Carnegie Hall

    So having returned to New York filled with a wish to love New York, the first day here, still mildly jet-lagged, I bought a ticket for Barbara Cook's 85th birthday appearance at Carnegie Hall.  Still mildly out-of-touch, I did not anticipate the huge turn-out that would be there for her being alive, and still really touchingly able to sing, if hardly able to walk.

     Though not as old as Barbara, I was in my young prime when she was not only a lovely performer, but still mobile enough to be considered perfect for the lead in my then brand-new musical, now called SYLVIA WHO? by my actual producer, a (I thought) lovely man who rejoiced in its being all the work of one person, and introduced me to the audience at his backer's audition as the three people who wrote book, music and lyrics.  Anyway, he went to New York to see Barbara who had to go Christmas shopping, so would not commit.

    The long list of disappointments and abandonment that transpired after that-- none of his previous backers would come back, as he had been a bit of a scoundrel, robbing Peter to pay Paul, or in his case, Richard(Harris) to support Rex (Harrison,) will make for a fine tale of unthwarted resolve, should it ever come together.  After that there were no more major supporters, except for my friends the Temples who loved it and came through with financing for the recording Rosemary Clooney did of the score-- her participation was in exchange for sandwiches for the musicians, because she, too, great generous spirit, thought it "what people needed to hear... They're just waiting for this."  And of course they still are.

    Anyway last night I went to see Barbara, whom I had seen in The Music Man when she was still adorable, that being the musical that most heartens me since it took Meredith Wilson more than fifteen years to get it on, which record I have since long exceeded. But the good news is that the only great thing about our economy is it's right for the musical-- makes it all make perfect sense.  So maybe everything is a question of timing.  

      My take on the audience-- chock-a-block, not a spare seat in the whole many tiers of that great auditorium-- is that they both grieved for her loss(she apparently had one great love, which is more than a lot of people had, as I had) and supported her gain, the weight that would, of course, make it impossible even if she were still young to do a demanding musical, which SYLVIA WHO? certainly is.  Her voice continues to be wonderful, and except for one ill-chosen (and not very good) song about how she loves to eat, the songs she sang were great.

    Most moving was "If I Love Again," which really tore me apart though by that number I had waxed cynical, and her dismissal of Cole Porter had antagonized me, as he would have been a very good friend of mine, had I ever met him, as I did have the good fortune to do with Frank Loesser and Yip Harburg, both of whom were kind enough to endorse me as a talent.  And I do, after all, have the same birthday as Irving Berlin, which I always considered validation from the universe.

    But in any case, as I left after her last number and a standing ovation from the audience, and walked up the aisle, I noted one woman's face that was wracked with pain and adoration, as she was obviously torn apart by worship and the bond of lost something, love, maybe, youth, aspiration.  Right after that, as i reached the last row and started to exit the hall, a musician came in named Pete Pizzi-something to give Cook the honor Bloomberg had accorded her, making her a living landmark of New York, and then lowered the level of the tribute by bringing on his wife to sing a song, which I could feel even that far away from the stage really must have pissed Barbara off.  After all, it was her evening, and for him to capitalize on that audience to get a hearing for his wife was pushy and inappropriate.  In my opinion, anyway, which grows stronger every day as I worry over a country that could be stupid enough to vote for Mitt.  Oh, well-- that's show business.    

My Country, 'Tis for Sale

    So I went yesterday to the Players, the wonderful club started by Edwin Booth, loved by Mark Twain, and all manner of Greaties of the Past, that has fallen onto hard times along with everyplace else that is not funded by the Koch brothers, to hear Colin Powell, as I guess I am allowed to refer to him, as he has long since retired from being a General.  My beloved friend Sandy Burton,sharp, keen, impeccable journalist, and first woman Bureau Chief at Time, would have taken the offered post as Washington Bureau chief had he run for president, as many hoped he would do.

    He was there yesterday to flog his new book, and was gently witty as he told us what a leader had to be, the most important thing being "kind."  He told one anecdote that was scored with audience(a huge one, the place was overfull) laughter, involving George W. Bush, whom he said he had briefed on everything necessary to know before the meeting, because "I'm no fool."  Everybody chortled, as we all know who was.

    Anyway, he was quietly riveting, and did explain why he didn't run for president-- he didn't have the passion for it, he said.  We know who does have the passion for it, though he clearly has no passion for anything else, being one of the most bloodless and uninspired human beings(I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, ascribing humanity to him) I have ever seen, and that is Mitt.  Never have I seen anyone more patently empty, feigning having something inside.  It is all so sad, this election.

    I would have liked to have asked the General how we end these wars, but of course that wasn't his job.  His job was the best way to keep them going, and of course trying to win.

    As for this election, I have just submitted this editorial to the NYTimes, among the  last bastions of Liberty.  Last night made me sick.  "Sinister" is originally a word that meant, in other languages, ' left.'  But here it is 'right'.  Mitt Romney is sinister.  Feigning every emotion including emotion, he scared me.  Where will we go if he wins?

    God Bless America, or, in this case, God help America.

    Here's the piece.    

    The saddest thing about this election, for those of us who grew up with a genuine love of country, is the loss of what made us America.  That was, from my vivid recollection, a deep admiration for the Framers,-- men like Jefferson, Franklin and Washington, who overcame impossible odds and chilling hardships to put us, literally, on the map.  That was the country I was born in, undeniably the greatest country in the world, where, because of the education that was available, and the prevalence of American initiative, once known as "gumption," everyone had a chance, with hard work, to be whatever they wanted to be.

    All of this seems to have gone out the window with the partisan divisions that threaten to tear us apart.  Even worse, the deep pockets of the SuperPacs, which could build shelters for the homeless, feed the hungry, and solve myriad problems here and around the world, are being plumbed solely to to buy this election.
  Sadly, we are not as smart as our history should have educated us to be.  That it will end up being how much money is spent to fool the largest number of the mindless, riveted to their TVs, that will could determine our future, is the new American Tragedy.

Wendy

    So on September 19, with a frazzled and harried heart, I made it to the Trattoria del Arte to have lunch with Wendy Weil, a bright and (I thought) spiritually radiant literary agent, if it is not a contradiction in terms to imagine an agent could radiate spirit.   But Wendy had gone to Wellesley, one of Bryn Mawr's sister colleges, giving it immediate cache in my mind, since little has served me as well as my Alma Mater, which it turned out really to be, the friends I made, and the presidents I knew there having given me strength and validation over the years.  Wendy was also the clerk of a Friends' alumni group, and having spent a sizable part of my inner questing at Quaker meetings, there was that, too, to be explored.

    We had made a short inroad into real friendship some years ago, even though she had declined to represent my Venice book, although admitting she had enjoyed and been fooled by it, but didn't think she could sell it.  But after that we went out one night to hear her friend Nancy, a contemporary, (meaning that she, too, was tiptoeing into her seventies) do a cabaret act of Yip Harburg songs, Yip having been my mentor and lyrical father figure for the beginning of my would-have-been career as a songwriter.

     But I was really looking forward to the lunch, as my return to New York had been less than wondrous, there being few people here to whom I feel connected, and the general sense of urgency surrounding almost every step you take in this city being in direct confrontation to the peace I had managed to maintain the past few months. The lunch, being so happily anticipated, had been nearly scuttled by some hysteria surrounding my daughter in Arizona, and I was relieved to be still in New York to catch up with Wendy, and threw the whole unpleasant story on the table when I got to the restaurant, late, which she immediately pointed out was not my usual style.  She fielded all the grim personal stuff with  gentle panache, and we ordered lunch.   I know better than to reveal stuff I am going through with my children to someone who would rather be someplace else, but I couldn't help myself. And she was very kind, but then, even though she didn't have children, we shared a love for dogs. 

      Anyway I told her not to worry about my new manuscript, which I thought I'd brought with me in an envelope, that she should just read it for pleasure, as I understood from the way things were in the book business, that it would never be published.  When it turned out I'd brought the wrong manuscript, she walked me back to my apartment, so I could go upstairs and get the right one, and waited in the lobby while I scoured through my papers to find the right one, which I couldn't.  When I went back downstairs she smiled and said "I knew you were looking for it and couldn't find it," and assured me that my e-mailing it to her office would be fine, even though we were both of the generation that liked to turn pages.

     "And you don't know that it will never be published," she opined most sweetly, and we said our goodbyes.  The next day she e-mailed me that my e-mail hadn't gone through, and the day after that, that her office e-mail had been corrected, and she had the book.  That was Friday.

     Saturday she died.

     I did not find that out till Monday, when her office e-mailed everybody I guess.  I have not been struck so low, or so unexpectedly, in all the years since Don died, and for that I had some preparation.  I have been off kilter since I heard, deeply sad and feeling... what?  Things so deep and unexpected they puzzle me.  I think of the Quakerly things we might have discussed had the friendship had time to flower. I think of the gentle, smiling way she said "You don't know that it will never be published," and wondered if that was her Inner Light, the Quakerly thing that guides that religion, or some prescience she might have had.

     Whatever it was, I have been blown away since, sorrowing over her, wishing there was something I could do, when that's the thing about Death-- there really is nothing. It's over.

     Then last night I suddenly understood the depth of my grieving, for this woman I believe was wonderful, but in fact hardly knew.  It was not just Wendy I was grieving; it was Death.  It just seems so irrational.  Much as we know it is coming for everyone, it appeared, this time at least, completely out of line.

    She was there, she was perky, she had light in her eyes, she was kind. And then she was gone.  It makes no sense, for all that it is real.  The realest.

My Parents' Anniversary

    I am always grateful when I wake up in the morning, because I realize I could have died in my sleep.  
    Yesterday, October 4th, was a really hard day for those who believe in Truth, and positive movement, it being the let-down-day after the  much-anticipated first debate between Barack and Mitt, whose name was until Oct. 3rd, a good projection of his oafishness. But since our president let us down Big-time, and not a single lie out of Mitt's mush was pointed out or argued, or even minimally Reaganed, ("There you go again",) I think I will spend today, Oct. 5th, in bed. 

     Last night was also the date that my parents, Lew and Helen, got married, their wedding party in the basement of her family's Oakland home in Pittsburgh, which my Aunt Rita, the only surviving member of the Finks(no kidding, that was their name,) was not allowed to attend because it embarrassed my mother that she had a sister that young, Rita having been Grandma Gussie's change-of-life surprise.  Helen was expecting that after the ceremony Lew would whisk her to the loftier environs of Squirrel Hill, where dwelt the more arrived, upmarket immigrant Jews, of which his Romanian father was one, -- the only one who could get credit in the new country, so opened an account that all the frightened and unsettled  comers could charge their purchases to at Kaufman's and Gimbel's, paying back Grandpa Adolf(the perfect name for him) at what I am sure were usurious rates. A sweetie he wasn't, -- in the words of my Grandpa Moisch (a sweetie he was,) "If you have a Romanian for a friend, you don't need an enemy."

     Then, to my mother's horror, after the party Lew simply whisked her upstairs to her crowded family apartment, where I was also to live when born, which I apparently was.  That is maybe the only reason to be glad about the October 4th date, as the marriage did not work out Big Time, police being called at regular intervals when my father beat my mother, something she brilliantly provoked, telling him what a loser he was, usually on her back on the floor kicking in bicycling circles in the air, where his balls were shortly to be as he charged in to strangle her.  It was a lively babyhood, some of which was recalled as Mitt charged in for the kill.  I have rarely been so disappointed.

    But that was somewhat ameliorated last night when I went to the Players' Club on Gramercy Park,where there were some delightful people arguing the eventual- let us hope-- beside the pointedness of just one debate.  All present, though amiable, seemed to be suffering in different ways, to different degrees, some because they were young and just starting out in uncertain times, some because they were no longer so young, and a few because they were attached to the club, and the club-- with its John SInger Sargent portrait on the still well-maintained walls of Major Player Edwin Booth,-- is suffering because people are lax with dues, or unwilling to spend on joining.  

    Still it is a nice place, and they were bright and overall, kind.  I will return there again on Wednesday, when Colin Powell will appear in the afternoon.  I must do that especially since my lost,  beloved Sandy would have considered taking the post as Washington Bureau chief of TIME Magazine, which was offered her, only if Powell had chosen to run for president, which, alas, he chose not to do, bringing less than glory to our presidency (except maybe for Bill) and posts for Sandy which turned out, eventually, to be lethal.

   But I happened (?-- or are our steps all guided?) on Miguel Covarrubias' Island of Bali again.  He wrote that the elders of Bali, not acknowledging that they are getting older and so physically disintegrating, are supported by supernatural powers that are so impressed they come in to bring strength and, oh well, why not, supernatural powers.  So I invite them all in so I can hold my head up long enough to accomplish that which I hope to accomplish.

   And that, perhaps, will be a justification for the anniversary that commemorates, on the face of it, little to be happy about.  Besides me, of course.

Shanah Tovah, I think

    I had some breakfast this morning in spite of the fact that I usually fast on this meant-to-be solemn occasion, because I was meeting the columnist Liz Smith for lunch, an old friend to whom I owed gratitude (she was very kind and supported me during the best of my writing career) -- I remember after the success of The Pretenders, and the election of Richard Nixon, after which we moved to England because we could,  I was sitting with her downstairs having breakfast in the Regency, where we staying because we could, when Robert ran by the window in his adorable toddlerhood. When he came in, she said "I saw you running in the street," and for several minutes after that, he chanted, ecstatic, "You saw me running in the street.  You saw me running in the street."  I believe it was the highlight of his New York visit, since he never liked anything more than being observed.
   She had also turned away some attractive man at a cocktail party who was interested in me, saying, very calmly but severely, "She's already taken." (I believe she really liked Don, as I did, too.)  The Pretenders had soared high on the bestseller list without much help from the publisher, being a surprise hit, and one of its most witty advocates in the Hearst papers had been Cholly Knickerbocker, whom I didn't know but who roundly admired my novel in print.  Then at a cocktail party, I was introduced to Liz Smith, and she said "I'm Cholly Knickerbocker."  After that we were great friends for a while, and she even marked the antics of my mother when she had her own column, so my mother felt like she, too, was a hit.
    I was very grateful to her, but then pressed for more publicity, as I was success-mad, and fearful it was going away, which it was, so Liz got mad at me.  Because my life has changed so completely, as I believe I have, I wanted to smooth it over before one or both of us left the planet (she is almost 90, and I am surprisingly old, having been the youngest one in my class at Bryn Mawr, and having started my life over after Don died, and several times since, writing travel for the Wall Street Journal Europe, my first real job since I was 20, when I had a brief run in the NBC Comedy Development Program, where I shared office space with Woody Allen, who was already smarter than I-- as he came in only on the day we got our checks, while I wrote a sitcom, songs, or a musical almost daily.)  So I made this date with Liz, which I did not want to re-set even though it was Yom Kippur, on which I almost never eat, though I am far from an observant Jew, or a steadfast observant anything, though Don said I should put in my reunion update that I was "a Quaker -Buddhist-Jew-- that'll really give them something to puzzle out at Bryn Mawr."
   Anyway I went to Swifty's. and she wasn't there, having apparently cancelled last night, but I didn't pick up the message, since most of the calls I've received lately have been disturbing for reasons I hope I am too private to put in a Report, as open(too) as I am.  So being uptown in a neighborhood where I used to live I decided to just wend my way home, chicly dressed as I was, and hoping that God, should He/She be looking, would see that I was making an effort to be present, the best thing I think you can be in this life, even as the mind wanders.
   First I went into the Christian Science Reading Room, to see if something could offer me illumination.  Neither any of their literature nor the messages opened and underlined in the window did it for me.  Then I went into a church-- I am not quite sure what denomination, and let the hymns fall open where they would, seeking guidance for the crap I am going through, and studying the Gothic architecture and the really lovely stained glass.   Then I passed a store called 'Worldly Things,' which was going out of business, and had a sign in its window saying 'The end of Worldly Things,' that I considered perhaps spiritually significant. But going inside, even their sacrifice prices were a bit too worldly.
   So I made my way to Temple Emanuel, where my parents belonged in my youth, and went through the side entrance for those who cannot afford to be in the congregation, passed through the metal detector and set it off with my new hip, and went downstairs, where there were hundreds of seats set up, and only about six or eight people in attendance.  But I heard the sermon from upstairs, and, more important, the singing voices of children, which kind of lifted me.  Then the woman rabbi read a story, but her reading was singsong and less than inspiring, so I left.
   And as I did, I encountered on the sidewalk a very fine-looking young father, holding a three-month old baby in his arms, fortunately a girl, as she had beautiful eyelashes, and it is only right that they should not be wasted on a boy.  "What's her name?" I asked the dad.
    "SYLVIA," he answered, immediately balming my soul, and giving my heart hope. For that, as my friends know, is the name of my musical, or was -- it is now
"SYLVIA WHO?"  And that is the reason I am back in New York, as the only really good thing about the economy is it's right for my musical.  It is the tale, begun long ago, but because of the way things are now, being timely and truly pertinent-- inspired by my mother-- of a widow whose husband leaves her a co-op on Park Avenue, and just enough money to pay the maintenance, so in order to live, in order to eat, she crashes parties, looking for love and free hors d'oeuvres.  That was, of course, what the late Helen Schwamm, aka Mom, did, except that in her case love came along a lot but never settled, though she was oft commemorated by Liz.  Nor did she have an apartment on Park Avenue, having panicked and sold everything of real value she had, silver, crystal, china, and a gorgeous place with terrace and many rooms on E. 60th Street for $60,000 to a British director whose name I don't remember since he wasn't very good, but struck a fine bargain with a woman who wasn't thinking.  From there she moved to the studio where I live now, as she was kind enough to leave it to me, but sad she divested herself of most everything but the chutzpah to crash parties.
    As old friends know I was originally a songwriter, (Frank Loesser said "Kid, you're the biggest talent since me.)  But Don told me early in our marriage: "You mix people up: you write plays and songs and poems and movies and books, and people are only comfortable if they can pigeonhole you.  So do one thing and one thing only and then you can surprise them."  So I wrote twelve books and figuring I had made my point, presented my musical to Jimmy Nederlander who rasped: "You're a bookwriter! What are you doing writing a musical?"
   So it's been a very long struggle to get people to listen.  The songs are, understandably, the kind of songs that used to be, because that's who Sylvia is. But they're good, and the lyrics say something, and the wonderful Rosemary Clooney whom I didn't know liked them so much she recorded them for me in exchange for sandwiches for the musicians.  Then one day during my recent sojourn in LA, as I swam in the pool at the Mosaic, an old friend appeared and said "I haven't forgotten about SYLVIA."  She would like to establish herself as a producer, is very sharp, and has the wherewithal and connections to do it.  But she isn't well, so I am, of course, praying for her good health.
  We'll see.  Meanwhile, there WAS that baby outside the temple.  You just never know when the signs mean something.  At least one can hope so.  Or, as Blanche DuBois might have said, slightly rewritten, "Sometimes there's God so slowly."

Unexpected Mischief

    It is amazing what trouble I can find just walking through the park.  Example, below. This is the woman who was kind to me on Saturday, when I suffered over being rejected by someone I didn't even know, which is my way.  If you want to call her, that's up to you.  But I shall await the arrival of Jack Kornfield, my friend and teacher, to pick up my healing.

    Honest to God. 

    What a world! what a world! as Margaret Hamilton would say just before they threw the water on her in Wizard of Oz. 

    Breathe and stay healthy, and out of the way of.. how can I put it poetically?...bullshit?

    One day I will tell you about my adventure on Sunday, going to a beloved friend's husband's memorial service at Calvary Church in Stonington, Conn, on a train that left at 7 AM so I was up at 5 and got there at 7 and the service wasn't till 1.  So there I was all alone in an unknown venue but the sun glittered on the water, and I found some friendly faces and a few pelicans.  I wrote about it on my Ipad but can't send it as I forgot my password for that particular Apple device, which we know from yesterday's headline is from what will be the first company to break a trillion.

   Oh, I hope there is a Heaven, so Steve Jobs knows what he hath wrought.  Not to mention Ash Green, the great gentleman whose sad celebration it was.

    Here's the lady in the park.

About Kat Katsanis-Semel

Kat Katsanis-Semel, M.A., is a Reiki Master, an Integrated Energy Therapy® Master, an Angel Therapist® and a Magical Awakening® practitioner. She is the founder of KaTransformations, which is a revolutionary, personal transformation business. Kat received her Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, and her Master of Arts from New York University. Through introspection, as well as through her studies in academic and holistic health environments, Kat discerned her dharma, or life’s calling. Kat is called to support others in their personal evolution of moving from fear based belief systems, to those rooted in love. KaTransformations offers this support in an LGBTQ-welcoming paradigm, which reflects her core value of conscious inclusiveness.

(THE PLUG IN, whatever that means, I guess her picture, is missing.  But you get the idea.)

Autumn in New York

So yesterday was spent traversing the doggie hot spots in Manhattan, looking for the little girl who can never replace, but might warm the spot formerly camped on by Mimi, whose loss, you may remember, sent me heartsick to a welcoming recuperation at a kind friend's home in Bali.  That of course resulted in two books, the first, one that was fun but didn't matter, SCANDAL, the second the task gnawing at my gut and heart since 2004, when a truly beloved friend died in a mysterious and improbable "accident" in Bali, never investigated, even though she herself was arguably one of the great woman journalists of our time-- certainly mine.  That book being finished, although orbiting into a world bereft of Barnes and Noble and publishers filled with purpose-- oh ghost of Maxwell Perkins, have you found anyplace to rest?-- felt like a true achievement, if not for my career, for my soul.

    Returning to what is essentially the supercharged, driven, but empty place that is New York New York if you are not on top of the heap or self-appointedly so (see Donald Trump) my apartment felt particularly vacant without Mimi.  So the lovely and kind Susan Dady, who worked with my magnificent mentor(character-wise, I could not hope to stand even a long way behind her, academically) Pat McPherson after she left her post as president of Bryn Mawr and went to the Mellon Foundation.  Pat had once again sent me looking for a dog, and knowing how susceptible I am, counseled me to take Susan along to give me ballast.  Our appointed meeting place was the pet store on Lexington where I had found Mimi, an aberration for a pet store, angel dog that she seemed and now is in fact, where I had the sense not to be taken in by the doggies in the window, advertised outside at $699 and being once you inquired, $2500 but they would come down a little. Really.  I mean even the wonderfully ugly dog who looked a bit like MuMu, the Dachshund/chihuahua that was one of the litter of three totally different mixed breeds all from the same mother(and three different fathers, apparently dogs can do that) that I had come to love in Bali, was over the top in price, $ 3300 but they would come down a little.

     We taxied up to the neighborhood where the adoptive pets were, had a tasty lunch on First Avenue and 110th Street at Wing Ho, vegetables and Lo Mein, then made our way to the place advertised where my new dog wasn't.  But they suggested we go to the ASPCA and the Humane Society further downtown.  So we did.  On the way, having saved $3300 but they would come down, I bought my first pair of heels since my recent realignment, checking if I could actually maneuver in them, which I believe I could if I had an arm, so that might become my second Manhattan quest after Whoever She Is.  At the Humane Society I made a human connection, with a wonderful, seemingly hard-bitten interviewer who morphed instantly into a sensationally accessible woman, we became friendly, and I am sanguine that if the dog exists, she will find her for me.  

      Then I hobbled home, this having been more on-the-ground running than I have done since returning to this city of cement sidewalks and hard countenances, everyone on their way to something, nobody being exactly where they are.  But all that will be put into clear perspective next weekend when my beloved teacher and friend, Jack Kornfeld, whom Don called my Jewru, comes to town, a gift from the universe during these troubled and confusing times, to teach at Omega, quartered while he's here at the Ethical Culture Society, just across the park from me.  

      Sometimes the blessings are so elusive, but in others, they are held out like welcoming hands.  With very soft skin, and no callouses. 

      That night I went to the opening of the antiques show at the New York Armory, loaded with flashy and over-the-top jewels,  beautiful furniture, and a cast of hundreds mooching free eats. Dinner on the sidewalk with my old friend Isobel, and then another long walk home.   So the next morning I went to the chiropodist, and then stopped in to see a friend with whom I shared a vet whose name I couldn't remember, and her receptionist told me she doesn't have the vet anymore, because her dog died. 

      I don't know. Maybe it's better if I don't get a pet.  When you love, in one way or another, you lose. 

      Then today, as I walked back through the park after catching up with the gorgeous Tarp children, Viktoria 3and 1/2 and Winston, a giant six months, and their beautiful parents, both of them making the world a better place (working for the UN in spots that need them)  I chanced upon a party on the grass behind a bench.  Two friendly Hispanics were sitting there drinking from silver chalices, having been invited, they told me, to share in the happiness.  The man whose half-happiness it was-- he and his partner were celebrating the partner's birthday, and the bench itself, he told me.  The birthday man said they had bought the bench so that their children and friends, when they were gone-- dead, I imagine, he meant-- instead of going to a cemetery friends and family could come to the park, sit there and remember them.  It seemed quite a beautiful idea, as the day itself was mild and beautiful, and the un-birthday boy invited me to come to the other side and share the happiness.

    There were two or three tables laid with wine and gorgeous cakes and pies, and although I took only a glass of water, I was impressed with the beauty and generosity of spirit.

     Not so fast.  This is, after all, New York.  The daughter Jennifer, a second grade school teacher, already knew we had the same name, both of them derived from Guinevere.  "It's my name, after all," she said.

     So basking in the benevolence, I just looked, and smiled, and then, it being my-- as they say in Italy, only in Italian(I don't want to show off)-- greatest virtue and worst fault that I am very, maybe completely open-- I tried to be friendly and asked the lovely Jennifer which of the cakes she had baked.  At that point she threw me out of the party.

     New York Hos, is what I dub that, fair Guinevere descendant.  Hos for hospitality, until a moment later when it becomes hostility.  So I left, at which point I encountered two women, one of them a healer/medium, and they both agreed that that was VERY  New York.  Open-hearted, with a knife in it.

     At that point the conversation turned to Mitt, the only one I imagine who has perhaps had a more tumultuous and upsetting few days than I have had, and the healer expressed the opinion that he was a sociopath, more extreme than the idea I had, which was that he is quite simply a moron, in an empty suit.  She said that what characterizes a sociopath is that they have no empathy, which young Mitt demonstrated at an early age when he cut the hair of the young gay guy.  They pointed out that this week he even turned on his poor, falsely smiling wife.  

     By then we had reached Columbus Circle and the two women went on to heal. intuit;whatever their plan was for the rest of the day, while I crossed the street to Fedex to pick up the print-out of my ticket to Mystic, Connecticut, where I go tomorrow morning on my way to Stonington, for the funeral, alas, of Ash Green, Ashbel in full, one of the great editors of my time, though I never had the good luck to be edited by him, though he did have a great suggestion for my new book which he really liked and may or may not ever see the light, what with Barnes and Noble becoming a Century 21, and there being not that many publishers hungry for product, as nobody knows what's going to happen with books as we knew them.  Ash, who was married to one of the great ladies,( she really is)-- Betsy Osha, whom I love-- was for much of his life with Knopf, probably the best publisher there is, though I never pirouetted that well or that high.

     Maybe he knows now where publishing is going, or If.  Or maybe when I get back to New York from this sad but inevitable occasion, I can ask the healer/medium.  I hope I didn't lose her card.