Wednesday, July 27, 2011

A night not at the opera

Prepare to have your minds blown, any readers whose minds are easily blown. Last night I actually did in activity...in Astoria! I should say I spend many evenings in the neighborhood, but they are so often spent in less than blog-worthy ways (hiding summer squash in various foods, listening through the door in horror at the Darth Vader like sounds emitted by my neighbor's elderly pug, staring into my computer screen hoping that sheer force of will will make words appear on it, etc). It's not that there aren't a constant barrage of fun and fascinating activities in Astoria at any give time, it's that I'm too lazy/tired/busy/forgetful to actually do them.

Not so, last night! At Socrates Sculpture Park, a mere two blocks from one of my first apartments in Astoria, the Metropolitan Opera was having a showcase of arias in the park to drum up business for their new season. The park is about a 15 minute walk from my current apartment, and is essentially the walk I used to make to the train every day when I lived out there. However, now that I've grown spoiled by living close to public transportation, it seemed much farther than I remembered. However, the park borders the water, so it received a nice summer breeze, and--once we installed ourselves on a picnic blanket and poured some cups of water--it was quiet pleasant.

The performers were very talented, and mostly stuck to crowd-pleasers from Mozart and Rossini. It was just nice to enjoy a free evening in the park on a summer evening listening to music. Also, unrelated, being in Socrates Sculpture Park brought to my attention the inordinate number of puggles living in this neighborhood. It's like every other dog you see! There are a lot of events at Socrates in the summers ranging from classes in urban chicken raising to documentary film nights. I'll try to get over my mental block about trodding the path I walked every day for a year my first year in New York and attend a few more of them.

Naturally, my photographer captured a few shots of the evening:

The view from the park. Of the sky. Captions aren't really necessary for these probably.


4 comments:

  1. Sounds like fun and it looks like it wasn't too crowded.

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  2. Where are the pictures of puggles?!! Other than this oversight it was a great post. I, like you, am very intriqued by the city "dog fads." For SF puggles and these things, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiba_Inu, are on the way out and it's all about French bull dogs and Boston terriers. Apparently they've also invented a mini-husky, so those have started popping up.

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  3. I'll photograph puggles next time. Also, when you said mini-husky did you mean the corgi husky hybrids? I think they look ridiculous, but also adorable. http://livebeat.com/corgis/corgi_husky_mix_hybrid_breed.jpg

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  4. I've never seen one of those, maybe that'll be the next big thing here. The dog I'm talking about it this type: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Klee_Kai

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