(Tad Friend’s article appeared in the New Yorker, 2/23; via Pam Green.)
Larry David, back in New York to headline his first play, recently visited his childhood apartment, in Sheepshead Bay, to see whence his “no hugging, no learning” viewpoint had sprung. Standing in a cement courtyard just off the Belt Parkway, the co-creator of “Seinfeld” and the creator and star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” said, “This was my little world.” Four identical red brick buildings framed the winter sky. “When you wanted your friends to come out, you’d just scream at the windows.”
Wearing a charcoal scarf and striding backward, tour-guide style, David noted, “We used to play skelly here, and I had a fistfight there.” He laughed so joyously, recalling the ancient triumph, that his bat wings of hair bounced. Unlike his crabbed screen persona, David is lithe and friendly, with perfect teeth. But he’s not sentimental. “I’m not really flooded with memories here,” he said, winding up the nostalgia tour in four minutes. “And I’m hungry.”