Monday, October 16, 2006
The Grand and Gorbachev
I'm trying to get the juices flowing this morning, so I figured I would start by letting you all know about the weekend.
On Friday night I hopped the train into Manhattan to go with Erin C. to the opening of a new nightclub called The Grand. We didn't know what to expect, but given that there was red carpet outside and lots of photographers, we figured it couldn't totally suck. Inside everyone was uber fashionable, in a trendy but predictable Murray Hill kind of way. Most of the girls were decked out in halter tops and what seemed like scaled-down, 1980s prom dresses. We questioned when they came back in style.
Erin and I hit the bar wearing jeans and black tops, scaled down as if we were there because had to be, not because we wanted to be. This worked in our favor since within 10 minutes some flak approached us and asked us who we wrote for. Was it that obvious we were writers? Are writers not allowed to dress well? The flak moved on to harass someone else and we had out way with the open bar. And by open bar, I mean top shelf.
We boozed and schmoozed and made friends with this funny gal who went to Princeton. Finally the crowd thickened and we decided to stick our head into Tao across the street, where people were still sitting down to dinner at 10:30 PM. I love that about New York. People will get together at midnight and eat. Erin and I didn't actually eat anything, we just leaned over the railing on the second level and watched everyone. Tao is very cool and we tried to help out a tourist from Minnesota pick good bars in the Meatpacking District. It was our good deed of the day.
On Sunday La Madre and I drove into Manhattan again to see a question and answer with Mikhail Gorbachev. I thought it would be a pretty passive event, but then a bunch of us were brought up to a luncheon where Mikhail was eating and I was able to take a bunch of photos of him, but not with him. (Something about security...) Once I get a new cable for my camera, I will totally upload them for you. Some of them actually came out great.
The talk was great, although I was surprised that Mikhail needed a translator. His translator, Pavel, (Paul, if you're nasty) was awesome. I liked watching Mikhail, though, the way he would get animated when he spoke and talk with him hands. It reminded me a lot of my mother's uncles. When he got up to leave, no one in the audience was allowed to leave, take photos of him, or try to get his autograph. Crazy.
Afterwards La Madre started speaking in machine-gun Russian to some Latvian woman on the street who came in from New Jersey to see Mikhail. They even exchanged phone numbers and plan to catch up soon.
In case you were wondering, the poster above says: Children, do not allow adult to play with fire. It's rather relevant given today's political climate, n'est pas?
Here is a link to a whole Flickr set of USSR propaganda posters.
