Highly recommended: 'Your Table Is Ready'

Drugs, sex, rock ‘n’ roll… And would you like some food with that? 

That pretty well sums up the first half of Your Table Is Ready by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina.

If you can get past the initial soft porn (if that turns you off or on), this is one fascinating, fun book to read, especially if you are a New Yorker and you eat. 

Even if you're not a New Yorker, it's still a good read.

It's behind-the-scenes descriptions of what goes on at New York's fanciest restaurants, many managed and run by the author who had first-hand experience how they serve 'em up and save the best seats for the most money and cave to the reviewers.  

Everyone knows what the reviewers look like, right?  You'd better.  Stand guard, everyone, and turn on your earbuds for the first alert..err, warning:  They are here!

Who knew there was so much sex in restaurants? Only in New York City? I kept plugging away and gave it a few more pages before my appetite was whet. 

Surprise! Advance money makes a difference! Slip the maître d' an easy $100 bill (in the 80s and 90s; better up the ante now) and sit at whatever grand table they seat you. 

Who cares about reservations when it comes to money?  

The most famous arrived, like the hucksters Cecchi-Azzolina knew: Ivanka Trump, Trump, the mob, the FBI and more.

Many times I laughed out loud at this fast-paced, detailed description of what's happening behind the bar. 

Cecchi-Azzolina writes that 98 percent of the guests are fine, but it's the other two percent that "we in the business hate."  

Where do you stand?

Sex drugs and maybe some food, too, at New York's finest are what it's all about. Read it and eat!

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In Memoriam: Tina Turner, 1939-2023

 

The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, April 2, 2022/By Patricia Leslie

Kayla Davion was Tina Turner in The Tina Turner Musical at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City, April 2, 2022/By Patricia Leslie

Kayla Davion was Tina Turner in The Tina Turner Musical at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City, April 2, 2022/By Patricia Leslie

Kayla Davion was Tina Turner in The Tina Turner Musical at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City, April 2, 2022/By Patricia Leslie

Kayla Davion was Tina Turner in The Tina Turner Musical at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City, April 2, 2022/By Patricia Leslie

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'Michael Jackson' is alive and onstage in New York City!

From the  MJ  playbill, 2022

Dynamite!  

Myles Frost must win the Tony!

Electric! 

On fire! 

I swear Michael Jackson had "returned" from the dead for a concert with all his hits!

The audience's screaming and yelling were louder than any theatre performance I've ever attended, but there was no problem hearing the show.

MJ The Musical at the Neil Simon Theatre, New York City, April 1, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

It was the best theatre performance I've seen and with a few decades of experience, I've seen one or two.

Attention, Michael Jackson fans: Yes, it's worth a trip to New York City from Washington, D.C., and I may go again. You will not be disappointed.

From MJ The Musical at the Neil Simon Theatre, New York City, April 1, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Times Square, New York City, April 1, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie 

The music is fantastic!

The dancing is fantastic!

The lighting is fantastic!

Did I leave anything out?

The costumes! They're fantastic, too!

Some have pooh-poohed: "But he was a pervert." 

I was not going to the show to condone what he did. I was going to the show for the music!  Music!  Music! And it may take me there again. 

Had I not had a ticket for Tina the next night (which was almost as good, but hurry!  Closing August 14), I would have paid $175 to see MJ  The Musical again. (Besides, Tina is coming to the National in October for almost three weeks. Must see!)

Kayla Davion was Tina at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City, April 2, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

MJ will last for years (if Mr. Frost can hold out), and the actress from The Prom  road show, who sat beside me, said he came out of nowhere to get the role.

He taught himself how to sing;

he taught himself how to dance;

and he taught himself how to be Michael.

You may think Michael Jackson is dead. I tell you he's back and on stage every night at Neil Simon.

Write if I am wrong.

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Get on the bus for 'Hello, Dolly!'

                                        Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly!/New York Lifestyles Magazine

Dear Theatre Fans,

Get on the bus*, even for a day, to New York City to see Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! before she leaves the show in January.

The Divine Miss M is 71 which just goes to show you how young 70 is. (Speak for yourself.)

Hello, Dolly! is Ms. Midler's first leading role in a Broadway musical which earned her this year's Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. The show won three more Tonys (Best Revival of a Musical, Costume Design, and Gavin Creel won for Best Featured Actor in a Musical). It was nominated for six more.

Fans, it happened one night in New York (and maybe, more), that some audience members stood up in their seats, cheered, and applauded the performance in the middle of the show.  More than once.  Several times.  That was a first for me. 

I've read Bette Midler's replacement, Donna Murphy, is fabulous, and congrats to Ms. Murphy, but, right now (save Tuesdays and some other dates) it's the Divine Miss M whose spell over the audience is unmistakable. She transmits her magic across the stage and envelopes the spellbound in her rapture. 
  
She loves the role. And so do her fellow actors. The electrical connection between performers and guests is undeniable. Everyone has a good time and joins the celebration, but I don't want to go overboard.

When the orchestra started up, I knew the music must be a recording since the sounds were too perfect for live.  Wrong.  Conductor Andy Einhorn elicits magnificent production by all. But, lest I exaggerate.

Speaking of costumes: Hold your breath for colors and design au spectaculaire.  (Costume designer Santo Loquasto won the Tony.) Folks, it's the 1890s with colors and luxurious costumes to admire. Hats, yellow suits, orange suits, green, you name it.  So many to see!  So many dancers, perfectly in sync (by Warren Carlyle). 

Here's how the Guide to Musical Theatre describes the outfits (which includes orange and yellow suits worn by men!)  

Turn of the century: New York City and Yonkers. Bright, cartoon costumes of the dress and styles of the period. (Ruffled dresses, large hats, parasols, striped pants, vests, spats, waistcoats), shopkeeper smocks, horse costume, green waiter suits with white aprons, floor-length evening dresses, lodge uniform, tights, high-button shoes, parade costumes (police, sports club, dance-hall girls, opera Association etc.), male formal suit and evening cape, "Hello, Dolly" evening dress, sailor dress, traveling clothes

On her website Bette Midler says: “I just want to say that revival is an interesting word. It means that something is near death and it’s been brought back to life. Hello, Dolly! never really went away. It has been here all along. It’s in our DNA. It’s optimism, it’s democracy, it’s color, it’s love of life. It’s hilarity. This is a classic. Come and see it. It’s not just me! This has the ability to life your spirits in these terrible, terrible times.”

More applause is due Ms. Midler for her sponsorship of charities and adoption of highways on the east and west coasts for the Adopt-A-Highway project.


Thank you, Bette Midler and Director Jerry Zaks!

(*My fav bus line is the Vamoose Gold.)

Tickets are here and other places. (Check the Web.)  Better hurry.  Several dates are sold out.

When:  Matinees at 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tuesday and Thursday night shows begin at 7 p.m.  Other nights, 8 p.m.  No shows on Mondays and most Sunday eves.  Remember, Ms. Midler does not perform on Tuesday and some other nights. 

Where:  Sam S. Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St., New York City, 10036


Duration:  2 hours and 35 minutes, one intermission 

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Fifth Avenue's 2016 Easter Parade

You think it's easy to wear this thing?  You should try making it.  On Fifth Avenue, Easter morning, March 27, 2016.  

The New York Easter Parade is the greatest fun.  Everyone is happy, smiling, glad to be there in the hum of the crowd where rare glimpses of politicians are allowed. (No wonder everyone is happy!) 

I checked, and the parade is not listed in the New York section of 1000 Places to See Before You Die. It should be.  It lasts about six hours (you don't have to stay for the whole thing), and the participants slowly move south to north on the route, clogged with non-participants/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  On the steps of St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Okay, all right, one politico (in addition to "Bunnies Against Corporate Greed" which I could not photograph before the wearer disappeared in the crowd).  This woman's "hat" carried the only candidate we saw portrayed all day, New York's favorite son, The Donald.  Said some of the wording: "This is My Wall.  It's Huge.  No One Can Get Through."  "Peak A Boo, Mr. Trump.  It's Me, El Chapo" (Huh? I think the potato head.) "Presenting Donald Trump and His Band Playing Their Hit Song 'Hair.'" In the 2016 Fifth Avenue Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 You think this is a balloon salesman, right?  You are wrong,  That's a hat of many balloons in New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

How about a beard of daffodils?  Yes!  At least, I think that's what they were in New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 All ready for the 1940s in New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade.  His camera case was vintage, too/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Black Easter? In New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

This is "Coco" getting ready for New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade.  There were almost as many dressed dogs in the parade as humans.  Really./Photo by Patricia Leslie

And this is Coco's owner in New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 "I got an itch." Honey, I think you got more than that for New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade. Maybe the weight of her hat caused her to lose balance /Photo by Patricia Leslie

Her dress was so tight it was declared off limits on the steps of St. Patrick's for New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 He carried a little dog dressed like he was, in pink, in New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade.  There was a contest over who/what was better dressed:  the people or their dogs.  Yes, everything is going to the .../Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Egads, Donald built hats for New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 A gator hatched a few eggs on top of her haid for New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade.  The connection?  Maybe she's a Florida fan.  Or, an environmentalist. The gator stayed atop her head and except for  swishing its tail, didn't move much so no one worried about getting bitten.  It was pinned down/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Yee-haw!  Hopalong Cassidy waited for her hoss at New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Thank you, Rockefeller Center, for your purty Easter flowers and decorations for New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A smiling and dancing rabbit at Rockefeller Center for New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 The end.  New York's Fifth Avenue 2016 Easter Parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Morgan Library and Museum is "must see" in NYC

A closed entrance at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City (formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

What was formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library is now the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City and one hazards a guess about the shortened name.  Because we now speak and write in monosyllables?

Caged books at the Morgan Library, on three levels, however, a guide said, with an appointment, the books are available to the public/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The ceiling in the library at the Morgan Library/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The guard said everything was attached to an alarm so I should refrain from picking anything up.  I did not pick anything up. 

Pages that have survived from the earliest work of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Quartet for Piano and Strings in A minor (1876 (?) - 78 (?)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The "Water Music" by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The little book in the foreground is a pocket-sized Magna Carta, its "earliest widely obtainable" form, like those which lawyers carried around in their robes for ready reference, according to the label. It was written in Latin and Anglo-Norman-French and dates from c. 1300/Photo by Patricia Leslie

This is a letter from J.D. Salinger (1919-2010) to Holden Bowler, a lounge singer whom Salinger met on a cruise ship when Salinger worked as activity director in the Caribbean in 1941.  Salinger told Bowler he had a book in mind, and he would use Bowler's first name for his protagonist, Holden Caulfield/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The building is stunning in its appointments, jewelry, rare books, and furnishings.  It was constructed from 1900 to 1906 for $1.2 million, designed as the library of financier J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), and after his death, was opened as a public institution in 1924 by his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), following his father's wishes.  

 

Mr. Morgan's desk and chair in his study/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In Mr. Morgan's study/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The guard said this was the "first globe." I failed to ask him, "first globe of what?" It is in Mr. Morgan's study/Photo by Patricia Leslie

On the wall in Mr. Morgan's study is The Virgin and Child with...? by Francesco Raibolini (1447-1517) called Francia. Compare it to his Virgin and Child with Two Saints (about 1500-1510) at the National Gallery in London/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The entrance to Mr. Morgan's former office, now a gallery which houses jewelry more than 1,000 years old/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Cicadas, anyone?  How about some cicada brooches?  Big ones (life sized?) which date 380 - 500 A.D.  and worn by Germanic women who lived along the Danube River and the Black Sea, on display at the Morgan Library.  The label says cicadas "symbolized immortality in the ancient world, perhaps because of their apparently miraculous regeneration after long periods of dormancy."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Merovingian jewelry, 450 - 610 A.D., at the Morgan Library.  Can you detect the bird brooch, the eagle brooch, the composite bird brooch casing, the buckle, and the disc mount (36, far left), the last which is similar to that found in the grave of the first Merovingian king, Childeric (d. A.D. 481)?  A typographical error in the label copy identifies the buckle (at top and worn by elite warriors on their sword belts) as the eagle brooch (38, second from left, below the disc mount)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Garnets and gold jewelry were popular in the Middle East and along the shores of the Black Sea from around 50 to 300 A.D. On top is a pendant, and in the center, a pair of earrings, and a ring at the bottom, all on display at the Morgan Library & Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie

These are "Eastern Gothic" earrings, with polyhedral beads, c. 500 - 620 A.D., and larger than a woman's wrist, on display at the Morgan Library & Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie

To complete a delightful experience, go for lunch at the Morgan Library & Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

The guard said Mr. Morgan had an underground passageway to travel from the library to his home (located nearby at 219 Madison Avenue before it was torn down in 1928 to make way for an expansion of the library).

The last known photograph of J.P. Morgan and his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr., walking together, January 1, 1913/Wikimedia Commons and Moody's Magazine

Changing exhibitions, lectures, concerts, family programs, workshops, tours, films, the permanent furnishings and collections are all found at the library today.
 
I was pleasantly surprised by the contents and building, and was made to feel welcome by the friendly staff throughout, unlike the reception I received from the woman with long brown hair at the Frick Collection who prevented my access to public places and practically shoved me out the door, well before its 5 p.m. closing.  Goodnight, Frick!

What: The Morgan Library and Museum


When: Open Tuesday - Friday:  10:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. (open until 9 p.m. on Friday); Saturday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Where:  225 Madison Avenue at E. 36th St., New York City 10016

Admission:  $18 Adults, $12 Children (13–16), $12 Seniors (65 and over), $12 Students (with current ID)
Admission is free on Friday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Admission to the McKim rooms only (Mr. Morgan's Library, Study, Rotunda, and Librarian's Office) is free on Tuesday, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, 4 p.m to 6 p.m.
No admission charged to visit the Morgan Shop, Morgan Dining Room, and Morgan Café.

For more information: 212-685-0008 or email visitorservices@themorgan.org
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