Sometimes, Yes, It is OK to Judge a Book By Its Cover

Or in this case a CD. Caveat emptor -- never, ever consider buying a CD that on its cover pictures a bearded youngish man sitting on a porch, straight backed chair tipped back, smiling goofily. Even more if he has a guitar in his hands. Let me translate the meaning of this picture for you; it says, "Hi, there, I'm hopelessly derivative of some style whose apex was reached by a group like the Kingston Trio twenty years before I was born, but I've discovered how to love life in all its complexities (I even love my romantic pain!) and sing about it with a summer deluge (which, by the way, I'm watching from this front porch we've specially rented for this picture) of rhyming cliches."

There, my public service announcement of the day.

My Daddy Drives This Bus

We were on the M60, after getting off the Metro North train at 125th on our way back from the coming back from the Botanical Garden a few days ago. Three people boarded at one stop, two young girls -- maybe 8 and 10 -- and their mother. None of them paid and the Law and Order Me began silently harrumphing. Until I noticed the two girls, who were sitting in the front long right side seat running along the aisle, watching the driver, giving small waves and smiles to him. He demonstrated the bus horn for them, a couple soft toots as he changed lanes or crossed an intersection, and then while stopped at a light asked, "How was your day?" By this time I'd figured it out; they were his little girls and wife. Still may have been scofflaws, of course, or maybe free rides for your family is one benny of being an MTA bus driver. But watching these little girls flirting with their dad and being so shyly proud that he was driving the bus, new job? or maybe the thrill of daddy driving never fades, kind of made my day. Contributed to making the driver's too as we got off in front and I said, "Nice family." He replied, "Thank you" and closed the door behind us. Got a schedule to keep up.

The Amazing July

Tomorrow night we fly to Seattle for a couple weeks. It will be like flying to stay in the same place, for New York in July this year has been Seattle in July. Each day dawns cool and clear, warms to the high 70's or no more than the low 80's, with huge clear blue skies speckled with billowed clouds of the sort that make kids say, "There's an elephant, and that's a lion, and that's a...", and -- the best gift of all -- practically no humidity. Central Park is filled, the subways don't smell, even the street scenes seem to move more slower, as if everyone in them cannot quite believe this gift and wants to revel in it. I keep expecting it to end and halfway through the month, it hasn't yet.



Here's a photo from the web of the Stonehenge effect in NYC. Twice a year, in the periods May 28-30 and July 11-13, the sun sets exactly in the middle of the E-W numbered streets along the city's grid. As it gets more widely known each year, it's becoming yet another visitors' attraction.

"Is This the New Normal?"

Twelfth Night closed last night at Shakespeare in the Park. After fruitlessly pursuing the Virtual Line lottery for several days, I got up at 5:15 after an all-night rain and rode down to the park to be in this kind of daily line by 6 AM. Passing all the "Line Continues Here" signs, I saw no one, and no one, and no one until reaching the box office and still no one except a police car, where an amplified voice said, "The line is on Central Park West at 81st." And so it was, all the way, as I kept pedaling, up to 87th. I guess it was outside because the Park is officially closed from 1 AM to 6 AM. Right at six, Public Theater employees started moving us into place in the usual location. Also as usual, there were an astonishing number of people in line who appeared to have raised the money for their free tickets by asking for spare change on Manhattan street corners. Or who were, at a minimum, not your usual Shakespeare crowd. My part of the line inched past all the usual locations, still was not positioned at the Pinetum and still not at the beginning of the reservoir, whose only proximity to the Delacourt Theater is that it occupies part of the Parks 843 acres. Finally, we came to where we would have stationed ourselves and the genial Public guy said, "You people have absolutely no chance to get a ticket. Go home and enjoy the rest of your Sunday." Some woman asked the title question, meaning is it now necessary to get up at 1:30 to get Shakespeare tickets or hire a linesitter. No, he assured, this is closing night, it rained all the month of June -- true, New York has never been so green in summer -- and the reviews for this show were the best in 20 years for Summer Shakespeare.

So I did what Ringo once said, in a different context, the Beatles would do after their run -- got myself a sesame bagel with cream cheese from Absolute Bagels and sat in Riverside Park and moped.

Not the Bible Summer Camp Takeaway?

Richmond is full of vacation bible camps. In most cases, I gather, these are essentially week-long or two week-long summer substitutes for school or day care. Our younger grandson was enrolled in one. The campers are supposed to have a dollar each day to place in the offertory plate. But one day our guy came home, said his mom, with two dollars. When asked why, he replied that he'd bet his (5 year old too) girlfriend that Jesus would not come to the bible school on that day. My reaction would have been to congratulate him on finding what would appear to be pretty much a sure thing bet, but instead his mom marched him back to the church where they left the two dollars on the offertory plate.

Later, as more details emerged, it turned out that each day a teacher dressed as a different bible character visited the campers. And on the day our boy won his bet, it was Mary, not Jesus. Sometimes less information is a whole lot more fun.

He probably would have enjoyed this: