New York 1

May 13, 2008

Comfort Inn, Times Square, 10th floor. Blessedly uneventful flight and arrival. The weather is perfect, or maybe just a shade cooler than perfect. I walked the three blocks to the theater to stare at the outside, as it was hinted that I shouldn’t come in just yet. Jack Batman entered the door as I watched, me an anonymous guy in a gray pullover on the far side of the street. I regret a little that I am so comfortable in New York now; some of the old frisson is gone, some of the old spice of strangeness, even danger. It’s like going on a picnic in a place where you used to go by night and dig for treasure.

I ate, as I always seem to do, at the Tic Toc diner, then made my way to the Joyce to see the Momix suite Passion. I thought it was beautiful and exhilarating. The bodies were extraordinary, and the dances are made so show off the extraordinariness of the bodies. I’m looking for the word to describe MOMIX. I want to say "surreal," but sometimes it’s moving and tender, too, and I don’t think of those as part of surrealism. Everything, even the funny parts, balances on the brink of agony, and the bodies are most beautiful and the dances most profound when agony is mingled in. I remember Ann’s comment that "they always do the same kind of thing." I suppose that’s true. They’ve done the same kind of thing the two times I’ve seen them, but I am still thrilled by it.