The Luna Park Gazette

“I believe in order that I may understand.” – Anselm of Canterbury I walked into a church for the first time in two years on Friday. I was out shopping when I passed by St. Anslem’s Roman Catholic Church on Fourth Avenue. I usually stop outside to recite the prayer before the crucifix, where, with burning soul, you beseech Jesus to fix deep in your heart lively sentiments of faith, hope and charity, true contrition for your sins and a firm purpose of amendment. It can be very comforting when the news is dark and you’re feeling lost. And yet all the times I’ve prayed outside St. Anslem’s, I’ve never gone inside, even though I’ve lived in Bay Ridge most of my life. I was always too busy heading somewhere else to walk in, and then the place was locked down, along with the rest of the planet, when Covid-19 came to town. But on Friday I saw a woman pull up the front door and step inside and I decided it was time to see the interior. A mass was just finishing up when I ...

No wonder I’m so tired. I’ve had vivid dreams for most of my life, but during the last week I experienced two back-to-back work-related nightmares that were so intense I should be getting a second paycheck. These psychotic situations bore no resemblance to my current job, for which I am very grateful. No, these delusions were a mental milkshake of past experiences, underlying emotional issues and heaping dose of WTF? The first one found me working at a weekly newspaper in Brooklyn not unliked the one I worked for in the Eighties. In this dream, I was heading off to cover some kind of occurrence at a local restaurant. The only problem was I had no idea what kind of occurrence I was covering, although judging by the hostile looks I was getting from the employees, it wasn’t good and they clearly did not want me there. I grew accustomed to this ill will whenever I showed up at crime scenes and accidents, where people were really just not that into you. It’s part of the jo...

I guess this is what they mean by “serendipity.” Many years ago, a woman named Madelon Champion approached Rod Serling, the genius behind The Twilight Zone , at a party and suggested an idea for an episode of the legendary TV show. Of course, Serling got unsolicited story ideas all the time. He once described how he and his staff had gone through a stack of manuscripts where the majority were “hand-scrawled, laboriously written, therapeutic unholy grotesqueries from sick, troubled, deeply disturbed people.” “Of the three remaining scripts,” he said, “all of clearly poetic, professional quality, none of them fitted the show." But this time was different. Serling was so impressed with the proposal that he paid Champion $500 on the spot gave her on-screen credit for suggesting the story idea. This would be the first and only time he’d do such a thing. The result of this meeting was episode entitled “I Shot an Arrow into the Air,” which I recorded on Friday nigh...

“A ship is always safe at the shore, but that is not what it is built for.” – Albert Einstein Oh, the humanity. The 50th New York Marathon ran right through my neighborhood this morning and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it more. The five-borough, 26-mile race returned after a two-year hiatus when the 2020 event was scrapped due to Covid-19—along with just about everything else we know and love in this town. The first New York City Marathon took place on Sept. 13, 1970 and was held entirely in Central Park. Of the 127 registered runners, there were 55 finishers. The first five-borough New York City Marathon took place in 1976 with about 2,000 runners. This year’s event had about 30,000 participants, but there have been more than 50,000 competitors in previous races. The marathon starts in Staten Island, goes over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and comes right through my neighborhood of Bay Ridge. My sister and I have been standing on Fourth Avenue for years a...