Thursday, May 28, 2015
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
at THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Hirschfeld Century: The Art of Al Hirschfeld
Ella Fitzgerald, 1993
in the NYDailyNews
also in the NYDailyNews
THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Ella Fitzgerald, 1993
Ringo Starr in The Magic Christian, 1969.
Self-Portrait, 1985.
also in the NYDailyNews
THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Richard Lewis at a Barnes & Noble book signing
the book: Reflections from Hell
the location: Union Square
As I walked across the Avenue of the Americas, the view to the right was fantastic!
Artie Lange was there!
I walked home and my Tourette's was kicking triple time! Good times!
the location: Union Square
As I walked across the Avenue of the Americas, the view to the right was fantastic!
Artie Lange was there!
The group was waiting!
The book discussion began! Richard Lewis spoke first and entertained us with funny stories and then his illustrator, Carl Nicholas Titolo, talked for a while.
After the Q & A, we waited on a line to get our books signed. I looked out the window, across Union Square, and took advantage of a great photo op!
When it was my turn, I asked Richard Lewis to sign my book "to Yetta Telebenda/Cookie Lipschitz" who are the two characters I am when I do my live broadcast at VaughnLive. I told him I am OCD Patient Zero and I put on plastic gloves before I use my own toothbrush! He laughed and he took "my card" and said he would watch my show! From his mouth to G-d's ear!
I walked home and my Tourette's was kicking triple time! Good times!
Richard Lewis said he and Larry David loved The Phil Silvers show.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Mad Men
At first, I totally hated the final episode to the series. When I watched it a second time, I loved it. I think it is absolutely brilliant.
I was a mixed bag of emotions during the second viewing. And when I watched it I cried like a baby when that poor guy was talking about his feelings of isolation and loneliness.
And I cried even harder when Don had his epiphany on that mountaintop.
When the final scene began... well, it was totally perfect. It alluded to the fact that Don went back and worked on that Coke commercial, which was so influenced by his time at the retreat.
Sometimes it is hard to say good-by to shows when they end because the characters get under our skin. If the show was well written, it is like losing family. It's a weird form of loss and odd depression. It is like finally reaching the last page of a good book that you could not put down.
I only felt that way after The Sopranos ended. It took a while to recover from that last episode... and I knew I would miss the show. I suppose that is how excellent art is defined: by it's ability to move us in profound ways.
Sunday night was all Mad Men. And now, those characters too pass on to a television netherworld. And why am I now thinking of "Little Joe?"
I was a mixed bag of emotions during the second viewing. And when I watched it I cried like a baby when that poor guy was talking about his feelings of isolation and loneliness.
And I cried even harder when Don had his epiphany on that mountaintop.
When the final scene began... well, it was totally perfect. It alluded to the fact that Don went back and worked on that Coke commercial, which was so influenced by his time at the retreat.
Sometimes it is hard to say good-by to shows when they end because the characters get under our skin. If the show was well written, it is like losing family. It's a weird form of loss and odd depression. It is like finally reaching the last page of a good book that you could not put down.
I only felt that way after The Sopranos ended. It took a while to recover from that last episode... and I knew I would miss the show. I suppose that is how excellent art is defined: by it's ability to move us in profound ways.
Sunday night was all Mad Men. And now, those characters too pass on to a television netherworld. And why am I now thinking of "Little Joe?"
Friday, May 15, 2015
War, and Remembrance
Estera Grinberg: "Tomorrow, we will no longer be in this world. The sun will rise and set again, the flowers will bloom and fade– and we won’t be here.” “We have nothing to lose, and what is there that we will miss in the world in which we are living?”
"So the dissolved atoms of Aaron Jastrow float past the river banks of Medici where he played as a boy... float all the way northward through the countryside of his native Poland, through farmlands and forests, past cities and villages, past the great capital of Warsaw... and all the way to the Baltic Sea."
"So the dissolved atoms of Aaron Jastrow float past the river banks of Medici where he played as a boy... float all the way northward through the countryside of his native Poland, through farmlands and forests, past cities and villages, past the great capital of Warsaw... and all the way to the Baltic Sea."
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the quote
"But it's also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing; has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But, perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So, we must celebrate the changes. Because, as someone once said "Everything will be all right in the end. And if it's not all right, then trust me, it's not yet the end."
Food for Thought
from Steppenwolf:
"In this connection one thing more must be said. There are a good many people of the same kind as Harry. Many artists are of his kind. These persons all have two souls, two beings within them. There is God and the devil in them; the mother's blood and the father's; the capacity for happiness and the capacity for suffering; and in just such a state of enmity and entanglement towards and within each other as were the wolf and man in Harry. And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. Thus, like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a happiness of their own. All these men, whatever their deeds and works may be, have really no life; that is to say, their lives are not their own and have no form. They are not heroes, artists or thinkers in the same way that other men are judges, doctors, shoemakers, or schoolmasters. Their life consists of a perpetual tide, unhappy and torn with pain, terrible and meaningless, unless one is ready to see its meaning in just those rare experiences, acts, thoughts and works that shine out above the chaos of such a life. To such men the desperate and horrible thought has come that perhaps the whole of human life is but a bad joke, a violent and ill-fated abortion of the primal mother, a savage and dismal catastrophe of nature. To them, too, however, the other thought has come that man is perhaps not merely a half-rational animal but a child of the gods and destined to immortality.
Men of every kind have their characteristics, their features, their virtues and vices and their deadly sins. Prowling about at night was one of the Steppenwolf's favorite tendencies. The morning was a wretched time of day for him. He feared it and it never brought him any good. On no morning of his life had he ever been in good spirits nor done any good before midday, nor ever had a happy idea, nor devised any pleasure for himself or others. By degrees during the afternoon he warmed and became alive, and only towards evening, on his good days, was he productive, active and, sometimes, aglow with joy. With this was bound up his need for loneliness and independence. There was never a man with a deeper and more passionate craving for independence than he. In his youth when he was poor and had difficulty in earning his bread, he preferred to go hungry and in torn clothes rather than endanger his narrow limit of independence. He never sold himself for money or an easy life or to women or to those in power; and had thrown away a hundred times what in the world's eyes was his advantage and happiness in order to safeguard his liberty. No prospect was more hateful and distasteful to him than that he should have to go to an office and conform to daily and yearly routine and obey others. He hated all kinds of offices, governmental or commercial, as he hated death, and his worst nightmare was confinement in barracks. He contrived, often at great sacrifice, to avoid all such predicaments. It was here that his strength and his virtue rested. On this point he could neither be bent nor bribed. Here his character was firm and indeflectable. Only, through this virtue, he was bound the closer to his destiny of suffering. It happened to him as it does to all; what he strove for with the deepest and most stubborn instinct of his being fell to his lot, but more than is good for men. In the beginning his dream and his happiness, in the end it was his bitter fate. The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure. He achieved his aim. He was ever more independent. He took orders from no man and ordered his ways to suit no man. Independently and alone, he decided what to do and to leave undone. For every strong man attains to that which a genuine impulse bids him seek. But in the midst of the freedom he had attained Harry suddenly became aware that his freedom was a death and that he stood alone. The world in an uncanny fashion left him in peace. Other men concerned him no longer. He was not even concerned about himself.
He began to suffocate slowly in the more and more rarefied atmosphere of remoteness and solitude. For now it was his wish no longer, nor his aim, to be alone and independent, but rather his lot and his sentence. The magic wish had been fulfilled and could not be cancelled, and it was no good now to open his arms with longing and goodwill to welcome the bonds of society. People left him alone now. It was not, however, that he was an object of hatred and repugnance. On the contrary, he had many friends. A great many people liked him. But it was no more than sympathy and friendliness. He received invitations, presents, pleasant letters; but no more. No one came near to him. There was no link left, and no one could have had any part in his life even had anyone wished it. For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life."
"In this connection one thing more must be said. There are a good many people of the same kind as Harry. Many artists are of his kind. These persons all have two souls, two beings within them. There is God and the devil in them; the mother's blood and the father's; the capacity for happiness and the capacity for suffering; and in just such a state of enmity and entanglement towards and within each other as were the wolf and man in Harry. And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. Thus, like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a happiness of their own. All these men, whatever their deeds and works may be, have really no life; that is to say, their lives are not their own and have no form. They are not heroes, artists or thinkers in the same way that other men are judges, doctors, shoemakers, or schoolmasters. Their life consists of a perpetual tide, unhappy and torn with pain, terrible and meaningless, unless one is ready to see its meaning in just those rare experiences, acts, thoughts and works that shine out above the chaos of such a life. To such men the desperate and horrible thought has come that perhaps the whole of human life is but a bad joke, a violent and ill-fated abortion of the primal mother, a savage and dismal catastrophe of nature. To them, too, however, the other thought has come that man is perhaps not merely a half-rational animal but a child of the gods and destined to immortality.
Men of every kind have their characteristics, their features, their virtues and vices and their deadly sins. Prowling about at night was one of the Steppenwolf's favorite tendencies. The morning was a wretched time of day for him. He feared it and it never brought him any good. On no morning of his life had he ever been in good spirits nor done any good before midday, nor ever had a happy idea, nor devised any pleasure for himself or others. By degrees during the afternoon he warmed and became alive, and only towards evening, on his good days, was he productive, active and, sometimes, aglow with joy. With this was bound up his need for loneliness and independence. There was never a man with a deeper and more passionate craving for independence than he. In his youth when he was poor and had difficulty in earning his bread, he preferred to go hungry and in torn clothes rather than endanger his narrow limit of independence. He never sold himself for money or an easy life or to women or to those in power; and had thrown away a hundred times what in the world's eyes was his advantage and happiness in order to safeguard his liberty. No prospect was more hateful and distasteful to him than that he should have to go to an office and conform to daily and yearly routine and obey others. He hated all kinds of offices, governmental or commercial, as he hated death, and his worst nightmare was confinement in barracks. He contrived, often at great sacrifice, to avoid all such predicaments. It was here that his strength and his virtue rested. On this point he could neither be bent nor bribed. Here his character was firm and indeflectable. Only, through this virtue, he was bound the closer to his destiny of suffering. It happened to him as it does to all; what he strove for with the deepest and most stubborn instinct of his being fell to his lot, but more than is good for men. In the beginning his dream and his happiness, in the end it was his bitter fate. The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure. He achieved his aim. He was ever more independent. He took orders from no man and ordered his ways to suit no man. Independently and alone, he decided what to do and to leave undone. For every strong man attains to that which a genuine impulse bids him seek. But in the midst of the freedom he had attained Harry suddenly became aware that his freedom was a death and that he stood alone. The world in an uncanny fashion left him in peace. Other men concerned him no longer. He was not even concerned about himself.
He began to suffocate slowly in the more and more rarefied atmosphere of remoteness and solitude. For now it was his wish no longer, nor his aim, to be alone and independent, but rather his lot and his sentence. The magic wish had been fulfilled and could not be cancelled, and it was no good now to open his arms with longing and goodwill to welcome the bonds of society. People left him alone now. It was not, however, that he was an object of hatred and repugnance. On the contrary, he had many friends. A great many people liked him. But it was no more than sympathy and friendliness. He received invitations, presents, pleasant letters; but no more. No one came near to him. There was no link left, and no one could have had any part in his life even had anyone wished it. For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life."
The Dead
"One by one, we're all becoming shades. Better to pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. How long you locked away in your heart the image of your lover's eyes when he told you that he did not wish to live. I've never felt that way myself towards any woman, but I know that such a feeling must be love. Think of all those who ever were, back to the start of time. And me, transient as they, flickering out as well into their grey world. Like everything around me, this solid world itself which they reared and lived in, is dwindling and dissolving. Snow is falling. Falling in that lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lies buried. Falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living, and the dead." -- "The Dead"
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Thursday, May 7, 2015
The Garden Apartments
In a suburban community of single family houses, these garden apartments provide a stunning and refreshing option.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
at the Center for Jewish History
Yiddish Fight Club
Blimp Levy
The New York World-Telegram called Martin “the Blimp” Levy “the most meat which ever stepped
into a ring.”
Benny Leonard
Max Krausner
Bummy Davis
Raphael Halperin
Shepsl Rotholtz
Zelig Pashov
Zelig Pashov, the entertainer
Blimp Levy
The New York World-Telegram called Martin “the Blimp” Levy “the most meat which ever stepped
into a ring.”
Benny Leonard
Max Krausner
Bummy Davis
Raphael Halperin
Shepsl Rotholtz
Zelig Pashov
Zelig Pashov, the entertainer
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