Who knew that playing tennis was an activity that needed to be regulated by permit? In New York, apparently it is. As regular readers would attest, I enjoy my weekly games under the winter weather-proof Bubble at Prospect Park Tennis Centre. Having played there most Monday mornings during the past six months, I didn’t realise that the dismantling of the Bubble would make way for new summertime scaffolding in the form of bureaucracy.

I rang to secure a court in my usual fashion after a break of ten days during which the de-Bubbling had put the courts out of action. To my dismay, I was told that in order to play tennis I had to secure a permit – at the cost of $100, thank you very ta. My Monday tennis cohorts agreed to chip in to share the purchase price, so off I went yesterday and secured my permit.

Nothing can stop me now, I thought, as I called the Tennis Centre, classy new permit complete with not-too-tragic photo in hand. I was wrong.

“You’re not on file,” the receptionist told me impassively. Not only did they not seem to have any record of my winter tennis activity, but whatever system my permit was issued under did not connect with her computer records. “You’ll have to come down to the Centre and show us your pass in order to reserve a court by telephone in future.”

So I did, today, and thankfully a court is available Monday morning. For a country that’s big on telling us they’re small on government, there sure feels like a lot of clunky bureaucracy and unnecessary administration in this city.

No breaking news, folks, rather the title of an exhibition at the Whitney Museum I attended last week along with hundreds of members who were promised a free ounce of cheap white wine if they could squeeze their way to the bar downstairs while trying to ignore the strains of Donovan himself – live, after all these years.

Not having been born until a few years after the particular summer of love referred to in the exhibition’s title (1967), I was a bit nonplussed by the cumulative effect of the walls covered in advertising and promotional memorabilia from the era - tour posters, album covers and concert photographs – and pieces of early multimedia art that were all about repeated pschedelic patterns (think droplets of oil smeared over glass and filmed – crazy, man). I walked into one room and found aging baby-boomers literally laid out on the floor in front of huge video screens, watching the looped film and reliving their respective comings-of-age. It was embarrassing. I wondered what I’ll be ogling nostalgically at a museum in 30 years.

I attended the exhibition with someone who was very much in his adolescence during the Summer of Love, and he found the show as tedious and empty as I did. Much more interesting were his stories of parties ending in fisticuffs over the Vietnam War, or being physically threatened on a Manhattan street for sporting shoulder-length hair. These were years of social and political upheaval, of war and assassinations. But you would never suspect it from this show. There’s a thoughtful review here by the New York Times’ Holland Cotter.

Well I think I’ve seen it all now – an ad promoting a reality TV show featuring none other than the never-really-was Mark Phillippoussis. In this show, called “The Age of Love”, the Poo (dubbed a “tennis megastar” but strangely not identified by name in the voice-over) gets to choose from a literal bevy of women all vying for his attention. And what could be more humiliating than making women compete for the fleeting fancy of an egotistical macho man? By making them compete in two teams according to their age – one group of competitors is in their 20s, the other in their 40s.

Over and above the execrable gender politics of the universe in which this scenario is deemed an appropriate “entertainment”, what exactly is the prize? At least on American Idol there are clear professional benefits that accrue to the winner. A recording contract, exposure to millions of potential record-buyers, the knowledge that he or she has some combination of vocal skill and popular appeal. These women of course were not forced to participate in the show; but in the year 2007 I am still dumbfounded by the fact that there are women who believe participation – and, one has to assume, consummation – is a professional and personal step forward. A Poo on both your houses.

A quick hello from my desk – surprise – where I have been diligently working on another draft of The Young Widow’s Book of Home Improvement over the Memorial Day (Anzac Day equivalent) long weekend. Being my own harshest editor and critic, all I can see is what is still left to revise, but I have learnt to occasionally force myself to acknowledge how far I’ve come from some early scribblings and journal-style jottings where it all began life in July last year. I will be enormously relieved to bring it into the world and hopefully find it a place on a publisher’s schedule in 2008. It makes me very nervous to think about other people reading some intensely personal observations and memories, but I hope that the book will be greater than the sum of its parts and speak to anyone who has experienced a massive loss or knows someone who has. I also hope it makes people laugh – after all, it was my sense of humour that helped keep me sane during those dark ages.

On the business end of things I have already registered a domain name for the book and have submitted an article for publication over here. The automated reply I received from one magazine told me to not expect to hear from them unless they’re going to publish my piece because, as they receive more than 800 submissions per month for the section I submitted it to, my chances are slim. The scale of things here just boggles my mind at times. But then again, I do believe that 90 percent of most things are crap, so I remain hopeful.

Gotta love a big boozy dinner out. My old pal John Moore and I catch up every couple of months and take turns as to whose shout it is. This time it was my turn and I turned to Ama, a restaurant I’d encountered first a few weeks ago for a business meeting. On a quiet stretch of Macdougal Street in SoHo, it is the first restaurant I have found in New York that reminds me of my favourite Italian at home, Elio.

Last time I visited Ama, the food (from Puglia, the boot of Italy) and service were excellent; this time the food continued to be very good, but the service was almost non-existent. Never mind; John and I had so much to catch up on we were not in a hurry.

Apple Girl enjoyed a night out the theatre last night with her actress-singer-playwright friend Susan, from PlayGroup. For the very un-Gotham price of $27.50 we saw a brilliant two-hander called The Receipt, which arrived in New York direct from Melbourne’s International Comedy Festival.

In The Receipt Will Adamsdale and sonic artist/performer Chris Branch chronicle of the story of Alan Wiley, a downtrodden resident and confused office worker of a city called “Glondon”, who finds a receipt on the street one day and sets out to find the anonymous consumer for whom the receipt was issued. Wiley’s ultimately futile quest is emblematic of the search for meaning in the relentless daily routines of the late-capitalist consumer.

This moving and very funny play won the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award and the Total Theatre Award for Innovation. In his www.gothamist.com review John del Signore said: “The Receipt is one of those precious shows that makes up for all the lackluster stuff a theatergoer has to sift through in search of gold. Adamsdale and Branch deftly take something as prosaic as a receipt and, using nothing but sound, a few filing cabinets, and their imaginations, conjure pure delight from the banal.” 

Saturday was the inaugural Dance Parade which grooved its way down a slightly damp 5th Avenue to end in a dance party in Washington Square Park. Dancers in the park included Simi Linton (above left, with banner), her husband David (aka Fuzzy, above right; the roller skates on his feet are sadly outside the frame), and some of their friends who are dancers, including the fabulous Lezlie Frye (above left with Simi; she had tacked a sign proclaiming “Gimps Got Game” on the back of her red top). Also in attendance were me as designated go-fer and impromptu interviewer, and film-maker Christian von Tippleskirsch (try pronouncing that after a few tipples; also above right), who is helping us put together a DVD trailer designed to attract funding for a documentary about how war manufactures disability.

Simi decided the group would dance under the name “Crip Machine”, politely declining my suggestion of “Crip City Rollers” (too English, perhaps). They attracted a lot of attention with their dancing and inventive choreography – at one point there were skates, wheelchairs, calipers and even a Segway in the dance mix.

Sunday’s New York Times reported on the parade in its Metro section. “We happened upon it, and it’s just blowing my mind,” said Marydale Abernathy, 47, a Web developer. “I’m from Maine, and I’m bringing my 7-year-old daughter to see the culture of New York City, and this is the feeling I came for, totally. There’s wheelchair dancers. How cool is that?”

People who know me are familiar with my aversion to “hot air”, a term which I use to refer to anything that smells of hyperbole or lacks substance. My antennae are so sensitive to hot air, I was shocked to have been taken in by a steaming blast of it at the recent conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

“A Case History of ‘The Lobotomist’” was the title of the session I attended. The session purported to tell me everything I needed to know in order to build an idea into a book, a book into sales, and sales into a career. Seated on a raised altar at the front of the room were, from left to right, the author of ‘The Lobotomist’, his literary agent, her dramatic rights agent (he is trying to sell documentary/dramatic rights on her behalf), and the book’s editor – what we Australians call a publisher - who bought and published the title. One more person scheduled to attend, the independent publicist the author hired to help push the book, could not make it to the session.

Many solid ideas were discussed during the course of the session, reinforcing the truth that authors must do the bulk of their publicity, networking and leveraging their contacts, and identifying markets for “special sales” (outside of book stores) that can lead to additional reviews and even speaking engagements. The large publishers these days are primarily about packaging and distribution, and getting that marketing and publicity “hit” in the first few weeks of publication much like film studios do with their releases.

So there I was, scribbling furiously in my notebook, taking off one hat (writer) and putting on another (agent) and another (consultant) as I listened. Then, right at the end, during the dreaded question time, my ears perked up at a passing comment in response to a question regarding sales. The author revealed that the the book, years after publication, still has not earned back its advance. Strange that none of the industry professionals let that poison pill slip past their tongues.

I felt sorry for the hard-working author. After all this effort, he is still screwed by the fact that he was paid too much for the book in the first place – decisions made by professionals who should have known better. Few publishers will want his next book, and whoever does want it won’t pay him much of an advance at all. As I walked away in disbelief, I couldn’t help but think – as I often do at moments like this – of a line from Macbeth to describe this session: “a tale … full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Standing on the subway platform en route to pick up my newly re-strung tennis racquet, a handsome man approached me. He said something, but as I was wearing my iPod headphones at the time I couldn’t hear a word. After I removed one of the buds from my ear, he repeated his question, something about how long had I been waiting for the train. I answered, but couldn’t help feeling that there was another question on his lips. He smiled and said, “Has anyone told you you are very pleasing to the eye?”

I smiled back. “Not lately,” I said.

Within a couple of weeks we’ve gone from persistently chilly to downright toasty – yesterday I actually heard people complaining about how hot it was. Human beings are marvellous creatures, aren’t we? Given the lack of visuals on Apple Girl recently I thought I’d add these photos - one of a cherry blossom tree in full bloom on the corner of the next block from mine, en route to Grand Army Plaza subway station (after six months in my neighbourhood I finally realised the station I’d been schlepping to was further away and in the wrong direction, away from Manhattan). The other is a magnificent twilight shot of the Brooklyn Bridge, which stole my heart long before I wrote about it as part of my PhD thesis in the mid-1990s. One treat of catching the express B or Q train into the city is that it travels over the Manhattan Bridge, affording an Australian commuter still wide-eyed at being in New York at all a relatively uninterrupted view of the Brooklyn Bridge to her immediate south.

These words came out of the mouth of a financial planner whose advice I had recently sought. During our brief conversation I casually mentioned purchasing a pair of shoes a few days earlier, and he reacted with this beauty. The gist of his comment was that discretionary spending, in general, would delay my retirement plans, but in that moment I think he actually saw devil’s horns sprouting from the top of my head. Little did he know that I actually bought two pairs of shoes, not one, at the discount shopping warehouse known by its acronym DSW, at its Union Square mega-store.

At New York University’s Centre for Philanthropy and Fundraising (where I’ll be doing a summer intensive in July) I attended a “Lunchtime Conversation” on the topic New Trends in Giving. The speaker was Marcia Stepanek, the founding editor of a new philanthropic magazine called Contribute. The fact that the magazine’s subject is philanthropic activity by people based in New York gives you some notion of the sheer scale of philanthropic endeavour here.

I’m not going to give away here all the interesting thoughts she divulged – otherwise what will I have to share when I come home? – suffice to say that Stepanek contends the “concentration of extreme wealth in young people”, coupled with the globalised and digitised world, are converging into a new philanthropic moment.

It seems there is a real shunning of major charity fundraising nights as part of a sustained move to what she described as “performance philanthropy”, in which the mega-wealthy see no problem in bypassing what they perceive as the “non-profit system” in order to achieve “quick hits”.

Hmm, rich Americans throwing money at entrenched systemic problems for the glory of quick wins, with no view to long-term outcomes and sustainable development. Don’t I see another version of that on the news every night, from Iraq?

Sitting around a table the other night at a dinner party for a friend’s birthday, I was ambushed by a spray of questions about Australian fauna.

“What’s the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo?” “Have you ever had a pet wombat? Do you know anyone who keeps a wombat as a pet?”

It was peculiar enough last year to receive the condolences of strangers on the death of Steve Irwin. Somehow the strangers all assumed I knew him personally. This time around, I couldn’t tell whether the questions were sincere efforts to satisfy curiosity, or a strange if unconscious tactic to reinforce my status among the group as the “resident alien”. I did ask my interrogators at one point, “Are you serious?”, which probably didn’t help my social integration.

It wasn’t quite Mice and Men – no questions about rabbits, no Lenny to utter them - but it was a long time since I’d felt so alien. 

Today at lunch I enjoyed a salmon sandwich and a broad Australian accent, both courtesy of my entrepeneur friend and colleague Rob Depinto of volunteerxchange.com and liquidwit.com. Longtime readers of this journal might recall a humorous episode I related here about representing volunteerXchange at an awards ceremony last year at the Harvard Club in my official capacity as New York-based Business Development Manager for VolunteerXChange. Love it! I lugged the glass “brick” award I received that day to lunch so I could hand it over to its rightful owner, who is here searching out business opportunities and a host for his likely move to NYC in the next few months.

Just to show you my day wasn’t all lunching with friends, I also fit in an hour of tennis this morning with Ruth, another expat Australian and website designer. (Not every day is like this!) Ruth, who has been in New York for 30 years, still misses the weather and the outdoors lifestyle we take for granted.

I was delighted, surprised, and a little embarrassed to receive this gracious and articulate response from DJ Spooky himself to my post yesterday about his Rebirth of a Nation project:

“Actually it wasn’t really meant to ‘subvert’ the film, it’s a remix after all – just show some of the resonances with the way things are these days. The voting scenes in the film could easily have been 2000 or 2004’s elections, and the editing techniques of using the Pioneer DVJ’s that let you play the film like a record are meant for a live situation.”

I am glad to stand newly informed on the technical context of the live performance. He also wrote that the edited version of the remixed film will be released “in a bit” – and that will be well worth seeing or buying.

This incident has demonstrated to me both the obligations of the blogger and the transparency of the blogosphere.

Jasper is the new pride and joy of my former colleague Sachaa and her husband Adam, who were in NYC last November briefly and featured in this previous post. Sachaa is a fiend with the camera and recently sent friends a library of images of her newest and most interesting subject. I couldn’t resist publishing this one of Jasper in his “yummy mummy”‘s Guccis.

Perhaps it was because I’d been up since 6am. Perhaps it was the fact that my friend Derek and I mistook north for south, then east for west, in trying to get to our destination in TriBeCa, and walked almost two miles (me in heels) as a result. Perhaps it was because our dreamt-of glass of wine before the show turned out to be a fruity Cabernet in the foodhall of the Winter Garden – part of the World Financial Centre - instead of an Italian varietal in an interesting bar. Whatever the reason, I was unimpressed with DJ Spooky’s live re-mix of a seminal 1915 racist propaganda film called Birth of a Nation, which was a special event at this year’s TriBeCa Film Festival.

DJ Spooky introduced his work as an attempt to subvert the white-supremacist ideology of the film’s Civil War-era plot. In the film, the central protagonists’ white faces express various types of fear as black men, given the vote, run riot and use their newfound political influence for evil rather than good, wreaking havoc on the status quo, only to be put back in their respective place by saviours wearing white uniforms with matching hoods, ie the Ku Klux Klan. If only we could all just get along …

It was certainly an eye-opener for me to see the film. Unfortunately by the end of the l o n g evening I remained unconvinced that cutting and splicing segments of the film, repeating and looping them accompanied to a live soundtrack of beats, achieved anything close to what DJ Spooky was aiming for. He did not interrupt or subvert the plot of the film: the whites still reign supreme at its end. He could have used the footage and cut it to shreds and rearranged it to offer a much more dramatically compelling counter-narrative, so that the images no longer depended on the plot. And the point of the soundtrack being live was lost on me … as was the function of the music generally.

As Derek said to me on our way back to Brooklyn, “I learned more about the human condition from watching Grindhouse than I did from that.”

The TriBeCa festival is also hosting the premiere of yet another limp Drew Barrymore romantic comedy, and an outdoor screening of none other than Jaws 3. Sadly this seems to encapsulate the triumph of hot air and hyperbole over substance that seems to be on offer this year.

The picture above was taken at the annual Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens (but not by me). In my neighborhood the blossoms are at their peak now – for just a couple of short weeks each year – but it has been so hopeful just watching the buds gradually emerge and flower over the past few weeks while I’ve been walking around the park. For intrepid cherry-spotters the Gardens website provides a blow-by-blow photographic snapshot of the blooming and decline of the blossoms, arranged by type.

The collective sigh of relief in the city is almost audible as we shrug off our winter clothes and shed layers of coats, scarves, gloves and hats for a wardrobe of fewer and lighter-weight items. I have never valued the season of spring as much as I do now for the experience of a serious northern hemisphere winter to precede it.

An arresting title for a personal essay, don’t you think? I attended a personal essay-writing workshop last week at MediaBistro headquarters at 494 Broadway (fourth-floor walk-up of course, just what I needed after a long day at Simi’s home office), and brought a 1200-word excerpt from The Young Widow’s Book … to “workshop” (you must pronounce this with requisite curled Rs and long Os). I gave this title to my excerpt, which details the hideous experience of purchasing a single bed to sleep on only five months after John and I were married. John’s deteriorating condition had forced us to accept the intrusion of a hospital bed into our bedroom, and we had to buy a single bed for me because the room simply could not fit the queen-sized ensemble we used to share, as well as the hospital bed, as well as John’s wheelchair.

Surprisingly the workshop featured a strong group of writers, some already freelancing and others not. I’m always amazed at how differently individuals will string words together. My essay seemed to pack a bit of a punch for my peers, and the teacher encouraged me to submit it – after some revision of course – to a couple of publications here that accept memoir-based articles. I figured it can’t hurt to try for a couple of bylines on US soil.

The group was evenly divided about my title – some felt it worked against the tone of the rest of the piece, while others thought it was just right. This jury of one remains undecided.