The Sheila Variations

Showoff

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I just joined Amazon's Affiliate Program, because I figured I've been sending them business for years - for free - and I'm going to see if I can make a little money off of it, since I blog about books and movies on a daily basis.

I need to re-do my blog. I know it looks crowded and messy but I honestly don't have the energy to deal with it right now. I hope the page is still loading fine for everyone and everything. I'm still messing around with adding links and stuff like that to products I mention ... and frankly I don't like the look of it, it's so blatantly commercial, but again, whatever: I link to Amazon probably 3 times a day, all put together ... and I want to see what happens with Ye Olde affiliate program.

I set up a store (which you can see over in the side bar) - but I'm honestly not sure what that is. You just go over there and shop there and whatever you buy I get some percent of it? That doesn't seem quite fair ... but whatever, I set it up. Then I also set up a list of my "faves" - which I just can't STAND what that widget looks like (UPDATE: I took it down. It was too gratingly awful to look at)

I realize I sound manic right now.

If the shoe fits.

But mainly I wanted to set this up for my Daily Book Excerpts - and I'll start experimenting with adding widgets to those posts every day ... so you can click to buy, should you feel the need.

For example.

I highly recommend Blood Meridian. Ahem:

If you buy the book from following that link, I'll get a few coins in my metal cup. That's how it works, I guess. Something like that.

Offside, dir. Jafar Panahi

5 or 6 years ago, Iranian film director Jafar Panahi was headed off to a soccer game at Azadi Stadium in Tehran. His 10 year old daughter begged to come with. Females are not allowed to go to the stadium to watch soccer games. It is the rule. Panahi explained to his daughter - No, you cannot ... it is the law that you cannot go. It's a stupid law, but it is the law. But she begged. Panahi was not about to stay home - he wanted to go to the game - so he struck a deal with his daughter. He said, "Okay - we'll go - and we'll see if we can sneak you in somehow. But if they catch us - you have to come back home, because I want to go to the game." His daughter agreed. Of course, they get to the security gates at the stadium, and immediately the guards said, "Nope. She can't go in." As agreed, the daughter walked off - in the direction of home - and Panahi went on in to his seat in the stadium. About 10 minutes later, he looked up - and saw his daughter strolling down the steps towards him. She sat beside him. He was gobsmacked to see her and asked, "How did you get in?" And she said, "There is always a way."

That comment ("There is always a way") was the germ of the idea for Offside, Panahi's 2006 film about a group of 6 girls who dress up as boys and try to get in to see a soccer match in Tehran.

The girls are not trying to sneak in to see just a soccer match - but THE soccer match in 2005 - when Iran played Bahrain and won, therefore qualifying for the World Cup. Much of Offside was filmed in real-time, during that game. The celebrations you see at the end of the film were actual celebrations. Panahi filmed with handheld cameras much of the time, since he did not have permission to do what he was doing ... but since it was a national event with media there, to cover the soccer game, he was able to blend in, and nobody wondered who that guy over there was, filming things. Offside feels like a documentary in many ways, there are no "extras", no set-up interiors ... it's all out in the open, with the sound of the stadium roaring in the background.

Panahi is known for his documentary-like films, much of which take place out in the streets of Tehran. He doesn't like to do domestic dramas because when you film inside a house - because of the restrictions placed on actors - you cannot have it be realistic. For example, in real life - a woman comes home, hangs out with her husband and children - and she takes her veil off. She sits in her own home, and doesn't need to be veiled. But because it is a FILM, the woman then has to be veiled at all times, even privately in her own kitchen. Panahi doesn't like that. It grates on him, film should be as real as possible. So he likes to shoot out in the streets, he likes to use unprofessional actors - people who are right for the part, look right, whatever ... Most of his films have to do with restrictions anyway - and he is truly inventive, in how he goes about doing what he's doing, working under such conditions, trying to get around the censors, and the moronic Director of Culture, or whatever his title is. But he still gets into trouble anyway.

Panahi's film Crimson Gold was being considered for an Academy Award nomination - but one of the requirements of the Academy is that any film under consideration must have been screened for at least one week in its native country. Crimson Gold had not been screened at all. It hadn't made it past the censors (it was too "dark"), and the Dipshit of Culture refused to distribute it at all. Sony wrote letters to the powers-that-be in Iran, mullahs and bureaucrats, begging them to screen it for one week only - so that it could be in the running for an Academy Award nomination. (First of all, Kudos to Sony for that.) Sadly, the answer was a resounding No - and so Crimson Gold couldn't be on the short list. Panahi has had many notorious moments such as that - and he is always on the outskirts of being in trouble, somehow.

I love his stuff. It has a real-time feel to it. He rarely uses professional actors. There is a rawness and an honesty to the performances - and he takes credit for that (in a good way). He believes that it is the director's job to make sure the actor feels confident enough to give the performance. So if an actor is bad, unprofessional or professional, the director shares much of the blame. And Panahi tells the actors that right off the bat, especially the unprofessionals - those who have never worked before - who say to him, anxiously, "I don't know how to act!" He reassures them - Yes. You do. I will not let you look bad. You are perfect for the part. You're going to be great - and if you're not? It's MY fault, not yours.

Iranian directors need to find ways to get around all the malarkey, the draconian censorship, the fact that 30 groups of people (not artists) have to sign off on the film before it can even be considered for distribution. So if you're portraying a guy in the army - you have to send a copy of the film to the damn army and say, "Is it okay how we are portraying you?" And so it goes. Many Iranian films do not open at all in Iran - but have much success abroad. But now, with the bustling traffic in bootleg DVDs - most people in Iran are fully aware of the vibrant awesome films their countrymen/women are making. And that's great. Their film industry is something to be proud of. (Excerpt here about Iranian cinema).

Offside did not open at all in Iran, for obvious reasons (I mean: the reasons are obvious if you think like a mullah.) Offside is not subtle. It is a truly subversive film, in the best sense of the word, a sharp-edged piece of political and social art - but on the other hand - it's not ponderous, or intellectual, or heavy-handed. Quite the contrary. Offisde is hysterical, exuberant, fun, exciting - there are moments at the end when I found myself on the edge of my seat, and then found myself bursting into applause, along with the girls.

Panahi makes his points though. He makes his points. So much so that at a soccer game last year, a group of Tehrani women showed up at the gates of the stadium, wearing white scarves, and holding up big signs saying, "WE DON'T WANT TO BE OFFSIDE". Pretty awesome.

So obviously, despite the fact that those in control did not allow Offside to be shown - it was available, bootleg, on the sidewalk, whatever. Even though it made no "actual" money, as in tickets sold, it's one of Panahi's most successful films - he thinks everyone in Iran has seen it, probably! His view is: denying women their basic rights (going to see a soccer game, participating in the national celebration, etc.) is not just bad for women, but bad for everyone. It also forces women to be duplicitous - and that was one of the big points he wanted to make, too. Instead of women being allowed to go into the stadium dressed as women, with veils and skirts, etc - women who want to go HAVE to be sneaky, and cut their hair, and put on pants, and dress up as boys, and take these huge risks. They have to participate in the mindset that says that they are "other". Maybe the woman is very religious, maybe she is devoted to wearing her chador because it expresses her religious feelings - but she ALSO happens to be a soccer fan ... so she must abandon that essential part of herself, her religion, and dress in a way that doesn't feel right to her. This is obviously a crazy-making situation - and it's not just with soccer but all levels of Iranian life. Panahi has daughters. He sees it at work in his own life. And he doesn't think it's right. And so his films try to address these issues - for future generations, who hopefully will not have to live under such restrictions. But he believes his films will stay "fresh", because they will be documents "of how we lived once".

I really admire Panahi, in case you haven't guessed. I admire him for his courage - I mean, imagine being a director and KNOWING that the film you are making will not be shown anywhere in your native land. It's like Vaclav Havel writing plays for decades which garnered critical praise around the world - yet his own countrymen were never allowed to see the plays. It is the typical story of being exiled within one's own nation. And so it gives Panahi's films, and Iranian films in general, a very specific intensity, a piercing sense of courage and import - because you know what it took to get them made, and you know that they are rarely congratulated by their own nation's bureaucrats - for doing Iran proud. Panahi feels that being considered for an Academy Award is an honor, and not just for him - but for all of Iran. The mullahs and the ruling regime obviously feel differently.

What is so terrific about the films from Iran is that you do feel the overshadowing sense of a State with a capital S ... and yet the individual is not crushed. The individual survives. But because of censorship, they are forced to be subtle. And thus, in some cases, way more inventive. My review of Fireworks Wednesday addresses some of those issues. Fireworks Wednesday is, essentially, a soap opera - but underneath, you can sense a social critique, a critique of the class divide in Tehran, and an honest look at the chador and what it represents. It's breathtakingly courageous, when seen in the proper context! Without the context, you might just think: Whatever, it's a soap opera. But no. Movies represent individuals, and it is the individual who is most feared in a theocratic or totalitarian government. It is the individual who is the most dangerous. Crowds can run you over, it is true ... the masses are quite powerful in and of themselves ... but there is nothing more frightening to a ruling power than the individual. And that is why Offside, with its fond and funny portraits of these 6 girls trying to bust into the stadium to see the soccer game, is subversive. As subversive as a secret political movement or underground newspaper or jailed dissident. Because it says: We are individuals. ALL of us.

Panahi saw the film as a comedy, despite the seriousness of the issue being presented. That's probably one of the reasons why it was banned so fiercely, because nobody likes to be laughed at, nobody likes to be told, "You know what? Your laws are not just stupid - but they are downright silly!!" He said, "It's a funny situation. 100,000 men are watching a soccer game, and because these girls are women they can't go inside. I didn't need to add anything to it."

None of the girls have names. But they all have recognizable personalities, separate characteristics.

There is the "leader", played by Shayesteh Irani: a tough girl who smokes - who really does look like a boy in her get-up. It's hard to tell what her gender is. She is brought to the little "jail" in the back of the stadium, where they put all the girls who tried to bust in - and one of the guards looks at her, says, "Are you a boy or a girl?" and she gives him a cocky look and fires back, "Which do you prefer?" She is tough, she is aggressive, she wants to see the game, and she is PISSED that she is missing it.

There is the quiet worried girl played by Sima Mobarak-Shahi who opens the film. She's on a minibus filled with rowdy guys, and she hopes her disguise will work (although a couple of the guys on the bus figure it out - she's obviously a novice. The other girls are way more tricky, and know how to ACT like a boy - she is still too stylish). She has the colors of Iran painted on her face, and she's pretty, delicate-looking, and very serious. Her energy is a bit different from the other girls - all of whom are, frankly, soccer FANATICS - just as out of control as the boys. She's more subdued, and at the end we figure out why.

It's also a nice touch: along the journey of the day (the film takes place in 90 minutes - the exact time of the soccer match between Iran and Bahrain in 2005) - boys come in and out of their experience ... the boys are everywhere: on the bus, in line at the stadium, in the stands, in the men's room - and there are a couple of moments where you can see the boys, the younger generation, as separate and distinct from the mullahs and the regime. For example, one boy on the minibus looks at her, and realizes: wow. That's a girl. He pulls one of his friends aside and gestures over towards the girl, sitting by herself - and he says, "That's a girl!" His friend says, "It's none of your business. Don't mess up her plan for her." You know, those small moments of solidarity ... of looking the other way ... Totalitarian regimes are expert in creating duplicitous populations - those who behave one way in public and another way in private. I have a Persian friend who told me the parties in private houses in the suburbs of Tehran are some of the best and most insane parties he's ever been to. Of course at any moment the Vice Squad could knock at the door, and then everyone runs around and the girls put on their veils, and the smuggled booze is dumped down the toilet, and someone answers the door and says, "Yes, we're having a prayer meeting ... sorry we were a bit loud." Vice Squad drives off, and then the veils are ripped off again, boys girls dancing together, music blasting, etc. You become adept at lying. Even if you are an honest person. And so there are a couple of boys the girls encounter through the day who sort of make way for them, and let them pass ... let them "try to get in" if they want to ... it's none of our business. If you think about the Vice Squad, and the sense that the women in the country are OWNED by the men - by ALL the men, not just their fathers and husbands - but the "virtue" of women is seen as a national concern - then just those small details, kind boys looking the other way and letting the girls try to sneak in ... is also subversive. Because it says, in no uncertain terms: "WE'RE together - the boys and the girls. YOU in the regime are the ones who are on the outside. "

One of my favorite moments in the film comes when a guard is taking one of the girls to the bathroom. He has to make sure there are no men in there. Finally she goes into one of the stalls. While she's in there, a group of guys come into the restroom - and the guard tells them, No, you can't go in. They fight back. It's 7 against 1. The poor guard is shoving at the guys, and everyone is rowdy and shouting. The girl comes back out from the stall, timidly, and peeks around the corner. She sees the brou-haha in the narrow hallway leading out into the stadium. She isn't sure what to do. She's supposed to be under guard - but the guard, at the moment, is busy fighting with the 7 guys. One of those guys (the one wearing the green flag wrapped around his head above) has already had words with the guard, and had already seen the girl being led into the bathroom. He looks up from the fight, and notices the girl peeking around the corner. Wordlessly, he gestures to her - "Run - I won't stop you ..." and he pushes in against the crowd of fighting guys - so she has more room to run by. Which she does. She runs out.

I just love that moment. Individual acts of kindness. The boy might be perceived as an enemy - since he's a boy, and he can go into the stadium and do whatever he wants. But he's not an enemy. He lets her run by him, he makes room for her. It's her right to run, it's her right to try to see the game. Beautifully played.

One of the girls (the girl mentioned above in the bathroom) is a jock - she's played by Ayda Sadeqi. She plays soccer herself, on a women's league. She is involved in the most surreal section of the film - the section which I felt was most openly angry, when she has to go to the bathroom - so a guard is elected to take her to the nearest men's room (no women's rooms at all in the stadium) - and he has to clear the men's room out first, and he makes her wear a poster over her head with the face of a soccer star on it - so that no one will see she's a girl. So to see her tripping along next to the guard, wearing a man's face over her own ... It is a powerful statement of how insane the rules are. It is a denial of her humanity. Panahi said, about that particular scene - that by putting the man's face over her own - it is his way of showing that women are forced to deny their sexuality, in the current culture. She is a girl. She is also a jock. She loves soccer. She is as big a fan as all the boys raging around her. But she doesn't get to see the game. It is absurd. And when she has to go to the bathroom, the most universal of human acts, she has to wear a poster of a man's face over her own. Damn, that's good stuff. Bravo.

There is one girl (she was my favorite - she is so alive, so expressive!) who has the colors of Iran painted across her face - she's played by Golnaz Farmani, and she had actually come to the stadium that day with her best friend. Her best friend managed to get in, but she was busted. She is taken to the pen. Later, the father of the best friend - who has learned of the girl's plans to sneak into the stadium, comes looking for his daughter. He scans the faces in the pen - and then sees the face of his daughter's best friend. He goes into a rage and reaches out to hit her, and all of the girls (as well as the main guard) intervene. She is frightened, reaches in her backpack, and slowly puts on her chador, obliterating her individuality. She is ashamed, ashamed of herself for being "unwomanly" - in boys clothes ... but then, as the soccer game heats up - she slowly starts to lose her mind - and watching her respond to the play-by-play on the radio is like watching a replay of all of us Red Sox fans in the bar on October 27, 2004. She believes in wearing the chador, she is ashamed in the face of the condemnation of her friend's father ... but then, by the end, she stops caring, and there she is, leaping around in her full veil, jumping up and down screaming at the top of her lungs, pumping her fists in the air, gesturing like crazy for everyone to shut up so she can hear the radio ... Awesome character. I loved her.

Then there is a younger girl played by Nazanin Sediq-zadeh, she's maybe 14 or 15 years old. She rarely smiles, she is so tense and into the game. But she also knows her parents are going to FREAK, especially since she was busted - and now she has to go off in the Vice Squad van to be interrogated, with nary a phone call home. She is panicking. Her parents will worry when she doesn't come home. When we first meet her, she is sitting on the ground in the pen, crying. The other girls, who are all in college, tell her to stop being a baby, and she does. A real growing-up moment for her.

And lastly, there is the girl who dresses up as a soldier, and actually made it to the official stand, where all the big-wigs in the regime sit to watch the game. Her one error is that she sat in the officer's seat. She stretched her legs out, lackadaisacal, comfortable, like, "Ho hum, I'm just a dude in the army, here to see a soccer game" ... and the officer saw her and didn't at first register that it was a girl. He was more concerned that she was in his seat. So she's hauled off to the pen. Her offense is seen as more serious, because she dressed up in an army uniform, so she is the only one in handcuffs. She's a great character, a tall lean Olive Oyl type ... she's led up to the pen, and one of the guards walks over to her, and she gives him a goofy parody of a salute. He is not amused.

An added element to Offside is the 2 or 3 guards watching over the girls. Most of them are not from Tehran - they hail from Tabriz or Mashad or Azerbaijan - a totally different culture, more rural first of all - and one of them, the main guy, played by Safdar Samandar, is pissed at his assignment away from his family. There's a drought at home, his mother is sick, and his cow is dying. He feels responsible for those things, and is furious that he is stuck guarding these hooligan Tehrani tomboys. And the girls don't make things easier on him by making fun of him, shouting at him, and when he tries to be serious and angry with them, many times they burst into laughter right in his face. It shows, subtly, the divide between urban sophistication and rural conservative values - which takes place in every culture everywhere. The guards are the ones in uniform, they are the ones in charge, but they barely have control over these girls. The point is made clear that these guys assigned to guard the stadium are not part of the ruling regime. They are not mullahs. They are grown-up boys in an army uniform, and they, too, are pissed that they are missing the momentous game. They try to be official and stern with the girls, who get more and more rowdy as the game goes on ... but it's a losing battle, because they, too, are caught - in a culture that isn't quite fair ... they start to feel the meaninglessness of this assignment - and there are a couple of great shots of the guards standing outside the pen (the camera never ever goes inside the pen with the girls, by the way - very nice symbolic touch) - looking in at the girls, who are all laughing, and cheering, and talking - and at one point re-enacting a play that one of them saw. And the guards don't say anything, but you can feel that - I guess what I could feel from them was that they were thinking, "What on earth is so wrong with girls going in the stadium? They're soccer fans, just like us."

They don't SAY that, and many of them parrot the same old tired lines, which the girls pooh-pooh. "Men swear in the stadium! You can't hear swears!" That's the main one. Meanwhile, the lead girl swears like a truck driver, stalking around smoking in the pen, saying, on occasion, "This is BULLSHIT."

It's great fun. It's a serious issue, naturally - but the way it's handled in Offside is so much fun. They're all likable, they all have flaws, they're not always nice, or polite ... but they have one thing in common: they are soccer fans, and they are out of their minds at the prospect of Iran going to the World Cup.

Panahi thinks that soccer is an excellent metaphor to be used in Iranian films - because it's a way for the populace to let steam off, in a government-approved way ... and when you're there, in the crowd, it's so loud and crazy that you can say whatever you want. You can shout, "FUCK THE MULLAHS" and nobody would be likely to hear you in the roar. It's freedom.

Afshin Molavi wrote in his wonderful book The Soul of Iran:

Franklin Foer of the New Republic wrote a great book, How Soccer Explains the World. In it, he referred to Iran's "football revolution," the moment in 1997 when some 5,000 Iranian women defied a ban on entering the stadium, and literally stormed the gates to join 120,000 screaming men in celebration of Iran's just-returned soccer stars, who had qualified for the World Cup. Foer accurately sensed an important marker in Iranian history, one that led to a series of more soccer-related political demonstrations over the next few years.

When Iran defeated the United States in a World Cup soccer match in 1998, the country exploded in celebration and the Islamic Republic found itself in a bind. The Great Satan had been defeated, but the popular celebrations on that night challenged hard-line government orthodoxy. Women danced with men in public, people threw firecrackers at the police, and many chanted slogans against regime hard-liners.

Often after big matches, young men - unemployed and angry - vandalize government property while chanting crude slogans about the opposing team and, occasionally, their own leaders. In 2001, a few thousand Iranians, incensed by rumors that the team purposefully lost a key World Cup qualifying game by government order, clashed with police while chanting antigovernment slogans. Though the rumor - fueld by diaspora television stations - is unlikely to be true, the national team displayed a striking inability to beat lesser teams during the qualifying stretch and failed to make the 2002 Cup. In a sense, the team's soccer malaise mirrored the country's political malaise, as hard-liners tightened their grip on power and the country's reformists took a beating without much of a fight.

Reminds me a bit of the late great Ryzsard Kapuscinski's essay "The Soccer War" (excerpt here).

Soccer: a way to express nationalism in a way that seems "safe" to regimes that fear their own populace. Yet very often, it is NOT safe, and the regimes find themselves having to do battle against their own athletes, trying to control the sport, and therefore the population. Don't get TOO happy ... remember who's in charge here!!

That struggle, that inner conflict - exists in the guards in Offside - who aren't mullahs or bureaucrats ... but they represent the law, obviously, and they do their best to uphold it.

And yet something wonderful happens near the end of the film. The game isn't over yet - there's a little bit left to go - and the girls are hauled into the Vice Squad van, and taken off to God knows where, to be interrogated, arrested, whatever. The funny thing, though, is that none of them seem to care about that. They are just pissed that they're missing the end of the game.

Not even just pissed. They are devastated, antsy, frustrated. They peer out the windows of the van, trying to see televisions in passing delis and houses - trying to get a vibe on what is going on. Finally, the main guard - the one who has been most tormented and angry - caves - and turns on the radio. Sadly, the antenna is broken. So this guard - this guy who is hauling the girls off to Vice Jail or wherever they are going - hangs out the window of the van, propping the antenna in place, jiggering it around until they get reception. You can hear the girls all shout encouragement, as one, from the back. Reception comes in - all the girls shout, "Yes! Yes! Stop there! That's it!" He jiggles it a bit more, and suddenly there is static and you can hear all the girls shout, "No!! No! Turn it back, turn it back!" And he obeys! You know why? Cause he wants to hear the end of the game, too.

The last 10 minutes of the film just made me smile, ear to ear. There is an unbroken shot of the girls crowded in the back of the van, listening to the game on the radio. There is also a boy in the Vice Squad van, who was busted for having firecrackers - and at first nobody likes him ... he makes the mistake of referring to the lead girl as a "chick" and she stands up, walks down the aisle of the van - and head-butts him. Literally! Butts him with her head so hard he falls down! But they eventually make up and finally, as the van careens through the highways of Tehran, they all settle down to listen to the radio. With the poor guard hanging out the window, holding the antenna in place. We hear the announcer giving a play by play (and it was a real game, remember - so everyone in Tehran would remember the blow-by-blow) - and the girls all react, to each play - they surge up in excitement, they subside in despair, they are on the edge of their seats - and sometimes the tension is too much that they have to just get up and switch places, for no reason. They just have to move. As it comes down to the last few seconds of the game, it is altogether too nervewracking, and the 6 girls all grab hold of one another - hugging onto each other, gripping each other's arms and hands - listening so hard to the radio it is like their SKIN is listening. Marvelous. It's SO fun to watch all of them! And when Iran wins (and again, this is no spoiler - since it was an actual game, and made headlines around the world) - everyone just goes APESHIT. I found myself clapping and laughing FOR them as I watched them scream and hug and cry.

Look at their faces in this series of screenshots. Look at what they're going through - collectively and as individuals! I loved watching all of them. They make me laugh.

The film is about participation, obviously. Watching the girls scream out the windows of the van, waving at their celebrating countrymen, waving sparklers, screaming, clapping ... abandoned, free, insane ... you can see their desire to just participate.

That's all. Not to take over, or displace the men, or try to be men. If they could go to the stadium in their chadors, they would. They would rather be women. But desperate times call for desperate measures. These girls aren't radical revolutionaries or political dissidents or intellectual troublemakers. What they are are soccer fans.

And so. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

I'm not even 100 pages in to Blood Meridian and I already feel backed up with information, impulse, response ... there's so much going on, and the writing is so off the charts ... that I find myself feeling almost anxious. It's like I want to slow it all down, so I can savor it ... but that's not possible. I must just keep going. And not try to hang onto this experience, or prolong it, but let it go ... as it is happening. The book itself is brutal, one of the most brutal I have ever read. It's casually brutal. This is not a world that is fair, or just, or clear. When something terrible happens, there is no preparation. Cormac McCarthy does not ease you into the horror. Because that's not how it goes sometimes. Horror begins, and leaves you - the participant - in a frenzied state of playing catch-up, trying to interpret, organize, make sense ... But life doesn't give you that time.

For some reason it makes me think of one of my favorite small moments in the movie True Romance. Patricia Arquette's character, Alabama, comes back to the motel room to find Jim Gandolfini, the murderer, waiting for her. The fight doesn't break out right away. Alabama knows she is going to be killed. Jim Gandolfini knows he will kill her, so he's relaxed. He chats with her, reminiscing about murders he has committed, in an almost calm fond manner, totally psychotic. She giggles, trying to stall for time. Finally, the fight breaks out. And when it comes, it is horrifying. Sweepingly so. She gives as good as she gets. She's just a girl in a jiggly bra and skintight leopard pants but she wants to live. She fights hard for her life. At one point, Gandolfini throws her into the tub and she crashes through the glass shower door. She falls into the tub, covered in broken glass, bloody - and with a roar he comes at her - and Arquette is so brilliant in this next moment - Instead of screaming, "No" or "Stop" ... she screams at him, "WAIT." Wait. (Clip here) Wait for me to get myself together so we can keep fighting. I'm too bloody, I'm all a mess, I can't see, my eye is swollen closed, I need a second to regroup ... just WAIT. She hopes for a fair fight. I so relate to her in that moment. It makes no sense. Why should he "wait" for you to get yourself together, clean yourself up, before attacking again? But of course she is on another plane, not a logical plane - but a truthful plane nonetheless. It is her life force, her determination to LIVE - even if it means killing him - that makes her scream, "WAIT!" Violence happens suddenly. A car crash comes with no warning. You are chatting, or listening to music - and suddenly you are flying off a bridge. There is no "wait" - and yet as humans, we want it to "wait", so we have a fighting chance. It's desperate. It makes total sense, despite its illogicality. And so Blood Meridian reminds me of that moment of Patricia Arquette, bloody and cut up in the shower, her nose broken, screaming, "WAIT" up at her brutal killer.

At times I feel brutalized reading Blood Meridian, and feel frightened that I wasn't given time to prepare. And I scream "Wait" up at Cormac McCarthy, but by then it's too late. The attack has already begun. And I just have to endure it, the best I can. But that's the way life is sometimes. The moments of kindness (like the cavalry guys giving the kid a blanket, and some food) are few and far between - and end up making even less sense than the moments of violence. Kindness doesn't add up. It's nice, sure ... but it has very little resonance. Not up against the violence of that world - its people and the landscape. So there's that level of reader experience ... which actually works on two separate planes: the writing is so fucking good that I am having a hard time even processing it. It's not clever or verbose or ... it doesn't even feel literary, although it is indeed literature, of the highest order. The words on the page thrum through me, like a drum heard in the distance. I read Michael Chabon and think, My God, I wish I could use words like that!! Cormac McCarthy doesn't bring up that response in me ... it's something else entirely. It's like being confronted with something grand and eternal and terrible ... and having to somehow process it, or try to understand it ... before just giving up, surrendering to the mystery. Throwing up your hands and saying, "What the hell. I have no idea how to process this." It's language that doesn't even feel written to me.

And so - in a similar way that the characters are confronted, on a visceral level, by the landscape - the desert, the mountains, the lack of life anywhere - the way it makes them feel small, and yet also highly visible - frighteningly visible - I am confronted by the book. I have no words for it, I can only speak in metaphors about it. Plot seems secondary, although I am already aware of events moving into place with a terrible inevitability. I am only 100 pages in. It leaves me wanting to cry out, "Wait". I had a similar sensation when reading The Road (excerpt here). I do not know how he does what he does, and I find it difficult to even talk about, or try to describe. It is an experience. It comes through the senses - it's an overwhelmingly sensory experience - which is why I sometimes find it hard to process any of it. Sensory overload. I can feel that major themes are coming up. That this book is Biblical in its scope and intent. But meanwhile, I am blinded by the sun, and I can feel the parched dehydration, and I am dazzled by the endless plain in front of me. Hard to focus. Hard to hone in on what is going on. Fantastic. And then there's the moments of violence which surge forward, take over with no warning, and then dissolve - as we all move on. The Comanche attack is one of those moments ... and you realize that McCarthy has been building up to it in the chapter before, with the endless trek through the lifeless plain ... the landscape itself takes on a malevolent aspect. Like it is out to get them. Or like it is trying to communicate something to them ... but they don't know how to listen. All they know is that everyone has a really bad feeling. So when the Comanches appear, as one, out of the dust - too late to flee, too late to mount an attack - you feel a dread, overwhelming ... and then before you have a chance to prepare, you're in the thick of it. And it feels like McCarthy writes the attack in one continuous sentence - although I went back and re-read it, and no ... there are many sentences. It's written in a normal grammatically correct way, with commas and periods. But it feels like one unbroken flow of terror, events hurtling forward at breakneck speed, horrors witnessed and endured, horrors upon horrors. You scream "Wait" ... but no one hears. Or if they do, they certainly don't give a fuck that you need more time to prepare for it.

Here's an excerpt. It's lengthy. It's from the section before the Comanche attack, that I mentioned above. I read it in probably 5 minutes my first time through - and I could feel the depth of it, the bottomless pit of it, I could feel the sheer mastery of this writing - almost invisible in its skill - it feels like a first-hand experience, but my God, it is not - it is writing. And as I read it, I found myself thinking - "Okay. Gonna need to re-read this. I can't take it all in right now." Had to just keep moving, keep going, don't stop, don't look back ... let it wash through, over, under ... don't interpret. Because interpretation is laughable in such a universe as the one McCarthy describes.

EXCERPT FROM Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy:

In two days they began to come upon bones and cast-off apparel. They saw halfburied skeletons of mules with the bones so white and polished they seemed incandescent even in that blazing heat and they saw panniers and packsaddles and the bones of men and they saw a mule entire, the dried and blackened carcass hard as iron. They rode on. The white noon saw them through the waste like a ghost army, so pale they were with dust, like shades of figures erased upon a board. The wolves loped paler yet and grouped and skittered and lifted their lean snouts on the air. At night the horses were fed by hand from sacks of meal and watered from buckets. There was no more sickness. The survivors lay quietly in that cratered void and watched the whitehot stars go rifling down the dark. Or slept with their alien hearts beating in the sand like pilgrims exhausted upon the face of the planet Anareta, clutched to a namelessness wheeling in the night. They moved on and the iron of the wagon-tired grew polished bright as chrome in the pumice. To the south the blue cordilleras stood footed in their paler image on the sand like reflections in a lake and there were no wolves now.

They took to riding by night, silent jornadas save for the trundling of the wagons and the wheeze of the animals. Under the moonlight a strange party of elders with the white dust thick on their moustaches and their eyebrows. They moved on and the stars jostled and arced across the firmament and died beyond the inkblack mountains. They came to know the nightskies well. Western eyes that read more geometric constructions than those names given by the ancients. Tethered to the polestar they rode the Dipper round while Orion rose in the southwest like a great electric kite. The sand lay blue in the moonlight and the iron tires of the wagons rolled among the shapes of the riders in gleaming hoops that veered and wheeled woundedly and vaguely navigational like slender astrolabes and the polished shoes of the horses kept hasping up like a myriad of eyes winking across the desert floor. They watched storms out there so distant they could not be heard, the silent lightning flaring sheetwise and the thin black spine of the mountain chain fluttering and sucked away again in the dark. They saw wild horses racing on the plain, pounding their shadows down the night and leaving in the moonlight a vaporous dust like the palest stain of their passing.

All night the wind blew and the fine dust set their teeth on edge. Sand in everything, grit in all they ate. In the morning a urinecolored sun rose blearily through panes of dust on a dim world and without feature. The animals were failing. They halted and made a dry camp without wood or water and the wretched ponies huddled and whimpered like dogs.

That night they rode through a region electric and wild where strange shapes of soft blue fire ran over the metal of the horses' trappings and the wagonwheels rolled in hoops of fire and little shapes of pale blue light came to perch in the ears of the horses and in the beards of the men. All night sheetlighning quaked sourceless to the west beyond the midnight thunder-heads, making a bluish day of the distant desert, the mountains on the sudden skyline stark and black and livid like a land of some other order out there whose true geology was not stone but fear. The thunder moved up from the southwest and lightning lit the desert all about them, blue and barren, great clanging reaches ordered out of the absolute night like some demon kingdom summoned up or changeling land that come the day would leave them neither trace nor smoke nor ruin more than any troubling dream.

Faces I saw at the China Out Of Tibet protest

It was a cold night, really windy. The sound of chanting - hundreds of people chanting - filled the air. Candles flickered in little glass jars, set up in geometric patterns across the pavement. There were no speeches. Flags whipped in the wind.

Full photo set here.

The Cool School, dir. Morgan Neville

Last night I went to see The Cool School, a documentary about the LA modern art scene (which was pretty near non-existent) in the 50s and 60s. And a group of artists, mostly male - it was a very macho atmosphere - created a "scene" from scratch. The Cool School examines how this happened. There were a couple of key figures - Irving Blum, Walter Hopps - they were the visionaries, the ones who made it happen. They were facilitators. They worked on multiple levels: they knew they had to give space to the artists, and have great shows, great publicity - but they also needed to cultivate the collectors, or potential collectors - who might be living in the Los Angeles area at that time. One doesn't need to cultivate collectors in a city like New York City, or Paris. The collectors are already there. But Los Angeles in the 50s was a wasteland, artistically - at least in terms of an art scene. Los Angeles is a one-industry town, and it was difficult to get any support or recognition if you were not in the film business. New York had no interest in what was going on in Los Angeles, and the major national magazines, like Newsweek, didn't have art sections - so if you lived in Los Angeles, and you loved art - you were screwed, at least in terms of what might be going on. This has all changed now, of course - and Los Angeles is a major art town. There was a QA with director Morgan Neville after the movie, and he said he was speaking to one of the artists in the film - who teaches at Cal Arts ... and that artist said that 20 years ago he told his students that if they wanted to have any success in the art world, they should move to New York when they graduated. And now he tells them to stay in Los Angeles, there's plenty going on there, galleries, museums, and also national coverage. One of the theses of Cool School is that the vibrant (and wealthy) art world in Los Angeles now was born in the scrappy days of the 1950s, when a bunch of bohemians, living in Venice, started showing their work in storefront galleries, competing with one another, making each other push harder ... and that is a forgotten, and yet very major, chapter in American art history. Morgan Neville, the director, said that as he started doing research for the film, he thought to himself, "Surely there has to be a book about these guys, and that time, and the Ferus Gallery ..." and was amazed to find that there wasn't. (Now there will be. A coffee table book is coming out, a companion piece to the film - so that's an awesome start.)

By the end of the 1960s, art had become sexy and fashionable. Andy Warhol had something to do with that. Suddenly, you would go to art openings and there would be heiresses and people in Chanel strolling around. The same evolution happened out in Los Angeles. In the late 50s, early 60s, the galleries were storefronts, on hidden streets ... out of the way ... and they would have shows and nobody would come. Nobody with money, anyway. You don't want to have an art show where ONLY beatniks and students come! The Ferus Gallery, run by Walter Hopps and Irving Blum, opened on La Cienega Boulevard - and they cultivated a small group of artists (all of whom are still working today - the ones who are alive, I mean) - and set out to draw the wealthy of Los Angeles to their shows. They brought Andy Warhol out for his first show - the "soup can" show. It was not a smashing success. Only 4 pieces were sold. (Irving Blum then bought them back and bought the entire collection - because he felt they were all of a piece. And now, of course, they are worth millions and millions of dollars.) It is only in retrospect that the soup can show can be seen as major.

The Cool School is put together with terrific home movies of the time, and amazing photographs - of all of the guys at work and at play. There was awesome historical information as well, about Los Angeles as a town, and its development. Anyone interested in California as a whole should definitely see this film. It reminded me a bit of Robert Towne's obsession with Los Angeles, and water, and culture ... it is one of the driving forces of his artistic life. The artists themselves were such characters - each with their own passion, interest ... and because Los Angeles was so isolated, in terms of an art world, many of these artists developed their work in a vacuum. Yet, as so often happens, what they were doing in Venice Beach was being done all over the world: collages, assemblage, using found objects ... the whole American abstract expressionist movement. Yet the artists in the film had a specifically Los Angeles feel to their work, and I found that fascinating. These guys were car freaks, and surfer bums - in a way that artists in New York would never be, because the culture is totally different. So the Los Angeles artists were incorporating lots of new materials - chrome, and plastic ... You can tell these guys loved cars when you look at their work. I love their stuff.

The editing of the documentary was wonderful. For example, as the "character" of Walter Hopps was introduced, we saw photographs of him from that time. He looked like one of the guys from mission control in Apollo 13: white shirt, tie, cleancut, glasses with thick black rims. He was (at least in appearance) the epitome of "square". Totally unlike the biker surfer aesthetic of the artists. Hopps, of course, was crazier than all of them, and just as brilliant - in the way he created an art scene. If you wanted to be an artist in Los Angeles in the 1950s, you had to know Walter Hopps. And one by one, each of the artists was interviewed about Hopps and they all said the same thing - and it was so funny the way it was edited: One guy said, "We all thought he was CIA." Next guy, "I assumed he was in the CIA." Next guy: "It seemed like he must have been CIA or FBI ..."

Another example of this artfully done editing is when Irving Blum was introduced. He was the one who taught Los Angeles about art, basically. He was the one who sought out potential collectors - young couples who had a lot of money, who wanted to build up their private collections, but didn't even know where to start, in the wasteland of LA at that time. Irving Blum found those people. And many of them were interviewed for the documentary, and they strolled around their gorgeous houses, showing their collections, much of which was bought at that crucial time - end of 50s, early 60s. And Irving Blum was a handsome cleancut guy with a bit of a dazzle to him. He was all about the illusion of success. For example, he was on a street and there was a gleaming Rolls Royce parked on the sidewalk - and he had his friend take pictures of him standing by the Rolls Royce, as though he owned it. If you're going to run an art gallery, you had better be at home with rich people. Blum was not rich at that time (although, boy, he is now) - so he went about creating an illusion that he was wealthy. He spoke in a very specific way, and again - one artist after another said the same thing. It was so amazing and funny the way it was put together - 6 artists in a row, 7, said the same thing: "He spoke kind of like Cary Grant." "His accent was like Cary Grant's." "He sort of looked like Cary Grant." "I heard him speak and I thought, 'Is that Cary Grant?'"

It's that kind of detailed editing that makes a documentary, in my opinion. Because the topic may be interesting - but if the format is not compelling, and if the film doesn't, in some way, comment upon the topic - it's not a successful documentary. The spliced-together interviews of all of the artists is a great example of how to do it. They are all fierce individuals, macho to this day, tough tough guys, competitive ... and yet there were these similarities in their experience of that time. The editing of those sequences was very effective.

I mainly went to see the film because Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper are both interviewed (and it was a dual interview, they were in the same room at the same time, chomping away on their cigars, answering questions). Hopper and Stockwell finish each other's sentences like an old married couple. The two of them were highly involved in the LA art scene at that time, the whole beatnik generation - and having seen Stockwell's stuff in person - you can feel the influences emanating from his work. Wallace Berman was a main influence - the collages and assemblages ... Berman was a big character in the film. His show at the Ferus was closed - due to "obscenity" and he was arrested. It was his first and only solo show. His stuff is fantastic.

The film is interesting on multiple levels. It was a part of American art history that I did not know. And also, it was great to get to know all of these people, many of whom are still alive. You can see how their work developed - how one guy started paring down his work so much that he ended up only working in light. One guy pushed his work to the limit using plastics - futuristic stuff, sleek, cool, vibrant colors. It's a great story, an important part of our national culture - and I'm glad the story is being told.

The QA was great, afterwards. The theatre was very small, maybe 70 or 80 seats, and they were all filled. The questions were thought-provoking, curious, intense ... about the topic, about Neville's influences - and what drew him to the story, and also about the artists themselves - a fascinating group of alpha males!

Highly recommended.

Today in History: March 28, 1941

TO: LEONARD WOOLF
Rodmell,
Sussex
Tuesday (18? March 1941)

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.

March 28, 1941. After writing that note to her husband, Virginia Woolf put rocks in her pockets and drowned herself in the River Ouse.

Diary Friday

Let's get mortified, shall we? This diary entry describes a Hawaiian dance in my sophomore year of high school.

Fri. Jan. 21

Tonight was a Hawaiian dance. I tell you, I was not looking forward to it, because the last dance was a disaster area. I didn't go Hawaiian, but I did borrow a lei when I got there. It wasn't even half-way full, but practically everyone was Hawaiian.

Travis had on a grass skirt made out of garbage bag strips. And Joel had a grass skirt and man-hole-cover sized glasses. Betsy had on a long wrap-around skirt with huge blue flowers, and the DJ had on all white, a white top-hat and a white ruffled suit and this blue light was on him, so he sort of glowed. And he took requests so I asked for Devo, The Clash, J. Geils, Adam Ant, Loverboy.

(I love that I listed all of the band names. Total time-travel hilarity)

God, I love music!

And when he put on Stray Cat Strut, I did my tap dance. (Oh my God, I sound like such a geek. You DID YOUR TAP DANCE?? And then you WONDERED why no cute guys asked you to dance??? Meredith: if you are reading this, you will know exactly the tap dance I am referring to.)

All those great songs - I go WILD. We all do. We SWEAT! (Right, Beth?) It is so fun. The minute I hear the beginning notes of "Jerkin' Back and Forth" or "Rock Lobster" or "Workin' for the Weekend", we all race out onto the floor, going INSANE. I dance until my throat is dry and my legs ache.

I'm not fooling myself. I had an awful time. I loved the music, but John was there. (hahahahaha "I danced until my legs ached! I had an awful time!" Also, when I read over this this morning, I thought: who the hell is John? And then - I remembered. Some guy I had a crush on, who said about 3 words to me, and I convinced myself it was true love.) I saw him come in and I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't take my eyes off him and then Betsy grabbed my arm and said sternly, "Forget him, Sheila!" (And here I am, 280 years later, and I still find myself in situations where my friends have to speak to me sternly, and say stuff like, "Forget him, Sheila!" Such as we are made.)

Betsy went on sternly, "He has on a girl's headband. Please forget him."

(Best putdown ever)

Then we walked off, arms around each other, and for a while I did forget. (Little did I know that I eventually would forget so completely that I would read over this entry decades later and think, dimly: Who the hell is John? Ha! Revenge.) I talked to Mr. Hodge, and some good songs came on, and there were some songs that Mere and I had to make fun of. We would strut around, eyes closed. (Uhm, girls? That's how you make fun of the songs? You strut around, eyes closed? I'm not sure I get the joke.)

Oh, and a TV cameraman was there for some reason, and he was filming us, and he took close-up shots of me charleston-ing to "Goody Two Shoes" (How unbelievably embarrassing. CHARLESTON???), he also filmed me and my friends going WILD to "Rock Lobster". He filmed all of us going "down ... down ... down..." onto the floor. The entire gym full of kids falls down onto the floor at the end of "Rock Lobster". Anyway, I asked him later what the film was about, and he said that it was for a special on teenage alcoholism.

What? I said to him, "I'm not drunk!" And he laughed and went, "I'm not going to say you are."

John was dancing with another girl and when he knew I was nearby he kissed her. (Uh, Sheila, are you sure of your facts here? Are you sure that it was because of YOUR hovering presence that he kissed her?)

So I'm really proud of the way I handled myself. I didn't look at him, or look jealous, or even acknowledge him, and I danced like I never danced before. (Flashdance?) I feel like I looked pretty bubbly, with my mini skirt, sweatshirt, tie, white tights, and skips, (HAHAHAHA. My TIE??) and with my - ahem - peripheral vision I knew he kept looking over at me. My heart cracked in two and all I wanted to do was sob, but I danced and laughed - Man, it was hard work. I wanted to cry. I HATE MYSELF FOR LOVING SO MUCH.

So I acted "up". I was crazy. I felt insane. I had no control. After cavorting madly to show John I didn't give a fuckin' shit about his buns, I went over to sit down cause it was a slow song, and Patty sat beside me and said, "I'm really sorry. I tried to warn you, but I feel bad for you." I said to her, "What has it been? 3 girls in 2 months?" And she said, "Well, just be glad you weren't one of those girls." I nodded.

So I sat through the slow song, chin in my hands, staring out at the big silver ball twirling above. I felt kind of bad. Kate hugged me. I just sat staring off. Why do I STILL like him, even when he's been a bastard? Probably cause I know that underneath he's really a nice guy. (And here the womanly pattern begins. Falling in love with an asshole's hidden potential.)

Frozen in Grand Central

I am in totally in love with all of these people. I want to go on a mission like that! And I love Alex's comment: "The Shapes they took are so natural and so forward in their thought and action it looks like the audience are the ones in the wrong world."

The Books: "Birds of America" - 'Dance In America' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore. Excerpt from the story 'Dance in America'. One of the quotes from a review on Amazon of Lorrie Moore's stuff says: that she has the "ability to catch the moment that flips someone from eccentric to unmoored", and I think that's exactly right. And usually it doesn't take much. Just a moment. Perhaps the pressure has been building. Lorrie Moore's main characters are usually single, but there the similarity ends. They are single girls, looking around at a world that either has passed them by or has openly rejected them. In contrast to the cliche, Lorrie Moore's "single girls" are not blue, or self-pitying, or bitter. They are busy, they have jobs, sometimes weird jobs ... they like to make puns, they crack stupid jokes, they drive around town obsessing about things, they want to get involved, they want to connect ... they don't sit around be-moaning their single state. They have other things on their mind. And so their loneliness ambushes them. In terrible form. In Dance In America, the main character is a dance instructor, and she travels to colleges, giving workshops. As she gives lectures and talks about dance, she thinks to herself what an asshole she sounds like. She's just making shit up. But hey, it's a living. She has had one major relationship, with a man named Patrick, who finally left her because he couldn't stand her selfishness. This seems to confuse her. She doesn't experience herself as selfish. She's just trying to get through the day. For most of the time, she seems too busy to dwell on the past. She goes to one college, in Pennsylvania Dutch country ... and contacts an old friend of hers from grad school, Cal - who is teaching at a nearby college. He offers to put her up. He lives with his wife Simone and their young son Eugene. They haven't seen each other in years. Cal takes the dog for a walk, and she goes with him and they catch up a bit.

I just love how Lorrie Moore describes characters and situations. It's so specific, so ... unlike anything else. In that way, it feels like life. Yes, there are "types" we encounter in life - and in Lorrie Moore's world it's no different ... but it's the words she chooses to boil down a situation or a person that is so breathtakingly specific.

Here's the excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore. Excerpt from the story 'Dance in America'.

But I haven't seen Cal in twelve years, not since he left for Belgium on a Fulbright, so I must be nice. He seems different to me: shorter, older, cleaner, despite the house. In a burst of candor, he has already confessed that those long years ago, out of friendship for me, he'd been exaggerating his interest in dance. "I didn't get it," he admitted. "I kept trying to figure out the story. I'd look at the purple guy who hadn't moved in awhile, and I'd think, So what's the issue with him?"

Now Chappers tugs at his leash. "Yeah, the house." Cal sighs. "We did once have a painter give us an estimate, but we were put off by the names of the paints: Myth, Vesper, Snickerdoodle. I didn't want anything called Snickerdoodle in my house."

"What is a Snickerdoodle?"

"I think they're hunted in Madagascar."

I leap to join him, to play. "Or eaten in Vienna," I say.

"Or worshiped in L.A." I laugh again for him, and then we watch as Chappers sniffs at the roots of an oak.

"But a myth or a vesper - they're always good," I add.

"Crucial," he says. "But we didn't need paint for that."

Cal's son, Eugene, is seven and has cystic fibrosis. Eugene's whole life is a race with medical research. "It's not that I'm not for the arts," says Cal. "You're here; money for the arts brought you here. That's wonderful. It's wonderful to see you after all these years. It's wonderful to fund the arts. It's wonderful, you're wonderful. The arts are so nice and wonderful. But really: I say, let's give all the money, every last fucking dime, to science."

Something chokes up in him. There can be optimism in the increments, the bits, the chapters; but I haven't seen him in twelve years and he has had to tell me the whole story, straight from the beginning, and it's the whole story that's just so sad.

"We both carried the gene but never knew," he said. "That's the way it works. The odds are one in twenty, times one in twenty, and then after that, still only one in four. One in sixteen hundred, total. Bingo! We should move to Vegas."

When I first knew Cal, we were in New York, just out of graduate school; he was single, and anxious, and struck me as someone who would never actually marry and have a family, or if he did, would marry someone decorative, someone slight. But now, twelve years later, his silver-haired wife, Simone, is nothing like that: she is big and fierce and original, joined with him in grief and courage. She storms out of PTA meetings. She glues little sequins to her shoes. English is her third language; she was once a French diplomat to Belgium and to Japan. "I miss the caviar" is all she'll say of it. "I miss the caviar so much." Now, in Pennsylvania Dutchland, she paints satirical oils of long-armed handless people. "The locals," she explains in her French accent, giggling. "But I can't paint hands." She and Eugene have made a studio from one of the wrecked rooms upstairs.

"How is Simone through all this?" I ask.

"She's better than I am," he says. "She had a sister who died young. She expects unhappiness."

"But isn't there hope?" I ask, stuck for words.

Already, Cal says, Eugene has degenerated, grown worse, too much liquid in his lungs. "Stickiness," he calls it. "If he were three, instead of seven, there'd be more hope. The researchers are making some strides; they really are."

"He's a great kid," I say. Across the street, there are old Colonial houses with candles lit in each window; it is a Pennsylvania Dutch custom, or left over from Desert Storm, depending on whom you ask.

Cal stops and turns toward me, and the dog comes up and nuzzles him. "It's not just that Eugene's great," he says. "It's not just the precocity or that he's the only child I'll ever have. It's also that he's such a good person. He accepts things. He's very good at understanding everything."

I cannot imagine anything in my life that contains such sorrow as this, such anticipation of missing someone. Cal falls silent, the dog trots before us, and I place my hand lightly in the middle of Cal's back as we walk like that through the cold, empty streets. Up in the sky, Venus and the thinnest paring of sickle moon, like a cup and saucer, like a nose and mouth, have made the Turkish flag in the sky. "Look at that," I say to Cal as we traipse after the dog, the leash taut as a stick.

"Wow," Cal says. "The Turkish flag."

Trains, criminals ... beauty ...

oh ... and a glimpse of Richard Widmark in a crowd:

One of the Art of Memory's gorgeous train travel posts.

(Here's another in that ongoing series).

Snapshots

-- Reading Blood Meridien. Holy shit. Let's see. Who has begged me to read this book? Uhm, how about everyone on the planet? Keith M. My father. Bren. And now David. And it was David's email to me about Blood Meridien that made me finally pick it up. The writing is superb. Terrifying. I'm only 30 pages in but I can already feel it is going to put me through the wringer.

-- Finished my 4th of the Master & Commander series - The Mauritius Command. I am in love with the series.

-- Watched Eastern Promises last night. Very good. Viggo Mortensen is riveting. There were some cliched moments in the plot - it was a little bit too "neat" for me (Naomi Watts' character had lost her baby - so she becomes obsessed with the orphaned baby! And etc. Too neat.) - but he was amazing. You can't take your eyes off him. I also loved the set design of the Russian restaurant "Trans-Siberian". Awesome awesome atmosphere.

-- I have become addicted to the Canadian television series Slings & Arrows, which I have been watching on DVD. More to come. I won't write any more until I finish the whole thing (3 seasons). Kate sent me the first two seasons ... not for any reasons, just because ... and I can't thank her enough for introducing me to this wonderful series. Mental Multivitamin has been raving about it for a while and I totally agree with her assessment: "Perfect and brilliant and perfectly brilliant". It's laugh out loud funny, but also poignant, and also gets - totally gets - what it is to be in the theatre. The absurdity ("Everyone cries when they get stabbed. There's no shame in that!") - but then the moment, the magical moment, when things come together ... and the play comes to life. Marvelous. I can't WAIT for season 3.

-- I had sent a kind of yowl-of-loneliness email to Michael, telling him what's going on right now, and normally I resist those yowls, but whatever, if you can't let your friends in on what you're going through, what good are they as friends? I got home last night and noticed he had called and left a message. Picked up the phone and his message not only brought a huge (almost embarrassingly huge) smile to my face - but it also made me cry. So I stood in my kitchen with a Humpty Dumpty smile and tears on my face. Awesome. Michael said, "I am here to give you a big voice-hug. Are you ready? Here it is." There was a pause. And I then heard him hugging himself and making big "oomph" grunting noises - as though he were hugging me and squeezing me tight. It was hysterical!! I felt hugged, if you know what I mean. Michael also referred to his own voice as "sonorous" ("I figured you needed to hear my sonorous voice ...") and I just love him for being such a jagoff. He also said, "I'm coming to New York soon, so you will be able to see my rapidly aging face ..." I love him.

-- I have discovered the unbelievable pleasures of River Road - the road that goes along the bottom of the cliffs on my side of the Hudson. Much exploring to do. Not only that, but there's a Target along that road. As well as a Whole Foods.

-- I'm kind of obsessed right now with Dan Fogelberg's song "The Phoenix". Can't stop listening to it.

-- I went a little insane over the weekend and impulsively bought about 30 books on Amazon - all used, many of them were only one cent. Of course I have to pay for shipping and handling, so it added up - but not TOO much. I got 30 books for about 30 dollars ... and now they have all started arriving. It's like I went into a fugue state as I ordered the books ... and forgot what I ordered. So it's fun to open up the packages because I have no idea what's inside. I bought all of SE Hinton's books. I realized that it is just not right that I do not have a copy of Tex, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish and needed to rectify that. I also bought all of the Paul Zindel books that I do not have, and that is surprisingly a lot. I have read all of them - like Harry and Hortense at Hormone High (hahahaha), and I Never Loved Your Mind - so I bought all of them. Very happy! Then there were random books I came across - in book reviews, or mentioned in blog posts - that I ordered. I got Laura Kipnis' book about women - very excited to read that ... I bought a couple of Paul Berman's books = and I read 3 pages of his Two Utopias book and am already blown away. I finally got my own copy of the Truffaut/Hitchcock intereviews (for 65 cents - love Amazon!) - as well as a copy of WH Auden's lectures on Shakespeare, which I can't WAIT to dig into. I also bought a biography of Jennifer Jones, and the second volume of Shelley Winters' autobiography which I adore beyond measure - and lost somewhere along the way in all of my moves.

-- I'm sleeping pretty good. So for that I am grateful. Knock wood.

Richard Widmark: tributes

A terrific in-depth obituary in The Washington Post.

David Thomson had this to say about Widmark in his awesome The New Biographical Dictionary of Film:

Widmark came into movies a little later than most male stars, already in his early thirties. But that debut is still haunting, no matter that Widmark was later turned into an authentic hero, suntanned, laconic, and grudgingly aligning himself with proper causes.

Educated at Lake Forest College, he worked there as a teacher, and as a stage and radio actor, befor being cast as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (47, Henry Hathaway). The sadism of that character, the fearful laugh, the skull showing through drawn skin, and the surely conscious evocation of a concentration camp degenerate established Widmark as the most frightening person on the screen. The glee in the performance may even have shocked Widmark himself. It made Kiss of Death untypical of Fox or Hathaway. The studio kept him on a leash, and mixed more conventional heavies with nerve-strained heroes, as if to imply that Tommy Udo was the result of overwork: as the spoiled-child owner of Road House (48, Jean Negulesco); the gangster in The Street With No Name (48, William Keighley); menacing Gregory Peck in Yellow Sky (48, William Wellman); a boy's best friend in Down To The Sea in Ships (49, Hathaway); Slattery's Hurricane (49, Andre de Toth); as a whining coward hounded by the London underworld in Night and the City (40, Jules Dassin); as the doctor racing against time and bubonic plague in Panic In the Streets (50, Elia Kazan); as a hardnosed, bigoted cop in No Way Out (50, Joseph L. Mankiewicz).

But even as a hero, Widmark barely suppressed malice, anxiety and violence; the straight voice readily broke into a sneer or a giggle; and the eyes once had an insolent way of staring a woman out. That was how he lifted microfilm from Jean Peters's handbag at the beginning of Pickup On South Street (53, Samuel Fuller). He was excellent as Fuller's sentimental hoodlum and brought a special relish to the brutal love scenes and to the situation of a guttersnipe able to crow to the police.

Elia Kazan said in regards to Widmark and Panic In the Streets:

I had a great cast. It was a treat in itself just to have Zero Mostel around. I had Jack Palance, making his first picture. And I had Richard Widmark, who was a jewel, as nice a guy as there was in the world. Barbara Bel Geddes played his wife. I cast like a man should. I handpicked everybody just because I liked them ...

Panic in the Streets is the first picture I made that I liked. I don't think you're aware those people are actors, even Widmark had played nothing but heavies before that. He became famous in Kiss of Death, in which he pushed an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs, and he had that wonderfully phony, lunatic laugh. We'd worked in the theater together about four or five years earlier, and I returned him to playing a leading man. He had sort of a minor-league charm. But it was a genuine charm. Almost everything he said was amusing and self-deprecatory, and to me, that self-deprecatory attitude is an essential American quality.

I love his face.

The Books: "Birds of America" - 'Willing' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore. With Birds of America, published in 1998, Lorrie Moore hit the jackpot. That book was everywhere you looked. It was on the NY Times bestseller list. Self-Help and Like Life were fine books - but in Birds of America, Lorrie Moore hit her stride. These stories are beyond compare. If you've read the book, you know what I mean. I don't read a ton of short stories - I have to really be into an author to pick up a book of short stories ... I like Joyce's short stories. I like Hemingway's. I like Annie Proulx's short stories, and I like Margaret Atwood's short stories. I love AS Byatt's short stories. And when I read Birds of America (the first of Moore's books I read), I realized I was reading something where I needed superlatives in order to describe it. It's HARD to be "good" at short stories. I mean, how many boring self-indulgent pretentious or kitchen-sink-to-the-point-of-apathy stories have we all read? There's a certain style in American short stories right now, and I can't stand it. I find many of them unreadable. It's not just that they're about minutia - that's fine, Lorrie Moore's stories in many ways are about the tiniest of moments ... it's that the writing itself is lackluster, and nothing pops off the page. Recently, the Willesden Herald famously held a short story contest - and then DIDN'T pick any of the entries and said, "Try again next year." So there will be no winner. It was a huge deal, and everyone was babbling about it. Zadie Smith was one of the judges. It was a huge deal. People went apeshit - but basically the Willesden Herald's point was: "None of the stories sent in were good enough. Sorry." One of the editors came out with a fantastic list called 27 reasons why short stories are rejected - a list I have printed out for future reference. I really recognized many of my own mistakes in that list - things I have either worked to improve, OR am not even aware that I do. But now I am. Anyway, all of this is to say: it's hard to write a good short story. If you're going to write short stories, KNOW that it's hard, and get to know your form. Learn it. Each story in Birds of America is not only a specific three-dimensional world - with food and music and drinks and weather - but an expansive look at a slice of human experience. And again, I am not quite sure how Lorrie Moore does it - but it seems to me (and I've said this before) that it has to do with courage. Lorrie Moore strikes me as a pretty fearless writer. She keeps you in the trivial, and then - with one fell swoop - pulls back the curtain and makes some grand statement that rips your heart out. I suppose, too, that there is something in her characters that really resonate with me. They are doing their best. But something, somewhere, went wrong along the way. And if they could only retrace their steps ... Lorrie Moore just knows how to write about experiences like that, without being maudlin, or dramatic. She just GETS it. Those moments at 3 am where you suddenly sit up in bed, look around, and wonder: "Where the hell am I? Whose life is this?" Horrible moments. Horrible bleak moments surrounded by the banal business of trying to survive, trying to keep your spirits up. Lorrie Moore's stories are always quite funny, even if they sucker-punch you from time to time.

In the first story in the collection - 'Willing' - we meet Sidra, who was once a vaguely famous movie star, who had been up for some kind of award once in her career. Sidra is from Chicago - but she has lived for years in LA. Her career was based on her looks - she had nude scenes, etc. - her father will never go see any of her movies because of that ... but now things have dried up for Sidra. She is 40. Work isn't coming anymore. Life is a howling wilderness. In desperation, she moves back to Chicago - and she stays in a Days Inn. For months. Sometimes she goes and visits her parents. Sometimes she goes to blues clubs with Charlotte, an old friend of hers from high school. Her best friend is a gay man named Tommy - who lives in Santa Monica - and screams at her over the phone, 'What are you DOING?? Come back to LA!" Sidra can't help but look at the big picture ... and that's what gets her, that's what keeps her up nights. She is alone. She has missed the opportunity, it seems, to mate up with someone and have kids. She always thought she would have had kids. So she is disoriented by the fact that she does not. She meets a man at a jazz club - and they start a relationship, sort of. He is not aware that she was once famous, at least not at first. Sidra, though, is weird now. She doesn't respect him, and wonders if that could change - if they could actually make a go of it. Is she still capable of having dreams like that? She's way out of practice.

The whole story is deeply depressing ... and I found myself almost looking away at certain points. Not because I was feeling bad for Sidra, but because I recognized myself in Sidra, and it makes me too sad to even get through the day. But the way Lorrie Moore writes about Sidra's struggles made me feel ... I don't know, it's one of those moments when a really private thought or feeling is expressed perfectly by an artist, someone you don't know - they just NAIL it, in a song, a poem, a book, whatever ... and you point at it and go, 'Yes! That is what it is like for me!"

Courage. Lorrie Moore says things that I might be too afraid to say. And so there's a weird comfort at times, reading a story like 'Willing' - even though it hits too close to home. i still read it and think, "Lorrie Moore knows. She knows what it's like."

Sidra, also, is doing her best. Life has not beaten her. Not yet, anyway. She still cracks stupid jokes, she makes dumb puns on words, she tries to make people laugh. She's still in the game. Life has moved on without her, certainly ... but she's not given up yet. That's the saddest part of all.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore. Excerpt from story 'Willing'

He began to realize, soon, that she did not respect him. A bug could sense it. A doorknob could figure it out. She never quite took him seriously. She would talk about films and film directors, then look at him and say, "Oh, never mind." She was part of some other world. A world she no longer liked.

And now she was somewhere else. Another world she no longer liked.

But she was willing. Willing to give it a whirl. Once in a while, though she tried not to, she asked him about children, about having children, about turning kith to kin. How did he feel about all that? It seemed to her that if she were ever going to have a life of children and lawn mowers and grass clippings, it would be best to have it with someone who was not demeaned or trivialized by discussions of them. Did he like those big fertilized lawns? How about a nice rock garden? How did he feel deep down about those combination storm windows with the built-in screens?

"Yeah, I like them all right," he said, and she would nod slyly and drink a little too much. She would try then not to think too strenuously about her whole life. She would try to live life one day at a time, like an alcoholic - drink, don't drink, drink. Perhaps she should take drugs.

"I always thought someday I would have a little girl and name her after my grandmother." Sidra sighted, peered wistfully into her sherry.

"What was your grandmother's name?"

Sidra looked at his paisley mouth. "Grandma. Her name was Grandma." Walter laughed in a honking sort of way. "Oh, thank you," murmured Sidra. "Thank you for laughing."

Walter had a subscription to AutoWeek. He flipped through it in bed. He also liked to read repair manuals for new cars, particularly the Toyotas. He knew a lot about control panels, light-up panels, side panels.

"You're so obviously wrong for each other," said Charlotte over tapas at a tapas bar.

"Hey, please," said Sidra. "I think my taste's a little subtler than that." The thing with tapas bars was that you just kept stuffing things into your mouth. "Obviously wrong is just the beginning. That's where I always begin. At obviously wrong." In theory, she liked the idea of mismatched couples, the wrangling and retangling, like a comedy by Shakespeare.

"I can't imagine you with someone like him. He's just not special." Charlotte had met him only once. But she had heard of him from a girlfriend of hers. He had slept around, she'd said. "Into the pudding" is how she phrased it, and there were some boring stories. "Just don't let him humiliate you. Don't mistake a lack of sophistication for sweetness," she added.

"I'm supposed to wait around for someone special, while every other girl in this town gets to have a life?"

"I don't know, Sidra."

It was true. Men could be with whomever they pleased. But women had to date better, kinder, richer, and bright, bright, bright, or else people got embarrassed. It suggested sexual things. "I'm a very average person," she said desperately, somehow detecting that Charlotte already knew that, knew the deep, dark, wildly obvious secret of that, and how it made Sidra slightly pathetic, unseemly - inferior, when you got right down to it. Charlotte studied Sidra's face, headlights caught in the stare of a deer. Guns don't kill people, thought Sidra fizzily. Deer kill people.

"Maybe it's that we all used to envy you so much," Charlotte said a little bitterly. "You were so talented. You got all the lead parts in the plays. You were everyone's dream of what they wanted."

Sidra poked around at the appetizer in front of her, gardening it like a patch of land. She was unequal to anyone's wistfulness. She had made too little of her life. Its loneliness shamed her like a crime. "Envy," said Sidra. "That's a lot like hate, isn't it." But Charlotte didn't say anything. Probably she wanted Sidra to change the subject. Sidra stuffed her mouth full of feta cheese and onions, and looked up. "Well, all I can say is, I'm glad to be back." A piece of feta dropped from her lips.

Charlotte looked down at it and smiled. "I know what you mean," she said. She opened her mouth wide and let all the food inside fall out onto the table.

Charlotte could be funny like that. Sidra had forgotten that about her.

Rest in peace, Richard Widmark

Hoods are good parts because they're always flashy and attract attention. If you've got any ability, you can use that as a stepping stone.
-- Richard Widmark

Here's the NY Times obit.

And Kim Morgan's tribute:

"I've got so much more to write about one of my absolute all-time favorite actors, but to put it simply -- he was a rare one."

I know a couple of people who count him as one of their favorite actors ever. He hasn't worked in a long time, the man was in his 90s ... but what a career. I bumped up Kiss of Death on the Netflix queue - a movie I have seen countless times, on big screens and small ... but need to see again, as soon as possible.

Review of Widmark's debut performance in Kiss of Death on Noir of the Week, one of my favorite new sites:

If I had to choose one reason to recommend watching this film it’s definitely the screen debut of Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo. His performance is outstanding, as he doesn’t so much give you the creeps as he force-feeds them to you. Udo is a perfect storm of menace, sadist and sociopath. Widmark commands every scene he’s in with such a forceful presence and performance that as the film continues, you find yourself just waiting for him to appear. He also gets some classic lines such as telling a cop fishing for info that he wouldn’t give him “the skin off a grape.” Without Victor Mature’s understated performance Widmark’s Udo may have lost some of his effectiveness by seeming too over the top or out of place contrasted by a less convincing Nick Bianco. The two portrayals, however, balance each other perfectly and create a solid foundation of tension and excitement for this otherwise moderate noir.

Rest in peace.

People love Richard Widmark, you know what I mean?

Happy birthday, Tennessee Williams

Will you do a total stranger the kindness of reading his verse?

Thank you!

Thomas Lanier Williams

-- Tennessee Williams, letter to editor Harriet Monroe, March 11, 1933

"You're always having to compete with yourself. They always say, 'It's not as good as Streetcar or Cat'. Of course it's not. At 69, you don't write the kind of play you write at 30. You haven't got the kind of energy you used to have."

-- Tennessee Williams

In 1928, Tennessee Williams wrote in a letter to his beloved grandfather:

I have been reading a good number of biographies this year which I am sure you will commend. Probably you remember how I picked up that volume of Ludwig's Napoleon on the boat and liked it so well that the owner had to ask me for it. I tried to get it at the library but it was out. Instead i got a life of the Kaiser Wilhelm by the same author. Since then I hve read several others of celebrated literary personages. I have one at home now about Shelley, whose poetry I am studying at school. His life is very interesting. He seems to have been the wild, passionate and dissolute type of genius: which makes him very entertaining to read about.

Tennessee Williams said the following about Streetcar (excerpt here), and his main point of that entire play:

There are no 'good' or 'bad' people. Some are a little better or a little worse but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice. A blindness to what is going on in each other's hearts. Stanley sees Blanche not as a desperate, driven creature backed into a last corner to make a last desperate stand - but as a calculating bitch with 'round heels'.... Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see each other in life.

Tennessee Williams wrote the following elegiac essay about Laurette Taylor (who created the role of Amanda so memorably in Glass Menagerie (excerpt here) and made him star) for The New York Times after news of her death in 1949:

I do not altogether trust the emotionalism that is commonly indulged in over the death of an artist, not because it is necessarily lacking in sincerity but because it may come too easily. In what I say now about Laurette Taylor I restrict myself to those things which I have felt continually about her as apart from any which this unhappy occasion produces.

Of course the first is that I consider her the greatest artist of her profession that I have known. The second is that I loved her as a person. In a way the second is more remarkable. I have seldom encountered any argument about her preeminent stature as an actress. But for me to love her was remarkable because I have always been so awkward and diffident around actors that it has made a barrier between us almost all but insuperable.

In the case of Laurette Taylor, I cannot say that I ever got over the awkwardness and the awe which originally were present, but she would not allow it to stand between us. The great warmth of her heart burned through and we became close friends.

I am afraid it is the only close friendship I have ever had with a player...

It is our immeasurable loss that Laurette Taylor's performances were not preserved on the modern screen. The same is true of Duse and Bernhardt, with whom her name belongs. Their glory survives in the testimony and inspiration of those who saw them. Too many people have been too deeply moved by the gift of Laurette Taylor for that to disappear from us.

In this unfathomable experience of ours there are sometimes hints of something that lies outside the flesh and its mortality. I suppose these intuitions come to many people in their religious vocations, but I have sensed them more clearly in the work of artists and most clearly of all in the art of Laurette Taylor. There was a radiance about her art which I can compare only to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock of revelation as if the air about us had been momentarily broken through by light from some clear space beyond us.

The last word that I received from her was a telegram which reached me early this fall. It was immediately after the road company of our play had opened in Pittsburgh. The notices spoke warmly of Pauline Lord's performance in the part of Amanda. "I have just read the Pittsburgh notices," Laurette wired me. "What did I tell you, my boy? You don't need me."

I feel now - as I have always felt - that a whole career of writing for the theatre is rewarded enough by having created one good part for a great actress.

Having created a part for Laurette Taylor is a reward I find sufficient for all the effort that went before and any that may come after.

It was a two-sided deal there. Her performance launched him into stardom. And his creation of Amanda revitalized her career just in time for her to capitalize on it. She would be dead in a couple of years. She had had a great career early in her life, and went on a 10 year binge following the death of her husband. Laurette Taylor was "washed up". Until ...

And now, she's a legend, her performance in Glass Menagerie is legendary. "What did I tell you, my boy, you don't need me..." Ha. That's what you think, Laurette! But in a way, she was completely right. The play is better than any one performance. The play didn't depend on Laurette Taylor's genius, although thank God she found the vehicle. The star of the play is actually the play itself, and Laurette Taylor knew that. The star of the play was this new voice of Tennessee Williams. And so no, Tennessee didn't "need" her. And about Tennessee saying: "I consider her the greatest artist of her profession that I have known." Anyone who knows anything about theatre would be hard-pressed to disagree. I haven't even SEEN the woman act, obviously, but I don't need to. I will take the hundreds and hundreds of eyewitness' word for it. In the same way that I know, in my heart, that Eleanora Duse was one of the "greatest artists of her profession" as well. I don't need to have seen her live. (My post about Laurette Taylor here.)

Here's a treat for all you Tennessee and Laurette fans. Here is one of the original reviews of Glass Menagerie, after its premiere on an icy winter night in Chicago. This review focuses on the miracle that was Laurette Taylor's performance.

January 14, 1945

MEMO FROM CHICAGO By Lloyd Lewis

CHICAGO - As this is written there exists doubt as to whether Eddie Dowling has anything more satisfying than an artistic success in his new production, "The Glass Menagerie", at the Civic Theatre, but there is no doubt whatsoever that he has brought back Laurette Taylor as a great character actress.

Not since she did "Peg o'My Heart," exactly thirty years ago, has she been so talked and written about.

In "The Glass Menagerie," which is a tenuous and moody tragedy from the pen of Tennessee Williams, she plays a decaying Delta belle overfond of haranguing her two children, one a warehouse worker (Mr. Dowling) and the other a morbidly bashful maiden (Julie Haydon), upon their duty to rise above the drabness of life in a St. Louis alley flat. Fumbling around the dolorous precincts of her home in a slipshod Mother Hubbard, she is forever reciting the plantation glories of her youth, how seventeen young gentlemen callers were forever complimenting her among the magnolias, and how she could have had this or that grandson instead of the captivating plebeian drunk who took her only to desert her and leave her to current St. Louis blues.

When Miss Taylor mumbles in magnificent realism she is still enough of a vocal wizard to be intelligible to her audiences, and when she pouts, nags or struts in pathetic bursts of romantic memory she is superb as a pantomime. Her descents into hysteria are masterpieces of understatement, dramatic in that they force her audience to do the acting for her.

She accomplishes her tour de force of acting without a single gesture which could be charged with showmanship. Some of her most telling lines are fumbling mutterings delivered over her shoulder. And in a scene wherein she prods her son into bringing home somebody, anybody, who might possibly marry his psychopathic sister before he himself wanders off, as his mother knows he will, into the big, blue and tipsy yonder, she gives a performance that could fit into the best of the Abbey Theatre's Irish plays.

One moment she is a ridiculous pretender and the next only a poor old woman dreading so soon to be dead because her helpless daughter will then be alone. When a 'caller' is eventually dragooned and brought to the house for dinner, Miss Taylor's appearance in an ancient taffety and high-toned manners is a delicate feat in the creation of that narrow line between the absurd and the sad.

Oh. Oh. For a time machine.

Here's a picture of Tennessee Williams out on his beloved Key West in 1980:

Make voyages. Attempt them. That's all there is.

-- Tennessee Williams, "Camino Real"

(Excerpt from Camino Real here. "I've outlived the tenderness of my heart." My God.)

I realized things about myself - and my life - through working on Miss Alma in Summer and Smoke (excerpt here) - that forever changed me. My journal entries from that time are fascinating for me to look back on. I actually grew as a human being, while working on that play. Sheila and Alma had merged. It's one of the only times that's ever happened. Funny: I love to post my Diary Friday excerpts from high school days, because haw haw haw we can all sort of chuckle at the exuberance and silliness of youth. But I would very much hesitate to post those Sheila/Alma entries - which were, first of all, much more recent - but also - I don't know if I would ever want to expose that side of myself here. That is the real Artist Sheila. I couldn't bear to have anyone roll their eyes or chuckle at HER. NOBODY can tell me that Alma is "just" a character in a play. She LIVES, she breathes. I certainly felt possessed by her.

A cord breaking.
1000 miles away.
Rose.
Her head cut open. A knife thrust in her brain.
Me. Here. Smoking.

-- Tennessee Williams, journal entry, Marcy 24, 1943 - after hearing about his sister's lobotomy

When people who knew him talk about Tennessee Williams, they always mention his laugh. Apparently, he had this wild high-pitched out-of-control Mozartian giggle, completely infectious to anyone near him. His plays may have had tragic elements, but that was how he worked out his own tragic upbringing, his sister's lobotomy, etc. He himself was not an openly tragic or introverted figure. He put all of his grief and sadness into his plays. The man was deeply sensitive - like all of his female characters. But if this seems like he was a bleak or depressive personality, that's incorrect. He always balked, too, when reviewers would characterize all of his female characters as "desperate". He didn't agree with that assessment at all. He saw each and every one of them as survivors - women trying to break through and live a happy and meaningful life. Other people assigned the meaning "desperate" to them, but Tennessee always hated that. Here's part of an essay he wrote for The New York Times in 1948 where he addresses this whole "desperate character" thing - In this essay he uses Miss Alma in "Summer and Smoke" as the jumping-off point:

All at once, I found myself hammed in by three women in basic black who had been to the Saturday matinee and had apparently thought of nothing since except the problems of Alma Winemiller, the heroine of "Summer and Smoke". When you are eating, a great deal can be accomplished by having a mouth full of food and by making gutteral noises instead of speech when confronted with questions such as, What is the theme of your play? What happens to the characters after the play is over? What is your next play about and how do you happen to know so much about women? On that last one you can spit the food out if it really begins to choke you.

For a writer who is not intentionally obscure, and never, in his opinion, obscure at all, I do get asked a hell of a lot of questions which I can't answer. I have never been able to say what was the theme of my play and I don't think I have ever been conscious of writing with a theme in mind. I am always surprised when, after a play has opened, I read in the papers what the play is about, that it was about a decayed Southern belle trying to get a man for her crippled daughter, or that it was about a boozie floozie on the skids, or that a backwoods sheik in a losing battle with three village vamps.

Don't misunderstand me. I am thankful for these highly condensed and stimulating analyses, but it would never have occurred to me that that was the story I was trying to tell. Usually when asked about a theme I look vague and say, "It is a play about life." What could be simpler, and yet more pretentious? You can easily extend that a little and say it is a tragedy of incomprehension. That also means life. Or you can say it is a tragedy of Puritanism. That is life in America. Or you can say that it is a play that considers the "problem of evil". But why not just say "life"?

To return to the women in the alcove. On this particular occasion the question that floored me was, "Why do you always write about frustrated women?"

To say that floored me is to put it mildly, because I would say that frustrated is almost exactly what the women I write about are not. What was frustrated about Amanda Wingfield? Circumstances, yes! But spirit? See Helen Hayes in London's "Glass Menagerie" if you still think Amanda was a frustrated spirit! No, there is nothing interesting about frustration, per se. I could not write a line about it for the simple reason that I can't write a line about anything that bores me.

Was Blance of "A Streetcar Named Desire" frustrated? About as frustrated as a beast of the jungle! And Alma Winemiller? What is frustrated about loving with such white hot intensity that it alters the whole direction of your life, and removes you from the parlor of the Episcopal rectory to a secret room above Moon Lake Casino?

I came across this essay when I was working on Alma Winemiller - and I can't tell you how much of an "A-ha!" moment it gave me. If I felt drawn towards portraying her as sexually FRUSTRATED, or emotionally FRUSTRATED ... I remembered Tennessee's words. I remembered the truth of them. Do not play the frustration. How boring. Play the OBJECTIVE, play the DESIRE, play what you WANT with all your heart ... Let the CIRCUMSTANCES of the play frustrate you ... but never ever take your eye off your objective. And THAT is where the tragedy lies.

Brilliant. So so helpful to any actress who works on ANY of his great parts to keep in mind.

I love that drive in him - the drive to pour all of the darkness and fear from his background into his work - he was a man driven to do so - it was therapeutic for him, yes, but never just therapy. Art that is just therapy is usually bad art. Or - perhaps not bad - but it will not stand the test of time. Tennessee worked on his craft, and always cared more about the PLAY than about the personal demons exorcised by said play. Read his letters, his journals, his instructions to directors ... the level of detail there is astonishing. Really inspiring to me. To be such a great artist, but to also have such an understanding of craft, and structure.

"Nothing's more determined than a cat on a tin roof - is there? Is there, baby?"

-- from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

(Excerpt from Cat On a Hot Tin Roof here. That bit about Brick waiting for "the click" always gives me a chill. Such good writing, so insightful.)

The lead of a play I did a year or so ago was the lead in Tennessee Williams' last play - Something Cloudy Something Clear (excerpt here)- done here in NYC at Cocteau Rep. Williams died soon after the play went up. The play is a highly personal kind of dream-space, and reading it it is as though you can feel Williams getting ready to go into the dying of the light. It is the play of an old old man. A man getting ready. Craig shared with me his memories of working with Tennessee.

Everyone talks about his "laugh". Actors and actresses who were in his plays talk about hearing his laugh from out in the audience. It was a generous laugh, a laugh full of joy. If an actor or actress was doing well, he had no problem with letting them know, with enjoying their performances openly. (Other playwrights are not so kind. It seems as though other playwrights have this thought process: "No actor could EVER live up to the perfection that resides in my mind. My play is perfect as is ... it's the ACTORS who are messing it up!!" Playwrights like that, usually, are big bores, and don't have a lot of talent. Like: okay, you want perfection? Build a statue, and don't hire live actors. That way your precious words will be safe from contamination.) But Tennessee, while kind of intimidated by actors, he never knew what to say to them ... LOVED them when they were wonderful. He did not consciously withhold approval - like so many do. If someone sucked, he had no problem with sending a note to the director saying: "Please have her realize that she needs to be light and funny on that one line - she is dragging down the entire scene with her dismal line readings..." hahaha He would never say such a thing to the actor's face - he let the director do his job - but if he was pleased? He would sit out in the audience, and just HOWL with laughter. He loved being an audience member. So many people in the theatre, because the theatre is their job and livelihood - forget how to just be an audience member.

Here, to me, is a quintessential Tennessee Williams statement.

An interviewer asked him: "What is your definition of happiness?"

He replied, "Insensitivity, I guess."

His experience of "happiness" as being, in its essence, "insensitive" came from his background. Those who were "sensitive" were crushed and shattered by cruelty, by life itself. His sister Rose was institutionalized and lobotomized. This was something Tennessee never really recovered from. (But he didn't really HAVE to recover from it, I guess. All of his feelings about it went into his work. If he had "recovered", or "worked it out" in his mind, then he might not have written Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, et al.) He was a perpetual outsider. He was on the run from his past. He was able to "get out" of the past ... his sister Rose was not. The guilt of that never left him. The guilt of being "the one" who was able to live in the real world dogged him at every turn. If one was "happy", if one was able to manuever thru a world that lobotomized some of its most sensitive members, then "happiness" required some kind of a hard outer shell - a shell that Tennessee himself lacked, that other "sensitives" (his word) lacked. He did not begrudge people their happiness ... he just didn't understand it. He couldn't get "in there", ever. Again, this is kind of a blessing, at least as far as we are concerned - merely because that sort of baffled response to how on earth to LIVE in this world ... is the emotional place from which he wrote all of his plays.

He WAS Blanche. He WAS Tom in Glass Menagerie. He WAS Alma. He WAS Maggie. All of these people, these "sensitives", trying to make their way through, trying to bear up under disappointments and cruelty ... trying to SURVIVE.

Again and again, Williams reiterated that he never wrote about victims. He didn't see any of these people as victims. He saw them as survivors. Beautiful triumphant survivors.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you - gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.

-- Tennessee Williams

The Blache DuBois', the Laura Wingfields, the Miss Almas ... these are sensitive people, deeply wounded people, on the edge of shattering - just like his sister Rose did. Of course blatant casual "happiness" would be seen as insensitive through their eyes.

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

-- Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams is one of my own personal heroes, for more reasons than one, and I am aware (on a pretty much daily basis) of how grateful I am to him for his plays. In the same way that I am pretty much always conscious of being grateful that there was a Shakespeare, and that we have his works with us today. I still read Tennessee Williams plays now, over and over, reading them countless times, never ever getting tired of them, never ever feeling like all my questions are answered.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.

-- Tennessee Williams

And I'll leave you with another really telling and beautiful anecdote, this one from Elia Kazan. I LOVE this, because it says to me, in no uncertain terms, why Tennessee Williams is a god among playwrights - and why he is so unusual. Nobody else can touch him, really. I love Arthur Miller's plays, but there's always a social conscience in them which can get preachy and tiresome if it's not controlled. Death of a Salesman has a perfect balance, but his later plays have the feeling of pamphlets.

Tennessee Williams has none of that. There is no "social conscience" in his plays. There is no deeper social criticism going on. Perhaps the only "criticism" that Tennessee consistently levels at "society" is the way it treats the "sensitives".

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

-- Tennessee Williams

Here's the setup for the excerpt I want to post (which has to do with the rehearsals and also the opening of Streetcar Named Desire):

Jessica Tandy, who originated Blanche on Broadway, was already a celebrated actress. Marlon Brando was practically unknown. Kazan noticed which way the wind was blowing during rehearsals, and it concerned him on many levels.

Basically what was happening was that Marlon Brando was acting Jessica Tandy off the stage. Without breaking a sweat, Brando stole the show right out from under her. Jessica Tandy fought to keep her ground (which, actually, is perfect for the theme of the show and for the character of Blanche Dubois), but Kazan's main concern was that Blanche would turn into a laughable character and lose the sympathy of the audience. Kazan was worried that the audience, because of Brando's undeniable stage presence, and the electricity of his acting, would completely side with Stanley, and not have any sympathy for Blanche at all. This, Kazan felt, would be a disaster. Stanley rapes Blanche. This event must be seen as horrifyingly wrong, not as Blanche getting what she deserves. But Brando's power took over the play, it was a runaway train, it wasn't a matter of him playing Stanley as sympathetic - he wasn't. It was just that he was a force to be reckoned with, a powerhouse - you couldn't take your eyes off him. Jessica Tandy barely registered, when she was beside him.

Here's a photo from that production: Brando, Kim Hunter, and Tandy:

And so Kazan feared, as rehearsals went on, that the balance of the play was off.

Here's what Kazan wrote about all of this in his marvelous autobiography.

It is Tennessee Williams' "advice" to Kazan at the end that really packs a punch:

But what had been intimated in our final rehearsals in New York was happening. The audiences adored Brando. When he derided Blanche, they responded with approving laughter. Was the play becoming the Marlon Brando Show? I didn't bring up the problem, because I didn't know the solution. I especially didn't want the actors to know that I was concerned. What could I say to Brando? Be less good? Or to Jessie? Get better? ...

Louis B. Mayer sought me out to congratulate me and assure me that we'd all make a fortune ... He urged me to make the author do one critically important bit of rewriting to make sure that once that "awful woman" who'd come to break up that "fine young couple's happy home" was packed off to an institution, the audience would believe that the young couple would live happily ever after. It never occurred to him that Tennessee's primary sympathy was with Blanche, nor did I enlighten him ... His misguided reaction added to my concern. I had to ask myself: Was I satisfied to have the performance belong to Marlon Brando? Was that what I'd intended? What did I intend? I looked to the author. He seemed satisfied. Only I -- and perhaps Hume [Cronyn, Tandy's husband] -- knew that something was going wrong ...

What astonished me was that the author wasn't concerned about the audience's favoring Marlon. That puzzled me because Tennessee was my final authority, the person I had to please. I still hadn't brought up the problem, I was waiting for him to do it. I got my answer ... because of something that happened in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, across the hall from my suite, where Tennessee and Pancho were staying. [Pancho was Tennessee's boyfriend - or maybe it was more of a f*** buddy situation. Pancho was a huge presence in Tennessee's life. They had a really volatile relationship.] One night I heard a fearsome commotion from across the hall, curses in Spanish, threats to kill, the sound of breaking china ... and a crash ... As I rushed out into the corridor, Tennessee burst through his door, looking terrified, and dashed into my room. Pancho followed, but when I blocked my door, he turned to the elevator still cursing, and was gone. Tennessee slept on the twin bed in my room that night. The next morning, Pancho had not returned.

I noticed that Wiilliams wasn't angry at Pancho, not even disapproving -- in fact, when he spoke about the incident, he admired Pancho for his outburst. At breakfast, I brought up my worry about Jessie and Marlon. "She'll get better," Tennessee said, and then we had our only discussion about the direction of his play. "Blanche is not an angel without a flaw," he said, "and Stanley's not evil. I know you're used to clearly stated themes, but this play should not be loaded one way or the other. Don't try to simplify things." Then he added, "I was making fun of Pancho, and he blew up." He laughed. I remembered the letter he'd written me before we started rehearsals, remembered how, in that letter, he'd cautioned me against tipping the moral scales against Stanley, that in the interests of fidelity I must not present Stanley as a "black-dyed villain". "What should I do?" I asked. "Nothing," he said. "Don't take sides or try to present a moral. When you begin to arrange the action to make a thematic point, the fidelity to life will suffer. Go on working as you are. Marlon is a genius, but she's a worker and she will get better. And better."

Here is the review of the premiere of Streetcar Named Desire, in New York City, December 3, 1947.

December 4, 1947

FIRST NIGHT AT THE THEATRE by Brooks Atkinson

Tennessee Williams has brought us a superb drama, "A Streetcar Named Desire," which was acted at the Ethel Barrymore last evening. And Jessica Tandy gives a superb performance as a rueful heroine whose misery Mr. Williams is tenderly recording. This must be one of the most perfect marriages of acting and playwriting. For the acting and playwriting are perfectly blended in a limpid performance, and it is impossible to tell where Miss Tandy begins to give form and warmth to the mood Mr. Williams has created.

Like "The Glass Menagerie," the new play is a quietly woven study of intangibles. But to this observer it shows deeper insight and represents a great step forward toward clarity. And it reveals Mr. Williams as a genuinely poetic playwright whose knowledge of people is honest and thorough and whose sympathy is profoundly human.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" is history of a gently reared Mississippi young woman who invents an artificial world to mask the hideousness of the world she has to inhabit. She comes to live with her sister, who is married to a rough-and-ready mechanic and inhabits two dreary rooms in a squalid neighborhood. Blanche - for that is her name - has delusions of grandeur, talks like an intellectual snob, buoys herself up with gaudy dreams, spends most of her time primping, covers things that are dingy with things that are bright and flees reality.

To her brother-in-law she is an unforgiveable liar. But it is soon apparent to the theatregoer that in Mr. Williams' eyes she is one of the dispossessed whose experience has unfitted her for reality; and although his attitude toward her is merciful, he does not spare her or the playgoer. For the events of "Streetcar" lead to a painful conclusion which he does not try to avoid. Although Blanche cannot face the truth, Mr. Williams does in the most imaginative and perceptive play he has written.

Since he is no literal dramatist and writes in none of the conventional forms, he presents theatre with many problems. Under Elia Kazan's sensitive but concrete direction, the theatre solved them admirably. Jo Mielziner has provided a beautifully lighted single setting that lightly sketches the house and the neighborhood. In this shadowy environment the performance is a work of great beauty.

Miss Tandy has a remarkably long part to play. She is hardly ever off the stage, and when she is on stage she is almost constantly talking -- chattering, dreaming aloud, wondering, building enchantments out of words. Miss Tandy is a trim, agile actress with a lovely voice and quick intelligence. Her performance is almost incredibly true. For it does seem almost incredible that she can convey it with so many shades and impulses that are accurate, revealing and true.

The rest of the acting is also of very high quality indeed. Marlon Brando as the quick-tempered, scornful, violent mechanic; Karl Malden as a stupid but wondering suitor; Kim Hunter as the patient though troubled sister -- all act not only with color and style but with insight.

By the usual Broadway standards, "Streetcar Named Desire" is too long; not all those words are essential. But Mr. Williams is entitled to his own independence. For he has not forgotten that human beings are the basic subject of art. Out of poetic imagination and ordinary compassion he has spun a poignant and luminous story.

We are lucky in this country that we have produced such a playwright. We are lucky to have all of his plays in the canon. I can't imagine my life without them.

Happy birthday, Tom.

Tennessee Williams said the following, in a 1981 interview - only a couple of years before he passed away:

"I'm very conscious of my decline in popularity, but I don't permit it to stop me because I have the example of so many playwrights before me. I know the dreadful notices Ibsen got. And O'Neill -- he had to die to make 'Moon' successful. And to me it has been providential to be an artist, a great act of providence that I was able to turn my borderline psychosis into creativity -- my sister Rose did not manage this. So I keep writing. I am sometimes pleased with what I do -- for me, that's enough."

Sarah Bernhardt ...

Holy shit - listen to this story Ms. Baroque relates about Sarah Bernhardt - who died on this day in 1923. Incredible.

One of my favorite possessions is a black and white portrait of Sarah Bernhardt - in profile - that my father gave me. I had it framed in a nice burnished silver frame, old-fashioned looking. I adore it. I didn't know that story, though. I'm so glad I do now.

The Books: "Like Life" - 'Joy' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Like Life, by Lorrie Moore. Excerpt from the story 'Joy'.

Somehow Lorrie Moore manages to convey deep loneliness without going on and on about it in a relentless way. Her characters are not openly depressed - they strive, they crack jokes, they say inappropriate things that don't go over well, they obsess about OTHER thing - not their loneliness ... but the cumulative effect is that you ache for them. In 'Joy' we meet Jane, a woman who works in a cheese shop. Her cat has fleas, so much of the story involves her taking her cat back and forth to the vet. She also loves music and was in the choir in high school. During the course of the story, Bridey - a girl she went to high school with - comes into the shop - and they recognize one another and re-connect. Kind of. Bridey is married with kids. Jane is not married, and you can tell that she doesn't have much experience in the love arena. There was one guy ... but that didn't work out. Bridey was in choir with Jane and she actually has joined a local choir. There's undercurrents here, you can start to feel them. My experience as a reader is I hear about Jane going back and forth to the vet, and all I want her to do is drop everything and go try out for that choir, too - because she loves music and she should have a happier life! But that's not the way things go, sometimes. She ends up coming to a rehearsal of the choir with Bridey but just the way Moore writes about that - it's embarrassing. You're embarrassed for Jane. She's not supposed to be there. The choir director asks her to leave. Jane is not a mopey type of person, she's optimistic, in a weird way (the excerpt below shows that) ... but something's missing in her life. Something went wrong somewhere. Jane can't re-trace her steps to find out where she took the wrong path. So she goes back to the cheese shop. She does her job. She does the best she can. Tiny moments. Lorrie Moore writes about tiny moments that contain revelations. And sometimes even the characters themselves don't "get" the revelations. But we do.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Like Life, by Lorrie Moore. Excerpt from the story 'Joy'.

This particular morning she had to bring her cat in before eight. The dogs came in at eight-o-five, and the vet liked the cats to get there earlier, so there would be no commotion. Jane's cat actually liked dogs, was curious about them, didn't mind at all observing them from the safety of someone's arms. So Jane didn't worry too much about the eight o'clock rule, and if she got there late, because of traffic or a delayed start on the coffee she needed two cups to simply get dressed in the morning, no one seemed to mind. They only commented on how well-behaved her cat was.

It usually took fifteen minutes to get to the west side, such was the sprawl of the town, and Jane played the radio loudly and sang along: "I've forgotten more than she'll ever know about you." At red lights she turned to reassure the cat, who lay chagrined and shedding in the passenger's seat. Ahead of them a station wagon moved slowly, and Jane noticed in the back of it a little girl waving and making faces out the rear window. Jane waved and made faces back, sticking out her tongue when the little girl did, pulling strands of hair into her face, and winking dramatically first on one side and then the other. After several blocks, Jane noticed, however, that the little girl was not really looking at her but just generally at the traffic. Jane re-collected her face, pulled in her tongue, straightened her hair. But the girl's father, at the wheel, had already spied Jane in his rearview mirror, and was staring, appalled. He slowed down to get a closer look, then picked up speed to get away.

Jane got in the other lane and switched stations on the radio, found a song she liked, something wistful but with a beat. She loved to sing. At home she had the speakers hooked up in the kitchen and would stand at the sink with a hollow-handled sponge filled with dish detergent and sing and wash, sing and rinse. She sang "If the Phone Don't Ring, I Know It's You" and "What Love Is to a Dove". She blasted her way through "Jump Start My Heart", humming on the verses she didn't know. She liked all kinds of music. When she was a teenager she had believed that what the Muzac station played on the radio was "classical music", and to this day here tastes were generous and unjudging - she just liked to get into the song. Most of the time she tried not to worry about whether people might hear her, though an embarrassing thing had happened recently when her landlord had walked into the house, thinking she wasn't home, and caught her sing-speaking in an English accent. "Excuse me," said the landlord. "I'm sorry."

"Oh," she said in reply. "I was just practicing for the - Are you here to check the fuse box?"

"Yes," said the landlord, wondering who it was these days he was renting his houses out to.

Jane had once, briefly, lived in western Oregon but had returned to the Midwest when she and her boyfriend out there had broken up. He was a German man who made rocking horses and jungle gyms and who had been, like her, new to the community. His English was at times halting and full of misheard vernacular, things like "get town" and "to each a zone". One time, when she'd gotten all dressed up to go to dinner, he told her she looked "hunky-dorky". He liked to live dangerously, always driving around town with his gas tank on E. "Pick a lane and do stay in it," he yelled at other drivers. He made the worst coffee Jane had ever tasted, muddy and burned, but she drank it, and stayed long hours in his bed on Sundays. But after a while he took to going out without her, not coming home until two a.m. She started calling him late at night, letting the phone ring, then driving around town looking for his car, which she usually found in front of a tavern somewhere. It had not been like her to do things like this, but knowing that the town was small enough for her to do it, she found it hard to resist. Once she had gotten into the car and started it up, it was as if she had crashed through a wall, gone from one room with rules to another room with no rules. When she found his car, she would go into the tavern, and if she discovered him at the bar with his arm flung loosely around some other woman, she would tap him on the shoulder and say, "Who's the go-go girl?" Then she'd pour beer onto his legs. She was no longer herself. She had become someone else, a wild West woman, bursting into saloons, the swinging doors flipping behind her. Soon, she thought, bartenders might fear her. Soon they might shout out warnings, like sailors facing a storm: Here she comes! And so, after a while, she left Oregon and came back here alone. She rented a house, got a job first at Karen's Stout Shoppe, which sold dresses to overweight women, then later at the cheese store in the Marshall Field's mall.

For a short time she mourned him, believing he had anchored her, had kept her from floating off into No Man's Land, that land of midnight cries and pets with too many little toys, but now she rarely thought of him. She knew there were only small joys in life - the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through - and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off. You could put the pressure aside, like a child's game, its box ripped to flaps at the corners. You could stick it in some old closet and forget about it.

In praise of Joan Crawford

The Siren has an awesome tribute post up - chock-full of her observations, thoughts, and a ton of links. I totally agree that it is time for a real revival, time to take another look at this American icon. ((Oh, and in case you miss them - the comments to The Siren's post on Crawford are fantastic. Her comments section is always an incredible place to hang out.)

I'm late to the Joan Crawford party - but that is due entirely to my own shortcomings. Alex made sure I got over it. Thank God.

Here are my thoughts on Sudden Fear, which I think is one of Crawford's best performances. Anyone who has a preconceived notion of Crawford's talent, only from Baby Jane and Mommie Dearest seriously needs to see Sudden Fear to see an actress at the top of her (and anyone else's) game. Wow.

And here's the review I wrote for Daisy Kenyon, starring Henry Fonda and Joan Crawford - another fantastic performance from Crawford. My thoughts on what happened to Crawford's reputation, and how unfair it has been, ultimately, are in that review.

David Lean

Peter Nellhaus has some thoughts on David Lean in honor of his 100th birthday.

Last year, I wrote about Maurice Jarre's tribute concert to David Lean - which was just released on DVD (I highly recommend it.) Maurice Jarre, a French composer, did the scores to 4 of Lean's films - music we all now would recognize. My thoughts on Maurice Jarre, David Lean, and the tribute concert here. Favorite quote: Lean to Jarre: "You have to give me the missing monkeys with your music."

The Eyes of Laura Mars

A terrifically written insightful review. Makes me want to see the film again.

Shelagh Carter: Rifting/Blue

My dear friend Shelagh Carter, director (stage, film), actress, teacher, just all-around awesome person - was asked to submit a short experimental film she directed to an Italian film festival, which then led to an online film festival: Babelgum Online Film Festival. There are entries from filmmakers all over the world. It's pretty awesome. Her film Rifting/Blue can be viewed, in part, here. More about the film festival here. And they are asking you (as in: the folks online) to vote (instructions on how to do so is there on that main page).

You can leave comments, share your favourites, learn more about the jury members and honorary judge Spike Lee and of course cast your vote in all seven categories.

So go and vote!!

Shelagh's one of those people who says things like, "Yeah, there's this huge grant for new film-makers ... and the competition is insane, but whatever, I decided on a lark to apply for it - and I got it!" I love that about her. She's one of those people who just says "Yes". To everything.

Good work, Shelagh!

The Books: "Like Life" - 'Vissi D'Arte' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Like Life, by Lorrie Moore. Excerpt from the story 'Vissi D'Arte'.

Poor Harry. Harry is a playwright who lives in New York City. He won a contest 4 years ago - something like "Three Playwrights Under Thirty" - playwrights to watch in the future. He had had his picture in The NY Times and it was a big deal. Since then, nothing really has happened for him. He lives in an apartment above a peep show - and he has been writing the same play for 4 years now. He thinks it will be his masterpiece. But everything has started to fall apart around him. His girlfriend Breckie is fed up with the aimless poor life they live - and moves to the Upper West Side, where she won't have to stroll through hookers and junkies to get into her own foyer. Harry keeps struggling, keeps writing. But his apartment now seems to take on a vaguely malevolent life of its own. Trucks line up below on the street at dawn, and rev their engines endlessly. Harry starts to lose sleep. The sink backs up and floods the room. And he also has plantar's warts. Things are not going well. Director-friends call him to have meetings, about what he might be working on ... but Harry is now so far removed from actual real-world productivity that he has a hard time even getting thru the meetings, and says things like, "I am primitively secret about what I'm working on." You really like Harry, even though the way I'm describing him makes him sound like a sad sack. He's certainly not someone I would want to date, for example ... but I like him. He has lost his way. He thinks back to that miraculous moment in his life when his picture - HIS picture - was in The NY Times and ... it seemed like something miraculous might happen! But now ... it's been 4 years ... he's no longer "under thirty" ... and nothing has happened. He writes, though - he writes his play all the time. It drives his friends and his now ex-girlfriend crazy. Any conversation they have with him loops back to the play, even if it is not explicitly mentioned. Harry is a one-note kind of guy. In the same way that he starts obsessing about the trucks outside his apartment (he calls the police multiple times, he shouts out the window, he wonders why they have showed up NOW ... what are those trucks doing there?) ... he obsesses about his plantar warts, he obsesses about his apartment ...Early on in the story he has a meeting with a director from LA. The director is fawning, kind of fake, but also really takes an interest in Harry. It seems like things might be about to shift, the ice might be about to break up.

I chose this excerpt because I absolutely love how Lorrie Moore writes about New York City. She articulates a certain energy the city has, a specific energy, perfectly. I just relish her words.

EXCERPT FROM Like Life, by Lorrie Moore. Excerpt from the story 'Vissi D'Arte'.

There is a way of walking in New York, midevening, in the big, blocky East Fifties, that causes the heart to open up and the entire city to rush in and make a small town there. The city stops its painful tantalizing then, its elusiveness and tease suspended, it takes off its clothes and nestles wakefully, generously, next to you. It is there, it is yours, no longer outwitting you. And it is not scary at all, because you love it very much.

"Ah," said Harry. He gave money to the madman who was always singing in front of Carnegie Hall, and not that badly either, but who for some reason was now on the East Side, in front of something called Carnegie Clothes. He dropped coins in the can of the ski-capped woman propped against the Fuller Building, the woman with the pet rabbit and potted plants and the sign saying, I HAVE JUST HAD BRAIN SURGERY, PLEASE HELP ME. "Thank you, dear," she said, glancing up, and Harry thought she looked, startlingly, sexy. "Have a nice day," she said, though it was night.

Harry descended into the subway, his usual lope invigorated to a skip. His play was racing through him: He had known it was good, but now he really knew. Glen Scarp had listened, amazed, and when he had laughed, Harry knew that all his instincts and choices in those lovely moments over the last four years, carefully mining and sculpting the play, had been right. His words could charm the jaded Hollywood likes of a Glen Scarp; soon those words, some lasting impression of them, might bring him a ten- or even twenty-thousand-dollar television episode to write, and after that he would never have to suffer again. It would just be him and Breckie and his play. A life that was real. They would go out and out and out to eat.

The E train rattled west, then stopped, the lights flickering. Harry looked at the Be a Stenographer ad across from him and felt the world was good, that despite the flickering lights, it basically, amazingly, worked. A man pushed into the car at the far end. "Can you help feed me and my hungry kids?" he shouted, holding out a paper cup, and moving slowly down Harry's side of the car. People placed quarters in the cup or else stared psychotically into the reading material on their laps and did not move or turn a page.

Suddenly a man came into the car from the opposite end. "Pay no attention to that man down there," he called to the riders. "I'm the needy one here!" Harry turned to look and saw a shabbily dressed man with a huge sombrero. He had electric Christmas tree lights strung all around the brim and just above it, like some chaotic hatband. He flicked a button and lit them up so that they flashed around his head, red, green, yellow. The train was still stopped, and the flickering overheads had died altogether, along with the sound of the engine. There was only the dull hum of the ventilating system and the light show from the sombrero. "I am the needy one here," he reiterated in the strangely warm dark. "My name is Lothar, and I have come from Venus to arrest Ronald Reagan. He is an intergalactic criminal and needs to be taken back to my planet and made to stand trial. I have come here to see that that is done, but my spaceship has broken down. I need your assistance so that I can get it done."

"Amen!" someone calleld out.

"Yahoo," shouted Henry.

"Can you help me, people, earthlings. I implore you. Anything you can spare will aid me in my goal." The Christmas tree lights zipped around his head, people started to applaud, and everyone dug into their wallets to give money. When the lights came on, and the train started to go again, even the man with the hungry kids was smiling reluctantly, though he did say to Lothar, "Man, I thought this was my car." When the train pulled into Forty-second Street, people got off humming, slapping high fives, low fives, though the station smelled of piss.

Harry's happiness lasted five days, Monday through Friday, like a job. On Saturday he awoke in a funk. The phone had not rung. The mail had brought him no letters. The apartment smelled faintly of truck and sewage. He went out to breakfast and ordered the rice pudding, but it came with a cherry.

"What is this?" he asked the waiter. "You didn't use to do this."

"Maraschino eyeballs." The waiter smiled. "We just started putting them on. You wanna whipped cream, too?"

When he went back home, not Deli but a homeless woman in a cloth coat and sneakers was sitting in his doorway. He reached into his pocket to give her some change, but she looked away.

"Excuse me," he said. "I just have to get by here." He took out his keys.

The woman stood up angrily, grabbing her shopping bags. "No, really, you can sit here," said Harry. "I just need to get by you to get in."

"Thanks a lot!" shouted the woman. Her teeth were gray in the grain, like old wood. "Thanks!"

"Come back!" he called. "It's perfectly OK!" But the woman staggered halfway down the block, turned, and started screaming at him. "Thanks for all you've done for me! I really appreciate it! I really appreciate everything you've done for me my whole life!"

Terror on the road, part 1

Alex ... on her way to a show ... has a tire explode beneath her. !!! Thank God you're okay!

Naturally, all I can do now is think of when the brakes went while I was driving Alex's car ... and how I still thank God I'm alive when I ponder that moment of pushing through 2 lanes of traffic with no brakes so at least I could glide to a stop near the Hollywood Bowl!

The failing-brakes moment, in all its terror, was just the beginning of one of the weirdest longest funniest days of my life - a day which involved incessant Armenians, jazz hands, and e-meters, and ended with a dead body in a pool of blood and Alex and I hiding in her apartment, peeking out through the blinds at the swarm of cop cars. Welcome to Los Angeles!

Multi-part story below. I still laugh out loud when I remember Alex's shrieking voice on the other end of the phone - and then seeing her in the back seat of a cab, coming down the freeway to get me, with her damn hair-extension scrunchy bouncing around on top of her head.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Irish authors

An article about the state of Irish fiction right now. An interesting look at the different generations, and what's going on now (and how the Celtic Tiger, so to speak, is influencing how Irish literature is perceived).

I just read Christine Falls by Benjamin Black (John Banville's pseudonym) - and am very much looking forward to reading the sequel, entitled Silver Swan - especially after reviews like this one:

... Benjamin Black's The Silver Swan, about which Tim Rutten in the LA Times urged: "Go directly home. If you live with others, send them away. Pour yourself a quiet drink and settle into your best chair for an authentic dose of Irish angst and wit, wondrous writing and about as undiluted an evening's pleasure as reading can provide."

Christine Falls was fantastic - I so recommend it. Dublin in the 1950s, a haunted vaguely alcoholic coroner named Quirke, a dead girl, the Magdalen laundries (which you never could have written about even 20 years ago in Ireland) - the sweep of the Catholic Church's influence - and also just the feel of Dublin, pre-economic boom. An evocative gripping book. It's got it all. Can't wait to read the next one.

Very interesting article. I know most of the names, of course - but there are a couple of new ones I'll have to check out.

The Books: "Like Life" - 'Two Boys' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Like Life by Lorrie Moore - another short story collection, her second, I believe. There are only eight stories here, but each one is a magnificently specific experience - nobody like Lorrie Moore. Her stories are always about the minutia (although sometimes there are big life-shaking moments) - and yet they add up to a much greater picture, an image of loss, love, the absurdity of being grown up, the necessity of putting-on-happy-face - and yet also the ridiculous-ness of the very same thing. I can't quite explain it - all I know is that nobody quite writes like her. I can say a similar thing about Annie Proulx, whose short stories are heads and shoulders above pretty much everyone else writing now - but there the similarities end. Proulx's stories are expansive, and filled with silence. Maybe there's some wind. Or thunder. But most of all there is the silence. Lorrie Moore's stories are filled with chatter. Inane, pretentious sometimes, heartbreaking, ridiculous - these people sound real to me. I have met them. And sometimes a nervous breakdown is NOT presaged with a long period of weeping and gloominess. Sometimes a nervous breakdown comes after a prolonged period of enforced cheer (sometimes self-enforced). Lorrie Moore writes about THAT.

The first story in this gorgeous collection is called 'Two Boys'. A serious and rather nervous woman named Mary is seeing two men at the same time. For the first time in her life. Neither of them have names in the story - they are referred to as Number One and Number Two. Number One is married, on the way to being separated from his wife. Number Two is a bit more adrift, maybe more centered - but also a bit of a loser. He has no car, for example. Mary is not a seductress. She sits in the park by herself reading religious poetry, and has semi-disturbing conversations with the same 11 year old girl who hangs out in the park. Those conversations drift alongside her two relationships. There seems to be no connection, but of course there is. Mary is realizing that having two men just makes you twice as lonely, as opposed to twice as fulfilled. Her friends are all jealous, and send her postcards with notes on it like, "You hog!" Mary is sweet. She is not a nag, or a needy person. Not openly needy anyway. To make real demands of either Number One or Number Two is totally outside her character. So for now, she drifts from one to the other. Trying to walk steady, trying to read her poetry in between times, trying to still have a life.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Like Life by Lorrie Moore - 'Two Boys'

IN THE PARK an eleven-year-old girl loped back and forth in front of her. Mary looked up. The girl was skinny, flat-chested, lipsticked. She wore a halter top that left her bare-backed, shoulder blades jutting like wings. She spat once, loud and fierce, and it landed by Mary's feet. "Message from outer space," said the girl, and then she strolled off, out of the park. Mary tried to keep reading, but it was hard after that. She grew distracted and uneasy, and she got up and went home, stepping through the blood water and ignoring the meat men, who, when they had them on, tipped their hair-netted caps. Everything came forward and back again, in a wobbly dance, and when she went upstairs she held on to the railing.

THIS WAS WHY she liked Boy Number Two: He was kind and quiet, like someone she'd known for a long time, like someone she'd sat next to at school. He looked down and told her he loved her, sweated all over her, and left his smell lingering around her room. Number One was not a sweater. He was compact and had no pores at all, the heat building up behind his skin. Nothing of him evaporated. He left no trail or scent, but when you were with him, the heat was there and you had to touch. You got close and lost your mind a little. You let it swim. Out in the middle of the sea on a raft. Nail parings and fish.

When he was over, Number Two liked to drink beer and go to bed early, whimpering into her, feet dangling over the bed. He gave her long back rubs, then collapsed on top of her in a moan. He was full of sounds. Words came few and slow. They were never what he meant, he said. He had a hard time explaining.

"I know," said Mary. She had learned to trust his eyes, the light in them, sapphirine and uxorious, though on occasion something drove through them in a scary flash.

"Kiss me," he would say. And she would close her eyes and kiss.

SOMETIMES in her mind she concocted a third one, Boy Number Three. He was composed of the best features of each. It was Boy Number Three, she realized, she desired. Alone, Number One was rich and mean. Number Two was sighing, repetitive, tall, going on forever; you just wanted him to sit down. It was inevitable that she splice and add. One plus two. Three was clever and true. He was better than everybody. Alone, Numbers One and Two were missing parts, gouged and menacing, roaming dangerously through the emerald parks of Cleveland, shaking hands with voters, or stooped moodily over a chili dog. Number Three always presented himself in her mind after a drink or two, like an escort, bearing gifts and wearing a nice suit. "Ah, Number Three," she would say, with her eyes closed.

"I love you," Mary said to Number One. They were being concupines together in his apartment bedroom, lit by streetlights, rescued from ordinary living.

"You're very special," he replied.

"You're very special, too," said Mary. "Though I suppose you'd be even more special if you were single."

"That would make me more than special," said Number One. "That would make me rare. We're talking unicorn."

"I love you," she said to Number Two. She was romantic that way. Her heart was big and bursting. Though her brain was dying and subdividing like a cauliflower. She called both boys "honey", and it shocked her a little. How many honeys could you have? Perhaps you could open your arms and have so many honeys you achieved a higher spiritual plane, like a shelf in a health food store, or a pine tree, mystically inert, life barking at the bottom like a dog.

"I love you, too," said Two, the hot lunch of him lifting off his skin in a steam, a slight choke in the voice, collared and sputtering.

When the going gets tough ...

... hunker down with family.

Dye some eggs. Laugh. Talk. Share. Be together.

I am thankful for my family. I love them all more than words can say.

Photos below.

Setting the stage

....

Boiling the eggs.

The stuff!

The palette we have to work with.

Almost ready!

Ready to dye!!

The dyeing of the eggs

.....

Let's get started.

One down ....

Yellow!

Soaking eggs ...

Blue! I like this one because the table is glass so it looks like the bowl of eggs and the cup of dye is floating in suspension.

Getting there ...

Double-dipping. Cashel is making a half-yellow half-green egg.

Almost done!

All done!

Our finished products

....

Father egg

by Brendan. I particularly like his suit and tie. And his alarmed expression.

Mother egg

by Me. Her hair was meant to be yellow but it turned out sickly chlorine green. Cashel and I decided that she had had a "mishap" at her hairdressers. She also looks vaguely like that singing grapefruit from days of yore on Sesame Street.

Son egg

by Cashel. The red dots are NOT supposed to be chickenpox - I actually forget what they are supposed to be, but Cashel and I both decided that he had a bad case of the pox. You can't really stick with the plan in your HEAD when it comes to Easter egg design. You have to just go with how it comes out.

Daughter egg

by Me. She's home from college break. She has dyed her hair blue and says stuff like, "Everyone is so conventional." Cashel said, "She probably says that everything is 'so lame'." Exactly!!

The father's boss

by Cashel. (I love how old-fashioned gender roles are alive and well in the Easter Egg world. Mother in pearls and a hairdo, father in suit and tie who works for "The Man" ...) Also, I think the boss is awesome. He's dissatisfied. Aren't all bosses??

The Cyclops next-door neighbor

By Bren. I find him downright demonic.

Our nod to tradition.

By Bren.

The earth.

By Me. I realize that South America is WAY too low and that I have added some strange appendage to Baja ... but I did my best. And please notice that I have included Easter Island. I said to the group, "I'm putting Easter Island on now" and Cashel literally put his head down onto the table and started shaking with laughter, saying, "You're going into that much detail?" Nothing better (and I mean NOTHING) than making Cashel laugh like that.

Our group experiment.

This one was dyed in a mixture of ALL the different dyes as well as splashes of seltzer and orange juice.

Bon voyage

Mitchell is off, as of tomorrow, onto a 4-month cruise around the Mediterranean and also up the coast along the Atlantic - performing in a Second City show on the cruise ship. They will go to Istanbul, Athens, Alexandria, Morocco, Rome, where else ... Portugal ... oh, and 3 stops in Ireland ... and also Norway. Like: WTF?? Mitchell's never been out of the United States and now he's doing this? To quote Jordan, "You can go straight to hell." We are all so so excited for our friend - what an opportunity - and although I don't see Mitchell nearly as much as I want, the thought of him being out of the country gives me separation anxiety. I can't wait until he comes home, basically - so that I know where he is, and don't have to imagine him ... oh, strolling thru the ruins in Athens, or smoking a hookah pipe with some sheikh in Morocco, a la Orson Welles. It's been a whirlwind for Mitchell - 3 weeks of rehearsal - he had just started rehearsal when I was in Chicago, and he had what he called "crazy eyes" the entire time. Kate said to me, "Have you seen the crazy eyes? How bad is it? I can't wait to see the crazy eyes!" Every day was a day of growth, challenge, fear, overcoming obstacles ... I am so proud of him! And also so jealous I could spit nails.

Bon voyage, dear Mitchell! I love you dearly!

"I figured I'd recount the tale of me, The Slug, and his mother's 1972 Cutlass Supreme Convertible..."

Johnny Virgil: Gearheads in Training, Part 1

I love his writing.

Just to give you a little more background on our relationship with this car: We would drive it in the middle of February with the top down just for fun, the heat on full-blast, huddled in the bubble of hot air behind the windshield. We'd do donuts on the ice patches in the mall parking lot, trying to slide sideways and hit the dry pavement fast enough to put the car up on two wheels. In the summer, The Slug would sit on the back of the front seat and steer with his feet while I worked the pedals with my hands based on his commands.

(Dad, if you're reading this, take off your coat and sit down. There's no need to drive to my house just to tell me what a disappointment I am and then take away my car keys for the rest of my life. I know it was horribly irresponsible, and I'm sorry. Also, driving that way successfully is a lot harder than it sounds.)

Diary Friday

Not a typical entry, and some of these quotes have made it onto the blog before. In the back of each journal I keep (and I don't really keep a journal anymore, but that's beside the point) - I list funny things people have said, quotes, etc - things I love and want to remember but don't necessarily want to write an entire entry about. Some of these quotes make me laugh so hard now that I can barely speak. It's even funnier to see them out of context. These quotes are all from 1997 - a big year. I was in the thick of grad school - acting - so it's ALL about acting for me (although many of these quotes have nothing to do with acting). My mentor at school, my greatest acting teacher and friend - is the "Sam" below - who shows up so repeatedly. Every Friday we had a horrifying workshop called the P/D Unit (the Playwriters/Directors Unit) - modeled on the same thing done at the Actors Studio. The playwrights in the program would bring in work they had been writing - the directors would be assigned (or jostle for positionn in front of projects they thought might have legs) - and the actors would be the guinea pigs. Some of these projects went on to great success - either as thesis projects, or as productions out in the real world. So the stakes were high - you couldn't be lackadaisacle in the PD Unit. You had to look around, figure out which projects were good - and do your best to be in them. Many times that was not difficult. Good plays are not a dime a dozen and most of the stuff we worked on in PD Unite was crap. But boy, there were a few gems. I was lucky enough to get into two of them - but not without a lot of sturm und drang and sleepless nights and all that. Ambition, you know. But you take a bunch of stressed out people - who spend the majority of their time with one another - and then you add the fact that everyone's an artist - and then you put them all in a room - for an entire day - where all you do is perform, and talk, and perform again ... it can make for some hilarity. Sam was the head of our PD Unit. The guy is a genius. But he also does not stand on ceremony. He had no problem with saying, after a scene was done, "Well, that really bored me." Because, when you think about it: boredom is very important. To quote John Strasberg, son of Lee Strasberg: "Boredom is very important in life. It lets you know when something is wrong." So when Sam was bored, he didn't think: "I am being rude, I need to pay better attention." No. Because who wants to see a play where you have to fight with your own boredom? Sam would be like, "That was boring. Let's find out what's wrong." He was hilarious, too. (Is, I should say).

Not all of these quotes are from the PD Unit - but the "Sam" ones always are. 1997. A crazy year.

My dear friends will recognize themselves here as well.

1997 QUOTES

"Do whatever you want to do. Just don't have a rod up your ass and think you're playing Shaw." - Sam

"Somebody needs to call him up and tell him he's an asshole!" - Maria W. on Scott Hamilton

"Are we still not allowed to be naked in school?" - Kara

"I'm glad you're back ... even though I didn't know you were gone." - Ann

"M. and I were not really made for public viewing. We were a private exhibit. Invitation Only." - Me

"Who the hell is Tex Watson?" - Barbara

"SLUGWORTH." - Ann

"When she styled it, I looked like Sylvia Plath in her college years." - Maria M.

"You mean ... Hamlet gets in the elevator ... but he won't go down?" - Leslie

"I need to get some new cuss words. I want to start using words like 'asshole' and 'bitch.'" - Stephen

"...his snowbeard penis." - Jackie

"Buhsh 'n Pudding ..." - Shelagh, trying to say "button pushing"

"Speaking of surly and disrespectful, where is Kara?" - Sam

Quote from Gingerbread Lady: "My apartment is on a sublet from Mary Todd Lincoln."

Sam: "If you do a high-class piece that lays an egg, no one will think: 'Boy, that's a high-class broad.'"

Sam: "I wouldn't care if you had them do it on pogo sticks."

Sam to D.: "To whatever degree you can get it up, try to create some authentic misery."

Sam: "Method acting the stereotype is eyeballing your partner, mumbling, breaking up your sentences in illogical ways. You can be 100% full of shit and be a Method actor."

Sam: "I studied with Strasberg for 21 years and I never felt that gave me the license to be an asshole."
Michael: "So where'd you get your license then?"

"So I want you to operate out of complete panic." - Gene

"I'm on a roll! I'm on a very second-rate roll here!" - Sam

"It's a great mistake to try to be original." - Sam

"Acting is not a relaxing job." - Sam

"So. You've just heard from the portobellos ..." - Sam

"I had a bolt of stress that you didn't know where he worked. Literally. I had a bolt of stress .... You know, for the coma contingency." - Ann

Me to Wade: "So I went to the Book Fair ..."
Wade burst into laughter.
Wade: "I love you, Sheila."
Me: "Oh, Wade. I love you too."

"If I could say goodbye to you in Rebus form I would ..." - Me to Ann

"I wish there was such a thing as Open Boob Night." - Brooke

"Where Alan Thicke meets Frankenstein ..." - Ann

"Will you marry me. Let's get married, Sheila." - Michael - Las Vegas. New Year's. 1997.

"And then Tim hugged me." Long pause. "Well, electronically." - Ann

"She puts marshmallows on brownies!" - Maria's indictment of Jo

"She then plunged a dagger into my heart. Literally. She impaled me with her horns." - Ann

"Honey Nut Clusters, steamed squash, and red wine ..." - Jen, describing our nights at home

"I always get cast as the eunuch or the fool." - John

Kevin: "I just said 'Fuck it'."
Pause.
Robert: "Which is Latin for 'Be Free!'"

"Relaxation should not be a spectacle." - Sam

Me: "What about Adam?"
Ann: "Oh please. That rumor has already been squelched."

"And then, of course, there was the Bo Deans debacle ..." - Me to Kate

"Hoffman's won Oscars playing morons and bums." - Sam

"Once you get to my stage, you have no standards, and you just feel grateful to still be standing here!" - Sam

"It seems to me, Rodney, that the importance of the hyoid bone is in having one." - Robert

Shelagh: "Isn't it true that Meryl Streep used to throw up before she used to go onstage?"
Cheryl: "Yeah, but that's because she was drunk."
Shelagh: "Oh! Okay! Thanks for clearing that up for me!"

"I am so charmed by him that I can barely sleep." - Mitchell on Scott Wolf

"Who do I have to fuck to get out of here is what I want to know." - Sam

"What am I - the Profiler?" - Mere

"This is so Cohort One." - Matt

Discussion about Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein:
Maria: "What annoyed me was that he called the movie 'Mary Shelley's Frankenstein' when it clearly should have been called 'My Chest.'"

"A half-hour where you stink is no great shakes." - Sam

Catharsis

I absolutely loved the honesty in this post. Thank you!

I cry all the time, so I don't have that particular situation - but his beautiful post made me think of my obsessions that come over me from time to time about certain actors (ahem, ahem, ahem) ... and how often those obsessions are harbingers of something else going on, something I am yearning to express, but can't ... indicators of loneliness, perhaps ... the fierceness of love that doesn't exist in my life ... it's like I am able to revert, when the obsessions are at their height - revert to a time when I could love like that with no fear, when I could just throw myself into the experience (or, to quote Ann Marie: "I will propel myself into the blazing star") - and there have been dark months (I have written about this before) when whatever obsession is going on has acted almost as a protective shield - or, no, that's not right. Let me put it another way.

The fall of 2007 was not easy for me. I walked around in psychic pain. But, running parallel to all of that, was my Dean Stockwell fantasia ... and in some way, it acted as a storage unit, that's more like it ... where I could protect the delicate open sensitive side of me - for safe keeping, when I might need it in the future. Everything else in me was exposed - raw, flayed nerves, waking up with a heavy heart, everything a trial. And make no mistake: things can be killed. For good. Things like hope, optimism, softness, joy. Those things are not to be taken for granted because I have met people in whom those things appear to have been killed forever. I couldn't just walk through the world, though, exposing my hope, optimism, joy ... well, first of all, because I couldn't find my way to them anyway. They were in hiding. They did not exist, as far as I was concerned. But as I watched every movie Dean Stockwell made, as I traveled to New Mexico to meet the man ... it was like I was taking huge chunks of myself, parts that I wanted to protect, and hiding them away ... knowing they would be safe where they were, for the time-being. I suppose if you have never had such an experience - this all might sound rather odd. And maybe even stalker fan-girl stuff. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something else. Catharsis. And the possibility thereof. Life is tough. I am in a struggle right now to just keep going, to not be submerged. And these movie-actor obsessions that sweep over me - usually once a year - have a way of safeguarding the precious, the sacred ... I am not fully conscious of the process, as in, I don't say to myself, "Hey, life is tough right now ... I think I'm long overdue for an obsession with an actor!" No. It always hits me unawares and it always hits me when I need it the most (looking back on it). Sometimes I can even mark a year by its obsession. "Oh, that was my Jeff Bridges year. I remember that." I've been doing this for years. Obviously it fills a deep deep void in me - and sometimes people get embarrassed for me (it's happened on the blog) - but not usually, because it seems that what I do is something that most of us do - to some degree, about something. If not about actors, then something else. Authors, motorcycles, classical music, military history, whatever. I am not sure what other obsessives think about what they are doing, but for me - it keeps things alive when the going gets rough. It's a way to hunker down. Again, none of this is conscious. I don't scream at myself, "Batten down the hatches! Storm a-blowin'! Take Hope, Joy and Optimism and hide them below decks - NOW!" No, it's more organic than that. Like the blogger above says - it serves a need - obviously a deep need. Something to think about, perhaps, when the storm passes.

And so I have Ralph Macchio, Harrison Ford, Sting, John Stamos (as Blackie Parrish on General Hospital, primarily), James Dean, Matthew Broderick, Mickey Rourke, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Dean Stockwell ... to thank, for helping me keep essential things not only safe, but alive. For when the storm passes. It's worked every time. There's always a bit of sadness in the obsessions, because I recognize what it is that I am missing ... what I have always missed, come to think of it ... but that's okay. A girl's gotta do what a girl's got to do.

I wasn't aware that Sean Hannity read me on a regular basis ...

.. but he must because I got an email last night about this photo - and the email said: "You posted a picture of the recruiting station but you didn't condemn the bombing. Why didn't you condemn it?"

Some people have wayyyyyyyyy too much time on their hands.

But then I read the emails that Dooce gets and they make my Sean Hannity email-er look like a wuss.

The Books: "Self-Help" - 'Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Self-Help by Lorrie Moore - a short story collection. Excerpt from 'Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love'

Many of the stories in Self Help are hard to excerpt - they are delicate, all of a piece - and if you pull one thread out the whole thing unravels. Many of them have a "gimmick", although I hesitate to call it that. Perhaps "device" would be better. One story (wrenching, I found it almost unreadable it was so sad) is told backwards, with years going down in number - what happend in 1980, 1979, 1978 - and each fragment has to do with the relationship the narrator has with her mother. So going backwards? You can imagine the nostalgia and pain ... because when you know the end, when you know how it ends ... it makes all the years of non-communication or petty fights or whatever seem so ridiculous. Like Emily at the end of Our Town. One story is called 'The Kids Guide to Divorce' - and it's told in the present tense, another "how to" story - like: "do this, do that ..." The stories are, like I said, delicate. Not fragile - just delicate.

'Amahl and the Night Visitors' is the story of a woman unraveling - during the Christmas season when her live-in boyfriend is playing Kaspar in a community theatre production of Amahl and the Night Visitors. Trudy narrates the story - and you can just tell - from her voice - that something is "off" with her. She is obsessed (literally) with her cat. It's a new cat. She is terrified to let the cat outside. She frets. She refuses to open the door. The cat takes up all her brain space. It's obvious that Trudy is afraid that Moss (her boyfriend, the "tenor of love" in the title) is having an affair with someone in the play ... she becomes obsessed with that, too. She is always saying the wrong thing. Moss has his community theatre friends over - and they all talk about the play - and Trudy tries to make jokes and contribute, but she's the kind of person who says something, and the entire room falls silent, everyone squirming with awkwardness. And Trudy doesn't know how to change that. What should she do? She has no sentimentality. It's not like she moons about the house, full of melancholy. Oh, no. Because then she wouldn't be a Lorrie Moore character. Trudy is, on the contrary, almost creepily cheerful. She decorates the house. She puts on a happy face. But then there's the ADD side of her personality. Trudy obsesses about her cat (and Moss, the boyfriend, has totally HAD it with the cat - he calls it names, he makes fun of it - he is so sick of Trudy's obsessive-ness) - she watches news programs and frets about nuclear winter - she becomes convinced that Bob (a lovely man, also in the opera) is in love with Moss ... she is just a MESS. And even though Moss can be cruel to Trudy, sometimes you think he has a point. No wonder why he sleeps over at Melchior's house (that's another funny thing - all of the cast members are referred to by their character names) ... he just needs to get away from Trudy's insistent WEIRD-ness which seems to obliquely have him as its focus at all times.

The story is from Trudy's point of view - but it's written in the "you" voice - which Moore uses a lot in the collection. "You walk down the street ..." So everything ends up sounding like bizarre instructions. It is an odd distancing device - which I really appreciate. It gives her stories clarity, focus. She's not too IN it ... she's outside it ... we are outside, too ... peeking in. This is not total immersion. Moore is about something else.

What I love most about Lorrie Moore's writing is her details. She just burrows right into somebody else's life ... and sees through that person's eyes. And not just sees - which is our most literal sense - but smells, remembers, touches, thinks ... Everyone is specific in a Lorrie Moore story. Her characters are not interchangeable. They are quirky - but not annoyingly so. Lorrie Moore is not "arch", she's not hip or clever - even though the way I am writing about her may give you that impression. She's fearless is what she is, and she writes how she wants to write. I read her stuff and it gives ME courage. I read her stuff and she inspires me to keep going, keep trying, keep honing in on my best way to write, to express. She holds a torch up for the rest of us.

Here's an excerpt. As you can see - each "entry" in the story takes place on a different day in December - so it ends up reading like a weird diary, or date-book.

EXCERPT FROM Self-Help by Lorrie Moore - a short story collection. Excerpt from 'Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love'

12/9 Two years ago when Moss first moved in, there was something exciting about getting up in the morning. You would rise, dress, and, knowing your lover was asleep in your bed, drive out into the early morning office and factory traffic, feeling that you possessed all things, Your Man, like a Patsy Cline song, at home beneath your covers, pumping blood through your day like a heart.

Now you have a morbid fascination with news shows. You get up, dress, flick on the TV, sit in front of it with a bowl of cereal in your lap, quietly curse all governments everywhere, get into your car, drive to work, wonder how the sun has the nerve to show its face, wonder why the world seems to be picking up speed, even old ladies pass you on the highway, why you don't have a single erotic fantasy that Moss isn't in, whether there really are such things as vitamins, and how would you rather die cancer or a car accident, the man you love, at home, asleep, like a heavy, heavy heart through your day.

"Goddamn slippers," says Morgan at work.

12/10 The cat now likes to climb into the bathtub and stand under the dripping faucet in order to clean herself. She lets the water bead up on her face, then wipes herself, neatly dislodging the gunk from her eyes.

"Isn't she wonderful?" you ask Moss.

"Yeah. Come here you little scumbucket," he says, slapping the cat on the haunches, as if she were a dog.

"She's not a dog, Moss. She's a cat."

"That's right. She's a cat. Remember that, Trudy."

12/11 The phone again. The ringing and hanging up.

12/12 Moss is still getting in very late. He goes about the business of fondling you, like someone very tired at night having to put out the trash and bolt-lock the door.

He sleeps with his arms folded behind his head, elbows protruding, treacherous as daggers, like the enemy chariot in Ben-Hur.

12/13 Buy a Christmas tree, decorations, a stand, and lug them home to assemble for Moss. Show him your surprise.

"Why are the lights all in a clump in the back?" he asks, closing the front door behind him.

Say: "I know. Aren't they great? Wait till you see me do the tinsel." Place handfuls of silver icicles, matted together like alfalfa sprouts, at the end of all the branches.

"Very cute," says Moss, kissing you, then letting go. Follow him into the bedroom. Ask how rehearsal went. He points to the kitty litter and sings: "'This is my box. I never travel without my box.' "

Say: "You are not a well man, Moss." Play with his belt loops.

12/14 The white fur around the cat's neck is growing and looks like a stiff Jacobean collar. "A rabato," says Moss, who suddenly seems to know these things. "When are we going to let her go outside?"

"Someday when she's older." The cat has lately taken to the front window the way a hypochondriac takes to a bed. When she's there she's more interested in the cars, the burled fingers of the trees, the occasional squirrel, the train tracks like long fallen ladders, than she is in you. Call her: "Here pootchy-kootchy-honey." Ply her, bribe her with food.

12/15 There are movies in town: one about Brazil, and one about sexual abandonment in upstate New York. "What do you say, Moss. Wanna go to the movies this weekend?"

"I can't," says Moss. "You know how busy I am."

12/16 The evening news is full of death: young marines, young mothers, young children. By comparison you have already lived forever. In a kind of heaven.

You can find beauty anywhere.

Even on a day trip to CNBC.

Entrance to George Washington Bridge. I mean, honestly. Isn't that beautiful??

Robert Walker: "Strangers On a Train"

"Criss-cross..." whispers Robert Walker, in Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers On A Train"

WARNING TO THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE: Spoilers abound - in the post as well as comments. Know this before you proceed.

It's been a Robert Walker theme over the past couple of weeks. Coincidentally, after seeing The Clock last week (post about it here) - the next film on the queue was Strangers On A Train, one of Hitchcock's best films. I'd seen it before, but it was years ago, so it was great - to leapfrog from The Clock, where Walker is sweet, funny, gentle ... to Strangers On a Train, where Walker is also sweet, funny, gentle ... only in this context, quite different, all of those qualities begin to seem quite sinister. Almost mad. Walker, famously, had had a nervous breakdown in real life - and was institutionalized for a couple of months - a year or so before the filming of Strangers On A Train. Walker has never been better (why is this actor so forgotten?) - and if you want an object lesson in how good he is as an actor - watch The Clock and Strangers On a Train back to back. It's almost unrecognizable, so hard to believe that it's the same guy - and he hasn't put on a funny nose, or glasses, or made himself appear different. He's put on weight, this is true ... but the real difference is what's happening inside. Not to get too deep, but it seems that Walker has even a different soul in this picture, as compared to The Clock. How do you switch souls?? Well, Walker did. Walker is tapping into something inside of him in Bruno Anthony - a quality, a feeling, an experience that he obviously had not been asked to tap into in roles before - and that is his madness. Walker has an element of madness in him. But his career was mainly as a young leading man, one of Hollywood's hot up-and-coming leads.

Here, though, Hitchcock - perhaps sensing the darkness behind the eyes, the damaged little boy looking out from the adult male face - uses Walker in a very interesting and unexpected way. Bruno is one of Hitchcock's best villains. Any villain worth his salt is so compelling that you find yourself siding with him, regardless of his depravity. James Cagney made his entire career out of playing such "bad" guys - and Walker's character in Strangers On a Train reminds me of Cody Jarrett, Cagney's baby-faced villain from White Heat who also has this strange psychosexual relationship with his mother - that has somehow stunted and blunted his personality. Bruno is obviously insane, there's something wrong with the guy - he's dominated by his mother, he despises his father - who emasculates him and talks about him as though he is not there ... I would say, from my early 21st century perspective, that Bruno is obviously gay. The first scene between Farley Granger and Walker, on the train, is - to quote Roger Ebert - more like a "pickup" than anything else - that is how it is played. Walker doesn't queen it up, I don't find his performance offensive (like the horrible gay character in Adam's Rib who almost makes that film unwatchable to me. It's like watching hate propaganda or something!!) - it's subtle. It's creepy. Bruno has a line later in the film when he returns to the carnival. He's sitting, waiting, biding his time - and a carnival worker comes over and starts shooting the shit with him. "Business dropped since the murder ... nobody wants to go on the boats ... and nobody goes over to that field to smooch no more..." and Bruno kind of laughs and says, "I don't know anything about smooching." Movies of that time had to speak in code about certain "unspeakable" things. You can see it all over movies like Compulsion (my post about it here) which is about a gay relationship - but you couldn't say that. The same is going on here. Bruno saying he doesn't know anything about smooching is a code. Walker doesn't need the code, though - his brilliance as an actor has led to him playing, all along, his seduction of Farley Granger. He is overly intimate, inappropriately so. He croons, he sidles up close, he stands too close, it's ... too much. Bruno is "too much". And yet - somehow we only want to watch him. Farley Granger is in a helluva predicament, it is true - and I do feel bad for him ... but I would rather watch Robert Walker. That's the mark of a great screen villain!

David Thomson in his The New Biographical Dictionary of Film has this to say about Robert Walker in Strangers On a Train:

The unease lurking behind faded boyishness was recognized by Alfred Hitchcock in Strangers On A Train (51). His Bruno Anthony in that film was not only his best performance but a landmark among villains - a man of piercing ideas transformed by crossing lines into a smiling psychopath. Walker manages to be very disturbing and yet never loses our sympathy. See how much he suggests in the first meeting: the inactive man who dominates the athlete Granger, the subtle notes of homosexuality, and that beautiful moment when he leans back, sighs, and tells how he "puts himself to sleep" scheming up plans. Bruno is one of Hitchcock's greatest creations and a sign of how seriously Walker was cramped by wholesomeness. He so monopolizes the film that he may even have led Hitchcock to appreciate its underground meanings. This demonic vitality is the key to the film and one of Hitchcock's cleverest confusions of our involvement. Touched and intrigued by his gestures - the boyish pleasure at the fairground, the mischievous bursting of the little boy's balloon, the evident superiority of his mind to that of Guy's brassy wife - we become accomplices to the murder he commits. Thus he hands the dead body down to us, distorted by the spectacles that have fallen from the victim's goggling head.

Robert Walker was Hitchcock's only choice for the role of Bruno Anthony.

Strangers On A Train came out in 1951, the same year of Robert Walker's death - from what appears to be an accidental overdose (prescribed by a doctor - so let's add "incompetence" to the list of factors here). He had been on a self-destructive path for many years, a bitter sad man, whose divorce from Jennifer Jones was pretty much something he never recovered from. But, selfishly, how lucky we are that Walker was given a part, in Bruno Anthony in Strangers On a Train that let him tap into at least some of that stuff ... because it lives forever now.

Great performance.

UPDATE: Found an article online by David Thomson about Robert Walker, from 1999. I re-print it here in full. It appeared in The Independent on August 15, 1999:

"Robert Walker, A Great Lost Star" By David Thomson - Film Studies - The Independent - (London) Sunday August 15, 1999

That moment has arrived when Alfred Hitchcock's birthday - it would have been his 100th this year - can be celebrated. And since just about everything, from his lugubrious wisdom to his teddy bear collection, has been noted, there remains nothing but a film to honour. The birthday, 13 August, has been marked with the re-release of Strangers on a Train. Which brings me to Robert Walker, and his uncanny character, Bruno Anthony.

Walker died in 1951, aged 32, only a few months after the film opened. The death was untidy; for several years the actor had been unstable and a drinker. He was given drugs to reduce one more emotional outburst, and he never regained consciousness. Was the dose wrong, or had Walker brought it all on himself in some suicidal mood? No one really knows. But it was said that he had never recovered from the divorce from his wife, Phyllis.

They had married, when young actors, in 1939. They had two sons. But then, as Walker began to make his way as a naïve romantic lead, Phyllis was discovered by producer David O. Selznick. He changed her name to Jennifer Jones, made a star of her, and let his first marriage collapse so that he could marry her.

There was nothing Walker could do to stop it; no matter that he was close to a star himself - with Judy Garland in the film, The Clock. He broke down. He married again, and that union failed. He was in an institution for several months. And he came back "better" and laughing, but in ways that alarmed his friends.

That's when Hitchcock noticed him. Now, it's easy for us to conclude that Hitch was always a success. Not so. In 1950, he had four flops in a row - The Paradine Case, Rope, Under Capricorn, and Stage Fright - and he was anxious to put an end to that run. He had a novel by Patricia Highsmith that contained this superb idea; two men, strangers Bruno and Guy, meet on a train and are drawn together discussing their vexing kin. A plot is hatched, and Walker's eyes come alive with the sheer intellectual excitement of the idea - they have the kind of shine that the eyes of physicists on the Manhattan Project gave off when the beauty of certain mathematical equations was realized.

Guy laughs this passionate idea away; he thinks Bruno is weird. But Bruno's so much more than that. He's inspired by craziness, and he believes that a contract has been entered into. And then, in one of Hitch's finest sustained sequences, with the sinister married to the comedy - since we long for the disagreeable wife of Guy to be dispatched - he has Bruno track the female victim to a fairground, pursue her, half charm her, and then strangle her. Gently he lowers the corpse into our lap, as the prize we have earned.

This sequence was vital in Hitchcock's progress. Never before had he so grasped the way action on screen could be the expression of the audience's voyeuristic desires. Never again would he lose that barbed innuendo - it is the vital mechanism in Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho, and depends upon the unconventional insight that we may like a villainous character sufficiently for the achievement of a stealthy ambivalence. And it was Walker who helped Hitchcock to learn this lesson. For his killer is so much more beguiling and compelling that Guy, the stooge, who is played by Farley Granger.

I wonder how much of this the actor and director understood, or discussed, at the time. Walker had always been the soul of kindness, sweetness even. He had a high hushed voice which Hitch turned into eloquence. The seed lay in Highsmith's searching novel. And Walker was well aware of how much Hitch had done for him.

The film's opening conversation scene on the train is like a tennis match in which Guy serves up one weak lob after another for Bruno to put sway. I suspect the things we might see so plainly now - the homosexual longing in Bruno, the wicked contrast of the man of action and the man of ideas, the superficiality of Guy and the hungry depth in Bruno - were never mentioned.

For Bruno was so far ahead of his time. No censor jumped up and said the guy's a fruit - as equally, in 1960, on the release of Psycho, no one saw how subversive a figure was its central character, Norman Bates. Everyone settled for Bates being a killer, as if that got anywhere near the real intelligence, the terrible charm of him, or Bruno.

So it is a landmark performance. You see it now, and feel the vibrancy of the modernity. But back in 1951, Bruno was politely ignored.

What might have happened to Walker had he not died then? It's not that movies were well-stocked with parts like Bruno. And Walker was putting on weight. He might have taken up the silky load of master villain Sydney Greenstreet, who died in 1954. Yet he was likely headed for some bad ending. Even so, he had had that one chance - so that, decades later, we just can't get him out of our heads.

The Books: "Self-Help" - 'What Is Seized' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Self-Help by Lorrie Moore - a short story collection. Excerpt from the second story: 'What Is Seized'.

A story told in fragments. It's very very sad. The character development that Lorrie Moore is able to accomplish in 10 pages is extraordinary. There is no straight narrative. The device is - a woman (the narrator) looks through the scrapbooks her mother kept, after her mother has died. She takes out pictures, and describes each one - the way she describes them tells everything you need to know. But they are just fragments. It is left to us to put it all together. Stories emerge, and then subside, to give way to other stories - it is just how it feels when you look thru an old photo album, and memories rush at you, clamoring for your attention. The parents did not have a happy marriage. The father (James) was a star in the local community theatre - and he always had affairs with his female co-star. The mother wanted to be a ballerina. She was eccentric - gentle, passive-aggressive, and very sensitive. Things hit her hard. She was convinced that her husband was "a cold man" - it was her never-ending theme, how cold he was. That was her experience of him. She talked about it a lot to her kids, who didn't experience him as cold - he was just Dad. But of course a wife will have a different perspective. I just think Lorrie Moore's writing is extraordinary. She's an object lesson - in how to do as little as possible, keep it bare bones, don't expound, don't talk too much - just say what you need to say in as few words as possible. I read stories like "What Was Seized" and it's almost like it provides guideposts for writers. She should be studied by anyone interested in writing fiction. She's that good.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Self-Help by Lorrie Moore - a short story collection. Excerpt from the second story: 'What Is Seized'.

In the wedding photos they wear white against the murky dark of trees. They are thin and elegant. They have placid smiles. The mouth of the father of the bride remains in a short, straight line. I don't know who took these pictures. I suppose they are lies of sorts, revealing by omission, by indirection, by clues such as shoes and clouds. But they tell a truth, the only way lies can. The way only lies can.

Another morning, I heard my parents up early in the bathroom, my dad shaving, getting ready to leave for school.

"Look," he said in a loud whisper. "I really can't say that I'll never leave you and the kids or that I'll never make love to another woman--"

"Why not?" asked my mother. "Why can't you say that?" Even her anger was gentle, ingenuous.

"Because I don't feel that way."

"But ... can't you just say it anyway?"

At this I like to imagine that my parents met each other's gaze in the medicine cabinet mirror, suddenly grinning. But later in the hospital bed, holding my hand and touching each of my nails slowly with her index finger, my mother said to me, "Your father. He was in a dance. And he just couldn't dance." Earlier that year she had written me: "That is what is wrong with cold people. Not that they have ice in their souls - we all have a bit of that - but that they insist their every word and deed mirror that ice. They never learn the beauty or value of gesture. The emotional necessity. For them, it is all honesty before kindness, truth before art. Love is art, not truth. It's like painting scenery."

These are the things one takes from mothers. Once they die, of course, you get the strand of pearls, the blue quilt, some of the original wedding gifts - a tray shellacked with the invitation, an old rusted toaster - but the touches and the words and the moaning the night she dies, these are what you seize, save, carry around in little invisible envelopes, opening them up quickly, like a carnival huckster, giving the world a peek. They will not stay quiet. No matter how you try. No matter how you lick them. The envelopes will not stay glued.

Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile

Grey day. Listening to iPod shuffle. And on came "Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile" - you know, it's a song I'd probably never seek out, because I have heard it enough in my childhood to last a lifetime. I have so much Irish crap on my iPod that I hear two notes of some jig or a half-note from a bagpipe - and I immediately roll my eyes and press "forward" - like: how on earth can there be so much Irish music on here? Who knew that The Chieftains wrote 25,000 goddamn songs? Don't get me wrong. Love it. But every other song?? But whatever, I have a nice version of "Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile" by The Cassidys - who can sometimes be a little bit "celtic" new age-y for me - (you know, that's the trend where folks seem hell-bent on making Ireland gentle and good and feckin' toothless.) Yeah, well, Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile's got teeth. Doesn't suck that Gráinne Mhaol is an ancestress of ours, and my sister is named for her.

It's good to remember we have teeth, from time to time. Not so bad to bite back once in a while.

Tá Gráinne Mhaol ag go duill ar sáile,
óglaigh armtha léi mar gharda,
Gaeil iad féin is ní Gaill ná Spáinnigh,
is cuirfidh siad ruaig ar Ghallaibh.

Oró, sé do bheatha abhaile,
Oró, sé do bheatha abhaile,
Oró, sé do bheatha abhaile
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.
'Sé do bheatha, a bhean ba léanmhar,
do b' é ár gcreach tú bheith i ngéibheann,
do dhúiche bhreá i seilbh méirleach,
is tú díolta leis na Gallaibh.

A bhuí le Rí na bhFeart go bhfeiceam,
mura mbeam beo ina dhiaidh ach seachtain,
Gráinne Mhaol agus míle gaiscíoch,
ag fógairt fáin ar Ghallaibh.

Screen grab

.... from a movie I watched last night, with one of my favorite performances ever from a certain actor whom I consider to be the best actor working today. No contest. The fact that he is rarely nominated only proves my point. Cary Grant was only nominated twice. Show me a better actor. He is not nominated because he makes it look so easy. But as far as I'm concerned, nobody is at this guy's level. And I love love love him here. (He also looks, at certain angles, so much like my old flame M. that it freaks me out.) Great actor. The best.

Guesses? It should be easy, but whatever.

Some photos

From Chicago. The door at Improv Olympic - close-up - Clark and Addison.

Some photos

On my bathroom wall. I've had her for years. I don't know, I just like her.

Yawn.

Some photos

The US Armed Forces recruiting station in Times Square, 3 or 4 days after the bomb.

Some photos

Twilight in Times Square. I just love this one. That lady's eyes are staring right at me. Kinda creepy and Blade Runner-ish.

Some photos

A dinosaur.

Some photos

I love these. They literally called to me from the window.

The Books: "Self-Help" - 'How to Be An Other Woman' (Lorrie Moore)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Self-Help by Lorrie Moore - a short story collection (her first, I believe). I'll be excerpting from many of her stories - she's so damn good. One of my favorite writers writing today. I've written a bit about her before (a post here) - and I'm bummed - I know that Jon and I had an enormous conversation about Lorrie Moore in the comments section of one of my posts, but I can't find it. Granted, I haven't looked TOO hard because life is long and I have stuff to do tonight ... but the reason I read Lorrie Moore at all is because of Jon and Kate, telling me I HAD to read her. This was around the time when her collection Birds of America was pretty much everywhere you looked. It took me a while to get to her - but once I read, oh, about one page of one story of Birds of America, I was like: Put a fork in Sheila. She's done. She's the kind of short story writer - like Hemingway, or Joyce, or Mary Gaitskill - who make you realize, in one or two words, just how terrible most short stories are. I mean, honestly. I'd put Annie Proulx on that list, too. But Lorrie Moore! She has a couple novels out, too - but I haven't read them, although i do own them. I'll get to them! But if you want to encounter a truly awesome writer - I would beg you to pick up Lorrie Moore. She's not ponderous, or serious (although she touches on serious themes) - she's actually kind of wacky, in her style and in her outlook. There are times when you don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I love it how funny she is (so many short stories are humorless) - and I love how she describes things, the words she chooses - just perfection. I read it and wonder: could I write that way? Not only that, but could I SEE that way? Lorrie Moore seems to see things that others do not - and I cherish her for that reason. I read her stuff and small perfect weird little universes blossom right in front of my face - and I see things, details, silences, jokey awkwardness, the way the wind is on the grass - I see it all. She is an exquisite writer. I truly hope I have some Lorrie Moore fans among the folks who read me - I'd love to share thoughts about her. My only complaint about her is that she doesn't publish enough.

Self-Help was published in the mid 80s - about a decade before the magnificent Birds of America. The stories have serious themes (as you can tell by the title of the story I will be excerpting today) - but, as you can also tell by its sort of "How To" tone, that Moore will not be overly serious about it. It will not be an exquisite keen of grief and sadness. Self-deprecating perhaps. Nobody does self-deprecating like Lorrie Moore. And nobody describes acute loneliness in a way that makes me ache with recognition and also guffaw with laughter - like Lorrie Moore. She's just so good! In Self-Help, Moore has lots of experimental pieces - along the lines of this one - not too many straight narratives yet. There are lists, how-tos, fragments, To Do lists (that are hysterical) ... Birds of America is more of a classic short-story collection, along classic lines. But here we have goofy instructions with a sharp edge - ("How To Become A Writer" is one of my favorites in the collection) - and stories like this one, which reads like a How To pamphlet - but is really about the loneliness of being someone's mistress.

But even here - in her younger self- there are glimpses of the writer she will soon become, the writer she was already on her way to being. She is an acknowledged master of the short story form, her name is always at the top of the list of greatest American short story writers - and even here, you can start to see why. She is not afraid of writing about people making mistakes, or being jerks, or behaving incomprehensibly. Life is a great mystery. Often we do not know why we do what we do.

I love the bit about the New Year's party here - and how her lover doesn't really get it. But it's quite an image. And yet Lorrie Moore - NEVER turns on the maudlin stuff, she never goes for the tragedy - she skips around it, mentions it obliquely - her characters become eccentric, or flighty - rather than deal directly with tragedy. It's a total "style" - I"d recognize her stuff anywhere.

Can you tell I love her? Write more, Lorrie Moore, write more!

EXCERPT FROM Self-Help by Lorrie Moore - 'How To Be An Other Woman'

"Who is he?" says your mom, later, in the kitchen after you've washed the dishes.

"He's a systems analyst."

"What do they do?"

"Oh ... they get married a lot. They're usually always married."

"Charlene, are you having an affair with a married man?"

"Ma, do you have to put it that way?"

"You are asking for big trouble," she says, slowly, and resumes polishing silver with a vehement energy.

Wonder why she always polishes the silver after meals.

Lean against the refrigerator and play with the magnets.

Say, softly, carefully: "I know, Mother, it's not something you would do."

She looks up at you, her mouth trembling, pieces of her brown-gray hair dangling in her salty eyes, pink silverware cream caking onto her hands, onto her wedding ring. She stops, puts a spoon down, looks away and then hopelessly back at you, like a very young girl, and, shaking her head, bursts into tears.

"I missed you," he practically shouts, ebullient and adolescent, pacing about the living room with a sort of bounce, like a child who is up way past his bedtime and wants to ask a question. "What did you do at home?" He rubs your neck.

"Oh, the usual holiday stuff with my parents. On New Year's Eve I went to a disco in Morristown with my cousin Denise, but I dressed wrong. I wore the turtleneck and plaid skirt my mother gave me, because I wanted her to feel good, and my slip kept showing."

He grins and kisses your cheek, thinking this sweet.

Continue: "There were three guys, all in purple shirts and paper hats, who kept coming over and asking me to dance. I don't think they were together or brothers or anything. But I danced and on 'New York City Girl', that song about how jaded and competent urban women are, I went crazy dancing and my slip dropped to the floor. I tried to pick it up, but finally just had to step out of it and jam it in my purse. At the stroke of midnight, I cried."

"I'll bet you suffered terribly," he says, clasping you around the small of your back.

Say: "Yes, I did."

______________

"I'm thinking of telling Patricia about us."

Be skeptical. Ask: "What will you say?"

He proceeds confidently: "I'll go, 'Dear, there's something I have to tell you.'"

"And she'll look over at you from her briefcase full of memoranda and say: 'Hmmmmmm?'"

"And I'll say, 'Dear, I think I'm falling in love with another woman, and I know I'm having sex with her."

"And she'll say, 'Oh my god, what did you say?'"

"And I'll say: 'Sex.'"

"And she'll start weeping inconsolably and then what will you do?"

There is a silence, still as the moon. He shifts his legs, seems confused. "I'll ... tell her I was just kidding." He squeezes your hand.

Shave your legs in the bathroom sink. Philosophize: you are a mistress, part of a great hysterical you mean historical tradition. Wives are like cockroaches. Also part of a great historical tradition. They will survive you after a nuclear attack - they are tough and hardy and travel in packs - but right now they're not having any fun. And when you look in the bathroom mirror, you spot them scurrying, up out of reach behind you.

An hour of gimlets after work, a quick browse through Barnes and Noble, and he looks at his watch, gives you a peck, and says: "Good night. I'll call you soon."

Walk out with him. Stand there, shivering, but do not pout. Say: "Call you 'later' would sound better than 'soon'. 'Soon' always means just the opposite."

He smiles feebly. "I'll phone you in a few days."

And when he is off, hurrying up Third Avenue, look down at your feet, kick at a dirty cigarette butt, and in your best juvenile mumble, say: "Fuck you, jack."

Benevolence is:

-- waking up and smelling the coffee that has already percolated, while I slept

-- hearing the soprano choir boys in the balcony rehearsing when I stop off to go to afternoon mass and I get there early

-- calling home and hearing Siobhan and Jean and Pat and Bren laughing in the background, and hearing Cashel playing "The Star Wars theme" on the piano

-- listening to the mix Mitchell made for me when I was in Chicago. It goes like this:
Come Sail Away - Alexandra Billings
Errol Flynn - Amanda McBroom
Arms Of A Woman - Amos Lee
Rest Your Love on Me - Andy Gibb & Olivia Newton-John
Bosom Buddies (Mame) - Angela Lansbury & Beatrice Arthur
It's A Miracle - Barry Manilow
Let The River Run - Alexandra Billings
You Can't Always Get What You Want/I Shall Be Released (Live Version) - Bette Midler
Don't Go - Yaz
Mississippi Rolling Stone - Tina Turner
An Old Fashioned Love Song - Three Dog Night
Marry Me a Little - Stephen Sondheim
Baby It's You - The Shirelles
I (Who Have Nothing) - Shirley Bassey
Rich Woman - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Fire - The Pointer Sisters
On The Street Where You Live - Nat King Cole
Van Lear Rose - Loretta Lynn
Ol Man River - Judy Garland
The Bitch of Living - Spring Awakening

-- his voice saying to me, in his lilting accent of Trinidad, as I cry in his arms, "You are strong, darling. You are strong."

-- getting an email from David raving about Blood Meridien

-- clean laundry

-- the fact that I have kept 5 out of 6 plants alive for almost 10 years now (one just died. I have a problem with jade. I kill them repeatedly)

-- going outside to beat my rugs in my front yard, and chatting with the little old lady next door, who is potting her plants in her front yard

-- the chill in the air, the heavy grey sky, the gleaming lights of the city

-- hearing my father say to me, "So what are you reading?"

RIP Anthony Minghella

Wow. Did not see this one coming. Shocking. My first thought was of Truly, Madly, Deeply and how much I love that movie.

I was not (to put it mildly) a fan of The English Patient -- but I must give props of the largest order to Minghella for directing one of my favorite movies of all time: Truly, Madly, Deeply.

Truly, Madly, Deeply is almost radioactive in my mind ... it is like I have to stay clear of it ... until I feel prepared to deal with it again. The story of Truly, Madly, Deeply is excellent - thought-provoking, the script is fantastic - with well-drawn characters, complex and simple scenes, beautifully written - comedy, grief, love - the acting is superb, and the direction is funny, warm, open, and accessible. It was his first film. Bravo. Minghella, in his casting of the film, the way he films her in his flat, the way he films the whole thing, creates a complete three-dimensional world that we, the audience, feel privileged to get to visit, even for a short while. It's a world that breathes. Even just thinking about that movie gets me all worked up.

I posted about Truly, Madly, Deeply here. If you haven't seen it, all I can say is: do yourself a favor. You are in for such a treat! Such a deep and wonderful treat.

Rest in peace. A sad loss.

The Books: "Moby Dick" (Herman Melville)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Moby Dick by Herman Melville - fourth excerpt.

Reading the chapter called "The Blanket" was one of the truly profound moments of my life. I'll never forget it. I put the book down after reading it, and lay on my bed, just thinking about my life, and my behavior, and my mistakes, and my character, and "The Blanket" just surged through me - almost showing me "the way" to live. I'll never forget it. I remember parts of that chapter by heart. I read it often. I take out Moby Dick and read just "The Blanket", in order to remind me, to get me back into that contemplative place of growth, and striving for self-knowledge. It also, to me, has a lot to do with forgiveness. Forgiveness of your own struggle - because we, as humans, of course, are NOT great white whales ... we do NOT have a "blanket" around us at all times ... but we must strive to create one. We must imitate the whale. The whale can teach us how to live, if we let it. Moby Dick is one of the few books I can think of that actually gave me some precepts on how to live. There are many books that accurately describe an experience - so much so that I forever refer back to that particular book in my mind, when such an experience comes up in my own life. The ending of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (excerpt here) has a sentence (and dammit, I can't find it right now - I was sure it was in the last Stone Henge chapter, but I can't find it) - and the jist of it is: that Tess has an experience of happiness and peace in that chapter, after all of her agonies - and now that she has been so beaten by life, so damaged - the happiness which comes is now so tainted with the pain that came before, that it is really the end of the road for her. My apologies to Hardy for my awkward rendering of his brilliant paragraph which I can't find! Anyway, I have had many moments in this last rough year where I have thought of Thomas Hardy's sentence ... and it has felt true to me. When I was 25, 26, I was fit for love - meaning: optimistic, vivacious, young, a bit fearless ... but I wasn't ready. And now that I'm ready, I feel like I am no longer fit. Life has done a number on me and made me cautious, self-conscious, depressive, and fearful. If happiness came now - would my experience of it be like Tess'? I don't know - it's a bleak thought, and I don't mean to get bleak before 8 in the morning ... it's just something I've been thinking about. How fit-ness and ready-ness often do not come at the same moment in time. And Hardy perfectly articulates that (and if I could only find the sentence ... bah!!) But with "The Blanket", Herman Melville does way way more than articulate an experience accurately: he describes to us the whale's skin - its "blanket" that basically allows the whale to swim in the Arctic Ocean as well as the tropics ... without freezing or boiling ... and Melville uses the blanket as a launching-off place for a philosophical, almost spiritual rumination - and he calls out, almost in desperation, in ecstasy, to those of us who might be reading - and begs something of us. He begs us to listen, to heed, to imitate, to, above all things, go deep. It is one of those chapters that you might easily miss if you were bored with the cetology sections. But it changed my life. Not the outer aspects of my life - but the inner. I reference "The Blanket" in my mind all the time - when I am in an unfamiliar situation, feeling insecure, and like I want to flee ... sometimes I'll remind myself: "Remember what Melville said in 'The Blanket'. Breathe ... breathe ..." It reminds me to keep a quiet still center for myself - even around hostile elements, or unfamiliar elements ... I know who Sheila is, right? No one can take that away from me, no one can tell me who I am ... but it takes work - it takes work to isolate that center, to keep it safe, to not let anyone in there who doesn't deserve to be in there. I must strive to always be "at home", wherever I am. Melville's chapter is a reminder, like I said. It's truly amazing. Soul-stirring. Reading that last paragraph of the excerpt below still has the power to bring me to tears.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Moby Dick by Herman Melville - fourth excerpt.

Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs - I should say, that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large, full- grown bulls of the species.

A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the north, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it then - except after explanation - that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo negro in summer.

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.

"Mark, let's have dinner."

Mark Rydell, director of "The Cowboys", and his star, John Wayne

Mark Rydell was about 30 years old when he directed (and produced) The Cowboys. It was 1972. John Wayne had been making pictures since the 20s. He had been a star for decades. Not just a star, but an icon. A legend. Rydell was a Jewish kid from the Bronx who had directed a couple of episodes of Gunsmoke and, I think, 2 feature films. What would the experience be like?? Would John Wayne run all over him? How on earth would he direct John Wayne? There are a couple of great stories about the filming of this marvelous movie (and I also love Rydell's image of John Wayne sitting, on break, trying to eat his lunch, while all the kids who were in the movie climbed over him "as though he was a monkeybar ..." They loved and trusted him that much.) - but here's one of my favorite stories. It reveals John Wayne as the honest and true artist that he is. Humility is at the heart of it. And self-knowledge. Like I said to Alex once, when we were watching some clip he did - a commercial for the Red Cross - and I was totally struck (yet again) by him, and I demanded of Alex, almost angry about it, "Does the man ever lie?" Alex replied immediately, in a flat no-nonsense voice, "No." Nope. Didn't think so.

Here's one of Mark Rydell's many moving memories of what it was like to direct John Wayne in The Cowboys. (Oh, and I have Dan and DBW to thank for basically forcing me to see this movie. Kinda like when it became generally known on the blog, back in 2004 or whatever, that I had never seen Ball of Fire. Readers showed up and INSISTED I check it out - and it's now one of my favorite all-time movies! So thanks, guys!) This is an anecdote about the filming of the beginning of the cattle drive - obviously a complicated shot, with horses and herds of cattle and camera equipment, and extras and cowboys and stunt doubles ... not to mention John Wayne.

Chaos.

I'll just let the anecdote speak for itself. It brings a lump to my throat, and the last bit leaves me barely able to speak or even type. That's what John Wayne does to me.

So. Here's Mark Rydell on what happened on that day.

And we had 1500 head of cattle. And there's an interesting story of the first angry moment that I had with John Wayne. I was sitting up on the head of a crane. We had 9 cameras, and we were shooting this scene which had to do with starting the cattle drive. And in the background of this 1500 head of cattle, we had all the families of the kids, and all the kids are in position getting ready to start this cattle drive, and being said goodbye to by their parents. And John Wayne was seated on his horse about 50 feet in front of me and I was facing all these cattle on the top of the crane, and the scene begins with him riding over to Roscoe Lee Browne who was sitting on the top of this six-up that he had to drive, and the dialogue, if I remember correctly, is he says, "Are you ready, Mr. Nightlinger?" and he says, "Ready when you are", or something like that. And you know, you don't start 1500 head of cattle by saying, "Go". What happens is, you have to push the cattle in the rear and they move and they push the cattle in front and sometimes it takes 5 minutes for them to be going. So I didn't roll the cameras because I didn't want to waste film until the cattle were moving. There was an enormous amount of cattle. This was really a remarkable production achievement, with Wayne riding past hundreds and hundreds of heads of cattle, all which had to be handled. It was quite a complicated procedure that required a lot of attention. So Wayne decided it was time to go - so he rode up - I hadn't even started rolling the cameras yet - so he rode up to Roscoe and said, "Are you ready, Mr. Nightlinger?" Well, of course, I hadn't even rolled the cameras yet. So I lost my temper. I stood up on the crane and said, "Don't you ever do that. Go back to your spot. I'll tell you when we're going to roll our cameras, I'll tell you when 'Action' is!" and as I was talking to him, I was thinking: what a stupid thing for me to do, to yell at John Wayne, in front of all these kids and all these people, it was humiliating. And I was really sorry, but I had stuck my neck out - and I was right, by the way. And he knew I was right. He went back to his place, did the scene, got in his car - it was the end of the day - and drove into town. All of the crew came over to me one by one to shake my hand, as if to say goodbye, because they thought I would be fired for having contested John Wayne in any way whatsoever. And the Ravetch's were there, and they were horrified, and I got in the car with them to drive back to our production office in Santa Fe, and I was just mortified with guilt for having done this! And they kept saying, "Why did you do that?" And I kept saying, 'I just lost my temper!" And we got back to the production office and there were four calls from John Wayne. And I thought, this is it. I'm fired. I'll be on my way back to Los Angeles in a moment and one of John Wayne's former directors will be down here to take over the picture. So I finally got up my courage and I called him. And he said, "Mark, let's have dinner." And I thought, 'Okay, there's the kiss of death." So we met, and, by the way, there was nothing more remarkable than the experience of going to dinner in Santa Fe with John Wayne, who was 6'5" and an icon. He walked into the restaurant and the place gasped! We sat down for dinner and I am waiting for the axe to fall, for him to say, 'Son, you're a nice guy, but I think we're going to be better off with a better director." You know, I was waiting for that horrifying moment! Which never came, by the way. And he proceeded to tell me that I treated him the way John Ford treated him. I had yelled at him, and he was very impressed that I had the courage to tell him off. He knew that I was right, and he was wrong. Even though it was something I certainly never should have done, he was impressed that I had the courage to do it. And he called me "Sir" from that day forward, and for the rest of the 102 days we shot this picture. And that's the kind of guy he was.

The Clock: directed by Vincente Minnelli

Mitchell and I were talking last week, and The Clock came up. Not only have I not seen the movie, I had never even heard of it. How is that possible?

We had been laughing earlier about the time, years ago, that Mitchell and I went to go see The King And I, which was playing at Facets, in Chicago. Mitchell, weirdly, had never seen it. How is that possible? A movie freak like him? It was just something he had missed. Not only had he missed the film, he did not know the plot. So near the end of the film, suddenly I felt Mitchell grab my arm, almost violently, and hiss at me through the darkness, "Does the King die????" His eyes gleamed, with almost ferocious intensity. I didn't know how to answer, I didn't want to give it away. I guess I hadn't realized that Mitchell did not know that there was a sad ending to the thing. I didn't respond, kept my eyes on the screen. Mitchell hissed again, even more upset, "The King dies????" He was pissed I hadn't warned him! Then, of course, later, as the King lay dying, I heard Mitchell start to weep beside me, as the story-development began to crash in on his head, and I knew: ahhhhhh, what a wonderful movie this is. Works every time. When we were talking about The Clock last week, I said, "Now - is this a famous movie? Or is it a little-known classic? Like - what the hell is going on?" Mitchell said, "Yeah, it's well-known. I think it's just a glitch in your education - like me with King and I." Well, this cannot stand!! I was at my laptop and immediately put The Clock onto it and bumped it up to the top of the queue. The Clock?? I must see it immediately!

Like Mitchell said, The Clock is a movie with no cynicism - and yet it's not simplistic or corny. It's just good-hearted. Everyone in the film - from the cops he talks to trying to find her, to the lunchroom waiter, to the poor city clerk at the end - is human, real, funny, and just doing their best in life. Nobody's an ass. People are good. And in the middle of all of this are two breath-takingly modern performances - from Robert Walker and Judy Garland. It's a film about "small moments" (thanks, Mitchell). It's a series of small moments, like jewels on a thread, one after the other ... The film is about behavior, human behavior, no big gestures - just small moments of connection or misunderstanding ... and to watch the two leads in conversation after conversation during their long 2-day experience together is to watch something perfect. I didn't know who to look at, at times - her or him. They're both just so alive. Thinking, responding, having their own thoughts, trying to hide their doubts, bursting into laughter ... It's a delightful movie, I loved every second of it.

The plot is simple, and could be the plot of a ton of other movies, no surprises here. It's 1944, and a soldier is on leave in New York before shipping overseas to the war. He's from Indiana. He's never been to New York before. The film opens with him (Robert Walker) walking through Grand Central, at the height of rush hour, baffled, a bit overwhelmed, and alone.

He has 2 days in New York. Where will he go? He sits down at the foot of a staircase, to read the paper, maybe find some things to do - and a young woman rushing by for the escalator trips over his feet - and loses her heel. But because the crowds are so thick, she is swept up the escalator - losing her heel behind. She is Judy Garland, a young working girl in New York, coming home from a weekend in the country. She calls down for the young man to retrieve her heel - he at first think she's calling him a heel (which is hilarious - a random woman suddenly starts screaming at you in public, "You're a heel!" Yup - sounds like New York to me!) - but once he realizes the situation, he grabs the heel and races up the stairs to give it to her. And this is how they meet.

His name is Joe. Her name is Alice.

Over the next two days of his leave, they walk around, talking, getting to know each other, having disagreements, having a couple of adventures, laughing, and - of course - falling in love.

It's not about the destination here, it's about the journey. It's about these two characters. And God, do they both come alive!

Alice is interesting: she works as a secretary, she's not from New York. At first, she is kind of blunt to this young soldier who keeps trying to follow her around. She's not rude - but when he retrieves her heel for her, she behaves as though, Okay, that's it - thank you very much - buh-bye now. Joe is way more open than she is. He sets his sights on her from Moment One. I think if Alice were more ga-ga from the get-go, the film would have descended into mawkishness. She finds herself, almost against her will, succumbing to this man. She resists. She keeps trying to say goodbye but then ... hmmmm ... she can't seem to walk away ... She's not fully "in charge" of herself, and that is so endearing to watch, so human.

And Joe is not some bumbling rube from the country, a stereotype. He's innocent about New York, yes - he gets confused about bus fares and doesn't know which end is up ... but in terms of courtship, and pursuit - he's a man. He banters with Alice, he makes her laugh (it's so wonderful, too - because you can tell that Judy is really laughing in many of their scenes - it's not coy "acting laughing" - it's a guffaw - it's exhilarating!) He has plans for after the war. He wants to be a carpenter back in his home town.

For their first couple of scenes together, they're almost in different worlds, although you can tell they are drawn to one another. Joe is curious about Alice - where is she from? Who does she live with? Where does she work? Does she want to stay in New York all her life? She bats the questions away as best she can, saying at one point, grinning, "You are very nosy." Joe is, of course, nosy because he likes her already. He wants to make a move. He's going to war in a day and a half! But Alice is nobody's fool, and she's not an idiot. A girl can't just give her heart away at the drop of a hat, especially not in a city like New York. You have to look out for yourself! Also, she can't help but contemplate (and you can see it happen on her face): Could I be happy living in Indiana, the wife of a carpenter? (hahahaha That is such a woman thing to do - leaping ahead in time, before anything has even happened!) So although, in retrospect, it is obvious that it was love at first sight - these two are, after all, human. And nobody except crazy people says what's in their heart immediately.

Part of the joy of the film is to watch how, in small moment after small moment, trust grows, fondness grows, and the impending departure of Joe starts to hang over their heads ... without them even preparing for it.

Joe is obviously not a ladies man. Alice's protective bossy roommate keeps calling it a "pick up" - which Alice balks at. It seems to ruin the nice morning she had had, walking through Central Park with the soldier, going to the museum. "I wish you wouldn't call it that ..." Judy says. It seems to make everything dirty. And we know, since we have watched Joe from the beginning, that he's not trying to "pick her up" - at least not in any openly lecherous way. This is not about having a last hurrah before going overseas. He's not like that. He sees her, and hangs out with her, and somehow finds himself confiding in her - about what he wants from his life, and why he wants to be a carpenter ... and why am I telling this girl my life story? What is going on here??

The fun here is in watching love blossom, in a heightened situation - only two days ... and watching how they react to it - not just to the other person, but to what is going on inside them ... Judy, in particular, is marvelous at this, because her character is a bit more private. She holds her cards closer to her chest. So when it finally starts popping out, here, there, everywhere - it's incredibly moving. No more defense, no more "city girl" facade. She stares at him, not just with love, but with dawning wonder and awe, like: "Is it possible that this marvelous man just walked into my life? How has that happened? How could I be so lucky?"

We don't always act like rational people when we are falling in love. As Rosalind states so assuredly in As You Like It: "Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too." The human condition!

At one point, they lose one another on a crowded subway. Much has happened by now. They have shared a kiss in the park, they have confided in each other, they have spent a long long night with a friendly milkman (one of the best sections of the film) ... and now she has decided to call in sick to work so she can spend the day with him - his last day in New York. But alas, the crowds are too thick - and they get separated. We see that Alice is going off to 33rd Street - and Joe, in his panic, gets on an express train, trying to catch up with her - and ends up at 14th Street. Then comes a crazy section, which was anxiety-provoking to watch ... knowing that they couldn't get to each other ... also knowing that last names had not been exchanged. What do names matter? We just fell in love! We see Alice waiting at the turnstiles at 33rd Street, still not fully understanding what has happened. No ... no ... we can't have just lost each other, can we? We see Joe looking up and down train platforms, totally frustrated in his ability to turn back time 5 minutes, to when they were not separated.

Alice, out of desperation, goes to a local USO Office, thinking ... maybe she could track down his last name that way? And she could get a message to him? Naturally, there is nothing the USO office can do - (and I love the chick playing the part of the USO worker - another example of how the small characters add to the pulsating sense of reality in this movie)

Judy tells her the whole story, "We met yesterday ... and then I got so sleepy last night ... and we woke up and then got separated on the subway ... and I don't know his last name ..." The USO woman gives her a look, not a mean look, just a practical look, and says, "I wouldn't go around telling people that story if I were you." Judy stares, softly, crushed, and says, "Oh ... you don't understand ..." She slowly begins to walk out of the office, turns back at the door - and says, "What am I going to ..." Then the tears come and she turns and hurries out, crying to herself, "What am I going to do??"

Judy knocks that scene out of the park. It goes from one emotion to the other, and she has to break down while in action doing something else ... there's not a big cut to her glycerine-filled eyes ... She's walking out of the office, and it suddenly hits her, that she has lost him ... this man! This man!! How could she ... and she starts to weep. What is so moving and wonderful about this scene is how embarrassed Judy gets, at her own tears. Because wouldn't we behave that way if we were her? Human beings don't walk around proud of bursting into tears. If we cry in public, we do our best to hide it. The tears come over Alice quite suddenly, as the realization dawns ... and all she can do is hurry out of the public place. My heart breaks for her.

Go, Judy. Wonderfully played scene. Judy Garland, to me, always seems like an emissary from the future. In the same way that Cary Grant does. Her acting is timeless. It doesn't have a "style". It is real, open, in-the-moment, true - it's life. I mean, she had it as a child, and she has it here. It's one of her warmest funniest most lovable parts.

And Robert Walker! Can we just talk about Robert Walker for a second? What a dreamboat, first of all. But also, he's just so wonderful here, in his pursuit of Garland - he's a bit pushy, at times - but after all, this is a man who only has 2 more days before going to war. He's kind, he's a gentleman, he also has a great sense of humor - and sets about making her laugh, from very early on. I love it when a guy is funny for me. Like - he uses his humor as part of his courtship arsenal. So many guys don't do that! Or they think that reciting episodes of Seinfeld passes for humor. Are you funny? Even if it's goofy humor? Use it! Some girls might think you're corny, but other girls might fall head over heels! For instance, the two are in the zoo in Central Park, watching the seals frolic in the water. They're laughing at the animals' shenanigans, having a good time. Joe says to Alice, "Have you ever noticed that certain animals look like people you know?" Alice starts laughing and says, "Yes, I have!" Joe points at one of the seals, who happens to be staring right at them, with a grumpy expression, long whiskers quivering in indignation. "Take that seal. I have an aunt who looks just like that." And watch Judy just dissolve in laughter. But Joe's not done. He says, "You know, my folks used to say I look like an owl." He then bugs his eyes out and makes his face go still and stern and owlish. Alice is staring at the seals, so she doesn't notice at first. And Joe keeps the silly face on - until she glances at him ... and sees it - and then she just LOSES it. I love it! She guffaws, "You do! You do look like an owl!" Robert Walker is just wonderful in all of these scenes. You love him.

There's a moment in the park, late at night. They've had a date, gone out to dinner, had a bit of an argument at dinner, because he was being nosy about "Freddy", another guy she is dating. It's night in the park. Alice lies on a rock, and Joe paces about on the walk. They start to talk about how weird it is that they would have met ... or, no, Alice is talking about it. "Isn't it strange? That I would have been in the station right at the time you were?" Joe says, "I don't think it's strange." (That's another wonderful thing about the script: these are two separate people, with separate thoughts and feelings. They actually converse. What a beautiful thing to watch.) The conversation goes on. Something is obviously going on with Joe. He's standing, he's restless ... At one point he says, for lack of anything better to say (or, basically, because all he wants to do is kiss her - and he's not quite sure how to go about it) -"It's so quiet here. Almost as quiet as it is back home." Alice, the shadows from the trees lovely on her face, says, "Oh no. There's always noise in the background ... you can hear it if you listen for it ..." So they both stop and listen. And suddenly, like a symphony orchestra, you start to hear it: cars beeping, the wail of a train whistle, sirens, traffic ... Slowly, she stands, listening. He's listening, too, but he's looking only at her. They stand, quietly, the sounds of the city coming at them, like music. He starts to walk towards her, and his face is so serious. You can see the kiss already there in his eyes. And not just the kiss. But the love. Because it is a serious time for him. It is not a casual moment. He is going to war in 2 days. He has fallen in love with this woman. So there are all kinds of things happening on his face as he approaches her, things that make him solemn, serious. Robert Walker's approach to her is so sexy, just watch his face! Watch all of the things that he is doing here. And then, as he gets to the camera, which - we know - is near her - right as he "hits his mark" - and his face fills the screen - he grins at her. Not a huge smile, no teeth - but a soft slow, almost sad, grin. My God, it's breathtaking.

Breathtaking!

And at first, they don't kiss. She just reaches out and finds herself in his arms. And they embrace, for what feels like forever. He holds her, and - this is Robert Walker's genius - as an actor, as a man who knows how to be a leading man - sort of twirls a lock of her hair around his finger, deep in his own thoughts, holding her close. We see her over his shoulder. An iconic image. Gorgeous.

I've rarely seen a first kiss that moves me as much as theirs does. It is so full of so much more than just desire, attraction, or even love. There is sadness in it. World War II is in it. It's fantastic.

I have other posts I want to write about this very special movie - particularly about the secondary characters they meet along the way - the milkman and his wife, the drunk in the diner, the folks at the city clerk's office ... because their jobs are to fill out the picture, to add reality to it ... and you love all of those people just as much as you love the two leads.

I am so glad that I have rectified this "glitch in my education" - because The Clock is not just moving, funny, sexy, good-hearted. It's special. Watching Robert Walker and Judy Garland talk and kiss and laugh for two hours ... is special.

It's the small moments that make up a life. Not the big gestures, the grand operatic emotions ... but the small moments. Like when they enter the diner at one o'clock in the morning, and a drunk is raging on about ... something ... not clear what ... and he starts to try to talk to Joe and Alice at the counter, honing right in on Alice - and subtly, with no fanfare, Robert Walker makes Judy switch places with him, so that he is on the front lines with the drunk, not her. It's a subtle moment, no lines ... and our main focus is on the blundering loud drunk ... but that small gesture, that small gentlemanly protective gesture, tells us all we need to know about Joe ... and we can tell, from the small grin of thanks Alice throws him ... that it's all she needs to know as well.

The Clock: the last slow pan

I just saw The Clock yesterday, starring Judy Garland and Robert Walker - and I want to talk about the slow panning shot near the end of the film. There's a lot to say here about Vincente Minnelli and his use of the camera - how every single shot goes so deep - the "extras" in the background don't seem like extras at all, but people in the background who are living, behaving, having lives that don't start and end when the camera is on them. You can see that in all of his films, but it was particularly wonderful (and important) here. The story of The Clock is so delicate, so potentially sentimental - that without that feeling of teeming LIFE all around the two main characters - it just wouldn't have worked.

If you haven't seen it - then you might not want to look at the screen shots below. No huge spoilers, because this film is basically a romantic comedy, so - you know, this isn't a whodunit or a thriller ... but still: part of the joy in The Clock is the journey itself. Even though it's a well-known formula, the twists and turns along the way made it an absolute delight and I kind of didn't want it to end.

I'll have more to say about it later. But for now:

The slow pan at the end. I'll break it down below.

THE SLOWPAN

A bustling train station. There is a long slow pan through the crowds. As the camera passes by each couple, we hear a fragment of dialogue - before moving on ... just like you would hear in real life, in a busy station, or anywhere crowded. And the fragments tell the whole story. Minnelli slowly moves his camera across the crowd ... and people come into focus, and then go out, we hear one thing, we move on ... and always in the background is the bustling hum of the crowd, the trains, the bells ... and the throngs, even the ones who don't have specific lines ... are all having full experiences in the background. I've watched the scene 3 times now, and I keep seeing different things.

Camera moves by this couple. A bustling overprotective mother implores her son, "I hope you packed your socks!" The son is embarrassed at being treated like a child and cries out, "Ma!" She grabs him in a hug.

We move on. We pass by this couple, the husband holding a baby. He says down to his wife soothingly, comforting her, "I will, I will. You just be sure you wait for me."

Onward. We pass by this couple in the foreground. The expressions on their faces say it all. As the camera moves past, we can hear her whispering, "Don't be silly ..."

We then pass by this couple. The man is in the middle of lecturing her, nervously, "The car insurance runs out on the 17th - now you have to make sure that you call the insurance agent now ..."

We pass by these two. It appears to be a son (a grown man) hugging his mother - who is so upset she can't speak. They have no lines between them - but it's an eloquent moment, 1/2 a second long.

Moving on. We pass this family - and the father is in the middle of saying to his child, "Now you be good for your mother!" And the mother says, "Kiss your father good-bye ..." The father leans down and kisses his child and then he and the wife kiss ...

(And I have to say, it's so refreshing to see a black family in a film of this era being treated like any other family - not tap dancing in the background, or a maid or a porter - they're part of the slow pan, they are part of the montage we're seeing - just regular, normal, and that's pretty rare for 1945, and I think it's great)

Moving on ... We pass this couple ... and the woman is sobbing loudly into the man's chest. He holds her tight.

Onward. See what I mean about the depth here. In the foreground, an old lady clutches someone - her son? Her grandson? She weeps loudly - while meanwhile, a bit deeper into the frame - is another couple - quiet, calm, staring at one another with deep love and resolve.

That couple walks out of the frame - to reveal:

Our love-birds.

All one take. That's a complicated shot. Everyone has to time their line perfectly, hit their marks, move on, stay out of the way, have behavior, not blow their lines - because then they'd have to go back and start again ... It's all of a piece, all one story - a flow ... a flow of different goodbyes.

Beautiful.

The whole movie is full of beautiful touches like that. I'll write up a review tomorrow.

The panoply of "shallow elitism" here in the past couple days amazes even me

In less than a week I have posted:

the reviews and the poster for Funny Games

3rd excerpt of Moby Dick

tribute to James Madison

The corruption in figure skating

My friend Joey's commercial

Quantum Leap: Season 1, Episode 4 - part 1 - wherein I reference Mohammad Atta, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Casablanca, the Hamilton-Burr duel

Quantum Leap: Season 1, Episode 4 - part 2 - wherein I reference Andrew Wyeth and Spencer Tracy

To those of you not in on the joke - in the space of one week, maybe a year ago, I got two irate emails - one accused me of being "shallow" because I was blogging about, oh, Project Runway, and one accused me of being an "elitist" because, whatever, I read The New Yorker or something retarded like that. In the same week! It cracked me up and made me realize: you cannot please everyone. I am somehow shallow AND I am an elitist. The "you're an elitist" crowd seems to have an undercurrent of, "What ... do you think you're smart or something??" in their response to me. And I'm like, "Uhm ... not sure what to say ... let me think about that for a minute ... hmmmmmm. Well, after great consideration, I have to say in answer your question: Yes. I do think I'm smart. Sorry you find that so upsetting." I mean, what are you gonna say?? (I suppose I could point them in this direction, but that would probably be pouring fuel onto the fire.) So after that one week of "You're shallow, no, you're an elitist!" I stopped worrying about the factions - although I still obviously enjoy making fun of those people. I stopped trying to write for one or the other side ... and just wrote what I wanted. If I need to reference Sartre in a post about the glorious Tyra Banks because it's appropriate, I will. This bothers people. Hysterical!

Oh, and speaking of hysterical: I am now on the 2nd Google Search page for "Obama-Macedonia" because of THIS. What?? If I become #1 on Google for that - a topic I don't give a rat's ass about, I'm throwing a party. It's not as funny as me being on the first page of Google Images for Sean Young - because I posted pictures from a makeup class in college 5,000 years ago - but it's close.

Happy birthday to James Madison

... fourth President of the United States, born on this day in Virginia, 1751.

"The principles and modes of government are too important to be disregarded by an inquisitive mind, and I think are well worthy of a critical examination by all students that have health and leisure." -- James Madison, age 22, to his friend who was just beginning to study the law

Elected to the presidency in 1808 - and then again for a second term in 1812 - - he didn't really have a good time of it in office, what with, you know, the war of 1812 and all, and the Brits burning down our damn capital. Not a very successful President - but the story of his administration is a fascinating one - its failures, its successes, war again ... Henry Clay said about Madison, as President, "Nature has cast him in too benevolent a mould. Admirably adapted to the tranquil scenes of peace, blending all the mild and amiable virtues, he is not fit for the rough and rude blasts which the conflicts of nations generate."

Madison's greatest accomplishment was his crafting of the US Constitution and also his commitment (second only to Alexander Hamilton's) to getting it ratified. Madison wrote Federalist #10 - probably the most famous of all of the Federalist Papers (I babble about it here) - although, if you haven't read them all in their entirety, all I can say is: do yourself a favor! (Excerpt here from # 15) It's the best civics class you'll ever get. Madison's mind was sharp, probing, deep - and all of the great political minds (especially the Virginians at the time) looked to him for guidance. Federalist #10 warns about the dangers of factions. But Madison, in his cunning behind-the-scenes manner, was hardly a neutral party himself in the battles of the day - and he had famous fights and breaks with his compatriots over matters of policy.

In May of 1787, the delegates arrived in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention ... the articles of Confederation, which loosely held the states together, were proving far too inefficient as time went on ... and people like Madison, Hamilton, John Jay, and certainly Washington - who had been raging about the slowness of Congress since the war began - thought that the articles needed to be revised. As Washington wrote, "Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the foederal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole." However, these were conservative men, despite their revolutionary fervor - they were not interested in tearing things down - but building upon foundations already there ... so it was not considered that a whole new form of government was going to be raised - although Madison - and Hamilton - went in there with preconceived notions, definitely. Nobody was more prepared than those two. The Articles could not stand. Earlier that year, the Shays Rebellion had taken place - which had pretty much freaked everyone out. What had happened to solidarity? Should military force be used to put down the rebellion? There couldn't have been a better time for the Constitutional Convention.

Catherine Drinker-Bowen, in her WONDERFUL book Miracle at Philadelphia, describes the beginning of the Convention - with a wonderful mini-portrait of James Madison:

On the twenty-fifth of May, when a quorum was obtained, Washington was unanimously elected president of the Convention and escorted to the chair. From his desk on the raised dais he made a little speech of acceptance, depreciating his ability to give satisfaction in a scene so novel. "When seated," wrote a member, "he declared that as he never had been in such a situation he felt himself embarrassed, that he hoped his errors, as they would be unintended, would be excused. He lamented his want of qualifications."...

In the front row near the desk, James Madison sat bowed over his tablet, writing steadily. His eyes were blue, his face ruddy; he did not have the scholar's pallor. His figure was well-knit and muscular and he carried his clothes with style. Though he usually wore black, he has also been described as handsomely dressed in blue and buff, with ruffles at breast and wrist. Already he was growing bald and brushed his hair down to hide it; he wore a queue and powder. He walked with the quick bouncing step that sometimes characterizes men of remarkable energy.

As a reporter Madison was indefatigable, his notes comprehensive, set down without comment or aside. One marvels that he was able at the same time to take so large a part in the debates. It is true that in old age Madison made some emendations in the record to accord with various disparate notes which later came to light; he has been severely criticized for it. Other members took notes at the Convention: Hamilton, Yates and Lansing of New York, McHenry of Maryland, Paterson of New Jersey, Rufus King of Massachusetts, William Pierce of Georgia, George Mason of Virginia. But most of these memoranda were brief, incomplete; had it not been for Madison we should possess very scanty records of the Convention. His labors, he said later, nearly killed him. "I chose a seat," he afterward wrote, "in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed, I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligble to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close in the extent and form preserved in my own hand on my files ... I was not absent a single day, nor more than a casual fraction of an hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech, unless a very short one."

It was, actually, a tour de force, not to be published -- and scarcely seen -- until thirty years after the Convention. "Do you know," wrote Jefferson to John Adams from Monticello in 1815, "that there exists in manuscript the ablest work of this kind ever yet executed, of the debates of the constitutional convention of Philadelphia ...? The whole of everything said and done there was taken down by Mr. Madison, with a labor and exactness beyond comprehension." ...

As I mentioned before, these were all practical men - and many of them had gathered with practical concerns, about raising money, and internal improvements - and how the Articles would be able to handle such large projects. Madison and Hamilton kept their cards close to their chests, at first ... (this, of course, was long before their famous break ...) Hamilton was a practical man as well. He had a lot of problems with the Constitution as it was laid out in embryonic form by Madison. But he recognized the genius within, recognized the need for such a thing - and nobody - but NOBODY - worked harder for ratification than my dead boyfriend. It is amazing the amount of print he was able to devote to the Federalist Papers - it STILL boggles the mind.

But back to Madison. Poor man ... his glittery compatriots always have a way of stealing the spotlight, don't they?? -

Catherine Drinker-Bowen goes on:

Time would pass before members realized how far the plans of such men as Madison and Hamilton reached, and what the Constitution promised to be. It would be misleading to name thus early the Constitution's "enemies", or to set down this name or that as "against" the Constitution. Five delegates in the end would refuse to sign -- Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Yates and Lansing of New York, George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia -- all men of decided views and each with a different reason for his action. More vociferous than any of these would be Luther Martin of Maryland, who, though out of town on private business at the moment of signing, later declared that had he been present he would have given the document his "solemn negative," even had he "stood single and alone".

It would be four months before the Constitution was finally ratified and signed.

I know I'm leaping around in a frightful way, sorry. Garry Wills has some very interesting thoughts on the famous Federalist 10 in his book on James Madison - it's long, but worth quoting in full:

Madison's debut contribution [to "The Federalist Papers"], would in time (a long time) become the most famous of them all. It crammed into a narrow space all the arguments Madison had been sifting and refining in his opposition to the Continental Congress's weakness, in his preparation for the convention, in his crafting of the Virginia Plan, and in his debates at the convention. Madison goes behind specific weaknesses in the Articles to expose the fundamental error on which the Articles were based, the idea that the only worthy democracy is direct democracy.

Madison's attack on that concept is so radical for its time that it is often downplayed, or even altogether missed. The most important passage in the Number is its claim that no man can be a judge in his own case. Not much is made of that in some treatments of the Number. We hear about the tyranny of majorities (though Madison treats that as just a symptom of direct democracy). We hear about the difference between a small republic and an extended republic (whereas Madison is talking about the difference between a direct democracy and a republic). We hear that Madison wanted to multiply factions (though he thought all factions bad things). We hear that Madison wanted to create a national elite, above the states, because he distrusted the people (though his system calls precisely for trust - direct democracy is built on distrust). We hear that he was trying to set up a mechanical system for producing correct decisions (though he said that no governmental machinery can produce good results without virtue in its operators).

It has puzzled people that Number 10 did not get much attention until the twentieth century. It was not a matter of great dispute in the ratification debates, though it would have clarified and focused those debates - they spent endless hours on the number of representatives, rather than on the nature of representation. The reason for this is that a dismissal of direct democracy was almost literally unthinkable to the men who debated the Constitution. Every constitution in America was based on that ideal, as a thing to be approximated even when it could not be literally enacted. If people could not directly make the government's decisions, as in a New England town meeting or the Athenian Assembly, then they should tie down those making the decisions, making them (so far as possible) passive tools in their own hands. That is why short terms, rotation, instruction open proceedings (to see that instruction is followed), recall (to punish departures from instruction), and weak executives were adopted. These were the necessary melioratives for the necessary evil of any departure from direct democracy.

The rightness of all these measures was so self-evident to those who accepted them that the could not even imagine someone making the attack on them that Madison did. He did not say, as many did, that direct democracy would be wonderful if it were possible but, since it is not possible in large communities, some approximation to it must be cobbled up. He did not think direct democracy wonderful. He thought it fundamentally unjust.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interests would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the right of single persons but concerning the right of large bodies of citizens; and what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine?

By calling legislation quasi-judicial, he instantly disqualifies all those who come to the task of legislating with nothing but their own interest in mind. They have come to be judges in their own case - and that is what proponents of direct democracy would justify. In doing so, they defend a system of majority tyranny. If naked interest is all that can be expressed, then only one thing will determine the outcome. The only question to be decided is: which interest has the greater number backing it.

I find Madison a very interesting fellow, although not as easy to get to know as John Adams, who was a passionate warm-blooded flawed and sensitive man ... Madison is a bit more "close", perhaps. (You won't see an HBO miniseries about Madison any day soon!!) A wife of one of Madison's friends referred to Madison as a "gloomy stiff creature" - and that is obviously not one of the qualities that leads to an endearing and well-liked president (although the office was still, obviously, in its infancy when Madison held it). He did marry Dolley Madison - who remains, to this day, at the top of the list of "favorite first ladies" - not that anyone remembers her personally now, of course - but by all accounts she was a vivacious social happy woman, and everyone liked her.

The two did not have children, but it appears the marriage was a happy one (she referred to him as her "great little Madison"). Unlike many other first ladies since, Dolley Madison didn't have a problem with the social rigors of her position - she loved it. Men and women alike found her charming, easy-going.

Wills describes the burning of the capital and its aftermath:

During the night of the fires in Washington, Madison and Dolley were unable to find each other - she stayed at one friend's home in Virginia, he in another. He met her the next day; then, assured of her safety, he went to consult with Winder, whose troops were on the road toward Baltimore ... Madison wrote to Dolley suggesting she not return to Washington until he was sure the city was safe. But she was already on her way back to him.

It was suggested that Madison would summon Congress to a different, safer spot - Congress had, after all, been shifted about during the Revolution. But Madison knew the government must be seen to function, and he called Congress back for an early session. He had chambers prepared for the House and Senate in the Post Office and Patent Building, which had escaped the fires. He and Dolley moved into the house they had lived in when he was secretary of state - though the French minister, Louis Serurier, soon vacated his own residence, the current Octagon House, for their use. Dolley found these quarters too cramped, and she would end up in the former offices of the Treasury, where she could entertain on the scale she was used to. She, too, realized that it was important to return the city to its normal patterns. But the Madisons never returned to the blackened White House.

I think someone's choice of a wife can be pretty illuminating. Madison was often seen as a dour brainiac and he loved Dolley, who was pretty, friendly, funny ... and let's not forget resourceful: Perhaps her most famous moment is this: during the burning of the capital, Dolly was forced to flee by carriage - but she had the presence of mind to roll up Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington - (she had to break the frame in order to get the painting out) - and give it to some soldiers to keep safe. And of course, it was preserved, for all time, thanks to her foresight.

I mean, you gotta love a person like that.

And so happy birthday, "great little Madison". We are forever in your debt!

"Do I got the cash? Do you got the horse?"

My friend Joey is the star of this very funny award-winning commercial for an insurance company in Holland. I'd never seen it before, since it's strictly a European commercial - but it's up on Youtube. Hysterical! Joey plays "Vinnie", the at-first-competent-and-then-defeated star of the commercial. His shiny suit is killing me.

Quantum Leap: Season 1, Ep. 4: "How the Tess Was Won" - Part 1

LEAP INTO: August 5, 1956

Tess: If there's a man on this ranch who can keep up with me for one week - I'll marry him.

Sam Beckett leaps out of boxer Kid Cody in the 1970s and into "Doc" Daniel Young, a vet on a huge Texas ranch in the 1950s. He leaps into a muddy moment in a corral, where he is in the midst of wrestling with a squealing unhappy piglet.

(Had to break this one up into a two-parter! Here's part 1! Part 2 is below this post)

EPISODE 4: HOW THE TESS WAS WON - Part 1

As with any hour-long television show (especially one such as Quantum Leap - which is not really cumulative, and each episode has its own world and story and characters) - the writing has to be really efficient. Get to it. Don't dilly-dally. Who - what - where - why - when. GO. "How the Tess Was Won" starts, as I said, with Sam holding a squealing pig in a muddy paddock. Naturally he doesn't know who he is, where he is ... so every episode is a game of catch-up, for him (the script of this episode addresses explicitly some of the questions I've always had - like: how does he know where his character lives? What do you do when a character who obviously knows you, and knows you well, does not reveal his name to you? How do you get him to say it? Or someone else to say it? How do you "act like" you are this guy and you know your way around your own life?) But on a larger level, the writers of Quantum Leap, I think, were truly expert in this regard - because, in a way, we all, as viewers, were Sam - with each episode. He's our way in. We are as baffled as he is. We look around us at the new landscape - just 2 seconds ago we were in a boxing ring in Sacramento ... and now ... well, this ain't Sacramento no more. The writers waste no time in helping us out. It's efficient - but rarely simplistic! Quantum Leap was different from other series in that every episode needed a tiny bit of exposition. We almost start from scratch, each time. There aren't the same old characters that we can get comfortable with ... no. We are introduced to a new batch of people each time.

In "How The Tess Was Won", we become immediately aware that an argument is going on between a man and a woman on the outskirts of the muddy area Sam is in. We get their names: Tess. Chance. But then Chance says something about, "Your mother, God rest her soul ... she would have raised you right ..." and you realize that Chance is her father. She just calls him by his first name (which is so hysterical and perfect once you get to know Tess better. Of course she wouldn't call him "Dad", which would imply that, in some way, he was better than her ... because HE WAS A MAN!) In this short exchange we learn everything: Tess is played by the spunky and not-quite-beautiful-but-awful-darn-cute Kari Lizer. She's got wild blonde hair, she wears no makeup, chaps, denim shirts, and when she gets dressed up for church later, she looks like an alien in human clothing. Tess wearing a sun hat and a pretty Sunday dress? No. She's a fierce tomboy. Perfectly cast. (She's an interesting actress. She's become a successful television producer as well, nominated for 4 Emmys for Will & Grace).

So in the first 30 seconds of this episode we learn that:

-- Tess is the owner of Riata - a 50,000 acre ranch in Texas. Or - she's an heiress, let's say that. When Chance dies, it will go to her.

-- Tess refuses to get married. Chance pleads with her. She is ornery. He is afraid that the ranch will be too much for her on her own. She bristles at that. She's yelling and carrying on. Chance is patient, reasonable - in the face of her freak-out.

-- Tess hates even the IDEA that she has to be married in order to be a legitimate ranch owner. It certainly wouldn't be the case if she were a MAN. So no. She will not act "like a mare" ... she will live her life as though she was a man. "I never was much for sashaying and swooning," she declares.

-- Chance says the line about Tess' mother. Says, "She'd have made a woman out of you, and not a cowboy." Tess fires back, "Why can't I be both?" Chance roars, "It ain't natural!"

-- Besides - who would she marry? She waves her hands at all the staring cowhands - and by the tone of her voice, we can tell that while they may be good cowboys, they are no great shakes as potential husbands. She says to Chance, "Any man I marry has to be more of a man than I am." She is convinced that no one on the ranch can out-ride, out-brand, out-rope, out-anything her. And you know what? She's probably right. Then she makes her fateful statement to Chance, "If there's one man on this ranch who can keep up with me for a week, I'll marry him." Uh-oh, Tess. You can't go back on that now! A REAL man can't take back a promise! Chance takes her up on the challenge and tells her to pick a man for the contest. Just to be ornery probably, because she doesn't really want to get married (although, at the end, there's a bit of a twist in our understanding of her emotional life - which is really nice, handled really well) - she points her finger at poor bewildered muddy Sam, still holding the pig, and states, "Doc."

This causes a brou-haha. There's one particular cowboy who seems bummed about it (he's played by the wonderful and handsome Marshall Teague - still working constantly - he's fantastic) - but you know, they're all cowboys. They play their cards close to the chest.

Sam, not quite realizing yet what he has gotten himself into, remains oblivious and, well, frightened of the pigs around him. He's NOT a vet. He doesn't know what the hell he is supposed to be doing with these pigs. It becomes obvious that Doc is treated with bemused tolerance by the cowboys. He's a creature of fun to them, but they aren't mean. I'm reading the Master & Commander series now - and it reminds me a bit of the way Dr. Maturin is treated by the sailors - when he asks questions, or how he climbs the ladder into the boat - it totally reveals that he doesn't know anything about sea life - and they laugh at him, and condescend to him, but they also have great fondness for him. They love him. It's a similar dynamic here.

Sam, who always has that dual struggle going on (how do I "act like" I'm this man - whoever he is, and also "what am I here to do so I can just DO IT and then LEAP") - agrees to the contest, without really understanding what he is agreeing to. He's afraid to make any big moves, or (to use improv terminology) "say No" to anything - he's in the middle of a perpetual improv game, where he must always "say Yes" (Mick Napier notwithstanding) and then figure it out later.

Sam agrees to the ridiculous contest and then gets into the nearby jeep (how does he know it's his??) and drives off. Now, regardless of whether or not we ask the question: How does he know which way to drive?? - I just have to point out (for the 100th time in this Quantum Leap series) - the superior quality of the production design and the cinematography. This is high-end stuff, the series looks really high-end to me - like a mini-movie every week. The cinematographer and the director had Sam get into his rickety jeep and drive off, through this spectacular pioneer wilderness - and we get a long shot of the jeep, with the dust rising behind it - and suddenly, like a miracle, a flock of birds rises, something we had not discerned before (there were birds there?) - and their launching into flight, as one, is just a beautiful effect - accidental, of course, to some degree (one cannot control a flock of birds) - and I don't know how they "planned" that accident to happen - but however it occurred, I am truly glad it did. Because look at it. It's just beautiful.

Moments like that is what elevated this series into something quite special. The acting of the two leads did so as well, but their work was greatly served by the specificity and beauty of the design around them. All hands on deck for a big round of applause. Television is a collaboration. Shots like that are the result.

Now comes the bit where we get, really, the first voiceover from Sam where he tells us what it is like for him, during these leaps - how does he find his way home? In this case, he has remembered his last name, and that he is a vet, and so he sees a mailbox labeled Young DVM - and he knows - Okay. I live here.

When he arrives at his house, there's a young man, maybe 15 or 16 years old, sitting on his front porch, strumming a guitar. I have to say, he looks vaguely familiar. This is the set-up for one of the most famous "Kisses with History" that Quantum Leap had - and, for my taste, the most successful. In my experience, many of the brushes with actual historical events in Quantum Leap, take away from the actual STORY. I'm not wacky about a lot of them. They seem unnecessary. I can see how it would be hard to resist - but many times, you don't need it. The fact that Sam has jumped in time is enough weirdness, you don't need to add to it - by having him inadvertently cause the Watergate break-in by leaving a door unlocked (and etc. etc.) The "Kisses With History" did evolve, as the show went on - "How the Tess Was Won" was in the first season, after all, when they were still finding their way ... and many of the later episodes in later seasons either have no Kisses With History - or they go right for the jugular, like having Sam leap into Lee Harvey Oswald - which is FAR more compelling, I think. I mean, how many of us haven't thought: Man, if I ran into Mohammad Atta in a dark alley on Sept. 10, 2001, and I knew what he was going to do the next day ... would I kill him?? Or: If I met a lonely Viennese painter named Adolf Hitler in the 1920s and I knew what he was going to do - would I have the courage to just stab him in his sleep? And etc. So that particular Quantum Leap episode (which is a two-parter, if I recall correctly), dives straight into those very human questions - and looks at it, struggles with it, ponders it. That, to me, was very effective. Many of the other "Kisses With History" just felt like tricks. Cheap, in a sense.

But - to make myself clear - I REALLY like the one in "How The Tess Was Won". It's set up as an ongoing joke through the entire episode: what the heck is the name of that boy with the coke-bottle glasses who plays guitar on my porch every day? Why doesn't anyone tell me HIS NAME? And so the payoff at the end is fantastic. It really works.

The kid on the porch is not playing a song we recognize. He's just messing around - and the joke is made clear from the first scene: he sings about whatever he sees at that moment. A chicken walks by, the chicken makes it into the song, etc. He's not really writing songs yet - and again, this will pay off hugely in the last moment of the episode.

Sam gets out of the jeep, muddy, holding the little pig that he is supposed to somehow diagnose - and struggles up the steps, feeling awkward because the kid is talking to him ("I watered the animals - what's wrong with that pig?") - and he doesn't know the kid's name. The kid gets up to leave - and Sam stands there, like a dope, saying, 'So long" - knowing it's awkward that he wouldn't say "So long ________ [whatever your name is, kid"]. As the kid drives off, poor Sam looks up at the sky and says, "Couldn't you provide people with name tags?" A jokey reference to God - (or "fate, or time, or whatever" - they openly acknowledge from the first episode of this series that Sam is NOT in charge of his own leaping - that Al and Ziggy have no idea where he will go next - and that "someone else" seems to be in charge. And you'd have to have seen the entire series all the way to the last episode to get the TRUE payoff of this ongoing theme. That last episode is killer - and it's particularly strange becuase they didn't know it was going to be the last episode when they filmed it. But God, what a perfect perfect way to end this series! But I'll get to that episode when I get to it. In about 2011, at the rate I'm going.)

Al makes his appearance at this moment. He appears on the porch beside Sam, and instead of getting right to business - instead of talking about the leap, and where Sam is, and what Sam is here to do - Al seems more concerned with talking about Tina's tattoo (his girlfriend) - and he has an odd, almost suspicious, air to him. He wants to know if Sam ever saw Tina's tattoo. "But no, you wouldn't have, would you. Because it's on a very private part of her anatomy." Al still seems concerned, though. His main question here is: "Sam. Did you ever see Tina's tattoo???" Which is just so hysterical. Who CARES, Al? You're in the middle of one of the greatest experiments that man has ever known - your friend is leaping through time - and whenever you show up, you start babbling about your personal life back in the future. It is SO funny. And, to my taste, it is THE key to the success of this series. There are many other elements that went in to making it a success - but Al's general vibe of.... irritation at being interrupted from his complicated and eternal domestic dramas ... is such a nice touch. And they kept it going, without making it too much of "a bit". Al is not a do-gooder. Sam is way more of a do-gooder than Al is (although we will find out more about Al as the series goes on). If Al showed up as a passionate do-gooder, the series would have been insufferable. It wouldn't have had the humor it did. And Sam's constant frustration with his friend - like: why on earth is he grilling me about Tina's tattoo when there are other more important issues at hand: like: WHO AM I? WHERE AM I? WHAT WAS THAT KID'S NAME? WHAT IS THIS CONTEST I'VE AGREED TO? - is so funny. The series, in its essence, is about the relationship between these two men. And thank God for it. It grounds the entire enterprise. Aren't the two of them just so watchable together? They have a great dynamic. So back to our episode. Al stands there, as Sam gets out of his muddy pants - on the porch - and Al is acting very strange. (Or, stranger than usual). He seems to feel that Sam has somehow moved in on Tina. Which is totally retarded because Sam is trapped in the past - how on earth could he have made a move on Tina and seen her intimate tattoo? But Al is obsessed. Sam is exasperated and tells Sam that he barely remembers Tina at all - remember that whole "swiss cheese" brain thing? Al relents a bit and then confesses - and there is this funny exchange - which might not seem funny in just the lines themselves - but watch how these two actors play it!!:

Sam: Tina's cheating on you?
Al: Can you believe it?
Sam: It boggles the mind.

Sounds pretty straightforward - but Dean Stockwell and Scott Bakula add layers upon layers to each of their lines - it's a comedy slam-dunk. Al, as usual, is obviously not faithful to Tina (the girlfriend) - which he confesses openly. "At the Christmas party when I took Samantha into the stockroom ....... to .... exchange Christmas presents ...... someone made a move on Tina ..." So, you know, Al doesn't really have a leg to stand on. (Once we know Al's backstory, about the wife he lost, all of these romantic dramas take on a totally poignant aspect - which is rather phenomenal if you think about it. The man is a dog. A DOG. He leads with his cock. But what might be behind that behavior? What is really going on with Al? But I'm already quantum-leaping ahead of myself. All we know now, in Episode 4, is that Al is lecherous, and also kind of has a double-standard: HE can cheat ... but Tina? How DARE she cheat on him?? He's kind of a fragile personality, for all his tough cigar-chomping military-hero brou-haha. I love him. He's totally lovable.)

Sam wanders around Doc's house (oh, and let's notice that there is NOT a "mirror moment" - at least not when we expect there to be one - usually Sam rushes right to a mirror to see what he looks like as this new character - this doesn't happen in "How the Tess Was Won" - Sam is too consumed with trying to cure the pig, and trying to gear up for this cowboy contest thing that's going to happen ... When the mirror moment comes, at the very end, it packs a really nice punch - but I'll talk about that when I get to it.)

There's an office to the side - filled with caged animals - raccoons, bunnies, whatever - Sam goes to the desk (still holding the baby pig, let's remember) and starts trying to diagnose the animal. Al, in his ridiculous spats-like shoes, strolls around the cages, and all of the animals can see him - it is clear, from their responses to him. So animals perceive him. We learn in later episodes that very young children can see him, too. A nice touch, a nice comment on the open-ness and accessibility of children - they don't question it, they see a hologram and think, "Whatever. Who is that nice man with the cigar?"

A quick thing about this scene: Sam rummages around in the fridge, and takes out a baby bottle full of milk - asks Al, over his shoulder, "Do pigs like milk?" Al answers immediately, "They adore it!" Then in a couple of seconds, Sam says, "I wonder what's the matter with him" (meaning: the pig), and Al says, browsing thru the animal cages, "That's a girl pig, Sam." Sam starts to peek between the pig's legs and Al says, exasperated, "Would you please just trust me, Sam?"

Okay, so all of this just makes me laugh. I love how, in this series, Al knows a little bit about everything. You know, pigs like milk. Also, that's obviously a girl pig. But it comes up again and again. Sam shows up in some unfamiliar situation, and Al begins to pontificate, "Yeah, I spent a summer with the circus ... so here's how it works ..." It's a kind of a "bit", not completely realistic - how could one man have had so many different experiences?? - but it totally works. Don't you know people like that? (People who AREN'T obnoxious know-it-alls, I mean - which Al definitely is not). Some people who know "a little bit about everything" like to lord it over other people, and pass themselves off as experts. I can think of some bloggers who fit into this category! But Al isn't like that. He's a man who's lived a full and a diverse life - but even more than that (and this is why, I think, Al is such a sympathetic character - who we don't just admire, but love): there is nothing on earth that Al is not curious about. NOTHING. He may have a skeptical manner, he may get easily distracted by tits and ass, he may have closed off great sections of himself because of the losses he has sustained - but he still remains curious about all of the wonderful and scary and interesting things that life has to offer. It's an awesome quality. Reminds me of the comment Sylvia Beach made about James Joyce: "He told me he had never met a bore." Now it takes a really open mind to look at the rest of the human race that way, to truly experience other people as real, and fascinating (even if they're assholes. Realize that James Joyce did not say "he had never met an asshole". No. He said "he had never met a bore". Even ASSHOLES are interesting). One of my pet peeves in life are people who are "over it". People who are perpetually bored - because they have "been there, done that, seen that". I have cut such people out of my life - because I know a couple - I cannot bear that attitude. I experience it as actually toxic, or harmful to my own equilibrium. Anyway, that's neither here nor there - I'm just expressing what it is about Al that I find so admirable, and lovable. His inability to be UN-interested in things. Even when he's not interested in the leap in question, he's always interested in his own personal life. He is always engaged. And that, my God, is a quality I wish I could bottle, and sell to others. Beautiful, isn't it? Dean Stockwell embodies it perfectly.

Sam tries to get Al to focus. And you can tell that Al hasn't even thought about the leap. He hasn't run any numbers. He hasn't pondered why Sam has landed in Texas, and not somewhere else. Al has shown up here basically to confide in Sam his fears about Tina's infidelity. hahahaha So Sam, feeding the pig milk, asks, "Why am I here, Al?" Al snaps back to business, "Oh ... right ... uhm ... let me look at the numbers ..." Al says that there is a 72% chance that Sam is here to cure the pig. Sam doesn't think that's it. He says, "I thought I was here to marry Tess." Al looks confused - who the heck is Tess? How can I be expected to keep all these characters straight when my own personal life is so all-consuming?? Al hasn't even run any numbers on Tess. So he starts to do so - with his trusty hand-set thing (I love how he has to give it a good whack on the side on occasion, in order to jolt it back into commission).

Sam, sitting at the desk, comes across a huge scrapbook, and starts to look through it. He is stunned at what he finds. It's a scrapbook devoted to Tess. Pictures, clippings, piles of memorabilia. There's a notebook, too - a diary. Sam wrestles with himself a bit about whether or not to read it - it seems like an invasion of privacy. But Al says, "You ARE Doc, Sam ... read the diary." So it turns out that Doc Young has been pouring out his heart into his diary for years - about his love for Tess. He has loved her for years, ever since the first moment he saw her. He confides in the diary that he is "still dumbstruck by her presence". Al, re-checking the numbers as Sam reads out loud, says that there is now a 97% chance that "someone who's been sending her love letters will marry her". Sam is nervous about the prospect of having a romance, you can tell - it's too much pressure - so he says, "Well, that's good, right? This is a diary - not love letters!" Al says, with conviction, "Sam. You are here to marry this cowboy. Boy-girl. Cowgirl. Girl."

Now please. When you watch the episode, please just watch how Dean Stockwell manages that ridiculous line. It's SO funny and SO real. He doesn't know WHAT to call Tess - so he goes through every single variation - until finally just landing on "Girl". Well done, sir. That's not an easy line to make not only real but also funny.

So the next day, poor Sam shows up for the first day of the week-long contest between himself and Tess. He is apprehensive ... and he also isn't sure of what the outcome here should be. Should he try to win? Is that the right thing? Is Doc supposed to marry Tess? Has Doc been writing and sending her love letters? Is he "the one"? Or not? But then there's the flat-out fact that Sam is not a cowboy, never has been a cowboy, has never roped a calf, has never ridden a bucking bronco, and has no idea what he's doing. So the prospect of him winning is slim in any case. But Sam is still rather grim and serious when he shows up at the corral the next day. Tess is also grim, but that's because she's a tough mo-fo, and is not in the mood to be generous. She's a competitor. Will Doc keep up with her or no?

The first contest is riding a notorious wild horse - whose name, portentously, is Widow-Maker. Tess is the only rider on the ranch who can handle Widow-Maker. And now Sam has to climb on and try to stay on. He can't even get the bridle in the horse's mouth - it's too difficult - so Wayne, in a seemingly generous gesture, comes over and helps Sam with the bridle. A nervous voiceover commences as Sam gently gets on the horse - he is trying to recall all of the things his father had taught him about horses (remember: Sam did grow up on a farm ... he probably doesn't remember all of that himself, due to the swiss-cheesing ... but some of it is coming back) ... He thinks he'll be okay if he keeps his father's advice in his mind. Look the horse in the eye. Let the horse know who's boss. Get on gently. Blah blah blah. Of course the second Sam settles onto the horse - the horse goes absolutely apeshit. All the cowboys have crowded around to watch, along with Tess and Chance - and they stand back, laughing hysterically, watching the horse buck and rear and fling itself about - with poor "Doc" hanging on for dear life. Finally, the inevitable happens.

Now - Wayne, the cowboy I mentioned earlier, treats Doc with the requisite kindness - helps him bridle the horse, etc. - but gradually, over the first brutal day of this contest - we start to realize that something else might be going on with him. He never steps up and says, "I love Tess, you jagoff". Maybe he has too much pride for that. Maybe he's afraid of Tess a little bit (aren't they all?) Maybe he thinks: "Hey, man, if she didn't choose ME for this contest, then she can HAVE the stupid Doc if she wants him ..." But at the same time, during the next challenges (roping, branding) - Wayne gives Sam some advice about roping - and it comes off as totally helpful - "Okay, so here's what you need to do ..." Off Sam goes, keeping Wayne's words in mind - but it turns out that Wayne left a very important bit of information out of his instructions - and Sam nearly breaks his thumb. Tess starts to see which way the wind is blowing - even though she's been laughing at Doc's struggles all day - and she rides over to Wayne and yells at him. "Wayne - didn't you tell him to so and so?" Wayne, sullen, says, "I guess I forgot to mention that part." Tess is nothing if not FAIR. She wants this contest to be FAIR and she doesn't want to have any "help" given to either side. She's as good as a man - and she can win the contest on her own steam. That seems to be the main thing that is pissing her off about Wayne's subtle interference - what, he doesn't think she can win it all on her own? Because Tess is a bit of a moron (and I mean that in the most loving way) - she doesn't see the undercurrent of what is going on with Wayne. She remains oblivious. She has no experience in matters of the heart, so she can't pick up on the signals. (Funny thing is - by the end of the episode, you can tell that Wayne - handsome and studly though he may be - is ALSO a newbie to this whole love thing ... and, for that matter, so is "Doc". They're all a bunch of love newbies! No wonder why they are all acting like lunatics)

Sam eventually, though, with Chance's help - gets the idea of roping, and he successfully ropes a calf. Not only that but he "punks" Wayne - and does the whole "look at how my thumb is broken" trick - only to show that no, it's not broken at all. All of the cowboys (except Wayne) roar with laughter - it's great to see Doc step up to the plate like this, and everyone loves a good ball-busting joke. Tess loves it, too. It's manly of Doc. She doesn't want a weak man. She wants (and needs) an ALPHA, Goddammit! So it's great to see Doc best Wayne in a moment like that. Wayne doesn't see the humor. And Tess (because she's such a newbie at love) doesn't discern that Wayne is actually the alpha to end all alphas - and in his quiet relentless way, he is ALSO participating in the contest (which supposedly is only between Doc and Tess). He is quiet about it, he's kind of a moron about his own feelings (as we will see later) - but his back is up here, boy ... he can't allow himself to seem TOTALLY mean to Doc, because true alphas aren't mean to those who are weaker ... that's the real mark of an alpha male, by the way. They're so alpha that they can afford to be kind and gentle and fair to those who can't compete at that level. But Wayne is just acting on instinct here. Sam starts to see what's going on before Tess does. And Sam, who is also alpha in his own way (even though Doc might not be) - starts to get his competitive spirit on. He will not let this dumb cowboy run him out of the race.

However. His day of roping and branding and riding has left him battered and filthy. They ride back to the corral through the gathering twilight. Here's another shot - where you gotta give the props to the cinematographer. Bravo. You don't see much on television that looks quite that good.

Once they return to the stable, Tess comes up to Sam - who can barely wait to get home and sink into a hot bath. She tells him that she and Chance and Wayne are heading into town for an important meeting (at a bar, of course) with a potential buyer (a bigwig) of their prize-winning bull. Sam is dismayed. Does he have to come with them before he even takes a bath? Tess is inexorable. "Yup. You have to come now." If you want to get married to me, you better start to learn how the business is run. Sam realizes that the contest is still on, that it will be 24/7 type of contest.

At the bar in town, they sit around a table with the buyer. Now of course business is a subtle thing. You don't get right to the point, you hold your cards close to your chest, you bargain, you bluff. So instead of talking business, they play poker, and drink.

A couple things going on in this scene: you watch how Tess handles the buyer, pouring him a shot, making him feel comfortable, but also letting him know that she is nobody's fool (even though she's a woman). You see that Tess not only can hold her own in ranching matters - but she can drink with the men, too. She drinks, but she doesn't get drunk. She remains cool and clear. There's also a sense of growing tension between Wayne and Sam. Sam doesn't want to drink. Wayne basically tells him to "man up" and pours him the drink anyway. Sam pushes the shot glass away, like: "I said NO." Things are heading for an impasse.

Tess deals the cards. She's getting pissed. Pissed at Wayne and Doc for acting like children. She's also in a scolding mood, saying to Sam, "I ain't marrying no man who can't beat me at poker."

Al appears at this moment. Sam certainly could use Al's help in regards to winning the damn poker game. But Al appears and immediately begins to ruminate nostalgically about how he met Tina "over a poker table in Vegas". Like Sam gives a shit about any of that right now!

Now, a word about Stockwell:

Here is his line here:

"Tina and I met over a poker table in Vegas. I had a flush. She had a pair."

Now that is such a cheap joke - and Stockwell, bless him, goes right for it. (I love cheap jokes.) He says the line in a nostalgic fond tone, as THOUGH he is quoting Rick from Casablanca: "We met in Paris. The Germans wore grey. You wore blue." But no, he's actually saying, "I had a flush. She had a pair." It's so stupid and so funny - Stockwell makes his voice go deep and guttural on 'she had a pair' - and he goes for that double entendre with everything he's worth. It's hilarious. Poor Sam, concentrating on his poker game, surrounded by tough cowboys, is pissed at the distraction - like: "Could you give me a little help here, please?" - but he can't say it out loud because the cowboys will wonder what the hell he is babbling about. Al has figured out that Tina is cheating on him with Gushie - one of the Quantum Leap project leaders. The running joke about Gushie (which lasts throughout the entire series) is what horrendous halitosis he has. They never ever give up on the joke - and pretty much every time Gushie is mentioned, so is his breath. So Al is amazed that Tina would cheat on him - HIM - with that dude with "jock-strap breath". Al has another funny stupid line, and it's just a joy to watch Stockwell say it: "She took my second favorite organ and stomped on it with her four inch heels." Dumb, yes - but Stockwell means every word. And Al is not embarrassed about any of this, which is why he's so endearing. He is not embarrassed that he is not focusing on, you know, his JOB. He is not embarrassed that he cheats on Tina and then is hurt that she cheats on him. He's not embarrassed by anything, and you just gotta love a guy like that.

Sam, however, is caught up in his problems. He loses it for a second, and says out loud, "Gushie??" Chance is baffled. "Gushie?" Sam catches himself and babbles, "Yeah. Gushie. That's Navajo for ... your turn." Tess is giving Sam weird looks like, "Why are you acting like such a jackass in front of our buyer? We don't want him to think we're a bunch of buffoons." And Wayne, who's working his own thing, is laughing at it all ... loving the fact that Doc is losing it, and acting a bit crazy in front of Tess. It's perfect, as far as he is concerned! But that smile eventually is wiped off his face when Sam (on the advice of Al, who can see all the cards) accuses Wayne of cheating. Al says, "He's got all aces and 8s." Now. This is a moment that could have ended in a duel, Hamilton-Burr style. To accuse a man of cheating is a serious offense. You had BETTER be right, and you had BETTER back up your claim. Wayne will not let it stand. He insists he is not cheating. Chance looks on, concerned, in his Marlboro Man way. Wayne has, by this point, stood up. Furious. He puts his cards down, to show what he has - and oh shit, he DOESN'T have aces and 8s. Sam is busted. He took advice from Al - and now look what happened. Al is furious - he SWORE Wayne was cheating - he had aces and 8s, dammit - so while Sam is trying to bluff his way out of his false accusation, you can see Stockwell behind him, trying to figure out what happened - dealing the cards (or, miming it) - trying to track where those aces and 8s went ... Its very funny, Stockwell's behavior in the background - while Sam tries to get out of the mess he's in. Finally, Tess - who has had it with both of them - stands up and drags Wayne away to have a talk with him.

She has finally caught on to the fact that Wayne is trying to sabotage Doc's chances. (Like I mentioned, Tess might be smart about ranching - but she's kind of slow about relationships and men). Tess is PISSED. She thinks that Wayne thinks she can't win the contest all on her own and is trying to 'help' her. She doesn't see that, duh, Wayne wants to win the damn contest, even though he wasn't chosen to compete at all.

Meanwhile, back at the table - Al is still obsessed with how on earth he could have messed up the cards so badly - and Chance and the buyer have gone off to talk about bulls, and Al asks Sam to turn over Tess' cards - because he thinks he's figured it out. Sam does so - and there they are: aces and 8s. Wayne, who had been dealing the cards, dealt those cards specifically to Tess - so that she would beat Doc, no matter what. Now Sam really knows what he's dealing with, in terms of competition for Tess. Wayne will play dirty.

Now a quick note about Scott Bakula and what he's "working on" here as an actor, and how it all makes sense, once you know the ending of the episode:

-- all along Sam has been saying that he doesn't want to marry Tess - not that he doesn't like her, or whatever - but that it makes the leap a whole lot more complicated if that is his task - his first comment is, "Well, if it's someone who's writing her love letters who will marry her - then that's great - because Doc is only writing a Diary!" It's like Sam doesn't want to deal with all that messy love stuff, and would rather just focus on curing the pig. Wouldn't it be great if a leap could be that easy? Figure out what's wrong with the pig, and off you go to your next destination in the space/time continuum. But looks like it's not going to be that easy. So far, Sam's only experience of Tess has been her fierce no-nonsense inexorable competitor side. She is, quite frankly, exasperating. But ... but ... (and it's not clear at this point in the episode, but it will be soon - so I figured I'd bring it up now) ... he finds himself getting attached. He can't help it. In competing for her, in trying to do his best to out-cowboy her ... he starts to become attached to the result. He wants to win. Not just because then he will "leap out" but because ... because he starts to want it. Her, I mean. Now Sam has not really put all of this together for himself yet - and a lot of his own behavior is baffling to him: like, why is he being a dick to Wayne? Why is he obsessing so hard on the "tally" in the contest - like: what is going on here?

This, naturally, will come up again and again and again in the series as a while: Sam getting involved - despite himself. Despite his desire to just get out of the project altogether and go home to his "real life" ... he still can't help but get involved. It's Sam's greatest blessing and his greatest curse. He might be a happier man if he didn't allow himself to get personally involved in strangers' lives. But then, of course, if he didn't get involved - he wouldn't be Sam Becket. And if you watched the series to the end, you know his final leap, you know what happens. And it makes total sense. Of course. Of course Sam would make such a choice. That's the kind of man he is. That's the kind of character he is.

But that final episode would not have the "oomph" that it did if Scott Bakula hadn't been playing that tormented in-out either-or struggle - throughout the series, from the very beginning. Sam wants to leap OUT, but ... something ... something ... what is it?? ... keeps him here, keeps him leaping ... and why? But maybe ours is not to reason why. Sam, of course, can't help but asking why ... it's his most human quality.... and here, in Episode 4, so early on ... they weren't sure if Quantum Leap would last a year, let alone 5 - but here Bakula is, playing that struggle, that struggle that will be so essential to our understanding of the entire series. Sam resists committing to the leap, because he knows it will take a lot out of him. What will it do to a man to let himself fall in love with Tess - with whoever ... KNOWING that he will have to leave her eventually? How do you let yourself "go there" when it is understood that none of it will last? What will that do to a man, in a cumulative sense? But isn't that how life is, for all of us? Quantum leap or no? Isn't it about leaping, regardless of the outcome? Love, courage, commitment ... all of it must be experienced without being attached to the result. I have not learned that lesson, and I know very few people who have learned that lesson - but if you watch Quantum Leap in that light, and watch Sam's eternal struggle, in episode after episode - to not get attached - and then fail and get attached anyway ... you see a character directly engaging in that fight, over and over. I love Bakula for understanding, instinctively, that part of the character of Sam. It's what makes actors great story-tellers - not just great ciphers of stories ... Scott Bakula, in his innate story-telling talent, understood what the real story was here, what the real point was. And whether or not Quantum Leap got picked up again for another season ... is irrelevant. What matters is the moment ... and you go back and watch that first season, and you can see Scott Bakula setting us up for the last episode of the entire series - which hasn't even been written or thought of yet. That's talent.

In our next scene, Tess and Sam, are out in a hot hilly field driving posts into the ground. Sam has his shirt off. He is a hunk and a half, let me tell you. Stud. It's not too much, either - it's not so sculpted that it looks like a coin would bounce off his abs. It's a human body, albeit a great body - the body of an athlete, your basic jock in his 30s. You can tell by her behavior that Tess is starting to fade. Maybe it's too hot. Maybe she won't take a break. Who knows. But something is going on with her in this scene. She's pounding at the posts, and shoveling dirt - drenched in sweat - and Sam, his doctor self coming through his swiss-cheesed brain - starts to tell her to slow down, or at least drink some water, or have some salt tablets. She's getting heat stroke. She's dehydrated.

Tess is ornery, though. She thinks Doc is condescending to her. Like she thinks he thinks she's somehow weaker than a man or something. She shouts down the hill at him, "I don't need no help!" Sam, trudging up the hill towards her with the canteen, groans, "Oh, man, women's lib is gonna love you." Tess, hacking at the dirt with her shovel, swaying on her feet - says, "What's that?" Sam doesn't even get into it. Just hands her the canteen. She brushes him off. Sam is starting to get angry. What is her problem? He says, "Look, there are some things that a man is better at - that's all. It doesn't mean men are better than women, though. There are plenty of things women are better at - like having babies." His comment, obviously, does not go over well. But Sam is speaking more as a doctor here, he is truly concerned about her condition. Tess fights him all the way, until eventually she straightens up too quickly, and immediately collapses in a faint. This has been coming all along, from the beginning of the scene - she probably was dizzy throughout.

Sam scoops her up in his arms and races down the hill with her to take her back to his house. It's an urgent matter - dehydration is nothing to sneeze at. As Sam peels off across the meadow, the camera pulls back - and we see that someone has been watching from a nearby hilltop ... a horse stands there, with a rider. And we just know, somehow, that it is Wayne.

A storm is gathering on the horizon, a big one - lightning forks from the sky, clouds are gathering. Sam races the jeep back to Doc's house, trying to beat the storm - knowing that he has to cool Tess off, or there might be some serious repercussions. It's an emergency. He arrives back at his house, and - naturally - the kid is there, on the porch, playing his guitar. Sam, too involved with Tess (who is still in a faint), doesn't have time to worry about the fact that he still doesn't know the kid's name. The kid stands up, alarmed - as Sam races into the house, carrying Tess over his shoulders. Sam gives orders - go get some water, put some salt in it.

NOW ... Scott Bakula is marvelous in this next scene. Just watch him - watch how he is doing 20 things at once, not just physical things - but emotional things as well. He's in an emergency situation - so he puts Tess on the couch and immediately starts pulling off her clothes. He's calling out to the kid his instructions - telling him to hurry - "fetch me some water ..." then Sam catches himself, mutters, "Fetch? I'm talking like them now ..." but it's just a quick aside - he's still busy with Tess ... It's just a wonderful example of an actor doing his thing, playing the scene - everything that needs to be played.

The kid comes rushing back in, and stops - horrified and embarrassed at the sight of Tess lying on the couch in her bra and panties. (I love, too, that her underwear is not sexy ... it's time-and-place appropriate: a big white bra, and old-fashioned white "drawers", basically ... I love that they didn't make her into a sexpot underneath her clothes. Of course she wouldn't be. Tess is too practical for that). Sam grabs the water from the kid - wets a cloth and starts to cool Tess down - tells the kid to go get a fan - quick. The kid runs off.

Sam starts to force Tess to drink, even though she's groggy and out of it - she winces at the taste of the salt water. Sam doesn't care. Drink. She drinks ... and starts to revive ... and then discerns that, OH MY GOD I'M NAKED ... and she sits up and punches Sam in the face. A sharp hook to the jaw - and he flips back and off the couch, spilling the water all over him.

Again, Scott Bakula is just great in this scene. He's feeling tenderness towards Tess, but it's pretty hard to feel tender towards a woman who punches you in the face when you're trying to help her. He's in an internal struggle. Tess hurries to cover herself up with the afghan, and Sam says, defeated, "Great. You have heat stroke and you cover yourself up with a blanket." He shakes his head and walks away. By now the storm has broken - rain pounds against the windows. The kid, still awkward because of the whole "I just saw a woman in her bra" thing, says he's going home before he gets caught in the storm. There's yet another moment where it seems like Tess is going to say the kid's name ... and Sam gets all excited, and anticipatory - but nope. She stops before the name comes out. Sam is disgusted. Glances up at God/Fate/Time: "Can't you give me a little help here?"

(But again ... that's the whole essence of the series. What it "means", if you will. And I don't mean to over-think this - and make Quantum Leap seem ponderous or overly serious. It's not. But without that deeper level ... of Sam struggling to find his way, struggling to find what God wants him to do ... and then also realizing that no, there is no help ... you have to help yourself in this world, no matter your era or place or time ... the series would not be half as effective. It would just be an everlasting gimmick - and I don't think it would have lasted as long if it didn't have that deeper level.)

As the storm rages, Sam goes into the office - where the piglet still lies in a drawer of the desk, still sick - and Sam sits and reads a medical book, while Tess recovers in the other room. Eventually, Tess appears at the doorway, wearing what is obviously Doc's clothes. She has a different energy now. Softer. Still. Maybe troubled. Curious. Not so certain. And definitely not ornery. She's looking in at Sam at his desk, with an expression on her face that shows maybe she's grateful to him, maybe she's aware that she's been behaving horribly. Also, any time there's a crash of thunder, she winces. Tess? Afraid of thunder? Well, yes.

There's a very very nice scene now - between Tess and Sam. The lights are low, the rain is falling hard - and they talk. Sam asks her if she wants to dance. She says she doesn't know how to dance. He says that's fine. He turns on the radio on his desk (shout-out to the production design: all of the interiors in this series could not be better - the details - I mean, look at what's on the walls, on the shelves, the things on the desk, the horse-calendar on the wall ... it's all so specific and real. It doesn't look like a set. It looks like: Yes, of course. That is where Doc lives.) Tess and Sam dance. They don't speak. She stares up at him, wonderingly. Is this what it feels like to be in love? She's not sure.

She's not used to allowing any softness in her personality. Of course not - she runs a ranch. She will not be respected if she's seen as "just a girl". It's not pleasant to allow softness when you are not used to it. (Yeah, whatever, I speak from experience.)

Sam then makes the mistake (but he can't help it ... he's not trying to "leap out" now, he's starting to accept his own reality - he's not "acting" ... he's succumbing) of trying to kiss Tess. Tess goes apeshit. Pushes him away. Shouting, "I ain't gonna lose in here what I won out there!" Sam has finally had it. Says, "Can't you ever give it a rest?"

Tess, in her desperate moment, goes right back into the contest - saying that she is obviously winning - and Sam can't let it slide. He's competitive too. He tallies it up: "I won in this ... and I won in this ..." and (my favorite moment, I think in the episode) is how he says, "Don't forget poker. I'm thinkin' I beat you at poker", giving her a stern look. Tess, in her tally, thinks that Doc lost. Sam, in his tally, sees that it's a tie - so he demands a tie-breaker. Tess considers this, and says, in a fearfully quiet voice, almost mournful because she knows Doc will lose this one: "You want to marry me, Doc? All right then. Ride Widowmaker tomorrow." Sam, remembering his first try at Widow-maker, hesitates, and Tess shakes her head sadly, and says, "That's what I thought," and walks out, leaving Sam alone with Piggy.

Something's up with Sam. He sits down, stroking the baby pig in the drawer, which squeals and squirms around with pleasure. Sam says, in a quiet voice (and it's real hard to make a "talking to yourself" moment seem real and true - but that's exactly what Bakula does here), "I like you too, Piggy. Funny thing is, until we danced, I didn't realize how much I liked her."

Well played.

"How the Tess Was Won" - part 2

Quantum Leap: Season 1, Ep. 4: "How the Tess Was Won" - part 2

LEAP INTO: August 5, 1956

Part 2: We left Sam at the moment he decided to ride Widow-Maker, the ferocious horse who threw him before.

EPISODE 4: HOW THE TESS WAS WON - part 2

Next morning. It's Sunday. Dawn.

Look at the Andrew Wyeth beauty of this shot. Isn't it gorgeous?

Tess and her father are getting ready for church and they look out at the corral, and see Sam there ... bringing out Widow-maker, in the early dawn light. Yup. He's going to go for it. Again. Tess is alarmed. She thought she had won. She had no idea that Doc would take her up on her ridiculous tie-breaker. Meanwhile, Sam - who is full of apprehensions, this horse could kill him - walks into the corral, and finds that Al is there. Naturally, Al is not at all focused on the events at hand - he is still upset about his personal life, and how on earth Tina could leave him for Gushie. How could that happen??? Sam, already wrestling with the horse, has had it with Al. He's not even listening.

The cowboys are starting to gather around to watch. Tess and Chance approach. Tess looks solemn. The horse isn't called "widow-maker" for nothing. Sam is nervous. Al finally realizes that something is expected of him ... and says, "Do you want me to control the horse?" "Yes, please!" Hilariously, Al leans right into the horse's head - and starts to chant "Om" right at it. "Ommmmmmmmmmmmm" ... "Ommmmmmmmm" ... the poor horse stands there, staring right ahead, like: who is this lunatic and why is he moaning right at me? Can't he back off? Then comes the big joke of the scene - in the middle of Al's "Om"s he starts talking to someone back in the future - who has obviously informed him that he has a phone call. At first Al is like, "Can't you see I'm busy? Ommmmmmm--" But he's interrupted again. "Take a message, I'm busy! Ommmmmmmmmm---" And finally, he straightens up - because of something he's told - and says, "It's who? It's Tina?" And then, hemming and hawing, and apologizing lamely to Sam - he says, "Yeah ... so ... uhm ... I have to take this call ... and ..." Sam cries, "Now? You're taking a call NOW?" Al doesn't care ... "Yeah ... uhm ... I'll be right back ... just hang on tight, Sam ... hang on to the horse ... uhm ...." He rips open a door in the atmosphere and promptly disappears - back to his all-encompassing personal life, leaving Sam abandoned on top of the fierce Widow-Maker - who, now that the "Om"s have stopped, goes batshit crazy - bucking rearing, galloping, skidding, doing whatever he can to throw this stupid rider off of him.

The cowboys watching all shout encouragement, totally into it ... but Tess stands there in her Sunday best, anxious. But this time, Sam isn't thrown. He hangs on. Maybe because now he's invested, maybe because now - after their dance - he realizes that he likes her. He likes her enough to compete with a free and open spirit. He's invested in it for Doc - because, after all, he's read Doc's diary and knows that Doc is in a serious state of unrequited love for this difficult woman. But he's invested in it for himself, too. He has feelings for this woman. And he is damned if this stupid horse is going to stay in his way. And whaddya know, eventually - after the ride of his life - Widow-Maker calms down, and submits to Sam's guidance. Widow-Maker gives up. "Okay. You the boss. I got it." The cowboys watching all break into applause, cheering like crazy. All except for Wayne and Tess. This was the tie-breaker. Sam won. Wayne looks down and away, alone with his own thoughts. And Tess is ramrod straight, trembling with nervousness and strain. So. Okay. She will have to eat her own words now. And marry Doc.

But then comes Sam's best moment. Ahhhhh, it's so satisfying!

He gets off the horse, and starts for his jeep. Chance intercepts him and holds out his hand, saying, "Welcome to the family, Doc." Sam doesn't shake Chance's hand. Says, flatly, with great dignity, "No, thanks. I wanted to see if I could ride him. Not her." And gets in the jeep and drives off. GO SAM! Now it wouldn't be good if every woman were treated like that - but Tess needs to be taken down a peg. Otherwise she will make any man in her life totally miserable. (Like Spencer Tracy making that famous comment to Hepburn: "Oh, don't worry. I'll cut you down to size." when she joked that she was taller than him. Hepburn was a Tess-like character (at least in the movies), almost like Widow-Maker in her wildness - someone needed to have the patience to tame her.) Sam's action came as a surprise to me the first time I saw the episode. I didn't see it coming. It throws everyone into a tizzy. Doc? Sweet submissive Doc? Saying "no"? Driving away? Wow. Tess is absolutely stunned. Humiliated.

Then comes a wonderful scene - between Tess and Chance (it's my favorite scene in the episode). There's a tenderness here - even though Tess is a grown woman, and a feisty woman - she's also Chance's daughter - and he takes the moment as an opportunity to teach her something. With gentleness and love. Tess is embarrassed that everyone is laughing at her. I love how Chance replies, "Nobody's laughin', Tess." Love him for that. He tells her to go after him. She balks at this - how humiliating - to chase after a man. Chance is having none of her excuses. "Don't you have to chase down calves to brand them? The chase is part of it, Tess - now go after him and fight for him." I love the scene - it's played beautifully by both actors.

Tess does go after Doc. She barges in on him. Finally, to explain himself - he hands over Doc's diary, wondering if it's the right choice - he's not sure. He hopes Doc, the real Doc, will forgive him when the time comes.

This scene - this last scene between Tess and Doc - is perfectly written. You want to see a well-crafted television scene? A perfect example of what to do, and how to write? You'd do worse than to look at this particular scene. It's where things are resolved, yes - which can often have a too-simplistic feel to it in your basic one-hour TV show ... but here: the writer (Deborah Arakelian, by the way) stays in the world of the characters ... it's still about these two people, and how THEY will resolve. It's just perfectly done, and perfectly played.

Sam is fed up with being treated like shit by her. He thinks Doc deserves better. Tess is scared. This is it, this is love. Is she ready? So when Sam finally just hands over the diary, it's the end of the road for him. No going back from that choice. He turns away from her, and stares out the window - as she, quietly, in awe, almost fear, flips through the journal, reading, realizing ... that Doc has loved her for years. How could she have missed it? She looks over at Doc as though she has never seen him before. Love is a new experience for her, she hasn't recognized any of the signs.

Sam doesn't turn around to look at her. And with his back to us, we get a voiceover. It tears at my heart, have to admit. Without naming "God", you can tell who he is talking to. "This isn't fair, you know. You can't expect me to do this and not get involved. So if Tess falls in love with Doc, I'd appreciate it if you'd just leap me out of here as soon as possible." Oh, Sam. No. It isn't fair. You are right. He can't bear it. If Tess chooses Doc, then that means he will leap - and not be able to experience what it would be like to be in the fullness of love with this woman - and that's a thought he can't stand. Sam Becket only gets to experience the struggle. He doesn't ever get to stick around for the good stuff. And no. That is not fair. I feel ya, dawg.

Tess, having had her heart and eyes opened by Doc's journal, asks if they can dance again. Sam accepts. It's almost too much for him now, though. To touch her. Knowing that his time here is so short. Tess has other things on her mind. As they dance she says, "Riata's in my blood. I can't just give her up." Sam says, "Nobody's asking you to." Tess protests, "If I marry you, all the men will look to you, after Chance is gone." Sam asks, "Couldn't we run it together?" Tess looks up at him as though he is now speaking a foreign language. "Together?" And now - Sam can't help it - leans in to kiss her - and this time Tess accepts the kiss. It's probably her first kiss. Her eyes remain open and vaguely alarmed the entire time. Ha. I love her character.

But then comes the final wrench into the entire leap.

From outside the house, we suddenly hear Wayne's shouting voice, "ARE YOU GONNA MARRY DOC, TESS? I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE. ARE YOU GONNA MARRY HIM?" The kiss breaks up. What is happening now? Tess goes outside, and sees Wayne standing there - all dressed up now - bolo tie, hat, gleaming horse beside him - It is Wayne's moment. His moment to (finally) declare himself. Tess is pissed - "What are you doing here, Wayne??" (She still doesn't "get it", does she.) Wayne, standing still and strong and stiff, confesses that he's worked at Riata all these years (for shit wages) only because of her - and because "someday I hoped I'd rope you."

It was in that particular moment when I first realized: You know what? It's WAYNE who's really her "mate", her "one" - not Doc. Beautiful set-up of the entire episode, I think. You root for Doc, you think Wayne is the competition - but at the end, you switch ... and you see what Tess hasn't seen, what Sam hasn't seen (because he was falling for Tess himself) - and you see Wayne, in all his awkward cowboy glory - and you see true love shining awkwardly out of his face. How could we have missed it? He can't express himself well, so suddenly - he pulls out a packet of letters - and says, "I've been writing you letters all this time ...." Sam, standing on the porch, still hopeful that "he" will win, deflates visibly. The letters. The letters that Ziggy and Al told him about. Can't fight fate. Tess takes the letters - and the expression on her face pretty much says it all. She doesn't look at Wayne the way she looked at Doc - with a curious and almost wondrous look. No. She looks at Wayne like a high school girl psyched - PSYCHED - that her crush-boy has FINALLY asked her to dance. We've never seen Tess look like that. Sam knows he's licked.

But Tess still wants to read the letters from Wayne - to compare and contrast them to Doc's diary - so the three of them sit in Doc's parlor (notice the set design - doesn't it feel like such a REAL room??) Tess puts down the last letter. The air trembles between the three competitors. Tess stands and asks Doc if it would be all right if she danced with Wayne. She just wants to see what it would be like. Wayne is as awkward as Tess was in the first dancing scene - he says (and you just love him, suddenly): "I don't know how to dance, Tess." She puts her arms around him and says, in her guileless simple way, "That's okay. I'll lead." Wayne nods - like that would be okay with him - and they awkwardly step touch step touch together - smiling shyly like two adolescents - and Sam steps back, watching, letting his heart break just a little bit. That's all part of his job. He couldn't do his job properly and not get involved. And I guess that's true for all of us in life, although it's sometimes hard to live by those rules. All that is really required of us while we are here on this planet is that we are involved. Bah. I can't deal with that.

In the next scene, Sam is still Doc - he's all dressed up - and feeding the small pig who, by now, is almost full-grown. We also learn that he is to be the best man at Tess and Wayne's wedding - which is that day - So I am assuming that Tess and Wayne did not have a long engagement - right? Sam wouldn't hang around for months? Or maybe he would. Al has now, at the 11th hour, shown up. Sam is still pissed at Al for abandoning him with Widow-maker and Al tries to defend himself, telling him he HAD to take that call - it was Tina telling him that she had only had an affair with Gushie to make Al jealous! So now, yay, Al was back together with Tina! He HAD to take that call. During this scene, you can hear the still-nameless kid with thick glasses playing his guitar out on the porch ... and it starts, slowly, underneath the scene, to be a tune that we, finally, recognize.

Sam is pissed at Al for not being there. And Sam is also pissed because - the whole leap has gotten him down. He didn't mean to fall for Tess, but like he said to God/fate/time - he did ... and now he has to stand by and watch her marry another man, and that just sucks.

Now comes the long-deferred mirror moment. I can't think of another time in the series when a mirror-moment comes at the END of the episode as opposed to the beginning - but it packs such a nice punch here, for multiple reasons. First of all, Scott Bakula is a stud. He's a tall, handsome guy with a great body, who is pretty much unambiguously male. A hunk. Things are different on this earth for the studs (whether they are nice people or not). The best thing about Sam Beckett is that he seems pretty much unaware of his studly qualities - it's a lucky accident, and he has done a ton of work to develop his mind, etc. But still - Al knows that Sam is a "catch", a guy who catches women's eyes easily - Sam grew up with that. He might not even be aware of it. But the reality is - life is easier for Sam because of his lucky genetics. So Al gestures to Sam, "Come here ... I want you to see something." He points at the hall mirror, and slowly Sam walks over to look at his reflection. And for the first time, we see what Doc looks like. And he's not a big strapping stud. He's a lean scrawny fellow, with glasses, and when he takes off his hat, we see the bald back of his head and his thin hair. All through the episode, seeing Sam ride and rope and brand and pound posts - it has been vaguely plausible that he would succeed at all of these things, eventually - because we haven't had the image of who Doc really is - we just see Scott Bakula. But to see scrawny nerd-man in the mirror, and to picture him braving Widow-Maker is a truly moving moment. Al says quietly (and bless Stockwell - he just knows how to play a moment), "You had a lot to overcome, Sam." Sam's demeanor changes when he sees the reflection. He grins at himself. He's proud. Proud of Doc for "going for it" - even though he didn't win.

Sam and Al stroll out onto the porch, into the sunlight. The nameless kid is still singing. The pig strolls by. The nameless kid sees it, and, naturally, incorporates it into the song - which, as I said, we are slowly starting to recognize. "Piggy Sue ... oh, Piggy Sue ..." Sam and Al don't notice yet, they stroll into the yard - wondering when Sam will leap. They think it's the 'I do' moment - that makes the most sense ... but slowly, slowly, they start to hear the song come forward, and the nameless kid - who, up until this moment in the episode, has just been dawdling on the strings, nothing real emerging - starts to really sing, and really play. He's onto something, he can feel it:

Piggy Sue, Piggy Sue,
Oh, how my heart yearns for you.
Oh, Piggy, my Piggy Sue,
Well, I love you girl.
Yes, I love you, Piggy Sue ...

Sam and Al are stopped in their tracks. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Slowly, the two men turn back to stare at the nameless kid on the porch, the kid who has always looked totally familiar. And now, naturally, we know where we have seen him before. But still. Nobody speaks. Al grins. A beautiful silent moment. Al glances at Sam and says, reading his friend's mind, "Why don't you give it a try?" Sam takes his final leap, and calls out to the kid, taking a chance, "Buddy?" Buddy Holly stops playing, glances up and says, "Yeah, Doc?" (Goosebump moment. Huge payoff.) Sam bumbles, a bit starstruck, you can tell - "Why don't you try Peggy Sue, instead of Piggy Sue ... I don't know ... I think it might sound better." Buddy considers this a moment, likes the idea, says, "Okay, Doc!" and launches right back in, playing and singing now with certainty - the rock star is born in that moment.

Al and Sam stand back, watching, grinning, a bit stunned by the whole thing ... and I just want to take a moment to revel in the two faces of these actors. Now I know a lot of good-looking interesting people, some of whom I think should be famous. But I look at these two, and I just feel glad - so so glad - that they "made it", that this series exists - and that it worked out for them - because I think they're both beautiful, and I love "visiting" the both of them whenever I want to, by popping in an episode of Quantum Leap.

Aren't they awesome?

Al, because he knows everything, realizes before Sam does - that it was THIS moment that God/Fate/Time/Whatever was waiting for ... not the "I do" moment ... Sam had one last thing to do here, and that was identifying Buddy Holly and giving him a crucial suggestion ... and now, now ... he will leap. Al turns to Sam and waves bye-bye - just as Sam shivers into blue lightning and disappears ....

... and wakes up, half naked, lying on his back in some dingy attic room ... and a breathless woman is standing over him, hurriedly putting on her pumps, saying, in a thick Long Island accent, "Thanks, Frankie. That was terrific. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'." And she clacks out ... leaving him alone ... looking around him ... he's wearing a pink tuxedo shirt ... and he's obviously just had sex with that woman ... Tess and the west of the 1950s is long gone ... so ... where is he now ... what has he just done ...

Oh, boy!!!

Quantum Leap recaps
Overview

Season 1, Ep. 1: Genesis - part 1 of re-cap

Season 1, Ep. 1: Genesis - part 2 of re-cap

Season 1, Ep. 1: Genesis - part 3 of re-cap

Season 1, Ep. 2: Star-Crossed - part 1 of re-cap

Season 1, Ep. 2: Star-Crossed - part 2 of re-cap

Season 1, Ep. 3: The Right Hand Of God

Tommy's posts:
Quantum Leap: an overview

Episode 1: Genesis

Episode 2: Star-crossed

The Books:"Moby Dick" (Herman Melville)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Moby Dick by Herman Melville - third excerpt.

We're deep into the journey now. Ishmael has methodically taken us through a bazillion chapters - telling us about the ship, and fishing, and the crew. Ahab has made only a couple of appearances. He's not an omnipresent captain (like, say, Jack Aubrey seems to be) - he sits in his cabin, stewing over his charts, and even though he isn't seen often - his presence is felt at all times. There's something odd about this particular journey. It seems doomed. And sailors are some of the most superstitious people on earth. There's that great (and creepy) story about one of the crew members showing up for work on The Andrea Gail (the ship made famous by Sebastien Junger's The Perfect Storm) - and he gets out of the car, I think his girlfriend dropped him off at the dock - and he got out of the car, stared at the ship, got an incredibly bad feeling, and then said to himself, "Nope. I'm not doing THIS job" and drove away. He had no idea what the bad feeling was about - but, in general, sailors do trust those instincts. I've lived near fishing and fishermen all my life, and gut feelings like those are rarely ignored. So there's a gut feeling on The Pequod that this trip is not like other trips. And what does one do when one is trapped on a whaling ship with a captain who could be mad? A pretty scary thought. He will put their lives at risk for his own personal quest, which has nothing to do with dragging home cases of spermiceti. It's a personal thing. But none of this is spoken out loud. Because that, too, would be bad luck. It's just a feeling, at first.

Here's part of a haunting chapter called "The Spirit-Spout" - it's one of those examples of Ishmael somehow describing a private moment of Captain Ahab. The first-person narrator goes away - and Melville doesn't seem to worry too much about it. But there's no way that Ishmael could get into Ahab's brain like this - but again, those concerns are too small - for a book such as this one. It could be seen as a flaw, and I could go along with that - but sometimes it is the flaws that make a work truly great. Because art does not play by the rules. Human beings create it. It is not perfect. It lives and breathes (or at least, it should). Melville was not at all concerned with writing a 'well-made' novel (to paraphrase) - he was concerned with describing, in as obsessive a manner as possible, a spiritual experience, a poetic experience ... and in doing so, he needed a fluid narrator. So whatever, his narrator is fluid. Melville was not obedient to a rule that he found no use for. I love that about this book. It would drive me crazy with a lesser artist - it would seem gimmicky, or too clever, or like a cop-out. But with Melville, once you are deep into this thing, you barely notice. I don't "miss" Ishmael in chapters such as this one - it just seems that he has disappeared, momentarily - leaving us with another narrator. And that's fine by me.

Here's the excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Moby Dick by Herman Melville - third excerpt.

Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, southerly from St. Helena.

It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude: on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. for though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.

Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in her - one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched Ahab's face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.

This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be; disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on.

Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.

These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow.

But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.

Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred.

Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried.

Happy place

Okay, so not really happy. But a place I love.

Posts I keep meaning to write

... but procrastinating because they will take a lot out of me:

-- the time I was stranded on the scary El stop in Rogers Park and feared I was going to be raped (why did I fear I was going to be raped? Because a big group of scary dudes had said to me, "We'll be waitin' for you at the bottom of the steps. We gonna rape you." I don't know - I felt like they really made themselves clear) - and had to call my friends to come get me (and then later got yelled at by M. because I didn't call HIM)

-- the time I rented a porn video at my local store

-- the time I went to a callback for a sci-fi movie and realized - halfway thru the audition - that I was being screened for a high-class call girl service (and again, when I told M. about it, he yelled at me. hahahaha Dude was always yelling at me, but I somehow found it refreshing)

-- about me and Mitchell's "bad time"

-- the night I got my revenge on the doppelganger for breaking my heart. It was subtle revenge. The best kind. Plausible deniability all the way.

-- about the perfume bottle spilling in my bag in acting class in Philadelphia and what happened afterwards because of it

-- the night I spent with Alec in Boston. A watershed moment. One day I was isolated and damaged, and the next day I had joined the human race

In keeping with the general air of shallow elitism in this joint:

I'll be posting my next Quantum Leap re-cap tomorrow. Season 1, Episode 4: How the Tess Was Won.

Here are the other re-caps, for those of you who are into this whole re-cap thing!

And here's a shot of Al, from Episode 4 - when he's having a particularly rough moment, full of suspicion, envy and anxiety.

hahahahaha Look at his face. I love acting that is like that - it's almost like a mask labeled "Suspicious". Brill. Love him.

HMS Surprise

I'm almost done with the third novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series - haven't been writing much about my journey with the series -but I will. I've just been busy surviving, and recuperating from my week in Chicago. It's not been an easy adjustment.

I finished Post Captain last Saturday, on my almost 10-hour wait to get onto a flight - ANY flight - at O'Hare. Thank goodness I had another book to start right away - Chrstine Falls by Benjamin Black (aka John Banville) - little did I know that my wait at the airport would be so long that I finished Christine Falls - a dense novel, over 300 pages long - that day! I still hadn't boarded the plane when I finished Christine Falls! Fantastic book, by the way. I'll write about it sometime. Dublin, 1950s. Magdalen laundries. Morgues. Intrigue. Catholic Church. Awesome characters. A real noir. I loved it.

When I got home, I decided to pick up HMS Surprise - because I'm into the series now, I have to keep going! They are the best possible kinds of books I could read at this point in my life. Escape. But not drivel. Deep. But not off-puttingly so. Intellectually arduous - they make me think, I do not find the books "easy" - I have to concentrate. This is good.

Anyway, my experience of the series made me think of the piece David Mamet wrote in The New York Times, an elegy for Patrick O'Brian when he died in 2000. I remember reading it back then - I think I read it in the actual newspaper, not the website - and it brought tears to my eyes, even though I had not read any Patrick O'Brian by that point. It was just a tribute - from one artist to another - and it really really moved me. I have never forgotten it. Just tracked it down - it is, thankfully, available online:

The Humble Genre Novel, Sometimes Full Of Genius, by David Mamet

Everyone's talking about "Funny Games"

The buzz began a couple months ago - but now the movie is out, and the chatter about it is everywhere. I've been reading the reviews - and this one, in particular, is a stunner. Such a good writer.

Reading all the reviews have been fascinating. If you're interested in hearing what various American critics are saying about Funny Games, there's a compilation of links here at House Next Door. And here is Fernando F. Croce's review on THND. Excellent writing.

Here's Dana Steves at Slate.

It's very very rare that I am happy when something fails. But in this case I'm happy. I feel like he's being called on his bullshit. I feel the same way about Lars von Trier's work - which disgusts me and, on occasion, throws me into a rage (like here)... a strange response for me to have - but there you have it. It's not that Lars von Trier's movies are upsetting or that I feel confronted by them ... It's that I can smell the fucking bullshit from down the block. He's a phony. So count me a kindred spirit of Holden Caulfield's then. Give me a blatant ASSHOLE over a phony baloney any day of the week.

I still think that the poster for Funny Games is one of the best movie posters I've ever seen. I didn't know what it was, hadn't heard anything about it - but one glimpse of it in a coming attractions area of a local cineplex - made me stop in my tracks. Literally. I stopped and stared. It's beautiful, it's evocative, it tells you NOTHING about the movie itself, it's vaguely disturbing - but what an image. It's art.

The Books: "Moby Dick" (Herman Melville)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves:

Moby Dick by Herman Melville - second excerpt.

Scrolling through the book, I find myself getting caught up in it again. Most of the chapters are short - 4 or 5 pages - so there's a fragmentary aspect to the novel. Like I said in my first post, there is no real plot - and the Ahab story takes a while to get going. For the first half of the novel, Melville immerses us in whaling - with extraordinarily poetic chapters on Nantucket, on the different members of the crew - Starbuck gets his own chapter, many of the crew people do - the parts of the ship (each getting its own chapter) - and of course - breaking down the whale into its many parts, the cetology chapters which are so daunting (and so boring) to many - including myself when I first read it. I changed my tune in the re-reading - and never wanted the book to end. Melville, you want to write 3 pages on a soup pot? Go for it? 4 pages on a pillow? I got your back, man. These are not just factual chapters, although there is a journalistic feel to much of it. "Here is what THIS part of the ship is for, and here is how it works ..." But then ... but then ... inevitably, he goes deeper, or higher - however you want to look at it. Everything is either a metaphor for something else - or a launching-pad for Melville's philosophical, spiritual, and emotional ruminations. I suppose if you found this kind of stuff tiresome, and just wanted the story to start, dammit - then all of this would be nearly unbearable. I know I did, in high school. It is one of the most obsessive books ever written. Maybe Finnegans Wake rivals it (excerpt here). But it really has no peers. Melville is obsessed with his topic. He doesn't want to leave anything out. So the book goes from here to there ... characters, events, to marine biology, to nautical explanations ... and behind all of it, is a deep flowing mystery - it haunts the reader. You ask yourself: Why? Why is he so obsessed? What will this add up to? And it is when you give up those questions, that the book really starts to come alive. EM Forster touched on this in the excerpt I gave in the first post. There are no answers, or easy solutions. A does not lead to B. Melville is doing something else, entirely - and I am not even going to try to articulate what it is. All I know is: he is obsessed. With the meaning BEHIND the meaning - and he goes at it in a fragmentary manner, not giving the reader a chance to ponder too much on the grander structure he might be going for ... No. Because if you look for the grander structure, the uber-story, the "why"s of the thing - you will miss the moment. In reading the Master & Commander books, which I am doing right now, there's quite a lot of talk about time - and how time is different when you are at sea, on a boat, far from land. The boat is the universe. Concerns for what's happening on land drift away. You lose perspective. Melville, in his creation of Ahab, is obviously interested in that aspect of nautical life - the almost disorienting feel of life at sea, and how whatever is going on with a human being either becomes amplified or disappears completely. Ahab has ZERO distractions. All he does is obsess over the whale. There is nothing else to take his focus - not a bit of land, nothing - just endless ocean. Melville also addresses this disorientation to a haunting degree with the chapter on Pip going mad - after his time alone in the ocean, before being picked up by the boat again. I can't remember right now how long Pip was in the water - but it wasn't long. And by the time the boat picked him up, poor Pip had snapped. Whatever it was he had seen, sensed, experienced - in the endless waves - had made him go mad. There is nothing to pull the eye, nothing to "ground" you (literally and metaphorically) - and Pip is "dazzled" into a state of silent madness. It's terrifying.

Here, in his chapter on The Mast-Head (which comes way before the Pip chapter) - Melville discusses the dangers of the sea - not the obvious dangers of storms, and big waves, and scurvy, and Leviathans ... but the danger of staring out into that endlessness for too long - and losing yourself entirely. Experienced sailors know to avoid such things, to keep busy, to lose oneself not in the ocean - but in the daily tasks of keeping the universe of the ship going. Don't get too reflective or introspective. Because there is nothing "out there" that will bring you back to earth. You are in a ship, on a heaving endless ocean. You're on your own.

Melville is a master. Watch how he starts with specifics here - how the mast-heads are manned, etc. - and by the end, he has launched off into another tone entirely - one almost of spiritual ecstasy and agony - a warning, to those on mast-head duty, the problems of the job - not just practical problems, but existential. The sea is not to be looked at head-on. It will shatter your sense of self. Be warned.

Such good writing.

EXCERPT FROM Moby Dick by Herman Melville - second excerpt.

The three mast-heads are kept manned from sun-rise to sun- set; the seamen taking their regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner - for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.

In one of those southern whalemen, on a long three or four years' voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your most usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called the t' gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull's horns. To be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of a watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshly tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenient closet of your watch-coat.

Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow's-nests, in which the lookouts of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In the fire-side narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled "A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;" in this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented crow's-nest of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good craft. He called it the Sleet's crow's-nest, in honor of himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we may beget. In shape, the Sleet's crow's-nest is something like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is furnished with a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this crow's nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray Narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed conveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called the "local attraction" of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the Glacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned "binnacle deviations," "azimuth compass observations," and "approximate errors," he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he should so utterly ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend and comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded head he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird's nest within three or four perches of the pole.

But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as Captain Sleet and his Greenland-men were; yet that disadvantage is greatly counterbalanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there; then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination.

Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how could I - being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering altitude, - how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all whale-ships' standing orders, "Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time."

And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who offers to ship with the phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware of such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes !n asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent- minded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and in moody phrase ejaculates: - "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain." Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient "interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses at home.

"Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads, "we've been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly- discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Cranmer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!

The fiasco of ice skating judges

Fascinating!!!

I'm a huge fan of figure skating (the ongoing blight of Michelle Kwan notwithstanding) but I'm also not blind to the fact that the judging "system" and the scoring "system" is kray-kray to the nth degree. A really interesting (and, naturally, UN-biased) essay. Good work.

Daisuke Takahashi's Short Program in the clip below - the one mentioned in the article. Takahashi is a freakin' rock star. The Mick Jagger of ice skating. Phenomenal.

The Books: "Moby Dick" (Herman Melville)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt - on my adult fiction shelves: Oh, and a quick note: In my recent re-org, I decided to break up the Daily Book Excerpt archive into separate categories - because, after all, I have been doing this since 2004 - think about that, people!! - and the archive had become so huge that it was basically un-openable. It should be more easily search-able now, for you book-o-philes who want to find stuff.

Categories (so far):
Adult fiction
Non-fiction
Children's books
Cultural commentary
Political philosophy
Scripts
Books about Hollywood
Memoirs
Therapeutic
Religion
Science
US history
YA fiction

Anyway, that's THAT.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

I'm going to have to do a couple excerpts on this one.

The book is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne: "In token of my admiration for hi genius this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne". That moves me. They were dear friends and there were many dark years in Melville's life, when his work was either not being published or being published and ignored when Hawthorne was one of Melville's only champions. Melville opened his heart to Hawthorne, in letters - about what he was going through, what he was working on with Moby Dick - and, like a great artistic friend and mentor should, Hawthorne never said, "Don't you think you need to scale it down a bit?" or "Who will want to read 20 consecutive chapters about the etymology of blubber?" No. Hawthorne basically just kept saying to his friend, "Keep going. It's brilliant. Keep going."

Michael Dorda wrote, in 2005, about this extraordinary friendship: "In Melville's lifetime few recognized or even suspected the writer's exceptional genius -- but Nathaniel Hawthorne came close, and the two men established a long-lasting friendship. After their first encounters, the writer of Polynesian adventures went back to his romantic tale about "Whale Fishery" and, in Delbanco's words, "tore it up from within." Melville deepened and amplified his novel, enlarged it in every sense, with the obvious hope of joining what he called, in an essay on Hawthorne, that fraternity where "genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round." With wonderful appropriateness, then, the author of The Scarlet Letter -- which appeared in 1850 -- became the dedicatee of the following year's Moby-Dick."

After Hawthorne read the entirety of the book, in draft form, he let Melville know that he was finished - and not just that he was finished, but that he thought it was a work of genius - and Melville responded, "A sense of unspeakable security is in me at this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb."

Wicked? Why? Well, as EM Forster notes (in an excerpt below), the world of Moby Dick is a godless one. Even the sermons said on the ship have nothing to do with Christ. The God here is the sea. And - with Ahab - the God is his own mad ambition. That is all he worships. And yes, it warps his soul, makes him go crazy. There is no redemption possible. Only oblivion. Which, of course, is what happens.

In this biographical sketch of Melville it is said:

Moby-Dick was misunderstood by those who read and reviewed it and it sold only some 3,000 copies during Melville's lifetime. The book can be read as a thrilling sea story, an examination of the conflict between man and nature - the battle between Ahab and the whale is open to many interpretations. It is a pioneer novel but the prairie is now sea, or an allegory on the Gold Rush, but now the gold is a whale. Jorge Luis Borges has seen in the universe of Moby-Dick "a cosmos (a chaos) not only perceptibly malignant as the Gnostics had intuited, but also irrational, like the cosmos in the hexameters of Lucretius." (from The Total Library, 1999) Clare Spark has connected in Hunting Captain Ahab (2001) different interpretations with changing political atmosphere - depending on the point of view Ahab has been seen as a Promethean hero or a forefather of the twentieth-century totalitarian dictators. The director John Huston questions in his film version (1956) which one, Ahab or the whale, is the real Monster.

It is not a book that can be easily classified. It still stands alone, so many years after publication. It's an anomaly. It's not a regular novel. The point of view switches. The book starts with the famous line "Call me Ishmael" (which I'll get to in a minute) - which sets us up strongly in a first-person universe. But then there are events on the boat that Ishmael tells us of - that Ishmael was not a party to, was not present for - and then the long omniscent professor of marine-biology sections where the whale is broken down into its separate parts. There is no real plot, per se - although the over-riding thrust is, of course, Ahab's pursuit of the whale. But when you stand Moby Dick next to the other great sweeping novels of the 19th century - Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, all of Dickens, all of Hawthorne, all of Austen - you can see how different Moby Dick is ... it is almost like a voice directly from the future - from our post-modern future. Where the narrator is fluid, where the events are commented on - not only by the narrator but by an outside eye ... where things are broken down and taken apart to be examined - and then put back together again. I still don't think today's authors have caught up to Melville, though. He still stands alone in what he accomplished in Moby Dick. It is a singular event, this book. A comet across the sky - that appears only once in a millennia.

I read Moby Dick in high school and despised it. I thought it was one of the most boring pointless things I had ever read. It was on our summer reading list, and I clearly remember forcing myself to read the damn thing, during the dog days of August ... nearly crying from the psychological boredom. Whatever, man ... Moby Dick, Captain Ahab, endless discourses on blubber ... I was 16. I DIDN'T GET IT.

Cut to many many years later. 2001, to be exact. I read it in the spring of 2001. Around that time I decided to systematically go back and re-read all of the books I had been forced to read in high school (which, obviously, made me despise them at the time). I read The Scarlet Letter (excerpt here) and Tess of the D'Urbervilles (excerpt here) and many others. Moby Dick is such a massive book, and I had hated it so much when I first read it that I hesitated to put myself through it again.

And honestly - it blew the top of my head off. Every page. Every page.

I have rarely had such an exciting reading experience as that one. I didn't want it to end. I underlined passages feverishly. I put exclamations points in the margins next to particularly amazing sentences. Honestly. It blew me away.

Re-reading Scarlet Letter, et al, was also really fun - and yes, I renewed my appreciation for those old books, and realized: "Ohhh, okay, yup. THAT'S why the dern thing is a classic" ... but none of them flattened me as much as Moby Dick.

By a weird coincidence, my friend Kate was also re-reading Moby Dick at the same time - a fact we discovered during one of our phone conversations - and we both got SO excited - because, honestly, who in your real life wants to sit around talking about Moby Dick? Who will believe you unless they have read it themselves? So when she said, "I'm reading Moby Dick now ..." I FREAKED OUT. I remember I was living in our ridiculous apartment on Willow at the time - where my room was the size of a closet - and speaking of which, I had no closet - and I had a fold-up bed which HAD to be folded up every day in order for me to have the room to walk to my damn door. Mkay? And I remember I sat perched on my fold-up bed, talking with Kate for a couple of hours about Moby Dick. We both got our copies of the book out, and read passages to each other, and talked about them. The chapter that freaked me out the most (and yes, I mean freaked out) was one called "The Whiteness of the Whale" - which I'll get to later ... and I hadn't even mentioned it, and at one point Kate said, in a tone of hushed awe, "What about that chapter 'The Whiteness of the Whale'??" This is one of the MANY reasons why Kate and I are such good friends. (This is related. Even though it's fiction. Right? It's fiction, right??)

The book, in high school, seemed so far from relevant ... to my life ... and also: there was nothing even remotely recognizable. At least in Scarlet Letter you deal with social issues and sexual issues - stuff I could latch onto as an adolescent ... but Moby Dick? I'm supposed to give a hoo-hah about the spout-hole and what it means and why it's important?

Also, except for the blowsy woman who serves Ishmael chowder in the 2nd or 3rd chapter, and the brief mention of Ahab's new wife at home, there are NO women in this book. NONE. Now: I wasn't a big girlie girlie book reader - Huck Finn was one of my favorite books growing up ... but there are at least SOME girls in that book. Women are not completely banished to the sidelines. Not at all. But Moby Dick? This is a universe not just of men - but a conscious rejection of the female. If you look at the book in another light (as Camille Paglia does so brilliantly and so bizarrely in her chapter on it in Sexual Personae) - the whale could be seen as the "spirit" of female energy in the world. It is obvious that the great white whale is a male - but Paglia theorizes that something else might be going on there. Whaling boats were 100% male, they lived out on the ocean for 3 or 4 years at a time. There were no women. None. But nature? The earth? Aren't these things often referred to as "she"? Paglia thinks that although there are no actual women human beings in Moby Dick, the female is not just present, but omnipresent. She is the sea, the waves, the fish, the storms ... she is what cannot be controlled, no matter how hard the men try. This does make sense, in light of Melville's off-screen life, and his issues with women. It's a fascinating way to look at the book.

E.M. Forster said, in his wonderful published lecture, Aspects of the Novel:

"Moby Dick is an easy book, as long as we read it as a yarn or an account of whaling interspersed with snatches of poetry. But as soon as we catch the song in it, it grows difficult and immensely important. Narrowed and hardened into words the spiritual theme of Moby Dick is as follows: a battle against evil conducted too long or in the wrong way. The White Whale is evil, and Captain Ahab is warped by constant pursuit until his knight-errantry turns into revenge. These are words -- a symbol for the book if we want one -- but they do not carry us much further than the acceptance of the book as a yarn -- perhaps they carry us backwards, for they may mislead us into harmonizing the incidents, and so losing their roughness and richness. The idea of a contest we may retain: all action is a battle, the only happiness is peace. But contest between what? We get false if we say that it is between good and evil or between two unreconciled evils. The essential in Moby Dick, its prophetic song, flows athwart the action and the surface morality like an undercurrent. It lies outside words...we cannot catch the words of the song. There has been stress, with intervals: but no explicable solution, certainly no reaching back into universal pity and love; no 'Gentlemen, I've had a good dream.'

The extraordinary nature of the book appears in two of its early incidents -- the sermon about Jonah and the friendship with Queequeg.

The sermon has nothing to do with Christianity. It asks for endurance or loyalty without hope of reward. The preacher "kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea." Then he works up and up and concludes on a note of joy that is far more terrifying than a menace...

Immediately after the sermon, Ishmael makes a passionate alliance with the cannibal Queequeg, and it looks for a moment that the book is to be a saga of blood-brotherhood. But human relationships mean little to Melville, and after a grotesque and violent entry, Queequeg is almost forgotten. Almost -- not quite...

Moby Dick is full of meanings: its meaning is a different problem. It is wrong to turn the Delight or the coffin into symbols, because even if the symbolism is correct, it silences the book. Nothing can be stated about Moby Dick except that it is a contest. The rest is song."

Brilliant. "The rest is song". And yes, once you catch the tune of Moby Dick, once you stop looking for conventional pathways, and plot, the things we are used to ... all you can hear is the song. I love his point about how if you try to pin down the symbolism - you "silence" the book. I think that is right on.

I'll be doing a couple different excerpts - choosing them as I go. The book is so rich, so detailed, every page has a psychological gem on it ... It's an extraordinary accomplishment, and, like I mentioned before, still stands all by itself.

William Blake once wrote:

...and now we saw it, it was the head of Leviathan, his forehead was divided into streaks of green and purple like those on a tyger's forehead. Soon we saw his mouth and red gills hang just above the raging foam tinging the black deep with beams of blood, advancing toward us with all the fury of a spiritual existence.

Ahab would have totally understood that.

This excerpt is from the first chapter: "Loomings".

EXCERPT FROM Moby Dick by Herman Melville

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from the schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who aint a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about - however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way - either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, - what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way - he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States

Whaling Voyage by one Ishmael

BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces - though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.

Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it - would they let me - since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.

Speaking of Casablanca:

(as we were):

I want to thank the person (whoever you are) who sent me the huge biography of Peter Lorre off my wish list. I have no email for you, and am not sure of the name either - but I SO appreciate the thoughtful gift! The book looks like a treasure trove, and I'm excited to eventually read it.

It's funny: The marvelous SZ Sakall, also in Casablanca (and a million other movies), has MORE screen time than any of the other actors playing smaller parts in the film - including Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre - Peter Lorre is in the film for less than 5 minutes all together - but doesn't he leave the impression that he is all over that movie?? It HAS to be way more than 5 minutes!! But it's not. Kinda like that famous bit of trivia that Anthony Hopkins' performance in Silence of the Lambs adds up to less than 17 minutes of screen time altogether. I think it's about 16 minutes. Hard to believe. He is so omnipresent. It's the shortest performance ever to win a Best Actor Oscar. I still find it hard to believe that he's not in the movie for at LEAST 45 minutes! But he's not. 16 minutes.

A similar situation with Lorre's part in Casablanca, although he isn't the lead. He disappears early on in the film - but his part is crucial.

I love Lorre's oily slightly damaged persona - he's fascinating. Amoral. Blunted, somehow.

Anyway, nameless person out there who sent me the book: so nice of you. Much appreciated!

The Books: "Billy Budd" (Herman Melville)

Next book in my on my adult fiction shelves:

Billy Budd by Herman Melville

I've written before on here about my journey with Herman Melville: being forced to read him in high school - we read Billy Budd (which - oh my God - we hated it sooo much ... we found it nearly unreadable) and Moby Dick was on our summer reading list - and I remember me and all my friends, on the last week of summer, sitting on our towels at the beach, tearing through that stupid book, not giving a shit about ONE word of it ... too much! Too much!! We just didn't care. Cut to almost 20 years later. It's 2001, and I decided to methodically go back to every book I was made to read in high school - and read them again, as an adult. Many of them (like The Scarlet Letter - excerpt here) I hadn't read since high school English class! There were a couple of books from high school that I loved the first time I read them - Tale of Two Cities (excerpt here), The Great Gatsby (excerpt here), Catcher In the Rye - so those I didn't force myself to re-read, since I had already done so, willingly, over the years. It was the ones I flat out did not "get" in high school that I wanted to read again. I dreaded some of it - like: must I read Tess of the Stupid D'Urberviles again?? But man, what a cool thing it was to go back and discover Tess as the fraught observant tragic well-crafted page-turner that it is! (Excerpt here) That so far has happened with all of those old high school books. But there was something about Billy Budd, above all other books, that really struck a nerve with me in high school. I used to RAGE about the book. I mean, honestly - the book is, what, 90 pages long? It felt ENDLESS to me. I wrote about Billy Budd in my diary, that's how mad he made me! I know he shows up in one Diary Friday or another. Like: Sheila, stop ranting about books you hate in your diary! Get a life! I think what bothered me the most about the book was its allegorical style, which struck me as too obvious - and also I had a big problem with giving one tiny bit of a shit about the character of Billy Budd. He was too good. Too perfect. He wasn't a hero to me, or even an interesting character. Jay Gatsby was far more interesting because he was, oh, what's the word? Uhmmmmm .... HUMAN, that's the word. Now Melville was obviously not interested in writing realism, and certainly not in Billy Budd - and you can lecture me all you want about what I was "missing" in the book - Lord knows my teacher at the time did too! - but still, the fact remains: I hated the book, and I dislike flat-out allegories anyway, I find them tiresome. So no, I wasn't really "missing" anything at all. I just didn't like it. Billy Budd was too good to be interesting.

Funnily enough, in my Book Reading Project I just described - it was Billy Budd that I put off reading, even after I read Moby Dick and realized that not only was it one of the greatest books I had ever read, but now it was a personal favorite of mine - almost instantly ... but Billy Budd hovered like a grim spectre on the horizon. 90 pages! How can such a small book loom so large?

I finally forced myself to read it last year. And no, I didn't hate it with the passion of a thousand suns anymore, but I found that yes, the same things annoyed me about it that annoyed me in high school. The allegory is too obvious. The masts of the boat forming a cross. Billy Budd's fairness, like a cherub in a Renaissance painting. The malevolence of the master-at-arms - which, Melville makes clear in the excerpt below, is innate - something Claggart was born with. He's like Cathy in East of Eden - born bad. So again, that to me is just not all that interesting - or, no. It IS interesting: Cathy in East of Eden is a terrifying character, and she endlessly fascinates. I guess Billy Budd is all a bit too much on the nose for my taste. Moby Dick, by contrast, is a huge sweeping mess of a novel - ahead of its time back then, and I would say ahead of its time even now. There has not been another book like Moby Dick. And in that book - the allegory is so vast and interwoven - that it doesn't feel as obvious as it does in Billy Budd. The whale - as allegory - becomes one of those devices that helps the reader not only understand Ahab and the whaling industry and the entire world of the book, not to mention all of the deeper themes - but it helps the reader to better understand herself, and how she operates in this world, how she is or is not like the whale ... THAT is allegory at its very best. But I'll get to Moby Dick when I get to it.

Now, to be fair: I no longer hate Billy Budd. I actually enjoyed reading it again, and there is much to recommend it - especially the writing. Melville certainly has a way, don't he. So so good. My main response to it, though, was the unexpected: "Wow. This has to be one of the most homoerotic books I've ever read." There were times I wasn't sure if I was reading Billy Budd or flipping through an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. I can't even count the references to the Greeks. And Melville dwells, lovingly, upon the half-naked men all around the ship - describing their bodies and torsos and muscles in intimate detail - in a way he NEVER would do when describing the female form. It is surmised that Melville probably had many homosexual experiences in his years on ships - and he was known as a vicious misogynist when he was on land. His world was strictly male. So no, none of this surprises me - I was just amazed at how obvious it all was in the well-oiled half-naked prose of Billy Budd.

I think my observation upset a poor reader - who snipped at me: "What I find interesting about this is that you love your historical figures who stand up for what they believe and yet when you have a fictional character who does the same you think he is a goody two-shoes. After all what Billy does is stand up for himself and you dislike him for that. Strange!"

A couple things about this bitchy comment: I disagree with the characterization of Billy Budd as one who "stands up for himself". No, he doesn't. He is a complete victim, a lamb for the slaughter. He is martyred - with no heroics - he barely understands what is happening to him, and yet he submits - like a good martyr should. So no, he doesn't "stand up for himself". He is trying to catch up with the events of his life, trying to understand the forces around him - forces that are much more cunning than poor innocent Billy Budd.

Secondly: to read me and look for inconsistencies and try to catch me in them, or try to score points off of me - is one of the many ways that people MIS-read me. This is a personal website. If I were a political blogger, pontificating on my opinions, and making a nuisance of myself being all self-important and "ooh I'm gonna take down the MSM" then sure - try to call me out on inconsistencies - but again: this is NOT that kind of site. I don't know how many times I have to say it - and if you're the type of reader who literally cannot tell where you are, and you mistake my site for a political site - then I have to call you out on it. You must adjust HOW you read when you come to my site, or you will have a very rough time here. By trying to catch me in an inconsistency, that reader succeeded only in mis-reading me completely. It happens a lot and it bores me to tears. If I'm unclear, then I will certainly clarify myself - but a kneejerk defensive response to something I've written is usually just that: "kneejerk" - and usually there's something else going on, some underlying defensive attitude that, naturally, colors how I am read - and how I am mis-understood. If you go to any of the big book blogs, or movie blogs - this kind of crap does NOT go on. There are actually discussions possible about said book or said movie - because the majority of the readers actually know where they are - they are on a book blog! A movie blog! Disagreement is accepted, and discussion is welcomed. None of this kneejerk political posturing nonsense - where you can't even have a normal conversation! I guess that's mainly what I demand: when you're here, at the very least, please know where you are. Thanks! Thankfully, the majority of my readers are no longer confused about where they are - most of you all who show up now have no issue with knowing where you are when you read me (but that's only because I made a concerted effort to chase away the people who seemed to consistently mistake me for Little Green Footballs).

Lastly: I think all of this is beside the point - and it is my opinion that the commenter in question was actually upset that I called Billy Budd, a book he loves, a Big. Fat. Gay Gay Gay book. Like "It's fun to stay at the YMCA" gay. Funny thing is: I actually don't mean that as an insult. Maybe HE thinks it's an insult - but that's HIS problem, not mine. To me, it's actually a compliment - and also makes the book WAY more interesting to me than it otherwise would have been.

So my assessment from high school still stands: a bit boring, too on-the-nose, and Billy Budd is not an interesting fictional character. I am WAY more interested in Claggart - because he's bad, and something is twisted in him, something is not right. That's always more interesting to me than straight-out goodness.

But Melville as a writer? I am trying to figure out how to describe it. Again, Moby Dick stands alone - and I'm almost nervous to write about that one tomorrow ... but even here in Billy Budd - we get a type of writing that I would like to call ... Okay, thinking as I type ... I guess I would call his writing accurate. Psychologically accurate. There are times when his writing is like an excavation ... or an autopsy. There is something truly emotional in Melville, deeply emotional - and yet there is also a journalistic side to his self-expression - which he uses to great great effect in Moby Dick - but you can see it here in the excerpt too, when he discusses a man's character. He is describing - yes - but also excavating, digging deep. And it all just feels dead ON accurate to me. I find Melville almost compulsively readable. I love him. And let's not even talk about his letters! And his correspondence with Nathaniel Hawthorne, his kindred spirit - amazing!!

So yeah. I'm glad I finally re-read Billy Budd and put that ghost to rest!

Excerpt below. Watch how Melville almost acts like a journalist here - I love that about him. I love that kind of writing. Also, not to side with evil, but whatever: I'm a bit with Claggart here. Billy Budd is so damn good that I find him a bit disturbing too. Not saying I'm PROUD that that is my reaction, just telling the truth!

Melville understands human nature. He really does. He is not an idealist, strangely enough - even with all the allegorical themes here. He understands things - and he is sounding some great human truths here. Yet also, with that oddly detached journalistic tone - to me, it's classic Melville, and I'd recognize his writing style in a dark alley. To mix a metaphor. For all you Melville fans - here's a post about him - quotes, poems, fragments - some great stuff.

Okay, onward.

EXCERPT FROM Billy Budd by Herman Melville

What was the matter with the master-at-arms? And, be the matter what it might, how could it have direct relation to Billy Budd, with whom, prior to the affair of the spilled soup, he had never come into any special contact official or otherwise? What indeed could the trouble have to do with one so little inclined to give offense as the merchant ship's peacemaker, even him who in Claggart's own phrase was "the sweet and pleasant young fellow"? Yes, why should Jimmy Legs, to borrow the Dansker's expression, be down on the Handsome Sailor? But, at heart and not for nothing, as the late chance encounter may indicate to the discerning, down on him, secretly down on him, he assuredly was.

Now to invent something touching the more private career of Claggart, something involving Billy Budd, of which something the latter should be wholly ignorant, some romantic incident implying that Claggart's knowledge of the young bluejacket began at some period anterior to catching sight of him on board the seventy-four - all this, not so difficult to do, might avail in a way more or less interesting to account for whatever of enigma may appear to lurk in the case. But in fact there was nothing of the sort. And yet the cause, necessarily to be assumed as the sole one assignable, is in its very realism as much charged with that prime element of Radcliffian romance, the mysterious, as any that the ingenuity of the author of the Mysteries of Adolpho could devise. For what can more partake of the mysterious than an antipathy spontaneous and profound, such as is evoked in certain exceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other mortal however harmless he may be, if not called forth by this very harmlessness itself?

Now there can exist no irritating juxtaposition of dissimilar personalities comparable to that which is possible aboard a great warship fully manned and at sea. There every day among all ranks, almost every man comes into more or less of contact with almost every other man. Wholly there to avoid even the sight of an aggravating object one must needs give it Jonah's toss or jump overboard himself. Imagine how all this might eventually operate on some peculari human creature the direct reverse of a saint.

But for the adequate comprehending of Claggart by a normal nature these hints are insufficient. To pass from a normal nature to him one must cross "the deadly space between." And this is best done by indirection.

Long ago an honest scholar my senior said to me in reference to one who like himself is now no more, a man so unimpeachably respectable that against him nothing was ever openly said though among the few something was whispered, "Yes, X----- is a nut not to be cracked by the tap of a lady's fan. You are aware that I am the adherent of no organized religion, much less of any philosophy built into a system. Well, for all that, I think that to try and get into X-----, enter his labyrinth and get out again, without a clue derived from some source other than what is known as knowledge of the world - that were hardly possible, at least for me."

"Why," said I, "X-----, however singular a study to some, is yet human, and knowledge of the world assuredly implies the knowledge of human nature, and in most of its varieties."

"Yes, but a superficial knowledge of it, serving ordinary purposes. But for anything deeper, I am not certain whether to know the world and to know human nature be not two distinct branches of knowledge, which, while they may coexist in the same heart, yet either may exist with little or nothing of the other. Nay, in an average man of the world, his constant rubbing with it blunts that fine spiritual insight indispensable to the understanding of the essential in certain exceptional characters, whether evil ones or good. In a matter of some importance I have seen a girl wind an old lawyer about her little finger. Nor was it the dotage of senile love. Nothing of the sort. But he knew law better than he knew the girl's heart. Coke and Blackstone hardly shed so much light into obscure spiritual places as the Hebrew prophets. And who were they? Mostly recluses."

At the time my inexperience was such that I did not quite see the drift of all this. It may be that I see it now. And, indeed, if that lexicon which is based on Holy Writ were any longer popular, one might with less difficulty define and denominate certain phenomenal men. As it is, one must turn to some authority not liable to the charge of being tinctured with the Biblical element.

In a list of definitions included in the authentic translation of Plato, a list attributed to him, occurs this: "Natural Depravity: a depravity according to nature." A definition which, though savoring of Calvinism, by no means involves Calvin's dogmas as to total mankind. Evidently its intent makes it applicable but to individuals. Not many are the examples of this depravity, which the gallows and jail supply. At any rate, for notable instances, since these have no vulgar alloy of the brute in them but invariably are dominated by intellectuality, one must go elsewhere. Civilization, especially if of the austerer sort, is auspicious to it. It folds itself in the mantle of respectability. It has its certain negative virtues serving as silent auxiliaries. It never allows wine to get within its guard. It is not going too far to say that it is without vices or small sins. There is a phenomenal pride in it that excludes them from anything mercenary or avaricious. In short the depravity here meant partakes nothing of the sordid or sensual. It is serious, but free from acerbity. Though no flatterer of mankind it never speaks ill of it.

But the thing which in eminent instances signalizes so exceptional a nature is this: though the man's even temper and discreet bearing would seem to intimate a mind peculiarly subject to the law of reason, not the less in his heart he would seem to riot in complete exemption from that law, having apparently little to do with reason further than to employ it as an ambidexter implement for effecting the irrational. That is to say: Toward the accomplishment of an aim which in wantonness of malignity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool judgment sagacious and sound.

These men are true madmen, and of the most dangerous sort, for their lunacy is not continuous but occasional, evoked by some special object; it is probably secretive, which is as much to say it is self-contained, so that when, moreover, most active, it is to the average mind not distinguishable from sanity, and for the reason above suggested, that, whatever its aims may be - and the aim is never declared - the method and the outward proceeding are always perfectly rational.

Now something such as one was Claggart, in whom was the mania of an evil nature, not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious living but born with him and innate, in short "a depravity according to nature".

In keeping with the anthem theme below:

goosebumps. Every. Single. Time.

There is a memo from Hal Wallis (producer of Casablanca) about what should happen when Paul Henreid takes over Rick's Cafe with "The Marseilles". The Germans are singing their anthem - and Paul Henreid, prisoner of war on the run, takes over the orchestra and forces them to play "The Marseilles". To quote Roger Ebert - it is one of the "greatest scenes in movie history". I challenge you to watch it and not be moved. What is extraordinary here is that as "The Marseilles" begins - a full symphonic orchestra sounds - not at all what one would have in a two-bit Moroccan casino like Rick's Cafe. But it is the POINT, the symbolic point being made, that is important, the nationalistic symbol of the anthem, and what that means ... it's all in the swell of that orchestra.

Hal Wallis wrote to Max Steiner, composer for Casablanca, and he said:

On the Marseilles, when it is played in the Cafe, don't do it as though it was played by this small orchestra. Do it with a full scoring orchestra and get some body to it.

They don't make producers like that any more, folks.

Watch the end result, below. One of the greatest scenes ever filmed. Without it, Ilse's choice of men at the end might not make sense. You can already see the choice she will make in this scene.

Aljean Harmetz, author of The Making of Casablanca, writes:

Of the seventy-five actors and actresses who had bit parts and larger roles in Casablanca, almost all were immigrants of one kind or another. Of the fourteen who were given screen credit, only Humphrey Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page were born in America. Some had come for private reasons. Ingrid Bergman, who would lodge comfortably in half a dozen countries and half a dozen languages, once said that she was a flyttfagel, one of Sweden's migratory birds. Some, including Sydney Greenstreet and Claude Rains, wanted richer careers. But at least two dozen were refugees from the stain that was spreading across Europe. There were a dozen Germans and Austrians, nearly as many French, the Hungarians SZ Sakall and Peter Lorre, and a handful of Italians.

"If you think of Casablanca and think of all those small roles being played by Hollywood actors faking the accents, the picture wouldn't have had anything like the color and tone it had," says Pauline Kael.

Dan Seymour remembers looking up during the singing of the Marseillaise and discovering that half of his fellow actors were crying. "I suddenly realized that they were all real refugees," says Seymour.

And listen for that "unrealistic" symphonic orchestra swelling. And take a moment to bow, with respect, towards Hal Wallis.

Divas on Youtube: Whitney

The anthem. It's definitive.

Divas on Youtube: Mariah

2002 Superbowl. The date is all you need to know. I feel those days, I feel that time ... in her singing. Beautifully done.

Divas on Youtube: Marvin Gaye

I'm sure you've all seen this.

But one can never see it enough.

Divas on Youtube: Destiny's Child

Perfect harmony. Makes my heart stop a little bit.

Divas on Youtube: Kelly

A capella. Sweet. A clear open voice.

Divas on Youtube: Beyonce

... the National Anthem.

Tears. You go. You freakin' go with your superstar self.

Divas on Youtube: Whitney

Mitchell is the Encyclopedia Britannica of Youtube. We spent hours looking stuff up. He tracked down clips of divas doin' what they do. Here are some of the clips he showed me!

Whitney Houston singing what is (Mitchell is right) a really boring song - at least the recorded version of it. Yawn. But what she does with it here? Extraordinary. An amazingly specific performance - she is thinking, gesturing, pausing - and also building. It has a great build - she is totally in charge of her instrument here. Riveting.

Whitney Houston: Didn't We Almost Have It All?

Divas on Youtube: Bette, Cher, Elton

"Mock ... YEAH ... bird ... YEAH ..."

Elton in a towering white hat. Bette and Cher grinding it out around him. On that psychedelic set. (Clip below)

I mean, you just would never ever see something like this on TV now. Perhaps "thank God" is what some of you would say in response to that - but I have nostalgia for those old freaky weird days. You wouldn't see an orange singing opera for no discernable reason on Sesame Street now! Not in a world where Cookie Monster has to eat vegetables - so he doesn't set a bad example!!

But let's not dwell on such unpleasantness. Let us go back to the clip below.

Like: what the HELL is going on?? The outfits! The almost NOTHING-ness of it - meaning: Cher and Bette just jitter around, standing by Elton in fabulous dresses - singing like crazy. No big flashy dance number ... Nothing but two sparkley ladies, singing the hell out of a song, on an incomprehensible drug trip of a set ... legends. And this was prime time!!

Look at Elton singing backup!

Divas on Youtube: Tina

This has to be one of the best live performances I've ever seen. Of this song or any song.

Divas on Youtube: Bette

Again: what is so wonderful about these divas is not just how they perform, and their voices - but their specificity - which is so much missing in today's younger divas - who have a cookie-cutter aspect to their voices. But Bette? In the clip below - the song is pouring out of her - she is not controlling it - (like the weird slapping thing she does with her wrists, when she's holding onto herself) - she's obviously controlling her voice and what she does with it (the woman must have vocal cords of steel - just like Tina Turner) - but she is not controlling her experience OF the song. It appears to be happening TO her.

And man, that's the kind of performing that gives me goosebumps.

Mark Rydell, director of The Rose, said that he felt such strong love for Bette Midler, to this day, that he almost wanted her to be set up as a protected national monument. "She should be protected. LAWS should be passed." She had never before been asked to do anything along the lines of what she did in The Rose - and he said that she was not only willing to 'go there', but fearless in just saying "Yes" to everything he asked of her. At one point he said he went up to her, early on in filming, and gave her one simple note. He said, "In every single scene, I want you to try to fill the bottomless pit that's inside of you. No matter what the scene is: try to fill that hole."

Not everyone could take such direction. If you remember that performance, you'll know how raw and almost unwatchable it is at times, it's uncomfortable to be in the presence of a person who has a perpetual bottomless pit inside. But that was the demand of the part. She was so fearless in taking his direction that when I went and heard Mark Rydell a couple years ago, tears filled his eyes when speaking of Midler, he still remained that moved by her.

This clip below - of Midler singing singing "You can't always get what you want" and "I shall be released" is also one of the most incredible live performances I've ever seen.

Divas on Youtube: Josh Groban (uhm, what?)

No, seriously. Mitchell and I were talking about Chess and Judy Kuhn and the music and all that - and somehow we mentioned that we do not like the voice of the guy who sings "Anthem" on the US version of the album. It's adenoidal or something. He sounds stuffed up and nasal and it is not a pleasing sound. Great rousing song ... but whatevs on the voice. So Mitchell said, "Have you seen Josh Groban sing the song?"

I had not.

Here it is.

Brillz. Just BRILLZ. That's how the song should be sung: open, unclouded, courageous, simple ... don't overdo it. Just sing it. No big gestures, no CHEESE (because it already could be cheesy) ... Just open your throat, and be simple. Watch how Josh Groban walks down center stage during that bridge near the end ... looking around, nothing big, arms at his sides ... getting ready to go up the octave for the end. Keeping it simple. Knowing he doesn't have to DO much - he doesn't reach, or strain, or act. The song acts HIM, if that makes sense. It's unfussy, clear, and exciting.

Well done. I'm very impressed.

Divas on Youtube: Bobby Darin

Okay - not really a diva. But whatever.

Bobby Darin appeared on the Judy Garland show in the Pre-Paleozoic Era - with a strange stark set around him which was a cross between Night of the Hunter and the "Poor Jud Is Dead" number from Oklahoma. And he sang "Michael Row the Boat Ashore".

Alex made me watch it the first time I stayed with her and Chrisanne - and I wrote about it here.

It's a smokin' hot version of the song. He clenches his fist. He clenches his jaw - so the words have to come out through a clenched angry jaw. It's sexy is what it is. He's a dirty boy. He seems angry. Probably about stuff that happened when he was 3. So it's deeply engrained. But yum yum. I LOVE how he sings this song.

Again - you'd never see a number like this on television now - the medium has changed so much. But I love its simplicity - the abstract set - which is understated (and weird) enough that you forget about it - and focus only on the singer. No pyrotechnics. Just performing.

Yum. Very glad it's on Youtube. Now I can watch it constantly.

Speaking of divas:

Alex carries the diva torch, if she don't mind my saying so!! Clip below of her one-woman show (parts of it anyway) - I'm bummed I just missed her most recent (and mindblowing) show in Chicago. She just GOES for it - in the way those other divas do: with gesture, and focus, passion - all at once.

"For Revolution junkies, spotting the cameos makes an awfully good parlor game."

You're speakin' my language, bub. Review of the upcoming HBO miniseries about John Adams. The review has gotten me quite excited, despite the Linney factor.

I'm already junkie enough to be tremendously pleased (in an inappropriate proprietary way) that the miniseries starts off with the Boston Massacre in 1770 ... because, you know, I just mentioned it the other day and Adams' importance in it.

So yeah. I'm wicked smart is basically my point.

I can't wait to see it.

The Books: "By The Lake" (John McGahern)

Next book in my on my adult fiction shelves:

By the Lake by John McGahern

I read By the Lake last year (here's my post on it) - John McGahern just passed away, and while his reputation was already stellar (although not perhaps internationally) - he was mainly known as an Irish writer, strictly local. His fame had not quite crossed over to the States - although since his passing I think that has changed a bit. (Interesting thoughts on McGahern from Anne Enright here.) His most famous book is Amongst Women (excerpt here - fantastic book) - and actually the title of By the Lake in England, Ireland, Europe is the far more evocative and moving That They May Face The Rising Sun. What were the publishers in America thinking? Would you pick up a book called By the Lake? Maybe you would if you were a huge fan of Nicholas Sparks' malarkey ... but it sounds like nothing to me, it has no resonance - it doesn't capture at ALL what this quiet deceptively monotonous book is about. It is the story of a community of people in rural Ireland who all live around a lake - they are all about at the age of retirement - children grown and gone (or, no children - whatever the case may be) - it's a slow-moving gentle book, following the seasons - small farms, selling the lambs, the local rake getting married again, worries about their children, etc. There is no plot. It is a portrait - a loving accurate portrait - of a group of people in an Ireland that may be changing in the big cities, but out in the country, things move along in the same slow pace, although the cars may be flashier, and some of them have freelance jobs out of London. But McGahern's original title: That They May Face The Rising Sun - digs deep into what he is really saying here, what the book is REALLY about ... and the title hovers over the entire book, reminding you constantly of the deeper themes. The local cemetery is set up so that the graves "may face the rising sun" ... and while these people are not ancient, death is coming ... it is the twilight of their lives. They are still vibrant, and involved in the every-day business of living ... but man, that title! So I hope the American publisher won't mind, but I completely ignored their bogus boring title (it's like they wanted to marginalize John McGahern!!) - and to me it will always be That They May Face The Rising Sun. Gorgeous! The politics of Ireland, always raucous and sometimes rancorous, are on the edges of life here ... there's one republican fellow who haunts the local pubs, who aggressively greets people in Irish, to make his point ... but he doesn't really have any effect. He's not well liked. Once people are settled into life, the strain and bump of politics loses its appeal. The characters leave indelible marks in the reader's head: there's the character who is known as "The Shah" - a single man, a devout Catholic, very wealthy - who is starting to think of retirement. He owns a business, and so he is looking to pass it off. There is much consternation about this in the community. What on earth will The Shah do without his work? Kate and Ruttledge are a married couple, with a nice easy air about them. Patrick Ryan is a local jagoff - oooh, I do not like him ... he's one of those cynical snarky types who always looks at you in an invasive manner, trying to get underneath your skin. John Quinn is a fascinating character - he marries a widow with 3 children (who are grown) - and the entire family of the woman he marries is against the wedding (we hear a bit about Quinn's character - he's an asshole). The wedding lasts less than 24 hours. His bride (a middle-aged woman) sits upstairs in her room after the ceremony and decides she has made a terrible mistake - and she basically flees into the night. It is a huge brou-haha in this small gossipy community. Bill Evans is a handyman at one of the farms - kind of a simple creature, who never got a break in life. Was an orphan, and has always worked for his living. Kind of a pathetic character - I felt protective of him.

But to describe "what happens" in the book is to miss the point. It is not about "what happens". It is about the writing, and the slow deep truths revealed over the course of the book. Nothing hits like a lightning-bolt, there are no huge revelatory moments ... just quiet drinks in the dusk, chatting about their lives, telling stories, gossiping, and then holing up in their own houses, closing down the barriers again. The rhythm of the book is what is so compelling to me. I read it late last fall, when things were starting to go really bad. There were times when I thought: "God, I wonder if anything is going to HAPPEN in this book" ... but as I succumbed to the slow rural rhythm of By the Lake, it became the absolute best book I could have read at that time. It felt like it made no demands on me - but that was actually an illusion. What happened is that the book worked on me in a subconscious way - deeps were stirred, and I found myself thinking about these people constantly, even when I wasn't reading. I was in that world - with the mist and the lake and the dusk and the dry grass ... McGahern can't be touched, in terms of his skills as a writer. And his vision of rural Ireland, and the church, and the Irish people itself ... is something you don't hear often - what with all the tormented (albeit eloquent) writhing of Irish literature in general (there's that great quote from Hemingway, in a letter he wrote after the publication of Ulysses: "Joyce has a most goddamn wonderful book. It'll probably reach you in time. Meantime the report is that he and all his family are starving but you can find the whole celtic crew of them every night in Michaud's where Binney and I can only afford to go about once a week...The damned Irish, they have to moan about something or other...") Ha! One of the things I so love about Joyce is that his books are really about joy and self-expression and domestic humor. They really are. They are not grim. Not in the slightest. For a man who lost the sight in one of his eyes, and lived in a near-state of poverty for his entire life, who was run out of his own country because of controversy and disagreement with the Church who ran things there - his books are joyful. They are deep, yes, and challenging ... but overwhelmingly what I get from Joyce is how much he ate up all that life had to offer. McGahern is not in any way, shape, or form a benign writer (see Anne Enright's comments above) - although it seems that with a title like By the Lake, certain elements in the literary world were trying to MAKE him benign.

You find yourself challenged after the fact, with By the Lake ... when not one of those characters will leave you alone in your psyche.

It works slowly, inevitably ... It took me a long time to read the book. I kept dipping into it in the free moments that I had, and yes - it became a wonderful escape for me in the darkness of last fall - I loved talking with my dad about it, he's the one who made me read McGahern in the first place - and while By the Lake did not have the same gut-wrenching effect on me as his Amongst Women did - it packed a huge punch. It works on you almost the way a dream works on you. You're not sure what has happened, but you know that things have changed. And they may change back, you can't tell, some things aren't permanent ... but you know that you will not forget any of those people. They live.

McGahern's writing is often so good that it is COMPLETELY INVISIBLE. I do not know how he does it.

I highly recommend By the Lake. (That They May Face The Rising Sun, I mean.)

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM By the Lake by John McGahern

There were many days of wind and rain. Uneasy gusts ruffled the surface of the lake, sending it running this way and that. Occasionally, a rainbow arched all the way across the lake. More often the rainbows were as broken as the weather, appearing here and there in streaks or brilliant patches of colour in the unsettled sky. When rain wasn't dripping from leaves or eaves, the air was so heavy it was like breathing rain. The hives were quiet. Only the midges swarmed.

The hard burnt colour of the freshly cut meadows softened and there was a blue tinge in the first growth of aftergrass that shone under the running winds. The bullfinch disappeared with the wild strawberries from the bank. The little vetches turned black. The berries on the rowans along the shore glowed with such redness it was clear why the rowan berry was used in ancient song to praise the lips of girls and women. The darting swifts and swallows hunted low above the fields and the halflight brought out the noisy blundering bats.

There was little outside work. The sheep and cattle were heavy and content on grass. Radish, lettuc, scallions, peas, broad beans were picked each day with the new potatoes. In the mornings Ruttledge worked at the few advertising commissions he had until they were all finished. Then he read or fished from the boat. Kate read or drew and sometimes walked or cycled round the shore to Mary and Jamesie.

Even more predictable than the rain, Bill Evans came every day. All his talk now was of the bus that would take him to the town. For some reason it had been postponed or delayed for a few weeks but each day he spoke of the imminent arrival of the bus. They were beginning to think of it as illusory as one of the small rainbows above the lake, when a squat, yellow minibus came slowly in around the shore early on Thursday morning and waited. In the evening the bus climbed past the alder tree and gate, and went all the way up the hill.

He had always been secretive about what happened in his house or on the farm unless there was some glory or success that he could bask in; it was no different with the welfare home.

What he was forthcoming about was the bus and the people on the bus and the bus driver, Michael Pat. Already, he had become Michael Pat's right-hand man: the two of them ran the bus together and he spoke of the other passengers with lordly condescension.

"I give Michael Pat great help getting them off the bus. Some of them aren't half there. They'd make you laugh. Michael Pat said he wouldn't have got on near as well without me and that I'm a gift. He's calling for me first thing next Thursday. I sit beside him in the front seat and keep a watch."

If a strange bird couldn't cross the fields without Jamesie knowing, a big yellow minibus coming in round the shore wasn't going to escape his notice, but he didn't want to seem too obviously curious. He took a couple of days before cycling in around the shore. The Ruttledges knew at once what brought him and told him what they knew. They were inclined to make light of Bill Evans's boasting.

He held up his hand in disagreement, knowing several people on the bus. "Take care. He may not be that far out. With people living longer there's a whole new class who are neither in the world or the graveyard. Once they were miles above poor Bill in life. Some of them would have tossed him cigarettes after Mass on a Sunday. Now they are in wheelchairs and hardly able to cope. The bus takes them into town. It's a great idea. They get washed and fed and attended to and it gives the relatives looking after them at home a break for the day. People fall very low through no fault of their own. Compared to some of the souls in that bus, Bill Evans is a millionaire."

The bus was a special bus, with safety belts and handrails and a ramp for wheelchairs. The following Thursday Bill Evans sat in the front seat beside Michael Pat and waved and laughed towards the Ruttledges as the bus went slowly down to the lake. Under the "No Smoking" sign he sat puffing away like an ocean-going liner. The faces that appeared at the other windows were strained with age and illness and looked out impassively. Many did not look out at all.

Blog re-org (no, not Blog Sea-Org)

You might have noticed I did a bit of a re-org in Ye Olde right nav bar - because the way my archives are currently set up it is basically sucky and makes it impossible to find anything. You open up a category or an archive and you have to see ALL the posts all together - and scroll down, endlessly. No. No good. Also, my Search functionality is sucky ... it either times out or comes back with so many choices that it's basically useless. So I decided to highlight my writing - over on the side: specific posts on actors, movies, books, writers, founding fathers - my "series" (quantum leap, faces I love, etc.) ... and also personal essays. There are some more things I decided to pull out - you should see it all over there. Photos, too - because if you ever try to open my Photos Category, your computer will slow to a complete halt and you will have to shut down. SO ANNOYING. I picked some photos I like - and put them all over there in the right nav.

Until I can figure out how to re-do my archives, this'll have to do. I find it challenging to find my OWN writing on the blog, so I can only imagine what it's like for those of you who are NOT me.

Flying back to Newark was so rough that I busted out the Hail Mary's. Also, 4 flights in a row were canceled (apparently there were almost hurricane-force winds in New Jersey on Saturday) - and I was on standby for what felt like forever. Got on the plane, and then we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours. The gentleman next to me was so chatty and so obivious to the obvious "wearing my iPod" signal that I had to say to him, "I really don't feel like chatting. Sorry." Look, you don't pick up on normal social signals, you deserve what you get. Then, of course, as we careened and bumped violently through the ether for over an hour - and I went into Hail Mary mode - chatty guy was probably regretful that he had been seated next to me in the first place. But we arrived - the entire plane burst out into raucous clapping when we touched down - over 10 hours after my original flight was supposed to have landed.

And my bag was MIA for well over 24 hours. In my bag was: my laptop charger, my phone charger, my iPod charger, my camera, my blackberry, my blackberry charger, my glasses, and various and sundry other important items. Like the 3 new pairs of fabulous shoes I bought in Chicago.

Anyway. All is well now. My bag has been returned to me.

I still feel discombobulated. I miss Chicago.

Mitchell made me two MASSIVE compilation discs of all of Nina Simone's stuff ... and I am obsessed. It's real bump and grind stuff, some of it ... but then ... God, she's just an interpreter is what she is. Her version of "My Way"? What?? Also, only Nina Simone could turn "Just call me angel" into a stalker's anthem. Mitchell made that observation about her version of "Cherish" and it is so RIGHT ON. You listen to her singing that song, and you want to call up the object of her affection and tell him to get out of the house immediately, the call is coming from inside the house. But her "Just call me angel" is a creepy stalker song, too. She's so intense!

She's brilliant.

So. Anyway. This post is really just to say I'm trying to point up my own writing more - so the right nav should be way more helpful now, than it has been in the past.

Places where things happened

Innocuous. But there's a story everywhere I look.

The alley beside my apartment on Wayne Street. My bedroom window is the second one in the line. That's where M. would break into my apartment on a nightly basis.

The crazy psychedelic walkway at O'Hare. This is where I ran to catch my flight to White Plains, in the middle of a full-blown panic attack. Good times.

Cafe Avanti, Southport. The congregation point for all of us for a bazillion years. So many memories.

The spot underneath the L tracks a bit south of Addison where I wiped OUT one crazy night - I was with Jackie and Rob - and we were walking back to my place on Melrose, and suddenly - I tripped over an exposed manhole cover - the sidewalk was being dug up - and I was AIRBORNE. I literally FLEW through the air, and ended up on the ground, literally eating dirt. I am so lucky I didn't knock out my teeth, or puncture my eyeball. It was a wipeout of global proportions. And all I remember is Rob saying, in a British accent, totally deadpan, "Oh, dear lord", and Jackie saying, in a kind of dismayed solemn tone, "Sheila, you're on the ground!"

The Melrose Diner - corner of Broadway and Melrose. I lived right down the street from that place, and ate there probably 4 times a week. Awesome diner.

My Pie! Every Sunday, for YEARS, Jackie and I would have dinner at My Pie, and then go back to her place and watch Life Goes On, a show we absolutely adored.

Improv Olympic. Words cannot express how many adventures I have had in that building. M. worked there, taught there - we would meet up after the place closed, because he had keys - and he would play the piano for me, and we would drink and play cards and make out and watch movies. I also saw a million shows there - or I would meet up with him after his show - but my main memories are of me and M. there, afterhours, hanging out, bringing food in, all the lights off except for maybe one neon beer sign. Magic.

By the lake

It was frigid cold. There were snow flurries. The wind was intense and YEARNED to toss me into the freezing waves. Fences by the water were coated with ice. The shoreline is one of the most beautiful places on earth, as far as I'm concerned. And the skyline takes my breath away. I get emotional, when it comes to Chicago. It is the city of my heart. It really is. I walked probably 5 or 6 miles yesterday, and finally came home, and collapsed in a chair. It took me about an hour to warm up. Here are some pictures.

The Belmont Marina

Approaching the lake

The shoreline, waves crashing onto the steps

Spume. (Mitchell made fun of me when I called it "spume". To quote him accurately, he said, "Fuck you and your spume.")

Ice-coated fence

More of the ice-coated fence

Looking north. The sun lighting up a streak of the lake.

Gorgeous

Navy Pier

The skyline. Oo say drak.

Siobhan O'Malley: in Cape May

My wonderfully talented sister Siobhan O'Malley is playing this weekend in the Cape May singer/songwriter festival. Her time slot is 9:45 p.m. this Saturday night at Carney's. Click on the link for all other information. If you're in that area, sounds like it's going to be an awesome time!

Dear Kelvin: this is for your records:

Yesterday Ann Marie came and picked me up after she was done with work - and we drove to Logan Square where she lives. I got to see her and Rick's house - which was such a treat. Gorgeous!! I fell in love with one suede chair in particular. It was so nice to see Ann Marie in her environment - it's a beautifully done house. Then we drove to a local Mexican restaurant, and had a lovely time, sitting at the bar upstairs, having a little nosh, and catching up like crazy. So much to discuss! From family issues to Project Runway ... we covered it all. We also discussed my blog, in depth - which always just cracks me up. She was like, "So tell me about THIS commenter ... here is what I picture this person is ..." We talked about our jobs, our lives ... it was really wonderful to re-connect with her. She's got one of the best faces I know: kind, funny, beautiful, dimples for days, and she's an awesome listener. One of my dearest friends and I totally don't see her enough. When she dropped me off, I said, "Now remind me - you and Rick are coming to New York soon, right?" "Well, August, actually." "Oh. Okay. That's not soon at all." But still - I hope to be coming back this way soon, it's been really really good for me to be in the bosom of all of these dear friends (not that I don't have dear friends in New York ... but it's been a long time since I've seen Ann Marie - so it was really special to me to see her in her new digs, and hang out.)

Great night! Then I came home and Mitchell and I lay in bed watching Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Tonight? A night out with the gays. But before then? A long walking tour of all my old haunts. To the lake. To Belmont. To Addison and Clark. It's freezing today, but I'm looking forward to my wandering.

An Andersonville afternoon

It was cold, and the late afternoon light was spectacular. I walked to Kopi Cafe - an old favorite - to meet up with Kate. She and her husband and son live in Andersonville, too - so how cool it is to just walk down the street to meet up with her! She's one of my favorite people on the planet. Mitchell was done with rehearsal and had a couple hours to kill before his evening meeting - so he met up with us, too. It was great. Does my heart so much good.

Kopi Cafe, Clark Street

Interior of Kopi Cafe

Mitchell and Kate

One more view of the Jesus Saves Church (or, as it is also known: The Philadelphia Cream Cheese Church) - lights now on!

Music Box Theatre

... a big old movie theatre on Southport that was such a huge part of my life when I lived here. For a year, I lived a block away from it, and went almost every week to see whatever was playing - foreign films, silent films, classics - they have such a great program year-round. Not to mention the atmosphere of the joint. Old-school. Like that Edward Hopper painting.

A true movie PALACE.

One of my favorite memories (for multiple reasons) is when Ted and John and I went to a double feature of Harold and Maude and Play It Again, Sam. I date that night as the start of my long beautiful friendship with Ted. We had known each other for a couple of months by that point - but no way can you laugh so hysterically with another human being and not go to another level in your friendship. Not to mention the fact that we BOTH showed up almost an hour early at the bar - so we could get in reading time. I was like: Okay. Kindred spirit. (Wrote about that night here).

So every time I come back to Chicago, I have to go see SOMEthing at the Music Box. This time it was Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.

Here are some photos of this spectacular movie palace. One of my favorite places on earth.

and the beat goes on

Him: "You know, it's so weird - but you just popped into my head earlier tonight. I was 6 blocks away, and I suddenly thought of you and that thing you wrote ... the however-many-facts and one lie ..."

Me: "74 Facts and One Lie."

Him: "Yes! Seriously - it's so strange to see you tonight - since I was just down the street from here, thinking about that."

Me: (joke) "So you enjoy reveling in the misery you have created is what you're saying."

Him: (laughing) No! No!

Sometimes you gotta get a dig in. All in good fun. Besides, he walked into it by bringing it up. So there.

The explosion

God, I hate it when crap happens while I'm away. Hearing "there was an explosion" makes my heart skip a beat. Not that me being in Manhattan would have stopped the event. But it's my home. If something fucking big goes down, I want to be there. It's my home. I feel protective of it, fiercely protective.

Photos I took of the recruiting station:

I'm glad no one was hurt.

Today in history, March 5, 1770

The Boston Massacre. Probably should say "massacre" - with quotation marks - since "massacre" was a bit of a stretch - and used more for propaganda purposes. Same as Paul Revere's famous engraving - which is pretty much how we, modern-day folks, see the Boston Massacre. It's his image - kind of brilliant (below the fold) that sticks in our mind ... the smoke from the guns, advancing redcoats, and the poor victimized colonists ... who did NOTHING to provoke such a massacre. Naturally, the truth was a little bit more complex. The rebellious crowd had gathered after an altercation between one of them and a British soldier. The British soldiers brandished their weapons, but did not shoot. The crowd were throwing things at the British soldiers - mainly snowballs, and ice. Taunting them, etc. When the whole thing ended - 5 colonists lay dead.

The tale of this massacre spread throughout the land - naturally, it was in the colonists interests to keep the outrage alive, to pump it up, to fan the flames of resentment towards the British standing army in their midst.

One of the most important things about the Boston massacre is John Adams' part in the aftermath of it. He, a lawyer in the area, defended the British soldiers. Nobody could accuse him of harboring sympathies for the British crown - although, of course, that was what he was accused of. And whatever he may have thought about the soldiers, he did think they deserved a defense. And whatever this new entity would be ... whatever this new nation would be, if they ever freed themselves from the British yoke - Adams was committed to the idea that it would be a nation "of laws, not men".

Laws above men. It is the principle of the thing. (It reminds me of the great story of Alexander Hamilton lambasting the unruly crowds clamoring to attack the pro-British president of King's College. He was just a student at that time, and although he was on his way to being a full-time revolutionary - any mob like that terrified and angered him. He stood on the steps of the college and made a fiery speech about liberty that people talked about later - it was remembered. Pretty amazing.) The detachment of these gentlemen. Principled detachment.

Below the fold find Paul Revere's stirring engraving - propaganda, basically - very successful propaganda. Love it.

Monday night, The Beat Kitchen

Belmont and Damon. Going to see old friend Pat McCurdy play - with Mitchell, Ann Marie, and Rick. I had spent the afternoon downtown at Barney's - with Eric and Michael - Eric did my makeup and then the two of them gave me a ride to Beat Kitchen. On the way there, Eric regaled Michael and me with a bit he and Mitchell came up with - about a small gay Irish boy whose name is Dungaree (what??) - and Dungaree's main love in life is the show Doogie Hauser - and Dungaree's father is a tired defeated vaguely homophobic man, who calls out to his son in the backyard in a thick Irish accent, "Dungaree, come on in the house now ... Doogie Hauser's on ..." If you can imagine the thickest most ridiculous brogue imaginable (Michael, who is Irish, was howling, and saying, "Uhm ... That's really more Scottish than Irish") - then you know what Dungaree's father sounds like. DUNGAREE?? I love my friends. Dungaree?? For God's SAKE. I was laughing so hard I nearly cried my fabulous eyeliner off.

Some photos below. And yes, I took a picture of myself in the basement bathroom mirror. What of it. I wanted to try to capture the makeover magic so I can try to re-create it.

The back room at The Beat Kitchen, before anyone arrived.

The corridor outside the bathrooms, basement of The Beat Kitchen.

The bar at The Beat Kitchen

Reading material and an alcoholic beverage.

Me. You can't really see Eric's glorious handiwork in the dim light. But that's also part of his genius. You don't look overdone or too made up.

More of me. You can't really see the EYES which is what was so amazing. Oh well.

Show's about to start.

Pat.

Flashback to the Pre-Paleozoic Age.

More pre-Paleozoic behavior. Pat looks like a frightening braindead character from Deliverance here. Should Ann Marie and I fear for our lives? Hilarity.

I'd like you to meet a new friend of mine.

Her name is Lily Pad Thai.

Side view of Lily Pad Thai.

Happy birthday to ...

Born on this day, in 1936.

Here's a big post I wrote about him for House Next Door. I go into his background and his development as an actor in that post - as well as point out 5 performances (out of so many good performances!) that I think capture Stockwell's impressive versatility, and also his plain old staying power.

In the comments section to one of my many posts on Dean Stockwell, a great conversation came up about fantasy, and what fantasies can provide us in real life. And how if you judge the side of yourself that yearns for a fantasy life, or if you think that that's just "kids stuff" - you can miss so much. I explain myself - and the whole celebrity crush thing here. What I have learned is that often - a crush like that - comes up as a harbinger of other things in my life. It's a message ... from my subconscious (which I normally try to ignore) ... telling me: "Something's going on. You need to pay attention." And then - like with my Ralph Macchio crush (post about it here) ... it seems to exist solely as a kind of emotional armor. Something that I can hang onto when the going gets tough ... and it helps keep the best part of me alive. Because, you know, often the world - and other people - want to kill that part of you. They want to crush that which is soft and open and hopeful - because it implicates them. Hope is suspect in many circles. It's seen as threatening and it either produces a rolling-eyed response of condescension, or a calculated effort to smash that hope. I experienced it in junior high and I experience it now as an adult.

I said in the comments to one of my Stockwell posts:

I think that reality is all well and good - you know, I have to deal with it every day ... but I thank God that even in my adulthood I have carved out that space of fantasy for myself - still. Very much like that one stupid episode in Eight is Enough years and years ago - my "fantasies" about some of these people have kept vital things in me alive ... it's almost like I was able to save things up, for when I would need them later. Life was a howling wilderness, all was cruel - but the dreams that came alive in me when I saw that stupid 8 is enough episode - helped save that bit of my soul, that I would need for later ... It WASN'T killed. It survived.

I think the word I am looking for is "soft". These things help keep me "soft" (and I mean that in the best way Not as in 'weak' but as in 'open'). So much of life and reality seems designed to harden us. It's such a temptation to get bitter. And those who pride themselves on being "realistic" are often just dickheads. I won't go TOO much into my personal life - but 2007 has been a rough year for me. It's been a struggle sometimes to just get thru the day. And Dean Stockwell, bless his heart, helped keep me 'soft' - and receptive - and open ... still able to be hurt, and hope for things, and dream dreams.

I don't expect to be understood by those who have not had such an experience, but that's my experience.

I am happy to report that when I recently met Dean Stockwell, he totally lived up to my expectations. Even to the sexy little comment he made when my friend Stevie was fiddling with my camera - trying to take a picture of us - and Stockwell said to Stevie, "Push the button easy ..." and he had his arm around me, his cigar in his hand ... and he's saying something like "Push the button easy???" Have I died? Can someone kill me right now?

He was just as I had pictured. And that's always awesome, too.

Here are some selected posts I have written about Dean Stockwell. Hope you enjoy.

The incredible length of his career

Three stories about Errol Flynn

Post about Stockwell as Tony "the Tiger" Russo in Married to the Mob - the scene where he files his nails

Post about Blue Velvet

Post about Compulsion - Mitchell and I watched it last night.

Stockwell in The Player

Stockwell in Compulsion on Broadway

Stockwell in The Werewolf of Washington - a camp favorite of mine

Stockwell in The Dunwich Horror - I mean, come ON.

Stockwell taking a bow. sniff, sniff.

So happy birthday, Mr. Stockwell. Glad I decided to re-discover you. Your work has meant more to me over this past year than I can even express.

Andersonville Signage

Chicago, Illinois

A lovely Sunday

Recuperative. Soft. No drain on my brain. Getting into the moment. Being able to sink into the present. Just take your time. Take your time.

Mitchell and I headed out at around 9:30 a.m. to get down to Southport ... we were going to see the 11:30 a.m. show of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times at The Music Box (my favorite movie theatre on the planet). We were meeting up with Erik and his boyfriend Michael for the show - which was going to be a total treat. Last time I saw Erik, he made me look like a babealicious babealolio - and turned me on to the Smashbox makeup line forever. Mitchell had never seen Modern Times so I was SO excited to be there when Mitchell saw it. I had to force myself to let him have his own experience and not get all in his face every other minute, whispering, "Isn't this awesome???" But it was a blast! The film has it all. It's laugh-out-loud funny - and, like Mitchell said later, "It's got fart jokes, tit jokes - there's that whole cocaine incident ... It's totally ahead of its time." And Paulette Goddard is awesome ... she's got a contemporary style of beauty. Natural and fresh-faced, kinda Maggie Gylennhall-ish. I particularly love the scene when Chaplin notices a flag that has dropped off a truck (he has just been released from jail for, oh, the 10th time) - and he picks up the flag and starts running after the truck, waving the flag crazily, like: "You dropped something! You dropped something!" And - at that very moment - a parade comes around the corner, obviously a Communist labor party parade - with people waving flags and signs about liberty and labor ... and inadvertently, Chaplin (who can't see the parade behind him) - running along waving his flag - looks like the leader of the parade - and is, again, thrown into jail. I just love how that parade suddenly appears. Now that is my kind of humor.

More to tell. But I'm in my pajamas, and it's grey outside, and I have been sleeping like a rock, and am starting to feel a little bit better.

I finished my biography of Martin Van Buren and now I'm back to finishing Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian. I couldn't read fiction for a month or so ... but I'm going to give it a shot now.

Spent the afternoon yesterday at Sidetrack - it was "show tunes" afternoon. They put together these phenomenal clips of musical numbers - from Tony Award shows through the ages, to people singing on the damn Mike Douglas show - clips from movies ... I love show tunes days at Sidetrack - I used to join Mitchell there constantly when I lived here. Everyone sings along, the place gets PACKED, and it's just the best atmosphere - friendly, flamboyant, loud, and FUN.

The "pick a little talk a little" clip came on from The Music Man and I surprised myself by knowing all the words, even the incidental dialogue during the song. I did all the parts:

"Professor, her kind of woman doesn't belong on any committee. Of course, I shouldn't tell you this but she advocates dirty books."
"Dirty books!"
"Chaucer!"
"Rabelais!"
"BALZAC!"
"And the worst thing..."
"Of course, I shouldn't tell you this but-"
"I'll tell."
"The man lived on my street, let me tell."
"Stop! I'll tell: She made brazen overtures to a man who never had a friend in this town till she came here.
Oh, yes, that woman made brazen overtures
With a gilt-edged guarantee
She had a golden glint in her eye
And a silver voice with a counterfeit ring
Just melt her down and you'll reveal
A lump of lead as cold as steel
Here, where a woman's heart should be!"

FUN. There's something vaguely decadent about drinking a cocktail during the day ... and there are couches at Sidetrack, so we sank into the couches, and just howled with laughter, and randomly burst into song, and talked ... and, in general, had a great time. Like Mitchell said later: there's something relaxing about being with a group of people who are so QUICK, comedically - you never ever have to explain the joke, you never have to say, "No, what I was referring to was that funny thing you said about half an hour ago ..." Never. It's all back, forth, quick, making connections, bursting into laughter ... it's conversation as a GROUP EVENT, not a series of individual monologues. God, I love that.

It's a grey day. I'm in my pajamas. I have coffee going. I might venture out into Andersonville in a bit, to walk around, and re-visit my old haunts. Oh, and yesterday - after Modern Times, the 4 of us strolled by the house where Mitchell and I lived for a year - it was behind the Music Box ... that's the place where M. would crawl through my window at 3 in the morning. Michael and Erik didn't know the story, so Mitchell filled them in (we were all busting out laughing at the image of M. hanging in Mitchell's window, saying apologetically, "Sorry ... I'm looking for Sheila ..." ) I peeked down the alley and there was my old bedroom window - and I almost could see the figure of M., standing below my window ... summer nights from so long ago. I like to do pilgrimages like that.

And at 4:30 - I'm meeting up with Erik at Barney's - where he works now ... so he can do my makeup yet again. I'm excited. A little bit of pampering, and a little bit of re-thinking ... of my face, my looks ... I've been feeling haggish, spinsterish, and exhausted. He offered to give me a makeover and I'm so grateful and happy about it. Thank you, Erik!!!

Yesterday was a slow and blooming day, nowhere to be, nowhere urgent, nothing pressing ... just walking around, and having lunch, and seeing a movie, and singing show tunes at the top of my lungs with the gay population of Chicago ... I'm grateful for yesterday. Grateful for my friends here.