The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine

Today, my Transition Network had a very educational and inspiring tour of:
The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.

Wayno Draino, artist/actor/stand-up comic

I had a late lunch today today with Wayno Draino at a diner in Manhattan. We spoke for a long time and there is much to write so this interview will be put up in parts.

Wayno was born in Bayonne, NJ. He declares: "I was born under the smokestacks of Bayonne, and that is why most people think I have brain damage now. At the hospital, the birthing room is underneath the smokestacks and when the babies are born they get that toxic injection of smoke to prepare them for living in Bayonne. If they don't, they can die within a month." Wayno says the air in Bayonne is 60% nicotine. He grew up on a cul-de-sac, 75 feet from a chemical container. When he was a kid, he used to play "hide and go seek" and hide on top of the tank. But, "it is really tough to hide when you are glowing."

Wayno was an illustrator who did not really play with other kids because he was very introverted. He says in Bayonne everybody was beating each other up all day long. He learned to play hockey and football not because he wanted to be a great sports man. He liked tackling and punching the other kids.

He always was looking for friends... so when he was a teenager he was sitting around on the docks at his Long Beach Island summer home and everybody was real quiet. You could hear the crickets. He was introverted, but he started talking. The more he talked, the more the girls liked him. He would tell stories about his life; his wild and crazy days. He was overly animated and added punchlines and would "crack everybody up." It was an amazing feeling getting everybody in the group to laugh. He felt "connected to humanity" which is a feeling he almost never had. He was truly happy when he saw people around him laughing and that is why he began doing stand-up. And comedy is also a defense mechanism that helps him get through miserable days. It was very dark and industrial in the part of town in which he grew up and Bayonne was "not a very happy place."

Wayno said his whole family was in the TV business. His father was a film editor for CBS and at the end of his career he had his own film editing company that edited TV commercials. Early in his career, Wayno was a "shock" comic to get the attention of the audience. I met Wayno in about 1988 at the Eagle Tavern, which was located on West 14th Street in NYC. The pub had great comedy open mic nights for beginners, and this is Wayno from 20 years ago doing stand-up. We got along and became friends, and Wayne cast me as his mother in his film, which he said I could call "Challenged Superheroes." It actually had another name.... and Wayne laughed when I told him I was changing the name of the film for this blog. Anthony Ribustello was also in the film. Wayno told me the film in which I appear will soon be up on YouTube. I still can remember my first line: "Hey everybody, Wayne's here." And Wayno reminded me that I was in the illustration of the film for his "New Underground Magazine."

We went on to discuss Dan Aykroyd's "Out There" show. Wayno Draino worked for the show as a graphics and animation producer for 6 weeks. After 60 shows were recorded, the show was cancelled.

Wayno is indeed outrageous and he went on to tell me how his "doodling" got him into some recent trouble on a plane. I was really laughing. He certainly has a way of telling a great story.

Wayno Draino has given written permission for all of his art work (posted below) to appear at this blog.

Cheryl Ingersoll, model

All young girls who grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s knew the face of Cheryl Ingersoll. Cheryl was a very popular model who appeared in hundreds of teen and romance magazines, in print ads for films, TV commercials, and she was on the cover of paperback novels. She was in a Hires Root Beer TV ad and a print ad for Knox Gelatine which appears at this blog. I can recall seeing Cheryl's pretty face on so many digests, journals, and magazines in all the "stationery" stores. In my opinion, she looked like the prettiest teenager... with a perfect smile and even more beautiful hair. She also posed for commercial artists. Cheryl says: "There were a lot of paperback bookcovers that were paintings of me." One well known artist (with whom she worked) was Charles McVicker. "He has now been for many years a highly successful landscape artist."

In the 1970s, I would always go into a luncheonette on West 15th Street and browse through the magazines with "beauty tips" and invariably I would see a photo of Cheryl. So, I was very surprised when one day, in about 1990, I was walking around and I saw Cheryl! "There she is," I cried. "That's the model!" I ran over to her and I exclaimed: "You are the pretty model I saw on the cover of all the fashion magazines." Cheryl seemed surprised that I recognized her... but, she acknowledged she was indeed "that girl." I recall telling her she had not changed and she was completely recognizable. Thereafter, we developed a neighborly relationship.

When I began this blog and saw Cheryl, I asked her if she would be interviewed. Last summer, she agreed..... and we finally sat down this Sunday morning and talked over brunch. Her face still hasn't changed a bit. Again I told Cheryl, "You still look exactly the same." She really is instantly recognizable and appears to not have aged.

Cheryl grew up in a small town in Ohio. Since she was fourteen, she thought anybody could be a model and she knew she had to go to New York to pursue a modeling career. So, when Cheryl was eighteen she left Ohio with her childhood friend, Suzanne Ryan, for Manhattan. They lived for a time at the Chelsea Hotel and in Greenwich Village. Along the way, friends helped her with advice and she developed connections. She had photos made for a portfolio and she even got an answering service. She was first signed by Lawrence Famous Talents and later the very popular Charles Ryan Agency and American Girl. And, through the Victor Jay agency she got television work. Her sister, Nancy, also was a model and they appeared in photo shoots together. Cheryl was also an artist all those years... along the way meeting the great Willem de Kooning. She worked in the city and she was considered a teenage model through her twenties and until she was almost thirty. Cheryl and Suzanne are still today dear friends.

Cheryl stopped modeling in the 1980s and she works now for Fashion Group International, which she considers family. In May, it will be eleven years she has been there and that is another blessing. Cheryl warmly added: "Please mention that my beautiful daughter, Nancy Cristina, is the light of my life. She truly is a wonderful blessing. I am a vegan because of my love of animals. I have two cats that live with me, Marcella and Sophie. Transcendental Meditation is a very important part of my spiritual life along with St. Peter's Episcopal Church." Cheryl also feels that she has had a blessed and wonderful life. She said that one of the most important things she has been doing for the past eight years is working as a volunteer at the New York Foundling Hospital. She finds it extremely rewarding and fulfilling because the "best thing is helping others." She asked me: "Do you see why I feel the way I do about my life?" And then she happily stated, "You know, it only keeps getting better!"

Dan Wakefield, author and screenwriter

Dan Wakefield has written the novels, "Going All the Way," and "Starting Over." Both of those books were made into major motion pictures. Now, he writes books on spirituality. "How Do We Know When It's God?" is his spiritual memoir. This link is his website.
Dan lives in Florida, so I sent him a list of questions for this interview and today he replied in an E-mail.

Q: Many baby boomers who grew up all over the country during the 50s are fascinated with that time period and have a general feeling of nostalgia for all things connected to those years. Do you think all children are sentimental about the years during which they grew up, or was there something special about the 50s?
A: I don't think all people are sentimental about their youth- especially those who grew up as Jews during WWII, as well as all children whose homes were bombed or (those who had) parents or family members killed in wartime- and probably many who grew up in our Depression of the '30s. The '50s was a time of peace, except for Korea and there were no new wars when Ike was president (1952-1960.)

Q: What year did you leave Boston? And please speak a little about your decision to move to Florida and about your present life there.
A: I left Boston in 1992, lived back in NYC until I went to Florida in 1994- for the reason I was offered a good position as Writer in Residence at Florida International University.

Q: You have said you believe in "putting aside the 'numbing' distractions of television and music." Do you watch any television or go to the movies... and are there any recent television shows or films you have seen that you enjoyed?
A: I go to movies and I think "Mad Men" is the best thing I've ever seen on TV and the only accurate description of the '50s on TV or film. I also watch "The Good Wife" and "Glee."

Q: Do you think there has been a general "dumbing down" of American culture in the past few decades?
A: Yes.

Q: Helen Weaver, in "The Awakener," suggests that today's Village may be just a facade and that the real Village may still be there underneath... just like it used to be. Do you think time creates a sort of pentimenti that drives imaginations to dream of time travel?
A: Helen Weaver said that in my book, "New York in the Fifties." "The Awakener" is a terrific book and a great remembrance of Kerouac and the era!

Q: If you believe in reincarnation, do you think it is possible to be reborn into the past?
A: I don't believe or disbelieve in reincarnation. I am open to anything, but I just don't know. I'd like to come back as Babe Ruth.

Thanks, Dan Wakefield!

Here is more on Dan, a writer from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dan Wakefield has approved the use of the above photo at this blog.

'Tis the Season

In 1897, Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Sun. This was her letter:

Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in THE SUN it's so." Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West 95th Street

These are photos of 115 West 95th Street that I took today.


Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus.

And this is a photo I took around the holidays that I call "Cute in NY."

Ain't We Got Fun

Jack Kerouac sings!
listen to this!

Beat Poetry Contest

My poem, "WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY," was chosen as the first place winner of the Beat Poetry Contest at: The Daily Beat. Please go to Rick Dale's website to read my poem. And thank-you, Rick!

Here, as well, is my Jack Kerouac inspired poem.

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY
by Marjorie J. Levine

Almost dusk:
Last summer on one Wednesday, in July,
I sat on a bench, a grey wooden tired
Bench on a boardwalk out at old Long Beach.
In the sky a lonely and lost grey kittiwake tipped
As the hot pink sun set in blazing technicolor over
Hot pinkish sand and the fading blue ocean water.

That morning:
I had thought about seeing great art...
Vermeer, or Courbet, or maybe Monet.
But, I drove to the beach instead to think
To think about everything creative that had been
Created before I got here, and when I was here,
And what will be created when I leave this place.
When one day I leave my place and all places in my
Consciousness that is now in this time and was
At a past time and will be in some next time;
Maybe all time exists at the same time.
The great minds of theoretical physicists search
For the "Theory of Everything" as they sit
In their cluttered rooms, their great thinking rooms.
In universities, they ponder the mathematical equations
And Schrodinger's cat and all those mysteries.

In the evening:
It is during the quiet and still and sad night when
I miss most the people I never met:
Edie Beale, and the Rat Pack, and even Rod Serling
Who made me want to time travel: to go back to simpler places
Like Nedick's, or the Belmore, or Bickford's, and Willoughby.
Then the longing, a longing when distant sounds and faraway
Foghorns drive thoughts to reflect on a life visible through some
Smoky cracked mirror, a haunted and haunting steamy mirror.
As I am sort of old now and getting older
There is a vague and odd feeling that I,
Like the kittiwake, somehow must have lost the way.

© 2009 Marjorie Levine

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY

Here's my poem that won Rick Dale's Beat Poetry Contest on December 3, 2009.

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY

Almost dusk:
Last summer on one Wednesday, in July,
I sat on a bench, a grey wooden tired
Bench on a boardwalk out at old Long Beach.
In the sky a lonely and lost grey kittiwake tipped
As the hot pink sun set in blazing technicolor over
Hot pinkish sand and the fading blue ocean water.

That morning:
I had thought about seeing great art...
Vermeer, or Courbet, or maybe Monet.
But, I drove to the beach instead to think
To think about everything creative that had been
Created before I got here, and when I was here,
And what will be created when I leave this place.
When one day I leave my place and all places in my
Consciousness that is now in this time and was
At a past time and will be in some next time;
Maybe all time exists at the same time.
The great minds of theoretical physicists search
For the "Theory of Everything" as they sit
In their cluttered rooms, their great thinking rooms.
In universities, they ponder the mathematical equations
And Schrodinger's cat and all those mysteries.

In the evening:
It is during the quiet and still and sad night when
I miss most the people I never met:
Edie Beale, and the Rat Pack, and even Rod Serling
Who made me want to time travel: to go back to simpler places
Like Nedick's, or the Belmore, or Bickford's, and Willoughby.
Then the longing, a longing when distant sounds and faraway
Foghorns drive thoughts to reflect on a life visible through some
Smoky cracked mirror, a haunted and haunting steamy mirror.
As I am sort of old now and getting older
There is a vague and odd feeling that I,
Like the kittiwake, somehow must have lost the way.

© Marjorie Levine 2009

A literary tour, Chelsea/Greenwich Village/Morningside Heights

This is 454 West 20th Street, where Jack Kerouac, in 1951, wrote "On The Road."


I stood in front of the door through which he must have passed so many times.


And this is the southwest corner of West 20th Street where: "Dean, ragged in a motheaten overcoat he bought specially for the freezing temperatures of the East, walked off alone..."


"and the last I saw of him he rounded the corner of Seventh Avenue, eyes on the street ahead, and bent to it again."


In her heartfelt memoir, "The Awakener," Helen Weaver writes about her love affair with Jack Kerouac. She met him in November 1956, when at 7:00 on a Sunday morning he arrived with Allen Ginsberg at her apartment in 307 West 11th Street. This is a photo of that building that I took today.


After Helen Weaver viewed the above photo, she told me at her website in her own blog (in a reply to one of my comments) that her "window was on the lefthand side above the picture frame." I had actually taken several photos, so here is one that I believe gives a view of her window... which I think is either right behind the blue bag dangling from that tree or the window to the right of that blue bag. You can see the windows more clearly if you click on the photo to enlarge it.


This is a view of the White Horse Tavern from the front of 307 West 11th Street.


This is now 325 West 13th Street, which is the location where Helen lived when she met Lenny Bruce. I do not know when this building was built... and it looks fairly new. The building where Helen lived may have been torn down for the construction of this newer apartment house.


This is 346 West 15th Street and it is where Allen Ginsberg lived from 1951 to 1952. It is where Jack Kerouac was introduced to Gregory Corso.


And this is a view of the block.


This is 149 West 21st Street and it was where Lucien Carr lived from 1950 to 1951. He and Jack Kerouac were friends and Jack visited him often. Bill Cannastra also lived in a nearby building that is now a parking lot.


And this is a view of the block.


added on January 21, 2010:
This is the front door of 421 West 118th Street, where Jack Kerouac lived with Edie Parker in the early 1940s.


This is 421 West 118th Street.


This is West 118th Street, looking toward Morningside Drive.

On the Street Where I Live, a movie set

It was bleak and rainy in NYC today so when I finally left my apartment at about 4:30 PM to go downstairs to run some errands, I was surprised to walk out of my building and onto the set of "The Other Guys," starring Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Wahlberg, and Will Ferrell. All the trailers were lined up in front of my buidling. They were filming a scene in Peter McManus Cafe which is on the corner of my block. I saw a few good exterior photo ops, but when they started to shoot the outdoor scene some set guy said I couldn't take any pictures with a flash. So, I went upstairs and listened to some Bessie Smith and had a cup of coffee with a danish. Every day is an adventure in this naked city...

Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, reality TV couple

I was in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle and decided to go up to Borders. I saw a notice saying Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt would be doing a signing for their new book, "How to be Famous." I smelled a photo op and got a few pictures before I decided to take a hike down to Godiva Chocolatier for my free monthly truffle. I chose raspberry dark chocolate. I am always health conscious!

Stormé DeLarverie, of the Jewel Box Review

photo credit: Marjorie J. Levine © 2009

I was more than excited today when I bumped into the legendary Stormé DeLarverie as I was exiting the Clearview's Chelsea Cinema after seeing "2012." I have known Stormé for years and years... because at one time she lived in my apartment building. I was rushed and Stormé was going home... so we did not have time for an interview. But, I did have time to take her photo and it appears above at this blog.

The photo below from 1958 is a photo of my family on the night we went to Ben Maksik's Town and Country Club, on Flatbush Avenue and Avenue V in Brooklyn, NY. We went that night with the Parkers and the Cranes to see the "Jewel Box Revue." The Jewel Box Revue was an infamous and popular "drag" performance group which toured America and the ensemble was composed of about 24 males dressed beautifully as females and one biological female dressed in a suit as a man. That man was Stormé and she was in the show that evening as the MC and male impersonator.

I had no idea at the time that so many years later I would meet the star of the show, Stormé DeLarverie, and that 51 years after that night I would be walking in Chelsea and hear the wonderful and recognizable voice of Stormé calling me, "Hey, doll." In so many imaginative and wonderful ways, bumping into Stormé tonight helped me end the day with a smile.

I am hoping to interview Stormé soon, but until that time please learn more about her here:

WOMEN MAKE MOVIES

Storme: Lady of the Jewel Box

http://www.stonewallvets.org/StormeDeLarverie.htm

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-jewel-box-revue-americas-first-gay-community_b_2228790

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQPX-nZRZMA

interview with Terry

ETA: Rest in Peace, Stormé

Storme DeLarverie, of the Jewel Box Review

I was more than excited today when I bumped into the legendary Storme DeLarverie as I was exiting the Clearview's Chelsea Cinema after seeing "2012." I have known Storme for years and years... because at one time she lived in my apartment building. I was rushed and Storme was going home... so we did not have time for an interview. But, I did have time to take her photo and it appears above at this blog with a photo taken in 1958.

The photo from 1958 appears below and is a photo of my family on the night we went to Ben Maksik's Town and Country Club, on Flatbush Avenue and Avenue V in Brooklyn, NY. We went that night with the Parkers and the Cranes to see the "Jewel Box Revue." The infamous Jewel Box Revue was a popular "drag" performance group which toured America and the ensemble was composed of about 24 males dressed beautifully as females and one biological female dressed in a suit as a man. That man was Storme and she was in the show that evening as the MC and male impersonator.

I had no idea at the time that so many years later I would meet the star of the show, Storme DeLarverie, and that 51 years after that night I would be walking in Chelsea and hear the wonderful and recognizeable voice of Storme calling, "Hey, doll." In so many imaginative and wonderful ways, bumping into Storme tonight helped me end the day with a smile.

I am hoping to interview Storme soon, but until that time please learn more about her here:

WOMEN MAKE MOVIES

Storme: Lady of the Jewel Box

Jewel Box Revue

even more Jewel Box Revue

interview with Terry

Lunch with Jerry, "The Marble Faun"

Jerry and I met for lunch at a restaurant in midtown. We spoke about the Beales and Grey Gardens, and relationships, and where life takes us as we move along through the decades. It was wonderful seeing him again, and each time we are together we grow closer. Jerry is a very interesting man and he has many memories and it was a pleasure to spend part of the afternoon with him on a very beautiful day in Manhattan. Here is my interview from last May with Jerry, Edie Beale's "Marble Faun."

And this just in: Jerry, In Production! Jerry has had a very interesting life and I am thrilled, delighted, and excited... and I cannot wait to see this documentary!

Alan Berliner, filmmaker and media artist

photo credit: Marjorie J. Levine 2009

My interview today with Alan Berliner was different from any other that came before. Alan Berliner is the filmmaker who two years ago invited me to join an NYU class on film archiving that was visiting his lower Manhattan studio. The specific purpose of my visit was to discuss a possible solution for the preservation of my old family photos. During the class discussion, Alan suggested I post the photos to the internet where they would be saved and available to any viewers who might discover the site. And shortly thereafter my memoir in a blog, marjorie-pentimentos, began. Today, Alan called my visit to the class an "intervention."

Many months ago when I began marjorie-digest, I asked Alan if he would be interviewed by me for this blog. He thought it would be worthwhile if I again joined another class from NYU and talked about my experience of two years ago and how the process was suggested in a concept during the first visit. Alan requested that I arrive early and that would give us a chance to talk. I was excited and I looked forward to today. I had no idea that the interview that I had intended to be about Alan would somehow morph into an interview about me!

We began and I told Alan that on Sunday many of the descendants of my great-grandparents, Abraham Levine and Goldie Benjamin, gathered at a restaurant in Manhattan for a family reunion. I told Alan that I expecially loved watching the family home movies from around 1952 that were brought by my cousin, Allen. As I talked about Sunday, I slowly began a stream-of-consciousness about so many different topics I felt somehow as if I was going to places that should never have left the imaginative confines of my own head.

And Alan sat there taking notes. He asked just the right questions to bring me to these personal places that were bittersweet and emotional. I talked and talked... about reincarnation, and quantum physics, and consciousness, and past lives, and memories. When I talked about time travel, I think my mind was on that train longing for "Willoughby" where I could enjoy the comforts of the past.

I talked about my life in retirement and my life... and I even spoke about my OCD. I just kept talking and talking... and dialogue flowed (probably from my subconscious) about personal feelings, old family photos, and home movies. I told Alan I love home movies because they are the closest thing to time travel we will ever get. The conversation was layered at times with fantasy, and imagination, and wishful thinking. And Alan kept writing.

He was able to somehow make me want to become nostalgic and share thoughts on so many things... when I was there to be the listener and learn more about him! I was embarrassed and I apologized to Alan that the interview became about me. He waved his hand and seemed to not care and said something like "Maybe I wanted to do that."

And this must be why he is a phenomenal filmmaker. He has this uncanny and kind ability to inspire people to be real and in a defenseless and in a very unguarded way to discover meaningful feelings.

Well, I had to temporarily shut-up because the class arrived and Alan played some very interesting and engaging sound effects for them and then they sat in a circle while I was asked to speak about the birth of my blog. And I did.

Alan inspires me to want to be a better "keeper of the memories." If after I contacted him two years ago Alan had not graciously invited me to meet with him, all my "stuff" probably would have one day been lost forever in a Staten Island landfill. That makes me sad. It makes me sad because one of my personal treasures is a letter that was written by my grandmother to my mother in about 1929. It appears in my memoir in this entry with a poem I wrote in 1992 which developed from some of my feelings about that letter... maybe sentimental memorabilia is in a sense a "madeleine."

In "Synecdoche, New York," the writer Charlie Kaufman ends the film with a monologue: "Now, it is waiting, and nobody cares. And when your wait is over, this room will still exist, and it will continue to hold shoes, and dresses, and boxes. And maybe someday, another waiting person. And maybe not. The room doesn't care either..."

Alan cares and I am on Alan's wave-length. And maybe there is a large group of total strangers who share these thoughts about time and the passing of time and the importance of, as Alan said, "saving pieces of individual lives" even in small scale ways.

At his website Alan has a link to his articles, essays, and journals. Please read his essay, "Gathering Stones." Alan showed me the way to help my own "orphaned photos" find a home. And in his journal piece "Nobody's Business," Alan writes: "But yes, it is me who returns to visit -- not any of their children, their grandchildren, or any (other) of their great-grandchildren. Just me."

And so I realize that I had forgotten to tell Alan that on infrequent down days when I have little to do, I ride to the still-standing buildings in Brooklyn where I once lived. It seems to be always gloomy and raining on those days. But even on bright sunny days, I think about the homes and the times inside those homes. My mind wanders and I can still hear my mother calling me, at 5:30 PM, for "supper." Sometimes, when I arrive at one house... I park my car slightly down the street, and look at the outside of the window in the room where I once lay in bed at night, so long ago, listening to the sounds of whooshing cars as they passed while I watched their shadows dancing on my bedroom wall. And I still visit my grandmother's house in Bensonhurst.

Alan Berliner is a creative award-winning filmmaker. You can learn more about him and his work by clicking on the links below.
bio

films

The Sweetest Sound

Nobody's Business

Intimate Stranger

The Family Album

Wide Awake

Short Films

online Interviews:
POV - The Sweetest Sound

San Francisco Film Festival: Wide Awake

ETA in 2023: some of the above links may be obsolete

Irish Hunger Memorial, by artist Brian Tolle

I went on a Sunday... and then stayed for a while in the beautiful park in Battery Park City.