Ultimate Utterance?

My idea of a catchy title is a bad pun-but how else to wrap up The Eagle's Eyrie and bring closure to my five months in Brooklyn Heights?  Since my last entry was my penultimate entry this must be the ultimate. I want to bring closure to this blog so I can do a very un-blog-like transition.  I plan to print out all the entries and put a paper version in a scrapbook with my paper mementoes. 

I feel like I should wax rhapsodic, or at least philosophical, about the tremendous time I had from January through May 2010.  Every morning I woke to a sunrise over Brooklyn pouring through my window.  Morning and evening I watched the orange Staten Island Ferry nose into the Battery and at night its lights shimmered over the harbor.  I could traipse to any one of several subway stations and be off to an adventure in Manhattan.  My feet were my favorite vehicle to the island when I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and took in sky, water and enthusiastic fellow tourists.

And the music!  As if the muses knew that I would be listing my musical experiences, I am now listening to Ravel's Afternoon of a Faun on NPR's Performance Today.  This performance was conducted by David Robertson and is the same performance by the New York Philharmonic that I heard on February 18.  Wow, how is that for coincidence!  It's also a reminder that now I'll be more likely to experience these concerts through public radio than by taking a subway ride.

Out of curiousity I tried to list the operas, concerts and plays that I attended in New York:

12 Operas-including 4 premieres and 2 new performances (not premiere performance but premiere season)
15 Concerts-43 different performance pieces
10 Plays
1 Ballet
1 Night Club Performance
Multiple visits to museums, lectures at the 92nd Street Y, and the parks

I flew away from the Eyrie several months ago, but I'll always remember the time spent there and be grateful that I started this blog and captured my experiences while they were fresh.


Goodbye to  Apartment 11B, 2 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, New York!

Central to Nature and to My Heart

This will be my penultimate entry in the Eagle's Eyrie-Brooklyn edition.  I thought I'd have all my entries done in June, but the demands of my Ithaca garden required my timely attention.  So it is only appropriate that this entry reflect on what I learned about landscape planning during my last week in New York and how it inspired me to think of my garden as my modest effort to linger into whatever "eternity" will be granted to this plot of land in Ithaca, New York.

I wax rhapsodic on landscape architecture as a result of a lecture I attended at The Morgan Library that last week in May on Great Romantic Landscapes.  The lecture was in conjunction with an exhibition that showed the European landscapes that inspired one of my favorite poets, William Wordsworth.  I always thought that Wordsworth and the Romantics were writing about natural landscapes, so it surprised me to learn that many of their subjects were planned gardens-albeit elaborate gardens-in Europe.  I think I always assumed that Central Park was carved out of a natural area that already existed in New York.  Not so. Visionary architects and designers, like Frederic Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, were provided monumental palettes by equally visionary civic leaders who realized that they needed to set aside natural landscapes before the titans of commerce and real estate usurped the land for profit. The original 770 acres (now expanded to 843 acres) were cleared of the poor African American, Irish and German inhabitants and amid years of construction and politics the final "Greensward" plan was finally completed. (The appraised value of these acres is now $528,783,552,000).  One inspiration for a city park that included bridges and hills and lakes was the Greenwood Cemetary in Brooklyn which I wrote about my May 2 blog.

The story of the Central Park Conservancy is almost as compelling as the original construction of Central Park. For decades, Central Park fell into disrepair due to poor maintenance and the financial problems of New York City. The Conservancy is a non-profit founded in 1980 that worked to clean up and restore the Park to its original design. They now have a public/private partnership with the City of New York and the park's vibrant beauty bears witness to the work and vision of hundreds of native New Yorkers. They have maintained and restored over 50 fountains//monuments/sculptures. They ensure that children can enjoy the 21 playgrounds, and philosophers and lovers can spend time on the 9000 benches. Beth and her runners' club take advantage of the 10 miles of loop roads and the rest of us meander on the 58 miles of pedestrian paths. Each of the 24,000 trees is documented in a database and each is identified by GPS positioning. These trees attract 275 species of migratory birds and thousands of birders.  (At this point I think it is significant to note that the designer's name-Vaux-rhymes with hawks!) One of the best views of the park is from the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of  Art and my video provides a great panorama.

Central Park was revived by politicians as well as the conservancy-Robert Moses made the initial effort to clean up the Park in the 1970's.   I mention this in appreciation of Mayor Bloomberg's support of the wonderful Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy which seeks to reclaim the beautiful East River Waterfront for the next generation of New Yorkers.  We were there for the opening of the Pier One park and look forward to returning in several years to see the completion of this ambition project.

There are other landscaping jewels that I've been able to visit and learn about this year.  Some of them are from the 19th century, like Frederic Edwin Church's Persian masterpiece, Olana on the Hudson River. Others celebrate artists of the 21st century like Maya Lin's Storm King Wavefield.   Each demonstrates how we can express ourselves in nature and create a space for future generations to enjoy.

Penultimate-I love that word.  I used to think it meant "beyond ultimate" and something special.  However, the more mundane meaning is that this is the second to last chapter.  My next entry will summarize my New York adventure and close the book on this time of my life.

Staten Island Ferry-A Classic Ride

Every day from the kitchen window of my Eyrie I would see the Staten Island Ferry come and go, night and day, every thirty minutes.  I never tired of watching the salmon colored boats leave Whitehall Terminal.  I especially loved it at night, with all the lights on the several decks it reminded me of James Cameron's scenes from Titanic.   I held out taking the ride myself because I thought one of my buddies would like to come for the ride with me during a visit. 

I was waiting for the perfect day, but by the week of May 23 it was too late to wait.  I had to take the classic ride from Manhattan to Staten Island and view all the sights of the harbor that I had previously seen from my Eyrie window.  So on Thursday, May 27 I took the #4 train to Bowling Green and finally the "transfer to the Staten Island Ferry" as I had heard the conductor announce on so many other MTA rides.  I vaguely remember taking the ferry when I visited NYC as a 12 year old and one of my strongest memories is that it was "such a deal" at only 25 cents for a ride.  Well, reader, it is an even better deal now.  It's free!  So those of you in the city who haven't yet taken the ferry at least once are urged to do so.  What a great way to get fresh ocean air, see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Governor's Island, compare the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island with Manhattan. 

On the ferry one can visualize the role of maritime geography in New York's past and present. The New York Public Library had a wonderful exhibit on Mapping New York's Shoreline that Greg and I saw a few weeks prior to this trip.  Where barges now line up to wait for their turn to head out to the Atlantic, the harbor had been filled with sloops, privateers, pirate ships, clippers, steamships and battleships all navigating the Narrows to get to the Atlantic Ocean.  New York developed because of the trade in tobacco, sugar, rum, agricultural produces and mercantile products.  The China trade in teas, silks, opium, porcelains resulted in great wealth for many New Yorkers, including our "neighbors" Mr. Pierrepont and Mr. Low, whose brownstones were part of the Brooklyn Heights boom.  New York City became the largest shipbuilding center in the world in the 19th century.  And we can't forget New Jersey, which now has the bulk of shipping in the area with its massive containerized terminals at Port Newark-Elizabeth.

So on this overcast day, as I snapped poor quality photos along with all the other tourists, I relished a view of New York that many commuters may take for granted. Next time I go to New York I won't wait so long to take the best free ride in the area. 

Note to my readers-as you've noticed I've not been adding many entries.  I have about 2-3 more entries in my head that need to get blogged but I'm no longer in the Eyrie having returned to pastoral Ithaca.

Transition to Translational

Friday evening, May 28, I took the train up to the UES (Upper East Side for us cognescenti) to take Beth out to dinner to celebrate her first NIH "K" Grant.  This grant awards money for her salary to Cornell Med so that she can continue her research.  It also ensures that she will continue for at least two more years at Cornell on an entry-level attending status.  She's worked very hard and hopes that this is the first of many grants that will help her move along the academic research track. 

She also had a beautiful haircut that afternoon so I paused to take a photo of the layered back of her hair.  She is standing against a background of the construction site for Cornell's new research building which will support the emerging field of translational research that Beth is involved in.  This research "translates" clinical problems with bench research aiming for faster medical breakthroughs (If I'm stating this correctly).  The caption for this photo is Beth's thought "Hmmm I wonder where  my new lab and corner office will be be when they move me into this building?"

An American Idiot confounds a Cockeyed Optimist

My sixty year old adrenaline is pumping as I try to do as much as possible during this last week in New York, but I realize now that my adrenaline is a trickle when compared to the hydrant-like adrenaline that flows from a young punk rocker.  Last night I went to see American Idiot, the new musical based on Green Day's album.  I like Green Day's music and thought I'd appreciate the music having been a sideline observor to punk and emo during the late 90's and early 2000's when I followed the progress of Saves the Day.  Indeed, I first heard Green Day when Saves the Day opened for them on a tour in 2002 (?).

I enjoyed the energy and intensity of An American Idiot. The cast was fantastic and tireless.  The staging was convulsive and percussive.  In fact, its a good thing Greg didn't join me as he would have acquired a migraine with the combination of sound blasting and strobe lights pulsating. A day later, in re-reading Charles Isherwood's review, I am better able to appreciate the negativity that drove the plot and to realize that my reaction by the end of the play, when I wanted to shout "oh grow up" was exactly what all the ruckus was about. 

One of the characters, Tunny, chooses to escape his suburban existence by enlisting; he  is sent to Iraq where he loses a leg.  Watching Tunny's world in a regimented, idealistic army facing true life-and-death decisions contrast with the angry, dirty, needle-pushing world of Johnny caused me to recall Sledge Hammer from the recent HBO series The Pacific.  This memory, in turn, brought me full circle to my first musical this season, South Pacific.  Even when I was a young woman, I never felt the connection to rock that molded most of my generation.  I was always an Oscar Hammerstein idealist, a cock-eyed optimist, and this has served me well.  I can enjoy the pulsating beat of rock, but I don't think I've ever  connected to its "anomie and apathy" and anger.   Luckily, most of these rebels do grow up.

M&M's

When I worked at the Johnson School we would get M&M's from the Mars recruiters.  I would squirrel away a few packages and treat myself by opening a  package and rationing out 1 or 2 of these colorful candies at a time.  (OK-you know me-the rationing would work for about 15 minutes and then I'd gobble the rest of the package.)  I thought about this habit as I prepared to write about the visits that Greg and I savored slowly last Saturday.

The first two M's were the Magna Carta at the Morgan Library.  We wanted to take advantage of this limited showing of the 1217 document that had landed in the Morgan Library as a byproduct of the flight cancellations created by the volcanic ash in Iceland.  There's not much to say about the document, except it is always a thrill to look at something firsthand that changed the world and think about the significance of these words written on a piece of vellum.  We also wanted to look at Old Man Morgan's sumptious library before they renovate it over the summer. 

Next we walked down Madison Avenue to Madison Square Park and saw some wonderful architecture: the 1893 Metropolitan Life Building with its fantastic clock tower, the 1928 New York Life Insurance Building with its golden pyramid roof and David Burnham's 1902 Flatiron Building. As we walked through Madison Square I realized (duh) that this was the site of the original Madison Square Garden. You can see some of these buildings nestled beneath the Empire State Building in my nighttime skyline photo above. Greg wanted to make sure that you appreciated his fright when he saw a "jumper" atop one of the buildings on 5th Avenue around 20th. I knew that the jumper was just one of 31 naked Men put atop buildings and in Madison Square Park by the artist Antony Gormley for the Event Horizon.

Finally we turned on 21st Street to head to the Gagosian Gallery for the magnificent Monet exhibit.  This show pulled together four rooms of late Monet Water Lilies, which were spectacular transitions to modern art and abstract impressionism.  Many of these paintings were never exhibited in Monet's life and seeing how the aging artist, beset by cataracts, adapted to his world was an inspiration.  Getting old allows one to develop new techniques and a new vision.  The New York Times, once again, has a wonderful review which includes a slideshow of some of the paintings.  The New Yorker said "Do not miss it!" and we are really pleased that we didn't.

An American Eagle's Eyrie: Fleet Week

I guess the aircraft carrier the USS Iwo Jima is hard to miss, but I would have missed this great shot if it weren't for two happy coincidences.  I bought a new telephoto lens on Tuesday and had it at the ready to practice shots during my final week in the eyrie.  And I just happened to see the news trailer from the local news during the Today Show which said that Wednesday was the beginning of Fleet Week.  I looked outside my window and noticed that a parade of 11 vessels had begun.  There was a fireboat spurting red, white and blue sprays greeting the boats off of Governor's Island.  There was a mini-flyover of two jets.  And then the magnificent, huge ship came up the harbor, passed by my Lady Liberty, and headed up the Hudson River to dock for the festivities.  I've posted a few more shots on Flickr if you want to share the view.

This is a good opportunity to try to describe an event that I failed to photograph (what?  How could Kim fail to document something??).  About a month ago I looked out my kitchen window and the biggest boat I had seen so far was going by and heading up the East River towards the Brooklyn Bridge.  It had  Saudi Arabian registry and could have been a tanker.  It was about the size of the Iwo Jima.  I thought, "that's odd".  Ten minutes later I looked out and the tanker had two tugboats and was turning around back towards Ellis Island.  Was this a planned route?  Had the captain made a mistake and started up the wrong river?  Well we'll never know and I can only bore you with my anecdote and not my photos because I was too lazy to get the camera out of the case that day. 

I'll close with the beautiful fireworks from last night.  I was testing my camera on the Promenade when this display started. It was from Ellis Island.  I didn't know it was planned.  I don't even know if it was affiliated with Fleet Week; I tried to check it out on the web but don't find any reference to it.  I was talking to Greg at the time and he told me it was more important to talk to him than to take pictures, but I managed to get the tripod up and the camera set to get about five nice shots.  Did he suspect that I was doing this?  I bet he's glad I went ahead and seized the moment.  

Series Finale

What a sad night last night was-the finale for the original Law and Order.  The New York Times had several articles on the economic and artistic impact that Law and Order has had in New York since it began filming here twenty years ago and the "gaping hole for the economy" that its cancellation creates.   Hundreds of actors and actresses have credentials that include appearances in one of the "ripped from the headlines" Law and Order episodes. A mini industry sprung up around the series that employed caterers, designers and producers, technicians and even trucking companies for the logistics. According to the local NBC News station (4) 3000 actors were employed and $79 million spent in NYC each season!  At first I thought I had noted it wrong, as it was on the news ribbon that runs along the bottom of the screen, but I rewound and double checked it.  Then last night watching the finale I figued that with the students in the school and the jurors and spectators in the courtroom there were easily over 100 actors in one episode.We became aware of this mini-industry every time a sign was posted on one of the Brooklyn Heights streets that indicated a series episode, commercial or movie scene was to be filmed there the next day.  We only would  get excitied, however, for either Law and Order or The Good Wife.  The Good Wife,  while ostensibly taking place in Chicago, is filmed in Brooklyn and many hope it will take up the slack that the Law and Order cancellation will create. 

I didn't expect to see Sam Waterson but had hoped to see  S. Epatha Merkerson when they filmed an episode on the night of February 19 at the brownstone on Columbia Heights around the corner. I reported on this in my blog entry on February 22  titled "Cue: Gavel Sound" I spoke with a crew member earlier in the day and he told me she would be here that evening filming.  However, we had dinner plans that night with friends and I had to show some restraint.  After dinner I suggested they come by to see our apartment and that we walk down Columbia Heights.  The kleig lights were still on and I got my camera ready and even took one blurry shot (above).  But just as I got close enough for a better shot the lights went out and the crew called it a night.  Darn.  We haven't found this episode yet. Perhaps we'll catch up with it in reruns, or perhaps it was for next season and we'll never see it.

I had a little more luck on April 23 when I went out to do some grocery shopping, turned the corner and discovered the filming was in progress at Court Street and Montague.  This time I got to see Jeff Goldblum and Saffron Burrows film a Law and Order Criminal Intent scene involving a Hispanic candidate at a campaign rally with Burrough Hall and the Courthouse in the background.  The flag-waving "supporters", who wore red t-shirts reading Caldera Family Power, were also crew members and very quick to yell at me if I got too close with my camera, or if my flash went off which it did periodically.  Hence out of 25 shots I didn't get many good examples.  It's tough to be a papparazzi. I also reviewed theCriminal Intent plot summaries for the entire season and can't find one that would appear to have this episode.  Once again, perhaps it was for next year?

I find it appropriate that this is the week of the season finale, since it is also our New York City finale and Greg and I will also end our relationship with this wonderful city.  If I were Lenny I would have a great wisecrack, but I can't think of one, said failure helps me appreciate the Law and Order writers even more.  However, given the plot of the finale episode, I did think that TS Eliot had an appropriate wise observation (just not a crack) in The Hollow Men:

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Elizabliss

Elizabeth Lauren Alexander, my firstborn, had her birthday two weeks ago on May 15.  Don't we all remember that special moment when our children enter the world and we have great plans for them?  I remember looking at that bald head and thinking it would so wonderful dream if she could grow up to be a doctor and have hair.  I got both my wishes!

I thought that during our semester in New York I would be spending countless hours with Beth  but her schedule turned out to be much busier than we both expected.  Beth was spending long hours in the lab at New York Presbyterian Hospital working on her research in bacterial staph infections in order to get more data to back up her NIH grant application.  In addition she was spending Tuesday and Thursday evenings with her running club, a wonderful group of men and women from around the city who have become great friends.  Of course the club was practicing for events which would occur on weekends, such as the half-marathon race pictured above, which meant that she wouldn't have time to come to Brooklyn on the weekends either.  Finally she was traveling to New Jersey, or Riple was coming to Manhattan, for part of the weekend.  All of these endeavors worked out well for her as she was named Fellow of the Year and she raised over $500 for GHESKIO in Haiti with sponsorships from her run. 

So it was a special treat when I talked Beth into playing hooky for a day and spending Friday with me.  We had long talks over morning coffee and an outdoor lunch.  We went shopping at Talbot's, Banana Republic, Eileen Fisher.  We explored Tiffany's where she tried on a $12,000 Phillipe Patek watch and I tried on several $5000 Jean Schlumberger rings and the saleslady recognized her as a doctor who lives on 69th street (small world!). Shopping is so much more fun with someone who'll go back to the rack and get the next size for you as Beth did for me OR who'll offer to buy that cute dress as I did for Beth.  Four times she said "I'm so happy" or "I'm having so much fun"  so I knew that taking time off on a beautiful summer day was a treat for her also.  At the end of the day she came down to Brooklyn Heights and Greg was able to join in the lovefest and we took her to dinner at Jack the Horse, followed by a cigar walk on the Promenade.  The evening was capped off by the best fireworks we've seen from the Eagle's Eyrie centered in the harbor at Ellis Island.  I don't know what the official occasion was, but I decided they were in honor of Elizabliss!

Everyone else calls my daughter Elizabeth except for the immediate family who call her Beth. We asked about her preference and she cherishes the family nickname.    There was a family wedding on Greg's side of the family two weeks ago and I noted that the bride was Lauren Elizabeth, the groom's cousin was Lauren, and Lauren's daughter is Elizabeth.   Greg proudly noted that our Elizabeth Lauren was the first in the family.  I neglected to take a picture yesterday so I'll close with the picture that is the wallpaper for my iPhone and a reminder that I began this semester with another wonderful Elizabliss event at the New Year's Eve premiere of Carmen. 

There's a Hole in My Bucket, Dear Liza (Donna)

This weekend my good friend from Ithaca, Donna Fleming, came to visit and I ran her ragged working through my bucket list.  So this blog entry will run through all the things we saw and experienced.  The old children's song There's a Hole in My Bucket keeps running through my head, because it felt like we were doing a million things to empty the bucket before I leave Brooklyn (I know, I'm mixing the metaphor).  I picked up Donna at the Cornell Club Sunday afternoon and we walked through Bryant Park where the performance art piece Walk the Walk had appeared the previous week.  I've posted video from Walk the Walk on my Facebook page and wonder whether my former colleagues (and Donna's current colleagues) Susan, Holly and Jodie feel this way in their daily routine at the Johnson School and Cornell.  Donna and I walked over the Times Square and took the 3 train over to Brooklyn Heights.  After depositing her bags in our apartment and getting the overview from the terrace, we took off to walk the Brooklyn Bridge and check out downtown Manhattan.  I introduced Donna to City Hall, St. Paul's Chapel (which she already knew) and the rebuilding at Ground Zero.  We walked east to the South Street Seaport and enjoyed the beautiful evening by eating tapas at a sidewalk table at a Brazilian seafood restaurant followed by Hagen Daz ice cream.  Many people were enjoying the beautiful evening, including about 15 Tibetan monks at the Seaport.  We ended the trip with a bucket list item #1: a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at night and back to 2 Pierrepont Street.

Tuesday we headed up to bucket list item 2 and 3: Union Square and Greenwich Village taking the 5 train from Borough Hall.  On the walk to the subway, Donna got to see the trailers and set-up for a movie being filmed on the steps of Borough Hall.  In Greenwich Village we saw the skinniest house in New York at 75  1/2 Bedford Street, where Edna St. Vincent Millary once lived.  We also saw Twin Peaks, a quirky house which has long welcomed artists and was featured in a NY Times article two Sundays ago.  Donna was quite pleased to recognize the house from the article and I was quite pleased to go back to the article and find 10 great photos of the interior.  Next we walked to 17th Street to the Rubin Museum which was a terrific recommendation from Donna.  This five year old museum houses 6 floors of art from the Himalayas, primarily Tibet and Nepal.  The bulk of the artwork is Buddhist religious art and the installations provide sensitive and important details on both the religion and the important features of the art.  The Rubins must have anticipated my fractured metaphor for this blog, for they had two exhibits on kicking the bucket.  Actually these were titled  "Remember That You Will Die/Death Across Cultures" and "Bardo/Tibetan Art of the Afterlife." We had a wonderful lunch at the Rubin cafe and I highly recommend this small museum to anyone-it certainly helped me better understand Ted and Greg's interest in Buddhism. While it wasn't on my bucket list, it should have been.   Back in the apartment I introduced Donna to another joy of living in Manhattan: ethnic food delivered to your doorway.  In this case we had Turkish food from Taze.  Donna twisted my arm and insisted on buying me desert at the Hagen-Daz on Montague Street, the "oldest Hagen Daz in the world established in 1975" but actually the oldest in the States.  While we ate the ice cream we wandered around Brooklyn Heights, exploring Grace Courtyard, Willow Street and the phony brownstone on Pierrepont Street that is really an emergency exit for the MTA.

Up early for more.  We drove through four boroughs on Tuesday-Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and finally Manhattan.   In the Bronx we came to #4 on the bucket list-the New York Botanical Garden. It was pouring the entire day, so we only reviewed the items inside the Conservatory, but there was plenty to see.  The permanent collection included an extensive recreation of a tropical rain forest as well as desert botanicals.  But my destination was the new exhibit on Emily Dickinson's Garden.

 For a gardener and lover of literature such as myself this was an exquisite combination of glorious bulbs, annuals and perenials highlighted with Dickinson's deceptively simple, intense poems.  Dickinson savored each word in each poem, pressing the words into a single beautiful object much like she pressed individual flowers into the 400 specimens in her herbarium.  The poems were then gathered into handwritten fascicles (a contemporary 19th century word for bouquets) which she either shared with friends or more commonly kept hidden.  Her sister Lavinia (Vinnie) discovered hundreds of these in a chest a few days after Emily's death.  For a wonderful discussion of the groundbreaking genius of Emily Dickinson, an Outlaw of Amherst, as opposed to the stereotyped reclusive old maid, read the article in the Sunday Times by Holland Carter.

It took us awhile to find our way out of the New York Botanical Gardens through the considerably more urban Bronx and over to The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan.  The Cloisters is a step back 700-1200 years to medieval Europe and to a time of "uniform" Christian faith and art.  Donna and I both noticed comparisons with the Buddhist art of the Far East, connections we probably would not have made if we hadn't been at the Rubin Museum the previous day. This was bucket list #5 for me, a must-do for my New York semester and I was not disappointed.  It would have been even better had we not been inundated by rain, but that leaves the opportunity for a sunny visit sometime in the future.  I could immediately connect with the symbolism and allegory of the triptych's, tapestries, reliquaries, stained glass and beautifully reconstructed architectural arches and cloistered courtyards. These illustrated episodes which emanate from my spiritual experience, just as a Buddhist immediately connects with a thangka.  I couldn't take many photos here, because of the low light and the prohibition on the use of flash, so I brought home the museum guide to enjoy these works of art in the future. 

I have discovered that even unexpected, "irritating" events can be more pleasant experiences when one has a bucket list and can approach the event as a unique experience.  On the way back, our access to the Henry Hudson Parkway was blocked by an accident.  So armed with my wonderful iPhone we found our way through upper Manhattan, past the Columbia Medical School (poor wet med school graduates were running in the rain with their blue and black gowns), and down the length of Broadway to complete my bucket list #6 desire to see Harlem and the Upper West Side.  I'll even end on a Pollyannish note and tell you why getting my car towed from the front of our apartment this morning provided me with a 7th bucket list accomplishment.  As I walked across Brookyn Heights I saw more of the old Brooklyn neighborhoods and ended up a the Brooklyn Navy Yard to retrieve my car.  Walking through the gates and looking at the large warehouses in the distance, I could imagine myself as Rosie the Riveter with my lunch box and job ensuring that those battleships were ready to go to help the troops in WWII.  (Paying an accumulated $415 in tickets and fines is our contribution to the city of New York's fiscal crisis and the increased police presence at Times Square).

Enlightenment and Immigration

I've been fascinated by Lady Liberty since the day I first saw her from our apartment.  She's been out in the harbor 24/7, withstanding all the weather that races from the Delaware Water Gap in the west, and sneaks in on a northeaster wind from the Atlantic.  I wanted to wait to get up close to her until we had beautful warm weather but I almost missed my chance.  It turns out over 4.5 million people want to visit her each year and one has to get a ferry reservation to get out to Bedloe Island and the ferry was nearly booked for the rest of May.  Luckily I found one 9 a.m. slot for Tuesday and luckily the weather turned out to be sunny and cool.  I should also say that luckily I did not get a reservation to the crown, which I had wanted to ascend.  Turns out it is a 22 story hike and I don't think the view would have justified the damage to this old lady's knees.  I climbed to the crown when I was twelve and last visited the statue-I've got to stop thinking I'm still a teenager. I will, however, brag that I walked from our apartment to the ferry landing in Battery Park and had another wonderful excursion across the Brooklyn Bridge and through downtown Manhattan.

Obsessive that I am, I ate up all the facts about the design and construction of the Statue in 1886 in the renovated museum inside the pedestal.  The 350 pieces of copper plate had to be attached to an interior scaffolding that was designed by Eiffel, who modeled it on the structures that were being used for the new architecture of skyscrapers.  The beautiful flowing gown of Liberty was based on a Roman palla attached at the shoulder over a stola and would work out to be 4000 square yards were this really fabric.  I love the way Bertholdi was able to mold hard copper into a flowing gown and I took about 30 pictures from every angle in my obsessive need to capture this.

Bertholdi titled his statue "Liberty Enlightening the World" and he built it to highlight the United States' liberty in contrast to the dictatorships in Europe at that time.  It wasn't until the twentieth century that Emma Lazarus's ode to the "poor, huddled masses yearning to be free" was closely identified with the statue even though she won a competition with the poem when the statue was being built. Since this magnificent statue dominated New York Harbor she greeted the millions of immigrants, mainly from Europe, who gambled to come to the United States in search of political, religious and economic liberty and their passionate recollections of the statue's impact on them led to the Lazarus poem becoming re-connected with the monument.

Ellis Island was became the central immigration gateway to the United States from 1892 to 1924.  (It remained open from 1924 to 1954 but as a detention and deportation center only.)  New Yorkers such as my friend, Lynne Allen, will tell stories of going out to Ellis Island in the 1970's and seeing an eerie scene with abandoned trunks. empty hospital beds, and gigantic cobwebs.  It was as if the ghosts of all these striving newcomers were left behind while their new American bodies moved on to homes not only in New York, but onward to Detroit or Cincinnati, Nashville or Albany.  As a result, 1/3 of our current population, 100 million Americans, can trace their roots back to their one of their forebears' initial sojourn on the island, which typically only took 2-5 hours.   The current National Park Service museum, opened in 1990, has a fascinating exhibit, walking us all through the halls and explaining the steps that these 12 million immigrants faced.  I came away with a positive impression about the experieince and had many myths about mistreatment or harsh conditions corrected.  For example, no one had their name changed by the Immigration inspectors.  They didn't have the capacity to change a name and all the records were based on the ship's manifests which generally always had the correct name and spelling for the passenger.

So now for a wish that Lady Liberty's Enlightenment would extend to immigration policy in 2010.  If the "Americans" who are descended from Ellis Island as well other 19th century immigrants who entered through other ports (as the Alexander's and Kruggel's did) thought about the contributions these generations of migrants made to our country, perhaps we would be less hypocritical about the Mexicans, Columbians, Hondurans, Africans, who drive our cabs and pick our crops and deliver our carry-out food in hopes of also finding the American dream that our 19th century ancestors cashed in on.  I'll close with a quote from Ellis Island that Italian immigrants loved to say:

They say the streets are paved in gold in America

They aren't paved in gold

They aren't paved at all

We're expected to pave them.

Ahoy! A Nautical View from the Eyrie

Every day and night, as I look out on the harbor and the confluence of the East River and the Hudson River I marvel at the wonderful opportunity I've had with this birds-eye view of Manhattan.  There is something happening all the time, day and night, and I never seem to tire of the Staten Island Ferry, or the New York Waterway ferries to New Jersey, or the yellow Water Taxis, or the barges, or the schooner Adirondack.  These water vessels are just a handful compared to the ships, ocean liners, ferries and sailboats that sailed into New York in the 400 years since Henry Hudson explored this area.  (Of course, I can't even touch on how many years the less intrusive canoes piloted by the Lenapes used these waterways for fishing and exploration).

Ships and sailing vessels seem more romantic to me than airplanes ever will even though they served the same purpose.   For thousands of years water-bound vessels allowed men to explore the ends of the earth and to introduce new forms of art, precious metals and jewels, commodities, spices, and agricultural products as well as weapons, slaves, opium and disease to their home countries and to other cultures.  These men would be gone for years at a time, often facing great dangers and uncertainties.  Some of these adventurers would lose their souls, like the  mysterious Dutchman in Wagner's Der Fliegende Hollander, who wanders the sea for an eternity landing on shore only every 7 years.  He has accumulated unimaginable wealth but peace and happiness elude him until Senta sacrifices herself for him and frees him from an eternity wandering the sea.   I loved the way the gigantic looming  hull of his ghost ship overwhelmed the Norwegian dock in the Met's production and the haunting double chorus of the two crews contrasted one groups' free camaraderie with the others' shared mutual despair.

The wonderful exhibition at the New York Public Library called Mapping New York's Shoreline let me see how earlier settlers documented the shore and the streets that I have been walking these past few months.  What a thrill to see Pierrepont Street on a 200 year old map and to identify Brooklyn Heights on even older maps.  Over the 400 years since European boats first made their way into the harbor, looking for that elusive quick route to China, the islands, peninsulas and mainland in this area have been witness to naval battles, clipper ships returning from China, steam boats making their way to the new Erie canal,  millions of immigrants crossing the ocean in the steerage of large ocean liners.  And every decade or two, the shoreline would change to accommodate the new, larger boats or add more warehouses or docks, and Manhattan and Brooklyn would morph to accommodate the human flotsam that came ashore.  My next blog will be on my journey out on these waters to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Until then, let's watch those ships come sailing home in this sunset photo from the Heights.

The Great White Way and 45th Street

My first reaction when I saw news reports showing the green Nissan and the bomb squad was "Whoa, I was just on that corner last week".  In fact, I think I remember the vendor because I had been impressed by his Disabled Vet sign (since my uncle was a disabled WWII vet).  Last Wednesday I went to a performance of Red on 45th Street and two weeks ago I went to a performance of Next To Normal also on 45th.  On the day I went to Red I waited for a long line of school children who were happily heading into The Lion King, exiting a school bus at the exact location that the car I had been parked.  I recount all these memories not just to illustrate the proximity of terrorism to any of us, but also because I've been thinking about Broadway plays and the Great White Way lately.

I'm sure it was a coincidence, but in Sunday's New York Times there was an fascinating article about the competition for theatre space on Broadway and the popularity of 45th and 44th streets because of the high foot traffic there.  Anyone who has been in Times Square recently, on any day of the week, is aware of the incredible crowds.  But in the hour before showtimes, the sidewalks are packed with theatregoers who frequently have to wait until the theatre opens up, often not until 30 minutes or less before showtime.  So when there are  five theatres on one side of the block between 7th and 8th (and four across the street) there are a lot of people standing around. 

On a happier note, I'm going to celebrate the 2010 Tony nominees, especially since I've been fortunate enough to see several of these shows and performers this year.  I've seen two of the four Best Play nominations (Red and Time Stands Still), one of the four Best Revival nominations (A View From the Bridge), two leading actors in a Play (Liev Schreiber in A View and Alfred Molina in Red)  Laura Linney as leading actress in a Play (in Time Stands Still), featured actor in a play (Eddie Redmayne in Red), two featured actresses in a play (Scarlett Johannson and Jessica Hecht in A View From the Bridge).  OK, this may bore you but it makes me happy with how I spent my theatre dollars and I'll be a lot more interested in this year's Tony Awards. 

For Whom the Bell Tolls

On Friday I visited Green-Wood Cemetery-the second oldest "garden" cemetery in the United States and a beautiful 478 acre retreat.  As I approached the magnificent Gothic Revival entrance gate the bell in the tower was tolling.  At first I thought it was because it was noon, but when the bell tolls went way beyond 12 I realized it was to honor that next soul who would be interred on it grounds as another family brought their loved one through the gates.  I've saved that lovely toll on my Facebook page if you care to listen.  This bucolic retreat is set on one of the highest hills in Brooklyn and Battle Hill, at 216 feet is Brooklyn's highest elevation.  Battle Hill is the site of an important Revolutionary War battle in August of 1776, where troops fought unsuccessfully to hold off the overwhelmingly large contingent of British troops and Hessians.  The heights and views from the lovely hill were a major factor in the decision to build a cemetery here in 1838.

As I wandered the grounds, I couldn't help be reflect on the nearly 600,000 souls that were buried here.  There are many famous New Yorkers, and many more who were loved by the small circle of family and friends in whose life they made a difference.  There are beautiful and magnificent vaults and crypts and yet the names of these departed meant very little to me.  As I looked for the tombs of the "famous"  like Leonard Bernstein, or Louis Comfort Tiffany I was surprised at their very basic, simple tombstones.  It was almost a contradiction-if one made a major contribution to art or music there was no reason to erect anything more than a slab of marble with your name on it.  Your work will keep your memory alive.  And if one earned a pile of money but made no lasting contribution, better put up a Greek Temple or Pyramid to remind everyone of how important you think you are. A few weeks ago Greg and I were listening to Beverly Sills sing Norma and I said, I can't imagine that that voice no longer exists and that wonderful singer is just bones and dust.  So as I reflected on how I want to be remembered when my family is deciding on a memorial, I hope it will be a simple marker.  I hope instead there will be charitable actions that remain in their memories (unfortunately there will be no great artistic works or scholarly insights).  But, if I were to have a marble memory left behind, it would be sweet to be remembered the way "Jane" was remembered by her husband on the last day of her life...saying goodbye to him as he left for work.

A Voyeur's Week-Capote and Rothko

This week I was able to spend 90 minutes each with two important American artists and join them in the "studio" where some of their most important work was done.   Of course, both are dead, but if you are willing to pay one can become a ghost voyeur in New York and still mingle with the creative spirit. Last week I shared the day with two great current American leaders; this week I shared the space with two dead American artists for the same amount of time.  I love these coincidences.

Truman Capote lived down Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights from 1955 to 1965 and while here he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's,  In Cold Blood, and many short stories.  He had the good taste and characteristic chutzpa to take the basement apartment at one of the great old houses in Brooklyn that was owned by the wonderful stage designer, Oliver Smith.  Smith designed West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Brigadoon, Camelot and Hello Dolly, among others.  Smith bought the beautiful Van Sinderen high Greek revival house at 70 Willow which was built in 1839 and had been beautifully maintained for all these years.  As Capote tells the story in "A House in the Heights" one evening he sat with Smith on the porch in the rear "completely submerged, as though under a lake of leaves, by an ancient but admirably vigorous vine weighty with grapelike bunches of wisteria."  They shared several martinis and Smith began to see Capote's point: "yes, twenty-eight rooms were rather a lot; and yes, it only seemed fair that I should have some of them."  So yes, it only seemed right that I support the Brooklyn Heights Association and spend money to sit on Monday evening in the same house, looking out over the same porch and wisteria, and hear a local author and a local actress read from Breakfast at Tiffany's.  The house was beautiful, with a three story staircase "floating upward in white, swan-simple curves to a skylight of sunny amber-gold glass" and the readings, accompanied by guitar and "Moon River" sung by a local chanteuse, would have pleased Truman.  I had just finished reading The Heights, a novel written by our local author/reader Peter Hedges.  Peter's book received an poorly conceived, less than favorable review in Sunday's New York Times Book Review, and as he read Capote I thought about the painful exposure artists are subject to once they move their creations out of the safety of their studio into the cruel world of critics.

Mark Rothko , the "abstract expressionist" painter depicted in the new play Red, described the pain of exposing his work to the world like a parent sending their child into a playground with razor sharp dangers. This afternoon I sat with him and his assistant in his studio in 1958 as he worked on the exquisite "Red" series of murals that he originally was going to place in the Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram's Building as a commission for the architects Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe.  Greg and I saw these evocative paintings in the "new" Tate Museum when we were in England in 2007 and were pulled into each painting, feeling more than seeing a color that was more than red (black, brown, maroon, mauve ) in these all-enveloping abstract paintings.  So to be allowed to watch their creation and listen to Alfred Molina, as Rothko, challenge us to understand painting was an honor-even if I did have to pay for it.  The play takes the audience through the creation of a painting, from the stretching of the canvas, to the mixing of colors, to just looking at its stages of creation.   In one memorable scene Rothko and his assistant prime the canvas in a wild dance of color and movement and one could see multiple shades of red evolve with the soaring music of an opera.  We also are exposed to Rothko's imperiousness, huge intellect, solipsistic viewpoint and disdain for the general, non-art public.  I learned a lot, from the safety of my voyeur's seat in Row O, Seat 16, and will carry his lessons with me in my future visits to MOMA.  Molina and the young actor Eddie Redmayne gave riveting performances and were supported by the almost alive series of the Red "Seagrams" mural.

"Where Do We Get Such Men?"

On Thursday I had a rather unique, coincidental, experience of seeing two great Americans on the same day. In the morning I witnessed President Obama's entry to Manhattan for his speech at Cooper Union on the pending legislation for financial reform of Wall Street.  The East River heliport is directly opposite our apartment and my ears first noted that there were no incoming helicopters.  It's odd how a lack of noise can be a sound in itself.  I glanced outside and noticed a few police boats and then realized that they must be prepping for Obama's visit.  I watched the preparations for over 90 minutes, standing much of the time with my camera at the ready. More boats and even a Coast Guard cutter assembled.  Periodically a NYPD helicopter surveyed the area.   I assumed that if his speech was at 11:05 (as indicated on the White House web site) he'd land around between 10 and 10:30 but I discovered that Presidents can arrive when they want to, and his helicopter didn't land until around 11:30 (unfortunately my camera clock is not set properly so I don't have the accurate time).  I had waited so long, and so patiently, that I called Greg excitedly when the first green army helicopters (shown on the right) landed and told him Obama had landed.  Then I went to use the toilet, which I had put off for 90 minutes, only to hear the chop, chop, chop of new helicopters.  I realized "holy moley...those weren't the presidential helicopters I saw" and rushed back out in disarray to take several photos of the more impressive presidential helicopters.  The photo is from a distance and everyone looks like little dots.  But this is a digital picture and I can zoom in and see an out- of-focus Obama stepping off the helicopter.  The disturbing realization was that if I could zoom in on our President with a Nikon D80, it would be easier than we'd like to think for someone in any of these apartments to zoom in with something more sinister.  Obama is just getting his stride and accomplishing great things- I truly believe he will have an historic presidency but worry that he will be harmed and not able to complete his destiny. 

Thursday evening I went up to the 92nd Street Y to hear a conversation between General David Petraeus and Richard Haas (of the Council on Foreign Relations).  The "conversation" was introduced by Richard Holbrook, the current special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.  This was an excellent opportunity to get updated on the current situation from the perspective of the military and the Obama administration.  I had read an excellent overview of Petraeus by Mark Bowden in the current issue of Vanity Fair prior to the event so I had a bit more appreciation for this military leader than I would have otherwise.  The 92nd Street Y is not Fox News and the audience are typically New York liberals.  There were a handful of protesters outside.   Yet Petraeus is an impressive, thoughtful, intelligent military leader who firmly believes in his counter-insurgency stragegy and with it  transparency and respect for the civilian.  Earlier this week I caught Dexter Filkins on NPR's Fresh Air with Terri Gross.  Filkin's is a NY Times war correspondent and I've always been impressed with his dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan and I was especially impressed by one observation on Fresh Air.  Filkins talked about being imbedded with a unit in the current Marjan offensive.  This platoon had just missed being blasted by an IED.  Yet while these young men were talking to local citizens, Filkins says they were impeccably courteous and respectful.  Filkins said it was dramatic evidence of how the new counter-insurgency policy was being transmitted all the way down the lines. Having heard this very dramatic story on Tuesday, I was prepared to be impressed by Petraeus on Thursday.  And I was-he was humble, funny, forthright and used a lot of Power Points!  I'm sure this was a big public relations campaign but it was very effective. I know some of my readers believe we should withdraw immediately, but I am prepared to respect the judgment of President Obama, David Petraeus, Richard Holbrook and Hillary Clinton on the very dangerous political/military situation in that volatile part of the world.

The title for this blog entry was taken from the Bridges of Toko-ri and used by the President of the 92nd Street Y when he introduced David Petraeus.  From what I've learned about him recently, I was inclined to agree with the rhetorical question.  But not everyone does, and when he moved to his next sentence "I'm proud to introduce General David Petraeus" a young man two rows in front of me jumped up and shouted "War Criminal!"  His outburst was not appreciated by the liberal audience, which says something for the respect in which the 92nd Street Y was willing to have for this conversation.

Weekend in Brooklyn Heights and Lincoln Center and Times Square-

1834 Federal Home at 134 Joralemon

This weekend Greg and I participated in three of our favorite activities.  Friday evening we went to dinner at Cafe Luxembourg for steak frites and profiteroles (hot fudge Sundae for Greg) followed by a concert at Lincoln Center featuring Ricardo Muti and the New York Philharmonic.  The concert was good, but not great and Greg was tired so we left at the intermission.  This was a fortuitous decision because the 1-2-3 line was totally shut down going downtown and it was pouring rain.  We were able to find the single cab that was available.  Had we left at 10 with the regular crowd we might still be wandering forlorn and waterlogged on the Upper West Side.

Saturday I went (solo) to a matinee performance of Next to Normal.  This musical won several Tony's last year and just won the Pulitzer Prize this week.  I got my seats from the convenient Brooklyn office ofTKTS and had fantastic third row seats.  The plot involves the highs and lows of a family of four whose mother suffers from bipolar illness as well as other mental disabilities that are slowly revealed during the play.  Alice Ripley won a Tony for her portrayal of the mother, Diana, and she was electric in this performance as were the entire cast.  Watching the entire family deal with the pain and uncertainty that accompanies this illness hit home for me and I had teary eyes and a tight throat from the opening scenes.  I can't imagine how Alice Ripley exposes Diana's emotional roller coaster 8 times a week; her performance was amazing.

1893 Queen Anne-Hicks Row

Sunday Greg and I went on a guided walk of Brooklyn Heights with an architect who provided us with both explanations of the different styles that can be found in BH, the history of the neighborhood, and an appreciation for the efforts of the historic preservationists who saved this neighborhood during the mid 20th century from both Robert Moses' plans for the BQE expressway and real estate developers' goals to tear down the history and build up new apartments. So now on our cigar walks we'll be able to compare the authentic Federal with the Greek Revival, Italianate, Renaissance Revival, Queen Anne, Romanesque and ultimately the dreaded "re-muddled" Brownstones.

 Greek Revival 120 Willow

Soprano Sorceress Bewitches Ithaca Country Mouse

Monday evening was my last Met premiere for the year and the evening was a wonderful combination of beautiful sound, vibrant color, and exciting star-sighting.  If I am using rather simplistic vocabulary for this entry, I think it's because I've been overwhelmed and intimidated by the opera cognescenti who have posted on blogs about Renee Fleming's performance in Rossini's Armida.  While I've linked to some of the opinions on a new opera blog that I've learned about called Parterre, I prefer to tell you that I really enjoyed the performance although it was not my favorite Renee Fleming performance-I think Rusalka takes that honor.  I also am not a fan of coloratura and trills, preferring a radiant, straight vocal line in lyrical passages.  Armida is a demanding role which requires both lyrical singing and extensive coloratura which runs from high notes to low.   Renee Fleming bewitched me with her performance and Anthony Tommasini agrees that the Armida belongs at the Met and with Renee Fleming they have the right soprano for a soprano's tour de force.

The Mary Zimmerman production used fantastic color and exotic costumes to create the seductive world of a sorceress's island during the Crusades. ( I've been transported to a number of islands and sorcery this year with Armida-on a grand Met scale and The Tempest-on a clever BAM scale.)  The first act juxtaposed blinding white walls with glimpses of fortresses and golden minarets in the background.  The Crusaders were dashing in their long red robes with gold helmets. I could imagine this taking place in some of the ruins we saw in Acre Israel-before 1000 years had diminshed their majesty.  Unfortunately, the Times' photo slide show does not capture any photos from the first act, so you'll have to take my word for it.  The magnificent scrim which featured a brilliant blue storm tossed ocean is also not in any photo-alas-it makes me want to cheat and take photos at the performance.   But if you view the slide show you'll see lots of Armida's sorcery and the magic that Zimmerman designed for this new production. 

I went solo to this premiere so what did Greg miss?  He missed six (count them-6!) excellent tenors and the only tenor Trio in all of opera. He missed a second act ballet that I loved but would have bored him.  He missed my excited star sighting:  Christine Baranski AND Julianna Margulies of The Good Wife were both right next to me and I could check out their make-up, hair and dresses up close. ( I have to confess that it was great fun when I heard Julianna introduce her husband to a mutual friend since when she said "This is my husband" it sounded just like a line from The Good Wife.  And she is really beautiful).  And had Greg attended he would have reminded to me bring my opera glasses which I lost.  I bet Armida whisked them away when I wasn't looking.

Uncle Vanya

A blended family tries to co-exist under one roof in a country estate.  There is a lot of tension, aggravated by unreasonable expectations, deferred dreams, financial worries, spinsterhood, aging and declining health.  The dialogue is all in Russian and the stage consists merely of "space" and doors, a table, and chairs.  Yet this was one of the best plays that Greg and I have seen and definitely the best Chekov production that we've seen (and we've seen two other highly reviewed productions of The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard in the past five years.)  It has stayed with us and engendered much thought and even anxiety.  We've seen these people before and felt their pain.

The production of Uncle Vanya at BAM was by the Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg and the Russian cast obviously had Chekov in their blood.  We found that listening to the Russian while reading the supertitles added to our appreciation of Chekov's lyricism.  We were amazed at how topical this play, first performed in 1889, remains.  Vanya has managed his family's estate at the expense of his own ambition, loyally and resentfully sending proceeds to support his brother-in-law, Professor "Alexander" Serebriakov.  Professor Alexander is adored by all the women-Vanya's mother, his niece Sonya, and Alexander's second wife Elena, the woman Vanya realizes he has loved for years. (Alexander had been married to Vanya's sister and Sonya's mother who died).  Professor Alexander is sick with gout and arthritis, unhappy in his retirement, and faced with the realization that after all these years in academia no one really cares about his work. Ouch.  Meanwhile, the family friend Doctor Astrov is falling in love with Elena and is loved by plain Sonya, who has also sacrificed her life to support her father.  Astrov  also has a passion for helping people through his medicine and as an environmentalist, but despairs that no one cares about what will happen to their world in  100 years.  The peasants and landowners are just ekeing out their existence in the moment. And the audience, 100 years from the time of the play was written, know that his fears were justified.

The director, Lev Dodin, wrote a beautiful commentary in the program which I'll quote here because I can't do the play justice:  "Life flows by, and sooner or later a man begins to see his years lived as a treasure he didn't manage to put to good use. He starts to see visions of other possible but unlived lives.  In these other lives all his secret dreams come true, all his hopes are fulfilled, all his sweetest fantasies become real.  The man furiously burns up the past, denies the present, and gives himself completely to this other life which he could have lived, but didn't manage to.  The fuller the man undestands life, the sharper he feels this gap, this contradiction which grows into a tragedy.  Time goes by and gradually you are faced with a choice-to either refuse this life completely, or to find courage to live out the life given to you by God and fate, which you've been carrying out-alone-with your will power and personality. (My italics).

This is a  tragi-comedy and there were certainly many lighter moments in the play.   Finally,though, it is Sonya's faith and resilience that ends the play with a vision of the courage that Chekov says is required to live in this world. 

Practice Makes Perfect-A Tale of Multiple Conductors and Great Orchestras

One advantage of attending so many musical productions is that I am slowly learning more about the art and business of classical music.  Last week the big news in the opera world was the disappointing performance by the conductor Leonard Slatkin in La Traviata. Apparently he even admitted on his blog that he didn't know the entire score so that at the first performance that he conducted he had his principal stars, Angelina Gheorgiu and Thomas Hampson desperately looking back at the orchestra to try to understand why he was wreaking havoc with the tempo.  "I have seldom heard such faulty coordination between a conductor and a cast at the Met" said the Times critic Anthony Tommasini .  That was enough for Greg, who promptly decided to back out of going to La Traviata with me...or perhaps the fact that the Final Four was on the same evening that he used this as an excuse.  So once again I was able to take a more appreciative Beth to our favorite 3 handkerchief romantic opera.  That first performance was on Monday evening (3/29).  Slatkin withdrew from future productions and so on Saturday (4/3) Beth and I were able to see a good production conducted by the workhorse Marco Armiliato who had to conduct Aida that same day. Since I was paying attention to the drama behind the change in conductors,  I was able to appreciate how difficult it must be to conduct La Traviata and how carefully the conductor must balance Verdi's music, which can have an Oom-pah-pah quality, with the dramatic arias that make this opera so famous.  Apparently this event got Thommasini to also ponder how one's Verdi "chops" can be tested by La Traviata in an intriguing follow-up article. 

Perhaps Antonio Pappano wanted to ensure that he didn't suffer the same fate that befell Slatkin for he was intensively demanding at the New York Philharmonic Open Rehearsal that I attended Wednesday (4/7)  This was the fourth open rehearsal I've attended this year (and the fourth conductor) and Pappano was by far the most particular as he worked through the piece with the members of the orchestra.  Pappano is the principal conductor for the Royal Covent Opera and has an excellent reputation.  He continually challenged the orchestra and made them stop and repeat sections over and over again.  This meant that the audience didn't get to hear a full, uninterrupted performance but in many ways this was a fuller experience for me because I could hear important sections repeated.  And since this was Brahm's Symphony #4 in E minor I loved to hear it repeated over and over again.  But I marvelled at the orchestra.  How they could pick up at "Bar 115"  or "Bar 142" and have all the instruments in sync with each other?  You'd think someone would miss a beat or hit the wrong note.  But I sure didn't hear it.  Pappano was pushing for subtleties in expression and sound that one could expect from a world class orchestra and,  as I later learned from the review,  for an operatic lyricism.  I wish I could have seen the actual performance but was happy to have heard this rehearsal.

And then, the other news was that James Levine, one of our favorite conductors, is once again waylaid with a bad back and will have to cancel numerous performances, including I fear the opening night at Tanglewood to which we had just purchased tickets.  Reading about the details of his contract with both the Met and the Boston Symphony, and about how they are now scrambling for substitute conductors, emphasized for me how each performance that I see requires the efforts of many performers and administrators.  I will think very carefully about going to a concert to see one performer in the future; I will make my decision based on multiple factors to protect against disappointment when a specific performer is a no-show.  But I've also learned that these great musical institutions (The Met, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony) are so professional that they can survive these setbacks.

An Easter Triduum

It has only been in the past several years that I've rediscovered the rituals of the beautiful Easter Triduum that are at the center of my Catholic faith and traditions.  The three days that begin with Holy Thursday, continue through Good Friday and are completed with the Easter celebration commemorate the soul of our faith.  I thought that I would be unable to share in this tradition this year, since I wasn't in Ithaca where I am used to attending services.  But I discovered three wonderful services that brought fresh insights and new understanding for me.  I was drawn to these services for superficial, secular, reasons-they promised good music.  I left them fulfilled because of the messages that the congregations and celebrants shared with me.

For Holy Thursday I celebrated the Mass of the Lord's Supper at the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Chelsea, pictured above.  I was struck by what a beautiful church this was the minute I walked in the door.  The choir and music director had a  program of music that suited the Mass making it both intimate and majestic: the prelude of the Samuel Barber's Adagio for Stings, played on the organ was movingly appropriate for the occasion.  When the procession began it included wonderfully diverse members of the congregation led by a woman who carried the incense in a large silver bowl.  She wore a flowing white gown, and bare feet, and could have been Mary Magdalene at the Last Supper.  One of the highlights of the Mass of the Lord's Supper is the commemorative Washing of Feet.  I'm used to seeing the priest choose 12 members of the congregation as he alone recreated Jesus' act.  But on this night chairs were set up all around the church and we all particpated (or those who chose to).  We stood in line and after we washed someone's foot we would sit down and have our foot washed.  For the first time I really felt an active participant in the tradition that began at the first Lord's supper.  The remainder of the service continued with this combination of wonderful music, active participation by all the congragation, and a living liturgy.

On Good Friday I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral for a service titled The Seven Last Word's.  Once again I was attracted for superficial reasons because there was to be music and the timing was good for me.  Imagine my surprise when I looked at the program and learned it was to be "three hours reflection on the passion and death of Jesus Christ."  I started to make plans for a quiet escape after an hour. Yet I stayed for the entire three hours and reflected and meditated in a more intensive way than I have at any other Good Friday service.   My meditation began that morning when I tried to determine what Jesus' seven last words were.  Like many Catholics, I haven't studied the Bible well and when I began to review the four versions of the Passion (by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) I realized the tremendous difference in their accounts.  Last year I read What the Gospels Meant by Gary Wills and it was the first time I truly appreciated how each of the accounts was developed during the early years of the church.  So on Good Friday, having taken a close look at the four different accounts of the Crucifixion, the meditations offered by Archbishop Dolan made a greater impact.  The service was broken into seven parts and each part was introduced by excerpts from these passion stories-most from John but one each from Mark and Luke.  After "The First (or Second, or Third) Word(s) there would be a response, a reflection, music by the choir, and music that the congregation participated in.  The choir performed selections from a piece by Cesar Franck titled The Seven Last Words

It seemed fated that Greg would decide he wanted to go to an Easter service that included music and he chose the Church of St. Francis Xavier as our destination.  Beth had spent the night with us and so the three of us had an early breakfast and headed back up to Chelsea.  It was a glorious,warm, perfect spring day.  We arrived a bit early and dallied over coffee nearby.  That was almost a mistake because when we returned the church was completely filled-but Someone was taking care of us because we found three folding chairs on the side that offered us the best view of the service and the choir.  Once again the congregation and the Jesuit priest who conducted the service were glowing with joy and it was contagious.  We soon learned why-the Triduum were the first services conducted in the newly restored church.  They had just completed a massive campaign to renovate and restore a 130 year old church.  What a magnificent job they did and we were so moved by their beautiful Easter service.  I'll close with one of my favorite moments-the choral rendering of the Psalm 118 was done by their music director, John Uehlein.  He just beamed as his chorus sang his notes with such energy and joy and the entire congregation joined in to proclaim:  "Today is the day and now is the time for joy and gladness and the great I AM."