NYC: Saturday

We decided late last night that instead of venturing south to Atlantic City that we would stay in the city Monday night, adding nearly two full days of things to do here.

Because of the extra time, I elected a slightly more moderate pace than the whirlwind of Friday, but even still--we were busy. The day started at the Jewish Museum to see the work of Louise Nevelson, a sculptor admired by Mary and new to me. From there it was just two blocks to the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, a museum that Mary, being the graphic designer that she is, has been looking forward to seeing for some time.

The Cooper Hewitt was short on exhibits as they were installing two new galleries, but their garden exhibit "Design for the Other 90%" was moving in their portrayal of design which has helped--or can help--with disease, poverty, education, etc, in the Third World.

We also met up with an old classmate from Bellarmine, Pat B. He's moved here three months ago and is working on auditions, casting calls, etc. We had a good lunch at a Mexican restaurant in the East Village called La Palapa.

From there we wandered the East Village and Soho before settling on our chosen activity for the night: movies. What's New York without film you won't see anywhere else (at least not for a few months)?

We started at the Angelika Film Center with the directorial debut of Julie Delpy, 2 Days in Paris. I should mention the title is a bad choice, considering that the sex-tape of Paris Hilton was marketed under the title 1 Night in Paris, which--technically speaking--would fall between Day 1 and Day 2 of this 2 Days in Paris.

Delpy you might remember from Before Sunrise and the sequel, which is much better, Before Sunset. Here she starred, wrote, directed, edited, and scored, which is pretty good it seems. Her co-star is Adam Goldberg, who you've seen in a few things, including those Friends episodes when he plays Chandler's new roommate who puts goldfish crackers in his aquarium.

But I digress.

After the Anjelika we had a spicy dinner at a Cajun restaurant called Acme (on Great Jones St, by the way, which is an awesome name for any street, so awesome it's also the title of a Don Delillo book).

And then on to the three-screen, non-profit, art-house theater (sound familiar?) called the Film Forum. We caught a late show of Rear Window, a film that we had tried to get at the Grand for the Hitchcock film series in 2005 but couldn't because we didn't have the right kind of projectors.

Rear Window is set in New York during a summer heat wave, and seeing it in New York during a summer heat wave is just the thing, especially when you can do it with a crowd of people, some who've seen it, some who haven't it.

It's actually been years since I've seen the film, and seeing it on the big screen is absolutely worth it. It's funny, exciting, and creepy. Getting to see it here in these circumstances was very cool.

After the late show it was back to our own small courtyard that looks out at many other rear windows and balconies ...