I discovered the thing that's better than the farmer's market today--the farmer's market when they're packing it up and all the food's discounted. I went to the library today and on the way in, I almost got a bunch of green onions for $2 (for my Creamy & Delicious eggs, if you must know), but then thought it wouldn't be too cool to sit in the library with a bunch of onions. When I was headed home at 5:30, they were dumping food into bags, I'm guessing, for food banks, and I got a bunch of onions and a broccoli crown for $1. While some might call it garbage, I prefer "fully ripened".

I attended the inaugural lecture at a new auditorium at the library, given by David Wallace, who co-wrote Gotham. He talked about Brooklyn and its history in relation to Manhattan and immigration. Some things I didn't know: 37% of the pop of Brooklyn is foreign-born, 2/3rds are first or second gen immigrants, our unemployment rate was 10% during the "miracle economy" of the 80's (it's 6.7% now), and the majority of people who have jobs work in Manhattan, not here. This was kind of funny. Wallace was talking about the Manhattan bridge being called the "Jewish Highway" because it was built when the big retailers moved north on Fifth Ave, "but while they still needed clothes from the garment workers, they really didn't want to see them at lunch." So the Jews went to Williamsburg. Then, until the major black influx during the 30s, "The Germans, the Jews, the Irish had really been at each others' throats the whole time, but when the migration from the south started, they all kind of looked at each other and said, 'Well, we're all basically white.'"

He told us about a town in Mexico where about half the population lives either permanently or part-time in Brooklyn now, and rather than assimilate, the Brooklyn population plays an active role in managing the town's affairs because they provide money for the capital projects. So it's really one community, half of which happens to be here. Talk about the other side of the tracks...

There was a guy at the lecture who kept blowing his nose and waving his handkerchief out between blows to the point where I was averting my eyes. He asked the first question, "A two-part question, if you please . . ." afterwards. Later, I was in the ladies' room where some women (and let me interject to say that the average height of white women attending this talk was no greater than 5 feet, even including me) were talking about him, and how he's a fixture on the lecture audience circuit. But, "there's something genuinely wrong with him," said one of the ladies, "he's to be pitied."

The Janet Hopf Reconciliation Tour '07 is concluded, and frankly, I'm ready to live in the now, now.

The reunion was not what I expected, but nobody but me is surprised that it was so, how shall we say, down market. The women looked as much as possible like they once did, but I didn't recognize a single man. They just let it happen, don't they? The plurality of men, by the way, were rocking this look: Hawaiian shirt and gray mustache. Oh, and something happened right of the bat that was so bizarre that even as it was happening, I was thinking "what seems to be happening can't be really happening!" Some guy I don't remember named Mike Andreen hugged me, and I inhaled his hair. I had to back up to get it out of my trachea, and I don't think he knew what happened, but I'm looking forward to Alzheimer's to claim the memory of that.

The one person I'm really glad I saw there and had a chance to talk to was Lisa Terry, sister to Jo Lynn, my best friend who was killed by a drunk driver the year I graduated college. One of the first things she asked me was "Do you visit her grave? We've had the impression over the years that someone other than the family was there." I put flowers on her grave every time I go to Minneapolis, and it just goes to show, you never know when something you do affects someone else.

Also, I discovered, again, to no one's surprise but mine, that Park Center might not have been that great a school. Here is a list of the teachers who attended, compiled by a member of the reunion committee, himself an inductee in the PC English Hall of Fame:

Dave Brom- Engleish Dept. Paul Wardell- Englaish Dept.
George Lausch- Enjlish Dept. Suzanne Armstrong Larson- Ennglish Dept.
Jack Hohag- Engglish Dept.

Happy Roddy McDowall's birthday!

Traveling on the subway outside normal business hours, there's about a fifty percent chance you're going to have somebody screaming about something. Tonight's offering was an older black man who first caught my attention when he [correctly] pointed out that "I'm riding the underground railroad." Next stop, Delancy Street/Harriet Tubman's cabin. "You all can clean your own toilets." Checkeroo. Then he got interested in a couple who judging by their niceness were probably tourists. He had a big black beard. "You look like a goombah," he said. The man got the translation "Italian" from his wife, and smiled and nodded. That bought him some punch handshakes and cries of "Paisan!" When I got off, he was offering the honkies Little Debbie Star Crunches "I didn't open 'em yet." The nice blond lady lied that they'd just eaten big pieces of pizza!

I hate it when I tell people that I was run over by a bus and the first thing they say is, "are you going to sue?" Because I think the sentiment behind that question is "lucky you, success will be yours at last!"

I finally finished my aborted theater mission from the night of my accident and saw 100 Saints You Should Know, and boy, was it good! I feel like my palate is now cleansed from Idol: The Musical. Saints is well-written, funny and poignant (how often do I compliment the writing?), it's about interesting ideas, and was beautifully acted. The reason I went was Jeremy Shamos, the firstest and bestest Doug in Gutenberg: The Musical, and he was, okay, I'll call him what actors always call each other, amazing. We both almost cried.

As for the intersection (yes, right in front of Papaya Dog on 9th Ave) where I was hit, as I approached it this evening, there were two ambulances at the very spot on the curb where I plopped down to direct the recovery efforts. And on my way home, a guy crossed toward me, making the exact same mistake I made, not seeing the protected turn. A bus cut an arc out in front of him, but a semi was aimed right at him and tooted its horn. The guy had headphones on and didn't look up, but fortunately, the truck was able to stop. I suspect that intersection is a meat grinder is what I'm saying.

Okay, I cracked wise earlier, but I admit, I choked up when I went down to Brooklyn Heights and saw this. (And yay Nikon Coolpix and gorilla-pod.) So yes, we'll always commemorate 9/11, but not by turning into a nation of victims, okay?

What a gyp! I went to Methodist this morning for an 11 o'clock apheresis, and who was scheduled for 11:30, but my neighbor, John Turturro. But then I failed the hemocrit and was out of there at 11:15.

This is the worst thing that's ever happened on 9/11.

Isn't this gorgeous? I never think about the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza, but Saturday I coincidentally went to the library, and got hit by a big waft of basil going in. That put the idea of caprese salad in my head, which I made with a fresh mozzarella from the butcher shop. I ate it in the context of a "plate of plants", I cut up the peppers and cauliflower and ate them with a low fat dill dip I had the foresight to make the night before. I'm looking forward to that cute parti colored eggplant!

When did it become okay to scream? I hate that sound, and now it seems like everywhere you go, people are screaming or whoo-oooing. Also, when did I turn in to Andy Rooney?

Score!

The Royal Shakespeare Company is in town, and I had a sweet obstructed view ticket to The Seagull tonight. I generally like Chekov because he always has some loser like me who was ambitious and always meant to do something with his life but never quite got around to it. Seagull's playing in repertory with King Lear, starring Ian McKellan. Seeing him in Richard III at the Kennedy Center in 1992 was one of my transcendent nights in the theater, but I missed out on tickets to Lear.

Anyhoo, as I was on my way to the gorgeous Harvey Theater in the Brooklyn Academy of Music complex--it looks all bombed out, like some Bavarian Statsoper, circa April 1945--I had the idea that McKellen would be subbing in Seagull tonight, and lo, he did! The part, Sorin, isn't very big, but he was adorable with the bulbous alkie nose, Lear-beard, and Harpo Marx fright wig.

As if that weren't enough luck enough for one night, I whipped into Pathmark to reload on fat-free yogurt and romaine lettuce (I'm on a Caesar salad kick) and the bus came 2 minutes after I got to the stop, putting me at my door in 18 minutes. If you own tires, I don't expect you to understand.

Jeezum, every time I leave the house . . .

I was walking home tonight along Prospect Park when I heard a scuffle in a doorway of one of the apartments to my right. Ahead of me to the left was a young guy, smoking, apparently waiting for a bus. As I got closer, I saw a couple in the alcove. Sometimes you think people are fighting when they're really playing or laughing, but it became clear the man had the woman pinned against the doorway and was yelling in her face and that she was crying. I stopped at the bottom of their steps and when they saw me, I asked if they needed some help. (As soon as I said it, I remembered that I'd left my phone at home, so I don't know what help I could be, but once you're in one of these situations, you have to maintain your calm.) The man stepped back and said he had no problem if she'd go away. She, sobbing, said she didn't want to leave because he was her husband and he wanted to divorce her but she didn't want him to. Then I became aware that the guy from the bus stop had come up behind me, wing man style. I asked the woman if she had someplace to go. "She's got her own place," the husband said. "I don't want a divorce," she told me again. "You have to get the hell away from me," the guy said to her. By then I realized that the guy wanted to go inside and be done with it, so I asked the wife if she wanted me to help her get home. She said again she didn't want to go home, and what could I say? Dude doesn't want you. I asked the guy if I could help him and he said again he'd be fine if she'd leave. It really seemed like the whole thing had blown over, so I said something lame about maybe she could try him again another day and went on my way. I'd only gotten a few steps when my wing man was beside me again, thanking me for stopping. "He's not hurting her," I said. "I'm a guy, and I just didn't know whether I should go over there or what." I thanked him for coming over because that was potentially very helpful if the situation had gone another way. "Well, you were the bigger person for going up to them first."

You know what it is? 9/11. I've had sub rosa conversations with two fellow New Yorkers about how we're over 9/11, but we can't forget the lesson of that day--we can't stand by and watch bad things happen. We are the first responders.

No new horror pics today, it's kind of all over but the shouting. Or numbness and swelling, in this case. I'm moving on.

Inspired by a friend to read some classic lit-ra-chure, I read Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, this week. Despite Mr. Anderson's world view being 180 degrees from mine, I have to say I like his unemotional writing style. The biggest laugh I got out of the book was A's rant about the corruption of all this here materialism we got now since the post-Civil War technology boom. (The book was published in 1919.) Now, he's talking about Ohio, so he's not advocating a return to slavery, but one of the bad guys in the book is a young man who inherits his uncles' farm. He gets obsessed by it, builds an addition to his house so he can look out on the farm hands and animals, and repeatedly, "he thought about nothing but the farm". He walks along the valley and dreams that one day he'll own all the farms, which he eventually does. Remember, he's the bad guy. The good old days were when his four uncles worked the farm and it took up all their time and energy to clear rocks and tree roots by hand. They weren't a bunch of pansies sitting in a room thinking all day! More advice from Mr. Anderson--sex never leads to anything good. Not ever. Go exhaust yourself moving rocks in the fields instead.