My blogging history:
2012: diagnosed with and underwent treatment for Primary CNS lymphoma in my brain.
2012-2013: blogged on Caring Bridge.
2013: moved to Blogger.
2017: diagnosed with bladder cancer and blogged through 14 chemotherapy treatments and 37 sessions of radiation therapy, each with its own t-shirt and musical selection.
2018 to February 2020: Treated every 3 weeks with pembrolizumab for spread of bladder cancer to lymph nodes. As of June 2020, continue to be cancer free.
We have lived in New York for over
twenty-five years, but until we started taking our grandchildren to Broadway
shows, I do not believe we had seen more than a couple in the first twenty. Somehow,
though, we have gotten the “theater bug,” and as you who are regular readers
have probably noticed, we have found ourselves in the theater district (the
area bounded by West 40th Street on the south, West 54th Street on the north,
Sixth Avenue on the east and Eighth Avenue on the west, and includes Times
Square) fairly frequently of late.
Our latest Broadway extravaganza was “Ain’t
Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations.” The Temptations were quite
popular in the 1960s, but if you had asked me a few weeks ago to sing some
Temptations songs, I am not sure I would have correctly identified very many of
them. However, in doing our usual “homework” prior to the performance,
including listening to the Broadway album, I realized that I was quite familiar
with virtually all of the long list of songs included in the show.
This was a high energy and totally
enjoyable performance. The personal history of the group members, which
included various artists who floated in and out of the group over many years,
was not at all familiar to us. Unfortunately, a fair amount of heartache came along
with their success, including problems with drugs, romantic relationships, and
fellow musicians. But the music is still incredibly enjoyable, and the show
relied almost entirely on that music, with only brief snippets of narration by band
member Otis Williams (played by Derrick Baskin) and a bit of dialogue to tie
things together.
I include here both a version of the
Temptations singing that title song back in the 1960s (sorry the video is a bit
grainy), as well as some excerpts from the Broadway show.
If you are of a certain age, or maybe of any age, and in New York looking for a totally enjoyable evening, I highly recommend this show!
I am not sure why I have not written
about James Holzhauer. For those of you who are not fans of the television show
Jeopardy!, or have just somehow been
oblivious to the extensive reporting on this fellow, James Holzhauer had won 33
games of Jeopardy!, earning $2,462,216
(an average of over $74,000 per game), just a bit less than the $2,522,700 earned
by Ken Jennings in his 74-game streak in 2004. Had Mr. Holzhauer been able to
make it to 74 games at the same rate of earnings during his 33 games, he would
have earned over $5.5 million dollars! He also set the record for single day
earnings, increasing it from Roger Craig’s $77,000 to the new high at of $131,127.
In fact, he now holds the slots for the top sixteen highest scores!
These numbers are all fascinating and a
bit dizzying, so you may be wondering why I have not been blogging about Mr.
Holzhauer over these past nine weeks (nearly 7 weeks of the games he played interrupted
by a two-week break for the annual teachers’ tournament). To be honest, I have
had mixed feelings about this fellow. Unlike Julia Collins, about whom I wrote
a few years ago during her month-long (21 April – 02 June 2014) winning streak
on Jeopardy!, he was simply not a
very likeable fellow. It was easy to distrust him, to think maybe he was up to
something no good. I never thought he had “broken” the game, as many said and
wrote, and last night’s game showed this to be the case. The news of his
performance in his 34th game had leaked out (and I am sure if the
producers could prove who divulged that information, heads would roll), but
even had we not heard that, he clearly seemed off his game. He lost to Emma
Boettcher, a 27-year-old librarian from Chicago. She played impressively, with
winnings of $46,801 following a very large wager on Final Jeopardy. Even the Jeopardy! host, Alex Trebek, seemed sincerely surprised by the outcome!
Last Sunday, Dina was once again on the
run…this time, the Bank Newport 10 miler. We were unfortunately not able to be
there, but she did send along some pictures.
We are just so proud of her perseverance
and grit!
It has been a busy past few days. On
Thursday we got together with Barry’s brother, Richard, who lives in Florida
but was in New York on a visit. It was our first time meeting his new …. what word can I use? “Girlfriend” seems a bit
odd for a couple in their 70s. “Lady Friend” seems too formal and old
fashioned. Is “partner” the right word? I guess I should have asked them what
they prefer to be called. But likely the best answer is that whatever moniker
they might choose, we were thrilled to have a chance to finally meet Jill, and
we wish them only much good health and happiness.
On Friday afternoon we saw the new film
“Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation,” a documentary about the
famous event held in upstate New York during the weekend of August 15-18, 1969.
The emphasis was much less on the music than on the experiences of some of the
organizers and attendees, including some footage of Max Yasgur, on whose farm near
Bethel, New York, the festival took place. The preparation for the event was rocky and
the facility was not ready in time, so when literally hundreds of thousands made
their way to the site, the infrastructure was not in place to take care of
them. Yet, somehow, between generous local residents and the good spirits of
the over 400,000 attendees, the event was an amazing success. Although there
were problems, particularly with drug overdoses and bad weather, overall it was
an incredibly powerful and positive experience for most of the attendees.
Sadly, it is hard to imagine such an event having this outcome today.
In August of 1969 my family had just
moved from St. Louis to West Hartford, Connecticut. I was 17 years old, did not
really know anyone my age (until the start of the school year in September),
and I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine my parents would have let me go.
Still, there is great nostalgia watching the various films about the festival and
just thinking about what it must have been like to be there.
We had a nice Shabbat. We had invited our friends Judy and Lanny to join us for a light supper (Seudah Shlishit). We had not gotten together since well before Passover so it was wonderful to have time to catch up.
On Sunday, being in the Woodstock mode, we went to see another new film, “Echo in the Canyon.” This movie was directed by Andrew Slater and featured Jakob Dylan’s performances and extensive interviews with many former Woodstock performers and folk/rock musicians of the 1960s and 70s, including David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young (CSNY), Jackson Browne, Ringo Starr (The Beatles), Roger McGuinn (The Byrds), Michelle Phillips (The Mamas and the Papas), Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys), John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful), and the late Tom Petty (Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers, in interviews filmed shortly before he died of cardiac arrest on October 2nd of 2017, two weeks short of his 67th birthday). There were also interviews with and performances by contemporary artists who have recorded some of the work from the 1960s icons, including Nora Jones and Beck. This was really a first-rate documentary, and the minute it ended my comment to Barry was that I really would like to see it again. We had a brief conversation with a couple of fellows sitting next to us and they agreed whole-heartedly!
One of the reasons we went into the City to see the movie was because we had tickets Sunday evening for Billy Joel’s 65th monthly sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden (the run started in January of 2014). So far there are five more shows that have been booked:
Thursday Jul 11, 2019
Wednesday Aug 28, 2019
Friday Sep 27, 2019
Friday Oct 25, 2019
Friday Nov 15, 2019
Billy, who recently (on May 9th) celebrated his 70th birthday, sounded terrific! Here is the full set list:
Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)
Pressure
Vienna (audience choice over Just The Way You Are)
The Entertainer
Zanzibar
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
Layla (Derek and the Dominos cover) (coda only)
Don't Ask Me Why
New York State of Mind
Say Goodbye to Hollywood
Allentown
She's Always a Woman
Pour Some Sugar on Me (Def Leppard cover, with Joe Elliott on vocals)
My Life
Only the Good Die Young
Sometimes a Fantasy
The River of Dreams
Dancing in the Street (Martha Reeves and The Vandellas cover, with Crystal Taliefero on vocals)
Nessun dorma (Giacomo Puccini cover, with Mike Del Guidice on vocals)
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
Piano Man
Encores:
We Didn't Start the Fire
Uptown Girl
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me
Big Shot
You May Be Right (with “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin snippet sung by Mike Del Guidice)
Looks like lovely weather here in New York the next few days. We took a little time this afternoon and headed over to the Bronx Zoo, just to walk around outside. There were busloads of school children of all ages, clearly thrilled to be out in the nice weather, as were we.
We had a very busy
Memorial Day weekend, and then I spent the last couple of days attending to various
medical appointments, including my 22nd treatment with pembrolizumab
today.
We drove up to Sharon
on Thursday to attend “Yom Orchim,” a program that Striar Hebrew Academy (SHAS),
the local Jewish day school has for special guests, particularly grandparents. Following
the group presentations, Barry spent time with Maya. As a fifth grader (the
oldest students in SHAS), she considered this exercise a bit childish. I spent
most of the time with Julia, and took some adorable pictures as she showed me
around her classroom and participated in the various activities and projects
that were set up for the students.
Friday afternoon we
took Eliana and Maya to see the movie “A Dog’s Journey,” the sequel to the 2017
movie, “A Dog’s Purpose,” which we had seen with Maya in 2017. It is a very
touching film about the multiple “lives” of that same dog. In the current movie,
the dog learns to detect early signs of cancer in people through the sharp
sense of smell that dogs possess. Apparently, dogs can in fact be trained to do
this under some circumstances. It made for a very touching story.
We had a lovely
Shabbat afternoon, having lunch with Simmie and her family at the home of friends
of theirs, and spending the later afternoon with Eliana, Julia, and Noah while
their parents and siblings attended a Bat Mitzvah celebration.
On Sunday we all
headed to the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University:
https://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/. We had not been there in some years,
but this was an especially nice time to go as the impressive and extensive
collection of lilacs are in bloom. We took many pictures but I am waiting to
collect them from everyone; for now, here are a few I can share.
Finally, we returned
to Dina’s home for a barbeque. We were very excited to have been able to buy
the new meat substitute called “Impossible Burger.” I had eaten it before in a
couple of places, but Maya, who has been a vegetarian for a few months now, was
eating it for the first time and really enjoyed it. Here are a couple of
pictures, and you can see it really does look like a hamburger. I admit I have
not eaten a beef hamburger in about thirty years, but from what I can recall
this does taste quite a bit like the “real thing,” and opens the door for
eating something those who observe the Jewish dietary laws have never been able
to eat: a cheeseburger! We could not do this on Sunday because the burgers were
cooked on a meat surface, but it is something I plan to try.
We were fortunate
that the weekend weather was so lovely. Now the rain has returned. At least we
did not have any tornadoes here, as I believe happened in New Jersey.
We went to see a very powerful play on
Broadway simply called “Hillary and Clinton.” The play centers on the early days of the 2008 presidential campaign in which the main candidates for
the Democratic party nomination were Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barak Obama.
There were just four actors in the play:
Laurie Metcalf, John Lithgow, Peter Francis James, and Mark Penn. Ms. Metcalf,
familiar from her long standing role as Roseanne’s sister Jackie on the
television show “Roseanne,” for which she won three Emmy awards, and winner of
two Tony awards (for “A Doll’s House, Part 2” in 2017 and “Three Tall Women” in
2018 – she has certainly been busy) was an amazing
Hillary. Former President Bill Clinton was played by Mr. Lithgow, a well-known
actor who may be familiar to many from his role on the television series “Third
Rock from the Sun,” as well as roles in films including “The World According to
Garp,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Footloose,” and a remake of the famous Twilight
Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”
The other two actors, Peter Francis
James as Barack Obama, and Zak Orth as Hillary’s chief campaign strategist,
Mark Penn, were not familiar to us but were really excellent in these roles.
It was a powerfully raw and honest
portrayal of both the political and personal lives of the Clintons. The
playwright, Lucas Hnath, clearly drew heavily from aspects of the Clintons’
lives that are well known, although the story was presented as though it may
have taken place on another earth-like planet. The relationship between Hillary
and Bill was often painful to watch. One line that really stuck with us, and
with Ben Brantley, who reviewed the play for the New York Times, was when
Hillary said “I want to stay in this marriage because I want to stay in it,
because I get more out of it than I lose — but Bill, every second that passes I
see myself losing more than I gain.”
The playbill included this little note, but I am not sure I would agree with that description.
We are glad we had this opportunity to see such talented and well-known actors in such fascinating roles.
