Richard Serra at The Met

I heard that the Richard Serra Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was worth seeing.  It is the first retrospective of his drawings.  "This major exhibition features some fifty works from the 1970s to the present, including many loans from European and American public and private collections as well as a selection of the artist's notebooks.  It ends with a site specific large-scale drawing, conceived specifically for The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "

There were some with black lines, some were triangles, and some had 2 rectangles.  In 2008 at Sotheby's in New York, 12-4-8, consisting of 3 steel plates sold for $1.65 million.  The exhibit noted that he does not see black as a color but as a weight, and he talks about his work in terms of physics and materials.  This is another area I need education because I couldn't "respond" to it.  But that's OK because there is a lot at The Met that I do respond to.  I've recently been drawn to Winslow Homer's seascapes.  So I spent some time with "Northeaster".

More Italians

Being of Irish descent in a city that has a lot of Irish immigrants I am for the most part ignorant of Italian immigration.  So I've done a little research and these are some of the things I've learned, and some I've been reminded of.  Many people know this information and probably more.
The first immigration from Italy was from the north because of overpopulation. Many of these immigrants were educated and skilled.  They knew wine making and merchandising food.  The founder of the Bank of America in San Francisco was an Italian food merchant.
The second and major influx of immigrants came later from the Mezzogiorno, middle and southern Italy.  Overpopulation was one factor, natural disasters and poverty were others.  Southern Italy was not rich in the resources valued during the industrial revolution while northern Italy was.  Because political power is often dominated by wealth the north was able to institute a heavy tax burden on the south and create protective tariffs for northern goods, adding to their poverty.  Natural disasters also contributed.  There were eruptions at both Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna.  The earthquake of 1908 and it's tidal wave killed 100,000 people in the city of Messina alone.
Between 1820 and 1978 5,294,000 people immigrated from Italy.  That represents 10.9% of the total foreign immigration during that period.  Even more Italians immigrated to South America.  The vast majority of American immigrants, about 70%, were young and were called Birds of Passage because almost 30% of these immigrants returned to Italy permanently.  These young men concentrated in the cities to earn as much as they could so they could support their families back home and then return.  In 1890 90% of NYC public works employees and 99% of Chicago street workers were Italian.
In reference to Italians and organized crime, the U.S. Department of Justice reports less than .0025% of Italian Americans have anything to do with organized crime.  That's 5 out of 250,000.
Some of my favorite Italians are at my favorite cafe, DeRobertis on First Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets.  It was founded by Paolo DeRobertis and was originally called Caffe Pugliesse after Paolo's birthplace Puglia, Italy.  Founded in 1894 it is still owned by the DeRobertis family and operated by the family's fourth generation of pastry chefs.  Phil Rizzuto said they made the best cannolis.  I like the pignoli cookies.

Some Italians in the East Village

That's a photo of John's Italian restaurant on 12th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.  It has been voted as having the best spaghetti and meatballs in the city, but that's not what I want to talk about.  I want to talk about two Italian immigrants who enjoyed dining here in the East Village.  If you've read the book "The Gangs of New York" you will know that some immigrants survived the immigrant experience by joining a gang. Some others already belonged to a gang when they got here.  Joe "the Boss" Masseria, 1887-1931 belonged to the mob when he left Sicily in1903.  He left to avoid being prosecuted for murder.
Joe invited Umberto Valenti for dinner in 1922. Umberto arrived with three of his "boys" and they were met by three of Joey's "boys".  After awhile Valenti realized Masseria, whose nickname had become "the man who can dodge bullets" wasn't showing up and that this was a setup.  Guns were drawn and two of Valenti's men were killed and the third wounded.  Valenti ran out of the restaurant and jumped on a passing taxi's running board.  In those days cars had running boards.  One of Masseria's men took aim and shot him dead in the street.  Joe Masseria was now boss of the Morello crime family which is known today as the Genovese Crime Family.  But "The Boss" wanted more, and head of the Castellamarese would be better.  When he didn't get it, he put out a contract on the man who did.  That started the Castellamarese War and Joe "The Boss" ended getting like he gave; killed in his favorite restaurant in Coney Island, the "Nuova Villa Tammaro", nine years after killing Umberto Valenti.
Another Italian immigrant and frequent visitor to John's Restaurant was Arturo Toscanini, 1867-1957.  Because of his time as musical director of the NBC Orchestra and their performances on radio and TV, Toscanini was a household name in America.  It began when at 20 years of age he was the cellist for the premiere of Verdi's Otello and became friendly with Verdi.  Through that friendship, his photographic memory, and musical genius, Toscanini became principal conductor at La Scala in Milan in 1887.  When Mussolini came to power Toscanini refused to play the "Giovinezza", the fascist anthem, at La Scala.  He was beaten by "blackshirts" and left Italy in 1939 not to return until after the war.  He conducted at the Metropolitan Opera House, 1908-1915, and the New York Philharmonic, 1926-1936.  After many years of fine dining experiences he died at the age of 89 at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.  But with his universally respected recordings, Toscanini still lives.

Jerusalem & the Tony awards

Went to see Jerusalem, starring Mark Rylance who won the Tony for Best Actor in a play.  It was written by Jez Butterworth and directed by Ian Rickson.  It also starred Geraldine Hughes who was Molly Sweeney in the show of that name at the Irish Rep. What must be very difficult to do and is done exceptionally well is to make the main character, Rooster Byron, not just believable but tolerable.  Rooster is not an easy man to accept.  He is a drug and alcohol dealer to 15 year old boys and girls who party and crash at his ramshackle trailer.  He has a son, maybe 7 years old, that he neglects and who suffers bullying and abuse at school because of Rooster's life style.  He has an ex-wife that he tries to manipulate into bed with cocaine.  Rooster is also the protector of 15 year old girls from abusive stepfathers, a protector of the environment, and possibly a shaman.  All of which is well written and portrayed.  Rooster is a very interesting character as is Mark Rylance whose acceptance speech was about walking through walls.  Perhaps referencing the fourth wall.
The Tony's:
Best Play ... Warhorse   [5 nominations 5 wins]
Best Musical ... Book of Mormon  [14 nominations 9 wins]
Best Play Revival  ... The Normal Heart
Best Musical Revival ... Anything Goes
Best Actors: Mark Rylance, Frances McDormand, Sutton Forster, Norbert Leo Butz, John Benjamin Hickey [we rode together on the E train to Times Square, I was going to wish him luck but I wasn't sure if he was nominated {well, strictly speaking we weren't together-together ... but we were on the same train}],  Ellen Barkin, John Larroquette, Nikki M. James.
The highlight of the Tony Awards were The Tony Awards.  I thought they were perfect.
Best of the night
Neil Patrick Harris, host and performer 
Best Scenes from shows:
Anything Goes & How to Succeed
Best Speeches;
Sutton Forster ... her dresser is leaving 
Frances McDormand ... gave a list of her performances; she's played all 3 sisters in Chekhov's The Three Sisters and her character in Good People will be performed on a stage just as long as Chekhov's 3 sisters.
Mark Rylance ...  Lessons in walking through walls
Best Performances during the show, not directly from a Broadway show;
Neil Patrick Harris' "It's not just for Gays, anymore" the opening number
Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman's "Anything You Can Do"
Neil Patrick Harris' closing Rap.
P.S.  Discovered IBDB,  "internet Broadway data base" as a resource.
P.P.S. Athol Fugard won an award for Lifetime Achievement

dinners and movies

Friday was dinner at Gene's with Tom and the movie "Beginners".  The movie was so so and the dinner OK, but my favorite was the Cosmo.  It was so good I had another.
Saturday was a lot of housework, the heavy duty kind.  That's where I wash everything in the bathroom except the ceiling, note to myself - do the ceiling.  Did the laundry, etc.  Then settled down to a home cooked meal of Ahi Tuna Steak and veggies.  I cooked veggies because I am concerned about E-Coli.  According to the NY Times about 5,000 people die in the US each year because of E-Coli. The Times article links the severity of the bacteria to the high use of antibiotics.  North Carolina uses more antibiotics in its farming industry then the whole United States uses for its people.  Therefore we get highly resistant strains of E-Coli.
The movie last night was "Touchez Pas au Grisbi", don't touch the grisbi, slang for loot, with Jean Gabin [this film reportedly revised his career], Jeanne Moreau [one of her first movies, 25 years old & she plays a chorus girl/moll { kind of a hoot}] and Lino Venturo, the great Italian-born French actor in his first role [he made 77 movies most notably Army Of Shadows.  He was originally a wrestler and got picked by the director for this film.]  The film is about a world-weary gangster who is double crossed and forced out of retirement when his best friend is kidnapped and their stash of 8 stolen gold bars are demanded as ransom.
At the Grisbi site there is a comment/review by "palmiro" that is very good.  Two interesting points he makes: the special male camaraderie of the french that is expected and never second guessed by the french.  No Oscar Wilde "love that dare not speak its name" subtext.  The second is the director, Jacques Becker's overt communist/anti-west sympathies that are present in the movie.

Hazardous to your future

I'm talking about the weather and social networks, AKA Weinerville.
The heatwave is keeping me indoors.  On enviroflash you can find air quality reports and pretty much the entire northeast has a warning for certain people.  The certain people are of course those with asthma.  Not a lot of walking going on, but the heatwave will break tonight with thunderstorms.

About the temptation for some people to expose themselves on the internet.
Anthony Weiner, has been front page news, late night comic fodder, and a disgraced public figure.  He's not the first and he won't be the last.  Public exhibition is not uncommon. I've been on a subway when guys have exposed themselves, and was only made aware of those incidents because the women made an issue of it.  They probably made an issue of it because the subway was crowded with men and women and therefore they felt safe.  There are two kinds of public exhibition.  One is a crime and punishable as indecent exposure because "it is done in a threatening manner".  The other exposure when viewed as non-threatening and done to arouse or shock is called exhibitionism. The medical label of the compulsion to exhibit oneself is called Apodysophilia.  The difference between the two sounds clear, right, but who's determining if there is a threat.
In 1907 Annette Kellerman was arrested in Boston for wearing a one piece bathing suit.
In 2003, a 21 year old woman was arrested for appearing naked on the internet.
In 2005, 6 men were arrested and convicted in Chicago for nudity while participating in the "world naked bike ride".  Sentences ranged from fines to 3 months probation.  Once convicted you must register as a sex offender, forever, and some public areas are closed to you.  That "stunt" may have ruined their lives.
Then there are the sex tapes of celebrities on the internet, which quickly go on sale.  Not public indecency?
So the story:
Well, Anthony Weiner was possibly going to be the next mayor of New York City.  In 1991 at the age of 27 he was the youngest person to sit on the New York City Council.  When Schumer became Senator, Weiner who worked as an aide to Schumer ran for Schumer's congressional seat in 1999 and won.  He has won reelection consistently with large margins.  He is one of the few people in government who believe Medicare should be the National Health Care.  He has a reputation for working long hours and working his staff, ergo 3 chiefs of staff in 18 months.  Right now he's probably the loneliest man on the planet.  I appreciate the hard work he's done, in congress, and I hope he gets help.
There will be no pictures from me today.

Bessie Smith

Saw a good show: "The Devil's Music, The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith" starring Miche Braden at St. Luke's Theater.  The theater is in the basement of St. Luke's Lutheran Church and has about 300 seats.  Besides this show they are doing in rotation: Black Angels Over Tuskegee, Channeling Kevin Spacey, Sam's Romance, My Big Gay Italian Wedding, and Danny and Sylvia.
About the show:  Ms. Braden is a fine actress with a good voice, but it's not Bessie Smith's voice.  What Ms. Braden does do very well is tell and act the Story of Bessie's life and she does sing a good version of "I Ain't Got Nobody."
This is the first show I've gone to where an audience member's cell phone not only rang but she answered the call.  Quietly and for a short period of time but still a shock.
There were a number of things the show taught me.
Bessie was bisexual and because of her sexuality, heavy drinking and late hours her adopted son was taken from her.  Her first recording in 1924 sold 760,000 copies and saved Columbia records from bankruptcy.
In the 1920's she was the highest paid black entertainer, earning $4,000 a week.  "Private establishments" all around the country called "buffet flats" were where Blacks could gather after hours for food, drink, gambling, lodging, entertainment, and according to this show, group sex.
In internet research I learned Bessie lived between 4/15/1894 and 9/26/1937.  Her first job was as a dancer in a show starring Ma Rainey.  She starred in the Broadway show "How Come" with Sidney Bichet.  She fought with the producer and was replaced by Alberta Hunter.  J.D. Salinger wrote a short story "Blue Melody" that was published in 9/48 in Cosmopolitan, about an African-American blues singer. The story has been reported to be based on Bessie Smith's life.  Because Cosmopolitan changed his title he never wrote for anyone else except the New Yorker.
Edward Albee wrote a play: "The Death of Bessie Smith" which repeats a story by John  Hammond that Bessie died because a whites only hospital would not treat her.  That story has been discredited.  There were 2 ambulances, one for whites and one for  blacks, at the scene within minutes of each other.  But even before the ambulances arrived a doctor was dressing her wounds.  It was too late; she died in The Clarksdale African-American Hospital. 

Howl and St. Nicholas Church

Built in 1882 by Rutherford Stuyvesant as a part of St. Mark's parish; it was designed by James Renwick Jr. who also designed St. Patrick's Cathedral.  In 1937 it was bought by and became the Carpartho Russian Orthodox Church.  It is located across the street from Tompkins Square Park which is hosting the Howl Festival this weekend.  There are big inflated toys for the kids and theater performances.
Look at www.howlfestival.com for information about this yearly event.
Around the north and east borders of the park for about 3 city blocks there were 4' x 6' posters of individual art works.

Doing it with a pro

A couple of weeks ago my friend Dottie suggested I stop into a storefront on 8th Street, the Village Alliance.  They were going to do Village walks and it sounded like something I would be interested in.  Every Saturday  from 5/28/11 to 9/24/11 one of three different guides will be taking people on a walking tour of 8th Street.  Not throughout the village just 8th Street.  Today it was Michael Morrows' turn.  Each tour guide takes a different point of view.  Michael describes his tour as dry and factual.  He recommended Jane Marx's tour to me.  He described her as a very funny Rosalind Russell type, who focuses on the women who lived in the area.
Mr. Morrows is quite good.  He had a "cheat sheet" with him which he referenced every once in a while but for the most part he talked extemporaneously.  He seemed to know all about the Architects, politicians, artists, and all the dates and places they lived and hung out.  Two new pieces of info for me.  Among the Georgian red brick buildings on St. Mark's Place between 2nd. Ave. and the Bowery is the last home of Alexander Hamilton's widow, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton.

Today it's a unique clothing store very popular with Lady Gaga, according to Mr. Morrows.  Who has actually turned out to be very accurate.  I try to vet my sources.  I love that expression, vet.  Especially when it's being done to politicians.
The second thing I learned on my tour:  "I heard it through the grapevine" is a saying that originated in the Village at a bar called "the Grapevine".  It was located at Sixth Avenue and 11th Street, directly across from the old courthouse. In the early to mid 19th Century it was the hangout for artists, politicians, lawyers, judges, union officers and southern spies.  After a couple of drinks there would be some loose lips and so the tavern was the source for a lot of juicy info.

Galleries

Yesterday was one of those great NYC days, bright, cool and breezy.  The perfect day to look at some bright, cool and breezy art.  First to see is the show that Frank has curated at the Interchurch Center, 475 Riverside Drive.  It's near The Riverside Church, on the upper west side.
The exhibit is Frank Mann's "Oculus".  He "explores the act of seeing and depicts the circularity of life."
The "loose circular orb-like structures depict life's flow"
"The inner processes of the eye is externalized so that what the artist presents is open ended.  Starting with the light of the eyes, the images are transformed in the back of the retina and then interpreted in the visual cortex in the back of the brain."

I picked up the NYC gallery guide at the Interchurch Center and checked out some Galleries to see in Chelsea.  Top of my list was the Gagosian.  Sunday Morning on CBS did a piece on their installation: "Picasso and Marie-Therese: L'amour fou."   Picasso's M.- T. was his lover and is considered "the primary inspiration for Picasso's most daring aesthetic experiments in the decade to come."  The most striking thing in the exhibition for me is how the most "aesthetic experiments" of Picasso so truly capture what we see of Marie-Therese in the photos at the exhibition.
But there are others I can show you.

Then to 530 West 25th street, Viridian Artists exhibit of Robert Mielenhausen's "Rome"

I love it when an artist makes me smile.  I thought he was real at first.

Candidates for Hare's Test

"Basta Bunga Bunga", a letter from Italy by Ariel Levy in the current New Yorker.  It is about Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and whether Italians have had enough of him and the culture he embodies.  Is it just an Italian billionaire's culture or endemic to our world?  Berlusconi has a number of TV shows and a number of young, buxom, inexperienced women from his TV shows are given important government posts.  The author describes some Berlusconi shows. This is one of  them: "Scherzi a Parte," a woman in her underpants hangs from a meat hook alongside hundreds of hams as a man in a butchers costume stamps a sell-by date on her behind."
When the author suggests that she meet with the Prime Minister for an interview, Berlusconi's close friend advises her that she would first need plastic surgery to roughen up her looks so then the Prime minister would keep his hands to himself.   
Again in the article: "Until 1981, 'a crime of honor' that is killing your wife for being unfaithful or your sister for having premarital sex could be treated as a lesser offense than other murders; as late as 2007 a man in Palermo was sentenced to just 2 days in jail for murdering his wife after his children testified that she had been disrespectful to him". 
In a related news, NYC Hotel Maids in two hotels that have recently been in the news will now be allowed to wear an intercom buzzer in case while visiting a guest, especially French billionaires, in their room they need "back-up".
From the Tao:

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.   

Ghost Bike

On highways around the country you will see crucifixes on the side of the road to mark the death of a loved one in a motoring accident.  Around the city we have these bicycles, ghost bikes, usually painted white and decked out with flowers to mark the spot where someone lost their life while cycling in the city.  I haven't seen anything yet to mark the spot for someone who lost their life while walking around the city, but when I was working at Bellevue Hospital I did see some people who were hit by cars, taxis and even buses while trying to cross the street.  There is this notorious street on Queens Boulevard where many people have been injured and some lost their lives trying to get to the other side.

Painting Urbanism

I came upon some interesting chairs just parked on the sidewalk at Delancey and Mulberry Streets in Nolita.  They were in front of Haas&Hahn's Painting Urbanism installation: "Learning from Rio".  So I went in and took a look
The first image I saw looked like a view of Manhattan from Queens with buildings that have been painted.  So I went in and visited the storefront of Art and Architecture "a nonprofit organization committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design".

The installation was by Haas & Hahn @ www.favelapainting.com    They are the artistic duo of Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn who conceived Favela painting in 2005.  Favelas are the name of Brazil's shanty towns.  They began in the late 18th century as the home of freed black slaves.  Favelas have become infamous as one of the worlds most dangerous slums.  They have been the setting of a number of Brazilian movies, most notably "City of God".  That's the movie about teenagers living in favelas where the only character that gets out alive is the pet chicken.
Now what do an artist and an architect do to create change?
They gave them tools to create something of their own.  Something to be proud of.

The young men of the favela took a staircase and added some fish.

They kept doing more and more

They painted the town.

From the brochure of the Storefront for Art and Architecture:
"Haas&Hahn have been able to generate a body of work that grows from the formal intricacies, legal conditions and social dynamics inherent to slums and produce a method of action that would hardly be able to be envisioned within the normative spaces of western models of urbanization."

Sara Delano Roosevelt Park

 It is located south of Houston, north of Canal, east of Forsyth and west of Chrystie, and runs for 7 blocks.

I never thought that one day I would be able to walk through this park.  Now, I can spend a beautiful holiday weekend sitting in a lush garden after watching a soccer game.  Years age it was not the place you would ever think of taking the kids or even Fido.  But like a great many places in this city it has changed for the better and keeps changing.  It was named after FDR's mother, and was built in 1934.  It has a Senior Center, turf Soccer field, roller skating rink, basketball, handball, and bocce courts.  It also has a garden with a rooster that cock-a-doodles all day.

The bocce court is inside the M'Finda Kalunga Garden, which translated means "the garden at the edge of the other side of the world".  It is named after the African-American burial ground that was located on Chrystie  between Rivington and Stanton Streets.  The first African slaves were brought to NY by the Dutch in the early 1500s.  By 1748 African-Americans were 20% of the city's population and so this land was given to them for a burial ground in 1794.  As the city grew the graves were moved.

 a book of poems a jug of wine and me!

The garden was founded in 1983 as a "beachhead against the overwhelming drug problem in the park"  Thank you to the Community Coalition that created the park and to the 20 volunteers who maintain it.

House of Worship

Our Lady Of Pompeii Church was built in 1926 by the Italian American community of the South Village and is located at the intersection of Carmine and Bleecker Streets.  This is the third site for the church founded in 1892 by Rev Pietro Bandini of the Missionaries of St. Charles, or Scalabrinians.  The Missionaries were founded by Bishop Scalabrini of Piacenza, Italy in 1887 to care for the Italian Immigrants who were migrating to the "New World".  Along with the missionaries he sent Mother Cabrini who worked at the church for awhile.  Because the Italians in New York were outnumbered by the Irish within the Catholic church their communities built their own houses of worship.  Besides Our Lady Of Pompeii they also built St. Anthony of Padua in the south village.  Well known in the area is Father Demo who worked at the church for 35 years and was pastor at the time of the "shirtwaist factory fire".  Many of his parishioners perished in the fire and so he worked to change the conditions in the city's factories.

And from today's Times a different Sunday sermon; the political take on the Golden Rule.
In an article about the unlikely power duo of Mayor Bloomberg and former President Clinton joining forces for a greener planet it is reported that Bloomberg's financing of an organization that Clinton founded has gotten him chairmanship of the organization.  One of Clinton's staffers said "'What are we going to do, fight him?  They have the money; the golden rule applies.'  As in, he who has the gold, rules."

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?

Genius

"I have nothing to declare except my Genius" was Oscar Wilde's answer to a US Customs Agent.
I saw "The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People" yesterday and I enjoyed it so much I may go back.  It was first performed in 1895, and is considered his best work and one of the best farcical comedies of all time.  Opening night was Wilde's greatest triumph but also the beginning of his end.
The Marquess of Queensberry had planned to disrupt the performance because of his son's involvement with Wilde.  The Marquess was stopped that night, but they all soon ended up in court.  Wilde sued Queensberry for libel because Queensberry's note was addressed to Oscar Wilde "posing as a sodomite".  Wilde won a token amount in damages.  But because of what came out at the first trial, Wilde was then tried for Gross Indecency With Men and convicted to 2 years of hard labor.   Because of the scandal the play closed after 87 performances.

Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell stars in and directs the play.  Lady Bracknell is a hyper sensitive aristocrat who will not hear of any social impropriety.  She's that elderly relative some of us know who just when you're having a good time says "enough".
Lady Bracknell:
"Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon.  Only people who can't get into it do that."
"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance.  Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit, touch it and the bloom is gone ... Fortunately in England ... education produces no effect whatsoever."
"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune: to lose two looks like carelessness."
He is remarkable in the role.  He\She says some of the funniest, farcical lines ever written and does it in perfect aristocratic seriousness.  At certain points his voice goes down several octaves in expressions of disapproval.  I would go back just to hear him say "enough", very, very low.  I was impressed by how realistic the characters were  in spite of having to act empty headed and silly while speaking some wonderful truths.  This is a classic 3 Act Play with 2 fifteen minute intermissions, almost 3 hours long, and you don't want it to end.

Santino Fontana plays Algernon, witty and fey:
" The essence of romance is uncertainty".
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
"All women become like their mother.  That is their tragedy.  No man does, and that is his."  
David Furr [I last saw him in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin]  plays John Worthing.  It is the straight role and he plays it beautifully.  At times forceful with Algernon, then romantic with Gwedolen, then  solicitous with Lady Bracknell.  He has the central role, the connection between these people and he as much as anyone makes the play work.
Other lines:
"If you are not long I will wait for you all my life."
One character says about her 3 volume novel: 
"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily.  That is what fiction means."
Oscar Wilde never wrote another play.
He died in 1900 in Paris, destitute, at 46.  He left a wife and 2 sons who changed their names when he was incarcerated.
His epitaph is from his great poem the Ballad of Reading Goal:
"And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn."
One web site had 23 pages of Oscar Wilde quotes.  I'll end with this very long one from De Profundis:
    "When first I was put in prison some people told me to try and forget who I was.  It was ruinous advice.  It is only by realizing who I am that I have found comfort of any kind.  Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all.  I know that would be equally fatal.  It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else - the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver - would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy.  To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development.  To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life.  It is no less than a denial of the soul."

How many psychopaths can you name?

Jon Stewart on Monday's show had the author of "The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through The Madness Industry".  He is Jon Ronson who also wrote "The Men Who Stare at Goats".  He uses the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.  It assigns a score of 0 if an item doesn't apply, 1 if it applies somewhat, and 2 if it fully applies.  Some of the items are: superficial charm, grandiosity, need for stimulation, pathological lying, cunning and manipulation, lack of remorse, callousness, poor behavior control, impulsivity, denial, and failure to accept responsibility.  Ronson has found that many political and business leaders pass the test and meet the criteria for being psychopaths.  Ronson is a witty man and I'm sure some of what he says is tongue in cheek but not all of it.  The one personal lesson he found from his research is that he could not be a psychopath; he's too anxious.  Psychopaths don't get anxious.  Housing bubble, what housing bubble?

Just down from St. Mark's

There are two buildings on 2nd Ave. between 9th Street and St. Mark's Place.  They are: The Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library and the Stuyvesant Polyclinic.
They were built by the architect William Schickel, 1850-1907, in the German round-arched neo-Romanesque style.  They were completed in 1884 using brick and terracotta.  He also built the church of St.Ignatius Loyola on Park Ave. and 84th Street and many other buildings throughout N. Y. State.  Both of these buildings are listed on the National register of Historic Places.  "The American Institute of Architects Guide to New York City" calls them "an architectural confection."

At the time of their construction there were 150,000 German immigrants in the east village also called Kleindeutschland or Little Germany.

The Library opened in 1884 and was the first branch of the NY Free Circulating Library.   It is the oldest in the NY Library system.
The Clinic provided free medical care to residents of the east village and also training for medical students.  It was originally called The German Poliklinik but had to change its name because of anti-German sentiment during the First World War.
The Library is named for Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer.
Anna Behr was born of a poor family in Germany in 1815 and immigrated to the States in 1837.  Her first husband, Jacob Uhl, purchased the "New Yorker Staats-Zeitung" in 1845, a small German language weekly.  With Anna's help it became a daily in 1852, the year Jacob died.  In 1859 Anna married her editor Oswald Ottendorfer.  She was the mother of six children with Jacob, none with Oswald.  She was the owner and publisher of The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung and was very successful.  Her estate at the time of her death was $3,000,000.  In the 1870s the circulation of the paper was equal to The New York Tribune and The New York Times.
A word about The Tribune.  It was  founded by Horace Greeley in 1841, the 'go west young man' Horace Greeley, and was considered the leading newspaper in the United States.  Greeley's foreign corespondent in Europe between 1851 and 1861 was Karl Marx. That Karl Marx.
Anna on the other hand was building what she felt was needed to uplift "both the body and mind of fellow Germans in the United States".  Besides these buildings she built the Isabella Home for Aged Woman [named after her deceased daughter] a woman's wing at a city hospital, and numerous other kinds of aid to German citizens.  So much so that she received a gold medal  from Empress Augusta of Germany, and a plaque in the east village on an "architectural confection" that is landmarked for history.  When she died her funeral was the largest for any woman in New York at that time.