Bagels, Bed, Bath, Beyond, and Beanbags

Last Sunday, we put on our tourist hats and headed downtown.  We checked out the Brooklyn Bridge (built from 1870 - 1883!), the South Street Seaport at Pier 17, and Battery Park.  While we were down that way, we saw the four waterfalls which comprise Olafur Eliasson's latest bit of installation art, on display until October.  In all honesty, the waterfalls are a bit underwhelming, but still cool.

Also while we were down there, we checked out the "Playing the Building" exhibit by David Byrne, famous for founding the Talking Heads.  Basically, Mr. Byrne has taken an old ferry terminal building and turned the entire thing into an instrument, controlled by a single console organ keyboard situated in the middle of the open room.  The concept itself is rather interesting, though the music it puts out is reminiscent of a horror flick.

Friday evening, we finally managed to see a free outdoor concert that *didn't* get rained out!  We saw Alvin and the Sound Merchants at Bryant Park, along with our friends Joel and Kelly.  After the concert, we headed down to Cosmic Cantina near Union Square for a couple beers, followed by a couple more beers at our friendly neighborhood pub - the Banshee - followed by sleep.

Saturday was a spectacular day - bright blue sky, low humidity, perfect temperature.  We started off with two hours of breakfast, coffee, and reading at Gotham Coffeehouse.  We continued with four hours of sunning and reading at Central Park. Then, after a great dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant on the west side, we finished off the day with an awesome concert - "She and Him" playing at Terminal 5.

Let me tell you about "She and Him". . .

Him: M. Ward.  (M stands for Matt, not Montgomery as I originally guessed.)  We got turned on to M. Ward's music about two years ago.  Spectacular guitar player with a cool, smoky voice.

She: Zooey Deschanel.  We (okay, I) got turned on to her in 2003, when she co-starred with Will Ferrell in "Elf".  If you saw the movie, you certainly remember she and Will Ferrell singing 'Baby, it's Cold Outside' in the mall bathroom, and you know that she has a really cool voice.

Fast forward to April of this year, when we saw in one of the NY daily newspapers that "She" and "Him" had started performing together.  Great stuff.  Their music has a very retro, 60's feel (old folks, correct me if I'm off by a decade or two), but it sounds new, due in part to his creative guitar work and her very unique voice.

So, anyways, the concert was just great.  Oh yeah, we should also mention that one of the opening acts, a North Carolina band called "The Rosebuds", was also very good.

Today was a big day.  After a big bagel breakfast, we bounded to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to buy bulk bath bar soap.  Then, on our way back, we burst into a furniture store that sells beanbags.  So, in celebration of four months of living in NYC, we came home with a big bulky beanbag built for two!  (Four months *is* the beanbag anniversary, right?)  For the few of you that have seen our apartment, this thing is slightly larger than our couch, which makes it slightly smaller than our entire living room.  Sweet.

With love,

Katy and Erik

The Pics of the Litter

We had high hopes for this post, but alas. . .

This was going to be a really great post.  We were going to talk about the free New York Philharmonic concert on Governor's Island!  We were going to talk about another free concert in Madison Square Park!  We were going to talk about taking a train up the Hudson River valley and seeing all the cool little towns along the way!  We were going to add heroic tales including princes and princesses and sword-fights and magic forests!  

Free New York Philharmonic concert on Governor's Island?  Rained out.

Free concert in Madison Square Park?  Rained out.

Train trip up the Hudson?  Oddly, the weather was actually *too* nice that weekend, so we never made it farther than Central Park.

Heroic tale of princes, princesses, sword-fights, and magic forests?  It's already been done.  Read "The Princess Bride."

So, you might ask, what *do* we have to talk about?  Well, we might mention playing thirty or so games of cribbage spread over a few rainy days.  We might tell you about our walk up the East River to Carl Schurz Park and the Gracie Mansion.  We could tell you about three consecutive, crushing wins by the Duke Club of NY softball team.  We might tell you about Erik's trip to Chicago, a going-away party at Jadis on the Lower East Side, or even our trip down to Pier 17.  We could tell you of our amazing display of frisbee prowess in the park.  And, if we really wanted to put you to sleep, we could tell you about all the wonderful food we've had recently --- terribly good Mexican at Rosa's, unbelievably good cupcakes and coffee cake  at Two Little Red Hen's, or some handmade pasta and sauce from Agata & Valentina.  

But we're not going to tell you about any of that.  So there.

With love,

Katy and Erik

Fun with Explosives!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Today brought a gray, drizzly day here in the city, but that didn't stop our friends at Macy's from rolling out thirty minutes of controlled explosives. Although there was no way to capture it with the camera, the coolest part about this fireworks show is that there are actually three separate shows, each precisely in unison with the others. From our vantage point, we could see two of the shows clearly, and they were timed within milliseconds. Pretty incredible.

From our apartment, we just walked two blocks over to the East River and staked out a spot along the railing. Once there, we made two new friends, Cheddar (an adorable Boston Terrier) and his owner, Jess.

Enjoy the photos.

With love,

Katy and Erik

A Big Apple-achia Wednesday!

Welcome back to Katy and Erik's award-winning blog. We're glad you're here.

Living here in Asphaltopolis, there's a few things that we don't have much of. Grass is one of them. Outside of Central Park, you have to search far and wide for grass, and when you find it, you're either in Connecticut or you just gave a guy forty bucks in a dark alley, and that wasn't the kind of grass you were looking for anyways.

Another thing we don't have much of is bluegrass. . .you know, the kind with fiddles and banjos and genetically-less-diverse mountain folk?

So, imagine our surprise Wednesday night when we found both at the same time! Real live grass and real live bluegrass in the same place. Every Wednesday evening during the Summer, the Madison Square Park Conservancy puts on a free concert in the park. This week, they brought in some Appalachian flavor, as Cherryholmes took the stage.

Cherryholmes is a really talented bluegrass band. They are also a family band --- father, mother, two sons, and two daughters. As the father joked, the fact that they spend 300 days a year together in a 45-foot bus might explain why all of their songs are murder-ballads. The father, I should mention, has a beard that makes Uncle Hunter look prepubescent.

New York City sent out a great crowd on a perfect evening. For a bunch of New Yorkers listening to 90 minutes of twang-twang music, they were pretty into it. On the other hand, every one of the father's hillbilly-twinged jokes fell flat. Nice effort, though.

For dinner that night, we paid a visit to the NYC version of Cosmic Cantina, one of our old college hangouts in Durham, North Carolina. Just as we remembered, the burritos were great, but there were two notable differences. On the plus side, the NYC Cosmic has homemade, organic tortillas. On the down side, our old $6 Constance burrito is apparently made with three gallons of unleaded. . .

Love to all,

Katy and Erik