Thursday, January 06, 2005
In memory of our former neighbors -Susan Sontag, Jerry Orbach
hLOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In the 1980s the writer Susan Sontag, who passed away late in December2004, was a neighbor of ours. She lived on East 17th Street, on thethird floor of a brownstone building, for eight years, while her son, DavidReiff, rented an apartment further down the block, both addressescomfortably near theoffices of Farrar Straus & Giroux at 19 Union Square, her publisher andhis employer. Her landlady, the artist Rosalee Isaly, remembers Ms. Sontag as a pleasant quiet neighbor, easy to talk to and always offeringperceptive observations on whatever topic. We met her and David because ourson, who at 10 was training himself to be the basketball jumpshot championof Friends Seminary and always ran out of our building by leaping the frontsteps, once crumbled and fell, right in front of thse two neighbors, whohelpedhim up. Thereafter, when our paths crossed, Susan Sontag would ask abouthim.The writer was highly visible at events, with her huge mane of black hair,streaked white. She once joined us in a chat about Wordsworth, at thepoet's 1988 exhibition in the NY Public Library, and we would occasionallyexchange pleasantries at public occasions and at the Strand.Starting in 1993 we read her dispatches from Sarajevo, where she spentseveral years staging plays and doing her human rights activist mission.Both she and her son wrote much about the horrors of the Balkan wars in the1990s. As president of American PEN, she also campaigned on behalf ofpersecuted and imprisoned writers. Her eventual successor at PEN, SalmonRushdie, in an AP interview characterizes her as a true friend in need, agreat literary artist, a fearless and original thinker, ever valiant fortruth, and an indefatigable fighter in many struggles.
The late actor Jerry Orbach was also a neighbor, living in what used to beHell's Kitchen, on West Side. The audiences first knew of him as a singingstar, introducing the haunting "Try to Remember" as the narrator of "TheFantastics," a musical that closed in 2001, after the longest theatre runof all times, remaining an Off-Off-Broadway favorite for 42 years and over17,000 performances.After three Tony nominations and one award ("Promises, Promises," 1969) ittook a television career for Orbach to earn a worldwide fame and success inhis 12 seasons as Lennie Briscoe on "Law and Order," the ex-alcoholicdetective who opened each episode's crime investigation with an earthyobservation ("I want first claim on his liver," or, "his watch stoppedticking when he took a licking"). His quintesdsential New York characterhumanized the life of a policeman so well that the NYPD regarded him as oneof their own, and he participated in the 2001 demonstrations asking forbenefits for NewYork's Finest. Cops would offer him rides in their squad cars, stilling hisprotests with "we'll not get in trouble, we will put you in the back andcuff you." NY Landmarks Conservancy, a private group that finances repairsof deserving buildings, in 2002 declared him (along with Sam Waterston, thegruff ADA Jack McCoy) a Living Landmark.
Television pictures and stories about the horrors of the tsunami inSoutheast Asia reminded us of a boat trip in Auckland, New Zealand, wherethe crew wore tee shirts from Phuket, Thailand. Upon inquiry, a youngmate went into ecstatic descriptions of the resort area and its beaches,which she described as the most beautiful in the world.While we Americans were shuddering at the first reports and amateur videopictures of people just like us running away from the same beaches andresorts that looked just like those or our shores, information had juststarted seeping through about the true magnitude of the horror. It was notonly of visitors lost but also of thousands (that soon became tens ofthousands) of ordinary people dying and lost in the fishing villages ofSumatra, South India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, far away from the eyes oftourist cameras. Even the governments of countries that were donating firstaid were unaware of the true magnitude of the disaster, and had to adjusttheir estimates of contributions several times over.
As we celebrate the New Year, a most fitting gift to the world would be donations for the care of the victims of this, possibly the largest natural disaster ever. When making your contributions to the American RedCross or other relief agencies, be sure to check whether your employer has amatching giftsprogram that recognizes non-educational institutions as fit recipients. Youmay be able to multiply the value of your donation.
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V offer their best New Year's wishes ofhealth andwellbeing to our readers.
In the 1980s the writer Susan Sontag, who passed away late in December2004, was a neighbor of ours. She lived on East 17th Street, on thethird floor of a brownstone building, for eight years, while her son, DavidReiff, rented an apartment further down the block, both addressescomfortably near theoffices of Farrar Straus & Giroux at 19 Union Square, her publisher andhis employer. Her landlady, the artist Rosalee Isaly, remembers Ms. Sontag as a pleasant quiet neighbor, easy to talk to and always offeringperceptive observations on whatever topic. We met her and David because ourson, who at 10 was training himself to be the basketball jumpshot championof Friends Seminary and always ran out of our building by leaping the frontsteps, once crumbled and fell, right in front of thse two neighbors, whohelpedhim up. Thereafter, when our paths crossed, Susan Sontag would ask abouthim.The writer was highly visible at events, with her huge mane of black hair,streaked white. She once joined us in a chat about Wordsworth, at thepoet's 1988 exhibition in the NY Public Library, and we would occasionallyexchange pleasantries at public occasions and at the Strand.Starting in 1993 we read her dispatches from Sarajevo, where she spentseveral years staging plays and doing her human rights activist mission.Both she and her son wrote much about the horrors of the Balkan wars in the1990s. As president of American PEN, she also campaigned on behalf ofpersecuted and imprisoned writers. Her eventual successor at PEN, SalmonRushdie, in an AP interview characterizes her as a true friend in need, agreat literary artist, a fearless and original thinker, ever valiant fortruth, and an indefatigable fighter in many struggles.
The late actor Jerry Orbach was also a neighbor, living in what used to beHell's Kitchen, on West Side. The audiences first knew of him as a singingstar, introducing the haunting "Try to Remember" as the narrator of "TheFantastics," a musical that closed in 2001, after the longest theatre runof all times, remaining an Off-Off-Broadway favorite for 42 years and over17,000 performances.After three Tony nominations and one award ("Promises, Promises," 1969) ittook a television career for Orbach to earn a worldwide fame and success inhis 12 seasons as Lennie Briscoe on "Law and Order," the ex-alcoholicdetective who opened each episode's crime investigation with an earthyobservation ("I want first claim on his liver," or, "his watch stoppedticking when he took a licking"). His quintesdsential New York characterhumanized the life of a policeman so well that the NYPD regarded him as oneof their own, and he participated in the 2001 demonstrations asking forbenefits for NewYork's Finest. Cops would offer him rides in their squad cars, stilling hisprotests with "we'll not get in trouble, we will put you in the back andcuff you." NY Landmarks Conservancy, a private group that finances repairsof deserving buildings, in 2002 declared him (along with Sam Waterston, thegruff ADA Jack McCoy) a Living Landmark.
Television pictures and stories about the horrors of the tsunami inSoutheast Asia reminded us of a boat trip in Auckland, New Zealand, wherethe crew wore tee shirts from Phuket, Thailand. Upon inquiry, a youngmate went into ecstatic descriptions of the resort area and its beaches,which she described as the most beautiful in the world.While we Americans were shuddering at the first reports and amateur videopictures of people just like us running away from the same beaches andresorts that looked just like those or our shores, information had juststarted seeping through about the true magnitude of the horror. It was notonly of visitors lost but also of thousands (that soon became tens ofthousands) of ordinary people dying and lost in the fishing villages ofSumatra, South India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, far away from the eyes oftourist cameras. Even the governments of countries that were donating firstaid were unaware of the true magnitude of the disaster, and had to adjusttheir estimates of contributions several times over.
As we celebrate the New Year, a most fitting gift to the world would be donations for the care of the victims of this, possibly the largest natural disaster ever. When making your contributions to the American RedCross or other relief agencies, be sure to check whether your employer has amatching giftsprogram that recognizes non-educational institutions as fit recipients. Youmay be able to multiply the value of your donation.
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V offer their best New Year's wishes ofhealth andwellbeing to our readers.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 6:25 AM 
