Dinner and a movie

I had dinner with my good friend Angela at Souen.  Souen is a great vegan macrobiotic restaurant that has recently moved to East 6th Street.  The menu is filled with interesting choices like cauliflower couscous, cauliflower cut and cooked to mimic couscous, edamame guacamole with seitan chips, and my favorite the macrobiotic plate steamed veggies and rice.

The restaurant is in the middle of about 10 Indian restaurants.  I think it was some time in the 1980's that East 6 Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues became the place for Indian Food.

the street is nothing special; your typical East Village tenement block.   Most of the restaurants are on the ground floor with a couple of them up the stairs on the first floor.  Many have music on the weekends.  Since the restaurants have moved into the neighborhood an amazing supermarket has also taken up residence 

It's a little place, smaller than my apartment, but it carries a lot of stuff!

on and on.
The movie was "Win Win" with Paul Giamatti, Bobby Cannavale, and Amy Ryan.  It is written and directed by Thomas McCarthy.  Mr. McCarthy besides also acting in over 37 TV shows and movies has written and directed 2 other very fine movies: "The Station Agent" and The "Visitor".   He was nominated for an Academy Award for writing the screenplay to the animated film "Up".  According to Wikipedia he is also a silent partner in the Papaya Dog chain of fast food restaurants in Manhattan.  He's 46 and I hope he keeps them coming, the movies.  They didn't have hotdogs at Souen.

The Normal Heart

Larry Kramer's play is in an exceptionally fine revival and I saw it yesterday.  Ellen Barkin and Jim Parsons  make their Broadway debut.  Ms. Barkin plays a Doctor who works with AIDS patients and tries to get her patients, the press and government to do something about what is happening to gay men in NYC in 1982.  They are dying and no one knows why. The main character is Ned Weeks who meets the doctor when accompanying his friend for a check up.  The friend has AIDS.  Ned Weeks is a strident, argumentative, angry gay man who becomes one of the founders of an AIDS relief organization and an AIDS political action group.  He is played by Joe Mantello in what must be one of the most exhausting performances in the theater.  He is extraordinary; the entire cast is but he is center stage most of the time. On the street after the play the ushers handed out a letter from Larry Kramer. He wants everyone to know that the crisis is not over and that a lot more has to be done.  He also mentions in the letter that people in the play represent real people and now many of them are dead from Aids or suicide.  Mr. Kramer appears to be much like the character Ned Weeks.
Larry Kramer is a strident, argumentative, gay man who was one of the founders of GMHC and ACT UP.  Almost 30 years later and he is still angry and feels the need to tell everyone what they should be doing.  Because:
After 30 years, with millions of deaths and still many millions of people infected not a single country has categorized this disease as an epidemic.  The government funding for research is still not sufficient.  The cost of medications keeps many infected people from getting the help they need.
In the play Mr Kramer juxtaposes the reporting of the Tylenol crisis in October 1982, with the lack of attention to the Aids Crisis.
The Tylenol Crisis:
Seven people in Chicago died after taking Tylenol that was laced with poison; one of them was a 12 year old child.  Laws regulating the packaging of over the counter medications were passed by the federal government, immediately.  The Tylenol crisis was news for months, over 40 front page stories in the Times.  
AIDS:
In March, 1981 eight gay men in NYC developed an aggressive form of Kaposi Sarcoma and others came down with a virulent form of pneumonia., PCP.  No mention in the press.  In December, 1981 IV drug users were getting PCP and outbreaks were reported to health departments in the UK.  Not front page news, maybe a note on page 26.  Mr. Kramer is getting angry.  Gay men are getting scared.  By July, 1982 there were 452 reported cases from 23 States.  Not front page news.  Then Haitians and Hemophiliacs were developing PCP.  PCP was usually treated with a particular medication and 10 days on the medication and the patient was cured.  When clinics and doctors started asking for refills in 1981 the Health Department took notice and started keeping records.  Not front page news.  Two months after the Tylenol Crisis in December 1982 a child who had received multiple transfusions developed the disease.  The safety of the national blood supply became front page news.
As of 2009:
26,000 people in North America have died from Aids.
Worldwide, about 30 million people have died from AIDS.
New cases of AIDS are being reported all over the world all the time.
Did I mention "The Normal Heart" had me sobbing?