  Here is a picture of me and Matt at Sibera on Friday night. No jokes please about how cold it was. And yes, I am smoking. Sorry to disappoint my readers who may have thought otherwise, but I am a smoker. I will take this moment to mention how proud I am of my friend urlLink Gen X-er who is in the process of detoxing herself cold turkey from the evils of nicotine. She has my full support and admiration. I actually have tentative plans to quit smoking myself this coming Thanksgiving.
The date has some significance to me. Don't ask me why because I won't tell you but it is just as good a time as any. We'll see if I stick to that or not. Yesterday urlLink Dave and I went to see Tom Stoppard's Jumpers on Broadway. Here are the Tom Stoppard plays I have been able to understand: 'Rosencranzt and Guildenstern Are Dead' and 'The Real Thing' and of course the film 'Shakespeare In Love'. Here is what has made me feel out of the pseudo intellectual loop: 'Arcadia' and now 'Jumpers'. I liked the relationship between Dotty and George. Both characters were crying out for help.but are unable to do anything for each other. They have both reached that stage in a marriage when love has turned sour and isolation has set in, and though an ache of mutual tenderness remains, it is not enough to save them.
The two actors capture this perfectly. Russell Beale brings a palpable sense of hurt and desperation to the stage as George, sweating copiously in his baggy professorial cardigan, and longing for sexual intimacy withh is wife, even as he struggles with his lecture on the existence - or otherwise - of God. Just the sight of his clumsy hands, as he ineffectually strokes Dotty in a doomed attempt at comfort, brings a lump to the throat. As for Beale's lengthy philosophical monologues...well...I felt lost. The audience was laughing and I was clearly left out of the joke.
The satire on the absurdities of academic philosophy, and in particular on relativism where lost on me. I think maybe he was suggesting that concepts of good or bad are entirely dependent on one's point of view. As always, Stoppard was trying to cram a lot into a 3 hour show. Last night I went to a party at urlLink Sin-E for A night of music and readings from urlLink "Kill Your Idols - A New Generation of Rock Writers Considers the Classics" . Great bands, some readings, and fellow blogger urlLink Dawn Eden wrote a chapter but had left before we got there. And now it is Sunday. This is my last week in NYC until I fly off to Grand Bahama for 7 days in the sun!
I am so excited. But that leaves me with a lot to do this week. I am going to the Prince concert at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday!! Update on members of the Ackerman clan. My Grandmother seems in good spirits, new wheelchair and all. She even told me that she would send me a check for the Prince tickets because she loves me so much. She is expecting a detailed letter with photographs decribing the concert. My father sat next to former SF Giant Darrell Evans at a game over the weekend and they became fast friends. My dad is very pleased by this. 
