The richness of Anna Netrebko Verdi fills my apartment, which has just been post-trip-admin'd - depacked, machines whirring. Netrebko sang the role of the sexy vamp Lady Macbeth at The Met last Saturday to much praise. My seat was Orchestra Centre Row BB, a row that tested my now 40 year-old eyes. Among the details that did not independently jump into my luggage were my binoculars. So opera is experienced the old-fashioned way - without interviews, without amplification, without visual assistance. To the right of me were two empty seats, reserved for the schnauzer of one of the HD cameras. The cameraman has been filming at the Met since 1979, and while he sitting just behind, has an entirely different experience of opera. While, say, a normal opera-goer is somewhere between enthralled and sleeping, this man is part of the production of seeing opera, and the less we see of him, the better he is doing his job successfully, he says. I'm not sure if opera is better and is truly meant to be appreciated 'unaided', or if this is one of the last bastions of art forms that desperately needs to revamp itself with technology to survive. As I grow older, I will appreciate what I can sense. Perhaps with less sensory inputs, I grow more inwardly, and that is the progress of life.
G and I were sitting in different parts of the auditorium, but we met at intermission. I had never seen her smoke, and usually I am averse to it. She is a fine woman of grace, and her cigarettes had equally fine particles. I have taken to some of her habits, and if smoking became a culturally acceptable activity again I would be tempted to follow in her footsteps. G happened to be in town, and happened to be at the opera - a happy happenstance.
After the performance we meet again, and make our way to Chambers, and then to the foot of Brooklyn Bridge, where my eyes spy a small sign, pointing towards what looked like a gardenhouse by the water. We have in the end the best meal I think I will ever have in my life. A piece of heaven, I write on the receipt, for an amount a friend suggested I consider amortizing over 10 years. I am so happy, I tell S, over and over again that evening. Certainly for me it was everything that I did not order that was the 'main course' - the lobby that seemed to double as the warehouse supplying local florists, the light that transferred from the sunset to the skyscrapers across East River. A bottle of champagne arrived courtesy of the chef. Humble wine choices from one of the world's best wine lists fell into this cup of perfection, around which was an aura that insulated us from anything otherwise: a young 2012 Chablis Champs Royaux - Fevre to start; a mellow, rich 2007 Chateauneuf du Pape - E Guigal for the mains. The amuse-bouches - in particular a local foie-gras - were singular strokes of tastefulness that competed with the mains and won our hearts. Anything we ordered was simply something in between the real thing, it seemed; small bits of life with no names, and which come unbidden. Who called for the semifreddo, which magically appeared, as well as magically disappeared, with gasped exclamations.
We walk around on a cloud afterwards, myself thinking that anything entering my stomach would be considered contamination. We had thought to take the ferry back to our townhouse, but the last ferry had left hours ago. Our taxi driver, we discover, is from Senegal, and has been here for 8 years. S ripples off names of Senegalese dishes, and I tell him that Senegal is on my travel list. He tells us that we are so friendly, that we don't just say the address. As we all know, but as we often need reminding, it is of course the journey that is the destination. I ask him to drop us off one block away. Presumably to avoid the one-way street. But also, may we not get to where we think we need to go to, too soon.
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It is a good idea to invite a Dane to one's birthday. If there is one reason why Danes are so happy, it may be that they have really perfected the celebration of birthdays. The more, the merrier. On the morning of, I climb up the stairs and find the handrail wrapped in Danish flags, a kind of symbol of celebration that I love, and that simply would not have the same effect should Canadian flags be substituted. The situation might in fact tumble down to confusion, as the separation of state and birthdays is quite clear. I am quickly ordered to blind myself, and hasten toward the lemon yellow settee into which I enfold, listening to rustling and whipping sounds in the kitchen. Most people would, should they find themselves in New York whilst considering an event which involved a birthday cake, put into process some operation to extract a cake from a New York bakery. And then there are Danes. Such as this one, B. Who brought a cake from Denmark and openly declared it at the airport. It tests, and spreads, the presence of humanity and compassion among airport security officers, much like the transport of containers exceeding 100 ml of baby food for one's accompanying infants. B even bought 40 candles, but the cake would have been a complete fireball. Blueberries, bananas, and whipping cream formed the most lovely birthday cake that was our breakfast, starting our day, and my year, on an awfully good footing of lightness and sweetness. A paper cartoon image of the Statue of Liberty is put on the top of the cake as well, and it seemed so fitting - her flame in one hand, her book of law in the other. I'll try to photoshop in the cover of the Building Code onto her book.
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I had a small checklist for this trip: opera, dinner, Brooklyn's oldest bar, and a park on Roosevelt Island. I generally call it precision tourism and it comes with a healthy amount of getting lost. I couldn't quite remember why I wanted to visit this park - the checklist box was formed about a year ago - but it tumbled into spectacular focus when I got there. It was designed 40 years ago by Louis Kahn, a major architect who has designed very few buildings. We share the same initials, occupation, and he passed away the year I was born. I remember seeing a house he designed in Pennsylvania, simply knocking on the door. The original owners still live there, and even drove me to the train station. He died of a heart attach in the men's washroom in Penn Station, penniless and in debt, with the drawings of this park under his arm. The park is called the Franklin D Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, the four freedoms being freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. I know no project that was built 38 years after it was designed. While the worth of many buildings are revealed only after time, this design was already mature with timelessness 'built in.'
Most of the park is outside the park - the vastness of the water around and sky above. But also from away - viewed across from a shore, the park is a blazingly white, horizontal form that contrasts with the grey high-rises around, that perhaps make us think about the varying forms of ambition and freedom, and the forms that relate to looking up and those that instinctively look down. I bought a lapel pin - four silver rectangles on a blue background - as a gift to my 4x10 self. For me to think about these four freedoms, and to remember these four days.
