Summer in the City
(A Blog in Many Acts)

Act I: Brilliant Sunsets

Scene One

(A city street. The night is though humid, is beginning to cool. Upstage, the sky; the sun just beginning to set. A passer-by might remark, “oh that’s nice”. For every passing moment the sky grows more and more alive with color until deep, vivid, breath-taking, firey passion pours out across the heavens. Passers by now stop and stare before uniformly wiping out their phones to Instagram the perfect #nofilter image.)

Scene Two

(A world divided in two planes: as stark a contrast as Comedy and Tragedy.
Below sprawls the ugly, consumer, conforming parking lot of Metlife Stadium. Cars stack in rows upon rows, each more identical than the last. Aliens looking at this parking lot would think it was manufactured in a factory.)
Above clouds scatter the sky with the opposite of order, yet some how seem ideally placed. An atheist would look at this sky and the words, “god’s glory” pop into his mind. This is the sort of sky that started religious belief eons ago.)

Act II: Bodies of Water, Central Park

Scene One

(The dappled sun paths of the most iconic park in the world. Center stage, gigantic even to those in the cheap seats, is our star, the Jackie Onassis Reservoir. Brilliant and blue, she reflects the surrounding skyscrapers but above all the sky. Joggers encircle her like moths drawn to her watery flame. In the distance, as if cut out with blunt scissors: Manhattan. Greenery hugs our lady Jackie, a surrounding fence shields her from the concrete jungle out there.)

Scene Two

(Twilight. The time of day, not the insipid book series. Lights up on lake in Central Park looks lovely and lonely. So similar to the 600,000 single ladies in the city. The ugly sister of Jackie O. Reservoir, she has no fence to protect her. Boats dip into her waters a hundred times a day, she never says no. Yet at this moment of twilight, she is fragile and beautiful, far more interesting that her perfectly manicured sister. Lights fade to black.)

Act III: Get-Away to Long Beach

Scene One

(The all-American beach of Long Beach, Long Island. Exactly an hour train ride from Manhattan, the sunbathers on this beach are chicer than those on Coney Island. The sand is clean, the water full of seaweed that disgusts city people, despite the sushi they ate just last night.  It is an all-American beach, with all the fixings: sand, surf, sun, life guards, colorful umbrellas, bikinis.)

FIRST INTERMISSION

Scenes from a New York City Summer will continue throughout the season