Midsommer in Manhattan

Posted on June 24, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

The Swedes take their midsummer celebration seriously. Neither drenching rain or dramatic thunderstorms were enough to dampen the partying that thousands enjoyed during the solstice in Battery Park this week. I have never seen so many blondes and flower garlands in the one place before. Some wore traditional costumes and colors, blue and yellow was in abundance and even a few vikings came out for the day. There was classic food like crepes, and seafood and salty licorice. Even more amazing was the work the Scandi’s invested as part of the tradition, making their garlands by hand, building a colorful maypole and then joining hands to dance in huge concentric circles. Maybe it’s in the genes. After all those long freezing northern winters, the joy of the sun finally coming – and then not setting for days, must be fabulous indeed. No wonder the time is especially magical – one woman said when she was a child she was told to pick 7 wildflowers, put them under her pillow and then dream about her one true love. Her husband glowed, so it must have worked…

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Little Brown

Posted on June 24, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

If you needed a reason to be an uptown girl, Little Brown is it. On 85th and Lexington the  bald man has opened a fabulous new cafe / bakery in the family tradition of rich quality chocolate. Little Brown is perhaps a modest name for a place that has such a generous welcome and delicious menu. We were on our way out for lunch, when the appeal of the bakery got us in the door, and then it was too late. The whole place – crew, cakes and chocolate, all seemed to be smiling and who could resist? Even the tins made you want to become a collector. We wanted everything, but a chocolate milkshake ( their signature temptation made with your choice of chocolate ) and a pastry twist were perfect to share. I don’t know that it would be wise to make this a daily affair, but it’s a very decadent idea….

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Vegan vittles

Posted on June 24, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

The dearth of food trucks this summer in NYC show that all things organic and alternative are zooming in popularity. Wishing to expand my familiarity with the genres, I jumped at an invitation to attend a Vegan event in Soho. Of course I felt like I was going in undercover, being an enthusiastic consumer of most good foods  ( apart from those that wobble like jelly, custard, oysters, etc ). So I made sure there were no obvious butter smudges or lingering aromas from brunch to give me away…

The Seed was an enlightening event. There was passion and politics and some very committed people.  The Sea Shepherd had a strong presence as did the animal rescue organizations. I learnt that the work of animals ( honey ) is just as food non-grata as anything else derived or consumed from animals. I declined to taste look-a-like chicken legs made of crumbed and deep-fried tofu, not just because KFT is really no better than KFC, but because there were better things on offer. Many vegan restaurants and cafes had their wares out for the tasting, and there were lots of chocolate options, although it was the packaging rather than the taste that took my attention.

As soon as the location and funding is found, a vegan bodega will bring together many of the products showcased at the event. Until then the hunting for and gathering of edibles will continue, trucks and busy bees alike…

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Philip Glass

Posted on June 23, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

It was 36*C and humid on the night Philip Glass was scheduled to perform in the River to River Festival in Battery Park on the lower west side. I was in a quandary as to whether to brave the sweltering journey downtown, or risk missing a great musical opportunity. But the fridge was already full, as was my quota of water thrown around the balcony, so the best other option was to jump on the bike and pedal up a breeze. That we did and the rewards were cool and entertaining.

From east midtown the easiest route to Battery Park is to cross to the west side and ride down the cycle path. That particular path has become a major artery for skinny wheels and wide soles, and runs all the way along the west side from the Statue of Liberty to Harlem. It was a lifeline – as soon as we crossed onto the path we felt the cool of the green parklands that run between the highway and the Hudson. What a spectacular night! A cool breeze came off the river and just as the pink and orange sunset sent reflections back from the New Jersey shoreline, the Ensemble took to the stage.

Philip Glass has been playing with his ensemble for about 44 years. He has also written operas, symphonies, collaborated with artists like Paul Simon and Yo-Yo Ma, and written soundtracks for many movies including one of my favorites, The Truman Show. So he has had an extraordinary career, and the colorful mixture of people in the audience reflected the eclectic and experimental niche of his band. For me the repetitive scores and synthesized keyboards of the playlist were best enjoyed at a minimum, so when technical trouble created a pause in proceedings, Sean and I gathered our water bottles and rode on.

Even though it had been Philip Glass who had motivated us to move on such a hot night, it was the ambiance of the evening that kept us out. Riding back along the river, the parks were busy with people out to enjoy the cool. Willy Wonker and the Chocolate factory played to a joyful crowd on the end of one pier, while the trapeze school on top of Pier 40 was in full swing. They shared the space with a number of soccer games that hovered magically above the skyline. Freedom Tower rose up in the distance from what to many would be a sport heaven. Years ago we shot a fashion story with the trapeze school, with models managing to strike a graceful pose in 6 inch heels dangling above the safety net. It was a lot of fun, and as Nik Wallenda would surely agree, ‘forget fear, worry about the addiction….’

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Summer Art and Carole Feuerman

Posted on June 18, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

The dismay at finding my favorite ( elephant ) sculpture gone from it’s joyful pose in Union Square turned to delight when I discovered a fantastic new exhibit on the corner of Spring and La Fayette. You almost can’t believe your eyes when you first see this capped swimmer in an inner tube floating along the edge of Soho. She is so realistic. Her eyes are closed, her skin is wet and when you see her you immediately feel peaceful and refreshed. The swimmer is the creation of artist Carole Feuerman and is called ‘Survival of Serena’.

It was such a glorious day on Saturday I wanted to shoot the sculpture in full sun, but when I arrived I found a small woman fastidiously cleaning in and around the fingers and face of the swimmer. Of course it could have been a solid citizen, but it was in fact Carole, alerted by a blogger’s photo that showed the swimmer had lost some of her eyelashes. As a ‘perfectionist to the point of mental illness’ Carole would have to organize epoxy and eyelashes, but in the interim she told me about her work.

Carole is famous for her super realistic sculptures of swimmers and bathers. She talks about water connecting us all and you would think to look at her work that she was a water baby herself. In fact she doesn’t even swim!

NYC is well known for the outstanding artworks that appear all over the city at the beginning of summer and I had always thought the seasonal open air gallery would be payday for exhibited artists. But in fact, the story is quite different. Artists do not submit work, they are chosen by the city’s curator, and depending on the amount of pieces, they can nominate an area for their work. Carole was asked to exhibit her most well known piece, ( it was the darling of the Venice biennale ) and she chose Petrosino square. She paid for the installation of the work, as well as insurance in case the sidewalk is damaged ( about $20,000 all up ). There is no payment made to the artist. I found this quite amazing and have a new appreciation for the art – and the artists, who contribute to the gallery I live in. Thank you Carole.

The upshot for the artist is of course the publicity, and ‘Survival of Serena’ will be part of an exhibition at the Jim Kempner Gallery in October. The asking price is $400,000 and when I asked if selling it would mean a move to the upper east side and retirement she laughed. At one time she thought a sale would enable the doing up of her kitchen ( and her family have a waiting list of their own requests), but with eight or nine other projects on the go, and all of them costing anywhere between $100 – $150,000 to produce, selling Serena will simply make the next swimmer possible. Carole would love to see her in a community setting and would willing negotiate a good price to see many people being able to enjoy her art. What do you think? Bondi Beach? Serena would look completely at home with the icebergs……

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Anna Funder in NYC

Posted on June 17, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

Unlike some other communities in New York, like Scandinavia House and the Asia Society, Australia does not have a street level cultural center. So for all things official and unofficial, from voting in general elections to sharing morning tea or to meeting international best-selling authors, the place to go is the Australian Consulate opposite the Chrysler building on 42nd street.

Last week, AWNY ( Australian Women in New York ) welcomed Anna Funder as their guest speaker at the Consulate. This was my inaugural attendance at their monthly meeting and a good one to choose. Anna has been short listed for the Miles Franklin Award for ‘All That I Am’ and being there meant I was one of the first to hear part of the acceptance speech she had just recorded at Penguin. Not that she is assuming victory ( Anna’s publisher sounds to be protectively pessimistic ) but regardless, she didn’t want to chance the speech going entirely to waste…

Being at the meeting was a great opportunity to listen to and to meet the woman who The Guardian called ‘one of the most interesting female writers around’.  Anna was honest and funny and spoke freely about her life – what a wealth of travel and experience and well-met opportunity. She was a collector of stories that became a teller of stories, and with german and french as fluent doors into other worlds, she went there. Anna has recently moved with her family to NYC, she is reading ‘A tree grows in Brooklyn’ to put her in the new place, and I wander what stories will come of it…..

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Museum Mile – the movie

Posted on June 14, 2012 by TheFitzyreport
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Museum Mile Festival

Posted on June 14, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

It was a classic case of dark clouds having a silver lining with the Museum Mile Festival this week. As with every year, the artistic arcade between 82nd and 110th was closed to traffic to allow people to flow freely in and out of the ten museums on this mile of fifth avenue. Music and entertainment were planned with balloons and street art and the joy of a summer’s evening. Then came the rain. The chalk drawings were washed out, the face painting and clowns had to relocate under scaffolding, and the jazz band cozied up with the architectural overhang of the Guggenheim. But all was not lost, particularly with the opportunity to go inside the Metropolitan Museum and see ‘Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations’ without having to stand in a queue. After seeing the Alexander McQueen exhibition last year – or trying to see it through the crowds, it was wonderful to go to this new exhibition and enjoy the space.

Schiaparelli and Prada is about the lives of these two remarkable women, comparing and contrasting their work, and the impact of their formidable personalities on all that is fashion. What really brought the whole show to life for me was the movie sequences that played on the walls behind exhibited pieces, giving background to the designs and depth to their creation. Judy Davis played the role of Schiaparelli ( 1890 – 1973 ) and she was brilliant. Prada played herself, and each sequence was a conversation between the two. They drank champagne, laughed, interrupted each other, mainly disagreed with each other, and talked about their lives. It was by far the best art show I have experienced at the Met.

Exiting through the Greek wing was slightly bizarre by contrast, but not nearly as much as stumbling into an art performance between the antiquities. At first it appeared to be a New York 15 minutes of fame event, with a young man making primeval noises and dancing, but it turned out to be an unscheduled performance ‘addressing the literal and metaphoric skeletons in the closet of cultural institutions along 5th avenue’.  Security obviously did not appreciate the gesture, removing the meditative fellow to the front halls and then to the door. By the time we followed him out, the rain had stopped and it was a beautiful fresh evening. The jazz band was just warming up….


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Eva Gabrielsson and Stieg Larsson

Posted on June 6, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

Eva Gabrielsson was recently in NYC to promote her new book “There are things I want you to know” about Stieg Larsson and me. Nearly 8 years since Stieg died, and 7 years since the publishing of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, Eva has written a book to set the story straight about their life and about Stieg. On his sudden death in 2004, after 32 years of their living and working together, Swedish authorities did not recognize Eva as the rightful heir of Stieg’s estate and the natural custodian of his creative work. The estranged father and brother of the author claimed everything. In fact lots of people claimed lots of things, and Eva had had enough. Obviously there was a lot of people who wanted to hear her story, as the book has been translated into 19 languages and published in 21 countries.

I was interested to meet Eva in person not just because she had endured so much and refused to give up, but because of how she found a way to move forward with her life. Several weeks after Stieg’s passing, Eva summoned all her anger and fury about his death and the people and events that contributed to it by writing a curse. On New Years Eve she took direction from a collection of poems in Old Norse, and in the company of select friends, read her curse aloud in a magic ceremony. How good is that!? Nothing like a curse to give vent to all that negative energy and then move on.

The more publicity the Millennium Trilogy and the story behind it receives, the more focus there is on the social issues so close to the activism of both Stieg and Eva, and on the current laws in Sweden governing spousal rights. Everything in the books, all the characters and events, were based on real life, and Eva was intrinsically involved in the reality ( if not the writing ) of this amazing work. So get your paperwork in order, make sure you have proof of your life and your intentions. Even though this picture is blurry ( Sean did not take it! ) it is proof that I met Eva, and who knows, she may have told me what happens in the fourth book…..

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Smorgasburg

Posted on June 5, 2012 by TheFitzyreport

The Brooklyn Flea Markets have been infiltrating the Manhattan-facing shoreline over the past few years, working their way from the bridge to the latest popup in Williamsburg. What started as a menagerie of clothing, collectables and some consumables, has evolved into an exclusive upstream experience of all things edible.  The new location is perfect. One hundred or so food stalls sit in an open space, edged between trendy Williamsburg and the shores of the East River, right next to the ferry landing.  This is also something new, and much more scenic than the subway – the East River Ferry will pick you up from any of the landings between 34th and Wall Street and take you directly to and from Saturday’s Smorgasburg. You can have all the fun of the fair, without having to venture too far from the rock.

The markets are a snapshot of all the latest food fads, and give the impression that Brooklyn is one big kitchen, catering to meat eaters, vegans, sweet teeth, soy lovers and nostalgics alike. I tasted salted caramel coconut macaroons, intensely delicious ginger syrup from Morris Kitchen, ‘philosopher’s breakfast’ ice-cream ( cinnamon, oat & granola ) and an Arnold Palmer slushie ( the golfer’s favorite – ice tea and citrus ). I marveled at the clever branding of ‘Anarchy in a Jar‘ turning jam into a political statement with aprons & tattoos, where ‘the revolution starts in your mouth’. Then there was the reinvention of shaved ice by ‘People’s Pops’, and the cooking classes of the Kumquat Cupcakery ‘Baking with booze’…

The atmosphere was carnival like, with tents and tastings and lovely smells of barbecue and baking. Lots of people adjourned to the grassy surrounds to relax and savor a flavor before moving on. A great thing would be to take your bike on the ferry and ride on after lunch, exploring the dramatic waterside developments back to the Brooklyn Bridge and beyond. You could even pick up a flat white and lamington from Toby’s Coffee along the way.

Smorgasburg is thus far only open on Saturdays, but if you are hankering for a midweek treat, many of these artisanal producers have trucks with regular parking spots ( and regular followers ) around the city. Some days Union Square looks more like the Easter show than a neighborhood intersection. In fact trucks are the new store front, the latest flagship. Mr Whippy take note, there are new jingles on the block, Brooklyn is open for business!

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