The next chapter

Chapter 1: Exile: The protagonist leaves New York and tries to settle into London. Initial nostalgia gives way to life with a new and satisfying rhythm. But then one day the protagonist confesses to London: "London, I like you. I really like you. But my heart belongs to another... [cue the Gerswin and Woody Allen's voice over introduction to Manhattan]

Chapter 2: The Grand Compromise: The protagonist makes a joyous return to New York, but in exchange accepts a grand, pragmatic compromise with these words: "New York I love you. But in exchange for weekends and telecommuting days (even months), I have promised my days to Boston." New York, used to being anything and everything for anyone and everyone, takes this in stride. The protagonist instead finds the bargain increasingly heavy.

Chapter 3: The Return: The protagonist has come to like Boston. Some days pass quickly, others slowly. [Overlay a shot here of the pages of the calendar fluttering by: 1 year, 2 years, 3 years...] But at last the protagonist has served out the partial separation for the agreed-upon period. At the appointed hour on the appointed day, packs books and bags and furniture and flies to New York with these words: "New York, I am yours. All yours."

Alternative treatment (or the Bollywood remix)
Chapter 1: The protagonist is wildly in love with New York. But the future father-in-law, who also happens to be the protagonist's boss (as happens in Bollywood films), says, "Life is not all about love. We need you, I need you, in our London office." Following duty, the protagonist settles in London, trying to learn to love the city. But arranged love proves impossible. The protagonist's heart still belongs to New York.

Chapter 2: The father-figure finally gives in, saying if it's New York you want, it's New York you'll get. But... ah the but. To prove your love of the city, you must spend your weeks in our Boston office for a period of two to five years. If you still love New York after spending all that time apart, then I'll we'll see. While growing to respect and admire Boston, love remains elusive. And every weekend, the protagonist journeys to New York and leaves with the words, "I'll come back to you one day... to stay."

Chapter 3: One Sunday the father-figure is driving by Central Park in his limousine when he sees the protagonist seated on a park bench (I know this seems unlikely, but it is a Bollywood film after all), looking downcast. "What is it child/ trusted employee?" he asks, "It's New York," the protagonist replies. "I've done what you've asked. I've tried, but every day I love New York the same as always, more if possible." The father-in-law/boss, by now sporting a salt-and-pepper goatee, puts a hand on the protagonist's shoulder saying, "You've passed the test my child/trusted employee. You'll move back to New York this summer. And to make up for the hardship we've put you through, we'll send you to Europe for two months..." [Cue the Bollywood dancers in Central Park...]

xo

bb

P.S. Yes, loyal readers. I'm back, back in New York. Of course, I do leave for Europe on Sunday for a couple of months, but come the summer New York will be my destination, not Boston. I did really, really like my stays in London and Boston, but New York has always been where I've wanted to live, so I'm happy, thrilled really, to be home. I suppose I'll have to change the header of the blog! Now there's a task that I'll enjoy.

It's been a source of great strength having you along with me for the journey thus far. And I look forward to more adventures together in the months and years ahead...

You decide (9)

I went from this...

... to this...

Upgrade, downgrade, or apples and oranges? You decide.

If...

from http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/3171951/Hulton-Archive

If...

• Truman Capote had had his way, Breakfast at Tiffany's would have starred Marilyn Monroe and if Blake Edwards had had his way the co-star would have been Steve McQueen. Now imagine that film!
• I were in London this weekend, I would go to see Breakfast at Tiffany's on the big screen.
• I were in New York this weekend, I would go to a party at my friend Montse's place; she's a jazz aficionado (and knows how correctly to pronounce that word), and has invited a number of jazz musician friends and relatives who in my imagination will start jamming after suitable intoxication has been achieved.
• I am unable to invent (or find some wizard at MIT who has invented) a transporter before this evening, I'm going to stay in Boston this weekend. It has just snowed another 15 cm. I planned for this contingency by buying several bottles of wine, much cheese, and a few veggies. Maybe this is the weekend I'll finally watch The Mirror and Kagemusha.

xo

bb

Too much to work, too much time

It was Thanksgiving here the past weekend. Even though it's my favorite American holiday, I'm rarely around to enjoy it. The four day weekend is normally an irresistible opportunity to travel, often to Canada, occasionally to Europe, and even India a few times. So I usually miss out on a festival that is all about gathering with friends and family, and cooking and enjoying good food. It is day on which it is all about making something (perhaps many things) and being together, rather than buying things (although that starts on day after Thanksgiving, the infamous Black Friday).

This time I decided to stay put, which necessitated the further decision of whether to stay in Boston or New York. New York was appealing, with more than one friend's Thanksgiving dinner to choose from and after all it is New York. But after a lot of road trips recently and more travel on the way, staying put after the work week seemed like the nicest possible thing. So stay put I did. A colleague invited me over, a colleague who I like, who had invited other colleagues who I like. It turns out they cook well, but I had taken the precaution of bringing a really nice cheese plate with me. And it's the one occasion when no one looks askance if you try three different kinds of cake and pie and then return for seconds. And then a friend was visiting from New York, and then another, so all in all it was really nice.

The only problem was that I had too much time on my hands. No, really I mean it. It's not that I don't enjoy a good holiday. I got up on Thursday and was mentally running around the house imagining the thrill of a day without work, while physically I stayed in bed an extra hour (or two -- it's a great combination). Then I did the same again on Friday, And on Saturday. By Saturday evening I had had so much of doing nothing that I was desperately trying to find the Netflix movies I knew were lurking somewhere in the house (The Mirror, where are you when I need you?)

On Sunday I woke early, but while I was engaged in my now habitual early morning laze the thought of all the work I had postponed popped into my mind. I realized that I had so much work to do that if I worked non-stop for the next 10 days I might just make it through to my next trip. It did take another 12 hours for me to succumb to that thought, but by evening I was working flat out, with one thought rankling me: if I had just worked two or three hours each day over Thanksgiving then that would be have one less episode of Hurling Pumpkins and a few less days of hair-pulling over the next few days.

Perhaps true, but nonetheless those four days of nothing everything were fantastic.

I leave you with some snaps of the last week.

A fantastically vertiginous room at the ICA, Boston

Do you spot the moon?

Follow the birdie, SoHo. NYC

Crossing boundaries, SoHo, NYC

xo

bb

BIG CHEESE little cheese

Somehow, somewhere two weeks have slipped since my last post. I thought this next post was going to be about some films I've seen (the next one maybe...) but this one is a about:

BIG CHEESE and little cheese.

So what's it all about? There's no way to pretend the following will be coherent, so I'm not going to try:

* In London I lived next to a cheese monger (love that occupation name - monger, iron monger and cheese monger being the two I continue to see - it's not used in American English). Well, I thought of myself as living next to La Fromagerie, though in reality it was a 4 minute stroll away. It's a gem of place, and most things cost just about as much as gems. But getting back to the cheese, they have their own cheese cave. I should say "cave", because it's a wonderful room that the customers can walk into, to be surrounded by the smell of ageing cheese. What a smell! And the cheese monger himself will give you a tour, with some suggestions and tastings thrown in. Looking back, I don't know why I didn't buy more cheese. For one thing, you could get unaged raw milk cheese, which we can't here. For another, it's irresistible! So just for the record, it's not that I could resist, it's just that somehow I went shopping on Sunday, market day, and tended to buy my cheese there...

* In New York, I live next (in the same sense as above) to a very fine, quite reputed cheese section. Indeed, one person liked it so much he asked - and was given permission - to get married there! (No, not me, though not a bad idea for the future...) The only problem here is they have many cheeses pre-cut and pre-wrapped. Good cheese, but usually hunks (don't like that word, but it's the right word...) Of course, you can get them to cut piece for you, but you have to endure the competitive sport called New York grocery shopping. Some people move too fast and knock you over. Some run their shopping cart into you Achilles' tendons (there's a reason ancient mythology picks this as Achilles' weak spot...) Even more taxing is weaving your way through the crowd. Overtaking the slow walkers and the indecisive, while yourself being flanked by a shopping cart and a baby stroller. In this kind of high-risk situation, you don't really want stop to to ask for your bespoke slice of cheese. You grab what you can and run.

* In Boston, I now have my own cheese monger. Actually it's a wine store and provisions store. The wine store is great, if like me you enjoy good wine but don't enjoy the sticker shock of buying wine outside continental Europe (sorry UK -- same problem there as here....), and I'm sure at some point I'll write about how this has changed my life. (But that phrase sounds bad no? At the least, a bit tricky...) But the cheese monger... Life changing... My local grocery options here basically consist of overly expensive, overly large, pre-packaged cheese. Now instead, I pop in for somewhere between $2-$4 worth of cheese. A thin sliver of Gorgonzola here, a brick of Robiola there, and even better a great selection of American cheeses. (For the doubters out there, American cheese isn't only Kraft slices. There's good stuff there. Right now I'm nibbling on a American raw cow milk's cheese...)

I wish there a were a more philosophical peroration to this line of thought. But really, that's it for now. Big cheese, little cheese.

bb

Where have the last two weeks gone?

It's been one of those fortnights. You look down, and by the time you look up two weeks have passed! Well, I promise to get back to it soon, with some new posts and updates on my new adventures. Right now it has been more about planning a trip that looks something like this: NY-London-Bombay, Bombay-London-Paris-Benelux-German-Switzerland-London-New York. All simple enough, no?

But the complications... Where to stay in Paris? In Paris I've been pretty lucky with cheap, well-located hotels, but do I want to try my luck with something that is approaching 100 Euros a night? Or should I splash out on something nicer? But why? There are so many better ways to spend that kind of money in Paris. Deep questions with no clear answers.

I've been enjoying a few weekends out in the country (which in my lexicon means anywhere outside New York, so for example it includes other metro areas like DC, Philadelphia, and Boston). One could get used to small town living, especially knowing that one will be back in NYC in a few hours...

Hope all your weekends are going well.

xo

BB

Back down to earth

It is was one of those weeks -- nothing disastrous, no triumph, but a bit like the moment in the Loony Tunes cartoons where the coyote speeds of the edge off a cliff and momentum carries him forward, until he notices he is standing on thin air, pauses to reflect on it, and then goes crashing down. Well it's like that except that rather than being poised on thin air above a Grand-Canyon type cliff I've been about 30,000 feet off the ground, more or less the height of a commercial jetliner flying between cities...

I've always known that I couldn't sustain my pace of travel over the last four years. It's true that eventually I have adapted myself to it, if not to enjoy it. Champagne and films helped to cure the transcontinental blues when I was flying from London to New York and the view of New York from the Triborough Bridge dispelled any doubts about coming back to New York every weekend from Boston.

But in every dimension you can measure it (social, mental, physical, and indeed financial -- that least delicate but inescapable fact of life...) I knew I couldn't keep it going forever. It was yesterday that I had my coyote moment.

In many ways I'm glad it's come because it would do me good to be in one place longer. When I lived in Boston full time as a student, I did really love it. And even if now New York always beckons I can at least come to like Boston. I'm thinking in terms of a 10-step program, gradual reduction, rather than cold turkey. Perhaps every other week initially, until I can work myself down to once a month.

* * *

The problem is giving up New York weekends. Many of my weekends here are quiet, neighborhood weekends, which I really enjoy. But that is the kind of sustaining pleasure which you think would be just as fine every month rather than every week. But now and then I have a weekend like this:

- Thursday arrive in New York. Join my friend Nuria at jazz club.
- Friday work from home. Join my friend Max for a quick bite, followed by an uptown jazz club, followed by a late night jam at another jazz club.
- Saturday, overdose on Chelsea galleries. Evening catch up with my friend Flo at a new place downtown. Just as I'm heading home my friend S calls and we decided to catch up over a quick drink. Just as I'm heading home my friend A calls and decides we should catch up since he's leaving town.
- Sunday morning, delicate. By the afternoon though I'm ready to hear the visiting orchestra from London, and then catch up with a friend who's in the orchestra. But then it's time for dinner with 5 friends who I haven't seen for a few months.
- Monday morning get up at 5.30 am, catch the shuttle, and in my Boston office by 8.15.

This was last weekend. Now before you think I am mad, I should note that this isn't an utterly atypical New York weekend, although nor is it typical. When I lived here full time, I would have these kinds of weekends every now then (once a month?), one of those weekends when you plan on it being quiet, but everyone you know is suddenly calling, and everyone decides to hold a party or a dinner on the same evening... These are the kinds of weekends where you feel yourself living on every dimension -- artistic, cultural, social, culinary, and of course having fun.

* * *

But then perhaps I'm getting a little too old for all of this. I really do love my quiet weeks, sitting at home with a book, a glass of wine, a film waiting in the DVD player...

* * *

But then I've just been noticing that if I use Amtrak, and time my trains correctly I could probably still manage to be here every week....

Will the coyote live again?

BB

Hello cutie pie!

I can't help it, but this is the phrase that pops into my mind whenever I see my car. I don't drive every day, indeed sometimes once a week if at all. When I'm walking toward where I know it is waiting in the parking garage, it is usually hidden from view behind other longer cars. So after I pass the giant SUV that often parks nearby there it is! Staring out at me like a cute puppy.

Since my last gushing post about my car, I have not yet had to refill the gas / petrol / benzine... So since October 1st, I have filled the tank only once.

(Needless to say, that isn't actually my car, but I've only every taken one picture, which I've already posted.)

All this leads to the very natural question of why I own a car. It's true, I imagined I would have more places to go. But at the moment, I drive it to work, which is a 8 mile round trip drive. Now, if you're sharp on your maths, then you'll have figured out by now that I don't drive to work everyday. That's because, in the manner of a modern flugelbinder, I work from different office on different days. Some of those are walking distance from where I live, others require a plane ride, occasionally but not often I work from home. So I suppose on average I make the trip less than twice a week.

I suppose I could cab it everywhere. But taxis are expensive in Boston, closer to London prices than New York prices. So I had figured that it was roughly break even between cabbing it everywhere and owning a car. But this misses two important facts. First, I still end up taking more than a few cabs, especially to and from the airport. Second, as they say, I have option value. Or to put it my way, if I had somewhere to go, I would be there -- and in style.

Actually I did use the car a bit yesterday. I drove to Symphony Hall. On a nice night I might have tried to walk, but it was too cold and it is difficult-to-impossible to get a cab after the symphony. Initially I used to use the car to buy groceries, but that struck me as undignified in my own I-wish-I-were-living-in-a-cute-European-town but-am-not but-will-continue-to-behave-as-though-I-am sort of way. Does Hannah drive a car for her groceries in Venice? No. Did I when I lived in London? (Lola, what about you?) No. Do I when I am in New York? No. And what about Lucia in Rome, and Clementine in Paris, and G in Berlin? No, no, no. (Nancy, tell me you walk to the traiteur on the corner and return with a baguette tucked under your arm...)

As I digression, I must confess that I do use a car for groceries when I'm Bombay. But that's just because friend, relatives, neighbors, and bystanders on the street think I am mad to do otherwise. It's really quite walkable if you don't mind breathing pollution and dodging buses, which really I don't.

So back to the car... Why do I have it then? I suppose after all is said and done, it's that puppy-in-your-face look it gives me after I've been away for a few days. Priceless, really.

xoxo

BB

Another weekend

I am on the train. Sitting by myself. I am next to a noisy group of 4 co-workers, who are telling rude jokes and laughing. One of them has a wheezy laugh.

Which inner BB should I channel? The stoic or the feisty?

They are now checking their Blackberries. Hmm… Blackberry=BB (though I myself don’t have one…)

I’m going to let them off tonight… (though they don’t know it….)

* * *

I've just made it back to my apartment in NYC! (10 second pause)

That was the sigh heard across the world.

* * *

Just had dinner at my usual neighborhood spot. I was sitting next to a very severe woman who looked liked she didn't want to talk. But this is NY... Eventually we were chatting away.

I had the same experience in Boston recently, sitting next to a severe woman. But after I tried to speak with her, she took out a crossword! I know you Europeans don't talk to strangers while eating your dinner at bars, because you don't eat your dinner at a bar and you don't talk to strangers! But it's one of the pleasures of New York. I have my "bar buddies" -- who I know by first name and nothing else: Mark, the gay food stylist for Gourmet magazine; Yvette, the Texan woman who loves to have weekends in New York (but she emphasizes, and I quote her, "New York is just fun and nothing else. There's no choca-laca going on while I'm here"); Sam my Hawaiian bartender; Amy, the aspiring actress who has sadly moved on to other gigs.

Bar buddies aren't a substitute for well-loved friends, of whom I have a number in New York, but they are their own wonderful thing. And in a place like Boston where I don't know too many people, it could have been a nice way to get to know some locals. Could have been...

But I've got a weekend in NYC ahead of me!

* * *

I saw a film, Revolutionary Road, and went to a concert (the now venerable Italian maestro Ricardo Muti), which we followed by two glasses of champagne and slightly dizzy conversation. It was wonderful.

* * *

I'm back in Boston now, Sunday evening, watching Renoir's The River. An imperfect but wonderful film. As Renoir says in his introduction to the film, "[India] is one of the least mysterious countries there are. For a Frenchman, India is very easy to understand. People there have just about the same reactions as people here do." So profoundly true, and so profoundly wrong. Exoticism is what most filmmakers want to find when the look abroad for their stories. But exoticism is exactly the failure to see oneself in others. At the same time, there are real differences in how different countries look at the world. The irony and beauty of the film is that Renoir both succeeds in rendering India utterly exotic and utterly quotidian at the same time. It is beautifully observed (in the background -- the village scenes) and above all the colours, so intense! characters, both English and Indian, are more than a little cliched, but it didn't matter..

I am also enjoying a risotto I just made with a vulgarization of a procedure the Mia passed on to me a while ago. I added oven-roasted curried acorn squash and tomatoes, and adapted it to a red-wine risotto recipe. Truth be told, I over cooked it by just two ladles of stock, but nonetheless it turned out very nicely.

Hope you've all had a wonderful weekend.

BB!