The Dao of Tea

On 9th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues is Cha-An, a Japanese restaurant that has a tearoom for the 'performance' of the Japanese Tea Ceremony.  Dottie and I went last night.  The first picture is of our hostess in the Mizuya area beginning the cleaning of the bowl that we will use to drink our tea.  She will use a small linen cloth called the Chakin to clean and wipe the bowl.  She will unfold it from her kimono; fold it in a particular pattern; wipe the bowl; unfold it and then fold it in another pattern and put it back in her kimono.  The guests drink from the same bowl, and this is done after each serving.  The ceremony can take up to 40 minutes.  At the end of the ceremony she discusses what she has been doing. She also showed us and let us handle the Chashaku.  A thin narrow bamboo like spoon used to scoop the tea.  It was her grandmother's, and that is a particular part of the ceremony: to share and use something with a personal connection.

In the 'Tokonoma' area is a scroll with calligraphy.  Our scroll translates as 'today safe'.  Our hostess explained that it is meant to say: "a quiet day is a safe day and a safe day is a good day." 

But before the tea you eat some sweets.  Red bean sweets and they are very sweet.
There are two basic tea ceremonies.  Chaji, which involves a full course meal and can take up to 4 hours and Chakai, simple sweets and then tea.  The tea is taken from the buds of the green tea leaf and ground up.  It is the richest part of the plant having the most caffeine and is also very expensive.  It is called Matcha.
Tea first came to Japan in the 9th century but it wasn't until the 15th when Murata Juko developed the tea ceremony as we now know it.  In the 16th century Sen no Rikyu wrote in his book 'Southern Record' the principles of the ceremony: harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility.  Both of them were Zen Buddhist monks and Zen Buddhism is the primary influence in the development of the ceremony.  Our evening certainly lived up to the principles.

Drinks for Deirdre

Went to one of my favorite Watering Holes to toast Deidre's Birthday.  Bemelmans Bar is in the Hotel Carlyle at Madison Ave. and 76th Street.  Functioning for more than 5 decades it has been recently restored to its Art Deco brilliance by Thierry Despont.  It has leather banquettes, nickel trimmed black glass tabletops, black granite bar, a 24 Karat gold leaf-covered ceiling, and a pianist.  Plus the only surviving Bemelmans' commission open to the public, 'Central Park'.  It covers the walls of the bar.

Ludwig Bemelmans, 4/27/1898 - 10/1/1962 was an Austrian-American author and illustrator.  He is best known for his six Madeline books.  Bemelmans Bar is most famous for its Sapphire Gin Martinis.  I enjoyed both.  Happy Birthday Deirdre!

Lemon Sky

Sunday matinee at Theatre Row to see the Keen Company production of Lemon Sky.  It stars Keith Nobbs, Kevin Kilner, Kellie Overby, Amie Tedesco, Alyssa May Gold, Logan Riley Bruner, and Zachary Mackiewicz.
A great deal of the play is narrative that is directed to the audience by the main character Alan, Keith Nobbs, who has moved to San Diego to live with his estranged father and his father's new family.  The father abandoned Alan and his mother when Alan was five.  Alan manages 6 months in the house before he is kicked out by his father for suspicions of homosexuality.  The writer Lanford Wilson has said it is his most autobiographical play.  I loved it.  Most especially impressed with Keith Nobbs and Kevin Kilner, the father and son.
Lanford Wilson, 4/13/37 - 3/24/11 is considered to be one of the founders of the off-off broadway theater movement.  He began at the Cafe Cino in Greenwich Village with one act plays; the most successful was "The Madness of Lady Bright" which played for 200 performances. The title character is a drag queen.  He then worked at La Mama and his most successful play there was 'Balm in Gilead".  He co-founded the Circle Rep in 1969; won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 for "Tally's Folly", and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004.  His most popular play was "The HOT L BALTIMORE" which ran for 1166 performances, and was made into a TV sitcom by Norman Lear.  Other popular plays are "The Fifth of July" and "Burn This".  In Lemon Sky you can see some of the techniques that made Lanford Wilson so remarkable.  Besides the narrative quality from the main character as in "The Glass Menagerie", other characters in the play step forward and talk directly to the audience.  My favorite 'bit', as Elaine Stritch might say, is the repetition of lines.  Early scenes are played briefly.  Lines used are repeated.  It gives the play a poetic, musical quality, that catches you and brings you into the play even more.