The Sheila Variations

Roger O. Thornhill: "Now, what can a man do with his clothes off for twenty minutes?"

The following essay is about the emotional journey of Cary Grant's suit through North by Northwest.

The essay worked slowly on me. At first I resisted it, maybe it seemed too silly (although there was nothing silly about clothes to the impeccable Grant)? But I was wrong - I figured that out once I succumbed to the essay. It's a keeper. Well worth reading the entire thing.

I loved this bit:

In the suit are a number of subtle tools for Cary. It’s so well cut you can’t tell if he’s even carrying a wallet (turns out he is). Here’s what he’s got in that suit! He goes all the way from New York to Chicago to the face of Mount Rushmore with: a monogrammed book of matches, his wallet and some nickels, a pencil stub, a hanky, a newspaper clipping and his sunglasses — but these are shortly to be demolished when Eva Marie Saint folds him into the upper berth in her compartment. (Really this is a good thing, because Cary Grant in dark glasses looks appallingly GUILTY.) All this stuff fits into the pockets of the most wonderful suit in the world. Does the suit get crushed in the upper berth as his Ray-Bans are smashed? No. Cary keeps his jacket on in the make-out scene that follows. The suit defines him, he’s not going to take off that jacket. I know this feeling.

Beautiful (and surprisingly deep) essay. Well done.

How Alex and I met (by request)

Please realize. This is MY version. She may say something totally different. Although I'll kill her if she leaves out the kumquat. I say it was a gourd. She insists it was a kumquat. We'll leave it at that.

It's an episodic story. And YEARS pass in between encounters. It's truly insane to think of it - and I sometimes actually shiver to imagine that we might not have met. I shiver. And weirdly, with all of our friends in common, what brought us together was our blogs.

Well, and Mitchell, of course. Surprise surprise.

Praise Xenu it all lined up properly, putting us in each other's paths. Oh, and praise Xenu himself, that damned evil warlord, for REALLY bringing us close together. But I'll get to that.

We need to go back 16 years. My God. No. Is that right? Let me check my math. Yup. 16 years.

Sorry. I have just realized that I am actually a withered crone.

1.

I had just moved to Chicago. And Mitchell soon followed. I had very quickly gotten work as an actress in Chicago - and so had Mitchell. He became involved with StreetSigns' production of Right As Rain, about Anne Frank. I eventually was cast in that as well, in its touring company. So almost immediately we were thrust into a brand-new world, meeting a whole batch of new people - many of whom are still dear friends today (cough KATE cough). In 1992, StreetSigns did a production of Lorca's The Public, a bizarre piece of work ... and I thought was brilliantly done by StreetSigns. I still remember some of the staging of it. Derek Goldman (artistic director) is a master adapter (Google him, the guy is a phenom) - and he was always all about excavating the script for theatrical ways to tell the story - not just verbal or literal. Mitchell and David and I went to go see it, to see our new friends in action, and also to see our fellow colleagues at work, even though we weren't in it. And Alex was in it. She had a key part, THE key part, as kind of the emcee, a sort of omnipresent Joel Grey in Cabaret type person. I still remember seeing her in that show, which was the first time I laid eyes on Alex. She wore a blinding white pant suit. She had an air of unbelievable stillness. She watched over the action, quietly. We could only imagine what she was thinking. When she spoke, it was always in a soft voice, but nevertheless totally commanding. She had such focus onstage. I was riveted. Not to the mention the fact that I knew (everyone knew) she was transgendered. To me, at that time, it added such an air of mystery to her (I'm sure she's so sick of that kind of thing, so forgive me, Alex, for bringing it up now ... it's just a first impression kind of thing - and now that i know that she basically sits at home on a nightly basis in ratty pajamas playing with her kittens and talking with her wife Chrisanne about Abraham Lincoln and Bette Davis it seems even silly to mention it. I never even think of it now) ... but at the time, I couldn't help but stare at her, thinking, "Who IS this person??" Not to mention the fact that she was obviously a fucking actress. Girl had chops. She exuded it.

2.

2 may come before 3. I can't remember. I'll start here. Mitchell got a day job as a receptionist in a dentist's office that catered primarily to the gay and lesbian community in Chicago. Michelle and Maureen (Michelle was the dentist, and Maureen was her doctor girlfriend) became huge parts of our lives in Chicago, beloved friends - and I will never, and I mean NEVER, forget that Maureen made a house call - a HOUSE CALL - when I was gravely sick with a fever - to the point of hallucinating - and had no insurance. THAT'S a doctor. Anyway. I loved those two and I miss them both. And I knew, through Mitchell, that Alex was a patient of Michelle's. Mitchell didn't become friends with her immediately (which is shocking, knowing Mitchell's propensity for friendship) but they did become friendly. I never saw Alex at Michelle's office, and had no encounters with her ... but her name was everywhere at the time because of a crazy hit show she was doing, late night ... and she still held a kind of fascination for me. I'm not sure why. She seemed "other" ... by that I mean: I wanted to know her. I remember that feeling. Wanting to know her. But we're still in 1993 here, we didn't actually SPEAK - not really - until 2004. What?? Thank you, Xenu, for making sure it happened!!

3.

My time in Chicago (and for many years after) was taken up with a guy I call "M" on ye olde blog. I've written about him extensively. He's the lunatic who used to crawl through my window at 3 in the morning. Our beginning was no less unconventional. I realize I'm just writing about myself, but whatever. I love writing about myself (as, duh, should be obvious!!!) Anyhoo. I have no idea how ALEX would describe M., although I can imagine. He was a big obnoxious jock-gone-to-seed, a goofball, a self-described "right-wing sexist pig", one of the funniest people I have ever met, and pretty much insane. I also found him almost apocalyptically sexy and found it difficult to carry on a conversation with him in the first 3 months of knowing him. The perfect guy for me! I have to leap ahead now - years later, when Alex and I finally met - and we talked about M. - she was like, "Please. Please. Help me to understand him and help me to understand WHY YOU WERE WITH HIM." He was tough, I'll give him that. But for me, he was magic. And not only that, but I was pretty damaged when he met me. And something about the way he was with me helped me heal. Sounds goofy, but I swear it is the truth. He was never ever impatient with me. EVER. I was used to men being impatient with me. With my damaged-ness. He NEVER was. He accepted it, but he also wanted me to be better. He treated me in an egalitarian manner, and that was totally singular in my experience. It forced me to meet him halfway, and that was awesome. So. There's the M. factor.

Now. There was a show that opened around this time (it is now known as "the show that will never die") - and it was called Hamlet! The Musical. Notice the exclamation point. Very important. It was written by Jeff Richmond (now husband to Tina Fey - and actually, I believe they were dating at the time - M. ran with that crowd) and it was (is) hilarious. It began in a workshop theatre space at Improv Olympic, then moved to a bigger venue on Belmont (selling to soldout shows the entire time) - and finally made it to Navy Pier in a gigantic production - before coming to New York for an off-Broadway run. It was massive. In its first incarnation, M. was cast as Claudius, the conniving uncle ... and Alex was cast as his wife, the conniving Gertrude. At the time of the show (because, again, it's all about me) M. and I weren't seeing each other anymore (although it was a brief respite ... it always was) ... and he was dating someone else. No biggie. Sure, I had a haiku fit about it, but that's to be expected. (Ah, to be in my mid-20s again). But the thought of M. .... big gruff obnoxious M. ... singing and dancing and doing a freakin' box step was more than I could bear. I had to see it. I ended up seeing it probably 5 times - in its first incarnation. The audiences were RIOTOUS. Your stomach hurt at the end of the show. Ann Marie and I went one night (which will be known as "the night of the gourd" forevermore) ... and we STILL laugh about how funny that show was. It almost lost something when it moved to Navy Pier into that huge space ... because to see it in a 99 seat theatre at the 10 o'clock show (2 shows a night on weekends) on a crazy Friday night ... was something else. It was electric! And yes, seeing M. boxstep - in a cape and a CROWN - being all evil and twirling-moustachey - was an image that got me thru many a dark hour.

And there was Alex again. In a glittery mermaid dress, behaving like an absolute retard. She had a vampy number called "Mama Is a Boy's Best Friend", mkay? She is a force of nature onstage, seriously ... the humor that she finds in every moment is almost RUTHLESS and CRUEL and you want to beg for mercy! Just STOP for one goddamn SECOND and let me REST. Her Gertrude - was a Freudian nightmare. Poor Hamlet (played in the original incarnation by Jeff Richmond himself) kept trying to get through the "To be or not to be" speech, only to be interrupted by her knocks on the door.

I didn't know Alex, at this point - but as should be obvious, she had been peripheral for a couple of years now. Our paths had not yet crossed. I had seen her onstage - and that didn't really count ... and I had no inkling that we would one day become fast friends. Not yet.

Let's get back to the night of the gourd. (IT WAS NOT A KUMQUAT.) I actually posted it all out in a Diary Friday - and I just re-read that entry right now and found myself guffawing. I had started seeing Michael (kind of - after our first passionate love affair of all of 6 weeks) ... and he was, you know, 20 years old ... so things were not going well, even though I adored him (and still do.) So Michael blew me off for a date we had had, and I was at my wit's end - so I called Ann Marie and we decided to go see Hamlet! The Musical. I had not seen it yet. I was dying to see M. in action. I decided to send him something backstage - but flowers would not do ... too weird ... so I decided what WOULDN'T be weird, I decided what would be LESS weird - would be to take a little warted-up gourd, and write "Break a leg" on it - and send it backstage. Yes, I considered that to be NOT AS WEIRD AS FLOWERS.

The entire night became about the gourd (see link above for the full panoply of that night, which was epic). And yes, I did send the gourd backstage. All by itself, poor little thing.

I only learn this a bazillion years later when Alex and I have become friends - that she was there, in the cramped co-ed dressing room, when my gourd arrived. This is so insane!! I had put it in a paper bag, so M. would have had to open it up. He pulled out the gourd (Alex remembers it as a kumquat, but she's wrong) and said, in kind of a pleased tone, "Sheila sent me a gourd!" (Again. I am HOWLING with laughter as I type this.)

Alex, who had all kinds of opinions and thoughts about M. (wonderful onstage, kind of annoying off), wondered who was the RETARD who sent him a kumquat? "What kind of asinine bimbo would send this jagoff a kumquat backstage? Honest to GOD, people are assholes." She had all of these opinions about me ... the bimbo who sent the kumquat to the sexist pig sharing her dressing room ... like: there must be something WRONG with that person.

I am shaking with laughter.

Okay. So let's leave the gourd behind.

Years pass again.

4.

I move from Chicago and go to New York. I live there for years. "The show that will never die" continues on. And when it moves to Navy Pier, Mitchell is cast as Polonius. M. is no longer in it - but Alex, in all her Freudian spangled glory, remains. I fly back to Chicago for a vacation and go to see Mitchell in Hamlet! The Musical. I almost feel like this show has now been in my life for a decade. Yes, I am absolutely 100% peripheral ... but it still feels omnipresent. Navy Pier has a plush massive theatre, and the place is packed.

I wait for Mitchell in the palatial lobby afterwards, Lake Michigan gleaming out of the plate glass windows all around. And Mitchell walks out with Alex, who is in a sweatshirt, face scrubbed of makeup, and her arms are crossed over her chest. This is our first meeting. Mitchell introduces us. Alex un-crosses her arms, just long enough to shake my hand, and then crosses them again. I have all of these weird emotions about her - I guess how people feel about stars - it feels like you know them, even though you do not - and so you have an intimate response to a person, even though it is totally unwarranted.

"Hi, nice to meet you. Great show."
"Thanks. Nice to meet you."

Friendly, yes, but a little bit distant and cold. I wouldn't realize until much much later that Alex is actually shy. You would never guess it from her persona onstage. And I'm shy, too. Although you would never guess it from afar, I seem so dominant. So we were two shy people, being awkward, and distant. It just makes me LAUGH to remember it. I want to intervene. I want to lean into the action, from the future, and say, "Okay. Alex? Uncross your arms. Sheila? Stop the hero worship. See this person standing right in front of you? You are going to be FAST FRIENDS ... so cut. the. shit. NOW."

But it wasn't meant to be.

Mitchell and I went off on our way, and Alex went off on hers, and it would be years ... years ... before we would meet again.

5.

October, 2001. The smoking aftermath. Nothing is normal, nothing is even approaching normal.

And in the middle of all of that, I have a dream.

I dream of a nuclear holocaust, which affected only New Jersey and Manhattan. You just knew: It's over. I am going to die. But the bomb had already been dropped - and the sky was a heavy crayon-black. You knew you could not escape, but everyone was trying to anyway.

Everyone was trying to get to the ocean, everyone in Manhattan and in Jersey were trying to get onto the New Jersey turnpike, towards the Atlantic. But there were too many cars. It was like the roads were backed up from Cape May to lower Manhattan. You could not get out.

There was panic. People were running, and screaming, with their hair on fire, their clothes falling off. The bomb had already been dropped, that blackness in the sky was the fallout, and we were trapped - we could not get out.

I was alone in the dream. I was climbing down the cliffs from Jersey Heights down into Hoboken, looking at the blackened smoking skyline of Manhattan and seeing the roads below me, filled with cars, stalled cars as far as the eye could see.

And suddenly - climbing down the cliff with me - was Alex, who was hugely pregnant in my dream. Maybe 8 or 9 months along.

She was not panicked. Not at all. She knew what to do, she took me in hand, she knew a way out. She was on some other plane of thought, entirely.

"We're gonna get to the ocean," she said, as she climbed down the cliff, huge belly in front of her, moving gracefully and certainly. "I know the way."

I do not know why Alex showed up in my dream during that terrible time, I do not know why I would dream about her when I had had so little contact with her up until that point ... but for some reason, in my mind, and perhaps it was because of how caring and wonderful she had been to my friend Mitchell, she would be that person. That person who would know the way out of the nuclear fallout. Carrying new life with her.

I had not seen Alex since that moment in the lobby at Navy Pier, when we said hello to each other in distant guarded manners. Why on earth would she appear as a savior in my dream? I can't explain it. I know that I sensed something in her ... from the beginning. I don't want to make too big a thing out of it, because it ruins the special-ness of it ... but when I think of her, as a person, and who she eventually would be to me, I realize: Of course. Of course she would know the way. And of course, I had sensed it from moment one, when I saw her in that white pant suit as the emcee of The Public. It was there then. I knew it.

It is still odd to me that Alex would appear in my dream, while the smoke still rose from lower Manhattan ... but I choose not to question such things.

It would still be 3 more years before we actually spoke.

6.

Unbeknownst to one another, we both start blogs. Mitchell, however, is the key here. He is the connection. He had, meanwhile, become dear friends with Alex back in Chicago, and she started up her site and I started up mine ... and Mitchell read both ... and somehow he mentioned to Alex one day something about "my friend Sheila's blog". Alex secretly then began to read my site. She knew nothing about me, except that Mitchell loved me (and that's pretty much all I need to know about anyone!) It would not be until many years later that she and I would put our timeline together - who saw whom first, first impressions, paths almost crossed, etc. And it was Mitchell (the gossip!!) who told me, "Alex loves your blog, you know." What?? Alexandra Billings?? From Hamlet The musical? She reads me? What the hell??? This was in 2004. Mitchell has a way, too, of bringing people together. He loves to introduce people from 2 different sections of his life, and watch them hit it off. He is the personification of generaosity. Some people are stingy with their friends ... or they want to HOARD their friendships to themselves. Mitchell is the opposite. If Alex and I hit it off to such a degree that I end up traveling to Vegas with her to see Liza Minelli ... Mitchell is not jealous. Or, he's jealous that we're going to see Liza - but he's not jealous that Alex and I have hit it off. On the contrary. He basically jumps up and down in joy when something like that happens. I love that about Mitchell.

I hear that Alex reads my blog. I freak out. Privately. Mitchell tells me about Alex's blog. I begin to read it obsessively. Neither of us comment on each other's blogs yet.

We are stalking each other. I know she reads me, she knows I read her ... but neither of us break the silence yet. It's hysterical, in retrospect. I mean, we ended up storming the $cientomogy castle together in LA ... and here we are being shy and awkward??

Alex finally emails me. And basically declares her undying love.

I email her back. And declare my undying love.

Huge breakthrough: we begin to comment on each other's sites. It's like our intensity for one another can now be admitted, and is out in the open. I am passionate about Alex and she is passionate about me. I LOVE her. I haven't even met her! (Well, not really.) I haven't even mentioned the gourd yet! But it's like we know all we need to know about the other. We are hooked. That's it. We're friends. We haven't even spoken on the phone yet.

7.

In June of 2004, Alex is going to play Bella, in Victory Garden's production of Ulysses. As they begin rehearsal, Alex is like, "What the hell is going on with James Joyce." Oh - and forgot to mention - Mitchell, by this point, lives with Chrisanne and Alex. Mitchell says to her, "You know, Sheila knows a lot about Joyce - you should call her." Now let's remember. Alex is shy. So am I. Neither of us barge into relationships. We are cautious. Our friendships are particular and deep. We choose well! So Alex emails me, wondering if I could de-brief her on Joyce. I say of course! So we set up a date.

I am strangely nervous.

I am about to talk to Alex for the first time!! But ... it's weird ... I feel like I've known her for over a decade.

I call her. She picks up. There she is. There is her voice. We are both so nervous and so pumped to finally be speaking that all we can do is say stuff like, "What. the HELL. is happening ..." or "What. THE FUCK. is going on???" We go back and forth like that for about 15 minutes. We already love each other. It is so freakin' awesome.

And then she quizzes me relentlessly about Joyce. I answer her questions for over an hour. We go through the script, I have my copy of Ulysses with me - she asks questions, I do my best to explain ... we babble about James Joyce forever. In particular, we talk about the Night Town episode - since that's her scene. What is going on there? What is Joyce doing? What the hell is his point? I am obviously passionate about James Joyce, so the opportunity to talk about him like a maniac (and NOT have people roll their eyes) was really special for me.

I still wish I could have seen her do that part. Damn!!

8.

In October of 2004, my friend Kate marries Tim. I am asked to be in the wedding, and I feel very privileged about it. It is such a joyous occasion. Kate is one of my best friends, and Tim is a prince among men. I will be in Chicago for a week, since I'm wedding-party material ... and I am going to stay with Alex, Chrisanne and Mitchell. Now. It is Alex and Chrisanne's condo. Mitchell lives in the guest bedroom. Alex and Chrisanne are true homebodies ... I think if they COULD get away with never ever leaving the house (and still somehow managing to live their dreams?) they would. So to invite someone in - a stranger - even though beloved by Mitchell - and now Alex and I know each other through our blogs ... I know it's a big deal. I know it's not how they normally behave. And so I feel honored ... to be invited in. I am going to be the best guest ever.

I will never forget my moment of arrival. Ever. I'm probably embarrassing Alex with all of this, but whatevs. She can take it. I fly in to O'Hare. For some reason, that month in 2004, I am as broke as I have ever been. I had already bought the ticket ... and spent literally (LITERALLY) my last 100 bucks on the bridesmaid dress which I bought at Filene's Basement. I was concerned that it made me look like Bea Arthur at a Tony Awards ceremony in 1987 ... but I was assured that it did not. But I was scarily broke. Why? I was working ... I don't know ... I just remember being really afraid of being on vacation and having ZERO money. Of course, once I was there - all I did was sit on the couch with Alex and Mitchell (oh yes and Eric!! Eric was staying with them too! Dammit, i forgot to mention that) ... and watch Joan Crawford movies, and eat the sumptuous gourmet dinners that Chrisanne cooked for us. I spent no money. It was the best vacation I had ever had.

But that's a side note. Let me get back to the moment of arrival.

Now, because I'm a bit more financially solvent, I usually take cabs - especially if I am traveling. But in October of 2004, I couldn't. So I hauled ass, with my huge suitcases and duffel bags, to Chrisanne and Alex's, via the El and then the bus. Insane. I struggle down the sidewalk, I find their condo complex. I ring the buzzer. I am beside myself. Mitchell comes down to get me, and help me with my bags. We talk a mile a minute as we galumph up the stairs. I walk into the apartment, and Alex is standing there - in baggy sweatpants, a sweatshirt, a scrunchy on the top of her head - and we stare at each other for a long weird moment (are we going to just cross our arms at each other? And be polite and distant?) - and then suddenly we find ourselves embracing and jumping up and down, screaming and laughing.

Within 15 minutes we were watching Now Voyager.

That week cemented our friendship forever. We sat out on the porch and talked until 4 o'clock in the morning. We laughed so loudly that neighbors complained. We talked and talked and talked ... about movies and life and Liza (I did my imitation of Liza for her on that porch, for the first time) ... Eric was there, Mitchell was there, Chrisanne was there ... but when they went to bed, or were NOT there, Alex and I were ... and we could not stop talking.

A couple highlights:

-- Alex and I, for some reason, told Eric the entire story of the American Revolution, tag-team style. I have no idea how it happened, but it was absolutely brilliant. We should have a television show on the History Channel. It would be epic.

-- We discovered our shared obsession for all things Xenu. We went nuts, and we have never returned. At one point we had the following exchange. We were discussing the moment when Mr. Tom Crooze was squirted with a water gun on the red carpet. We had differing opinions about it. I thought he had handled himself well. Alex bulldozed over me with her own analysis. And here is what happened (and it cannot be explained - I could never explain why this was so funny, but here goes):
Me: "But what was going on with him at that time ---"
Alex: "It was manipulation AT ITS ZENITH!
Brief pause.
Me: (correcting her) "Xe-NU."

Guys? We laughed for (I am not kidding) 45 minutes. At one point, Alex began to crawl away from me, like a scene in Sybil, on her hands and knees, trying to get away from me. This was when the neighbors complained. We were literally HOWLING. HOWLING TO THE DAMN MOON. I cannot explain why the response "Xe-NU" was that funny -but it fucking was ... and it took us days to recover. Days.

Meanwhile, I got to know Chrisanne. She was someone I had gotten glimpses of from Alex's blog - and so I had a little bit of celebrity worship with her, too. I just wanted her to like me. And approve. And I didn't want to intrude or be a bad guest. All of that.

Chrisanne was not there when I first arrived ... but when she did come back, she was a little bit late, because she had stopped off at a second hand bookstore and couldn't stop herself from buying a couple of books about John and Abigail Adams.

Can you say kindred spirit? I know you can.

Chrisanne deserves her own post entirely - but I will respect her privacy and not go there. Suffice it to say, she's an amazing person - and just being in the presence of the two of them together is being in the presence of love un-hindered, openly expressed, no barriers. It's being with love at its purest. It's quite extraordinary.

And so during that week, I raved about Joan Crawford with Alex, and I talked about people like Patrick Henry and John Jay with Chrisanne.

Frankly, I was in heaven.

No going back.

Put a fork in Sheila. She's done.

I'm friends with Alex for life now. That's it.

Xe-NU.

We would go on to have multiple adventures - involving broken-down cars on freeways, e-meters on Hollywood Boulevard, driving across the desert to see Liza Minelli, watching Alex teach her acting class, meeting up with Emily at the race track (a wonderful memory - I'm so glad we did that), watching Liza with a Z with Mitchell and Alex in an apartment on 73rd Street, getting a private tour of the Elron Hubman Life Exhibit in LA (where we said stuff to our cult tour guide like, "So ... is this the thing that John Travolta is into? Wow!!! Okay - go on!" or "So Elron Hubman was the youngest Eagle Scout in the history of Eagle Scouts? Wow!!!" An unforgettable day.), coming across a dead body moments after he was murdered (good times! Alex hissing at me, as I tiptoed along near the bloody corpse in my platform shoes, "Get the FUCK over here!!") ... and then all of our conversations on the phone ... they're always marathons, hours long, and we have to set them up beforehand. I call her, and Alex always answers the phone like this, just like our first time, "What. the HELL. is going on."

I have no idea, but I love it.

Edvard Munch ...

A gorgeous and haunting post of images.

Edna O'Brien on The Country Girls

A terrific essay by Edna O'Brien about the publication of her first novel The Country Girls. Well worth reading but I'll pull out the two parts I liked especially:

The Country Girls took three weeks, or maybe less, to write. After I brought my sons Carlo and Sasha to the local school in Morden, I came home, sat by the windowsill of their bedroom and wrote and wrote. It was as if I was merely a medium for the words to flow. The emotional crux hinged on Ireland, the country I had left and wanted to leave, but now grieved for, with an inexplicable sorrow.

Images of roads and ditches and bog and bog lake assailed me, as did the voice of my mother, tender or chastising, and even her cough when she lay down at night. In the fields outside, the lonely plaint of cattle, dogs barking and, as I believed, ghosts. All the people I had encountered kept re-emerging with a vividness: Hickey our workman, whom I loved; my father, whom I feared; knackers; publicans; a travelling salesman by the name of Sacco, who sold spectacles and sets of dentures; and the tinkers who rapped on the door demanding money in exchange for mending tin pots. There was the embryo poet, an amateur historian and the blacksmith who claimed to have met the film director John Ford on the streets of Galway and was asked to appear in The Quiet Man, but declined out of filial duty. The lost landscape of childhood.

I'm going through something right now - some developments in my life - that have put a fire under me. I have a deadline. I have to get to work. Reading her essay really bolstered me up.

And then this lovely bit:

Where do words come from, I wondered. I still wonder. Because even without books or rather with only prayer books and bloodstock manuals in our house, I had conceived a love of words and assembled my own little crop of them. I believed they had magical associations and that something amazing could be done with them. I had, of course, the language of the Gospels, which to me seemed and seems perfect, and the marvelling narratives of Irish myths and fables. I learnt everything through Irish, except English itself, and I loved both tongues.

Here is my post on The Country Girls.

The Books: "The Bell Jar" (Sylvia Plath)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. Like many high school girls, I went through a huge Plath phase when I was about 17. I didn't just read The Bell Jar, Plath's only novel, but I read all the poems, the diary, the letters home to her mother, the posthumously published collection of short stories, everything. Here's a gigantic post I wrote about Plath. Like many authors, I have now had almost a lifelong relationship with Sylvia Plath. I have gone through phases with her. There was the first feverish adolescent phase, when I idolized her, and she seemed to express some of the desolation and disorientation I felt as an adolescent girl. The Bell Jar is often just remembered as the autobiographical novel about her suicide attempt, but to me - in high school - it was about what it was like to be a girl. Now Plath was writing about the much more restrictive 1950s - and what those restrictions did to an unconventional (internally, I mean) female spirit. Plath was a perfectionist, and a high achiever. She did all the things she was supposed to. She was a genius at school, she published her poems, she got scholarships, she really had a wave of huge successes as a young woman. But there is a mania there, which can really be seen when you read her journals (not to mention her letters to her mother, which are truly disturbing). The whole sex thing, and the good girls don't thing ... absolutely trapped her. She knew what was going on, she looked around and saw how the social rules were different for boys, and it is my opinion that it is THAT that caused her to crack up in college, NOT the fact that she didn't get into the writer's workshop she wanted to get into and was forced to spend the summer at home. The Bell Jar makes that pretty clear. The social restrictions were unfair, and Plath questioned them. But life was a howling wilderness, it was pre-sexual revolution, and for someone like Plath - the pressure on being normal was enough to make her go nuts. It really was. She found herself split off from herself. There was the good girl and then ... the other girl. The real girl. Nobody can sustain a split for that long without either one or the other side winning. Plath, instead, cracked, tried to commit suicide and spent a year in a mental institution. So she fell into the own crack in her psyche. That's what The Bell Jar is about.

I have read The Bell Jar many times, and while I was captivated by it in high school, it doesn't really hold up as a whole, when I read it now. Her poems are another story altogether. But I'll get to those when I get to my poetry bookshelf, which, at this rate, should be sometimes in the year 2018. The Bell Jar is a kind of selfconscious work, stilted at times - and there is much that is quite wonderful about it - and there are set-piece scenes that I will remember forever. The entire intern staff getting food poisoning in the hotel. Breaking the thermometer in the hospital and playing with the mercury. Seeing the baby born. And the excerpt below. Not to mention the stunner of a first sentence:

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

The writing is cold, and mean. Plath was not a "nice" person, and that was one of her biggest problems. Women are supposed to be "nice"! I think Plath found it very freeing in her writing when she stopped putting the pressure on herself to be nice. And when she started ignoring her mother's usually malevolent advice to be "nice". I actually don't think Aurelia Plath was well-intentioned. I think she had a lot of anger and jealousy towards her daughter - she was at the same time living vicariously and also trying to suppress her. Talk about being angry at the restrictions placed on women - I think Aurelia Plath's rage at her OWN life was titanic in nature. But she covered it up with a sickly sweet "nice"ness ... Now I'm seeing her thru Plath's eyes, it is true - but seriously - read her simpering defensive preface to Letters Home, and you'll see what I mean. What I hear in her words is rage. Plath eventually realized that the relationship with her mother was toxic and basically had to move to England, to put an ocean between them.

All that being said, I don't think The Bell Jar holds up very well. It seems to me to be MADE for adolescent girls, who want to be "deep", or who are relishing their own deep-ness. I went through that phase, and The Bell Jar was perfect for me at that time. But as a grownup, I read it and think, "Oh, come now, dear, I know it seems horrible now, but it'll pass. Just go out and get laid, don't worry so much about the rules, you'll be fine, dear ... just CHILLAX." And so the book loses its oomph if you think that our main character is, well, kind of over-reacting.

Again, the poems are completely another story altogether - I'm choosing now to just focus on The Bell Jar.

It is the story of Esther, a college student, who has won a prestigious summer internship at a ladies magazine in New York City. There are only 11 girls or something like that, and they are all put up in a women's hotel. Esther is an over-achiever, a scholarship girl, and is overwhelmed by New York City. She's kind of fragile, in some ways. She has internalized the "good girl" restrictions to such a degree that she has become rigid. But, tellingly enough, the other girl she befriends is a blowsy platinum blonde bombshell named Doreen, who doesn't seem to give a hoot about the world's restrictions, and she does whatever she wants. There's something freeing about being with Doreen. She's not portrayed as a slut, just as a woman of the world ... and Esther is envious, wishes she could be like that. Meanwhile, the Rosenbergs are going to be electrocuted, and Esther starts to obsess about it. Not about the case or the trial ... but about the fact of electrocution and what it must be like. (Later in the book, when she goes through electroshock treatment, she finds out). It upsets her.

The first third of the book takes place in New York. Then Esther goes home, bringing the second section of the book - hoping that she will receive the letter accepting her into the writer's workshop in Boston ... her mother picks her up at the station and tells her that she was rejected. So now the summer yawns before Esther - she has nothing to do, nothing to look forward to ... and she begins to spiral downward. Her mother wants her to take shorthand classes, just so she will have a backup career (until she gets married, of course). Esther begins to lose it. She begins to forget that she has any good qualities, that she can do anything well ... she feels trapped by the suburbs (Plath's evocation of that kind of claustrophobia is pretty damn great) ... and things get so bad that she is finally brought to see a psychiatrist. He recommends electroshock therapy on an outpatient basis. Good idea, bro! The therapy is brutal, handled awkwardly and unsensitively, and Esther comes out of it disoriented and upset. This goes on until she finally can't take it anymore, and tries to commit suicide.

The last third of the book takes place in the mental institution where Esther is in recovery. She's there for a long time. And she actually ends up getting a GOOD doctor, as opposed to the asswipe she saw earlier. This doctor is a woman, and there's something about her that Esther finds deeply encouraging ... not to mention the fact that the doctor seems to understand what the real problem is: the whole good girl/bad girl sex thing ... and basically gets Esther fitted for a diaphragm, and tells her not to worry so much about it. That she can be free, too. Just be safe. As Esther starts to recover, she is allowed "out" on short jaunts, and during one of those jaunts - she decides to lose her virginity. Let's get this thing OVER WITH so I can just MOVE ON. I can't remember now who she chooses - some guy she meets ... and the virginity-loss goes unbelievably badly (like 1 in a thousand badly) and she begins to hemorrhage. She has to go to the hospital. But somehow, in the chaos of all of that, Esther finds herself better. In the head. Her boyfriend from college Buddy comes to visit her in the hospital - and she no longer is tormented by the fact that Buddy seems to want to domesticate her (he says stuff to her, smugly, like, "When we get married, you won't feel like writing poetry anymore...") ... all of that stuff is still going on with Buddy, but Esther just laughs at it now. She doesn't care. Buddy can't "get" her, if she doesn't want to be gotten. She's free. Truly free. That is not to say that she is "back to normal" because that is just the point. "Normal" is too high a bar for some people. And trying to fit into "normalcy" is too much pressure for some people. I'm one of those people. I'm not a wack-job, but I'm not "normal" and I came to terms with that a long time ago. If I tried to "fit in", if I worried about the concerns of others and why don't those same things concern me?? ... I'd be crushed. I still struggle with it ... but I have pretty much won the battle as a whole. Esther is in no way, shape, or form, normal. There's one sentence in the book that suggests Esther has gone on to get married and have a baby - and it totally doesn't work for me. Plath has created a character (let's forget about the autobiographical elements for a minute) who seems like she will NEVER fit in with societal norms, and her journey is such to accept that. So it's inconceivable that she would go on to have some sort of domestic harmony!

One last thing and then I'll get to the excerpt:

I haveThe Bell Jar on tape - read by Frances McDormand - and I HIGHLY recommend it. It was given to me as a gift, years ago, and I remember one day I just put it on and cleaned my whole apartment, listening to it. And sometimes laughing out loud. I had forgotten how funny some of it is! Or - it was revealed to me, by McDormand's line readings, how FUNNY a lot of it is. It's mean humor, all of it is mean observational humor ... but it was great. This was recently, and so yet another level of that book was revealed to me. Like I said - it's a lifelong relationship.

Plath's major work is her poems. As a poet, she ranks among the best of her generation. As a novelist, not so much. It's the poems that really set her free.

And I can't let this post go by without providing a link to Cara Ellison - who read one of my Plath posts in 2006 - and went on a tear. She had never read her before. Cara took obsession to a whole other level, and it's been so fun to watch and read her stuff about Plath.

Here's the excerpt (and a bunch of Plath links right here):

EXCERPT FROM The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath.

"I'm so glad they're going to die."

Hilda arched her cat-limbs in a yawn, buried her head in her arms on the conference table and went back to sleep. A wisp of bilious green straw perched on her brow like a tropical bird.

Bile green. They were promoting it for fall, only Hilda, as usual, was half a year ahead of time. Bile green with black, bile green white white, bile green with nile green, its kissing cousin.

Fashion blurbs, silver and full of nothing, sent up their fishy bubbles in my brain. They surfaced with a hollow pop.

I'm so glad they're going to die.

I cursed the luck that had timed my arrival in the hotel cafeteria to coincide with Hilda's. After a late night I felt too dull to think up the excuse that would take me back to my room for the glove, the handkerchief, the umbrella, the notebook I forgot. My penalty was the long, dead walk from the frosted glass doors of the Amazon to the strawberry-marble slab of our entry on Madison Avenue.

Hilda moved like a mannequin the whole way.

"That's a lovely hat, did you make it?"

I half expected Hilda to turn on me and say, "You sound sick," but she only extended and then retracted her swanny neck.

"Yes."

The night before I'd seen a play where the heroine was possessed by a dybbuk, and when the dybbuk spoke from her mouth its voice sounded so cavernous and deep you couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. Well, Hilda's voice sounded just like the voice of that dybbuk.

She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to exist. The silence between us was so profound I thought part of it must be my fault.

So I said, "Isn't it awful about the Rosenbergs?"

The Rosenbergs were to be electrocuted late that night.

"Yes!" Hilda said, and at last I felt I had touched a human string in the cat's cradle of her heart. It was only as the two of us waited for the others in the tomblike morning gloom of the conference room that Hilda amplified that Yes of hers.

"It's awful such people should be alive."

She yawned then, and her pale orange mouth opened on a large darkness. Fascinated, I stared at the blind cave behind her face until the two lips met and moved and the dybbuk spoke out of its hiding place, "I'm so glad they're going to die."

"Come on, give us a smile."

I sat on the pink velvet loveseat in Jay Cee's office, holding a paper rose and facing the magazine photographer. I was the last of the twelve to have my picture taken. I had tried concealing myself in the powder room, but it didn't work. Betsy had spied my feet under the doors.

I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.

This was the last round of photographs before the magazine went to press and we returned to Tulsa or Biloxi or Teaneck or Coos Bay or wherever we'd come from, and we were supposed to be photographed with props to show what we wanted to be.

Betsy held an ear of corn to show she wanted to be a farmer's wife, and Hilda held the bald, faceless head of a hatmaker's dummy to show she wanted to design hats, and Doreen held a gold-embroidered sari to show she wanted to be a social worker in India (she didn't really, she told me, she only wanted to get her hands on a sari).

When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn't know.

"Oh sure you know," the photographer said.

"She wants," said Jay Cee wittily, "to be everything."

I said I wanted to be a poet.

Then they scouted about for something for me to hold.

Jay Cee suggested a book of poems, but the photographer said no, that was too obvious. It should be something that showed what inspired the poems. Finally Jay Cee unclipped the single, long-stemmed paper rose from her latest hat.

The photographer fiddled with his hot white lights. "Show us how happy it makes you to write a poem."

I stared through the frieze of rubber-plant leaves in Jay Cee's window to the blue sky beyond. A few stagey cloud puffs were traveling from right to left. I fixed my eyes on the largest cloud, as if, when it passed out of sigh, I might have the good luck to pass with it.

I felt it very important to keep the line of my mouth level.

"Give us a smile."

At last, obediently, like the mouth of a ventriloquist's dummy, my own mouth started to quirk up.

"Hey," the photographer protested, with sudden foreboding, "you look like you're going to cry."

I couldn't stop.

I buried my face in the pink velvet facade of Jay Cee's loveseat and with immense relief the salt tears and miserable noises that had been prowling around in me all morning burst out into the room.

When I lifted my head, the photographer had vanished. Jay Cee had vanished as well. I felt limp and betrayed, like the skin shed by a terrible animal. It was a relief to be free of the animal, but it seemed to have taken my spirit with it, and everything else it could lay its paws on.

Don't Bother To Knock; directed by Roy Baker

"I rather think that had she endured, had she come ten years later, maybe it would have been different. But at that time - I mean, she came in at the height of the Hollywood system - and she was not alone feeling debased by the whole thing. It was a common complaint. Like [the way] John Garfield was a terrific actor - yet he did nothing but scream and howl. There was some demeaning aspect to the whole thing. So most of them went with it. They simply adopted the contempt with which they were treated. I think that's what happened. Pretty hard to withstand - a culture of contempt. I think it helped destroy her." -- Arthur Miller on Marilyn Monroe

Seeing Monroe's performance in 1952's Don't Bother to Knock, as Nell, the psychologically shattered and borderline psychotic babysitter in a plush hotel, makes you wonder about all the roads not traveled. It makes you think of her courage in putting up with contemptuous projects like Let's Make Love or The Seven Year Itch (one of the meanest spirited movies she was ever in) ... and wonder what might have happened if she had been allowed to experiment. Now I'm not saying that her work, as it exists, in comedic gems such as Some Like It Hot is somehow lesser, or somehow lacking. I'm already rather annoyed that comedy often takes a backseat to drama with a capital D. It's why Cary Grant was stiffed in the Oscar department. You show me a better performance than what he did in His Girl Friday!

Billy Wilder said this about her (and it rambles a bit - this is a transcription of a conversation he had with Cameron Crowe):

She had a kind of elegant vulgarity about her. That, I think, was very important. And she automatically knew where the joke was. She did not discuss it. She came up for the first rehearsal, and she was absolutely perfect, when she remembered the line. She could do a 3-page dialogue scene perfectly, and then get stuck on a line like, "It's me, Sugar"... But if she showed up, she delivered, and if it took 80 takes, I lived with 80 takes, because the 81st was very good ... She had a feeling for and a fear of the camera. Fright. She was afraid of the camera, and that's why, I think, she muffed some lines. God knows how often. She also loved the camera. Whatever she did, wherever she stood, there was always that thing that comes through. She was not even aware of it.

We all have magic in us. But Marilyn Monroe had movie magic. And, like Wilder said, "...she automatically knew where the joke was." That kind of sensibility cannot be taught. And in the same way that it is rare to find a man as outrageously good-looking as Cary Grant who is also a comedic genius, it's rare to find a bombshell at the level of Marilyn Monroe who can nail jokes in the way she does (even when she is the butt of them)! But she is always the one who comes off smelling like a rose, even in nasty misogynistic pictures like The Seven Year Itch, which tries to make a joke out of her (and women's sexuality, in general). Watch that film and watch how she evades and eludes "capture" - meaning: she somehow, gently, subtly, by being totally innocent and guileless ... evades being the butt of the joke. That takes guts. That takes smarts. Because, believe me, she was being set up in that film. In many of her films, she was being set up.

So I love Marilyn's funniness, it's one of the most spontaneous things about her. But she always yearned to show more of herself, more of what she could do. Nobody wanted to see it. However, Don't Bother to Knock is early Monroe, or relatively early ... her stardom hadn't "hit" yet. So to watch her in this psychological drama (that has elements of a thriller) is astonishing.

Who knows what demons Monroe battled on a daily basis. All I know is that sadness and fear flickers across her face in Don't Bother to Knock in a neverending dance. She seems truly dangerous at times. She never seems to push the emotion, it seems to just happen to her. She (Nell) is not fully control of herself and neither is Marilyn. I don't know if Marilyn was "tapping into" her own wealth of miserable memories, or if it was her talent allowing her the ability to portray such fragility ... it doesn't matter "how" she got there. What matters is the end result. It's a stunning performance, and most often not even mentioned when Marilyn Monroe's career is brought up - which is a shame. She's riveting.

Marilyn Monroe often played either naive breathless girls, easily taken in, a bit dopey, or vaguely trashy showgirls, who somehow have managed to maintain their sweetness. She never played bitter. She never played a wisecracker. That was not her thing. And whatever "experiences" she had had in her life, it had not touched that diamond-bright innocence inside her. Nothing could kill it. You watch her films and it's truly amazing - how it is always there, even in projects that were not worthy of her. But she never played - except in Don't Bother To Knock - a truly damaged woman. I suppose a woman with a body like that and a face like that was made to be a fantasy for audiences and audiences don't really want to see their sex goddesses as damaged. Marilyn knew that better than anyone. She had a love-hate relationship with her beauty. It was her ticket to fame, she knew that, and she was truly grateful for it, and she knew how to use it. She was a master at creating her persona. But it was also what tormented her, and gave her such intense stage fright that she wouldn't come out of her dressing room for sometimes hours, staring at herself in the mirror. What was she looking for? How hard was it for her to drag up that sexy goddess on days when she didn't feel like it? I don't have much sympathy for those who respond to questions like that with, "Oh, boo hoo, cry me a river, she was famous, we all should have such problems!" I think it represents a truly ungenerous and stingy attitude, something that she faced daily, and struggled against. And so she would lock her door, and refuse to come out, terrified of the expectations placed on her, knowing that within her was an abyss of sadness that nobody wanted to see. It had to have been horrible. I can only imagine. I don't have that kind of beauty. I have no idea what that must be like. I think it's indicative that she was often very afraid of directors, who could get impatient with her constant bungling of lines (it is thought that she had undiagnosed dyslexia) ... but absolutely loved the crew, who loved her right back. They were her audience. They were not stingy. She would walk out of her dressing room, all dolled up, after having made everyone wait for hours, and the crew - hanging off their scaffolds - would catcall and whistle, and she ate it up. It was friendly. If you've ever experienced a friendly and appreciative catcall (which is something some people just can't imagine) then you know how nice it can be. It can totally brighten your day. I'm not talking about avoiding a certain block because there's a construction site there and you're fucking sick of having to walk through a goddamn gantlet (who knew?? I sure as hell didn't!), which forces you into a sexualized atmosphere at 9 a.m. when you're just trying to go get a coffee. That's harassment. But some dude calling out at you, "Girl, YOU PRETTY!" like happened to me once ... thank you, sir!! Marilyn was loved by those guys. Because they represented her fan base. Directors loved her too, in spite of themselves - they loved her because, like Billy Wilder said, even if it took 80 takes for her to get a line - if she nailed it on the 81st, it would be the best take ever, and it would be Marilyn Monroe, after all ... so that's why she was paid the big bucks, and that's why you sucked it up and tried not to mind having to wait around for her to get over her stage fright or whatever it was. But the love the crew had for her was simple and unhindered by concerns other than appreciation. Marilyn fed off of them. She played to them.

In Don't Bother to Knock, she plays a resolutely unglamorous part. It's not made into a big deal, like, "Oooh, look at the pretty movie star being plain-ed down" ... It's appropriate for the part. She wears a simple cotton dress, low heels, a little black beret - and when she gets on the elevator for the first time and we see her from behind, her dress is a little bit wrinkled. Like it would be for any woman who had just taken a long subway ride. It's touching. Alex told me last night (she read it in some Photoplay magazine she owns. The woman is insane) that Marilyn had bought the dress herself at a five and dime for the movie. She had seen it, and known that it was Nell's dress. I love the intelligence of that, the intelligence of her choice for the character. It's perfect.

Nell's backstory unfolds slowly. When we first see her come through the revolving doors, we see a pretty woman, who seems unsure. Her step is hesitating. She looks like a raw nerve, everything making an impression on her, like she hasn't been out in public for a long long time (this turns out to be true - but watch how Marilyn is playing it in the first scene, before we know anything about her. That's smart acting. That's building a character.) If we know the rest of Marilyn Monroe's work, we may be forgiven for thinking that Nell is just another one of her naive breathless creations. She meets up with the elevator man, who turns out to be her uncle, who has gotten her a job babysitting for a child of guests in the hotel. The uncle seems solicitous, perhaps overly so. He says, "You won't have any trouble babysitting, will you, Nell?" A bottomless look of sadness battling with fear comes over Marilyn's face. It's startling. This was my first clue that Nell was going to be a little different than Marilyn's other characters. She says, "Of course not. Why would I?" She's not defensive. But unbelievably sad that his question even needs to be asked. It seems to suggest that there might be something ... wrong with her. The movie is full of tiny eloquent moments like that.

Nell is brought into the hotel room, and meets the parents of Bunny, the little girl she will be babysitting. The parents swirl out, leaving simple instructions. Nell reads Bunny a fairy story before she goes to bed. There is something touching here, and also not quite right. Marilyn reads the story in almost a monotone, a dreamy uninflected voice, as though she is trying to imagine herself into the story she is reading. Bunny is riveted.

Once Bunny goes to bed, Nell is left alone in the apartment. She's aimless. When her face is in stasis, and when she is alone, all you see is her sadness. There's no peace on her face. In the introduction to the parents, and in her dealings with her uncle, she tries to keep it together, and put on a social happy expression. But once alone, the mask is off. Marilyn was so rarely without her mask, and so it's amazing to watch.

Another thing that is fascinating about this film, and also singular in Marilyn's career, is that she gets the opportunity to show anger. Rage. I can't think of another film where she truly gets angry, where she asserts herself in that way. It's terrifying.

Meanwhile, another story goes on in the film. Richard Widmark plays Jed, a cynical pilot, who's been dating Lynn, played by Anne Bancroft. Lyn is a lounge singer in the hotel, Jed flies in on the weekends. It's obviously a "friends with benefits" type situation, and Lyn has been okay with that, up until now. She's portrayed by Bancroft as an intelligent and compassionate woman, who is not above having harmless fun, and she's not the type to yearn for domesticity or put the pressure on him to commit. But there are qualities she senses in Jed that disturb her, and she finally has come to the decision that she can't be with him anymore. It's his coldness, the way he treats people ... everything is seen through a cynical snarky lens ... and any act of kindness is assigned a base motive. You can see it in how he treats Eddie, the elevator man, who tries to joke with him. You can see it in the contemptuous way he treats the woman who wants to take their photograph. Richard Widmark (ooomph, he's sexy in this film) only has a couple of specific moments where these qualities can be displayed, and he nails them. We can see Lyn's point. He makes fun of her. She says, "You lack what I need. You lack an understanding heart." They "wrangle" back and forth in the bar of the hotel, and she's pretty certain that she needs to walk away. He's the kind of guy who has a little black book of names, always in his back pocket, but there's something about this Lyn woman that has gotten under his skin. He can't admit it yet. He's too proud. But her calm and reasoned explanation leaves him restless, pissed.

Jed finds himself at loose ends back up in his hotel room, while he can hear the lovely strains of Lyn singing torch songs (or, to say it another way, Anne Bancroft lip syncing) through the radio on the wall, connected to the bar downstairs (a nice omnipresent touch). He pours a drink. He lies on the bed. He throws his black book on the floor. He's cranky. And then he catches a glimpse in the window across the way - of Nell, dressed up in a gown, dancing around. A private moment. It's a haunting image, and Jed is struck dumb. Eventually she notices him, and they begin a conversation across the space in-between. He figures out her room number from the floor plan on the back of the door, and calls her. They sit and talk on the phone, staring at each other from window to window.

Now one of the things that I really love about this film is Richard Widmark's journey through it, and how he treats Nell at first, and then adjusts to the reality before him. Here's the thing: Marilyn was really about 11 years old inside. I think that's one of the reasons why pairing her up with someone like, oh, John Wayne, wouldn't have worked. Wayne required a grown-up. The thing about Marilyn, the captivating and also complicated thing, is that she was a little innocent girl in that sex-bomb of a body. And Richard Widmark's Jed, a guy out for a good time, a guy looking, in this moment anyway, to fuck his loneliness away ... only sees the body at first. But don't we all? I can't judge him for that. It's quite a body. He looks at Nell, and sees ... well ... Marilyn Monroe ... and he thinks: I have hit the jackpot here. There's also a certain passivity in Nell (at first), a certain willingness ... and so Jed, who's not in the mood for a fight, thinks that it will be pretty easy to seduce this one. And that's what he wants right now. No more problems, for God's sake. But over the devastating course of their next couple of scenes, when he invites himself over to her room (not knowing, of course, that it is not her room at all), he begins to realize that something is not right. They kiss, they drink, they flirt ... and something opens up in Nell, something is unleashed. She projects onto him all of her hopes and dreams, which is alarming - and has a kind of Fatal Attraction feel to it. Jed gets that vibe. And instead of ignoring it, and taking what he thinks he deserves anyway (after all, she invited him over - she's in a negligee - she knows what he wants!), he turns her down. And in so doing, becomes a better man. He shows his "understanding heart". He doesn't realize that that is what is happening in the moment, he just knows that seducing this woman would be wrong. Kim Morgan, in her wonderful review of the film, writes:

In real life, most men wouldn't so sensitively resist.

That, to me, is the most moving part of the film: Widmark's growing realization that Nell is sick, and his decision to help her, rather than just add to the hurts she's experienced. I can't think of another film of Marilyn's where she is treated in quite the way that Widmark treats her. She's usually a bombshell, a friendly girlie bombshell, eager, open-eyed, innocent, and yet smokin'. There is never any concern for how she might feel, being treated like a walking-talking blow-up doll. It is assumed that she is on board with it - and, like I said, Marilyn, for the most part, was. She was a movie goddess. We don't want to know that movie goddesses might have contradictory opinions about being ogled over in film after film. Marilyn's power was in strolling through that kind of gantlet and coming out unscathed, and still glowing. She did it in film after film. But in Don't Bother To Knock, she is actually human, and Widmark, at first distracted by the boobs and the face, ends up seeing her as she really is: a damaged sad little girl, trapped in a pin-up model's body. It's incredibly moving to watch that transformation happen in Widmark's face. Marilyn has never been treated so, well, kindly, as she is in this film.

Don't Bother To Knock had a short shooting schedule, and Marilyn actually is not in a hell of a lot of it. It feels like she is, she dominates the film - but the scenes with Widmark and Bancroft take up quite a bit of time as well, and so Marilyn only really shot for 2 weeks. She was so enamored with Anne Bancroft's acting that she would show up on the set to watch Bancroft's scenes being filmed. Bancroft was a "real" actress, and this was at the point in Marilyn's life (with the encouragement of her good friend Shelley Winters) that Marilyn was starting to learn her craft, and taking acting classes at The Actors Studio. Bancroft represented the serious side of the business, the actresses, who got to act, rather than just show their awesome silhouettes, and giggle and simper and wear bathing suits, etc. Marilyn so wanted to be considered a real actress.

And you know, like I said in the beginning, I love her stuff in comedies, musicals, melodramas ... I'm a fan, regardless of the material. She's got "it". What she is able to do in Some Like It Hot is awesome - it's movie magic. And when Marilyn was put in projects like that, projects that were worthy of her talents, she was very happy. She hated some of the stuff she was forced to do (uhm, Let's Make Love, for example), and she hated that she wasn't able, most of the time, to show the full spectrum. Her idols were not other bombshells. Her idols were real actresses.

We are a couple of years away, in Don't Bother to Knock, from Marilyn's famous disappearing act, when she dropped off the face of the earth, and wasn't heard from for a month or so ... until she re-emerged in New York, having moved there to study with Lee Strasberg, and to develop her own projects. She formed a production company. She wanted to do The Brothers Karamazov. It was a hugely rebellious act, and was treated with disdain by the powers-that-be, but it was her way of saying, "I do not like the movies I am being put in. I am taking the reins of my own career." And how was she rewarded? By having a reporter ask her at a press conference, "Do you know how to spell Dostoevsky, Marilyn?"

The guts that woman had. To tolerate such condescension.

And Don't Bother to Knock, although a big flop at the time, and not well-remembered at all, is evidence of the many shades of Marilyn Monroe; it is a nuanced terrifying performance, and her crack-up at the end is shattering to watch. She walks across the hotel lobby, and her arms look stiff and un-usable, she is vaguely unsteady on her feet, as though she is learning to walk all over again, her face is wet with tears, and she blinks up at the lights of the lobby, alarmed, squinting at the glare. She goes down the steps, one step, two step, her body slack and yet also rigid, she cannot move easily. Her psychic pain emanates not just from her face, the ending is not done in closeup, it's a full-body shot ... and her physicality is eloquent. It tells the whole story. Her pain is in her pinky finger, her waist, her calves ... It surges through her and makes it difficult to even walk.

You know who plays a scene that well and with that much specificity and abandon?

A real actress does, that's who.

"Gauntlet" has been changed to "gantlet" throughout. You learn something new every day. Thanks, Kerry!

The Books: "1984" (George Orwell)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

1984, by George Orwell. I covered much of my thoughts about this book in my post yesterday about Animal Farm.

A bit more about Orwell the man (there's so much there): Orwell himself wrote about his youth:

I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.

His entire life can be seen as a process of "facing" (something that Christopher Hitchens goes into in depth in his book Why Orwell Matters). What does it mean to "face"? To really face? Not just unpleasant facts about outer reality - but unpleasant facts about how you think about things, and where you might be wrong - or just too rigid? I mean, how many people do that? As in: Okay, I can feel I have a bias against such and such ... it's a strong bias ... Can I look at that bias and see where it might be really coming from? Is it just from "the way things are" and I am convinced I am right ... or am I missing something? Am I afraid of something? Am I wrong? Orwell's whole life was about asking such questions about himself. It is truly remarkable. He questioned Empire, racism, Stalinism, Communism, misogyny, anti-Semitism ... he recognized his biases in all of these areas. Some could not be overcome, some were not meant to be overcome, but ALL were "faced" ... and he did it through his writing. A straining questioning curious ruthless sensibility he had. No wonder he intimidates. No wonder he is seen as an enemy by many. Not just for his views (or, I don't think it's just because of his views) ... but because he shames those who refuse to question themselves. He shames the "people of the lie" - those who absolutely refuse to examine themselves, refuse. People have blinders on. People insist that SUCH AND SUCH IS TRUE ... you ask me why it is true? Well, that should be obvious - because I FEEL SO STRONGLY ABOUT IT. Strong feelings are not enough for Orwell. They are just the jumping-off point to ask the tough questions. He is not above having "strong feelings" ... but instead he wonders: Maybe such and such is NOT true ... you ask me why it is not true? Well, that should be obvious ... BECAUSE I feel so strongly about it ... I'm thinking of the raging (loud) homophobic folks - preachers, politicians, whatever - who inevitably are discovered paying some gigolo for gay sex and having a wide stance in a bathroom stall in the midwest somewhere. These people (as far as I know, I don't know them obviously) ... are not questioning themselves. They are not saying: "I have a violent reaction to homosexuals. Where is that coming from? Is it because I REALLY believe that it is wrong? Or is something else going on?" If you really believe it's wrong, that's one thing - I don't respect your position, but I see that it's a sincere belief. But these loudly homophobic anti-gay guys have been revealed, time and time again, as closet cases ... you know, an example of "he doth protest too much". Orwell had his blind-spots, just like everybody else on the planet. He worked at himself. He looked, he examined ... he was not afraid to break with the pack, and he was not afraid to show himself as in process - which I think many people find VERY threatening. I have found it in small doses on my blog - when I write a post that is mainly about questioning or contemplating, or NOT being positional ... overwhelmingly, people show up to tell me what to think, how to react, whatever. The very fact of NOT taking a position, or questioning one's own motives or thoughts ... is seen as contemptible by many. Or - not contemptible. I'm going to stay with the word "threatening". When I see these what seem to be kneejerk reactions to me being in process ... it always makes me think - I don't know ... people get threatened by that. They can't stand it. It makes them nuts.

Sometimes a violent anti-reaction to something is indicative of deeper issues. That's been my experience anyway. Not just in observing others but in observing myself. There have been times in my life (and I'm sure we've all experienced stuff like this) - where I will have a really bad reaction to somebody - like they just rub me the wrong way, they push my buttons ... I find it uncomfortable to be around them, etc. And usually I suffer through the situation, getting annoyed, ranting about it to my friends, writing in my journal, whatever ... But it's happened a couple of times that eventually I have a breakthrough in my thinking about this person. It happened with a woman in an acting class I was in a couple of years ago. She was what I could call an "emotional vampire" ... she was very talented, but her self-deprecating manner was overwhelming and eventually annoying. She would almost bow in front of me, like, "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy" ... and it made it impossible to have a conversation with her. She latched onto me. She would glance at me during the notes given to her during a scene, seeing how I would respond. It made me so uncomfortable. I could feel she was giving me WAY too much power. Listen, babe, I'm struggling just like you, I'm in the shit just like you ... focus on your own damn self!! She took up a lot of brain space. Like - I thought about her a lot. I bitched about her. I was in a state of unconsciousness - I was just reacting. And I'm not sure what it was that snapped ... but eventually, after all of this, I finally asked myself the question, "Sheila. What is going on with YOU right now? Forget about her - what is happening with YOU?" It was not a comfortable moment. I was so certain that I was "right" in my opinion, I felt harassed by her - she hovered by my side, she over-complimented me, whatever - I felt "right". So to take a step back from that and say, "Wait a second ... why am I so invested in being RIGHT here? What is going on with you??" And I made some realizations. I saw myself in her. (Of course). It's not a part of myself that I am particularly proud of, and it is a part of myself that I work to suppress. The openly insecure person, the one who doesn't feel worthy to be in the same room with tremendously talented successful people, the one who is unable to take a compliment without brushing it off, the one who is so talented - but can't ever own it. Blah blah blah, the list goes on. My anti-reaction to this person was a reaction to those parts of myself that I am ashamed of. That she was just wearing on her sleeve. Jung talks about shadow sides ... the darker side of you, the things you can't admit or won't admit ... This woman was my shadow side. I'm suddenly moved. I'm not sure why. And as I made these realizations, all of my annoyance at her dissolved ... immediately. Never to return again, actually. I was so far removed from being all righteous and annoyed that it was like I was a different person. My birthday was that week, and I was having a huge party at a club in New York. Dear friends, family members, etc. And impulsively - without stopping to examine it - I called her - using the number on the class roster I had in my address book. She answered. When she heard it was me, she did this big "oh my god I can't believe you're calling me" thing - which would have driven me up the freakin' wall a week before - but now, I felt kind towards her. And in being kind towards her, I was being kind to myself. Forgiving of myself. I know that "Oh my God I can't believe you're calling me" feeling. And I invited her and her husband to come to my party. She had three grade-school age kids - so I knew it would be a long-shot that she could come out on a weeknight - but she was so thrilled to be asked - it made me want to cry. I had been withholding something from her, something that was good and kind and soft ... and I was so rewarded when I let go. She basically just wanted to be my friend, for God's sake! She and her husband got a babysitter and came to my party, and they were totally awesome, and we all had the best time. She was terrific! We played ridiculous games. For example, someone had brought a pack of Bubblicious - you know, the kind that has a fortune in the wrapper. And we would do dramatic readings of the fortunes ... or turn them into songs ... we were acting like total retards, and laughing so hard we were crying. It was an awesome night. She and her husband had a BALL. It wasn't the "beginning of a beautiful friendship" - she eventually left that class, and I never saw her again ... but it was a real learning moment for me. The "power of facing unpleasant facts" - not focusing on what was wrong with her, but focusing on what was it in me that was having such a strong negative reaction to her?? And maybe I was a bit "off"? That I was "off" BECAUSE I had such a strong negative reaction to her!

I have strayed far from my topic, but that felt really good to write. And it is relevant, in its way. I have written before about my problem with those who "relish their rightness" and I hope I was clear in my post - that one of my biggest problems with those kinds of people is that it reveals to me my OWN "relishing" of my OWN rightness - and it's a button I don't want pushed ... and I have a hard enough time NOT relishing my rightness ... so I have to actively avoid such people. It's my choice. I do not set myself above or beyond them. It is that I am in process ... and I am trying to NOT be that way anymore. I can certainly go there, and it doesn't mean not having strong opinions ... but there's a huge difference between having a strong opinion and relishing your own rightness. It's a line I walk, and those who do not question their own rightness, who are incapable of seeing that maybe THEY have a little bit of work to do ... I experience them as toxic. Actually toxic.

And so this is one of the main reasons why I find Orwell so, not just refreshing, but exhilarating. He shows me the way. He really does. Bless him!

Hitchens writes about this whole "facing unpleasant facts" thing:

A commissar who realizes that his five-year-plan is off-target and that the people detest him or laugh at him may be said, in a base manner, to be confronting an unpleasant fact. So, for that matter, may a priest with 'doubts'. The reaction of such people to unpleasant facts is rarely self-critical; they do not have the 'power of facing'. Their confrontation with the fact takes the form of evasion; the reaction to the unpleasant discovery is a redoubling of efforts to overcome the obvious. The 'unpleasant facts' that Orwell faced were usually the ones that put his own position or preference to the test.

And that's really the jist of it.

It's an interesting point. Stalinist tyranny required of the Party members to be "self-critical" - meaning: to examine their own thought processes and admit where they were "incorrect". Self-criticisms. But we can see how bogus that really is - that what that brand of "self-criticism" represents is a whittling away of independent thought. And not just independent thought but man's ability to know that he even does think independently. Mikhail Bulgakov has some amazing scenes in The Master and Margarita - where someone realizes, through coercion, double-think, double-speak, and intense psychological pressure, that what they REALLY saw (a huge black cat riding the streetcar, holding onto the rails as though he was a human being) was NOT what they really saw ... they were mistaken. Even though, in their hearts, they KNOW what they saw. (An excerpt from that great book illustrating this point here.) Stalinism required human beings to split themselves. And so with all the damage Stalin wrought - the aftermath of which we still live in today - the psychological damage was the most shattering.

And that's what Orwell addresses so brilliantly in 1984. I have so many favorite sections of this book - but I figured I'd go with the "newspeak" section because it is so chilling. (And highly relevant still.)

Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz (my post about him here) who grew up in Poland - suffering under the Nazis and then under increasingly Stalinist Communism, wrote this about 1984 in 1953:

A few have become acquainted with Orwell's 1984; because it is both difficult to obtain and dangerous to possess, it is known only to certain members of the Inner Party. Orwell fascinates them through his insight into details they know well, and through his use of Swiftian satire. Such a form of writing is forbidden by the New Faith because allegory, by nature manifold in meaning, would trespass beyond the prescriptions of socialist realism and the demands of the censor. Even those who know Orwell only by hearsay are amazed that a writer who never lived in Russia should have so keen a perception into its life.

What a compliment.

EXCERPT FROM 1984, by George Orwell.

"How is the dictionary getting on?" said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.

"Slowly," said Syme. "I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating."

He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.

"The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition," he said. "We're getting the language into its final shape - the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words - scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050."

He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take 'good', for instance. If you have a word like 'good', what need is there for a word like 'bad'? 'Ungood' will do just as well - better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of 'good', what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like 'excellent' and 'splendid' and all the rest of them? 'Plusgood' covers the meaning, or 'doubleplusgood' if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words - in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course," he added as an afterthought.

A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.

"You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston," he said almost sadly. "Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useful shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?"

Winston did know that, of course. He smiled sympathetically, he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-colored bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak," he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. "Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050-, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?"

"Except --" began Winston doubtfully, and then stopped.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to say "Except the proles," but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.

"The proles are not human beings," he said carelessly. "By 2050 - earlier, probably - all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron - they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like 'freedom is slavery' when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.

La Double Vie de Veronique

Ted writes beautifully about one of my favorite films of all time.

A while back, I wrote a post about it - which, in my editor's cap, I look at and want to re-write ... but whatevs ... here it is. A gorgeous film that has never quite left me.

The Books: "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" (George Orwell)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story , by George Orwell.

Nothing like starting off the weekend with a little Orwell. And I am of the mind that we should never forget why Orwell matters ... to borrow a phrase. (That's a wonderful book, by the way. We actually just brought it up yesterday in a conversation over at Jonathan's place. It's one of my favorite kind of blog conversations: it starts out at one place, someone brings something else up, a couple respond to that point, someone chimes in on the original point ... and how did we get from Armond White to Orwell? Who knows. But it's awesome.

Do they still have kids read Animal Farm in 8th grade? That's when I read it first. It's simply told, and if you don't get the allegory - which I probably didn't as an 8th grader - it doesn't really matter - because the story is clear, and tyranny is a concept that at least can be comprehended by an 8th grader. The Iran hostage situation was one of the formative events of my early adolescence - that and the hunger strikes in Belfast (well, and of course the miracle on ice too ... which seemed to encapsulate the entire WORLD at that time) - The hostages and the hunger strikes were the first couple of times that I was really aware of the news as something I could understand and was invested in. I prayed for the hostages. And I prayed for Bobby Sands. I know it sounds stupid, but I did. We were actually in Ireland while the hunger strikes were going on - so it made it even more palpable to me. It made it real. So in junior high I was beginning to understand that much of reality basically sucks for most of the people on the planet, and things happened that were unfair and totally not cool. A sort of elementary revelation to make - but whatever, I was 11. So I'm not saying I read Animal Farm and thought of the Ayatollah Khomeini - I didn't - but my understanding of world events was such that I do remember reading the book and knowing that "the fairy story" part of the title was extremely cynical ... this was no "fairy story" I had ever heard. Animal Farm is SCARY and I knew enough to be scared of it when I read it the first time.

I re-read the book in 2000 ... for the first time since I was an adolescent. This is different from Orwell's other book 1984 which we had to read in 11th grade - and it immediately hooked me in - it was one of those books I had to read that I loved immediately - like The Catcher in the Rye, A Tale of Two Cities (excerpt here), The Great Gatsby (excerpt here). Some of the books we were forced to read (Tess of the D'Urbervilles (excerpt here), Moby-Dick (excerpt here) I hated and saw the reading list as a kind of purgatory. But there were gems that got through - and 1984 was one of them. Also, the book was called 1984 and I read it in 1984 - so there was this whole creepy aspect to it - but also, I remember feeling relieved, like, "Well, Orwell was wrong - we've still got a COUPLE years to go before we have THAT kind of society ..." My American girl response. Because of course that society existed in many nations across the world at that time ... but it didn't exist in MY world, and it was 1984! Phew! Dodged a bullet!

Animal Farm languished on my shelves, however, for decades before I picked it up again. By 2000 I was already into my obsession with Stalin - and so a whole other level of the book revealed itself to me. It almost didn't read as allegory anymore - it almost just felt like journalism. Ha. I know that Trotsky was not, in actuality, a pig like Wilbur ... but all of the events of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath are laid out in no uncertain terms in Animal Farm. It's A to B. The overturning of the old guard. The looting of the farm (like the Bolsheviks looting the Winter Palace). The manifesto released. The intellectual insistence on accuracy of thought. No, you can't think THIS way anymore ... THIS is the correct way to think ... The workings of the farm - and how to pick up where the humans left off. And naturally, there is great waste. The cows are milked by the pigs - and the milk lies in the bucket, and is not distributed and then later when someone goes to get the milk - it's gone, it's been pilfered. Total anarchy.

The system doesn't work at first. And so by sheer force of will Napoleon and Snowball - the two main pigs - begin to re-educate all of the animals. If it doesn't fit with reality, then let's just change the words we say. For example, they come out with commandments at the beginning of the revolution - one of the commandments is: No animal shall sleep in a bed. Later in the book, when the pigs take over the farmhouse - naturally they want to sleep in the beds. But ... oops ... the manifesto - that THEY WROTE - says that No animal shall sleep in a bed. So how to deal with the PAST when it doesn't align with the present? Well, you just change the past then, and you convince everyone that your version of the past is the correct one. "No, no, the commandment said that No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets." A couple of the animals know that that was not really what was said ... but eventually it is agreed upon that it is okay to sleep in a bed as long as it doesn't have sheets.

So there's that kind of obliteration of the past - one of the main weapons in tyranny's arsenal. If you can dominate the past, if you can convince a large group of people to accept your version of the past (and even if they don't accept it - they are afraid to say so) - then you win. You are the alpha dog. Then of course there is Snowball's disappearance - and how he takes on mythical aspects to those left behind. Everything that goes wrong on the farm is blamed on Snowball. A convenient scapegoat, like Trotsky was. If things don't work then Snowball is to blame! He's a saboteur! How convenient, isn't it ... it's almost like it was scripted. If Trotsky hadn't existed, they would have had to invent him. And, essentially, they did. He was a real man, but he was re-invented as Enemy Number One, an omnipresent source of mischief and disaster ... trains crashed. Trotsky was behind it. Not enough grain. Trotsky sabotaged the harvest (even though he wasn't even in Russia at the time. He pulled the strings from abroad). In a way, without Trotsky - it is debatable how successful all of this would have been, at least in terms of dominating and terrorizing the population at large. They NEEDED him. Because for the first 10 years after the Revolution, all hell broke loose. Millions of people died. Millions upon millions. Famine, terror, gulags, exile -

And this is something I've said time and time again in response to those who want to excuse all of this (these are the same people who would NEVER excuse Hitler's actions) because they like the idea of Socialism and so they take the stance of "It was a good idea and who knows what would have happened if Stalin hadn't messed it all up!" (Then, of course, there were those in the West who loved Stalin and were swayed by him - Stalin called them "the useful idiots" - the Beatrice and Stanley Webbs of the world ... bought the lie. Funny thing - in the "witness" sections of the movie Reds, Rebecca West, in her big googly-eyed glasses, said, "You know who was an idiot? Beatrice Webb. She didn't know a thing." Ha! Go, Dame Rebecca!). But to the "it was a good idea messed up by Stalin" folks, I say: No. It's not that it was good idea messed up by Stalin. It was that it was a bad idea in the first place. And actually, I'm not even convinced that there were any "ideas" going on at all in the Russian Revolution - that all of that talk and theory wasn't just a smokescreen for a giant power grab. And Stalin won. That was always the point. (I am thinking now of the "secret book" in 1984 which basically admits that "secret": that it was never about equality, or workers paradise ... it was always about creating an atomized society where one man ruled supreme) You can only think that it was all a good idea if you believe that man himself can change his spots - that he can obliterate his own greed and selfishness. I happen to not believe this. And so I don't think any of that stuff is a good idea, because it doesn't factor in, you know, human nature - which has been in evidence since Eve ate the apple and Cain killed his brother for a totally asinine reason. People are selfish, curious, mischievous, and self-involved. This is and always shall be. (This is my beef, too, with the people who use nostalgia as a political weapon. The people who seem to believe that there was a Golden Age in the past - when everything was BETTER. Yeah, it was better if you were a white straight middle-class male - of course it was ... come on, peeps! Get a grip! Learn your history! There is no mythical perfect past. Maybe things were simpler - yes - but "simpler" often means that much of the ugliness and prejudice and unfairness which does exist was actively repressed. The definitions were "simpler" and sure that might have been comforting - but only if you were in the dominant group. And so no, I am not down with saying that such a time was BETTER. Sorry. You can count me out of your delusion. Thanks. I know this is a post full of links to my own blog but whatever, that is just evidence that I am self-involved and all is right with the world ... It occurs to me that I wrote a bit on this whole "nostalgia" question in my two competing movie reviews: of Pleasantville and Blast From the Past - the two sides of nostalgia, which is not, in and of itself a bad thing - it is when one group wants THEIR version of nostalgia to dominate: OUR version of the good-ness in the past is what everyone should accept! ) So you can blather about "wouldn't it be great if ..." all you want ... it still doesn't change the fact that there is going to be some MORON in your utopia who says, "I don't WANT my house to look like everyone else's ... I want it to be a little bit taller." A benign example, but that's the start of it. (Stephen King shows this in The Stand - excerpt here - with the "new society" created in Colorado ... but ... but ... not everybody cooperates with the rules ... not everybody is on board with the utopia ... and so what is to be done with THOSE folks? Brilliant.)

In the excerpt below, poor little Mollie - the mare - shows us that problem with the mindset, when applied to individuals. She is mainly concerned with the fact that there might be no sugar after the Revolution, and she also doesn't want to have to give up her pretty ribbons in her mane. I mean, she is painted as a ridiculous individual - they're trying to talk about upheaval and social change, and she worries about her sweet tooth. BUT THAT'S THE THING. That's human nature. If you can somehow create a human race who will never say, "But I like sugar - I want to have sugar as a treat every day ..." ... then maybe you can have your perfect society. You can count me out of it, though ... because I'm with Mollie. There are things I WANT, that have nothing to do with the "greater good" ... they are my interests, my individuality expressing itself. Yes, we clump up into packs - human beings are wired that way ... but the individual cannot be crushed. Greed, or ... just the experience of wanting more ... seems to be wired into us. Lots of people just don't LIKE that about the human race and say stuff like, "Wouldn't it be great if people were just satisfied with what they had and didn't want more?" Yeah, well, I think it would be great if I could have a pet centaur - and I would take him on walks past Alexander Hamilton's bust ... and then I would leap on his back and we could fly over the Manhattan skyline singing "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay" ... but I know that I can't. I don't waste too much time being sad about the fact that centaurs don't exist, and therefore I can't "have" one - because if I did - I think I would have a problem with, you know, reality. And reality is tough enough for me to accept and deal with ... without adding my own fantasy disappointments on top of it. Regardless, this is my view, and it's very hard for some to admit that - people who devoted their lives to defending the Soviet Union - at all costs ... because they believed in the idea. And you can turn yourself inside out, saying: that it was a bastardization of true socialism (which obviously is the case - just talking in terms of the stated ideas now - Orwell makes that point in Animal Farm, with the sort of give and take the animals have with the truth and with their original goals).

In the tyranny of Stalin, what eventually became clear (and Robert Conquest makes the point again and again in his books on Stalin, that the men surrounding Stalin - while brutes and murderers themselves - were not as beyond the pale as Stalin, in terms of conventional morality ... Conquest says, like a refrain: "They didn't understand Stalin yet"), was that the point was not to bring about Socialism. The point, for Stalin, was to never relax the terror ... or, perhaps he would allow it to relax for a couple of years, after big purges - but that would only be a lull, to make people lower their guards - so that he could then re-assert the terror. This kept people on edge. Psychologically, it was devastating. After everyone was dead, all of his comrades, the only guys left around him were the toadies, the sycophantic imbeciles, illiterates - who were brutal enough to do what was necessary and not question why. Kirov is a prime example of one of the higher-ups in the Party who had an independent mind. He and Stalin were good friends and they went way back. But Kirov headed up the Party apparatus in St. Petersburg and Stalin became convinced that it was a kind of fifth column ... and Kirov ... Kirov began to haunt Stalin, haunt his every thought. Kirov was a big deal. A big wig. But he must be made to disappear. And he was. To quote Robert Conquest (from his great book The Great Terror):

This killing [the murder of Kirov] has every right to be called the crime of the century. Over the next four years, hundreds of Soviet citizens, including the most prominent political leaders of the Revolution, were shot for direct responsibility for the assassination, and literally millions of others went to their deaths for complicity in one or another part of the vast conspiracy which allegedly lay behind it. Kirov's death, in fact, was the keystone of the entire edifice of terror and suffering by which Stalin secured his grip on the Soviet peoples.

This is the crazy-making world portrayed in Animal Farm. Orwell is brutal, with no sentimentality. He goes for the jugular. If you go back, back to the world of the 1930s ... the comfortable political labels that we throw around have no meaning. Orwell was a Communist, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side - he despised imperialism (his experience as a policeman in Burma, under the flag of the British Empire, convinced him of imperialims being a grave sin against humanity) - he believed in freedom of speech, in the artist being able to say what he wanted to say. He believed in democracy. He felt that democracy was the only way to ensure liberty. His word for his beliefs were "Democratic Socialism". Again, there are folks out there today who have such a biased view of the word "Socialism" that they are unable to see the more complex historical realities at work - in the hot and chaotic decade of the 1930s. They write it off. They say stupid things. They are hardened in their understanding of the labels. Things would morph - yet again - after World War II - with the descent of the "Iron Curtain" - but in the 1930s, all of this was up for grabs. It was philosophical in nature - and yet there were those (like Orwell) who were fighting for their "side". Partisans, yes. But Orwell broke with the pack with his anti-Stalinism - Stalin went against everything he believed in, everything he had worked his life for ... If turning a blind eye to Stalin was required of the "Left" (and again, that word has been so changed in its meaning as to be nearly unrecognizable - especially when said by retards like Sean Hannity) ... then Orwell would have no part of it. There were many many awesome writers and thinkers who were in the same boat. Arthur Koestler. Rebecca West. These are giants of the 20th century. Orwell, because of 1984 ... well, it's stupid, but there's a feeling out there that Orwell's book was an endorsement of that kind of tyranny. I mean, people who think such things are nuts, as far as I'm concerned - did they even read the book?? But Orwell is a tough case, man - he's elusive. If you think you have him pinned down, you are wrong. So people get up in arms about him. They love him for his Socialism but then feel betrayed by his anti-Stalinism. They love him for his love of democracy, but then can't stand that he was a Communist. Whatever ... he is indicative of the upheavals of the 1930s, in general.

Here's an excerpt from early on in Animal Farm, a nice little fairy story of the tyranny of the 20th century.

I prefer 1984 to Animal Farm - I think it's a deeper book, more haunting, more of a clearer warning ... it leaves the specific spectre of Stalinism behind (which Animal Farm describes very literally - there is no question of who all the main characters are supposed to be- they each have their correlation in the Russian Revolution story) ... but 1984 goes for a more universal story, and therefore more terrifying. I'm a big Orwell fan. A couple years ago I read a collection of his essays - which range from memories of boarding school life, his time in Burma, a fantastic in-depth 50 page analysis of Charles Dickens (not to be missed!), and his possibly most famous essay about politics and the English language - an eclectic collection. I love the essays.

EXCERPT FROM Animal Farm: A Fairy Story , by George Orwell.

Three nights later old Major died peacefully in his sleep. His body was buried at the foot of the orchard.

This was early in March. During the next three months there was much secret activity. Major's speech had given to the more intelligent animals on the farm a completely new outlook on life. They did not know when the Rebellion predicted by Major would take place, they had no reason for thinking that it would be within their own lifetime, but they saw clearly that it was their duty to prepare for it. The work of teaching and organising the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognised as being the cleverest of the animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs were two young boars named Snowball and Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones was breeding up for sale. Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way. Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character. All the other male pigs on the farm were porkers. The best known among them was a small fat pig named Squealer, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.

These three had elaborated old Major's teachings into a complete system of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism. Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others. At the beginning they met with much stupidity and apathy. Some of the animals talked of the duty of loyalty to Mr. Jones, whom they referred to as "Master," or made elementary remarks such as "Mr. Jones feeds us. If he were gone, we would starve to death." Others asked such questions as "Why should we care what happens after we are dead?" or "If this Rebellion is to happen anyway, what difference does it make whether we work for it or not?", and the pigs had great difficulty in making them see that this was contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The stupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare. The very first question she asked Snowball was: "Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion?"

"No," said Snowball firmly. "We have no means of making sugar on this farm. Besides, you do not need sugar. You will have all the oats and hay you want."

"And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?" asked Mollie.

"Comrade," said Snowball, "those ribbons that you are so devoted to are the badge of slavery. Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than ribbons?"

Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.

The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones' especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges. The animals hated Moses because he told tales and did no work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Mountain, and the pigs had to argue very hard to persuade them that there was no such place.

Their most faithful disciples were the two carthorses, Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for themselves, but having one accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments. They were unfailing in their attendance at the secret meetings in the barn, and led the singing of Beasts of England, with which the meetings always ended.

Now, as it turned out, the Rebellion was achieved much earlier and more easily than anyone had expected. In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evil days. He had become much disheartened after losing money in a lawsuit, and had taken to drinking more than was good for him. For whole days at a time he would lounge in his Windsor chair in the kitchen, reading the newspapers, drinking, and occasionally feeding Moses on crusts of bread soaked in beer. His men were idle and dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing, the hedges were neglected, and the animals were underfed.

June came and the hay was almost ready for cutting. On Midsummer's Eve, which was a Saturday, Mr. Jones went into Willingdon and got so drunk at the Red Lion that he did not come back till midday on Sunday. The men had milked the cows in the early morning and then had gone out rabbiting, without bothering to feed the animals. When Mr. Jones got back he immediately went to sleep on the drawing-room sofa with the News of the World over his face, so that when evening came, the animals were still unfed. At last they could stand it no longer. One of the cows broke in the door of the store-shed with her horn and all the animals began to help themselves from the bins. It was just then that Mr. Jones woke up. The next moment he and his four men were in the store-shed with whips in their hands, lashing out in all directions. This was more than the hungry animals could bear. With one accord, though nothing of the kind had been planned beforehand, they flung themselves upon their tormentors. Jones and his men suddenly found themselves being butted and kicked from all sides. The situation was quite out of their control. They had never seen animals behave like this before, and this sudden uprising of creatures whom they were used to thrashing and maltreating just as they chose, frightened them almost out of their wits. After only a moment or two they gave up trying to defend themselves and took to their heels. A minute later all five of them were in full flight down the cart-track that led to the main road, with the animals pursuing them in triumph.

Mrs. Jones looked out of the bedroom window, saw what was happening, hurriedly flung a few possessions into a carpet bag, and slipped out of the farm by another way. Moses sprang off his perch and flapped after her, croaking loudly. Meanwhile the animals had chased Jones and his men out on to the road and slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs.

Why I love Kate: 2 reasons

A couple nights ago she texts me from backstage, no preamble, even though we haven't spoken in a couple weeks, and even though our lives are erupting into chaos and change - some good, some bad - LOTS of stuff to talk about and cover ... but she breaks our small silence with this:

Sheila, what's the name of the tv movie w/ scott baio as a gay football player? Girls in dressing room want 2 know. Thought u might know.

Now this particular production she is in is NOT a Moliere, so she is not dressed in an ancien regime manner - but still. I love getting texts from her that are totally unrelated to the fact that she is in the middle of doing a performance and about to go onstage and sing ... she texts me about Scott Baio in a glorified Afterschool Special from the 80s.

I text her back: "I have no idea but Mitchell would know!"

Sadly, Mitchell is strolling through the bazaars of Casablanca at this very moment and so is unable to verify Scott Baio's whereabouts in April of 1986.

Then I get a message from her today, again with no preamble - she probably left it while huddled backstage about to go on and have some big emotional scene:

"I just wanted you to know that the name of the movie in question is The Truth About Alex ... and I thought it was with Ralph Macchio - who I know is part of your celebrity crush thing ... but it was Scott Baio. Okay. Hope you're doing okay. Bye."

The Books: "Wise Blood" (Flannery O'Connor)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor.

Oh, Flannery, I love thee so. She's another one I came to late - I didn't have to read her in high school or college, which is how I was introduced to most books back then (well, unless it was written by Ellen Emerson White (excerpt here), Norma Johnston (excerpt here), Madeleine L'Engle (excerpt here), or Lucy Maud Montgomery (excerpt here) - THOSE writers I sought out all on my own!) - and so I moved on through my adult life without encountering Flannery. Then Maria and Jean and Brendan collectively found out I hadn't read it and basically (yet again) told me: "YOU HAVE TO READ FLANNERY O'CONNOR!" Maria even took down her copy of Wise Blood, and read a bit of it out loud to me, just to whet my whistle. You know. I come from a family where books are important to us. We love our books. We insist that others read them. We get passionate. We shout. It's all part of the drill. The opening paragraphs of Wise Blood are stunning. They almost dare you not to read further.

Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. The train was racing through tree tops that fell away at intervals and showed the sun standing, very red, on the edge of the farthest woods. Nearer, the plowed fields curved and faded and the few hogs nosing in the furrows looked like large spotted stones. Mrs. Wally Bee Hitchcock, who was facing Motes in this section, said that she thought the early evening like this was the prettiest time of day and she asked him if he didn't think so, too. She was a fat woman with pink collars and cuffs and pear-shaped legs that slanted off the train seat and didn't reach the floor.

He looked at her a second and, without answering, leaned forward and stared down the length of the car again. She turned to see what was back there but all she saw was a child peering around one of the sections and, farther up at the end of the car, the porter opening the closet where the sheets were kept.

"I guess you're going home," she said, turning back to him again. He didn't look, to her, much over twenty, but he had a stiff black broad-brimmed hat on his lap, a hat that an elderly country preacher would wear. His suit was a glaring blue and the price tag was still stapled on the sleeve of it.

The details in those paragraphs open up a world which is often called, in a kind of shorthand, Southern gothic, or "grotesque" - it's an overused term, I think, and can be a distancing technique - a bit condescending - to how powerfully good she really is. Flannery O'Connor herself had some funny things to say about this "grotesque" label:

"Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."

There's almost a hyper-reality to everything in the book - the dirt, the sunsets, the empty streets, the sense of dread, people are too intense, nobody just sits around and chillaxes. They're all on the edge. Of poverty, sanity, religious hysteria, sexual oblivion - whatever it is. Flannery O'Connor is on the edge. Hazel Motes is one of the great literary creations. Just from that opening sequence you know that something is kind of off about this guy. Even though he's just sitting on a train, can't you sense the violence underneath everything? And her details - the price tag stapled to the arm ... it's like dream logic, hallucinatory. Hazel Motes doesn't believe in Jesus. But everyone keeps telling him he should be a preacher. He so doesn't believe in Jesus that he wants to create a church called "Church Without Christ". He returns to his hometown in Tennessee after the war ... he has no family ... he keeps being mistaken for a preacher (small wonder - the guy's a fanatic - not about Jesus, but his fanaticism could easily be mistaken for evangelical fervor). He meets some people - a blind street preacher and his pre-adolescent (yet sexually knowing) daughter ... and also Enoch Emery - a character whose chapters freak me out. Talk about there being something "off". He's the one with "wise blood". He's 18, 19 years old ... and he's looking for a savior. He begins to have visions - that act as commands ... It's been a while since I read it, but just flipping through the book just now transported me a little bit, like it always does. The book creeps me out, frankly - and I mean that in the best way.

O'Connor herself had a very interesting life. Her literary idols were Hawthorne and Poe - which make total sense when you read her stuff. Hawthorne and Poe were not in vogue at the time (although naturally they were in the canon) - she was writing her stories in the 50s and early 60s. So her stuff is a bit of a throwback, back to the literature of symbolism and terror and Gothic atmosphere. To her, though, those things were real. It wasn't a style so much, as her outlook on life. And that's what her writing feels like to me. It's not a POSE, that writing ... it's her VOICE.

Considering the disease that ravaged her body, it is incredible that she was able to put out so much. Her short stories are among the greatest American short stories ever written.

Oh, and just for fun - here is one of my favorite quotes from Flannery (who, let's remember, came out of the presitigious Iowa Writer's Workshop):

"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."

True then, and true now!

Here's an excerpt. I had a hard time picking what I wanted to excerpt - but I decided to go with one of the Enoch sections, because they're just so damn good, and - I find them very frightening as well. It's a completely convincing "voice", as far as I'm concerned. I do not feel a writer here - behind Enoch Emery ... I don't sense O'Connor at all ... He appears to have taken over the narrative all by himself. And God, the bit about the moose in the photograph is genius, I think. Genius.

Great book - If you haven't read it, I will take a page from the book of Maria and Jean and Brendan and scream at you "YOU HAVE TO READ WISE BLOOD!!!"

EXCERPT FROM Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor.

Enoch Emery knew now that his life would never be the same again, because the thing that was going to happen to him had started to happen. He had always known that something was going to happen but he hadn't known what. If he had been much given to thought, he might have thought that now was the time for him to justify his daddy's blood, but he didn't think in broad sweeps like that, he thought what he would do next. Sometimes he didn't think, he only wondered; then before long he would find himself doing this or that, like a bird finds itself building a nest when it hasn't actually been planning to.

What was going to happen to him had started to happen when he showed what was in the glass case to Haze Motes. That was a mystery beyond his understanding, but he knew that what was going to be expected of him was something awful. His blood was more sensitive than any other part of him; it wrote doom all through him, except possibly in his brain, and the result was that his tongue, which edged out every few minutes to test his fever blister, knew more than he did.

The first thing that he found himself doing that was not normal was saving his pay. He was saving all of it, except what his landlady came to collect every week and what he had to use to buy something to eat with. Then to his surprise, he found he wasn't eating very much and he was saving that money too. He had a fondness for supermarkets; it was his custom to spend an hour or so in one every afternoon after he left the city park, browsing around among the canned goods and reading the cereal stories. Lately he had been compelled to pick up a few things here and there that would not be bulky in his pockets, and he wondered if this could be the reason he was saving so much money on food. It could have been, but he had the suspicion that saving the money was connected with some larger thing. He had always been given to stealing but he had never saved before.

At the same time, he began cleaning up his room. It was a little green room, or it had once been green, in the attic of an elderly rooming house. There was a mummified look and feel to this residence, but Enoch had never thought before of brightening the part (corresponding to the head) that he lived in. Then he simply found himself doing it.

First, he removed the rug from the floor and hung it out the window. This was a mistake because when he went to pull it back in, there were only a few long strings left with a carpet tack caught in one of them. He imagined that it must have been a very old rug and he decided to handle the rest of the furniture with more care. He washed the bed frame with soap and water and found that under the second layer of dirt, it was pure gold, and this affected him so strongly that he washed the chair. It was a low round chair that bulged around the legs so that it seemed to be in the act of squatting. The gold began to appear with the first touch of water but it disappeared with the second and with a little more and with a little more, the chair sat down as if this were the end of long years of inner struggle. Enoch didn't know if it was for him or against him. He had a nasty impulse to kick it to pieces, but he let it stay there, exactly in the position it had sat down in, because for the time anyway, he was not a foolhardy boy who took chances on the meanings of things. For the time, he knew that what he didn't know was what mattered.

The only other piece of furniture in the room was a washstand. This was built in three parts and stood on bird legs six inches high. The legs had clawed feet that were each one gripped around a small cannon ball. The lowest part was a tabernacle-like cabinet which was meant to contain a slop-jar. Enoch didn't own a slop-jar but he had a certain reverence for the purpose of things and since he didn't have the right thing to put in it, he left it empty. Directly over this place for the treasure, there was a gray marble slab and coming up from behind it was a wooden trellis-work of hearts, scrolls and flowers, extending into a hunched eagle wing on either side, and containing in the middle, just at the level of Enoch's face when he stood in front of it, a small oval mirror. The wooden frame continued again over the mirror and ended in a crowned, horned headpiece, showing that the artist had not lost faith in his work.

As far as Enoch was concerned, this piece had always been the center of the room and the one that most connected him with what he didn't know. More than once after a big supper, he had dreamed of unlocking the cabinet and getting in it and then proceeding to certain rites and mysteries that he had a very vague idea about in the morning. In his cleaning up, his mind was on the washstand from the first, but as was usual with him, he began with the least important thing and worked around and in toward the center where the meaning was. So before he tackled the washstand, he took care of the pictures in the room.

These were three, one belonging to his landlady (who was almost totally blind but moved about by an acute sense of smell) and two of his own. Hers was a brown portrait of a moose standing in a small lake. The look of superiority on this animal's face was so insufferable to Enoch that, if he hadn't been afraid of him, he would have done something about it a long time ago. As it was, he couldn't do anything in his room but what the smug face was watching, not shocked because nothing better could be expected and not amused because nothing was funny. If he had looked all over for one, he couldn't have found a roommate that irritated him more. He kept up a constant stream of inner comment, uncomplimentary to the moose, though when he said anything aloud, he was more guarded. The moose was in a heavy brown frame with leaf designs on it and this added to his weight and his self-satisfied look. Enoch knew the time had come when something had to be done; he didn't know what was going to happen in his room, but when it happened, he didn't want to have the feeling that the moose was running it. The answer came to him fully prepared: he realized with a sudden intuition that taking the frame off him would be equal to taking the clothes off him (although he didn't have on any) and he was right because when he had done it, the animal looked so reduced that Enoch could only snicker and look at him out the corner of his eye.

After this success he turned his attention to the other two pictures. They were over calendars and had been sent him by the Hilltop Funeral Home and the American Rubber Tire Company. One showed a small boy in a pair of Doctor Denton sleepers, kneeling at his bed, saying, "And bless daddy," while the moon looked in at the window. This was Enoch's favorite painting and it hung directly over his bed. The other pictured a lady wearing a rubber tire and it hung directly across the moose on the opposite wall. He left it where it was, pretty certain that the moose only pretended not to see it. Immediately after he finished with the pictures, he went out and bought chintz curtains, a bottle of gilt, and a paint brush with all the money he had saved.

This was a disappointment to him because he had hoped that the money would be for some new clothes for him, and here he saw it going into a set of drapes. He didn't know what the gilt was for until he got home with it; when he got home with it, he sat down in front of the slop-jar cabinet in the washstand, unlocked it, and painted the inside of it with the gilt. Then he realized that the cabinet was to be used FOR something.

Enoch never nagged his blood to tell him a thing until it was ready. He wasn't the kind of boy who grabs at any possibility and runs off, proposing this or that preposterous thing. In a large matter like this, he was always willing to wait for a certainty, and he waited for this one, certain at least that he would know in a few days. Then for about a week his blood was in secret conference with itself every day, only stopping now and then to shout some order at him.

On the following Monday, he was certain when he woke up that today was the day he was going to know on. His blood was rushing around like a woman who cleans up the house after the company has come, and he was surly and rebellious. When he realized that today was the day, he decided not to get up. He didn't want to justify his daddy's blood, he didn't want to be always having to do something that something else wanted him to do, that he didn't know what it was and that was always dangerous.

Witness

A masterpiece is rare. It's like pornography. You know it when you see it.

Witness is a masterpiece. It's a fractal: every part of it replicating the whole, endless repetition - microscopic, telescopic - no matter how close or how far you get - you are still confronted with the same power and emotional truth. It exists in truth and honesty on every level: the crime thriller level, the romance level, the city vs. country level, the rivalry between men level, the atmospheric level (wheat waving, dusk, men hanging over the barn being built) ... and also the small moment-to-moment level (John Book picking up Samuel so that he can see the lineup in the police station - and Book saying, "Big guy!" commenting on his weight. Now: John Book is a big strong HUNK. Samuel is 7 years old. There is no way that picking him up taxes John Book in any way. But it is his way of making Samuel first of all feel comfortable, kind of lightening the mood ... but also, subtextually, letting him know: "You are a big enough boy to handle this situation. You're going to be okay." Harrison Ford plays all of that in that one, "Ooph, you're a big guy!" moment - but the film is full of moments like that!) It exists in the language ("He is going back to his world where he belongs. He knows it .... and you know it, too.") and it exists in the silences (the phenomenal last sequence on the porch ... which apparently had been originally written to be full of words - you know, John Book declaring, 'I will never love a woman like I've loved you ..." and Rachel Lapp declaring, "I love you more than any woman has loved any man ..." etc. ad nauseum exeunt. ... They filmed it a couple of times, and then realized: Nope. You know what? Let's not say ANYTHING. And so they don't. And my God. You could write a novel about what goes on between those two characters in that silent sequence.)

So I think the film is full of indelible moments. The Amish men appearing at the top of the field when Samuel rings the bell for help. The car in the dark barn, lantern gleaming from within. The men at work raising the barn (and the music underneath that scene - go, Maurice Jarre - my post about Jarre here). Rachel sponging herself off. That scene could have been exploitive or gratuitous or soft-core Red Shoe Diaries erotica (not that there's anything wrong with that!). But nope. The way they play it is freakin' ADULT. Her almost challenging gaze. His shame-faced looking away, but then he has to look back. You can feel their hearts beating, you can feel the desire heating up the room. Her nudity is the LEAST erotic thing about that scene. There are SO many good scenes. Let's look at how delicately things are set up in this film - so much so that you don't notice them. John Book has recovered (somewhat) from his wound and Samuel Lapp takes him on a tour of the farm. He shows him the well. ("It goes ... it makes ... it goes ..." so cute) He shows him the silo and tells him how it works. He shows him the trap door. All of this will become crucial in the final scenes, as John Book sneaks around, trying to evade the murderers. But what becomes clear, beautifully, in subsequent viewings - is that it is SAMUEL who showed Book the way. It is SAMUEL who, innocently, gave John Book the tools for survival in those crucial end moments. And so the title of the film takes on even more meaning, more depth. WITNESS. "What's up there?" asks John Book. "Corn," answers Samuel. Notice the grace and simplicity of how that information is imparted. You might not even notice it. A lesser film would have just had John Book figuring out how the silo worked while he was under the gun (which is how so many thrillers operate - they ARE their plots. That's it.) ... but in Witness we are introduced, via Samuel, to "the way things work". And he's excited to show John Book around and to show him the well and also to show him how much he knows. It isn't until later that we realize what Samuel Lapp has done, in that innocent tour.

In all of the great scenes of the film, and all of the piercingly wonderful moments ... it is the scene captured in the screenshot below that is my favorite. It NEVER doesn't work for me. The scene is the linchpin of the Ebert-Siskel review (which you can see here (it makes me really miss Siskel).

The scene is a masterpiece.

I feel confident in saying so because I know it when I see it.

Only a movie star can play a scene like that. And when I say "movie star" I mean people like John Wayne. Humphrey Bogart. John Garfield. Guys who could tell the whole story with no lines, guys who spent the first couple of days of filming cutting their parts down so they would have less and less to say. They knew that it was in action - and in the FACE ... that the story would be told. And what Harrison Ford does in that particular scene with no language is a tour de force. Yes, he is aided by Maurice Jarre's effective score, and by how it is filmed (to quote Siskel: "Hitchcock couldn't have done it better") - but when you get right down to it - it is the actor in the line of fire, it is the actor who has the job of making us believe ... and he can either get it up (to mix a metaphor) or not. Harrison Ford does.

Two photos that wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Senuti Plug

My iTunes library is on a dusty Dell PC that looks like the Millennium Falcon. I have my Mac laptop - but the iTunes Library there is (so far) empty - and I have done all my music stuff on the Dell, mainly because it pre-dates the Mac - but how to get the iTunes from one computer (which has no wireless, no Internet - I've basically kept it around because it has all my damn music on it) to the other.

I wanted to take what was on my iPod and somehow transfer it directly onto my Mac. Anyone who has an iPod knows that it goes the other way around. You make changes on the computer, transfer it over to the iPod, etc.

My iPod was LOCKED, I tell you! I still did what I needed to do on the Millennium Falcon but I yearned to be free! I'm not a big techie, as should be obvious - and frankly I get overwhelmed by technology and sometimes don't even feel that I am asking the right questions. It's the whole "you don't know you don't know it" thing.

So I spoke out loud to two much more savvy friends maybe a month ago, "I just wish that I could transfer what was on my iPod TO my computer ... "

They said, "Try Senuti!" (iTunes backwards, naturally). I finally got around to it last night. You download the application (there are also very handy little videos made for idiots like me who need to SEE what is happening - and have someone go: "See this little doohickey over here on the right hand corner? Click THAT") - and then open up iTunes, but for the love of all that is holy, keep your finger on Control and Option the entire time - and plug in your iPod not letting go of Control and Option, sweet JesusmaryandJoseph, be careful - otherwise you are in danger of "syncing" your iPod up to the computer - which you do not want to do because the iTunes has nothing on it yet!! You'd erase your entire iPod. So I got through all that. Open up the application. There are all my songs. And you just click on each one and click the green "Transfer" button.

It worked. Like a charm.

I was totally impressed with the instructions, the simplicity of the program itself, and how well it has worked. I feel free now.

I'm really into The Puppini Sisters these days, if anyone cares.

I just have this strange relief at having solved the problem - by myself - and it all worked. That almost never happens in my universe. And while I did have a couple of starts and stops - it's all done now.

I can toss the Millennium Falcon into the trash. FINALLY.

** This advertisement for Senuti has been brought to you by me. For free.

The Books: "The Things They Carried' (Tim O'Brien)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. Fiction? Journalism? Reportage? Memoir? Do we really care? I know I don't. But lots of people seem to reallllllly care about those labels. As we have seen time and time again in the last couple of years with the big-fat-lie "memoir" trend. Here's my view, which has changed over time. I don't like James Frey. I don't like his writing, and I could not stand his persona in interviews. But the shaudenfraud I originally felt with his big huge fall has changed. Now it stands at this:

So James Frey made some shit up. Okay. It was fiction and we thought it was a memoir. (Not to brag or anything, but I called the James Frey thing. I CALLED IT. Way before it came out that the book was made up, I called his phoniness - just from interviews. Didn't believe a word the guy said.) But here, for me, is the question: Was it a good book? Did it move you? Does it make it LESSER because it was made up? Knowing it was made up means it's less good? I did not read the book, full disclosure, although I did read the first chapter and thought it was a piece of shit, and not worth my time. Just not my cup of tea. If I read a memoir it's usually because I am already interested in the topic - like Frank McCourt's, or Joan Didion's stuff - whatever. The addiction memoirs hold very little interest for me - and I wasn't impressed with Frey's writing at all. Just to clarify that I am talking about my taste here. I am under no obligation to think something is good just because the rest of the world thinks it's good, or it's in vogue right now, or whatever.

Fiction can be "truer" than reality - I happen to think that Anne of Green Gables or Ulysses or Cat's Eye or Blood Meridian or A Streetcar Named Desire is SUPERIOR to most non-fiction - FAR superior, and also more true. Or true in a deeper and longer-lasting way. Naturally. Look at how I have chosen to live my life. Makes total sense that I would see things in this light. So give me INVENTION, give me IMAGINATION ... make some shit UP. Go for it. There's some anecdote of a reporter going to interview John Banville (I think) - and she actually had the gall to just ask about the book, and his writing process, and how he worked on it ... She DIDN'T ask him if HE had been molested as a child just like his main character. So so tiresome. Looking for truth only through biography, rather than the merits of the work. John Banville's books seen ONLY as fodder for some salacious interview. Ew. So what does this rant have to do with The Things They Carried? I'm not sure, but it felt really good.

Tim O'Brien was in Vietnam, obviously - and the same guys are featured in most of the stories in The Things They Carried, they're all part of a whole. He calls it a "work of fiction" and much of it reads like fiction - but he also made no bones about it that it's based on truth. He put his own life into words. That's what a writer does. Who cares if it's real? Does it move you? Why is making shit up seen as dishonest? Well, I know why - you can't have people walking around lying all the time - but when you're in the realm of art, making shit up is the name of the game. And whether you upend your own experience, or create from scratch - the question about it all is (or should be, dammit): Is it good? Do you like it? Did it interest you?

To me, The Things They Carried feels almost like a diary, a running sometimes hallucinatory diary, of being in a platoon in Vietnam. Sleep-deprived, hyper-realistic, out of it imagery ... It has some of the horrible poetry of Dispatches, another classic of Vietnam literature - only that is supposed to be seen as "journalism". But if you read Dispatches (excerpt here) it reads sometimes like a novel, or a long tone-poem. So we're in a muddy area here. It's the area that Ryzsard Kapuscinski inhabited (all my posts about him here - journalism as creation, a conjuring act, a snake up out of a basket ... Now this is a very very hot topic, obviously. Can you say Jayson Blair. Can you say Stephen Glass. I know you can. Kapuscinski did NOT always "tell the truth". If you fact-check his books, you're going to get the impression that he was a big fat liar. But he felt no obligation to tell the truth. He was interested in something else: evoking the feeling of tyranny, the little moments that happen in the middle of war, the long stretches of boredom ... He looks at a border gate in Siberia and goes off on a 10 page long tangent about fences and borders, in general. He creates as he goes -that's one of the reasons why his prose is so hypnotic. I think a reader needs to know what he or she is reading, first of all ... Are you going to get frustrated with Dostoevsky because it's fiction and not a true-crime novel? Well, then you really need to look at how you read books, and realize that the problem is not with Dostoevsky, the problem is with you. Fine, don't like Dostoevsky is you don't like him ... but at least know what it is. Kapuscinski's books are historical - reportage - but there are no footnotes, no indices, nothing ... so if you yearn for sources, or back-up quotes - you will not get them. It can be frustrating and there have been times when, yes, I have yearned for an index of some kind - at least a bibliography! But Kapuscinski is under no compulsion to provide ME with what I need. I try to meet him on the ground that HE chooses, because he's an idol of mine. Same with Black Lamb and Grey Falcon - excerpt here - although that one has a massive index). I guess we're in the realm of blurred boundaries ... and that's the realm I like best. My favorite "reportage" is stuff like Robert Kaplan (excerpt here), Rebecca West, Ryzsard Kapusinski, VS Naipaul (excerpt here), all of Solzhenitsyn (excerpt here): highly biased - there's no pretense at all at "objectivity" - what a relief- beautifully written - almost poetic, self-effacting - although all of them do appear in their own books - they are "travelogues" essentially ... although they become highly political when seen in another context.

Tim O'Brien's Vietnam stuff lives in that in-between world. They are short stories, and they could be seen as "just" that (although as I think I have made clear: I hold the attitude that fiction is lesser than non-fiction with contempt) ... but they could also be seen as essays, reportage ... They stand up on their own in multiple genres. No wonder the book struck such a huge chord with people - then and now. It crosses genres, it can't be easily classified. People hooked into it who never read a book like that in their lives. His writing is accessible (terrible word, but applicable) - but also gutsy, fearless, and yes, poetic. People who don't like short stories could get into it because they feel like mini-essays or articles. People who don't like non-fiction could totally lose themselves in the stories told here.

The title story is "The Things They Carried". There's no "plot". I hesitate to even say more about it because if you haven't read it - you really should do yourself a favor and pick it up. The power of it is in experiencing it the first time. O'Brien pulls his vision in to a microscopic level and then pulls it back into a telescope - this is the motion of the entire story, going back and forth - minutia, universal truths ... The platoon troops through the jungle. What are "the things they carried?" Some of it is gear - and O'Brien goes into that in great detail. But of course some of it is NOT gear. Letters from home. Photos of sweethearts. Talismans. And then there are things that have no weight at all. Memories. Hopes. Daydreams.

"The Things They Carried" is a powerful piece of American literature. And it makes the question "But is it true??" that is so in vogue today with similar works seem small and petty. Is Anna Karenina not "true"? Wow. What a limited literal world view. Count me out, thanks. I read a review of The Things They Carried that referred to it as a "testament" - and I think that's pretty darn accurate. I like that a lot.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien.

They carried USO stationery and pencils and pens. They carried Sterno, safety pins, trip flares, signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades, chewing tobacco, liberated joss sticks and statuettes of the smiling Buddha, candles, grease pencils, The Stars and Stripes, fingernail clippers, Psy Ops leaflets, bush hats, bolos, and much more. Twice a week, when the resupply choppers came in, they carried hot chow in green mermite cans and large canvas bags filled with iced beer and soda pop. They carried plastic water containers, each with a two-gallon capacity. Mitchell Sanders carried a set of starched tiger fatigues for special occasions. Henry Dobbins carried Black Flag insecticide. Dave Jensen carried empty sandbags that could be filled at night for added protection. Lee Strunk carried tanning lotion. Some things they carried in common. Taking turns, they carried the big PRC-77 scrambler radio, which weighed 30 pounds with its battery. They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese-English dictionaries, insignia of rank. Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts, plastic cards imprinted with the Code of Conduct. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. They carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself - Vietnam, the place, the soil - a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity. They moved like mules. By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost. They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in their feet. Their calculations were biological. They had no sense of strategy or mission. They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, then other villages, where it would always be the same. They carried their own lives. The pressures were enormous. In the heat of early afternoon, they would remove their helmets and flak jackets, walking bare, which was dangerous but which helped ease the strain. They would often discard things along the route of march. Purely for comfort, they would throw away rations, blow their Claymores and grenades, no matter, because by nightfall the resupply choppers would arrive with more of the same, then a day or two later still more, fresh watermelons and crates of ammunition and sunglasses and woolen sweaters - the resources were stunning - sparklers for the Fourth of July, colored eggs for Easter - it was the great American war chest - the fruits of science, the smokestacks, the canneries, the arsenals at Hartford, the Minnesota forests, the machine shops, the vast fields of corn and wheat - they carried like freight trains; they carried it on their backs and shoulders - and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.

Interview with Matt Zoller Seitz

A really nice interview with critic Matt Zoller Seitz who also heads up the fantastic blog House Next Door, which I write for as well. I was lucky enough to meet Matt - we went to a press screening of There Will Be Blood together and then went to a diner and talked for three hours. It was one of those moments where I realized: man. Blogging has changed my life. I do not know this man - this is the first time I am meeting him - but we have none of that social awkwardness, because we have been reading each other for a couple years now, and so all that preliminary stuff is out of the way and we can just get to it. I wrote a bit about that particular bloggers-meeting-phenomenon here.

Matt is a fantastic writer - I can't pick out my favorites (but many of his personal favorites that he lists in the interview are my own) - although I will say that his re-cap of the controversial finale of The Sopranos is magnificent - so it's nice to see him interviewed. He's one of the ones who really gets the confluence of regular media and blogging, especially when it comes to film criticism.

"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything."

Today is (supposedly - at least it's the agreed-upon date) the birthday of William Shakespeare. April 23, 1564.

One of the things I think about when I think about Shakespeare, or one of the things that inevitably comes into my mind, is my late great teacher Doug Moston, who died in 2003 (check out the comments there, too - I don't know any of those people, but they all had worked with Doug at one time or another and found their way to my post. Beautiful). Moston (an awesome awesome teacher) was responsible for getting Shakespeare's first folio (from 1623) published in facsimile. In facsimile, people. So it's basically well-done Xeroxes of the folio's pages. I own it. It's indispensable for actors, I think, but would also be fascinating for anyone interested in Shakespeare in general.

Modern versions of Shakespeare, modern editors ironed out his punctuation, regularizing it, etc. But ... in a lot of cases, the modern editors are looking at these plays as academic texts, works of literature - as opposed to scripts meant for actors to play. If you have the plays in facsimile (ie: how they looked in the first folio) - you can see an even deeper level of Shakespeare's intent as a playwright. Modern editors sometimes have added exclamation points, which I find a bit insulting. An exclamation point is an editorial comment - it says: "Here's how to say this line". It's directorial, mkay? You are saying, with that punctuation: "The emotion behind the line should be THIS." Shakespeare used very little "emotional" punctuation marks in his work. Almost none. He used periods and commas, and that's pretty much it. I don't want some EDITOR to tell me how to play Lady Macbeth.

Let's do a little compare and contrast, shall we?

Awhile back I wrote about what came to be known between me and Michael as the "twixt clock and cock" monologue from Cymbeline which I was working on at the time. I had the folio by me - and I wanted to compare it to the Riverside Shakespeare version - and check it out. Line by line. Fascinating. (And yes - "f" are "s"s in the folio. You get used to it after a while.) Here is how the two stack up, side by side. I'll comment after.

Riverside Shakespeare version:

False to his bed! What is it to be false?
To lie in watch there and to think on him?
To weep 'twixt clock and clock? if sleep charge nature,
To break it with a fearful dream of him
And cry myself awake? that's false to's bed, is it?

Folio version:

Falfe to his Bed? What is it to be falfe?
To lye in watch there, and to thinke on him?
To weepe 'twixt clock and clock? If fleep charge Nature,
To breake it with a fearfull dreame of him
And cry my felfe awake? That's falfe to's bed? Is it?

Let's look at the differences. The first "false to his bed" in the monologue is NOT an exclamation in the folio -although it appears in the Riverside as an exclamation. In the folio it is a QUESTION. Enormous difference, in terms of the playing of it! Also - in terms of the MEANING. What is Imogen DOING here? What is she actually saying?

My interpretation is: when it's a question, she - after reading his letter - is still trying to process what her husband just said to her. She is still in a state of shock, where she must just repeat what she just heard. "False to his bed?" She's stunned, disoriented. She can't believe this has happened. Whereas, with an exclamation mark, like in Riverside - she immediately jumps to the anger and the hurt. She is pissed, and defending herself. "False to his bed!" (Subtext: the NERVE of that guy!)

But no - the folio has it as a question. HUGE difference.

Also, the last line:

In the Riverside, it's all one sentence - with commas added.

"that's false to his bed, is it?"

It's all one thing, one thought. In the folio - it's more choppy. "That's false to his bed? Is it?" Her thought process is still erratic (Olivier was right: the thought is IN THE LINE.) ... so she's asking one question: "That's false to his bed?" Then she realizes she is not done, and questions again: "Is it?"

To me - the folio is MUCH more plain, in terms of emotion. You can feel Imogen's processing of the betrayal - in the punctuation. In the Riverside, it's ironed out a bit - modernized. And so the thought itself has been changed. Tsk tsk tsk.

That's false to his bed? Is it?

I prefer that one.

Let's move on.

In the same way that Shakespeare does not overdo it in terms of exclamation points and emotional punctuation, there are no stage-directions in his plays (as written) except for: Enter and Exeunt. Shakespeare put all of the stage directions INTO the language. Fascinating. If someone needs a torch to see through the darkness, Shakespeare will have the character say something along the lines of, "I can't see. It's too dark. Hand me that torch." The action ("hand me"), the props ("torch"), the motivation ("I can't see"), everything, is all in the language. Modern playwrights would add a stage direction to fill in the blanks: Horatio picks up a torch and squints through the darkness. See the difference? Although it's funny, I knew a playwright once who took the cue from Shakespeare, merely because she had been burned so many times with productions of her plays not being true to her intent. She said, "I have learned that if you want a character to be drinking a cup of coffee during the scene, if you think it is crucial to your plot that your character be drinking coffee - as opposed to tea, or as opposed to not drinking anything at all - you have to have the character say, 'I am going to have a cup of coffee' or something thereabouts. It has to be in the language, not in the stage directions- because then they can't cut it."

Shakespeare's plays, back in the day, were not extensively rehearsed. There wasn't much planning out beforehand. There was a troupe of well-trained actors who could learn things quickly, and knew, basically, how to project their voices, how to fight with swords, and how to play make believe. And because paper was expensive and scarce, they wouldn't be given the whole script - they would only be given their part. Imagine!! So you have to fit it in to the whole, you have to know how to do that. That's where the word "role" comes from: each part was written out on a "roll" of paper, and so you would be handed your "roll" to learn. Moston, as an experiment in classes, would do the same thing ... he would have parts written out on "rolls" and you would have to get up with other actors ... and try to make the scene happen, the way they did back in the day. I mean, people make jokes about Shakespeare's "O! I am slain!"s at the end of sword fights, but if you think about it: that is a stage direction. That is telling the actor (who might not have the whole play at his disposal) Okay. Die now. Those actors at the Globe were pros, man, they knew how to do crap like that ... You see "O I am slain" and you know: Yup. Time to die. Shakespeare doesn't write as a stage direction: Elaborate sword fight. Macbeth eventually dies. Uhm, no. Everything you need to know (as an audience member, and as an actor playing it) is in the language of the play. Marvelous.

The story of the "folio" is an amazing story, and I am so grateful that I studied under Doug Moston, that I worked on Shakespeare, using the folio as opposed to modern versions of the script.

All of this reminds me of something I began on the blog last year and never really followed through with - basically because life happens, and so did Dean Stockwell, and I couldn't keep it going ... but it is on the back burner, as something I would like to continue: read the plays in chronological order - or at least in what is generally agreed-upon to be their chronology - and write posts on each play. I decided to start with Two Gentlemen of Verona - it was either that or Comedy of Errors or the Henrys ... but I went with Two Gents. It was fun - I would like to start that series up again. Many of the plays I have not read in years. There are the old favorites - I read As You Like It and Hamlet for fun, they're plays I dip into all the time - but Richard III? It's been years. Anyway. Just another example of all of my plans and there not being enough time in the damn day.

Came across a very fun article which lets you know only a couple of the phrases (and words) invented (or co-opted) by Shakespeare :

Eaten out of house and home
Pomp and circumstance
Foregone conclusion
Full circle
The makings of
Method in the madness
Neither rhyme nor reason
One fell swoop
Seen better days
It smells to heaven
A sorry sight
A spotless reputation
Strange bedfellows
The world's (my) oyster

And don't forget:

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Thanks, Bill, for your greatness. Maybe you were born to it. Maybe you achieved it. Maybe it was thrust upon you. Or maybe Christopher Marlowe wrote all the plays, and you just get all the credit. I doubt it, but who knows. Thanks anyway. And happy birthday.

In honor of the Bard, here is a huge post, made up mostly of excerpts from other people. But first - let's look at what the facsimile looks like, what you will get if you look at the folio:

Awesome!!

I'll start with a wonderful excerpt from the book Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, by Stephen Greenblatt.

Here he discusses Midsummer Night's Dream. One of the cool things about Midsummer is that, of all of his plays, it is the one where scholars have been unable to find a souce for it. Shakespeare did not invent plots, he used stories that were already in existence. But scholars believe that Midsummer may very well be the only one of his plays directly from his imagination.

By 1595, Shakespeare clearly grasped that his career was built on a triumph of the professional London entertainment industry over traditional amateur performances. His great comedy [Midsummer] was a personal celebration of escape as well as of mastery. Escape from what? From tone-deaf plays, like Thomas Preston's A Lamentable Tragedy, Mixed Full of Pleasant Mirth, Containing the Life of Cambises, King of Persia, whose lame title Shakespeare parodied. From coarse language and jog trotting meter and rant pretending to be passion. From amateur actors too featherbrained to remember their lines, too awkward to perform gracefully, too shy to perform energetically, or, worst of all, too puffed up with vanity to perform anything but their own grotesque egotism. The troupe of artisans who perform "Pyramus and Thisbe" -- the weaver Nick Bottom, the bellows-mender Francis Flute, the tinker Tom Snout, the joiner Snug, the tailor Robin Starveling, and their director, the carpenter Peter Quince -- are collectively an anthology of theatrical catastrophes.

The laughter in act 5 of A Midsummer Night's Dream -- and it is one of the most enduringly funny scenes Shakespeare ever wrote -- is built on a sense of superiority in intelligence, training, cultivation, and skill. The audience is invited to join the charmed circle of the upper-class mockers onstage. This mockery proclaimed the young playwright's definitive passage from naivete and homespun amateurism to sophisticated taste and professional skill. But the laughter that the scene solicits is curiously tender and even loving. What saves the scene of ridicule from becoming too painful, what keeps it delicious in fact, is the self-possession of the artisans. In the face of open derision, they are all unflappable. Shakespeare achieved a double effect. On the one hand, he mocked the amateurs, who fail to grasp the most basic theatrical conventions, by which they are to stay in their roles and pretend they cannot see or hear their audience. On the other hand, he conferred an odd, unexpected dignity upon Bottom and his fellows, a dignity that contrasts favorably with the sardonic rudeness of the aristocratic spectators.

Even as he called attention to the distance between himself and the rustic performers, then, Shakespeare doubled back and signaled a current of sympathy and solidarity. [Note from Sheila: It occurs to me that this is what Christopher Guest accomplished in Waiting for Guffman. Anyone who has been an actor has suffered through shows like that one. Most of us have done loads of community theatre. You can scoff at it, and scorn it ... and there's a lot to scorn. But Christopher Guest approaches it with affection. Which is why I think that movie is so wonderful. Yes, we laugh at those people, but we love them too. Okay, back to Will.] As when borrowing from the old morality plays and folk culture, he understood at once that he was doing something quite different and that he owed a debt. The professions he assigned the Athenian artisans were not chosen at random -- Shakespeare's London theatre company depended on joiners and weavers, carpenters and tailors -- and the tragedy they perform, of star-crossed lovers, fatal errors, and suicides, is one in which the playwirght himself was deeply interested. In the period he was writing the "Pyramus and Thisbe" parody, Shakespeare was also writing the strikingly similar Romeo and Juliet; they may well have been on his writing table at the same time. A more defensive artist would have scrubbed harder in an attempt to remove these marks of affinity, but Shakespeare's laughter was not a form of renunciation or concealment. "This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard," Hippolyta comments, to which Theseus replies, "The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse if imagination amend them." "It must be your imagination, then, and not theirs," is her rejoinder (5.1.207-10) -- the spectators' imagination and not the players' -- but that is precisely the point: the difference between the professional actor and the amateur actor is not, finally, the crucial consideration. They both rely upon the imagination of the spectators. And, as if to clinch the argument, a moment later, at the preposterous suicide speech of Pyramus --

Approach, ye furies, fell.
O fates, come, come,
Cut thread and thrum,
Quail, crush, conclude and quell
(5.1.273-76)

-- Hippolyta finds herself unaccountably moved: "Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man" (5.1.279).

When in A Midsummer Night's Dream the thirty-year-old Shakespeare, drawing deeply upon his own experiences, thought about his profession, he split the theatre between a magical, virtually nonhuman element, which he associated with the power of the imagination to lift itself away from the constraints of reality, and an all-too-human element, which he associated with the artisans' trades that actually made the material structures -- buildings, platforms, costumes, musical instruments, and the like -- structures that gave the imagination a local habitation and a name. He understood, and he wanted the audience to understand, that the theatre had to have both, both the visionary flight and the solid, ordinary earthiness.

That earthiness was a constituent part of his creative imagination. He never forgot the provincial, everday world from which he came or the ordinary face behind the mask of Arion.

I think that's kind of a beautiful analysis of that play. Mitchell - (a friend who just played Puck in Indiana Rep's production of Midsummer): what say you?

Additionally, I'm going to post a couple of quotes from a book I positively adore: Michael Schmidt's Lives of the Poets.

This was a book recommended to me by the doppelganger, and I tore through it ferociously. If you like poetry, I highly recommend you pick it up. What's really great about this book (a survey of English-language poets, from Richard Rolle of Hampole to Les Murray - quite a wide span of time) - but what's great about it is that Michael Schmidt is not an academic. He has nothing to do with academia. He is a publisher, and a reviewer. He is a poetry fan. He doesn't write from the dusty halls of a university, and he is not trying to impress. He chooses poets he loves, and tells us why he loves them and why he thinks so-and-so is important. It's a wonderful book, really accessible.

How he deals with Shakespeare is especially interesting. Because this book spans so much time, Shakespeare is just another name on a long long long list ... and yet ... of course ... he overshadows pretty much everything. His shadow even goes backwards, so that the poets that came just before him don't stand a chance either. It's very interesting.

In Michael Schmidt's view, the poet whose legacy suffers the most is Ben Jonson. Here is what he has to say about that:

Jonson suffers one irremediable disability: Shakespeare. Alexander Pope underlines the point in his Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1725): "It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said on the other hand that Shakespeare had none at all; and because Shakespeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Jonson wanted both. Because Shakespeare borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed everything."

In the plays the proximity of Shakespeare does Jonson the most harm, though he writes plays so different from his friend's that they seem distinct in kind and period. Part of that difference is Jonson's poetic balance, deliberate artistry: he knows what he wants to say and has the means of saying it, no more or less. He speaks for his age, while Shakespeare speaks for himself. Jonson's art is normative, Shakespeare's radical and exploratory. In Jonson there's structure and gauged variegation, in Shakespeare movement and warmth. Coleridge disliked the "rankness" of Jonson's realism and found no "goodness of heart". He condemned the "absurd rant and ventriloquism" in the tragedy Sejanus,staged by Shakespeare's company at the Globe. At times Jonson's words, unlike Shakespeare's, tend to separate out and stand single, rather than coalesce, as though he had attended to every single word. His mind is busy near the surface. He is thirsty at the lip, not at the throat....

Dryden's criticism is telling at one point: Jonson "weaved" the language "too closely and laboriously" and he "did a little too much Romanise our tongue, leaving the words he translated almost as much Latin as he found them." Dryden ends with the inevitable verdict: "I admire him, but I love Shakespeare."

The following excerpts are from Schmidt's chapter on Shakespeare.

When drama began to be printed, blank verse was an ugly medium. Printers did their best to set it out prettily but got little enough thanks for their labors. Not wholly unconnected with this, some of my predecessors harbored bad feelings about William Shakespeare. About the work and the way it broke upon the world. Not about the man, born in the same year as Marlowe yet somehow seeming his junior an dhis apprentice. The great painter William Turner once said of Thomas Girtin, who died at twenty-seven, "Had Tommy Girtin lived, I should have starved." But Girtin died, Marlowe died; and Turner lived, Shakespeare lived. Laurels are awarded accordingly.

Poems vs. the plays - here's what Schmidt has to say:

The greatest poet of the age -- the greatest poet of all time, for all his corruptions -- inspires in publishers and in other writers a kind of vertigo. For Donald Davie Shakespeare represents "a vast area of the English language and the English imagination which is as it were 'charged', radio-active: a territory where we dare not travel at all often or at all extensively, for fear of being mortally infected, in the sense of being overborne, so that we cease to speak with our own voices and produce only puny echoes of the great voice which long ago took over that whole terrain for its own." This is true of the plays. But had Shakespeare produced only the epyllia, the Sonnets and the occasional poems, we'd have a much more proportioned view of him, smaller in scale than Jonson, Donne, Spencer and Marlowe. The poems are excellent, but it is the language and vision of the plays that dazzles. The slightly absurd scenario of Venus and Adonis, the excesses of Lucree and the unevent brilliance of the Sonnets would not by themselves have changed the world. Venus and Adonis was, it's true, Shakespeare's most successful poem. By the time he died, ten editions had been published, and six followed in the two decades after his death. There was money in that large, bossy, blowsy goddess almost eating alive the pretty lad. Nowadays it is read because it is by Shakespeare. And Lucree, with its cruel eloquence, its harsh tracing of one of the most brutal tales of rape in the classical repertory, while better balanced and constructed, touches unreflectingly on matters that require a less restrained psychology than the poet can provide...

This is a story about poetry, not drama or literal prostitution; the plays I'll leave to someone else. I'm concerned with "the rest", a handful of works that the poet took most seriously; the epyllia Richard Field published, the 154 Sonnets and "The Phoenix and the Turtle". I could add songs from the plays, but once you dip into a drama, where do you stop? A monologue is like an aria, a description can be like a whole pastoral or satire. And which songs are Shakespeare's, which did he pull out of Anon.'s bran tub? Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Lavours Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venic, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale and The Tempest all include detachable songs, but the plays snared them and that's where they belong.

Shakespeare is so much at the heart -- is the heart -- of this story that even by skirting around him we take his measure. Apart from his genius, Shakespeare had some real advantages. The world for him was new, as it had been for Chaucer. There were the navigators' discoveries, there was the rising power of the monarch, new industry, new learning.

Here Schmidt talks about the mystery hidden within the Sonnets:

The Sonnets have attracted a critical literature second in vastness only to that on Hamlet, and so various that at times it seems the critics are discussing works entirely unrelated. They contain a mystery, and the critic-as-sleuth is much in evidence. Unlike sonnets by his contemporaries, none of these poems has a traced "source" in Italian or elsewhere; most seem to emerge from an actual occasion, an occasion not concealed, yet sufficiently clouded to make it impossible to say for sure what or whom it refers to. Setting these veiled occasions side by side can yield a diversity of plots: a Dark Lady, a Young Man, now noble, now common, now chaste, now desired, possessed, and lost. All we can say for sure is that desire waxes and wanes, time passes. Here certainly, the critic says, are hidden meanings; and where meanings are hidden, a key is hidden too. Only, Shakespeare is a subtle twister. Each sleuth-critic finds a key, and each finds a different and partial treasure. A.L. Rowse found his key, affirming that Shakespeare's mistress was the poet Emilia Lanyer (1569 - 1645), illegitimate daughter of an Italian royal musician and also an intimate of the astrologer Simon Forman, who gives a brief picture of a brave, cunning operator. Her 1611 volume of poem includes ten dediocations and cleverly celebrates the Dowager Countess of Cumberland, the poet's particular quarry, in company with Christ and biblical heroines. The words she attributes to Eve are the first clear glimmer of English feminism in verse. Eve may -- almost innocently -- have handed Adam the apple, but Adam's sons crucified, in the bright light of day and reason, Jesus Christ. "This sin of yours hath no excuse, or end."

There is a further mystery: Who is "the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets Mr. W.H." to whom the poet (or the publisher?) wishes "all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet"? The T.T. who signs the dedication is Thomas Thorpe, publisher-printer in 1609 of the poems: W.H. may have been his friend, who procured the manuscipt, or Shakespeare's lover, or a common acquaintaince - William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke? Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (dedicatee of the two epyllia)? William Hervey, Southampton's stepfather, getting the poet to encourage his stepson to marry? Much passionate energy is expended on a riddle without a definitive answer. Thomas Thorpe was a mischievous printer. I suspect he knew what he was doing: no title page in history has been more pored over.

You can tell Schmidt is a publisher, right?

Here's more on the Sonnets:

There is not a linear plot to the sequence of the sonnets. Ther are "runs", but they break off; other "runs" begin. Is it a series of sequences, or a miscellany of them? Some editors reorder the poems without success. Sonnets 1 - 126 are addressed to a young man or men; the remainder to a Dark (-haired) Lady. There may be a triangle (or two): the beloveds perhaps have a relationship as well. The poems are charged with passionate ambiguities.

Those who read the poems as a sonnet sequence were for a long while baffled. The Sonnets were neglected, or virtually so, until 1780, when they were dusted down and reedited. They did not immediately appeal, but gradually, during the 19th century, they caught fire -- fitfully, like wet kindling. Wordsworth, Keaths, Hazlitt, and Landor failed to appreciate them. Those who love them properly are fewer than those who enjoy them. Those who love them properly are fewer than those who enjoy arguing about them. W.H. Auden argues (credibly) that "he wrote them ... as one writes a diary, for himself alone, with no thought of a public." T.S. Eliot suggests that like Hamlet they are "full of some stuff that the writer could not drag to light, contemplate, or manipulate into art. And when we search for this feeling, we find it, as in the sonnets, very difficult to localise." Now the public clambers over them, prurient, with several dozen authoritative guides.

And now (you can sense reluctantly) Schmidt talks about the plays.

Drama could be profitable: this discovery coincided with "the coming into the field of the first pupils of the new grammar schools of Edward VI", men who did not resent or distrust commerce and entrepreneurship. A new class of "mental adventurers", the classically educated sons of merchants, made the running. Marlowe was the son of a cobbler, Shakespeare of a prosperous glove maker of Stratford-on-Avon, where the poet was born in 1564. Both were provincials, one educated at the grammar school at Stratford, the other at King's School, Canterbury. They were harbingers of the social change that would culminate in the Commonwealth.

One of Shakespeare's advantages was an apparent disadvantage. He was not university-trained. "When Shakespeare attempts to be learned like Marlowe, he is not very clever." That is part of the problem with his epyllia. But Ford Madox Ford reminds us that he had "another world to which he could retire; because of that he was a greater poet than either Jonson or Marlowe, whose minds were limited by their university-training to find illustrations, telles quelles, from illustrations already used in the Greek or Latin classics. It was the difference between founding a drawing on a lay figure and drawing or painting from a keen and delighting memory."

Sidney advises: "Look in thy heart and write." In the Sonnets, Shakespeare takes Sidney's counsel without the platonizing the great courtier intended. The heart he looks into is singularly complex and troubled, and the poems he writes from this impure "I" are as full of life as the plays.

I'll let Puck's words that end Midsummer close this post. They seem appropriate:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

The Books: "Going After Cacciato" (Tim O'Brien)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

Going After Cacciato, by Tim O'Brien.

Jean was the one who turned me on to Tim O'Brien - or, should I say, she demanded in no uncertain terms that I read Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried. She basically screamed in my face, "YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!" My dad loves those books, too. Actually, come to think of it, Going After Cacciato is akin to Catch-22 in the collective O'Malley Book Shelf: Everyone - cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings - everyone has read Catch-22 and everyone loves it. God forbid an O'Malley would read Catch-22 and say, "I found the book kind of ... meh." We would not know how to handle such a person. We would wonder if they were adopted. Reading Catch-22 is an O'Malley rite of passage - and even if you don't FEEL like reading it, you had best read it - so that you at least can pick up on the jokes at Thanksgiving, or the references thrown around to Major Major Major Major. You'll be in the dark if you don't read it! Anyway, Going After Cacciato isn't quite as important to the O'Malleys as a whole, but it is close.

Ironically, I think Jean came to Tim O'Brien outside the family circle - I think she had to read it for a class in college - and she went apeshit for him. Just nuts. So naturally I had to pick up the books as well. I'm starting with Going After Cacciato because, in its own way, The Things They Carried knocked me even more on my ass and I feel like I need to sneak up on it.

Going After Cacciato won the National Book Award in 1979 and is now considered a classic of Vietnam War literature. Private Cacciato, who appears in the book almost as a shadow, a nonentity, puts down his rifle and walks away. But he doesn't return. He vanishes into the jungle. Into ... where did he go? The book blends fantasy and reality, daydreaming and nightmares ... sometimes we aren't sure if we are actually seeing what Cacciato is doing (he's going to walk to Paris, going west, from Vietnam ... okay, so that's a long way ...) or if we are seeing what his buddies in the platoon are imagining him doing. Cacciato takes on almost mythical proportions. His journey becomes something they all invest in, they live it vicariously - even though ... it's not like Cacciato sends postcards, saying, "Hey guys - made it to Tibet! Wish you were here!" No. Cacciato vanishes. And so he becomes the symbol on which everyone can project their longings, their hopes, fears ... He is more important not there than he was when he was there. Paul Berlin, the lead character (oh my god, i love him so much) "goes after Cacciato" ... but as you read the book, it becomes hallucinatory at points. I think it's wonderful writing ... Most of the men are sleep-deprived, they've smoked a bunch of weed, they're disoriented, and exhausted. Sometimes things get un-real, or hyper-real, when you are in that state. The book reads like that, at times. Almost overly clear ... and you wonder: Is this a dream? Or is this really happening? Are they really spending Christmas in Tehran, as they "go after Cacciato"? Or ...

Tim O'Brien is a wonderful writer. He rips your heart out. He doesn't overdo anything - and don't even get me started on The Things They Carried ... he dives into the details, the sensory details of the experience - the mud, the rain, the whites of eyeballs, the cigarette smoke, whatever ... His writing to me sounds like a voice. At least in Going After Cacciato. Wait - let me edit that thought. Here is how the book opens. It's a "voice". You can totally hear it:

It was a bad time. Billy Boy Watkins was dead, and so was Frenchie Tucker. Billy Boy had died of fright, scared to death on the field of battle, and Frenchie Tucker had been shot through the nose. Bernie Lynn and Lieutenant Sidney Martin had died in tunnels. Pederson was dead and Rudy Chassler was dead. Buff was dead. Ready Mix was dead. They were all among the dead. The rain fed fungus that grew in the men's boots and socks, and their socks rotted, and their feet turned white and soft so that the skin could be scraped off with a fingernail, and Stink Harris woke up screaming one night with a leech on his tongue. When it was not raining, a low mist moved across the paddies, blending the elements into a single gray element, and the war was cold and pasty and rotten. Lieutenant Corson, who came to replace Lieutenant Sidney Martin, contracted the dysentery. The tripflares were useless. The ammunition corroded and the foxholes filled with mud and water during the nights, and in the mornings there was always the next village, and the war was always the same. The monsoons were part of the war. In early September Vaught caught an infection. He'd been showing Oscar Johnson the sharp edge on his bayonet, drawing it swiftly across his forearm to peel off a layer of mushy skin. "Like a Gillette Blue Blade," Vaught had said proudly. There was no blood, but in two days the bacteria soaked in and the arm turned yellow, so they bundled him up and called in a dustoff, and Vaught left the war. He never came back. Later they had a letter from him that described Japan as smoky and full of slopes, but in the enclosed snapshot Vaught looked happy enough, posing with two sightly nurses, a wine bottle rising from between his thighs. It was a shock to learn he'd lost the arm. Soon afterward Ben Nystrom shot himself through the foot, but he did not die, and he wrote no letters. These were all things to joke about. The rain, too. And the cold. Oscar Johnson said it made him think of Detroit in the month of May. "Lootin' weather," he liked to say. "The dark an' gloom, just right for rape an' lootin'." Then someone would say that Oscar had a swell imagination for a darkie.

That was one of the jokes. There was a joke about Oscar. There were many jokes about Billy Boy Watkins, the way he'd collapsed of fright on the field of battle. Another joke was about the lieutenant's dysentery, and another was about Paul Berlin's purple biles. There were jokes about the postcard pictures of Christ that Jim Pederson used to carry, and Stink's ringworm, and the way Buff's helmet filled with life after death. Some of the jokes were about Cacciato. Dumb as a bullet, Stink said. Dumb as a month-old oyster fart, said Harold Murphy.

In October, near the end of the month, Cacciato left the war.

So that's the voice. It's weary, it's specific, it's over it ... and then, there are moments of high philosophy, a sweeping sense of spiritual truth, of Man being with Himself ... an acute awareness of what it is to be alive.

The excerpt I chose today has Paul Berlin going through a night-watch. He's tired, so tired that he's not sure what he's seeing is real. And time appears to have literally stood still. Cacciato has already left, which changes everything in the platoon. Everyone gets disoriented. Especially because there is never a word from him again. Where did he go? Everyone's mind becomes unhinged, as they follow Cacciato.

It's a great American book.

EXCERPT FROM Going After Cacciato, by Tim O'Brien.

Spec Four Paul Berlin tilted his wristwatch to catch moonlight. Twelve-twenty now - the incredible slowness with which time passed. Incredible, too, the tricks his fear did with time.

He wound the watch as tight as it would go. Facing east, out to sea, he counted to sixty very slowly, breathing with each count, and when he was done he looked at the watch again. Still twelve-twenty. He held it to his ear. The ticking was loud, brittle-sounding. The second hand made its infinite sweep.

Maybe it was the time of night that created the distortions. Middle-hour guard, it was a bad time. First-hour guard was better; the safest time, and surest, and once it ended you could sleep the night through. Or last-hour guard. Last guard was all right, too, because there was the expectation of dawn coming upon the sea, and you could watch the water turn to color as if paint had been poured into it at the horizon, and the pretty colors helped sustain pretty thoughts.

Sure, it was the hour. Things shimmered silver in the moonlight, the sea and the coils of wire below the tower, the sand winding along the beach. The night was moving now. He tried not to look at it, but it was true - the night moved in waves, fluttering. The grasses inland moved, and the far trees. Middle-hour guard, it was a bad time for keeping watch.

Kneeling, he lit a cigarette, cupping it in his hand to hide the glow, then he stood and leaned against the sandbagged wall and looked down on the sea. The sea helped. It protected the back and gave a sense of distance from the war, a warm washing feeling, and a feeling of connection to distant lands. His mind worked that way. Sometimes, during the hot afternoons beneath the tower, he would look out to sea and imagine using it as a means of escape - stocking Oscar's raft with plenty of rations and foul-weather gear and drinking water, then shoving out through the first heavy breakers, then hoisting up a poncho as a sail, then lying back and letting the winds and currents carry him away - to Samoa, maybe, or to some hidden isle in the South Pacific, or to Hawaii, or maybe all the way home. Pretending. It wasn't dreaming, it wasn't craziness. Just a way of passing time, which seemed never to pass.

He could make out the dim outlines of Oscar's raft bobbing at anchor in the moonlight. They used it mostly for swimming. Sometimes, when boredom got the best of them, they would take it out to deeper water and fish off it, spend the whole day out there, separating themselves from the daily routine.

He watched the sea and the bobbing raft for a long time. Then he checked the watch again. Twelve twenty-two.

He tried to remember tricks for making time move.

Counting, that was one trick. Count the remaining days. Break the days into hours, and count the hours, then break the hours into minutes and count them one by one, and the minutes into seconds.

He began to figure it. Arrived June 3. And now it was ... What was it? November 20, or 25. Somewhere in there. It was hard to fix exactly. But it was November, he was sure of that. Late November. Not like the old-time Novembers along the Des Moines River, no lingering foliage. No sense of change or transition. Here there was no autumn. No leaves to turn with the turning of seasons, no seasons, no crispness in the air, no Thanksgiving and no football, nothing to guage passing by. Inland, in the dark beyond the beach, there were a few scrawny trees, but these were mostly pines, and the pines did not change whatever the season.

November-the-what?

Oscar's birthday had been in July. In August, Billy Boy Watkins had died of fright - no, June. That was in June. June, the first day at the war. Then, in July, they'd celebrated Oscar's birthday with plenty of gunfire and flares, and they'd marched through the sullen villages along the Song Tra Bong, the awful quiet everywhere, and then, in August, Rudy Chassler had finally broken the quiet. That had been August. Then - then September. Keeping track wasn't easy. The order of things - chronologies - that was the hard part. Long stretches of silence, dullness, long nights and endless days on the march, and sometimes the truly bad times: Pederson, Buff, Frenchie Tucker, Bernie Lynn. But what was the order? How did the pieces fit, and into which months? And what was it now - November-the-what?

He extinguished the cigarette against his thumbnail and flipped it down to the beach.

Stepping over the sleeping men, he moved to the tower's west wall and faced inland.

He tried to concentrate on the future. What to do when the war was over. That was one happy thought. Yes - when the war ended he would ... he would go home to Fort Dodge. He would. He would go home on a train, slowly, looking out at the country as it passed, recognizing things, seeing how the country flattened and turned to corn, the silos painted white, and he would pay attention to the details. At the depot, when the train stopped, he would brush off his uniform and be certain all the medals were in place, and he would step off boldly, boldly, and he would shake his father's hand and look him in the eye. "I did okay," he would say. "I won some medals." And his father would nod. And later, the next day perhaps, they would go out to where his father was building houses in the development west of town, and they'd walk through the unfinished rooms and his father would explain what would be where, how the wiring was arranged, the difficulties with subcontractors and plumbers, but how the houses would be strong and lasting, how to took good materials and good craftsmanship and care to build houses that would be strong and lasting.

The night was moving. He concentrated hard, squinting, trying to stop the fluttering ...

He would go to Europe. That's what he would do. Spend some time in Fort Dodge, then take off for a tour of Europe. He would learn French. Learn French, then take off for Paris, and when he got there he would drink red wine in Cacciato's honor. Visit all the museums and monuments, learn the history, sit in the cafes along the river and smile at the pretty girls. Take a flat in Montmartre. Rise early and walk to the open market for breakfast. He would eat very slowly, crossing his legs and maybe reading a paper, letting things pass by, then maybe he'd walk about the city and learn the names of places, not as a tourist but as a man who comes to learn and understand. He would study details. He would look for the things Cacciato would have looked for. It could be done. That was the crazy thing about it - for all the difficulties, for all the hard times and stupidity and errors, for all that, it could truly be done.

Movie night: guess the movie?

Had a long conversation with my parents tonight. It was really nice. We talked about books, and life, and food, and everything ... and I am in a place right now where every second I am grateful for. Every moment is filled with gratitude. It can be totally awful, but it's also great, and to quote Babs at the end of What's Up Doc, "Listen, kiddo, ya can't fight a tidal wave."

I came home after going shopping at the Pathmark in the next town. Side note. You only realize what a ghetto-ass 'hood you live in until you go to a grocery store OF THE SAME CHAIN in another area. I felt like Boris Yeltsin! No.... Not a drunken Russian standing on a tank in Red Square. But Boris Yeltsin visiting a supermarket in Houston - excerpt - kind of - here - and being absolutely overwhelmed by the choices, the hand-decorated cakes, fresh produce, bread ... Here he had grown up with the belief that the West was evil. But looking at that abundance in Houston, he was like: What we are doing does not work. They are doing something right. Anyway. It is one of my favorite historical anecdotes of all time - and I went to the Pathmark 5 towns north of me today and basically I felt like Boris Yeltsin in Houston. And I seriously wonder if anyone else on the planet but me would ever make such a comparison or would ever even know what the hell I meant.) Anyway. I was gobsmacked at the variety. I had a field day. I went nuts.

I came home. I took a long walk at dusk. I came home and cooked dinner. Well, because I'm me - I cooked a shitload of stuff that I will now put in Tupperware containers and dole out to myself for the rest of the week. I don't enjoy cooking on a daily basis. I seriously wish I did!! But obviously I like to have food in the fridge (duh) and I really enjoy preparing stuff for myself - I don't know how that works out, but whatever, it does ... Meaning: I'm not against the Weight Watchers frozen dinners (the new chicken and picante one is my new favorite) and stuff like that, but I really like cooking stuff myself, packing it away, and knowing I'll be eating it for the next week. I'm weird. I get it all out of the way in one fell swoop.

And now it's movie night.

Time for a favorite. Recommended to me by blog-readers a couple years ago - for which I am truly grateful (again with the gratitude). I had missed it somehow - and now I can't imagine my life without it. It's a go-to place for me, in terms of comfort, humor, satisfaction - I love every second of this film.

See if you can guess what it is, just from this one bit of the credits.

If you know the movie, it'll be a no-brainer. But still. There's something about that particular screen of names that pleases me to my core.

The Books: "Desolation Island" (Patrick O'Brian)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

Desolation Island , by Patrick O'Brian.

And now I come to the end (so far) of my experience with the M&C series. I finished Desolation Island last week, and am now re-reading James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime (post about it here) ... but I will eventually pick up the next in the series. I am, how you say, hooked. I love them. I love every word. I know I have a long way to go to actually finish the series, with much ahead of me - but I'll say this, from my experience of having read the first five - Desolation Island is, so far, my favorite in the series. There are a couple of set-piece events which absolutely knocked me on my ass and I had a really hard time picking which excerpt I wanted to do today. There is the scene where the ship hits the iceberg. Terrifying. It's a misty day and visibility is bad and suddenly - towering above the masts - is a wall of ice. Brilliantly written. There is the outbreak of plague on the boat which kills hundreds of people, and runs Maturin ragged - tryiing to contain it. There is the frantic pumping and bailing out scene after hitting the berg - trying to save the ship ... and those who want to bail, and those who want to stay. Panic growing. Factions erupting. There is the section on Desolation Island itself, with the surly American ship - and the growing threat of war between the two countries. And then there is the unbeLIEVABLE battle between the Leopard and the Waakaamheid (that excerpt won out - or at least part of it - since the battle goes on for more than 10 pages) - I seriously felt like I was actually transported reading that battle. I may have been sitting on the bus reading it, but I wasn't actually there. I was on the Leopard - climbing the mountains of water, descending into the troughs - looking over my shoulder for the ship pulling up behind us - sometimes blocked by a wall of water - and then - oh look - there it is - on the top of the mountain behind us ... Trying to outrun the ship in the middle of a hurricane with Perfect-Storm-like conditions. I could see it. It was excruciating to read. How to time the shots fired - so that they might hit their mark - even while going wildly up up up and then wildly down down down ... God. Kudos.

There was just something about the particular brand of desperation expressed in this book that really spoke to me. How people behave when they are panicking: sometimes it brings out the best (the relentless night-and-day pumping) and sometimes it brings out the worst (the chaos and looting as people decided to jump into lifeboats). Nobody is ONLY noble. We all have demons within us. Sometimes they win out. I just found that aspect of the book totally fascinating.

Like I said, the set-piece battle is spectacular - some of the best writing in the series so far. It's the only battle in the whole book (if I'm remembering correctly - I honestly think I'm reading these books too fast!! Sometimes details are lost - but I just can't seem to slow myself down). The rest of the book has to do with the perils of life at sea, and it also goes into the details of intelligence work with much more depth than in the other books. At least that is my impression. There is a female prisoner on board the boat - who is also a spy (and not a very adept one) - and there is her lover, a stowaway. Maturin plays them off each other, and has to hide his motivations, and make it seem like much of what is going on is purely accidental. There are deeps in Stephen Maturin - I feel like I am just getting to know the man.

But what I am really left with from Desolation Island is the battle in the middle of the hurricane, and the ship striking the iceberg.

O'Brian outdoes himself.

If you haven't read the books, and you plan to, and you do not want to know how the battle ends in Desolation Island, then skip this excerpt! It has the most powerful ending of a chapter yet! And it reveals the true character of Jack Aubrey. Spectacular.

EXCERPT FROM Desolation Island , by Patrick O'Brian.

They cast loose the guns, removed the wing deadlights, and looked out on to a soaring green cliff of water fifty yards away with the Leopard's wake trace down its side. It shut out the sky, and it was racing towards them. The Leopard's stern rose, rose: the enormous wave passed smoothly under her counter, and there through the flying spume lay the Waakzaamheid below, running down the far slow. 'When you please, Mr Burton,' said Jack to the gunner. 'A hole in her foretopsail might make it split.' The larboard gun roared out and instantly the cabin was filled with smoke. No hole: no fall of shot either. Jack, to starboard, had the Dutchman in his dispart sight. A trifle of elevation and he pulled the lanyard. Nothing happened: flying spray had soaked the lock. 'Match,' he cried, but by the time he had the glowing end in his hand the Waakzaamheid was below his line of sight, below the depression of the gun. From down there in the trough she fired up, a distant wink of flame, and she got in another couple of shots before the grey-green hill of water parted them again.

'May I suggest a cigar, sir?' said Moore. 'One can hold it in one's mouth.' He was acting as sponger and second captain, and his face was six inches from Jack's: he was encased in oilskins and there was nothing of the Marine about him but his fine red face and the neat stock showing under his chin.

'A capital idea,' said Jack, and in the calm of the trough, before the Waakzaamheid appeared again, Moore lit him a cigar from the glowing match in its tub.

The Leopard began to rise, the Dutchman appeared, black in the white water of the breaking crests high up there, and both nine-pounders went off together. The guns leapt back, the crews worked furiously, grunting, no words, sponged, loaded, and ran them out again. Another shot, and this time Jack saw his ball, dark in the haze of lit water, flying at its mark: he could not follow it home, but the line was true, a little low. Now they were on the crest, and the cabin was filled with wind and water mingled, unbreathable: the gun-crews worked without the slightest pause, worked through and through.

Down, down the slope amidst the white wreckage of the wave, the guns run out and waiting. Across the hollow and up the other side. 'I believe I caught his splash,' said Moore. 'Twenty yards short of our starboard quarter.'

'So did I,' said Burton. 'He wants to knock our rudder, range along, and give us a broadside, the bloody-minded dog.'

The Waakzaamheid over the crest again: Jack poured the priming into the touch-hole with his horn, guarding it with the flat of his hand, the cigar clenched between his teeth and the glow kept bright; and this bout each gun fired three times before the Leopard mounted too high, racing up and up, pursued by the Dutchman's shot. On and on: an enormous switchback, itself in slow, majestic motion, but traversed at a racing speed in which the least stumble meant a fall. Alternate bursts of fire, aimed and discharged with such an intensity of purpose that the men did not even see the storm of flying water that burst in upon them at each crest. On and on, the Waakzaamheid gaining visibly.

Here was Babbington at his side, waiting for a pause. 'Take over, Moore,' said Jack, as the gun ran in. He stepped over the train-tackle, and Babbington said, 'She's hit our mizzen-top, sir, fair and square.'

Jack nodded. She was coming far too close: point-blank range now, and the wind to help her balls. 'Start the water, all but a ton; and try the jib, one-third in.'

Back to the gun as it ran out. Now it was the Waakzaamheid's turn to fire, and fire she did, striking the Leopard's stern-post high up: a shrewd knock that jarred the ship as she was on the height of the wave, and a moment later a green sea swept through the deadlights.

'Good practice in this sea, Mr Burton,' said Jack.

The gunner turned his streaming face, and its fixed fierce glare broke into a smile. 'Pretty fair, sir, pretty fair. But if I did not get home two shots ago, my name is Zebedee.'

The flying Leopard drew a little way ahead with the thrust of her jib, a hundred yards or so; and the switchback continued, the distances the same. It was the strangest gunnery, with its furious activity and then the pause, waiting to be fired at; the soaking at the crest, the deck awash; the intervening wall of water; the repetition of the whole sequence. No order; none of the rigid fire-discipline of the gun-deck; loud, gun-deafened conversation between the bouts. The dread of being pooped by the great seas right there in front of their noses, rising to blot out the sun with unfailing regularity, and of broaching to, hardly affected the cabin.

A savage roar from Burton's crew. 'We hit her port-lid,' cried Bonden, the second captain. 'They can't get it closed.'

'Then we are all in the same boat,' said Moore. 'Now the Dutchmen will have a wet jacket every time she digs in her bows, and I wish they may like it, ha ha!'

A short-lived triumph. A midshipman came to report the jib carried clean away - Babbington had all in hand - was trying to set a storm-staysail - half the water was pumped out.

But although the Leopard was lighter she felt the loss of the jib; the Waakzaamheid was coming up, and now the vast hill of sea separated them only for seconds. If the Leopard did not gain when all her water was gone, the upper-deck guns would have to follow it: anything to draw ahead and preserve the ship. The firing was more and more continuous; the guns grew hot, kicking clear on the recoil, and first Burton and then Jack reduced the charge.

Nearer and nearer, so that they were both on the same slop, no trough between them: a hole in the Dutchman's foretopsail, but it would not split, and three shots in quick succession struck the Leopard's hull, close to her rudder. Jack had smoked five cigars to the butt, and his mouth was scorched and dry. He was staring along the barrel of his gun, watching for the second when the Waakzaamheid's bowsprit should rise above his sight, when he saw her starboard chaser fire. A split second later he stabbed his cigar down on the priming and there was an enormous crash, far louder than the roar of the gun.

How much later he looked up he could not tell. Nor, when he did look up, could he quite tell what was afoot. He was lying by the cabin bulkhead with Killick holding his head and Stephen sewing busily; he could feel the passage of the needle and of the thread, but no pain. He stared right and left. 'Hold still,' said Stephen. He felt the red-hot stabbing now, and everything fell into place. The gun had not burst: there was Moore fighting it. He had been dragged clear - hit - a splinter, no doubt. Stephen and Killick crouched over him as a green sea gushed in: then Stephen cut the thread, whipped a wet cloth round his ears, one eye and forehead, and said, 'Do you hear me now?' He nodded; Stephen moved on to another man lying on the deck; Jack stood up, fell, and crawled over to the guns. Killick tried to hold him, but Jack thrust him back, clapped on to the tackle and helped run out the loaded starboard gun. Moore bent over it, cigar in hand, and from behind him Jack could see the Waakzaamheid twenty yards away, huge, black-hulled, throwing the water wide. As Moore's hand came down, Jack automatically stepped aside; but he was still stupid, he moved slow, and the recoiling gun flung him to the deck again. On hands and knees he felt for the train-tackle in the smoke, found it as the darkness cleared, and tallied on. But for a moment he could not understand the cheering that filled the cabin, deafening his ears: then through the shattered deadlights he saw the Dutchman's foremast lurch, lurch again, the stays part, the mast and sail carry away right over the bows.

The Leopard reached the crest. Green water blinded him. It cleared, and through the bloody haze running from his cloth he saw the vast breaking wave with the Waakzaamheid broadside on its curl, on her beam-ends, broached to. An enormous, momentary turmoil of black hull and white water, flying spars, rigging that streamed wild for a second, and then nothing at all but the great hill of green-grey with foam racing upon it.

'My God, oh my God,' he said. 'Six hundred men.'

Moose Murders: "the standard of awfulness against which all Broadway flops are judged"

This great NY Times article by Campbell Robertson made me laugh out loud. Moose Murders, a play that ran on Broadway for one night only (not counting 2 weeks of disastrous previews), garnered some of the worst reviews in recorded theatrical history - they're even worse than the reviews for, oh, Waterworld ... ... and the show has now passed into theatre mythology. It was the biggest flop ever - not so much monetarily but because of the vitriol it spawned. People wonder: "Was it really that bad??" Since no one saw it but that first night audience, who can tell? It's now just part of the oral history of Broadway. Anyway, it's a wonderful article - where they track down the original players, and talk about what, exactly, it was that went so wrong.

I mean, listen to the opening lines of Frank Rich's original review in 1983:

From now on, there will always be two groups of theatergoers in this world: those who have seen ''Moose Murders,'' and those who have not. Those of us who have witnessed the play that opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater last night will undoubtedly hold periodic reunions, in the noble tradition of survivors of the Titanic. Tears and booze will flow in equal measure, and there will be a prize awarded to the bearer of the most outstanding antlers. As for those theatergoers who miss ''Moose Murders'' - well, they just don't rate. A visit to ''Moose Murders'' is what will separate the connoisseurs of Broadway disaster from mere dilettantes for many moons to come.

Holy crap! Even THEN people seemed to know that they had witnessed something historic! There are lots of flops, sure, but only a precious few become historic flops. I got one word for you. Ishtar. Or no, how 'bout two words. Heaven's Gate. I know it probably wasn't funny at ALL to be in such a play - but still, some of Rich's language here is hilarious:

This loathsome trio is quickly joined by a whole crowd of unappetizing clowns.

Wow.

Frank Rich wrote another piece about Moose Murders, with a bit more distance (oh, say, a MONTH) - it's a rumination on the "particular pleasure" of seeing "a legendary flop". Only a month had passed since Moose Murders had closed and it had already passed into legend. Now that is a bad show.

Rich writes:

What makes certain bombs into legends? It's hard to say, precisely - they don't wear fur coats. Once it was a mark of distinction for a play to close in one night, but in these troubled times even that phenomenon is a sad commonplace. Some theater people define legendary bombs by the amount of money that went down the drain, or the high caliber of talent expended, or the extravagant foolhardiness of the esthetic mission. Others let Joe Allen, the theater district bistro, be the final arbiter: that restaurant has a whole wall bedecked with posters from a select group of famous turkeys. Whatever the definition, it can't be quantified - a flop just must have a certain je ne sais quoi to rise to legendary status. But what I do know is this: the only Playbill I've saved thus far in this decade is the one from ''Moose Murders.''

But now, with over 20 years having gone by, the stories of Moose Murders have grown and it has now become a badge of honor to have been in the damn things. Which I think is so hysterical as well. Campbell Robertson writes:

The reviews, which were not helped by the man reeking of vomit who sat in the third row during a press preview, made the 14 performances of “Moose Murders” legendary in theater history. Cast members trumpet their involvement in Playbill biographies. The number of people who claim to have seen the show, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, seems to have multiplied beyond physical possibility, like those who claim to have seen the Beatles at Shea Stadium or Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.

Reading the kind of grimly humorous present-day comments from everyone involved - what a delight. Arthur Bicknell, who wrote Moose Murders, was asked if the play was really that bad! He replied, “Was it really that bad? The simple answer is yes.” One critic at the time suggested that Bicknell change his name, that was the only way he would survive such a disaster.

Holland Taylor had replaced Eve Arden after a preview - because Eve Arden had basically said, "Fuck this, I'm outta here." Holland Taylor was reached for comment for the present article and she said that stepping into that nightmare was quite an experience.

“There were things that I put my foot down about and changed,” she said in a telephone interview. “But there were things I couldn’t change. Like the play.”

I love her.

Taylor said that the play was “a misshapen thing at an almost Shakespearean level" (I'm laughing out loud) - but that it also taught her a lot. You always learn more from the bombs than from the successes.

Dammit.

I so wish I had been there.

Great article (read the whole thing). Kudos to the writer for getting such great quotes from everyone, and kudos to all the original players who were so forthright in their memories about such a colossal bomb.

UPDATE: Just found another eyewitness account.

So when people ask me if I saw Moose Murders, I have to answer: "Yes and no." For I lasted--I mean this--11 minutes, still the shortest time I've ever spent at a show. Had I known the play would become infamous and not just another quick closer, I might have stayed on. But I'd been on a business trip, had schlepped my luggage to the theater, was sweaty and hungry and not in the mood to have my intelligence insulted any more than it had to be. So I missed the second-act scene that I heard about later, where the quadriplegic magically bolted from his wheelchair and kicked a moose-suited man below the belt.

And June Gable, who was in the show, is quoted as saying:

"You know, thank God, I have very little memory of the show. It was an outrageous experience and it was one reason why I left the business shortly afterwards. I actually went to India and spent a year there searching for the meaning of life."

The Circle; director, Jafar Panahi

Jafar Panahi's 2000 film The Circle is a shattering piece of work portraying the restrictions on the lives of women in Iran. Panahi's most recent project was 2006's Offside, a comedic film about a group of tomboys in Tehran dressing up as boys and trying to get into a soccer game (my review here). In Offside, Panahi treats the restrictions (women not being allowed to go into a soccer stadium) with humor, pointing out how unbelievably absurd it all is, even laughable. The tone of Offside is light, frantic, and hilarious. Sometimes the best resistance to a stupid rule is to laugh at it. It may not change the rule, but it certainly takes the edge off.

In The Circle, that hilarious atmosphere is gone. Panahi pulls no punches, from the first devastating scene to the last devastating image. But, in true Panahi fashion, the issues are not presented in a maudlin manner. They don't need to be. The tendency to be "maudlin" is for the privileged, those who have space and freedom to feel self-pity. In Iran, there is no need for such indulgences. Panahi launches us into the chaotic loud streets of Tehran, using handheld cameras, which circle the participants in the drama (there are very few hard edges in the film, very few angles, something to take note of when you're watching it: look for all of the circles and curves in the camera movements and set-ups). It appears that the film crew is just grabbing shots, filming their actors in the midst of a real-life busy street, and indeed, as always, Panahi uses mostly non-professional actors for most of the roles. Panahi is not interested in detailed character analysis, he says as much himself. He is more interested in "types". Characters are drawn in bold primary color strokes, and we can recognize them within moments: the crybaby, the bitter one, the sassy one ... Panahi casts based on looks alone, a bold and courageous move, because often people who look right can't act for shit. Panahi has great confidence in himself as a director. He does exhaustive casting sessions, casting a wide net, and he also has been known to just approach a woman he sees in the park, who has the perfect look - and asks if she would be willing to do a screen test. (This was how he found the wonderful Nargess Mamizadeh, one of the main characters in The Circle. She's the one in the poster. She's not an actress - at least not professionally, but her looks - her scrunched-up beautiful face, with thick eyebrows, was just what he was looking for for that character). She has a black eye throughout the entire film, and it is never explained. It gives an unspoken backstory to the character, and makes us wonder from the get-go: Where did she get that? What is she running from?) Panahi only used two professional actors in The Circle, the rest were people he found who had the right "look". It's quite amazing, because everyone is great in the film. There are no weak links. There isn't a huge gap between the non-professionals and the professionals. Granted, Panahi is not looking for big cathartic scenes or delicate character development - something that is best in the hands of professionals. He's going for the message, and for the hyper-realistic atmosphere. And also, the pace. As with most Panahi films, the pace is breakneck.

The women of The Circle tear their way through the streets of Tehran, hurtling up against obstacles, hiding in alleys, crouching behind cars: the sense of being hunted is palpable. The women are right to be afraid.

There is not just one narrative in The Circle, we get many. Sometimes they intersect: we're following one group, and then suddenly another woman walks by and we find ourselves following her, and she takes up the storyline. Panahi's points are clear: this is not just about one individual woman. It's about Women^(TM) and the circle of restrictions that make up all of their lives.

The film opens starkly. The screen is black, credits rolling. Throughout, we hear the sounds of a woman in labor. She's screaming and grunting and howling, and the nurse and doctor say encouraging things. In the last moment of the credits, there's a pause, and we then hear what we have been waiting to hear: the indignant yowls of a newborn baby.

Next thing we see is a blinding white wall, with the back of a woman's head standing there, she's draped in the full black chador. You can hear the screaming newborns behind the wall. There's a tiny slot in the door that can be opened by the nurses and our chador-ed figure knocks on the slot. A nurse's head peeks out. The black chador asks for the status of Solmaz's baby. The nurse says, "It's an adorable little girl!" Black chador has no response. Says again, "A girl?" Nurse says, "Yes!" and closes the slot. Black chador doesn't move. She stands there, still, a domed black figure.

She knocks on the window again. A different nurse opens it. "Yes?" Black chador says, "I'm here for Solmaz ... I know she had her baby but I don't know what kind ... could you check?"

A chill went through me at that moment. If you ask enough times eventually you'll get a different answer? Suddenly a girl will become a boy if you ask a different nurse?Apparently the ultrasound said it would be a boy, and everyone had heaved a sigh of relief in the family. Phew! A boy!! (I won't go into how despicable I find that attitude, in any culture.) But now, with the baby being a girl, it is valid grounds for divorce, the in-laws will be furious, the black chadored lady is the woman's mother, and for her, there is no joy at being a grandmother.

In one simple moment, Panahi indicts his entire culture. De-valuing women is a national concern.

As Panahi's film goes on, fast and furious, with girls in chadors running through bus stations, yearning for a smoke, huddled in doorways peeking out, hiding, terrified, trapped, you begin to see another side to the "Oh no, it's a girl" phenomenon. It is quite subversive, and really comes to fruition in the heartbreaking story of the single mother planning to abandon her 3-year-old daughter on the streets of Tehran. She says she hopes that her daughter will be adopted by a rich family who might take her away from Iran: "How can she have a future here? What is there for her in this life?" The woman had tried to abandon her child 3 times before getting up the guts. It rips her heart out. Watching her scenes made me go back in my mind to that first scene, with the open dismay at the baby being a girl. The critique is circular, as well as the structure of the film. With the world welcoming your birth with disappointment, what chance does a girl have? A baby absorbs love. Why wouldn't a baby absorb that other unwelcoming attitude as well? We may be horrified and pissed at the attitude, but by the time we get to the woman abandoning her daughter, we have to admit: we see her point.

The Circle is not a soap opera-ish litany of complaints, and the fact that I even have to make that clear is just evidence of how privileged I am. 5 or 6 women skulk through the streets of Tehran. They are unconnected (or so we think). It becomes clear that all of them have one thing in common: they have spent time in prison. The repercussions of such a stain on your life are long-lasting (in this country and in others!) Only in the world of The Circle, you can't be sure that these women didn't do hard time for, you know, hitchhiking, or letting their scarves fall off their heads, or driving in a car with a man who is not a relative. These aren't people who've murdered someone.

A couple of them have just got out. A couple of them broke out of prison with a larger group and are now on the run. One was in prison, but she is now a nurse, and married to a Pakistani man who has no idea of her past, and he can never know. He doesn't know why she won't go to Pakistan to visit his family, but she knows she will be stopped at the border.

These are women who are on their own, even when they are married, and the restrictions of their society makes it nearly impossible for them to survive and be self-sufficient. They need to travel with IDs at all times. They cannot travel alone. They cannot board a bus without a male companion who is also a relative. They cannot check into a hotel by themselves. It is outrageous. The Circle is titanically angry. The pace of the film is frantic. Nobody has time to reflect, or cry tears for themselves. Things are urgent. The police are everywhere.

One of the women comes home once she gets out of prison and it is clear that her brother means to do her harm because of the shame she has brought upon her family. She flees. But where can she go? She has no money. She can't check into a hotel. She can't jump on a bus and move to another town. To make matters worse, she is pregnant, and not married. She wants to have an abortion. This is presented with no euphemism, no judgment. Her lover was executed. What is this now-homeless woman supposed to do? Her family members are just as dangerous as the authorities. She has nowhere to turn. The baby must be gotten rid of.

One woman spent 2 years in prison and when she got out found that her husband had taken a second wife. She is grateful to the second wife, because the second wife took care of her kids while she was inside, and we meet the second wife, and she seems like a nice woman. But the betrayal is clear. NOWHERE is safe.

Meanwhile, it appears that everyone in Tehran is getting married on that particular day (Panahi's ironic sense of humor coming into play). Cars decorated with flowers and streamers meander by, in a long happy parade, we see a nervous groom spilling water on his nice shirt, we get a brief glimpse of a veiled bride in the back seat.

What is there in marriage that can offer sanctuary? This question is not asked overtly in the film, but it doesn't need to be asked. All we need to see is the procession of blushing veiled brides in the backseats of cars, viewed by women on the sidelines who have nowhere to turn. Even when they are married. Marriage is no protection.

One of the things that Panahi is so good at, (and I noticed this in Offisde as well), is that on an individual level - person to person - things aren't so bad all the time. Man and woman can greet one another without all of those restrictions between them. The sales guy in the shop in the bus station, who helps Nargessa with her purchase, teasing her about her boyfriend, and doesn't she know what size he is? The bantering is good-natured, easy, friendly. In Offside we had the characters of the guys hired to guard the girls, and we watch as the girls slowly break down the guards' authority, and finally the guys just succumb to the fact that this is a stupid rule, and we're all soccer fans, and Iran just won, hooray!! The girls did not cower in fear at the sight of the males. They basically thumbed their noses at them. Even the spectre of the morality police and their scary van doesn't dim the girls' spirits. Or if it does, it is just because now they can't hear what's happening in the game in the stadium.

So tyranny - and a "regime" - can never so atomize a population that human beings cannot connect. The regime may try, and boy, they do - and perhaps in extreme cases like North Korea, the totalitarian atmosphere has gone down into a cellular level, hard to know, but Panahi, in his subtle way, shows how the restrictions are not just bad for women, but bad for men, too. Because aren't we all just human beings? And aren't women our sisters, mothers, wives, sweethearts? Don't we, as men, love some women? How can we let them be treated like this? Women aren't a scary "other" - not face to face. They're just people we either like, want sexually, love, or are indifferent to. But the regime cannot let this freedom of thought stand, and so morality itself is policed. And of course morality means (in Iran, and elsewhere, like her): "How Women Behave". That's it. That's all morality is. If women would just act like LADIES, and keep their LEGS CLOSED, and did what they were TOLD, so that no man would ever be confronted with his own desires and have to actually negotiate them, and NAVIGATE them responsibly, as opposed to denying them outright, we wouldn't have such problems in our society! Because sex is at the heart of the morality issue, women are the focal point. They bear the brunt of the responsibility. It's been true since Eve took the fall. In Iran, women can't be allowed to drive in cars with men they aren't related to. What would happen next? Open anarchy!

But like I said, Panahi is not a black and white kind of guy. He messes with our assumptions and preconceived notions. In this wonderful interview with Panahi (highly recommended), Stephen Teo writes:

Like the best Iranian directors who have won acclaim on the world stage, Panahi evokes humanitarianism in an unsentimental, realistic fashion, without necessarily overriding political and social messages. In essence, this has come to define the particular aesthetic of Iranian cinema. So powerful is this sensibility that we seem to have no other mode of looking at Iranian cinema other than to equate it with a universal concept of humanitarianism.

When a woman's hair tumbling out of her headscarf becomes a national problem, it concerns all of us. And so while the men in The Circle are few and far between, they also are omnipresent. The women are either running from men who want to trap them and punish them, or mourning men who have also been persecuted by the regime. The circle continues.

The evolution of the film's journey is clear. We begin with a black and white image: black chador against white wall. Quiet and still. No movement. But soon we are out on the streets, and then we have nothing but movement, for most of the film. People running and waiting anxiously and hiding and whispering and hugging. At the end of the film, we meet a girl who has been arrested for prostitution (probably), although it is made to sound like she was just hitchhiking. We have never seen her before. She's a brand-new character. She's been hauled out of the car and is made to wait for the morality van to show up. She's kind of a hottie, truth be told, with sassy red lipstick. She calls the cop "honey", in a contemptuous way.

The van arrives, and she takes a seat. She goes to light a cigarette and she is told there is no smoking in the van. The issue of smoking is an ongoing theme throughout the film. Everyone wants to smoke, but nobody can, for this or that reason, and she, at the very end, is the only one who actually gets to the point where she can light up. I saw an interview with Panahi and he was laughing, saying, "In the West, of course, smoking is seen as dangerous - but here, in this film, smoking is seen as the ultimate freedom." The one other prisoner in the van is a man, and he cajoles the guards to let him smoke. They cave, say "Sure". All the men light up. The girl glances around her (oh, so it's okay that they smoke, and it's not okay that I smoke?), and with a "Fuck this" expression, she lights up. For the rest of the drive, the camera is on her. The men all talk to each other, bantering, laughing, whatever, it's unimportant the topic or subject matter. She has a flowered headscarf on, her face is impassive, she stares out the window, and smokes. It's a long scene. It struck me, as I watched it this last time, how quiet and still the film got at the very end. As still as the scene that started it off. She's a statue in profile. Her situation is frozen. Stasis.

What will be next?

Panahi says in that interview:

Coming back to your first question: why is Iranian film so beautiful? When you want to say something like this and then you add an artistic form to it, you can see the circle in everything. Now our girl has become an idealistic person and thinks that she can reach for what she wants, so we open up a wide angle and we see the world through her eyes, wider, we carry the camera with the hand and we are moving just like her. When we get to the other person, the camera lens closes, the light becomes darker and it becomes slower. Then we reach the last person, there's no other movement; it's just still. If there's any movement, it's in the background. This way, the form and whatever you are saying becomes one: a circle both in the form and in the content.

An important film. Banned in Iran (naturally), but "it" got out. The Circle got out and found its audience worldwide. Because of bootleg DVDs and illegal satellite dishes, everyone in Iran has seen The Circle. In reference to one of Panahi's other films, Offside, there were protests outside of soccer stadiums last year, with women holding up signs saying "WE DON'T WANT TO BE OFFSIDE", demanding that they be allowed into the game.

Obviously the authorities are right, in their warped world view, to ban Panahi's films. They are subversive, in the truest and best sense of the word. Movies like this have the potential to change the world. "How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

So perhaps The Circle is like a message in a bottle. A time-traveler. A flashlight in the darkness (a little candle throwing his beams far!), saying to future generations who hopefully will not have the same struggles, "Here is how we lived back then. Here is how it was for us." Panahi bears witness. He bears witness.

A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter

It's been years since I read this classic novel, but it's been on my radar again - ever since Larry wrote an evocative post about reading James Salter's memoir (I mention Larry's post here - sadly, the link to his site no longer works). Anyway. Haven't written much (at all) about James Salter - I came to him late, and I didn't come to him through A Sport and a Pastime, his most well-known book. The first of his I read was Light Years and I was very young when I read it, early 20s - and it sounded some kind of chord in me that made me DEEPLY uneasy. It's definitely a middle-aged kind of book - with all its resignations and disappointments and echoey silences- and I think I'm hesitant to pick it up now. But I will never forget my first reading of the book. I felt literally uneasy.

It's hard to describe what he does as a writer, and why it is so good and so singular ... maybe I'll look around for some reviews to see if I can clarify it, if someone else managed to say it perfectly. Even to say "he's a good writer" is absurd. It would be like saying, "Cormac McCarthy can write, bro!" Well, yeah. But ... Methinks we need to create a different definition of "writer" for guys like McCarthy and Salter. Comparing the two may seem rather insane - because there is really nothing similar about them ... McCarthy catapults us into the genocidal American past, and Salter evokes a gentle dying world in the present. Where events happen that form us - but so quickly that they are gone in a second ... leaving us marked, but also somewhat dazed ... did that really happen? But I feel now like I would recognize a Cormac McCarthy sentence if I bumped into it in a dark alley - and the same with Salter's language. I read Salter and there are times when I get that same feeling I got when I was reading Blood Meridian: Oh God ... this is too deep, too deep ... I can't slow down enough to really contemplate it ... must keep moving ...

And then by the end of the book you find yourself flattened. LIKE A BUG. SMUSH. Never to recover 100%. Writers like that sneak up on you. They work their magic subtly. It's not that they do not want to be noticed: their writing is nothing if not startlingly attention-getting. It's that they do not want to be congratulated. Their concentration lies somewhere else entirely.

I read Light Years a million years ago (uhm, light years ago) - and immediately picked up A Sport and a Pastime which is another book that made me almost uneasy. They're quiet books, no noise or chaos ... but there is something at the heart of them that is unbearably sad. I think it was the sense of looking back on a time when you were most alive ... looking back from a more dim drab present ... the sense of loss ... of unrecoverable vitality ... I'm making him sound bleak, and that's about right, but the language is so beautiful, and so simple - so simple - that the bleakness almost feels like a betrayal when it comes. He describes a snowfall so perfectly that you are transported into its beauty and then he jujitsus you with some bleak empty sentiment. Never too proud of himself, never elaborating, always simple and clear. That's the key to his genius. Most of his sentences are short.

My friend Jon wrote in the comments section of my blog:

First of all, "Light Years" is probably one of the best books I've read in the past five years--and is certainly on my "Top Something" list. I was a wreck after reading that. The scene where Ned comes back to his empty house after seeing Ibsen's "The Master Builder?" I think I had a slight heart attack while reading that. Unbelievably powerful. That whole book is like a column of light, each sentence almost literally like a tiny, multi-faceted diamond, shining such focused rays in eternal directions. And I've been meaning to read more of him ever since--can't believe how long I've gone without actually doing it. Onward.

And I responded:

I am so thrilled to read you were as blown over by Light Years as I was. There were quiet moments in the book (like at the end, with the turtle in the woods) where I felt so ... Basically what I want to say is: the book stunned me, and sometimes it was a barely pleasant sensation ... Like, it affected me PERSONALLY. I'm almost afraid to read it again. He is SUCH a good writer.

So I decided to go back and re-read A Sport and a Pastime (I still don't feel ready to look at Light Years again, especially now when my equilibrium is hanging by a thread on a moment-to-moment basis - but if you're reading me, and you like book recs, etc. - all I can say is: READ Light Years. My God!!)

And I come across passages of such simplicity and beauty that I want to grab Salter by the collar and say, "DIVULGE YOUR SECRETS." I wish I could write like this.

A Sport and a Pastime takes place in provincial France ("the real France" as the main character keeps saying) in the 1960s. A Yale dropout hooks up with a French girl. That's it. No big plot machinations. But the imagery, the language ... Again, I can feel myself skimming the surface of it ... it's almost TOO good ... too good to absorb in one sitting. He's deceptively simple. In almost the manner of Hemingway. If you just skim the surface, you'll miss most of it. But Hemingway doesn't let you off the hook, and divulge the subtext ... or when he does? You'll know it. Salter is the same way. He's describing a soccer stadium here. That seems to be all that is going on. But no no no. The deeps he sounds in his writing ...

Four in the afternoon. The trees along the street, the upper branches, are catching the last, full light. The stadium is quiet, some bicycles leaning against the outer wall. I read the schedule once again and then go in, turning down towards the stands which are almost empty. Far away, the players are streaming across the soft grass. There seem to be no cries, no shouting, only the faint thud of kicks.

It is the emptiness which pleases me, the blue dimensions of this life. Beyond the game, as far as one can see, are the fields, the trees of the countryside. Above us, provincial sky, a little cloudy. Once in a while the sun breaks out, vague as a smile. I sit alone. There are the glances of some young boys, nothing more. There's no scoreboard. The game drifts back and forth. It seems to take a long, long time. Someone sends a little boy to the far side to chase the ball when it goes out of bounds. I watch him slowly circle the field. He passes behind the goal. He trots a while, then he walks. He seems lost in the journey. Finally he is over there, small and isolated on the sideline. After a while I can see him kicking at stones.

I am at the center of emptiness. Every act seems purer for it, easier to define. The sounds separate themselves. The details all appear. I stop at the Cafe St. Louis. It's like an old school room. The varnish is worn from the curve of the chairs. The finish is gone from the floor. It's one large, yellowing room, huge mirrors on the wall, the same size and position as windows, generous, imperfect. Glass doors along the street. Wherever one looks, it seems possible to see out. They're playing billiards. I listen without watching. The soft click of the balls is like a concert. The players stand around, talking in hoarse voices. The rich odor of their cigarettes ... They're never there in the daytime. It's very different with the morning light upon it, this cafe. Stale. The billiard table seems less dark. The wood is drawing apart at the corners. It's quite old, at least a hundred years I should think, judging from the elaborate legs. Beneath the pale green cloth which is always thrown over it, the felt is worn, like the sleeves of an old suit.

"Monsieur?"

It's the old woman who runs the place. False teeth, white as buttons. Belonged to her husband probably. I can hear them clattering in her mouth.

"Monsieur?" she insists.

Exquisite. Just perfect.

And then there's this bit of observational genius:

The three or four gilded youths of the town, too, slouched on the divans. I know them by sight. One is an angel, at least for betrayal. Beautiful face. Soft, dark hair. A mouth like spoiled fruit. Nothing amuses them - they don't talk until somebody leaves, and then they begin little laughing cuts, sometimes calling over to the barman. The rest of the time they sit in boredom, polishing the gestures of contempt. The angel is taller than the rest. He has an expensive suit and a tie knotted loosely at the neck. Sometimes a sweater. Soft cuffs. I've seen him on the street. He's about seventeen, and he seems less dangerous in the daylight, merely a bad student or a boy already notorious for his vices. He's ready to start seductions. Perhaps he even says it's easy, and that women are simple to get. To believe is to make real, they say. A chill passes through me. I recognize in him a clear strain of assurance which has nothing to imitate, which springs forth intact. It feeds on its own reflection. He looks carefully at himself in the mirror, combing his hair. He inspects his teeth. The maid has let him undress her. She hates him, but she cannot make him go. I try to think of what he's said. He has an instinct for it. He is here to hunt them down, to discover the weaklings. I don't know what he feels - the assassin's joy.

The less said about such writing the better, I think. To analyze it or point out elements that work would be to ruin it. It's perfect, as is. And I'm thinking: A chill ran through you?? A chill runs through me, Mr. Salter, every time I pick up one of your damn books!

It's been almost 20 years since I read this book and I'm still just stunned by it.

Car Movies

Kim Morgan tells us about her new writing gig (perhaps the best writing gig ever, actually - just guessing here!) ... and gives us an added (and related) bonus: 10 greatest examples of car cinema! And do yourself a favor: don't just skim the titles she picks. Kim's an awesome writer!

Bathing Beauties montage

An embarrassment of riches. I can't even pick out my favorites although the first photo and the seventh photo come pretty darn close.

Happy birthday, Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë was born on this day, in 1816. Here is perhaps the most famous image of the Brontë sisters - a portrait done by their dissipated (and, some say, more of a genius than all of them) brother Branwell:

In honor of Charlotte Brontë, a writer I have always adored, here are a couple of excerpts from her letters, and quotes about her work, etc:

I love this one. This is a letter Charlotte wrote to a good friend. The friend had written to her, asking her for a recommended reading list. Here is Charlotte's reply. For some reason, this letter completely delights me.

"You ask me to recommend you some books for your perusal. I will do so in as few words as I can. If you like poetry, let it be first-rate; Milton, Shakespeare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope (if you will, though I don't admire him), Scott, Byron, Campbell, Wordsworth, and Southey. Now don't be startled at the names of Shakespeare and Byron. Both these were great men, and their works are like themselves. You will know how to choose the good, and to avoid the evil; the finest passages are always the purest, the bad are invariably revolting; you will never wish to read them over twice. Omit the comedies of Shakespeare and the Don Juan, perhaps the Cain, of Byron, though the latter is a magnificent poem, and read the rest fearlessly; that must indeed be a depraved mind which can gather evil from Henry VIII, from Richard III, from Macbeth, and Hamlet, and Julius Caesar. Scott's sweet, wild, romantic poetry can do you no harm. Nor can Wordsworth's, nor Campbell's, nor Southey's -- the greatest part at least of his; some is certainly objectionable. For history, read Hume, Rollin, and the Universal History, if you can; I never did. For fiction, read Scott alone; all novels after his are worthless. For biography, read Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Southey's Life of Nelson, Lockhart's Life of Burns, Moore's Life of Sheridan, Moore's Life of Byron, Wolfe's Remains. For natural history, read Bewick and Audobon, and Goldsmith, and White's History of Selborne. For divinity, your brother will advise you there. I can only say, adhere to standard authors, and avoid novelty."

More quotes and thoughts about Charlotte Brontë below the jump!

Here is what one of my favorite authors, Lucy Maud Montgomery (all my posts about her here), wrote about Charlotte Brontë in her journal quite a bit. Here is one of her comments:

It is customary to regret Charlotte Brontë's death as premature. I doubt it. I doubt if she would have added to her literary fame. Resplendent as her genius was, it had a narrow range. I think she reached its limit. She could not have gone on forever writing 'Jane Eyres' and 'Villette's' and there was nothing in her life and experience to fit her for writing anything else...

There was a marked masochistic strain in Charlotte Brontë -- revealing itself mentally, not physically. This accounts for Rochester. He was exactly the tyrant a woman with such a strain in her would have loved, delighting in the pain he inflicted in on her. And this same tendency was the cause of her cruelty to Lucy Snowe -- who was herself. She persecutes Lucy Snowe all through 'Villette' and drowns her lover rather than let the poor soul have a chance at happiness. I can't forgive Charlotte Brontë for killing off Paul Emmanuel. I don't know whether I like Lucy Snowe or not -- but I am always consumed with pity for and sympathy with her, whereas Charlotte delights in tormenting her -- a sort of spiritual vicarous self-flagellation.

Fascinating analysis.

Here is another excerpt from Lucy Maud Montgomery's journal. She loved the Brontë sisters' books, and wrote out her impressions through many re-readings over her lifetime.

Charlotte Brontë only made about 7,000 by her books ... It seems unfair and unjust. What I admire most in Charlotte Brontë is her absolute clear-sightedness regarding shams and sentimentalities. Nothing of the sort could impose on her. And she always hewed straight to the line. I have been asking myself, 'If I had known Charlotte Brontë in life - how would we have reacted upon each other? Would I have liked her? Would she have liked me?' I answer, 'No.' She was absolutely without a sense of humor. She would not have approved of me at all. I could have done her whole heaps of good. A few jokes would have leavened the gloom and tragedy of that Haworth Parsonage amazingly.

People have spoken of Charlotte Brontë's 'creative genius'. Charlotte Brontë had no creative genius. Her genius was one of amazing ability to describe and interpret the people and surroundings she knew. All the people in her books who impress us with such a wonderful sense of reality were drawn from life. She herself is Jane Eyre, Lucy Snowe. Emily was Shirley. Rochester, whom she did create, was unnatural and unreal. Blanche Ingram was unreal. St. John was unreal. Most of her men are unreal. She knew nothing of men except her father and brother and the Belgian professor of her intense unhappy love. Emmanuel was drawn from him, and therefore is one of the few men in her books who is real.

Yet another entry in LM Montgomery's journal. In it, she writes about a biography of Charlotte Brontë she just finished, written by EF Benson. The issues of the "Bronte myth" were alive and well even back then.

I do not think Charlotte was in the least like the domineering little shrew he pictures her, anymore perhaps than she was like the rather too saintly heroine of Mrs. Gaskell's biography. I do not put any faith in Beson's theory that Branwell wrote parts of 'Wuthering Heights' and inspired the whole. There is no foundation in the world for it beyond the assertion of two of Branwell's cronies that he read the first few chapters of it to them and told them it was his own. They may have been telling the truth, but I would not put the least confidence in any statement of Branwell's. He was entirely capable of reading someone else's manuscript and trying to pass it off as his own. No doubt he was more in Emily's confidence than Charlotte ever knew and had got possession of her manuscript in some way. Benson blames Charlotte for her unsympathetic attitude to Branwell. I imagine that an angel would have found it rather difficult to be sympathetic. Benson cannot understand a proud sensitive woman's heart. I love Charlotte Brontë so much that I am angry when anyone tries to belittle her. But I will admit that she seemed to have an unenviable talent for disliking almost everyone she met ... And the things she says about the man she afterwards married!

And finally, some compiled quotes from Charlotte Brontë herself:

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

Amen, sister!!

And

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

I like this one:

Look twice before you leap.

And:

There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.

And finally: the opening paragraphs of Jane Eyre:

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

Her books have always been a grand comfort to me, comforting in various stages of my development, because her insights are so wise, she seems to light the way ahead. But they are also exciting books, because so unexpected. You can't get any more unexpected than Jane Eyre. Nothing can prepare you for Mr. Rochester. And the plot that intertwines Jane Eyre's fortunes with his. No matter how many times I have read Jane Eyre, I am still startled by it. The final chapter, where Jane Eyre has that unexplained moment of what could be called astral travel, or ESP, or communication across many miles - she hears him cry out to her - remains one of the most moving chapters of a book I have ever read. And until that moment, it is not clear how things will go. You have given up, you have given up hope, as a reader ... It is quite quite sad. But then, this strange midnight miracle occurs ... The heart lifts up out of the chest in response.

Charlotte Brontë was a good writer but she didn't have Jane Austen's impeccability with language. No, Charlotte's writing is messier, more passionate, more urgent. People behave in incomprehensible ways in her books. Life is very very dark. People are cruel, they are vicious, they are barely civilized. (Her sister Emily went way further in this regard with Wuthering Heights. In Wuthering Heights it is not apparent that civilization or society has ANY bearing on people whatsoever. A terrifying vision of chaos. Charlotte had some at least SOME overlay of civilization, but not too much. Not too much.) And so over and over again, I respond to her books. They do not become predictable, even at the 4th or 5th reading.

Cheers, Charlotte. Thanks for the books you managed to complete before you died. A good life indeed.

The Books: "The Mauritius Command" (Patrick O'Brian)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

The Mauritius Command, by Patrick O'Brian

The fourth book in the Aubrey-Maturin series. While all of the books could be called historical fiction - this one is based on actual events (or so says O'Brian's preface). Captain Jack Aubrey is ordered to sail to the Cape of Good Hope - and from there try to take the two islands Mauritius and La Reunion, held by the French. It's a daunting mission - the French are well-entrenched, and Aubrey also has his hands full with his captains on the ship - many of whom are, well, nightmares. Or emotional vampires. Or too competitive. Whatever the case may be. They have their own psychological things they are trying to work out (subconsciously) and it makes them tiresome companions and not very good captains. O'Brian, like I said before, is just so awesome in this realm - the best, really: when breaking down a man's personality, when observing what it is that makes him tick (even if he can't see it himself) - observing him in different situations, which is usually very revealing ... you know, the whole warp and weft of humanity thing. No man is just one thing. Not even Jack Aubrey. He's not just a good commander, and great at manning a ship. He's also a kind of exhausted husband, he's a bit touchy when it comes to questioning of authority (and of course he is - that's the rules of the game - but Stephen Maturin is always there to make some comment about how authority corrupts everyone ... so it gives him pause) - he's a generous and open friend, he's good with the young kids on the ship, showing them the ropes - he sometimes always wants it HIS way - even when he is NOT in the position of ultimate authority, and he is also prone to fits of sentimentality which Stephen, as an Irishman, finds incredibly boring. Jack Aubrey is made up of a million different impulses and pieces - just like all of us. O'Brian gives us everyone - pretty much every character - in a three-dimensional guise. I love his analysis of personality. He's a psychologist of the highest order.

That's what the excerpt is today.

EXCERPT FROM The Mauritius Command, by Patrick O'Brian

This 'time out', this happy interval with a straightforward and agreeable task in hand, sailing through warm seas with winds that, though often languid, were rarely downright contrary, sailing southwards in a comfortable ship with an excellent cook, ample stores and good company, had its less delightful sides, however.

His telescope was a disappointment. It was not that he could not see Jupiter: the planet gleamed in his eyepiece like a banded gold pea. But because of the ship's motion he could not keep it there long enough or steadily enough to fix the local time of its moons' eclipses and thus find his longitude. Neither the theory (which was by no means new) nor the telescope was at fault: it was the cleverly weighted cradle slung from the maintopgallantmast stay that he had designed to compensate for the pitch and roll that did not answer, in spite of all his alterations: and night after night he swung there cursing and swearing, surrounded by midshipmen armed with clean swabs, whose duty it was to enhance the compensation by thrusting him gently at the word of command.

The young gentlemen: he led them a hard life, insisting upon a very high degree of promptitude and activity; but apart from these sessions with the telescope, which they loathed entirely, and from their navigation classes, they thoroughly approved of their captain and of the splendid breakfasts and dinners to which he often invited them, although on due occasion he beat them with frightful strength on the bare breech in his cabin, usually for such crimes as stealing the gunroom's food or repeatedly walking about with their hands in their pockets. For his part he found them an engaging set of young fellows, though given to lying long in their hammocks, to consulting their ease, and to greed; and in one of them, Mr Richardson, generally known as Spotted Dick, because of his pimples, he detected a mathematician of uncommon promise. Jack taught them navigation himself, the Boadicea's schoolmaster being incapable of maintaining discipline; and it soon became apparent to him that he should have to keep his wits as sharp as his razor not to be outstripped by his pupil in the finer points of spherical trigonometry, to say nothing of the stars.

Then there was Mr Farquhar. Jack esteemed him as an intelligent, capable, gentlemanlike man with remarkable powers of conversation, excellent company for the space of a dinner, although he drank no wine, or even for a week; but Mr Farquhar had been bred to the law, and perhaps because of this a little too much of his conversation took the form of questioning, so that Jack sometimes felt that he was being examined at his own table. Furthermore, Mr Farquhar often used Latin expressions that made Jack uneasy, and referred to authors Jack had never read. Stephen had always done the same (indeed, it would have been difficult to refer to any author with whom Jack was acquainted apart from those who wrote on fox-hunting, naval tactics, or astronomy), but with Stephen it was entirely different. Jack loved him, and had not the least objection to granting him all the erudition in the world, while remaining inwardly convinced that in all practical matters other than physic and surgery Stephen should never be allowed out alone. Mr Farquhar, however, seemed to assume that a deep knowledge of the law and of the public business embraced the whole field of useful human endeavour.

Yet Mr Farquhar's vastly superior knowledge of politics and even for his more galling superiority at chess would have been as nothing if he had had some ear for music: he had none. It was their love of music that had brought Jack and Stephen together in the first place: the one played the fiddle and the other the 'cello, neither brilliantly, yet both well enough to take deep pleasure in their evening concerts after retreat; they had played throughout every voyage they had made together, never interrupted by anything but the requirements of the service, the utmost extremity of foul weather, or by the enemy. But now Mr Farquhar was sharing the great cabin, and he was as indifferent to Haydn as he was to Mozart; as he observed, he would not give a farthing candle for either of them, or for Handel. The rustling of his book as they played, the way he tapped his snuffbox and blew his nose, took away from their pleasure; and in any case, Jack, brought up in the tradition of naval hospitality, felt bound to do all he could to make his guest comfortable, even to the extent of giving up his fiddle in favor of whist, which he did not care for, and of calling in the senior Marine lieutenant as the fourth, a man he did not much care for either.

Their guest was not always with them, however, for during the frequent calms Jack often took the jolly-boat and rowed away to swim, to inspect the frigate's trim from a distance, and to talk with Stephen in private. 'You cannot possibly dislike him,' he said, skimming over the swell towards a patch of drifting weed where Stephen thought it possible they might find a southern variety of sea-horse or a pelagic crab related to those he had discovered under the line, 'but I shall not be altogether sorry to set him down on shore.'

'I can and do dislike him intensely when he pins my king and a rook with his lurking knight,' said Stephen, 'At most other times I find him a valuable companion, an eager, searching, perspicacious intelligence. To be sure, he has no ear at all, but he is not without a tincture of poetry: he has an interesting theory on the mystic role of kings, founded upon his study of tenures in petty serjeanty.'

Jack's concern with petty serjeanty was so slight that he carried straight on, 'I dare say I have been in command too long. When I was a lieutenant, messing with the rest, I used to put up with people far, far more trying than Farquhar. There was a surgeon in the Agamemnon that used to play 'Greensleeves' on his flute every evening, and every evening he broke down at exactly the same place. Harry Turnbull, our premier - he was killed at the Nile - used to turn pale as he came nearer and nearer to it. That was in the West Indies, and tempers were uncommon short but no one said anything except Clonfert. It don't sound much, 'Greensleeves', but it was a pretty good example of that give and take there has to be, when you are all crammed up together for a long commission: for if you start falling out, why, there's an end to all comfort, as you know very well, Stephen. I wish I may not have lost the way of it, what with age and the luxury of being post - the luxury of solitude.'

The new things

In all their kind of dim and dark glory.

I love my table so much. I can't stop staring at it. Or sitting at it.

New towels

New coffee mugs

The lamp

The chair

The table at the window

The Books: "H.M.S. Surprise" (Patrick O'Brian)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian

The third book in the Aubrey-Maturin series.

In this book, we find the two men back in business - after running from debt - and they sail around the tip of Africa, on their way to India. Their personal problems, however, follow them. Diana Villiers, the woman Stephen and Jack competed for, is in India - she had fled England with a man as her protector - it is clear that she has not married him, and she has left a wake of scandal and heartache behind her. Stephen, in particular, is consumed by Diana. O'Brian does not belabor the point ... and the Indian subcontinent is a huge place ... but Maturin knows that the odds of him running into Diana are pretty high, and how does he feel about that? There's something bewitching about that woman. She's cruel to Stephen. Yet she also counts him as one of her best friends. She's blatantly open with him, even when she knows it will hurt him. I'm not sure if she will continue to be a major player in the rest of the books (don't tell me!!) - but she fascinates. I can see why Stephen is so mesmerized by her. And of course Jack is now courting Sophia, a much more conventional young woman - which seems to suit him much better. But enough of these personal romantic concerns. Somewhere in the Indian Ocean is a fleet of ships sent by Napoleon ... and I'm not recalling all the details, but I know that Jack is obsessed. Where are they? If he captured them, there would be a huge prize - and it's all about the prize-money. (I'm learning so much about how the Royal Navy worked - I had no idea!) Aubrey is the underdog in this particular fight - and some of the details are lost right now (I think maybe I'm reading these books too fast, but I can't help it!) ... he is trying to rebuild his career after the devastation of being on the run from debt. He takes what he can gets, in terms of a command. And he is eager, perhaps even voracious, to prove himself again. Not to mention the fact that Sophia's terrible mother would never approve of her daughter marrying a debt-ridden out-of-work captain. Aubrey has huge stakes here. But that's one of the best things about the character, in general: his stakes are always high. Whether it's running the conversation around the captain's table, or dealing with disciplinary issues on the ship, or fighting a battle ... This is a man who lacks the indifferent gene. He really does.

And, as always, the relationship between the two men is really what hooks me in. And because Stephen Maturin is a bit of an outsider - to sea life, anyway - not to mention being Irish - he's our way in to this world. The other sailors on the ships kind of gently make fun of him, his dumb questions, his lack of sea legs, and yet they also totally respect him because he's such an amazing surgeon. They trust him with their very lives. Seeing the world of the ship through Stephen's eyes is tremendously helpful and illuminating ... because we're new to it too.

Now.

There is a description of some major weather and waves - in this book - as the ship shrieks down the coast of Africa. I could barely get through it it was so terrifying. SO well written. My God. My nightmares often run to tidal waves - and have done so since I was a little kid. I think of a 10 story wave coming at me ... I mean, I can't imagine that anyone would find that a cozy thought, so I know I'm not alone ... but waves like that haunt my dreams. Maybe it's growing up in "the Ocean State", and I've certainly seen some weather, I've certainly seen waves big enough that I thought: "All righty then, I'm not going swimming TODAY thankyouverymuch ..." Perhaps it's that there is some basis for comparison in my head. Having seen dauntingly big waves where they close the beach is one thing - add 7 or 8 or 9 STORIES to those waves I've already seen ... and I can try to picture what the sailors deal with. I just never want to see a wave that big, basically. In December, 2004, I had a dream about a tidal wave. You know how you have regular old dreams where, you know, you're naked in church, or you're trying to run and your legs won't work - or run of the mill anxiety dreams ... No biggie. But sometimes a dream comes along that changes everything. I call them (unimaginatively) "those dreams". I've had a couple in my lifetime. Myabe 2 or 3. Where my subconscious or whatever you want to call it was forced to be so damn clear to me, so specific ... that I wake up very slightly altered. The tidal wave dream was like that. I wrote more about it here. And let us please not dwell TOO much on the fact that I wrote a post called "The Tidal Wave: Let It Come" on December 22, 2004. It freaks me out to even think about it. I know I didn't cause the damn tsunami, but still - to put out a huge call to tidal waves, telling them to come ... and then ... uhm ... to have one obey, and to have it be the deadliest damn thing in recorded history ... I don't know. Just don't want to think about those things too much. Anyway. Back to Patrick O'Brian. His description of the sea - in the middle of that storm - the mountains of water ... I swear to God, it put a chill in my heart just to read it. I just hope I never ever fucking see anything like that in my life.

Again, we're seeing it through Stephen's astonished eyes - which makes it even worse. Jack's used to bad weather. All sailors are. Stephen THOUGHT he knew what bad weather was until he saw this.

Wonderful writing.

Excerpt below.

EXCERPT FROM H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian

South and south she ran, flanking across the west wind, utterly alone under the grey sky, heading into the immensity of ocean. From one day to the next the sea grew icy cold, and the cold seeped into the holds, the berth-deck and the cabins, a humid, penetrating cold. Stephen came on deck reflecting with satisfaction upon his sloth, now a parlour-boarder with the Irish Franciscans at Rio, and a secret drinker of the altar-wine. He found the frigate was racing along under a press of canvas, lying over so that her deck sloped like a roof and her lee chains were buried in the foam; twelve and a half knots with the wind on her quarter - royals, upper and lower studdingsails, almost everything she had; her starboard tacks aboard, for Jack still wanted a little more southing. He was there, right aft by the taffrail, looking now at the western sky, now up at the rigging. 'What do you think of this for a swell?' he cried.

Blinking in the strong cold wind Stephen considered it: vast smooth waves, dark, mottled with white, running from the west diagonally across the frigate's course, two hundred yards from crest to crest: they came with perfect regularity, running under her quarter, lifting her high, high, so that the horizon spread out another twenty miles, then passing ahead, so that she sank into the trough, and her courses, her lower sails, sagged in the calm down there. In one of these valleys that he saw was an albatross flying without effort or concern, a huge bird, but now so diminished by the vast scale of the sea that it might have been one of the smaller gulls. 'It is grandiose,' he said.

'Ain't it?' said Jack. 'I do love a blow.' There was keen pleasure in his eye, but a watchful pleasure too; and as the ship rose slowly up he glanced again at the topsail-studdingsail. As she rose the full force of the wind laid her over, and the studdingsail-boom strained forward, bending far out of the true. All the masts and yards showing this curving strain: they all groaned and spoke; but none like the twisting studdingsail-booms. A sheet of spray flew over the waist, passing through the rigging and vanishing over the larboard bow, soaking Mr. Hailes the gunner as it passed. He was going from gun to gun with his mates, putting preventer-breechings to the guns, to hold them tighter against the side. Rattray was among the booms, making all fast and securing the boats: all the responsible men were moving about, with no orders given; and as they worked they glanced at the Captain, while he, just as often, put out his hand to test the strain on the rigging, and turned his head to look at the sky, the sea, the upper sails.

'This is cracking on,' said Joliffe.

'It will be cracking off, presently,' said Church, 'if he don't take in.'

For a glass and more the watch on deck had been waiting for the order to lay aloft and reduce sail before the Lord reduced it Himself: yet still the order did not come. Jack wanted every last mile out of this splendid day's run; and in any case the frigate's tearing pace, the shrill song of her rigging, her noble running lift and plunge filled him with delight, a vivid ecstasy that he imagined to be private but that shone upon his face, although his behaviour was composed, reserved, and indeed somewhat severe - his orders cracked out sharp and quick as he sailed her hard, completely identified with the ship. He was on the quarterdeck, yet at the same time he was in the straining studdingsail-boom, gauging the breaking point exactly.

'Yes,' he said, as though a long period of time had not passed. 'And it will be more grandiose by half before the end of the watch. The glass is dropping fast, and it will start to blow, presently. Just you wait until this sea gets up and starts to tumble about. Mr Harrowby, Mr Harrowby, another man to the wheel, if you please. And we will get the flying jib and stuns'ls off her.'

The bosun's pipe, the rush of feet, and her tearing speed sensibly diminished. Mr Stanhope, clinging to the companion-ladder, cruelly in the way, said, 'It is a wonder they do not fall off, poor fellows. This is exhilarating, is it not? Like champagne.'

So it was, with the whole ship vibrating and a deep bass hum coming from the hold, and the clean keen air searching deep into their lungs: but well before nightfall the clean keen air blew so strong as to whip the breath away as they tried to draw it in, and the Surprise was under close-reefed topsails and courses, topgallantmasts struck down on deck, running faster still, and still holding her course south-east.

During the night Stephen heard a number of bumps and cries through his sleep, and he was aware of a change of course, for his cot no longer swung in the same direction. But he was not prepared for what he saw when he came on deck. Under the low grey tearing sky, half driving rain, half driving spray, the whole sea was white - a vast creaming spread as far as eye could see. He had seen the Bay of Biscay at its worst, and the great south-west gales on the Irish coast: they were nothing to this. For a moment the whole might have been a wild landscape, mountainous yet strangely regular; but then he saw that the whole was in motion, a vast majestic motion whose size concealed its terrifying dreamlike speed. Now the crests and troughs were enormously greater; now they were very much farther apart; and now the crests were curling over and breaking as they came, an avalanche of white pouring down the steep face. The Surprise was running almost straight before them, east by south; she had managed to strike her mizzentopmast at first light - anything to diminish the wind-pressure aft and thus the risk of broaching-to -- and man-ropes were rigged along her streaming deck. As his eye reached the level of the quarterdeck he saw a wave, a green-grey wall towering above the taffrail, racing towards them - swift inevitability. He strained his head back to see its top, curving beyond the vertical as it came yet still balancing with the speed of its approach, a beard of wind-torn spray flying out before it. He heard Jack call an order to the man at the wheel: the frigate moved a trifle from her course, rose, tilting her stern skywards so that Stephen clung backwards to the ladder, rose and rose; and the mortal wave swept under her counter, dividing and passing on to smother her waist in foam and solid water, on to bar the horizon just ahead, while the ship sank in the trough and the shriek of the rigging sank an octave as the strain slackened.

'Seize hold, Doctor,' shouted Jack. 'Take both hands to it.'

Stephen crept along the life-line, catching a reproachful look from the four men at the wheel, as who should say 'Look what you done with your albatrosses, mate,' and reached the stanchion to which Jack was lashed. 'Good morning, sir,' he said.

'A very good morning to you. It is coming on to blow.'

'What?'

'It is coming on to blow,' said Jack, with greater force. Stephen frowned, and looked astern through the haze of spray; and there, whiter than the foam, were two albatrosses, racing across the wind. One wheeled towards the ship, rose to the height of the taffrail and poised there in the eddy not ten feet away. He saw its mild round eye looking back at him, the perpetual minute change of its wing-feathers, its tail; then it banked, rose on the wind, darted down, and its wings raised high it paddled on the face of an advancing cliff of water, picked something up and shot away along the valley of the wave before it broke.

Taste of Cherry; dir. Abbas Kiarostami - The Taboo of Suicide

Suicide is (and always has been) a cross-cultural taboo. No religion is indifferent to it. I think the ancient Egyptians might have been a culture that thought it was a valid way to go, if you wanted to escape this life and move on into the next (I think I learned that in my humanities class a billion years ago) ... but in general, suicide is a big fat no-no. Everywhere. I'm not talking about political suicide - ie: kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers. That's something different, although, in its own way, it totally upends the natural order and sends those facing it into total chaos and fear. Who would do that?? Who would make that choice?? Etc. If you choose to commit suicide, then you basically don't get into heaven.

Due to the openness of our society, we can debate these things. No one is indifferent, but the word itself can be spoken and acknowledged. This is not the case in Iran - and so Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry, in a which a suicidal man drives around a giant construction site - trying to find a laborer who would be willing to bury him after he committed suicide - is a brave and almost political film. It's weird - perhaps Iranians would not agree with this, but I am an outsider: It seems that most films, even domestic dramas, are political, when seen in the light of the theocratic society they live in. The role of women, the strict morality rules, all of that top-down mullah stuff ... which affects the lives of everyday people to such an extraordinary degree ... That's REALLY what "the personal is political" means. So again, I'm an outsider and I think I might read a lot more into these things than might be there ... but I'm not quite convinced of that. Taste of Cherry was a massive international hit, and won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1997. It was a HUGE deal. Kiarostami was allowed to attend the premiere at Cannes, which was also a huge deal - again, with the political implications in even things like movie premieres ... He was given a standing ovation by the very tough crowd there, who won't hesitate to boo you off the stage if they don't like what you've done (just ask Vincent Gallo!!). Taste of Cherry is an enormous feather in the cap of the Iranian film industry.

I read some of the reviews at the time and wondered if those folks had seen the same film I had. I'm a fan of Iranian film, as should be obvious by now - but Taste of Cherry left me a little bit cold. And for me, just the fact that Kiarostami was addressing a hugely taboo subject in his culture, is not enough for me to give the film a pass. I think the context is interesting, don't get me wrong, and I will watch pretty much anything that Iran generates - but films must also be judged on their own merits. Does it work as a story? I think about a film like Fireworks Wednesday (my review here) - and how much it works, just being itself - good story, good characters - Or a simple story like Children of Heaven - which is one of my favorite movies of all time ... and it just works as a story, first and foremost. The details of the story - the sibling relationship, the lower-class family's financial worries, the way the kids hide their plan from their parents, how clever they are in trying to get away with it ... just every bit works. It's funny, it's touching, it's suspenseful, it's poignant, and it ends with a running race through Tehran that is so exciting that the audience I saw it with at The Angelika (with Kate) burst into cheers periodically - as our hero surged ahead, straining to come in second. He is the best runner in his age group - but in order for his plan to work - he has to come in second. How on earth would you make that happen?? God, I love that movie. It's one of the best "family films" I've ever seen.

Taste of Cherry reminds me of reading a stilted translation of Hafiz or Rumi, Iran's major poets. The poems come off as almost treacly. Trite. I have pretty good translations of both poets, and I can kind of get why they are national heroes ... but it wasn't until I went to a Persian poetry reading at Bowery Poetry Club a couple years ago - and heard the folks there recite Hafiz and Rumi in Farsi (by heart, mind you) - that I could actually hear the poetry. And I didn't understand a word they were saying!! But it sounds gorgeous - in a way that it just canNOT when translated into English.

So I'm wondering if outsiders projected onto Taste of Cherry something that was not actually there. That's my experience of it, anyway - and it looks like Roger Ebert felt the same way. He writes:

Defenders of the film, and there are many, speak of Kiarostami's willingness to accept silence, passivity, a slow pace, deliberation, inactivity. Viewers who have short attention spans will grow restless, we learn, but if we allow ourselves to accept Kiarostami's time sense, if we open ourselves to the existential dilemma of the main character, then we will sense the film's greatness.

But will we? I have abundant patience with long, slow films, if they engage me. I fondly recall ``Taiga,'' the eight-hour documentary about the yurt-dwelling nomads of Outer Mongolia. I understand intellectually what Kiarostami is doing. I am not impatiently asking for action or incident. What I do feel, however, is that Kiarostami's style here is an affectation; the subject matter does not make it necessary, and is not benefited by it.

Mr. Badii, the lead, played by Homayoun Ershadi, drives around, peering out his window at the various laborers he sees - quizzing them on their financial status, do they want to make some extra money?

There's something creepy about how this is played, and I do think that part of it is effective. Until we know what he wants, he either seems like a sex offender or a serial killer. He comes off as totally nosy. Some of the guys he talks to say to him, "Buzz off." Others get sucked in, because they're curious about what the job would be, and they need the money. He finally reveals his plan - to a young Kurdish soldier he picks up. They're parked on a mountain of earth in the industrial wastelands of Tehran - and Mr. Badii gets out of the car and points to a grave he has already dug on the side of a hill. He wants the soldier to drop him off there, and come back at 6 the next morning. He wants the soldier to then call out his name twice. "If I answer, help me out of the hole. If I don't answer, shovel earth on top of me." He has sleeping pills, which he will take. His plan is to die in the earth. The grave is already dug - he just needs the burial. Naturally, he runs into some resistance when he tells this plan. The Kurdish soldier (played by a non-actor - wonderful) balks. "I can't shovel earth onto someone," he says. Mr. Badii assures him that he will be dead - he won't be burying him alive! No, no, no ... the Kurdish soldier flees, running down the mountain of earth, away from Mr. Badii and his wack-job proposal. I don't blame him.

The film is made up of 4 or 5 of these proposals - to different folks ... and in between Mr. Badii circles through the dirt, driving, staring out the window, looking for someone who will agree. The scenery is monotonous - not just because of the monochromatic desert color-scheme - but also because it's the same spot, seen over and over and over again. I thought the film itself was shot beautifully, with long views of Mr. Badii's car, driving along with piles of dirt towering up over him. There are flocks of crows which take flight in front of his car, cawing indignantly. Mr. Badii stares up at them.

The symbolism is a bit heavy-handed and trite. There are no buildings where Mr. Badii drives. Just mountains of earth and a dirt road cut into the side of it. Mr. Badii is surrounded by earth. The scenery looks like one giant grave. There's even one shot where he stands on the side of the road, watching a huge tractor dump earth into a giant hole - and his shadow is seen against the other side of the hill, with the shadow of the falling dirt projected beside him. A gorgeous shot, but so obvious I thought - Come ON.

But my main issue with the film was in the performance of the lead. He is mainly seen in profile, as he drives along - and I just didn't feel the underlying despair at all. We are never given a reason for why he is suicidal. We don't know anything about Mr. Badii, and I'm not saying I needed it spelled out for me ("My wife died. Therefore I am suicidal") - but give me something. And if you're not going to tell me why, then the actor playing the part had better make me believe that he has a damn good reason. That he means business. I am thinking of Sissy Spacek's haunting performance in 'Night Mother - where she announces, in the first 5 minutes of the film, "I'm going to kill myself at the end of the night, Mother ... and I'd really like to enjoy our last night together." ???!!! Anne Bancroft, as the mother, of course goes apeshit. The thing that is chilling about that script is that the daughter does not give a reason. She's epileptic, if I remember correctly, she is divorced, she can't hold down a job, she lives with her mother - she has social problems. You know, she's had a shit hand dealt to her - but nothing outrageously out of the ordinary. She is not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She's not even really that unhappy. As a matter of fact, having made the decision to commit suicide cheers her up, she feels a lightness, a sense of purpose. She is happy with her choice. Her mother begs her - why? why? why? What can we do to change it? What are you unhappy about? Let's make it better! The daughter is basically like, "Nothing needs to be changed. I'm just opting out of life, that's all." She is calm, happy, and ready. She's done. She's done with life. So there's an example of how you don't need to have an A to B set-up, you don't need to bash me over the head with motivation or Freudian impulses, or childhood trauma. But give me SOMEthing. Mr. Badii seems pretty indifferent. His main concern is to get someone to bury him - and yes, I totally got his growing desperation to find someone to take on that task. That was quite real. But since we are given no background information about him - nothing - we don't know if he has a wife, kids, what he does for a living ... NOTHING. And the actor isn't revealing a deep chord of either despair or intense joy (like: I've made my decision to die, and I feel good about it) - He is not looking for advice, he doesn't want a lecture ... His performance left me cold. I wanted to tap into his experience, I wanted to have a more complex response to him ... but I just didn't. He's not a whiner, he doesn't over-act, he doesn't gnash his teeth or weep and wail. What I saw was a man driving around in circles, looking out his window, occasionally talking to people on the side of the road. That's it. If the actor had been actually playing something ... something that I got, anyway ... it might have been a different film for me. But he didn't appear to be playing anything. It's my opinion that he's gay and can't deal with it. I'm not just making this up out of thin air, there are clues along the way - and I've got to believe that Kiarostami knew what he was doing in that regard. When he sets off to go kill himself, we see him in his apartment - through the window. He's in silhouette. He walks around, washing his face, putting his coat on, ready to go. There is no wife, no children - at least not that we see. He lives alone. Why? What's going on? Then, there is the opening sequence with the Kurdish solider - before we know what Mr. Badii wants - and there is definitely an impression given that he has picked up the soldier and will pay him for sex. He is vague about his intentions, purposefully so - and Kiarostami allows the ambiguity to just sit in the air for a while ... until we learn more. The soldier tries to get more information out of Mr. Badii - what kind of job is it, what does he want him to do - and Mr. Badii replies, "It's your hands I want. Not your tongue." If this is an accidental bit of subtext, then boy, that's some accident. Obviously he's saying, "I don't need a lecture, I don't want you to talk ... I just want you to pick up a spade and shovel some earth..." Perhaps it's a matter of faulty or inaccurate translation, but I honestly don't think so. I honestly believe that that impression is given for a reason. Mr. Badii never divulges what his problem is (and of course, in Iran, being gay is even more unspeakable than being suicidal) ... but I'm going with the gay theory, and I'm sticking to it.

He eventually picks up a guy who works as a taxidermist at the National Museum. Kiarostami is known for working with non-professional actors and children - and many of the people picked up by Mr. Badii show Taste of Cherry as their only credit. They did not try to act. Sometimes there is awkwardness - like they speak over each other, and have to repeat themselves - the way it is in real conversations - but stuff like that is usually edited out. Here it is not. It actually didn't bother me. I liked it. The passengers he picks up (the Kurdish soldier, the seminary student from Afghanistan, and the Persian taxidermist) are, on the whole, played in a lovely, understated, truthful way. They don't seem like amateur actors. They seem like real people.

So the taxidermist is not an actor, but he has a giant monologue as Mr. Badii drives him through the mountains of earth. There is a trite-ness to the sentiments expressed here, but the down-to-earth way in which he plays it - makes the monologue worth the price of admission.

Taxidermist: I'll tell you something that happened to me. It was just after I got married. We had all kinds of troubles. I was so fed up with it that I decided to end it all. One morning, before dawn, I put a rope in my car. My mind was made up. I wanted to kill myself. I set off for Mianeh. This was in 1960. I reached the mulberry tree plantations. I stopped there. It was still dark. I threw the rope over a tree but it didn't catch hold. I tried once, twice, but to no avail. So then I climbed the tree and tied the rope on tight. Then I felt something soft under my hand. Mulberries. Deliciously sweet mulberries. I ate one. It was succulent, then a second and third. Suddenly I noticed that the sun was rising over the mountaintop. What sun, what scenery, what greenery! All of a sudden I heard children going off to school. They stopped to look at me. They asked me to shake the tree. The mulberries fell and they ate. I felt happy. Then I gathered some mulberries to take them home. My wife was still sleeping. When she woke up, she ate mulberries as well. And she enjoyed them too. I had left to kill myself and I came home with mulberries. A mulberry saved my life. A mulberry saved my life.
Mr. Badii: You ate mulberries, so did your wife, and everything was fine.
Taxidermist: No, it wasn't like that. But I changed. Afterwards, it was better, but I had, in fact, changed my mind. I felt better. Every man on earth has problems in his life. That's the way it is. There are so many people on earth. There isn't one family without problems. I don't know your problem - otherwise I could explain better. When you go to see a doctor, you tell him where it hurts. [Long pause.] Excuse me, you're not Turkish, are you? [Mr. Badii shakes head] Here's a joke. Don't feel offended. A Turk goes to see a doctor. He tells him: "When I touch my body with my finger, it hurts. When I touch my head, it hurts, my legs, it hurts, my belly, my hand, it hurts." The doctor examines him and then tells him: "You're body's fine, but your finger's broken!" My dear man, your mind is ill, but there's nothing wrong with you. Change your outlook. I had left home to kill myself but a mulberry changed me, an ordinary, unimportant mulberry.

Near the end of the film, we suddenly see the film crew filming earlier sections of the movie - the soldiers running by on drills, stuff like that. We see the camera guys setting up, it is as though we are watching a video monitor, we see Kiarostami standing by his camera man, we see the lead actor hand a cigarette to Kiarostami ... Nothing in the film has set us up for this kind of commenting-on-the-fact-that-we-are-making-a-film style. Nothing. It's fine if you comment on the fact that you're making a film - it's very much in vogue!! - but this? It doesn't fit, and seems to serve no purpose. What we are being told is: It's only a movie. What you just saw was a movie. To say that this approach does not work in this particular film is a vast understatement. To my mind, it's a cop-out and a huge error. The film collapses in on itself immediately, when we are pulled out of it. Kiarostami should have stuck to his guns, and just ended the damn thing, on its own merits. I was left hanging in the wind, by that ending, and it doesn't serve the film at all (regardless of what interpretation or spin you put on it).

The last shot of the film is self-explanatory, I suppose, but it's baffling to me why Kiarostami made that choice. Much of Taste of Cherry has to do with distance - so I get that part of it. We get long long vistas, of Mr. Badii standing on a dusty dirty hill, staring into the smoggy panorama of Tehran. We see FAR in this film. Even when we're in deep close-up with Mr. Badii driving, out of his window you can see vistas and dirt-mountains ... Nothing is claustrophobic or urban here. There's lots of building going on, but there are cliff-faces and you can see across ravines - and the people look like miniature figures, the cars like Matchbox cars. Sometimes we just get a long long shot of Mr. Badii's car circling the dirt cliffs - and we hear the conversation going on in the car from that remove. Much is seen via long long distances.

So there's obviously a style being used here, an approach - which doesn't serve the film, in my opinion, although it is quite beautiful to look at (screenshots below. Just gorgeous). And so to suddenly get a meta-moment when we are reminded that this is a film we are watching, and we see the director in sunglasses, and hear the walkie-talkies buzzing ... it's jarring. It doesn't work. At all.

The more distant we get from Mr. Badii, the more we realize the hollow performance at the center of Taste of Cherry.

If you're interested in Iranian cinema, and you don't know much about it, then you really have to see Taste of Cherry - it has its place in the history books, just because of the brou-haha surrounding its tour of the festivals - the fact that it was so honored (and that Tarantino is such a fan-boy about Kiarostami) is a big deal, a groundbreaking moment in the late 90s which catapulted Iranian film into the world limelight. And rightly so. Kiarostami is one of the major players in Iran, and his work needs to be dealt with on its own terms - because he's that good. I love Ten - and it has a gimmick to it as well (much of Kiarostami's films are gimmicks, experiments) - but in that case, it works. The gimmick is set up from the start, and it ends up serving the film as a whole, instead of detracting. So to me, Taste of Cherry falls short, for Kiarostami - even though it is the film that he is most known for. I applaud any addressing of a taboo subject. I applaud any courageous confrontation with censorship. Taste of Cherry has all of that. But, in the end, it did not have the courage of its convictions. It reassures us: It's only a movie, it's only a movie.

I know that. I know it's only a movie. Pointing it out to me adds nothing.

And I just wish I cared more!

Peter Gatien incarnate ...

This is hilarious to me: Look who's on the first page of Google image searches when you put in "Peter Gatien".

If you didn't actually know me and you kept running into me on Google Image Searches where I was impersonating someone else (Edie Sedgwick, Sean Young) you might think I had a little identity problem. Which actually might be true.

I just think it's hilarious that if you search for Peter freakin' Gatien (and believe me, people do - check out the comments to that original post!!) ... you get my stupid mug on the first page of Search results - taken when my Mac laptop was brand new and I couldn't stop putting on costumes in my spare time and taking pictures of myself. It's hysterical.

I have this thing about things

I get all weird and obsessive about them. I am not materialistic. In fact, I'm kind of a cheapskate. Money makes me nervous. I like having it, but I prefer hoarding it. And then I spend hundreds of dollars on books when I'm in a fugue state at 2 in the morning. But then sometimes I get so into things - like this table I bought that is arriving today. I literally cannot wait for its arrival so I can gloat over it for a couple of hours. And yesterday I drove to Pier 1 and bought a chair for the table - an absolutely gorgeous chair which was basically part of a dining room set, but I ripped it away from its siblings and it will stand alone. I also went to Target and bought two towels that are so fluffy and beautiful (deep brown on one side, and a pale pale blue on the other side) that I feel I might weep. I bought a little lamp for my table - which has a colored glass shade, and the thought of it makes me feel almost nervous it is so beautiful. And I also bought 2 coffee mugs (like, Sheila: do you need any more coffee mugs?) But these I couldn't pass up. They're kind of square - and they have brown interiors and a soft blue exterior with a painting of a butterfly on it. It sounds ugly but they just called to me from the shelf.

And so I sit and gloat over my things.

And I realize (weird) that I guess it's a theme. It's everywhere. I mean, I knew that - that's the whole point of the book I wrote - but it's really striking me now. I was unaware of the fact that I was writing about myself, even though that writing is MY creation, I did that, I made that up. But there's something about things. And I always knew that - which is one of the reasons why I wrote that novel that sits in my drawer. I wanted to write about things (meaning: objects). There's something potent there - more to do, more to do. Much to think upon. And the next time I write about it, I'll be sitting AT MY TABLE WHICH IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IN THE WORLD.

Album release: Siobhan O'Malley

So my beautiful and talented sister Siobhan has some big news. Her second album is finally available. Long story - the label went under, her tracks were trapped in the netherworld ... but finally: IT'S OUT. I'm thrilled for her.

You can download the tracks on her Myspace page - and I guess if you're a CD type (you dinosaur!!) - a CD will also be available eventually. But for now - you can get all the songs in mp3 form there. Her first album Permanent Markers was self-produced - and for this one, she had a producer - so the sound is much bigger - there's a band, freakin' HORNS, I think someone plays a harpsichord at one point - you know, studio musicians!! - it's thrilling. You can hear one of the tracks when you open her Myspace page.

Congrats, Siobhan! I'm so proud and so psyched!!

The Books: "Post Captain" (Patrick O'Brian)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

Post Captain , by Patrick O'Brian

Second in the Aubrey Maturin series. The book spends much of its time on land (and I'm jumping ahead of myself, but whatevs - ) One of the reasons I am LOVING this series is because it is always a surprise. The characters are the same. But what is going on (so far) has changed RADICALLY from book to book. Patrick O'Brian is not afraid to shake things up a bit. There may be readers who are only in it for the war battles. That's great - but Patrick O'Brian isn't writing ONLY for them (It's kinda like The Sopranos viewers who were pissed when there weren't any "whackings" in an episode) ... Desolation Island (which I am almost done with) has only one battle. The series is not monotonous. Each book has its own thread. The thread of Post Captain is basically Jack Aubrey being on the run from debt - hiding out at Stephen's house - war breaking out all around them ... Oh yes, and suddenly there are GIRLS in the book - and romances start popping up. Naturally because we're talking about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, their romances are rather complicated (especially Stephen's, poor guy). These are vibrant difficult sometimes prickly men - who have overriding passions for other things (the sea, medicine, music) - and so to see them putting these elements of themselves aside to go courting is FASCINATING. I'm already just hooked in to the psychologies of these men - so it's just so much fun to see them in all different kinds of situations. There's a family of women (with a terrifically awful mother) - and she's trying to marry them all off. There's a cousin - named Diana Villiers - who is a widow, although she's very young - and she's kind of the black sheep. Gorgeous, too. And not like a woman, or not like a coy simpering 19th century kind of woman. She's sassy. She gallops her horse. She speaks frankly. Both Jack and Stephen start pursuing her - much to the chagrin of the family of women who treat Diana as though she's a wild animal. The fact that Jack and Stephen are both interested in the same girl puts a little kink in their relationship and suddenly there are things they cannot talk about. It's agony. You just yearn for them to be good friends again. One of the daughters in the family is Sophia, a sweet gentle girl - who also is "in the running" for the affections of the two men ... she starts to read up on war and ships and the sea, so she can seem educated when she talks to Jack. And etc. There's just SO much happening in the book. Not to mention the fact that Stephen becomes an intelligence agent. Post Captain is a rich detailed book, and the women are drawn with just as much sensitivity and specificity as the men. O'Brian is a master. A master of the human element. He can describe the ebbs and flows of a conversation, the jostling for position, the underlying motivations - better than anyone else I can think of. You just "get it" - and sometimes what he is describing is so subtle, something that is never spoken or acknoweldged - but that we all know, we've all experienced. So I'll read some passage and think, excitedly, "YES. That is exactly what it is like when you are talking to such a person ..." Oh, and as a woman - I very much appreciate the fully drawn female characters - who are just as full of potential for nastiness, or selfishness, or idiocy as the men ... They are not cardboard cutouts, O'Brian doesn't just stay on the surface with them - telling us what they DO - he examines them, in the same way everyone is examined - even minor characters. Diana comes to life. Mrs. Whatshername (it escapes me right now - the awful mother) TOTALLY comes to life. She's a silly horrid woman, but she is totally real. Sophia comes to life - and is vibrantly different than Diana. I don't mean to belabor this point but so many male authors can't write women, or they THINK they can but no - I am here to tell them they cannot. It's annoying. And disappointing. Because it pulls me out of the story, and I also experience such things as a betrayal, a little bit. That might be silly, but whatever, it's true. I don't like to experience my gender, my entire gender, as a caricature. It's annoying. But O'Brian never falters. He remains, at all times, specific, true, clear, and precise. Insightful. How did he do it?? He just had a damn good eye, first of all - he could see people.

Here is an excerpt. Jack and Stephen are hiding out in a cottage. They are roommates. How will THAT go? I picked this excerpt because I absolutely adore Stephen's thoughts about Jack and music. It's stuff like that that hooks me in to these books, over and over and over. Almost every page has a jewel on it ... like the one below about why "there was no greater proof of their friendship" .... Yes, yes, yes. I know JUST what he is talking about there.

EXCERPT FROM Post Captain , by Patrick O'Brian

At present they were lodging in an idyllic cottage near the Heath with green shutters and a honeysuckle over the door - idyllic in summer, that is to say. They were looking after themselves, living with rigid economy; and there was no greater proof of their friendship than the way their harmony withstood their very grave differences in domestic behaviour. In Jack's opinion Stephen was little better than a slut: his papers, odd bits of dry, garlic'd bread, his razors and small-clothes lay on and about his private table in a miserable squalor; and from the appearance of the grizzled wig that was now acting as a tea=cosy for his milk-saucepan, it was clear that he had breakfasted on marmalade.

Jack took off his coat, covered his waistcoat and breeches with an apron, and carried the dishes into the scullery. 'My plate and saucer will serve again,' said Stephen. 'I have blown upon them. I do wish, Jack,' he cried, 'that you would leave that milk-saucepan alone. It is perfectly clean. What more sanitary, what more wholesome, than scalded milk? Will I dry up?' he called through the open door.

'No, no,' cried Jack, who had seen him do so. 'There is no room - it is nearly done. Just attend to the fire, will you?'

'We might have some music,' said Stephen. 'Your friend's piano is in tolerable tune, and I have found a German flute. What are you doing now?'

'Swabbing out the galley. Give me five minutes, and I am your man.'

'It sounds more like Noah's flood. This peevish attention to cleanliness, Jack, this busy preoccupation with dirt,' said Stephen, shaking his head at the fire, 'has something of the Brahminical superstition about it. It is not very far removed from nastiness, Jack - from cacothymia.'

'I am concerned to hear it,' said Jack. 'Pray, is it catching?' he added, with a private but sweet-natured leer. 'Now, sir,' - appearing in the doorway with the apron rolled under his arm - 'where is your flute? What shall we play?' He sat at the little square piano and ran his fingers up and down, singing,

'Those Spanish dogs would gladly own
Both Gibraltar and Port Mahon

and don't they wish they may have it? Gibraltar, I mean.' He went on from one tune to another in an abstracted strumming while Stephen slowly screwed the flute together; and eventually from this strumming there emerged the adagio of the Hummel sonata.

'Is it modesty that makes him play like this?' wondered Stephen, worrying at a crossed thread. 'I could swear he knows what music is - prizes high music beyond almost anything. But here he is, playing this as sweetly as milk, like an anecdote: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And the inversion will be worse ... It is worse - a sentimental indulgence. He takes pains; he is full of good-will and industry; and yet he cannot make even his fiddle utter anything but platitudes, except by mistake. On the piano it is worse, the notes being true. You would say it was a girl playing, a sixteen-stone girl. His face is not set in an expression of sentimentality, however, but of suffering. He is suffering extremely, I am afraid. This playing is very like Sophia's. Is he aware of it? Is he consciously imitating her? I do not know: their styles are much the same in any case - their absence of style. Perhaps it is diffidence, a feeling that they may not go beyond certain modest limits. They are much alike. And since Jack, knowing what real music is, can play like a simpleton, may not Sophia, playing like a ninny-hammer ...? Perhaps I misjudge her. Perhaps it is a case of the man filled with true poetic feeling who can only come out with ye flowery meads again - the channels blocked. Dear me, he is sadly moved. How I hope those tears will not fall. He is the best of creatures - I love him dearly - but he is an Englishman, no more - emotional, lachrymose. Jack, Jack!' he called out. 'You have mistook the second variation.'

'What? What?' cried passionately. 'Why did you break in upon me, Stephen?'

'Listen. This is how it goes,' said Stephen, leaning over him and playing.

'No it ain't,' cried Jack. 'I had it right.' He took a turn up and down the room, filling it with his massive form, far larger now with emotion. He looked strangely at Stephe, but after another turn or two he smiled and said, 'Come, let's improvise, as we used to do off Crete. What tune shall we start with?'

'Do you know St. Patrick's Day?'

'How does it go?' Stephen played. 'Oh, that? Of course I know it: we call it Bacon and Greens.'

'I must decline to improve on Bacon and Greens. Let us start with Hosier's Ghost, and see where we get to.'

The music wove in and out, one ballad and its variations leading to another, the piano handing it to the flute and back again; and sometimes they sang as well, the forecastle songs they had heard so often at sea.

Come all you brave seamen that ploughs on the main Give ear to my story I'm true to maintain, Concerning the Litchfield that was cast away On the Barbary shore by the dawn of the day.

'The light is failing,' observed Stephen, taking his lips from the flute.

'On the Barbary shore by the dawn of the day,' sang Jack again. 'Oh, such a dying fall. So it is but the rain has let us, thank God,' he said, bending to the window. 'The wind has veered into the east - a little north to east. We shall have a dry walk.'

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.

On the night of April 18, into April 19, in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride.

The spring of 1775 was a tense time. Prominent Bostonians were under constant threat of arrest from the British, and many of them - to avoid this - moved their families to outlying communities. However, two of the main patriotic leaders (Benjamin Church and Joseph Warren) stayed in Boston. Paul Revere did as well, and kept a close eye on British movements through that spring. Revere was trusted as a messenger, he knew everybody.

In mid-April, Revere started to notice some ominous signs: mainly that the British ships were taken out of the water, to be worked on, repaired. He could sense that something was coming. He felt the British were preparing for some kind of attack.

Revere went to Concord on April 16 (most of the weaponry was stored there) and warned the leaders of that community that the British were preparing something, they were up to something, and if they were going to strike, they would most definitely try to seize the weapons stash in Concord. So the people of Concord went to work, hiding their store of weapons in barns, cellars, swamps, etc. (Like I mentioned: Paul Revere was trusted. He knew everybody. If you're interested, read the excerpt I posted of Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating analysis of Paul Revere - and Gladwell's comparison with the far less successful messenger on that very same night - William Dawes.)

So. April 16. Revere returned to Boston from Concord, and met with other revolutionary leaders, and that is when they came up with the "one if by land, two if by sea" warning system. Revere knew they needed a way to have some advance warning about which route the British were going to take when they finally did attack.

By land? Or by sea?

So, Revere set up the system: Signal lanterns would be placed in the belfry of Old North Church (the steeple can be seen across the Charles River). If two lanterns were hung, then the British would be crossing the Charles by boat. If one lantern was hung, then the British would choose to attack using a land route.

"One if by land, two if by sea."

The plan was put in place just in time. On April 18, in the early evening, a stable boy came to Paul Revere, telling him that he had overheard some British soldiers discussing the upcoming attack, and that it was planned for early the next morning. The stable boy knew who to bring this information to, and that was Paul Revere. (Again, check out Gladwell's analysis of Paul Revere's personality. Really interesting.)

Revere, on receiving this urgent piece of information, knew he had to get the warning out (and that he especially had to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams who, at that time, were hiding out in Lexington).

So off he went on his now legendary ride (here's a cool map of the route he took). Revere took the water route out of Boston, rowed across the Charles, and galloped through the communities north of Boston sounding the alarm. (Medford, Charlestown, Lexington, Concord.) Because of Paul Revere, the British had completely lost the element of surprise. When they came to attack, they found the rebellious colonists waiting for them everywhere, ambushing them left and right, from behind stone walls, hiding behind trees ...

An interesting tidbit (this is why I love this time in American history - yeah, the events themselves are really cool ... but it's details like the following one that really have me hooked, like a crack addict):

In his hurry to depart, Revere forgot to bring along pieces of cloth to wrap the oars of his boat. The purpose of the cloth would be to muffle the sound of the oars cutting through the water. The Somerset (the British man-of-war) was at anchor, right there in the harbor. Paul Revere had to row right by them, and so any sound at all would have alerted the crew, and if Revere was busted, the whole jig would be up. Revere was in a bit of a pickle ... standing by his boat, trying to figure out how he could improvise ... could he take off his stockings? Tie them around the end of the oars?

One of the boatmen involved in helping Revere make this crossing came to the rescue. He ran to his girlfriend's house and asked her for her petticoat. One can only imagine her startled response to the nighttime demand at her door from her beau: "Please, dear. It's 10 pm, and I need you to take off your petticoat, give it to me, and don't ask me ANY questions about it!!" But apparently, this girl, whoever she was, complied - took off her petticoat, handed it over, and Revere used it to wrap up the ends of his oars.

I love that woman, whoever she is.

So. In honor of this great moment in American history -here is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's celebrated poem "Paul Revere's Ride". And below that, I am posting an old essay I wrote about babysitting Cashel - which is relevant to this date in history. A couple years ago, I read the Cashel piece on a radio program, which was a pretty cool experience - and reading over the piece today makes me nostalgic for when Cashel was so little!!

But back to the poem: I know large swaths of it by heart ... I grew up hearing it. I'm an East Coast girl, most of my family is from Boston. So all of these places in the poem are places I had been to many times as a child, and not just a tourist ... but just because we lived near them. That piece of history felt very real to me. The poem is thrilling to me - because of the story it tells, of course, but also because of its rollicking perfect rhythm, you can feel the suspense, you can feel the urgency, the whole thing ends up sounding like the clatter of horses hooves galloping through the night. It's meant to be read out loud. Try it for yourself!! The last stanza is beyond compare. "For borne on the night-wind of the Past ..." I mean, come ON!!

April 18, 1775. A great day in American history. "The fate of a nation was riding that night." One of my personal favorite stories of the American revolution.

Paul Revere's Ride

- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Paul Revere himself wrote of that time:

In the Fall of 1774 and Winter of 1775 I was one of upwards of thirty, cheifly mechanics, who formed our selves in to a Committee for the purpose of watching the Movements of the British Soldiers, and gaining every intelegence of the movements of the Tories.

We held our meetings at the Green-Dragon Tavern. We were so carefull that our meetings should be kept Secret; that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible, that they would not discover any of our transactions, But to Messrs. HANCOCK, ADAMS, Doctors WARREN, CHURCH, and one or two more.

About November, when things began to grow Serious, a Gentleman who had Conections with the Tory party, but was a Whig at heart, acquainted me, that our meetings were discovered, and mentioned the identical words that were spoken among us the Night before. . . . We removed to another place, which we thought was more secure: but here we found that all our transactions were communicated to Governor Gage. (This came to me through the then Secretary Flucker; He told it to the Gentleman mentioned above). It was then a common opinion, that there was a Traytor in the provincial Congress, and that Gage was posessed of all their Secrets. (Church was a member of that Congress for Boston.) In the Winter, towards the Spring, we frequently took Turns, two and two, to Watch the Soldiers, By patroling the Streets all night. The Saturday Night preceding the 19th of April, about 12 oClock at Night, the Boats belonging to the Transports were all launched, and carried under the Sterns of the Men of War. (They had been previously hauld up and repaired). We likewise found that the Grenadiers and light Infantry were all taken off duty.

From these movements, we expected something serious was [to] be transacted. On Tuesday evening, the 18th, it was observed, that a number of Soldiers were marching towards the bottom of the Common. About 10 o'Clock, Dr. Warren Sent in great haste for me, and beged that I would imediately Set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the Movement, and that it was thought they were the objets. When I got to Dr. Warren's house, I found he had sent an express by land to Lexington—a Mr. Wm. Daws. The Sunday before, by desire of Dr. Warren, I had been to Lexington, to Mess. Hancock and Adams, who were at the Rev. Mr. Clark's. I returned at Night thro Charlestown; there I agreed with a Col. Conant, and some other Gentlemen, that if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal; for we were aprehensive it would be dificult to Cross the Charles River, or git over Boston neck. I left Dr. Warrens, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the Signals. I then went Home, took my Boots and Surtout, and went to the North part of the Town, Where I had kept a Boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset Man of War lay. It was then young flood, the Ship was winding, and the moon was Rising. They landed me on Charlestown side. When I got into Town, I met Col. Conant, and several others; they said they had seen our signals. I told them what was Acting, and went to git me a Horse; I got a Horse of Deacon Larkin. While the Horse was preparing, Richard Devens, Esq. who was one of the Committee of Safty, came to me, and told me, that he came down the Road from Lexington, after Sundown, that evening; that He met ten British Officers, all well mounted, and armed, going up the Road.

I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, and very pleasant. After I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree. When I got near them, I discovered they were British officer. One tryed to git a head of Me, and the other to take me. I turned my Horse very quick, and Galloped towards Charlestown neck, and then pushed for the Medford Road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to Cut me off, got into a Clay pond, near where the new Tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went thro Medford, over the Bridge, and up to Menotomy. In Medford, I awaked the Captain of the Minute men; and after that, I alarmed almost every House, till I got to Lexington. I found Messrs. Hancock and Adams at the Rev. Mr. Clark's; I told them my errand, and inquired for Mr. Daws; they said he had not been there; I related the story of the two officers, and supposed that He must have been stopped, as he ought to have been there before me. After I had been there about half an Hour, Mr. Daws came; we refreshid our selves, and set off for Concord, to secure the Stores, &c. there. We were overtaken by a young Docter Prescot, whom we found to be a high Son of Liberty. I told them of the ten officers that Mr. Devens mett, and that it was probable we might be stoped before we got to Concord; for I supposed that after Night, they divided them selves, and that two of them had fixed themselves in such passages as were most likely to stop any intelegence going to Concord. I likewise mentioned, that we had better allarm all the Inhabitents till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it, and said, he would stop with either of us, for the people between that and Concord knew him, and would give the more credit to what we said. We had got nearly half way. Mr Daws and the Doctor stoped to allarm the people of a House: I was about one hundred Rod a head, when I saw two men, in nearly the same situation as those officer were, near Charlestown. I called for the Doctor and Daws to come up;—in an Instant I was surrounded by four;—they had placed themselves in a Straight Road, that inclined each way; they had taken down a pair of Barrs on the North side of the Road, and two of them were under a tree in the pasture. The Docter being foremost, he came up; and we tryed to git past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us in to the pasture;—the Docter jumped his Horse over a low Stone wall, and got to Concord. I observed a Wood at a Small distance, and made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;—one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, and what my Name Was? I told him. He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms. He then orderd them to advance, and to lead me in front. When we got to the Road, they turned down towards Lexington. When we had got about one Mile, the Major Rode up to the officer that was leading me, and told him to give me to the Sergeant. As soon as he took me, the Major orderd him, if I attempted to run, or any body insulted them, to blow my brains out. We rode till we got near Lexington Meeting-house, when the Militia fired a Voley of Guns, which appeared to alarm them very much. The Major inquired of me how far it was to Cambridge, and if there were any other Road? After some consultation, the Major Rode up to the Sargent, and asked if his Horse was tired? He answered him, he was--(He was a Sargent of Grenadiers, and had a small Horse)—then, said He, take that man's Horse. I dismounted, and the Sargent mounted my Horse, when they all rode towards Lexington Meeting-House. I went across the Burying-ground, and some pastures, and came to the Revd. Mr. Clark's House, where I found Messrs. Hancok and Adams. I told them of my treatment, and they concluded to go from that House to wards Woburn. I went with them, and a Mr. Lowell, who was a Clerk to Mr. Hancock. When we got to the House where they intended to stop, Mr. Lowell and my self returned to Mr. Clark's, to find what was going on. When we got there, an elderly man came in; he said he had just come from the Tavern, that a Man had come from Boston, who said there were no British troops coming. Mr. Lowell and my self went towards the Tavern, when we met a Man on a full gallop, who told us the Troops were coming up the Rocks. We afterwards met another, who said they were close by. Mr. Lowell asked me to go to the Tavern with him, to git a Trunk of papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. We went up Chamber; and while we were giting the Trunk, we saw the British very near, upon a full March. We hurried to wards Mr. Clark's House. In our way, we passed through the Militia. There were about 50. When we had got about 100 Yards from the meeting-House the British Troops appeard on both Sides of the Meeting-House. In their Front was an Officer on Horse back. They made a Short Halt; when I saw, and heard, a Gun fired, which appeared to be a Pistol. Then I could distinguish two Guns, and then a Continual roar of Musquetry; When we made off with the Trunk.

As I have mentioned Dr. Church, perhaps it might not be disagreeable to mention some Matters of my own knowledge, respecting Him. He appeared to be a high son of Liberty. He frequented all the places where they met, Was incouraged by all the leaders of the Sons of Liberty, and it appeared he was respected by them, though I knew that Dr. Warren had not the greatest affection for him. He was esteemed a very capable writer, especially in verese; and as the Whig party needed every Strenght, they feared, as well as courted Him. Though it was known, that some of the Liberty Songs, which We composed, were parodized by him, in favor of the British, yet none dare charge him with it. I was a constant and critical observer of him, and I must say, that I never thought Him a man of Principle; and I doubted much in my own mind, wether He was a real Whig. I knew that He kept company with a Capt. Price, a half-pay British officer, and that He frequently dined with him, and Robinson, one of the Commissioners. I know that one of his intimate aquaintances asked him why he was so often with Robinson and Price? His answer was, that He kept Company with them on purpose to find out their plans. The day after the Battle of Lexington, I met him in Cambridge, when He shew me some blood on his stocking, which he said spirted on him from a Man who was killed near him, as he was urging the Militia on. I well remember, that I argued with my self, if a Man will risque his life in a Cause, he must be a Friend to that cause; and I never suspected him after, till He was charged with being a Traytor.

The full letter can be read here.

ONE IF BY LAND
We colored for a while. As we waited for the pizza to arrive. Cashel commanded me to draw a house. So I did. Cashel was basically the architect and the interior designer. Telling me what he wanted to see.

"Put a playroom in the attic."

"But Auntie Sheila -- where are the stairs??"

I drew the bathroom, and the mere sight of the toilet caused Cashel to dissolve into mirth. Yes. Toilets are hilarious.

I drew a spiral staircase which blew Cashel away. "That's so COOL." Then I drew the living room. I said, "I think there needs to be a picture on the wall. Or a portrait. Whose picture should be on the wall, you think?"

Cashel said bluntly, "Einstein."

Okay, then. Einstein. So I drew this little cartoon of Einstein, with the crazy hair coming up, and Cashel said seriously, with all of his knowledge, "That really looks like Einstein."

We ate our pizza together, talking about stuff. Star Wars, Ben Franklin. Cashel informed me, "Ben Franklin discovered lightning."

Cashel is a wealth of information. Randomly, he told my parents that Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting while he was alive, but that after he died, he became famous.

I read him a story. It was from the book of "Disney stories" which I had given him for his birthday. He loves it. He pulled it out of the bookshelf, and I said, "Oh! I gave that to you!" Cashel said, a little bit annoyed, "I know that."

He had me read the story of the little mouse who hung out with Ben Franklin, and basically (in the world of Disney) was the inspiration for all of Ben Franklin's famous moments. Cashel would shoot questions at me. "Why is Ben Franklin's hair white?" "Well ... he's old now. But also, in those days, men wore powdered wigs." Cashel's little serious face, listening, sponging this all up. Probably the next day he informed his friends that men in the olden days wore powdered wigs. He's that kind of listener, that kind of learner.

Then he put on his Obi Wan Kenobi costume which Grandma Peggy made him for Christmas. A long hooded brown cloak ... and he hooked his light saber into his waist, and galloped off down the hall. A mini Jedi knight.

I had him pick out three stories to read before bedtime. He sat beside me, curled up into me, looking at the pictures as I read to him. The last one we read was Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride". This poem was a favorite of ours, when we were kids. My dad would read it to us, and even now, when I read the words, I hear them in my father's voice. A magical poem. The way my dad read it to us (along with Longfellow's help) made us SEE it. The clock tower, the moon, the darkness ... the sense of anticipation, of secrecy, of urgency. It was thrilling. So I love that this is being passed on to Cashel! I've never read the poem outloud before, so I had one of those strange moments of the space-time continuum bending, me stepping into my father's shoes, Cashel 5 years old beside me, feeling the ghost of my own 5 year old self listening.

I also remember how Brendan and I used to chime in gleefully: "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!" And Cashel did the same thing. I paused before that moment in the poem, glanced down at him, and he screamed out, "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!"

There was also a subtlety of understanding in Cashel. For example, I read this part:

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

And Cashel exclaimed, in a sort of "Uh-oh" tone, "They're comin' by sea!!" Now the words don't actually SAY that, but he remembered the "one if by land two if by sea" signal, and puts it all together. That's my boy!

I remembered the first lines from memory:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Again, those are just words on the page. But to me, they are filled with the echoes of my father's voice.

Cashel and I, as we went through the poem, had to stop many times for discussions.

There was one illustration of all the minute-men, hiding behind the stone walls, with a troop of Redcoats marching along, walking straight into the ambush. Cashel pointed at it, and stated firmly, "That's the civil war."

"Nope. Nope. That is actually a picture from the American Revolutionary War."

Cashel pondered this. Taking it in. Then: "The minute-men were in the civil war." But less certain. Glancing up at me for explanation.

"Nope. The minute-men were soldiers in the American Revolution. Do you know why they called them that?"

"Why?"

"Cause they were farmers, and regular people ... but they could be ready to go into battle in a minute."

Again, a long silence. Cashel filed this away for safekeeping. He forgets nothing.

"So ... Auntie Sheila ... what is the difference between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War?"

Woah. Okay. This will be a test. How to describe all of that in 5-year-old language. I mean, frankly, Cashel is not like a five-year-old at all. But still. Everything must be boiled down into its simplest components.

"Well. America used to be a part of England, and the American Revolutionary War was when America decided that it wanted to be free ... and Americans basically told the Brits to go home." Uh-oh. Brits? This is an inflammatory term. I corrected myself. "America told Great Britain that it wanted to be its own country. And the Civil War ... " Hmmm. How to begin ... what to say ... I know it was about more than slavery, but I decided to only focus on that one aspect. Economic theory and regional cultural differences would be too abstract. "In those days, Cashel, black people were slaves. And it was very very wrong. Can you understand that?"

He nodded. His little serious face.

"And the people in the South wanted to keep their slaves, and the people in the North said to the people in the South that they had to give up their slaves. And they ended up going to war. And eventually all the slaves were free."

Cashel accepted this explanation silently. Then he pointed back to the Paul Revere poem. "Read." he commanded.

The Books: "Master & Commander" (Patrick O'Brian)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian.

I came to these books late. As in, RIGHT NOW. Master & Commander was the last book I read in 2007 - and I am now nearly finished with Desolation Island, the fifth in the series. I will certainly read all of them. I find them addictive - which was a surprise to me. I'm not sure what I was expecting but acute psychological observations filling page after page was not on the list. I expected the gripping war scenes (which are SO well written - you can actually see what is going on - and that is no small thing, especially for a landlubber reader like myself) - and I expected the evocations of the sea in all its different moods - but what I really really LOVE about these books is how psychological they are. The dissection of a man's character (or a woman's, too, actually) - what he is hiding, what he uses to cover up his soul/flaws/whatever, how he navigates social situations, his secret griefs and how they come to the surface - just all of that ... O'Brian is so so good at putting our fellow man on display, in all his different guises - and seeing how he operates. I just love that. He has SUCH a good eye for personality and motivation. Not to mention, of course, how well he immerses us in that world and that time. Never once do I feel an anachronism - because, of course, not only is the technology different in the early years of the 19th century - but man is different too. I mean, not totally, of course - things like love, anger, fear, competition - we all have all of that in us, and we always have and I believe we always will. But Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (and all the other characters) feel like 19th century people to me. Not that I know any 19th century people, but you know what I mean.

I just LOVE hanging out with these characters and I am so thrilled that I have so many more books to go, so I can just linger on in them ... it's an embarrassment of riches.

Master & Commander starts with Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin meeting for the first time in a small concert at a private house. I love that O'Brian chooses to introduce us to both of them in the context of music - which is so important to both of the main characters, and one of their main bonds of friendship. Some of my favorite bits of writing in these books is when Aubrey and Maturin meet up at evening in the captain's quarters, and Aubrey plays his violin and Maturin plays his cello - It is a silent communion of friendship - and it is how they can be truly intimate with one another. They're outside the realm of language and social niceties - they are communicating, freely and without barriers - delving themselves into Mozart, Bach, whoever. God, it's just marvelous how O'Brian brings us to that particular scene again and again - and you know, each time it's different. Because different things are being communicated. Sometimes it's loneliness, sometimes it's hope ... sometimes it's a long breath of fresh air after a weary day ... It's like they allow themselves to sink into their own personal experiences - after so much pure ACTION during the day. They can step back, and let the music do the talking for them. Wonderful stuff.

I also love Stephen Maturin's diary entries. Terrific writing, first of all, on O'Brian's part ... I can hear Stephen's voice. And his psychological and intellectual observations are like blood to a vampire for me. I can't get enough.

So that's the excerpt I chose from this book - one of his diary entries.

And one last thing. The main gift of these books (for me) is that I have truly come to love these people. I love Jack Aubrey, and I love Stephen Maturin. Maturin's my favorite - and his journey, over the course of the books, has been so pleasing to me to read ... his laudanum addiction, his intellectual and scientific curiosity, his observations, his love affair (Ouch!), his intelligence work, his hatred of tyranny and authority of any kind, his medical work and his devotion to it, his friendship with Aubrey ... He has quickly become one of my favorite literary characters ever. I adore Jack Aubrey, too, but Stephen Maturin is my main man.

I LOVE THESE BOOKS.

EXCERPT FROM Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian.

It was an enchanting house for meditation, backing on to the very top of Mahon's cliff and overhanging the merchants' quay at a dizzy height - so high that the noise and business of the harbour was impersonal, no more than an accompaniment to thought. Stephen's room was at the back, on this cool northern side looking over the water; and he sat there just inside the open window with his feet in a basin of water, writing his diary while the swifts (common, pallid and Alpine) raced shrieking through the torrid, quivering air between him and the Sophie, a toy-like object far down on the other side of the harbour, tied up to the victualling-wharf.

'So James Dillon is a Catholic,' he wrote in his minute and secret shorthand. 'He used not to be. That is to say, he was not a Catholic in the sense that it would have made any marked difference to his behaviour, or have rendered the taking of an oath intolerably painful. He was not in any way a religious man. Has there been some conversion, some Loyolan change? I hope not. How many crypto-Catholics are there in the service? I should like to ask him; but that would be indiscreet. I remember Colonel Despard's telling me that in England Bishop Challoner gave a dozen dispensations a year for the occasional taking of the sacrament according to the Anglican rite. Colonel T-, of the Gordon riots, was a Catholic. Did Despard's remark refer only to the army? I never thought to ask him at the time. Quaere: is this the cause for James Dillon's agitated state of mind? Yes, I think so. Some strong pressure is certainly at work. What is more, it appears to me that this is a critical time for him, a lesser climacteric - a time that will settle him in that particular course he will never leave again, but will persevere in for the rest of his life. It has often seemed to me that towards this period (in which we all three lie, more or less) men strike out their permanent characters; or have those characters struck into them. Merriment, roaring high spirits before this: then some chance concatenation, or some hidden predilection (or rather inherent bias) working through, and the man is in the road he cannot leave but must go on, making it deeper and deeper (a groove, or channel), until he is lost in his mere character - persona - no longer human, but an accretion of qualities belonging to this character. James Dillon was a delightful being. Now he is closing in. It is odd - will I say heart-breaking? - how cheerfulness goes: gaiety of mind, natural free-springing joy. Authority is its great enemy - the assumption of authority. I know few men over fifty that seem to me entirely human: virtually none who has long exercised authority. The senior post-captains here; Admiral Warne. Shrivelled men (shrivelled in essence: not, alas, in belly). Pomp, an unwholesome diet, a cause of choler, a pleasure paid too late and at too high a price, like lying with a peppered paramour. Yet Ld Nelson, by Jack Aubrey's account, is as direct and unaffected and amiable a man as could be wished. So, indeed, in most ways is JA himself; though a certain careless arrogancy of power appears at times. His cheerfulness, at all events, is with him still. How long will it last? What woman, political cause, disappointment, wound, disease, untoward child, defeat, what strange surprising accident will take it all away? But I am concerned for James Dillon: he is as mercurial as he ever was - more so - only now it is all ten octaves lower down and in a darker key; and sometimes I am afraid in a black humour he will do himself a mischief. I would give so much to bring him cordially friends with Jack Aubrey. They are so alike in so many ways, and James is made for friendship: when he sees that he is mistaken about JA's conduct, surely he will come round? But will he ever find this out, or is JA to be the focus of his discontent? If so there is little hope; for the discontent, the inner contest, must at times be very severe in a man so humorless (on occasion) and so very exigent upon the point of honour. He is obliged to reconcile the irreconcilable more often than most men; and he is less qualified to do so. And whatever he may say he knows as well as I do that he is in danger of a horrible confrontation: suppose it had been he who took Wolfe Tone in Lough Swilly? What if Emmet persuades the French to invade again? And what if Bonaparte makes friends with the Pope? It is not impossible. But on the other hand, JD is a mercurial creature, and if once, on the upward rise, he comes to love JA as he should, he will not change - never was a more loyal affection. I would give a great deal to bring them friends.'

An O'Malley Cousin In Paris

Congrats to my dear cousin, Kerry O'Malley, for replacing Erin Dilly in the world premiere of An American in Paris in Houston at The Alley (Announcement here.) If you live in the Houston area, you definitely must check it out - Kerry is so so wonderful. Premiers April 26, and opens for realz on May 18. You can order tickets here.

The Books: "At Swim-Two-Birds" (Flann O'Brien)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O'Brien.

It's kinda hard, as an O'Malley, to talk about this book in a normal book-report kind of way. I think I even sort of believed, as a child, that Flann O'Brien might have been related to us. Or something. There must be SOME personal connection. And O'Brien is my grandmother's maiden name. So it was possible! I didn't even read the book until after college - but the title - At Swim-Two-Birds - was already in my life and consciousness (forever) by, oh, age 4? I don't know. I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware that there was a man named Flann O'Brien and he had written a book with a mysterious title called At Swim-Two-Birds. My first blog's URL was atswimtwobirds.blogspot.com. And then, of course, there was my first published essay - if you go here and scroll down, you can see that they excerpted my essay on the back cover and it's called "Two Birds". It's not even a book to me, for God's sake. It's basically the story of my family, my childhood, everything. I have no idea why. It's one of the weirdest books ever written. I write about the book a bit here - and link to a terrific John Updike article about Flann O'Brien (one of his many monikers). I might be repeating myself a bit from that post, but here goes:

At Swim-Two-Birds anticipates the experimental meta-literature of today - Dave Eggers, for example, owes a great debt to At Swim-Two-Birds, with his narrator that suddenly steps forward, looks right at the reader, and starts addressing us directly. The goofiness, the non-literal structure ... things have no real substance, everything is malleable. The book is really about a young Holden Caulfield type narrator - a college student, who lives with his uncle, and basically lies around in his room smoking all day, dreaming up the great novel he will write. And then occasionally he goes out with his buddies and gets absolutely wasted. His uncle is pretty much horrified at what a loser his nephew is. The book also, fantastically, becomes about the entire history of Ireland - its myths, legends, old tales come back to life in a modern context. The novel the narrator is writing is about Finn McCool - or, he's one of the characters - and also Mad King Sweeney - the dude who turned into a bird - and the narrator keeps writing outlines of what he wants to write - the whole book is broken up into headings and sub-headings, as though it itself is the outline for another book ... and at some point, the narrator loses control of his own characters. They start to behave in ways he finds incomprehensible, they say and do whatever the hell they want - and he is struggling to rein back them in, to take charge again. But once Pandora's box is opened ... Finn McCool and Mad King Sweeney stroll the modern streets of Dublin. They're out. Flann O'Brien also directly references Joyce - especially in one section that is set up exactly like the famous ithaca episode in Ulysses (excerpt here) - with the call-and-response ... James Joyce casts a giant shadow. Irish writers struggle to either be compared TO him or defined AGAINST him ... Either way, he can't be ignored. Even when an Irish writer comes out and says, "You know what? I hate Joyce!" - it's still evidence of the fact that Joyce dominates the landscape still, to this day. Flann O'Brien doesn't wrestle with Joyce in private, he brings it on out into the open, and puts it all in his book. He doesn't worry about structure or narrative. He lets Irish history - fanciful and literal - be unleashed ... Ireland, so consumed by its own past (one of the things Joyce found so annoying and why he looked elsewhere for inspiration) - here in At Swim-Two-Birds the past has come to life. It's not a tale in a dusty book. It's real people, stepping out of the pages of a manuscript ... despite the author's intentions.

I have to say, too, that At Swim-Two-Birds is laugh-out-loud funny - although perhaps it's very specific humor. I would imagine if Catch-22 (excerpt here) made you laugh out loud, At Swim-Two-Birds would, too. There is a laboriousness to some of the descriptions - that just go on forever - and it gets funnier and funnier, the more specific Flann O'Brien gets. Like this. The elaborate sentence goes against what he is talking about - a most base human experience - and that just makes it funnier. There are also about 20 more words in the sentence than there "needs" to be, and that just makes it funnier too:

Notwithstanding this eulogy, I soon found that the mass of plain porter bears an unsatisfactory relation to its toxic content and I became subsequently addicted to brown stout in bottle, a drink which still remains the one that I prefer the most despite the painful and blinding fits of vomiting which a plurality of bottles has often induced in me.

Like, that is RIDICULOUS. But soo funny to me. This formal intricate sentence basically saying, "I love beer, even though it makes me barf." And then there's the even more ridiculous first sentence of the book, which is a masterpiece of self-consciousness:

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.

See, I've read the book a couple of times and that kind of sentence is STILL funny to me. It's ridiculous. It's observant. It's hugely overwritten. You want to say to him, "Oh, get OVER yourself!!" Who describes their own behavior that way?? But that's why it's funny.

I can't really talk more about the book - it's very weird, with 25 page long discourses on Irish history - with poems and songs and Finn McCool tromping through the pages ... but it's one of the all-time great Irish books. And it's funny: its influence is enormous. He is the precursor of the self-conscious looking-in-mirror-at-self literature we see in vogue today. It feels very very modern, this book - when you read it now. At the time it was published, it was unlike anything else out there - and in a way, it still is unlike anything else. But his experimentation with form, and content matching form, was hugely influential.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O'Brien.

That same afternoon I was sitting on a stool in an intoxicated condition in Grogan's licensed premises. Adjacent stools bore the forms of Brinsley and Kelly, my two true friends. The three of us were occupied in putting glasses of stout into the interior of our bodies and expressing by fine disputation the resulting sense of physical and mental well-being. In my thigh pocket I had eleven and eightpence in a weighty pendulum of mixed coins. Each of the arrayed bottles on the shelves before me, narrow or squat-bellied, bore a dull picture of the gas bracket. Who can tell the stock of a public-house? Many no doubt are dummies, those especially within an arm-reach of the snug. The stout was of superior quality, soft against the tongue but sharp upon the orifice of the throat, softly efficient in its magical circulation through the conduits of the body. Half to myself, I said:
Do not let us forget that I have to buy Die Harzreise. Do not let us forget that.

Hazreise, said Brinsley. There is a house in Dalkey called Heartrise.

Brinsley then put his dark chin on the cup of a palm and leaned in thought on the counter, overlooking his drink, gazing beyond the frontier of the world.

What about another jar? said Kelly.

Ah, Lesbia, said Brinsley. The finest thing I ever wrote. How many kisses, Lesbia, you ask, would serve to sate this hungry love of mine? - As many as the Libyan sands that bask along Cyrene's shore where pine-trees wave, where burning Jupiter's untended shrine lies near to old King Battus' sacred grave:

Three stouts, called Kelly.

Let them be endless as the stars at night, that stare upon the lovers in a ditch - so often would love-crazed Catallus bite your burning lips, that prying eyes should not have power to count, nor evil tongues bewitch, the frenzied kisses that you gave and got.

Before we die of thirst, called Kelly, will you bring us three more stouts. God, he said to me, it's in the desert you'd think we were.

That's good stuff, you know, I said to Brinsley,

A picture came before my mind of the lovers at their hedge-pleasure in the pale starlight, no sound from them, his fierce mouth burying into hers.

Bloody good stuff, I said.

Kelly, invisible to my left, made a slapping noise.

The best I ever drank, he said.

As I exchanged an eye-message with Brinsley, a wheezing beggar inserted his person at my side and said:

Buy a scapular or a stud, Sir.

This interruption I did not understand. Afterwards, near Lad Lane police station a small man in black fell in with us and tapping me often about the chest, talked to me earnestly on the subject of Rousseau, a member of the French nation. He was animated, his pale features striking in the starlight and his voice going up and falling in the lilt of his argumentum. I did not understand his talk and was personally unacquainted with him. But Kelly was taking in all he said, for he stood near him, his taller head inclined in an attitude of close attention. Kelly then made a low noise and opened his mouth and covered the small man from shoulder to knee with a coating of unpleasant buff-coloured puke. Many other things happened on that night now imperfectly recorded in my memory but that incident is still very clear to me in my mind. Afterwards the small man was some distance from us in the lane, shaking his divested coat and rubbing it along the wall. He is a little man that the name of Rousseau will always recall to me. Conclusion of reminiscence.

Happy birthday, John Millington Synge

Today is the birthday of Irish playwright John Millington Synge - born on this day in 1871. He was author of The Playboy of the Western World, Riders to the Sea, and more - not to mention his wonderful book about his time on the Aran Islands, called, coincidentally, The Aran Islands. Playboy is now in the history books, not only for being a wonderful play, and part of the theatrical revolution going on in Ireland at the time (the creation of the Abbey Theatre, etc.) - but also because of the riots that broke out when it opened (they are now known as "The Playboy Riots"). Things got so out of hand that a police squad had to stand along the edge of the stage during the performance, so that the actors wouldn't get hurt or mobbed. If I had a time machine, I would LOVE to go back and be there on the opening night of that play.

Synge wrote:

Ireland, for a few years more, we have a popular imagination that is fiery and magnificent, and tender; so that those of us who wish to write start with a chance that is not given to writers in places where the springtime of the local life has been forgotten, and the harvest is a memory only, and the straw has been turned into bricks.

Synge's time out on the Aran Islands, off the wild west coast of Ireland, gave him the nuggets of inspiration for many of his plays. Out there the "native language" was still spoken, out there he could encounter the real Ireland.

Synge had spent a lot of time in Europe, taking courses in French literature, immersing himself in different cultures, reading Baudelaire, writing poems, chasing girls ... You know, all La Boheme stuff. He remained interested in his own country, his own heritage - but there wasn't really a place for him there. (Interesting: NOW it's hard to imagine Ireland without Synge, but he had to TAKE that ground, he had to claim it - it didn't exist before he came along.) Yeats' whole nationalistic literary (and theatrical) movement (in broader terms - the Irish literary revival) drew Synge back to his home country - the Abbey Theatre was formed - things were HAPPENING in Ireland. In retrospect, it all seems inevitable. Of course Synge would not only come back to be part of that movement, but he would end up defining that movement.

Yeats gave Synge a piece of now legendary advice (and this is a direct quote):

Give up Paris, you will never create anything by reading Racine, and Arthur Symons will always be a better critic of French literature. Go to the Arran Islands. Live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression.

In the middle of what was, essentially, an Irish cultural revival, Yeats (having been out to the Aran Islands) recognized that there was something untouched out there, a primitive life, Irish language still spoken, the culture not corrupted. Yet. It was a race against time.

The leaders of the cultural movement in Ireland at that time all had the same idea: Inspiration lay in the West of Ireland. Go west. Go west to find the real Ireland. (Interesting, to think of the final paragraphs of Joyce's The Dead (excerpt here).

So Synge took Yeats' advice and went west.

The story of his four trips out to the Islands make up his book The Aran Islands, a wonderful rich travelogue, a classic of the genre. I highly recommend it!! He sits around turf fires with the various storytellers, and listens, and writes the folktales and anecdotes down later. These stories contain the germs of Playboy, the germs of Shadow of the Glen, the germs of Riders. Yeats was right. With all of Yeats' airy-fairy Celtic frippery, he understood that a powerful culture lay beneath the surface, a culture that had never been shown to the world, never been expressed.

Not surprising, then, that Playboy of the Western World would cause such an uproar.

Here is an excerpt from Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh's marvelous book The Splendid Years: Recollections of Máire Shiubhlaigh as told to Edwa, which is the story of the Irish National Theatre. Máire was an actress, highly involved with the cultural revival of the time, and a member of the Abbey Theatre. Her memories of Synge (and also her memories of the "Playboy riots") are fascinating. Here she speaks of Synge:

John M. Synge who came to us with his play direct from the Aran Islands, where the material for most of his later works was gathered, was born near Dublin in 1871, graduated at Trinity College, and shortly afterwards left Ireland for the Continent, living alternately in Germany and France, where he made a rather precarious livelihood as a violinist and contributor to literary magazines. Yeats had discovered him in Paris in about 1897 and, recognizing the quality of his writings, had brought him back to Ireland, where he introduced him to Aran, prophesying that in the beautiful lyrical prose of the western peasant he would find an original vehicle for dramatic composition. He was right. Synge went to Aran for a month, and stayed there, on and off, for a matter of years. He drew his inspiration from the hearths of the tiny whitewashed cabins and the harsh rocks of the western seaboard, gathering tales and expressions from the old and the young of the most picturesque portion of Ireland. In a short life -- he died at the early age of 38 -- he wove them into sombre dramatic tapestries, embroidered with the rhythmic language of the Irish peasant. His prose, highly musical and enriched with flashes of the most beautiful poetry, he devised simly by transcribing direct from the Gaelic of the islands. It is most difficult for an actor to master; most effective if delivered correctly.

She's got that right. I did a scene from Playboy in a class in graduate school, and while my scene partner and I had a hell of a lot of fun working on it, it was DAMN difficult to get that language right. Not just the language, but the rhythm, the tone. It doesn't matter if you get the words all correct, and remember all your lines, if you say them in the wrong rhythm. Rhythm is everything.

Back to Synge.

He was a gentle fellow, shy, with that deep sense of humour that is sometimes found in the quietest people. His bulky figure and heavy black moustache gave him a rather austere appearance -- an impression quickly dispelled when he spoke. His voice was mellow, low; he seldom raised it. But for his quiet personality he might have passed unnoticed at any gathering. During rehearsals of his play, he would sit quietly in the background, endlessly rolling cigarettes. This was a typical gesture, born more of habit than of any desire for tobacco -- he gave away more cigarettes than he smoked. At the first opportunity, he would lever his huge frame out of a chair and come up on to the stage, a half-rolled cigarette in eaach hand. Then he would look enquiringly round and thrust the little paper cylinders forward towards whoever was going to smoke them. In later years he became the terror of fire-conscious Abbey stage-managers. He used to sit timidly in the wings during plays, rolling cigarettes and handing them to the players as they made their exits.

He didn't set out to revolutionize Irish theatre. He didn't set out to be a genius, or to write great plays. He just wrote down what he knew. That was the ONLY way this guy could write. And it turned everything upside down.

Here is Máire's description of some of the objections to Shadow, just to give you an idea of what was going on, and to also set the stage for the "Playboy riots". Synge was, indeed, ahead of his time. The world is rarely kind to those born ahead of their time.

The piece was "un-Irish" wrote some reviewers, an "insult" in fact to the peasant women of Ireland whom Nora Burke was taken to typify. There was an immense verbal furore about it. A number of writers claiming that Synge was slyly attacking the institution known as the "made marriage", and attributing it solely to Ireland, raised all sorts of objections. Others wrote of the character of Nora Burke: "Nora Burke is a lie". Of the play they said: "It is no more Irish than the Decameron. It is a staging of the old-world libel on womankind -- the Widow of Ephesus."

Now, I do not propose to analyse the extraordinary attitude adopted towards the play. Indeed, the attacks were launched so suddenly that few of us were even able to gather what they were all about. Perhaps it was that the Irish play-going public of that time was so used to the "genteel" comedy of the established theatre which I mentioned earlier -- the entertaining but not very realistic stuff that was time and again put before it -- that it couldn't swallow a credible satire. In those days if an actress played an unpleasant part, then it followed that she was an unpleasant person. Similarly, if a dramatist wrote a nasty play he was a nasty fellow. Then, of course, there was the fact that Ireland was on the threshold of a renaissance. Everybody, writer, politician, artist, was at pains to eulogise over the beauty of the Irish character. The advent of a comparatively unknown writer who painted an unpleasant if realistic picture of the peasantry at such a time was, to say the least, unwelcome. The Dubliners who raised the loudest objections could not accept In the Shadow of the Glen as a play. They refused to be entertained.

In 1907, the Abbey Theatre produced Playboy of the Western World. Máire, who was there, writes:

The "Playboy Riots", as they came to be known, indicate very clearly some of the difficulties that the Abbey was called upon to face during its first years -- and they show how the theatre, under Yeats, managed to surmount them. When this play is produced in Dublin now it is recognised and enjoyed as a work of art. In 1907 it drove a number of people into such a frenzy that they nearly wrecked the Abbey. I am in rather a good position to describe the riots because I was in the audience during some of them. Curiosity had taken me into the theatre, as it had taken many another person that week.

It was about the end of 1906 that Synge finished the Playboy ... Yeats later mentioned that Synge took considerable trouble over the piece and scrapped a number of earlier versions before he fixed on the one which was eventually produced...Yeats never tired of recounting the care which Synge lavished on the piece. This, indeed, may have been indirectly responsible for the reception accorded the play by some sections of the public, whose main argument against it was that it was "a slander on the peasantry of Ireland". As in the case of The Shadow of the Glen, its realism gave offence. The only differnce between it and any other play that did not take was that the public, instead of showing its lack of interest in the accepted way -- by its non-attendance -- displayed its disapproval by rioting in the theatre throughout the play's run. The most unusual feature of the affair was that although the players appeared on the stage and acted their parts for a whole week, the uproar caused by the audience was so great that the play was never really heard on any night but the first, and those who took part in the demonstrations on subsequent occasions were dependent on opinions of the firstnight audience and a few rather hysterical newspaper reports. As the week progressed, the trouble instead of lessening, increased, and before the run of the play was half over, the management felt compelled to call for the assistance of the police to preserve order.

The explanations put forward by the rioters during the week were many and varied and it is worth remarking that no two people appeared to base their objections on exactly the same thing. Some objected to the piece because "it made a hero out of a murderer" (the play deals in part with the welcome accorded by a West of Ireland village to a weak-willed boy who believes he has just killed his father); others claimed that the language used was too strong; more contented themselves by saying that the play was "vicious, untrue, and uncalled for" -- a "hideous caricature" in fact; while a considerable number based their objections on the assumption that the piece was a deliberate attack by Synge on Ireland in retaliation for the manner in which The Shadow of the Glen and The Well of the Saints had been received.

(All of this makes me think of what Joyce said, when it became apparent that no Irish publisher would go near The Dubliners and he would have to look outside his own country for a publisher: "It is not my fault that the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal hangs round my stories. I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass."

Máire describes what it was like in the theatre, on the opening night of Playboy of the Western World, January 26, 1907.

The first act went well. There was laughter at the right places and the correct degree of solemnity was maintained when it was demanded. But during the second act I began to feel a tenseness in the air around me -- I was sitting in the pit -- and there were murmurs from the stalls and parts of the gallery. Before the curtain fell it was obvious that there was going to be some sort of trouble. Faint calls and ejaculations like "Oh, no! Take it off!" came from various parts of the house and the atmosphere gradually grew taut. In the third act things really came to a head and those around began to stamp the floor and shout towards the stage, the noise gradually increasing until the voices of the players were drowned. People stood up in their seats and demanded the withdrawal of the play, and when it became clear that the cast was determined to see the thing out to the end, tempers began to fray. The auditorium became a mass of people pulling and pushing in all directions. By the time the curtain fell on the last act, the crowd was arguing and fighting with itself. People in front leaned over the back of seats and demanded quiet -- a lot of people seemed to be doing this -- and those at the back responded by shouting and hissing loudly. The crowd which eventually emerged into the street was in an ugly mood.

Despite vicious and hysterical reviews the play went on. One of the objections was that the word "shift" appeared in the play (meaning: "chemise", or "slip", whatever you want to call it). Christy - the lead character in the play - says - in what is now acknowledged to be a fine piece of dramatic literature, and one of the classic monologues of the stage: "It's Pegeen I'm seeking only, and what'd I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts itself, maybe, from this place to the eastern world?" This was seen as a shock and an outrage.

The Press and the public called for the play to be closed, the hysteria mounted, but the Abbey refused to capitulate. Obviously, Synge had struck a nerve. But things were getting out of hand, it was a violent atmosphere in the audience ... and so Yeats tried to quell this fire. Máire describes:

On the third night Yeats addressed the audience before the curtain rose. If anyone had anything to say against the piece they would be welcomed at a debate which he would be glad to arrange in the theatre at some other time. He was interrupted several times. He asked the interrupters to at least listen to the play so that they would know what it was they were objecting to.

It is just like those idiots who protested Scorsese's Last Temptation without even seeing it. I have no patience and no tolerance for people like that. I'm pretty open-minded, you know "live and let live", but everyone has their limits, everyone has their thing that they cannot endure - and I cannot bear people like that. I don't want to listen, or try to "understand where they're coming from". That's the thing. I DO understand where they are coming from, and that is why I have contempt for them. My contempt comes directly FROM understanding. Their sense of themselves is so fragile that it's a house of cards. Even the fact that Scorsese's movie EXISTED threatened their entire world view. Fine. Go home then and read only the Bible and close the blinds and don't let the big bad nasty world touch your precious house of cards, and let those of us who actually want to SEE the movie decide for ourselves.

Such people have always existed. Their complaints are always the same. As a matter of fact, without the idiots, there would have been no such thing as "The Playboy Riots" - which catapulted Irish theatre onto an international stage. So I suppose we should be grateful in a way! Nothing like someone screaming, "NO ONE SHOULD SEE THIS" to make something into a big giant hit.

Back to the Playboy Riots:

As on the first night, the opening passages were listened to quietly, and even evoked a little laughter. Halfway through the second act, however, a murmur arose in the pit and a man a few rows away stood up and, without any apparent reason, hit the person beside him. A gasp ran around the whole house and the lights went up. All around him the crowd was breaking into disorder.

Within minutes, the audience in the pit and stalls was completely disorganised, and the crowd in thte back and side galleries was almost as bad. Almost everyone was standing. The noise was deafening. Yeats appeared on the stage and pleaded with the sensible members of the audience to remain quiet. His voice was drowned by catcalls, cheers, much stamping of feet, and from somewhere at the back ,the notes of a toy trumpet which came from the centre of a group of young men who looked like university students. He continued to speak, but his words were apparently objected to by those in front, for a howl of protest went up from the stalls and parts of the side gallery, which increased in volume as those behind joined in or tried to cheer the protest down. On the stage the players stood in little knots, discussing the occurrences amongst themselves.

As the noise increased and several arguments broke out around the theatre, Yeats left his place on the stage. A few minutes later the doors into the auditorium opened and to the horror and surprise of most of those present, a body of police entered. At the same time the curtain came down and a semblance of order was restored -- partly due to the sight of the uniforms ...

After a brief speech by Yeats, and the ejection of the more truculent members of the audience, peace was partially restored, and everyone sat down again. At this stage it would have been impossible for anyone to get out. After everyone had been quietened and the greater part of the audience reseated, it would have been dangerous for anyone to stand up. Those who did so were immediately surrounded by hefty policement and shepherded, not too gently, in the direction of the vestibule.

Meanwhile, the orchestra, a recent addition to the theatre, began to play. The music seemed to help matters somewhat, and things almost returned to what they were before the play began. There was much discussion and gesticulation going on however. The affair was still far from settled.

After some time the orchestra retired, the lights were lowered and the curtain went up. Almost immediately the audience reverted to what it had been before the arrival of the police. Not a word of the play could be heard. The cast eventually gave up speaking altogether and went through the piece in pantomime. [Note from Sheila: God, I wish I had been there to see this. It must have been extraordinary.] As the play progressed the noise increased. Men and women stamped the floor, banged the backs of their seats with their fists, shouted and sang alternately. On the stairs from the stalls a man stood, dramatically addressing no one in particular.

The players courageously went through the whole piece. During this time several arrests were made and the police were kept busy operating between the doors and the hall. Just before the play ended I saw an opportunity to escape and took it. Almost everyone in the row where I had been sitting had vanished. I was able to make a dash for the door at the rear of the pit while the police were busy in the front of the house. My last impression of the scene was the sight of a figure standing on a seat somewhere about the centre of the stalls and the sound of a few bars of God Save the King, which were quickly stifled as someone pulled the singer down.

Amazing. The play continued to be performed, and continued to generate riots and protests, garnering the attention of the world. "What is going on over in Ireland right now? What exactly are they protesting??"

Synge died an early death, in 1909, but he left an indelible mark - not only on Ireland, but on theatre as a whole.

I'll end this post now, with a quote from Synge's beautiful book The Aran Islands (and I will post a photo, too, of Synge staring out into the Atlantic, from one of the Islands).

In the following excerpt, he describes leaving the Arans after a couple months' stay ... and returning to the bustle of Galway:

I have come out of an hotel full of tourists and commercial travellers, to stroll along the edge of Galway Bay, and look out in the direction of the islands. The sort of yearning I feel towards those lonely rocks is indescribably acute. This town, that is usually so full of wild human interest, seems in my present mood a tawdry medley of all that is crudest in modern life. The nullity of the rich and the squalor of the poor give me the same pang of wondering disgust; yet the islands are fading already and I can hardly realize that the smell of the seaweed and the drone of the Atlantic are still moving round them.

God is in the details

I'm sure this is news to no one, but I like to point it out anyway.

In the first scene in Titanic where we see old Rose at her pottery wheel... And I just like to notice her earrings. It's the kind of detail I love in film-making ... a connection made, no lines ... a whole story in the detail, without any text being devoted to it ... and it's there for you to contemplate, should you get it. It is something you would never ever get, upon seeing it the first time - it wouldn't mean anything ... but maybe the second time you would notice it. I just like the quietness of the detail ... and I like to think about her seeing those earrings - who knows when - recently? Or when she was in her youth? Maybe a couple of years after she got back to America? Who knows when she saw them - in a glass case in a shop somewhere, but I can just see her stopping immediately in her tracks, and thinking: I must have those.

My friend Alex, the clown

I recently got an email from Mitchell from Istanbul and now Alex might be going to Romania to teach acting for a week (that's an amazing essay, by the way). I love how suddenly, at the very same moment in time, two of my best friends are making jokes about being trapped in Midnight Express, and having to, you know, show their boobs to their loved ones through plate-glass prison windows.

But like Alex said (and it's a difficult thing for people to "get" about her sometimes):

“I know it doesn’t make any sense, but you have to remember that everything that’s happened to me in my life has happened by complete accident. I never really wanted all these adventures. I really didn’t. All I wanted was a spouse, a nice condo with a view, and a covered parking garage.”

Also, Alex - what the hell about the " two articles of the original gender’s original clothes underneath the opposite gender’s clothes." WTF? So you can wear a jock strap underneath your lace thong? Is that the idea?

Basically I want you to go to Romania just so I can read your blog posts about it. Thank you.

The Books: "Girls In Their Married Bliss" (Edna O'Brien)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

Girls In Their Married Bliss, by Edna O'Brien. Girls In Their Married Bliss, with its obviously sarcastic title, is the final book in Edna O'Brien's famous "Country Girls Trilogy".

Here's my post about The Country Girls Trilogy as a whole, and Edna O'Brien as a writer. And here's my post about The Lonely Girl, the second book in the trilogy. Things get pretty damn bleak in Girls In Their Married Bliss - marriage is obviously seen as no great shakes. As a matter of fact, it's a nightmare in some ways. BUT we do get a bit of relief - because the narrators have switched. The other two books were narrated by Kate who is a bit more earnest and naive. Baba is her best friend, and Baba is a bit wild, and she knows about things like sexy underwear, and how to order a fancy cocktail, and she has a bit of irreverence for things that Kate holds sacred. She's a wonderful character - and her no-nonsense voice is totally different from Kate's voice ... which is kind of a relief. My favorite of all of the trilogy is the first one, when they are teenagers, and just starting out. Girls In Their Married Bliss is just depressing! It was published in 1964 - which, in terms of Ireland - but also in terms of the world in general - was a much more conservative time, much more like the 50s than the late 60s. So the book needs to be seen in its proper context. It was early to be writing a book which is so vicious about marriage - and women's roles in particular - which is why, yet again, Edna O'Brien found her book banned in her native country. It's kind of like reading Margaret Atwood's earliest books - like The Edible Woman (excerpt here) and Surfacing (excerpt here. Those were published in the late 60s, and have nothing like the power and beauty and horror of her later books (although they are still good) - and her views on marriage and women and men were shocking, at the time. Now books like that are a dime a dozen (although perhaps not written so well). Girls In Their Married Bliss is a brutal examination of marriage, and being trapped in it, of making bad choices in a man because you don't know you have more agency in your life, and also - how women could get lost in marriage. Even down to the fact that you lose your last name. You disappear. Kate definitely disappears. She marries Eugene - the dude from The Lonely Girl - he finally gets a divorce. And he gets Kate pregnant. And they have a shotgun wedding. Very scandalous. The Catholic Church wouldn't bless a marriage like that. But Baba was always more practical. Kate believed in love. She was looking for love. Baba always just wanted a bit of a laugh, maybe some sex, and a comfortable life where she could buy things. Her standards were much lower. And she also lacked the earnestness of her best friend Kate ... she is not as easily hurt. Here's an excerpt from where Baba meets the guy she will eventually marry. Again, seen in the context of that time - especially in Ireland - all of this was quite shocking - I mean, birth control!!, and nobody wanted to hear it. (Well, everybody wanted to hear it ... but the powers-that-be freaked out. You can't say that!!!) Well, yes she could, and did.

EXCERPT FROM Girls In Their Married Bliss, by Edna O'Brien.

His name was Frank and he was blowing money around the place and telling jokes. I'll repeat one joke so as you'll have an idea how hard up I was. Two men with fishing tackle have an arm around an enormous woman and one says to the other, "A good catch." When people are drunk they'll laugh at anything, provided they're not arguing, or hitting each other.

Anyhow, he drove me home and offered me money - he has a compulsion to offer money to people who are going to say no - and asked if I thought he looked educated. Educated! He was a big, rough fellow with oily hair, and his eyebrows met. So I said to him, "Beware of the one whose eyebrows meet, because in his heart there lies deceit." And sweet Jesus, next time we met he'd had them plucked over his broken nose. He's so thick he didn't understand that the fact they met was the significant thing. Thick. But nice, too. Anybody that vulnerable is nice, at least that's how I feel. Another dinner. Two dinners in one week and a bunch of flowers sent to me. The first thought I had when I saw the flowers was, could I sell them at cut rates. So I offered them to the girls in the bed-sits above and below, and they all said no except one eejit who said yes. She began to fumble for her purse, and I felt so bloody avaricious that I said, "Here's half of them," so we had half each, and when he came to call for me that evening, he counted the number of flowers that I'd stuck into a paint tin, for want of a vase. And you won't believe it, but didn't he go and ring the flower shop to say they'd swindled him. There he was out on the landing phone, yelling into it about how he'd ordered three dozen. Armagh roses and what crooks they were, and how they'd lost him as a customer, and there was I in the room with a fist over my mouth to smother the laughter. "You may not be educated," said I, "but you're a merchant at heart. You'll go far." It ended up with the flower shop saying they'd send more, and they did. I was driven to go out to Woolworth's and buy a two-shilling plastic vase because I knew the paint tin would topple if one more flower was put in.

He didn't propose bed for at least six dinners, and that shook me. I didn't know whether to be pleased or offended. He was blind drunk the night he said we ought to, and my garret was freezing and far from being a love nest. The roses had withered but weren't thrown out, and I had this short bed so that his feet hung out at the bottom. I lay down beside him - not in the bed, just on it - with my clothes on. He fumbled around with my zip and of course broke it, and I thought, I hope he leaves cash for the damage, and even if he doesn I'll have to go to a technical school to learn how to stitch on a zip, it's that complicated. I knew the bed was going to collapse. You always know a faulty bed when you put it to that sort of use. So he got the zip undone and got past my vest - it was freezing - and got a finger or two on my skin, just around my midriff, which was beginning to thicken because of all the big dinners and sauces and things. I reckoned I ought to do the same thing, and I explored a bit and got to his skin, and the surprising thing was, his skin was soft and not thick like his face. He began to delve deeper, very rapacious at first, and then he dozed off. That went on for a while - him fumbling, then dozing - until finally he said, "How do we do it?" and I knew that was why he hadn't made passes sooner. An Irishman: good at battles, sieges, and massacres. Bad in bed. But I expected that. It made him a hell of a sight nicer than most of the sharks I'd been out with, who expected you to pay for the pictures, raped you in the back seat, came home, ate your baked beans, and then wanted some new, experimental kind of sex and no worries from you about might you have a baby, because they liked it natural, without gear. I made him a cup of instant coffee, and when he went to sleep I put a quilt over him and put the light out. I sat on the chair, thinking of the eighteen months in London, and all the men I'd met, and the exhaustion of keeping my heels mended and my skin fresh for the Mr. Right that was supposed to come along.

I knew that I'd end up with him, he being rich and a slob and the sort of man who would buy you seasick tablets before you traveled. You won't believe it but I felt sorry for him, the way he worried about not being educated, or being fooled by florists, or being taken for an Irish hick by waiters. Never mind that they're Italian hicks. I could tell them all to go to hell because I had a brazen, good-looking face and was afraid of none of them, not even afraid whether people liked me or not, which is what most people are afraid of, anyhow. I know that people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love, too, only more so.

Speaking of Marilyn Monroe ...

(oh were we??) -

The wonderful Kim Morgan has a piece up about Don't Bother to Knock - with Marilyn Monroe and Richard Widmark (rest in peace) - I remember Alex telling me I HAD to see this movie - somehow I had missed it, although I had seen most of Marilyn's other stuff ... I very much liked Kim's comment here, it really resonates with me:

But, why? Why must women have to be so normal? Though suffering from deep seated psychological problems, I sense that it’s this type of "normal" pressure making her crack (the punishing and smarmy Cook Jr. doesn't help either). Monroe portrays these ideas beautifully, so much so, that I wondered how much of her real life was seeping into her performance, it plays so real. I kept wishing that she could just get out of that hotel, doll herself up and have some fun with a man who might understand her. Widmark isn't really the one, even though underneath his smirk and swagger, he’s essentially a good heart.

Don't Bother to Knock is actually on my queue right now - but apparently I am trying to see every Iranian film I haven't yet seen in as short a time as possible - so Don't Bother to Knock got pushed down. I put it on the queue when Richard Widmark died - wanting to see it again ... and now, after reading Kim's piece, I feel quite urgent about it! She writes so well. (Great and insightful comment in the comments section too).

John Ford

Jonathan Rosenbaum's 10 Underappreciated John Ford Films is a must-read.

"The most ill-natured interview ever"

... with Evelyn Waugh... available at last. Marvelous!!

One quote of many:

I clearly can’t make myself understood. There is no such thing as a man in the street. There is no ordinary run of mankind, there are only individuals who are totally different. And whether a man is naked and black and stands on one foot in Sudan or is clothed in some kind of costume in a bus in England, they are still individuals of entirely different characters.

He is asked what faults he would excuse in others. He replies:

"Drunkenness." Any others? "Em [long pause] ... anger. Lust. Dishonouring their father and mother. Coveting their neighbour's ox, ass, wife. Killing. I think there's almost nothing I can't excuse except perhaps worshipping graven images. That seems to be idiotic."

I ADORE him. I still count reading Scoop as one of the funnest (and funniest) reading experiences I have ever had. I remember sitting on the bus, going home, surrounded by people, and I started snorting, tears of laughter streaming - yes, streaming! - down my face, and I could no longer see the page and had to put the book down for a bit, to just guffaw like a maniac, all by myself.

From Baroque in Hackney.

Speaking of Evelyn Waugh, here is Ted's review of Bright Young Things.

Hoboken train and ferry station

It's a phenomenal structure - and I finally went and got some pictures of it.

The interior

In the parking lot - there are cobblestones - and an old pair of tracks - just ends, right there.

The exterior

The famous St. Paul's - downtown

(A brief history of this extraordinary church here). Some photos from this past Sunday.

The Books: "The Lonely Girl" (Edna O'Brien)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

The Lonely Girl, by Edna O'Brien.

Here's my post about The Country Girls Trilogy as a whole, and Edna O'Brien as a writer. The Lonely Girl is the second book in this famous trilogy - it was published in 1962. And again, like the first in the trilogy, it was banned. This one is even more shocking - because Caithleen, the main character, the "I" of the book, has an affair with a married man. And there's sex and stuff, and sex vs. religion - all of the hot Catholic topics. Eugene is the name of Caithleen's love - and if I'm recalling correctly (it's been a while since I've read the book), the romance blossoms for quite some time before it is revealed that he has a wife. The wife, I believe, is in California. Caithleen discovers a letter from her, I think. Sorry so vague - it's been years. And there's also a child in the picture, which complicates things even more. Eugene, obviously, is not presented as a prince among men ... but he's also not a blackguard villain. Life is a bit more complicated than that, and Caithleen gets sucked into a domestic drama, and because Eugene is her first and all that - she has no perspective. She can't be like Baba, her more worldly best friend, and stroll away saying, "Oh well!! Lesson learned!" Caithleen's family somehow finds out about the situation, and pretty much kidnap her. She is trapped at her house out West, and she is harangued, and harassed - her letters are opened, she is not allowed to go anywhere without a chaperone - a priest is called in for an intervention ... Caithleen, more than anything, yearns for an escape. Who might be looking for her? If someone called the house, would she get the message? How will she get out of here? Edna O'Brien has made no secret about the fact that her family was pretty awful - not just ignorant but openly malevolent towards her and who she actually was. Literature itself was seen as suspect - so, oh well. That means they can't have a relationship with their daughter, since literature is all she cares about. O'Brien really delves into the flash points of culture and sex and religion in The Lonely Girl - and, again, found herself in trouble. Her book banned, everyone furious at her ... But here we are today, talking about The Lonely Girl, and Edna O'Brien is still writing, so I suppose revenge is sweet.

Here's an excerpt from the "kidnapping" section of the book. I love the bleakness of her imagery ... and how she totally captures the brown and grey desolation of the west of Ireland. She writes simply, there aren't a hell of a lot of extra words or flowery passages - but it's still so evocative, I think.

EXCERPT FROM The Lonely Girl, by Edna O'Brien.

I had been thinking of some way of escaping, but the thought of their chasing me made me frightened.

"This vale of tears," my aunt said desolately. Burying the calf had saddened her. Death was always on her mind. Death was so important in that place. Little crosses painted white were stuck up on roadside ditches here and there to mark where someone had been killed for Ireland, and not a day seemed to pass but some old person died of flu, or old age, or a stroke. Somehow we only heard of the deaths; we rarely heard when a child was born, unless it was twins, or a blue baby, or the vet had delivered it.

"Th' evenings will be getting long soon," I said to my aunt to cheer her up, but she just sighed.

We ate dinner in the kitchen. We had salty rashers, a colander of green cabbage, and some potatoes reheated from the previous day. While we were eating in silence, a car drove up and around by the side of the house. My aunt blessed herself as she saw a stranger help my father out.

"Grand evening," my father said as he came in and handed her a brown paper parcel of meat soggy with blood. The stranger had had some drinks but did not stagger.

"You're settling down!" he said to me. I tried to ignore him by concentrating on peeling a cold potato.

"I met Father Hagerty over in the village, he wants to have a chat with you," he said.

My heart began to race, but I did not say anything.

"You're to go and see him."

I put butter on the potato and ate it slowly.

"D'you hear me?" he said with a sudden shout.

"There, there, she'll go," my aunt said, and she linked him into the back room. The stranger hung around for a few minutes until she came out, and then asked for a pound. We had no money, but we gave him three bottles of porter which had been hidden in a press since Christmastime.

My aunt put them in a paper bag and he went off, swearing. We had no idea where he came from.

We sat by the cooker and listened for my father's call. At about nine o'clock he cried out and I ran in to him.

"I think I'm going to die," he said, as his stomach was very sick. The news cheered me up no end - I might get away - so I gave him a dose of health salts.

We went to bed early that night. I slept in the room opposite my aunt's, and when I had closed the door I sat down on the bed and wrote a long letter to Baba, for help. I wrote six or seven pages, while the candle lasted. I had already written a postcard, but had no answer. It occurred to me that maybe they had told the postmistress to keep my letters.

A wind blew down the chimney, causing the candle flame to blow this way and that. There was electricity in the house, but we were short of bulbs. I hid the letter under the mattress and undressed. The sight of my purple brassiere made me recall with longing the Sunday morning Baba and I had dyed all our underwear purple. Baba read somewhere that it was a sexy color, and on the way home from Mass we bought five packets of dye. Sneaky old Gustav must have been peeping through the keyhole of the bathroom, because suddenly Joanna had rushed upstairs and pushed the door in.

"Poison color in the basin," she shouted as she burst in.

"You might have knocked, we could have been doing something very private," Baba said.

"Poison water," Joanna said, pointing to the weird-colored water in the basin. Our underwear turned out very nice, and some boy asked Baba if she was a cardinal's niece.

I kept a jumper on in bed. We were short of blankets. I had only an ironing blanket over me and a quilt that my aunt had made. The candle had burned right down to the saucer as I lay on my side and closed my eyes to think of Eugene. I remembered the night he asked me to do some multiplication for him. He knew all about politics, and music, and books, and the insides of cameras, but he was slow to add. I totted up the amount of money he should get for one hundred and thirty-seven trees, at the rate of thirty-seven and six per tree. He had sold some trees to a local timber merchant, because the woods needed thinning. There were blue paint marks on the "sold" trees, but he said that at night the timber merchant had sent a boy along to put paint marks on extra trees.

"Nearly three hundred and fifty pounds," I said, reckoning it roughly first, the way we were taught to at school, so that we should know it if our final answer was wildly wro