"Take Me to the World"

Savor an early Sondheim.
Pre-You Tube, my friend and I went to the Museum of TV and Radio to watch this.
Ah, musical theater gleeks worshiping their idol on Kinoscope.

It's Norman Bates and Liesl from "The Sound of Music."

National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

Only hospitals can circulate this kind of memo:
That I should tune in to watch Harry Smith's colonoscopy live on TV while Katie Couric holds his hand.
And in case I missed it on TV early this morning, they sent another memo linking to it:




As an oncology nurse, I'm proud of it.
Will this make my Dad schedule one?
We'll see.

And The Winners Are ...

Losing my touch.
Scored only 60% correct on my Oscar predictions.
Honestly, no one saw that Argentinian movie winning.
I'll cop to my screenplay picks belonging in the "should" column and not the "will win" column.

In other news:



So naive of me. Only thought it was a power button symbol until the filthy comment writers on New York magazine pointed out it could be other things: "This is like when IT people have sex, on a wrapper."

Betting On ...

My Oscar pool ballot would be ticked as follows:

Picture: "Avatar"
Director: Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"
Actor: Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart"
Actress: Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side"
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds"
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, "Precious ..."
Animated Picture: "Up"
Foreign Language: "The White Ribbon"
Original Screenplay: QT, "Inglourious Basterds"
Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, "Up in the Air"

In the Coop

"Native chickens" in the sunroom ...
Where the parakeet also roosts.
I dub it our aviary.
My mother's rationale for keeping them: "If we have to clean 'bird poop,' they might as well lay eggs."

"This Is It"

"This Is It" (dir. Kenny Ortega, 2009).

Held out on its release on the moral grounds that the movie was exploitative. But as soon as MJ got to the chorus of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," I alit my high horse. It was probably meant for the Special Features of the concert movie, but instead became the main event. Surprised by its intimacy and one could see the gears turning in his head on how to entertain a stadium full of fans. Noticed the way he adjusts other performers onstage (the guitarist and his duet partner on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You") - those are generous moves from a star. More impressed by the "slower" sections, like "Human Nature. One could see the transformation - from his view outside of himself (as creator thinking of the audience) to being "in the moment."

St. Vincent's

Photo: My union dues at work.

Saw a line of red-capped NYSNA members streaming into the main entrance of St. Vincent's. They carried laminated signs that said "Save St. Vincent's."

A little background from the NY Times:

Out of Cash, St. Vincent’s Is Set to Close

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Published: February 6, 2010

The Greenwich Village institution, which is $700 million in debt and in danger of bankruptcy, has not found a partner and has stopped admitting some patients.

I find this beyond the union's purview. If the hospital stops serving the needs of the immediate community, then it won't survive. It has served Greenwich Village well when the AIDS crisis hit the neighborhood hard. Between it and Bellevue, they were at the forefront of that modern plague. My soft spot for St. Vincent's stems from that. The nuns during those times must have felt like their predecessors centuries ago, tending to victims of ancient plagues. I'm sure the hospital's nurses must have felt that as well. This is a guess: but the hospital has been riding that goodwill for a long time. The population who bestowed them all that good will are dwindling. The community has changed. Its new residents are moneyed and younger and their first choice for primary care and non-emergent surgery is probably not St. Vincent's. Being a Catholic hospital may have something to do with it as well. Do consumers choose which hospital to go to based on its strong religious affiliation? Maybe. And the hospital's heart, its duty to provide the underserved and survive in an urban economy, is part of its undoing. New York has "safety net" providers and St. Vincent's is not one of them. It thinks it is, but it isn't.

I am for saving St. Vincent's. That area of Manhattan needs a hospital. Without it, the nearest E.R. would be all the way on the East Side, all the way downtown, or St. Luke's Roosevelt in the upper 50s. To save itself, St. Vincent's needs to engage the community boards in its neighborhood and assess what they need. March with time and enhance the quality of care (I would emphasize technology here or add specialties - e.g. be a Stroke Center). The other solution is for HHC to swallow it up and become a full-fledged "safety net" provider. We're helping to bail them out, anyway.