the practice room or just quit.

Actually, my classical playing is sounding pretty good these days, as I’ve had a slew of orchestral concerts over the last month. My jazz playing, however, is more than a bit rusty, which is problematic, as I was just offered a gig playing bebop with a quintet at Opal this Tuesday evening. Nothing like sucking in front of a live (and drunk) audience to put you in your place. I’ll be woodshedding most of tomorrow in a feeble attempt to make up for months of lost jazz practice time.

|  

triple lutz double toe loop salchow

Excuse me for being a typical guy, but I just don’t get it. Why do women find figure skating to be the most fascinating thing ever to grace a television screen? Why has every single female that I know been glued to NBC for the last week, absorbing each spandex-clad jump, spin and lift?

One sports writer has tried to explain women’s fascination with the ‘sport’ by comparing figure skating to pro wrestling. And while that does probably align well from an athletic perspective, the analogy falters in terms of breadth of appeal. My direct research seems to indicate that WWF events are attended almost exclusively by plumber-cracked, mouth-breathing, pickup-truck drivers. Whereas the female love of figure skating cuts across all socioeconomic lines.

The mystery may never be solved, but in the meantime, I’m picking up a ticket to the world figure skating championship. It has to be the easiest place in the world to meet women.

|  
February 15, 2002

ninja power

Sure, I’ve been kickboxing competitively for some time, but I never realized my true martial arts calling until checking out the Official Ninja Homepage. To quote: “Ninjas can kill anyone they want! Ninjas cut off heads ALL the time and don’t even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this ninja who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the ninja killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a ninja totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.”

|  

on being an asshole

Head on over to Galaktek.com for this fine piece of field research, in which a ‘nice guy’ tries to act like an asshole “in an attempt to score.” Completely fabricated results, but amusing nonetheless. And the premise is right on: you might as well be a dick, since nice guys really do seem to finish last.

|