Each night before we fall asleep, Gayle and I look over what tickets or reservations we have for the next day. Then we make plans for how we want to spend the rest of our tomorrow. Last night we were talking about whether we wanted to go to another museum or head to a church to see stained glass when we happened upon the Museum of Sex. Trip Advisor recommends it as one of the top ten things to do while in New York. We thought, "Why not?"
Now to be clear, my sister is literally the only person I know with whom I would go to the Museum of Sex. I definitely would not go there with my children. I would be too embarrassed to go there with my friends. I would not go there in a box. I would not go there with a fox. I would not go there with a goat. I would not go there on a boat. But I would go there with my sister. I remember when Gayle and I found ourselves playing Cards Against Humanity with my adult children. Several times we had to get my sons to explain certain words on the cards we held in our hands. I am safe with my sister.
We took our time getting around this morning. We took a taxi to Ol' Days Farm to Table Restaurant to enjoy a late breakfast. Then we headed to the Dominque Ansel Workshop. Ansel is a James Beard winner for Best Pastry Chef and the inventor of the cronut. We saw that his store sold canele and kouign-amann. We decided to stop back by after our tour through the Museum of Sex.
You purchase your tickets for the Museum of Sex in the lobby, which is really a sex shop with every kind of dildo, whip, bondage doll, etc. They asked if we would like to take the elevator instead of the stairs to which we eagerly said yes. Then we sat among the dildos for 15 minutes while they tried to find someone who would escort us. We finally told them we would hobble up the stairs.
One floor up was the most interesting level. It was the most museum level of this museum. It had this sketch by Picasso. It depicts two lovers having sex while the Pope watches from an armchair. Picasso made this sketch when he was 86 years old.
We saw the African American Barbie doll from 2002 in lingerie.
This is an anti-Onanism (anti-masturbation) device.
The next level was an exhibit of queer films created by Andy Warhol. By then a museum staff person was found to escort us to each level by elevator. I didn't mind leaving that level of the exhibit.
The rest of the museum was several floors of what is called "Super Funland". It begins with a short movie showing the girly shows and sex play that began with the European Carnival. These kinds of "exhibits" continued at World Fairs and into American carnivals. This was completely new information for me. There were games to play on the descending levels. There were claw crane arcade games in which you tried to win a stuffed penis or enter the jump zone where you could bounce around between breasts. Gayle and I didn't participate in those areas.
We skipped entering the last level of "funland". By then Gayle and I were done. We enjoyed the museum part of the museum but weren't really into the "funland" part. We asked our escort to take us to the exit. We didn't buy any sex toys. Instead, we headed over for the pastries we had eyed earlier. (Rating 70)
Back in our hotel room we concentrated on warming up and resting up for the evening festivities. We each had a canele from Dominique Ansel Workshop and declared them excellent. At dinner time we headed across the street from our hotel to an Italian restaurant called Serafina. We shared a caprese salad and lasagna. The lasagna was excellent, the caprese was okay and Gayle's old fashioned cocktail seemed to be missing an ingredient. (Rating 80)
We grabbed a taxi and headed to the Hudson Theater to see "All In." It is written by Simon Rich. He is the youngest writer ever to be hired by SNL. He has also written for Pixar, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, etc., etc. The play/musical was produced by Lorne Michael and has a rotating cast. Our four cast members were Lin-Manuel Miranda, Aidy Bryan, Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells. They sat in four chairs across the front of the stage and read/acted short stories about love. In between each story the Bengsons sang covers from The Magnetic Fields.
This is the priciest show we are seeing. While we ate dinner we read reviews about the show. Some people hated it and said it was stupid to watch actors/performers read from a script. Others thought it was brilliant. We wondered if we had wasted our money. We hadn't. I thought it was so well done....so comedic...so fun...and yet, very touching. How can it be bad with a cast like we saw? I was a bit disappointed when it was over. (Rating 93)
Gayle used her taxi app to aid us in catching a taxi while surrounded by all the other people spilling out of Broadway shows on 44th Street. When you suck at hailing a cab you learn that there is an app for that!
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