Everything That Rises Must Converge

I just noticed that I have not posted in two weeks. My apologies to those of you who read this regularly; it has been quite a tumultuous time, with many ups and a few downs and a lot of living to do before, during and after same.

Last Sunday was an 'up' day. I started it with a trip to the new High Line, which is landscaped with an unerring regard for both the "natural" and the manmade (a couple of photos below). The essay about this effort by the Times' architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff (a name seemingly out of Tolstoy) is worth reading, as is the profile of its landscape architect James Corner (if his name had been Street, would he have had a different career?). It is so meticulously kept that at 10 a.m. a smiling staffer was sweeping gravel off the railroad ties in a most Zenlike way.

The High Line provides a whole new perspective on everything visible from it: the meatpacking district, the gleaming buildings of Jersey City, the piers, the top third of the Empire State Building. And it brings a tamed beauty to a decaying mess and many ways to find a vantage point on same, which is all any of us can ever hope to do, and want. Next time I go, I plan to a) meditate and b) bring bubbles, both drinkable and blowable, for an even more uplifting experience.

Which is what I had that night when I took myself to see Up. It is a magnificent piece of filmmaking that, while sometimes sentimental, is hardly ever mawkish. Contained within it is a touching love story, a thrilling adventure, some important life lessons (including the one meant for me about perseverance) and some very funny bits about dogs. It's especially good in 3D, and I kept the glasses so I could keep seeing the world in 3D, instead of flat, as it so often can be.

And the downs? The mothers of two of my closest girlfriends seem to be losing their battles with illness. And while that makes me especially appreciate my own parents (it's Father's Day today and I'm visiting my dad, who's across the table from me as I write), I feel sorrowful for my friends and for their moms, feisty women whose company I've enjoyed.

I'm also at what appears to be the end of a romantic journey that has had many twists and turns, complete with the very recent and somewhat dramatic reacquisition of many of my personal effects. So I'm now at the beginning of a new phase in my life, which is simultaneously terrifying and exciting, like realizing your house is flying thanks to a large and unwieldy cluster of balloons and having no idea where, or how, it will land - or if you even want it to.

Rust on the tracks, planted.

Looking west from the High Line at (I think) 16th Street.

(Post title from the story by Flannery O'Connor.)

They Say The Neon Lights Are Bright On Broadway

I love theater, but I generally skip the Tony Awards. This year, though, was a great year for Broadway, and I had to watch despite not having seen nearly enough of the nominated productions to have an opinion. Now I do, and here they are, in no particular order. Overall, the show did its job, which was to make me want to buy tickets.

• Musicals I won't be seeing: Shrek (weak songs) and Rock of Ages (I'd change stations if most of the songs in it were on the radio; also, I passed the theater one night just before showtime and it was one of the least attractive groups of people I've ever seen).
• Next to Normal seems admirable, but I don't think I'll be seeing it.
• I co-choreographed a production of Hair in high school, but Karole Armitage did a far better job. I inexplicably missed the show in Central Park, and I have to see it now. Though I do wonder if the Radio City and CBS audiences, which I'm sure skewed older, saw themselves in the hirsute creatures capering around the aisles.
  
• A friend worked with Liza Minnelli for years, so for me seeing her brings to mind many stories, some of them not at all flattering. But I have to say that she looked fine and was occasionally in reasonably good voice for most of her number; the Judy resemblance gets stronger all the time.
• More children of the famous: Kate Burton and Lucie Arnaz presented together. Though I'm trying, and failing, to imagine Richard Burton and Lucille Ball on the same stage.
• Musicals I want to see: West Side Story, Guys & Dolls and, of course, Billy Elliot.
• Carrie Fisher is very funny. But I know they make lovely gowns in plus sizes - couldn't she find one? And isn't she exceptionally "plus" right now?
• Thank you, Bebe Neuwirth's hairdresser, for making it safe to be frizzy-haired. It is, apparently, a trend.
• I do want to see The Norman Conquests, ideally all in one day.
• Neil Patrick Harris is charming. And the wrapup song was hilarious.
• Marcia Gay Harden is a longtime favorite, though I did prefer the Ava Gardner-inspired look below from the 2001 Oscars to tonight's green number:
  
  
• Oh, Lauren Graham. You're another one of my favorite celebrity lookalikes. But this dress? Great color, and looks good in a still shot. But in motion? Not so much. And overall, it looks like the dress is wearing you.
  

• Dear Susan Sarandon: Sorry I wasn't all that enthusiastic about your performance in Exit The King (though I'm thrilled Geoffrey Rush won) or your Golden Globes pantsuit. But I do covet the dress you were wearing tonight. And if you're what 62 looks like, I think I'll be able to handle that.

The Silent Chirp

Early this rainy morning, my dog, off-leash in Central Park, was sniffing around in some ground cover under a stand of trees populated by many chirping birds. Suddenly, she got very excited, seemed to pounce on something, and started whipping her head from side to side. I was standing about 15 feet away, and after a few minutes she proudly brought her find to me: a baby bird, stiff-legged, slightly gnawed and, though I am no expert on these things, seemingly very recently dead.

Cassie is a bird dog by breed, but she is not an adept hunter, so my guess is that her prize had fallen out of its nest, became unable to fly, and struggled on the ground for a while until she came along to finish the job.

I have been wanting to post about Dr. George Tiller, gunned down at his church in Wichita, Kansas because he performed late-term abortions. I have written before about my own sad experience with this procedure, and I can only say this again: any woman who is more than 20 weeks pregnant does not really want to lose her baby. She is most likely there because, like me, she knows that if born her child is unlikely to survive, or will live a brief and miserable life, or because her own life is in danger.

Late-term abortions account for less than one percent of all pregnancy terminations. They are unpleasant, and traumatic, and not taken lightly by the women undergoing them, or the health-care workers who provide them despite the risk to their own lives.

Dr. Tiller was one of only a very few physicians in the country who performed this unfortunate service. It is rarely used, but I for one believe it should still be available. As awful as it was, it prevented a funeral for me - though, alas, not for Dr. Stiller.

And I'd like to think that the mother of this morning's dead nestling tweeted in grief when it was gone, even if, seeing it was too damaged to live, she pushed it out of the nest herself.