Monday 4, June 18th
Ten days till I go home.
I love New York.
I feel guilty because I keep falling behind in my blogs.
Back to the weekend. I finally found that there is human life in New York City. For the first time ever, someone spoke to me on the street. First: how it came about. There are five main streets between 80th and Lincoln Center. On the east we have Central Park West (very seldom take that one). Then moving west we have Columbus (lots of businesses) , Amsterdam (wall to wall restaurants), Broadway (all sorts of businesses including some restaurants), West End (residential) and Riverside (the park to the west, mostly residential to the east). Except that Broadway curves eastward. At 80th Broadway is east of West End Avenue but by 72nd street it crosses Amsterdam and by 65th (Lincoln Center) it crosses Columbus. So I can take a number of walking routes to get to LCT. On Sunday I was walking on West End Avenue – you know just taking in the scenery – human and otherwise – when another pedestrian (a woman) actually looked at me. NO ONE in New York ever looks at someone else. Not only did she look at me – she talked to me. She said “nice hat”. I said “thank you”. I was wearing my straw hat so I probably deserved the compliment but it was totally unexpected. It reminded me of Lopez where everyone waves – just to remind everyone that there is a real live person in this hunk of metal that is approaching you. When I tried to explain it to my friend Hank tonight, he was surprised that I thought that someone in NYC might actually have time to talk to me or even look at me.
Before I get to Sunday, just a minute about today. Today was our day off. I took off at 10 am, walked to Times Square (38 blocks) with a few stops along the way including LCT. I stopped because I wanted to print out version five of a scene that is troubling me. I know what I want out of it but I just can’t seem to get there. Anyway, LCT has a computer lab that we get to use. I wasn’t sure they would let me in but there was no problem. I think I was the only person in the whole compound. I printed out the latest version of the scene. It still doesn’t work. By the time I get to Times Square, it is noon so I try the Olive Garden – I have my usual (in Washington) – soup and salad. I particularly like the Toscana soup but it is very bland. That is my take on food in New York – it is all bland – except hotdogs from the street vendors – they are really good. During lunch I worked on the scene – still not there.
Then I went down to Bryant Park – a nice park – New York has a lot of very nice parks. Worked on the script. The reason I went there is that I had a 4 pm party for an English director who had to leave a week early to start work on a play she is directing next week. Not her choice. I had come to know her and think a lot of her. We’ll here from her later in life – although maybe in England.
My social life is getting busy. Today I had the going away party at 4 pm, dinner with Hank at 5:30 and a birthday party for another lab director at 8 pm.
Now back to the reason I’m here.
On Sunday we had another session with David Grimm on play writing. When we left him on Saturday, he asked us to think of the worst thing that could happen to the character we developed Saturday. I wrestled with lots of things but when I was walking to LCT on Sunday morning (just before the lady complimented me on my hat) I passed a residential home for those with Alzheimers. I decided that would be the worst thing that could happen to her. When I was writing the scene, the salty language turned out to be an early indicator of Alzheimers. Nice closure.
Anyway, David took all the stuff we had typed up from Saturday and selected stuff that we will present on Tuesday. He picked two of the thing I had written. I’ll share them with you someday.
After lunch each playwright (remember that we are really directors) cast his or her play from the other directors. I was lucky. Of the ten in our group there are seven women and three men. Of the three men, I’m the only one with English as their first language. Matteo is Italian and Michel is from The Netherlands so I got cast a lot. We will read them Tuesday.
Matteo is a cool guy. He wears black. Black suit, black shirt, black tie. But he pulls it off. It really looks good on him. Michel is a composer of music. Both really nice guys.
David Grimm is a guy we need to get to Orcas.
So much for the last two days.
