It started out in Brooklyn, where we had brunch at a place called the Mile End. Cute and hipster-y.
In fact, Brooklyn is indeed littered with hipsters. It's hipster heaven! But these hipsters? They're fancy hipsters. I mean, the waitress who served us was sweet and nice and friendly and was also rocking a pair of vintage Coco Chanel glasses. Ummm, did she find those in a bargain basement somewhere, or inherit them from an old relative? Or did she pay the big $$$ to look cool and all hipster-y? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of being a hipster? And living in Brooklyn can cost you up to $3000 a month to rent an apartment! So, yeah, I don't quite get the whole hipster phenom.
Brooklyn was charming, however. We walked about 45 minutes through neighbourhoods and finally ended up at our destination, the Brooklyn Museum, where we were to check out the Keith Haring Exhibit.
I was expecting the Brooklyn Museum to be this dinky little shed with one exhibit in it, but what the hell do I know about Brooklyn? Turns out the Brooklyn Museum is HUGE! It reminded me of The Met! It had so many exhibits going on, and I barely had time to see any of them other than the Keith Haring one, which I absolutely LOVED. I am now officially in love with Keith Haring!!
That one right above is me standing in front of my favourite piece!
I took way too many photos at this exhibit to put up here on the blog. I should put them into my Flickr account... Anyhow, I even bought the catalogue that accompanied the exhibit, which is something I've never done before! That's how much I LOVED this exhibit!!
We ended up having dinner at the Spotted Pig that evening, which is always a fun time.
But then in the later evening, around 11pm, we headed to a show called Sleep No More, which BLEW MY MIND. I can't even BEGIN to tell you what this was like. You HAVE to go see it if you get a chance.
For those that are going and don't want anything spoiled, do NOT read any further. Even though, everyone who goes to this will likely have a one-of-a-kind experience and you may not see what I saw.
So we got to the "hotel" at around 11:30pm that night. It's actually old warehouses put together to form a "hotel" and they check you in and give you a "hotel key" in the form of playing cards. I had a Jack of Diamonds and the Ex had a Ten of Clubs.
We go down this dark hallway to arrive at a cabaret-esque room, smoky, full of little tables and chairs and people laughing and drinking. Red crushed velvet curtains everywhere. In the middle is a little stage, on which the emcee appears and calls out a number. "Tens. Tens. Would all the Tens....follow me....?"
So we are separated from the get-go. We are also provided long white masks to wear and told that we are not allowed to speak. Shoved into an elevator you are dropped off randomly on one of the 5 floors. Not the whole group of you, just some of you. So there's no way I could know where The Ex was. From that point, you are left on your own to wander around this hotel, explore the rooms, poke around in the intricately laid out sets, and possibly come across characters of the show and see what they are up to. The show itself is based on Macbeth, so it's good to be somewhat familiar with it.
I walked into an apartment scene where Lady Macbeth was on top of a book shelf scrubbing away, the infamous Out Damn Spot scene I surmised. Her husband arrives home, takes off his shoes and gets up on the bookshelf with her where they do this amazing modern dance number where he flings her, pregnant and all, from end to end, all over the place.
I leave the room and find myself wandering through a graveyard. I then hurry downstairs and enter a den, where a man is getting his shoes shined. He is getting dressed up for some occasion. As his tux is completely put on, two other men arrive and the three share some drinks before running out the door and shouting, "COME ON!" as the masked group (me included) follow suit. We chase them down the stairs into a basement area only to come across a GIANT ballroom scene, where a party is underway. People are dancing on the dancefloor and masked spectators surround them. I watch as a maid poisons the pregnant Lady Macbeth, two men dance seductively with one another, and the crowd eventually disperses to follow the characters as they all part ways.
I end up finding The Ex upstairs in a room full of blood-filled bathtubs. There is also a sanitorium on this floor, with a torture chamber and a padded room. I motion to him that we need to go downstairs and I quickly whisper about the big party I encountered. We are Shushed immediately by one of the show's workers, who appears from the corners in a black mask.
Downstairs, I take The Ex to the ballroom, only to find that it has DISAPPEARED. In its place? A moving forest of trees instead!! What!? How? When? WHAT!?
Our journey that night takes us into a candy shop, a conservatory, a hotel lobby, and an abandoned woods. There are other rooms as well, but these are the ones that remain in my mind. It was an absolute trip and I wish I could have stayed there all night, but everything ended around 2:30am. Sleep No More is a MUST SEE, if you get a chance.
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