Sometimes I think we should do Mayor Michael Bloomberg a favor and vote against him.
Third terms tend to be a disaster. I’m old enough to remember the third Ed Koch term. It didn’t go well, maybe less, in retrospect, because of things Koch did than the way New Yorkers began to feel about him. They got tired. After eight years, the romance begins to wear off, politically speaking, and the third and final Koch term—like an awful lot of third terms around the country—began to be more about keeping track of the corruption cases than actual achievements.
With Bloomberg, corruption is not a particularly pressing worry. He hires, by and large, fantastic people. But I worry that he’s going to get grouchier and meaner and that it will matter more. He started out as a relatively amiable chap, even with his passion for private getaways and his disdain for what he saw as dumb questions from the press. Fair enough. But in the last year, his attitude itself became the story on several occasions. Remember the mayor yelling at the handicapped reporter?
This is not, after all, a man who is used to being publicly questioned, much less chastised. You could see that much last week, during the NY 1 mayoral debate. Most of the fun was in seeing Bloomberg’s Democratic challenger, Bill Thompson, say to the mayor’s face the things that so many New Yorkers would like to say. I know there are issues that loom larger than extending term limits, but the mayor's mishandling of that issue embodies the rules-don’t-apply-to-me attitude of the incumbent. Watching Thompson take it to Bloomberg made for great TV.
It does not necessarily follow that Thompson would be a better mayor than Bloomberg. But last week’s debate did remind me that elections can be fun—and are sure as hell necessary.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Carrie Fisher and the Donut Shop, Both in a Matter of Days
My neighbor/pal Jessica got me discounted tickets to two different shows in the past week: “Wishful Drinking” on Sunday and “Superior Donuts” last night. Nothing like a little Broadway to get me feeling autumnal.
Going in, I was pretty sure that the donuts, as conjured up by playwright Tracy Letts, would be my favorite. But having seen the two shows, now I’m not so sure. Because I had forgot to factor in something significant: Carrie Fisher rocks.
I read “Wishful Thinking” as a book, and I learned something interesting: “Wishful Thinking” is not much of a book. It reads like a show script, which did not keeping it from selling well. Still, as I made my way through what sometimes seemed like a forced series of sarcastic asides, I found myself thinking the book would probably be better as a performance piece. It is. It’s an excellent performance piece, with more than a few pertinent points about the danger of keeping secrets and taking the long road to finding mental health. Fisher is such a likable presence, mixing warmth and wit with the aforementioned sarcasm. She becomes a perfect tour guide for her story of the hazards of fame, her bipolar disorder and the time she woke up next to her friend’s dead body. The child of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (and armed with hilarious stories about both of them), Carrie Fisher even begins and ends with a musical interlude. And she’s good enough to leave me with dreams of her doing a nightclub act with her mom.
My favorite moment in the second act was snappy and fantastic. The show’s winding down and then we hear a siren. “Shit, that’s my ride,” Fisher says. My only complaint is that “Wishful Drinking” could be done in 90 minutes without an intermission, but I feel the same way about everything.
“Superior Donuts” tries to do something more ambitious than Fisher does, more communal and less personal. These “Donuts” take the temperature of a culture, while also telling a specific story about a shop uptown in the Windy City. Michael McKeon takes center stage, but almost unwillingly. I’ve never seen anyone underplay as much as he does as the shop owner in the first act of “Superior Donuts.” This turns out to be an unlikely and calm play, at least in that it comes from the author of the electric “August: Osage County.”
There are weaknesses, and they are not pretty. The characters are types more than three-dimensional and believable representations, and there’s a poorly choreographed fight scene that looks exactly like a poorly choreographed fight scene in a play. The acting is so good, though, that sometimes the caricatures come alive. A few powerful moments happen, making this a worthy destination.
It’s funny, too. Indeed “Superior Donuts” has been derided as a sitcom, which is usually a sign that I will love a show. This time around, I loved the sense of community and the set and the play’s predictable but well-played final moments. But this particular sitcom left me a tiny bit hungry for something more substantial, like maybe Carrie Fisher alone on a stage, just chatting about how wacky life can be.
Going in, I was pretty sure that the donuts, as conjured up by playwright Tracy Letts, would be my favorite. But having seen the two shows, now I’m not so sure. Because I had forgot to factor in something significant: Carrie Fisher rocks.
I read “Wishful Thinking” as a book, and I learned something interesting: “Wishful Thinking” is not much of a book. It reads like a show script, which did not keeping it from selling well. Still, as I made my way through what sometimes seemed like a forced series of sarcastic asides, I found myself thinking the book would probably be better as a performance piece. It is. It’s an excellent performance piece, with more than a few pertinent points about the danger of keeping secrets and taking the long road to finding mental health. Fisher is such a likable presence, mixing warmth and wit with the aforementioned sarcasm. She becomes a perfect tour guide for her story of the hazards of fame, her bipolar disorder and the time she woke up next to her friend’s dead body. The child of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (and armed with hilarious stories about both of them), Carrie Fisher even begins and ends with a musical interlude. And she’s good enough to leave me with dreams of her doing a nightclub act with her mom.
My favorite moment in the second act was snappy and fantastic. The show’s winding down and then we hear a siren. “Shit, that’s my ride,” Fisher says. My only complaint is that “Wishful Drinking” could be done in 90 minutes without an intermission, but I feel the same way about everything.
“Superior Donuts” tries to do something more ambitious than Fisher does, more communal and less personal. These “Donuts” take the temperature of a culture, while also telling a specific story about a shop uptown in the Windy City. Michael McKeon takes center stage, but almost unwillingly. I’ve never seen anyone underplay as much as he does as the shop owner in the first act of “Superior Donuts.” This turns out to be an unlikely and calm play, at least in that it comes from the author of the electric “August: Osage County.”
There are weaknesses, and they are not pretty. The characters are types more than three-dimensional and believable representations, and there’s a poorly choreographed fight scene that looks exactly like a poorly choreographed fight scene in a play. The acting is so good, though, that sometimes the caricatures come alive. A few powerful moments happen, making this a worthy destination.
It’s funny, too. Indeed “Superior Donuts” has been derided as a sitcom, which is usually a sign that I will love a show. This time around, I loved the sense of community and the set and the play’s predictable but well-played final moments. But this particular sitcom left me a tiny bit hungry for something more substantial, like maybe Carrie Fisher alone on a stage, just chatting about how wacky life can be.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Movies: A Worthwhile Trip to ‘Paris’
In this economy, the closest I’m going to get to Paris is going to “Paris.”So I went to see the new movie starring Juliette Binoche. I used to hate her cause she stole the Academy Award away from Lauren Bacall in 1996. But all is forgiven. I just keep noticing that every time I see Binoche I fall in love with her all over again. That was true even last month, when she appeared on “The View” and kept having to be bleeped for her language. She was the first authentic person ever to appear on “The View”—or at least it felt that way.
In “Paris,” the latest from director Cédric Klapisch, Binoche plays the sister of a young man who needs a heart transplant. She winds up getting a heart transplant of another, more metaphorical variety. I like brother-sister movies, partly because there are so few of them when stacked up against the romantic variety, and partly cause I like my sister. The sibling situation here is dire and beautiful and probably made more compelling because the pretty darn cute Romain Duris plays Binoche’s brother.
This is one of those sprawling Robert Altman-like things, where many story lines run parallel until they bump against one another. I liked most of the plots, but especially the scenes with Binoche and Duris. They felt real. I believed everything they said and did, whether they were sparring or sustaining one another, telling the truth of about the passage of time or lying to kids about Santa Claus. An ambitious movie, but a worthwhile one.
And Binoche is that rare 21st-century film actress, one who can use the muscles in her face to express emotion.
In “Paris,” the latest from director Cédric Klapisch, Binoche plays the sister of a young man who needs a heart transplant. She winds up getting a heart transplant of another, more metaphorical variety. I like brother-sister movies, partly because there are so few of them when stacked up against the romantic variety, and partly cause I like my sister. The sibling situation here is dire and beautiful and probably made more compelling because the pretty darn cute Romain Duris plays Binoche’s brother.
This is one of those sprawling Robert Altman-like things, where many story lines run parallel until they bump against one another. I liked most of the plots, but especially the scenes with Binoche and Duris. They felt real. I believed everything they said and did, whether they were sparring or sustaining one another, telling the truth of about the passage of time or lying to kids about Santa Claus. An ambitious movie, but a worthwhile one.
And Binoche is that rare 21st-century film actress, one who can use the muscles in her face to express emotion.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
At Teddy Kennedy’s Grave
I went to say goodbye to Sen. Ted Kennedy the other morning.
Last Saturday morning, when it could not quite decide whether or not to rain. My partner and my mom were on their way to the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C. and I joined them later, in time to see an unlikely and huge crowd of people who have not heard yet about the Death of the Book, a great gathering in America’s backyard. The event was crowded, a bit too much so for my taste, but it was oddly inspiring and refreshingly democratic. I heard the thickly accented voice of Paula Dean (do you ever wonder when her 15 minutes of fame be over?) and a few funny observations about sex and literature from mystery-writing wonder Walter Mosley.
But before that, I walked up the hill at Arlington National Cemetery, a jaunt that does not seem to get easier as I age. And I saw, in amid the clicking cameras, the where the youngest Kennedy brother was laid to rest last month. I am enough of an old-time liberal to wonder what we will do without Kennedy’s voice. Figuratively and literally. He sounded so good and so confident, with just the right earthy eloquence. He used that voice to champion the needs of the poor and civil rights and gay rights and, above all, health care for all Americans. Those of us who agree with him are missing him about now.
I like cemeteries more than the average person. And I like Arlington as much as any place, although the crowds streaming through are not necessarily respectful (the signs aks us to be) or smart. “We have to be out of here by one o’clock,” one man told another in the men’s room at the visitors center. Their next stop: Walmart.
Before that, at Kennedy’s grave, I was thinking again how people at such sites substitute picture-taking for actually experiencing where they are. I tried to do both: take a photo and then take a moment—to notice the fresh grass on the grave and the slope of the hill and the distance between the three famous Kennedy brothers. I thought this visit was just for the youngest brother and that I would not even stop over to see the presidential grave, but of course I changed my mind and went over there.
It’s an oddly comforting place, Arlington National Cemetery, if only because it celebrates the power and value of remembering itself. I looked out at the oh-so-many markers for the non-Kennedys, the thousands of the less famous who rest here. The rain decided to begin a bit. Even or perhaps especially on a gray morning, this is a beautiful and sustaining place.
Last Saturday morning, when it could not quite decide whether or not to rain. My partner and my mom were on their way to the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C. and I joined them later, in time to see an unlikely and huge crowd of people who have not heard yet about the Death of the Book, a great gathering in America’s backyard. The event was crowded, a bit too much so for my taste, but it was oddly inspiring and refreshingly democratic. I heard the thickly accented voice of Paula Dean (do you ever wonder when her 15 minutes of fame be over?) and a few funny observations about sex and literature from mystery-writing wonder Walter Mosley.
But before that, I walked up the hill at Arlington National Cemetery, a jaunt that does not seem to get easier as I age. And I saw, in amid the clicking cameras, the where the youngest Kennedy brother was laid to rest last month. I am enough of an old-time liberal to wonder what we will do without Kennedy’s voice. Figuratively and literally. He sounded so good and so confident, with just the right earthy eloquence. He used that voice to champion the needs of the poor and civil rights and gay rights and, above all, health care for all Americans. Those of us who agree with him are missing him about now.
I like cemeteries more than the average person. And I like Arlington as much as any place, although the crowds streaming through are not necessarily respectful (the signs aks us to be) or smart. “We have to be out of here by one o’clock,” one man told another in the men’s room at the visitors center. Their next stop: Walmart.
Before that, at Kennedy’s grave, I was thinking again how people at such sites substitute picture-taking for actually experiencing where they are. I tried to do both: take a photo and then take a moment—to notice the fresh grass on the grave and the slope of the hill and the distance between the three famous Kennedy brothers. I thought this visit was just for the youngest brother and that I would not even stop over to see the presidential grave, but of course I changed my mind and went over there.
It’s an oddly comforting place, Arlington National Cemetery, if only because it celebrates the power and value of remembering itself. I looked out at the oh-so-many markers for the non-Kennedys, the thousands of the less famous who rest here. The rain decided to begin a bit. Even or perhaps especially on a gray morning, this is a beautiful and sustaining place.
Monday, September 21, 2009
An Inspiring Thought
This morning I called my 96-year-old former piano teacher to wish her a happy birthday. She was busy working on lessons plans for a class she is going to teach later this week.
You gotta love that.
This is the musical arts equivalent of dying on the job—working until the end. Except that she has not died and she is not necessarily near the end.
In fact, during our chat, she was giving me lessons in positive thinking. I was saying how it would be hard to transition from editing to teaching, especially since so many people from so many fields are turning to education as Step Two on the career path. But my friend told me not to go into something like this thinking, well, something like that…about how hard it would be.
Being 96 and gainfully employed, she may not be right about the odds I’m facing, either in journalism or education. But she is a teacher who still has some life lessons left to give. And I’m listening.
You gotta love that.
This is the musical arts equivalent of dying on the job—working until the end. Except that she has not died and she is not necessarily near the end.
In fact, during our chat, she was giving me lessons in positive thinking. I was saying how it would be hard to transition from editing to teaching, especially since so many people from so many fields are turning to education as Step Two on the career path. But my friend told me not to go into something like this thinking, well, something like that…about how hard it would be.
Being 96 and gainfully employed, she may not be right about the odds I’m facing, either in journalism or education. But she is a teacher who still has some life lessons left to give. And I’m listening.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Politics: Anchors Gone Wild
Today’s Primary Day here in New York City.
Which reminds me: news anchors have to work pretty hard to get me to be solidly on the side of politicians. But some recent, bad examples have me wondering about the role of the campaign debate moderator.
Dominic Carter, acting like a cross between a bully and a clown, yelled at the candidates for not providing one-word answers to his questions. Diana Williams said sadly, at the end of a debate between the hopefuls for public advocate, “we’ve learned a little bit about your differences”—and she put the emphasis on “little.”I watched the New York 1 debates (Carter was the anchor) for district attorney and public advocate, then the Eyewitness News offering (Williams) for would-be public advocates. And I was left wondering: when did it become okay for TV reporters to yell at candidates about their answers?
Raising his voice repeatedly, Carter really went after city councilman and possible public advocate Bill de Blasio. Carter said de Blasio, who refused to answer a hypothetical question about endorsing Gov. David Paterson in the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, was the first person ever to refuse to answer one of those patented yes-or-no questions. That should be a badge of honor for de Blasio. For her part, Williams was visibly disturbed that the candidates were not doing a better job of outlining their differences. She wanted a Sunday morning catfight, evidently, and it was not happening.
I think there is a fine line between pressing candidates to answer questions and accepting that the guests on the stage are ultimately responsible for their own words. When reporters start harassing politicians for their answers or the tone of the campaign, the line gets crossed. It did in both of the debates I saw, where Carter and Williams were unwilling to accept their role: to put the questions and issues out there. Beyond that, I think it’s up to the candidates to do pretty much what they will with those questions and issues.
With Carter and Williams (especially Carter, who acts like he thinks he’s some sort of reincarnated Tim Russert), the debate anchors acted as though they were the stars of the show. Ironically, they were whining instead of shining.
Which reminds me: news anchors have to work pretty hard to get me to be solidly on the side of politicians. But some recent, bad examples have me wondering about the role of the campaign debate moderator.
Dominic Carter, acting like a cross between a bully and a clown, yelled at the candidates for not providing one-word answers to his questions. Diana Williams said sadly, at the end of a debate between the hopefuls for public advocate, “we’ve learned a little bit about your differences”—and she put the emphasis on “little.”I watched the New York 1 debates (Carter was the anchor) for district attorney and public advocate, then the Eyewitness News offering (Williams) for would-be public advocates. And I was left wondering: when did it become okay for TV reporters to yell at candidates about their answers?
Raising his voice repeatedly, Carter really went after city councilman and possible public advocate Bill de Blasio. Carter said de Blasio, who refused to answer a hypothetical question about endorsing Gov. David Paterson in the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, was the first person ever to refuse to answer one of those patented yes-or-no questions. That should be a badge of honor for de Blasio. For her part, Williams was visibly disturbed that the candidates were not doing a better job of outlining their differences. She wanted a Sunday morning catfight, evidently, and it was not happening.
I think there is a fine line between pressing candidates to answer questions and accepting that the guests on the stage are ultimately responsible for their own words. When reporters start harassing politicians for their answers or the tone of the campaign, the line gets crossed. It did in both of the debates I saw, where Carter and Williams were unwilling to accept their role: to put the questions and issues out there. Beyond that, I think it’s up to the candidates to do pretty much what they will with those questions and issues.
With Carter and Williams (especially Carter, who acts like he thinks he’s some sort of reincarnated Tim Russert), the debate anchors acted as though they were the stars of the show. Ironically, they were whining instead of shining.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Another Trendy Move from Me: I’m Uninsured
I want a public option—today.
I kicked off my day today by learning that I am uninsured. At the moment. My insurance company says I was terminated, even though I was told and I think I even read that this would not happen for several more weeks. I thought there was something called a grace period.
The crack team where I used to work is trying to help me, which I appreciate. But I am left wondering what went wrong. I guess I should have called every day over to ADP Total Source, which handles paychecks and insurance and a range of other workplace-related anxieties. Essentially ADP is the middleman between me and Oxford, which does my health insurance, and Aetna, which does my dental insurance.
I called ADP last week. I was told that my reinstatement application had been sent to Oxford, but that was news to the folks at Oxford this morning. And I do not understand why I needed to be “reinstated” when I should not have been dropped yet.
This would be an appropriate time for me to say: I favor a single-payer system.
Government health care is supposed to scare me? It does not. Maybe that’s because the state government, via the Department of Labor, is doing a fine job by me. They are giving me money to buy food. They are providing me with service online, where I apply for benefits weekly, and with a relatively frustrating phone tree and, as of last week, I got some in-person service.
That’s when I was called to the state’s Department of Labor office on Varick Street. I was surprised to get some decent advice from a good-natured counselor (I was picked at random) and to hear from a pretty witty and reassuring woman who spoke to the group at large. The Labor Department, she candidly admitted, was partly just battling fraud by having us show up. But we got things too: lists of resources, from computer labs to workshops (I signed up for three of them) to lists of Web sites that might be helpful.
Sure, it was painful, especially at first, to sit in a conference room with 40-plus other unemployed people. You could smell the anxiety. And this was a good-looking group, chock full of people who I would hire or buy a car from or expect to see teaching my niece or nephew. Call me an elitist, but the professional look of this diverse crowd only depressed me more. I started to feel badly for everyone I saw. But eventually I found myself feeling at least a little bit better, because of the professional attitude of the Labor people.
So please do not ask me to join in the nationwide berating of government workers. I think they might be up to the task of providing me with health care. Lord knows nobody else is doing it this morning.
I kicked off my day today by learning that I am uninsured. At the moment. My insurance company says I was terminated, even though I was told and I think I even read that this would not happen for several more weeks. I thought there was something called a grace period.
The crack team where I used to work is trying to help me, which I appreciate. But I am left wondering what went wrong. I guess I should have called every day over to ADP Total Source, which handles paychecks and insurance and a range of other workplace-related anxieties. Essentially ADP is the middleman between me and Oxford, which does my health insurance, and Aetna, which does my dental insurance.
I called ADP last week. I was told that my reinstatement application had been sent to Oxford, but that was news to the folks at Oxford this morning. And I do not understand why I needed to be “reinstated” when I should not have been dropped yet.
This would be an appropriate time for me to say: I favor a single-payer system.
Government health care is supposed to scare me? It does not. Maybe that’s because the state government, via the Department of Labor, is doing a fine job by me. They are giving me money to buy food. They are providing me with service online, where I apply for benefits weekly, and with a relatively frustrating phone tree and, as of last week, I got some in-person service.
That’s when I was called to the state’s Department of Labor office on Varick Street. I was surprised to get some decent advice from a good-natured counselor (I was picked at random) and to hear from a pretty witty and reassuring woman who spoke to the group at large. The Labor Department, she candidly admitted, was partly just battling fraud by having us show up. But we got things too: lists of resources, from computer labs to workshops (I signed up for three of them) to lists of Web sites that might be helpful.
Sure, it was painful, especially at first, to sit in a conference room with 40-plus other unemployed people. You could smell the anxiety. And this was a good-looking group, chock full of people who I would hire or buy a car from or expect to see teaching my niece or nephew. Call me an elitist, but the professional look of this diverse crowd only depressed me more. I started to feel badly for everyone I saw. But eventually I found myself feeling at least a little bit better, because of the professional attitude of the Labor people.
So please do not ask me to join in the nationwide berating of government workers. I think they might be up to the task of providing me with health care. Lord knows nobody else is doing it this morning.
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