a long time between posts

Many reasons---anyway learned a lesson last night. My "infatuation" with the 61 ny film festival is over. Why? Had to see at least one movie this weekend. Saturday it just did not work out-but yesterday after an afternoon nap---a nine o'clock part of their revival series seemed like something I should do. Of course there was only one movie on their schedule, it was called The Strangler---a french movie made in 1970 by a director unknown to me. I assumed last minute tickets would be plentiful---I was wrong---just  got one of three standby tickets and the only place left for me to sit was in the ftont row. No problem. Still the wait was arduous---I guess this year the festival is going to be really crowded---even for the more obscure movies. The movie itself was very precise--it followed a psychopathic killer and the man and woman who try to find him. Harsh--not really a movie I would have chosen to see except it was on the schedule.I was involved all the way---unattractive subject matter but I can understand why the Festival Revival curators wanted it in. It is a very intense and specific take on the subject. 

But somehow the whole experience turned me off. There is a 12:45 movie that I could possibly go to--a film by Lee Grant about an older couple who re-unite with their children on a road trip. But i just don't think I want to spend 2 hours in a movie theater early in the afternoon, before my other tasks. So that is it. The festival runs another two weeks, I had planned to see a few more movies on the schedule--now I have second thoughts. Lots of other options in the culture center that is NY---plays operas and actually other movies. On Friday evening I went to City Ballet--a kind of return for me---between 68 and 83 I went regularly and know most of Balanchine's ballets very well. I did not know how I would feel but after seeing the first two ballets--the one to Chabrier music and Stravinsky's Agon--a sense of "being home" flooded my mind as I sat in the third ring observing them. Plan to go a few more times in the next two weeks if I can fit it in. So that is all for now---will report soon I hope.