Closing the chapter on New York book fans

The Javits Center - image credit here

After yesterday's fantastic launch event, I was really pumped for spending the day at BookCon.  I got up early and walked over to the Javits Center, which only took me about 20 minutes (if that) but when I got there a little after 9am, the lines were already out the door.

The first panel discussion on my wish-list didn't start until 10am so I headed for the main exhibition floor to look around.  Oh. My. God.  It was like Macy's on Christmas Eve in there.  People were going in all directions, grabbing fistfuls of free stuff off the display tables and not even taking the time to speak to the exhibitors, or to even see what they were grabbing.  As a friend suggested to me later, it was very reminiscent of the "Candy Man" scene in the original "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" movie, where the greedy kids basically loot the candy store.  I was Charlie Bucket.

Being so short, I couldn't see up ahead either, so I got stuck in human traffic jam after human traffic jam.  And everyone around me was carrying backpacks and tote bags that were getting steadily fuller, heavier, and more painful each time they slammed into my guts.  I spent all my time trying to navigate through the crowd and I literally did not stop - indeed, could not stop - at any of the display tables.  There wasn't any space to take the time and see what was on display, or ask the amazing array of exhibitors whether their books were old, new, free, for sale - nothing.

How I felt about my morning
Image credit here

Because of jumbled lines and pushy crowds, I realised afterwards that I even missed seeing Grumpy Cat - she was just on the other side of a growing crowd of people.  Sigh, maybe I'm showing my age but I just couldn't handle the confusing rush and even now, I'm feeling tense just reflecting on it.

Somehow I emerged back into the main foyer of the Javits Center, giant glass nightmare that it is.  Compounding the disastrous start to my day, Starbucks was the only coffee for sale and the line was almost out the door (though rather amusingly merging with the line-up for people trying to come in).  Don't even get me started on the lines for the restrooms.  I was on track from a 10am nervous breakdown.

The panel discussions were all being hosted downstairs where last night's launch had also been staged.  I found the room for the John Grisham & Carl Hiaasen panel and it was already bustling with people.  How many tickets had they sold for this BookCon thing?  Crazy.  I found a seat in the second-to-last row and relaxed a bit before the show got underway.

Grisham has a new book coming out in October, but this panel discussion was more a conversation between two authors about their writing process and the discipline required to churn out a well-researched and successful page-turner.  I have been a Grisham fan for a long time but up until today, I'd never heard him speak a single word.   I've never seen him on TV, or heard him give interviews, nothing.  But then that amazing southern drawl came out, and he talked about being a lawyer in Mississippi, and I could have listened to him for days.  One thing that has always struck me about Grisham's characters, particularly the lawyers, is that they always seem to start their workdays insanely early.  But that seems to be a throwback to Grisham's own professional life.  As he said this morning, he started writing A Time To Kill while he was practicing law, and every day he made the deal with himself that he'd get to the office at 5am, and he'd have to have his coffee and first word written by 5.30am.   He's slackened off that discipline now of course, but that was his routine for many years.

Grisham and Hiaasen (whose work I have not yet read) talked about the challenges of finding names for their characters - apparently obituaries and baby names books are popular sources.  They talked about the role of their wives and their editors in helping to "surgically remove" irrelevant plot lines or unnecessary characters from an unpublished manuscript.  And one thing I found really interesting is that in the past, they have both been involved in charity auctions where you can bid to have yourself written in to one of their books.  I had never heard of such a thing before.  Hiaasen learned the down side of this though, when a lady who won such an auction approached him 6 months later while he was at dinner with his wife, and demanded to know when they were going to start collaborating on his book about her.  Good grief, can you imagine?!

After the Grisham panel concluded I headed into the food court for a Diet Coke.  Of course, it was a cash-only enterprise, and when do I ever carry cash?  I asked the Javits Center employee whether there was an ATM on the premises and she looked at me like I was nuts.  Or maybe that was just her face.  If you want to see what hell looks like, Google the Javits Center during BookCon.

I was feeling rather defeated at this point, but I stood in line for the next panel discussion entitled "My First Novel: Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Writing, Publishing and Promoting a Book".  Unbeknownst to me, four separate queues for this event had started outside the room, and the BookCon staff began admitting the crowd line-by-line.  As luck would have it, I was actually standing in the first line to get into the room, so I scored a fantastic seat, with an uninterrupted view of the panel table.   As you can see from the photo, this discussion featured three young female authors (all debut novelists) and was facilitated by Rachel who works for Tumblr and who spoke so fast she should have had subtitles.  I really was old and grumpy today, can't you tell?

But one thing I really liked about this panel is that the lady you see on the left there is from Australia - her name is Courtney Collins and her first book "The Burial" has just been released in the US (but under the title "The Untold").  Apparently it has done very well in Australia and her attendance at BookCon today is part of an 8-city US tour to promote the book.  The panelist in the middle is Yelena Akhtiorskaya, whose book "Panic In A Suitcase" is officially released in bookstores on 31 July, and finally Celeste Ng who wrote a book called "Everything I Never Told You" which will be formally released this month.

I was particularly interested to hear what these women had to say about their experiences handing over their manuscripts to an editor and putting their faith in an agent, who would steer them through the murky world of publishing.  I liked what they had to say about the benefits (or not) of studying creative writing formally (such as a MFA at Columbia).  And I liked the reality check that these women gave me (and all of us) when they talked about just how long they'd been working on their books.  In Celeste's case, she had worked on 4 drafts over 6 years, and Courtney had written hers over 7 years.  I'd like to read all their books of course and even if I don't enjoy them (for whatever reason) at least I know that they worked really hard on them and to a large extent are still finding their feet in the industry.

We were supposed to all receive free copies of the books after this particular panel discussion, but of course all the vultures got to them first and I missed out.

As I wandered dejectedly over to the next panel discussion, it was also my time to stand in the wrong queue, so I couldn't get in to hear Cary Elwes talk about his new book, "As You Wish: Tales from the Princess Bride".  I was really frustrated about that, but there were so many other people turned away too, so misery definitely loved company.

I bravely made one more circuit of the still-crowded expo floor but strayed into the children's books section by mistake and that was way too perky for me.  I did pick up a sheet of stickers though, full of presumably famous characters from FarFaria.  I have no idea what that is, but I believe it's a free app you can download that teaches children how to read.  I could never be grumpy about kids learning how to read.

When I finally found the exit again, I took it as a sign to leave BookCon.  I walked away from the Javits Center and never looked back.  A sheet of stickers was my only free gift for going to the convention this year and although free stuff wasn't the prime motivation for me going, I have to admit I was disappointed that I didn't come home with at least a few new and exciting books to read.

But the Javits Center hasn't beaten me; I'm not giving up.  Perhaps next year I'll be able to scam an invitation to the industry days during the week, and take my time to peruse all the displays and actually talk to the exhibitors.  And I'll even bring cash for Diet Coke.  What a treat that will be!

Not your conventional book event

One of the best things about starting this blog is that it has given me the kick in the pants I clearly needed to get out and explore New York City properly.  I don't mean just visiting the usual must-see tourist attractions in this town, but it's more about branching out and trying things I haven't done before, or haven't made time for before.

Case in point, I bought myself a ticket to BookCon, the giant literary trade show and convention being held here in New York this week, which provides a forum for books, storytelling and pop culture.

The earlier part of this week at BookCon has been for publishing industry personnel, but the exhibition is open to the public all day tomorrow.  BookCon Headquarters are at the Javits Center, a purpose-built exhibition venue in Hell's Kitchen next to the Hudson River, which is abominably large, bedecked in signage that makes no sense at all, and is therefore most likely designed to confuse as many conference delegates as possible.  Notwithstanding my frustrations with the host venue (which I will clearly get over), I'm already psyched to spend the whole day tomorrow wandering in and out of the panel discussions and book signings.  Stories about all that to follow.

When I bought my ticket to the convention I had the option to spend $10 extra and attend the official BookCon kick-off event tonight (Friday).  It was a panel discussion on the bestselling novel,  "This Is Where I Leave You" by Jonathan Tropper.  I read the book a few months ago and loved it, and the movie version will be out in September.  Tropper also wrote the screenplay for the film, and he participated in the panel discussion tonight, as did the movie's director (Shawn Levy) and two of its stars, Tina Fey and Jason Bateman.

So far only the film's trailer has been officially released, but at the panel discussion tonight we got to have a sneak peek at a couple of the scenes in the film.  When I love a book, I'm always concerned about how it will translate onto the screen, but Jonathan Tropper said that a movie is its own animal.  In his words, "what I get out of going to a movie is different from what I get out of reading a book" and I do think that's true.  And given that Tropper was intimately involved in writing the screenplay, he got to have a say in any points of divergence between his book and his script (and there are several).

I liked hearing the insights about how much of the film was scripted, and which scenes were more heavily improvised.  Jason Bateman plays the story's protagonist, Judd, and Tropper said that during the table-read he listened to the actors and ended up changing some of Judd's lines in the script because "Bateman wouldn't say it like that".  And when Tina Fey changed some of Tropper's words in the script, she emailed him to apologise - but apparently he wasn't offended at all; in fact, he felt fortunate to be getting "free writing" out of her.  It sounded like a great collaboration and even though I loved the book as it was, I thought that the edited/adapted scenes we got to see tonight were just as funny.

If the panel discussions I sit through tomorrow are anything like this one, I will love BookCon 2014.   I'm not the sort to go autograph-hunting, or have my photo taken with authors or whatever.  I just want to sit and listen to banter back-and-forth from people whose work I've really enjoyed reading.   I'm just not sure how I'm going to fit it all in though - I mean, take a look at the schedule!  While I'm sure I've forgotten a couple of sessions, I know that I want to hear John Grisham, Brandon Stanton (aka Humans of New York), Jason Segel, and my sweet Westley Carey Elwes.  If I get to all those sessions, I think I will be able to declare the day a success.  Assuming I don't get lost at the Javits Center first, of course.

Stay tuned, fellow book geeks!

Bryant Park celebrates The Bard

I was thirteen and had just started high school when I met Shakespeare for the first time.  Mrs Mac introduced me to him via The Enchanted Island, an anthology of stories adapted from Shakespeare plays that was published in 1966 but which still resonated nearly thirty years later.  When my hormones were a complete mess the following year, “Romeo and Juliet” made perfect sense to me.  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” offered just the right mix of fairy magic and human relationships for a romantic fifteen year old.  At sixteen I studied “Macbeth”, that dark and bloodthirsty tale of single-minded ambition that showcased Mrs Millar’s Scottish brogue to best effect.  And then in my final year of high school, as I grappled with making serious decisions about my future, I felt a natural kinship with the brooding Prince of Denmark in “Hamlet”.

If what they say is true, and the prime ingredients for a successful relationship are timing and chemistry, Shakespeare and I seem destined to be together for a long time to come. 

The Bard has actually been a big part of my life since those high school days.  On stage and screen, in productions professional and otherwise, I’ve devoured his work.  Seeing “Henry IV” Parts 1 and 2 on the same day at The Globe in London remains one of the best experiences of my life.

Here in New York there is no shortage of opportunity to rekindle a relationship with Shakespeare.  You can visit Central Park any time and walk around the beautiful Shakespeare Garden (behind the 79^th Street Transverse), or once a year they have a celebrity-studded “Shakespeare in the Park” festival that is free to the public (but gets hugely crowded).  And for something completely different, you can even see a raucous production of “Drunk Shakespeare” in a small theatre just off Times Square.

The sets really aren't fancy

But if you find yourself in Midtown over the next few months, why not do what I did and be a groundling in Bryant Park, located just behind the New York Public Library?  During this summer season, The Drilling Company (a New York-based theatre group) is staging free Shakespeare productions in Bryant Park and tonight was their second-to-last performance of “Hamlet” (the curtain falls on May 31).

That Shakespeare has never been staged in Bryant Park before is not the only reason that tonight’s production was special.  This play is part of the Drilling Company’s “Shakespeare in theParking Lot” series and as its name suggests, it would normally have been performed in a public parking lot on the Lower East Side.  It’s the Drilling Company’s way to make Shakespeare more accessible to people, and take it out of fancy theatres with elaborate sets.  But when the Bryant Park Corporation contacted the company and invited them into greener space for this year’s series, The Drilling Company decided to breathe new life back into their 2011 hit production of “Hamlet” and share it with an uptown audience.

Pre-show entertainment

According to the Drilling Company’s website, their “intrepid, bare-boned productions have become a New York tradition” and it wasn’t hard for me to see why.  This was a decidedly modern take on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.  The title character is as madcap and dysfunctional as ever, and in keeping up the pretense of being crazy he torments the confused and naïve Ophelia.  But in a stroke of genius, Polonius is cast as a psychoanalyst-type character and when he’s not nagging his children, he’s making many of his observations about Hamlet into a tiny tape recorder for later playback.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern take selfies with the Royal Family, Queen Gertrude is rarely without a glass of wine in her hand, and King Claudius delivers his lines so casually and conversationally that you actually forget you’re hearing Shakespeare.  In fact, none of the actors spoke in that over-enunciated way that we’ve come to expect from Shakespeare.  The performances were relatable, accessible, and really engaging.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
meet the Danish Royal Family

My only regret about tonight was that I forgot to bring a jacket.  When the sun went down, it was quite cold sitting out there in Bryant Park with no protection from the wind.  I definitely learned my lesson for next time.

Speaking of which, the Drilling Company’s next Shakespeare performances in Bryant Park will be “Twelfth Night” (July 10 to 26) and “Othello” (July 31 to August 16).  Performances start at 7pm, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.  Shows are only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights so make sure you book your calendar.

** NEWSFLASH**  This article is also going to be published on the CityElla website in the next few days.  Please visit this great New York site, whose contributors are also keen to share their NYC stories with you.  Many of them venture where I'm too scared to tread (like nightclubs and dating sites), so it's definitely worth a look!  **

Peanuts and crackerjacks

When I moved to Chicago in October 2005, the Chicago White Sox won the World Series and the city just erupted.  I watched all the games in that Series, and notwithstanding the fact I had no idea what was going on, I totally got swept up in baseball fever.

Inspired though I was by the Sox victory, I could see Wrigley Field from my house, so I ended up adopting the Chicago Cubs as my team.  I remember spending many happy afternoons and evenings cheering them on, not that it ever helped much.  But I reckon when you're new to the US and you have no idea what is going on in baseball, the Cubs are the perfect team to support.  They win some, they lose some (ok, they lose most), but the atmosphere at the hallowed Wrigley Field is totally electric and that alone kept me coming back for years.

You'd therefore be forgiven for thinking I'm quite the baseball fanatic these days, but that's hardly the case.  I mean, up until tonight I hadn't been to a game in nearly 5 years.  But when a friend invited me to come up to Citi Field ballpark in Queens to see the New York Mets take on the Pittsburgh Pirates, I was totally on board.  As the 7th inning stretch song goes, let me root, root, root for the home team, right?  I had my game face on all day.

Are grey skies gonna clear up?

If you look on a New York subway map, you might think that the journey to Citi Field will take you forever, but it's actually a very easy (and direct) ride on the Number 7 subway from Grand Central Station.

Express trains obviously don't stop everywhere, but they take about 25 minutes from Grand Central - or else there is the local train that takes about 45 minutes.  And once you get to the Mets/Willets Point subway station (the second-to-last stop on the line), you just follow the signs to the stadium - it's right there.  Even I couldn't get lost.

Zeppole by any other name...

The ballpark is still pretty new too - it was only completed in 2009.  It has seating for nearly 42,000 people but it also has heaps of food stalls and refreshment stands to cater to your every deep-fried and calorific whim.

There is something quite nice about ballpark hotdogs and beers - but the fried dough (zeppole) would have been a bit of a stretch, even for me.  Plus the hotdogs come from Nathan's (the famous hot dog place at Coney Island) so I had to represent.

Our tickets were up in the nosebleed section, and I think the grey skies kept a lot of people away tonight.  But it didn't matter to us in the least because we had a birds-eye view of all the action, and the big screen/jumbotron was nearby, so we could see and hear everything.

Trying to decipher all the baseball statistics was a waste of time, so we just watched the players and remarked on their excellent throwing arms and thwarted attempts to steal bases.

It was a pretty close game throughout, but it was a really slow one too, and the seventh inning stretch took forever to come.  When it finally did, I leapt to my feet and joined the crowd to sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame".  I tend to start that song really strongly, get a bit fuzzy in the middle, and then belt out the ending.  But this time, the lyrics were on the jumbotron, so I gave it my all throughout.

With storm clouds growing about as fast as our fatigue, we called it quits before the end of the game.  Unfortunately we missed the Mets victory (4-2), but I definitely had a great time back at the ballpark, and I reckon I'm ready to tackle Yankee Stadium next.

A very memorable long weekend

When you move to a city like New York, the concept of a staycation over a long weekend is never a trial.  In fact, you wear the goofiest of grins when the drizzly rain and thunderstorms clear out and you get bright sunshine soaking right through your skin and down into your bones.  Such was the experience for New Yorkers this long weekend, capped off with Memorial Day celebrations that herald the official start of summer.

I had a fairly low-key Saturday, filled with the sorts of errands that everybody puts off doing during the week.  Come Sunday though, I was ready to face the City and like most New Yorkers, that meant the most delicious of weekend institutions: brunch.

Alder is one of those tiny restaurants that line the stretch of Second Avenue in the East Village.  Blink and you'd miss it, but that would be a shame.  Their outdoor dining space is also small, but we snagged a great table in the sun, and shared the bacon, egg & cheese gyoza, and a serve of pickled beets, before I tucked in to my delicious pastrami hash, with a soft-boiled egg that oozed gooey yolk like liquid sunshine.  The barista at Alder knows a thing or two about coffees as well, and on that front I was not disappointed.

A few blocks away, the predominantly Puerto Rican community on the Lower East Side hit the streets on Avenue C to celebrate The Loisaida Festival 2014, a massive community street fair that stretched for blocks.  In a neighbourhood that used to be racked by drugs, violence, and gangs, fed-up local residents started the Festival in the mid-1970s as an attempt to rebuild their little corner of New York.  Over the years, the annual celebration has grown to embrace other Hispanic nationalities, but the Puerto Rican flags were still flying high yesterday.  There were little stalls selling grilled meats, roasted corn, and the most refreshing pina coladas for $5.  A large concert stage set up at the very end of the Festival showcased a number of bands that inspired couples of all ages to get up and dance.  My friends from Brazil and El Salvador could not stand still and I have to say, despite not having any salsa rhythm to speak of, I found it hard not to shimmy along.  If you can't beat 'em, join' em!

Regretting my decision to wear 3" heels, I left the Festival and hobbled a few blocks to Ninth Ward, a narrow and dark Louisiana bar back up on Second Avenue.  Walk through the dim, wood-paneled bar area and you'll find  the restrooms (unisex - and rather cheekily labelled "Sex", "Drugs" and "Rock n Roll").  Continue further on and you emerge into a beer garden that is a real treat.  The sun was still warm, the drinks were ice-cold, and our smiles were large.

It must have been the day for friends and cold beers, because after our refreshing pit-stop, we persuaded a lovely taxi driver to take us a few blocks south, just past Houston Street.  We called into Fool's Gold, which was having its "soft opening" yesterday - prior to its official launch on 1 June.  With a massive selection of craft beers, and very knowledgeable staff, we sipped our drinks and watched the sign-writer paint the brand-new gastropub's name on its front doors.  It's not often that you get to see a New York bar before the "welcome" sign paint even dries!

When my alarm went off this morning, and the sun was already shining on Memorial Day, I don't mind admitting that I cursed the impromptu bar crawl of the day before.  But I did not roll over and go back to sleep, because I'd made a deal with myself to head to the Upper West Side and observe the Memorial Day ceremony at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Riverside Park.  I'd never been up to this part of the Upper West Side, and on such a beautiful and important day, it seemed silly to stay under the covers.

So off to the Upper West Side I went, and with a cool breeze blowing off the Hudson River, just past the tree line, I sat and watched the crowd grow for the Memorial Day service.  Pipers were warming up not too far away, and the Navy band was in place and ready to go.

The Soliders' and Sailors' Monument was created in homage to the Civil War soldiers that served and gave their lives to protect the Union.  Then-Governor Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Monument in 1900 and it was dedicated two years later.  Now the monument comes under the care of the NYC Parks Department.  They completed a major restoration in 1960 and the plaza (where we sat today) was reconstructed in 2008.

There was a huge turnout today - hundreds of people came to pay their respects.  The old ladies in my row handed me a giant American flag and designated me the official flag-waver for our group.  At various points in the ceremony I was prodded to lift the flag high and wave it proudly.  The only time they gave me a break was during the Star Spangled Banner, which was just as well because I always get a bit weepy during that song.  I know, I'm not even from here - I can't help it.

The line-up of guest speakers for this morning's ceremony included a who's who of the City of New York.  Mayor De Blasio was there and delivered a stirring address, speaking quite personally about growing up in an Army household and the importance of always remembering the fallen.  The Mayor was followed by the Secretary of the Navy, the City Comptroller, the Borough President of Manhattan, and a Brigadier General from the 2nd Marine Division.

After a group of young cadets recited the Gettysburg Address, wreaths were laid in memory of those who had given their lives for their country.  Before long, the base of the Monument was a sea of lush green foliage and bright, colourful flowers.

The ceremony only last about 90 minutes but it was a beautiful tribute to past and present men and women in the armed forces.

Walking back through Riverside Park, I enjoyed the cool Hudson River breeze on my face, and just watched the families, joggers, cyclists, and dogs all out and about on this sunny public holiday.

My belly was growling for lunch by the time I reached the steps of The Boat Basin Cafe, which has finally re-opened for the season.  The hostess was kind enough to find me a table right by the water, and somehow I bypassed the 25-minute wait for tables.  My Australian accent wins again!  I had already had one of the most American days in living memory, so I continued the theme with beers and a burger - now that, my friends, is the real American dream!

Giving in to wanderlust

Photo Credit: Living in Neverland

I went on my first overseas holiday in 1995, as a chaperone for my sister's school trip to New Caledonia.  The idea of me being a chaperone for anyone is as humorous now as it was back then, but I remember the trip being amazing.  The girls in my sister's school group were as excited as I was to be away from home, seeing new sights and grappling with the challenge of applying our limited high school French to everyday situations.

When I got back to Australia after that brief time away, I knew that the travel bug had bitten me.  I wasn't working full time back then, so although my mind and body wanted to be elsewhere, my bank balance kept me grounded.

But it couldn't keep me out of the bookstores.

I became the most prolific armchair traveller you would ever find.  I think I single-handedly kept Lonely Planet in business back then, buying all the visitor guides for destinations I desperately wanted to see (Venice, Rome, Paris).  But I mixed those up with a diverse collection of travel books written by ordinary people who'd had extraordinary adventures in places I probably couldn't find on a map (Bhutan, Greenland, Madagascar).  Their stories taught me the difference between being a tourist and a traveller - and there was no question which one I wanted to be.

In conversation with my friend's great aunt, I learned the word peripatetic, describing a person who travels from place to place.  It gave an air of sophistication to the sort person I wanted to become.  My bookshelf groaned under the weight of journeys not yet taken, and I continued to work and save hard.

The obligatory week in Bali that seems such a right of passage for young Australians was a hedonistic affair.  But even then, I remember preferring the cool tranquility of temples over the gallons of 'jungle juice' and thumping music into the pre-dawn hours.  A month of intensive and immersive French study in Vichy, France left me lonely and sobbing in public phone boxes, regretting my decisions and desperate to come home.  The week-long Contiki tour through Italy afterwards put me back on track.

When my boss gave me permission to take a "gap year" in 2005, I all but put my hand on my heart and vowed to be back at my desk a year later.  As I stood there at my farewell party, colleagues told me "you'll never come back", "you've gone for good now" - and I swear, I didn't believe them.    But then you leave Australia in blistering summer heat, you transit through the cosmopolitan craziness of Hong Kong, you land in Paris where you see snow falling for the first time (outside of the ski resort), and your whole world changes.

Spurred along by that common thread of wanderlust than ran through all the travel stories I'd read at home, my adventure took me back to France, through Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, and finally to rest in Scotland for six months.

I've come to New York via all these places, plus Chicago, and London (stories for another time), so I know how it feels to be in a strange place, surrounded by unfamiliar language.  I'd like to think that I have an affinity with the streams of tourists that come through New York City every year, because even though I've been here for three years already, my tiny bookshelf still strains under the weight of New York travel books.  Photo guides and travel journals sit alongside history books which in turn prop up biographies of famous New Yorkers.  And even though the city is right outside my door, I can't stop reading about how others have experienced it.

Book 3 in the series

Innocent though they are in enabling this compulsion, the fantastic independent bookseller McNally Jackson is a must-visit when you come to New York.  Their mission is to celebrate Manhattan's literary culture - they want you to read about New York and get to know it better through its books and writers.  But of course they offer books from all over the world too.

But naturally I love the place because their travel book section is quite extensive, with maps and stories galore.  I grabbed a couple of titles yesterday including the third - and latest - "Have A NYC" book, an annual anthology of short stories about New York.  This third installment has been dedicated to the memory of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died in February this year.  I've already finished the book (of course) and while you won't learn any statistics or detailed history about New York from reading it, the book does give you a handle on the diversity of people in the City.  Its stories span the 1960s to present-day, and are set against the backdrop of neighbourhoods that, in many cases, have changed quite substantially over the years.  Whether you're an armchair traveller or an actual one, it's definitely worth keeping an eye out for this series.

Fifty years of uniting nations and keeping the peace

Earlier this month I looked at some of the permanent artwork on display at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  Tonight I was lucky enough to attend the launch of a temporary exhibition of photographs entitled 50 Years of Australian Police in Peacekeeping, and it was held in the lobby of the UN Secretariat Building (that tall, skinny one in all the UN photos you see). 

It is great that the UN makes it possible for countries to host exhibitions like these in New York, even though they don't have a dedicated gallery space in which to do it.  Just glancing at the photos as you walk by, you get to consider something you might not otherwise think much about.

Cute kids and a cute
man in uniform.  Art.

The photo exhibition that opened tonight focuses on the contribution that Australia has made to the mix of police operations and UN peacekeeping Missions since 1964, starting in Cyprus and then continuing in countries such as Timor Leste, Sudan, South Sudan, Cambodia, and Somalia. 

Australian police meet former
UNSG Boutros Boutros Ghali

The UN deploys police officers and peacekeepers overseas predominantly to respond to situations of unrest, instability or disaster.  And when they get to their destination, their mission is anything but ordinary.  Among a range of humanitarian responsibilities, they're on-site to maintain public order, to keep people and infrastructure safe, and to work with local law enforcement to strengthen their own skills.  But the world has changed since UN Police first went into the field.  Weapons have become more sophisticated, conflicts are more complicated, and peace negotiations are often protracted and frustrating.  UN Police has had to adapt to all these realities.

Earning the trust of the locals
is critical to success

There were a couple of photos in the exhibition that were operational, showing activities like weapons clearances and patrols at border crossings, but my favourites were the candid photos of the police talking with locals.  Verbal language may sometimes be a barrier, but body language is universal.  I could plainly see the stress and fatigue on the faces of the locals in some photos, counterbalanced by the expressions of calm authority worn by the police officers standing by them.  In other photos, both the locals and the police were sharing a laugh, and I was glad the photographer had captured that brief moment of levity.

Some of the photos made me laugh out loud too, particularly the ones from the early 1970s.  Back then, Australia's police were sporting handle-bar mustaches, short shorts, and long socks.  The irony of policemen committing crimes (against fashion)!

The world's first Pre-Deployment
Training Village in Canberra

One photo subject that I found really interesting was the Australian Police's training facility located in Canberra, the capital city of Australia.

The facility includes a Pre-Deployment Training Village that simulates a realistic overseas mission.  It must be really scary to land in an unfamiliar and dangerous place, not knowing what kind of reception you're going to get.  So the village includes a town hall, police station, shops, homes, and even a UN office - all the kinds of places that the police officers are likely to encounter when they are deployed.  As they go through tactical exercises, they also do scenario-based training that sharpens other skills like team-building, cross-cultural negotiations, and how sensitive they are to gender and cultural differences.  The Pre-Deployment Training Village was the first of its kind in the world (when it was built) and it has been a great success.

Passing on forensic skills

This photo exhibition really captured the diversity of Australia's contribution to UN policing over 50 years of overseas operations and peacekeeping missions.  I liked seeing the evolution of the police force and the mix between on-the-ground operations and working directly with members of the community.  It gave me a great insight into the legacy of peacekeeping (and the peacekeepers) and the courage it must take to do that job.

Making space for an American literary legend

Dorothy Parker once said that she didn't care what people wrote about her, as long as it wasn't true.  Well even if I'd wanted to oblige her, I simply can't lie about my admiration for one of my favourite authors.

And I'm not alone in the esteem in which I hold Mrs Parker and her work, as evidenced by the full house for tonight's performance of "Dorothy Parker's Wicked Pen", at the mid-sized Symphony Space theatre on the Upper West Side.  We were treated to a great evening of readings and reflections on the mind of one of America's greatest wits.

Dorothy Parker was born in 1893 and grew up in New Jersey and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  After stints with Vanity Fair and Vogue, she started hanging out more frequently at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City, with the writers who would eventually start The New Yorker.  Mrs Parker was on the magazine's founding board when it began in 1925, and she continued writing for them until 1957.

It's no secret that Mrs Parker was plagued by problems with men, money, and alcohol - all to varying degrees.  Ups and downs aside, what tonight's concert really drove home was that Dorothy Parker was a sharp writer.  Fragile maybe, and even a bit broken in parts, but she was popular amongst her friends and admired for her craft.  Case in point:

OBSERVATION
If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn. 

But I am always particularly impressed to know that Dorothy Parker was also a woman of firm convictions.  When she died in 1967, Mrs Parker left her literary estate to Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and it is now held by the NAACP.

With introductions by writer and Time Out New York contributing editor Matt Love, tonight's performance featured talented actors reading excerpts from Dorothy Parker's magazine columns and prose.  Indie movie legend Parker Posey read "The Sexes"; Stage and screen actress Heather Burns read "Bohemia" and "In The Throes: The Precious Thoughts of an Author At Work";  Broadway veteran Mary Louise Wilson performed "From the Diary of  New York Lady" (my favourite - and it had the audience in stitches); and film actress Hope Davis closed the show with "The Standard of Living".  I wasn't familiar with any of these stories, but it was lovely to have them read by familiar actors.  They brought such animation to the work but delivered many of the lines in the dry, cynical way that you can just imagine Mrs Parker would have done.

Dorothy Parker American Gin

The New York Distilling Company was at the theatre tonight too.  They sweetened our theatre-going experience by mixing free drinks with Dorothy Parker American Gin.

Now normally I'm not a gin drinker, but the evening seemed to call for it, so I had a cool gin & tonic before the show started.  Very refreshing, and it has definitely tempted me to tour the distillery  in Brooklyn at some point in the not-too-distant future.  But when I do, I shall have another favourite Parker-ism foremost in my mind:

I like to drink a martini, two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host.

Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the neighbourhood

There is a scene in Ben Stiller's 2001 film Zoolander in which the "really really ridiculously good-looking" title character is staring in disbelief at his Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Wanna Learn to do Other Stuff Good Too.  Not realising it's a model, the adorably clueless Derek Zoolander whines, "How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read...if they can't even fit inside the building?".

Derek might be an idiot, but his point got me thinking.  How could I create a blog about New York City, and write 108 posts on things you can do when you visit, but not give you a single piece of advice on how to get here in the first place!  Well, let's remedy that right now.

Before we start though, an important disclaimer.  The information that follows will be predominantly relevant to people flying into and out of Manhattan, because that's what I know best.  If you need to get to the other boroughs, I am sure that the companies I talk about here will be able to help you.  Just check their websites (links provided).

Follow the airport signs
for "Ground Transportation"

Visiting New York can be an expensive prospect, particularly if you're coming here on holiday and you've only got a short time to squeeze everything in.  Unless you're especially fortunate, chances are you're working to a budget and you need to make every dollar stretch as far as it can without compromising your safety or enjoyment.  The commute to and from the airport is really the official start of your holiday in Manhattan, and you want to get that part right, don't you?

TAXIS
Pros:  Cheap; available year-round; plentiful; take credit cards; flat-rate fare to/from JFK; no charge for luggage; door-to-door service
Cons: Long lines at the airport; scammers try to solicit rides in the airport terminals (don't fall for this); no flat-rate fare to/from La Guardia or Newark Airports; no baby seats available; standard cabs only seat maximum 4 passengers; no available cabs in the City during shift change (4-5pm); high demand during rush hour
Cost:  Flat-rate non-stop fare to/from JFK is $52.50 + tolls + tip (includes tax)
Website:  NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission

CAR SERVICE
Pros:  Available year-round; clean; reliable; great for business travelers; diverse fleet depending on the number of passengers and luggage (sedans, SUVs, mini-buses available); baby seats available; driver will greet you in the Arrivals Hall with a little sign bearing your name (often costs extra); door-to-door service; you can book your journey in advance; quotes available online; take credit cards
Cons:  More expensive than cabs; little or no availability at short notice
Cost:  Varies depending on company, but usual fare (plus taxes, tips, and tolls) is about $35 to/from La Guardia, or $40 to/from JFK and Newark.  If you keep the car waiting, that will cost you extra too.  Definitely worth getting a quote online first.
Website:  Check out Dial 7, Carey, and Carmel

EXPRESS AIRPORT BUSES
Pros:  Cheap; available year-round; free Wifi on-board; no need to pre-book (but it's a good idea); non-stop to the airport of your choice (and between airports, if you need); pick-up/drop-off points are central and well-serviced by cabs if needed (Penn Station, Grand Central Station & Port Authority Bus Terminal); shuttles available to select hotels in Manhattan, depending on location
Cons:  There is a set schedule; no direct hotel pick-up/drop off; occasional long lines at the airport
Cost:  $29 to/from JFK or $23 to/from La Guardia
Website:  NYC Airporter Bus

PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Pros:  Cheap; available year-round
Cons:  Difficult if you have a lot of luggage (some escalators and elevators, but mostly stairs); not door-to-door service (you might have to change multiple times); not always on time (particularly late at night, on weekends, or in bad weather); bus drivers require exact change (MetroCards aren't available at all bus stops); not always a user-friendly system (if you're unfamiliar with the subway map or bus routes)
Cost:  Subway or local bus ride is $2.50 (reduced fares available for seniors).  Refillable MetroCards are available at most subway stations and ticket booths (usually $5 and upwards).  Very handy if you can foresee using the subway at least a couple of times during your visit.
Website:  MTA Travel Costs; and MTA trip planner

RENTAL CAR
You're messing with me, right?  You're having a holiday in Manhattan.  Don't rent a car.

HITCH-HIKING
Now I know you're messing with me.  Have you seen "Law & Order: SVU"?

However you choose to get from the airport to the center of the City is up to you.  These are just the ways I've done it in the past, largely dictated by the amount of luggage I'm toting, or the time of day I'm travelling, or my budget, or my sanity levels.  When in doubt, ask someone.  New Yorkers may have the reputation of being stand-offish (or even unfriendly) but it's simply not true.  Don't start your holiday by getting lost, or getting robbed, or getting grouchy.  Just get to your destination.

Rocking out in my favourite type of garden

When you think of green spaces in New York, Central Park is usually the first place that springs to mind.  And that's fair enough, really.  But New York is actually teeming with all manner of green spaces that soften up this concrete jungle.  From riverside promenades, to dog parks, to neighbourhood oases with public benches and basketball courts, New York can meet all your needs.

And it's not just the permanent green spaces that make our lives more pleasurable here.  From time to time, gardens will simply pop-up in New York to add some colour and comfort to your life.  Case in point, tonight's destination: the Brooklyn Brewery Pop-Up Beer Garden, held on the space usually occupied by the ice rink at Rockefeller Plaza.

Now "The Rock" is one of those congested tourist attractions that locals will usually do their best to avoid.  There are a number of notable exceptions to this of course: it's Christmas and we want to see the tree lights; or we've got visitors in town who want to visit Top of the Rock; or when we have tickets to one of the great NBC shows that tape on-site.

And the fourth exception is what brought me here tonight - the 2014 Summer Garden & Bar Season, a genius annual event that definitely draws the locals back to this New York City icon. 

The premise behind tonight's event was really "to taste limited-edition, large format, and exclusive brews with beer-friendly dishes" prepared by Antonio Prontelli, who has been the Executive Chef at The Rock Center Cafe since 2002.  You can read a great interview with the Chef here.

Tonight's event also provided the perfect platform for New Yorkers to continue celebrating Brewmaster Garrett Oliver who, in his 20th year with Brooklyn Brewery won the 2014 James Beard Foundation Award for Excellence in the category of "Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional".   The guys who were pouring beers tonight were very proud of Oliver and his achievements, which was really nice to hear.

For the sheer volume and diversity of food and beverages on offer, tonight's event gave me flashbacks to the Rioja tasting that I did in Brooklyn a few weekends ago.  But where that event was pretty much a full afternoon gorge-fest, this was a smaller-scale, walk-around tasting that didn't make me feel too stuffed at the end.  Hard to believe though, when you consider the menu:

• Cuban chicken sandwich - with shaved chicken, parma cotta, swiss cheese, home-made pickles and sundried tomato mustard, served with Local 1 beer.
• Housemade lamb sausage & summer squash "kebabs" with yoghurt sauce, served with Brooklyn BLAST! beer.
• BBQ-spiced salmon sliders, served with Brooklyn Greenmarket Wheat beer.
• Tomato-watermelon salad with feta cheese and pickled onions, served with the seasonal Brooklyn Summer Ale.
• Steak Salad with green papaya slaw, serrano chili vinaigrette, and avocado cream, served with a Brooklyn Sorachi Ace beer.
• For dessert (if we'd had room), milk chocolate and peanut butter bar with strawberry rhubarb jam, washed down with a dark, rich and velvety Cuvee Noire.

Let's be fair, I didn't get to try all the food and beer on offer tonight - the lines were just too long.  But I have to say, it was really nice to sit up at the Rink Bar afterwards and enjoy our bonus full-sized pint of Brooklyn Beer as a celebration at the end of the event.  I enjoyed just kicking back at the bar afterwards and have a cold drink with no crowds or queues or anything.

Whether or not you get to have food & drinks like this, I think it's definitely worth visiting Rockefeller Center during Summer Garden & Bar Season this year.  Celebrations kicked off on Mother's Day (May 11) and will continue through the season.  It's definitely something for visitors and locals to enjoy!

A little venue houses big musical talent

Every morning on my way to the subway I walk past this little place which, for a long time, I thought was a fancy restaurant.  "The Cell" is actually a wonderful performance space. As its name suggests, it is only tiny, but it is perfectly-appointed for the intimate music performance I was fortunate to see last night.

The 2014 Tribeca New Music Festival is a five-concert series that ends tonight (18 May).  Now in its 13th year, the Festival's  mission is to bring "new works of living composers creatively engaged with our popular culture".  That sounds fancy, but it just basically means the composers celebrated in this Festival are young and classically-trained, with a firm foundation in musical theory and practice, but they're also committed to merging their "music smarts" with their "street smarts".  So what you get is a concert series that everyone can relate to - it's engaging, it's contemporary, and it's a wonderful way to see the upcoming musical talent that resides in this City.

I saw Concert #4 last night, called "Poetry in Motion".  The session was curated by young Brooklyn-based composer Christopher Cerrone, whose work was also performed last night.  In total there were 6 works showcased at the concert, and they were all musical compositions based on new poetry.  So can we just talk about the challenge of that for a second?  You're a young composer, and you've been given a poem - just words on a page.  So you interpret the poem - elicit the key messages, and then you set it to music - you give the poem a melody.  I mean, that is just astonishing to me that someone can do that.  I caught myself wondering whether the poets were impressed with the way their work had been transformed.  Was it what they had in mind too?

Pianist Karl Larson did an incredible job - from where I sat, I could see the musical notes on his pages and in some cases, it was all a mess of black crotchets and quavers, but his fingers just confidently danced all over the keys and it was great.  The text was all sung by a fantastic soprano named Mellissa Hughes, who the New York Times has labelled "indispensable to New York's new-music ecosystem".  High praise indeed, and totally warranted.  As the works dictated, Mellissa's voice went from breathy and haunting, to gutsy and powerful.  Sarah Goldfeather played the violin in a number of pieces, and also sang harmonies with Mellissa in others - young and multi-talented, doesn't that just drive you crazy?  Likewise the electronic influence provided by Jacob Cooper, and Matt Evans on percussion reminded you that you're listening to the work of young composers - not stuffy old traditionalists bound by convention.

One of the composers was actually sitting in front of me last night.  Eric Shanfield's work Borrowed Love Poems had its world premiere.  Based on the poetry of John Yau, the work was comprised of 10 very different movements to match the ten verses of the poem.  At the end of the performance, Mellissa acknowledged Eric sitting in the front row, and his applause was thunderous.  I could tell he approved of the way his work had been presented, and of course I got a bit teary.  It must be wonderful to work so hard on something, and then see it come to fruition exactly as you imagined it.

If you want to see the concert for yourself, the Tribeca New Music Festival team has got a recording on its website and it will cost you $5 to view (click the link here).

I can't remember where I heard about the Tribeca New Music Festival but I'm certainly glad that I did.  And despite coming into the picture quite late, seeing the second-to-last performance in the 2014 series, I'll definitely be looking for it again next year.

I've got a short little span of attention

The Asia Society in New York on Park Avenue offers so many events throughout the year that I could probably devote this entire blog to them.  They are committed to promoting cross-cultural awareness through the arts, business, education, and policy, so there is always going to be something on their busy Events Calendar that will appeal to you.

In my case, it was tonight's special event; namely, the annual celebration to showcase the latest and most exciting short films from Australia.

Now I've been in New York for three years already, but I've been away from Australia for nearly ten, and I have to say it still delights me to see and hear Americans respond so positively to my country.  Indeed, the audience reaction to tonight's short films suggested that there was a great degree of fondness for Australia in the room.

The guard in "Still Life"

The first film we watched is called "Still Life", produced and directed by Martin Sharpe from Victoria.  You can view the film by clicking here.  A finalist at the Tropfest film festival in 2013, this 6-minute animated film tells a beautiful and very simple story about taking risks to find a happy ending.

The second film we saw is called "Joey", a live-action short film in black and white. It tells the rather unsettling story of a man who shoplifts goods which he then sells to a stream of baddies for cash.  You learn that Joey has a son and you get the sense that he's stealing these things and then selling them because he's trying to give his son a better life.  The sad part about this short film, however, is that it didn't seem to go anywhere - nobody was quite sure what to make of it tonight. So even though it won three awards at the St Kilda Festival in 2013 (Best Short Film, Best Director, and Best Actor), and even screened at other Festivals around Australia, tonight's audience didn't really respond to it.  No applause afterwards.  Awkward.

A charming scene from
"A Cautionary Tail"

There was no danger of a repeat when it came to the third film on tonight's program; a lovely 15-minute animation called "A Cautionary Tail".  Featuring the voice talents of veteran Australian actors Cate Blanchett, David Wenham and Barry Otto, this was a truly adorable film about accepting yourself the way you are.  Featuring 3D animated characters, hand-made miniature sets, and a smart, funny script this is an award-winning and lovely little film that went over well in the room tonight, and did very well in Australia too.

One of the best things about tonight's film screening at the Asia Society is the order in which the films played.  You went from being comfortable, to feeling awkward, to being charmed, and then film number four comes along and you go back to being weirded out again.

Matilda Brown as the iMom

Film number four is entitled "The iMom" and is a 14-minute, live-action social commentary about our reliance on modern electronics (and having the best model of electronics) in the marketplace to help make our lives easier.  You can view the trailer here.  It is only a short film, but it is very dark - and you're aware right from the start that there is something sinister going on; that one family's reliance on technology is going to cost them dearly.  The applause after this film was only light, but I think that's just because we were all still reeling from the ending.

To say the fifth film was a palate cleanser is a total understatement.  "Gus" by director and producer Andrew Martin is an adorable 8-minute animation about a little caveman (caveboy?) and his dad.  They're cast out of their tribe because of Gus's gastrointestinal "issues", but through a series of comical adventures they turn the negative into a positive for an ultimate happy ending.  This film won Best Comedy (animation) at the 2013 St Kilda Festival and it's not hard to see why.  You can view a brief trailer here.

From a film about being accepted for who you are, we moved to a film about finding out who you are (whether that proves to be a good idea or not).  The second-to-last film in the line-up tonight was "Sleight of Hand" and you can view a trailer here.  The story was actually quite charming - a movie within a movie, really.  And I quite like stop-motion animation films like this one - so clever, because you know how time-consuming they are.  "Sleight of Hand" won Best Short Animation Film at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2013, and has screened at a bunch of other festivals in Australia and abroad.

Luke Ryan in "Dave's Dead"

In her introduction tonight, film festival curator Susan Talbot warned us that the final film in the line-up would be confronting - bad language and characters behaving in a very naughty way.  She was not sugar-coating it.

"Dave's Dead" is a highly irreverent (and therefore typically Australian) production, directed by Alethea Jones.  The 15-minute live-action film stars a number of unfamiliar actors, alongside the wonderfully devilish Paul Robinson from "Neighbours" (whose IMDB profile photo you MUST see, for it will cheer you up immensely).  The whole film is actually available here and it's worth a look for sure.  A number of laugh-out-loud moments that you immediately regret because they're so inappropriate, which just makes you laugh even harder.  This film won the Audience Choice Award at the St Kilda Festival in 2013, and tonight's New York audience probably would have awarded it the same.

I'd never been to the Asia Society in New York before and up until about a week ago I had never heard about their annual Australian short film festival.  I need to find a way to get on the mailing list so I don't miss next year's event though.  This was a great chance to reconnect with the Australian sense of humour and also to celebrate a couple of short, sharp and shiny treasures that have come out of my country in recent times.  I was really pleased to see the (predominantly) American audience respond so well to them too.