New York 3

November 16, 2012

Late start, after a night ending, again, at the Rum House, where I met Aaron, who had lived for a while in Cincinnati, who was suave and worldly and had a great plume of brown hair draped across his forehead. He have me a sip of his special black-something bourbon, which tasted as complex as wine, and marked the first time I ever really like neat bourbon. Started at the Paramount, which is being remodeled out of recognition. Shopped a little yesterday morning, then walked up Broadway to SJB’s preferred restaurant on 85th. Browsed the book stalls, scalded myself on tea at a café, where I was also panhandled. Guy came in, scanned the room, came directly to me. His speech impediment made it hard for him to speak. Something seemed genuine in his need, so I gave him money. That whole part of town, the west side above Lincoln Center, is little known to me, and I thought it was lovely, lively, liveable. The meeting was with my director and our music director over The Loves of Mr. Lincoln, It’s thrilling to be talking about it. It was one of those spit-balling, tossing-around-ideas meetings which leave me a little disoriented, because I almost never mention anything about art that is not long considered and would not, if put into action, work. So my filters were engaged, to sift and consider and not take anything as a hidden directive. SJB suggested I change the moment of the play in a way I resisted at the time, but I see how it can work, and he may be right, though NOT doing it that way (very Broadway and Sondheim-y) had been the original aim of my approach. Oh well. All problems are solved by allowing the number of actors I had originally asked for, but–. SJB is not an insistent director, and I am not a stubborn playwright, so all went well. JB, the music guy, probably found the necessary middle ground. Will look hard at everything when I get home. SJB forbade me to have the pastrami, because he the experience of a pastrami sandwich would be disappointing unless I had it at a Jewish deli.

Taxied in the evening to the Helmsley Park South for a reception to honor Raymond Carver and to mark the 50th anniversary of the Syracuse creative writing program. As I feared, I knew no one; none of my contemporaries appeared. Did meet some of the current students, who were charming, and a guy named Poe who had done interesting work in journalism, and who also knew nobody. Donald Dike was, curiously, not mentioned among the writing program luminaries (I thought he had founded it). Neither was I, which is not what I would have expected when I set my back to Syracuse, heading out into the world. Walked back to the hotel noting how Central Park South smells of horses, thinking wry thoughts. Beautiful faces, one after the other.