Christmas in New York City

I've only been saying to maureen_the_mad "Let's go to NYC and look at the Christmas windows this year!" since she moved here. Finally, we did it, and all the other wonders to boot - windows, trees, the Independent and Small Press Bookfair, food theater...

Helluva town. Helluva day.

Macys is relatively close to Penn Station, so we started with the windows and we started there. There was some uber-story about a kid named Sparkle or Spackle or something, but I wasn't really interested. Like an utter hick from the sticks, I was just blown away by the roaring animatronic lion and the scene of the elves blowing glass ornaments in dragon's breath. (For those who go by Macys... look in the back right corner of that window to see a cute stained glass panel of Santa offering a candy cane to a dragon, although it's difficult to tell if the dragon intends to bite the cane or Santa!)

That was the set of windows that impressed me the most in a good way. There were also "Christmas through the last century" windows and "Christmas around the world" windows that were kind of meh, and a tribute to Andy Warhol that was incomprehensible.

And then there was Saks. The Saks display wasn't only merely gay, it was really most sincerely *G*A*Y*!!!!* with extra sparkles. Queerer than John Barrowman's "gayoff" on Buzzcocks, more over the top than the Kinsey Sicks bitching about shoes and boys, this series took the sub out of both subtext and subtlety.

The narrative starts out with "Addy" wanting to find "her own special snowflake." Addy's first window has a bazillion Barbies in feathers lying down in rotating formation in an unmistakeable Busby Berkeley tribute. The snowpeople in the next window are little upright lucite figures holding stars overhead that look so much like Oscars that I'm half surprised there isn't a lawsuit. (I could just imagine the designer saying "This is for you Judy, because you deserved it for A Star is Born! And you, Liza, and you Barbra, love you, and I want to thank my mother and my boyfriend...") This continues on, with Addy picking up another misfit in each window until they all form one snowflake together (I swear I saw that same pose last time I was in an S&M dungeon, but I digress) and had the caption "We are all our own unique masterpiece!" I forget what was in the rest of the window because I had such a strong mental image of the designer setting them up, shouting words of encouragement like "Don't worry, Addy! You're going out a nobody, but you're coming back... a queen!" Before singing I Am What I Am. While saluting.

Bit of a relief to hit the first street market after that. This was one of the coolest, a tiny little market nestled into the courtyard of St. Barts, itself a very cool romanesque church. It was so darling and medieval and refreshing, and this year's St. Bart's ornament? Stunningly beautiful. Apparently they do a different one every year. Corner of 50 and Park, y'all must check it out. Besides the ornaments, many of my friends can check something off the Christmas list just with the winter hats with little skulls and crossbones.

The tree at the Met continues to be a religious experience (I say this as an atheist - it's still so incredible that it rocks me every time I see it.) After that we went to check out the Tiffany exhibit, which isn't just stained glass but paintings and furniture and even a gazebo he designed with daffodils at the tops of the columns. And the clocks on the fireplace - three of them. One was your basic clockface. One had only one hand and MON-TUES-WEDS etc. on it. And the third had a little hand pointing to JAN-FEB-MARCH while the big hand pointed to numbers from 1 through 31.

I want those damned clocks!

Mind you, you get that big rush of "oh, how beautiful!" and then get all the air knocked out of you as you pass post-Katrina pictures on the way out. I also noticed the tiny alcove of children's book art by Parrish and Rackham (my head almost did a Linda Blair as my brain caught up with the signals from the corner of my eyes as I passed.)

M left for her play; I was ticketless so I hit the Columbus Circle market and the Bryant Park one. Bryant Park was definately my favorite - a beautiful tree, lots of booths and lots of neat stuff, and things to eat like hot cider, candy apples, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Onna stick. The one they gave me had three small berries topped with a much larger nobby one of A Certain Shape and they expected me to bite this in PUBLIC? I saw more than one suggestive stick going by - someone at that booth had a perverse sense of humor. I bought a black leather bag there, because I am a suitcase slut, a tote tramp, and a complete lady of the luggage.

I also put in a quick stop at the tiny Independent and Small Press Book Fair, which is free but suggests a donation of a buck so it can stay free (a statement that makes my brain hurt if I think about it too much.) About 15, maybe 20 vendors; I almost made it out financially unscathed until I found the Felony and Mayhem table, where I bought far too many books on the pretext that I will end up reviewing them and so it's all cosmically worth it.

Then it was time to walk to Da Roscina for my now-ritual Salmon Fettucini takeout (passing along the theater district and realizing with shock that as delightful as my day had been, I was missing Donny Osmond! Playing Gaston!! Right now!!! Ack!!!!)

It was a great day. Next year, I'm going to suggest that the whole gang hit the road and make a weekend of it.

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While waiting for Librarian II to start (among other things), I am watching Van Helsing on mute. This is the only way to watch that movie - you can say "Oh, look, Hugh pretty" without dealing with little problems like plot or dialog.