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.

Ecstasy

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

Tony

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

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

Can't Hurry the Harvest

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

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

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

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

Spontaneous Poetry

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

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

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

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

Batting Cage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Breathe.

The bat does the work.

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

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

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

There is no perfection.

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

The nicks count - they stop the ball.

Wear gloves.

Re-Readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colorful Pasts

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

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

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

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

Staying Entertained

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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