two nights, so different...

Sunday evening--returned home from a day in which I seemed to circumnavigate Brooklyn, or parts of it, to prepare for the long week ahead. Did not sleep well--got up at several intervals, thought about getting through the week with the four days at Friends and the sessions as well. It was going to be tough Lots of head energy, but no sleeping. . Arrived at Friends at 7:30, even though I did not have a class for two hours. A little later I got a text: subs were not being hired for the week. But here I was. Was I free? I walked down to the lower school office where the secretary, who had sent the text, was. She and the lower school chairman agreed that since I was already in the building I could take the classes. So I stayed for the day. But my other commitments for the week have, at this point been canceled. Much relieved, now I had a little time on my hands. To be frank, I was exhausted from my heavy schedule. I did my sessions yesterday afternoon then returned home. By 7, I was asleep. It was a deep, deep sleep, actually, until 6 this morning. Such a relief! I don't think my body moved once during that sleep. Yes, I was up a few times, but the calm in my body, compared to the night before, was palpable.
  So now my vacation begins a week earlier. That means, hopefully, some time in the evening to circulate or check out some plays or movies.
  Saturday night---rejected any theater options---too tired, but did go to the Film Forum to see Sorry We Missed You, an intense picture of working class Britain by Ken Loach. Very well done, totally realistic acting, it is about a family of four trying hard to make ends meet, but both working spouses are exploited by the bosses. All sorts of stresses and problems ensue. I loved the reality of the film, its toughness is real, but I did feel that Loach piled on too many problems---I felt he overloaded the dilemmas  the family faced. But I remember the film's reality.
  Sunday: Brooklyn, first the Fiction Center to say hi to Lynna, one of the baristas there with whom I have become friendly. Then off on the DeKalb avenue bus to Bushwick and Cobra; I stayed there for about three hours---waded through a boring exhibition baseball game---they are really frustrating to watch---and then left. But where to? Stopped off at Molasses, the bookstore nearby and said hello to nine month old Tuli, and his parents, the owners of the bookstore. Wandered down to Broadway, finally decided to take the 46 bus, that travels south on Malcolm X (later Utica Avenue) Brooklyn. Went through all the Bed-Stuy streets to Fulton, and then decided to stay on the Eastern Parkway, about another 10 blocks south. A nice day made me not want to get into the subway, but at the same time, I did not want to travel further south--so I got on the 3 and took it to the Brooklyn museum. Used the very untilitarian mens room there, and then returned to the Gotham Center, a block away from the Fiction Bookstore. watched some basketball and had a nice salad, then returned home, but a sugar fit made me stop at the Starbucks on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Never again! What a dirty place! Probably one of the things that kept me up all night after.
  So that is the story of the weekend and after. At this moment, feeling relaxed about all the unstructured time ahead of me. Will report soon.

Here we are again...

after two days of work---and I already have four days scheduled for next week. Then the vacation! But the sessions will still continue, and there will be a lot of them.
  Yesterday got off around 2:15, then had to be back at Friends for a Dance Concert at 6. How to spend the four hours in between. Time for a movie: Rebecca, by Hitchcock at the Film Forum. I have seen many movies by Hitchcock but never this one. Good plot, some times watching it I felt kind of "stickly"--maybe the whole thing seemed a little bit out of touch, but one can only marvel at the direction and cinematography. It still sticks in the mind. Occasionally the camera stays on the close up of a face a little too long---and then the face changes. Really remarkable! Can't say it was unforgettable, but it was a decent way of filling up structure between leaving Friends and returning for the Dance Concert.
  That featured some really strong  dancing from many of the students that I know. Nice to see them functioning in a surprising and different world. Also, I am reading some short stories by John Updike. They are sharp, focused, and very telling. I have never been able to get through one of his novels, but these short stories are all little novels by themselves. Will continue to read for a while.
  This night we turn the clock forward. Good! I have been waiting for this moment since we turned the clocks back. I always feel I am one hour too early, especially when I get up in the morning. So I am really looking forward to the change. Also, tomorrow is supposed to be close to 60. A great day for walking around Brooklyn! Have to stop in at a few places---I have not been at the Fiction Center for a while, and I really miss it. Will stop in tomorrow.
  Tonight not sure, yet. Have narrowed it down to three cultural events. Do I want to go out to Bushwick to see if I can get into the theater project at the Bushwick Starr. Will have to go early and get on the waiting list---always annoying, but I have not been to the Starr in quite a while. Then there is a one woman play at the Tank called Birthday in the Bronx---I always try to check out Bronx themed work---but I don't know the people involved. Could be meaningful or indulgent---it is closing tomorrow, so tonight would, in theory be my only chance.
  Then the Philharmonic has an interesting evening chosen: Debussy, Ravel and Scriabin---the Times review made me want to experience it. If I decide to go, will try to get a senior discount, around $22.00. Of course, I might just want to "hang out" at La Flaca, or the restaurant at the Gotham Center in Brooklyn, or somewhere else. It would be nice just to be around people and watch some basketball.
  At any rate, I will report soon, then we will find out where I went and what happened.

every odd day.....

tiredness seems to set in. That was the case with yesterday---i had one session, then returned to the apartment---rest of the afternoon-evening was spent resting---and figuring out what was happening to my stomach. I had lamb over rice for lunch yesterday--it is a large portion, probably too large for me now, but I ate it anyway. Did not feel signs of discomfort until I hit the library at 160th street. I did feel tired before I left the apartment, and had to stop off at the Grocery Store right off the subway stop at 157th and Broadway. The coffee there is very good. The lamb over rice meal took a heavy toll on my stomach, and while I was not sleeping yesterday, I was dealing with its after effects. Finally, things calmed down, and my stomach relaxed--much to my surprise. With the exception of a Vanilla Protein shake and some very good ice tea (I should drink more of it) there was no more in take into my stomach for the evening. Finally, today, by the time that I got my morning coffee, I was pretty hungry---i bought an expensive cheese danish which was very good, but even now is still in the throes of digestion. How careful do I have to be?
  Today, at least two sessions, maybe more--and then for the next four days will be at Friends. Good! Love the structure it provides. Will also go to a Dancers Against AIDS concert given by the school on Friday night. As for the weekend--still uncertain,again the energy factor will really define what I do.
  Next week will be the last week before Friends' Spring Vacation. That means two weeks of just the sessions, how I hope to be out every night, moving around the city---but can I? That is the question---will report soon.

Friday was not so great!

All my energy dissipated by 2 P.M.  I spent the rest of the day around the apartment---I did manage to go out in the evening for a pizza slice and the spent about a half hour in a bar on 80th and Amsterdam. Not a great place, but the owner walked over to me and chatted with me for about 15 minutes--I appreciated that and the bartender is a nice guy too.
  Saturday, too busy to make an entry---in the evening I went to see Suicide Forest, a theater piece by Haruna Lee, a friend of mine. I had seen this piece before, last year at the Bushwick Starr---I went to see it again out of a sense of friendship for Haruna, but I am glad that I did. The piece is stronger now, and more meaningful. I felt more connected to it watching it, also felt good being in a theater to experience a play---it had been about two weeks since the last time (a long time for me) and just absorbing the energy of the place was fulfilling. The cast, all Asian actors were very strong---somehow in the A.R.T. theater, the technical aspects of the play seemed stronger. Afterwards. really starving, I walked from the theater on 53rd and 10th to Lansdowne Road, the sports bar I frequent on 44th and 10th. A long walk in the cold---the bar was not particularly crowded. Against my better judgement I ordered chicken wings---I now try to stay away from cooked foods, but my hunger was really apparent. The wings were good, but I paid for it on Sunday, when my stomach took a long time to recover. Sunday I rejected the idea of visiting Cobra Club and my bartender friend Olivia---did not think I had enough strength to get out there, so stayed around the house until around 2, when I took the subway to the Quad to see the movie Cane River. This is a movie that was all but lost after it was made in 1982, due to the death of its director-writer Horace Jenkins. It was re-discovered and restored---and this is its first run. The first 30 minutes of the film are truly beautiful--an amazing amalgam of visual beauty and corresponding sound. The rest of the movie does not quite live up to that, but it is still very good. Jenkins was a black film maker, documentary maker and producer and Cane River's story is about a young Creole man, living in a small town about 3 hours from New Orleans, and his love affair with a black woman whom he meets when visiting a restored southern estate. Her mother is very possessive and does not like the idea of her daughter considering marriange to a Creole. Problems ensue, but all is worked out in the end.
  I liked the movie--but still, seeing a movie is not nearly as meaningful to me as seeing a play.I even liked sitting in the theater that the movie was being shown in---the newly restored Quad Cinema---it is kind of womb like, which I needed on Sunday---also in their small bar they make a great cappucino---nevertheless something for me is lacking when I see a movie. The rest of the day was spent back in the apartment, resting---I had a full day at Friends and two sessions on Monday. They came out reasonably well.
  That will be all for now---should report soon.

so its Friday...

and I am off after three days at Friends. Strange, I looked forward to this day off, but once it arrived, not having to go to Friends, only made me feel more restless. I did go there to pick up my check, but hurried out quickly (I usually do that when I simply come in to pick up my check). The coming afternoon and evening are free---and it is cold. This was what I wanted---but now that I have it...what? A movie perhaps this afternoon, and then a play this evening---possibly.
  Lots of movies to see that sound interesting, yet none that I really feel compelled to take in. Metrograph is showing Persona, a fascinating movie (at least that is how I remember it) by Ingmar Bergman. I saw it once, around October of 75, with the woman whom I was dating at the time, named Nancy. That was a relationship that lasted a few months---one of the few which I feel I terminated---she was a very stable and solid woman, about two years younger then I, and we loved going to see things--movies, plays, ballet etc. I look back on the relationship with some admiration for its solidity, but somehow, for me, I wanted out. What was to come after that....well, the end of what we will call "the first part of my adult life'...which perhaps I will talk about at another time. But Nancy was a good person---those five months we were basically a couple---from about July of 75 to early 76, remain in my mind as very solid ones.
  Getting back to the moment (is that possible) all these movies, and even the plays that I might check out tonight, seem like a vast collage of entertainment, all interesting, but I can't put one above the other. Tonight the Tank, a small "experimental" theater on 36th between 8th and 9th is showing a one person show about the Bronx. Not the Jewish Bronx that I grew up in, but this is about a hispanic young woman who gets admitted to a Private School. Sounds interesting and relatively inexpensive--I don't know the creative people involved, but that should not matter. Tonight will probably be my only time to see it, so I an geering towards checking it out. So the movie would be this afternoon, it at all.
  Of course, I could go to La Flaca this evening, or even to my bartender friends at the Gotham Market, opposite the Harvey, and just indulge in conversation. But I really should see something.
  I just found two articles about the four theaters on 42nd street that later became theater row. I told my friend Sarah, who is one of the leaders of the new Theater Row about them, hopefully she will check them out.
 Enough now---will report soon.

an interesting trip, yesterday....

cityboy departed from his usual Sunday path--that is coffee and hanging out at Cobra, and then usually taking the DeKalb avenue bus into the BAM area, then hanging out (and watching free television) at the Gotham Market, and more importantly, at the Fiction Center.
  But yesterday he was not satisfied with this journey, so instead, he expanded his horizons. He got off the DeKalb bus at Marcus Garvey boulevard, and switched to a southbound B 15 bus, which goes from Bed-Stuy into the far eastern regions of Crown Heights to Brownsville and finally into Queens.  Passing Fulton Street, where he could easily catch the C back to BAM, cityboy remained on the bus as it went south on Albany Ave,  then further east, until it finally hit Ralph Avenue, then crossed Eastern Parkway, and finished at the Sutter Avenue---Rutland Road station. Although this is just one station east of the Utica Avenue station on the 3 train, the area is completely different. The half block that cityboy walked from the bus stop to the train station was run down, and then on the Sutter Avenue station, cityboy was the only white person waiting on the platform. Cityboy was the only white traveler on the 15 as well, but somehow that did not seem to matter. At Sutter, the train back into the "established" world arrived quickly, and we were back in Crown Heights, a racially mixed (at least in the last few years) neighborhood. Cityboy got off at the Brooklyn Museum, visited the place a bit, then stopped for coffee (he was yearning for some) at Lincoln Park, a coffee shop space on Lincoln Place and Washington Avenue. It was there that I tried to put the whole thing together. Outside and inside the coffee shop were all white people (mostly young). Twenty years ago, this would have been mostly a black and Carribbean  neighborhood, and definitely a place like Lincoln Park would not have existed. Outside the coffee shop as well, mostly white young people passed by, the only people of color that I saw looked indigent. When I left (I liked the vibe, felt comfortable there) I walked north on Washington Avenue to Fulton, about eight blocks. If I did not know it before, I know it now, the street seems to be almost completely white---about six new bars have been added---I guess I was shocked at the scene. This must be what change, or gentrification looks like.
  Yet at the coffee place I felt very relaxed. I actually did some "personal writing" on the napkins that were available. I felt a kind of liberation, was it because I had stretched my vision by taking the bus further than I had before.
  So what must there be? More and more trips, discoveries, voyages throughout Brooklyn. And in order to write, do I need to be "freed"? Let's see how it plays out.

two days of work at Friends...

some very solid experiences---feeling good about it. Will go (hopefully) to the basketball game this afternoon, after my one session. Tonight will still try to see the play that I have been considering seeing all week, but various obstacles have stopped me from doing so. It is all sold out, on its web site, but I think I will try to get a return. Hope so anyway.
  Yesterday, rested in the afternoon, after I returned home---then decided it was best for me not to try to see anything, but to visit La Flaca, for some relaxation. This I did, and basically had a nice and relaxing time.
 Returned the Joseph Conrad novel, Under Western Eyes to the library this morning. Made a brave attempt to read it--I actually got up to the mid 150's, but could not go much further. Instead I am reading 10:04, a novel by Ben Lerner---I have just finished his more recent novel, The Topeka School. So far, 10:04 is a stream of consciousness novel by a New York writer, who may be inflicted with some kind of aorta problem. Some very beautiful and penetrating writing---sometimes I have to put the book down, because I feel the images he writes of are too strong. But I will continue.
 That is all for now, will report soon.