Right Coast, Part 5

We encounter more Phoenicians in New York, eat the best dinner of my freaking life, and run the last two shows Monday the 15th.  The ensemble shares one of those numinous experiences that can't be replicated, but can be forced into the shapes of words and put on the internet! Right Coast, Part 5!  More after the Jump!

    Monday was a busy morning.  The Amazing Ash Naftule and I hopped a train early in the day to get to the American Folk Museum.  Ash had mentioned they housed portions of The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, By Henry Darger.  This is the sort of thing I want to spend my whole life studying.  We went by subway to the west side of Central park where we would walk to the AFM. 

Ooh! Free trash/art supplies!

    On the subway, one gets a real sense of the New York character.  It's packed, shoulder to shoulder, and nobody really says anything or acknowledges on another in any way.  A woman with a stroller twisted and turned it to keep out of people's way as they came in the doors and tried to find a spot.  An older guy was sitting down and clearly falling asleep, and as he did, his head would tip and bump into the crotch of a teenager in full hip-hop gear who was standing with his friends.  Each time the older guy would bump him, the kid would say, in a loud clear voice:

    "Stop touching my dick, sir!"

    Consider this sentence a moment.  This kid does not want this guy to touch his dick. However, he does address him as "sir."  Firm, but civil.  That was New York public places in a nutshell.

    We met up with a friend of ours, Ian, outside of the Museum and headed inside after waiting about 20 minutes for it to open.  When we walked in, we looked around for about 5 minutes before realizing that the entire museum seemed to be about the size of my living room, with a cafe and gift shop attached.  We checked every door (toilets) and every turn (there were two) trying to figure out where the Darger exhibit was, but everywhere we looked there were quilts hanging on the wall.  We asked a couple of professional lookign people if the Darger exhibit was open and they informed us that, while they housed it, it wasn't on display.  In an outsider art blueball rage I bought some Darger cards.  The only book they had on the realms of the Unreal was crazy expensive and I couldn't afford it.  We left, morose and sad, and took the subway back to the east side.

Respect.

   We spent much of the day in Thompson square park before our 1pm call at the IATI theater.  Ash and Ian and I watched rats and squirrels share space like rival gangs in a truce.  They would share the same crumb of trash, but take careful steps past one another and always approach from both sides.  I was really stunned by the number of rats in the park.  I hadn't seen one rat the whole trip, and here they were out in droves.  In fact, I'd seen little in the way of commonly perceived vermin-  I'd seen no cockroaches whatsover, not even in the hostel.

    Rats scurried bravely past our feet as a mother walked by carrying her child.  The little girl said "They bite!" and pointed at a large rat.  The wisdom of a child.

The part of Yellow Curtain will be played by Brick Wall tonight.

     We split ways and I headed to the the theater for the two shows that would be our last.  I felt good about things, the shows had gone well and we'd found that there were (mostly) glowing reviews of the Unhappiness Plays appearing online.  The last two shows went incredibly well and the last show of the run was performed to a practically full house that really enjoyed the performance.  A girl in glasses and galoshes from the audience laughed so much I found myself rediscovering moments I'd grown accustomed to.  When the lights went down that final time I felt a little nostalgic already.  To Michelle Kable, Shawna Franks, Ryan Gaumont, Steve Wilcox, Richard Briggs, Bob Fisher, Elizabeth Athetis, Kara Roschi, Clifton Highfield, Hanna Leister and Fuckface:  It was a lot of fun..  Let's do it again sometime.

This is what it looks like, so no excuses.

After the final show, we went for Indian food as a whole ensemble. Look, I'm about to get real with you, so listen the fuck up.  If you are in the East Village, go to Heart of India.  Go there.  Don't be like "there's better Indian food elsewhere" or "New York is 3000 miles away" or "Que?" with me, bitch.  Heart of India is, hands down, the best service I have ever witnessed in my life.  We showed up at the place with a party of twelve, no reservations, and they sat us happily, even though they were supposed to close soon.  We got the specials menu 4 hours after they ended, and that's just where this epic begins.

    Not only were the crab samosas I got with my order delicious, they were each easily the size of a babies skull.  The chicken tandoori was basically an entire delicious chicken. Everything was fragrant and tasted like sweet spicy slices of heaven.  We ended up sharing from our plates and begging "did you try this?" to anyone within arm-plus-fork range.  There were sudden bouts of total silence at the table whenever a course would arrive as the entire ensemble sat slack-jawed in rapture. I ate until I thought I might actually slip into a coma, and it was all only 20 bucks.  Did I mention it came with a free beer? That's not even the best part.

RECOGNIZE.

One word :  Sabir.  Our waiter was the most effortlessly charming man I have ever met.  Over-the-hill and from Bangladesh, he charmed our entire table by busting raps, pouring beer into tilted glasses, and engaging in friendly shenanigans the entire night.  At one point, he sang a lovely song in Punjab he said he has always remembered from his childhood.  When asked what it was about, he said he didn't know- he didn't speak Punjab.  I envy his sense of comedic timing.  He introduced us to the cook, brought beers we didn't order but certainly accepted, and gave us free rice pudding for dessert.  I think we were near to tears when it was time to leave, and he accepted a Space 55 shirt while throwing peace signs and shouting "one love."  New york was an amazing slice of pizza, but men like Sabir are the fucking crust- without them, the city is just a hot pile of cheese and ingredients with no foundation, no place to get a good grip on things.  I actually considered writing this entire post about Sabir, but instead, I'll leave him as something of an awesome enigma for you to one day hopefully experience yourself.  I expect you all to go the Heart of India and ask for this guy as your waiter and start up a fansite with me.  I'll be right here, on the internet, waiting, drinking Kingfisher.

     The ensembles riotous laughter and tangible joy under the red lights, punctuated by the ringing tones of Indian pop music, will remain with me forever. Thank you, Heart of India, you're one of my favorite things ever.

RIGHT COAST! PART 6! COME BACK FOR IT!