There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
Nelson Mandela
*************************
I used to know a woman in her 30's who was unmarried with three older brothers and a father who was a great influence in her life. One of the things her father required of her was to keep a journal recording her life. She began it as a child and thus she had stacks of notebooks with jottings of her experiences, an autobiography of personal and very subjective bits and pieces. I don't think she ever went back to read anything she had written and I know her father didn't. I don't know what the point was except to record a life: what was, what used to be, what could have been, what is no more. I wonder what she would think of herself if she did revisit some of those writings.
I was born into a middle class family living in a New York suburb. Four years later my father died. There was then no income and hence no money. Two years later mother sold the house and we moved. After that we slowly drifted into a state of poverty. We had to keep moving, 25 times until I finally left home, 6 times one year.
I've had an occasion to go back to that town and look at some of the places we lived. I tried to remember and visualize what I was like growing up, as a youngster and a teenager, and seeing how much I have changed. When I had a chance to see the first big house, the one I was born into, with all its property, the back yard I used to play in, my early life seems completely remote from me. The child I was still lives in that house. I don't.
I went to visit some folks I knew at the college theatre where I had worked and learned. At one point they all wanted to go out to lunch but I was expecting someone to meet me there so I stayed by myself and was remembering some of the shows I had done.
I answered the phone. It was a new professor who didn't know me. I explained who I was to his satisfaction, I thought. But shortly after that the campus police showed up and threw me out. I had put up scenery, hung and focused lights, helped to build and repair that theatre, acted and directed many productions. But from that day on I was a stranger, not welcome any more. I never went back to that place.
I have relinquished many things in my life, some because I was forced to and some because I wanted to. We change, we grow. The great lesson is that we have to let go of who we used to be if we want to keep changing, to keep growing. That's alright with me.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
DB - The Vagabond
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Perils Of Wisdom
In seeking wisdom thou art wise, in imagining that thou hast attained it thou art a fool.
Simon ben Azzai
************************
The more I know, the less I know. The less I know, the more I want to know. It's a syndrome. But I'd rather be addicted to learning things than to drink, drugs or some other self destructive entity.
I have known a lot of people who are called "accidental scholars." I used to be one of them. Those are people who flit carelessly through life and every now and then stumble over a fact or a concept.
Some folks want to know why I don't do the traditional retired man's things. I don't really have an answer to that except to say that I enjoy poking my nose into books and pouring over magazines. And I have no other motive for doing it than that I enjoy it.
I suppose I am getting wiser. But there are some dangers in this humanoid version of gaining wisdom. We can gang up on ourselves if we're not careful. When an interesting fact or a refreshed way of looking at an old fact occurs there is the threat of thinking that now we really know something. That is taking the wrong exit off the highway. One bit of knowledge should lead to another. Why do we stop pursuing it? Because the second stretch of highway seems so much longer than the first. It's a discouragement until we realize that it may have taken us much longer than we thought to obtain the first bit. Seeking and finding wisdom is not an easy task. Information leads to knowledge, which should in turn lead to understanding, and that might draw us, if we're lucky, into some degree of wisdom. But then there's a recipe involved. It is up to the thinking person, or one who thinks he is a thinking person, to mix one bit of wisdom with another, stir and put in the oven of time and see what comes out. Is it a pie, a Pi or a piece of garbage? Reckoning with what you have is good and proper until you need more.
Another danger is to rely for your self esteem on what you know and be satisfied with it. You may think your are impressing other people with your wisdom but all you're doing is playing hand ball into a mirror. Some actors get tangled in that game. They think they have figured out how to play a certain type of role and so instead of starting from the beginning to understand a specific character they just repeat themselves.
Then there's the danger of anti intellectualism which rears its ugly, hissing head or hops like a smelly toad out of the strangest places. I knew an actor who, when he came to visit one day, saw a book on calculus sitting on my desk. He thought it wasn't mine. When I said it was he wanted to know why I was reading it. He disbelieved that I had any interest in the subject. Why wasn't I reading books on acting? Why, I thought? I'm a working actor, I do theatre day after day, I don't have to read about it. I'm interested in knowing about other things. He decided I was just trying to impress people. I didn't carry the book around with me and I didn't discuss mathematics with anyone. I fail to see why he thought my attempts to understand rectilinear motion was impressing anyone.
Now about impressing people. I knew a sweet man named Mr Bixbee who was deprived of a formal education from which he suffered a sense of inferiority. He compensated for it by claiming a familiarity with the great literature of the world which he didn't have. He wouldn't talk about the books except to say that he read them. I felt a bit sorry for him that he had to live that pretense. He wasn't a stupid man. There was a whole world of wisdom available to him if he would just open one of those books and begin to read it.
The gaining of wisdom is not a tortoise and hare race. The finish line is so far ahead of all of us that our positions along the way are only relative. In fact, I don't think there is a finish line, and that's what makes it so interesting to me. No matter how much we know there is always more. Nature and the universe pour more information on us then we are prepared to accept. And it will always be that way. Forever.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Simon ben Azzai
************************
The more I know, the less I know. The less I know, the more I want to know. It's a syndrome. But I'd rather be addicted to learning things than to drink, drugs or some other self destructive entity.
I have known a lot of people who are called "accidental scholars." I used to be one of them. Those are people who flit carelessly through life and every now and then stumble over a fact or a concept.
Some folks want to know why I don't do the traditional retired man's things. I don't really have an answer to that except to say that I enjoy poking my nose into books and pouring over magazines. And I have no other motive for doing it than that I enjoy it.
I suppose I am getting wiser. But there are some dangers in this humanoid version of gaining wisdom. We can gang up on ourselves if we're not careful. When an interesting fact or a refreshed way of looking at an old fact occurs there is the threat of thinking that now we really know something. That is taking the wrong exit off the highway. One bit of knowledge should lead to another. Why do we stop pursuing it? Because the second stretch of highway seems so much longer than the first. It's a discouragement until we realize that it may have taken us much longer than we thought to obtain the first bit. Seeking and finding wisdom is not an easy task. Information leads to knowledge, which should in turn lead to understanding, and that might draw us, if we're lucky, into some degree of wisdom. But then there's a recipe involved. It is up to the thinking person, or one who thinks he is a thinking person, to mix one bit of wisdom with another, stir and put in the oven of time and see what comes out. Is it a pie, a Pi or a piece of garbage? Reckoning with what you have is good and proper until you need more.
Another danger is to rely for your self esteem on what you know and be satisfied with it. You may think your are impressing other people with your wisdom but all you're doing is playing hand ball into a mirror. Some actors get tangled in that game. They think they have figured out how to play a certain type of role and so instead of starting from the beginning to understand a specific character they just repeat themselves.
Then there's the danger of anti intellectualism which rears its ugly, hissing head or hops like a smelly toad out of the strangest places. I knew an actor who, when he came to visit one day, saw a book on calculus sitting on my desk. He thought it wasn't mine. When I said it was he wanted to know why I was reading it. He disbelieved that I had any interest in the subject. Why wasn't I reading books on acting? Why, I thought? I'm a working actor, I do theatre day after day, I don't have to read about it. I'm interested in knowing about other things. He decided I was just trying to impress people. I didn't carry the book around with me and I didn't discuss mathematics with anyone. I fail to see why he thought my attempts to understand rectilinear motion was impressing anyone.
Now about impressing people. I knew a sweet man named Mr Bixbee who was deprived of a formal education from which he suffered a sense of inferiority. He compensated for it by claiming a familiarity with the great literature of the world which he didn't have. He wouldn't talk about the books except to say that he read them. I felt a bit sorry for him that he had to live that pretense. He wasn't a stupid man. There was a whole world of wisdom available to him if he would just open one of those books and begin to read it.
The gaining of wisdom is not a tortoise and hare race. The finish line is so far ahead of all of us that our positions along the way are only relative. In fact, I don't think there is a finish line, and that's what makes it so interesting to me. No matter how much we know there is always more. Nature and the universe pour more information on us then we are prepared to accept. And it will always be that way. Forever.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Keep The Lights On
If you wish to shine like the daylight, burn up the night of self-importance.
Rumi
*****************
I used to know a fellow in New York who was an actor and a friend. We did one show together and it went well. Then he would come to see my plays and I would see his plays and we would hang out and have fun. He was intelligent, friendly and had a sense of humor.
Then one day he asked me to be in a play he wanted to direct. It was a two character play. He cast the other part and scheduled a rehearsal. Immediately into the first day his personality changed. He became dark, a bully, an insulting martinet, criticizing every line reading and being generally obnoxious.
We were only doing it on speculation, there was no contract, so by the second rehearsal the other actor and I decided to drop out. The next time I saw my friend he was his usual jovial self.
I've seen that sort of Jekyll and Hyde behavior before and I don't understand it. What happens to people when they get a little bit of power or influence that they suddenly become a self-important antagonist instead of a friend. I've seen and had to work with that kind of oppressive behavior before but I never knew any of those people in any other context. This was different. This was a friend of mine who abruptly began treating us as if we didn't know what we were doing. Psychologists must have a word for that kind of temporary transformation. I don't know what it is. All I can say is that it was unexpected and unpleasant.
We eventually parted ways over a totally unrelated issue. But there was an element of the unexpected and unrealistic about that also. I finally concluded that there was a strain in his character I had missed for years. Under the right circumstances something made him change, take himself too seriously and to view himself as too important to bother with other people's rights or feelings. It's too bad because he was a nice guy and I liked him.
DB - The Vagabond
****************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 1 response so fa
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Rumi
*****************
I used to know a fellow in New York who was an actor and a friend. We did one show together and it went well. Then he would come to see my plays and I would see his plays and we would hang out and have fun. He was intelligent, friendly and had a sense of humor.
Then one day he asked me to be in a play he wanted to direct. It was a two character play. He cast the other part and scheduled a rehearsal. Immediately into the first day his personality changed. He became dark, a bully, an insulting martinet, criticizing every line reading and being generally obnoxious.
We were only doing it on speculation, there was no contract, so by the second rehearsal the other actor and I decided to drop out. The next time I saw my friend he was his usual jovial self.
I've seen that sort of Jekyll and Hyde behavior before and I don't understand it. What happens to people when they get a little bit of power or influence that they suddenly become a self-important antagonist instead of a friend. I've seen and had to work with that kind of oppressive behavior before but I never knew any of those people in any other context. This was different. This was a friend of mine who abruptly began treating us as if we didn't know what we were doing. Psychologists must have a word for that kind of temporary transformation. I don't know what it is. All I can say is that it was unexpected and unpleasant.
We eventually parted ways over a totally unrelated issue. But there was an element of the unexpected and unrealistic about that also. I finally concluded that there was a strain in his character I had missed for years. Under the right circumstances something made him change, take himself too seriously and to view himself as too important to bother with other people's rights or feelings. It's too bad because he was a nice guy and I liked him.
DB - The Vagabond
****************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 1 response so fa
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Monday, January 10, 2011
Go Wolfgang
Everything has its own food, and music is the food of the spirit.
Nasrabadi
********************
In the former, primitive, pre transistor, pre CD days the only way to get music, if you didn't make your own, was either on a cumbersome record player with vulnerable analogue disks or through a radio with tubes. But anyone who was hungry for the songs of the day had a portable AM radio which they carried next to their ear. There were plenty of yelling top 40 DJs supplying the air with all the latest hits.
If, like myself, you were a classical music lover, the opportunities were very slim. It was a hunting game. There was the station in New York where I was growing up, but it went off the air at midnight. Switch over to another Music Till Dawn station and then another one for the Saturday afternoon opera broadcast from the Met which happened only for part of the year. It was a stuggle.
But it was a struggle that was worth it. As more and more people were discovering the classical arena of music, musical education was improving in the schools and the United States was beginning to produce great musicians of its own, not having to rely completely on the gifted artists of Europe.
I like to compare classical musicians to Grand Prix drivers. Those people can drive anything, from a tractor on up, in any kind of traffic. In a recent interview a member of the New York Philharmonic said the orchestra was so good it could play any kind of music set before it. Unfortunately there is still some prejudice against "serious" music, even from some "popular" musicians. But the prejudice doesn't usually go the other way. Real musicians can not only play any kind of music, they can also appreciate it, even simple music. Shostakovich, the great Russian composer of symphonies and string quartets, also wrote some children's songs.
Some people have their favorites, the bombast of the 1812 Overture, the grand Hallelujah Chorus, Beethoven's Fifth and so on, but they don't venture into music they don't know. And when most people think of music they think of songs, lyrics, words. In pure music there are no words, or rather, there are words and ideas expressed in a language people aren't familiar with and don't learn.
That was my big discovery as a child with my radio hugged to my ear. I heard the language of music and have been a music lover ever since. If you want to know where the truth is it's in all the music of Bach, the late Beethoven string quartets and the Mozart piano concertos.
Now here is something you must do before the year is out and the sooner the better. Even if you don't like classical music, even if you hate it, you must listen to Alfred Brendel perform the Mozart Piano Concerto number 23 in A major K. 488. Buy, borrow or steal it (no don't steal it). Don't do anything else but listen. Concentrate, hear every note and let it talk to you. Listen to it twice through, at least. Don't intellectualize about it, Climb its ladders and swim in its streams. Hear the gentle rain, hear the warm sun. It is a grand, loving, work of genius and pure spirituality. It sings, dances, weeps, laughs, swirls and jumps with joy. It is life affirming, world changing, a gift from heaven to an as yet undeserving human race. Hear it, enjoy it. That's an order.
DB - The Vagabond
****************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 1 response so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Nasrabadi
********************
In the former, primitive, pre transistor, pre CD days the only way to get music, if you didn't make your own, was either on a cumbersome record player with vulnerable analogue disks or through a radio with tubes. But anyone who was hungry for the songs of the day had a portable AM radio which they carried next to their ear. There were plenty of yelling top 40 DJs supplying the air with all the latest hits.
If, like myself, you were a classical music lover, the opportunities were very slim. It was a hunting game. There was the station in New York where I was growing up, but it went off the air at midnight. Switch over to another Music Till Dawn station and then another one for the Saturday afternoon opera broadcast from the Met which happened only for part of the year. It was a stuggle.
But it was a struggle that was worth it. As more and more people were discovering the classical arena of music, musical education was improving in the schools and the United States was beginning to produce great musicians of its own, not having to rely completely on the gifted artists of Europe.
I like to compare classical musicians to Grand Prix drivers. Those people can drive anything, from a tractor on up, in any kind of traffic. In a recent interview a member of the New York Philharmonic said the orchestra was so good it could play any kind of music set before it. Unfortunately there is still some prejudice against "serious" music, even from some "popular" musicians. But the prejudice doesn't usually go the other way. Real musicians can not only play any kind of music, they can also appreciate it, even simple music. Shostakovich, the great Russian composer of symphonies and string quartets, also wrote some children's songs.
Some people have their favorites, the bombast of the 1812 Overture, the grand Hallelujah Chorus, Beethoven's Fifth and so on, but they don't venture into music they don't know. And when most people think of music they think of songs, lyrics, words. In pure music there are no words, or rather, there are words and ideas expressed in a language people aren't familiar with and don't learn.
That was my big discovery as a child with my radio hugged to my ear. I heard the language of music and have been a music lover ever since. If you want to know where the truth is it's in all the music of Bach, the late Beethoven string quartets and the Mozart piano concertos.
Now here is something you must do before the year is out and the sooner the better. Even if you don't like classical music, even if you hate it, you must listen to Alfred Brendel perform the Mozart Piano Concerto number 23 in A major K. 488. Buy, borrow or steal it (no don't steal it). Don't do anything else but listen. Concentrate, hear every note and let it talk to you. Listen to it twice through, at least. Don't intellectualize about it, Climb its ladders and swim in its streams. Hear the gentle rain, hear the warm sun. It is a grand, loving, work of genius and pure spirituality. It sings, dances, weeps, laughs, swirls and jumps with joy. It is life affirming, world changing, a gift from heaven to an as yet undeserving human race. Hear it, enjoy it. That's an order.
DB - The Vagabond
****************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 1 response so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Weekend Puzzle Answer
Weekend Puzzle Answer
Here are 12 names. Which one does not belong on the list. It's easy.
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Charles de Gaulle
Dwight Eisenhower
Adolph Hitler
Bernard Montgomery
Benito Mussolini
Erwin Rommel
Theodore Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Harry Truman
Georgi Zhukhov
----------------------------
The answer is Theodore Roosevelt.
All the rest were involved one way or another in the World War II. It was the other Roosevelt, FDR, who was involved in the war.
There is one winner, Big Mark of the Blogspot Tigers. who takes home the grand prize of a truck load of sand from Normandy Beach.
Thank you all.
DB
*****************************
Here are 12 names. Which one does not belong on the list. It's easy.
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Charles de Gaulle
Dwight Eisenhower
Adolph Hitler
Bernard Montgomery
Benito Mussolini
Erwin Rommel
Theodore Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Harry Truman
Georgi Zhukhov
----------------------------
The answer is Theodore Roosevelt.
All the rest were involved one way or another in the World War II. It was the other Roosevelt, FDR, who was involved in the war.
There is one winner, Big Mark of the Blogspot Tigers. who takes home the grand prize of a truck load of sand from Normandy Beach.
Thank you all.
DB
*****************************
Useless Information
A love affair with knowledge will never end in heart break.
Michael Marino
***********************
If you are standing directly on the South Pole, (I wouldn't advise it unless you are extremely well dressed and have some company) no matter which way you look there is only one direction you can go and that's north. Once you take a step you've added east and west to your limited possibilities. A few more steps and a few more directions are added. If you keep moving soon there are a great many directions you can move.
It's the same with your front door. There's only one step out, but once out you have some possibilities. Choose one of those to move in and you are gradually increasing the number of ways you can go.
I was quite sure of what I was going to do with myself when I retired. I had spent my adult life as an actor, I fully intended to keep doing that. But I didn't realize how hungry I was going to be, not for food but for knowledge.
In my career I knew actors, and I was one of them, who were prepared with the lines and behaviors of the character they played and with the intricacies of the drama. But there were other actors who came into rehearsals with much more. They had traced down the political, social and geographical contexts of the plays and the playwrights. If it was an historical drama they were acquainted with the events of the time and they had read biographical items of the main characters. Some of the other actors would yawn and consider it useless information. But I learned to be very interested in that approach. To me in added so many more dimensions and directions to move in while developing the play.
In "Educating Rita" specific reference are made to books by E. M. Forster and Rita Mae Brown. When I performed the play in Cincinnati the actress I worked with and I read both of those books. When I played a supporting roloe in "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" I read the whole novel about the Caine mutiny by Herman Wouk. If I found that a play touched on an ancient myth, as many modern plays do, I would track down the myth.
So what have I done since I retired? Bought books. I have books on philosophy, art, music, history, biography, science, psychology, religion and many other topics. Will I ever get to read all of those books? It doesn't matter. Whichever direction I go in I'm learning something. It's a love affair.
DB
********************
Weekend Puzzle
Here are 12 names. Which one does not belong on the list. It's easy.
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Charles de Gaulle
Dwight Eisenhower
Adolph Hitler
Bernard Montgomery
Benito Mussolini
Erwin Rommel
Theodore Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Harry Truman
Georgi Zhukhov
Good luck
DB
*****************************
Michael Marino
***********************
If you are standing directly on the South Pole, (I wouldn't advise it unless you are extremely well dressed and have some company) no matter which way you look there is only one direction you can go and that's north. Once you take a step you've added east and west to your limited possibilities. A few more steps and a few more directions are added. If you keep moving soon there are a great many directions you can move.
It's the same with your front door. There's only one step out, but once out you have some possibilities. Choose one of those to move in and you are gradually increasing the number of ways you can go.
I was quite sure of what I was going to do with myself when I retired. I had spent my adult life as an actor, I fully intended to keep doing that. But I didn't realize how hungry I was going to be, not for food but for knowledge.
In my career I knew actors, and I was one of them, who were prepared with the lines and behaviors of the character they played and with the intricacies of the drama. But there were other actors who came into rehearsals with much more. They had traced down the political, social and geographical contexts of the plays and the playwrights. If it was an historical drama they were acquainted with the events of the time and they had read biographical items of the main characters. Some of the other actors would yawn and consider it useless information. But I learned to be very interested in that approach. To me in added so many more dimensions and directions to move in while developing the play.
In "Educating Rita" specific reference are made to books by E. M. Forster and Rita Mae Brown. When I performed the play in Cincinnati the actress I worked with and I read both of those books. When I played a supporting roloe in "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" I read the whole novel about the Caine mutiny by Herman Wouk. If I found that a play touched on an ancient myth, as many modern plays do, I would track down the myth.
So what have I done since I retired? Bought books. I have books on philosophy, art, music, history, biography, science, psychology, religion and many other topics. Will I ever get to read all of those books? It doesn't matter. Whichever direction I go in I'm learning something. It's a love affair.
DB
********************
Weekend Puzzle
Here are 12 names. Which one does not belong on the list. It's easy.
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Charles de Gaulle
Dwight Eisenhower
Adolph Hitler
Bernard Montgomery
Benito Mussolini
Erwin Rommel
Theodore Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Harry Truman
Georgi Zhukhov
Good luck
DB
*****************************
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The Day I Owned Times Square
These vagabond shoes
They are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it,
New York, New York.
Fred Ebb, John Kander
****************************
Anyone who spends any time in New York City has New York stories. Adventures automatically occur in that remarkable, aggravating and rewarding place where anything can happen. This is one of my many stories and it's true, with no embellishments, I promise.
If you have ever been in Times Square then you know how big it is. It is actually two squares: Duffy Square on the north end and Times Square on the south, which are connected Two large boulevards, Broadway and Seventh Avenue proceed southward through it and cross each other. There are five cross streets, one of them going in two directions. It's huge.
If you've ever been in Times Square then you know how busy it is. Theatres, office buildings, hotels, bars and restaurants, shops, side walk vendors, busses, trucks, taxis, cars, bicycles, horses and everywhere there are people going here, going thee or standing around gawking, twenty four hours a day. It is truly a place that never sleeps.
I had a job as a relief announcer for WQXR, which was the New York Times radio station. That meant that I was on call, sometimes on short notice, to fill in when one of the other announcers couldn't be there.
One Sunday morning I got a phone call at 4 a.m. from the morning announcer telling me he couldn't make it in to work, he lived in New Jersey, could I take the shift for him. In those days the station did not go all night, so someone had to be there to do the sign on and the morning programs beginning at 6. So I got up, had some coffee and something to eat and left my apartment building at 5. I lived on 56th Street and 6th Avenue. As soon as I walked out the front door I could see why he couldn't get to work. There had been a major, MAJOR snow storm, one of the worst, the city was covered with snow.
I walked down 6th Avenue, crossed over to 7th and entered Times Square at the northeast corner. My destination was at the southwest corner, 43rd Street. I was amazed to see there was no traffic, and there hadn't been any for quite a while. There were no tire tracks or footprints in the snow. It was deep, over my ankles, but I trudged diagonally right across Times Square, something one could never do at any other time, brazenly walking down the avenues and the streets. In all that vast area I was the only creature moving. Even the ubiquitous pigeons were tucked in somewhere.
In the 5 to 10 minutes it took me to walk to work I was the only business man, the only proprietor, the only tourist, the only resident, the only citizen, completely alone and by myself in the center of what is the busiest place in America. And these "vagabond shoes" were straying through "the very heart of it."
It was a strange, surreal, Fellini-esque, Doctor Zhivago type adventure. I felt like an explorer. I felt like I should stick a flag in the snow and claim it for myself. I owned it. I owned Times Square.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************
Weekend Puzzle
Here are 12 names. Which one does not belong on the list. It's easy.
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Charles de Gaulle
Dwight Eisenhower
Adolph Hitler
Bernard Montgomery
Benito Mussolini
Erwin Rommel
Theodore Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Harry Truman
Georgi Zhukhov
Good luck
DB
*****************************
They are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it,
New York, New York.
Fred Ebb, John Kander
****************************
Anyone who spends any time in New York City has New York stories. Adventures automatically occur in that remarkable, aggravating and rewarding place where anything can happen. This is one of my many stories and it's true, with no embellishments, I promise.
If you have ever been in Times Square then you know how big it is. It is actually two squares: Duffy Square on the north end and Times Square on the south, which are connected Two large boulevards, Broadway and Seventh Avenue proceed southward through it and cross each other. There are five cross streets, one of them going in two directions. It's huge.
If you've ever been in Times Square then you know how busy it is. Theatres, office buildings, hotels, bars and restaurants, shops, side walk vendors, busses, trucks, taxis, cars, bicycles, horses and everywhere there are people going here, going thee or standing around gawking, twenty four hours a day. It is truly a place that never sleeps.
I had a job as a relief announcer for WQXR, which was the New York Times radio station. That meant that I was on call, sometimes on short notice, to fill in when one of the other announcers couldn't be there.
One Sunday morning I got a phone call at 4 a.m. from the morning announcer telling me he couldn't make it in to work, he lived in New Jersey, could I take the shift for him. In those days the station did not go all night, so someone had to be there to do the sign on and the morning programs beginning at 6. So I got up, had some coffee and something to eat and left my apartment building at 5. I lived on 56th Street and 6th Avenue. As soon as I walked out the front door I could see why he couldn't get to work. There had been a major, MAJOR snow storm, one of the worst, the city was covered with snow.
I walked down 6th Avenue, crossed over to 7th and entered Times Square at the northeast corner. My destination was at the southwest corner, 43rd Street. I was amazed to see there was no traffic, and there hadn't been any for quite a while. There were no tire tracks or footprints in the snow. It was deep, over my ankles, but I trudged diagonally right across Times Square, something one could never do at any other time, brazenly walking down the avenues and the streets. In all that vast area I was the only creature moving. Even the ubiquitous pigeons were tucked in somewhere.
In the 5 to 10 minutes it took me to walk to work I was the only business man, the only proprietor, the only tourist, the only resident, the only citizen, completely alone and by myself in the center of what is the busiest place in America. And these "vagabond shoes" were straying through "the very heart of it."
It was a strange, surreal, Fellini-esque, Doctor Zhivago type adventure. I felt like an explorer. I felt like I should stick a flag in the snow and claim it for myself. I owned it. I owned Times Square.
DB - The Vagabond
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Weekend Puzzle
Here are 12 names. Which one does not belong on the list. It's easy.
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Charles de Gaulle
Dwight Eisenhower
Adolph Hitler
Bernard Montgomery
Benito Mussolini
Erwin Rommel
Theodore Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Harry Truman
Georgi Zhukhov
Good luck
DB
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