A New York Celebration
In the random course of events of our social lives, I wonder what is the import from or to our personal identities. Perhaps we are influenced by each other: I think that it may be not so much by the significance of our individual thoughts but by the quality of our rapport. However, I cannot help being either swept away or struck down by the randomness of it all.
R.F.M.-12/05/14
After the Marriage Defense Act was ruled unconstitutional in June 2013, our friends John and Ted proceeded to celebrate their wedding in a small private ceremony shortly thereafter at their Washington-DC’s residence. They had been living together for over 16 years, almost as long as David and I have been together. It was such a sudden decision, that John and Ted had not being able to include their closest friends and relatives from New York City and elsewhere; so they prepared a special dinner celebration to commemorate their wedding at the Lotos Club, located at 5 East 66th Street in New York City. John, who is a published author and Ted, who is a musicologist, have been members of the Lotos Club for some time.
The Lotos Club, one of the oldest literary clubs in the United States, was founded on March 15, 1870, by a group of young writers, journalists and critics. The Club was named, “tongue in cheek,” for the dilettantism exhibited by the Lotos eaters of the Odyssey. From its inception, its mission has been to promote and develop the arts and humanities, and to that end to provide a place of assembly for the learned professions and other persons interested in their objectives, effort and work.
John and Ted’s guests included Ted’s older brother who is a financial adviser, his wife who is an accomplished English illustrator of flora and fauna, a church organist, a developer for a music foundation, two well known actors, one retired and another still active in his seventies, and an architect. Now, allow me to share the exchange of ideas that took place:
During toast and hors d’oeuvre I spoke to John about the letter I had received from President Barack Obama and I then expressed my understanding of what may be an attempt to protect strategies by the people of Venezuela, which could soon reverse the crisis. I also spoke to the actor Greg Callahan about his recent film premiere called “Default”. Then in the Georgian-styled dinning room, among the closest ones to me, I heard long drawn conversations, filled with cynical beliefs, about ineffective education and the imperative of the new generations to confront themselves with other countries by increasing their earning power. And then the questions about the next presidential elections, regarding the fact that power seems concentrated between two families: the Bushes and the Clintons. Up until this point, I listened everyone quietly until I managed enough courage to speak up with frankness, in an attempt to clarify some of the issues being discussed. On one occasion I suggested that Elizabeth Warren was a suitable opponent for the presidency, though it may be difficult for her to enter into a national arena at this time. I also suggested that eventually a Latino could arise in future horizons. I referred to someone of the stature of Senator Robert Menendez, and rejected the idea that Ted Cruz could ever be an alternative because, although he was widely supported, he was born in Canada. As they continued bantering about illegal immigrants, I also rebuked the idea that Hispanics were in any way foreign to the United States. I reminded everyone that Hispanics had been around a century before the English had arrived in this continent. Then the conversation shifted to illegal immigrants, in a rather self-righteous tone, when I argued that without the Mexican and Central American labor force, legal or not, this country could not function. At any rate, the conversations were filled with banalities and the content was rather conventional. Everyone was most affable, and I felt even more out of place.Before departing that evening, attention was brought to the fact that the current location of the Lotos Club was used since 1947 and that the beautiful building it occupies on East 66th Street, in a French-Cartouche Style, had been built in 1900, commissioned by a New York socialite as a wedding gift for her daughter.
RFM 05/12/14
Observations On The Nature of Perception 