Finding Myself in Hoboken

Changing A Life

2012-01-13T10:15:00.000-08:00

I'm about to do it again, but in a small way.

Four years ago I totally changed my life by making a move from Alabama, where I was born and raised, to the New York City area, where I have felt the most at home in my life. I lived in Hoboken for one solid year before I decided to revisit the South again, first for two weeks, and then for the month of February. Then last year I went home in January for a month. When I got back to Hoboken it was still bitter winter--blizzards and freezing temps--and that weather lasted until the end of March. I decided to do the smart thing and take the months of February and March in southern Alabama from then on.

And then came the winter of 2011-12, astonishingly pleasant and mild. A freak snowfall came on October 1, but melted away, and the rest of the season we've had no brutally cold days or nights (or, if it was below freezing at night, I slept through it in my cozy little place).

Never mind. The plans have been made. The cottage has been reserved, a rental car requested, and old friends have been told of my imminent arrival Feb 1. Now I have to get out of my New Jersey state of mind and into my Alabama one. There is more than jet lag involved. I'm not ready for some football, although no doubt there will be some, nor many of the other activities that I know I'll run into no matter how I try to escape. I'll take some books, I'll visit with some friends, and maybe have a surprise or two. I'll be changing my life, but only for two months, after all.

It won't be all that cold there--but thank goodness it won't be summer-hot either. Azaleas and wisteria will bloom. The bay will softly welcome me with its constant sound track of gentle waves. There will be sea food and grits. There will be comfort and smiles. Everybody will tell me how happy they are. The people who hate me just will avoid me and I will see many admirers and supporters. I shall avoid controversy. I shall stay on my diet. I shall continue to visit the gym four days a week.

And I'll bask in pretty days and pleasant weather. I'll see a local play or two and join a group of friends at the movies. I'll gab and gossip over lunches of salad and have the occasional cup of tea with family members.

And I'll start posting on my other blog www.findingafairhope.blogspot.com I hope you'll join me there. I'll be in Hoboken until Feb 1 and maybe run into you before I go. If not, I'll see you in April, when the flowers are in bloom and there is little chance of a blizzard.

The First Four Years

2011-11-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

There was no wonder I picked Hoboken as the place to relocate when I first saw it back in June 2007. The wide sidewalks of Washington Street were welcoming, the skies were blue, the people friendly as those in a small town. It had the self-contained feeling of a historical and pleasant community, yet it was only 20 minutes from the heart of New York City by bus or subway.

I put my house on the market, sold 3/4 of my furniture and possessions--including my car--bought a one-way airline ticket, and packed my bags. I was returning north from the town founded as utopia to the one known as the mile-square city. I had lived my happiest years in New York back in the 1960s and 70s, but with the way things were I found it impossible to afford now. Hoboken would have to do, even though I assumed I would be spending a lot of time in Manhattan. That was four years ago. On December 1, Fairhope friends drove me to the Pensacola airport, where I flew to Newark and spend the first night of my new life in a Marriott in Jersey City. It was much colder in Jersey City than in south Alabama which I had just left, but I was prepared for that. The Marriott is in a neighborhood I know pretty well now, across from the Pavonia Newport Mall.

I walked, that cold December day, from the Marriott to Target and bought a pair of folding chairs, carrying them back to my hotel room. There would be no furniture in the new apartment but an inflatable bed and these until the moving men brought my stuff from Alabama in a few days. I've been around long enough to know a body does need a chair or two.

My furniture did arrive as scheduled, and I began to make adjustments to my new location bit by bit. I found that what furniture I'd kept more than filled the 800-sq.-ft. apartment. Luckily there were lots of big closets, and most of the stuff was shoved in. I bought a little single bed since the bedroom was too tiny to get even a double in comfortably. I was also able to use the little room for my laptop. I began my new blog.

Right away I found a doctor, a dentist, and the public library. I explored Hoboken on foot and got a little disoriented looking for basics like the A & P; tried to adapt to the colder climate, and wrote about all my new situations on the blog. A compulsive blogger in my home town, writing about my life helped me clarify things in my own mind.

The enormity of what I had done was slow to sink in. I had thought about the climate, the isolation, the difficulties of getting everywhere on foot--the blank slate that lay before me--and it all confronted me every morning. It was a whole new life. There would be no phone calls, no board meetings, club meetings, organizational meetings. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t experience this as loneliness, but rather as a transition to something I couldn’t possibly understand. It seemed like an opportunity, but I couldn’t define for what.

I felt a little uncomfortable in my own skin, as if I were in a dream or on vacation in a place where I could speak the language but nothing else. I would get confused on the city streets, even in my old neighborhood in Manhattan. I took it slowly and didn’t push myself into doing too much too soon. It seemed as if my feet always hurt, from the walking and from minor foot surgery I had endured at the end of summer. I was never sure my clothes looked right--everybody in New York and New Jersey seemed to wear black all the time, not the bright colors and patterns I had been looking at in the South for almost 20 years. It took time to realize that this was less about Hoboken than about myself, facing a new phase of life in which I had to admit the person in the mirror looked didn’t look much like the self I had once known.

Writing a blog about these things was helpful in surprising ways. Within a few months people were actually reading the blog, which had not necessarily been the case of my blog in my home town, “Finding Fair Hope.” On the Fairhope blog I had had a few regular readers, but most of them were people I had known in the distant past, keeping in touch with me from far flung outposts. I had about five regulars from contemporary Fairhope, and they were all people I knew who seemed a little uncomfortable about the thought that I might quiz them about the blog the next time I saw them. Hoboken brought me an average of some 40 readers a day, and they began to make themselves known to me by sending me emails and commenting on the blog. The blog posts about "old" Hoboken brought interesting responses and commenters enlivened the blog and informed me about my new-found home. I learned what Hoboken was like in the 1940s and 50s, about the making of On the Waterfront, about the ice cream parlors and the Fabian Theater, Mr. Stover of Demarest High School and what it meant to be a b-n-r in those days. From Chris and Mary I learned where to get the best mutz in town (Lisa's); and I met Christina, who has been a loyal and kind friend in need ever since. I heard many stories about Frank Sinatra, and about the history of Hoboken as the birthplace of baseball and as a place of debarkation for the doughboys of WWI.

As time went by I felt less and less like a visitor and more convinced that this was indeed my real life. I could hop a bus and go see a matinee on Broadway in less than an hour's time and I saw some great ones: Bernadette Peters in both A Little Night Music and Follies, Kevin Kline in Cyrano de Bergerac, Christopher Walken in A Behanding in Spokane, Anything Goes, The Book of Mormon and the extraordinary English import Jerusalem I took my grandsons (who met me at the Port Authority Bus Terminal), to The Farnsworth Invention,, Blythe Spirit with Angela Lansbury, Avenue Q and All My Sons with John Lithgow. I've even omitted a few, but I've seen a boatload of plays.

I took part in a local reading of The Flora Dora Girls by Hoboken playwright Louis La Russo II and met a number of Hoboken and Jersey City actresses in the process. I wrote reviews on my blog of the productions of Hoboken's Hudson Theater Company every year.

With a little time and distance, my perspective on recent life events changes; I rewrote my book about Fairhope Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree, retitled and repackaged it as The Fair Hope of Heaven.
I surprised myself by writing a novel last year, set in the utopian Fairhope of 1921, about a young teacher from Hoboken who finds herself there, finds romance, and moves on. It has been rewritten three or four times now and is in the hands of its second editor. I've learned that it's one thing to sail through the writing of fiction and quite another to make it come alive and interesting (nay, compelling) to an unbiased reader. It's more than a project--it is a new experience. An adventure.

After that first year I discovered the joy of going south for at least a month every winter. Last winter, full of blizzards and bitter temperatures in the Northeast, I decided to make that two months this year. I love the beginning of winter, the look of the city at Christmastime, the crunch of snow under my boots, but month and month of grey skies, layering clothes, and dodging slippery black ice, is wearing to the spirit. From South Alabama, I had become accustomed to a flowery and fragrant March. I shall spend that month where it is already spring, and when I return to Hoboken it will be spring here too.

Wherever I am based, things keep happening to me. Over time in Hoboken I've made new friends. I have the option of lunch with a friend or the theatre in New York, a visit with my daughter and her family upstate, or a movie date with a nice guy I met online. People still ask me why I chose Hoboken, and the answer is always that you may not know it, but it's a beautiful little town. I invite you to scroll through this blog for old posts that deal with my growing affection for Hoboken and my life here. It was a good move, just four years ago, and I love living with the promise of still better things to come.

Thank You for My Gratitude

2011-11-22T07:46:00.000-08:00

It’s hard for me to think of Thanksgiving in the terms that other people say they do: Take some time every day to say something you are thankful for…Say grace at this meal by listing the things you are thankful for…If you had a wonderful mother (father, brother, child, cousin, etc), post this to your status for a day…

I have no memories of a Norman Rockwell meal with Granny placing the long-awaited bird on the table to the sound track of oohs and ahhs. My mother hated cooking and we never had turkey. We did not have a family of cousins, uncles and aunts who gathered together for one or two big meals during the holiday season. I didn’t miss it, because it had never happened. I loved my cousins, but they were teenagers when I was born and they lived in another state. Neither of my grandmothers were living. I had one great aunt whom we all treasured, but she stayed home that day to cook the big meal for her brothers who lived with her. We must have celebrated Thanksgiving with something, but I don’t remember what.

I didn’t have turkey until I was in my late teens, and it always just seemed like an overgrown chicken to me. I learned to cook it and had it often that first year of marriage because it was so cheap. I loved all the things you could do with the leftovers, and with cooking a whole turkey for two people there were always plenty of leftovers. The first Thanksgiving meal I prepared was one month after my wedding, in November of 1960. We had the boss and his wife over for the meal. It was a breeze as far as I remember, but all I know is that I made a cornbread stuffing with oysters. Probably I made pecan pie because it was one of the first things I had learned to cook.

We didn’t serve wine with Thanksgiving in the South in the 1950s. There was no more drinking on that day than any others, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t much. There was no tradition of watching the game and getting drunk that has become part of the Thanksgiving ritual in so many homes today. I never saw the family brawls most people report from the tension of trying to create loving scenes of family joy and unity.

As to the thanks-giving,I didn’t learn about real gratitude until I was in my 50s. I was at my first Al-Anon meeting and a man, leading the group, said, “Whenever I get in a fight with my wife, I stop myself now. I say, ‘This is not about her. It’s about me. I want to blame her, I want her to change—but all I can change is myself; all I can change is my reaction to her.’” I had never heard anything like this before. It’s not about her. It’s about me. I was overcome by a feeling that I identified as relief. In these meetings, I learned that moment, it could be about me. “Me” was the only thing I could work on, the only thing I could change.

It was several months later at another meeting when someone suggested the topic of gratitude for the group to talk about. She expressed gratitude for a hammock chair she had bought for herself and the peace she experienced just swinging in it. When it was my turn to talk I said, “Gratitude! That is the silliest topic I’ve ever heard brought up in these meetings. I see nothing spiritual about swinging in a hammock chair…” The group laughed indulgently and told me that as a newcomer my response was valid and that they hadn’t grasped the healing power of gratitude for small things until they had been in the program for a while themselves. They went around the circle, as is done in 12-Step groups, speaking one by one, all contributing their notions of gratitude until finally it sank in, to me. What I had felt that first meeting when the the brave man spoke of fixing himself instead of yelling at his wife—the gift of being allowed to make your life about yourself and not about what some other person is doing or not doing. The feeling I had thought of as relief-at-long-last was not so much relief as gratitude.

Like many intangibles (serenity, for example; and sobriety), in the 12-Step programs, gratitude is regarded as palpable, malleable, a tool to be sought and found. It’s even a goal, to be planned for, sought and found every day of your life, not just when there’s an abundance of food and good cheer around. Gratitude can provide a path to a whole and resplendent life. Finding gratitude on a deep level is part of finding yourself. In Hoboken, or in Fairhope, in the movies, in a book, in creation, or in discovering insights, wherever you might be.

I’ve had many pleasant Thanksgiving meals, in my own homes and in those of others, and I’m sure a national day of thanks is a positive celebration in any society. The concept of gratitude, while suffusing this one day in most lives, transcends the day, the nation, the spirit and can bring a great deal more in depth and breadth to our lives than a day of eating, drinking, and watching football on television ever can.

I’m looking forward to a solitary, simple Thanksgiving Day this year. I love to cook and will give myself something special on the day. But the most special part of the day is the moment of personal realization. The joy of gratitude itself. That is the one thing every human being can give thanks for.

Me and Wall Street

2011-11-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

For a minute after I got off the train at the World Trade Center stop I thought I wasn't even going to find the OWS protest. I had thought I'd just follow the crowd, but of course you don't do that in that part of the city--they are going everywhere. I knew Wall Street was somewhere off to my right so I started walking. Names that I recognized cropped up: Cortland, Vesey, Maiden Lane (I always liked that one). I assumed I was going vaguely in the right direction.

I didn't relax until I saw a news camera pointed in the direction I was walking. It had a little maple leaf sticker on the side--I and a cameraman from Canadian television were off to cover the movement. I didn't want to ask, "Can you tell me where the protest is?" Nothing more uncool than that.

Then, there it was. A little square filled with people, tents, and signs. The smell of Indian-vegetarian cooking was in the air, and young people holding signs that said things like PROSECUTE WALL STREET FRAUD lined the edges of the park. There were some 500 or more actively working in the stalls and I even got to hear one of those "human microphone" announcements. Everybody looked so happy and friendly I had trouble believing I was in the right place.

It's a little too easy to say it was the 60s all over again, but that was what it felt like. Maybe cleaner, maybe brighter, and not so angry. It looked to be mostly people in their 20s and 30s. A lady sat doing her knitting next to a sign that proclaimed she was a 52-year-old grandmother, and, "Don't wait for change. Be the change." All the people seemed to be diligently working on something--either the Liberty Library (a section of the park where books of all kinds are donated and traded) or passing out leaflets like The Occupied Wall Street Journal, and talking, explaining the mission and the movement. Nothing ambiguous about it. They were out of work and wanted to make their voices known. The top one per cent has all the money, we are not in that one per cent. We don't like being treated like undeserving children. We don't like that money dictates everything from where the jobs are (overseas) to who gets to be president--or what agenda that president follows.

The signs were well made and elegant. One read, "WE JUST BOUGHT REAL ESTATE IN YOUR MIND." Another held by a rather handsome young man said MEDIA: Please Tell the Truth about What Is Happening Here.

The Occupied Wall Street Journal is a good read. It's literate, upbeat, brief and to the point. It lists places where you can learn about the movement, or volunteer to help. It seems they need help in the areas of Outreach (mostly contacting commuters on the subway platforms and trains); Medical; Facilitation (holding daily training sessions on communication and mediation); Food; Comfort (sleeping in a park is not always comfortable, they need blankets, socks, etc.); and Design (this committee is responsible for the signs).

If you want to follow the occupation, here are some places you can go: www.nycga.net or www.occupywallst.org.

As for me, the OWS movement has already bought real estate in my head.

Finding Franz (Hals)

2011-09-24T13:30:00.001-07:00

I remember a big book of art prints my parents owned. We three children were fascinated by those images and the commentary about them--"The Laughing Cavalier" by Franz Hals, "Birth of Venus" by Botticelli, and John Singer Sargent's "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose."

First, that laughing cavalier, bursting right off the page with his joy, his ornate attire, and that look of devilment in his 17th Century eye. I didn't know what a cavalier was, but I knew a happy man when I saw one. "Birth of Venus" featured a naked lady, and my sister and I didn't know why the little boys in the neighborhood all wanted to ogle that one; but the Sargent could have been the two of us, working with lanterns in an overflow of flowers.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art advertised a Franz Hals show which will run for a few more weeks, and I didn't want to miss it. I had seen some of his work at the art museum in Amsterdam, and regretted that I didn't get to Haarlem to the Hals studio and museum when I was in Holland. I made a note to myself to get to the Met before the show closed.

Last Wednesday I decided, "Now or never," and got myself together enough to find my way to the Met from the PATH train in Hoboken. My friend from Hoboken wrote me this on Facebook when I posted that I was on my way: "Port Authority. Go downstairs to #7 Flushing, 2 stops to grand central, upstairs to uptown Lex. Ave. Get off at 86th." Too bad I didn't see this until after I got home--I had taken the train instead, transferred at 34th to the B, and ended up at the wrong museum. I got a taxi across the park and went into the Met. I didn't know the "suggested" entrance fee is $17 for seniors, but for a chance to see some Franz Halses, I sprang for the full amount.

The Met is always awe-inspiring, with its white noise of hushed echoes of people talking and its elegant, old-world architecture. The Franz Hals were just right, a small collection, really, some on loan but some owned by the museum. It's easy to get overloaded with imagery at any art museum, and tempted as I was to try to get my money's worth by walking through other exhibits, I limited myself to the few rooms with the work of Hals.

He painted peasants and nobles, whores and potentates. He had a stable of young painters learning from him, copying him (literally) and generally helping cement his place in the firmament of great artists for all time. Van Gogh is said to have been stunned by the excellence of his work. The legends accompanying this exhibition all spoke of his brush work, his slashes, and I was glad to have technical elements pointed out to me. But the overarching beauty of his work to me will always be the gusto of his subjects and the artist's grasp of that.He painted court and political scenes, barroom scenes, portraits of reprobates and hookers, all with an unmistakable verve and sometimes a photographic accuracy. (I can only guess at that, since I never saw the subjects in photographs, but I'm sure I'm right about it.) It is a joy to contemplate the work and wonder and the genius who created it.

Coming home, I still really didn't know my way. I knew I wouldn't find a subway on 5th Avenue as I strode downtown--why I didn't just go over to Lex I can't imagine, but I didn't. I walked ten blocks to the street that crosses the park and thought, Well, it's only a few blocks to the West Side subway from here, which was a mistaken assumption. I walked across Central Park, feeling embraced by the beautiful space so beloved by New Yorkers, paused at the lake and fountain, and trudged on until I reached Central Park West, then Columbus Avenue, and then at last my old IRT train that took me to the Port Authority for a bus back to Hoboken.

I'll eventually know how make the trip easily. I have in the past. Somehow I always feel at home in Manhattan no matter how ritzy, how snobbish, how intimidating it gets. When I am there, I feel close to that young woman I once was, the one who had not yet gotten to Amsterdam and only knew "The Laughing Cavalier" from her parents' art book, the one who lived in a shabby rent controlled apartment and felt as if she owned the universe. She and I are close to New York still, and will always appreciate the fact that there is so much real art so near.

Life After Irene

2011-08-30T13:54:00.001-07:00

Photo by The Jersey Journal
I've lived through a lot of hurricanes. There are two things I know about them without a doubt. (1, No one can predict where one will hit and (2, no one can predict how strong it will be. All those weather guys in their windbreakers grimacing into the wind and rain are just guessing, and often they are no better at guessing than the man in the street.

The word went out last Thursday and Friday that Hurricane Irene was going to hit near New York City Sunday, and it was going to be strong. That was enough for me. I left on the bus for upstate New York, where my daughter lives with my two grandsons, at 2:30 on Friday.

I've ridden out many a hurricane that hit the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay over the past 18 years. They are fearsome acts of nature, full of lightning, thunder, rain and winds that snap pines in two and slam them into nearby houses, cars and people. The power goes out and inside your abode you hover listening to the sound track that strikes a certain amount of terror into your heart, while you occasionally glance out a window at the show. Evacuation is an option but getting out will only take you to a slow moving line of traffic going nowhere except usually deeper into the storm.

I always stayed home while most friends, particularly those who had not endured the storms, tried to get out, but usually returned with tales of trying to get upstate only to find no lodging and that the hurricane beat them there.

This time, knowing Hoboken's tendency to flood just from a rainstorm, and living in the flood-prone area of the city, I knew enough to call my daughter and say, "I'm coming."

She lives in Kingston, which largely escaped the hurricane although there was some flooding and power outage. Her house was high and not exactly dry, but unscathed. In the early morning hours I awoke, and not hearing thunder or experiencing the flashes of lightning or even hearing wind, I looked out the window of my wee bedroom. It was raining, all right, in heavy sheets--and the wind was blowing it horizontally, hurricane-style. I was glad not to be in Hoboken, as I knew the streets would be rivers and the basement of my building was bound to wash away my stored winter clothes and cartons of old treasured items.

I was unsettled and antsy all day. Being dislocated and picturing your stuff floating around in dirty water can do that for you. I wanted it to be over, and to be home. Unfortunately the buses and trains weren't running on Monday and I had another day of peace and quiet to secretly fret about the condition of my building and my town. My upstairs neighbor, Mark, emailed that there was at least three feet of water in the back yard and much more than that in the basement, and my brand-new hot water heater there was submerged and probably inoperable.

Tuesday morning there was one big bus with the word CHARTER on it in the parking lot at the Kingston bus station. The bus driver had announced when he pulled in, "Here is your bus to Atlantic City!" and we New Yorkers stood on the sidelines grumbling. A few people were getting in, so somebody finally walked over and said something to the bus driver who admitted that it was the New York bus and he was making a little joke. Bus drivers sometimes have an odd sense of humor.

I was able to get home by 11:30 and Mark and his wife were working in the back yard, wringing out what had been in their corner of the basement and I went out at talked with them. The sump pump was working away but there were still a few inches of water to slush around in. I looked around but indulged myself by putting the major clean-up off until today. I called a plumber who can look at my hot water heater Friday.

My electricity and gas is working, my cable tv is fine, and I can shower at the gym. I'm going to the gym this morning and the rest of my day is going to be spent lugging soggy cartons out of the basement and sorting out what to keep and what to discard. I'm lucky--and we in this part of the country are really lucky that we really didn't see much of Irene at all. My heart goes out to the places that were harder hit.

A Tale of Three Cities

2011-08-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

This year I’ve been to three cities in North America—distinctly different cities, all apparently thriving and each offering a specific kind of beauty.

Minneapolis is thriving, busy, modern. It has an artistic side, an elegant side—the latter for the most part is in St. Paul, which for all practical purposes really is Minneapolis. There is an active arts scene in the twin cities with many theaters, most of them professional, a major university—and writers all over town, getting together, talking, teaching, and of course, writing.

I went to Minneapolis in early April for a writing workshop conducted by author Jonathan Odell. Jon is a transplanted Mississipian, so we had a lot in common as Southerners in a land where the Civil War is seldom discussed, nor do people necessarily sweeten their ice tea, and tall tales are reserved for standup comedians. We tossed around Southern expressions like, “He’s just talkin’ to hear his head roll,” and “It’s hog-killin’ weather.” Jon was conducting a writing workshop, “Writing in the Middle of Your Life,” at the Loft, which is housed in a spacious building on South Washington Avenue with a café, meeting rooms and classrooms—all for writers. A friend met me at the airport the afternoon before the workshop and gave me a tour of the two cities, saying all the while that I really should see it in the summer when it’s at its best. It was a cold early-April day and there was still some snow here and there, but the town, with its bridges, its wonderful modern architecture, and its sense of itself, were a pleasure to experience. We ate at a Pakistani restaurant and had really excellent food in a clattery, casual atmosphere.

Minneapolis seems a business town—intelligent, no-nonsense, with an artistic flair in a very controlled, intellectual kind of way. I viewed some of the historic sections of St. Paul and was astonished to find it was the old-money part of town, dotted with mansions and a beautiful cathedral. Its twin city is the home of the Tyrone Guthrie Theater which is housed in an award-winning new facility that looked to me more like an airport than a theater—but I’m sure still a location of many first-rate productions. Other smaller theater spaces abound in the city. I even was driven past a little Frank Lloyd Wright house with signs in the yard, “This is a private residence. No Trespassing.” How I would have loved to creep around that yard and peek in windows, but no soap.

I loved Minneapolis-St. Paul and hope to visit there again—maybe even in the summer!

Last month I went to Montreal, where my daughter is going to live next year. This bilingual city reminded me of Geneva, where I spent some six years in the 1980s. It is cerebral and artistic at the same time, with a softer feel than Geneva, I would say. Not closed. Not Swiss, let’s face it. Not quite French, but with that almost-American touch of Canada. It was clean and spruce, its neighborhoods green with trees; its international feeling unmistakable with the plethora of restaurants and citizens in the streets in native garb.

We attended an astonishing show at the art museum—a display of the work of French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier. Gaultier’s work set the fashion world on its ear in 1981 with his extraordinary haute couture versions of street and punk fashion. He’s been doing it neatly ever since, and this exhibit showed his designs up close (don’t touch!). Some were displayed on mannikins with hologram faces, whose eyes follow you, and who sometimes speak. I kept returning to the handsome black hologram, and at last he said to me, “Je t’aime.”

Montreal is busy and varied, upscale and historical. I expect many revisits as my daughter works toward Canadian citizenship and a way to build a better life outside the reckless madness of her native country’s political scene.

I am writing this from the third city on my travels this year—Santa Fe. This is a unique little city, expensive and esthetic, with a distinctly spiritual tone. Its main attractions are churches, including the breathtaking little Loretto Chapel. Loretto has a legend, that the Sisters of Loretto who were working in the lovely little chapel patterned after Sainte-Chapelle in Paris needed a staircase to the loft and prayed to St. Joseph for help. A stranger showed up and built a spiral stair, using wooden pegs instead of nails and creating a work of art that was just the staircase they needed. He then left, not giving his name and not accepting any money for his work. They never saw him again.

There are Indian (Native Americans here still refer to themselves as Indians) stories of miracles, Catholic stories of miracles--the city is awash with tales of magic and religion of all definitions. Santa Fe has a "look," preserved by strict historical preservation ordinances. Almost all the buildings are in what is known locally as Pueblo Revival style, others are called Territorial style which look like Western traditional wood framed structures. The effect is unity with a certain elegance.

It has also become a major center for fine food. Not only Mexican, although that cuisine enhances most of the menus in town--there are top-notch eateries for Italian, Asian and Indian even molecular gastronomy.

There are concerts, indoor and outdoor, often at the art museums. There is jazz and country-western, classical, organized events and impromptu. Santa Fe is one of the centers for fine art in the country; contemporary and folk art museums and galleries
are all over town.

Through it all there shines a city with a distinct personality, like a friend you want to get to know better.

Even the tourists here seem better dressed than in other places.

The Shaw Festival, Canada

2011-07-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

Benedict Campbell and Deborah Hay in My Fair Lady
The Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada is a national treasure I had never experienced until a week ago. Maybe that's forgivable since the nation whose treasure it is is not my own.

I had heard for years from friends that the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake is a delight, in a pretty little town on Lake Ontario, but not until this year I was able to make it. I saw Heartbreak House, The Admirable Crichton, My Fair Lady and The President. They are not all Shaw, as you see, but the mission of the Festival is to present the works of Shaw and others who wrote in the same genre at roughly the same period in time and place. According to the notes from Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell, "The Shaw Festival was conceived in passion--a local lawyer’s passion for the plays of Bernard Shaw which led to Candida and Don Juan in Hell being staged for eight weekend performances in 1962. That passion swept up a town, hundreds more artists and thousands of theatregoers. It led to expanding the playbill, developing an acting ensemble as its center, adding theatre spaces, and slowly but purposefully becoming an internationally celebrated theatre company renowned for its rigorous intelligence, outstanding production values and brilliant artistry; all led, still, by a huge passion for what we do."

This is the most inspiring piece of writing about the love of theatre that I have ever seen; I do not know of any theatre company in the U.S. that would make such claims. One might think it hyperbole, and in the States I don't even know if it would sell tickets, but for a certifiable theatre nut like me the statement knocks the ball out of the park. It makes me wish I had been living in Niagara-on-the-Lake back in 1962 when the Festival started. I love the notion that the passion swept up the town--and the fact that the Shaw Festival is still a going concern, with crowds flocking to plays like Heartbreak House
is testament to the literal truth of the statement. I've seen local rep companies in the States, most quite well-funded and supported by their communities, but I daresay few of them swept up a town in passion for their mission, not even at the outset.

I always knew there were many excellent actors from Canada but had no idea how many were still practicing their art there in so many venues. The Shaw Festival is only one of many repertory companies that pepper the country. The caliber of talent is astonishing, and the enthusiasm of the audiences is encouraging to say the least. It reminds me of Edinburgh when I visited in the early 1970s--alive with citizens who liked nothing more than talking about plays. The maid in the hotel described her experience at My Fair Lady (she loved it) in great and excited detail. The audience at all plays was a mix of locals and tourists, and some appeared actually to be younger than 70.

I had to think that part of the difference is the removal of the need to be commercially viable; the many theatres of Canada must be line items on the federal budget, and have funding from individuals as well as corporations. The box office is busy and healthy because the country wants and needs a theatre but the boost from an enlightened government makes box office only one of the ways to keep a theatre afloat.
Michael Ball in Heartbreak House

Heartbreak House was my favorite of the plays I saw. Here the actors seemed very English, perfectly at home in the period of the play and the nonconformist message. It's a difficult play, talky and demanding, with strange, fantastical characters and situations; yet like all of Shaw's work there is a clear point of view coming from the playwright. It had laughs, it had romance, it had charm--but the overarching message was serious and profound. The actors were more than equipped to the task, with perfect diction and Shavian logic and intellect. I thought often how lucky they were to be Canadians and have that little touch of the U.S. overlaid with a touch of their English heritage--and their specifically Canadian determination, brilliance and optimism.

It is a theatre to be proud of. Now I look forward to finding the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and getting to know more of my neighbors to the north.

Is the Theatre Dead? Not on Your Motherf**cking Life

2011-06-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

I rushed to the bus to New York yesterday because I didn’t want to be late for my matinee of The Motherf**ker With the Hat. I was in the mood for some laughs, and the show will probably close soon, so there was reason to get in gear and go.

I made it in time, got my seat in the center of the back row (it’s not a huge theater) and could tell from the set I was in for a great ride. I expected some comic turns by the always irreverent Chris Rock, maybe a stand-up type routine or two tied together with a loose plot and a lot of people running back and forth.

The play wasn’t like that at all. It began with a long telephone monologue by the extremely funny and hip Elizabeth Rodriguez. She’s playing a pretty if scruffy young woman talking on the phone to her mother and acting very much as if she is the mother herself. By the end of the speech she’s done a line of cocaine and had the audience howling with laughter. Her boyfriend enters, played magnificently by Bobby Cannavale, upbeat (for the only time in the play) and bragging about having landed a job. They are going to celebrate any minute—until he sees an unidentified man’s hat on a table in the room and everything in both their worlds changes forever.

The set does the first of its own dances now, revolving, looping, furniture folding down into the floor and up from another part of the floor. We are in a different setting where our hero is consulting with his AA sponsor, who is played very suavely by Chris Rock. I was delighted to see an AA element effectively worked into the play, neither as the crux of the script nor its deus ex machina. Just a fact of life. Like it or not. I for one love the 12-Step programs.

Other characters come in, other sets, and as the play moves on we cannot wait to see what happens next. It’s so expertly written that the viewer doesn’t think of it as a string of long monologues woven together to tell a story, which, on one level, it is. The use of profanity is essential—this script elevates street language to poetry and raises the mundane, tawdry situations of everyday life of flawed, dirty, confused people to classical heights. It was a wondrous experience in the theater.

When I first lived in New York in the mid-1960s, the theater was thought to be pretty much a dying elephant in the city. Plays were old-fashioned and the best actors had gone on to be movie stars. I have an announcement to make. Great theater has made a roaring comeback, and it is not going away. If what I’ve seen in the last 12 months is any indication, there is still a need to explore our psyches and souls in this way. The playhouse was full, and not only with us greybeards either. There were all kinds of people in that audience, with all kinds of hair, from dreadlocks to perms and literally every color of the rainbow. Plays like this speak to a vital and dynamic audience, with a voice even we old-timers appreciate. I admit some of the rapid-fire dialogue went past me, but I was transfixed from the get-go.

Was it a star turn for Chris Rock? Not so much as it was an excellent vehicle to show him as an actor rather than just an insult comic, and he acquitted himself superbly. More than that, it was a production that grew out of love, from a theater company of actors who have worked together for years, from the Public Theater to Broadway—a playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, who wrote from his own heart for actors he knew; and a director, Anna D. Shapiro, who approached the material with simplicity and vigor. Even the scenery by Todd Rosenthal whirled about sleekly and seamlessly, and appeared to be a participant in the drama and comedy of these lives. It was an ensemble of equals, including Yul Vazquez in an ambiguous role of a light-in-his-loafers cousin balancing the volatile nature of the Cannavale macho man; and Annabella Sciorra, who radiated rage and tenderness as the broken-hearted ball-buster wife of the AA sponsor.

There is much in this play that keeps us on the edge of our seats. Our hearts are touched, we laugh, we are astonished. What more can we ask of live theater?

Looking at Memorial Day

2011-05-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day, I was taught, was started in the South after the Civil War. Widows, mothers, and others who loved men who had lost their lives in the defense of the South in that tragic war went to cemeteries often and put flowers on the graves of their beloved men. It became institutionalized as Confederate Memorial Day, within a few years co-opted by the bereaved on both sides. At first the women of the North set aside their day for decorating graves, and they called it Decoration Day; but over time the two sides came together to honor all who died in the Civil War under the appellation of Memorial Day, and May 30 was designated. In recent years the date has been made flexible in order to allow a three-day weekend.

In the South, where many diehards still reside, there are pockets where Confederate Memorial Day is observed on various days in the year, but let us face it, there have been many more men lost in many other wars, and the memories of the lost Southern cause have been blurred by so many re-inventions that there is absolutely no point in defending anything about that particular war.

Imagine my surprise in reading this in an article by Adam Cohen in today's New York Times:

Memorial Day got its start after the Civil War, when freed slaves and abolitionists gathered in Charleston, S.C., to honor Union soldiers who gave their lives to battle slavery. The holiday was so closely associated with the Union side, and with the fight for emancipation, that Southern states quickly established their own rival Confederate Memorial Day.

He gets his information from an impeccable source, Dr. David Blight of Yale University, who has written several award-winning histories espousing this theory. In fact, Dr. Blight's take on that particular war has helped shape our perceptions of our wars, our history, and our racism.

Well and good, and I hope I'm not considered a racist (but I feel certain I would be by Dr. Blight) because of what Memorial Day means to me. I don't love the holiday (except that it usually falls on my birthday), and I certainly don't love the Civil War or the Southern cause. I Googled Memorial Day and found many an entry, not all of which support the idea that the day itself has helped the country to proceed with ignoring civil rights. This one I found quite fair and balanced, partly because it re-tells the old old story I grew up with, true or false. Don't miss the page on Mrs. Logan.

Let us observe the day tomorrow with not receiving mail, finding the bank closed, thinking of the real meaning of each and every war, and also not forgetting that somewhere within the long weekend was my birthday.

Hip Hooray and Ballyhoo

2011-04-09T06:37:00.001-07:00

D.A. Gravel, Mark Bogdanos, Anneli Curnock

The Last Night of Ballyhoo is an odd title for a play. And the play, presented by the Hudson Theatre Ensemble tonight, next Friday and Saturday nights, doesn't disappoint. It introduces us to a segment of the population we might never have met, and over the course of the evening, we learn to love them.

I grew up in the South and knew very few Jews in the region. Playwright (Driving Miss Daisy) Alfred Uhry, on the other hand, knew them first hand and, luckily for us, tells their stories in touching and comic ways. Seeing it is an enlightening and heartwarming experience.

The play opens in an old-fashioned, gently theatrical way. It is Christmas in Atlanta, the season of the very year Gone With the Wind opened at Loew's Grand on Peachtree Street. I lived in Atlanta in the 1960s and know very well the devotion that city has had to that book and movie over the years. It is the perfect moment in time for a play about Atlanta's Jewish population, working hard to assimilate just as Hitler is gathering forces to annihilate their relatives in Europe. Lala Levy, charmingly portrayed by Anneli Curnock, is decorating a Christmas tree, as her mother explains that Christmas is a time for decorations and has nothing to do with the birth of any messiah. Lala is a piece of work--defensive, angry, and more than a little bit eccentric. Her mother is concerned that she'll never find a husband, and that a husband with good Jewish bloodlines is her only hope.

The action moves slowly, just like an old-fashioned, gently theatrical play should. One by one we meet the family--Uncle Adolph, the family patriarch, his other niece Sunny, who doesn't look Jewish; her pleasantly dim mother (played winningly by Hudson favorite Florence Pape) and the young men who come to call. By the end of the first act we have real drama, as we have learned the conflicts that hold this little family unit together and pull them apart at the same time. The two cousins have a very moving confrontation which spells out one of the basic themes of play--a kind of sibling rivalry and family feud that lies just under the surface.

The main theme, however, is heightened by the entrance into this world of a young Jewish man from Brooklyn who comes to work for Uncle Adolph. He is immediately turned off by the pushy Lala, and falls for Sunny, who is intrigued by his exotic Jewishness. It is through him that we contrast the ways Jews lived in the South at that time, setting up social strata similar to that which they saw all around them in the WASP world, and the European Jews of New York, who were so proud of the Jewishness of celebrities who for the most part were in the closet, so to speak.

What's the ballyhoo? Apparently there is a big event, "The Ballyhoo," sort of a coming-out party for eligible young Jews all over the South, who come to Atlanta every year to meet each other. I never heard of it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It is the logical place for these characters to get together.

As usual for the Hudson Theatre Ensemble, a phantom director has assembled a first rate cast and guided them to a production that is interesting as well as entertaining. Mark Bogdanos is outstanding--funny and lovable, but totally convincing as the head of the family company. I even believed him when he snoozed. D.A. Gravel is touching as the frustrated and sometimes obnoxious sister, left to live her life through her very unsatisfying daughter. Lauren Hayden is talented as well as beautiful. We root for her and her young man as soon as we see them together for the first time. Steve Yates plays the visitor from a different world with vitality and appeal, and Ross Weinberg makes us like a schmoe who thinks he's smart--and leaves us with the one unforgettable line of the evening.

The matinee performance tomorrow at 3 is sold out, but who knows? There might be standing room. Otherwise, don't miss this one--at the Hudson School Performance Space at Park and 6th, 8 P.M. tonight and next weekend.

Photo by John Crittenden

Losing St. Patrick

2011-03-06T03:29:00.001-08:00

Hoboken traditionally celebrates St. Patrick's Day with a big parade the first Saturday in March. When I was new in town (March 2008) and hadn't witnessed the spectacle, I went to the parade eagerly and enjoyed myself. At that point I was living on Hudson Street between 6th and 7th, and I staked out a place for myself in front of Benny Tudino's pizza parlor. There was a big crowd, mostly lined up in front of the bars on Washington Street for all I could tell.

There were vendors selling green beads and boas of green feathers, green t-shirts and funny hats. I watched the parade, enjoyed a slice of pizza, chatted a little with some of the revelers, but was not quite with it enough to see it for what it was--a drunken mob scene made up of mostly college kids that would last long into the night. I was home shortly after 1 P.M. and could still hear the roar of the crowd from my third-floor walkup all day long. I reflected on St. Patrick, the Irish, the human need for carnival, and parades I had seen in my lifetime. On March 17, I went to a nice bar and ordered an Irish Coffee. I was disappointed that the bartender just poured some Irish whiskey into some stale coffee left over from the morning and served me that in a cup. No real Irish here. I mentioned my experience of the parade and was told that most Hoboken residents vacate the area on the day of the St. Patrick's parade and leave the celebrating to out-of-towners, mostly college kids looking for a place to get knee-walking drunk, and a certain amount of gratuitous violence, contained by an augmented police force.

The next year I didn't bother with St. Patrick's Day or its celebration. Last year I went to a matinee on Broadway. Yesterday was parade day, so I traipsed to New York again, this time in search of a nice French bistro where I could have a light meal and a cineplex that was showing some kind of offbeat movie.

The movie I found was Barney's Version, which stars one of my favorite actors, Paul Giamatti. It was playing in the West Village, which is one of my favorite places to be in Manhattan--I used to work there at the old Fairchild Publications on W. 12th Street, and I defy anyone to find a better neighborhood for young, bright, semi-artistic people to work in in New York. The area is haunted for me now, and browsing there is sure to stir up memories and create an experience unto itself.

I walked on West 12th looking for a nice place for a little Frenchy meal. There was an Italian place right where Il Bambino used to be, on the corner of 12th and University Place, but I can get good Italian anytime in Hoboken, so I veered onto University where I saw a sign that said Jack Bistro and ventured in. It felt very French, and very noisy--obviously a favorite for weekend brunch in the neighborhood. I ordered a bowl of onion soup dreading the plunge through the cheese toast to the roiling-hot deliciousness beneath, but I needn't have worried. The soup was served in a big white plate and the crouton was a slice of oblong ciabatta covered in melted Gruyere. You could actually pick up the toast, nibble, and place it back on the soup to soak up liquid. I never had the dish served this way and shall never forget it. Excellent food, excellent service, and a tab of $7.89 or thereabouts. I hope that cafe lasts a long time; I intend to return. At the bar as I was leaving two young beauties in green t-shirts were asked, "Excuse me, but are you on your way to Hoboken?" and they said they were.

I, on the other hand, was on my way to the 13th St. Quad Cinema, where the movie awaited me. Paul Giamatti played an obnoxious young man, not unlike the Duddy Kravitz of a previous book and film, fumbling, hustling and conning his way through life, but this one is saved by an angel of a wife and has a decent life in spite of himself. I also couldn't help but be a bit reminded of The Heartbreak Kid, for reasons that will be obvious to those who see both movies. Beautifully done, the movie includes a great turn by Minnie Driver, an actress who has not touched me much before this, Dustin Hoffman, who never fails to touch me, and an actress I had not made note of before named Rosamund Pike. As the angel-wife, she is flawless and awesomely good. You might say "too good to be true," but don't forget, this is Barney's version of the story. I loved the movie, but at times it is difficult to take.

As I left the theater a lady in the row behind me said, "Are you Jewish?" and I said I wasn't. Then she said, "That was the most Jewish movie I've ever seen--it had it all!" And I said I agreed it was very Jewish, but that it had universal appeal. We were both wiping our eyes.

Coming home, I got the train and decided to take the Light Rail in Hoboken instead of walking through the milling crowds in green t-shirts. Unfortunately the Light Rail was diverted through Jersey City, but, as I had to change trains at the Newport stop, I ran into Macy's and bought some costume jewelry. I ended doing what I liked on this odd day in Hoboken--basically I got out of town, lost the madness that is connected to St. Patrick's Day here (and Mardi Gras in my hometown). Sometimes the best plan is to wait until the 17th and reach for a glass of Bailey's in honor of St. Patrick then, if you do anything at all.

Finding Old Hoboken

2011-02-03T14:58:00.000-08:00

My novel takes a young woman on a journey exactly the reverse of my own. She was born in Hoboken in 1895, becomes a schoolteacher (here the likeness ends), and travels to Fairhope, Alabama, to work in the experimental School of Organic Education under the direction of the magnificent visionary Marietta Johnson, whose school was founded the same year as the one in Rome founded by Maria Montessori.

I try to capture the flavor of the early 20th century as well as the mood of Hoboken in those days. If you find this excerpt interesting, I have about 300 more pages to go, and I'll let you know when I actually have a book.

Amelia’s upbringing in the crowded immigrant settlement of Hoboken, separated from New York City only by the wide and serviceable river named after explorer Henry Hudson, had been privileged and protected. Her parents were part of what was known locally as the “upper crust,” the Germans who had settled in Hoboken in the 1870s, before waves of Irish and Italians came to fill the town at the turn of the century. The wealthy families now resided in the prestige houses on Castle Point Terrace and Hudson Street, some with views of the growing Manhattan skyline. Dr. Weiss and his wife Gertrude were well respected, and as an only child Amelia, although well cared for in every way, was left on her own with a nanny much of her time.

Amelia dared not to feel lonely or neglected, but it was her plight to be so, as her parents were occupied with their lives outside their home and their daughter. She had few toys to play with—one porcelain-headed doll named Patricia, which she always thought the most beautiful of names, and a stuffed bear she had named Nicodemus. These companions helped her create a separate world to inhabit, which transported her out of the ordinary. She did enjoy the bear more than the delicate Patricia, as he withstood rougher treatment and inspired more challenging games. The doll was always herself, stolid and mature, and not receptive to bumptious play, if any real play at all. Patricia had to be handled carefully, and with that frozen face, made Amelia think of her mother, Gertrude, who had married a doctor and moved upward in local society.

Hoboken was a rugged little town in the early 1900’s. It was approximately one mile wide from the cliffs of the Palisades to the Hudson, and a mile in length north to south, bordered at the southern end and the western cliff by Jersey City and by Weehawken hard by the north. The poor were everywhere, from soot-stained children—locally referred to as ragamuffins—on the pavement, to the shabby shops along the side streets and the bars in the waterfront district nicknamed The Barbary Coast by locals. On the lower streets near the river there were vaudeville theaters, dingy cafés, bars, and brothels—all kept quite busy by a lively, noisy contingent of stevedores and sailors. The section known as “downtown” was actually on the Western border at the cliffs upon which stood Jersey City. In the old days this border area of Hoboken had been a swamp, but it had been filled in to provide land for tenement houses for the blue collar workers who were steadily populating the town. The streets were named for U.S. presidents, as a way to acquaint newcomers and their children with American history. There were old houses in Hoboken—built in the early 1800s—and there were some quite elegant ones in the Weiss’ neighborhood. The two elements of town were separated by the invisible wall of class, education, and money.

The main street of Hoboken was called Washington Street. It was a boulevard, really, bisecting the town’s population of immigrants and settlers with money and some amount of pedigree. Hoboken’s citizens called it “the avenue,” and on it were located the best shops in town, a few restaurants, pharmacies, and little stores where sundry items and necessaries could be bought. Amelia’s grandfather, Conrad Weiss, owned one of the oldest retail establishments on the avenue. The store bore his name across the top of the entrance door.

Amelia had not been exposed to the normal rough-and-tumble activities of other children, but began her education at home at the hands of her nanny, Miss Pritchart, for the kind of life Gertrude thought proper. Miss Pritchart was an old fashioned despot, certain that children should be seen and not heard, and seen only in their cleanest finery. A spinster in her fifties, really rather old in early 20th century terms, Miss Pritchart tied her white hair severely into a little bun on the back of her head and except for the occasional lace collar wore no ornament or color. Since her early twenties she had been charged, as a teacher and governess, with seeing to it that children were exposed to a strict academic regimen and that they were obedient and well-mannered. Her brisk, no-nonsense style appealed to Gertrude. Where Gertrude was fearful and insecure, Miss Pritchart struck the right chord of assurance and sense of purpose. She was consistent and unyielding, and to her mind and to Gertrude’s this was good for children, who in their way of thinking were always on the verge of breaking something, whether it be an heirloom or an academic principle.

She needn’t worry about Amelia, who was so eager to please that she had early on adopted a quiet manner and a malleable spirit.

Miss Pritchart was compelled, nonetheless, to impose her doctrine of original sin to the child. It was her contention, and that of many early childhood educators of her day, that children would do anything to outwit the adults in charge of them, and that the devil lurked near them at all times to lead them into sins of misbehavior and ultimately seduce them into lives of debauchery. Only by constant relating to a child what was wrong and impressing upon him how deficient he was could an adult gain the proper respect of the child and get him to focus on work, the most important facet of his young life.

She had been brought into Amelia’s life at the age of three and was by her side for two formative years. Amelia’s parents were not to be involved in her daily affairs, but they saw her every evening after she had had her bath and dinner alone. She was trained by Miss Pritchart to give them a recital of what she had learned during the day before being taken upstairs to bed. Once a month her grandfather, Conrad Weiss, would take the child for a walk in the morning and show her a little of the activity in Hoboken, or take her to Manhattan on the clattering subway train to see a museum or to play in Central Park.

She was most at ease on these outings with her grandfather, who treasured the child’s occasional ability to find merriment in small things. He saw in her the promise of sunshine and childhood itself. The old man had done his work in the world, even though he still kept his hand in his work at the store. He had raised his family and set away a great deal of money; the little girl would want for nothing when she grew up. Conrad Weiss was pleased with his granddaughter’s quick, alert mind and her resemblance to his own wife, who had died before the child was born.

Coming from the old country, he had been extremely strict with his own children, and had little patience with his son Frederick, Amelia’s father. Frederick had been a willful boy, and moody too, but had a good mind and had applied himself enough to get through medical school and to become a doctor. As he grew up and married, he had settled somewhat, Conrad could see that, but he still would not listen to his father in certain matters, and escaped from the old man however he could. His wife was upright and virtuous, but seemed distant and perhaps a bit too fragile to please Conrad. He could not ascertain the nature of their relationship, as they shared a big, important house but seemed like formal acquaintances rather than man and wife. The child was not given affection from either parent, and certainly not from the woman in whose care they had placed her.

Conrad would take little Amelia to the park at Elysian Fields and tell her about the baseball games and the ferris wheel that used to be there. Hoboken had once been a playground for the wealthy of New York City, who would take the old steamers for weekend getaways, and when he sat with the little girl, he relived those days and told her of the past glories of the park, now scaled down in size and far from glorious. When Conrad moved to Hoboken as a boy with his family from Germany in the 1840’s it was already changing. Col. Stevens, who had started the town as a resort for New Yorkers, had died and left the real estate he had established as parks and recreation to be managed by his family, and bit by bit they were selling the land for factories and industrial use.

It was the place where the first baseball in America was played, Grandpa Weiss told her, and a garden spot for children to explore among the caves and rocks. Now there were factories—one large one for Maxwell House Coffee, another for Lipton Tea—nearby—and the waterfront area was dingy, dangerous, and not a place for children. Nevertheless, the old man knew where the special places were, and would take the girl up the hill to look at Stevens’ castle, the palatial home built by the Col. Stevens, and now a part of Stevens Institute, an engineering school for young men.

A Prince of an Actor

2011-01-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

As soon as I saw the first preview some months ago I knew I'd love The King's Speech, the picture that is garnering Best Actor awards for its lead, Colin Firth. Who could resist this marvelous man playing George VI of England, struggling with a crippling speech impediment and facing the challenge of taking over the throne of England?

Colin Firth won the hearts of the world when he defined the elusive, enigmatic Fitzwilliam Darcy in the first-rate 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice,
which introduced millions to the works of Jane Austen. To me he will always exemplify Darcy's integrity and subtle sex appeal. He has moved far beyond that role now, and his portrayal of the reluctant king surely fixes him permanently in the firmament of great English actors. I can see a knighthood in his future.

The movie focuses on the causes of stammering, examined by an extraordinary teacher and lay therapist (played by Geoffrey Rush), and worked on with the help of a strong and supportive wife (Helena Bonham Carter). Bonham Carter has never been more dignified, nor has she embodied a known entity more convincingly. We felt the Queen really was like that, and we hoped the family life was as warm and touching as it seemed. I remember the two princesses constantly in newsreels, and the fascination at Elizabeth's wedding, then Margaret's, and the lives they led as young women. This movie reveals a background I did not know, the England of those little girls' parents, their wastrel uncle born to be king but not up to the job. I knew about Wallis Simpson, of course, and knew that elderly couple--the Duke and Duchess of Windsor by then--who globe-hopped and spent a long marriage seeking recognition they little deserved.

In the movie, we are introduced to the vicissitudes of speech therapy. Rush is patient, wise, and sometimes more than a bit cheeky in working with the young royal. It is the only way this teacher knows how to be in order to break down the defenses Bertie has built up in his years of shame over his speech impediment. This element of the film is most touching, this breaking through and reaching the reserved young man on a basic level which he may never have revealed to anybody. The painful work reaches the crux of his speech and communication problem and moves him to greatness he might never have come near otherwise. Looking at it from today's perspective it is hard to believe how cruel some caregivers have been to little children, and hard to believe that with serious work it can in some cases be undone.

Colin Firth is always a pleasure to watch, with his very unassuming intensity. He is one of the best practitioners of the discipline and restraint that is seen in the best of the English theatre. We are lucky that Hollywood has discovered him and that we may see him for years to come. Sir Colin? Not yet. But mark my words.

Christmas Past: Carols, Cookies and Cash

2010-12-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

I used to "do" Christmas--I cooked traditional dishes, gave parties, bought presents and generally partook in the chaos and stress of Christmas 30 years ago. This morning I was remembering the time I took the astronomical amount of $200 cash in my purse to shop at Macy's, and how nervous I was that I might not make it to the store without being mugged. I tried my best not to look as if I had $200 cash on me and forged ahead, two blocks from where I lived on West 34th to the giant retailer.

The year must have been 1973. I had gotten my first American Express card in 1972, and I had a Macy's charge card before that, but for some reason it made more sense to me to budget Christmas separately and pay in cash. Not a bad plan, but probably unusual even for those ancient days. I had two daughters and a husband to shop for, and the girls were 11 and 12 in 1973.

Christmas from my childhood included old English and French carols, which we sang at that odd school I went to. Solemn, medieval stuff, like "Lullaby of the Christ Child," in a minor key, with lines like "Thousand seraphim/Thousand cherubim/Soaring high above the little Lord of Love." My favorite was the joyous French one, "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella," but I also loved "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Away in a Manger," oh, all of them, I guess, even "Jingle Bells" with the part about "we--we got upsot!" I still love the Christmas music that has to do with the religious side of Christmas, I don't know why, it's imbedded in the spirit of Christmas to me, just like the smell of a fresh fir in the living room.

I noted in the early 70's the phenomenon of the secular music piped into the stores. The most popular seemed to be "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which I supposed was played so relentlessly because it was actually about shopping.

Cookies were my personal contribution to the Christmas mood. I love baking, and there is nothing more rewarding than baking crispy rich cookies and decorating them with two little girls who want to use purple icing and combining the red and green to come up with an unappetizing brown. You try to show them, but you honor their personal taste, such as it is--and the cookies are going to be wonderful anyway. The smells of cinnamon, apple pies baking, the racks of cookies in all shapes and descriptions, always add to the spirit of the season. I even made my own egg nog to wash them down. I've always abhorred the packaged version.

As to cash, that's a thing of the past, I suppose. Nobody moans that too few people bake cookies that they mixed from scratch, with fresh butter, eggs, sugar, flour and spices. The bought cookie dough works as well. Everybody loves "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." probably as much as "Silent Night." Okay. And paying for presents with money ($200 at that) has gone the way of the dinosaur. But some little vestige of the Christmas the old-fashioned way sticks with me.

Happy New Year

2010-12-01T07:10:00.001-08:00

Today I begin my fourth year of living in Hoboken. I searched old blogs for one to reprint from that first day here, but of course there were none. I was too newly set up to be online, although I did use the Internet at a café nearby on Washington Street, and my early blogposts described a much colder winter that year, a virus that hit me a day or so after I arrived, problems getting access to my bank account, waiting a few days for my furniture to arrive, and at least as many if not more challenges than most people have on a cross-country relocation.

I had almost forgotten that until I went back to the first "Finding Myself in Hoboken" blog posts. I thought I'd find a blog full of optimism and excitement about my new home. That indomitable joy in life, no matter where I am or what I'm enduring, is there, to be sure, a sort of underlying awareness that things are going to be better once I know my way around and make new friends. But reading my day to day experiences even I wonder what kept me going.

I liked Hoboken as soon as I saw it for the first time. I had all but decided to relocate to the New York City area, although I had discovered the reality that New York is too expensive for me now. I had a look at Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City, and even Newark, where I had friends living in the Ironbound district. Nothing embraced me as Hoboken did at first sight. I liked the reality of hearing foreign languages on the street, from Polish to French, Spanish and Italian. I loved the little grocery stores that looked as if they'd been there for a century and looked like something you'd find in Italy. I loved the bread you could buy anywhere, the Italian delis that competing for the title of "Best Mozzarella in Hoboken," the cross-section of cultures--yuppies, middle class parent types, b-n-r's talking with heavy "Joisey" accents in the parks, and little elderly people conversing on the benches. I loved the hurly-burly of Washington Street, with restaurants and food shops of all kinds, the bars bursting with noisy young people and the outdoor tables at Washington Street restaurants, full of couples with strollers (so many of them twin strollers at that). I loved the occasional Sinatra song piped onto the street from local eateries, and the pictures of Frank in so many shops and restaurants.

That was when I was looking at Hoboken from the outside. I can say that after three full years I still enjoy the busy streets, the friendly and motley assortment of residents. The blog itself introduced me to some wonderful people. My friend Cristina, a transplant from Colombia and, with her husband Ron and their grown children, a citizen of the world, made a lunch date with me after reading some of those helpless early blog posts, and has been a best friend for about three years now. I learned stories of old Hoboken from a blog reader named Bob Slezak, who filled me in with wonderful tales of what the city was like in the 1950's. Early blog posts, with photos provided by Slezak, prompted comments from his friends and from others who had other memories of what Hoboken used to be like.

I know more people now. I've bought a condo. I am a resident with a New Jersey driver's license and I can give directions when asked. I wouldn't say I've quite put down roots, but I live here, and I like it.

There is a vibrant pulse to the town yet. It is many things at once, and most people who live here, although they may spend much of their time across the river in Manhattan, profess to love that certain something that exists here and nowhere else. It was a good move. I'm happy to be embarking on my fourth year.

Socializing on Facebook

2010-10-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

The movie The Social Network made me feel a little funny about ever using Facebook again.

In it, a genius student at Harvard, shafted by his beautiful girlfriend, goes back to his lonely room and writes nasty things about her on his blog and starts a website demeaning college women in general. From that he becomes a minor college celebrity, co-opts an idea from a group of privileged rich boys and starts Facebook. Law suits follow him for the rest of his days in the brilliant script by Aaron Sorkin (the movie flashes back and forth between the history of Facebook and the various depositions), which winds up at a time vaguely "the present," but before the real genius of the story, the real Mark Zuckerberg, came up with his plan to donate $100 million to the public school system of Newark.

The movie is in line for a lot of Oscars, and will win most of them. The writing, as I said, is edge-of-the-seat compelling, the characters quirky and contemporary, and, even though we know how the story will come out, and we assume much of it is truth, we find ourselves wondering how much of this really happened in this way. And we emerge from the movie not quite knowing, but thinking we do. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a serious version of some of the boys we might see on "The Big Bang Theory," but I wondered if he had mild autism or perhaps Asperger's Syndrome. Actor Jesse Eisenberg had me totally convinced he was Zuckerberg, likewise Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker and Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Savarin, Zuckerberg' friend who gets passed by on the way up. The character of Erica, who starts the Facebook ball rolling in the film, was made up out of the whole cloth--but Rooney Mara, the actress who played her, is beautiful and winning--she clearly has a big future in the movies.

Leaving the movie, my date asked me how many of the people I related to on Facebook had become real friends. I had to think about that because I could only think of one that I had met in person having only conversed on the social network. I have 182 "friends" which is a small number in Facebook terms. Many people have friends in the thousands. I try to keep the number at around 180 by editing out those whose posts I'd rather not see or those who simply never post. Of my 182, about 30 constantly respond to my posts and write posts themselves that I am compelled to comment upon, but I've never laid eyes on. Many of those have invited me to visit if I'm ever in their area. Another 50 or so are people I know slightly who comment occasionally. The others simply refuse to play Facebook; I don't know why they're on it at all.

I enjoy Facebook, but suspect that like any addictive activity, my interest will fade of its own accord as the comments get stale and I tire or outgrow it. It has a way of replacing real life with a virtual one. That, I would think, makes it very seductive to the retirees and people who live alone, but there is something unsatisfying about the experience when you have actually had a life. I have a friend who has written a hilarious blog post about his resistance to the whole idea; his post can be found here. The movie, however, is for the ages--it is a time capsule of a moment in history, this very moment.

Acting and the Professional Woman

2010-10-22T09:03:00.001-07:00

Sally Hawkins and Cherry Jones in Mrs. Warren's Profession

When you go to see a play written by George Bernard Shaw, you can expect a little whiplash of the brain before it's over. You think you're going to a glittering comedy with lovely sets and costumes of a bygone era--and you are--but before it's over you have been challenged right and left as you try to decide whom to root for, if anybody.
Mrs. Warren's Profession, a smart-looking antique with a stellar cast, will give you food for thought on the topic of working women, Victorian hypocrisy, and how the world has and hasn't changed in the last hundred years.

Written in the late 1800's, the play was first produced in 1902, causing great scandal in London. The "profession" of the title is one of the world's oldest--that of madam. And the play went on to make fun and scalding commentary on the manners and mores of the day. Shaw said, according to Wikipedia, that he wrote the play "to draw attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing, and overworking women so shamefully that the poorest of them are forced to resort to prostitution to keep body and soul together."

Fast forward to the new production at the American Airlines Theater in New York. Playing the role of Mrs. Warren is the dazzling Cherry Jones, who originated the Meryl Street role in Doubt, among other Broadway triumphs, and has the critics at her feet every time she steps onto a stage. I was delighted to see her and am pleased to report that she was a marvel to watch. I also enjoyed the work of Sally Hawkins, a young English actress who plays Mrs. Warren's daughter.

I went back to the NY Times review after having seen the play and was disappointed that the critic had all but dismissed Miss Hawkins, in spite of the sterling performance I saw. It seems he had seen this play in the 2005 London production in which Brenda Blethyn essayed the role of Mrs. Warren and he thought the play belonged to the daughter, played by Rebecca Hall in her stage debut. I'll just have to differ, not having seen the London production. In the Roundabout Theater's version there is a constant battle for the sympathy of the audience, and some are bound to choose one side or the other. I rather liked the old dragon (played by a not-old Miss Jones) but I could see why the daughter was distraught at the old way of doing things and ready to change the world for women of the future, one of which I am.

It's not a easy play, aside from the lovely sets and costumes, and I heard ever so many comments from my fellow theatergoers to the general effect that they couldn't understand the accents, much less the points being made. To see a play by George Bernard Shaw, surely these sophisticated New Yorkers, most of whom were greyhairs like me, one has to expect to strain the brain and ears a little. I wanted to make an announcement: "Come on, people. You can get this. You are my tribe--you've been attending plays for fifty years or more, and this is Shaw! It's not Shrek the Musical or The Addams Family. It's the kind of play we were raised seeing, with nuance, character and plot and elegant dialogue. You must remember plays like this!" In short, Mrs. Warren's Profession is an old-fashioned play in the best sense. It's a workout, but leaves you with much to ponder, decide, smile about, and remember.

Me in the Machine Again

2010-10-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

For some reason the buzz of the alarm clock didn't bother me this morning. I almost never have to set it, but today I had an appointment at Hoboken MRI at 7:30 and to be on the safe side I set the clock for six. Often I'm awake by 5:30 but truly, I never know.

The orthopedist wanted a better look at the knee joint, from all angles, to decide what therapy to apply next. A program of lubricant shots, physical therapy, more exercise, less, or some new drug or other. I endured his first injection, which he said was a combination of novacaine and cortizone, but it made little difference in the pain in my left knee. An x-ray had revealed arthritis, but nothing more.

I expected to feel draggy and glum as I walked, with my left leg in a knee brace, to the offices, which are across from the PATH terminal and a 20 minute walk from my apartment even on a fast track. However, the cool weather was invigorating, and it was a joy to experience a damp fall morning just as shops were opening, lights were being turned on, and well-dressed young business people were filing out of their buildings and heading toward the PATH station alongside and ahead of me. There was a puddle here and there from a shower last night, and the leaves were just beginning to appear on the sidewalks. The trees are just beginning to turn here; fall weather is still welcome and makes the thoughts turn toward eating apples.

When I got to the office, however, I was in for another kind of experience. I had a full body MRI in July of last year, which I wrote about in detail here; this spring I had an MRI of my jaw before having oral surgery. The former was a nightmare for me, with my tinge of claustrophobia. The latter was brief and quite easy. I expected the knee MRI to be more like the jaw MRI, but instead it was more like the nightmare. I didn't have to be rolled into a cylinder--my head was exposed--but I had to lie completely still and listen to clattering sounds, for almost an hour. When I first felt the machine go over me I felt my blood pressure rise, and I immediately began to employ every meditation technique I could muster. They played tacky music, which the technician said would keep me calm; it made me want to jump out of the machine and bolt from the room. At one point, however, I could hear over the ambient noise of the MRI machine an old tune from Elton John: "...how beautiful life is, when you're in the world..." and I tried to climb inside that tune--where had I heard it, who was I in love with then, what year would it have been, was it Sir Elton or someone else, how old was I, where was I living? I wouldn't have minded hearing it again. But no, they were on to something really abominable.

An announcement came into the room: "You're doing very well, ma'am, just a little more," and I figured I was at the halfway mark. I croaked, "Okay," and went on waiting. Another fifteen minutes or so and another announcement, "Just eight or nine more minutes" and I figured it would be another half hour at least. I also got an announcement at the "four more minutes" mark, and I tried to keep count this time just to prove they were lying. It must have been ten minutes at least--I was counting the songs and trying to count the seconds.

But I did emerge at last, and I got the films. It was too early to take them to the doctor, but he'll get them before the end of the day. Then I'll know the future of my left knee.

I wonder when I'll have to go into one of those damn machines again. I hope by the time I do they don't make so much noise and somebody in charge learns the meaning of soothing music.

Some Day You'll Find Me

2010-10-05T17:33:00.001-07:00

I haven't been posting here lately, but had reason to add a few posts to my Fairhope blog, which you might find interesting. My mind is in Fairhope these days, and that's a good place for it, as I'm working on a novel in that setting. Over the weekend of October 1 I was at a symposium at U Penn about Wharton Esherick, the sculptor and artist in wood, who lived a little over a year in Fairhope. It was very inspiring, and my Fairhope blog will reflect some of my inspiration for the immediate future. You can find it here.

See you around the Internet!

Sleeping Well Is the Best Revenge

2010-09-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

I love to sleep. Here's a post I wrote originally in November of 2008.

Sleep is good for you, America. I don’t know where we seem to have gotten the idea that it was a sign of weakness.

Over the years I've gone from being the sleepiest child in the neighborhood (the lady next door once found me asleep under a bed in her house in the middle of the day) to having occasional bouts with insomnia, to a regular pattern of waking up at about 3 A.M. and not being able to fall asleep again. Probably the pattern was made worse by having a remote control in my bed and via television enjoying the switchable presence of Jay Leno, ABC World News Now, the choice of a couple of movies all the time, and cooking and decoration shows at all hours.

That all changed when I moved to Hoboken. I only bought one tv. I was removed from the residue of problems of my own and my friends and relatives. I began sleeping heavier and longer than I had in years. I don’t know how to account for it, but from the first it felt good to get all this sleep. I’m beginning to wonder if narcolepsy is a sign of aging. Maybe it’s because I’m still kind of on vacation from my life. Until the move I was fraught with responsibilities and a certain amount of low-grade, under-the-radar stress all day, and at night I had that tv in the bedroom. Almost as soon as I moved here last December, I found myself sleeping through the night again, experiencing heavy dreams, and waking up refreshed.

I’m sure being removed from my daily stress did it, but I have new stuff: I totally fired my old life, live alone in a strange city, have the daily job of learning the ropes and coping with all the new situations of a total upheaval. That’s not stress?

Apparently not so much. I’ve reverted to my old childhood sleep patterns, and occasionally even grab an hour’s nap during the day. I haven’t been found dozing under the neighbors’ furniture yet, but I’m getting a lot of sleep. On the other hand, sometimes I wake up abnormally early, say 4 A.M., but if that happens I make myself comfortable—go to the bathroom, eat a little yogurt, curl up under a cozy throw in the living room and watch a little neutral tv (NO politics!), and when I start to yawn—it might be as long as two hours—I go back to bed. Then I can sleep another couple of hours.

Here’s the thing of it: Nobody thinks they can do that. “When I’m up, I’m up!” they say, and they make it true by leaping out of bed at the first glimmer of consciousness, turning on all the lights, making coffee, shoving papers around and generally acting as if the day had started. This is followed by a day of feeling sleep deprived and cross. Now, I know it's going to be difficult to do this if you're reading this at your desk just before a big meeting, but it will be worth it tomorrow if you start this sleeping-more project tonight.

Falling asleep seems to be a major accomplishment. We get performance anxiety about being able to do it.

My technique on my early-morning wakeup is to give myself the gift of going back to bed happily. Look, it’s still early, still dark, that bed has all those soft covers, and I’ve got a few more hours before the rest of the world wakes up. I’ll just lie down here and close my eyes—and not open them for two hours no matter what. Maybe I won’t sleep, but I’ll take deep breaths, think how lucky I am, and rest my eyes.

It almost always works. Even helps with the Daylight Saving Time nonsense somebody imposed at the wrong time of year (Why make the days shorter in the winter when they are naturally shorter?).

And when it doesn't work--on those nights when it feels as if I'm not going to fall asleep at all, one Benadryl will do the trick. I have a rule not to take more than one a week, and I seldom resort to that. I also remember that in my case it will take almost an hour to kick in so I don't let performance anxiety get in the way. Alternatively, if I detect a few unidentified aches and pains, I allow myself one or two ibuprofen tablets or an aspirin. But mostly I just lie down, review the good stuff of the day and ignore the bad, take deep breaths for five minutes, all the while thinking about how lucky I am to be alive and ordering a good dream by imagining something pleasant like a field of daisies or the breeze on my skin as waves lap on the beach.

Getting more sleep would be better for everybody. Put it on your list of New Year's Resolutions. In fact, it should be on the national agenda. I hope that early in his administration, the next president makes a beautiful speech about its importance. It would put me right to sleep.

A Matinee in the City

2010-07-29T04:28:00.000-07:00

I had no doubt I would be crazy about the new production of A Little Night Music playing at the Walter Kerr in New York. A bus from Hoboken should get me there in plenty of time, and there was no one in that audience who could possibly be a bigger fan of Bernadette Peters or Elaine Stritch. Many of my blog posts go into detail about buses being late, me having to walk farther than I expect, me being under stress to get where I'm going--I admit there were a few such glitches this time, but I shall spare you those details because I want to tell you about one of the best experiences I've ever had in a theater.I've never seen a production of this particular show before. I saw the original Ingmar Bergman film (Smiles of a Summer Night) which inspired it, and Woody Allen's Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, which surely was influenced by that film. I'll never forget the first time I heard its principal hit song, "Send in the Clowns," sung by Glynis Johns on my little black and white television. But I was saving this one until the right production came along.

Being a fan of Elaine Stritch, I loved her show At Liberty, which I saw on DVD; and her work in Company, of which I have the original cast album. I saw the documentary film of the making of that cast album, in which Stritch is clearly an artist determined to do her best work, and is a wonder when she pulls it off. In A Little Night Music she rises to a level of classiness we know she has, and delivers a comedy line or sings a poignant comedy song ("Liaisons") with, stealing a phrase Sondheim gives us in a later number, "her usual flair." In the audience, we are delighted to see that wheelchair (for the character, of course; Ms. Stritch is hale and hearty at 84) roll her onstage to sing or talk to us.

Bernadette Peters is a national treasure. I saw her in Sunday in the Park with George, and, like at least half of the world, have seen and been won over by her in dozens of movies and television appearances. Her stage presence, charm and knockout voice are always delicious and would enhance any show. This one has been waiting for her until the time was right, which is now.

I had heard some of the music, but was not completely prepared for the lyrics, the integration of song-to-show, and the wonderful Stephen Sondheim surprises of the comedy, romance, melody and dance of this piece. It was a delight to be seeing it all come together and work so elegantly from start to finish. Not only were Peters and Stritch poised and flawless, they were joined by a cast of perfectly matched foils and partners. The program informed me that Alexander Hanson has played not only this role (Frederik) but Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music and numerous other straight and musical plays. He was simply perfect in this show, and the mind can picture him easily in many others--and one hopes to see him in them all. Ramona Mallory was a beauteous and pitch-perfect Anne, but I wasn't entirely prepared for the breathtaking "The Miller's Son" as performed by the beautiful Leigh Ann Larkin in the last act. She made the most of the number, and how.
By this time we were all waiting for Peters to sing "Send in the Clowns" and the whole audience seemed to hold its breath as one from the opening notes and to exhale and roar with applause at its end. The song never stood alone for me as just a love song, but it fits superbly into its place here, with its theatrical and circus references, and befits its singer, who is facing the prospect of life not quite in her grasp as she moves in age and for once is unsure.

There is much in this play. Misguided love, reflections on life, life itself passing before us under the midsummer night's trees, a young man about to misspend his life, an old lady looking forward to her funeral with "the best champagne," and love, love, love--in almost all its forms. And the beautiful music and joie de vivre of Stephen Sondheim. I know why I never saw this show before. I was waiting for this particular production.

Time, The Women, and Facebook

2010-07-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

I just noticed it's been almost a month since I've posted here. As usual, waiting for the lightning bolt of inspiration to strike, and I've been quenching that thirst in other ways for some time.

A friend on Facebook wrote last night that she was watching The Women and noticed after some time that there were zero men in the cast. Wasn't there a movie in the 60's about a group of women, maybe one of them a lesbian, maybe some murder or some such thing? What was this movie?

What she was watching the recent chick flick inspired by (not a remake) the old theater chestnut by Clare Booth Luce, The Women. The original is an outlandish comedy about the shallowness of New York society women of the 1930's, with some costumes to die for if they don't kill you first. Feminists today might find the star-laden farce offensive; there is no doubt it insults women with a very superficial and unflattering angle on their lives, but in the context of its day attention must be paid. It's something of a forerunner to "The Real Housewives of New York City" and other incarnations of that franchise. The top actresses of their day, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford and others almost literally sank their teeth into this one.Did I mention the costumes are worth the price of the rental? The original movie version was remade as The Opposite Sex in the 1950's in a forgettable version with June Allyson in the Norma Shearer role, and the addition of at least one male character, the straying husband, played by Leslie Nielson in his leading-man days.

The movie about women from 1966, with its shocking lesbian subplot, (and Candice Bergen doing the honors) was The Group, from the Mary McCarthy novel.

Which leads me clumsily to my other reason for not blogging. When I'm not on Facebook (pretty correctly nailed by Betty White on Saturday Night Live as "a huge waste of time"), I've been pecking at an old idea I've had for a novel. There. My secret is out. I don't want to jinx the effort by talking about it, so that's all I'll say except that I'll post much less often in the near future.

If I can wean myself from Facebook I may actually begin to do some real writing.

A Glorious Day and a Wonderful Play

2010-07-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

I was getting cabin fever big time, enduring the heat by staying inside near the air conditioner, watching movies and tv shows that didn’t engage me. I needed to get out.

The forecast for Wednesday was for clear skies, dropping humidity, and temperatures peaking at 81 degrees. I could go to the gym Monday and Tuesday and skip the workout Wednesday, which would be matinee day at the theater. And the weather forecast promised the perfect day to do it.

There is always a feast of options in New York. I wanted to see Red, the play about Mark Rothko with Alfred Molina in the lead and Eddie Redmayne as his foil, a performance which had just won the Tony award. For some reason I hadn’t been able to make the right connection online even though I was willing to pay top dollar for this one. Maybe it was solidly sold out for months because of the Tony award. It would be my first choice, but in the back of my mind was the information that the much-heralded production of South Pacific at Lincoln Center would close in a matter of weeks, and I had been hoping I’d catch that. Maybe this would be the time. There was a new play by A.R. Gurney at Lincoln Center too; it dealt with Katherine Cornell and looked to be something I’d like.

What I knew I’d like was a day to roam around in perfect weather in New York. It’s a short bus ride, and there are so many things I haven’t even done since I moved to Hoboken in December 2007 that I wanted and needed a day to do whatever struck me. There is an exhibition of King Tut’s treasures somewhere in the theater district, and it’s time I spent a few hours either at MOMA or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

First, I would secure tickets to a matinee. The weather made standing in the half-price ticket line in Times Square bearable. It can actually be downright pleasant to hear people discussing the different shows up on the board if it’s not bitter cold or swelteringly hot. I had bought some cute clothes so I knew I could hack the city. What to wear? Well, not the white pants I’d bought—in New York you can only wear black or something likewise drably chic and sophisticated. White pants would brand me as an out-of-towner, and even though I am one I don’t want to look it. Black pants, a bright blue camisole almost revealing cleavage, chandelier earrings, a white blazer and new black sandals rather than my ubiquitous flip-flops.

On my way to the tkts. booth in Times Square I passed the King Tut exhibit, the theater with signs for Red, and the theater with a play called Next Fall, which had its excellent New York Times review posted in front. I went onward to the line at 47th and Broadway, the fabled intersection that is the NY shot in every movie since movies began. There I jostled with some 900 other people, some in white slacks, waiting to get to the front and buy a ticket to something and at a discount. I decided to ask for Red even though it wasn’t listed as available, and ask for Next Fall if they couldn’t dig me up a stray lone seat at Red.

I asked the ticket clerk if there was anything for Red, just one seat, and he informed me that Red had closed the past weekend. This floored me. No wonder I couldn’t bring it up online! I felt very out of it, not knowing about this closing--but did get a seat in the middle of the 10th row for Next Fall.

Now it was 11 A.M. I had three hours before the play started. Lunch in a fun neighborhood--which one? I wanted to go to the Museum of Modern Art, but forgot how to get to its train. The little toe on my left foot was beginning to feel as if it might get a blister from the new sandals. I found a train going uptown, but unfortunately it wasn’t going where I wanted to go so I got off at 72nd Street. This was my first exposure in my new life (in Hoboken) to a neighborhood where I had lived some 40 years ago. I hadn’t been in this particular spot in NYC for over 20 years, not even to visit. That subway station, formerly grungy and a little dangerous, was now spruce and clean—and the park above it, once a “needle park,” was renamed Verdi park and was full of leafy trees and nice, clean, relaxed people people of all ethnic groups and ages. I knew there’d be a pharmacy nearby and I could pick up some band-aids and sit on a bench to apply one, taking care of that wee pain in my toe.

Got the band-aids and began walking toward Lincoln Center. Nice walk, but my little toe on the other foot was beginning to hurt too. I found a bench and sat down and bandaged both toes. Blessed relief! Now I was at the corner of Amsterdam and 66th, with the steps to the back of the fountain ahead of me. I always associate that fountain with my best friend Jerry, who met me there one Saturday morning in 1964, when I had first moved to New York. The fountain for some reason was going through its entire dance of highs and lows—as would be seen a few years later in the first movie The Producers when Gene Wilder danced around it. Today the fountain was undulating between very low sprays to the medium height—soothing and elegant in effect.

A stroll around the fountain, memories of that morning when Jerry and I delighted in its scope and playfulness, lunch at a nice place that was once called “O’Neal’s Balloon” (because owner-actor Patrick O’Neal couldn’t legally name it a saloon), and is now a branch of P.J. Clarke’s, and I was ready to go see what this play called Next Fall was all about.

In the little theater now called the Helen Hayes, I had what is to me a perfect seat, right in the middle. I sat amid the matinee ladies I now think of as my personal tribe—women who love plays and see every one they can. A single guy looking to be about 60 came in a bit late (I was a bit early) and sat on my left.

Next Fall starts in a hospital waiting room, with characters we get to know gradually, awaiting the news of a loved one who lies in grave condition after an accident. There are uneasy laughs that grow into big ones as we recognize the genuine concern and love they all have for the young man, Luke, in the nearby room. Flashbacks introduce us to him, an extremely lovable and handsome chap who, we find, is a committed Christian and a somewhat closeted homosexual.

An excellent script and performances that are are spot-on from beginning to end. I am enjoying the performance of the man playing Luke’s father, uptight and serious, Conservative, not conflicted, a good guy we don’t want to hurt, but can't help knowing that may be coming in this story. The program reveals the actor to be Cotter Smith, who I recognize as a ubiquitous performer in Lifetime Movies for television.I have always enjoyed Cotter Smith, although he often plays unsympathetic character. After this I shall have undying admiration for him as an actor.

Next Fall is a perfectly wonderful play. By its end I felt I had gotten to know every one of these people, some intimately. Watch the clip from the Tony Award show; it captures the gay couple and the engaging actors, Patrick Breen and Patrick Heusinger, who play them. Connie Ray portrays the mother as a perky-dynamite Southern type I know very well. There are simply no missteps in the production. I wished for Kleenex throughout the show and by the end the man next to me and I led the audience in a standing O that would still be going on if the actors had not walked off the stage. As we shambled with the group leaving the theater, I said, “Weren’t you surprised?” and he said he went because he had seen the bit on the Tony show, and he was so glad I liked it. We both felt we owned a bit of the show and were so glad there was a theater full of people who had joined us in watching. Walking to the bus terminal I followed a group of three matinee ladies who were discussing the finer points in New Jersey high volume. I was happy just hearing them. I've since learned that the show will close July 4, so my recommendation will do very little for it.

On the other hand, it did a great deal for me. It capped one of those almost-perfect days with a bouquet of insights and surprises, which to my mind is the very best thing a couple of hours in a theater can do.

Another Time, Another World

2010-06-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

We who have ever lived near the Gulf of Mexico are in real grief right now. Although a world away, I think of it constantly and know that we are just a couple of hurricanes away from a disaster of far greater magnitude than we now envision. And, as one who lived there for many years, I am well aware that those hurricanes will come before the end of August and suspect it unlikely that the oil spill will be contained before then.

The beaches meant a lot to us in south Alabama. This is what I wrote in my book The Fair Hope of Heaven about the little beach in my home town:

You can see the old pictures all over Fairhope today – ladies in their modest bathing suits, gentlemen wearing neckties and straw boaters, gleeful children leaping into the warm unpolluted waters of Mobile Bay. Before 1928 the only way to arrive in Fairhope was by bay boat from Mobile…surely those were the days Fairhope was a paradise of summer joy, centered on the bay with its public pier, its sandy beach, its casino (not, as some would have it today, a gambling house, but a barn of a building with a big dance floor and showers and changing rooms for bathers), its little wharf restaurant, and its inns on the bluff overlooking the water -- with wide porches to catch the breeze.

There were once dance pavilions scattered along the beach front. Local bands played music you could dance to – the baker who moonlighted as a bandleader was dubbed “Buns Lombardo” by his buddies who wanted to capture all his talents with one moniker. The first ice cream factory in the state was at the north end of the beach, where the duck park now is. There were sliding boards off the pier; there was a track that took the “People’s Railway” up the hill – uptown to the center of business. Fairhope was a town of talk in the winter – of ideas, meetings, forums, plans, and visions – but summers belonged to the beach.

By the 1950’s, when I was a teenager, there was as yet little air conditioning in our world. Our bodies adjusted to climate changes. We played outdoors all year long and found no displeasure in being hot in the summer, because, after all, summertime was when you got to go outside, climb trees, explore gullies, and swim in the bay every single day. Most everybody went to the Yacht Club to learn to sail and to win races. The public tennis courts were near the gully’s edge across from the University of South Alabama theater (at that time St. James Episcopal Church). Now there is a parking lot where the courts were. One of those early dance pavilions, Burkel’s, had become a roller rink by the 1940’s and was a popular place until it was destroyed by fire in the early 1950’s. Burkel’s was located on the beach at the foot of Pier Street
Even with excessive heat and humidity, we went to the beach. We didn’t perceive the heavy air as a sweltering damp blanket, but as a comforting mist-forest that reminded us that it was summer in the most wonderful life we could imagine.

The town today is working to mitigate the coming disaster. Above is a demonstration called "Hands Across the Sand" extending on Fairhope's beaches and beaches all across the Gulf Coast. So far Mobile Bay has not gotten much of the damage, but Fairhope and outlying communities, aware of the coming hurricane season, know that it is coming sooner or later. Work is being done, but nobody knows if anything will succeed. Diehard haters of the government, not expecting the president to come through, implore him to send out the military. Lovers of big companies are loath to see them as villains, even in this catastrophe. We would all love to know whom to blame and see them suffer, but the Republican South is challenged to accept that it might have been their own short-sightedness in seeking profit at the price of regulation.

The well will be stopped in time; some of the suffering will be alleviated; but it will never be the same in the beach communities that were seen as pristine, perfect little towns. How the ecology will work its way out cannot be known. We have hurricanes and more failures to cap the well to live through. It is difficult to be optimistic, but I am, at least at some level. Mankind is resilient, and nature is too. The best that can come of this tragedy is a new way of looking at our natural resources. Our children and grandchildren will deal with everything in a new way. I continue to have hope that they'll come closer to getting it right than we did.

The Unreality of It All

2010-06-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

I really don't know why I'm so hooked on television. It's an escape. It’s hypnotic. It reveals a reality that no one could possibly believe.

Some shows pit people against each other in odd situations. There are cooking contests; there are home decorating contests; there are shows about people whose houses are filled with clutter including unopened boxes of stuff they bought themselves years ago and don’t remember yet refuse to part with because they say they might need whatever it is someday.

People on daytime TV reveal their innermost thoughts with hysterical alacrity. Dr. Phil will tease out of his guests secrets that no previous generation would ever have admitted, and the subjects of these confrontations weep and take it in front of a studio audience and cameras. There was this family who came to him years ago--a battling couple with two girls, both dabbling in sex and drugs, all four defensive and hostile. After a few sessions with Dr. Phil the younger daughter revealed she was pregnant by her jailbird boy friend and Dr. Phil acted like a great solution would be for her to have the baby, grow up somehow, and everybody would be happy. She did have the baby, and for years now the family keeps coming back to the Dr. Phil show while she bounces from one reprobate felon to another, still doing drugs of some kind and still popping out babies that her parents—never paragons of maturity and wisdom themselves—are stuck raising. Dr. Phil consoled the mother by getting her some plastic surgery and a personal trainer.

Ordinary people aren’t allowed to be so any more; they willingly subject themselves to beauty makeovers, home makeovers, and life makeovers. Interior designers throw out people’s furniture, tear down walls, paint the places in garish colors and their victims squeal with delight and weep openly, proclaiming ecstatically that their lives have been changed forever. People are not only passionate about the inconsequential, they clamor to expose that passion to the world. There is a life coach who talks with couples about their marital problems in order to repair a dysfunctional marriage and rebuild an uncomfortable house. When the couple take prescribed steps to resolve their foundering relationship, the coach rewards the family with a home renovation that would cost $50-$100,000 in real life.

Some shows are about so-called “housewives”—women in their 30’s and 40’s who live in ritzy areas and have time for what men think of as the age-old female pursuits—backbiting, bitching, and spending money. The term “housewives” was taken from the ironic title of a comedy series called Desperate Housewives about a the soap-opera lives in a suburban neighborhood, and with it came a new definition. A housewife, rather than a wife and mother devoted to keeping hearth and home, now means a beautiful and overindulged woman with time and money on her hands and happens to have a husband and children. An exhaustive article in today's New York Times revealed the market research that goes into the planning of these shows which are advertised as "reality." The Real Housewives of New York City shows us a capsule slice of the lives of some well-chosen women who live on the Upper East Side and spend most of their waking hours at restaurants, fund raisers and fashion shows, gossiping and defending themselves against gossip by digging themselves even deeper in questionable behavior. The Real Housewives of New Jersey involves a gaggle of sisters and sisters-in-law who live in the same community and have an inordinate amount of time to visit each other and interfere in business that in another lifetime would have been private, if not in the community, at least to the the larger world that happens to own a television set. What the research apparently indicates is that when an interloper encroaches, enough drama will ensue that the viewers keep tuning in to be a part of the fireworks.

Dirty laundry is willingly aired. There are judges who officiate at small-claims settlements. There is a show that trades the mother and wife in one family for the mother and wife in another, diametrically opposed family--both on the borderline of what is accepted as normal—to see what happens. There is a show that pits young beauties against each other for the hand in marriage of a man none of them really knows. There is even one that turn those tables and makes young men compete for a nubile beauty, just as it once was in real life, when everyone wasn’t made up for the camera and most people knew each other pretty well before making that leap.

And of course there are the commercials. Some chipper woman with an irritating voice and in a white uniform bleats to an innocent man nearby that he should buy something called “Progressive.” Whether it is insurance or breakfast food I know not because I can’t make head or tail of her sales pitch and I mute it whenever I hear the sound of her. And if you like your vacuum cleaner, you apparently can tell because it talks to you and dresses like you. Then there is one commercial in which the woman throws away her mop and it falls in love with a nearby bowling ball.

All this jabbering cannot be good for the brain. I suspect it has altered our way of using that organ, giving us all shorter attention spans and addling us for serious thought in the hope of manipulating us to buy more products. I also suspect that it works. It’s hard to live in a quiet house with all television removed.

Try as I might to tell myself I’m wasting time with this white-noise surrounding my life, I still don’t seem able to turn away. Television is a great train wreck with all the victims exposed, bruise for bruise, much as on a hospital dramatic show (like House, which I watch religiously, or Grey's Anatomy, which I've never seen. (You can't watch everything.)

I said before it's a form of escapism, but what would I want to escape from? I am independent, I go where I want to (which, often as not, is New York City) and I seldom see anyone I don’t choose to see. Television brings people I don’t want to know about right into my apartment and shows me perversions I would never have known about. It keeps me from reading, from writing, it does little to entertain and nothing to enlighten. But I'm fascinated by the manufactured reality of it all.

Is 70 Really Not Old Any More?

2010-05-28T03:57:00.000-07:00

I was born on this day in 1940, the same year as Tom Brokaw, Nancy Sinatra, Al Pacino, Raquel Welch and Don Imus.

Shortly after my birth, this country became embroiled in a world war, which had been raging for several years in Europe since the Germans decided to conquer the world and annihilate several segments of the population in the process. The U.S. of my early childhood was obsessed with that war, as our men had been drafted to fight, and everything from the entertainment industry to small businesses were involved in the propaganda machine. This thinking was to pervade my generation for over 20 years; for, after World War II ended in a victory for our side, our leaders told us that Russia was now our enemy, and that the Russians were planning another, more horrible war, directly against us, and would involve weaponry far more devastating than that which had been used in the past.

This period of national paranoia was called a “Cold War.” Little children in big city schools were drilled to hide under their desks in mock air raids, as if this would be helpful for them to do if and when the Russians dropped big bombs in the neighborhood. Of course, because they were little kids all it did was imbue them with a fear of early and painful death--and the sneaking suspicion that there were no grownups around who could do anything about it. It was not a good time to grow up.

The generation that came of age just after I did is known as the “Baby Boom” generation, referring to the tremendous swell in the number of babies conceived when the men came home from the war. They, and we who came just before them, were taught a number of traumatic things by well-meaning but uninformed adults. One thing we knew for a fact as children was that the world contained weapons of mass destruction which might be used against us at any moment.

World War II had brought us prosperity, as wars do, and uneasiness, as well they might. As teenagers, we felt safe with our great General–Dwight David Eisenhower–as president of our country, but to me he seemed a distant, dull old man, and I was glad to see the vigorous young John F. Kennedy with his beautiful wife and family as the next residents of the White House. I was too young to vote in the 1960 presidential election, but I will never forget the feeling of exhilaration at the youthful president. His empowering initiatives such as the Peace Corps brought fresh thinking into politics and therefore into the whole country. I later came to feel we had been a bit too gullible, because I became disenchanted with John Kennedy after his death, after more was known about him. Later presidents in my lifetime have brought outright disgrace to the White House and Kennedy is looking good again. However, with all his good intentions and many brilliant programs and ideas, he did not have long enough in his presidency to see if he really was up to the whole job or not, but he was good at selecting lieutenants and he was smart enough to get a few valuable programs started.

The brevity of human life is in itself a time capsule. I remember all the way back to blackouts, rationing, and everybody’s daddy being away while the women were left to tend the children and fend for themselves. We listened to the radio for shows with stories and humor and running characters, such as The Great Gildersleeve (an actor named Harold Peary with a distinctive, long, low laugh) tearjerker soap operas like Stella Dallas and One Man’s Family and adventures like The Green Hornet, Gangbusters, and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon. In the afternoon there were shows for kids. I remember ordering a signet ring from Sky King, which promised a compartment for secret messages. Weeks later I was thrilled to receive the object in the mail, although I had no one to send secret messages to or no idea why there would messages in my ring.

People my age remember the 50’s vividly. When we think of Audrey Hepburn we think of the gamin in Roman Holiday and Sabrina more than the city sophisticate of a later film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. As teenagers we wore dungarees or circle skirts (but wouldn’t have been caught dead in one with a poodle on it); we danced the jitterbug at soda shops, we went to movies after school and dances at the Elks Club every Friday night. Our parents didn’t make play dates for us; we lived at each others' houses almost as much as our own, and we explored the streets and neighboring woods without supervision.

I remember when Elvis wasn’t “the King” of anything. He was a hillbilly singer and your mama wouldn’t have let you go out the door with him or anyone remotely like him if he showed up for a date. Okay, he was a few years older than I, and was indeed making tours of my home area in those days, but his brand of rock and roll had not yet caught on with the middle class. He caused quite a buzz, and I swear this is the truth: The father of one of my high school girlfriends played in an amateur dance band and told us with vehement authority, “Elvis Presley is just a flash in the pan. Mark my words, a year from now none of you will even remember who Elvis Presley was!”

Before moving from Atlanta to New York City in 1964 I had to pick up some things at a little corner "gas and go" type grocery in the part of the city known as Decatur. I was struck by a boy in the store, a nice, middle-class-looking kid about 12 years old with brown hair cut below his ears. The reason I took note of him was that his hair was long compared to all the other boys his age. I remember being somewhat amused that there was actually a kid in this neighborhood in Atlanta with the guts to wear a haircut inspired by the Beatles, that happy group of English guys whose picture was on every magazine cover that month. They had not yet landed in America, but here was someone who was already making a statement in this outpost in the South, by copying them. I never would have believed the impact that haircut was to have on the world, even Atlanta. Elvis was pretty well known by then, but even yet he was not a fashion role model.

Most children of the late 60’s were raised by affluent parents, indulged with all their families could give them–perhaps as overcompensation for their own deprivation in the Great Depression. People my age had education and ideas, but our demographic lacked the numbers to be particularly effective in carrying these ideas out. Sheer critical mass of those Boomers would overwhelm whatever (or whoever) got in their way.

Popular music of my day was a pale imitation of that of our parents–where they had Sinatra, we had Eddie Fisher, Tommy Sands and Bobby Darin–the Boomers were bored to death with the music that came before them. They were convinced there was no music as good as theirs. Our look had been much the same as those who came just before us too, but all that would change in the 1960’s when the generation just behind me reached full visibility with long hair on both males and female, beards on men as soon as they could grow them, and jeans, love beads and tie-dyed tee-shirts for all. Jerry Rubin said, “Never trust anybody over 30." I had already rounded that corner, so I was just on the other side of trustworthiness. Life was now referred to as “life style,” and mine was decidedly over the hill already. But I have waited it out. I have given up trying to understand and instead have taken to pontificating.

There is this thing about time, once you get well into your sixties. It fucking flies by you. You’ll start to remember an event or incident or person you haven’t seen in awhile and realize it was 30 years ago! Little babies that were born that day are doctors and lawyers now.

Your doctors look like kindergarteners. Your own children are adults. Years disappear with amazing alacrity, and projects just fall into your hands, whether you are looking for them or not. The next thing you know they are done and you are halfway into something else. Even if you’ve never written anything, you start to write, something to validate your time on this earth–a family history, an autobiography, a blog, or all three. You become obsessed with defining what it was all about. You think if you can just get a handle on it, what you are writing will matter to someone else, living now or scheduled to be born in the future.

And, if you’re me especially, you keep doing weird things that you think will provide a portion of the answer. You read self-help books. You join an Internet Dating Service. You go to a lot of movies. You go on a lot of diets. You travel long distances to reconnect with friends you haven’t seen since high school. You invest time, money and emotion to re-kindle a romance that never was.

And wherever you go, if you pass a mirror, you glance into it and see a stranger.

More of the Best of Slezak

2010-05-25T08:14:00.001-07:00

Information from Hoboken's past has been funneled to me by Bob Slezak over the years. Here are a few more of his great memories:

"My wife’s dad – what a nice guy he was...played with the big bands during the war. (His dad was an opera singer from Dublin who toured Europe with the Carl Rosa opera company. He came to America in 1900...and started his own opera company, Joseph Sheehan Opera Company...you can look him up on the computer. In them days he was the greatest tenor English opera singer in the world. After he retired from that he worked for RKO Radio studios in NYC...and later it became NBC studios...he lived on Garden Street just across the street from me) My wife’s both grandmothers lived across the street from me when I was a kid. I have a picture of me and my wife in the same picture – she was 5. I was 9, not knowing I would marry her some day and spend the rest of my life with her. I got lucky and always had good luck...with every thing I did in life. On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando...well that’s another story – filmed in Hoboken. You must see it...some of my friends were in it, I was not. (I could have been a contender.)

"I’ve been looking for a picture or pictures of ABLE’S ice cream parlor that was across the street from the Acadamy of Sacred Heart on 7th and Washington Street, my wife’s old all girl school…plaid skirts, white blouses, and vest and beanies they had to wear. Only the rich girls went there. My old hangout in the 50s, the early rock and roll days...BUT with no luck in looking for the pictures...to add to my large photo album collection that I have. I call them albums The Adventures of Maureen and Bob. We all can’t live forever, BUT the photos will.

"I think in the early days of television, Dumont was the king of the tv airwaves. In the late 40s we had only three stations and an Emerson 7-inch tv. My mom said if you watch it too close YOU WILL GO BLIND.

"On Washington Street a store had a tv in their window...people would bring their folding chairs...and sit watching tv...a sight to behold...I must say.

"MONDAY MORNING WASH DAY, and the daredevils who had the job of putting up the clotheslines, when one broke. Every block had one brave soul...and I was the chosen one for my block. My mom got me the job...THANKS MOM.

"You carried a hammer and the line around your neck...and began your climb...hitting each spike to insure that it was safe to step on. It always seemed to be the one at the top that was broken. Most of the time and on a cold and windy day, freezing your hands till they were numb, as all the wives braving the cold on their fire escapes watched me as I made my climb...praying for me. I FELT LIKE A CIRCUS ACT WITH NO NET.

"WASH DAY was when every one knew if you had a hole in your undies. IT WAS PUT OUT FOR ALL TO SEE. And you only got a dollar a climb. I SUPPOSE THEY DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE IN HOBOKEN, thanks to washers and dryers."

Now that you mention it, Slezak, I haven't seen any clotheslines in Hoboken since I moved here in December (2007). Call it progress. Call it 21st Century technology. Call it the avoidance of child abuse. But you must have been a nimble lad in your day, putting up those clotheslines for the local housewives, and surviving to tell the tale some sixty years later. As usual, you paint a vivid picture of days gone by. At least after all your death-defying work you could drop by Abel's for an ice cream with your dollar. Now that wouldn't get you much.

Slezak's Hoboken II

2010-05-23T06:31:00.002-07:00

Over the last couple of years my buddy Slezak has conveyed a lot of information about the Hoboken he remembers. He lived in the town when it was different:

Hoboken is still beautiful...yes, the buildings are still there but people and places have vanished with time ....the happy days of the 1950s should be remembered ...a book maybe with pictures .an era never to return ....the smells of coffee from the maxwell house plant and fresh baked bread of the wonder bread factory, and fog horns on a foggy day ..in the Hudson river ..the many large parades down Washington Street ...the Kramer’s clock on Washington Street that always told the right time twice a day: 12 o’clock....THE CRIME none to speak of...you never locked your doors or car if you had one...Church doors were never locked either...you could pray any time of the day or night. COPS walked the street...you knew them by the first name...jobs if you needed one...the mayor’s office door was always open...he would always get you a job just with a phone call. SCHOOLS – the teacher you had your mother had had also...lastly, the people...depending on what part of the city you lived. Downtown was the Italians, uptown was the Irish, Germans, Poles. The blacks lived on 1st Street...that's the way it was.

Manhattan was just short a bus ride away.

About this time I was living in a third-floor walk-up on Hudson St. and had published some pictures of the lions that stood out in front of some of the brownstones in that area. Slezak remembered the lions well, and explained that the were all over Hoboken, although mostly "uptown." And as far as uptown-downtown, I, like all newcomers, assumed that the street numbers indicated which section was "up" and which was "down" in Hoboken, but Slezak and his old friend Dennis ("The Rabbi") Maloney set me straight on that.

From Dennis (“The Rabbi”) Maloney:

“A note to new Hobokenites. Uptown was and is Washington St. to Clinton St. 1st. to 14th.

“Downtown is Grand to Harrison 1st. to 14th. For some reason, newbies have changed uptown to 7th to 14th and downtown from the Path to 6th.”

Slezak said...

“He is right on the money. UP TOWN, AND THERE WAS DOWN TOWN, it has nothing to do with numbers...from Clinton Street to Washington Street was uptown. We called it the upper crust.

"HUDSON STREET and Castle Point Terrace was the Beverly Hills of Hoboken. Feel honored that you live there. It meant you had money...and lions on your stoop to protect you".

I still smile when I see a lion in front of a Hoboken house, and I salute Bobby Slezak for correcting me. I guess the "newbies" have taken over now, however, as nobody seems to think of uptown as meaning Washington to Clinton. Times change, and the new people have a way of changing things everywhere.

Bobby Slezak's Hoboken

2010-05-21T06:26:00.001-07:00

I knew very little about Hoboken when I first moved here in December of 2007, but I started writing the blog as a way to introduce myself. One of the nicest results was an email from a former resident, Bobby Slezak, who was growing up here about the time I was finding myself in Fairhope, Alabama, where I moved here from.

In May of 2008 I got this in my email:

I came from Hoboken. I'm 69 now and I came across your site by mistake. I'm glad. YES, Hoboken has changed...it's not the quiet town it used to be back in the 1950s. As a young boy there was some great hangouts to have fun in, BUT they are all gone now. I'm not talking about the bars. There was always plenty of them. I'm talking about the ice cream parlor hangouts, such as ABELS across from Sacred Heart Academy on Washington Street; JACK-O -DINES on the corner by Demarest H.S.; JANETTES on First and Washington Street; Biggies I think is still there but it's not the same. They were the fun centers of our youth. Famed D.J. ALLEN FREED rock and roll shows at the Fabian Theater, now destroyed. The mood and values all vanished it seems...the girls were just lovely. I'm sure time has changed that, just a little. I still have my girl friend I met in ABELS in 1958...she was a Sacred Heart Academy grad. Me, I was the black-jacket, grease-haired hot rodder that you did not want your daughter to go out with. BUT YOU CANT JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER. I was sweet and charming back then...and still am. THEN CAME THE VIET NAM WAR. Well, my girl friend married me in St. Ann's Church and off we went to war together. Looking back to Hoboken with fond memories...4 kids,12 grandchildren later...we still love Hoboken...its memories that is.

As time has gone by, I've gotten hundreds of emails from Slezak, who likes to be known as "Hoboken Kid" when he comments on the blog. His descriptions and old photos of Hoboken have amused and informed me as I learn what the town has always been about--nice people and wonderful memories. The streets resonate and vibrate with them. Slezak and his wife Maureen are both going into the hospital next week, for very serious work, and I want to wish them well and let the people of Hoboken know more about them. I'll publish more Slezak on the blog for the next few days and reminisce about our extraordinary Internet friendship, looking forward to the day we'll meet in person and have a few hearty, heartfelt laughs.

The End of Yet Another Era

2010-05-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

A television entry that was peculiarly New York in tone, almost like the old live black and white dramas of my teenage years, will be relocated to Los Angeles and lose its mojo as well as most of its audience. Tonight will be the finale, populated by a whole universe of actors that look to me like newcomers.

Like most Americans, I have devoted quite a bit of time to watching the "original" Law and Order over the past 15 years or so. It captures the city in a unique way, its actors becoming as familiar as the cop on the beat. I watched the stage actress S. Epatha Merkeson play a police supervisor all this time; I watched when Michael Moriarty had the Sam Waterston role; when Jerry Ohrbach so convincingly played the troubled recovering alcoholic police detective Lenny Briscoe that he was often stopped on the street by guys calling him Lenny; when a trail of beauties from Angie Harmon to Carey Lowell worked in the D.A.'s office.

I still lament the exit of the best District Attorney New York ever had, the complex yet avuncular Steven Hill. Hill was one of those solid New York actors seldom seen on the screen, a founder of the Actors' Studio and an early proponent of Method Acting. His own personality melted into the characters he played, and his mental acuity and intensity permeated his every performance. In Law and Order, the character he played was based on real life New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, whom he is said to have captured perfectly in his nuanced and elegant style. His Adam Schiff was a man you respected without question, a man of integrity and wisdom, and, although a bit jaded by his job, a man with a big heart. He was detached without being bloodless.

The actor was one of the most interesting men ever to work in television. Born Solomon Krakovski, he was appearing as Sigmund Freud in A Far Country on Broadway when he confronted his own heritage. A character screamed the line "You are a Jew!" to him in the play and the experience sent him right back to his roots. Hill realized the impact of his Jewishness and embraced it by becoming strict Orthodox -- he began observing a kosher diet, wearing specially lined clothing,and strictly observing the Sabbath. This made Hill unavailable for Friday night or Saturday matinee performances and effectively ended his stage career and closed many roles to him in the movies most notably The Sand Pebbles.

Nevertheless, Steven Hill has had a good career without ever becoming a household word. He felt that artists needed to take breaks from their work for years at a time to refresh and he practiced what he preached.

He had undergone one of those long breaks before taking on the role in Law and Order, and it served him well. His work on that show was a seamless as a bolt of fine fabric. He was as real as an actor can be. If you missed the show under his reign, try to find a re-run that old. He was just wonderful.

Law and Order replaced him with Dianne Weist, an excellent actress who never seemed at home in the role. It was a rare misstep for both the show and Weist, who just didn't have much gravitas and was somehow unconvincing as the boss of the heavy, knowledgeable Jack McCoy as played by Waterston. Of course, her biggest problem was that she was being set up as a replacement for a man who had owned the show for some ten years.

In comes stolid Fred Thompson to replace Weist. Here is an actor with so little range, so little charisma, so little energy that he seems to have gotten the role just based on the fact that he looks likes everybody else. That is, there is nothing about him that looks actorish (like, say, Ronald Reagan), or nothing about him that seems wise (like Steven Hill) or even anything that looks complicated, like Dianne Weist.

He later went back into politics and announced, with consummate poor timing, a run for the presidency that went nowhere. Even his credentials as an actor came into question. The charm that usually goes with that territory is decidedly missing.

Eventually Waterston took on the role, but the new cast, though competent, just didn't seem to fit the roles we had come to think of as friends. The show has run its course, even though its spinoff will probably continue until television itself is just a memory. I hope they'll reach all the way back into the files and show the early shows with the original cast. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'll derive comfort from the persona of Steven Hill back in my living room.

The Autobiographical Urge

2010-05-09T04:20:00.000-07:00

In 2006, long before I was finding myself in Hoboken, I had a small reputation as a writer in Fairhope, Alabama. Almost everybody in Fairhope had a reputation as a writer, but I had published a memoir about the town and wrote an almost-daily blog called "Finding Fair Hope," which you can still find on the Internet.

I was approached by a man in his late 80's about ghostwriting his autobiography. He had lived a rich and varied life and loved to tell stories of his accomplishments and crises. He had coped with great success and tragedy, and about all he had not done was chronicle the events.

He had known lots of interesting people and been in very high places in his day; he sent me a packet of snapshots and newspaper articles about his life. Pictures revealed that he was a good-looking man, movie star good-looking in his youth, and the articles told of the fortune he had made in dealing with big corporations, selling the rights to his inventions and occasionally suing for large sums when his invention ideas were stolen. I was interested in his story, and felt that I would be good as a ghostwriter. I was up for the job. I encouraged him, admonishing only that he would have to be very open with me about some of the life situations in the newspaper items, situations that still might cause him some pain.

He would have had to relocate to be interviewed, or pay for my expenses if I had to travel. He would have to be candid. I would agree to work for him at a fixed rate for about six months, including writing time, and then submit what I had written for his approval. I would not be the salesman for the work, but I felt certain that with his lively personality and his truly unusual life story we could come up with a book that would sell.

I laid out the proposal and waited. Time passed, and he passed off my radar screen, by not acting. He probably thought better of the project and did not want to be under this kind of stress at this point in his life, no matter how strong his urge to be immortalized in print. I never received a refusal, but I had lobbed the ball to his court and it was never returned.

I didn't blame him. For years he had probably regaled friends and acquaintances with tales of his childhood inventions, his successes and near-successes, and the odd and unexpected turns his life had taken. He was probably told by many an acquaintance, "You really should write a book about all this," but the reality of such a venture was not one he could handle.

An urge to write hits us as we grow closer to what we perceive as the end of life. There is a need to get it down in black and white, this little life, before it's gone. I can understand this myself, hacking away at a daily blog and thinking of books I must get done. This being Mother's Day, I am thinking a lot about my late mother, and the book she produced. Always an admirer of writers (and married to a first-rate one), she spent years researching a family history that including anecdotal tales going all the way back to family members who gave Robert the Bruce of Scotland a ride across the river in the middle of a war--being awarded in later years with a coat of arms that read "I Saved the King." She completed her family history in the and self-published it in 1994 after almost 20 years of exhaustive research, and the result is a family history that reflects all the charm of its writer and is constantly used as research by her three grown children. She printed copies for all living members of the family and distributed this work to as many of them as she knew. I gave a copy to my 12-year-old grandson Andy for Christmas, and he glowed. "Now I can answer any questions I have about the family," he said.

Her little book is a treasure trove of information about our ancestors. It was a project that consumed her as she edged into old age, and a copy of it was in her bureau at the nursing home when she died. She would sometimes mention it ("the book I wrote") and we having it handy when we visited her made it possible to pick it up to confirm a birth date or year, or cause of death, or any little piece of family information we could get nowhere else.

It is good that much of mankind is equipped with this autobiographical urge. The stories, even those that might be apocryphal, are the stuff of life and the best we can do toward carving a place in the mythology of generations to come. Blogs, diaries, family histories, and just newsy letters and emails serve a greater purpose than the writer may realize.

Discovered Near Hoboken: Union City

2010-05-02T05:29:00.000-07:00

Cristina has long told me that if you take the Light Rail almost to the end of the line you'll hit a section full of Colombians, with wonderful bakeries and and some memorable restaurants. She waxes nostalgic about the wonderful breakfasts as she grew up in Colombia--hot coffee, guava buns and Spanish cheese; and rainy childhood afternoons when she was given hot chocolate and cheese toast to compensate for having to stay inside. I remember seeing some Hispanic neighborhoods from the window of the bus I took to get my driver's license when I was new to New Jersey, but I never explored the area until yesterday.

It was so beautiful I decided to check out the nabe early Saturday. I took the Light Rail, which I was surprised to find so crowded at 2 P.M. on a weekend, and got off at Bergenline, the stop before last on the line, seeking a restaurant whose name and address I'd found online. I was in Union City, as it turns out. Sidewalks not wide and walkable like Hoboken, but a lively, crowded Hispanic atmosphere with little shops for trinkets, religious icons, clothes, and souvenirs. As I walked I began to see bakeries. I went as far as the restaurant, some five or six blocks in, but it didn't look like much. I did note that it was still pretty busy for an off hour and that all the patrons looked like they knew what good Latin American food should taste like. Coming back to the train I stopped in a little bakery and bought just three items, not having any idea what they were. One was an empanada-looking thing, the other looked like a bun that might have guava jam inside, and, seeing a local buy what looked like a huge coconut cookie, I bought one of those too. As I began to make my decisions I wondered if I could make my choices clear, not knowing Spanish, and then I caught myself. I was in America--the girl behind the counter speaking Spanish to her customer was as American as I and could certainly speak English too! I had been so impressed with the authenticity of this little pocket of Union City that I forgot what country I was in!

All the way home I was getting more excited to try what I'd bought. Still thinking I was beginning a program of weight control I promised myself I could have ONE bite of the cookie and half of the empanada, and that I would stop there. However, I know myself pretty well and know that once I've had a bite of something, if it's pretty good it's highly unlikely that I'll stop.

When I got home I tore into my bag. I couldn't resist starting with the cookie, still thinking that I would stop after one bite. I had my reading glasses on by now so I could tell it was not a cookie at all. It might even be something savory. Tasting it, I knew it was definitely not coconut. It was slightly sweet, very chewy as opposed to crisp, and tasted clearly of corn. Of course I couldn't stop eating until I'd finished the whole thing, even though I was thinking about how good it would be for breakfast, maybe with ham or bacon or an egg--and lots of strong coffee. No matter, it was gone. Now I had permission to have one bite of one more item, which was to be the empanada. It turned out to be a nice pastry that was rather hollow, but inside, instead of a spicy meat mixture, was guava jam and a dollop of some kind of cream cheese. I had half of it. I stopped myself, because I had to try the bun. I cut the end off, and saw it was stuffed with just a little ham and cheese. The second slice went into the microwave because it clearly needed to be heated.

I looked up Colombian Corn Cake on the Internet and sure enough found out the thing has a name: An arepa. I have a recipe which I must try even though you have to buy a special kind of Colombian corn meal--I can find that for sure, if not in Hoboken, then certainly on my next trip to Union City. But as long as I'm up there, I think I'll just buy a dozen or two arepas at that bakery.

A Television-Free Zone

2010-04-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

My daughter came for a visit last week and imposed her ban on television for most of the time she was here. That was okay, as exploring Hoboken (as long as you're not hanging out in sports bars) does not require a look at the tube at all.

Interesting that as an adult Alison has not owned a TV set. Growing up, she was surrounded by it, and as an agitated adolescent it was her bedtime companion. When I learned that she would not buy a television when she was earning her own money, I was impressed at such a brave and unexpected sign of maturity. She now has two teenage sons and when they come to visit me, liberated from the TV-free zone of their home, they enjoy the indulgence of spending much of their time glued to G-ma's tube. (With their superior knack for electronic gizmos, they know much better than I how to navigate the channels and find what they want to watch.)

Alison and I were going to watch a rented movie, but had spent so much time talking and visiting that it was after 9:30 P.M. when we got around to it, and we both were too exhausted to have much interest. Having had a stint as a realtor, she might have been interested in "Selling New York," HGTV's show about selling high-priced condos in New York City. Immediately she gave me her reaction, "How can they continue showing real estate porn in this economy?" so I realized watching that one would not be fun. I turned on a few minutes of "The Mentalist," which I often watch on Thursdays when winding down, but it was dreary seeing it through her eyes. I tried to explain, "See, this guy reads minds..." followed by some leaden dialogue and closeups of significant looks on the faces of over-madeup actors, followed by yammering commercials--she hates commercials most of all--and after about ten minutes she unsurprisingly said, "Mom, I just can't take this."

And so we went to bed instead. I have respect for her choice to eliminate crass television from her life. She keeps NPR running on the radio most of her waking hours. She is not affected by the false affability on shows like "Morning Joe" or the confrontational posturing of "Hardball." She and I agree that what passes for news on the cable channels is little more than contrived polarization, rendering viewers hardly more informed than before they tuned in. She acts on this knowledge, but for some reason I do not. I suppose I'm addicted to the blather and wall-to-wall noise television provides even though I get little out of it, and I know it keeps me from more productive pursuits. Whatever happened to that next book I was going to read? Or worse, whatever happened to the ones I was going to write?

With television, I have given my mind and maybe even my soul a vacation. I don't sit down and watch until after dark--but that's kind of like the old it's-five-o'clock-somewhere rule of the confirmed alcoholic. I'm not kidding anybody, even myself, by drifting into a pattern of plopping in front of the television set no matter how mindless the choice of program. To be honest, my worries about weight gain are also related to the way I eat snacks as I gaze at the screen.

Not that I'm 100 per cent convinced it is time to black out television in my life for good. I'll take a cue from the 12-Step programs and ease myself out one day at a time. The first step is admitting you have a problem, and that you want to quit. I'm not even there yet.

Hoboken Niceness II

2010-04-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

This morning I decided to give my handbag the onceover. From time to time I take everything out, examine it, and throw away the accumulated trash bits. This time when I did so I discovered my money-purse was missing.

Alarm bells. At least it wasn't the credit card wallet, which is where the really big payoff resides, but instead the little European purse my husband used to use for change for the tolls on the big Autobans. I have since relegated it to carry my cash, with a little zipper compartment for change.

I thought back. I probably had about nine one-dollar bills and maybe a $20 in the folding money section. There is no ID card in it.

I looked about the apartment but could think of nowhere it might have been mislaid. It lives in whatever big handbag I am carrying at the moment. Sometimes I shove it into a pocket; it wasn't in the pocket of the jacket I wore yesterday. There were only two possibilities: I had left it at the A & P while I stuffed my grocery bag, or had put it somewhere, like the too-small pocket of my jacket, that might have allowed it to fall out onto the sidewalk on my way home. I hoped for the former. If it had dropped onto the sidewalk or the street, I would be out 30 bucks at least.

It's the kind of day I had hoped to avoid by staying in, but this was an emergency that required a trip to the A & P. (Better not to stay in anyway, even though it's drizzly and chilly.) I would drop off my two Netflix choices at the mailbox.

All the way to the store I had high hopes. I recalled vividly the time I had left my wallet and some mail at the post office on Washington Street when I still lived on Hudson. The angel who worked at that P.O. actually got a mailman to deliver it all--which she had packaged up in an envelope--to my door. I wrote a blog post about that experience.

But there was always the possibility that I hadn't left it at the A & P at all, but had lost it on the street.

When I got to the store I went directly to the lane where I had bought the groceries yesterday and was directed to Customer Service. I described the scruffy, well-worn little purse and even told them there was about $30 in it.

There it was. My heart sang with the joy of Hoboken Niceness once again as I walked home in the cold, misty drizzle. And actually there was over $40 in the purse. Next time I take it out it will have an ID card in it.

Sojourner Tooth

2010-04-18T04:14:00.000-07:00

I have had this little tooth ever since I was five or six. When those baby teeth came out I remember it was my first exposure to the reality of growing pains. Teeth would get loose, sure, but sometimes they needed a little adult help to be removed as their replacements grew in. At one point Grandaddy tied one end of a string to a tooth and the other to a doorknob and slammed the door. It was not painless, but it was quick.

The tooth that needed to be removed at this advanced age was in the center of the bottom row. It may have been the one that came in after Grandaddy slammed that door, I don't know for sure, but I know the tooth has seen a lot of history. In the 1960's, soon after I discovered I was pregnant, I had an abscess that I found required a root canal. This was my first experience in the world of adult dentistry, and I'm here to tell you dentistry has come a long way in the intervening years. The young dentist performed the root canal by applying a silver post. It was certainly the most painful experience I had had in a dentist's chair up to that time, and probably since. Within the past five years I had to have a root canal done, and, with all the space-age type equipment, it was a breeze compared to that work on that little tooth all those years ago.

The dentist in the old days told me that the tooth was officially dead and led me to believe that when I got old--maybe 50 or 60--the dead tooth would be discolored and different from my other teeth. (It didn't, thank goodness.) He also said he didn't believe in the old saw "A tooth for every child," which I had never heard before anyway. When I told it to my young husband, he said, "Maybe not, but you just lost one for this one."

Over the years, the saved tooth has sojourned everywhere I have--to Switzerland, where my dentist's office had a view of the gorgeous Lake Leman with its water spout known locally as the "jet d'eau," back to the States where I discovered dentist chairs that reclined to the point of being chaise longues. Rubber gloves went on after the advent of AIDS, and drills became high-speed as novacaine shots became hardly noticeable. I always sympathize with my dentists, and have learned to be patient when they try to talk to me with my mouth full of hardware and cotton rods. The little lavatories for spitting into and paper cups for rinsing from disappeared as suction tubes did a better job.

Over the years I began to notice a boil-like eruption near the little tooth from time to time. When I asked my dentist about it she explained that it was probably caused by the old silver post, saying that they were no longer used because they deteriorated over time and it might have to be removed in time. I asked a dentist friend about this when I was home in Fairhope in February and he suggested I have it done sooner rather than later as I was going to have to have it done eventually. I asked my Hoboken dentist and we arranged for me to talk to an oral surgeon.

I shall make this long story a little shorter. I had the tooth extracted on Friday and had some bone grafted to the place where it was so that a new tooth can be implanted later. Because it is that little tooth, closely surrounded by a lot of other teeth, this was a delicate operation. The procedure was not easy for the surgeon, his hygienist, or me. But we got the job done and I have spent the weekend pampering myself and eating ice cream, mashed potatoes, and other comfort foods. I discovered something in the A & P called Kozy Shack Cinnamon Raisin Rice Pudding. If there was ever baby food for grownups, that is it. Yummy.

And the little tooth will be replaced in August. In the meantime I have a nice little appliance with a false tooth in it to save the place. I have made quite a lot of my tooth's adventure, and now the grieving process is over. Back to real life--but I think I'll wait until tomorrow for that. I've still got some chocolate gelato in the freezer. And there are some mashed potatoes left over; they'll be good fried for breakfast with some eggs. Like so much in my life, it's mostly about food.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Now Playing

2010-04-16T05:11:00.001-07:00

Everything I said about the Hudson Theater Ensemble's production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which opened last week at the performance space in the Hudson School, still goes. You've got two more chances to catch the show--tonight and tomorrow night. I promise you'll be on the edge of your seat, even if you think you know how it comes out.

This One's a Don't-Miss

2010-04-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

I am aware that some of my readers aren't lucky enough to live in Hoboken. There are some who don't even live in commuting distance. But those of you who can possibly get here need to know about one of the most thrilling theatrical performances you'll ever see.The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been in the consciousness of the English-speaking world since Robert Louis Stevenson first penned the novella in 1886. Stevenson hit a nerve with his dark tale of multiple personality disorder before it had a name, heightened by its setting in Victorian London with its pea-soup fog, in a period of uptight sexual mores, and many unsolved gory murders. The tale of the kind and beloved doctor who has a secret life as an unspeakable degenerate sociopath fascinates and created a mythology of its own. To put this well-known and often seen story onstage as a play creates a challenge very ably met by playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, who created a piece for actors playing many parts. This device can be distracting, but in the hands of the superb cast at the Hudson Ensemble Theater's production opening tonight at the theater in the Hudson School, 601 Park Avenue, it's always exciting and theatrical.

The pleasant Dr. Jekyll, although less charming than he's usually portrayed in the movies, is ably acted by Toby Wherry. In this version of the story, Jekyll is earnest and well-meaning, but hardly a man about town--a doctor with radical ideas, fraught with conflict and passion, both of which Wherry manages to convey throughout the production. His hatred for his superior in the hospital, Sir Danvers Carew (played magnificently by Thomas Tyburski) is palpable from the outset of the drama.Emma Peele, a Canadian actress who is one of the all-time best Victorian screamers I have ever heard, plays a lady of dubious virtue of interest to both the good doctor Jekyll and his evil alter ego, Mr. Hyde. A very appealing actress, Ms. Peele balances her elegance with an inner passion that makes her a perfect partner for the formidable Hyde.

In this version of the story, Mr. Hyde is a person entirely separate from Dr. Jekyll. In fact, he seems to inhabit almost everybody in the play at one point or another. For the most part, the role is played by Sam Egge, in a turn so exquisite that I was not aware he too was playing multiple parts. The women are exceptionally well cast as men, with the versatile Florence Pape showing us even more of what she can do and newcomer Anneli Curnock bouncing in adeptly both as male and female, with one of the best lines of the evening, "I stayed to watch."

None of this is as confusing as it sounds. The play is superbly directed, and ticks along from beginning to end like a well-wound clock. It confronts the duality of all our personalities and spins the old story by making us wonder what Hyde has done now and who next will find Hyde in him. I have been to thousands of plays in my life, directed hundreds and played in more than a few--but at the end of this one I was covered with goosepimples. Safe as Hoboken is, it was not all that easy walking home alone in the dark and acting cool as I tried to get my key in the door.

Dates & Times:
Fridays @ 8PM: April 9 & April 16, 2010
Saturdays @ 8PM: April 10 & April 17, 2010
Sunday Matinee @ 3PM: April 11, 2010
Info/Reservations: 201-377-7014 or reservations@hudsontheatreensemble.com

Photos by John Crittenden

Theatre in Hoboken

2010-04-05T04:55:00.000-07:00

Being this close to New York City, Hoboken has theatre at its doorstep. And this week there will be a production of the home-grown variety that promises to rival the big time, with professional-level acting and production values.

Hudson Theatre Ensemble, Hoboken’s own award-winning professional community theatre now in its 10th season, will present Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adapted by nationally-renowned playwright Jeffrey Hatcher from the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson. The play will be at the group's space in the Hudson School, at Park Avenue and 6th Street. I've been asked to write a review of the show, but since it opens Friday and runs only two weekends, I thought my readers would like a little advance notice. I've seen the last two plays produced by the Hudson Theatre Ensemble, and they were delightful. No doubt this thriller, a new take on the R.L. Stevenson original, will not disappoint.

According to the group's press release, Hatcher’s fiendishly clever and provocative psychological thriller is hipper, more erotic, and theatrically intense than "your grandfather’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." It may be a little racy--recommended for mature audiences. (I wonder if they'll let me in.)

The question of duality intrigues us today, where the idea that everything is either black or white and that you are either for us or against us is so strong. Hatcher’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will remind us that human beings have multifaceted personalities much too complicated to fit into neat little boxes. In fact in Hatcher’s version, actors play multiple roles and the menacing Mr. Hyde himself is played by five actors – including one female!

Jeffrey Hatcher writes for both stage and screen. His accomplishments include screenplays for The Duchess (2008 film with Kiera Knightly) and Casanova (2005 film with Heath Ledger), as well as the popular stage version (with Mitch Albom) of the bestseller, Tuesdays With Morrie and plays A Picasso (winner of the Barrymore Award for Best New Play), Three Viewings, Scotland Road, The Turn of the Screw, Neddy and Murder by Poe. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar Award for "Best Play."

After I've seen it, I'll post my review here. I'm looking forward to this one.

Photo by John Crittenden

Tickets & Reservations:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde opens Friday April 9 and runs Friday and Saturday with a matinee Sunday April 11. Second weekend Friday and Saturday nights only.
$15 General Admission; $12 Seniors/Students
Info/Reservations: 201-377-7014 or reservations@hudsontheatreensemble.com

Fear of Flying with Amelia

2010-03-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

I watched the movie Amelia the other night and was totally transported found myself in another time, place, and maybe even another soul.

I didn't expect to like it particularly. After all, we all know the story, and although I've always been as curious as the next guy about Amelia Earhart, I didn't think there was anything transcendent about her. There would be lots of flying, there would be Hilary Swank in another androgynous role, there would be the aging Richard Gere, and then there would be the flight that never returned.

All the same, I love to think about that period--the fashions, the cars, the slang and the pop culture. In those days, my own parents were very young, and I have seen pictures of them in this time frame. I relish the old movies on Turner Classics that are like little time capsules of the day--the wisecracking newspapermen, the women in those tight-fitting hats and bee-stung lips--the sense of American urgency to get out of the Depression and grow up. (That the next step was World War II, the Eisenhower 1950's and the decadence of succeeding generations never occurs to anyone.) It was hopeful; it was innocent. In this movie, it is also lush and beautiful, a landscape of the rich and celebrated. That was the side my parents didn't see.

Even though I know it to be false, I was particularly taken with Swank's version of Amelia Earhart. She came over as extremely feminine, even with her bobbed hair and mannish aviatrix attire. She seemed sexy and soft. She even looked beautiful. I went to the Internet for photos of the real Amelia and, yes, there was an elegance about her. Her smile, which I had always thought of as blandly wholesome, actually made her look authentic and accessible.

It was easy to watch the love scenes (it is always easy to watch Richard Gere do love scenes, by the way). They looked so natural, so comfortable--you might say they looked to be made for each other. And she was just as good with Ewan MacGregor, who played her paramour, Gene Vidal. I loved it when she stated her ideas about independence in marriage and her need to be free. Without the connection to flying, I always felt the same way, and wonder if there are not a number of women who perceive love and marriage in this way. It is never framed this way for us; we are told that men have a need to wander in love and that women on the other hand fall in love and stay there, demanding slavish loyalty "forever." This is a topic that is much discussed, but seldom do the women who don't buy the mythology speak up.

I liked the visuals in the movie, but it was probably the underlying story that moved me most. Earhart was courageous, but we are all as courageous as we need to be. She was one of a kind in her time and place, and if not the only one, at least the most visible and one of the most accomplished. That she was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt was news to me.

As luck would have it, two days after I watched Amelia, PBS rebroadcast its American Experience segment "Amelia Earhart" for my delectation. From it I learned that the real Amelia Earhart was not so much a pilot as a public relations phenomenon. She came around with the right looks at the right time, a zeal for flying more than a natural gift for it, and there was something about her that caught the eye of the country's foremost promoter, G.P. Putnam. I had seen footage of the real Amelia with this stodgy-looking older man and always wondered what, if anything, she saw in him. With Richard Gere in the role it is much easier to envision true love between them--but in the newsreels of the day the relationship reads as business and finance, pure and simple.

It was not simple and not exactly pure. According to the offspring of one of Amelia's aviatrix rivals, Putnam had a plan to make money off a female flier and offered contracts drawn up heavily in his favor to the selected women who might apply. He was turned down by quite a few before Earhart accepted. He wanted to make a star, and she wanted to be one. Her resemblance to the young Charles Lindbergh was not lost on the brilliant publicity man. She wrote that in the initial interview she attempted to come across as bland a mediocrity as she could. No matter; he saw what he wanted in her and they forged a partnership that would become a marriage.

That the movie Amelia doesn't capture this element of reality doesn't bother me as apparently it did bother the critics when the movie came out. I found the character of Amelia Earhart compelling enough to give the actress Hilary Swank permission to portray her as a heroine, at least of her own story. I didn't think the movie lacked challenge and excitement. There is excitement in her approach to life, in her joy in flying, in her unique grasp of the business of making money to support a passion, in her fearlessness in the face of great personal risk.

She was a role model in her day, and remains so even with the questions she left. There is much we will never know about the real Amelia, but we know that she was larger than life and the choices she made will always be subject to interpretation. That alone does not necessarily make fodder for big, beautiful romantic movies. But it supplies us for substance for any number of books, films, documentaries, and even one glorious fairy tale. I don't know about you, but I love to think about reality after I've been drenched by romance.

Me and Hoboken Against the World

2010-03-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

There was a meeting of the condo owners in my building a few weeks ago. We had 100 per cent attendance--but that wasn't difficult because there are only six owners. At the meeting we discussed the little crises in the building, the management, and the fact that now that a couple have bought the last apartment we now literally own the building and are going to have to take matters in our own hands from now on.

It was a genial group. The new couple consists of a chef and a therapist specializing in trans-gender issues. He (the chef) asked if it would be all right, once we get the back yard common space cleaned up and planted, if he roast a pig on a spit for a party. This caused great celebration. I'm hoping it's all done in time for my birthday, so I can have the party to end all 70th birthday parties, with roasted pig, slaw, salad, booze, beer, wine and dessert.

Afterward I thought how lucky I am to be in a little building like this. Luck? I don't know. I always choose the smaller place, a little out of the way, a little scruffy--and full of interesting people. I had no way of knowing who might be living in this building, but, without thinking about it I should have known that it would not be anyone stuffy or conventional.

I grew up in an out-of-the-way town, went to the unorthodox school, drifted from church to church trying to find one that really spoke to me, and never really found one. My first job was as a copy girl on the Mobile Register and my dream was to become a movie star and always have writing to fall back on. I married a very unconventional guy who loved opera and wanted to become an impresario. When we got to New York, I took a job on a trade newspaper and fell in with a like minded crew of offbeat, artsy types. I left the first husband, married an actor, ditched him eight years later, and a few years after that married the man who had just been named Director of Public Affairs and Advertising for DuPont Europe--and moved to Switzerland for six and a half years. To my mind, I never did quite make it in the corporate wife mold, but had a wonderful time in Geneva, made lots of friends--and started an amateur theater company that played to full houses and lasted for ten years after I left.

There's a pattern of me-against-the-world here. Not necessarily against, but at least on the outside trying to entertain the troops. Maybe that's why I was such a good fit in Hoboken. In Hoboken we look at the city, get there as often as we please, and travel back and forth, around the country or the world as we like. There is a beauty about being able to do that. And if I didn't do it here, I'd be doing the same thing somewhere.

Alice and Holden

2010-03-20T10:46:00.001-07:00

Alice in Wonderland was always a favorite book of mine. I first read it when I was about 13, and was fascinated by the word-play and the situation of the little girl inadvertently experiencing changes in her own body and encountering a bizarre world of creatures giving her conflicting messages.

A familiar literary figure, the child or adolescent looking at the madness that is life as a grownup, was embodied years later in the character of Holden Caulfield. Taken on the surface, one might think of Alice and Holden as cut of different cloth, but we are aware of them both these days with the Tim Burton movie version of Alice in Wonderland and the recent death of J.D. Salinger, author of the ground-breaking The Catcher in the Rye in the 1950's.

The Catcher in the Rye, read as an adult, does not hold up as well as Alice. A friend of mine confessed to re-reading it 30 years after the first time and wondering what all the fuss was about. I can understand that, and I can understand why it leaves 12-year-olds cold too. It is too often assigned as required reading for that age group, which further bolsters my feeling that too often the educational establishment doesn't know what it is doing. The Catcher in the Rye is a book for people in their 20’s, looking back at their adolescence, reflecting on the agony of making big decisions with so little equipment.

In its day Catcher was astounding. Unlike anyone writing at that time, Salinger captured the kind of urban interior monologue a 17-year-old boy might actually use in describing his life. Adults of the 1950’s were shocked at the raw language coming from a well-bred, upperclass boy, but anyone under the age of 30 related to it. A college professor when I was a freshman assigned it to upperclassmen, and, flatteringly seeing me as precocious enough to have a valid reaction, lent me a copy and asked my opinion of the book.

I would say it was almost life-changing to me to read prose like that, and I shared it with friends who agreed. The word around campus was that our prof’s superiors were definitely of two minds about his teaching this book; it was not considered good literature, much less a classic. Be that as it may have, it made that teacher something of a hero to me and my cohorts.

The image of this mixed-up kid hoping he can spend his life rescuing children from falling off a mythical cliff in a mythical field somewhere—based on his own misreading of a song about crossing the Rye river in Scotland—said volumes about the neuroses and missteps of adolescence. He is struggling with his fear of the loss of his own innocence as well as that of his beloved little sister and every child on earth. He stokes his anger as everything seems to turn against his resolve to stay unsullied forever. His mind races from obscenity to obscenity as he confronts an obscene world about him.

In an almost-similar way Alice is the only sane person in a crazy world. When we meet her she is bored, as any child might be bored trying to read a book without any pictures or conversations in it, and follows a white rabbit down his hole, curious about his having a pocket watch as well as a pocket to keep it in. Right away, she is more an active participant in her adventures than Holden, whom we meet when he has been expelled from school and is wandering around New York City in a cross-current of his own conflicting impulses. Alice meets an array of characters, amusing, frightening and mad, but she retains her equilibrium and seems always to be the voice of reason no matter how bizarre her world. Holden, on the other hand, is an exposed nerve, a breakdown looking for a place to happen; and the characters around him only prove what he already feels—that growing up is synonymous with selling out.

Is Catcher in the Rye a classic? Its depiction of the insecurity of having unconventional thoughts in a conventional era certainly ignited a generation and was probably a forerunner of the chaos that was to come in the 1960’s and 70’s. Salinger’s proficiency with slang as a means of expression was ahead of its time, and his style as well as subject matter influenced writers and young people for years to come. It’s passé now, but stands, like Alice in Wonderland, as a time capsule and window to a bygone day, as well as a reflection on the eternal agony of growing up.

St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-16T09:51:00.001-07:00

Because it's you-know-who's day and all that, and because Hoboken takes it upon itself to celebrate the day beginning two weeks in advance, I am driven to record some stuff about Ireland and the Irish. In Hoboken, they may even need to be reminded that this is actually St. Patrick’s Day.

The many aspects of Irishness give us a magic lantern to illuminate our lives with a glimmer of poetry and the distant chime of music. There is that haunting wistfulness in our somewhat Irish hearts that prompts an elegant turn of phrase. It was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who, upon learning of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, said, “You’re not Irish if you don’t know your heart’s meant to be broken…”

I could praise Ireland’s homely, soul-filling food like corned beef simmered for hours with cabbage and potatoes or caraway-scented soda bread, or its heart-wrenching characters like those portrayed in the classic film The Quiet Man (rent it if you haven't seen it yet).
Ah, there are many beautiful movies that transport us to the Emerald Isle -- Once is still on my must-see list. I could say something about walking about in chilly Dublin on a rainy April day in 1971 -- please don't remind me you weren't born yet -- and finding a beautiful restaurant-pub called where the Irish coffee warmed us to our toes and changed our bleak impression of the gritty, grey little city. (I could also tell you of our immense disappointment at both the offerings we saw at the Abbey Theater that year -- a student production of Synge's "Deidre of the Sorrows," which we forgave because it was indeed a student production, and the unforgivably poor mounting of The Playboy of the Western World the next day.)

Even world renowned institutions stumble from time to time.

Since the turn of the last century, the English-speaking stage has been sparked by the talents of Irish writers. From John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey (and those with Celtic roots, like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw) through today's Brian Friel, Hugh Leonard, and Conor McPherson, we have the Irish to thank for many evenings of unforgettable theatre. At my own theatre in South Alabama, Jubilee Fish, many remember our haunting productions of Da, and the poetic Sea Marks by Gardner McKay, presented in the 1990’s.

This was before I appeared in Fairhope’s Theater 98 production of Dancing at Lughnasa, playing the role of Kate, the elder sister. This one was directed by a man whose name is quite similar to Sean Thornton, the John Wayne character in The Quiet Man.

When left to their own devices, the Irish have lots to give us besides potatoes and shamrocks. Just writing this, I am hearing the lilting Gaelic music that has become so popular in the last ten years, and I think of all the Irish singers of Irish songs over time.Hollywood celebrated generations of Irish tenors, including Dennis Morgan, who, it turns out was actually of Swedish descent, with the real name of Stanley Morner. But there is his lilting voice and open face that spoke of Ireland to us nonetheless.

You may suspect I have a modicum of Irish blood myself. Have a cup of Irish coffee today and think of me. Friday night my friend Cristina, who is from Colombia, is having a St. Patrick's Day party with corned beef, cabbage, and boiled potatoes. Sounds good to me!

Finding It at the Movies

2010-03-11T04:59:00.000-08:00

I have a few friends who are indifferent to the movies. They wouldn't say that, they would say the love movies, but they don't have a clue what it is to love movies. Kinda like a picky eater who claims to love food.

It wasn't until this Oscar season that I realized I had a full-blown obsession with the movies. I had been called a cinema buff, which I took as a compliment of sorts, and thought of myself as a cineaste, which is a highfalutin word for the same thing. But I hadn't acknowledged the extent of my involvement with the movies, maybe to the point of powerless-and-my-life-had-become-unmanageable. I don't watch the Oscars with the objective of seeing who wins so much as seeing the Hollywood animals in their native habitat. I watch movies all the time, go to the latest ones in the cinema palace and rent two or three a week. Added to those I find commercial-free on Turner Classic Movies and those I stumble into on the cable channels, it turns out that movies are like wallpaper in my life. I like silly romantic comedies with pretty people in them and dark violent murderous ones with sweaty guys shooting each other's faces off (as long as there's a woman around somewhere). I like mysteries, a smattering of science fiction, relationship movies, and even occasional animated cartoons.

How many movies do you have to see before you admit your addiction? I'm not sure. I'm still in denial here--I'd like to say I'm movie-dependent rather than a movieholic. But the line draws closer all the time.

I have adored Jeff Bridges since The Last Picture Show and The Great Lebowski, but had not seen Starman until I rented after the Oscars. (Yeah, I loved it.)I especially liked him in The Contender and The Door in the Floor, both of which I suggest you rent if you haven't seen.

I love Meryl Streep as much as even movie non-lovers do. She is classy and enormously gifted in both comedy and drama, with that uniquely chameleon quality that transports her spirit while channeling that of someone else. Whether she wins an Oscar or not is irrelevant at this point. She is Hollywood's reigning queen, and she carries that mantle superbly. I can't wait to see what she does next.

My interest in the art form is not so much related to the technical achievements as it is in its transformational component. I like to leave the movie house feeling like a different person from the one who went in. I even have known this phenomenon when watching a rented movie in my own home. It's the magic of the writing combined with the magic of acting--both of which I do myself, so it's interesting that I can be transported by the work of others. Sometimes I'll say to myself, "Good scene!" at the end of a good scene, or even "Great line!" and at others I am just transfixed at the performance of the actor who just delivered the great line or good scene. This does not even mean I wasn't able to suspend my disbelief--I can be totally there while the critical half of my brain is doing its work to disarm the inner child who is living life up there among the pretty people performing. In watching The Matrix I experienced flying with the characters, and it was awesomely familiar. I knew I had done that in my dreams. Had I had the foresight to see the Imax version of Avatar I'm sure I would have had similar out-of-body experiences.

Something keeps me coming back to movies, always hoping that some little moment will take me out of myself and put a smile on my soul. In more cases than not, it happens. It's mind expansion and heart expansion, and, man oh man, it can be addictive.

Escaping St. Patrick

2010-03-07T04:39:00.000-08:00

You and I both know that St. Patrick's Day is a week from Wednesday, but if you live in Hoboken you are well aware that in this town the event was celebrated yesterday. Why, if you don't live in Hoboken you may well ask. I think the answer is at least twofold: The parade must be on a Saturday, and it must be as early as possible to avoid conflicts with neighboring communities which might want the same marchers, bands, and celebrants.

We get them first, or at least among the first. Bars open at 9 A.M. and potential drunks line up outside them to get an early start on the revelry.

I watched the parade the first year I was in Hoboken. It was crisp and grey, and one by one I saw the participating high school musicians, marching police and firemen, politicians and local luminaries in convertibles and on foot. Not like the Mardi Gras of my hometowns Mobile and Fairhope, this parade, without expensive floats and revelers aboard them tossing candy, beads and Moon Pies to the screaming crowds, still attracted the kind of brain shift that seems to accompany anybody watching a parade. (Nobody asks, "Are we having fun yet?" but everybody wants to force a little joy from somewhere and vocalize it.)

Having seen it once I learned that most citizens of Hoboken vacate the area and leave the town to the invading hoard of college kids who sport green tee-shirts and funny hats. Last year I just stayed home, but I could hear parties in nearby apartments and backyards, on into the night. This year I live on the ground floor, in a condo with its bedroom on the street side, so I had an idea there would be noise all day and all night.

When I arrived on March 1 from a month in the South, I had no idea St. Patrick's Day would be Saturday. I booked a seat at a matinee of A Behanding in Spokane, the surreal comedy with Christopher Walken which is in previews on Broadway. This gave me the perfect escape from the Hoboken chaos of the day. When I left for the PATH train at 10:30 A.M., the streets were already crowded with young people and cops and everybody looking forward to a big day.

Getting into the subway was the hardest part of my day, as so many were coming out that it was difficult blazing a path through their determined young bodies. On the platform I said to the young man awaiting a train, "Well, it's good we made it this far," or something like that. We struck up a conversation which lasted the whole train ride and ended with exchanging business cards and me telling him about this blog.

I had an hour or two to kill in New York--a lovely dilemma--and spent it window shopping in Macy's and eating a light Mediterranean repast at my favorite pre-theatre Italian restaurant. I was warm and cozy when I got to the play, which delivered its promise of strangeness, profanity and offbeat hilarious comedy.

I decided to take the bus home, and, wonder of wonders, the bus had been diverted to the Willow Avenue route, presumably because of the Washington Street crowds. This is more convenient for me, and I've never been able to find a Willow St. bus in my two+ years in Hoboken. I still had a few blocks to walk, and it was only 4 P.M., so I had to weave my way through the noisy inebriants, but soon was home in my little condo and happy to be there. Yes, there was a little noise in the night, but I slept well and woke to find that St. Patrick's Day in Hoboken has come and gone until next year.

Re-Entry, March 2010

2010-03-03T08:09:00.000-08:00

I arrived at 4 P.M. two days ago. The weather, which seems to be all I talk about these days, cooperated so I was able to get on a plane between storms and arrive to tolerable temperatures and snow just in a few piles alongside the streets and sidewalks. I slept like a baby Monday night and spent yesterday reacquainting myself with Hoboken life.

I made my way to the main post office to get the mail they'd held. There was a long line--no surprise, there always is at that PO--and it was slow, but I was able to gather and sort my mail and still have time to buy groceries before lunch. I went to the gourmet grocery on Washington Street, which was redolent of the kind of food I'd missed in Alabama--spicy, fruity, intriguing. There was a warm atmosphere and I browsed the shelves for interesting treats like baked salmon spread and pear yogurt with grains, from Canada. This is a good place for fresh fish, so I bought a filet of lemon sole for lunch and some greens for a salad.

At home I went through the mail, put aside the catalogs and sorted what I would need to take to my tax accountant next week. I played around with Facebook a little and caught up on some blogs. I tried to remember the right numbers for my favorite tv channels and resorted in some cases to the Guide on channel 100. Now I've got it all straight, but I missed Roger Ebert on Oprah because I'd gotten the impression that the channel she was on had been pulled by the cable provider in a dispute similar to the one in January with the Food and Home and Garden channels (which left us without those networks for about four weeks). I was mistaken about that this time.

Cold and rainy today, but I did get to the gym. It was nice to see it was almost empty--it is huge and has a magnificent view of the NYC skyline. I did my full workout. Have a dentist date tomorrow, the accountant next week, and mid-month will have lunch with old friends and a visit from out of town. At some point I'll be dodging the revelers of St. Patrick's Day, but I'm in shape for that, having dodged similar ones in the Mardi Gras celebrations of Lower Alabama last month.

Back on Netflix, and expect to receive two in the mail today. I ordered about seven more so I'll see a lot of movies. Thought I'd take in a matinee on Broadway today, but won't make it. I may go Saturday. I want to see Christopher Walken at a preview of the play with the unfathomable title A Behanding in Spokane.

I'm back in the swing of Hoboken, my spirits are high, and wondering what is just around the corner in my life. If it's more of the same, that'll be fine with me.

Ego Trip

2010-02-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

It may be too soon to say, but so far this vacation has been a real jolt for my ego. I'll be back to normal in Hoboken by this time next week, but the month of February was full of unexpected adventures.

I thought it would be a time for contemplation, writing, reading, and visits with old friends, but from the first this one held promise of other things that are still in progress. I drove to Florida for a book talk and met some wonderful people in the process. I stayed overnight in a lovely guest cottage and had a great meal with congenial people--and the audience for my informal speech came prepared and asked intelligent questions. Having that kind of attention can make one feel very important.

Arriving back at home base, I found myself with lunch dates, coffee dates, and parties in my honor all month long. Two men from my distant past--childhood, in fact--approached me to talk about possible relationships in the future. With another friend, I saw one of the best movies of the year (Crazy Heart). The weather cooperated as best it could in February; temperatures were chilly, some nights going as low as the high 20's, but there was lots of sun and most days the high was in the 50's.

After a day or two I got I realized my computer was on the wane, and called upon my computer-expert friend here to help me clean out the trash. In the process the hard drive gave out completely and I had to buy a new laptop. This oddly affected my ability to write. I was too occupied with the mechanics of operating the new laptop to stimulate my creative urges. Maybe that's a copout, but that's the way it worked out. I wrote a few blog posts but started no major literary works.

I have a new laptop anyway, and had a lot of stimulating talks, and have a great deal more material for anything I might want to write in the future. And, okay, I know you want to know about the two men. I spent a day with one, talking about old times and found that he has grown up to be a wonderful human being. He is much as he was as a child, and I looked on him as a brother even then. I don't see the future holding anything more, but it is nice to have reconnected with a long-lost brother. The other man just left, after a nice meal and a good long talk. He hugged me and said, "Thanks for being a friend." Hmmm. Nothing in the world wrong with that. A little disappointing, perhaps, but in my eternally optimistic mind, the door is not completely shut.

The vacation is drawing to an end with a lot of promise. I've relaxed, indulged myself, looked at my life, and touched base with a number of special people in a number of ways. When I get to Hoboken Monday afternoon, there will a lot of snow on the ground, and it will still be winter. But I can carry the touch of spring in my heart, the spring that is Fairhope all the time.

Letter From Fairhope

2010-02-16T05:27:00.000-08:00

The first day I woke up and took a walk to the bay, camera in hand. Weather was what I expected--February here is not exactly like summertime--and the quiet old neighborhood had changed little in two years. But the view of the little pier and the sound of the ever-constant lapping of waves wove their eternal spell of peace and promise. I knew I had made a good decision.

Soon things began happening. Phone calls, lunch dates, a trip to nearby Florida for a book talk. All the while the temperature in the low 50's with an occasional dip and people apologizing to me for it. One night it actually was 27 degrees and snow was forecast for the next day. In some nearby towns there was an accumulation, but the snow we saw in Fairhope only lasted about five minutes and melted before it hit the ground.

My computer, which had showed signs of serious illness before I left Hoboken, was in the process of being repaired by a friend when we looked out the window and saw the flakes. He had spent Christmas with his family in Tulsa where there had been a big storm, and I, let's face it, had just escaped the blizzard conditions in Hoboken. We smiled at the Lower Alabama snow and went about trying to reassemble the computer, complete with a new hard drive.

Then the bad news. The new hard drive did nothing to resuscitate the computer. It wouldn't open. Back to the computer shop for major repairs on Saturday. Being the weekend, I would be waiting for a decision for a few more days.

Being without a computer in this day and time is like living without one of one's major organs. You do what you can to survive, knowing that people are trying to communicate with you, but immobilized. I didn't have everybody's phone number, and apparently nobody had my cell phone number. But, unlike the patient missing an organ, I knew a computer transplant was on the way and I would be up and running in a matter of days.

Bad news got badder. The old computer was not salvageable and I would have to buy a new one. Luckily I could do this without major financial hardship, and luckily I knew all along that the old one was probably surviving on borrowed time. However, even knowing this, I had not been smart enough to back up all my data and many great literary works will be lost to posterity as I don't even remember what I had started to write. I still have the old hard drive, and, if it becomes necessary, can pay to have the data retrieved--but I have the feeling that's not going to happen. I'm having too much fun with the new toy to recall what I loved so much about the old one. There may be a lesson in there somewhere, but I don't know what it is.

I'll probably post a time or two on my Fairhope blog before I leave on the first of March. I'm just hoping the weather holds out here...and that when I get back some of the snow will have melted there and spring will be on the way in New Jersey and New York.

In all, I'm having a wonderful time. I wish you were here.

Hoboken2Fairhope

2010-01-30T07:36:00.000-08:00

It's enough to make you want to take a winter vacation: Weather in the 20's today with a low of 18 predicted for tonight. And tonight I'll venture to Manhattan in that brutal cold to hear the beautiful Pamela Luss sing a little jazz in a club, with a rare appearance by her husband, my nephew Will Friedwald, as emcee. This means an oasis of warmth after walking 15 blocks to the PATH train--I may stop in a bar (or two) for a little red wine to warm my bones and break the trip. Returning home in the middle of the night I'll take a taxi from the subway once I get to Hoboken.

The vacay comes day after tomorrow. I've booked an adorable little furnished house on Pine Crest in Fairhope, Alabama, for the month of February, hoping for a more temperate climate and a warming trend in Hoboken when I return.

Most of you have read of my relationship to Fairhope. I have plugged my book about the utopian community for two years, and one or two of you have bought copies. It's where I grew up, left, returned, only to leave again more or less permanently in 2007. Fairhope is an upscale retirement community on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, with sunset views every evening and winter temperatures seldom getting below freezing. It was hit with the same arctic blast that almost devastated the citrus crops this year in January, but I am Photo by Robert Lee counting on that not happening again next month. In my experience such freakish weather events occur every 10 years or so.

Fairhope's sunny winters look better to me all the time from this perspective. I'm much happier living in Hoboken--which may be haunted but its ghosts, not being my ghosts, do not overwhelm me. But Fairhope is a nice place to visit.

I love living where there are four distinct seasons, even though one of them is winter, sure enough. I decided to see if I could shorten this one a month by visiting a familiar place where I can expect some chilly days, yes, but also probably at least a week where the thermometer doesn't go much below 75. I know enough not to predict the weather anyhere, but I can be sure in Fairhope it will be consistently warmer than here.

The rest I must prepare for. There is a sweet spirit in Fairhope, an innocence; a certain community spirit that attracts and holds newcomers. It is small-town USA. It is Southern, which means I will hear a lot about football and Fox News than I might be interested in. Because of its proximity to Mobile it will provide me with Moon Pies and Mardi Gras, both of which I am pretty adept at dodging. If you are not from the area, you won't understand this reference, but never mind. It's only important if you're planning a trip to Fairhope in February.

I shall put my mind to writing more seriously. The distractions of local sunsets, seafood, and visits with old friends aside, I will keep my days clear for some mental work. I am determined to get started on some literary projects, and minimize my blogs and my growing obsession with Facebook. On the other hand, it is a vacation, so if this plan doesn't go the way I'm saying I want it to, well, too bad. The trip will be a getaway.

Right now I'm in the throes of organizing, packing and anticipating. This is part of the fun of any vacation. I'm not there yet, but mentally I'm getting there. I can picture the little house, the little car I've resevered, the coffee at The Coffee Loft, the groceries I'll need to buy, and the nice warm air. There will be some blossoms already. There will be some Southern accents. It will a break from a harsh winter and the routine of my housebound days. I can take walks. I'll register at the Wellness Center of the hospital and will use it as I do the gym a few blocks away from my condo here.

I leave Monday and will return Monday March 1. I may post here occasionally or at my Fairhope blog". You'll find me if you look in one of these places, or at a café in Fairhope, signing books at Page & Palette, or on a pier watching a sunset. I'll be all over the place--and if you're looking for some words about Hoboken, this blog is full of them.

Am I Blue?

2010-01-24T13:53:00.000-08:00

I went to Avatar determined to like it in spite of the fact I was aware I might not. I knew only that it was a special-effects miracle with a New-Age-green message delivered by some tall blue people. This is not my usual cup of tea.

But I’m reading a book by an old friend on the philosophy of Spinoza, and he sent me a review of the movie that suggested some shared meaning between the great 17th Century thinker and this 21st Century futuristic fantasy. From what I have learned so far of the philosophy of Spinoza (with whom Albert Einstein is said to have agreed) it is basically that what we refer to as God is not so much a human-like entity but rather a sustained connection of all living things. This led me to the movie house expecting, if not enlightenment, a bit of direction toward a spiritual path.

You don’t have to tell me I was asking too much from a film by James Cameron. I know his wildly successful Titanic was dismissed by many as predictable and melodramatic (what else, from a story whose ending we all know, revolving around such idealized fictional romantic characters?), but its ending was one of the most exhilarating moments I have had in a movie ever, and I thought this one just might give me a moment or two like that.

It did, once I got used to the blue people with their white-flecked flat-nosed faces. I was utterly transported by the flora and fauna of Cameron’s forest. I wanted to walk there forever. I loved his floating blossoms that looked like jellyfish and thistles. I loved his hideous monsters who must be fought to be tamed (the scene when the protaganist has to ride his glorious dragon and bond with it was almost painful in its handling of spectacle and phantasmagorical realism). The villainnous villains, in this case the Marines and corporate executives, were a little extreme for me, but then I always liked Oz better than Kansas too. Like Jake Scully, I wanted to go back.

I saw that these blue people didn’t pray to their God to help them win wars because they had an understanding that that was not "her" job; I saw that they were connected to the animals because they bonded with them and seemed to read their minds. However, I don’t see that as pantheism or Spinozism or any religion that I know of. Some say their connection to the “land” symbolized the spirit of the Native American people. Perhaps, but I think there is a great deal that we do not know about the religion of the Native American people (at least I don’t) and that idealizing it is a little too easy. If on one level Avatar is an allegory about our ravaging of the planet and every planet we discover, well, it does make that point, but as only a footnote in the film. If it is an indictment of the military-industrial complex, that’s not big news—President Eisenhower started that in 1961.

So none of the messages of the movie moved me much. On the other hand, the special effects were astonishing—and I have to tell you here that I didn’t even see it in 3-D; it was too hard to get a ticket at short notice. It’s a beautiful film, and one that will without question influence future filmmakers. It may affect some of the audience with its philosophy, as those of a more Conservative political persuasion than I are suggesting, and it may even open some young eyes, but I think what will last about the movie is what lasts about all good movies. It moves its audience to a place they’ve never been.

Spoiler alert: I had one niggling problem with the story, and I say niggling because I’ve not seen it mentioned in another review so it must not be very important. In the climactic scene when the blue princess saves the dying Jake, I almost said aloud, “You mean she knew all along she was in love with an avatar? She knew that human lying on the floor was him, needing to be revived with that air mask?”

So I was forced to suspend disbelief. That’s part of the agreement we make with any moviemaker when we walk through the door, particularly a movie like this. You expect a little preaching and probably a couple of hidden agendas that are hardly hidden. It won’t convert you to pantheism, or to Spinoza’s concept of a connecting substance underpinning all living forms, but it will decidedly take you on a trip you have not seen before outside your best dreams.

A nice innovation was the appearance of the title instead of “The End,” The soul is transferred from crippled human to tall blue warrior, its yellow eye opens and we are told we have just seen Avatar. There is applause in the theater.

Hanging Out in Old Hoboken

2010-01-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

In June of 2008 I posted on this blog some information from my correspondent from Old Hoboken, Bobby Slezak, about the perils of the clothesline brigade in the old days. Last week Slezak sent me a new picture of the clotheslines and I thought the whole post deserved a second look. Here it is, with the new picture.
Slezak remembers an aspect of Old Hoboken he'd probably rather forget:

MONDAY MORNING WASH DAY, and the daredevils who had the job of putting up the clotheslines, when one broke. Every block had one brave soul...and I was the chosen one for my block. My mom got me the job...THANKS MOM.

You carried a hammer and the line around your neck...and began your climb...hitting each spike to insure that it was safe to step on. It always seemed to be the one at the top that was broken. Most of the time and on a cold and windy day, freezing your hands till they were numb, as all the wives braving the cold on their fire escapes watched me as I made my climb...praying for me. I FELT LIKE A CIRCUS ACT WITH NO NET.

WASH DAY was when every one knew if you had a hole in your undies. IT WAS PUT OUT FOR ALL TO SEE. And you only got a dollar a climb. I SUPPOSE THEY DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE IN HOBOKEN, thanks to washers and dryers.

Now that you mention it, Slezak, I haven't seen any clotheslines in Hoboken since I moved here in December (2007). Call it progress. Call it 21st Century technology. Call it the avoidance of child abuse. But you must have been a nimble lad in your day, putting up those clotheslines for the local housewives, and surviving to tell the tale some sixty years later. As usual, you paint a vivid picture of days gone by. At least you could drop by Abel's for an ice cream with your dollar.

Slezak's comment, when he emailed me the new picture: Funny we never saw Alice Kramden hanging out the wash...

Movies To Cry For

2010-01-20T07:28:00.000-08:00

My friend Cristina told me she had caught The Bridges of Madison County on cable last week. She'd seen it before, she said, but this time it really hit her. She started crying about halfway through and couldn't stop.

I had to confess that I'd seen the first ten minutes and couldn't take any more. Not that I found it sad; I found it dead boring. I didn't want to insult her--I know many people who loved the book and the movie and found them both overwhelmingly moving. I couldn't finish the book and disliked the movie even more. But I didn't want to sound like a heartless ice queen type; I can hardly watch any movie without a tear or two rolling down one cheek or the other--even a comedy.

I tried to think of a movie that did me in as that one did Cristina. I lay awake that night and couldn't think of one. I dug down deep into my childhood (we all cried when Beth died in Little Women, in the book too). As a teenager I wept at the field of dying soldiers in Gone With the Wind, was wiped out by the innocent naif Leslie Caron in Lili (I was an innocent naif too). I cried when it looked as if Doris Day had married the wrong man (Frank Sinatra) in Young at Heart while smoothie Gig Young still loved her. As a young bride I was inconsolable when Richard Baseheart died in La Strada ("The fool is dead, Zampano! The fool won't laugh any more!"), and cried inspired tears when Charlie Chaplin taught Claire Bloom to walk in Limelight. I made the decision in that darkened theater to audition for Actors' Studio, which I did within months.

Other "weeper" movies did nothing for me. I couldn't tolerate the characters in Love Story, and didn't buy that love means never having to say you're sorry. I missed Somewhere in Time, but have seen bits of it on television. I love The Sound of Music, but mostly for that Austrian folk dance and the song "I Must Have Done Something Right." I'm a bit of a sucker for Christopher Plummer. I know he hated working on the movie and called it "The Sound of Mucous," but it didn't make me cry.

I lost it at Beaches. At the time I saw it my flamboyant lifelong best friend had mysterious symptoms and was seeing a doctor--the movie was a glimpse of the future for me and it was cathartic to have my worst fears played out before they came true.

Why The Bridges of Madison County didn't work for me I'm not sure. I really kind of like being manipulated by clever authors even when I know they are doing it, but this seemed formulaic and predictable to me. The characters didn't seem real in the book and less so as impersonated by Clint Eastwood (too old) and Meryl Streep (not sexy enough). Don't get me wrong, I admire both actors, but they didn't suit their roles--maybe it's because I know them too well. Had the film starred two unknowns I might have been able to suspend disbelief.

Reading this, you will think of movies that made you wish for a whole box of Kleenex instead of the one ragged one you'd been keeping in your purse for months. Maybe there are men who cry at movies too. Let me know which ones did it for you.

A Day in New York

2010-01-16T05:31:00.000-08:00

It was kinda like it was when I first got here, but at least it wasn't very cold.

I really don't think I did this kind of thing before I got to Hoboken, but it has happened so often since I arrived in December 2007 that I'm beginning to wonder if early senility has set in. Confused and without a cell phone, I wondered if I was in the wrong place or the wrong time, wasn't sure I could find the place I was going or if the person I was supposed to meet was going to get there.

I was to meet John at the Hoboken PATH station at 11 Thursday. From there we would go together to Lincoln Center to see a movie at the Jewish Film Festival. We had made all the arrangements on Facebook, even down to his explicit instructions about the quickest way to get to Lincoln Center (get off the PATH at 33rd and walk to 7th Ave. to the IRT and take the uptown train). I walked briskly and timed myself--it took exactly 20 minutes to get to the PATH station from my house, and I arrived ten minutes early. It was when I got there that I realized I had left my cell phone at home.

Okay, I was a little mad at myself. I had charged the phone and it was sitting on the granite kitchen counter, waiting for me to pick it up, but once again I had left it behind. I don't have a whole lot of need for a cell phone, but this kind of a day was when I knew very well having one along could avert potential disaster. I had given John the number, and it would be very helpful if he could reach me to tell me when he was getting near the PATH station. I waited for 20 minutes, 30, and began thinking, "What if we said 11:30 instead of 11 as I remembered?" I decided to wait until 11:35 and then go get on a train which would be about ten more minutes before leaving. I could find my way to Lincoln Center using John's instructions, and catch him there--or maybe he would find me on the train.

I didn't see him on the train. I went to Lincoln Center, which is quite transformed since I last was there about 20 years ago. I found the theater where the Jewish Film Festival was being held, but no John. He had set the whole excursion early to allow plenty of time to get into the theater in time to get a decent seat. I knew he had already paid for two tickets online and wondered if he'd gotten there early to get seats. I waited. When it got to be about ten minutes before show time, and dozens of little Jewish people had come in couples and groups to file into the theater, I realized I probably had missed John somewhere along the way. I kept thinking if-I-were-him-looking-for-me what would I do and always came to the conclusion that I would give up on me and just get my ass to the theater. But no John. So I went through the worst-case-scenario scene and decided that we had simply missed each other, damn myself anyway for not bringing my cell phone--and there were a lot of movies in Manhattan I'd just as soon see. I had time to find one. I started in that direction when I found John heading toward the theater! He told me that he had actually said to meet him at 11:30 and when he saw he was going to be ten minutes late he called my cell phone to let me know.

The upshot was we got into the theater in time to get good seats, and yes, the Walter Reade did fill up. We saw a fascinating antique called The Bar Mitzvah, which was charming in it corniness, and afforded us the opportunity to learn a little about immigrant Jewish life in the early 20th Century and see a performance by the legendary Boris Thomashevsky and his wife, actress Bessie Thomashevski, having a great time, singing, emoting, and generally chewing the scenery in classical style. There was an introduction, some comments by the grandson of the couple (the eminent conductor Michael Tilson Thomas) and a question and answer period after the movie.

John and I had a cup of coffee and a nice long chat after the show and went our separate ways. I picked up a bottle of wine at Sparrow's on Washington Street on my way home. By the end of the day I felt quite good about knowing my way around New York so well; I had learned some more about my Jewish friends, and certainly John knew a little more about me. I also came one step closer to learning to bring my cell phone with me on my travels. There were five messages from John when I checked it.

I Am the Food Network

2010-01-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

As of early January, there has been a blackout of both The Food Network and HG-TV, cable channels that feature programs on cooking and home and garden decor in the New York area. Some 3 million households are affected including those in Hoboken.

As an addict of both channels, I suffered withdrawal for several days. The dispute became apparent to viewers when the owners of the networks took the channels off the air and the cable provider ran a disclaimer on both channels advising viewers to call and tell the owners to put the channels back while negotiations continued. I did, and a number of my Hoboken friends who suffered the same as I did made similar calls. We were bounced from the cable provider to the channel owners with the admonishment to be sure to tell them to put their channels on the air. The channel owner had a couple of similar recordings and a customer-service representative who read a statement saying that the cable provider hadn't paid their fee and that was why the channels were pulled.

It's been almost a week now that I've been without my two most-watched channels, and I'm beginning to adapt. Today at lunch I made myself a poached chicken breast, a stuffed sweet potato, and a serving of brocolli that looked like a plate shown in a magazine. I boned the breast myself and sliced the meat into about three cutlets, poaching some for the future and even setting one raw one in the refrigerator to be prepared at some later date. I chattered to myself as I produced this model meal, and wound up my presentation with, "What the hell-- I am the food network."

For years when friends saw me in the kitchen chopping, sorting, and arranging party food, they would say, "You look like someone on tv." I would remind them, as I have said on this blog, that I learned to cook from Julia Child. Maybe that's why I cook that way--whatever, it's fun. Sometimes I think my whole life is just a show I carry with me everywhere--a portable home and cooking show.

To tell the truth, there is much that irritates me on both those channels. Food TV seems to think that to make cooking interesting they have to make a competiton out of it, and to create "reality" shows that look as phony as anything on the networks. And HG-TV shows endless re-runs of the biggest bores in the world looking for expensive real estate on "House Hunters" and all its variations.

I can watch cooking on PBS and home decorating tomorrow morning on A&E and The Learning Channel. Or I can just continue to stage my life as one occasionally interrupted Food Network Show and enjoy it. Come to think of it, my new condo is a real life version of HG-TV as well. The channel owners and the cable provider appear to be back at the bargaining table, and both channels may be back on as soon as tomorrow.

But what do I care? I am my own reality show.

The Year on "Finding Myself"

2009-12-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

My friend Nan has a blog on which she discusses books, cooking, and life on a farm. A recent post introduced a meme--and, after some instruction from my Facebook friends--I'm an expert on memes, but I still don't know why this is a meme. It's more like a game. The idea is to take the first line of a post from every month of your blog over the last year. I went over mine and picked the first post of every month, and here they are.

January 1: I just love those montages of world events they put on tv at the end of every year, even the inevitable memorials to those well-known people we lost during the year. A year later, and I'm still talking about this. Guess I will always love those things.

February: Saturday afternoon the odd little bell-chime sounded telling me I had a text message on what I laughingly call my cell phone. This one was about my struggle with the new electronics, trying to learn how to text (and pretty much failing).

March: I've written two books about my home town, the utopian single tax community of Fairhope, Alabama. Shameless promotion of a third book that never was published.

April: I wasn't going to tell you this, but this is the month I'm gonna reinvent myself. Ah, that was a good month. I changed the way I eat, from fatty and lots of meat to mostly plant-based protein. Didn't lose any weight, but changed my cholesterol and feel much better.

May: Around the new year, New York Times contributor Stanley Fish published a column called the Ten Best American Movies. This post included my own choice of Ten Best Movies, which included none of Fish's favorites.

June: Two Months After Re-Invention (title) That title was come upon hopefully, after I received my borrowed Flip videocam in the mail. Here I took videos of myself showing that the weight was redistributed, but still there. I was enjoying posting videos of everything about this time.
July: It may not look like much from the outside, but with a little help from me, the condo on the first floor of this 1900 row house in Hoboken's old "downtown" neighborhood, is about to do its part in rescuing the sagging U.S. economy. I had made an offer on my new condo!

August: I watched "The Next Food Network Star" followed by "The Next Home & Garden Network Star" last night. My reviews of two of my favorite reality shows on television.

September: The beautiful Madonna Dei Martiri is the centerpiece of Hoboken's biggest, most Italian festival every year in September. Describing Hoboken's Italian festa.October: Good Old Biggie's (title) Looking south from my new condo on Madison Street you can see the local landmark.

November: All of a sudden the world changed, and it changed again. Back to electronics--this time recounting the history of the computer.

December: I expected it to be much colder when I got off the airplane. Returning to Hoboken after a trip home to Alabama, I attempt to describe the culture shock.

The meme provides a snapshot of blogposts of last year, not selected for their merit. It is interesting to me that the first day of every month almost nothing of interest happened. The blog posts do not even seem to reflect a cross-section of the kinds of things that happened to me. They were simply the first posts of each month. If your interest is piqued, however, you can find the posts in their entirety, and many others (better ones, just by browsing the lists at the top of the blog. I hope you found this blog in the past year, and that you'll stay with us for another. Happy New Year!

Reflections on the Passing of a Year

2009-12-29T02:54:00.000-08:00

New years set us thinking. Some people actually make a list of resolutions and have every intention of following them. I have never known any such person, but they exist, at least in our mythology. Saying you're going to lose 20 pounds does not count as a New Year's resolution, at least not in my book, since I've been doing that at least twice a year for the last 30. Keeping to any resolution is not something we do very well.

What we do do very well is look over the incidents of the outgoing year, with major television networks editing news clippings reminding us of the way we were in the past year, to say nothing of who died and what news events altered our times. We add to that our own personal achievements and awareness of losses, put them all in a box in our minds, and probably think of them very seldom as time goes by. Not that that's a bad thing. We must move forward.

This year was a sour one by most accounts. Hopes built up by a sterling new president were dashed as we had to face, with him, the reality of the job he was presented with. We found ourselves viewing everything that happened in 2009 through the lens of a looming economic downturn. I'm old enough to have seen these come and go, but many of today's wealthy are not, and to them the drop in finances was unfathomable and perhaps unacceptable. An unknown monster in the background was a kindly-looking old man named Bernie Madoff, who became a symbol of excess and corruption. It is not a visage we would like to encounter again. Suddenly Obama's picks for his financial team looked suspect, and we are not likely to know their true mettle until we can view their work in retrospect; all we can do is hope it's not too late. By the same token, all of the people surrounding the president seem somehow tainted and the mindless hope of his inauguration day is darkened if not crushed.

The capture of a terrorist in an airplane on our home ground is an ominous note upon which to end such a year. The more we learn about this, the more alarmed we become. It will be difficult for a State of the Union address to stimulate such a disquieted populace. We all know if anyone can do it, Barack Obama is the man--but I cannot think, with the 24-hour-news pundits in line to parse that speech, that he will achieve his goal with it. We have become jaded enough that the fact he can give a soaring speech is no longer viewed with awe by many.

It was a year of failed pranks--the balloon parents and the gate crashers come to mind. It was a year of failed deception--the governor of South Carolina and former politician John Edwards come to mind. It was a year of dashed illusions--Tiger Woods comes to mind.

Michael Jackson died suddenly. Walter Cronkite and Edward Kennedy were taken by illness. Jennifer Jones, Ricardo Montalban, Karl Malden, Pat Hingle and Brittany Murphy were also among those who left us this year. We were once again struck by the fleeting quality of life itself, and challenged to make our own mark while we could, which is what reflecting on the passing of a year is really about. I don't know what I'll do next year, but I am certain it will be a better year than the one we've just suffered through together.

I've been invited to a little New Year's Eve party, and that reminds me that the last one I went to was in ushering in the dreaded year 2000--remember when we thought the computers of the world might crash and throw all into blithering oblivion? This year's get together will be simpler, as we happily bid farewell to a year in which it seemed the news never got better. We'll toast the birth of 2010 with a glass of champagne and I have no doubt we'll all feel that it will be happier than the year we're leaving behind.

The Pies of Christmas

2009-12-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

Apple pie is appearing here and there in my life these days. My daughter is an expert baker of them, and Christmas with her and her family promises that I'll get a couple of chances to taste them. I have my own recipe; she has hers. My favorite was baked by the cook employed by a family friend in Alabama years ago. It had a lattice top, and seemed to us the perfect ratio of cinnamon to brown sugar. I find that in the North people are less likely to use quite enough of either for my taste, but I've spent a lifetime trying to duplicate that one I had so many years ago.

My favorite apple pie story came from Jim Adshead, my husband who died nine years ago. He was a G.I. in World War II, fighting in France and harbored in farmhouses, basements and barns with his buddies when the need arose. It must have been Christmas of 1944 that the guys were being sheltered by a sympathetic French farm family.

They were roused by the family with joyous cries in French that it was Christmas Day, and, although none of the boys could speak French, they knew they were being invited to the family's only day of celebration for years. It was a hungry and grateful group that joined the family to see the pride of the best feast they could scrape up, which was an apple pie. They could tell the mother, who was the cook, had prepared it especially for them, knowing that apple pie was an American favorite. They were thrilled to get any food at all, but the apple pie they were served was certainly not like any they'd ever seen in the States.

When Jim first told me the story he said it was a pathetic excuse for an apple pie, obviously made from dried apples and very little sugar--much less cinnamon, butter, or the spices they expected from an apple pie. But the boys were so touched by the gesture, and their hearts so warmed by the work involved, that they were effusive in their thanks and their gratitude for home-baked food was genuine and heartfelt.

Some forty years later Jim and I were living in Geneva and we were often exposed to the French version of apple pie. He then realized that this was the pie he was served that Christmas Day so long before--not, as it had appeared, made with dried apples, but the thinly sliced, artistically arranged, apples as preferred by the French, cooked with very little sugar and coated with apricot jam as a glaze. It's a pie, but it ain't American apple pie.

The French also make a tasty caramelized apple pie known as tarte tatin, which is tastier (if you like caramel) and made by browning the sugar in the pan, placing a crust on top, and then reversing the whole product using very deft hands. I've made it, just to see if I could, but the fact is I like to taste a bit of cinnamon in my apple pie.

And I did find a way to get just the right crunch of caramel on the lattice top of a pie not unlike that Alabama pie of years ago: You dot all the holes in the lattice with butter and sprinkle the top of the pie liberally with white sugar. The butter will melt and the sugar will brown and crisp--and the pie will be sweet enough for any Christmas guest you may have, even a barn full of half-starved G.I.'s.

Hoboken at Christmas, 2009

2009-12-11T05:07:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about living in the Northeast is the genuine change of seasons. This is difficult for many to understand, as they move to Florida as soon as they possibly can, and claim not to miss the cold weather for an instant.

It's not that I like cold weather, mind you. I'm told it's 20 degrees at the moment and that the high for today will be 30. I do have to go out--I have a doctor's appointment at 11:30--or otherwise I might just opt for staying in the cozy apartment all day. As it is, I've got that long walk to Washington Street, and while I'm there I might as well go to the bank and pick up some groceries. I'll wear lots of layers and duck into a warm building if necessary on my travels.

Everybody from Fairhope sympathizes with me about the cold weather. But this kind of cold adds to the feeling of Christmas, with God throwing in a few snow flurries as if for punctuation. Hoboken is dressed for the holidays, and for once I'm glad Frank Sinatra made so many Christmas albums--his gentle voice is piped into businesses all over town. I may pop into Albini's Pharmacy, a beautifully wood-paneled remnant of bygone days, just to hear its selection of Sinatra seasonal numbers. (I'll buy something innocuous to justify my visit.)

There is a sign at Our Lady of Grace Church that there will be a program of carols next weekend. The lights are up everywhere, and the A & P has its Christmas music piped in. Yesterday I was stopped in my tracks there listening to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," trying to decide if that really could have been Barbra Streisand, giving a restrained rendition for once. Anybody know if there is a singer with a similar voice who just sings the song and doesn't try to impress us with her acting virtuosity at the same time? Celine Dion? Susan Boyle? (That would be a great CD--Susan Boyle's Christmas!)

Week after next I'll travel to upstate New York to visit the daughter and grandsons for the actual holiday. In the meantime, I'm gettin more Christmas than I expected. I picked up a little bourbon and rum and made my own egg nog from scratch yesterday, and I keep thinking I brought fresh pecans back from Alabama and just might use them in something delicious.

A little Christmas is doing me good. I like that it's cold at this time of year. There is no snow on the ground here, and the puddles from a few days ago have dried up so there's no ice to worry about. There might be snow by the big day, and there is certain to be in Kingston, but, whether or not, Christmas is in the air. The gentlemen are merry and the nights are silent. The heart is full. Have a drink of egg nog--not prepackaged, please--and sing a song of the season.

A New Book About Fairhope

2009-12-09T07:55:00.003-08:00

Paul Gaston at the Organic School Centennial, 2007

Paul Gaston is about so much more than Fairhope that I must introduce him to you. Sure, he was born and raised there, and his grandfather founded the town in 1894, but he went on to become an eminent scholar, professor, and leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the state of Virginia.

It's possible I write too much about Fairhope here, and should leave that to my blog Finding Fair Hope. But I just read Paul's book Coming of Age in Utopia and I can't say enough about it in enough places. I knew his family, (his mother taught me to type in the School of Organic Education), but by then Paul was already off in the larger world, achieving and working to change things in the South. I didn't get to know the man until about eight years ago when he was on one of his visits to Fairhope. I've given parties for him and his wife, heard more and more Fairhope stories from him every time we meet--and enjoyed his company always. He is my favorite lecturer--I've heard him speak a lot of times, and I've read most of his books.

Paul was a teacher of Southern History at the University of Virginia. He's retired now and has been working on his memoir for years. At last it's published, and you can read my review of it on the link provided above (just click on the blue letters that spell "Finding Fair Hope"). It includes a section about growing up in Fairhope, but its best stories are about his work at U Va. It has so many anecdotes, about his high school girl friends, his days at Swarthmore and in the Army, his courtship of the beautiful Mary, his nine-year-old son meeting Martin Luther King, his experience with the first sit-in in Charlottesville, and his commitment to opening the minds of tradition-bound Southerners who attended his classes.

He has lived an admirable life, and he is a man worthy of more books. I have no doubt that he'll produce a few himself. In the meantime, he has written one of the most interesting autobiographical works you'll find.

Me and Orson Welles--and Me

2009-12-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

There are quite a few of us left who are fascinated by Orson Welles--his life and times, his persona, his work. When I saw reviews of the new film Me and Orson Welles, which basically said that they got it right this time, I knew I had to see it. With nothing special to do yesterday, I looked it up and found that it was playing at a few of New York's elegant little art cinemas, so I impulsively planned to go see it. I emailed a very New York friend, of my vintage, and also an aficionado of old-style theatre and films, and asked him to join me at the 3:40 showing.

Yesterday was one of those star-crossed days when nothing quite goes as planned. I didn't hear from the friend and figured he was too busy to check his email, but set off to the cinema palace on the Upper West Side where it was showing. The Light Rail was slow in coming, and then when I took the PATH train I had miscalculated and got on a "B" train when I probably should have found an "A;" that is to say, when I emerged from the subway I was on the wrong side of town and it was already showtime.

I still haven't quite gotten the hang of Manhattan yet. Maybe it's because I've been out of town for two weeks and my circuits are overloaded with information about Lower Alabama; maybe it's because they've changed some of the train routes since I lived here 20 years ago, or maybe--but probably not--it's just that my aging brain is not as quick at processing information, and after 20 years of not thinking about the map of New York City the medulla oblongata has shut down that valve.

I was discouraged coming out of that train near Rockefeller Center instead of near Lincoln Center, but I knew where I was, and after a rather harrowing train ride and walks through various subway stations, I just wanted to come home to Hoboken, by bus. That meant walking through Times Square and seeing all the happy people buying tickets to plays, the lights on the marquees, and all the hustle and bustle of the beginning of Christmas season in New York. My bus ride home was a relief.

Today I woke up wanting to try again. I got an email from the New York friend that he'd received my email in Chicago where he is visiting a sick friend, but that he'd seen the movie and loved it.

So I sorted out things at home and set off for a different cinema palace, which I was certain I could find, in the West Village. I decided to walk to the PATH train, and, timing that walk, discovered I made as good time on foot as I had yesterday on the Light Rail getting to the subway. Maybe better. I felt pretty good, because I knew that I would be only one stop from the movie. I did my homework and looked at maps of how to find it once I got out of the train--this may sound unnecessary, but the Village is a tangle of short, elegant streets peppered with interesting shops and romantic restaurants. It's easy to get distracted and lose your way.

It was raining today, and pretty cold, and the walk was much farther than I expected. At one point I asked an attractive young man where the Angelika was and he just shrugged; I then asked a pretty girl and she said, "Turn left at the next corner and then it's about ten blocks."

"Ten?" I must have looked askance.

"Well, maybe seven," she said. As I walked on I soon realized she was just trying to let me down easy--it was going to be ten blocks more.

That's one of the things I've gotten used to here, walking long distances to get where I need to go. I didn't do that last week when I was in Alabama; I was in a rented car. Walking is much better for my cardiovascular system.

Now I've gone off on a tangent. I was going to write a review of the movie. I'll have to encapsulate it by saying this: Me and Orson Welles is a trip back in time, to another place, another world really, when live theatre was grand and everyone was larger than life. Christian McKay, playing Orson Welles, had the man down to a tee but for the mellifluous voice that Welles used so theatrically even in small talk. MacKay has a fine voice, and all his mannerisms are very Welles-like, so I suppose this is carping. There are wonderful characterizations of other real people too, like John Houseman and Joseph Cotten, and it's a great escape to feel that you're back in the day when these people were young and vibrant.

Coming out of the movie, the rain was turning to snow. I had the long walk back to the subway, and all I could think about was that I was going to make myself some hot chocolate when I got home, and put some of the fresh mozzarella I bought at Fiore's yesterday on toast with some tomato sauce to rig something like a pizza for supper. Rather than walk all the way from the PATH station home, I took the Light Rail and got home and tucked into my comfort food, thinking about Orson Welles and his cohorts and the magic of the production of Julius Caesar in 1937 at the old Mercury Theater.

That's one thing about living in Hoboken--you're never far away from magic.

Finding Fair Hoboken

2009-12-02T03:56:00.000-08:00

I expected it to be much colder when I got off the airplane. Had gotten used to the temps in the high 60's and low 70's in Fairhope, but ten degrees colder was not too painful. I tried to use the two flights and the time in the airports to regroup and get my mind in gear to trade Fairhope for fair Hoboken, but shaking off the culture shock and mentally processing the transfer was not automatic.

Cristina picked me up at the Newark airport and I chattered like a magpie about my feelings about Fairhope and my experiences there, but my ears were a bit plugged from the pressure on the planes and I hardly knew what I was saying.

When I got home all I could think about was picking up a plate of takeout pasta from Biggie's. Standing there in the queue help me with re-entry into my new hometown; I was surrounded by people I would never see in Fairhope, and I felt welcomed and impatient to try the broccoli rabe with sausages. Biggie told me for future reference that if I call and place the order they'll have it when I get there. Pasta is cooked to order. I'll remember that. The comfort food was much appreciated--and I have enough left over for at least two more meals.

I'll get back in my regular routine of trips to the gym, errands around town, walking everywhere, and get back in the swing of life here in no time. I'm planning a snowbird visit for the month of February in Fairhope. Christmas with Alison and the boys in Kingston, NY.

Back to normal. Back to Hoboken. It may not be the topic for a dynamic blog post, but it's good to be back. Wait til we see what happens next.

A Fair Hope for Hoboken (Reposted)

2009-11-27T01:03:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, December 1, I'll leave my old home in Fairhope and return to my new one in Hoboken. This is coincidental, as it was on December 1, 2007, that I moved (more or less permanently) from Fairhope to Hoboken the first time. Much of my adjustment in the two years has been in dealing with the differences and the situations that were much the same in my life in both places.

I posted the following in May of 2008:

My last post inspired a friend to write comparing Hoboken and its preoccupation with Sinatra to Fairhope, my last domain, and its preoccupation with the school that was at the center of the town’s attraction in generations past.

Probably the only similarity is me.

I spent a lot of energy in Fairhope working to preserve its heritage – both at the Organic School and in the history of the little utopian colony itself. Now that I’m in strange surroundings I’m most comfortable around the town’s historical neighborhoods and learning of its favorite sons and its old institutions, some removed and some restored.

This correspondent sees it as basking in the glory of others, even though the others are long gone. Maybe so. I suspect it’s just a different type of brain at work -- mine, mine being surrounded with memories and sometimes all but drowning in them. My home town, Fairhope, is facing its future by destroying its past and building new monuments. Hoboken, on the other hand, has retained much of its past while being open to the new where there is a buck to be made. There’s a difference, and to me the difference is in Hoboken’s favor.

We all have to live in the present and work toward the future. I’m told there is a lot of turnover in the population of Hoboken, and there is rampant political controversy in its conversion from an immigrant community to a bedroom for Manhattan. I could get involved in some of that after having visited the Open House at the Neumann Leathers Warehouse, now a rabbit warren of artists’ studios down by the river. Neumann Leathers is slated to be taken over for development, and there are many, including me, who hope that won’t happen to this unique haven for real artists. A fair hope for Hoboken, but probably there is no stopping the project.

However, Hoboken is no more obsessed with Frank Sinatra than Fairhope is with the Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education. On the other hand, these are both pet projects of mine, and I enjoy sharing their good points with the world. Glorying in the past? I don’t see it that way. Certainly both locations are moving forward at a dizzying clip. It’s me who’s determined to keep the past alive.

“Maybe it's time for each of these locations to make their own glory; after all, ghosts don't last forever,” writes my friend. I counter with this – they are making their own glory on their own, and I am making mine in my own modest way. It just happens that one of my pleasures in life is poring over old pictures, talking to people about the way things were, and reflecting on what is good about the past and the present. The future will take care of itself.

Finding Myself in Fairhope

2009-11-26T06:54:00.000-08:00

I've been here for over a week, thinking of Hoboken a lot, but dealing with issues that relate more to my past than to my present and/or future. I found myself too emotionally tangled up to write about anything, but this morning the dam burst and I put down my feelings and thoughts on my other blog. You might be interested in learning why I've been silent here for over a week: Click here to read of my travels.

I'll be back in Hoboken late Tuesday night. In the meantime, have a wonderful Thanksgiving and be thinking good thoughts about Christmas and the new year.

A Mini-Book-Tour in Warmer Climes

2009-11-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

I'll leave Hoboken Tuesday (November 17) for the launch of my book The Fair Hope of Heaven in paperback. Enterprising readers may have already ordered it from amazon.com in that format, but I held back its general release to the Fairhope reading public until now. It was first published in hard cover in January, and I went to Fairhope at that time to get it into the local indie bookstore. It will retail for a mere $16.95 in paperback, as against $26.95 for the hard cover.

I've written a lot about the book on this blog, and on my other blog "Finding Fair Hope," and on my website. It seems much of my life is devoted--when not finding myself in Hoboken--to finding Fairhope, a little burg in transition from a utopian single tax colony to a burgeoning tourist and retirement city on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay in Alabama.

Even though the book has the words "fair" and "hope" in the title, I never thought of it as a book about the town of Fairhope until market forces--read that to mean publishers--informed me that it was. I thought it was about the way history and events transform people and places, reflecting on this through my memories of a unique childhood in the kind of nonconformist environment that Fairhope, Alabama, offered in the middle of the 20th Century. I included character sketches of people I knew, thinking for all the world that I had created a new Lake Wobegon Days, and, although knowing it would appeal to others who shared the memories, I felt that my book was universal in scope. Part of me would still like to believe that--but the reaction from publishers was that it was charming but limited to readers in Fairhope. I hope sales of the soft cover may still prove me right.

So I'll get on the plane Tuesday and plan to visit old friends and see the new construction in the town where I spent much of my life. I'll investigate the possibility of taking control of the old family homestead. I'll have Thanksgiving with a couple I've known for at least 60 years, with their friends and relations. I'll see family and classmates and people I worked closely with before I moved to Hoboken in December 2007. I'm no longer distraught at how many of the old building and funky cottages have been destroyed and replaced. Like a newcomer, I'll be refreshed by balmy weather and sunsets on Mobile Bay.

From The Fair Hope of Heaven: "The coastline of Mobile Bay with sunset views is just one part of the equation. Its calming effect cannot be denied, and the transcendent, everlasting quality of that particular body of water and its constant gentle motion is a source of comfort and serenity to all who live anywhere near it."

I look forward to this trip. Indeed I do.

I Didn't Get the Memo

2009-11-10T06:22:00.000-08:00

Don't look now, but language, always alive and evolving, has substituted new words for old for no reason. Most of these words and figures of speech have been around for years now, but bit by bit they've gone from being my own pet peeves to being the only way to say a thing. I don't know when, I don't know why--but I'm relearning how to speak colloquial American English.

It seems that we are all expected to use the word in quotes instead of the word it replaced:

When did a category become a “genre”?

When did a sidewalk become a “hardscape”?

When did a political stand become a political “stance”?

When did the populace become “folks”?

When did problems become “issues”?

When did lemon rind become “lemon zest”?

When did the woods become a “green belt”?

When did God become a “meme”?

When did “said” become “was like”?

When did reframing the question become "pushback"?

Maybe you can add a few others you've noted, particularly from television commentators. I don't want to be the only one pushing the envelope here (by the way, what envelope?).

The Future Is So Yesterday

2009-11-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

All of a sudden the world changed, and it changed again. Events, inventions, personalities, and attitudes have made these changes look not only inevitable, but easy. I'm here to tell you, they weren't.

Above you see a picture of the first computer, a thing called Univac, as it appeared in 1957. It was known as an electronic brain, and great things were predicted for it. Corporations gradually embraced the new technology, but a life with personal computers was undreamed of. We were told in a book called Future Shock that someday we would love them--women could put their recipes on them, and we could record the cocktails our friends preferred for parties we were planning. Nobody really had any idea of how the invasion of technology was truly going to affect our lives.

The world of the future was assumed to be something like the cartoon world of an animated television show in 1962 called "The Jetsons," involving a family with a personal robot to do housecleaning and a vehicle that flew them from planet to planet. Telephones with screens were assumed to be just around the corner, and indeed the technology to produce them was available, but the public demand didn't exist and the idea was seen to be an invasion of privacy.

Nobody thought of cell phones, Google, faxes, scanners. When I walk around the city now--or anywhere in the world--almost everybody I pass seems to be talking to himself (with almost imperceptible earbuds and wires connecting him to somebody off in the distance), or talking into a little device smaller than a deck of cards. First came pagers, which we carried about in our pockets, and which went off at inopportune times and required a quick exit, "I gotta go!" as soon as we saw the message. Cell phones perform the same service, although you can exit without actually leaving the premises. You just say, "Sorry, I gotta take this," and sit there gabbing away about business deals or laundry lists, or whatever is more important than courtesy to the person you're talking with.

I've written posts here about people who've changed the world as we know it. My recent one saying that about Michael Jackson raised some hackles. I tried to say that he taught us to dance in a different way, and he made us want to dance. Earlier I admitted that Julia Child had taught us to view food, wine, and cooking in a different way. I have written that Barack Obama, with his steady hand and brilliant mind, has transformed the Presidency and rendered the pundits all but ineffective. He may have also changed the way the world views people of mixed races. I do not say that these people did anything more than change the world that we knew, woke it up to new experiences, and made it more interesting to deal with. To compare them with their predecessors is to miss the point. They weren't present when the world changed this time.

I'm something of a nostalgia nut and spend a lot of time writing about the way things used to be. I've written two books about the utopian village of Fairhope, Alabama, where I grew up and learned to appreciate the eccentric and the wise. There are things about the world of today that I may never accept, but I celebrate the changes that elevate our quality of life and challenge our personal ability to change. I don't expect many to see everything the way I do; I've learned that that is not possible no matter how brilliantly I think I've explained it. I just am glad that you've joined me on this journey of finding myself--whether or not you're in Hoboken.

This Was It

2009-10-31T05:41:00.001-07:00

He was an extraordinary performer, a child prodigy grown to middle age, a transformative pop culture figure who died too young. Like most of us, he was compelled to examine his legacy, and Michael Jackson did it in public with This Is It, the farewell tour concert that he didn't complete. Luckily, there was 100 hours of footage of the rehearsals, and luckily for all of us that footage has been edited and put together into a riveting film that celebrates the life of the enigmatic genius that the eternal boy had become. We see him in rehearsal, holding back a little ("I have to conserve my voice..."), being coddled and revered ("Hold the rail, Michael!" as he's being introduced to the cherrypicker), being the exacting artist and director, and then, best of all, performing. There are charming notes as when they are discussing movements with him and he says, "That's the one the stewardesses do--I love that one, I absolutely love that one!", and that ride in the cherry-picker when he's carefully told, "This is the medium one, you'll be going much higher," and he responds quietly, "You know not to say that to me."

In the film we see a magnificent performer, the consummate professional, working carefully to perfect the show that is never to be. There is something inherently tragic at the same time that the movie is triumphant: Michael Jackson onstage is all that he was ever portrayed to be, and more. He is gentle and tentative offstage as he is commanding, powerful and exciting onstage. I was in a theater with about 25 other people, scattered about all through the house, and there was spontaneous applause at many times during the show. Sometimes we made inadvertantant noises--groans, hoots, and sighs. I left the theatre behind two overweight young black women, and I heard one remark to the other, "I wish I had at least met him."

I actually did meet Michael Jackson once. It was after his Jackson Five days but years before Thriller. He sported a big Afro and wore a denim leisure suit. We were at a performance by The Dance Theatre of Harlem, and he was literally hanging back against a wall at intermission. I took the program over to him and he autographed it to my daughter. He spoke very softly and seemed almost embarrassed to be asked for his autograph. I am thrilled to think of that evening now, and to know that I still own that program.

It's hard to think of what the intervening years did to him, but there he is for all to see in This Is It, busting dance moves that he invented and that caused Fred Astaire to call him "the greatest dancer of the century." He was more than a phenomenon. He literally changed the world of dance and turned the world into dancers. He will never leave us, yet he left us cruelly too soon.

If you don't believe me, go see the movie.

The Second Street Stop

2009-10-23T05:51:00.000-07:00

My picture of autumn coming to Hoboken prompted a question from Italian Connie, who grew up in Hoboken in the 1950's and now lives in Florida. She hadn't heard about the New Jersey Light Rail train, with its stops at Hoboken Terminal, Second St. and Ninth St. That's it above, over on the tracks right against the cliff at Hoboken's west border.
I've found the little trains very convenient to my new home. Smooth, sleek and clean, they seem to take no time to reach their destinations. In pleasant weather, when one is not in a particular hurry it's possible actually to enjoy the wait before a train arrives to spirit you to the Pavonia Newport Mall in Jersey City or the 12-minute ride to the Hoboken terminal to get to a PATH train to the city.

Passing time in my wait, I have noticed etched in the glass blocks, little snippets of poetry. One day in a rather long wait I read the whole wall, all of a piece, and discovered it was commissioned as a public poetry project by the New Jersey Transit Commission's arts committee. It was written by Marina Temkina, and is available in a book published by Ugly Duckling Press.

Reading the poem while waiting for a train on a beautiful day is a soothing experience, rather like absorbing the affirmations you write to yourself, or reading love notes from a new partner. I'm pleased to live where something like this just seems to appear, for no reason other than to brighten my day.

I hope it does the same for yours.

You Are My Solar Battery

Are you waiting for a train?
Take a minute-long vacation

You’re a part of the solar system
Recharge your batteries

You are a part of the universe
Of people navigating the earth

Sun makes us global
Planets and people commute

Look at the stars
They don’t have
Advertisements

In a spaceship you’re about to get in
Look up at earth
People are your constellations

The time’s coming when somebody over there,
In the universe, will be looking at you

What is the position of the planet earth
When the Milky Way is parallel
To the Hudson River?

When coming and leaving
Notice this poem moving down the track
To greet you

The old moon
The new moon
The growing moon
The half-moon
Commuting moon

Are you a local traveler? Global? Local? Universal?
A dream traveler?—me too

I am one of you: speeding in life,
Sometimes wishing to stop, to change,
To go on slowly

Sky, the shrine of all faiths,
Meditates on peace and love,
On your heavenly body

Commuting between lines of this poem
Sometimes takes a long time

You’re at the Second Street stop,
Between the hill and the river,
Under the stars’ scattered sugar

My desires, like stars,
Are big and small

You’re my solar battery
You’re my sugar cloud
You’re my living psalm

You’re my rising sun
You’re my green tree
You’re my country

You’re my snow, my rain,
You’re my train,
My early morning, my long day

The punctuation (and lack of it), the choice of images, the gentle rhythms of this poem seem to take us on a ride, help us through the stress of everyday business--and promise a nice trip. I like it.

Tour of My New Apartment

2009-10-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

Just what you've been waiting for:

Wife Swap and Balloon Madness

2009-10-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

I got hooked on Wife Swap long after its original incarnation in the UK. (I admit I never knew of its origins until it was on ABC last year, and never watched it until it appeared on cable during the day. The concept of swapping wives confused me and I didn't find it interesting until I saw the way it worked.)

Long-story-short: Once I understood that families were chosen for their contrast and the mothers each spent two weeks with the other family, usually hoping to educate and reform the home into which they were placed, I was curious. Not that I would consider this show remotely related to reality, it bought home to me that there is a very wide range of behavior that fits in the realm of normal. The traded wife is required to follow the "rules" of the family as outlined for her in a notebook by the real wife for the first week, and the second week she imposes her rules on her "new" family. Almost always the first reaction of the wife upon reading her instructions is the same, "These people are insane!"

I watch Wife Swatch from time to time, and did indeed view the episode featuring the Heene family whose lost balloon caused such a sensation yesterday.

The show brings us families of clowns, families of magicians, families who worship pagan gods--always pairing them with overachieving sports and academic type families, or obsessive families pursuing what they think is the American dream. It is always a wake-up call for both houses, particularly the husbands. When I saw the Heene family all I really remember is thinking, "Storm chasers? Who the hell chases storms?" On the other hand, they were far from the most unusual family I'd seen in the mix. I wish I'd been paying more attention.

I'm sure the Heene episode will get more play now that they have had the drama of the lost weather balloon or whatever it was. The nation watched in fear that one of the Heene children (a boy with the new-age name of Falcon) might be in the balloon or, worse, might have fallen from it in a horrendous accident. As it turned out, we are all relieved and now more than a little interested in what makes this particular family unit function.

For a total escape from your mundane reality, I recommend catching Wife Swap sometime around noon on cable. You never know what will turn up.

Seen in Hoboken: Autumn

2009-10-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

I happened to have the camera with me the other day when walking toward the Light Rail. The trees are not in full fall fury yet, but there are a few here and there that are turning. Old b-n-r's who don't live in Hoboken any more will be amazed at where I took this picture: The corner of Second and Jackson streets. All new buildings, and many new trees since the old days, eh?

Retirement Plan: Read Some Books

2009-10-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

I can hardly remember when I wasn’t retired. My career as a paid public relations executive came to an end in 1988 when I moved from New York to my hometown of Fairhope, Alabama, at the time of my husband’s retirement from the E.I.Du Pont De Nemours company.

We had enough in his retirement package for me to go from full-time work to whatever I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was begin a professional theatre company in conjunction with Actors’ Equity Association, the actors’ union, and I did that. I launched the venture with some money I got from a real estate sale—planning a big party at Grand Hotel, with a dance band and scenes from plays we might be doing in our first season.

Jubilee Fish Theatre ran for about seven years, and then I decided to retire. The trouble with doing work you love is that you never get a day off—and I still was pouring my own money into the theatre. So after seven seasons I pulled the trigger and shut it down.

I had some free time at last, and had long before vowed if I ever did have time on my hands I’d start reading all the great books I’d missed in my life. I had quite a backlog, and wanted to give the classics a shot—so I started with Don Quixote. It was a tough slog, but I knew if I were to make good on my lifelong promise to myself, I must finish it.

I found much delightful in this heavy, deep tome, and many surprises. The characters leapt off the dusty pages and embraced me. I absolutely fell for Sancho Panza, the well-intentioned sidekick who was promised his own island when the Don found his fortune, but instead his adventures tended to involve such activities as being tossed in a blanket in a scruffy inn in the middle of nowhere—a humiliation that would haunt him forever. As I read, I discovered the Don to be not a noble seeker of truth so much as a violent old loon, tilting at windmills because of his illusion that they were monsters. I learned much from reading this book from beginning to end, and one of the things I learned was that most people haven’t read it. I try not to call their attention to that when discussing the book with them.

My sister, an avid and omniverous reader of the classics, suggested I go to Great Expectations next. She said early in life she had been advised to read the best works of a great writer first, and then you’ll be hooked and read his or her whole oeuvre. I loved Great Expectations, but aside from A Christmas Carol, I haven’t read more of Dickens.

I went forward to Edith Wharton. I bought a wonderful collection of her stories, introduced exquisitely by Gore Vidal. In his ruminations about the redoubtable Mrs. Wharton, he wrote, “I can only say that I envy anyone reading for the first time The Age of Innocence…” and I felt he wrote those words for me. Imagine--being envied by Gore Vidal. I was transfixed by The Age of Innocence, and the “Old New York” stories. The only one I didn’t read was Ethan Frome, the one required high school book that is outside the main drift of Wharton anyway. I still may get to it. I do know the story; I’ve seen dramatizations.

I will say here that one of the advantages to reading at advanced age is that so many people read so much when they are far too young to understand it. The American educational system operates on the misguided notion that the quantity of books one reads is an indication of one’s intelligence. I can see no reason, for example, to force The Catcher in the Rye on pre-teenagers, as is done in so many schools nowadays. It is a book about an adolescent identity crisis and can only be grasped by those who have that behind them. When I was in college, this book was presented as a radical alternative selection by an English teacher, and he was much maligned by his superiors for introducing it to us innocents in those days. Where my friends and I devoured it, I cannot imagine that even a few years earlier it would have made any sense to us at all.

What of all the book clubs? They proliferate in my town. There are literally dozens of them, some theme-based, some eclectic—but they did not approach reading the way that I wanted to at that point. I had lost time to make up, and except for an occasional diversion, I was not going to be sidetracked into reading something as a social activity. I think the book clubs are wonderful, but never really wanted to be part of one. East of Eden was a compelling book that I picked up after hearing that it was on Oprah’s Book Club list. I felt that it qualified as something of a classic because of its author, John Steinbeck. It is an excellent read, thoroughly worthy of anybody's reading list, and I was glad to have found it.

After reading, I got into writing more. I discovered the Internet and put up a couple of blogs. I published a couple of books. I relocated and redirected my energies.

Now I’m past the first phase of retirement reading. Not that I read everything I wanted to, or everything I should have, during that time. I’m not settled into my new digs yet, and I’m not quite sure what I’ll read next. There is a wealth of literature calling me. And a wealth of friends urging me to write something more profound, more challenging, more universal. Something that might make me rich and famous. That is not my goal—I’m retired from all that. I never stopped reading, but I put the classics on hold. Now I’m beginning to hear them calling me again.

Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorite books.

Good Old Biggie's

2009-10-02T04:47:00.001-07:00

Looking south from my new condo on Madison Street you can see the local landmark. Whenever I mention my new address to a Hoboken b-n-r, he/she lights up and says, "Biggie's!"

Biggies grew from a pushcart in the mid-1940's to a full-fledged diner today, featuring great, sloppy sandwiches, raw and fried clams, hamburgers, and for a few diehards, real Italian comfort food.I had lunch at Biggie's Tuesday with a couple of Hoboken b-n-r's, (that means, "born and raised in Hoboken" to you who are not in the know). We saw a nice older man--meaning older than us, which is indeed pretty old--eating something like greens out of a bowl. Carolyn's husband Rich said, "That man over there is eating something you'd love," to his wife. When Brother, the son of Biggie, and now the heir apparent to the title of "Biggie," came by our table, we asked what the man was eating. "Brocolli rabe," he said. "We make it with sausage."

I sighed that I had done the predictable by ordering fried clams. The others at the table had done the more Hoboken thing and ordered "Italian hot dogs," which are sausage sandwiches with onions and peppers--and a sausage-and-pepper sandwich, which is just a little different.

Today I had a phone call from Connie, who was one who had ordered a hot dog yesterday. I told her I was going to try the brocolli rabe the next time. I have never been a fan of brocolli rabe--I find it bitter--and Connie said, "I always add fresh lemon juice. If you don't do that it will be bitter."

This triggered a long conversation about how Italians cook vegetables, the dependency on fresh lemon juice for vegetables (I have to have lemon juice on my spinach), and other food notes. She said she adds olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice to everything from cauliflower to escarole. I realized I had been missing this offhand swapping of recipes and kitchen ideas.

I'm looking to meet others who love to talk about food and cooking. If you live in Hoboken and have ideas on the subject, get in touch with me. I'll cook up a little something for us someday soon.

I posted an original version of the above on my food blog yesterday, and got some interesting cooking tips in a comment from Dennis Maloney. Check it out, and let me know if you know of a cooking class or club in Hoboken, or if you just like to talk food and cooking.

Mind-Blowing Movie Moments

2009-09-28T03:27:00.001-07:00

I had in mind writing a blog post about those unforgettable little moments in movies--looks in the eyes of the actors, inflections that changed the meanings, as when Humphrey Bogart says, "Here's looking at you, kid," in Casablanca, instead of the way the remark is usually said, before downing a shot of some strong drink, "Here's lookin' atcha,"--little unforgettable glitches in big unforgettable movies.

I posted on my "status" on Facebook for suggestions of movies that had unforgettable moments. What I got were comments of a wide range of sometimes life-altering scenes that my readers wanted recorded.

This, from Jonathan Odell: "There is a scene in Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet in 1968 when there is a nude shot of Romeo's backside. I remember thinking for the first time in my life, "Oh, my God, I'm gay!"

I'll have to counter that with the dance scene from Picnic that Bobby Slezak (and Dennis Maloney) saw ten years earlier, confirming the opposite to their adolescent hormones. Slezak has sent it to me on YouTube but I still don't get it. Love the music but the heavy-handed clap-dance, and the dance itself just doesn't move me the way the kiss on the beach in From Here To Eternity did. To Slezak the beach scene only reminded him that that damn sand gets in everything.

Back to scenes that do work. Jo Ann Breland Lord loved the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy stepped out of the dull little sepia-toned house into the Technicolor world of Oz. Steve McCants will never forget Harry Dean Stanton singing "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" in Cool Hand Luke. Lissane Lake suggested this from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: "Can I move? I'm better when I move." (I don't recall that one at all.) Ronald Hill offered this, "My major lasting memory was seeing Fantasia when I was 5 or 6 and going home and drawing animated scenes on big sheets of kraft paper. The impact of the creative work of that movie still resounds today. So many modern artists were inspired by the concepts in Fantasia."

I originally had in mind moments like these: "I can eat 50 eggs," from Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. Or young Jack Lemmon, the hapless employee in The Apartment being persuaded by his boss (Fred MacMurray) to let him join the other executives using his apartment for daytime sexual assignations, "Four bad apples, five--"

Dustin Hoffman, The Graduate, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?

Doris Day, Young at Heart, after a kiss on the cheek from Frank Sinatra: “Kinda weak for a week’s thought, wasn’t it?”

Marilyn Monroe, Gentleman Prefer Blondes, viewing her stateroom on an ocean liner: “It’s just like a real room, isn’t it?”

Diane Keaton, in her adorable, impeccably sloppy Ralph Lauren wardrobe in Annie Hall, “La di dah, la di dah”

James Dean, Giant: “My well come in big, Bick…I’m rich. I’m a rich ‘un.”

Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront: “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charley..”

And unforgettable movie endings: Joe E. Brown, in Some Like It Hot, "Nobody's perfect." Or Brandon de Wilde, at seeing his hero ride away in the movie, Shane, "Come back, Shane!"

And Henry Fonda, in Grapes of Wrath, “I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.”

Clark Gable, Gone With the Wind: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Bette Davis, Now Voyager: “Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.”

This one also suggested to me by Steve McCants, from The Searchers: John Wayne deposits Natalie Wood on the doorstep, with no words but the music of “Ride Away” sung in the background. The picture, framed by the farmstead doorway and bookending the film with the shot from the opening of the movie, constitutes one of the best endings ever.

I'm sure you have more ideas.

This Ya Gotta See

2009-09-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

I've got most of my stuff put away (now if I can only remember where!), and just had to start taking pictures! I know it's cluttered still, but it's my clutter and the apartment will probably never be much cleaner.Here's what you see as soon as you walk in the door. No, that's not two identical lamps, there is a mirror there, see? Some of you will recognize that lamp which has followed me from Lower Alabama.And here's a good look at the kitchen now that most of the dishes, pots and pans and tchotchkes have been put away.Found a place for the good old Pottery Barn white buffet, in the kitchen this time, and the little primitive Jim Adshead and I bought in Switzerland. Did I say I put all the tchotchkes away? Well, a few belong out in the open.Long as I've been eschewing granite countertops (don't say it--"hard on the teeth!") and dual-fuel ranges, now I've got 'em both. They came with the apartment. Getting used to it--setting china down v-e-r-y carefully, and it is fun to have those extra BTU's on the cooktop!That oversized sectional turns my undersized living room into a conversation pit, and my artwork turns it into a gallery. But I think I like it!

Mom and Pop and a Dream of Sharks

2009-09-20T18:15:00.001-07:00

Robert Spector, a friend of mine from an earlier incarnation as a reporter for the now-defunct Daily News Record, has a new book out called The Mom and Pop Store/How the Unsung Heroes of the American Economy Are Surviving and Thriving. Robert, in a way, is a product of such a store (you might say he's a son of mom-and-pop), and he has a successful career as a retail consultant and motivational speaker. His other books include The Nordstrom Way and Category Killers.

Through the blog post linked above, I reconnected with Robert, who has a website with video excerpts from some of his talks to retailers. In these, he is revealed as articulate and charming, and somewhat in love with the retail business itself, if done right. He excels in pinpointing the features that mark the difference between success and failure in the business; it is his contention that one of the hallmarks of a good retail business plan is a sincere commitment to customer service. In other words, something like the way it works in a small, old-fashioned mom-and-pop store.

His new book is more than a guide for retailers. It is a memoir, a trip across the country examining with affection the workings of a slew of independent neighborhood shops. I'm only on page 25, and I find myself marvelling at his ability to transport the reader to the atmosphere of the little homegrown store, not unlike the many stores we set foot in many times a day in Hoboken.

Karen Long, writing in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, seemed to enjoy the book while criticizing it for not giving details on why such stores survive or telling retailers how they can make this knowledge of success work for them. To me, it was as plain as the nose on Robert's face, and permeates his attitude toward retailing: Caring about your customers and working hard pays off in the long and short run. In mom-and-pop stores, (as well as in Nordstrom's) America has a perfect example of the best in retail philosophy. And his book is a good read even if the running of a store is not your main focus in life.

Robert had a booksigning in New York the day before I moved. I hadn't seen him in 30-odd years, and I was interested in getting a look at his book and handing him a copy of my own, so I dropped what I was doing, which as you well know by now was packing, and took the PATH train to 23rd St. to the elegant gift store on the second floor of the New London Pharmacy, which is one of the stores mentioned in the book. There was Robert, after all these years, resplendent as the only man in the room in a bright red shirt, greeting old friends from high school, his family, Michael Brummer from Hobby's Delicatessen in Newark (an establishment mentioned in the book)--with a #5 sandwich in a brown paper bag--and about a hundred other people, eager to greet him and get a copy or two of the book.

It was Jewish old-home week, with visitors talking about their test scores in high school and how proud they were of Robert. I spent some time discussing grandchildren with a very pretty high school friend of his who is about to have her first.

After the booksigning I came home and packed a little more. Then I watched a new show called "Shark Tank" on tv, which has nothing to do with Jaws, but is a so-called “reality” show about entrepreneurs who ask multimillionaires for funds to take their goofy businesses to the next level. I got rather engrossed in the kind of schemes that get funded and the remarks by the gazillionaires, etc. If any of the supplicants has a winning idea, the gazillionaire indicates his approval by saying, "I'm in!"

I give the show another month or two but doubt it will have a full season, but I was intrigued with it on that particular night.

Then I went to sleep and dreamed that I was one of the gazillionaires and Robert and a few of my favorite other Jewish friends were supplicating us rich guys for funds to establish a Jewish theme park. They were all so nice and happy, and as a gazillionaire I felt strongly that they had a great business idea. I said, “I’ve never heard of a Jewish theme park before—I think it’s a wonderful idea. I’m in!” and they all hugged and laughed and rejoiced.

I emailed Robert about the dream and he said it would make a good short story. The whole adventure is a good short story, or at least a good long blog post. Now that you've reached the end, I hope you're interested in checking out the book. I've written a review of it on amazon.com.

Lovin' the Mess

2009-09-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

It's a work in progress, an unholy mess, but as time goes by I'm beginning to like it.

I thought my state-of-the-art kitchen deserved a classy new coffeemaker. It came with its own coffee. The selection of about 20 premeasured cuplets only included with the apparatues only held one that seemed like it might taste like coffee (the others were "hazelnut" and "melange Nantucket"). Unfortunately it was weak and tasteless. This needs work.The livingroom is overcrowded with oversized pieces and needs a mastermind to rethink my first plan. At least the tv works. A gerry-rigged temporary solution to the privacy and streetlight problem in the bedroom.But there is already an inviting place to sleep and dream of when it will all be neat and beautiful. I'm always happy to climb in.

Getting Myself Together

2009-09-17T04:24:00.000-07:00

This isn't going to be easy. How do I let you know my mental state without belaboring the obvious or sounding like a whiner? How do I post one more time about moving from one location to another and make it interesting to someone who hasn't moved in 30 years and has no intention of doing so? I'll just forge ahead.

I am now relocated to a tiny space in what I shall refer to as the Lower West Side of Hoboken, decidedly, even by Old Hoboken standards (which refer to downtown as West rather than the more logical South), downtown. In a way you could call it Old Town, but it is not the oldest section of town. More on that in a minute.

I want to dwell on the word tiny for a moment. Technically, this isn't much smaller than my most recent former apartment. True, I lost a little space in the livingroom when a closet was added for a washer-dryer which I don't yet have. I moved to Hoboken from a medium-sized house (about 2,000 square feet) in Lower Alabama. My first abode here was a rental on the third floor of a row house on Hudson Street, really the old and elegant section of Hoboken. There was a lot I loved about that place--spacious rooms, lots of light, a view of the sunset over Jersey City from the kitchen, and over 800 sq. ft. of space with an unusual amount of big closets. However, there was no laundry facility in the building, the stairs were steep, shaky, and winding, and it was a real drag getting to and from the nearest wee washee. The kitchen was inadequate and the bathroom just barely had floor space to set foot in. I lived there almost a year and moved to a better space, this time on the fourth floor (even higher! but that's Hoboken), in a converted tenement on Willow Ave. It was well designed and had huge built-in bookcases and lots of cabinets to tuck away my many cartons full of stuff from my former life. There was a laundry room in the basement. However, within a year I just couldn't take that hike up the stairs three or four times a day. I yearned to buy a place, and I had money from the house I'd sold.

I decided on this place fast. It's overpriced, but full of charm and very well updated. It is about the same size as the Willow Street place, but there is little to no storage. The neighborhood is like a whole different town, and I just love exploring different towns. I made the commitment; I made my offer, put down my money, and closed the deal on Monday. Yesterday I moved in.

Now here I sit, facing reality. I must get rid of some furniture and books. I must get to work unpacking and making decisions. I must not let the daunting task(s) throw me at this point; I haven't even had breakfast yet. I left food in the refrigerator at the other place--I have none here. Last night I drank a split of champagne and thought about it, and fell asleep at 9:30. My alarm went off by mistake at midnight and that shook me up, not rested, and in a strange place full of unpacked carton and bulging with furniture. I'm on the ground floor--a big thrill, but you do hear some street noises in the night, including garbage trucks.

A week ago I was ecstatic about the move. Today is my comeuppance; my day of reckoning. In a month I'll be settled and the place will look as good to me as it did empty (better, in fact, as it will be gleaming with my favorite things). But give me time. I ain't there yet. I ain't even here yet.

One Who Moves

2009-09-11T03:12:00.001-07:00

Word from the lawyer is that the closing on my condo will take place Monday. Word from the mover is that he can get the guys here to haul my stuff to the new place Wednesday. In the meantime, here I go again, getting ready for a move.

That's my apartment on the bottom floor, with the window on the street. It's in a neighborhood that is like being in another small town--friendly, full of color, history and character and a mood all its own. Hoboken, it seems, is many small towns in one.

There are people who are content to stay put, and people who move. I'm in the latter category. I lived in Manhattan for some 14 years twenty years ago and during that time I lived in five apartments. Then I lived in Geneva for six years--in the same apartment--and moved back and lived in Wilmington, (two apartments in three years) then back to New York for a couple of years (two apartments) and then I retired home to Alabama for 18 years during which I lived in six different abodes. There was a legitimate (in my mind) reason for each and every move, and I can remember loving almost every place I lived.

I keep saying, "This is the last home I'll have before Assisted Living," but I keep moving to the next one and saying that again. This time, I've bought a condo and I really mean it--but then I always really mean it. I know I love Hoboken, and feel sure that I can be comfortable in the new nabe. It's a few blocks from the house in which Hoboken's most famous son--I hesitate to say "favorite"--Frank Sinatra, was born. My apartment is just two doors away from a local hangout famous for clams, and the fragrance of frying food is never far away. Around the corner is a chocolate shop and a cozy little restaurant or two. I'm close to the Light Rail train and a nice brisk hike from the PATH trains to NYC. My friend Cristina lives just blocks away in a classy new high-rise. I'm on the ground floor and will have access to the back yard and will probably put some chairs out at the front gate where I can watch the passers-by. Maybe some lions, like over on Hudson Street, and a couple of big potted plants or flower boxes.

In the meantime, comes moving day. I can't keep nattering on here; I've got to get packed.

Socially Networking

2009-09-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I began getting emails, "Laura Quackenbush wants you to be her friend on Facebook," and more of the same. I didn't know what it meant. These were coming from people I hardly knew and from what I knew of Facebook, I didn't wanna do it.

Then Googling a friend I'd lost track of, the only mention of her was that she was on Facebook. I enrolled; contacted her; we exchanged email addresses, and I seldom checked out Facebook at all. I built a list of 12 friends. It seemed that all they did was take quizzes about their "actual age," and what heroine of a Victorian novel they "were." Once in a while somebody sent me a virtual bouquet of flowers or a drink. I didn't get it. I took the quiz, "What punctuation mark are you?" even though I knew what the answer was gonna be. And it was. I'm a semicolon.

Over time I began to visit other people's pages and a whole vista opened up to me. A guy I know had posted some of his beautiful photographs of his children rollicking with Mobile Bay in the background. I saw the comments from his friends and got a picture of the tapestry of his whole life. I saw that he had 50 friends on Facebook. Then I decided to look up some people I hadn't seen in 30 years and see if they were on Facebook too. Some were. I added them to my friends list. I began getting clever posts every day. It was like a blog, but briefer and some of the comments compelled me to "befriend" the people making the comments. My friends list expanded. My Facebook experience took on a life of its own. A minor addiction was taking hold.

I've noticed that people come and go on Facebook. For a time there will be a blizzard of comments and "status" statements, then they fade away. It's a game of which one grows tired. I haven't yet. I'm there about ten times a day, checking to see if anyone has posted something I should know about. It's like an overview of people you've known at different points in your life. It's fun, it's user-friendly, and it seems to me a perfect game for a retiree with time on his or her hands. Like me.

My grandson Andy, who'll be 12 in a couple of weeks, takes all the quizzes. One he set up and sent to me was "How Well Do You Know Andy?" and he had all kinds of questions about who his favorite soccer players were, etc. His message to me was, "If you miss any of these, I'll kill you." I wrote back that he shouldn't kill me, after all, I'm his grandmother. I missed most of them, but it was an unfair test. I know Andy pretty well. Social networks can only go so far.

On balance, I'm still in the claws of Facebook. In a few months my interest will probably fade as everyone else's does, but I recommend it as a experiment if you're looking for something to do. It will give you little insights into the lives and thinking of people you have known and loved for years, as well as those you didn't know so much.

Twitter is a different story. I'm on it too, and I tweet there some five or six times a day. I still don't have the key, though; I can't imagine what it's for or what I'm getting from it. It's just part of my OCD, I guess, gotta hang in there--maybe it'll mean something someday. It's social networking, after all. Who I'm networking with, besides a few friends from the blog and total strangers who are reading my tweets for no reason I can discern, I admit I don't know. Maybe I'm famous (to some 40 people who have no idea who I am). Twitter tells me I have followers. Maybe I'm a guru. Or maybe I'm just tweeting in the wind.

A blog is better than either of these, but both of them are way easier.

You Young People

2009-09-05T01:47:00.000-07:00

That's a little hard for me to say because it required admitting that young people are "others" and I am, to put it humorously, a geezer. I bemoan that a generation is already grown up that doesn't remember what a phone booth was, or know what it was like to live in a house without a television set, or expected to share the family car which was not new.
I saw a movie on Turner Classics that was released in 1942, with a spirited if somewhat psycho Bette Davis in it, ranting about, causing trouble for everybody. In This Our Life turned out to be an engrossing saga of two sisters named Stanley and Roy. Maybe they were crazy because their parents gave them boys' names and they never felt quite right about it. Anyway, Bette was really the off-the-wall one; Roy was played by the elegant Olivia de Havilland, who had to tolerate the whims of Stanley way beyond the natural call of sisterhood--starting from the beginning of the movie when Stanley decided to run off with Roy's husband (Dennis Morgan) and leave her own fiancé (George Brent) in the lurch.

Bette was pitch-perfect in the role of a headstrong sociopath who teased, cajoled, or charmed exactly what she wanted away from whoever had it, and never looked back. When she did look back, it seemed to her that people were always blaming her in a way she couldn't understand.

Somewhere early in the movie somebody (I think it was the delightful old rich uncle Charles Coburn, who adores Stanley) says, "Well, that's just the way modern young people are--they think they deserve whatever they want, and they just take it."

When I heard the line, I was struck that it was written in the early 1940's. Quite likely it was in the Pulitzer-prize-winning book by Ellen Glasgow from which the movie was taken. The movie presents an interesting transition time in history, with a civil rights side story, and a very complex network of human relations. Certainly it was not the first time somebody attributed all the coming ills of life on the younger generation, nor the last. That it was as blatantly easy in 1942 to see that things were changing as it was in the 1960's or it is today is not surprising. Around the turn of the 19th century, the many inventions and the alarming new music dubbed "ragtime" had the geezers wringing their hands.

It's one of the advantages of getting old--you can absent yourself from the middle of things and let a different generation take the heat.

The Festa of the Year

2009-09-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

The beautiful Madonna Dei Martiri is the centerpiece of Hoboken's biggest, most Italian festival every year in September. She is housed at the charming church of St. Francis, 380 Jefferson Street, and on Saturday of the four-day celebration she is covered with gold and brought out the door of the church in a tradition borrowed from an 800-year old one in Italy. Schoolgirls in white precede her, and the weighty statue
is carried through the streets by some very strong and dedicated men of the church, to be put on a barge at Pier 1 in Hoboken. The festa begins September 10 and the procession takes place on September 12.

In the meantime, music and food from Hoboken's many purveyors, not all Italian, but most--including cannoli, sausage and peppers, pizza, (and contests for eating all kinds of food), will be offered on Sinatra Drive beginning September 10.

I'm hesitant to print a schedule, mostly because I don't really understand the one in front of me (Where do these events take place? What time? Somebody please tell the Italians to make these things clear if they want the rest of us to attend!)

I have no doubt my readers will set me straight in plenty of time for the event. I went last year and it was beautiful. I have no doubt it will be again--and again.

Open Letter to Barbara Walters

2009-08-30T15:20:00.001-07:00

I've just finished reading your autobiography, Audition. I know, it's been out there a couple of years, but now I've gotten around to it and can only tell you I admire the book and its author more than you can know.It's hard to imagine what it's like to have become an institution in one's own lifetime, but with your adventures and your ability to distill them for us, there's really almost no other way I can look at you.

I am of an age which placed me in a position to watch your early days first hand ("Live!") on the Today show, when you may have been green but I was way greener. I observed the world as it changed around us while you were in the middle. Through you I got to hear a lot of people say things they probably wished they could take back a minute later, and they said those things to you. Then you went forward to others who jumped through hoops for you and may have regretted it. Your relentless questions revealed the reality of many a bogus blowhard and yet you never intruded your own opinions even when you might have wanted to. In Audition, you take us backstage a little, to some of the history you witnessed and even made just by being on the scene--always keeping it chatty, personal, and interesting.

It must be hard for young people to comprehend how difficult it was to do what you did because you were a woman. Men owned the power jobs; and they fought like hell to keep it that way even when you were closing in on them. Some of that atmosphere comes through in your honest telling of the stories you covered, although you never whine. Indeed, your rise coincided with the Women's Movement though you didn't overtly align yourself with it. You simply achieved, in spite of all the odds against you, and the Movement itself benefited from the need for network news to have at least one token female in the high echelons. You were superb at what you did, and your book is a fascinating retelling of many tales along the way.

Dear Ms. Walters, you candidly tell of what it is like to be Barbara Walters, of the forces that helped create you and the childhood insecurities that still push you to keep ahead of the game. With a fabled entrepreneurial father who was mostly absent and always less than available to you--engaged as he was on the up-and-down rollercoaster of nightclub show business--you grew up resilient but always fearful that the splendid job you had might not be there tomorrow. Your mother spent her life preoccupied with your learning-disabled sister.

So you chose television, and the very insecurity of the field may have been the spur you needed. You got the big interviews, bigger as your career moved forward, and nobody knew how hard some of the men in the business made it or how complicated your personal life was. Now, with Audition, we have some idea. Reading it is like getting an aisle seat to history and getting to know a classy woman who knows what to tell and how to tell it.

I'm inspired by your life and pleased with your book. I hope you continue to prosper (I hate to mention you've got a milestone birthday coming up), and that you'll continue to share your experiences so openly both in print and on the broadcast media!

Hearing Hoboken

2009-08-25T03:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve never mentioned this, but people in Hoboken share a certain kind of voice. Women and men, maybe children too. The main characteristic of this is that they talk louder than other people. Oh, yes, they have a distinctive accent—similar to Jersey City and even Brooklyn. But they all seem to assume that the rest of the world is hard of hearing. Even in ordinary conversation, their voices carry across the room. Sometimes I think they should all go on the stage.

When you do an accent for the theatre, you begin with voice placement. The Hoboken voice is husky, coming from the throat,
rather than the head or chest. The t’s and d’s are spoken in the front of the mouth, hissing through the teeth. “Th,” of course, is pronouced like a “d” in any other dialect (dis for this). I met a really nice Hoboken native a couple of weeks ago, a lady who runs a long-standing chocolate shop in the old Italian section of town, which will be my new neighborhood. The voice was a bellow—deep as a man’s, and very loud. Otherwise, she was an attractive, nice lady. Something about that booming voice was very endearing.

Yesterday I was in the Garden Wine and Liquor Store, which is not on Garden but rather one block over on Park. I had been told to drop by there months ago by Slezak, a regular reader and commenter here. He told me the people who run Garden Liquor know him from the old days and they are great people. I’ve been meaning to check it out, but didn’t get around to it until yesterday, because I was passing by, and know that liquor stores usually are very generous with cartons when you are planning to move. It is a small store, but astonishingly well stocked with wines and every conceivable kind of liquor. A fat old dog lay on the floor and observed me, but the man behind the counter ducked out as soon as I came in, leaving me to browse and await his return. The dog regarded me suspiciously, apparently checking that I didn’t leave with anything valuable.

When the man behind the counter returned, he proceeded to ring up my order, a bottle of pinot grigio. He asked if he could do anything else for me.

I engaged him in a conversation, and his loud voice blew me away. It was okay, I’ve lived in Hoboken for a year and a half now, and this vocal volume is his badge of authenticity. I almost said, “Do you think I’m deaf?” but of course I didn’t. I must say this about him also—he was very virile, attractive, oh, hell, I admit it. He was sexy, with graying hair and brown, Italian-looking eyes. And the voice didn’t hurt a bit. Such reactions crop up, even at my age. Don’t you dare laugh. But I was on a quest here, so forget I said that.

What I wanted to know was if the store occasionally had cartons to give to people who are moving. We had a good chat about that—with him telling me some days they had a hundred, some days, not so much. Then he said this wonderful Hoboken thing.

“Why don’t you place a delivery order and ask for extra cartons?”

“A big order, you mean.”

“No, whatever you want. A bottle of wine, whatever. Just tell us you want a few extra cartons. Then you don’t have to carry them all the way home.”

I love the Garden Wine and Liquor Store. You should check the reviews. You’ll find a heap of comments from satisfied customers, with nobody mentioning the voice or accent of the owner.

I’m going to go by personally and pick up cartons from now until I move. I may have some wine delivered too. I’m sure the delivery boy is the grandson of the man behind the counter. What do you bet he’s got that Hoboken voice too?

Life Is a Yard Sale

2009-08-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe life isn't a yard sale, but I liked the sound of that when I posted on my other blog Finding Fair Hope in March of 2007. This was originally written from the vantage point of southern Alabama, when I was reorganizing my stuff and learning to edit the detritus that I had accumulated over the years. We don't call them "yard sales" at all in Hoboken, we call them gate sales, as they are held in front of the house, on the sidewalk, at the gate.

I've been thinking about doing a gate sale since the meat grinder incident of a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think I'll get around to it since I'm probably moving before the end of next week.

This is what I posted two years ago:

I just organized a nice big yard sale yesterday and sold about $200 worth of stuff I needed to get rid of, including three chairs, some pots and pans, and lots of old dishes. The leftovers are sitting on my front porch waiting for me to take them off to the Thrift Shop as a donation.

Sometimes you just look at your stuff and you say, "Why?" which may be one of the ways life is a yard sale. Somebody gave you something you didn't really love, but your love for the giver caused you to hold on to the object. Years went by and the giver went out of your life but the object stayed. For a while it was nice to have a reminder..."I'll never forget that afternoon when you gave me this little teapot," or, "That costume jewelry was my mother's," or "I'm glad that bastard is out of my life, but at least I still have this wine-bottle-holder." In time the memory fades, or perhaps sours, and the object becomes just one more item in a carton of unused stuff in the garage. When yard sale time comes, the whole box goes on the market.

Some items remain in the storage locker of your life, no matter how many yard sales you have. You take them out every time and decide you're not ready to cut them out. But eventually almost every little thing has to go.

My sister and I have the big one to plan when we finally clean out our mother's house for the last time. Do we keep the rose plates our grandmother treasured, even though we never even knew our grandmother? Already we've begun dividing the mementos Mama always called "family pieces." Some of them we actually want to hold onto. Some are almost a guilt trip. For the final analysis we'll call in a professional estate planner who will tell us if any of the things is really worth anything, and then we'll decide which to keep and which to part with.

When the yard sale is in progress, buyers always haggle to get your prices down, and you have to be prepared for that. They always begin to show up at least two hours before the appointed time of the sale, to get you off guard and possibly to get the price lowered for the best items. We learned yesterday not to allow any early viewers; you must have time to put a sale plan into action. And when somebody makes an offer of a dollar for something you have put at $10 tag on, it's useless to say, "But I paid $50 for that!" Either go down to eight, or forget it. It doesn't matter how much you originally paid for anything. After the sale, it's going to the thrift shop or to the dump anyway.

After a little practice, giving a yard sale gets to be fun, like life. Know what to expect, get over your sentimental attachments, and put your stuff out on a table. Then see what happens.

Woodstock: What Was It Really?

2009-08-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

I was older than those who flocked to Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, NY, not far outside the village of Woodstock 40 years ago this weekend. Being just ahead of the baby boomers, I have been observing their behavior all my life, and here was the seminal event for them, a gathering of thousands in a peaceful, chaotic, scary, sexy, drug-enhanced weekend of the music and musicians that resonated to their very souls. I saw ads for the upcoming concert in the New York Times, and thought it seemed like an amazing event.

In those days I loved the protest rock music of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, and the many like them. Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and Joe Cocker were beyond me. I have been a square since before it was cool not to be and I've never quite shaken it. As to music, although there were many performers I would have love to have heard, the venue of a huge outdoor concert didn't appeal to me. (If you don't know what "square" means, that's pretty much it in a nutshell.) I was old enough to think about my creature comforts.

But thousands weren't. They were the boomers--the engaged, the sincere, the aching kids distraught at the prospect of the quicksand of Viet Nam and the injustices they saw all around them in the world of grownups--and they outnumbered my own silent generation by a long shot. Many of them went to Woodstock '69 as innocents just wanting to hear the music and be with their friends and significant others; many returned transformed into to young men and women who would take us all on. We on the outside read news reports and heard on the broadcast media and were impressed and relieved that, despite the lack of facilities or bedrooms, in spite of the rain, mobs, and mud, and even though there was some use of controlled substances, a mood of controlled peace and love prevailed.

That generation wore their hair longer than we did. All the girls bore the same hairstyle--long, parted in the middle and straight as a poker. Now their boyfriends did too, although some of them had curl in their hair and they would not iron it as the girls did. After Woodstock, this "look" was with us for a decade. It was a Woodstock look, a "hippie" look, a defiant look that clashed with any that was different. In a way, it was at least as conformist as the look it seemed to protest.

Woodstock was the crystallization of many things for this country. Because it was about music, primarily, and because much of the music was political, a generation was politicized as none had been before. Many who were not hippies before Woodstock became so after it. All of us had to take notice; the world was upside down and parents were forced to listen to their children. Those who hadn't been to Woodstock behaved as if they had. The upheavals and protests on college campuses took on a different tone, and life in these United States would not be the same.

Was it good? On balance, probably so. What really happened was that the rest of us had to accept the dominance of this generation of post-war babies, like it or not. Now that we've had enough time, I would say I like it. But I'm glad I'm still square.

Julia Child, American Idol

2009-08-08T08:02:00.001-07:00

Before the term meant unknown singing star catapulted to fame by a television competition, Julia Child was an American idol in the true sense. An author of a respected cookbook, she made a guest appearance on Boston Public Television in the early 1960's and came to change the world--particularly the world of home cooking in America--forever. It is impossible to exaggerate the enormity of what she accomplished.

Look, I'm an elder now. I can remember the American kitchen before Julia Child's advent, and it wasn't a pretty sight. It is difficult for young people to comprehend that in the 1940s and 50s, almost nobody in the country even knew what a whisk was. We had the eggbeater, a little hand-held contraption with gears and a handle that could work for whipping cream and beating egg whites. The eggbeater had evolved into the Mixmaster, an electrical version, which was helpful for beating batters that came from adding liquid to cake mixes. The joy of cooking from scratch was rare, and it was discouraged by industry and the mood and pace of the times.

When Julia Child first appeared on our black-and-white television screens, she was more than an amusing woman with a funny voice and odd accent. She was an expert teacher with an accessible manner who instantly connnected with the earnest if ignorant home cook. I'm sorry that the burlesques of her are so effective that at times they obscure the eccentric charm and talent of the woman who knew so much about French cooking and intuited how much we young wives wanted to learn about it. Before her, there were indeed cooking shows--usually local ones that flashed on the screen a recipe using condensed canned soups, etc., at the beginning, briefly demonstrating how to make a family casserole or similar concoction. Such shows were time fillers when there was little coming from the networks on daytime; nobody expected to learn how to cook by watching them. On public television Child reinvented the form, organizing ingredients and planning the steps of preparation, taking us slowly through the paces of creating a classic sauce and telling us how to use it in any number of ways to produce masterpieces of French cuisine. With her encouragement, we tried ingredients we'd never heard of, attempted techniques we had had no way of seeing before, and learned to love eating as well as cooking.

I could write a book about how much I and the world owe to Julia Child. I'm trying to restrain myself here from doing just that, because I want to write about the new movie, Julie & Julia, and encourage everyone to see it. I know the film will be a hit. Women want to see the superb Meryl Streep as Julia, and men will tolerate it because Julia's personality shines through in Streep's brilliant performance. The movie does not need my endorsement, and certainly Julia Child doesn't, but I do have a few points to make that film critics may have missed.

I read the book Julie & Julia a few years ago and found it most engaging. It involves a young would-be writer in New York who wants to brighten up her life and comes up with the idea of writing a blog about cooking every recipe in Julia Child and Simone Beck's opus Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She doesn't have an easy time of it, but she all but worships Julia Child, and at the end of the project she has a certain amount of fame plus a book contract.

Nora Ephron--who is the perfect writer to deal with this material, being a lover of cooking and an admirer of Julia Child (plus a writer of delightful, romantic screenplays)--includes the character of Julia Child in Julie Powell's story, interweaving the Childs' early life in Paris with young Julie's plowing her way through the cookbook in today's world.

Already the critics are saying that Mrs. Child in the person of Ms. Streep overpowers the movie and they almost suggest we could do without Julie Powell. On the other hand, I identified totally with the Powell character, a young woman who came to love cooking on a whole new level through her exposure to the work of the master. Julie Powell represents all of American womanhood, struggling to matter through learning the craft and art of producing unforgettable food.

It is extraordinary to get a glimpse of the life Julia and Paul Child lived in Paris, then returning to the more mundane existence of the young couple just making their way in a small, old apartment in Queens. The juxtaposition is perhaps a bit of a let-down. But to me, it was just the touch such a movie needs. It's like life--taking you down and up and back again, from lofty place to reality in a parallel universe. You know Julie is going to make it, just as you know young Julia is. The movie is not concerned with the heights either one reaches, but the journey they take.

No doubt this is a chick flick, with the husbands little more than accessories. But what delicious hunks these husbands are--Stanley Tucci as the ultimate dream spouse, loving, supporting, and cherishing his larger-than-life (needless to say, in more ways than one) wife, and Chris Messina as Julie's studly young man reconciled to taking a back seat for a while as his wife endures the tribulations of finding herself.

Many will go to the movie just to see Streep as Child and will not like much else about it. I implore you to take the "Julie" part of the movie seriously, as it is a testament to the impact of the real Julia Child, who was so much more than a sketch on Saturday Night Live. May you come to a better understanding of what the world was like before we all owned whisks.