Rahul Kanakia, MOMA, and The Queen of Swords

Friday was by parts: educational, desperate, surreal, drunken, caffeine-tinged, and soul-lifting. And not necessarily in that order.

Who says the diner's cashing in?
The day began in Sleepy Hollow, which as you might expect, is a sleepy town on the banks of the river Hudson. It's not hollow, though. That would be silly. I did manage to get a glimpse of the headless horseman at a local diner, however. Only a brief glimpse, mind -- Felice came tearing in, screaming at me that it was time to bounce or we'd miss our train. Egg rolls in hand, we bombed down to Tarrytown Station, parked the car illegally, and jumped on the train.

Rahul, perturbed after suffering a rare attack
We were on our way to meet a couple of Clarion classmates: the exceedingly tall Rahul Kanakia, and the guy who fondly remembers Clarion as "nerd-camp", Sean Manseau. Felice (5'1), excited by the arrival of Rahul (6'5), did her usual Super Ice Hailstorm attack on the big man which pretty much involves Felice pummeling Rahul's midriff with her piston-like fists. When they hugged goodbye later in the day the picture was even more comical -- Rahul had to lean down as if he was about to cuddle a baby.

Do you like my pretentious pic?
Greetings done, we hit the subway, going all the way to 190th Street to visit The Cloisters -- a self-contained part of The Met which houses a collection of medieval European artefacts. I learnt some stuff about Jesus that I really should already know, fleetingly improved my vocab, and couldn't shake the thought that playing Thief: The Dark Project was a way cooler means of interacting with the Dark Ages.

Seriously cute sculptures in the Subway
Out of the shadows, we headed back into the city for lunch. We ate ridiculously priced, but gorgeous, sandwiches in Bryant Park and talked about books. More precisely we played the "guess the story" game by summarizing great works in twenty words or less e.g. two couples shoot the shit about relationships ("What We Talk About, When We Talk About Love" by Raymond Carver). It's fun to see masterpieces reduced to their bare bones. A quick pitstop in the New York Public Library and then we were back in Starbucks -- there's one on every block.

I said "I'm on the phone!"
Sean and Felice had departed by the time Rahul and I got to MOMA. Wise move. Seems like every other tourist in NY, taking advantage of the free entry after 4pm on Fridays, had converged to see Mondrian's lines and Van Gogh's brushstrokes. The queue zig-zagged for miles and we were told it would take an hour to get in. We headed for a bar instead. Afterwards, with Rahul on his way back to DC, I went back to MOMA. The queue was gone. I only had an hour, but it was enough for a art-lite appreciation of the work. Every other painting seemed to be by Picasso, but I also got to gawp at paintings by Cezanne, Matisse, and Klimt, amongst many others. Isn't there something wholesome and life-affirming about going to museums? I always feel spiritually cleansed afterwards.

Klimt's my fave painter . . . just so you know
Enduring image . . .
So it was back to a bar to wipe away that feeling ASAP. For about thirty mins I sat alone at the bar, my attention shifting between the three games of baseball that being shown on wide-screen TVs above the spirits. There didn't seem to be many single girls around, so I sipped at my beer like a pathetic loser. Then the stool next to me was suddenly occupied. An older woman with a frizzy shock of blonde hair, and bracelets on her upper arms ordered a Mojito and began making small-talk with the bartender. What the hell, I thought, any kind of company would be good.

"Do you watch baseball?" I asked.

She turned to me. Her face was a mess, heavily made-up and strangely shaped as if she'd been sculpted from putty by a drunk. Then I noticed how thin she was, skin almost hanging off her bones. This was going to be purely platonic relationship, I thought (these things rarely go any other way anyhow!).

"Okay, watch this game," she said, pointing at the screen to the left. As she talked I tried to place her accent. It wasn't easy on the ear, and I realised her geographical centre-of-gravity was somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Her descriptions of the plays weren't going anywhere, so I cut in.

"I can't place your accent. Where are you from?"

Natasha Veruschka -- as I later found out her name to be -- was born in India, raised in Kent, and now lived in NYC. More interesting than that, she also happened to be in the Guiness Book of Records.

"You'll find me on page ninety-three," she said. "I've swallowed twenty-seven and a quarter inches." Of sword. She was pretty short; the sword must've been half-way down her leg. Gullible (or is that honest?) type that I am, I had no doubts that what she said wasn't 100% true. That didn't stop her from pulling her scrapbook from her handbag a moment later. I flicked through newspaper clippings and photos and promotional materials while she went to the restroom. She'd swallowed all manner of swords from rapiers to halogen-illuminated ones. I was impressed.

"This looks pretty dangerous," I said when she got back.

"Britain wouldn't let me represent them because so many sword-swallowers have been killed. That's why I'm listed as American in the book."

Good ol' U S of A. Never one to let mortal danger get in the way of a good show. I guess there are alternative careers she could get into if she ever got too scared . . . She invited me to her show at The Cutting Rooms (co-owned by Mr. Big from SATC!) the following night, gave me her number, and then left. Later I googled her, and sure enough there was her website.

At midnight, back in Sleepy Hollow, I found Felice's flatmates about to go to a bar. Did I want to join them? Silly question. Women seemed to be thin on the ground, but there was plenty of booze -- incl. the inappropriately named "car-bomb" -- and I had a good time getting to know Chris and Swapnil as we crawled from place to place. On Saturday I suffered.

Think I'll give "The Top of the Rock" a miss today . . .
Prometheus . . . overlooking a cafe?!