Next Fall Nominated for TONY!

"Next Fall," a play I have been touting for some time as one of the most underrated theatrical experiences of the year, has just been nominated for a Tony. I am delighted. It is up against some pretty tough competition, including: 1) "Red," the play about Mark Rothko, by John Logan; 2) Sarah Ruhl's "In the next room or the vibrator play," and 3) Donald Margulies "Time Stands Still," which featured an all-star cast led by Laura Linney. Now it just so happens that I have seen all these plays, except the Margulies, though I did just see an older play of his called "Collected Stories" that I thought was great. Still, unless "Time stands still" is amazing, then in my humble opinion "Next Fall" deserves to win. Unfortunately, I don't think it will, as "Red" appears to be the strong front runner this year. It is a fine, glittering production, with terrific performances from Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his assistant. It epitomizes what a really flashy play does. And who doesn't love flashy.

"Next Fall" on the other hand is a gentle, funny, emotionally stirring play about the most ordinary people and how they relate to each other. It's about a gay couple struggling to get along and it has strong religious undertones because one of the people in the relationship is a fundamentalist and the other is an agnostic. When one lover gets into a fatal accident, the families and friends of the respective partners clash. But, really, what makes this play so beautiful is how simple and true it is. Simple and true. Ought to trump flashy every time.

Boots Stretched Here

I was riding along in the shuttle that goes from Wagner College to the Staten Island Ferry when I saw one of those fold up sidewalk signs standing outside an old hardware store. It read simply: "Boots Stretched Here." I couldn't help thinking about this marvelous and unusual service. Just when those new boots of yours are getting intolerably uncomfortable, you can always walk right into that old hardware store, quietly remove them from your stinging feet, and ask for a stretch. Who Knows? Maybe there are levels of stretches. A short stretch for five bucks and a long stretch for 15. Maybe even a super-sized stretch for 25. And there would have to be an overnight stretch for a cool 50.

I don't know about you, but such thoughts do make my imagination run. How about a sign that says "Backs Scratched Here." For a buck you could enjoy a quick scratch and for another sawbuck they'll find that unreachable spot that has been driving you crazy and give it a good rub.

I would buy from a clothing store that displayed a sign saying "Clothes Tried On Here." Imagine someone exactly your size who for a price would try on all those pants and shirts that you ordinarily have to go into the dressing room for. Then you have to come out to show your companion the fit, then return for another try on. With someone else trying on your clothes, the agony of clothes shopping would ease considerably.

Best of all might be a strange and imposing storefront bearing the tagline "Ideas Tested Here." You could go in there and mention solar energy or charter schools or world government and they would give each of these noble ideas a good test. How this would be done, I have no idea. But it would be reassuring to have a place where you could go to test your ideas, whatever they might be. You have to keep the faith. If they can stretch your boots, surely they can give your ideas a good spin around the analytical block.

Who's Vulnerable

As I disembarked from the Staten Island Ferry the other day, I walked alongside an elderly man who moved with a pronounced limp and was bent over like a partially opened jackknife. He had red bruises all over his face, and his chin and jaw were grizzled and weather beaten. He didn't smile or reveal any delight in his eyes or face at all and his movements suggested that every step brought at least a little bit of pain, and perhaps even a lot. He didn't say anything and kept his head steady and straight, looking neither right nor left. He clearly was going someplace, but it was hard to tell if he was heading off for work or to see a sick relative or to take the ride back to Manhattan on the ferry. He looked unhappy, ill, unsatisfied, and vulnerable. But at the same time he also looked tough, resilient, and game. Are all these qualities possible at the same time? Can someone be vulnerable and yet resilient? Unhappy yet game. Unsatisfied yet determined?

Of course. We're human. We're frustratingly mysterious and made up of hundreds of contradictions and tensions. But we're also unencompassable. We contain multitudes.

The end of the world

The cover story of the latest issue of The New Republic offers Nine Scenarios for Imminent Apocalypse (And Only One is Global Warming). Some of the others include ocean acidification, extinction rates, land and water use, ozone depletion (I thought we resolved that one), and something about a disruption in the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. The New Yorker, also this week, points to nuclear proliferation as the likeliest cause of our imminent demise. In fact, the New Yorker warns that if Wall Street were to be hit by a nuclear bomb, the worst thing you could do is escape to Long Island, something Long Islanders, even without the threat of nuclear holocaust, have been discovering to their dismay now for decades.

In any case, despite my admiration for these august periodicals, I think they both have it all wrong. To my relief, anyway, the end of the world is still a few hundred years off, but when it does come it won't be the result of climate change or nuclear war or even ocean acidification (as bad as that sounds). No, it will happen because contrary to previous forecasts, human skin is getting increasingly thinner, not thicker, and over a surprisingly short period of time, as people confront each other with more and more teasing, abuse, mockery, and sheet meanness, our skin will become so thin, so attenuated, so insubstantial that people will suffer en masse from epidermal insufficiency. Our skin will become so thin that it will no longer be able to contain us, and, worst of all, as we grope in vain for that dangling tissue and sinew that no longer have any place to go, the infinite pleasures of being comfortable in one's own skin will finally be denied us forever.

The van Gogh I don't know

Van Gogh was a great, visionary expressionist artist who was also mentally unstable. He had few friends, lived for his art, and mainly cared about producing as many good pictures as possible. He came to art late and basically taught himself how to paint. His favorite subjects were still lifes, landscapes, and portraits. At one point in his life, after he and Gauguin had spent a fair amount of time together in Arles, he became so unhinged that he disfigured himself. He shot himself in 1890 and died without ever having sold any of his paintings.

The above is pretty much what I think I know about van Gogh. I'm actually not sure if it's all even accurate. I'll check later. But I went to a lecture about van Gogh and Gauguin at Arles the other day at the MET and was a little surprised to learn how relationally needy van Gogh was and how much he craved the companionship of people like Gauguin, especially Gauguin.

The lecturer, an art historian from Sarah Lawrence College named Jerrilyn Dodds, spoke very movingly about van Gogh's fervent hope that Gauguin would join him at Arles so that they could paint together and develop a closer friendship. In a letter from May 1888, van Gogh writes to Gauguin:

"And that it would seem to me that if I could find another painter inclined to work in the South, and who, like myself, would be sufficiently absorbed in his work to be able to resign himself to living like a monk who goes to the brothel once a fortnight - who for the rest is tied up in his work, and not very willing to waste his time, it might be a good job. Being all alone, I am suffering a little under this isolation."

Clearly, it was about the chance to do even better work in Gauguin's presence, but it was also about van Gogh's considerable need for some kind of professional and personal relationship. And for van Gogh, the stakes were high. One author has said that he was both exhilarated and anxious about the prospect of Gauguin's arrival, but that his concern that the prickly Gauguin would end up not liking the arrangement continued to heighten until Gauguin finally did agree to share a house with van Gogh. Van Gogh became obsessed both with the desire to work side by side with Gauguin and the growing certainty that Gauguin would come to hate such a partnership. It could easily be surmised, that to invest so much emotion in what seemed like an interesting but hardly life changing decision was asking for trouble. Some nine weeks after Gauguin arrived in Arles and the relationship between the two artists had deteriorated badly, van Gogh first confronted Gauguin with a razor blade and then would use that same blade to cut off the lower part of his left ear lobe. They never saw each other again.

We have bike storage!

A sensational thing has happened. It is the fulfillment of all our New York dreams. With this new development, we now feel we have achieved authentic status as Manhattan residents. We have bike storage!

Yes, it's true, deep in the bowels of our apartment building our two bikes now hang from their front wheels in their assigned spaces - Numbers 64 and 80. We have a special electronic key that buzzes us in, allowing us to retrieve our bikes from this surprisingly spacious storage area, and then either tuck them into the elevator for the ride to the ground floor, or just haul them the short, single flight up. No more clutter for us. No more struggling to keep the bikes from dirtying our clean floors. No more stuffing them into elevators for the 6 flights down.

Best of all, our bikes are now completely protected from the elements. No more rusted chains. No more corroded brake lines. No more winter dirt caked on to the handlebars and the seats. We now have bikes that can last and storage that can not be taken away from us for as long as we live in our building. And now that we have bike storage, there's just no chance we'll be leaving any time soon. But I gotta make this short. I have some bike riding to do! And after that, the fun of putting my bike back into my own special storage space.

What Really Matters?

Philosophers and many other less sophisticated thinkers have been wondering for a long time - What Really Matters? What makes life worth living? What are the fundamental things that apply? I, too, as one of those less sophisticated thinkers, have been thinking about this for some time, and while enjoying my second spring in New York City, I think I have discovered the answer. The answer is trees. Trees are the thing that really matters. Trees are what makes life worth living. Trees are the fundamental things that apply. They prevent erosion and help to balance the ecosystem. Through photosynthesis, they provide oxygen and reduce the carbon dioxide in the air. They are major providers of food, and they are the key to any large-scale landscaping design. They often contribute an appealing fragrance to the air. They offer shade, and they are, by far, the most efficient users of solar energy in the world. The leaves of trees also have a way of reflecting the sun's rays to create a particularly brilliant and appealing effect.

In a place like New York City, trees are a must. They help to clean the air, but on an everyday basis, they make the city more beautiful, habitable, and striking. There is nothing quite like the contrast between a street lined with apartment buildings with no trees, and a street that has been carefully designed with trees all along the curb. Central Park, of course, is a magnet for many reasons, but most of all, I think, for its tremendous number of trees in so many different varieties. Trees provide relief from the urban landscape. As I have said before elsewhere in this blog, New York City would be impossible without Central Park. And Central Park would be impossible without its trees. It thus follows, at least for New Yorkers anyway, trees are the thing that really matters.