Halloweentime Jaunt to the Midwest

Spent the weekend in Minneapolis - again - this weekend. I actually don't mind it so much. I tell everybody it's a surprisingly cosmopolitan place.

This time I stayed at the Hilton, which was a mistake because it was a prime convention spot crawling with badge-toting midwesterners and gigantic football players (North Dakota State U, to be exact). I was pressed up against the back of the elevator during each trip to and from the 21st floor, praying for oxygen.

The stress of the throngs needed desperately to be relieved, so I ordered an in-room massage from the former LiteSpa (now an Aveda salon called Sanctuary). Spa services outside of a beach cabana or New York City can be a bit dodgy, but this ended up being really good - in fact, I think, better than the massages I get from Deborah at Crunch. This one included a great head/scalp massage, and also uncovered some real pain I'm having...drum roll...behind my knees. In the lymph area. Apparently I'm clogged.

So the massage was a great release in more ways than one, and for the first time in weeks (maybe months), I woke up the next morning and could walk without hobbling. Score!

Besides the access to in-room massages, the one good thing about the hotel was its proximity to a great restaurant called Hell's Kitchen, a new discovery. Aptly named, the wait there is hellish, as is the attitude of the people taking reservations and names for the waitlist. Saturday I tried to go there three times, and finally ordered a ham and pear toasted sandwich to go and ate it on the stairwell in the building. But this morning I planned ahead and didn't have to wait too long to brunch with Sebouh, who shared the delicious sausage bread (made with bison meat!), topped with butter, homemade peanut butter and preserves. It's practically a meal on its own but I managed to make some room for the catfish breakfast special, with poached eggs and a sauce with a real kick to it.

Minneapolis always brings the good food and drink, if you know where to go. (DON'T go to the NewsRoom.) We tried the bar in the new swank Graves 601 hotel, where I had the deliciously unsweet Mojito "8" cocktail and some sweet grilled cheese sandwiches topped with truffle honey. The scene was weirdly New York, and we were surrounded by Emmy winners of the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Television Academy. Bizarre.

Even more bizarre was our trip to the sticks for the Trail of Terror, supposedly the Midwest's best Halloween attraction. It paled in comparison to some of the New York area ones I've visited over the last couple of years, but the haunted house-slash-maze had some neat tricks of its own that kept me on my toes (and grabbing for Vic). They kept it really dark, and with my night vision pretty bad as it is, I was blind the whole time. Then we hit the hallway with the big horn sound and a bright light that bleached our retinas and really blinded us.

I can't say it was worth the long drive, the muddy school bus ride from the parking lot, and the long wait in line, but I was spooked and startled and we laughed a lot. Mission accomplished.

It also gave us the excuse to have dinner at Bennigan's, which we spotted from the highway. We were hungry for fun, and thanks to Vic, now I can say I've tasted the deep fat fried and battered Monte Cristo sandwich with raspberry jam. It's so wrong. And so good.

Thankfully, considering everything I ate while away, I got the chance to swim a little at my hotel. I also spent a fair amount of time on my feet walking back and forth between hotel and Target Center, where I was wrangling some children for the KIDZ BOP WORLD TOUR. Rock!

If I have to go back to Minneapolis again, I hope it's during better weather, so I can visit De Smet, SD and complete my Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway journey.

Photo Essay: Great Jack o’ Lantern Blaze

I guess it's a family event, but since I didn't have any kids to bring, I dragged Edith, Eric, Michelle and Joe an hour upstate to Croton-on-Hudson for the annual Great Jack o' Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor (follow the brown signs).

The manor itself - which you can tour throughout the year during the day - was pretty spooky, with illuminated pumpkins lining its railings and the colored spotlight changing periodically.

Skeletor made sure we didn't get lost through the winding paths...

Some really elaborate designs...

It takes about an hour to go through the whole thing depending on how stuck you get behind the kids in the "Dead Sea" section, but you can grab a hot cider and a cider doughnut on your way in, and it's a pleasantly spooky way to spend a crisp fall evening.

Through October 31.

Photo Essay: Open House NY

This weekend is Open House New York, always a highlight of the year for the last five years. You get to explore places that are normally closed to the public (and sometimes kind of condemned).

Highlights from my weekend:

ferry to Ellis Island, stopping first by Liberty Island

Checking out Ellis Island's restored Ferry Building, where the old ferry "Ellis" sank in the 1960s (and you can still see some of it sticking up through the water surface)


Rubble outside the abandoned psychiatric hospital

broken glass windows in the stabilized walkways between the various sections of the abandoned hospital


hanging light socket in the old staff's quarters

toilet in the old Contagious Diseases Hospital

Washed rind cave in the basement of Murray's Cheese

More moldy cheese in Murray's Cheese cheese cave - stinky but well-worth standing in line for the wait list

There were tons of other things I wanted to do - canoe the Gowanus, explore an MTA Substation - but they were all on Saturday and I couldn't fit everything in. Sunday I decided to go to the mall and do a very different kind of urban exploring (resulting in shoes and lots of Halloween crap from Target).

NPR: Capturing the 'Dark Side' of Ellis Island

Back on East Coast Time

My internal clock has been so messed up, ever since we set our watches back an hour in Nashville, only to find out that directly north of there in Kentucky, we had to set our watches forward again. At Maker's Mark (NOT our first stop of the day), we realized we had no clue what time it was.

So back to Nashville and back on Central time, then back to NYC on Sunday for a little (r)EST, and then out to LA on Monday to mess me up even further.

All week I've pretty much still been on New York time, going to bed at 9:45 p.m. and waking up on my own at like 6:45 a.m. I needed my rest anyway: the all-day conference was exhausting.

Wednesday night I made the stupid decision to go to a conference-related after-party at the Mondrian's SeaBar. The highlight of the party - besides the host who invited me and who looks like Sawyer from LOST - was spotting Simon Rex (who I love because of his association with Felicity) in the lobby, not being able to get into the party that I was in.

The only other celebrity sighting was actually conference-related: Carson Kressley at the Lifetime-sponsored cocktail party just prior to Seabar.

I've been under an allergy attack since last week, but my antics on Wednesday night - which included a late-night stop at In-N-Out Burger where I lost my bag and then quickly retrieved it - set me over the edge. Now it's a full-blown sickness.

It's a bummer because I really did try to lay low this whole trip. I even skipped dinner after taking a Cardioke class at the Hollywood Pop Academy, though I did think twice after walking by Hooters...

From a business perspective, the trip was really good, but I didn't get much out of it personally. Knowing the Hollywood Roosevelt's rich history (and renowned hauntings), I was really excited to stay there, but it was definitely not worth the hype. And I didn't spot any glitterati there despite it currently being a hotspot for celebutantes.

The conference was at the historic Cinerama which was really cool to sit in - and make a presentation in. Its domed roof looks like a honeycomb both outside and in. And the attached Arclight Cafe is a nice spot to grab lunch.

Most bizarre moment of my trip?
A tie:
- Approaching a guy in In-N-Out Burger and saying, "You're cute, but you look like you're on drugs" and having him respond, "Well, I am on drugs. You need to work on your tact."
- Synchronized swimming exhibition at the conference wrap party

Now back in NY and I hope I sleep normally. I won't be changing time zones for another month, when I have to spend the weekend in Minneapolis.

What I Remember from the Kentucky Bourbon Festival

Actually I remember a lot. We thought we would get a lot drunker than we did, but considering each tour was like an hour and each tasting was only like five minutes, we had plenty of time to recover between each of the distilleries.

We flew into Nashville first and then drove three hours to KY on Thursday. The state of Kentucky is basically built on caves and caverns, but we didn't have time to explore any of them. Also, given its rich history in war and military battle, it's really haunted. In fact, the Bourbon Festival's home base, Bardstown, is known as one of the most haunted places in the country.

Thursday night we actually got to take a ghost tour of the town, which took us to the old Jailer's Inn, a local cemetery, and our own hotel - The Old Talbott Tavern. During our tour we saw some supposedly ghost-induced chandelier flickering, but that was our only encounter with the supernatural there. Thank God, too - we were a little afraid to wake up with somebody standing over us.

The Tavern is the place to be during the festival, which actually isn't saying much. We thought the whole event would be a lot more exciting, with a lot more people. Nevertheless, we had fun in the bar that night, hanging out with the locals, drinking cheap bourbon and dancing to the live band and DJ.

All told, we managed to hit five distilleries and eat a lot of bourbon balls. We got so hyperglycemic that we succumbed to chain restaurants for food (like Pizza Hut and Longhorn Steakhouse) when we got too crazy to drive any more.

Best Tasting: Heaven Hill, where we missed the tour but got to sit in a larger-than-life barrel and try some great high-end bourbons like the Elijah Craig 18-year

Best Tour: Maker's Mark, where our tour guide Betty let us stick our fingers in the tubs of corn mash in various stages of yeasting and taste the bourbon-making process in the works.

Best Distillery: Woodford Reserve, which has a beautiful plot with really old buildings, and a barrel track for barrel-rolling (which essentially replaces trucks)

Hardest-to-Find Distillery: Woodford Reserve. It's hidden in the middle of a bunch of horse farms, and there aren't really any signs. Google Maps and GPS think it's somewhere else and sent us off the beaten path. We got lost on the way there and on the way out.

Most Bizarre Tourism Moment: In the Jim Beam tasting room, which we shared with a huge group of Japanese tourists who didn't speak any English. Those poor Kentucky women pouring the bourbon didn't know what to do with them.

We also visited Buffalo Trace which was pretty unremarkable for me, but cool for Edith I think, who liked watching them bottle the Blanton's. We missed Four Roses and Wild Turkey because we ran out of time, with most tours ending around 3 in the afternoon. We were kind of sick of hearing about virgin white oak, white dog and angel's share anyway, and had gotten to the point where we just wanted to taste the bourbon.

I think some people must come and have a life-changing experience during the festival like in the movie Sideways, but for us, it was just a cool thing to do, that we could probably only do with each other.

By the time we left, I was glad to go, but maybe it was just to get back to some normal drinking water. The running water in our hotel was so gross that I didn't want to wash my hair with it.

Fare of the Country; Where Kentucky Makes Its Bourbon - The New York Times 1993
On Kentucky's Bourbon Trail - The New York Times 2007
Riding the Bourbon Trail - The Philadelphia Inquirer 2007

Nashville

The Kentucky Bourbon Festival was a nice excuse to fly in and out of Nashville and finally visit "Music City." There was a lot less to do there than I expected, but the food was good and the hotel was awesome.

We stayed at the old Union Station train station, which has been converted into a Wyndham hotel. It's one of a few kind of gothic, stone structures looming in the skyline - alongside the Customs House and the local high school. In fact, everything seems to be a historical landmark, not only on Broadway through downtown, but everywhere we went. Union Station's clock tower (which inspired us to hunt around the hotel, looking for its entrance) is visible from afar, and was definitely a beacon in the night when we were walking home from drinking $6 pitchers and eating bacon-stuffed hot dogs at Paradise Park Trailer Resort on our last night there.

We got to hear some decent cover bands sing Elvis, Garth Brooks, and Nickelback songs. Bands play all day long all along the strip, and the bars are packed, even early in the afternoon. We resisted an afternoon beer buzz and went out to Tootsie's at night (where FarCry was entertaining a bunch of bachelorette parties). It was claustrophobic and rowdy and full of Colts fans, but we got some cheap beers and got to try Miller's new lime-and-salt chelada-style beer "Chill."

The hot dog was probably the best thing we ate in Nashville, but we also had a lovely elegant dinner of new southern cuisine at Watermark in a new trendy neighborhood called The Gulch. Other highlights included the steam pot at South Street and trout dip at Broadway Brewhouse and Mojo. Although the food didn't totally knock me over, I loved the experience of visiting the Loveless Cafe, a former motel that's on the outskirts of town.

In fact, we got to see quite a bit of Nashville, and not just the touristy stuff. Saturday night we went to the Tennessee State Fair, which is pretty small and entirely local. Supposedly nobody really goes to the state fair because they all visit other counties' fairs, but we had a good time watching the pig race and riding the rides.

We did the tourist thing too, visiting Ryman Auditorium (the former church / home of Grand Ole Opry), the new Opryland, the Dukes of Hazzard museum, Purity Dairies factory, Lane Motor Museum...

Seeing all those crazy European cars at the museum, test-driving a SmartCar (the Swatch-designed Mercedes-manufactured minicar), and driving so much around KY and TN made me totally want to get a car. It's idiotic for me to think I could have one in Manhattan, but a tiny little fuel-efficient car with a sticker price of $11,000 somehow seems totally do-able.

In the meantime, I'm only here for one night and I've got to fly out to LA for work tonight. Stay tuned for more dispatches from the West Coast....

Photo Essay: Coney Island’s Last Friday of the Summer

I'm cramming in as much as I can. It's like the world is ending soon.

Since it was the last Friday with fireworks at Coney Island, I had to go, even if that meant going by myself.

The evening's highlights? Riding the El Dorado bumper cars 3x. Nathan's cheese dog with sauteed onions.

A nice leisurely stationary cage ride on the Wonder Wheel...

And, of course...

I was standing on the boardwalk, while the fireworks were being launched right off the beach. The smoke choked me and blew burnt remnants of the encasements over my head and into my hair, but I loved it. Fireworks have never been so loud.

I only wish I could have shared it with someone.

Flying Solo

When I first came to the city, despite having a roommate, I spent an inordinate amount of time by myself. None of my friends liked to party as much as I did, so I hung out in bars alone, but I also ventured out into the nether regions of the city solo. I always figured nobody was interested in doing the things I was interested in doing, and I hate being turned down / stood up / bailed on, so eventually I just stopped inviting people.

When I became friends with Dan in 2003 and Edith in 2004, suddenly I had partners-in-crime. I've gotten spoiled by that. So today, when I had a day off but Edith out of town and Dan working (and generally distracted and unavailable lately anyway), I had a really hard time figuring out what I wanted to do...alone. There are plenty of places I want to go and see, but now I know it's just not the same unless you have someone with whom to share them.

I didn't want to waste the nice weather though, so I ventured back down to Lower Manhattan. I was there briefly after my Governor's Island adventure, and I could see it pretty well from the Floating Pool Lady, so it's been on my mind lately. To think there was an actual castle in Manhattan that I hadn't visited - I was aghast!

So I took the 5 train down to Bowling Green, with my headphones and book in tow. To be honest, I actually wanted to get a leg up on the new food stand that opened today, Picnick. There'd been such a buzz about it, raising it to near Shake Shack level, and considering I've never been able to handle the line at Shake Shack, I figured I'd get in on this place early.

Despite the hype - Sullivan St. Bakery bread, fresh ingredients, wrapped in paper with edible ink - it was pretty fricking disappointing. I guess I expected something freshly prepared, even in their little booth space, but I got basically a prepackaged, refrigerated sandwich called the Pork 'n Roll, whose thinly sliced pork loin and coleslaw were good, but not worth a subway trip. Would have been a lot better even room temperature. Myself, I'll take 'wichcraft in Bryant Park any day.

Still, it was pleasant enough to have a bite while listening to the sea birds and waves, watching all the sailboats and ferries criss-cross past each other in the water. The Statue of Liberty loomed dark in the distance, and Governor's Island winked knowingly at me.

The last time I was at Battery Park was in 2003 I think, on the 4th of July when Freddy stood me up for a Ryan Adams concert. I went anyway, I think somehow thinking Freddy would eventually show up, but in retrospect I now know what a fool I was for going and waiting for him. I remember sitting on a park bench by the subway station the whole time, not committing to go into the bandshell area. After the concert was over, I headed uptown, tail between my legs, to watch some fireworks at a coworker's roof. I pressed my purse to my side the rest of the night, hoping to feel the phone vibrate. It never did.

Today at least I planned to be alone, and really had no expectations. Castle Clinton itself is pretty boring to look at - most people go there to buy tix for the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island. But its history is fascinating. It originally jutted out into the water, on its own little plot of land, protecting the lower entry to the island (which was a battery of cannons, hence its name). Landfill was brought in around it, making the castle a proper part of Manhattan. It's easy to forget that Manhattan's lower tip used to be shaped differently, but when construction workers recently discovered the old wall that marked the original pre-landfill border of the island, it served as a good reminder of our changing geography.

When "Fort" Clinton's military function was no longer necessary, it became a popular location of public recreation - concerts, fireworks and the like. It then was used as an emigrant landing depot, and eventually housed a public aquarium (destroyed by Robert Moses in his plans to build the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel).

I thought about going to the Statue of Liberty since I've never been, but I got there too late and the line was long anyway. So I hung out once again on a park bench, this time reading my book and soaking in the atmosphere - which consisted mostly of pigeons pecking the sidewalk in front of me. And as the Lower Manhattan skyline gleamed in the bright sunlight, I was struck by the juxtaposition of modern skyscraper and military relic. What a strange city I've made as my home...

Video: Revolutionary Wall in Battery Park - The New York Times

Making It Count

I've been reticent to go out at night lately - a little bit of antisocial behavior, a little bit of trying to save money, and a lot of trying not to succumb to the temptations of all the food and drink that NYC has to offer. So seeing that my nightlife has become nonexistent, I've been trying to make the days count as much as possible.

Not only that, but in my book, summer is basically over as of this weekend, so I've been trying to squeeze as much as I can into it. I haven't made it to Coney Island yet, but I did take the day off today so that I could get into a morning swim session at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Beach and its "Floating Pool Lady" swimming pool moored in the East River.

The pool's first swim session is at 11 a.m. (though there is an adult lap swim before that, but on a day off from work, I was not getting up that early), and I got there about 11:30 - enough for an hour's swim. I decided to take the Water Taxi again for $10 instead of dealing with the subway, and got dropped off at Fulton Landing. After a harrowing ten minute walk along the river, beneath the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, beneath the BQE, and past all the Port Authority piers and old abandoned warehouses, I was happy to shed the humidity and jump in and start doing some laps. Edith joined a few minutes later and we relished the cloudy day, its gray pallor, and the idea of floating on the East River in a pool while gazing at the New York skyline.

After a nice aquatic workout, we decided to retrace my steps back to Fulton Landing and cheat with some homemade coffee-flavored ice cream from Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, nestled in an old school or ferrymaster's house with the Brooklyn Bridge looming above. The whole area, with The River Cafe, its garden, and Empire Fulton Ferry State Park, feels like Cold Spring or somewhere in Connecticut or Maine or something, New Englandy in its quaintness, with still a little Gotham attitude.

Edith had never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge so we trekked across in what most would consider "the opposite way," Brooklyn to Manhattan. It was perfectly convenient for me, since I had to go to the Supreme Court building on Centre St. afterwards.

I dragged my wet bathing suit and towel throughout the court system, back and forth between small claims, general civil, and county clerks' offices, but considering the pool closes on Labor Day and we got in this morning when it wasn't very busy, it was worth it.

All that walking and swimming got me exhausted that when I got home just after 5, I fell into a deep nap, and haven't motivated myself much since waking up. Guess I'm staying in again tonight.

Summer's Back

And I have another sunburn. After all that cold, rainy weather, it feels kind of nice. But yesterday was hot and STICKY, even while careening down the East River on a boat.

Edith and I had been fascinated with Governor's Island for at least a year now, so yesterday we finally decided to go. During the week there's really limited ferry service and you can only take a park ranger-guided tour, but on weekends during the summer, they open the island up to the public and you can wander around on your own. Better yet, the LMCC and River to River have been sponsoring outdoor concerts - and with DJ Rekha spinning bhangra yesterday, we no longer had an excuse not to go.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Governor's Island is the island you see between the Statue of Liberty / Ellis Island and Brooklyn, off Lower Manhattan. It's basically an old Civil War fort and military base, formerly occupied by the Army and the Coast Guard, but way before that it was a Dutch settlement. Four years ago its ownership flipped back over to the state of New York and now they're trying to figure out what to do with it.

Governor's Island is also part of the National Parks Service, and the park rangers are helping to get people to come check it out and get excited about it once the new development actually starts.

In the meantime, it's essentially abandoned. Its only residents are the members of the FDNY responsible for keeping it safe.

For our first trip to the island, Michelle and I took the Water Taxi from E. 34th St. and met up with Edith who'd boarded at LIC. We braved a very bouncy ride down to Fulton Landing, zig-zagging across the river over to South Street Seaport, and then down to Governor's Island. Taking Dramamine didn't help much, so I was holding on for dear life. By the time we got there, I was already sunburned and a little disoriented, but excited to explore what is essentially a ghost town within NYC.

It was so hot that at first we just lied on the grass listening to the bhangra/reggae mashup on the stage, with live percussion and people in the audience actually knowing some Indian dance moves. I managed to bounce my shoulders despite lying on the ground.

When we got to exploring, we marvelled at this strange place, with such a lovely view of the Lower Manhattan skyline - and Civil War relics mixed with distinctly 1970s architecture. It seems to have all the amenities of modern living - bus stops, a church, theater, school, golf course...And then there's the big fort...cannons...and a castle.

New York City has so many weird places like this to check out. It'll take a lifetime for me to get through all of them.

Even on weekends, the last water taxi leaves at 4:14 (which we missed) and the last free ferry leaves at 5. We kept remembering the feeling we had in SF when we visited Alcatraz, musing about what would happen if we were left behind. Fortunately we didn't have to find out, and after a much quicker 7 minute ferry ride to the Battery Maritime Building (basically South Ferry), we were back in a part of the city that was more familiar to us and most of its residents and tourists. But just behind us, still not too far away, was that island, with the big, weird, white building looming at its entrance (a building I later discovered is an air vent for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel).

Governor's Island closes for the season on September 2, but there are lots of photos online, and NYC-TV has covered it in some good original local programming. You can also play Freedom Fighters on your Playstation to experience the island virtually. And there's always Open House New York in October as your last chance of the year...

Forgotten NY's report on Governor's Island