04.19.10 My Top Ten RIGHT NOW

1. MUSICAL American Idiot

Similar to the energetic fascination that was Spring Awakening, American Idiot takes the angst to a whole new level with Green Day’s fantastic album as basically the entirety of the production.  Opening with a wealth of video that speaks directly to the ADD (or now ADHD) addled world I grew up in, flashes of Bush hitting too close to home in a world that hasn’t changed enough, the musical is relentless in its power with electrifying performances that heighten the original music to an all new excitement.  Aside from the occasional missteps, top among them a morphine induced flying fantasy, and a slight desire for a stronger narrative, this show is soul-infecting amazing… A

2. FOOD Aureole

One of the great joys of life is amazing food, and this restaurant is serving up such delight.  Sitting in the front section of the busy mid-town eatery, the meal started with pork sliders and an amazing fresh tuna, complete with unbroken egg yolk on the top and crispy toast squares to lap up the deliciousness.  The miso cod is the way to go for entrée, perfectly cooked in a sauce that can only be described as heavenly, paired with forbidden rice croquettes.  The veal osso bucco also doesn’t disappoint, cooked to crumbling perfection.  Pair this with a fantastic bottle of wine and you have a perfect night of fine dining… A

3. TV Better Off Ted – Season One

As I’ve said before, very few shows have me laughing out loud from my couch while viewing alone.  This show has me howling.  The office-based humor is completely off-kilter as the charismatic Ted navigates a potential office romance and the numerous foibles the faceless corporation he works for throws his way.  Portia di Rossi is delightful as a high-powered executive, but the true humor comes from the odd-couple scientists as they invent products the world doesn’t need.  The snappy dialogue reminiscent of screwball comedies or more recently, The Gilmore Girls, is a welcome reminder that sitcoms can actually be funny… A-

4. SHOW Fuerza Bruta

Is it a show?  Is it a club?  Why am I wet and dancing?  These are all questions that you can easily ask, among many others, while standing in a massive dark warehouse just to the east of Union Square, watching performance art that is as dazzling as it is confusing.  The stagecraft here is pretty ingenious, turning a wall of Mylar into a living landscape through lighting, making a treadmill a haunting metaphor for life and, of course, the massive tank of water that hangs over your head as performers splash above you.  It’s sensual and crazy and yes, you will get wet… B+

5. MOVIE $9.99

Rarely have I seen stop-motion animation so physical and painterly.  The characters are exaggerated physically yet understated, even arrested, emotionally, creating a series of haunting vignettes all taking place in a single apartment building.  I suppose the story is about discovering the meaning of life, but really all I got was beautiful tales of sad isolated worlds in which proximity fails to break down the thin walls that separate neighbors.  It’s a sumptuous look at the world and quite effective even without ever really going anywhere… B

6. ALBUM Broken Bells Broken Bells

This is some of the poppiest alternative music I’ve heard in a long time, and thus thoroughly enjoyable.  The easy percussive and funky organ backings play nicely off the simple harmonies and general happy chill that falls over the entire sound.  The music just hangs in the air until you get to “The Ghost Inside” with its falsetto vocals in the spirit of a more indie Scissor Sisters and Bird and the Bee sound.  There’s even a send-up to the great film composer, Ennio Morricone.  Rarely has music stayed so constantly on my playlist… A

7. DRINKS Russian Samovar

If you want authentic this is the place to go for some true Russian vodka and culture.  Oddly located in Times Square, this downstairs haunt is surprisingly filled night after night thanks to a wide selection of house infused vodkas and live piano and violin music.  If you’re lucky, you’re bound to see a model or two and on my last trip there, the incomparable Mikhail Baryshnikov.  And if you happen through during the Passover holiday, no worries, the usual bowls of chips are replaced with matzo… B

8. ALBUM Leave Your Sleep Natalie Merchant

This two-disc monster is too all encompassing, from the wide range of music styles (bluegrass, klezmer, early music, R&B, reggae, etc.) to an equally wide array of inspiration drawn from poets.  But for such a scattershot approach to compiling, Merchant’s gorgeous voice and musicality manages to hold it together into a set of thoroughly enjoyable songs.  The New Orleans styled “Peppery Man” is a delight and “It Makes a Change” actually gets pretty close to the joys of 10,000 Maniacs. With a little bit of editing, this could have been a great album… B

9. MOVIE Fired Up!

This ridiculous trifle about football star horn dogs who go to cheerleading camp in order to score with a whole new group of women is surprisingly funny.  In the guise of the great ‘80s teen sex romps like Porky’s and Fast Times, the humor is boosted with a great winking of the eye toward the modern day farce that was the Bring It On series (delightful in its own right).  This is by no means greatly intelligent fare, but perfect for 90 minutes of laughs… B-

10. ALBUM In The Dark The Whigs

This is the kind of rock-out that I expect to hear in some dingy bar in Brooklyn where a beer in hand makes everything sound better.  There is musicality here, especially on “I Don’t Even Care About the One I Love” and the awesome throwback “Dying,” but the band never escalates into anything truly listenable or revolutionary, just becoming really loud background noise.  Which is all really a shame considering vocally there’s a Killers quality that if it could be harnessed could make this band awesome… C+