so much to write about,,,,

where to begin...missed the BAN meeting last night because I was tired after a day of subbing and a session. Have not heard any feedback yet---hopefully will get a report soon. It is hard for me now to join any groups, will have to just learn about an action or protest and jump in. Still I want to remain involved.
 Read one page in Alberto Gonzalez's book on the Mayor. The saddest part of that is that one of the Mayor's advisors, one who did not believe that the real estate industry should have so much power, died before the election. He might have influenced the Mayor to hire a much more liberal Director of City Planning then the current one. Sad. Yes, the Mayor has done some constructive things, but his vision of re-development---well you know. Nice to hear that the challenger to City Council person Levin has some strong things to say about displacement and the aggressiveness of the development class. Will she win? Should I flyer for her?  Possibly, I certainly would be heartened by some change.
  Reports from the weekend. Saturday, off to Bushwick for Heather Christian'ss piece at the Starr. A confessional---starts off kind of coy and anecdotal, then descends into a kind of heaven-hell place that is really all consuming. As the liturgy for her dead grandparents continues, the audience is put into 19 minutes of darkness. An amazing choir and some musicians play while this is going on. The music is complicated, but they do it anyway. At first, I hated the darkness---almost panicked, but as it continued and the music became more and more intense, I understood why it had to be. Effect was striking---a theater event defined completely in and of itself.I felt like I was being pulled into a new reality---and really was happy, as the lights slowly reappeared. It was striking.
 After the play, though that I would go to Starr bar, but the latter was packed with Halloween revelers (many dressed as Socialists, if you can imagine that) ---and most of Bushwick seemed filled with costumed people. Is this necessary? Is this the height of superficiality?  So many millennials are buying into this, why? I suppose I will have to face this again this evening---I should not go far from the upper west side. Anyway, had my pizza slice and simply headed home---looking forward to Sunday.
     Sunday afternoon, had a very easy time getting a free ticket for Illyria, playwright Richard Nelson's take on the Joe Papp---Robert Moses conflict that might have destroyed the Public (then the New York Shakespeare Festival) but actually was the turning point in the Festival gaining stamina and publicity. It is an interesting play-filled with 50's theater minutia that I knew completely, but that I wonder, how many others in the audience were aware of.  A nice cast does good ensemble work, yet as I separated myself from it, I felt more and more annoyed with it. Why does every cast member---as good as they are--look alike, as if they had all arrived from the same acting school. The actor George C Scott, who got his first break from the Festival, and performed with them later, is spoken of a great deal, but never appears. Why? Is his galvanic and gut-brute presence too "hot" for the playwright to handle. His absence and Nelson's unwillingness to put him on stage, almost defines what is wrong with the play. Each character seems to have one trait that never changes: Papp: feistiness; Debuskey: Friendship; Vaughan: ambition---the others see their parts whittled down, and two of the four women remain nothing but cyphers. Still it has the trappings of a serious play. Maybe I am angry because as a "theater expert" of that time, I was not called in to tell my recollections, which I think might have interested the cast members. But how could I, since I don't know Nelson or any one involved in the production. At any rate, the more I considered it, the more angered I was by its existence. The Public seems to have appointed Nelson its historical genius---I think this history, filtered through his sensibility, fails very badly.
   It was raining, when I left the Public; I did not feel like going to Brooklyn and taking the chance that the subways might be shut down or the tunnels connecting the two boroughs would blink out (they wern't) Instead had a nice time at Formerly Crows, and a good talk with Sloane, an old South fourth denizen, who now cooks for the bar. After that, I was tired and returned home.
   Not sure about this evening---possibly the Bernstein concert at the Philharmonic, but will wait for the early evening to decide. Will report soon.

much to write about..

after two days work at Friends. Just read about a program set up by the city called Neighborhood Pillars, which is designed to stop the predatory gentrification in its tracks, bu allowing not for profits to buy apartment houses with rent stabilized apartments to keep them away from vicious landlords. Will be helpful, but will it be enough. Also, liked the use of the term "turbo capitalism" to describe a vicious form of aggressive development that does not even remotely take into account the lives and feelings living in a certain neighborhood that developers find attractive.Glad to see that columnist Juan Gonzalez is criticizing the mayor re his housing head and her vision of the city.
 So what else. Well, Wednesday evening, did go to Jack to see my friend Eliza and her "Kip Talk"
Really enjoyed Eliza's opening monologue;  she is becoming a great raconteur.The second part of the evening, a discussion of "local theater" was a little more difficult for me to take---lots of opinions, and some good statements about how theaters like Irondale and Bushwick Starr are integrating young people from the near by neighborhoods--who don't have strong theater backgrounds, into their vision. That was good to hear. Somehow, I was angry when Eliza asked what was "local theater" when no one seemed to understand that the "downtown theater scene" (I don't like the term, but will use it for want of a better word) is made up of mostly artists between 20 and 40, and therefore reflects their vision of life, mostly an upper middle class vision with its strengths and discontents. Why is it so hard for anyone to say that, or to make note of the fact that theater in the last 15 years has undergone a radical transformation in terms of its vision. So many projects now are one group's reactions to already written (mostly major) texts and also the we see the liberation of the actor/actress from auditionee to in many cases, a major collaborator in the vision and text of a piece. Would like to make that statement, is it too obvious? I doubt it, yet nobody could, and I was not called upon. Would a statement like that have made a difference, or would it have been just an indulgence? Don't know, think about it?
  Last night, wanted to go to Abrons to participate in a forum about the changing city, but was too tired, ended up going to the Bunin and seeing The Paris Opera documentary. Just what I needed after two hectic days of work--I could immerse myself into a world of art that I completely understood and enjoyed. A terrific documentary---showed the team work and support that is necessary to make an opera performance work---really good portraits of individual people from choristers to the artistic director of the opera. Really glad I went.
 Tonight, going to Bushwick Starr to see Heather Christian's piece, should really be interesting, tomorrow a blank, as of now. Will report soon.

have just finished the...

New Yorker article on Mike Pence. Very well written and documented---one thing that I learned that I did not know was how Pence was responsible for bringing in so many Christian Evangelical voters to the Trump ticket.Why oh why did the democrats choose such an uninteresting Vice Presidential candidate---when a firebrand---a good contrast with Hilary_--might have made the difference.  Nothing more to be said.
   Second day off from Friends---will be there for the next three days---there is a kind of freedom and relaxation in my body that I have not experienced before. I think it is just the openness of the morning. Tonight, just bought my ticket to Kipp Talk at Jack---I mentioned this in yesterday's blog---now it is a certainty---should be an interesting evening.
  Last night, had some time in the evening, and so went to the Dive Bar, the one I frequent on 95th and Amsterdam. About the only bar on the upper west side that I feel comfortable in at this point---as usual, around 8 a large crowd present, lucky to find space at the bar. My two friends, the bartender and waitress were present, but with the large crowd, there was very little chance to have conversation.
Mostly I watched the Knick game (not very interesting as the Knicks were constantly behind)  and a little bit of World Series game 1 (not really very interested at this point) and had a conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me---a legal aid lawyer in his sixties who is pro the Mayor. We shared some ideas, and I explained to him the anger that neighborhood groups feel towards the Mayor's  policies. He accepted this, and acknowledged that this was a problem. A decent conversation, not anything to really fire me up---had the barbecue wings, which filled me up. Around 9:15, felt that it was time to leave---would have stayed if any more conversation was possible---and just went home. Not really tired, but surprisingly enough, had no trouble falling asleep.
   Lots of plays out there that interest me---not sure how many I can see---time seems so compressed at this point, and I don't really want to give up my Sundays---a time when I like to just move around the city---to the plays. But what can I do?
  Two more days at Friends--really looking forward to them---will report, probably on Saturday.

One day off...

maybe another, then a lot of work at Friends. Had a good (if hectic) day there yesterday---also two session, after the last one, I was physically exhausted. Interesting library that I visited---the one on 125th and Amsterdam, really nicely set up for kids---more of a community center then a library, which I think is very effective. Not that the one that I usually work out of is not. They care about the students as well, but this seemed very different.
  Saturday turned out to be very anti-climactic; no adventure at all---instead, after finding out that I could not get into the 5:15 showing of the Meyerowitz Stories (amazing, Lincoln Plaza was all sold out for that one) and seeing nothing near by that interested me, I headed home---and simply rested. Fall out from the two days before, I guess. I just lay in the darkness, listening to the final Yankee-Astro game. One great thing about baseball: if you know it, you can hear it on the radio, and enjoy it a great deal. That was my Saturday night, alternating between moments of drowsiness and energy, listening to the game, that, as most people know by now, the Yankees lost. The world series begins tonight--will follow it, but probably will not go out of the way to watch it---too many other interesting goings on to deal with in the next few days.
  Tomorrow, if I don't sub, will go to Jack to see Kip Talk, the variety show-forum that I have seen a few times. Should be fun, with many people that I know there. Today, depending on how I feel later, and on the weather (supposed to be serious storms this afternoon)  will probably go to the Dive Bar, and hang with my friends, bartender Brittany, and waitress Olivia. Maybe some trivia as well, but as I write this, I think--Wow! I would love to see a movie tonight! Well, who knows---the way things are now, everything changes in a minute. Or so it seems.
 Sunday, I definitely set out to just travel---and visit. No movies or plays; I wanted to be with people. So I spent the first part of the afternoon at Cobra with my friend bartender Olivia---very slow there, probably because sports fans can go to the Sports bars and watch one of many games---whereas Cobra just shows one. Nice and easy time---had a salad nearby--very important, as my stomach had imploded from the night before (too much cheese!) then headed to South fourth. Got there around 4:30---my friend Harlo was there with her dog Frankie---we talked for a while, also, Jay, a somewhat loquacious teacher who was raised on the lower east side (not far from the school that I worked out of in the mid-sevenities--PS 4, on Ridge and Rivington Street) who can be interesting but bloviated me out of the bar somewhat early. When I was at the school, I knew of the area as an all black and hispanic poverty area, he lived on the edge of it, and did not seem threatened by it.
  After leaving South fourth, i was hungry---thought it might be nice to go to Sweetwater, a restuarant in Williamsburg, where I had known some of the bartender-wait staff a few years before. I sat down, and looked at the menu---but just could not do it. Too expensive, nothing that seemed reasonable, so I excused myself. The bartender was very sweet about it, when I told her I would pass. Too bad, I have had some nice times at the place, but the prices are now just too much, even as the amount of work I am getting at Friends, makes me a bit more financially stable.
  All right, that is the story for now...will report soon..

Saturday morning...

beautiful day. Where do we go from here. Only one night to report on Wednesday, and quite frankly I don't remember much about it. I think that I toyed with the idea of going to a movie, but it did not happen. I probably stayed out until around 9, then returned home to get ready for the next two days.
 What about the rest of the weekend? After one more session, I am totally free until Monday morning. Not quite clear about what my plan might be for the rest of the day. Yankee-Astro game on this evening, several possible places to watch it. But I really do want to SEE something before that, probably a movie, still anxious to see what the Meyerowitz Stories by Noah Baumbach is about. Nice, just feel like jumping into a movie---anywhere, just for a little relaxation. Will it happen? Well, we will see.
  Tomorrow is the first performance at the Public of the play called Illyria, by Richard Nelson---apparently a re-telling of the feud between Joe Papp and Robert Moses in 1959 that threatened to close down Shakespeare in the Park---nip Papp's vision in the bud, you might say-but was actually settled in favor of Papp, and free Shakespeare in Central Park (an unheard of idea at that time) continued and evolved into what we have now. I could join the line for the lottery at the Public, but for some reason I don't feel ready to do so. I really want to "decompress" tomorrow, which means probably going to Cobra to visit my friend Olivia and watch the Jet game for the first part of the afternoon, and then returning to my "haunt" at South fourth for the early evening chatter and hanging out. With no scheduled work at Friend for Monday, will keep my eye on the phone, but somehow, rather than "seeing something"  I want to be with people and interact.
  Hey, I did not really finish my thought about Illyria,---the thought is, that as a teen-ager at Bronx Science, who had heard (but had never seen) Joe Papp's vision of free Shakespeare, I watched the conflict carefully. I wonder how faithful Nelson has been to the story---also how he presents it. I am not that comfortable with the story being told only by Nelson (and by default) Oscar Eustice, the artistic Director of the Public Theater. Yet somehow I am staying away from it for now. It is interesting, that in addition to the first preview, the Public will be giving away some free tickets for each performance---something it has not done for its other productions. I guess that seems fair---since the idea was free Shakespeare--it is very much in keeping with Papp's vision--but how much else going on at the Public is? A hard question to answer, as Papp had his own concept of what he wanted people to see at the public (sometimes very erratic) and the current artistic director has his. One must accept the two different sensibilities.
   Okay, that is all for now--will report on my "adventures" the next blog.

still tired after....

two days work at Friends, with two more coming up. Also, a lot of sessions, which I did not expect.
Hardly remember what I did this weekend, after last post, but will try
 Saturday: after leaving library attended my friend Liz' open studio in the Navy Yard. Always interested, Liz's paintings for me are so strong because of her amazing sense of juxtaposition and color. All mostly objects that don't have any connection with each other on the same painting. What is exciting and challenging to me is the way she juxtaposes color so that the viewer is assaulted with complexities. There is a harshness in her work---an unwillingness to reveal itself, that is very challenging. Anyway, I was glad I could visit the studio, after that walked south on one of the Fort Greene streets, my destination: Mullane's a bar where I could watch the first part of the Yankee game. Did so, even if my body was not that hungry for a beer---but strangely, after two innings, I felt restless, and left. What movie for the evening. Well, at BAM, in addition to the normal movies that had just been released, playing was a documentary called "For Akeem". I decided to check that out---it is a riveting documentary about a 16 year old living in a poor area of Saint Louis, who has just been remanded to an alternative school. An interesting school, run almost completely by black educators, who enforce strong discipline on the students, the young woman has some problems adjusting and with her temper, but essentially does well there. At the same time, she becomes pregnant, and decides to keep the baby. The baby arrives in the middle of the movie, and to my surprise, it gives her a purpose and a focus that she did not have before. The movie ends with her graduation in spring 2015; no statement at the end of the film about how things have turned out for her since then--hopefully well, but watching the movie made my sad; the film never tries to sugar coat the young woman's experience. For me it was intense, but I was glad I saw it. Afterwards, pretty tired, I would have liked to go into Junior's for a chicken salad sandwich, but at $11.95, it was, of course, too much. (It really would have been about $13.00, because the tax is never included on a menu), so I went home, and grabbed some chicken at the local supermarket.
   Sunday---really interesting--I attended a rally outside a private house in Flatbush--really a protest and a talk-in---protesting the lack of protection for unregulated tenants living in private houses. In the area where the talk in took place, Flatbush, private home owners are evicting long term tenants, because of the influx of "young professionals" who can pay more then the current tenants. Some of those tenants have been living in those apartments for many years. The discussion that we had, and the information that was shared was for me, invigorating. Several people who live in the area told of older tenants---mostly people of color-leaving and being replaced by younger people. And so it goes. One neighborhood turns after another. One of the guys there who works for a displacement agency seemed almost cavalier as he described how he has moved further and further south in Brooklyn. I was a little disappointed that he did not seem to have a way of fighting this trend, but he did not.
I wish there were more discussions and talk ins with activists then there are now.
  The rest of Sunday was ordinary---I ended the day at South fourth, always a good idea, discussing some football with two guys who live around there. Any yesterday evening, while watching the Yankee game at Wallace's a bar near the library where I tutor, I met two interesting guys, one a teacher at a charter school, and the other a principal at a Catholic school in the Harlem area. Good conversation about the city. But that is all for now--will report again probably on Saturday.

citiboy is tired...

after one day at Friends and a session after that. Nothing afterwards, just home to rest. Today might be interesting. At some point this afternoon, I will visit my friend Liz/ studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard (really tough to get to, but plenty of time to improvise) then afterwards, I will try to find a place to watch the second Yankee-Astro game---then afterwards---well it looks like a movie would be appropriate. I would enjoy seeing The Meyerowitz Stories, the new movie that is directed and conceived by Noah Baumbach. Will it be hard to get in? It is only playing at two movie theaters---one, IFC, is pretty popular, the other Lincoln Plaza, is not my favorite place to go--something about the energy there annoys me. But I should give it a try, unless something else comes along. Tomorrow, I hope to have an "easy" day, beginning at Cobra, for some football action, and then possibly ending up at South fourth. Could be a little different, depending on a few things, but that is the way it looks now.
   Thursday evening---I did go to see Eliza's one woman workshop of a new work at Ohio Space. Eliza the actress-performer is very engaging; she is always fun to watch. The work, which is a monologue, running about 80 minutes tells of a seventh grade project she put on video, and morphs, somewhat surprisingly into a meditation on race and sound. It is a strange mixture---I think it could use some tightening---what I find interesting is that "downtown theater makers", that is a group of mostly twenty or thirty somethings, who, in most of their work have avoided issues of class and race, seem to finally willing to (on some level) come to grips with it. Kind of interesting, as that group makes an attempt to become more and more involved. Not exactly sure where it is going, I would like to see more discussions, because there are a lot of issues to discuss.While I was at the space, I had a chance to talk to Ike, a performer who is running a few sessions with Eliza about artists joining community boards. I went to the first one, in Fort Greene (at Jack) and felt that though informative, there was a decent amount of avoidance of the real issues at stake in the city in the next four years. Right before Eliza's play began, I quickly enumerated some of those issues to Ike---he was very kind, and seemed very receptive to my ideas and input. The next meeting of this group is Tuesday in Bushwick, at the Bushwick Starr---I will not be able to attend it, but I made it clear that he and Eliza as Master and Mistress of Ceremonies should present themselves as being a little more informed. I think he bought that, and hopefully the presentation will be a little more serious and focused then the last one. Their final one is scheduled for Harlem and I think they have to take that one very seriously.
     So that is it.  Work at Friends Monday and Tuesday---on Monday I hope to not be too tired so that I have to miss the BAN meeting in the evening. Will report on all this soon.