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Not a Top 5 of 2011: Movies
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in the media lately over the decline in motion picture attendance in 2011, and what may be causing it. I feel well qualified to speak on this issue, because my own movie attendance dropped from 26 in 2010 to 15 in 2011. Why did I see fewer movies? Simply because there were not many films I was inspired to go out and pay $8 to see. (I’m the thrifty type who only goes to matinees.)
I know a lot of moviegoers blame the behavior of their fellow audience members — in this commentary, Roger Ebert mentions, “The annoyance of talkers has been joined by the plague of cell-phone users, whose bright screens are a distraction.” Luckily, I have found Bay Area moviegoers to be, on the whole, fairly polite. Smart phones are much more of a distraction at concerts, where half the audience seems to either be texting/checking email or filming the performance with their iPhones.
We generally get three types of films here: (1) The mega-blockbusters, heavily advertised pictures which are often based on a superhero comic — generally, these do huge business on their opening weekends and are immediately replaced by the next comic book or action movie the following Friday. (2) The increasingly rare hit movies for grown-ups that wind up playing for months due to solid word of mouth. “Midnight in Paris” is still showing here, even though it came out six months ago and is now available on DVD. Other examples: “The Help,” “The Descendants,” “The Blind Side.” These are the sorts of films that older people (by which I mean age 30 and up) who only go to a movie theater once or twice a year see. (3) Blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em foreign and independent films that may do a one-nighter at the Pacific Film Archive or have a weeklong showing at the local Landmark theater.
I used to see a lot more of type #3, but because I see so much live theater, I don’t really have time to keep up with the smaller films nowadays. Once in a while, I’ll read about something that sounds interesting and wonder if it’ll ever open here, only to find (when I check Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB) a Chronicle review, indicating that it did play here. For instance, “Bellflower,” which was on critic Christy Lemire’s top 10 list, didn’t ring any bells with me, but it apparently did get a Bay Area showing (undoubtedly a brief one) back in August.
Generally, once something is gone, so are my chances of catching up with it. I hardly ever watch movies on DVD or streaming. Occasionally I’ll catch something on a plane. I thoroughly enjoyed “Crazy Stupid Love,” the Steve Carell romantic comedy, which I saw on the little seatback screen on my Air France flight from Paris. It was the kind of small-scale movie that worked fine on a miniature screen. I can’t imagine watching “Tree of Life,” which I’m sorry I never got around to seeing, on a tiny screen, or even on our 40″ TV.
So I don’t feel qualified to do a top 5 list when I saw so few films. The ones I ranked the highest were “Super 8,” “Bridesmaids,” “Hugo” and “The Artist.” I enjoyed “The Muppets,” even though it sort of wore out its welcome by the time the end credits rolled. A few of my favorite directors — Thomas McCarthy (“Win Win”), Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”) and Jason Reitman (“Young Adult”) — released films that I didn’t think were as good as their past efforts. Usually, Pixar’s annual feature is a sure thing, but there was no way in hell I was going to see “Cars 2.”
It’s possible that I will see more movies in 2012, but I sort of doubt it. The fact is, Hollywood would rather spend $150 million-plus to make and market a film like “Thor” or “Green Hornet” than $15 million on a smaller film geared at adults, because the execs know that the Comic-Con crowd will always go see the blockbuster du jour, whereas adults will only go if it’s good. “Young Adult”‘s grosses have been disappointing so far, which I chalk up to the fact that it’s a depressing, not terribly insightful movie about an unlikable character. “Midnight in Paris,” on the other hand, was a sparkling, entertaining, escapist delight, and I’m not surprised that people recommended it to their friends. “Bridesmaids” was genuinely funny, and Twitter and Facebook were aglow with positive write-ups the weekend it opened. The scariest thing about “Bridesmaids” is that there was talk that studio heads were watching its performance closely, and if it flopped, that would mean no comedy starring a woman would ever be greenlit in the near future. Its success immediately led to calls of “Get me the next ‘Bridesmaids’!” That tells you a lot about Hollywood and how dysfunctional it is.
There’s no way of guaranteeing that a movie will get good reviews and win acclaim from discerning audience members. No actor or actress is bulletproof (cf. Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in “Larry Crowne”). A hot script can turn into a dud, sometimes for reasons out of the studio’s control (cf. “The Beaver,” which topped the annual “Black List” of “best unproduced screenplays” before Jodie Foster made the mistake of actually making it into a movie starring Mel Gibson). When you think about it, a risk-taking movie like “The Artist” is a little miracle. Of course, it was a French/Belgian production with a relatively tiny $12 million budget; an American distributor only bought the rights after it became a hot ticket at Cannes. I’m sure no homegrown studio would ever have agreed to finance a silent, black and white movie starring two actors most Americans have never heard of.
Many TV critics argue that the real innovation these days is happening on the small screen, where visionaries are given the freedom to tell complex stories (“Mad Men,” ”Breaking Bad,” “Sons of Anarchy,” etc.). But people still like going to the movies, and most adult filmgoers, will, like me, keep an eye out for those increasingly rare little miracles.
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Top 5 of 2011: Theater
1. “Tales of the City,” A.C.T.: After I mentioned how much I loved this show, a couple people have challenged me, asking why I loved it so much. OK, so it was not universally beloved. And I can’t quite put into words why it affected me as much as it did. But I cherished every single second of A.C.T.’s original adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s serial. I had never read the books or seen the TV series, and found myself captivated by the sudsy twists and turns in the stories of Mary Ann, a young Midwesterner who moves to Baghdad by the Bay in the mid-1970s, her delightfully eccentric landlady Anna Madrigal, and the rest of their crew. My only regrets are that I didn’t discover it earlier in the run, so I could have seen it a couple more times (I did manage to go twice, and enjoyed it even more the second time); and that the Scissors Sisters’ fabulous tunes haven’t made it onto a soundtrack album yet. Will the musical have a life beyond its San Francisco summer run? Only time will tell, but I hope so; there’s a reason Maupin’s “Tales” have endured, and continued to attract new fans, for almost four decades now.
2. “Phaedra,” Shotgun Players: Shotgun had another ambitious year, presenting five commissioned, world-premiere shows, prompting the Chron‘s Robert Hurwitt to give them his “most improved” award for 2011. Which I don’t quite get, since he put three of their plays on his 2010 ten-best list. Shotgun has been operating at a consistently high level since I became a season ticket holder seven years ago, and “Phaedra,” written by Adam Bock, was (to me, at least, though several local reviewers seem to agree) the clear stand-out of their season. Which is not to say that the other plays weren’t exciting, but three of the five struck me as being very good plays that could easily become great plays with a little more seasoning. (One of them I didn’t care for at all. And no, I’m not going to say which one.) Their current production, “God’s Plot,” is a solid, entertaining, thought-provoking three-and-a-half-star show that stands an excellent chance of becoming a four-star show by the end of its run because playwright/director Mark Jackson is still tinkering with it — not an unexpected development for a brand-new play. But Bock’s passionate “Phaedra” emerged fully formed and perfect. A modernization of the Greek myth, “Phaedra” told the story of a woman in love with her stepson, and kept audiences on the edge of their seats. During the play’s climax, you could practically feel the crowd holding its collective breath. It was a magical experience.
3. “Metamorphosis,” Aurora Theatre: Speaking of Mark Jackson, one of the hardest-working men in Bay Area showbiz, he hit a home run with this adaptation (by David Farr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson) of Franz Kafka’s famous story about a man who wakes up one morning and finds he’s turned into a cockroach. Wisely, the actor playing Gregor (the compelling Alexander Crowther) was not dressed in a cockroach costume; instead, he somehow managed to move around the stage in a way that made you realize he was different. The ever-inventive Nina Ball’s brilliant set placed Gregor’s bedroom at an extreme angle, forcing him to skitter around, clinging to the askew furniture.
4. “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” Berkeley Rep: A new Mike Daisey monologue is always cause for delight and anticipation. He did two shows at Berkeley Rep earlier this year: “The Last Cargo Cult” and his acclaimed, controversial show about the cult of Apple. He was booked to perform it in New York when Jobs died shortly before the play was about to open. Did the show go on? Of course it did, as well it should have; the show is not really about Jobs, it’s about Daisey’s own relationship with Apple products, and how that relationship shifted when he learned more about how those shiny, gorgeous objects are manufactured. One of Daisey’s earlier monologues is called “How Theater Failed America,” but as a performer, Daisey is well nigh infallible, an artist working at the peak of his powers. (Its New York run at the Public Theatre has recently been extended.)
5. “Ruined,” Berkeley Rep: This play was not an easy sell — “Hey, let’s go see a show about women who have been raped and mutilated during the war in the Congo!” — but it was one of the most powerful pieces of theater I’ve ever witnessed. The Pulitzer Prize-winning script by Lynn Nottage introduces us to several women who work at a brothel, presided over by the tough and charismatic Mama Nadi, who does what she has to do to survive hard times. Yes, at times it was difficult to sit through, but only because Nottage did her job so well, making us care so much about her characters (though there were some lighter moments, and a few appealing musical numbers, to ease it along). An unforgettable show, and one I’m very glad I decided to see.
Honorable mentions: Berkeley Rep sure had a good year; Anna Deavere Smith’s “Let Me Down Easy” was another strong contender, and Rita Moreno’s “Life Without Makeup” was a lot of fun (though I guess Joe & I may be the only people who found the Rep’s highly praised “The Wild Bride” a bit slight). I am very glad I got the chance to see Boxcar Theatre’s take on “Little Shop of Horrors” before The Man shut it down. “The Drowsy Chaperone” is one of those plays I’ve wanted to see for a while, and I finally got my chance, thanks to Hillbarn Theatre on the Peninsula; what a delightful, devilishly clever musical it is (Marin’s 6th Street Playhouse is presenting it next month). Sleepwalkers Theatre’s outstanding production of J.C. Lee‘s “The Nature Line” introduced me to an exciting young playwright I want to hear more from. And the Lamplighters‘ exquisitely rendered versions of Gilbert & Sullivan (take that, Guthrie!) always make me happy and grateful to live in the Bay Area.
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Swede Emotion
Every time I watch a finale of “The Amazing Race,” one of my favorite TV shows, I can’t help but fantasize about how great it would be to win the reality competition’s first prize: one million dollars. Even after taxes, that’s a substantial, life-changing amount of dough. Of course, I would never actually apply to go on “The Amazing Race,” as I find regular travel stressful enough, even without having to run around foreign cities looking for clue boxes and bungee jumping off skyscrapers.
Last night, during the conclusion of “Allt för Sverige” (“Everything for Sweden”), a Swedish reality competition show, I realized that if I had been a contestant, I would have gone out of my way to avoid winning first place. That’s because the grand prize is a family reunion with dozens of distant relatives you’ve never met before. After watching the show, I found an interview with the program’s Swedish host, where he commented that most Swedes “would rather cut off their own arm” than win such a prize. I felt happy when I read that. I really am a typical Swede.
The 10 Americans of Swedish descent who competed on “Allt för Sverige” could not have been more pumped up about the chance to meet their long-lost relations. None of them had ever been in Sweden before. All of them had grandparents or great-grandparents who had emigrated many years before. The program gave them the opportunity to learn more about their heritage, and in the end, one lucky (?) winner got to attend a family reunion. Don’t feel too sorry for the nine “losers,” though; each of them received a packet of information, compiled by a professional genealogist, with a family tree and contact information for their Swedish relatives. They may not have been able to meet them in person, but at least they can meet on Facebook.
Like “The Amazing Race,” “Survivor” and their ilk, ”Allt för Sverige” is a competition in which each week, one contestant is kicked off. The winners were determined through a series of challenges, all with a Swedish focus. One week, they had to hit tennis balls against Björn Borg’s actual garage door (the young Borg couldn’t always find other people to play with, so he practiced his swing by hitting balls against the door). They toured a museum devoted to Swedish singer Lill-Babs and then had to answer questions about her career, posed by the star herself. (Hilariously, the Americans initially figured Lill-Babs had to be a gangsta rapper, since her named reminded them of Lil’ Wayne.) In Stockholm, they had to follow clues that took them to popular tourist spots like the Gröna Lund amusement park and City Hall.
The Americans also got to visit specific locales where their forefathers had lived, which made them very emotional. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reality show with so much crying, and I say that as someone who’s watched several seasons of “The Bachelor.” One of the contestants posted on his Facebook page that his family had given him a T-shirt for Christmas with the slogan, “There’s no crying in Sweden,” to poke fun at the show’s never-ending waterworks.
The thing I liked best about “Allt för Sverige” was its gentle nature, which was as far as you can get from the cutthroat, back-stabbing tactics rewarded on shows like “Survivor.” The 10 contestants genuinely seemed to like and support each other. Because Swedish state TV doesn’t have commercial interruptions during shows, the program runs a full hour, giving you more time to get to know the personalities involved. The runner-up wound up helping the winner complete the final task in the last challenge — raising a Swedish flag — and rejoiced in the competitor’s victory. (The person who came in second place has since returned to Sweden and was able to meet the relatives.) And, as I mentioned above, there were no losers, since no one went home empty handed.
Best of all, the contestants truly fell in love with Sweden. Watching the show, which was shot during June of this year, you can see why — the TV cameras were always sweeping across some gorgeous scenery, from Stockholm’s picturesque archipelago to the sandy beaches of Skåne to the expansive wilderness above the Arctic Circle. One cheeky talk show host, after interviewing contestant Guy Clark, presented him with a book featuring photos of some of the country’s grittier urban locales, presumably so he would know that Sweden is more than little red cottages and fields of wildflowers.
“Allt för Sverige” became a gigantic hit in Sweden (although it didn’t manage to unseat the country’s most popular show, “På Spåret” ["On Track"], in which celebrities “are shown filmed journeys, usually from the front of a train, and the object is for each team to identify the destination of the train,” according to Wikipedia). Because all of the “Allt för Sverige” contestants are Americans, approximately 95% of the show is in English; if you’d like to watch it, it’s available on YouTube (here’s a link to the first installment). And if you’re an American of Swedish descent, keep an eye on the program’s Facebook page to find out if they’ll be casting a new season. I’d suggest that next year’s contestants pack lots of Kleenex.
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Five Things I Learned In Paris
1. It’s always tourist season. Even in late November/early December, don’t think you’ll be the only person vacationing in Paris. The most visited city in the world is still popular in the off-season, especially with Japanese tourists — we saw scads of them near the tour bus entrance of the Galeries Lafayette department store, or standing in line at the Eiffel Tower (on a foggy, overcast day, no less!). And then there’s Montmartre, home of the basilica of Sacre Coeur and some of the most stunning views in town. I can’t even imagine what this place must be like during the summer. We wandered past at least a half dozen guys playing shell games, a bunch of African men offering to create yarn bracelets, and vendors selling miniature Eiffel Towers. I’m a little sorry we missed seeing Maison Tristan Tzara — the famed Dadaist is a character in my favorite play, Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” — but on the whole, now that I’ve seen the basilica, I think I’ll make a point of avoiding Montmartre in the future… or, at least, the main streets.
View from Sacre Coeur. I love the “Internet” graffiti.2. French Women Don’t Get Fat. Why? Stairs. I lost weight in Paris, despite a steady diet of French pastries, cheese and wine. Probably that’s because I don’t think I have ever gone up and down as many stairs as I did during my stay. We get used to escalators in our teeny-tiny little BART stations, but in the huge, sprawling Paris Metro stations, you often have to walk for what seems like miles if you’re changing from one train line to another, and the stairs! Up and down, up and down. Here’s a tip for you: if you see a bunch of Parisians waiting for an elevator, they probably know what they’re doing. I chugged on ahead at the Abbesses station, not realizing that it was one of the deepest in the system. I was exhausted when I finally made it to the top.
Stairs to Sacre Coeur. Luckily, you can opt to take the funicular instead.
Not sure if you can tell from the photo, but there’s a health club located right above this McDonald’s, so you can work out after finishing your Royale With Cheese.3. The Louvre isn’t the only museum in town. Every day, I tried to psych myself up for going to the Louvre… and I never made it. Of course, I’m an avid museumgoer who has never set foot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art on all my trips to New York. There’s just something about huge museums that intimidates me. Still, we saw plenty of great art at the spectacular Musée d’Orsay, Monet’s Water Lilies at the Orangerie (you may remember the scene set in the museum in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”), and the breathtaking La Dame à la licorne tapestries at the Cluny. We found the museums to be much less crowded during the morning hours. Who knows, maybe next time I’ll feel ready to tackle the Louvre — when it opens at 9 AM, of course.
“Love locks” on the Pont de l’Archevêché.4. French people aren’t rude. For some reason, I had this anxiety over possibly having to deal with American-hatin’ French folk. Well, guess what? I didn’t have one single bad encounter. The key is just to make a good faith effort at speaking a little French, even if it’s only a friendly “Bonjour!” when you enter a shop or restaurant (a must!). Yes, my high school French is abysmal, but I got by. I’d strongly encourage anyone visiting Paris to try to learn some basic French first; here in the Bay Area, the Alliance Française offers a fun-sounding beginners’ class called “French for Travelers.”
Christmas market along the Champs-Elysées. For some reason, churros seem to be for sale everywhere in Paris.5. Cafés and laptops don’t seem to mix. The ubiquitous French sidewalk café — outdoor seating is available even in cold weather, due to heat lamps — is a place to eat, drink, chat with friends, even use your mobile phone… but in a week and a half, I saw a grand total of one person sitting at a café typing away at a laptop. A tip: if you’re a nonsmoker, stay indoors; the outside tables seem to be the domain of the smokers.
A painting of Café de Flore that I spotted at a gallery on the Île Saint-Louis. Café de Flore, located on the boulevard Saint-Germain on the Left Bank, is a historic café and a great place to spend a couple of hours… provided you don’t mind paying the equivalent of $9-10 for a hot chocolate or cup of coffee. But what the heck, you’re on vacation.Did you know that the names of 72 French scientists and engineers are engraved on the Eiffel Tower? Click here to see a close-up, or here for a full list of names.
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Bob
I’m not sure how many titles Bob Mould considered when he was writing his autobiography, See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody, but Burning Bridges might have been an apt one. Mould admits that until fairly recently, he didn’t know how to gracefully end a relationship, and indeed, the book depicts several significant ones that end on fairly dodgy terms, including his former Husker Du bandmates and his romantic partner of 15+ years, Kevin O’Neill: “The first time we came face to face [after their break-up] was six months later in June of 2004, at the coffee shop on Seventeenth Street [in D.C.] that we used to go to. He was in line waiting to get a coffee. I walked in and was behind him in line. I didn’t say anything, but through smell or a sixth sense, he knew I was behind him. He turned around and started to say something to me, and I immediately turned around, turned my back to him, stretched my arms out straight, and tipped my head down as if I were on the cross. I wasn’t going to hear a word of what he had to say. I was done with Kevin. We have never spoken again.” Whoa, harsh. And yet, as someone who has gone through similar “you’re now dead to me” episodes with former friends, roommates & boyfriends, I kinda get it.
I can’t think of many other musicians whose careers I’ve followed as closely as Bob Mould’s. I first discovered him in the late Husker Du years, after they’d left the prestigious indie label SST and signed with a major label, Warner Bros. I had a cassette of their Warners debut, Candy Apple Grey, and used to listen to it on my Walkman. Then came the sprawling opus Warehouse: Songs and Stories, which provided me with my first and only chance to see the Huskers in concert, at Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C. in March of 1987. The trio was signing LPs in the Tower Records across the street from Lisner before the show, a souvenir I still treasure. I remember how disappointed I was, though, when the band played the double album in order, something that was never done back then. Today, of course, plenty of bands perform their classic albums from start to finish, but in those days, it struck me as boring. (Later in the tour, Mould writes that the band had “given up on playing Warehouse in its entirety. Compared to trying to get a lukewarm record over to people, playing the hits was a lot easier.”)
Perhaps because I was a latecomer to Husker Du, I wasn’t disappointed when the band dissolved, and I really embraced Mould’s post-Husker solo album Workbook, released in 1989. I remember going to see one of Mould’s first solo shows at the “old” 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.; it felt like that was when I really turned into a Mould superfan, and I went to his concerts regularly after that, to the point where for a while, anyway, he actually recognized me and knew who I was (!). Once the Loud Family crossed paths with Mould on the road, and he said to Scott Miller, “Oh, the Loud Family — you must know Sue Trowbridge.” I still remember how excited I was when Scott told me about that.
In 1992, Mould’s new band Sugar played a show at Max’s on Broadway in Baltimore, where I lived at the time, prior to the release of its debut album, Copper Blue. I had an advance copy of the recording and was in awe of the tuneful pop melodies of songs like “Hoover Dam” and “If I Can’t Change Your Mind.” It turned out that the Max’s show was perhaps the loudest concert I’d ever seen. I felt like they were bludgeoning their beautiful songs to death. I saw them once more, at Hammerjack’s in 1994, but always felt Sugar — which turned out to be Bob’s most commercially successful project — was best appreciated through its recordings.
Sugar broke up — another bad Bob break-up, as he never got around to telling drummer Malcolm Travis that the band was kaput (“I made a bad call,” Bob admits now) — and my Bob fandom grew ever more fervent. At this point, I was on a Mould e-mail fan list, and became friends with Bob archivist and fan Paul Hilcoff, a man whose knowledge of Mould’s career is so deep that he gets an effusive acknowledgment in the book (“I would have done a terrible job of chronicling the events without the resources of Paul Hilcoff… his meticulous attention to history gave me an invaluable database”). Paul lived up in Massachusetts but frequently traveled to see Bob shows, so I would meet up with him in the D.C. area and later in San Francisco, after I moved out here. I remember a magical night in 1998 when Paul & I went to see Mould at the Fillmore, where he played a great setlist and I got a poster signed by the man himself.
I should mention that a big part of Bob’s book is his coming out as a gay man. I don’t remember when I found out that Bob was gay — I distinctly remember the Spin story that “outed” him, but I’m pretty sure Bob’s sexuality was common knowledge among his fans before that point. It just didn’t matter to me. However, in the 2000s, I definitely began to feel that I was in the minority as a straight female Bob fan. As Bob became more involved in “bear” culture, the audience at his shows seemed to get increasingly “bear”-ish. It’s not that I felt unwelcome, but there was a sense that Bob had moved on, and so had I. The last time I saw him was in October 2007, a show so significant that it gets called out in the book. It was Bob’s 47th birthday, and he was being interviewed at the Herbst Theatre by the rock journalist Michael Azerrad: “[O]ur public discussion put me into the frame of mind to write this book.” After the show, I bought one of Bob’s live DVDs and he signed it to me; I didn’t remind him that we’d met a few times before. It was Oct. 16 and I was in the middle of packing to move to a new home, which I did just one week later. The DVD somehow got misplaced in the move, and I never watched it (bummer, since Bob writes that it was “one of the best shows I’d played in years”).
Bob now lives right here in the Bay Area. We have a couple of mutual friends, but I’ve never seen him around. I don’t know if I could ever express how much his music has meant to me over the years, and what an incredible experience it was to read his autobiography. (I’m sorry I missed his local book signing at the Booksmith — I was out of town that week.) Heck, I didn’t even realize that Bob had played lead guitar on the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack, and that’s my all-time favorite musical!
A few years ago, Bob’s co-author Azerrad wrote a book titled Our Band Could Be Your Life. For almost 20 years, Bob’s music was the soundtrack to my life. Listening back to it now, after a few years away, shows just how great it still is… especially Copper Blue, which is almost 20 years old but holds up amazingly well, from the sweeping majesty of “Hoover Dam” to the dark drama of “The Slim,” written from the perspective of a “left-behind” partner of an AIDS victim. Sugar’s second (and final) release, File Under: Easy Listening, also sounds great today; reading in the book about Bob’s love for the music of My Bloody Valentine really illuminates the sounds on that LP. (Turns out MBV’s Kevin Shields actually gave Bob his Octavia pedal.)
Bob’s career continues, both as a DJ (with his popular Blowoff series — hey, he’s gonna be at Slim’s tomorrow night!) and rock musician. He’s in a long-term relationship again, and therapy helped him come to terms with his past. “My first fifty years were pretty incredible,” he writes at the end of the book. “From here on out, life might get even better.” I hope it does — he deserves only the best.
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Par Hasard
Last night, in an attempt to get psyched for my upcoming trip to Paris, I attended Terrance Gelenter‘s event at Bookshop West Portal. Terence has become one of the most famous expats in the City of Lights via his newsletter and business, Paris Through Expatriate Eyes. I have no idea how I wound up being subscribed to his newsletter — I’m pretty sure I never signed up for it, and yet somehow, it started showing up in my inbox every week… and I never unsubscribed, because I figured, well, someday I’ll go to Paris and I’ll appreciate having this information.
Terrance’s autobiography is titled From Bagels to Brioches: Paris Par Hasard. “Par hasard” means by chance; as Terrance said in an interview, “things happen serendipitously. You take that chance. It’s not necessarily a risk. It’s an opportunity.” And indeed, the anecdotes he shared last night showed that he is constantly meeting fascinating people or having wonderful experiences, “par hasard.” I bought his book, and since I’d mentioned during the Q&A session that I would be making my first trip to Paris next week, he told me to drop him an email or show up at his weekly “office hours” at Café de Flore, where he is known by the staff as nous Américain — “our American.” I have no doubt that experiencing Paris avec Terrance (whose services are available as a tour guide) would be a magical experience. “Well, hopefully I’ll see you in Paris!” I said after he’d signed my book. “No ‘hopefully’ about it!” he responded. Oui, Terence, à bientôt!
Practically everybody in the crowd had visited Paris before (Terrance had asked folks to raise their hand if they’d visited France), and afterward, several people came up to talk to me, assuring me that I’d have a great time (one man had made his first visit to Paris in late November a couple years ago, and said it was a fine time to go) and that everybody speaks English and is friendly as long as you say bonjour.
On the way home, I was feeling a little peevish about the fact that I never seem to have those par hasard experiences, perhaps because I’m not as naturally outgoing as Terrance, who seems like the kind of guy who could no doubt tease a fascinating life story out of anybody he happened to meet. I had planned to get off the Muni Metro at Civic Center to transfer to BART, but I was reading and missed the stop, so I wound up disembarking at Montgomery Station. The platform was crowded, and the signs indicated that the next train was still 20 minutes away. Obviously there was some sort of systemwide delay. I felt frustrated and annoyed. Then I heard music. Two young men — one playing acoustic guitar, the other accompanying him by shaking two plastic water bottles filled with pebbles — were performing on the platform. I have no idea if this sort of thing is officially allowed in the BART system, but with 20 minutes to kill, I was grateful for any diversion. And the buskers, who turned out to be from a band called The Phoenix Twin, were good! Lots of people, including me, were going up to throw a few bucks in their guitar case. There was enthusiastic applause after each of their songs. Yeah, we were literally a captive audience, but in this case, I think they brought smiles to a lot of faces and helped take the edge off an otherwise stressful situation.
I had wound up in the Montgomery station par hasard, and was glad of it. Whether I’m traveling in Paris or San Francisco, I will try to embrace Terrance’s worldview and open myself up to serendipitous situations.
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Coming Soon: Paris Diary
A few days ago, my dad suggested that the family all travel to Paris for Thanksgiving. (Yes, I realize they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in France. But a long weekend is a long weekend.) I thought this was a little crazy, because (a) Paris is over 5,000 miles away and (b) who would want to go to Europe in late November? It’s cold. I’d have to buy a coat. Where am I going to find a chic winter coat in San Francisco?
Ha ha ha! Paris! Can you imagine such a thing? I mentioned this offhandedly to Joe, who gave me his best what-are-you,-an-idiot? look. I could see it in his eyes — I was thinking of 12-hour plane rides, he was imagining romantic walks down the Champs Elysées. “You are going to call your dad back immediately, and tell him that we are going to Paris.”
Here’s the thing: I love Paris. I’ve never been there, but I am a sucker for any film set in Paris. I TiVo Rick Steves episodes where he’s tooling around the City of Lights. I read Cara Black novels. I’ve been on the Paris Through Expatriate Eyes mailing list for at least five years, figuring, yeah, someday I’ll stop fantasizing about Paris and actually visit.
“Someday” is now. Or, rather, about three and a half weeks from now.
The airline tickets have been purchased. A charming apartment in the 12th arrondissement has been rented.
And I’m trying to keep my expectations in check, lest I come down with Paris Syndrome. (Considering my many trips to New York over the years, I think I am prepared to cope with “not-so-friendly locals” in “a city that is indifferent to [my] presence.”)
Stay tuned… for the adventures of an American on her first trip to Paris.
(And if you are in the Bay Area, be sure to note that Paris-based author and expat extraordinaire Terrance Gelenter will be in our fair city next month.)
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Gilbert & Sullivan & The Public Domain
I was ready to bring down the full weight of my disapproval on the Guthrie Theatre’s staging of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore,” which aired on PBS last night. “It’s a good thing that W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan have both been dead for 100 years,” I ranted, “because director Joe Dowling’s ‘updated’ production of ‘Pinafore’ is tantamount to murder.”
Then I remembered the production of “Little Shop of Horrors” that I saw (and very much enjoyed) last summer at San Francisco’s Boxcar Theatre. It was shut down by the licensing organization that owns the rights, because director Nick Olivero adapted the musical’s script, adding material from the two film versions and one tune from “The Rocky Horror Show.” Olivero lamented the fact that due to copyright, artists cannot feel free to adapt others’ creations into new, original work. “If ‘we’ can collectively agree that William Shakespeare was the greatest playwright of all time,” wrote Olivero, “yet every producer, director, actor, and playwright deems it appropriate to cut and revise his work, then who is to say that any other writer shouldn’t be edited as well?”
And that’s true — Shakespeare’s canon has been remixed ad nauseam, simply because he had the misfortune to die back in the 1600s, centuries before the folks at Disney (who, incidentally, have benefited greatly from public domain work) decreed that copyright must now last a zillion years so that no one can make their own Mickey Mouse cartoons. “Little Shop” has become a ubiquitous community and high school theater favorite and I understand why Olivero would want to shake it up a little bit. So I’m not going to say that Joe Dowling shouldn’t have created his own modernized version of “H.M.S. Pinafore.” I’m just going to say that I didn’t care for it, and I don’t think that Gilbert & Sullivan would have, either.
According to the Wikipedia entry on Gilbert & Sullivan (sourced from William Cox-Ife’s book W. S. Gilbert: Stage Director), “Gilbert oversaw the designs of sets and costumes, and he directed the performers on stage. He sought realism in acting, shunned self-conscious interaction with the audience, and insisted on a standard of characterisation where the characters were never aware of their own absurdity. Gilbert insisted that his actors know their words perfectly and obey his stage directions, which was something new to many actors of the day. Sullivan personally oversaw the musical preparation. The result was a new crispness and polish in the English musical theatre.”
In other words, G&S were kind of control freaks. Which was understandable, given their problems with unauthorized productions of their works (there were no international copyright laws back then). I think they would have been horrified by having their music adapted to sound more “contemporary,” with pop and Latin beats, and especially by the addition of a new character (Queen Victoria) who comes in toward the end and knights Dick Deadeye because it turned out that she had an affair with him years ago. Even the most audacious Shakespeare remixers don’t invent new characters and then deign to write new dialogue for them. I’m not even going to mention the penis jokes.
Because “H.M.S. Pinafore” is a fairly ambitious play to stage — it requires a cast of immensely talented singers with operatic voices — it’s not something you can see every day. I have been lucky enough to see it twice, most recently in August, in the Lamplighters‘ exquisitely faithful production. It saddens me to think that for most people, the Guthrie production is the first and perhaps only “Pinafore” they’ll ever encounter. I’ve seen with my own eyes, over and over again, audiences of all ages delighted by traditional, unadorned performances of Gilbert & Sullivan. You don’t need to turn “He Is An Englishman” into a five-minute-long tap number that climaxes with Ralph Rakestraw dropping trou to reveal a set of Union Jack boxers.
And yet, the show is in public domain, so anyone can have their way with it — there was a Yiddish version a few years ago, and a gay version (“Pinafore!”, in which “the captain’s son is a transvestite who has successfully convinced his supposedly straight lover that he is a she.”). But just because it’s legally OK doesn’t mean I have to like it. To quote Queen Victoria: “We are not amused.”
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Really Cold Cases
Back in the early 1990s, after Seattle-based band Nirvana hit it big, record company A&R men scoured the Pacific Northwest looking for other grunge groups to sign to their labels. Of course, there was only one Nirvana, and most of the other artists disappeared quickly.
I sometimes wonder if history is repeating itself today, except for “Nirvana” and “bands” read “Stieg Larsson” and “books.” The area being mined for talent is Scandinavia instead of Seattle. Larsson only wrote three books before he died, and yet the appetite for dark Nordic fiction seems bottomless. And there are so many great Scandinavian authors that I hope American publishers will continue to bring their books out here, and that the Nordic crime trend isn’t just a flash in the pan.
When I first saw the cover of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s The Keeper of Lost Causes, I rolled my eyes at its blatant rip-off of the cover design of Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I had noticed Danish writer Adler-Olsen’s book on the San Francisco Chronicle‘s local bestseller list — he hasn’t yet made it to the New York Times list, where Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest still perches, but that doesn’t surprise me; Bay Area readers like to be on the cutting edge. Many authors who are big sellers here eventually make it into the national big time.So I was skeptical, but intrigued, when I started reading Keeper. Well, I’m here to tell you, folks, that this is one sensational book — but it bears absolutely no resemblance to Larsson’s creation. It’s probably the scariest book I’ve read since Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs. If you’re the least bit squeamish, especially about anything involving dentistry, it’ll give you nightmares. I’m really squeamish. And yet, I could not put it down, and I’m eagerly awaiting more translations of Adler-Olsen’s books.
The original Danish title of Keeper is Kvinden i buret, or “the woman in the cage.” I’m not spoiling anything because the prologue tells you that a woman has been imprisoned in a mysterious room, and she has no idea who is holding her captive, or why. The action moves between 2002 — the date that the woman is imprisoned — and 2007, when troubled detective Carl Mørck is enlisted to head “Department Q,” a new cold case division mandated by the Danish government. Mørck has recently returned from leave after a traumatic event that led to the death of one of his partners and the disability of another. His colleagues would rather Mørck be placed out of sight, out of mind (his new office is in the basement), while Mørck figures he can while away the hours napping or surfing the ‘net.
However, Mørck decides he could use an assistant — someone to make coffee and clean the office. After all, his department has a pretty hefty budget; might as well spend it. And the second and only other employee of Department Q is a brilliant fictional creation, the one who really makes Keeper unique. His name is Assad, and he’s a Syrian immigrant with a mysterious past and a formidable array of skills that gradually become apparent as the story proceeds. The unlikely partnership between the cranky Mørck and mysteriously skilled yet naive Assad is, I hope, something that will continue to be developed in future books.
The cold case the men decide to pursue involves a missing politician. Her body was never found, but everyone assumes she’s dead. However, she’s actually suffering a fate worse than death.
Keeper is beautifully translated by Tiina Nunnally, one of the most skillful and prolific translators in the business — why she used a pseudonym (“Lisa Hartford”) is unclear, since most serious Nordic crime fiction fans see Nunnally’s name as a mark of quality. (Her husband, incidentally, translated Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy.)
So yes, this book is really freaking terrifying, and yet it’s a real page-turner with amazing character development and a bit of black (very black) humor. Adler-Olsen has so far written four books in the Department Q series, and the third one, Flaskepost fra P (A Message in a Bottle from P) is the latest winner of the prestigious Glass Key Award, which is Scandinavia’s equivalent to the Edgar. Of course, presuming a rate of one book per year, Flaskepost probably won’t be released in an English translation until 2013. As good as Nunnally is, I really need to work on my Swedish reading comprehension skills so I don’t have to wait so long for my favorite authors’ books to appear.
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Chaz Bono: Hero
When I was in high school, there was a girl in my class who was an out lesbian. That might not sound like a big deal, but keep in mind that this was quite a long time ago, in a conservative community. In those pre-Ellen days, I honestly don’t think I could have named a single lesbian, except the artists on the Olivia Records compilation my classmate once brought to school. For some reason, this song has stuck in my mind, despite the fact that I hadn’t heard it in decades. (Yay, Sue Fink is still around and still performing! I hope “Here Come the Leaping Lesbians” is still in her repertoire.)
I really believe that my former classmate had a tremendous effect on my life. I knew I was straight when I was, oh, four or five, and she probably realized she was gay around the same time. Because I got to know her, I never for one moment thought being gay was a “choice.” It’s interesting to note that many of the Republicans who have refused to join in the party’s gay-bashing are folks with gay relatives: people like San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and Dick Cheney. As Dan Savage has pointed out, coming out is the most important political action a gay person can take. Because when you know a gay person, you can’t simply demonize them as “the other.” They’re your son, daughter, friend, aunt, uncle, co-worker.
But while we’ve gotten to the point now where probably most of us know a gay person — or, at the very least, just love that adorable Neil Patrick Harris or the sweet couple on “Modern Family” — not many of us know a trans person. I used to work near Baltimore’s premiere hang-out for transsexual prostitutes, and that was pretty much my only exposure to the “T” in “LGBT” until I read Jennifer Finney Boylan‘s She’s Not There, an incredibly moving and brilliant book about the author’s coming to terms with being a woman trapped in a man’s body, and how being true to herself ultimately affected her relationships with her spouse and her best friend. (Boylan became such a well-known spokesperson for the cause that she achieved the pinnacle of American celebrityhood: being impersonated on “Saturday Night Live.”)
Which brings us to Chaz Bono. As Cher’s child, the former Chastity must have realized that there was no way to go through the process of transitioning to a male identity without being hounded by the tabloids. He probably figured at some point that if he was going to be a public figure, he may as well try to really put himself out there and educate us on what it’s like to be a transgendered American. Chaz has written a book and appeared in a documentary on Oprah Winfrey’s cable network, but that was small potatoes compared to the storm of publicity he’s received since joining the cast of “Dancing with the Stars.” Some fans vowed to boycott the show, and there were several tasteless jokes made about Bono on E!’s late night comedy program “Chelsea Lately.” (Incidentally, people who feel that ABC is pushing a left-wing agenda by casting Chaz should recall that Tom DeLay and Bristol Palin recently twirled their way across the ballroom floor.)
Bono’s publicist stated, “The sky will not fall when Chaz Bono dances. Parents will have a teachable moment with their children; transgendered kids will have a role model, and since that group has such a high suicide rate we may save a life; and finally, we can see a transgendered person as a human being and not a label.” Exactly. No doubt Bono’s transformation will be part of his storyline on the show, and millions of people will come to “know” him and, hopefully, accept him. It’s not such a crazy idea — after all, 20 years ago, who would have predicted that Middle America’s favorite daytime talk show host would be a lesbian, or that an out gay guy could convincingly play a skirt-chasing Lothario on a popular TV sitcom?
Personally, I’m going to be tempted to call and vote for Chaz even if he turns out to be the second coming of Cloris Leachman or Steve Wozniak, just because I think it would be cool to give him some time to develop as a dancer. (Good sign: he’s paired with Lacey Schwimmer, one of our favorite pros.) Plus, Cher is guaranteed to show up at least once or twice to support her kid, and she’ll probably out-glitter the whole ballroom.
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