New York 2

April 18, 2010

Light breaks through the buildings, welcome after two days of chilly drizzle. We tried to get into MOMA, but were driven back by the horrendous weekend crowds. Cruised the south edges of the Park, Columbus Circle and the like, then initiated TB into the subway system, ending up on 14th Street, Thomas had resolved on a haircut, so got one from Oscar in a little salon there, while I chatted with beautiful Brianna who lives on 93rd Street. Lured T to the Tic Toc Diner for dinner. We saw the new play Enron last night, the story of what was then (perhaps is still now) the largest bankruptcy in ths history of the world. It is not quite fully dramatized, but with that criticism aside, it is a fascinating piece, Macbeth-like in its investigation of the calamity which arises from the wedding of delusion and ambition. Its hard to find a way to blame people– a way that they can understand– when all they have done is to have mastered a skill which they thought was supreme, in a world so fully delusional that under other circumstances they might have been novelists, or harmlessly mad. No, not novelists, for the minds of people like Skilling are the opposite of the minds of artists– one-tracked, predatory, greedy of palpable triumph, without compassion or imagination that takes in anything to either side of the chosen road. I think it would, like a Greek tragedy, steer anyone from the path of intricate greed.

T was buying candy when I smiled at a man through the shop window. He looked exotic, and I thought he was actually African, but when he spoke he was very American. He came out to the street and said, “You’re the one smiling face in this city, and I have had a bad day.” He stroked my beard, as if wanting to know what the texture would be. His father is homeless in Brooklyn, and when he went to visit him, he was not at his last address. We talked for a while, and then fist-bumped when he moved down the street. He had the most beautiful black damask jacket, beautiful sad eyes. Chatted with the bartender in the hotel. Eric has just moved from LA to start a life in the theater here. My question “Are you an actor, then?” struck him, apparently, as naive. He’s a bartender in a hotel bar, isn’t he? He will be directing As You Like It later this year, and acting in The Importance of Being Ernest with his own company. We designed to meet again Tuesday night.

Young men stand shirtless in the foyers of fancy stores, selling pants or cologne, on posters advertising plays. Thomas tells me which ones he has six packs better than.