Sleep No More

I was big jelly that the time for nerding out on Star Wars at the nearby Empire State Building was so close and yet so far away.

This blog is very much centered on my own experiences and whoever happens to be in my orbit on any given day. I guess partially out of vanity but also because I don't know what other people are doing when I'm not around. Ernie, though, has a magical ability to be present here regardless of where he's at. Quite a feat. I always seem to know what he's up to and have pictures of him regardless of if he's on the other end of a continent or not.

We have a little thermometer pointed at his baby cam so that we can make sure he doesn't get too hot or cold. It was only a matter of time before he noticed he could reach it.

We had lunch at Odo, a two Michelin star Japanese restaurant.

The restaurant specializes in kaiseki which is a traditional multi course Japanese meal. This was a new concept to me. Though I guess it's possible I've eaten one before and just didn't know what the heck was going on. A good portion of my time in Japan was spent not knowing what the heck is going on.

Globe Sculpture at Columbus Circle

We tried to get in to see a taping of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver but it was a bust.

So we had some time to kill and decided to have a couple drinks.

We visited Tiki Chick for some cocktails in whimsical glasses.

I thoughtfully ordered a beverage but the server handed it to me in the wrong glass. When I asked "what the F is this?" they shrugged and said so many people have stolen the glasses that they ran out. The glass is like half the fun so I feel like that should have been disclosed, but whatever I drank it anyway.

So the primary purpose of this trip was to see Sleep No More. I saw some Reddit posts and other drama about the show closing like a day or two before we arrived! Apparently the production company was having some issue with its lease or building license or something.

It reopened just as suddenly as it closed though, so some people did get screwed but I was not one of them.

Next we visited Scarlet Lounge. In addition to being fun and stylish it is owned by Sopranos star Michael Imperioli.

The owner also starred in White Lotus so I was compelled to order the

White Lotus

Clarified Don Q Cristal Rum, Pineapple, Yuzu, Coconut Sugar, Les Glories de Cremant

Ern was back in Washington Erning around.

I was very excited to finally get to see Sleep No More. The Galactic Starcruiser immersive experience that we did actually changed my life I would say, as silly as that sounds. I am now devoted to this immersive format and will go to some lengths to experience the cream of the crop. This show has run in NYC since 2011 has run in London and Massachusetts before that, and so to my knowledge is one of the grandfathers of the genre. Same as with Galactic I came to this show mostly blind on purpose, wanting to preserve the sense of discovery and being "lost". I'd say I very much accomplished my mission on that front, as this was quite a departure from anything I've ever seen before.

Something that added to the excitement while waiting in line outside was eavesdropping a bit on the other guests' conversations. I think one said that this was the seventh time he'd seen the show. That's about the best endorsement you're going to get.

The show was set at the McKittrick Hotel. I didn't know really until we were inside that this was a hotel of imagination only. I really appreciated how seriously they took this show. First of all we were instructed to put all electronics in a little purse that they then locked for the duration of the show. They also gave us each a white mask to wear through out the show and then forbade us from speaking. They also strongly encouraged us to separate ourselves from our companions and experience the adventure on our own.

This show was so cool. It's hard to mention everything that I saw, but there were five stories of rooms that were all themed really cool. For example there would be an office with a desk full of papers and folders and stuff that you could dig through and read. I did a bit of that at first but eventually came to the conclusion that they were just sort of fluff to fill in the world.

There were maybe 30 characters running around and interacting with one another. The fact that there were so many characters moving through such a large space meant that you were always missing something somewhere. That was initially a stressful feeling but I think you get used to it. The characters didn't speak which was interesting, and would often communicate with dance. A moment in the beginning that I recall was wandering around in this warehouse type room with boxes stacked up all over the place. There was a statue here and there as well. As I explored I encountered a figure that startled me a little because he was standing very still and could have been another statue. He had a worried look on his face, and soon after I encountered him he hurried out of the room. Of course this made me want to follow him so I kept on his tail. He led me into a type of a bar that was blaring loud techno music. The room's lights were strobing on and off and so everyone's movements were very disjointed and disorienting. There were a few other characters in the center of the room... at least three women and maybe two men, and a large group of spectators in their white masks surrounding them watching. Soon two of the women and one of the men were completely naked and dancing around. A man with like a goat's head devil thing going on appeared, there was a fake infant that came from somewhere and fake blood was sprayed all over the place. It was pandemonium.

I think that was the most shocking scene in the show but I saw it early so it really set the stage for the sort of environment I now found myself in. At some point I realized I was seeing a scene I'd already witnessed. I had just encountered the show's "loops". This show consisted of three loops where the characters perform their routine more or less the same over and over. This was important to be able to experience different characters' performances in different areas. Just keeping up with a character you'd developed a liking to was sometimes difficult as they ran up and down the stairwells and around to different rooms. Especially important characters might have 30 people following them around, and if they happened to interact with another character with their own retinue, it was easy to get separated from your crew and have no way of knowing where they went.

I carried on like this, exploring and watching whatever caught my fancy. At some point I did bump into Lydia. There was a candy store where you could really eat the candy and of course that's where we'd both be munching.

Towards the end of the show out of both physical fatigue and just seeing the place with more experienced eyes, I stopped chasing the main characters around and just watched a lady who was sewing in her little seamstress shop. It was very peaceful especially after some of the debauchery I'd just witnessed. Well I invested my time wisely because she suddenly looked me in the eye, took my hand, and led me into a bedroom and locked the door behind her. She took off my mask which was a very powerful experience. I'd been hiding behind that while watching now for hours and was very comfortable in my anonymity. She lifted a gold locket on a string up over my head, and then led me into a walk-in dresser thing and started telling me a story. It didn't really strike me as meaning anything, almost like reciting poetry. But as she spoke she slowly closed the door of the big wooden box we were standing in which had the effect of slowly strangling the light between us. Her words weren't especially spooky or sinister but they sure felt that way as she was staring me in the eye as everything grew darker. When she had spoken her last word and we were standing in complete darkness, she pushed me out through a false backing door into another room and I never saw her again. Later I opened the locket and inside it had a small folded up piece of paper with a bible verse written on it. It was a very powerful experience and I started to understand why someone might feel compelled to come see this show multiple times. Many of the characters apparently had "one on one" experiences like this to offer and with no way to guarantee that they picked you one could come see the show 20 times and still not be able to undercover every single bit of dialogue. Quite the replay value!

The locket in question. It was quite a magic trick for them to imbue this little trinket with such a memorable story that I will probably never get rid of it.

At the end of each loop there was a Last Supper type of dinner with many of the main characters seated around a table having dramatic interactions. Well at the end of the entire show the audience was all herded into that room one last time. This time much the same dinner unfolded except for the end: the main character now had a hood placed over his head as well as a noose. Sure enough they pushed him off a chair and he dangled like someone being hanged. The end. This was definitely not Galactic Starcruiser!

It was fun to have Seago and Nora there to debrief on what the hell we'd just witnessed after the show.

We popped over to see the lights at Times Square before heading to bed.