Sunday morning...

in the mid Manhattan library---a really great library with terrible bathrooms. Though for some reason, I find the walk from Times Square station to this library, east on 40street, very depressing---maybe just because the streets seem so cold here. Anyway, here I am---Grand Army Plaza library is out of the question because I am seeing The Light Years at Playwrights Horizons, and must be there fairly soon.
Last night, went to Ars Nova for two one act plays by people that I know.
Ben, the author of the first one, is my friend, someone whom I respect a great deal. His play, really his first complete one, called Latter Days, takes place in a subway hatch where a delusional "king" lives in this squalor, his only contact, a lonely young man from a nearby bodega who worships him and does his "bidding" The king is grandiose--we know how isolated he is. This my friend has done well, the problem is this situation is very familiar---by the end of the play something has to happen, and watching the characters move towards this denouement sometimes becomes predictable. A great performance by Tony Torn as the king; I think for my friend, this is kind of a first play, some good things in it, some potency in the language, but hopefully he will expand his vision.
 The second play, a "comedy' for three women was much livelier---tart, sharp dialogue and wonderful performances---it appears to be a comedy about longing, then morphs, a little too quickly into something more brutal. There was an easy sense of the moment that ran though the play, again, could be a stepping stone for the playwright, which I hope it is.
 Lots of people I knew were there---did not have much time to talk to Ben and others who are part of one of my favorite groups, Assembly, because parents and relatives also abounded (this always seems to be the case when I come). Still, a nice time---walked from my apartment to 54th and tenth and back---as usual, when I left, the internal debate of how much money I should spend on food (I was hungry) Pizza for around $4.00 or a seat at a bar and a salad which will come to about $13.00. I was tired, so pizza won, and I later stopped at the yogurt place near me for some desert. Could not raise an interest in taking a chance on a west side bar---that is the way it is.
  Today, as I have mentioned previously, I will see The Light Years, then definitely off to Brooklyn.
Tomorrow I have no plans, should be another Brooklyn day---maybe visit East Flatbush and help hand out flyers for a meeting to deal with gentrification that is happening in a church around there.
 Work on Tuesday; the library will be closed tomorrow---will report soon.