The Sheila Variations

Song catalog

We've got some freezing rain here on the last day of the year. I spent the day outside, am now cozy and inside. And The Rookie is on. Uhm - can you say "sheer Sheila joy"? I bought 3 Cds today: Eminem's Curtain Call, Fiona Apple's latest, and Franz Ferdinand.

Which reminds me that I found this today:

Tell me what the first song that comes to your mind: (By the way - I took this to mean the sentiment expressed in the song itself - not necessarily the way it makes ME feel. Like - the first one - Hate song - the first thing that came to my mind is Everclear's blistering song about a father who abandoned him. This isn't MY hate, it's HIS hate. So that's kind of where I went with this ... if that makes sense. Sometimes the two things overlap - like with "something to talk about" - it's about being flirty, and having a "crush" - that's the topic of the song. And it also happens to make ME feel like being an outrageous flirt. Something in the music, or how it's all put together - puts me in a flirty social mood. So whatever. Onward.)

1. Hate song? "Father of mine" - Everclear

2. Love song? "I saw her standing there" - the Beatles - that's probably more of a "lust" song, but to be honest, I don't see the difference. It's the pheromones, you understand. Converging the two has always worked for me. So "I saw her standing there" stands as my choice.

3. Crush or Flirt song? "Let's Give 'Em Something to Talk About" - Bonnie Raitt

4. Fuck song? "Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden. Also "Crazy On You" by Heart

5. Goofy song? Travis' awesome cover of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time"

6. Dance song? "Tragedy" - the Bee Gees

7. Rage song? "Kim" - Eminem

8. Slow song? It seems so high schoolish to think of "slow songs". My mind is a blank. All I can think of is "Purple Rain" because that's how all of our high school dances ended.

9. Make-up Song? "If you leave" - Good Charlotte

10. Redneck song? Uhm - Toby Keith? Hate that jackass. But not because he's a 'redneck'. I just hate him because he's a big fat phony. But then I also thought of that kind of fun song "I'm a redneck woman" - love it - which has a different fun-loving spin on the word "redneck"

11. Make-out song? "Tempted" - Squeeze

12. Break-up song? "Washing of the Water" - Peter Gabriel - I find that song almost too painful to listen to. Amazing.

13. Happy song? "Fields of Joy" - Lenny Kravitz - also the theme song from The Greatest American Hero which is an amazing song - better than Prozac - it literally has the ability to TOTALLY change my mood. I could be having a blue day, and suddenly I hear it on some nostalgic radio station - and my heart fills with hope and joy.

14. Sad song? "Life Story" from the musical Closer than Ever. Kills me. Also "Your Face" by Cliff Eberhardt. There was a good 5 years when i was unable to listen to that song. Which was a bummer because I loved that album.

15. Corny song? "I've never been to me" - Charlene. Yup. This really dates me. I have no idea why this song became such a huge hit. It was played endlessly. The lyrics are so cringe-worthy that you are embarrassed for everyone involved.

Hey lady, you lady, cursing at your life
You're a discontented mother and a regimented wife
I've no doubt you dream about the things you'll never do
But, I wish someone had talked to me
Like I wanna talk to you.....

Oh, I've been to Georgia and California and anywhere I could run
I took the hand of a preacher man and we made love in the sun
But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
I've been to paradise but I've never been to me

Please lady, please lady, don't just walk away
'Cause I have this need to tell you why I'm all alone today
I can see so much of me still living in your eyes
Won't you share a part of a weary heart that has lived million lies....

Oh, I've been to Niece and the Isle of Greece while I've sipped champagne on a yacht
I've moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed 'em what I've got
I've been undressed by kings and I've seen some things that a woman ain't supposed to see
I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

[spoken]
Hey, you know what paradise is?
It's a lie, a fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It's that little baby you're holding, it's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you're going to make love with tonight
That's truth, that's love......

Sometimes I've been to crying for unborn children that might have made me complete
But I took the sweet life, I never knew I'd be bitter from the sweet
I've spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free
Hey lady......
I've been to paradise, (I've been to paradise)
But I've never been to me

I just have no words. The thing fisks itself. "subtle whoring"? WHAT? Nice justification there, babe. Oh, so if it's "subtle" it's not really "whoring"? And what IS 'subtle whoring"? I am embarrassed to still be asking these questions but I've been wondering about it ever since the song first came out.

The spoken-word section makes me want to punch a wall.

16. Christmas song? "Christmas Is a Time to Say I love You" - Billy Squier - I love to have any excuse to reference this song on my blog.

17. Perverted or Horny song? "Hungry like the wolf" - duran duran - the woman moaning in the background at the end always made me feel very uncomfortable in high school when it came on while my mother was driving me to play practice or whatever

18. Boring song? Any time Van Morrison starts "riffing". Which is in every song. The only Van Morrison song I like is when they do "Raglan Road" with The Chieftains. Other than that? Every 25 goddamn minute song could easily be a 3 minute song, and be FAR better. Stop "expressing yourself", please.

19. Favorite song? Oh Lord. At the moment? Or eternally? At the moment: "Gone" by Kelly Clarkson. Also "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin. "Holiday" by Green Day as well. Eternally? I'd have to say "Fields of Joy", by Lenny Kravitz - "Rape Me", by Nirvana, "Monkey Wrench" by Foo Fighters, "Say Yeah" by Pat McCurdy - I am sure there are a gazillion more, but these just come to mind.

20. Funeral song? Uhm ... "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" - I have no idea.

Please feel free to leave your own choices in the comments section!

Year in review again

Idea stolen from Ann Althouse.

I just scanned through my blog, and chose posts I like - either because the topic is interesting, or I like my writing, or the conversation in the comments was particularly lively and awesome. As ever - thanks for reading my blog, all of you out there!

JANUARY 2005: O, how full of briers is this working-day world! - As You Like It

Advice on how to find public bathrooms in NYC

FEBRUARY 2005: The Oscars

This blog's group project: Our review of Christo's The Gates (the project was born here)

MARCH 2005: I come out as a snob

Ah, for a hot Amish fella

APRIL 2005: Embracing the lame

RIP Ruth Hussey

Celluloid dreams

MAY 2005; I actually live-blogged Riding the Bus with my sister, starring the atrocious Rosie O'Donnell

JUNE 2005: In rambling praise of Dave Grohl

And also: Bragging about my favorite ex

JULY 2005: The Phys Wrecks story:
Introduction
The story continued
The story continued
The story continued
The story continued
The last part of the story

AUGUST 2005: Road works ahead

Happy 20th birthday to The Breakfast Club

SEPTEMBER 2005: The two days that came before

The "great live squid"

OCTOBER 2005: Tim and Dawn

Future Oscar winners: Men

Future Oscar winners: Women

NOVEMBER 2005: Today in History: Nov. 7, 1917

What, in my view, constitutes sexy?

Catharsis

DECEMBER 2005: I admit that I have been wrong about Patrick Dempsey

Albums from my childhood

2005: Year in review

Here is the complete list of books I read in 2005.

Underworld, by Don DeLillo - which I had started in the fall of 2004- before I went to Ireland - and it took me FOREVER to finish it. The damn thing is so LONG though that I didn't feel like i could stop reading, even though I eventually found it so boring. I had put in so much time that I had to finish it. So no - the whole book wasn't worth it. But the opening 100 pages? Cannot be touched in terms of brilliance. The rest of the book doesn't live up to it ... but that opening. I still pick it up and read it on occasion.

Okay - I won't comment on every book but on that one I had to.

George Washington: A Life - by Willard Sterne Randall

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams - this is probably my 5th time reading it all the way through

East of Eden - John Steinbeck (a re-read. I love this book. I've read it about 4 times)

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson - Joseph Ellis (this is one of the best books I've ever read on Thomas Jefferson)

Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler - it far surpassed my expectations. Chilling - couldn't get the book out of my mind

The Prince - Machiavelli (this is a re-read. I have periodically gone back and re-read all the stuff I was forced to read in high school.)

The Great Terror: A Reassessment - by Robert Conquest (huge post about it here) One cannot fully understand the events of the 20th century without having read this book.

102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers - by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn

Crowds and Power - by Elias Canetti. (Woah. That's all I have to say)

To the Heart of a Conflict: Chechnya - by Andrew Meier (yawn. Not that the Chechnya situation is a yawn - but Meier somehow made it all about HIM. Blech. If a Robert Kaplan or a Rebecca West traveled through the region - I wouldn't have been so annoyed - because even though they are characters in their own travelogues - they do not come across as annoying or ... too pleased with themselves. Meier's book, to me, read like: "whoo-hoo! Look at me! Risking my life! I'm like Robert Kaplan now!" Uh, no. You're not.)

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time - by David Edmonds and John Eidinow (some fun excerpts here, here , and here.)

The Aran Islands - by John Millington Synge. Ahhhh. Love this book. (Here's a huge post I wrote about Synge)

Charming Billy, by Alice McDermott. Wonderful novel.

The Secret History of the IRA, by Ed Moloney. The jury's still out on this one. Very glad I read it though.

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing, by Margaret Atwood

Middlemarch, by George Eliot. Wow!!! I blithered about it here.

Aspects of the Novel, by EM Forster

On Writing, by Stephen King (phenomenal)

If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit , by Brenda Ueland (writers out there: do yourself a favor and pick up this book. Dumb title. Great great book.)

Tracy and Hepburn, by Garson Kanin. So good I never wanted it to end.

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens.

The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror , by Bernard Lewis

Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May - September 1787, by Catherine Drinker Bowen. This book was literally like injesting crack. Even though I've never injested crack. I am a drug addict though. A Second Constitutional Congress drug addict.

Letters To a Young Contrarian, by Christopher Hitchens. hahahaha

Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke. Another re-read. Even better than the second time. Is it wrong to have a crush on him? Don't worry, Anne - I won't steal your dead boyfriend. I already have my own.

The Teammates, by David Halberstam - a wonderful book about Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, and Bobby Doerr (here's one of my favorite stories from that book)

Cary Grant - Marc Elliot. Bah. Didn't enjoy this. Despite my obsessive archive. I love entertainment biographies - because I love anecdotes about acting and film-making. I love to hear backstage stories about movies I love. This book wasn't interested in that stuff. The filming of his movies were sidelines to the theme of the book. So I found it boring.

Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season - Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King (a re-read. So much fun. Again. Like crack.)

Room With a View, by EM Forster

Harry Potter and the Sorecer's Stone - JK Rowling - I had read it before. But then lost track of the series. I am a latecomer to the mania. So this year I decided to read the entire series, get caught up. So glad I did.

9/11 Commission Report - hahahahaha I'm sorry, don't mean to laugh - it just cracks me up - to go from Harry Potter to that, but hey - that's what the list says. So it must be true!! Welcome to my world.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - JK Rowling

The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing - Jayna Davis (I guess I like my Harry Potter experience to be bookended by the war on terror. This book scared the shit out of me.)

Hard News: Twenty-one Brutal Months at The New York Times and How They Changed the American Media - by Seth Mnookin - really really enjoyed this book. Fascinating.

Rose Madder - by Stephen King. Not wacky about it. Had to force myself to finish it

The Pigman - Paul Zindel (one of my favorite books - this is a re-read)

The Pigman's Legacy - Paul Zindel (see above comment)

Pardon Me, You're Stepping On my Eyeball - Paul Zindel (LOVE this book - another re-read - I think it's one of his best.)

Children of the Arbat - by Anatoli Naumovich Rybakov

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - by JK Rowling

Combatting Cult Mind Control : The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults by Steven Hassan - written by an ex-Moonie who is now one of the world's leading "exit counselors". He prefers that term to "deprogramming". Terrifying book about brainwashing - very very good.

The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems - by William Butler Yeats

The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery : Volume V: 1935-1942 - by L. M. Montgomery

The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion - just finished it. A devastating book written in the aftermath of the death of her husband of 40 years. It's up there with CS Lewis' book on grief. It should become a classic in the genre.

I suppose I should also count all of the plays I re-read this year - especially the entire work of Tennessee Williams.

Looking back over this list makes me think that I really want to read more fiction in 2006. More than I did in 2005, anyway. And so I will!!

The Books: "Reckless" (Craig Lucas)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

I am still on my script shelf

Next play in my little unalphabetized pile of Samuel French plays is Reckless and Other Plays, by Craig Lucas

I did this play in college. It's one of the funnest craziest things I've ever worked on. It deserves an entire post of our backstage shenanigans - but for now I'll just say - we all were in it. I played Pooty - the paraplegic wife of Lloyd, one of the main characters. Pooty PRETENDS to be deaf and mute. I can't remember why - but she is fluent in sign language - Lloyd believes she is deaf - and she just can't bring herself to tell him the truth, because she knows how much it will hurt him. She loves him. She lives her life as a deaf-mute woman. This is the only time I've gotten to do a death scene on stage. I drink poisoned champagne at a Christmas celebration and die in my wheelchair, shrieking in agony - thereby revealing to Lloyd, right at the moment of my death, that I had been lying for our entire marriage. It was hilarious. The play is obviously a black BLACK comedy. At the time of Pooty's death, she sits in her wheelchair, and she is wearing reindeer antler's on her head, in honor of Christmas - antlers draped with fir garlands. So ... dying with that damn thing on my head was one of the greatest pleasures I have ever had as an actress.

Believe it or not, though, Pooty is not the lead of the show. heh heh The lead of the show is a neurotic woman named Rachel who basically flees her husband in the first scene - for no apparent reason - and surges out into a snowstorm where she proceeds to have all kinds of weird adventures. She meets Lloyd. Lloyd and Pooty take her in. Rachel's husband finds her, shows up at the door, and pretends to be fine with her betrayal - gives her a bottle of champagne (which he has poisoned). The champagne was meant for her. But Pooty drinks it instead.

Then things start to go downhill. Lloyd goes off the rails. When Pooty dies, he was wearing a Santa hat. So he refuses to ever take the Santa hat off again. He becomes a drunk on the level of Charles Bukowski in two days. He holes up in cheap motels, raving about the joys of Christmas, wearing his Santa hat. My friend David played Lloyd to perfection - and his scene in the motel room, where he stands on the bed, wasted, shouting in a drunken slur about Christmas - was so goddamn funny that I would sneak around to the vom where I could watch the whole scene every night, unseen by the audience.

Mitchell played a bunch of characters - but his main scene was some kind of TV game show host. I can't remember why - but Lloyd, Pooty, and Rachel all go onto a game show - kind of like a Family Feud type thing. Each "team" has to dress in costumes. We dress up as the solar system. So please imagine: each one of us has a huge papier mache globe around our head - with a little hole cut out for our faces. I believe I was the earth. So my globe was blue with white cotton-ball clouds floating across it. David's globe was the sun, so his globe made him look like the Heat Miser. Rachel was Venus, I think. I so wish I had photographs of us in those globes. Especially because I was in a wheelchair. And talking in sign language. All with a globe on my head. It was one of the funnest plays I've ever done.

For old times sake, I will excerpt the game show scene.

EXCERPT FROM Reckless and Other Plays, by Craig Lucas

ANNOUNCER. And here's your host, Tim Timko.

TIM. Okay, here we go, how does this game work, where are we? Oh yes, it all comes back to me, like last night. Who was that girl? Okay, enough of that, it's good to be back, let's see who's here. [Houselights reveal families dressed as vegetables, household appliances, etc.] All you need's a mother, a wife, and the crazy idea that you could tell the difference. Looks like an awful lot of bag ladies slipped in, how're we all doing? ["Great, Tim!" "We're fine!" "Over here, Tim!"] Anybody want to play this thing, what's it called, Your Brother's Wife? ["We do!" "Pick us!" "We're a salad!"] Your Sister's Best Friend's Mother-in-law? [Sign lights] Your Mother Or Your Wife. Knew it would come to me -- Wait, wait a minute, nobody move, I know what I like and don't tell me now: you folks are dressed as the solar system, aren't you? [Rachel, Lloyd, and Pooty with globes over their heads]

LLOYD. That's right, Tim.

RACHEL. [at the same time] Yes, Tim!

TIM. Uh-huh. This looks like the planet earth down there. [Pooty]

LLOYD. That's my mother, Tim.

RACHEL. [same time] Mother Earth!

TIM. Mother Earth. I'll bet your world revolves around your sun too, doesn't it?

RACHEL. That's right!

TIM. Okay, what's your name, Sir?

LLOYD. Lloyd.

TIM. You have a last name, Lloyd?

LLOYD. Bophtelophti.

TIM. Say it?

LLOYD. Bophtelophti.

RACHEL. [same time] Bophtelophti!

TIM. Okay. This is the little lady.

LLOYD. That's right, Tim.

RACHEL. Venus!

TIM. One touch of Venus.

RACHEL. That's right!

TIM. Okay, you've met all our requirements, Lloyd.

LLOYD. I should tell you, Tim, my mother is deaf.

TIM. What's that?

LLOYD. But my wife speaks sign language.

TIM. I don't see any problem and she won't have to listen to my jokes, so get yourselves up here and get set to play Your Mother or Your Wife. [Music] Correctly identify which of these two lovely ladies answered each of three scintillating questions supplied by our highly educated audience of Nobel Prize laureates and win yourself up to twenty thousand dollars, Lloyd, and a chance to play for our grand prize.

ANNOUNCER. Tim, the Bophtelophtis will be playing for a grand cash total of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars!

TIM. A hundred and twenty thousand dollars. All right, Lloyd, are you ready for our glass booth?

LLOYD. I guess so, Tim.

TIM. Then take him away! Okay -- [Lloyd is escorted into the wings] What Lloyd doesn't realize is there are no air holes in our glass booth and it will quickly fill up with carbon monoxide, but never mind. Ladies, welcome.

RACHEL. It's great to be here, Tim!

TIM. You're going to translate?

RACHEL. That's right.

TIM. No funny business. Anybody here speaks deaf, keep an eye on these two. Venus, first question: Would you say Lloyd is more like a pingpong ball or a paper clip. Venus? A pingpong ball or a paperclip?

RACHEL. Oh, I'll say a pingpong ball.

TIM. Any particular reason?

RACHEL. Oh, he bounces around a lot. I don't know.

TIM. Okay, Mom? A pingpong ball or a paperclip? Two P's.

RACHEL. She says a paperclip.

TIM. Because --?

RACHEL. Because he holds the family together.

TIM. Aw. Okay, question number two: If blank were a salad dressing, what flavor would he be? Mom first this time. If Lloyd were a salad dressing, what flavor would he be?

RACHEL. She says blue cheese.

TIM. Getting a little moldy.

RACHEL. And I'll say blue cheese.

TIM. Blue cheese it is. Ladies, third question: if you could choose between your husband leaving you for another woman or, in Mom's case, her son leaving her for another Mom ... Guys, this question doesn't make sense. What's he going to do, get another mother? ... Judges say fly with it. All right -- choose between your husband leaving you for another woman or staying together, knowing he didn't love you, Venus -- Which would it be? Okay, fair enough.

RACHEL. I'll have to say another woman.

TIM. Another woman. All right, Mom: between losing your son to another mother or knowing he didn't love you ...

RACHEL. She says another mother.

TIM. M is for the many ways. All right, ladies, for our grand prize: who does Lloyd love most, you or Mom? Good question. Venus?

RACHEL. Oh gosh, his mother.

TIM. Mom? This should be interesting. Who does Lloyd really love, his mother or his wife? And -- she says you! All right, we'll be back with the three happy Boopy-boppies after this word from the good folks at Nu-Soft. Don't go away.

ANNOUNCER. We're going right on. [Lloyd is escorted back onstage] Ten seconds.

TIM. Say your name for me.

RACHEL. Bophtelophti.

TIM. Bophtelophti.

ANNOUNCER. Five, four, three ... Rolling.

TIM. And we're back with the Bophtelophtis --

RACHEL. Right!

TIM. From Springfield, Massachusetts. Bophtelophti, is that Polish?

RACHEL. Yes, Tim --

LLOYD. [same time] No, well, it's --

RACHEL. It's ...

LLOYD. Welsh, actually.

RACHEL. Welsh and Polish.

TIM. Welsh and Polish. How long have you been married?

LLOYD. Ten --

RACHEL. Ten.

LLOYD. Years.

RACHEL. [same time] Years.

TIM. Ten years. Any kids so far?

LLOYD. None so far, Tim --

RACHEL. [same time] Nope.

LLOYD. But we're hoping.

TIM. Well, best of luck to you.

LLOYD. Thank you.

RACHEL. [same time] Thanks!

TIM. Because you're going to need it. Okay, here we go, round two, Lloyd, for five thousand dollars -- when asked if you reminded them of a paper clip or a pingpong ball, who said "Paper clip" and I quote "because he holds the family together" -- Your mother or your wife?

LLOYD. Uh ... my mother.

TIM. Right you are if you think you are. For ten thousand dolalrs, when asked what type of salad dressing you reminded them of, who said "Blue cheese" -- your mother or your wife?

LLOYD. That's my favorite.

TIM. We're not all that interested in your personal life, Lloyd. No, I'm just kidding, take your time.

LLOYD. Oh, I'll say both.

TIM. Both it is for a quick ten grand. All right. For twenty thousand dollars and a chance to lose it all, Lloyd: Which ... Wait, let me get this straight: Which of the women in your life said they would rather lose you to another woman, wife or mother as the case may be, than believe you to be unhappy in your home? Mother Earth or the Venus de Milo, Lloyd? Lose to another woman before they would see you unhappy in their home.

LLOYD. Both?

TIM. Both it is! Congratulations, Lloyd Bophtelophti from Warsaw, Wales, you've just won twenty thousand dollars and a chance to go home before you ruin your marriage.

LLOYD. No, we want to keep going.

TIM. Remember, if you miss this one we keep it all, Lloyd, but you do go home with a free home version of Your Mother or Your Wife.

LLOYD. We'll play.

TIM. He said he'll play. All right, Mr., Mrs. and Mom -- no eye contact now and no help from those salad ingredients, you know who you are -- Lloyd, for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, we asked your mother and your wife: Who does Lloyd love most, his mother or his wife. Who said -- keep breathing, Lloyd -- you love your wife the most? Your mother, your wife or your mother and your wife, it could be both, don't think too hard, Lloyd.

LLOYD. Boy.

TIM. Your mother, your wife or your mother and your wife ... We're running out of time. We'll have to have an answer, Lloyd, I'm sorry.

LLOYD. My mother.

TIM. Lloyd Bophtelophti from Springfield Massachusetts, you've said the magic word, take the money, be happy, this is Tim Timko, saying goodnight, we'll see you next week with your mother, your wife, your mistress --

ANNOUNCER. For tickets to Your Mother or Your Wife, all you do is write your name and address ona postcard and mail it to Your Mother or Your Wife, Box Twelve Twenty-five, New Hope Station, New Hope California.

RACHEL. [same time as announcer] We didn't lose!

LLOYD. [same time] We didn't lose!

RACHEL. [same time] We didn't lose!

LLOYD. [same time] Pooty!

RACHEL. [same time] We didn't lose!

LLOYD. [same time] We didn't lose!

RACHEL. For once! We didn't lose!

LLOYD. One hundred and twenty thousand dollars!

RACHEL. I'll never complain again as long as I live, I swear!

LLOYD. A hundred and twenty thousand dollars!

RACHEL. A hundred and twenty thousand dollars!

LLOYD. A hundred and twenty thousand dollars!

I had one shred of sanity left

And now it is gone forever.

Thanks to Mark I am now a drooling driveling idiot with melting butter for a brain.

Diary Friday

Okay, so I'm gonna stick with the junior year in high school because ... well ... it's all just so ridiculous. Wildly in love with someone from afar. I'm picking a couple of entries from December of that year - preparing for Christmas, etc. I was crying with laughter reading some of this. I sound like such a moron.

The first paragraph of the first entry is just so unselfconsciously insane that I am still laughing about it.

DECEMBER 17

Today I'm going Christmas shopping with Mere, then sleeping over. I can't wait. On a wild impulse, I'm wearing my high-tops. I've got to get all my presents today. Probably take a McNugget break too.

[There's just too much that's funny there to even break it down. It takes a "wild impulse" to wear high-top sneakers? I still wear them on an almost daily basis. What the HELL am I talking about?]

Oh yes, I've got to tell about yesterday. I went to school, blah blah. Then came French. [French was one of the two classes I shared with my Prince Charming. Hence - my entire life revolved around French class and gym] He was in the room before me. I came in and he was just wandering around. [What? "Just wandering around"? Why does this make me laugh??] He saw me come in and he spoke to me. I didn't have to throw a question at him. He said, "Did you go to the concert?" "Yes." I smiled over at him. He said, "Better than the school one, huh? What did you think?" [Oh, stop fishing for compliments, jagoff.] Ah - oh - ee - ah [What the hell is that? Am I making each vowel sound?] I was tongue tied. How would I say, "God, you are a great sax player"? Well, that's just what I said, "God, you are a great sax player!" [Hahahahahaha So obviously I found it very easy to say "God, you are a great sax player" The thing that is funny to me here is that I seem unaware of the humor in my wording.] I asked him, "How much do you practice?" He shrugged. He's really sort of modest with compliments. "Never. I never practice." [Uhm - maybe we should say FALSELY modest with compliments.] He said, "I swear I never looked at that music until last night." "Right. Sure." I said sarcastically. He grinned at me and I said, "Wow, though. You were really excellent. You really got into it, huh?" [Good for you, Sheila. Giving the boy what he wants to hear. You were a generous soul and he did not fucking deserve it. Onward.] He laughed and shrugged again, and that was it.

You know what I'm gradually realizing? [Oh God. Not a realization.] I look back on 7th and 8th grade, even as far back as 6th grade, and I look at the guys I had crushes on, and they were all such babies. [Uhm, yeah. That's because they were 11 years old.] Boys were so young and immature - scrawny little bodies - but I thought Andy - who was about three feet tall - I thought he was the best thing going. [hahahaha He was three feet tall because he was ELEVEN. Mkay? This is Andy of the famous spitball Valentine. LOVED him.]

After History I go across the hall to Chemistry and as the room empties, I always see DW coming down the hall to his locker after Physics. I stand outside the door just to see him. [hahahaha] I don't think he's aware that I watch him -- If I thought he was aware, I'd never do it -- but it's a perfect spot to just look at him. Oh, I'm awful, I know! But -- [here comes the realization] it occurred to me one day as I was just standing there, looking at him getting his books [Sheila, why do you think he is not aware of you when you are basically just standing there, watching him??] -- he's so tall and lean - with broad shoulders - this isn't some 11 year old kid I'm in love with. [yeah, because that would be freaky.] What I'm really thinking is - when I was 11 and was in love with Andy - he seemed perfectly grown up and gorgeous to me. But we were both such children. I don't know what I'm trying to say - I'm not trying to say that DW and I are adults, blah blah - but just looking at him in that moment, it came to me in a flash - I don't know -- I felt in wonder of his humanity, his body (please don't get the wrong idea) - the way he moves - and how he's not a kid. Neither am I anymore. [Actually, that's a pretty cool realization. To have that moment when you realize that you're not a little kid anymore.] God I feel like a kid sometimes.

Diary, I really don't understand "growing up". Does anyone ever grow up successfully? How the hell is anyone supposed to go about it? I think I have this thing of always being conscious. Sometimes it's wonderful. I mean, the beauty of life and the world is always amazing me. Now -- I always notice sunsets and trees and I wonder "How could I have even lived 15 years without knowing that those things were there?" But - I do have the need - I want to know who I am. I can't just live, you know - day by day - I can't just be. [I still can't.] I have to know and consciously grow - that's what I want, but how? I want to be like Jimmy Dean. [Live fast, die young, Sheila?] I don't want to just wander around [like DW in French class??] - I don't want to just live. How do I get conscious?

Who is DW? Does he ever think who am I? (Not me, Sheila. But him. You know, does DW ever think - Who am I?) I think of myself at 25, 30, 40 - How am I going to change and become an adult? [I still wonder that.] I know that I can't feel like this inside when I'm 30. I'm so hopelessly young. But then again, at times, I feel -- not adult - but sort of pleasantly content at being a teenager. It's so interesting. I have a unique - maybe not, but it's a nice thing to have - talent for being able to step back out of my own shoes, and look at my life - never me for some reason though - but suddenly at times - brief flashes in the weirdest places - when I feel like the all-American teenage girl. I don't feel like that inside - but sometimes I get an outside glimpse. I think of liking DW and all that stuff. I'm rambling. I've lost track of what I was saying.

Everything is so confusing. I have to become an adult. How do I do that? It's fun, though - being a teenager - being capable of liking someone the way I like DW.

Diary, it's weird. I won't be satisfied with just gazing from afar from this time. I want more. I HOPE I HOPE he wants more too!!!

DECEMBER 18

[I am putting this in here because I just can't get over the GIFTS I am giving people. It's such a time-machine moment.]

Christmas shopping yesterday was crazy. My Christmas spirit feels seriously bruised. I had to get everyone's present yesterday because Betsy's having a Christmas party tomorrow. I look back on yesterday and it seemed fun, but while it was going on I was crazy. It seemed a monumental task. I had so many people to buy for. But I did so well. I got everyone presents and they weren't desperation presents either. Mere and I shopped from 11:30 to about 3:00. We ate at McDonalds. It was fun! Okay, my gifts:

Jayne: Yentl album

Mere: Adam Ant album - homemade card

Betsy: Lionel Richie album - a card that says "Friends are flowers in the garden of life"

Kate: a stuffed animal seal, a rainbow magnet that says "This day is made for you", a little shiny black box with a design and a card that says "Thank you for being a treasured friend" [Sheesh - why did Kate get to receive 2,000 presents and I only got Betsy and Mere one a piece?]

J.: a stuffed animal bull (our private joke), a journal, and a Baryshnikov card

Beth: a beautiful mug with dolphins on it (Beth has a love affair with dolphins)

April: a shiny silver and sparkley blue notebook - a tiny purple Chinese lantern, a Charlie Chaplin card

Christmas shopping is wonderful once it's all over. [Those presents absolutely KILL ME]

Just watched Animal House. Talk ab out feeling like a teenager. Wow. I watched that movie and all I thought of was Travis, Matt, Bobby Records, Josh L. -- they could have written the script - it was so like them. The toga party part could have been taken right out of our toga dance. I CAN'T WAIT. We have such a wicked school. I really like the kids.

[Sheila, calm down.]

DECEMBER 20

[I hesitated to include the first sentence of this diary entry because even I, with my passion for self-exposure and self-deprecation, found it a bit too embarrassing. But then I decided: what the hell.]

I could very easily fall in love with a statue. I could. I already am! Michelangelo's David. Oh, it is so hard to believe that he is not a real flesh and blood man. God, he is wonderful.

Lately, I feel so strangely emotional. [Honey, you are and you always will be "strangely emotional". I am now writing to you from TWENTY YEARS IN YOUR FUTURE and all I have to say to you is: Get used to it.] We are studying the Renaissance in English and they had this slide of the David standing there - and I just felt my heart beat faster. The beauty of the art. I wish I could see it in person and the Sistine Chapel.

God, what a day. Today is the kind of day when all you can do to retain your sanity is to sit back and just laugh. Life is a joke. Life is one big fat joke. [Now don't get bitter] Why do I take it so seriously? [Again: see note above about "get used to it"]

Chemistry was a riot. We had a quiz yesterday. Diary, 99% of the class failed. One person passed, and that person got a D. It was probably the funniest thing that's happened to me in weeks. I honestly think this should tell Mr. Amoeba something. I got a 7 out of 19. Mere beat me by 2 points.

Mr. Amoeba was actually nice to me today. I had fun pretending to be a diligent student, asking questions, looking perplexed. [Oh man. I'm such a bitch! hahahaha I was ACTING. Amoeba was one of those teachers who needed students to be confused, and lost. He loved it when the whole class didn't know what he was talking about. The only way to get ahead in that class was to consistently say stuff like: "I have no idea what that means ... could you explain it more?" He had no respect for kids. That was really what was going on. Can you tell I despised him?]

Last night was Betsy's party. Oh, it was so fun! All the best buddies were there. We call ourselves a clicque. For some reason yesterday I was just fizzing and bubbling over with energy. We all got over to Betsy's and Betsy put on her Grease record. [Record!!] We all were dancing - it was so fun - I felt wonderful and funky and jazzy [Oh. My. God. SHUT. UP.] Then we put on the Beatles. Mere and I sang harmony. Beth kept saying, "How do you do that? Is it 2 notes above or below?" Then we all sat down to open presents. Very disorganizaed. [I just want to say one thing. I love my friends. We are all still the best of friends. Beth. Mere. Betsy. I just love the image of all of us - age 16 - having a little Christmas party for each other.]

I think I honestly like giving presents better than getting. I LOVE I LOVE to give presents. I had written little letters to everyone. I love making people happy. It is hard to write how much I love someone without sounding sappy. Kate said once, "It's easy to lie on paper." Isn't that true?

Actually, I'm the wrong person to have a diary. I can easily record a day's activities but when it comes to describing my feelings about DW or a serious thing - my mind's blank. Well, not blank - my heart is screaming and throbbing - but the words just don't come out of me. It's frustrating sometimes. Like on Dec. 17 - I knew what I was feeling - but I just couldn't explain it!

I think I know now what I was trying to say. I feel it whenever I look at DW. Like once in Project Adventure [this was our gym class - an awesome Outward Bound type program] - we had this whole awful day of physical challenges. Climbing ropes, pull ups, balancing, jumping -- I was waiting in line to do something and I glanced over at the pull up place. DW was about to go. Then he started - He did about 30. I mean, he's not a muscle man - but he's strong, he's masculine - [he's not 3 feet tall] - he's a man physically, even though he's 17 - He could carry me on his shoulders. His strength appeals to me. Wimps don't do a thing for me. I'm a wimp. [hahaha.] I did about an eighth of a pull-up - but then we had to climb the ropes. I have no upper body strength. None. I have never ever been able to climb the damn ropes. While I was waiting in line for the pullups, I glanced over at the ropes - and DW was climbing. There are 2 ropes hanging, you had to hold onto each, and climb up. And I watched him climb the ropes. It "turns me on". [Ha. Love the quotation marks. I was still a little girl] He is so desirable to me anyway but to see that he is strong ... Anyway, he was way up in the air - I could see his belly button - AH! [or should I say: "ah - oh - ee - ah ..."] His face was straining in determination, his arms were shaking with the effort, his teeth grit together - I doubt I have ever seen anything so beautiful in my life.

He looked so manly. Oh, give it up. Why can't words be my slaves? [Because of a little thing called the 13th amendment]

His personality is what I really admire [you know, his "modest" personality] - but suddenly his physical traits were screaming at me and I love him. I love his face, his body, everything. He's not JW - who's like Mr. America in a really ikky way - he looks like he has big muscles - huge ones in his arms so that he can't even put his arms down at his sides - he's got these rounded buns that make me kind of sick [jeez, Sheila ... don't hold back!] - His body doesn't do a thing for me. It's superficial.

But DW?

I cannot stand myself anymore. My feelings feel like they've been pent-up for years and suddenly they're loose but racing and tearing around inside me - bumping into each other - no way out. I wish I had a vent for all this. Thank you, Diary, for listening to me, but after all: you are only a book. You are not a tall strong senior with dark hair, glasses, a baggy Oxford shirt, Levis, and a wonderful sauntering walk.

The monetary black hole of pastries

A very funny essay about the trials and tribulations involved in opening and running a rather twee little coffee shop in New York City.

I loved this paragraph:

Pastries, for instance, are a monetary black hole unless you bake them yourself. We started out by engaging a pedigreed gentleman baker with Le Bernardin on his résumé. Hercule, as I'll call him, embodied every French stereotype in existence: He was jovial, enthusiastic, rude, snooty, manic-depressive, brilliant, and utterly unreliable. His croissants were buttery, flaky, not too big, and $1.25 wholesale. We sold them for $2 and threw away roughly 50 percent—in other words, we were making a negative quarter on each croissant. After a couple of months of this, we downgraded to a more Americanized version of the croissant (vast and pillowy). The new croissants ran 90 cents each and made us feel vaguely dirty. We sold them for the same $2. Ironically, their elephantine size meant that every time someone ordered a croissant with cheese, we had to load it up with twice as much Gruyère.

The Books: "The Owl and the Pussycat" (Bill Manhoff)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

I am still on my script shelf

Next play in my little unalphabetized pile of Samuel French plays is The Owl and the Pussycat: A Comedy in Three Acts (Samuel French Play Series), by Bill Manhoff

I remember seeing the film version of this when I was a kid - 10 or 11 - and laughing so hard at the whole "the sun spits morning" sequence that I was incapacitated for about 5 minutes. Also - Barbra Streisand's ridiculous nightie is ... pure comedy. They're having these serious scenes and she's wearing THAT. Also, you want to see why Barbra Streisand is such a good actress? Watch her during the scene where she is laid low by a case of the hiccups. Hiccups are HARD to re-create. And the hiccups have to come at certain points in the lines - in order to achieve the greatest comedic effect. You can't just hiccup randomly. Barbra Streisand being taken over by hiccups is just a wonderful piece of physical acting and you never - for a SECOND - think that she's acting or "pretending" to have hiccups. I love that.

So. The script. It was originally produced in 1964 with Alan Alda as Felix and Diana Sands as Doris. If you've seen the movie you know the plot. It's another one of those two-person plays - get two people into a room - two wildly different people - and see what happens.

Felix is a "writer". He also considers himself an intellectual. He is snobby, elitist, and finicky. Doris is a whore who lives across the alley. Felix has binoculars and has basically been spying on Doris - and when he sees that she is having sex for money - he tells the landlord of her building. Doris gets thrown out on her ass. And she somehow finds out that Felix is the one who turns her in - so she comes a-knockin' on his door, dragging a suitcase and her television set - demanding that he put her up until she can find a new place. They've never met. This is how the play begins - with Doris banging on his door at 2 in the morning.

Felix resists Doris. Felix condescends to Doris. Doris is VERY sensitive about not having an education and she FLIPS OUT when he uses a word she doesn't know. Somehow she wears down his resistance and he lets her sleep on the couch. There is a VERY funny moment where she can't sleep and she asks him to read to her. He ends up starting to read his unpublished novel to her and the first sentence of it is: "The sun spit morning into Werner's face". Doris kind of can't get past it ... she's never read a book in her life but she knows that "the sun spit morning" is crappy writing. She keeps referencing it throughout the rest of the play. "Okay, so the sun spit morning, I know, I know ..."

They end up having a steamy sexual relationship which rocks the foundations of Felix's beliefs about himself - that he has conquered his body with his mind, that (to quote the Elphant Man) HE IS NOT AN ANIMAL - He has split himself off into different compartments.

The relationship progresses. Felix decides that Doris is train-able - he starts giving her little tasks - she is supposed to look up a word a day in the dictionary and then use it in a sentence, etc. hahahaha She resents this, but she does her best.

Here's a scene from later in the play - when there is trouble in paradise.

EXCERPT FROM The Owl and the Pussycat: A Comedy in Three Acts (Samuel French Play Series), by Bill Manhoff

FELIX. How many times did you say you used the dictionary today?

DORIS. I don't know. What's wrong, honey?

FELIX. Please go over to the dictionary and look at it closely.

DORIS. [Doris goes and looks at the dictionary] What am I supposed to see?

FELIX. Look at the edges -- at the top --

DORIS. What's this? [Peeling off a strip of scotch tape]

FELIX. That is a strip of Scotch tape. It's been there for two days. Undisturbed. Where were you this afternoon?

DORIS. That's such a nasty thing to do.

FELIX. Where were you yesterday afternoon?

DORIS. I do not care for the tone of your voice.

FELIX. Where did you get the dirty but brand new radio?

DORIS. I'm warning you -- stop it -- this warning will not be repeated.

FELIX. We're not going to fight. We're going to have an honest unemotional discussion.

DORIS. Yeah? So you start out by calling me a liar.

FELIX. I did not call you a liar. I'm not going to lose my temper.

DORIS. You might as well. I'm gonna lose mine!

FELIX. Would you care to tell me what's wrong?

DORIS. What's wrong? You're a creep that puts scotch tape on the dictionary -- you know that word -- "creep"? Used in a sentence: "Fred Sherman is a big creep".

FELIX. [starting at "Fred"] What did you call me?

DORIS. It's your name. Fred -- Freddie -- I thought that would jar your apricots! I found your yearbook from school -- Fred Sherman. You didn't tell me you changed your name, did you? You creep. I'm sorry -- pardon my language, but you are a creep.

FELIX. It's all right -- it's a step up from "fink". Congratulations -- now -- I'd like to hear why you feel you have to sneak out afternoons and lie to me.

DORIS. I just got bored. I had to get out. Look -- I tried. I tried working on hats. I tried looking for a job, right? I tried.

FELIX. Have you been plying your old trade?

DORIS. Have I been what? No, I haven't. I told you I was through doing that.

FELIX. Where'd you get the radio?

DORIS. I collected some money. Somebody owed me some money and they paid me.

FELIX. I see. Why didn't you tell me that?

DORIS. Because I knew you wouldn't believe it. I knew what you'd think.

FELIX. I see.

DORIS. Dont' say "I see", like you were looking through your lousy spy glasses. Listen -- why don't you stop trying to make out like you're a human being? I mean the strain must be terrible -- why don't you just relax and admit you're God and you know all about everything?

FELIX. Why did you have to lie? I just want to know why you lied to me about going out and about looking up words.

DORIS. Because I'm a liar, okay?

FELIX. Why didn't you tell me?

DORIS. Why didn't you tell me you changed your name from Fred to Felix?

FELIX. [ignoring her question] I'm very sad. You had a chance to do something important for yourself and you're quitting. You're not giving yourself a chance.

DORIS. I gave myself a chance -- you had me going there for a while, but it's silly. I'm a dope and that's all there is to it.

FELIX. You're not a dope. You're a bright girl.

DORIS. Not when it comes to dictionaries and the history of philosophy, I'm not.

FELIX. You have a potential capacity for --

DORIS. No, I don't have any potential anything.

FELIX. [losing the fight against his temper] Don't interrupt me -- who do you think is better qualified to judge mental capacity -- you or I?

DORIS. You --

FELIX. Then why are you arguing with me?

DORIS. Felix, I --

FELIX. Would I be wasting my time with you if you didn't have a brain?

DORIS. Felix --

FELIX. Do you think an intellectual such as myself would waste his time with a dumbbell?

DORIS. Felix, I know myself -- you can't tell me --

FELIX. I tell you you're a very intelligent girl, and you'd know it yourself if you weren't so damned stupid!

DORIS. I am not stupid! I've got good healthy everyday brains. I haven't got your kind of brains and I'm glad, because I'm gonna tell you something -- I think your brains are rotten!

FELIX. Ah -- the cat turns inevitably and bares her atavistic fangs.

DORIS. To use those ugly, lonely words nobody else uses -- that's all your brains are good for. To keep people away because you're scared to death of people!

FELIX. She spits in inarticulate fury!

DORIS. You know what your brains are good for? To make up your own lousy little language that the rest of the world can't even understand.

FELIX. Well, all right -- stay with the rest of the world -- don't let anybody make you a foreigner there by teaching you to speak the English language!

DORIS. [going to closet] What a dope I was to listen to you. [Mimicking him] I'm gonna save you, Doris! [In her own voice] You are such a phony. I can't believe it. You don't write for money but you keep sending your junk to magazines, don't you? And you keep getting it sent back, don't you? Meanwhile all you got is a phony job, a phony girlfriend, a phony apartment and a phony bunch of words. [she has taken the suitcase from the closet and started to throw garments into it as she talks]

FELIX. What are you doing?

DORIS. What does it look like I'm doing?

FELIX. Now don't get washed away. Think, Doris. Try to understand one basic thing. Try to hold on to what I see in you.

DORIS. [Yelling] You see nothing! You don't see me at all! You don't see anything. Because even your eyes are phony! [Knock on the wall. Doris addresses the wall; yelling] I'll be through in a minute! [To Felix] You know what you see in me? You never had a girl that made you feel like a big man in bed -- that's all.

FELIX. Doris --

DORIS. Well, I want to tell you something about what a hot stud you think you are in the sack --

FELIX. Don't say it, Doris --

DORIS. You leave me cold, Fred. You're nothing at all.

FELIX. You're raising your voice.

DORIS. You do nothing to me, Freddie -- you only think you do. You know why?

FELIX. I know -- you're a great actress and to you that bed is theatre in the round -- I know all about it -- well, now I'm going to tell you something -- I don't leave you cold -- I find you cold -- "frigid" -- is that word in your meager stock?

DORIS. Drop dead.

FELIX. Sure you're an actress in bed -- because you can't be a woman.

DORIS. With a man I can, Fred -- Freddie, it takes a man.

FELIX. Sometimes. Even with fantasies, and dirty words and the guilty stink of the sewer you can only sometimes whip yourself into a parody of passion -- sometimes! Isn't that right?

DORIS. Stop yelling. Nobody's listening to you. [She's closing the suitcase]

FELIX. All right. You're lost. Goodbye. I tried.

DORIS. Now try shutting up. I'll send for the TV. I'll send a man! Takes a good look at him.

FELIX. [following her to the door] No matter where you go or what you do or what you call yourself -- you are now and forever a whore named Doris Wilgus.

DORIS. Okay. And what are you now and forever? A miserable magazine peddler named Freddie Sherman and a lousy writer and you always will be and you wanna know why --? [Hitting him deliberately with every word] Because, God damn it! The -- sun -- does -- not -- spit!

BLACKOUT

Notorious on the big screen

We met at one of our favorite places - if any of you all come to New York - I so so recommend it: The restaurant is called 'ino. It has about 5 tables (check out the photo. That's IT.) If you are sitting against the wall and you need to get out to get to the bathroom or something - then many other people, strangers, will be involved - in moving their tables, scooting their chairs over, etc. They have an enormous wine list - and all of the waiters are friendly, personable, and know a TON about wines. They can help you out. The waitstaff is fantastic. The food is scrumptious and unbelievably cheap. We always get the olive bowl. Then there are bruschettas - many different kinds - paninis ... There's exposed brick. The candlelight. The big wine glasses. It's a teeny-tiny enclave in the Village. We just love it there. It's one of those places that you feel so PSYCHED to know about. And you hope that not too many other people find out about it. I took my parents there once - which was really fun - to share it with them.

We ate our olives. We drank wine. We talked like maniacs.

Topics covered:

-- how the brain works, how it processes information.
-- Brokeback Mountain
-- Joan Didion's book Year of Magical Thinking
-- how amazing it is that the EYE has developed - the EYE - the MIRACLE OF THE EYEBALL, the INCREDIBLE-NESS of the evolution of the EYEBALL
-- acting, directing

We were excited. It was an exciting night. We got the check at 6:55 - and then headed over to the Film Forum - to see Notorious. I'm not joking: my heart was literally pounding out of my chest. I felt like I was going to see a Broadway show. I felt like I was standing in line to meet someone I idolized. I was so excited. SO excited to see this film on the big screen. One of my favorite movies ever made. I've only ever seen it by myself. In my apartment. Obsessively. My experience of the film has been sheerly solitary. So to sit in a crowded movie theatre? And watch that film?? What???? I was beside myself.

He had seen it before - years ago. His vivid memory of the film was the scene in the wine cellar - He found it so intense and suspenseful that he couldn't even watch it. He had to stand up and walk around.

I cannot even express how EXCITING it was to sit in a movie theatre - surrounded by people - watching that film. It was a completely different thing - seeing it in that way. Seeing it BIG. Seeing them larger-than-life - rather than on my small television. The film is meant to be seen BIG. There are moments when Ingrid Bergman is in close-up that I literally couldn't catch my breath. Her beauty, her passion, her very LIFE just leapt off the screen and caught me by the throat. You can definitely get that it is a powerful performance - even if you see it on a 12 inch TV - but to see it up there, huge - was a horse of a different color. She is an absolutely extraordinary actress.

But most of the fun came from the LAUGHTER in the audience. I have only seen the film by myself - and I think it's a very witty script - but you know, I've seen it 50 times, sitting alone - I don't sit in my chair, laughing out loud, every time I see it. But the crowd - the energy of the crowd - it was just electric. People just BURSTING into laughter - the scary Fraulein mother got huge laughs on almost every line - it was exhilarating - I felt like I was experiencing the movie for the first time. When the amazing Claude Rains wakes up his mother after his horrible revelation about who his wife is ... and his mother sits up in bed - with that terrifying Germanic look on her face ... he confesses, "It's about Alicia." The mother suddenly QUIVERS with almost visible triumph - only she puts a lid on it - and she reaches out for a cigarette from her cigarette box by her bed - she puts the cigarette in her mouth and says, viciously, "I have expected this." HUGE laugh. I found myself caught up in it too - I saw the moment for the first time. Movie-going is - after all - a communal experience. That's part of the joy of it. I like going to the movies. I like sitting home and watching movies too - but there's nothing like going out, and sitting there with a bunch of strangers, watching a movie. It's one of my favorite things to do.

The wine cellar scene was absolutely excruciating to watch. You could just FEEL people freaking out all around ... It was unbearable. And it is only done through the acting, and the circumstance. There's no special effects - the only "sound" is the distant sound of the orchestra upstairs ... there are no additional elements added onto the scene to tell you how to feel ... It just WORKS. She is terrified. She paces. He inspects the wine bottles. Slowly ... we start to see that because he is reaching behind the first row of bottles ... he has pushed one of the bottles forward. He doesn't notice it - but WE do. People were just gasping all around us. This one poor woman sitting a couple of rows ahead was basically having a nervous breakdown. Then comes the terrible moment when the bottle is pushed off the shelf - we see it go - Cary Grant sees it go - it is too late - The sound of people all around me just REACTING to this horrible occurrence gave me goose bumps. A beautiful sound. One of the most beautiful sounds in the world.

And the last scene. Oh, the last scene. Seen in a darkened movie theatre - the screen glimmering silver and black up front - quiet RIVETED people all around me - the tears glimmering down Ingrid's face - the blazing white pillow behind her head - Cary in blackened shadow - his urgent whisper - her head falling back - Literally you could have heard a pin drop in that theatre.

Cary takes her to the door - shaking her occasionally to keep her conscious - she is afraid - she clings to him - He is now the man he should have been all along. He is protecting her. He is shielding her. He opens the door slowly - ready to face what is ahead.

I have seen the last scene so many times that I guess it's lost its oomph a bit - I forgot, really, how terrifying it is - and how LONG it seems - but I rediscovered it tonight. The two of them emerge from the darkened bedroom into the brightly lit hallway - he starts to lead her towards the stairs - Suddenly we get a shot of Claude Rains approaching the top of the stairs. There he is. Here he comes. People all around us just JUMPED in their seats at the sight of him. A woman caught her breath - alarmed - terrified. It made a huge sound in the quiet theatre. It was so feckin' exciting - to realize, yet again, how DEEPLY that last scene works. How damn effective it is. After all these years. There were a ton of Hitchcock freaks in the audience - myself included - and the VIBE in that theatre was one of absolute involvement. It wasn't a rapt precious atmosphere. We weren't whispering in the presence of the Mona Lisa. We were fully wrapped up in the EVENT of the film. The EVENT still works. People burst out laughing, gasped, squealed from time to time (especially during the wine cellar scene) - it was absolutely awesome.

Oh, and when the screen slowly went to black at the end - after we watched Claude Rains walk back up the steps into his house, with the two Nazi guys waiting for him in the doorway, Rains knowing that he is going to meet his death - the screen slowly went to black - the music is HUGE at that point - and then came the words "THE END" - and the audience burst into raucous applause. Cheering, whooping, clapping - it was just GREAT. Such a release!!

A great night. I'm still high from it.

Can ya tell??

Sheer joy

The year in Britney and Kevin.

What a year, huh??

Wow. I'm bummed it's over. It's been so entertaining.

Just to even out the picture of my personality: I am re-reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire right now.

Spederline 2005.

Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

They go together if you think about it.

At long last ... Hot gay elf sex

Emily .... look what I found!! I remember doing a damn search on my blog for this essay about Tolkien and elf sex, etc. - I thought I had linked to it - but obviously I hadn't. Or I titled it something incomprehensible. Anyway: HERE IT IS!!

From Eros blog

I thought I was jaded

I truly did. I thought I could no longer be shocked. Or frightened. I thought I had become immune.

But you know what? I look at the image below and find that I still have the capacity to be creeped out down to my innermost bone marrow.

Stare at it at your peril.

Movie poster heaven

A really cool discovery: A blog devoted to movie posters through the ages. It's a goldmine - really really cool stuff.

Here's one example - a side by side analysis of the poster for Titanic and the poster for Brokeback Mountain.

The whole hyphen debacle with the poster for The 40-year-old virgin.

But there's so much more to look at on this wonderful site - I feel like a kid in a candy store. Where to start??

And here - they choose what they feel to be the Best Movie Poster of 2005. And they explain WHY they chose what they chose. I love this stuff.

I blog-rolled this blog immediately.

Thanks, Dave!

Reunion

When Cashel lived in Park Slope, his best friend was a kid named Jack. This was not JUST a best friend. This was a kindred spirit. I only met Jack once, at one of Cashel's birthday parties - he was dressed as Obi Wan Kenobi - and I already just loved the kid, because Cashel loved him so much. Their main bond was Star Wars.

It's really hard when you love Star Wars MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET. It can be a very lonely position. If you love Star Wars MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET then it's truly painful to not have anyone to share it with. It's jarring to hear someone say, "Yeah, it was a good movie, but I liked Harry Potter better..." Ouch! What do you DO when you love Star Wars MORE THAN ANYBODY ELSE ON THE PLANET? But thankfully, Cash and Jack never had that problem. They were absolutely in sync in their adoration of all things Star Wars.

Cashel, occasionally, would wax eloquent about the relationship.

He said to my parents once, point blank, "The first time I met Jack, I could see the twinkle of Star Wars in his eyes."

I am not kidding.

They were 6 years old the last time they saw each other. That is an eternity. Cashel moved far far away. But he never forgot Jack. He made new friends in his new schools. But if you asked him, "Who's your best friend?" he would say, with a faraway look in his eye, "Jack." It was hard for Cashel to move away. But you know, kids are survivors. Cashel survived.

Occasionally, Cashel and Jack would have looooooong phone conversations - of course arranged by their mothers. They were still, after all, little boys, who didn't just pick up the phone, and blithely dial phone numbers. They would stay on the phone, and just talk about Star Wars. What more does one need from friendship.

I fully credit the parents of both children, too, for helping this tiny friendship stay alive. Jack's mom always made sure that Jack sent Cash a birthday card. And Cashel's parents did the same with Cash.

So even though Cashel and Jack, two WEE LITTLE BOYS, were a continent apart - they still were friends. I remember saying once to Cash, "I bet you and Jack will be friends still when you're grown-up men." Cash gave me a look that I just will not forget. So funny. He got this quizzical expression - his eyebrows wrinkled up - he had simply never contemplated being an adult. And in the next second, he just started LAUGHING at the idea of Jack as a grown-up, and himself as a grown-up. It was incomprehensible.

Once I was speaking with Cashel, and I mentioned that it was a blizzard in NYC. Cashel immediatley gasped - yes - he gasped - and said, "I hope Jack's okay."

hahaha It's alllll about Jack. "I'm sure Jack is fine, sweetheart."

Two weeks ago, my brother called Jack's mom to let her know that he and Cash would be in town the week after Christmas - and maybe they could arrange a reunion for their kindred spirit sons? Who had not seen each other in TWO YEARS? Jack's mom got all kind of emotional - and said that just the week before Jack had written an essay in school about "his best friend Cashel" (trying to picture the 8 year old handwriting - it just KILLS me). Jack's mom told Bren that everyone in his class just accepts that Jack's best friend is Cashel who lives across the country. Jack has other friends - he is a personable friendly little boy - but everyone knows that you can only have ONE best friend.

I just got word that last night was the long-awaited Cash and Jack reunion. These two little brave kindred spirits - who have been maintaining a long-distance friendship for two years (hard enough to do as an adult - even harder when you are eight!!) - had a sleepover last night at Jack's.

They stayed up talking until 11 pm.

My heart is full. I am so glad for both of them.

May the twinkle of Star Wars always be in their eyes!

2006: Openness

This is a slightly edited piece I wrote last year. It's appropriate once again, for this time of year.

Angel Cards. Last year I picked Harmony. This year I picked Openness.

I don't do New Year's resolutions. I am way too superstitious for resolutions. At least not to fall into the trap of making them for the year ahead. I hate New Year's anyway. In general. The relentless insistence on joy and optimism on that one night goes up my ass. It's alienating. What if you've had a rough year? How do you KNOW it will be a Happy New Year? Does just sayin' it make it so? Also: is "happiness" the be-all end-all of all emotions? I certainly don't think so. I like other words much better. I guess I dont' like celebrations where there's some expectation that you should be in a certain mood. The way New Year's is currently celebrated is with alcohol, party hats, and screaming and jumping up and down with the clock turns over. Nothing more alien to my Sheila sensibility could be imagined. My sensibility leans toward the contemplative and mildly melancholy, actually - especially during a moment when time is marked off like that. I like to reflect, look back, etc. So I like to be in an atmosphere on that night where it isn't WEIRD that you aren't drunk and PSYCHED. Where it isn't weird that you're kind of quiet, and contemplative.

(How weird. In my surfing around the web this morning - AFTER I wrote this piece - I came across this piece from Ann Althouse. Very a propos - freakily a propos!)

So no. I don't make New Year's resolutions. But I do do 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, I'll pick an Angel Card. It's not a literal sort of "today you will win the lottery" kind of command, like you find in most daily horoscopes. The angel cards put you in a contemplative inward-looking space. There is silence surrounding each card - a silence filled with meaning - but you must be silent, in order to hear the message. You have to look within. If you are having a rough day - and you pick Joy - how should you interpret it? Well, that's up to you. Perhaps it's trying to make a space for joy, even in the midst of the rough-ness. Perhaps it's a reminder of how much joy there actually is - even when you're stressed out or sad. Perhaps it is another way of saying, "Hang on. This too shall pass. You will feel joy again. You will feel joy again." No right answer here - the cards are meant to guide you. It's not a guessing game.

Here's a couple examples of what they look like:

For many years, my group of friends from college have a tradition of "picking Angel Cards" at the end of each year. It is "our word" for the next year. My friend Liz keeps a running tally of what everyone picks. She's obsessive - she whips out her notebook and writes it all down - and she is able to read out what you picked LAST year. She'll say, "Okay, so you picked Strength last year, and this year you picked Synchronicity." So then you can look back over the last year ... and see if "Strength" played a part ... and what "Strength" might mean. Did you need strength? Did you discover how strong you already were?

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 moments through the years.

For example:

Years ago, a friend of mine 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 of the word. He felt scolded by the word and kept saying, "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.

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. I've had a rocky road these last 10 years. I hesitate to find too much meaning in things. I hesitate to get all googly-eyed about coincidences, and stuff like that. Been there, done that, have the bruises on the ole heart to prove it. Nope. The transformation is kind of amazing - when you consider that I was a major Richard Bach FANATIC in high school, and truly believed in all that New Age stuff, I was a card-carrying member of the soulmate industry. And now? I write long-ass essays (here and here and here) about the MALARKEY of the soulmate industry. The SCAM of it. The BULL SHITE of the whole "soulmate" thing in the first place!! heh heh If you had told my romantic 17 year old self, poring through Bridge Across Forever for the gazillionth time, that such a transformation would come to pass - I would have found it tragic. I would have been disbelieving. But indeed - it is now so!!

The Angel Cards have been under the same kind of umbrella. No more looking for meaning. At least not like that. No more looking for "signs". No more latching onto some stupid Angel Card as having any meaning. I USED to, but NO MORE. As I have said many a time to my girlfriends, "I got BURNED by those Angel Cards, man!"

Here's what happened.

It was 5 or 6 years ago. I was in Chicago for New Year's. 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 a particularly bad loss. Also, I was in grad school, and busy, and focusing on other things. But what was really going on was that I could not recover from the loss. On some level I refused to recover. Years passed. And while I definitely was wounded, torn up, a huge part of myself LEFT OVER THERE WITH HIM - how could I get it back?? - anyway, despite all of that - 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 I don't know what it was ... it was like there was something stirring in the ice fields ... Little green sprouts coming up or something. I felt that I could love someone again. It had been years. I had no prospects, not even a crush on anyone ... It was just this sense, this kind of emotional sense, that I was ready. I could do it. My last love 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 our lives (my favorite kind of New Year's celebration, in case you haven't guessed) - we talked about our struggles, our joys, our excitements - I shared 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 was my word: Love.

I felt that my Angel Card affirmed my dearest hope.

In looking back, I can say to myself: 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. Goodwill towards men, etc. 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 ... that I thought I knew what "Love" referred to. Yup. I know it. Love is coming. I saw what I wanted to see.

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. 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 it, I am not cavalier or casual about who I let into my life - and I really liked him, I let him in, and boom - he disappeared. I was hurt, sure, but 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 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. The scales would be balanced. The breakup of this 2 month relationship was crushing to me. I was devastated. My friends were worried about me. But you know how it goes. Eventually I did "bounce back". Mainly by getting pissed off and toughening up. A necessary change, yes, but oh how much was lost in that transfer. Once you harden up so much, it's very very hard to get soft again. That was the year when I got HARD and INTOLERANT. I had to.

And then another guy came into my life, that same year - maybe 4 or 5 months after the breakup of the other relationship. So I was on my way to recovery. This new guy was an Irishman. Another strange thing: I dated him for only 6 weeks. SIX WEEKS. But the impact of it. It made me scared of dating for good. I obviously can't handle it. It was a very innocent kind of dating: we went to movies, we went out for sushi, we drank beer in a local pub - all that kind of dating stuff that I was so out of practice in. It was so much fun. 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, many of whom I had much more elaborate relationships with - that lasted much longer - he is the guy I can't think about. To this day. I can't even say his name. It brings back that freezing horrible winter when he suddenly dropped me. He just stopped calling. Avoiding me. Typical dating bullshite, but like I said - I can't handle it. I became a complete lunatic. I lost weight. I lay in bed, literally writhing in psychic pain. I can't even write about it without feeling a small echo of it come back. Finally, I got closure with it - only through my own dogged persistence. I HAD to get closure. I was a wreck until I had spoken to him. So we spoke. It was a good conversation. He explained. I understood. I told him I understood. I wished him luck. We hung up.

Then began the winter of my discontent.

I thought I was going mad. I remember that my whole face changed. I wasn't IN my face anymore. I only realized this later, when I came out of it. I made things worse for myself. I was SO harsh with myself. I was unforgiving, brutal. I was mad at myself for coming out to play - for taking risks - for allowing myself to be put in a situation where I could be hurt again. I had been SAFE! After the Chicago Disaster, I retreated - and yeah, I was lonely, but I was SAFE! Look what the hell happens when I emerge ... I had to have been the stupidest person in the world.

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.

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 went to a small New Year's gathering at my friends David and Maria's house. There were only 4 of us there, all dear friends. One of them broke 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 had picked LOVE the year before. I couldn't get that out of my mind. LOVE! What a fucking LAUGH! I had to have been CRAZY to believe that I would find Love. What was I - a fucking Pollyanna? A fucking idiot? 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?

In a fit of rage, I threw the card across the room. Tears streamed down my face. "Surrender? Jesus Christ, I HAVE surrendered - How much more do I have to fucking surrender? I HATE ANGEL CARDS." Ahhh ... don't you want to have ME at your New Year's Eve bash? Yeah, man, I'm a barrel of laughs.

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 - sort of, but not really. 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 remember: this blog is just my diary. This is a diary entry. All I can do here, all I want to do here, is tell what happened - this isn't an op-ed column, or an essay in some journal where I need to color my words a certain way, in order to be palatable to a wide readership or show both sides - what have you - I have tried to keep the self-deprecation to a minimum here. So back to the point:) That time in my life was so bad, just emotionally - not circumstantially - and I was so submerged in sadness, that although the memory of Sheila whipping an Angel Card across a room is ... to put it mildly ... comedic ... and we do reference the moment on occasion - "Jeez, remember when Sheila threw Surrender across the room and started screaming?" 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 sadness 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 and I got over my Irishman. Not completely since - for whatever bizarre reason - he is still a painful memory and I can't reference him casually. "Oh member when I was seeing so-and-so?" Ouch. No. So I did my best. I rigidly put him out of my mind. I joined a gym. I battoned down the hatches. I let go of sadness and I let in RAGE. 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.

Funny. Only in looking back on it can I see that all of that was part of "surrender". Which, actually, I DID need to do. I needed to stop trying to control events. I needed to "surrender". God. How weird. I still feel ... all those old emotions of that time ... in writing about this. How MUCH I resisted "surrender" was exactly how much I needed to 'surrender'. But you could not have told me that at the time. I threw the damn card across the room.

Last year, my group of girlfriends had our Angel Card picking ritual. We were at the Art Bar in the Village. 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:

The day before I had woken up and began an essay that I wanted to post on the blog. It was brought on by seeing Something's Got to Give - one of my favorite movies. I started an 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. That is my journey. 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.

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. But I basically despise Angel Cards since the one-two punch of Love and Surrender - so I hate whatever I get. 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!!"

I felt strangely comforted. I felt a vestige of what I used to feel during such rituals. I was 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 both showed their faces that 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."

2005. A year of Harmony and Patience. How do I feel about that? What are my thoughts? Harmony? How did Harmony work through my life? DID it work through my life? Lots to think about.

And last week, my group of friends had our yearly get-together. Angel Cards picked. In the middle of a smoky LOUD bar in Jersey City.

My word for 2006: Openness.

And for the first time in YEARS - I saw the word - I saw my chosen Angel Card - and my eyes filled up with tears. Tears of ... hope ... validation? A softness - as opposed to a hardness. Am I open? No. Do I want to be? Is it a worthy pursuit? Is it worth the risks?

Still no answers to those questions. We'll just have to see how it goes when the time comes. The easy answers are: "Of course it's better to be open than closed" or "Of course you want a mate! Of course!" But why "of course"? You cannot know what is in my heart, or what is in anyone else's heart. Especially if all you are able to do is look at their life through the limited filter of your own experience. We all do this to one another.

I love this bit from Longfellow:

Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows,
which the world knows not; and oftimes
we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

People who are naturally optimistic and who find it easy to be happy oftentimes cannot understand the darker ones among them. They get frustrated with us. They think it's easy - because it's easy for THEM. They cannot understand that for some people it is a conscious act of WILL to join the human race, to be happy, to be open. It is hard for some of us. And their insistence that it's easy makes things 100% worse.

This is why Tennessee Williams, when asked for his definition of happiness, replied "Insensitivity."

I could think about that quote forever and still not get tired of thinking about it.

An old flame of mine said to me once, wonderingly, "Sheila, you've got a book of men in your heart." He kind of admired it. Even though he couldn't do it himself, and even though he said it with a sort of chastened knowledge about - the sadness that that must bring me, from time to time. He was such a nice guy. He "got it". And to try to change this part of me would be like ... square peg/round hole land. Not just difficult - but damaging. Psychically.

There will be those who will not understand. Who will read my words about "happiness" here and feel the need to argue with me. In my opinion, those people don't "get it". They just don't. I have my own reason for being the way I am, and alot of us don't mind living with a little bit of uncertainty. With a little bit of mystery and contemplation. With frailty.

Let's look at that Longfellow quote again:

Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows,
which the world knows not; and oftimes
we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

I try to remember that, when dealing with my fellow man. It is tough, man. It really is. But I try.

Oftimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

Openness.

I like contemplating it. I don't like BEING it - and, in general, I am NOT open - except on the blog and on the stage - but I do like contemplating the word. Cautiously. Contemplating what the word might provide me in the year to come.

Happy birthday "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

April 27 Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.

On this day, in 1916, James Joyce's first novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published. (The last line of the book is above) Dubliners had already been published - and very controversial they were - not embraced by his own country of course (it hit too close to home) - I don't think they were even PUBLISHED in Ireland, come to think of it - but it was Portrait of the Artist which really firmed up his reputation as a writer. Then, naturally, 1922 brought the world Ulysses which changed everything - with that book Joyce, according to TS Eliot, "killed the 19th century". Portrait is a huge accomplishment in and of itself, and it is best to look at it outside of the influence of Ulysses - because Ulysses is one of those things that casts such a long shadow in every direction - it's hard to see anything clearly. It's like trying to appreciate the OTHER playwrights during Shakespeare's time (everyone besides Marlowe, I mean - one can appreciate Marlowe fully, even when he's standing next to Shakespeare - but everyone else just wilts and becomes about half an inch tall). I mean - how does one get Shakespeare out of the way in order to appreciate the lesser accomplishments of his contemporaries? It's very difficult. Ulysses has the same effect - not just on all other writers writing at that time (and they all knew it AS it was happening - amazing - this is not retrospect - Ulysses came out and it was like a bomb went off - the reverberations felt the world around, a bar had been raised, a gauntlet thrown down - what have you) - but on the rest of Joyce's writing.

I love Portrait of the Artist. I have read it many times, and each time I come to it I find something new. It's one of THOSE books. A book you can grow up with. At times in my life I find Stephen Dedalus frustrating. At other times I find him exciting, illuminating. It seems like the book changes with me. I also feel like I will never get to the bottom of the book. It's much more of a straight narrative than Ulysses or Finnegans Wake - but it still has a lot of mystery in it. It's not nonsensical - it's not mysterious for the sake of being mysterious - it's just that it's a deep deep pool. Joyce was a genius, after all. His mind didn't work like everyone else's.

Here is an excerpt from the masterful Richard Ellman biography of Joyce:

To write A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Joyce plunged back into his own past, mainly to justify, but also to expose it. The book's pattern, as he explained to Stanislaus, is that we are what we were; our maturity is an extension of our childhood, and the courageous boy is father of the arrogant young man. But in searching for a way to convert the episodic Stephen Hero into A Portrait of the Artist, Joyce hit upon a principle of structure which reflected his habits of mind as extremely as he could wish. The work of art, like a mother's love, must be achieved over the greatest obstacles, and Joyce, who had been dissatisfied with his earlier work as too easily done, now found the obstacles in the form of a most complicated pattern.

This is hinted at in his image of the creative process. As far back as his paper on Mangan, Joyce said that the poet takes into the vital center of his life "the life that surrounds it, flinging it abroad again amid planetary music." He repeated this image in Stephen Hero, then in Portrait of the Artist developed it more fully. Stephen refers to the making of literature as "the phenomenon of artistic conception, artistic gestation and artistic reproduction," and then describes the progression from lyrical to epical and to dreamatic art:

The simplest epical form is seen emerging out of lyrical literature when the artist prolongs and broods upon himself as the center of an epical event and this form progresses till the center of emotional gravity is equidistant from the artist himself and from others. The narrative is no longer purely personal. The personality of the artist passes into the narration itself, flowing round and round the persons and the action like a vital sea ... The dramatic form is reached when the vitality which has flowed and eddied round each person fills every person with such vital force that he or she assumes a proper and intangible esthetic life ... The mystery of esthetic like that of material creation is accomplished.

This creator is not only male but female; Joyce goes on to borrow an image of Flaubert by calling him a "god", but he is also a goddess. Within his womb creatures come to life. Gabriel the seraph comes to the Virgin's chamber and, as Stephen says, "In the virgin womb of the imagination, the word is made flesh."

Ellman goes on to discuss Joyce's structural choices for this book - much of it tied up with the fact that Nora (his wife) was pregnant at the time of writing:

His brother records that in the first draft of Portrait, Joyce thought of a man's character as developing "from an embryo" with constant traits. Joyce acted upon this theory with characteristic thoroughness, and his subsequent interest in the process of gestation, as conveyed to Stanislaus during Nora's first pregnancy, expressed a concern that was literary as well as anatomical. His decision to rewrite Stephen Hero as Portrait in five chapters occurred appropriately just after Lucia's birth. For A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is in fact the gestation of a soul, and in the metaphor Joyce found his new principle of order. The book begins with Stephen's father and, just before the ending, it depicts the hero's severance from his mother. From the start the soul is surrounded by liquids, urine, slime, seawater, amniotic tides, "drops of water" (as Joyce says at the end of the first chapter) "falling softly in the brimming bowl." The atmosphere of biological struggle is necessarily dark and melancholy until the light of life is glimpsed. In the first chapter the foetal soul is for a few pages only slightly individualized, the organism responds only to the most primitive sensory impressions, then the heart forms and musters its affections, the being struggles towards some unspecified, uncomprehended culmination, it is flooded in ways it cannot understand or control, it gropes wordlessly toward sexual differentiation. In the third chapter shame floods Stephen's whole body as conscience develops; the lower bestial nature is put by. Then at the end of the fourth chapter the soul discovers the goal towards which it has been mysteriously proceeding -- the goal of life. It must swim no more but emerge into air, the new metaphor being flight. The final chapter shows the soul, already fully developed, fattening itself for its journey until at last it is ready to leave. In the last few pages of the book, Stephen's diary, the soul is released from its confinement, its individuality is complete, and the style shifts with savage abruptness.

Fascinating. If you go back and read the book again, keep in mind the underlying structure. It's subtle - it's all done through metaphor, imagery, and language - but it's there. The development of the soul is never described - it is experienced. Through Joyce's language choices. This is one of Joyce's main contributions to literature as we know it. His accomplishment is breathtaking in this regard, and still cannot be touched. No other writer even comes close - although everyone imitates him. But Joyce was imitating no one. He had many influences - his sense of the tide of literature is encyclopedic - but he knew he was breaking with the past. He didn't break with the past just to break with the past. He wrote the best way he knew how. Literature was old, tired, and language itself had no meaning. Joyce got in there WITH the language - and made it do what he needed it to do. Shakespeare did the same thing. Chaucer did the same thing. I mean, this is the level we're at here. Writers who didn't just accept language as it is. Writers who, through their own work, catapulted language to another level. We cannot think about the English language without talking about Shakespeare. Or Chaucer. It still has the power to take my breath away if I think about it too much. Joyce, with his status as an Irishman, had a lot of feelings about all of this - because the English language was imposed upon his country. It wasn't imposed on him personally - he grew up speaking English - but it was imposed on his ancestors, and he had internalized that cultural disconnect. Most writers who come from countries who were colonized have these feelings about language - it's a very interesting dialogue. Derek Walcott speaks about this, Seamus Heaney speaks about this ... English was the language of the oppressors. If he COULD express himself fully - it would have to be in some OTHER kind of language (which is where Finnegans Wake came from, basically. Huge simplification - but that was what he was working on there. Making a language that would express him. Making a language that was natural for him.) Language ITSELF needed an overhaul. Again - you can count the writers on one hand who actually have this sense - and who are actually genius enough to pull it off. Joyce said once, about writing in English: "I cannot write a word in English without enclosing myself in a tradition." Joyce, being a genius, rebelled. He rebelled against that tradition. He didn't rebel against it by ignoring Shakespeare, or the King James Bible, or all of the great influences on the English language. No. He accepted that tradition, and he took from it what he felt would help him. But he never forgot that English was NOT, in fact, his "native" language.

This is most clearly defined in the famous "tundish" scene from Portrait:

It was too late to go upstairs to the French class. He crossed the hall and took the corridor to the left which led to the physics theatre. The corridor was dark and silent but not unwatchful. Why did he feel that it was not unwatchful? Was it because he had heard that in Buck Whaley's time there was a secret staircase there? Or was the jesuit house extra-territorial and was he walking among aliens? The Ireland of Tone and of Parnell seemed to have receded in space.

He opened the door of the theatre and halted in the chilly grey light that struggled through the dusty windows. A figure was crouching before the large grate and by its leanness and greyness he knew that it was the dean of studies lighting the fire. Stephen closed the door quietly and approached the fireplace.

-- Good morning, sir! Can I help you?

The priest looked up quickly and said:

-- One moment now, Mr Dedalus, and you will see. There is an art in lighting a fire. We have the liberal arts and we have the useful arts. This is one of the useful arts.

-- I will try to learn it, said Stephen.

-- Not too much coal, said the dean, working briskly at his task, that is one of the secrets.

He produced four candle-butts from the side-pockets of his soutane and placed them deftly among the coals and twisted papers. Stephen watched him in silence. Kneeling thus on the flagstone to kindle the fire and busied with the disposition of his wisps of paper and candle-butts he seemed more than ever a humble server making ready the place of sacrifice in an empty temple, a levite of the Lord. Like a levite's robe of plain linen the faded worn soutane draped the kneeling figure of one whom the canonicals or the bell-bordered ephod would irk and trouble. His very body had waxed old in lowly service of the Lord - in tending the fire upon the altar, in bearing tidings secretly, in waiting upon worldlings, in striking swiftly when bidden - and yet had remained ungraced by aught of saintly or of prelatic beauty. Nay, his very soul had waxed old in that service without growing towards light and beauty or spreading abroad a sweet odour of her sanctity - a mortified will no more responsive to the thrill of its obedience than was to the thrill of love or combat his ageing body, spare and sinewy, greyed with a silver-pointed down.

The dean rested back on his hunkers and watched the sticks catch. Stephen, to fill the silence, said:

-- I am sure I could not light a fire.

-- You are an artist, are you not, Mr Dedalus? said the dean, glancing up and blinking his pale eyes. The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question.

He rubbed his hands slowly and drily over the difficulty.

-- Can you solve that question now? he asked.

-- Aquinas, answered Stephen, says pulcra sunt quae visa placent.

-- This fire before us, said the dean, will be pleasing to the eye. Will it therefore be beautiful?

-- In so far as it is apprehended by the sight, which I suppose means here esthetic intellection, it will be beautiful. But Aquinas also says Bonum est in quod tendit appetitus. In so far as it satisfies the animal craving for warmth fire is a good. In hell, however, it is an evil.

-- Quite so, said the dean, you have certainly hit the nail on the head.

He rose nimbly and went towards the door, set it ajar and said:

-- A draught is said to be a help in these matters.

As he came back to the hearth, limping slightly but with a br