6/10
A couple from one of those energy companies comes in and asks to see our Con Ed bill. I’ve never understood this hustle. Somehow you have to pick a company and go through this annoying questionnaire and somehow it's supposed to save you money. What’s even worse is when they call you at home from somewhere on the Indian subcontinent with a cheery rehearsed speech that makes me want to shoot myself in the head before it’s done. If I had enough time, I’d try to research what this is about, but really?
Al the contractor making his way through, going room to room, just checking to see what needs to be done to be fully legal.
Jeremy G drops in. Exploring some new ideas for his theatrical explorations. Apartment plays? I talk about our friends Matt and Stan and how they’ve perfected the apartment play/bring a bottle of wine party genre. And Rev. Dick and his Project 142/15V that hosts house concerts and raises money for causes. Maybe it’s a function of the economy or a democratizing reclamation of art and performance space. It’s the opposite of the old time aristocratic salons with patrons. These are grass roots in every way. Intimate, anarchic, subversive. Creating an alternative cultural reality.
We also talk about the play of his, work in process, I saw last week in Williamsburg at the Cave. It’s an exploration of the song we know as John Brown’s body/Glory, glory hallelujah in all its various iterations and how that connects with different stages and times in American history. How a tune that’s in the air, or in the bloodstream, can travel from the spiritual peaks of the dusty tent revivals to fields of slave labor to abolitionist radicalism and military marching music and then become tamed and neutered into banality. And if you touch a hyperlink on that journey, where do you wind up? And now I understand that the woman in the foreground peeling hard boiled eggs is actually making deviled eggs. And how deeply resonant is that? Edible Americana....great stories of rehearsal adventures with deviled eggs...mash ups of all kinds of ethnic varieties...
Jeremy says that conversations like this are why he’s glad West Park is here. I appreciate his non-didactic, intuitive exploration of American socio cultural realities.
Ric’s long time friend Al M comes in to see if this might be a good place for his security certifying classes.
The rain continues. Is New York becoming a place with a rainy season? Is global warming making us tropical? Katherine and I heading soon to annual Interfaith Center dinner.....
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