a moving experience

Much of the time this past weekend was spent helping Christie through the dregs of her move from a rental apartment to the apartment she's buying on State Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Some shlepping but mostly little packing and cleaning tasks. Yesterday we had sandwiches at Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwich shop on Atlantic Avenue and they were very tasty. We had the Classic Vietnamese (chopped pork, ham, pate, marinated carrots, cilantro) and Vietnamese coffee (sweet and hot).

After I split, I took the 2 train to the Brooklyn Museum where I found ten million people in the Annie Leibovitz show. I would like to see it again with fewer people but it was still worth it. Slipped out the back staircase to the Walton Ford show with its wonderful Audubon-ish watercolors with lots more going on. I really enjoyed "Jack on his deathbed" -- Lord Hamilton's ape who also collected antiquities and expired as Vesuvius erupts in the background. A couple "nasty bits."

From there to the Proteus Gowanus program on "chained libraries" with Wendy Walker and Robert LaFarge. It was more about the idea of libraries which have been metaphorically chained (or lost) by war, changing tastes, natural disaster, ethnic cleansing.

The weekend started with the Ballet Preljocaj program at the Joyce. Wow. I had seen Preljocaj at PS 122 a few years ago but not his company. The first half was "Move 1" set to John Cage, the dancers flowed and stuck to a vigorous sequence of movements. Lovely shorter male dancer. The second half was "Noces" set to Tchaikovsky: vigorous music, vigorous dancing. Really wonderful. I don't always understand audience or critical reaction. The audience clapped warmly after the second piece but I was ready to jump to my feet (timidly, no one else did so I didn't). The Times critic thought the first piece was fine but was a little ho-hum about the second. There's no accounting for taste.

A couple dreamy things this weekend: the possibility of a little more space via a notice about a rental with some IFA students who are buying a house in Crown Heights (I think I met them at John's some time ago); the charming fellow I talked to after the Proteus Gowanus program, out on the street, needed a light.