This weekend, I attended The New Yorker Festival in New York City. There were many wonderful events and one could not possibly see them all. Especially since they were all over town at different venues and overlapping times. I can't speak about the authors/artists/musicians that I didn't see, but if they had anywhere near the entertainment value as the ones I did, then I can say with assurance that the Festival was a raging success.

My Events:
Friday night – Stephen King & Michael Chabon
Saturday night – Tracy Chapman
Sunday afternoon – Wallace & Gromit – The Curse of the Were Rabbit

As stated on The New Yorker Festival's Web site, the sixth annual festival planned to be "a celebratory weekend of public discourse on arts and ideas." How exciting! I really don't get enough culture in life. And this was the perfect example of one of those things that I should be doing more of. I've been excited for it ever since mid-August when a co-worker first presented it to me.

Friday night, my friend and I fought the horrible rush hour traffic to rush into Manhattan. In retrospect, we probably should have taken a train but hindsight (as they say) is 20/20. We arrived at the Directors Guild of America Theater about 15 minutes before the show. Now that it was finally here, I was beside myself with jubilance.

Me - Hey, how's it goin'?
Jubilance - Holy cow, man! I mean Wow! Check it out! Look where you are! Yah! Yah! Yah!
Me - Settle down, dude. Keep cool. Act professional.
Jubilance - Oh, you're no fun. I'm going to run around in circles for a little bit.
Me - Um, I'll see you in there.
Jubilance - Ohhhh yeahhhh dude! ... I'm dizzy.

Friday night was the pinnacle of the weekend. It was a little strange being that it was the first event--pinnacles usually come later in the story--but it worked out well. It was what it was. It was Stephen King and Michael Chabon.