The Light in the Piazza, New York

Short of gnawing on a croissant in the windowfront of an exclusive jewelry, fine silver and glassware institution (picture pastry crumbs on hair, in clothes; only Audrey Hepburn can pull that stunt off), I hit 42nd and 69th Avenues, downtown Manhattan, and many avenues in between, with a self assured air to rival Sarah Jessica Parker in a tu-tu.

Nobody questions the girl in heels at the MET, flitting in for some kulture on the way to Broadway. Ahhhh New York, New York.

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Mar 10, 2006. It's a sunny 13C, New York has burst into Spring literally overnight and New Yorkers seem a confident, happy people in theirs, a grand city to capture all the senses. It is all and more of what I thought it would be. And nothing like Atlanta, my first introduction to the States. The apple sauce stains on my sneakers remain testament to an incident with fried green tomatoes.

I meet New York John on Wall Street beneath the massive US flag draped across the New York Stock Exchange. He sits on a bollard, conspicuous in his suit, drinking a cup of juice through a straw and people-watching amid tourists loitering in numbers with matching grey or pink NYPD jumpers. We get to talking, he's in finance with plans to study architecture. I can see the seed for interest; the buildings in New York have stature and presence, and theme music. I strut to Ghostbusters' 'Who ya gonna call?' as I pass the New York Public Library. John lives downtown Manhattan, has actually woken to see Sex And The City filmed in front of his apartment and I'm struck with how impressionable I am.

Had Tom lost sleep in Seattle after 9-11, Meg would have done well to catch him at the top of the Empire States Building. The queues are long and security feels exhaustive. And they seem to have streamlined security with marketing; photographs taken on entry are happy group shots poised against an Empire States backdrop and available for purchase when you leave.

I time my visit poorly, behind several large groups and drag my feet consciously as it dawns that my smiling mug will be the only single portrait on display in the foyer. I meet Shawn when I drag him to have his picture taken with me.

Well, I couldn't very well watch the sunset over Manhattan alone.

Mar 11, 2006. On Saturday afternoon at 3 I join the masses queuing for last minute discount tickets in Times Square. I was thinking The Producers; it seemed apt to find something big and glitzy, the sort of blockbuster of Broadway. While in the queue I'm eavesdropping a conversation ahead of me, drawn in by the interesting tid bits of insider knowledge. A man advises his friends through the play list with a distinctly flamboyant air apparently earned from the number of productions he's failed auditions for. He sums up his disappointment of The Producers with a musical account of the opening scene, singing the opening lines of the ushers in a half-hearted yet not unmelodic voice.. "Opening night! Opening night!"... At the same time he is mimicking his usher's torch with the loose-wristed gesture of a disgruntled diner waitress and a pot of coffee. And not before pausing for effect, he drops the performance and whinges to the attentive queue, "And I was thinking, god!, I'm trying to pay my rent here!".

And so I took the subway to the Lincoln Theatre Centre on 65th and Broadway to see the intimate, classy and immensely romantic production of The Light in the Piazza instead. The premise is in Italy. An American girl, Clara, on her first day vacation in Florence, loses her hat in a breeze across the square where a young Italian, Fabrizio, would catch it and return it to her. They inevitably fall in love. There is a gorgeous scene when, not finding the right words in English to express his feelings, he sings to her in Italian,

"Clara, mia luce, mio cor
L'essenza che mi mancava, sei tu
La tua luce m'inonda"

What's a girl to do?

Obscure Tangents

Sweet Melissa Patisserie

Photographs

[From the top - Barbie display, fur shop in Soho; World Trade Centre Subway Station; Empire States Building ground floor foyer; view from Empire States Building south over Manhattan at sunset...]