Did I send this before? This is our beautiful building in NYC, 32 W. 40th. Ours is the middle window on the 4th floor, which you cannot see because it is dark and because it is just above a ledge.
Dear Friends and Family,
When I came across this photo, I was saddened as well as gladdened. Originally, we bought the apartment to make it easy for me to do my library work. The NYPL is in view from our window, being to the northeast of our building (40th-42nd and 5th Ave.). To get to the library, I cross the street and walk down the pleasant path between the library and Bryant Park, where there are always interesting sights to snare my attention and my smiles. Once we had the little space, we saw how convenient it was to everything we cared about—museums, Lincoln Center, restaurants, theaters, and more: it is surrounded by bus and train stops. So it became much more than a place to launch me into the NYPL. It was a place to enjoy the City, which we had never had an opportunity to explore spontaneously before.
Now Merwin is talking about selling it. Since my broken pelvis last March and my broken head last July, I have not had much of a chance to take advantage of the study room shelf I have. Realistically, I probably have enough Hamlet materials right here in Glen Head to last me a lifetime. And the two Macbeth productions I went to recently are the only plays I have seen. We have two more NY Philharmonic concerts this season, but we have given up our tickets for next year in favor of a series at nearby Tilles Center on Long Island, 10 minutes from home. It's a wrench to think about selling, but perhaps we can hold out for a bit, at least till prices are better.
In The New Yorker today (8 May, “O Pioneer Woman!,” 26-31), I am reading about a blogger who has morphed her blog into a multimillion dollar business. Her off-shoot books are best sellers. Have you heard of her? Her name is Ree Drummond, a cattleman's wife with four young children whom she home schools. She takes lots of photos, writes about her recipes in great detail, with photos, and is funny besides. I think I have about 30 readers. Makes ya think, doesn't it.
The visit with Arthur was sweet. He is helpful and considerate. He and Merwin put together all the paper work for the Honda, which Arthur drove home to New Hampshire today. He will sell it there, saving us the trouble of dealing with it. After a breakfast of French Toast this morning, he drove off, and we went to the beach where we took separate walks—Merwin down the Sycamore path, and I in the other direction to the wharf. I returned to the car just minutes after he arrived there.
I returned to Isaac Asimov (1970) to collect his wacky ideas about Hamlet. Usually I let wackiness speak for itself, but in his case, I thought it a good idea to alert readers who might be taken in. For example, without any textual evidence at all beyond Hamlet's cry that his mother remarried in haste, Asimov declares that of course Hamlet had been racing home after he heard of his father's death to take his place as heir to the throne. He had wanted to be elected as king and expected that he would be. Claudius preempted him by wooing his mother and was thus elected king. Oh my! It's a prime example of a critic looking beyond the play itself. Only in Kozinstev's film (1964) do we see Hamlet racing home to Elsinore. Maybe that's where Asimov got his idea.
We have a concert at Tilles tonight, a substitute for a Hillwood concert we missed. So a little more Asimov and then a rest.
Love to all,
Bernice
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