Yes, It’s a Saturday and it’s been a pretty good one so far. Slept until around 8:30 after going to sleep around 1:00AM. Decent amount of sleep, woke up rested. Called Julio and Stine to see if they wanted anything from Washington Street. Bagels of course. They were in a hurry to get to a Lamaze class. I got them what they wanted and soon had a nice breakfast for myself.
Read the papers, had coffee. Went to the library to return The History Boys which was overdue they said, when it wasn’t. Then they tried to pin a $2.00 charge for a book that was paid for last year but they can’t seem to clear from my card. That took a while.
I carry the receipt in my wallet from last year since this issue pops up every now and then when dealing with the library. Some library employees are easy to deal with but on Saturday mornings the staff is second string and they really don’t have much of an idea as to what they are doing. The computer perplexes and confounds them. After that, some errands, some dry cleaning, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer in the pants.
I decided to head into the city and check out the next to last day for an exhibition at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street for the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. It was ok. No recharging of my Beat influences. It was all rather underwhelming. They had the scroll of paper that Kerouac wrote one version of On The Road.
It was about 60 feet long out of the original 120 feet. Everything was under glass and no photography was allowed which made for me at least, a rather uninspiring show. There was a tour going on that I overheard. The guide was talking about Lucien Carr, a friend of Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs. Carr killed David Kammerer after Kammerer traveled to NYC, infatuated by Carr.
Carr reacted to this infatuation by stabbing Kammerer to death. Kerouac helped hide the murder weapon, a knife, while Burroughs and Ginsburg implored Carr to turn himself in to the police. An early version of what is now known as Gay Panic, the ‘justification’ of when a gay man (or woman) makes overtures to a non gay person who is so repulsed, the only course of action that they can see is to murder the gay person, because saying ‘Thanks but no thanks’ just won’t do. Maybe slapping around the ‘stalker’ if a firm NO wouldn’t do would suffice.
Sometimes Gay Panic keeps one out of prison. Matthew Shepard may have been a victim of gay panic, and more recently, Lawrence King, the 15 year old boy from Oxnard, CA who was murdered by a 14 year old classmate after Lawrence stated that he wanted the classmate to be his Valentine.
Last night I watched a very good film, Gone Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck. Based on a Denis Lehane novel, I think it might have been better than Mystic River. Not as top heavy with stars, this was low key and very gripping. Casey Affleck was excellent in it as well.
It’s a crime thriller so I won’t say anything about it, lest I give away a spoiler, but I do recommend it. Not that I am in any way familiar with Boston citizens, especially the lower classes, I thought it was true to life.
Walking around Hoboken, I saw a few characters that could have just as well been in Boston. Bill is coming over tonight and I decided to hang onto Gone Baby Gone for one more night before I send it back to Netflix. I think Bill would like the movie. That’s about it.
Here’s some recent pics.
two doors down
Fifth and Washington
The New York Public Library Lions
Inside
west 46th Street
Giant
Waiting for Clay Aiken
Hmmmm…..scary
Pigeon in the Port Authority Bus Terminal
This just in, at 2:00 this afternoon, a crane collapsed on 51st street a block away from where I work and where I walk several times a week. 4 dead, the crane hit the top floors of one building across the street then falling a block away on 50th street onto a 4 story townhouse, making it a one story building. No safety inspector on the scene and were cited for violations and complaints in the past. Lots of construction going on in Manhattan and lots of accidents as well.