The Best of Times is Now - But Only For Now

Whee! Back from New York! Seeing two shows on Saturday makes me remember it as two days, so I secretly had a longer trip than the weekend would really support. Highlights:

• There were something like six or seven 24-hour Korean barbecue places on our block. jadia and I investigated one for Second Dinner on Saturday, and I dragged people back for lunch on Sunday. (And not only did it have really good barbecue, but really good egg-and-potato-and-apple-and-raisin salad as one of the Traditional Korean Little Dishes.)
• Avenue Q was a lot of fun. I was surprised the scene didn't change more. Watching the puppets dissociate from their voices was very odd. Bizarrely, I found that my laughing instinct was suppressed during the musical numbers, because they sounded exactly like the soundtrack (being the same people and all), and I don't so much laugh out loud while listening to CDs. I did notice what desireearmfeldt pointed out, that the puppets were more likely to hang around in profile than stage actors generally do; I found it intriguing ("well, okay, most of the expressiveness is in the body language anyway, and not the facial expression..."), but I don't have the theater instincts that she does.
• La Cage Aux Folles was also very nice (good job tirinian on mind controlling us all onto your plan); Robert Goulet as Georges, and wow, can he sing. I don't know that I've heard anyone with as rich a voice before. He had the cautious movement to be expected from an actor who's seventy-three, and Albin wasn't played as tons younger, so I imagined them as having been together for fifty years or so. I'd heard "I Am What I Am" a bunch on Standing Room Only, but it's a much more powerful song in its place in the show. Jean-Michel, or whatever the son's name was, didn't do much for me; he sounded like he was saying lines instead of talking. Dunno. The big showgirl/boy numbers were fun to watch, but it's Georges and Albin's story that will stick with me.
• I can accept that hotels in New York have to be expensive to pay for the location. I find it strangely more offensive to be charged $3.25 for a can of soda.
• We were all pretty tired by the Botanical Gardens, but the giant caterpillars were pretty cool.

• The Strand Bookstore was very much what I imagine as a bookstore that one might find magic books in. Sadly, it still had the flaw of only having books 1 and 5 of something that I wanted book 2 of.