Tag Archives: book-reviews

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, July 2, 2025. Yesterday I was indeed out attending my gay men’s reading discussion group at the Jefferson Market Library at 6:30 p.m. The subject of our discussion was a new book by an Irish writer called Evenings & Weekends by Oisin McKenna. The book details the comings and goings of a motley group of thirty-somethings over one hot June weekend in London pre-COVID, in the summer of 2019. I read the book surprisingly in just over four days in the middle of May, so I had to reacquaint myself with the plot by printing two reviews of it. I deemed the book quite readable, but really couldn’t declare it a masterpiece of delectable writing and plotting. But I was very interested in hearing what the other members had to say about it, so I was determined to attend the meeting, even though some thundershowers were forecasted in the evening. My New Jersey friend “Harvey” did cancel going at the last moment because he claimed it was raining by him.

When I left Forest Hills, it wasn’t raining quite yet. However, I did take an umbrella with me just in case. I left around 3:40, a little early, so I could get to the library before the meeting to check out the books on the second floor. Here are displayed many books on three shelves for a nominal fee. Like I needed another book! Guffaw! However, as I was browsing the titles of the books on the first shelf, what do I spy but the latest memoir by the late author Edmund White called The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir, released this year, right before his death at 85 just a few weeks ago. It was in hardcover – it was still so new! When I brought it up to pay for it at the front desk, I started talking to the male librarian about the group and how hard it was getting the books on the reading list. I then mentioned the book I had in my hand and he waved me off, saying, “Just take it!” And I wanted to leave him $5 for it.

Getting the Edmund White book right before the meeting, to me, was a sign that I should ask our group leader, “Jerry,” about inserting a book by White in place of one of the other books on the list. If Harvey were there, he might have proposed it, so it was up to me to mention it, and I did. I didn’t like Jerry’s response. He was not in favor of getting a book by White on the list because he feared members would complain. You see, he gave out the reading list two months ago just like professors do in a college course and it was now up to us to get the books anyway we could. I still request the books from the library, but many of the guys probably order the books from Amazon. It’s a whole lot easier!

Anyway, the discussion was quite illuminating as always. I even threw in more comments than usual. The highlight of the entire meeting occurred at the end when a new member – whom I’ll call “Sanjeev” – read an original poem he wrote that summarized the book we just discussed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear most of it, but I told him at Julius’s – after the meeting – that he should post the poem to the website, and he said he might do it. He actually complimented me on some of the points I made during the discussion and I was dumbfounded. I usually am rendered speechless during these meetings since I’m struck by so many intelligent comments made by the members that I feel I have nothing worthwhile to contribute. But I was a little more vocal last night which again is most unusual in my situation. Oh, even in the rain, we had more than 40 guys in the room. Not bad for early July!

As for what’s going on in the country right now, all of the attention is being directed to Chump’s “death” bill, as I now call it, not the “big, beautiful bill” which is a misnomer if there was one. And now my contempt is reserved for one “moderate” Republican from Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski, who originally indicated she had reservations about the bill and the cruel cuts on health care it was delivering to millions of Americans, but in the latest tally, this traitor voted “yes” on the bill in the Senate. In an opinion piece by Brian Tyler Cohen entitled “Lisa Murkowski cements her legacy,” the podcaster details how Murkowski has sold her soul to the devil.

As Cohen writes, the bill “strips healthcare away from 17 million Americans, takes food assistance away from 3 million Americans, eliminates school meal access for more than 18 million kids, adds nearly $4 trillion to national debt, sends electricity costs surging. and substantially raises health care premiums for older adults with ACA (Affordable Care Act) coverage, all to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.” As far as Murkowski was concerned, she recognized that the fucking bill was not good for the nation (an understatement if there ever was one) and noted, “This bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the President’s desk. We need to work together to get this right.”

Cohen excoriated Murkowski for actually voting for the bill even though she had reservations. He writes if she didn’t like the bill, she shouldn’t have voted in favor of it. The reason she changed her mind is that she presumably received some perks for her own state from meetings with other senators. She was able to secure some tribal exemptions on cuts to food assistance, a tax break for the fishing industry, and $50 billion to offset hospital closures, but Cohen notes that those cuts will have no effect in a bill that contains over a trillion dollars in healthcare costs within it. Murkowski’s “no” vote would have been the deciding vote to torpedo the bill, but she chose to take the easy path rather than show courage like the late Senator John McCain who had the deciding vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act, but chose not to by giving the thumbs down in the Senate chamber, thereby saving it.

Therefore, Senator Murkowski is my new person to hate in the repugnican party. Of course, there’s no one in the party who I like, as you can tell.

I probably won’t be here tomorrow since Elliot and I are seeing a play tomorrow, Angry Alan, starring John Krasinski. It’s a one-act play that Elliot heard was quite good, but I have no idea what it’s about, and I really don’t want to know. I can wait until tomorrow to see what it’s all about.

If I’m not here tomorrow, have a great Thursday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, June 28, 2025. Elliot and I are back visiting our very good friends in Highland, New York. We came back around 5:30 after stopping in New Paltz and Ellenville for lunch, as we left our friends after breakfast in their complex’s restaurant, From the Ground Up Cafe. Our visit just about consumed 12 hours, as we arrived at “Peter” and “Ted’s” house about 12:30 and left close to 11:30 on Saturday. We had breakfast on the road on Friday at Jackson Hole, then wound our way on the New England Throughway, going through New Jersey first. This time the traffic was minimal, which was fine with me.

We spent the rest of the day Friday catching up with our friends’ experiences since we last saw them months ago. We would have seen the pair sooner if it weren’t for Peter’s ongoing health issues. So we were overjoyed that they didn’t cancel with us for another time. We were even contemplating bringing Atticus up to their apartment, but Elliot nixed the idea at the last moment. As a poor substitute for the real thing, I showed the guys recent videos I took of Atticus over the last several days.

From the beginning, we were treated to a lunch consisting of bagels and cream cheese. We were then informed that at four, two new friends from the development were coming down to have dinner with us, “Lucy” and “Jerrold.” We said wonderful!

We did have dinner with their new friends at 5 or so. We were treated to Peter’s great lasagna, salad, and home-baked apple crisp from Lucy. The meal was topped off with my seven-layer cake from Martha’s Country Bakery.

We all had a lively conversation with this couple, who just befriended Peter and Ted over the last year. We were amazed over Jerrold’s relationship with his many siblings and his early moving around because of his father being in the military. To me, Jerrold reminded me of an anemic Ernest Hemingway. His face was wasn’t as florid as his, but something in the beard and twinkle in his eyes reminded me of the late American author. Lucy had some health issues of her own, as she was in a wheelchair. Of course, Elliot and I wouldn’t ask her why she was in one. I thought she was suffering from Parkinson’s disease since her hands continually fluttered. However, her mood was buoyant and ebullient.

After the couple left, we all settled down to watching some D-minus horror films, movies such as 2019’s Clown and 1980’s Prom Night starring that ever-reliable “scream queen,” Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen (in a serious role) as her father. The first film was laughingly unbelievable, as a group of young teens (instantly interchangeable) wander into a ghost town that hides a funhouse where a murderous clown lives and systematically kidnaps and tortures the unsuspecting young people. Not very credible or suspenseful.

The second film starring Curtis right after her breaking role in Halloween, Prom Night revolves around an early incident in which several youths chase a young girl in an abandoned school, causing her untimely death as she falls out of a window. Years later when all of these youths are in high school, a savage murderer appears at prom night to quickly dispatch all of those he holds responsible for the young girl’s death six years before. In a very old review at the time, the critic reinforced what all of us were thinking as we watched Curtis and other female stars go through the halls of Manchester High School: They all look “as if their school days are a long way behind them.”

The one thing that distinguishes this subpar horror film is that it was one of the first entries into the slasher subgenre. The film, regrettably, has a low-budget feel, poor lighting, and cinematography that detract from its total enjoyment. Anyway, we just enjoyed the camaraderie that came from watching these two potboilers.

After watching these two films, we decided to call it a night, even though I stayed up to read a book I took from the development’s extensive library, which Peter took me to before Lucy and Jerrold arrived: The Killer’s Shadow: The FBI’s Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer, by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The book looked interesting when I spied it in the vast room containing many hardcover books and paperbacks. Peter said that I could take it and would not need to return it.

I started to get sleepy by 1, so I called it a night and walked into the single bedroom where all of us slept. Elliot and I slept on the floor on an air mattress.

Today after getting up initially at 7:30 to use the bathroom, I got up finally close to 9:30. Eventually we all made our way to the complex’s restaurant: From the Ground Up Cafe.

The food served here was very tasty; I had the French toast and it was excellent, even the coffee was quite good. We were not able to spend more time with the boys since they were invited to a resident’s 90th-birthday party down the hall.

So we left after 11 and drove to New Paltz to browse the two bookstores in town: Inquiring Minds and Barner Books. These great stores are on opposite sides of the street, Church Street. Oh yes, I did purchase another book, this time at Barner Books, with the title of The Friday Afternoon Club, by Griffin Dunne. It’s a juicy memoir written by the actor, producer, and director of numerous films. Dunne’s aunt was Joan Didion, one of the great nonfiction writers ever to wield a typewriter. As you might know, Dunne suffered a personal tragedy many years ago when his sister, Dominque Dunne, was strangled by a boyfriend, John Sweeney, in a fit of rage after she tried to break up with him. Griffin’s father was Dominick Dunne who wrote about the trial of his daughter’s murderer in a stunning series of articles for Vanity Fair which launched his career as a crime reporter. He also penned several works of fiction, notably The Two Mrs. Grenvilles which became a 1987 television miniseries. Dunne’s book was a fictionalization of the real-life 1955 murder of William Woodward Jr. by his wife, Ann Woodward. This story was also taken up in the more recent series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans that aired on FX a year ago. In that series, Demi Moore played Ann Woodward.

We then drove to Elliot’s old stomping grounds, in Ellenville, where we had lunch at Cohen’s Bakery, a popular eatery and pastry shop. There we had sandwiches and coffee.

Now it was time to drive back to New York. We made only one stop at an antique shop on the road. We certainly didn’t need any new shiny objects to stuff into our one-bedroom apartment. I almost broke down to buy a $22 music box – why I needed something like that is beyond me. So I didn’t buy it!

The ride home was long but smooth. I think we got home close to 5:30.

Tomorrow is the 55th Pride March in New York. Because of the perilous times we’re living in right now, I’ve decided to attend it, possibly with Elliot or not. According to a piece online, “about a million people are expected to gather in Manhattan for the annual Pride March.” Generally, I wouldn’t even go to such a crowd-busting event, but as I said, this cruel regime and its policies are spurring me to go.

I might also hand out water with my friend “Seth,” who does it as a member of his church on 28th Street. I don’t know if we’re going to have dinner afterward either.

Maybe then I’ll see you tomorrow or – if not – on Monday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, February 5, 2025. As you know, I was absent from this venue yesterday because of my having lunch with an old school colleague on East 70th Street and Second Avenue, at a place called Beach Cafe. From there, I rode downtown to West 4th Street to meet my friend “Harvey” in front of the IFC Center whereupon we had a very pricey repast at the Waverly Diner, then walked to the Jefferson Market Library to attend our gay men’s reading club to discuss the novel Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. The meeting was very well attended, what with possibly 57 people all sitting in the round. I learned so much about the book which I finished about two weeks ago from the scintillating analyses offered by a cluster of the most articulate members at the meeting. That’s why I would easily consider this book club as one of the best that’s offered. We never veer off course to discuss personal matters. We truly stick to discussing the book at hand. This time the organizer waived the introductory comment section of the meeting in which everyone speaks about a cultural event they’ve attended in the previous month. There were just too many people at the meeting to even do this. That in itself would probably have taken a half hour or so to do, so it made sense to just dive into the book right away.

Earlier, I traveled to the East Side to meet my former colleague, “Sally,” whom I recently reconnected, in all places, Instagram when I posted a video of our cat Atticus. We were originally going to meet in January, but she had to cancel that rendezvous because of illness. Therefore, yesterday was chosen, even though I had the second event scheduled at 6:30. However, even if we had an extended lunch, there was no way I could be late for the men’s reading club, which turned out to be true. Sally and I did chat for a long time: about 3 hours. We had many years to catch up with. Also, her husband, “Stuart,” joined us as well, about 10 minutes into the get-together. We had such a good time filling each other in about our personal journeys since retiring from teaching that we promised to get together after Elliot and I return from Argentina at the end of February. Luckily, for me, I discovered early on that Sally was on the same political page as I: being an anti-Trump patriot.

That still left me enough time to take the subway to West 4th Street and meet my college pal, “Harvey,” in front of the IFC Center. I waited for Harvey inside the movie house because of the cold. He did arrive a little after 5 and we then walked to the Waverly Diner, where we had a quick bite. Actually, Harvey just had a bowl of lentil soup, while I had a cup of the same soup and a tuna melt.

After dinner, we ambled over to the Jefferson Market Library. Before long, the room filled up with over 50 bibliophiles, ranging in age from the early 30s to the 70s, I would imagine. The discussion soon got hot and heated, with opinions expressed by a smattering of the 50 men in the room. I was more of a spectator this time; I might have ventured to speak only once or twice. I preferred to listen to what the other guys said about the book.

After the meeting, a cluster of us walked over to Julius’s where we stood in the rear of the bar and talked about more personal matters. I spoke to three guys primarily. One lost his partner just three years ago. The other was celebrating 35 years with his significant other. The third gentleman was not as forthcoming about having anyone else in his life. In about an hour or so, I declared it was time to leave and go home.

To more prosaic matters: Who has heard the massively unpopular garbage from the sitting president the other day in which he insanely proposed that the United States occupy Gaza in his joint conference with his MAGA counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Isn’t this the height of tomfoolery? I think the only reason the bastard is proposing this is so that he can raze the area, throw out 2 million people living there, and build Trump hotels on the land. I think the guy is losing it from this ridiculous suggestion. This immediately resulted in pushback from other countries in the Middle East. One must ask how would this country go about removing and housing 2 million Palestinians? It’s logically impossible without sending in masses and masses of U.S. troops, spending trillions of dollars, and coordinating with regional powers who would not want to cooperate, to say nothing of how cruel it is. Dump stupidly called the area “the Riviera of the Middle East.” This foolhardy proposal should – and must – be shot down by Congress before it ever sees the light of day! Hey, I’m now hearing that Democrats might announce a movement to impeach the twice-impeached Orange Turd a third time over this absurd idea. It could happen.

There is a sliver of a silver lining in this dire dystopian situation, though, emerging right now in these dis-United States in the number of protests that were held in all 50 states directed toward Dump’s authoritarian agenda. If I had known about this, I might have participated, but I think our protest was in Albany, not New York City. There is now also more blowback by Democrats against the disgusting executive actions taken by Dump in his first three weeks of his second term. Five former leaders of the agency targeted by Dump and the Muskrat, as I’ll now call this South African billionaire rat, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have also spoken out against the Chump administration’s horrible attempts to dismantle the humanitarian agency and called on Congress “to swiftly protect the Agency’s statutory role.” So there is, finally, some pushback against this evil regime. We’ve had enough and it’s not even four weeks into the guy’s term.

And so it went!

Here is Atticus resting on Elliot for the first time. It’s taken a long while for him to get close to us like this. And we love it!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, January 25, 2025. It’s getting late here so I’ll just write about the fascinating day that I had with my Astoria friend “Seth” that began at 11 a.m. We first had breakfast at the Bel Aire Diner, located near Seth’s house, on 21st Street. This was one diner I actually never dined in before, so I was quite happy.

The play began at 3, so we had enough time to have breakfast and for us to take the subway down to 14th Street since the theater, the DR2 Theatre, was located on 15th Street. This was a four-character play, as the same two performers played two more characters to round out the play. The actors, McKinley Belcher III and Uly Schlesinger, portray Teddy and Jeremy, two strangers who meet at a bar in a hotel in Amsterdam. The story starts harmlessly enough as Teddy invites Jeremy back to his room near the Amsterdam Airport. The two-hander is set in January 2011.

Harvard grad Jeremy (Schlesinger) has been in Uganda working for the past year as a medical assistant and now he’s supposedly headed home to Boston. That’s when he misses his flight and meets Teddy, a finance guy, who had been with another friend, Ed, who was about to get married but somehow storms out of the same room earlier. This is his straight travel buddy who has a psychotic break before darting out of the room.

The set features a bed in the middle of the room which becomes central to the action in this 85-minute tense drama. You see, Teddy eventually does make a play for Jeremy who freaks out – at least at first. Jeremy’s intense reaction to Teddy’s pass serves as a catalyst for the two men to interrogate each other about their sexualities, and as they explore their pasts, to discover what they’ve both done recently that might have led each other to cause the death of a friend.

In this modern retelling of Sartre’s No Exit, where both men are unable or afraid to leave the room until their secrets are revealed in the 85-minute production, written by Ken Urban, the play explores the guilt, selfishness, and self-deceit plaguing the two Americans as they grapple with the possibility that their questionable behavior may actually be drawing them closer together.

As the play proceeds, we’re introduced to the other two characters: Ed and Nicholas. Nicholas is Jeremy’s gay friend in Uganda who frequented the medical clinic where Jeremy was working. He reveals his love for a married man, Martin, and the two form a close friendship that is marred by the country’s growing homophobia and bans against the “sin.” Belcher portrays Nicholas as a soft-spoken, naive man who isn’t aware of the eventual harm that will befall him as tensions flare up against homosexuals in his country. Schlesinger portrays Teddy’s manic friend, Ed, whom Teddy reveals his feelings for him right before his marriage to Margo. All throughout the production, Teddy’s phone rings and he’s afraid to take the call because of what he might hear.

As the play proceeds, the atmosphere becomes supercharged, with jarring changes in lighting that quickly shift scenes from Amsterdam to Uganda and from present to the past, as the mystery about the men’s pasts and the fates of their friends come into focus.

At the beginning of this shift, I was thrown for a little while as the two actors adopted different accents and dialogue. Then I understood that they were playing different characters in their lives. Reading a review of the play, I learned that Uganda has long suffered from entrenched homophobia, and that as recently as this past April, its courts have reaffirmed the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act, which puts the lives of LGBTQ+ people in mortal peril. I loved this ending quote from Pete Hempstead’s review of the play from December 12, 2024 in which he concludes, “It is a horrific thread [Uganda’s condemnation of homosexuality] to weave through a story of two men who come from a country that, supposedly, no longer punishes people for loving whomever they want to love. But then again, it doesn’t have to when it encourages us to punish ourselves.” As in Jeremy’s fear of identifying as homosexual as the phantom of his dead friend Nicholas haunts him even as far away as Amsterdam.

It goes without saying that Seth and I both enjoyed the play. I’m not sure when the play’s run is over, but if this synopsis of it appeals to you, then by all means, get tickets for it before it does close. I just looked it up: the play now ends on February 2, which is not too far off in the future.

After the play, we took the subway (No. 7) to Hudson Yards, which is an indoor upscale shopping mall on 33rd Street and 10th Avenue. It’s near the strange-looking structure called the Vessel which had been closed recently because of several suicides there. To me, it definitely looks like the carapace of some crustacean.

Seth wanted to browse inside Neiman Marcus, but when we entered the mall, we couldn’t find the store. We concluded that it must have closed, probably during COVID-19. Instead, we sat down to have coffee upstairs in the food court.

After this, it was time to ride back to Queens. I got off at Court Square to take the E, which exasperatedly, was not running. Thus I had to walk back to the 7 to take it to 74th Street where I then changed for the E train to Forest Hills.

Anyway, that’s the day.

Have a good Sunday. Tomorrow the weather is expected to be practically balmy, with temps to be in the high 30s, close to 40 degrees. Take out the bathing suits, folks.

And so it went!

This is the playbill from today’s play.

And so It Goes

Today is Tuesday, January 7, 2025. Though I wrote yesterday that I was going to attend my gay men’s reading club, which I did, I declined to go to the local bar after 8 since I believed it was better to get home early tonight since we’ll be leaving tomorrow for Florida in the afternoon. So I got home quickly – around 8:45 p.m. I lucked out in having an E train rumble into the station on West 4th Street within minutes of getting on the platform.

Today also marked Atticus’s one-year anniversary appointment at Juniper Valley Animal Hospital, in Middle Village, at 11:30 a.m. I wish we didn’t have to take our furry baby out in the bitter cold, but we had no choice. The wind surely was somewhat fierce today. So when it was time to leave, I got the new car and parked out in front for Elliot to take Atticus out in his cat carrier. Then we drove to the vet; on Queens Boulevard, we got stuck in traffic for about 20 minutes because of construction going on in one lane. I believed we were going to get to the vet’s office later than 11:30, but we somehow arrived just in the nick of time. I think we arrived around 11:15.

Inside, we were stuck in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. For the entire drive to the doctor’s office, Atticus was very quiet. He scrunched himself in the rear of the cat carrier, as I sat next to him poking my finger into the black-and-white carrier to try to pet him. Atticus didn’t respond to my ministrations.

Even in the waiting room, Atticus remained quiet. While we waited, other “clients” came in, mostly dogs. At one point, a tall young, tattooed man came in with an Alaskan husky who promptly went to the front of Atticus’s metal house and put his snout smack dab in Atticus’s face. Our cat did nothing.

Finally, we were called into an examining room. Elliot grimly reminded me that this was the same examining room in which we put down Jocelyn, our first cat, in October 2022. In a short while, Dr. McCarthy sauntered in and proceeded to give Atticus a complete examination. He listened for heart murmurs, looked into his mouth at his teeth, and gave him a vaccination. He also trimmed his claws and back paws. All throughout this prodding and probing, Atticus was a true trouper. He didn’t flinch; he didn’t hiss. I was surprised; given how he behaves with us, I expected more fire from him. The vet declared him fit as a fiddle; he did say, though, that he was inclined to gaining a little weight, so he suggested we diminish his supply of dry cat food during the day. I believe Atticus weighed in at 8.5 pounds. He originally weighed in last January at 5.6 pounds when we first adopted him. So there was an increase of about three pounds here over the year. This area is always a sensitive one for indoor cats since they cannot go out.

We were very happy over the salutary report we received from the vet who admitted he had five cats at home. It was time to take Atticus home.

When we dropped Atticus off, I went upstairs with him and gave him two treats for his exemplary behavior. I then went downstairs where Elliot was waiting for me and we went to lunch at Jax Inn Diner, on Northern Boulevard.

At 4, I bid adieu to Elliot and took the subway to West 4th Street. I went to the Jefferson Market Library earlier to see if any copies of this month’s book could be picked up at the front desk and I was told there weren’t any by a librarian on the second floor.

I then walked to the Waverly Diner for a light bite. Oh, here he’s eating again, you might moan, and you’re right!

When I got back to the library, I entered our back room and arranged the straight-back chairs in a semicircle as a favor to our organizer. Then the guys slowly walked in after 6. I must say I was quite amazed over the number of members who attended the meeting: I think we had close to 40 guys there, despite the cold weather. When our group leader, “Jerry,” walked in at 6:15, he casually announced that the author of the book, Tim Murphy, was going to grace our meeting at 7:15 p.m. And he told me that he was going to sit right next to me. Boy, was I in goosebumps.

Thus we had only about 45 minutes to express our true feelings about Murphy’s book before the author himself walked in. Most of the members expressed some criticism of the book, while others said they enjoyed it. And Mr. Murphy was exactly on time.

Sitting right next to me, Murphy enthralled his audience for the next 40 minutes until a custodian announced, at 7:55, that the library was closing. Some members even braved voicing their personal criticisms of the book – but ever so gently. Murphy took the criticism in stride; he even agreed that this book wasn’t as good as others he’s written. What I found quite telling throughout Murphy’s presentation was that he forgot some of his own characters’ names in the book we were discussing. The members had to remind him of the characters’ names throughout his talk.

The majority of those in attendance remained mute throughout Murphy’s presentation, including this blog writer. I couldn’t think of anything remotely witty to say, so I remained silent.

With the meeting over, some of us congregated outside and some began walking to Julius’s. That’s when I decided to walk to the subway to come home a bit earlier than usual.

Now it’s getting late and I’m going to finish this entry.

Have a good six days in my absence. Don’t get into any trouble.

And so it went!