November 18, 2012

Newark airport. It is a rule that all the people who are not using electronic devices will be clustered around the columns of outlets, denying access, but I managed to find this one plug unnoted way in a corner. This has been, so far, the most uneventful travel experience I’ve ever had, and I thank God.

Haunted Columbus Circle for a little while, then went to the Board Meeting for the ABB Foundation. Francine’s dolls and arranged doll families and eclectic books lay under an additional layer of dust. To my surprise, the Foundation decided to keep on going after Arch’s death, doing pretty much what it did before. A further surprise was that when the finances were revealed, another thing revealed was that I have more money than the foundation. This took me a little aback. I’d already decided not to request travel expenses. I continue to be amazed in meetings such as that how serious people think of things–necessary things–that would never cross my mind. Was offered the job of Executive Director, which I turned down largely for that reason.

Went to Mamet’s Glenngarry Glen Ross. The Schoenfeld theater was the first one I ever saw a Broadway show at, when Susan took me to see Amadeus long ago. I’m not sure it had the same name then. Glengarry Glen Ross is a contemporary icon, and certainly the performances, from Al Pacino on across the board, were stellar. It’s almost impossible to imagine better. I got the last ticket in a sold-out house. But is the play itself really that good? The dialogue is magnificent. Mamet has found a perfect medium for reproducing the speech of rats fighting in a hole, and though that is a virtuosity, is it anything beyond that? Do these rats have anything to say, beyond creating a certain understanding of their rattiness? The characters are impossible to like beyond our liking for the actors playing them. The characters have nothing to teach, I think, unless one is in the desperate need for larceny and only fear of being caught would stop one. The play is in every way admirable as a performance, but I’m still searching for the road it could possibly take into the heart or the conscience. It was a fascinating event, in any case, and gives one the chance to watch virtuoso acting. Maybe that’s what it is about– like a basketball game where they don’t keep score, and the only thing that matters is how good everybody looks tossing the ball around.