Visiting New York, Part Three

This is the third part in a series of posts about my long-in-development trip to New York with my wife.
Here's Part One.
Here's Part Two.

As mentioned in the previous post, I've Deathly Hallows(ed) my second day in NYC and split it into two posts.

This one begins at about 5:30 PM, with me heading back to the offices of JABberwocky in preparation to head to The Museum of the Moving Image with Joshua and Krystyna. It is oh-so-nice when city natives take the reigns on subway traveling. I just relax and follow the leader, knowing the less I'm involved the less likely I am to get lost.

The museum is in Astoria, a very cool neighborhood. Word is it was not always so, but after spending a day and a half in Manhattan it was nice to see a toned down, quieter version of New York. Joshua showed me Kaufman Studios, right by the museum, where they film Sesame Street. I kept my eyes out for Bob and Gordon, but they were nowhere to be found. Yeah, I'm silly like that.

We saw the opening for WHAT'S UP DOC?. a Chuck Jones exhibit. Taking familiar characters and diving into concept art, storyboards, and scripts is pretty fascinating. It prompted some cool conversations with Krystyna about Calvin and Hobbes and an excellent documentary about voice over work -- this one is different from IN A WORLD. The title escapes me at the moment, but it's going to the top of my to-watch list as soon as I remember the name!

My favorite part of the exhibit? The eight rules for Roadrunner cartoons. Seriously, these are spot on, hilarious, and as far I know, were never broken, not even once. The rules were things like (and I do paraphrase here), "The Roadrunner may only harm the Coyote by saying the words, 'BEEP BEEP'" and "The Coyote could stop any time he liked, if he were not a fanatic."

Joshua asked me at the end what else I would like to do. I had nothing.

"You're the guest of honor!" he said.

"But I'm not used to being important!" I said.

I ended up asking him to take me to a good NY pizza place in Queens. He took me to Sunnyside Pizza, where his personal preference was. It was really good -- it reminded me of Bacci back home, but with a much better sauce. I definitely see the appeal of New York pizza, but I'm still biased towards Chicago's, and I'm talking thin crust as well as deep dish (despite what most people think, Chicagoans  eat way more thin crust than deep dish or stuffed. I know... that's crazy).

After that, I got to learn something interesting about Joshua. He knows every building in the city, including what it was used for twenty years ago. The man is a wealth of information, and can answer most any question you have, and correct any inaccuracy you previously believed. I'm pretty sure he could give me a tour of Chicago. That's how much he knows.

He also showed me an excellent view of Manhattan from the other side of the river, a place where you can look right between the buildings and see all the way to New Jersey, and took me on a "movie theater graveyard tour", where I basically learned where all the old movie theaters used to be.

It was a pretty excellent night. As if I needed more reminders of how lucky I am that Eddie pulled me out of the slush.