Month: April 2010

My new goal is to get a great action shot of the pigeons. This is not it, alas.

So it’s concert week for the Grace Church Choral Society! Very exciting. But something different is going to happen this week. Due to the restoration work being done at Grace Church the dress rehearsal and the performance will take place at St. Thomas Church.

St. Thomas is at 53rd and Fifth. A whole different part of town. It will be so weird to sing at a different place after decades of singing at one location only. To sing out in totally unfamiliar territory. But I can’t wait.

This part of town has a high nostalgia quotient for me. When I moved back to NY after college, the first job I got was a temp job selling jewelry at Tiffany’s, which is at 57th and Fifth.

Every day I took the E train to 53rd and Fifth and walked up to Tiffany’s. There was a lot I didn’t like about working at Tiffany’s, but there was a lot I loved. When the temp job ended they offered me a full-time position, but I didn’t take it. It didn’t seem like a real career to me, selling jewelry. I was 22 and I just felt that there were a lot more exciting things out there that I could be doing with my life.

But part of me has always missed it. I loved the feel of the place, and the constant interaction with people who were usually there to do something nice, to buy something beautiful for someone they loved. I loved trying to help boyfriends and husbands buy something special for their wives and girlfriends. I had also scoured the place for the most beautiful things that cost the least amount of money so I was always especially helpful to the guys who had to be more frugal.

However, I was really scouring the place for something for myself, and what I chose were the Elsa Peretti mesh earrings. I still have them and I should totally wear them in honor of the 32 years (good-freaking-lord) that have gone by. I should wear them in honor of choices. Oh God have I made a lot of bad choices in my life. Actually, there’s really no way of knowing if that is true. What if I had taken the Tiffany job, for instance. Who knows where I’d be now if I had? There’s just no way of knowing if it would have been better or worse.

I still think these earrings were one of the best buys in the place!

I volunteered to go first. It’s my “confront it and get it over with fast” mentality. Rip that bandaid off quickly! So I stepped up to the microphone. Sunny’s was crowded with friendly faces. Whenever I looked up to make eye contact whoever I saw either smiled or looked interested.

I read just a few paragraphs from the very beginning of the book, but I kept losing my place. I saw a trick the last reader used, which I will try next time. He just simply moved an index card down as he read so when he looked up at people and back he could find his place again. I kept having to re-find my place. My face would flush and my heart would race. “Where was I???” I always found it in a matter of seconds, but still.

Then I just talked. I talked about how the lab got started and what they tried to do. I told my favorite stories, like the one about the missing boy Bruce Kremen, and finding the letter from the Exorcist priest. I forgot a lot of things I meant to say but it’s probably just as well. Less is more, as they say.

But the feel of the room was good. I didn’t feel like I was walking in molasses, the energy was there and lively. People came up to me at the break and told me their ghost stories and other experiences. The host Gabriel Cohen did a good job of hosting, he made people feel welcome and he made me feel at ease. And he brought pastries!!

I took this on the ferry home. This is the southern tip of Manhattan. I was happy. Something scary was not only now firmly in the past and over, I did okay.

I’ve been seeing Harry on the street for decades, but I never knew who he was. He carried himself like he was the West Village though. At some point he had to use a wheelchair to get around, but he still did it with attitude. Not long ago I was walking by a church on Christopher and I was sad to see that he had died. At least now I know who he was. It’s kinda hard to tell, but this is his wheelchair covered in flowers. Obit below.

“H. M. Koutoukas, a prolific Obie Award-winning playwright who was a leading figure in Off-Off-Broadway theater in the 1960s, has died due to complications of diabetes, according to a report in The New York Times. He was 72.

“Koutoukas, known as Harry, wrote, by his own count, over 200 surreal and absurd plays that he called “camps.” Along with Lanford Wilson, Doric Wilson, Tom Eyen and Robert Patrick, Koutoukas was one of the playwrights who helped establish Caffe Cino and its reputation as Off-Off-Broadway’s founding theater.

“Among his plays are Medea in the Laundromat and Awful People Are Coming Over So We Must Be Pretending to Be Hard at Work and Hope They Will Go Away, as well as The Last Triangle, one of two pieces that marked his debut in 1968. In this latter play, Virginia Wolfgang, Noel Cowel and Lottie Lemming attempt to live graciously after a nuclear holocaust has eliminated the rest of the human race.

“In addition to writing, directing, and staging his own work, Koutoukas performed in many productions presented by Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company.
He is survived by a sister, Jean Ann Davidson, of Endwell, N.Y.”

From Theatremania.com.

Yesterday I read at Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook, and what a wonderful place that is! I took pictures before the place filled up (and it was packed, which was nice). Ohmygod, the vet just called with the results of Buddy’s bloodwork and everything is beyond great, and they don’t need to see him now for a few months. I am in the best mood I’ve been in ages, plus I have really good news which I will be announcing shortly.

But back to Sunny’s! Thank you so much Gabriel Cohen for inviting me to read, and thank you Harry Kaplan for suggesting me (and I had fun sitting outside talking with you and Mary and sorry it was so short, maybe we can get together at the next reading).

So I took a bunch of pictures, of course. This was the back room. The reading was up front in the bar, I just liked this room.

This was the kitchen area. I took a picture here because I was excited to see my stove! I have this exact same stove and there’s a whole story behind it. I should go find that post and that picture. Found it! Okay, not exactly the same but close.

This is the bar where the reading took place. That’s Sunny and Gabriel on the left. Sunny’s just has a great feel, it’s very friendly and easy and comfortable. It’s serene in a good way, relaxed, but not sleepy.

It’s hard to explain. It’s like how you feel when you go on vacation. You’re away from the insanity, but now you’re really ready to settle in and have fun. I highly recommend checking out Sunny’s and Sunday’s at Sunny’s!

But I can’t not feed the birds. Today, after filling the feeder I walked about 10 feet, turned around, and there was already a ring of birds around the feeder munch munch munching away. If you feed animals, and kids too of course, you know the pleasure of that munch munch munching sound. You’ve fed a hungry creature. It feels good.

So after my Census shift I went up to Union Square and bought a bag of seeds. Oh! They were having the yearly pillow fight there, by the way, but I ran out without my camera. I was so mad!

Here is Buddy checking to see if this is something he can munch munch munch away.