remember?

Last evening I had dinner with Thierry. We met first at Angel's Share, which is a very charming and calm bar upstairs near Saint Mark's Books. To get to Angel's Share you walk through the Japanese restaurant, which is busy and noisy. Once you enter the bar, it is surprisingly quiet, as if, in passing through the door, you enter another world. It was great to sit there, drink scotch, and converse. Thierry is a person who I feel I've for years, even though I haven't known him for long.

After dinner, we went downstairs to have a cigarette (I shouldn't smoke, but I weaken from time to time) then back upstairs to the Japanese restaurant, Yokocho. The food was good, and we continued our bar conversation. Despite having had a few drinks, I did not feel drunk, although when I got on the subway to go home, I realized I had a buzz. Then I realized that it was that same restaurant where Y. and I had dinner with Arto, Diego, Hiroshi and (to my surprise and delight) the amazing Brazilian singer Marisa Monte, very late at night (we were the last people in the restaurant). It was the night that Y. and I had met.

[We had gone to Tonic to hear Arto perform. After the show, Arto said he would be joining us at the restaurant with Marisa. I thought to myself that maybe he meant Marisa Monte, a singer who I loved, because Arto had produced some of her records. Sure enough, a little while later they walked in. I managed to talk to Marisa for at least twenty minutes before I let on how much I totally love her work. She was so cool, so beautiful, and I told her the story of how I went to her concert at the Beacon Theater the previous summer, when I had the flu and a fever. The whole night seemed unreal, and it is one of my best memories. I was so excited the next day to call my brother and Solange and say to them "guess who I had dinner with last night?"]

So thanks, Thierry, for taking me back to a very happy time.