Catching Up in October

I usually use my catching-up posts to link to things I’ve read, but this October I thought I’d focus on what I’ve seen…Now that the vampire craze has given way to zombies, I hope the mad scientist is the next ones due for his close-up. I’ve never been a fan of Hollywood horror, but I started out the month with the new Almodóvar, The Skin I Live In, and loved it. It always feels so right when his latest arrives in fall – an over-saturated season to perfectly mirrors his over-saturated films. Set somewhere between Frankenstein and Hitchcock with the voice of Concha Buika (above) piping through, if you don’t think you could live there, then you haven’t seen the house.

A little less dramatic but much more delicious, I was invited to a dinner hosted by Muga Winery (more later) at Romera New York, a relatively new restaurant serving a tasting menu of high-concept neurograstronomic (al?, y?) cuisine fittingly set in the Dream Hotel. Walking past display cases of glass tubes and  beakers, we were presented with 11-courses of essence and flowers. Asked not to take pictures of the the dishes, I wished I had more to show but it was something of a relief to not have the option. My only regret is that I couldn’t take one of chef Dr. Miguel Sanchez Romera when he appeared politely at the very end of the meal. Formerly a neurologist and physician in Barcelona before opening his first restaurant, I know he came out in a standard chef’s whites but in my mind’s eye it was a tell-tale smock/straight jacket. Click here for the perspective of someone who wasn’t seeing things.

A few days later, I headed uptown to see my friend Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte’s new show, Presenting Celia Cruz at Casita Maria. A collection of photographs he and his partner, stylist Tico Torres took during their long collaboration with the singer, it was a reminder of just what a presence she was. Capturing her on stage, offstage and everywhere in between, it was wonderful to just be in a room, surrounded by Celia in all her incarnations. Running through November 22.

Finally, if you liked Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, then you probably related to the main character’s desire to live in the 1920’s. The last couple of weeks, I’ve seen seen two shows set in that period, that resonate so strongly with our present day circumstances, I think we may have already gotten our wish. Hard to describe except to say it’s a Dada painting come to life and set to music, I went to see The Blue Flower at Second Stage after my sister saw it first and couldn’t stop talking about it. Now that I have, I can’t stop thinking about it.  In the same vein, the Brooklyn Museum of Art opened their latest exhibit Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, featuring work by Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Luigi Lucioni, Gerald Murphy, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Joseph Stella to name a few.

Bringing it all to a close, I ended October with a snow day, watching the leaves go white before they’d thought to turn brown. I can only assume someone’s experiment to take over the world through freakish weather events went awry.