December 29, 2023

Dateline: New York, New York

I know that I have been in radio silence the last few days; something in my brain has been telling me just unplug and live in the moment so I’ve not been doing the usual travel journal thing. Besides which, I’ve made any number of trips to Manhattan over the years and have likely exhausted my supply of New York City anecdotes. It’s been 36 years since my first trip – on the occasion for interviewing with some New York based residency programs. The one of which I liked was Cornell; and I ranked it highly but knew they would never take me. A cursory glance at their class statistics over the previous decade showed that they had only taken two residents from schools west of the Mississippi over the last ten years and I was pretty certain I was not going to be the third one, having been a somewhat indifferent medical student. No one at the University of Washington School of Medicine expected much out of me. But I was still the first member of my class to be appointed to a medical school faculty. The joys of tying oneself to underserved subject areas.

Christmas Day was pretty quiet. I slept in. Gave the kitties their Christmas treats (although they much prefer knocking pens off a table and chasing them around the room to any patent cat toy I’ve ever brought home). Spent the afternoon with my friend Holly and her family to get in a little of children showing off their Christmas gifts time. I do enjoy borrowing other peoples children occasionally. I suppose it’s why I continue to teach Sunday School at church. Also, being the one teacher without children in the program, I’m good at shaming the congreagation into volunteer jobs that need to be done.

On Boxing Day, Bill McMullen picked me up in his SUV and together we pointed the car towards points east and headed off into the rain. Traffic was light. Even Atlanta was freely moving. And we stopped in Columbia, South Carolina to pick up Frank Thompson continuing to dive up I-20 until it met I-95 where we made a left and headed to the North, spending the night in some wide spot in the road in Southern Virginia which had a Hampton Inn. We got up the next morning for the 7-8 hours of remaining drive time – and pulled into Manhattan nearly eleven hours later. The vile weather and holiday traffic combined to make the drive north one hell of a slog. But we made it and made it to our curtain time with five minutes to spare.

We were joined at the Belasco theater by David Pohler, Stephen Crooks Felis and Ginny Stahlman Crooks, reuniting six of the Alabama Seven from London (Kathy McMullen due to arrive the next day). The first show was ‘How to Dance in Ohio’ which is a musical, based on a true story, about a group of young people on the autism spectrum getting ready for a spring formal as part of social skills therapy). I had heard some mixed things about the show going in but was keeping an open mind. I ended up loving it. The subtext of the show is that people should be allowed to communicate their own stories in their own way, not through the lens of someone else’s worldview. And as the autistic characters are all played by performers who are themselves on the spectrum, there is a connection and an energy there that could not be replicated with better trained actors. The show has Heart that cannot be faked. I am hoping good word of mouth keeps them going for a while.

The next morning, I was up early, had breakfast with a friend at The Harvard Club in midtown and then wandered over through Times Square which was relatively quiet in the gray and the mist as the costumed characters don’t show up until about 10:30. I had nothing else on the schedule so I ran over to Lincoln Center and joined Frank for the family matinee of The Magic Flute. It’s the Julie Taymor production with the amazing puppeteering. Tommy and I had seen it on simulcast at the movies years ago but it was the first time for me to see it live. We were the first and second slaves in the Opera Birmingham production about a decade ago. I remember some of my chorus music but I can’t say that the plot makes any more sense in English than it does in the original German.

Lunch and some more wandering and then David and I went on to the evening show of the revival of Spamalot. It’s a show that requires a half dozen expert farceurs. They have them in the current cast. There’s not a wasted moment and every line of the script has been mined for jokes. And how can you hate a show that ends with an audience sing a long to ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’. I then broke one of my cardinal life rules about never driving in Manhattan by taking Bill’s car up to Hamilton Heights where David lives and the parking is free. I am proud to see that I made it up the whole length of the island from 20th street to 145th street without crashing the car or needing a Xanax. But I did collapse on returning back to the condo.

I slept for quite some time and did very little today. Until it was time for everyone to gather for dinner, having been joined by the McMullen junior generation (Tricia McMullen, Trevor McMullen and Lee Hedgepeth). Lovely Mexican dinner right off of Times Square with Darrien Hess as our waitperson). David and I then opted for Harmony as our show for the evening. Barry Manilow’s score is pretty darn good (except for that one obvious steal from ‘Ragtime’) and it’s expertly performed (and wonderful to see local theater kind Kate Wesler in her Broadway debut). The show has some inconsistencies of tone and relies a bit too much on a memory play narrator at times. It mines some of the same ground as ‘Cabaret’ but comes at it from a different angle. The design is pretty great. They’re finally figuring out what they can do with projections to add to a concept rather than detract.

I’ve been away from most of my Covid news sources but one thing I have heard is that morbidity and mortality numbers are continuing to increase as the JN. 1 variant continues to spread rapidly. It’s up to about 50% of cases since first being identified several months ago. And deaths are up to abou 2000 a week. They were under 400 a week prior to Thanksgiving. Wash your hands! Wear a mask where appropriate! Get your shots!