3 Sept 96 
 
Okay, since it's been a loong weekend, be prepared for a long posting.... 
 
So let me start with my first activity of the weekend: a trip to Central  
Park.  I live on W. 3rd Street; Central Park South (the street that skims  
the park on the south...amazing how _organized_ the city is!  The streets  
are so straight, one can look down any street from one side of the island  
to the other...) is 59th street.  I figured it out: it's a 3 mile trip to  
get from my front door to the southernmost edge of the park.  Or in other  
words, it takes 5 flea markets, 4 McDonald's (they deliver!), the same  
number of Gaps, a Manhattan Mall, and a Barnes & Noble, supposedly the largest  
book store in the world that has a separate annex for its sale books, to get  
from here to there.  Once in the park, Nyree and I visited The Lake, The  
Sheep Pasture, The Ramble (and I did see plenty of used condoms on the  
ground there), The Reservoir.  These New Yorkers are so imaginative in  
their names.  The Grassy Field is closed for renovation.  Got to put more  
rocks there, I suppose.  So we walked about a mile and a half around the  
park.  Then another mile, passing the Guggenhein & the Met, to get to the  
subway station on 57th & 6th. 
 
Phew. 
 
That was enough for Saturday. 
 
Sunday I went to church: the homily was on the Creative Spirit.  The  
priest?  I have two words for him: William Shatner.  You had to be  
there.  I really like this church, good parish.  Had a nice middle-aged  
gay couple in front of me; one of the guys was a eucharistic minister.   
I'm signed up to be a lector.  And Lord knows what else.  I went back to  
Mass on Monday (and I'll go again today.)  The acoustics are wild,  
perfect for chanting. 
 
Sunday afternoon I walked about, there are lots of artists booths in the  
Village on the sidewalks.  I didn't bring any jewelry with me except for  
my cross, so I bought a ring made of Bakelite for $5, and some freshwater  
pearl earrings for $9.  I also got a 1934 edition of the Canterbury Tales  
for $15 -- I opened the book at random and read "shitty shepherd".  This  
book holds great promise. 
 
That night I went to a free play in Washington Square Park.  Let me  
describe the park: there are plenty of trees, but more asphalt than  
grass.  Speaking of grass, everyone has made it their business to explain  
to me that "smoke, smoke?" doesn't mean someone is offering you a  
cigarette.  I know that dammit -- I can smell it quite clearly.  and why  
did everyone ask me if I was bringing my car into the city.  WHAT THE  
HELL WOULD I WANT WITH A CAR IN THE VILLAGE?  DO YOU THINK IM A FUCKING  
IDIOT?  Sorry.  I'm really my sweet lil ole me.  In any case, Carey would  
be pissed if I didn't leave her the car.  She was already mad enough that  
I used it all summer. 
 
Anyway, W.S. Park is good for entertainment -- lots of performance  
artists, chess players, comedians, musicians, etc.  In the Southwest  
corner of the Park, the Gorilla Rep (made up of people from the Tisch  
School of the Arts at NYU, I think) put on outdoor plays and pass the bag  
around afterward.  It's dynamic staging: it's in a playground area, with  
three big asphalt mounds, a bricked in circle, and a couple of jungle  
gyms.  One sits anywhere (except where the action is) -- kids mainly sat  
on the monkey bars, I sat between mounds.  The actors move between  
mounds, making the people sitting up there scramble down to get a new  
seat.  They did a pretty good production of King Lear -- one got an idea  
of how senile King Lear was getting, and just how bad his daughters  
were.  Another way I could tell that it was good was that kids were  
actually watching the action in awe.  Any kid who can sit relatively  
still for 2 1/2 hrs straight, watching a play (there was no break, and  
they did the full play) must be impressed by the action.  Very good Fool,  
good Lear, prissy Cornwall, bitchy sisters, reasonable Kent.  I give it  
15 digits.  There's going to be another free play on Sept. 15 called  
"It's Toast", by a different group.  Hooray for free stuff! 
 
Finally, Monday I _intended_ to go to the Strand on Broadway & 8th,  
supposedly the largest used book store in the city, but I got waylaid by  
Shakespeare & Co.  They were having a sale!  $12 for hardcover classics!   
So I picked up 7 of those.... Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park by  
Austen; Jane Eyre, 1984, Catch-22, and Arabian Nights.  I also got 2  
cartoon books.  The total?  with tax...$81.  Hmmm.  Something seems a  
little wrong.  They gave me a 100% discount on one of the books and  
neglected to add a couple of others.  Since they were messing around with  
this stuff for a long time, I figured they knew what they were doing &  
kept my mouth shut.  If anyone can't find/ can't get a book in Raleigh,  
I'm sure I can find it in this place. 
 
So a word on _intending_ to do certain things, go certain places in the  
Village: just give up.  You'll never get there.  You'll just be  
distracted by something just as interesting along the way.  I can see why  
city people get so lazy & bitch about nothing to do in more suburban  
areas.  You have to be the living dead to miss exciting stuff on every  
corner here; in Raleigh, one actually has to keep one's eyes and ears  
open to know about the cool stuff.  I like it that way, it's a little  
more exclusive: life reserved just for the living.  
 
Um, I did say this was going to be long.  I have one more thing to say  
and then I'm done.  I just registered for Complex Variables, Real  
Variables, Genome Analysis (that should be cool -- I'll tell you how they  
do it later), and Probability: Limit Theorems.  That's it.