Disappearing Acts
Before: Thirty years ago I thought, This is too good to be true the first time I laid eyes on the view from my living room window. The overcast day could not disguise the miles and miles of sky that unfurled. That, combined with the space of 5 rooms sold me. My spouse at the time hadn’t...
Random Thoughts on Mortality
1) Woke up from a dream involving my ex. I and some friends and strangers found him sprawled on a divan in what seemed an abandoned office building. Like a pieta he was sprawled, and looked the way he had at the end of his life—thin, riddled with Karposi’s sarcoma, listless. 2) No surprise, but...
Did she jump or was she pushed?
It’s every commuter’s nightmare. Though actually there are several: the train stops just outside the station and sits for what seems like hours. Someone pulls the emergency cord. You discover that you’re trapped in a car from 125th to Columbus Circle with a religious zealot spewing a bottomless pit of bigotry laced with profound stupidity....
Manhattan on the Rocks
Looks like we survived the week. What an advantage we have living on top of a hill; still, it’s tree-heavy here. A stroll through our neighborhood revealed the carnage of both broken limbs and major uprootings. Meanwhile New York rises from the ashes. The trick for them: drain the tunnels, get the subway and buses...
Finding a suit, and myself
Like all great romances it started slowly. First it was underwear; later I graduated to socks and ties, little wardrobe resuscitators for a single guy on a budget. I found myself returning, a little shy, but intrigued, wondering if this was the way out of my J. Crew-Gap-Thrift Shop-Army-Navy fashion esthetic. After all I’d become...
Summer’s Lease
The giveaway happened this morning. It came in the form of a sneeze—several, actually, all so forceful that my coffee flew out of my cup into my face. No burns, only embarrassed, accompanied by NY1’s confirmation of my suspicions: ragweed had launched its ugly spores into the air. Zyrtec, take me away. In this way...
Why my heart doesn’t go dancing
Is April the kindest, or the cruelest month? The party line affirms the first: it’s the time of rebirth when saucer magnolias pop their tragic blooms, crocuses and tulips sprout, warm weather hints and Easter descends, toting tales of resurrection. I’m not feeling it, which makes me wonder if I ever have. Chocolate bunnies excepted,...
Dory Previn, Lyricist, 1925-2012
All ten year-old tragedians need a soundtrack. Mine was the Theme from Valley of the Dolls, that heartbreaking ballad from the film that starred Barbara Parkins, Sharon Tate and Patty Duke. I had no idea that the song was meant to underscore the film heroine’s descent into pill addiction (I thought Parkins, Tate and...
Where do broken hearts go: Whitney Houston 1963-2012
I heard the news last night before bed, and forgot about it. Then I woke up too early and, as I sat in front of the TV, the news scroll reminded me. Still it’s vague, I’m in denial until I walk down to my building’s lobby to pick up our Sunday Times. A tenant on...
Alan Sues, Comic Actor 1926-2011
There was Liberace, Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly and on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In, Alan Sues. What a quartet of flamboyant personalities who blazed on prime time when I was coming of age. In the 70s their very names were punchlines, code for every euphemism of that other f-word even as the longhaired hippies and...
Jerry Leiber 1933-2011, Nick Ashford 1942-2011
Both were members of song writing teams that shifted the landscape of American popular music. The titles say it all: try to imagine a world without the Leiber-Stoller penned Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, Stand by Me, Yakety Yak, Kansas City, Is that All There Is? Everyone from Peggy Lee to Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen (check...
Jane White, Actress 1922-2011
“Who is that?” I recalled thinking as a child when I first saw Jane White in a television version of Once Upon a Mattress. As the imperious Queen Aggravain, her performance was a lesson in comedy and drop-dead stylishness; she was something special, and I looked forward to seeing her again. But sightings were rare—hers...
