Here's something I wrote back in May.

Last month Ann and I spent a week in New York City. I loved it. I love being in the city. I’m made for city living. I think I’m a bit of a snob. I like being at the center of culture and having access to things. I like being around rushes of diverse people on busy streets. I love rows of townhouses and charming neighborhoods. I like reading the Times on the subway, reading of the dozens of coming cultural events and reviews of past events. I love having quick access to great paintings. All things of significance come through New York at some point. I like not dealing with cars and with driving.

I remember lots of things about our trip, but a few things come to mind more frequently than others. I remember Ann and I sitting at Starbucks across from Lincoln Center before seeing Satyagraha at the Met. I was excited to be seeing this Glass opera, and I enjoyed the anticipation, and knowing that this wasn’t some university production, or a regional opera company. This was the fucking Met! And a Philip Glass opera! I’ve been listening to Satyagraha a lot since seeing the Met production, and it still seems as fresh and exciting to me as when I first bought the recording a decade or more ago. Say what you will about Glass’ work of the last 15 years, there is no doubt that he’s written some of the most beautiful and exciting music of the 20th century.

I also remember walking through the upper Village at night, wandering through the small streets and discovering little restaurants, with couples hovering around candle-lit tables and enjoying their drinks, as if they do it every evening. I will always be a small town kid marveling at the big city, and I think it’s a good thing. The city always holds excitement and satisfaction. I’m never jaded in this way. When I’m in the city, there’s no feeling that I’m missing out. When I lived in Philadelphia, I always felt that. It never became commonplace to me.

Change of time and subject …

Ann reads lots of blogs. I don’t. Lately she’s been reading one written by a stay-at-home dad. I read a sample of it a few days ago, and it was good. I just don’t seem to be drawn to blogs like I might expect. I am a bit of a voyeur, and so such glimpses into the lives of others should appeal to me, but lately I just don’t care. The exception has been Ian’s blog (though I’m not sure I should be identifying his name—he’s gone anonymous). I think the reason I like to read his blog is because I sort of know him—we’ve corresponded a bit. And he’s likeable and in London, which is different enough to interest me. I imagine he leads a charmed life in a wonderful city. But otherwise, the blogs of strangers don’t interest me. And I don’t expect anyone to be interested in mine either. In fact, the less interest the better. The one point the stay-at-home dad made which I certainly agree with is that the more people who read his blog (people he knows, that is), the less fun it is to write. He’s become inhibited –once upon a time he could write anything, but now he has to be concerned with what people might think. What we both want is to make our thoughts available to the public, but only to the unknown masses, no familiars allowed.

I’m going to try to resurrect my blog. I’m going to finish the stained glass windows for the bathroom. I’m going to paint my two newly stretched blank canvases—I think in a Lionel Feininger style. I’m going to remove the windows at the bottom of the stairs and work on them throughout the winter. I’m going to stop thinking about the surfaces of our cats’ litter whenever I see large grassy expanses. I’m going to try to focus more on work when I’m at work. I’m going to try to get to bed early tonight and sleep a long time.

I’ve finished reading the Christopher Rice novel. It wasn’t good. He can develop a narrative—he’s a story teller and can deftly piece together scenes and events. But it was very weak, even bad, embarrassing on content, character, and substance. Nothing that he wrote felt true. He’s like the Jon Lovitz thespian character on Saturday Night Live—“Acting!” only Rice is “Writing!” Either he’s unable or uninterested in writing about real people. I’m now reading a book by Annie Proulx. Nice to be back reading good work.

Two words that I should use more often: unbidden and persiflage.
“His unbidden advances were fodder for endless persiflage around the lunch table.” “Filled with the persiflage of a thousand nattering grandmas, his mind fluttered to and fro like a summer azure butterfly, landing intermittently always on the unbidden but inexorable truth that he could no longer focus on the employment tasks at hand.”