Death on the Hilltop No, no one has died…yet. Last night I got a strange email from someone I didn’t know. It began, “I haven’t met you yet, but I have been living in the neighborhood since 2013.” It was from a woman who claimed to be in our neighborhood and who was forwarding an email that had been sent a few weeks ago by her husband. It went on to say, “My husband realized…
The Fog Returns I am sitting here on my hilltop and see that I am surrounded by fog. Fog is a funny substance. On the one hand, it should be a welcome addition for purposes of the garden, giving everything a coating of its fine mist is a persistent and soaking way. I don’t know how much moisture plants get out of fog, but it seems like it would be good for them in its…
Life Is A Cabaret Kim has been singing and dancing her whole life. It is a very big part of who she is. When she has music to learn and arrangements to consider, she is at her happiest. SHe discovered cabaret as her medium of choice shortly after we got together in 2005, so it is safe to say she has been doing cabaret for about twenty years. While we lived in NYC she was…
Beautiful Several years ago, Kim took me to see Beautiful, the Broadway show about the music, life and times of Carole King (a.k.a. Carol Joan Klein). The other night, Kim bought tickets to see a production of the same show at something called the Moonlight Amphitheater in nearby Vista. To begin with, I must say that the Moonlight is a lovely venue that we are very lucky to have so nearby. It’s a great spot…
The Way We Were The 1973 film by that name starring Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand was impactful to me for many reasons. To begin with, the author of the script and the book on which the movie is based, Arthur Laurents, was a Cornell University graduate who was a contemporary of my mother. He was born about 10 months after my mother, so he was probably not Class of 1937, but he wrote his…
Hope Is Making a Comeback They say that the best political campaigns are those that appeal to change for the future. While people are generally fearful of change, they also want it because it gives them something to look forward to and few of us are ever totally content with the status quo. Normal modeling would suggest that there should be 20% of the population that likes what it has and is more worried about…
DNC Denouement Today starts two gatherings of great interest to many Americans. In Flushing Meadow we have the start of the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, and in Chicago we have the start of the four days of the Democratic National Convention. I first went to the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament in 1977, the last year it was played at The West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills. That was a small, but grand venue with…
Turning The Page On this, the first day of the DNC, the big talk is about the speech tonight by Joe Biden, who will be introduced by his wife, Jill, and will give both him and the audience of loyal Democrats at the convention his final say and give him their final farewell. The questions that are most prolific today in the convention hall, outside amongst the protestors and on the air among the pundits…
What’s Up Tiger Lily? Kim is not a fan of Woody Allen. That is mostly a position she has taken due to his personal life choices, like marrying his wife’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi. One might think she would get over it as Woody and Soon-Yi have now been married for over 30 years, but I guess once a child molester to her, always a child molester. I, on the other hand, always think of Woody…
Economizing I have often said that if and when I write my definitive autobiography, there is only one title that I can use. I will call it The Hole in My Pocket. That title suits me because I have lived life without much budgetary concern. Attribute this in a good way to my mother. Despite that she was a product of the Great Depression, it does not seem to have affected her the way it…