Explore-a-city

I keep vowing to go out and do things in New York, but since graduation I haven’t gone on a wild see-the-city binge. In fact, my tendency has been to savor being at home where I can take naps and work on my thesis. But this past week my cousin Laura came to visit, so I had reason to go tromping all around the island. Here is the highlight reel:

• Saw The Lion King on Broadway. Incredible. I have enjoyed following the train wreck that has been Julie Taymor’s latest foray into musicals- the critically maligned and critically injured stuntman extravaganza Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark- but seeing her costumes in The Lion King reminded me that when Taymor’s energy is channeled in the right direction, the results are staggeringly fantastic.

*Side note about the modern Broadway experience- The Lion King is now the second show I have seen where the audience behavior has been much more like that of a movie theater than a live theater performance. Based on the ticket price alone, it should be like going to the opera or a symphony concert. But at The Lion King there was a lot of audible chatting, infants sobbing, and the sound of people consuming the concessions they had bought in the lobby. Yes, that is right, concessions. When I saw Wicked you could hear the rattling of ice in soda drinks. Insert rant about society these days.

• When I started my Met internship this summer, I found out that my intern ID gets me in during off hours. So last Monday we visited the Met— when it was closed to the public. CRAZY. We were just wandering through empty galleries and going through roped-off areas. I was sure that we were going to get stopped and told that we were in an off-limits space but it never happened. Really I am amazed at the trust they put in their interns. I mean, I could have licked a painting or something.

• On Tuesday we took the Staten Island Ferry and decided to actually get off and see if there was anything to see. The main attraction seemed to be the Staten Island Museum, which boasted exhibits of science, art, and history. I can see why some Manhattanites feel like leaving the island is like falling off the end of the world. The museum was basically a few arrowheads, insects mounted on pins, and a booth where you could see rocks glow in the dark. There was one interesting area of oddities that featured a hairball retrieved from a cow’s stomach, but come on. I have been to many weird local museums in my time, and the ones out west usually have the decency to have a two-headed sheep or something.

• Tuesday night we went to see Anything Goes which was a very different but equally wonderful Broadway experience. It is just a straight-up old-school musical with fun costumes, ridiculous plot twists, and tons of tap dancing. TONS. You should stop what you are doing right now and watch this clip from the Tony awards. (This post is basically over, so you need something else to keep you busy anyway).