Nashville!

Shit. Now there's another Connie Britton vehicle to suck me in.

Urban foraging: Allium (chives)

It was something like 62 degrees out—truly the first day that felt completely springlike. I was working at home and I had the window open. (Shehekhianu.) Later in the day, when I went out, for the first time this year, I didn't wear a jacket. (Shehekhianu.)  I went for two walks in Prospect Park.  On the first one, I found a whole bunch of wild chives. On the second one, I schooled Josh in finding them. OK, when I say wild, I really mean that they are growing in Prospect Park, and that I don't really know how they got there. It seems pretty likely that someone seeded them originally. But by now, they've spread all over the Southwestern side of the park, clump after clump, dotting the wooded hillside, and I think we probably call them wild. Also, it's very possible that they are wild chives—allium schoenoprasum—and that I'll one day eat my words (Prospect Park is not nature) as well as a delicious chive omelet.

Joy fail

I forgot. I didn't remember. I didn't seek joy. Selfish joy, selfless joy. I forgot. For anyone new to this blog, this is a highly unusual post. I am in the midst of a daily practice that started on yom kippur in which every single day I have done (at least) one thing a day to seek pure, selfish joy. Since yom kippur, I have only failed to do it one other time. Which is, y'all have to admit, an impressive track record, and which has had, I am proud to declare, a reliably positive effect on my life over the past six months. Let it be known that on April 4, 2013, I forgot to seek joy and that on April 5, 2013,  I forgave myself and started over again.

The Flick

Oh how the stars can sometimes align. I got a pair of tickets to see Annie Baker's new play The Flick, which is set in a small movie theater in New England. I used to work in a small movie theater in New England. I am still friends with all the people who run the small movie theater in New England. I invited my friend Phoebe, the daughter of two of the owners of the small movie theater in New England, to see if she could come with me. I was delighted that she was. While we hung out in the lobby before the show, we talked about how her parents and friends had sold the theater—not to a multiplex, but to a non-profit that was set up to support independent film in Central Maine. We were talking about how now that there's some money, the theater is converting over to digital from 35mm, and how on the one hand, that's incredibly sad after so many years of projecting 35mm. And I remembered what it felt like to set up and break down the reels, and to feel the film run between my fingers, and the time I made a mistake and spliced the wrong film into the right film and then projected it. I can never remember (I think I was too mortified to fully form the memory) but I think one of the reels was Last Temptation of Christ, and the other was, let's say, definitely not. So we were talking about this transition from film to digital, and then we went into the theater at Playwrights Horizons, and we were immediately confronted with a beautiful set of a space we have both spent hundreds and thousands of hours in. The slightly ratty seats of a movie theater and the windows of the projection booth, the lens of a 35mm projector peering through. When the action of the play starts, two guys are cleaning popcorn and soda (and other unmentionables) from the floor, something Phoebe and I have done hundreds and thousands of times. And within the first few minutes, we learn that this theater might be losing its 35mm projectors and converting to digital. A collective breath from the two of us, and we settled in for a 3-hour masterpiece. This is why we live in New York. To see great theater about a small movie theater in New England.

Skid Row

When I come off the subway at Church Avenue after work, there are usually a pack of people climbing the stairs, and I usually find myself somewhere in the middle of that pack. And when I come off the subway at 72nd Street on my way to work, there are usually a pack of people climbing the stairs, and I usually find myself somewhere in the middle of that pack too. And usually, on both ends, I find myself singing what I think is one of the greatest songs of the musical theater canon.

I never in my life imagined I would have a personal connection to a NYC subway commute. I always looked at it as something distant and vaguely mythical—certainly of another world from mine, and usually from a different (earlier) time from mine. I find myself continually surprised that I am here, that I am one of them—nay, one of us.

I was coming home with Mich, and I told her that I sing Skid Row every morning and every evening, and we both sang a little bit together, and she said she hadn't seen Little Shop of Horrors since maybe high school, and I said we could watch it when we got home. Which we did. More than once. This is truly also one of the best directed scenes of the movie musical canon, and it doesn't matter how many times I watch it; when the woman sings "they put in their 8 hours for the powers who have always been" I get chills up my spine. And when the residents of skid row all start tapping their right foot in unison, I get chills up my spine. And when the woman with white hair spits out "Down on Skid Row" I get chills up my spine. And when Audrey and Seymour work their ways towards each other, yes, I get chills up my spine. 


[WOMAN]
Alarm goes off at seven
And you start uptown.
You put in your eight hours
For the powers that have always been.


[RONNETTE]
Sing it child.

[WOMAN]
Till it's 5 P.M.

[BUM 1]
Then You go

[COMPANY]
Downtown
Where the folks are broke.
You go downtown
Where your life's a joke.
You go downtown
When you buy your toke,
And you go
Home to skid row.

[BUM 2]
Yes, you go

[COMPANY]
Downtown
[MAN]
Where the cabs don't stop
Downtown
[MAN]
Where the food is slop
[COMPANY]
Downtown
Where the hop-heads flop in the snow
Down on Skid Row
[Girls]
Uptown you cater to a million jerks.
Uptown you're messengers and mailroom clerks
Eating all your lunches at the hot dog carts.
The bosses take your money and they break your hearts.

Uptown you cater to a million whores.
You disinfect terrazzo on their bathroom floors.
The jobs are really menial; you make no bread.
And then at 5 o'clock you head

[BUM 3]
By subway
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[AUDREY]
Where the guys are drips.
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[AUDREY]
Where they rip your slips.
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[AUDREY]
Where relationships are no go.
Down on skid row!
Down on skid row!
Down on skid row!
Down on skid row!

[SEYMOUR]
Poor! All my life I've always been poor.
I keep asking God what I'm for,
and he tells me "Gee, I'm not sure.
Sweep that floor, kid."
Oh, I started life as an orphan,
a child of the street
Here on skid row.
He took me in, gave me shelter, a bed,
Crust of bread and a job
Treats me like dirt, calls me a slob,
Which I am.
So I live
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[SEYMOUR]
That's your home address.
Ya live
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[SEYMOUR]
When your life's a mess.
Ya live
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[SEYMOUR]
Where depressions' jes'
Status quo.
[COMPANY]
Down on skid row
[SEYMOUR]
Someone show me a way to get
outa here,
'cause I constantly pray I'll get
outa here
Please, won't somebody say I'll get
outa here
Someone gimme my shot or I'll
rot here.
Show me how and I will, I'll get out of here,
I'll start climbing up hill and get out of here,
Someone tell me I still could get out of here,
Someone tell Lady Luck that I'm stuck here.
[SEYMOUR & AUDREY]
Gee it sure would be swell to get out of here.
Bid the gutter farewell and get out of here.
I'd move heaven and hell to get out of skid.
I'd do I don't know what to get out of skid.
But a hell of a lot to get out of skid. 
Please don't tell me there's not a way out of skid.
But believe me I gotta get out of skid row.

[SEYMOUR & AUDREY]
I'd do I dunno what to get outa skid
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[SEYMOUR & AUDREY]
But a hell of a lot to get outa skid
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[SEYMOUR & AUDREY]
People tell me there's not a way outa skid
[COMPANY]
Downtown
[SEYMOUR & AUDREY]
But believe me I gotta get outa skid
[EVERYONE]
Row!

Opening Day (Red Sox beat Yankees to sweeten the deal)

If you can't watch the game at the ball field, and you can't watch the game on TV or listen to it on radio while it's actually being played, then you should definitely invite a good friend over to watch it on tape delay. Also, if you get stressed out when the Red Sox play the Yankees, you should definitely ask them to go up 4-0 in the 2nd inning, which makes for some seriously stress-free viewing. Also, if you want some excessive cuteness while watching your team win its opening day game against its arch-rival, you should invite your good friend's girlfriend and 4-year-old son over to watch for a while. Also, if you want to do your part for your team for the coming year, you should definitely start setting up your Red Sox altar over your TV. I mean, why worship false idols when you can worship real ones?

Modern Love

There is no greater joy (OK, there are equal or greater joys) but there are few greater joys than sitting home alone and reading Modern Love. Well-crafted personal essays of 1500-1700 words, each about  love in one form or another. A few minutes during which I get to lose myself in someone's story, which is one of my favorite things to do.

I've been writing a Modern Love essay that is not unconnected to the theme of the current one. Send your good juju this way to help me wend my way through the storytelling to get to the end I know I want. And (if I believed in god, I would say god willing) the day it gets published, I will know a greater joy than sitting alone and reading Modern Love.