woke up this morning....

feeling very restless---lots of thoughts in my mind. Yes, the moments and the planning of your life, cityboy, are very different with the school year over. The world is wise open! Or is it?  A little calmer now, sitting in the lincoln center library, one session this afternoon, then off the see the ERS take on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Abrons Arts. Will stop in at La Flaca, actually I spent most of yesterday night there having some guac and watching most of the Yankee-Mets game. Nice to know it is a place I can come to and feel welcome. Will probably stop by there again, after the play.
  Interesting morning interlude, at the coffee shop in the hotel where I go to get my coffee in the morning a man a little older than myself introduced himself and for about 45 minutes we engaged in a conversation. A very nice guy, here for his 65th reunion from Music and Art (M and A---that is what we called it then) He's retired, lives in the Albany section of NY state, but was raised near the Concourse in the forties and fifties, which of course at that time, was mostly Jewish. We talked about the area---about growing up in it---coincidentally he is also the son of the camp owner whose camp I went to in 58 and 59. Lots of memories there. Anyway we discussed our pasts (basically his) and said our goodbyes. Conversations like these are interesting to me---I seem to find them everywhere--I recommended two books about the Bronx to him, Random Family and South Bronx Rising---I wonder whether he will read them. He is a retired psychologist. Not much more to say. Nice to know that there are people my age and backwards who remember their neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn vividly.
  Today, as I said, the play---saw a workshop of it a year ago, found it a bit pretentious, but I am sure they have worked on it a good deal---a tough assignment, to do a "take" on one of the most important plays of the last century. Still remember sitting in the last row of the Billy Rose theater (now the Nederlander) and watching with awe and awareness the four actors: Uta Hagen, Arthur Hill, George Grizzard and Melinda Dillon go at it with a rawness and passion that was amazing. Will there ever be anything like it? Well, let's see what our buddies at ERS come up with.
  The day continues--I had hoped to see La Terra Trema at the Bunin---a Visconti film I have never seen, being shown as part of his retrospective, but the session with one of my favorite students takes precedence. So it will be up to Washington Heights soon to work with the young woman. Tomorrow at this point, is another "talk" day at Cobra and South fourth. But remember, cityboy, there will be no work possible on Monday, therefore tomorrow evening you are free as a bird.