A conscience is a chink in one’s armor

I wrote on Saturday that I would watch the 1937 version of The Prince and the Pauper soon. And on Sunday I did. Some thoughts after watching it: The twin boys playing the prince and the pauper were a bit too big to play ten year old boys (in history Edward gained the throne at age nine). At the time of filming the actors were actually fifteen. The boys did a good job acting. By the end of the film I think I could tell them apart and I don’t think they switched roles. Of course, a lot of Twain’s story had to be left out of a two hour movie. And, of course, there were some differences. The king’s great seal plays an important role in the plot and it’s purpose is better explained. The guy designated as the underage king’s High Protector is shown to be more devious – with a pauper boy in the role of king the High Protector would have more control over him. So the palace guard is sent to find and kill the real king. The character Miles Hendon becomes Edward’s protector and was played by Errol Flynn. So of course there was a big sword fight – and while Flynn was occupied with two associated why didn’t the captain go ahead and kill Edward? During filming there were complaints that Flynn, a star at the time, doesn’t show up until nearly halfway through the movie. Tom, dressed as the prince, is advised by his father the king to be ruthless to protect his crown. A conscience is a chink in one’s armor. One needs to be willing to kill rivals. As mentioned in my last post one aspect of the story is that Edward develops a conscience. The script thankfully dropped Twain’s efforts to have the characters speak in the English of the 1500s (none of the “Thou dost...”). I’m not sure the actor’s accents were all that English. The filmscore was by Erich Korngold and the main theme was adapted a few years later into the last movement of his Violin Concerto (the other two movements are based on themes from other movies). Korngold was a composing child prodigy in Austria and fled when the Nazis took over. He ended up in Hollywood and became famous as a film composer. My travelogue of my recent trip. In the afternoon of July 1 I went to Aunt and Uncle’s house in northern Ohio. Also there was their daughter and her husband and my brother with his two daughters, a son-in-law, and two of their children. The time together continued until after lunch the next day. I left one brother to visit the other near Pittsburgh. I stayed with him and his wife two nights. In between, Brother and I visited the Carnegie-Mellon Museum of Art and Natural History. On Thursday, July 4 I drove to New York City. The cousin I had just seen in Ohio had offered the use of her apartment in the Bronx, even though I would get there the day before she and her husband would. Seeing New York fireworks from their 11th floor balcony sounded pretty cool. Before I left Pittsburgh Cousin texted me to say her husband had tested positive for COVID and they were going directly to their apartment. After thinking about that for many miles I realized the protections they proposed would be insufficient and staying with them could jeopardize the rest of my trip. So sitting in a restaurant in the middle of Pennsylvania I worked to find a hotel on Manhattan as I fretted about the miles and hours I still needed to travel. That’s when I was introduced to the “facility fee” included in the final price of every hotel I checked. I knew about it before I clicked on “book,” but it made the comparison prices on Google Maps meaningless. I chose one where the facility fee was $25 a night. Some appeared to be as high as $60 a night. I appreciate more Biden’s effort to get rid of “junk fees.” With my chosen route now obsolete I relied on my car’s navigation system, which is eleven years old and doesn’t know about traffic. I didn’t use my phone because I didn’t have a place to display it. I got onto Manhattan just before the fireworks were to start, but by the time I found the hotel, checked in, and parked the car (which stayed parked for the rest of my time in NYC), the fireworks were over. The hotel room was small, just a bit bigger than the bed. That meant no chair, no desk, and the only place to open the suitcase was on the bed. I had a place to stay! In Manhattan! When first started planning this trip I thought about leaving my car at a train station well outside the city. That idea was dropped when Cousin offered letting me stay with her, which included a spot for my car. But as I passed train stations on my way to Midtown I thought of it again. Parking near the hotel was $44 a night and that was supposedly with a hotel validated discount. On Friday, July 5 I saw the Museum of the City of New York. Cousin joined me there, wearing a mask. It’s about the history of the city, its growth, and its immigrant communities. One hall had displays of activism by various groups wanting their rights – black people, women, unions, and more. I was surprised the display around LGBTQ rights was focused on trans people. In a way it makes sense. A big driving force of the Stonewall riots was the drag queens.

Cousin went home. I found how useful Google Maps is when using public transportation when I went to the World Trade Center Memorial. That place is intense. After reliving what happened that day I was tired and drained by the time I got to the interesting part of the planning that went into pulling off the attack.

On Saturday, July 6 Cousin said she had tested positive for COVID. She arranged for a friend to take the tickets for the two Broadway shows I had bought for her. In the morning I walked through a street fair that had closed off 6th Avenue, then browsed a few stores in Times Square. The show on Saturday was a matinee of Stereophonic. It had just won the Tony Award for best play. It is basically about a five member band recording an album with the help of two technicians. The front half of the stage is the control room and the back half is set up as the soundstage. In addition to a few songs that get performed all the way through there are also the problems of actually recording – having to do retakes, hearing a rattle coming from the drums, and is the drummer slowing down? There’s also a lot of interpersonal conflict – the band leader comes across as too tyrannical, one is going through addiction recovery, some of the relationships are more than bandmates and those aren’t going well. Nothing momentous and all interesting. The program said six of the seven actors were new to Broadway. Two of them got Tony Awards for best featured actor/actress. After the show I went down to Greenwich Village. The first stop was the LGBTQ community center and its bookstore, where I bought a couple. Then to stop by Stonewall Inn, which was still basking in Biden’s recent visit to declare the site to be a national monument and open a visitor center (closed when I got there). I wandered the area a bit, got supper, then headed back to my hotel. On Sunday, July 7 I realized I needed to wash one brief and one pair of socks. I filled out the hotel’s laundry request and took it to the front desk. In the morning I roamed around Rockefeller Center, though the only buildings I went into were a basement level concourse (to get out of the heat) and FAO Schwartz. It didn’t have the diversity of toys I expected. It does have the music keyboard on the floor Tom Hanks made famous.

In the afternoon I finally saw Hamilton. Niece wanted to know what I thought of it, so I’ll share: Dislikes: Loud. Sometimes the rap songs could be hard to understand, mostly because they went too fast – I couldn’t savor the rhymes. And it was too visually busy with the near constant background movement of the company and the frequently changing light patterns on the floor. Likes: Good story, historically important, and well told. Great use of a mixed race cast – a black George Washington, a jiving black Thomas Jefferson! The music was good and innovative, especially the rap and the use of the phrase “my shot” used through the show. Excellent performances (of course). And King George was a hoot! I see it fits the definition of an opera, in which the whole story is told through music (and yes, in this case, rap is included). After the show I went down to Hudson Yards and walked a long section of the High Line. This used to be an elevated freight train route to supply west side food businesses. It has been turned into an elevated park that, while I was there, got a lot of use.

There is also artwork along the path.

Back at the hotel I found my laundry hadn’t been done – no service on Sundays. The evening desk clerk told me he didn’t know service was not offered on Sundays. The morning clerk didn’t know either. Why didn’t they know? Cousin, who was feeling better, offered the use of her building’s laundry facilities. So, on Monday, July 8 I accepted her offer, now needing to do a full load. Between cycles we sat outside. Then I briefly saw her apartment while I changed into freshly laundered clothes. After doing some driving through a bit of the Bronx I headed to Hartford, Connecticut. On Tuesday, July 9 I headed to eastern Connecticut to see a cemetery on the property where ancestors lived for a couple generations. Alas, the most important gravestones were too old to be legible. From Tuesday evening to Saturday afternoon I attended a handbell seminar. In that time there were fourteen class sessions and eight concerts (and a ninth at a local carillon tower), all of it wonderful to a handbell geek like me. On Sunday, July 14 I toured the Mark Twain House in Hartford. The author lived here for 17 years, his most productive time. Of course, many of his books were for sale in the gift shop and I bought a few I haven’t read yet (see above and my previous post). After that came laundry again, this time at a laundromat open on Sundays. In the evening I walked the Esplanade over the highway between the hotel and the river. On Monday, July 15 I drove to the Catskill Mountains (Brother, who has lived near much larger, would insist they're only big hills). The first stop was the home of Frederic Church, which he called Olana. He was an important painter in the Hudson Valley School. Alas, his house is not open on Mondays, though I could walk around the outside. Thomas Cole was the founder of the Hudson Valley School and his home is just across the Hudson River from Church's. It is also closed Mondays. I didn’t stop.

After lunch I went hiking to Kaaterskill Falls (yes, there are people swimming in the pool at the bottom) with hopes of going on to escarpment lookout points. I got a ways, but the trail was too rough.

I had an enjoyable Bed and Breakfast place that evening. On Tuesday, July 16 I went to Hunter Mountain Resort to take their chairlift to the top for the scenic view I missed the day before. I found it ... closed. I thought I had checked hours ahead of time. Just now I checked the website. It said the chairlift started summer operations at the end of June, but it was hard to find hours of operation and nothing about being closed on the 15th. I had talked to a Kaaterskill ranger the day before about other good views. She suggested the Five State Lookout on route 23 between Cairo and Windham, NY. It is indeed a marvelous view, but from its designation one should be able to see into five state. But I don’t see how one could view more than three.

In the afternoon I went on Rail Explorer trip of about two hours. Transportation is by vehicles that sit on abandoned railroad rails and are pedaled. One can get a two or four seat vehicle. I got a two-seater.

At the appointed time all those on the current tour set out, with some space between vehicles, for an eight mile journey. We met up before crossing the main road so we could all cross together. At the halfway point the vehicles are turned around by being lifted up from the track and spun (this photo from the starting place). Then it is back to the starting point. Since this is somewhat uphill constant pedaling is required. But it isn't strenuous because once the pedals move at a certain speed an electric assist kicks in.

The guys who shepherd the tour, guide the highway crossing, a turn the vehicles around (and pedal just as much as we do) certainly get a workout and did a good job of keeping it all running smoothly. It is billed as scenic, but trees lining the rails mean we didn't see much. Once moving the vehicles are noisy and jarring. The seat shifts and rattles with each stroke. Even so, I'm glad I did it. This is one of several sites around the country where they run tours.

I drove on to Cortland, NY for more family research. Some of the family in eastern Connecticut moved to this area for about a dozen years, long enough for the next generation to be born. And from there I drove home.