The last of the "airless" days....

 is coming on strong. Unbelievable! Never in my adult life, have I experienced heat so "airless"---it seems to sap the energy out of you the moment you leave the apartment house. Well, one more day of that---and as the weather becomes more "liveable" (I hope) the doctor's appointments commence. One tomorrow morning and one on Friday. Have they determined the results of my biopsoy yet? They should have by now and yet no word. What does that mean...? No news is good news, or do they want to "break it to me gently"? I am not in any hurry; I simply want to live through this day. Feeling quite good and solid though, so we will see how that plays into the larger  .

Going for my morning bagel, I passed a large group of west side parents and children standing on a nearby corner. It occured to me that they were waiting for a bus, that would take their children to camp---probably day camp---it did not seem like the goodbyes were very heavy. It made me think of my years in camp--all sleep away-- many summers in my childhood---but were they summers that I really wanted to spend in that way?

My camp history...I must have heard about sleep away camp some time during first grade, because I told my parents that I wanted to go. My parents were okay with it---don't remember that much of that summer---I was basically happy for the eight weeks--parents came to visit twice---the son of the girls head counselor, who must have been five, bopped me over the head with a toy gun during a pageant on parents day---but i think that I made up my mind that I did not want to go ever again. So, ofcourse, for the next six years, I found myself in sleep away camps for the whole summer. Why? My parents---who were so comfortable with me being away for eight weeks, decided that they themselves wanted to work as counselors at camps during the summer. So there it was. My father was the camp dramatic counselor, and my mother, who taught science, during the year, was the nature counselor. Two camps in five years---and then another sleep away without them for me, until the streak was broken. Was that what I wanted? I dreamed of being allowed to stay in the Bronx all summer, each day looking at the television, watching either the Yankee or Giant games being broadcast.  No structure, no tasks. But  it never happened. My parents---who really gave me so much as a child---took me to plays and movies all the time to build up my imagination---insisted that we go. But was it really for them? What part of them could not spend the summer in the city..? "We think it is best for you (and my brother)".  that was the mantra each year, as I would make a brief protest before we left. And  to a certain extent it was---organized sports, lots of swimming---some good friendships, but what was in it for them...? I wonder.

So the basic conflict between my parents and myself was basically set up by their committment. My imagination could rome free with their approval---until it couldn't. Once they made up their mind, the line was crossed---and whatever I felt---whatever I dreamed about or envisioned---meant nothing. The break--the cut---call it what you like---but once they made up their mind, my autonomy was ended. And yet (as I will end this post) I had a "happy" childhood.

Monday, a day later....

an intensely hot, airless afternoon. Finishing up A Diving Rock on the Hudson, Roth's autobiographical novel. But is that all? My enery is very high---but at this point I am unable to move into a more interesting zone. By that I mean, take in a movie at the Lincoln Center theaters, go up to the Bronx and see what is happening around the stadium (maybe someone will offer you a cheap ticket) head out to Brooklyn---just to the Atrium opposite the Harvey. My mind bursts with fantasies of places that I use to go, while I remain here on 76th street. What stops you? Is it the bag? You know you can get it under control; it worked for you at the marvelous Friends graduation---still can't get over that day---it will behave if you want it to---but what? Fantasies of far away places too strong? Not clear---my body asks me to move, my mind wants to play it safe, at least for today. So here I sit, writing this.

No "adventure" tonight, cityboy?  So what does the evening hold for you. First, checking out the beginning of the the Yankee-Angel game---should start soon, then maybe, in the hope that the atmosphere is a little more bearable, a walk, probably north on Amsterdam. The street restaurants are always filled, even on a day like this, there should be many people out. Why not go the other way, south to Lincoln Center? Maybe. Somehow, walking on Amsterdam seems to work for me better. At odds---will have to see what happens---stay tuned.

New York reawakins, and we are ....

 caught on the upprer west side? Possible. Strange day---five days after biopsy,  (no results in yet) some pain in my unrinary tract---seems to be receeding now, but earlier---intense. What does that mean for me today? Probably a lot of reading in the close environs of my apartment house. No trip to Brooklyn just yet. Ah, remember a time when Sunday morning meant getting on the subway---the 1 to the A to the M at 4th street---the ride over the Williamsburg Bridge----South fourth, Lorimer, the beginning of Bed Stuy from a distance, from the window,  Bed Stuy on one side and Bushwick on the other. Finally getting off at Knickerbocker, walking from there to Wycoff and Jefferson and finally Cobra Club with your bartender friend Olivia getting you coffee and putting on the baseball game for you. Some aquaintances dropping by---feeeling good, then off, down the Bushwick grid, past Starr Street and the Bushwick Starr--possibly stopping by Molasses, the bookstore you like---chatting with Matt, who owns the place and his nice wife Maggie---the continuing out of Bushwick, to Broadway, then walking a bit away from Myrtle Avenue and chopsing a street---Bainbridge, Decatur,  maybe Patchen, to walk down, into Bed Stuy, brownstone city, calm, relaxed, wondering if this is the same neighborhood I was taught as a white person to fear for most of my adult life, Finally, a bus ride back to Flatbush and the BAM neighborhood, checking out the books at the Fiction Center, having some coffee there, reading what ever looked interesting, and also checking out the Atrium, opposite the BAM Harvey, plenty of TV' to watch baseball or football. Those days are long gone. I wonder if the Atrium and its restaurants have re opened. Always found good convesation there---could that happen now?  

Can't say---still dreaming of many trips, but today my companion will be Henry Roth as I try to come close the finishing his autobiographical novel, A Diving Rock on the Hudson---His writing is revelatory--much of the time, but some of it is plodding. What is he to me...? I read his story, almost recorded day by day, as if it were my own. But it isn't. Could I write about my life at Science or at Hopkins, It is hot today--I can feel the Baltimore heat---even more intense then we have here--just thinking about some moments that I spent there. But what would be the point,,,? More things going on now. Now I simply fantasize another book after Roth, but quite different in content I would hope.

Played out. Not much more to say. Want to move on. Will report soon.

so here we are again....

 Saturday morning, around 12---have already sat in Riverside park, reading and remembering. Reading: Henry Roth's autobiographical novel called A Diving Rock Off the Hudson. Young jewish youth around 1920---lives with impovershed parents on 114th street and Madison---then a Jewish and Irish slum. He gets a job selling sodas at the Polo Grounds--remembers being cursed at by John McGraw. The writing is sharp and detailed---the author now writing this is approaching eighty. Roth drills into his past. Nothing seems wasted. Second time reading this---bbvetter then ever. 

Memories---sitting in the park, recalling the first time I watched a pro basketball game that used the 24 second clock. November of 54 ---I am in sixth grade---the Fort Wayne pistons are playing anther team. Bald George Yardley and his two handed set shot. Don't remember who they played but they won going away. Before the clock: New York Knicks ahead with three minutes to go. Freezing the ball. It goes to center Sweetwater Clifton---a former Harlem Globetrotter. Opposing players swarm him---he simply makes tools of them by palming the ball from hand to hand. Knicks were good in those days. 

Other memories: the first Quentin-Maggie scene from Arthur Miller's After the Fall. Always moved by that---very innocent. Directed it at Yale, in my one (horrible) year at the Drama School. Fantasized directing it again with High School students. What would they think of it?

Almost time for second Yankee-Oakland game. I want to follow it closely. At one point yesterday, fantasize about going to the Stadium, trying to get a last minute inexpensive ticket---just to stay for a  few minutes, just to get the feel of things, the images. But not able to--will have to settle for the radio play by play---maybe stop by a few bar windows to watch a little bit of it there. Even though the bars have reopened, I have not been in---too expensive at this point. Energy level mixed---will see what happens tomorrow.

Amsterdam Avenue, 2:45 P,M

 Walked in the heat north to 96 street to pay my Spectrum bill. Passed the apartment house that I think Don McKay lived in. Felt regret. Who was Don McKay. He played Tony in the London company of West Side Story---this company was sent over in fall of 58, with an all American cast, and took London by storm. Four actors from the original cast---Chita Rivera, Ken LeRoy, Eddie Roll and Tony Mordente recreated their roles in this production. A few weeks before rehearsals began McKay replaced Larry Kert for a week in the Broadway production. I saw him that Saturday matinee and Maria was played that afternoon by Marlys Waters, who would be his co star in London. I remember that performance so well---I had seen Larry twice, and was not sure if McKay could be as good. He was stockier then Larry---I wondered whether he would collapse the fire escape when he climbed up to meet Maria. Or whether he could scale the fence at the end of act I. He was okay, but there was something tentative about his performance Then came the final scene in the play when Tony lies dying in Maria's arms. Something happened between the two of them---a "frightening chemistry" that was so intense and real. I was sitting in the front orchestra and could almost feel the heat and passion  they shared. Had they reached a new level? During the curtain calls, the conductor, Max Goberman, seemed to have tears in his eyes. He blew them kisses at the bow. Had something happened on stage to them that had never happened before? The intensity of McKay and Waters has stayed with me--I can feel it now.I

Mckay died about two years ago---several obituaries mentioned that he lived in a building around Amersterdam and 90th street, and that sometimes he sat on a bench outside that building  My God, I thought, when I read that, I could have easily encountered him on one of my walks that way. What a loss! I would have loved to talk to him, and have him tell me stories about being in WSS at that time. Apparently he had scrap books with a million pictures from the London production. I could see myself looking at them for hours. But of course it did not happen.

Late August 58--I was preparing for my junior year at Science---had just returned from camp Music Land on the Bard college campus, where a close friend of mine was dating a girl I liked very much. I remember that summer well. Will tell some tales about it later.

Real world: Must prepare for the biopsy I am scheduled to have on Monday, Not sure how I feel about it. A judgement call on the part of my surgeon. Well, might as well get it over with and move on to the next episode in my treatment.

 

hot saturday afternoon...

 and I am determined to make it through this heat, spending as little money as possible.. So what does that mean? No movie, today, although, I think I can now make it through a movie, and the movie theater in Lincoln Center---I really like going there----has some interesting stuff---a film by Petzoid called Undine--one earlier film of his that I saw was really intense and original. But as of now, I am trying to put it off. What to do in its place? Read, read, read. Two books that I have aleady read much of today: First: Bird Uncaged, an autobiography by Marlon Peterson, a black activist. Very intense;  Peterson grew up in the Crown Heights area--all around Nostrand Avenue. Now there are coffee shops and trendy restaurants galore on the street where he had to face violent encounters on a daily basis. Can't believe the chaos he describes existed, but of course it did, along with the virulent racism of the police in the area. I am the beneficiary of the gentrification that now exists along those streets---I walk there without fear of being harmed. Have stopped reading right around the time he was arrested and ultimately sentenced---will see how he copes with inprisonment and what happens after. The second book Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar, and the perspective, after reading Peterson's book, is of course, amazingly different. Plath's heroin navigates a white world, where issues of race, and only minimally of class are brought up. One can enjoy her sharp, ironic observations in this somewhat phony, but "safe" world. I am enjoying the novel though I can't help  thinking how different the two worlds are. Will continue with Plath's book, probably after I finish this post.

Hot today---and will be tomorrow. Feeling stronger about going further and further away from the apartment with the bag. Brooklyn..the east village...who knows? Physically I am in a very good place---a pet scan yesterday left me very sleepy---got up around midnight---body somewhat numb--I walked around the apartment---my legs gave me messages that they wanted to move, not return to bed. Apartment is small---so at around 12:30 a.m. I walked four blocks to the grocery store on 72nd and West End, and grabbed a grape fruit juice. I think my body needed that walk---happy that I took it. This evening will shift between Yankee Red Sox game, and Nets Bucks as well. Should be interesting.....

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