Then to the World Science Festival, where Chad's book signing went well and where the street fair was really impressively extensive and energetic. In a few years SteelyKid will love it.
Then after a few hard-earned lessons on my part [*], we made to it New York Classical Theater's production of Richard III in Central Park. This is the free & roving Shakespeare I've mentioned before, and as always it was a lot of fun. I'd never read Richard III or seen it performed, but I was familiar with it from The Daughter of Time and The Dragon Waiting.
It really is quite a piece of propaganda—most blatant, I think, in the Duchess of York's laughably over-the-top dialogue—yet survives as art because it manages some plausibility all the same. When it sounds almost not ridiculous that Anne should kinda-sorta-half consent to marry Richard (the murderer of her husband), or that Queen Elizabeth should agree to try and convince her daughter to (later) marry Richard (the murderer of her brothers [**]), or that we should feel a bit of sympathy for Richard when it all comes unraveling, well, that's good writing.
[*] (1) When getting subway directions via Google Maps, be sure to put in the proper date, as some trains do not run on weekends. (2) Check ancient hazy memories about restaurant density against reality ahead of time. (3) Do not buy an unsalted pretzel from a vendor who is packing up for the night. Also, later: (4) Pretzels from street vendors aren't as good as you remembered even when they actually have salt and a consistency softer than rock.
[**] This production omitted young Richard for the sake of time, rather to my confusion.
Then we had better street cart food and overpriced Times Square diner food and went to bed.
Today I went to the Bronx Zoo, where it is baby season. Two words: lion cubs. There will be pictures, oh yes.
The weather was perfect, the many school groups (I wonder if there were more because it was a Monday and therefore other museums weren't an option?) mostly avoidable, and I had a lovely time meandering around and backtracking and imagining SteelyKid's reaction in a few years ("Oh! Kitty!") and playing Where's Waldo to my heart's content.
Then dinner with
oyceter at the Shake Shack, where the food was perfectly fine but nothing to inspire cult-like devotion in me, and now some more writing or maybe cross-stitching or reading. Because hey, vacation!