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.
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