Saturday as the evening approaches....

not terribly active. So the week is over. A positive ct scan, no mri, some good vibes from my oncologist-doctor and his nurse practitioner I see the radiologist oncologist Monday morning (I hope--it is supposed to be snowing at that time--no one knows what kind of storm it might be) and hope to go on to the next step. Physically, I am feeling very good.

This afternoon, listened to Faust, the opera by Gounod on the Met broadcast---it was from 2011, a time when people really came to performances at the Met, Will it re-open in September of this year, as is planned? Hopefully, there is some good stuff that first week: Boris Gudonov and a rarely heard Gluck opera, as well as the new work that will open the season.  But will it really happen...?

In September of 65, I bought a standing room ticket for the Met's then new production of Faust. I was feeling kind of lost and sad that day; this was before my "passion" for opera began---that would be about three months later--for that evening, I just needed something to see. This was the second prerformance of a new production- one of only two new productions at the Met that year-it was directed by Jean Louis Barrault, the famous French actor. In spite of the fact that it had a dream cast for the time---Nicolai Gedda, Cesare Siepi and Gabriella Tucci,  I absorbed very little of it; remember that it all took place on a kind of disk;  I thought it might represent a religious space where the Faust legend could be acted out.The reason why I was so outside of things: well, of course it had to do with a woman, who at that time was a was a Junior  at Goucher college. I remember having this fantasy, all during the opera, the fantasy was this: she had come to New York at my request, transferred to a college in the city, and we were living together. So instead of returning to my empty room at the residence hotel I was living at---it wasn't even an apartment, just a small room with a bathroom in the hall---I would be returning to her waiting for me. All during the opera, I could not get that fantasy out of my mind. And when the opera was over---well, of course, I returned to my small room.

My opera conversion happened about three months later---actually on Christmas day night at a performance of Il Trovatore. By that time the young woman and I had settled---I began to accept that she was out of my life---and I was ready to become immersed in the opera world. From that time on--until the end of the Met's season, I averaged two performances a week. This was the last year at the old Met on 39nth street and the standing room line formed usually a few hours before each performance. It was a good way of meeting people and chatting  --- I had many interesting conversations with my fellow standees and absorbed much information about many operas, and casts at the Met---former and present, as I tried to catch up with the whole scene. I was going to the theater also, but at that time, found myself very bored with the plays that I was seeing. So I did not feel I was missing much. The next season at the New Met, the standing room line was a very different animal--mostly the same people week after week, and definitely not as much fun.

Time to return to the present---some basketball games I have small bets on are starting soon, plus some interesting stuff on the radio. That is how one passes the time while one waits---for the next doctor's appointment, for the pandemic to finish, for......

Sunday morning...already very active....

 Tomorrow afternoon is my MRI and ct scan at Lenox Hill. Woke up this morning feeling anxious, but any anxiety that I felt was put on the back burner when my faithful space heater, which complements the radiator in my apartment, pulled a short. Faithful it was--it was given to me by Ron, a friend from All State Cafe, the bar-restaurant where I was a regular in the nineties. Ron was a nice guy, a brought me to his apartment to pick up the heater. When was that...? New Year's Day, 97, I think---the heater had an incredibly long run. But it shorted, and it was over. What was I to do? It was around 8 in the morning, andd the stores in the neighborhood where I could get a new one did not open until 10. A rough time---could I find one---how would I sleep tonight---the night before such important procedures---if I did not have one? The boiler in this apartment house works, but my one window in my apartment is enormous, so sometimes the cold poors in. Finally 10 o'clock  arrived, and I took off for the nearest hardware store, two blocks away. Luckily they had one, a small one, which was what I wanted and surprisingly inexspensive as well. I brought it home and it worked! Probem solved---emotionally exhausted. But it took my mind completely off tomorrow's procedure. Now I just want to relax, let my mind rest, until the football games this afternoon. Some classical music might be good--really anything.

Although it was really cold outside, after making sure the new heater worked, I actually left the building again---why..? I wanted a capucino and the coffee shop of a nearby hotel makes the best  Did I think it was stupid to go out again in this cold? Sure, did I fight with my self and ask myself did I HAVE to do it? Yes, but ultimately I went---I think I wanted a reward for solving my heater problem so easily; now that I am back in the apartment I think it was definitely worth it---the capucino was delicious. 

That's all for now---memories---sometimes so potent---are definitely on the back burner. Will report soon.

On reading The Sound Inside,

the play by Adam Rapp, that was performed in New York last fall and winter. I did not get to see it then, but early in the summer, I bought a copy of the play (something I very rarely do) at Barnes and Noble and read it then---for some reason I felt a need to re read it this weekend. The story of a relationship between a 50 something professor of Creative Writing at Yale, and one of her students, on the second reading I found it to be a work of incredible control. Every word out of Bella, the professor's mouth seems real and focused. How was he able to create such a character? Adam and I were friends in the early nineties, and I read a lot of his early work---much of it seemed unfocused and out of control, but once he got that work out of his system, he found a world of language and ideas that is often amazing. I have so many books around my bed that I bought but havn't read; why did I choose to go back to this play? Lots of references to Crime and Punishment, which I have never read, but it did not matter. The sense of isolation that Bella feels, of being a person not in a relationship and experiencing things from that point of view---I guess I could really identify with that. For me, this was a weekend of isolation, but partially from my own choice; there were people I know whom I chose not to call. The play takes place in a quiet, almost dull like reflective world---I could see it being performed on stage with no scenery at all; Rapp gives no indication at the beginning of the play that there should be any scenery---just a place for Bella and the young man to exist.

For some reason I am glad that I never saw the play---maybe because I found it so readable--maybe so I create the look, sound patterns and feelings of the two characters in my own mind. My choice of it over this weekend---this long weekend---was very instinctive--somehow I knew this was the work of literature that I wanted to read. Where will Adam go from here---what outside of the world experience will he  invent next time?  This play shows that he has so much strength as a playwright. Will one of the major not for profits, after the pandemic is over, choose another play of his? No telling, but we shall see?

The long weekend ends soon--then a week until my ct scan and MRI. Again, more waiting. Have been following the NBA and certain teams a lot this weekend, now that football playoffs have been narrowed itself down to four teams. Also, listened to a complete Traviata on the Met Broadcast yesterday, from a live performance about a year ago. Have never focused on the opera so thoroughly; it too is an amazing work--Verdi's genius gets him so close to Violetta and her feelings. Beautifully sung and conducted---sometimes listening to an opera at home lets me focus on smaller but really interesting things in the music and text. Next week's broadcast is a Trovatore from 1962 with Price and Corelli, right after they made their Met debuts--should be meaningful, will report soon.

How does one write about monotony,,,,,

At this very moment I wish I was sitting in the Fiction Center---pre pandemic, ofcourse, reading whatever I wanted and taking the whole scene in. A flash image; I am happy and stimulated. But of course, this is not the case. I am home, beginning a long holiday weekend, kind of bummed out. Nothing happening medically until Monday the 25th, so it is all a waiting game. Just tried to look at a documentary about the life of August Wilson, on the film at Lincoln Center web site, but there is a block on the screen where it should come out. That happened with an attempt at seeing an earlier film, Martin Eden, as well. Lost my $12.00 fee which was returned to me, but any other film that I try to screen on that web site should be blocked as well.. A shame, as they have the Jewish Film festival on their site--some really interesting films there that I wanted to check out,  as well as a documentary about Sammy Davis Junior called I've Got to Be Me. That is the one I really wanted to see,

I saw Davis on stage, sevearal times in 1964-65 when he starred in the musical adaptation of Golden Boy, a play by Clifford Odets. The original play was about an Italien young man with the potential to be a great violinist but who chooses instead to become a boxing champion. It takes place during the depresssion and is one of my favorite plays---the musical updated the story to Harlem in the sixties--but the plot really remained  the same. The climax of the musical was a staged boxing match between Davis' character and "The Chocolate Drop" a spanish boxer danced beautifully by Jaime Rogers. Enraged because the woman he loves has chosen another man, Davis' character lets go on his adversary and kills him with his fists. I remember that, and all of it---a few times I "second acted" the musical, and at least saw it twice all the way through. After the curtain calls, Davis would say a few words---I was in the audience the night he announced that there would be no performance the next day, because he, and other Broadway stars would be joining with Dr. King as part of an event: Broadway Answers Selma. Other stars from the shows that were on Broadway at the time would be joining Dr. King in protest.  That was in March of 65,

The run of the play spanned two years of my life--my one year at Yale School of Drama---a total disaster--and the next year, my first as an "adult"---on my own, working at the City Department of Welfare and trying to figure out how to channel and justify my artistic energy, so blocked and beaten down at the Drama School.  It was the first year of my life that I was not a student. After Yale I had stayed  in my family's apartment  in the Bronx for a while, but the family atmosphere could not contain my restlessness;-I left and found a small room in a "single room occupancy" hotel on 94th street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.  An ended relationship with a woman whom I was close to at Goucher College two years earlier, did not help. A sense of despair permeated my existence. I remember an afternoon when the radio played Yesterday, by the Beatles, endlessly. I took an acting course, but could not get into it much. I was pretty much adrift.

At some point things worked themselves out. A trip to Baltimore for a final encounter with the young woman, at least gave me some closure for the relationship. I began to do more in the acting class, my teacher, Milton Katselas was encouraging, I started going to the opera a lot, and actually had a nice romance with a scene partner---which, of coure, ended once we had performed the scene--- but nevertheless, made me feel alive and valuable with a woman. 

And that is it--time to return to the present long weekend. The Met is streaming an opera by Strauss called Capriccio---might check it out---some basketball or football bets? Maybe. will report soon.

Sheridan Avenue, Sheridan Avenue....

 Just strolling on google maps. Found myself on Sheridan Avenue; it is an avenue that runs from about 161 street to 173rd in the Bronx, a block or two east of the Grand Concourse. Of course, when I was growing up it was a mostly Jewish area---looked at the apartment houses, then my mind went back to David Arnauer. Who was he? My best friend in camp in 1954--we bonded together at the end of the summer. David lived on Sheridan near where I googled, I remember him telling me about the firsr time he and his friend were allowed by his parents to cross the Concourse so that they could walk to Yankee Stadium. It made sense---the concourse had alot of traffic and many lanes---I could see how the parents of a 9 or 10 year old might not allow a young child to cross that street by him or herself. We promised to continue our friendship during the winter---my Bronx neighborhood was about a half hour north of his, but really accessible.But we did not see each other until April--when he visited me at my home.. Things went all right---not great---and I returned the visit to his apartment on Sheridan in May. Most of these visits were made on the weekend, but for some reason this was an afternoon into evening visit. I must have eaten supper at his house, but in the next hour we went over to the school yard across the street from where he lived, and played stickball. Funny, I don't remember much of our conversation that day, but I remember hanging in the school yard in the early evening--the picture of it in the early darkness stays in my mind. Around nine o'clock it was time to go home.

My trip home was the way I usually came home from a friend who did not live nearby. My father, who was very good about this, picked me up. It must have been around nine o'clock. I was feeling contented, I had had a nice time; I don't remember David's parents, but I assume they were warm and friendly. On the trip home, my father gave me the news: Herb Score--a young pitcher of tremendous promise who played for the Cleveland Indians had been hit in the eye by a scorching liner off the bat of Yankee Gil MacDougald. I remember my father telling me that MacDougald said that if Score lost the eye, he would quit baseball. I loved the game of baseball---followed it closely---accidents that destroyed or stopped careers of great players happened very rarely. Yet it had happened that night. Score recovered, pitched one or two seasons more, with some success, but never reached the heights that seemed possible for him before the accident. Later, I believe he became an Indians broadcaster. But something about a lost career, stopped in one moment, mades me incredibly sad. 

David and I returned to Camp Merrimont the next summer, but somehow our bonding never returned. We never saw each other after that, and of course, I have no idea where he is now. Sheridan avenue where he lived is an all black and hispanic neighborhood now--the school across the street from him serves a very different community then when he attended and I visited. Yet when I look at those street pictures on google, my mind goes back to that time---the neighborhood, for a moment becomes all Jewish again, and I-----well, here I am. Not much more to be said.

Just returned from googling the Score-MacDougald incident. I found out that it took place in May of 1957, two years after from my afternoon-evening to David. Yet in my mind it is clear that the two took place on the same night? I know my father gave me the news, and I remember it being in our car. Strange how memory works--I can't unhinge and separate the two incidents---they MUST have happened on the same night. Oh well, in my mind, they always will---in the car with my father on the way back to our apartment--memory never ends.

the human ping-pong ball....

 yes, that is I. I ping pong between the office where I will get my chemo, and the medicare coverage program that is supposed to pay a lot of it.  In the past, I have never had to deal with switches in medicare coverage this early in the year---or at all. But the change in coverage ( I believe I covered that in the last post) has created all sorts of crazy differences--both the office and my medicare provider give me separate answers, that in the end, I have to sort out, and come back to each one. Finally, earlier this morning I received a voice mail that states that my coverage for my Monday chemo is in place. Is it? Don't bet on it;  now I have to bring it back to the office---who knows how they will interpret it, or what they will decide to do. My nurse practioner told me that, in light of my progress, putting off the chemo for a day or two would not matter---yet, I am anxious to complete this process on Monday---if I have to pay some more---so be it, 

Determination, determination! Somehow the idea of waiting a day or two really turns me off.The permission to wait, even if it comes with good news, does not seem to work for me. Want to get it done---that's all. 

I have to escape all this. Three wild card games are on tap this afternoon and evening, and I already have bets (small ones) on two of them. The first begins in about an hour and a half, but I really need to clear my head. Maybe some reading will relax me, if I can concentrate. Two books of short stories, one by lewis Auchincloss, a writer whose work I like very much, and the other by Jean Rhys, a novelist whose work I have never read, but who has written a lot of popular novels. A trip into her world might be interesting. I found this book on the steps of my apartment house---maybe someone on the street left it there---it seemed worth checking out. If only one could just read and forget everything. 

So, off we go---maybe one more bet to keep the interest up before starting to read.  Will report soon.

thursday afternoon ( a lazy one)

 Just read a beautiful tribute by actor D.B. on the death of his wife, and their relationsherip. His wife had AlS and his description of what she had to go through is terrifying. I had to stop everything that I was doing as I took it all in. Very deeply felt. 

Lots of errands today---laundry, library, moved around quite a bit. Feeling kind of strong at this point. Two new books in my life. I just bought As I Lay Dying, by Faulkner, from the neighborhood second hand bookstore. Read the first chapter, really an introduction---very intense, had to really focus---the novel should be good for me to read--will compel me to really focus and lose myself. Second book is about a very different world then the one that Faulkner has created. Its BuzzSaw, an account of the Washginton Nationals' 2019 season, a season in which they overcame some serious problems early on to win the world series. It's a day by day, month by month story--that can be interesting or, even if one enjoys baseball and reading about it, monotonous. The last book I started, about the Yankees of 2018, turned out that way.

Not much else to say---yesterday, had to change my Medicare coverage, because a doctor that I am working with was not in the network of my new plan. So I returned to the old group, but this took some doing, long phone calls, long waits--more complications to be worked out that I did not want to work on today. When I found out I needed to change plans, it came as a shock to me---luckily I figured out what to do, but I still am not clear if everyting worked. Its pragmatic, just approach it one phone call at a time. Nothing else to do .

Rest of the day, some phone calls to friends,  will try to listen to the Nets-76 ers game this evening; I have a small bet on the Nets, wish me luck!

Bronx Musings....

 For the pasts quarter of an hour or so, I have been using the google map site to look at different streets in different neighborhoods in the Bronx. I was born and raised in the,  Bronx, though I did not google my street (a three block street called Thwaites Place in the Pelham Parkway area) I checked out streets in three different areas: near Yankee Stadium; eastern Bronx, a little south of the Bronx Zoo, and the southern side of Pelham Parkway, not far from where I was raised, but not that relative to my life, either. When I look at those pictures I feel an incredible wave of....what? Passion, nostalgia, longing---what do I want to know?  These areas were all white when I was growing up---they changed, at different times, to mostly black and hispanic neighborhoods. In the spring of 1967, I read about an elderly white Jewish man who was killed when he was mugged, near his apartment,  which was very close to the stadium. I remember being shocked! I could not believe that someone living in that neighborhood---a neighborhood that when I was growing up was totally safe---and 95 percent white and Jewish---could be assaulted and lose his life. I was 24  at that time, and like many of my generation, had moved from my parents' apartment to Manhattan, two years earlier.

All of us--baby boomers or close to that had left those Bronx neighborhoods, the neighborhoods where we were raised,  never to return, leaving the inexpensive apartments to the elderly who had lived their all there life, and now had no means to move away. By the early seventies even they were mostly gone---and those who stayed turned their apartment houses into fortresses against intruders.  Those that could move were able to find apartments in the third neighborhod that i mentioned above---the one just south of Pelham Parkway--north of the Bronx Zoo which had remained stable as the other two neighborhoods changed. In the late nineties, early 00's, I had several students whom I tutored in that area---on the commercial streets there were still about three or four inexpensive restaurants with the counter in front and the tables behind--sometimes after a lesson I would have coffee or a tuna sandwich in these places before taking the subway back to the upper west side. By that time the neighborhood had become mostly middle class black and hispanic--the only white people I observed were elderly---but there were many of them. I would see them, sometimes alone or sometimes in groups,  sitting at the tables in these coffee shops; they seemed like visitors from another world---people left behind while the life moved forward. How long ago had they moved to this neighborhood---thirty, forty years before, when the children like myself were growing up? Were they teahers, social workers, secrataries--who could say? I never spoke to them, but wondered about their stories--to me they seemed like the last survivors of a very different era.

Time moves so quickly, it is probably ten or eleven years since I visited any part of the Bronx--what must that Pelham Parkway neighborhood be like now?  Before the pandemic and the illness, I prided myself on being a city traveler---in my leisure time I would leave the upper west side as much as I could, but almost all my trips were to Brooklyn, or the lower east side--where the theater community---a community where I was accepted and liked--lived and worked. A few trips to the Bronx on some abortive attempts to see a Yankee game at the Stadium were the only time I remember going to that area, once I wandered around the 138th street south Bronx neighborhood and stopped into one of the bars there, but that was it. When this is over, will I be able to make a trip back to the Bronx and look at what is going on there in the different neighborhoods. Who knows?

Meanwhile I google the different streets and try to put together what my feelings about these areas.  So much else is happening in the world that is important--why get involved with this nostalgia? But these neighborhoods represent my past, my generation's past, and my memories from my childhood are so strong, Where do we go from here...what is my next move...?

quietest New Year's Eve....

in many years. At home, because this is the year of the pandemic. Listened to Beethoven's 9th, while I read some essays about segragation in the NYC school system. Worked---really mellow---I can't remember an Eve where I was more relaxed. Of course in the past, I HAD to go out! Can't stay home on New Year's Eve if the world is out partying. "Cool guys" never stay home. So for the last fourteen years, I would either be at South Fourth Bar or La Flaca---the restaurant--bar---hangout that my friend Bob owns.

Good times---bad times---a bit of both. Sometimes I would just sit at the bar by myself, watching the clock, hungry for the countdown, which meant that the whole "procedure" would be over. Other times there were some interesting conversations or interactions. Still, I resented the day---the only evening where the are no other options but to "hang out" (if you are single) and stare at the tv as the year winds down.  Last night I felt relaxed just staying home.

And today, 1/1/21. I woke up feeling lethargic, but soon after the building manager called me: the boiler needed adjustment and the man to fix it  was coming in soon---could he ring my bell so that I would let him in? My bell is defective so I spent the next 15 minutes running back and forth between the apartment in the small lobby we have, to make sure he arrived. How many times did I clim the one flight stairs to my apartment? Probably six or seven---so much for my lethargy. As for the rest of the day--well, I would love to travel to another borough but will probably end up sitting at home and reading a lot. Closes to finishing The Wars of the Roses; glad I read it---the reality of that era is very different from what Shakespare has given us in the Henry VI trilogy and its final play, Richard III, The real story is much bloodier. As for what else is in store...? Well, we will see....