Towel Season

This story, Towel Season by Ron Carlson surprised me. I'm not usually one who hears the word "suburbia" and thinks, "I really need to read this story", but thanks to a great reading by James Naughton on Selected Shorts, I had the pleasure. I was blown away.
The story concerns Edison, a math genius, and the neighborhood summer rituals of parties with peers, as well as his relationship with his wife, Leslie. The action of the story is him finding his place in relation to his work and the people around him, and I think as well the nature of work and description of work. I didn't resonate so much with the suburban aspect, but rather in the metaphor he and his wife work out for him to talk to her about his very complex work in theoretical mathematics. Though theoretical mathematics has become the shorthand for genius and unknowable, it didn't feel gimmicky.

In exploring the relationship, Carlson exposes the nature of any creative enterprise--at least for me--the depths one goes to inside it, and the difficulty in relating that to another person. Even more, the relationship between Edison and Leslie is beautifully drawn, touching in a way I didn't expect. The strength of their relation, and what is sustaining to both about it, is the suprise of the story. I loved how deep Edison went in, and how his wife managed to find a way to talk to him about it that was equally imaginative.

Loved it. There's another one by him called "The H Street Sledding Record" that is mentioned by people as one of the favorites ever on the program, so I'll seek that out.

I also love that according to Wikipedia he is a collector of rare and endangered badgers. Ha. And this quote, which is fab: "I did not understand my story; many times you don’t. It’s not your job to understand or evaluate or edit your work when you first emerge from it. Your duty is to be in love with it, and that defies explanation."

And this week, Chekhov and Welty--what a great combo.

Yoga

I've been doing yoga a lot lately and I'm really loving it. But this photo made me smile. IT's just perfect. And it shows if you need to you can do yoga in a skirt and a babooshka. It's all good.

Showscript

I was going through taking files of my laptop the other day, the one I bought right before I quit my job at Goldman and moved to Vermont and eventually moved out of NY. I found a document called "Showscript1" and opened it. To my surpise, it was the map of the cabaret that Erin Neill and I did at the Duplex right before I left NY. It was called "Breaking up with NY", and it tracked our love affair with the city to its conclusion. She was moving to San Diego, I to LA. It brought back memories. It was a fun show. And I'm particularly proud of the EB White quote I found that seemed especially resonant the winter after 9/11 when we did the show. If you don't know the songs, look them up--they're really good.

I happen to Like New York [Erin]

I wanna be a Rockette [Brad]

Finish together.

Erin: Jen Story “fuck you fuckyoufuckyou”

Brad: Speaking of that phrase, the first night I was in NY, on my first cab ride after going out to a club, my cab driver propositioned me. I said, “Look, it’s my stop!”

Erin: Hi! This is Elmo from Sesame Street. Elmo’s glad we’re taking a ride together, but Elmo wants you to be safe. So Buckle Up!

Come Up to My Place [Both]

Brad: I was in love with New York. I do not mean "love" in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city in the way you love the first person who ever touches you and never love anyone quite that way again. -- Joan Didion

What More Can I Say? [Brad]

Erin: On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn't he said, 'Do you mind if I mug you here?'—Paul Merton

Brad: New York: the only city where people make radio requests like "This is for Tina -- I'm sorry I stabbed you." –Carol Leifer

Ohio [Both]

The main thing I like about New Yorkers is that they understand that their lives are a relentless circus of horrors, ending in death. As New Yorkers, we realize this, we resign ourselves to our fate, and we make sure that everyone else is as miserable as we are.

Erin & Brad: Good town.

Erin: Kyle Baker

Wanting [Both]

Let’s Invite them Over [Both]

Brad: New York's such a wonderful city. Although I was at the library today. The guys are very rude. I said, "I'd like a card." He says, "You have to prove you're a citizen of New York." So I stabbed him. Emo Phillips

Erin: I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun, and then you continue on. In most of the world, it is known as the biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter. Michael Ventre

Times Like This [Erin]

Brad: The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the rivers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of NY now: in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition. –

Erin: EB White (1949)

My Dear Companion [Both]

Erin: This great city has fed my imagination. It has allowed me to dream. --Thomas Wolfe

City Lights [We did this as if the song was exhausting and would never end]

Brad: Living in New York is like being at some terrible late night party. You're tired, you've had a headache since you arrived, but you can't leave because then you'd miss the party. --Simon Hoggart.

Give it Back to the Indians

Erin: Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. -- Evan Davis

Thanks for the Memory [This Mildred Bailey is my fave version]

Thanks during Bridge and Chorus and then In Spite of Ourselves

500 Days of Summer

I saw “500 Days of Summer” yesterday. If you haven’t seen the movie, don’t read this, since it’s full of spoilers. If you have, then read away.

I actually liked that it was a mish mash of every rom-com cliché, but in the service of a story that didn’t end as expected (I thought, but more on that later). I enjoyed the back and forth of the narrative in time, and that it made the city I’ve lived in for six years seem unfamiliar to me. Sure, it’s about 4 square blocks downtown where you might be okay walking, but it is a new, hip neighborhood for urban spelunkers. I was even able to forgive the oddly unbelievable company the characters worked for.

I’m really beginning to like Joseph Gordon Leavitt. He’s been doing great work. And this doesn’t disappoint. He’s perfect as the sad-sack romantic who believes the girl he’s dating is “the one”. I like Zooey Deschanel (Summer--of the title--clever) as well, especially for the neat trick of being fascinating only until the last few scenes of the movie, when she suddenly becomes mundane, and someone who is clearly the wrong person for the main character. Her charm goes away. That’s not something that’s easy to pull off. It’s an odd role, and she does it well, without giving too much away. She is, after all, the fantasy of the main character’s projection. She seems to be the indie “it-girl” of that—here, Elf, Yes Man. That’s her thing.

The disappointments for me were the secondary characters, most of whom seemed awfully contrived and not especially well-performed—or, that’s not fair, they just felt act-y. Serviceable, but acty. And as much as I found the portrayal of LA charming, I also found it somewhat unconvincing. Frankly, for the first 45 minutes I was wondering if they were in Philadelphia since the character grew up in New Jersey and his little sister was living close by. When they showed the Eastern building I thought “Oh! They’re in LA!” Also, wasn’t in love with the tough kid character. It was obviously a choice to play with all the romantic comedy clichés and put them in a movie that was trying to celebrate and subvert them at the same time: there were the interviews about love; the tough kid sister; the best friends, one of whom is with a longtime love and the other who’s single; the unattainable object of mystery who remains somewhat unknown; the dead-end job that the main character is doing instead of going after his dream—none of this is particularly new, but it’s all fine. Perhaps I was picking up on a warring impulse to comment on the genre and be an example of it at the same time.

The one mis-step for me in the whole film was the end. Here’s the big spoiler alert. I was with them the whole time, wondering if it would work out, then seeing it wouldn’t. And I was actually loving the idea that she would just be a catalyst to him—the one that didn’t work out but was somehow bittersweet and what he needed to get him to the next place—almost an Annie Hall thing, though as I’ve said the Summer character lost her charm once he was no longer in love with her whereas Dianne Keaton didn’t (how could she, really?). So, you’ve set up this whole thing, about whether the idea of fate is real or not, and if he just had the wrong girl, and I would have loved to have just left it there. This coda (in the Bradbury building of all places—you knew that had to be in there, along with the tunnel) just made me think “oh, it’s a rom-com fantasy now”. It felt tacked on. I wanted him, like the usual female character in these movies, to find his independence—which he did, but why did he need to meet “Autumn”? Srsly? Ah well. If nothing else, as it’s just occurring to me, the whole thing is about the guy. And that’s kind of fun. After all, men can be romantics, too.

A moment for the Unicorn

I'm having one of those days--tired. Last night I got rid of my in-window air-conditioner, thinking I was bummed I couldn't open my window and it made the room too cold, then I had an anxiety attack about having an open window last night and couldn't sleep. Ah, the insanity never ceases to amaze me. They come at night.

Anyhow, since I'm tired, I was thinking of what might be restful. And one of my favorite things in NY was the Cloisters, and one of my favorite things at the Cloisters is the Unicorn Tapestries. Or, more accurately, the Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries.



They're on my mind because the most famous one is hanging in the Gryffindor common room in the latest Harry Potter movie. Even though it's in NY in reality. From what I remember, the whole thing is a Christ allegory as well as a symbol of conquered love, so that last makes it apt to have in the dorm. Perhaps it's actually just pretty and seemed to make sense to the set decorator. For me, it took me out of the movie in some way, as I thought "Huh. Did they make another one? Is this a copy? Can they reproduce art there in Hogwart's? That's one expensive piece of thing to have around teenagers" etc. So many questions.

In the end, it's just on my mind because I've seen it in a few movies (or a reproduction), and it always gives me a kick--somewhat like seeing a relative that you know in a movie--you're tooling along, and suddenly you're like "Oh, my god, it's Aunt Marge" and you're somewhere else.

Either way, they're beautiful, and the cloisters itself is so calming. And today, when I'm tired and kind of going down the rabbit hole of what I'm doing on a larger level, sometimes checking back in with art just puts me in a better mood.

That, and a nap.

Who knew?

Looking for change the other day, at McDonald's (okay, okay, not healthy, but every once in a while I do hit the drive through [or is that thru?]), I came across a 1924 version of the coin above. According to this website about German coins, it's not really worth much. Mine looks like it came over the hard way, to say the least. And then, when it arrived in the US, it was mauled by dogs, run over by a car, and then ended up in my glove compartment underneath a hamsa with the word "mazel" in Hebrew and my keys.

Not only am I fascinated that a German coin from 1924 popped up in my coin box, I am also interested in how much there is to be interested in. There is some German coin expert somewhere. Probably more than one, at this moment finishing up his shift at the video store or investment bank, just waiting to get home and research, fondle, or shine his 1924 aluminum-bronze Weimar 50 Reichspfennig. As aesthetic objects, they are beautiful, some of them--I like the expressionistic wheat ones(the aformentioned 50 Reichspfennig) simultaneously calling forth industry, agriculture and art.

I think our current state quarter designs will stand out in the future for numismatists, though I just learned on wikipedia that numismatism is the study of currency, so coin collectors are just called plain old coin collectors. There is the lesser known exunomia, which is perhaps what a luggage tag collector might be doing. And it seems there are further rabbit holes of notaphily and scripophily, which sound like ringworms.

My point? Just that there are so many things to know things about. It's overwhelming. There's an expert on everything. I had a friend in NY who was a liver pathologist, and he was one of only like 40 in the world. 40 people who specialized in diseases of the liver, even though everyone has one; that's not even one per country. Is there a pathologist in the house? I bet there are more exunomiacs. That's actually kind of sad. Sure, the liver's kind of the catfish of the body, but everybody needs it.

Well, I guess it's time for me to go back to being an interested dilletante, who'll pay a little more attention at Coinstar.

The Absolutely True Diary....

Okay. This is kind of a mash note, but I will just put that out there before I start writing. With some authors, some directors, etc, you just can't expect objectivity from me, and Sherman Alexie is one of them.
So at the end of March, Brian (aka Stinkylulu was out here in LA for a conference, and we went to a bookstore while killing some time before a movie. I left with a book I can't even remember now, and Brian bought two young adult novels, one of them being "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", which had come out in 2007. I didn't even know about it, since it was Young Adult fiction, and I promptly expressed something like sadness, despair, and regret that I had not bought it. Brian, on his way out of town, left the book with me, which was incredibly sweet. I devoured it. And I loved it (more later). So I called him up and asked if he wanted the book back, or if I could loan it to a friend. He said if I wrote about it I could loan it out, but if I didn't I should send it back. So the book has been sitting in my car while I worked out that bargain.

And frankly, the reason I haven't written about it is that I really loved it. And sometimes, even when you really, really like something and want other people to read it, appreciation feels more difficult than constructive criticism of something you didn't like as much. And truly, most of the things I stick with to read fully I love. So I suppose it's a good idea to put down some ideas why.

Sherman Alexie's writing is beautiful. But I have a hard time writing about it. I'm really struggling right now, but since I've made this blog alot about off the top of my head writing (and since I only have about half an hour more until I have to leave), I'll stick to that.

He plays with form, with poetry in his prose, and even in film. I have a copy of his movie "The Business of Fancy Dancing" that I love. I was bowled over at his choice to make a film with a gay protagonist, cast his own stand-in, a writer returning home for the funeral of a friend. Even braver was his choice to mix in poetry, song, and dance to tell his story. And to have an entire crew of women, and try to make the film as a collective.

In "Partly True Diary" his main character, Junior, is a 15 year-old cartoonist. Illustrated by Ellen Forney, the cartoons become another mode of storytelling, another means to get into the thoughts, dreams, and fears, of the young man at the center of the story. Here's the blurb from the website, which tells it better than I can:

In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school. This heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written tale, coupled with poignant drawings that reflect the character’s art, is based on the author’s own experiences and chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he seems destined to live.

It’s just great. What else can I say? Read it. Junior’s mixture of fear and courage as he navigates the world around him feels so true to adolescence. Alexie gets right the clear sense of logic of a teenager confused about why the world is the way it is, and charts his feelings as he comes to terms with love (family, friends and girls), and loss (family and friends). The drawings are great, and give an extra oomph to the story as well as clarify, in the way that a picture can, Junior’s feelings and thoughts. I’m sounding formal here in a way that doesn’t feel like my voice, but sometimes when you like something it’s even harder to pull it off a shelf and tell somebody anything besides, “Read it!” It’s a quick read, since it’s YA, and worth the time. I’d read it again. It’s one of the most emotional books I’ve read in quite a while. Years, actually. I won’t ruin it by telling you why, but parts of it are just heart-breaking.

I guess what I love about Alexie’s writing is that he doesn’t shy away from either humor or pathos. All the emotions feel earned, and I never get the sense of his hand coming in and manipulating. The voice always feels authentic, male or female. I’ve never been a straight Native American teenager, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ve been a freshman in high school and I’ve been the new kid in school. That, to me, he nails. And he’s writing is just deeply American to me, and I get it (or maybe that’s brash—to say that about anything, maybe I just like reading it)—the frustration and the feelings, the geography and relations. Maybe part of it is being from the West. And writes characters who see a little outside themselves, or have a sense of themselves in the world. Junior is beginning to, to shape that, and it’s a clear, unforced voice.

Why am I trying to justify it? I always do that—bad habit—like my saying it’s great and I like it isn’t good enough. And if it’s not, it’s not like I’m the only one—he’s got more than a few books out. I mean, it won the frigging National Book Award. Obviously, I’m not the only one who likes the book. I’m just a natural cheerleader, I guess. I made mix tapes in high school.

I just love feeling taken care of by a writer—that I’m more than likely going to believe, empathize, and go for the ride. And when I’m reading, the book disappears and I’m wherever he is. More of that, please.

Selected Shorts

I am currently in love with podcasting. My brother gave me an iPod Touch for my birthday. I already have an iPod, and a blackberry, and I am not a phone game player application person, so I was trying to figure out if I should exchange it or what. ? Then my brother and sister in law came to town and asked me if I read the inscription. What inscription? I thought, since I hadn't opened it yet. I was a little scared (not of the inscription, but opening it, since it's such a nice gift). Well, on the back, it's inscribed "Happy Birthday, Brad, Love, Mark". My brother has not really given me very many gifts, and certainly nothing inscribed, so I knew I had to keep it and figure out what to do with it. I had already put my toe in the podcasting waters with the beloved This American Life, and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, but that was all. This, though, was my opening. I figured I could use my other ipod for music, and this one for podcasting. Brilliant! In short order I downloaded French & Spanish lessons; some geeky show where an ancient scientists tells you about how science works (more than you ever needed to know); Story Corps, which makes me tear up in 3 minutes pretty much every time; and Selected Shorts. (To be honest, I had actually been to an afternoon of short story reading at Symphony Space, which this is a recording of, once a great while ago. Like 1996. Last century, even. And, philistine-like, I remember dozing on and off. It was a Sunday afternoon. It happens.)

So I thought I'd give it another try. And I'm loving it. Aside from the Edith Wharton episode, which rekindled my somnolence of yore (so sue me--Wharton's challenging to track while you're driving through LA), I've been loving the stories and the performances. I am thankful for the pairing of Amy Bender and Etgar Keret, two writers with whom I was unfamiliar and now want to read more and more of.

Two I had to write about, since they were so wonderful. Yesterday my boss had her annual beach party in Malibu, so I got to listen to two entire programs, each uninterrupted. The first was Joanna Gleason reading "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," by Karen Russell from the Paws and Claws episode, and the second Robert Sean Leonard reading "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," by Luis Alberto Urrea in the Memories That Define Us episode.

"St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," by Karen Russell, sounds like a mad lib of a story, the outcome of the game we used to play where you'd put together a fake song medley by abutting common words--fly me to the moon river, etc. I even thought, when the story was described, that it would just be a humorous take on a girl's school, spoofing the idea of taking girls raised by Wolves and putting them in a Catholic girls setting. It was funny at times, and helped by Joanna Gleason's expert delivery. But it was also painful, aching, thrilling, and touching. The story concerns a world in which werewolves live in the woods, giving birth to human children, as the condition skips a generation. The girls, pre-adolescent, are taken from their parents, at the parents' behest, to be educated and taught to be human. Russell brilliantly charts the girls' learning of new language, walking upright, interacting with others and the painful process that the girls go through in developing from feral to human, through the eyes of Claudette (name given by the nuns), an 11 or 12 year old she-wolf. Although it's tempting to make the parallel to what any child goes through in learning to live in a larger society (and Russell cleverly spoofs this with excerpts from an imaginary guide/catechism for the wolf girl), this story feels so specific to the world she's created. With what could have been a gimmick, Russell creates an entire world--where to fail as human means being unable to live in either world. It's just a beautiful story. I was struck again and again by the imagination, clarity, humor, and emotion--over and over I was laughing and then immediately brought through to deep feeling and compassion. The first dance that the girls must endure, to meet with boys who used to be their brothers, is hilarious, painful, sad. I loved, love this story.

"Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," by Luis Alberto Urrea is a completely different affair. A study of grief, in which a man goes back to the South Dakota reservation to bury his young wife, Joanie Her Many Horses, who drank and possibly killed herself in a car crash, this story is spare, with prose that matches the solemnity of its subjects and the geography. The action of the story is the man remembering how he met his wife, and in the process tells us about the racial tension of the culture they both came from--he's white and she's native--and how much he loved her. I'm from Nebraska and New Mexico, and have spent some time in South Dakota. The prose of this story matches the geography; the ways of relating, what's said and what's not said, places the story even further into where it's set. I think I'm describing it clumsily, but the prose is a perfect evocation of place. Not only of place, but the people there, and how they deal with love and grief. At it's climax, this story is an acknowledgment that whatever backgrounds people have, love and grief are deeply felt, and transcend any human boundaries. I don't think that's a lesson that this story at all purports to put forth, but it's one that's deeply felt within it. It's heart-wrenching. His descriptions of the land, his ache for it, is gorgeous. And the way he lets his characters feel what they feel as they feel it, coming to it as they do, is expert. Just beautiful.

I love good writing. It's so hard to do, but when you read it, or hear it, it's breathtaking, beautiful and fragile, like watching a string of spun honey. These two stories, matched with their tellers, did that for me.

So, run right out and read them. Or, better yet, download the podcasts, get into your car, and take a long drive.

Or, if you're worried about fossil fuels, download them and go sit by a river, or your favorite spot in nature, and listen.

A List

I'm stuck, so I'm making a list. Everything seems like it's too much of a production to write about it (in the sense of having a lot of thoughts but not an organized through line), but I know it's not. Not even close--but making a list sometimes helps me focus. So. Here goes.

Under the heading of Outfest

American Primitive - liked, bit after-school special like, but accomplished first feature.

Fusion Shorts - Really interesting stuff from around the world. More thoughts? Not sure. A friend's short was in it so bad judge when you know people.

Englishman in New York - John Hurt reprising Quentin Crisp. Well done, and brought up some stuff because of Crisp's own seeming self-hatred and self-acceptance schtick along with the short beforehand with Derek Jacobi as a mean, aged Jewish queen who pickpockets people at funerals. This, mixed with a not well-observed character in "Hollywood Je T'aime", brought up some stuff about the archetype of "The Tragic Queen" which one faces every year in some iteration at Outfest, and I'm sure any gay film festival

Hollywood Je T'aime - Uh, see above. And then some other stuff that didn't work for me, but what did was anytime the main character had anything to do with auditioning, etc. That's the film that should have been made. Chad Allen was good, and the main actor shows some promise, but his passivity came across as one-note. Still confounded at the "This will make you fall in love with LA all over again" sell. I guess, if you like watching crappy bars, apartments, people getting stoned or drunk constantly and disappointing each other while they destroy themselves. Not like it's managing to do for LA what Wings of Desire did for an apocolyptic Berlin. Some nice cinematography, especially in Paris, but underneath a really strange cynical world view mixed with unlived characters. That's a larger issue--a lot of people write movies as if the only people they've ever met are characters in movies.

Pornography - not my genre, and know the filmmaker, so bad judge. But all in all I loved that it was telling a different story, and telling it well. It may be as oblique as a Lynch film, but it's compelling the whole time. Some really good performances, especially from this level budget, which I don't imagine is a huge amount. And that it was filmed in 16 days is quite amazing. I'm really excited for Dave. Super excited.

TMFBI - Too much facebook information. Short attention span theatre. "Look at me, look at me", or "Be scared of this!" What's all this doing? Can anyone concentrate on anything, or be actually where they are? It's certainly feeling more difficult for me. Is creativity relevant in a world where it's all output? Is there just too much information for us to digest comfortably? Discuss.

Economy - while we're at it, yikes. And let's not get started on water supply.

I worry.

Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg - I must see this this upcoming weekend. That, along with Humpday, are my two musts.

And more yoga. Yoga definitely helps.

And I still haven't been able to write about Sherman Alexie's "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", because I really loved it, and have no idea what to say except "read it!". I'm working on it. For some reason I don't like to analyze anything I really love. I just want to say "Read this!"

No pressure.

Yoga, really, yoga.

Jonathan Ames

I'm in a Jonathan Ames phase for some reason, so I just thought I'd post that.

If you don't know him, the best way to put it is the subtitle of the collection I'm currently reading, which is "the adventures of a mildly perverted young writer". I just read about his wondering around Venice in the winter, and his odd sexual escapades while there, and in Europe. Something about his wondering around Europe alone and neurotic struck a chord with me. I'm Jewish, I worry, and I wa(o)ndered around Vienna for six weeks with nothing to do. And I was there because during my first trip I had met a Scotsman on the ringstrasse who took me to his flat and....you can probably figure out the rest. Getting to know him better I found out he was a WWII fanatic/expert who worked at the UN and had studied for the priesthood, and had had a nervous breakdown at the end of his last relationship. He took things seriously. So I know a little about wandering around and looking for something, especially when that city is New York, where he's based.

I've also read "The Alcholic", his memoir-ish graphic novel about his drinking, and "The Extra Man", a novel about a sexually confused young man who somehow gets a job as a social walker of sorts, but also frequents tranny bars. Odd combo. I got a couple of his collections from when he wrote for the NY Press recently (What's Not to Love and My Less Than Secret Life) that I'm reading now.

There's something in the restlessness of his wondering, and in the "how did I end up here" quality of his adventures that I identify with, I guess. He's a participant voyeur, and always at a little distance looking somehow to make that emotional distance a little less. And he's not unfeeling at all, just probably a little too feeling. It's confessional, but even though it's graphic somehow it's never sordid. It's laughable, and touching, and sometimes painful. It's a neat trick to be confessional, slightly self-obsessed, but charming and not off-putting. Certainly his adventures are odd and hilarious, but there's feeling underneath all of them that he articulates without wallowing. A style all his own, I think.

Greenville

I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve written anything*, that I have to just jot some things down. And I will. But meanwhile, an appreciation of a Lucinda Williams song—“Greenville”, from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Here are the lyrics, so you can refer back to them:

Don't wanna see you again or hold your hand
Cause you don't really love me you're not my man
You're not my man oh you're not my man
Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville
You scream and shout and you make a scene
When you open your mouth you never say what you mean
Say what you mean oh say what you mean
Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville
You drink hard liquor you come on strong

You lose your temper someone looks at you wrong
Looks at you wrong oh looks at you wrong
Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville
Out all night playin in a band

Looking for a fight with a guitar in your hand
A guitar in your hand oh a guitar in your hand
Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville
Empty bottles and broken glass

Busted down doors and borrowed cash
Borrowed cash oh the borrowed cash
Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville
Looking for someone to save you
Looking for someone to rave about you
To rave about you oh to rave about you
Go back to Greenville just go on back to Greenville

The album, a Grammy-winner, is superb, but I really love this song. Sometimes it just floats into my mind and I find myself humming it. When that happens, most of the time and in spite of my better judgment, I ask why. This is what I come up with as an answer.

I really like country music a lot of the time. I like acoustic guitar based songs with prominent vocals. But more importantly, country music songs are mostly stories, 3 – 4 minutes of lives you can sketch from the dramatic moment the artist is painting in music. It’s like walking past a house and seeing into the window. Or, even more, like this Chris Van Allsburg book I love called “The Mysteries of Harris Burdick", in which Van Allsburg creates a character who has left a single drawing from several books he has written and disappears. The reader is left with drawings having a single caption, and each one sets the mind racing. For instance, there is a nun floating on a chair in a cathedral and the caption is “The Seven Chairs: The fifth one ended up in France.” The mind starts racing and makes up a story immediately. A good song is like that. I don’t know what came before or what comes after, but the song puts me in a moment where I want to conjecture a story.

Right now, I keep listening to a song by Miranda Lambert on my iPod called “More Like Her” in which a woman is singing to a man who left her to ostensibly go back to his wife. Sometimes, I even switch the gender in my head and wonder what the relationships would be if maybe it was a man who had an affair with a man and then went back to his wife (it happens, kids). Or how they met, what their backgrounds are, who the wife is, etc. It’s like the Harris Burdick picture but with an emotion—you’re given a grain of a story, a relationship that comes into focus for a crystal second before it diffuses again.

What’s interesting to me about Lucinda Williams, whose music I love and whose songwriting I regard highly, is how deceptively simple her music is. She’s definitely revelation through repetition, simple haunting melodies, but with concise, haunting poetry and performance to match. It’s these things which intersect beautifully for me in Greenville. The melody is a repetition, and she does what she does brilliantly, namely write a song without a bridge. Who needs a bridge when the emotion is so strong and pure? Not that a bridge is an outmoded convention—it’s a breath of fresh air and generally an emotional shift in a song. But it’s the driving of the emotion, the almost droning, incantatory quality that gives it it’s power. The words are simple, and they repeat. Like I said, looking at it from the outside, it seems like it might be even dull.

But here’s the secret weapon—her performance. Listening to Lucinda to me is captivating because of what she invests. Like a good poem, you feel that she’s struggled to give each word its value, and to choose just the right word at the right time. It’s her performance that gives it its luster. I was listening to the song this morning, and what struck me was how she colored each repetition, sometimes in seeming opposition to what she’s singing. In the first line, when she repeats “you’re not my man”, we can feel first her anger and then her sadness, and when she repeats “Say what you mean”, it goes from being an admonition to an exhortation, a plea to come clean. Repeating “guitar in your hand” goes from the ridiculousness of fighting with the guitar in hand, to just how sexy holding the guitar is, and you feel the attraction that was there before she got to the point of telling him to leave, and that she’s even still wants him while telling him to go. “Oh the borrowed cash” is almost funny, and sad, with the admission of how ridiculous it seems, while the last “to rave about you” just begins to feel like pity. Though it seems like a simple phrase--Go back to Greenville--possibly overheard in a bar or on the street, she infuses it with all the resolve and misgivings of any break-up. This could be a real request, or something that a woman tells her boyfriend or husband every night after they've had too much to drink and she starts to get maudlin.



So in a song with no bridge, a straightforward blues sounding almost-folk song, she’s moved from anger to sadness, pleading, indecision, attraction, futility and finally pity. That’s quite a range in 4 minutes. And, when I'm feeling meta, I think that she could even be singing to herself--who knows? So much possibility. And that’s what keeps me coming back: it’s quite a play, isn’t it?

* though I do have to put in a plug that I’m actually reading a piece that I wrote at a theater here. I submitted, they accepted, and it’s a first. So I am writing some. Just not as much as I’d want, since I have, like, a job.

Smackdown 92

This was an interesting year. All strong performances. You can click the title above to go the actual smackdown, but here are some extra thoughts I had about the movies and the actresses--

First off, I love Howards End, and think it's a great adaptation of the book. I thought it would be interesting to post Mrs. Wilcox's entrance in the book:


They were all silent. It was Mrs. Wilcox.

She approached just as Helen's letter had described her, trailing noiselessly over the lawn, and there was actually a wisp of hay in her hands. She seemed to belong not to the young people and their motor, but to the house, and to the tree that overshadowed it. One knew that she worshipped the past, and that the instinctive wisdom the past can alone bestow had descended upon her--that wisdom to which we give the clumsy name of aristocracy. High born she might not be. But assuredly she cared about her ancestors, and let them help her. When she saw Charles angry, Paul frightened, and Mrs. Munt in tears, she heard her ancestors say, "Separate those human beings who will hurt each other most. The rest can wait." So she did not ask questions. Still less did she pretend that nothing had happened, as a competent society hostess would have done. She said: "Miss Schlegel, would you take your aunt up to your room or to my room, whichever you think best. Paul, do find Evie, and tell her lunch for six, but I'm not sure whether we shall all be downstairs for it." And when they had obeyed her, she turned to her elder son, who still stood in the throbbing, stinking car, and smiled at him with tenderness, and without saying a word, turned away from him towards her flowers.

"Mother," he called, "are you aware that Paul has been playing the fool again?"

"It is all right, dear. They have broken off the engagement."

"Engagement--!"

"They do not love any longer, if you prefer it put that way," said Mrs. Wilcox, stooping down to smell a rose.

It's a beautiful entrance, illustrating her control over everything. Redgrave takes an interesting tack in making her almost more of a mother nature than a completely in control mother figure. What's strong about it is it makes everyone in her spell unaware of the power she has over them, and how much she is caring for all. It's a brave choice to make her so ethereal as to seem almost a walking spirit. The danger is coming off simple, which Redgrave does not. She makes Ruth the ghost that controls the proceedings without anyone knowing she is. It's a great turn.

Judy Davis I loved, and most because she fearlessly plays the character. She is completely unlikeable, almost terrifying so, but you don't ever question her magnetism to those around her. Not a lot of performers would be unafraid to be so unlikeable, and it's what makes this performance so lasting. There are no soft edges, no secret vulnerability the actress shows us to let us know that secretly there's a soft, furry forest creature inside. She's just hard, hard, hard. And she's riveting. Interestingly, I found it a hard movie to watch, and some of the others almost actively annoyed me, including Farrow and Allen, and I'm a Woody fan. I did, surprisingly, like Juliette Lewis alot, and might have even nominated her in place of Plowright. I was impressed, but something about the film overall was just whiny and humourless to me. I suppose that's why I liked Davis in it. She was just as challenging, but she was actually funny while being awful. The scene in which she says she's not meant for marriage and then five minutes later says she's one of those people who should be married is excellent. And certainly, the first date where she just borrows the phone to yell at her husband is painful, hysterical, and a master class.

Marisa Tomei surprised me. I assumed I'd like it, as she's an appealing performer. What I didn't expect was that she elevated the movie and the material. Do I think it's an Oscar winner? No, but I don't doubt that she really turned it out in this one. She made a three dimensional stereotype in a movie that didn't ask her to be more than a plot device. She's the only reason to even watch it for me, and it's a rich, honest comedic performance. She's playing with the clothes, the hair and the accent all made to make her a joke, and making them feel like an integral part of who this woman is. Never once does she condescend to the character. It's wonderful work.

Joan Plowright does a good job with a stock character in Enchanted April. She acquits herself well, and has a believable transformation. It's a very solid performance. As many of these nominated perfs, it certainly is not out of place in the annals of Oscar. She doesn't make the film for me, but she's very good in a strong ensemble cast. Polly Walker for some reason started to bother me, but perhaps it's because she allowed her husband to remain such a twit and only softened to him as the film went on. And Alfred Molina, for me, can do no wrong, even in this device.

Miranda Richardson was the only thing I liked about Damage. Yuck. I really disliked this movie. I'm supposed to care about some priviliged intelligent man completely destroying his life for an erotic obsession? Didn't hold water for me. I suppose it's happened (Eliot Spitzer, anyone?), but it didn't work for me as presented. There were many self-important ridiculous things in this movie, not the least of which was people walking into rooms where characters are just standing and staring into space when the door opens so they can turn around and look serious. At least that seemed to be all Juliette Binoche's character did. I can see why she's so erotically interesting, since staring off into space and being unknowable is FASCINATING isn't it? Unbelievable. There was a great moment, though, when Leslie Caron comes in wearing orange (!) like she's Maureen Stapleton in Interiors (although this movie at least had black and grey in addition to beige), and says to everyone that her daughter's fiancee looks exactly like her dead brother who committed suicide over obsessive love for her sister. Then she says "Oh, did I say something wrong? Surely you must have noticed." No, mom, that's in the "What every bride wants to hear on her wedding" handbook. It's number 5. Just ridiculous.
So into this self-involved boredom comes Miranda Richardson, with one great scene, built on scene after scene of quiet mistrust. She's great. And when she says to Irons' character "It's a pity I ever met you" we know exactly how she feels. It's certainly nom worthy, and I wish it was in a more believable pic. The novel was popular I remember, and scandalous. Maybe some things are more believable on the page. Like I said, Richardson's great, but I kept waiting for this movie to be over. I think my eyes got a little sore from rolling over and over.

It's such an interesting year, since people remember the Tomei win in the field she was in. Looking at it, though, it's an impressive group, her included. I don't begrudge her the win anymore, and it raises some interesting questions. Isn't it more commendable to turn out terrific work in a substandard vehicle, like Tomei did, or terrific work surrounded by terrific people (Redgrave, Davis, Plowright, Richardson). It's hard to say. I'm glad we did this one, though.

Relay for Life

I am now the entertainment committee co-chair and logistics co-chair for the Hollywood Relay for Life benefitting American Cancer Society. Sounds fancy, but in reality I showed up and offered to pitch in, so it will be a busy few months. And all my friends can expect emails to get involved. It's worthwhile. I knew

Michael Quinn, 35 years old, head of PhD program at UW, died of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma

Elizabeth Stetson, 31 years old, actress and all around wonderful funny person, breast cancer metastasized to her brain

Tom Neumiller, 62 I think, acting and directing professor at Stony Brook, esophogeal cancer

Beve Lincoln, early sixties, family friend, bone cancer. Discovered at stage 4, and had gone to a doctor many times. When the doctor named it, he said a med-school student should have been able to figure it out earlier.

Thomas Broscoe, 35, malignant melanoma

For kids born today, 1 in 2 males, and 1 in 3 females, will be diagnosed with some type of cancer.

I'm sure you know people, too.

Smackdown '59

See my thoughts and others on the 1959 Supporting Actress roster at The Smackdown

That slippery A

I was reading an interesting article about Dracula today*, when this sentence popped out at me:

How can we have sympathy for the Devil and still regard him as the Devil? That question seems to have occurred to Stephenie Meyer, who is a Mormon.

What's interesting to me is not that Meyer is Mormon, which accounts for the non-consummated nature of the vampiric relationship as Acocella points out--once again proving that consummation is nowhere near as dramatically interesting as anticipation, but that she uses an article, changing her from a person to a specific thing. By identifying her as "a Mormon", rather than "Mormon", Meyer is wholly identified by her faith. As opposed to being someone whose faith is an aspect of her being, the way someone might be broodish or chipper, it's the defining aspect of her being; the descriptor. And for some reason that bugged me. Or perhaps my reaction bugged me--that it was like hearing "this very successful novel written by a cult member whose dearest desire is to inculturate you into her coven" as opposed to "the book written by that woman who goes to a temple in Salt Lake and writes about vampires as well."

That "A" is slippery. It's used ironically with gay now, as in "he is a gay" or "The gay" (Thank You, Kathy Griffin), which does the same thing. As a person who knows that gay is much more than sexuality, and probably does go a long way in defining much of my sensibility and how I look at the world, it is by no means all of it. Nor is just a modifier, which some suggest, as innocuous as whether I like cheese or not. I'm Jewish, too, by birth, but I don't know that I'd call myself a Jew. I probably wouldn't, and I'd more than likely find it reductive if someone else did, though I am fiercely proud of my heritage.

No answers in this, but it did make me wonder more how categorizing works, and how that little article becomes something much bigger than just quantification, at least in this context. So I guess it's something to watch out for, and watch how I use. Language is sharp and sticky at the same time.


*I once again need to tell you how much I love the New Yorker for interesting articles about things you don't really need to know but are beyond glad you did. And I love that they call Acocella a "Critic at Large". Look out! She might attack! She's still at large!

American Idol

It’s country week on American Idol, and nothing can show up the judges to be as completely unhinged, inarticulate, and clueless as a genre they don’t know and have all kinds of assumptions about. Namely, country.

I will go on record here as saying that I am an unabashed lover of country music. Yes, its politics at times make me change the station, or get annoyed at the artist (I’m talking to you Toby Keith, Aaron Tippen, Lee Greenwood and Darryl Worley), but then, like an annoying relative, you can’t really dislike them totally because there’s always something you do they like. For me, country is about stories, voices, and harmony. And it’s pretty catchy. So yeah, I consider myself an aficionado.

But when country week rolls around, it’s like listening to bakers talk about making missiles, because those judges just flip over themselves to sound like they know what they’re talking about. And between their assumptions about what country stands for, what each contestant “is”, it’s more fun than the rodeo.

My tipping point came this week when Adam Lambert sang “Ring of Fire”. I’d already been primed by Michael Sarver’s downright shaky bordering on bad rendition of “Ain’t goin’ down til the sun comes up”, where he tried to excuse himself by saying “it’s fun, it’s country” as if that excused him from any kind of breathing, phrasing, or even staying on pitch. And Kara, she of seemingly no knowledge of country music at all, more or less agreed. (!). But what got me was the thing that always does with this show—the judges ask for something—this time, originality—and when they get it, they hate it. No sooner had the last contestant performed and been told that he had to be more “original” and himself than Adam Lambert came on and completely blew everyone away with a re-imagined version of “Ring of Fire” that completely suited him. And of course—he was criticized – I love this--for being weird, by Kara, and was insulted by Simon. Because what the judges mean by “different” is “same as what’s on the radio right now” and “put your spin on it” means “make it sound like what’s on the radio right now as you would sound doing it”. God forbid anyone like Lucinda Williams, John Prine, or Steve Earle would have to stand up in front of Kara or Simon.

Case in point, Matt Giruad. Nice, not earth shattering, and very contemporary. But it got one of the best responses of the night. I know this is not new to this show. What the judges are figuring out how to do is encourage these people to figure out who they are while at the same time remaining a salable commodity--not an easy task (and they did earn some respect for calling out the over-sung version of Jolene, which Alexis Grace wielded like a baseball bat and thwacked it against a wall a few times, and then was told by Kara that she lost her edge and should sing one of two Carrie Underwood songs). It really gets my hackles, up, though, when someone goes out on a limb artistically and gets called weird and strange. ESPECIALLY on a Johnny Cash song. He friggin’ covered nine inch nails! And even more, Adam kind of nailed it. If there’s anyone who probably would’ve appreciated that version, it’s Johnny Cash. And to lambaste someone for doing what you’ve asked, mainly stay true to himself and his sound, well, that’s just not country. Be original, but please, don’t do anything we haven’t seen before.

And an Idol PS from Yahoo:
Paula Abdul had six #1 hits between 1989 and 1991, when she vied with Madonna and Janet Jackson as the hottest female singer in the business. That means that Abdul has had as many #1 singles all by herself as every Idol contestant who has ever competed on the show, combined. Think of that the next time someone (Simon Cowell, perhaps) suggests she's an airhead.

Who knew?

Stop Making Sense

Last night some friend hosted a screening of Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense. I was blown away. It's a great film. Taut, exciting. I'd never seen it before. And, I think until last night, I'd never got the brilliance of Talking Heads. I liked some of their stuff, but I really didn't connect with it on a deep enough level to go out and buy it or go deeply into it. After seeing this film, I feel like I not only get Talking Heads, but get what's compelling about David Byrne aside from his quirkiness (which I'd missed), and finally, if you can believe it, post-modernism.

I should probably explain that last one. I've spent a fair amount of time in performance theory classes, semiotics seminars, and seeing a lot of non-mainstream performance. Post-modernism is one of those terms that's bandied about, but just seems to be this big umbrella encompassing anything that happened after, say, 1975. I never was clear on what it meant, but I felt it really coalesced sometime in the mid-early 80's, and people like Robert Wilson and the Wooster Group were at it's center. The thing I always took away was the idea of fragmentation. But for some reason, even after seeing show after show in living rooms, stores, theaters, garages, parks and subway stations, I never really felt it. Until this film. And what I got was actually kind of simple, so I'm probably overdoing it here, but it was such an "AHA!" moment, and when we have felt moments like that they seem kind of large. Can you tell that I'm procrastinating writing this, because I think you're going to read it and say, "Well, duh."?

There is a song, and I'm not sure which one, where there is a screen at the back of the stage that is divided into three sections, each displaying a unrelated different word, e.g. onion, sand, ground. This happens a few times--they flash every 15 seconds or so, maybe less. Then the screen changes to blue and the the screens are three words that make up a familiar phrase--the one I'm remembering is Look At Me. And then the nickel dropped, and the record played. Oh! I get it! All this stuff that I've studied and worked with made, for want of a better word, emotional sense for the first time. Words, or phrases, or whatever, are made strange in their regular context by the knowledge of what they are singularly. They're made foreign or strange, sometimes by their context, and sometimes in their context by what they are place against. So having random, unrelated words in groups of three flashed over and over makes the relation of the three were used to seeing, "look at me" in this example" strange. You think, Why are these particular words together? What is their meaning? Do they have meaning alone? Do they have meaning beyond what I take for granted, in fact, have I been missing the meaning altogether?

Well, duh. You'd think having seen this technique so much I might have felt it at least once. But I never did. At least not that i remember. So I'm writing it down lest I forget again.

And songs like "Once in a Lifetime", which was ubiquitous growing up so I didn't really think much about the meaning, take on whole new meanings. The song is about waking up and not recognizing your life, and possibly the chance that chasm offers. The whole film is brilliant in this, or actually the show--building the band one piece at a time, having a travelling light on the stage, people running in place, Byrne's oversize suit--everything pulls us away and and asks us to rethink what we take for granted in perception. The title itself, if an imperative, is an exhortation to this: Stop Making Sense!

I loved it. And unlike dada, which I should probably look at more but seems to me the art equivalent of typing monkeys, this actually looks to find more meaning by pulling things apart. I kind of see dada as just saying "it's all gibberish, so let's just be silly" whereas this deconstruction is saying "maybe we can pull apart our expectations and find something rich and rewarding".
And I kind of love David Byrne now, and before he almost actively annoyed me. So that's a win.

Aretha is singing "Ain't no Way" in the Starbucks here, so I've lost all train of thought and can only sit here and listen.

WI FI!!!

Wow. I am amazed at technology. I just got a new laptop yesterday with airport for the first time, a new mac book. ANd here I am at a Starbucks writing this! On the internet! I knew it could happen, but it's happening to me! So thrilling! Are the !!! telling the story? I know this old news to everyone, but if I can write without having to worry about cleaning my apartment, the world will open up. HOURS of enjoyment. Virtual hours. So thrilling.

Patience

Since I'm on a jag here, and posting poetry, and thirsting for words lately like a shady, cool outdoor shower on a dusty, hot day, here's one from our new, 16th Poet Laureate. Enjoy yourself.

Patience
by Kay Ryan


Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

More Frenzy

I wrote a friend with yesterday's poem (which sounds like a poem opener itself), since he loves the movies, and he responded that he and his partner had a Frank O'Hara poem read at their wedding. It's frenzied and wonderful, too. Many synapses, connecting madly. I'm in love with this one as well. I guess there's more O'Hara in my future. Wierdly, I've read some articles about his life, but never articles from the real article. Glad I am now.

Having a Coke with You
by Frank O'Hara


is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles


and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it


Frank O’Hara, “Having a Coke with You” from The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara. Copyright © 1971 by Mauren Granville-Smith, Administratrix of the Estate of Frank O'Hara. Used by the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc, www.randomhouse.com/category/poetry/.

Poetic Frenzy

Here's some poetic frenzy for the day....

To the Film Industry in Crisis
by Frank O'Hara


Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals
with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants,
nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition
is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you,
promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you
are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry,
it's you I love!

In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.
And give credit where it's due: not to my starched nurse, who taught me
how to be bad and not bad rather than good (and has lately availed
herself of this information), not to the Catholic Church
which is at best an oversolemn introduction to cosmic entertainment,
not to the American Legion, which hates everybody, but to you,
glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor, amorous Cinemascope,
stretching Vistavision and startling Stereophonic Sound, with all
your heavenly dimensions and reverberations and iconoclasms! To
Richard Barthelmess as the "tol'able" boy barefoot and in pants,
Jeanette MacDonald of the flaming hair and lips and long, long neck,
Sue Carroll as she sits for eternity on the damaged fender of a car
and smiles, Ginger Rogers with her pageboy bob like a sausage
on her shuffling shoulders, peach-melba-voiced Fred Astaire of the feet,Eric von Stroheim, the seducer of mountain-climbers' gasping spouses,the Tarzans, each and every one of you (I cannot bring myself to preferJohnny Weissmuller to Lex Barker, I cannot!), Mae West in a furry sled,her bordello radiance and bland remarks, Rudolph Valentino of the moon,its crushing passions, and moonlike, too, the gentle Norma Shearer, Miriam Hopkins dropping her champagne glass off Joel McCrea's yacht,and crying into the dappled sea, Clark Gable rescuing Gene Tierney from Russia and Allan Jones rescuing Kitty Carlisle from Harpo Marx, Cornel Wilde coughing blood on the piano keys while Merle Oberon berates,
Marilyn Monroe in her little spike heels reeling through Niagara Falls, Joseph Cotten puzzling and Orson Welles puzzled and Dolores del Rio eating orchids for lunch and breaking mirrors, Gloria Swanson reclining,and Jean Harlow reclining and wiggling, and Alice Faye reclining and wiggling and singing, Myrna Loy being calm and wise, William Powell in his stunning urbanity, Elizabeth Taylor blossoming, yes, to you and to all you others, the great, the near-great, the featured, the extraswho pass quickly and return in dreams saying your one or two lines, my love!

Long may you illumine space with your marvellous appearances, delays
and enunciations, and may the money of the world glitteringly cover you as you rest after a long day under the kleig lights with your faces in packs for our edification, the way the clouds come often at night but the heavens operate on the star system. It is a divine precedent you perpetuate! Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!

Smackdown

Catch the Smackdown before the big show tonight. M¥ thoughts are included. Yay for marketing tools! Love 'em!

Poem for the day

Thanks
by W.S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

Poetry 2 for a stormy day

Double posting from my other blog, but I figured since I double posted the poetry before, I'd do it again....

Buck pointed out Whitman in my last post about poetry, and really, how could I leave out Whitman, the great and mostly likely gay king of American ecstasy? Fred Hersch has a great piece/song cycle based on Leaves of Grass, and this particular section I now can't hear except to music (at least the bloded parts that he set to music)--

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
Press close bare-bosom'd night--press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds--night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night--mad naked summer night.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset--earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow'd earth--rich apple-blossom'd earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
Prodigal, you have given me love--therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

Honestly. Far-swooping elbow's earth--rich apple-blossom'd earth? How frigging astounding is that turn of phrase? So, so rich. Wow.

VD Poetry

I'm double posting from my other blog, but I just love these poems, so it's worth sharing....

I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day, but it put me in mind of this poem by ee cummings, which is probably my favorite poem ever, notwithstanding my strange HS Freshman obsession with The Hollow Men and later love of Auden (who knew he had his own society?), being the gay. This poem, though, just gets me (and I have to admit, yes, I was introduced to it by a Woody Allen movie)

I've not really thought about it ever, but because you don't really need to know, if I were to list my favorite poems, the one below being at the top, they would probably be:

Desert Places - Robert Frost
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot
anyone lived in a pretty how town - ee cummings
Osso Buco - Billy Collins READ THIS POEM IF YOU DON'T KNOW HIS STUFF! Gorgeous!--excerpt:

But tonight, the lion of contentment
has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest,
and I can only close my eyes and listen
to the drums of woe throbbing in the distance
and the sound of my wife's laughter
on the telephone in the next room,
the woman who cooked the savory osso buco,
who pointed to show the butcher the ones she wanted.

Pretty greatest hits list, actually, but they're still wonderful. No revelations, but revelations. And this one, so succinct and bare and rich.

Feeling poetic today--maybe it's the rain.


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,mysteriously)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 which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color 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

5 questions

Here's the interview spurred on by the Interview/5 questions meme that Stinkylulu asked for takers.

Question 1
If your "day job" was a blog, what would it be called and what would we see on it?

www.movieposters.com. There probably is one. And you’d see a lot of movie ad materials. That’s as deep as I want to get with that one. I have a much more flip answer, but I’ll keep that to myself.

Question 2
Cribbing from mrpeenee: What do you consider Oscar's biggest all-time f*ck up in choosing a winner? Please be certain to justify your answer with scathing detail. Alternately/Additionally: What about this year's nominations? What do you consider Oscar's biggest mistake there?

That’s hard to pick. I am reminded of Judy Garland being passed over for A Star is Born; Marisa Tomei, who I think is great, but still surprises me in that particular win; Jennifer Connolly who I think acts with her hair. But probably for me the biggest oops, besides Guilietta Masina not even being nominated for Nights of Cabiria (!) is Gloria Swanson losing the Oscar for Sunset Boulevard. I mean, I like Judy Holiday, but really? Srsly? In Born Yesterday? Compared to the amazing work Swanson did, not only in front of but behind the camera. It’s one of the most thrilling, terrifying, fascinating performance ever committed to film. Indelible. Intelligent. Brilliant. Disturbing. Probably the best dramatization of the off-the-rails fantasizing and self-deception in the history of cinema, and her triumph is that even though she’s a complete loon you see how Joe was pulled in and it all makes complete sense. Not easy. I recently saw it on a big screen again, and it still works. It’s breathtaking, like watching a tightrope walker at times, and it’s all in her eyes. It’s a master class in film acting—how to be enormous but still not too big. And that she used her own films in it? Amazing. And she was all of 50 or something at the time. Can you imagine Meg Ryan trying to pull that off? It’s one of the most egregious errors in the history of the Oscars, and it was probably all politics.

This year’s nominees? I’m out of it this year—maybe it’s fatigue. I’m still annoyed about 4 months, three weeks, and two days being passed over last year. And Brokeback the year before that. Ugh. I’m not feeling Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt, really. I think Emile Hirsch should’ve been nominated, since I didn’t even recognize him. Or James Franco. PSH kinda yelled a lot, and I missed what his possible guilt was—threw off the piece for me. I like him a lot, unlike some people, but I just didn’t love him in Doubt. I didn’t see In Bruges, or Elegy, both of which I heard had amazing perfs. Sam Rockwell scared the bejesus out of me in Snow Angels, but that was released in March, and the Academy seems to be stretched to remember past October. Penelope was lucky they remembered her from the summer. I do think Mickey Rourke was good in the Wrestler, but I get the feeling that it’s a big ego who’s living in past glory playing a big ego living in past glory. Gory as well. I don’t know the guy, so I could be wrong, but I don’t feel like I’d give him the award. Not up to me, though.

Question 3
In case you haven't noticed, I'm somewhat fixated on supporting actresses. Who's your favorite supporting actress of all time? And if you could, which performance would you compel StinkyLulu to profile?

I have a big soft spot for Dianne Weist in Hannah and Her Sisters. In fact, I would LOVE it if Stinkylulu would profile that performance, knowing what a special place that holds for both of us, I believe. And I do love her as a supporting actress, once again affirmed in Synechdoche, NY.


Question 4
As noted in Question 3, StinkyLulu has become somewhat obsessive about one category of the Academy Awards. If you were to do the same -- take one category and train the focus of your blog on it -- what category might you choose? (NOTE: Your category might be an actual category, or one of your invention.)

Unsung character actors/actresses. Along the lines of Margo Martindale, Celia Weston, Anne Wedgeworth and the like.

Question 5
What's your favorite thing about your blog? What's your favorite thing about mine?

About mine? I guess I’m just glad it’s an outlet when I choose to use it.

Yours? How articulate and precise the writing is. And the screencaps.

Supporting Actress 1945

Check out the 1945 Supporting Actress Smackdown

And to prime yourself, watch the hysterical Carol Burnett parody

Can we hope?

After reading the New York Film Critic's Circle picks, it's fairly certain Penelope will win best supporting.

But can we hope for a MILK best picture win? This is the second, and Penn and Brolin's as well.

Looks like Sally Hawkins will get a nom, though I thought it was Kate Winslet's year perhaps. May still be.

But I'm hoping for

Penn
Cruz
Brolin
Hawkins (who really was quite remarkable)

I'd love to see Kate get it especially since she's got possibility for two noms, but they've actually been giving Oscars for specific performances lately. Who knew?

More will be clear with the Globe noms tomorrow AM.

This feels a little like horse-racing to write about, but I really would love to see MILK awarded. Really alot.

Smackdown 1969

Check me out over at the Supporting Actress Smackdown for 1969.

Movie List

So I was tagged for this meme by Stinkylulu for Blog Cabin's Alphabetical Movie Meme, so I'm doing it. Here are the rules, copied right off his blog. I am little scared how many people have linked to this meme, so wow.

Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.

3. [As regards franchises and sequels,] movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgment to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."

5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.

6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.


And here's my list:

All About My Mother
Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau & Disney)
Cabaret
Dark Victory
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Foul Play
The Gleaners
Hannah & Her Sisters
Ich Bin Meine Eigene Frau (I Am My Own Wife)
Judy Berlin
Kramer vs. Kramer
The Last Picture Show
Manchurian Candidate
Nights of Cabiria
The Orphanage
Private Benjamin
Querelle
The Red Shoes
A Star is Born (54)
Torch Song Trilogy
Umbrellas of Cherbourg
The Vanishing (Dutch version)
The Way We Were
Xanadu
Yossi & Jagger
Zus & Zo


So I tag Manhatin, moroccomole , zombiestruckstop, Mattycub, and Buck

Milk

I saw Milk last night.

I am so glad it's happening now. I imagine I'd have issues with it as a movie if I were to think too long about it--pacing maybe, standard bio pic, etc--all things I've heard.

But I don't really care. Penn is amazing, amazing, and the story is the story that needs to be told right now. The screenwriter said he focussed on the politics, since there were so many stories about his life and relationships he could have focussed on, and that's 100% correct.

Milk is not perfect, as the man wasn't--he comes across as over-zealous, political, selfish at times, but funny, sweet, caring, and naive as well. But I can think of no film I have ever seen being released at exactly the right moment. Someone suggested in the audience that perhaps the film would've made a difference before the Prop 8 vote, but I think the opposite. I think the people who would have seen it then would've been a much smaller audience who would have left thinking the same as they came in. I think people in the streets and the fury directed at the vote will help more people to see it, and more people will be affected by this story of an ordinary man working in his community to make a difference--perhaps even change some minds (yes--I'm optomistic enough to believe people can change their minds). And that one voice, asking everyone to come out, is still resonating today. And 30 years later the entire landscape has changed.

I was thrilled sitting in the audience. Thrilled, and energized. I don't know what I thought of it as a film, per se, but it struck a deep chord. To me, seeing an oscar winning actor playing a real gay man, a gay man who has ideas, opinions, flaws, and complicated, nuanced relationships with other men with no apology is thrilling. As are Diego Luna, Emile Hirsch (who I couldn't place throughout the entire film he disappeared so much for me), James Franco, Denis O'Hare, Josh Brolin so many of the actors. I wouldn't be surprised if Penn, Brolin, and even possibly Luna (but that's a long shot) get noms. The design perfectly captures SF at the time--they actually filmed in the storefront that was Milk's camera store. And the inclusion of historical footage works perfectly.

I have heard some criticism from gay men that they felt the movie is made for straight people, like Philadelphia was. I can't disagree more. I didn't feel pandered to, instructed, or bored. I felt excited, emotional, and amazed. This man was all about equality. I feel like this film, for the first time in a mainstream HOllywood film, put gays on equal footing. Being gay isn't the issue in this film (see Brokeback Mountain, which is a great film), but rather what it takes to be yourself, and demand equality, the risks and the rewards.

So you'll excuse me if I don't write about it as a film as much as about it as a moment. That I could sit in a room full of all kinds of people, holding another man's hand, and see how far we've come--that's beautiful. That there were at least three out gay actors in it, a gay director, gay screenwriter, and producers--brilliant. I can't see it any other way.

Go.

Smackdown '76

Check out my opinions along with all the others at the Stinkylulu 1976 Supporting Actress Smackdown.

Jane Alexander in All the President's Men
Beatrice Straight in Network
Piper Laurie in Carrie
Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver
Lee Grant in Voyage of the Damned

I have some thoughts about the year in general, and have been thinking about politics, disillusionment (elections figure into two of these, and it's an interesting 70s theme) and discontent, but I have a cold today so any thoughts would be muddy. Or, muddier than usual. Interesting year, though......

Getty

I went to the Getty to see the beautiful Bernini show that was overwhelming and gorgeous. I hope to get a few secs to write about it this weekend, but in the meantime--



Getty, get your *$(&%(#*&$#ing thumb out of my view!!!



Muuuuch better....

Happiness is just a thing....

I watched Cabin in the Sky last night for Nathaniel's Musical of the Month over at Film Experience. Here are the major themes, not including all the race stuff, which could be a whole 'nother book, and probably is. There's even a disclaimer at the opening of the film, which, as Nathan Rabin points out, basically says"The racism in the film you are about to see is morally abhorrent and wholly unforgivable. Enjoy!" Anyhoo, most of the things I noticed only were amplified by some sadness that some of the performers were relegated to roles based on their ethnicity, and weren't given a chance to stretch out of that (of course, that could be said for many film actors). Like I said, for more keen and informed minds than mine to ponder further.

Ethel Waters rules this movie. She's not the protagonist, but she's his motivation. She's also the most reliably nuanced, interesting, and full characterization in the film. Not surprising, as the story doesn't require much beyond stereotype. It made me a little sad, watching Waters, that she wasn't able to play some grand matriarch of a powerful family on film. I was thinking this through much of the film, and then when she hands Butterfly McQueen the dice and sweepstakes ticket and says "Burn these, Lily", I was sure of it. That said, she's riveting in this, and I don't really want to watch anyone else on screen when she's in the picture. And she had quite a career, which is a testament to her talent.

Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe. I have loved this song forever, and didn't know this was the setting. I love, love, love this song. Her execution is great. It works perfectly as a motif, and justifies shy she does what she does. That said, if Iago is evil for no apparent reason, Petunia is the love version. It's no small credit that we believe the love for Joe on her part, because it's not like it makes any sense. This song does it for me (even though secretly it's Ella's version I love the best--even though this Sarah Vaughn version is pretty fab. And I do love the Carol Burnett version, too. So, I basically love this song, obviously).

Lena Horne's character, Gerogia Brown, doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, either. But once again, she can't help but be, well, Lena Horne. I was most fascinated by the shot of her being the last standing during the tornado. There was something beautiful and emotionally affecting about her staggering about in that beautiful dress, and suddenly accessing a life in this character that we hadn't seen before. Once again, great performer. I mean, she's Lena Horne, after all. The scene with the devil telling her what to do was fun. Much mugging, but a good way to establish the communications of conscience that they were establishing. And since I had Tennessee on the brain earlier, wouldn't she have been astounding as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

And then there are the devils. Apparently, jazz, trumpets, and smoking are all very evil, while good guys like to hang out in all -white band uniforms. I don't really have much to say about them (although it was fun seeing Louis Armstrong), except that if you're looking for a piece that combines Porgy and Bess and Damn Yankees, this one's for you.

As for the music, most of it felt weirdly incidental. As Stinkylulu pointed out the other day, it's really more of a play with music, and that makes it more understandable. Actually more of a parable with music. I did love that when for no apparent reason an entire chorus showed up for the "Cabin in the Sky" number, they sounded exactly like the back-up choruses for every musical in this period. Duke Ellington on screen is great, too.

And the whole thing can be excused, since it's only a dream.....

Glad I saw it. Great musical, no, but worth it for Waters and Horne and the chance to see them at the center. And to hear that great song by Harold Arlen, who is one of my faves of the period (Stormy Weather, The Man That Got Away, Acc-en-tuate the Positive, Over the Rainbow, A Sleepin' Bee, I never has seen snow, Right as Rain, I had myself a True Love, Anyplace I hang my hat is home, Get Happy, My Shining Hour), and also wrote several specifically all-black musicals. And also the to get to see the dancing and the Duke Ellington sequence. It doesn't move the story, but it's great to watch.

I suppose the disclaimer is right only insofar as the movie succeeds most for me as a time capsule--of attitudes, performance styles, and people. I'm glad Nathaniel picked it.

Strait-Jacket

10 Things I Learned from Strait-Jacketfor Final Girl's film club.

1. Wishing you're 29, acting like you're 29, and being shot with a gauzy filter still does not make you 29

2. Wishing you're 49, acting like you're 49, and being shot with a gauzy filter still does not make you 49.

3. Wigs are in, mother.

4. Lucky for Carol that her mother conveniently blacks out for no apparent reason. Or maybe it's just when she drinks. Or there's a MURDER!

5. Someone on the "making of" suggested Crawford would have gotten an oscar nomination if this were a different film. Yes, and a different script, character, and director

6. Even if you are a sculptor, oh, I mean sculptress, of non-descript, unfired clay forest creatures, it's possible to bust out a full polished bronze bust, just cuz. Oh, and some bloody heads. And a latex mask.

7. I love jangly bracelets, because they say "gal"

8. How cute was Lee Majors in 1963?

9. Apparently, Lucy had money from her first husband, but still lived in a one room shack where her daughter slept in the living room. That's livin'! And Ohio looks a lot like central CA.

10. Apparently, right before you're head is chopped off, it turns to wood. It's bloodless, too.

Okay, 11. Horror movie or Scooby Doo episode; you decide.

10 things I learned

I love learning. Truly, I just love knowing stuff. Not for the "look what I know" thing, but more for the shoving "isn't this AMAZING?" in unsuspecting person's faces, as well as my compulsive need to connect dots. Yes, the chaos of coming together and moving apart that is our lives is mirrored in the smallest atoms and all things in the universe, but I persist in pissing in the wind and calling it rain, searching for some sort of connection in seemingly random, unconnected events. It may be untrue, but learning and seeing similarities just makes me feel better. So, in that spirit, I can write a little criticism under the guise of bettering myself.

10 Things I Learned from 9 to 5, the musical

1. Dolly Parton's songs are particularly well suited to theatre. They're from a character's POV most of the time, and emotionally grounded. That said, when she's writing for her surrogate self, she's at her clearest, witness "Backwoods Barbie". Though there was a good second act ballad and Ros had a really fun number. But, after seeing this, Dolly can do anything you ask her to. I expect a symphony and retail park soon.

2. I forgot how much I loved this movie, which leads me to

3. Adapting a really well-known movie requires performances so great or different they erase the originals. You know it when you think to yourself while Allison Janney is being her great self on stage "Wasn't Lily Tomlin so funny in this?"

4. Allison Janney can sell anything. She doesn't have the best voice, but she's out there doing it, and she commands the attention

5. Office interiors and corporate clothing circa 1980 are not anything I would choose to watch on stage. Even having now seen them once. Not such a pretty time. And office interiors are wierd as entertainment spaces--I felt the same about the Back to the Future ride, since you feel like you're at work watching a show. That said, who knew so much could be done with a copier?

6. I know first acts are supposed to be longer, but we should really not notice it being so....much....longer.

7. Marc Kudish is sexy. I believe I was aware of this, but I have now learned it.

8. Stephanie Block is now queen of power ballads and Megan Hilty deserves a great career, after this and Wicked. She's got a lot going for her.

9. Sometimes, when the enormous set leaves, the stage can feel very, very empty. Especially filled with the dancers who, because of the aforementioned ugly clothing, can remind one of the Carol Burnett show. Not bad, in some instances, but not really useful here.

10. A show in previews is in previews. That means it's a work in progress. Nice to see the progress.

What's moving me

A list of things that are moving me of late, that I will hopefully get around to writing about.

1. Man on Wire Brilliant doc about Phillip Petit, who walked on a tightrope between the World Trade Centers. Unexpected meditation on friendship, drive, beauty, creativity, as well as the best heist movie I've seen in a while

2. Fun Home Allison Bechdel's brilliant memoir of her father's death which manages to be about sexuality, gender, literature, families and difference. I've read it before, and since there was a cut-rate hardcover at my local bookstore I'm reading it again. Taking my breath away. It's like watching a film and reading the criticism at the same time, a tightrope act of its own.