How sweet it is...

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

- Oscar Wilde

Where to begin.  I couldn't think of a clever title for this blog on life in (and around) New York, but oddly I first thought about how much I love San Francisco and the Bay Area.  I really do. Yet, at the same time, I had been a San Franciscan for much of my adult life, and for better or for worse, my life had become comfortable and well-worn.  When Eduardo was offered a job opportunity in New York, we had many practical and philosophical discussions about our lives together in San Francisco and what our lives might look like if we moved across the country. Part of our conversations focused on how much New York has to offer in the arts (visual, performance, culinary, etc.) and culture, as well as its proximity to foreign lands we have yet to explore.  It was by no means an easy decision, since it meant moving farther away from family and friends, as well as a job I enjoyed the past year and a half.

So, I did a quick search about "life" and "living", and Wilde's quote captured the conversations and thoughts I had about leaving San Francisco to be here in New York. I recognize fully that if I have the chance to "live", I should seize it and run with it.  So there you have it.

"The Secret Life of Eduardo Mitty"

I've been a New Yorker for only a month and a half, but I feel like I've been living it halfway between local and tourist. It surely helps that I moved end of Spring/start of Summer, since the weather beckons people to come out and play.

On Friday night, Eduardo and I went to Radio City Music Hall to see Dave Chappelle to see him perform in his last show of a sold-out series.

It was interesting to hear about his domestic life through his act, although he seems to have lost some of his edge, perhaps precisely because he is settled down in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with a wife, two kids, and a dog named "Baba".  (I tried fact-checking his dog's name but wasn't successful in my quick Google search.)  In any case, I like his observational humor and creative story-telling (I won't give any specifics since my re-telling his jokes will fall flat.) 

Mos Def and Talib Kweli made a surprise musical guest appearance after Chappelle left the stage, so we stayed a bit longer.  [I'll take this chance to say "Thanks Delores!" for telling me about his "Keepin' It Real" sketches, which directly led to my snatching up the tickets as soon as the shows were advertised.]

Yesterday, we (including Nori) went to the West Village, which was mostly cordoned off in anticipation of the Pride Parade today.  We stopped into a mid-century modern furniture store, where the friendly owner chatted and informed us of a number of things going on in Brooklyn.  

So, we dropped Nori off at home, caught the tail-end of the Brazil-Chile game (exciting! but I do hate to see the game go to penalty kicks), and headed to the Domino Sugar Refining Plant (soon to be demolished to make way for new construction) in Brooklyn to catch the 2nd to last weekend of  Kara Walker's "A Subtlety" installation ("an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant").  

While we had to wait on line for about half an hour, the installation was free and well worth the wait.  I also enjoy people-watching, particularly in such a young and casual/fashionable neighborhood like Williamsburg.  So far, I've come to love the abundance, creativity, and thought-provoking statements of the free art all over New York.

Eduardo remembered Walker's art from years ago when he and I went museum-hopping in Washington DC.  It was hard for me to believe that the sculptures were pure sugar, based on the scale of the main piece, but some of the smaller, caramelized art pieces had shattered and created sticky brown pools that were undeniably sugary.