summer, not a bit of....

breeze
Neon signs are shining, from the tired groups...
Those are the first two lines from a song from Golden Boy, the musical, 1964---Sammy Davis Jr. starred in the adaptation of the Odets play, which I love. Those lines seem to be moving through my mind as I sit in the library, at the computer. Maybe because today and tomorrow are kind of open. I am debating whether to see a play at Jack, in Clinton Hill. I don't know much about it---it sounds like one of those surreal takes on life--but it has two actors in it whose work I know---but do I really want to be there/ Not sure---like I said, everything today is open--free form.
  Yesterday, very successful, I would guess--had a very nice session with one of my students, and then off to Park Slope to hang with my friend Ben, an actor and  very sensitive theater observer. We had a great conversation---going through all the plays we had seen---the people we know---Ben is going on a tour of a play called Small Mouth Sounds starting September for about 5 months. It is a regional theater tour---basically a decent pay check, so I am very happy for him. I will try to go up to see it when it plays New Haven, which is the first leg of the tour. Conversation flowed very easily---I really enjoyed our talk.
  Afterwards, it was time for the Yankee-Ray game, one that I really wanted to see. I found a bar on 5th avenue, in the slope---one that I had passed several times before on my journeys, but had never entered. I went in and was cordially greeted by the bartender, and ordered a light beer. The game was on, but no one really there to talk to. I liked the bar, its layout and the niceness of the bartenders, but there were a few very loud male groups, that I found a bit grating. It is on 16th and 5th, one of several bars in the area---at least three on the same block. (How do they do it?) Does one neighborhood really need so many bars and eating places) Two blocks down is the transplanted Freddy's--the bar that sat at the foot of the Atlantic Yards project--and at one point was going to heavily protest their being torn down. It did not happen, the first Freddy's went quietly, and the replacement located on 5th avenue between 17th and 18th. I have been there a few times---it is an pretty laid back place, but it lacks a bit of the survival vision that the first one had. Why am I so entranced with bars? Do they tell the history of a community?  Is watching a baseball game, more valuable then seeing a movie or play? Is that question really relevant?
   Mayor deBlasio was on Brian Lehrer's radio show this morning, answering questions from callers. Two important questions about the Bedford Armory project were brought up. The mayor clings tenaciously to his vision that since Bushwick and Bed Stuy were gentrified without control, inisisting that the builders include some "affordable housing" is the only way the poor can be helped---in other words, get their share. . But in his mind, it must be supported by luxury housing, even in the poorest neighborhoods. He does not realize (or simply will not talk about)  the effect building that way has on the commercial spaces around the development. Also, he uses Bed-Stuy and Bushwick as examples of 'free form" gentrification, but those areas consist mostly of private houses, where as Flatbush, Chinatown and Washington Heights all have many apartment houses---a very different species of neighborhood. So the displacement effect could be much larger, and few affordable apartments in luxury buildings, won't stop it.
   So that is it. Time to move on---yesterday at the Washington Heights library, I saw some books that I liked, but could not take them out, because I was already carrying too many books. That may be my next step today. Will report tomorrow.