So I got a quick trip to New York in this weekend, travelling with my man while he worked. Got to sit in first class for the first time at 31 years old. How deprived can you get?

We took in a show on Sunday (Mason's first Broadway show [or off-Broadway, as the case may be], oddly enough) -- Kate Mulgrew's one-woman show, Tea At Five, about Katherine Hepburn. It was very well written, designed, directed, etc., but special props go to Kate, who really had the whole Katherine Hepburn persona down, through, no doubt, some extensive research. She displayed that she's much more than a former-soap-star-turned-starship-captain. We were quite impressed.

Some brief but wonderful excursions shopping for music netted some wonderful finds ...

• Culture Club Don't Mind if I Do ... Finally!
  
• Vincent Clarke and Martyn Ware Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle 3D-audio relaxation music from two electronic pop music mavens -- Clarke from Erasure et al. and Ware from Heaven 17 and, long ago, Human League. Most unexpected!
  
• Fischerspooner #1 Holy f*#ck! Where have these guys been all my life. Straddling some ground somewhere in the vicinity of Wire (their second single was even a cover of a Wire song, "The 15th"), Soft Cell, Human League and Hedwig, their music is artsy, electronic and challenging and their image, videos and performances are ironic, over-the-top and just the slightest bit fabulous. And on the value-for-money front, the package comes with a bonus full-length DVD with several music videos, a documentary, about a dozen remixes and the entire contents of the album, functionally rendering the CD in the same case kinda moot.
  

No new Russian rock. I was too pleased with my other finds and was on a very, very tight budget. I even had to put back that Cabaret Voltaire CD I was coveting. Sad, very sad.