Chronicles Continued

Theatre Development Fund or how to afford all those Broadway/show tickets. You can join from anywhere, not just living in the City, you have to prove you are retired or an actor and they offer tickerts all day long on their website at deeply, I repeat, deeply discounted prices.  It s a tremendous resource for an actor.  Attending productions with great actors, or even seeing lousy productions is all informative.  If you are in the City and go to their kiosk on Times Square you can buy same-day tickets at 30-50% cheaper.

Ask me, just ask me if I’ve been to the theatre:  Night is a Room,   Incident at Vichy, Allegiance,  Old Times,   Fun Home,   King Charles III,   Sylvia,   Fool for Love,  Therese Raquin,  The Humans, Ripcord,  Something Rotten,   Lost Girls,  Travels with My Aunt, Cinderella – which I loved! and doesn’t get enough publicity.  Did I miss something? Yes, the Gin Game. The Flick. Hard Love

Coming up- A View from the Bridge, Nora, Dear Elizabeth, Kill Floor, The Great Divorce… did I miss anything?

The driver’s face, could not be seen.  The passenger was wearing one of those scare-scream masks and otherwise was all in black,  It was the perfect combo, and that at 10:30 pm.

The fire hydrant sized FDNY person, the family of four decked out in Star Wars, waiting for an outdoors table at the restaurant next door.  The numerous comic book characters, the lions, dogs, short skirts, gutted stomachs, bandaged heads, bloody faces, duct tape in unusual places, smallest of fairies, largest of heroes, they were all present.  It made walking down the street an enjoyment, not knowing who was going to show at the next rounded corner.  I loved the guy who asked me to guess who he was.  He was wearing a lion suit, and although I was sober and he not so much, he had to tell me he was the gentle lion from the Wizard of Oz.  Don’t know what about the costume wasn’t obvious.  I guessed, a Lion King Leftover, that pleased him – not so much.  We were both watching the car that looks like it is driving out of the grave- is it Freddy or Nightmare on Elm?  Someone altered a car and there it was.  We were in awe, but more so when it drove away.  Will post picture, taken in the dark.

Realized that it doesn’t happen on the subway because there is not consistent WiFi in the travelling cars; how wonderful is that.  Now and then someone plays their music too loud but other than that, subway riders are respectful of the noise level.  The Bus however is another story.  How often one has to listen to a conversation, until they can’t stand it anymore and have to suggest the person ‘lower the volume’.  The other day it occurred to me, after watching a woman speaking softly into her phone, so as not to be an annoyance, only 20 years ago she and every other phone conversation holder would have been labeled for crazy.  How our idea of what is ‘normal’ is changed.  How easy it should be to ‘go with the flow’, go with changes, rather than digging our feet in, as if the way it has always been is the only way.  We humans!

Looking after two small dogs is an easy job.  At home they are well-behaved and fun little companions.  Out on the street, it is a revelation of human behavior.  We three were out walking and ahead on the sidewalk, about 50 feet were two dogs on leashes, held by a robust middle aged woman.  The dogs were not large, and my dogs were curious.  Most of the time, I avoid all interaction, and cross the street.  I am thinking of doing that as I near the three who are in conversation with a fourth person at an outside table.  My dogs are just nosing along when suddenly her dogs go into frantic antics of barking, growling and straining at the collar.  She immediately becomes all huffy herself [imagine a bird puffing out it’s feathers] and says something to the effect of “Oh My, what are your dogs aggressive.”  It was a remarkable comment, for I had noted her watching us approach.  I heard her complimenting my two charges to her friend, but the minute her two became aggressive she flipped it around to make it look like my dogs had started it all.  ‘What a way to go through life,’ I muttered, as one car length before reaching her, I moved to the street and walked away.

I also realize City dogs will never experience the ‘chasing of cars’.  That ridiculous behavior dogs used to have when they were unleashed and would run out in the street to bark at the turning wheels of a passing car.  They did it as if their very lives depended on it.

Stood outside the Computer store, early morning, waiting for the opening time.  A truck pulls up to the curb.  The lone driver gets out and walks to the back of the truck; opens doors and starts to set building materials on the sidewalk.   Watch him do this and suddenly he drops a gallon bucket of paint.  The lid jumps off the rim of the can.  The can lands on it’s side and immediately thick white paint flows out.  He looks at it.  No movement.  After 10 seconds, or more, he reaches down and picks up the paint container and puts it back in the truck.  He shuts the doors and returns to the driver’s seat.  Behind the wheel he sits for another minute. I cannot tell if he is on the phone.  He engages the engine and drives off.  He has left a wet puddle of paint for some unsuspecting car to run through.  Imagine the driver’s  surprise when they arrive home and find paint on the left rear tire, wheel and fender.

This was the scene next to me before the call to curtain.  All these little old ladies, who were there together, were not speaking with each other, but checking their electronic devices.

The City loves it’s Holidays and Halloween is up there with the most revered.  There will be lots of partying: in all the parks – daytime for the kiddies, evening for the somewhat older-, in the Villages and Neighborhoods, in bars, at homes, on the streets, every place imaginable.  It will be a mad house as the holiday lands on Saturday night. This is the night you don’t know if the uniformed policeman on the subway is real or fake.  A few other professions will also have the cover of costume. Saturday night amplifies the event and this will be my first Saturday night Halloween.  AND Sunday is the turn-the-clocks-back-day so everyone will stay out an hour later.  Of course there are those participants that have to get up for the Marathon on Sunday. They don’t want to be an hour late; they could conceivably miss the start.  It is a busy, busy weekend in the City.  It is in the air on the waves and surging around one’s ankles walking, it feels like liquid energy.

 

Once again, under-the-turnstile.  Fortunately for me, there was only one man standing on the platform.  He looked, at my face, the color of my hair, what I had in my hands, as I was squatting on my knees to pass under the bar and then just turned away.  My ticket had malfunctioned and the train was coming.  They only come once every 10 minutes on that line.  What’s a body to do?