BINIBON

A quick note to let New Yorkers know that BINIBON, the highly interstitial Jack Womack/Elliot Sharp collaboration at The Kitchen thru May 9th is very much worth seeing! Acting & direction are terrific. But it's all about Jack's language - sheer poetry, describing the New York we lived in in 1981. A dangerous place. It no longer exists. Very much the NYC I wrote Swordspoint in and about. Jack's characters - waitress, transvestite, teen graffiti artist - ghosts of the night Jack Henry Abbott killed that guy at the Binibon cafe - recall it in speeches so sharp and funny and moving I had to keep myself from rocking back & forth, sticking up my hand and yelling, "Oh, yeah! Tell it, baby!"

They guy playing Abbott is just chilling. As the Narrator (a shaky former jazz drummer) describes him (yeah, I got Jack to send me the script) :
( Here's some text by Jack Womack )

"Did you wash your hands, dear?"

Wash your hands.

May 3, 2009
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

I know this sounds silly, but it is far more effective at preventing flu than having a dose-pack of Tamiflu in the medicine chest. Take it from a doctor, mother and reporter who covered SARS as well as bird flu where they were most virulent.

In 2003, as SARS was spreading across Asia, I was posted in Beijing. Many families fled. My children’s school — the International School of Beijing — was one of the very few in the city to stay open... the school instituted strict policies — the ones that schools promote all the time but never really enforce. For parents, the first was: Don’t send your child to school sick. For students, it was: Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly during the day — before meals, after recess. No one got SARS. But more than that, the stomach bugs and common colds that are the bane of elementary schools all over the world disappeared as well.

...Masks, the symbol of protection, are only rarely useful. And enjoy being outside; it’s not where you will get the flu.

Here's the rest of the article, in the NYTimes.

I'm a big hand-washer. I live in a city where I'm always in contact with other people and things they have touched. I'm always touching my eyes, nose & mouth, and rather than give up bad habits, I'll wash a little extra.

A couple of years ago, I was impressed with an article that mentioned that in some crappy little village in India where the poorest didn't even have soap or a clean rag to dry their hands on, they still managed to cut disease by a significant percentage simply by running water over their hands "before meals and after defecation." So I always try at least to show my hands a little water when necessary.

So if you're prone to infection, if you want to avoid flu and colds year 'round - or keep from spreading them yourself - soap & water. I'm tellin' ya.

Ellen Writing

Delia took this photo of me in my study on Monday.