Mosaic Man

The former home of Bill Graham's Fillmore East is on Second Avenue 6th Street.
Bill Graham, 1/8/31-10/25/91, was born Wolodia Grajonca in Berlin, Germany.  His father died 2 days after his birth so his mother sent him to an orphanage in  France.  She died at Auschwitz, and he was sent to America.  Why don't we say murdered.  Yeah, she was murdered at Auschwitz.  Raised in a foster home in the Bronx, he graduated from De Witt Clinton H.S. and City College.  He served in Korea and received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.  Thanks to him I saw some great Rock and Roll shows at Fillmore East.  It had such great acoustics that over 30 live recordings were made there.  Among them were: The Allman Brothers, Miles Davis, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Laura Nyro, Taj Mahal, Neil Young and Frank Zappa.
The building had been built as a Yiddish Theater when 2nd. Ave. was known as the Jewish Rialto. 

The mosaic designs on light poles in the East Village are the work of "Mosaic Man" Jim Power and he has been building the Mosaic Trail in the east Village for 25 years.  Some are decorative and some are made to landmark a site like this one in front of the old Fillmore East.  He's planning on doing one in front of the old CBGB's.  But mostly he has been busy repairing and restoring the ones damaged during the Giuliani administration.  He survives on donations, and if you like what he does, you'll find his address on line, google Jim Power, the Mosaic Man.

City resurrected

From Houston Street to Union Square & all along the Bowery the trees, the city parks and the markets are filled with spring colors.  The city has come alive after a long cold and stormy winter.  The trees are singing hallelujah.

Reviews

Both the N.Y. Times, Ben Brantley and the Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout, liked "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" and agreed pretty much my assessment of the performers, the writing, the staging, etc.
But boy did we differ on "Catch Me If You Can".
Both reviewers panned the show.  The reviews of "Catch Me" could be characterized as tough and very negative in regards to the choreography, music, lyrics, book, and direction.  That's pretty much the show isn't it.  Then they each praised a couple of the performers.  They mentioned Butz's " Don't Break the Rules", Kerry Butler's "Fly Fly Away", Linda Hart's singing and acting, and Rachel De Benedet's dancing.   

The neighborhood

What's gone:

For 61 years Anthony and Sally Amato created and ran the Amato Opera Company.  It was located on the Bowery just where Bleecker Street begins. It was there when I first moved to the area, but it had many homes.  The first was at Our Lady Of Pompeii church in the west village.  Anthony was the Director, and his wife Sally sang.  The theater had 107 seats and a 20 foot stage.  Seats cost about $30.  It closed 5/31/09.  Sally had passed away and Tony had other things he wanted to do.  He also worked as the Director of The Opera Workshop at the American Theater Wing, where he got a lot of his singers.  He's 90.
Still here but changing:

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art:
This is the main building at the Bowery and Astor Place.  Founded by Peter Cooper in 1859, it was created by him to reflect his belief that the highest quality of education should be "free as air and water".  All students are admitted on merit alone and are provided with a full scholarship.  It is estimated that the scholarship is worth $140,000.  The university is comprised of Art, Engineering and Architecture schools.  It is consistently ranked among the best schools in the country.  Newsweek in 2010 ranked it #1 as the most desirable small school and # 7 as most desirable overall.  The Great Hall in the basement of the building is famous for hosting Abraham Lincoln's speech opposing the extension of slavery into the new territories.  Presidents continue to come to the Great Hall to speak on important topics.  President Obama was there on 4/22/2010 to give a speech on economic policy.  The economic policy at Cooper Union may change.  They are thinking of charging tuition.
John Steinbeck said  America will never be a socialist country.  The people don't consider themselves oppressed.  They see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

House of Worship

I love history and the repository of much history in New York City is in it's Houses of Worship.  

     This house of worship is Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, which as of 3/17/10 by order of the Pope became a Basilica.  It is also on the National Register for Historic sites.  It was built in 1809 and designed by Joseph Francois Margin.  The city's first Cathedral, is located on Prince and Mott Streets.  The church and parishioners were so often subjected to violence by anti-catholic "nativists" that  a wall was built around the church.  The "nativists" burned the church in 1866.  The most famous parishioner, who is also buried there, is Pierre Toussaint.  Born a slave in Haiti; he is now called "Blessed" because he is being considered for sainthood.  He founded and supported the first school for black children.  It was  located on Canal St.  Most famous Pastor: Archbishop John Hughes.  He invited the Sisters of Charity to New York and together they began Catholic Social Services, and built 30 free parochial schools, 14 academies, 3 orphanages, 2 shelters and St. Vincent's Hospital.  It was needed because of the influx of 1.1 million Irish immigrants.  Saint Patrick's Grammar School on Prince Street is the oldest in America and still operating.

Drinking

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair;
The sea itself [which one would think
Should have little need of drink]
Drink twice ten thousand rivers up,
So fill'd that they o'er fill the cup.
The busy sun [and one would guess
By's drunken fiery face no less]
Drinks up the sea, and when he's done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:
They drink and dance by their own light
They drink and revel all the night.
Nothing in Nature's sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high
Fill all the glasses there - for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
                          Abraham Cowley[1618-1667]
He was a royalist during England's civil war.  Obviously not a fan of Cromwell and the Puritans.

Two great shows

Saw "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" and "Catch Me If You Can".  I wanted to see MF because of Bobby Cannavale, and Chris Rock; it's Chris Rock's Broadway debut.  I was totally surprised by how much fun and solid drama were in this play by Stephen Adly Guirgis.  It's not surprising that Chris Rock and Annabella Sciorra decided to make their Broadway debut with this.  Mr. Guirgis is with the LAByrinth Theater Company and has had about a dozen plays done there directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.  I haven't seen any of them but I am familiar with the title, "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train".  He has written for "N.Y.P.D. Blue", and the "Sopranos" and this is also his Broadway debut.
    The play as the poster says involves two hearts, 12 steps and 1 hat.  The hat is presumed to have been left by someone sharing Veronica [Elizabeth Rodriguez] and Jackie's [Bobby Cannavale] bed.  They've known each other and loved each other since the 8th grade.  Veronica opens the play snorting cocaine and talking to her mother on the phone about getting rehab.  That is, her mother getting rehab; Veronica says she's fine.   Bobby is just out of prison for selling drugs and is trying hard to work the 12 steps.  His sponsor, Ralph  [Chris Rock] is a charmer with women, which has his wife Victoria , Annabella Sciorra, packed and ready to leave.  Lastly, is Bobby's cousin Julio, the wonderful Yul Vazquez, who grew up nicknamed mariconito, little faggot.  The play takes place in three NYC apartments.  The show runs 100 minutes with no intermission.  Not what I like but at this show I didn't mind.  The scenery changes in dim lighting; walls drop, slide and rotate.  Couches move so quickly, over and down to the basement, I thought the actors were still sitting on them.  This is very much in tune with the play.  It is raucous, fast, screwball, fun.
 I still want to write about "Catch Me If You Can".  A musical I wanted to see because it has a book by Terrance McNally, based on the movie of the same name with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, directed by Jack O'Brien and starring Norbert Leo Butz, Aaron Tveit and Tom Wopat.  Their credits are two great to list.  These are among the living masters of the great American Art Form called Musical Comedy.  Right now I want to tell you that I had my own Catch me if you can experience.  I assumed an identity, I think.
 I do theater on my small budget through discounted tickets.  These 2 shows would have cost me about 3x each then what I actually paid for them.  That's a great deal, BUT, sometimes you end up in the last row, "nose bleed territory" & in the middle seat that might be a comfortable fit for a 12 year old.  Let's just say I'm not 12.  Last night's ticket for "Catch" was the last row, far right, in the middle.  I asked before they opened if I could stand in the back, which I did for the 'MFer' and that was fine.  My knees are not 12 years old, either.  They said:  "OK, if it's not crowded."  I waited until the audience was almost completely seated and asked the usherette if I could stand in the back.  She said "The stairs?".  I said "and the knees".  She asked me to wait; then talked to "the boss".  He looked at me.  She looked at me.  They talked some more.  She came back to me and said: " Orchestra, third row."  Wow, people are so nice.  There I was face to face with the performers.  I was smiling; they were smiling.  I think Norbert Leo Butz winked at me.
There were 2 empty seats by me during the first act.  At intermission, 2 young men asked me if anyone was sitting there, and if they could have them.  The guy behind me interjected: " those seats are reserved for the press."  oh.  OH.  My "The New Yorker" bag had been hanging from my shoulder.  Would they think I was John Lahr?  Nah.  But they may be expecting a Talk of the Town piece.

Mediterranean diet and Hazlitt

Catching up on my reading and podcasts.
The New York Times had a fun piece on the Mediterranean Diet in the Magazine section.  The diet was "discovered" by a Scandinavian couple who were looking for heart healthy foods.  They found, and this was right after the second world war, that Mediterraneans had a very low incidence of heart disease.  So they credited the diet: olive oil, wine, fish, etc.  In fact, most people could not afford those foods after the war; they were lucky if they had some lentils.  Poverty prevented any heart disease.  Today, the fattest population on the Mediterranean is in Beirut, Lebanon.  Their favorite restaurant is a chain of  American style diners.  Their favorite dish is cheese fries with a malted.  I'm thinking, maybe the terrorists are hungry.  Let's give them cheese fries and malteds with an after dinner smoke.  They'd never climb back up those mountains.  More McDonald's and Marlboro's for export.

The podcasts I've been listening to are from the BBC:  Classic poetry aloud,  Curiosity aroused and In Our Time with Melvin Bragg.   I particularly liked Melvin Bragg's pieces.  They are each about 50 minutes long. 
I especially liked the conversation dated "08.04.2010".  It's about William  Hazlitt, 1778-1830.  Bragg and three academics discuss Hazlitt's life, philosophy and criticism.  It is an extraordinary  life comprising painting, theology, philosophy and literary criticism.  When Hazlitt was working on a local paper, the theater critic took sick and Hazlitt was sent to review 'The Merchant of Venice" starring Edmund Kean.  They were both now about 20 years old.  Shakespeare at this time, 1798 was not well respected because his plays had been abridged and plagiarized and the real work was generally unknown.  Hazlitt was blown away by what he called the "gusto" of the work and the acting.  "Gusto" is his phase for a protean genius that is ego free.  Shakespeare and Kean have gusto because they can inhabit multiple characters, sympathetically.  He also reviewed Kean in Coriolanus.  Hazlitt believed Wordsworth was simply genius because there is ego in his work.   Hazlitt wrote so wonderfully of the show that interest in Shakespeare was revived.  Jane Austen wrote a friend that she was heartsick because she could not get a ticket.
Naturally, I went looking for a book, perhaps a collection of Hazlitt's essays.  They say he wrote on everything and his piece on boxing is the best piece on boxing ever written.  Nothing at the Strand, Shakespeare and Co. nor the N.Y.U. bookstore.  Amazon?  a $10 book with $7 in shipping fees and $5 in handling fees and probably $10 in billing fees.  You have to pay for them to post and add the fees.

Special Features

Many DVDs now include commentary about the movie.  Last night I saw the movie "The House on Telegraph Hill".  A 1950's film noir directed by Robert Wise, produced by Zanuck with cinematography by Lucien Ballard.  It won an academy award for Best Art Direction by Lyle Wheeler, John De Cuir, Thomas Little, and Paul S. Fox, probably because of the great outdoor shots of 1950's San Francisco.  The movie is OK.  But I enjoyed the commentary most.  It was done by a film noir historian who talked about the three leads, Richard Basehart,William Lundigan and Valentina Cortese, and the art direction.   Ms. Cortese's story is the most interesting.  She was brought from Italy by Zanuck to become an "international" star.  However she had the same reaction to Hollywood that Jean Gabin had; too much "mickey mouse" business, he famously said.  She made two films and went back to Europe where she had a long, successful career.  She was a great beauty and when she left America, Richard Basehart went with her.  They were married for about 10 years and then divorced.  She is now 86 and still making movies and was nominated for a supporting Oscar for Truffaut's "Day for Night".
According to Wikipedia there are 179 films made in San Francisco.  New York City has 856.  What would be a favorite San Francisco movie, Maltese Falcon, Vertigo, San Francisco?   A favorite NYC movie, "On the Town", maybe but "Naked City"  has a special place in my heart.  I remember when they made it.  We were living in the Bronx and they filmed some it in our neighborhood. The Bronx of the 1950s is lost except in that movie and my memory.

Music

     Saw Michel Legrand at the Blue Note and a "meet-up" to the pillow fight at Union Square.  Took some photos of the pillow fight and will try to get them on the blog.  Still learning how to do this.  I took the camera to the Blue Note but they don't want you to take pictures with a flash.  Another thing to add to my "to learn" list.  Michel was terrific.  He started with some jazz improv and ended by trying to "kill off" the theme from "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", because, he said, "it is so old, from 1832".  The killing was a 20 minute piano instrumental that was something really special.  His second piece was the first he ever wrote, "What are you doing the rest of your life", which he sang.  He did a classical fugue and  also sang in french "The windmills of your mind".  He has worked with all the Jazz greats.  One of them, Miles Davis, had "disappeared" for years.  Then one day he called him up and said: "froggy", Miles called him froggy, get your f'''ing A'hole over here.  He went, of course.
Michel's father was a composer and conductor and is most famous for composing the musical Irma La Douce.  Michel studied with Nadia Boulanger who also taught Aaron Copland and Philip Glass.  He has won three Academy Awards and a Tony for "Amour".
"I'll awaken what's asleep in your life" he sang and he did.

Opera

 The Met premiere of Rossini's "Le Comte Ory", directed by Barlett Sher was last night.  It is an opera buffa.  Juan Diego Florez sang Count Ory, a Don Juan type, who pretends to be a holy man in the first act and a nun in the second.   As the Renaissance Italians intended to copy Greek theater by adding music to their dramas, the opera buffa would be an attempt to copy Aristophanes.   In "Le Comte Ory", most of the men  have gone off to the crusades.  Except Ory who is free to try to seduce the beautiful Adele.  She is sung by Diana Damrau.   Adele is in love with Ory's aide Isolier, sung by Joyce DiDonato.  Isolier is played by a woman which gets to be fun in the second act when Ory tricks his way into Adele's bed and with the lights out doesn't realize Adele and Isolier are both in bed with him.  In the end the crusaders return. Ory escapes without achieving his goal, and Adele and Isolier live happily ever after.
Great music and singing.  The chorus of over 30 woman  is very powerful.  Diana Damrau is absolute bliss, her singing of "En proie a' la tristesse" was wonderful.  She was most definitely my favorite of the night.  Second favorite would be the end of Act One, a vocal septet unaccompanied by instruments.  As always at the Met the staging, set design, costume design, lighting, and orchestra are the best that you will see and hear anywhere.
The Met does four shows a week.  One show rehearses during the day with scenery, props, costumes, cast and orchestra and a second opera performs that night. It is a 24/7 operation with the largest number of unions and stagehands of any theater.  Since they have begun showing the operas in high definition at movie houses 250,000 people in 47 countries have seen the Met productions.  The Met is doing 209 performances of 28 operas.  I just renewed my subscription for next year for six more operas.       
Giacchino Rossini, 1792-1868, composer of "The Barber of Seville" & "Otello" and about 40 other operas. He is also famous for the William tell overture, which is the Lone Ranger theme.  He was born in Pesaro on the Adriatic coast which at that time was under the French and then the Austrians.  His father was the "town" trumpeter and his mother was a singer.  Rossini played the pianoforte, trumpet, and cello.  He also sang and performed at the age of 10 in Paer's "Camilla".  His first opera was produced in Venice when he was 18.  He was always very popular with the public and worked for the French King, The English King and the Hapsburg Emperors.  In 1829 he stopped writing operas, "officially" retiring in 1832 at the age of 40.  No reason was given; some say he suffered from poor health.  However, he continued to socialize and his home was a well known gathering place for artists.  He died at his country home in France and is buried at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Ayurveda, Liz and the Nazis

Spending time reading my books and listening to my pod-casts on Ayurveda.  Ayurveda is the oldest and still practiced medical science.  It's thousands of years old with roots in Hinduism and Buddhism.   There are a number of things I like about it.  Primarily, that we are each of us our own physician.
The basics:    
There are 5 great elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space.
Those 5 condense to 3 doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.   
We are either one of the three doshas or a combination of them.
There are 6 tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent.
I am primarily Kapha, a combination of earth and water.
Some indications that you are Kapha: body frame in balance is medium to broad.  Off balance it is obese.  Personality in balance is calm, quiet, and steady.  Off balance it is passive, possessive, and greedy.
Kapha people need motivation and stimulation. 
Disease is imbalance of your doshas.  There are 4 components to being healthy: yoga, meditation, exercise, and diet.  
Diet is an important but a complicated factor in Ayurvedic medicine.  You need one of their cookbooks to do it justice.
Some day my Kapha self will get around to it.
Today's NY Times had an photo of Liz Taylor's shrine at the Abbey.  It was right beneath the plaque that read "the Abbey is my Pub".  You probably thought it was that other kind of Abbey, not for Ms. Liz.  The Abbey is a Gay bar in West Hollywood.  "She was a once-a-week regular in recent years" [after the brain tumor?] "sipping tequila shots, downing watermelon and apple martinis or simply waving merrily from her wheelchair".  Hey guys if you're looking for a replacement, I'm available, and if I'm going to be drinking like Liz and Dick drank don't throw away that wheelchair!
"Ugly Betty" by Ruth Brandon is reviewed this week by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker.  The book is about Helena Rubinstein and Eugene Schueller who founded L'Oreal.  The interesting story is what happened during the Second World War.
After the Nazi invasion of France, Schueller was one of the biggest financial supporters of the fascist anti-Semitic M.S.R.  In October, 1941 they blew up 7 synagogues in Paris.  The argument of the book is that Schueller wasn't a Nazi or anti-Semite.  He was a pragmatist.  Collaboration insured delivery of raw materials.  An obsessive entrepreneur like Schueller "is too much of an opportunist to risk engaging himself absolutely in favor of anyone."
Oscar Schindler was a very different entrepreneur.  He made a lot of money "taking over" a Jewish owned factory.  When the Nazi's decided to close the factory and ship his workers to gas chambers he used that money as bribes to save as many as he could.  He spent his entire personal fortune saving lives. 
When Rubinstein died, the chairman of L'Oreal in the U.S., Jacques Correze acquired it.  Who is Jacques Correze?  He was the former chief lieutenant in M. S. R.
"The uncomfortable lesson of the triumph of Eugene Schueller over Helena Rubinstein is that sometimes it's just business."
Meditation, yoga and tequila shots.

apartment living

I don't own a snow shovel.  I don't own a lawn mower.  I have lovely flowers in the garden that I never tend.
A leak, I call the office; they send someone.  It's all good, most of the time.
I'm on the 18th floor.  On another floor are 2 pit bulls.  I've shared the elevator with them and their 'handler', a seven year old girl.  Sometimes the elevator doesn't work.  Sometimes, after coming home from the gym, late, and needing to get ready for the theater, I may not have water.
My neighbors had a leak.  They called the office, and it was fixed.  Leak over.  So was "Macbeth" and my night at the theater.  Now I'm sitting at this computer smelling my neighbors marijuana, which is not my thing.  I like a martini.  This is apartment living.
But the view is nice:

 

Arcadia has opened

Arcadia has opened and been reviewed.  In the NY Times, Ben Brantley wrote "entirely terrific", "propelled by genuine, panting passion," and in the New Yorker, Hilton Als: "there is no emotional truth at stake because there are no true characters", "there is no passion; people screw, but less to connect than to generate even more witty material".  Maybe they saw it on different nights?
Interesting American Masters piece on Zora Neale Hirston.  She wrote a number of novels that are well respected but more interestingly she recorded folk tales, music and the culture of southern African American life.  One film clip was of young children playing games.  That got me to thinking of all the games we played as children that you don't see anymore.  At least I don't see today's kids playing: stoop ball, stick ball, ringaleevio, hide and seek, red light-green light, jump rope, pick up sticks, hop-scotch and all the others that I have probably forgotten.  These were all group games.  In many you needed six or more players and there was a hierarchy that came from these games.  Janis Ian has a great song about being an outsider in the culture and being picked last for a game.  But you got picked.  You had a role to play.  They needed you and maybe this time you could shine, perhaps be the Alli-Alli in free guy and free all your captured team mates. 
From Zora Neale Hirston, "Yes I've experienced segregation, but I was never angry about it, only perplexed.  Why would someone deny themselves the pleasure of my company?"    
She grew up in an all black community in Florida, where her father was Mayor 3 times.

Podcasts

I listened to Carl Sandberg at the Schubert theater in Chicago.  He read two poems; sang a couple of songs, and accompanied himself on the guitar.  His conversation was about modern life, circa 1956.  He said we are a nation of media addicts.  TV, radio and movies are irreparably changing the country, and the loss of solitude is a crisis.  He quoted Paganini when he was asked what "The Secret" to his great work was.  He said just three things: "toil, solitude, and prayer."
Sandberg had recently watched the world series on TV and got the impression: "there were millions of men running around, wondering what to shave with."
Another memorable quote;  "What you can explain is not poetry"
He warned of the military of the military/industrial complex.  He said that the Military is not just in politics but also in Business.  "MacArthur has left the army and now works for the Rand Corporation.  He's not a business man he's a military man."
Also heard a Robert Pinsky pod-cast.  He talks about memory, poetry & music.  He loves Keats' line:  "You were not born for death, no hungry generation tread thee down.", from "Ode to a Nightingale".  Not born for death means to him that man has a need and a purpose to create memories for the next generation.  He also loves a sentence said by a Zulu "Zu go-mo", a Zulu fortune teller, who communicates with the ancestors.  The Zu go-mo quote that impressed him:  "We do not worship our Zulu ancestors, we consult them."
From Ezra Pound:
"Music atrophies when it grows too far away from dance, and poetry atrophies when it grows too far away from music."

Some Theater

Yesterday was an early St. Pat's celebration.  Great corned beef and cabbage at "86".  Thank you Dottie and Kathy.  Good wine too,  my favorite, Coppola's Claret.
Saw the matinee of "Molly Sweeney" at the Irish Rep.  A wonderful play by one of my favorites, the great Irish playwright, Brian Friel.  I've seen "Aristocrats", "Philadelphia here I come", "Dancing at Lunasa", "Faith Healer" and now "Molly Sweeney".  The critic of the Wall Street Journal, Teachout, saw the play exactly as I did.  Teachout calls Friel, the Chekhov of our time.  I would add that he is also the Eugene O'Neill of our time.  He surely has the touch of the Poet.  That great Irish gift with words.

What I remember:
1. The doctor says: "I did the surgery,  no I'm not to say that, the surgery is not 'done',  it is performed.  What I do is as much an art.  I do a performance"
2. Molly says: " I heard a women at the end of the corridor sobbing,  no lamenting"
3. Molly says as explanation of her sadness at gaining her sight: "There is power in the tactile sense and it's a great loss when you are bombarded by the visual."     
I've also been thinking more about Tom Stoppard's works and Arcadia in particular. Of his work, I've seen the trilogy "The Coast of Utopia", plus "Travesties", "The Invention of Love", "Rock and Roll", and  now, "Arcadia".  These  plays dramatically integrate history, science, and relationships.  In "Arcadia" he explores many areas of mathematics, history, art, and related theories.  He presents them as paradoxes.  Central in "Arcadia" is chaos versus order and the paradox that order can come out of chaos.  Historically, Arcadia was a pastoral region of ancient Greece.  Pastoral meaning it was left free and wild, to be formed by nature.  In reality the wild/chaotic garden is finely tuned, ecologically sound and perfectly self sustaining environment.

"Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos".
Stephen Sondheim

[Le] Poisson Rouge

I've joined this music club which is located in the village.  It's actually in the space once occupied by the Village Gate.  Last night I heard  a concert of Gyorgy Ligeti's music, previously unknown to me.  Kubrick used his music in 2001 A Space Odyssey, the Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. This is one area of the Arts that I could use a good education.  I know very little about "classical" music.  They did 5 pieces.  Not a lot of harmony, very   modern, lots of dissonance.  I did enjoy:  'Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano,  Hommage a Brahms' [1982],  and the cello playing in some other pieces.
   
Saw Merchant of Venice over the weekend.  It is done in modern dress and the merchants are Wall Street brokers.  So there are cell phones, video ticker tapes, high fives, belly bumps, and apple computers as part of the "scenery".  It worked very well for me because it brought humor and wit to a very "heavy" play.   Judith Dench in her new memoir says it is her least liked play of Shakespeare's because no one behaves well.
F. Murray Abraham plays it  natural not in the classic, declamatory style.  His final exit was wonderful.

I still want to write about Arcadia and I will soon.
I'm reading Thomas Merton's 'The Sign Of Jonas'.  A diary of his life in a Trappist monastery.
At one point he asks the reverend Father what made a particular brother so saintly.  Is it meditation, prayer, fasting, obedience?  Reverend Father said he didn't know, but the Brother was always working.  If you sent him to feed the cattle he did and then he would pick berries on his way back.  He didn't know how to be idle.  "Busy hands are happy hands" and saintly, too.

Best Documentary

Yesterday was movie night: "Inside Job".  It won the academy award for best documentary.  It tells the story of the financial crisis clearly.
It is not just disturbing that none of these people went to jail.
Three of them are now:
#1 is the President of Harvard University & on the board of I think Chase or Citicorp or both.
#2 is the Head of Columbia University's Business School.
#3 is a professor at Stanford.
Their rationalizations:   "I was just giving my opinion"; "It's part of my ideological belief".  They rated Iceland  AA, 2 days before the country collapsed and were paid over $100,000 for that opinion.  Iceland's banks lent 10x the national GNP to people who went out and bought 25 million dollar yachts.  So now these 'advisers' are all in academia teaching the next generation.
"Baby you're a rich man
Baby you're a rich man, now
You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside the door
What is it for"?
The B side of "All You Need is Love" by Lennon/McCartney.

Sunday Morning

Went to Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and "The Merchant of Venice" starring F. Murray Abraham.  Both excellent, but can't write about anything, except what is happening in Japan: earthquakes, tsunami,
and burning nuclear power plants.
That nation has given the world so much, Noh drama, Haiku, Kurosawa, Mishima, and Zen Buddhism.    
It has also survived two atomic bombs to become a world economic power.  They are an extraordinary people.
From today's Times:
"The few shops open have people queuing nicely," Mr. Tonge, a teacher from Britain said, "with no pushing or fighting or anything."   He lives in Sendai [the hardest hit of the coastal cities,1.4 million homes without electricity, and 500,000 without water].  "People are not panicking - typical of a nation accustomed to order and schooled to stay calm and constructive."   His hope is that this does not become the Sendai earthquake because: "This is a beautiful city with nice people.  A great place to live." 
Dominus vobiscum.

Mardi Gras

Last night at the Met I saw Lucia di Lammermoor, my favorite so far this season.  I enjoyed the staging,     singing, and performances.  There were two stand outs: Natalie Dessay as Lucia and Joseph Calleja as Edgardo.  Dottie and Kathy remarked on how much they enjoyed the acting.  How expressively Ms. Dessay rendered her veil and then cradled it as though it was her child.  There were three remarkable pieces of music: the sextet in Act II  "Chi mi frena in tal momento", Lucia's  mad scene  "Ardon gl'incensi", and Edgardo"s "Tu che a Dio".       
On the negative: why start at 8:30 and then run on until after midnight.  Some people left after the mad scene and missed Edgardo's "Tu che a Dio".
From what I'm reading:      
"The good life is the life of inner serenity" Epictetus