Birthday 2022

Last week I celebrated a birthday in high style.

After a leisurely morning where I got to spend time in the beautiful late summer day with my favorite four-legged buddy, I returned to a lovely stack of birthday presents. Lauren got me:

a new sleeve for my laptop
some awesome Fox racing biking shorts
a SUPER-AWESOME tote bag with an Olivetti Valentine typewriter on it

An awesome totebag for carrying things between my two buildings at work

That afternoon, Lauren had gotten us a reservation at “Gatsby’s Landing.” The reviews she had seen said “Times Square done right.” Not being a fan of Times Square, I thought that wasn’t going to be hard to achieve, but I was hopeful for something special. And it was!

The decor is a beautiful symphony of French navy blue and brass. The ambience is quiet and classy, but not too stuffy.

Above all other things, I must note that the attention to service and detail is unlike anything I’ve seen in New York City. Really, I’ve not had this level of attention, care, gentility, and friendliness since I left the South.

As for the dishes, I had their wonderfully juicy short rib blend burger, and my wife had their Cacio a Pepe with broccolini. Both were delightful. I had a great summer cocktail: a Lemoncello martini.

We topped off the meal with Bomboloni and coffee.

I didn’t think to snap a picture until after we’d enjoyed ourselves heartily.

Afterward, we walked around the block to see the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning performance, “Strange Loop.” Taking its title from Hofstader’s trope in Gödel, Escher, and Bach, it refers to the curious quality whereby a consciousness bends in on itself to take itself as an object of consciousness. That’s a pretty darn trippy proposition.

The principal conceit of the show is that a black, fat, gay would-be playwright is writing a story about a black, fat gay would-be playwright who is somewhat stumped as his various identities (“intersectional identities” critical race theory calls them, now my blog post is banned in Florida!) battle with loading him up with expectations for what what he should write as a black man, or as a fat man, or as a gay man or as a black, fat, gay man. These intersecting Venn identities and their war for his pen lead him to several life experiences (real and imagined) and he tries to come to peace with himself. At the end, I was amazed to see how deeply this story touched the women, the gay men, the folks of color. For them there was something profoundly special in this story and feeling their joyous tears was a really novel experience. The production wasn’t “for me,” but seeing life celebrating itself was nourishing.

We left with a bounce in our heart into the warmth of Times Square. We hopped the magic 1 line back home and came home to our adoring dog. It was a good birthday.