Post number forty-one, Lost.

I love LOST. I didn’t see a single episode last season, but bought the DVD with the vague idea that I’d like it. Not only do I really like it, seeing it on DVD is superior in every way to watching it on TV. Now that I’m all caught up (thanks, eye-redenning, social-calendar killing marathon), I’m watching on Wednesday nights like everyone else, annoyed that I have to contend with commercials---yes, I have TiVo. I’m just supremely impatient about certain things.

I wasn’t thinking about LOST when I boarded an airplane this afternoon from JFK to LAX. But after sitting on the tarmac for an hour waiting for an engine problem to be fixed, one’s mind begins to wander.

After deboarding plane number one, facing another hour wait for a replacement airplane, I found myself looking around the terminal at my fellow passengers.

I sized up who would and wouldn’t survive a crash, who I’d befriend on the deserted island, and who I’d have to fight for the little booze bottles scavenged from the wreckage.

I’m not usually the eye-contact-with-strangers-in-the-airport type (they might start talking), and as I looked around a strange sense of dread percolated in the bottom of my stomach. Not only because I realized the number of people I put on the probable fatalities list would really only be possible if the plane was a total loss. No, that slow burn of dread was actually caused by the flash of recognizing one of my fellow passengers. An older dude from my gym back in LA with unfortunate plastic surgery, with whom I have a comfortable routine of pretending not to know each other almost every single morning as we jockey for treadmills. What were the chances of seeing such a random familiar face? Sleep deprived and LOST saturated, I thought of the last person I’d spoken to before turning off my phone on the first plane. (Hank is going to direct his first studio movie. Sweet.) Would that be my last contact with my reality? We boarded the replacement airplane.

The toilets on airplane number two didn’t work. We sat for another hour as crack technicians who looked suspiciously unlike plumbers banged around inside the plane. Music pumped through the airplane’s sound system. I didn’t put on my my headphones because I was fixated on the airline's playlist choice…seemingly every song I’d ever loved and forgotten from the mid nineties to the present. Sting. Lyle Lovett. Travis. What are the odds of having consecutive airplanes that have technical problems preventing us from getting off the ground? What are the odds of hearing these songs (OK, odds were not that slim, but still, the confluence was creepy.) I thought about my earlier goodbye to L-Train, in which I was undoubtedly overly cool after another amazing week. I can be a real jerk. I contemplated calling and leaving a more appropriate farewell. Then I thought about calling my mom. We pushed back from the gate.

Three hours and two planes later, we are finally airborne. I ordered two double vodka and sodas. I drank two of the little bottles, stashed the other two in my jacket pocket.

If we crash, I want the booze advantage.

If we don’t crash, you’ll read this and wonder if the LonelyOp has lost has mind, or just needs some sleep.

Are the castaways on LOST all dead already? In purgatory? Or are they just exactly where they are supposed to be? Sure, I’ve stashed some vodkas in my pocket like Jack, but I relate most strongly to John Locke (the LOST character, not the philosopher).

To every thing a purpose.

If nothing is meaningless, than everything has to mean something.

As I write this, the stewardess just slipped me another bottle of vodka gratis for being nice to her.

Now that’s meaning I can really dig.

All’s best in this best of all possible worlds.

Post number forty, Nine Days in Manhattan.

I just spent a little more than a week in Manhattan. A few highlights. . .

A new theater season is beginning, and I saw a handful of shows. Next time, I want to see the new Ayckbourn, the Albee revival, and the musicals I missed. Until then, my impressions of what I saw last week:

WOMAN IN WHITE - I am a big fan of Wilkie Collins, but I’m not a big fan of Andrew Llyod Webber (I like PHANTOM, not so much CATS). That said, the show is essentially one song endlessly reconfigured for almost three hours as the soundtrack to a barely watchable Merchant-Ivory film set in the computer-generated world of SHREK. The staging is really inventive, though, if not completely ultimately successful. It is the only thing that kept me awake---well, I guess I was mildly amused by the live animals used in the show, and the various contingencies they must have to work out based on how the animals do (or do not) perform on cue. The Midwestern crowd ate it up. Standing ovation at the end, at which the LonelyOp remained (in)conspicuously seated.

THE COLOR PURPLE - I took L-Train to a Sunday matinee, so my impression may be through rose-colored (ah, pun) lens of a great date. Still, I liked the show a lot. The music is surprisingly good, and the cast is great. There were a couple of numbers that should mercifully be reworked or cut completely before the show opens. The audience was fantastic, more like a church crowd than a Broadway audience, which added significantly to my enjoyment of the show. It was fun to be at the theater surrounded by people laughing and crying without hesitation. The whole experience reminded me of seeing theater as kid, fascinated by the elaborate and intricate sets, choreography, and orchestration. We left the theater with a tear in our eye AND a spring in our step.

SWEENEY TODD - If you really love the theater, live anywhere near New York City, or have the dough to get there…see this show. This is my favorite Sondheim show, and this production is breathtakingly brave in about a million ways. Like the movie “Marat/Sade”, the new SWEENEY TODD is set in a creepy asylum in which the patients are performing the musical. The actors play all the instruments. No orchestra. The staging is bizarre and perfectly effective. The performances are, to a one, excellent. Patti LuPone plays the tuba (To ice the cake, Angela Lansbury was in the audience the night I saw the show. She originated the female lead on Broadway, and LuPone blew her many kisses during the curtain call...) I have to find a way to see this show again before it goes away. I can't stop thinking and dreaming about it.

A TOUCH OF THE POET - Sucked. I like Irish booze hounds (Eugene O'Neill) as much as anyone---but didn't find much in this play for me. The performances were so-so, on a so-so set in so-so costumes (both designed by Santo Loquasto)....We left at intermission, along with about a quarter of the audience. Not a good sign, considering the house wasn't full to begin with.

We also went to see a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman, mainly because I’d always wanted to as a kid, and tickets were free and available right next door to THE COLOR PURPLE. To be honest, it wasn't very fun--- more a tourist experience than anything else, with lots of warm-up men yelling at us to laugh louder and clap and so on.

Otherwise, I ate lots of good food, had many hours of great conversations with good friends, and soaked in the east coast atmosphere like a half-starved man.

We went up to the country for the weekend and sat in front of the fireplace, watched football, drank wine, and watched the stars move across the sky. We. What a sweet combination of two letters.

In the final analysis of the last week, I can honestly say that I wouldn't trade places with anyone.

Really, I’m not bragging.

I just wish I always felt like that.