Tuesday, April 2 … “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth.”  (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writing as Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four.)  Please note that this link brings you to Litrix, a free online reading room.  Fairly amazing.

Wednesday, April 3 and while exploring a crashed vessel on a desolate planet, the Enterprise crew is haunted by ghosts (including guest stars Rene Auberjonois and Tom Bergeron) on a new episode titled “Oasis.”

On a new episode of The West Wing, Vice President Hoynes (guest star Tim Matheson) finds himself in the same meeting with Leo for Alcoholics Anonymous in a story written by Dee Dee Myers.  Also, Donna’s request to Josh (Bradley Whitford) for a presidential proclamation honoring the retirement of her favorite teacher reminds me to find the most influential teacher in my life, Ralph Notaro.

I also find out later that Frank Tovey, who went by the stage name of Fad Gadget, dies of heart failure at his London home (he had heart problems for years).

Daniel Miller of Mute Records said, “Frank was the first artist I ever worked with on Mute, he made some very special and influential records and was an exceptional live performer.  Frank played a big part in helping to lay the foundations of what the label was to become in the ensuing years, I will miss him greatly.”

Thursday, April 4 and on Must See TV, Friends is a compilation tape for Joey (Matt LeBlanc), and Leap of Faith keeps getting better (and who knew Jill Clayburgh was such a fine comedienne?) although it will not survive the chopping block.

On Will & Grace, it’s Tom Poston, Tim Robbins and Eileen Brennan.  What?  Yes, NBC had threatened to flood this years programming with special stars in honor of their 75^th anniversary and this episode was a perfect example.

Friday, April 5 and So Graham Norton on BBC America, with ’60s singing icon and UK TV celebrity Cilla Black, Cybill Shepherd and Orlando Bloom from the Lord of the Rings.  I sent a post to David Littler.  In part, it said,

I agreed to take back Connections, the monthly newsletter of Trinity Church in Cranford.  Everybody’s happy; I have the time and no one does it better.  Plus, my “papers” are still there, so I’m officially a parishioner.  Bryan joined me for Easter services there; it’s as wonderful and joyous as I remember, with children making noise and the choir singing their hearts out.

I am working on the concept of Ambrosian Anglicans.  Yes, it needs a better name; it sounds like a bunch of old English ladies eating ambrosia!  No, these Anglicans take Saint Ambrose as their patron.  They’ve no interest in leaving the church or stealing parishes; they accept the Book of Common Prayer and theology of the Anglican Communion.  They stand more as witnesses for the truth.  As Jesus says in John 5:30, “As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but will of him who sent me.”

I do not believe in the congregational model of churches; but my experience in the last two years makes me realize that, like a bunch of Beltway insiders, the national church has lost sight of parish life. Speaking with clergy around the country (many of whom serve parishes of under a hundred people) there is much more to spreading the Word than putting out books that don’t sell or that are rife with errors!

Saturday, April 6, Tower Video has an immense classical department, including the DVD of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha.  I have come to the belief that it is easily one of the ten most important operas in music, although I’m sure I’d have a hard time persuading anyone of it.

The day before, however, Bryan surprised me by suggesting that the Metropolitan Opera should really stage Akhnaten, to which I whole-heartedly agree.  And for those of you with either Internet Explorer or a Mac (it doesn't work on Netscape, unfortunately) check out the Glass Engine.

Sunday, April 7 and Daylight Savings Time begins.  Our video selection is “Songs from the Life of Leonard Cohen.”  A BBC documentary with live concert footage from 1988, this mixes concert footage with conversations with Leonard Cohen as the troupe travels around Greece and America.  I think one of the more interesting comments is his opinion that “the heart is serious” ... that we are moved to listen to his songs because of that spiritual urge.

Monday, April 8 and dinner at Yaffa after walking around and around.  On television it’s Oasis, live at Wembley on Trio (an arts cable station).  I am sure we will see more of them as they prepare to role out Hindu Times, their new single.  Recently, I saw an interview with Liam Gallagher regarding his collapsed marriage to Patsy Kensit:  “You walk to the altar with a woman with one head and you come back with a f---ing monster.  I was forced into it.  Arranged marriage?  More like a deranged marriage!”

Tuesday, April 9 and what ever happened to Michael Grecco?  One of the greatest photographers of the Boston new wave scene (along with Steve Stone), he later moved out to the Los Angeles area.  The last time I saw him was in 1993 when we had dinner in Santa Monica.  At the table behind me at the restaurant was none other than Michael Stipe of R.E.M.

Soon after, Mike became a regular contributor to People and Entertainment Weekly.  But despite all my efforts, I haven’t been able to track Grecco down in the last couple of years.  I’ve included a picture of Martin Landau from his portfolio at Grecco Photography.

Wednesday, April 10, I meet Bryan at the Gay Travel Expo, then walk to Tanti Baci for dinner.  We love this West Village Italian and seem to have a regular table in the smoking section.  Indeed, since Bryan isn’t currently smoking, we almost sit in non-smoking and switch back!

Thursday, April 11 and since we’re focusing on the number 7 this month, this marks the seven month anniversary of 9/11.  Friends is a repeat with Sean Penn; and on Will & Grace, Grace (Debra Messing) plays a schoolmarm in a design class full of slackers who would rather discuss celebrity houses than listen to her drone on.

“I realize and accept the fact that I’m a very fortunate man, but to be a very fortunate man has its pitfalls.  For every smile, there’s been a thousand tears, you know.  [Pauses]  That’s a good song title.”  Quote by Ozzy Osbourne in Rolling Stone, April 11, 2002

Friday, April 12 … and the best place for quality and price in the East Village for cheese is, well, the East Village Cheese Shop.  In the evening, there are two episodes of So Graham Norton (first with Jacqueline Bisset and Donny Osmond, and then another episode with Macauley Culkin and Kyle MacLaughlin).

First off, we’ll get only time out of the way; yes, it’s the song that one has heard often on commercials.  For Enya, it’s her Celine Dion going down with the Titanic.  Otherwise, it’s the sound one would expect of her, lilting vocals, lush orchestration and an Irish sensibility.  Otherwise, stand-out tracks include wild child (uptempo), deora ar mo chroí (tears on my heart) (adapted to English), fallen embers and one by one (– don’t say Adiós, say Adiós, Goodbye).

Trivia that I found interesting was the participation of Nicky Ryan (who produced, engineered, mixed and arranged) and Roma Ryan, who wrote all the lyrics.  Enya is responsible for all instruments and voices.  As an article in the UK Sunday Times in 1998, “She has money, looks and talent.  She chooses to spend her life in a studio with her producer and his lyricist wife.  Enya is not a person, she says, but a trinity.”

It was “recorded in the digital domain by an analogue brain.”  Her website is very full-featured, with audio clips and background information on the songs and where they’ve appeared, other than the albums.

Sunday, April 14 and down at the site of the World Trade Center, the Tribute in Light goes off; it had been on since March 11.

Monday, April 15 … did you send in your taxes yet?  I wrote a note to Bill Abbate; in part, it said:

I saw an old friend from the Late Riser’s Club; he’s gone through life with odd jobs, construction, painting, etc., just to be able to spin records.

He was married for eight years; they divorced very amicably three years ago. He had gotten her a job with a tech friend a few years before, a dot.com job.  It went through the roof; the owner cashed in for $750 million ... that’s right!  The wife didn’t do too badly either and gave my friend a nice settlement when they broke up. He bought a loft in Tribeca; it cost him $1 million in cash.

He says his life is no different; just that having all the bills paid has made it bearable.  In the end, it makes you want to be a communist.  Because that’s what it’s about.  If you could afford to send your kids to school, buy them clothes, have a few extra bucks for you and Alice to go to dinner with friends, wouldn’t your life be perfect?  You could work and enjoy it, not thinking that tomorrow they might decide that it’s your time to go.

Tuesday, April 16 … On a new episode of Smallville, a secretive teen (Ryan Kelley) can read minds.

Brother Cleve is now in residence on the first Tuesday of every month at the Beauty Bar, where we also see our Boston friend (and former Billygoon) Mark Flynn.

Wednesday, April 17 and, we meet Art and Michelle for dinner at the Olde Town, where Michelle tells us she’s had her name legally changed to Michaela.  But our real reason for getting together is to see Surviving Grace starring Illeana Douglas (granddaughter of Melvyn Douglas).

Kate is a workaholic television producer dealing with a domineering Jewish mother descending into Alzheimer’s.  The conceit of the play occurs in the second act when a miracle drug brings Grace back to the world of the living for a few precious weeks.  Pictures of opening night at the Union Square Theatre are linked to the website.

Thursday, April 18 and I listen to four songs included on a bonus cd included with Judy Collins, Singing Lessons, her second autobiography.  Also, it’s off-white weddings and steamy potboilers on a new episode of Will & Grace.

Friday, April 19 and So Graham Norton has two new episodes; the first has actress Shannen Doherty from (Beverly Hills 90210) and Vicky Entwhistle (Coronation Street).  That one is rather interesting, not only because of the edible undies contest but because the two actresses were more or less unfamiliar with each other’s shows.  On the next episode, Graham Norton featured Richard Chamberlain and Jane Horrocks (Absolutely Fabulous and Little Voice).

Saturday, April 20 and we take the train to Cranford at 2; we had originally planned to go to New Hope, but it was too late.  So instead we have dinner with my parents at Umberto’s in Kenilworth.  Same opinion as before; the food is good but having only the owner and one waiter to care for the dining room just isn’t enough.  Then we crash at my parents for our road trip on Sunday.

Sunday, April 21, drive to Lambertville NJ [see also May 2000 and January 2002] and an auction at David Rago.  We cross the bridge and drive past New Hope PA on our way to Doylestown.  We walk around downtown, now an historical district, and have coffee at ... Starbucks.  Oh, yeah, where George Washington had his, I am sure!

Monday, April 22 and my mom and cousin pretend we’re in Brighton and have lunch at the Telephone Bar and Grill.  The NY Times has raved about the fish and chips, which Lorraine has, while I have superb salmon cakes with a spicy chili/curry sauce and a steak sandwich.  For some reason, my mother goes for breakfast, although not the Irish breakfast of which Bryan is so fond!

Afterwards, the Independent Film Channel (IFC) is running Fellini’s Satyricon.  It’s amazing how poorly dated this movie is, and how uncomfortable to watch even considering the cute men.  What was considered adventurous then, now seems like an acid-tinged perversion.

Tuesday, April 23 and on a new episode of Smallville, a dead body comes back to life and begins a euthanasia spree (yes, that was the plot of Reaper, it was pretty grim).

The wife of a good friend is being treated for cancer.  I wrote to him:

I have recently been spending time with Bryan’s family.  Like my own family, nothing is secret or hidden and cancer goes by no euphemism.  A great blessing to me has been everyone’s acceptance of me into their lives and homes.

My cousin has just been diagnosed with cancer on her lymph nodes; she had been complaining of stomach pains.  The doctors feel that with chemo she stands a decent chance of driving it into remission.

My mother, youngest of five children, lost her sister to breast cancer the year before I was born, and her oldest sister (a 2 pack a day smoker) and second oldest sister (a non-smoker) to lung cancer, both in the last two years.  Her only brother (my godfather) has prostrate cancer, but he’s 80 and so may go before it gets him.  Ah, life’s ironies.

Among our friends, a parishioner at Trinity, Cranford just came back from a breast cancer operation and a friend in California just lost her brother to liver cancer last week.

While this goes on, I have been blessed by their sharing and love, as I am at the six-month point of my hep C medication.  I’m the lucky one; the procedure has worked and now I just have to continue with the lovely side effects for another six months.  But knowing that it has worked really changes one’s attitude.

Still ... that’s a long way of saying that Bryan and I share your feelings and fears while you are going through this.  I’m sure that so many of your friends and family have given you the same amount of love and support that we have had from ours.  The change in our families has been dramatic ... practically a tv movie.  I know that sounds trite, but there’s something about cancer that makes the complex become simple.

Wednesday, April 24 and Bryan and I go to the Jean Cocteau Repertory production of The Marriage of Figaro.  It is the source for Mozart’s opera and written on the eve of the French Revolution by Beaumarchais (a major financial patron of the American Revolution).  This is a new translation of the comedic revenge story about le droit du seigneur; it is set in Palm Beach, Florida but with old-fashioned dialect.

After the first five minutes, we were worried that this would turn out badly; the acting was somewhat stilted and the play seemed unable to find its center.  But once the rest of the characters appeared, particularly the Count, the jokes started getting funnier and the acting more smooth.  By the end of the play, we felt we could easily recommend this.

Founded in 1971, the “Cocteau” is the country’s only permanent resident acting company (and named for the French artist, Jean Cocteau).  It has produced over 200 plays at the historic, 140-seat Bouwerie Lane Theatre (located just a few blocks south of our apartment).

Thursday, April 25 is television night as we watch a new episode of Enterprise recorded the previous night.  Archer and Mayweather enter a “military zone” and are detained in an internment prison by an alien race called Tandarans (with guest star Dean Stockwell as the commandant), who are at war with the Suliban.

While the Enterprise crew’s previous encounters with the Suliban have been disastrous, these detainees are innocent victims.  One could compare this with the Japanese camps during World War II, but also with believing that all Muslims are Al-Qaeda.

Marlo Thomas appears as the mother of pregnant Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) on Friends.

And after his laptop is stolen, Will meets a sociable police detective (Oscar-winner Michael Douglas) who takes a special interest in his case — but Will doesn’t know that the gumshoe is secretly participating in Jack’s therapy group for gays.  Also, Barry Livingston (“My Three Sons”) stars as a potential client when Molly Shannon returns as Grace’s psycho neighbor Val (guest star Molly Shannon) who “opens” a rival design business, all on Will & Grace.

Friday, April 26 and we hop on the subway and meet Tony Jewiss+ and Tom Bailey at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Trivia: Did you know that Lucas Foss is the Conductor Laureate of the orchestra?

Tonight, Maestro Robert Spano leads the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s 2001-02 season finale featuring Gustav Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde (Songs of the Earth).”  Written just a couple of years before his death, and premiered by Bruno Walter in 1911 mere months after his passing, Mahler wrote to Walter: “I stand vis-à-vis rien [face to face with nothing].”

This German-language setting of the ancient romantic words of Chinese poets is mirrored by a new work commissioned for the Philharmonic, Tibetan Swing, from the Chinese-American composer, Bright Sheng.  Sheng, who was born in Shanghai in 1955 and lived in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution, is a recent recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s Genius Award.

This piece is followed by Nanking! Nanking!, Sheng’s concerto for Chinese lute and Orchestra.  A strong piece, informed by what is known as the Rape of Nanking in December 1937 by the Japanese (over 300,000 Chinese civilians were murdered).  One of the most barbaric atrocities of wartime brutality, Bright Sheng writes:

“This work is written in memory of the victims.  It is not a recreation of the massacre.  But it is also a story of humanity’s spirit, when the government was incapable of defending its own citizens.  Ultimately, it is humanity that triumphs.”

After the performance, Tom suggested dinner at Junior’s, world-famous for their cheesecake but also the inventors of the egg cream.  Oh, yeah, cholesterol city!  So why scrimp?  I take Tom’s suggestion, and both of us have the Brisket Melt on garlic bread topped with sautéed onions and Muenster cheese.  If my heart’s going to stop, it might as well be with this!

Saturday, April 27 and I start to receive my various presents from Bryan.  One was a mistake, actually, that turned out to be a wonderful surprise, and also a premonition of a concert we would attend in a couple of weeks, also by surprise.

Bryan had wanted to buy me the Nick Drake box set, but when he went to Kim’s Video, he couldn’t remember the last name and asked for the Nick Cave box set.  Now, the clerks there were very interested in hearing about this new box set, but of course there wasn’t one.

But when they called up to the manager to see if he knew anything, he wound up giving Bryan a promotional video for No More Shall We Part and 15 Feet of Pure White Snow, from his latest album.  The video also including a documentary of the making of the album at Abbey Road studios with outtakes and explanations of the songs by Nick Cave himself.  This was a jewel of a gift!

Later in the evening, we went for dinner at Pangea; no surprise there.  Joining me for my birthday were Mario and Emily, my parents who drove in from New Jersey, Art and Michelle, Dima and Alona, and Vanessa.  Later on, Michelle’s son Matt joined us and Vanessa’s son Travis stopped by to say hi.  What a wonderful evening!

By midnight, we were back home and Bryan presented me with my special gift, the ones he had been working on for months.  It was a book about Fritz Eichenberg and a poster of our woodcut!  This was an amazing day.

Sunday, April 28 and they say it’s my birthday.  Well, it’s also the birthday of Saddam Hussein; although he can grow a mustache.  I get a lovely William Blake postcard from Oedipus.  In the afternoon, we take a walk in Central Park before going to the Metropolitan Museum for their exhibit on Surrealism; we also have a chance to see their new wing for modern art.

Monday, April 29 and these next two days are my final two of my first semester at NYU.  During the afternoon, I read my classmates presentations in preparation for the evening.  Then at 6, it’s my final marketing class with paper presentations; I will eventually get an A on my paper and an A for the semester.

And speaking of marketing, I was recently asked by an Episcopal bishop for some ideas to promote his new book.  Here is part of what I wrote:

First, send out a bulk e-mail to every parish for which they have an e-mail address (I think it’s around 60-70% of all parishes now).  It would be a small blurb about the book with a picture of the cover attached.  It would have three recommendations from three disparate readers.

And it would ask each of the parishes to share it with their book groups.  It always bothered me that parish groups were reading Salman Rushdie, much as I love him!  They should be reading good books recommended by their Church (or else the national church should get out of the business of publishing them; it’s a defacto imprimatur).

When I suggested it before, the office felt it would seem like spam but that’s ridiculous.  Naked girls dancing is spam, low mortgage rates are spam.  I’ve spoken to many, many clergy around the country and they would like some suggestions.

Next, I would send a free copy of the book to each and every bishop of the church.  It’s time to start seeding the ground.

Promote it where it stands the best chance of selling.  Before the bookstore at St. John the Divine burned down, it shocked me to find that there were only a few titles from the Church for sale there.  Yet, every title of the Dalai Lama was in stock and faced forward, along with Sri Chinmoy, Ram Dass and more.  Yes, they’re on my bookshelf too, but really!

Tuesday, April 30 and by 6 pm I’m at my financial analysis final (for which I eventually get a grade of 92); my class project with two classmates gets an 89 and my final grade for the semester is A-.  Because I’m done with the test early, I get home before 8 pm to find that Bryan has been on the phone with Matty in London, but that’s on a phone card.

Also, it’s been six months of treatment (and six months to go).

Killer bees are controlled by a high school girl on a new episode of Smallville.  (Best lines?  Chloe: “I want to know what you stand for.”  Clark: “I stand for Truth, Justice, and … ummm, other stuff.”)

Adelante! Hombres.  Sailors.  Comrades. I know your mind.  I know your heart. I know your answer.

Every Monday, I attend my marketing class, and every Tuesday, I attend Financial Analysis at New York University for my Master of Science in Publishing.  The finals are the last week of the month.

Restaurants in NYC include Pangea; Mie for sushi; Zito's for Italian; lunch at Confetti for pasta and the Red Lantern for Thai; Texas Rotisserie & Grill; one night at dinner at Mee Noodle Shop, Bryan has an egg roll and moo shu pork, while I try something new, the sesame wonton followed by beef with snow peas over lo mein.

There’s an angel standing in the sun, and he’s crying with a loud voice,
“This is the supper of the mighty one.”
Lord of Lords, King of Kings,
Has returned to lead his children home,
To take them to the new Jerusalem.