Steven Wilson at the Beacon

As the time remaining at TSMC counts down from months to weeks to days now, I find myself striving to enjoy every precious moment of living in the heart of NYC. For me at this stage in my short life, it's not really about going to shows or hanging out in Times Square (although I will have one last stroll through it before I go) but rather having people I care about share my space with me and using it as a convenient departure point to plan fun activities.

It took me a couple days to recover from the 24-hour Best Picture Showcase, but the following Thursday Katie M came over and we finally watched Interstellar. Puck joined us for the second half, right after the crew went through the wormhole. I still think it's a stunning cinematic achievement even though it overreaches in many aspects. But it's better to aim high and come up short than to settle for mediocrity.

Rebecca joined me and Puck last Friday evening for my first attempt at making quesadillas (successful, I think) and we watched The Man from U.N.C.L.E., followed by Pulp Fiction. But the real excitement was the following night when I took Jen to see Steven Wilson at the Beacon Theater.

Ordinarily, I get concert tickets months in advance but it happened that this one snuck up on me. I saw an email from the Beacon in my inbox on Tuesday and there were still great seats available and they were very reasonably priced so I bought two, figuring I could find someone to go. Fortunately Jen was available, which was great because I introduced her to Steven Wilson just a few weeks ago while we were playing cards. So I was very excited to see the show with her, even though I'd seen him perform only nine months prior with Puck at Playstation Theater in Times Square.

Before the show started, the PA voice announced that, for the first time in 20 years of touring, Steven had almost completely lost his voice due to illness. For a second I wondered if they were going to cancel and reschedule the show, as happened with the Diana Krall concert that Katie B and I attended two years ago, also at the Beacon. But it turned out that he had his backup singer, Ninet Tayeb, in the house and she would sing some of his parts, sharing duties with the lead guitarist.

So the show went on, and we counted ourselves fortunate indeed to see a show that few people will ever get to see. Ninet sang the lead on the song "Hand Cannot Erase" and I loved how she did it in two octaves, something Steven can't do. Steven introduced the song "Routine" by saying he considers it one of the most depressing songs ever written, comparing it to specific songs by The Cure ("One Hundred Years") and another by Joy Division (whose lead singer committed suicide, in case you didn't know). And Ninet just killed that solo version of "Routine" - it was already my favorite track on the album but now it's stuck in my head all the time.

If you don't know the song, here's a link to a Live Nation concert performance by Steven and the band (unfortunately, not including Ninet live, but her part is recorded). Here is a link to the animated video that is projected during the song.

The first half of the show was pretty close to what I saw last year, except for Ninet's involvement. In the second half the band performed songs from his EP "4 1/2" just released this year and some of it was instrumental but also included Ninet's reworking of "Don't Hate Me" from the older P-Tree album "Stupid Dream" and a powerful rendition of "Sleep Together" to wrap the set.

The first encore was something I'd seen on YouTube - they did an acoustic tribute to David Bowie by singing "Space Oddity" (although for our show Steven just played guitar leaving Ninet to solo). The only real disappointment for me was that they didn't do the two songs from his previous full album, "The Raven That Refused to Sing," both of which are accompanied by videos - "The Watchmaker" and the signature title track. Instead he closed with a popular P-Tree song, "The Sound of Muzak," which he didn't sing at all but asked the audience to sing for him and we all obliged as best we could.

Sunday I finally got to reconnect with Piper, whom I haven't seen since last autumn. We've been trying to meet up but she's been sick a lot this year. We met at the arch in Washington Square Park and went for Vietnamese food at Saigon Market near Union Square. We had a good long conversation over fried spring rolls, pho and curry pork - although the waiter mysteriously absconded with the spicy condiments from our table.

Monday night I met up with Chrissy at Tortaria, a taco place Kristina took me to when we used to do yoga across the street. We talked about a project she wants to take on for Open Love NY, so I gave her some feedback and advice on that. Then we went to a free play reading of "The Ash Tree Spinners" by the Shotz! crew, the first of four being held in the lounge of the Daryl Roth Theaters just off Union Square. It was a thought-provoking musical play about the the Fates of Greek mythology - Clotho, who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, who measures it out; and Atropos, who cuts it off.

Afterwards we meandered our way back to TSMC to drop off some things and then walked all the way up to 90th Street where she showed me her building's roof and the breathtaking views on a perfectly cool and breezy night. Since it was late, I said goodnight and took a subway back home.

Wednesday Katie M came over and we had a long talk - so long that we couldn't watch any of the lengthy movies in our queue, so we watched An Education instead. This little film was Oscar nominated for Best Picture in 2010 (losing to The Hurt Locker) and also garnered a Best Actress nomination for Carey Mulligan, one of my favorite actors. It was a charming movie, but I actually thought some of the deleted scenes should have been edited and worked into the final cut.

Last night Jen came over and we finished our game of 10-card Gin we left in progress - she beat me again 352-218. So we started playing her version of 500 Rummy, which is new to me, while watching The Talking Heads concert film, Stop Making Sense. I've only just watched this for the first time this week and I was blown away so I've been listening to a lot of their music in the past few days. And finally tonight Rebecca came over again to join me and Puck in watching her recent favorite film, Crimson Peak, and my movie pick, Glory, which I felt any fan of composer James Horner needed to watch.