A Time. A Place.

I am a movie-goer drawn in not for the visual aspect but to listen to the words. When I learned from a friend that her friend's son was responsible for editing a 5 to 7 minute video on the effect of movies on people's lives for the Oscar website, I decided to give it a shot. I called my friend Clarice and asked her to have lunch and then tape me using her I-Phone. We met at the Old Homestead where I said to the hostess, a 5'10" stunner, draped in a form fitting turquoise stretch dress that stopped at the top of her thigh, perfect attire for a bordello, "We're not famous or powerful or rich. What do you have?" She escorted us to a booth that had four place settings and I thanked her for giving us all this space for we were going to spread out.

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It's Good for the Boys

"The last time I saw you was two years ago" Sean, the social studies teacher in charge, from a Florida Jesuit high school said, as he and Kate, the math teacher and their sixteen male students here to attend the Model United Nations meeting, a nation-wide event and in Canada, boarded the mini-bus on the West 45th side of the Marriott Marquis hotel. I responded with, "That was before I had my liposuction and breast implants" as some eyes widened and others giggled and I knew, at least from 8 AM to noon, though this was Friday, January 13, it was to be my lucky day. For Sean's opinion of me was thus, "Whatever comes out of Jane's mouth is good for the boys."

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I Knew I Had Been Sincere

I've been a bit flaky lately. I wrote my rent check, put it into an addressed envelope, placed a stamp on it and when I was going out the door to mail it, I couldn't find it but uncovered atop my desk, in its stead, my jury duty notice, 24-hours before I was due to appear at 100 Center Street, January 3, 2012 at 9 AM. The next day, on the Number Six train headed downtown, I heard a homeless man crooning "Under the Boardwalk, down by the Sea, yeah, on a blanket with my baby is where I'll be" which I knew to be a reverie and not a reality for I was standing there shivering in the nineteen degree temperature.

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Always Has Been, Always Will Be

In Troy, a city on the western edge of Rensselaer County in New York State, on December 23, 1823 an anonymously written poem entitled "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" with a first line of, "'Twas the night before Christmas,when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse" appeared in the "Troy Sentinel". It was buried on page 5, column three between an article on how to make honey from a beehive and a marriage announcement. Therein was a story of a rotund, red-suited bearded man sitting on a gift-laden sleigh pulled by eight reindeers. It is this image, promulgated by limners, we see appearing every Christmas season. Whereas in that same county on its northern edge, on December 14, 1961, when a 101 year old American folk artist, creator of 1,600 original works, whose face was on the cover of a 1953 Time magazine, died at the Hoosick Falls Medical Center and notification of her passing made the front page of America's newspapers, we need to conjure up her countenance as the New Year approaches.

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From "Hugo" to "You've Got....Mail"

In Martin Scorsese's film "Hugo," there's a "male" facsimile made of what looks like metal, sitting around doing nothing simply because he's missing parts and which if found, he'd then be able to fulfill the purpose of his creation, move the writing piece in-between his fingers and leave his markings on a piece of paper. Yet, he'd still be "artificially alive," just as he was back when Titans lived on Mount Olympus.

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