Lary Bloom

Writer, Editor, Teacher

The Bloom Blog

Photo by Nancy Dionne

 

Monday, October 31, 2005

Big Band Theory

On Saturday night, folks got dressed up the way they used to dress up before the Age of Casual, and they danced to a real band with real instruments: men and women in black, The Connecticut Connection, ten brilliant instrumentalists and a "girl singer" who could belt out a tune. They played songs made famous by Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Chicago, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears. In short, the synagogue rocked.

We did our dancing and celebrating at the Mortgage Burning Party. What made it feel so good? Maybe it was because the synagogue has been a place where we have gone so often recently for funerals, or for solemn High Holiday services. Now, for a few hours, all cares were set aside, a great achievement (raising the money and building the place) could be fully celebrated with great music and food (although there was some grumbling among the devout that the caterer, who had done an excellent job otherwise, should have realized that cheese and chicken on the same menu would doom us all for ignoring the clear teachings of Leviticus, which says, if I remember my Torah correctly: "Do not eat an animal in its mother's milk or cheese and chicken at synagogue mortgage burning parties, no matter the giddiness induced by good red wine.")

For a sample of the evening, call up http://www.cbsrz.net/party.htm.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:08 AM  

Saturday, October 29, 2005

This Is Not Watergate

Where were you when Scooter Libby was indicted? It's a question that won't be asked forty years from now. It surely doesn't rank with, Where were you when John Erlichmann and H.R. Haldeman were banished from Nixon's White House in 1973?

I was in Louisville, Ky., at the River Club, drinking bourbon with other Sunday magazine editors. With the help of the local beverage of choice, we toasted Nixon's toasting. The president, of course, still employed the phrase "third-rate burglary," referring to the five Watergate thieves who broke into the Democratic National Headquarters in search of campaign secrets.

Indeed, it was a third-rate burglary (followed by a massive coverup). Nixon, for once, was accurate. And that's what makes Watergate, as celebrated a case as it was, different from what we now face: a first-rate example of hardball politics with deadly consequence.

Today's Hartford Courant front page devoted a great deal of space to the news about Libby, but nowhere on it was the word Iraq. And yet the motive for Libby's action was to keep momentum going for the war effort, and to silence critics.

The results of these actions, and others like them, at the highest level proved lethal -- which makes it unlike the third-rate burglarly. True, Nixon had sent hundreds of thousands to war in Southeast Asia, and was at the helm when thousands of our soldiers and airmen were killed. But that war wasn't of his making (even if his "secret" plan to end it was mere campaign rhetoric.)

In the present case, the war was manufactured by the Bush Administration, and Scooter Libby was one of those who made it possible.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:28 AM  

Friday, October 28, 2005

The Decision

Scotty Bloch, the actress and longtime friend, called and asked for my opinion. She had been offered two stage roles, both of them scheduled for the same time of year: January through March. One would be in Baltimore, and the other in South Florida. She had a quandary about which to take, and wanted to know what I thought.

What I thought was that for a person in the neighborhood of 80 years of age having two solid offers in hand is something to celebrate. She brings to mind the very veteran actress Ruth Gordon, who, receiving her Oscar for her performance in Harold and Maude, said, "I guess I should be encouraged."

In Scotty's case, the two plays were as different as they could be, even though both have characters that are largely Jewish (which Scotty is not.) One of them, Under the Bed, she performed last year in Greenwich Village. That's the one that will be played in Florida. It's a comedy, and a fine one, about retired people in the Sunshine State.

The other play is one that according to Scotty nobody likes. Her agents don't like it. Her husband Dan doesn't like it. Her dear friend Peter Walker, a great actor himself, hates it. Even so, she still wanted me to read The Murder of Isaac. I could tell in her voice that this was the play she wanted to do.

In the end, I eagerly gave Scotty what she wanted. The eleventh and final opinion. The only one in favor of the play by Motti Lerner, and Israeli playwright. It's bold. It's political. It will make some people furious. And it will say what Scotty has always wanted to say on the stage -- that war is the wrong choice.

It is rare that an actor has such opportunity, and this is one that Scotty can't pass up. The play will be written about not only by the critics but by columnists interested in current events, particularly in the Middle East. But more than that, this play is the obvious choice for a remarkable octogenarian who doesn't crave sun as much she craves light.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 2:13 PM  

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Broccoli For Life

Dr. Andrew Weil has a new book, Healthy Aging. This landed him on Larry King's show, which only proves that even people with honorable intentions make mistakes. Even so, Dr. Weil was able, not surprisingly, to press his refreshing attitudes about longevity. He talked of his mother, who in her 90 plus years enjoyed reasonable health, and squeezed all of her pain into a short period before death. That's the goal, Dr. Weil argues. And it's valuable advice. My mother, who was not a reader and never heard of Dr. Weil's 8 Days To Optimum Health (his previous popular book) had a similar performance, dying at 86 after only a few months of illness.

8 Days To Optimum Health contains Weil's wonderful broccoli recipe, which I have used only 287 times, and which has changed every guest's view of that under-rated green miracle.

I offer it here how I do it, adapted from his recipe:

1 bunch of broccoli, or broccoli crowns
fresh ginger, according to taste
3 cloves garlic (unless you get gas, which broccoli tends to produce anyway)
red pepper flakes
olive oil
water

Skin broccoli, and put small pieces in the pot. Cover with ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes. Add just enough olive oil and water to make steam. Cover, and cook for five minutes, until you can put a fork in the broccoli. But don't overcook.

You will become addicted to his, I guarantee it, though I can't guarantee you'll live your Biblically alotted 120 years.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 10:45 AM  

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Book Tour (continued)

This is, of course, a tour in miniature. No strange hotels, no waiting at airports. Exclusively Connecticut, befitting the title (Lary Bloom's Connecticut Notebook). And so my itinerary has been the towns of Storrs, Wallingford, Madison, West Hartford, Clinton, Old Saybrook and the like.

Sunday in Clinton, as I was getting out of my car, a van pulled up. The driver lowered his window, and I suspected he wanted to ask me if this was the place for the scheduled reading by an author. But he asked, instead, "How do I get to the shopping mall?" Ah, yes, the American reading public. Always out hunting for a bargain, and seldom for books.

And yet there is no doubt that this little tour has been satisfying. The folks at Emerson & Cook bookstore in Old Saybrook are relatively new owners, and have tried to turn their shop into a place known for bringing authors in. The gathering there was not large, but it was exclusively comprised of people who keep up with current events, and who read. The question and answer period was lively, and I was reminded that there are more payoffs to book signings and readings than mere commerce (although commerce is a necessary word for anyone who writes.).

The Wallingford Public Library put out a dazzling display of grapes, cake, and punch. It wasn't all for me, of course. The library was celebrating it's 125th birthday, and its planned expansion. Somehow during the Q and A, the subject got around to Florence Griswold, and to the musical I had written with two collaborators based on the life of a legendary figure at the center of an American artist colony. Two women in the audience who had seen the show at the Ivoryton Playhouse offered me an alternative ending -- yes, in show business, everybody has a better answer.

Madison was a much anticipated event. Roxanne Coady's shop, RJ Julia Booksellers, ranks with finest bookstores in America. She regularly attracts the biggest names in publishing, but always is careful in the store calendar (more than 250 appearances a year in all) to keep a place for Connecticut authors. Before the reading, Roxanne and I had dinner, and she weighed in on projects I've been planning. I look to her for guidance, and she never disappoints. She recently opened a new branch in New Canaan, and hosted Martha Stewart, whom she reported is not the warmest person in the world. At the end of my presentation, when the event co-ordinator announced that a signing was imminent, I asked her a question. "Do you think," I said, "that my book would make an excellent Christmas present?" I am shameless.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:06 AM  

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Good Night, Good Luck, Good Timing

In the last few years, we have been treated in film versions to two extremes of television, and specifically CBS. The Insider, for which Russell Crowe won an Academy Award for Best Actor, documented the way 60 Minutes -- up to then a television news show with unquestioned integrity -- caved in to corporate and advertising realities. The powerful tobacco companies put the network in a vulnerable position, and the result was punch-pulling, and the ebbing of CBS's credibility.

This was particularly ironic and sad considering the legacy of Edward R. Murrow at CBS. George Clooney's new film, Good Night, and Good Luck, has taken a few hits from historians, but its essence remains true: the way Murrow and others at CBS stood up to governmental and economic pressures during the Joe McCarthy era. Clooney, obviously, made a parallel to the present, where the White House press corps, so pleased with their elite status, emerges from their days of work with little other than direct quotes from press secretaries. Who are the Edward R. Murrows of today?

Television has no one. Newspapers have none. Magazines have Hendrik Hertzberg (in the New Yorker), and a few others. But there is no one with the kind of influence Murrow had earned to say what clearly needs to be said about the frauds perpetrated at the highest levels of government, and about the political and economic pressures that result from them.

There are bloggers, of course. But we desperately need that national voice of honesty and courage to stand up to a political machine that has gone haywire, and in the process flung debris in a thousand directions at once -- while those in control are claiming it works fine.

Economic influences are huge in the newspaper and television businesses; there's nothing new in this. But the assumption that all will be well if the media is "balanced" and "objective" (in short, giving equal weight to everything, including matters in which there is no equal weight to be recognized) will not guarantee them anything, except becoming, as time goes on, irrelevant.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:57 AM  

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Jack Welch's Secret

Jack Welch's book, Winning, is not as unreadable as you might think. It contains some useful insights and, should the reader care to follow all of Welch's rules, no doubt some success will follow. But you needn't buy the book to understand Welch's most important lesson. Here's how I learned it one day not long ago.

I attended a fund-raiser at which he was the speaker. Before the luncheon, certain guests who had given at a high level were invited to meet Welch and his wife Suzy in a private room. As I was at the table of one of those high donors, I found myself in a line of several dozen people waiting to get my photo taken with the guests of honor.

The line moved quickly, and the photographer kept the flash going -- one picture after another. Each person in line introduced himself or herself to the former GE guru. It was the sort of reception that could dizzy a person. But Welch seemed to have a perfectly fine time. When our table members approached we all shook hands with him, and he and Suzy obliged the photographer once again. Then, as we prepared to walk off and let others get their moment, he grabbed my arm, and said, "Lary, stay a minute -- get your picture alone with Suzy and me."
I was stunned. How had he remembered my name in the throng of people? In the next few minutes I watched him do this again with others. Pulling them aside, addressing people with no name tags by name.

I spent nearly 35 years working for corporations, or the U.S. Army, and I never met a force of personality like that (except for one colonel). Is it a ruse, a mere technique? Or is it genuine? Is Jack Welch so interested in others that he learns everything he can about them, and, in doing so, gets their loyalty in return?

Try it yourself the next time you're introduced to someone. Put aside every other thought you have and just concentrate on names, and then use them right away. See what happens.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:06 AM  

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

It's Only Baseball

One of baseball's sages argues that every game offers something never seen before. If you doubt this, consider the present playoffs: A game won as the result of a strikeout, or a batter arguing with the homeplate umpire while running to first, or a pitcher tagging the baserunner with his glove and not the ball. Or on Monday night, during one of the most dramatic playoff games ever, Astros' pitcher Andy Pettitte's reaction in the dugout to the Cardinals' Albert Pujol's ninth-inning, last-gasp home run: "Oh my God." And then a house of 42,000 people turning, in the space of less than three seconds, from a state of joy to communal depression.

If you are in the position I am -- my favorite team is not participating -- you have the capacity and patience now to notice these singularities That is, because you no longer worry about every pitch or have so much riding on every play, you can sit back and observe without popping blood pressure pills.

Yes, the rest of the world goes by. Most people, if we are to believe the Nielson ratings, are watching football or Desperate Housewives. But you have a chance to observe and study real life, as divulged by a baseball game. Turn down the sound, and the palaver of the announcers, and watch carefully. Watch the wheels turning in the head of the catcher as he tries to figure out what pitch to call for, and how to bamboozle the batter. Or the expression of an infielder after he has made an error -- how does he bounce back from prolific scorn? Or the indecipherable signs given by the manager in the dugout.

The other night, Lou Piniella, who doesn't have much going for him as a color commentator, did manage to point out that all of the gyrations that one manager went through meant absolutely nothing. The nose touching, the ear pulling, the chin rubbing -- just a ruse. Piniella's fellow announcers weren't quick enough on the draw to ask him how he knew this. Still, it was an interesting moment. A moment when you could decide, perhaps, that you will now communicate with your spouse in this way -- signals from the bench, apparently signifying sound and fury, but in truth signfying nothing. But that's baseball and real life, and what a joy, if you simply take the time to notice.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 9:28 AM  

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

On Bullshit, Examined

It's irresistible. It reflects brilliant marketing. It sits, in most bookstores, near the register, and becomes an impulse buy. It's priced right at $9.95. It's written by a Princeton professor, no less. It has become a best seller. It's On Bullshit. And it's, well, how shall I say it?

Harry G. Frankfurt, I may reasonably presume from a quick read (it's only 65 pages), devoted the greater part of an hour to researching an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

This is an impressive lesson. Most writers require a year or two of heavy interviews and plowing through dusty shelves to produce tedious books. Frankfurt is a master at saving time, going right to the center of his subject, and in doing so fulfilling a great human need to examine and dissect the matter.

He may detect here some disparagement of his end product, so to speak. And he may rightly accuse me of sour grapes. I wish it had been my idea. Even so, the professor inspires. Please do take his example, all you writers out there. If a best seller can be written about bullshit, there are opportunities galore. We yet await treatises on Nose Hair, Crotch Rot, and Toe-Jam.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:15 AM  

Monday, October 17, 2005

Four Blocks From Broadway (2)

A few minutes before the opening night performance of Paradise Village, my daughter Amy, who'd driven in from Allentown with her husband, David, noticed the big bottles of detergent on the set. I had told her nothing about the content of my play, only that she would somehow find it familiar. She said, "The play's about Nana, isn't it?" Ah, the big bottles of detergent gave it away. And yet the play is only partly about my late mother. It's really about every old person who is vulnerable.

Though Paradise Village is a comedy and it is brief (only 30 minutes), it is intended to run deep. By the end of the first performance, Amy was thinking not only about Nana, who died in 2000, but of her other grandmother, whom she been tending for many months, and who has just moved to a nursing home.

It's hard to know what others truly felt during the play's two performances at EST (Ensemble Studio Theatre) or, as I like to say, four blocks from Broadway. There was laughter and applause. But how would I really know? Perhaps a 10-year-old child might tell me.

Adults over the two days offered generous responses. Even two veteran actors, Janet Zarish and Mark Blum (both of whom have a long list of Broadway, television, and movie credits) went out of their ways to praise it, and even came to dinner with our group afterwards. But the most telling reaction was from a boy named Ariel, only 10, who seemed to get it all -- even the nuances. He had been singing "Blue Skies" to his mother on the train into the city, and when he heard a recording of that tune introduce the play, he stood in his chair and mouthed the words. He laughed at all the comedy lines, and seemed to really appreciate the work of actors Scotty Bloch and Michael Solomon. And after the show, he asked for everyone's autograph. And he went so far as to ask Michael for a copy of the script. The next morning I got an email from Ariel. He said he and his mom had acted out Paradise Village at home.

Sometimes a writer will imagine that Ben Brantlee of the Times or one of that crowd will appear. I confess I imagined such things. But there was something about being discovered by 10-year-old Ariel that was even better. I was speaking now to a generation I never expected to affect. This accomplishment is satisfying for a 61-year-old playwright.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:54 AM  

Friday, October 14, 2005

Noah Revisited

In the Northeast, rain has fallen for nine consecutive days. This is short of the Biblical record by 31. But it is similar enough in emphasis and result. Some New Jersey towns have already evacutated. And the Hartford Courant, in yesterday's editions, lamented the loss of the autumn leaf-viewing season. So even tourism suffers.

When you consider this deluge and the awesome hurricanes in the Gulf Coast that preceeded it, you may properly ask the question, "Is God angry?" At least, those of you who consider God to be interested in us, or to exist in the first place.

Last night concluded the holiday of Yom Kippur, a period of reflection and repentance. The prayer book requires all to admit to, collectively, the sins of the world. It is an impressive list of wrongdoing, everything from dishonesty to xenophobia. It implies, correctly, that the human condition is not what it could be. But floods from God?

It is an uncomfortable business, placing God at the controls. For if you do, you might also ask what God's role is when innocents are slaughtered in Cambodia or Poland or Rwanda. Or in the long list of outrages before our era. Generations of scholars and theologists have addressed this, some with eloquent argument.

There is something about Yom Kippur, all those hours of being in synagogue on an empty stomach, that reminds us of the fragile nature of our existence. And, whether you believe in a higher power or not, times like these remind us that we are, too much of the time, focusing on our own lives, and our own welfare. And that there is a lot do to repair the world, and it's up to us, hour by hour, day by day, to do it.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:21 AM  

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Four Blocks From Broadway (Part 1)

The rehearsal studio was in an area of Eighth Avenue of small delis, where the peanut butter cookies are light and delicate, against every expectation and all experience. Young people hurried into and out of the studio on the third floor of the old building -- the sort of young people who are theatrical hopefuls, recent grads of college programs, waiters and waitresses in New York restaurants who during daylight hours hustle from audition to audition, rehearsal to rehearsal.

We were in room 307D, which is astonishing. In my little one-act play, Paradise Village, the main character, Ida Berkowitz, a Florida widow, lives in apartment 307D. On the other hand, the whole business of having a play of mine readied for New York stage is astonishing. Like everyone else who's ever written anything for the stage, I hoped one day to show my stuff in Manhattan. And while Broadway is the common goal, I'm happy to be a few blocks away. Paradise Village will get its showing this weekend at EST (Ensemble Studio Theatre) on West 52nd Street, a place that specializes in showcasing new work.

I thought of a wonderful letter that James Thurber wrote to Woolcott Gibbs on the eve of the opening of the latter's first play. About how the lead actor will forget all the key lines and substitute the word "balls" for everything he forgets, and how a woman in a brown suit, whose name you never learn, has changed a dozen speeches in the play -- and it's all better than what you wrote.

The lead actor in my play is Scotty Bloch, and I wrote the play for her. She is a gem. You have seen her face, even if you don't know her name. She's been in four Woody Allen movies, and lots of New York theater, including the original production of Arthur Miller's The Price. I kept hearing her voice when I thought about the characters in my play. And so here Scotty is, playing Ida Berkowitz, 84 years old and vulnerable, visited by a salesman for an assisted living home who tries to convince her to move from her apartment.

I sat during rehearsal with the director, Evan Bergman, who has many credentials himself. (He's directing Alan Ball's new play. Ball wrote Six Feet Under.) And, from time time, Evan would ask my opinion of things. Though I wore my black hat that says "Eugene O'Neill Playwright Conference" I was wary of seeming too much the overbearing and demanding playwright. Quite the opposite, I was, and am, interested in how expert directors and actors take words on paper and interpret them on their own. As I suspected I would, I found aspects during rehearsal of Ida's character than I didn't see when I wrote the play -- that's a tribute to Scotty and Evan. Also to Michael Solomon, the gifted young actor who plays the salesman.

As for audience reaction, I'll tell you about it after the weekend. Meantime, I'll be occupied breaking my leg.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:01 AM  

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Yankees Go Home

At dinner the other night, in a place so elegant that baseball talk somehow seemed inappropriate, two friends briefly expressed their hopes for the success of the New York Yankees in the playoffs. They are both longtime fans. They watched DiMaggio at the Stadium in his prime. So they can be classified -- as opposed to others whose memories extend only to recent winning seasons -- as real fans.

As my dinner companions talked of the present-day Yankees, I decided that, well yes, if the Yankees prove successful this year I will at least take comfort in knowing that it cheered two good friends. It wasn't a convincing argument, however. Here's what I also thought while they were talking: If the Yankees lose, if they are somehow knocked out of the baseball playoffs, a national holiday should be declared.

I don't remember feeling that way as a youth. In fact, I was disappointed when Bill Mazeroski hit that seventh game homer in 1960 to give the Pirates the World Series. But the Yankees became, in the Steinbrenner era, easy to despise. Particularly for anyone whose heart is elsewhere, as mine has always been.

This morning, I had to consult two newspapers and ESPN just to be certain that what I read at 2:20 a.m. was accurate. That the Bronx Bombers had bombed. It seemed odd to me that I could get comfort from this, almost enough to ease my disappointment that the Cleveland Indians had been been eliminated from playoff contention on the last day of the regular season. I say almost. Because those of us who are loyal to teams like the Tribe have finite chances. Each time we come close we understand that it may be the last time for those of us who have been around for many seasons, while Yankee fans can take comfort in knowing their team will be re-stocked with premium players. The rest of us will simply summon our springtime optimism, even though we know where such foolish acts lead.

This is a case of sour grapes, perhaps. But that's being a fan. In the meantime, I cheer the Yankees 2005 demise. It's good for the soul.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:56 AM  

Sunday, October 09, 2005

5766

This week marked the beginning of the New Year, if you count time in Jewish fashion. We are at 5766, although I still have an image of a rabbi named Klein, wearing a gray fedora, writing on the Sunday School blackboard, "5714," and asking, "Does anyone know what that means?" So, 52 years have passed in the interim since childhood innocence. Every year we have wished each other a year of peace and sweetness and health. Every year we have hoped for a world in which hunger, cruelty, and war are merely memory. Every year we have been disappointed on those fronts.

This year, the rabbi argued in his sermon that he does not believe that God creates or condones the inhumanity we read about or witness or personally endure. This is all the consequence of creating humans, the grand experiment, with brains and free will. The late writer Isaac Bashevis Singer said, "I believe in free will. I have no choice." And so we alternate between acts of goodness and acts of selfishness. We can explain our shortcomings efficiently, persuasively, to everyone but ourselves. We can witness acts of great charity and courage and wonder whether we have the inner resources to do the same. It is the struggle that matters, and the outcome that determines whether the year will be one to savor or one to forget.

As 5766 dawns, we are at war, we are recovering from natural disaster, we are remembering dear friends and family who no longer are here to offer comfort and support. We must remember, too, that if 5766 is going to amount to a sweet memory, it will have to be the result of our doing, not God's.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 3:57 AM  

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Musical Beds

The word is out that Hartford Hospital will close its palliative care unit. I became aware of this before the Hartford Courant learned of it. I knew because bad news travels fast in health-care circles, and because I had a stake in the unit. And I have come to know, over the last few years, Hartford Hospital as a place of enlightenment and innovation.

What I was struck by, in the hospital's note to employees, was its coldness and obfuscation. The note addressed how positions would be shifted in the hospital, something of a game of musical chairs, with the requisite loser having no place to sit. The notice never had a declarative sentence that said, "We are closing the innovative and much needed unit where hundreds of families over the last few years have found comfort while their loved ones slipped into a mortal state. These families were grateful for what our unit offered well beyond the usual comforts of a hospital. They could play Mozart at a Steinway grand, could watch the tropical fish in the enormous tank, could stir-fry Chinese meals in the kitchen built solely for them, could sleep in the well-appointed bedrooms provided, could do their work on the computer in the corner, could otherwise find a sense of home at a terrible time." Instead it was the usual institutional language meant to dizzy the reader with everything but the heart of the matter.

I thought of my late wife Liz, and the way the angels (for that is what they were, angels) who tended her in that miracle of a place. When we all went through this in the spring of 2003, it occurred to me that some corner had been turned. That we were all learning about dignity in death. Hospitals couldn't cure everything. But they could be a place of humane transition. And they were becoming that way. A $2.6 million budget deficit changes that thinking, apparently. Now, a game of musical beds leaves out the people who need a place to rest in peace.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:33 AM  

Sunday, October 02, 2005

A Picture of Dignity

A few weeks before she died (and was eulogized in the New York Times and Washington Post), Judge Constance Motley had lunch with her old friend, Barbara Delaney. The two of them had met 35 years ago when the judge found a weekend home in Chester, Connecticut -- it was just the sort of tiny community that would offer a sense of solace and peace, after a week's worth of addressing legal enormities on the federal bench in New York City. Indeed, Constance Motley also became a part of ordinary small town life. After Barbara Delaney's beloved husband, Edmund, died she offered great measures of comfort and care.

Barbara always looked forward to seeing her friend. She was in awe of Judge Motley's dignity, and of her record. The judge had been the only woman on the legal team led by Thurgood Marshall that successfully argued Brown vs. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court. She later also made history when President Lyndon Baines Johnson made her the first black woman to be appointed a federal judge.

Barbara says, "I wish she were around to be appointed the next Supreme Court justice. She had a brilliant mind, and carried herself with such grace." Barbara has always made it a point to introduce her accomplished friends to new generations. So, at the last lunch she hosted for Judge Motley, she invited the sisters Judy and Becca Joslow, teenagers who had studied about the jurist's triumphs in school. They were in awe, sitting at the table with a legendary figure.

A few weeks later, after spending a few hours at her work, Constance Motley died in a New York hospital from heart failure. "We have no one around with that stature anymore," Barbara laments.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 10:09 AM  

Saturday, October 01, 2005

David Hays and The Sea

Last night, David Hays put out a big bowl of cold shrimp and hosted two dozen friends at the marina for a brief launch party. He was about to head from Chester, Connecticut, to Chesapeake Bay, where he'll spend much of the autumn and winter.
He planned a much different journey than the one he and his son Daniel embarked on two decades ago aboard their tiny sailboat, Sparrow. That trip around Cape Horn was commemorated in their best-selling memoir, My Old Man and The Sea,. Now, David's home is a tiny houseboat he has restored and repainted -- featuring Van Goch-like images on the sides.

A small ceremony was held at the launch party. The rabbi of our congregation nailed a mezuzah and offered a blessing for a safe journey. Wine was poured. David's kitten inspected the guests. And there was talk around the dock about David's pluck, if tempered by concern. Last winter, he fell from the boat into the icy water and nearly drowned. He had to be rushed to the hospital, but recovered nicely.

At 75, David's achievements are many -- designer of about 50 Broadway plays and of New York City Ballet productions, founder of the National Theatre of the Deaf, and much more. But the achievements that resonate with friends are not the sort that can be listed in a customary bio. At a time of life when most people are hauling in their sails, he remains committed to adventure.

When I asked him why he was taking this journey alone, he shrugged. He can be a man of many words -- he can quote from memory dozens of poets. But on going off alone, on risking life and limb, on the whys of adventure, he answers mostly with his eyes. They say, "How else is there to look at life? Play it safe? Don't make me laugh."
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:25 AM  

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