Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

To paraphrase Taylor Swift, home is where the heart is, but god I love New York.  After I visited in March this year, I told all of my friends that I was up for another trip if they wanted, and to my delight I got another opportunity much more quickly than I expected.  After my second visit in a year I  still don’t feel I am done with this place, and don’t know if I ever will be.  Below are some jottings about this trip just so I don’t forget.    Day 1 - Tuesday: Flights and Times Square  An uneventful flight where I just binged films - Go here if you want my notes on what I watched At the airport I picked up a cab and had the one of the suite of classic NYC cab experiences.  In this case the driver smelt of weed and was looking at his phone as often as the road.  There was one interesting moment when the only reason he avoided backending the car in front was because I shouted at him.  After hitting the brakes he just held his hand up towards me and grunted before carrying on.... It r

 I had been talking about another trip to New York, and so when this new production of Romeo and Juliet was announced, it was the perfect excuse.   With Broadway virgins Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler in the leads, Sam Gold, the love him or hate him director at the helm,  and Jack Antonoff, the show off/genius music producer in charge of original score, it could all go spectacularly wrong or be brilliant.  I booked the tickets before anything else, and then realised that meant I was going to have to go back to NYC for the second time in a year.  I usually prefer not to read reviews before seeing any play, but it previewed for a month, and given the amount of Tik-tok excitement it's not surprising that many of the more unusual features were heavily spoilered beforehand. The play is a fresh, young take on the well known story.  Walking in the theatre foyer, there is loud disco music and flashing lights to set the scene and that continues inside the intimate performance space, with a ti

An eight hour flight to NYC requires either an amazing book, or a lot of movies.  I chose the movies. Dune 2 This had less pretentious music than Dune 1, and the cgi and cinematography were fabulous.  I actually wanted to be in that desert despite the weird creatures that could kill me.  The downside is the bloated storytelling which meant it was far too long.   That's why I only can only see myself watching this movie series on planes, despite the tiny screen. I Saw the TV Glow -   I had heard loads about this but hadn't seen it available anywhere.  My best way to describe it is Stranger Things meets trans allegory.  It is both strange and wonderful, and looks great, a mix of schlocky horror imagery and an evocative colour palette flooding the screen with that blurry 80's video aesthetic.  The basic story is about a couple of teenagers who are obsessed with a tacky teenage horror/mystery show, but it's all about the subtext.  In fact, I am not sure it would make any se