Shiny New Things...I remember my new bicycle in 1956 under the Christmas tree. Creeping down the stairs at 6 am in my pajamas and seeing a new Schwinn with red bows gleaming under the tree. Even though it was snowing outside with three inches of hard ice caked on the driveway I wanted to get out there and ride it right away in my jammies. Then there was the rush of the“new” Buick- a huge green beast crouching by the curb on 110^th Street, ready to whip off to a meeting, go shopping at the Fairway, or go on a quick spin up to Montreal. During the first six months I used the car so much I put on twenty pounds. Or how about the excitement of a new computer, bringing it home in its box , unpacking and checking cables, components and programs, looking forward with excitement to the extreme capabilities of new programs which will instantly organize schedules, write briefs, download bank accounts and create numbered exhibits on CDs. Rummy and his friends down in DC must feel like this. Type the special code and leave a hand print on the door of a hidden security elevator hidden under the flag hanging behind a desk in the Secretary's office. The elevator box descends down, down, and then jogs sideways for several yards, opening finally into a featureless gray hallway. You walk down a short hallway into a glass booth which overlooks a vast cavern carved under neath the Potomac. The giant cave is filled with shiny new things- green camouflage painted canons on giant rubber wheels, ranked behind them are larger canons with sharp caterpillar treads, Beside them, stacked rows of blunt cylinders. The are painted grey on each one is an orange symbol of three joined triangles. A whole cave full of shiny new tactical nuclear weapons, just waiting to be tried out...

This moment of spring... riding a bicycle in the rain black shapes of the trees still visible behind a mist of green. Down in Riverside Park, the Daffodils are a sweet glade of yellow beneath the blossoming cherry trees along the Promenade. The Forsythia have held on wonderfully and cascade down a hill near 96^th street. Orange Quince bushes bloom along the pathway. Down by 80^th street there is a yellow Magnolia tree! The massive Magnolia tree on the grounds of St. Jone the Divine back by the greenhouse has been in full bloom for 10 days now. Its cousins on Broadway have just starting dropping satin petals. Even the Calary pears, which line side streets in the West 90's with white clouds have kept going longer than usual. In our garden, newly insured and open daily again, the first species Tulips have opened along with the early hybrids. Daffodils are putting on a show and the Crabapples are getting ready to pop. We planted frilly pansies out of the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago and they are strutting their stuff along the borders. Down our garden paths are lines of perfumed Hyacinths in shades of blue. The Lenten Rose, Hellebore, is still blooming in the Rock Garden joined by tiny blue Iris Reticulata. You can't escape it. Get off the subway at Park Place downtown, and City Hall park is a glare of spring blooms backed by soft green fuzzy trees. Driving up to Westchester along Route 100 I saw a mile long row of white Calary pears, translating a mundane suburban mall scape to the sublime.

Two shibboleths of faith fall in one week--- Holy Week is here and I am on the subway coming back from court wondering where the sheet music for “The Palms” has been misplaced. All the tenor soloists who used to sing it have been driven off or died over the years, so now I have it all to myself. In the back of the train are three middle aged subway construction workers with hard hats holding silly little orange flags. They are in a loud conversation about truth coming out. My ears prick up, as I wonder if they are discussing the dark side of our national politics, when one of the other men says “But it wasn’t written down right away, they waited hundreds of years,” then another says “How do we know how old these books are?” Then they begin to talk about carbon dating. One of the men gets exasperated and says “Well they must have known about this before- what about the book of “Judas”?” I jump in and say “There is no book of Judas” and they all look at me. Incredibly these three men have been talking about the news article about the dead sea scrolls which say that Jesus had approached Judas and asked him to betray him. Jesus was manipulative! Good Friday was suicide by cross! Are things quite the same? Does Holy week have the same feel to it? Even soot covered track workers down in the depths are talking about it. Who is the martyr here, the man who died terribly and ascended into heaven for everlasting honor and worship? Or the man who did his bidding, committed suicide, and is reviled for all time? So there it is, something to turn over while sitting in a darkened church listening to the Passion. The other shibboleth that fell was found in an innocuous little booklet, found in a box of books from Swann we were clearing out for resale. The pamphlet was titled “The Jews and Their Lies” and was written by Dr. Martin Luther. Translated and published by a Methodist group in 1927, it had a dark picture of Dr. Luther on the inside title page. Looking at the picture and reading the preface, it slowly dawned upon me that the author was The Martin Luther, not someone named after him. That person in Germany we celebrate on reformation Sunday. The contents of this little booklet consist of some of the most crushing racist condemnations of the Jews I have ever read in English, worthy of the worst propaganda of the Third Reich. So, Judas is raised up and Luther struck down, all in one week.