PS TO LAST POST [+THE COMMITMENTS]

This morning things still not too bad here, though down the Jersey shore it's already gotten bad in many places, as well as parts of New York. Power is out in sections of Jersey (mostly down the shore) and Brooklyn and other areas, but so far okay here.

It's still interestingly quiet and not quiet. Now and then there's a wind gust that whistles around this old house our apartment is in. The rest of the time there's kind of a low hum as though we lived near a busy highway. But we don't, and there's almost no traffic except now and then a siren.

There's already branches down in the street here, but the Indian restaurant across the alley from my son's bedroom has left their sign out by the front of our building and it hasn't blown away yet. But a parking lot sign I notice is tilting and it wasn't when I went to bed.

The NPR station had people calling in and already folks who didn't evacuate in some spots are in trouble, with in one case—Shark River Island on the Jersey Shore but inland on The Shark River inlet—already has water so high there's no chance of getting out now.

As I type this more sirens, and those deep horn beeps that indicate a fire truck nearby. I'm letting my teenage son sleep in, as schools are all closed and we stayed up late watching a DVD of THE COMMITMENTS, one of my favorite movies and I'm happy it's one of his too. Hadn't watched it in years and was once again overwhelmed by the level of acting talent Alan Parker got out of what was essentially an almost all amateur cast, and all singing and playing the songs live (with the gravelly voiced lead singer who seemed at least in his mid-twenties only sixteen at the time!).

As always, throughout my life ever since my first memories, it's creative accomplishments like good movies and good poetry and good music and art and the rest that not only continue to give me much pleasure and relief from some of the more serious realities, but, as I've said many times, continue to save my life in ways that nothing else can. SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS and THE COMMITMENTS (we watched the added on features after the film and it was a gas to see most of the members of the cast a decade and more older reflecting on their experience and showing where they were then, around 2004).

Hope everyone's safe and sound and curled up with your own favorite movie or poem or novel or music etc. or soon will be.