The Sheila Variations

Lindberghs in Flight Again

I will be very interested to see Flight - the new play debuting here in New York in May. It's a new play about Charles and Anne Lindbergh (and my cousin Kerry O'Malley will be playing Anne. Yee-haw, Kerry!) Eric Stoltz will play Lindbergh.

I know nothing about the playwright, so I'm not sure what his "take" on the Lindberghs will be ... or what the focus will be ... but I'm sure interested to see it. I'm a Lindbergh fanatic. (Anne and Charles both.)

I have read Anne Lindbergh's journals - all 5 volumes - probably 3 or 4 times all the way through. I LOVE them. I've read all of Charles' writing as well, not to mention numerous biographies of the dude, including Scott Berg's. All of it is really interesting, and obviously Lindbergh was (and still is) an extremely controversial guy, because of his links with Nazi Germany, and his unwillingness to condemn Adolf Hitler. (That is an ENORMOUS over-simplification of Lindbergh's views during WWII and his vocal involvement with "America First" - forgive me - but that's pretty much it, boiled down.) I don't have the details in front of me, so the facts may be a bit off - but he made numerous trips (with Anne) to Germany, during the years before WWII, and expressed great admiration of the buildup of the Nazi war machine. He made grave and alarmist speeches back in America about how technologically advanced the Germans were, and how we shouldn't alienate them or make them mad. He received some kind of medal of honor from the Nazis ... from Goering, I believe. There's an infamous picture of a beaming Charles Lindbergh accepting the medal. That picture would come back to HAUNT the guy for years and years to come, once the full horrors of the Holocaust became known to the world. Charles Lindbergh's reputation pretty much has not recovered.

Anne Lindbergh, in her journals, showed a bit more ambivalence about all of this - mainly because she really didn't understand a lot of what was going on ... and yet she always stood by her man. When he wrote a speech, however, saying that the British and the Jews were pretty much to blame for WWII - she begged him not to make the speech. He went ahead and made the speech anyway, and pretty much from that moment on, became a hated public figure (as opposed to being idolized like a god in the 20s and early 30s.)

Anne Lindbergh, whose journals are awesome documents (a couple of excerpts here), was a wonderful writer, a shy girl who pretty much had yet to blossom when she met Charles Lindbergh, one of the most famous men (really, he was practically a boy then) in the world. She was suddenly catapulted into the brightest spotlight possible, after living a very sheltered privileged life in the Morrow clan.

The two of them (Charles and Anne) were completely inexperienced when they got married, neither of them had even been on a date, for God's sake. Their only "dates" as a couple, before they got married, were when he would take her up flying. This was their only time to get away, because of his enormous fame and the media pressure. They couldn't even talk while up in the air, because of the roar of the engines, so they would pass notes back and forth. That was the courtship. After a couple of afternoons like that, he asked her to marry him, she said yes, they had a secretive wedding, and then pretty much escaped in disguise for their honeymoon on a small boat. Anne wore a mustache and dark glasses, and a fedora ... etc. Complete media circus.

She reveled in all of this a bit. She was swept away by him. He taught her to fly. They flew "north to the Orient", the experience which made up Anne Lindbergh's first book. (It's not very good. I have a copy because, whatever, I'm OBSESSED, but the story of their "north to the Orient" trip is MUCH better in the journals.)

Anne Lindbergh busted out of her safe little Morrow universe when she married Lindbergh. Anne came from a family of pretty spectacular women, highly accomplished, socially brilliant, etc. Her mother was the president of Smith College. Anne had two sisters, Elizabeth and Constance - both who were considered brilliant, and gorgeous ... the real catches in the family. Anne was shy, bookish, introspective. When Charles Lindbergh met the family in Mexico City (Anne's father was at the US Embassy in Mexico ... I think he might have been the ambassador - not sure) - everyone kind of assumed that Lindbergh would gravitate towards the sparkling, witty and lanky-limbed Elizabeth (who was a success with men. Sadly, she died very young, only a couple of years later.)

But Lindbergh picked out Anne right away. Perhaps he sensed that he could more easily mold her into what he needed. I don't mean this in a hostile way, or in a judgmental way towards Lindbergh. After all, he was a very practical man, and I believe that he knew what he needed. He couldn't have just any old wife, because his life was going to be a different sort of life. He needed a specific KIND of wife. He was a pilot, in the days when it was a deadly profession. Well, I suppose it still is, to some degree - but he faced enormous dangers, every day. He needed someone who would "get" that, be able to handle it. He needed someone who would "get" why he needed to go away for months at a time. He also needed someone who, perhaps, didn't have too much going on herself - and could accompany him on all of his major journeys. Anne Lindbergh, shy, quiet, unsure of herself, fit the bill. (This is totally my interpretation of their romance, by the way - based on all the books I've read. I didn't KNOW either of them, so there are, perhaps, many other interpretations. This is mine.) He lived the life of a world-famous celebrity, with not a lot of freedom (except when he was in the air), no privacy ... He needed a wife who was NOT famous, someone with a good head on her shoulders, who could handle the blitzkrieg, and stand by him.

Even though Lindbergh was so famous and so dang HANDSOME (really, those early pictures of him are ... almost archetypal in their handsomeness) ... he was a very shy boy, with the logical mind of a mechanic, who was completely pussy-whipped (forgive me) by his overbearing mother. He was a mamma's boy, basically. In his own way (even though he led the life of an adventurer, a pioneer) - he was as shy and cowed as Anne Lindbergh was.

Reeve Lindbergh (one of their many children) published a book recently about her parents. Of course I have it. BECAUSE I'M OBSESSED. She said that there was a powerful physical connection between her parents that went beyond love, went beyond anything that she as a child could understand - but she could always feel it. They weren't a couple who talked much, or who sat around having deep intellectual conversations. Anne probably would have wanted more talk (which is why she fell head over heels in girlish love with Antoine de St.-Ex when she met him briefly - something in her missed that cerebral stimulation) - but Charles was not a verbal guy. She had to adjust to that. And she was a ball of emotion, and very unsure of herself. Charles had to adjust to that. He tried to help her in this - he built her a small shed in their backyard, where she could set herself up as a writer, away from their brood of children - he really wanted her to be independent, free. I believe Anne Lindbergh had some depressive issues. Maybe it was just a leftover from the murder of her first born - which would make sense - but she became rather fatalistic and lethargic after that. It hurt Charles to see, and since he wasn't a verbal person, had a hard time handling it.

All of this is just normal relationship give-and-take stuff.

But apparently, going back to what daughter Reeve wrote, Anne and Charles had an intense sexual chemistry that lasted pretty much until Charles died. Basically, they had sex all the time, is what I'm tryin' to say.

The kidnapping and murder of their son was horrific. Their different sensibilities (he - calm and logical, she - emotional, passionate) struggled with how to come together during the crisis. She wrote letter after letter after letter (daily letters) to Charles Lindbergh's mother, during the entire search for the baby. They are very odd letters, and Anne Lindbergh says she doesn't remember writing them, and finds them astonishing and puzzling to read. Like: What on earth was going on with me? Every. Single. Day. She wrote a 4 or 5 page letter to Lindbergh's mother, detailing breaks in the case, the house filled with cops, the newspapers ... Almost no emotional outbursts.

Meanwhile, Lindbergh handled the tragedy in his own way - getting completely involved in the case, obsessing about it, doing his own investigations. There's that famous story of Lindbergh flying over ... I think it was the bay where JFK Jr. went down - anyway, Lindbergh was flying his plane over that bay, with a cop or a detective in the plane with him ... this was while the baby was missing ... and Lindbergh, at the controls of the plane, was staring out the window, down into the water, as he flew over, saying through gritted teeth: "Where. Is. That. Baby. Give. Me. My. Baby...." over and over and over. Like a robot: "Where Is That Baby. Show Me My Baby. Where Is My Baby." Like - if he said it enough times, the baby would be revealed. Tragic.

Anyway, the marriage survived this horror. Somehow. They went on to have 5 children. She eventually published the book for which she will be known forever: Gift from the Sea. It is the book that will never die. It's a classic. It (almost) blotted out the shame of her Wave of the Future book - almost, but not quite. In that book, written in the late 1930s, as the clouds of war darkened over Europe, Anne Lindbergh put forward a very misguided, very naive theory about fascism: that it is the "wave of the future" and we should, to some degree, accept it. It is inevitable, and the Nazis are part of that inevitability, as bad as they are ... Perhaps something beautiful will follow afterwards, but it is the "wave of the future" and we should accept it.

Now. All hell pretty much broke loose when this book was published. The critics crucified her. Her family almost broke ties with her. She had NO IDEA the shit-storm that would hit when her pacifist message went out. She pleaded innocence, and she CONTINUED to say that her message was misunderstood - she didn't mean lay down and die ... I've read the book (why? BECAUSE I'M OBSESSED) - and it is very muddy thinking, and you can sense that she really doesn't know what she's talking about.

As you can probably tell, I love the woman, so I wince when I read it, thinking, "Anne, sweetheart, you're out of your depth. Come on now. Write about your emotions, and I want to listen ... but you have no idea what you're doing here ... Stop. Just stop." She is wading into waters she has no business wading into. It was her mis-guided way of defending her husband, who was being criticized left and right for his open and vocal resistance to our entry into WWII. Wave of the Future was a disaster. It caused a rift between Anne and her patriotic US Embassy American family. She had thrown in her lot with her husband, for good or ill.

It turned out to be for ill. Lindbergh quickly became the most hated man in America, and Anne Lindbergh found herself scorned and shunned as well.

Anne Lindbergh saw the error of her mindset, once the full truth about Nazi horror was revealed. She wrote a foreword to her last volume of journals, which document the years of WWII, admitting this: We were naive, we stepped into areas we shouldn't have, we didn't have all the facts, and we over-stepped our bounds as public people.

Selfishly, I am glad that the shame of her book (really, it was more of a pamphlet) Wave of the Future did not last forever, and the memory of it died ... because if it had lived on, following her around like a shadow, then she might not have written Gift from the Sea, one of those enduring classics. Anne Lindbergh, an awkward undeveloped girl, grew up in the public eye - the unrelenting public eye. I suppose we could say the same thing about Charles, who was little more than a grown-up KID when he flew across the Atlantic and became world-famous. Neither of them were seasoned human beings. She was pretty much an un-formed amoeba when she met and married Charles Lindbergh (you think I'm exaggerating? Read the first volume of her journals and see if you can sense ANY maturity whatsoever. It would be like if my junior-high-school Diary Friday self suddenly married, oh, Russell Crowe - or someone equally as famous - AT THAT VERY TIME in my life ... uh ... what??), and so all of her mistakes (and some of them were quite big) were splashed about on the front pages of the newspapers. All of her disappointments, too, her griefs, her sorrows. It was relentless. She had quite an awkward time of it.

Anyway. That's my rambling essay on the Lindberghs, one of my longest enduring obsessions. Which I will now post without proofreading. I wrote all of that in one shot. I'm insane.

May 2005. The off-Broadway debut of Flight. Starring Eric Stoltz and my cousin Kerry. I may have to snag Kerry to go out for a beer with me prior to then, so I can hear about this script, get all the DEETS. Can't WAIT. ALREADY.

The Sphinx at Monticello

I want to thank the kind and generous reader (you know who you are!) who sent me Joseph Ellis' book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. I read and enjoyed Ellis' Founding Brothers very much (and to anyone who wants a jumpstart on all this American Revolution stuff - that book is a terrific place to start) - and I'm very excited to launch into this new work on Thomas Jefferson.

I'm a John Adams fan myself, but I think that's just because my sensibility, to some degree, corresponds with Adams'. Overly sensitive, a bit tetchy, passionate, humorous, prone to self-dramatizing ... I grew up in a family that was all about "the Adams family". I think it was my dad's mother, (my grandmother), who said, "My husband is cheating on me..... With Abigail Adams." Maybe it's the Boston connection. I've got family in Quincy, in Boston, all over. The American Revolution was one of the bed-time stories we were told as kids. Because we lived so close to where it all began.

Thomas Jefferson, though ... a sphinx indeed. I've read I don't know how many biographies about this man, and there is still something un-reachable, in the heart of this man. This isn't a criticism. This is why he fascinates. He is a mass of contradictions. He wasn't overly introspective in his correspondence, so we aren't really sure his innermost thoughts, feelings - in the way we are with John Adams, who poured his heart out to Abigail in letter after letter. I've read the correspondence between Jefferson, John Adams, and Abigail Adams (which ... really ... if you haven't read it ... YOU MUST!!), I've read as much of Jefferson's actual writings that I can get my hands on - because, when you get right down to it, nobody could touch that man when it came to having a gift with the written word. He is IT in that regard. His writing takes my breath away.

Read The Declaration of Independence (even though it was edited by the Continental Congress - much to Jefferson's chagrin: He sat there in agony, as they "hacked" away at his prose - while Ben Franklin murmured comforting nothings in Jefferson's ear, basically talking Jefferson down off the ledge. The edits suggested by Congress, in general, make the document better - although Jefferson wouldn't admit that, probably. For example, in the striking first sentence - Jefferson's first draft had: "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable." It is thought that Franklin suggested it be changed to "self-evident". Maybe it's just me but that is one HELL of an excellent change. Self-evident as opposed to sacred and undeniable? Self-evident. It's angrier than "sacred and undeniable", it's a bit contemptuous, too. Now that would REALLY stick it to King George. WE hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT. Why don't you, you moron?? A brilliant change. Much more powerful, I think.

But the bulk of the document is his and his alone. Not the thoughts and theories perhaps - he borrowed heavily from Locke and others, in terms of philosophy - but the prose is all him. In the prose you can feel the personality of this man.

A revolutionary. With a veneer of gentility. Or perhaps he was truly genteel, with a veneer of revolution. It depends on how you look at it. The prism refracts. He hated authority. He despised government. He despised power. And yet, he used it cunningly. He was a master at this new breed of American party politics, and factions. He helped to create it. More than anything, he seems to have been a master of disguise. He cloaked his own ambitions, he retreated to the hilltop at Monticello, behind the post of: he was just a simple farmer, he was an inventor, he had a library, and plants to tend to ... And yet ... this man obviously had enormous political ambition. Enormous.

Rather than feeling frustrated with him because he WON'T MAKE HIMSELF CLEAR TO US, the later generations - or rather than writing him off BECAUSE he was full of contradictions ("who needs to listen to that guy? Yeah, he wrote the Declaration of Independence, but he had slaves!!!") - I choose to delve into the life and mind of this man. I will never get over my curiosity about him.

There is something in him that will always remain mysterious, I believe. It's sort of like St. Augustine saying, "If you think you understand, it's not God." I don't mean to make too huge a point on this, but I've had arguments with people who think they know who this guy was, based on only ONE side of him.

From the back of my new book:

Ellis unraves the contradictions of Jefferson's character. He gives us the slaveholding libertarian who was capable of decrying ciscegenation while maintaining an intimate relationship with his slave Sally Hemings; the enemy of government power who exercised it audaciously as prsident; the visionary who remained curiously blind to the inconsistencies in his nature.

The more I read, the more I learn, the more it's like peeling an onion. Is there no center?

For myself, I don't believe that there's really an answer here. I think the point is just to continue asking the questions.

I'm excited to read Ellis' work on Jefferson. The title alone speaks volumes.

New Year's Eve approaches

I work a block from Times Square, and you can already see the stacks of sawhorses, piled up on the cross-town avenues, waiting for tomorrow night.

I've only done the let's-watch-the-ball-drop thing once (once was enough!!) - and it was pre-September 11, and even back then, the crowd control was beyond belief. They have it down to a science. We were thousands and thousands of people, jam-packed together, drunk, unruly, thousands and thousands of us ... but they herded us about, keeping us to certain paths, keeping us in control ... Sure, it took us over an hour to walk 10 blocks, but damn, they kept us in order.

I have no desire to be anywhere near the island of Manhattan tomorrow. None. New Year's Eve just isn't my thing, anyway, but New Year's Eve here? Uhm. No. No thank you.

Since September 11, and probably because I work pretty much right beneath where the ball drops, you can feel the energy change on the streets, and palpably, a day or so before the celebration. It's like there's a hunkering-down that happens. You can see it on people's faces, but it's more than that - it's like the air itself hunkers down. There's a certain tension between the molecules. You can't point to where exactly, you don't know what it is ... maybe it's just the piles of sawhorses. Maybe it's the greater number of uniformed cops on the streets ... But you think it might be something more than that.

After all, this is an island of millions of people. Energy is a real thing. It can be measured. So of course, the energy, if you will, of millions of people will have SOME effect on the environment. You can't help but pick up on it, how on earth do you tune out the energy of millions of people? This is why the city can be so draining. It is very very hard to tune out everyone's clanging energy ... and ALSO keep your heart alive, and open. I've seen people get chewed up by this city. In tuning out the masses, they tune out themselves. Millions of people, pushing together on the sidewalks, all feeling, thinking, living, everyone's LIVES coming right at ya ... usually, all of this comes across as just random energy - because it's diffused, everyone seems so diverse, nobody is doing the same thing, thinking the same thing, but with something like New Year's Eve approaching, all of that random-ness gets focused onto one object. You can feel it happen. It's like a scent, or an afterimage. Or maybe like a sonic boom, an echo ... something vibrating on a frequency not heard but felt.

A friend of mine who doesn't live here came down to New York maybe a month or a month and a half after September 11, and she said the feeling of loss and grief was practically like a forcefield around the city. The rest of the country felt the loss, yes, but to be here, day in day out ... she said she didn't really get it until that day. What also made her "get it" was the endless amount of funerals she got stuck behind. At first she thought: "Huh, there are so many funerals today!" And then it hit her ... Holy shit. Yes. There are so many funerals here.

That kind of collective energy - of a city, of millions of people, is real. As tangible as one of the 5 senses. We all saw those towers fall. We all have that collective memory. And at times like this - New Year's Eve, especially - you can FEEL that September day in the air. At least I can. For the most part, you can forget. You don't walk around with September 11th on your shoulders all the time anymore. There are actually days that go by when it doesn't cross your mind. Not TOO many days, mind you! But certainly ... you are able to move on, you are able to do things without having it flicker across your mind's eye like a newsreel. But this is only after YEARS passing.

Maybe that's what I sense in the streets. The hunkered-down faces of passersby, the cops everywhere - on foot, on horseback, in cars, the piles of sawhorses ... you can feel the waiting in the air, you can feel the joyless sense of: "All righty then, let's just get thru this thing", but more than that, you can feel September 11. The afterimage of that day, the way it was in the days immediately following ... the looks of shock, the man in the blue suit you saw staggering to sit down on the curb 2 days after, putting his head in his hands, the lost-looking people holding onto each other ... and then, of course, all that immediacy fades. Life goes on. You see people laughing on the streets again, you hear conversations that don't include the words "towers", and ... at first it seems jarring, or wrong ... like life SHOULDN'T go on. But eventually, you realize: it is RIGHT that it should go on, and that people should sit at outside cafes and have a bottle of wine, smoke cigarettes, and talk and laugh ... It's beautiful, actually. But all it takes is some giant event, some huge gathering of a crowd - like the Republican Convention, for example, or like New Year's Eve ... and it is like no time has passed. We are back there. In September. Back then.

Last year, I worked up until 3 or 4 pm on New Year's Eve itself and the feeling on the streets was almost sickeningly tense. Perhaps those huddled in Times Square, already jazzed up on liquor, in full party mode, whooping it up, wouldn't have felt it. They would have had NO idea what I was sensing, as I skulked to Port Authority the back way, avoiding Times Square like the plague, using the now saw-horsed paths, following the waving hands of the cops ... the cops who were EVERYWHERE ... I came up 8th Avenue, which is bleak and gross even on the BEST of days. But that early afternoon, it was deserted. Maybe a couple of cabs meandering up and down, but the sawhorses lined the avenue, as far as the eye could see ... waiting for the crowds, the crowds who were, at that moment, descending upon the city. I had to get the hell out of town before they arrived. I mean, 8th Avenue was so deserted that I would not have been surprised to see tumbleweed drifting by. It had a creepy air. Like - none of this is real. All of it could be swept away in an instant.

It was an empty city. A waiting city.

That's what I feel in the streets today. Waiting. Waiting for tomorrow night to pass ... hunkering down.

All of this, I would say, is made even more intense and unreal by the disaster in Southeast Asia and India. It's unreal, making preparations for a massive celebration, ringing in the New Year, in the wake of such destruction ... That's also what I thought, when I saw the stacked-up sawhorses.

So.

Let's just do this thing. Let's get this thing over with.

Conversation with my brother yesterday

He called, when he heard about my fainting in front of Port Authority. Here is how it went.

Bren: Sheila! You fainted? What the hell??

Me: I know. I have a black eye. I look like a jackass.

Bren: Are you okay?? Why are you at work?

Me: Oh, I'm fine. Besides fainting and stuff, I just have a cold.

Bren: So ... [he's still concerned, I can tell] what are you going to do tonight?

Me: Oh, you know. Go home, get into my pajamas, and watch a Cary Grant movie.

[Long pause]

Bren: So basically, not change your routine at all.

[Pause, as I consider this.]

Me: Yeah, pretty much.

114,000 dead?

I'm sorry but ... at this point ... I don't even know what that number MEANS. It's unreal. It's so catastrophic. My mind struggles to understand it, to grasp it, to try to see the whole picture of devastation ... 114,000?

God. Awful. Just awful. Those poor fucking people. Jesus.

Gráinne Ni Mhaille - the Pirate Queen

A funny piece in The Guardian about Gráinne Ni Mhaille (one of the myriad ways to say/spell her name - and perhaps the most poetic). Otherwise known as Grace (or Grania) O'Malley, Irish female pirate from the 16th century. I am descended from her, and my sister, Jean Grania, bears her name.

More on Grania ("the Pirate Queen") here.

Thanks, peteb, for the heads up on these links.

CW has more on Grania, plus a ton of other stuff on cool pirates through the ages here, here, and here. There's probably more, but his blog is now moving (at least for me) at the breakneck speed of a sluggish glacier, and I can't seem to get around over there with ease. Lots of cool pirate stuff though, in those links.

RIP Jerry Orbach

Jerry Orbach has died.

He has been an actor for decades and decades, always good, always interesting, always dedicated. I grew up listening to him on the soundtrack for The Fantasticks and also the soundtrack for 42nd Street. You may not know what a great singer he was.

Who can forget his chilling turn as the criminal brother of Martin Landau in Woody Allen's brilliant Crimes and Misdemeanors? Apparently, someone else was supposed to play that part (someone famous, the name escapes me), and this person backed out at the last minute. Woody Allen put in a call to Jerry Orbach, a native New Yorker, just down the block, and Orbach stepped in, with almost zero preparation, and filmed his scenes in that movie on only 3 days notice. If you ever see Crimes and Misdemeanors again, WATCH Jerry Orbach.

And think of the fact that he only had 3 days to create that character.

Then, of course, there is his highly successful stint on Law & Order. Jerry Orbach, to my taste, is a real "actor's actor". A real collaborator, a team player ... I've always loved that guy.

But it's in Crimes and Misdemeanors, I believe, that his true talent is on display. Just WATCH him, in that cheesy brown leather coat, advising Martin Landau, leading him down the path.

He will be HUGELY missed.

Despite my promise to myself

that I would not start The Great Terror right away, to give myself a break from the violence and torture in Rape of Nanking ... I read over 100 pages of it this morning, doped out on Thera Flu, drinking water, sitting next to the blasting radiator in my kitchen. I had a ton of candles lit around the apartment, it was 5 am, I had just slept 9 hours, unheard of for someone like me who only needs 5 hours at the most, and I felt energized, and "purged" (perhaps an unfortunate word choice, in light of the topic of The Great Terror) - and I felt like starting a new book.

Robert Conquest's book The Harvest of Sorrow was one of the most haunting upsetting books I had ever read. And his analysis of Stalin in Stalin: Breaker of Nations is RIVETING. Because at the heart of Stalin, at the darkness at the center, is a mystery. What creates a Stalin? Nobody really knows. Conquest discusses that part of Stalin's staying power had to do with the fact that he avoided clarity. He obscured, he hid his manipulations and maneuverings, he remained separate ... and one of the problems was that many people, even those closest to him, did not believe that his intentions (completely obvious, through his ACTIONS) were real. "He can't REALLY mean what he says ... can he? Moderation HAS to come soon ... doesn't it?" But Stalin's true ambitions and plans were obscured, purposefully. I suppose this is a very extreme example of plausible deniability. Stalin could not be pinned down. And yet his ACTIONS told the whole story. Tragically, many people (in the Soviet Union, and in the rest of the world) did not look at Stalin's actions and see the monster within. They missed the point - that the entire story was right before their very eyes, Stalin was letting the entire world know what he was about - through his ACTIONS. And yet, his thoughts/motivations/ambitions were hidden behind a smokescreen. That was one of the main things I took from Stalin: Breaker of Nations - but now, with The Great Terror, Conquest goes into that mystique, that mystery, on an even deeper level.

The book is terrifying.

I like it, too, because it is unforgiving. The prose is filled with outrage, Conquest is like a dog with a bone ... It's obvious why this book is looked at as so definitive, so IT. I also like it because of the sense of vindication, woven throughout the writing. Conquest had published this book in the 60s. Much of his conclusions were based on speculations. Conquest was crucified and shunned by academia (many of them who refused to believe that Communism could be so evil, could manifest itself in such butchery - many people STILL refuse to believe this to this day - a shocking example of the "la la la la I CAN'T HEAR YOU" mentality). With glasnost, and the opening up of the archives in the late 1980s, early 1990s, Conquest was able to go back and confirm all of his theories. He was right on every score.

Great book. I'm tearing through it.

I have certainly had quite a journey

... since yesterday afternoon.

At around 3 pm, I started feeling really ... funky, shall we say. The throat started itching, and the stomach started fluttering. It took all of 20 minutes for sickness to descend upon me like gangbusters. Once I admitted to myself: "Huh, I think I'm getting sick" - all bets were off. Couldn't fight it. I was sitting at my desk shivering, my teeth chattering, and then I would get waves of heat going over me. Not a good sign.

So I left work, feeling like my legs were not up to the task of getting me to my bus. It was bitter cold, and snowing. I trudged along towards Port Authority, gritting my teeth, bearing it.

And then - as I strolled past the entrance to Port Authority - which is always jam-packed with people - suddenly I was aware of little black dots, swarming around in my peripheral vision. And I got this odd sensation of light headedness, which broke over me in a flash, and before I knew what had happened, I fainted. I've only fainted once before, and the main sensation I got when I fainted that first time (which was on a subway platform) was embarrassment. Like: oh my God, I just fainted ... in front of a crowd ... I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay ...

So if any of my New York readers were standing in the line for taxis outside Port Authority yesterday - and happened to see a woman in a sheepskin coat, a giant white scarf, and a white wool hat with a Boston Red Sox "B" on it, stop in her tracks, and then crumple to the pavement face down ... that was me.

I have a dern black eye from where I landed. grrrrrrr I guess I should be thankful I wasn't wearing my glasses.

Thank goodness for the nice lady-cop who helped me. I woke up and there was a freakin' crowd of people standing over me, looking at me with concern, and also glinting with gleeful curiosity. I felt like crap, and I also felt so embarrassed I wanted to disintegrate into the pavement to escape the shame.

"Miss, you just fainted." said lady-cop, helping me to sit up.

"I'm fine. Really, I'm fine." I insisted ... wondering ... why my right eye hurt ... But no. Really. I'm fine.

I felt nauseous. But the thought of throwing up in front of the uncaring masses was far too daunting - so I held it together. I started to feel weepy, too ... which infuriated me. I held that shite back as well. Lady-cop helped me to my feet, holding onto me. I said to the lingering crowd around me something like, "Please stop staring at me ... " (heh heh) Then kind lady-cop walked me to my bus around the corner, holding onto my arm. She made sure I got where I needed to go.

By the time I got in line for the bus, I was in full-blown flu mode. My eye hurt. I feared getting onto the tiny bus, because I feared nausea would come over me in the Lincoln Tunnel or something, a horror not to be contemplated. I breathed in, breathed out ... I was close enough to home. I kept the image of my warm kitchen forefront in my brain. Every time I remembered: "Uhm ... did I just FAINT IN FRONT OF PORT AUTHORITY??" I would feel a wave of nausea ... so I forced myself not to think about it.

I got on the bus. I sat down. And promptly passed out. I have no memory of the journey back across the river. As far as I was concerned, the bus was in a standstill the entire time. And I woke up far far past my stop. No idea where I was.

grrrrrr again.

Got off the bus, wintry blasts of air, the green spire of the Empire State Building my only guide ... If I kept that thing in view, I could make it back to my apartment. Which is just what I did. Eventually, I figured out where I was and got back to the abode.

Then followed an evening of misery. TMI now coming at ya, but fuck it, it's my blog: It was the kind of evening where you seriously do not know whether to sit on the toilet or kneel beside it. In the middle of all of this, I got my period. I felt like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse were visiting my body. My periods are terrible, and get worse with every passing year. I have to take days off of work, shit like that, it's a total drag ... so I completely fell apart for a good couple of hours. Moaning like a stuck pig, clutching the porcelain.

That wave thankfully subsided. I felt shaky, and every time I looked in the mirror, I saw the purple bruise under my eye, and promptly felt like a lunatic. I kept shivering at the thought of what if I had fainted (ONTO MY FACE) while wearing the glasses. A narrow escape.

I had some Thera Flu. I drank a gallon of water. I went to sleep at 7 pm. And woke up at 5 am. I still have a cold, but the crazy stomach bug has passed. I feel ravaged. I look like hell.

I started laughing, though, over my non-breakfast at 5:30 am, of orange juice and water ... about the fainting. What a spectacle. I wish I had a video of it. It must have looked hysterical.

Tsunami

The death toll keeps rising. The number of dead becomes more and more unreal, and horrible. I have had numerous phone calls from friends, saying, "Dude, didn't you just dream about tidal waves wiping out the planet a couple weeks ago?" Yes, I did. I feel weird about it, to be honest. I know I didn't cause the wave, I mean, of course ... but it still is kind of odd. I have recurring tidal wave dreams, but by 'recurring' I mean - once a decade or so. Every time I have a tidal wave dream, I pay close attention ... and to have written numerous posts, one which was entitled: "The Tidal Wave - Let it come" a mere 2 weeks ago.... it's just a bit creepy.

In all of the news articles I have read, though, the actual size of the wave is not mentioned. They say "massive", etc., and obviously from the damage done it had to be enormous (or at least - very very powerful and fast-moving). Does anyone know how tall this wave actually was?

Also, I know there is a difference, but ... what's the dif. between a tsunami and a tidal wave?

The latest number on Yahoo Headlines is 59,000. Horrible.

A Red Sox Christmas ...

Christmas, 2004. Hanging out with the family, immediate and extended. And what do we discuss? What do we re-live? What is on everyone's minds? Christmas cheer? Reveling in family parties? Presents? Gifts? Santa?

Absolutely not.

It's all about the 2004 World Series. Naturally.

I haven't seen all of my cousins since that momentous life-changing occurrence - and so we all had to re-hash it all out. Some of my first memories involve Fenway Park, and being there with all of my cousins (er ... of course there are about 40 of us. You know. Catholics.) So it was all about:

"Hi, how are you!" Hugs, kisses. "Merry Christmas!" Brief pause. Then - "HOW BOUT THE SOX???" Screams in the kitchen, etc. Stories needed to be told. We've all got one.

"So where were you?" Etc.

Funny - we would all talk for about 2 seconds, calmly, about the specifics of the Series - and then it would hit us all over again, and we would start jumping up and down, high-fiving, whatever.

We still CANNOT BELIEVE IT.

The NESN video "Faith Rewarded", of course, was involved. Siobhan gave copies of it to my brother, my dad, and on Christmas night, we all sat around, full from my mom's amazing turkey and stuffing dinner, and watched the entire season unfold again. It was FABULOUS. It was as though we were seeing it all for the first time. We all erupted into cheers at the same moments, we howled like gladiators when Varitek shoved his mitt in A-Rod's face, we roared with laughter at Mentkievitch's thoughts on being traded (whatever, don't spell-check me on that name) - He described walking into the locker room on the day he was traded to the Sox, and seeing Nomar packing up his bags. Mentkievitch said, in an interview, "I was like ... Please tell me I didn't just get traded for Nomar Garciaparra. I mean ... I think I'm a pretty good player ... but ... I'm not that good." heh heh heh We marveled at Pokey Reese. We cheered Curt Schilling. We marveled, once again, at the bloody sock ... and were in awe of the look on his face. It was obvious he was in agony ... but there was armor over the agony. He needed to get the feckin' job DONE. We laughed at Manny Rivera's goofball 3 Stooges behavior in the outfield - tripping on NOTHING. And then the famous under-handed Foulke throw to first ... We still can't get used to it, we still can't believe it ... We clapped, cheered, whooped, hollered ... NO TIME HAS PASSED. The shock-waves of our triumph have not settled down. It still has reverb.

We saw the Sullivan cousins and the O'Malley cousins (and aunts, and uncles, and significant others, etc.) on Sunday ... and it was pretty much all Sox all the time.

The continuing horror story

I came home today from my holiday to find a Christmas present off my wish list a-waitin' for me.

The Great Terror: A Reassessment - by Robert Conquest.

I've been wanting this book for a long looooong time. My library has not felt complete without it, frankly. And yet - I'm gonna hold off on reading it for a while - too much pain, too much evil, and I need a break after Rape of Nanking. But - as always - I will let you all know when I read it, let you know my thoughts on Conquest's great work. I've read Conquest's biography of Stalin (Stalin: Breaker of Nations), and I also read the book he wrote on the 1930s famine in the Ukraine (called The Harvest of Sorrow) - but this, I believe, is considered to be his master-work. Well, it's a re-assessment of the information he brought forth in the original book (published in the 60s, I think).

From the back cover of this mammoth book:

When it first appeared, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed as the definitive work on Stalin's purges. Edmund Wilson hailed it as 'the only scrupulous, non-partisan, and adequate book on the subject ...' It later received equally high praise in the Soviet Union, where it is now considered the authority on the period. When Conquest wrote the original volume, he relied heavily on unofficial sources, but with the advent of glasnost an avalanche of new material became available. Conquest mined this enormous cache to write a substantially new edition of his classic work, with many of his most disturbing conclusions being verified under the light of fresh evidence.

The "re-assessment" was published in 1990. Incredible.

Very psyched to read it.

I made the mistake...

... of re-reading The Rape of Nanking on the train home today.

Isn't one time reading that book of horrors enough? I mean, I can't get the images out of my mind from the first time reading Iris Chang's book.

It's one of the most depressing brutal awful books I have ever read. Also one of the most important.

The descriptions of some of the rapes are ... I wince, personally, when I read that book. It all goes beyond words. You read, and you feel yourself going cold. You try not to identify, but you cannot help it. You cannot help trying to imagine yourself in that situation, what it would be like, what they went through. But the stories - you just can't believe it, even though you know they happened - the little girls hemorrhaging, and women tied to chairs, their genitals torn apart, the Japanese soldiers cutting open the vaginas of small girls so they could rape them - the horror that the family members went through.

And the men of Nanking went through their own horror as well. Not to mention being murdered, and tortured, and used for bayonet practice, and having to dig their own mass graves, and being buried alive ... they also were forced to watch Japanese soldiers rape their baby daughters, their grandmothers, their wives, whatever ... I mean, the mind just blanks out trying to contemplate it.

The whole thing is just ... beyond words. It leaves me speechless with horror. Man's inhumanity to man. Make that man's GLEEFUL inhumanity to man. The faces of laughing soldiers in the background, the pictures of naked raped women, with a leering soldier grinning at the camera ...

Iris Chang haunts me now. And I guess I felt like - ever since her suicide a month or so ago - that I owed it to her to read her book again. To not close my eyes, turn away. No. She didn't. She was courageous enough to LOOK. To try to LIVE with those images. To tell the story of the people of Nanking. To shine a spotlight on this "forgotten holocaust".

But the book leaves me with this blank awful SPACE in my brain.

The contemplation of evil. Trying to comprehend evil. The book is a catalog of monstrosity. Evil, violence, torture, brutality ...

I was on the train, reading it, reading about John Rabe (the Nazi who really is the hero of the story - they still call him "the Buddha of Nanking" in China for all that he did to stop the raping and killing). Rabe came back to Germany and basically was ostracized and fired and punished because of his role in protecting the Chinese (and going against Germany's ally at the time - Japan). Rabe's diary entries become a litany of poverty, feelings of betrayal, and illness. And apparently, word of Rabe's difficulties reached the people of Nanking, a couple of years after WWII ended - and these people, ravaged as they were by war and death, took up collections of money, and food - and sent them all to John Rabe in Germany. To help him in his time of need. Poverty-struck people from China, all the way across the world, remembering the man who strode through the corpse-strewn streets of Nanking, pulling Japanese soldiers off of crying Chinese girls and women, and dragging the women to safety. The people of Nanking remembered. Sent him bags of rice, as much money as they could send ...

I've read the book before, as I've said. But the horror of the photos and the descriptions of the rapes pretty much blotted out all else, in my time reading it before. This time, though, on the train - what struck me, like an arrow through my heart, was the people of Nanking sending John Rabe bags of rice 10 years after the war ended. I just ...

It's the blinding light of goodness, in the middle of such death ... it kills me. It is like an arrow through the heart. Such goodness, after experiencing what they experienced, is difficult to contemplate, difficult to understand. It cannot be explained. It just IS.

John Rabe died forgotten by the world at large. But not to the people of Nanking. Iris Chang said that people still talk of him in Nanking to this day. People remember. And now, because of Iris Chang's powerful powerful book, he will always be remembered.

But still.

The goodness ... sending him bags of rice ... which pretty much was all that these people had ... Thinking about that is just like an arrow through my heart.

I put my scarf over my eyes, as we sped past New Rochelle, and cried my eyes out until the train pulled into Penn Station.

I don't even know what part of the above tale I was crying about. Guess I was just crying about the whole damn thing, really. A catharsis. Necessary after reading, again, about such horror. I cried, silently, and REALLY HARD, for 35 minutes straight. I suppose I was shedding some tears for poor Iris Chang, too. Poor woman. She must have walked around in psychic agony ... too great to bear.

It's a brutal book. Brutal. I don't think I will subject myself to it again - but I certainly will never forget it.

The streets of New York

It's pouring rain here. I mean - POURING. I was caught out in it, and now the smell of my own scarf (er - the "anaconda") is a bit nauseating. We're talking "wet wool". The new scent brought out by Yankee Candle.

Anyway, it's madness on the streets here right now. Last-minute shopping - last-minute racing about - I'm a part of it. I had two more things I needed to buy at the open-air market. (See what I mean? "OPEN-AIR." Open air + monsoon = soaked anaconda.)

There are so many people out, so many crowds EVERYWHERE - you cannot walk down the sidewalk without starting, stopping, weaving, halting, adjusting your speed, or downright stopping. I went to Penn Station to get my tickets for tomorrow morning and said a little prayer: "Thank GOD I am not traveling tonight." There were so many people in that train station that I almost had an anxiety attack trying to take them all in. Also, add to it the general STRESS of the holidays ... and you get utter shrieking mania.

Randomly, here are some of the people I saw and interacted with over the last couple of manic hours:

-- some guy who sold me a silk and velvet scarf, who was very charming, very gregarious, blah blah ... told me I looked just like his acting teacher who was named "Sheila" - and then said to me, "Do you know who I am?" Like ... I should know who he is. Yawn. I hate that kind of shit, even though I'm an actor, too. I said, "Dude, I've never seen you before in my life." But still. I bartered with him for the gorgeous scarf, he gave me a good price, and for that I am grateful.

-- a group of screaming angry Nation of Islam guys, standing where they always stand, at the corner of 34th and 7th - right opposite Macy's, right by the subway stop. They're totally annoying and offensive, really homophobic, really racist - and they attract huge curious crowds. There's always one pissed-off white person who decides to challenge them (I swear to God - ALWAYS) ... I'm just guessing but I would bet that the white-challenger of the Nation of Islam guys is probably a tourist, because New Yorkers are so used to these bozos we barely see them anymore. I stroll by them on a daily basis. Thinking my own thoughts, on my way somewhere, yadda yadda, while apocalyptic screams of "AND GOD WILL KILL ALL THE HO-MO-SEXUALS ..." ring in my ears. But someone from out of town might be SHOCKED at what these guys are screaming. Even though they're inflammatory and annoying, I find them entertaining in a weird way. There's always one guy screaming, you know - gay people are going to hell, and black people are better than white people, and God will punish the white man, and whatever ... and then there is his "assistant" who stands there with the Bible. The yelling guy will go on and on and on - and then command the assistant: "READ." The assistant reads a Bible verse. When he is done, the yelling guy launches into his next diatribe. You know ... the Bible is only there to back up their own very narrow beliefs. The Nation of Islam guys are everywhere - it's not just one group of people - but it's always the same scenario. My favorite part? The loud command: "READ". I don't know why I find that so entertaining, but I do.

-- a grizzled old black man in a wheelchair, calling out, "UMBRELLAS, UMBRELLAS, 2 dollahs, 3 dollahs ... UMBRELLAS, UMBRELLAS..." It was a manual wheelchair, very rickety, precarious. The rain poured down around him.

-- a laughing couple, both Chinese, RACING across 14th Street, being pounded by the rain, trying to outrun it. I was across the street, but I could hear their guffaws of laughter, their shrieks. But then a cab careened by, sending up a cascade of water which COMPLETELY drenched them ... much worse than the rain ever could ... and then, the two of them started laughing even harder, they were HOWLING. I kind of loved them both a little bit.

-- I saw a very very serious-faced unattractive woman, browsing at one of the stores in the market. She had an enormous mole sticking out of her forehead, and a choppy haircut. The store had a display of hilarious finger puppets/refrigerator magnets. You could buy a finger puppet of VERDI. You could buy a finger puppet of JOHN LOCKE. heh heh heh Anyway, this woman who looked like she had never smiled in her life, frumpy hair, sad serious eyes, downward-turned mouth, had about 6 of these finger puppets in her hand, waiting in line for the register. I glanced at them, dying to see which ones she had chosen. She had finger puppets of:

Zora Neale Hurston
Beethoven
Benjamin Franklin
Virginia Woolf
Dorothy Parker
Albert Einstein

I love that. I just LOVE THAT. A finger puppet of Zora Neale Hurston? You should have seen it too. It was classic.

-- a little boy hiding under the awning from the rain at the open-air market. He was in a massive parka, so that his arms stuck out to his sides, and he couldn't move. (I LOVE THAT.) He was about 3. He had little red circles on both cheeks - a blush from the cold. He looked so delicious. So innocent. I was hiding under the awning across the way. He kept trying to stick his wee hand out from beneath, so he could feel the rain. Only he had a hard time moving his arms in any way, shape, or form, because of the parka. His mother was behind him, doing frenzied last-minute shopping, getting out the credit card, juggling 5 bags, and umbrellas, and a stroller ... but there he was, a gaping cute little face, the rosy dots on the cheeks ... trying to feel the rain with his pudgy little hand

The hodge-podge of New York. The brief glimpses into other worlds. The side by side jostle of humanity. At times it's relentless. Other times it's kind of achingly beautiful, even the ugly parts of it.

I wish all my readers the happiest and warmest of holidays. Best to you all.

I think I'm caught in a Tesla coil myself

Very neat post by CW about Nikola Tesla. I knew pretty much nothing Tesla (before the 7-hour conversation last week, I mean). I vaguely remember the phrase "Tesla coil" from ... er ... some damn class at some point. Anyway, click on that link to read more about this fascinating individual.

I may have to re-think my position on Mimes

No, just kidding. Anyway, here is Cary Grant's description of what he learned touring the English provinces with the tumbling troupe, when he was 13, 14. He learned lessons that he used in his acting - years later, when he was a huge star.

Touring the English provinces with the troupe, I grew to appreciate the fine art of pantomime. No dialogue was used in our act and each day, on a bare stage, we learned not only dancing, tumbling, and stilt-walking under the expert tuition of Bob Pender, but also how to convey a mood or meaning without words. How to establish communication silently with an audience, using the minimum of movement and expression; how best immediately and precisely to effect an emotional response -- a laugh or, sometimes, a tear. The greatest pantomimists of our day have been able to induce both at once. Charles Chaplin, Cantinflas, Marcel Marceau, Jacques Tati, Fernandel, and England's Richard Herne. And in bygone years, Grock, the Lupino family, Bobby Clark, and the unforgettable tramp cyclist Joe Jackson; and currently Danny Kaye, Red Skelton, Sid Caesar, and even Jack Benny with his slow, calculated reactions.

Surprisingly, Hitchcock is one of the most subtle pantomimists of them all.

Beautiful analysis. And that shows up time and time again in Grant's acting, which is why I think it is so good. He conveys emotions, effortlessly, with no words. He constantly cut lines out of his scripts, so that he would have less and less to say, knowing that it was all about the eyes, the face. Beautiful.

Cary Grant - on going to the Bristol Hippodrome

Cary Grant describes being a little kid (named Archie Leach) and having his chemistry teacher (a sort of mentor to him) take him to see the acts at the Bristol Hippodrome. This was a revelation to the young Archie Leach. He lived a poverty-struck narrow life, in the slums of Bristol. But when he went "backstage" - he saw another world entirely - a world where class distinctions blurred (something very attractive to him until the end of his life):

The Saturday matinee was in full swing when I arrived backstage; and there I suddenly found my inarticulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor? They happily traveled and toured. They were classless, cheerful, and carefree. They gaily laughed, lived, and loved.

Cary Grant - on being "allowed" to be left-handed

Cary Grant:

One of my favorite books is A Social History of Left-Handers, written by a technician with the BBC. This technician was editing the recorded speeches of King George VI, erasing the King's stammer. he knew that many people stammer because they're frustrated, but wondered what could possibly frustrate a king. He did some research and found out. It seems George had been naturally left-handed but was forced as a child to use his right hand. I realized when I read the book how very lucky I was that my teachers in Bristol didn't have the same intolerance. If I'd grown up with a stammer, it might have proved something of a hindrance to my film career.

Uh - yeah, Cary. "Something of a hindrance" indeed!

If you notice, though - in every one of his films (except for Indiscreet) he plays a right-hander. I notice that stuff, but that is only because I am legitimately insane. In films, he writes, opens doors, whatever - with the right hand. (Notice, though, at the dinner scene in Bringing Up Baby - he holds the knife and fork like a leftie would - not a rightie. WHY DO I NOTICE THIS STUFF???) But in Indiscreet, it is written into the script that he is a leftie. He loved, in that picture, being able to just relax, and write with his left-hand, and do things the way he normally would.

Dumb Sheila science question

Now sadly - I feel like I need to DRAW my question, it requires visual aids - so be patient as I try to explain what I am asking. Well, it's multiple questions:

1. Do orbits only go one way? As in - Clockwise or counter-clockwise?

2. Okay, here's the dumber part: Is the orbit around our planet (or any planet, I suppose) limited to one ... section? Er - here is where I need to draw out what I'm asking on a bar napkin. Do satellites ONLY circle the earth on one longitude? (I think that's the correct term. Longitude goes east-west, right?) Does our orbit correspond to the coordinates of, for example, the Equator? Is our orbit something like the rings around Saturn, is basically the question - Or - is the orbit a general FIELD surrounding the earth, going every which way? (I am sounding like a jackass.)

3. Okay, so you know how Saturn has rings? Please explain to me - if possible - why the rings automatically (or gradually, whatever) settled where they did - does it have to do with gravity?

4. And lastly - this is probably VERY stupid - but about Saturn's rings: Would it be scientifically impossible for the rings to have formed on the opposite axis from where they are now? Like - if Saturn were the earth, then the rings appear to be circling at the Equator line. But would it be scientifically impossible for the rings to have formed, say, going from North Pole to South Pole?

The tidal wave - let it come

I dreamt about tidal waves overtaking the planet a couple weeks ago. While I have a great fear of a wall of water that big - the dream itself was quite exhilarating. The world seemed to be saying, as one, "Welcome!" to the tidal waves. There were even postcards made up - saying, "Greetings, tidal wave."

The night before I had the Angel Cards moment - where I chose Harmony and Patience.

A strange conjunction (but only when I realized it later): picking the 2 Angel Cards "Harmony" & "Patience" - followed by a dream of a tidal wave takeover. And the message of the dream was: let it come, let it come. WELCOME it.

Since I came back from Ireland, I have been non-stop busy. To the point where I am run ragged, and feel a bit frazzled at all times. I have a hard time sleeping. I cry randomly. It's good to be busy - but I'm a girl who needs a lot of solitude in order to maintain equilibrium, and since Ireland, I have had none. I'm not complaining. Really. There are many quiet months, where all I've GOT is solitude ... and then I yearn to have a more active busy life.

But I'm on the verge of tears today. Or tearing my hair out. Or something. Maybe punching a wall? Something like that. Breathe. Breathe.

Over the past couple of weeks I feel like I have experienced emotions on an intenser frequency than normal. (How on earth is that possible, some of you may be thinking ... You. Have. No. Idea.) If I'm happy (and God, I have been happy!) I just sit in a chair in my kitchen, grinning like an idiot, re-living the events that are so exciting, that make me so happy. My happiness has kept me from sleeping, believe it or not. (Lucky Sheila. I kind of can't remember the last time I said that!) If I'm frustrated, I feel like I could throw a computer monitor out the window. If I'm sad, then I'm Alice in Wonderland, crying a river of tears. It's been all of that, and more.

My time with my childhood friends was intensely pleasurable.

My withdrawal from Ireland was intensely sad - and for a good 2 or 3 days, it felt like my life here, my "real" life, paled in comparison. Nothing made sense anymore. (That phase passed - it was just jet-lag).

I am intensely manic and frustrated today and feel like I will never experience relaxation or peace of mind again.

I've got emails piled up I need to answer. I have last-minute stuff to do to get ready for the holiday. There are certain things I am now waiting for. Things that are ON THEIR WAY ... but they just haven't arrived yet. Just a natural part of life. But ... I am waiting with such impatience, such frustration ... it feels like nothing is moving, that nothing is happening, and that nothing ever will happen. And then the next second, I am laughing out loud at my desk because of something Emily said.

I feel completely out of control, frankly. And if you knew me, you'd know that I am rarely out of control. And right now, you'd never know how out of control I feel from looking at me. I look quite normal. But my mind! My thoughts! My dreams and hopes and wishes and longings and disappointments are all at the foreground right now - demanding my attention. I haven't had this ALIVE a time in many many years, I'd say.

I guess I'm unused to it, that's all. And that's why I feel a little bit weepy right now.

It FEELS out of control - only because I think I'm letting in the fullness of life, in all its complexity, joy, madness. I have no idea what each day will be like. I have no idea what adventures or disappointments will come from day to day. And so I'm on the edge. It is the FULLNESS that is so startling, and that makes me want to cry. Makes me not know what to do.

Last night, I got together with Jen, dear dear old friend. I told her all about ALL of this. The tidal wave dream, picking the Angel Cards Harmony & Patience, my struggles, my excitement ... She's going through a ton of stuff, too. We haven't seen each other in 3 weeks, and it feels like EVERYTHING has changed in our lives since then! And so, naturally, we decided to pick Angel Cards. Uh-oh. hahaha

So I reached out, picked a card, looked at the word, and laughed out loud.

It said: SURRENDER

We both started laughing. Because I had been talking to her so much about feeling out of control - but at the same time reminding myself of the tidal wave dream, which has definitely guided me through these turbulent last couple of weeks. I would say to myself, "Sweetheart, calm down. This is the tidal wave. Just let go. Tidal waves aren't nice or pretty or neat ... just let it come ... let it come ..." Basically coaching myself through my own stuff.

So then there was the SURRENDER confirmation ... Just SURRENDER, Sheila.

It's hard for me to do so. I want to know how it is going to turn out on the other end. I have no trust or patience.

Funny, too - because those of you who read the Angel Cards post - will remember that "Surrender" was the one I whipped across the room in a rage 5 or 6 years ago. Picking SURRENDER back then was like a slap in the face.

But picking SURRENDER last night was perfect.

Of course. Of course that is what I would pick.

I told my good friend David (who guest-blogged here for a while) about the tidal wave dream - and he took the analogy and RAN with it. He sent me the most phenomenal email - which I would love to post here, if he would give me permission. He took the image of the world WELCOMING the tidal wave (as opposed to cowering in fear) - and followed it through to its logical conclusions. Incredible stuff. He saw things in the dream I sure as hell didn't see, and he helped me to see things in a clearer way.

He said at one point, "You know, some people only need a flooded basement before they change their lives. But some people need a fucking tidal wave. I need a fucking tidal wave, and so do you, Sheila."

There is an unmistakable sense (almost a SCENT, really) of enormous impending change. A sense of shift, of transformation ... something BIG coming. Am I ready for it? Am I ready to give up whatever it is I'm holding onto, to surrender my quiet safe narrow existence?

I can FEEL this change coming. It's like when the wind shifts, and all the leaves on the trees turn inside out. Unseen cues, unseen shifts in electrical currents, whatever. I can smell it. Like ozone. I think that's why there's a bit of panic. The old-habit side of me wants to batton down the hatches, hide from the wave, protect what I can, stay still ... and wait for it to pass. But the new side of me wants to surrender to it, knows that I must surrender, as terrifying as that wall of water may be.

I have no choice now.

David's right. Some people only need a leaky ceiling or a flooded basement before they realize: Huh, time to make some changes.

Others need a tidal wave. I've always been a tidal wave kind of girl. Always. But this one feels particularly momentous.

Again - I have to remember that the dream was a GOOD dream. Not an apocalyptic dream, or a nightmare. It was somehow cathartic, and beautiful. The waves sweeping across the land, the land opening its arms to welcome it. It was indeed a good dream.

Who knows - the tidal wave may not have even hit yet, and this that I'm going through now - is just the beginning of it.

It's a whole new world. A world welcoming the surge, not hiding from it. And in this new world, I literally don't know what to do with myself yet.

Just because I'm in a bitchy mood

I am going to pull all of the Jewel-esque poems written in the comments sections below and post them here. (If you have no idea what I am up to here, and missed yesterday's madness, scroll down and all will become clear.) These poems need to be shared, out in the open.

The authoresses of these bitchy parodies? Emily. Alex. And myself.

Feel free to add more. As a matter of fact, PLEASE add more.

Here's one by Alex:

Alone
is a reminder
of how far
your acceptance is from
understanding
exactly how
alone you really are.
Therefore,if you are
Alone
then you cannot
understand
nor accept
your own alone-ness.
Thus
you are reminded
constantly
that you are
Alone.
You alone ass-wipe, loser, muther f*cker you

One by Emily

I have brown hair
I like pie
and grilled cheese sandwiches
with ham
but I don't like to eat
with
dirty
hands

(I have to admit, that one made me laugh out loud.)

Here's another one, by Emily

I am tough
and have street credibility
because I
lived in my car
Sure it was at my mom's house and I had amenities and I was really only doing it because I was at that stupid age where I thought doing stuff like that was cool
but I still know mean streets
when I see them
from
my
limo

And here's my contribution

I
I have freckles
I have grey eyes
But they are blind.
Nearly.
I'm not pretty
And my nose is goofy in profile
But I love the Wonder Twins
Form of ...
An ice-bitch.
I have terrible eyesight
I love to kiss
My room is a cave
The light hurts my terrible blind eyes
But I still have freckles
I still have grey eyes
And I'm a pretentious twat with dirty hands

You knew it was coming, didn't you?

For those of you who missed the Freebies post (190 comments and counting!!) - I will just say that it began with a discussion of "freebies" and ended in a diatribe against Jewel.

That is why I am posting her poetry.

Because I hate Jewel so much. I gleefully hate Jewel.

Jewel makes me feel duh-duh-dumb

Like ... what ... does this mean?

Alone
is a reminder
of how far
your acceptance
is from
understanding

I'm really asking. What the HELL is she talking about?

Oooh, Jewel is SO DEEP

Read the following poem and just TELL ME HOW DEEP SHE IS:

There is a pretty girl
on the
Face
of the magazine
And
all I see
is my dirty
hands
turning the page

Unbelievable imagery. Truly, my entire mind has opened up. Oh my God, the models are beautiful. My hands are dirty. I am SO DEEP for noticing this!

Poetry by Jewel

Note from Sheila: I can barely post this without screaming obscenities at my monitor.

Note to Emily: It is your fault that I feel nauseous right now. Onward with the bad poetry by Jewel-bitch:

ME
I
I have blonde hair
I pluck my eyebrows
I have my father's nose,
my mother's hands
I have crooked teeth
and green eyes
I play guitar
I used to get sick alot
I like the color of wine
I've cheated on boyfriends
I've owned fake ID
But my hair is still blonde
and my teeth are still crooked
and I probably won't always like
the color of wine

And that's just the FIRST stanza. The rest is equally as nauseating. "My hair is still blonde". Whaddya want, bitch, a medal? Also, is it so ODD THAT YOU WOULD HAVE A FAKE ID??? Why does that make you special? Also "I have veins that bleed". Well, Jesus, honey, I hope so. WE ALL DO.

On a more serious note: her "poetry" makes me angry.

Freebies

Please, everyone, join in.

Who is on your "freebie" list?

If you don't know what that means, then there really is no hope for you.

My freebie list - so far. I'm sure I'll think of more.

Ewan McGregor

David O'Hara

PJ O'Rourke

Joan Jett

Dave Grohl

Russell Crowe

Jeff Bridges

Three Things

What the hell, I'll play along. I read this "Three Things" thing over at Tommy's (it's very interesting ... Tommy, I love that you wrote: "ponytails through the back of a baseball cap? drives me nuts"!)

Anyway, here goes.

Three Names You Go By:
1. Sheila
2. Shee-wee (that's pretty much reserved for my friend Jackie)
3. Sheil

Three Things You Like About Yourself:
1. My skin. Wouldn't change a thing.
2. My voracious insane brain.
3. My sense of humor

Three Things You Hate/Dislike About Yourself:
1. Well, I don't "hate" this, but I'm not wacky about my nose. It looks fine from straight-on, but in profile it's goofy.
2. My depressions. Haven't had one in a couple years, knock wood. But I don't like them. They last too long.
3. My insecurity when cooking in front of other people. I know that's very specific, but ... I am only relaxed cooking when I'm by myself. I get very nervous and insecure when cooking FOR others, or when a group of people are preparing a meal and I'm part of the preparation. I would love to get rid of this insecurity specifically.

Three Parts of Your Heritage:
1. Irish
2. Rhode Island
3. The heritage of actors

Three Things That Scare You:
1. Ehm ... "s"s. Can't even say the word.
2. Being murdered in my own apartment
3. The vastness of outer space (however, my fear of it is closely connected to my fascination with it)

Three of Your Everyday Essentials
1. Coffee
2. Writing
3. Looking to the right when I exit my apartment - to check out the New York skyline

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. Jeans
2. Fleece sweatshirt (Mere - fleece!)
3. Claddagh ring

Three of Your Favorite Bands/Artists (at the moment):
1. Green Day
2. Evanescence
3. Eminem

Three of Your Favorite Songs at Present:
1. "Holiday", by Green Day
2. "Rock Me", by Liz Phair (love it! "You think I'm a genius, think I'm cool - I'm starting to think that young guys rule!"
3. "14th Street", by Rufus Wainwright

Three New Things You Want to Try in the Next 12 Months:
1. Pilates at the gym
2. I'd like to go to Croatia
3. Philip Roth

Three Things You Want in a Relationship (love is a given):
1. Laughter
2. Shared curiosity about things (very important)
3. I DON'T want a lot of "talk". I know communication is important and stuff, but I see other couples talk shit to DEATH. "When you did that, it made me feel like ..." "See, when I said that one thing, I was unaware of your issues ..." I'd rather be in a relationship where there is a lot of DOING. More DOING than talking. I'm not just talking about sex, although good Lord, sex certainly is included.

Two Truths and a Lie:
1. I got an F one quarter in Introduction to Physical Sciences in high school. I just couldn't understand the topic. The teacher was nuts and wore ties wider than his own head. He had a nervous breakdown the year after I was in his class, and had to leave his job. He used to show up at basketball games (after losing his job) and sit by himself and SCREAM for our team as though he were in the front row watching the New York Knicks. I was only 15, and he had failed me so I naturally hated him, but still - I felt very very sorry for him.

2. I have two tattoes.

3. I have never read an Agatha Christie book.

Three Physical Things About the Opposite Sex (or same) That Appeal to You:
1. Hands.
2. Smile.
3. Height.

Three Things You Just Can’t Do:
1. Build anything electronic in nature
2. I can't get used to the "new" New York skyline
3. I can't get into Bob Marley.

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies:
1. Sitting around and compiling facts from books/newspapers for my extensive "country" catalog. I have hundreds and hundreds of index cards on file, for every country on the planet. This activity is highly meditative for me, as odd as it may sound. Some people do yoga. I compile facts on Albania.
2. Watching old movies
3. Blogging

Three Things You Want to do Really Badly Right Now:
1. Get out of the city. Walk on the beach.
2. Wrap presents
3. See my friend Jen. We're getting together tonight - but it's been so long since I've seen her I already can't wait.

Three Places You Want to Go on Vacation:
1. Croatia
2. Uzbekistan
3. I have to go to Iran someday. I must.

Three Kids Names - I am assuming this means - what I would like to name my kids? No idea. I'll assume that that's what it means.

1. I like the name Moira for a girl
2. I like the name Declan for a boy.
3. Uhm - I also like the name Zachary.

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
1. Have a kid
2. Publish a book
3. Meet Gena Rowlands

More Lumet Appreciation: On working with Quincy Jones

I am in love with pretty much every single person in this anecdote.

Sidney Lumet:

The Pawnbroker had as complex a score as I've ever worked on.

In the opening sequence, Sol Nazerman, a Jewish refugee from Germany, is sitting in a suburban backyard, soaking up the sun. His sister asks for a loan so she and her family can take a vacation in Europe that summer. To Nazerman, everything about Europe is a cesspool. He says, "Europe! It's rather like a stink, as I remember."

The next sequence shows him driving into New York City, to his pawnshop in Harlem.

Those two scenes set up the conception of the score. Earlier, I had said that The Pawnbroker was about how and why we establish our own prisons. At the beginning of the movie, Nazerman is encased in his own coldness. He has tried desperately to feel no emotion, and he has succeeded. The story of the movie is how his life in Harlem breaks down the wall of ice with which he has surrounded himself.

The concept of the score was "Harlem triumphant!" -- that the life, pain, and energy of his life there forced him to feel again.

I decided I wanted two musical themes: one representing Europe, the other Harlem. The European theme was to be classical in its nature, precise but rather soft, a feeling of something old. The Harlem theme, by contrast, would be percussive, with lots of brass, wild in feeling -- containing the most modern jazz sound that could be created.

I started looking for a composer. I first approached John Cage. He had a record out at the time called Third Stream, classical music handled with jazz instrumentation and rhythms. He wasn't interested in doing a movie score. Then I met with Gil Evans, the great modern jazz composer and arranger, but found it tough to get through. Next, I approached John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, but I felt he didn't really like the movie when I showed it to him.

Then someone suggested Quincy Jones. I knew some of his jazz work from records he'd made on a big-band tour of Norway. We met. It was love at first sight. His intelligence and enthusiasm were inspiring. I found out that he'd studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, which meant that his classical background was firm. He gave me other records of his, many on obscure labels. He'd never done a movie score, but that made him even more interesting to me. Very often, because of the nature of the work, composers develop their own set of musical cliches when they've done too many pictures. I thought his lack of movie experience would be a plus.

I showed him the movie. He loved it. We went to work.

Talking about music is like talking about colors: the same color can mean different things to different people.

But Quincy and I found that we were literally talking the same language in music. We laid out a musical plot that was almost mathematical in its precision ... we moved in steps from the European theme to the final total dominance of the Harlem theme. At midpoint in the picture, they were equally balanced.

It was a magnificent score, and the recording sessions were the most exciting I've ever been to. Because it was Quincy's first movie score, the band that turned out for him rivaled Esquire's All-Star Jazz Band. Dizzy Gillesbie, John Faddis (a mere child at the time) on trumpet, Elvin Jones on drums, Jerome Richardson on lead sax, George Duvivier on bass ... the names kept pouring into the recording studio. Dizzy had just come back from Brazil, and for one music cue he suggested a rhythm that none of us, including Quincy, had ever heard before. He had to sing it with clucks, gurgles, and glottal stops until the rhythm sections could learn it. Quincy looked as happy as any man I'd ever seen.

Usually, when we finish recording a music cue, we stop and play it back against the picture. But the level of inspired playing from this band was so high that I told Quincy not to interrupt it. We'd play it back at the end of the day. Nobody even asked for the obligatory 10-minute break every hour. We played right through.

At the end of five three-hour sessions spread over two days, we played it against the picture. It was immediately apparent: Quincy had made a major contribution to the movie.

More Lumet Appreciation: On the importance of the score

Sidney Lumet:

The only movie score I've heard that can stand on its own as a piece of music is Prokofiev's "Battle on the Ice" from Alexander Nevsky. I'm told that Eisenstein and Prokofiev talked about it well before shooting began and that some of the composing was started before shooting. Supposedly, Eisenstein even edited some of the sequence to accommodate the score. I have no idea whether these stories are true. Even when I hear the music on a record today, I start remembering the sequence visually. The two, music and picture, are indelibly linked: a great sequence, a great score.

More Lumet Appreciation: On Al Pacino in "Dog Day Afternoon"

A great story about a great moment in a great movie. Whatever. Read on, Macduff.

Sidney Lumet:

One of the most difficult acting scenes I've ever encountered was on Dog Day Afternoon.

About two-thirds of the way through the movie, Pacino makes two phone calls: one to his "wife" and lover, who's at a barbershop across the street, and the second to his "real" wife, in her home.

I knew Al would build up the fullets head of steam if we could do it in one take. The scene took place at night. The character had been in the bank for 12 hours. He had to seem spent, exhausted. When we're that tired, emotions flow more easily. And that's what I wanted.

There was an immediate problem. The camera only holds a thousand feet of film. That's a bit over eleven minutes. The two phone calls ran almost fifteen minutes. I solved it by putting two cameras next to each other, the lenses as close together as was physically possible. Naturally, both lenses were the same ... When camera 1 had used about 850 feet, we would roll camera 2 while camera 1 was still running. I knew that there would be an intercut of the wife somewhere in the final film, which would allow me to cut to the film in camera 2. But Al would have acted oiut the two phone calls continuously, just as it happened in real life.

I wanted Al's concentration at its peak.

I cleared the set and then, about five feet behind the camera, put up black flats so that even the rest of the physical set was blocked out. The propman had rigged the phones so the off-camera actors could speak into phones across the street and Al would really hear them on his phone.

One more thing occurred to me. One of the best ways of accumulating emotion is to go as rapidly as possible from one take to the next. The actor begins the second take on the emotional level he reached at the end of the first take. Sometimes I don't even cut the camera. I'll say quietly, "Don't cut the camera -- everybody back to their opening positions and we're going again. OK from the top: Action!" By the way, I always call "Action" in the mood of the scene. If it's a gentle moment, I'll say "Action" just loud enough for the actors to hear me. If it's a scene that requires a lot of energy, I'll bark out, "Action!" like a drill sergeant. It's like a conductor giving the upbeat.

I knew a second take would mean a serious interruption for Al. We'd have to reload one of the cameras. Reloading a magazine of film can be quite disruptive ... The whole process, done at top speed, takes two or three minutes, enough time for Al to cool off. So I put up a black tent to block off both cameras and the men operating them. We cut two holes for the lenses. And I had the second assistant cameramen (there are three men on a camera crew: operator, focus puller, and second assistant) hold an extra film magazine in his lap, in case we needed it.

We rolled.

As camera 1 reached 850 feet, we rolled camera 2. The take ended. It was wonderful. But something told me to go again. Camera 2 had used only about 200 feet.

I called out gently, "Al, back to the top, I want to go again."

He looked at me as if I'd gone mad. He'd gone full out and was exhausted. He said, "What?! You're kidding!"

I said, "Al, we have to. Roll camera."

We rolled camera 2. It had about 800 feet left. Meanwhile, behind the camera tent, out of Al's sight, we reloaded camera 1. By the time camera 2 had used 700 feet (close to eight minutes into the take), we started the reloaded camera 1.

By the end of the second take, Al didn't know where he was anymore. He finished his lines, and, in sheer exhaustion, looked around helplessly. Then, by accident, he looked directly at me. Tears were rolling down my face because he'd moved me so. His eyes locked into mine and he burst into tears, then slumped over the desk he'd been sitting at,

I called, "Cut! Print!" and leapt into the air.

That take is some of the best film acting I've ever seen.

More Lumet Appreciation: On costume

Love this anecdote. LOVE IT.

Sidney Lumet:

Nothing helps actors more than the clothes they wear. Ann Roth is an amazing costume designer. She can take the most everyday clothes and turn them into some sort of contribution, to both the actor and the picture.

On Family Business, Sean Connery came into rehearsal after having been with Ann for a clothes fitting. He looked happy. I asked him how it had gone. "She's bloody marvelous," he said. "She's given me the whole bloody character now."

That's the greatest compliment an actor can give.

It's the equivalent of saying, "We're all making the same picture."

More Lumet Appreciation: On locations/art direction for "The Pawnbroker"

An interesting story about The Pawnbroker. This element worked on me subliminally when I saw the film. I love how conscious all of it is, behind the scenes. No accidents.

Sidney Lumet:

To talk about art direction in black-and-white movies is to talk about something extinct. But it was exciting while it lasted. Dick Sylbert's work on The Pawnbroker was superb. This was a picture about creating our own prisons. Starting with the pawnshop itself, Dick created a series of cages: wire mesh bars, locks, alarms, anything that would reinforce a sense of entrapment.

The locations were picked with this in mind. The supposedly wide-open spaces of suburbia at the beginning of the picture were cut up by fences clearly delineating each house's 125-foot frontage.

For the critical scene where Rod Steiger tells Geraldine Fitzgerald of his guilt at being alive, we found an apartment on the West Side of Manhattan that overlooked the New York Central railroad yards. Throughout the scene you can see and hear freight cars being shunted from track to track. That kind of visual and auditory corroboration of a scene's context is invaluable.

If you remember, The Pawnbroker is about a Holocaust survivor. Tormented by guilt at having lived, and having gotten out. The freight cars out the window of that rickety apartment were a perfect and haunting touch. Even here in America, in NYC, the sound of those freight trains followed this character wherever he went.

More Lumet Appreciation: On locations/art direction for "The Wiz"

Any The Wiz fans out there? Really interesting stuff here. I loved that movie when I was a kid - and even hearing about Lumet's struggles wiht it doesn't take away my affection for the movie.

You can almost learn more from what DOESN'T work than what DOES.

Sidney Lumet:

Sometimes a scenic concept gets lost in execution. The idea I had for The Wiz was that reality could be turned into an urban fantasy. We could use real locations but treat them in such a way that the locations would become truly fantastical. But I came to grief on the first location scouting trip. I wanted the Cowardly Lion to be discovered at -- where else? -- the New York Public Library, Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue. Tony Walton, Albert Whitlock and I stood across the street, gazing at the building, for four hours. Whitlock is one of the foremost matte-painting and special-effects cameramen in the business. He was a master at combining painted glass backgrounds with live foreground action. "Albert, when a door opens, can we see sky behind it, rather than the interior of the building?" I would ask. The answer was no. Every idea I had to fantasize that building was, Albert told me, impossible. Slowly my heart sank. We finally decided to build the set in the studio. Then more and more studio work was added to what had originally been a heavy location picture. Fantasy took over to such a degree that the urban quality was lost.

In the most expensive sequence, to be shot at the World Trade Center, we never figured how brutal the wind could be when it was channeled between those two towers. They formed a natural wind tunnel. The hats of the male and female models were very important in establishing "attitude". And the hats wouldn't stay on because of the wind. Pins didn't work. Bands around the back of the head didn't work. Finally, the bands were placed under the chin. The hats stayed on, but the look was ruined.

From large to small, I felt the concept going out the window.

It was my own fault. I simply didn't know enough technically to master all departments, particularly special effects. Even though I had very good people in charge, there were just too many departments that were going their own way. I could feel the visual approach leaking out of my hands like water through my fingers.

It happens.

More Lumet Appreciation: On art direction

Sidney Lumet:

In The Morning After, we looked for exapnses of high color. No color was excluded, but we wanted one color to dominate each scene. Jane Fonda's room swere various shades of pink... For the title sequence, I found a series of walls, yellow, red, brown, blue, and just had Fonda walking dejectedly past them. Buildings were deep blue, baby pink, any strong color. Los Angeles can provide an endless supply of that kind of color.

On other pictures, I've wanted a hodgepodge. For Q & A and Dog Day Afternoon, everything had to feel accidental -- no planning, no color control. On both pictures, I told the art director and the costume designer not to consult with each other. I wanted no relationship between the sets and the costumes. Whatever happened happened.

More Lumet Appreciation: On the camera work in "Dog Day Afternoon"

Sidney Lumet:

Dog Day Afternoon. Victor Kemper, photographer...

The first obligation was to let the audience know that this event had really happened. Therefore, the first decision made was that we use no artificial light. The bank was lit by fluorescents in the ceiling. If we had to supplement the light because of focus problems, we simply added more flourescents. Outside, at night, all the light came from the enormous spotlights of the Police Emergency van on the scene. The bounce light reflecting off the white-brick-and-glass exterior of the bank was bright enough to illuminate the faces of the people facing the bank. .. And for the improvised scenes in the street and in the bank, I used two and sometimes three hand-held cameras to reinforce the documentary feel.

More Lumet Appreciation: On the camera work in "Prince of the City"

For all you Prince of the City fans out there - this should be very interesting. Let me know what you think, if you picked up on any of this subliminally.

Sidney Lumet:

Prince of the City. Andrzej Bartkowiak, photographer. Photographically, this was one of the most interesting pictures I've done. Going back to its theme (nothing is what it appears to be), I made a decision: We would not use the midrange lenses (28 mm through 40 mm). Nothing was to look normal, or anything close to what the eye would see. I took the theme literally. All space was elongated or foreshortened, depending on whether I used wide-angle or long lenses. A city block was twice as long or half as long, depending on the choice of lens.

In addition, Andrzej and I laid out a very complex lighting plot. At the beginning of the movie, the leading character, Danny Ciello, was completely aware of everything around him. As events became more complex, as he lost more and more control over them, his moral crisis deepened. He knew he was being forced into a corner where he would have to betray his friends. His thoughts and actions became more focused on himself and his four police partners.

In the first third of the movie, we tried to have the light on the background brigher than on the actors in the foreground. For the second third, the foreground light and the background light were more or less balanced. For the last third, we cut the light off the background. Only the foreground, occupied by the actors, was lit. By the end of the movie, only the relationships that were about to be betrayed mattered. People emerged from the background. Where something took place no longer mattered. What mattered was what took place and to whom.

I made another decision that seems important to me. Except for one instance, I never framed a shot so the sky was visible. The sky meant freedom, release, but Danny had no way out. The only shot that had sky in the frame was practically nothing but sky. Danny is walking on the Manhattan Bridge. He clumbs up a catwalk overlooking the rails of the subway that runs between Brooklyn and Manhattan. He is contemplating suicide. By now that's his only possible freedom, his only possible release.

More Lumet Appreciation: On the camerawork in "The Morning After"

I really dig The Morning After. Anyone else? First off - HELLO??? JEFF BRIDGES? I think that guy is, perhaps, the best actor working today. And he is - well, he's a huge star obviously - but he's relatively unsung. In comparison with other giants. But he's just fantastic. His role in The Morning After is one of the reasons why I love him.

Sidney Lumet:

The Morning After. Andrzej Bartkowiak, photographer. Living in Los Angeles was part of the debilitating influence on the character played by Jane Fonda. I wanted all color exaggerated: reds redder, blues bluer. We used filters. Behind the lens are little slots where frames about two and a half inches by three and a half inches can be inserted. These frames and slots can hold pieces of glass or gelatin that are colored to various specifications. When we could see the sky, Andrzej would add a blue filter that covered only the sky. The sky came out bluer. Every color was reinforced in this way. One day, because of smog and clouds at the end of the day, the sky had an orange haze. Andrzej turned the scene into the color of an Orange Julius hot dog stand.

These filters have some drawbacks. They limit camera movement, since you don't want the blue sky filter to bleed into the white building or the actor's face. But used judiciously, they can be very helpful.

More Lumet Appreciation: On the camerawork in "Network"

I love these anecdotes about the cinematography because - half of this stuff works on an audience in a subliminal way (at least in Lumet's films). He does not make a splashy use of style. He likes it to be "invisible" - and yet most definitely THERE. It makes me see these movies in a different way, and look for clues.

Sidney Lumet:

Network. Owen Roizman, photographer. The movie was about corruption. So we corrupted the camera.

We started with an almost naturalistic look. For the first scene between Peter Finch and Bill Holden, on Sixth Avenue at night, we added only enough light to get exposure. As the picture progressed, camera setups became more rigid, more formal. The lighting became more and more artificial. The next-to-final scene -- where Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, and three network gray suits decide to kill Peter Finch -- is lit like a commercial. The camera setups are static and framed like still pictures. The camera had become a victim of television.

More Lumet Appreciation: On Murder on the Orient Express

Funny stuff here. Movie stars vs. theatre stars - very unexpected.

Sidney Lumet:

A charming thing happened at the first reading of Murder on the Orient Express. Five stars of the English theatre were appearing in the West End at the time -- John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Vanessa Redgrave, Colin Blakely, and Rachel Roberts. Sitting with them were six movie stars: Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Tony Perkins, Jacqueline Bisset, and Michael York; Ingrid Bergman and Albert Finney bridged both worlds.

They began to read. I couldn't hear anything. Everyone was murmuring their lines so quietly they were inaudible.

I finally figured out what was happening. The movie stars were in awe of the theatre stars; the theatre stars were in awe of the movie stars. A classic case of stage fright.

I stopped the reading and, saying that I couldn't hear a thing, asked them to please talk to one another as if we were at Gielgud's house for dinner. John said he'd never had such illustrious guests to dinner, and off we went.

More Lumet Appreciation: On Ingrid Bergman

Mitch Berg? You out there? Knowing your love for Ingrid Bergman I posted this very cool and short anecdote for you. Bergman rocks.

Sidney Lumet:

In Murder on the Orient Express, I wanted Ingrid Bergman to play the Russian Princess Dragomiroff. She wanted to play the retarded Swedish maid. I wanted Ingrid Bergman. I let her play the maid.

She won an Academy Award.

I bring this up because self-knowledge is important in so many ways to an actor.

More Lumet Appreciation: On Kate Hepburn and going to dailies

Here's great story about Katherine Hepburn.

By the way - in case you don't know - "going to dailies", or "going to rushes" means seeing the day's shooting at the end of that day. Some directors won't allow actors to "come to rushes" because the director fears that the actor will get self-conscious, or be too hard on himself, or start to change things, etc. "Going to rushes" is a nerve-wracking experience - and can shake your confidence. On a vain note - seeing yourself projected up onto a screen is very unnerving, no matter how much experience you have. All you see are your own flaws. "Does my nose look like that? Why didn't someone tell me that I am completely obese? I LOOK HORRIBLE." Some actors refuse to go to rushes, others always go to rushes. Harrison Ford, for example, has no problem going to rushes. He is such a craftsman, such a collaborator - He can watch the rushes and KNOW what small adjustments he might need to make, in order to make the character clearer, in order to serve the story. But he's a rare bird.

Okay, so onward. Here's an anecdote about Hepburn:

Sidney Lumet:

At the end of rehearsal [for Long Day's Journey], just before shooting, I gathered the actors to tell them about my shooting system and habits and to find out if there was anything they needed during shooting that we could provide. At this session, I said to them, "And by the way, you're all invited to rushes."

As we were leaving, Kate called me aside. "Sidney," she said, "I've gone to rushes of practically every picture I've ever made. But I won't be coming to these rushes. I can see how you work. I know Boris's work [Boris Kaufman was the cameraman]. You're both dead honest. You can't protect me. If I go to rushes, all that I'll see is this" -- and she reached under her chin and pinched the slightly sagging flesh -- "and this" -- she did the same thing under her arms -- "and I need all my strength and concentration just to play this part."

Tears sprang to my eyes.

I'd never seen an actor with such self-knowledge and such dedication, trust, and bravery.

She was breaking habits of thirty years because she knew they would interfere with the job. That's a giant.

More Lumet Appreciation: On Kate Hepburn

Alex - listen up!!! I LOVE this story. Because it shows why, I believe, Kate Hepburn was not only such a massive star but a truly great actress.

Sidney Lumet on working with Katherine Hepburn:

Because they are often the reason that a picture gets financed, actors tend to get spoiled. I hate those large trailers. I've seen trailers that are literally converted buses ... All of this is dangerous in two ways: it costs a lot of money that doesn't wind up on the screen; and even without meaning to, the stars begin to get a sense of power that can hurt their work.

Hepburn would never stoop to that level. She had, however, been a dominant factor in her own career. This was during her time at Metro, in the 30s and 40s. Most stars were in abject fear of Louis B. Mayer, but not Kate. She somehow created her own material. I don't know if she commissioned Philip Barry to write The Philadelphia Story for her, but she owned the rights.

When we first met, on Long Day's Journey, she was living in John Barrymore's former house in Los Angeles. I stepped through the doors of what seemed to me a fifty-foot living room. She stood at the opposite end of the room and started toward me. We'd covered about half the distance when she said, "When do you want to start rehearsal?" (No "Hello" or "How do you do?") "September nineteenth," I said. "I can't start till the 26th," she said. "Why?" I asked. "Because then," she said, "you'd know more about the script than I would."

Funny, charming, but she meant it. It was perfectly all right with me if she knew more about the character. After all, she was going to play it, and I had a lot of other things to think about. But the challenge was unmistakable, and I could see trouble down the road.

The solution was to leave her alone. Though she had played great roles, nothing could compare with Mary Tyrone for psychological complexity, physical and emotional demand, and tragic dimension.

During the first three days of rehearsal I said nothing to her about Mary Tyrone's character. I talked at length with Jason [Robards], who'd played his part before, with Ralph [Richardson] and Dean [Stockwell], and of course we talked about the play.

When we finished the run-through reading on the third day, there was a long pause. And then, from Kate's corner of the table, a small voice called out, "Help!"

From then on, the work was thrilling. She asked, she told, she fretted, she tried, she failed, she won. She built that character stone by stone.

Something was still tight about the performance until the end of the second week. There's a moment in the script when her youngest son, trying to cut through her morphine haze, screams at her that he's dying of consumption. I said, "Kate, I'd like you to haul off and smack him as hard as you can." She started to say that she couldn't do that, but the sentence died halfway out of her mouth. She thought about it for 30 seconds, then said, "Let's try it." She hit him. She looked at Dean's horrified face, and her shoulders started to shake. She dissolved into the broken, frightened failure that was so important an aspect of Mary Tyrone. The sight of that giant Hepburn in such a state was the personification of tragic acting.

When the Greeks said tragedy is for royalty, they were only saying that tragedy was for giants.

There was no tightness ever again. Kate was soaring.

I am in tears. I love that story. God bless her. And God bless him for knowing that he had to "let her alone" and find her own way. I probably don't need to tell you how rare that is with directors!

More Lumet Appreciation: On Stars

This reminds me of something Arthur Miller said about "stars". What is a star? What makes up a star? When he worked with Clark Gable on The Misfits, he thought about it a lot - because he had such admiration for Gable's power and skill, but he also couldn't quite describe WHAT it was that made Clark Gable so ... powerful, so necessary. Miller said something about Gable being like a lion at the circus. The lion is there to perform. But the lion is still damn dangerous. Gable gave that mixed vibe that all stars have: the beauty of the lion, the fascination of the wild animal, but also the feeling that this beast is not controllable, and you had better just get the hell out of the way.

Sidney Lumet:

The problem of integrating the very strong personal qualities [of stars] with the character the star is playing is a fascinating one.

If you've got a major star, you've got that strong personal quality seeping through in every performance. Even with as fine a character actor as Robert DeNiro, DeNiro himself comes out. Partially it's because he uses himself brilliantly. As I said earlier, the actor's only instrument is himself. But I think it's more than that. There's a mysterious alchemy between star and audience. Sometimes i'ts based on the physical beauty or sex appeal of the star. But I don't believe that it's ever just one thing. Surely there were other women as attractive as Marilyn Monroe or men as handsome as Cary Grant (though not many). Al Pacino tries to suit his looks to the characters -- a beard here, long hair there -- but somehow it's the way his eyes express an enormous rage, even in tender moments, that enthralls me and everyone else. I think that every star evokes a sense of danger, something unmanageable. Perhaps each person in the audience feels that he or she is the one who can manage, tame, satisfy the bigger-than-life quality that a star has. Clint Eastwood isn't really the same as you or me, is he? Or Michelle Pfeiffer, or Sean Connery, or you name them. I don't really know what makes a star. But the persona that jumps out at you is certainly a most important element.

More Lumet Appreciation: On William Holden in "Network"

This story about William Holden kills me. Great stuff.

Sidney Lumet:

The most moving example of how much of themselves actors must pour into a character happened on Network. William Holden was a wonderful actor. He was also very experienced. He'd done 60 or 70 movies by the time we worked together, maybe more. I noticed that during the rehearsal of one particular scene with Faye Dunaway, he looked everywhere but directly into her eyes. He looked at her eyebrows, her hair, her lips, but not her eyes. I didn't say anything. The scene was a confession by his character that he was hopelessly in love with her, that they came from very different worlds, that he was achingly vulnerable to her and therefore needed her help and support.

On the day of shooting we did a take. After the take, I said, "Let's go again, and Bill, on this take, would you try something for me? Look into her eyes and never break away from them." He did. Emotion came pouring out of him. It's one of his best scenes in the movie. Whatever he'd been avoiding could no longer be denied. The rehearsal period had helped me recognize this emotional reticence in him.

Of course, I never asked him what he had been avoiding. The actor has a right to his privacy; I never violate his private sources knowingly.

I feel pretty damn cool

because Friday night I finally got to meet CW of No Such Blog. I've been wanting to meet this dude for about a year now - since he randomly showed up on my blog during my entire Country of the Week mania. I was semi-convinced that he was the only one reading those ridiculous rambling essays!

Anyway, he was in town and we hooked up at a loud boisterous Irish pub and it was damn fun and made me realize, once again, how much this Internet thang knocks me OUT. I've met a ton of people through this blog - and there's not an uninteresting person in the bunch. Wild. Also - it brings together people from completely different circles. We all have totally different lifestyles, jobs, we live in different countries sometimes - but there are obviously intersecting interests - and so we can connect, and be in each other's lives - in a way we NEVER could have a mere 10 or 20 years ago. It's really quite thrilling, when you think about it.

Anyway, CW and I talked like maniacs for what I thought, in my mind, was probably a good solid 3 hours. Maybe 4 at the most. But still - a huge chunk of time, right? For a first meeting?

When we finally halted the talk for a moment, and glanced at the clock - it was 2 o'clock in the morning - which meant that we had actually been talking for seven hours. Er - what? I can barely talk to myself for seven straight hours. And believe me, I have tried.

Somehow though - it's not all that surprising.

I haven't met a blogger yet who isn't a great conversationalist, actually. It's great great fun.

Oh, and Emily, you'll be pleased to know that "Bush Mills" was involved on my part. I can't remember what brand whiskey CW drank - but I had the "Bush Mills".

I know I already told you this, CW, but great to meet you - at last.

The frustrating over-specialization of Yankee Candles

I am exaggerating in this post. Because I think it's funny. There's a grain of truth here. But I am expanding on it because I find it humorous.

I look back longingly on the good old days (which means about 3 or 4 years ago) when I could go into my favorite candle shop and - with the utmost simplicity and clarity - go about buying my candle supply.

I have a "candle budget" built into my wee income. Candles are up there on the necessity list with milk and bread. Not because of "oh my God, what if there's another blackout" - although that is part of it. I don't feel right if I don't have candles in the house. But also, I just love candlelight. I love scented candles. I love the look, I love the light they give, I love the atmosphere they provide ... I can feel my manic blood-pressure stabilize when I've got candles flickering about through the apartment.

I'm even into floating candles - to put in the tub when I take a bath.

This is my decadent side.

I sink into the bubble bath, I've got floating fiery candles bobbing up and down, and I feel like an odalisque or something. I don't have the money for many luxuries - but when I'm in that bathtub, I feel wealthy. If you know what I mean. So I always justify stocking up on cool candles.

Yankee Candle used to be my main supplier. They have a ton of great scents - and multiple sizes. You could get the big fat candles encased in glass, you could get medium-sized candles encased in glass ... You could buy the candles as tea lights (very handy for parties), you could buy the small ones that you put in a small glass holder ... Many options.

And good simple scents.

Rose Garden
Sea Breeze
Lavendar
Fir
Lilac

Whatever. Simple. I have been buying Yankee Candles for a while. And I remember their simpler days.

But I am here to tell you: Those days are gone. Say goodbye to Fir. Say hello to Autumn Cider With a Dash of Clove.

Here is what I think:

Yankee Candle has gotten too big for its britches. It is trying to be too many things to too many people. It has gotten wayyyyyyyyyy too complicated in its scents ... and suddenly I am in the same situation with Yankee Candle the way I am with toothpaste. Way too many choices. Do I want baking soda with mint flavor? Do I need tartar control PLUS whitening PLUS baking soda? Or ... do I just say "fuck it" and go with Bubble Gum? I don't know what to do.

I went yesterday to stock up on candles. I went to "my" shop.

And ... basically, cause it's Christmas time I wanted to get some fir-scented candles. I remember buying a ton of "fir" candles last year. THAT WAS THE NAME OF THE SCENT: Fir. Simple, right?

Let's you know what you're getting. Helps you out. Narrows it down.

As I browsed through the 20,000 candles yesterday on display, I had a couple of responses:

-- I began to have a nervous breakdown from too many choices
-- I started to get annoyed at the discontinuation of the simpler names of many of the scents
-- My head started to hurt.
-- I wanted to write a letter to Yankee Candle and scream: JUST. CALM. DOWN.

They don't have "fir" anymore.

No. They have "balsam and cedar". Fine. I bought a bunch of "balsam and cedar" - only it took me 5 minutes to even locate them, because - DUH - I had been looking under "F" for "Fir".

Some of the other scents:

Autumn Lodge
Bamboo Musk
Chai Tea
White Zinfandel
White Opal
Spanish Moss
Orchid Rain
Clove Bud and Citrus
Ginger and Green Tea

I don't know. I'm a pretty down-to-earth person. I'm sure some of these are lovely scents. Truly. But when a girl is looking for FIR and instead finds a pile of SPANISH MOSS, she doesn't know what to do about it.

Like - fine, Yankee Candle. Experiment with your new scents. That's cool. Bring out a candle combining the scents of Fresh Laundry and Cut Grass. Bring out a candle named Hot Dog Stand in Mid-July. Whatever. See how they do.

But please KEEP the old favorites. The simple ones. Fir, roses, ocean, lilac ... DON'T combine Lilac with Basil and discontinue plain old Lilac. Mmkay? You're givin' me a headache.

I'm just a simple girl who likes to have floating candles in her bathtub cause it makes her feel rich and luxurious. Stop over-complicating things, Y.C., with your damn Chai Tea and Bamboo Twilight.

CALM. THE HELL. DOWN, Yankee Candle.

(Or - to put this all another way: "Don't even TRY, Yankee Candle! Don't even TRY!")

" 'Freak' is not a cop-out, it's a Noun." - quote from Alex in the comments

One of the things that I choose to believe, as I make my way through the wandering rocks of life, is that God doesn't make mistakes. This, obviously, is a matter of faith, and very often - when things are tough, or when terrible things happen like Beslan, like every other horrible cataclysmic event on this planet etc. - this belief of mine is challenged. I believe in God. But Beslan? God??? GOD? HELLOOOOOO?

This is part of life, I believe. At least a part of my life, where I believe in God, and I believe in connections, patterns being revealed ... that there is an underlying sense. I also believe that this faith of mine is MEANT to be challenged. It's not easy, or black and white. It is faith that is of this world, and meant to be shattered, and crashed ... so that I am constantly examining it and not hiding from reality.

Something like Beslan shatters the faith. The Holocaust shatters the faith. Andrea Yates shatters the faith. Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy shatter the faith.

Then along comes something like this story.

And I think to myself: There are mistakes in humanity. There are freaks of nature, embodied in one human being. People beyond the pale. People who are aberrations. Mistakes. Something went wrong in the factory or something. I believe that certain people are born "missing" certain things. Like - er - a conscience. Or compassion. The sense that other people are actually REAL, and not just extensions of your own ego. This is controversial, I know, but I believe certain people are born missing those things.

I don't care what horrible thing was done to you. I don't care what "rubber-ducky" explanation is given for why you are such a big fucking evil mistake. I don't give a shit. I don't care that Mommy didn't love you enough, and Daddy beat you upside the head. I've got plenty of friends who weren't loved by their mothers, who were abandoned by their fathers, who were sexually molested, who were basically born into a shitty fucking world - I'm sure we all do - and you know what? My friends didn't chop up their neighbors, didn't travel through the country dismembering random women, didn't shoot up their schools. They got through it.

Look at that freak. I do not care what pain she went through or what "happened to her". She's a freak of nature, she is beyond the pale, and what she did wasn't just bad and wrong, it was evil. That smile, that goopy-eyed smile, is one of the scariest things I've ever seen in my life.

I know a lot of people think that calling people like her a "freak" is a cop-out. It means I do not want to deal with the larger societal issues, that it's easier to call names, etc.

Bah. I don't believe that.

I think the tougher thing to contemplate, the scarier thing, is that there are those out there who just are born bad. (John Steinbeck NAILED this in East of Eden with the chilling character of Cathy.) Such people are rare, thank goodness. But I do believe they exist.

Scott Peck, in his terrifying book, People of the Lie tackles this issue, too. Very controversial, because he's a psychiatrist! But he takes as his thesis the premise that - We don't know that pure evil exists. We can't know it for a fact. But ... let's just consider the possibility ... what is wrong with considering the possibility?

Peck defines evil as being unwilling, literally, unwilling to change, grow, move, transform - people who absolutely REFUSE to look inward, and see: Huh, this is why I'm acting this way. I know people like that and I'm sure you do, too.

Anyway. That's what I think of when I look at that freak-ass bitch's crazy smile.

Pajama Party

The childhood friends Beth and Mere drove down this weekend to hang out in my wee abode. It was such a treat. Normally, they're the ones who host me - when I come home - and so it is always cool to be able to return the favor. Even though my apartment is the size of, perhaps, Beth's kitchen - it feels very good to be able to open up the joint, and have people over. One of the simplest pleasures in life. We did miss having Betsy with us ... The last "pajama party" I hosted was with Beth and Betsy - but perhaps this can become a bi-annual thing or something. A road trip taken by the old childhood friends. It pleases me so much to have guests!

Here is a moment which pretty much encapsulates the weekend:

We spent the afternoon on Saturday browsing to our hearts content through the open-air Christmas market in Union Square. I had really wanted to take them there, because it is quite special, and we had a blast. It was packed. Beth, at one point, said, "Could everyone else please go home, because I really would like to browse in peace?" It was lovely. Many gifts bought ... for kids, for husbands, for fathers-in-law ... It wasn't too bitter cold either. Afterwards, we walked across town with our booty. It had been a highly successful shopping venture. We were going to do some more window-shopping in the rich atmosphere of Greenwich Village. It was 5.30 pm. Okay? 5:30. It's dark by 5:30 now - so it felt (to us) much later.

I said, randomly, as we strolled along 18th street - "Okay ... so here are our choices. We can continue on downtown and shop a bit more in the Village."

Beth and Mere nod agreeably. "Sounds great!"

I continued. "OR - we can buy some wine, go home, get into our pajamas, and hang out and do Mad Libs."

There was a pause and they both said, "Uh ... let's totally do that second one."

heh heh heh

One of the beautiful things about the childhood friends is that it is never about WHAT you do, what activities ... and it is always about the quality of time spent. Mere and Beth have known one another since they were 6 years old. I met the two of them when we were all 12 years old. They are "eternal" friends. Even an entire continent couldn't separate that bond. We can NOT speak for months at a time, and then in one phone conversation that lasts 20 minutes, we catch up completely. We have a shorthand. We don't have to warm up to closeness again. It's there. Already. I am constantly grateful for these dear friends. They knew me when. We went through junior high school together. We went through high school together. The raw-est times of our lives. (Or, maybe not the "raw-est" but there is certainly something very specific and very unforgettable about the "raw-ness" of early puberty. It is good to have friends who remember you from that time, and who also have segued with you into adulthood.) There they were, and there I was.

This kind of friendship is rarer than the most precious jewel.

So basically - we did a bit of grocery shopping, for the snacks, for the wine, came home, got into our pajamas, and talked the night away. (Translation ... until 11 pm when we all got sleepy at the same moment, and fell asleep instantly). Sadly, there were no Mad Libs because the line at Barnes and Noble was about 3 miles long. But that didn't matter. We don't need to "entertain" each other. We just can BE.

Mere showed us (in a mildly drunken way) some of the tips from her self-defense class. Using Beth as a model. Beth, in effect, became the rapist, or the murderer. And Mere was SUCH a ninja bad-ass! Elbowing Beth in the nose, karate-chopping her in the back, kneeing her in the "balls" - all as Beth was shrieking and panicking - and all as I was laughing my ass off and taking photos of the entire event. It was hysterical.

I did an imitation of Rory-the-Irish-Man trying to tiptoe quietly through the foyer, and then falling flat on his ass. Where he landed in a position that made him look like he was doing a gymnastics floor exercise. Or I call it the "frozen on the pommel horse" moment. One of the funniest falls I have ever seen in my life. And did I sympathize with him? Did I go to help him up? No. I hissed at him, "Jesus ... shut the fuck up!" Tears of laughter streaming down Beth and Mere's faces as I struggled to get myself into the messed-up position Rory landed in. "No, wait, his leg was back like this ... and then the other leg was ..."

We also went up to my roof (a ritual I make every visitor I have go through) to see the spectacular view. The entire island of Manhattan unfolding across the river, glimmering sparkling, the Chrysler Building lit up, the Empire State Building lit up in red and green, the building with a gold top, the building like a champagne bottle ... The SCOPE, the PERSPECTIVE ... it is certainly something to take your breath away.

But other than Union Square and the roof?

We were in our pajamas. Chilling out. Talking about our lives, our issues, whatever it is each of us are struggling with right now - sharing, laughing, talking. Great stuff.

Next time I will stock up on Mad Libs, because truly: there is nothing funnier than hanging out with old old friends and breaking out the Mad Libs.

Lumet Appreciation Day: on gaining the confidence of actors

Sidney Lumet:

Howard Hawks was once asked to name the most important element in an actor's performance. His answer was "confidence". In a sense, that is really what's been going on during rehearsal: the actors are gaining confidence in revealing their inner selves. They've been learning about me. I hold nothing back. If the actors are going to hold nothing back in front of the camera, I can hold nothing back in front of them. They have to be able to trust me, to know that I "feel" them and what they're doing. This mutual trust is the most important element between the actor and me.

I worked with Marlon Brando on The Fugitive Kind. He's a suspicious fellow. I don't know if he bothers anymore, but Brando tests the director on the first or second day of shooting. What he does is to give you two apparently identical takes. Except that on one, he is really working from the inside; and on the other, he's just giving you an indication of what the emotion was like. Then he watches which one you decide to print. If the director prints the wrong one, the "indicated" one, he's had it. Marlon will either walk through the rest of the performance or make the director's life hell, or both. Nobody has the right to test people like that, but I can understand why he does that. He doesn't want to pour out his inner life to someone who can't see what he's doing.

At the same time they're learning about me, I'm finding out things about the actors. What stimulates them, what triggers their emotions? What annoys them? How's their concentraion? Do they have a technique? What method of acting do they use? The "Method" made famous at the Actors' Studio, based on the teaching of Stanislavsky, is not the only one. Ralph Richardson, whom I saw give at least three great performances, in theatre and film, used a completely auditory musical system. During rehearsals of Long Day's Journey Into Night, he asked a simple question. Forty-five minutes later I finished my answer. (I talk a lot). Ralph paused a moment and then sonorously said: "I see what you mean, dear boy: a little more cello, a little less flute."

I was, of course, enchanted. And of course, he was putting me down, telling me not to be so long-winded. But we talked in musical terms from then on: "Ralph, a little more staccato." "A slower tempo, Ralph."

I subsequently found out that when he appeared in the theatre, he played a violin in his dressing room before a performance as a warm-up. He used himself as a musical instrument, literally.

I heard Sidney Lumet tell that Ralph Richardson anecdote in a workshop I took with him ... and I will never forget it. What a lovely story. One of my favorites about the mysterious craft of the actor.

"I see what you mean, dear boy: a little more cello, a little less flute."

Lumet Appreciation Day: On how style dictates casting

Sidney Lumet: - He's talking about Prince of the City here:

I wasn't sure whether we were in drama or tragedy territory. I knew I wanted to wind up somewhere between the two, leaning towards the tragic.

Tragedy, when it works, leaves no room for tears. Tears would have been too easy in that movie. The classic definition of tragedy still works: pity and terror or awe, arriving at catharsis. That sense of awe requires a certain distance.

It's hard to be in awe of someone you know well. The first thing affected was casting. If the leading role of Danny Ciello was played by DeNiro or Pacino, all ambivalence would disappear. By their nature, stars invite your faculty of identification. You empathize with them immediately, even if they're playing monsters. A major star would defeat the picture with just the advertising.

I chose a superb but not very well known actor, Treat Williams. This may have defeated the commerciality of the movie, but it was the right choice dramatically.

Then I went further. I cast as many new faces as possible. If the actor had done lots of movies, I didn't use him. In fact, for the first time in one of my pictures, out of 125 speaking parts, I cast 52 of them from "civilians" -- people who had never acted before. This helped enormously in two areas: first, in distancing the audience by not giving them actors with whom they had associations; and second, in giving the picture a disguised "naturalism", which would be slowly eroded as the picture went on.

Speaking of audiences identifying with stars - and sometimes that's a good thing, but sometimes it's not the best thing for the picture: Gary Cooper was offered the role of CK Dexter Haven in Philadelphia Story. He was the biggest star in the world at that time. Cary Grant was huge as well, but Grant used to talk about how, when he was starting in Hollywood, he could practically see Gary Cooper's thumbprints over any script sent to him - because naturally, Cooper was offered everything first. People made entire careers out of playing roles that Cooper turned down.

Anyway: Gary Cooper was offered the role of CK Dexter Haven.

He turned it down. It killed him to turn it down. He knew this script was special, and it was a special project, looking to be a hit. Why did he turn it down? Because he had the self-knowledge to understand that if he, the biggest star and sex-symbol in the world were cast in this play which is basically a love-triangle, it would upset the balance of the thing.

An audience, seeing Gary Cooper, immediately would KNOW that he would get the girl in the end. And Philadelphia Story depends on the audience being not too sure which guy Tracy would end up picking - You have to see the charms of BOTH, you have to see why she would choose Jimmy Stewart - it cannot be a clear choice for her. Both options have to have their possibilities - so you can feel Tracy's struggle.

But you put Gary Cooper in a movie? The choice is made the second he walks on the screen. Merely because of all the associations he brings. He will get the girl.

I love Cooper for knowing himself and his power as a star well enough to turn down a role like CK Dexter Haven. That, to me, is why he was so great.

Lumet Appreciation Day: on power

Sidney Lumet:

The director, because he says "Print", has a lot of power. But the results are best when he doesn't have to use it.

Lumet Appreciation Day: Faye Dunaway in "Network"

This is one of the coolest stories I have ever heard. Alex? Mitchell?? You're gonna love this one.

Sidney Lumet:

When we did Network, Paddy Chayefksy knew what he wanted. [He wrote the script] After all the difficulties in getting the picture OK'd, I knew he was in no mood for any rewrites demanded by stars. I'd heard, too, that Faye Dunaway could be difficult. (This turned out to be totally untrue. She was a selfless, devoted, and wonderful actress.)

As always, if there's a potential problem, I like to bring it out in the open before we begin. So I made an appointment to see her. Crossing the floor of her apartment, before I'd even reached her, I said, "I know the first thing you're going to ask me: Where's her vulnerability? Don't ask it. She has none." Faye looked shocked. "Furthermore, if you try to sneak it in, I'll get rid of it in the cutting room, so it'll be wasted effort." She paused just a second, then burst out laughing. Ten minutes later I was begging her to do the part. She said yes.

She never tried to get sentimental in the part, and she took home an Academy Award.

Lumet Appreciation Day: actors and writers

Sidney Lumet:

Sometimes the relationship between actors and writers gets very testy indeed. As the director, I have to be very careful here. I need them both. Most writers hate actors. And yet stars are the keys to getting a picture approved by a studio. Some directors have enormous power, but nobody has the power of one of the top stars. If the star demands it, any studio will drop the writer in less than thirty seconds -- and the director too, for that matter. Most of the time, I've done enough work ahead of time so that this sort of crisis never arises. I'll come to an agreement with the writer before an actor has been approached, and I'll usually have a thorough discussion with the star about the script before we decide to go ahead.

These experiences vary. Most actors, despite Hitchcock's pronouncement, are very bright. Some are superb on script. Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Paul Newman are wonderfully helpful. One can gain a lot by listening to them.

Pacino isn't terrifically articulate, but he's got a built-in sense of the truth. If a scene or a line bothers him, I pay attention. He's probably right.

Lumet Appreciation Day: working with the writer

Sidney Lumet:

What do I owe the writer? A thorough investigation and then a committed execution of his intentions.

What does the writer owe me? The selflessness that Frank Pierson showed on Dog Day Afternoon or that Naomi Foner showed on Running on Empty.

Naomi is a fine, talented, and original writer. Somehow she fell in love with a scene that, to me, was her only bad idea in the whole movie. The young boy, played by River Phoenix, comes into a strange house, sits down at the piano, and begins to play a Beethoven sonata. Eventually he notices that he is being watched by a young girl, about his age. In the script, he segues into boogie-woogie piano music.

I explained to Naomi why I thought it was a bad idea. There was a feeling of pandering to the audience: See, he's not really an egghead – he likes jazz, just like you and me. I've seen the same scene as far back as Jose Iturbi tickling the ivories in some remote Gloria Jean movie or Jeanette MacDonald singing swing in San Francisco. Naomi fought for it, so I decided to leave it in to see how it played in rehearsal.

When I began to stage the scene, River asked if we could cut that bit. He felt false playing it. I saw Naomi pale. We started to talk about it. River told Naomi with great simplicity and earnestness how it compromised his character. (It was enchanting to see this 17 year old arguing with a serious writer twice his age.) Finally I suggested we try it for a few days to see if there was a value to it.

At the end of rehearsal, Naomi came over to me. She said she didn't mind if I had to stretch to accommodate the scene, but she couldn't bear to see River turning himself inside out to make it work.

She loved the scene, but she said, "Let's cut it."

Here's 2 things about this fantastic and revealing anecdote:

-- It makes me wish that River Phoenix could hear me from the Beyond when I scream: YOU ASSHOLE FOR KILLING YOURSELF. YOU ASSHOLE. I miss that boy. Never more so than when I watch Running on Empty.

-- Romulus Linney, major playwright, was the head of the playwriting division at my grad school. I was in the acting school, but many of my friends were in the writing program, so I would hear about their classes, his lectures, etc. And one of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard for writers - and it's so deep, so powerful that I feel like I can NEVER stop learning it - came from Romulus Linney.

My friend Liz (who is an incredible playwright - she could be the next Shanley, and that's no joke - she's great) was in his class. One of her plays was being discsussed in the class. Linney honed in on a small exchange of lines - he thought it should be cut, for whatever reason. He explained why. Liz loved those lines, was very attached to them, thought they needed to be there, and argued her case. Linney listened. He gave back his counter-point. Liz fought for them. Those lines were precious to her. Linney correctly guessed that the lines were perhaps too dear to her.

And here is what he said to her, "As a writer, you must be brave enough to kill your darlings."

Just think about that for a while.

Naomi Foner, in that excerpt above, was courageous enough to kill one of her darlings. The moment didn't work. It was a dear moment to her, but it didn't work. I'm tellin' ya, having worked with many playwrights on brand-new plays - this ability to "kill your darlings" is so rare that I have only seen one writer able to do it. And, whaddya know, it was the most talented writer of the bunch.

"As a writer, you must be brave enough to kill your darlings."

A Sidney Lumet Extravaganza

I was very excited to hear the news that this year Sidney Lumet will receive an honorary Oscar "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers and the art of the motion picture."

To give you an idea of the scope of this guy's accomplishments - the first film he ever directed was 12 Angry Men, mmkay? He had worked for years in television before that, in the hey-day of the 50s, when television was live. When you would work with actors like Paul Newman, Jimmy Dean, Dean Stockwell, and on and on and on ... when television was really exciting, and when they shot these scripts like plays. Everyone had stage backgrounds, everyone came from the theatre. The biggest TV series was Playhouse 90. The great Arthur Penn (or maybe I should say the once-great? I mean, whatever, the guy directed Bonnie and Clyde, so that's enough for me) came from Playhouse 90. The great Paddy Chayefsky (a writer for the theatre) came and worked for Playhouse 90. Exciting times. Sidney Lumet, a wunderkind-kid in his 20s, got his start there.

And then he gets an opportunity to direct 12 Angry Men. With ... oh ... you know ... HENRY FUCKING FONDA and LEE J. FUCKING COBB. Lumet was 33 years old. This launched his career.

But the list goes on and on and on, proving that 12 Angry Men was not a fluke, or beginner's luck.

The Fugitive Kind, starring Brando and the astonishing Anna Magnani.

Long Day's Journey Into Freakin' Night.

The Pawnbroker. (One of the most incredible acting jobs by Rod Steiger you will ever see in your life.)

Murder on the Orient Express. What? COME ON.

Dog Day Afternoon. That's the movie that made me want to be an actor.

I have to scream this next one - forgive me:

NETWORK!!!!

The Verdict. (Some of Newman's best and subtlest work.)

The Morning After.

And one movie - which - (no matter how much the movies on my own personal "Best Movies Ever Seen" list shifts about) - is ALWAYS in my top 5: Running on Empty.

But still. There's more to the list. These are beloved movies. This man is beloved. I've actually met him a couple of times, and he is just as funny and whip-smart as you would imagine. He's manic. He is notorious for bringing in films UNDER budget and AHEAD of schedule. He shoots like a bat out of hell, sometimes doing 3 or 4 locations a day. He believes in filming movies FAST. He has had "final cut" from very very early in his career - something almost unheard of for a young man. But he refuses to do films if he doesn't have final cut. Many of the films he makes are outside the studio system. He pleases himself. Many studios didn't want to touch movies like Dog Day Afternoon, or Network. Lumet would find the financing on his own and go ahead and make the movies anyway.

Actors who work with Lumet rack up the Oscars, you will notice.

He brings out the best in everybody.

He is 80 years old, and is currently filming something new. Of course.

I am very happy that this hard-working man is being honored by the Academy (it's funny, too, because the real "establishment" in Hollywood has never known what to do with him - in the same way they don't know what to do with Scorsese, and other outsiders. Brian DePalma, etc.)

Lumet hates the whole "auteur" thing, too. He is a true collaborator. He is most definitely the "boss" of his pictures, and he gets the final say, but he consistently surrounds himself with people who will bring out the best in him. He loves the collaborative thing, coming from the theatre.

People who work with Lumet typically take enormous pay cuts. They don't care. They work for scale wages. It doesn't matter. Nick Nolte, when he got the role in Q & A pretty much agreed to do it for nothing. He didn't give a crap.

Sidney Lumet has written one of the best books on film-making that I am aware of: Making Movies. It's invaluable. It's invaluable for anyone involved in the film-making process - actors, editors, directors, cameramen ... He covers it all. I particularly love the book because of the anecdotes. The stories told (like the first time he met Katherine Hepburn before they started shooting Long Day's Journey) give me the chills and make me proud to be part of that profession.

I am going to post some of my favorite excerpts from his book throughout the day. I hope there will be a lot for everyone to enjoy. It's interesting to hear someone talk about HOW they got to a final result. And also how NOTHING is accidental in movie-making. You may not even NOTICE half of the things the director does (lighting choices, camera moves) - but it's all there to add (hopefully) to the story.

Hope you enjoy the excerpts below. There will be more to come.

Lumet Appreciation Day: the "rubber-ducky" school of drama

Sidney Lumet:

In the early days of television, when the "kitchen sink" school of realism held sway, we always reached a point where we "explained" the character. Around two-thirds of the way through, someone articulated the psychological truth that made the character the person he was. [Paddy] Chayefsky and I used to call this the "rubber-ducky" school of drama: "Someone once took his rubber ducky away from him, and that's why he's a deranged killer." That was the fashion then, and with many producers and studios it still is.

I always try to eliminate the rubber-ducky explanations. A character should be clear from his present actions. And his behavior as the picture goes on should reveal the psychological motivations. If the writer has to state the reasons, something's wrong in the way the character has been written.

Lumet Appreciation Day: On dialogue

Sidney Lumet on dialogue - If you think of his movies, there's always a lot of talking in them. One of the greatest examples is "Network". Sidney Lumet, unlike many other directors, does not shy away from a lot of dialogue - Here he explains why:

Dialogue is not uncinematic. So many movies of the 30s and 40s we adore are constant streams of dialogue. Of course we remember James Cagney squashing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face. But does that evoke more affectionate memory than "Here's lookin' at you, kid"? God know Chaplin trying to eat corn on a mechanized feeder in Modern Times is a great sight gag. But I don't think I've ever laughed harder than when, at the end of Some Like it Hot, Joe E. Brown says to Jack Lemmon, "Well – nobody's perfect."

Lumet Appreciation Day: being "the boss"

Sidney Lumet:

So how independent am I? Like all bosses – and on set, I'm the boss – I'm the boss only up to a point. And to me that's what's so exciting. I'm in charge of a community that I need desperately and that needs me just as badly. That's where the joy lies, in the shared experience. Anyone in that community can help me or hurt me. For this reason, it's vital to have the best creative people in each department. People who can challenge you to work at your best, not in hostility but in a search for the truth. Sure, I can pull rank if a disagreement becomes unresolvable, but that's only as a last resort. It's also a great relief. But the joy is in the give-and-take. The joy is in talking to Tony Walton, the production designer on Prince of the City, about the theme of the movie and then seeing him come up with his expression of that theme.

Hiring sycophants and servants is selling the picture and myself short.

Yes, Al Pacino challenges you. But only to make you more honest, to make you probe deeper. You're a better director for having worked with him.

Henry Fonda didn't know how to fake anything, so he became a barometer of truth against which to measure yourself and others.

Boris Kaufman, the great black-and-white cinematographer, with whom I did eight movies, would writhe in agony and argue if he felt a camera movement was arbitrary and unmotivated.

God knows, I'm not arguing for a contentious set. There are directors who think they have to provoke people to get the best work out of them. I think this is madness. Tension never helps anything. Any athlete will tell you that tension is a sure way of hurting yourself. I feel the same way about emotions. I try to create a very loose set, filled with jokes and concentration. It sounds surprising, but the two things go together nicely. It's obvious that good talents have wills of their own and these must be respected and encouraged. Part of my job is to get everybody functioning at his best.

Lumet Appreciation Day: What is the movie about?

Sidney Lumet:

Having decided, for whatever reason, to do a movie, I return to that all-encompassing, critical discussion: What is the movie about? Work can't begin until its limits are defined, and this is the first step in that process. It becomes the riverbed into which all subsequent decisions will be channeled.

The Pawnbroker: How and why we create our own prisons

Dog Day Afternoon: Freaks are not the freaks we think they are. We are much more connected to the outrageous behavior than we know or admit.

Prince of the City: When we try to control everything, everything winds up controlling us. nothing is what it seems.

The Fugitive Kind: The struggle to preserve what is sensitive and vulnerable both in ourselves and in the world.

12 Angry Men: Listen

Network: The machines are winning.

Long Day's Journey Into Night: I must stop here. I don't know what the theme is, other than whatever idea is inherently in the title. Sometimes a subject comes along, and as in this case, is expressed in such great writing, is so enormous, so all-encompassing, that no single theme can define it. Trying to pin it down limits something that should have no limits. I am very lucky to have had a text of that magnitude in my career.

Lumet Appreciation Day: why he accepts a movie

Sidney Lumet:

There are many reasons for accepting a movie. I'm not a believer in waiting for "great" material that will produce a "masterpiece". What's important is that the material involve me personally on some level. And the levels will vary.

Long Day's Journey Into Night is everything one can hope for. Four characters come together and leave no area of life unexplored.

However, I once did a picture called The Appointment. It had fine dialogue by James Salter, but a dreadful story line that had been handed to him by an Italian producer. I presume Jim needed the money. The picture had to be shot in Rome. Until then, I had been having great difficulty in finding out how to use color. I'd been brought up on black-and-white movies, and almost all the movies I had made until then were in black and white. The two color movies I had done, Stage Struck and The Group, had left me dissatisfied. The color seemed fake. The color seemed to make the movie even more unreal. Why did black and white seem real and color false? Obviously, I was using it wrong or -- much more serious -- not using it at all.

I had seen a movie of Antonioni's called Red Desert. It had been photographed by Carlo Di Palma. Here, at last, was color being used for drama, for furthering the story, for deepening the characters. I called Di Palma in Rome, and he was available for The Appointment. I happily accepted the picture. I knew that Carlo would get me through my "color block". And he did.

That was a perfectly sensible reason to do the movie.

Happiness is ...

being part of a generation where you can say to a dear friend, "Well, actually, this guy seems a bit more like MacGyver" and you will be immediately understood. The friend nods quickly. Yup. MacGyver. Got the whole picture. Thanks.

Pedro's Departure

Dan's post about Pedro is great. Kind of says it all. Especially that last little anecdote there. Any serious baseball fan will understand Dan's experience.

Lady Eleanor needs to calm the hell down

Here's the set-up of the scene. It is 8 a.m. It is freezing here. Bitter, windy, the Empire State Building looking stark and bleak against the white winter sky. I wait for the bus, huddled up in my huge coat, and my massive scarf (called by a guy in Ireland "Sheila's anaconda". As we went to change venues, he said, "You're bringin' your anaconda, aren't ya?") ... and I am cold.

The bus arrives. It is already SRO on the bus, which is a bummer, but it's not a long ride into Manhattan, so I get on the bus, and stand in the back. Sadly, there is a ton of traffic going into the Lincoln Tunnel, and we are in stop-and-go traffic for about 20 minutes. I don't have a book with me (Sheila ... WHAT? YOU don't have a book with you???) - and I get instantly bored.

My mind needs constant action. I can't just stand in line. I have to stand in line while reading. Etc.

Standing beside me in the crowded back of the bus is ... well ... Yoko Ono. Or her spitting image anyway, down to the fabulous spiky haircut, and the massive black sunglasses. She looks like a raging lunatic. But damn, she's put together well.

Yoko Ono DOES have a book. She takes it out of her duffel bag, and I glance at the title. (I'm an enormous snoop about what people read. I am always scanning the subway, looking at people's books, and judging them for what they read. "Wow, what a stupid book. I bet that woman is a nightmare." "Wow - someone else is reading Crime and Punishment right now - cool!" "Oh my God, I completely forgot about how much I loved that book ... Need to pull it out again.")

So Yoko Ono pulls out what is obviously, from the cover, your typical bodice-ripping medieval-based soft-core-porn book. A woman with streaming red hair and breasts spilling out of her ripped medieval bodice - being clutched to the manly chest of a man who looks like a rugby player gone to seed ... No, just kidding. The man was your basic Renaissance Fair geek, with the fucking pirate shirt, the long locks, the intense face ... Guys in those books are such jag-offs.

I stand beside Yoko, just laughing to myself. You never ever can tell about people. NEVER. Reminds me of my favorite line in Philadelphia Story: "The time to make up your mind about people, Mike, is never." Indeed. I never would have had Yoko Ono pegged for bodice-ripping erotica, and I say: go her.

We were right next to each other. It is now 8:15 am. We approach the Lincoln Tunnel. I've had a cup of coffee, yes, but ... you know, it's early. Okay? I'm waking up.

I cannot help myself. I glance at the page Yoko is reading.

I see two things:

I see the words "Lady Eleanor".

I see the words "her two orifices".

I turn away from the happily engrossed Yoko, I think unwillingly about Lady Eleanor and her "two orifices" and I think: Jesus, it's way too early for this shit.

Thoughts on blogging and myself as a blogger

Since, I would say, the 2004 playoffs, I've had many more readers come to me every day than before that time. It's a noticeable difference in managability, all that. But it's also amazing, and I love it that you all visit me every day.

I've been having thoughts recently, though, about blogging and myself as a blogger - and it is only in the past couple of months, because of this shift up in readers.

Here is what has happened: I have become self-conscious. I think before I post. Especially if it's something vulnerable, or sexy, or insecure. I wonder what people will think, I wonder if they will roll their eyes, like: "Oh Jesus, here goes Miss Drama Queen again". And maybe some of you do. But really - my blog is not about pleasing the crowd, or being something other than who I am. (I'm working this out on my own, to myself, right now, not speaking to anyone in particular. This is something I have been struggling with on my own, internally, since I've gotten more readers.) I'm here, first and foremost, to write about what I want to write about when I want to write about it.

I started blogging because I love to write, I need to write, and I thought it would be more healthy and fun to write out in the world, rather than in my private journal. Basically, it's how I keep sane. I would be writing every day anyway, but I thought, with this new blogging technology, that it was made for me.

I stumbled my way through, and in the beginning only my family read me, my friends ... My blog was very different in the beginning. I ranted about Sept. 11. It was much more political. I needed to vent, I needed an outlet. Etc. But then the fever-phase of that passed, as time went on ... and I started to add more personal essays.

Not surprisingly, this is when I started getting even more readers. I'm not a fool. I know I can tell a good story. And so people started linking to me, linking to the funny stories I posted. It was great.

There was a tone to all of my story-posts in the beginning - and it happened a bit unconsciously, but I'm sure there was something conscious to it, too. I love to write down funny stories, I have a funny outlook on things at times, I notice things ... small human moments, etc.

But then there's the other side. I would call it the dark side. Well, maybe that's too broad a brush. There is a dark side, but you'll never see it here on this blog. I'm too shy to share it all that often, especially now, because I've got all these new readers. People I don't know. This is why I prefaced my Angel Cards post a day or so ago with "Raw emotions here ... be warned".

And my preference is: I do not want to "warn" people that I'm about to be open and raw anymore.

It felt wrong when I wrote those words at the beginning of the Angel Cards post, it felt like a betrayal of myself or something and it still feels wrong. I'm not going to apologize beforehand for any "raw emotions" anymore. What I felt that I did in that moment was do what I have been doing all my life: apologize for being intense.

"I know I'm intense, I'm sorry ... Sorry ... I'm intense."

This has crippled me, emotionally. I know this. I have worked so hard to stop doing it with people in my life, with the guys I'm interested in - and here I am doing it on my own blog??

This is my issue. Nobody said to me: "You know, when you're blogging, you should apologize beforehand for any intense posts." This is me. It is also because of the general humorous teasing tone of most of my OTHER posts, and so I want to help my readers wtih the segue. Well, I am no longer going to "help with the segue". Either you segue or you don't, I can't apologize anymore. If I sound passionate about this, or upset, it's because it's something I battle. Every day. I walk through life feeling like I am way too intense for public every-day consumption and I had better put a lid on it, or I will make people uncomfortable.

I know it's ridiculous that I'm saying that about my own blog, my own domain name, my own kingdom - but it's true and I've got to get it off my chest.

I am going to write what I want to write, and as the audience gets larger, I'm going to have more and more issues with this. I have this impulse to reveal, and a conflicting impulse to conceal. I get shy. I get afraid of people's comments.

I posted the Angel Cards thing and was terrified at what people would say. I was scared that ... I would be teased, maybe? Or that someone wouldn't "get it", or whatever. The comments that came from you people who did comment were absolutely lovely, and I felt so silly for being so trepidatious. But there ya have it. I'm not perfect, and I'm insecure about certain things.

Many of you reading me now are new to me. Perhaps you don't know this other side of me, and perhaps you are not interested. That's fine. Perhaps you come to me for one reason, perhaps you come to me for another. (I've written about this before). My blog is so eclectic and moody, I couldn't keep a one-topic blog if I tried. I know my Cary Grant fan-readers. They always comment when I post about him. I know my political junkie readers, or the readers who love science ... I have all these different interests, and when I happen to post on these interests, suddenly there are the readers who love that stuff. I like to write long-ass essays about Bogart, about movies I've seen. I'm not a sound-bite kind of girl. I'm not Steven Den Beste, but I'm just not a sound-bite kind of girl. I like to write about what I'm reading about, and I like to open up the forum to hear everyone else's reading lists.

But what really interests me? What really floats MY boat? And after all, this is MY joint, nobody else's, and if I don't please MYSELF here, then what the fuck is the point? What really interests me is sharing stories from my life, telling stories, some funny, some sad, some angry, some stressed-out ... I like to share what I long for, even though I know it probably makes my parents a bit sad for me, or worried about me. I like to share stories about Cashel, because it pleases me to do so. I have a TON of stories, as we all do. This is what makes life beautiful, and painful, and ... what separates us from the beasts. We share our stories.

This is why I blog.

I must struggle, within myself, to not be shy anymore here, and not worry about how people will handle my "raw emotions". I trust that if you don't know what to say, then you won't comment. Or you can put your thoughts into an email, as many many of you did after such posts as Angel Cards, and the Triumvirate of Men post (maybe the saddest post I ever wrote. I was terrified to put that one up as well!)

But there will be no more pre-apologies for my intensity, or my rawness. I can no longer do that to myself. It's not right. It's a way of hurting myself, of selling myself down the river. No. No more. If someone makes a comment that rubs me the wrong way to one of those "raw" posts, then I'll just feckin' delete it. Very simple.

Blogging is a way for me to keep connected to the world, to myself ... it's a way to be a part of this raucous chaotic community, a community that I absolutely love ... and it's a way for me to work through some of my shit. I do that through writing, and I choose to do it here.

You people who visit me every day are a huge part of my life, gotta tell ya. I love you for coming here, to read whatever it is I put up. Add your two cents, whatever. It never ceases to amaze me. This Internet thing. Really.

But this post is a way to announce - to you, and to myself - that I am giving up my own shyness and self-consciousness - in what I post, and how I post - because it's defeating the whole point of this venture, it's me putting a lid on myself again. Protecting you from my dark side, my intensity ... "Ooh, they won't want to read that ... they come here for other reasons ... they don't want to read that shit!"

I am not saying that any of this is rational. To some degree, it isn't.

But rational or not, it's the conversation I've been having in my head when I start to go about putting up more vulnerable posts. And I finally really noticed it with the Angel Cards post, and how much I hesitated putting that up. It is not rational, but it is real, and I thought that making it public might help combat those silly ghosts.

Put this under "good to know":

In the Lexicon of Sheila, the words, "He looks like a rugby player gone to seed" indicate the HIGHEST of compliments.

Just to clear up any confusion that might be out there surrounding this important issue.

Something's Gotta Give

I've been wanting to write about Something's Gotta Give for some time. I saw it in the movie theatre when it came out, and loved it, but in the past 2 weeks it has catapulted itself up the ladder of my regard, and is now, probably, one of my favorite films.

A couple things about it: It is a formulaic film. Yes. But really, when you think about it, there are only so many stories to be told in this world. There are not 5,000,000 original stories - there are pretty much 4 or 5. Love - war - rejection - betrayal - overcoming fears, etc. I am not so much bothered by a "formula film" if it can make me forget it is a formula. You can have a formulaic plot but if the characters themselves are unforgettable, who the hell cares? Additionally, my own life has fallen into "formulaic" patterns at times, as I'm sure is true for everyone. So - that being said:

To my taste, Something's Gotta Give is one of those beautiful "dying breed" movies. There are a couple of literally laugh-out-loud funny moments, and then there are a couple of scenes which are so heart-wrenching you want to cry. It's like the movies of old before the "genres" were so set in stone. You could have sentiment in a comedy (not treacly sentimentalism, mind you, but true sentiment) without it being an embarrassment. Think of the couple of tender moments in Bringing Up Baby. The pace slows down juuuuuust a little bit, so you can get the sense that something special is happening between these two mis-matched individuals in the middle of all the mania ... and then, boom, the pace picks up again. And they're off. But it's the moments of sentiment that makes the film a long-lasting classic. Without the audience feeling like: "Oh God, these two people need to be together" the movie wouldn't work.

Enough preamble.

Here's the real deal.

Something's Gotta Give, starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, is about two people in their 60s who, inexplicably and inappropriately and inconveniently, fall in love. The deeper implications of the film (for a single girl like me, feeling the BOOM BOOM BOOM of that biological clock in my ears at all times - why do you think I love such loud music??? To drown out that dern clock) are this: You may have to wait until you're 63 to find your mate. It may not happen the way you WANT it to happen, the way you think it SHOULD happen. But you must never discount the fact that it COULD happen. Love is NOT just for the young. Love is not neat. Love is not convenient. Love can mess you UP, dude! Especially if you feel like you have turned your back on all that noise.

If you want to see a miraculous performance, watch Diane Keaton in this movie. I have always loved Diane Keaton, and have missed her very much over the last 10 years or so. She was in the typical "black-out" period that women in their late 40s and 50s go through in Hollywood. No good parts. Nothing. But what's amazing about Keaton (and about a couple of other older actresses I can think of) is that she is still a valid leading woman. Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren ... there are many more. These are women who can still carry a movie. These are women who just cannot be relegated to "character parts". They are still "leads".

Diane Keaton is like Cary Grant in this respect. Cary Grant was 63 when he retired, and never once did he NOT play a "leading man". And it didn't look like a pathetic move, like an older guy trying to hang on desperately to his youth, (ahem - Michael Douglas - ahem) - No. Cary Grant is, was, and always will be a leading man.

Diane Keaton's got the same thing going on.

And so does Jack Nicholson. I mean, in my opinion, Nicholson can pretty much do anything, but I think of him in As Good As It Gets ... even though he is an OCD wack-job in that film, he is completely believable as a romantic lead. He's got the passion underneath, he's still got the fire, and you WANT to see him "get the girl".

That's pretty much the deal with "leading men". It seems perfectly natural and good and right that they always "get the girl".

Sean Connery will still "get the girl" when he's 80, in my opinion.

Born "leading men" are very rare. Usually that role is reserved for youth, but in rare cases, youth has NOTHING to do with that kind of romantic/sex appeal.

Diane Keaton is a wonder in this film. I was talking with my friend Mitchell about it, who also loved the movie, and he said, "You know, I know it's silly to compare parts, and decide who 'should get the Oscar' - but to my mind, a true accomplishment in acting is when you the audience believe that NOBODY ELSE could play that part. And yes, Charlize Theron in Monster was incredible, and good for her for taking the reins of her own career and all that - it was great work - but I still think that a couple of other actresses could definitely have played that part as well as she did. But NOBODY could have played Diane Keaton's part in Somethings' Gotta Give like she did. It is impossible to picture ANYONE ELSE in that part. It is AMAZING WORK."

Trust me. She is THAT good in this film.

Every moment she has is so delicious, so unpredictable, so HER ... that she doesn't seem to be playing a part at all. It also seems like there could never have been a screenplay for this film, so natural is she. It doesn't sound like her "lines" are "lines" at all. Also, it's a rich performance with everything in it. It's subtle, it's specific, it's FUNNY, it's heart-breaking ... The chick has got it all.

Another thing:

The whole Reds connection. I love Reds, and have seen it a bazillion times. It's 100 hours long or something like that, with too many good scenes to even count. But my favorite scene in the entire extravaganza, is the very very quiet and very very intense scene between Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, in the beach house on the Cape. Diane Keaton plays Louise Bryant, the bohemian lover of John Reed (played by Warren Beatty). And Jack Nicholson plays Eugene O'Neill. Jack Nicholson has, I think, 2 major scenes in the entire film, it's a supporting role, but it's a knockout. He was nominated for it, and rightly so. I think it's his best work. He lets out a sexy side that I don't think I've ever seen in him before. And it's not the kind of rakish devil-may-care eyebrows-lifted naughty sex appeal that Nicholson usually displays. This is fucking dead serious. He plays a MAN. The scene is out of this world good. I watch it, and feel like I can't even MOVE, as it is going on. They never once raise their voices, I don't think they even kiss, they just sit there ... and talk ... and you can FEEL the passion in the room.

Okay, so there's that background.

Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton have known one another and been dear friends for decades. So to see them here, as 60 year old actors, playing this film, creating these characters, obviously having a BALL with each other, is intensely moving. I think of my own friends, my own actor-friends, and what a pleasure it is to act with my dear friends, to be in a play with people I have known since I was 16 ... It's like there's a shorthand there. If you're acting a love scene with a person you didn't know before getting cast in the play, you've got a bit of back-up work to do, to create an atmosphere where you can "pretend" that you feel comfortable with this person, and intimate. But if you're acting a love scene with someone who is one of your best friends, you can cut to the chase. You already know each other, there's all this HISTORY, all this BACKGROUND ... it makes for very powerful stuff.

That's what I see in the delicious scenes between Keaton and Nicholson. A long long friendship, a deep respect, and ... still ... STILL ... a sense of fun and play with each other. They truly seem to ENJOY one another. How rare is THAT in the movies?? So often you see love stories in movies and it's all about lust and romance and "chemistry". But oh, how rare it is to have a love story where you really get the sense, like you do with some couples in real life, that these two people really ENJOY each other!!

The plot, briefly:

Jack Nicholson plays a hot-to-trot 63 year old man named Harry who owns a hip-hop label and has a philosophy of life which involves him never dating a woman over 30. He's never been married.

He is dating the scrumdiddlyumptious Marin (played by Amanda Peet, who is absolutely lovely in this film, by the way - not just her face, but her acting).

Through various circumstances, he ends up staying the weekend at Amanda Peet's mother's house in the Hamptons. The mother (Erica Barry) is played by Diane Keaton. Erica Barry is a very successful playwright, who has been divorced for many years, never dates, is kind of uptight, and has stopped looking for love. She always wears turtlenecks.

Into her neat perfect uptight house strolls this cigar-smoking guy INSANELY old to be dating her daughter ... and who becomes a bit obsessed with WHY Erica wears "turtlenecks in the middle of the summer".

Hi-jinx ensue.

Since it's a formula, I am sure you can guess what happens, but I will say this: there are a ton of surprises along the way. Mainly because these 2 characters are not formulaic, they seem like real people. Jack Nicholson's character, Harry, is the real surprise. You think he's going to be one way, a complete stereotype, but if you think that, then you will be dead dead wrong.

Frances Macdormand has a small part in it, and I mean ... who the hell is better than Frances Macdormand? I freakin' LOVE that woman, and I want her career. If I had a career that looked just like hers, I would be happy. She is always good.

She plays the sister of Diane Keaton - a women's studies professor at Columbia named Zoe. Now again, you may have stereotypes in your head about anyone who is a "women's studies professor" - as I do - but Macdormand puts those stereotypes on their ears. It is SUCH a funny performance. SO FUNNY. I was rewinding the film constantly the other night, just to catch all of her little responses, her reactions, what she does in the background when she has no lines, but she's just reacting to the insanity around her. It's fabulous.

This past time I watched it I jotted down a couple of quick notes, because I am a lunatic.

This is for anyone (Allison? Mitchell?) who saw the movie and loved it as I do.

Somethings' Gotta Give bullet points

-- Frances Macdormand: My favorite moment she has is when the 3 women are in the emergency room, waiting to hear about Harry's health. They are all talking about something else, and then you see Frances M. see something (which, you find out later, is Nicholson staggering out of his hotel room in a paper gown, with his naked ass on display) - but anyway, they're all talking, and you see Frances' eyes catch onto something, and she suddenly says, with this look of humor and glee on her face: "Yuh-oh."

I can't explain why this moment is so damn funny. You just have to see it.

"Yuh-oh."

-- What the hell was Jon Favreau doing in that movie in such a NOTHING part? His career must be in the toilet. He didn't even do anything interesting with that guy, nothing. Maybe his best scenes were cut.

-- The first dinner scene - between Keaton, Nicholson, Macdormand, and Peet is a masterpiece. A comedic masterpiece. There's SO MUCH GOING ON.

-- Keanu Reeves plays a young doctor at the local hospital (and, surprisingly, he is quite good in it, although it is a small part). He comes out (after Nicholson has the heart attack), and Amanda Peet runs up to him, and Reeves says to her kindly, "Your dad is gonna be okay." Peet replies, "He's not my dad ..." Reeves adjusts, and says, "Oh, I'm sorry. Your granddad is gonna be okay ..."

-- Amanda Peet comes to visit Jack Nicholson in the hospital. Before she leaves, she gives him a tender kiss on the cheek. Now just WATCH the expression on Jack Nicholson's face following that kiss, and you'll see why he is one of our greatest and most beloved actors.

-- Jack Nicholson has one moment when he is sitting all alone, late at night, and talking to himself. It's kind of a self-pitying moment. He sits on the couch, defeated, and says to himself, "Everyone's got plans tonight except for old Har." There's a long pause, and then he says, and I cannot exaggerate how much time Nicholson takes with the next bit: "Old ... old ... old .... old .... Har." This is my actor-observation here: Jack Nicholson has intense stage training. He's got a stage background. People who have stage backgrounds (as opposed to just TV, and just movies) are able to make stuff like 4 consecutive "old"s, real and theatrical and dramatic all at the same time. British actors, for example, with their theatrical background, always seem to have that beautiful blend of the real and the dramatic. Nicholson is one of those rare rare birds. I watch him make those 4 olds real, and specific (each "old" has a different tone - and you think he's going to stop after 3 ... but then he takes a deep breath, and brings out the 4th "old") - and am in awe of his skill and openness.

-- He has a moment which made me guffaw so loudly that I think I might have woken up my neighbords. He's been sneaking through Erica Barry's house while she's gone, looking through her old photo albums. He falls asleep on his bed, literally surrounded by her scrapbooks. Then she comes home - and you can hear the car pulling up the drive. Nicholson jolts himself awake, and FREAKS OUT. Because he will be SO BUSTED at snooping. I can't describe the moment - basically he falls off the bed with a crash - but it is so genius, so funny, that I HOWL every time I see it.

-- The scene of the "midnight pancakes" is so powerful, so truthful, that it gives me chills. He's great, she's great - you're watching a pas de deux between two MASTERS.

-- Their post-coital moment is ... just a delight. They're in their 60s. They just had great sex. She hasn't had sex in years, and he has never had sex with anyone who was born before 1972. They are both a bit in shock. They don't know what to say. Great scene.

-- One thing to notice, and Mitchell - this moment, for me, absolutely proves your point: When Harry leaves her bed to go back to his room, she says to him - and the line is this: "This was a great night for me." That's it, okay? That's the line. "This was a great night for me." WATCH what she does with that line, and tell me any other actress who could make it come alive like she does. Phenomenal.

-- Watch for the great female doctor in the New York ER. She has 2 scenes, that's it, but she is terrific. Terrific. I want to write her a letter. That's the way to have a cameo in a movie. You get the sense that she has a whole life outside the movie, she doesn't stop BE-ing when her scene ends ... Great actress, obviously - who knows if we will ever see her again, but definitely watch for her.

-- One of the greatest break-up scenes I've ever seen. It's just RAW. I have been Diane Keaton in that moment. It's not neat, or actor-ish, on either side ... and it's one of those great examples of why this movie is special. Neither of these people are ready to accept love into their lives, and yet, uh-oh, here it is. Freakouts ensue. This is very real. Diane Keaton is amazing in this scene.

-- Diane Keaton's 5-day long crying jag is one of the funniest montages I have ever seen in my entire life. I cannot stop laughing. And yet ... she is SOBBING. God, though. It's so human, so real, and yet so over-the-top. When I came home from Ireland, I was like that for a good 3 days. It's hilarious. But so real while you're in it.

-- And the Paul Simon song "Learn how to fall" over the last little scene is just killer.

It's a wonderful film. It's in the Sheila Canon now.

One of the problems with being a precocious 7-year-old (like my nephew Cashel, er, for example)

... is that you can't just blindly "believe" in Santa Claus. You have to justify it scientifically. You have uncomfortable questions about the feasability of Santa's one-night journey. How does it work? How can it be explained using the laws of physics? And so it causes you to say to your mother such things as:

"So Santa's sleigh can go at the speed of light, I bet."

Online dating ...

No matter your sexual preference, it is pretty much always the same story.

I'd like to thank

my good friend Alex for just now sending me an email where the subject line was "Merry Kwanzaa".

I'm touched. Truly.

More on the Irish "Ish"

Member this whole post? About "ish"? The Irish tendency to say, "I'll meet you at nine-ish, I'll call you at half-seven-ish", etc.?

I've got another one. But it's even better.

Got an email from an Irish friend. He closed with:

"I'll write a longer letter soonish."

I find that BEAUTIFUL. It made me laugh out loud.

First of all, it's a bit different than "I'll meet you at 9-ish" or "10-ish", because ... well, "soon" is already a vague word, so to put "ish" at the end of "soon" is absolute genius.

The funniest thing about all of this is I know exactly what he means by "soonish".

The Kwanzaa Subterfuge

I stood in line at the post office to buy a book of stamps for my Christmas card blitz. I arrive at window 13. An African-American woman sits behind the desk. She has a lovely friendly smile. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I need to buy a book of stamps."

"Holiday stamps?"

"Yes, please."

She smiles again and says, "Would you let me pick the stamps for you? It's the only time I get to be creative."

I smile. I feel like we are in sync. I feel the friendliness of the universe. I say, "Absolutely!"

She hands over a book of stamps. I do not look at the stamps closely, because basically I am a trustful idiot, and also I am not fussy about stamps. Whatever. I don't care. I saw a flash of red, yellow, and green ... assumed they were Christmas trees, and thought no more about it. Like I said: I am not fussy about stamps.

Or so I thought.

When I sat down to write out my Christmas cards, I got out the sheet of stamps. It was only when I went to stick the first stamp on a card to my grandmother, that I saw what Post Office Bitch had given me.

On the stamp were 5 African women, in billowing red and yellow and green mumus, with huge scarves wrapped around their heads, and written across them was the word: KWANZAA.

Now fine, celebrate Kwanzaa, do your damn Kwanzaa thing, but why on earth wouldn't you ask someone "Do you want Christmas stamps? Hannukah stamps? Kwanzaa stamps? I-Love-the-Goddess-Maia stamps?" Whatever. In a multicultural hodge-podge like NYC, you can assume NOTHING about other people's beliefs.

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but Kwanzaa is a black thing. At least I thought it was. Who knows, I have no idea, I am not up-to-date on Kwanzaa, but I always thought it was an African holiday and that the only white person who celebrates Kwanzaa is someone like ... oh ... Ani deFranco or something.

I'm not saying this to be hostile towards Kwanzaa, I really don't care, but the more I thought about it, the more hostile her action seemed to me. It felt evangelical, and a bit defensive. Hostility WAFTED off the Kwanzaa stamps. The stamps seemed to be shouting at me, pissed-off, "Kwanzaa IS a holiday, you know!"

Fine! Have Kwanzaa 365 days a year if that's what floats your boat. But I'm a white freckled chick, why would you give me Kwanzaa stamps unless you're trying to make some kind of bitchy POINT? The more I thought about it, the more pissed I got. I'm writing out a Christmas card to my religious Irish Catholic grandmother, and I'm gonna put a KWANZAA STAMP on it?? If I were an Orthodox Jew (and the neighborhood where I work is mostly Orthodox) standing there asking for stamps, would she have given HIM a Kwanzaa stamp?

So here was my running internal and external dialogue of writing out my Christmas cards:

What I was writing:
Dear Mama, A very merry Christmas to you and a happy New Year! I love you and miss you, and hope to see you on the 26th! Love, Sheila Kathleen.

What I was saying outloud:
"Fuckin' KWANZAA!"

What I was writing:
To the Wagner family, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Much much love, Sheila.

What I was saying outloud:
"Gimme a BREAK with the Kwanzaa!"

And on and on and on.

As a coda to all of this, I did return the stamps, and I made a mild complaint: "You really should figure out which religious holiday someone celebrates before passing on the Kwanzaa stamps. I take responsibility for the fact that I let her choose for me - and believe me I have learned my lesson on that score. I should have clarified which holiday."

I do believe that it was subterfuge on the part of the post office chick. It was mildly hostile. What she SHOULD have said to me was: "Would you let me pick the stamps for you? It's the only time I get to be mildly hostile." I could imagine her laughing at happy hour with her buddies later that day. "I gave this white girl Kwanzaa stamps when she asked for holiday stamps!" ROARS of laughter. "And - she didn't even check what they were - so she's STUCK with them!!" Howls of delight.

heh heh heh

Well, I got my nice Virgin Mary stamps and Baby Jesus stamps now, so I'm happy. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy Kwanzaa to you all.

Grrrrrrrr

News like this makes me see red.

Here's the quote:

The Federal Communications Commission has asked for a tape of NBC's broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics after it received at least one indecency complaint.

How many people watched the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics? Millions and millions? And if ONE person out there writes in and says, "I found such-and-such offensive", if ONE person out of MILLIONS is offended, that's enough for the FCC.

All it takes is ONE. Obviously the wording "at least one" complaint is sufficiently vague, we don't know what that means. But "at least one" is a hell of a lot different from: "we were overwhelmed with complaints" (a la Janet Jackson). At least one? I sure would like to know what the hell that means.

I find this trend enraging and scary. Catering to the most sensitive, the most touchy, is not the way to go in a massive country like ours. And where do we draw the line? Do we stop showing women's faces on television because one radical Muslim who lives in Chattanooga complains? Katie Couric in a burkha? That may sound extreme, but look to France and Holland (etc etc) for examples of how this all could go. It is not out of the realm of possibility. I do not know what the number limit should be (over 100 complaints? over 1000?), but I do know that if ONE person finds something offensive that MILLIONS of others let pass by without public complaint, then I pretty much think that that ONE person needs to feckin' chill out.

Expert Essay: by Michele Catalano

Anyone who reads A Small Victory with any regularity will know Michele's feelings about Faith No More, and Mike Patton, specifically. The woman is a true obsessive. GOD BLESS IT! If there's anyone who is an expert on Faith No More, it would be Michele.

Anyway, Michele has submitted an "expert essay" entitled MIKE PATTON 101. I am happy to include it in my growing archive of WACKO essays. (In my lexicon, 'wacko' is a compliment.)

Click below for Michele's contribution to my Expert Series:

EXPERT ESSAY: Mike Patton

The purpose of this is to introduce you to the many musical stylings of Mike Patton: the versatality of Patton's voice, his soothing tones, his guttural screams, his passionate moans, his lyrical genius, his musical genius.

Here are three Mike Patton samplings, from three different eras/bands:

1. Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
It's not my absolute favorite FNM song, but somehow jumping right into Crack Hitler didn't seem right.

With lyrics like Your menstruating heart, it ain't bleedin' enough for two and liberal use of Patton's clenched teeth hissing and growling, Midlife Crisis is a great starting point for the uninitiated. It's got this raw anger that comes only with age; a bitterness that leaves a taste like Greek olives in your mouth and a certainty that yea, you're getting old but at least you're bound to beat the shit out of someone before you're too tired to do it. Ok, maybe that's just me.

2. Mr. Bungle - Retrovertigo.

Taken from the pure work of art known as California, Retrovertigo is, in my mind, one of the greatest songs ever recorded. It's slow, it's moody, it pulls at your gut and sucks you in and never lets you out. Patton's voice is at its finest here. He's all smooth and low one minute and powerful the next and in between there's about a billion emotions. Here, you can also get a great lesson in how to compose a tune that will forever be etched in someone's head. You'll be watching the news one day and suddenly these words will pop into your head:

Now I'm finding truth is a ruin
Nauseous end that nobody is pursuing
Staring into glassy eyes
Mesmerized
There's a vintage thirst returning
But I'm sheltered by my channel-surfing
Every famine virtual
Retrovertigo

And Mike Patton will be singing them. And you will thank me.

3. Lovage - Anger Management
Here we have a selection from another Patton band, Lovage. Guys and gals, if you were ever looking for music to make love to, Lovage is it. In fact, this album is called Music To Make Love To Your Old Woman Lady By . It was produced by Dan the Automator and features the incredibly sexy voice of Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields) as well as appearances by Kid Koala, Damon Albarn of Blur and Prince Paul. Listening to Music to Make Love is to put yourself in a red velvet bedroom with mirrors on the ceiling. It's sitting in a smoky barroom watching the female lounge singer lick her lips and run her hands down her sides. It's red lipstick and black garters and cigar smoke and maybe even a few dollars on the nightstand in the morning.

my inner demons compel me to be here
your cheeks are flush like rose petals
you're consumed with rage but i'm consumed with you
our eyes intertwine through the haze
intoxicated by your bloodshot stare
in all of my dreams i never thought i'd see
a face that could launch a thousand ships

Swoon with me, baby. Just swoon.

-- by Michele Catalano

More Expert Essays:

On the band The Replacements, by Brendan

How to Eat a Lobster, by Beth

How to Thread a Film Projector, by Mark Lippert

On the constellation Orion, by DBW

On breeding your own racehorse, by Michael Thomas

On surfing the Internet, by Beth

On curbing a hangover, by Emily

On interviewing for a job during a recession, by Susan

On teaching your puppy not to bite, by Noggie

On giving the Irish relatives a kick-ass tour of NYC, by Anne

On tying a cherry stem into a knot in your mouth, by Wavey

Horse Racing, by Michael Thomas

Chili Recipe, by Dean Esmay

Teaching Your Dog Tricks, by Noggie

The Martini, by Skillzy

Making a Damn Good Bloody Mary, by Carrie

Note: If you feel that you are an expert in anything, send me your essay and I'll post it.

Expert Essay: by Beth

Beth (who writes at Grand Mental Station and Cursed to First - her awesome Red Sox blog) has sent me an extensive Expert Essay on "How to eat a lobster".

Warning: the essay begins mouth-wateringly, and ends in tragedy pretty much. Not for the weak-stomached.

But day-um, this essay reminds me of home. I come from Rhode Island. We are all about eating fish/crabs/mussels that were literally alive on the beach down the street about 20 minutes earlier. YUM. (Beth - I think one of my favorite lines in this entire thing is "This will always a kid." You are SO RIGHT.)

EXPERT ESSAY: How to Eat a Lobster

Note: If you are vegetarian, or vegan, or have a weak stomach, please skip this essay. The author takes no responsibility for your offended feelings at her disregard for crustacean rights and / or vivid descriptions of carnivorous eating. Thank you.

First, my qualifications.

My family has been boiling and eating crustaceans and mollusks (otherwise known as "lobstah" and "steamahs") for at least four generations, and maybe more. My great-grandfather on my father's side used to hold huge family clambakes in New Hampshire--cooking the shellfish "Canadian style" by soaking the clams overnight in a bath of sweet cornmeal, digging a six-foot-long trench in the ground and steaming them all together, underground. We have sepia-toned, ancient photographs of young men in white undershirts, suspenders bagging around their hips, grinning and tipping their heads back to fill them with steamed clams and lobster.

My father fed me my first clam when I was ten months old. I was a little over a year old when I got my first taste of lobster. Along the way, I've learned the ways of eating shellfish that--to quote the highest culinary praise my family uses--would make my great-grandfather proud.

And so.

To know how to eat a lobster, you first need to know when and where to eat a lobster.

First with the when. The saying I've always heard is that you never eat shellfish in a month with an "R" in it.

But it isn't quite that simple. Lobsters are members of the arthropod family, invertebrates with jointed appendages and a hard outer shell, or exoskeleton. This exoskeleton does not expand, and a lobster can only grow by molting.

According to this article from the University of Rhode Island:

In preparation for molting, the lobster lays down a new, soft shell underneath its old shell. Just prior to shedding the old shell, the lobster seeks out a protected shelter - a rocky cave or crevice - because a newly molted lobster is soft and helpless, unable to move. Then the lobster rolls over on its side, bends into a V Shape, shrinks its extremities (especially the large claws) by drawing fluids from them, and withdraws from its shell. Over a period of several hours after molting, the lobster swells to a larger size and the shell begins to harden.

What does this mean to the lobster-eater? When the crop of lobsters has just recently molted, what looks like (and may even weigh in as) a two-pound lobster might be only a pound or so of meat, combined with empty shell and water.

The kind of lobster with which I am most familiar--the Maine lobster, Homarus americanus--tends to molt mid-summer. So late June to mid-July is not the best time.

But get to the right seafood restaurant--more on that in a moment�on the right day in late May, and ohhhh, heaven. Fire-engine red shells bursting with fine white meat.

Now there's the "where".

You could eat lobster and steamers you've cooked yourself, of course. But as I've never been instructed in this, I can only tell you the best way to select your lobster-eating establishment.

Here we have another rule, and this is very important: Do not eat shellfish anywhere where you cannot also see the ocean.

Simple as that.

Preferably, however, your lobster should have been trapped within the last 48 hours. Ideally, it should still be moving when you walk into the restaurant. In a completely perfect world, you are allowed to actually select the crustacean you'll consume from a tank brimming with its brothers and sisters.

If you're a meat-eater, shellfish is the ultimate meat. It's not like you can go to a steakhouse, peruse a herd of cattle, say, "I want that one, right there," and order it slaughtered on the spot (although...can anyone say "new theme restaurant?") Eating lobster helps you come face to face with your own carnivorousness. You have to look it squarely in its beady little eyes, and point a finger with all the power of Caesar toward where it scuttles across the tank.

If you're going to become a vegetarian, you're probably going to do it at a lobster shack. That's my theory.

So pick out your lobster. The best-tasting lobsters are not the World-Record-Size giants that cost $60 and could feed three people, but are usually bought by a guy who knows little to nothing about seafood but who wants to show off by a) being able to pay for such a thing and b) eat it all.

The perfect North Atlantic lobster weighs just over a pound and a half to two pounds. Depending on the market, they generally cost about $20. Pound for pound, they're among the most expensive meats in the world, and a little goes a long way. Smaller lobsters tend also to be sweeter and more tender for eating.

An ideal lobster is generally a little less than a foot long. Look for large claws--that's where the best meat is. Tell the kid--this will always be a kid, a nineteen-ish beach bum boiling mollusks to earn surfing and / or smoking funds, in a greasy apron with a beer gut and a ponytail--which lobster you want. Don't let him grab the scrawny one next to it. At a little under $20 a pound, you should get to call the shots.

The kid will fling the lobster into a plastic bucket on top of the scale. The scale will calculate the price based on the weight of the lobster, while the lobster thumps quite angrily around in the bucket, waving its claw at you as if to say, "If I could flip you the bird, I would."

The kid will hold out his hand. Pay the man. While you're waiting, order some steamers and beer. Eat the steamers as an appetizer. There's a technique for these, too, but that's another expert essay for another time.

A garbled announcement will come over the loudspeaker anon, announcing that your lobster is ready. Yes, I said loudspeaker--here you may have noticed that though lobster is a great delicacy, the best lobsters are not found somewhere where there's champagne and tinkling piano music. The best lobster is served at establishments made of wind-blasted driftwood, really little more than patios teetering on the sandy edge of the continent, where the tableware not composed of paper products is made of plastic.

Collect your lobster. Where during the selection process it was a deep brown--"burnt umber", if you're Bob Ross--boiling has rendered it an almost comically bright shade of red. It will look as though your lobster has stayed out in the sun too long and gotten a very bad sunburn. This is the effect of the boiling / steaming it has just gone through.

Now it's down to the nitty gritty. With your lobster reclining in a cardboard boat on the plastic tray in front of you, it's time to dig in. But how? The best lobster places--those side-of-the-cliff joints where "black tie" is thought to be a brand of grain alcohol--will not carve up your lobster for you. They will not hand you a plate of delicately arranged de-shelled pieces. The entire lobster will be plunked bluntly in front of you, boiled, red, and whole. There will be a tough exoskeleton between you and the lobster meat.

There's a technique to this.

This is a personal preference, but I've always liked to start with the claws. Or, rather, the smaller joints that connect the thorax of the lobster to the claws. First, twist off the claw, joints and all. Next, twist off the joints from the claw end. You must be careful�these joints have thorny spikes on them, and if you don't have tough hands or know how to do this twisting safely, your hands will be bleeding by the time you get through with it. A nutcracker is often helpful to the novice.

Separate the joints into their individual sections. Flexible cartilage will clearly demarcate the joints from one another.

In addition to a nutcracker, the lobster joint has probably also furnished you with a small pointed wooden stick, like a pencil without lead. Using this implement, push from one side of the cracked-apart joint through, spearing the meat on the stick. Dip the meat, which will look much like a scallop, into the drawn butter served with your lobster.

Finally, eat it.

Though it looks like a scallop, it will be sweeter and slightly chewier. The butter will add to the sweet taste. After all the work you've done--especially after the spines may or may not have pierced your hands--it will be a beautiful taste. It will remind you that taste is a sense of the world in the way that vision and hearing are, that this taste is telling you a story of what it is to be human, what it is to dominate the food chain, what it is to kill, dismantle and eat your own meat. What it is to venture to the depths of the ocean and capture creatures for eating. You are tasting the Cretaceous period. You are tasting evolution.

In more ways than you might realize.

Lobsters, actually, have been used by scientists to either tweak or altogether challenge the Darwinian theory of evolution.

Lobsters apparently also play the violin.

After eating the claw-joints, I usually move on to the claws themselves. This is the best meat in the lobster (which makes the Midwestern practice of eating the tails only--perhaps because they freeze better--laughable to me). Sweet, tender, slightly tangy.

The tail is next. Grasp it firmly and pull upwards. It should separate easily from the thorax. Turn it over, dig both thumbs into the middle, and separate the shell.

Inside are two thick ridges of meat. Peel them apart carefully. There will be a thin, black strand down the middle. This is the lobster's answer to a lower intestine. Do not eat it. Instead peel it carefully out from between the two slabs of tail meat. Take care not to break it open.

At times you will see clusters of tiny red balls in the tail section. These are the eggs of a female. Free caviar!

The tail meat will be much tougher than the claws. Inside the fans of the tail, if you peel them apart very carefully, there will be thin wafers of meat.

Next, the legs. Pick them off the thorax. There are a number of techniques for getting the meat out of them. As they are long, thin, solidly encased tubes, cracking them open as you have with the other sections is generally not recommended, and the mark of a true amateur. Some people suck on the legs, but this is usually labor-intensive. I tend to bite down toward the end of the leg, then squeeze the meat out like toothpaste from a tube.

Lobster is the most creative meat I've ever eaten.

Now, why do I talk so fetishistically about lobster?

Because I have been allergic to it since I was nineteen.

You have to understand: lobster is more than just a meal for my family. It's a ritual. It's eaten on my father's birthday�Memorial Day--and my birthday--around July fourth--and my sister's birthday--shortly after that--and any time we go to be near the ocean. It's at the center of more childhood memories than I can count. And it was on one of those otherwise happy days that I first came home from our favorite seafood joint with a stomachache.

The next time, it was full rolling waves of nausea.

The next time, I puked a little bit.

Eventually I was resigning myself to cheeseburgers--heresy!--at the fish joint, and sharing an order of steamers with my sister.

Then, finally, denoument.

My grandparents on my mother's side were visiting from North Dakota. My mother grew up there, and sees shellfish as a science experiment. Her father feels the same way. My grandmother tends to savor the chance at fresh seafood. All still participate in the lobster-ritual, though, if only as spectators. My grandparents also love to go on the ocean drive around Seabrook, NH, looking at the mansions and the rocky, savage North Atlantic coastline. The only seas they usually witness involve amber waves of grain.

Still stubbornly determined to participate in the meal, I once again shared an order of steamers with my sister. I managed to eat about six before the sickness started. But I also choked down a fish filet. My mother had gently tried to suggest to me that my nausea and the shellfish might be related. I had steadfastly refused to listen.

But it was clear, as I broke out in a sweat and swallowed back bile, that I had a problem.

Another tradition after lobster used to be going to the Dairy Queen (the last remaining DQ, perhaps, in the Northeast), though it closed in recent years. This time, it was still open, and my father and my sister went for sundaes. I managed to nod my head no. I may have been turning visibly green. But I fought.

That's the thing. I'm a fighter. I don't think there's any way I can express how much I hate to puke. I am one of those difficult people who would rather lay there and moan and feel like shit than puke and get it over with.

So there I was. In the back of the minivan, with my entire surviving direct ancestry (and one sibling) in front of me.

And we went on the ocean drive.

The ocean drive, if you are someone who has ever been on an ocean drive, was highly--I daresay obnoxiously--curvaceous. On and on we went, looping around S curves by the ocean like they were going out of style. At some point, I'm sure my eyes rolled back in my head. But still I fought.

I can remember precisely the view out the window when it finally happened. We were passing by a small inlet where small boats�mostly yachts and sailboats--were docked, a small forest of bobbing mainmasts. A wall of crushed rock made a small lip at the edge of the road, the better to battle erosion from the pounding waves. At times you could still see a small gout of spray rise up above this berm.

I opened my mouth to tell my mother to please pull over. Instead of words, what came out was vomit worthy of the exorcist. Voluminous. Projectile.

I succeeded in puking all over absolutely everyone in the car.

My sister, who is a chain-reaction type, immediately began to scream. My father swore. My mother hauled the minivan over to the side of the road with an ear-splitting scream of rubber. I was lifted, pulled, shoved, all but kicked out of the sliding door to the side of the road, where I emptied what was left of my digestive tract onto the gravel. My sister was being talked down from her own puke-ledge behind me.

To this day, that car smells like puke to me.

Since I was no longer trustworthy, I was plopped into the front seat, where the motion sickness would theoretically be alleviated, and handed a plastic bag. My grandmother made soothing noises. My parents were tight-lipped and grim. My sister was despondent.

We made it to the state-line liquor store on our way back to Massachusetts before having to careen into the parking lot, squeal to a halt, and let me out to make a frantic beeline to the bathroom.

And that was the last time I ate any kind of shellfish--at least willingly. There was also, of course, the unpleasant instance where I discovered that my sensitivity had become such that even onion rings prepared in the same kitchen as some fried clams at another fish joint provoked more violent nausea.

At this point, even whitefish makes me sick.

Is there a more profound "bummer" than being allergic to your favorite food--being allergic to a food that means more to you than simple nutrition? That means family and happiness? That connects you with childhood?

Of course, there is some evidence that

Ironically, the foods that you crave are also the foods that you are likely to be allergic to. Some people feel that they are addicted to their problem foods, but it is not the food itself but the endorphins "the body's opium-like pain killers which are triggered by the problem foods" that they are addicted to.

And sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, I do indeed find myself with an irrational--even downright scary--craving for lobster. I fantasize about all the little rituals and methods it takes to eat one. I think about the taste of one. I dream about the idea that maybe life isn't all broken down into chemicals and facts, into tedious, heartless reactions without emotions or divinity that strike without remorse, that unceremoniously slam the door.

-- by Beth

More Expert Essays:
On the band The Replacements, by Brendan

How to Thread a Film Projector, by Mark Lippert

On the constellation Orion, by DBW

On breeding your own racehorse, by Michael Thomas

On surfing the Internet, by Beth

On curbing a hangover, by Emily

On interviewing for a job during a recession, by Susan

On teaching your puppy not to bite, by Noggie

On giving the Irish relatives a kick-ass tour of NYC, by Anne

On tying a cherry stem into a knot in your mouth, by Wavey

Horse Racing, by Michael Thomas

Chili Recipe, by Dean Esmay

Teaching Your Dog Tricks, by Noggie

The Martini, by Skillzy

Making a Damn Good Bloody Mary, by Carrie

The ship in the air

Clonmacnoise is a spectacular old monastery in Ireland (it's right off the N6 - the road that takes you from Dublin to Galway - If you're ever in Ireland, I have got to tell you: Go to Clonmacnoise!)

There's a graveyard, with tilting high crosses up and down the green. There's a crumbling tower, a crumbling structure placed out beyond on a small mound, and off to the left is a river, and marshes. The water is rather wide there, as I recall, and there are amazing sky reflections. Or at least there can be, and there were when Jean and I went.

The place is magic.

(Oh, and there's also a "fertility statue" within the monastery which has my name - one of the famous Sile na gigs - the statues who sit there in rather improper legs-spread poses, and they are believed to have fertile powers, and women and men used to come to the monastery, to rub the Sile na gig, in the hopes that they would get pregnant.)

It's a rich place.

The water, the sky, the crumbling stones, the high crosses on the green, the reflections ...

Now, there is an old legend about the place and here is how it goes:

Long long ago, when there were still monks living and working in the monastery, back when Christianity was in a much younger phase ... one day a ship appeared. The monastery is next to a river, but this ship was not in the river. It floated by in the sky. All the monks saw it. (Interesting - when you go to Clonmacnoise, you can see at least one of the reasons why this legend makes sense. The water reflects the sky in such a way that they blend together like a watercolor ... it is difficult to distinguish between the two. But anyway, back to the mystery): The monks were at prayers, they looked up, and watched the ship float by in the sky. Then, out of the ship, came a massive anchor, which fell to the ground, and hooked itself at the bottom of their altar. This was a mistake, it wasn't supposed to catch on anything, and so ... the ship finds itself stuck, it cannot go forward.

A sailor clambered himself down the rope, to try to un-hook the anchor. And, of course, he began to drown. The monks realized this, and hurried to let the anchor go, and they helped the man back up to the ship.

And then - the ship in the air sailed away.

I love this legend. There's something so spectacular about it. There's something essentially mysterious and un-knowable about it. I also love it because if you go there (especially during twilight, or early morning, when no one else is there) you will almost be able to see that ship in the air. Or, at least, it is not difficult to believe that someone WOULD see a ship in the air. It makes perfect sense.

Seamus Heaney wrote a MARVELOUS poem about Clonmacnoise and this legend - it is included in a larger group of poems called 'Lightenings', and the poem itself has no name.

Of all that he has written (all of which I love), this poem might be my favorite. It involves no verbal pyrotechnics, nothing clever, nothing too difficult - it tells the story I just told in a very straightforward way (except it's in verse).

But the last line, people. The last line. Therein lies the magic of Seamus Heaney.

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him.' So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.

Bullet points

-- What am I reading right now? The Secret History of the IRA, by Ed Moloney

-- What's the song I'm obsessing about right now? "Holiday" by Green Day. I find that I can't get enough. I just can't. When the fever passes, and other music is allowed into my life again, I'll let you know.

-- Is it baseball season yet?

-- Last night I had a dream about tidal waves. It was a montage of tidal waves. But the dream wasn't a scary dream, somehow. It was exciting. There were shots of houses and buildings engulfed in the foam of a massive crashing wave. There were shots of the chaos in the middle of the ocean. And then - there was this little postcard from a small remote island - The postcard showed a clapboard house standing there, and the windows reflected an enormous tidal wave approaching. Kind of a scary image, right? But the message on the postcard was something like: "From the island of Narwah - we welcome you!" Only, the dream made it clear that the postcard was welcoming the tidal wave. It wasn't a "Miss you, wish you were here" message, it was a "Greetings, tidal wave!!"message. I have tidal wave dreams once a decade, and I always perk up and pay attention when I have them. They seem to be harbingers of big things. Change, growth, getting into the subconscious, whatever. Hm. Maybe it has something to do with Harmony and Patience? Whatever it "has to do with", it was a pretty damn cool dream.

-- Christmas shopping? What? When? After my experience last year, ("the nightmare commute") I know I cannot have a repeat of THAT nonsense. Must figure something out ... It sucks when Christmas is on a Saturday, frankly.

-- I have not finished Underworld yet - but I found (Linus, you were right!) that it is perfectly all right to put the book down for a bit, read something else, and then pick it up again. It doesn't have a driving narrative, not at all, but it's well-written and compelling enough that when I pick it up again, I find myself launched right back into that world.

-- I put up my nativity scene this morning. My mom sent me the. Most. Adorable terra-cotta nativity set. Well, it's kind of a mini-set, actually. I've got Mary, I've got Joseph, and I've got the weeest terra cotta Baby Jesus you have ever seen in your life. They're abstract - terra cotta figures - but I find them so soothing, so beautiful. I set them up in my window, and I love looking at them.

-- I need to see Something's Gotta Give again, and so that's what I'm doing tonight. Cannot get enough of that movie. CANNOT. I will be writing a post on it ... but right now, I'm too busy enjoying every stinking minute of it.

God bless us ... EVeryone!

Yesterday I drove many many miles to see my dear old friend Brett perform his one-man version of Christmas Carol. He does all of the characters, and he does it as though he is Charles Dickens himself - Dickens used to perform his work in this manner all the time. Brett has been performing at the Dickens Day festival in this one particular town for 10 years now, but this is the first time I have gone. I drove up with Liz and Joey. And then there we were, 2 and a half hours out of the city (in other words: another WORLD) ... hanging out in this massive Waiting for Guffman-ish town hall, where there was a Santa who had bright blue eyes above his beard and who appeared to be coming off a massive bender. I said to him brightly, "Hi Santa, how are you?" and he mumbled, in a Tony Soprano accent, "How you doin'". Very funny.)

Brett is a star in this town - they look forward to his yearly visit - they bring the kids, they all gather in the local Civil War museum, on the top floor of the Town Hall, and watch his performance of Christmas Carol. It was a great atmosphere - surrounded by pictures and relics of all the Civil War veterans of this one small Connecticut town, and there was Brett, up in front of us, CREATING this story for us.

He was so wonderful, and so funny, and so inventive that I was rather beside myself the entire time. My heart swelled up like the Grinch's, watching my friend shine like that, and I was a weepy mess.

He played all the characters, and they weren't just caricatures - they came to life, fully, they each had a different walk, voice, attitude - and yet the entire thing didn't feel precious, or actor-ish - It felt like an afternoon of STORYTELLING, which is, I'm sure, what Dickens would have wanted. The man knew how to tell a tale that rollicked along. There he was - as crotchety Scrooge, there he was as Fezziwig, there he was as Tiny Tim, there he was as the sorrowful Belle (Scrooge's sweetheart as a young man) giving the engagement ring back, there he was as the ghost of Marley (wailing and clanking his chains) ... And it never once stopped moving, and it completely lifted itself off the page. It didn't sound like it had EVER been a book. It seemed like it must have been born as a story told round a family fire.

I was mostly moved by the faces of the little kids in the audience, perhaps hearing the tale for the first time. Brett includes the kids, talks right at them ... (it is, after all, a ghost story) - and there was one little boy in the front row, he must have been about 7? He reminded me of Cashel. A sweet little face, he was sitting with his grandmother.

And when Brett acted out the part when Marley's ghost comes up the stairs ... and he did the sounds of Marley's chains clanking, and he did Scrooge sitting in bed, listening, terrified ... I glanced over at the wee sweet boy, and saw his eyes goggle open, his mouth drop open, he was huddled against his grandmother's side ... He could not take his eyes off Brett, and he looked filled with delicious terror.

That kind of shite makes me cry. Sweet little boy, staring up at my friend, and also ... the art of telling a story, and how important it is, how we, as a human race, really can't live without it.

I was really proud of Brett, and I also was really proud of myself and Liz and Joey for getting our acts together and hauling ass ALL THE WAY INTO CONNECTICUT in order to see our friend shine.

Expert Essay: by Mark Lippert

Here comes Mark's "expert essay" on How To Thread A Film Projector (an essay which he calls "ridiculously technical"). However, this would make sense, since Mark is, after all, a dyed-in-the-wool A.V. Man . If an "A.V. Man" isn't "ridiculously technical", then what the heck is the point?

EXPERT ESSAY: How to Thread a Film Projector

In this ridiculously technical essay, we'll learn how to thread a 35mm film projector. Since there are quite a few different models of projectors, I'm going to try and keep it as basic as possible; the same general ideas should apply to most 35mm projectors. I really can't say if you could apply this lesson to those little projectors used in high school, since even I wasn't geeky enough to be an AV Man. Also, I'm just going to concentrate on the actual threading and ignore what kind of film pay-out/take-up system is used. These instructions apply to both platter (film lays horizontally in one big reel) and changeover (film is on two or more small vertical reels) systems. Let's get threading!

The film enters the projector through the feed hole in the top. It's fed through vertically so that it ends up in front of the upper feed sprocket. The film is then arc underneath this sprocket towards the back of the projector. Take care to make sure the sprocket teeth go in the sprocket holes of the film, otherwise you'll end up with perforated film. This is a Very Bad Thing. Secure the film to the sprocket by closing the pad roller arm.

From this point, the film will form a graceful upper arc between the upper feed sprocket to the film trap, which is basically the back wall of the film compartment. Two small guide bars show you the path the film will take. The arc of film should be just so, not too large and not too small; you'll want it to have enough play when it's zipping through the projector at 24 frames per second.

Line up the film so is in frame with the aperture (the little frame-sized window that the light shines through). Needless to say, this is one of the more important steps; failure to do so will force you to adjust framing on the fly when the movie starts. This is another Very Bad Thing. A good projectionist is one who makes the audience forget that he's there.

Once the film is framed up, wrap the film around the intermittent. This is simply another sprocket that pulls the film through the trap. Again, make sure the sprocket teeth are in the sprocket holes. Then, slide the film trap gate into place. The gate is a large slab with a hole in the middle that sits between the film trap and the lens. It's main purpose is to sandwich the film flat against the back wall of film compartment. This keeps the film as secure as possible because this is the point where it is actually projected onto the screen.

From here, the film arcs towards the back of the projector and is then pulled through the lower feed sprocket. This is set up much like the upper feed sprocket, except the film travels over the top of the sprocket and heads downward to the sound head or "exciter." The exciter consists of a couple of toothless sprockets that the film just skims around. The film wraps around the front of the upper drum, which flexes slightly with the film rather than firmly holding it in place as with the other sprockets. It then wraps around the back of the lower drum; at the brief point where the film is perfectly vertical, the soundtrack gets read.

Soundtracks are whole separate can of worms. For simplicity sake, I'll just concentrate of the traditional analog soundtrack that is printed on the side of the film. If you want to learn all about digital sound in excruciating detail, pay a visit to http://www.film-tech.com. An analog soundtrack, however, is simply a long sound wave that is printed down one side of the film between the image and the sprocket holes. Oh, did I forget to mention that the soundtrack side of the film should be facing you as you thread? Yes, make sure that it is.

Anyhow, the soundtrack is read by a light (or LED) that is shined through the film, similar to the way the image is projected. These printed waves are converted to sound and feed to the theater speakers. I'd love to give a more detailed explanation on how this works, but I barely passed physics in high school. Just be happy I didn't give you the "magic sound pixies" explanation.

The film then travels towards the front of the projector, pulled by the sound feed sprocket. Much like the upper and lower feed sprockets, the film travels over the top and makes another graceful arc towards the front of the projector and then out the bottom. It's at this point the film travels out the hole in the bottom of the projector to the take-up reel and this overly-detailed essay ends. See you at the movies!

-- by Mark Lippert

The Expert Essays series

On the band The Replacements, by Brendan

On the constellation Orion, by DBW

On breeding your own racehorse, by Michael Thomas

On surfing the Internet, by Beth

On curbing a hangover, by Emily

On interviewing for a job during a recession, by Susan

On teaching your puppy not to bite, by Noggie

On giving the Irish relatives a kick-ass tour of NYC, by Anne

On tying a cherry stem into a knot in your mouth, by Wavey

Horse Racing, by Michael Thomas

Chili Recipe, by Dean Esmay

Teaching Your Dog Tricks, by Noggie

The Martini, by Skillzy

Making a Damn Good Bloody Mary, by Carrie

Angels

This is a post about Angel Cards, and my long weird (and semi-bitter) journey with Angel Cards. What are Angel Cards? Angel Cards can be bought in any new age-y type store (you know, the kind of store that sells books about yoga, kama sutra, and holds classes on meditation and compost heaps - I got my deck of Angel Cards at a store like that in the Village). The cards come in a very small box, and the cards themselves are very small - probably an inch and a half long, and on each card is a different word. Some of the words on the cards (and I don't know all of them): Power. Love. Joy. Enthusiasm. Kindness. Stuff like that. I keep my Angel Cards on a shelf on my desk, and if I'm ever feeling lost or scared about something ... or like I need guidance, maybe something to think about in order to get me thru, I'll pick an Angel Card. It's kind of relaxing. Like: if I have a rough week ahead, I feel very alone, I have a lot of stuff to get done, I have a scary email to write to someone, I'm feeling overwhelmed ... Picking a card that says: Light. or Inspiration - can calm down that pitter-pat heart inside.

It's a wee ritual in my life. Here's a couple examples of what they look like:

For many years, my group of friends from college have a semi-tradition of "picking Angel Cards" at the beginning of each year. My friend Liz keeps a running tally of what everyone picks. She's obsessive. But it is very interesting - she'll say, "Okay, so you picked Strength last year, and this year you picked Synchronicity. Cool."

Of course you can place any meaning you want to on the Angel Cards. You can place NO meaning on what "your word" means. You can look at it like: This is something I need to "work on". Or you can look at it like: this is just a word to meditate on, and see what it might provide me. Whatever. It's completely up to interpretation. There are no rules. (I mean, how ridiculous would it be to have strict rules about how to pick Angel Cards of all things??) The whole point is to relax, to pick your word, to think about it ...

There have been many interesting Angel Card-picking moments through the years.

For example:

Years ago, a friend of mine once picked "Trust". This word pissed him off (things can get pretty emotional during the Angel Card picking ritual). He didn't like "Trust". He was highly scornful. "I have plenty of Trust. I don't have a problem with Trust. This is bull shit, I'm picking another one." And the next card he picked was Flexibility.

We are still making fun of him for that one.

The second card pretty much spoke to his response to the first card.

To be honest, the last 10 years or so have been rather rough on my heart (in terms of love relationships, etc.) and so I have a tendency to be relatively bitter about the Angel Cards, which can make for comedic and stressed-out Angel Card-picking moments. I refuse to give the word too much meaning, I refuse to take it TOO literally.

As I have said many a time to my girlfriends, "I got BURNED by those Angel Cards, man!"

Here's an example. And this may sound all kind of silly to some of you, but ... well, I am expressing a truth, one of my truths. A lot of this has to do with love. With me, and with my relationship to love.

It was 5 or 6 years ago. Can't remember the date. And I was in Chicago for New Year's. I was in grad school at the time, I think, and on my Christmas break. And I was in a really good and positive place in my life. I felt really excited, really positive about the future ... not just about my career and stuff, but about the possibility of letting love into my life again. For 3 or 4 years, I had put the old heart on ice (after the disaster of 74 facts man...) and there was no end in sight to the tunnel I found myself in. I could not recover from the loss. On some level I refused to recover. I loved that guy so much. And when it didn't work out, I moved to New York City -- I couldn't even be in the same time zone with that man, too painful -- and focused totally on my work, on acting, on school. Years passed. And while I definitely left a huge piece of myself behind with him (and I still haven't gotten it back - and never will) - life moved on. As it does. And on this particular New Year's Eve I'm talking about, I was back in Chicago, I was doing really well, and there was something stirring in the ice fields of my heart. Little green sprouts coming up or something. I felt that I could love someone again. I had no prospects, not even a crush on anyone ... It was just this sense, this kind of emotional sense, that I was ready again. I could do it. 74 Facts man would not be the last man I loved.

So then comes the Angel Card picking ritual. I was with my dear friends Jackie and Jim. We each picked a card. Funnily enough, Jackie had just found out she was pregnant for the first time. And the card she picked said Expectancy. We loved that!

And the word I picked, unsurprisingly, was Love.

Plain and simple. Love.

Jackie and I had been talking, in depth, about my life, about how I felt, about my sense that good things were coming ... that a relationship might be in my future, in my near future ... and I hadn't felt that in years - so then there it was: Love.

I felt (stupidly) that my Angel Card affirmed my dearest hope.

What I'm saying is is that I took the card literally. There are many different kinds of Love. It could mean Love of self, it could mean Love of the work that you do, Love at its most universal. But I had been so burned in love, I was so lonely, so hurt, so at a loss as to what to do, who to be, after 74 Facts man ... that I thought: Yup. I know it. Love is coming.

Sadly, the following year was one of the bumpiest roughest years of my life. By the end of the year, I felt bruised, battered, roughed around ... I felt like: Jesus, let this year END.

I had two very brief "relationships" (hate that word) - one with a great guy who I liked very much. He pursued me like gangbusters, and the second he had me, he dropped me. Such a cliche, but still - I was completely thrown by this, I was hurt, my hurt was way out of proportion to the relationship, but that didn't matter. I had been protecting myself for so long, barricading up the old heart, that I suppose somewhere I felt, naively, that when I did decide to come out of the cloister, things should work out for me, because it's only fair and right. I was devastated. My friends were worried about me. I couldn't bounce back. But whatever, life goes on. I bounced back.

And then another guy came into my life, an Irishman. Another strange thing: I dated him for only 6 weeks. A very innocent kind of dating: going to movies, going to the opera, going out to dinner - all that kind of dating stuff that I was so out of practice in. And we clicked. We had an absolutely marvelous time with each other. And even though I dated him for a very short time, I would say that, of all the guys I have loved, of all the guys who have had an impact on me, he is the guy I can't think about. I can't even say his name. It just brings back that freezing horrible winter when he suddenly dropped me. In the cruelest way possible. Just stopped calling. Avoiding me. I became a complete lunatic. Finally, I got closure with it - There was a good reason why he couldn't be with me, and we had a beautiful conversation about it, and the talk ended with the two of us saying to one another: "You know, it's been a long time since I've met someone I am so compatible with ... I want to thank you for the past 6 weeks ... it has been beautiful."

I held it together through the conversation, I wished him the best of luck, hung up, and then began the winter of my discontent.

I thought I was going mad. The other dipshit who dumped me earlier in the year couldn't hold a candle to this other guy - but I had all this other shite swirling around in my head, tormenting me. I made things worse for myself. I was mad at God. I was mad at myself for coming out to play. I had been SAFE! After the 74 Facts debacle, I retreated - and yeah, I was lonely, but I was SAFE! Look what the fuck happens when I emerge ...

Now I know that this is life. You have to decide to take a risk, and you might get hurt. I know that, logically.

But during the winter of my discontent there was no logic. It was all lying in bed at night, with the wide-open eyes of a suffering animal. I was in agony.

Okay, enough of that. Like I said, I still can't really think about that time.

I am coming back to the Angel Cards now. That year, in the middle of this horrible time in my life, I go to a small New Year's gathering at a friend's house. There are only 4 of us there, all dear friends. One of them breaks out the Angel Cards. I was not doing well at this point, I was not sleeping, I looked like crap, I told my friend Ann Marie that I was limping through my days "like a wounded fox". ("Wounded fox" has now become shorthand for us. "So I'm really sad right now, but I'm not a wounded fox." "Oh, that's good.") I was VERY anti-Angel Cards.

Especially because I got LOVE the year before. LOVE! What a fucking LAUGH! I had to have been CRAZY to believe that I would find Love. I believed it, and now look what happened - I got burnt. TWICE IN A ROW. I had to have been fucking INSANE to believe that damn card.

I resisted. "I don't want to pick Angel Cards. I just ... I don't want to this year ..."

My friends were kind and sweet. "It doesn't have to mean anything, Sheila ... it could just be a word that you can look to for guidance ... "

So I picked a card. Under protest.

What did I get?

I got Surrender.

And what did I then do?

I threw the card across the room. In a fit of rage. (It was a lovely New Year's gathering, I can tell you that.) It was funny, yes, but it also wasn't funny. I was in no mood to be light, funny ... I was NOT okay. I kept saying, "Surrender? Jesus Christ, I HAVE surrendered - How much more do I have to fucking surrender? I HATE ANGEL CARDS."

I know I'm telling this like it was amusing ... and we do sort of laugh a bit about me freaking out about my Angel Card ... but it's weird. That time was so bad (and I know in the grand scheme of things, having 2 breakups in a row is not too terrible, whatever) - but anyway, all I can say is: We do reference: "Jeez, remember Sheila throwing Surrender across the room?" But when we laugh, we do so still remembering how that time was for me. My friend David said that when he hugged me good-bye that night, he felt my pain literally coming off my skin. He said to me as he hugged me, "Sweetheart... I know ... Fuck the Angel Cards. I know."

Of course, time did its imperfect job (whoever said Time Heals All is a fucking asshole in my opinion - Sure, you heal - but ALL? No. There's always something left behind. At least that's true for me) - and I got over my Irishman. I did my best. I put him out of my mind. I joined a gym. I refused to write about him, think about him, reference him ... and soon he was out of my heart. Enough so that I could move on.

Life. You know.

Anyway, last night we had our Angel Card picking ritual. I was with a bunch of my great girlfriends, hanging out at the Art Bar in the Village. This is our Christmas party yearly thing that we do, and Liz always brings the Angel Cards, and also brings her little sheet of paper where she has all of the Angel Cards we all have picked throughout the years. heh heh I love Liz.

Another small set-up to this:

Yesterday morning I woke up and began an essay that I wanted to post here. It was brought on by seeing Something's Got to Give - one of my favorite movies. I started this essay - and it was on Trust and Patience. Basically, if there is a reason I was put on this earth, if there is a method to the madness, then I think I was put here to learn trust and patience. There HAS to be a reason that I struggle so much with these two things alone. It is all about Trust and Patience. I can't trust. I have no patience. These are the themes. And Something's Got to Give is all about this.

Anyhoo, I am sure you can see where I'm going with this.

There was the pile of Angel Cards on the table. I reached out and picked one.

It said Harmony.

I didn't like this. I said, "Harmony. Blech. I don't like that" and tossed it back onto the pile.

And my tossing of Harmony caused another Angel Card to spontaneously turn over ... and that card said Patience.

BWAHAHAHAHA

We were howling about this, because I had shared with my friends my thoughts about trust and patience earlier in the night. And so there I was - rejecting Harmony, but then there was Patience, inserting itself into the dialogue. "Hi there. You may not like Harmony, but you do need me!!"

So anyway, there seems to be something fitting about all of this. I feel strangely comforted.

I am not taking the cards literally, because I learned my lesson, with the one-two punch of Love and Surrender, thankyouverymuch.

But still. There are worse things in life than meditating on Harmony and Patience, and thinking about what these two words/qualities can provide me in the coming year, what they can mean to me.

Kerry said, laughing about the Patience moment, "Do not mess with the cards - They will always win!"

Oh, and directly following the Harmony/Patience thing, Liz picked her card and it said TRUST.

So Trust AND Patience showed their faces last night, on the very same day I had been thinking almost non-stop about those two very things.

Coincidence? I choose to think not.

Like Albert Einstein said (and I paraphrase): "There are two ways to go through life. One is to decide that nothing is a miracle, and one is to decide that everything is a miracle."

A confession

Prompted by an email conversation with Curly (and I apologize to anyone I offend, beforehand):

I have a confession to make about mimes.

Mimes make me so angry that if I talk about them for longer than 30 seconds, I might start to shout. I might get all in your face, shouting about mimes (a la "Don't even TRY, CHiPs!")

There was one infamous evening, strolling along the shores of Lake Michigan with dear friends, when I started to rant and rave about mimes and it got so bad that I actually got a little bit upset about mimes. I don't even have to SEE a mime to get steamed. The mere THOUGHT of them drive me insane. It is irrational. It is not based on a bad experience I had. I was not mugged by a mime once. I didn't have a bad experience dating a violent mime.

But for some reason, they make me NUTS.

My friends like to prompt me: "So Sheila, how do you feel about mimes?" just to watch me work myself into a frenzy.

This is akin to my friend Mitchell's irrational hatred of Renaissance Fairs. He doesn't just hate them. The thought of them makes him NUTS. He said to me once, in a blast of contempt and hatred, "Renaissance Fairs make my teeth itch."

An Irish moment

(At least, I was informed later by an Irish person, that this moment was very Irish.)

He: "So we'll meet up at, say, half-nine?"
Me: "Sure. Half-nine it is."
Brief pause.
He: "Ish."

This will take a bit of set-up

And I'm embarrassed about it, but I think it's hysterical, and I want to share it.

A while back, for SOME reason, I admitted over on Emily and Ken's blog that when I was a child, and I watched Willy Wonka, the Oompa Loompas gave me a very weird feeling. I think the words I used on Emily's blog were "disturbingly sexual." Please note that I did not say that I found Oompa Loompas "pleasingly sexual" - but that there was something DISTURBING about them, something ... ikky, if you will ... and they made me feel a bit weird. Like - God help me if I run into a bunch of Oompa Loompas in a dark alley.

Needless to say, Emily has never let me forgotten my shameful confession on her blog. I figure I deserve all the ribbing I get, because what the hell was I doing admitting such a weird thing on SOMEONE ELSE'S BLOG in the first place?

Long embarrassing story longer and more embarrassing:

The other day, during the "plushie" mania going on on It Comes in Pints ...

Well, suffice it to say, that Oompa Loompas came up again. There were a couple of suggestions about Photoshopping that old black and white photo of mine, and Ken, in about 5 seconds, did just that. Emily then wrote a commentary about the doctored photo, to be read like a blurb in a museum catalog.

High comedy ensued at my expense and I thought I would share it.

Click into the Extended Entry to see the photo, and to read Emily's commentary:

On "Expressive Woman With Colorful Midgets":

"Surrounding our subject are a number of colorful little people, commonly referred to as 'Oompa Loompas' and originally made popular by the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who form a symetrically pleasing pattern that frames the work's center. The focus of the piece settles on a woman who appears to be either experiencing gross pain or immense pleasure, rendering her objective and mysterious. The viewer is left but to wonder of the task her companions have set themselves to, as they hover behind and appear to be cramming things up her ass."

Expert Essay: by my brother Brendan

My brother Brendan has just written a fantastic "Expert Essay" on the band The Replacements and Paul Westerberg. I know there are a ton of Replacements fans out there ... and people who love The Replacements are, in general, obsessive about them. I do believe, though, that my brother Brendan is THE obsessive among obsessives. I still remember going to a concert in Philadelphia with my brother and my boyfriend - we were there to see Elvis Costello, and Westerberg opened for them. A magical night.

Brendan, dear, your essay gave me the chills. And I felt a strange lump rise in my throat during the last paragraph. Love you. Well done, well done indeed.

EXPERT ESSAY: The Replacements - by Brendan O'Malley

Whenever I hear people talk about how the '80's sucked, I have to argue. How, you ask, could you argue for a decade that spawned all those horrible songs that we all know by heart even though we hate them?

The answer to that question dates back to a rainy night I spent driving around my hometown. I had just gotten my driver's license and it was late at night. I remember the streets being rain soaked, sparkling. It was cold. And I was a teenager. An American teenager.

I was raised listening to the Beatles, folk music, and show tunes. A few years earlier, I'd been wrenched into puberty by Purple Rain but this night I discovered the underbelly of that blockbuster. I was listening to the local college radio station, something I had only recently been doing because I hated hair bands and synth pop. I heard a song.

For those of you who haven't heard 'Unsatisfied' by the Replacements, your shame ought to crush you. I won't dwell on that particular song only because it launched my lifetime musical obsession, but suffice it to say that the Replacements sound like what it feels like to be 16 and driving a car late at night on rain soaked streets in America.

To give you an idea of how ballsy, hilarious, tragic, sexy, wasted, and brilliant this band was, they named their third album 'Let It Be'. Paul Westerberg, the poet rock'eate of the band said that if it was good enough for the Beatles, it was good enough for them. This album is so good that it is better than the Beatles 'Let It Be'. Yes, I said BETTER THAN THE BEATLES.

In fact, if you took the Beatles, smashed their tour bus into the Rolling Stones' hotel (crazy sidenote...listening to my itunes randomly and the Beatles 'Let It Be' came on just this fucking second so maybe their 'Let It Be' is better than the Replacements)

Where was I? Beatles bus, Stones hotel, then sent them to American high school, gave them shitty fast food jobs, stuck them in the most disaffected era of American history in the midwest where you pretty much had to kill someone to get noticed, fed them a steady diet of cigarettes, cheap booze, punk rock, and the explosion of the mass media culture...well, you get the drift. The result is

ASTONISHING MUSIC...

Some highlights...

Color Me Impressed: Begins with the lyric "Everybody at your party/They don't look depressed/Everybody dressin' funny/Color me impressed" while the music careens like a joyride.

Androgynous: A jazzy piano shuffle that imagines a time in the future when men and women are virtually indistinguishable. Remember, this was a punk band. This was akin to Bob Dylan going electric at Newport. Piano? Androgyny?

Bastards of Young: A searing scream at the adults who'd abandoned them..."God, what a mess/On the ladder of success/When you take one step/And miss the whole first rung/Dreams unfullfilled/Graduate unskilled/Beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten" (the band, when forced by their record company to produce a video for the song, filmed a kid putting the needle on the record, listening to the entire song, then kicking the speaker in)

Gary's Got a Boner: This was on the same album as Androgynous. Contains the gem "Gary's got a soft-on!"

Treatment Bound describes an early tour through the neighboring cities of Minnesota and ends with someone banging on beer bottles.

Waitress In the Sky: An hilarious, nasty attack on the poor souls who serve us as we fly..."Sanitation expert and a maintenance engineer/Garbage man a janitor and you my dear/Re-unified attendant myohmy, you ain't nothin' but a waitress in the sky"

OK, I could literally go on forever. The lead singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg is on a par with Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, Chuck Berry, Costello, Joni Mitchell, ah, fuck that noise. He crushes them.

If you listen to every release, you hear a nation going from Christopher Cross to Kurt Cobain. The man behind the curtain was Paul.

-- by Brendan O'Malley

Expert Essay: by David W.

Well, David W. (a long-time and regular reader - "DBW" - I've got a soft spot in my heart for him ... even though I've never met him!) has sent in an essay about the constellation Orion. It's a beautiful piece of work. I love Orion myself. Perhaps because it's familiar? That's not so bad a reason when you're talking about a couple of stars out of billions and billions. It's nice to see some you recognize. (Also, is there a term more romantic and mysterious than "stellar nursery"? Gives me the chills.)

Thanks, DBW. A lovely essay.

EXPERT ESSAY: The constellation Orion

This time of year Orion can be easily identified. In the mid-evening, it sits in the southern sky about halfway between the horizon and the top of the sky.

Look for three relatively bright stars in a close line--these are Orion's belt.

Above his belt are Orion's shoulders. The reddish star on the left is Betelgeuse, which will be the main focus of this essay. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant of incredible size. While it is something like 12,000 times as bright as our sun, it is much cooler--which is the reason for its easily-seen orangish-red color. It is a pulsating variable star, which means it regularly changes in size, and emits a tremendous amount of radio waves. While there is some disagreement about its size and distance from Earth(and I am sure someone will write in to correct my figures), at its largest Betelgeuse is arguably the largest single object visible with the naked eye. If it were to replace the sun, its diameter would easily engulf every planet out past Mars, and perhaps reach as far as the orbit of Neptune. It is a staggering speculation that something like 150 million suns could fit inside Betelgeuse's diffuse vacuum. Again, there is disagreement about how far Betelgeuse is from Earth, but it somewhere between 430-520 light years away(2.5 quadrillion miles), which means the light we are seeing now left there around the time Columbus discovered America. As I said, pondering these facts lends me great perspective on my own burdensome concerns.

Below Orion's belt are the stars of his feet. On the right is Rigel, a young, blue supergiant that is 40,000 times as bright as our sun, and 60 times its diameter. Rigel is 775 light years from Earth, which means the light we are seeing left there around the time Genghis Khan died.

Orion also includes the Great Orion Nebula--which can be easily seen with decent binoculars. It makes up part of Orion's sword. The Nebula is the nearest star-making formation to the Earth, and is basically a stellar nursery. Within its enormous boundaries is the very beautiful Horsehead Nebula--Google it for some spectacular pictures.

One last thing before everyone's eyes glaze over. Below, and to the left of Orion, is one of his faithful dogs, Canis Major. There you will find Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Sirius is a "mere" 8.6 light years from us, which accounts for its scorching whiteness. Sirius actually has a small companion star that is smaller than the Earth, but hotter than Sirius.

For thousands of years our ancestors knew the night sky the way we recognize our neighbors' back porches. With our modern inside comforts, coupled with bright city lights which hide so many stars from our sight, we have lost touch with the simple wonder of looking up at night, and contemplating it all. Orion is an easy first step to recapturing that wonder. I can tell you from personal experience that kids love to hear about "the largest single thing you will ever see," and distances that befuddle all of us--and these are stars right in our celestial neighborhood--much less billions of other galaxies infinitely farther away.

-- by DBW

Expert Essay: by Michael Thomas

Michael T. had an essay in the first go-round of this Expert series, and here is his second.

The topic is the same, like a true obsessive, although he does take a different focus. Go obsession!! This is fascinating stuff - wait til you read it. (Oh, and congrats, Michael, on being the first Guy expert here.)

EXPERT ESSAY: Going Broke At The Races

It is widely accepted that an obsession with horse racing is certain evidence of insanity. The root of this belief is the notion that betting on horses cannot be pursued successfully -- that it will eventually lead the pursuer to the poor house.

In my previous �Expert Essay,� �A Day At The Races,� so generously published by Sheila, I hope I demonstrated ways that horse playing-induced penury can be avoided. In short, I argued that learning to read the Racing Form and betting the fastest horse at the longest odds, along with learning how potential winners look before the race, is the best route toward long-term success at the race track.

Ah, but once you�ve mastered that aspect of the game, how do you take the challenge and kick it up a notch (sorry Emeril)?

You decide to breed your very own racehorse � from scratch. As my wife and I did, recently. Oooooo, brilliant. What do you need?

First, you need a mare. Well, that was no problem. Our friend Eddie had a six�year-old mare, who (Microsoft Grammar wants to say which, but I refuse) had been injured in training a few years ago and he wasn�t that motivated to do anything with her. So, we said we�d pick a stallion and breed her.

Second, you need to pick a stallion. This involves two considerations, Pedigree and Cost. You want the best pedigree you can afford that matches up well with your mare�s family (we�re talking compatibility in a genetic sense, not an interpersonal one). As card-carrying members of that class of people designated NOT Robber Barons or Middle East Petro Royalty, we could not afford 99% of the horses in the Stud Book (yeah, there is one, and it�s got pictures). But we found a stallion with pedigree from a family we both really love, who was affordable and matched well with our mare.

Now we had to get the mare to the stallion. This involves a very big truck and an equally large bill.

Then you wait. And wait. And wait. Then you call the stallion manager and are told to wait some more.

Finally the word comes that your mare is pregnant (or as horse people say, �in foal,� which is weird because the foal is in her). Anyway � Now, you can send another big truck (with equally big bill) to pick up your mare.

And you wait � and you wait � and while you wait you pay the boarding bills.

But soon enough (11 months later), the call comes that says you have a little baby horse and (hold breath here) he�s doing fine, looks good and is nursing.

Then you see him and all the months of big trucks and big bills and trepidation melt away. You made a baby horse, and one day he might be a racehorse. Your racehorse.

But the reality is that our horse has only about a 60/40 chance to even make it to the racetrack and then only a very small chance to win any kind of a race. All the while racking up monthly bills. I think we may have found how to go broke at the races.

But we went up to see him last weekend and he�s growing up to be quite a looker. And the farmer says he can run. So, we�ll see. As my wife says when the horse she�s bet on is leading down the backstretch, �more ground to cover.�

-- by Michael Thomas

Expert Essay: by Beth

Here is another Expert Essay for my series (you guys all rock!! Or, I should say: girls, since so far, it's all women experts). This one is by Beth who writes at Grand Mental Station (a very worthwhile and well-written blog), and Cursed to First, one of the best Red Sox blogs out there.

I like this essay, because it kind of explains to myself my own "surfing" behavior ... and how one blog leads to another ... and blog-rolls open up whole new worlds ... It's pretty cool. Also, she mentions my very own blog-roll, and how she kind of got hooked onto one of my wee obsessions. That's pretty cool.

And so, without further ado, here is Beth's essay!

EXPERT ESSAY: How to Surf the Internet.

Obviously, surfing the Internet is not difficult. Most people do it. Most people, in fact, have a small to large network of sites they visit on a daily basis, followed by an outer network of sites they visit less frequently, and an even more far-flung network of sites they have visited occasionally.

But there are times, more frequent than you might imagine, when even the rich and considerably-sized Web orbit you inhabit begins to feel more like a rut. It's time to branch out. It's time to Discover Something New. The Internet is a vast, seemingly infinite place. And yet you can't seem to break free of the little corner you have come to occupy. You don't even know where to begin--you've clicked all the links of your usual sites, then you've clicked all the links of *those* links, and many of them have come back to, you guessed it, your usual sites. You're trapped in a Mobius strip of Internet stagnation.

Of course, this may be something you're perfectly comfortable with. If so, more power to you. But if you're like me, and you have no life and also an insatiable curiosity, you may find this a perplexing problem. What are you going to do, sit in front of Google and type in random keywords to see what comes up? Anything you're truly interested in, you've already done that with anyway, right? Anything you're *really* interested in, you know of all the fan sites / info sites / official sites anyway, am I correct?

No, no, NO. No self-respecting person should face the prospect sifting through the contents of a sprawling search engine in a futile attempt to entertain themselves. Most people need structure and organization--some type of system that will bring them exciting new content out of the chaos.

Through trial and error, I've managed to hone my "dicking around on the Internet" skills to a mastery level. I can be literally across the world in just a few clicks, then right next door peeking into the windows in another few moments. In the interest of helping my fellow Netizens in their pursuit of happiness, then, here, without further ado, are a few tips for freshening your Internet experience.

Use the resources available. And no, we're not talking search engines. On Blogger sites there is now a toolbar that contains a button with the words "Next Blog" on it. Clicking on you brings you to another one of the millions of blogs out there, totally at random. I've found new sites (and respective blogrolls) to check out daily using this tool--and I've also entertained / tickled / scared myself in the process, which is really the point, after all. LiveJournal, Xanga, and other blog publishers have similar gizmos. Use them.

Note: I would advise against using anything associated with a "web ring", however. These tend to lead inexorably to a Geocities or Tripod site that's done in bright red, green, and yellow capital letter fonts on a black background and that tries to install nefarious spamware on your computer.

Google wisely Say you've ended up on a site that discusses a technical subject in great detail. Don't just use context clues to help you along--open a search engine in a separate window and Google away. Don't be surprised if you wind up reading about things like macroorchidism, and forgetting completely about the original site you were visiting.

Click that link you've never clicked before. You know that link. That link on a site you visit regularly that the site's author seems really gung-ho about, but that has left you nonplussed. Even if you've hopped over there just in the interests of being thorough, and left again quickly, this time, slow down. Explore. See if that other site has a blogroll or links page.

Go with the flow. Don't feel obligated to finish reading something if it has a link that looks intriguing. Click it, and see where it leads. To illustrate, I will give you a typical example of one of my own link-chains.

Start at Sheila's site. (By the by, Sheila's at the end of another, albeit smaller link chain�I initially heard about Sheila from a fellow blogger named Dan, who is a
regular reader of my Red Sox / Patriots Blog. Dan and I originally met on the comments section at Bambino's Curse.

Sheila is a true gem among bloggers. Her blogroll is widely varied in subject and style, nd--this is a rare occurrence--virtually every link there is worth clicking on. I chose her for demonstration purposes because she's a great jumping-off point.

Among the first sites that intrigued me on Sheila's blogroll was called Chez Miscarriage, because I thought, "Is this what I think it is?"

Yep.

It's a blog about infertility. With a link to quite possibly the largest, most thorough links page in history, which is actually a subsite of a truly astounding infertility site in its own right, A Little Pregnant. This blog I actually read from the very beginning up to the present, like a book, it was so good. And just a few days ago, Julie finally had a son named Charlie, and there I was, just two clicks of the mouse removed from Sheila's site, getting weepy about the child of a complete and utter stranger.

But it gets better. Because you wouldn't believe the kind of issues infertility and reproductive endocrinology raise in the muddy political cesspool that is the World Wide Web. And what trolls!

Now, if you are pregnant, nursing, have a medical condition or are simply weak in the stomach, the attack on infertility blogger Cecily by a troll calling him / herself "Holly" should be avoided at all costs. (Cecily I found via the second link down on A Little Pregnant, called The Naked Ovary. It was at the bottom of her blogroll, but I believe Chez Miscarriage also mentioned Cecily when she lost both twin boys she was carrying. Unfortunately, the second of the fetii was delivered deliberately (i.e., aborted) in order to save Cecily's life. Holly is, you guessed it, a staunch pro-lifer.

So repugnant is her self-righteous, relentless and condemnatory attack on a grieving woman that it drew the attention of a site dedicated solely to trolls.

In perusing that site, I came across the account of the visit one LJ user, calling herself "golden plate", made to an LJ discussion group for gay teens. In reading through the ensuing trollery, I first concluded that she was awful, and then that she was fake, and then that, no, she was just awful. Then I clicked on the link to one of her livejournals.

And found this entry:

Okay, let it be said that I find it amusing that everyone thinks that I hate homosexuals! I never said that or did anything to make anybody think that I did! But you all are far more hateful than I am any given day of the week.

I have something to tell everyone. Remember a few entries back when I said that I stopped being friends with my best friend because I found out that she didn't believe in God? Well, that little closet God-hating freak committed suicide on Friday morning at like 5 a.m.

You know, I really could care less and I don't feel sorry for her or her family either. That is what she gets for not believing in God, and same to her parents for allowing their daughter to not believe in God! That is one family I will not pray for. They truly are sick and twisted! They are the ones who have to spend their eternity in Hell, not me.

Come to think of it, this goes for everyone who has ever committed suicide, because this is not what Jesus has planned for you. Selfish idiots!

Time to go! I might make a new painting!

Catch ya on the Flipside!

It's still hard for me to figure out if this girl's for real or not. But it really doesn't matter at the end of the day, because when you find yourself reading something that mind-bending, you know you've gone and had yourself a serious Internet surfing session.

So, there you have it, kids. Some of the sites, like the troll clearinghouse, can serve as a good platform for beginning your own surfing adventures. Good luck, and remember, if you're not shocked, appalled and thoroughly entertained, you're just not looking in the right places.

Expert Series: By Emily

And now, from our very own hung-over birthday girl, another Expert Essay to add to my series. We should all print this one out and hang it on the fridge.

EXPERT ESSAY: How To Curb A Hangover

First of all, let me start by saying that I'm not going to get all Surgeon General on your ass and suggest to you that the best way to avoid a hangover is to not drink in the first place. I find the very notion offensive. There are, however, a few steps you can take in order to insure that your post-binge morning passes with the greatest ease possible. You can trust my advice on this - it has survived generations from a perilous journey across the Atlantic and several decades on an American Indian reservation. My genetic credentials are impeccable.

Let's start by examining the different types of hangovers:

The Beer Hangover
This is the easiest to suffer. It generally involves fuzzy thinking and a light headache, with minimal impact to stomach nausea, depending on the quality of the beer ingested and whether or not it was taken with food. It can almost always be solved with simple asprin and a couch ridden morning where you can watch the E! Channel and learn more about Tommy Lee than you ever cared to.

The Champagne Hangover
I think champagne sucks ass so I have rarely had these. The occasions on which I have usually involved massive headache and stomach upset. Damn the French for inventing this crap.

The Hard Liquor Hangover
Like beer, the extent of the morning-after damage is proportionate to the amount consumed and quality of liquor. I'm a quality-over-quantity gal myself and I would rather go without than drink the crap stuff. I mean, if you're that desperate to get loaded, you might as well do it sitting at the bus stop with a paper bag camouflage while visiting with Gus, the local hobo who talks to the stop sign because he thinks it's his grandma. At any rate, the HLH invariably includes headache, nausea, general brain fartery and, on a good night where entire weekends (and in extreme cases, marriages and careers) are sacrificed to appease the ghost of Keith Moon, vomiting.

The Mixed Alcohol Hangover
By far the worst of all hangovers, without a doubt conceived in the mind of Mephistopheles himself. The irony of the amateurism of the mixed drinker is that they fall victim to the MAH following holidays like Thanksgiving and the 4th of July, where they have convinced themselves that, while it is not okay to start on the gin and tonics before 5 PM, it's perfectly okay to nail a case of Bud before dinner. Never mind that it makes you more of a person in need of weekly meetings to find it hard to wait until dusk before starting to cop a buzz, the stupidity of willingly putting yourself in this sort of state is ridiculous, almost criminal. This is the hangover where every part of your body hurts to the point where, if you were a horse, the only humane thing to do would be to shoot you.

Now let's review a few simple steps you can take the night before (if you're not too drunk to remember to not forget):

1. Pace yourself.
Get a nice buzz, but pace yourself. The object isn't to get plastered as quick as possible. It's to maintain a delightful buzz for as long as possible. Your goal is not to pass out in your own puke and wake up wondering where the sheep came from.

2. Eat.
Greasy food is your friend. It absorbs the alcohol, which not only minimizes your hangover, but on double-header nights, allows you to drink longer. Drunks are the only reason there are so many Denny's in America.

3. Hydrate.
Both the night before and the night after. Gatorade is a drunk's best friend, even if it does taste like soap.

4. If you feel sick before hitting the bed, go on. Blow chow.
If you can't find a handy spoon, use your fingers to induce vomiting. You'll only feel worse in the morning if you don't.

5. If you have some around and you aren't one shot less from re-enacting the death of Dylan Thomas, take a couple of Vicodin before you go tosleep. This option should rarely be exercised unless it is your ambition to wind up in a clinic. However, you will feel as if you hadn't had a drop of alcohol the night before and be able to go on about your business pretending that you are not an alcoholic.

Remember, folks. The point is to have fun, loosen your inhibitions and have a few laughs with good friends. Don't do anything retarded like drive, take off your clothes in public, get knocked up, or allow yourself to be video taped at any given moment. It will only come back to haunt you. Now, go forth and drink up and otherwise be merry. Yo ho.

-- by Emily

Random quotes from Ireland

Allison calls these "snapshots". There are entire stories around each quote, but I'll only give the quote. Some involve Allison and I, others are just things we overheard, or snippets of conversations we had with people we met along the way.

-- "Frosty the Snowman is goin' down."

-- Allison shrieked out into a crowded pub: "Oh my God! He has no teeth!" And then later, trying to explain further just HOW this person had no teeth: "One entire side of his front row of teeth was gone ... It looked like an orthodontal side part." An orthodontal side part? Genius.

-- "I love getting drunk and swimming in hotel pools. Because ... well ... you can't really drown."

" 'The snow is general all over Ireland!' "
"Oh Jaysus, now she's quotin' Joyce!"

Guy: "I put my cell phone on the windowsill in the bathroom while I took a shower, and now ... for some reason ... it won't work anymore!"
Me: "For some reason? Uh ... "
Guy: "It must be witchcraft or somethin'."

"My ass is up for grabs in Turkey."

-- "Oh, I'd love to throw my leg over him."

She: "I love my Rabbit." (She was NOT referring to a pet. She was referring to another kind of rabbit, and for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, all I can say is ... er ... shame on you?) Anyway - she proclaims to a crowded pub: "I love my Rabbit."
Bursts of laughter all around from the women.
She then says, "I think I need to get a bigger size though."
The men put their heads in their hands in embarrassment. One of them says, "Ah, yes. An insight into the female mind."

Me to Carrie: "In reality, I am quite serious and shy."
Carrie literally did a spit-take. Laughed RIGHT IN MY FACE.

Read the one below in a feisty flirt-y context, rather than a hostile context, and you'll get the tone of it.

He: "Get a map."
Me: "What did you just say to me?"
He: "I said: GET. A. MAP."
Me: "You literally do not want to get into a geography battle with me, because I assure you, even though I do not know you - that I. Will. Win."
Long pause. Then:
He: "I can tell by the look on your face that I will definitely lose this war."

Expert Essay: by Susan

And here is yet another Expert Essay for my series. (If you feel like you are an expert on something, please send me an essay and I'll post it!) This one was sent in by Susan, based on her experiences of racing around Washington DC, looking for a job. (One line in particular made me laugh out loud - and I LOVE her last bit of advice.)

EXPERT ESSAY: Tips for Interviewing in a Recession

Having traipsed hither and yon through the streets of our capital city, peddling my meager wares and my commitment to excellence, I've earned my stripes in the job-hunting world. I�ve suffered disheartening failures and toasted rarer successes, and I would like to give all of you job-seekers the interviewing tips that nobody gave me. Oh sure, they've told you to be confident, to give concrete examples of your achievements, to wear sexy lingerie so that you will feel confident and more concretely aware of your achievements. But much of this advice is geared toward a booming tech market. "Don't leave the interview without asking the interviewer if he/she is ready to offer you the position!" admonishes one source. I don't think so, kiddo. Interviewing in today's economy is not for the weak-hearted. You must have iron determination. You must have abandoned principles. You must try not to be drunk.

Without further ado: Tips for Interviewing in a Recession

1) Do not wear sexy lingerie
You will not feel more confident. You will not feel more concretely aware of your achievements. You will feel uncomfortably aware of your ass. If that is a concrete achievement, by all means, carry on. For the rest of us, this is not the way to focus on success. I believe this technique was brought to you by the makers of Secretary � a fine film, but not an appropriate career guide for young girls pursuing their options off Capitol Hill.

2) Sing.
You're walking to the interview, and your nerves are starting to get the better of you. You're hashing through all your canned-response answers in your head. You're threatening yourself with deprivation and lashings if you forget to mention how well you work without supervision. Relax. Sing a song to yourself while you walk. You'll feel like you're in a movie with a personalized soundtrack, and this will give you pizzaz and will calm you. A few words of warning, though. My walking-to-interview song used to be "Confidence" from the Sound of Music. It worked for Julie Andrews, right? "I have confidence, and confidence alone! Besides which, you see, I have confidence in me!" A winner, right? You'll feel like a million bucks? No, you'll feel like a nun who's about to be strapped with 7 singing Austrian ankle-biters, so that one was a dud. Also, don't sing The Smiths. "I was looking for a job and then I found a job. And heaven knows I'm miserable now." If you sing The Smiths, you might skip the interview altogether, and take Morrisey's advise and you'll "go home, and you'll cry and you'll want to die." I recommend straight-up rock. You�ll feel like a rock star. And if they don't want to hire a rock star like you, then fuck 'em.

3) During the interview, try to avoid cussing, swearing, or sexual advances.
That advice comes courtesy of a fellow job-seeker, who has since landed a fine post and is convinced that the above issues were his chief obstacles for the first couple weeks.

4) Do not make fun of the current presidential administration when the organization is chock-full of former Reagan-appointees.
This may only apply to interviews in DC. Talking about politics in a supposedly non-partisan environment is a crap-shoot anyway, but try to know the general political environment of the company you are interviewing with if you insist on saying things like �the Bush administration is a bunch of escaped Nazis.� It�s tres d�class�.

5) Google your interviewer
If you get the name of the person/people you will be meeting, by all means, stalk them. Find out if they have any special interests that might show up on the internet, and then co-op those interests to your advantage. Does she run the marathon? Slip in a reference to your split times. Is he the ringleader of an underground S&M ring? Wear leather to the interview. Every little bit helps, but beware keeping up the artifice if you are hired. Too much leather can be itchy, and the chains are brutal.

6) Celebrate everything
Did your interview go well? Don't wait until they give you a job offer! Happy Hour! Did somebody call to schedule an interview? Round up the posse, it's Happy Hour! Did somebody e-mail you to confirm receipt of your resume? It's mojito time! In these uncertain economic times, you have to take what victories you can find. Postponing celebrations until you actually receive a job offer probably means you just won't be drinking. And that is the one thing you will need most of all to survive this process. Bottoms up!

-- by Susan

Expert Essay: by Noggie

And here is yet another Expert Essay for my series. If you feel like you are an expert on something, please send me an essay and I'll post it!

This is an essay by Noggie, who writes here. Noggie is, as is obvious, an expert on dogs - she contributed another essay on this topic the last time I asked for essays. (If you love dogs, or have a dog, or are thinking about getting a dog, you should definitely check out her site.)

EXPERT ESSAY: Puppy Bites, by Noggie

I lie to puppies. I have other people tell a similar lie to my puppies. And the lie is this: Each and every time pup touch my skin with his/her puppy teeth, I tell that pup that "that hurts!" I over react purposefully. - "Ouch!!! That really hurt!!!" - I try to overact. I create a scene. I am not happy with pup and scold. Pup has done a bad thing. Pup may be startled the first couple of times this happens, but it quickly learns that teeth on skin causes a severe, unpleasant reaction from this human. And, it seems like it happens with other humans too (if I can find a variety of co-operative people to assist).

The lesson that I want to impress upon pup, as early as I can, has three points:

1. human skin is fragile.
2. dog teeth on skin is a bad, bad thing.
3. pup has to be very careful with its mouth.

I want to teach this lesson as effectively and as often as I can with pup. It may need much bad acting and over reacting on my part (also from friends, from family and other people). The criterion is teeth on skin. It does not have to hurt for me to begin this act. I have set my parameter for this at a very low level - even incidental teeth-to-skin contact is not acceptable. This simply will prevent a myriad of problems as pup grows up.

-- by Noggie

Expert Essay: by Anne C.

Yet another wonderful essay has arrived for my Expert Series. This one is a sheer delight, and makes me want to join in the next time it occurs.

EXPERT ESSAY: Hey-the-Irish-Relatives-Are-In-Town tour of New York City, by Anne C.

My Irish relatives come to visit me from time to time, and I have, through trial and error, established a plan of attack for the city. This tour is really geared toward Irish people, who have certain things they need to do and see in New York, many of them involving the Kennedys, but it may work for others as well.

These are the highlights:

1) The "You're in New York now, baby" opening move. I always get tickets for some shocking play or other, often involving nakedness. This makes the Irish relatives feel like they've really left their small town behind. I took one batch or other to the Vagina Monologues (back when they were new), and I remember going to some show or other about a very large woman who posed as an artist's model, who was naked onstage for most of the performance.

2) The Jackie O mini-tour, in which I point out her apartment building at 1040 Fifth Avenue; pass by Loyola and/or St Thomas More, the Kennedy family churches; duck into the park to give them a brief glance at the Reservoir, where she used to run every morning (adding that hey, I used to run there too, in high school); and show them the apartment building where I once ran into her in 1982.

3) The John Jr mini-tour, usually involving brunch at Bubby's and tales of my many sightings of him. I also breathlessly recount the one time I spoke to him on the phone.

4) The obligatory St Patrick's Cathedral visit.

5) The Tenement Museum and/or Ellis Island, so we get to see how much it sucked to be an immigrant.

6) The Woodside/Sunnyside pub crawl, always featuring a stop at The Kilmegan on Roosevelt Avenue, where they invariably run into people who know my uncle Owen.

7) A visit to my favorite non-Irish bar, where they will buy everyone drinks, making themselves and me very popular for years to come.

8) At least one restaurant with really spicy food, so they can say, "I didn't know food could be this hot."

And, tacked on at the end, everything else you're supposed to do as a tourist in NYC.

--- by Anne C

Expert Essay: by Wavey P.

And here we go. The first essay has arrived, and it is a doozy. I love people.

Read on, and learn from the expert.

EXPERT ESSAY: HOW TO TIE A CHERRY STEM INTO A KNOT IN YOUR MOUTH, by Wavey P.

Preamble: Now this is not meant to be sexual or anything. I dedicated myself to perfecting the �art� of tying a cherry stem into a knot in my mouth because I was always so sure it would win a bet for me in a bar someday (just like knowing all of the words to �Devil Went Down to Georgia.� It was my favorite song in third grade and my family lived in Texas at the time. I would play the 45 over and over. I still remember looking around for my mom with nervous excitement, riddled with guilt by association every time the Charlie Daniels� Band actually swore, �I done told you once, you son-of-a�� but I digress�a lot�)

Ok.

Disclaimer: Reading this essay will not guarantee that you will master the �art� of tying a cherry stem into a knot in your mouth. Some physical abilities we are just blessed with (like being a redhead, or being able to roll your tongue). But I want to encourage anyone who with an interest to try and try again.

What you will need: A cherry stem. Feel free to go ahead and eat the cherry, or you can save it as a reward once the deed is done.

Now this may be considered cheating if you are participating in a cherry stem tying contest, but try to secure for yourself as long a stem as you can find.

Step 1: Chew on said stem a bit to soften it up, but do not break it.

Step 2: Using your tongue, fold the stem in half in your mouth. (In fact, use your tongue for all of the following steps unless instructed otherwise)

Step 3: Cross the ends of the stem, one over the other

Step 4: The tricky bit. Clamp the end on the bottom between your front teeth.

Step 5: Poke the other end through the rabbit hole (keep visualizing how you tie a knot with your hands).

Step 6: Keeping the one end still clamped between your teeth, press the other end to the roof of your mouth. Slide the end wedged against the roof of your mouth toward your throat in order to �tighten� the knot.

Ta-da! Now go and collect your prize. Next step, time trials!

-- by Wavey P

An old project being unearthed

I would like to bring back my "Expert Essays" series. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I will re-post for you the original idea, and what it's all about.

I have all of these regular readers - some I know by name, others I do not, some I know a little bit about, some I have actually gotten together with, etc. - but I thought it would be fun and interesting to open up this forum a little bit.

I want to bring back my series that I call: "EXPERT DAY".

Everyone out there is an expert in SOMETHING.

Be it: making the perfect cheese cake, how to fix your carburetor, tips on how to get your kids out of the house in the morning - all on schedule, how to construct your resume ... or, something along the lines of: An Obsessive's Guide to Bob Dylan/U2/The Replacements ... or An Obsessive's Guide to Persian Poetry, to The Boston Red Sox (or whatever) ..."I am an Expert on Preparing your Taxes and Finding Little-known Deductions" ... "I am an Expert on the films of Judy Garland" - "I know everything that is worth knowing about Roman Polanski" ... whatever.

There's a wealth of random knowledge out there and I want my hands on it.

I love people who are obsessed with things. Who are passionate about things.

It does not matter what you are passionate about, as long as you are passionate about SOMETHING. (There are limits to this, obviously. If you are passionate about setting up killing fields in the rice paddies of Cambodia, then I don't really want to hear from you the best way to go about it.) But I (obviously) have a ton of random obsessions: the history of totalitarian regimes, American theatre, Nirvana, the Bronte sisters, outer space ...

You get the picture.

So here's the deal:

If you are interested, and if you feel that you are an "expert" on something, please send me an essay on your obsessions/the subjects which you feel you are an expert in ... I will post them in an ongoing series.

Really, the sky is the limit here. Recipes to resumes, child-rearing theories, Elvis Costello albums ... I don't care.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are the Expert Essays I received during the first round. I'd love to add to the archive:

Horse Racing
Chili Recipe
Teaching Your Dog Tricks
The Martini
Making a Damn Good Bloody Mary

If you're interested in this, please send me your "expert essay" in an email to redhead2@sheilaomalley.com - and I will begin to post them immediately.

Sheer liquid pleasure

I watched The Sure Thing over the weekend. Haven't seen that movie in ... years? How GREAT is that movie??

-- "My father told me to only use my credit card in an emergency."
Rain, thunder, lightning.
John Cusack says, "Maybe one'll come up."

-- Anthony Edwards had hair.

-- Daphne Zuniga screaming out the window of the car: "COME TO MAMA, BOYS!"

-- Tim Robbins' BRILLIANT turn as the passive-aggressive driver, who sulks when the 2 college kids in the back won't join in the sing-along. "I'm not going to sing if they're not going to sing. They're ruining it for everybody!"

Also: "Hi, I'm Gary Cooper. But not the Gary Cooper that's dead!" Huge goofy laugh.

And my favorite - after he kicks them out of the car, he screams at his wife, "LOCK THE DOOR!" and she screams at the top of her lungs, as though Freddy Krueger is coming after her. It's so damn funny.

-- And, on another level - the general sweetness and humor of the entire film. It's rare that a film ends with a kiss that feels so sweetly earned, so meaningful. She's got to transform, loosen up a bit, and he's got to transform, and grow up a bit.

The whole movie is a delight. Sheer liquid pleasure, I tell ya.

John Cusack. Who's bettah than him??

Uhm ... can I puke now?

It feels kind of mean to make fun of such well-meaning people ... but ... stuff like this makes me sick. I mean, hey, if you want to go to a "cuddle party" and that works for you, then good for you. Just do not invite me. Because if anyone tried to 'cuddle" me, if anyone tried to "respect my boundaries", and if anyone ever EVER FECKIN called me a "Cuddle Monster" ... I might have to punch that person in the nose. Twice.

Sheila to Obnoxious Person Trying to Cuddle Her: "Excuse me, but did you just call me a 'Cuddle Monster'?"

Cuddler: "Uhm ... yes ... but I want to make sure I respect your boundar---"

POW. Smack in the nose.

Don't you DARE insult me by respecting my boundaries!!

(via Andrea Harris)

Dec. 7, 1941 - in memory

On Dec. 8, 1941, this was the front page of the New York Times. Read the article, too.

As we all know, Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th, not 8th. Here is a tidbit about the newspaper coverage on the actual day of the attack. I know it, because it involves my home state, Rhode Island.

The relief of openly being a jackass

Quotes from emails to my friend David in the past week

From: Red
To: David

... Have I mentioned to you before how dense I am, and how I have no idea what is up with me at any given moment? I can tell you in detail about Cary Grant's childhood, but if you say, "Why are you upset?" I will give you a blank look like "What the fuck are you talking about?"

From: Red
To: David

... I have had this huge soul-growth week and I feel like a complete and utter jackass. But it's good. It's good to just openly be a jackass, as opposed to trying to be cool and "okay with everything", and "Yeah, whatever, man, it's cool, it's cool." Well, you know what? IT'S NOT COOL! What a fucking relief.

My New Blog

I'm very happy with the new look. It gives me shivers. I'm 12 years old. (Reminds me of my favorite Julia Roberts moment in Closer: "What are you, 12?")

I love the green-sketched Gibson Girl in the logo ... I love the font ... I love the sort of Celtic-looking scroll across the top, beneath my favorite Jimmy Joyce quote of all time ... I love all the little Gibson Girls floating on the right nav ... and I love the placement of me as a youngun reading The Golden Book of Poetry. Or ... pretending to read it. Really, I'm just posing for the camera. I was a ham, even back then.

Curly ... I owe you big-time! (If you're interested to see more of Curly's work, check out Blind Cave Fish's new logo!) You totally took on this project for me, you got what I was trying to do, and you made it happen. I LOVE it. Thank you, thank you!!

Signs in Ireland

Signs in Ireland are refreshingly open and blunt. They just come right out and say it ... no euphemisms, no beating round the bush. They just SAY it.

Examples:

-- To let us know a hill is coming up, there was a small yellow sign with a "hill" that was literally almost vertical. And a car snaked its way down it, almost completely on its side. It made it seem like we were about to drive down Everest's North Face.

-- My personal favorite was: along the highways, in various counties, you would get enormous white billboards: 54 PEOPLE HAVE DIED ON THIS ROAD IN THE LAST 5 YEARS. DRIVE SAFELY.

-- In New York, you get signs saying, "Curb your dog." That's it. You know what it means. Clean up the damn poop, kay, kids?? In Ireland I saw a sign that said: NO FOULING. And then there was a picture of a Scottish terrier-type dog, standing there with his tail up. And below his tail was a pile of shit with steam rising from it. Through the entire image was drawn a line. Saying: Don't Do This. I LOVED the detail of the steam rising from the dog shit. Much better than "curb your dog".

-- And then, Emily, we saw the sign you and I laughed about: The edge of a pier, with little waves beneath, and a car driving directly off into the water. There isn't even a line through it! It basically appears to be saying: "There is a possibility that you could just drive your feckin' car off the pier here. So ... if you're thinking about doing that ... just KNOW that you will probably drown." I remember seeing that sign when I was in Ireland as a kid, and drawing a picture of it in my little journal. Nice to know they're still around.

But still, my favorite is:

7,000 PEOPLE HAVE DIED ON THIS ROAD SINCE LAST FEBRUARY. DRIVE SAFELY.

And you know what? It worked!! We did drive safely, because of the constantly dire warnings of how deadly the roads were.

Also, we didn't plummet off of any piers.

I love cheese

The UK recently did a survey of "the most cheesiest moments in film". Here are the top 10. (Is there some reason these are only recent movies?? Haven't people in the UK seen a Shirley Temple movie? Haven't they seen Penny Serenade? I love Penny Serenade, but I don't think there's one moment in that film that ISN'T cheesy.)

I can't say I disagree with any of these (haven't seen The Postman though) - although I wouldn't choose that particular moment in Titanic as the cheesiest. I would say that her saying, as he falls to the depths of the Atlantic, "I'll never let go" is a bit more cheesy.

I think a small bit of cheese is GOOD for the diet though! Not TOO much though (er ... see Jersey Girl and you'll know what I mean.) But a small bit of cheese, if incorporated gently, can work wonders for the heart and mind. I don't care how cheesy it is - when Patrick Swayze says "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" I get a chill of empowerment and sexual excitement. Yeah, man, you tell it to Jerry Orbach, you tell 'im!!

But I am, admittedly, a huge cheeseball.

1. "Titanic": Leonardo DiCaprio's "I'm the king of the world!"

2. "Dirty Dancing": Patrick Swayze's "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

3. "Four Weddings And A Funeral": Andie McDowell's "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed."

3. "Ghost": Demi Moore's "Ditto." to Patrick Swayze's "I love you."

5. "Top Gun": Val Kilmer to Tom Cruise: "You can be my wingman anytime"

6. "Notting Hill": Julia Roberts' "I'm just a girl... standing in front of a boy... asking him to love her."

7. "Independence Day": Bill Pullman's "Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

8. "Braveheart": Mel Gibson's "They may take our lives, but they will not take our freedom!"

9. "Jerry Maguire": Renee Zellweger to Tom Cruise: "You had me at hello."

10. "The Postman": A blind woman says to Kevin Costner: "You're a godsend, a savior." He replies: "No, I'm a postman."

Announcement

I am re-launching this blog with a whole new look at some point this week. Do not be alarmed. I have been helped tremendously in this effort by the Sapphic goddess Curly McDimple - who took my vague ideas, my random jpegs, and has, pretty much, made my fantasy of it come to life. I LOVE what she has done.

I'm also ditching my present title. In order to explain to you what my present title means, I would need to talk for about 15 minutes. Old Irish legends are involved. Seamus Heaney would be mentioned, as would Flann O'Brien. Kings who turned into birds would need to be explained. And I would need to talk about the meaning of "two birds", not only in my lexicon, but in the lexicon of Irish folklore.

Are you asleep yet?

When I set up this blog, in the old Blogspot days, I had about 7 readers. My family, and my childhood friends. I never foresaw that I would have the readership, eventually, that I now do. It blows me away.

So my old complex title and old URL just don't fit anymore.

There also is the wee problem that some people think that it reads "Sheila Ashtray", and that is SO not what I am going for.

So - the new title of the blog is simpler (although it has a couple of layers of meaning ... which pleases me):

The Sheila Variations.

It seems to capture the free-for-all atmosphere here, but it also references the 32 Goldberg Variations, which I love ... in all their mathematical certainty. Bach said something along the lines of: "If you just play the right notes in the right order, then the piece virtually plays itself." Whatever, dude. I love the "variations" - If I'm stressed out, and want to lose myself in meditation or whatever, I'll turn them on. It's hard for me to turn the brain off, but the Variations help. I lose myself in them. I love them because of the idea of a theme, a pattern, sometimes clearly discernible, but sometimes invisible - because it has been completely inverted, or reversed ... The pattern is THERE, but only trained ears can hear it. I love that idea. There are themes in my life, patterns ... At times I lose the grip, I stop being able to play the right notes in the right order ... or what happens is, I lose sight of the pattern. I lose sight of the right order. But really what has gone on is: the pattern is still there, it's just reversed, or hidden, or submerged. The theme in the chaos. (Or, as Cashel would call it, the "chouse".)

So. Heads up.

At some point this week, you'll go to click on www.sheilaomalley.com, and you will see an entirely different-looking blog (go, Curly, go, Curly) ... and a new title.

Do not be alarmed. I'm still here. The pattern still exists.

Closer

James Berardinelli says, in regards to Closer, the new Mike Nichols film, starring Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, and the fucking FANTASTIC Clive Owen:

From a physical standpoint, Closer is not a violent film. From an emotional one, it's brutal. Nichols doesn't pull his punches. You leave the theater shaken.

That's pretty much the size of it. The script is so good that I actually felt I was on drugs or something, watching the movie.

It was one of those heightened experiences as an audience member- the acting was universally terrific (although Clive Owen ... Jesus feckin' Christ, that guy can ACT), you never knew what these characters would do next (and this wasn't a gimmick - it felt like real life - you know how people do incomprehensible things in real life? It was like that) ... but throughout it all, I would have these intense heightened moments of awareness, thinking: HOLY CRAP, the SCRIPT. The SCRIPT.

I am dying to get my hands on the script. I want to work on this shit in my acting class. You want to say these words out loud. Screenplays like this one do not come around often. This one was, of course, based on a play ... You could tell. The scenes were long, sometimes they were 3 times as long as normal scenes in movies ... I felt like a kid in a candy store. I love long scenes - if they're done well, I mean. It reminded me a bit (even though the movie is totally different) of the almost voracious pleasure I got out of seeing Pulp Fiction for the first time. In particular, I remember watching the loooooong scene in the Movie Star restaurant between Travolta and Thurman, when they're on the date, sitting across the table from one another - I remember thinking, as I watched the scene, "Jesus ... this is long."

That is not a bad thing. I become so used to normal shallow conventional movies - where scenes last 2 minutes a piece, usually.

But that scene? And the LANGUAGE they got to say ... it was delicious to watch. I ached with jealousy. I wanted to say those words.

The words of the Closer script reminded me of that, even though it's a bleak movie, an emotional battering-ram movie. But the language ...

And Clive Owen.

I mean, everyone ... but Owen in particular. He, for me, was the revelation.

Berardinelli says - about Owen:

In Closer, the actors get a chance to shine, and no one is brighter than Clive Owen. Despite a number of memorable turns (and one big mistake: King Arthur), Owen still lacks household recognition. A likely (and deserved) Oscar nomination for this performance will change that. The ferocity with which Owen delivers his lines, and the restless energy he imparts to Larry, electrifies every scene that he's in.

He is ... I've got no words here. It's juicy, real, frightening, unpredictable, specific ... It's acting. The kind of acting that turns me on. He's so damn ALIVE.

Berardinelli says, in re: Julia Roberts:

This is Roberts the actress, not Roberts the movie star (see Ocean's Twelve if you're craving for the latter), and her dedication to the role rather than glamour serves her well.

Yes. Yes. Good for her, man. Good for her. A courageous choice for her, and she has one moment in particular that I already want to see again. The second it was over, I thought: Shit, wish there was a Rewind button. That was pretty damn fantastic, whatever that moment was!!

She wears no makeup, she's not a sympathetic character, she's kind of pathetic on one level, and she doesn't do the big Julia-Robert-smile thing ONCE. Mike Nicholes has stripped her of all of her tricks, all her movie star-ness, he won't let her rely on the Julia-Roberts-trademark stuff that every other director probably demands from her ... and what happened withOUT all of that movie-star-stuff around her is that an actress emerged. A real actress. Good good stuff.

All I can say is: This is one of those refreshing examples of an ADULT MOVIE, with ADULT SENSIBILITIES - made for adults, not pandering to a younger audience. They don't really make "adult movies" that much anymore. I'm not talking about "adult" in terms of the amount of sex scenes, or nudity. There are no sex scenes in Closer, although the talk about sex is quite graphic. When I say "adult", I mean: challenging, unforgiving, clear-eyed, open - about tough truths, about what it is to be a human being. Not catering to the lowest common denominator ... Closer leaves a lot up to the audience. It doesn't decide FOR you how you should feel about these people. Closer is a film that respects the intelligence of the audience, and THAT, I think, is an "adult" film.

It's a delicious film, in that respect, a sheer surprise and pleasure from beginning to end - even though the story it tells is disturbing as all hell.

See it. Clive Owen will blow you away.

Steve Martin clears the air ...

about King Tut in this highly funny article in The New York Times .

Martin sets the record stright:

King Tut was not "born in Arizona."

He did not live in a "condo made of stone-a."

King Tut did not "do the monkey," nor did he "move to Babylonia."

King Tut was not a honky.

He was not "buried in his jammies."

God. I remember seeing him do King Tut on Johnny Carson, roller-skating around, wearing an Egyptian head-dress ... It was one of the funniest weirdest coolest things I've ever seen in my life. I was ... 11, I think? Steve Martin, (the Steve Martin of the late 70s I mean - with the arrow through the head, and the King Tut mania) was a HUGE part of my childhood.

Mere, Beth, Betsy ... member how much we LOVED that Socrates skit of his? I wish I could see that again.

Anyway, read his piece in The Times. Funny, funny.

(Thanks for pointing to this one, Tommy.)

We met under the dancing Santa

Allison and I got together last night - we had been experiencing serious separation anxiety, after spending so much time together in Ireland. Like: where the hell is Allison and why am I not seeing her every minute of the day???

We went to see Closer which I absolutely MUST write about ... I will, just need to get my thoughts together ...

Then we went to an Irish pub in her 'hood, and drank. Hair of the dog, you see. Standing on a corner of the bar was a life-size Santa, who was motorized ... He would stand up there, frozen, staring off into space like a creepy robot ... and then, at some unseen cue, or someone flipped a hidden switch, or SOMEthing, he would begin to gyrate about like a fat hip-hop dancer. His head would turn too, swiveling on his neck ... It was strangely disturbing. There was a sexual element to his dancing ... and I just do NOT want to think about Santa in a sexual context.

Allison and I would be deep in conversation. The frozen Santa was behind me, and I would be talking, and I would suddenly see Allison's eyes move off mine, looking up behind me ... I would turn, and there Santa would be, jerking his hips and arms back and forth ...

This, needless to say, brought on howls of laughter from us. We would stare up at him, silently, just taking in his crazy dance ... Then we would glance at one another, silently ... because, after all, what is there to say in such a moment? And then we would burst into guffaws.

We reminisced about our trip and laughed so hard we cried. We pounded on the bar, we re-told stories to one another, and all in all had a great time.

A couple of amusing quotes:

-- I said to her, "I wish we had taken more pictures at O'Neils. I wish we had a picture of the murderer I befriended." I befriended a murderer at a pub called O'Neils. That's all I really can say. Great guy. Murderer. Uhm ... what?

-- The two of us HOWLING about Rory falling in Mary's foyer. He was trying to be so so so quiet, and then BOOM, a major wipe out. And he landed in a position that made him look like a male gymnast frozen on top of the pommel horse or something. One of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. Tears of laughter streaming down our faces.

-- "The Sin Bin". Allison and I were obsessed with "the Sin Bin" ... the rugby announcers casually saying, "So and so is still in the Sin Bin" ... which, I assume, means that the player had a penalty called on him, and was pulled out of the match temporarily. But it is called THE SIN BIN, and Allison and I absolutely LOVE that. We have decided that when we have children (uhm ... not with each other, of course ... Not that there's anything wrong with that!), we are going to break the monopoly that the words "Time Out" have on today's parenting style. We will not give our children "Time Outs". We will put them in "the Sin Bin" for 10 minutes. We LOVE the Sin Bin. "Eat your lima beans now, and no fussing, or I'll have to put you in The Sin Bin." Allison put herSELF in The Sin Bin at one point, after making a dumb joke. She made the joke, we sat there silently, not laughing, and then Allison said, "I think I need to go into The Sin Bin for that one."

-- We HOWLED with laughter about Ricky, our silent cab driver. Hard to explain, definitely a "had to be there" thing. But we were snorting about Ricky.

And there was a hell of a lot more we talked about. I did an impassioned monologue about the Virgin Mary, and what Mary means to me. (Allison, you're a saint for listening to all of that!) We talked about Howard Hughes, we talked about Hepburn and Tracy, we talked about Julia Roberts, we talked about our shared love of Michael Jackson's music (we both cried out "THRILLER" at the same moment) - we also talked about what we feel is his obvious guilt - I think the dude's gonna go to jail, I really do - and we talked incessantly about Closer, the movie we had just seen.

Talk talk talk talk talk.

Under the watchful eyes of the creepy dancing Santa.

So. Everyone.

What's the best book you have read this year?

Mine has got to be Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. No real contest.

Am I insane?

But I have a little crush on James Ellroy. Always have. I love his writing, I love his books, I love his whole persona ... And here, Steve posts a typical Ellroy-ian quote. The guy just doesn't give a fuck. I find that, as ever, very refreshing. It reminds me a bit of that great Dennis Miller quote: "You know, I hated terrorists who wanted to kill me on September 10, okay?"

Photographs of my trip

I got my pictures back, and frankly it looks like I sent my camera on the trip, and I wasn't there at all. I only have one picture of Allison, walking up the stone steps at the Cliffs of Moher, but other than that? I cannot even tell that I was there at all, judging from the photos.

Got some great pictures of the murals of Belfast. The day we were there the sky was a dark heavy slate grey, but with beaming shafts of sun gleaming from beneath the clouds - very dramatic lighting. So the murals look even more striking, and violent and interesting with this heavy heavy sky behind them. ("You take a right at the chicks with the guns, you take a left at the guys with the guns ...") And Gerry Adams' car, too. I got a lame little picture of that, too. Parked next to the gleaming Sinn Fein headquarters. I figured, what the hell. It's a bit of an historic moment ... might as well snap it.

Just wish I had taken some photos of some of the ACTUAL PEOPLE WE MET.

But it's all right ... I wasn't camera-obsessed this trip. I didn't feel an overwhelming need to capture, pin down, solidify. I knew I'd remember it. And I actually got to be present during the trip, as opposed to those tourists you see who walk around holding up a video camera, and they see their entire trip through that lens. Making it a second-hand experience in the middle of the first-hand one, if you get my meaning.

There are weird little moments in life

- not altogether pleasant - when you realize WHY something touches you, WHY you feel this strange pang at certain poems/lyrics/whatever. At least this is true for me. I'm sort of bright, sometimes, but many times I am dense as fog.

And right now, the words of "The First Cut is the Deepest" seem to me to be the truest words ever written. I had this crazy response to the song, when I first heard it ... It was almost like it brought up memories or something, I don't know ... but it was this deep current of "Oh. My. God. I have to hear that again." I knew there was a reason that I had such a deep and WEIRD connection to that song. Like - I couldn't get enough. I kept it on re-play. For about a week. But I didn't know why. It was the mixture of the music, the lyrics, her voice ... Then the fever passed. And now it's back. Strange. There's an emotional response to something, a gut-level kind of thing, and sometimes it is only later that you understand why. You understand on another level. "Watershed" by The Indigo Girls was the same kind of thing. That song KILLED me, from the first second I heard it ... had no idea why ... and I still can barely listen to it. It's too powerful - and I still have no clue why. Maybe someday I'll figure it out. I'm still learning from that song.

Anyway. I'm a melancholy baby. Sometimes I just want to post stuff like this, even if it doesn't make sense. It's just where I'm at.

Going out for drinks now with a dear old friend. Should be fun.

I feel a bit disloyal saying this

because I'm a huge Robert Altman fan, and I would watch a 6 hour long infomercial if it was directed by that man.

But ... The Company? Huh?

About 20 minutes in, I just succumbed. I realized that it wasn't actually a MOVIE (as in: plot, characters, etc.) but ... more of a tone-piece, a collage, about what it was like to be in a ballet company. I'm a huge fan of movies about dancers (I'm a Fame fan from wayyyyyy back ... and please - Center Stage?? Cheesy. But GENIUS) ... and I love Altman ... and the movie pretty much came and went without me having a chance to see it... but ... to me, it added up to a whole lotta ... nothin'. The dancing is incredible - and it appears that Altman pretty much just filmed a rehearsal process for a specific ballet, it all looks almost documentary-esque. I love that kind of shite.

But ... no plot. Nothing.

Neve Campbell dances a brilliant pas de deux outside at ... Grant Park? It starts to rain, there is wind ... she is a genius ... people are blown away ... she has "arrived" ... Next scene: we see Neve Campbell coming home to her clattery cozy Chicago apartment, she takes off her earrings, she looks gorgeous, but tired ... she lies down on the bed ... she puts her hands over her eyes and begins to sob.

No explanation.

Now: a word about this. I understood why she was crying ... or, I could guess. There have been times when I have come home from some successful evening, particularly an evening where a show I was in went well, and I specifically did very well, and felt really good about my work -- and the emotions have been so heightened and intense that I would come home and cry. I get that. Totally. The adrenaline of being on stage is intense. A lot of times there's a huge let-down when it's over. Also, there's something piercing and poignant and very very rare about those nights when life really is as magical as it is in your dreams. Life isn't meant to be lived like that ... or who knows, maybe it is, but I sure as hell haven't figured out the secret.

So I related to Neve in that moment ... but ... it didn't add up to anything. It didn't help me understand the character, who seemed a bit bland. It just looked like random crying.

The best scene was when, during a rehearsal, one of the dancers gets injured. It happens so quickly and cleanly ... all you hear is this awful POP sound ... and a dancer is on the ground. But she's not writhing about in agony - nothing. She sits there, with this look of blankness on her face. She knows. She knows it's bad. Her career is over. And ... the other dancers stand around the margins, not going to her, nothing ... just watching ... There by the grace of God ... It's a cold world. She is carried off stage, and rehearsal starts up again. The fragility of the human body ... in a flash, someone's dream dies. Great scene.

So, no. Nothing happens. There's a ballet company. Run by Malcolm MacDowell, who is supposed to be an Italian-American, and didn't even ATTEMPT to do an American accent. Lazy. Come on. It wouldn't have mattered if there hadn't been a whole scene where he is honored by some Italian-American organization for his contributions to the community, blah blah. But anyway - there's a company. They rehearse. They go to class. They have a day off. Neve Campbell plays pool and looks hot, in a smudgy kind of way. She gets a boyfriend. The company rehearses. They do a world premiere. The end.

As a big fan of movies having to do with the dance world ... once I surrendered, once I realized the rules (This movie has NO PLOT SO STOP WAITING FOR ONE) ... it wasn't half-bad. The dancing itself was exquisite.

But it left me feeling a bit ... bleh.

The Procession

After making our way successfully through the "hairy roundabout", we started to see signs, finally, for Kinsale. Our destination. We had time constraints ... Jimmy needed to go somewhere at 7, and so we needed to reach the B&B before then. I assumed he was meeting friends for pints, or whatever, but this ended up NOT being the case, and in light of what he actually needed to do, I am tremendously glad that we made it there in time.

Allison drove us to Kinsale, after we left our new best friends at the gas station in Cork. The road was a two-way road, and yet ... by US standards, the road was only big enough to be a one-way road. Thankfully, everyone still pretty much drives teeny cars over there, an SUV on this road would be an utter disaster. The headlights shrieked up at us through the dark, the road was winding, it was night-time ... we were a bit stressed.

But then, at last, Kinsale. I could smell the salt air when I rolled down the window, so I knew we were very close. We still needed to find our way to Jimmy's B&B, but from our street map of Kinsale the Town, it seemed like a pretty wee place, not too difficult to navigate.

It was now 6:50.

We immediately found ourselves in the middle of town, which ... I mean, we had heard about the quaintness and the beauty of Kinsale ... but the reports of its beauty were almost under-played. It is one of the sweetest prettiest places I have ever seen. However, we could not ogle the sights, or the harbor, because we had to find Jimmy. Time was running out.

Randomly, we took a left-hand turn, and as we both glanced to our right, we saw an odd sight. We saw a line of people stretching down the sidewalk, there had to be hundreds of people (not an exaggeration) clustered along the street, all standing in line. But for what?

Allison wondered, "Is that a night-club or something?"

But ... it was only 6:51? A line into a nightclub at 6:51? In Kinsale?

We left that mystery behind us, drove around for a bit, on streets that are teeny, lined with shops, sudden curves, sudden hills, all adorable, but confusing ... no street signs.

At last, we asked a couple of people for directions. True to form, they gave us AWESOME directions. Directly to Jimmy's door. They knew Jimmy. Of course they did.

And then, there we were. The B&B was right next to a massive Catholic church, and we parked in the church parking lot. It was 7:01. I could see a man standing in the golden glow of lamplight coming out of the open door of the B&B ... "That's Jimmy!" There was a wintry breath in the air, the bite of the nearby water ... a different feeling in the air than the windy mountainous energy of Wicklow. The moon was high, and waxing. Beautiful. Soaring above the church.

Allison and I left our bags in the car and ran up the steps of the B&B, apologizing. "I am so sorry - we truly thought we would be here at 7!"

Jimmy, of course, was lovely, kind, understanding. "I know how it is ... time when you're traveling and all that ..."

He said to us, "There's a funeral next door tonight at 7 ... A local guy died, so I'm going to go over to go to the funeral, and I'll be back in about half an hour..."

Good Lord, I felt like an ass. I had assumed he was maybe going out with friends. Instead, he had to go to a funeral. Jesus.

I said, "God, I am so sorry."

"Oh, no problem, Sheila, no problem ... You're fine parked where you are. Why don't you bring your bags in now, so that you won't have to walk through the procession ..."

I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but Allison and I went back to our car, shivering in the night-cold, to grab our bags.

And then came the procession.

The "procession" was the huge crowd of people we had seen in the center of town.

We found out later that what happened was: they all gathered at the funeral home, down on Market Street, and then walked, as a group (and we are talking about 300 people ... the procession went on forever) up to the church.

Allison and I didn't feel right walking through the funeral procession with our bags, so we stood back, in the shadows, and just watched.

It was cold enough to see everyone's breaths. The hearse had led the way, and then stopped outside the church. The procession, which filled the street in front of the B&B, and then curved away out of sight and down the hill, the procession must have been half-a-mile long, stood quietly, stamping in the cold, hands in pockets, clouds of frosty breath in the air. There were old people, little children, there were couples holding hands, there were teenagers with their parents ... Everyone was there.

The coffin was lifted out of the hearse, and the pall-bearers lifted it up over their heads, so that it appeared to float through the air, and then they walked it up the long ramp into the lit-up brick church.

The procession didn't move. Neither did Allison and I.

We had come across a private moment. The private moment of this small community. The inner life of this small town revealed to us, outsiders. A rarity indeed. We didn't want to intrude, or break it up, or ignore it. We just watched.

When the gleaming coffin had floated its way into the church, the procession started to move. And that's when we really saw how many people there were. The line just kept coming from around the corner, as everyone walked up the steps and into the church for the funeral. More people just kept coming, silently, respectfully, maybe you would hear the chatter of a child here and there, but for the most part ... just silence.

Obviously a well-loved man. Jimmy told me all about him later. He was only 62, he was a musician, and played with a number of local bands. He hadn't even been sick, but apparently he fell down over the summer, and X-rays revealed that he was riddled with cancer. Nothing to be done at that point, really ... and he died in November. Sad.

But to watch this small town slowly walk into that church ...

Allison and I kept coming back to it, over the rest of our journey. "Member the funeral in Kinsale?" We felt that we had witnessed something very special, very private. I felt honored to be there, but also a little bit like ... it wasn't something for us to witness. All we could do was stand back, and not intrude. Be respectful, quiet, and watch. It was a town mourning its dead. With throngs and throngs and throngs of quiet chilly people coming up the hill, around the corner, up the hill, around the corner, up the hill, into the church ... in an endless flood.

Asking for directions in Cork

We were headed for Kinsale. We were very close, only 20 or so miles away ... we knew our way to Cork, and after that, all we knew was - we needed to head almost directly south. And there would be Kinsale.

In our dreams.

I was Driver at this point, and Allison was Navigator. It was dark now. It was about 6:00 pm ... and I had promised Jimmy at the B&B in Kinsale that we would be there by 7, because he had to leave at 7. Cork, obviously, is a city, and I find that driving in the city is far more stressful than a long inter-county roadway, even with all the roundabouts. So we pretty much promptly got lost. We didn't know where we were, or how to get where we were going, etc. I also had to pee. So I did a blasted RIGHT HAND TURN and we pulled into a gas station.

Allison asked a young guy pumping gas for directions. (One thing: I found, in my experience over there, that the Irish are incapable of giving bad directions. We got absolutely awesome directions from no matter who we asked ... but this particular time was parTICularly good ...)

So the young guy started telling Allison where she needed to go to get to Kinsale, and then almost immediately stopped himself. "My mother's inside - we should wait for her to come out. She's great at directions."

Boy, was she ever.

Allison and I LOVED these people.

This mother was so unbelievably generous with us, she gave us sterling directions ... I mean, we didn't realize how sterling they were until we were on the road again, and at every single point when we COULD have got confused, then there would come the landmark she had told us about, or whatever.

"Wait - where are we?"
"Oh ... there's the river and the trees ... she told us we'd see that when we came round the bend ... this is the right way ..."

She drew us an awesome map. Her son hung around with us, too, validating his mother. "Yeah, that's right ... then you go through the Tunnel ... right ..." She was the FIRST person on our journey to tell us about the Americans crashing into the Minister of Parliament. Ha ha ha ha

We stood by the gas pumps, as she drew her map, all of us chatting up a storm - how we found it driving on the other side of the road, where we had been, what our plans were ... We also chatted quite a bit about what she called "the hairy roundabout" - She gave us profuse warnings about "the hairy roundabout", which we needed to go through to get to Kinsale. It was south of Cork, and apparently a gazillion cars have crashed there, and she made it sound like shrieking hellatious chaos. We had to get ourselves into a certain lane, otherwise we would get stuck in the roundabout forever, etc ....

And goldurnit, we followed her instructions to the letter, and lo and behold, we were in Kinsale at 7:01. With poor Jimmy waiting for us at the door. Not too shabby!

As we stood around the car, and she walked us through the directions, another car drove up. She glanced up and waved. Informed us, "That's my husband." Then another car pulled up to one of the other pumps, she waved to the driver of THAT car, and informed us, "If I weren't married to my husband, I'd be married to him."

And one by one, all of these various people - her husband, and the guy she'd be married to if she wasn't married to her husband, joined our little coterie and looked at the map, and gave us suggestions ... We were a small party by Gas Pump # 2.

Our ring-leader woman would introduce us to every new arrival: "These 2 American girls are trying to get to Kinsale ..."

Every new arrival informed us of the "Americans crashing into the Minister of Parliament". And every new arrival put the fear of God into us about "the hairy roundabout".

More suggestions came in, adding, clarifying, until we had the most specific set of directions EVER GIVEN for a mere 20 mile drive. She even gave us emotional directions for "the hairy roundabout":

"Just stay calm ... stay calm ... get yourselves in the right lane, and stay calm ..."

Allison and I drove off waving hail and farewell to all of our new-found friends. At the gas station in Cork.

More on Glendalough

A couple amusing moments from our night in Glendalough, and these mostly come to me second-hand (from Allison) because I was involved in something else.

Glendalough, as you may recall, is this incredible place in the Wicklow Mountains, one of my favorite places on earth. My visits to Glendalough have always been special, but this last one ... It's what Anne of Green Gables would call an "epoch" in my life.

Before I left the pub and traipsed through the ruins in the middle of the night, Allison and I hung out for hours with various groups of fascinating wonderful people - all locals. We were the only tourists, certainly the only Americans. It is, for all intents and purposes, a small-town pub, and they took us into their hearts, they were warm, wonderful, funny, they told us all their secrets - we heard about that one's brain tumor, we heard about that one's tragedy, we heard about that one's "So he made some mistakes - who doesn't?" attitude towards Hitler (which is a whole bizarre story in and of itself) ... We got all the juice. Just by sitting there in the pub. When it came out a couple of days later that there was one huge thing that we DIDN'T know, someone had had a very serious operation, Allison said, shocked, "Wow - so-and-so didn't tell me that!" In all sincerity. I grew up in a small town. The bar in that small town is very similar to this one.

We had a marvelous time.

Allison and I did not feel the need to be joined at the hip, as travelers. At least not at every moment. (Very important, I think - you have to be able to go off and do your own thing). I met someone and pretty much hung out with him all night, although I did veer off into group conversations with a wonderful couple ... but in general, I was perched on one stool all night, by the window, chatting and arguing and roaring with laughter, and having a grand old time with this one particular bloke.

So anyway, there's the set-up.

Allison started talking to some of the guys playing pool. They were young, and sweet, and definitely "trouble". In a funny way. Like - one had cuts on his face obviously from a fight he had had the night before, etc. Cutie-pies.

Allison told me later that this group of kids (they were all about 20, 21 years old) were keeping tabs on me from across the bar. I hadn't met any of them, at that point, but they kept reporting to Allison on what was going on with me. I think perhaps these kids felt protective of me, maybe? Or they wanted to keep Allison informed of my progress? I have no idea, but I still think it's funny.

One of them said to Allison, randomly, "Your friend looks like she's a very good listener." ha ha ha ha

The other comment was (and this came later in the night): "Your friend is drinking whiskey now."

Why is this so amusing to me? I have no idea. It just is. They took note of when I started drinking whiskey and felt the need to inform Allison of it. heh heh heh

The other funny thing (or one of the other MANY funny things) about that night was when Allison strolled over from the pool table to stop by and say hi to me and the bloke - as she approached, she heard one of us say the words "Al Qaeda" - and she promptly turned and walked the other way.

WHY is this so funny to me???

I SWEAR that I did not bring Al Qaeda up. I did not stagger through Ireland cornering people about Al Qaeda. Not at all. It happened mutually, organically - We talked about a ton of other things, too ... it's just that at the moment Allison decided to visit us, we were talking about Al Qaeda.

I can just see it. "Hey, let's go over and say hi to Sheila ... oh shit, they're talking about Al Qaeda ... let's go this way now ..."

Uhm ... Drinking whiskey in Glendalough during a wind-storm talking about Al Qaeda? Uhm ... can you say heaven on earth?

More on "fairy in the prairie"

A spectacular review by Joseph Epstein of the recently-published collection of Truman Capote's letters, called Too Brief a Treat. Epstein can WRITE, I'm tellin' ya. Love his work. I especially loved this sentence, which is a perfect example of Epstein's sensibility, I think:

Not enough love in the home, the verdict is, and so poor little Truman sought it everywhere else. ("Too much love in the home," I long to write on papers by many undeservedly confident students.)

Heh heh "undeservedly confident" Perfect.

But here is where in the review I got chills - (my feelings about Truman Capote, and about In Cold Blood are obvious - I'm passionate about it!):

Without In Cold Blood, Capote's name would probably be forgotten today. Although his fiction is never less than skillful, with the element of charm bordering on sentimentality frequently coming into play in such stories as "The House of Flowers" and "A Christmas Memory," it often feels a touch insubstantial, derivative, fragile, and too brightly colored. When Capote published his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), George Davis, an editor of Mademoiselle magazine known for his lacerating remarks, said: "I suppose someone had to write the fairy Huckleberry Finn."

In Cold Blood took six years to finish. Capote first heard of the murder of the Cutter family when he noticed a story in the New York Times of November 16, 1959, with the headline, "Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family Slain," and he contracted with William Shawn to write about it for the New Yorker. From the outset, Capote felt he was sitting on a masterpiece. Complications of various kinds arose, chief among them lengthy appeals that delayed the execution of the two killers for years. A striking piece of hypocrisy in this correspondence is Capote's letters of friendship with the two killers, whom he also pumped for information--set beside letters to others expressing his impatience for their execution, so that he could complete his book at last. Writers, let us make no mistake, are swine.

It's quite true - that if all you did was read Capote's short fiction or novels, you would have NO IDEA that this writer had an In Cold Blood in him. It's a stunning transformation.

Capote always felt his masterpiece remained un-written. In Cold Blood perhaps was such a wrenching experience for him that he couldn't see the forest for the trees. Capote certainly did not lack an ego ... he was quite capable of informing others of his own genius ... but he still felt that his great book was still "out there".

The ending of Epstein's wonderful review is sad. I read Gerald Clarke's biography of Capote. The last couple of chapters are almost un-readably sad. You get the sense of this man's agony. He would literally toss and turn at night, crying, unable to find comfort, and fearful. Fearful. It's haunting. He died afraid, alone, and drug-addicted. Terrible.

Epstein closes with:

Capote planned, for a final act, to go out as the American Proust with a novel called "Answered Prayers" about the lives of the rich Manhattan women into whose confidence, through his charm, he had insinuated himself. When he published a chapter of the novel with the title "La Côte Basque" in Esquire in 1975, so damaging (if perhaps also true) was it to the people who had befriended him that he was ever afterward non grata in the chic social circles upon which he had come to depend.

THE FINAL DECADE of Capote's life, as one learns from Gerald Clarke's excellent biography of the writer, was a shambles of drugs and booze and law suits and ugly gossip and betrayals perpetrated both upon him and by him. This once delicately beautiful and richly talented young man became a talk-show buffoon, a booze-bloated bag of neediness, the subject of New York Post gossip headlines, and one of the first victims of the celebrity culture he had helped to create. It's a sad story--made sadder by the fact that he did not retain the lucidity to write it himself. Its theme might have been that charm is a gift that, when abused, can bring a man down hard.

It is true that, in a way, by publishing the two bitchy chapters of Answered Prayers, Capote planted the seeds of his own destruction. He had no idea that the response would be so violent, so angry (having read those two chapters, I have to say: Jesus, Truman, what were you expecting? That your rich friends would be pleased?? Amused? What were you thinking??) He had no idea that publishing those chapters would go off like such a bomb, and that he would then be promptly cut off from 90% of his dearest friends. He was ignorant to some degree - he also didn't realize how much these rich folks liked having him around for one reason only: because he entertained them. He didn't realize how fragile the connection was - and that the second he was no longer entertaining, like a cute little dog, they would cut him OFF. He was a very self-destructive individual, but that doesn't make his end less sad. It is mostly how AFRAID he was that really touched my heart. After the disaster of Answered Prayers, after people erased him from their lives, after people stopped returning his phone calls ... leaving him all alone ... he said to the couple of friends who still hung around: "I'm so scared at night ... I'm so scared..." The loneliness. The loneliness killed him.

I have great compassion for that, great understanding.

More from Frieda Hughes

Day-um. My respect for her keeps growing. Suddenly, she's speaking out, she's everywhere. She sounds like an extraordinary woman. A part of me knows that people will always be curious about her mother (Sylvia Plath), her father (Ted Hughes), etc. I mean, I'm curious about them. I love them both as poets, and have read biographies of both of them. Look at how I run my obsessions. Cary Grant? Fine - let's read biographies. Etc. Her parents were 2 famous poets, her mother committed suicide, etc. People will be interested.

But the level of prurient interest, the insane passing-off of stupid Freudian theories, her mother's name being chiseled off her grave by some lunatic fan, the biographies being written by authors who have grievances, bones to pick, something to prove, yadda yadda ... I completely sympathize with Frieda's wish to have her mother and her father left alone. I'm with ya, woman.

Supporting One Another Through the Roundabouts

We got a stick-shift, first of all ... so you're doing all your stick-stuff with the left hand. Thank goodness the clutch and the gas pedal weren't moved. Took a bit of mental adjustments to get used to - Occasionally I would automatically reach down with my right hand for the clutch.

We did GREAT as a team, I have to say. We took turns being Navigator and Driver. Two essential jobs.

The one who was Navigator also had another very important job: Emotional Supporter of the Driver.

The Driver could not do her job without the Emotional Support of the Navigator.

"You are doing so good."
"Okay, so a roundabout is coming up ... take your time ... you're doing awesome ..."
"Member to look right ... but you're doing so great!"

Occasionally, the Driver would blurt out: "I don't care that there are 20 cars behind me right now. I have to drive slow."

The Navigator would say, "You do whatever you need to do."

There was definitely a specific sub-set of Emotional Support which deserves its own category:

Supporting One Another Through the Endless Roundabouts.

Now - a word on "roundabouts". I grew up in Rhode Island, a state of many many many rotaries. We are very used to rotaries, the yielding rules, what you do when you're IN the rotary, etc. The rules are exactly the same in Ireland, except that when you yield, you must look right, as opposed to left. To someone who has NEVER driven through a rotary before (and unless I'm mistaken, there are some states in the US that don't have them) - all of that might be mind-bogglingly scary.

For the first 10 roundabouts, we would get into this hunker-down almost military attitude. "Okay. Here comes a roundabout. Get ready. You ready? Everything's going to be fine."

Navigator would scan the signs for which exit to take off said roundabout.

"Okay, so you're going to go 3/4 of the way around ... follow the signs for N6 ... "

Driver pulls up. Yields. Looks right. Pulls into rotary, swings around, finds exit, takes it ... and then Navigator congratulates Driver. "GREAT job. That was perfect."

We were old hands at roundabout behavior within 2 days, but those first couple ones were a wee bit stressful - and definitely required 2 people to make it all come off.

When we dropped the car off, with no bumps, no bruises, no crashes, no disasters, nothing ... we felt like rock stars. Allison said, "I didn't want to gloat about it until we had passed over the keys ... seemed like it would be bad luck."

Funnily enough (or - er - actually, not funny at all) - a couple weeks before we arrived, 2 Americans were driving along somewhere in Ireland, blithely on the wrong damn side of the road, and crashed head-on into a car coming the other way. This is probably not noteworthy at all, as Americans are always driving on the wrong freakin' side of the road all over Europe (there were stickers placed throughout the car - reminding us: "DRIVE LEFT", etc.) ... but what made this one kind of funny (and it was mentioned to us time and time again during our travels) - was that the car they crashed into was being driven by a Minister of Parliament. Everyone kind of cackled with glee over that one. "Did ya hear about those Americans who crashed into the Minister of Parliament??" Again, it's not funny - because the 2 Americans (in their tiny car) were badly hurt - while the Minister of Parliament, in his enormous official car, was untouched - I believe the Americans are still in the hospital.

However: we never drove on the wrong side of the road. We didn't even have any "oops!" moments like that. The teeny country-roads at night were a bit scary - the one down to Kinsale especially. Night-time, no lights, small road ... no idea where we were going ... STRESS. But we arrived in one piece.

And we were both terrified of and a little bit angry about right-hand turns. They stressed us out to no end - we almost wanted to drive out of our way to avoid having to deal with them. Left-hand turns, no big deal, easy-peasy. Right-hand turns required total concentration, lots of emotional support, and frantic looking back and forth ... "Am I okay? Am I okay?" "You're great - okay - GO. NOW."

Allison, murmuring, as she pulled up to an intersection: "Shit. A right-hand turn."

I was Navigator/Emotional Supporter so I said, "Take your time. You're gonna do great."

And she did. And we both did.

It was a good little car. My, she was yar!

A true and amusing story

I was in college, and doing a show. There was a cast party happening at my friend David's house (you all may remember him as a guest-blogger here). David lived with some of his frat buddies at a house in the woods. It was Party Central, as you can imagine. I was getting a ride to the party with my friends Mitchell and Steven - at this point, none of us had been to David's house yet, and so - in the frenzy following the show, with basically the entire department wiping off their makeup, changing costumes, racing about, the post-show adrenaline, etc., not to mention the thrill of going to a PARTY - David gave us directions. Steven, Mitchell and I listened faithfully.

And then we set out into the woods.

This story has a bit of a Deliverance aspect to it, although the Deliverance was all in our minds.

Our college was surrounded by forest and turf farms. Dark winding country roads, random dark lakes, very easy to get lost. Which is what we promptly did. There are no street lamps, we were driving around through a wooded neighborhood, we were stopping the car to LISTEN to the wooded silence, hoping that we could hear the mayhem of the party and follow the audio clues ... No luck.

Finally, we thought we knew where we were going - and Steven realized he needed to turn around. We all were itching with impatience to get to the party. We were in college. We were theatre geeks. You get the drift.

So Steven randomly pulled into a driveway to turn around.

And here is what ALL THREE OF US SAW:

A small white house, one-story. On the front of it hung an enormous thick black cross. And there was a sign on the front lawn, revealed in our headlights, that said: "SACRIFICIAL LAMB."

Needless to say, we all freaked out. Pandemonium ensued.

"Holy shit, turn the car around..."
"Get the fuck out of here ... "
"Steven, back up, back up, Sacrifical Lamb, holy shit...."
"DRIVE, STEVEN, DRIVE!"

Steven frantically peeled out of the terrifying driveway and we tore off, badly shaken up. We talked amongst ourselves.

"Did we all just see that?"
"What WAS that??"

Finally, we find the party. Which is now barreling along at full throttle.

We come into the party and immediately regale everybody with the scary little white house, the big black cross, the terrifying sign of SACRIFICAL LAMB.

David came over. Confused. "What house? Where?"

We described where, feverishly.

He thought a bit, and then the light dawned. "Guys, a doctor lives in that house. He has an office in his house - and the sign said ARTIFICIAL LIMBS not SACRIFICAL LAMB, Jesus Christ!!"

We kept protesting: "But we all saw it! We did! We did!"

"And what about the black cross??"

The black cross turns out to be some kind of apparatus which goes up to his satellite dish on the top of a house, and it just LOOKED like a huge cross.

Mitchell, Steven and I felt like complete jackasses, and yet we also kept reassuring ourselves of our collective sanity. "I know I saw the words Sacrificial Lamb, didn't you?" "I totally saw the words Sacrificial Lamb, totally..." "No doubt. No doubt."

Nodding at each other as we stood by the keg, guzzling cups of beer.

Must be the jet-lag

Came home last night. I bought a copy of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I saw it 5 times in the theatre, so that gives you some idea of my response to it. I basically know the movie by heart. So I saw a copy of it at my video store on sale, bought it, and came home to watch.

Curled up in my chair, I was feeling very odd, very ... woozy ... but not sleepy. And at the end of the movie, when the two of them are basically trying to re-enact their first meeting, on the beach in Montauk, their first conversation ... and yet they're commenting on their own behavior at the same time ... They are re-living a memory together, a precious memory. Anyway, in the middle of their little re-enactment, a look of incredible sadness comes over Kate Winslet's beautiful face, and she breaks out of the re-enactment, and says to him, "It's almost over, Joel." Meaning: they are drawing near to the end of the memory. They can't hold onto it anymore. It moved by quickly ... and now it will be gone ... in a flash.

I've seen the scene 5 times.

It didn't matter. I burst into mushy sloppy girlie tears. I literally *burst* out crying. Couldn't watch the rest of the movie because of it. I then proceeded to stagger around my apartment, washing face, brushing teeth, tears rolling down my face in a non-stop flood.

I have no idea what I was crying about. And I didn't feel all that sad or anything. It was just a crack in the veneer, and out streamed tears. For only about 10 minutes, and then I went to bed. And fell asleep almost instantly.

Must be the jet-lag. Coming back has been a bitch.