To Brooklyn for Theatre – “About Alice”

The nexus of Fulton St & Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is a cultural treasure these days. The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s two presenting venues with the Polonsky Shakespeare Theatre in between and a dance center adjoining all of it seals the deal.

At the Polonsky on Ashland, “About Alice” is being presented by Theatre for a New Audience in previews these days. Based on a precious 78-page book which is a Valentine/eulogy written by Calvin Trillin about his late wife, Alice, this adaptation, also written by Trillin, strikes the same tone.

There’s one problem with the adaptation: Trillin tells instead of shows us the story. He tells us Alice was buoyant, optimistic, and, foremost, a beloved mother. He tells us that New Yorker readers loved his voice as he spoke with great love about Alice. I wanted to see it dramatized.

Having read the small tome, I was looking forward to hearing this in the style of a Nick and Nora, or a Noel Coward or a Neil Simon.

Speaking to the audience, punctuated by illustrations of dialogue that serves as examples, each character of “Calvin/Bud” and “Alice,” tells us that she was George Burns to his Gracie Allen.

I leaned in, eager to watch them banter like that.

This is the struggle in adapting a work from one form to another.

At the end of the 75-minute play, I could hear the sound of plastic crumpling as tissue pocket packs were opened, noses were sniffling and I saw one audience member weeping at the end of curtain calls. It’s moving. Being told a love story that was cut short is a sad experience.

I support nonprofit theatre loyally. If you’re inclined to do the same go see the play. It’s a fine theatre group. But if you read the book, read it again. If you haven’t yet, pick up a copy in the lobby and spend a Winter afternoon warming yourself with the ballad of Alice & Calvin.

One more thing: Carrie Paff, who plays Alice, is a blond doppelgänger for Laura Benanti. Had I not known Benanti was performing Eliza in My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center, I would have sworn it was she. Now that I think of it, her brand of daffiness may have provided the best ballast to Calvin and brought the effervescence the play needed.

Tim Russert, My Brother Buffalonian, SWAK

Despite being a generation after him, I was convinced that I took Driver’s Ed in the same car with the same instructor as Tim Russert had. Being Buffalo, we stretched resources and there was no point in using a new car for Driver’s Ed if the Chevy Impala, despite it being decades old was still useful. That was good enough for Canisius High School and Buffalo. The nine-fingered Industrial Arts teacher who taught Driver’s Ed to me as his second or third job from Canisius’ parking lot across the street from the sister school where I attended – Nardin Academy – was also Russert’s teacher in the 1960s, I’m sure of it.

When Russert autographed my copy of “Big Russ and Me” at his signing at Barnes & Noble’s Union Square store here in NYC three years ago I told him I was a Nardin girl. He looked up from the stack of books he was signing and extended his hand to mine to shake it. “You were well educated,” he said.  I know he meant I was as well educated by the French sisters in my school as he was by the Jesuit priests across the street, not by the Driver’s Ed course I’m sure we shared once they let us girls take the class (if not learn to drive) at the boys’ school.

I was shocked when the NY Times alert hit my In Box this afternoon after 3PM. I’ve avoided the television since that news because the mawkish pablum I expected to witness would not only make his death real but would wrap this improvising man with a too-tight ribbon.

He made it out of Buffalo and made it big. Each native Buffalonian felt nothing but pride that this South Buffalo boy made it so far. I was born in North Buffalo, far from the factories and mills and blue collar life of South Buffalo. But the snobbery that was my neighbors’ to claim was justifiably laughable later on when we saw how far Russert went on his own brilliance and excellence. I left the city at an age younger than Russert’s when he left, but like it or not one of the tattoos that Buffalo leaves on its native born is the phrase, “Fairness First.” He and his career embodied that.

We were so proud of him. He got out and look how far one of our own went. It’s a comfort that the nation saw the best of our native city, and the world saw the best of our nation in him.

My New York City Vacation

Let’s work backward, starting with today.

I succumbed to the hype and last night bought a ticket for this morning’s 10AM showing of “Sex and the City” at the AMC Loews Cinema on the Upper West Side (Miranda’s old neighborhood, pre-Brooklyn). My strategy was to avoid the hype, actually, by going to the first showing on the day it opened. Oh well. By 9:20 there was a line on Broadway from the locked front door of the theater around the corner. We were at last having breakfast with the girls.

It was a sister-fest. Gal pals attended dressed in costumes of the characters, including a woman wearing a curly-haired Carrie wig. Such beautiful shoes. Such sparkly blouses so early in the morning.

(Phewy to Rex Reed and Manohla Darghis for their cruel and cranky reviews, respectively. This movie is about more than the narrative. It’s pulling all us Carrie-watchers out of our apartments and into communal space. I’ve watched enough of these episodes in contented repose on my sofa. In the theater I could hear a pin drop for almost the full 2 1/2 hours, except when others laughed where I laughed. As we revisited the girls’ lives we also discovered each other as New York neighbors. Could this be how Trekkies felt when “Star Trek” launched from TV to big screen?)

This week I also wiggled into the Whitney’s 2008 Biennial Exhibit that closes this weekend. How exciting to see what new artists and beginning artists are creating. Too much video for my taste, and installation art just makes me wonder about its pragmatism for the collector be it an individual or a museum. Where would one hang a plywood cottage interspersed with mirrors? By its form it is clearly a work for an institution or the rich with land. Despite this, there was a very interesting video installation that played with memory; an Iraq war veteran recalled shooting at a family in a car in Iraq but also confused the facts with those from a date with a crazy young woman near an Army barracks in Germany. It was troubling and spellbinding.

I saw the movie “The Visitor,” which took me by surprise with its 1970s-style character-driven narrative that sucked me in. Why can’t more movies be like this one? It’s May but it’s the first film I’ve seen this year mainly because it’s the only one I was curious about.

I visited Wave Hill in Riverdale, the Bronx. More popular sites to visit have always been the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Bronx Botanical Garden, but this is a little-discovered new treasure in New York that is glorious in the Spring and New England-perfect in the Fall.

Can’t forget seeing the Superheroes exhibit at the Met Museum. Alright, it was a marriage of nerds to superhero costumes. I sought and then was done with it once I saw Wonder Woman’s costume from the 1970s television show. The cape obscured her magic bracelets, which I was coveting and so wanted to see. Again, this is as close as I was getting to being a Trekkie.

With all the Europeans touring through town – especially the French-speakers (from France or Quebec?) – I felt like I was really on a foreign vacation. If you have the chance, visit Smith Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn for the row of French cafes that have cropped up there. In Manhattan we dined at Le Jardin Bistro’s outside garden in NoLiTa for a bite of Belgian-style mussels, frites, and Muscadet.

Stay home in New York every so often and the world comes to you. All you need is a Metrocard and a tourbook to have as much fun as the tourists are having.

Columbia University 2008 Commencement Slideshow

Smarty Pants at the Natural History Museum

Inside at the spectacular “Water=Life” exhibit, Woman 1 says to Woman 2 “I’m not watching Jon Stewart until after the election. He’s so pro-Obama.”

Get used to it sister. He’ll miss you as a viewer.

On the steps of the Central Park West entrance: Looking up at the grand statue of Teddy Roosevelt on his horse, a different woman says to her two friends: “Look at him. He cheated on Eleanor.”

Friend #1: “That was Franklin.”

Brainiac: “Yeah, he CHEATED on Eleanor!”

Museum-goers. Huh.

Bill Clinton’s Preoccupation: Screwing

Reading this morning’s paper while watching NY1’s coverage of the Pope’s visit to Ground Zero, an article popped out about how the Clintons are divining who are and aren’t their true friends.

The same could be said of the friend that Bill Clinton has been to registered Democrats.

Related to that is an article about how far apart Al Gore and Joe Lieberman have migrated since the 2000 presidential-vice presidential ticket.

Then it occurred to me: Bill Clinton’s doing it again. He’s screwing the nation. Despite Democrats’ desires and labor to get their nominee elected, Bill’s determined to be the one and only Democratic president in our mind’s recent memory.

In 1999-2000 the nation was held hostage by Ken Starr and Bill Clinton’s teasing dodges with the truth. Because she blew it, he blew it. The Democratic line of succession, that is.

Now he’s screwing Democrats again.

Who can understand the psyche of that man – mommy issues, daddy issues, prepubescent obsessions with sex. Is it an act of omission or commission to subtly sabotage his wife’s electoral bid as he surely sabotaged the Gore-Lieberman ticket in 1999-2000?

If voters could control the system so we elected vessels who would deliver the policies we know will restore our nation then America would stand a chance in the 21st Century.

As it stands, as this past week’s “debate” on ABC News revealed, voters are being shuttled into corners forced to choose between personalities and manufactured points of disagreement.

What would it take for the voters – there are more of us than them, after all – to be able to elect policymakers instead of empty celebrities?

Should we give the parliamentary system a try?

Elephant Graveyard in Inwood, North Manhattan

The Times reported that someone chopped and mangled 35 cedar trees on the bluff overlooking the south end of Inwood Hill Park in March.

I climbed the hills this afternoon on a sunny Friday afternoon to scout around for the site. The further shame of what this(these) miscreant(s) did was to spread the violence out over several areas. I’d imagined it was a concentrated area but, no, there are felled trees along the paths and deep into the hills.

How it was done remains a mystery to me. The trunks are shattered as if a lightening bolt hit them, not as if someone took an axe or electric saw to it. There are still only buds on the trees so to have felled so many enormous trees in such a ragged way had to been seen or heard by those only a couple hundred yards down the hills on the soccer field, basketball or tennis courts.

There will be a flock of tree huggers and naturalists in Inwood Hill Park in two Saturdays, May 3rd, for the annual Drums Along the Hudson festival of Native American dance and traditions. Hopefully some will climb into the hills and do CSI Cedars for us.

In the meantime, I climbed down from the hills to watch All Hollows High School play Cardinal Hayes High School in baseball on Diamond 2. This, and the sun, and the Mister Softee truck, made sense to me.

Spitzer, How Could You?

For those of us who are proud New York Staters, the expression on Mrs. Silda Spitzer’s face at today’s press conference said it all. Does anything cross a man’s mind before he acts in a way that not only degrades himself but also his marriage and children?

Our sadness is palpable. I’m no puritan, but to betray a bond – to a spouse, a child, an electorate – is, in a word, mean.

Why Bloomberg gave $500K to the NYS Republican Party

I was speaking with a former State senator this evening. An elder of the Democratic party and a gentleman, he and I together watched the beginnings of the primary election returns tonight.

I asked him what he thought was behind Mike Bloomberg’s $500K donation to the New York State Democratic Party. Was it because he had an axe to grind with Governor Eliot Spitzer about how Spitzer wants to sell the property north of the Javits Center to a developer while Bloomberg wants to expand the Center on the property?

No, that wasn’t it.

Was it to give NYS Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R) a boost just to keep the diss in Albany’s dysfunction?

No, not that either.

Mike Bloomberg gave $500,000 to the Republicans to be named McCain’s veep running mate.

Think about it. In Bloomberg’s Op Ed in The New York Times he stated that this election was too important to stay on the sidelines. He said he would give his money to the candidate that worked in a bipartisan way:

“If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House.”

McCain doesn’t understand how economies work. Bloomberg’s got that nailed.

McCain’s short on money. Bloomberg burps up Benjamins after his caviar breakfast.

McCain has crossed party lines to get bills passed. Bloomberg crossed party memberships.

Time will tell.

Amnesty: Key to Latinos Support for Hillary?

Tonight in the conversation partners program run in a church near the Port Authority where I volunteer in an ESOL program I asked a student, a native Ecuadorean, why she supports Hillary Clinton for president.

She explained that she supports Senator Clinton because her husband, Bill Clinton, gave amnesty to illegal immigrants in the U.S. Additionally, she allowed for immigrants to get humanitarian visas.

I don’t know whether this is true or what it means, but it’s the perception of what’s true and that’s what matters most in understanding the nation’s electorate.

When I asked her what she thought about Barack Obama she replied she didn’t know much about him. That’s not a perception, that’s the reality.

The student I was speaking with is a new American. Last Wednesday she took her citizenship test – which each tutor in the program helped her study for over the past six months – and was sworn in as a new American citizen in Federal Hall last Friday. She beamed when she told me about saying the Pledge of Allegiance during the ceremony for the first time. She teared up recalling how she teared up singing the Star Spangled Banner for the first time with her fellow new citizens from 20 other countries.

She knows a lot about America, more than most of us. Some of the questions on the test that we practiced from were an unwelcome reminder to me of how long it’s been since I studied civics for my NYS Regents diploma from high school when I actually knew these facts. I was happy for the brush up course but silently humiliated by my ignorance.

But this new citizen knows a lot about how our government and political system work from the Constitution to Congress to citizens’ responsibilities.

As Texas goes to vote in early March it will be interesting to see what her fellow recent immigrants and new citizens from Latin America say with their vote. How they vote and in the numbers they show up may project the future face and direction of the America they’re struggling to join.