More about Sunday

Dear family and friends,

It's Monday afternoon, and I just got a book from the Princeton library, courtesy Starry—Thank you, Starry!—which wants to pull me back into the talk I am giving at the end of the week, but I am going to resist because I must take notes about the MM production, if I am going to write about it meaningfully. Details are everything in academic reviewing: this is meant to convey to a future audience of scholars what a production was like. Since Laury and now Rick will have seen the production, I can share my notes with them. I need to get the notes down now, as soon as I finish this blog entry.

Sunday morning I spent working on hamletworks.org, entering material related to THE PAPER. I have a little bit of a question about how kosher it is to write a paper that refers to work I have done elsewhere: there is a limit to how much one can blow one's own horn, though for sure there are not many out there in the world ready to blow my horn for me. If not me, Who? And if not now, When? You may recognize this tune, the original of which is credited by some to Ahad Ha-am.

The trip to NYC worked well. This is the first time in a long time, months, since I have gone in without leaning on Merwin's arm. He was going to a local concert at Hillwood with Phe, and I was meeting Rick at the Duke Theater. All went well. Merwin drove me to Port where I got a train to Woodside and from there took a subway to Times Square, a short walk from the theater.

I enjoyed this experience even more than I had the first (back on 14 Feb. with Merwin, Laury, and José Ramón, and with Betty elsewhere in the audience), probably because I was in a better seat and also because I was more alert to the choices Arin Arbus, the director of the play, had made. Instead of surprise I had confirmation and the possibility of assessing and evaluating. By the end, I was crying. Not a huge surprise from me because I cry very easily, but I did not see any other tears around me through my own tears.

Rick had parked his car in Chelsea, so I waited on the corner of 8th and 42nd (luckily it was warm) until he came by and we drove to Long Island. Because Merwin had not eaten much during the day, only soup for lunch, I urged him, once we got in a huge traffic jam (where were all these people going on a Sunday afternoon and early evening?), to begin his supper, and directed him to a freezer packet of food.

Rick and I enjoyed our chance to be together, chatting about teaching, his plans for the future, changes in the direction of his work, what I have been doing, and all the rest that engages us. At home, I whipped up a quick and perhaps not quite wonderful supper, but we ate and were satisfied: it was a truncated version of fried rice with egg and leek. He took some NCC interlibrary loan books I have; he'll return these and pick up a new batch and bring them to me when he gets a chance.

And so to bed.

Though all around me is not well and there is much to bemoan, I continually have a—probably drug induced—smile on my face. I feel very well today, but I'll write as usual about the events of today tomorrow morning. For now it's back to Measure for Measure.

Love to all,
Bernice