Swinging in the New Year

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New Year's Day in Three Acts

ACT ONE: BRUNCH WITH FRIENDS

On New Year's morning, the girls from the 'hood met us at BBar for brunch. Xtine (left center in faux fur hat) lives two blocks away from Jean and Judy lives five blocks away. Hats and red lipstick were obviously the order of the day.

Xtine and Judy were wearing clothing from the East Village. (Support your local shops!)  Xtine was wearing a jacket from Jill Anderson's boutique and Judy was wearing a hat of her own creation, which she is beginning to reproduce for friends.

After having fortified ourselves with a wonderful meal and lively conversation, we donned our coats, headed to the door, said our good-byes and went on to the next part of our new year's day adventure.

ACT TWO: ART AND SWINGS

We decided to swing in the New Year in style -- at the Park Avenue Armory!

Artist Ann Hamilton transformed the amazing facility in her site-specific piece Event of a Thread from December 5, 2012 through January 6, 2013.

The Park Avenue Armory's interior is as grand and cavernous as Downton Abbey, transported to the Upper East Side. In addition to serving the armed forces, the armory itself is a gorgeous building that has hosted a wide range of social events from theatrical productions to Louis Armstrong's wake. The windows are leaded glass, some with elaborate stained glass scenes.  The holiday decorations and garlands added a festive air to the goings on.

Ann Hamilton's piece (above) features simple wooden swings hanging from the rafters. Their metal chains were linked via an intricate pulley system to a huge white expanse of fabric draped across the width of the room. As a swing moved toward the center of the room, the part of the fabric controlled by that swing dropped, and as that swing moved away, that part of the fabric langorously lifted in the air like a Victorian lady's skirt hem. Multiply that by the dozens of swings all at different degrees of their arc at the same time, and the effect was magical.

Visitors of all ages chose to lie on the floor under the curtain (below) to watch it undulating, rising and falling. Very meditative. The great antique Tiffany clock is visible high on the far wall just above the door.

Jean gets down with the folks lying under the curtain.

Here's what it looked like to lie on the floor under the curtain.

In keeping with the military history of the space, Event of a Thread featured 43 homing pigeons who roosted in their cages on several tables just inside the entrance. Seated at the table in matching grey wool capes were two women reading from a typed transcript several meters long. At the end of each day, as a singer appeared on a balcony high above the scene, the lights would dim, and as the singing commenced, the pigeons were unleashed to fly around the space, circle the massive room and return to their cages. Since homing pigeons were used by the military to send battlefield messages, their presence and the period garb of the readers lent the armory a distinctive WWI flavor.

We had the pleasure of meeting Ann Hamilton, the artist herself, a petite figure who managed to create an art work that dominated this Brobdingnagian space. Recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she is as graceful and self-effacing as her work is brilliant and imaginative.

Valerie literally gets into the swing of things!

There were short, discreet lines for the swings. We probably waited 10-15 minutes for our turn, then we each went on singly, and finally together. Much as we would have liked to stay far longer, the politely waiting people milling around were a strong incentive to be brief. And the swings took up enough space that there were very few spaces completely free of swings in one or another phase of movement.

That day, a camera crew was filming Ms. Hamilton, her art piece, and the Armory. You can see them at the back left with their dolly as Jean takes her turn at the swing.

Jean goes faster than the camera can capture.

This woman, who breaks the continuous white of the curtain, had a gentleman friend with her who really got into it. Each time her swing returned, he'd grab it and pull it back as far as he could. He was tall, and he could pull back pretty far. Instead of just letting go, he'd run pushing the swing as far as he could, which is why his lady friend was able to pierce the veil, so to speak, unlike most of the rest of us.

From the upper level, there was a completely different perspective. Here you get some idea of the complexity of the network of pulleys.

Here is the massive Tiffany clock mentioned above. Although it isn't in working order, it is amazing to behold.

At three o'clock, the lights dimmed and a singer appeared way in the distance high up on the balcony, framed in the spotlight.

Dressed in a scarlet evening gown, this blond chanteuse made quite a dramatic appearance.

Everyone stood and watched, almost transfixed.

We couldn't resist one last glimpse of the beautiful space. Here's a view of the opposite wing off the main lobby of the armory, with tall, dark carved wooden door frames and trim; large oil paintings in gilt frames; pressed tin ceilings and enormous bronze light fixtures to illuminate the large hallway.

Back on the street, still feeling festive, we reconnoitered and decided to stroll over to Madison Avenue to look at the holiday windows and people-watch. (Of course, our regular readers know that the last time we did that, we found a lost wallet, saw Tom Wolfe in the flesh, and drank champagne on a balcony, so who knew what might happen?)

ACT THREE: COCKTAILS

Eventually, we stopped into one of our favorite haunts (Daniel Boulud's Bar Pleiades in the Surrey Hotel) for a cocktail (big surprise!). The nouveau art deco lounge is beautiful and its decibel levels are soothingly low, making it a terrific place for conversation -- imagine that!

Valerie's drink, a Granada Royale, was made with Old Tom gin, cardamaro, pomegranate seeds, white Creme de Cacao and (of course!) champagne. It not only tasted terrific, but was entertaining too: the pomegranate seeds floated up to the top and slowly sank to the bottom, only to retrace their paths again and again. It was hypnotic! Mr. Spock would have said "Fascinating." But then he would have gone on to explain the likely process, which we will not. And cannot.

Jean's drink, dubbed Last Call, had Lunazul Tequila (natch!), Figenza Liqueur, Yellow Chartreuse and lime.

We hope you all had a wonderful new year!


What we're wearing:

Jean is wearing: an Ignatius fleece hat;  High Use coat; Kyodan jacket; Issey Miyake laser-cut dropped-crotch pants; polka dot knee highs; Trippen boots; Made Her Think cross-body bag with chain strap; Creepsville skull necklace (gift from Jodi Head); black and white striped round earrings from Red boutique; and vintage bakelite earrings and rings.

Valerie is wearing: vintage velvet hat labeled Mr. Arnold, Lord & Taylor Salon; Nuno scarf, unlabeled vintage blue wool jacket, unsigned aluminum brooch, Issey Miyake pants, Arche shoes.


Here's a one minute video of Event of a Thread:

Emptying the Ocean with a Spoon

Valerie says:  All it takes is one brief moment of courage. You look into your closet and point. YOU: stay (if only till the next time). YOU: go. I pulled out the biggest bag I have, and began to fill it. When the clothes in your closet are packed so closely together that some of them literally disappear from view, it's time to make some decisions, and neither the brand names nor the sentimental favorites can be spared. (Well, okay, one or two sentimental favorites can be...)

First to go was this hooded boiled wool cape, bought around 1982 on a sale rack in Osaka. It was exactly the shape I needed back then, since I was wearing big sleeved kimono jackets (haoris) at the time, and the tube sleeves of my coat made it impossible to wear my beloved haoris. Years later, I stopped wearing it because a heater burned a hole in the leather piping, but I kept it because I had visions of needle felting a HUGE bewigged stark white Andy Warhol face into the back of it. I never figured out how to do that, though. So this wonderful coat - which I still love - was an ideal candidate.

Before sending it back out into the universe for a new person to find and love it, I painstaking cut all the piping off (see above), so it wouldn't look ragged to the new owner. It took close to an hour to do that. Boiled wool will not unravel easily, so it's safe without the piping, and now looks a bit edgy. The piping on the sleeves got abraded during dry cleaning, so now it looks like blue suede, and adds a nice contrast. The new owner can decide what to do about that herself.

[Jean says: I just wanted to focus for a moment on Valerie's theory regarding donating clothing. Her characterization of "sending things back out into the universe" is intriguing, but hasn't grabbed me yet.  Since I just haven't been able to subscribe to her theory, my closets remain packed to the gills. Methinks my husband would love it if the downsizing urge were contagious.  I must have built up immunity after so many years of hoarding, er, collecting and will try to refrain from further comment.]

I bought this raincoat two years ago at a second hand shop with the intention of decorating it with masking tape. Another project I never got around to. Now that I've passed my - um - change of life, my thermostat is erratic, and this material makes me perspire. It's good for younger women with the kind of highly disciplined thermostat I used to have. I have another, far lighter raincoat now, and hope to decorate that one instead.

I LOVE this jacket with its round pockets (look closely), uneven Comme des Garcons-like sleeves, and the tails with their polka dotted lining, but it's meant to be worn snapped up. I like wearing it snapped up (it doesn't quite look the same when left open), but I've found that too arouses my erratic thermostat, so I can enjoy looking at it, but not wearing it. This also came from a thrift shop, a little over a year ago, so I can let it go more easily than if I had spent a fortune on it.

Here's another jacket which I loved, in theory, but I felt it made me look boxy in reality. I'm boxy enough without any help from my clothing, thank you very much. This was also second hand, so I can view it as a fun experiment, and send it on to the next person to enjoy.

Since I have neuromas, shoes are always a crap shoot. For me, these suede Calvin Klein flats came up snake eyes. You can never really tell if they'll work till you've worn them on concrete for about half an hour, and then, of course, you can't return them. These too were from a thrift shop. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I wore them once -- briefly -- and now hardier feet than mine can wear them.

I always knew I'd never get any wear out of these transparent plastic shoes, but there seemed to be a collectors' fad for them, so I thought I'd gotten away with murder when I picked them up for $10. In fact, I later discovered, the fad was for vintage transparent shoes, and these, by Nina, were relatively new. As some readers know, I bought several pairs of new shoes recently, and since the price of closet real estate is high, the plastics are gone in favor of shoes that can pay their way.

How often have you seen platform sandals? I think I know the reason I've seen very few -- it's because sandals provide no stability, so feet move out of place. (Ask your podiatrist about foot stability.) Even on the relatively flat sidewalks of New York, I kept on losing my balance and nearly falling in these shoes. They're wonderful to look at and fun to be seen in, and I have nothing against enclosed platform shoes, but I'm steering clear of platform sandals. I actually thought I'd broken my toe the last time I wore these, and visited my podiatrist. He pronounced me unbroken, but that toe was uncomfortable for the next month. (Unsurprisingly, I did not show the shoes to my podiatrist for his reference, as I sometimes do.)

[Jean says:  I can attest to this phenomenon, brought on by these otherwise innocent looking gladiator platforms. Needless to say, Valerie looked fabulous wearing them, but her foot would suddenly just sort of veer sideways off the side of the shoe, causing her ankle to turn inward. Walking along side her trying to carry on a conversation was a positively hair-raising experience. It was only a matter of time until she broke an ankle.]

This pair also did not pass the thirty minute sidewalk test. I'll miss the stripes, but not the brown strap. Why a brown strap on a black and white shoe? Well, they were $20 at a discount store, so I can't complain.

These jeans - with a green hue you can't see here -- would not have fit me past the age of 10. They were about a size 5, but I fell into paroxysms of ecstasy when I saw them over two years ago at a thrift shop. Take a look at the triangular pockets. There's a small pocket sewn on the larger one. Since there was no label, I can't hope to find them -- ever -- in my size on Ebay. I had an idea that I could get a sewing genius to recreate them in my size, so last year I bought the huge vintage jeans below, made of really great denim, to remake them with. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone willing to undertake the project. So out they both go, freeing up hangers and closet space. The green jeans will look sooo enviable on someone!!!

That was everything, although not as much as I would have liked to take. I noticed though, in the short distance I had to carry the bag, that if it had been any heavier, it probably would have broken my other wrist, so that persuaded me that I'd put in enough. The picture below is meant to give some scale. It's as high as my knee, and longer than it is high. Not counting the obsessive cutting of the coat piping, it took probably 20 minutes to go through my closet and fill it with the most obvious candidates, then about 20 minutes to take the bus to the thrift shop. My closet doesn't look any different. It's like emptying out the ocean with a spoon, but ya gotta start somewhere. (And I'll be doing it again - maybe next weekend.)

Oh, and when I asked a young man sitting opposite me on the bus to take the opening picture for this post, the woman next to him advised him, "Be sure you get the socks in." Honest!!!

Ring Out the Old Year!

What a way to toast the end of 2012! Champagne with a handsome man on the balcony at Ralph Lauren overlooking the Rhinelander mansion. What's not to love, right? We rang out the old year in style.

Hang onto your hats! There's so much to tell you about.  Here's the scoop on what we've been up to:

On the Saturday before Christmas, we went to the Whitney Museum's newest American exhibition "Calder to O'Keefe" and were dazzled by the video of Alexander Calder's circus on the 5th floor mezzanine. You must see it! They have a large number of the handmade figures on display, and they only bring them out every few years. The strong man in his leopard loin cloth and the knife-thrower with his exotic assistant were among our favorites. As the title implies, there were other fabulous art works there as well, but, children at heart, we couldn't help liking the um - adult toys - best.

In the Whitney's shop (we always have to linger lovingly at museum shops), this is what we found!!! NOUS!  (That's MOI, twice.)  In the Advanced Style book, for sale on a table front and center.

So does that make us museum pieces? (Surely we're old enough!)

We then went to the Ralph Lauren store on Madison Avenue and 71st Street. This gorgeous building, built from scratch to look like one of the Gilded Age mansions in the neighborhood, is the flagship women's store. Opened two years ago, it houses both the women's and home collections.  We especially love the photographs and illustrations that grace the walls throughout the store and up the grand staircases. (Shamefully, we recognized many, but identified few.)

We were thrilled to see our pal David Calle before he left for the holidays, and more thrilled still when he offered us a glass of bubbly. (Raise your hand if you remember when we first photographed David at the Yayoi Kusama opening at the Whitney.) The spectacular Rhinelander mansion behind us, Ralph Lauren's flagship men's and children's store, is the real McCoy.

Was it the hoards of last minute holiday shoppers or just the champagne kicking in? When we got to the top floor at Donna Karan, while Jean was drooling over the gorgeous accessories, Valerie made herself at home. (No, it wasn't the last minute anything, or the champagne. It was just the irresistible photo op in the way cool furnishings!)

Not all the Christmas season windows were about Santa and snow and beribboned boxes. The deep red leather lips at Emilio Pucci were a show stopper in the center window along with a pair of large, lashed eyes. One window had a set of lips cut right down the middle, so it could be placed on a corner.  Very surrealist. We just want to know who gets the lips when the window display changes!

Also on our route was the cloth toy plane above (let's call it soft sculpture, a la Claes Oldenberg) at Loro Piana. Doesn't this make a nice change from cold metal or brittle plastic? This is something a little boy (-- or girl -- we're not sexist) could take to bed and cuddle! In the background, it seemed a shame to cut out the perfect gifts for the traveling man in the gray flannel suit: matching gray sleeping mask and gray neck rest.

Did we mention that we saw author Tom Wolfe out and about looking quite dapper, window shopping in his caped coat, perpetual white suit and two-toned spectator lace-ups?

Before we could chase after him, fate intervened. As we looked down at the sidewalk in front of Etro, Valerie spied a purple wallet flat out on the sidewalk in front of us and retrieved it.  In it were a young woman's driver's license, Amex card and bank card. (Unsurprisingly, the money was already gone.) Jean first called 311 to connect to the local New York City police precinct who told us they would "inventory" it if we brought it in. We then called American Express and were transferred by their concierge to a gentleman who took down our contact information. Within minutes, they had tracked down the young woman's mother, who only lived a few blocks away. When she called Jean on her cell and offered to come meet us, we were in Calvin Klein, where Jean was swooning over shoes that she'd seen in photos of the runway show. To rescue Jean with all haste from harm's way, we said we'd drop off the wallet since we were just around the corner. Being good scouts, we delivered it to the father who met us in lobby on his way to walk their dogs. Kudos to Amex!

Here are the black patent Calvin Klein platform shoes Jean came perilously close to buying. They have a wonderfully sculpted sole.

And here's Jean with the kind of smile that makes her look as though she's already bought them.

The next afternoon, we met in the lobby of the Bowery Hotel for a brief Christmas eve get-together. In the lounge are roomy club chairs and sofas around a big hearth, complete with a blazing fire, right out a 1940s English (or faux English) movie. The decorated tree and turn of the 20th century lighting added to the festive atmosphere.

Having totally forgotten our agreement not to exchange gifts and make donations to each other's favorite charities, Jean presented Valerie with something they'd seen at the MOMA store but which had sold out -- the Giant Bounce. Not to fear, Jean did donate to the World Wildlife Fund on Valerie's behalf and Valerie donated to Social Tees Animal Rescue for Jean.

The idea of the Giant Bounce is to grasp it by the horns and ride it while bouncing up and down. Below, the Big Bounce unboxed and inflated. What Valerie would look like using it is an entirely different matter altogether! For her part, Valerie was, to use the wonderfully apt English expression, gob-smacked. She'd actually searched on line for the GB, to no avail. It's the rare person who can figure out what Valerie wants - or why. The Hope diamond itself could not have been more happily received. (Although, to be fair, the Hope diamond, sold at Christie's [sorry - we know that sounds cold, but that IS what she'd do with it, lovely as it is, and as astonishing a gift as it would be - particularly astonishing because Jean would have to pry it away from the Smithsonian], would pay off her mortgage and monthly maintenance for the rest of her life, even if she lived to be the oldest person in the world.)

Jean's Bowery Hotel basil margarita (below) was delicious. Valerie ordered a combination of cilantro-infused gin, lime syrup and champagne. The waiter cocked his eyebrow, since Valerie had requested a drink that was not on the menu. Only when she agreed to take responsibility for its failure did he acquiesce (saying that if it worked, maybe they'd add it to the menu). Like the margarita, it was delicious. We would have photographed the tasty and beautifully presented snacks too but unfortunately, we'd already devoured them by the time we'd thought to take photographs.

Days later, despite a snowy, icy mix of precipitation on the Saturday before New Year's, Jean's sister-in-law Maureen joined us to check out the amazing City Harvest gingerbread extravaganza at Le Parker Meridien Hotel.  (City Harvest collects excess prepared foods and redistributes them where needed.)  Forget whatever you thought you knew about gingerbread houses. This show turns all stereotypes on their ear. 
Take for example Baked Ideas' Lincoln Memorial with the president outfitted in nifty baby blue ear muffs, mittens and bow tie.

Butterfly Bakery's Chichen Itza temple was fabulously tropical.

Toji Tower was created by Kyotofu, which we remembered had also provided the baked treats at the recent Pleats Please book launch at Issey Miyake in Tribeca.

The Sphinx was produced by Rolling Pin Productions and Aperitiva Restaurant in Brooklyn.

North End Grill's imaginative Urqhart Castle included the added attraction of Loch Ness, complete with monster.

The piece de resistence of the exhibition was the product of the home team: The chef from Norma's Cafe in Le Parker Meridien created the Hurri-CRANE to commemorate the crane collapse that occurred on the building across the street and necessitated a shut down for blocks around the hotel for several days. (You might remember we photographed the real one for you at the end of October.)

The street scene at the base of the skyscraper captured the whole story -- police barriers, gawkers, taxis, street signs, the works!

Street level and skyscraper in perspective.

The real deal vs. the candy-coated version.

After a tasty lunch in the cozy lounge at Le Parker Meridien (Norma's Cafe was thronged, and the Christmas season wait was forty-five minutes), we headed to MOMA to view the new Abstraction exhibition, where there was another Christmas season wait just to buy tickets and check coats -- and we were on the members' lines! Jean and Maureen take a breather after the show.

Here we are before heading to the MOMA store.  (That's Valerie's fabulous felt fish from Etsy.)

New Yea's Eve seems like a natural stopping point for our lively tale! Come back and see us next Sunday when we tell you how we rang in the New Year. Oh, and do come and see us on Wednesday, too!

Fashionista See, Fashionista Do

Valerie says:

So there I was, last December 18, catching up on my Forest City Fashionista reading, and Shelley was waxing ecstatic about Leonard Cohen. (Click here to read Shelley’s account of his London, Ontario concert.) Cohen, as I vaguely recall from my youth, was (is?) often called a troubador, since words like singer and poet and songwriter didn't seem to do justice to a guy who wasn't Elvis or James Brown or James Taylor or any of the other iconic figures you could name in the world of music, but nevertheless had something absolutely riveting that compelled the ear to listen. Cohen never wrote anything like "uuuuuuuuu, baby, baby, baby, I luvvvvvvvvvvv you". He was much more likely to write vague but unmistakable lyrics about rumpled sheets that would make the tiny hairs on the back of your neck stand up on end. And since his music was slow, the singer (whether Cohen or someone else) had time to enunciate, so you could never pretend you didn't know what he was saying.

Oh, there I go digressing again.

Anyway, I was reading Shelley's rave review, thinking 'Oh, I'll bet he's only doing Canada'; or 'I'll bet there's a New York concert on the itinerary, and it was a month ago.' So, just to amuse myself, I looked up the concert schedule, and of all the weird luck, there was a concert that very evening here in New York. Readers might know I have &*$%@# tinnitus, and it's always a bad idea for me to go to a concert. Even if I sit waaaay in the back, even if I wear earplugs, somehow the base vibrates through the concrete floor and hits me in the gut. How the gut is connected to my ear is a mystery, but once that happens, I know I'm in for several days of ringing.

But Leonard Cohen is 78, the age at which Frank Sinatra retired, so I thought I'd better go. I told myself he wasn't likely to be amped up, and my ears would be okay. Off I went to Madison Square Garden, where I bought the fourth ticket of a threesome. It was about five minutes before curtain, and I scored my ticket for under face value. (Thank goodness! Have you seen ticket prices lately?) The audience was largely my age or older, but when I first came out of the subway I ran into Lina Plioplyte, the Advanced Style videographer (click here for her website), and two gentlemen friends of hers, all on their way to the concert. They are all hovering around 30, and two of them are from Europe, so Cohen attracts admirers from all over the proverbial map.

[Jean says:  Since I had a commitment when Valerie's last-minute brainstorm struck, I didn't get to tag along on this particular adventure. Luckily, I can vicariously enjoy the evening along with the rest of you via Valerie's post. "Turnabout is fair play" -- Just as Shelley, the Forest City Fashionista, was inspired by my Rolling Stones posting to do one of her own, it is fitting that Valerie was inspired by Shelley's Leonard Cohen post to follow suit.]

Here I have to confess that I didn't (okay, still don't) know the Leonard Cohen songbook very well, but so much legend has sprung up around him that I felt it important to see him for myself. One of my favorite Cohen songs is the Jeff Buckley version of Hallelujah. (Sung in soprano in amazing contrast to Cohen's - is it basso profundo? - It sure seems like it.) Another favorite is Everybody Knows, memorably sung many years ago with an amazing vocal sneer by Don Henley. Cohen opened with a song I'd never heard before - Dance Me to the End of Love - and I was smitten just like everybody else has always been smitten before me.

Let me interrupt myself here for a moment to ask you to check out the way cool lighting in the above photo.  Sort of Wizard of Ozzian.

Cohen sang any number of songs that were, I'm ashamed to say, completely new to me, but every one of them was carefully, clearly and lovingly - I should say seductively - sung, and the sound system was fabulous, so the level of his craft was obvious to the entire audience. Like Shelley - and like Jean last week in her report on The Rolling Stones - I had to rely on the Jumbotron, but that's the only part of the concert that was less than ideal. My photos are disappointing - sorry - but really I took them not for the blog (since I didn't know if I'd get in to the sold out performance) but for myself, just in case -- as they say on Law and Order -- I need something to 'refresh my memory' in the months and years to come. It was freezing that night, I was rushed, and didn't think to take any pictures of myself. Sorry again. But you know what I look like. And as you can see, Leonard is wearing a hat, so he can be my proxy. (The opening photo is kind of cheating - my take on Leonard, but not taken the night of the show.)

Shelley noted in her blog that Cohen got down on his knees on several occasions, and he did the same at Madison Square Garden. That little tiny figure above in the spotlight is him, kneeling. How cool is that? How many 78 year old performers stay on key, remember all their lines, give a three hour performance, get down on their knees ten times or more, and then take their encores by skipping out onto the stage and back? [Speaking of remembering lines, did you know that the fabulous Dusty Springfield kept crib notes on her arms?  Oops. Digressing again.] Soooo much more that I could say, but the IFs have made a pact to shorten our Wednesday posts. This one kinda doesn't count, since the concert was before the new year, but from now on, we will try to live by the words brevity is the soul of wit, and a picture is worth a thousand words!

Here's the play list. If you don't have the albums, do look up the words, now that we can do that on line. When you see a title like A Thousand Kisses Deep, how can you not want to know the rest?
1. Dance Me to the End of Love
2. The Future
3. Bird on the Wire
4. Everybody Knows
5. Who by Fire
6. Darkness
7. Ain't No Cure for Love
8. Amen
9. Come Healing
10. In My Secret Life
11. A Thousand Kisses Deep (Recitation)
12. Anthem
13. Second Set
14. Tower of Song
15. Suzanne
16. Chelsea Hotel #2
17. Waiting for the Miracle
18. Show Me the Place
19. Lover Lover Lover
20. Democracy
21. Alexandra Leaving (performed by Sharon Robinson)
22. I'm Your Man
22. Hallelujah
23. Take This Waltz
Encore #1:
24. So Long, Marianne
25. Going Home
26. First We Take Manhattan
Encore #2:
27. Famous Blue Raincoat
28. If It Be Your Will (performed by the Webb sisters)
29. Closing Time

Oh, did you want to know about the &*$%@# tinnitus thing? Yes, my ears rang for days afterward. But I can't blame the music. I was fine right up till the end. It was the thunderous standing ovation that did me in.