August 29, 2003
"These are not novels"...
I found a review of Alan Lightman's new book on the indispensable Arts and Letters Daily.
Lightman also wrote Einstein's Dreams
So the review of his new book, where a guy goes back to his high-school reunion, hoping to see his lost love, is pretty bad. Obviously. Judging from the first blunt paragraphs of the review:
Man goes to 30th college reunion. Remembers girl who got away. Feels sad. The end.You just got five hours of your life back.
The only reason I bring this review up (of a book I will never read!) is because of the points made at the end of the piece. Marta Salij, after talking about Lightman's new oeuvre specifically, backs up a bit and talks about the new trend in fiction, altogether. Very insightful:
Pretty sentences, all dressed up with nowhere to go. That's what I think is ailing fiction, has been ailing fiction for some time. I get no points for noticing. Better minds than mine have complained.Lightman's Reunion falls into the category of wistful musings on the sadness of life, dressed up in novel form. Another category is snarky commentary on the shallowness of modernity, dressed up in novel form: Key practitioners are David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen, et al. There are other categories, but it fatigues me to list them.
Here's what I do want points for: These are not novels. They are essays, maybe even newspaper columns, sometimes glorified diary entries, stretched out to unconscionable length and price.
How about a novel dressed up in novel form, huh? With characters who face conflicts (you remember those from ninth grade: Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, etc.), who act, suffer and grow. I could really sink my teeth into one of those right about now.
Yeah.
Diary Friday
All right, so I am going to go back into very embarrassing territory (read: high school).
Beth will be very happy!
So let's begin. I thought I might pull out my various entries about high school dances because ... well, because, frankly, they are the most embarrassing.
Here we go. (And I will try to refrain from interjecting my present-day self into the narrative, making snarky comments about my adolescent self - although it is nearly impossible to hold myself back.)
Fri. Jan. 21 1983
Tonight was a Hawaiian dance. I tell you, I was not looking forward to it, because the last dance was a disaster area. I didn't go Hawaiian, but I did borrow a lei when I got there. It wasn't even half-way full, but practically everyone was Hawaiian.Travis had on a grass skirt made out of garbage bag strips. And Joel had a grass skirt and man-hole-cover sized glasses. Betsy had on a long wrap-around skirt with huge blue flowers, and the DJ had on all white, a white top-hat and a white ruffled suit and this blue light was on him, so he sort of glowed. And he took requests so I asked for Devo, The Clash, J. Geils, Adam Ant, Loverboy.
(Cannot resist: I love that I listed all of the band names. Such a whiff from another time. Also, weird thing: Years later, way after Loverboy's star had descended, I ended up opening for them at the Milwaukee Summer Fest... Ha! If the 14 year old Sheila had known of the glory to come in her future!! Okay, sorry. Onward. )
God, I love music!
And when he put on Stray Cat Strut, I did my tap dance. (Oh my God, I sound like such a geek. You DID YOUR TAP DANCE?? And then you WONDERED why no cute guys asked you to dance??? Meredith: if you are reading this, you will know exactly the tap dance I am referring to.)
All those great songs - I go WILD. We all do. We SWEAT! (Right, Beth?) It is so fun. The minute I hear the beginning notes of "Jerkin' Back and Forth" or "Rock Lobster" or "Workin' for the Weekend", we all race out onto the floor, going INSANE. I dance until my throat is dry and my legs ache.
I'm not fooling myself. I had an awful time. I loved the music, but John was there. (When I read over this this morning, I thought: who the hell is John? And then - I remembered. Some guy I had a crush on, who said about 3 words to me, and I convinced myself it was true love.) I saw him come in and I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't take my eyes off him and then Betsy grabbed my arm and said sternly, "Forget him, Sheila!" (I am completely ignoring my injunction against interjections. Can't help it. So here I am, 20 freakin' years later, and I still find myself in situations where my friends have to speak to me sternly, and say stuff like, "Forget him, Sheila!" Such as we are made.)
Betsy went on sternly, "He has on a girl's headband. Please forget him."
Then we walked off, arms around each other, and for a while I did forget. (Little did I know that I eventually would forget so completely that I would read over this entry 20 years later and think, dimly: Who the hell is John? Ha! Revenge.) I talked to Mr. Hodge, and some good songs came on, and there were some songs that Mere and I had to make fun of. We would strut around, eyes closed.
Oh, and a TV cameraman was there for some reason, and he was filming us, and he took close-up shots of me charleston-ing to "Goody Two Shoes" (How unbelievably embarrassing.), he also filmed me and my friends going WILD to "Rock Lobster". He filmed all of us going "down ... down ... down..." onto the floor. The entire gym full of kids falls down onto the floor at the end of "Rock Lobster". Anyway, I asked him later what the film was about, and he said that it was for a special on teenage alcoholism.
What? I said to him, "I'm not drunk!" And he laughed and went, "I'm not going to say you are."
John was dancing with another girl and when he knew I was nearby he kissed her. (Uh, Sheila, are you sure of your facts here? Are you sure that it was because of YOUR hovering presence that he kissed her?)
So I'm really proud of the way I handled myself. I didn't look at him, or look jealous, or even acknowledge him, and I danced like I never danced before. (Flashdance?) I feel like I looked pretty bubbly, with my mini skirt, sweatshirt, tie, white tights, and skips, (HAHAHAHA. My TIE??) and with my - ahem - peripheral vision I knew he kept looking over at me. My heart cracked in two and all I wanted to do was sob, but I danced and laughed - Man, it was hard work. I wanted to cry. I HATE MYSELF FOR LOVING SO MUCH.
So I acted "up". I was crazy. I felt insane. I had no control. After cavorting madly to show John I didn't give a f***in' sh** about his buns, I went over to sit down cause it was a slow song, and Patty sat beside me and said, "I'm really sorry. I tried to warn you, but I feel bad for you." I said to her, "What has it been? 3 girls in 2 months?" And she said, "Well, just be glad you weren't one of those girls." I nodded.
So I sat through the slow song, chin in my hands, staring out at the big silver ball twirling above. I felt kind of bad. Kate hugged me. I just sat staring off. Why do I STILL like him, even when he's been a bastard? Probably cause I know that underneath he's really a nice guy. (And here the womanly pattern begins. Falling in love with an asshole's hidden potential.)
August 28, 2003
Cherished Books
Oh, I LOVE this post from Acidman.
I just moved myself, hired a company to do it for me because ... well, because I just have too many damn books to move, and there is nothing heavier than a box of books.
My former apartment was a 5th floor walkup, as well. I had 22 boxes of books to be moved!
The moving guys were great. Filled with good-humor. But they also worked their asses off. When they saw the stack of boxes with "BOOKS" written on the side of each box, they knew it would be a long tough day. One guy, Victor, (who was very amusing, we pulled up in front of my new apartment, and he informed me, rather cheerfully, "I lost my virginity in an apartment right across the street!") - but anyway, Victor kept teasing me, saying, "Go to the LIBRARY. Read a book and then GIVE IT AWAY!"
The other mover, Bill, a big burly redheaded cutie (had a bit of a crush on him, I must admit) - heaved two of the boxes up onto his meaty shoulders, with this beleaguered look on his face, then he turned to me and said flatly, "Just tell me that at least SOME of these books are Stephen King."
Thank goodness I was able to answer in the affirmative. Then followed a very interesting conversation (he standing there, with two huge boxes on his shoulders) about It
Anyway. One of my more constant activities in my life is weeding through the stacks of books I own, and getting rid of non-essentials. You may be surprised at how difficult this is. I have to get into a very cold-hearted mood. Turn a deaf ear to all of the instincts rising up in me, shrieking: "You might read this book someday! So-and-so LOVED this book!"
But there are the tried-and-true favorites, books I will never discard.
I'm one of those people who loves to underline passages that catch my fancy, (not just philosophical passages, but descriptive passages, humorous passages) - so my copy of Catcher in the Rye is literally falling apart at the seams, held together with tape, with little underlines and asterisks in the margins throughout. It's like a code to decipher. These are markings from various times in my life, since I've probably read the book 5 or 6 times, and each time I do, I find something new, another door opens, my understanding is a bit deeper. So I can't get rid of that dog-eared copy! It means the world to me!
Other cherished books:
-- my hard-bound ancient copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
-- my dog-eared taped-together copy of Mating: A Novel
-- my falling-apart copy of Catch-22
-- my taped-together copy of Hopeful Monsters
-- my 4 Nancy Lemann books: The Ritz Of The Bayou - The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana...
-- all my Lucy Maud Montgomery books. I probably have 40 of them. From the entirety of the Anne of Green Gables
-- all my Madeleine L'Engle books. I have every single one the woman ever wrote. From her phenomenal fiction: A Wrinkle in Time
-- my massive Collected Works of Jane Austen - all her novels in one volume. A huge tome. Also kind of falling apart, but beautiful, old-fashioned-looking.
-- my copy of Moby Dick
-- my collected poems of Sylvia Plath
I guess that's what I'm trying to describe here. These books are not just books to me. They have become part of my own biography.
A book that can do that is a great book indeed.
Acidman: I sure hope you get a Norton's Anthology of Poetry again sometime in your life! And a library of your own.
August 26, 2003
Cheaper by the Dozen re-visited
This book-review in the Washington Post has brought joy and nostalgia to my heart. Jonathan Yardley reviews Cheaper by the Dozen
It was also one of my favorite books as a child.
Actually, now that I think about the impact of the book, it wasn't just a favorite. I didn't just "love" the book.
"Rabid obsession" is probably more along the lines of my sentiments towards it.
The book is a memoir, co-written by a brother and sister of the famous Gilbreth family.
One would look long and hard to find two more remarkable people than Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Married in 1904, when he was 36 and she 26, they soon became partners in the management consulting firm Gilbreth Inc. Frank was the pioneer in motion study -- if you work in an office or on an assembly line you almost certainly are the beneficiary of, or slave to, his discoveries -- but his career was cut short by his sudden death in 1924, a month before his 56th birthday. Lillian, undaunted, picked up where he left off. In a man's world, she eventually became even more widely respected and known than her husband had been -- herself a pioneer, in motion study and workplace psychology but also in feminism.To readers all over the world -- readers in English plus 53 other languages, to be precise -- the Gilbreths are known not for their prodigious professional accomplishments but for their even more prodigious parental ones. Between 1905 and 1922 the Gilbreths produced 12 children, a phenomenon that was immortalized by two of them, Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, in "Cheaper by the Dozen."
Fantasies of being part of the Gilbreth family filled my mind when I was young. The oldest Gilbreth children were teenagers during the roaring 20s, and I remember, specifically, the crazy chapters when the oldest girls were trying to go out on dates with slick jazz-era guys ... and Frank Gilbreth was trying to keep everybody from screaming out of control. Guys hiding in the bushes, waiting for the Gilbreth girls to climb out the windows, etc. It all seemed very romantic and hilarious.
The intense humor of the book comes from many sources, but the main thing is how Gilbreth uses his family as a built-in assembly-line for his motion-study experiments.
I remember being 10 years old and laughing hysterically at the image of these children (all redheads, by the way) racing about, washing dishes, throwing linen on the line, cleaning the living room, all as their father stood by with a stopwatch, monitoring the seconds flying by. Then he would make suggestions as to how they could do the same tasks, only in 13 less seconds, if they would cut this extraneous movement out, if they would break up the tasks a bit better ... Meanwhile, though, he is talking to CHILDREN. Little redheaded four year olds, racing around in the experiments.
I must read it again. The book gave me so much joy. Every page a gem. Every story memorable.
The reason it is called "Cheaper by the Dozen" is that Frank Gilbreth soon learned that having 12 children (as opposed to 2 or 3) was the surest way to get free stuff. He would drive up to the movie theatre, in his big honking car, filled with twelve children, and make a big display of taking out his wallet to pay for 13 tickets, when the ticket-taker would say, "Oh, don't worry about it ... just go on in." This happened on ferry rides, amusement park entries, etc. He never had to pay for the 12 redheads tagging along behind him. If you have a family, it is better to go large, because everything is cheaper by the dozen.
The other thing I remember from the book is that dinner time in the Gilbreth family was never a free-for-all. Actually, nothing was a free-for-all! But conversation was managed, everyone had to eat the same way, nobody could interject their own thoughts ... because Mr. Gilbreth would listen for a few seconds and then state, "Not of general interest."
"Not of general interest" was taken on by own family, at dinner times, and is still used in jest.
Like one of us will be ranting about something that means the WORLD to us: co-workers we hate, dramas we are involved in, or one of us will make a blanket meta-statement like: "I hate my life right now." and somebody, invariably will say, "Not of general interest."
It makes me laugh. It's so obnoxious, but still, it makes me laugh.
Great book. A sheer joy. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.
August 22, 2003
Great White fined
So Great White has been fined "$7,000 for failing to ensure that its employees were properly protected from fire hazards, especially from the pyrotechnics that sparked the inferno."
This particular sentence made me RAGE:
"The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Wednesday imposed an $85,200 levy against the owners, brothers Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, for what it called a "willful" violation by installing an exit door that swung the wrong way. "
I had not heard about the exit doors which swung in, as opposed to out.
Maybe I have too much imagination. But I can't stop myself from imagining those poor people. Those trapped people. Running to the exit door, en masse, and pushing against it, expecting it, of course, to swing open, as exit doors SHOULD. But instead, it remained shut, and the crowd, the panicked terrorized crowd, piled up against the door, meaning that, obviously, nobody would ever move back towards the inferno, in order to leave room for the exit door to open, swinging in.
This is just ... it's horrific. I wince, I wince. I can't stop my mind from picturing being there. Being in that nightmare. Jesus Christ. I cannot stop myself from picturing the panic of those poor people.
Seems like $85,200 is a pretty small sum for such an enormous offense.
August 21, 2003
Return of the Redheaded Whirligig
So much going on, so much to comment on. My own personal life has flowered up into importance: vacation, and moving to a new apartment (which went quite well)
Meanwhile:
Well, I don't even know where to begin. The headlines are - terrible. The world is in flames. But we got Chemical Ali. This is good. My radio wakes me up in the morning and to hear the headlines rattled off like that, in between consciousness and unconsciousness, gives off the impression that it is the end of civilization. "Explosion" "20 dead" "13 dead" "human remains" - It's lunacy. I have nothing else to add to the commentary at the moment.
But for now, I am easing my way back into blogging - a rather difficult prospect, I am finding, after so long a break. I was completely out of communication on the Cape, and I absolutely loved it. I had my cell phone on me, but no one called me, and that was heaven. To be left ALONE.
So now. To communicate again.
Here is a bullet-pointed version of my time on the Cape with my family:
-- pretty much wearing my bikini and flip-flops 24/7
-- strolling down to the beach 4 or 5 times a day
-- reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time - fantastic
-- taking showers in the outdoor shower - is there a better sensation??
-- playing Taboo with my siblings on the porch late-night (much laughter)
-- reading Harriet the Spy to Cashel, my dear nephew, my dear platinum-headed nephew, light of my life
-- watching the blackout on TV, having discussions about the power grid with Cashel who kept asking penetrating questions ("But Auntie Sheila, how do they KNOW that it wasn't bad guys who made the lights go out?")
-- becoming absolutely OBSESSED with the jigsaw puzzle we brought up to the beach house ... I'm not normally a puzzle girl, but I kind of lost my mind about it. I actually dreamt about the damn puzzle one night.
-- going for a moonlight swim on our first night up there - an almost-full moon - you could read by the light of it -- swimming in the silver moon-path, the dark ocean all around, the sky crowded with stars. So beautiful that none of us could speak.
-- burgers on the grill, iced coffee
-- Cashel's transformation in terms of going swimming - he is now, officially, a water-baby. So fun to go swimming with him. His laughter is my favorite sound on the planet
-- the biggest choices were: "Hmm. Should I go down to the beach for a second time this morning? Or should I stay at the house and work on the puzzle? Or do I want to drive into town and get ice coffees for everybody, and 3 newspapers so that everybody can work on crossword puzzles?" You know. Those kind of days.
Beautiful.
And then my beautiful mother (happy birthday, Mum!) drove down with me to support me emotionally through my move. She made the experience so much nicer!
I am now living on the cliffs in Weehawken ... surrounded by the controlled chaos of all my boxes ... but it certainly is coming along.
I look around at all my things, at my bed, my ceiling fan, the trees out the window, my desk, my Oriental rug ... and get this overwhelming feeling of well-being. And peace. If you know me at all, then you will know how rare this is. I am, in general, a restless rather edgy being ... prone to melancholia, and 3 a.m. epiphanies (hate those epiphanies - they add up to nothing - and are borne out of panic).
But the walls in my new place are good walls. It is a friendly place. A welcoming space. (Right, Mum?)
I will be happy there.
And what a beautiful gift, too, to walk out my front door, look to my right, off the cliff, and see the span of Manhattan, all in one glimpse. It is rare to get perspective like that in Manhattan, among the concrete canyons ... Coming home to that kind of perspective will be good for me.
I don't have a TV yet, or internet hook-up at home ... Hence, my silence at the computer.
All should be worked out by next week. This is my goal.
I've missed all my new blog friends and have very much enjoyed reading through everybody's posts over the last week ... I will love getting back into the fray. It's been good for me to step off the track for a while, but it's time to get back on.
Yeah, baby ... The redhead is in the house!!
August 16, 2003
Jeez, I leave the city for one week...
and look what happens.
I watched the footage from Cape Cod and felt an odd pull towards Manhattan ... like I wished I was there. Not because I adore gridlocked streets, heat waves and rabid inconvenience - but because New York is my city, my home. What was happening there while I was away??
I return to the city tomorrow. To move to a new apartment.
I am counting the days.
My vacation was awesome. the keyboard i type on at the moment sucks so blogging will convene at some other time
August 7, 2003
Redheaded PSA
Hey, to all my peeps out there.
In the past three days I have become, in the words of my friend Jackie, a "redheaded whirligig".
As most of you know, I am moving. The date has been set for the 18th of August. The movers are booked.
I have subletters living with me at the moment. I am glad to have them, but find it rather disorienting, too. My apt. is completely packed up, so I am definitely not set up for house guests. However, they are independent women, very polite, and are being very good sports about it.
Additionally: I am going to Cape Cod tomorrow, with my family, and we'll be staying up there for a week. I definitely need a break. My heart rate has not slowed down in 4 days. So anyway: I am not going to bring the laptop with me to the Cape, and will allow the Redheaded Ramble to remain dormant for that amount of time. Perhaps that is a risk, but it is a risk I am willing to take. Please forgive me, and please come back to visit me when I return!
I return on the 17th, just in time for the damn movers to arrive on the 18th, and haul my ass (oops, my behind) over to Weehawken.
All should be complete by the 19th.
But DAMN. I'm STRESSED. I need a little sun, a swim in the ocean, some leisure time, driving around with my sisters with the windows down, blasting music. Cannot wait.
I will be back, mind cleared, in my sweet new apartment, ready to blog again on the 19th of August.
Oh, and I finished Atonement last night, and am blown away. I cried for 10 minutes after finishing the book. That's only happened to me two other times before. Even if a book is phenomenal, and moving, and well-done, it is rare that one dissolves me into tears. Prayer for Owen Meany did that. Geek Love did that in spades. I still cannot bring myself to read that book again. Phenomenal story, but ... painful.
Atonement is, far and away, one of the saddest stories I have ever read. Brilliantly written. And until literally the last paragraph, you do not know the end of the story ... and then he wraps it all up in 2 or 3 concise devastating sentences. I am in awe of this man's gift with the English language.
Bon voyage, everyone ...
I shall return, refreshed and even more freckled than usual.
August 6, 2003
Oh, and one last note...
Atonement
The writing continues to amaze.
And yes, I was right to feel uneasy. Something terrible was approaching.
I have no idea what will happen, but oh, I take comfort (weirdly) from the fact that the name of the book is ATONEMENT, and not SHRIEKING REVENGE or HATRED FOREVER or YOU RUINED MY LIFE. Through all the chaos, and pain, with characters lives being ruined, literally, I hold onto the fact, "Okay, hold on, hold on....McEwan called this book Atonement ... Hang on, hang on."
So far, one of the characters already has a lot to atone for, although she does not realize it. Or doesn't want to realize it. The word could be taken many different ways.
The writing is exquisite.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. Page after page after page I turn ... unable to say to myself, "Okay. Here is a good place to stop."
Well...
I actually found a friend who is willing to go sit through Gigli with me.
I want to see for myself the debacle that is this film.
I don't know why, exactly, I feel I have to see it, but reviews like "After seeing this film, I wanted to punch somebody" have peaked my curiosity.
We are going tomorrow night (clearly there won't be a line!), so I will post some kind of riotous review come Friday morning.
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August 5, 2003
And now for something comPLETEly different
I just began Ian McEwan's Atonement
I am eight chapters in, and ... I've never read any McEwan before. The man is masterful. Masterful. Although I can't say why yet. All I know is ... he creates a world. An outer world, yes, England in the mid 1930s, a family house ... but he also creates all these inner worlds, of all the different characters. HOW exactly he does this remains mysterious. The writing is gripping. Gripping.
Over and under everything is this deep sense of unease, or dis-ease, perhaps is the better word. Something terrible is going to happen. I have no idea what.
And if you have read the book, DON'T tell me.
Here is an example. I read the following excerpt and had to put the book down for a minute, just to absorb it. Not just to absorb the extraordinary writing, but also: I sat there in awe at ... HOW he actually attempted (and succeeded) to describe such a moment. Perfect. A perfect moment of writing. I have had such moments, as he describes, in my life (moments of becoming conscious of being conscious) ... and ... when they occur, they always seem WAY beyond words. McEwan proves me wrong.
Each chapter, so far, is from a different point of view. The writing style undergoes a subtle shift with each character-change. The following excerpt is from the eyes of Briony (a scarily vulnerable 13 year old girl, who is obsessed with becoming a writer, and ... well. Something is UP with that girl. There's something not right about her, but McEwan, so far, isn't revealing whatever it is that might be missing in Briony).
Read:
She should have changed her dress this morning. She thought how she should take more care of her appearance, like Lola. It was childish not to. But what an effort it was. The silence hissed in her ears and her vision was faintly distorted -- her hands in her lap appeared unusually large and at the same time remote, as though viewed across an immense distance. She raised one hand and flexed its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own? She bent her finger and straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, that part of her that was really in charge. She brought her forefinger closer to her face and stared at it, urging it to move. It remained still because she was pretending, she was not entirely serious, and because willing it to move, or being about to move it, was not the same as actually moving it. And when she did crook it finally, the action seemed to start in the finger itself, not in some part of her mind. When did it know to move, when did she know to move it? There was no catching herself out. It was either-or. There was no stitching, no seam, and yet she knew that behind the smooth continuous fabric was the real self -- was it her soul? -- which took the decision to cease pretending, and gave the final command.
August 4, 2003
Bombs I have been in
I take delicious pleasure in terrible reviews (as evidenced by this post).
Movies which reach levels of apocalyptic badness, such as Battlefield Earth, Glitter, Swept Away, movies which are universally despised, bring out the best in film critics. Anyone can write "oh, so this was effective in this film", "so and so gave a great performance" - but to articulate why something stinks up the joint, WHY it doesn't work, and to do so with humor and zest, takes true talent.
Speaking of bad reviews, I think it is time to unearth the essay I wrote a while back, about some of my own terrible reviews - in my career as an actress -- and not just awful reviews, but devastatingly TERRIBLE productions I have participated in, productions which continue to blaze in the memories of those who had the bad luck to witness them.
Read, and enjoy.
I pulled out all the stops on this one. I left out the names of those responsible for directing the PIECES OF SH** I was forced to act in. But other than that: it is all true.
Bombs I have been in
I have been in my share of bombs.
Plays which made me question whether or not I was doing the right thing with my life. Plays which being a part of made me hate the whole world. Plays through which I understood, on a deeper and more visceral level, just what the word "embarrassment" really means. My long-time dear friend Jackie has labeled the kind of embarrassment you experience when you are up onstage in a HEINOUS piece of theatre as "white-hot shame". That about sums it up. Embarrassment like that is not an emotion. It is a full-body sensation.
The only thing to do when you are in such a cataclysmic bomb is bond ferociously with your fellow cast members about how terrible the play is (hopefully they feel the same way ... If they do not, if they think the play is good, then you are completely screwed ... you will realize what it means to be truly alone) - and have absolutely rocking cast parties where the bacchanals you create will drown out the memory of the SHITE you have just inflicted on an unsuspecting audience.
Some of the best parties I have ever been to, parties that will live on in infamy, were cast parties for some horrific play I was doing. Being in a BAD play is much more condusive to making life-long friends. Because you must cling to one another in agony and white-hot shame.
Bomb #1
I was in a production of Lysistrata in college. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to see it, 15 years ago, continues to use it as a gauge by which to judge other terrible plays. As in: "I saw a TERRIBLE play the other night. It wasn't as bad as that Lysistrata you were in, but it came close."
First of all, the director thought it would be cool (and please, do not ask me why), to call HIS version of the play "Ly-SIS-trata" ... as opposed to the normal pronunciation, which everybody knows is: "Lysis-TRA-ta."
So we, as cast members, were forced, against our will, to join in on this idiocy. He forced us to be accomplices.
"So what play are you working on now, Sheila?"
"Ly-SIS-trata."
"Uh � I think you mean Lysis-TRA-ta." (with a tone of: Wow. You just mispronounced that word, and you're a theatre major!)
"No, no, I know ... but this director wants to call it Ly-SIS-trata."
"Why?"
"Uh ... well...I think he thinks that maybe the audience will ... uh... he wants to show that the play has relevance in today's....Oh, Jesus Christ, I have no idea."
I had countless conversations like that, and I resented it.
3,000 years of Lysis-TRA-ta needed to be upended. For what purpose? If the play had come off brilliantly, then of course the director would be forgiven everything, because it is all about the result. You can be as pretentious and as pompous as you want, as long as the end-result is something to be proud of. That's the deal with the entertainment business. It attracts massive egos. And that's fine. But if you have a massive ego, then you BETTER deliver the goods. Nothing worse than a grandiose personality, filled with dreams of glory, pumped up with a sense of grandeur and originality, who does crap work.
We, as cast members, were held hostage by our own director. He forced us to do things onstage which we found supremely embarrassing and stupid. At one point, I lost it, and pleaded with him, "Oh, come on, you aren't serious, are you?"
I remember one night, as we all were preparing to enter for the first time, I started crying. I just could not go on. I could not subject myself to that meat-grinder of white-hot shame. I wept to my friend Mitchell, as we stood in the wings, "I just don't want to go out there! I feel sick! I don't want to do it! It's so awful!" Meanwhile, of course, we are in our GOOFBALL Roman-toga-esque costumes, talking to each other seriously, having nervous breakdowns at the same moment. The situation was bleak.
Actor-friends would come to see Ly-SIS-trata and not even hold back their contempt and scorn. Normally, when you are in something that is clearly bad, and other actor-friends come to see it, they usually say one of these comments:
"Congratulations!" (complete avoidance of the awful-ness)
"So how did you feel?" (that is my least favorite one)
"Great energy up there!" (subtext: You put all your energy into that???)
"So what's next for you?" (subtext: You need to move on from this nightmare as quickly as possible.)
All of this is code for: "Wow. That was absolutely god-awful."
Well, actor-friends came to see Ly-SIS-trata and couldn't even hide behind any of those stock phrases, they could not lie. To lie about a play that was that offensively bad goes against the grain of human morality. I would come out afterwards, having changed into civilian clothes, washed off the stage makeup, and one of my friends who had come to see it would immediately exclaim, "Oh my GOD, you were NOT KIDDING when you said this was a piece of shit." Or, literally, blatantly saying, "That was absolutely fucking terrible."
One friend (who is generally always negative, whenever he comes to see anything, good or bad) actually recoiled from my hug. As though my even being associated with such an awful production meant that somehow ... my soul was corrupt, or I was a bad person.
The play wasn't just bad. The play was so bad that it made people angry.
Bomb #2
Another TERRIBLE play I was in (and I've been pretty fortunate ... haven't done too many white-hot-shame plays) was a musical version of Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. I did it in Philadelphia.
I knew from the first rehearsal, when I met the Anglophile playwright, that I was in trouble. The only way to save myself was to treat the entire process as one long extended GOOF, which did not endear me to said playwright, who thought that Three Men in a Boat was on par with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
A couple of very good friends (Mitchell, Jackie, and Steven) drove down for opening night, to participate in my goofing on the production.
There was an opening night gala afterwards, where I could not contain my apathy for the playwright.
She kept trying to take my picture, for her photo album ... I would protest. Openly. "I told you not to take my picture, okay?"
I wanted no evidence that I had ever been involved with this production. But she trapped me a couple of times, taking candid shots of me, her lead actress, swilling back free wine like a lunatic, drowning my sorrows and white-hot shame, whispering with my friends like a conspiring Roman senator. All 4 of us guffawing with irreverent laughter.
My friend Mitchell took one look at the playwright, saw which way the wind was blowing, and murmured to me, "She looks like a retired racehorse." Which was so true, and so spot-on, that the ENTIRE terrible experience was redeemed for me, in that moment. I feel like I did Three Men in a Boat in order for Mitchell to be able to make that frighteningly apt observation.
But the crowning glory was the review. It is, by far, the worst review I have ever received. Actually, I escaped comment. All of the actors did. The full brunt of blame for the debacle was placed on the retired racehorse. As it should have been. I even kept the review. I still have it somewhere.
I don't remember anything but the first sentence:
"Not since the Titanic has there been such a nautical disaster."
See what I mean about a bomb bringing out the best in a reviewer?
Even though there was definitely shame involved in being a part of that "nautical disaster", I also admit that I felt tiny pricks of weird pride at being involved with something so monumentally bad. It wasn't just a bad show, a take-it-or-leave-it show. It wasn't your run-of-the-mill bad show. It was HISTORICALLY bad.
Bomb #3
Another white-hot shame production I was in was a new play, (well, actually: since its inauguration with our production of it, it has never been done again, small wonder, so now it can almost be called an 'old play') called Sitcom. It was a spoof on sit-coms. It was written by a friend of mine, who has written other hit shows, shows which have had long and very successful runs in Chicago.
But Sitcom...Sitcom...
Unfortunately, we all went into it with very high hopes. He had just had a very big success. A very good friend of mine directed it. And the cast was made up of dear friends.
But it didn't work. It didn't work on multiple levels.
It was obvious what he was going for ... It was a diatribe against sit-coms, it added darkness to the typical "Cosby Show" format ...
It had all the right elements. There was a family: a kind of fluttery flaky mother, and a Father-Knows-Best dad.
I played their over-sexed rebellious teenage daughter, like Christina Applegate in "Married with Children". My costume was basically a doily for a skirt, and a string-bikini for a top. I looked ridiculous.
There was a geeky earnest younger brother, played by Mitchell (mentioned above).
There was a younger sister, supposed to be a little girl, a la "Full House" ... Every time the younger sister came on (played by a grown woman, Rachel Hamilton, of Second City, who is, no doubt, one of the funniest women on the face of the planet), there would be a soundcue of the "studio audience" going "Awwwwwww." You know, treacly, sickly-sweet. It could have been funny. In a nauseating way.
There was also a puppet who lived behind the couch, a la "Alf". The actor who had to lie behind the couch, doing the puppet, Rich Hutchens, again, is one of the funniest men I know. I see him in national commercials all the time, and occasionally remember our bleak days of doing Sitcom, when he, a very good actor, had to lie behind the couch, with a PUPPET ON HIS HAND, and talk in a funny little voice.
My very good friend David, who by now is a veteran of Law and Order day-players, and had a very nice scene in the premiere of last season's The Sopranos, played my boyfriend .. whose name was Max or Spike or something like that. He was a bruiser, a "juvenile delinquent". My fluttery square parents were supposed to be very concerned that their sweet young daughter (sashaying around in a see-thru blouse and stilettos) was going out with such a reprobate.
There was also the wacky neighbor.
At some devastating point during the rehearsal process, it dawned on all of us in the cast: Uh-oh. I think we're involved in a stinker here.
Unfortunately, the guy who wrote it (who, again, was a good friend of mine) also played the 1950s era Father, so we couldn't really openly bitch about how bad the play was going to be, why the script didn't work, why the whole thing was shrieking down the highway towards terrible-ness.
David, in a sheer act of actor-desperation, decided that his character (Max or Spike) should actually be more of a heavy-metal type than a Rebel without a cause. He found a long stringy blonde wig (when I say "long", I mean the hair almost reached his butt), he wore a sleeveless denim vest (sleeves ripped off), he drew fake tattoos all over his arms, and he began to behave like an absolute maniac. David's survival technique was to go completely over the top.
We had one scene where we had to be making out like wild animals on the couch, and the PUPPET interrupts us. Rich Hutchens lying behind the couch, puppet on his hand, waiting for his cue. I am laughing right now, remembering all of this. So David, a man I have known since I was 17 years old, is lying back on the couch, I am lying on top of him ... I keep getting the long blonde hairs from his ludicrous wig in my mouth. David would make this crazy grunting sex noises, he became a crazy lustful heavy-metal dude lying beneath me.
Occasionally, as we would be doing this (filled with white-hot shame the entire time, of course), we would make eye contact. Not as the characters. But as Sheila and David. Trapped in this terrible play. Wearing RIDICULOUS costumes. And behaving like morons. I would see such pain and existential panic in his eyes that occasionally I would burst out laughing. Onstage.
The worst moment in Sitcom, though, perhaps the worst moment I have ever had on stage ever, was this:
I was in the middle of a scene with my Father (who, remember, was also the playwright). There was an audience there, an audience sitting in stunned silence. Nobody was laughing. Doing the show felt like doomsday. It wasn't just a bad vibe. There was actually a malevolent atmosphere in the theatre. I have never before done a play where I sensed waves of actual hostility coming up at me from the audience.
And then -- in a completely surreal moment -- an audience member had finally had it. He stood up ... an angry figure out in the darkness, yelled at the stage, "WHO WROTE THIS SHIT?" and then stormed out. (I have never experienced something so odd in my whole entire life. Hearing a voice explode from out the darkness...) But it took him a while to get out of the theatre for a couple of reasons:
First, because he had to get out of his aisle. So as the scene went on (the show must go on), between me and the actual person who had "wrote this shit", we could hear this man saying, not even trying to keep his voice down he was so annoyed, "Excuse me ... excuse me ... excuse me..."
The second reason was that either the front door in the lobby was locked from the inside, or it was stuck, I have no idea ... All I know is is that the man literally could not get out of the theatre. The door would not open. So we began to hear his rage escalate out in the lobby. Poor man. As the scene trudged on, we would hear random explosions out in the lobby: "Jesus CHRIST ... would this door just OPEN?" And: "Goddammit, get me OUT." And finally: "God, would SOMEBODY just get me OUT OF HERE?"
I am not exaggerating.
As I write this, tears of laughter are streaming down my face.
Bomb #4
The final terrible show I must inflict on you all is: the half-hour version of Macbeth I was unlucky enough to get roped into.
At grad school, we had a season of thesis productions. Each one had to be half an hour long. So the actors would have half-hour scenes, whatever the playwrights wrote for their thesis projects had to be half-hour...you get the picture.
Well, there was a director in our program who (for some unknown STUPID reason) wanted to somehow do the entirety of Macbeth in half an hour. Why his thesis project was approved, I have no clue.
I'm still angry that it was.
Angry because I was playing one of the five witches.
("Hold on a second," you might be thinking, "five witches? Aren't there only three witches in Macbeth?")
You may be thinking that but that is only because you are an intelligent person, with a sense of dignity and logic, which clearly was lacking in the mind of the director.
He made there be FIVE witches.
There are too many problems to even discuss ... because it is hard to get past the wrong-headed-ness of the entire idea of the project to begin with.
People were racing around, murdering each other, casting spells, having duels, seeing blood on their hands ... all in half an hour's time.
The man who played Macbeth had an accent. He was from Texas or something like that. So the line: "Have we eaten the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?" consistently came out as: "Have we et the insane RUHT that takes the reason prisoner??" RUHT. And he would emphasize that word. It got worse and worse.
Every time he would say it, every time he was even close to approaching saying it, the five witches (who all had to be onstage at all times, terrible luck, we could never escape to lick our wounds) would put our heads down, as we were casting our spooky spells on the five corners of the stage (not the four corners, the five corners), and shake with laughter.
Finally, the director said tentatively, "Uh ... yeah ... could you please say 'root' and not 'ruht'?"
Macbeth said, "I am saying 'ruht'."
Two or three of the witches burst into inappropriate laughter.
The director, trying to hold us all together, and keep us from spiralling out of control, said, tentatively again: "Actually ... you just did it again. The word is 'root'. With an 'oo' sound. If you say 'ruht', then the meaning of the line is lost."
I held myself back from saying, "If you attempt to do Macbeth in half an hour's time, then the meaning of the ENTIRE PLAY is lost."
Boom boom boom, scenes came fast and furious. Boom: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth conspire. Boom: Murder and carnage. Boom: The witches race into place and cackle gleefully. Boom: Lady Macbeth staggers on, shrieking "Out damn'd spot" ... and then just as quickly staggers off. Boom: There is a very quick sword fight. Who knows why. People just had duels back then, I guess. Boom: Everybody dies. Except for the five witches. Who live on, eternally. Exeunt
The whole thing was ridiculous.
Actors have different ways of surviving terrible shows. The five witches survived this nightmare by literally becoming ONE. We were a five-some. We completely separated ourselves from the poor stars of this stupid production, who still were trying to actually do Macbeth. We realized very early on that Macbeth could not be done properly in half an hour, so we refused to take anything seriously. Anything. Anything.
Nobody had told us what our makeup should be like, as witches, so the five of us designed our own looks. Our makeup and hair got more and more elaborate and out of control with every performance. We had to arrive at the theatre earlier and earlier in order to complete our transformations in time for curtain. Our faces were literally caked with Kabuki-mask makeup. The more grotesque the better.
At one point, Eileen, a beautiful Asian girl, turned from the mirror, to display her horrific makeup job ... red circles around her eyes, red wrinkle lines radiating from her mouth, caved-in cheeks, and said to all of us, brightly, "Do I look really gross?"
We validated her. "Yup. Pretty gross."
My costume, unfortunately, made me look like the chair of a women's studies department at a small college in Vermont. We would all be sitting at our makeup mirrors, and I would suddenly start to pontificate about the evils of the patriarchy, or about holding focus groups to show women their cervixes, and everyone would absolutely die with laughter. I was also in the midst of reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at the time, so there are a couple of pictures of me, backstage, in my "wymyn's studies" Wiccan outfit, twigs sticking out of my hair, big brownish-purple circles around my eyes, seriously reading my book.
Jen, my roommate, with her long mane of curly hair, made her hair bigger and bigger and bigger every night. That became her main goal. To make her hair as large as possible, so that it would completely shield her face. Also, every time she had a line, Jen disguised her voice.
The five witches were so taken up by our stupid costumes and makeup that we would hang out in the backstage hallway before entering, taking pictures of ourselves.
Pictures of all the witches peeking their crazy heads around the corner.
Pictures of all the witches making their way down the stairs, like some demented version of the Von Trapp family singers.
Pictures of the witches lying about in death poses on the floor.
We were collectively late for our entrance one night because we were too busy taking pictures of ourselves. We resented the actual SHOW we were doing, for taking away from our time taking pictures of ourselves in costume.
Each witch had a big gnarled stick. The first witch-scene began with us doing what was supposed to be a Celtic dance, I suppose. Lots of drum-beats, and moving in circles, and banging the sticks on the floor. It was interminably stupid, and horrifically embarrassing to execute.
We had to enter, as one, holding up our sticks in front of our grotesque faces, moving as slowly as glaciers. The effect was supposed to be scary and ominous, I guess, but a couple of nights I heard someone in the audience burst into laughter at the first sight of us.
And occasionally, as we moved on like that, with our sticks, I would hear either Eileen or Jen or Kimberly start to giggle ...and try to choke it down ... but laughter like that catches on like wildfire. Once it begins, it is nearly impossible to stop. So there we all were, supposed to be the scary 5 witches, moving on, holding up our sticks, shaking silently with laughter.
Jen made a big announcement backstage to the rest of the witches, on the night of our dress reherarsal.
"I have decided ... that when we come on with our sticks----" Long pause. We all waited, breathlessly, hoping that she might actually have an IDEA about how we could make it all better. But then she concluded, finishing her thought, "We look like assholes."
No words
This is beyond infuriating. It's an outrage.
Came across the bunch of newspapers and magazines I had saved in the wake of 9/11 during my packing frenzy this weekend. It was odd. Time-travelers. And in one of the magazines there were statements of support, listed, from every leader of the world. Circa late September, 2001.
How soon they forget.
"We stand in solidarity with the people of the US" says Chirac. Says Schroeder.
No no NO YOU DO NOT STAND WITH US. YOU DO NOT. You just stood by us when we were DOWN. The second we got up again, angry, and roaring, the awakened giant, you condemned us. You turned on us. You are not with us. You are not.
But this ... this is despicable.
Moral ROT.
And not only that, but the writing sucks.
I'm too upset to be more articulate.
August 1, 2003
50 Things Every Guy Should Know
By VodkaPundit. Very funny. Very true.
A great companion piece to 50 Words and Phrases Not to Use on a First Date.
Make sure to read the comments on both of these. Some of the items people ADD to these lists are hysterical.