On Day Three, there had been some strange goings-on in the apartment where I was staying.  A rug in the bathroom, which I was sharing with the son of the house and a friend who was living there with them, was utterly soaked.  Then I noticed a plunger lying on the floor.  So, concerned about sanitation, I went to ask whether the son whether the toilet had overflowed.  His friend responded like he was puzzled.  But the son barked “NO!” And did so too quickly.

In the evening, the mother decided to close the windows in her bedroom and turn on the air-conditioning because it was hot and humid.  I asked if they we could do the in my room too.  She had her son close the window in both rooms.  When I went into my room later, he had closed the window and turned on the air conditioning for me.  But, there was a mysterious puddle on the floor, as there had been on my first day there, but at a different spot.  It is possible–most likely probable–that their small dog had followed him into the room and had an accident.  But for a moment, I had an uneasy slightly paranoid feeling that the son might have done something to get even with me for asking about the toilet.  Itchy, I know.  But it passed through my mind.  Whatever the source of the mysterious puddles, I spent a portion of Day Four shopping for slippers so I would not have to walk barefoot on the floors.

But, along the way, I saw the wonderful Jerome Robbins exhibit at the New York public library of the performing arts located at Lincoln Center. His choreography–his form of dance–is so free, and such a mix of ballet with modern, and so much building an American identity for dance.  The exhibit contains an essay he wrote in high school about his own many “masks,” film footage with accompanying music of a number of his ballets, including Fancy Free, as well as the beginning piece of West Side Story, and one wall explains how he and others went about transferring West Side Story from stage to screen, including the search for locations that would give the sense of freedom while providing a necessary frame so the dances were not lost in the breadth of the scenes.

In late afternoon, I got a call from a cousin with an impromptu invitation to a play that night:  The Lifespan of a Fact, a 3-person play starring Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones, and Bobby Cannavale.  It’s theme: “truth” vs. “fact.”  Philosophical.  Cerebral.  But, in today’s atmosphere of “alternate facts” and lies, it takes on a political relevance as well.