I've been busy--the last

There's no way I'm ever going to get caught up with posting about what I've been doing, even "briefly." So I'm just going to list the rest my activities, with maybe a one or two sentence explanation. If anyone wants to read more about any of these, leave a comment. I'll try to expand on what I said. But I'm not going to have much time for that this week. It looks like I'm going to be busy the next six evenings in a row.

6/3: Lorin Maazel conducting the New York Philharmonic in the final subscription concert of the season: Elliott Carter's Dialogues for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, soloist. 97-year old Carter came out to take a bow; Igor Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Aimard soloist again; Hector Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique. Great; Encore (extremely unusual for a subscription concert): Berlioz' Roman Carnival Overture.

6/6: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts at Southpaw in Brooklyn. After dinner with friends. Joan was wonderful--and looked super. I loved her cover of Androgynous.

6/7: Started with a board meeting of the LGBT Law Assn. Foundation, where I was appointed treasurer. Then I went to the annual Crossdressers International (CDI) Prom Dinner at Primitivo. Very nice food, super service.

6/9: All Dolled Up, an off-Broadway play set in the 60's about a crossdressing mobster, seen with a couple of friends from CDI. Full of clichés, but cute. Dinner afterwards at the good but expensive West Bank Café. We were treated to a round of drinks by the owner of Dave's Tavern, where we often go after our Wednesday Open House.

6/10: After a good but over-priced dinner at Sandomenico, a performance of Sergei Prokofiev's Cinderella by the American Ballet Theatre. Fun.

6/11: Stayed home and watched the Tony Awards.

6/12: Adequate dinner at Café Un Deux Trois, then a benefit show for the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, Broadway Salutes Yiddish. Among the honorees, 95-year old Bel Kaufman, author of Up the Down Staircase (one of my favorite books in high school)--I never knew she was the granddaughter of Sholom Aleichem. Notable performers: Leonard Nimoy (his online biographies say little or nothing of his work in Yiddish plays in Los Angeles in the 50's), Theodore Bikel, Tovah Feldshuh--who sang some numbers from her current play, Hello Dolly. After intermission, backed by the Billy Joel band (sans Billy), numbers from the Broadway/touring casts of Movin' Out, Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys--the latter still recovering from celebrating their Tony wins the night before.

6/13: After a meeting with the LGBT Law Assn. president and our bookkeeper, I went to a celebration of the 60th anniversaries of Air France and KLM transatlantic service at the newly expanded Morgan Library. Nice hors d'oeuvres, plenty of champagne. We got to see J.P. Morgan's study and his private library room, with one the Library's three Gutenberg Bibles.

6/14: A cocktail party at the apartment of the managing director of the Fresh Fruit Festival. A small gathering of the "Leaders, Movers and Shakers of the LGBT Community." I hardly think I qualify for that--unless they're referring to my breasts. Anyhow, they were looking for ideas, and did a soft sell for people to join their board of advisors. Like many of these non-profit board memberships, there is the expectation that one raises or donates a certain amount of money each year--a commitment I'm not ready to undertake. Afterwards I caught up with some of the people from the CDI Open House down at the Monster Bar. Actually, I arrived first, and had a nice talk with Charlie, the owner. Eventually we went downstairs for Jesse Volt's show. This included a performance by Bianca Leigh, whom I can definitely confirm is not dead. I chatted a little bit about it with her afterwards.

6/16: After a late morning appointment with our lawyer and a quick salad lunch, we went to the New York Public Library to see two exhibitions. The first, in its final days, was Letters to Sala, A Young Woman's Life in Nazi Labor Camps. This was a remarkable collection of postcards, letters, photos and other documents that a Polish Jew managed to accumulate and keep during five years in seven different forced-labor camps. It's pretty much all online at the above URL. I never knew very much about the labor camps, as opposed to the concentration and extermination ones--just about all I knew was from the movie Schindler's List. This was informative and very moving.

The second exhibition was French Book Art/Livres d'Artistes: Artists and Poets in Dialogue. Shown were very limited edition collaborations of writers (usually poets), and artists--some of them very well-known. We went on a tour given by a Library staffer. This really only hit the high points--and I was distracted because it was so cold in the hall. If I go back I'll take a sweater.

6/17: The American premiere of the 1969 French film Army of Shadows. This is the story of a group of French Resistance fighters in World War II--not so much about their actions against the German occupiers, but their own struggles with informers, capture, internal secrecy. It is a dark, chilling story.

6/18: Dinner out with a cousin.

Wow. I'm tired just writing all this. I'll try to stay more current.