The Luna Park Gazette

In 1958, Edward Albee wrote a one-act play called “The Zoo Story” about two strangers whose meeting in Central Park ends in tragedy. I first came across the play some 20 years after its debut when I had to read it for one of my English classes at Hunter College. I’ve never seen a performance of the play, but last week I came close to living my own version of it. Ever since the coronavirus outbreak shut down all the health clubs, I’ve been doing YouTube workouts at home. They’re nowhere near as satisfying as my boxing and cycling classes, of course, but my choices are severely limited. Working out in my apartment can be challenging since space is limited and I don’t want to make noise. I live five minutes away from Shore Road Park, yet I had been resistant to changing locales even though the weather is warm now and I have more freedom of movement. I have this tendency to latch on to a routine and steadfastly refuse to change it and, to be brutally honest, this habit of ceme...

The voices from World War II are still speaking to us, but you have to listen very carefully. I’m writing a novel that includes scenes from World War II and I’ve been doing research to make those sections as realistic as possible. Books and articles are helpful, of course, but I’m always looking to speak with veterans if at all possible so I can have those vital eyewitness accounts. Sadly, this is is becoming more and more difficult as the old soldiers from the Greatest Generation continue to fade away. My dad was a veteran and he told me dozens of stories when I was growing up. I’m using some of his recollections as raw material for the book, but I also want to include the kind of gritty details that I didn’t ask my father about when I was kid. Well, I finally got my chance. I belong to a Facebook group of family members of veterans from my father’s division, The Timberwolves. One of the group’s members very kindly put me in touch with Richard, a 95-year-old veteran, wh...

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind." – William Blake Maybe I should burn some more sage. On the morning of January 1, I burned sage to purify my home and drive away negative energy in a healing practice known as smudging. I thought it was a good way to start a new year. I wanted to clear out the old, stale forces in my life, and let the sun shine in. “ I’ve got a long list of things that I want to do this year and I believe I started my journey off on the right foot ,” I wrote that day. “ And now the work begins… ” The year is now half-over and we are in the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years. Stores are closed, millions of people are out of work, racial strife is sweeping across the country and the lunatic in the White House wants to treat the U.S. military like his own personal security force. I’m worried about my job—while thanking God I still have one—and, on top of everything else, my vacuum cl...

“In matters of life and death, a man's vocabulary is almighty small.” It took me 40 years, but I finally made good on my promise. One night back in the Eighties, I came home from work and began watching Intruder in the Dust , the 1949 adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel about racism, murder, and injustice in a small Southern town. Shot on location in Faulkner’s hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, Intruder in the Dust has a documentary feel to it, as director Clarence Brown trains his camera on faces and locations that could never be found in a studio backlot. The film was shot in black and white, with no Technicolor to make things look pretty, and no music to stir up the emotions. They aren't necessary. I knew I should watch it, especially since I had taken a course in Faulkner in college and was eager to see how his work was adapted to film. I was tired, though, and not in the mood for anything serious, so I clicked off the TV and vowed that someday I’d sit down an...