The Sailor Girl Kerrie and I took over the dancefloor at the 3rd Annual Quadrille Summer Party.


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We spent Sunday afternoon celebrating Julia's birthday. Julia's mom is visiting from Russia and cooked us an amazing meal consisting of appetizers and the main course. Good thing we got to dance and sing to take off the extra weight we got from eating LOL. It was a nice day so we went outside to the Hudson river to get some fresh air and watch the the ships. Then we came back for the dessert which was a very sweet cake from a Russian bakery.

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Well tonight was definitely Clayton's night thanks to... the clam shells:

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This show playing at Workshop Theater consisted of two separate acts. The first act was a magic show by Nelson Lugo called Deconstructing The Magician. There was plenty of patter but not many tricks, although most of them were quite good. The first trick he showed is a disappearing handkerchief in his fist. Instead of handkerchief an egg appeared. The funny thing is that he proceeded explaining how the trick is done. Basically he showed that it was a fake egg with a hole in it and he stuck the handkerchief into the whole in the egg. Just when the audience actually thought they got the trick's secret, he ended up repeating the trick, but this time after the handkerchief disappeared, he broke the egg against glass and the contents of the real egg ended up inside. The interesting thing is that at Flicking Fingers magic show they also tried to fool the audience by revealing the secret.

Then there was a 10 minute intermission durnig which they put up a guitar with an amp and a drum set on the stage. I had no clue what to expect. But it turned out to be a veeeeeeeeeery long story recited by an actor Britton Herring with the help of the sound and music effects of a guitarist and a drummer. The story was about the devil but it was so convoluted and long that I did not realy follow it. What was imperssive that the actor was able to memorize such a long story which went on for more than an hour. Anyway I was happy when it was finally over.

After hearing a long story about the devil, we went to get some Indonesian food in Hells Kitchen and then went to my apt where Julia conducted a mini lesson in Bellydancing.

Today the 38th Annual benefit party in the Garden of the Modern of Modern Art took place. This year the party honored Joan Tisch and Sarah Jessica Parker. Joan and her family are longstanding patrons of the arts and generously support civic and educational causes throughout New York City. Joan has also served as a Life Member of MoMA’s Board of Trustees since 1999. Award-winning actress Sarah Jessica Parker is active in aiding charitable and political causes and has worked to raise money for UNICEF, AIDS research, and school music programs. The party featured a performance by a musical guest John Legend.

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Today I went to a show of arabian and middle eastern dance called "Caribbean Rose". It took place at Lafayette Grill restaurant/bar. This restaurant is famous for hosting bellydance shows and evenings of Argentine Tango dancing. They have a large open area for dancing and a stage for a live band. My friend Julia was one of the dancers. She participated in three numbers, first was a Russian Gypsy dance, second was a ballroom cha-cha with two arabic dancers in the background and finally she did an arabic dance wearing untraditional clothes for this type of dance - pants.

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Coney Island is not the closest beach to Manhattan. There is one 5 minutes away by ferry right accross the East River.

Water Taxi Beach

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Loose Lenny, Silky Sally, Dancing Danny and Kool Aid who closed up last season of outdoor dancing at Tavern On The Green are back for another episode in 2006. Today was the opening weekend for outdoor dancing in the beautiful garden. As usual the music was great. The dancefloor was not too crowded which made it awesome to do all the crazy moves that we like to do:

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Other Tavern On The Green Outings

Another lunch treat today at Union Square. Hundres of dog owners gathered there today to submit their pet as the next mascot of Old Navy store. Allthough you can submit a picture of your dog on line, this was a promotional event where people could physically bring their dogs to show them off and to see others. All kinds of dogs big and small, slim and fat, furry and smooth were present.

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More info on dog mascot selection

The cool thing about working next to Union Square is that on a nice sunny day like today you can often see street performers entertainign the crowd. Today during lunch I saw a guy attempting to juggle three very dangerous things: a hand granade, a machete, and... a roaring chain saw! Check out the video.

The Ukrainian block on 7th street was closed to traffic today due to the yearly Ukrainian festival. There was pleny of authentic Ukrainian food and crafts. The main event of the festival was a performance of Ukrainian folk dancing and other musical acts. The feature performers were the members of the Ukranian Folk Dance Ensemble Syzokryli. Besides them there were several Ukrainian pop artists including one that came specifically for the festival from Ukraine. The music was very nice up beat eurodance style. There was also an amazing violin player who was just incredible! You can hear him by watching the video below. Clayton has interpreted the music beautifully:


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After the festival we went along the Indian Restaurant row on 6th street and then turned the corner to the famous for its dangling lights restaurant Panna II

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After dinner we went to see Julia perform at a Turkish restaurant/bar Maia. Julia was performing a very nice Gypsy dance routine with a wonderful costume. James and Clayton helped with the finish. Before and after the dancefloor was packed by people dancing to cool arabian/turkish music played by a DJ. I really liked that place.

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The second VOB Cast Party took place on May 6th. The final version of the Viennese Opera Ball DVD has been finished and we gathered again to watch it and this time got to see plenty of candid footage of us during rehearsals. I hosted the first cast party back in March and my studio was jammed to the max with people. So this time Diane was nice enough to offer her splendid apartment for the second installment of the party and we had plenty of space. Thanks a lot Di!

Diane also had hosted an afterparty after the I-House Spring Ball at which I lost one of my cufflinks. She happend to find it and returned it to me in the most admirable way possible! That was so sweet of you!

People did not have to worry about bringing drinks. The fridge was so stocked up that some cans did not fit in it. We had asked people to bring food and ended up with plenty of it to maintain a healthy diet.

After watching the DVD we spent the rest of the party doing karaoke. The stars of the night were the two West Point cadets. They were very funny and were great performers. They seemed to know many song lyrics by heart.

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Birthday Lunch with coworkers

Today is the day when David Balaine's 7-day stay in the water bubble came to an end. During the live TV broadcast "David Blaine: Drowned Alive" he attempted to break the world's record in holding breath underwater which is currently 8 minutes and 58 seconds. Here is the video of his attempt:

He did not quite make it. He only lasted for 7 minutes and 8 seconds, which is still impressive considering he was trying to unlock himself from the chains and hand cuffs attached to him and after spending 7 days underwater. He clearly was disappointed though. The poor guy cried at the end!

I have several questions though:

His head coach was talking to David while he was underwater, but how could David hear him? Did they have waterproof speakers in the sphere? They kept saying that the chains were attached to 8 parts of his body. Which 8 parts are they? It looked like he only had his hands and feet cuffed.

Click here for the video of David's interview after he was released from the hospital where he had been brought after his stunt.

The video clips of David's magic tricks that were included in the show can be found here.

I visited Lincoln Center several times today to see how the human fish was doing. Since Monday David Blaine has been inside a glass sphere filled with water. Well, to be precise, according to one of the security guards, it is not pure water. It is a saline solution similar to what babies are submerged inside a pregnant woman.

There was a huge crowd of people at the Lincoln Center plaza. There was a separate long line of people to get admitted to the two ramps next to the sphere to take close-up photos of/with Blaine. He was waving to people in the crowed and gave hi-fives to the ones passing by the sphere. Several times he took off his air supply tube and seemed to hold his breath for quite a long time. I guess he was practicing for the grand finale. He communicated with people by writing stuff on some water-proof notepad. After spending 6 days under water, the skin on his hands started to peel off and the crew had to put some lotion on them.

There were cameras and video equipment all over the place. I saw them recording the video footage that will be part of the special telecast tomorrow at 8PM on ABC.

At the end of the show, Blaine will attempt to break the worlds record of holding breath under water which currently is 8 minutes and 58 seconds and then try to escape chains and cuffs that will be put on him. However there is a theory that he will pull this off because he might be breathing pure oxygen through the mask he is wearing while he is under water. People have been able to hold their breath for as long as 15 minutes after breathing pure oxygen. In any case, I would not try this myself.

Links

• "David Blaine in 'pretty bad shape'" - May 8 CNN Article with Videos
• Photos of bubble testing
• ABC Medianet Article
• David Blaine in Wikipedia
• David Blaine's Official Website