9th Circle?

One of the oldest gay bars in New York City was called The Ninth Circle. I don't actually know if it still exists.  I think it may be closed.  I'm also not sure what the Ninth Circle is, except that I expect it's a Dante reference (leave it to the urbane gays of the 60s and 70s). Here.  Let me check.

Did you miss me? Here's an answer. I love that about the internet - you didn't even know I was gone.  Anyhow, looks like it's the worst circle - for the traitors, like Judas, and in the center is Satan. Or, in slang, the place where things can't get worse.  Leave it to the gays to come up with a name like that for a bar.  I love that. In the sixties. That's called gallows humor, folks.

I digress. This post is really just about boring old writer's block. It's not even writer's block as I am obviously stringing words together right now. It's outlining.  Our hero (I'm casting myself in this role, just for today), would rather fling words and stories out into the universe like so many rubber bands than outline, a process that is needed when one is writing a script.  A pilot, to be exact. I've been wondering if pilot-writing has its own circle. Like, 2 1/2. Room 222. In hell.

Now, never having outlined really that much before, I want to skip it. But I can't. I can't because the outline, I'm finding, is where you actually craft what's happening - where you come up with taut, interesting, interconnected stories; and where you wander around in circles feeling a little like you are chasing your tail. Or pushing a boulder uphill only to have it fall back when you get it near the top; like you're waiting for that thirst to be quenched but as soon as you bend down to take a drink the water is lowered.  That might be the sixth circle, actually.

Yes, The sixth circle. I was right. Did I mention that you spend a lot of time looking up fascinating but ultimately useless information on the internet?  And thought I was pretty up on The House of Atreus, but who knew that it all started with Tantalus? I do now, and so do you. I hope it brings you peaceful dreams.  Did I mention the dreams?  There's a fair amount of walking in circles, staring into space, cleaning things that don't need to be cleaned while ignoring the things that really do, fantasizing about reorganizing and possibly moving, but at least repainting, and finally, maybe, sitting down in front of an empty sheet of paper. And being plagued with doubts.

And did I mention writing blog posts?

Daphne

I've always been interested in the myth of Daphne. It's never made a lot of sense, but I'm fascinated by it.  I wrote this a bit ago. Don't poetize much for fear it's awful (since I don't know poetry), but sharing nonetheless -

Why did Daphne run away?
Easier to root yourself to the ground and ask for help from the heavens -
than give into the god pressuring you,
frightened by his hard desire, his lithe pursuit -
effortlessly endless pursuit -
laughing and reassuring,
while you -  panting, terrified -
would rather become an eternal wooden supplicant
than give into his human need.
Why did you run?

A Curation

Oh, boy it's been a while.

I was in St. Louis this past week, and saw a great photography exhibit at the St. Louis Museum of Art.  The exhibit, an Orchestrated Vision, is a collection of large scale contemporary photography playing with ideas of performance and reality, its subtitle is "The Theater of Contemporary Photography."  If you're in St. Louis, you should check it out.  Except for a notable absence of Cindy Sherman in the section about the artist as subject (that must have been too obvious if I noticed it, and she's currently got a retrospective at MoMA, so probably all tied up there), I thought it was a great exhibit.

But.
Or and?

I just have an issue with curator speak when it comes to contemporary art of any kind. I get it. I've taken performance theory seminars. Like, a lot of them.  And perhaps why it bothers me that there is this intermediary in most contemporary art that evades the informative to err on the side of the pedantic or possibly the condescending.  Most of it I feel is obvious. Some is reaching. Some feels like its justifying its existence. Some feels like its justifying why you should be interested.  Any of these options feel like they don't leave a lot of room for whatever my reaction might be.  It's probably petty.  I'm at a point now where some of it makes me laugh.  It feels like some of the attempts at meaning are so far reaching that anything could be curated. I don't even mean to denigrate criticism - I read it, I enjoy it - it's illuminating.

So, since I know this is my issue, and I in no way intend to denigrate the hard work of the curator in assembling the show, I offer my own curated show below of photos I took in the lobby. Once again, this is just meant for a laugh, if you find this kind of thing funny. Rarified, probably, but it cracked me up to write it.  I hope you enjoy.

And, if the curator of the show above is reading this, it's nothing personal. I liked the show a lot. .  Critical language just cracks me up.

_________________________________

In this photograph, “Nobles 1”, the artist uses visual metaphor and machine to displace our feelings of the familiar, placing mundane objects otherwise ignored in the center of the frame.  The feeling is further enhanced by a patron walking away from the object at the center of the frame, herself just as easily passed by as the floor polisher.  The rail bisects the image further, asking us to consider the possibility of binaries and divisions. Without question, the play on the term “noble” intends to confuse our sense of the exalted as well. The scaffolding further enhances the sense of isolation.

In “Nobles 2”, the artist changes the point of view to bring the  mundane floor polisher to an almost comical sense of prominence in the frame.  The tension between object and art is further amplified by the sculpture in the far background, making us question our own acceptance of what is considered art.  Were the components of the floor polisher at one time just as sculpted as the two figures that would, in real scale, dwarf it?  The watery reflection mirrors the oceanic gulf between objects, emphasizing the barren field of polished stone and the rail around that field, which further enhance the sense of isolation and ironic distance.

In “White panel/Dressing Screen” the artist whimsically calls into question our acceptance of art and object, a theme in his work.  The white panel, calling to mind the work of Kazimir Malevich, is a refiguring of a wall used for possible future display into a piece of art itself.  The panel next to it, used to hide the construction from the museum-goer, calls to mind elaborate Asian privacy screens, on display in a nearby gallery. The sense of menacing sexuality is palpable. Immediately the viewer begins to question what is being hidden. The off-kilter framing further increases the sense of isolation.

n “UNtitled, V1.6”, the artist explores the seemingly random tourist photo, but displacing our expectation by odd framing and subject choice.  The words “smallest” and “subject” are blown out and large to the point of almost illegibility, heightening the intention of dramatizing the mundane.  Further layering the image are the books of other celebrated photographers, asking us to reëxamine our relation to their work in illuminating the “smallest subject”.  The overhead lighting further enhances the sense of isolation.

In “Scaffold, Grill, Fire Alarm”, the artist obfuscates our expectation of a clear view framed in the arch.  The use of construction material scaffolding is once again an object lesson, frustrating our clear view of what is beyond the immediate. The ordered organization of the duct grill above is mirrored and enlarged by the scaffolding; a stand-in for the multitude of ways clarity is frustrated by everyday objects.  By calling out the fire alarm in the title, the artist further rattles our security, increasing the feeling of isolation and emergency.

In “Better Burger”, the artist continues his interest in gridwork began with “Scaffold, Grill, Fire Alarm”.  The pieces of discarded clothing and to-go cup suggest a recently departed worker, but there is no one in sight. The apparatus in the background is unplugged and unused.  The fine metalwork in the scaffold is mirrored in the floor, bring a sense of infinity, fatigue, and unending labor. The empty cup and discarded paper towel serve to increase our sense of isolation and disconnectedness.

In “Apotheosis of St. Louis”, the artist once again plays with the idea of tourist photo as begun in “UNtitled, V1.6”. In this instance, instead of photographing the Apotheosis of St. Louis, the majestic sculpture which stands outside the museum, the artist has chosen to photograph the small toy for sale in the museum gift shop. The artist suggests the obvious irony that the Apotheosis of St. Louis was not his fairness and ability as a ruler and only canonized King of France, but rather being a toy for sale in a gift shop. Emphasizing the reductive nature of commerce; the horse charging futilely into a styrofoam wall only heightens our sense of weltschmerz and isolation.

In “Corporate Partners Program” the artist whimsically juxtaposes Rodin’s figure of a man against the panel of museum donors. The gaunt figure is asking the viewer to join, while emphasizing the corporate nature of the enterprise. As in other work, the artist is re-contextualizing the work of other artists to reframe the objects themselves.  Both the corporate donor panel and the work by Rodin take on new meaning when viewed from this angle. The marble plinth only increases the sense of isolation.

9/11 again

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.