Wheew, I’ve been gone for some time but you haven’t been forgotten. Spring is in the air, a new beginning.

It’s been a few tough months. Lots of folks are struggling. Many friends have lost their jobs. Others struggling with the aftermaths of natural disasters. It is a time to recognize and come together.

Here in New York, sometimes it’s difficult to recognize that we are in a depression. The restaurants are busy, theaters are full, tourists are shopping. But, if you pay close attention, it’s not hard to notice that something is amiss. There are more and more “For Rent” signs on storefronts. The much loved and needed mom and pop shops can no longer survive. I lost so many of my favorite spots last year due to rent increases. The local coffee shop in the West Village, where students, local neighbors and low key celebrities would congregate over yummy pea soup and burgers, my healthy food market, my fave bistro for Steak Frites, the hole in the wall bar with the awesome jukebox…all gone. Unfortunately, these spaces will be replaced by big corporate retail or fast food chain restaurants. They are the only ones that can afford the exorbitant rents.

We have a “new” President that promoted change. He has been in office just over a year now. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are still arguing over health care, we still have same sex marriage conflicts. According to Politifact, Mr. Obama has delivered on 96 campaign promises, compromised on 33, broken 16, and is working on 272 of the 500 promises he made during his campaign. I have my fingers crossed that he won’t let us down.

The cause was colon cancer, said her longtime publicist, Andrew E. Freedman. Full article

Fall energy was definitely in the air eventhough the economic situation was somewhat apparent while glancing into stores or neighborhood restaurants. My local market (Jefferson Market) closed down. They were behind on their Con Ed bill. This place was an institution in the West Village. A place to get great veggies, gourmet cheeses and stumble into the neighborhood celebrities like Julianne Moore or Elvis Costello. Once Citarella opened up down the block, they just could not compete. Sad to see them go. We need to support these local shops. Otherwise, the big corporate chain businesses will just gobble them all up.

Had dinner at a cozy, fun, new restaurant  Cafe Select. Located in Soho at 212 Lafayette. Cafe Select, a Swiss cafe is the latest venture of downtown restaurateur Serge Becker. A good variety of small plates and salads. The puff pasty with mushrooms was divine. Entrees range from veal sausage to seared marinated steak over arugula (yummy) and of course Schnitzel. Cute crowd and decent selection of Swiss wines. After we headed to Apotheke in Chinatown. A speakeasy/cocktail bar at 9 Doyers St. The spot’s marked only by the Gold Flower Restaurant sign in an alleyway off Bowery.

Like an apothecary, the bartenders/mixologists mix and concoct all sorts of drinks from glass jars lined up along the bar and on shelves. We tasted a Pisco drink, something with Rose-water and some Scotchy thing. All incredibly satisfying. Suprising since I really don’t drink anything but wine.

Just when I thought I had seen it all, along comes a pedi-cab with a pole dancer.  This rentable stripper rickshaw’s comes equipped with pole, boom box, neon-lit platform, and video camera for capturing the sweet dance moves and onlookers befuddled titillation. Only in New York!

Visit the exhibition at:

SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Through January 7 2009

The World Unseen

In 1950′s South Africa, apartheid is just becoming institutionalized. Free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob her “colored” business partner. When she meets Miriam, a young traditional wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. When Amina helps Miriam’s sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever. The World Unseen is a captivating human drama, based on the highly acclaimed, multi award-winning novel by Shamim Sarif.  Opens November 7th at the Quad Theatre in NYC

I Can’t Think Straight

In the upper echelons of traditional Jordanian society, Reema and Omar, wealthy Christian Palestinians, prepare for the marriage of their eldest daughter Tala.

But back at work in London, Tala encounters Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating Tala’s best friend Ali. The women have an instant effect on each other.

Tala sees something unique in the artless, clumsy, sensitive Leyla who secretly works to become a fiction writer. And Tala’s forthright challenges to Leyla’s cultural foundations begins a journey of self-awareness for Leyla.

As the women fall in love, Tala’s own sense of duty cause her to pull away from Leyla and fly back to Jordan where the preparations for an ostentatious wedding are well under way. As family members descend and the wedding day approaches, the pressure mounts.

When Ali and Leyla’s feisty sister Zara help throw Tala and Leyla together again, Tala finds that her own preconceptions of what love can be is the final hurdle she must jump to win Leyla back.

Screening November 7th @ 9:00 pm at the Museum of Arts and Design and November 9th @ 12:00 noon at the Tribeca Theater, NYC.

The scene plays out in immigrant neighborhoods across New York, providing a key source of employment for immigrant women and a haven for men seeking to stave off the loneliness of being far from home. It is a perfectly legal form of entertainment — there is no stripping, but plenty of hand-holding.

But some of the women say the clubs have a darker side. They complain about exploitative management, sexual advances from clients and even violence. A dancer was recently shot and killed in Queens, and one of the city’s largest dollar-dance venues is now the target of a federal lawsuit.

For many dancers, the stigma of working at the clubs is the most trying problem.

“Sometimes people or clients say we’re prostitutes, but we’re not. We dance,” said Tania Zarate, a dancer at one club in Queens. Full Story

Frank Carter was once a globe-trotting professional dancer; his world is smaller now. He battles multiple health problems, walks with a cane and rarely leaves his compact Manhattan apartment.

As an 86-year-old gay man, with no family nearby and many acquaintances long since dead, he’d seem a likely prospect for isolation.

Instead, he has kindled a deep, five-year friendship with Gigi Stoll, a fashion model-turned-photographer half his age. Stoll helps Carter with medical arrangements, writes to him when she travels overseas, and sat with him for six hours during his most recent hospitalization.

“The other guys in the hospital, no one was coming in to see them,” Carter said. “To get that gift, you have to be lucky.”

It’s not just luck. Stoll came into his life though a program that matches infirm gays and lesbians with volunteers who commit to making weekly visits.

Long overlooked by society at large, and even by younger gays, elderly gays and lesbians are emerging as distinct community, getting more help and attention as they confront challenges that differ in many ways from their heterosexual counterparts.

Advocacy groups say the estimated 2.5 million gay seniors in America are twice as likely to live alone, four times less likely to have adult children to help them, and far more fearful of discrimination from health care workers.

Many fear anti-gay animosity or bias at senior centers, in nursing homes and from health care providers. Some gay elders even keep their sexual orientation secret from the home health aides who may provide their only sustained company.

A watershed moment comes this month, when the AARP — the largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 — for the first time sponsors a major national conference focused on gay and lesbian aging. It’s being organized by SAGE (Service and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), the New York-based organization which counts Carter and Stoll among its thousands of clients and volunteers. Full Story

Watch Video

The men’s tennis world is ruled by the gritty Spaniard Rafael Nadal, the paramount Swiss Roger FedererJustine Henin and the possible season-ending shoulder injury to 2006 winner Maria Sharapova.
and the emerging Serb Novak Djokovic. The women’s world is a bit uncertain and less predictable, with the retirement of 2007 U.S. Open champ

The absence of Henin and Sharapova creates opportunities for many players, including Serena and Venus Williams, who won Wimbledon in July. Venus last won the Open in 2001.

“Serena to me is more dangerous on hard courts than Venus because she’s a little more well-rounded,” McEnroe said. “I think their motivation at the big events is there. The mistake people make is that if they play well, they are going to win. They aren’t as dominant as they were. The women’s game has gotten more athletic, the players are bigger, stronger, quicker and in many ways Venus and Serena set the tone for that. You look at [Ana] Ivanovic, the young Russians, and the Williamses aren’t so intimidating. They raised the bar for the women’s game.” [via Newsday]