For the Rain it Raineth Every Day

June in New York City.

There's a reason Dylan didn't sing about it. With record rainfalls and many pitfalls for the aspiring artists and poets, it is, in a sense, a bleak and wavering Manhattan. The city is all but flooded. And, while there is some vague comfort of falling asleep to the sounds of rainfall on my air-conditioning unit juxtaposed against the angry cabbies on 1st Ave, there is no comfort in being blasted by a sideways spray of biblical-strength rain in Brooklyn.

The rain adds a bit of melancholy to the city. After a winter of discontent, the natural progression of things is a summer of sunshine to atone for the squalls, blizzards, and piles of grey-soot snowheaps on 14th Street. Coming out of my Midtown buildings late nights, I look up to see the skyscrapers obscured by mist and haze. Only the first 30 or so floors of the GE Building are visible at all. I half expect to see a dementor flying through the sky.

I marvel at anyone, at this point, who can justifiably leave the house without a glance outside, a look at the Weather Channel, or consulting their respective horoscope. It's been raining. For. The. Past. Three. Weeks. These people may be more optimistic than I, but as the saying goes, optimists do not survive nuclear warfare by hiding under their desks (or was that just schoolchildren in the 1950's middle-America?) In any case, my umbrella has been getting much more use than would be in any other sundry June.

But, in the rare glimmers of sunshine and nice weather, there is fun to be had. Fun to be had on city streets and dive bars and parks. Central Park is a magical place, with rumored secret portals to Narnia and Terabithia, and unicorns and fauns prancing about in the dregs of twilight. So, aside from the beautiful footpaths of the Rambles, the reptile inhabitants of Turtle Pond, and the carousel somewhere around W. 60th Street, is thanks to the Delacorte Theater, which presents free plays every summer. This summer? A stellar production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, followed later this summer by Euripides' The Bacchae. Free tickets! Central Park! Theatre! Pretentiousness! It was perfect. Or so it would seem.

Of course, there were unforeseen dilemmas. Namely, that my friend Laurie and I had to wake up at 5 o'clock that morning to get to Upper East Side to get H&H bagel to sustain us to get us all the way up to the 77th Street entrance of Central Park, to go past the statue of the Polish Conquerer, King Jagiello, through the Great Field overlooking Belvedere Castle, then past the avid theater fans who spent the night in Central Park to wait eleven hours in line in the cold and inconsiderate park to come back later that night to see Anne Hathaway and Audra McDonalad in the play. Oi. That is the way it must be done in New York, I suppose. And I can cross several things off my list:

Camping out in Central Park
Nearly dying in Central Park due to hypothermia
Ordering delivery to an undisclosed location in the Park
Seeing Anne Hathaway
Pointing and smiling at Oscar Eustis
Eating a Whole Foods dinner to a glorious sunset (the fact that the dinner is Whole Foods is superfluous information)

And, by the grace of the gods, it did NOT rain on the performance. Though a cool air creeped in through the copse of trees into the Delacorte, and as the sun went down, the audience began rummaging in their bags for shawls and sweaters, every bit - every aspect - was so well-wrought, very well executed. Sir Andrew Aguecheek stole the show through his witty fool rendition. I will save the academic insight for an academic blog. But suffice it to say, it rivaled the production I saw at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Which is one of my first loves. Besides Callum Blue, of course.

Until the sun shines again in my fair city, I remain enchanted.

Quote of the Day: "With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain."