June 26, 2025
Eleventh floor of the Edison, overlooking a Mordor of industrial rooftops.
Arrived at the Asheville airport on the day it opened its new and hugely enlarged facilities– got to use the new upstairs bar for the first time, damn near its first customer. No liquor license yet, so a good-luck bloody Mary was off the table. When I sat down the bartender cried out my name. He is a kid active in the local theater scene until COVID blasted his professional plans and turned him into the father of two daughters. Fate guided him well. He was less dramatically beautiful, but clearly happy. He is also whom I thank for my single worst on-stage experience– the laugh-riot King Lear at NC Stage many years back. I didn’t mention it. Perhaps he never saw it that way. The tide rolls in and the tide rolls out.
Hobbled to The Joyce to see Pilobolus. I first saw them in Baltimore the year of their inception (or very close; it must have been 1973) and have done so at intervals since. They are less conceptual and more dance-y than they were, some of their gestures frozen into formula, but still marvelous to watch. It was better, or at least different, when they were all male. Some of the frisson is gone. They traded their odd glamor in to become an institution. Last night’s dancers didn’t really become their stage presences, as performers often do, but remained muscle-y boys who had learned a technique flawlessly while staying recognizably themselves. “Look what I am doing without actually being.” I think that is fine.
When I caught myself in the last second from a fall down the Joyce Center balcony steps, I foresaw my end. It will probably be a fall, as my legs do not work, without my being able to say exactly why they do not. Took the subway to the Joyce and back. This was itself an adventure and a victory, for I imagined the subway and myself would not meet again. The steps were a tribulation, but minutes later my breath returned and I went on. The City was once the exhibit of my stamina, how I would run down the streets and conquer the subways and be ready for more. In the two days I’ve been here I have done what I would have done in past time, but very much slower, hardly able to move at the end of it. I’m glad tonight’s adventure is but two blocks away.
Drank my way back from the subway stop. The bartender at the Iron Bar was happy about the recent Democratic primary. “Anybody but Cuomo,” she said. The bartender at the bar that’s in the Paramount but not part of the Paramount said she preferred the devil you know (presumably Cuomo) to the devil you don’t. At the Iron Bar, a girl– very loudly– declared to the boy she was with that he couldn’t possibly understand her, as he was neither black nor female. She discoursed on her uniqueness and the unknowability of her experience at some length, and volume. Even most black girls couldn’t understand her due to qualities of her hair and complexion. One nods and agrees when people say that people who are not them cannot understand them, but I wonder if it’s actually true. What about empathy? What about the penetration of the eye of the artist? “You don’t understand” is one of those statements which cannot be corrected or even discussed, because all data are deliberately concealed. Yes, dear, I do understand, You just don’t like that I do, that anyone can.
Fighting the terrible blast of the room air conditioning. Brought no jacket, anticipating the heat wave forecasted by the media.
The hotel’s complimentary breakfast costs $6.50
Bought a watch at the Times Square Swatch, as I have done for half my life. This is the third, at least. Somehow they don’t remember me from decade to decade.
Hiked to MOMA. Ate incredibly overpriced salad on a balcony overlooking the sculpture garden.
Evening. Attended Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum. Somewhat unexpectedly, a glorious evening. Cheap laughs became consequential ones.
