I finished reading Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Shadow Thieves last night. As you may know, I love J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. There is something so incredibly fascinating about a never ending childhood. The book embodies innocence in a way that no other book I've read does. Most break it down through coming-of-age trials and meandering experiences that generally lead to growing up. Seeing as I'm such a fan of the original text, it should come to no surprise that I have reserved feelings about Barry and Pearson's text. I did like Peter and the Starcatchers enough to read the second book and purchase the next one, but its just not the same. They've completely changed the origin story and created their own universe in which to adventure. I don't know, I guess I'm a sucker for YA lit, or maybe I just find the way they wrote the books so interesting. From what I understand, they each take turns writing new chapters and email them back and forth. You wouldn't know it from reading the text. It flows pretty smoothly. Like its predecessor, the book is incredibly long with amazingly short chapters. It is an easy read if you're looking for something to have fun with, but I'd start with Starcatchers unless you want to be utterly confused.
Former Rage Against the Machine front man, Zach de la Rocha, has teamed up with a Los Angeles drummer to form One Day As A Lion. The pair will be releasing their debut Ep under that name on July 22. That's a week away! The bad news is that this is not a new Rage album. No word yet on that notorious solo work Zach did with Trent Reznor.
In New York, time seems to be at a premium. Being that there is so much to do, you need to find time to do it all. You also have to be organized if you don't want to miss out. Stephanie and I went down to the Avenue of the America's (6th Ave.) this afternoon to catch the parade before the MLB All-Star Game here at Yankee Stadium. The red-carpet parade route stretched from 42nd all the way to Central Park down 6th Avenue. Every living Baseball Hall-of-Fame member and the All-Stars were walking in the parade. This was one not to miss. We missed it. It seems we were misinformed. Whereas the paper said the parade coverage began at 7:00 pm, what they really meant by 7:00 was 1:00, when the parade actually took place. I held our spots on the parade route against the never-encrouching crowd for over an hour before we realized that the parade had in fact aken place four hours earlier. This isn't the first incident of us missing something we really wanted to see. Time just doesn't make sense here sometimes.
We left the concert right before its conclusion in order to beat the crowd (lest we be beaten by its retreating occupants). As we headed towards the subway I saw this fallout shelter. Interesting find in the middle of the city. History is all over the place.
Happy Bastille Day everyone! It's that day of the year where everyone breaks out their French accents and their berets (though, admittedly, I have neither). Stephanie and I went in to the city to the French Festival in midtown. We were greeted by an arc or red, white, and blue balloons, though none representing the U.S. of course. Beyond 
the French banners and flags was a man boxed in by police barriers shouting at every passerby in French. This same man happened to be wearing a U.S.A. collared shirt, but who's counting. We grabbed a couple of chicken pitas and made our way from east to west down the street. In the distance a stage was erected on the side of the street. As we made our way towards it, a chorus of French audience members joined together in gang-vocal fashion singing something which I didn't understand. Stephanie got a bon-bon (or two) and I got a strawberry crepe. They were delicious! At five o'clock we headed back downtown to go to mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
The lyrics are ridiculously repetitive, but I love the melody, the guitar and that backing synth.
Because you know... it's my life, and it's now or never.
so much to do and see here, and there never seems to be enough time to do anything. Last night I had to choose between a free concert, the dance show we went to, and hearing Thurston Moore speak about the history of Sonic Youth - and those are just the three we narrowed it down to (and were all free!). This morning was atypical. We got up early so that we could go down to the flagship Apple store where CBS This Morning was filming their Saturday morning show live. Well, we got there in the middle of the broadcast and guess what, the plaza where they were shooting was empty. You see, just because it says it is being recorded live doesn't mean it is being recorded live right then. They had apparently wrapped it all up about an hour before we got there. There wasn't a lack of things to see that early in the morning, however. At the Apple store, people were still lined up around the block and down the street to buy the new iPhone 3G. I overheard one of the employees say that it had been that way all night. The store is open 24 hours a day. When we went by on Monday there were already people camped out to buy the phone. I'm going to go get mine in a couple of weeks when the hype dies down. Since we were in the plaza we went by FAO Schwarz where we took these killer pictures of us doing what we do best: making a scene.
Though trashy. And covered with graffiti. And the trains run above ground, not below it. We took a roundabout way of getting to Brooklyn Heights tonight in search of the famous Grimaldi's Pizza. It didn't take us that long to find it. It was the restaurant surrounded by the mass of people. We've been meaning to try some Brooklyn pizza after that fiasco at Tony's, and this is the place we want to do it. There is apparently a big rivalry between 
Brooklyn and Manhattan Pizza joints. We've been Ray's Pizza (which, incidentally, ours is no longer a Ray's, but has become a Famous Amadeus' Pizza, I know, terrible right?) supporters since our arrival, but that is not on the home front. Well, we will have to wait for another day. The wait at Grimaldi's was like two hours long - for pizza! Instead we walked down to the pier and saw the city from the waterfront. Stephanie took this excellent footage of one of the "NYC Waterfall's", part of the exhibit at the MoMa we went to three weeks ago.We headed back to the subway happy with the view, but disappointed with the lack of pizza. Yes, we ended up back at Ray's, scratch that, Amadeus'. That's six times now, but who's counting? There are so many free things to do in the city. Tonight we're heading to Central Park where SummerStage is putting on a dance show. The show was pretty awesome. The backdrop would change colors between dance routines. Sometimes it would be a deep red, others blue, or screaming violet and fuchsia. When the dancers would come out, the whole scene would resemble an iPod commercial. All you could see were black silhouettes against the brightly lit screen. The stage lights would come up as the dance began and the dancers' features would slowly come into view. The event was a mix of hip-hop, ballet, jazz, and interpretive dance. It was something different and new. You couldn't ask for a better place to see a show; under the treetops (three stars out tonight! (the balls of gas, not celebs.)).
After the show ended at 10:00 we started to head for home. We want to get in early so we can get up in the morning for the CBS Morning Show at the Apple store. We turned a corner from what must be the shopping capital of the world on the Avenue of the Americas and found ourselves in "Korea Town." On one street everything was "American." (Of course this is said with the deepest, gruffest voice one can muster.) Then, around the corner, everything and everybody was speaking Korean or written in Korean. New York is a surreal place.
Shot of the Empire State Building all lit up for the MLB All-Star Game!
Follow the yellow brick..... wall?
“The Japanese izakaya boom continues with this inexpensive restaurant near Union Square.” I have no idea what izakaya means, but I was really glad to find a good place to have some sushi. On the sushi-haru sushi tastiness meter this place scored about a 7 out of 10. 
Here's our New York playlist:
Have you ever tried driving a 16 foot truck and eat a personal pan pizza and bread sticks at the same time? It's not easy. After a few hours we had managed to roll through South Carolina 
and a bit of North Carolina. What awaited us around one bend in the road was breathtaking. The welcome sign to the state of Virginia greeted us as any state welcome sign would. The landscape of the state of Virginia welcomed us in a much different way. The flat land we had been driving through began to give way to rock terrain. We drove through a tunnel and came out next to a huge valley. It was quite 
nerve racking driving that beast of a truck through curve after mountain curve; up and down the mountain. At best I could manage fifty-five miles per hour up the incline. Going down the slopes my heart was in my throat. I could literally feel it residing there. Huge trucks would be bearing down behind me. The road would curve suicidally in front. Their was no shoulder. I have to say, i have never sweat it so much driving down the road. Those semi-truck wouldn't have appeared so big in my Tribute. I swear they wouldn't.
so fireflies came out of nowhere and flanked either side of the road. They would light up and blink through the darkness signaling us as we passed. Fields were full of them. Ditches filled with wildflowers and lightning bugs. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen driving down the road.
