“Good Night and Good Luck”
The girls krewe had Happy Hour at Superior Seafood, typically oysters and frozen French 75s, on Tuesday evening. This was a get together prior to Anne leaving for Boulder for several weeks on Wednesday afternoon. This trio hadn’t had enough fun and walked down to Shaya:
Diana’s Wednesday yoga class was in Audubon park since the studio is busy with kids at various summer camps. It’s getting pretty hot and humid, even at 10am, so we’ll see how long this lasts.
Diana dropped me off for a haircut on Friday afternoon, and then picked me up for Happy Hour. We first tried the new Blackbird hotel on Prytania Avenue. This place looks nice online and has a day use pool setup at a reasonable price. My barber, Derek, told me that they made great martinis, but the bartender had broken his arm, and they had various less qualified folks filling in. We arrived a little after 3pm and checked in with the hostess, saying we would like to have a drink and snack at the inside bar. “Sure, go on in.” We did, and the bartender lady told us she didn’t open until 4pm. “All your online things say 3pm.” “That’s just the pool bar.” She was just setting up and could easily have taken 5 minutes to make us a drink. On the way out we told the hostess it didn’t open until 4pm. “Yes, that’s right, it never opens before 4pm.” One wonders why the heck she sent us back there, knowing that.
Diana suggested the Garden District Hotel across the street. That was almost as bad – the bar was lovely and appeared to be open, but there was no bartender. We waited 20 minutes, and then Diana went up front to ask. “We’ll call him now.” She sent us back there and could see there was no bartender to begin with. He did show up and was quite annoying, but made an okay drink. In his defense, Diana thought he was “fine.”
I was determined to have a decent experience before we headed home, and suggested we walk down to Beggars Banquet. Here we encountered a professional and very friendly bartender. Greeted us with ice waters, had snack menu recommendations, made a very good drink, and was happy to chat on any topic. Ahh – we did it.
Sorry for the long ramble on something you had to be there to appreciate – I just don’t have a lot of exciting topics for this week.
On Saturday evening, CNN aired a live broadcast of the Broadway play “Good Night, and Good Luck.” This is the first time a live airing has happened from Broadway. George Clooney plays Edward R. Murrow, who broadcast on CBS in the 1950s and is widely recognized as being responsible for bringing down senator Joe McCarthy and his communist witch hunts.
Clooney co-wrote and directed the movie of the same name back in 2005. The parallels to the politics of today were hard to miss.
We started to watched the 4 hour opus that is “The Brutalist” on Saturday night, and got about half way through. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to finishing the movie. Adrien Brody won the oscar for his portrayal of a Jewish architect who escapes Hungary and struggles to find his way in America.
I chuckled to see “Emeritus” in the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle:
After the crossword and other puzzles, I caught up on all the delinquent blogs – a month of them. Can’t let that happen again as it’s too hard to remember what happened and I keep getting the weeks mixed up.
I took a break for lunch at Juan’s Flying Burrito with Diana. We shared a new appetizer – street corn dip – excellent. Then McD tried something new, a “Super Bowl”, and really liked it. I stuck with one of my standards – Chorizo con huevos burrito.
“Good Night, and Good Luck” showed up again on the Sunday evening news show, 60 minutes, with a Clooney interview, and again at the Tony awards on Sunday night.
Diana and I enjoyed watching the Tony’s – I think it’s the first time we’ve done that. We were able to pick the majority of the winners from the performances that were given at the award show. I thought Cynthia Erivo did a very good job of hosting. My favourite performance was from “Maybe Happy Ending.”
My book this week was “The road to tender hearts” by Annie Hartnett. This reminded me a lot of Kevin Wilson’s “Run for the Hills” – dark humor, big heart, and quirky and creative characters and storyline. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The online synopsis:
“At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already.
But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back.
Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who’s adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home.
This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a fresh shot at love and parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it.”
The big in the 90s band, Pulp, released a new album after 30 years. Here’s a sample, sounding more like David Bowie than ever:
This song is over 10 minutes long – I heard it on the wonderful local radio station, WWOZ, and had to find out what the song was with that great beat and feel:
Coexist peacefully, with patience and kindness for all!