The Sheila Variations

"I am not a plonker."

Brilliant. Tragic.

An Ode to E.B. White and a Very Special Teacher

I post this every year at the beginning of the school year, in honor of all the teachers out there - the teachers I know, teachers I've had. I post this especially for my sister Jean, a middle school teacher, who had a baby in May, and is now going back to work for the first time. It is not easy. I love you, Jean. You're doing so great, and we are all so proud of you. Those students are lucky to have you.

You make a difference, teachers. You really do.

Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led to the north. The sun was just coming up over the hills on his right. As he peered ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.
-- E.B. White, Stuart Little

I have a friend who grew up in a nightmare, surrounded by poverty, chaos, abuse. He and his siblings clung to one another through childhood, putting their heads down and enduring the abusive and reckless nuthouse into which they were all born.

This essay is an ode to a teacher. A teacher who saved my friend's life. She did not drag him from out of a burning house, or leap into a whirlpool to save him from drowning, but what she did do was recognize the light within him, his self, his intelligence, and she made it her business to protect it. She made it her business to make sure that that light survived.

My friend is extremely intelligent. His parents did not value this in him. On the contrary, it threatened them. It implicated their ignorance. To add to this, my friend, from a very young age, knew he was "different" from other boys. Somehow. How many other boys enjoyed putting hot-rollers into their sister's Cher-doll's hair? How many other boys could recite Meet Me in St. Louis? How many lip-synched to Barbra Streisand albums? He couldn't put a name to what was different because he was just a little boy. But he knew it was there.

The teasing he got was brutal. Teasing of this particular kind has one goal and one goal only: to crush what is different. The difference in him was like a scent and other kids could smell it. His father could smell it. To avoid the terror that school had become, he would stay home from school playing with his sister’s Barbies.

The little boy reached the second grade. He had already learned some very hard lessons. He had already experienced cruelty, betrayal, fear. All of the cards were stacked against this person, and the end of his story could have been a terrible one, were it not for his second grade teacher. Her name was Miss Scofield.

I did not meet the "little boy" until college when we became fast friends, and in my view, Miss Scofield was directly responsible for the fact that he actually went to college (the first one in his family to do so), that he broke the expected pattern of his life and got out, saying No to what seemed to be his logical fate.

What did Miss Scofield do to accomplish this? It's very simple. She read E.B. White's Stuart Little to the class.

And my friend, then seven years old, had what can only be described as a life-changing experience, listening to her read that book.

Stuart Little is a mouse, born to human parents. Everyone is confused by him. "Where the heck did he come from?" My friend, a little boy who was so "different" he might as well have been a mouse born to human parents, a little boy who was, indeed, smaller than everybody else in the class, listened to the story unfold, agog, his soul opening to its implications.

First of all, for the first time, he really got reading. By this I mean the importance, and the excitement, of language. Language can create new and better worlds in your head. Language is a way out. To this day, my friend is a voracious reader. I will never forget living with him while he was reading Magic Mountain. We lived in a one-room apartment, and so if I wanted to go to sleep and turn the lights off, my friend would take a pillow into the bathroom, shut the door, curl up on the bathmat, and read Magic Mountain long into the night. I believe that this voraciousness is a direct result of Miss Scofield reading Stuart Little to the class.

It had to be that particular book, too. Stuart Little is "different". Just like my friend was "different". In hearing the words of that story, my friend rose above the pain, the torture, the abuse, and realized that there were others out there who were "different" too, and that different was good!

His major revelation was this: Stuart Little's small-ness ends up being his greatest asset. That which seemed like the biggest strike against him is not at all in the end! My friend, in his seven-year-old epiphany, embraced his size. Small didn't mean weak. Not at all.

Somewhere, in his child-like soul, he knew he was gay although he did not have a word for it. It wasn't a sexual orientation so much at that time, but a sensibility. He wasn't like the other boys. He didn't know yet what that would mean for him, in his life, but it certainly isolated him at school, and it isolated him at home. Hearing about the adventures of Stuart Little my friend realized that the life that he was living right at that moment, the narrow circle of endurance, did not have to be his life. He suddenly knew, for the first time ever, that everything was going to be okay. He was going to be okay.

As Miss Scofield read the story to the class, my friend had the unmistakable sensation that she was reading it directly to him, and only to him. It was such a strong feeling that he was able to describe it to me vividly, years and years later. The rest of the class fell away, and it was as though she had singled him out and was trying to give him a message of some sort, through the words of E.B. White. That book was for him, and for him alone.

By the time high school came around, my friend had learned that wit was the best defense against teasing. His humor, his sarcasm, became his armor, and it also was the way he made friends. In a very short time, he acquired a Praetorian guard of sorts, high school football players, who thought he was hilarious, and who protected him in the locker room, pushing anyone off who tried to mess with him.

His high school friends, all intelligent, artistic, interesting people, pushed him to apply to college, because they all were applying to college. So he applied to college. He got in. He went to college. He graduated college.

Years later, many years after college, he ran into Miss Scofield in a breakfast restaurant in Rhode Island.

She (a teacher to the core) recognized him immediately even as a grown man. She said, "My goodness - it is so wonderful to see you! I have heard so many wonderful things about what you are up to - how are you?"

They talked for a while. He caught her up on his life and she listened and supported him. She still was invested in what had happened to that small special boy from her classroom many many years before.

Then, in a burst of open-ness, my friend said to her, kind of blowing it off, laughing at himself, "You know ... this is kind of silly ... but I want to tell you … that I remember so vividly you reading Stuart Little to the class. It had a huge impact on my life ... and ... I know it's crazy and everything, but at the time, I truly had the feeling that you were reading it just to me."

Miss Scofield looked at him then, smiled, and said, "I was."

Speaking of favorite actors: Let's misbehave!

Christopher Walken in his show-stopping number in Pennies From Heaven.

I love how the cinematography here is old-school dance cinematography, from the days of Astaire and Rogers and Cyd Charisse and all of those awesome old dance scenes. Full body. No tricks here. (Richard Gere in Chicago, I'm lookin' at you!) No cutting to different body parts, a la Flash Dance, to make it seem like the dancer is actually doing the dancing, when in actuality it's a double. I know Gere did the dancing in Chicago - it's the cinematography I have a problem with. It protected him and his lack of skill. Whereas here: This is all Walken. You can't fake this. Full body shots.

Walken got his start on Broadway, as a child, in musicals. His background was musical comedy (which is fascinating to me, considering his reputation as a heavy-hitter actor in 1970s and 80s tough dramas). Walken came and spoke at my school and he talked a lot about his affinity for musical comedies, and how he tries to incorporate an "homage" to that legacy in any role he plays, regardless of whether it is appropriate or not. For example, in his searing performance in At Close Range (one of my favorites of his) - he has a moment where he walks away from the camera and he does a small dance-step, which has nothing to do with anything that the character would ACTUALLY do - Walken was laughing as he told the story. Why would that guy do a mini jig as he walked away? No reason, except that Walken was playing him. So funny, so brilliant. I love people who do what they want to do. The audience will not think, "Oh, there's Walken paying INAPPROPRIATE tribute to his roots as a song and a dance man," because is it even common knowledge that Walken WAS a song and dance man?? No, they will think, "Okay, I am terrified of that man doing a jig ... because he seems unpredictable and not of this world."

Walken spoke eloquently of how "outside" of things he felt. That normal life is not for him, was never for him, because he grew up as a child of the theatre, from a very young age. It sets you apart. He didn't play on the playground. He spent his days in tap class. It makes you a weirdo. And that sense of "otherness" is what contributed to his giant talent in films like The Dead Zone, Deer Hunter, True Romance - the list goes on and on. If you didn't know his background, you might think that it was just his looks - the strange kind of heavy-lidded eyes, and blankness behind them - that was the source of his eerieness. But no. It is because he grew up as a child actor.

So much fun to see him here in 1981, 3 years after Deer Hunter, for God's sake, let it all hang out, let us see who he REALLY is.

Waiting for the omniscient voice

EXCERPT FROM Shopgirl by Steve Martin

the weekend

It is 9 a.m., and for the second time that morning Mirabelle is awake. The first time was two hours earlier when Jeremy slipped out, giving her a kiss good-bye that was so formal it might as well have been wearing a tuxedo. She didn't take it badly because, well, she couldn't afford to. She also is glad he's gone, not looking forward to the awkward task of getting to know a man she's already slept with. A little eye of sunlight forms on her bed and inches its way across her bedspread. She gets up, mixes her Serzone into a glass of orange juice, and drinks it down as though it were a quick vodka tonic, fortifying herself for the weekend.

Weekends can be dangerous for someone of Mirabelle's fragility. One little slipup in scheduling and she can end up staring at eighteen hours of television. That's why she joined a volunteer organization that goes out and builds and repairs houses for the disadvantaged, a kind of community cleanup operation, called Habitat for Humanity. This takes care of the day. Saturday night usually offers a spontaneous get-together with the other Habitat workers in a nearby bar. If that doesn't happen, which this night it doesn't, Mirabelle is not afraid to go to a local bar alone, which this night she does, where she might run into someone she knows or nurse a drink and listen to the local band. As she sits in a booth and checks the amplifiers for Jeremy's signature stencil, it never occurs to Mirabelle to observe herself, and thus she is spared the image of a shy girl sitting alone in a bar on Saturday night. A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps in her, waiting to be stirred. She never feels sorry for herself, except when the overpowering chemistry of depression inundates her and leaves her helpless. She moved from Vermont hoping to begin her life, and now she is stranded in the vast openness of L.A. She keeps working to make connections, but the pile of near misses is starting to overwhelm her. What Mirabelle needs is some omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her, and to inform everyone that this one has value, this one over here, the one sitting in the bar by herself, and then to find her counterpart and bring him to her.

But that night, the voice does not come, and she quietly folds herself up and leaves the bar.

The voice is to come on Tuesday.

20 favorite actors

Joining the fun that's been going on, and to quote Nathaniel who started this whole thing: "In no particular order and extremely subject to change." For example: where the hell is Robert Mitchum? And William H. Macy? And Sean Penn and Dennis Quaid? And Brad Davis? Not to mention Claude Rains and Dustin Hoffman. Argh. But whatever, I will let this list stand for today. (This is a companion piece to 20 Favorite Actresses).

Here we go.

The 20 favorite men.

1. Mickey Rourke
2. Cary Grant
3. Richard Widmark
4. John Wayne
5. Jeff Bridges
6. Jack Nicholson
7. Thomas Mitchell
8. Gene Hackman
9. Dean Stockwell
10. Russell Crowe
11. Humphrey Bogart
12. Kurt Russell
13. George Sanders
14. Robert Duvall
15. Marlon Brando
16. Paul Newman
17. Johnny Depp
18. Gary Cooper
19. James Cagney
20. Ewan McGregor

Remembered Kindnesses #4

This is something I wrote a couple of years ago. It has grown in importance in the last year or so, for various reasons. I thought of it today, so thought I would re-post it. It fits with my series of "remembered kindnesses".

KEITH MCAULIFFE

There always was something a little bit magical about Keith McAuliffe. Even his name was magical to us back then.

Keith and I had been friends since the first grade, but suddenly in the fourth grade a self-consciousness developed in us about having friends of the opposite sex. By that time, Keith had feathered shiny hair and he kept a comb in his back pocket like the Fonz. Basically, he was the coolest person to ever walk the earth. At recess, all of us girls would play a game called “Catch Keith”, the title of which describes the entire game. Keith would spend his recess period running like a hunted animal, pursued by a shrieking mob of nine-year-old girls, our small hearts throbbing with the adrenaline of chasing our prey. We were little kids but it was that year, specifically, when boys suddenly became interesting to us, and not just annoying dirty morons. And girls suddenly became intriguing to the boys, and not just mysterious gabby creatures playing jacks on the sidelines of their kickball games. Recesses now involved groups of scheming girls huddled in the sandbox planning our attacks on Keith who was busy playing Dodgeball. At some preplanned moment, we would leap into action and hurtle towards him like screaming Maenads wearing Keds and Toughskins.

We wanted to “catch Keith”, sure, but there were bonus points if you stole his comb from his back pocket, the symbol of his cool-dude status to the feminine set of South Road School.

After sixth grade, we left our small school, and went to the larger junior high, which was a wrenching change for me. The small cozy world of elementary school was shattered. I saw my old friends in passing in the hall, I even had classes with some of them, but we were in puberty now with all its messiness and intrigue, so things were different. I couldn’t name what the change was but I felt it in my bone marrow. In what seemed like only a few months, the casual camaraderie that had been such a big part of grade school was a memory belonging to the distant past. It would have been unthinkable, in the new jungle, to go up to Keith and chat about how I used to chase him, how I kissed him behind the fort that one time, and how we used to be such good friends. I didn’t even consider the possibility because junior high was a whole different Darwinian atmosphere. Those old days were done, man, done and gone. I got the message.

I don’t think I was even conscious to myself at the time how much I mourned my childhood. I just knew that I had found myself in a whole new world of lockers and moving from class to class and dances and real homework and mean girls and indifferent boys. I did the best I could, navigating, but it seemed like I had missed a memo or something. Some people seemed to hit junior high in stride. They were up on all the clothes and music trends, having melodramas and romances, gossiping about others, and acting like grown-ups. I still had one foot in childhood. I still played with my Fisher Price toys at home, I was still listening to musicals and John Denver and the Clancy Brothers at Carnegie Hall, and nobody had warned me ahead of time that Toughskins would suddenly mean the kiss of social doom. Did anyone else miss the days of swinging on the swings at recess and playing hopscotch and foursquare and chasing boys around without any pressure to have to do anything with said boy once you caught him? I didn’t think to myself, “Where is my old friend Keith? What happened to our friendship?” I had hunkered down into survival mode.

Two years later, high school began, and there was yet another move to an even larger school, and we were now thrown in with kids who were eighteen years old, who had facial hair, smoked cigarettes, and sometimes threw up in the bathroom during school dances for drinking one too many of the wine coolers in their mother’s stash. High school was much better than junior high. I joined the drama club. I worked on the yearbook. I had a core group of friends who are still my friends today. It was easier in high school to hole up with your own group and not worry so much about “the popular kids”, the way I worried in junior high. I hung out with drama nerds and band geeks. I had found a niche that suited me.

Grade school was so far away it might as well have been written on papyrus tablets for all the relevance it had to my life.

Keith McAuliffe continued his social trajectory from his Fonz days. It was not surprising at all to me that he would become one of the most popular (and coveted) guys in our class. He was handsome. Shrieking girls no longer chased him around the parking lot, but that was a mere technicality. The same thing was going on, only in a more adolescent vein. He was a good student. He had girlfriends and was featured at pep rallies in his football uniform. He was still friendly and funny. Despite his popularity, there had not been a huge personality change for him, like there had been for some of my old peers. However, unless we had the same class, we had no contact. I saw him in church on Sunday. But we didn't hang out. We were no longer in the same circle of friends at all. He was at the jock table in the cafeteria with the other football players and their cheerleader acolytes, and I whooped it up with the band geeks in the corner. As John Hughes has taught us all, these two worlds will never meet.

It’s interesting, though: when I flip through old journals from high school, Keith McAuliffe’s name comes up often. The mention is usually something brief and silly, the two of us laughing in the hall about how badly we did on a certain math quiz, or cracking up over something stupid our chemistry teacher said. There is a tone in these entries that strikes me: although childhood was now unmentionable, there is an understood familiarity there, unspoken. We were teenagers, trying to distance ourselves from the sandbox, but that fragile connection remained.

I had a friend say to me once, “I never believe what a man says. I only believe what he does.” When she said that, a strange and old memory floated to the surface. My main memory of Keith McAuliffe from high school.

I was a senior in high school and Keith and I were in the same gym class. A group of Keith’s buddies were in my class, too, and they were intimidating as a group. They were stars of the school, they all had long-time girlfriends, cars, and they most probably were having sex. Terrifying. On this one particular day, the class was playing baseball at a local sports field, and Keith had been chosen captain of one of the teams. Before teams were picked, another kid joined our group. He was mentally and physically challenged and was not usually mainstreamed into our group, and he was wearing hi-top sneakers and a Superman T-shirt that was too small so his pale belly stuck out. His smile was fearless and open and it terrified me because of its expectation that the world would be kind to him. I felt uncomfortable being in his presence because I didn’t know how to deal with someone who was mentally disabled. I also felt protective of him; I knew about the pack dynamic and how the pack sniffs out weakness. I was nervous that he would be teased and that I would not be able to do anything about it. But I also tried to keep my distance from him, I didn’t want to be infected by any teasing that was going to go down, I wanted to remain safe.

It was not my finest hour.

No one said anything, but there was a tense stasis in all of us, like something was going to happen. The situation could go either way, and no one wanted to make the first move, no one wanted to be the one to choose.

The unspoken issue: who’s gonna be stuck having the retarded kid on our team?

Keith McAuliffe, as I have said before, was one of the most popular kids in my class. In the same way that happened in fourth grade, people looked up to him, people liked him a lot, but more than any of that: he had a lot of power. I’m not sure where power like that comes from, and I have to say again I think it might have to do with magic. Some people take power because they are weak and cowardly, and making others feel bad is how they gain footing. And some people are powerful; they just have it in them already.

In those awkward beginning moments in class, there was a power vacuum. You could feel it in all of us; we were waiting for a leader to emerge, who would choose for us how we would deal with the new kid.

I am not sure if nowadays, in a more egalitarian spirit, gym teachers assign teams so that no child has to endure the humiliation of being “picked last”. But back then, team captains chose the teams. Keith McAuliffe was surrounded by his buddies, the sports-stars of our school. Fierce competitors, talented athletes.

But who was the first person Keith picked for his team? Without hesitation, he chose the mentally disabled boy.

The tone of the day was set by Keith and by Keith alone in that moment.

What Keith’s actions said to all of us was: “We’re choosing to be nice today.” All the jock boys, all the giggly girls, and all the awkward cowards like myself, felt safe and strong to take Keith’s lead.

The first time the disabled boy came up to bat, he was clumsy, gangling, smiling. The first pitch came and he swung the bat wildly, missing the ball by a mile.

Again our group hovered on a precipice. He looked so ridiculous swinging the bat. We yearned to point and laugh, not because it was funny, but because it was important to assert that that was not me. It felt like a biological imperative. But again, Keith took the lead and showed us what to do, showed us how to be. He shouted, “GREAT SWING, man! GREAT SWING! Keep your eye on the ball, buddy, keep your eye on the ball!”

The word “hero” is thrown around a lot, but to me then, and to me now, Keith was a hero that day. There had been a clear choice even though no one had spoken it out. There is always a choice. It could have been a torment, that gym class; it could have been terrible, with the pack pointing and jeering at the newcomer with the fearless smile. But Keith didn’t let that happen. He didn’t tell us what to do. He showed us. It is not what a man says that matters. It is what he does. Seventeen-year-old Keith understood that.

More miracles happened that day. When the disabled boy got a hit, Keith’s friends in the outfield, on the opposing team, mind you, started cheering for him, pushing him to first base with their noise. The entire class screamed at him during his at-bats. “You’re doing great! Go batter, swing, batter …”

A bunch of teenagers, divided by the social structures of our high school, came together and decided to be kind. Because of Keith McAuliffe. Nobody else stepped up to the plate. But he did, as though it were his born position.

There was a reason mobs of girls chased him during recess in grade school. It wasn’t really about how cute he was, or about the feathered hair and the comb.

It was about the magic. We wanted a piece of it; maybe we knew we would need it someday.

Me and Keith McAuliffe, 6th grade.

"What a swell party this is"

(Title of this post stolen from a comment to this awesome photo - and the quote is, of course, already borrowed from another source - perfect!) There is so much about that photo that I absolutely love I am finding it hard to look away. I can smell the cigarette smoke. I can feel the rustle of the satin dresses. I can hear the noise, the hoopla, the brou-haha. Each person here is riveting. I love the glimpse of John Huston's devilish amused eyebrows. Dietrich looks calm, cool, and maybe vaguely mortified. And Tallulah is just livin' it up, totally unselfconscious. Perhaps not QUITE as unselfconscious as she is, uhm, here, but certainly totally being herself, regaling people with some inappropriate drunken story of doom, gin and tonics and sudden alarming nudity. How much do I want to hang out with those three? I love how much John Huston is getting a kick out of the whole thing.

"The trick to making a male Lady Bracknell into something more than a camp joke is to take her as seriously as she takes herself."

Oh this production sounds absolutely wonderful.

Tween humor

Here's the deal. My bathroom has a window that looks out over an airshaft and then looks directly into the public stairwell. Which means that I pretty much can be fully seen when I am in the shower. My upstairs neighbor assured me, "I'm gay. It doesn't matter to me ..." but it is definitely a problem to be handled.

I obviously need to hang a curtain there, although I have to say I am a bit casual about nudity. What do I really care. If there's some creepy Peeping Tom, I know how to take care of HIM, but I don't have a strange shyness about the whole thing. However, I realize, that SOMETHING must be done.

The best thing was that the tween set, in their original explorations of my apartment, immediately discerned the issue. Emma said to me breathlessly, "Sheila, people can see into your shower!" "I know!" I replied. "I have to do something about that!"

Maybe 20 minutes later, Emma comes up to me and says, "Do you have any paper, Sheila?" Carson hovered nearby. There was obviously some sort of plan afoot.

I went into my room and grabbed a huge pad of paper and gave it to the girls. They snatched it, ready to go off on their secretive project, and I said, "There's a funny looking box on my desk - it has a bunch of different colored pens in it, if you want to use it."

Carson and Emma RACED off, women on a mission.

Half an hour later, I was in my study, and the girls, all three of them, came up to me, holding a big piece of paper, and BARELY containing their hysteria. They all spoke at once.

Carson: "Sheila - people can see into your shower, so we made a sign --"
Emma: "We made a sign because people can see into your shower --"
Becca: (the youngest) "Look! Look! Look!"

They presented me with the sign they had made, that I am supposed to put in the window facing the stairwell, and don't think I didn't! I hung the sign up immediately. Because it is Love made manifest. By three tween girls.

Here is what the girls made.

The full view:

hahahahahaha

Now for some closeups.

This comment is my favorite.

hahahahahahaha

This next one CRACKS ME UP

Thank you, girls! I love my sign!

Toooo many books

Other good moments from the barn-raising, all having to do with the unloading of my book collection:

-- David said, at one point, "Is this a really vulnerable moment for you? Everyone seeing all of your books?" It WAS. I have lived like a hermit for 10 years. To have people all in my stuff was strange ... but also beautiful.

-- Becca saw the Twilight books lined up. Becca is 10. She was only allowed to read the first two books. She has to "wait until I'm older" before she can read the others. I commiserated with her about that. "Is it okay that you have to wait until you're older?" I asked. She shrugged and smiled. "It's okay."

-- Liz stood by the bookshelves, dumping books onto the shelf - and pulled one out. "This is one of my favorite books!" she cried - holding it out. Prayer for Owen Meany.

-- Sheila, sitting in a chair, reaching down into a box at her feet and plopping books on the shelf. Pulled out one slim volume, and cried, "Oh, I LOVE Carl Dennis!!" Sheila's a poet. I love Carl Dennis too.

-- Kerry, standing on a chair, was unloading a bunch of books, and kept saying, "I need to come over here and you need to write down a list of books I have to read - There are so many here I want to just TAKE." She pulled out Colin Thubron's The Lost Heart of Asia (a book I looove) and read the back cover and then started flipping through it. I noticed her deep interest. "That's a wonderful book," I said. She said, already deeply engrossed, "I have to read it."

--I was standing unloading some books, Maria was standing nearby. I found my stack of V.C. Andrews books - and all I had to do was hold out If There Be Thorns to her for her head to explode. "OH MY GOD," she shouted, her whole life flashing before her eyes. Hahahahaha

-- Becca asked me sweetly if she could borrow the first Harry Potter book. Are you kidding? Little sweetie pie with glasses and red toenails asking me if she could borrow one of my books? I had to hold myself back from shoving the entire collection at her.

-- Later, all the books put away, we were sitting in the study, and Maria was glancing around at all the work we had done, and she said, slowly, "You know ... I guess I never realized ... just how many books you actually have." Me neither! I've never seen them all in one place! They've always been higgledy-piggledy shoved in every available space I have ... but to see two walls of books really brings it home, the collection we were dealing with.

-- Kerry, muttering to herself, standing on a chair, "I really want to keep all the LM Montgomery books together ..." I love these people.

-- Kerry, picking up my "fan book" of Quantum Leap. This was after she had unloaded my Quantum Leap DVDs in a neat row on a shelf. She said, "Okay, Sheila, this Quantum Leap thing is making me nervous ..." She doesn't know the half of it ...

-- David, shouting, holding a beer, "Where do I put the Bible?"

-- Liz, putting away stacks of Samuel French scripts - suddenly talking about all of the scripts she has at her house, and how she has no room for them anymore. She is thinking of donating them to a local high school or college, and I think that's a really good idea.

-- Emma, 12 years old, flipping through Emma, by Jane Austen. Maria (her mother) said to me, "We just saw that movie Becoming Jane and Emma has been wanting to read some Jane Austen." I said, dragging a box into the other room, "Do you want to borrow it, Emma?" I caught Emma throw her mother a glance, like, "Mom ... can I?" I don't know why, but remembering that glance still makes me well up with tears. Mothers and daughters.

-- Me, declaring, "I don't want any books in my bedroom. My bedroom is for sleep and moisturizing and loving. I'm sick of sleeping surrounded by 5,000 books." So my friends all silently trotted out, carrying the piles of books far away from my love den. So funny.

-- Kerry, standing on a chair, calling out to me, "Does it matter that the biography of George Washington is next to this book about Irish fairies?" "NO!" I shouted.

-- Carson, the other 12 year old, sitting seriously in a corner looking through I Am the Cheese. School starts in a week, and she had finished her summer reading, so she didn't want to take the book (although I offered) - her workload is about to kick in and she didn't want to add to it. But she wanted to know everything about it. "So it's like a spy thing? The government killed his parents?" she asked, her eyes wide and interested.

I live in a small un-social world. People haven't come over to my apartment because my apartments have been too small. My books are mine and mine alone. My dad always approved, and would give me suggestions on how to organize and how to handle my burgeoning collection. But I walk a narrow path, and nobody "comes over". It's partly because that's the way of the world, in an urban environment, where we're separated (in some cases by a river!) - and although it was a little bit anxiety-provoking to have my entire book collection (erotica and all) upended for my friends to see - it was also kind of effing glorious, I have to say.

My books seem different now. They've been handled, seen, pored over, commented on. My life opened up to the world. That is a good thing.

The bookshelf project: 12 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Of course it had to take place on the most sweltering day (thus far). My friend Mike is in construction, so he came over last week to have a consultation with me about what I wanted. I moved in on July 1. I had gotten rid of most of my bookcases in the move, because I wasn't happy with them, and many of them were falling apart. My books are my life. I was sick of compromising with them, and also living in places where I didn't have room to have a proper library. That was one of my main reasons for moving. I have basically moved into a 2 bedroom now, so I have room to stretch and I have options (something that is new for me). I gave a lot of thought to where the bookshelves would be - and I talked about it with Mike. My dad had said to me once, "You should never buy a bookcase that is 8 feet high. They should always be higher." They need to go to the ceiling with a book collection like mine. I hadn't forgotten that. My goal was to have two walls be all books. So the books ARE the walls. Floor to ceiling. We were going the IKEA route, and Mike was going to buy extensions for the normal-sized bookshelves (that were 8 feet high) - so he could make them go higher. He took measurements, I was his secretary, noting it all down. We were also going to have a thinner bookcase fitted in the middle of two wider ones on one wall - all of them attached to one another - so I could also have a place for my movie collection (another thing I have never had room for). It was a nervewracking decision. Not a ton of money (IKEA is good that way), but certainly more money than I am used to ever spending. Operating from scarcity.

Yesterday was the big day. In more ways than one.

Mike and David (another dear friend) were going to put the bookshelves together for me. Mike was going to go to IKEA that morning, buy all the stuff we needed, and then come to my place. Mike is married to my good friend Sheila. She was working from home yesterday, and her daughter Carson would be with her. David's two girls aren't back in school yet - so David was going to drop his girls off at Sheila's (they and Carson are really good friends) - and then come over to my place.

The construction was going to start at around noon.

THEN, to add to the nutsoness, that night I was having a "housewarming party", where basically my friends were going to come over and help me put my books away, and hang stuff, all of the things I have been unable to do over the terrible last two months. David organized the entire party. Invites and everything. I wasn't even on the invites! I had no idea when it was starting, who was coming, I was kept in the dark. I knew it was happening, and I felt a little bit baffled and embarrassed - first of all, by how distraught I have been for this entire summer, so incapacitated, although it makes sense - and then also embarrassed by their generosity. Like, wow, fun Friday night, right? Come and help a friend unpack?

I'm still kind of blown away by the whole thing.

It makes me think of that movie About a Boy, and the last line of the film: "Sometimes you need backup."

One person is not enough. You need backup. I have needed backup. I am wounded and sick. It may seem strange that I would be unable to put a damn nail into a wall and hang a picture, but it wouldn't seem strange if you know what it feels like to be wounded.

So. That was the plan for the day.

There were very few glitches - except for the oppressive heat. My AC didn't make a dent in my apartment - especially not with two sweaty men working their butts off. Gallons of water were drunk. And nobody peed. Our bodies were like, "Uhm, yeah. I'm gonna hold onto this if you don't mind."

They started building at noon. Not only were they building the two huge bookcases for my study (which were actually five separate bookcases, all attached) - they were also building another huge bookcase for my kitchen, and a smaller bookcase for my hallway. There were buzz saws going at one point. Saw dust covered everything. Major tools. I was on trash detail - getting rid of all of the cardboard and extraneous stuff as they went. David set up his work room in my kitchen, constructing the little shelves one after the other - and handing them in to Mike in my study, who perched on ladders, drilling into my wall and other terrifying things.

There was a very funny "who is more of a real man" thing going on between them for the whole day. Poor David's screw gun had a dead battery. So that definitely put Mike in the alpha dog position. David, at one point, called out to Mike, "I just made this shelf in 7 minutes. I think that's a record." Mike replied, "I could drive to Newark in 7 minutes." Oh, and at one point Mike gave David a task, and basically set him free to go do it, without walking him through it first. David headed off into the kitchen, shouting in a loud manic voice, "THANK YOU FOR YOUR TRUST." We were all a little bit delirious.

The hours moved by. I started getting freaked about the fact that I was having guests. I would look around at the buzz saw and the piles of tools and the cardboard lining the hallway and think, "How the hell is THIS going to work?"

My friend Sheila was handling the food - bringing over stuff for tacos - and the three girls would be coming, too - which would be new for me - hosting three tween girls? With no TV? And also no chairs??

David and Mike, drenched to the skin (we probably sweated off our entire body weight over the day) finished at 6 p.m. on the dot. They were going to go shower and change at Mike and Sheila's and also pick up my friend Rachel at the PATH train. My guests would be arriving at any moment. I had swept up all the sawdust, the bookshelves were empty - but the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I had no time to revel in them, though. I jumped in the shower, turned the water on to ICE FREAKIN' COLD, and washed off the grime and sweat. Raced into my bedroom, threw on a party outfit, and at that moment, my doorbell rang. Hair still dripping, I buzzed them in, my first guests. Sheila, my friend Kerry, and the three girls, all so sweet and excited and walking around being adorable, looking at everything. Sheila set up in the kitchen, and Kerry, bless her heart, started dragging books out of boxes and putting them away. Then people started arriving fast and furious - many of them I haven't seen in a while, because the summer has been crazy and I have been out of it.

There was beer, wine, tacos - and two chairs. At one point, I glanced in the study, and saw everyone sitting on the floor, plates in their laps - and my friend Sheila was sitting in one of the chairs available - and using my VCR as her dinner tray. I am still laughing about that. And nobody thought it weird. It was that kind of night.

My books have been in boxes since I moved. They were lining the walls of my study. In preparation for the construction project, I moved all the boxes (about 30 in all) into my poor bedroom. It became a storage unit. It was stressful just looking in there.

My friend Maria walked in, gave me a kiss, a hug, and then was like, "Okay. Put me to work. What do I do."

I love these people.

We got all the books put away (in no particular order - that'll have to come later - when i decide my organizational structure) in about half an hour. We had a little conveyor belt going on. The shelves are so high I can't reach the top two shelves (glorious!!) - so Kerry stood on a chair and we passed books up to her.

The tween set were so sweet, so into it - checking out my copious "young adult" collection. Books are good conversation starters, no matter the age. Carson asked me if I liked I Am the Cheese. Emma borrowed Emma, by Jane Austen. The whole night had a glow like that. It made me happy. To not have my books crammed into every available space, but out - and about - my library - my life - with room to breathe. Oh, and best part? My book collection does NOT FILL all of the shelves. Unbelievably. So I have room to expand.

Becca (David and Maria's youngest) put away the Harry Potter collection. She was determined to keep them together, even though they weren't in the same boxes - so we left spaces for the rest of the Harry Potter books - and called out Becca's name whenever we found another one of them, so she could have the pleasure of putting it away.

Rachel basically took charge of the hallway, and hung up a ton of stuff in the hallway. I would glance down the hallway and see her with a tape measure and a pencil, and feel tears come to my eyes. How lucky I am.

It just turned out that most of my Irish stuff (the map, the Irish Proclamation, the Book of Kells) ended up on the walls in the hallway. I took a look and exclaimed, "Look at my Irish hallway!" David (who had been working like a DOG all day long) commented that "my Irish hallway" sounded like a euphemism for something sexual - which then began a battery of jokes, headed by Rachel - involving words like "The Troubles" used in a lascivious context. "What do you think of my Irish hallway, huh?" "Yeah, you like that? Wait till you see my Troubles!"

During the party, Mike and David put up my curtain rods and hung my curtains.

At one point, my friend Liz, glass of wine in hand, was huddled over the floor, sweeping stuff into the dustpan, as Sheila barked orders at her from nearby. Liz looked so NERVOUS that we all started laughing, and Liz said, "I just want to go to the ball!" Poor Cinderella. I was like, "Sheila, please be nice to Liz!" and Sheila started roaring with laughter. Liz had literally been huddled down over the floor, after a long day of work in the city, shrinking with fear at the slavedriver who once was her friend Sheila. Hysterical.

Maria knit me a GORGEOUS afghan blanket, beautiful deep colors, with big soft tassels. It was so funny, she handed me the bag and said, "I realize that this gift is so INAPPROPRIATE on a day like this ..." The hottest day of the summer! But I was so so touched at all the work she put into it, and how beautiful it is!

And then, in one fell swoop, at 10:30, they all left.

And I was left alone. Wandering through my now-beautiful rooms, with books everywhere - but not TOO much everywhere, like they were in my other place. Here, they ARE the walls. They are a PART of the room, they don't take over the room. It looks so beautiful.

And now when I look at those bookcases, what I see is love. I moved into this apartment with what I call "bad juju". My juju in July has never been worse. I almost felt like I would have to move again, because the energy was so atrocious. I am not saying that I am better, or that my problems don't still exist. They do. But the apartment has now been christened with a gathering of dear friends, and the laughter of young girls as they played with the door buzzer and raced down the hallway, giggling hysterically. At one point, I looked across the room and saw Becca curled up in my new chair (bought for me by my mother), reading the first Harry Potter with a big smile on her face.

Now that's some good juju.

Mike was the last one to leave. I was suddenly overwhelmed, and we hugged, and I said, in tears, "I'm overwhelmed - thank you so much." He said, "Listen, baby, what we did today was a barn-raising."

Here's a photo essay of yesterday.

What my bedroom looked like at around 10 a.m. yesterday morning.

Mike dropped off all of his tools before he headed to IKEA to pick up the stuff.

This cray-cray table with the long legs was left in the apartment by the stager, and I have been wanting to get rid of it. But boy did it come in handy yesterday. However, at 10 a.m. I didn't know that. I just needed to clear that wall in the kitchen, because a bookcase would have to built and then slid in by the fridge. So this is what my kitchen looked like. Guests arriving in about 6 hours. Panic.

David arrived after dropping the girls off, and Mike arrived shortly after that, with all the stuff from IKEA.

Mike getting the stuff organized.

Mike's toolbox.

Looking into the study from the kitchen.

And what was Hope up to during all this chaos, you may be wondering? The answer is quite simple.

David set up his work area in the kitchen.

The necessities.

Hope "helping" David.

The bookcase for the south wall of the study. Now these are not at their full height yet. This is the height for "normal" people. 8 feet high. Two more shelves would be added to the top.

David's screw gun, with a teary-eyed Gena Rowlands looking on.

The bookcase for the kitchen. As you can see, there is this weird empty spot next to my fridge. Perfect for a bookcase. Again, this one isn't done yet. Two more shelves to be added to the top.

Laying out the stuff to make the small bookcase that would go in my hallway.

The small bookcase, built and placed in the hallway.

It appears that Spongebob Squarepants is in my apartment.

David made a mistake and put one of the shelves in backwards, which meant he accidentally nailed into the face of the bookshelf. I didn't care - as long as the damn thing holds all of my books it could be covered in rusty nails, I don't care - but there was much manly shame going on, and manly joshing about David's messup. So I took a picture of his shame.

Getting there ... Mike putting on the extensions on the bookshelf on the east wall. It's still not at its full width yet, but the height is correct now.

David using the aforementioned cray-cray table as a work table, which ended up being a blessing, because he didn't have to bend over at all. Words cannot describe how hot it was at this point. David is like a factory now, churning out bookcase extensions and passing them off to Mike.

Mike checking out his work.

At one point, it appeared (from inside) that the light had been snuffed out of the sky, and suddenly an almost cold wind came streaming in through the north window. I glanced out the east window, and saw THIS. This is an untouched photo. This is actually what I saw.

The bookshelf on the east wall. Almost done now. This is its final form.

Moving on now to the bookshelf on the south wall. Extensions placed - almost done with it.

Mike sawing.

I am fascinated by levels. Have been since I was a little girl. I think I liked the glimpse of another little world in there, with the drops of colored water. Mike's level was spectacular, huge, and stuck to the side of the fridge when he wasn't using it.

First book placed in my new bookshelf. More of that good juju, please.

It was now 6 p.m. My apartment was a sauna. David and Mike raced out, and I raced into the shower, and people then arrived. Kerry headed up the book-putting-away aspect of the barn-raising. Here she is, with Liz and Sheila, putting away my books.

Turkey tacos made! Here is my group of dear friends, and their children, sitting in my new study, books put away, eating and chatting. Please notice that my friend Sheila is casually using my VCR as her dinner tray.

Glancing over and seeing Becca sitting comfortably and happily in my apartment, enjoying one of my books, feeling right at home ... It did so much for my heart and soul to see that.

There was a thwarted effort to string my old-fashioned Christmas lights along the tops of my cupboards. It ended up not working, but we found a better way to occupy our time, as seen in the photo below. David had worked his ass off all day. He earned his play-time that night. The funniest thing is Liz is also seen in this picture, and she is totally casually doing something else, not even looking up at David. It's like, "Oh, David is standing on Sheila's counter, wearing a derby, no shirt, and draped in Christmas lights ... whatever ... where is that bottle opener??" His daughters looked up at him with a mix of mortification and boredom. They're over it, too. Nice to know some things never change

Here is the bookcase on the east wall. All done.

Here is the bookcase on the south wall. You can also see my barrister bookcase over to the right - but there is plenty of space for a big comfy chair in front of all of this. That reading lamp was my grandmother's, and that drawing on the wall is an old sketching of Sarah Bernhardt that my dad found for me.

The bookcase in the kitchen, with room for Hope's crate on the bottom shelf. I believe that was Becca's idea.

My "Irish hallway" (nudge nudge wink wink)

The kitchen. David ended up taking the cray-cray table with him, he loved it so much. So here's the kitchen, with the curtains my mom found for me. We knotted them up so they wouldn't get dirty. Anything on the wall was put there by Rachel, who headed up that aspect of the barn-raising.

And so now, when I sit at my desk, and turn my head to the right, this is what I see.

It's beautiful. Not just because all of my books now have homes, and look so gorgeous. But because of the memory that is now contained in those shelves.

Thank you, friends. I have needed backup. Thank you.

The great Boris Karloff bowling scene from "Scarface"

... directed by Howard Hawks. This is for Peter Nellhaus.

It's a wonderful sequence, spare and violent, ominous and yet elegant - not one shot too many, a perfect mix of mess (the sound of the bowling alley mixed with the crowd with the strange eerie whistling going on over it - the whistle that we now know means some bad shit is going to go down) and clarity. You don't need to say too much or do too much to create an entire event. Story, story, story. Those old-time movie directors, secret auteurs though they all may have been (and I believe they were), never spoke in terms of art, although they obviously made art. They all talk in terms of STORY. Even down to the philosophy of the closeup, which Howard Hawks was quite eloquent about. There aren't many closeups in his films. A closeup really meant something back then. Yes, it is the most efficient way to shoot a scene sometimes, but it's not always the best, in terms of emotion. If you hold your closeups back, and use them sparingly, then they really have some impact. The first closeup of Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby comes almost 20 minutes into the picture. It's the first closeup of anyone in the picture. Unheard of today, especially for a star of Hepburn's magnitude. But when it first comes, that shot is meant to be subjective, or, editorial - it almost reads as an aside to the audience, like in the days of Shakespeare. You rarely see that kind of spareness with closeups nowadays, because a lot of film directors come from the television world, which is the world of closeups (and it makes sense there, with the small screen, and the limited format) - but it's really wonderful to get into the groove of the old pictures, and realize how much they tell, without either banging you over the head with it, or leaving too much to the imagination so that the event becomes murky. In Scarface, Hawks gets it all just right.

Yes, the film is violent in an almost documentary fashion. But Hawks had a lot of fun here, with themes and motifs and symbols. The film is so full of X-es that I eventually stopped looking for them. They are in shadow on the wall, an X on Ann Dvorak's back made by her dress straps, and more. It's a motif that works on mutliple levels. It could be a cross (the shadows from the windows), which adds a troubling layer of potential martyrdom and noble suffering to the picture, and to the depiction of Tony. But here's Hawks to Peter Bogdanovich on all of those X'es:

In the papers, in those days, they'd print pictures of where murders occurred and they always wrote "X marks the spot where the corpse was." So we used Xs all through the film. When anyone connected with the picture thought up some way of using an X, I'd give him a bonus.

The theme is visible in the props, costumes, lighting design and motif of the film, but not in the dialogue at all. It works on you, as opposed to insisting itself on you.

And here, in the bowling scene, Hawks manages to get an "X" in the middle of the action, hidden, totally in context, so it works on multiple levels. He just bowled a strike. X means strike. But we also know what else it means, and so we know his days (even seconds) are numbered. X is about to mark his corpose. It reminds us of what is really going on. Brilliant.

The Boris-Karloff-bowling scene in Scarface is a masterpiece of storytelling, just in terms of the shots chosen for this short scene. There are about 15 shots all told. That's all you need. You don't need to do too much else as a director - at least not if you are confident of the EVENT you are trying to portray.

Family promotion: Cousin Kerry's apartment featured

This is really cool: A couple years ago, my cousin Kerry did a major overhaul of her New York apartment. The transformation was startling (I got to see the Before and After). You just can't believe what was done with a one-bedroom. Kerry rivals me in her book collection. The situation has reached critical mass. Getting rid of one damn book is NOT AN OPTION - not for someone like Kerry, not for someone like me. She had them literally stacked to the ceiling, everywhere. So. She called in the big guns to "make it work" - and take a look at the awesome process, (as well as Before and After pics) in this profile piece by designer Tom Zemon.

Family promotion: Brendan sings "goodbye to New York"

My brother Brendan has launched an ambitious new project: his band, The Congress of American Musicologists (reference, anyone? "I hate it when you count ...") is launching their first single, "Goodbye New York" (a kickass song - goosebump-time) on September 11th, in conjunction with a show at the Bootleg Theatre on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. You'll be able to buy "Goodbye New York" on iTunes on September 11th, at 6 a.m., and the show that night is in celebration of the release. "Goodbye New York" is, hands down, one of my favorite songs that Brendan has written, and you can hear a preview of it on the Myspace page for the Congress of American Musicologists.

Family promotion: Siobhan sings the top songs of 1990

My sister Siobhan writes:

I am now going to do covers of all 20 top songs in any given year. Starting with 1990. Because in 1990, I listened to the Top 40 every weekend, so I know all of these songs (or am at least familiary with them).

She has set up a website for this ongoing project and it has become highly addictive. I love her commentary too!

(Don't miss the Heart duet - done by a love-mad Grover puppet and Siobhan's boyfriend Ben.)

Tune in daily - Siobhan's going strong!

Sadie is, frankly, in deep doo doo

The illustration.

Even at age 12 I was aware of the juxtaposition of scarcity and abundance. Perhaps this is the theme of my life. Seems that way.

I didn't get around to coloring this one in with pen.

Sadie Pulaski, continued

We pick up where we left off.

IV. THINGS GET WORSE

She opened her eyes and realized that she was very wet, so she began to hurry home as fast as she could manage. The sky was growing darker by the minute and a soft rumble of thunder was head in the distance. What a scary noise, Sadie thought.

It was a long way home, about 3 kilometers, and Sadie realized that in about a minute, the sky was almost black and rain was pouring in buckets. Her blonde curly hair clung to her face in wet strands and her clothes stuck to her uncomfortably. Sadie reached a wet hand up to her face and began to brush her hair out of her eyes but then the wind started whipping her wet hair all over.

Everything seemed to happen at once. The wind picked up speed, lightning forked across the sky and a moment later a deafening crack of thunder was heard. Sadie winced at the sound and began to feel scared. It was pretty dangerous to be out now and Sadie knew that she had to walk at least 45 minutes more to get home. A car drove by, headlights glaring, blinding Sadie for a minute. While she couldn't see and had to put her wet arm up to her eyes, the car drove through a puddle, sending a spray of water over Sadie.

Now she was totally drenched, freezing and terrified at the sight of lightning over her head and at the sound of an enormous boom of thunder. Sadie wrapped her arms around herself and stood still, squinting around her. The rain was splashing and running down the gutters and flowing into the drains and streaking apartment windows and hitting store canopies, running down and falling off. There was no doubt about it, Sadie thought. She could not continue home in this weather. She would probably be killed or run over or something.

As lightning flashed an everything around her lit up in a blue-white color, Sadie jumped in terror. Thunder crashed and smashed overhead. Looking wildly around, Sadie ran into the doorway of a bakery. She was warm here, although she was soaked to the skin and maybe even further!!

Sadie crouched in the doorway, breathing heavily. She glanced inside. It looked wonderfully warm in there and tantalizing aromas wafted through the door. On the counter she saw fresh donuts dripping with honey syrup and chocolates and fresh long rolls of crusty bread and enormous cookies with raisins and chocolate chips.

Sadie looked away. It was too much.

As she watched the rain pour down outside, Sadie suddenly felt almost dead. Every muscle relaxed and she had to lean against the door-jamb, she felt so floppy. She noticed a bench under the green and blue striped canopy and immediately plopped down and lay her head back on the wall, eyes closed. She listened to the loud sound of the rain and momentarily the sky was lit up by a flash of lightning. At every crack of thunder, Sadie cowered, and wished she was home. No telling when this storm would stop. Already it was late, and she felt lost, and knew that in this driving rain she could never find her way home. Her parents didn't even know she had gotten a job or where she was right now. They were probably worried sick by now.

BOOM! Sadie jumped as a roaring cracking thunder filled her ears. After it was over, she relaxed. In the silence after the thunder, she heard a tinkly belly ring. She glanced behind her. It was the door to the bakery. A woman in a green dress, with a white satin sash and buttons and a man in a grey pinstripe suit and spats came out, both under a huge black umbrella with a shiny white handle.

Sadie turned from looking at them and rested her head again. The woman and man were laughing and talking as they decided who would hold the white bakery box and who would carry the umbrella.

"No, no, dear, I shall take the donuts," the man said with a laugh. The woman laughed too, a beautiful flutey sound.

"I couldn't allow that, darling. Because I know you would sneak a donut before we get home. And besides," she changed her voice melodramatically to sound weak and frail. "You wouldn't want me to ruin my hands holding up that big heavy umbrella, and --"

"You have gloves on, dear."

"Oh! Yes, well --" the woman suddenly broke off when she spotted the ragged, drenched Sadie, slumped in exhaustion on the bench. She nudged the man. "Darling - look."

She gestured at Sadie. "Poor kid," the man muttered.

The woman left the umbrella and walked to Sadie on her high white heels. "Darling ..." she said softly.

Sadie's eyes flew open. For a split second, she thought it was her mother who had come to get her. But after that one moment, she knew it wasn't true. She stared at the woman's gentle, sympathetic face over her and felt confused. She began to edge away but the woman's voice stopped her.

"You're so wet, dear. And so tired. Do you have any place to go?"

Sadie nodded and managed to say softly, "I - I have a home." Never feeling so exhausted, she lay her head back and closed her eyes. The woman straightened and, in a business-like manner, walked back to her husband, took the white box out of his hands.

"You don't mind if I give her one, do you? The poor dear - she's so thin, dirty and pale." Sadie heard the woman whisper. The man shook his head. "That's fine."

"Here. Would you like a donut? They are fresh and warm - straight out of the oven."

Sadie didn't even think about pride then. She nodded. The woman smiled at her, took a donut with coconut sprinkled on top and handed it to her. Eagerly, Sadie gobbled it down. Mmmm. They were warm and absolutely delicious! What a change from bread and cheese every day!!!

When she finished and licked her fingers, the man walked over. "Do you have a home, kid?" His voice was kind and soft.

Sadie again nodded. "Yes. I'm waiting for the rain to stop, because I know I'll get killed or something. I'm on my way home from work."

"Work??" the woman cried. She turned to look at the man and they seemed to have an eye conversation. The woman turned back to Sadie.

"Dear, it's getting late and it really is dangerous for you to be out alone. We have our car. Would you like a ride?"

Sadie, slightly wary, shrugged. Mama always said not to accept things from strangers. This couple seemed extremely nice, but still ...

"I know exactly what you're thinking, but - All right. My name is Stella Ashley and this is my husband Peter."

"Consider us as friends, because you'll catch your death of cold, out here all wet."

Sadie thought it over, looking back and forth between Stella and Peter. They were possibly some of the nicest grownups she knew, other than her parents. Finally she nodded. "Thank you very much." She got to her feet on weak unsteady legs and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Now that she had been out of the rain for a while, her skirt clung to her legs, and her shirt was heavy and wet.

"Come along. The car is this way," Peter said, holding the umbrella over all three of them. Lightning flashed and thunder resounded, but somehow it didn't bother Sadie that much. She felt safe with these people, and also she felt excited. She was going to ride in a car! A real car! She had never even set foot in a car.

And the car that the Ashley's had was beautiful! It was a black Roadster with red velvet seats and sleek chrome on the sides.

"This is a beautiful car!" Sadie cried as it was lit up by a stroke of lightning.

"Why, thank you, uh --"

"Sadie Pulaski."

"Sadie," Mr. Ashley finished. "We're quite proud of it too. Well, we'd better get you home. Your parents are probably worried sick." He opened the backdoor for Sadie and, wide-eyed in awe, Sadie slid in. Stella and Peter smiled at each other and sat in the front seat.

"This is a beautiful car," Sadie cried again, and then began to cough and splutter. She managed to get out, "I live on 53 Railroad Avenue," and sneezed.

Stella and Peter exchanged anxious glances and started the car immediately. Lightning bolted as the car zoomed off through the gloomy evening and drove toward the even gloomier Railroad Avenue.

In the car, Sadie felt shivery and burning at the same time, and she knew she was coming down with something. She was silent the whole ride except occasionally to cough or sneeze.

As they neared her dismal neighborhood, Sadie began to point out the directions. Then Sadie said, "All right. We're here."

The car came to a stop, raindrops pelted the roof, and Stella and Peter stared up at the dilapidated filthy building.

"This is your home, kid?" Peter asked over his shoulder.

Sadie nodded. "Yes, sir. Thank you so much. This was a really nice thing to do."

Stella gave her a beautiful smile. "Well, you certainly couldn't have walked the whole way home in this weather."

Sadie began to fumble with the door handle but Peter's voice stopped her.

" 'Ey, Sadie."

Sadie looked at him. He had turned around to face her. His features were in a pleasant smile.

"Yes, sir?"

There was a slight silence and then Peter said, "Take care, o.k.? Keep your chin up."

Sadie felt a little confused and she did feel sick and dizzy but she did smile at both of them. "I will. Thank you very much."

She opened the car door and jumped out onto the sidewalk being splattered with rain. "Goodbye, Sadie," Sadie heard Stella car as the car door slammed. Sadie turned and dashed up the slippery steps, whirled around to wave and darted into the building. She stood in the dingy, dim front hall, breathing heavily, shivering and sweating at the same time. She had never felt so waterlogged and sticky in her whole life. Her skirt looked more like knickers because they clung to her legs. Her hair was now poker straight, not blonde, and plastered to her flushed face.

Shivering, she started up the stairs, her shoes making a squelchy sound from the wetness on their soles.

She faced the dark door of her home, took a deep breath, and walked in.

Sadie goes to work: The illustration

Here is Sadie and the other "sweepers", standing in line with their brooms. The kindly matron (I worked hard on her dress, I can tell) stands in front of them.

Sadie Pulaski, continued

The funniest thing is that I actually had conversations over the weekend with Jean and with Beth about the adventures of poor little Sadie (the heroine of my novel that I wrote at the age of 12). Jean said at one point, "It's riveting!" I just read the next chapter in the saga, and it is far too long to post in one fell swoop - but boy oh boy was I turning up the heat on this poor Polish family. They can't cut a break.

As followers of my story may recall, Sadie and her brother Stanislaus have been forced to leave school because, uhm, the "rates" are too high. (Please remember. I was 12.) The family lives on a diet of stolen lettuce and skim milk.

Let's see what happens next. The chapter title says it all.

One thing: I grew up in Rhode Island. The big town where I lived was, once upon a time, a mill town. The industrial revolution, starting back in the 1700s, was big in Rhode Island - and many a school field trip would involve going to these old mills (some of which have been turned into museums) and learning about them. I can feel that a lot of my information here is from those field trips, and the sad pictures of little pipsqueaks working at the factory.

IV. THINGS GET WORSE

For the next few weeks Sadie's days went pretty much the same. She did her chores, studied and went to bed. Sadie tried to make the best of it but she was bored to the teeth. And conditions in her father's shop were getting no better. He was falling behind in the rent, and couldn't afford to buy that many products and his customer rate dropped lower than before.

Meals were scarcer and scarcer and sometimes there just was no food to be had, so there were no meals. Sadie grew thin and pale, her eyes began to look big, haunted, hollow, and after some strenuous chore she would feel dizzy and tired. It was the same with Stanislaus and her parents. Sadie was not her same bubbly self. She just didn't have anything to laugh about anymore.

Then one day, the worst thing that could have happened happened. Papa's store closed down. And with the rent coming up, where would the money come from? Papa desperately started to look for work but it was hard. No jobs seemed to be open. Stanislaus, after a lot of arguing and discussing, started to look for a job too. When Sadie heard that Stanislaus was trying to help in this desperate situation she wanted to work, too. At first her parents wouldn't consider it, but she finally convinced them that if she did get a job, she could really help out in the rent. Strangely enough, Sadie found a job almost immediately. A textile mill needed a whole new batch of children because so many were immigrating to America. Sadie was walking past the factory gates one drizzly afternoon and she saw a whole crowd of children crowded against the iron gates. Curious, she joined them, pushing her way up front to have a better view.

A big muscular man with a thin mustache and cold grey eyes walked out of the factory and strode toward them. Something about him made Sadie shiver.

He surveyed the little dirty children. Everyone was quiet. It seemed an eternity until the man spoke. His voice was loud and harsh, he seemed to bite each word.

"We need small kids to sweep the aisles, strong kids to take the material and put it in barrels, and kids to thread the spools. You will do as you are told. No funny business. All right now. I'll take all the kids here with last names between A and L." Sadie gulped and stiffened up. She began to think rapidly of how to get herself a job here. Unfortunately, the man called on her first.

"Kid, what's your name?"

Sadie stuttered out, quickly and desperately thinking of a last name, "Uh - well - my name is - uh - Sadie Frowne."

"All right. You got a job."

Sadie relaxed and wiped the sweat off of her forehead. After 20 kids had been chosen, the man dismissed the remaining children, ignoring their cries of disappointment and their wails of helplessness. The man opened the gates and led the children up to the big, grey factory with only a few windows that were so dusty that nothing could be seen through them.

The man opened the doors, led the children down a dank, stuffy hallway and stopped at the grey metal door situated at the end. He put his hands on his hips and faced the children. After looking them over again for a long time he said, "I'm picking jobs and if I hear one complaint I'll give you a smack and send you right on home. Understand?"

Everyone nodded. Sadie was beginning to feel some regret at changing her name from Pulaski to Frowne. She was terrified of the man and she could tell he meant what he said. She cringed at the thought of him whacking that big heavy hand across her head.

Again, the man looked at Sadie first. "Since you're so puny, you will brush the aisles clean of all wool and cloth and thread."

Sadie nodded. That didn't sound too hard. Six other little children were chosen to sweep, too. Then, big strong kids were selected to carry the enormous loads of fabrics down the stairs and into the basement where they were put in barrels ready for shipping. The rest were given the jobs of working at the machines: threading the spools, cleaning the machinery, combing the strands and many other jobs. When Sadie heard of all of the hideous tasks that were given out, she thought that she got it pretty easy.

But when the man opened the heavy door to the factory, she changed her mind. Row upon row of deafening machines with tiny little children in front of them, doing jobs that were meant for adults. The air was dirty; when Sadie breathed she could feel the cotton lint, and dirt in the air. It was dim and musty and there were only 3 slits letting in light.

A little boy who looked around six years old walked by, holding an enormous bundle of fabric and material in a heavy leather bag. It was so big that the boys arms could not fit all the way around and his thin clawlike fingers clutched at the bag to keep it from dropping. A little blonde girl who was threading spool after spool stopped for a minute, bent over, spat and coughed, again and again. Her face grew beet-red and she couldn't stop. A matron came over, gave her a slap, and demanded her to continue working. Still coughing and spitting, the girl turned back to her hideous job. A small screech was heard from the other side of the machine. Someone was hurt. And the great looming machines did look dangerous. Sadie was scared to death. She had never been so terrified in her life. Why did she have to have changed her name from Pulaski to Frowne? She would rather starve than watch little kids be tortured, herself included, and to shrivel away to a little thin robot, mechanically doing her job day after day, in a dark filthy loud cave with all sorts of hazards. And also, the big man who had hired her would obviously be no comfort to the situation.

Sadie glanced fearfully around at the other children and saw that they, too, were staring around them in horror.

The man yelled in his booming voice for a matron to come over. One did, and she was a tall regal woman with black hair yanked away from her face into a tihgt bun at the nape of her neck. Her dress was grey and dirty from all the things in the air and there was a slight faded trace of blue pinstripes. Her shoes were black and had a pointed toe and a firm stacked heel.

"Yes, sir?" she yelled above the roaring of the machines.

"These are the new batch. Sweepers, go with this lady."

For a minute, Sadie was confused. She was just so dazed at seeing the horrible interior of the factory that at first she didn't hear the man speak. When she did not move with the others, he gave her a hard shove on her shoulder and she almost fell over. She didn't dare look into his cold, grey eyes.

She and the six other sweepers followed the matron to a damp corner with one chair and a row of hooks on the wall. Hung up here were many straggly brooms. The matron handed each of them a broom. The wooden handle was scratchy and Sadie felt splinters poke into her hand as she took it.

They followed the matron through a labyrinth of machines until she stopped at the head of the whole room. In front of them were six dirty machines with dust, lint and cotton littering the aisles between them.

Before the matron assigned them aisles, she gathered them all around her. Her face was pleasant and she even wore a bit of a smile.

"Now, listen," she said seriously. "I know this job will be tough on you and you won't have any fun doing it. I'll do my best to see that you are unharmed. Now, the man who brought you here: I must warn you that he is a cruel man. He will not hesitate to harm a child. Please - just stay out of his way and just do as he says. If you are in trouble, come to me, and I'll see if I can help you. All right? You may call me Matron Brown. Now, you --" She pointed to a boy Sadie's height with a beige cap, checked shirt and dark brown suspenders. His shoes were just bits of cloth tied around his feet. His face was nice, however, and his grin was full of spunk. The matron continued. "What is your name?"

"John Kosnoski," he said.

"Well, John, take the first aisle."

John glanced at the other kids and his eyes met Sadie's. He grinned and she smiled back. Sadie's heart speeded up a little. Do I like him? she asked herself. No, don't be silly. Mama always says I'm too young for such nonsense. But Sadie still wondered.

Sadie was assigned Aisle 2. John had already started to sweep away the piles of cotton and dirt with much vigor. Sadie admired his spirit and she began to sweep earnestly also.

As the hours dragged by, Sadie grew exhausted and sweeping the aisles was a tedious job. The lint got caught in her eyes, her eyelashes already felt heavy with it, and her throat was parched and scratchy. Every 5 minutes she had to cough and spit, to try to get the terrible feeling out of her mouth. Once, she met John at the end of the aisle. He looked run-down and had to lean on his broom for support. He couldn't even manage a smile.

"This is terrible, huh?" he breathed, spitting on the floor.

Sadie nodded. "I feel so scratchy and my throat! Just think - we have to come here every day now from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. I can't bear it!" She covered her face, but she didn't cry. She just felt so tired.

John reached out and touched her shoulder. "Hey, come on. If you work here, then you might be able to leave for America or Australia, huh? My family will be."

Sadie looked up. "Really?" She glanced around guiltily at the panting filthy kids working about them. She looked back at John. "We'd better get back to work or we'll get in trouble."

John nodded. Sadie, with a sigh, turned back to her aisle. Just as she did this, a piercing whistle cut through the air. It startled Sadie so much that she dropped her broom. She saw that the other children were leaving. Never remembering feeling so relieved, Sadie realized that it was 6:00 pm. She and many other sweepers hung up their brooms and filed out of the factory, some with big bundles of fabric on their backs. When Sadie stepped outside, she felt a shower of rain on her head. She glanced up at the overcast sky and saw heavy, dark thunderheads gathering above. Rain was pouring down quite heavily now but Sadie didn't care. It felt good on her aching muscles and her dry skin.

She tripped down the factory walkway, among the many other children, some who talked, but most who remained in gloomy silence. Once Sadie was outside the gate, she stood on the sidewalk, face thrown back, letting the raindrops run down her cheeks. Eyes closed, she loved the feeling of it.

Look out: Gerko is watching!

You should probably read this post first, a description of some of the worst shows I have ever been in. So bad that a man stood up during one of them and shouted at us actors on the stage, "WHO THE HELL WROTE THIS SHIT?" and then stormed out noisily. (Full story in that link there.)

For that particular show in question (it was called Sitcom - again, full story at the link above) I played the slutty daughter, akin to Christina Applegate in Married with Children. My dear friend David played my heavy metal slash guido boyfriend. We were filled with shame, as we writhed around on the couch tearing at each other's clothes, in front of a disenchanted and increasingly annoyed audience. The play, a spoof on sitcoms, also featured a furry creature who lived behind the couch. His name was Gerko. He was played by a wonderful actor named Rich Hutchman, who was reduced to lying behind the couch with this damn puppet who kept popping up to comment on the horrifying action unfolding.

Some promotional photos were taken for Sitcom, the crowning glory of which is below the jump.

There is so much that is funny about the photo. Please just factor in the SHAME we were feeling. And it was written by a dear friend, a wonderful writer and actor - and directed by a fantastic director, another good friend - but the show just was not good. It was a disaster of epic proportions. The playwright has gone on to success, but there is one particular reviewer in Chicago who cannot help himself - EVERY time this reviewer writes about another one of my friend's plays, he HAS to reference Sitcom. Even though it was years ago. "Unlike Sitcom ..." "Those of you who remember Sitcom ..." Dude cannot let it go. It was a play of legendary badness. So although you may not SEE our shame (we're pros!), it is there. Another thing: David's face!! His arm!

I've known David since I was 16. We've been friends forever. That alone makes this a funny photo.

But the funniest thing is that GERKO overlooking the scene. Rich Hutchman, a wonderful actor, is crouched gamely behind the couch, puppet on hand, talking in a funny voice, eavesdropping on the family he lives with.

I love actors. Even in our shame, we are glorious.

At least there's a RECORD of it all, to live on through the ages.

It is comforting to know that in a world of flux and change ...

some things, at least, remain the same.

Miss Lucy

... is ready for her closeup.

iPod shuffle

Long long drive today. I'm starting to be able to listen to music again. Thank God, because I needed my iPod on this drive today where I barely was able to go over 40 miles an hour for four straight hours. There are still many triggers for me, with music, but they seemed to be isolated to specific songs.

Glad the drive is over though. So many damn cars on the road. Beach day!

For your perusal, here's how the iPod shuffle went:

"Xanadu"- Olivia Newton John

"These Are the Days Of Our Lives" - Queen

"Tiny Grief Song" - Sinéad O'Connor

"Wind That Shakes the Barley" - The Chieftains

"Johnny Allen's/Sporting Nell" - Billy McComiskey

"Johnny Has Gone" - Varetta Dillard

"I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" - Rufus Wainwright

"Mosh" - Eminem

"Everything Reminds Me of Her" - Elliott Smith

"Riverdance" - Bill Whelan

"Wednesday" - Tori Amos

"On Any Other Day" - The Police

"Shadows of the Night" - Pat Benatar

"A Way to Say Goodbye" - Mike Viola and the Candybutchers (waterworks)

"All Over the World" - ELO

"Journey On" - from Ragtime

"Blackjack" - Ray Charles

"Exit Music (For a Film)" - Radiohead (dangerous memories. waterworks averted)

"A New Deal for Christmas" - from Annie

"Stoppin' for Love" - KT Tunstall

"What to do with Michael" - Mike Viola (waterworks)

"Swanee" - Judy Garland

"Please" - The Nylons

"No Man's Land/Flowers of the Forest" - June Tabor

"Ass Like That" - Eminem

"Got My Own Thing" - Liz Phair

"The Fundy Bay Forecast" - Siobhan O'Malley (go, sis!!)

"Entering Grey Gardens" - from Grey Gardens

"Nothing Else Matters" - Metallica

"Toxic" - Britney Spears

"So Long Toots" - Cherry Poppin' Daddies

"Step by Step" - Whitney Houston

"Is It My Love For You?" - Frank Sinatra (from Anchors Aweigh, little Dean Stockwell's movie debut, of course)

"Phoenix" - Dan Fogleberg (like my tattoo)

"Heartbreak Again" - Pat McCurdy

"Pocaontas" - Everclear

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" - Frank Sinatra

"Fathers of Fathers" - from Closer Than Ever (waterworks.)

"Levon" - Elton John

"Desolation Row" - My Chemical Romance (boys? Relax.)

"Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" - Audra McDonald

"Sun Drenched" - Mike Viola and the Candybutchers

"In the Mood" - The Puppini Sisters

"Báidin Fheilimi" - The Cassidys

"4 Minutes" - Madonna and Justin Timberlake

"Who's Got the Action?" - Dean Martin

"Jeremy" - Pearl Jam

"Don't You Know" - Ray Charles

"Anchors Aweigh" - from Anchors Aweigh, and you can hear Dean Stockwell's little mouse voice singing along with gusto

"Yahweh" - U2

"Kenny" - Bleu

"OK, It's Alright With Me" - Eric Hutchinson

"Night in the City" - ELO

"Crosseyed" - Brendan Benson

"Grease" - Frankie Valli (it never gets old.)

"Holiday" - Green Day

"Reilly's Daughter" - The Clancy Brothers

"Alone + Easy Target" - Foo Fighters

"Back in the USSR" - The Beatles

"Crack a Bottle" - Eminem, Dr. Dre and 50 Cent (love love love it)

"Drum Boogie" - Gene Krupa

"Copperline" - James Taylor

"Without You" - The Dixie Chicks

"The Crucifixion" - from Jesus Christ Superstar

"Ironic" - Alanis Morriessette ("I don't think that word means what you think it means.")

"Nervous, Man, Nervous" - Big Jay McNeely

"Nick of Time" - Bonnie Raitt (waterworks)

"We Shall Overcome" - Bruce Springsteen

"King For a Day" - Thompson Twins

"Four Green Fields" - Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

"You've Got Another Thing Comin'" - Judas Priest

"I Only Want to Be With You" - Dusty Springfield

"Runaway" - Del Shannon (I'm not sure, haven't checked my notes lately, but this may be my favorite song ever written. Certainly in my fluctuating Top 5)

"It's Only Make Believe" - Conway Twitty

"Girls On Film" - Duran Duran

"If I Had a Vineyard" - Sinéad O'Connor

"I Stay Away" - Alice in Chains

"Am I Blue?" - Billie Holliday

"I Got Mine" - The Black Keys

"JD Dies" - from The Public Enemies soundtrack

"Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" - Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn (doesn't get any better than this)

"Cherries" - Brendan Benson

"Pavement Artist" - Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins

"Rock 'n Roll Is Here to Stay" - Sha Na Na (yeah? So?)

"Mama, He's Craz"y" - The Judds

"Christians Inferno" - Green Day

"Something In the Way She Moves" - Jim Sturgess

"Our Lips are Sealed" - Everclear

"Louie Louie" - Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

"Don't Set Me Free" - Ray Charles

"Cell Block Tango" - Catherine Zeta Jones

"Zombie" - The Cranberries

"Star Spangled Banner - Live at Woodstock" - Jimi Hendrix

"Pinball Wizard" - The Who

"Everything" - Michael Bublé (sue me. I know the guy is a tool. waterworks nonetheless. This song came to symbolize something over the spring - oh well.)

"Foreclosure of a Dream" - Megadeth

"My Life Would Suck Without You" - Kelly Clarkson

"Ode to Billie Joe" - The 5th Dimension (I was HAUNTED by this song as a child. "What did they throw off the bridge??" I begged my mother, at age 8. "What did they throw off the bridge????" I was DESPERATE to know - but I knew I didn't REALLY want to know.)

"Beautiful" - Christina Aguilera (waterworks.)

"1000 Umbrellas" - XTC

"Seether" - Veruca Salt (my inner grunge goddess never completely died.)

"Run, Freedom, Run" - from Urinetown

"Anna Mae" - Brownie McGhee

"Walking the Blues" - Jack Dupree and Mr. Bear

"And the World Has the Nerve to Keep On Turning" - Tracy Bonham

"Chariot" - Gavin McGraw

"Cream" - Prince

"Modern World" - The Pogues

"A Little Girl from Little Rock" - Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell

"See the Light" - Green Day (I still cannot get over this album.)

"Simple Together" - Alanis Morissette

"Fields of Gold" - Eva Cassidy

I've had Cary Grant on the brain

And here's why. My latest at House Next Door.

"Audrey Wilder's Recipe for the Perfect Martini"

(as told to Cameron Crowe, in his book-length interview with Audrey's husband, Billy Wilder:)

"I use a bitters bottle ... and I do it by eye. I pour enough vodka for one or two martinis, then add the vermouth. These days Billy likes Ketel One vodka. Noilly Prat vermouth is the key. I use seven or eight drops, stir, and pour it. Originally we drank gin martinis. The martinis that Garbo drank were gin. After the war, vodka crept in. We started using vodka. But originally it was gin."

Billy Wilder met his wife Audrey when he was directing The Lost Weekend (1945) starring Ray Milland. Cameron Crowe asked Billy how they met:

CC: Do you remember the first time you met Audrey, your wife?

BW: She was under contract to Paramount, and I was a director. They sent her to the set to play a small part as a hatcheck girl. I said, "Stand here, hand him [Ray Milland] his hat." I was directing a scene in Lost Weekend where Ray Milland goes into a nightclub and he gets boozed. And then he also sees a purse lying next to him, belonging to a lady who belonged to a man. And he steals some money from that thing, because he has got no money, and they get him, they catch him. The strongman, you know, in the nightclub. Then I saw the arm of the hatcheck girl come in, with the hat of Ray Milland. They throw him out, then they take the hat and throw it out with him too. And I only saw the arm, and I fell in love with the arm.

They were married for 53 years. He died in 2002. Two awesome photos of the Wilders below the jump.

Upcoming doc about John Cazale

Well, well, this is thrilling news. There's a new documentary called I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale, which had its debut at Sundance and should premiere on HBO. How thrilling. Interviews with all the people who knew this great actor from the 1970s who died way too young: John Savage, Meryl Streep (his girlfriend at the time), Robert DeNiro, Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino ... It's going to be incredible. How often does THIS happen? A great and beloved actor - who created parts that live on in the memory - but who passed away even before he hit his prime ... gets such a tribute? I am just so glad this is happening, and I can't wait to see it.

Jeremy has more thoughts..

A feast for the eyes

A gorgeous compilation of all of the movie posters seen at the Venice and Toronto film festivals.

Yum!

Egypt, 1908

A beautiful series of illustrations by Jules Guerin, entitled "Egypt and its Monuments", from Century magazine, 1908.

I love the last one in particular.

Sadie Pulaski: an illustration

Here is my representation of Sadie and Stanislaus, brother and sister, having a heated argument about traditional gender roles in 1922 Poland.

Sheila, relax. Go outside and play. Seriously. You're 12.

Sadie Pulaski and her pathetic fallacy, continued

Let's move on. Sadie has had to drop out of school because of ... Poland's "high rates". Yeah, that's it.

CHAPTER THREE. A CHANGE OF PACE, continued

The next day, Sadie did not return to school. When she woke up, she was just about to climb out of bed and begin her normal morning rituals and then she remembered. A cold feeling ran all over her and she felt rather sick and dizzy. The bedroom area was dim and shadowy. It was chilly, too. Sadie shivered in her thin white cotton nightgown and slipped out of bed. The floor was freezing and she almost let out a scream at the top of her lungs but she caught herself in time. She tiptoed to the dusty window that overlooked the avenue her flat was situated on. Fog was rolling in thickly from the Vistula River. A deep, mournful foghorn moaned in the distance. What a lonely sound, Sadie thought sadly. All was deathly still and quiet. It seemed as if all of Poland was asleep on that frosty October morning in 1922. The stillness was suddenly broken by the rattling horse-drawn milk wagon jolting by. After its sound had died away, another one took its place. A loud tolling bell claimed 4:00. Sadie felt strangely relaxed. She didn't have to rush through her early morning chores so she could be off to school at 6:30. She had all the time in the world.

Sadie was tired of standing at the window so she turned. She glanced at Stanislaus. He was all sprawled out over his small bed, with one leg hanging over the side. Sadie looked at Mama. Mama looked exhausted. Sadie got an idea. She ran over to the wooden box beside her bed. She dug in and brought out her tan jumper, brown skirt and dark blue shirt. Hurriedly, she put on her skirt and shirt and slid the jumper on. Feeling snug and warm, she yanked on her shoes and socks. Trying not to make too much noise, she tiptoed to the door of the bedroom, slowly opened it, wincing at the squeaking sound and hopped down the steps into the kitchen. She bustled around, taking down the big frying pan from the cupboard and getting two eggs out of a carton. Sadie then gathered some scraps of wood and put it in the stove. Soon she had a bright fire going and the room was warmed up slightly. She placed the pan on the stove and cracked the two eggs into it. Then Sadie did what she always used to do when she cracked eggs. She watched the clear liquid bubble up and slowly turn from a transparent substance to a thick white solid. As Sadie was transferring them from the pan onto a cracked china plate, her mother came down the stairs. Her face lit up.

"Why, Sadie, darling! What a nice thing for you do to do!" She planted a kiss on her daughter's cheek.

After much persuading, Sadie sat her mother down at the table with the plate of eggs in front of her. Sadie then began to wash the dishes in the tin bucket in the corner. As she did so, Papa came down the stairs, strapping his suspenders.

"Don't have time to eat. I got a delivery coming in and I have to be ready before customers come." Papa announced, slinging on his heavy, wool trench coat.

Stanislaus bounded down the stairs. "I'm goin' to help Papa at the store. He needs it today. When I come back, I'll study with you, Sadie."

Sadie nodded. Stanislaus leaned over, kissed his mother and headed for the door. Papa followed, after taking one bite of Mama's eggs.

"Goodbye!" Sadie called as the door closed.

The whole day, Sadie and her mother spent doing chores. Sadie worked so hard that even Mama was surprised. Sadie wanted to keep her mind off the fact that she might never go to school again. She washed the windows, scrubbed the floors and did errands. The day dragged by and Sadie had spent such a long time stooped over the floor that her back ached ferociously. She had just lay down on her bed when Stanislaus came home.

He burst into the bedroom. His handsome face was exhausted and filthy and his clothes were smudged and wrinkled and he looked positively pooped. But he insisted that Sadie come to the kitchen and study.

"Let me rest a while," Sadie sighed, propping her pillow up to soothe her neck.

"Oh, no. You'll study. Anyway, I'm the one who should be in bed. I've been on my feet all day."

Sadie could not let that remark slip by without an argument. She sat up immediately, trying to ignore the pains in her protesting back. "That is not true! I have worked my head off all day!"

Stanislaus looked at her dubiously. "What are you doing right now? Lying on a bed is not a strenuous activity."

"I had just lay down for a short rest when you came in. I am absolutely pooped. I have worked just as hard as you!"

"Women's work is not hard."

Sadie leapt to her feet. "WHAT!!?!!" she hollered at the top of her voice. She was about to plunge into a long loud dispute when Stanislaus calmly reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Sadie," he said quietly. "Let's study."

Sighing, Sadie reached under her bed and brought out a satchel of heavy boring school books. She stood up, her legs feeling as if they would crumple under her weight any minute. She stumbled behind Stanislaus to the stairway and tripped down to the table. For two hours, she hunched over her books, working out algebra equations, making out a history timeline, and writing five sentences in Latin. Then, she brought out her English language textbook. It was the newest of all of her books. As she studied some new words, she said them to herself. They had a certain ring to them.

"Mama, listen!" Sadie cried. "It is nice out," she said laboriously and hesitantly after some practice. She practiced a minute and then said in a normal tone, "It is nice out!"

Stanislaus looked up from his chemistry book. "What does it mean?"

"It is nice out? Um - I can't remember. It's just written down in my notebook. But whatever it means, doesn't it sound nice? It is nice out! I'm practicing, just in case we go to America."

Mama smiled but her face looked a little sad. Sadie said nothing more, but began to recite phrases in English, occasionally saying them out loud. When Papa walked in the door, Sadie smiled at him and said a well-practiced English phrase. "Hello, Father! I am on Chapter One!" She wasn't sure what it meant, but it sounded like a right greeting.

"Why, thank you, Sadie!" Papa aid and kissed his daughter.

Supper that night was very scarce. There was no salad. They had cheese sandwiches and a glass of skim milk. Sadie's hunger was in no way satisfied. She helped her mother around the kitchen for a while and then went to bed.

She was restless all night, tossing and turning and wishing she had something to eat. Sadie prayed that things got better, but her prayer was not answered.

Just because.

Do I really need a reason?

Book designs

Great piece about book designs - and how certain covers come to be, not to mention the runners-up for particular covers. I love the analysis included of the different designs, thoughts from the designers themselves, etc. It's all a process. Love this stuff. Mitchell - you'll note they discuss Ron's book!

One of the designers says (and I loved this):

“It’s a little like navel-gazing talking about killed work,” says freelance designer Paul Sahre. “It’s such a part of what you do that putting it out there and going, ‘See, look how great this was,’ or ‘Aren’t I a victim?’ is kind of terrible.’” Most of the time, he thinks, “you end up at some better place after something gets killed.”

Opacity is a virtue: Johnny Depp as John Dillinger

Or ... There Is No Rosebud.

We know a lot about John Dillinger. He was such a hunted man that his whereabouts are clocked on almost a minute-by-minute basis, and the police files are enormous. We know the kind of coat he wore, the cars he stole, we know what he ate, who he hung out with, his girl. We know that he could be graceful. People tell stories of how he would leap over the counters in banks with a slowness and beauty more like a dancer than a criminal. We know he let the regular civilians who happened to be in the banks when he robbed them keep their money - "that's yours" he would say. We know about his spectacular jail breaks, so ballsy that you can't believe it really happened that way. We know he loved movies. What else do we know. We know about how he was killed in the alley outside the Biograph Theatre in Chicago. We know about the cray-cray shootout at the Little Bohemia Lodge, and how the crimes of John Dillinger was part of the impetus to create a Federal Bureau of Investigation. There are pictures of Dillinger posing in a buddy-buddy manner with cops, and his jailers. He was a celebrity. Feared, yes, but glamorized as well. The movies of the time reflected the consciousness that Dillinger was "out there" somewhere, and it's hard to say which came first: John Dillinger or the love affair American movies have always had with gangsters. His influence on popular culture was gigantic and, to some degree, invisible. Criminals are bad, right? They should be apprehended. But they also can have a wild lawless charm that the public finds captivating. Why else do we watch movies about criminals and even though we know they SHOULD be caught, we find ourselves rooting for them, and whispering in our heads, "Get out of there! The cops are after you!" Dillinger walked that line. People projected things onto him. It was the Great Depression. Crime was out of control. He robbed the rich (banks), and left the middle-class alone. He was conscious of his image, in a strange way. He didn't get involved in kidnapping or ransom, because he knew public opinion was against such crimes. But robbing banks? At a time in our country's history when banks had failed, plunging the nation into a Depression? There was a strange romance to it all. There's more we know. We know about the "lady in red", and we know that she actually didn't wear red. We know what movie he was going to see the night he was killed. We know the bare bones of his hard-scrabble childhood, a mother who died early, and a father who beat him. He was married, briefly, but he became a criminal early. Maybe it just seemed easier to him.

So there's a lot we know. But what does it explain? Does it reveal anything? What makes a John Dillinger? I'm reading a book right now about Stalin's earliest years in Georgia and Baku and Tiflis, and it's fascinating because even with all we know, a "Stalin(TM)" cannot be explained. There is not a smoking gun when it comes to the creation of a personality. Citizen Kane may have had a Rosebud but most of us do not. We are a mixed bag. We have inherent qualities and then our environment does the rest for us. Many people had hard-scrabble upbringings and a father who beat them and still they did not become John Dillinger. Maybe, even with his organizational skills and efficiency, he was essentially a lazy man. It was too hard to go straight. He had no sense of the future. How could he? It was all about the Now. But again, many people are lazy, and many people only have a sense of the present moment, and don't become one of the most wanted men in America.

If you know me, you know I am basically in love with the study of criminals - whether it be tyrannical despots, manipulative cult leaders or cunning serial killers. I, too, look for the Rosebud with these people. It is an irresistible quest. What IS it that makes someone an Idi Amin? Or a Ted Bundy? People who have too-easy answers for these questions, or people who are uninterested in the question itself, bore me. Is evil something that comes from the outside? Or is it inside? There were many brutal criminals surrounding Stalin in his early days. Borderline psychopaths. Most of them ended up rising to the top of Stalin's regime, because his sensibility required psychopathic individuals to follow him. But what was it in Stalin that made him who he was? I have shelves of books that attempt to answer that question. Some say it was his first wife's death that was the real Rosebud. Others say it was his inferiority complex, from his pockmarked face, short left arm, and the fact that he wasn't Russian. Who knows. It could be a mix of all of these things that created a perfect storm that left us with Stalin. Regardless, it is the study that is interesting to me, and I don't need to nail it down. Kind of like the raging argument that cropped up after the Sopranos finale, and the theories of what it meant, and what happened after, and did Tony die? It's not that I didn't find the conversation interesting. I did! It was fascinating! But my sensibility is such that I was comfortable hovering in between theories. I didn't need to nail it down in order to fully enjoy it. Tony died, Tony didn't die ... I like to swing the pendulum. The question is not meant to be answered beyond a reasonable doubt. Or, you can go that way if you like, but I think much is lost in the transfer.

Let's come back to Dillinger, and, specifically, Michael Mann's film Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp as Dillinger.

The best thing about it (and the thing that may frustrate other viewers) is that it does not attempt to explain John Dillinger, and it also seems perfectly willing to hover between multiple theories, letting all of them be true, in one way or another, so that you still are left with the essential mystery of what it is that creates such a hardened canny criminal. The film sticks to the facts, which means there is a certain lack of tension in the film, since we all know how it ends. Public Enemies is effective despite this. It doesn't purport to show "the softer side" of Dillinger (yuk), and it doesn't go for a Freudian analysis. "My daddy beat me, and that's why I'm so bad!" Michael Mann stays far far away from such simplistic thinking and the film is so much stronger for it. It could have been insufferable. John Dillinger, just the facts of him, is fascinating enough. You don't need to make anything up, you don't need to have a "take" on the man - which would, necessarily, end up being rather cliched: He was a celebrity, that's our take! He was a damaged little boy, that's our take! He yearned for a mother figure, that's our take. No. Michael Mann is right to stay away from such A to B storytelling. There is no "take". At least I didn't get one from the film. This doesn't appear to be "Michael Mann's Dillinger", although, of course it is. But Mann stays in the background. Just the facts, ma'am. He does not presume to up-end the man's psychology, he does not presume to say, 'You know what? HERE'S what I think was going on with him." He is smart to know that our guesses would be the LEAST interesting thing about the actual phenomenon of John Dillinger.

Johnny Depp, never the most open of actors, is perfect for this role, showcasing his natural charm (which always holds a little bit back - you never really see Johnny Depp gush or "work" people, he's subtler than that) and also his mystery. Depp isn't an open book, that's never been his thing as an actor. He came and spoke at my school and he was so boring I nearly fell asleep. Sweet, but a total snoozefest. He spoke in a shy monotone, was not particularly articulate, and while he was sweet and open with us, he didn't seem to know what to do with himself. He doesn't talk about acting in a self-important way, he is not only not eager to tell us how he created certain roles, but that kind of talk doesn't seem to be in his vocabulary at all. It doesn't need to be. His work is on the screen. Look THERE to get a clue as to who he might be. So here, he resists all of the pitfalls that are inherent in the regular biopics. He has found a great partner in this with his director, who, yes, can be a highly psychological storyteller - The Insider is a great intellectual thriller, but at the heart of it it is about the psychology of the whistleblower, and the psychology of the newsman. That's the real story. Michael Mann does not dilute the psychological aspect of his stories by trying to explain, and that's why his films are so good.

John Dillinger has a moment where he is picking up the coat-check girl Billie Frechette (played by Marion Cotillard) - he's seen what he wanted in her and he goes out to get it - with the same ruthless manner with which he targeted banks, yet softened with a gentleness he reserved for women. She is baffled by this man who is coming on so strong, and she says, "Who are you?", laughing a bit. He says, tight-lipped yet also easy, almost a throw away, "My mother died when I was young. My dad beat me. I like fast cars, movies, whiskey, baseball and you. What else do you need to know?" There it is. All of the exposition in his mouth, a throwaway line that tells all but explains nothing. (Also, I would be hard-pressed to resist a line like that. Just sayin'. You want an explanation of why women swooned over this murderer? There are clues everywhere, but Mann is right to put it in a thrown away moment, rather than anything more pointed or deliberate.) There are no flashbacks to his hard childhood, we do not see a sepia-toned little boy Dillinger weeping, "Don't hit me, Daddy! Don't hit me!" The movie does not attempt to play on our sentiments, does not try to open up our hearts to how hard it was for poor little Johnny. Nope. We start in medias res, with the crazy jailbreak, and from then on the film plays like a bat out of hell, not stopping for one second to cue the violins. The script gives the exposition to John in that come-on moment with Billie, and that's all we get. Looks like that's all she got too. John Dillinger sometimes introduced himself with, "I'm John Dillinger. I rob banks." That's about it. That's who the guy was. Depp does not play his line of exposition with one tiny remnant of self-pity. He tells it straight because he likes this girl and he wants to be straight with her. All in all, despite his criminal activity, Mann's Dillinger does not come off as a manipulative liar or conman. He is not Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, done in by his own voracious appetites and penchant for intrigue. Dillinger here is quiet, brutal, calm, and opaque.

Depp nails it.

There is an element to the film which is important (although not lingered on) and that is the fascination the public had with Dillinger. A mystique surrounded him, and there is an astonishing scene (apparently true) when Dillinger walks directly into the room in the police station labeled "DILLINGER SQUAD" and wanders around, looking at all the Wanted posters and clippings, and even walks up to a group of cops and detectives, huddled around a radio listening to a baseball game. He stares at them. Nobody notices. Then he says, "What's the score?" A couple of the guys turn, glance at him, give the score and turn back to the game. Dillinger has created his own miasma of invisibility, similar to how Marilyn Monroe used to be able to walk down the streets in New York without anyone knowing who she was. She could turn it on and off. This is a deliberate ability that only stars would have, because only stars know the value of invisibility. Most everyone else wants to be SEEN, at all costs. But there a group of cops, spending every waking hour hunting down Dillinger, look directly at him, casually, talk about the baseball game, and never realize that there in front of them is the man they have been looking for. Depp plays that scene with a fascinating mix of daring, arrogance, and calm. He KNOWS he is invisible, he can feel it. That, to me, was the clearest evidence in the film of his "celebrity" status, that he could consciously choose to be invisible in front of the very men who were looking for him. Just like Marilyn Monroe putting a head scarf over her blonde hair and having a cup of coffee in a mid-town diner at the height of her fame, with no one ever noticing her, and her name blinking in lights on a marquee right behind her.

Biopics can be tricky and controversial. The geeks of the subject matter covered by the biopic will never be satisfied ("it didn't happen like that"), and I can certainly go there myself. Just wait until someone decides to do a film about Alexander Hamilton! I am already angry and possessive just thinking about it! But a film is different than a history lesson (thank God), and some dramatic license is usually called for. There are times when a film crosses the line, and I suppose that line is different for different people. A Beautiful Mind crossed that line for me (multiple times)when it
1. suggested that love can cure severe mental illness
2. completely left out John Nash's open homosexuality
Obviously the story Ron Howard wanted to tell was that of love conquering this man's disability, and to some degree that IS in John Nash's story. His wife, by taking him back in and caring for him, allowed him the freedom of movement and mental space for him to continue his work. That was a great act of love. But in actuality, it was more out of pity and duty than what was portrayed in the film. She couldn't bear her husband to be homeless. She was more of a nursemaid than a soulmate. Again, not that that is not interesting - it IS interesting - but obviously not the story Howard wanted to tell. But I thought the choices made in that particular film were unconscionable, because the man was gay. Or at the very least ragingly bisexual. Everyone knew it. And Alicia knew it too. But still, she took him in. She cared for him. She helped make his work possible. Now THAT is a great love story, albeit way more complicated, but I just couldn't get past the huge THING that was being left out of the story being told. It seemed wrong. Not like rearranging events or converging characters for the purpose of keeping the story simple - these are compromises that are always made with biopics, those are fine - but I felt that there was something corrupt at the heart of the choices Howard made with A Beautiful Mind and it ruined it for me. I felt like the REAL story was far more interesting.

Here, with Public Enemies, Michael Mann avoids those traps by not worrying whatsoever that this is supposed to be a defense of John Dillinger. It's not supposed to be a defense. Mann doesn't think it is, and so he doesn't film it in a defensive manner. A Beautiful Mind, with some lovely acting mind you, felt defensive because it had something to hide. It was pulling a fast one on us. It overplayed its hand ("this is the greatest love story ever told!") because the filmmakers knew that there was a huge element not being shared. But Mann doesn't have a theory. He has a story to tell. It is two stories actually. The story of John Dillinger, and the story of Melvin Purvis (played beautifully by Christian Bale), the lawman in charge of bringing him to justice. And with taut spareness, and an almost elegiac sense of "what it was like", it doesn't deviate from those two stories. The two men are not defined by who they are and where they come from, they are defined solely by what they do. Another similarity to The Insider, as well as Michael Mann's other films. Dillinger robs banks. Purvis tries to catch Dillinger. Plenty there to keep us busy without getting all Freudian.

The love story between Dillinger and Frechette is told with refreshing simplicity but also (and herein lies its strength) with not a lot of detail. It's a sketch. I really liked that. It adds to the sense that these are people on the fringe of civilized society, with not a lot of time for niceties and backstory-sharing and courtship. They get right to the point. She hesitates. But there's something about how he hones in on her that takes her in. She's a lost soul, too. Again, this is not dwelled on or played up too much, but Billie Frechette was part Indian, grew up on a reservation, and had a lot of bitterness about the prejudice she had been shown in her life. Cotillard suggests this with one bitter line, when she comes clean about her Indian blood, in their first exchange. "Some men don't like that," she throws at him, like a gauntlet, daring him to flinch, or be grossed out by her tainted blood. He couldn't give less of a shit. He says, "I'm not most men." And that's that. Never mentioned again. But it's enough, it's sketched in enough, that we understand that she too comes from nothing, that she too has had a rough time of it, and whatever this man offers her - a fur coat, kindness, loyalty, tender sex - is enough for her to throw her regular life away. Makes total sense. And all we need is one line to do the entire job of their relationship. That's good filmmaking. Good acting, too.

There's one sex scene but it's handled just right. It was riveting. Mann did it as a montage, almost, just glimpses, fragments, not dwelling on his naked buttocks, or her naked breasts, he doesn't film it lovingly or romantically, he doesn't "walk us through it", which can be so deadly with sex scenes, since by now we've seen it all. Sex is not just sex. It's expressing the specific relationship between the two people - even if it's a one-night stand. Sex itself is always the same (with, naturally, variations), but the relationship is what is important, in terms of story. I guess I'm old fashioned that way, but I'm not talking about love, I'm talking about what sex itself expresses, and how that differs from couple to couple, depending on the context. Too often sex scenes become generic, thrown into the mix, and the actors involved suddenly cease being characters, with issues and human-ness and perhaps feelings about getting naked with another person ... they instantly become blue-lit gorgeous Olympic athletes, having the best sex known to man, making us all feel bad about ourselves. These sex scenes can be hot, I like looking at naked bodies as much as any person does, but in terms of story they can leave me cold. I think it's much hotter to still allow the characters to live, breathe, exist, in the context of sex. Don't Look Now, with one of the most graphic sex scenes I can think of, is a perfect example. For me, the reason it is so hot is not just because you see two naked bodies writhing around. It's hot because it comes out of the context of what that couple is going through at that time, which is a total HORROR, and they are trying to renew their marriage, and remember what the hell it is that they are doing with each other. THAT is why it is so hot. Betty Blue, which basically opens with a slamming-hot sex scene, is also in this category, because from the get-go we know everything we need to know about both people involved. It's HOW it's done, and that is no easy task, because naked bodies are distracting, in and of themselves. The Big Easy, which actually has no nakedness, has what I believe to be the hottest sex scene ever put on film (although I'm open to persuasion) - and they aren't even having sex. What is hot about it is that Ellen Barkin plays an uptight repressed woman who manages to suggest that she is in total DESPAIR about how repressed she is. And instead of suddenly letting loose when she finds herself in the arms of this hot dude she's really into (Dennis Quaid), and becoming a sex goddess and Olympic athlete of erotica, she is still that repressed bundle-of-nerves-and-sadness that we have come to know. She brings her SELF to the scene. She stops him, she freaks out, she wriggles away from him, she basically cannot deal with the unleashing of her sexual energy, it's too much for her, it brings her to tears. Marvelous stuff. I love it when a movie allows for that. It resists betraying the characters. Thank you.

And Public Enemies does not (unlike Beautiful Mind) overplay its hand, in terms of the relationship in the film, because it has nothing to hide. It doesn't try to make Billie Frechette the "rosebud", she is not a great lost love, she was not his last chance at civilization and normalcy - Mann resists simplistic interpretations altogether. John Dillinger was not a faithful kind of guy, and he consorted with prostitutes (one of whom ended up betraying him) and gun molls. He mainly lived in a male world. He dipped into the female world from time to time, obviously, but that was more often than not out of physical need than a burning desire to experience true love. But the relationship with Billie Frechette does stand out, in his life story, she is definitely important in the Dillinger lexicon, based on the mere fact that she went to jail for two years for him, and so the film is right to pluck her out of the sordid crowd, and make her "the girl" in the movie.

There's a jump cut to their sex scene. He invites her in to his apartment (obviously rented for him as a safe haven - "I've been staying here a while. About one day now," he says to her as he takes off his coat - he comes right out on their first "date" and tells her who he is and what he does, he is already a wanted man at that point, famous, but he doesn't play her, or try to fly under the radar), there are floozy women peeking out of other bedrooms, and the atmosphere between Dillinger and Frechette is tight, tense, and something's got to break. We don't get the seduction scene. We get the jumpcut. Mann does not satisfy our need for neatness, for linear storytelling. However they get into bed it doesn't matter. They get there. There is not a swelling soundtrack to cue the highly-trained audience, "Oh, look, they're falling in love." Love shmove. It's rougher than that. Not everyone is destined to have a "great love story". Sometimes one or two intimate moments of connection is all we get. And that's not just okay, it's just the way it is. Mann doesn't softpedal this fact. The scene is rather graphic, but not because we see body parts, we actually don't. It's graphic because it feels real. It's filmed in fragments, but unlike most other sex scenes the fragments we see is not thrusting butts, and glimpses of naked boobs or almost-glimpses of mon veneris ... the fragments we get are their faces, kissing, his hand near her mouth, her mouth on his fingers, tears on her face, her unshaved armpits (halleluia - a glimpse of reality, of the TIME in which this film took place), how nothing feels objectified, her body parts are not dwelled on, neither are his, things are happening too fast for that, his focus on her face as he, well, moves down offscreen (hm, where is he going?), then these are all interspersed with calm exhausted moments where they lie in each other's arms, still awake, but spent, brief moments of talk, and then back to the fragments of sex again. Through this, you get the sense of their primal connection. Those magical times when everything seems to stop - and yet at the same time, when you look back on it, all you can perceive are glimpses, sensory moments - his mouth on your wet cheek, his hands on your neck - and then, a breather, where you talk quietly as the sun rises out the window. It's a highly effective scene, not just because it's so different from so many other sex scenes, but because it, in maybe 20 seconds, tells us their bond, without ever having to resort to language. He doesn't just flip her over and fuck her (like Heath Ledger did to his wife in Brokeback Mountain, another wonderful sex scene - not because it's erotic - but because, again, it shows us the relationship, what goes on behind closed doors with this particular couple). He's into her. He connects. John Dillinger didn't connect with many. And perhaps his connection here is momentary, we guess that it is, because that's the kind of guy he is. But that doesn't stop the film from taking the time to just ... breathe for a second ... and show us these two people at this particular time.

Later, when Billie is suddenly arrested, right under Dillinger's nose, and he watches her being dragged away by the cops, he drives off, not sure where to go, what to do, and Depp, as he drives, suddenly breaks into tears. It's an amazing moment. We've seen almost zero recognizable emotion from this guy, and that is part of what makes this such a damn fine performance. He allows nothing human to get in the way of the story he and Mann are telling which is: Here is what John Dillinger did. But there are stories that he "cried like a baby" when Billie was arrested (she told it herself, he must have told it to her, and she eventually relayed it) - and so Mann and Depp show that, like they show everything else he did. He cries like a little kid, a bursting of sobs, wiping the snot off his nose, you feel his panic more than anything else. It's a storm breaking, a momentary lapse in Dillinger's cold world. I suppose it's unfair to keep imagining how this or that moment would have played with another director (say, Oliver Stone) or another actor. The moment of Dillinger bursting into sobs because his gun-moll part-Indian chickadee was arrested would have been lingered over with as much purpose as the sled Rosebud burning up in the fire at the end of Citizen Kane. The shot would have been highly subjective. But Mann remains objective. If I had to tally it up, I would say that the sex scene was, perhaps, the only really subjective scene in the film, because you feel you are in that bed with them. You lose your distance. But in the rest of Public Enemies, even with Dillinger bawling and wiping his nose, we remain distant. Objective. It's not an unfeeling film, far from it, and I actually liked Dillinger a lot. But my feelings about him were irrelevant to the film actually working. By that I mean, the film didn't NEED me to "see his side of things", or to "feel sorry" for what he had gone through as a boy. If Public Enemies had had a theory, or a thesis, that it needed me to buy into in order for the whole thing to work, I might have been annoyed. But it did not do that. No, it assumed that I came to the table with my own thoughts, feelings, and I'm a grown woman, I can make up my own mind about the guy.

Praise Jesus, a filmmaker that trusts me, that leaves space for me.

None of this would have been possible without the strange compelling opacity of Johnny Depp, in his portrayal of John Dillinger.

It takes not only a brave actor, but a very smart actor, to let some things remain a mystery. John Dillinger is not to be explained. He is to be examined and remembered. It is a time in American history that was important. He was important. What made him the way he is is certainly the least important and interesting part of the story and Johnny Depp understands that. And so what does he do in this movie? A great acting teacher of mine used to say to his students when we were lost in the middle of the scene, or trying to figure out "what to do" - he would say, "Just do what the character does." That's a start. A leap of faith. Nora dances a frantic tarantella to keep her husband Torvald from going to the mailbox. I played that part. I agonized over that scene. I turned myself inside out trying to "do" it. And then I remembered my acting teacher's words. Sheila, just do what the character does. Ibsen has written that Nora does a tarantella with ever-increasing abandon and panic. That is in the script. It cannot be denied, gotten away from, underplayed, or ignored. Don't worry so much about "how". Let go, and just do what the character does. It helps tremendously in those moments when you are stuck.

Johnny Depp does not worry about "how". He does not worry what we think of Dillinger, or how we judge him, what we "take away" from the film, what "message" it has. Those are for other more intellectual types to blather on about. Johnny Depp, here, just "does what the character does".

Easier said than done.

It's one of my favorite performances of the year. Because it leaves so much unexplored, and so much of it is played between the lines. It resists interpretation. It is a fact. Like Dillinger was a FACT. Depp doesn't play an idea here. So many actors when they play gangsters are playing ideas, and many of those ideas actually originate in John Dillinger. Even back to the movies in the early 1930s, Public Enemy, The Roaring Twenties, and all the other gangster flicks that continue on to the present day. Actors base their performances on either the memory of Dillinger, or the memory of James Cagney playing a Dillinger kind of guy. What is real anymore? Did the movies create John Dillinger? Did Dillinger create the modern-day iconic gangster? Chicken or egg?

Depp sidesteps this entirely. He does this by remaining opaque, and yet never less than compelling. A man of action. A man of appetite. He had no apparent grand theories about why he did what he did. Let other people assign the "Robin Hood" title to him (as they did). He didn't care. "I'm John Dillinger. I rob banks," he said.

He liked fast cars, whiskey, baseball, movies and nice clothes.

That's what the man said about himself. Why don't we just take him at his word and see where that leads us? It's more than enough to chew our teeth into. Why not just play THAT?

Depp does.

By playing it simply and opaquely, he leaves vast swathes of ground bare and open for me to contemplate, ponder. He lets the question remain a question. And so I will be thinking about his scene where he's wearing an invisibility-cloak in the Dillinger Squad Room for a long time to come.

It will stay with me.

The heart has a memory ... and I am the most loyal woman I know ...

... which is why when I saw this cool star map showing the "timeline" of what extraterrestrials will be watching if they have been receiving and monitoring our TV waves (and it appears that this is a very American-centric drawing - apparently TV waves from, say, Romania or Kenya or Laos are uninteresting to the folks in outer space!) my first thought was:

I'm so psyched for the folks living in the star system of 40 Eridani because they are currently watching Quantum Leap and encountering Dean Stockwell for perhaps the first time, and I'm so happy for them because of it.

I don't forget Dean Stockwell! His legacy lives on in my heart!

Citizens of Eridani, I'd like to introduce you to Real Admiral Al Calavicci. We love him here on earth. I'm sure you all will feel the same.

Illustration from my novel about Sadie Pulaski

Okay, this is hysterical. I drew an illustration of Sadie and Ruth sitting on the rock during recess. Mkay? I worked hard on their outfits and on their different hair.

BUT. Why this is so hysterical is that in the margins of my notebook I had obviously doodled something ELSE ... that has NOTHING to do with Sadie and Ruth ...

I was a big doodler. Still am.

I can't stop laughing - looking at that "doodle" and how Ruth appears to be glancing over at that "doodle" - almost like, "wow, who let the floozy nutbag onto our playground?"

The more I look at it the funnier it is.

Oh Sadie Pulaski, what are you going to do?

Let's move on with our sad sad story. The Pulaski family had a nice dinner of .... lettuce .... but now Sadie must drop out of school due to .... the "high rates" Poland was so notorious for.

THREE. A CHANGE OF PACE

The next day, Sadie dreaded going to school and breaking the news to all of her friends. As she walked along, shivering in the dim misty morning, Sadie thought about how she would tell them.

"Oh, by the way, I'm not coming to school anymore ... I will not beat around the bush, that I know. It will just make it harder for me to tell them. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see and just tell them then."

Sadie had decided not to make a public announcement of it - just to quietly tell Mr. Balicki and Ruth. She didn't want all of the other kids to glance at her with pity or keep approaching her saying, "I'm sorry." That would only make it harder for her to go.

When she arrived at school, she didn't get a chance to talk to anybody because school started right away. Sadie struggled through a Science exam and an English quiz and was very relieved when Mr. Balicki announced the morning recess. But now she had to tell her teacher.

When the classroom had been completely vacated, and only she and Mr. Balicki remained, Sadie slowly and hesitantly walked to the front of the room and stood in front of Mr. Balicki's desk. Mr. Balicki looked up with a smile on his pleasant face.

"Yes, Sadie? Can I help you?" he inquired, stacking the exams neatly in a pile.

Sadie somehow could not look him straight in the eye. She wrung her hands nervously. "Mr. Balicki - I - well - I -" she took a deep breath and glanced at the ceiling. "I'm not coming back to school."

Immediately concerned and surprised, Mr. Balicki stood and circled his desk to face Sadie. "Why - Sadie?"

Sadie gulped and scuffed her well-worn heavy oxfords on the hard wooden floor. "Mama and Papa just don't have money for all of our needs. We want to go to America but we just can't manage. We've given up a lot but this is the biggest." She peered anxiously into her teacher's eyes. "I'm really sorry. I don't want to leave but I have to."

Mr. Balicki sighed. "I'm sorry, too. You're one of my best students. I'll miss seeing your enthusiastic little hand waving frantically around." He chuckled, trying to make Sadie smile but Sadie just couldn't.

"I promise I'll study at home," Sadie began earnestly, "but I think I'll need -" Mr. Balicki saved the embarrassing moment for her.

"I know. You want your books. Well, I'll be more than happy to lend them to you. If you do return to this school, I will expect you to be on the same level as the other children," he said with pretended sternness, waggling his index finger in front of her eyes. Sadie managed to grin. Mr. Balicki smiled back and continued. "I can't really afford to lose a student such as you, so do you promise to study some each day?"

Sadie nodded her head vigorously, vowing to herself that she would do just that. "I promise, Mr. Balicki," she said sincerely.

Sadie couldn't think of anything else to say so she just shrugged and sighed. She finally said softly, "Good-bye, Mr. Balicki."

"Good-bye, Sadie," he said.

They stood silently for a while and Sadie grew flustered and uneasy. She muttered, "I - I'll go out for recess" and ran down the long aisle of desks and out the back door. The day was not very cold, but the sun was barely shining, so that everything on the playground appeared bleak and dull. Everything was grey or a dull tan or faded off-white. Nothing was striking, nothing was bright to catch someone's eye, like a glaring yellow or magenta or bright red or a deep beautiful indigo. Sadie so much wished that someday she would have clothes in those colors. She saw in the village and at the marketplace, bright little girls skipping by with silken ribbons running through their bouncy hair and frilly dresses of every color of the rainbow with lace and dainty pinafores and shiny patent-leather shoes, laughing and calling to one another as if they hadn't a worry in the world. And most likely, Sadie thought, they didn't. Why did they get everything so easy? Life was handed to them on a perfect impeccable silver platter. It just wasn't fair!

Sadie sighed, thinking of her two school outfits and one Sunday dress, the only clothes she owned. One of the school outfits was a faded dirty pink shirt and a brown wool skirt with box pleats. The other was a tan jumper with enormous pockes and under that she wore a greyish-blue shirt with mends on the elbow. With both of these she wore black heavy stockings and brown shoes. Her Sunday dress was made by Mama when times were better. But it was steadily growing smaller. It was tan with little pink flowers sprinkled on it and pink buttons went down the front and a pink sash was sewn on, which was faded and dirty by now. Over all of these she wore a wool maroon sweater which was all right in the fall and spring but practically unbearable in the icy winters. Were things ever like this in America? Sadie doubted it very much. Oh, but Ruth was lucky!! Sadie knew she shouldn't be jealous but she just could not help it.

She felt ashamed of these thoughts about her best friend, so Sadie just shoved them out of her mind as she approached Ruth, who was sitting on a rather large rock, eating a shiny red apple. Sadie smiled as she scrambled up to sit next to her friend.

"Hi there," Ruth said cheerily. "Do you want an apple? Tedeaus didn't go to school today because Auntie and Mama needed so much help at home about expenses and arrangements for the boat and the flat in New York so I got his apple, but I want to give it to you." She gasped for breath and held out an apple.

Sadie gratefully took it and sunk her teeth down into her cold hard apple. As she chewed she glanced at her friend, pondering over how to tell Ruth. She decided finally to just get it over with quickly. Sadie swallowed her apple piece, took a deep breath and blurted, "Ruth, I'm leaving school."

Ruth choked on her apple and spluttered, "Why, Sadie?"

Sadie shrugged, very tired of explaining the situation. "We don't have enough money. You know how it is."

Ruth nodded solemnly. "Yes. Oh, Sadie, how awful for you! Well, maybe if you save up enough money, you can come to America! But - oh, Sadie, I'm really sorry. You're the best student in class and I know how you love school. I always envied all of your 'As'. I won't be able to go to school in America for a while. We have to get settled and let Tedaeus and Jan, my other older brother, find jobs and get all straightened out."

Sadie smiled at her pretty, rosy-cheeked friend. Ruth had this special way of making a person feel better. She took a bite out of her apple. Ruth did too. As they chewed on their apples, they smiled at each other. Sadie put her arm around her friend, knowing that no matter how far apart they were, their friendship would be strong and would never die.

When school ended Sadie gathered all of her books together in her arms and walked out of her classroom for the last time. Sadie didn't turn it into a sentimental occasion or anything. She jus tlifted the top of her desk, scooped out the four big books lying there, looked around, sighed, and stalked out.

That afternoon she went home with her friends Ruth, Sylvia, Felicia, Annie and Tess. They went to Sylvia's brownstone apartment in town. Annie had a bag of jacks and a small lime-green ball, so they spent a long time sprawled on the front steps playing jacks. Sadie was the school champion. She had already made it up to "eight-sies" when they decided to jump rope instead. Sylvia ran inside and soon returned with a sizable length of clothesline. Felicia was admired by all with her jumproping skills. She jumped 87 times until the rest of the girls begged for a turn. Tess produced a leather bag of marbles and a circle was scratched into the sidewalk and soon the marbles were divided and they all took turns shooting at the marbles in the circle. Sadie loved to play marbles. Although it was considred "tomboyish" by many of the girls in class, Sadie's crowd loved to play.

When they tired of that, Annie suggested that they go down to the soda shop.

"I can't. I never have pocket money," Sadie said wistfully.

"Neither do I. And you know that, Annie," Ruth added.

"But look!" She dug into her smock pocket and brought out [Here I left an enormous blank space. I am sure that is because I didn't know what the currency in Poland was, so I needed to do some research before I filled it in.] The five other girls' eyes bugged in surprise. Hardly any of their friends ever had any spare money.

"Where did you get that?" Sylvia breathed.

"I've been saving. I get a [Again: space left for proper currency once 12 year old Sheila did her research] a week for pocket money and I save it! If you want, we can all go and have a soda," Annie explained proudly.

Now, who could refuse? For once, temptation took over pride. It had been so long since Sadie had had a soda. She could almost taste the cold delectable drink in her mouth. Sadie glanced at Ruth and saw that she too was dreaming of the refreshing drinks. Ruth looked at Sadie and they both nodded.

"I'll go," Sadie said, trying not to sound too eager or greedy.

"Me too," the other girls chorused.

So the six friends headed down the sidewalk, talking and laughing. Sadie did her best to feel as if she hadn't a care in the world, but deep down inside she knew she had many.

John Hughes, RIP

A really nice piece by Matt Zoller Seitz, with a couple of clips. I think I saw Ferris Bueller 5 times in the movie theatre, on its original release. I basically couldn't stop going. The funniest thing was that I kept running into Mitchell at the movie theatre - we weren't really friends yet, this was the summer BEFORE our friendship exploded into the universe. But it got to be a joke. I'd be going to Ferris Bueller for the third time, or whatever, and there Mitchell would be in line at the theatre - and he was ALSO going to see Ferris Bueller again. Once I was walking towards the theatre, and I saw Mitchell, standing right up against the glass, looking at me, and laughing, his eyes were crazy, like, "Are you actually going to see the same movie I'm seeing - AGAIN?" It was that kind of movie. Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles were big deals, too - but I've always been a Ferris Bueller girl. I should have known that summer that Mitchell and I would be great friends, based sheerly on the fact that neither of us could stop ourselves from going to see Ferris Bueller again ... and again ... and again ...

And here's a great piece by Slate's Dana Stevens. She writes:

If that sounds grandiose, well, grandiosity has long been essential to the representation of teenagerhood: James Dean's lovingly cultivated sneer, Holden Caulfield's self-defeating purism, Judd Nelson's raised fist in freeze-frame at the end of The Breakfast Club. Each generation learns to express its alienation in the fashionable pose of its time. That the pose is an imitation doesn't make the need to strike it any less real. John Hughes, who died yesterday of a heart attack at 59, understood this.

And Marisa has posted again her wonderful essay What I Learned From John Hughes. Not to be missed. It made me cry.

Today in history: August 7, 1934

The US Court of Appeals judged Ulysses by James Joyce to be NOT obscene and declared that the book could be admitted into the United States. The book had originally been published by Shakespeare & Co in Paris in 1922 by the courageous Sylvia Beach. Since its publication in 1922, the book had been near impossible to get. A frenzy ensued. There was an obscenity trial. Copies were confiscated by customs officials around the world. Entire shipments of books were burned. There was a time when literally the only place you could buy a copy of the famous book was at the little bookshop in Paris.

Here's what the first American edition of that book looked like:

Morris L. Ernst, counsel for Random House - who successfully defended the book against obscenity charges in 1933-34 - wrote in his foreward to the 1934 edition:

It would be difficult to underestimate the importance of Judge Woolsey's decision. For decades the censors have fought to emasculate literature. They have tried to set up the sensibilities of the prudery-ridden as a criterion for society, have sought to reduce the reading matter of adults to the level of adolescents and subnormal persons, and have nurtured evasions and sanctimonies.

Here is Judge Woolsey's decision in its entirety - it's a masterpiece of its kind. Not only is it an important legal decision, but it ends up being an acutely sensitive analysis of the book itself.

United States Discrict Court, Southern District of New York, Opinion A. 110-59

December 6, 1933

On cross motions for a decree in a libel of confiscation, supplemented by a stipulation -- hereinafter described -- brought by the United States against the book "Ulysses" by James Joyce, under Section 305 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Title 19 United States Code, Section 1305, on the ground that the book is obscene within the meaning of that Section, and, hence, is not importable into the United States, but is subject to seizure, forfeiture and confiscation and destruction.

United States Attorney -- by Samuel C. Coleman, Esq., and Nicholas Atlas, Esq., of counsel -- for the United States, in support of motion for a decree of forfeiture, and in opposition to motion for a decree dismissing the libel.

Messrs. Greenbaum, Wolff and Ernst, -- by Morris L. Ernst, Esq., and Alexander Lindey, Esq., of counsel -- attorneys for claimant Random House, Inc., in support of motion for a decree dismissing the libel, and in opposition to a motion for a decree of forfeiture.

WOOLSEY, J:
The motion for a decree dismissing the libel herein is granted, and, consequently, of course, the Government's motion for a decree of forfeiture and destruction is denied.

Accordingly a decree dismissing the libel without costs may be entered herein.

1. The practice followed in this case is in accordance with the suggestion made by me in the case of United States v. One Book Entitled "Contraception", 51 F. (2d) 525, and is as follows:

After issue was joined by the filing of the claimant's answer to the libel for forfeiture against "Ulysses", a stipulation was made between the United States Attorney's office and the attorneys for the claimant providing:

1. That the book "Ulysses" should be deemed to have been annexed to and to have become part of the libel just as if it had been incorporated in its entirety therein.
2. That the parties waived their right to a trial by jury.
3. That each party agreed to move for decree in its favor.
4. That on such cross motions the Court might decide all the questions of law and fact involved and render a general finding thereon.
5. That on the decision of such motions the decree of the Court might be entered as if it were a decree after trial.

It seems to me that a procedure of this kind is highly appropriate in libels for the confiscation of books such as this. It is an especially advantageous procedure in the instant case because on account of the length of "Ulysses" and the difficulty of reading it, a jury trial would have been an extremely unsatisfactory, if not an almost impossible, method of dealing with it.

2. I have read "Ulysses" once in its entirety and I have read those passages of which the Government particularly complains several times. In fact, for many weeks, my spare time has been devoted to the consideration of the decision which my duty would require me to make in this matter.

"Ulysses" is not an easy book to read or to understand. But there has been much written about it, and in order properly to approach the consideration of it it is advisable to read a number of other books which have now become its satellites. The study of "Ulysses" is, therefore, a heavy task.

3. The reputation of "Ulysses" in the literary world, however, warranted my taking such time as was necessary to enable me to satisfy myself as to the intent with which the book was written, for, of course, in any case where a book is claimed to be obscene it must first be determined, whether the intent with which it was written was what is called, according to the usual phrase, pornographic, -- that is, written for the purpose of exploiting obscenity.

If the conclusion is that the book is pornographic that is the end of the inquiry and forfeiture must follow.

But in "Ulysses", in spite of its unusual frankness, I do not detect anywhere the leer of the sensualist. I hold, therefore, that it is not pornographic.

4. In writing "Ulysses", Joyce sought to make a serious experiment in a new, if not wholly novel, literary genre. He takes persons of the lower middle class living in Dublin in 1904 and seeks not only to describe what they did on a certain day early in June of that year as they went about the City bent on their usual occupations, but also to tell what many of them thought about the while.

Joyce has attempted -- it seems to me, with astonishing success -- to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious. He shows how each of these impressions affects the life and behavior of the character which he is describing.

What he seeks to get is not unlike the result of a double or, if that is possible, a multiple exposure on a cinema film which would give a clear foreground with a background visible but somewhat blurred and out of focus in varying degrees.

To convey by words an effect which obviously lends itself more appropriately to a graphic technique, accounts, it seems to me, for much of the obscurity which meets a reader of "Ulysses". And it also explains another aspect of the book, which I have further to consider, namely, Joyce's sincerity and his honest effort to show exactly how the minds of his characters operate.

If Joyce did not attempt to be honest in developing the technique which he has adopted in "Ulysses" the result would be psychologically misleading and thus unfaithful to his chosen technique. Such an attitude would be artistically inexcusable.

It is because Joyce has been loyal to his technique and has not funked its necessary implications, but has honestly attempted to tell fully what his characters think about, that he has been the subject of so many attacks and that his purpose has been so often misunderstood and misrepresented. For his attempt sincerely and honestly to realize his objective has required him incidentally to use certain words which are generally considered dirty words and has led at times to what many think is a too poignant preoccupation with sex in the thoughts of his characters.

The words which are criticized as dirty are old Saxon words known to almost all men and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe. In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.

Whether or not one enjoys such a technique as Joyce uses is a matter of taste on which disagreement or argument is futile, but to subject that technique to the standards of some other technique seems to me to be little short of absurd.

Accordingly, I hold that "Ulysses" is a sincere and honest book and I think that the criticisms of it are entirely disposed of by its rationale.

5. Furthermore, "Ulysses" is an amazing tour de force when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. As I have stated, "Ulysses" is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting, but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt's sake. Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.

If one does not wish to associate with such folk as Joyce describes, that is one's own choice. In order to avoid indirect contact with them one may not wish to read "Ulysses"; that is quite understandable. But when such a real artist in words, as Joyce undoubtedly is, seeks to draw a true picture of the lower middle class in a European city, ought it to be impossible for the American public legally to see that picture?

To answer this question it is not sufficient merely to find, as I have found above, that Joyce did not write "Ulysses" with what is commonly called pornographic intent, I must endeavor to apply a more objective standard to his book in order to determine its effect in the result, irrespective of the intent with which it was written.

6. The statute under which the libel is filed only denounces, in so far as we are here concerned, the importation into the United States from any foreign country of "any obscene book". Section 305 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Title 19 United States Code, Section 1305. It does not marshal against books the spectrum of condemnatory adjectives found, commonly, in laws dealing with matters of this kind. I am, therefore, only required to determine whether "Ulysses" is obscene within the legal definition of that word.

The meaning of the word "obscene" as legally defined by the Courts is: tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts. Dunlop v. United States, 165 U.S. 486, 501; United States v. One Book Entitled "Contraception", 51 F. (2d) 525, 528; and compare Dysart v. United States, 272 U.S. 655, 657; Swearingen v. United States 151 U.S. 446, 450; United States v. Dennett, 39 F. (2d) 564, 568 (C.C.A. 2); People v. Wendling, 258 N.Y. 451, 453.

Whether a particular book would tend to excite such impulses and thoughts must be tested by the Court's opinion as to its effect on a person with average sex instincts -- what the French would call l'homme moyen sensuel -- who plays, in this branch of legal inquiry, the same role of hypothetical reagent as does the "reasonable man" in the law of torts and "the man learned in the art" on questions of invention in patent law.

The risk involved in the use of such a reagent arises from the inherent tendency of the trier of facts, however fair he may intend to be, to make his reagent too much subservient to his own idiosyncrasies. Here, I have attempted to avoid this, if possible, and to make my reagent herein more objective than he might otherwise be, by adopting the following course:

After I had made my decision in regard to the aspect of "Ulysses", now under consideration, I checked my impressions with two friends of mine who in my opinion answered to the above stated requirement for my reagent.

These literary assessors -- as I might properly describe them -- were called on separately, and neither knew that I was consulting the other. They are men whose opinion on literature and on life I value most highly. They had both read "Ulysses", and, of course, were wholly unconnected with this cause.

Without letting either of my assessors know what my decision was, I gave to each of them the legal definition of obscene and asked each whether in his opinion "Ulysses" was obscene within that definition.

I was interested to find that they both agreed with my opinion: that reading "Ulysses" in its entirety, as a book must be read on such a test as this, did not tend to excite sexual impulses or lustful thoughts but that its net effect on them was only that of a somewhat tragic and very powerful commentary on the inner lives of men and women.

It is only with the normal person that the law is concerned. Such a test as I have described, therefore, is the only proper test of obscenity in the case of a book like "Ulysses" which is a sincere and serious attempt to devise a new literary method for the observation and description of mankind.

I am quite aware that owing to some of its scenes "Ulysses" is a rather strong draught to ask some sensitive, though normal, persons to take. But my considered opinion, after long reflection, is that whilst in many places the effect of "Ulysses" on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.

"Ulysses" may, therefore, be admitted into the United States.

JOHN M. WOOLSEY
United States District Judge

My favorite line of the whole thing:

In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.

To quote Joyce - whose words have been at the top of my blog since I started this damn thing:

This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.

You go, Jimmy.

Last year my father gave me his treasured and rare copy of Ulysses - part of the 1924 printing of Shakespeare & Co. The book is falling apart. The pages are thin and rustly, and little bits of them drop off if you pick it up. It is enclosed in a box, to protect it - which has on the spine: ULYSSES - PARIS, 1924.

Every page has something of interest on it. There is a sticker on the first page - stamped with the personal imprint of the couple who had bought the book (my father, naturally, knew everything about them). The copyright page is amazing. First of all, it lists all of the controversial editions that had gone before ... 500 copies burned, etc. And to see the legendary "Shakespeare & Co.", in print, signing its name, so to speak, to the book, bravely putting it out again, knowing what will happen to their small operation ... It's just something that makes me feel humble, awed, and proud that I am aware that such people existed.

But it is Judge Woolsey's decision and its eloquence (and courage) that I would like to celebrate today.

So this day is a very big day, one of those moments when free speech triumphed, when good itself triumphed. These fights will continue to come up, as long as there are those who want to control what others read, look at, even think - because it offends THEM. Whether or not Ulysses is your taste is irrelevant. Different people have different tolerance levels for things such as smut, dirty words, frank sexual talk, and bathroom humor. The finger-waggers want their tolerance level to be the default. This is a fight I take very seriously. I respect that some people don't like certain things. But I'll be damned if I let those people corral MY tolerance level. You would have to pay me to watch NASCAR races, I don't like gambling, and I think Nicholas Sparks is a hack. Doesn't mean I have any desire to stop those who love those things from having access to them. Therein lies the difference.

We can only hope there are more Judge Woolseys out there.

Thank you, sir!

Rest in peace, Budd Schulberg

The Oscar-winning screenwriter passed away on Wednesday at the age of 95. NY Times obit here.

A page from his typewritten script (with handwritten notes included) for On the Waterfront below.

Goosebumps. I love relics like that so much. There are some objects like that (and some awesome photos too) included in the exhibit at the Hoboken Historical Museum too (Hoboken, of course, is where Waterfront was filmed).

A controversial figure, a pugnacious fighter (not to mention one of the best writers about the sport of boxing that there is), - but a big fighter, taking all kinds of unpopular positions, a beautiful and truly sensitive writer - and a valued collaborator, Budd Schulberg will be missed. Check out his books if you haven't already. Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince is my favorite.

Rest in peace.

More about Sadie, poor little Polish girl - written by me, age 12

I'm really piling on the misery here.

TWO. TERRIBLE NEWS

Sadie ran up the stairs, her heavy oxfords echoing in the dingy halls, and flung open the door to her flat. She had the lettuce hid behind her back. On her face was a big sparkling smile. That smile slowly faded. Something was wrong.

Mama was sitting at the table with her head in her hands. Neither Papa nor Stanislaus were seen or heard. Sadie noticed with surprise that Mama's shoulders were shaking and her breathing was uneven. Was Mama ... crying? Sadie had never seen Mama cry. What was she to do?

"Mama...," she began hesitantly and took a step forward. "Mama ... please ..."

Mama looked up from her hands. Her cheeks were streaming with tears. Just the sight made Sadie want to cry too. Mama smiled weakly and held her arms out to Sadie.

Hastily, Sadie put the lettuce on the counter and ran into Mama's outstretched arms. She sat on Mama's lap, with Mama's arms enfondling her. They rocked back and forth.

"Mama ..." Sadie finally said, staring up into her mother's sad blue eyes. "Why were you crying?"

Mama bit her lip and stroked Sadie's blonde hair. "It was foolish of me to give way to emotions like that. I want so much for you to have a proper childhood but it is so hard when there are so many things to pay for. The grocery shop is not doing well and Papa has spent many long nights trying to make ends meet, but when we make so little and have to pay so much it is a very difficult task. That is why we have both been very sad lately. Do not think we have forgotten you, Sadie. We still love you and Stanislaus very much."

Sadie put her arms around her mother, ashamed because she had been thinking that Mama and Papa did not care about them. "I love you too, Mama."

It was a tender moment for the both of them. It had been so long since the two of them had shared some mother-daughter affection.

Then, Sadie pulled away from her mother's embrace and stood up. She smiled cheerfully. "I have a surprise for you, Mama!" She turned and picked up the lettuce from the counter, but she still hid it behind her back. "It's something you love and want very much!"

"What could it be?" Mama asked, the twinkle once again coming to her eyes.

Sadie grinned mischievously and teased, "Close your eyes, Mama! Go on!"

Smiling, Mama shut her eyes. Quietly, Sadie placed the lettuce on the table in front of Mama.

"Now you can open your eyes, Mama!" she cried.

Slowly, Mama did and when she saw the lettuce before her, her eyes widened. "Sadie ..." she managed to get out. "Where did you ... did you --"

"Oh no, Mama!" Sadie interrupted quickly. "I didn't steal it. Mr. Koslosko gave it to me!"

Mama picked up the lettuce and looked over its green leaves. "It is very kind of him ... but we do not need charity from--"

"It isn't charity, Mama! Mr. Koslosko wanted us to have it! He said, 'I'd rather have it go to a good woman like your Mama than to have it rot.' Those were his words. I couldn't refuse and I wanted you so much to have a salad that I ..."

"Oh, Sadie, darling ... you are such a good girl. Thank you! Thank you! We will have a nice salad for supper."

Sadie, overcome with happiness at her mother's joy, felt all shivery inside. "I'm glad you like it, Mama."

Mama smiled but her face put on a worried appearance. "Come and sit beside me, Sadie."

Slowly Sadie pulled a hard wooden chair out from under the table and sat down. She peered into Mama's eyes and she, too, became worried. What was wrong now?

Mama reached out and took Sadie's hand in both of hers. She smiled bravely and said softly, "Are you happy in school?"

Sadie immediately nodded, thinking of Mr. Balicki's jokes, the extremely difficult but interesting lessons, the recesses spent with friends and all of the other things that made her school days pleasant. "Mr. Balicki is wonderful."

Mama's eyes had saddened. She swallowed and held Sadie's hand tighter. "You know about Poland's high rates, and the taxes we have to pay and all of the other necessities and how much they cost ..."

Again, Sadie nodded. Their meals had become very scanty and Sadie understood. Food cost quite a lot and clothes even more.

Mama took a deep breath. "School prices are very high. Every year we have to pay more for you and Stanislaus to go to school and then there are the books and the paper and everything else."

Sadie knew. She felt so guilty every time she needed a new notebook.

"So ..." Mama started hesitantly. "Papa and I have come to a decision which we hope is temporary." She paused.

Now Sadie was scared. This decision could not be good with the way Mama's eyes were wet and her eyebrows in a worried frown, and the way she clutched Sadie's hands with trembling fingers. And this pause made Sadie's fears come to the surface. "Mama," she persisted. "Mama, what is it? Tell me!"

Mama looked down at the table. "Sadie ... we have to take you out of school or our taxes will never be paid."

Horrified, Sadie was silent. She didn't move a single muscle. Her eyes bulged in surprise and ever so slowly she took her hand out of Mama's, staring at her as if not daring to believe that her own Mama would inflict such sadness on her daughter. No school! Why ... how could she ever ...

"Mama ... no, I won't ... what could ..." Sadie breathed, still too surprised to speak right. How could she ever bear life without school? First Ruth leaving and now this!

"Sadie," Mama said in a quivering voice. She took Sadie's hand. "Try to understand. Things are going so badly now, and if we take you out of school, we may have enough money to go to America. But for now, this is the only solution."

Sadie, confused and scared, stared at the table. She wasn't able to hold in her pent-up emotions any longer. She buried her face in her hands and started to sob. She couldn't stop - too many bad things had been thrown at her at once. She was so stunned by the latest news that she couldn't say a word, but cry on and on.

"Stanislaus has been told and he is just as disappointed as you. Sadie, dear ..." Mama began, wishing that there was something she could say to comfort her wailing daughter, but what was there to say?

A noise was heard at the door. Sadie turned her hot wet face to see who it was. There stood Stanislaus, a tall manly boy with fair hair and blue eyes. His face ached with pain at the sight of Sadie crying.

On a sudden impulse, Sadie jumped up, almost knocking her chair over, and ran to her brother. He hugged her for a while and then put his hand under her chin and lifted her face upward. "Sadie," he said. "Listen. Please don't cry. I feel like crying too. Believe me. We can study together every day. It won't be the same, I know, but tomorrow you can tell Mr. Balicki that you're leaving and maybe he'll let you keep your books."

Sadie siffed and forced herself to stop crying. It would only make Mama feel worse. She rubbed her eyes with her fists and brushed the tears off of her cheeks. She turned to Mama and smiled bravely.

"It'll be all right. I was just so stunned, I --" she tried to explain. Mama smiled.

"Don't worry about it." Mama stood up, wiped her hands on the dirty white apron tied around her deep green skirt and picked up the lettuce. She looked it over and smiled at Sadie. "This is a fine head of lettuce you have brought me, Sadie."

Stanislaus glanced at Sadie curiously. "Sadie brought it home? How?"

"Mr. Kosloslo gave it to me," Sadie replied proudly.

"What? You know how Papa is about charity! I feel the same way. He just feels sorry for us!" Stanislaus cried angrily.

Sadie glared at him. "That is not true! He thinks Mama is a good, kind woman and business has gone good for him today anyway, so one lettuce is not a big sacrifice!" Sadie's voice rose to a yell in her indignation.

Stanislaus said no more but whirled around and stalked out. Mama did not worry. Stanislaus' temper fired up every now and then and he would always go somewhere to cool off and would be back an hour alter, as good-natured as ever.

"He makes me so mad sometimes!" Sadie fumed, her face still red from crying. Her head was pounding from crying and then yelling. All in all, Sadie's day had been absolutely miserable.

"He is a good boy, though. He cares about his family. Now come, let us make the salad together."

So Sadie and Mama set to work and made a fine salad which everyone loved, including Stanislaus. Papa did not mind that Mr. Koslosko gave Sadie the lettuce. He was a special friend of Mr. Koslosko, and the vegetable man often delivered the vegetables for Papa's store.

For the whole afternoon and evening. Sadie held her despair inside but they were constantly on her mind. Life was certainly not working out very pleasantly. Ruth would be leaving for America and Sadie would probably never see her again and now Sadie would be taken out of school, the one remaining joy in her life. Chores. That would be all Sadie would have to do now. Washing dishes, cooking, cleaning the kitchen, dusting in Papa's store, and more! Why did America have to be so far away?

The only time Sadie got a chance to let her sadness out was in bed. She had a good long cry after snuggling down under covers. Life was just a big nothing to her now! Nothing special, no treats, nothing to look forward to ... And to end off Sadie's dismal day, she fell asleep on a drenched pillow.

Happy birthday to Alfred Lord Tennyson

There is some of Tennyson I can take, some I can leave - but then, there are lines which reverberate through my whole life - and not just the most famous "red in tooth and claw" lines, but other ones ... taking on deeply personal meanings, phrases I cannot imagine doing without. Guiding posts. Or - not just "guiding posts", but glimpses of a world so beautiful, so vaulted and important, that it is almost blinding to the eye. For example (and this is my favorite of all of Tennyson's words he ever wrote):

THE splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

That is just NEVER not satisfying to me to read. And I mean "satisfying" in almost a spiritual sense, a sense of rightness and perfection, vibrating through that verse.

And then, he also wrote what I consider to be one of the most chillingly perfect sentences of what despair feels like in the canon:

On the bald street breaks the blank day.

Now that is some good shite.

Many writers go their whole lives without ever writing such a perfect line.

So yeah, with Tennyson there is a lot of balderdash, but if a poet has one or two of those lines in his long lifetime, well - then I should say he is a success. (Like the last verse of "Ulysses" below.)

Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Beautiful.

And so, in honor of the man's birthday ... here is a compilation of quotes about the man, and from the man.

The bower we shrined to Tennyson
Gentlemen,
Is roof-wrecked; damps there drip upon
Sagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust,
The spider is sole denizen;
Even she who voiced those rhymes is dust,
Gentlemen!
-- Thomas Hardy, "An Ancient to Ancients"

L.M. Montgomery, journal entry:

"I cannot think he is a supremely great poet. There is something lacking in him. He is very beautiful -- very graceful. In short, the Perfect Artist. But he seldom lets us forget the artist -- we are never swept away -- Not he -- he flows on serenely. And that is good. But an occasional bit of wild nature would make it better still."

"Do you know, a horrible thing has happened to me. I have begun to doubt Tennyson." -- Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Even excluding the plays, it is a vast body of work: poems of feeling and of sentiment, poems of thought and of received opinion. When Browning acquired an audience, he turned garrulous. Tennyson turned sententious. But the Representative Voice does not merely entertain doubts, he actually feels them; his politics, like his religion, are rooted in memory of the past and fear of the future. A liberal, he distrusts progressivism even as he acknowledges the injustices and evils that make it necessary. Tennyson is an intellectual enigma, which is why many take him to be a philosopher speaking for their own indecision and doubt." -- Michael Schmidt, "Lives of the Poets"

"I wrote as much as seventy lines at one time, and used to go shouting them about the fields after dark." -- Tennyson

"The real truth is that Tennyson, with all his temperament and artistic skill, is deficient in intellectual power; and no modern poet can make very much of his business unless he is pre-eminently strong in this." -- Matthew Arnold in a letter to his mother, 1860

L.M. Montgomery, journal entry:

"I detest Tennyson's 'Arthur'! If I'd been Guinevere, I'd have been unfaithful to him too. But not for Lancelot -- he is just as unbearable in another way. As for Geraint, if I'd been Enid, I'd have bitten him. These 'patient Griseldes' of women deserve all they get! I like Tennyson because he gives me nothing but pleasure. I cannot love him because he gives me nothing but pleasure ... I love best the poets who hurt me. But I think I shall have some love for Tennyson after this -- for today I read a verse in 'In Memoriam' which I do not think I can ever have read carefully before -- which scorched me with a sudden flame of self-revelation and brought to me one of those awful moments when we look into the abysses of our own natures and recoil in horror. The verse was:

Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still be near us at our side?
Is there no baseness we would hide,
No inner vileness that we dread?"

"It is not religious because of the quality of its faith, but because of the quality of its doubt." -- TS Eliot on Tennyson's religion

"The churches have killed their Christ." -- Tennyson, "Maud", 1855

"In 1850 Tennyson received public laurels and fulfilled a private desire. He was married after a courtship whose length reflected not reluctance but lack of money. He published In Memoriam. And he became poet laureate, succeeding Wordsworth. The "Ode on Wellington" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" are masterpieces of laureate art. Few laureates are so transparently sincere, prompt and prosodically competent in the execution of their duties. 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' entered the common memory." -- Michael Schmidt, "Lives of the Poets"

The Charge Of The Light Brigade
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

"Tennyson spoke to and for his age in In Memoriam. Its success as a long poem depends on its fragmentariness. The sections are elegiac idylls, assembled into a sequence. Like Maud, the sequence hangs together thanks to what Eliot called 'the greatest lyrical resourcefulness that a poet has ever shown.' Elegies and poems of aftermath were Tennyson's forte. He was a gray beard from the beginning." - Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets

Conversation with Howard Hawks

Peter Bogdanovich: [Cary] Grant is a much more vulnerable character [in Only Angels Have Wings] than any of the other leading men in your pictures.

Howard Hawks: Much more sensitive. Bogart rode right over it. [John] Wayne will get, not maudlin, but corny. You have to watch him on that, and you have to watch out for Grant being oversensitive. You had to watch out for Bogart being insensitive. You're on a tightrope with a lot of those things - but they're all so good that it isn't much of a problem. I had to go over to Wayne once and say, "What are you trying to do - play Uncle Tom's Cabin, for God's sake? C'mon ..." "OK, OK," he said, "I was just trying to get something in the scene," and I said, "Well, this is one of those scenes where you don't try to get anything in. Just say the lines and get on out." And he said, "All right, all right - don't go on talking. I've quit talking - you quit talking." All he really wants to do is try to make a better scene.

Conversation with Alfred Hitchcock:

Peter Bogdanovich: But you never watch your films with an audience - don't you miss hearing them scream?

Alfred Hitchcock: No. I can hear them when I'm making the picture.

Sadie Pulaski:

A good if downtrodden young Polish girl strolls home school through the bitter streets of Warsaw. If only Poland's "rates weren't so high"!

I had no idea what I was talking about, but that didn't stop me.

Never has, never will. Just ask me about Kyrgyzstan.

Here's Sadie.

My novel about Sadie Pulaski, a Polish girl - written at age 12

I remember almost none of this. We will discover it as we go.

ONE. Sadie

Sadie Pulaski, a small girl of thirteen, drummed her fingers on her stout wooden desk. Her teacher, Mr. Balicki, was droning on and on about long division. Sadie loved math and was very good at it but it was the last hour of school and the minutes in that hour always dragged by.

She stared unseeingly at the open book before her. Blah ... blah ... Sadie blinked her eyes and made herself pay attention to Mr. Balicki. School was very important to her now as she didn't have much else in life except chores and such. Her thoughts wandered, however. They drifted to all of the family matters at home. So sad ... Her father's grocery shop was doing very poorly and he still had the rent to pay on the building and he had to feed and clothe his wife and two children. Sadie's usually plump and jolly mother had grown sick a few months ago and had recovered, but it was easy to see that she was not her cheerful old self. She was quiet in everything she did, she became extremely thin and her hair was no longer golden, but grey.

It hurt Sadie to see the changes in her parents. Her father never burst into their flat with cheerful greetings anymore. He quietly slipped into the pantry to whisper with his wife. Sadie's older brother, Stanislaus, had changed too. e had grown up to a man way before his time. He was only fourteen but he acted much older. When his mother was sick, he stayed out of school and sat by her bed all day long. He cooked her meals and did whatever she needed. For weeks he had not seen any of his friends. When his mother finally got better and he returned to school, the crowd of boys he usually hung around with found a change in their old friend. He didn't feel like playing around and rushed home right after school to help out his father in the shop.

Sadie was not as industrious as Stanislaus but she did work hard. She helped her mother around their flat and helped her father in the shop. But she did not give up her friends. She had many of them and saw them nearly every day after school. Sadie did not play with them for more than an hour, however, for she knew she had responsibilities at home and no matter how boring they all were, she knew she had to do them and would not give them up for the world. Her parents needed her help, and Sadie willingly did her share.

Sadie looked up from her daydreaming and stared around at her classmates. They didn't look alert and attentive either. Some of them rested their heads on their palms and others stared wistfully out of the window.

The girl sitting in front of Sadie, a plump pretty child with thick yellow braids, turned and rolled her eyes at Sadie. The girl was Sadie's best friend Ruth. Sadie smiled in return.

Mr. Balicki saw this eye exchange but said nothing. He was an extremely kind man and the choice teacher for the children. He could be strict but he also understood that school was not always fun, so he did his best to make the lessons interesting. He gazed out over his sleepy class and smiled. He glanced at his watch and announced, "Only 5 more minutes of class. You may talk until I dismiss you."

Immediately the class buzzed with relieved chattering, laughing and whispering. Ruth automatically swiveled in her seat to face Sadie.

"Am I glad that's over! I have something very exciting to tell you and I didn't get a chance to tell you this morning because I didn't walk to school with you because you had to --"

"Never mind that!" Sadie interrupted impatiently. Ruth had a tendency to get a little side-tracked. "What's so exciting?"

Ruth took a deep breath. "Well, ever since Papa died, we've been doing really terribly in business. The bookstore brings in almost no customers and there are so many things to pay for! Taxes, rent, food and clothing for seven kids ... you know. Well, yesterday when I came home from school I heard Mama talking with Aunt Fanny. I didn't mean to eavesdrop but I did anyway. Mama was saying 'I can't take it anymore. Poland's rates are too high. I cannot manage the store anymore. There is no money.' And my Aunt Fanny said, 'What can you do?' There was a long silence and Mama said softly, 'We can go to the States: America. Things are good over there. People have their rights and there are jobs. There I would have a chance to bring my children up properly.' Well! I was very surprised, as you can imagine. I gave this big gasp which Mama and Aunt heard. They came out in the hall and there was a lot of hugging and everything. Then Mama explained the whole situation to me and we are going to America! Can you believe it, Sadie?"

Sadie sat silently. She tried to smile but her mouth just would not do it for her. If Ruth left for the States, most likely she would never see her again! Oh - why did Poland have to have such high rates! There had been talk at home of moving to the States, but where was the money for the boat passes to come from? Many of her friends had left for America, and several of her many relatives also. Sadie missed them terribly. And now Ruth! Suddenly she felt very alone. In spite of the crowded classroom, she felt isolated from the others.

Ruth saw how confused and miserable her friend was, so she reassuringly took Sadie's hand. "Come on. Don't be sad. Maybe your family will decide to come and we can be together. But please don't be sad. We'll still be best friends."

Sadie felt comforted in her friends warm words but still - there was the fact that Ruth was leaving for America and she wasn't. "When are you going?" she inquired softly.

"About 2 months. It will take that long to pack and to get our boat passes. We'll be going to New York City and living in a flat better than our own. Tedeaus, my big brother, will find himself a job as soon as he can and Mama and Aunt Fanny too. We will get along just fine!" Ruth's normally pink cheeks flushed even darker with excitement and anticipation.

Even though Sadie had a terrible sinking feeling inside her, she could identify with Ruth's feelings. She smiled weakly and said, "I hope you have a good life in America."

Ruth sighed ecstatically. "Me too!"

Sadie dejectedly looked at her itchy wool skirt and tried to keep the hot tears brimming in her eyes from overflowing down her cheeks.

What would she do without Ruth?

That afternoon Sadie turned down all invitations and walked home alone. When she started off b y herself, she rather regretted her decision. If she had been surrounded by laughing friends, it would have been easier to keep her misery inside. But now, alone on the streets of Warsaw, it was very hard to keep her emotions inside.

As she trudged home on the damp sidewalks she couldn't help but feel sorry for herself. Ruth was one of her only real friends. Her three other intimate friends had all immigrated to America. Things were so miserable at home and with Ruth gone the situation at school would be no better. A tear overflowed and ran down her dirty cheek. She shivered in the whipping October winds. Her maroon sweater did nothing to keep out the bitter cold of Warsaw winters.

As she neared her home, she looked around her with distaste. It was so bleak and dreary. All of the tenements were in different stages of ruin. Her $14-a-month flat was in the best building on her block. It had three rooms and they used to share it with another family but they had gone. That had been a relief. There were seven of them and they were all loud and boisterous and it was so cramped. Sadie had slept on the floor on a thin mattress for the whole winter. Drafts blew in through the floorboards and there were many nights that she couldn't sleep because she was so cold.

When the family moved out, she got her small iron cot back, but it wasn't much better. The only thing to cover her was a thin cotton sheet and a drab army blanket. Stanislaus had the same kind of bed which he was steadily growing too large for. If he stretched out his full length, his feet would stick out the bed posts. He had to sleep all scrunched up which was very uncomfortable. Sadie usually slept like that anyway, but not because she was too big for the bed, but to keep warm.

Her parents slept in a double bed just across the room. It was of the same kind as theirs. Right off the bedroom was a tiny, dirty bathroom. It had a slit of a window which looked out on a putrid alley in back of the building in which the city tough stalked and scrawny cats scrounged through trash cans.

Facing the beds was a door and it led to three steps down into the kitchen. There was a big table in the middle of it where Stanislaus and Sadie did their homework, Mama prepared meals and she and Papa worriedly worked out expenses. There was a big black stove which rarely held a snapping fire and there was the wooden icebox and over that was a double cupboard which once was white but now the paint was peeling. The glass on the cupboard was cracked and the dishes inside were a very few. Mama did her best to make the kitchen a cheerful place by hanging up plants but these plants soon died.

Sadie sighed as she turned onto her block. Slowly she made her way down the street. When she came to the corner, she saw her friend, the vegetable man. He was a very good friend of hers.

"Hello, Mr. Koslosko. How are you?" Sadie inquired.

The old man in a drab-grey cap and a long beige trench coat gave her a toothless smile. "I'm fine. And you?"

Sadie gulped and looked at her oxfords so he would not see her misty eyes. "All right, I guess."

Mr. Koslosko obviously noticed that something was worng but he wisely said nothing. "Business goes good today. I sold many vegetables. Would you like one?"

Sadie looked up at him and shrugged wistfully. "I have no money. If I had, I would buy a lettuce. Mama loves it so, but -" she turned her pockets inside out to show their emptiness.

Mr. Koslosko patted her shoulder. "Your mama is a good woman. She deserves a salad so -" he turned and selected a fine head of lettuce and held it out to the astonished Sadie. "Go on - you are a good friend to me. What is one lettuce? I would rather have it go to a family like yours and have it make your Mama happy than to let it rot and be thrown away." He grinned at her.

Sadie threw her arms around the old man and hugged him tight. "Thank you so much, Mr. Koslosko. I want so much for Mama to be happy." She took the lettuce and held it as if it was a precious jewel. "She will be so happy to have salad!" She gave a big smile to Mr. Koslosko and took off toward home, holding the lettuce carefully under her arm.

Mr. Koslosko smiled at her disappearing back and turned to roll his cart to another corner.

A final illustration from my novel about teenage chorus girls, written at age 12

Look at how meticulous I was with Cherrie's fishnets. I have to say, I like how I rendered Blowsy's left foot. I think that is rather good.

There really isn't much more of the teenage-chorus-girls novel - only a couple more pages. I never completed any of these books when I was 12, 13. I just started them, in a passion of commitment and obsession and then moved on when I was "done". Kinda like my obsessions now.

I do have a novel I wrote about a young Polish immigrant named Sadie who goes to work in a factory at the turn of the 20th century. It's a hard-hitting expose of child labor. Written by a 12 year old girl.

But for now: here are Blowsy and Cherrie, BFFs. (Uhm - BLOWSY and CHERRIE???) They sit backstage before their big numbers.

A thundery night at the carnival

Ease: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in "Morning Glory"

Some actors seem to believe that unless they SHOW all the work they have done, their job is meaningless. And if you don't congratulate them on all the work up there on the screen, they will most definitely remind you. "I worked with a Latvian lute-player for 8 months, and I also chopped off my pinkie toe, which really helped me get into the character."

This isn't a new phenomenon.

An interesting and frustrating aspect of this (if you let these things get to you) is that the actor who shows his work is more often appreciated and applauded than the dude who strolls around making it look easy. Cary Grant has no Academy Award. EASE is not congratulated. Or, that's an overstatement, because obviously Cary Grant was the biggest movie star in the world and didn't exactly suffer in obscurity. Measuring WORTH by Academy Awards is a ridiculous thing to do, although it is an interesting discussion - just in terms of the industry, how it works, and how it likes to see itself. But, you know, my favorites don't have Oscars. Jeff Bridges doesn't. (Not yet.)

But ease is something that has always been under-rated, because it doesn't make a show of itself, and it doesn't look to be congratulated or noticed. The more splashy parts, where people limp and wear buck-teeth and apprentice with Latvian pig-farmers to get into character, get the most attention, because they DEMAND the attention. And that's fine as well. Not placing a judgment on it. Many great performances are of the "splashy" variety. Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice.

I really love, however, the actors who stroll through their parts, making it look as natural as breathing.

Morning Glory, which gave Katharine Hepburn the first of her four Academy Awards, is really a vehicle for her. I've seen the performance criticized, and I can understand the criticisms, although I think Hepburn is actually doing more subtle work than she is given credit for here. This character is a broken woman. Although the film ends in triumph, it's mitigated by the fact that her monologue about how she is not afraid of "being a morning glory" is said to a washed-up actress, who is now a wardrobe mistress - a woman who had once been an up-and-coming star. Fame is fleeting. I don't believe that Eva Lovelace's fame is built to last - she is too fragile - she is not destined to be the next Ellen Terry or the next Sarah Bernhardt - Those women had thicker skins. Eva does not. I think she will end up as a wardrobe mistress, a forgotten "morning glory", and to me the ending is more ominous than happy, despite the swelling music. Hepburn, in my opinion, is NOT playing the triumph. She is playing the defiant belief in ONLY the moment - which is lovely, sure, but on deeper examination it is what will be her downfall. Anyway, the part is a showy part, with a naive open-faced beginning, a cautious and sad middle, interspersed with a big drunk scene at a party where she does not one but TWO Shakespearean monologues, and then a sudden rise-to-the-top ending. It is a full journey. It capitalizes on Hepburn's strengths - her somewhat mannered way of speaking (much more marked early in her career), her blinkered ambition, her intelligence (she could never play dumb, and when she tried she was terrible), her theatricality - and the vague sense of unreal-ness that Hepburn had back then, perfect for the playing an actress wannabe who lives primarily in a fantasy world. Hepburn was born to play such a part.

But why I do think it is a good performance is that she is playing the fantasy world, yes, but she gives us glimpses of her despair, her lost-ness, even in the moment of her greatest triumph. This woman is not going to be okay and Hepburn gives us that uneasy sense, without telegraphing it too strongly. First of all, she has fallen, and hard, for her manager - played by Adolphe Menjou, a kindly father figure who unfortunately takes advantage of her when she is in a vulnerable moment (and it's pretty blatant - she has obviously stayed the night), and from then on her heart is his. This is another way that Hepburn suggests her brokenness. Her essential brokenness. It is my feeling that Eva Lovelace STARTS the picture broken. She is not okay, although she talks a better game at the start, because she hasn't been wrecked by life yet. Delusions are a healthy thing, it helps you through the black nights, the aloneness. Eva still has all of that. But it is a shaky foundation, and with a couple of uneasy glances here, a couple of subtle hand gestures there, Hepburn shows us that scarcity from which Eva operates. Hepburn is over-doing it on all counts, Eva is a theatrical emotional showoff, and so it is a highly mannered performance (why it is criticized), but again, I think there's more going on there than is generally acknowledged.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. plays a New York playwright named Joe Sheridan who takes a shine to Eva Lovelace. He senses talent in her, but he's not sure if it can be used. He keeps bringing her up to his friend, the manager. "She's got something, don't you think?" Nobody agrees with him, really. Everyone thinks she's a bit cracked (as she is. I mean, when a young actress tells you in your first meeting that her goal in life is to eventually take her own life - onstage - you can be forgiven for thinking she's batty.) But Fairbanks isn't sure that there isn't something else there, a difference, a beauty that could be transformed into genius on the stage. He keeps her in mind. He does not forget her after their first meeting. Fairbanks, with ease and grace, plays multiple levels, though. He's not just an earnest "artist", looking for a muse for his next play. Not at all. He plays a nice guy, a sweet intelligent man, who has his own uphill battles to fight in his artistic journey. He's a success, but he actually does remember what it was like to be a total beginner, like Eva, and her hope and belief and enthusiasm touch him, touch him in a very deep place, that place where he remembers who he really is. He knows, or he can sense, that life is going to be tough for someone like Eva. He senses it from the first moment. That is why, months later, when they run into each other at a party, he says, "You know ... I worry about you sometimes." Even though they have virtually no contact. She comes into his mind from time to time, and he is concerned. He senses (unlike anyone else in the film, who either take advantage of her, or snicker at her theatrics) her fragility. He thinks it should be protected. Now that is a rare thing indeed. Fairbanks plays that type of man. A man who doesn't sneer at weakness, but worries about it. Wonders what he can do to help.

This is a deceptively simple part. Parts like these are a dime a dozen. The "nice" guy who loves the girl, but she's not interested in him, except as a friend. You want to shake Eva and say, "PLEASE consider Joe Sheridan and put that horrible Menjou out of your mind!" But you know, life isn't like that. The heart wants what it wants, sad to say. Fairbanks could have played the part as a milksop, a weak guy, a lapdog. He doesn't. He plays a truly nice man, and niceness is one of the hardest things to capture for an actor in the entire history of acting. Insanity? Piece of cake. Tragic sadness? Walk in the park compared to niceness. Fairbanks manages to show the essential character of this man - his sense of honor and niceness - without seeming weak or ineffectual, no easy task. He emerges as a friend, really the only friend that Eva's got in the shark-fest that is the theatre. He really does have her best interests at heart.

Naturally, though, there is more. He is also in love with her.

To play a man in love, who is also interested in the quality of life of his beloved, and to be concerned over her welfare and how she is treated ... this is not easy. Again, he could have mooned and sighed and pouted. He does none of these things. He seems like a good and serious playwright, who keeps his eye on the ball, in terms of his career, but he sees in her a freshness, a humor and fragility, a charming unselfawareness, that touches him. He loves her. It's that simple.

Let's get down to specifics.

How does Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. DO all of this?

Surprise, surprise, it's all about listening. What a shock. If you want to see what real listening looks like - take a look at his performance in Morning Glory. In his one-on-one scenes with Hepburn (the one at the party, in particular) - he listens to her with a sensitivity and subtlety that seems quite modern, from another movie, another acting style all together. Nobody else in the film is listening quite like he is. And that's right for the picture - he really is the only person with integrity, who really does SEE Eva. He stands out in that world already.

If you watch a lot of old movies you get used to the different acting style, the pre-"Method" style. You get used to the vaudeville voices and some of the schtick - and you not only get used to it, but you LOVE IT. Things changed in the late 40s and 50s, a true revolution in the craft of acting, and that old style has faded away. But thank goodness we still have a record of it in all of these old movies.

However, there are these strange out-of-time performers, people whose work never dates - never seems like another style - They are timeless. They not only would "fit in" now, but they would dominate now as they did then. Cary Grant. Bogart. Wayne. Cooper. Judy Garland. Barbara Stanwyck. They're strange birds. Outside of time. They came out of the same tradition as the great vaudevillian players of the time, they had the same training, the same context. But it doesn't matter. They are not nailed down, their "style" does not place them. Many great and wonderful actors (Ronald Coleman comes to mind, although there are so many more) are placed firmly within a specific acting tradition - the old-school style, the modulations of voice and gesture that dominated acting training for centuries until, well, Marlon Brando came along. There is nothing 'lesser' about their work. I love it too. But when you see someone like Gary Cooper or John Wayne in their early days - you know you're looking at something new, something different.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. has that in Morning Glory. When he smokes a cigarette, he doesn't have a theatrical attitude about it. He's just smoking a cigarette AS he's listening to Hepburn, conscientiously blowing the smoke away from her face. Totally normal naturalistic behavior. No schtick. When he listens, he listens. You can watch the responses and thoughts flicker over his face, even if he has no lines. This is the modern approach to acting. Fairbanks Jr. was already doing it back then. He's wonderful to watch because of this.

There's one moment he has in a scene with Menjou where he starts to laugh and he actually snorts while laughing. It's so real, so normal - not a studied "ha ha" (again, not to 'dis the acting greats of the past. But it is startling to see someone who actually seems INCAPABLE of "creating" anything on purpose. It all just looks like life, with this guy). Most of us snort from time to time when we really laugh. But actors back then didn't. He did. I love him for it! And I love that he seemed to slip into this really nothing part with a sensitive purpose, an understanding of where he might fit in, what his real role was in the STORY.

If we don't feel like Eva Lovelace is missing the boat by not choosing Joe Sheridan, then the picture will not work. We are aided in this by the casting of the manager - the rotund fatherly Menjou. If the manager was, say, Clark Gable, we'd have a very different picture. Fairbanks is so handsome here, so at ease in his own skin. It's fascinating (and part of the tension of the picture) that Eva is blind to him. Again, life is often like that.

But what I am really left with is Fairbanks' ability at creating a man who truly understands kindness. (Think of how, during her potentially embarrassing meltdown at the party when she decides to perform Juliet's balcony monologue for the entire party - and he, from his spot in the room, throws one of Romeo's lines up to her ... so she won't have to sit up there, pausing, waiting for a cue that will never come. See That's the kind of man Joe Sheridan is).

The best part of all of this is how easy he makes it all look.

He could have been insufferable. He is not. At the end, I ached for him. I ached for her, too, sensing the tough road ahead of her - triumph or no - but I really ached for him. Because she will always be the one that got away. And he must let her go. That's the gentlemanly thing to do, first of all, but it's also the right thing to do. He does not pout, or bemoan his fate. He just kisses her hand, lingering there, and walks out of the room. No self-pity, no martyr-ish walk.

He's a nice man. And he just lost.

And Fairbanks Jr. does it all with such a grace that we may not even notice how effective his performance really is.

Watching Morning Glory, I am reminded of one of my favorite passages from the first of Fairbanks' autobiographies, The Salad Days (review and excerpt here)

I did not aim to supplant or rival my father nor to outdo my grandfather as a business tycoon. I did believe, quite as a matter of fact, that I would be better at whatever I put my hand and heart to than most people and that any shortfall would be due as much to my own lack of interest as to anyone else's superiority. I wanted very much to be my own self, well clear of anyone's shadow, but I had no very specific goals in mind.

I have never lacked awareness of the diversity and potential of my talents. By the same token, I have never been burdened with the conceit that I was another Noel Coward or Chaplin or even a carbon copy of my father. I have, since maturity, known full well the limits of my capabilities (which I've never quite reached), the perversities of my personality, and precisely how much self-discipline I should, could, and would apply to get whatever I had to do done well. I may have exaggerated myself to other people, but I have rarely deceived myself. That is probably my only real virtue.

Reading that passage, it doesn't surprise me at all that such a man could so convincingly and with such great ease create true niceness onscreen.

Because it's the genuine article.

Cocktails with Luis Buñuel:

From Luis Buñuel's autobiography My Last Sigh:

Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. They claim that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, in which the generative power of the Holy Spirit is said to have pierced the Virgin's hymen like a ray of sunshine through a window - leaving it unbroken. Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won't melt, since nothing's worse than a watery martini. Let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients - glasses, gin and shaker - in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don't take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Shake it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, shake it again, and serve. After the dry martini comes one of my own modest inventions, the Buñueloni, best drunk before dinner. It's really a takeoff on the famous Negroni, but instead of mixing Campari, gin, and sweet Cinzano, I substitute Carpano for the Campari. Here again, the gin - in sufficient quantity to ensure its dominance over the other two ingredients - has excellent effects on the imagination. I've no idea how or why; I only know that it works.

Hope it gives you hell.

(Sometimes being magnanimous is not only too much to ask, but it would be untruthful. I love this silly song because it's honest about that.)

Gives You Hell

Me, Friday night

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

Happy birthday to Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born on this day in 1819. Moby-Dick is one of my all-time favorite books - so I figured I wouldn't just re-hash that old territory - but compile here 5,000,000 quotes about Melville. They come from everywhere - from reviews of Moby Dick when it first came out (baffled, for the most part) - to John Huston's comment on it, when directing the film - to Hart Crane's stunning poem about Melville's "tomb". Oh, and I included a bit from a correspondence I had with a certain gentleman I was once in love with, where we covered the chapter from Moby Dick "The Whiteness of the Whale" in our email exchanges.

The Maldive Shark by Herman Melville

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw,
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril's abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat--
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.

Art by Herman Melville

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;
Sad patience--joyous energies;
Humility--yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

"Moby Dick proved hard and exhausting to write. But he knew it was original and he understood that it was good. Published in 1851, it was not a success; until the first quarter of the twentieth century it was neglected. Ambitious later books were rejected. The failure of Moby Dick helped turn his primary attention to verse. Battle-Pieces (1866) was welcomed as peripheral work by a man who had once been famous for his prose. Seriously disturbed in his mind, he made a trip to the Holy Land (meeting with [Nathaniel] Hawthorne in Southport en route), and out of this visit emerged his most ambitious if not his most accomplished poem, the 18,000-line Clarel, twice as long as Paradise Lost, and in the octo-syllabic couplets of Gower's Confessio Amantis. Eventually, Melville - after working as a minor customs officer in New York - was reduced to dependence on his wife's money: she gave him an allowance to buy books and to print his later works in small editions for the tiny readership he retained. He died in 1891, quite forgotten, with the manuscript of the prose work Billy Budd completed but unpublished. His reputation was at such a low ebb that even this masterpiece went unpublished until 1924." -- Michael Schmidt, The Lives of the Poets

"The paucity of primary sources derives in large part from the downward trajectory of Melville's career. When Typee came out in 1846, he was only 27 years old. A best seller in its day, the book 'made him as famous as he would ever be when he was alive,' says Samuel Otter, an associate professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Melville's Anatomies (University of California Press, 1999).

"The name died before the man," Mr. Olsen-Smith says. "Compare Melville to Mark Twain, for instance - a man who remained beloved throughout his life and after, up to the present. People saved every scrap. ... It's a different story with Melville.' " -- Jennifer Howard, "Chronicle"

At Melville's Tomb
by Hart Crane

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

"Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand!" -- Melville apparently shouted this, as he sat at his desk writing "Moby Dick"

"...a cosmos (a chaos) not only perceptibly malignant as the Gnostics had intuited, but also irrational, like the cosmos in the hexameters of Lucretius." -- Jorge Luis Borges on the "cosmos" of "Moby Dick"

"In general, it is the non-psychological novel that offers the richest opportunities for psychological elucidation. Here the author, having no intentions of this sort, does not show his characters in a psychological light and thus leaves room for analysis and interpretation, or even invites it by his unprejudiced mode of presentation... I would also include Melville's Moby Dick, which I consider the be the greatest American novel, in this broad class of writings." -- Carl Jung inThe Spirit in Man, Art, & Literature

"Moby Dick was the most difficult picture I ever made. I lost so many battles during it that I even began to suspect that my assistant director was plotting against me. Then I realized that it was only God. God had a perfectly good reason. Ahab saw the White Whale as a mask worn by the Deity, and he saw the Deity as a malignant force. It was God's pleasure to torment and torture man. Ahab didn't deny God, he simply looked on him as a murderer - a thought that is utterly blasphemous: "Is Ahab Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?...Where do murderers go?... Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?"' -- John Huston, An Open Book, 1980

"We have little more to say in reprobation or in recommendation of this absurd book.... Mr. Melville has to thank himself only if his horrors and his heroics are flung aside by the general reader, as so much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature -- since he seems not so much unable to learn as disdainful of learning the craft of an artist. --Henry F. Chorley, in London Athenaeum, October 25 1851, review of "Moby Dick"

Me to him:

The second poem terrified me. The image of the white horse in the distance - it has haunted me ever since I read it. Why is it such a scary image? I don't know, but it is. I just finished Moby Dick and I don't know how long ago you read it but there's a chapter called The Whiteness of the Whale which is a tour de force. I underlined almost every sentence. He's talking about how the whale was terrifying because he was a big ol' whale, yes ... but there was something else going on. It was the WHITENESS that terrified and struck horror in the hearts of sailors. The whiteness of the whale. That's what came up for me when I read that line in your poem. If I have nightmares tonight about a far-away white horse I will have you to thank.

Him to me:

The whiteness of the whale: yes, that, well Melville probably had some residue of Plato's spirit forms in his head when he was writing that book. Moby Dick, the whale itself, is based on an actual legend of a white whale and the ramming of a whale ship by a sperm whale. The Platonic bits resonate more clearly in the Masthead chapter, when he warns the lookout not to go mad from staring at nothing all day and plunge into the water. Also, there is the mystical image of the infinite pairs of whales in processions with a great white whale, like a snowy mountain (an actual mountain visible from his study at the time he was writing), eternal and sexless. The whiteness is not an obliteration of knowledge but the absence of it. Without stimulus, the human mind cannot work. In the Counterpane chapter, he explains that we understand the world through oppositions, as in warmth of a Counterpane from the one extremity sticking out on a winter's ight. Because the whale is white, a blankness, a tabula rasa, it can be interpreted differently by each man who encounters it. The mutinous Shakers, for instance, believe it is the Shaker God, a blind god at the center of the universe. Queequeg, the last of his people, believes it is one of his tribe's gods. Each of the first mates has his own relationship with the whale. Ahab believes that Moby Dick is a spiteful, thinking animal, the embodiment of meaning and evil in the cosmos. Starbuck, a righteous if unimaginative man, believes this blasphemy. To this accusation, Ahab famously answers: "I'd strike the sun if it insulted me!"

It is a great disaster of a novel but a Great book. Unfortunately it is being replaced on high school and college curricula by books about the Middle Passage of the African slaves to North America - usually a more readable and certainly more topical choice.

I last read the book the day after my father's funeral, in ****. Of course I read his edition, which I still have. My parents were called in for a parent-teacher conference when I was in third grade. The teacher had taken my copy of Moby Dick, since she caught me reading it in class. To be fair, I think it was math class, but nevertheless the book has always been important to me and haunts me.

Letter of Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne:

June 29 1851

My dear Hawthorne ,

The clear air and open window invite me to write to you. For some time past I have been so busy with a thousand things that I have almost forgotten when I wrote you last, and whether I received an answer. This most persuasive season has now for weeks recalled me from certain crotchetty and over doleful chimearas, the like of which men like you and me and some others, forming a chain of God's posts round the world, must be content to encounter now and then, and fight them the best way we can. But come they will, -- for, in the boundless, trackless, but still glorious wild wilderness through which these outposts run, the Indians do sorely abound, as well as the insignificant but still stinging mosquitoes. Since you have been here, I have been building some shanties of houses (connected with the old one) and likewise some shanties of chapters and essays. I have been plowing and sowing and raising and painting and printing and praying, -- and now begin to come out upon a less bustling time, and to enjoy the calm prospect of things from a fair piazza at the north of the old farm house here.

Not entirely yet, though, am I without something to be urgent with. The "Whale" is only half through the press; for, wearied with the long delay of the printers, and disgusted with the heat and dust of the babylonish brick-kiln of New York, I came back to the country to feel the grass -- and end the book reclining on it, if I may. -- I am sure you will pardon this speaking all about myself, for if I say so much on that head, be sure all the rest of the world are thinking about themselves ten times as much. Let us speak, although we show all our faults and weaknesses, -- for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it, -- not in [a] set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation. -- But I am falling into my old foible -- preaching. I am busy, but shall not be very long. Come and spend a day here, if you can and want to; if not, stay in Lenox, and God give you long life. When I am quite free of my present engagements, I am going to treat myself to a ride and a visit to you. Have ready a bottle of brandy, because I always feel like drinking that heroic drink when we talk ontological heroics together. This is rather a crazy letter in some respects, I apprehend. If so, ascribe it to the intoxicating effects of the latter end of June operating upon a very susceptible and peradventure feeble temperament.

Shall I send you a fin of the Whale by way of a specimen mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked -- though the hell-fire in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably have cooked it all ere this. This is the book's motto (the secret one), -- Ego non baptiso te in nomine -- but make out the rest yourself.
H.M

"I am like one of those seeds taken out of the Egyptian pyramids, which, after being three thousand years a seed, and nothing but a seed, being planted in English soil it developed itself, grew to greenness, and then fell to mould." -- Herman Melville

"Some critics would place his name among the most important American poets of the nineteenth century, or even today." -- Robert Penn Warren

"Melville's poems, less sumptuous in semantic nuance than the prose, less second nature to him than his fiction, are worked at and worked up, yet the difficulty of the restraining forms remains central. So does the rumor of an 'unspeakable' theme, unacknowledged at times, at times veiled from himself, which has to do with a radiant sexual irresolution. More insistently even than Conrad, Melville depicts a male world in prose and verse, a world in which intimate relationships and erotic experiences are between men and types of men: at sea, in the army and elsewhere. He celebrates, laments, touches - and he occasionally foresees, not the huge and benign vision of Walt Whitman, but with narrowed eyes, looking further than the future. His is not the optimism of Emerson but something more serious: he sees beyond a bad age, he sees to the other side of evil; nature consoles, but it also remembers and comments." -- Michael Schmidt, "Lives of the Poets"

"Mr. Herman Melville has earned a deservedly high reputation for his performances in descriptive fiction. He has gathered his own materials, and travelled along fresh and untrodden literary paths, exhibiting powers of no common order, and great originality. The more careful, therefore, should he be to maintain the fame he so rapidly acquired, and not waste his strength on such purposeless and unequal doings as these rambling volumes about spermaceti whales." -- London Literary Gazette, December 6 1851

"I could readily see in Emerson ... the insinuation that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions." -- Herman Melville

"Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had 'pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated'; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation.... He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, on a walk on the beach with Melville, 1857

"Mardi is a rich book, with depths here and there that compel a man to swim for his life. It is so good that one scarcely pardons the writer for not having brooded over it, so as to make it a great deal better." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, in a letter to Evert Duyckinck

Various images of Moby Dick ...

"Readers will note that I have said nothing very much about Moby-Dick . But what can anyone say? Its quietly portentous first sentence is as famous as any in world literature ('Call me Ishmael'), and some of Ahab's monologues, like the one beginning 'Is Ahab Ahab?,' achieve an eloquence rivaling that of the Bible and Shakespeare. There are longueurs, but even in the midst of tedious cetological lore, one comes across such disturbing passages as that in which the Pequod's sailors squeeze and squeeze and squeeze handfuls of white spermacetti. Then there are the marvelous portraits of the crew -- the black cabin boy Pip, who goes mad and loses his sense of self, the well-meaning but weak Starbuck, the mysterious harpooners Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo. There are the haunting encounters with other ships, especially the Rachel 'searching for her lost children.' And throughout there is philosophizing that at times rises to a kind of prose poetry:

'All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in a whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.'

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

"It will be a strange sort of book, tho,' I fear; blubber is blubber you know ... and to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the things, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves." -- Melville on "Moby Dick" - in a letter to Richard Henry, Jr.

"A sense of unspeakable security is in me at this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb." -- Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne - after Hawthorne read Moby Dick

"...fresh from his mountain charged to the muzzle with sailor metaphysics and jargon of things unknowable," -- Evert Duyckinck in his journal, describing a meeting with Melville, 1856

-- "[He is] a little paler, and perhaps a little sadder.... and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary occupation, pursued without much success, latterly; and his writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of mind." --Nathaniel Hawthorne, on seeing Melville in 1857

"It is--or seems to be--a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of a joke.... And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed around pretty liberally and impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it." -- Melville to Henry Savage

E.M. Forster, from one of his lectures on the novel.

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

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

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

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

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

Forster said that "prophetic" literature was one of the "forms" of the novel, and that only 4 writers came close to being prophetic: Dostoevsky, DH Lawrence, Emily Bronte, and Herman Melville. I also have to say I cannot agree strongly enough with his comment: "The rest is song." YES.

As in this, one of my favorite bits of writing not only from Moby Dick, but ever:

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

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

My eternal struggle.

Happy birthday, Mr. Melville.