Criticlasm

9/11 again

2011-09-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. Again. Not that I haven't thought about writing, but you know - the road to hell. Is paved.

I did write a spec for TV and started outlining a pilot. And now I've watched JackAss 3D, which can't be unseen.

I wrote this about my 9/11 experience in 2006. Now with the 10th anniversary coming up, it's been on my mind. Still don't know what I've processed about it, but I know I will never forget that air and that smell.

I called into a public radio line, which asked people to say what their hopes were/are for 9/11 and what we might take from it. In under a minute. I had no idea; there was no human voice, just a recording, and a time limit. So with time ticking, I could only come up with one thing: compassion. While the rest of the country seemed to be flowing with anger and outrage, what came out of a broken New York was compassion. There was anger, outrage, confusion, heartbreak, loss, bewilderment - but day to day there was a surprising amount of compassion, of awareness that we are all human beings with a shared experience.

It shouldn't be surprising; New Yorkers are often thrown into situations where strangers become allies due to nothing but proximity. You can be sitting on the subway when someone has a mental breakdown and trade looks with a fellow passenger acknowledging what's going on while you both ignore it because you know there's not a lot that can be done in that moment. Stoic, I suppose. A friend of mine used to say that New Yorkers have a "we're all in this together" attitude when push comes to shove. People are busy, and their lives are busy, but in that event it was clear that we were all in it together. And what came out was a lot of compassion. I'm not someone who thinks we necessarily learn from everything, and I would never suggest a disaster along these lines was meant as some kind of lesson - that would be repugnant to me. In the reaction of the city, though, I saw such amazing compassion and "we're all in this together-ness". If there's any take-away from it, I hope that compassion is it.

The world is this big...

2011-05-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Okay - the world is this big.

Robin, who lives in New Mexico, posted on facebook something she got from Neil, who I knew in New York. He and his partner Mark were very important to me the first few years I lived there. Turns out Robin saw him lecture on Buddhism, which he is doing now, and they're facebook friends. Meanwhile, I friended him and clicked on Mark's page...

Mark, who I lost touch with as well, is facebook friends with Tom, who lived in New York, and now Omaha. Tom is my sister-in-law's nephew, and was raised from an adolescent on by my brother and sister-in-law.

Small world. Facebook small.

Then, last night, I was sitting with my friend Dave who talked about a guy named Ed who friended him on facebook, who lives in Seattle and works at the Opera, but is also an amusement park geek. I said to Dave his last name, and then "You mean the Ed who was my first kiss ever, on senior prom night in high school" ? That same one. I knew him in Seattle, and we are facebook friends, but that connection to him randomly staying at a friend's apartment was crazy. So he's coming to town and we're all going to Disneyland. And Prince at the Forum.

Is this the web for everyone? I think everyone knows everyone else now. The world, she is small.

All around and everywhere

2011-05-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

I've had several posts swimming around in my head, so this will be all around and everywhere. Maybe I'll start off each with a large script letter, like chapters.

This morning I woke up reading a book in my head. This has happened before. This morning's was about some narrative memoir sexual escapade embarrassment and the ensuing hysterical hijinx. I was thinking that a friend wrote it as I read it, and my alarm went off just as I was coming to the last paragraph (I knew it was the end of the chapter, because I could see the white space underneath the paragraph). I was enjoying myself, and then I was pulled up and away by whatever country song was playing on my radio. It occurs to me now that my friend didn't write the book; I did. It's in my head somewhere. Maybe not appearing today, but nice to know there's something readable in there. Arranged in paragraphs

I just finished watching the extraordinary "Marwencol" by Jeff Malmberg about the artist Mark Hogancamp - a man who was severely beaten by five men and left for dead. After a 9 day coma, he began the slow process of rehabilitation, including the construction of a town called Marwencol filled with WWII soldiers and women who act out stories Mark creates, which he photographs. It's not news this is an amazing doc - it's won over twenty awards - but I'm so happy for Independent Lens on PBS to get to see work like this. It's incredible to see the photographs as well as the stories behind them in the town, and the people on whom the characters are based. More incredible, though, is seeing the artist, who lives this town. He's self-aware, so this isn't someone being exploited by a trend-seeking art world. This is a story of someone who has found through his art the ability to accept himself and where he is. Before the beating he was a chronic alcoholic, and there's even more of a twist that I won't ruin, but after he can't remember wanting to drink at all - in fact, his attackers beat any memory completely out of him. Marwencol is a way for him to deal with his anger, and make his world safe. In the process, he creates a fascinating story and powerful, visceral art. The film stays close to his world, and his process in creating it - through that we get to arrive at who he is. For me, it was a powerful statement about creation - yes, in the end he had this film, a show, etc, but at base he needed to get this out to save his life. I'm saying this clumsily, but it made me think about how art comes out in whatever guise it needs to - while people in New York were obsessed with making "art" and getting a show, he is an artist because he's an artist. Part of the evidence used to show how badly he was beaten were drawings he did before he had been beaten - rich, painful drawings illustrating alcohol's hold on him, the pain he was feeling, and cartoon-like women. After the accident, he could no longer draw. In Marwencol, he creates an alter-ego to express his pain, and also creation and photography to take the places of the images he could no longer render. Malmberg wisely stays away from telling us too much about the attack or the attackers, concentrating on Hogencamp's life now. Quite amazing. And, in the end, an incredible journey to self-acceptance. Loved it.

Speaking of self-acceptance, I saw "Making the Boys" on Sunday night, Crayton Robey's film about the making of "The Boys in the Band" and, by extension, its author Mart Crowley. I hated the play for a long time, thinking it was all about screaming queens and bad for the gay community, but my opinion has changed. That was, of course, addressed in the film - the protests at the premier of the film, the perception that it was bad press when there were no depictions of the gay community in film. All possibly true, but ignoring that it still stands up, beyond just being a curiosity.

Even though the film doesn't talk much about it, there were other writers writing gay plays (albeit a bit more avant garde) at the same time in small venues, but Boys in the Band was a phenomenon. Sold out from opening night in a small 99 seat house, eventually moving uptown to a 5 year run and a movie. Some of the criticism leveled at it - mostly in the film by Albee - is that it was so popular because it was so hateful and showed gays as being unhappy. What it really does, I think, is show how destructive the self-hatred was to men trying to figure out how to be themselves in a hostile world. In that, it's an important time capsule. There are some hsyterical interviews with younger gays, unaware of the play or even, seemingly, that there was a time not very long ago when there was no chance of anyone even being out, let alone being post-gay (I'm looking at you, Christian Siriano).

The doc focuses on Crowley's own floundering after being in Hollywood, nascent alcoholism and partying, and his early friendship with Natalie Wood which gave him some connections to an agent and to people to read his script. It's an interesting window into the time when he tells the story of the female agent who said she couldn't submit a script with that subject matter and have the agency's name on it. What a different time, thank god.

The talking heads are great, mostly sharing what an impact the play had on them. The two men I saw it with, in fact, had the cast album as kids and could recite all the lines. Tony Kushner, Terrence McNally, Dan Savage, Larry Kramer all talk about the effect and influence the play had on them, that gay people even existed and could be written about. The play was not without controversy - the doc explains how the movie opened after Stonewall, so the self-hatred of even a year and a half earlier felt offensive to talk about, and the movie was picketed by gay people in San Francisco. The lone crabby voice of the talking heads, belongs to Albee, who said he advised the producer/director not to mount it, because it would make gay men look bad. He doubles back to say it would have been a good investment on his part, but in the long run he still thinks it was damaging. Here's an idea Ed: you write one play about gay people, or even gay person, and then we can talk. It's tiresome to hear him talk about how damaging a play that was actually written by a gay man about gay men as real people with real feelings (at a time when no one did that) when he hasn't written a single play about gay men EVER, ostensibly because it's too what? Constricting? Bitter because people have tried to pigeonhole him as a gay playwright when he didn't want to be categorized? Yes, writers should write what comes out of them in whatever form, but for him to criticize someone who actually put it out there as a gay man when he's never done it just rubs me the wrong way. Even in his defense saying that he's out but it's just not what he writes about still smacks of wanting to please a general audience - I mean Three Tall Women is about the woman, not her gay son. Another conversation. Well, easy to criticize I suppose, but it just feels like he doesn't have a leg to stand on. That was a lot of virtual air spent on Albee. Still a brilliant playwright (see above for art coming out where it comes out) and glad he's out and part of the conversation I guess. Certainly gave me something to talk about. Tony Kushner, super-smart and enlightening as always, loved the bits of Terrence McNally, Dan Savage, and, especially, the surviving cast - Laurence Luckenbill and Peter White.

Crowley seems grateful and surprised for the success of it. Watching his career, early films at Roddy McDowell's beachhouse and the swinging sixties is great. The cast members were very interesting, Luckenbill and Cliff Gorman being the only straight men in the cast - revolutionary as well that gay men played these roles. Interestingly, Fox showed interest in making the film, but wanted to replace the actors with Hollywood actors - Crowley having known Roddy McDowell, Rock Hudson, and others, who would possibly have been cast in gay roles as closeted actors. He held out, and the film was done with the original cast. How lucky is that? William Friedkin is interesting in talking about the challenges of turning a play into a film, which he did wonderfully well with this - it doesn't feel like a filmed play. Many of the cast died, and that's upsetting to say the least. The whole thing felt under a pall of bad luck after it premiered, but that was the time as well.

Under all this is a bit of gay rights history, interviews with a bartender at Stonewall, other gay men including Carson Kressley of Queer Eye and Norm from the Real World. It's a broad canvas at times, and that slowed the movie a little for me, but the archival footage is great. And I love a good history lesson. I found out a lot I wasn't aware of, and I'm grateful this was documented.

I promise I'm going to write about Danny Boyle's Frankenstein. You can still see it with Johnny Lee Miller as the creature, which was my preference (even though they're both spectacular) at the Downtown Independent Theater on May 8th at 5 PM. Don't miss it if you have a chance...

Emmylou

2011-04-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

NPR is allowing access to hear the entire new Emmylou Harris album, and the first song “Road” evokes driving cross-country to me, coinciding with reading a friend’s account of a trek across country. So I’m feeling a little expansive, and like traveling an expanse while sitting in my chair and listening to some music.

Emmylou I love – I’m going to see her with the friend mentioned above this Thursday. We both have a connection to slightly sad women with guitars and songs to sing; it’s somewhat lessened as we’ve aged and cheered up a bit, letting things roll off our backs that used to stick and push their way deeply in (and hopefully she’d agree). Emmylou, though, still plucks deeply at a string somewhere in me, her voice and stories mixing up melancholy and travel - stories of loss, hope, love, and lives lived rough; somehow comfortable and spacious at the same time. When I was in New York, I walked around the claustrophobic vibrating city streets which I loved, listening to her in opposition to what was going on around me. Walking on Wall Street or Houston, I could hear a mesa at Sunset, or trees with Spanish moss, or driving a trance-inducing highway with nothing but brush for miles. I missed that space. Her voice, no matter what tragic, funny or wonderful story she’s singing about, always comforts me. I don’t listen to her as much as I did that time in New York, but I still pull out the CDs once in a while, especially on a long drive.

On another note, more about New York, is a post my friend Patrick had about choosing to be in love with Manhattan. I was struck by St. Vincent’s closing that he wrote about, walking past it and knowing that they treated survivors from the Titanic and 9/11 to a great deal of AIDS patients among so many others in a century of service. A fixture. But the only thing constant is change, and everyone’s profit driven in the current climate, so history and care go down the drain I suppose, in the face of valuable real estate and a challenging healthcare landscape. It made me think of how many times I walked past St. Vincent’s when I was in NY- from my first visit to Uncle Charlie’s in 1989 to the last time at the Center in 2003.

I had my tonsils out at St. Vincent’s when I was thirty. My friend Brian came to help me recover, ushering me out late at night, when I had been the last person in recovery room ("Michael, are you ready to go? Michael?" they said and then I'd pass out againthey gave me too much anesthetic, which seems to happen because of my size). I remember shuffling out the door wearing a patchwork hoodie from J Crew that I kept trying to like, bought for some imaginary me who lived on the cape or something, but that night on my way to a week of lo mein and fatigue. A block up, 13th, was my main thoroughfare crosstown, since I preferred to walk whenever possible. Past the Center, past what I now think of as Sean and Patrick’s building, past that simple federal church, that building where I had a day of sunburn, cat allergies, and a rainy gay pride brunch which was so awful I finally just had to laugh, and usually ending up at the quad for a movie. It’s where I first saw Beautiful Thing, Nights of Cabiria, Paul Monette: Brink of Summer’s End, and many more. Where I waited for friends who have now passed away, or passed out of my life in other ways. I even wrote a story that opens with a walk across 13th street.

Those Titanic survivors, the 9/11 survivors, all the people who passed shuffling through the doors of St. Vincent’s; I wonder if we leave ghost traces, some invisible air of ourselves. I think of walking in that neighborhood – Ollie’s around the corner and that second floor café on Greenwich that’s not there anymore, either, and it seems like I could go back and see it. I’m sure that’s as much of a fantasy as the idea of country music in my head keeping me from being completely consumed by the urban surroundings. But even if it is a fantasy, I like it. At work today, I was telling someone about “Bartleby the Scrivener”, which seems like such a modern tale to be written when it was. I always liked that I knew where the offices were that Melville wrote about. Even if the buildings weren’t still there, there’s something comforting about knowing the history that was before. Even here in LA, which has a good deal of it as well. Every day, we’re making more paths, more of air rushing past us. Who needs a drive on a wide highway?

On another note, I’ve seen so much theater (including both casts of the incredible Danhy Boyle “Frankenstein” from NT Live) that I’m chock full of things to say, and seeing more things this week and several more shows to try to fit in before the end of the month. I guess it’s time to turn off the Emmylou, let go of the ghosts, and touch the ground again.

Lanford Wilson

2011-03-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

Today, Lanford Wilson died. He was a great playwright. “Burn This” was one of the plays I wrote about in my Master’s thesis. He was one of the playwrights from the 60s and 70s who got his start at the legendary Caffe Cino. I’ve always loved that idea of early off-off Broadway, especially the very gay friendly Caffe Cino – him, Robert Patrick, Sam Shepard, John Guare, and many others. It was the place, along with La Mama and Circle Rep, that I would see listed on the first page about the cast and production when I read plays and was inspired to do theater. Years later, at Po, a little Italian restaurant on Cornelia, I went into the bathroom and saw that this was that place. I almost had a seizure. I was covered in goosebumps for 10 minutes and almost started crying for joy/sadness. My dinner companions – not so much. I’m digressing here…but suffice it to say, I romanticized that time a little.

Wilson was one of the first out gay playwrights to write about gay men, and to have gay characters in major commercial Broadway plays, especially whose lives weren’t completely defined by their sexuality. 5th of July has a gay couple at its center, one of whom is a Vietnam vet; Lemon Sky is about a gay man coming to terms with his past, and The Madness of Lady Bright is about an unhappy queen. I’m rethinking my thoughts about Burn This and I’m excited to see it when it opens at the Taper next month.

There’s no short way to put this, but I’ll try- Burn This is about a female dancer who is mourning the loss of her best friend, a gay man, and ends up falling in love with his tough, macho brother who shows up after his death. There’s another friend, and a caustic gay man. I thought, when I was, what? 22? that Wilson put himself in the character of Anna, the dancer, and that the play was about her learning to love and let down her guard for a love that was dangerous to her.

This was in 1991, living in New York, in the midst of the AIDS crisis. I was writing a thesis about the construction of heterosexual desire by gay playwrights, and how the times in which they were living and attitudes toward gay men are mirrored in their construction of heterosexual desire. I see now that this is quite an assumption: that the playwright is necessarily masking his sexuality and writing about heterosexuals because he either won’t write about gays, or is hiding something. With Wilson, this doesn’t account for the other plays in which gay men were quite prominent; for his own place possibly being in a character other than the central man (the gay character in the play); that perhaps he was just writing a play about characters dealing with the particular death of a gay man, which was a central narrative at that time. Basically, you get a little older and things get more complicated, lives need more room, and you see that writers write about what they need to. And, also, to give myself a little credit, a product of their time. My ideas now, 20 years later, feel like a product of theirs.

I will probably write about this more after I see the play – I have a lot of thoughts about it and I haven’t thought about this in a while. Mainly, though, I am thinking what a trailblazer he was – that while I was faulting him for not writing a play about gay men, he already had. I was young, it was a very different time, and I desperately needed role models. Who knew that one was there all along? He was a man who wrote about what he needed – possibly post-gay in a world that hadn’t even had a term for it yet, though I could see it at the time as possibly apology or shame for the sake of commercial success. I had a lot of ideas.

Most importantly, he gave us great words, great moments, great American drama. Rest in Peace, and thank you.

33 Variations and stuff

2011-03-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

Wow. It’s been a while. Like I’ve documented a little, I’m not sure what I’m doing on this blog, but it’s nice to write things down a bit. I’ve been doing more performing, and though that doesn’t quiet a critical mind, it does make me unsure of what I want to write if I’m wanting to eventually work with people. Not that I’m snarky – that’s not my thing – but still you never know. Mostly my absence was rehearsing and performing a 2 act musical for a benefit for a friend, and now doing a reading of a new musical. Nice to be busy, but finding the time to sit down and write has not been the easiest task.

So – things I’ve seen lately –

33 Variations at the Ahmanson

Lovely performances all around, and a smashing set by Derek McLane. I don’t normally call out the set, but it was one of my favorite parts of the show – ingenious, attractive, and added to the proceedings. Everyone is talking about this for Jane Fonda, who does a great job with the central role of a musicologist obsessed with Beethoven and wanting to finish a monograph on his Diabelli Variations before her eventual death from ALS.

Like I said, the cast was great, my only issue was with the play itself. It felt like a bit of a mashup of Wit, Amadeus, possibly Whose Life Is It Anyway. Wit kept coming up, as I watched this emotionally shut-down central character come to life through her central academic obsessions. The problem is that Wit is a stonger piece of theater. The only emotion I felt was watching Fonda in a hospital bed with ALS, and that was just a reaction to having a father with MS, not from anything that was happening in the play. It’s not a bad play, just not a terrific one. There were a couple of mis-steps, including having the cast sing at one point, which served to push me out emotionally rather than pull me in – it was a contrivance. I suppose that’s what I came away with – the play felt obviously constructed to me. During the talkback one of the actors said in an earlier version the central character had had cancer but that felt too much like Wit so they changed it. That said it for me, I suppose. A friend pointed out that much of the audience was older, and that the central question of Fonda’s character aging and her relationship with her daughter were probably issues they were dealing with. That’s true, but like my reaction to the ALS, that feels extra-textual to me.
That said, it was a great production of a perfectly sound play. I guess we don’t see those that much anymore, since it’s so rare to see new, fully produced plays. It was a fine play. Fonda was great, and I loved that it didn’t feel like a star turn. Her physical work was impressive and didn’t call itself out. She felt like a member of a company, rather than a star surrounded by a bunch of other actors in a different play. It was a good performance, and I’d love to see her onstage again. There is one moment of literal and figurative nakedness that she did beautifully, when the character is being x-rayed – beautiful moment. I did love Greg Keller, who played her daughter’s nurse and eventual boyfriend. He was a bit of comic relief, but also a full character. I liked him a lot. I was disappointed not to see Zach Grenier as Beethoven, but I did see Michael Winther and that was fun – I performed “Songs from and Unmade Bed” here and that was written for him. That was fun to just put a face to the name, and he was a good Beethoven – shades of Amadeus once again, but I think that’s the writing. Samantha Mathis as the central character’s daughter and Susan Kellerman as the German doctor were great as well.

One of the reasons that the play felt a little diffuse and/or familiar may be that Kaufman generates the pieces with his company. During the Q & A, one of the actors mentioned they recieved a copy of the first act, and then only sketches for the second act. That act was generated. Though I did feel the second act was emotionally stronger and more engaging than the first (less obviously "written"), it was at the same time less from one point of view, so the story moved from being about Jane Fonda's character and more about the mystery. That would probably also explain the clumsy (for me) moments of simultaneous speaking and then the singing. Hard to pull off. Glad I saw it though, and alway happy to engage in good theater. If my only criticism is that it wasn't fantastic and life-changing, then that's not a bad thing. I mean, I have opinions about everything.

Adjustment Bureau

I was dragged to see this, and didn’t love it. Started as a thriller and ended up as a metaphysical romance. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are very easy to watch, and support by Terence Stamp and John Slattery helps, but it just didn’t hold for me. Some great shots of New York, but I just didn’t know what this movie wanted to be. It struck me a little like that remake of Wings of Desire – City of Angels. Somehow the ideas it was taking on felt more complex than the treatment they were given. Or in the end they were so simple that it felt overblown – not sure which.

The Red Shoes – Criterion Collection

Criterion had a 50% off sale. I’ve written about this movie before, but to have it on HD in a beautiful restoration – it’s a wonder. I think Anton Walbrook’s performance in it is one of my favorites on film ever. It just continues to astound. Moira Shearer is lovely as ever, and her performance is effortless. The whimsy of the design comes through, making it feel even more like a fairy tale. I cherish this film.

So, keep you posted. Going to see the NT LIVE version of Frankenstein next week – very excited about this.

The Art Project

2011-02-02T17:17:00.000-08:00

Looks like the folks over at Google have done something incredible - The Art Project - which gives the viewer a walk through great museums of the world, among them the Met, The Rijksmuseum, the Uffizi Gallery, the Hermitage, MoMA, The Tate - it's quite an impressive list.

You can view the works themselves, or go on a virtual tour, which is pretty nifty for someplace like The Frick, which was a house as well. Or you can view the masterpiece St. Francis in the Desert as a singular piece.

Wow. I don't know what it means, or how it will affect people viewing art, but the access to the images is quite astounding.

Tick....tick....tick

2011-01-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

It's January 13th and I haven't written a thing. I'm supposed to be finishing War & Peace in thirteen days.

Ha.

Monday is a holiday, so there's that. And I just changed the background on my blog for freshness. The template's called "Awesome!". (! mine)

I'm doing a reading of Mother Courage with some actors I'm really fond of, casting and organizing it myself. Now I just need someone to read stage directions so I can listen to it. It's actually kind of exciting to just go ahead and do it, not worrying about if we'll produce it, where it will go, etc. It's the new Tony Kushner translation, too, which I like a lot. I'm doing that instead of the Golden Globes - yes to DVRs.

I'm also doing a reading of a friend's musical on Saturday, too. Busy now that I put it down on paper.

But I do miss War & Peace, and I've missed the writing. It's time to get going for the New Year - brush off the shiny a little.

It's truly no reason for pressure, as where am I in such a hurry to get? But I still think of this Faulkner quote when I think of time (from Quentin in "The Sound and The Fury"):

"You can be oblivious to the sound of a clock or a watch for a long time, and then, in a second of ticking, it can create in the mind, unbroken, the long diminishing parade of time you didn't hear."

I guess I'm suddenly hearing the ticking. It will recede and then present itself again.

New Year's

2010-12-31T19:18:00.000-08:00

I just picked up Patti Smith's "Just Kids", which I was given for Christmas.

I'm about to go to a party, or in an hour or so. I don't feel like being online, really. Flipping through channels I found All That Jazz, which is great. I didn't watch all of it, though, turning it off to read. I did do a little online research to figure out what happened to Leland Palmer. I wonder if David Lynch wondered that, too, when he wrote Twin Peaks. She moved to Israel, and now perhaps San Francisco, seemingly on a Jewish journey. Fascinating.

Something in Smith's writing made me realize how I always turn back to books. I can always enter a book. I always feel it welcome, like stepping into a circus tent and feeling the sudden warmth and smells that are enclosed behind such a flimsy barrier. It's enveloping. I keep returning to books. And to art.

I love the theater, and would love to make my living doing it. I enjoy TV, and wouldn't mind making that, too. But reading books and looking at art seem to be the two activities I love in that place where there is silence and tranquility. Perhaps it's relaxing. Not that I don't love theater and movies deeply, passionately, but the pleasure of reading and art never fails to fill me up. Inspire me.

It's New Year's Eve. I wish for you this year that you find what inspires you, what nourishes you, and what pleases you. I wish you are sated and blessed on all accounts.

Me, I'm going to do some more reading.

Stuff I've Seen

2010-12-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

I'm having a little crisis of faith about why I'm writing this blog. I'm feeling a little stretched between this, War &Peace, and personal writing. The thing about blogs is that they're off the cuff. It's great, but at the same time I feel it might diffuse my energy a bit. Oh well, probably just the introspection of the holidays. I have been wanting to write, so here's just a little bit

The Resnick Pavilion at LACMA

Loved the building, and really loved the Fashioning Fashion exhibit. It's always a trip to see color and form from days past, sometimes shocking. The exhbit encompassed the 18th - early 20th century, and was well arranged. I like the wooden cartons that everything was displayed in - nice touch. Unlike the Met, the clothes were out in the air, and arranged so that each piece was easy to view singly. In a perfect world, I'd want everything to have 360 degree access, but I don't think I've seen that with old clothes, save once at the Musuem of the City of New York (which has an amazing collection of willed clothes, I think back to Washington). This exhibit had a good mix of the freaky, odd and sublime, which is my favorite combo for fashion exhibits. I also loved the inclusion of homespun things like this vest from the time of the French revolution, complete with revolutionary symbols on the lapel

My only question was about putting a beautiful Poiret (I think) coat over a Fortuny. The Fortuny was gold/platinum from underneath the dress, and I'm sure it was spectacular, but sadly we didn't get to see the whole thing. I kinda have a thing for them. I think they're simple and exquisite. I called a woman at LACMA, and it looks like it was the "Delphos" dress from their permanent collection, and you can see it here. She said that it's probably that they showed it a couple years ago. Still amazing, and amazing color....

Across the way was the Resnick's own "Eye for the Sensual" from their collection. R-O-C-C-O-C-O. Wow, lots of frippery. Lovely, and some great pieces, but I breathed a little sigh of relief when the last room was unexpected Deco. Very nice.

In the middle are these great stone heads from Mexico. Quite impressive, but I was a little saturated to take it all in. And I'm more of a fan of painting and sculpture. If you're an anthropologist, it would be a find. Get it? A find?

I took some pics of these exhibits, and notes, so perhaps more later.

Harps & Angels, the music of Randy Newman at the Taper

Interesting mix of styles, not necessarily what I would put together for a review. There are stunningly sad songs, pop songs, character pieces, and political monologues with musical backing. The cast was good, though for most of them the rock feel that Newman has in his own voice, as well as the dialect he writes into his songs, felt a little foreign on some of the performers. Of course, the range of styles is broad. Katey Segal and Michael McKean did a good job; as did a local rock singer Storm Large, who I was not familiar with. She had a strong voice, and has a big presence. Adriane Lenox was the big surprise to me. Her song about Louisiana and Katrina was the most effecting of the night to me, and having seen her in Doubt I didn't know she could sing. She has a great voice, and seemed most comfortable with Newman's New Orleans dialect songs. Michael McKean had a fun jaded country singer number, as well as a businessman trying to convince a stripper to come home with him.

Speaking of those, many of the songs were small dramatic moments, and those came across the best - Katey Segal had a great number about a woman mistreated by her husband. The lyrics are filled with beautiful images, and each feels like it could be the basis of a musical. They're poignant, and then they evanesce. I suppose that's what they're meant to do, but I was left wanting more.
Also, since there were six performers and it was a revue, I think I would have liked this more in a smaller space, like the Kirk Douglas, where I would have been pulled more into the action. I often feel that way at the Taper, though, so it's not the fault of this group or show. Nice job on a complicated group of work.

Tangled

Loved it. Would see it again. Donna Murphy is brilliant in one of the best villainess roles in a while, and Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi do a great job as well. I was enchanted, and that's the point.

Burlesque

Oh boy. It was fun. Christina Aguilera has a great voice, but Cher is more galvanizing in her one number. The problem to me is that Christina just doesn't feel emotionally connected to her voice. It's an incredible instrument that she uses to its best ability, but it just doesn't feel connected to me. So, when she leaves the screen, she kind of leaves your mind. Fun movie, though, and fun numbers, so it is what it is.

The Illusionist

I'd say it was melancholy and wistful, but that would be an understatement. Beautifully drawn, with some wonderful observations, in the end I was a little bored. Sorry to say it, and I know art film afficionados will throw their non-pariels at me for saying so, but it's true. It's slightly comedic, but in the end about the loss of a way of life in the theater and the people who are swept aside. Not a bad subject, but it just became bathetic.

Blue Valentine

Can we just admit that Ryan Gosling is amazing? This film felt like an acting exercise to me, confirmed when the director said that much of it was improv, even after he'd done 66 drafts of the script. Michelle Williams is bowled over by Gosling, who is magnetic. The balance is off. I'd see it for his performance, but it's another completely sad, sad movie.

More to come I'm sure. Good to get a little of that out, huh?

Black Swan

2010-11-17T16:46:00.000-08:00

I saw “Black Swan” the other night. I won’t say too much about it, except that I loved it. But then again, it’s about a performing artist dealing with demons and ballet, so it was kind of a done deal. Natalie Portman is brilliant, and I’m sure she’ll be nominated for an Oscar. That she was dancing (beautifully) while playing a character expressing herself in dance trying to find her way into playing a ballet character is incredible; I would have had difficulty enough just being on point. To think that she’d doing all that while balancing her weight on a block of wood….

The movie is intense, thrilling. Aronofsky’s direction is passionate, and the way he films dance is full of emotion – the camera is on stage with the dancer, moving with her. When it’s not it’s intense close-up or full body to get a sense of the movement. The storytelling has a trippy feel to it – you’re never sure what’s happening. It’s apt for the madness that the character is slipping into, and illustrative of the black swan/white swan dialectic that’s set up. It’s frenetic and intimate. Mila Kunis is great as well – actually all the cast is uniformly good; Barbara Hershey especially works playing a mother who could possibly be out of a horror movie. In fact, some friends I saw it with felt it had too much of that element, but I disagree. It’s all working to put the audience as deeply off-balance as the character.

I like intense performance, though – Patti Smith, Karen Finley, etc – anyone who feels like they are going to some other place while performing. I guess that’s what most performers aspire to, but some just seem to push a little more deeply and/or hysterically. Refer back to the Ginsburg thing - ecstasy, trance, intensity - a little much at times, but can also transcend like nothing else. Dance, it seems, is one of the easiest places for that to happen - breaking free/breaking down.

Loved the movie. There’s one moment that was so breathtaking that I’m going back just to see it. I hope she wins the Oscar.

Xander....something?

2010-11-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

I once heard a great story about Joanne Woodward. I'm sure it's apocryphal, and I'm sure the names change depending on who you hear the story from. It goes like this: Joanne Woodward thought she had solved all the problems of the world, since she kept having a dream that she solved all the problems of the world. Sadly, when she woke up, she couldn't remember the dream. She even tried orange juice, which supposedly can help you remember your dreams, but to no avail. Someone suggested that she put a pad of paper near her bed to write down what she was thinking, so that night she had the dream, wrote down the idea, and then went back to an assured sleep. When she woke up in the morning, she saw she had written "cottage cheese".

Insert game show "nice try" sound here.

I bring this up because I have pretty active dreams. And by pretty active I mean constant. And sometimes, as happened last night, I'll wake up composing something in my head. Usually, as it's 2, or 4 or some random time, I don't want to to turn on the light and write it down. On certain nights, I actually go pretty deeply into it, waking myself up, and convincing myself I'll remember it in the morning. I never do.

Last night, I woke up with a rhymed couplet in my head, something about a boy named Xander. Since it kept repeating, I woke up, grabbed a pen and paper and started to write on an open page in the dark. At the exact moment I was thinking perhaps this was not the brightest idea since I didn't really know if the page was blank or even I would be able to read my writing, I dropped the pen on the floor. Well, drat. I turned on the light, and managed to stay in bed while wrangling around the floor for my pen. Restful. I found out that the line I was writing was not on a blank page after all, but luckily in the top margin and actually legible - impressive. I turned to a blank page, wrote down the couplet, and then went back to sleep, stopping myself from going further into the idea. I'm getting over a cold. I need the sleep.

Lo and behold, I could not remember it this morning, except for Xander...something. Hopefully when I look at it, it will jog my memory. It won't save the world, but at least there's a record.

Big screens

2010-11-15T13:02:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I had HD cable installed, just in time for Harry Potter marathon. Love the movies, love the books. And I usually would not sit around and watch back to back 3 hour movies, but I came down with a cold on Friday night, and so it was the perfect thing to do.

Friday night, speaking of magic, I went to see "Into the Woods" staged by Lucid by Proxy in downtown LA. It was done in a warehouse setting, which I thought worked well for the show. It was very well staged by Calvin Remsberg, and though the space definitely had some acoustic challenges, the people were up to it.

It struck me, though, again, with Sondheim, that it's almost a different skill than other musical theater - at least presentational musical theater. The voices were uniformly good - a few being excellent - the Cinderella and Rapunzel really worked for me. The performances, though, were slightly uneven, and underscored how hard it is to perform Sondheim, or at least as richly as the text indicates - these are not simple characters; paradoxically I think the solution a lot of the time with him is to just be a real person simply singing - the songs do a lot of the work. I'm sure I'm spoiled from seeing the original and loving the cast, so I have my preconceptions, but I tried to leave those at the door. A few of the performances didn't work as well for me, just in trying too hard, I suppose. It's a strange balance, the characters are archetypes, and some remain that way while others learn something and become something deeper.

On the good side, Cinderella had a gorgeous voice, and got the mix of humor and gravity. Rapunzel, actually, was one of my favorite things in the show, and the people I was with, too. She did exactly what was needed - grounded emotionally, but great timing and commitment. Red Riding Hood came alive in the second act, probably freed of the constraint of having the narrator tell her the story for the first part. Actually, all the cast vocally for the most part was spot-on and it was nice to feel safe - usually my enjoyment of a musical is contingent on feeling safe that the cast is able to sing it with no painful surprises.

I don't have the program with me, but Cinderella's prince/the Wolf was vocally a loose cannon - he certainly has a large voice, but flatted or sharped by pushing too hard - a couple of times in Agony it was just plain wrong, and just didn't go far enough in the characterization for me. He was probably the most disappointing - not awful by any means - he has a beautiful richness to his sound, but just not there. The Baker's Wife was fine - has a good voice and sounded good, but seemed just too earnest, missing a lot of the cleverness and humor - consequently the emotion of that story line was a little lost for me (though you can't help but be shocked in the second act). I didn't get that she was one of the smartest and slyest people on the stage, and that's one of the things I like about that character - and it's needed humor. The witch had a great voice, but just a little too much arm swinging, screaming, and over-pointing for me. It all stops making sense, and it feels like the actor is trying too hard. She did have a great voice for it, though. I noticed, too, that many of the cast hamstrung the jokes by being aware that they were about to say something funny. Kills it every time - good to be reminded of that. I also wanted to just find out what the costumer was thinking with the witch transformation costume - not a good look.

Overall, I enjoyed it, thought it looked great for what was probably a shoe-string, and was engaging. So I'm glad I saw it - it's not often I get a chance to see a large musical. So, yay musicals. I hope they stage more.

Showing up

2010-11-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have several friends who are doing National Novel Writing Month for November, and a few people have suggested it to me. I'm dragging my feet. I feel like I have a lot of other ideas and things that I'd like to be doing, so adding another just makes me feel guilty for all the things I'm not doing. But then again, most of the job is to sit down and just do it, right?

I got up this morning to meditate at 6:10. I've been wanting to do it for a while, and then I re-read a quote about meditation that I had cut out a while ago and posted on my bulletin board. It said something like you have to give up immediate comfort sometimes for something that will give greater comfort in the long run; you must get up 5 or 10 minutes earlier, foregoing your warm bed, to meditate. Those 5 minutes in bed are comfort for the moment, but the 5 minutes of meditation will have ripples in every aspect of your life. So just show up and do it.

I haven't decided, but I also reread this Martha Graham quote to Agnes DeMille about just doing it that spurred me on as well. She was one tough lady, sounds like.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

So, I guess you just show up. And the below, also from Graham, sounds like a book in itself - what a harrowing moment and way to put it...

It wasn't until years after I had relinquished a ballet that I could bear to watch someone else dance it. I believe in never looking back, never indulging in nostalgia, or reminiscing. Yet how can you avoid it when you look on stage and see a dancer made up to look as you did thirty years ago, dancing a ballet you created with someone you were then deeply in love with, your husband? I think that is a circle of hell Dante omitted.

[When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.

Well, I've gotten off the train again. Always happens. Ah well. Art - endlessly interesting.....

Laundry

2010-10-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my fancy tour of Los Angeles with the 99 cent store yesterday, today I did my laundry during my lunch hour. There’s a place that’s clean and close to where I work, and frees up other time I’d be taking doing it.

To tell the truth, I don’t really mind doing my laundry at a Laundromat. It makes me sit in one place for a block of time, usually where I can read. Today I read all about the sacking of Smolensk in “War and Peace” – beautiful – and then talked to a friend in Boston I’ve not been able to talk with because of the time difference, and various and sundry.

While I was reading about Smolensk being seiged, a woman came up to me and asked if she could trade a dime and three nickels for a quarter. She looked not so great – dirty dyed blond hair, when she smiled she was missing about one and a half teeth and the rest were browning on the side.

I never know what to do. I lived in New York for a long time, and there you begin to get an idea of who is homeless, who is crazy, who is angry, who it’s best to avoid. I always have a basic feeling of guilt. I don’t know what that’s about; I don’t know who this person is or what choices she’s made – it’s probably the wish that I could save someone and quickly realizing it’s not a problem I can solve. Feeling bad, for sure, does nothing. I got into an argument with a date once, who engaged a young man who had been laughing to himself, drinking all the milk from the thermos at Starbucks, and talking about how he just needed a break to be a star. The guy said “people like you are the problem” and that he just needed someone to talk to. I don’t know – living in close quarters you get an idea when someone has larger issues. Just spend some time in a subway car and you’ll see it in how people react when there’s something unsafe on the train. I think it’s a primal, felt response. I know I become guarded, but I'm working on it. Sometimes it's just painful to see someone else in pain. Though I'm sure that's probably projection as well.

I’m not great at ignoring people, though I had to do it in New York. One too many times of having someone follow me down the block calling me “big guy” or “chief” pleading because I met their eye, or told them I couldn’t help them. One friend even pointed out how do you give to one person and not another. You get a little hard-edged. In LA I mostly buy food if I see someone in need, but even then that’s not all the time by any stretch.

I gave the woman a quarter, and told her she could keep her change, it was fine. She wasn’t unstable, or dangerous, just having a very hard time. There wasn’t anything else I could do in that moment. She smiled and thanked me and said it was her last quarter, but her sentence trailed off as I went back to my book. To be sure, I would’ve done the same thing for anyone who asked for a quarter in the Laundromat. The quarter was nothing to me. But for some reason, this felt more complicated than just change.

99 cents

2010-10-25T22:28:00.000-07:00

I had to pick up a couple of things at the 99 cent store. Cheap baskets. I go about once a year. While I was there, I walked around, picked up some soap and gum, batteries, and a box of Mike and Ike’s I don’t need.

While I was there, tooling down the pharmacy aisle (which, to be frank, scares me a little – I was even wary that the name brand sunscreen might be expired or close to it- probably only costs 10 cents to make so it’s probably fine, but nevermind) I saw a much older woman looking at the medications. I suppose this could bum me out, looking for discount medications, etc, at her age, but this is not a diatribe on health care.

Instead, it kind of struck me how we shop as a nation. I’ve known for a while we’re consumers – we’re bred as Americans to consume. Part of that is thinking that something’s wrong with us that can be fixed by buying something – cheap medication, hair care, fake body parts. We sell things and buy things – it’s what we do. But it was the strange feeling I got that no one was there with much of a purpose. People were endlessly browsing, picking up an item or two. It’s clear no one leaves that store empty-handed.

Shopping is certainly a pastime for many. I guess that the 99 cent store feels like it’s when shopping is a drug or compulsion of some sort. I’m sure that’s because most of the stuff really is crap. It’s amazing the amount of non-utilitarian cheap goods that are sold. Knick-knacks, cheaply made plastic objects. It’s like walking through a future garage sale.

Not that I don’t love it.

It just struck me today as some kind of odd place where lost people mill around looking for something to make them feel better. Of course, I suppose you could look at the whole planet that way. If you were cynical. Or more cynical than me.

This morning on the radio I heard a story about the decline of individual fishing as a livelihood lost to industrial fishing, and how the pollution from fertilizers and other industries are polluting the waters to the point that fish are going away in general. Jobs are lost, people can't make a living, and are turning boats into for here ventures for tours and parties - perfect.

And yesterday I heard a story about the marijuana growing economy in Northern California, where an entire town is dependent on the crop. If the laws are changed to legalize it, then the crop will move under the realm of bigger business and the entire town will more than likely go under, since there is really no other industry. There will be no room for individual farmers, because they can't match the price.

All this is just to say that there is free trade, which is great, but our seeming insatiableness and need for the cheapest possible items in as large a quantity as possible mixed with the profit motive looks like it’s causing us some serious problems. Are people willing to make other choices? Is it even possible to go back to some other model that doesn’t include enormous corporate conglomerates controlling our food and goods? I just read that Amazon was charging 9.99 for e-books for the Kindle, taking nearly a 5.00 loss on each book for the sake of the largest market share and future control. Then they were upset when a publisher told them it would not provide them content. They capitulated to raise the price, but put on their website that the publisher had a “monopoly” on their own content, so was forcing Amazon to raise prices. So Amazon can try to force them out of business, but when they actually try to do something about it they’re the bad guys. This is how business is run. I fear we’re actually coming to a place where there will be nothing but large corporate conglomerates that diversify just enough to skirt charges of a monopoly, all in the name of giving us the cheapest goods possible. Soon, we’ll have corporate monarchy – the few in power with the most money, and the rest of us in a servant class - at least those who aren't life coaches. That’s the bleak outcome.

I fear I’ve gotten off my point here a little.

It’s just interesting to watch people at the 99 cent store, and wonder what they actually need. I got what I went in for, and 7 more items. Still under 10 bucks. And I’m sure I’ll go back at some point.

Been a while

2010-10-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

I have no shortage of things to write about, but I haven't been. That's about as simple as it gets. I even am behind on War & Peace.

So I'm pulling myself up by my bootstraps.

I saw the new Woody Allen movie "You will meet a tall dark stanger" this weekend. It was awful. Possibly one of the worst movies I've seen in the past several years. It ranks in my top five least favorite films ever. It's misanthropic, misogynist, nonsensical, and badly written. Some of the characters don't even make sense. Lucy Punch comes off well as a gold digger, and so does Anna Friel. Antonio Banderas is good, as is Gemma Jones. The problem, aside from the script, is Josh Brolin and Naomi Watts. I didn't like their characters, and I thought he, particularly, was just bad - lost, possibly, but bad.

Everyone in the movie had affairs, no one was honest, and the voiceover summation in the end actually said the only way to be happy at all in life is to be delusional. What a sad, sad, film. I know he's been uneven lately, but I like "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona". I keep hoping for a "Fanny and Alexander" from him, but it doesn't look forthcoming. Someone, take away the camera.

Meanwhile, I really liked "Social Network". Smart, well-acted, fast-paced. I don't know how true it is, but it's the perfect moment for it. The cast was uniformly great, and I was very impressed with Jesse Eisenberg. And Fincher. And Sorkin's script. Engrave the Oscar with that one.

I like "Howl" with James Franco, and want to write more about it - see previous post.

I also saw "Leap of Faith" at the Ahmanson. Raul Esparza was great - such a great voice. The supporting cast was wonderful, too. The show is servicable, with some good music. The weak link is Brooke Shields. She's likeable as an actress, but the role is not incredibly well-written. She would also not be my first choice for a put-upon, cynical single mother. I kept wishing for an actress with some real musical theater chops. She was drowned out by the other singers when she had to sing with them, and was bringing them down as well. Susan Egan would be great, I think. It's not an easy role - a lot of traps, and you just want someone who has a strong voice.

And a side note - the traveling choir was all in contemporary clothes, but the people of the town looked like they all bought one bolt of cloth in 1955 and dyed it different colors to make the same dress. Awful, ugly. It's shorthand, I know, but still...come on.

I saw "Glass Menagerie" with Judith Ivey at the Taper. Not sure I love the play, but she was really great. She made Amanda a real character - symapthetic and maddening. Heartbreaking. Patch Darragh was good, too, though I think directed a little over the top on the gay. Probably so the audience could not miss it, but still. He was good, though - wry. The concept was to keep it in the hotel where Tom is writing the memory play, so you never leave the hotel room. Unlike a regular production, where you're in the apartment, this took place in memory. That feels more true to life for me, but it also means the frame never leaves. You never forget that you're in a hotel with a drunk man rehashing memories. ON that level, it makes the play just that much sadder. Some beautiful writing, of course, and good performances. Laura's a hard one - that's all I'll say.

On the reading front, just started Joshua Ferris' "The Unnamed" which I'm excited about it. Great prose so far.

Excited to see "Venice" at the Kirk Douglas. And there's also a rare revival of Christopher Hampton's play Tales from Hollywood" that looks interesting, about Brecht and the foreign writers who wrote in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s.

Ecstasy

2010-10-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

I saw Howl this weekend, which I really enjoyed - James Franco portraying Alan Ginsberg. The movie is put together from court transcripts, interviews, and the poem itself. I have more thoughts about it specifically, but the ecstatic nature of the poetry moved me. They mention Whitman in the trial, as the precedent for Ginsberg, who is another ecstatic poet. And today I did a marathon watching of "Angels in America", which has arias and ecstasy as well, definitely. It's a beautiful piece.
But it got me thinking about gay men and ecstatic writing - perhaps poetry is ecstatic by its nature. I am thinking of Williams here, too, having seen "The Glass Menagerie" recently to. The thought hasn't quite germinated but we'll see.
This week I'm taking off Wednesday through Friday to just have a "staycation". What I'm hoping it's shaping up to be is some time to write about these things. Fingers crossed.

Tony

2010-10-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

This is a Patty Griffin song I posted over on facebook as well. With the rash of teen gay suicides (6 in the past month that have made the news), I thought about this song. Normally, I would have issues with the F-word, but she uses it perfectly in this song - it's shocking and upsetting.

But further than that, as much as there is a lot horrible going on with this, DADT, Prop 8, it's important for me to remember how good it is for a lot of us in this country. Is it perfect? No. Is it as easy at it seems to be in Norway, or even Spain? No. But it is better than it has been probably ever. That's very important for me to remember, for a lot of reasons I won't enumerate here. But for my own personal journey, I know it's time to embrace it. In that, there's strength to get through all this negativity. I'm hoping so.

Can't Hurry the Harvest

2010-09-27T10:43:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a benefit at M Bar in Hollywood being held for a family with a 3 year old with Down's syndrome. Over a year ago, the parents found their daughter unconcious on the floor. The paramedics came, and they took her to the hospital. After tests the parents were told she had leukemia. She had already had reparative heart surgery at 5 months old. She just completed her leukemia treatment, but the family, of course, has been saddled with bills.

There was an amazing lineup of performers, headlined by Katey Segal, who sang a song of hers from the mid-90's called "Can't Hurry the Harvest", which I was struck by. She was great, and her 16 year old daughter came up and sang a couple of songs she wrote and played on the piano - she reminded me of Laura Nyro. I guess it's ever so, but there were a couple of teenagers who seemed so much more self-posessed and together than I ever thought about at 16.

Anyway, it was a night of great talent and heart. It's upsetting that there have to be these kind of things at all, but it's great when people can come together and do it. So that's good news.

I did also see "The Glass Menagerie" and "Never Let Me Go" this weekend, but those are all about sadness, so that will be another post.

Spontaneous Poetry

2010-09-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

So every once in a while some phrase pops into my head and then I follow it. Usually I think they're not so great, but this whole blog is about just writing and putting it out there, so here it is...

Can you come another time?
when I'm sitting on a pile of money,
on a wall surveying the ripe horizon,
sated from the luxe day
and looking for the choicest end?

Another time when I'm
receptive to dark whispers,
intimate sounds that slither
up my bones and wet my eyes?

Once more when I'm full
enough to listen, when it's perfect?

Batting Cage

2010-09-14T21:14:00.000-07:00

This evening I went to the batting cage. The Burbank batting cage.

I had walked into a co-workers office, obviously twisted about something/nothing, the second day in a row of generalized frustration and anger that sadly can find very specific targets when not controlled.

I am the child of two extraordinarily angry adults. It would be surprising if some of it were not in my bones somewhere. Frankly, I'm scared of it. I've never been good at expressing it. When I confronted my mother about her anger once, she said "It's not directed at you," to which I responded, "well, when I'm the only person in the room and you're yelling at me, it sure feels like it." All this is immaterial to this evening (it's in the past and dealt with), excepting the fact that when faced with my own anger, I have no idea what to do with it - it seems a little terrifying and that might upset someone.

In times past, I've turned it inward, preferring to slide into a depressive hole that includes sad female singer/songwriters, country music, and ice cream. But since I've been cognizant of that lately, and have been trying to avoid depressive slides, I seem to be confronted with quite a surprising amount of non-specific anger that just boils up when I'm stymied or frustrated by any situation. Or, like this week, when I take a couple days off to go out of town and land somewhat gracelessly back into my life. Ker-plump, as Eleanor Roosevelt might say (as she does when reciting "High Hopes" on the Frank Sinatra show, which sadly I can't find on youtube).

So, back to this afternoon, when any little thing made me want to jump out of my skin. I had already consumed enough caffeine to power a small lawnmower (could this be the culprit?). My gay, softball-playing co-worker suggested the batting cages. And I said yes, like someone had just offered me a cool drink of water. Hitting something sounded like the best solution. The only solution. And since my mantra lately has been "First, do no harm", I thought the balls can't really feel it, so this was the best option.

So I took my intellectual self to the batting cages. How do I know I'm intellectual? I was deconstructing the process and thinking what I would write about it the whole time. And instead of angry, that made me laugh, laugh in the way you do when you just know something about yourself, and you can't help but have a little compassion for it. And besides, I was taking it all out on the balls. So there we were, two gay men at the batting cages - something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago to me. We put our money down and get a bat. Diet Cokes on me.

I go and hit a few balls, not too successfully. My friend tells me to bend my knees, lean into the pitch, grip the bat tightly at the base, keep my right arm up. It's not air golf, though it feels like I'm swatting rather than batting. And since I keep bending my wrists, I feel like a fey batboy pretending he's a player. My friend's up. I watch him hit a few times, and see what he means. Then I look over at the cage next to us, and see a man hitting every single ball gracefully. I see how he leans back from it, prepares with his front leg, swinging like he's a replica of the top of a trophy. I see now where that stance comes from. Then a woman follows him who does the same thing - graceful, easy, assured, strong.

I go back into the cage, mimic what I've seen and start hitting the balls. Now I'm hitting about 90%. I don't miss that many at all. And there's a great satisfaction in hitting the sweet spot, hearing the "thunk" and seeing the ball sail up. The aggression is gone. I am now all about finding the perfect hit and making sure my form is good. The anger has dissipated. By the time we go up for the second session, I am forming blisters on my thumbs. So I just change how I held my thumbs. And make sure to wash my hands when I'm done - you can never be too careful.

And since this is the kind of guy I am, I learned a few things:

The ball is never coming as fast as I think it is. There's actually time to anticipate it and wait for it to come to the right place. Don't panic.

Breathe.

The bat does the work.

You'll get a lot more done if you use your whole self, and not just parts, like the wrist, or the arms.

Sit into your weight; it's there for a reason, embrace it.

It never takes as much energy as I think it does.

There is no perfection.

You never know completely what's coming at you - it might be low and outside, or high and tight.

The nicks count - they stop the ball.

Wear gloves.

Re-Readings

2010-08-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

I am in love with this book. I just started it yesterday, but it’s making me dance inside.

Anne Fadiman culls the column she edited at American Scholar for this collection of seventeen writers revisiting books they loved earlier in life. I'm a fan of hers - I've read her other two books of essays: At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, and Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, as well as The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a non-fiction account of a Hmong girl with profound seizure disorder and the differing ways in which the Hmong and Western doctors deal with illness. That one will break your heart. More than once. So she's a great writer. She's so great a writer.

Her own introductory essay is wonderful. At times, when I’m very into an essay (doesn’t happen as much with fiction, but it does occasionally), I’ll actually take off into other places – not from boredom, but because something in the essay has sparked something in my own imagination. This was such an essay – her introduction is framed by her re-reading C.S. Lewis’ “A Horse and His Boy” from the Narnia chronicles to her eight-year old son. She’s shocked by it’s casual racism and sexism, something she hadn’t seen before, but by the end is rapt in a good story that still can touch her even though she knows that parts of it are now to her offensive. And she sees it again through the eyes of her son, who just wants a good yarn.

In the meantime she meditates a bit on readers, as does at least the first essayist (I'm only half-way through the second essay). Reading is a solitary activity, and one in which the reader has to on some level prefer the company of imaginary people to real ones. The joy she describes in a good book, though, is one I’ve palpably felt; I’m also a re-reader. She argues that as kids we become what we’re reading, that we are easier able to mold ourselves than when we’re more solid adults – as we age a lot of us move to non-fiction, as it doesn’t ask of us to pour ourselves into another’s mold as fiction might.

It’s an interesting idea. I was thinking of it in relation to War and Peace, which I’m still reading (until January). I was trying to pinpoint that emotion I felt while reading it, which is different than a non-fiction book. I feel in a novel that I walk through, and into, a world . I look through the eyes of the character and see what they are seeing – perhaps that’s why I am more emotionally drawn to books than movies somewhat. In a memoir I can feel something deeply, but it’s usually empathy. In a novel, many times I’m feeling through a character – it’s a curious other empathy. In War & Peace, I can see Andrei Bolkonsky from outside as perhaps a cold, judgmental, distanced man; at the same time I am feeling from the inside his hurt, injury, and worldview. His actions make sense and I can see through his eyes. And it’s not empathy, it feels like an actual feeling. I’m stepping into the driver’s seat, even though I know it’s all a simulation. I do love that about books.

This book made me remember mye own obsessive reading as a kid. David Samuels, in his essay on Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey” (coincidentally the only Salinger book I’ve read - I always feel dorky for never having read Catcher in the Rye. I've tried a few times. Oh well. I don't even remember this book too well - time for a re-read.) talks about kid readers as being the unhappy ones, or from a difficult family situation. I don’t think that’s true for everyone, but I can relate. There’s something about being a reader. I’ve talked to people who don’t read for pleasure, and it’s clear for most it begins early. I’m sure for Samuels it was an escape from an unhappy situation, but it can just as easily be an escape from what feels like endless boredom as a child as well, from the routine of daily life, into a world of adventure.

I remember reading “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” over and over in the 4th grade, rotating with “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”, which I read on the bus to school, reading about Claudia and Jamie’s bus ride to school during which they hatched a plan to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the also far away Greenwich, Jamie counting his change. GreenWitch, I thought it was. I remember reading “A Horse and His Boy” along with all the Narnia books the year my parents were getting divorced. Prince Caspian I took out on the back patio in Omaha, laying on a plastic covered metal lounge chair – the kind that made the ratchet sound when you adjusted them - in the shade while my mother sunbathed in a brown bikini covered in Bain de Soleil. I remember her being so sad, and that book being the most boring in the series. Maybe it was just hard to concentrate. In my twenties and early 30’s I read “Howards End” every summer for 7 years. Howards End I remember, but all I can remember of Mrs. Frisby was that the lab looked like my 4th grade classroom, and the grass like the grasses in the fields at the end of our block. I wonder how it would read now? A lot of times when I'm finished with a book I don't remember much plot, but I don't forget the feelings. I’m excited about what these authors remember and remember to love about something that was once important enough to in some cases form a world view around.

This also makes me think about reading itself –the romance of it. I don’t know why it sticks in my mind, but a friend of mine told me once how her high school speech teacher described the best thing about her relationship with her husband being that they would sit and read together. And one day when I was living in New York, I was walking down Lafayette right below Houston and saw two men reading the morning paper at a café, one of them absent-mindedly stroking the other’s forearm. The intimacy and affection struck me deeply and is still burned in my mind, but also that they were reading. Reading is intimate and old to me – to be tethered to someone while off exploring other worlds, surfacing to share what treasure you may have found, is a beautiful thing.

While I was reading the introduction yesterday at breakfast, I looked up and saw a woman sitting opposite her husband start to laugh and laugh while thumping the spine of the open Terry Pratchett book she had been reading in preparation of sharing with him what she had found so entertaining. His t-shirt said “Life is Short” on the back. It’s true, and that’s why we have books.

Colorful Pasts

2010-08-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

A friend on facebook posted this video today, and I was mesmerized. They’re 1922 color tests for film by Kodak. This is 13 years before the first Technicolor process. I’ve written before about Andreyev’s photos from turn of the century Russia before (see the main blog photo – that was in color about 1913).

It’s an interesting time period, but more so I’m fascinated by how close it makes the past. We see ourselves so much through film, more than any other art I think – at least it’s become our main historical record for how people actually looked and behaved, even if it’s fictional. So seeing these women mug for the camera, or just talk in between, is hypnotizing. They seem just like us, not women from nearly 100 years ago. The color palette makes perfect sense – it reminds me of the color glazes you see on pottery of the period, or in a Mucha painting.

At the core, though, is just the immediacy of them seeming like you’d see on the street. We’re humans – we haven’t changed that much. Like that Joni Mitchell line – “Everything comes and goes/marked by lovers and styles of clothes”. Who knows if these women would be movie stars today, but they’re fascinating, with their translucent skin made up, and their hair coiffed perfectly. They seem innocent, too – it’s tempting to think that this is 20 years before the Holocaust so they would not have experienced that particular horror, though it was waiting for them—but they would have just come out of World War I and the horrors and loss of that one, though unaware of the grinding Depression a few years away. They’re so sweet, though. The woman and boy hug in a way that looks very familiar, and somehow the color makes it feel like it is happening today.

I don’t know why I’m so touched by these things – I just am. It’s beautiful to see that we don’t really change, and history is happening now. Through these images, I can pull it a little closer.

Staying Entertained

2010-08-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

It’s been way too long. My list below is not inspiring me. And heck, I haven’t even watched “Beaches of Agnes” yet, or the rest of Season 1 of True Blood. Or anything on my DVR but Project Runway. Can we just admit I’m not a TV person?

Saw “Lieutenant of Inishmore” at the Taper. Really bloody. Good performances, but the play struck me as just a further strike at “Playboy of the Western World” for some reason. And a little obvious, I guess. Aside from the grossout, the most I got was that violence is senseless and eats itself, consuming all. Yes, they killed people ON STAGE, which is a trick, but aside from the horror, I didn’t get much from it, except sad. Maybe that’s the point, but from the laughs I don’t think so. I couldn’t get in the frame to take it lightly.

That’s been it for theater, except for the light “LA Tool and Die Live” at the Celebration. Full disclosure: Sean Abley, who wrote and directed it, is a friend of mine. So I really couldn’t help but love it. It’s smart, silly, fast and fun. And I hope it does very well for him.

I did see “Eat Pray Love” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” this weekend. I liked EPL for what it was – it reads less like the complete Cinderella story it comes off as. I wonder if some of the flack Gilbert gets and the movie is getting is that it seems selfish for a woman to just take off and say she wants to do things for herself. A roaming man is Jack Kerouac, but a roaming woman is selfish. Dunno. Part of it probably is that self-discovery can be masterful and identifiable in a book, yet look self-obsessed when boiled down to actions. For instance, a favorite moment in the book is when she reaches the "blue pearl" meditation state of all feeling one only when she is given a job to be her true, chatty self. It's the summation of the India section in some ways, and it's her sitting in the back of a room in the movie. And bummed they didn't keep the thing about the Richard Jenkins character having open heart surgery because he kept praying for his heart to open. But it was a good travelogue. I like the cast, and enjoyed it.

Scott Pilgrim made me laugh, and it’s a great gimmick making it a cross between a graphic novel and a video game, with the attendant graphics, sounds, and time changes. The film got a little long for me, and dragged a bit when the gimmick wore off, but I did like it. Kieran Culkin is great as the gay best friend who is the most self-assured guy in any room. Any film that ends with Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman dueling to the death is quite the nerdgasm.

I went to visit friends in Idyllwild up in the San Jacinto mountains as well. Very beautiful, small town. I enjoyed it, and sneezed a lot. I’ve been reading Noah Levine’s “Dharma Punx” a memoir about his recovery from drugs and path to Buddhism (it’s a fascinating coupling with “An Unquiet Mind” that I’m reading at the same time). It’s an interesting story, but as I was sitting out reading it on the patio on Sunday morning, I just thought to put the book down and actually meditate outdoors. Of course, a fly buzzed in my ear the moment I started. But it was so beautiful, and there were those loud sounds of nature – if you ever just want to sit and do a mindfulness meditation, outdoors is the best place to be aware of all that’s happening around you – distant chainsaw, then stopping; a barking dog; birdsong; an insect that sounds as if an electric wire is being snapped. And right as my timer was going off for 20 minutes, Lion, the dog who had been sitting around with me, came up and nudged me in the elbow. It was perfect.

This morning I had two MRI’s and that was an exercise in mindfulness – not to feel claustrophobic, and to not move. I asked between them if the radiation was a problem, and the technician told me it was all magnets, and that there is zero harm. “Well, I can’t say zero harm, “ he said, “but no harm. In training we had to practice on each other so I had one a week. It’s magnets. It’s good for you. Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but they’ve been doing it forty years and no problems yet.”

I don’t know if you’ve had one, but it’s a very loud swinging magnet. There were about six sequences each 3-5 minutes long. There would be the initial buzz beep, then some taps, then the long sequence. It sounds like some Phillip Glass punk band – loud loud sound like some hitting an electric base string amped up, then some taps like testing a microphone, and then setting into a long rhythmic assault. The bass line changes, and that was entertaining. There was the machine gun with the occasional high pitch whoosh. There was a fast four count of two tones, one that sounded to me like “emer emer, emer, emer” and a slightly higher pitched “I, I, I, I” so when sounding together it was like “emer, emer, I, I” – MRI. Then there was the one that started sounding like an enormous male voicing “bah bah bah bah bah” over and over into a very loud microphone. Over that one there was a little bell rhythm that would sound above on about the 3 count and then the 2 (I couldn’t quite count since it was pretty fast, but blessedly regular) like bedebedebeep pause, pause, bedebeep”. Jazzy. Once it became clear that it was too loud to even think about meditation, I just went into the sound. And each time it stopped there was a tick, tock, like a clock but twice as fast. I can see why those electric base lines can be so satisfying. And the overtones were nifty to pick out.

It’s best to be entertained when you can be.

The Kids are all right?

2010-07-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

I was thinking this morning (dangerous!) about Outfest and some of the films I saw there. I really did like some, and glad they’re being made, but I am one of those voices who feel like a lot of gay films (especially) seem to break down into coming out stories and wish fulfillment.

I’m not saying this is all gay film – two friends of mine made interesting films the last couple of years – Socket, about a man who becomes addicted to electrical charge; and Pornography: A Thriller – a Lynchian suspense movie that shuffles back and forth in time. Both films did well, but were stymied by the difficulty in pinpointing genre and audience. So, perhaps this is actually a larger issue (which is in mainstream film as well) of what and how something is marketed in our product-driven time. Just writing off the top of my head here – hopefully it will end up making sense.

I walked into Outfest, though, and said to the box office after looking at the program “so the lesbians are still making films about adults and the gay men are making films about sixteen year-olds.” It may be unfair, but it got a spit-take, which I don’t think would’ve happened if it weren’t, on some level, true. I’m actually not here to denigrate gay and lesbian film – any attempt at film-making is great – it ain’t easy. And I think there are some amazing gay and lesbian film makers telling great stories – not all are gay-specific and I’m not someone who thinks they need to be.

I do think, though, at some point, it would be great to make films about gay adults. With their shirts on. Just a thought.

After while my mind shuts off when I read for the umpteenth time "young Justin just graduated from high school and is trying to deny the strong feelings for his friend Dirk, who is having girlfriend troubles of his own..." Tortured adolescent drama and/or hilarity ensues.

It’s a thought that germinated from seeing Lisa Cholodenko’s wonderful “The Kids Are All Right”. I read a review in the mainstream press, NY Times I think, that said this was actually one of the best films about marriage, straight or gay, in a while. It’s true that it seems there are fewer and fewer movies about adults for adults. This one was a breath of fresh air. The critical reception has been great, probably not hurt by having three great roles for adult actors. I’ve often, thought, though, that underneath the resistance to gay marriage is a resistance to having us grow up. Marriage is a rite of adulthood. By denying it, we’re denied being full, adult citizens. I think it’s easier to lampoon gay marriage, or make fun of what it might be, than to explore two adults in a relationship over a long haul, which is what “The Kids Are All Right” does. And it still manages to get some sex in there.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against boys with their shirts off, but it’s like a diet of all sugar. I know, somehow, that we’re capable of more.

Maybe it’s what I thought after I walked out of a narrative at Outfest this year – “It’s hard to write a good screenplay, isn’t it?”

Lists again

2010-07-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

So the ideas are piling up, though I do not seem to be sitting down and writing about them. Sometimes it just helps to make a list

-Sorrows of Dolores and Florent: Queen of the Meat Market at Outfest. Ideas about the downtown theater scene in NY, my own experience of it, and the time that both the Ludlam and Florent are representative of. Especially when it comes to now NY influences the rest of the country, and my own love for this kind of performance

-Shorts at Outfest - some great shorts, and I just wanted to do a capsule of it. And the haunting Polish doc that won best short, too. And why we pick the subjext we pick

-Bearnation and Bear City at Outfest - liked the former more than the latter, which proved to me again how challenging it is to make an interesting, good film, especially with not a lot of money. And glad people are trying it.

-Motherless Brooklyn - detective with Tourette's. Enjoyed it - not sure I have more to say, but a surreal experience reading a book that's set in my old neighborhood

- War & Peace - some of the passages are making me think about why reading is a pleasure like no other for me. I've been thinking a lot about why a book envelops in a way that no other medium does for me.

- Watching "The Beaches of Agnes" (finally!) this weekend, and I'll probably have finished Kay Redfield Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind" by that point, so I guess I could add those, too.

And I bet something else will pop up as well. Still need to see "Lieutenant of Inishmore" at the Taper, as well as The Kids are All Right."; I'm also seeing a friend in [title of show] at the Celebration on Saturday night, which I'm excited about, and "Love Boat Chicas" at Casita Del Campo on Tuesday. Much of a muchness!

The Walking Man

2010-07-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last night a Silverlake fixture passed away - The Walking Man - a 58 year-old retired doctor, Marc Abrams, who walked 15 miles a day around the neighborhood, usually just wearing a pair of shorts. He was exceedingly tan, and read the paper while he walked. In the winter, he'd wear a thin winter jacket, and it was clear he wasn't wearing a shirt underneath. Still the shorts - I don't think I ever saw him in pants.

It's funny - I never met the man, but I feel a little sad. Wistful, maybe. Facebook is full of people who are shocked at the news - it's surprising how many people can be affected by the loss of someone they don't know.

He stands for something in the neighborhood, though. Something that's local, special, a little out there but in no way dangerous. He was even painted in a mural on Sunset. Comforting, like an odd uncle, and someone that everyone had an opinion about -
"I hear he's a doctor" - check
"He must have some kind of obsessive condition" - not really, turns out he had rheumatoid arthritis, and walked to alleviate pain.
"He must be homeless" - not, just an individual who liked to walk. Shirtless while reading. Quite a sight. Even in the darkness, with a flashlight.

I saw him at least once a week, if not more, usually Saturday mornings on Griffith Park Blvd, though sometimes I'd see him of an evening on Hyperion. It was like sighting a hummingbird. There's something of a comfort in it - here I am, in Silverlake. The guy is walking and reading, I love my neighborhood. And he always tipped off some kind of story, a little question about what made him tick, and what would make him walk that much. And not a slow walker, to boot, he really made time.

There's not to much to ponder, I suppose. He was a fixture that made me happy about where I live. That will continue, I'd imagine, but without this particular talisman. He will surely be a missed sight.

Rest in peace, resting feet.

The Adults in The Room

2010-07-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend at Outfest, I saw a screening of "The Adults in the Room", filmmaker Andy Blubaugh’s exploration of his relationship with a thirty year-old man when he was 16, a relationship that in many ways seems to continue to haunt and form him. Not surprising, then, that he made a film about it. Surprising though, that he chose to tackle this taboo subject and try as much as possible to reserve judgment about his past, his former love, or the issue of these kinds of relationships.

The film is told in simultaneous documentary/narrative style, with adult Andy reminiscing about his experiences, interviewing friends, teaching classes to young adults and trying to reach “Peter”, the man with whom he had the affair, while actors re-enact scenes from Andy’s past. It’s a challenging formal choice – I’ve always been intrigued by it, which is why I saw the film. I’m a fan of Agnès Varda, who uses herself as subject in her films, and of "I Am My Own Woman" by Rosa Von Praunheim, in which the subject of the doc comes into frame every now and again to correct the actors and coach them on how to play him.

Andy gets involved with a classmate’s uncle, who seemingly is a serial dater of younger men/boys: when Andy contacts him in the present, 13 years after their affair, he’s dating a twenty year-old. Andy himself must struggle through his need to protect Peter as well as please him, which it looks like from the film he’s been trying to do for most of his life – measuring himself against Peter’s view of Andy’s potential and coming up short. In the course of the film, Peter cuts off contact, and I said to myself “thank god”, since even though I don’t know the filmmaker, it seemed like a straining relationship and one he needed to escape from.

The nature of these older/younger relationships (and by that I mean when one partner is under the age of consent) is the sticky wicket of the film. Blubaugh interviews a few talking heads – one an administrator who is quite gentle, and shares with him how she would feel if he were her son (she was the soul of compassion); one a counselor who believes there is a definite line for when these behaviors are unacceptable; another (Dan Savage), who recounts his own experience of losing his virginity to a much older woman (a bit of a surprise as Savage is out and gay). Savage argues that it’s a gray area after a certain age and before the age of consent. Interwoven are Blubaugh’s conversations with his friends about their views, played against a backdrop of Portland’s mayor who was caught in a scandal of having an inappropriate relationship with an underage intern. Adding on to that is Blubaugh’s own job as a teacher, working with kids on creating film. Looking around at the kids in the room is probably the most effecting aspect of the film. I thought to myself how clear it was that these 15, 16 & 17 year-olds were kids, and it’s hard to have much sympathy for someone who would take advantage of that.

I have my own views, complex as anyone’s I suppose – Savage brings up an interesting point about some of these kids knowing what they’re doing and having a very pleasurable rite of passage experience. But I kind of feel like saying these kids know what they’re doing is like saying if am holding a machine gun I know how to work it. I don’t, and I could do serious damage. If a person in power, as this older man was clearly in Andy’s life, doesn’t respect the power and intensity of what’s going on the stage can be set for future troubles. And that’s not to say all adults don’t, but it’s clear in Andy’s case the adult didn’t – he’s serially involved with younger men, and there is clearly a hero worship/loss of youth/ Peter Pan thing going on with this guy (at least as written by Blubaugh). The relationship clearly has affected all Andy’s subsequent relationships.
I’m digressing here – it’s not my place to therapize, though tempting when the filmmaker puts himself forth as subject.

The movie felt a little long to me, even at 80 minutes, slowing most for me in the time Blubaugh spent in conversation with his friends – much about responsibility and growing up. The narrative sections were well done, and Calvin McCarthy, the young actor who played Andy, was fearless in his role. Some of the conversations were enlightening, but it can feel like navel-gazing a bit to explore that much of oneself on film. Even with Agnès Varda, who I mentioned above, in something like “The Gleaners and I” (which is brilliant – if you haven’t seen it, rent it, buy it, own it, love it) – it’s paradoxically her person and her curiosity which give the film its power, but when she begins exploring herself as sole subject the film loses some of it’s power. I feel the same with this film – when we are watching Andy in class, or seeing his curiosity in interviewing experts or trying to reach Peter, he’s more compelling to me than when he’s just sitting and chatting with his friends about himself. It’s the curiosity of the filmmaker that compels –the force and breadth of their investigation – collaterally we get to know them, but are still tantalized by what we don’t.

That said, that he even tackled this subject at all, knowing that even speaking of it could adversely affect his employment or his future is very brave. (It’s the paranoia I ascribe to even talking about certain things – if you say “America is a capitalism”, someone will yell “Love it or leave it” when the statement doesn’t imply any judgment whatsoever.) It’s a double standard, but that it was two men makes it even more complicated, with the history of “homosexuals preying on victims” rhetoric that stubbornly persists today. Savage’s experience being with a woman is interesting as that’s “Summer of 42” territory – I’m also thinking of the Garth Brooks song “Burning both ends of the Night” – both in which a straight man’s fantasy is to be initiated into sexuality by an older woman. Though this kind of older/younger relationship can certainly be part of the gay experience for many of us, it’s unique in the world at large in that both parties are subject to vilification – one for a relationship with a younger man, and one for being gay. There are no high-fives as there might have been in Dan’s case. Although Dan, being gay, may not have felt high-fivey. Who knows? I can not fathom having been sexual at that age, though a lot of my peers were (in relationships with someone older) and were not adversely affected in any way. Probably the best film I’ve seen on this male-male relationship (WWII as well, so Summer of ’42 again), narrative-wise, which I don’t think could have been made in this country, is the Dutch film For A Lost Soldier", in which a much older writer looks back on his relationship with an older soldier when he was a boy.

See? It’s complicated—I’ve already wishy-washed myself in trying to write about it – and even got sucked into writing about it when I didn’t really want to address it. It certainly starts a conversation, and I admire his fortitude in not taking a pro or con position, even with his own experience. That can’t be easy to do. I suppose, like everyone, he has a complicated relationship to his past. And I’m still thinking about it.

It’s an honor to have that shared with you since I don't think most would be that uncompromising without feeling exhibitionistic, and I thank him for it. I’m glad Outfest exists so we can see movies like this. And I’m interested to see what films he’s going to make next.

The Pruned Tree

2010-07-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about the loss of a friend I had a couple years ago, and many others, too. I suppose this is the reality of humanity.

I may have written this before, but a teacher of mine expressed this difference between pathos and tragedy being the realization that something is going to happen without being able to stop it. So if you get hit by a bus it's pathetic, but if you look up and say "I'm going to get hit by a bus" and can do nothing to stop it, it's tragic. It's a gross simplification, but it works. Ergo, all human life is a tragedy, since we know what's waiting at the end. We go on as we have to. It's been said more eloquently from Shakespeare to Beckett, and usually I, as I think we all do, march along without thinking of it. How could we? Knowledge or fear of that on a daily basis could be debilitating, maddening in a true sense of losing sanity. But sometimes it peeks itself up through the cracks.

Or maybe I'm wrong - maybe all we do is in knowledge of it - have religions and belief systems, ethics, even care for each other. In my optomistic view, knowledge of our mortality is what keeps us caring for each other. Rather than make us nihilistic, I think naturally it makes us care more for what ourselves, as we realize we are precious.

What was I talking about again? No editing today, folks.

Oh, right. So, this poem. It's one of my faves, so possible I've posted it before. When a friend's father died, I sent this to his mother. I think now that may have been wildly inappropriate, like thinking that showing "Hannah and Her Sisters" to a class of mine to teach them Chekhov would make any sense. The connection made sense to me. It had not been an easy time, or an easy death. It was a long, slow tragedy. So, I thought of this poem, and its optimism. I think she appreciated it, actually, or that's what she said. I find it comforting, with its connection to the earth, and sense of movement. And, even at a literal level, it's good to remember this poem when I drive home and see how violently cut back the tree in the front yard is once every couple of years. It grows back. Each time, it gets as full as it once was, and we have shade again.

The Pruned Tree
by Howard Moss

As a torn paper might seal up its side,
Or a streak of water stitch itself to silk
And disappear, my wound has been my healing,
And I am made more beautiful by losses.
See the flat water in the distance nodding
Approval, the light that fell in love with statues,
Seeing me alive, turns its motion toward me.
Shorn, I rejoice in what was taken from me.

What can the moonlight do with my new shape
But trace and retrace its miracle of order?
I stand, waiting for the strange reaction
Of insects who knew me in my larger self,
Unkempt, in a naturalness I did not love.
Even the dog's voice rings with a new echo,
And all the little leaves I shed are singing,
Singing to the moon of shapely newness.

Somewhere what I lost I hope is springing
To life again. The roofs, astonished by me,
Are taking new bearings in the night, the owl
Is crying for a further wisdom, the lilac
Putting forth its strongest scent to find me.
Butterflies, like sails in grooves, are winging
out of the water to wash me, wash me.

Now, I am stirring like a seed in China.

Farmer's Market

2010-07-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

This is my local Farmer's Market. I like it - it's small and manageable. There's a big one in Hollywood on Sunday, which people love - it has drumming groups, lots of food vendors, and celebrity sightings. I almost feel like I need to dress. It's a bit of a scene, so I don't go to that one very often. If only how impossible it is to make a choice - there are so many stalls you don't know who to buy from. I's spend my whole day figuring out the best deal. Mine is wee in comparison.

It's right down the road. There's an Asian woman on the left right when you walk in who looks like she might be Mongolian, who has a baby I've seen grow from an infant she carried on her back, now gradudated to a playpen behind her stall. She eats some kind of seed while shuffling vegetables. I buy some greens from her - some that have white flowers, some with yellow flowers, and Chinese broccoli. I don't prepare them so much as just steam them and eat them. They taste bitter and green, satisfying. I don't like the bok choy.

Today I bought corn, strawberries, brussell sprouts, , asparagus, spinach, peaches and plums. A tomato. The boy who sold me the plums told me if I wanted the sweet ones to pick those that are dark and soft but not mushy. I knew that already, but I thanked him. 5 plums for 1.80, and when I added another trying to get close to 2.00 I went over by a quarter. He rounded down, and wouldn't take the quarter. I like that about the farmer's market - they round down. A few weeks ago I got insane deals on cherries.

Last night at dinner we were talking about farmer's markets, eating a wonderful salad of tomatoes and grilled vegetables that two of the guys had grown in their garden. I keep hoping someone here will have Concord grapes like they have at the Union Square farmer's market in NY. They're like candy. And frozen, they're peelable popsicles. Union Square is still my first and my favorite farmer's market. It would be worth a 5 hour plane ride for me to go when the grapes are in season and apples are in full flush into October, when the weather begins to change but it's not completely the time of hot cider, root vegetables and squash. I used to make a salad of corn, beets, tomatoes, and red onions. One day I substituted store-bought lettuce and I was surprised the salad lost much of its pep. You can even taste the difference in the lettuce.

There's a Chinese woman at the farmer's market I go to who is tall and slender, with a wonderful smile, and always has great fruit. It's usually a bit more, but she was in line with everyone else today. She usually pops in an extra piece of small fruit at the end, as if she's slightly guilty about making you pay, or possibly to make sure you have enough. Once I bought a large bag of jujubes from her and learned how to make medicinal jujube tea. She has a display. Today I bought white peaches from her assistant, maybe her daughter. They're so ripe I'm almost afraid to touch them anymore but at the same time it's tempting to feel the perfect ripeness - the slightest firmness, but giving to the touch. They're a pale, pale yellow with shocks of peach orange. I know when I eat them, they're going to be perfect: juicy, sweet beyond belief. I'd like to anticipate that a bit longer, but one is calling my name. Right now. Summer is wonderful for this.

Lit

2010-07-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Lit by Mary Karr, a memoir about her adult life, past The Liar's Club, her first memoir and one that helped kick off the current memoir genre popularity. That memoir was about her terrifying childhood and difficult mother. This one is about her college, marriage, alcoholism, recovery and discovery of faith - as well as a relationship to her mother, which is the undercurrent of the book.

It's a tall order, now that I think about it. Finishing it I realize it spans about twenty years, if not more. The uniqueness in this, I suppose, reading her other book, is that this book - while still having certainly enough drama in it - is about the legacy of the pain. It's clear she had to deal with it while writing about it, but is honest enough to not pretend as if that makes everything okay. She still has to live with who she is. The way she does that, or figures out how to do that, is the meat of the book. She's eloquent and simple when walking through her recovery, even her conversion. The writing on sobriety is great, and you see why she's walking the road she's on, even though at times it's not at all a comfort.

It's a big book. I definitely felt her poetry in her writing, sometimes to its detriment, but not for most of it. Only a couple of times did I feel like her Writing was getting in the way of her writing - by that I mean her crafting of words was so enjoyable to her that I lost what was being said. It can be a danger - I didn't finish Rick Bragg's "All over but the shouting" because of it - but that's my own pet peeve. I'm sure some people love it. Mostly, though, her poetic language serves her well - to clarify who she is and to specify her feeling - her poetic language makes her feelings more specific, which is the whole point.

If I could give you plot points I would probably have a more eloquent review here, but I'm loath to do that. The beauty of this book is in the journey, and it's a hard-earned beautiful journey. Her gift is in telling her story so well - with enough self-knowledge to keep her searching for more, but not an over-abundance that keeps her at a remove. She's super-smart, that's clear, and funny. But she isn't living as an analyst by any means.

I was also struck how much she respects the people in her book. It's clear she's very respectful of her ex-husband and her part in their relationship; she resists the temptation to demonize him. Or anyone. That may be the key feature in her recovery that is so apparent - her compassion. She resists demonizing almost anyone, and everyone comes across as wonderfully human. That's an accomplishment, and certainly for a memoirist who controls how we see everyone. I most admire the end of the book. There's a moment when it could be easily warmly wrapped up - almost a Hollywood ending. Life's not that simple, though. I'm sure she could have ended it that way without bending any truth, but by not doing that the ending felt earned, which I think is much harder to achieve.

I won't give away anything, I would just say read it. It's a broad book about a specific life, and that's a beautiful thing.

Movie Capsules from the weekend

2010-06-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

I saw a few movies this weekend. It’s been a while, actually, since I’ve seen this many in a short amount of time. I had sinus surgery, and needed to get out of the house. Movies are great in that they really only require you to move from sitting one place to sitting another. A friend had tickets for a musical, and I knew I wasn’t up for that, but a few movies, that I could do.

Toy Story 3. It made me cry, and then I couldn’t blow my nose becuase of the sinus surgery - darn you, Pixar! That’s some kind of torture. They just hit this one out of the park. It’s definitely action/adventure caper that you’d expect from a sequel, but underneath is an exploration of childhood, friendship, purpose, and saying goodbye. I really was blindsided, even though I was warned, at how affecting it was. The voice talent and animation are top notch, and it manages to be clever and inventive without ever feeling like it’s reaching for a joke. I can’t remember the last narrative live action film I was this moved by. That’s saying something.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Go. See. This. Film. She’s certainly complicated, and the glimpse I took of the reviews indicate that one’s reception of the film will be colored by one’s opinion of her. I doubt, though, that you will be able to come away from this movie without a healthy dose of respect for her. She does define the term “workaholic”, but you leave the film uncertain if that’s a bad thing. Depending on your view, she might be a tragic figure, unable to enjoy the fruits of her outsize labor; a survivor who has not let a lifetime of pain stop her from her dreams; a unquenchable personification of ambition that ultimately has no satisfaction – a kind of Tantalus. I left with a great respect for her work, her no-holds barred self-assessment, and her big heart. I don’t know if she’s hiding an inner depth, or some deep pain that she’s not in touch with – there is exploration of her husband’s suicide and their relationship as well as with her daughter, but nothing of her formative years that sound like they may have been painful (when a heckler tells her he has a deaf child and she’s not funny, she responds that her mother was deaf and we have to laugh at life to deal with the pain). At several points, you see how she has struggled, and her belief that live is above all hard – after delivering a Thanksgiving meal to a woman in a wheelchair with MS who had been an art photographer she bluntly says, “Life is so…mean!” No matter, though – she doesn’t dwell on it for very long, and doesn’t present herself as a nut to crack. She’s fascinating, though, and funny, funny, funny. I think the filmmakers have taken a little heat for this being too sympathetic, but it doesn't feel puffy to me at all. If there's anything you can say about her, it's that she's certainly ruthless in her own self - assessment. After playing a tribute at the Kennedy Center she is asked how she thought she did and she says "Funnier than some, not as funny as others" and then it's on to the next gig.

Io Sono L'Amore (I Am Love). I will right away say this is not a film for everyone. On some level it feels like a showcase for Tilda Swinton, but what a showcase it is. It’s reminiscent of Sirk, Visconti, heavily visual, even sensual. In fact, it’s probably the closest you’d get to a completely sensual film without reaching out and touching anything. Tilda Swinton plays a Russian woman who has married into a wealthy Italian family, has three children about college age or after, and is having an awakening. I’ll leave it at that. I will say, though, that the scenery (both natural and man-made) is luxurious, luscious and swoon-inducing, as is Edoardo Gabbriellini (managing to be not ridiculously perfect but perfectly what he needs to be), who is part of her awakening. The interiors of the house, the clothes, and then the countryside around Sanremo are just voluptuous. Heavily visual, it nevertheless packs a wallop story wise, and was unexpectedly moving. Swinton is just so fascinating. Her face is mask-like, in that it never seems to betray great emotion, yet is full of it. She’s completely in control of her faculties. It’s a joy to see someone at the top of their game, and even more in a role that’s so delicate. She’s a walled-off character, somewhat reticent, and her bloom reflects that as well. She can be unbelievably ravishing or plain, blend into walls or make you forget there's anyone else in the room. She never is seeming to work hard - it's all effortless. There’s also an amazing, amazing scene with Maria Paiato, who plays her maid, which is almost shocking in how affecting it is. These are my favorite moments in films - when some emotion has been quietly building that you don’t even know is there, and it reveals itself in full force. An incredible supporting cast in this, too. Marisa Berenson turns it out as the family matriarch. Note perfect. A scene when the women close ranks against a beau who has been rejected tells you everything you would need to know about the super-rich, or the super-rich in this world. I love the formalism - how it's just so film-y, for want of a better word, using the medium as an illustrative, impressionistic, emotional tool. I gasped at one point.

Well, I guess between that and Toy Story, it was quite an emotional weekend.

Let the Right One In – Okay, so this is a couple years old. Norwegian film about an unhappy 12 year old boy and the girl vampire that moves in next door. I had heard great things about it and wasn’t disappointed. It’s definitely not an American movie – it takes its time to set up both the suspense and the relationship between the two kids. The violence is disturbing and gruesome, which is kind of a nice change from the current trend of sexy vampires everywhere (that sounds like a movie itself). There is some humor, hapless adults, the true unhappiness and loneliness that can beset a kid of that age – especially an unpopular, bullied kid. Their relationship is wonderful, and allowed to develop at a pace that makes sense while the world is circling closer and closer to her secret. Lina Leandersson plays Eli, the 12 year old vampire with a centuries old soul, and is - I don’t even have the superlatives. Suffice it to say she’s brilliant, and I was floored at her pulling it off. It’s a great story, and both she and the boy were great, but she just blew me away. I was surprised how much I liked it. Kind of a haunting film. I hope they don’t do a crappy American remake. Fingers crossed. I love American movies, but a lot of times they remake a great European movie and miss the point. People should just rent this one. I mean, it won 60 International film awards, so it’s gotta be good, right?

I would highly recommend all four films. That's a great average - been a while since I could say that.

Perfect Endings

2010-06-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

I had my heart broken a few times this weekend. I was listening to short stories again.

At the suggestion of a friend, I listened to couple from the New Yorker podcast, Richard Ford reading John Cheever’s “Reunion”, and A.M. Homes reading Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” I hadn’t heard either, surprising I guess from the sound of the podcast, as it sounds like it’s taught in schools.

The Cheever is gorgeous, short, sharp, like a razor - you’re unaware of the damage until it’s already cut. It moves so quickly, and ends abruptly. That ending is what makes it for me. Not only is it a brilliant moment in a relationship between father and son, but it gives nothing away but starts the moment they start relating, and ends the moment they stop. It’s enough, though, to leave you with a heartache for the father and son. Ford said he wrote a story inspired by it, and reads his classes his story along side Cheevers –brave. It sounds like a great exercise – not just the inspiration, but to have an assignment to write a relationship like that – a scene that stands by itself as a full story. I tend to like those – compact, succinct, with enough room for my imagination. Ford said he goes back to it again and again, and I can see why. You almost want more, more juice, more to explain, but there’s no need. It’s a great balancing act. Heartbreaking.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” I didn’t know, though I had been warned from the pre-ample that something was going to happen. I started to guess about half way through, but thought it couldn’t possibly be what I thought it was. Interestingly, when it was published in 1946? 8? hundreds cancelled their subscription, horrified by the story. It’s intense, with almost no indication of what’s going to happen, but it circles closer and closer inevitably as the story moves along. It’s tight as a rock. The language is so simple, and once again, it ends almost shockingly abruptly. This and the Cheever are so brilliant in their resistance to tie things up, but leave you speeding up – almost as if they have pushed you up a ramp they’ve created, and the ramp ends with you in mid-air and nothing to catch. Both are quite exhilarating. It’s interesting that Homes and Deborah Triesman, the fiction editor of the New Yorker, talk about how she’s fallen by the wayside. Holmes suggests it’s because there are no women writers from mid-century that are read now. I was in my car thinking “Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter”. They didn’t hear me.

A few other highlights as well – I’m probably sounding like a broken record using “beautiful” and “gorgeous” to describe these, but I did love and think was beautiful Lorrie Moore’s story “Dance in America” that Louis Erdrich read on the New Yorker podcast. I can’t even go into how subtly heartbreaking this is, but to do this kind of thing in a short story is like amazing song writing. You listen over and over and can’t figure out how something so short can be so packed. It was so full in fact, I found myself making up alternate stories in my head out of the small details just thrown about. A woman meets up with a man she hasn’t seen since college while teaching a group of elementary students dance in the town. He lives with his French wife and his son with cystic fibrosis in an abandoned frat house. This one manages to break your heart and salve it at the same time. How is that possible?

I guess I listened to a lot – there’s a beautiful story read on Selected Shorts called “Wild Plums” by Grace Stone Coates that John Updike selected for the best short stories of the century. Looks like he also selected a Jean Stafford story, and I’d love to read more of her. Wild Plums, though - once again magical, simple, surprising – was written in 1929. I was overwhelmed with the desire for this Kansas farm girl to eat a wild plum and break out of the stern control of her parents. Once again, the perfect ending.

How do they do it?

42

2010-06-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

I’m 42 today.

I would usually start off the year with an intention; or perhaps an intention to have an intention but end up with a bad feeling about not having an intention.

But not this year.

This year, I’m just enjoying it. And although my other shoe-dropping mentality made “you’re going to die in your sleep” pop into my head right as I was setting my alarm last night, once again it was wrong. I did wake up. And at 7:17 EST, I turned 42, so I’m in the third year of my 5th decade.

So I had coffee with friends, lunch with work friends, and now dinner made by an old friend to spend with friends. How lucky is that?

I feel very grateful and gifted. Perhaps it’s the glow from my first acting award nomination. It’s certainly not that I’m behind 19 chapters on War & Peace to keep on my 365 day schedule (skipping a few days can really get you). I have a feeling about Andrei and Natasha – it’s all very exciting at the moment, but you know Napoleon and Waterloo are just around the corner. But I have sinus surgery next week, so that will keep me low enough to catch up on some chapters.

And maybe catch Tilda Swinton in “I Am Love”. This weekend’s a trip to Arizona to see family, so much podcasting – catching up on Short Stories, History, and Science. I love that.

There will be more to write about. My intention is manifesting itself just by being and see what’s next at the moment. And that’s a lovely place to be.

Short Stories

2010-06-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

My friend Ted posted a question on his blog bookey-wookey if people preferred short fiction or novels. It's an interesting question.

I have a wierd relationship to them. I love Chekhov's short stories, but I do not choose to read stories as a genre. In the New Yorker I almost never do, unless it's Sherman Alexie or some writer I love who I just can't skip (he's another short form person I admire and find very readable). For the most part, though, I'm impatient with them. I'm kind of impatient with fiction lately anyway - maybe it's a function of aging - but some writers can still catch my eye. I haven't given up totally. Like everything, I'm sure it's cyclical. And, like everything, if it's an amazing short story, I love it. Joyce's Dubliners, Sherman Alexie's collections, Rachel Ingalls' novellas, Grace Paley - great writers. And I love essays, too, so it's not the shortness. Maybe it's just a hard form.

Then, I discovered the Selected Shorts podcast, and discovered I love short stories being read to me. That was revelatory. There's something wonderful about being told the whole story in voice, whereas books on tape leave me completely cold.

In fact, Joanna Gleason reading St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is thrilling. That story I still remember - visceral, beautiful. I thought it would be a gimmick, and then it's unexpectedly about assimilation, adolescence, and pain. Stunning.

Another one that recently blew me away is on the New Yorker fiction podcast, where authors pick other authors' stories to read. Hilton Als read Jean Stafford's Children are Bored on Sunday, about an alcoholic woman's first foray after a breakdown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I actually wrote about these a little in my podcast entry when I started them. The stories are beautiful, so I guess that's my answer - I really love short fiction when it's being read to me.

Of course, I'm currently in RadioLab hole, and can't stop listening to the last 5 years of podcasts. I just listened to amazing stories about spindle cells, anthropomorhization, and animal brains on my way to work this morning. So all my friends are hearing about space, science, and brains. Which is a good story, too....

Tangerines

2010-06-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was telling me at lunch he was in kind of a bad mood, and writing haikus. I asked him if one was

f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck
f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck
f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck this

I am so eloquent in verse.

It was little flip, but it made me laugh. I'm in a good mood, though, and this beatiful piece of writing popped into my head for some reason - the MFK Fisher essay Borderland, in which she talks about roasting tangerines on a radiator in France. I think it's pretty well-known, probably because it manages to be so sensual and have a such a specific sense of place. It's gorgeous, so enjoy if you haven't read it. Thanks to this google books link, you can read the whole thing.

After you have put the pieces of tangerine on the paper on the hot radiator, it is best to forget about them. Al comes home, you go to a long noon dinner in the brown dining-room, afterwards maybe you have a little nip of quetsch from the bottle on the armoire. Finally he goes. You are sorry, but -

On the radiator the sections of tangerines have grown even plumper, hot and full. You carry them to the window, pull it open, and leave them for a few minutes on the packed snow of the sill. They are ready.

All afternoon you can sit, then, looking down on the corner. Afternoon papers are delivered to the kiosk. Children come home from school just as three lovely whores mince smartly into the pension's chic tearoom. A basketful of Dutch tulips stations itself by the tram-stop, ready to tempt tired clerks at six o'clock. Finally the soldiers stump back from the Rhine. It is dark.

The sections of the tangerine are gone, and I cannot tell you why they are so magical. Perhaps it is that little shell, thin as one layer of enamel on a Chinese bowl, that crackles so tinily, so ultimately under your teeth. Or the rush of cold pulp just after it. Or the perfume. I cannot tell.

There must be someone, though, who understands what I mean. Probably everyone does, because of his own secret eatings.

Still plugging away

2010-05-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

Still plugging away a chapter a day on War & Peace. The other day, there was just a beautiful moment that made me catch my breath. And the chapter after, too. Really, really gorgeous. I don't think I do it justice, but read the book.

"As soon as he opened the shutters, moonlight, as if it had been watching at the window for a long time waiting for that, burst into the room. He opened the window. The night was fresh and stilly bright. Just under his window was a row of rimmed trees, black on one side and silvery bright on the other. Under the trees was some juicy, wet, curly growth with touches of silver on its leaves and stems. Further beyond the black trees was some rood glistening with dew, to the right a big, curly tree with a bright white trunk and branches, and above it a nearly full moon against the light, nearly starless spring sky."

How beautiful is that? Spring is moist and bursting, juicy, silver, eager. And right at the moment he leans out the window, he hears voices above him, talking. It's two girls, Natasha and Sonya. Natasha can't sleep. She wants to play a game again. And Sonya is obviously tired.

"You sleep, I can't" Natasha says, and must be close, as he can hear her dress rustle and her breathing above him. He's afraid to move. Then she tells Sonya how she may spring up and fly. Sonya annoys her by telling her it's after one o'clock. She sits for a while in the window, still, with an occasional sigh, and finally says suddenly "Ah, my God, my God! what on earth is it! If it's sleep, it's sleep!" and slams the window.

What can Andrei think? He's confused, and unable to even comprehend what he is feeling - that she doesn't care about him, or even know who he is, and he is filled with "unexpected tangle of youthful thoughts and hopes, contradictory to his whole life."

Read the whole post here.

I'm late!

2010-05-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been so wanting to write lately, but the above is how I'm feeling! Oh, well. Maybe this weekend for Memorial Day I'll give myself the gift of a little time....

Happy Music

2010-05-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

Some days, you just need some happy music. This is my happy song lately.

That's all at the moment...

I did see the Jung exhibit on Sunday. Much, much to think about.

Mourners

2010-05-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

This looks so great. There's a little piece about these 37 figures of mourning in the New York Times today, and it looks incredible. The room in the picture above, with choir screen, is my favorite room in the Met. It's where the put the Christmas tree, and all the Gothic and Medieval art that's not at the Cloisters is. Such a great place.

But, lucky for us, this is coming to LA, next year, about the same time. Very exciting.

And it will be in St. Louis, which makes me want to take a trip out there to see that museum that I've only ever gone to with my Grandmother. I have a feeling she'd love these.

A Cold, and some other thoughts..

2010-05-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

I had a cold this weekend, which occasioned my calling in sick to work. Yuck. And sitting in front of the TV, which again became apparent, is not my favorite pasttime. And, as I think about canceling my tv/dvr combo for the umpteenth time (not the least reason being that when my DVR cut off programs I had to watch them online anyway), I was thinking about the first Howards End quote below. And then the second, since I love it. I searched in my blog, and thought I had posted them, but it looks like I haven't. So here they are. I do love this book. A lot. Maybe time for a reread.

"As for theatres and discussion societies, they attracted her less and less. She began to "miss" new movements, and to spend her spare time re-reading or thinking, rather to the concern of her Chelsea friends. They attributed the change to her marriage, and perhaps some deep instinct did warn her not to travel further from her husband than was inevitable. Yet the main cause lay deeper still; she had outgrown stimulants, and was passing from words to things. It was doubtless a pity not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but some closing of the gates is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself is to become a creative power."

"Looking back on the past six months, Margaret realised the chaotic nature of our daily life, and its difference from the orderly sequence that has been fabricated by historians. Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes. The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent. It assumes that preparation against danger is in itself a good, and that men, like nations, are the better for staggering through life fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essence is romantic beauty. Margaret hoped that for the future she would be less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in the past."

History

2010-05-07T10:56:00.001-07:00

I happened across this great little article in the NY Times about a man trying to find the original occupants of his apartment on the Upper West Side. I'm a sucker for New York history, for some reason. That city is a treasure trove.

To be honest, I'm a sucker for the history of almost anyplace I've lived. Seattle had a fascinating history, as does LA. And in Vermont I actually dated the youngest member of the White River Junction historical society. Youngest by like 35 years.

But this, in conjunction with the discovery of this truly annoying website called Spokeo, which culls marketing data and pictures from the web to give inaccurate information to the world about you, made me wonder if this kind of mystery is a thing of the past. Or if the glut of information makes the mystery now figuring out the real truth, rather than just finding out what the truth may have been.

We leave so much information now, much of it true, but much of it not. The website had my correct address, phone number, and age range, but incorrect information about owning my home, pictures with my name of different people, and assumptions about my preferences. I don't know why it angered me so. It seems like people only about 5-10 years younger have a completely different understanding of privacy. Most of them think it's cool or just inevitable - the cost of doing business. And think about how much incorrect information, addresses, phone numbers, names, people give because they have to join something and don't want to give out correct information. The mind boggles.

I'm too much of a twentieth century guy, I guess. I have some expectation of privacy. Now, with empoloyers checking faceboook and not hiring people because of who their friends might be and how they act, we are in a different game. I'm thinking that though we won't have the fun of poring through endless pieces of paper to find those one or two pertinent clues, the future may be a whole host of answers and our job will be to figure out which one's correct.

I still come down on the side of loving the mystery. I was thinking about Jeanne Eagels for some reason this morning, who supposedly rocked the entire country in her stage performance of Rain, and then went on to star in the original version of The Letter, which is impossible to find - I think only a few prints exist. That just wouldn't happen today. We'll have record of everything. It's good, I suppose, but I'm a little sad for the death of the mystery.

Homage

2010-04-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

It was an interesting weekend for homage.

On Saturday, a friend invited me to the Barbra Streisand Birthday party at Mbar in Hollywood, which turned out to be a wild mix of performers, from amazing to okay, doing Barbra Streisand songs in honor of her birthday. It wasn’t crazy hero worship, but people had fun stories – some obviously bigger fans than others.

True confession here, I listened to Barbra almost exclusively from the age of 8 to 13. In fact, the first album I bought with my own money was the soundtrack to “A Star is Born”. A song from that was one of my favorite moments of the night, provided by a woman I’d never heard before named Julie Garnyé, who has an incredible voice, and can belt as high as Streisand, which isn’t easy. She sang a song called “Everything” from “A Star is Born”, which I hadn’t heard in over 25 or 30 years, but still remember all the words to. That was kind of a hoot. It’s not a great song, and it’s even interrupted in the movie:

Of course, I’ve had it stuck in my head for days. Not a great song. She, on the other hand, knocked it out of the park. Truly exhilarating to find someone with a great voice you’ve never heard before.

The other great moment for me was provided by Dana Meller, who sang “I’m the Greatest Star” in Russian. It’s hysterical, and a perfect solution to wanting to sing a well-known Streisand song but not be compared with her. I even found it on youtube:

The performers were all game, and it was great to see so many talents – musical directors, musicians, singers, having a great time. It was a long evening – almost three hours, but a great time. I hope they do it next year.

And someone sings “Free Again” in French, which I think is the original language. It’s excellent.

Speaking of excellence, on Sunday I saw John Kelly do Joni Mitchell in his “Paved Paradise; Redux” show. According to his bio, the first time he did Joni was at Wigstock in 1985, which means he’s been performing her for 25 years. He’s brilliant.

What separates his show from homage, and moves it into a whole other realm, is his musicianship. Her songs are not easy to play, with intricate tunings and rhythm. And they’re not easy to sing, either. That he does that with any facility is incredible, but added on to it this kind of mimicry/celebration and it’s a wonder. A rarified wonder, but a wonder nonetheless.

In the first act, he’s wearing a white dress and performing mostly early songs, at one point moving to the side of the stage and picking up a dulcimer for “A Case of You” which he sings beautifully. The dulcimer, we later learn as “Joni” talks to us about John, was given to him as a gift by her. It’s hysterically meta. But underneath is seeing someone that’s gone beyond fan. He’s taken her as a persona and her music and created a complex show that celebrates her while celebrating our love for her – kind of what Rufus Wainwright did with his Judy at Carnegie Hall show. The aim of this, though, is to have Kelly play the character of “Joni Mitchell” with her stage patter, mannerisms, and way of walking (an entertaining kind of apologetic slouch) without at any point making fun of her. Neither does he deify her.

The second act is the later music, from Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira, Night Ride Home, and Turbulent Indigo. Kelly’s "Joni" voice isn’t as suited to most of this music, as Mitchell’s voice began to change, but it’s still the character he’s playing - I even thought he looks a little more like Meryl Streep than Joni Mitchell, but that's not at all the point. He captures her.

He goes off to a red special, taking off the dress and wig, and re-emerging as himself to play a couple more songs, ending with “Blue”. He’s an interesting performer on his own, and it’s that assertion of his individuality, of being an actor playing a role, that makes the show so strong. Apparently, from the patter, he’s become friends with Joni Mitchell, so they speak and he has her mannerisms down, especially the way she’ll tell a joke, then look up shyly and smile, and then become serious again. The character is somewhat awkward, smiling, unsure, talkative and hyper-intelligent, then giving way to explosively intimate awe-inspiring music. That Kelly can bring us both these worlds is astounding. I've never seen her in concert, and I'm sure it's very different, but you end up with great affection for her. It's apparent he's a visual artist as well, so it feels closer to performance art, with meticulous detail and thoughtful touches. It feels constructed in a way to bring out meaning and dialogue in a way that a straightforward tribute wouldn't. Maybe that's why I liked it so much. It's certainly not a version of "Jersey Boys" about Joni Mitchell, or a revue. And I love even more that he changes the songs, like an actual show, so if you saw it again you would see a different concert.

It brings to mind a bit the Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, who not only dance the ballets they spoof brilliantly, but manage to make fun of them affectionately at the same time - it's twice the work, and requires an ability to jump from sincerity to sarcasm in the twinkle of an eye. I dont think he's making fun, though ther are laughs, but he pulls us in to where the lines blur. It’s smart, surprising, complex stuff. I was amazed for much of the show. I’m glad I had the luck to see it.

This is from that article I linked to above. It says alot about what it is:

Joni sees 'Joni'

No less a critic than Joni Mitchell herself has been surprised by the impact of Kelly's cabaret tribute. "I was braced for a lampooning," she told The New York Times after seeing "Paved Paradise" in Manhattan in 1997. "I didn't expect to be so touched. I cried in two places." Mitchell, who took her own foray into cross-dressing as a black man on the cover of her 1977 album "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter," is now one of Kelly's biggest fans.

Indeed, Mitchell and Kelly have become friends, too. She has seen his show three times and presented him with a dulcimer, and they've had much conversation over the years. "She does most of the talking," Kelly says, smiling. "We talk about painting, and politics a little bit, and Miles Davis. She talks about her dreams a lot. She can be goofy. And very warm."

That first time Mitchell saw Kelly perform, Kelly knew she was in the audience. "It was one of the hardest things I've ever done," he says. "I saw myself getting scared. And I said to myself, Don't do that, just do your job. Don't change anything. That would have been the dangerous thing, to feel like I had to adjust. . . . And she loved it."

Mitchell watched the show from the back of the house. "Every time a cigarette would light up," he says, "I could see her."

After the show, he saw her walking down the hall backstage and had a moment of panic, taking off his wig and then putting it back on. "And she said, 'Let me take off my jacket so I can hug you,' and we held each other. . . . That night, it was us checking each other out. And her trusting that I wasn't making fun of her or dishonoring her in any way. Especially with all the stuff surrounding the gender thing - there's such a history of people making fun, or parodying, or spoofing."

Mitchell told Kelly that seeing such a heartfelt reflection of herself was an emotional experience. "She really got it," he says. "During 'Shadows and Light,' she was standing up yelling 'Bravo!' During 'The Circle Game,' she was sobbing and swaying and holding the hands of her friends. She said it was like Huck Finn in the choir loft watching his own funeral."

The Red Book

2010-04-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

I read about Jung's Red Book last September, and have been intrigued on and off. Not intrigued enough to pay $126 for a copy of it, but still fascinated. It's a journal of his hallucinations, thoughts, and delvings into the unconscious.

Well, lo and behold, I see that it's at the Hammer from April to June. Exciting.

Must run and see very soon. Since I won't be buying my own copy anytime soon, this may be my only chance to see it. Exciting!

Earth Day

2010-04-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

In honor of earth day, here are some photos I took at the Getty a couple of years ago. I still cannot believe how the sun's rays pointed directly into the center of the maze of the garden, no matter how many pictures I took, as if some Aztec rite was about to be performed. It's as if the gardeners knew that the correct configuration would be pierced by the sun at evening every day to look like a key was about to be unlocked, a la Raiders of the lost arc. I suppose we are sun-worshipers out here to a point.

I also love the 70s Western way the sun comes from behind the cactus. An opening of a 'getty western.
Enjoy.

The Secret of Kells

2010-04-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

I saw The Secret of Kells this weekend, an animated film about the Book of Kells, ostensibly, or a young boy being raised by monks and illuminators who will go to any length to protect it.

Brendan, a boy of 12 being raised by his Uncle, the Abbot of Kells, is fascinated with the manuscripts being illuminated by the monks. His Uncle, meanwhile, is more concerned with saving Kells from advancing marauders from the North (Vikings)

who have pillaged and destroyed other communities by building a wall and gates to keep them out, and anything that distracts from that is frivolous.

Brendan’s fancy is captured when he is told the story of the master illuminator Aidan of Iona, who supposedly has such power that sinners are destroyed by the light that pours forth from his book. Brendan has a vision of Iona being destroyed, and soon after Aidan shows up at the door with his cat, Pangur Ban (which is a great callout to a famous poem written by a ninth century monk that I only know from Barber’s wonderful “The Monk and His Cat” from the Hermit Songs that you can listen to here - you gotta love how the piano sounds like a cat is tromping up the keys).

Anyhow, Brendan and Pangur venture to a forest that he is forbidden to go into to gather some oak berries for green ink.

They are set upon by wolves, and narrowly saved by Aisling (sounds like Ashley), a fairy of the woods. In a beautiful sequence, she shows Brendan the woods and all their wonders.

Aidan thinks his drawing is talented enough to be the keystone middle page of the manuscript, and he goes to find a crystal that is needed to see the world in a way to create the beauty of the illustration.

Eventually he is discovered, and his Uncle locks him in the tower until he learns what’s important, and keeps him from the scriptorium. The Vikings attack, Brendan and Aidan escape, and continue work on the book. There’s more, but you get the idea.

That’s quite a lot of it actually.

Kudos for simply the design of the movie. It’s gorgeously designed, fanstasically using the Celtic design and the design of the book to illustrate the story. The directors did not stop themselves from using imagination to tell the story, or to illustrate the feeling of something, rather than the literal illustration of it. The Abbot’s room, for instance, is dark and covered in drawings and architectural plans.

(Beautiful, huh?)

The people themselves are curved, and in groups fit into Romanesque arches.

Celtic knots are used frequently, and are prominent in Brendan’s struggle with the monster he must battle for the crystal. Imagination and concrete reality mix back and forth in a sometimes breathtaking pace, so the viewer is in-between fantasy and reality, impression and observation.

Besides my one main story issue, it’s actually the way the story is told that was somewhat responsible for my lack of emotional involvement. The script is good, and the voice talent is great (though the choice to have a girl with a thick Irish accent whisper at the beginning was weirdly off-putting). What happened for me, though, was that I was so taken with admiring the design and the imagination in telling that the story began to take a backseat. It was a standard boy-who-is-not-listened-to-but-must-save-everyone tale: he has an animal familiar, a guiding older voice who is an artist/sage, and a magical friend who no one else can see but who saves him. It’s all gorgeously done, but I was kept from being completely transported because of the prominence of the design, which felt at times overpowering to the story it was trying to tell. It called itself out a bit.

Looming larger is that though this happens in an Abbey, and among the religious, no one mentions that this “book” Brendan needs to work on and that will save civilization is The Gospels. Nowhere is it mentioned that it’s the story of Christ. Even stranger is that none of the characters, though religious, mention Christ, prayer or devotion. The Abbot is concerned with attack, and the illuminators with “the book”, but seemingly to its own ends - there is no discussion of faith, which seemingly would be at the base of all these actions and beliefs. We are never told why the book is so great, or why eventually it glows when it’s opened and can cause sinners to choke or die. The creators seem to want to glide over that most important fact. And even though I’m not calling for a religious story, it seems to flatten it out when that aspect is missing. It feels like a copout. I guess the big secret of Kells is that this entire community of monks is Christian and trying to save the bible.

I couldn’t help but think that this book they were trying so hard to save became the religion that eventually erased Aisling and her like from Ireland. So the magic in the film, the magic that saves Brendan’s life at least 3 times, is what followers of “the book” did their best to destroy. Brendan even says that the Abbot says she doesn’t exist and the other things are Pagan fantasy. The movie certainly doesn't think so, but doesn't ever deal with it. I guess if they opened that can of worms it would have been a completely different film. But not mentioning what "the book" was and what it’s done seems to be a disservice as well.

Beautiful animation, though, I will say that. Truly a gorgeous design. I'm glad I saw it.

Joni

2010-04-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

John Kelly is bringing his Joni Mitchell homage "Paved Paradise" to LA. I saw him several years ago when I lived in NY with a guitar at a bar singing a couple of songs of hers - he's amazing. It's mimicry, but homage, and I think she's appreciative. He played at Fez in NY and she brought him a dulcimer.

I'm excited to see it, but it also reminds me of how much I love her music.

Here's he:

And here's she, singing "Sweet Bird", one of my faves:

This marks the move into "Hejira" at the end of "Hissing of Summer Lawns" to be critical about it, and "Hejira" has some of her best poetry - it's kind of emerged as my favorite of hers probably - if only because of Coyote and Hejira - that song blows me away. Her lyrics are always a knock-out, so here they are for Sweet Bird:

Out on some borderline
Some mark of inbetween
I lay down golden-in time
And woke up vanishing

Sweet bird you are
Briefer than a falling star
All these vain promises on beauty jars
Somewhere with your wings on time
You must be laughing
Behind our eyes
Calendars of our lives
Circled with compromise
Sweet bird of time and change
You must be laughing
Up on your feathers laughing

Golden in time
Cities under the sand
Power, ideals and beauty
Fading in everyone's hand

Give me some time
I feel like I'm losing mine
Out here on this horizon line
With the earth spinning
And the sky forever rushing
No one knows
They can never get that close
Guesses at most
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching

Gorgeous, right? Since we're stream of consciousness, and I have youtube open, here' Hejira, and the lyrics, which lay me flat everytime. With the music, it's just perfection. Never fails.

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I'm returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl

You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen
Strains of Benny Goodman
Coming through the snow and the pinewood trees
I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I know no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tribute to finality to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality
In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There's the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way

Lists, part ?

2010-04-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when I feel like I haven't had the time to write or haven't been in the frame of mind, I write lists to just get things out of my head - lists of what I would write about or want to. So here's one, hoping I get to:

My trip to New York, including
Next Fall (play)
Sondheim on Sondheim (musical)
God of Carnage (play) and the amazingness of Janet McTeer on stage. Honestly.
Marina Abramovic at MoMA and the self-directedness of performance art
Tim Burton at MoMA
Why Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World is hanging in a hallway (!) at MoMA.
Russian Art history doc that I saw on the plane, that made me think of War and Peace (which is most everything lately)
Recent meditation at Against the Stream in East Hollywood
The experience of doing a show at a small theater in East Hollywood and the insanity of walking into somebody else's club
And...

Encouragements

2010-03-27T23:45:00.000-07:00

A friend pointed this out to me, that it was inspirational to her. It's wonderful. I guess Graham wrote it to DeMille after a piece of hers failed. Brilliant.

A Letter to Agnes DeMille : Martha Graham

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening
that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time,
this expression is unique.

If you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium
and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is;
nor how valuable it is;
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
of the urges that motivate you.

Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction;
a blessed unrest that keeps us marching
and makes us more alive than the others.

And she mentioned this, too, from Theodore Roosevelt--

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

Alice in Wonderland

2010-03-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

I recently saw Tim Burton’s Disney’s Alice in Wonderland trademark adventure, and I only really have one thought, which is

eh.

I had a reaction similar to my viewing of Nine, though not as vehement: they took something extraordinary and boundary-smashing and made something mundane. This is not saying it’s a successful product, as it clearly is. But I don’t think it’s a successful film.

The book is full of whimsy and nonsense, so you would think it would be a good fit for Burton. The screenwriter, Linda Woolverton (from both “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast”), has created something of a sequel, where Alice is avoiding a marriage proposal and looking for herself in the rabbit hole. We see, in a flashback where the six-year old Alice (who wears lip gloss to bed) complains of a bad dream to her father, that Alice has been dreaming of this world since she was a child. In this version, it’s actually called Underland, and ruled by an evil red queen who is a tyrant, whose sister the White Queen used to rule but has been usurped. All the characters (most from the book – the Rabbit, the Doormouse, Tweedlum and –dee, even the sad addition of a “frumious bandersnatch” – ugh) want the White Queen to be reinstalled, but Alice must save them by slaying the Jabberwocky, and, oh nevermind, I’m too bored to go on. I don’t really care.

And that’s the bottom line. Why not write a new script with characters we’ve never seen before instead of bastardizing two surprising, unexpected great works into one predictable, boring three act girl empowerment story we’ve seen before? It’s could be taken out of “Screenwriting for Dummies”. I see the impulse to make it into a kind of fairy tale with a message, like “Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast”, but the whole point of Alice, it’s enduring fascination, is that it resists those simple messages. It’s confounding and odd – and as interesting to political theorists, historians, and mathematicians as it is to children. This whole shoehorning into a coherent narrative just makes the whole enterprise feel stifled and mundane. Bonham-Carter is enjoyable to watch (probably the best thing in the film), but Hathaway is wasted (though I'm not sure what anyone could have done with that role). Depp is given a script in which the Hatter is aware of his encroaching or encompassing madness, attempting some sense of tragic realization of his situation, but that ends up as embarrassing and unneeded. Besides laying more on the back of the character than he’s designed to handle, they force him to have a truly cringe-inducing dance moment. Curioser and curiouser. Why?

Oh wait, money….that’s right. I keep forgetting. Well at least someone’s laughing all the way to the bank. Sadly, it’s not the audience. Look, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but why not just leave old stuff alone if you can’t respect it for what it is? Or give it a spin that's at least as imaginative and outlandish as the original. This has taken something large, ridiculous, and unruly and tried to make it small, easy, pat and pablum. Not an awful way to spend some time, but not a frabjous day at all.

Errors

2010-03-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a "Stuff you missed in history class" podcast about the Book of Kells on the way into work this morning, something I was interested in because of the recent animated movie, and so I decided to look at some images. It certainly is beautiful.

And imagine what it might have been with the extra half inch of decoration around the rim that an overzealous bookbinder in the early 19th c trimmed off. Anyhoo, I was reading the wikipedia page, and was struck by this quote:

There are a number of differences between the text and the accepted Gospels. In the genealogy of Jesus, which starts at Luke 3:23, Kells erroneously names an extra ancestor. Elsewhere, Matthew 10:34b should read "I came not to send peace, but a sword," but the manuscript reads gaudium ("joy") where it should read gladium ("sword") and so translates as "I came not [only] to send peace, but joy."

Imagine if that actually was correct, and the quote was really "to send peace, but joy" instead of "a sword". One letter. Probably not true, as I think the gospels were in Greek, not Latin, so this was a Latin mistake, but it's amazing to think how much bloodshed might have been avoided through the ages. I won't get into religion, specifically Christianity, and how passages have been used to enslave or kill others for millenia, but it is wild to think that something like a mistranslation, or a missing letter, could change intent, dogma, rationalization, and history. It boggles the mind.

Something Else

2010-03-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

I wanted to put up something else besides "bad books", so just letting everyone know I'm 50 chapters into War and Peace and blogging about it. I'm loving it, and reading it slowly, which is really satisfying.

Also, the show I've been assistant directing just got a "Go" in LA Weekly, and looks like it may be extending another 4 weeks. Fingers crossed. It was a good time, and I'm excited for them. Yay, team.

Bad Books

2010-03-10T12:13:00.000-08:00

I commented on this since I thought it was so ridiculous. I have no issue with people attacking what they see as "the cannon" but this is where academia and arrogance meet to me. LA Times blog has published blurbs from American Book Review's list of bad books which includes, among others, The Great Gatsby and All the Pretty Horses. The criticism is arrogant, and it seems to be to be more about attention grabbing for having a list like this anyway. But here I am posting about it and perpetuating it.

I fell right into that one, didn't I?

RadioLab

2010-03-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

Radiolab, from WNYC, has the subtitle "Curiosity on a Bender". I discovered it from listening to This American Life, and it's really, really wonderful. It takes a general idea and then investigates it. Or, as they put it:

"Radiolab believes your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow. Bring your curiosity, and we'll feed it with possibility."

So far, I've listened to the "Numbers" podcast, which explores how we learn numbers and the human construction of math. Fascinating.

And now, I'm listening to "Placebo", which explores just that, placebos, and then moves into how we feel and experience pain. And, as one of the hosts said "that's when my mind blew out of my face".
I'm only twenty minutes in, and they've already talked about the effectiveness of placebos in things as difficult to treat as Parkinson's, and then on to how the narrative that we construct around a moment of pain or injury can actually effect how we experience that pain. They talk about a doctor during WWI, who found that soldiers injured had less pain and asked for less morphine than people suffering the same injury at home - precisely because the soldier sees being hit in a positive way - awards, honor, glory, survival, and possibly being sent home - while the person shot in his store, for instance, sees it as loss of income, difficulty, pain...and therefore asks for more morphine. Mind-blowing!

There's so much more in that one, and both of them, to go into, but they're just two of the many. So excellent.

! Really, just !!

Smackdown '09

2010-02-28T18:23:00.000-08:00

The Supporting Actress Smackdown for this year's Oscar nominees is up. Yours truly participating. Check it out!

Children are Bored on Sunday

2010-02-24T21:49:00.000-08:00

I podcast in my car, and it kind of makes up for the loss of subway reading time now that I'm in LA. I have a few faves, and two short story podcasts. This is kind of funny to me, since I don't really love reading short stories. But I really love hearing them read.

If you have an extra 36:44, then take a listen to Jean Stafford's story "Children are Bored on Sunday", which touched me deeply last night when I was listening to it. Hilton Als, the New Yorker theater critic, picked it to discuss on the New Yorker fiction podcast, a monthly series where a writer chooses a story from the magazine's archive and reads it, then discusses the story and the writer. There have been some great ones. I even like the title of this episode, "Invalid Souls", which can play on either pronunciation of invalid, which that word always does. The story was first published in 1948, and I'm surprised how deeply it hit me. You can also read it in the online archive if you subscribe, but it's wonderful listening.

The action is a woman looking at art while avoiding a man she sees, but it's really about her mental state, her drinking, her collapse, and her fragility. I guess since I love the Met, where it's set, and Stafford beautifully catches these moments and the action of her mind drifting from where it should be. Also an incredible picture of mid-century New York intellectuals and what it must have felt like in that demi-monde. There's a great description of never-ending cocktail parties which weren't work, but weren't for fun, either. There was great competition, and conversation about art and ideas, people creating themselves and judging others. It's fascinating. Something about the way she was thinking really got to me. It's a beautiful story. It makes me want to read more of her stuff.

Hats

2010-02-23T19:26:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to write, but I've just been a mite busy. I'm assistant directing a production of Side by Side by Sondheim, which has been a great learning experience. So every workday but Friday I get up, go to work, go to rehearsal, and go home to bed. And there's rehearsal on weekends as well. So, needless to say, a few things have fallen by the wayside, writing being one of them. And cleaning my apartment. And laundry.

But I have not missed a day on my promise to write on War and Peace a chapter a day, though I have to say when I get home at 10:30 I'm not so keen on reading about a war on Napolean and blogging on it. But I am doing it. If I managed during surgery, I'm not about to stop now. And I'm not kvetching - it's enjoyable and a nice wind-down. Certainly a whole 'nother world

Anyhow, now I'm keying up to make a couple of hats. I suggested that we have a couple of large hats for the women to wear while "Beautiful Girls" from Follies is playing. And then I said "I'll make them!". Huh. So I'm skipping from rehearsals this weekend and shopping for hat supplies. I sketched them and the look something like this:

Each of the little squares will be a poster for a Sondheim show - one will have spikes coming from a large glittery white orb. I was thinking the other should be on a pagoda, but now I'm going to see if I can perhaps get a small, portable lamp and do a couple of lamp shades, and then cards will hang on fishing line from the wires. Then just spray it all in translucent glitter. Comedy. There will be pieces of fabric attached to rhinestone (if we can afford it) cuffs that will easily clip on and off the wrist. And, of course, a chin strap.

I do love a great, big hat.

For All You Writers Out There

2010-02-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth posted a link to Magpie Tales, who posts a photo to prompt fiction/poems, etc. Each Friday there will be a photo, and each Tuesday you link to this link site with your piece.

Sounds like it could be fun? If it does, then link away!

Oh!Oh!Oh!

2010-02-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

A short paean to the weather. I took a couple of cell phone pictures at work (above), which do nothing to describe the spectacular weather this morning.

LA is stunning after a rain. At least this part of LA - near the hills and the break between valley and valley. Yesterday, as it started to clear, we had three rainbows over the hill behind the lot, and the valley around had specials coming through the clouds. One building would be lit up as if glowing from inside, while next to it would be shadow. It really looked like Hollywood, as if some lighting man might step up and adjust the beam, and the whole picture would shift.

Today, it was unusually brisk as well, so it was clear, and crisp. I love these days. The Hollywood hills are a vibrant green, and the clear air makes the hills and grass look so voluptuous you want to reach out and touch them. Houses are tucked in between the trees, feeling cozy. The light is a bruise of gray with piercing sun, clouds are floating like stretched cotton on a blue, blue watercolor. Everything looks so close up it’s hard to judge distance.

Behind the studio, the hill dazzles, light changing seemingly by the moments as the clouds rush by heading west. There is a little tree that stands at the top, or that's what I think it is. When the hillside burned a couple of years ago, and transformers popped and exploded, the next day a lone tree was still on the top of the hill. It's always looked to me like a pig on a stick, so I call it the pig tree. I guess I could climb up there one day to see it up close, but I'm sure it would transform.

I am a mountain person. I love them. Take your oceans – they’re nice to visit, but from the Green Mountains in Vermont to the Hollywood Hills, I love the plush covered crags and the solidity. And it breaks up the eye. I lived on the plains until I was 12, endless corn and sky that seemed to stop at the end of every field. Mountains let me know how big everything is, but don’t overwhelm me with the impossible infinity of seas. I feel protected by mountains. Always have.

Then you look at the Valley. The mountains in front are desert hills; rocky, craggy, with bits of brush and brown as sand. Behind them, all the peaks are covered in snow, and since the snow level was down to 500 feet the whole mountain is dusted. Majestic. Your face feels just this side of numb, to remind you that you’re human, warm inside, and able to sense the elements with thermometer-like sensitivity. Outside and in your body.

365 degrees and scenes from desert to snow to tropical. It’s on these days I am ecstatic to live here. I used to hate pineapple. I had only ever had canned, so I thought it was nasty - syrupy and strange-tasting. Then my parents went to Hawaii and brought back a fresh pineapple. It was so sweet that I couldn’t believe I had ever mistrusted its gifts. And now, I can eat canned pineapple, since I know the platonic ideal of pineapple. It makes the other stuff more palatable. That’s the way I feel about LA – I know it will be brown and hot, possibly soon, and some days I won’t even see the mountains. But I’ve seen the platonic ideal, I know what’s hiding there. I want to tug on everyone’s sleeve on days like today and say “oh!oh!oh! Look at how beautiful it is! Today! Don’t miss it!”

On days like this it’s hard for me to feel anything but glee. I sit in my car and applaud.

Surgery, part deux

2010-02-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

So, I'm still going to write about it at some point. I'm thinking it might be too early to head back to work tomorrow. I haven't tried to drive. I think I pushed it a bit yesterday. I developed a bruise, which I hear is normal, but it freaked me out. Really not loving abdominal pain, I have to say.

So today I sat home after a friend took me to buy fresh veggies at the farmer's market, took a nap, watched Antiques Roadshow, and six episodes of 30 Rock that I needed to catch up on. The other day I watched Reefer Madness, the musical (okay, not great), and Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti from the BBC about a difficult marriage.

I have to say, when you're couch-bound, the serious stuff isn't the best to watch. A friend was going to see Fish Tank, which is supposed to be great, but I just didn't think I could stomach it - no pun intended. Tanya picked me up and brought me over ther for chili and tea, and to chat during the second half of the Super Bowl. So glad they live close, and really grateful to have such wonderful friends, cuz I can get a little stir crazy.

But I did read my chapter each day - so I've done 13 so far. Only 352 to go!

Peter and the Wolf

2010-02-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

While I was writing today's entry for A Year of War and Peace I thought for an instant that the name of the cat in "Peter and the Wolf" is Sonya. It's not--it's the name of the duck.

But that reminded me of this really special Oscar-winning short of "Peter and the Wolf". If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

2010-02-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

This book looks fascinating - the first paragraph from this Times article:

Fifty years after Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in the “colored” ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital, her daughter finally got a chance to see the legacy she had unknowingly left to science. A researcher in a lab at Hopkins swung open a freezer door and showed the daughter, Deborah Lacks-Pullum, thousands of vials, each holding millions of cells descended from a bit of tissue that doctors had snipped from her mother’s cervix.

The book is about the story, the incredible things that have been done with what turned out to be "immortal" cancer cells, and what rights, if any, the family has to the billions of dollars that have been made from the use of the cells.

It sounds like this is becoming more and more of an issue, and mixing in that with class, race, and the last 50 years in the US, this looks like it could be an amazing book.

Fondue!

2010-02-01T09:17:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth over at a moon, worn as if it had been a shell is giving away a cast iron Rachel Ray fondue pot.

You do not fondue Rachel Ray, she is the celebrity spokesperson.

My favorite fondue memory, aside from the sweet taste of the meat when I was a kid (ah, the 70's), was going to see Aida in the park for one of the Met's free concert. The woman who organized said she'd bring a little something, and brought a fondue pot with fruit and chocolate and a sterno. Wow. So we ate dessert fondue while watching Sharon Sweet in Aida. Pretty great.

So go visit over there and leave a comment to enter. And if you haven't visited, check out a really great blog while you're at it!

Tarot

2010-01-28T17:53:00.000-08:00

I have a little link to a tarot card in my facebook, and here was what it said today:

Not the right time to be alone. Seek out others and be social. More interaction with world and loved ones is needed. Fill your social calendar. Need to get out and have fun. Good time to seek out relationships. Reconnection with others possible now. Find the light inside and share it with the world. Bring your talents into focus and allow others to see them. Stop being so serious and live a little.

Italics mine.

Sometimes, just good to be reminded. It's probably all hoo-ey, especially since it's electronic, but nice to be reminded that being can be light, and worn lightly.

Now, to read more Russians. Hee.

Last Station and a new direction

2010-01-25T14:09:00.000-08:00

I went to see The Last Station with a friend yesterday and loved it. It's thoughtful, romantic, and grounded with some great performances, mostly, as noted already everywhere, Helen Mirren. It's rare to get such a sweeping romance with an underpinning of great themes and creeping revolution. Christopher Plummer was wonderful as well, and so too was Paul Giamatti and James McEvoy (who is basically adorable - there, I've said it - shallow, I know, but true). I don't know who Kerry Condon is, but great job as well. And I am a sucker for birch trees and beautiful forest scenes. I really was tense at one point about what was going to happen, so much so my palms were sweating. Avatar, I was a little nervous. This one, waiting to know if Tolstoy was really going to sign away the rights to his life's work and go against the wishes of his wife - pulse quickening.

Anyhow, aside from the majority of Anna Karenina, which I read in high school and then wrote a paper on (I had a habit of picking books and then writing on characters who die half-way through, or themes I could pick up and extrapolate - what a slacker), I haven't read a lot of Tolstoy. In September, I met a man at a retreat who was a Sufi and also taught Tolstoy. He loves War and Peace, and said teaching it actually makes him cry. That's quite a recommendation. And I've heard about the beauty and majesty of this book before.

So seeing The Last Station, I thought maybe I could read it. Then I had the idea of reading it and blogging about it at the same time. Then I looked at a version online and saw that it has many chapters. In fact, after looking at an online version, it's 15 books and 2 epilogues (although the wikipedia entry says it's 4 books and two epilogues), divided into 365 chapters. 365. One for each day of the year. Accident? I think not.

I looked around, and found several blogs where people were planning on doing this--

Reading war and peace, where a woman blogs about a trip around the world with her husband and two young sons. It was started in 2003, ended in 2005, and all I could find about the book was one of the last entries "Someone asked me just recently if it was worth the effort and I would certainly say it was. My only criticism would be that there were too many battles in it." So, not really a simultaneous blog kind of thing.

Then there is war and peace project, which is a good name, but sadly an anemic blog. Only three entries, the last one being in 2008, about chapters 1 -3.

Then there's the simple war and peace, by the promisingly named blogger "Anastasia" which will be about her feelings, tortured or otherwise (her words), started in 2000. There are no entries.

I also stumbled across reading Middlemarch, which is something I've always wanted to do as well. It looks like an online book group, and they read War and Peace as well. Interesting idea, online bookgroup, but reading is so solitary already. I guess it's a step in connecting about it, and views from people all over. I still need to read Middlemarch. And the rest of Magic Mountain, which I loved, and then got mired down during one of Settembrini's speeches about the meaning of life. In 1999.

So I entertained a bunch of names, including "war and peace 365", which sounds too much like a hip bistro, or "reading war and peace 365", which is clumsy, and I finally settled on "a year of war and peace", but sadly, it's registered, but doesn't show as a blog (!). So, the blog will be titled "A Year of War and Peace" even though it's really http://yearofwarandpeace.blogspot.com/. I'm looking for the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation since everyone flipped for their "Brothers Karamazov", speaking of other books I've started on not finished.

Before you get all finger-pointy, it's long. Really long. And remember it was serialized in the 19th century. And there was no television. And long nights. Especially in Russia.

So, I'm not sure when I'll officially start (I have surgery on the 4th of February, so I may start after that), but check back. I'll post over here once I do, for the ones of you reading here. I suppose, in solidarity with Tolstoy's views, I can look upon this as a spiritual practice. At least a practice that I will do every day. Didn't work with meditation, but hey, one can dream.

And for all you that read the blog, maybe you'll be able to feel like you've read it, or be interested in picking it up yourself. More conversation is more good.

Onward!

Or, Вперед, as the Russian translation engine on the web tells me.

Now, to buy the book....

Famous Blue Raincoat

2010-01-24T22:51:00.000-08:00

This song just came up when I was resynching my iTunes. My late friend Lisa used to listen to Jennifer Warnes album "Famous Blue Raincoat" over and over. Right before we moved in together, in 1988, she said she had it on the turntable for 6 months straight.

Remember turntables?

Everyone thought we looked like brother and sister - similar coloring. We lost touch, but talked every few years, and then she moved back to Albuquerque and passed away from a freak illness. I'm blessed to have known her.

I can't hear this song, or any of Jennifer Warnes versions of Leonard Cohen (so almost any of his songs), without thinking of her.

Not maudlin feeling, but just remembering. I have no idea what the song's about, which is why it's so intriguing. It's the taste of story on your tongue, but you can't fully name it. It's probably about Dylan or something, since it seems like all the songs of this period are about him or Mick Jagger. Whatever it's about, it's a beautiful song. And I'm posting in memory of a beautiful woman. Very missed.

Thoughts on NINE

2010-01-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

**{SPOLIER ALERT}**

If you haven't seen it, skip the below, unless you love reading things like this before you see movies. If not, then skip it!

This is probably the most incendiary I've been, and I know I shouldn't apologize for not being nice, but I hope this doesn't come across as only snarky. There's a reason for all of it.

I'm writing a little about NINE, which I'm sure some people enjoyed, but to me was the most disappointing movie of the last decade. I'm sure that has to do a bit with my expectations, being a fan of the musical for over two decades, and also of 8 1/2. But even though I tried to scrub that from my brain and be open to a new experience, the movie that was made did nothing interesting or original, and only managed to pale in comparison to any of the pieces it might be compared to. There are many. And on any measure it fails. I know the filmmakers didn't want it compared to the originals, but since it's not succeeding as a piece on its own either, I'm going to compare away.

NINE is based on the Fellini movie 8 1/2. 8 1/2 concerns a director, Guido Contini, and his difficulty in figuring out what his next movie will be. The movie was Fellini's ninth, so 8 1/2 refers to his feeling of it being half a movie. There are the women, the critics, the church, sexuality, self-doubt. Nine, the musical, positions Contini's struggle to make a movie against the background of his philandering and refusal to grow up. From what I can see, Rob Marshall took out any of the songs that give the musical heart, and replaced everything with flash. Seemingly mis-understanding the theme of the musical, and scared to make one, he just made a boring film recycyling what he did in Chicago. And that's what makes me angry/annoyed. There are some amazing talents on the screen. They do the best they can do, but with a misguided director more interested in surface than telling story, they were sunk. I'm just going to break this down in headings, since I can't really figure out any other way to do this.

It's a musical, so let it be a musical

Marshall's modus operandi seems to be directing "unfilmable musicals" like Chicago (if one can generalize from one film). Yes, he came up with a gimmick for Chicago - a narcissist who struggles with reality and escapes into fantasy musical numbers in her head. This worked for Chicago, along with strong, heavily borrowed choreography from Fosse, and a design aesthetic from the revival. It doesn't work for NINE. It comes of as false and gimmicky. Unlike the vaudeville numbers in Chicago, NINE's numbers are actual musical pieces that move along the action and contain the real emotion of the piece. Stinkylulu pointed out when we saw it that each person's number in the first act, when it's fun for everyone, is matched by a second number in the second act when Guido's world he's juggling is falling apart. Marshall took out several of those songs, most notably "Be On Your Own", where Luisa leaves Guido (Go find some restaurant attendant/go show her how independent/you have grown; go off and live your petty fictions/full of blatant contradictions/you can't see); "Simple", where both Carla and Claudia say goodbye (Simple are the ways we come apart/simple are the ways of love...simple enough for anyone to understand/but you); and "Getting Tall", where young Guido tells older Guido that he has to grow up (Knowing you'll have no one/ if you try to have them all...is part of getting tall). I don't begrudge him for taking them out, or at least I wouldn't have if he would have replaced them with anything besides a strip tease number from Luisa. This takes away her power and agency, and frankly, doesn't work. Cottilard is fantastic, but the number is intercut with her leaving him and telling him she can never forgive him. Both the speech and the song lose their power. I saw a Q & A with Marshall, who said he didn't think people would "buy" a standard musical so he had to figure out a way to make it believable. What he did was stifle all the songs by putting them on a soundstage, take away the imagination of the director by restricting it to one location, and cut any song that seemed a problem. I mean, in the original movie Marcello Mastraonni is wearing a sheet holding a whip and a chair "taming" all the women in his life. And you think people can't take singing? High School Musical just made billions and Glee won a golden globe for best new show. Really? If you don't want to make a musical don't make one, but don't f-ing apologize for it the entire time if you do.

Marshall isn't an auteur

This is presumptuous, but I think from what I've seen so far, it's true. Even though the musical NINE is an adaptation of movie, as a musical it's a pretty straightforward story. 8 1/2 isn't. Neither is Stardust Memories, or All That Jazz, two other movies about directors and their relationships with women, the latter a musical. Or, I would argue, another version of the director looking over his creation movies this year, Broken Embraces. Almodovar also has Bad Education, which might fit here as well. What these four directors have in common, though, is that their first impulse is film/creation. Fellini, Almodovar, Fosse, Allen all seem to work out their problems in their work. Fellini is brilliant that way. He lets his imagination have free range. He uses the camera like a telecsope, a microscope and a scalpel on himself, as well as a paintbrush and a hammer. Fosse does as well - All That Jazz is merciless.Stardust Memories I have in my head having seen it recently, and Allen references other directors and himself constantly. At the end of the film you're unsure if it's a send up of other directors, himself, or a fuck-you to the audience. What is clear, though, is that he is challenging himself formally to find something new in how he tells a story and indeed why he does. He's working it out in front of us. Nothing in NINE matches the 1:30 of quick cuts of Charlotte Rampling staring directly into the camera saying the same things in different ways. All That Jazz, which NINE has most often been compared to, is an act of a man judging himself and figuring out who he is and what his life has been. It's a mind-blowing movie, and Fosse brings all his talents to bear on it. He's merciless. And yes, there are musical numbers, which sometimes are part of the action, sometimes commenting. No one breaks into song (perhaps excepting "Everything Old is New Again"), but each song is part of the action, and nothing feels extraneous. When I was thinking about this, I figured that Almodovar is doing the same thing a bit in Broken Embraces, perhaps not working as obviously, but telling the tale of a blind director attempting to forget a lost love. It's convoluted, but within it Almodovar manages to re-film portions of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown with actors who were in the original. It's self-referential, of course, but you get the sense he's playing with the audience and our knowledge of his ouevre. With the last line, though, "The thing about a film is that you have to finish it", one wonders if he was just trying to find his way to the end of this movie and put whatever he had out there. Similarly, in Bad Education, the director within the film works in a style close to Almodovar and attempts to reconcile his past and his current work. Although some of it feels like a guessing game with him (what's true, what's not?), what's becoming clear is that any issue or emotional struggle he's having he works it out with a camera. Similar to Isherwood, he writes characters who are quite close to him, yet we're unsure what he's brought to bear from his own life and what's fictional. My point is that all the above me work out their issues in their art. The films are immediate, unsettling, entertaining, at times embarassing. And this is why they're brilliant. Why people love them. Marshall? Not taking any chances. Not working anything out. Seemingly more interested in how to make money in this genre than working anything out on film. Without that struggle, or at least the fearless spirit to try something new and out there, the story falls flat. What makes the films above work is that the filmmakers are auteurs with a point of view. I don't know that Marshall was doing anything but adapting and worrying about people seeing a musical. And that everything is as pretty as possible.
Speaking of that, where are any interesting faces? If you're going to do away with the all women gimmick of the musical, which makes it kind of wild and fascinating, then have something that reminds us of Fellini's fascination with interesting people. Or at least have fascination with something besides beauty. Was that Contini's point in this? Who he is as a filmmaker? I'm not sure they know who he is. He certainly is trying to figure that out in the film, but without using the actual medium of film to do it, the directors lost the major tool with which to make their point.

And what was that point? We're supposed to be happy that Contini can make a film again though he seems unable to have any personal relationship of any meaning? It seems a hollow story to tell. And better told and more poignant Sunday in the Park with George, if that's what they were trying to do. At least in that he's aware of what he's losing and how he can't connect and why.

I've said this before, but I had a professor say the difference between tragedy and pathos is that in a tragedy the person sees what's about to happen and is powerless to stop it. In this version, Marshall et al made Guido pathetic.

Casting

All of these people are game. I can't fault Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a great actor and he creates a character. Sadly, I can't see why any of these women would be obsessed with him. There's no spark. No warmth. He looks like a week away from rehab. And I really do like him as an actor. I just didn't get it. "Guido's Song" usually has some glee and excitement in it. Here it's all torture.

Cotillard is fantastic, but she's 15 or 20 years to young for it. We're supposed to believe that they have a long-standing relationship? First, they made him ten years older than the musical (50 instead of 40), and then cast someone who is so young they never could have shared a life together. She's great, but compare this to Roy Scheider and Leland Palmer's relationship in All That Jazz. No comparison. They were two equals who had grown up together, and knew each other's tricks. Luisa should be that for Guido. She sees him and know who he is. It gives the piece emotional depth. Why do we care if it feels like they've been married for three years and she's another starlet he married? She's brilliant at the end, but the number, as I mentioned above, feels chopped. She's great in "My Husband Makes Movies", but still didn't like the gimmick.

Hudson was good - I actually thought she did a great job, but what's this role? I thought if there was a point of view of this director and this whole piece, this character is what showed it. The whole song is about surface and clothes, and I think it's what Marshall was more interested in than the story. In the musical, Stephanie Necrophorous is critical of Contini (the trouble with Contini/He's the king of mediocrities/ a second-rate director who believes that he is Socrates....a typical Italian with his auto and biography/ a mixture of Catholocism, pasta and pornography... a superficial, womanizing, moderately charming Latin fraud....thanks to him we have boredom at the movies) to say the least. The song is intercut with Folies Bergeres. What do we have instead? Surprise! A woman who wants to have sex with him and loves Italian fashion. There are a few lines about Contini's flops in the movie, but no one is critical in a way that feels threatening, that would have brought on the crisis he's having. Especially not another woman who sees through it. Hudson was good, but it's emblematic of the miss on this.

Penelope Cruz was great--funny, sad, ridiculous in the right measure. I wish that she would have been matched by DDL. I know it's not fair to compare to the original, but just watch Sandra Milo and Marcello Mastroanni. It's brilliant. And how great would it have been, like the musical, to give Cruz a song like "Simple" to say goodbye to him? I really do love her, and she's totally game. Watch this at 7:48 for the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5q3MFwctw

Judi Dench - great, and her number is great, but annoyingly edited, like most of the numbers. Sudden changes in the frame that are jarring. Her character is Guido's confidante, but the number feels shoe-horned, no matter how much they explain she learned her trade in Paris. It feels contrived. She's great, as always.

Nicole Kidman - I liked her. What she comes in and does is a little too easy. The relationship is unclear, and it would've been nice to see more of her. Not a singer, but done no favors by that editing job. During the most emotional moment of the song, she's being shot full body from the back in a long shot, and there's a cut right at the end to head and shoulders in profile. What? Is it possible to have a tin ear and a tin heart?

Fergie - sounds great, but why the bentwood chairs - just reminded me of Cabaret. Like the sand, but why not on the beach. And why cut "Ti Voglio Bene"? It would have been great to establish character. Another thing of being fine if you change something, but please make it better or at least as good. And give her something to do besides glower. Edited within an inch of its life, again.

I felt overall that I wanted him to create something new, and what happened instead was a pale version of both the musical and the film, so all I could do was compare. The story was uninteresting, and it felt airless overall. Sad, really. It's based on a couple of pieces I really, really love. To be fair, it's a hard musical to pull off, but he didn't do any favors by seemingly missing the point. I would have loved to see someone who had a real point of view that's not about "beauty sexy", which just gets boring. I'm officially over that in all forms.

I'm sure Rob Marshall's a nice guy, but really, really dropped the ball on this one. If I could've picked something that took some chances and made no money, or something that felt this lifeless and pandering than made no money, I would've chosen the former. Sounds harsh, but I could just feel the fear in this movie. The fear of offending or the need to please. I mean, if you're making a film you're looking to please on some level, but you're still looking for the best way to tell that story, right? Makes me appreciate All That Jazz even more.

I just keep coming back to the only way to tell this story on film is to have the filmmaker making it really working through something. Or someone adept at faking that. That's how it would work.

I so, so wanted to like this film. I think this is the biggest disappointment I've had film-wise in about ten years.

Well, maybe somebody will tackle it again. I'm not holding my breath.

And by way of apology, it's not the most awful movie ever made. I'm sure the above is a result of my expectations. There were parts I enjoyed, and individual people--I don't think it's possible for me to hate Cruz, Cotillard, Dench, and company. I just didn't expect flat. A woman I met who liked it said "well, I just like musicals." I said "Well, I do, too, I love them, actually, and that has nothing to do with my not liking this." And I have no problem with glitzy and fun. It's just upsetting to see something with depth have the depth removed, and to no worthwhile effect. IMHO.

Saw it twice by the way.

Okay, now that that's done, I can move on.

Swish

2010-01-16T22:32:00.000-08:00

I just finished one of the books I wrote about on my book list a few posts ago - Swish, by Joel Derfner. The subtitle is "My quest to become the gayest person ever and what ended up happening instead." And that, suprisingly, is what happens and gives the book depth.

Derfner, a musical theater composer, Harvard grad (as he reminds you), and too smart for his own good, has a great voice. I'm impressed with his ability to tell on himself; he's at times dangerously close to unlikeable. His honesty, though, and his great sense of humour, endear him to you. Or to me at least. He's human. Funny, smart, self-hating and self-aggrandizing in the same breath, he'd make a great friend.

What this collection shows more of, though, is his bravery and compassion. The essays are funny (I found myself laughing out loud a few times), and thought-provoking. The premise is that every time he does something that's super-gay, e.g. knitting, teaching aerobics, go-go dancing, casual sex, going to a gay camp, writing musical theater, he ends writing about something else, like his mother's death, his need to fit in, his anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, mental illness, why he makes art, body issues, his relationship with his partner, and more. The honesty of his writing manages to skirt the traps of facile quips and maudlin self-searching, resulting in humorous, honest, heartfelt and intelligent stories. And funny.

I was most struck by the longest, last story, in which he visits an ex-gay conference. It's probably some of the best writing I've read on it, giving both sides of the story, and leaving all intact with their humanity. He is honest about his own anger and confusion, as well as the true deep connections he feels with some of the men who are struggling with their sexuality. He's very smart about his own feelings, and how complicated the issue is, ultimately being able to love the people while acknowledging they may never agree. The man aren't cartoons, and he tells their sides exactly as they would, working out his own religious beliefs and feelings about his sexuality as well. It's sad that the majority (if not all) of the ex-gays seem like they will always be struggling, but Derfner evolves to the place where he is not condesceding or juding, and brings us along step by step on that journey.

Elton John is blurbed on the front of the book quoted that this is the best book about being gay he has ever read, and more than that it's a book about being human. I would concur in saying that the book (and the author's) heart is enormous, and through this search and its unexpected emotional journeys there is a great deal of compassion and humanity to be experienced.

Loved it.

Station Identification

2010-01-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

I've really wanted to blog, but I've just been a busy bee lately, frankly.

I need to find the time to do this regularly, and I'm figuring out exactly what my point is here and what I'm communicating.

So, I'm pausing for a moment for station identification. I'll be back in a short bit, I'm sure....not like I don't have many ideas.

Reading List 2010

2010-01-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

I was blessed with a bunch of books for Christmas, in addition to 3 gift cards for bookstores, so I'm happy about all the books I have to read. So, though, I'm not making a to-do list for 2010 (post below), here's my to-read list, in no particular order:

Illustrated Genesis by R. Crumb. This was a gift I was happy to get, as I had looked at it and was compelled, but unsure if I ever would have bought it for myself. I love gifts like that.

Swish: My quest to become the gayest person ever by Joel Derfner. I saw this on a table and it looked like it might be diverting. Or hilarious. Or both.

Born Round: The secret history of a full-time eater by Frank Bruni. This is by the NYT food critic and journalist. He talks about being heavy his whole life, body issues, gayness, etc. And the blurbs on the back are by Anne LaMott, Augusten Burroughs, Elizabeth Gilbert, and several others that read like a memoir who's who. So I figure hopefully that means it's written well.

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith. Another gift that I don't know if it would have been on my radar. But I loved On Beauty very much, and I love essays, so this is a perfect fit. In fact since the New Yorker is about the only thing I read on any steady diet, you could say it's becoming my favorite genre. Very excited to read this one.

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. This won the National Book Award, so I'm hoping that's an indication, though it's not always. I love NY tales, though not a huge detective freak. I just love this title, though. It's such a great title it makes me want to read it.

Sugarless by James MacGruder. I didn't know about this one, but one of my oldest and dearest gave me this since we did speech in high school together and that's the background for the book. Looks like a romp, and the idea makes me laugh.

Losing Mum & Pup by Christopher Buckley. My boss loaned me this. It's about losing both his parents in the same year. Can't say I'm a Buckley fan, and it seems WASP-y, but looks like it could be good. So far I'm not as engaged as I was with Joan Didion's, but any look at this subject I think is difficult and commendable. Don't know that I'd have the courage.

When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris - I got this a while ago and have been picking my way through it. I like his voice. Not in first gear with it, but fun to pick up.

High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips. A colleague at work gave me this who loved it. It's lurid at points, and harrowing. I'm amazed she can even write with all the stuff she's gone through. There's been so much chatter about it it's nice to read and form my own opinion.

Dishwasher: One man's quest to wash dishes in all fifty states by Pete Jordan. I've started it but not particularly hooked. It's kind of a "how I became a slacker" memoir, but also someone who grew up in tough circumstances and turned that in to a not-so-typical way of life. He's a good writer, so I'll be interested to see what he comes to on the journey.

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the tip--Confessions of a cynical waiter by Steve Dublanica. Just what it sounds like. I've heard about this, and a friend gave it to me after he read it and said it was enjoyable. I've waited tables, so needless to say I'm sure I'll laugh.

Whew. That's a lot, it looks like. Well, nice to have some stuff on the docket. Above's what's first in my conciousness, but I'm sure something else will pop in. I'm a bit of an omnivore with books. I'm really hoping to read Mansfield Park as well this year. That and Motherless Brooklyn are the only two fiction pieces, except a collection by Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance, that I've read about half of that I like. Speaking of, I saw her novel (meta-novel) The End of the Story at the store the other day, and that looks good, too. I guess there's always more....

2010

2009-12-31T17:03:00.000-08:00

I just read over at Elizabeth's blog that not only is it a full moon, but it's a lunar eclipse and the end of the decade. I haven't sat down to write any lists this year, and wishes for the decade even, so maybe this will be a gentle version of that.

I had a huge epiphany that most of my "to do" next year lists only end up making me feel like a bit of a loser come January when I haven't exercised, written a book, cooked organically, saved the world, what have you. And it occurred to me that it's only the need to do everything perfectly that's keeping me from doing any of it. So, at the risk of sounding like a Nike commercial, if I have any wish for myself, it's to just do it and forget about the outcome. And see what happens then.

Make mistakes.

And learn from them.

That's my wish for 2010 and beyond.

Wouldn't that be fun.

So I have a list of books to read, as usual, and things to do. But overall, I'm just going to take a stab.

I hear the best time to cut your hair (according to folk wisdom) is a new moon. It grows faster that way. I'm hoping the best time for hopes is a full moon, as they're fuller that way.

I get to start mine off by making food for friends in dear friends' house with an amazing kitchen. That's a great and warm way to start the new year.

Okay, one to-do. Cook more for people I love. That's never a bad thing.

Silhouette's 2009

2009-12-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

I used to hate script analysis. I had this teacher in undergrad who had an entire class that you had to take for the degree based on Harold Clurman’s teaching. The end of the seminar was crowned, like a Christmas tree star, or a giving birth, actually, by a 50-page paper filling in the outline of the script analysis. It was the only all-nighter I did in college. I had to find the spine, polar attitudes, yadayadayada. I think I got one of the worst grades I ever got on anything, and knew less about “Three Sisters” than when I started. I do think it’s useful—I heard a great interview with Carol Channing saying she couldn’t figure out Dolly Levi until she found the spine, so it does work, I just wasn't getting it at the time.

Flash forward another couple of years, and I’m studying with a professor, Carol Rosen, on the other side of the country. She has us look at plays from what Peter Brook calls “silhouette, or that image that stays in your mind once the play is done. That thing you experience, reading or seeing a play, that will be burned into your mind. For many, that’s something like Ophelia’s death in Hamlet—you never see it, but everyone remembers it. I think I was looking at "The Seagull", and caught on to Masha’s dancing to the sound of Constantin’s violin as she’s talking about loving him and how she’s going to “tear this love out of my heart, tear it out by the roots” while dancing to his music. I’ve never forgotten that image. It gave me a way into the play. Now, after doing that with other plays, I know “Three Sisters” pretty darn well, too. I’ll always thank her for that. It opened up how I experienced something – start with the image you won’t forget, and that’s the candle flame that will light the rest of the way for you.

I was thinking about silhouettes the other day, and thinking about what images were burned into my mind this year from movies. And, I think, I’ll expand it to theater. Here are a few, in no particular order**:

**If you haven’t seen some of these things, more than likely there are SPOILERS**

La Danse - Medea

Angelin Preljocaj coaches Delphin Moussin in a scene from Medea in Frederick Wiseman’s doc. We see her working her way into it, rehearsing with him and by herself. He coaches her in a gesture Medea makes to end the ballet, after she has killed her children. She just opens her hand as if she’s blowing away a dandelion. He says it’s not explicable, it’s ineffable, and she’ll have to know what it means and trust the audience. The moment she performs it is spine chilling. I don’t have an order to this list, but to have a moment that feels like performance and those feelings on film is rare. So thrilling.

Helen Mirren – Phedre

Great performance broadcast on screens by the National Theater. Although I kind of giggle now at all the British calling her what sounds like “fedge”, hee, the performance was astounding. The grimace on her face as she stopped what she was doing, lifted her arms, looked at herself and said “I stink of incest” was mind-boggling. Tour-de-force.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

I loved this movie. There are a few things I remember, but it felt like a gust of air entered the theatre the moment the three bandits stop on the road to talk to a wolf. The wolf’s austere silence was riveting, in marked contrast to the hi-jinks before. Even more, the movie became expansive and resonant unexpectedly, as shocking for me as if he would have walked into the theater. All at once there was doom, fear, possibility, sadness, gratitude all at one moment. I have no idea why that moment hit me that way, but it did. The scene in front of the waterfall was pretty fab, too.

Julie and Julia – Meryl Streep

Another wonderful performance by Meryl Streep, of the she who can do no wrong category (and I still kind of think that even after seeing “It’s Complicated” last night-eesh). There was so much about this perf that I loved, and I really hope she gets a deserved 3rd Oscar for it—only 2nd lead for those who are keeping score. The moment for me was at the train station, when she finally meets her friend Avis (Deborah Rush) with whom she has only corresponded. Julia walks up to Avis and simply takes her head in her hands and says “It’s you”. Streep makes this moment so beautiful, with the layers in the line from “how wonderful” to “how could it not have been” to “why has it been so long” and mostly, “of course”. It’s surprising, delightful, and rich, which is what she specializes in. That moment just got me, right…here….

Precious – Mo’Nique

Mo’Nique is surprising in this movie. Not only does she show herself extremely gifted as a serious actress in a role that could have been easily overdone, she does it in a way you’re simultaneously empathetic and disgusted. What I’ll remember is her sitting in the social worker’s office (another surprise – Mariah Carey—who knew?), giving the aria of a lifetime. To start it’s probably one of the most disturbing monologues I’ve ever seen. On top of that, she just keeps that engine running, discovering with us as the character is voicing, more than likely for the first time, what heinous ideas have forced her to ruin her life and those around her. She is a beast, but it’s the richness of the performance that she is discovering this along with us. I was gobsmacked. Truly.

Lydia – Octavio Solis

I wish more people saw this. I was floored by this play. I was emotionally brought low. Beautifully performed, including a skilled, superb performance by Stephanie Beatriz as Lydia. I won’t go into too much of the plot, but there’s a girl who’s been in an accident right before her quincinera, and her mother brings home a young illegal girl to take care of her. It’s set in El Paso in the 70’s. There’s a lot of drama, including an older brother who turns out to be gay and is gay-bashing for thrills. The tragedy in the center of the play is revealed through flashback and, um, possession, really, but I won’t ruin it for you. That aspect is like a reverse “Suddenly, Last Summer”, where the gays aren’t destroyed physically, but the act of hatred at the center causes damage to those who don’t accept the love of the two men. I don’t want to ruin it so I’m being vague-ish, but what I won’t forget is the girl downstage center, Ceci, played by Onahoua Rodriguez, writhing on her mattress through most of the action of the play. She does get up and talk, but watching her succumb again to her physical state after narrating to us is heart-breaking. It wasn’t my favorite performance in the play, but her physical work was excellent. I’m running out of superlatives here, but suffice it to say it was a pang each time she went back. Her physicality throughout the play to be basically a large spastic infant was precise, fierce and committed. I wish wish wish more people had seen it.

There may be more, but those come to mind right now. Feel free to share your year-end silhouettes and link away.

Word of the Day

2009-12-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

I was just reading my friend Patrick's blog Man.Hat in. about the subway, vertigo, and running into people. I love his blog because it does remind me of what I loved about New York (as opposed to all the other stuff that got to me), and what I still do.

Anyhow, as I finished reading it the word flâneur popped into my head. I was thinking I liked the word vertigo and was thinking of others. I don't know that I even could tell you what it means. In fact, it conjured up pictures of copper bottom cookware, blue flames, and caramel desert. Flâneur, n., a French person who makes flan.

Actually, from the link above, you'll see that it means someone who strolls the city leisurely, aesthetically observing and enjoying. I have been a flâneur in NY and in Seattle, and now in LA. I love exploring the places I live (although in LA you drive, which is not nearly as rewarding). People seem to think I've lived places longer than I have, and it's only because I'm curious about cities I live in and their history.

There are two French verbs "to know" - connaître and savoir. One is for things you know absolutely (savoir), like a math problem; the other for things you can never know completely but be familiar with (connaître), like a person or a city. How excellent is that? You can never know completely a city. Like Steve Martin said, "Those French - they have a different word for everything!"

And Patrick, as you'll note from his blog is King Flâneur, in the best way. It says there's no English word equivalent, so we'll use the French. And I love the weird synchronicity of that word popping into my head. I am enamored of a word that desribes someone savoring the place they live, with no other aim than to enjoy it and pass that on. C'est magnifique!

Opinions

2009-12-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

I have so many opinions.

I went to see NINE last night, and I just have so many opinions. I love 8 1/2 and I love the B'way musical, so I know I'm biased, but I still have opinions. Which I will share once it's open and guard against spoilers.

I also have opinions about Inglorious Basterds, A Serious Man, and some others. They've all been knocking on my door lately.

So has busy, busy time at work, rehearsal and opening a play. Tonight, though, I have a little free time, so perhaps I will work on getting some of them down here. I'd actually like that.

In the meantime, enjoy this

If anyone can find "La Dolce Gilda" from Saturday Night Live, I'd love to know where that lives on the web. It should. Too brilliant.

Rain

2009-12-07T13:49:00.001-08:00

It's raining here in LA. It's so lovely when it does, and unlike anywhere else I've lived it also comes with the anticipation of lovely days following. The rain here clears all the air, smoke, smog, fog, clouds away, and usually the next day is pristine. It's then I love driving by the hills and seeing all the houses tucked in their greenery; seeing the ring of mountains looking out over Glendale from the Hyperion bridge. Everything feels at once close and expansive and so clear. I love those days.

But for today, it's this beautiful rain. The hills get very green and misty the longer it rains, and it feels like you're in Costa Rica. Last winter, they were so green it was like Ireland (but only for a moment). The grass is so vibrant, though, and it reminds me of why I love rain so much.

In honor of that (and to negate my earlier poetry rejection post when I was slightly crabby about free verse), I'm posting my favorite poem with rain in it. I heard it first in "Hannah and her Sisters", and at one point started cutting out letters to make a collage of it on my home wall in college (like the previous word wall post). That never happened. I do love the poem, though.

Here it is in the Woody Allen movie.

You can skip to 6:16, but this clip has some great stuff, including the best line (I hate April. She's pushy.) and the old Pagaent book shop which is sadly now a restaurant. It's a beautiful, gray New York. Durn, I love this movie.

Anyhow, I digress. For now, the truly luscious e.e. cummings poem:

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, misteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Uncommon Cabin

2009-12-04T17:23:00.000-08:00

Pursuant to my post before last about wall decals, I was leafing through a Summer 2008 issue of Metropolitan Home at my doctor's office, and saw this picture of a Yeats poem painted on to a cosy library wallin a family cabin in Texas.

How wonderful is that?

So I thought I'd share.

Some day. ;)

Anna Deavere Smith

2009-12-04T16:52:00.000-08:00

I was podcasting Science Friday on NPR, and they were interviewing Anna Deavere-Smith about her one-woman show at 2nd Stage called "Let Me Down Easy", which is about health care. I kind of love when you're being geeky and then something like an amazing theater artist who you truly admire surprises you. You can listen to the interview on the link.

The show, which hopefully will travel, is culled from over 300 interviews, whittled to 20 to make an evening of theater. It's great to hear her talk about her process, and also to hear a few of the characters. One of my favorites is a bull rider who talks about having emergency surgery. You can see her do him here as well by selecting Bull Rider of the four characters she does. This is an earlier story, but the same guy. If you have time, you can watch them all.

I had the pleasure of seeing her do some characters at a benefit. Some people have criticized her as mimicry, but it feels deeper than that. She has an interest in being both transformational shaping an evening of theater. She never comments on her characters while she's playing them, and though any editing will shape a piece to lead the audience to a desired experience, she's about as documentary as it gets for theater. I find her work thrilling. When I saw her, she was followed by Jessye Norman singing "Balm in Gilead" and I had to hold the railing of the church balcony in front of me to not completely break down. It's transformational work for the audience as well. Here website links to a site under construction called "arts and civil dialogue". I think that's it.

And she's in Nurse Jackie and teaches at NYU. I love how she can do all of that.

I hope we get a chance to see her out here.

Dali Decals

2009-12-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

I'm loving this site. I do not have these immaculate spaces augmented and clarified by graphics. But if I did, I would get some. I like the trees and shapes. I'm getting the decal above to put above my stove. Seems like a good place for it.

Play

2009-12-03T15:26:00.001-08:00

So this show I'm in opens tomorrow night. Tonight is invited dress. It's been fun to rehearse, fun to see how this all works again. I haven't done a run of a play in about 4 years. Certainly nothing where I played a character that has to be sustained. I've forgotten how much of a fun, constant challenge it is.

On the challenging side, we've had three people with cold or flus, one who had the swine flu, one who was feeling nauseated and sick last night, one recovering from a bout in the hospital from bad diabetes medication and bacterial infection. And one cast member was fired yesterday for not being able to make the character work. So it's been quite a lot of mishegoss. Last night was the first time all the characters have been together for a run, and some of the costumes still aren't finished.

But, if memory serves from the last time, when I was working on light cues 5 hour before the show and then we had a brownout, it's par for the course. Did I mention the artistic director lives in DC, so he flies out here once a month but runs the company from 3000 miles away? It's built in for drama.

It's good to be with funny people and have a good time. It's a play.

I suggested it would be fun to have caricatures instead of headshots in the lobby, since the play was based on a Christmas card that my friend Ray sent out (Sean Abley wrote a very fun, funny play that he's directed as well). He's done them, and they're all fun. I'd love the set. Below is me. I told him I look like I have bags under my eyes, and he said no, I just have prominent underlids. HA! That made me laugh out loud. So prominent underlids and all, here's the caricature. Great job.

Beatles!

2009-11-29T22:05:00.001-08:00

Tonight I went to see the Beatles show at the Laserium on Hollywood with some friends. It was quite a show. The nine of us made up 3/4 of the audience in this huge old movie theater. I left thinking I had visited 1985, and reminded of how great the Beatles are. They really are. You take that for granted, and then you're forced to sit in an auditorium and listen to their music for 45 minutes and you muse about how they straddled pop and experiment brilliantly. Wow.

On the way there we realized it was the Hollywood Christmas parade, so the streets were closed off and packed with people. When we left the theater, we were in time to see a giant Sam balloon from Dr. Suess, and Dog the Bounty Hunter, who was a crowd favorite. It's truly an odd parade. There were a couple of backpackers who looked like homeless teens walking past, with a black cat tied on top of the bundle. From the front it looked like the cat was balancing of her own volition, but from the back you realized she was tied down. And cats love that--being tied to things, and crowds.

I also saw the Globe's production of Love's Labor's Lost this weekend as well, but I'm hoping to write something more substantial about it. I will say it's quite a wacky show.

I woke up this morning sad that it was Sunday and that I have to go to work tomorrow, but I'm grateful for employment. And I did a lot of clearing this weekend--a friend suggested that I could put a lot of my books in the garage and clean up book clutter. That was revolutionary. My living room feels much larger. I still have a lot of books out, but there's a little more breathing space. More room to read, and more room for more books - ha.

And we're back...

2009-11-27T20:14:00.000-08:00

SO, after a brief stomach flu and Thanksgiving, we're back.

I went to see La Danse last weekend, as promised. It's wonderful, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the best dance movie ever made, as some have said. If you like watching dancers rehearse, then it probably is. If not, your patience might be tried.

Me, I love watching any artistic process, from weaving to acrobatics, so I was totally into it. Frederick Wiseman followed the dancers around, concentrating mostly on rehearsal and performance of several pieces, including “Genus,” by Wayne McGregor; “Paquita,” by Pierre Lacotte; “The Nutcracker,” by Rudolph Nureyev; “Medea,” by Angelin Preljocaj; “The House of Bernarda Alba,” by Mats Ek; “Romeo and Juliet,” by Sasha Waltz; and “Orpheus and Eurydyce,” by Pina Bausch.

Wiseman follows the dancers around in every aspect of rehearsal, capturing solo time as well, especially of Delphine Moussin as she prepares to dance Medea. We watch her mark her performance, working out details painstakingly as she figures out the character. The choreographer works with her on a final moment, and we seem the discussing a particular gesture, the final gesture in the piece. Later in the film, we watch her dance the role in performance, ending in a the gesture spoken of. It doesn't strike a chord in the rehearsal, but seen in context with a fully committed performer, the moment is spine-tingling.

Also incredible are things like watching Marie Agnes Gillot in a crazy challenging pas de deux as part of this piece, Genus, By Wayne McGregor (not her, but this is the ballet--her portion was full of really close partnering, unbelievably quick isolations, and what looked to me like ballet hip-hop ending with her being lowered to the ground):

And then watching her do this insane number of pirouettes, seemingly endlessly, in Paquita (I think). Even the people watching in rehearsal stop to say how incredible she is. It's astounding to watch what they can do. Here below is the style and the dncer, but not the clip:

What's brilliant about it as well is that Wiseman explores every corner. Silent hallways, building exteriors. And, of course, the artistic director Brigitte LeFevre, who is a force of nature. We watch her talking to dancers, counseling on the phone, in marketing meetings, talking to choreographers. In one session she speaks to a choreographer about the heirarchical nature of the company, and the importance of using an "etoile" (star) in a ballet if you have them, rather than just as part of an ensemble. That, she says, would be like buying a sports car and driving it 6 miles per hour. She's riveting to watch as well.

Wiseman also films the costumers, the cafeteria workers, the janitors, the laborers, and the man who cleans the auditorium. And, without saying anything explicit, you might realize for yourself that the only people of any color are the painters, cleaners, the concierge, and the cashier in the cafeteria. The dancers are all European. As are the choreographers. It's not explicit, but it became noticeable to me, especially considering the young man vacuuming the auditorium had the same build as many of the male dancers. Wiseman shows everything--the water in the basement, and the beekeeper on the roof (what a surprise that was). It's a true documentary--documenting. No narration, no interviews, fly on the wall.

The most enjoyable thing for me to watch was the capture of that difficult work to make something good great. All the dancers in the film are great, though some are obviously better (you begin to discern that as well). The stars are stars for a reason. But it's thrilling to watch an incredibly gifted performer work to make it even better. I can't remember that ever being captured on film, or at least this well. It's wonderful when two older cantankerous dancer/coaches are arguing about what they like and what they don't, all the while coaching an exquisite dancer about what needs improvement while she's rehearsing.

These dancers are incredible athletes and artists. It's funny--I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance, which I enjoy a lot. After watching the dancers in this film, though, I can see the difference in that rigorous training and work. Not to say the SYTYCD dancers don't work hard, but what an incredible difference having a company that challenges a corps of artists to stretch every muscle and work at their best. I wish we had something like that in this country. It's truly a gem.

Weekend

2009-11-20T17:44:00.000-08:00

So excited - off to see La Danse tonight, so I'll report back. More plumbing mishaps and my own rehearsals and business have stopped some of my writing momentum, but there's going to be much on the horizon, including A Single Man and Nine. Also, really intersted in Jews on film this year--that's accounted for a great deal of my most emotional reactions to a couple of pieces, so I hope to blog about that. As long as the plumbing holds as it's supposed to.

A note about the above--Leonid Andreyev, Russian Writer and photographer. He wrote "He Who Gets Slapped", which I was actually in in grad school (yikes on that one, really), and also developed a color process for film in the 1910s, which is why that color photo is from the early part of the century. I have always wanted that book, but I don't think it's available. Should've bought it in 1989 when we got it in the bookstore where I was working. Ah well, missed chances. Below is a portrait by Repin, who was responsible for another striking painting I blogged about earlier. I guess I have a thing about bearded Russians.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

2009-11-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

This was quite a weekend. Friday, my toilet backed up, not from anything I did, but sewage back up from the pipes below. Saturday, the plumbers came over, and stayed for five hours.I found out that my apartment is the end of the line for the sewage system, and that all the tributaries had been blocked. The plumbers were great and conscientious, but still my kitchen and bathroom floors were covered in black sludge, and it was tracked through on the floors.

On the bright side, I was at home cleaning for five hours on Saturday, did some sorting and pitching I've been meaning to do, went to Target and got shelf paper and lysol, and went to town on everything. Today I washed my rugs, I put shelf paper on some cabinets I've been meaning to, and I've mopped my floors and treated them with antibacterial spray about 4 times. So everything is sparkling. IN the midst of the plumbers being here, I was looking for something to do and I peeled a pomegranate, putting the seeds in the refrigerator for use on yogurt, and I also pulled brussel sprouts of the stalk I had bought and sauteed them in a wok with ghee and a little salt.

From this, I found out once again I like to be busy. Again.

And I also learned that sometimes something that seems like a mishap can actually turn out to be a good thing--I have cleaner pipes, cleaner shelves, food for the week, and clean floors.

Work even did that for me--what was a week of anxiety, no sleep, soul-searching turned out to give me a new focus and vision as well as clarity on why I am where I am and if
I am interested in that moving forward. And that I needed.

I suppose I'm trying to relate this to "Fantastic Mr. Fox", the wonder-ful new movie from Wes Anderson--mostly about one supposedly bad experience leading to new clarity. I loved this movie. I didn't know the book, which is surprising since "James and the Giant Peach" was in my top three growing up of repeat reads. And I imagine, if I had read it, FMF might have been the same. I heard an interview with Wes Anderson this weekend, who said that this book was the first piece of property he owned, and that is the copy he kept going back to while making this film. And that's not surprising to hear. The film itself feels well-loved, and I don't think that would have been possible without a deep affection for the source.

It's beautifully shot, imaginatively directed, with a great sense of whimsy, but also of relationships. It feels simultaneously grounded and ridiculous, which for me is the best kind of "kids" movie. The voice talent is spectacular, rooted in the central relationship of Mr. and Mrs. Fox voiced by George Clooney and Meryl Streep. I don't know of two other actors who could have pulled this off. He has to be charming enough to lead an entire brigade, and she has to be charmed enough, but also aware of all his failings. I'm making it sound much more mundane than it plays. He's a reporter; she's a landscape painter. Anderson also has fun with the son, Ash, voiced by Jason Schwartzmann, and his perfect cousin Kristofferson, voiced by Eric Anderson. Also along are Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe and Michael Gambon as a the most terrifying of the trio of villians. It's a can't-lose with the voices, really.

The story concerns Mr. Fox who can't help, well, being a fox. And his existential crisis sets off the action of the film:

"Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I'm saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I? And how can a fox ever be happy without, you'll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?"

He creates all the situations that he has to get out of himself, because that's who he is. If he's not wily, he has nothing to do. So an act of theft, which for him is a thrill ride and in his nature, sets of a chain of revenge that effects everyone around him. In the end, everyone probably would have been better off if he hadn't done what he did, but who's to say? Through the actions of Mr. Fox and the events they set off, everyone finds out that the best thing that these animals can do is be the animals they are--that no matter how civilized they are, they'll always revert back to their basic natures. It could be looked at as bleak, but I saw it more that it was necessary for each of them to what they do best when put to the test; by being who they were, they were able to adapt and find a way out of the situation. Those natures are never far. In a brilliant bit, the animals never eat food, even at a table with a suit on, they devour it. By coming back to their animal natures and strengths, they are able to come back to some kind of status quo. And, of course learn something in the process. Of course, you could probably get something else out of it, too.

The animation is careful, hysterical, and meticulous. I can't wait to see it again to just see the details that I missed. The beginning just made me giddy, with a weasel real estate agent, fast-talking squirrel movers, and an adolescent, tooth-brushing fox. But it's the richness of the relationships that will keep me coming back - The chemistry classroom scene alone with a poor Ash realizing he's losing the interest of his lab partner to his perfect cousin is worth the price of admission. It reminds me of what Rankin/Bass did mixed with the sensibility of a Wes Anderson film and Wallace and Gromit. Near the end, in the climax, there's a moment where the film stops and you realize there's more in the world, and that threats lurk - I won't ruin it by telling what it is, since then you'll wait for it, but it's just another great layer in a suprisingly layered, satisfying film. I hope a lot of kids see it.

In the words of Mrs. Fox, "You know, you really are...fantastic."

DV8

2009-11-09T16:55:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of seeing "To Be Straight With You", a piece by the UK based dance theater group DV8. The piece is about homosexual oppression, across the world, but mainly centered in Islamic and fundamentalist Christian countries. It’s true documentary theater; all text came from interviews. It was beautifully done, though I had a couple of moments where I wanted a little more.

The movement was fantastic. One actor did a monologue as a 15 year old muslim boy who was kicked out of his home for being gay. He did the entire thing while jumping rope. The same actor did a monologue of a man explaining his dual life, with a wife and a male lover, while doing intense Bollywood style dance to Shakira –and at one point joined by a man doing the same dance behind him, mirroring him. Not without humor. What blows me away is the acting skill of all the performers while dancing. It is movement, but some of it is just straight out dance. The more static moments of straight theater actually felt a little less effective to me.

It feels odd being critical of this at all, since the subject matter is so serious and pressing. It’s apparent there is a growing Muslim community in the UK, as well as a Jamaican and native Christian community that can be very violent. They address the Buju Banton “murder music”, projecting translations of the lyrics calling for gay men to be burned and killed. Those are heart-stopping. The stories of violence, oppression, and death seem endless, coupled with never-ending hate speech. One segment that sticks with me is a performer speaking the words of an imam talking about reconciling his religion and sexuality and the community difficulties while reacting suddenly from invisible forces bearing down on him and surprising him from all sides. Fear.

The projections used are incredible. There is a spinning globe which a performer uses to highlight different countries and modes of punishment. One man explains his many lives as father, husband, imam, and gay man while walking through borders of a comic book. Two women tell there stories, completely drawn and illustrated but for hands and faces.

The performers are beyond skilled, the movement is wonderful. There were a lot of moments, with the movement itself, where I was astounded they were doing what they were doing.

I would say, as a US viewer, some of the dialects were challenging to understand. And from where we were some of the sound was muddy, but that's probably the hall we were in.

One of the criticisms I have is that the women were underutilized (one astounding sequence had a woman with her arms bent at the elbows, spinning and doing Chaîné turns in an oval shape for about two minutes while speaking the words of a 70-year old rabbi saying “I’m very tired”). The women I was with mentioned it often felt like this in pieces generated by gay men, and I imagine it’s that and just the invisibility in general—in some ways it speaks even more to the oppression.

The other thing I felt was that it was a documentary without a form - I didn’t know what the point or the focus was. It had segments, but no overall form, and was an exploration of issues only by accident, not by shape. There were a lot of issues raised from the breadth of the interviews, but since this touched on so many (violence, rape, misogyny, religion) it almost felt diffuse. You could do an entire show about the murder music in Jamaica and men being stoned to death; on women in Africa and sexual oppression; on the double lives of Muslim men; on the growing Muslim community in the UK and intolerance; on closeted gay men beating other gay men out of self hatred (in one heartbreaking scene a man has gone to prison for 4 ½ years for assault on gay men and only once out of prison can he admit he’s gay). So I know it’s probably an impossibility to focus it, but it felt a little like one awful injustice after another. Yes, people were safer in the UK and had asylum, but there is still the brokenness and disappointment. It’s quite intense. The focus, if there was one, was on religious persecution being the base.

I also wanted more physical connection. The women held hands, the men barely touched. Perhaps they’re known for that and wanted to depart? I don’t know, but I do know it would have added a level to have actual physical intimacy on stage. Not only to affirm gay/lesbian desire/affection/eroticism, but perhaps to point out the audience’s own discomfort (if they had it) to gay/lesbian affection and desire. And for a production that had no problem illustrating violence, it seemed squeamish about desire. Maybe like our culture--violence is fine, sex is to a point, but affection is odd and threatening.

Which leads me to the big question— what is this for and will people see this who need to? At least in LA, in a theater that was nowhere near close to sold out, it felt like preaching to the converted. I hope that when it toured in the UK it was seen in schools. The other thing that might have helped would have been more information on how to help. What to do. One prominent activist is interviewed speaking about how he has been harassed and threatened with death. It’s obvious this is life-threatening. I would have thought there would have been a website or instructions on what action could be taken. Maybe that’s just me, but if we’re just watching it, and doing nothing about it, while clucking our tongues, who does that help?

For me, I realized that the company I work for does business with countries where I would be jailed, imprisoned, or put to death. That was disturbing for me to think about. I need my job. I’m sure much of this is coming about now that we are a global culture. Like it or not, we are all connected. And some of this is finding out maybe you don’t necessarily want to be connected. I haven’t figured it out.

I guess I got gratitude for the freedoms we have here, and knowledge of just how precious they are, and how different it is in the UK right now. We’re protected from a lot, I think. And I was reminded of the power of theatre, and why I fell in love with doing it in the first place.

I hope to hell we can keep our freedoms. If nothing else this reminds me of all we have, and why we fight so hard.

Here’s a trailer for the show:

I couldn’t find sequences online, but I did find Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men a film DV8 did from the late eighties. I guess the whole film is loaded on youbtube. Handy

La Danse

2009-11-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite movies of recent years is Tout près des étoiles: Les danseurs de l'Opéra de Paris, a wonderful 2001 documentary about the Paris Opera Ballet. I love it. I saw it twice in the theatre (the dinky Cinema Village in NY), and have seen it on DVD several times. I have a wierd obsession with dance movies, most specifically ballet. I don't know why, and really, why analyze it? The movement is spectacular, and I probably like the military regimen in the service of art. And, frankly, it's astounding what these people can do. And, I do love the Red Shoes - here you can read my hero-worship.

So, I'm basically completely stoked about the new three hour documentary on the Opera Ballet, Frederick Wiseman'sLa Danse, The Paris Opera Ballet. 3 solid hours of watching technically accomplished performers do what they love and talk about it. Heaven.

Here's the trailer

Poetry

2009-11-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

Feel like posting something, so I'll share that I submitted 4 poems to Poetry Magazine. Not expecting much--I don't read a lot of contemporary poetry and much of what I read I don't find interesting--but just the action was nice. Once they're (or I should say if) they're rejected, I'll post them.

It's so easy to submit things on line now. Crazy.

Smackdown '56

2009-11-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

Check me out over at the 1956 Supporting Actress Smackdown. Really interesting year, and some movies I'd never seen, like The Bad Seed.

Just saw Michael Jackson's This is It. Not sure I needed to, now that I've seen it. I was told by a lot of people how great it was, and it is, to watch the rehearsals--but I've never been a huge fan. It's clear how talented he is, and how many people are devoted to him, but it's more interesting for me as a look at a talented artist, hero worship, and just how sad the whole thing is. I'm sad for him and his family, but also for all the dancers and musicians who were living out this dream and never got to perform it. It was a rehearsal of the concert, and you realize how thrilling it would have been for all involved. It also struck me how much he lived in fantasy seemingly, even his final song was about a love that saves him and how wonderful it is. By all accounts, though, it was something he never found. Sad story.

I've seem some other stuff, but between play rehearsals and work, I've not been finding the time to write. So, I'll make a point to do that. The one thing I have in my head is sadly getting larger and larger. I'll see if I can get it down and trim it a bit.

Happy reading!

11:11

2009-10-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Today it’s 11:11. Since I first heard the Rufus Wainwright song "11:11”, I’ve been asking myself when I see that particular time if I’m where I want to be. Kind of a loaded question to ask, but I’ve found myself asking it in my car and at work a great deal. This is not my soul-searching blog (for the most part), but I’ll share that it’s surprising how many times I've seen the clock at 11:11 since then--some periods twice a day. So I have many opportunities to ask myself if I’m satisfied, breathing, grateful. And, if not, what I can do to get there. I have no idea why that started, but I heard the song, and it did.

I’ve heard that he wrote this about 9:11, and that’s pretty clear, and that 11:11 looks like twin towers. Am I wrong in seeing it as hopeful? It feels like it's about gratitude and grief at the same time--no easy feat. No matter, I love the song, and wild how these little superstitions, reminders, can become part of your day. Mine, at least. I am a creature of art, can’t help it. And OCD.

And side note, which makes me laugh--"holding a notion of you" on a couple of sites was "loading a dump truck of human", which definitely makes the song more bleak. If incorrect. Ah, Rufus--diction's not his thing.

"11:11"

Woke up this morning at 11:11
Wasn't in Portand and I wasn't in heaven
Could have been either by the way I was feeling
But I was alive, I was alive
Woke up this morning at 11:11
John was half-naked and Lulu was crying
Over a baby that will never go crazy
And I was alive and kicking

Through this cruel world
Holding a notion of you at 11:11
Tell me what else can I do
What else can I do?

Woke up this morning and something was burning
Realized that everything really does happen in Manhattan
Thoughts were of characters and afternoons lying
And you, you were alive

Oh the hours we are separate
11:11 is just precious time we've wasted
So patch up your bleeding hearts
And put away your posies
I'm gonna have a drink
Before we ring around the rosies with you
Oh the hours we are separate
Oh the hours we are separate
11:11

A must read, and stuff

2009-10-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

Passing along this inspiring blog entry about a kid who did something amazing with an upsetting illness. Thank you, Patrick for writing it.

Still germinating thoughts about A Serious Man, so hopefully something on that soon.

Talked with my amazing 90 year old Grandma about life, the above movie, Judaism, depression, and keeping up spirits. I'm so lucky she's in my life.

And saw the LA Derby Dolls on Saturday night. The Fight Crew, the team I was rooting for, won. Shannon is an excellent team captain, and big shout out to Bill, her husband, who wore a lobster costume with an leather aviator helmet and sunglasses to be their mascot. There wasn't a time he wasn't moving and getting the crowd riled up. He even wrestled with Bacon, the other team's mascot. Bacon and Lobster roll. Entertaining. Who knew roller derby was such a blast? Then again, what's not to love about a group of adults playing sports with drag names? Amber Alert was super tough (as were Haught Wheels, Broadzilla, Paris Killton and Tara Armov), and I loved the scrappy Judy Gloom, complete with horn rims. Referees included Ofelia Melons and Oliver Clothesoff. Good times.

Book Swap

2009-10-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

I supposed I must've just needed an isolatory weekend on some level, so that's what I did. And on Saturday afternoon, I went to Vroman's (met a friend who wanted to get rid of some books, too), and went to a book swap hosted by Good Read's and Vroman's in Pasadena.

What a dangerous thing for uncluttering streamliners like myself. Ha. This is to get rid of the books you don't want, and get new ones. But, like one guy I talked to, I got as many at least as I turned in (myabe 1or 2 less, so that's a start). He told me when he went to the last one at Book Soup, he brought six books and left with 40. I have to say, it was kind of fun to see people in this much of a frenzy about books. I was one of the first people, and there weren't many people there, so I thought it would be kind of lame. Within 20 minutes, there were more books than you would know what to do with. There was a lot of crap, but also some things that I've wanted to read. And what's one person's trash is another's treasure, which is what was wonderful about this event. It was also fun to see such a large group of people just looking at books and looking to see what other people were holdling. It was slightly social, with people commenting on books they'd read and telling you if it was good; also fun with people pointing out "That's mine" or "I brought that one." It was fun, and I hear they're going to try to have one a few times a year.

So I got:

American Sucker, David Denby's memoir about losing money in the market crash, the dissolution of his marriage and his internet addiction. Denby can irritate me, but I thought I'd give it a try. And the guy I thought was attractive was the one who donated it. He said he liked it. This, though, not being a Jane Austen novel, did not lead anywhere. Except to more books.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, upon which the HBO series is based. Looks like it's a good one, and I'm interested in reading it.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young. This book looked to me like it could be annoying, so I never bought it or saw the film base on it. But hey, the price was right to try it out.

Working Stiff, by Grant Stoddard, subtitled "The Misadventures of an accidental sexpert." This was the friend's book, and he liked it. And so did somebody else who walked by, so I picked it up. Like you would a sexpert, I guess.

Cleopatra's Nose, Essays on the Unexpected by Daniel J. Boorstin, essays about American culture and institutions. Interesting. Also, written in '95, so we'll see if it has aged well, if at all. Love cultural essays--yay!

The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp. I had just seen her speak at USC on Tuesday (something else I wanted to write about), so this was fresh on my mind. I didn't get the book then, I guess so I could get the hardcover for free. Right place at right time.

Dishwasher, by Pete Jordan, a memoir about washing dishes in all 50 states. I've heard him on This American Life, so I've been intrigued, and now I get to read his book. I guess I love,too, that now he's a bicycle mechanic and writer in Amsterdam. How would someone like that not write an interesting book?

Lost, by Gregory Maguire. By the author of Wicked, it's his take on A Christmas Carol. I did like Wicked, a surprisingly dense read, so I'm looking forward to this. I haven't read any of his other stuff. And mint hardcover first edition, so we love that.

Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis. This is a book of stories, and it was a finalist for the National Book Award, so I figure it must be pretty good. The book is certainly covered with praise. I got it because of the Grace Paley quote, "Davis is the kind of writer about whom you say, 'Oh, at last!'" No small praise.

And then this wierd little book called "Bill Nye's Comic History of the U.S." illustrated by F. Opper. It's blue with red and white embossing, and looks like it was printed in the 40's or 50's, but the publishing information just says "Copyright 1894, by J. Lippincott and Company". I imagine it's a reprint, but it's bizarre. And the original was blue clothbound, like this. Maybe I just picked up a $35 original! And, once again, it's free.

So it looks like I'm in books for a while. Fun!

Random-pediam and chicken soup

2009-10-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

I was looking up a few things on the intranets, among them where parsnips derived from, and found out all kinds of interesting things. Chief among them (aside from learning in the wild they're easy to confuse with hemlock - oops) that parsnips and root vegetables were used like potatoes until those arrived from the new world, and that parsnips have more vitamins and minerals than carrots. The potato part doesn't suprise me; I love mashed parsnips--and I guess they are sometimes taken away after cooking and used for flavor. My guest had never had them and thought they were potato-like.. Today, I put them in a chicken soup I made with carrots, onions, celery, and quinoa pasta (gluten free), which works perfectly in the soup. And, since you didn't ask, my recipe is basically:

Whole roast chicken from the grocery store (or you can roast it yourself, but if you're in a pinch this is easier)

Pull off meat, boil carcass and skin for broth, and flavor as desired. I put a little fennel, rosemary, and dill in today, sometimes it's tarragon, and even a dash of cinammon if I'm feeling crazy. If you do it delicately enough you can't quite pinpoint the flavor, but it's welcome (not like "ew--what's this?![drop spoon]).

Add onion, celery after removing bones, etc., boil, then root vegetables, then corn, and pasta.

Soup's a blast that way, and chicken's the best for just putting whatever in. And with warm iron skillet cornbread, it's a wonderful Sunday eve meal with leftovers for the week.

While I was cooking, I listened to Dolly Parton's Backwood's Barbie album, which I don't think I'd listened to at one sitting. A friend bought me the "Cracker Barrell" special edition, the inside notes of which begin with "Dolly wants a cracker!" I kid you not. That can only be the reason for the last song, called "Berry Pie", which is about as complex and also ear-worm-y as "Short'nin' Bread". She basically sings "I'm gonna make him some berry pie, berry pie, berry pie" over and over. Now, I love Dolly, but oy, this song. I guess when you're one of the 5 most prolific composers in Western music, you're going to have a questionable entry now and again.

Anyhow, there's a song on the album called Shinola, the main lyric being "you don't know love from Shinola". So I thought, since I grew up with a Dad that used the phrase "he doesn't know sh*t from Shinola" a lot, I would like to find out what exactly Shinola was. I thought it might be a product (unless it was a town in Kansas), and I was right. Turns out it's a shoe polish brand from the 20s. It's in Wikipedia, but what's brilliant is the overly self-conscious voice of the person who wrote the entry. It's in hysterically direct opposition to the colloquialism of the phrase. And I love Wikipedia for that. And when I read it, I'm not sure if the person is serious or not--and that makes it even better:

Shit and Shinola, while superficially similar in appearance, are entirely distinct in their function; only one is good for polishing shoes, and anyone who fails to distinguish one from the other must be ignorant or of low acuity.

Hee.

And now a litle something

2009-10-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

Just for entertainment while I'm working on some other posts, here's the song Red Dirt Girl from Emmylou Harris' wonderful Red Dirt Girl album.

I love Emmylou Harris, though she can be a bit of a downer (not her personally, I'm sure she's delightful, but the songs and that keening voice can just get you).

I was thinking that this is really an album, in the sense of a collection of songs that go together. They may not tell the same story, but it's like a novel, an aural novel transporting to another place. Sometimes those places are where you first listened to them--this one was on heavy play for me on my CD player when I worked downtown near the stock exchange--and sometimes they're about pulling you out of where you are. The songs here took me to a country place in the midst of the city; U2's "A Kind of Homecoming" never fails to plunge me deep in snow (I'm sure that's from a video or something, but the whole album feels like that to me, just like Joshua Tree is summer); Jane Siberry's excellent meditation on relationships and loss "When I Was a Boy" (who, according to her website has now changed her name to Issa[there's a great note saying that all information about Jane Siberry should be gleaned from the website, and not asked of Issa -
"Her leap to virtual inventory mirrors her strong steps towards devoting herself even more completely to beinga pure artist. She will also move away from having a ‘home’, ‘car’ and anything she considers anti-’travelling light’ to simply living where she works. Her response to ‘where do you live?’ will not be ‘nowhere’ but ‘everywhere’.]). Wow.

I've always loved songs, and particularly respond to lyrics, as they feel like short stories to me, and gravitate to songwriters who are storytellers (probably why I like country/folk a lot). To be truthful, I've never gotten people who don't hear song lyrics; I know they're out there and I've met many of them, but it's unfathomable to me. I guess it would make sense a full album is like a novel. Though that's never struck me before today.

So go out there and listen to your favorite novel.

Anne Fadiman

2009-10-07T14:03:00.001-07:00

I'm reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down which should probably be subtitled "pages of heartache, misunderstanding, heorics, and compassion beautifully captured", and I just saw that Anne Fadiman has a new one called Rereadings that I didn't know about but was published in 2006. I'm excited to read it. Looks wonderful--exploring relationships through literature. She's such a good writer.

Bright Star

2009-10-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

-Bright Star - John Keats

I bought a copy of Mansfield Park today (see last post). I did order one off of Paperback Swap, but this is the Norton Critical Edition. How can you resist that? I'm a total nerd, I know, but I swoon for historical record, annotation, and critical opinion all just laid out for me while I'm reading. I already found out the meaning of one sentence I would not have understood, having to do with selling of a parsonage to pay off debts and how the parish was passed or owned. I'm not British; I don't know these things.

So with one foot planted firmly in 1811, I decided to go to see Bright Star, the Jane Campion film about John Keats and his love/muse, Fanny Brawne. Loved it, thanks to an incredibly strong central performance by Abbie Cornish. All the supporting work was great, as well, especially Paul Schneider playing a complex cad, Charles Brown, ruinous to the lives around him, and Kerry Fox as Mrs. Brawne. The film concentrates on the period after Keats published Endymion (a thing of beauty is a joy forever 1818 or so) until his death in 1821. Oh, if you don't know the story - Mr. Keats - he dead. At 25.

I won't go into too much of the particulars, but they do fall in love, and have difficulty in Keats' having no income (money is a big thing in Austen, too, and for all those marriage people who talk about love and the sacred institution--here's a good one to see what the reality was 200 years ago). Life without money in London or anywhere in the environs was squalid and difficult to say the least, and the movie well contrasts the sumptuous country life with urban blight and filth.

This is a sensuous film. Campion's characters spend a lot of time outdoors, in fields, in the sun and rain. The cinematography is gorgeous--there is one shot in a field in lavender that I found breathtaking. Campion also spends time with cloth in this film. Fanny is a designer and seamstress, and there is no lack of luxurious fabric, white linen, and wind. I'm sure a thesis could be written on Fanny's emotional state through her clothes, but I don't have one off the top of my head.

Campion uses cloth to create tactile empathy. When Fanny lies down on her bed with Keats' first letter to her, there is a quick cut to her feet, peeking out for under her dress, lying on the side on her bed with her knees drawn up. Who wouldn't relate to that? Her clothes at the beginning are slightly garish and over colorful, becoming more muted and solemn as she is drawn nearer to Keats (as muted as one can be with a feathered hat). Cloth and her work with it is her gift, and it's clear from an early moment when she needs to give something to him to express her emotion, she immediately runs up to her room and embroiders. There are some gorgeous moments that I won't ruin here, but suffice it to say it's visually sumptuous without going over the top.

The cloth works for her in the way that nature does for Keats, and she is gradually drawn into his world and his vision. I'm sure 19th century Hampstead-ers were much closer to nature than we have experience of, and Campion beautifully pulls us into the sensuality of the terrain and of the environment. It's an almost tactile film. I would say the film is poetic, in that it works to draw us in through our senses and descriptions of the sensual world, attempting something that feels tactile to me--that's really the only way I can describe it. I'm not overly familiar with the Romantic poets, but it seems from the poetry included from Keats that's a bit of what they were attempting. She manages beautifully.

I was thinking of this because I've been thinking about Paris, which I saw last weekend. There was a moment when the main character, played by Romain Duris, is standing on his balcony in the snow as it falls lightly over Paris, and the camera pans to a hot cup of coffee in his hand. At that moment, I was pulled into the sensuality of the film, of Cedric Klapisch trying to give us the feel of Paris - a sensual experience of the city. (I'd give a quick review, but I have some issues with believability and I don't want to get off on a diatribe about how riveting Melanie Laurent la fille du moment is, and how ridiculous device-y, sexist, and just this side of offensive her character is--liked the movie fine, aside from it's feeling of contrivance and obviousness to have an excuse to create a paean to the city. Juliette Binoche, please work more, you're fascinating to watch. As are most of these people--the French cast interesting actors in their movies. Not great, but 3/4 of a good movie and not a bad place to be).

ANYhow, back to England circa 1820. Can I please give more props to Campion and her design team for having people wear clothes that look like people lived in them? We tend to see a lot of period movies where everything is lush and perfect. In keeping with the point of the piece, the clothes looked inhabited and felt. Aside from that, they were worn more than once. Although Fanny had more interesting dresses, she still wore several pieces over and over. I remember loving the Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds Persuasion because the bottoms of the dresses were muddy. Same here. The world then was not paved.

Ben Whishaw was good as Keats. I wasn't blown over by him, and didn't fall in love with him myself, but I could believe the power of her feelings, which is the point. I was taken with Paul Schneider (though I loved him too in Lars and the Real Girl so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. He's allowed his moments of depth playing a feckless character, who is motivated on one hand by his own indulgence, and the other for his deep affection for Keats. It's actually one of my favorite performances of the year, and I hope he gets a nod or two from it. He deserves it.

One more salute to Campion. We are not in an age of sentiment. Navigating one of the most sentimental times in history for an audience not on a steady diet of it could easily turn treacly. Instead, she gives us a character whose gravity of feeling pulls us through some pitfalls that could be deadly for a contemporary audience, not the least of which is recitation of romantic poetry in dialogue. I've read some critics have had issue with the poetry used in the dialogue (I even heard the dialogue was "stylized", which I didn't notice--perhaps I need a better knowledge of Keats), but to me it was merely an extension of the main characters' deep regard for each other. It was a different time. People were deeply sentimental, swept up in the romance of nature, love and death, finding revelation and revolution in elevating emotion and lived, almost ecstatic, feeling into the highest purpose. Nature, Love, Death - I guess those really are the big three, but seeing them through the non-cynical eye of two centuries back, or at least the first great backlash against cynicism that could be encouraged by the age of enlightenment, is a treat. (And I'm no historian of the period--I'm sure it's much more complex than that). She pulls it off beautifully. I think it would be a temptation to have tried to make this sumptuous, to equate the rich voluptuousness of the language to the an abundance of sensation, rich color and and expensive fashion parade. By playing against this, Campion is able to tell her story and communicate the depth of emotion the story has to offer.

Abbie Cornish - I can't say enough. She carries the film, but she never loses track of the material. Her feeling is deep and grounded, and I was completely with her as she began to recite Keats' words back to him. She's not a simp, she's not a child, and we see her grow up through the action of the film. Her grief, when it comes, is painful to watch. I cried. And I am not one to cry at films. I think I've cried maybe 5 times in total at movies, and usually for some personal reason rather than the film itself, but I was wiping away tears. This one got me. Beautiful, sensual, clear of irony and cynicism without being cloying. I loved it.

And I loved Whip It, too, but that's another story.

Reading List

2009-10-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

So I really want to write about Parade at the Taper, but I haven't quite gathered my thoughts. I will say though, it has some powerful moments--the ending really got me. And I quickly have to ask: Davis Gaines and Charlotte D'Amboise--what is with the plastic surgery? I'm more used to it on women, so hers wasn't as wierd (except that I thought she looked like Melissa Gilbert and it didn't occur to me until today that she was in it and I had actually seen her - and I've seen her on film and on stage before), but his was just bizarre to me--especially since he played the older characters. He has such a great big voice. I don't know why you'd do it--I suppose there's pressure to do it. Or maybe when you're an actor and so much is out of your control, that feels within it.

I do know that I just gave myself a papercut underneath my fingernail which hurts and is making typing wierdly painful. Who knew you could do that? Learn something new every day.

So, list making. I was listening to a T. Coraghessan Boyle story about Jane Austen, and he mentioned Mansfield Park. I've never read that. I love Jane Austen, but that's the one I don't know. Maybe it's time to read it. Looks like you can read the whole text of it on Google.

Currently I'm reading or have on my list

Fraud - David Rakoff - Loving it. Funny and Sedaris-y, who I suppose is his closest cousin in style and view. He's more arch in some ways, but similar voice. I like his writing.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris - on my nightstand. I've read a few pieces. See above.

Getting Mother's Body - Suzan-Lori Parks - never read her stuff, and have never read As I Lay Dying, which this is a riff on. Gap in my reading knowledge--there are many. Looks interesting, and a nice toe in to fiction again. And always interesting to see a playwright craft a novel.

How to Be Alone - Jonathan Franzen - I wrote about this before, about leaving it on the plane. So a few essays in. He can be quite cranky, but that's his thing. He manages to steer away from self-involved snob, which he veers close to, through accurate self-appraisal and passionate enagagement with the world around him. Love a good essay. His essay "My Father's Brain" about his Father's struggle with Alzheimer's and his dealing with it is brilliant.

Speaking of essays, and I'm sure I wrote about these before, but do yourself a favor and pick up "At Large and At Small: Familiary Essays" and "Ex Libris: COnfessions of a common reader" by Anne Fadiman. Simultaneously grounded and enchanting. Fascinating subjects and a wonderful writer. I haven't read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a winner of the National Book Critics Circle award about a girl with severe Epilepsy in California who is the child of Hmong refugees. Perhaps because I know it will be heartbreaking.

And I'm two issues of the New Yorker behind. What's new? I'm just grooving on the essays lately.

I'm thinking about observing Shabbat just so I can read. Can't "engaged in study" mean whatever you want it to?

Elizabeth

2009-09-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

So this is one of those nights, when I start writing something in my head, and instead of writing it down I just hone it further and further in my mind, forgetting that it will be forgotten in the morning, or sometimes the meat of it, so I'll be left with tossing and turning and not getting any sleep anyway, but not writing it down. So here's the counter-intuitive action of just getting up and getting it down so I'll actually go to sleep.

I've been wanting to write for a while about Elizabeth's blog,, which can be found here, but I've been a little dumbstruck. She's a beautiful writer, and she shines through in what she writes, but the subject of some of her posts makes me a little emotional. So knowing that you're going to be emotional feels a little like driving into a heavy rainstorm, and the air's not working in your car. You know it will be intense, you're not quite sure you're going to make it to the other end, but somehow the defogger kicks in and the rain lets up and you're on the other side. So I'm having faith that the sun will come out, and I'll do this without making a mess of it.

Elizabeth and I did a reading together a few months ago, and found out we had a mutual friend. So, we had a great conversation, and I started reading Elizabeth's blog. Elizabeth posts about many things, and very eloquently about her daughter's epileptic seizure disorder. In fact, there is a walk on October 18th to raise money for it, and I'm hoping to join her team or give money, probably both. Now I've not had a seizure disorder, or anyone in my family who has, but my father was diagnosed with MS when I was 5, and eventually died of it in 2002.

And here is the rainstorm.

So, reading Elizabeth's blog I am humbled at how she deals with the disorder, and with her two sons and husband and managing it. I am blown away that she talks with them about it, that she honors their own childhoods; that they are children, allowing them to be that and also have a family member with a very serious challenging disorder--enlisting their help and support while providing it to them as well; and her unbounded love for her beautiful daughter, which shines through in every word.

I was a child watching my father have seizures that were a side effect of the MS, go through different medications, walk with crutches, then a wheelchair, and all in a strange atmosphere of anger, frustration, and silence. I remember being told of the diagnosis, but after that it was really the thing that ruled the house and most of my childhood. I'm not blaming my parents at all--I can't imagine having children let alone dealing with that and how helpless you feel in the face of it, but I can't help but think of how different it might have been had there been that kind of understanding or place to talk about what we were all going through. It was definitely a different time, and I just don't think the tools were there for people. The past is the past, but I've really been wanting to just salute? commend? praise? her for the amazing way she shares what she's going through. And I'm amazed at the online community and support there is--I don't think that was available in the 70's the way that it is now, and I love seeing it. It's been very healing, actually, even though the experience is over 25 years ago.

I had misgivings about writing this because it's a) a little personal, b) about my reaction, c) afraid my mother would read this and take this personally, which it's not meant to be at all , but I wanted to let Elizabeth know how helpful and healing (besides informational, angering, and many other things) it is to read what she is going through.

And yes, I could've just sent an email, but I couldn't ask you to donate then, could I? ;)

What's Art?

2009-09-25T18:23:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine and I got into a discussion about art the other day. He’s a graphic design teacher, so he teaches art. He told me (from what I understand) that in his view that art didn’t start until the impressionists, as that was when there was really art for art’s sake—especially when it’s not representative, as there is no intent on the artist’s part for meaning, it’s only expression. Although I (pretty vehemently) disagree with this, it was an interesting place to try and figure out what my own definition for art is, which was his point—that you have to start somewhere. So, it’s easier for me to set myself up in opposition to something—I’ve always been an arguer—and I think I may do that a bit now. And it’s not personal—it’s fun to find someone to have these conversations with as you can hone your own ideas. Dust of the rust of the creaky brain gears. And since my friend was enjoying the conversation as well, I’m going to have a little stream of consciousness working it out here. It’s what I love about blogging: I can end up wherever.

Art for art’s sake is such a complicated term to me in and of itself. If art is in the marketplace it’s for something other than art, it’s for commerce. You could argue that Warhol, the champion of art for art’s sake, was actually just making product. And if it’s purpose is to make money, it’s no longer “art for art’s sake”. That phrase, I guess, raises my hackles because it separates out a supposed artist intention. What is the artist’s intention in making art? Similarly, if the test is that the viewer is to come with their own ideas, what makes one think that a picture is representational that the viewers will come to it with the same sense of history or expectation. Even the most pictorial of artists has a personal vision and eye, and just because they have an intention for us to have a certain reception to their art doesn’t mean we will. There are a lot of signs and symbols, in classical painting particularly, that we don’t have a background for.

When we were speaking I brought up the Unicorn tapestries. Behind the Unicorn there are some ridiculous numbers of flowers and plants, each of which had a symbolic meaning probably known to some of it not all of the viewers when they were woven in the 15th century. A viewer now does not have those same references. Does that mean that this piece, with a possible intended meaning, is now ‘art for art’s sake’ since modern viewers do not have the same frame of reference?

Also, how are we to tell either artists intention or viewers frame of reference. One of the most interesting books on art I’ve read is Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Not because I agree with it, but because of his certitude. His theories are based on what he believes is the effect of color on the soul.

It is evident that many colours are hampered and even nullified in effect by many forms. On the whole, keen colours are well suited by sharp forms (e.g., a yellow triangle), and soft, deep colours by round forms (e.g., a blue circle). But it must be remembered that an unsuitable combination of form and colour is not necessarily discordant, but may, with manipulation, show the way to fresh possibilities of harmony.

Since colours and forms are well-nigh innumerable, their combination and their influences are likewise unending. The material is inexhaustible.

Form, in the narrow sense, is nothing but the separating line between surfaces of colour. That is its outer meaning. But it has also an inner meaning, of varying intensity, [Footnote: It is never literally true that any form is meaningless and "says nothing." Every form in the world says something. But its message often fails to reach us, and even if it does, full understanding is often withheld from us.] and, properly speaking, FORM IS THE OUTWARD EXPRESSION OF THIS INNER MEANING. To use once more the metaphor of the piano--the artist is the hand which, by playing on this or that key (i.e., form), affects the human soul in this or that way.

SO IT IS EVIDENT THAT FORM-HARMONY MUST REST ONLY ON A CORRESPONDING VIBRATION OF THE HUMAN SOUL; AND THIS IS A SECOND GUIDING PRINCIPLE OF THE INNER NEED.

Kandinsky wrote a series of un-performable plays (though would probably be interesting as animation) with stage directions like “large yellow forms or several feet move forward, shrink to green and disappear”. And, when you read a lot of his work, the color resonance seems hopelessly about how a German in 1915 might view color or have an emotional reaction to it. Other cultures are not taken into account, and it’s quite an assumption of viewer reception and feeling. I’m not knocking Kandinsky at all – he did some classic painting and also is doing the same thing in his book—defining what art is. And, even further, positing that there is a certain, definable reaction IN THE SOUL that one has to certain colors and shapes. That's quite a supposition.

BUT, does Kandinsky’s work become less “art for art’s sake” because there is an intended meaning? Does Matthew Barney’s, who famously has stories and expectations about his pieces no matter how abstract they seem? Does art that tries to have a meaning have less value, or is it not art?

It’s a question I’ve been thinking about since we had this discussion.

I loved museums as a kid. I remember in second grade I was so excited we were going to the Joslyn museum in Omaha. I had been to the museum before—it was one of my favorite places. And I had a favorite painting—Bouguereau’s Return of Spring.

I still remember rounding the corner, excited I would be able to show everyone the painting (I didn’t have many friends, and was excited I knew something and could share it), and saw the painting was gone. Apparently, someone thought it was pornography, and had slashed it with a razor blade down the center. I just read this in Wikipedia: In 1890 and again in 1976, the painting was physically attacked by several people offended by its overtly sensual nudity.

Now, I didn’t think the painting was anything but pretty in the second grade, and was very sad that it was gone. So sad, in fact, that I remember it 33 years later. But is it not art because there is a meaning intended? Bouguereau was around the time of the impressionists, but no one would call him anything but a figurative painter. And did it stop my love of the painting when I was told by a couple of friends in NY who were art history PhD students that Bouguereau was considered a pornographer by historians (poor guy—he got it from all sides). And, even now, even though the painting could be just this side of kitsch and overdone as Rafael’s angels, I still love it. And from my 8 year old heart, I always will.

Interestingly what made me think of this again was reading about Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid” that’s at the met right now in the New Yorker, and Peter Schjeldahl touches on it.

It’s interesting to think of art vs. illustration in the context of his painting. In mid-17th century Holland domestic scenes were popular as decoration, so Vermeer painted domestic scenes. But I would never call his paintings merely illustrative. I do think there are artists who have a skill for illustration and decoration (Thomas Kincaid anyone), but Vermeer is an interesting case in the discussion about art for art’s sake, illustration and audience. Who is he painting for? These are illustrative of a moment, but who knows what’s happening and how we’re to react. (He was 25 when he painted the above — astounding, really)

What is the look on that girl’s face? Why is the man in the back slouched? Is something disturbing happening?

Why is there so much foreground? Did we interrupt something?

What’s going on with the delivery of the letter? And we're definitely interrupting.

I love this hat. You can almost touch it.

Beyond those questions is what I came to for myself as what I would define as art. Certainly not all of the definition, since for me it’s only a tent that gets bigger to shelter anything that needs it. Open arms. But in the case of Vermeer, beyond illustration or mirroring ourselves, he manages to take moments of the mundane and make them extraordinary. He catches a girl pouring milk into a vase and we’re captivated. Not because of the scene, but how beautiful the moment is. Art, to me, can take those moments that would seem boring or even sometimes disgusting and disturbing and make them transfixing. You can’t look away. It’s haunting. The colors are heartbreaking. The girl will never be that young, that glowing, that impossibly easy. If there was anyone else in the room she wouldn’t look that way. Art, for me, can capture moments that are happening while we are looking away. It’s the tree falling in the forest. This may be voyeuristic on my part, and I think a lot of art is, but it’s also celebratory. And though it may be representational, I do not think there is any specific intention in the artist except that you witness it. And even though the scene is specific I think each viewer brings their own experience and witnesses it in a different way.

There’s a great movie called La Belle Noiseuse by Jacques Rivette. It’s four hours long. Emanuelle Beart is naked for about 2/3 of the movie. At a certain point you forget she’s nude, as the point of the movie is how to paint her, the inner her, and how the artist and by extension we the audience get to know her deeper than her skin. So, although the nudity is literal, it becomes figurative and deeper as the film progresses.

Schjeldahl has a great quote here: “an artist has contrived to lure me out of myself into an illusion of reality more fulfilling than any lived reality can be”. That about sums it up. Funnily enough, when I went to get the link I saw that he has a new piece about Kandinsky. HA! I’ll have to read that.

In the end, then, I guess what I respond to, even in figurative painting (and I haven’t mentioned sculpture here) is the attempt at any artist to get at our humanity. And perhaps not even “at”, but “in”. Vermeer is a great example because his painting is masterful enough to allow surface and ambiguity. Books have been written, so I’ll not continue, but safe to say there’s a reason there are so many shows dedicated to him. I would even go so far as to say that in non-figurative contemporary painting there’s less room for me as a viewer as it feels like a lot of contemporary artists are so about the “idea” of their art that the execution feels inelegant, unemotional, and there’s no room for my response save having a critic/artseller tell me what I’m supposed to be getting from it. But THAT’s another set of words.

If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading. Looks like it’s time for me to hone some ideas.

And thanks to my friend, for making me think about it. We're going tomorrow to a fun annual party called "Why we create" which has a backyard full of craft stations--what a blast. More art.

Robert Frank

2009-09-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

I was reading this story about Robert Frank's photo exhibit in NY and saw the above picture in the slideshow. It's the only one without people, and I thought "That looks like New Mexico" and lo and behold it is. That always makes me laugh--I don't live there anymore, haven't for twenty years, go back maybe once a year if I'm lucky, but still you can just spot it.

The exhibit looks amazing--travels in the mid-fifties documenting a changing country. They're difficult, lonely photos in some ways. The people look distressed--not in pain, but what you call a costume when you take a new fabric and make it look worn. It's called distressing the fabric. It's showing its wear. That's what some of these photos look like to me. Captivating.

If you're in NY, go see it for me.

Restlessness

2009-09-24T13:59:00.001-07:00

You know that feeling? That one where you're 5 and you have the chicken pox and you're underneath the kitchen table where your mother and the ancient woman of 70 named Dorothy who your mother calls Dot, who wears square glasses and calls you an old soul, are smoking and having coffee; you can't go outside since you have chicken pox, but you have to much energy to just sit, and you itch all over and can't scratch? And you're kind of whiny but squirming underneath the table and in and out of the yellowish vinyl bucket seat kitchen chairs?

That.