I Saw a Unicorn and Got My Playbill Signed By the Gods in New York City

New York City is a crazy place. Why is there everything that you'd ever want to see or do there, and it's all easily accessible via public transportation? And people just LIVE there like that's a completely normal way to exist!!! 

A place like Indiana must seem absolutely fucking miserable to a New Yorker. When a New Yorker is bored, they can go get cheap dumplings or ride the subway somewhere cool or visit a museum or go to a show or just walk around and people watch. When I'm bored, I have to resort to stupid shit like poking around in my garden or taking the dog for a hike or wandering around the mall and not buying stuff. Our lives are NOT the same.

Ah, well. One more full day to pretend to be a real New Yorker by doing all the touristy, non-New Yorker things I can fit into the schedule!

On this day, after the obligatory bagels for breakfast (you put too much cream cheese on your bagels, New York!), my partner polled the kids to see if they'd rather go see Stonewall National Monument or the unicorn tapestries. I think they'd have loved both, but unicorns were the winners this time. 

We'll pay our respects next time, Stonewall!

The Met Cloisters was quite the hike from our Times Square-adjacent hotel, but I think it might be my favorite place in New York City. Y'all know what a freak I am for the Medieval period (if you want me to send you Margery Kempe memes message me your cell number!), and here was a lovely little museum simply chock-full of Medieval and ONLY Medieval art! 

I'm especially fond of Medieval depictions of critters, such as this completely realistic lion that the artist has definitely seen before:

Spanish, Castile-Leon, circa 1200. My favorite part is its mustache!

Also, a dragon that is literally eating a guy!

North German, circa 1200

Another dragon, but this one's got chicken feet and a very sassy expression on its face:

Spanish, Castile-Leon, circa 1200

We apparently don't quite know what the deal is with this particular two-headed critter, just that William of Orange is stabbing it:

There are two types of museum-goers in my family. The first type looks at everything really fast and then sits around, bored, and contemplates killing the rest of us. Thank goodness for my museum buddy who's also of the second type!

We look at EVERYTHING. AND we read its label. And we take each other's pictures looking at the best stuff so we can prove we were there. 

King Arthur!

This is supposed to be either Hector of Troy or Alexander the Great.

I also like Medieval manuscripts:

The Romance of the Rose, French, 1340

This stained glass window apparently used to live in Canterbury Cathedral!

Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, 1180

But here's what we really came to see:

The Unicorn Defends Himself

These were astounding, although I wish the unicorn would have kicked those hunters' asses rather than getting killed. I love how it's depicted as A Definitely Real Unicorn That Really Exists, and in the corner of the gallery was also displayed a narwhal tooth, which I would certainly have 100% believed was a real unicorn horn if nobody had told me about narwhals.

I'm so curious about this mending. It's very visible, so perhaps it's also historic, or perhaps it was done purposefully so you could see the evidence of historical wear:

The Hunters Return to the Castle

The peaceful scenes are the best, though. Fuck those hunters!

The Unicorn Rests in a Garden

The Unicorn Purifies Water

Love this guy:

As the other two were finally dragging the big kid and I by our ears out of the museum, my partner said, "I wonder if anyone ever comes here twice?", thinking, I guess, about how out-of-the-way and very much up-the-hill it is. But I swear that if I lived here I'd come to the Met Cloisters every day just to say hi to the unicorns, maybe take a little peek at St. Michael slaying the demons, sneak into a guided tour or two, and then head back down the hill and down the block for this huge slice of pizza that was so freaking delicious and I swear to god it cost four dollars:

Sufficiently fueled, we took the subway back downtown and back to this Times Square-adjacent location just cattycorner from our hotel, because no matter that I'd already seen unicorns and eaten pizza--my day was about to get even better!

This trip was the coming together of a couple of dreams. Y'all already know that I love musicals, and that Hadestown has long been my favorite by far. Y'all don't need me to start waxing tearfully poetic about how meaningful I find this work of art that celebrates the beauty of knowing that your efforts are futile, but nevertheless trying as hard as you can. You don't need to do something because you think you'll win--you just need to do it because it's the right thing to do. Also, the beauty of telling the same story over and over, even if you don't like the ending, because the meaning isn't in the ending--it's in the telling. 

Ugh, you guys, I just love Hadestown so much.

And currently, the little kid's favorite actor is playing Orpheus. How could we pass up a chance for her to see Jack Wolfe in person, and for me to see Hadestown again, and for the other two to also come and hang out with us in New York City?

Money comes back, but life is made of memories:

Jack Wolfe didn't come out to the admittedly absolutely madhouse-level stagedoor afterwards, which was a bummer but omg COMPLETELY understandable, because OMG that crowd! However, we were super excited to see Paulo Szot--

--and Kurt Elling--

--and Allison Russell--

--which means that we got our playbills signed by all the gods!

Interestingly, the news just dropped last week that this cast's final performance of Hadestown is March 1. As the little kid and I were talking about it, I theorized that wouldn't it be cool if Jack Wolfe was headed back to the West End, where The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is now running. Wolfe played The Balladeer in a previous run of the show, and I joked that if he ended up as The Balladeer again I'd have to start looking for plane tickets.

"You wouldn't go without me?!?", the kid gasped.

Money comes back, but life is made of memories!

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Day 1 for the Most Touristy Tourist Who Ever Toured Around New York City

Because I'm a tourist, so why wouldn't I visit the tourist amenities that were created for me?

Such as...

Times Square!

Like yes, obviously, Times Square is not any tourist's *favorite* place, but eh. I've never been hassled or hustled there, it's got places to sit so you can contemplate your next move and/or your life in general, everyone else is also a tourist so I'm not in anybody's way when I stand and gawk gormlessly at a huge ad, you don't have to watch out for traffic, we saw some people attempting to film a music video in the middle of all the chaos and that was pretty entertaining, and while my partner and I stood in line at the TKTS booth the kids wandered in and out of the big touristy stores and kept bringing us little Hershey bars they said the store gave out for free but honestly I wouldn't be surprised to learn they'd simply nabbed them. 

This day on Times Square was especially cool because the detritus of New Year's Eve was still apparent:

Did you know that the Times Square New Year's Eve ball is a legacy of the same type of time ball that we saw in Greenwich? So cool!

The ball is a LOT smaller than it looks on TV...

Anyway, our hotel was actually just a couple of blocks from Times Square, so we wandered through there a LOT:

I'd never done the TKTS booth before, and I was pretty amused to discover that reps from the different shows work the line while you wait, talking up their various productions. I was dithering between The Outsiders and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), but even though I know people have been loooooving The Outsiders I'm partial to original shows so I chose Two Strangers. And omg I am SO glad that I did!

But first, bagels!

Then, a bookstore!

The Drama Book Shop was on my want-to-visit list just because of this amazing sculptural piece that was even more impressive in person, but I also found the script for Ada and the Engine and a book about the making of Jesus Christ Superstar. Jesus Christ Superstar was my first musical, if you count watching the movie version on cable a billion times (which I do!), and now I'm obsessed with musicals, so there you go. Ada and the Engine is a play that I dragged both kids to a few years ago after we'd done a unit on the history of computers, and it also has a surprising and shockingly touching musical component. 

This trip to New York City has a theme, it seems!

Would you even be in New York City if you didn't spend some time each day wandering around lost?

Also see: wandering around looking for a drugstore because one of you might have just come down with that adenovirus that's been all over the news, and then sitting in the middle of Times Square and dosing yourself up on Mucinex and Robitussin and a cough drop in each cheek. 

Fortunately, I also packed plenty of masks. I *have* been to New York City in winter before!

Hadestown is the musical I'm most obsessed with, and honestly, it was KILLING me not to be in this line:

But it's okay, because I was across the street in THIS line!

I walked into this musical completely cold--I hadn't even paid attention to the promoters working the TKTS line. All I knew was that it was 1) indeed a musical, and 2) comedic. 

This is the set:

Dudes, this musical was AWESOME! It was hilarious, which serves to distract you so they can also sneak a bunch of feelings up on you, and the songs were great, and the actors were amazing. 

And if you sit in the first two rows they throw movie props at you!

One night my partner ran out to a shop, and he swears that they had one of these props taped up behind the cash register with a sign telling the cashiers to watch out for "counterfeit bills," lol. 

SUCH a good play.

Afterwards, the big kid and I stayed to stagedoor Two Strangers, while the little kid and my partner ran back to the hotel for her copy of Six of Crows, then hopped across the street to stagedoor Hadestown, because IYKYK!

Alas, Jack Wolfe didn't appear (although they did get to see Kurt Elling!)--

--but both Sam Tutty and Phoenix Best came out to the Two Strangers stagedoor, so the big kid and I got signed playbills. I told Sam Tutty that this was the big kid's first Broadway show, and he told her that this was his first Broadway show, too, which was pretty adorable.

Also VERY modest, because he's genuinely West End famous and this is simply his first time on this side of the Atlantic.

I wonder if he ever hangs out with the other genuinely West End famous actor who works across the street?

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Kid-Free in New York City: Day 2 is When Dreams Come True!

We woke up to SNOW!!!!!!!

It was the perfect magical winter morning in New York City. I think the schoolkids even had a snow day? Happily, all the museums and other assorted tourist destinations stayed open, so after a breakfast of cold pizza, my partner and I bundled into our typical February midwestern outdoor gear and headed out into the magic.

Here in the elevator is when I finally got tipped off enough to Google our hotel and figure out that we were sleeping in a Republican stronghold:

I'm trying to visualize what a Republican women's Galentine Dinner even looks like, but to be honest I don't really know what a regular Galentine Dinner looks like, either, sooo...

Republican stronghold or not, our hotel was SO conveniently located! Just a couple of blocks walking through the snow, and here we are at the MOMA:

I'm not really an art aficionado, shame on me, so I mostly wanted to look at the famous stuff:

I was SUPER excited to see my pal Frida, though!

And words cannot describe my excitement when I saw THIS crowd:

What are they looking at, you ask? Why, none other than my old nemesis, Mr. Starry Night!

This 2,000-piece Starry Night puzzle and I have been locked in battle since early December.

It's an absolutely terrible puzzle, a miserable experience all around, ridiculously hard AND with pieces so poorly cut that they will fit in places they aren't supposed to be, and I tell it all the time that Vincent Van Gogh would be ashamed of how unpleasant it's being to me.

Fortunately, its real-life counterpart is delightful:

Also, I think the real-life Starry Night is actually smaller than my puzzle at home? Weird. 

I wish I had a 2,000-piece puzzle of THIS Van Gogh painting! I'm obsessed with it. It randomly feels like an illustration of some kind of Lovecraftian abomination--I keep seeing that curly beard as squid tentacles, and I don't know why, but I love it. 

Fortunately, my partner has a proper appreciation of art, although I absolutely saw him get chided by a docent for standing too close to one of the paintings. He says he was looking at the artist's brushstrokes, and I believe him, because unlike me he does not have intrusive thoughts that encourage him to maybe just lick the painting a little bit.

But don't worry--I didn't even lick the Mondrian, even though it's such a pretty red!

Nobody could lick the Monet, because they had a barrier up. It's so big, though, that how would you even decide where to put your tongue?

Warhol is surprisingly unlickable, even though he's literally painting food. It think it's probably because most of these soups sound disgusting. 

Pollack, on the other hand, is VERY lickable:

My self-control really won out, because not only did I not lick the art, but I also did not buy a hundred books in the gift shop. Instead, I sneakily and guiltily took photos of the ones I want so I could request them from the library when I got home. That big biography is actually already on hold for me!

After I'd seen all the stereotypical must-sees, my partner dragged me off to experience the proper modern art:

The giant stacked cubes didn't do anything for me, but fine, I DID love the giant hanging stuffed animal sculptures. My old Grumpy Bear is definitely there in that blue sphere:

After most of the day at the art museum, we'd built up sufficient good culture credit so we could, with clear consciences, then go do what is possibly the cheeziest, corniest, hokiest thing you can possibly do in New York City:

If you don't go to Ellen's Stardust Diner to eat overpriced food, drink overpriced (but healthily strong!) cocktails, and watch the waitstaff sing Broadway karaoke, then are you even a New York City tourist?!?

WE are PROPER New York City tourists!!!

The kids would have HAAAAATED it. There's a non-zero chance the college kid would have cried, because she's done that when less embarrassing things have happened in restaurants. The teenager would have never willingly left the house with me ever again. I had an absolutely astounding amount of fun.

Since we're already being corny, might as well take another swing through Times Square!

Okay, actually THIS might be the corniest thing we did in New York City, but when we were there last, every time we walked through Times Square, I swear there was an actual line out the door and around the block consisting of tourists waiting to get into the M&M store. This time, there was no line and we had a little time to kill, so in we went to wander:

And yes, I WAS tempted by the Pride merch. They might even have gotten me if they'd said that they were donating any part of their proceeds to any LGBTQIA+ organizations, because that sweater with the rainbow neckline is randomly very cute?

Saved by corporate greed!

I finally could not stand the suspense anymore, and we walked over to stand in line underneath the most glorious marquee in New York City:

I was so excited that I was about to cycle right around into a panic attack, but thankfully the line started moving and before I could freak out further, somehow I'd found myself in the third row center of the Walter Kerr Theater, holding an honest-to-god playbill and looking at the honest-to-god Hadestown set:

I sent this photo to the kids with the caption "!!!!", and got a serious of supportive exclamation points and keyboard smashes back. Daughters are the greatest gift a person could have.

Y'all, I was so excited at where I was that I did not even notice that every single other person in the audience was also in a flurry of excitement not because it was also their first time at Hadestown and they'd been waiting something like five years for this but actually because apparently LIN-MANUEL FREAKING MIRANDA was sitting two rows directly behind me? And generously doing selfies and autographs with people? And I did not even notice, and if I had noticed, I don't think I would have even cared. If it was Andre DeShields, probably... Eva Noblezada, definitely. 

Anyway, our seats were SO GOOD! We were a little too close to see the elevator set piece (come to think of it, two rows directly behind me was probably the perfect seat...), but the loss was worth it to have the hanging lights swinging over my head. I could see every expression on everyone's faces, and when the main characters knelt at center stage, I was essentially eye level with them. 

I've been a fan of musical theatre since I was 13 or 14 ("Phantom of the Opera" was my gateway original cast recording, and then I found "Hair," and then there was the year that I listened to "Evita" on loop...), but this was my first actual live Broadway show. I've watched so many pirated recordings of Hadestown on YouTube that I was actually surprised at how different, better, and more powerful it was to see it live. I mean, I obviously knew that it was going to be better and more special, but I figured I'd seen it multiple times on screen already, so the better and special parts would just be the experience of being there, like seeing my favorite band playing live after having only listened to their music on Spotify for years. But it was SO different, and SO much more special. Live theatre is this Whole Other Thing that is built between you and the actors and musicians brand-new every single time, this whole other ephemeral thing that you experience just the once, every single time. I'm a little glad that I don't live close to New York City and so can't dilute my memory by watching Hadestown every week, like I would absolutely want to. Even if I didn't get tired of it and instead became the Hadestown version of a Disney Adult, it surely wouldn't stay as magical in my memory as it is now. 

Best. Christmas present. EVER.

After the show, I still completely failed to notice the apparently revived Lin-Manuel Miranda fervor as everyone else but me who hadn't already seen him suddenly saw him, and instead my partner and I busted out of the theater (well, I did take a small detour, because a few minutes later my partner looked at me and was all, "Where did you get that Hadestown souvenir cup?!?" I said, "Someone just left it on the aisle floor so I picked it up!" I drank wine out of it last night while watching Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and it made me very happy), took a hard right just like the YouTube videos I'd watched told me to, and ended up here, hanging out in front of the stage door:

Here's where I FINALLY heard all the Lin-Manuel Miranda scuttlebutt, as everyone else was gossiping about it and showing each other their cellphone selfies. I've never met a celebrity out in the wild--do they mind having people come up to them and ask for photos and autographs when they're someplace like the theater? Like, I know they get paid an absolute ton of money, but they're not being paid right then, so is it rude to make them work when they're not getting paid, or do we just count all the ton of money that they ARE being paid as part of their compensation for having to take photos with tourists on their downtime? I have no idea, but I AM 99% certain that if Lin-Manuel Miranda had happened to have been seated next to me, he would never have experienced someone awkwardly ignoring him as hard as I would have, on account of I have no capacity for interacting with any strange human, much less a famous one. Just... shudder. 

Anyway, here's me not giving a flip that I didn't see Lin-Manuel Miranda with my own eyes!

So, my first stage door experience wasn't a bust, because the vibe was very good, I got all the Lin-Manuel Miranda hot goss that I'd been oblivious to while it was happening, and Sojourner Brown graciously came out and signed my playbill and gazed upon me with all her talent and beauty:

None of the other actors came out, though, because while we were all standing outside, freezing and gossiping about Lin-Manuel Miranda, the man himself was inside, comfy and warm and schmoozing up all of our actors!

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Ah, well. Back to the Republican stronghold, then, for shawarma-- 

--and bed. 

Tomorrow, I meet Winnie-the-Pooh! Shall I ask for his autograph and a selfie?

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!