October 26th, 2006, 21:30
I like to interview my New York taxi drivers:
Here they are:
1. August is from Haiti. He drove us into Manhattan
from the airport. He has been driving taxi in New
York for a long time, and goes to Haiti every year on
a visit, and has travelled all over that country.
2. Yasaev is from Uzbekistan, the city of Bukhara. He
drove us to the ship in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Pier 12,
where the Crown Princess was docked. He was in the
Soviet army stationed in Omsk in Siberia. He is
Jewish, and Bukhara is an ancient center of Jewish
learning.
3. The driver who drove us back to Manhattan from the
ship was Russian, from Moscow, I think. I didn't get
to interview him much, since we shared the taxi with a
talkative lady who was on the ship with us. She lives
in Connecticut, originally from Jamaica, and she knows
the patois dialect from there. She has somewhat of a
political job and has met all of the New York mayors,
like Dinkins, Guiliani, Koch, and Lindsay. She likes
Lindsay and Dinkins but not Koch.
4. I took a taxi ride to Lincoln Center with a
Bulgarian taxi driver. We talked about Bulgaria; he
said that his parents still live there.
5. Another taxi ride to Lincoln Center was with a taxi
driver from Dakar, Senegal. He speaks French, Wolof,
and Fulani, which is his mother tongue. His parents
have visited him in New York, and he has travelled
back to Senegal a few times. We talked about the
country of the Gambia, which is a sliver of a country
inside Senegal along the Gambia River. The capital is
Banjul. It was British, while Senegal was French. He
has driven through the Gambia many timeson the way
from Dakar to the south of Senegal, which is the
Fulani speaking area that his family comes from.
NOTES:
I will add the reasons that I went to Lincoln Center.
I saw the double bill operas Cavalleria Rusticana and
Pagliacci. They are both one act operas, and both
very very sad. They had a big white horse come out on
stage once in each opera. Each of these operas were
written by young men who never again had a big hit
opera, even though they wrote many more, which are
still performed in Italy, but not in the US.
Cavalleria is by Mascagni, and Pagliacci is by
Leoncavallo.
Both operas are wonderful musical and dramatic
experiences not to be missed, even if you do cry.
The other evening I went across the street to the
Lincoln Square Cinema Center and saw the most perfect
and exquisite film Marie Antoinette. The director,
Sofia Coppola, has made a film worthy of Kubrick. I
was quite astounded. What she has done in this film
is to recreate in the best way she could, the period
and surroundings in which Marie Antoinette lived, the
palace of Versailles. We, a modern audience, can
identify with the opulence and luxury of her
surroundings, since they are somewhat like what we
experience in modern America. To help us to do this,
Coppola chose to use modern rock music instead of
baroque music, and this was a very good decision. A
seventeen year old princess would have experienced the
music of her time much as we do the music of our own
time, probably.
The food, clothing, furniture. and architecture is
also presented in a way that reminded me of what I was
seeing all around me in the luxury and wealth of
modern day Manhattan.
The film does not deal with the French Revolution,
except as the beginnings of these events would have
been experienced by the queen, as a schism within her
own aristocratic milieu, beginning with financial
problems in the national budget of France.
What has led to the unfavorable reception that this
film has received in some quarters, is that the queen
is shown to be a highly admirable and ethical woman,
which is probably an accurate picture taken from the
latest biographies.
Speaking of opulence and luxury, I must brag that I
had lunch at Le Cirque. They have a $25 lunch that
was perfect for beginner aesthetes from the provinces
like me. Everything about this lunch was exquisite,
and I took a lot of photos. Marie Antoinette would be
impressed.
Here they are:
1. August is from Haiti. He drove us into Manhattan
from the airport. He has been driving taxi in New
York for a long time, and goes to Haiti every year on
a visit, and has travelled all over that country.
2. Yasaev is from Uzbekistan, the city of Bukhara. He
drove us to the ship in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Pier 12,
where the Crown Princess was docked. He was in the
Soviet army stationed in Omsk in Siberia. He is
Jewish, and Bukhara is an ancient center of Jewish
learning.
3. The driver who drove us back to Manhattan from the
ship was Russian, from Moscow, I think. I didn't get
to interview him much, since we shared the taxi with a
talkative lady who was on the ship with us. She lives
in Connecticut, originally from Jamaica, and she knows
the patois dialect from there. She has somewhat of a
political job and has met all of the New York mayors,
like Dinkins, Guiliani, Koch, and Lindsay. She likes
Lindsay and Dinkins but not Koch.
4. I took a taxi ride to Lincoln Center with a
Bulgarian taxi driver. We talked about Bulgaria; he
said that his parents still live there.
5. Another taxi ride to Lincoln Center was with a taxi
driver from Dakar, Senegal. He speaks French, Wolof,
and Fulani, which is his mother tongue. His parents
have visited him in New York, and he has travelled
back to Senegal a few times. We talked about the
country of the Gambia, which is a sliver of a country
inside Senegal along the Gambia River. The capital is
Banjul. It was British, while Senegal was French. He
has driven through the Gambia many timeson the way
from Dakar to the south of Senegal, which is the
Fulani speaking area that his family comes from.
NOTES:
I will add the reasons that I went to Lincoln Center.
I saw the double bill operas Cavalleria Rusticana and
Pagliacci. They are both one act operas, and both
very very sad. They had a big white horse come out on
stage once in each opera. Each of these operas were
written by young men who never again had a big hit
opera, even though they wrote many more, which are
still performed in Italy, but not in the US.
Cavalleria is by Mascagni, and Pagliacci is by
Leoncavallo.
Both operas are wonderful musical and dramatic
experiences not to be missed, even if you do cry.
The other evening I went across the street to the
Lincoln Square Cinema Center and saw the most perfect
and exquisite film Marie Antoinette. The director,
Sofia Coppola, has made a film worthy of Kubrick. I
was quite astounded. What she has done in this film
is to recreate in the best way she could, the period
and surroundings in which Marie Antoinette lived, the
palace of Versailles. We, a modern audience, can
identify with the opulence and luxury of her
surroundings, since they are somewhat like what we
experience in modern America. To help us to do this,
Coppola chose to use modern rock music instead of
baroque music, and this was a very good decision. A
seventeen year old princess would have experienced the
music of her time much as we do the music of our own
time, probably.
The food, clothing, furniture. and architecture is
also presented in a way that reminded me of what I was
seeing all around me in the luxury and wealth of
modern day Manhattan.
The film does not deal with the French Revolution,
except as the beginnings of these events would have
been experienced by the queen, as a schism within her
own aristocratic milieu, beginning with financial
problems in the national budget of France.
What has led to the unfavorable reception that this
film has received in some quarters, is that the queen
is shown to be a highly admirable and ethical woman,
which is probably an accurate picture taken from the
latest biographies.
Speaking of opulence and luxury, I must brag that I
had lunch at Le Cirque. They have a $25 lunch that
was perfect for beginner aesthetes from the provinces
like me. Everything about this lunch was exquisite,
and I took a lot of photos. Marie Antoinette would be
impressed.