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...

I took a deep breath and focused on the words tattooed across the trainer's chest: "Death before Dishonor." This was Saturday afternoon and I was standing in the football field at Fort Hamilton High School beneath a merciless sun trying desperately to avoid both as I did mitt work for the first time in months. I did manage to duck the Grim Reaper, at least for the moment, so I guess one out of two ain't bad. Exercise in the age of Covid-19 is a dicey proposition, given the potential for transmission. But after months of shadowboxing alone in my living room, I wanted to hit something solid, and, well, it's been a long time. After a few rounds of this torture I came close to hitting solid ground--face first. "C'mon," my trainer said, "we gotta show these young whippersnappers a thing or two!" Great idea, but at that moment the only thing I could show them was that getting older seriously sucks. I just turned 63 years old, but t...

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” -- Sophocles I looked around the barren cavern that served as my prison cell and locked eyes with an emaciated woman in a ragged jumpsuit. I had no idea why I had been locked up in this rocky mountain hellhole, but being Catholic I figured I was probably guilty. I had only one question for my fellow inmate. “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked. The woman smiled weakly and pointed to a battered stool with a hole in it. And then I woke up. I turned 63 years old today and the very first thing I want to say is “Thank God.” I don’t like being this old, but I really like being here, seeing that we’re in the middle of a pandemic right now and the United States has lost nearly 100,000 people. That dream I had late last week is hardly surprising in light of the self-quarantine and social-distancing measures we're taking in response to the cornhole-a-virus that’s been ravaging our lives since March. Sinc...

"Anthony, please come around, something is lost and it cannot be found.”—prayer to St. Francis While I was freaking, my sister was praying. St. Anthony delivered on his title as the patron saint of lost things last week, after my 5-minute stroll in the park took a sharp turn on to Psycho Street. We finally had decent weather around these parts, with the sun shining and the temperature so pleasant you could almost forget we’re living in the middle of a plague. After work Wednesday, I had to get out of the house for a quick hike around Shore Road Park before coming home to fix dinner. I’ve been working from home since Covid-19 muscled into our lives—and thank God I have a job—and I’ve taken to wearing gym pants at “the office,” since there’s no sense in being all dressed up with nowhere to go. I don’t like to wear the casual duds outside of the house unless I’m doing my power walk because the pants don’t have decent pockets and I tend to cram everything except the Encyclo...