Just In Time (4*)

I have the same problem with Just In Time as I do with the CD of Bobby Darin's greatest hits that I bought during one of my early summers in the Pines:  there are only a few songs I really want to hear, including "Mack The Knife," one of the first 45 rpm singles that my parents bought me after the Bronx crooner sang it on the hair-tousling Ed Sullivan Show in 1959, when I was five.  The recording falls early enough in Darin's career that it's performed before intermission, as is "Beyond The Sea," my other listen-on-repeat, then a fairly new innovation.

That said, nearly everything else about the production, rises to the occasion of Jonathan Groff's finger-snapping, hip shaking, time-stopping inhabitation (think Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz, a superior show), minus what likely was Darin's toxic masculinity.  Not that there's anything wrong with that in this flashback context:  you might be a little toxic yourself if you were told you'd be dead at 16, the match that lights the nonpareil nightclub performer's relentless, all-consuming drive to conquer show business in nearly all its forms.  I'd forgotten that Darin had been nominated for an Oscar in Captain Newman, MD, a 1963 movie I plan to watch again on You Tube.

The Circle in the Square has been believably transformed into the Copacabana, the venue where Darin belatedly found his happy place before finally kicking the bucket at age 37, successfully recovering from a brief foray into attempted folk music relevance which does yield the oh-so-poignant "If I Were A Carpenter," sung to ex-wife Sandra Dee (!); Alex Timbers' reliably imaginative staging makes full use of theater-in-the-round and cleverly overcomes many of the jukebox musical's hoariest cliches, especially during "Splish Splash," where Groff once again proves he can do anything, including look smokin' hot in a Speedo; the kaleidoscopically colorful Fifties and Sixties costumes; and the supporting performances--including the Sirens, whose fluid, if often soaked, choreography appears to have been inspired by the original production of Dreamgirls--all have the ring of backstage truth.

And during the book's slower "and then" moments, especially in the first act, I had plenty of time to fantasize about the uses I could make of my "Mack The Knife" single. Should I wait outside and ask Groff to autograph it?  Or, since I'm in the de-accessioning stage of my life anyway, should I mail with a handwritten note informing him that our brief bicycle encounter last spring on Fifth Avenue tops the list of my lifetime celebrity encounters?

Yep, I'm a major Groff stan (you would be, too, if you re-watched HBO's incomparable Looking as recently as I have and paid top dollar to see Merrily We Roll Along),  even more obsessed than my mother was with Darin.  And, believe it or not, it being able to confirm my memory that she caught his performance at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles in August 1960 after we visited Disneyland would give me almost as much joy.

David R. Slavitt (1935 - 2025)

I wish I could say that I revered David R. Slavitt for the books and poetry he published under his own name.  Alas, I cannot.  He was Henry Sutton to me.

 

When the Times published his obituary today, I immediately flashed back to my mother's living room bookshelves which stacked his two of his titles, The Exhibitionist and The Voyeur.  Both were published by Bernard Geis and Associates, which shepherded Valley of the Dolls, to the best seller list, and may have been selections of the Literary Guild.  Mary, who hid from me only Portnoy's Complaint (in her lingerie drawer!), belonged.

I read neither of Sutton's books in their entirety, only the dirty parts, which I'm pretty sure introduced me to the concept of blow jobs, in a heterosexual context. of course.  Still, these passages were revelatory (you mean someone will let you put this there?!?!) and preceded my furtive paperback acquisition several years later of The Lord Won't Mind, the gay romance by Gordon Merrick (also a bestseller) that expanded my horizons to include vicarious anal sex.  

But Slavitt's novels remain, at least in memory, a stunning artifact of a time when words were far more accessible than images for a sheltered 14-year-old suburbanite who knew where to look for them.  Thank you, Henry!

More People I Loved:

Sly Stone

David H. Souter

Pope Francis

Marianne Faithfull

David Lynch

Earl Holliman

Gena Rowlands

Shelley Duvall

Roger Corman

Faith Ringgold

Richard Serra

Alexei Navalny

Pee Wee Herman

Glenda Jackson

George Maharis

Tina Turner

Burt Bacharach

Angela Lansbury

Queen Elizabeth II

Sidney Poitier

Joan Didion

Stephen Sondheim

Edward Albee

Muhammad Ali

Playground (4*)

"What just happened?" I asked myself, incredulously, as I read the final chapter of Playground, a novel that hadn't yet risen to the level of Richard Powers' last magnificent book, although both appeared to be cut from the same environmental-friendly cloth.  But after thinking about the off-putting twist for a day, Playground might just do that for an entirely different reason: it inspires fear, rather than awe, or maybe I'm just a Luddite overthinking things.  

The sentimental and not-quite-believable story filled with too many coincidences begins on a French Polynesian beach, where Ina Aroita and her two children pick up plastic detritus that has choked a bird.  They take it home where Ina begins to incorporate the colorful pieces into a sculpture that morphs into a symbolic totem and funerary boat by the book's end.  We soon find out Ina is married to Rafi Young, an African-American poet from Chicago who also happens to be the estranged best friend of Todd Keane, the privileged tech entrepreneur responsible for building the world's most successful social media platform, which gives the book its title and a theme that that Powers beats like a dead horse.  

Play was evolution’s way of building brains, and any creature with a brain as developed as a giant oceanic manta sure used it. If you want to make something smarter, teach it to play.

A lonely man in the end stages of Lewy body dementia who once loved Ina too,  Todd is behind an effort to re-colonize Makatea, Ina's and Rafi's little bit of back-to-earth paradise, through seasteading, a development that Rafi opposes even before he becomes aware of Todd's hidden involvement.  Evie Beaulieu, a seventy-something oceanographer, whose illustrated children's book, the delightfully titled Clearly It Is Ocean, once enabled Todd to imagine he could breathe underwater in Lake Michigan and live with the fishes to escape his parents' horrible marriage, joins the anti-colonizers, a raft of mostly underdeveloped stock characters, including an old hermit and a dancing queen who borders on indigenous caricature.  

The more I describe the plot of Playground, the more ridiculous it sounds, which may be the point, particularly when the entire population of 85 Makateans--including the kids--participates in a cheesily suspenseful referendum to decide the future course of the island, partially enabled by the ready assistance of Profunda, an AI assistant who makes Einstein look like Alexa.  A single vote decides the outcome, tipping the hand of the novel's "real" author, whose enraging and subversive identity I will not spoil.

Even if I'm wrong about Powers' intentions, there's a lot to like and learn in Playground, particularly Evie's descriptions of aquatic life, rhapsodic and hallucinogenic in equal measure.  Her agenda, an admirable one, also seems to be one that Powers shares and used to sublime effect in his more single-minded novel about trees:

With each new press conference, she [Evie] grew bolder in preaching the gospel of the oceans. Becoming a part of them would give the troubled race of men something to aspire toward. Once people witnessed the abundance of underwater life, once they lived there, they would ache to take care of the place like it was their home. 

Reading Playground is a little bit watching like a great actor playing a bad one:  you can't deny the talent involved even if the performance isn't nearly as enjoyable.

On The Town

JoAnne and I, both only children, go way back, although we have never spent much time together.  We last saw each other in 1993, shortly before my 40th birthday.  She wouldn't become a grandmother for more than a decade.

It's funny how your mind works.  Her comment the first time I took off my shirt in the dune buggy, the year I graduated from high school, remains seared in my brain for the lingering trauma it caused: "Jesus Jeff, your tits are bigger than mine!"  Perhaps that accounts for my rude greeting, which popped out of nowhere as she stepped off the elevator in the Chelsea Savoy Hotel more than half a century later.  "Well, you haven't gotten any taller, have you!" The subconscious never forgets.

Williamsburg Pizzeria

JoAnne and Mia, her 17-year-old granddaughter, were in town for several days from Elbert County, Colorado, the red part of the state, less than a hundred miles north of where Cynthia, my other conservative friend, lives. They bought tickets to Hamilton upon arrival so I began our late-afternoon tour of Lower Manhattan with a walk along the Canyon of Heroes and a pilgrimage to the Founding Father's grave.  His wife Eliza is buried there, too. American coins cover her flat tombstone.

Trinity Church Cemetery

I warned JoAnne that we'd be doing a lot of walking when she inquired if it would be OK to pack open-toed shoes.  "Comfort should be your top priority," I advised.  Apparently, she and Mia got over their fear of dog poop and needles!  People have very peculiar notions about New York City streets.

"I can't remember when I've had my picture taken taken so often," she remarked at one point. "You obviously haven't been hanging around me much," I replied.  This is as close to a smile as JoAnne got.  She's also a woman of few words.

After grabbing a bite at Brookfield Place, we rested our dogs going to and from Staten Island on the ferry, one of New York City's few tourist bargains.  

It's free and you can't beat the views!

The sun was setting over Lady Liberty, both literally and figuratively.

We toured Central Park the following afternoon despite afternoon temperatures exceeding one-hundred degrees for the first time in nearly a decade.  They already had seen the Sea Glass Carousel in Battery Park, so I showed them a more traditional kind.

Unbelievably, some bros were playing pickle ball in the courts behind Mia and JoAnne.

When her i-Phone overheated, this hula hooper had to stop shooting her Tik Tok content.  I suggested she try Moynihan Train Hall instead, where young people can be found performing dance routines on the polished floors of the windowed corridor above the platforms.

I told Mia she looked as if she could have been painted by Velázquez.

"Lady with a Fan" (17th century)

"Is that a good thing?" she asked.  Our frames of reference differed considerably.

This turned out to be as close as she got to Hamilton.  At the last minute, Stub Hub failed to come through with the tickets JoAnne had purchased.  Fortunately they got a refund and were able to see The Lion King instead.

On Wednesday, we agreed that air conditioned activities like art appreciation at MoMA would be the way to go.

A stuffed animal installation by Mike Kelley seemed like the perfect backdrop for a photo op. Mia had made a special trip to F.A.O. Schwartz to look for a Jellycat.

"Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites" (1987) 

Next stop:  Tiffany's, where JoAnne and Mia declined refreshment in the cafe.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered they had brunched there the next day!  My itinerary clearly didn't include enough luxury shopping time.  Prada welcomed them, too.

The proximity of the sacred to the profane on Fifth Avenue remains scandalous.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

SKIMS

My visitors missed the Pride Parade by just a day.

In our quest for continued heat relief, JoAnne treated me to a fabulous tour of Radio City Music Hall.  It's not every day that you get to meet a Rockette.  Thanks again, JoAnne!

On Friday morning we took the New York Ferry to Williamsburg.  A thirty-degree drop in the temperature made sightseeing much more pleasant despite overcast skies.

Residents of Elbert County probably don't see a lot of samizdat.

I chose Haricot Vert Dreamworld as a random destination.  It specializes in charms.  I went a little overboard fashioning key chains for the D-Girls.

We people-watched on bustling Bedford Street. I taught JoAnne and Mia how to play "hipster or not" while they shared a slice of pizza.

"Maybe this guy loves New York a little too much."

Drew texted us when he finished assembling our purchases at Haricot Vert.  Mia's bracelet included the letters F, F & A.

Would you believe that she belongs to an organization that now goes by that acronym?  Back home, Mia currently operates a grazing operation with several other FFA members.

I don't think I took a more iconic shot during their visit.

We ended the day with even more walking, from Little Island to Hudson Yards on the High Line.

This was the last time they had to say "cheese."

Art Deco Temple

When JoAnne and Mia were visiting, we continued chilling indoors one oppressively hot afternoon with a tour of Radio City Music Hall, something I'd never done before.  It's New York City's biggest theater.

JoAnne asked me who I'd seen perform on this stage.  I had to think for a moment, because I'm generally not a big concert goer.  "Only Prince and k.d. lang in the last millennium and Avicii in this one," I replied.  Turns out my now digitized datebook recorded a couple of other nights, too.  How could I have forgotten Bette Midler and Roxy Music with Modern English?

I don't think I sat in the orchestra until 2012.

I once stood on Carnegie Hall's much smaller stage.  Radio City seats twice as many people. 

This has got to be the grandest staircase in New York City.  Each of the glass and steel chandeliers--nearly 30 feet long-- weights two tons.

Believe it or not, the gigantic mural by Ezra A. Winter depicts indigenous people seeking "The Fountain of Youth."

There's plenty to see on the lower level, too.  

When Radio City opened in 1932, bluenoses prevented the installation of "Spirit of the Dance (Rhythm)," an aluminum statue by William Zorach.  A public outcry resulted in its restoration.

The carpet depicts musical instruments

. . . and the bathrooms are definitely gendered.

The "Gentlemen's Lounge" mural by Stuart Davis is called "Men Without Women." It features only masculine activities such as sailing, smoking, speeding, gambling and . . . hair cutting.

Is there anything more "masc" than a long row of gleaming urinals?

The hydraulic system below the stage still works exactly as it did a century ago.

Neither the water fountains nor elevator lighting have changed much.  They were designed for a more sophisticated time, when audiences dressed for the occasion.

The tour also included a tightly controlled photo op with a "special guest" whose childhood dream had been to dance at Radio City.  She could not have been lovelier.  Let me tell you, it took all my self-control not to attempt a high kick!  

I've seen the Rockettes perform only once, when I took my father and stepmother to the Christmas Spectacular in 1985.

We may have been seated in the rear mezzanine but the sight lines were good, and the carpet and wallpaper were just as elegant as they are elsewhere in this Art Deco temple.