Friday night found me home from clinic without plans for the evening. Making plans with friends in advance has never been a strength of mine; I prefer to think of it as being spontaneous.
My former-roommate-turned-squatter Clay invited me to go with him to Bloomfield, New Jersey to see a musical called Das Barbecü produced by the same company he’d worked with in the winter on Titanic. Unlike Jasmin, my only authentic Manhattan born-and-bred friend, I think it’s fun to visit New Jersey on occasion.
We took the 1 train down to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where we hurried through the crowds to purchase tickets for the DeCamp bus lines. Climbing up to the third floor, we found the long line awaiting the 33 bus. The wonderful thing about the location of the Port Authority Terminal is that there’s a ramp that seems to descend directly from the large building down to the Lincoln Tunnel, thus avoiding the busy Manhattan street traffic.
Thirty minutes later, we arrived in the scenic town of Bloomsfield and hurried a few blocks to the Westminster Arts Center. The musical, commissioned in the early 1990s, is an adaptation of Wagner’s entire operatic Ring Cycle set in modern day Texas. The casting calls for only five actors, but it requires dozens and dozens of costume changes. (Brief description here.) The show had its entertaining moments, but I think West Side Story does a far better job capturing the essence of an older classic work in an artistically satisfying way.
On a more interesting note, we walked by the new New York Times building near the bus terminal. The structure features horizontal slats on the outside which recently attracted two climbers, a Frenchman and a New Yorker, climbing the building within hours of one another. One climbed for global warming, the other for malaria. They were both promptly arrested upon reaching the top.
If I ever decide to climb a building, I think I’ll climb to raise awareness of Bush’s soon-to-expire Tax Cuts For The Rich. People will really get concerned when they see me scale the building, and the mass frenzy–even hysteria–will goad lawmakers into renewing the Tax Cuts.
1 Comment
June 11, 2008 at 355
LOL