Sunday morning.....

lazy morning, until Met game on Peacock, then watch a little of the Orioles-White Sox game, then off to HERE, to see a friend's play. Physically feeling very nice---should be outside---reading, walking, instead here. Well, maybe after this entry for a while.

Yesterday, the plan was to "sit tight" (save my stamina) for the evening, then head out to Bushwick to see a project at the Bushwick Starr, one of my favorite "indie" spaces. But it did not happen---walked a bit in the morning---voted on 85 street, then returned and could not get back my strength for a long trip. I wanted to spend the evening out of the apartment, so, after some procrastination, ended up walking to Lincoln Center, wandering around a bit---then sitting in the park right across the street from the eastern edge of the complex, and chilling out. Read a bit of a short story, but actually just sat---watched the people go by, felt kind of at ease with things. Saved some money---always important at this time. Could have gone to see an Argento movie--a retrospective of his films in playing at the Lincoln Center movie theaters, but rejected it; just enjoyed sitting and relaxing.

On Friday I did attend a movie in the Argento retrospective---and an amazing movie it was. Called The Stendhal  Syndrome--the story of a young woman police person in Italy who is stalked and hurt by a vicious killer---until she exacts her revenge. What a movie! Evert frame beautiful---every moment leading carefully to the next---created a tremendous sense of suspence and fear in me. Brutally intense---no let up. I think that the reason I passed on his film last night, was because I was afraid that I would be overwhelmed by the content and the vision of what I saw, So I passed. Three more days after today to see one more of his films in the retrospective---will I do it? We will see.

Body feels really strong at this moment---lots of energy, tomorrow a party in the early evening with my friends from The Assembly---one of my favorite theater groups. Will post soon.

can it be over two weeks with no reporting...

 yes, at times I don't feel like putting down my feelings or memories, or whatever. Still, some interesting "voyages" out of the apartment. Last week Monday and Tuesday, visited Clubbed Thumb, the theater performing at the Wild Project, a little west of Avenue B on 3rd Street. Three plays, all with ten performances---a mainstay of "indie" theater in NY. The Artistic Director is attracted to plays that are incredibly verbal--tart language a little bit ahead of character development or strightforward narrative. So that is what you get---I think by now the theater is a little stylistically locked in in its vision and this play, though bright and smart, ran out of gas for me, about 25 minutes before its eighty minute length. Still, it was fun to go there---I saw some friends, and had a friend in the show, which is really why I went---to support her. She did not disappoint--the acting of all six actors was on a very high level. Even with only one group of friends that I met, there is a community feeling about the place---everyone in the audience knows why they are there. There is one more play in their season that begins its ten performances tomorrow---I expect to go at some point---another actress who I am very fond of--and, of course, who I have not seen since the beginnng of the pandemic---is in the cast.

Next door to the theater is a new coffee bar called Book Ends---I wanted to go in and see what the place was like---a place where I could possibly hang out, but have coffee and not alcohol---but I missed my chances. Why? Still nervous about sitting in the bar with my "bag"? It should not be an issue; I do my tutoring with it and have absolutely no problem---still I hesitate. Maybe I will try to get there some mid morning when it is not too crowded and take a seat. Looking for a place to replace the fabled South 4th street bar and cafe, which closed in 18, or Cobra Club, my Bushwick place, which is a little too far to get to with any regularity at this point. Nothing on the upper west side remotely like those places.

An 'open" day today can do whatever I wish within reason--last chance to catch a movie at the Film Forum with Montgomery Clift--one of my favorite actors. The movie today is Red River---a movie that I have not seen. Might go--in the late sixties I would be attending ballets at the New York State theater---there is a bar in the enormous promenade. One or two times I saw Clift there, standing with a group of friends, part of his face, of course, messed up from his brutal accident about ten years later. He was very unassuming as he stood on the promenade. Strong memory. 

That is all for now---should try to create a little more then I have---we will see.

to :Bird" or not to "Bird" that is the.....

er  this morning---early---around 6:45---always up at that time---watched highlights of Saturday'sb. Baltimore Orioles victory over the Guardians. Felt drawn in and excited by those highlights---wonder if I should purchase the baseball package that would let me watch all Oriole, and some other games as they take place.  I follow the Orioles because a. they are more interesting and competitive this year then they have been in a while and b. my connection with the city; my hunger for its energy, which i have not let go in now almost 60 years. 58 years ago, almost to the day, I graduated from Hopkins---should have been the end of my interest in this city---instead, I have continued to be "haunted" by it---trying to understand its "life" (for want of a better word) as the years have passed. Pre pandemic, I usually visited once a year for a day or so, and in addition to going to the ball park (not as much fun as the fantasy of it) depending on where i was, I woud walk endlessly from neighborhood to neighborhood as I tried to imagine a life for myself there. Of course I am aware of the city's "division"---the world of the poor black neighborhoods totally cut off from the "white" world that I wonder around in---a world for consumers---laid back individuals--and newly built apartments--yetm I still want to understand what is going on there. 

The whole story of my four years at Hopkins--could I write about that. Like Henr;ty Roth, looking back from a long period in the future to let memory go. So many meaningful memories--those four years ins some ways shaped me---allowed me to return to theater in my late thirties with a lot of knowledge that only happened in my last year there. What do you want to remember...? The heat...always unique to itself, your HEAT in your final year there...? "Intense and comlicated"---she said "intense and complicated" in your last conversation over the phone---the night before I graduated. So I have always thought of myself, somewhat in that way---can't let it go. But the next day happened---I graduated---drove back to the Bronx with my brother and parents---and it was over. 

Last night walked over to Lincoln Center---now alive with people. It has been turned into a social circus--a little grotesque, but with people swarming all over it. Maybe just a place to "be" in the early evening. Decided not to see a movie at their theater--that was the only choice possible to lose oneself in at that time. The city continues to open up with a vengence. So many choices....etc.

Exhausted from this output--should continue the rest of the day,,,will report soon.

Thinking of Ricky....

 Browsing google maps at 3:30 A.M. Somehow arrived at Astor Avenue in the Bronx, near the apartment house where my first best friend Ricky lived. We were buddies in the first and second grade, and both baseball freaks--it was Ricky and his family who took me to my first professional baseball game in mid June, 1950. Must have been the end of first grade. Yankee Stadium, I remember that they were playing the Browns, a terrible team at that time, but that a rally in the ninth inning brought the game to the Browns. It was not till a year later that i really began to follow baseball play to play. One memory from later in the relationship, maybe fourth grade: sleeping over in his house, and playing a baseball "game" against each other. Making up lineups and the whole thing. Then Ricky's family moved to one of the suburbs north of the Bronx. Was it New Rochelle---possibly. Many families from the Pelham Parkway neighborhood of my youth by the middle fifties had enough money to buy a house in the suburbs. Then our relationship ended.

I wonder where he is now--somehow I feel he grew up to be a very harsh, aggressive person. Maybe because once in first grade, he was captain of a punchball team, and after I was picked, "chucked" me. That is, for some reason through me off. "Chucked!" for some reason that word has stayed with me---that time in first grade may have been the only time i ever heard it. I remember being stunned---here was my best friend, for some reason eliminating me. It is the only time during the few years that I knew him that I remember him being nasty with me---yet somehow that moment---in the school yard of PS 96, the Bronx, has stayed with me.

An odd day---after the very productive Wednesday--three students, all of whom I made good contact with---lots of energy and challenges---and a dirty apartment cleaned to perfection by the woman who cleans for me, I spent this last day  by myself. My one student moved his appointment over a day, so I was free. I was determined to see a movie called Emergency---having its last day at the Angelica--and, after some arguments with myself, took the trip. First time since the pandemic in that movie theater---it was actually the last place I saw a movie, right before everything shut down. At 2, the place seemed like a ghost town, just a few people in its large lobby---something surreal and sad about the whole place. But what was stranger---I was the only person in auditorium 6, watching the 2:20 showing---the only person! A very strange and alienating feeling. What was I really doing there, I asked myself. The movie was both comic and serious--a very strong look at race relationships---I won't say more, and I suppose I am glad I took the trip. It's important that I don't tie myself to the upper west side. When it was over, I climbed the sixteen steps to the lobby since the escalator going up was broken, and did not feel tired. Walked west to the Film Forum and picked up a schedule of the Montgomery Clift retrospective, and returned home. Slept for much of the evening---that is why I am up now. 

Lots to do today, and for the weekend---will report soon.