‘My Heart Was in My Throat, and the Tears Were Flowing'

Very Kind
Dear Diary:
I was in the audience for a performance of Rebecca Frecknall's production of 'A Streetcar Named Desire' at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
In the play's final minutes, my heart was in my throat, and tears were flowing. In my clouded peripheral vision, I noticed a young woman next to me. Her shoulders were shaking softly as she wept. After the house lights came up and the ovation died down, I turn to her.
'Could I give you a tissue?' I asked.
'Yes, actually,' she said. 'That's very kind.'
I handed her a tissue.
'The kindness of strangers?' I said sheepishly, unable to help myself.
She took the tissue and blew her nose.
'Too soon,' she said.
— Deborah M. Brissman
Like Diamonds
Dear Diary:
In 1954, when I was 11, I traveled from Washington, D.C., to New York City to visit my camp friend, Judy, for a week.
Thrillingly, my parents let me travel alone on the train. It was part of a planned 'historical adventure.' Another part involved returning alone by airplane.
Judy's widowed father met me at Grand Central. I waited for him near the lost-and-found window. I remember looking up at the sky mural on the ceiling and feeling at home in the universe.
Judy lived in a huge, old-fashioned apartment across from Central Park, with maybe 12-foot ceilings and tall windows hung with dark red velvet curtains. She had cats and an older brother who played the violin.
Her father seemed old to me. He also seemed confident, which is probably why my parents trusted him to host me.
He took us to museums and the public library and let us explore on our own via the subway. The family had gotten tickets to 'Peter Pan' on Broadway, with Mary Martin as Peter.
On the day of the show, a big storm with high winds materialized. I was afraid we would miss the show, but Judy's father was undeterred.
We walked and then ran together to the theater in the rain, without umbrellas. As we did, gusting winds shattered a window above us, and glass showered down onto our heads like diamonds.
The play was magical, and the characters flew on wires. The next day I flew home on American Airlines. It was a very bumpy ride.
— Ruth Henderson
The Guggenheim
Dear Diary:
My first day as an intern at the Guggenheim Museum was my third day in New York City. Fresh off a plane from Scotland, I had rented a room at the 92nd Street Y because I didn't know a soul in town.
My internship supervisor took me to lunch to celebrate my first day, and while we were in line getting our food we met a tall, shy man, a former intern. When I sat down at a table, the former intern did too.
My supervisor got up and went to another table to talk to some colleagues. The former intern, Austin, and I struck up a conversation. Eventually, we became part of a gang of friends that summer.
After the internship ended, I was hired full time, and a year later Austin became my roommate. Two years after that, he asked me out on a date, and three years later, we were married.
The group of friends I met that first summer came to our wedding and have remained our New York family ever since. These friendships are now two decades strong. I think of them every time I am in the Guggenheim's rotunda.
— Michelle Millar Fisher
The Band Shell
Dear Diary:
Earphones in and sunglasses on, I was power-walking home through Central Park.
Suddenly, I noticed an older couple waving at me. It turned out that they were lost. They unfolded a paper map and asked for help finding Naumburg Bandshell.
I squinted at the map, nodded as if I understood it, then pulled out my phone to check Google Maps. As luck would have it, we were heading the same way, so we decided to walk together.
They were off to hear an orchestral ensemble, and their faces lit up when I mentioned that I played the viola in a graduate medical student orchestra.
When we got to the band shell, they surprised me with an extra ticket and insisted I join them. At intermission, we discovered that we lived just a few blocks apart on the Upper West Side. We shared a taxi home, and over an impromptu dinner, a friendship took shape.
A year and a half later, we still gather for dinner, a reminder that some of the sweetest connections are the ones that come unexpectedly.
— Mollie Hobensack
Unacceptable
Dear Diary:
I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights with my son.
When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.
The man behind the counter looked up at me.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I can't do that.'
— Richie Powers
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AUSTIN, TEXAS - MAY 14: Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun performs in concert during the "Ask That ... More God" tour at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park on May 14, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by) Australian electronic duo Empire of the Sun just wrapped a hugely successful before now heading overseas. They'll return to the US in October to play Austin City Limits festival. Among the US shows was a sold-out LA date as part of the immersive Cercle Odyssey run, which also included Moby, Jungle and more at dates in LA, Mexico City and Paris. It was after the Cercle Odyssey show in LA that I connected over Zoom with Empire's Luke Steele to catch up on the tour and more. In a profoundly moving conversation, Steele talked about the power of music and the tour. Having lost his father a few months before the tour being with the fans each night took on a much deeper meaning for him. Steve Baltin: We're going to have fun to start with because I just finished interviewing Christian McBride, the jazz great bassist. And later today, I'm interviewing Willie Nelson. And I am sure that I'm the only person in the history of the universe to interview you and Christian McBride and Willie Nelson in the same day. So, if you guys are playing a benefit together and it's the all-star finale, what song do you want to do with Willie and Christian? Luke Steele: Oh, Willie's song, "Something You Get Through" from a record he did a few years ago. It just broke my heart cause I found that song right as the pandemic hit and all these people from the older generation, the '70s and '80s were losing the loved ones, and it was just so heartbreaking. These people had been married for 40 or 50 years and he just released this song, "Something You Get Through." I think I posted it on Empire where I just thought, 'Wow, it's not something you can explain really. It's just really something you get through.' So, that would have to be the song. Willie would have to take the lead on that one. Baltin: I like the way you put it though; it's just something that speaks to you. I was listening to your stuff again last night and I've always loved the song 'Alive.' Having nearly died twice, it takes on different meaning. For you, are there stories you've heard that really resonate with you, or they have similar effects for other people that's 'Something You Get Through' had for you. Steele: Exactly. I came back to that song because my father passed away a couple months ago. We had the funeral and then I'm on this world tour, but my mom was like, 'Your dad was a musician his whole life and even by the end in his eighties, that's two and three shows a week.' And mom said, 'You have to get on the road. That's what he would have wanted.' So, I was sitting in the back of the tour bus. And then that song for me, when I heard in the pandemic, it came back up. It's amazing, music it's like a beautiful friend, like a close friend that stays with you.' Baltin: For you, what are those songs from childhood because I know exactly what you mean. There are songs like "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor is one for me. The songs that have been with you for like 30 years and you don't know why, you don't know what it is about. It hits you when you're a kid and that's your song. Steele: Incredible, yeah. I always loved John Lennon, I remember going through my dad's vinyl collection probably when I was 10 or 12 or something and just not knowing anything about any of the artists, which is kind of a beautiful thing and then always coming back to Lennon, going, "Man, the melodies with this guy." Yeah, Lennon, Carole King, James Taylor, John Prine, all those old great artists. Baltin: I lost my dad two years ago. So, I'm very sorry about your dad. I know it's something that hits you each day and it resonates in a different way. I've talked about this with a lot of artists and grief is not a linear thing at all. It just comes about in very weird ways. So, for you have there been moments when you're on stage and there's just this catharsis from tens of thousands of people out there singing back to you? Steele: I know exactly what you mean. I hear about your dad as well, man. Yeah, there are certain moments and triggers. We do the song 'Ask That God' in the show, on the stage set there's like this big rock and I go and I stand on this rock and it hits the chorus on the visual, this giant hand comes across the stage and always that moment it takes me to the very time when he went to be with the Lord. It's quite incredible, it always takes me to that exact same place of crossing the Rubicon to the next side. Baltin: Does the song change for you or has the meaning changed? Steele: Yeah, that's what is so beautiful, the lyrics just take on a whole different meaning. Yeah, I think for that one because it just felt so heavenly. The songs called 'Ask That God,' don't ask the world, ask the father. I think it'smore powerful now for me. I've been reading this C .S. Lewis book about grief that my agent actually gave me. They said, love is the price of grief, and you get all these different quotes, and stories about it andwhat's been quite amazing is I always wondered about people delivering food to your house. But I realized what that is now like when someone really close to you passes away your food and cooking and everything is such a bizarre thing. With us it was hundreds of dishes and pasta and all this stuff and that's I now see like that in the movies. So, I understand that it's quite an amazing experience to understand that someone bringing a lasagna or something means so much. It's so warming to your heart. Baltin: What was the comfort food during all of this process? Steele: There's onions and bread and all that kind of stuff. It's incredible to see the array of people my father touched, from young musicians to he worked with some disabled people. He worked with the Vietnam veterans. So it was like that film, Big Fish. It's got the circus and this guy, and then at the funeral, they're all there and I just keep thinking about that film because it was like blues players in Houston, Texas to a choir that was put together and people from the street and stuff. He worked with this choir and then he worked with the veterans and all that. So, it was quite amazing to see the different fabrics of life and all the different people's hearts he touched. Baltin: That's got to be so interesting though, to see all the different lives he touched, and then you get to be out there and see all the different people who come to see you and all the different lives you touch. Steele: Especially now on this tour there's a real urge for people to escape the world and to live in that place. I ended up saying that quite a lot on the stage; this is our place, this is where you cry, where you laugh, you dance, you give it up to the Lord. This is the time of letting go. The shows took on a whole elevated meaning for that, cause it's not just music. It's never just music. It's always so many breakthroughs and spiritual overcoming's and things. Baltin: Who first did that for you when you were a kid? I remember seeing the Nick Cave shows after he dealt with loss. And those were transcendent. Steele: I can't think of the one show cause I'm just funny like that. But yeah, the show we're doing, it's taken on a whole other meaning. But everything from The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion to obviously seeing the boss. I remember flying back in from LA actually and had super jet lag and someone was like, "We got three tickets to the boss." And it was one of those, I drank a few wines and ended up just making it as the boss comes on, that was just incredible. BB King, I love BB King. I love that because it was just such classic Southern American showmanship, like this big basket of obviously fake gold watches, but he had necklaces, and he walked down the front and handed them out and it was just so rich, reverent kind of blues. That was like Al Green first time. I wasn't married at the time, but it was in LA doing a remix of Yoko Ono actually. I'm starting over and actually got the original vocals from Double Fantasy and we finished the session and then Al Green was at the Hollywood Bowl and I'd never been to the Bowl and managed to get some tickets and at the time I was carrying a little speaker on my hip, you know, one of those little amps with I was wearing the iPods around 20 years ago. And all the church groups from the South have come up, so there'd be groups of 10 or 15 all walking in, singing 'Let's Stay Together.' But that was another show with real reverence. Like, he'd come down the front, take his jacket off, and he'd go, 'Oh, half the ladies want me to keep it on, half want me to take it off.' That was just such another memorable concert. Baltin: Let's come onto the Cercle show then for a second. How much fun was it to be the one who helped start something off? It's like when you play a festival. I know you guys are doing ACL. It's a good challenge because it's not just your crowd. They're your fans there, but there's also people there to see Olivia Rodrigo. Steele: Yeah, it was pretty incredible, being able to step into something so immersive and so new. We designed our show called the Miracle Room. I built our show based on you're walking through the desert, and you find this giant box and you walk into it and it's like the new church of the future. It's early days all around you on the roof and you fall into this transcendental prayer which goes through a whole cycle of songs and ends with the cleansing and healing and that's what our show was designed about.