Where in Manhattan? I grew up in 'da Bronx'. Yeah; I'm a freaking cliche- Bronx Irish Catholic from the Parkchester area.
I attended HS in the UWS (87th & West End- it's now luxe condos). I left NYC in the '80's and moved to Canada. I now live and thrive in Kingston, Ontario.
Cool. I used to ride the subway to Yankee Stadium for games, back in my youth.
I grew up on East 18th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues. In the apartment part of which was used for Barbra Streisand's character's flat in The Way We Were, after we moved 2 1/2 blocks west, to the corner of 18th and Irving Place. Right across from Pete's Tavern. Leonard Bernstein's son, eventually, lived upstairs, and I ran into the Great Man Himself quite a few times on those stairs. Also saw him conducting a rehearsal at Lincoln Center on a school trip.
Have you seen Maestro? I really think Bradley Cooper got both the sides I saw in person - the grand, ambitious, passionate maestro, and the very private, not terribly happy person I met on the stairs.
Also met Bill Murray, dining al fresco at the restaurant downstairs from us.
One thing Lenny always regretted was not developing into enough of a composer to be recognized for that, and not "just" a great conductor. Maybe this was part of what you saw.
He was also cognizent that he caused his family, whom he loved very much, great unhappiness. When he was, or had been, visiting his son, I can't but wonder whether it was that, rather.
Leonard Bernstein did compose some great and lasting music, and the world knows that, even if he felt it not enough.
But "enough" is always defined by the extent of one's ambitions. Sometimes a little humility is wholesome - healthful.
Well, Beethoven, for one, was a complete stranger to humility. Thank [insert name of deity here]. Otherwise we might have been deprived of a lot of glorious music.
Life's a balancing act. I once had a conversation with a fellow actor (a great one, whose artistic accomplishments dwarfed those of many household names) about the tension and conflict - which we both felt - between ambition and humanity.
Most spectacular careers are littered with the remant-shreds of other people's lives, consumed by artists in service to ambition.
We get great art - but there's often a terrible price. I am not saying the art isn't worth it, but dismissing the human cost is - inhumane, and therefore as lufe-denying as the art can be life-giving, at best.
Yes, they sacrifice themselves, but they'll sacrifice anyone, anything, to fuel their art.
I can't go there, it isn't my nature, or I might well have been a quite famous actress. I really was that good, as was my friend referenced earlier.
I'll take (for example) Beethoven's unpleasantness, boorishness, pain, suffering and ill temper over humility any day if it results in his artistic output. To me, the price is definitely worth it.
Am easy "take" when you did not personally have to deal with his unpleasantness, boorishness, nor ill-temper. Nor experienced any part of the pain and suffering he inflicted on those around him.
I'll bet his wife's life was a living hell, and I'm more certain he couldn't have achieved what he did without being sheltered from a lot of the daily drudgeries and miseries of life by that very wife.
I couldn't live with that, as a human being, but that's me. Go your own way. It takes all kinds to make a world.
Small-town Maine is pretty close! And that's from a Manhattan-born-and-raised girl.
After the age of 60, I published my (hopefully) first two novels - love letters to small-town Maine life and people.
Where in Manhattan? I grew up in 'da Bronx'. Yeah; I'm a freaking cliche- Bronx Irish Catholic from the Parkchester area.
I attended HS in the UWS (87th & West End- it's now luxe condos). I left NYC in the '80's and moved to Canada. I now live and thrive in Kingston, Ontario.
Cool. I used to ride the subway to Yankee Stadium for games, back in my youth.
I grew up on East 18th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues. In the apartment part of which was used for Barbra Streisand's character's flat in The Way We Were, after we moved 2 1/2 blocks west, to the corner of 18th and Irving Place. Right across from Pete's Tavern. Leonard Bernstein's son, eventually, lived upstairs, and I ran into the Great Man Himself quite a few times on those stairs. Also saw him conducting a rehearsal at Lincoln Center on a school trip.
Have you seen Maestro? I really think Bradley Cooper got both the sides I saw in person - the grand, ambitious, passionate maestro, and the very private, not terribly happy person I met on the stairs.
Also met Bill Murray, dining al fresco at the restaurant downstairs from us.
"not terribly happy person I met on the stairs"
One thing Lenny always regretted was not developing into enough of a composer to be recognized for that, and not "just" a great conductor. Maybe this was part of what you saw.
He was also cognizent that he caused his family, whom he loved very much, great unhappiness. When he was, or had been, visiting his son, I can't but wonder whether it was that, rather.
Leonard Bernstein did compose some great and lasting music, and the world knows that, even if he felt it not enough.
But "enough" is always defined by the extent of one's ambitions. Sometimes a little humility is wholesome - healthful.
Well, Beethoven, for one, was a complete stranger to humility. Thank [insert name of deity here]. Otherwise we might have been deprived of a lot of glorious music.
Humility has its place, but maybe not here.
Life's a balancing act. I once had a conversation with a fellow actor (a great one, whose artistic accomplishments dwarfed those of many household names) about the tension and conflict - which we both felt - between ambition and humanity.
Most spectacular careers are littered with the remant-shreds of other people's lives, consumed by artists in service to ambition.
We get great art - but there's often a terrible price. I am not saying the art isn't worth it, but dismissing the human cost is - inhumane, and therefore as lufe-denying as the art can be life-giving, at best.
Yes, they sacrifice themselves, but they'll sacrifice anyone, anything, to fuel their art.
I can't go there, it isn't my nature, or I might well have been a quite famous actress. I really was that good, as was my friend referenced earlier.
I'll take (for example) Beethoven's unpleasantness, boorishness, pain, suffering and ill temper over humility any day if it results in his artistic output. To me, the price is definitely worth it.
And yes, I am that selfish.
Am easy "take" when you did not personally have to deal with his unpleasantness, boorishness, nor ill-temper. Nor experienced any part of the pain and suffering he inflicted on those around him.
I'll bet his wife's life was a living hell, and I'm more certain he couldn't have achieved what he did without being sheltered from a lot of the daily drudgeries and miseries of life by that very wife.
I couldn't live with that, as a human being, but that's me. Go your own way. It takes all kinds to make a world.