Mid-August Movie: Mid-August Lunch

After seeing West Side Story last night in Astoria Park, I am officially addicted to outdoor movies. After many failed, foggy, frigid attempts to watch movies outside in San Francisco in the summer, I am giving New York summers a big, sweaty embrace. Ice cream truck + fireflies + twinkly East River + homemade popcorn + warmcool breezes + Jerome Robbins' choreography on a big inflatable screen = a perfect evening. Enough said.

So on that theme, I present another free chance at outdoor film enjoyment this Wednesday, August 11, courtesy of Rooftop Films:

Mid-August Lunch
"Set during a sweltering holiday weekend in Rome, this utterly charming comedy is about a middle-aged man living with his mother who suddenly finds himself caring for four elderly women—a delightful movie about aging, family, friendship, food, and wine." (Gianni Di Gregorio. Italy. 75 min.)

Live music starts at 7 pm, film at 8:30. We'll be there with bug spray on.
Socrates Sculpture Park
32-01 Vernon Blvd
Long Island City

Reentering the stream

After ten days out of New York City, blog-neglect guilt has me scrambling to throw together a blog post to make sure you haven't forgotten all about me. I'm digging through old drafts I've created over the summer as new free events find their way onto my radar. I have literally dozens of blog post zygotes that I haven't yet shared with you (which needles me with just a pang or two of blog-stingyness guilt.) As I peruse one potential post after another, though, I'm finding that many events have already happened, and are no longer relevant, and I'm having the funniest reaction. Rather than dismay, I'm feeling incredible relief!

The sheer amount of amazing free events to participate in over the summer here can come to feel more like a burden than a gift, and I must admit that I am breathing a bit easier in the face of this joyful eventlessness. A good friend describes New York as a rushing river of traffic: when you're in the flow of it, the pace is totally manageable, but once you're out of it for even a moment, it takes an immense burst of energy to gain the speed to reenter the stream.

So while I pedal and pedal to get back up to speed, here's today's free offering: outdoor yoga tonight with one of my favorite teachers, Dana Flynn (here she is, above). The venue is admittedly not phenomenal, but her energy is, and she revives even the most exhausted among us. See you there. 

Laughing Lotus Yoga in the Park
Wednesday, August 4, 7-8 pm
10th Ave between 14th and 15th Street
BYO mat, no registration necessary
(p.s. there are no changing rooms - come ready to move)

This is the end...and the beginning

While free dance performances can be, admittedly, hit or miss -- particularly if you are not familiar with the performers or the choreographer -- tonight's performance will assuredly be interesting and potentially awesome. My lovely friend Laurie B will be performing and I have never ever ever been bored at one of her shows.

CHRISTINE ELMO: This is the end
with performances by Laurie Berg, Megan Byrne, Jessica Cook, Elle Erdman & Janet
Wednesday, June 30, 8 pm
Kate Werble Gallery
83 Vandam Street

Whether on or off the proscenium, performance is happening. Identities are concepts inherited through a person's DNA. How those concepts manifest in time and space is the performance. In Elmo's most recent work, she uses extractions from your unison uses unicorns and her own DNA, both physical and abstract components to create a performance of a performance to be performed in an environment reserved for performance.

This is the end has been created on the premise that authenticity is an illusion rather than a reality. This is the end strives to not-strive for utopia. This is the end is non-repetitive pop. This is the end is a collection of peacocks, unicorns, pirates, parrots, shooting stars and singing men. This is the end is a social experiment that engages the directed performer and the voluntary audience in an environment that acknowledges what happens beyond the designed environment is all just the same.

Christine Elmo is a NY-based artist who writes and uses dance, text, bodies and inanimate objects to create performance that hyper-accentuates the 4th wall. Her live work has been presented with AUNTS, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, The Bryant Lake Bowl (MN), Dance Theater Workshop, Dixon Place, Kate Werble Gallery, Live Sh**, The Poetry Project and at the Sirály in Budapest. Her video work has been presented in Galway, Ireland.

Lessons in nonattachment

Exploring my new city is a source of both inspiration and disappointment, friends. I won't say that the McCoy Tyner Quartet last night at SummerStage was anything short of excellent -- it wasn't -- but I went to it with definite expectations of what the environment would be like. These expectations included: soft, grassy, blanket-oriented seating; open, expansive park vistas; cool, refreshing breezes. What I encountered was a small structure tamed with artificial grass carpet, folding white chairs to which my sticky thighs clung desperately, and a cranky line of hundreds waiting to get in by the time we left after the first set. We had 7th row seats because my very thoughtful husband arrived at 3 pm to stand in line, but if we had both arrived, as I did, at 6:45, we would have been crammed onto the bleachers in the back. This was no verdant paradise.

What we did learn, though, was that just outside the official concert area is a huge, shady, grassy lawn, perfect for the picnic you're NOT allowed to bring inside and the peaceful feeling you want to have. There, fireflies put on a performance to rival the main act, blanket space is abundant, and overpriced vendors are not there to tempt you with underwhelming food. Folks said the sound quality was perfectly acceptable...which is all I'm asking for from a free summer concert.

So with that, dear readers, I'm christening Summer 2010 as the Season of Nonattachment, in which I will try to learn to let go of the expectations I have forced onto our new life here. It's time to accept, in a real way, that New York does not look, feel, smell, behave, or taste like San Francisco. In that spirit, today's offering: free meditation sessions at the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York. They offer weekly drop-in Learn to Meditate classes on Wednesdays and Sundays (donation-based, but I did not pay and did not feel uncomfortable). Weekly Group meditation is free and open to the public Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. If, like me, you're not sure how to let go on your own, try a little guidance. It can't hurt.

p.s. Thanks to Mike for beautiful photos, as always.

Alright. It's time...

...that we talk about SummerStage. Honestly, I've been avoiding this one because it's such a MASSIVE offering of events that I wasn't sure how to go about describing it to you - especially since I've not yet been to one of the performances. However, that will all change in a few hours - Mike and I are going to check out jazz with the McCoy Tyner Quartet in Central Park tonight. The show starts at 7, but true to form, Mike has just texted me that he and a dozen other people are already there, patiently awaiting the opening of the doors at 6 pm. I am a lucky lady.

I'll admit that I'm not familiar with most of this summer's performers (except Jimmy Cliff, who is apparently a doctor of something, according to the SummerStage website). That's one of the glories of free shows, though: because there's no financial commitment, you can explore music and performance that you wouldn't take a risk on if you had to buy the ticket. Be empowered by this freedom, my broke friends! There are 33 free concerts at the Main Stage at Rumsey Field alone from now through September, and additional shows throughout the five boroughs, spanning Afro Caribbean dance, Italian pop, Jamaican reggae, Turkish rock, Mexican folk dancing, and more. Good old American snarkiness puts in an appearance when contributors from The Daily Show do stand-up comedy on July 21. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs July 23 and 24, and beatbox artist Doug E. Fresh makes strange and amazing sounds on August 11. This is just a taste - you get the idea. Poke around the SummerStage website and see all that's in store.

Make your own kind of music

Each day I commute downtown at lunchtime via the N-R-W train at Times Square. I generally attempt to numb as many of my senses as possible, trying to forget the experience as it's happening. New York in the summer is a particular assault on one's delicate sensibilities - too loud, too hot, too goddamn PUNGENT (that's a nice way of saying "reeking of urine"). As a side note, I'm having an extremely difficult time negotiating crowded sidewalks lately - does that ever happen to you too>

Today, though, as I was shuffling along, the sound of a piano drifted toward me with the marvelous strangeness of music out of place - rich, full, lovely. It was a brief moment - I was, as always, running late - but it breathed a little life into my harried day.

British artist Luke Jerram has placed sixty pianos all over the five boroughs as a part of his installation "Play Me, I'm Yours". The pianos are an invitation to passersby to play, talk, engage, make music, pause for a moment, experience their space in a new way. Musicians (and would-be music-makers), yearn no longer for an instrument to charm - you've got from 9 am to 10 pm each day, now through July 5, to work your magic. You might just change someone's whole day.

Volunteer for the NYC Food Film Festival

NYC Food Film Festival 2010 Trailer from George Motz on Vimeo.

This is another example of an awesome event that you either can't afford or didn't get tickets in time for before it sold out - the 2010 NYC Food Film Festival is hosting a ton of chances to eat delicious food and watch films about that food - what better combination can you imagine? And here's your in: they are in desperate need of lots of volunteers. The festival begins Wednesday and runs through Sunday (July 23 - 27). The Food Bank for New York City receives all the proceeds, and they're coordinating the volunteer efforts - visit their online signup to get involved. The deadline to sign up has passed, but as a volunteer coordinator in a former life, I would bet my student loan money on them taking folks up until the 11th hour (but don't make them wait that long. Sign up now).

Take a walk, and learn something too

Ever notice how the weekend feels longer if you make it action-packed? I'm planning a multi-activity Saturday, starting with a walking tour of Central Park at 10 am. My friend Cris gives fantastic tours for the Central Park Conservancy, and this one is the Cross Park Promenade. I've always felt a little embarrassed to take tours of public spaces that are already free - shouldn't I be able to figure this stuff out on my own? The weird facts that you learn make these walks totally worth any lingering feelings of nerdiness, though - like how you can tell exactly where in the Park you are by the lampposts. (I'm not going to give up the secret - you have to go on the tour.) Mike and I recently took the Amble Through the Ramble tour, on which it really is possible to forget that you're in the middle of the world's 4th largest city (by population) - and isn't that one of the most delicious surprises in an urban park, when you momentarily forget where you are?

Tomorrow's tour meets at 10 am inside Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street, in front of the statue of Samuel F. B. Morse (who shares my last name, but is no relation to me. My friends did used to prank call me in college, though, frantically shouting, "What's the code??? What's the code???" - and I never understood the joke until they explained it a full decade later.). Visit the Central Park Conservancy's calendar to learn about the many other free tours available all throughout the week, and give your brain some fresh air after a week under fluorescent lights.

Update: more free yoga!

Well, Mother Nature conspired to keep me indoors tonight, rather than at the free yoga in the park I had planned on attending...which was actually perfect. I spent a lovely cashless night roasting kale and cooking cranberry beans (using my all-time favorite go-to Jamie Oliver recipe and catching up on Top Chef Masters.) I'm grateful when the weather slows me down and guides me toward taking care of myself in a more subtle way. My fridge is now full of veggies for lunch for the rest of the week, and I am cozily moving toward an early bedtime.


I also cleaned out my inbox while lazing on the couch, and discovered another free yoga series to check out soon! Here are the details:

Yoga - Evening Salute to the Sun, every Wednesday, 6:30 - 7:30 pm, from June 9 to Sept 22, at the plaza at 66th Street in Riverside Park South (on the Hudson River between 59th and 72nd Streets). BYO mat. There is a TON of free stuff going on at this park, which I've just discovered. Stay tuned to future posts for more ideas.

You too can afford peace of mind.

The biggest deterrent to mass enlightenment may be the high cost of doing yoga. Doesn't it seem like we'd all be nicer and...calmer...if it wasn't so damn expensive to sweat out our junk and quiet down our heads? I used this as my excuse for not practicing for my first few months in New York, and then realized that not going to class was making me crazy - literally - I was thinking mean, ugly thoughts, and feeling dizzy and spacy. That's when I got serious about investigating free yoga...and not just occasional events, but places where I could practice REGULARLY.

Summertime and warm weather brings with it a ton of options to take your downward dog for a walk in the park. All classes listed below are all levels, but contact the individual studios for details. Here are a few highlights:

TUESDAYS
Lululemon in Bryant Park: every Tuesday, 10-11 am, from May 4 to Sept 30, on the upper terrace. Mats are provided.



WEDNESDAYS
Laughing Lotus in the Park: every Wednesday, 7-8 pm, from June 2 to Sept 1, in the park at 10th Avenue between 14th & 15th Streets. BYO mat, if you have one, but they have a few available too.

THURSDAYS
Lululemon Union Square: Thursdays 8-9am, from June 17 to Aug 12, outside in Union Square Park. BYO mat.

Lululemon Union Square Mommy & Me: Thursdays 10-11am, from June 17 to Aug 12, outside in Union Square Park. Mats are provided.

Lululemon in Bryant Park: every Thursday, 6-7 pm, from May 4 to Sept 30, on the lawn. Mats are provided.

THURSDAYS
Bend and Bloom Yoga in Prospect Park: every third Thursday of the month, 7-8 pm, from July 1 to Sept 19, in Long Meadow (by the Grand Army Plaza entrance). BYO mat.

SATURDAYS
Lululemon Union Square: every Saturday (except some - check their website to be sure), 9-10 am, ongoing, 15 Union Square West (between 14th & 15th Streets). Mats are provided.

SUNDAYS
Yoga Sole in Prospect Park: every Sunday, 10-11 am, from July 11- August 1, under the big oak trees by the 15th Street F stop and the park entrance at Bartel Pritchard Lot. BYO mat.



Bend and Bloom Yoga in Prospect Park: every third Sunday of the month, 10-11 am, from July 1 to Sept 19, in Long Meadow (by the Grand Army Plaza entrance). All levels. BYO mat.

Lululemon Soho: every Sunday, 9:30-10:30 am, ongoing, 481 Broadway (between Broome St and Grand St). They provide mats, and breakfast! Just put on your blinders on your way in and out of the store so you're not tempted to compensate for the free yoga by blowing your rent money on new pants.

Lululemon East 66th: every Sunday, 9:30-10:30 am, ongoing, 1127 Third Avenue @ 66th Street. They provide mats, and breakfast!

ALWAYS DONATION-BASED
Yoga to the People: It's least crowded in the middle of the day but...it's always crowded. You're not the only one who's broke. Three locations: 12 St. Marks Place (between 2nd & 3rd Avenues), 115 W. 27th Street @ 6th Avenue, and 1017 6th Avenue @ 38th Street.

Laughing Lotus Community Class: Teachers in training provide donation-based classes everyday from 2:30 to 3:45 pm, Monday through Friday. 59 West 19th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues).

UPCOMING ONE-TIME EVENTS
Monday, June 21: Mind Over Madness in Times Square, Broadway between 46th & 47th Streets. To celebrate the solstice, there'll be free classes all day. Pre-registration is required.



Tuesday, June 22: Yoga at the Great Lawn:Doors open and performances begin at 5 pm, class 6:45-8 pm. Yeah, okay, you have to sign up for Flavorpill emails to get in, but you could use a little extra culture in your life, right? They're expecting 10,000 people, and are already calling it the world's largest yoga event, ever. Really? This I gotta see. Free mats. Pre-registration required.

Is that enough to get you started?

Thanks to Alex at Yoga City NYC for many of these tips!