I am having a reading of A Good Smoke, once more, in New York for producers, etc. on Thursday.
An actor in the cast sent me an email telling me my play reminded him of the following poem.
I was flattered.
I am very glad that my play, after much noodling, still reminds someone of poetry.
I do like this poem.
POEM ENDING WITH A LINE
FROM DANTE
Snow coming in parallel to the street,
a cab spinning its tires (a rising whine
like a domestic argument, and then
the words get said that never get forgot),
slush and backed-up runoff waters at each
corner, clogged buses smelling of wet wool . . .
The acrid anger of the homeless swells
like wet rice. This slop is where I live, bitch,
a sogged panhandler shrieks to whom it may
concern. None who can hear him stall or turn,
there's someone's misery in all we earn.
But like a burr in a dog's coat his rage
has borrowed legs. We bring it home. It lives
like kin among the angers of the house,
and has the same sad zinc taste in the mouth:
And I have told you this to make you grieve.
– WILLIAM MATTHEWS
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Wardrobe Choices
What are you wearing on Super Tuesday?
I think I’ll put on my cross-gender, carbon neutral, socialist leaning condom dress brought to you by Obamacare with a pouch for higher learning.
I think I’ll put on my cross-gender, carbon neutral, socialist leaning condom dress brought to you by Obamacare with a pouch for higher learning.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Think of it This Way
Okay right wing people of New Hampshire
You just think it’s wrong, like it’s all new and all wrong and all scary so you preach tradition.
And tradition is against same sexes together.
But:
Think of men together as a conservative old timey thing. Like Rome Greece
I know how you love the past. You just have to go further back.
Corinthian columns. Togas. Young men with muscles. Surely, you can see the appeal?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
He's Actually for Real
Every time he opens his mouth, my flabber is so gasted, it almost tickles.
I don’t know why I think he’s so funny. Could it be a defense mechanism on my part?
Of course it is.
He is the candidate that so many people deserve. He is not a cynic, this Santorum. He is not actually manipulating. He believes the insanity that is drooling out of his mouth.
Apparently, he hates smart people. Hell, I hate smart people, too…mostly because they are often not so creative. But I would rather have a smart person running the government than a peculiar moron who wants to destroy the government except for the one little piece that would force women to accept all sperm packages delivered into their God given American vaginas.
How this man could be in a primary for anything at all is completely shocking.
But still, I find him entertaining. He’s that completely out of touch guy who believes he understands it all. Running on ego and the fumes of Christ, he gives voice to all the others who are doing the same.
But still, I find him entertaining. He’s that completely out of touch guy who believes he understands it all. Running on ego and the fumes of Christ, he gives voice to all the others who are doing the same.
I guess it comes down to superstition and using the wombs of women as the ballast to keep the fairy tales floating that makes me chuckle in wonderment.
I’m not paying attention too closely because I imagine my chuckling would turn to rage.
I must dismiss this man as an ignorant rabble rouser.
But then, I’m a coastal elite. I actually use a fork, believe in education and presume that women are not all Christian baby machines.
Okay, the chuckling is over and I have found my true anger.
Santorum, go the frack back to central Pennsylvania
Monday, February 27, 2012
Come On, Boys!
Flowers are blooming…in fact, daffodils have been poking up out of the ground since late January in places.
This is truly confusing.
But it was a very mild winter and that was nice.
What concern me are the pollens of May.
(And that, to me, concerns sounds like the correct verb in that sentence.)
And all they want to do is Frack?
You can’t Frack your way out of this.
You can’t Frack your way out of this.
But apparently, you can’t renewable your way out of this either.
So then what?
I was looking at a Terra Chips bag tonight—of course, the settling of contents inside (right, settling…the filling) was about one-third the size of the bag. So I’m getting disgusted by this big foil-y, plastic-y bag and all I could think was, “Do we really need to continue to go to war for the petroleum and to pollute like giant mad dogs so this company can make such huge bags?”
I was looking at a Terra Chips bag tonight—of course, the settling of contents inside (right, settling…the filling) was about one-third the size of the bag. So I’m getting disgusted by this big foil-y, plastic-y bag and all I could think was, “Do we really need to continue to go to war for the petroleum and to pollute like giant mad dogs so this company can make such huge bags?”
Youth—come on. You can at least do this. Insist on smaller packaging.
I ask the youth because, you know, they have more at stake here…and more energy to make it happen.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Paris and Alexander Payne
Coincidentally, we watched Paris
Paris, Je t’aime, for those who do not know and for those who need to be reminded, is a collection of short films by various connu (known) film makers, about love in Paris. Falling in or out of love, but mostly in. The last short in the series is by Alexander Payne called 14th Arrondissement.
In this short, Margo Martindale, a working Denver woman goes to Paris Paris
You can You Tube/Google 14th Arrondissement and find a bad copy of the six minute short which is certainly one way to defy copyright laws. Better still, you could enjoy it on a Netflix DVD in its intended paid-for glory by putting Paris
I enjoy the Oscars. But I really like simple people for what they do and how they are. Because it’s all so joyful and all so sad all at once. And the team of Payne-Martindale gets this, fully.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
No Surprise
A fine state you are in.
Santorum…you are the candidate so many people deserve.
Women on the Right: Thank you for noticing. Ricky is a madman who wants control over your sex organs. Keep waking up.
As Israel keeps building in the West Bank : Who will out-baby the other side? The Orthodox Jews or the Palestinians? I imagine impregnations within one month of giving birth. A population war. The ultimate cannon, controlled by men: The birth canal.
The end of February often feels like spring. February has a horrible reputation. But really, it is January--the cruelest month.
Bullets Over Broadway is the perfect source material for a Broadway musical.
I never have rice pudding in the house.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Love Her or Hate Her
She’s brave.
We saw Biophilia tonight. I was happy Bjork included songs from Vespertine, which are more approachable.
But, truly, this was something else. I love the Icelandic girl choir. The chords are tight and discordant and ethereal.
Bjork sings like no one else.
And the graphics and the strange instruments added to the other worldly fun.
Plus, the harp.
It is inspiring to see and hear something this unique. Some of the songs are transcendent. A few are annoying.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
More Proof
Another reason to hate that miserable California. Who would ever want to live there?
The clip please:
The clip please:
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Happy VD
We celebrated Valentine’s Day early this year, two days early, on a Sunday, doing what we often do. The small things.
We slept late, ate goat cheese-parsley-olive omelets, called our parents, took a five mile walk in very cold Central Park, sat on a park bench during a hard ten minute snowfall, came home, old movie clip of a train going through a tunnel, ate roast pork, watched Downton Abbey and called it one of the best days of our lives.
We’re married and middle aged. And all the ambition, singularity of purpose and hubris of youth, though propelling, is nothing compared with spending a perfectly simple day with the one you solidly love.
Happy Valentine’s Day to my husband, Adam. I’m glad you're mine.
We slept late, ate goat cheese-parsley-olive omelets, called our parents, took a five mile walk in very cold Central Park, sat on a park bench during a hard ten minute snowfall, came home, old movie clip of a train going through a tunnel, ate roast pork, watched Downton Abbey and called it one of the best days of our lives.
We’re married and middle aged. And all the ambition, singularity of purpose and hubris of youth, though propelling, is nothing compared with spending a perfectly simple day with the one you solidly love.
Happy Valentine’s Day to my husband, Adam. I’m glad you're mine.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Questions
Do you perhaps think that all this autism is the beginning of the extinction of mankind?
Or, do you believe it’s been around in about these proportions for a long time and for the people at the low end of the spectrum, it’s not even autism, but really just another way of being?
Lastly, did you dislike Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the movie, as much as I did?
Or, do you believe it’s been around in about these proportions for a long time and for the people at the low end of the spectrum, it’s not even autism, but really just another way of being?
Lastly, did you dislike Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the movie, as much as I did?
Thursday, February 09, 2012
The Love and Humility of Two Women
Representative Maureen Walsh speaks about love. In the face of love, she understands we are all equal. She is humbled by it. She wants to share it. She does not make a show of it. She is not angry. She is accepting. Acceptance wins the game. Always.
Madonna in the superbowl. Now, one could get snarky and talk about her shiny mask of a face. Or her minor hunchbackish aura. Her jaw line troubles. Her stilted moves. But one won’t. I do mention them in passing because no matter how much money she spends, we can all tell that her skeleton and muscle underneath are not what they used to be. She knows it, too. You can feel her humility. It hurts. And it hurts. She also seems resigned, somewhat, to Madonna-formerly-known-as-Madonna. But her need for love, to be part of it all, in lyrics and in action, is still there.
When I was a young Communist in the 80s, I found her very upsetting. All things material, girl or otherwise, decay. I looked forward to her decline. I preferred Cyndi Lauper. But Madonna was a material lesson for me. We certainly did not know each other and let’s face it---she had big plans. And I had a calendar full of summer stock auditions…
I think Madonna is on the brink of making fun of the old Madonna. She’s smart so she sort of has to. She’s a solid comedian. She was great when she guested on Will & Grace. My vote? Give Madonna a sitcom. It’s the gracious thing to do. I bet she would humbly accept it. I’m happy to write it. Any takers?
Madonna in the superbowl. Now, one could get snarky and talk about her shiny mask of a face. Or her minor hunchbackish aura. Her jaw line troubles. Her stilted moves. But one won’t. I do mention them in passing because no matter how much money she spends, we can all tell that her skeleton and muscle underneath are not what they used to be. She knows it, too. You can feel her humility. It hurts. And it hurts. She also seems resigned, somewhat, to Madonna-formerly-known-as-Madonna. But her need for love, to be part of it all, in lyrics and in action, is still there.
When I was a young Communist in the 80s, I found her very upsetting. All things material, girl or otherwise, decay. I looked forward to her decline. I preferred Cyndi Lauper. But Madonna was a material lesson for me. We certainly did not know each other and let’s face it---she had big plans. And I had a calendar full of summer stock auditions…
I think Madonna is on the brink of making fun of the old Madonna. She’s smart so she sort of has to. She’s a solid comedian. She was great when she guested on Will & Grace. My vote? Give Madonna a sitcom. It’s the gracious thing to do. I bet she would humbly accept it. I’m happy to write it. Any takers?
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
The Numbers are Sort of In
Reports say that adults under thirty-five years of age favor gay marriage by a whopping 70%.
I do not know how large a sample they used or where this sample was taken. Perhaps 70 youthful people at Bennington and then 30 working stiffs nearby in Troy?
It doesn’t matter the exact number. All polls are biased, if not directly, than by unknown variables.
But it is safe to say this. Young people are mostly completely fine with gay marriage. Thank the mainstream media (note: mainstream) and Hollywood. I wink. ;)
But if your media is mainstream and everyone is watching what Hollywood makes (and let’s face it, more of it is made in Burbank and Studio City) then honeys, that IS the culture you are living in. The people make the culture? The culture makes the people? I choose the first.
These yelpings from the religious right are the sounds of dying dogs. They know a hard gay is gonna fall, is actually falling, in the best way. They cannot stop the youthful idea of equality from taking over. Besides, young people have such a huge job ahead of them---to save the country and the world---the last thing they have the energy for is to be hateful toward their friends, relatives and roommates.
So thank you young people, for being young and seeing clearly.
To the old and the silly, it’s a new world order:
It’s here. It’s queer. Get used to it.
We don’t bite. Unless you want us to.
I do not know how large a sample they used or where this sample was taken. Perhaps 70 youthful people at Bennington and then 30 working stiffs nearby in Troy?
It doesn’t matter the exact number. All polls are biased, if not directly, than by unknown variables.
But it is safe to say this. Young people are mostly completely fine with gay marriage. Thank the mainstream media (note: mainstream) and Hollywood. I wink. ;)
But if your media is mainstream and everyone is watching what Hollywood makes (and let’s face it, more of it is made in Burbank and Studio City) then honeys, that IS the culture you are living in. The people make the culture? The culture makes the people? I choose the first.
These yelpings from the religious right are the sounds of dying dogs. They know a hard gay is gonna fall, is actually falling, in the best way. They cannot stop the youthful idea of equality from taking over. Besides, young people have such a huge job ahead of them---to save the country and the world---the last thing they have the energy for is to be hateful toward their friends, relatives and roommates.
So thank you young people, for being young and seeing clearly.
To the old and the silly, it’s a new world order:
It’s here. It’s queer. Get used to it.
We don’t bite. Unless you want us to.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Monday, February 06, 2012
The Gay Men and Lesbian Divide
As gay men grow up and get over their trauma of being gay and as the society becomes more tolerant, accepting, and even celebratory of gay men (especially in the better cities), it becomes clear to gay men that, “Hell, it’s good to be a man, in a world of liberal men, where it is still a man’s world and you can be friends with women but sort of know that yes, it’s all about the men and so the world gets heady and powerful, strong and sexy—a parade of testosterone and sinew.”
But what if you are a lesbian? You get over your trauma. Or let’s say you don’t have trauma but “made a choice” or however you have become a lesbian, and you integrate into the adult world, even in one of our better cities, and you see, clearly, that it is still a man’s world. What would you want to do in order to feel like it was all about being a woman and all about being powerful, too? Because that looks pretty damn good to you. You’d want to separate.
So though there is often this joke about lesbian separatists, it sort of makes sense. As a gay man, if you are in the mood on any given day, you can fully ignore women and just march along and feel like your tribe (men, in general) is running everything. You can’t do that as a woman. And if you do, it will take a huge amount of aggression and denial and strange internal rule changing to get that done. Or a move to the woods.
I do not know if this post is at all compassionate. I mean it to be. But I also know that I am being condemning of lesbians in our culture who try to separate while remaining upright, walking among men.
I do not know what the answer is. I want lesbians to be powerful. I want women, in general, to be powerful. I want it all to be equal (as long as it really is equal). But it never gets there. And I just wonder if this is always going to be this way as long as we are physical beings and men remain physically stronger than women, with their muscles and their height, with their external genitalia hanging out, claiming space, as if it is their birthright. No matter how you slice it.
But what if you are a lesbian? You get over your trauma. Or let’s say you don’t have trauma but “made a choice” or however you have become a lesbian, and you integrate into the adult world, even in one of our better cities, and you see, clearly, that it is still a man’s world. What would you want to do in order to feel like it was all about being a woman and all about being powerful, too? Because that looks pretty damn good to you. You’d want to separate.
So though there is often this joke about lesbian separatists, it sort of makes sense. As a gay man, if you are in the mood on any given day, you can fully ignore women and just march along and feel like your tribe (men, in general) is running everything. You can’t do that as a woman. And if you do, it will take a huge amount of aggression and denial and strange internal rule changing to get that done. Or a move to the woods.
I do not know if this post is at all compassionate. I mean it to be. But I also know that I am being condemning of lesbians in our culture who try to separate while remaining upright, walking among men.
I do not know what the answer is. I want lesbians to be powerful. I want women, in general, to be powerful. I want it all to be equal (as long as it really is equal). But it never gets there. And I just wonder if this is always going to be this way as long as we are physical beings and men remain physically stronger than women, with their muscles and their height, with their external genitalia hanging out, claiming space, as if it is their birthright. No matter how you slice it.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Superbowl and Beyond
In an alternate universe, there was a Superbowl played today. I hear my hometown won. I heard screaming outside. While at a restaurant, I saw some halftime Madonna up on the screen. She never tires of playing dress-up. Does she really feel it?
We watched SMASH tonight, the new show about getting a musical up and running. It’s bold strokes. But that seems to work. It is well shot and well acted. The neighborhood is right here. I switched to the satire of 30 Rock. I like to laugh.
This winter has been extremely mild. I do not mind. But I have to say, I hope we get some really cold days and I hope we get a decent snow storm. I remember winters like this as a kid. They sort of slid by without much action. I remember most of the late 1970’s as barely wintry winters. Not that I do not believe in global warming or anything.
I have committed to writing more frequently. It is necessary.
I have committed to exercising more regularly. It makes me feel more plausible.
Even though blogging for the blog of it is so very 2006, I seem to continue. Is it because I cannot let go of something once my paws are all over it? I don’t know. But micro-thoughts on Facebook and Twitter are best served up pithy, and I am often without pith.
Kale.
We watched SMASH tonight, the new show about getting a musical up and running. It’s bold strokes. But that seems to work. It is well shot and well acted. The neighborhood is right here. I switched to the satire of 30 Rock. I like to laugh.
This winter has been extremely mild. I do not mind. But I have to say, I hope we get some really cold days and I hope we get a decent snow storm. I remember winters like this as a kid. They sort of slid by without much action. I remember most of the late 1970’s as barely wintry winters. Not that I do not believe in global warming or anything.
I have committed to writing more frequently. It is necessary.
I have committed to exercising more regularly. It makes me feel more plausible.
Even though blogging for the blog of it is so very 2006, I seem to continue. Is it because I cannot let go of something once my paws are all over it? I don’t know. But micro-thoughts on Facebook and Twitter are best served up pithy, and I am often without pith.
Kale.
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
All Mitt and a Bag of Chips
Now that Mittens has beaten up the Newt, you have to wonder, why does Newt want to continue? Is he a masochist? Or just running on ego?
It must be brain chemistry in some way. Some hit of something that is wanted. It certainly cannot be from anything rational.
But then, who am I to prognosticate? Or even attempt to spell that word?
Something could happen for Newt.
I have not been watching the debates, getting my couch cushion ready for the real one between Obama and who I assume will be that Dog-in-a-luggage-caddy-on-the-roof man.
I still find Obama to be very attractive, a rock star if you will. Mitt is all dry cleaners and hair spray and being-separate-from-the-self, except when it comes to greed.
I don’t hate greed, exactly. It’s pretty much the only reasonable response in a capitalist society where you must choose between being the hammer or the anvil.
Oh that.
I have tried to stay away from hammers and anvils…to gather enough wealth to get out of the fight. To take some higher road. I think I have failed in gathering enough wealth, but have succeeded in staying out of the meanest fights. But the reverse of that, as usual, might be true, too.
We often say what we wish we were and try to pass it off as the truth. I’m often putting a -1 in front of my thoughts and then ask myself, “Try that one on.”
So, trying on Mitt because I would never think to. He does not feel like a leader. He does not inspire anything in me. He reminds me of that guy walking through the airport in a mountain state who you have absolutely nothing in common with, whose pants are too tight in the thighs and too billowy in the calves, who is kind of physically overbearing and bullying, who would mow you down with his wheely bag if you got between him and a bag of jalapeno chips he had his eye on.
Of course, I could be projecting.
It must be brain chemistry in some way. Some hit of something that is wanted. It certainly cannot be from anything rational.
But then, who am I to prognosticate? Or even attempt to spell that word?
Something could happen for Newt.
I have not been watching the debates, getting my couch cushion ready for the real one between Obama and who I assume will be that Dog-in-a-luggage-caddy-on-the-roof man.
I still find Obama to be very attractive, a rock star if you will. Mitt is all dry cleaners and hair spray and being-separate-from-the-self, except when it comes to greed.
I don’t hate greed, exactly. It’s pretty much the only reasonable response in a capitalist society where you must choose between being the hammer or the anvil.
Oh that.
I have tried to stay away from hammers and anvils…to gather enough wealth to get out of the fight. To take some higher road. I think I have failed in gathering enough wealth, but have succeeded in staying out of the meanest fights. But the reverse of that, as usual, might be true, too.
We often say what we wish we were and try to pass it off as the truth. I’m often putting a -1 in front of my thoughts and then ask myself, “Try that one on.”
So, trying on Mitt because I would never think to. He does not feel like a leader. He does not inspire anything in me. He reminds me of that guy walking through the airport in a mountain state who you have absolutely nothing in common with, whose pants are too tight in the thighs and too billowy in the calves, who is kind of physically overbearing and bullying, who would mow you down with his wheely bag if you got between him and a bag of jalapeno chips he had his eye on.
Of course, I could be projecting.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Dems and Pubs and Creativity
Someone I am related to once said to me about gay marriage, “It just ain’t right.”
He eventually got over it.
He is a Republican.
But that’s not my point, sort of.
Things change, is my bigger point. And all that change comes from creativity.
What is so striking to me is when a gaggle of good Americans sits down to watch the Superbowl this weekend, they will feel as if everything is right in the world, that this game has always been and always will be, that this “Just is right.”
But football was invented.
The commercials are truly creative.
The mistaken exposed nipple incident inspired much creativity.
Everything comes up and is new.
If you are a Democrat, you often go with that flow. If you are a Republican, it lights up your fear center and you are terrified. They’ve done map brain studies.
It is hard to face what is new. It ultimately means that all that you know will expire. Nothing “is right.” It emerges, it changes, it falls down, it is replaced.
Some forms of government and religion have had some staying power. But these, too, will continue to change.
And there is nothing you can do to turn back the clock. And if you do succeed in turning back the clock, it will not last long.
The Constitution was just the beginning. Then there were amendments. There will be more. And maybe one day, a redo.
He eventually got over it.
He is a Republican.
But that’s not my point, sort of.
Things change, is my bigger point. And all that change comes from creativity.
What is so striking to me is when a gaggle of good Americans sits down to watch the Superbowl this weekend, they will feel as if everything is right in the world, that this game has always been and always will be, that this “Just is right.”
But football was invented.
The commercials are truly creative.
The mistaken exposed nipple incident inspired much creativity.
Everything comes up and is new.
If you are a Democrat, you often go with that flow. If you are a Republican, it lights up your fear center and you are terrified. They’ve done map brain studies.
It is hard to face what is new. It ultimately means that all that you know will expire. Nothing “is right.” It emerges, it changes, it falls down, it is replaced.
Some forms of government and religion have had some staying power. But these, too, will continue to change.
And there is nothing you can do to turn back the clock. And if you do succeed in turning back the clock, it will not last long.
The Constitution was just the beginning. Then there were amendments. There will be more. And maybe one day, a redo.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Fuck a Little, Walk and Talk a Lot
There was a study. I read it on the Google and I simply can’t Google another thing so I am not going to find the link.
But it went something like this. They gave a lot of people pager-like things and then would randomly beep them. At that moment, the beepee would mark down what they were doing and how happy they were on a scale. After a year, this was all tallied up.
The happiest people were those having sex.
The second happiest were those who were walking and talking with friends.
Then, talking with friends.
The list went on and on.
At the bottom were things like domestic arguments, parking tickets, doctor visits, etc.
Not many surprises. But like most things in life, it is the number two position that can be harnessed to one’s advantage and indulged in regularly with not too much fear of someone taking it away from you: walking with friends. (And since the number one position cannot be indulged in for hours and days at a time, en principe, it cannot be chosen as frequently and is therefore useful in the extreme but not in the quotidian.)
I was with my friend, Todd, today walking and talking in the park. He posted a pic of us on FB. I got to talking about this study I remembered because it was such a nice day and walking and talking with a friend was proving to be, as usual, an enormous mood elevator.
And then I thought this—It’s just because we are monkeys on the plains with our bro’ monkeys, looking around for prospects. It just feels normal. This action reduces stress and elevates humor.
So much of what makes us happy is simple animal behavior. Being a simple animal is difficult for religionists and intellectuals to stomach. The middle class gets to it, at times, but it can often lack grace.
You know it when you feel it. Sometimes people will eat entire bags of red vines or scream at others all day long in search of altering their brain chemistry into joy.
Being a calm animal on the move, balanced with other safe calm animals, in nature, makes mortality seem less horrific, with the sunlight and trees allowing you to know it’s all forever.
But it went something like this. They gave a lot of people pager-like things and then would randomly beep them. At that moment, the beepee would mark down what they were doing and how happy they were on a scale. After a year, this was all tallied up.
The happiest people were those having sex.
The second happiest were those who were walking and talking with friends.
Then, talking with friends.
The list went on and on.
At the bottom were things like domestic arguments, parking tickets, doctor visits, etc.
Not many surprises. But like most things in life, it is the number two position that can be harnessed to one’s advantage and indulged in regularly with not too much fear of someone taking it away from you: walking with friends. (And since the number one position cannot be indulged in for hours and days at a time, en principe, it cannot be chosen as frequently and is therefore useful in the extreme but not in the quotidian.)
I was with my friend, Todd, today walking and talking in the park. He posted a pic of us on FB. I got to talking about this study I remembered because it was such a nice day and walking and talking with a friend was proving to be, as usual, an enormous mood elevator.
And then I thought this—It’s just because we are monkeys on the plains with our bro’ monkeys, looking around for prospects. It just feels normal. This action reduces stress and elevates humor.
So much of what makes us happy is simple animal behavior. Being a simple animal is difficult for religionists and intellectuals to stomach. The middle class gets to it, at times, but it can often lack grace.
You know it when you feel it. Sometimes people will eat entire bags of red vines or scream at others all day long in search of altering their brain chemistry into joy.
Being a calm animal on the move, balanced with other safe calm animals, in nature, makes mortality seem less horrific, with the sunlight and trees allowing you to know it’s all forever.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Hooray for Good Things
Huge congratulations to my friends Tecia E. and John. H. for working on The Surrogate, which was a huge smashola at Sundance.
This is such great news. I can’t wait to see it.
Tecia is a world class script supervisor and John is always great in everything. And then there’s Helen Hunt, who I am glad to see is taking on a big sexy role. She has so often been cast as the angry brittle one. It was high time for this warm leap.
Keep up the great work you talented wonders.
This is such great news. I can’t wait to see it.
Tecia is a world class script supervisor and John is always great in everything. And then there’s Helen Hunt, who I am glad to see is taking on a big sexy role. She has so often been cast as the angry brittle one. It was high time for this warm leap.
Keep up the great work you talented wonders.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Mother China
It strikes me again and again that China, with its one party system, can decide what to do, do it and then do it some more.
As long as China subsidizes what it needs for material gain, we will always lose.
And we cannot stop them from doing what they are doing.
Some say it is getting more expensive to do business in China. How much more? Enough to bring manufacturing to Michigan and Ohio?
So here’s a mash up. In order for our aggressively capitalist U.S.A. to be competitive, it needs to go socialist on business development in order to truly compete.
While China acts as one nation of over a billion people, we are almost 400 million divided by ideological internecine fisticuffs—most of it in the form of obstructionist passive aggression by Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Stop your bullshit. You want something to focus on? Look at China.
If it’s so important to you to get your dopamine on by winning “the fight,” pick a different fucking fight.
As long as China subsidizes what it needs for material gain, we will always lose.
And we cannot stop them from doing what they are doing.
Some say it is getting more expensive to do business in China. How much more? Enough to bring manufacturing to Michigan and Ohio?
So here’s a mash up. In order for our aggressively capitalist U.S.A. to be competitive, it needs to go socialist on business development in order to truly compete.
While China acts as one nation of over a billion people, we are almost 400 million divided by ideological internecine fisticuffs—most of it in the form of obstructionist passive aggression by Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Stop your bullshit. You want something to focus on? Look at China.
If it’s so important to you to get your dopamine on by winning “the fight,” pick a different fucking fight.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Time to Laugh
The strange thing about recession is that thoughts become simpler. People are very much in survival mode which means there is not as much time for leisure, creativity and new ideas.
There is also less humor. It is easier to goof when the larder is full.
I would rather be rich and funny than poor and serious.
There is also less humor. It is easier to goof when the larder is full.
I would rather be rich and funny than poor and serious.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Feeling it Young
By the time I was four years old I knew something was up, that it was very important and unique and that somehow it was beautiful.
Not to be hokey or anything, but it was the understanding that I was alive and that other people were alive and the earth was really interesting and strangely, I could look at all these other people living, creatures that they were, and I was one of them. I was inside one of these creatures and it was me. I imagine this was the first moment of a bit of consciousness.
I liked that feeling and still do. It makes you very aware and it increases your connectedness to nature and to calm, deep joy. It can also make you feel very separate if other people are not noticing, “the miracle,” or harshing you about it, I say sort of in awe and sort of embarrassingly with a bit of tongue in the cheek (my tongue).
I am not religious, but I was thinking today, since death is the ultimate destination, the ultimate outcome of every story, that no matter how you slice it, this death idea figures quite large in our lives, in our identities, in our fears, in our time tables. No wonder people have built up big things around it. Institutions with architecture, even. Death is so powerful. It always wins. So let them be religious (and perhaps quiet about it so they can notice it all?) When I accept death, I feel very calm. When I do not, I thrash.
My hands have become lizardy. At times, I look at my waist and I think, “How different am I, really, than a gorilla who has been let loose for a long weekend in the Krispy Kreme warehouse?”
But even those things do not matter so much.
(Upon rereading, I noticed that I typed waste instead of waist. Another good reading of that sentence.)
I haven’t changed much since I was four. I often want to get back to the granite rocks with the schist sparkles, in this copse of trees on the edge of the property line of my house where I first sat with these ideas, alone. I was happy to do nothing but sit and be aware of what was around me. To know this was a rare event. (Even if there are zillions of other living creatures in the universe, it is still mathematically rare that there are human mammals and even more mathematically rare, still, that you are actually one of those beasts.) I felt like I was getting away with something, sitting there, not doing anything but noticing. I did not want to get caught doing that. I felt afraid that it was wrong. But deeper, I knew it was the greatest, most enjoyable thing. Perhaps I felt that it was wrong to feel so good, like when you first discover masturbation or chocolate mousse. Then you grow up and people insist on all these other stories, with guns and tits and pecking orders and wins and losses and so many other items. You hang onto them for dear life. But really, it’s just the awareness that lasts.
You can do it all. The action and the awareness. It’s just kind of tiring. But I have also been thinking lately, maybe it's okay to be tired.
Not to be hokey or anything, but it was the understanding that I was alive and that other people were alive and the earth was really interesting and strangely, I could look at all these other people living, creatures that they were, and I was one of them. I was inside one of these creatures and it was me. I imagine this was the first moment of a bit of consciousness.
I liked that feeling and still do. It makes you very aware and it increases your connectedness to nature and to calm, deep joy. It can also make you feel very separate if other people are not noticing, “the miracle,” or harshing you about it, I say sort of in awe and sort of embarrassingly with a bit of tongue in the cheek (my tongue).
I am not religious, but I was thinking today, since death is the ultimate destination, the ultimate outcome of every story, that no matter how you slice it, this death idea figures quite large in our lives, in our identities, in our fears, in our time tables. No wonder people have built up big things around it. Institutions with architecture, even. Death is so powerful. It always wins. So let them be religious (and perhaps quiet about it so they can notice it all?) When I accept death, I feel very calm. When I do not, I thrash.
My hands have become lizardy. At times, I look at my waist and I think, “How different am I, really, than a gorilla who has been let loose for a long weekend in the Krispy Kreme warehouse?”
But even those things do not matter so much.
(Upon rereading, I noticed that I typed waste instead of waist. Another good reading of that sentence.)
I haven’t changed much since I was four. I often want to get back to the granite rocks with the schist sparkles, in this copse of trees on the edge of the property line of my house where I first sat with these ideas, alone. I was happy to do nothing but sit and be aware of what was around me. To know this was a rare event. (Even if there are zillions of other living creatures in the universe, it is still mathematically rare that there are human mammals and even more mathematically rare, still, that you are actually one of those beasts.) I felt like I was getting away with something, sitting there, not doing anything but noticing. I did not want to get caught doing that. I felt afraid that it was wrong. But deeper, I knew it was the greatest, most enjoyable thing. Perhaps I felt that it was wrong to feel so good, like when you first discover masturbation or chocolate mousse. Then you grow up and people insist on all these other stories, with guns and tits and pecking orders and wins and losses and so many other items. You hang onto them for dear life. But really, it’s just the awareness that lasts.
You can do it all. The action and the awareness. It’s just kind of tiring. But I have also been thinking lately, maybe it's okay to be tired.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wintry Mix
I remembered the term. Wintry Mix. Well, I didn’t remember it. Adam, my husband, read it out loud from “the paper.” It’s sleet, snow, rain, all combined. It’s very fresh. People freak out about winter. All I think about is how much I love Iceland. How much I like clean air. I’m all for it. Plus, you know, you can’t become allergic to precipitation. Is it cold? Sure. But in about a month, all the flower shops will be filled with tulips and daffodils. I mean, if Holland can get into spring by the end of February and pass that tradition onto us and we can benefit, and we have, how much can you complain?
Use Safe Copy. Use it. It’s only fifty bucks a year. It backs up everything on your hard drive to an outside server. All your docs, music, pics, vids. It makes so much sense. Plus, it backs everything up in the same folders that you have. So it looks the same when you check it out online. And you can access the info from anything. Other computers, phone, pads of all stripes. I’ve been with this outfit for over a year and I love it. Effortless. Safe and amazing.
Safe Copy
Governor Brown and his bullet train from LA to SFO! Thank you! Come on now. Let’s do it! I want a bullet from LA to NY. Please? Could we please? I’d sit for the fifteen hours. Fly through Kansas at 250 miles per hour. Read some. Be thanking Allah I was on the solid ground instead of bumping through the thin air. Plus, the more we fly, the more we warm up the air, the more the air gets unstable, the bumpier the flights get. It’s a negative loop of pain. Get me off that hell tube. Get me on that train.
Henry Wolfe, my friend and talented musician, check out his music. He’s writing new songs all the time. Go to his sight. Download his songs. Buy the tunes online. You can do a search at the iTunes Store under his name. I especially love Buzzards. When it comes up on my iTunes cycle, I stop everything and only listen to that and do nothing else.
Henry Wolfe
I was making a reservation on the phone for a hotel today. I couldn’t tell if the person on the other end was at the hotel or a booking agent. I asked him to just tell me who he was. I was concerned because, you know, it was a random phone number and I could be handing over my credit card info to anyone. Plus, three different windows popped up for the same hotel in comparison. You know, that whole internet assault. So he tells me who he is. I could tell he was lying. Said he was with the hotel. I was annoyed that he was lying so I said I was going to call the hotel directly. I was cheerful and low key but I hung up. He called back and left me a message. He said, “Fuck you asshole. I’m watching you.” It was a threat. What small outfit was he the booking agent for? Expedia. Yes, Expedia, that little travel concern we’ve all heard of. I emailed Expedia to tell them what happened. I got a form letter apology within three hours. Onward. People are in distress these days. And Expedia, even, doesn’t care. Sad world. What next? I ask someone at Citibank to check on a fraud claim and they tell me to go fuck my mother?
Speaking of fucking your own mother…wouldn’t you have to actually get erect for that? What on earth would have had to have gone down in your sexual imprinting that made it so you could get an erection for such a journey?
I am doubling down on the piano and learning all the Gershwin Preludes. They are really beyond my level…but I am using whatever piano lesson techniques I have under my belt, my ease of reading music, along with my O.C.D. to repeat and repeat and repeat the fingering until it’s so in my hands, there’s no way I CAN’T play it. Interesting, playing an instrument. Great place to shove a lot of energy. Clears the mind. And it’s not really creative. It’s tasky. When you finally learn it and you add some feeling to it, that’s a creative thing. But more instinctual than anything else. I dig it. Plus, if you’re learning Gershwin, you can’t really say you are wasting your time.
I am doing so much career stuff right now that there’s little time for writing. (Coordinating. Selling. Yep, it’s like having a booth at the craft fair…except people don’t buy little things all day long. They wait forever and ever…and then finally, there’s one big sale.) Need to write more. I have to mix it up better.
Starting this horrendous habit of small pads with chicken scratch all over them all over my desk. Can apartment chickens be far behind?
If you really want to feel like you did when you were a kid…like all free and like it’s all new and fun, you just have to let go of everything. What made it so fun to be a kid was that you didn’t have a ton of experiences and a mountain of knowledge to weigh you down. You just lived. Of course, assuming you are an adult reading this, you can’t be irresponsible and chuck it all. You have to take care of things as an adult using experience and knowledge. Pretty much. And instinct. But any short or long periods you can steal for yourself to forget it all, you will find yourself laughing a lot and having a good time.
It’s January 20. Ground Hogs are getting nervous.
Use Safe Copy. Use it. It’s only fifty bucks a year. It backs up everything on your hard drive to an outside server. All your docs, music, pics, vids. It makes so much sense. Plus, it backs everything up in the same folders that you have. So it looks the same when you check it out online. And you can access the info from anything. Other computers, phone, pads of all stripes. I’ve been with this outfit for over a year and I love it. Effortless. Safe and amazing.
Safe Copy
Governor Brown and his bullet train from LA to SFO! Thank you! Come on now. Let’s do it! I want a bullet from LA to NY. Please? Could we please? I’d sit for the fifteen hours. Fly through Kansas at 250 miles per hour. Read some. Be thanking Allah I was on the solid ground instead of bumping through the thin air. Plus, the more we fly, the more we warm up the air, the more the air gets unstable, the bumpier the flights get. It’s a negative loop of pain. Get me off that hell tube. Get me on that train.
Henry Wolfe, my friend and talented musician, check out his music. He’s writing new songs all the time. Go to his sight. Download his songs. Buy the tunes online. You can do a search at the iTunes Store under his name. I especially love Buzzards. When it comes up on my iTunes cycle, I stop everything and only listen to that and do nothing else.
Henry Wolfe
I was making a reservation on the phone for a hotel today. I couldn’t tell if the person on the other end was at the hotel or a booking agent. I asked him to just tell me who he was. I was concerned because, you know, it was a random phone number and I could be handing over my credit card info to anyone. Plus, three different windows popped up for the same hotel in comparison. You know, that whole internet assault. So he tells me who he is. I could tell he was lying. Said he was with the hotel. I was annoyed that he was lying so I said I was going to call the hotel directly. I was cheerful and low key but I hung up. He called back and left me a message. He said, “Fuck you asshole. I’m watching you.” It was a threat. What small outfit was he the booking agent for? Expedia. Yes, Expedia, that little travel concern we’ve all heard of. I emailed Expedia to tell them what happened. I got a form letter apology within three hours. Onward. People are in distress these days. And Expedia, even, doesn’t care. Sad world. What next? I ask someone at Citibank to check on a fraud claim and they tell me to go fuck my mother?
Speaking of fucking your own mother…wouldn’t you have to actually get erect for that? What on earth would have had to have gone down in your sexual imprinting that made it so you could get an erection for such a journey?
I am doubling down on the piano and learning all the Gershwin Preludes. They are really beyond my level…but I am using whatever piano lesson techniques I have under my belt, my ease of reading music, along with my O.C.D. to repeat and repeat and repeat the fingering until it’s so in my hands, there’s no way I CAN’T play it. Interesting, playing an instrument. Great place to shove a lot of energy. Clears the mind. And it’s not really creative. It’s tasky. When you finally learn it and you add some feeling to it, that’s a creative thing. But more instinctual than anything else. I dig it. Plus, if you’re learning Gershwin, you can’t really say you are wasting your time.
I am doing so much career stuff right now that there’s little time for writing. (Coordinating. Selling. Yep, it’s like having a booth at the craft fair…except people don’t buy little things all day long. They wait forever and ever…and then finally, there’s one big sale.) Need to write more. I have to mix it up better.
Starting this horrendous habit of small pads with chicken scratch all over them all over my desk. Can apartment chickens be far behind?
If you really want to feel like you did when you were a kid…like all free and like it’s all new and fun, you just have to let go of everything. What made it so fun to be a kid was that you didn’t have a ton of experiences and a mountain of knowledge to weigh you down. You just lived. Of course, assuming you are an adult reading this, you can’t be irresponsible and chuck it all. You have to take care of things as an adult using experience and knowledge. Pretty much. And instinct. But any short or long periods you can steal for yourself to forget it all, you will find yourself laughing a lot and having a good time.
It’s January 20. Ground Hogs are getting nervous.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Movies that Begin with M
I really liked Moneyball
and Melancholia.
First, Moneyball.
Don’t you love getting screeners? This one came from S.A.G. And there we sat.
This is a movie about, primarily, looking at things in a new way and having the bravery to give that a shot in the midst of a group-think entrenched culture. Secondarily, it is about math. Baseball figures into it, too, of course. But that’s not the main thing here.
It’s sort of a dorky, nerdy movie with Jonah Hill pulling the statistics to teach Brad Pitt how to win by using pure formula. (Sort of cynical, sort of great strategy.) But what the deal is here…it’s the acting, the smart script, the directing. And isn’t that why you go to the movies? I know, many people go to the movies for fun and the script does not have to be that smart. Fine. Sure. But for the adults in the room, it is pleasant to have something well thought out.
With screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennett Miller (Capote), you have a good helm going on.
The movie is purely enjoyable. Well done. Suspenseful. And I am, you know, no big baseball fan. But now, I sort of am. Maybe.
Brad Pitt made some crazy pact with some crazy devil. He’s about my age and he still has all that hair? How?
Brad Pitt’s acting really is great. But when you have had a life looking like that, being what he is, no matter how bad things get for your character, you always sort of look like people are probably looking at you and so you’ll probably be fine. Extremely good looking people have a great resource, themselves. We all know people hand things to people like that. This is a prejudice, I understand. And underneath the symmetry and the eyes and the nose and the pout and the thick follicles on the pate, maybe real pain lurks. But it’s hard to take it too seriously. Strange how beauty conceals or deceives or who-knows-what.
And he has that wife…
But really, best acting Brad’s done, seems to me. The cast, all around, is solid and interesting. Jonah Hill is clear and has almost no false moments. Growing up, our little Jonah.
Moneyball, see it. Today.
I loved Melancholia and I don’t care who knows it.
This thing is poetic, doesn’t make exact sense, is a bit over the top, has a mix of Brits and Americans and other European Whiteys at an upper class wedding that makes it all seem like the U.S. and G.B. are one nation. Parents from one country have children from another. This just slips along.
But the bigger picture might be, “IF THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END, WHO CARES ABOUT ACCENTS!”
Wagner, two sisters of differing bad temperaments (Kirsten Dunst is a depressive, her sister, Charlotte Gainsbourg, the anxious one), Lars von Trier directing magnificently as a bright blue planet is about to swallow up the earth?
By the end, I wanted to kill myself. You will, too. You have to see it.
It’s so beautiful and bleak. Who cares if the first part of the story is a bit unbelievable. (The wedding.) Or that you don’t understand how the super depressed main character, Justine played by Ms. Dunst, could ever land a good looking seemingly normal lad like Alexander Skarsgard or be promoted to director level at her ad agency considering what a mess she is.
Is she just a mess, now, because everything has nastily come together? Realizing she doesn’t like her job or her husband and the world is coming to an end? I don’t think so. It seems like she’s been like this for a long time. So, you know, it’s sort of hard to swallow.
But Lars von Trier (Nazi or not?) is going for full romanticism here. Let’s let him have it.
You don’t get to see things like this that often, if ever.
I didn’t recognize Keifer Sutherland until the credits. But I do that. I knew he was Kevin Bacony, but I knew it wasn’t Kevin. One gets dim with time…
But Kirsten Dunst’s breasts will wake you up. They could have called this thing Melons Cholia. (I tap my mike. Is this thing on?) It’s wonderful to see someone so beautiful in so much pain. She did a great job. With an insane witch of a mother (Charlotte Rampling) and loser nut father (John Hurt), divorced and seething, you could easily see how these two sisters ended up how they ended up.
There is this intense isolation. The world is ending and these simple rich people are all alone. And they have to face it.
I once worked for a man who had me open his mail during the whole Anthrax scare. He was very wealthy. The one percent of the one percent. He said, “I guess it doesn’t matter how much money I have, I could still be killed.”
Yep.
But even better: When the world is about to end, the truly mad turn sane. The vibration finally suits them.
Visually arresting. Emotionally reaching into poetic truth. Go.
and Melancholia.
First, Moneyball.
Don’t you love getting screeners? This one came from S.A.G. And there we sat.
This is a movie about, primarily, looking at things in a new way and having the bravery to give that a shot in the midst of a group-think entrenched culture. Secondarily, it is about math. Baseball figures into it, too, of course. But that’s not the main thing here.
It’s sort of a dorky, nerdy movie with Jonah Hill pulling the statistics to teach Brad Pitt how to win by using pure formula. (Sort of cynical, sort of great strategy.) But what the deal is here…it’s the acting, the smart script, the directing. And isn’t that why you go to the movies? I know, many people go to the movies for fun and the script does not have to be that smart. Fine. Sure. But for the adults in the room, it is pleasant to have something well thought out.
With screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennett Miller (Capote), you have a good helm going on.
The movie is purely enjoyable. Well done. Suspenseful. And I am, you know, no big baseball fan. But now, I sort of am. Maybe.
Brad Pitt made some crazy pact with some crazy devil. He’s about my age and he still has all that hair? How?
Brad Pitt’s acting really is great. But when you have had a life looking like that, being what he is, no matter how bad things get for your character, you always sort of look like people are probably looking at you and so you’ll probably be fine. Extremely good looking people have a great resource, themselves. We all know people hand things to people like that. This is a prejudice, I understand. And underneath the symmetry and the eyes and the nose and the pout and the thick follicles on the pate, maybe real pain lurks. But it’s hard to take it too seriously. Strange how beauty conceals or deceives or who-knows-what.
And he has that wife…
But really, best acting Brad’s done, seems to me. The cast, all around, is solid and interesting. Jonah Hill is clear and has almost no false moments. Growing up, our little Jonah.
Moneyball, see it. Today.
I loved Melancholia and I don’t care who knows it.
This thing is poetic, doesn’t make exact sense, is a bit over the top, has a mix of Brits and Americans and other European Whiteys at an upper class wedding that makes it all seem like the U.S. and G.B. are one nation. Parents from one country have children from another. This just slips along.
But the bigger picture might be, “IF THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END, WHO CARES ABOUT ACCENTS!”
Wagner, two sisters of differing bad temperaments (Kirsten Dunst is a depressive, her sister, Charlotte Gainsbourg, the anxious one), Lars von Trier directing magnificently as a bright blue planet is about to swallow up the earth?
By the end, I wanted to kill myself. You will, too. You have to see it.
It’s so beautiful and bleak. Who cares if the first part of the story is a bit unbelievable. (The wedding.) Or that you don’t understand how the super depressed main character, Justine played by Ms. Dunst, could ever land a good looking seemingly normal lad like Alexander Skarsgard or be promoted to director level at her ad agency considering what a mess she is.
Is she just a mess, now, because everything has nastily come together? Realizing she doesn’t like her job or her husband and the world is coming to an end? I don’t think so. It seems like she’s been like this for a long time. So, you know, it’s sort of hard to swallow.
But Lars von Trier (Nazi or not?) is going for full romanticism here. Let’s let him have it.
You don’t get to see things like this that often, if ever.
I didn’t recognize Keifer Sutherland until the credits. But I do that. I knew he was Kevin Bacony, but I knew it wasn’t Kevin. One gets dim with time…
But Kirsten Dunst’s breasts will wake you up. They could have called this thing Melons Cholia. (I tap my mike. Is this thing on?) It’s wonderful to see someone so beautiful in so much pain. She did a great job. With an insane witch of a mother (Charlotte Rampling) and loser nut father (John Hurt), divorced and seething, you could easily see how these two sisters ended up how they ended up.
There is this intense isolation. The world is ending and these simple rich people are all alone. And they have to face it.
I once worked for a man who had me open his mail during the whole Anthrax scare. He was very wealthy. The one percent of the one percent. He said, “I guess it doesn’t matter how much money I have, I could still be killed.”
Yep.
But even better: When the world is about to end, the truly mad turn sane. The vibration finally suits them.
Visually arresting. Emotionally reaching into poetic truth. Go.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Opinions Requested: Husbands, the Series
Do you like this?
I’m feeling fencey.
Husbands The Series
I mean, in my marriage, I’m the tall cute Mormon one. But still…
I watched all episodes. They’re short. Funny, smart, good mood switching back and forth. Full negotiating. Light. At times even vulnerable. Shallow but more on that later. Shallow might be the new deep. Because deep is so often self serving.
My thumbs want to go up. They are tentative thumbs. Am I old?
I’m feeling fencey.
Husbands The Series
I mean, in my marriage, I’m the tall cute Mormon one. But still…
I watched all episodes. They’re short. Funny, smart, good mood switching back and forth. Full negotiating. Light. At times even vulnerable. Shallow but more on that later. Shallow might be the new deep. Because deep is so often self serving.
My thumbs want to go up. They are tentative thumbs. Am I old?
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Interesting Hell
I’m the kind of person who is very sensitive to drugs. If I take a regular dose of Nyquil I’m out for 14 hours. If I take just one small red Sudafed, I stop eating for six hours and lose a pound. It’s sort of freakish.
This does not make me a good candidate for addiction, however, I have always liked to smoke stuff and so I have to not do that, so I don’t.
On Monday, I went in for a little procedure, no biggie, but it required that I take two Percocet, which is, of course, oxycodone and acetaminophen. The latter enhances the former, which is an opiate. I took two 325 milligram tablets.
Eight hours later, I took two Tylenol.
Then I stopped all that.
This is where the trouble came in.
When I take an opiate, like most people, I am high as balls and walk around wondering how the world ever got so pleasant. It’s like all the sights and sounds with none of the worry. Basically, it’s like living in a movie. Fine. That lasted about two hours.
Then, the nausea, then the come down, then the four hour nap.
Fine.
Then ten hours of sleep.
Fine.
Then, a depression so severe, a hopelessness so profound, I had to go, “Oh man…this is clinical depression. This is the end. I am bipolar. They say online here if you’ve been putting everything in order, that’s even a sign of suicidal tendencies.”
Then I thought, “I’m always putting things in order. Plus, that’s what I always do at the end of the year.”
So, I’m sitting on the brown sofa and I’m thinking, “You’re just super duper depressed and it’s probably the Percocet. So let’s do a little experiment here. No need to panic, like this is forever. Do what you do when things are simply awful.”
And this is what I did. Instead of panicking, thinking I was going to be depressed forever, because that’s what depression does to you, I just accepted it. I accepted that I was completely miserable and that my brain was in a state of hating itself and that the only thing I could do was to just be with it.
Within five minutes it was gone.
I have noticed, in general, that all things once accepted, dissipate. And now even things caused by narcotics? I guess that works, too, accepting away your chemically induced misery.
This is a powerful notion, acceptance. And though Western culture is pretty much held up by the three tent poles of goals, drive and acquisition, I guess you can do all those things accepting as you go along.
It can make even the worst opiate induced depression lift.
Learning to accept the unacceptable is a brilliant counterintuitive action.
Accept everything you loathe and it will go away. Perhaps.
Doing the exact opposite of what you are naturally inclined to do always brings about an interesting new twist. It wakes you toward the other side. You don’t hold on and, zwoom, you are somewhere better.
If you hate this blog entry, accept it, and very soon you will no longer see it.
This does not make me a good candidate for addiction, however, I have always liked to smoke stuff and so I have to not do that, so I don’t.
On Monday, I went in for a little procedure, no biggie, but it required that I take two Percocet, which is, of course, oxycodone and acetaminophen. The latter enhances the former, which is an opiate. I took two 325 milligram tablets.
Eight hours later, I took two Tylenol.
Then I stopped all that.
This is where the trouble came in.
When I take an opiate, like most people, I am high as balls and walk around wondering how the world ever got so pleasant. It’s like all the sights and sounds with none of the worry. Basically, it’s like living in a movie. Fine. That lasted about two hours.
Then, the nausea, then the come down, then the four hour nap.
Fine.
Then ten hours of sleep.
Fine.
Then, a depression so severe, a hopelessness so profound, I had to go, “Oh man…this is clinical depression. This is the end. I am bipolar. They say online here if you’ve been putting everything in order, that’s even a sign of suicidal tendencies.”
Then I thought, “I’m always putting things in order. Plus, that’s what I always do at the end of the year.”
So, I’m sitting on the brown sofa and I’m thinking, “You’re just super duper depressed and it’s probably the Percocet. So let’s do a little experiment here. No need to panic, like this is forever. Do what you do when things are simply awful.”
And this is what I did. Instead of panicking, thinking I was going to be depressed forever, because that’s what depression does to you, I just accepted it. I accepted that I was completely miserable and that my brain was in a state of hating itself and that the only thing I could do was to just be with it.
Within five minutes it was gone.
I have noticed, in general, that all things once accepted, dissipate. And now even things caused by narcotics? I guess that works, too, accepting away your chemically induced misery.
This is a powerful notion, acceptance. And though Western culture is pretty much held up by the three tent poles of goals, drive and acquisition, I guess you can do all those things accepting as you go along.
It can make even the worst opiate induced depression lift.
Learning to accept the unacceptable is a brilliant counterintuitive action.
Accept everything you loathe and it will go away. Perhaps.
Doing the exact opposite of what you are naturally inclined to do always brings about an interesting new twist. It wakes you toward the other side. You don’t hold on and, zwoom, you are somewhere better.
If you hate this blog entry, accept it, and very soon you will no longer see it.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Ten More Months
So, as Mitt wins and gets this thing sewn up, we then have to face this creature for ten more months.
He’s craven.
The Republicans are getting the candidate they deserve---a slick, greedy guy who would sell off his own mother.
I do not know why I wake up every day surprised by what most people desire: endless wealth.
Along the way…look, we know the morality tales…
I am very interested in hearing the insider cash stories that Mitt hath lived.
This is not because I am against big chunks of cash, exactly. I don’t care so much how rich someone is. I am usually more jealous about fame. Plus, I’ve never been hungry or unclothed or unhoused.
I look at greed in a way that is curious. Like, why would you want to be bothered with all that stuff? It seems like a huge responsibility.
I’m in my middle years and I often look around and wonder how I can get rid of the stuff I own now. It’s all a nuisance and gets in my way.
Politics seems a big fight about how money is controlled. Will it be a sharing game or a might-makes-right game? Or to give the Right their point of view, Will it be a merit game or a lazy-tries-to-take-it game?
I don’t understand, since this country is so divided right down the middle, why both sides can’t just agree that this-this-and-this we’ll share and this-this-and-this will be full-on free market stuff.
But then again, societies get more complex over time, not simpler. So drawing it up and saying, “Yeah, we’re going to settle on these two lists and move on to other things. Like solving energy problems and population problems.” Besides, people like to fight. Anything for a fight. Maybe it’s an adrenalin surge followed by a dopamine surge that people live for and the money is secondary.
A lion licking its paws after taking out a wildebeest.
I try to stay out of the way.
He’s craven.
The Republicans are getting the candidate they deserve---a slick, greedy guy who would sell off his own mother.
I do not know why I wake up every day surprised by what most people desire: endless wealth.
Along the way…look, we know the morality tales…
I am very interested in hearing the insider cash stories that Mitt hath lived.
This is not because I am against big chunks of cash, exactly. I don’t care so much how rich someone is. I am usually more jealous about fame. Plus, I’ve never been hungry or unclothed or unhoused.
I look at greed in a way that is curious. Like, why would you want to be bothered with all that stuff? It seems like a huge responsibility.
I’m in my middle years and I often look around and wonder how I can get rid of the stuff I own now. It’s all a nuisance and gets in my way.
Politics seems a big fight about how money is controlled. Will it be a sharing game or a might-makes-right game? Or to give the Right their point of view, Will it be a merit game or a lazy-tries-to-take-it game?
I don’t understand, since this country is so divided right down the middle, why both sides can’t just agree that this-this-and-this we’ll share and this-this-and-this will be full-on free market stuff.
But then again, societies get more complex over time, not simpler. So drawing it up and saying, “Yeah, we’re going to settle on these two lists and move on to other things. Like solving energy problems and population problems.” Besides, people like to fight. Anything for a fight. Maybe it’s an adrenalin surge followed by a dopamine surge that people live for and the money is secondary.
A lion licking its paws after taking out a wildebeest.
I try to stay out of the way.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
The Tree of Life
We sat through it. We had the WGA screener.
It won best damn picture at Cannes. It is visually incredible. Its narrative…honestly, it’s silly.
Let’s let The Atlantic do the work for me because I can’t even…
Review of The Tree of Life by someone else
It won best damn picture at Cannes. It is visually incredible. Its narrative…honestly, it’s silly.
Let’s let The Atlantic do the work for me because I can’t even…
Review of The Tree of Life by someone else
Friday, January 06, 2012
My Third Fight
My first fight was unremarkable in that I did not fight, but was choked, because it was seventh grade and I had a crush on D’s girlfriend and he did not like this. Additionally, he was living a mean streak at that little point in his life. I was tricked into going down to the woods to hang out, “Come on, Donald, everyone’s going”—and I was ambushed. What he did was, he choked me. And kept choking. Why choking? I don’t know. But it was terrifying and undeserved. He kept yelling at me that N was his girlfriend. Not mine. He wanted to choke that truth into me. I agreed. Okay. N is not my girlfriend. I’ll stop following her around. I left crying. I have seen D since. I do not recall him ever apologizing.
Strangely, on the way home from that episode, a guy a year younger than me, M, got in my face on the street. He said I called him a faggot at the carnival the week before. We had these carnivals that came through town. They set up in the ball field. My house was only two blocks away. Exciting times. And I was at the carnival every night. So M said I called him a faggot. I said I didn’t. Truth is, I never talked to him my entire life. I had always seen him around. He was pretty cute. In fact, D, above, was very cute. So two good looking kids on the same day decided to pummel me. So as M was trying to pick this fight with me in the street, about me calling him a faggot at the carnival, he steadily pushed toward me, backing me into a parked car along the curb. I was pretty pissed off because I had already been mangled by D down in the woods less than thirty minutes ago. So there I was backed up against a car and I decided to just haul back and pop this M right in the face as hard as I could. I hit between his eye and his nose. It took him by total surprise. He was so much bigger and stronger than me. I knew he’d kill me if he started to beat me. So I had to end it quickly. He cried. I ran. I saw him a week later in school. He said that it wasn’t me that called him a faggot at the carnival. He didn’t say he was sorry. But he sort of did. I had this feeling that no one would ever mess with me again.
But I was wrong.
D was tall and lean, with rock and roll hair. M was crew cutted and muscular, a much scarier person to face. And then there was M.A. My third and very brutal fight.
I guess middle school is the age when boys just want to pummel each other. About a year or more after I did not call M a faggot and D had choked me into tears, I was walking along, shopping or what-have-you, in downtown Suffern, my town, at that time a fine town of middle class things like banks and a stationary store. I was acting a little tough because that’s what I did a little bit at that time of my life. Then this not-good-looking kid, A., a year younger than me, who wore stained T-shirts, kept his hair cut like it was the early 70s when it was the late 70s, smoked cigarettes right in front of adults, and got terrible grades, you know, a dirtbag, he decided to pick a fight with me. It was along the lines of, “Hey, you’re a faggot,” in the 70s meaning of it, meaning, you’re square and uncool, like how M. thought I used the word on him at the carnival. By this age, I was well established in middle school, liked, and almost a foot taller than this A., who was one of the shortest kids in his class. I did not understand how he did not understand how futile this attack on me would be.
In addition, A. was at one time best friends with someone who I used to be best friends with. There was really no reason to fight. But clearly, A. wanted to kick some ass and for some reason he thought I was kickable. So he’s calling me a faggot and telling me he’s going to kick my ass and I’m thinking, “You’re a mouse. Just stop this.” Then I thought, “He can’t be for real. He’s a pipsqueak. Oh my God, does he have a knife? Is he going to try to knife me? Did he save up for a knife and he just bought it and now he needs to try it out on my flesh?” But he did not pull out a knife. He did keep up with the aggression. It was bizarre. He was friends with friends and he knew my younger brother well, he was, basically, in the ally sphere of my life. This whole thing was ridiculous. So I said to him, “A., stop it. Right now.” I said it like his older baby sitter, like a wise person who was setting someone straight. I even had this older brother compassion for him. I wanted to say, “Don’t be silly.” I didn’t say that.
I could not, in my rational world, understand why the hell he was doing this. And then he started kicking me. I ran away, toward the bank. It had a long hedge about three feet tall in front of the solid concrete. Solid building with columns. Almost romantic. I was laughing at how silly A. was being. Like a Chihuahua coming after a beagle. But he persisted. And he came around the bushes and he started grabbing my hair and then I started grabbing his hair. Total girl fight. (Sorry, girls.) Okay, professional wrestling? Anyway, we are grabbing each other’s hair and because he is so short, all he can do is kick me. This was no longer funny and I was no longer interested in being some sort of understanding big brother. And he keeps kicking me in the shins. It hurt like hell. But because he’s my brother’s age and friends with so many of my brother’s friends, I can’t help but think of him in this brotherly way and I keep saying, “Stop, stop or I’m going to put an end to this that is going to be awful.” And he wouldn’t stop. He was determined to give me as much physical pain as he could. (What the hell happened to him that day at home? What was wrong with him? I don’t know.)
So then, I gathered my strength, with his head of hair in mine, and I gave him one last warning, “You gonna stop?” And he said no and kept kicking. A little dirty mutt, tobacco stained fingers, hair flying.
So I took his head and I smashed it into the bank wall. Just once. But very hard. I meant it. This had to end. It must have been very painful because he stopped. And he cried like a little boy. He couldn’t believe I did what I did. I left him holding his head on the lawn. He was so pathetic and I felt so bad for him. But I had to move on. He lived. It was unfair fighting.
That’s how I fight…never. Or completely unfair.
That was the last time someone tried to have a fight with me. I don’t think A. went around and told everyone, “Don’t pick a fight with Donald Cummings, he’ll smash your head into a bank wall.” But I do think that once you do smash someone’s head into a bank wall, people sort of sense it and they leave you alone.
A. became a huge stoner and I do not believe he finished high school. Whenever he saw me in the halls at school, he just glared. I used to smile back at him. I felt sorry for him. And I was confused because he was such a skanky little ruffian and he had this regal sister.
You see, strangely, his much older sister was a big Broadway sensation at the time in a revival of a very famous musical. She was the lead. Everyone went to see her. In fact, it was the first Broadway play I had ever seen. And she is still in Broadway musicals today. It made no sense that this woman, who was basically doing something very close to what I wanted to do, had this sad little stoner, dirty brother. And I thought that if A. knew how much I thought of his sister, how into her and the musical she was in I was, he never would have gone after me that day. Maybe. And I wondered why his sister, with her success and her grace, did not come back to Suffern to fix this kid up.
Maybe she escaped the family with her great singing voice and was glad to never return? Maybe A. was her half brother or something?
What was wrong with these people? I never found out.
That third fight was the end of all that ugly middle school boy stuff. The skull against cement sound, just thinking about it, it makes you wince. Whenever I see that bank, or one like it, I do wonder if there was something wrong with me for having done what I did. It was outsized, to crack his head into the wall, and I could have maybe figured out something less severe. But I did not want a protracted painful engagement. I was improv-ing. I was expedient.
Strangely, on the way home from that episode, a guy a year younger than me, M, got in my face on the street. He said I called him a faggot at the carnival the week before. We had these carnivals that came through town. They set up in the ball field. My house was only two blocks away. Exciting times. And I was at the carnival every night. So M said I called him a faggot. I said I didn’t. Truth is, I never talked to him my entire life. I had always seen him around. He was pretty cute. In fact, D, above, was very cute. So two good looking kids on the same day decided to pummel me. So as M was trying to pick this fight with me in the street, about me calling him a faggot at the carnival, he steadily pushed toward me, backing me into a parked car along the curb. I was pretty pissed off because I had already been mangled by D down in the woods less than thirty minutes ago. So there I was backed up against a car and I decided to just haul back and pop this M right in the face as hard as I could. I hit between his eye and his nose. It took him by total surprise. He was so much bigger and stronger than me. I knew he’d kill me if he started to beat me. So I had to end it quickly. He cried. I ran. I saw him a week later in school. He said that it wasn’t me that called him a faggot at the carnival. He didn’t say he was sorry. But he sort of did. I had this feeling that no one would ever mess with me again.
But I was wrong.
D was tall and lean, with rock and roll hair. M was crew cutted and muscular, a much scarier person to face. And then there was M.A. My third and very brutal fight.
I guess middle school is the age when boys just want to pummel each other. About a year or more after I did not call M a faggot and D had choked me into tears, I was walking along, shopping or what-have-you, in downtown Suffern, my town, at that time a fine town of middle class things like banks and a stationary store. I was acting a little tough because that’s what I did a little bit at that time of my life. Then this not-good-looking kid, A., a year younger than me, who wore stained T-shirts, kept his hair cut like it was the early 70s when it was the late 70s, smoked cigarettes right in front of adults, and got terrible grades, you know, a dirtbag, he decided to pick a fight with me. It was along the lines of, “Hey, you’re a faggot,” in the 70s meaning of it, meaning, you’re square and uncool, like how M. thought I used the word on him at the carnival. By this age, I was well established in middle school, liked, and almost a foot taller than this A., who was one of the shortest kids in his class. I did not understand how he did not understand how futile this attack on me would be.
In addition, A. was at one time best friends with someone who I used to be best friends with. There was really no reason to fight. But clearly, A. wanted to kick some ass and for some reason he thought I was kickable. So he’s calling me a faggot and telling me he’s going to kick my ass and I’m thinking, “You’re a mouse. Just stop this.” Then I thought, “He can’t be for real. He’s a pipsqueak. Oh my God, does he have a knife? Is he going to try to knife me? Did he save up for a knife and he just bought it and now he needs to try it out on my flesh?” But he did not pull out a knife. He did keep up with the aggression. It was bizarre. He was friends with friends and he knew my younger brother well, he was, basically, in the ally sphere of my life. This whole thing was ridiculous. So I said to him, “A., stop it. Right now.” I said it like his older baby sitter, like a wise person who was setting someone straight. I even had this older brother compassion for him. I wanted to say, “Don’t be silly.” I didn’t say that.
I could not, in my rational world, understand why the hell he was doing this. And then he started kicking me. I ran away, toward the bank. It had a long hedge about three feet tall in front of the solid concrete. Solid building with columns. Almost romantic. I was laughing at how silly A. was being. Like a Chihuahua coming after a beagle. But he persisted. And he came around the bushes and he started grabbing my hair and then I started grabbing his hair. Total girl fight. (Sorry, girls.) Okay, professional wrestling? Anyway, we are grabbing each other’s hair and because he is so short, all he can do is kick me. This was no longer funny and I was no longer interested in being some sort of understanding big brother. And he keeps kicking me in the shins. It hurt like hell. But because he’s my brother’s age and friends with so many of my brother’s friends, I can’t help but think of him in this brotherly way and I keep saying, “Stop, stop or I’m going to put an end to this that is going to be awful.” And he wouldn’t stop. He was determined to give me as much physical pain as he could. (What the hell happened to him that day at home? What was wrong with him? I don’t know.)
So then, I gathered my strength, with his head of hair in mine, and I gave him one last warning, “You gonna stop?” And he said no and kept kicking. A little dirty mutt, tobacco stained fingers, hair flying.
So I took his head and I smashed it into the bank wall. Just once. But very hard. I meant it. This had to end. It must have been very painful because he stopped. And he cried like a little boy. He couldn’t believe I did what I did. I left him holding his head on the lawn. He was so pathetic and I felt so bad for him. But I had to move on. He lived. It was unfair fighting.
That’s how I fight…never. Or completely unfair.
That was the last time someone tried to have a fight with me. I don’t think A. went around and told everyone, “Don’t pick a fight with Donald Cummings, he’ll smash your head into a bank wall.” But I do think that once you do smash someone’s head into a bank wall, people sort of sense it and they leave you alone.
A. became a huge stoner and I do not believe he finished high school. Whenever he saw me in the halls at school, he just glared. I used to smile back at him. I felt sorry for him. And I was confused because he was such a skanky little ruffian and he had this regal sister.
You see, strangely, his much older sister was a big Broadway sensation at the time in a revival of a very famous musical. She was the lead. Everyone went to see her. In fact, it was the first Broadway play I had ever seen. And she is still in Broadway musicals today. It made no sense that this woman, who was basically doing something very close to what I wanted to do, had this sad little stoner, dirty brother. And I thought that if A. knew how much I thought of his sister, how into her and the musical she was in I was, he never would have gone after me that day. Maybe. And I wondered why his sister, with her success and her grace, did not come back to Suffern to fix this kid up.
Maybe she escaped the family with her great singing voice and was glad to never return? Maybe A. was her half brother or something?
What was wrong with these people? I never found out.
That third fight was the end of all that ugly middle school boy stuff. The skull against cement sound, just thinking about it, it makes you wince. Whenever I see that bank, or one like it, I do wonder if there was something wrong with me for having done what I did. It was outsized, to crack his head into the wall, and I could have maybe figured out something less severe. But I did not want a protracted painful engagement. I was improv-ing. I was expedient.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Gender and Desire
I went to the Brooklyn Museum today with my brother-in-law to see the exhibit, “Gender and Desire.”
It was okay. Some enjoyable art. But this is the deal---when you lump a bunch of paintings together to make some sort of sociological point, it might be good for the museum, but is it good for the artists?
This collection, put together originally at S.U.N.Y. Buffalo, was someone’s idea. And that’s nice.
But is that idea bigger than the idea of each individual piece of work, so much so that the work is experienced in a compelling way? Were these the paintings that happened to be available and sort of “fit the bill” so they were procured?
I don’t know…
It was okay. Some enjoyable art. But this is the deal---when you lump a bunch of paintings together to make some sort of sociological point, it might be good for the museum, but is it good for the artists?
This collection, put together originally at S.U.N.Y. Buffalo, was someone’s idea. And that’s nice.
But is that idea bigger than the idea of each individual piece of work, so much so that the work is experienced in a compelling way? Were these the paintings that happened to be available and sort of “fit the bill” so they were procured?
I don’t know…
Monday, January 02, 2012
Don's Early Home Movies
Happy New Year and how fat are you?
The last few days around here have been celebrated by eating multi-grain healthy waffles from Trader Joe’s, covered with coffee ice cream, chocolate syrup and crumbled walnuts. Why? Well, hell, when you’re all in for the holidays, why the hell not?
And now, like everyone else, I am going to repent and starve and get a little cranky.
But this is the good news…New Year’s makes me want to clean out everything. Closets, inboxes, files, you name it. We dropped off a huge load of old clothes and things at the Housing Works Thrift store on 9th Avenue.
And I had this other thing on my mind. A cousin of mine wanted some pictures of his dad, some pics that I had from my aunt…and so it was time to get that finished, too. And then I thought while I’m at it, I might as well upload the precious ninety minutes of ancient footage I have that includes lots of extended family members…so my forty-five cousins and aunts and uncles and everyone else could always have access…you know, they’re in the lobby of some overdone hotel in Dubai and they can pull out their smart phone and go, “See that? There? That’s me in 1968. Some called it the summer of love. I called it the summer of diapers.”
Much of the footage is wonderful. Much of it is water damaged or light damaged or both. Most of the shots focus on my older sister, my younger brother and me. (I’m the slightly taller boy with the bigger skull.) The white haired lady on the rocking horse is my mother’s mother, also known as Nanny. In big family get togethers, the ones with the more dolled up hair are from my mother’s side, the Italian Porcellos and DeFranzas. The Americana looking ones from casting central are from the Irish side, the Cummings.
It’s all very sweet and looks very innocent to me.
Note to everyone, just fast forward as you go. This is not high art.
To extended family: If you take some time and fast forward, you will surely find footage of you from back in the day. Before Watergate, before Iran Contras, before Monica’s blue dress, before the Interwebs…(This is the same footage from the DVD’s some of you have.)
Happy Days are here again.
CLICK:
Don’s Early Home Movies
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Merry Christmas, Friends
Off to Florida. See you in the new year. Have the holiday you want. Please.
Doubling Down on Christmas
Have you had enough Christmas yet?
Try harder. There’s tons more to come.
Loosen the belt.
Get plenty of rest.
Accept it as it comes.
The season is the season.
Try harder. There’s tons more to come.
Loosen the belt.
Get plenty of rest.
Accept it as it comes.
The season is the season.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Earth Shall Be Fair and All Her People One
Or
Jesus, Get Down off that Cross, We Need the Wood!
For holiday and personal reasons, we went to see Godspell.
Look, I did this thing in college. I went to that other school, right up the street in Medford, but there was this cross-theater exchange with Harvard and I did Godspell there…it was the 80’s. And definitely past its prime then…but when you’re a certain age, you just have to sing certain songs.
It was also the second Broadway show I had seen as a kid in nineteen-seventy-cough, cough. With Bobby Lee and others, who are, well, no longer alive. Going up on stage during intermission for wine? It all just seemed so daring to a math, science and music kid from the suburbs.
Godspell is loose. The script is a bunch of new testament parables. During rehearsals you usually play around and try to find fun new ways to do them. Game playing type stuff. Role playing, for sure. You mess around with funny props and newspapers.
Songs often get assigned randomly.
I was “All Good Gifts” and “On the Willows.”
So tonight, we go to Godspell, me, my husband Adam, and my old friend from college, Stacie, who did Godspell so much with her friends that they had Godspell-in-a-bag, ready at any moment, since they often did it at fifteen minute intervals all over Staten Island. Her song was “By My Side” and “Day By Day” when the usual Day-by-Day girl was sick.
Nostalgia. You with me?
So, there we were tonight. And I don’t know---part of it was the show, part of it was all that youth that is over for me, but I had a great time. Overcome, occasionally, with memories and some strong mid-life-man-in-row-B crying. But I was quiet about it and did my best to not disturb anyone.
So the good news is, the show is really enjoyable and if you have the chance to see it, you should see it. I mean, these kids are all so young and lovely and fun and energetic…but it’s focused, too. They have a ton of bits, all sorts of carnival acts, voices, characters, voices doing voices, mini-cirque-du-soleil action, lights, instruments, audience participation, all of it. You don’t get bored because it is so inventive.
The other great news is, they have changed the arrangements of many of the songs and not only is the instrumentation something you would recognize from the last ten years, but the harmonies are more intricate, smarter and densely suspended creating tension as it goes.
Everyone gets their song…but you don’t feel like you are watching a diva festival (okay, there is one guy…but he can’t help himself.)---you feel more like you are watching an ensemble that worked very hard and very well together under the direction of Daniel Goldstein, who must have made it a whole big fun experience, like rehearsals used to be, back in the day.
I love the music. I love the songs. I have my original Broadway piano book of Godspell from the 1970’s and I’ve played those songs thousands of times. They are pleasing. They have hooks. They make me happy. I was glad to be there. I may go back. Hearing songs that you like, live, by good singers is such a treat. On the other hand, I usually don’t go to plays more than once. (It's playing just two blocks away.)
And now the bad news: The play is not really a play. Oh well.
Hunter Parrish is gorgeous but he seems to be a little horse. Oh well.
The cloying Christianity is sort of over the top and empty all at once. Oh well.
Now let’s talk about Hunter Parrish. Why is he so pretty? Or what I mean to ask is, what must it be like to be that pretty? Circle-in-the-Square is, you know, a circle in a square theater…so the performers are up close and near you. Hunter was right next to me, often, and he has that easy smile, with those ridiculously perfect white teeth and that face, when you look at his face, especially the eyes, you come to understand all those articles you’ve read about perfect symmetry, features equidistant from a vertical meridian that goes exactly through the center of the nose and lips, that makes for an appealing mate. (Also, studies have shown that facial symmetry is directly proportional to good health. Is it because everyone gives you so much attention or is it a DNA linked thing? Go study it. Give me quarterly reports.) You look at Hunter and you sort of can’t believe his beauty and you have no question at all in your head: you know everyone wants to have sex with him. Even straight guys want to give him their man love.
But they won’t all get to. He is Jesus after all.
The cast of every race was a spectacular mix of types and funsters. But Jesus was this white blog-paragraph-long perfect specimen and what was Judas? Well, he was a colored man, a Negro. I use these terms jazzily and ironically to denote: sure, you have your clowns of every race and stripe running around singing, being apostles and all that---but in the end, Jesus is super pretty and the bad guy, though handsome enough, is black, black, black. Maybe the audience expects it and so that’s what they get.
We all know how the play ends…with Jesus getting crucified. It happens. And then I guess the musical stops and the religion begins.
But as Hitchens said, and I loosely quote “So what if the man Jesus of Nazareth truly did rise from the dead? What does that really mean?”
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
I Smell Dead People
Look,
If there is a God or a force or a higher power, or whatever, who really cares?
I mean---I like the Quakers who are all, “God is in all of us.” Which really means, you know, we are the important ones.
Or I don’t even know. Though, I do feel like it is a miracle I am here at all, as well as the other people I spend time with, and don’t spend time with.
Such a cool thing, to be here, to breathe, to fill out forms, to sleep, to acquire, to lose, to listen, to eat, to wonder, to play music, to watch, to feel awful. And then you die. And people are so upset (me included, absolutely) about that notion: the end is near. Then there’s the agony of the void and not knowing what that is.
But basically, what the hell is so wrong with not knowing? I mean, if you love a few people or things or animals, that’s God or heaven enough. Why bother even thinking about religion? It’s just an ape-man relic. If you’re a smart guy, you spend your time figuring out new things. Like how to build a better mouse trap, iPhone or jet pack.
So with the Hitchens death, what I find so curious is how a man that intelligent spent any time at all on this subject of religion. If he was so sure that there was no meddling God, no hocus pocus, then why did he not just toodle off onto another subject?
Of course, I am being reductive and bloggy, so let me stop the typing and go to Al Gore’s internet and find a little something from Hitchens’ final days.
Here it is, below. The clip lands on the Enlightenment. I have to agree with his pitch. So that’s why he did it. Great thing, the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment went into the making of this country. It informed the founding fathers. It changed Europe. It made us more scientific. Bernstein/Sondheim/others wrote the musical. A joy, really. And Voltaire, as its novelist-marketeer, was funny. So why didn’t more people sign up for the Enlightenment?
Fear. Fear of change. Fear.
And as I always like to point out about fear---which is basically fear of death—why are we (and by we I mean me) so afraid of dying? I mean, there were all those years you were not alive before you were born, yet somehow, not being alive all those pre-years doesn’t seem to bother people. “Oh man, I’m so upset, I was not on earth in 1952.” So why a mess about 2092 when 1952 has already come and gone and you were pretty much in the same state then that you’ll be in the future? And you survived.
There is no time, anyway. And you had little say in your arrival and will have no say in your departure. Just go love someone and stop worrying so much.
I don’t know Hitchens’ feelings about love. But certainly, he enjoyed himself, his impulses, his thoughts, his writing, his imbibing, his appearances and his successes. Of course he did. And enjoyment is the easiest going form of love.
Hitchens was a big help in getting people to think about the foolishness of religion and to aid in their release of the silliness of all this culturally imposed magical thinking. In his small-big way. It would have been much more fun if he had been much more fun. His pomposity and his anger were, well, they were in the way. But I understand he needed both—the first to protect his position, the second for propulsion. With all his rationality, he did not figure out how to squelch his vanity and ego---which fed his addictions and ultimately killed him. But I accept all that. I must. I haven't come close to squelching my own ego and vanity and people in glass bathrobes shouldn't throw waffles...
Almost no one gets it exactly right. Except maybe Jesus. Happy birthday, baby. ;)
And now for the man who, you know, is totally dead, not with the angels, done, kaput, finished. Good thing we invented cameras.
Sidebar: I once said to a friend in Los Angeles who was going through a rough divorce and a whole lot of other horrors while we waxed on about spirituality as people on the Pacific rim tend to do in soft, lovely ways, “I think when you die, it’s just nothing. It’s just, nothing, it’s over.”
And she said, “Wouldn’t that be great?”
Hitchens, it’s over. Long live Hitchens.
If there is a God or a force or a higher power, or whatever, who really cares?
I mean---I like the Quakers who are all, “God is in all of us.” Which really means, you know, we are the important ones.
Or I don’t even know. Though, I do feel like it is a miracle I am here at all, as well as the other people I spend time with, and don’t spend time with.
Such a cool thing, to be here, to breathe, to fill out forms, to sleep, to acquire, to lose, to listen, to eat, to wonder, to play music, to watch, to feel awful. And then you die. And people are so upset (me included, absolutely) about that notion: the end is near. Then there’s the agony of the void and not knowing what that is.
But basically, what the hell is so wrong with not knowing? I mean, if you love a few people or things or animals, that’s God or heaven enough. Why bother even thinking about religion? It’s just an ape-man relic. If you’re a smart guy, you spend your time figuring out new things. Like how to build a better mouse trap, iPhone or jet pack.
So with the Hitchens death, what I find so curious is how a man that intelligent spent any time at all on this subject of religion. If he was so sure that there was no meddling God, no hocus pocus, then why did he not just toodle off onto another subject?
Of course, I am being reductive and bloggy, so let me stop the typing and go to Al Gore’s internet and find a little something from Hitchens’ final days.
Here it is, below. The clip lands on the Enlightenment. I have to agree with his pitch. So that’s why he did it. Great thing, the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment went into the making of this country. It informed the founding fathers. It changed Europe. It made us more scientific. Bernstein/Sondheim/others wrote the musical. A joy, really. And Voltaire, as its novelist-marketeer, was funny. So why didn’t more people sign up for the Enlightenment?
Fear. Fear of change. Fear.
And as I always like to point out about fear---which is basically fear of death—why are we (and by we I mean me) so afraid of dying? I mean, there were all those years you were not alive before you were born, yet somehow, not being alive all those pre-years doesn’t seem to bother people. “Oh man, I’m so upset, I was not on earth in 1952.” So why a mess about 2092 when 1952 has already come and gone and you were pretty much in the same state then that you’ll be in the future? And you survived.
There is no time, anyway. And you had little say in your arrival and will have no say in your departure. Just go love someone and stop worrying so much.
I don’t know Hitchens’ feelings about love. But certainly, he enjoyed himself, his impulses, his thoughts, his writing, his imbibing, his appearances and his successes. Of course he did. And enjoyment is the easiest going form of love.
Hitchens was a big help in getting people to think about the foolishness of religion and to aid in their release of the silliness of all this culturally imposed magical thinking. In his small-big way. It would have been much more fun if he had been much more fun. His pomposity and his anger were, well, they were in the way. But I understand he needed both—the first to protect his position, the second for propulsion. With all his rationality, he did not figure out how to squelch his vanity and ego---which fed his addictions and ultimately killed him. But I accept all that. I must. I haven't come close to squelching my own ego and vanity and people in glass bathrobes shouldn't throw waffles...
Almost no one gets it exactly right. Except maybe Jesus. Happy birthday, baby. ;)
And now for the man who, you know, is totally dead, not with the angels, done, kaput, finished. Good thing we invented cameras.
Sidebar: I once said to a friend in Los Angeles who was going through a rough divorce and a whole lot of other horrors while we waxed on about spirituality as people on the Pacific rim tend to do in soft, lovely ways, “I think when you die, it’s just nothing. It’s just, nothing, it’s over.”
And she said, “Wouldn’t that be great?”
Hitchens, it’s over. Long live Hitchens.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Three K(C)oreas
Now that His Most Bizarreness is dead, what will become of North Korea? A third generation dictatorship?
Hm. Sounds like the kid might not have the stuff.
I recently caught myself saying to a conservative friend of mine, “I’d give up democracy for a benevolent, intelligent king.”
I meant it.
But that must be because a very stupid part of me desires simplicity. We have evolved as a species to have collective power, not top down power, especially not top down from one lunatic.
But what bearing does any of my thinking have on North Korea? None, really. I mean, those people never heard of me. Furthermore, I do not have anything unique to offer.
We all hope, I imagine, for reunification of the two Koreas with the south in charge. Would it not be wonderful for a nation of oppressed people to suddenly have freedom, to join their former countrymen in a peninsular embrace and maybe have consistent access to food?
All the military has to do is give up its allegiance and join the south. How hard can that be? Pride is stupid and wants to attach itself to the winning team. The old northern way is the losing ticket. On the other hand, is there not some embarrassment you would have to get over to suddenly become a citizen of a country that manufactures all those ugly rental cars?
I would like to make a pun at this point about Chick Corea*…however, the stretch would be outrageous and I am not that limber.
*I just found out that Chick Corea is a Scientologist. This world is confusing. Ah, choice…
Hm. Sounds like the kid might not have the stuff.
I recently caught myself saying to a conservative friend of mine, “I’d give up democracy for a benevolent, intelligent king.”
I meant it.
But that must be because a very stupid part of me desires simplicity. We have evolved as a species to have collective power, not top down power, especially not top down from one lunatic.
But what bearing does any of my thinking have on North Korea? None, really. I mean, those people never heard of me. Furthermore, I do not have anything unique to offer.
We all hope, I imagine, for reunification of the two Koreas with the south in charge. Would it not be wonderful for a nation of oppressed people to suddenly have freedom, to join their former countrymen in a peninsular embrace and maybe have consistent access to food?
All the military has to do is give up its allegiance and join the south. How hard can that be? Pride is stupid and wants to attach itself to the winning team. The old northern way is the losing ticket. On the other hand, is there not some embarrassment you would have to get over to suddenly become a citizen of a country that manufactures all those ugly rental cars?
I would like to make a pun at this point about Chick Corea*…however, the stretch would be outrageous and I am not that limber.
*I just found out that Chick Corea is a Scientologist. This world is confusing. Ah, choice…
Thursday, December 15, 2011
I Don't Want to Fight, Ever
I have posted this before. Time for it again. This is the time of year for choirs and stars and harmony.
It is so dark outside it reminds us of our blindness, before we could see. Or of death, the after-time. So sleep, sleep.
So many people have trouble sleeping. I never have. I do hope it is not because I wish death. I actually do not. But I am happy to take breaks from living.
Surrender.
I am more for harmony than anything else in music. Some people like drums. I find them grating. Some people like a good hook (melody). I do, too, but not as much as the play of notes against each other.
I wonder why this sort of musical focus is not more popular. But then...I like physics, France and pared down rooms.
It's good to see all these people who like it, too, singing with their earphones on. You have to find your people. Which is kind of great and kind of sad. People end up fighting because of their differences.
Oh ancient amoeba mother and bacterium Dad, was it always like this?
Funny---the convention in most writing is to find the conflict and then duke it out, covertly or overtly. And I do this.
So maybe I am doing the ol' "I'm so this'" when really "I'm so that" and want to be so this.
Never trust what anyone says about themselves in long form. They are usually the opposite and their mouths are trying to find the balance.
So maybe, maybe, I want to fight all the time.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Carnegie Hall
Adam, my husband, sang in Carnegie Hall tonight. So proud. It was fab.
I love Poulenc and I don’t care who knows it.
I love Poulenc and I don’t care who knows it.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Young Adult
It brings me no pleasure to tell you how disappointing Young Adult is.
Who doesn’t love Charlize Theron?
And the Mr. Mudd people, I know them and applaud what they do.
It is a fantastic story idea.
However…
There was barely a true note in it.
Of course, if you know that going in, that it’s a great idea poorly executed and you just want to see them all do this thing then I say go for it.
(Note: I was not a big fan of Diablo Cody’s Juno, either.)
There is a brilliant switch of point of view toward the end, which is pretty refreshing and a great way to hinge a film. But then the roll out, too, is also unbelievable.
Oh well. It’s just a movie.
Who doesn’t love Charlize Theron?
And the Mr. Mudd people, I know them and applaud what they do.
It is a fantastic story idea.
However…
There was barely a true note in it.
Of course, if you know that going in, that it’s a great idea poorly executed and you just want to see them all do this thing then I say go for it.
(Note: I was not a big fan of Diablo Cody’s Juno, either.)
There is a brilliant switch of point of view toward the end, which is pretty refreshing and a great way to hinge a film. But then the roll out, too, is also unbelievable.
Oh well. It’s just a movie.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Note: The LA Bashing
I have seen on T-Shirts, heard from others, been reminded of it many times---that people in New York believe people in Los Angeles are not so bright.
Two things.
One, this cannot be proven exactly, though, anecdotally, it can be witnessed.
But more importantly, it is easy to appear intelligent when you are looking backward and making judgments. New York is a backward looking town. Los Angeles looks forward and when you are jumping into the unknown, into the future, organizing a plan of attack using critical analysis often mucks everything up.
It would be wise for New Yorkers to begin to understand that anything that has already happened has actually already happened and any opinions about that are opinions about that. Fun fodder for the ambitious mind. But not necessarily new.
Two things.
One, this cannot be proven exactly, though, anecdotally, it can be witnessed.
But more importantly, it is easy to appear intelligent when you are looking backward and making judgments. New York is a backward looking town. Los Angeles looks forward and when you are jumping into the unknown, into the future, organizing a plan of attack using critical analysis often mucks everything up.
It would be wise for New Yorkers to begin to understand that anything that has already happened has actually already happened and any opinions about that are opinions about that. Fun fodder for the ambitious mind. But not necessarily new.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Christmas Fatigue---Two Coasts
I stopped cutting my hair. It’s not like one of those guys who stops cutting his nails, like, I’m not crazy or anything. But it’s just winter. I discovered T-Gel shampoo which kind of mats the nest all down (thanks, Sister-in-law, unbeknownst) and it is winter so why not go for a winter bush?
Christmas fatigue wants to creep in. I won’t let it. Just keep heading toward the tree, looking at the baubles.
Laura, our goldfish, is healthy and alive after four months in about a quart of water. The secret success for goldfish: underfeed. Do not feed every day. Put a little gravel in the bottom and plant a live aquatic plant in there. Change the water about every five days.
You can change a third to a half of it frequently (use a turkey baster). Use water that has been filtered and has been let to stand to room temperature.
My memory is going. I’m not close to the age for memory to diminish. Maybe I am. Or maybe I am so overloaded with thoughts and internet shenanigans, I am suffering from information abrasion.
Modern Family, getting soft at the end of every single episode, is sort of disappointing.
Warmth over style, sorry.
When in the West Village
Alligator hands.
I’ve heard that Arthur Miller can really write a play. Saw The Price tonight downtown. Great to see.
Hand to God runs one more week at Ensemble Studio Theatre. Check it out if you have the time. It’s great.
Got a pic of an LA hiking trail today. Sadism!
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Occupied
What is strange about these Obama years is time is moving so slowly.
The Bushy wars and the general loathing in his direction kept things bouncing along speedily.
The Clinton years, well, they were all about money, startups, sex and possibility. Plus, those were young days. They flew by.
People say as you get older time moves more swiftly. I think that depends.
When there is stagnation, there is a pall. I do not blame Obama for this pall. It all started with Reagan and now look at us. A bifurcated society. The middle ground decimated. Without a middle, the engine is missing a few very important gears. Then, the whole thing doesn't spin much, the tiny wheels have to do so much to get the big ones going and it just seems impossible and exhausting. Time slows.
Looking forward to the filling of the center. Picking up the speed. It’s more fun to move lightly and briskly.
The Bushy wars and the general loathing in his direction kept things bouncing along speedily.
The Clinton years, well, they were all about money, startups, sex and possibility. Plus, those were young days. They flew by.
People say as you get older time moves more swiftly. I think that depends.
When there is stagnation, there is a pall. I do not blame Obama for this pall. It all started with Reagan and now look at us. A bifurcated society. The middle ground decimated. Without a middle, the engine is missing a few very important gears. Then, the whole thing doesn't spin much, the tiny wheels have to do so much to get the big ones going and it just seems impossible and exhausting. Time slows.
Looking forward to the filling of the center. Picking up the speed. It’s more fun to move lightly and briskly.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Kindle Fire Me Up
I did it. I ordered one. It came.
The thing about this Kindle Fire is it truly is the right size for lounging on the couch and reading a book, the newspaper, a magazine. They figured it out. No wonder it is selling so well.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is, it’s so new, the apps for it aren’t there yet. No good app for google mail. No good app for lots of things. But they’re coming. I assume. In the meantime, the web browser, which is okay, not great, gets most things done within the confines of its not so sturdy set up. Again, it will improve soon. You feel it coming.
But really, this thing is all about getting away from the desk, getting into a comfortable chair, and reading, like you used to, back when they had that stuff they used to call paper.
The size of this thing, as I’ve mentioned, is pretty brilliant. Smaller than an iPad (and much ligther) but three times the size of a smart phone screen. It is sleek. Intuitive. Up and running right out of the box. And the kind gnomes at Amazon sent me my Kindle already registered. So basically, I was ready to roll once I hooked up to my Wi-Fi. (One just has to remember one’s password.)
The home screen is hideous---a sort of fake bookshelf, a cartoon version of brownish-gray Pergo constructed into this shelving. Too bad about that.
But the fun thing is, you can fill up those laminate book shelves with everything. Books, magazines, favorite web sites, apps, etc.
Additionally, you can get some free books and really cheap books and get books from your library for free. It goes on and on. So as much as Amazon has made this thing a cash-register-in-your-living-room, it is also highly functional for the library you’ve always loved.
The New Yorker App is amazing and you get to have that app if you subscribe to the magazine in its paper form. Probably the best magazine app I’ve seen so far on anything. This is because there are many choices for how you can access the look of the magazine. Page by page. Or by a list. Or by iconic overview. And it is easy to use.
I will get the New York Times app, too. But apparently there is all this linking that needs to be done from your existing digital account into Amazon. They give you the steps on the New York Times Site. But then, you pretty much lose your NYTimes app for your phone---not that that app was ever worth much—but one could still choose to keep that app if one wants to pay for a second subscription for that app alone. But who the hell wants to do that?
Much of the video looks not so great. Nowhere near the beauty of an iPad. Like Mexico to Canada difference. I don’t listen to music on devices, so I can’t say I even tried that. But video, music, all there, too. There’s a solid Netflix app and a solid Hulu+ app. Music looks like it must be easy. Okay, just tried it. Music sounds very good with head phones. You can upload all your pre-existing MP3’s either into the cloud or into the device for playing. (Remember when we used to only want intermittent white fluffy clouds? Now, all we want is solid cloud cover to make us happy.)
This Kindle Fire is pretty solid and a good size and a good buy at $199. It pulls together books and magazines and all your other media. For a bit of a neaty-pants like me, this means less old magazines around and less yellowing paperbacks.
Plus, while reading, you can look up any word at all. Fabulous. No list making. Immediacy.
The device is pretty useless, except for downloaded books, once you get away from wireless range. So trying to do anything but read a book on it on a plane would be next to impossible. Oh but wait—I hear planes are now all wired up.
(You can also download your ass of-- music and video, etc. etc...but what a bore.)
Entertainment in your house. You never have to go to the mall again for anything but clothes.
What will they think of next? Canned hams? A machine that separates cotton seeds from cotton? Will they upload our brains so we can live forever? Is that the magical creativity of religion, actually? It’s all been a wish, so we pretend it’s true until it is true, but we have to do it, push our brains into the forever realm, on servers, while they keep burning the mountaintops off in West Virginia to keep it all going?
I don’t think we are far away. They can scan my DNA and my memories, at some point, and get them to be virtual. My clone living in the chips. In the cloud, these clouds we have been fantasizing about for so long that we would just hop around on. Note: Must learn to play the harp.
I have the laptop, the phone and the Reader all within two feet of me conspiring to get me to become as digital as possible. Beam me up, beam me down, let’s all beam there together. It was fun being flesh based, for a while. Appointment with forever...
The thing about this Kindle Fire is it truly is the right size for lounging on the couch and reading a book, the newspaper, a magazine. They figured it out. No wonder it is selling so well.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is, it’s so new, the apps for it aren’t there yet. No good app for google mail. No good app for lots of things. But they’re coming. I assume. In the meantime, the web browser, which is okay, not great, gets most things done within the confines of its not so sturdy set up. Again, it will improve soon. You feel it coming.
But really, this thing is all about getting away from the desk, getting into a comfortable chair, and reading, like you used to, back when they had that stuff they used to call paper.
The size of this thing, as I’ve mentioned, is pretty brilliant. Smaller than an iPad (and much ligther) but three times the size of a smart phone screen. It is sleek. Intuitive. Up and running right out of the box. And the kind gnomes at Amazon sent me my Kindle already registered. So basically, I was ready to roll once I hooked up to my Wi-Fi. (One just has to remember one’s password.)
The home screen is hideous---a sort of fake bookshelf, a cartoon version of brownish-gray Pergo constructed into this shelving. Too bad about that.
But the fun thing is, you can fill up those laminate book shelves with everything. Books, magazines, favorite web sites, apps, etc.
Additionally, you can get some free books and really cheap books and get books from your library for free. It goes on and on. So as much as Amazon has made this thing a cash-register-in-your-living-room, it is also highly functional for the library you’ve always loved.
The New Yorker App is amazing and you get to have that app if you subscribe to the magazine in its paper form. Probably the best magazine app I’ve seen so far on anything. This is because there are many choices for how you can access the look of the magazine. Page by page. Or by a list. Or by iconic overview. And it is easy to use.
I will get the New York Times app, too. But apparently there is all this linking that needs to be done from your existing digital account into Amazon. They give you the steps on the New York Times Site. But then, you pretty much lose your NYTimes app for your phone---not that that app was ever worth much—but one could still choose to keep that app if one wants to pay for a second subscription for that app alone. But who the hell wants to do that?
Much of the video looks not so great. Nowhere near the beauty of an iPad. Like Mexico to Canada difference. I don’t listen to music on devices, so I can’t say I even tried that. But video, music, all there, too. There’s a solid Netflix app and a solid Hulu+ app. Music looks like it must be easy. Okay, just tried it. Music sounds very good with head phones. You can upload all your pre-existing MP3’s either into the cloud or into the device for playing. (Remember when we used to only want intermittent white fluffy clouds? Now, all we want is solid cloud cover to make us happy.)
This Kindle Fire is pretty solid and a good size and a good buy at $199. It pulls together books and magazines and all your other media. For a bit of a neaty-pants like me, this means less old magazines around and less yellowing paperbacks.
Plus, while reading, you can look up any word at all. Fabulous. No list making. Immediacy.
The device is pretty useless, except for downloaded books, once you get away from wireless range. So trying to do anything but read a book on it on a plane would be next to impossible. Oh but wait—I hear planes are now all wired up.
(You can also download your ass of-- music and video, etc. etc...but what a bore.)
Entertainment in your house. You never have to go to the mall again for anything but clothes.
What will they think of next? Canned hams? A machine that separates cotton seeds from cotton? Will they upload our brains so we can live forever? Is that the magical creativity of religion, actually? It’s all been a wish, so we pretend it’s true until it is true, but we have to do it, push our brains into the forever realm, on servers, while they keep burning the mountaintops off in West Virginia to keep it all going?
I don’t think we are far away. They can scan my DNA and my memories, at some point, and get them to be virtual. My clone living in the chips. In the cloud, these clouds we have been fantasizing about for so long that we would just hop around on. Note: Must learn to play the harp.
I have the laptop, the phone and the Reader all within two feet of me conspiring to get me to become as digital as possible. Beam me up, beam me down, let’s all beam there together. It was fun being flesh based, for a while. Appointment with forever...
Two Sure Things: Christmas and Taxes
The Orchid has returned for Christmas. After one year, she's at it again.
The Rich: Not a bad idea to tax them heavily. They are the most money driven people there are. They will always push to make cash. And if they are taxed handsomely, they will push even harder. They will have to. Their Beluga bill will require it.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Friday, December 02, 2011
The Descendants
The Descendants
It’s being sold as a comedy. But for me the best thing about it is it is an elegy in paradise.
Payne is smart. We know this. And his tone is wonderful. I remember the first movie I saw of his---Citizen Ruth---I think I watched it three times. Abortion poster child as a schism/farce. Election, three times.
But back to The Descendants. I have to say, it started off with a voiceover and I was hoping that would go away quickly. It did. And it never returned. Thank goodness.
We could have done with none of it.
The movie unfolds in a way that is close to surprising. More importantly, it is shot and cut and acted so well, well, you’ll see.
The soundtrack is going to do for Hawaiian music the opposite of what Sideways did for Merlot.
Also, have you never been to Hawaii? You really should go as soon as possible. Nothing is more pleasant.
Friends, go the movies. And if you have a teenager next to you texting during the entire movie, don’t do what I did. Give her a polite but fatherly talking to early on. Do not wait until the movie is over.
These damn kids. Get off my lawn!
I give The Descendants one and three-quarters thumbs up. I would give it two if it felt completely fresh. But it is hard to find a fully fresh two thumber in a market driven, top down business where the artist must grovel for cash from corporate titans in order to make his dream come to life.
Occupy Burbank!
It’s being sold as a comedy. But for me the best thing about it is it is an elegy in paradise.
Payne is smart. We know this. And his tone is wonderful. I remember the first movie I saw of his---Citizen Ruth---I think I watched it three times. Abortion poster child as a schism/farce. Election, three times.
But back to The Descendants. I have to say, it started off with a voiceover and I was hoping that would go away quickly. It did. And it never returned. Thank goodness.
We could have done with none of it.
The movie unfolds in a way that is close to surprising. More importantly, it is shot and cut and acted so well, well, you’ll see.
The soundtrack is going to do for Hawaiian music the opposite of what Sideways did for Merlot.
Also, have you never been to Hawaii? You really should go as soon as possible. Nothing is more pleasant.
Friends, go the movies. And if you have a teenager next to you texting during the entire movie, don’t do what I did. Give her a polite but fatherly talking to early on. Do not wait until the movie is over.
These damn kids. Get off my lawn!
I give The Descendants one and three-quarters thumbs up. I would give it two if it felt completely fresh. But it is hard to find a fully fresh two thumber in a market driven, top down business where the artist must grovel for cash from corporate titans in order to make his dream come to life.
Occupy Burbank!
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Floppy Hats and Muskets
The Hatfields and McCoys…this is what the opposing political parties have become in the U.S. Hardened. Righteous. The fight will never end. But since it is this way, fight we must.
Today, a New York State judge has allowed that the gay marriages that have taken place in New York could be declared illegal by something called the Open Meetings Law…The Republicans who got together at one time with Cuomo and one time with Bloomberg to discuss and push through the marriage equality law apparently were supposed to invite all the other Republicans into these meetings, as if these meetings were ever intended to be anything more than they were…
Some upstaters are upset and are trying to turn back the clock. They are grabbing at anything. It’s good the judge is letting this go through. Let it fail, this fascist attempt, so the tightie-Righties can get their noses rubbed into it.
It’s a ridiculous notion but it is a real threat. The Prop 8 loons did it in California, though they did not null and void the marriages that already took place there when it was legal.
Will it ever end? I’m so tired.
Today, a New York State judge has allowed that the gay marriages that have taken place in New York could be declared illegal by something called the Open Meetings Law…The Republicans who got together at one time with Cuomo and one time with Bloomberg to discuss and push through the marriage equality law apparently were supposed to invite all the other Republicans into these meetings, as if these meetings were ever intended to be anything more than they were…
Some upstaters are upset and are trying to turn back the clock. They are grabbing at anything. It’s good the judge is letting this go through. Let it fail, this fascist attempt, so the tightie-Righties can get their noses rubbed into it.
It’s a ridiculous notion but it is a real threat. The Prop 8 loons did it in California, though they did not null and void the marriages that already took place there when it was legal.
Will it ever end? I’m so tired.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
How Much do You Agree with Michael Moore on OWS?
Michael Moore on Occupy Wall Street
Do you agree with any of this?
I only agree with numbers 1 – 10. ;)
Apparently, this is going to be a big winter of planning. I imagine in 2012 we will experience a "Summer of Shove."
Get ready. I especially want the single payer health plan thing. Of course, once you do that (the thin edge of the wedge), you're heading toward socialism. And that has hurt Scandinavia, France, Germany and New Zealand how?
Greed. It's so boring. Especially when it kills people. Which it does. All the time.
Do you agree with any of this?
I only agree with numbers 1 – 10. ;)
Apparently, this is going to be a big winter of planning. I imagine in 2012 we will experience a "Summer of Shove."
Get ready. I especially want the single payer health plan thing. Of course, once you do that (the thin edge of the wedge), you're heading toward socialism. And that has hurt Scandinavia, France, Germany and New Zealand how?
Greed. It's so boring. Especially when it kills people. Which it does. All the time.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Fakemas Tree
A week ago, at Lee’s Art Supply on West 57th Street, I bought a fake Christmas tree. Six feet tall. Fifty-nine dollars. About the same price you would pay for a real one on the street.
It’s kind of great. The trunk is wood. The branches do look like branches, but spaced a little extra wide for that good ornament spacing hang. I think the tree is cute. Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-New-York-Husband, thinks it looks like a cell tower.
At least he did before it was covered with ornaments.
And now to the good part. I love Christmas trees. The ornaments. The lights. The whole cheesy deal. When I was a kid and we would have the Christmas tree plugged in, and my favorite television show was on, I would rather look at the tree than watch the T.V.
I know. No big surprise. However, I do live a life of decorator spareness, so I feel this guilty pleasure, allowing myself to froth out on a Christmas tree, is an aberration in an otherwise brown-beige-a-touch-of-corral lifestyle we’ve been poking around in. Our spare living has been informed by our personalities and our personal histories. Adam is a lapsed Quaker and I have always been basically neat and do not like to shop. So we live uncluttered and open. And we like it that way. But when it comes to Christmas? Bring on the motley mess of lights and colors. I am all for it.
Each ornament has a story. I have these hanging guitars from my grandmother---lutes and cellos really—that are from the 1940’s or earlier. Heavy glass, they have been dropped many times and do not break. I have a few from the 1960s that my dad bought. Groovy shaped elongated spheroids with pointy tips at the bottom, frosted in white with glued on tiny stars, a white bell with curly gold sparkling twirls and tiny fake rubies. And then there are all the ornaments from all the vacations. Middle Europa wooden carved things, a Maryland crab in a crab trap, a great long hanging thing made out of Redwood from Northern California, a wooly sheep from Iceland, Mexicrap, a pepper from Santa Fe with Santa painted on it, a golden walnut from Idaho. And then all around California, there was always the chance to pick up some schnazoids along the way, you know how it can get…
Every ornament means something. I guess I am extra excited because we haven’t had a tree in a few years with this California-New York-Storage-Unit-where-the-hell-is-all-my-stuff-sort of thing.
My gushing joy, it embarrasses me. I don’t know why I think I should be so serious and unhappy.
It’s kind of great. The trunk is wood. The branches do look like branches, but spaced a little extra wide for that good ornament spacing hang. I think the tree is cute. Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-New-York-Husband, thinks it looks like a cell tower.
At least he did before it was covered with ornaments.
And now to the good part. I love Christmas trees. The ornaments. The lights. The whole cheesy deal. When I was a kid and we would have the Christmas tree plugged in, and my favorite television show was on, I would rather look at the tree than watch the T.V.
I know. No big surprise. However, I do live a life of decorator spareness, so I feel this guilty pleasure, allowing myself to froth out on a Christmas tree, is an aberration in an otherwise brown-beige-a-touch-of-corral lifestyle we’ve been poking around in. Our spare living has been informed by our personalities and our personal histories. Adam is a lapsed Quaker and I have always been basically neat and do not like to shop. So we live uncluttered and open. And we like it that way. But when it comes to Christmas? Bring on the motley mess of lights and colors. I am all for it.
Each ornament has a story. I have these hanging guitars from my grandmother---lutes and cellos really—that are from the 1940’s or earlier. Heavy glass, they have been dropped many times and do not break. I have a few from the 1960s that my dad bought. Groovy shaped elongated spheroids with pointy tips at the bottom, frosted in white with glued on tiny stars, a white bell with curly gold sparkling twirls and tiny fake rubies. And then there are all the ornaments from all the vacations. Middle Europa wooden carved things, a Maryland crab in a crab trap, a great long hanging thing made out of Redwood from Northern California, a wooly sheep from Iceland, Mexicrap, a pepper from Santa Fe with Santa painted on it, a golden walnut from Idaho. And then all around California, there was always the chance to pick up some schnazoids along the way, you know how it can get…
Every ornament means something. I guess I am extra excited because we haven’t had a tree in a few years with this California-New York-Storage-Unit-where-the-hell-is-all-my-stuff-sort of thing.
My gushing joy, it embarrasses me. I don’t know why I think I should be so serious and unhappy.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
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