SIWINY: Supposing I Was In New York... The Lucid Truth

My greatest folly, when the children were much younger (kindergarten-ish) and I could go to bed at 1:30 and get up at 5:30, for months on end (and I wondered why I fell asleep at traffic lights, with the back of the van rocking and rolling behind me...books, toys, children, noise...and still, it was a moment of rest, being at that traffic light)...anyway, back to the folly: it was to have the New York Times delivered to my doorstep (actually, driveway) long, long before it was in every Starbucks and on every screen. It was folly because, in truth, we absolutely did not have the extra $24.95 a month (or whatever it was) to spend on something so frivolous. ($24.95 used to buy a lot of pasta & canned tomatoes.) Now, please understand, news is not frivolous, but--at the time--the San Jose Mercury News was a lovely little paper (and it would get even lovelier, before bubble burst and all changed) and it cost only pennies, because we live in a tiny little burg in San Jose (which is, sort of, just down the street from San Francisco, above photo). But the New York Times was where I wanted to be, every morning, at 5:30, with my Mr. Coffee coffee and my cute husband leaving for work and the kids not quite up yet, so that there would be an hour of peace....

{Disclaimer: my kids will find the part about getting up at 5:30 a.m. very hard to believe, and even more impossible to remember (they weren't up yet, right?), but I am still married--26 years on June 5th--to the cute husband, who can provide verification.}

Anyhow, the whole reason I got into this nonsense is to tell you that, for more years than I care to remember, I have had a "to do" list of what I would be to doing if, and certainly it would be a hard act to pull off if I actually were, but just if--supposing I was in New York--what would I be doing this week? Hey. A girl can dream, right?

So, this week, I would: breeze by the Noguchi Museum to see

"Design: Isamu Kenmochi and Isamu Noguchi," especially since the exhibit closes on Sunday.

And I would run quick, like Carrie Bradshaw carrying her Manolos' (my kids will find this even harder to believe) in one hand and catching a taxi with the other, to see "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale," at the Clurman Theater, because a.) Charles Isherwood says it is, indeed, "the rare staging of a Williams play that delivered his poetry and his emotional power intact;" b.) it closes next Saturday; and c.) this is something not to be missed: "Mary Bacon's performance as Alma Winemiller, the minister's daughter with a soul fit to burst, rivals anything I saw this season for complexity, delicacy, and lucid truth." (Charles Isherwood). That's what I'm after. Lucid Truth. (Please note: I shall slip my Manolos' back on before entering the theater.)

And then (because I had all the time in the world, this being only a dream) I would swing through the Jewish Museum to see "Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976" (thru Sept. 21), run to the MOMA to see "Take Your Time, Olafur Elisson" (thru June 30), after which I would--channeling Mr. Elisson's karmic quietude--do a walking meditation straight to "The Genius of Japanese Lacquer: Masterworks by Shibata Zeshin," Japan Society, thru June 15.

Does that leave me time, in my dreams to catch Mapplethorpe's Polaroids at the Whitney? OMG. I hope so.