Wednesday was movie night at the 42nd Street Regal. As my crosstown bus dawdled along 42nd Street I gazed out the window at Madame Tussauds, Ripley’s, McDonald’s. Once again 42nd Street has won. It’s as tacky as ever. None of that Guiliani urban renewal nonsense has had the slightest effect. The movie was Foxcatcher. Steve Carell is perfect as John Dupont, a modern day Caligula, Channing Tatum is a graceful gorilla and Mark Ruffalo is heartbreakingly well balanced.

Thursday was prepare for the worse evening. N. Y. State’s Preparedness Program was presented at High School for Health Professions and Human Services (The old Stuyvesant High School). Some very cute and courteous National Guard gents in camouflage outfits  (Thank you, Ma’am, Please take the left, ma’am.) handed us participants red movie tickets and told us we had to present them for the book bag full of survival goodies. They directed the masses to the auditorium where we had to endure third tier NYC politicians thanking us for showing up. I cheated by listening to Barry Manilow on my iPhone until I noticed street wise members of the crowd leaving. I snuck into the line out the door and escaped with the goodie bag.

A suggestion for a perfect NYC day: Go to the Matisse Cut Outs at MOMA, lunch on the fourth floor and see a movie. We saw Winter Carnival (1939) a terrible but delicious movie of 1939, deemed Hollywood’s greatest year but you wouldn’t know it from this flick. It starred Ann Sheridan frolicking in the snow at Dartmouth College, more lady-like than in Drive by Night, and Richard Carlson, her love interest, who later played in All About Eve.The script was worked on by Budd Schulberg and F. Scott Fitzgerald. This experience led to Schulberg’s novel, The Disenchanted. Amazing what we’ll do for a paycheck.