It was an evening of Prokofiev at Lincoln Center last night, and seat 6, row LL needed filling, so I answered the call. Couple of things... I've never been to a symphony performance before where they did encores. The first half of the concert comprised Symphony #4 and Violin Concerto #2, and people were on their feet at the end. (I say that because I'm a poor judge of music at best, and almost incapable of an opinion beyond "um, uh..." when it's music I'm not familiar with, but judging by the audience, many of whom were Russian, the London Symphony Orchestra is pretty good.) So the violin soloist and the 1st violin did a little dueling violins thing as an encore. (Two questions re: the violinists... When the soloist was playing the concerto, were they all thinking, as I think actors are, 'some day, that'll be me, I could do better!', and secondly, are there any left-hand playing violinists?) Then after the second half, the Symphony # 5 (one of the 'war symphonies', written at composers' camp outside Moscow in 1944--huh, really?), they did a couple minutes of, I think, "Peter and the Wolf". But I do have a beef... According to the program notes, in the #5, there is unusual use of the piano, especially in the fourth movement, where it's used almost as a percussion instrument. I'm not conservatory-trained or anything, but there was no piano on that stage!

When I listen to music, my mind wanders, and when the music is Russian and you try to let it evoke images, you, and by you, I mean I, always see a sleigh racing through a quiet snowy forest. But having read about the Fifth being first performed in 1945 as the Russians crossed the Vistula on their way to capture Hitler's Death Car, here's what I heard:

Movement #1 (Andante): Life in Soviet Russia--pretty good, though clearly the Revolution is going to take longer than we thought. And didn't there used to be about 30 million more peasants? Oh well, la-la-la . . .

Movement #2 (Allegro marcato): Hee--the rest of the world seems to be organizing another world war, but we've got this get out of jail free card, the Non-Agression Pact, la-di-dah!

Movement #3 (Adagio): Fucking Germans!

Movement #4 (Allegro giocoso): You're overextended and we're used to the climate--Victory!!

Happy Days! There's a pub near the Y where I work out that has "happy hour" from 11am to 7pm. It's pretty happy, too, $3 drafts and $4 cocktails.

I enjoyed the concert very much, but either Art had a sore throat or his voice has changed a lot. (And why shouldn't it have, over the past forty years?) The beautiful high notes in "That's All I Know" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" are gone, and his voice was very breathy, not clear like it used to be. A woodwind, versus a brass, instrument, if I'm remembering my orchestra correctly. But he did a very nice set in an amazing venue, the St. George Theater on Staten Island, which he called one of the greatest houses in North America. It's one of these places like the theater where my little cousin Catherine graduated, that's all ornate plaster painted to look like the Alhambra.

While he didn't quite sound the same, you'd know instantly that it was Art Garfunkel. He still has the red afro with receding hairline, like Elizabeth the First.

And to give you an idea what Staten Island is like, I saw only one black person, and when you order wine at the theater, they ask if you want ice in it.

Shore and whatever, here's Brooklyn Borough Hall on March 17.

Maury Povich, "Why is he acting embarrassed?"
Female guest, "He's got four kids with four different women, I guess I'd look embarrassed too coming on national television looking like a butt-dumb fool." She was not being ironic, and she was one of the baby-mamas.

One of my tax-takers got upset with me because I didn't know how to answer the question, "If I didn't owe, how much I'd be getting back?"

My answer to local news anchors' asking "Who are these guys?" when the AIG bonus news hit is, "You could be enjoying schadenfreude right now if it weren't for your representatives in Washington who drew an unsecured loan on your future earnings to give them, ask who those guys are!" Why is Congress still seen as our protectors?

I'm away to Staten Island tonight--mysterious tropical breezes, exotic locals--to see Art Garfunkel. Poor Arty! Last month, Paul Simon played a star-studded gala to celebrate the renovation of the Beacon Theater. Tonight, I'm paying $4 to fill a seat so's he doesn't feel so bad. But I've been listening to S&G for about two months, so I'm psyched.

My first show-biz party last night--Andy took me to the wrap party for his non-renewed series, "Life on Mars". My impression of TV actors is that they are short and gay. The party was at a nightclub in Chelsea that had all these private cabanas like you see Lauren Conrad, Heidi Montag, Audrina Patridge et al "hiding" from the public in on "The Hills". The show was set in the 70s and they tried to keep to that theme, but the music ran well past '85. There was live karaoke, Andy and I did "Whip It", and everyone told us we were perfect afterward, which was demonstrably untrue, just show business b.s., and I was a recipient of it!

He and I also started working on our second movie script at his new apartment in Weehauken, just around the corner from the site of the Burr-Hamilton unpleasantness.

I caught a little bit of Fox at 5 news where some doctor was talking about drops you can put on your eyelids to grow eyelashes (I'm not going to swear to that, I wasn't paying attention.) "I've read a lot of stuff on the Internet," the anchorwoman said, "and can't this stuff get in your eyes?" The doc said yes, it could, but since it started out its marketing life as a cataract medicine, while you should still follow directions, it wouldn't hurt your eyes. "That's good to know, you know, becuase I hear all kinds of things and who knows?" So it's official, the people delivering the news on TV are no longer authority figures who have investigated facts to share with us, they are our proxies, frightened villagers who think nothing is knowable and are there to express non-specific anxiety about so-called information. When the news doesn't believe the news, why are we watching the news?

A sandwich better than the Cubano? Yes, if your eyeballs are within range of this blog, get thee to a Vietnamese restaurant and have a banh mi. Like the Cubano, it doesn't sound particularly good, roast pork (again), pate, sweet, hot pickled carrots and cucumber on a baguette, but I would not steer you wrong. It is the best thing to hit Brooklyn since Janet Hopf.

We're lucky, my brother and sister-in-law say the Vietnamese food in Vietnam isn't as good as it is here because all the good chefs left after the war (and Charlie probably didn't emphasize haute cuisine once he took over), and we have better ingredients. There's only so much you can do to improve a sinewy chicken.

It was a snowy morning on the train yesterday as I ran an errand out in the gulag, Gravesend. Repeatedly, I heard this being yelled into cell phones, "I'm on the train! It's snowing!"