The Nines
What I wanted to see this morning was Romance and Cigarettes, the star-studded movie by John Tuturro. But it wasn’t showing at the Film Forum until one o’clock in the afternoon. I can’t wait until one o’clock to go to the movies, especially as I prefer to have lunch afterward. Fierce People was tempting, but not tempting enough to override the siren call of a train ride to the Lower East Side, where The Nines was showing at the Sunshine. Actually, I was up for the thrill of finding out whether Ryan Reynolds, an actor completely unknown to me, could carry a movie that many critics have spoken of as an updated Twilight Zone. (Which it’s not.) He can.
Afterward, I went over to my favorite downtown bistro, where, aside from the manager, everyone was new and confusion seemed to be the order of the day. It wasn’t until my second martini that I thought to ask after the croque monsieur that, ordinarily, would have made its appearance. The waiter, it turned out, hadn’t grasped that part of my order, probably because he was transfixed by the effort to get the martini specifications right. I miss the days when there was only one kind of martini: the kind I like.
On the way home, I drifted dangerously near to McNally Robinson, but I steered clear. No new books today, no sir.
ΒΆ The Nines.