Monday morning....

 so many thoughts; so many ideas---where to begin. Yesterday, traveled to Brooklyn. (Trip 3) Got off at Nevins Street, checked out the Brick, found it closed---walked up to the Fiction Center bookstore. Spent a bit of time browsing there---a very unique collection. But then the sadness. Pre-pandemic, it was two floors, lots of room to read, a coffee shop, and the sense of joining a community---a place to "be" if you loved reading. All that gone now---just the large front of the bookstore---no place to sit, to consider, to choose a book from their groups and read some (or all) of it. In 2018-19 read The Not Wives, but Carly Moore there--really intense but loved every minute of it. Just read it all there over a period of weeksl did not buy it at all. So with Brick closed, and the bookstore limited, pushed south, went up to Barclays Center and continued to Bergen and beyond. A great coffee place on Bergen, right by the subway entrance now gone---a little coffee place (without a bathroom) has replaced it. Stopped off at Hungry Ghost, read some of Arms and the Man, by Shaw, then proceeded to walk south to Grand Army Plaza. Almost 53 years since I discovered Park Slope. December of 68---a college friend and his wife were living on Garfield Place. Remember my first journey there on the F train. Felt as if I was going into a twilight zone, before I finally arrived at the 7th Avenue station, and then walked the eight blocks to their apartment on Garfield betweem 7th and 8th. 

 The 52 years of Park Slope. To stand at the Barclays center or thereabouts and look around now is frightening! Development everywhere! What does it show you? A sense of rage, or power---certainly a brutal impresonality---a force, turning the whole neighborhood into one. So I stand on the corner of Bergen and Flatbush--try to see the whole neighborhood over a 52 year period. One remembers when it seemed bohemian---one did not need a whole lot of money to survive in Park Slope. Everything easy. Not very upscale. Cheap (or reasonable) eats. Flatbush avenue now south of Bergen seems full of upscale dining places. It reeks of entitlement. So where are you in this cityboy? Aren't you part of the generation that settled the area, and now reaps its upscale benefits? As I stood on the park edge where Flatbush meets Plaza street, I could sense the calm---far enough away from the towering buildings to appreciate the architecture that surrounded me. Then I grew tired and went home---"chilled out" the rest of the day, with the help of about 60 minor league baseball games available for me to watch. But even that gets to be a bit much--had to shut it down at some point. 

Much joy in reading. A novel by Arthur Phillips, entitled The King at the Edge of the World---about one of my favorite topics---the succession of JamesI to replace Elizabeth as ruler of England. The time of Shakespeare! Also, Arms and the Man, by Shaw--really bright and witty and for the most part, playable.Rest of the day---not sure. Yankee game, Bushwick, some other place in the city,,,? Could be--will report soon.