Do I wake or sleep?

The other day I was walking along 91st Street toward Fifth Avenue, and got caught behind a group of three semi-elderly people. They were pointing out the building at the corner of 91st and Fifth, the one that houses the Cooper Hewitt Museum. One of them commented on how beautiful it was and another replied "Yes, Frank Lloyd Wright designed it, that's why it's so beautiful." I opened my mouth to say "No, there's only one remaining Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building in Manhattan and that's the Guggenheim" and then I remembered maybe they wouldn't appreciate having a stranger correct them. Just to be sure, though, I Googled the building and I was right--it was designed by a firm called Babb, Cook and Willard. But seriously, anyone with even a basic knowledge of Frank Lloyd Wright's portfolio would guess right away he was not the architect. The Cooper Hewitt building clearly is Beaux Arts:




See, this building would fight right in in Paris, all that neoclassicism and the flourishes, the cornices.

FLW was not Beaux Arts--he was too late for that (arguably, his style was a reaction to the baroque-ness of Beaux Arts) and I'm not even sure you could put him into a school. Some of his stuff is Art Deco-ish but honestly, Wright was really sui generis. His designs are so original, and his style is immediately recognizable. But his guiding principles emphasized nature and integrating nature into the the design itself. I mean he had a tree coming right through the floor in one house he designed. And Fallingwater famously has the waterfall going under and through the house.



(I was lucky enough to be able to visit Fallingwater, his masterpiece. Thank you, Elizabeth and Andy! That may have been the one and only time I'll ever be able to see it.) I first became interested in his work when I read an article in the Washington Post magazine about a gas station he'd designed--the article also talked about Fallingwater and my fascination was piqued.

Anyway, it's obvious the three people in front of me were confusing the Cooper Hewitt Building with the Guggenheim, two blocks away.





That, my friends, is what a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building looks like.

Woke up the next morning and enjoyed an amazing, full Irish breakfast. I mean FULL--muffins, sausage, pudding (British puddings, kind of stuffed and solid), toast, eggs, coffee. So much deliciousness. And now what to do--this was my last day at this B&B (since I'd missed the first day) and I had to relocate to the hostel. But I wanted to sightsee as well--should I drag my stuff to the hostel, knowing my room might not be ready yet, or leave my luggage at the B&B for later pickup? The B&B proprietress said there was a luggage dropoff service right in the center of the city, very close to the hostel--in the end I figured it would probably be easier not to have to come back to Ballsbridge, so I checked out and took a bus to the foot of O'Connell Bridge, which connects with O'Connell Street, a main drag in Dublin. It is a wide avenue with a central median strip, very continentally elegant. I lugged my stuff over to the hostel, which is a pretty well-known one in Dublin, called Isaacs Hostel, converted from a wine cellar.




Luckily my room was ready, yay!--so I dropped off my stuff and went a-roaming.

I went back across the bridge, looking for the Molly Malone statue--Dublin isn't that big (NYC is much bigger) but it can be tricky to find your way for a couple of reasons. 1) They don't have a grid, it's one of those pre-modern European cities where the streets just sort of--bloomed, so to speak (sorry, Joyce!). 2) A LOT of streets seem to change names kind of arbitrarily.


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Notice how Dame Street suddenly turns into Lord Edward Street...and then Christchurch Place? YEAH. Confusing. But I did find Molly and her ta-tas:



One of the first Irish songs I ever learned. I kind of like the possibility that she may have also been a prostitute (catering to the students of Trinity College, in one account!)--I find it interesting that as much prostitutes are so looked down on and degraded and scapegoated, that time can soften that viciousness into something more poignant. As Mary Oliver said

sin blooms, then softens,
like any bed of flowers.

I did a bit of shopping, and then set off for Dublin Castle. This is old, old, old--it was a castle/fortress commissioned by King John and then the seat of power and administration ever since. It's a hodge-podge of different architectural styles because it's been rebuilt so much, because the place keeps getting blown up!--naturally the medieval ones interested me the most.



Check out that tower! That's the only part left from what was originally commissioned by John in 1204--the chapel on the left, though it looks medieval, is actually an example of the Gothic revival of the 18th-19th centuries. But there's even OLDER stuff on the grounds, if you can believe it--when they were doing restoration in the 1980s they uncovered part of another tower (p[art of the same design) that was built on top of the original VIKING fortification, with part of a MOAT where the Rivers Poddle and Liffey meet. SO EFFING COOL. The pool where the two rivers meet was dark--it was a dubh linn, a black pool, and so the city for its name. The Poddle now runs underground in Dublin. I love how even the river names are adorable in Ireland. Liffy. Poddle.




Normans knew how to build. Look at how thick that wall is.



Check that shit OUT. A by-God MOAT. Built over the river that gave the city its NAME.

The interior was interesting as well--there is where they kept prisoners of the Easter Uprising just before they executed them, and we were actually in the room where they kept James Connelly, one of the leader of the Easter Rising. There's also a wall where all the Irish Presidents (including the last one and present, both WOMEN!) put their personally-designed coats of arms. Being a bit of a design geek, I had to take a picture of one of the ceilings:



Isn't that gorgeous?

After the tour I went outside I was trying to decide between going on the Guinness tour that day and maybe seeing Christchurch the next day, and ended up deciding on the Guinness tour. I figured I'd walk there--it shouldn't take me more than 15 minutes, even though the sun had gone down (since it was now after 4). But after getting off the track a couple of time (though I did get a nice picture of Christchurch from the outside--Lambert Simnel was crowned there), I gave up on the Guinness (they close at 5), and walked back to the city center.



The River Liffey at night, shot from the Millennium Bridge.

Has anyone gotten one of these CDs? I got one in the mail a few weeks ago--I will admit, I love the cover art, with all those surreal lemons and those two people embracing with the absolute whitest skin ever seen--but the music is completely unmemorable, I mean I do not remember one song from it.* And the tag line makes me cringe: "When was the last time you fell in love with a musical?" Oh, BARF. That is so unoriginal. The website is somewhat unintentionally funny--so much of their promotional copy can be interpreted rather differently than they intended. "The most anticipated original musical to hit Broadway this fall!" Yeah, in that vultures-awaiting-the-feast way, if you check out the chat boards. "A project that is completely original!" Carrie was original too.

*Which is not the case with the CD sampler I received for The Color Purple--there was at least one good song on that. And I was only half-listening to it. I've heard good things about that project--I've never read the book or seen the movie; I guess if I'm going to see it, I should. I wonder if Their Eyes Were Watching God would make a good opera--you could do it in the vernacular, like Porgie and Bess.

Very sad news--McHale's is closing. My favorite cheap-ass place in Midtown, where I hung out with many cast members from Annie Get Your Gun and saw several celebrities (most recently Eric Stoltz last summer--TWICE in a week, I guess he loved the place too). Great cheap-ass food there, really good nachos and burgers. I hung out there with Chuck Elliott, went there with Jason and Paula and Duncan and Alex and Maurice. A very memorable scene from the movie Sleepers was filmed there, which was great location casting, as the movie is purported to be a Hell's Kitchen fable. Not only is the food great (and cheap), the architecture is KICK ASS--those Art Deco rounded corners and glass bricks, with lettering etched into the glass advertising "the Gaeties." Man, I love that place. What a bummer.