The Luna Park Gazette

"History is a vast early warning system." – Norman Cousins What was that about history repeating itself? I recently started watching a British TV show called The Indian Doctor , which tells the story of the eponymous physician who moves from Delhi with his wife to a Welsh mining town in the early Sixties. It’s a fish-out-of-water story and, while I found the first season enjoyable enough, I thought about bailing on the show to cut down on my TV watching. However, I changed my mind when Season Two began and our hero, Prem, played by the fabulous Sanjeev Bhaskar, had to contend with a smallpox outbreak in the village. But he also has to battle ignorance and religious fanaticism in the form of Reverend Todd, who refuses to be vaccinated, holds group meetings despite ordinances against social distancing, and encourages his congregation to trust prayer of over science. This series, which ran from 2010 to 2013, was intended to paint a picture of the past, but it a...

There’s no wrong way to float. That priceless bit of advice was the last thing Divine J9, the founder of Body Mind Salt, told me Wednesday just before I began my first float therapy session. I had been walking by this spa on Third Avenue for weeks, promising myself that I was going to give float therapy a try, but never making an appointment. This is an all-too-familiar behavior pattern for me, but since I had off last week. I decided it was time to sink the excuses and sign up for a float. Float therapy, or sensory deprivation, involves climbing into a tank of water filled with Epsom salt for a zero-gravity voyage through inner space. The first isolation tank was designed in 1954 by John C. Lilly, a physician and neuroscientist, who wanted to study the origins of consciousness by cutting off all external stimuli. Studies have indicated that time spent floating in a sensory deprivation tank may provide such benefits as muscle relaxation, better sleep and decreased stres...

I’m sure going to miss those views. I returned to my office on Monday for the last time to clean out my desk as my company completes the move to a virtual workspace. I have the week off and since I don’t feel like risking a run-in with COVID-19, I’m doing yet another stay-cation. In February 2020, we had moved from our old and spooky location on Wall Street to this wonderful new facility in Brookfield Place overlooking the Hudson River. We were up on the 27th Floor and we had spectacular views of the city from every window. I posted photos of the place on Facebook and told everybody and his brother that I couldn’t wait for spring when I would eat lunch outside by the water. It was going to be great. Two weeks later we shut down the office in response to COVID-19. Most of us believed at the time that the closure would be brief. We’d return to the office—and normal life—in a few weeks, maybe a few months, at most. But the body count and infection rates climbed and working...

For one awful moment this morning I was back in 2001. I had gone to Ground Zero to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I was feeling bit anxious, given the pandemic and ever-rising level of madness in this world, but I was there when the planes hit the World Trade Center and I was determined to be there today. Twenty years ago, I was standing outside a Brooks Brothers store on Church Street watching smoke pour out of the North Tower and wondering what the hell was happening. I was working in a building across the street and the plan was to go home, meet up with my sister and take our father to dinner for his 80th birthday. As I watched the North Tower burning, I recall thinking that if this was indeed a terrorist attack, they often happen in twos. And then that second plane hit the South Tower. The area looks so different now. The Brooks Brothers store is gone and the Trade Center location has been turned into a memorial. So many businesses in the a...

Every time I walk through the front door of my building, the first thing I see is the empty downstairs apartment. The woman who had been living here moved out a few weeks ago and I still haven’t gotten used to the sight of that barren studio. I walked into the place a few nights ago to look around and I thought of the times in my life when I had moved; all the hassle of packing up my life into boxes and suitcases and moving on to the next empty apartment. I started to feel the itch. I love my apartment and I know I am lucky to have it, yet there’s a part of me that’s always looking for the next new place. My company announced last week that, like so many other businesses, we’re giving up our office space and going virtual. We had just moved into a fabulous new building in early 2020 when COVID-19 came crashing down on the world. I despise commuting with all my heart, particularly now with onset of colder weather and the spread of the Delta variant. But I hate the fac...