Celluloid heroes

Entertaining evening with L., who I do not see often enough, watching Nobuhiko Obayashi's wonderfully demented film House. The girls are enchanting and it is genuinely haunting despite the kitsch. Then we wandered fruitlessly around the neighborhood looking for a place to eat, but it was grotesquely crowded. Found a high-top table finally at Smith & Wollensky, where we lifted a glass in my father's memory. (We shared a shrimp cocktail to start and sides of sauteed spinach and mashed potatoes; L. had the sirloin, I had branzino.)