Video for the Day: Looking for Company in New York

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—This weekend was a relatively quiet one for me...a bit too quiet, for my taste. With the exception of Friday night—when I ran into some people I knew at a screening of the (stunning) new 35mm print of Luchino Visconti's The Leopard at Film Forum, and ended up hanging out with them at a bar across the street afterward—I spent most of it either hanging around in the apartment by myself or going to movie theaters by myself. (So instead of watching the New York Jets surprise the Indianapolis Colts on television with friends on Saturday night, I ended up returning to my Brooklyn apartment and listening to it on the radio. Old school, isn't it? Thankfully, the thrill of its last minute of play came through.)

For the most part, then, it was a pretty solitary weekend...and this fact brought to my mind this number from Stephen Sondheim's Company:




This number—just one among many brilliant numbers from maybe the only truly great musical I've had the privilege of seeing performed live onstage (with another Sondheim classic, Sweeney Todd, giving it close competition)—beautifully encapsulates life in a big city to a T: how a city like NYC can be so populous and fast-paced, yet so full of emotional disconnection. We're all headed somewhere, often not stopping to take in all the various people and settings surrounding us—dwarfing us.

Such an awareness can be a double-edged sword, though. Sometimes it's fun just to sit around, observe the lives happening in front of you and wondering about the people living them. And sometimes, doing that just makes you feel even more alone.

In which case, then...time to reach out and connect/reconnect! Maybe next weekend will be more successful in that regard.