September 19, 2019

Thirty stories above Time Square in The Marriot Marquis, which I long admired without ever thinking I’d be inhabiting. It’s itself a towering city which, in bad weather, one need not ever leave. My customary digs at the Paramount lies just across the street, so this part of town feels firmly like “home.”  Hit the Rum House, a usual haunt. Men have always tended bar before. Women did last night, and the difference was palpable. The men are fully focused on their customers; the women bartenders are intensely protective of and interested in one another. One felt that one was negotiating for a drink, which would be denied of one had not behaved. Wandered half drunk back onto the street, passed the theater where Hadesville was playing, walked in and asked if there were a ticket for half an hour later, and there was. It is a version of Orpheus, and my mind shot back to Peri and Monteverdi. Hadesville is a genuine addition to this succession, over-produced (it is, after all, Broadway) but with genuine sentiment, lively in action, and with one spectacularly god-like boy in the chorus. Its thesis is the O and E were a reflection of the love affair of Hades and Persephone, and the histories of lovers is a long succession of the same beautiful stories over and over. I thought, as I always do, of what I would have done to improve the script. The seats are small and the giant man next to me was conspicuously miserable. Afterwards, a stroll through Times Square, where The Hulk wanted rather aggressively for me to take a picture with him, then to my room to watch the next installment of Ken Burns’ Country Music.

This morning took my necessary walk to Bryant Park, feeding the necessary brown birds. Headed south from there, down Christopher Street, draped in rainbow bunting, but nearly empty. Sit now on Times Square under an umbrella, calm in the midst of all, having walked from the hotel to the Village. I’ve done that before at greater speed, but the doing of the deed is what matters. A kid plays Pachelbel on a little stage at the end of the plot of chairs. Grimy sexy construction workers have their lunches at the next table. Wandered through a beautiful little garden near the corner of 7th and Christopher, where I gave a copy of The Falls of the Wyona to the people collecting donations for the upkeep of the garden. They said they’d come to the reading tonight, but who knows?