Meryl Streep in Maplewood!

Once I absentmindedly walked up to my usual hot dog cart and ordered my usual Diet Coke, and finally snapped out of it when the guy looked at me helplessly and shrugged. It was a fake hot dog cart on a Law and Order set.

This morning someone knocked on my door and asked for Andre, and mumbled that he had to go to the Special Victims Unit. I huffed that no one by that name lived here and that furthermore, no one here was in trouble with the law.

I related the story to my wife and she reminded me that our neighbor down the way, named Andre, does indeed work on the Special Victim's Unit. d'oh!

plungy said:

One of the strangest days of my life.

My youngest daughter's 14th birthday Oct 23rd 1998. I came home from work and my wife at the time says... "Two things. You need to go to Baskin Robbins in the Village and pick up the cake and also I want a divorce and I want you to move out as soon as possible."

I drove to the village in a daze to find that it had been all decked out like some Halloween fair with rides and movie trucks parked for blocks everywhere.

I had to park all the way up Highland I think and walk down to 31 Flavors.
I paid for the cake and exited the store with it in my arms. There was a ferris wheel right in front of the store.
I looked up and in one of the cars high up sat Meryl Streep with some kind of babushka on her head and another actress, I guess between takes and she was bored or whatever and made direct eye contact with me. We just kind of stared at each other for a few seconds which seemed longer.

I thought, how weird is this. My life has just been pulled out from under me and now Meryl Streep and I are staring at each other.

Of course, as is often the case in situations like this, life had much better things in store for me! (:

Great story, @plungy. I love when I read something on MOL that has substance, and isn't just a 'look at me' comment. ;-) Also LOL'g at @marcsiry and @BaseballMom :-D

Close to 1000 people in total attended the Ideas Festival events.
Meryl Streep was a surprise guest, who came to support her friend Ann Roth.
So sorry if you missed. it. The library works hard to let people know about their programs.

Just to set the record straight, for those who said they never heard a word about the Ideas Festival, it was indeed very widely publicized, including but not limited to:

****MOL calendar and poster on the home page!***
Village Green gave it quite a lot of coverage throughout
A half-page ad in Matters Magazine, which went to every home in M/SO
NJ.com
NewsRecord
Eblasts for each to over 8500 library email subscribers
Daily FB and Twitter posts
Vicinity and Radius magazines and Star Ledger
Surrounding towns' online calendars
Plus direct contact to related groups (AIA for the architects, Midtown Direct for Ann Roth, etc.)
Not to mention posters in the stores in town....
Do check these great local resources so you won't be disappointed next year.

I moved here around the time of the filming and i thought it was just the normal look of the village. I was surprised later when things returned to normal. Thought maybe i'd moved to a fake town.

I saw a decent amount of promotion for the Ideas Festival. Part of the awareness problem is people generally don't refer to it as "the Ideas Festival" the way we might refer to, say, Maplewoodstock. So while people posted here about the architects Meier and Eisenman speaking, it wasn't really obvious that it was part of the festival. Not sure what the answer is.

wendy said:

paulsurovell said:

There were several key scenes in the bar on Boyden across from the Quick Check (in Union), including at lest one outside shot, but instead of the bar taking advantage of its claim to fame, it was sold and renovated garishly beyond recognition.

Irks me every time I drive past.

Boyden? Do you mean Burnett?

You're right. Burnett Ave.