I was having a contest with Marco to see who could resist updating this website longer--I lost. Okay, Dad, you can post your next story now, I gave in. (When I was a kid, my Dad would make a contest of who could resist refilling the ice cube trays longest--he always lost. Hee hee.)

Well let's see if I can recap what's been going on for the last month or so:

Shortly after my last update I attended a performance of Benjamin Millepied's choreography at the French Institute Alliance Francaise. His troupe, called Danses Concertantes, consists of himself, soloists, and other principals from New York City Ballet. The evening was structured wonderfully, starting with a video Benjamin made in collaboration with Olivier Simola. It's a fantastic show of Benjamin dancing through New York to the strains of a Bach solo violin Chaconne. The music is rather serious, but the choreography is brighter than that. From there the program moved to live dance--first Benjamin dancing a solo--again to Bach, but cello this time--that Jerome Robbins choreographed for Baryshnikov. This was followed by three ensemble pieces of Benjamin's creation (in which he does not dance himself). All of these, "Circular Motion," "Triple Duet" and "We Were Two" are terrific--inventive, smart, and at times as emotional as the best classical dance I've seen. Deborah Jowitt, the ballet critic at The Village Voice more or less gets it right in her review. The added thrill of this wonderful program is that it is the creation of a friend, someone who I've known since he was a teenaged student at the School of American Ballet. To see how far he's come in the ten years since then is a serious rush!

Moving on, a lot of celebrating surrounded the announcement and subsequent beginning of a new job for Paula. Not only is she now working in knitwear on the collection-level line for Michael Kors, but she got hired at the Associate Designer level, not as an Assistant. Not bad for someone who's been out of design school less than a year! Yay for Paula--our national-holiday-level celebrations were fun.

Stephanie and Joe came to New York for a weekend, and as usual we had a ball. The first night we had a simple and delicious meal together at Landmarc. The next morning Stephanie and I met for a day alone together. It was heavenly to just spend some casual catch-up time together. We had breakfast at Cafe Habana, then shopped our way through Soho and Canal Street. Then we spent the afternoon at MoMA. We laughed our way through five floors of modernity until we were suffering serious art fatigue. I ran home to shower and change for a holiday dinner...

That evening I attended my first Passover seder at Josh and Stephanie's house. As always, the Berksons were such wonderful hosts, preparing a gorgeous table, a fine meal, and a prayer book to guide us amateurs through the celebration--all garnished with the kind of familial love I've been blessed with all my life. They've made one of the loveliest homes I've had the pleasure of visiting in New York. Rebecca's pictures from the evening are here. Learn more about Passover, if you're ignorant like me, here.

After our holiday meal, Rebecca and I met up with some internet-friends of mine--our first in-the-flesh meeting! Rebecca and I booked a room at Sing-Sing, and I was mid-song when JennyJ and Pollymagoo arrived. These two London sweethearts not only laughed and sang and drank and rocked the house, but they brought me a gift of my very favorite UK specialty, Tunnock's Tea Cakes! I may have out-karaoked myself that night, with a fabulous belting-out of Talking Head's Life During Wartime (not to mention Runaway Sue, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, and Sweet Caroline).

A week later was Rebecca's birthday and I have nothing to say about that except that I went to her party and embarrassed myself in ways you aren't going to be privileged to read about here. Happy 27, RF!

Last week I decided to prove to myself that being 35 does not mean that one cannot go out dancing from midnight till four on a weeknight. I did prove it, and I also proved that a 35-year-old body doesn't bounce back quite so easily as it did a decade ago. Still, it was an awesome night of house music from my favorite DJ, Ben Watt. I went alone, but no one is alone when half the crowd are the people I remember from the old Body & Soul days. Friendly faces, xstacy-induced smiles, sweet sneakers, shakin' rumps, whoops and hollers, and non-stop beats--now that's what I call dancin'. I stayed to the end, and when the lights came up and Ben Watt lifted his needle, there was a moment's pause, and then the club exploded into a thunderous applause the likes of which one only hears in opera houses. The people went wild, shouting out our love and praise, and Ben thanked us by playing his fantastic mix of Sade's "By Your Side". Eight more minutes of dancing, then a painful walk home. I was in bed at 4.30am. Yes, I was late for work the next day.

I bought a new toy! It looks like this:

It's the sexiest little digital camera I could find. It's like the size of a cigarette lighter. 4.1 megapixels, fits in the pocket, and dressed to impress.

Got to use the new camera at the Third Annual Kentucky Derby Party hosted by Bryan and Damion. They always do it right with the fried chicken, the corn bread, the key lime pie, and of course, the mint juleps!

Bryan

Damion
I lost $10 by backing the wrong horse, but what's new? I never win on horse races. But anyway, all the usual suspects were there, and even some rather unusual suspects (such as Jocelyn, who I know from elsewhere, and whose presence on the patio startled me into saying "You're in the wrong place!"). I had a nice chat with Andrew in the backyard:

One of the best features of the new camera is that it does sequential images--like these of Ryan, who obviously is happy that he won half the pot of gold by picking the right horse!:

Anyway, that pretty much catches me up. And you? What have you been up to for the last month?!?