The Play and the Met

Went to see November last night with Nathan Lane, and it was great.  The evening was marred somewhat by the fact that sitting in the row in front of us was a woman who's laugh can best be described as a cross between the braying of a donkey and fingernails on a chalkboard.  But to add to the entertainment, across the row from us were a couple, both wearing bright red patent leather shoes (her's of the 6 inch spike with lots of straps variety).  Only in New York!

Today we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it was incredible.  Definitely in the mold of the Louvre and the British Museum.  Everything from ancient Assyrian sculptures

to Van Gogh

After about four hours, we were museum'ed out, so we headed back to the hotel for a break.  Then, just by chance, we went to a place for dinner called the Starlight Diner.  It was your basic diner, but all the wait staff were actors/singers who performed.  And they were incredible!  It really makes you understand what the competition is like if people with voices and stage presence like these were waiting tables.  You wouldn't have been surprised to see any of them in a Broadway play.

After dinner we headed down to NYU to hear a lecture that was part of the World Science Festival.  This one was titled What Does It Mean To Be Human?  There were 12 panelists and Charlie Rose was the moderator.  I was familiar with two of the panelists, computer scientist Marvin Minsky and philosopher Daniel Dennett.  It was a really interesting discussion about what it means to be human spanning computer science, philosophy, neuroanatomy, genomics, sociology, embryology and more.  It ran about 20 minutes over, and we were sad it had to end there.

It really makes us wish that we lived somewhere where these types of activity were available all the time.