Swimming Pools, Soap Opera Stars

Mid-October brings so many things: Halloween anticipation, rosy cheeks, ripening pumpkins, and a huge uptick in my attractiveness due to my suddenly apropos wearing of jackets (it’s much more bizarre when it’s 90 degrees outside). After tonight, I have to add “Soap-opera-star-packed charity galas.” Yes, I was at yet another work function tonight, working the red carpet at a charity fete inside the somewhat underwhelmingly beige hallway of a certain largish Times Square hotel. That is to say, the hotel is large in toto, mostly by keeping all individual parts of it shoulder-schrunchingly tiny.

I am more or less unable to describe this event outside of its affect on my self-esteem, which was overwhelmingly positive. Soap stars, young and old, were unfailingly polite to me. Ridiculously attractive young women complemented my clothes. Daringly dressed journalists touched my arm and called me “sweetie.” I was, in short, thrilled. If only I watched soap operas- - “daytime television”- - and therefore had some idea who they all were, I can only assume I would’ve more completely enjoyed myself.

After this, I checked out the Fiery Furnaces show at Town Hall, the venue immortalized in Christopher Guest’s “A Mighty Wind” (“These plants are sticking out just at eye-level”). The only problem with this (apart, of course, from the fact that my complimentary seats were as high as a rapper on Saturday afternoon) was that the audience is REQUIRED to sit during the entire performance, and is FORBIDDEN from eating or drinking during the entire set. This is, needless to say, not the best environment for the fuzzy rock of the Furnances. On the upside, an acquaintance of mine, Bob the bartender from North 6, is now their drummer! I more or less solely concentrated on the job he was doing (fabulous) before my premature exit.

Look for a post of the upcoming weekend’s Creativity Now! conference from Tokion Magazine. And by “look for” I mean some time in the coming month or so.