I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
August 24, 2010 - 12:30 p.m.
Welcome to another sleep deprived edition of Wise Madness When you go to sleep after 3 AM and can sleep as late as you want you really shouldn't get up before 8.
So now I have to explain why I was up late. Yes I have something to write about. I went out yesterday and actually did things. I did fun things with some of my favorite people. That doesn't always translate into a good entry. I don't have the crutch of photos. We'll just have to see how this goes.
This is me so I have to start talking about commuting. I was coming home late so I drove my car into Manhattan early. Even worse I (don't tell my parents that I did this) paid for parking. I feel so dirty. So what brought me to these extreme actions? Well first there was Christine Lavin doing a reading of her book, Cold Pizza for Breakfast: A Mem-Wha?at Knitty City, a knitting store. Yes, not a book store, a knitting store. Chris knits, she wrote about knitting in the book, and this was up in her old hood. She asked me to be there and bring a copy of the photo I took that's in her book. You know the one I never tire of showing you. Oh, you want me to show you again. Sure.
It is amazing how much better my new printer is. Even though that isn't a high res photo it looked great when I printed it out on 4"x6" photopaper.
Because of the vagaries of driving in I was a bit late and Chris had already started reading. Actually when I walked in Julie Gold was reading the part she wrote. That was good because it let Chris spot me in the back. I held up the photo so she'd know I had it. When Julie was done Chris called me up and I showed everyone the color original. It's in black and white in the book.
Now Chris is social. Chris is very social. She has lots of friends and wants all her friends to be friends with each other. She wants the strangers she just meets to be friends with her and her friends. Chris is a one woman social networking site. So I knew a lot of the people there, even if I can't remember their names. There's Julie of course but she doesn't count as I first saw her performing on stage and talked to her all on my own. The other I only know because Chris introduced us, there's Ervin Drake and his wife Edith, Jim, David, and damn, I can't remember the names of the others. It's hard not having a brain.
I got to sign autographs again as Chris is awarding the person that gets the most autographs of people in the book. It's totally silly so I love it.
After the signing we went down to the diner a few blocks away for dinner. Chris reserved a large table. It wasn't clear who was coming and who wasn't but we ended up with almost exactly the right number of seats. I had to save two because the other two favorite people I saw last night met us there, the beautiful and talented Allison Tartalia, and Carolann Solebello. A quick diversion. How did you parse that sentence? Did the compound adjective "beautiful and talented" get distributed over both Allison and Carolann like I meant it to? This is why math is better than English. I could make it perfectly clear with parentheses in math.
We sat with Jim, David,and and um, the lovely woman that used to run the Landmark on Mainstreet's music program. She can't be insulted if I call her "lovely" right? All six of us ordered some variation of burger but only two of us ordered the same thing. There were two veggie burgers (I bet many of you can guess who got one of them), one turkey burger, one hamburger, one bison burger (you should know who got that one too), and one chopped steak salad. As someone said, "only in New York." The norm is having no norm.
The plans for this whole evening started with my making plans to go to Cast Party with Allison last week. We only know about Cast Party because of Chris so I wrote Chris and asked if she was going. She's a regular when she's in the City. She said yes and invited me to the reading and or dinner. I've been pushing Carolann to play there and I told her on Saturday that I'm going with Allison and Chris so she'd have plenty of friendly faces around her and she decided to go to. Then the irony is that Chris was too tired and didn't go to Cast Party but the three of us and some other people from the dinner did.
We hopped in my car and drove down there and found parking a couple of blocks away. Here's a parking tip. You can park west of eighth avenue in the theater district on Monday nights when the theaters are dark. Just make sure that you have a degree in New York Parking signage. On the first block we looked there was plenty of parking and muni-meters, which have replaced parking meters. The sign said,
No stopping (I think there were times given)We couldn't figure out what it could mean till Allison (or was it Carolann, I wish I had a brain) figured it out. Only commercial vehicles could use the munimeters. None of us had ever seen this before and we all live and drive in New York. Imagine a tourist trying to figure that out.
Except for commercial vehicals
Munimeters including Sundays
Don't you love how in an event filled evening with people I love I have to spent time writing about parking regulations? I'm a New Yorker to my bones.
We got to Birdland, where Cast Party is held, right before the doors opened. We still thought that Chris was joining us then. I said we were sitting with Chris and we were sent to Michael's table. That's where I always sit except the time I was at the bar. Michael aka Russian Michael aka the Mayor is the one that everyone at Cast Party knows. He wasn't there last night but it's still his table. Because I'm in the Friends of Christine Lavin Club I knew someone else at the table. Mark Aaron James. I had met him my last time there. He's funny. Don't take my word for it: He's on the Jonathan Coulton Channel on Pandora.
After we sat down I called Chris and Chris called me at exactly the same time and we left messages for each other. Mine asking if she's coming and her telling me she isn't.
I guess I need to explain Cast Party for those of you that haven't been there or heard me describe it. It's an open mic for the Broadway-Cabaret-Folk-Didgeridoo community. It''s the best open mic I've been to; the only one that I consistently love. That's because the performers are for the most part professionals, often big stars. I've heard Liza Minelli there. Last night's big star was Ann Hampton Callaway . In the interest of full discloser I have never heard of her. I asked Allison and Carolann if I should know her and they said yes. They are right. She got chops.
Part of the fun is that nobody knows when they are going to be called up. Is it going to be a star, an unknown, the people I was with? There were some great performers, not just the usual show music singers and funny singer-songwriters. There was a 15-year-old boy that sizzled on the jazz violin. There was a classical pianist that played Chopin in honor of his Bicentennial. The best part of course is when my friends were called up. It felt just like it does when they pull your number in a raffle. We won! First Allison was called and did the delectable Sweet and Viscious and a few people later Carolann was called and she did Papa's Mandolin. That was perfect as there was an Italian theme for the evening and the song is about her great grandfather. You might have figured out that both Ms Solebello and Ms Tartalia are Italian. Is there a plural form of Ms?
This was one of those times where it struck me how talented my friends are. I'm a "no talent clump" as my seventh grade teacher dubbed those not in music or art (I was actually in orchestra but that doesn't mean I had talent). How did I get such amazingly talented friends? Talented friends who'd I'd love if they had no talent, who are so much fun to be with.
There was also a Star Trek Theme that started with the game of Trivet Pursuit. The guest host, Jim just had heart surgery, asked a series of trivia questions with a common theme. At the end of the evening the first person to guess the theme wins a genuine trivet that costs less than $2. That led the bass player, whose name I should know as he is in the Friends of Chris Club and I had been talking to him at the book signing, said "The Trouble with Trivets." Mark Aaron James sang a song about William Shatner at a Star Trek Convention.
Now for the contest: I'm going to give you the answers and you see if you can figure out the theme.
- South Pacific
- My Fair Lady
- The Sound of Music
- Gypsy
- Fiddler on the Roof
- Man of La Mancha
Have you figured out the common thread? I did! Yes I won the trivet! Here's proof, Allison took a photo with her iPhone.
You want the answer? The star on Broadway was not in the film. I knew this because I get filled with righteous indignation from some of these Hollywood casting decisions. That said they are all great films other than Man of La Mancha. Here are the actors:
- South Pacific - Mary Martin was replaced by Mitzi Gaynor
- My Fair Lady -- Julie Andrews was replaced by Audrey Hepburn
- The Sound of Music -- Mary Martin was replaced by Julie Andrews
- Gypsy -- Ethel Merman was replaced by Rosalind Russell
- Fiddler on the Roof -- Zero Mostel was replaced by Topal
- Man of La Mancha -- Richard Kiley was replaced by Peter O'Toole
These were all defining roles for the Broadway stars yet for some reason they were considered inadequate for the movie.
See I even got a rant in there.
After the show I felt bad because Carolann had to take the subway home alone at 1 AM. We at least walked her to the station. I then drove Allison home and made my way back home. It was a long evening but wonderful. It doesn't get any better
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
creative commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile August 24, 2010
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