a cafe lunch, a yarn package and a guitar concert

my friend jeanette called me this week to see if we could get together. she had been away all summer in ospedaletti, a beautiful town on the italian riviera where she and her husband have a lovely little condo overlooking the ligurian sea. we both couldn't believe that it was already october and we hadn't met up.

 so she asked me to meet her at vicoletti's, a new italian restaurant that opened just this spring on 17th street by union square.

it's a lovely place and their affogato is even better than eataly's! we had a delicious lunch and it was wonderful to catch up on all the summer and autumn news. her daughter will be going into high school next year and they are in the process of looking for a good school . . not an easy task as it involves meetings and open houses and tests and portfolios and essays. they are very busy.

it was a beautiful sky that greeted me on the way home.

the hibiscus are still in bloom.

 yarn! i couldn't resist joining kate davies' yarn club. i've been reading her blog for almost six years i think, and i love her designs. she recently joined with a local textile company to develop her own yarn line. she had a marvelous time observing the dyeing process (you can read about it here). so, today the yarn arrived! the colors are beautiful and i can't wait to get started!

 oh! what's this! shhhhhhhh . . christmas surprises!

kate's yarn club tote bag!

 so, after the excitement of the yarn packages, i met chanda at her ballet school and we took the subway downtown to the winter garden theatre for a third street guitar concert. during last winter, while morgana was away, an email came saying that there was going to be a special concert featuring 100 guitars! well, it turned into 121 guitars in celebration of third street music school's 121 years of teaching in the east village and two weeks before the actual concert morgana finally signed on to be a part of it. talk about leaving things for the last minute!

 the winter garden theatre looks out over the hudson river. it's a beautiful sight.

 checking out instagram while waiting for the concert to begin.

 here is morgana, ready to go.

 palm trees in the indoor winter garden theatre . . 

 so vast! this picture is taken from the upstairs food court. there's also a food court downstairs. both were recently renovated and they are spectacular.

okay. the piece they did was composed by david lang via a questionnaire he handed out to his musicians. it's abstract and dissonant and you'll get the full drift by one minute into the movie. it's nice . . but it feels a bit long to me. ha!

 it was really wonderful to hear her perform. she had a great time and we all enjoyed our walk home together.

 the french fry freedom tower looking majestic in the humid air . . i've come to really love this building. i love it's classical qualities and how it twinkles at twilight.

the changing leaves on the trees took us back to the november 2008 elections when morgana danced in the limon company's day on earth. i remember walking home that night beneath the golden leaves with the river heaving next to us just as it was this evening, and thinking, what a beautiful night.

dance-in

morgana and chanda's dance teacher sent an email last night announcing that her friend judy dennis had created several short dance films with cartoonist/writer jules feiffer. they presented their work this afternoon at 2 pm at the winter garden theatre in the world financial center. we had been at the MET museum for a tour, but came down right afterwards to attend the presentation. it was wonderful to see jules feiffer, the films and music were delightful and the girls had fun dancing along. it felt good to be at an uplifting and happy event, celebrating art and dance and life.


it was inspiring to watch mr. feiffer draw his dancer who became an icon in the village voice from her introduction in 1957.


here are ellen and cynthia . . (cynthia is lina's mom who shared the child's role in "day on earth" with morgana. she danced the role at the winter garden a number of years ago . . in the same space that jules is drawing from . . you can see morgana in rehearsal at the winter garden here.)

dancing with andrea weber, member of the merce cunningham dance company.

and here is a preview of one of the films that judy dennis made celebrating "a cycle of seasonal, emotional, and political milestones." (i love the beach scene!) (hmmm . . perhaps it was taken down).