Fancy Friends

This was the view from the gorgeous Upper West Side penthouse where I whiled away Sunday afternoon with two extremely bright and beautiful artists.

Sondra Lee is now a respected actress, director and teacher but in an earlier life she staked a claim to immortality as Tiger Lily in Jerome Robbins' production of PETER PAN.

She is currently writing a sequel to her memoir I'VE SLEPT WITH EVERYBODY and today we happily talked of life and art and our future plans. Then this gentleman joined the party.

Benn Northover is an actor, artist, poet and filmmaker who divides his time between England and Paris. He recently featured in the movies HOUSE OF BOYS and LOTUS EATERS and is a longtime associate of filmmaker Jonas Mekas who is about to be given a month long retrospective at the Pompidou Centre. Benn was briefly passing through NYC, much as he did last year at the same time when he was captured for this mini-doco.

Benn and Sondra adore each other and it was a joy to see their rapport.
We all headed to 72nd to scoff hot dogs and papaya juice (Benn stylishly bedecked in one of Sondra's Moroccan scarves) then we waved him off to Brooklyn where he is briefly bunking with Mr. Mekas and continued on to the Triad cabaret space where we saw KT Sullivan and Karen Kohler in their splendid German songfest VIENNA TO WEIMAR

With material ranging from "Vilia" and "Adele's Laughing Song" to "Pirate Jenny" and Leonard Cohen this will hopefully enjoy a long life. And thus ended another week in NYC. I continue to count my blessings.