Bright Lights, Big Ciy

Spending the night in New York tonight. We are big fans of a British actor/comedian named Eddie Izzard. He's kind of a cross between Monty Python, Ricky Gervais and Robin Williams, with a bit of Jerry Seinfeld. Literate, silly, topical, historical. We've seen him twice in Philly, but on this tour he's only playing in a couple of cities, New York being one of them. Because we are baby boomer parents we also have to attend to our kids' every needs, so we first dropped one of our kids in some suburb in some place in very northern New Jersey that you could live a long and fulfilling life without ever visiting. Some kind of camp thing. So rather than drive back and forth we figured we'd just stay here.

Eddie was hilarious as usual. He came out and said he was going to talk about everything that ever happened, "with gaps." Lots of great bits, including lots of biblical stuff. Regarding the 10 plagues- "There were flies, locusts, frogs...Frogs? You can't have a plague of frogs, only more frogs than usual." Go to youtube if you're interested.

On the way back we walked through Times Square and came upon David Blaine, who's known both for magic tricks and for feats of endurance, including things like standing inside a block of ice for 63 hours. Now he's standing in Times Square for 72 hours straight raising money for Red Cross relief for Hiati. He autographed cards for us and we gave money. Just one of those things that can happen if you keep your eyes open.

I grew up in New York- lived most of my first 30 years here. And I spent a lot of time in the neighborhood where the hotel is. My father used to work on this block, so I'd walk by here regularly. For you literary types, it's a couple of doors down from the Algonquin Hotel. It is also home to many clubs. No, not like Animal Rights Club- more like Harvard Club, Cornell Club, U Penn Club, NY Yacht Club. I know these places because my dad taught me that if you were dressed properly and acted sure of yourself, you could walk inside and use the bathroom.

When I'm in New York I'm more of a side street person than an avenue person. The avenues have all the big flashy buildings, many of them quite wonderful, but the side streets are quieter and are filled with hidden treats. Another thing my dad taught me about walking around New York was to look up. You could easily walk along the street and see nothing but store fronts, but the upper stories of building in midtown are often decorated in unusual and beautiful ways. There are arches, balconies and intricate tilework, some of which is hard to see unless you're in the building across the street. Why did they do that? The building I parked in front of had dark wooden columns around the upper story windows. Nobody uses wood on upper floors. Why here?

On this same street is the Royalton Hotel, which contains a lobby bathroom designed by Philippe Starck that I cannot find a picture of. This bathroom has a notable feature in that it is impossible to find the place to actually do your business. A friend of mine and I once wandered around for a couple of minutes before finding that (1) if you push in the correct place on the right side wall that a stall would open and (2) if you approached the wall opposite the door that water would begin cascading down it, inviting you to join in.

And to finish up on the bathroom theme, one of the best gifts anyone gave euphemisms was the nautical community's naming their bathroom "the head." So right on 49th street is a portapotty with the company name "Call-a-Head."