07.14.09

happy bastille day, folks. for reasons that could only be explained in the most convoluted way, i need to create a hierarchy of cultural figures named david whose surnames begin with b. thus far it's been determined that david beckham trumps david blaine, for instance, and bowie is tops, of course, so we've got

david bowie
david beckham
david blaine

...but where does david boreanaz go? what about the amazing version of david boreanaz from "smile time," the angel episode in which he turns into a puppet? and david brancaccio - i just don't know. i need judgment calls, and i need davids. help a sister out, would you?

05.15.08

101 in 1001: 040 have my palm read in a psychic's parlor [completed 05.15.08]



i've had the friendly neighborhood psychic (not this one) tucked away in the back of my mind ever since i discovered her on my birthday last year; really, what could be more painless than ducking out to see her on my lunch break? today was my very last chance to do so (list ends tomorrow!), so i headed over at about noon - and immediately chickened out. what if someone from the ladymag saw me going in? a psychic's parlor isn't as bad as a sex shop or, i don't know, a liposuction van, but i'm already the office eccentric; i don't need to make things worse. i also didn't have exactly $10 and didn't fancy the awkwardness of trying to figure out whether or not to tip. after much hemming and hawing and walking around the block, i buzzed - and got no response. the universe did not want me to see the mysterious mrs. king. i decided that if i was really meant to rock the ESP today, it would throw me another psychic. it did: this place materialized as i emerged from a thrift store with a sweet $5 candlestick. a good, lucky time to have my palm read (two annoying little boys who hovered outside muttering about wasting money notwithstanding). i toyed with taking off my wedding ring and, like, coating my hands with squid ink to confuse the reader, but decided to go in as i was and roll with what she told me. here, then, is what i learned.

- i will live to be 80 or 90, and my death will not be tragic.*

- i will write something important when i'm 40.

- joe is very stubborn. his way is the only way.

- joe is my soul mate.

- in two years, we will have two children.**

- i will get a promotion in august, but someone will try to block it.

- a 35-year-old man will try to make trouble in our marriage.***

- this will be the best year of my life.

- i will take a long voyage over the ocean.****

- there is a great deal of trouble on my left side.

- i have had my palm read before.*****

*thinking about that now, it's kind of insulting, no?

**i had to challenge this one; i told her i wasn't planning on having kids. she said i would realize that our relationship was just so wonderful that we had to have children.

***it's totally going to be someone from the darts team. they will steal joe! or maybe david blaine.

****hee. i followed up on this one, too: where? she didn't know.

*****i told her no, but she was right, if you count girl scout camp. no mention of life or love lines; i was simply told i was lazy (true).

05.08.06

on saturday night, joe and i wandered up to lincoln center to see david blaine in his giant manbowl. almost a week into "drowned alive," his experiment in self-pickling, several hundred people were watching him blow bubbles and make mysterious gestures at foreign tourists (and, let's be honest, a lot of locals).

"No one would analogize what David Blaine does to what occurs on our stages," said Reynold Levy, the president of Lincoln Center. "But the emotions he evokes, the feelings he has engendered, are universal. He is doing to New Yorkers what almost no one can. He's stopping them in their tracks. I look at their faces, and I see complete wonder and bewilderment."

Ann Sheridan, a Manhattan resident who took in Mr. Blaine's watery world about 10 p.m. on Thursday with several friends, drew comparisons to the public art project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude that swaddled Central Park in sheets of saffron last year. "It's like 'The Gates,' " she said. "Nobody understood what 'The Gates' meant, but everybody went and saw them."

(new york times, 05.07.06)

i was thinking of christo as we stared at blaine, actually; are blaine's performances public art? can they be compared with, say, performances at the lincoln center (or 'the gates')? i'm not particularly fond of DB (and we fell quite a bit short of "complete wonder" at bubblefest this weekend), but i'm having trouble with a definitive 'no.' peanut gallery?