Judas Iscariot at the Public & a Steam Baptism

9 March 2005
New York City

Dear Sandra,

Hi! It's good to hear from you.

What's going on, you ask? Well, first of all, I saw the most interesting play last night, "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot." It took place in Hope, a corner of purgatory & it was about a re-trial of Judas, God and the Kingdom of Heaven v. Judas Iscariot, initiated by some defense attorney, pretty much without the knowledge or consent of Judas himself, who was in a catatonic state of despair. It was really, really interesting. The dialogue was written in a very modern vernacular. The theology/philosophy of the play dealt with the nature of guilt, forgiveness, goodness, righteousness, etc.

Some of the witnesses called at his trial (as many as I remember): Pontius Pilate, Caiphus, Simon the Zealot, Judas's mother, Satan, Sigmund Freud, Mother Teresa.

As I write this, it dawns on me that Judas didn't really know that he was on trial so it was also about other people trying to redeem a person without any work on his part -- redemption by proxy, justice/redemption with and without participation.

The actors were amazing. One of my favorite bits was when Peter told the story of Jesus telling him to "follow me and I will make you a fisher of men." While he was speaking, he was knitting a fishing net.

So good, so good, so good. I really want to read the script. I'll have to find out if it's been published.

So, we saw the play & that's just a bit of incoherent info about the play.

We rode the subway home and we literally groaned out loud about the cold wind on our way home. You see, it was 55 degrees Monday night & on Tuesday, the temperature dropped throughout the day into the teens. It rained in the morning & snowed in the afternoon. The rain froze & the whole of Astoria became an ice-skating rink in the wee hours.

We ascended the steps, opened the apartment door & (you'd never guess this!) the entire apartment was flooded with steam. It looked like the whole place was filled with smoke. It seems the radiator in our bedroom's knob fell off & steam had been shooting into the air possibly for hours. Fernando was fine. We opened all the windows & called the landlord, who came over (after we convinced him, believe it or not!) & saw the paint literally peeling off the walls. We slept on the couch in the living room.

The entire apartment will probably have to be painted (which it needed anyway) & there is some damage to our furniture (which is cheap but which we will hopefully be reimbursed for), but other than that, it's just going to be a lot of work & pain in the bleep to clean it all up.

So, that's what's going on. My life is usually not so dramatic. If you'd written on Monday, I would have told you about taking a short jog in the park & discovering that baked ziti made with fat free cheese is actually pretty darn good.

Laura is a student at online FSU getting a Masters of Library Science. I'm sure she would be happy to talk to you about how she likes the program, etc.

I'm applying to be a New York City Teaching Fellow. Deadline is this Friday. More on that later, though, because I feel like this letter is as long as a novel.

Really good to hear from you! I hope you get tickets to see Tori. We saw her speak at Barnes & Noble a couple of weeks ago.

Love,
-d