June 30, 2009
"Davey Jones be damned"
Boy did I need this today. The annual Bulwer-Lytton prize for bad writing has been awarded. It's one of my favorite times of the year (I also love the "bad sex writing" award - another fave). People are invited to submit opening lines to imaginary bad books (in honor of Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton - a longtime favorite of Lucy Maud Montgomery, who once was famous and beloved, and now is mainly known for his purple prose and perhaps the most famous opening line in history: "It was a dark and stormy night".)
This year's winner (David McKenzie) goes off the damn deep end with so many truncated "ing's" that you want to punch someone in the throat. It's killing me, the ridiculousness of it, and the beauty of the insane mind who would think it up. Bravo.
"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests."
You can read the list of winners here (they have a ton of different categories).
For example, here's the winner for "Historical Fiction":
The Cunard "Carinthia" glided through the starry waters of the Bering Sea, 843 passengers aboard, including Harriet Dobbs, resignedly single for over a decade, while a nautical mile due west slunk the K-18 submarine, under the command of lonely Ukrainian Captain First Rank Nikolai Shevchenko: ships that passed in the night (although the second technically a boat).
Others I love:
"I want you to follow my husband," said my newest client, the enigmatic Mrs Yogi, estranged wife of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
I don't know why that is so funny but it is.
Or this:
There were earthquakes in this land, terrible tsunamis that swirled flooding torrents of water throughout, and constant near-blizzard conditions, and not for the first time, Horatio Jones wished he did not live inside a snow globe.
And then this:
Lady Rowena, fresh from her bath, knew she had time to be ready to meet the Prince at 6:00 o'clock even though the mantle clock was striking six, because the brass escapement lever mechanism that engages the teeth of the large gear which drives the smaller gears that send the hour and minute hands on their circular paths, was worn.
And here is one that made me laugh out loud. A true gift on this mainly rotten day.
Category? Western.
He was the desert nightmare whose name no one dared breathe, this deadly gun-slinger Garth Tedder, whose face struck terror in the hearts of man and beast, its macabre, round, maroon cheeks almost exactly like the pickled beets that farmers' wives force-fed their horrified families.
I have read that 10 times and I love it more each time.
June 29, 2009
Alex, The Grand Marshall
My dear friend Alex was asked to be the Grand Marshall of the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago this year. She is there teaching for the summer. It was a huge deal to be asked, extremely exciting - and I really regret not being able to be there to celebrate with her, and all the gays I know and love.
Alex had an amazing experience - which she writes about here. Don't miss it. Her ability to see through to the heart of things - not just the reality around her, but who she is being in those moments is unparalleled - and one of the reasons why we are friends. I'm highly bored with people who cannot take responsibility for themselves, and who project their anger out onto others, and feel justified 100% of the time (you know, the whole "I relish how right I am" crowd). None of us are perfect, but you know those who operate on that level and those who don't. It's clear. And sometimes, sometimes, when you are faced with hatred, coldness, fear, contempt ... you can come back with love. It does happen, if you are not so bound to the fact that you must be so RIGHT all the time. In such moments there is the possibility of grace. True grace. It could not happen otherwise.
I had such a moment recently. It was a bitter pill to swallow and frankly I am still choking on it. But better to show the person grace and compassion, in the face of indifference and cruelty, than insisting on my own righteousness. I don't know WHY this is the case, and it certainly isn't always the case ... and I struggle mightily with this, because I have been hurt. Blindsided, really. I want to punish the person who hurt me. Natural response. But on further reflection, I just couldn't. That kind of energy is short-lived, it has no shelf life. It is a flash, where you feel better for maybe two seconds - but you don't EVEN feel better. Not really. What it does is deepen the grooves within you, of anger and bitterness, and you get to nod your head contemptuously over how right you are and how stupid everyone else is ... and if you LIVE in that state, then you are a poisonous individual. Not only to yourself but to those around you.
Like I said: not easy. It means I have to give up on the idea of having the last word. Of winning the argument. I have to give that up. I have. Bitter pill. But one I have to swallow.
Alex has often shown me the way in this regard (although when someone requires a bitch-slap, there's nobody like Alex to give it ...) and it is not in the moments when all is good and perfect that you are really "allowed" to be great and awesome. It is in those other moments, when confronted with cruelty, indifference, blindsided by rejection. Can you show someone grace then?
Can you, as my cousin Mike wrote, make a choice to not contribute to someone else's hurt, "even if you think they deserve it"?
This is a lifetime journey. The desire to WIN (especially when you have been hurt and want to lash out) is ferocious. And here's the other thing: You are rarely thanked for showing people who have hurt you grace. It has to be done for its own sake. That's hard, too, because you have to let go of expectations. You have to let go of being right. Of clinging to your hurt and making a badge out of it. And you have to do all of this knowing and understanding that you probably will get nothing in return. There is no reward. Or, not an immediate palpable reward. More often than not, you are mocked for being weak. Or, you get no response whatsoever. It goes out into the void and you get nada back. (This post I wrote about a beautiful moment my friend Wade had with a hostile stranger is an example of what I am talking about - except that Wade's behavior ended up turning the encounter around. Scan the comments there and look for the angry guy who could not tolerate the way the conversation had turned. Could. Not. Do. It. His own sense of how right he was, and how wrong it seemed to show someone gentleness when they are a jackass - was rock-solid, an edifice that could not be cracked. He just couldn't "go there". It was like we were speaking two entirely different languages. Now that's just some random commenter on the Internet. Whatever. And even in that moment I can see, "Okay, that guy obviously has been hurt and rejected and feels angry about that." Again, a natural response. But he is not trying to go deeper. He has stayed in his hurt - made a badge of it. He LIVES there.) So again, it comes down to a choice. Who do I want to be?
Alex, in all her complexity and humanness, lives in that place. That's a conversation she has with herself every day. Even in moments of triumph, even in moments of loss.
Go read the whole thing. I love you, dear.
In light of recent amazing developments in a certain area (or should I say "sector") of which I have intense interest (as does Alex), I thought it might be fun to look back on two of our many wacky experiences together. No, it's not the time we drove through the immediate aftermath of a gang killing, and I tiptoed in my high-heeled sandals past a dead and bloody body on the sidewalk as Alex hissed at me to "RUN! RUN!" towards her out of the crossfire ... No, it's not that time. It's not the time we danced around doing jazz hands in a garage full of Armenians. Nope. Not that time either. Nor is it the time we drove to Vegas to see Liza Minelli.
The two experiences are related, as you will see.
Getting clear on Hollywood Boulevard ...
Our private tour of the Life Exhibit of a certain individual ...
Michael Jackson, the dancer
A really thoughtful analysis in the NY Times. Here's just an excerpt, but I highly recommend you read the whole thing:
There are few popular dancers today who keep drawing your attention to footwork: He was always one of them. Here in “Billie Jean” he turns the feet in and out; he raises right and left feet in alternation; he isolates the action of one leg and then the other; he goes rhythmically knock-kneed: It’s riveting. Later, when he jumps and stamps, those moves are dance effects, always part of the rhythm. And meanwhile, until late in the song, he never stops mouthing the lyrics. He’s always intense, and still occasionally vulnerable. The spring he can get out of those feet is very exciting: you can see how much impetus he gets out of them — turning in and out, they sometimes propel him backward — which is just a foretaste of what’s to follow.
Clip below the jump of Michael Jackson performing "Billie Jean" in 1983 at Motown 25. I remember seeing that show. I remember everyone talking about the moonwalk at school the next day, gobsmacked, "did you see that??" - people trying it in the corner of the cafeteria. Hard to imagine yourself back into that time, what with who Michael Jackson eventually became, not to imagine how much the moonwalk is imitated, mocked, whatever. But it is an electrifying performance - if you just watch what the hell he is doing with his body, in every second.
June 28, 2009
Never thought you'd be alone this far down the line
But I know what's been on your mind
You're afraid it's all been wasted time.
The Eagles, "Wasted Time":
