| Friday, June 29, 2007 |
| From stoemp to bammy |
Our housemates (perhaps we could call them the Adventurous Eight) are out on a three-hour boat trip this afternoon. Yes, a three-hour tour -- just like "Gilligan's Island." I was actually willing to go, despite the fact that it cost $60 per person and involved dancing lessons of some kind, but Joe thought it sounded horrendous, so for once, we were co-wet blankets. Joe and I went down to the beach for a while instead.
I am covered with sweat, bug spray, bug bites and sunscreen. Just one more day now. Luckily, the food continues to be excellent. I especially like the bammy bread, the fried plantains and other exotic fruits.
A little more about New York, though it seems ages ago that we were there. On Friday, I took the subway to the Upper West Side and spent some time walking in Central Park. I thought I'd find the Swedish Cottage, which dates from 1876. It's only open periodically for marionette shows, but the outside is quite lovely. After that, I thought it would be fun to walk across the park to the East Side. I just figured I'd find a path and follow it. I walked and walked through lush green trees, feeling far away from the city and its crowds. I obviously don't have a very good grasp of the park's geography, though, as I wound up exactly where I started on Central Park West & 81st. I'd walked in a circle!
Incidentally, since I'm a longtime "Law & Order" fan, one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of Central Park is the fact that many, many corpses have been discovered there over the years. In real life, though, I felt completely safe in Central Park, at least the segment I walked through. There are vendors everywhere selling ice cream and soda, and lots of tourists looking at maps and trying to figure out where they are. Maybe if I'd done that, I wouldn't have walked in a circle.
I also visited Zabar's, which is an amazing deli/grocery store well known for its mind-blowing selection. You think we have good cheese shops in San Francisco and Berkeley? Zabar's puts them all to shame with more cheeses than I have ever seen anywhere in my entire life. The web site shows a mere fraction of what's available in the store. There's an awe-inspiring selection of prepared foods for the New Yorker who hates to cook, scads of coffees & teas, and tons of Jewish specialty items. It's a must-see for the foodie visiting NY. I bought my favorite local snack, the black & white cookie. Here's the recipe, but I somehow doubt it tastes as good outside of the five boroughs.
Joe & I hooked back up for an all too brief dinner with some pals at Kitchenette. Then we headed down to Greenwich Village for ROFL, featuring Josh of Comics Curmudgeon fame. ROFL was due to kick off at the rather late hour of 11:30 PM, so we hadn't bothered adjusting to the Eastern time zone since our arrival -- we just stayed up 'til 2 or 3 every night and slept 'til 11 or so, just so we'd have the fortitude to stay out super-late on Friday. ROFL was being held at Joe's Pub, which has long been a topic of conversation on a mailing list I'm on. A lot of folks resent its mediocre food and extremely expensive drinks (there's a 2 drink minimum or $12 food minimum per person), and the fact that the club routinely offers 3 separate shows per night -- one at 7:30, one at 9:30 and one at 11:30 -- so the performer usually gets hustled off the stage after playing for just over an hour. I looked at the drinks menu and was rather horrified to see something called "bottle service," which as near as I can tell involves paying $330 for a bottle of Absolut Vodka or other rather ordinary spirit that would cost $25 at a liquor store. I guess compared to that, $13 for a mojito seems like a bargain. Anyway, our server took pity on us and let us get away with one drink each (Joe had a $5 ginger ale).
As Josh has recounted on his own blog, he sadly got eliminated during his first-round match-up (I blame the drunken screaming idiot sitting right next to us, whose 100-decibel hooting seemed to influenced the judge), but I thought he did a great job making fun of porn spam. The idea behind ROFL is for hip & funny bloggers to show wacky stuff they found on the internet. It sounded a bit lame -- I mean, how's that different from getting YouTube links from your friends? -- but it was actually very entertaining to watch the stuff with a group. Despite his loss, it was quite obvious that Josh had a ton of supporters in the crowd. It was a great pleasure to meet him, although so many folks wanted to say hi that we didn't have much of a chance to discuss the latest happenings in Mary Worth or the Foobiverse, and I hope our paths cross again someday. If not, I'll see ya' in the funny papers, Josh!
Saturday morning we had to rouse ourselves early to meet Joe's mom and sister Melanie for breakfast; they drove up from Pennsylvania for the weekend. We went to a Belgian restaurant called Petite Abeille that Joe & I had visited a couple days ago. One of the dishes they serve there is stoemp -- I had never heard of it before, but it turns out it's a delicious combination of mashed potatoes & root vegetables. Yum!
Joe's mom & Melanie had wanted to go to the Museum of Natural History, so we headed up there on the subway. It's practically right across the street from the Swedish Cottage. The place was mobbed with people, including tons of kids, so I decided that maybe I didn't want to look at fossils after all. The previous day, I'd noticed a majestic building right across 77th Street from the museum, the New York Historical Society, and I suspected it might be more my speed than the MoNH. The Society has been around since 1804 (!) but I suspect it's off the beaten path for most tourists -- it wasn't overly populated, which was very pleasant for me. They had a great exhibit called A New Light on Tiffany that spotlighted the work of Clara Driscoll, who is not well known but designed many of Tiffany's most famous lamps and other pieces. There was also a lot of material about what it was like to be a working woman in NY at the turn of the century. I also enjoyed roaming through the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture, way up on the 4th floor -- I was the only person there, except for the guard, most of the time! -- which features 40,000 objects from the society's collections, including everything from civil war muskets to old campaign buttons to a giant plaster head of Abraham Lincoln.
The only thing I was sorry to miss at the MoNH was the squid and the whale diorama, made famous in the film of the same name. But it turns out that exhibit was closed! Boy, did I make the right choice!
That night, we went to see "Grey Gardens" on Broadway, which we all enjoyed a lot. Christine Ebersole, who plays the mother in Act 1 and the (grown-up) daughter in Act II, is superb in the lead role and definitely deserved her Tony.
We have one more night in New York before we head back to SF, but it'll just be spent at an airport hotel... in, ironically, Jamaica, NY. |
posted by 125records @ 2:47 PM  |
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| Thursday, June 28, 2007 |
| You're never too old for peer pressure |
Yesterday, I decided that I would go along on whatever group excursion was planned, to prove I'm not an old stick-in-the-mud. Several folks wanted to go to a weekly flea market in Falmouth, about a half-hour east of here. There was also a historic district, so even though the idea of the market didn't sound too great to me, I figured I could go look at old buildings. So we pile into our van and tell the driver, Ruben, to take us to the flea market.
He immediately shook his head. "That's not for people like you," he warned. "Very dangerous."
That was enough for me. I was about to hop out of the van, because it sounded like a couple people wanted to go anyway, but Ruben managed to convince them that it would be very, very bad. Great -- the one thing I had agreed to do turned out to be fraught with danger!
Instead, we decided to go to Rose Hall Great House, which is a large estate about 10 minutes east of us. A historic home -- that's the kind of thing I go for! The house's claim to fame is that one of its former mistresses, Annie Palmer, was allegedly a voodoo priestess who killed all three of her husbands and countless slaves before being murdered herself. As we visited each room, our young tour guide earnestly told us about the misdeeds Annie had committed there. In terms of historic value, the house is not particularly significant -- it fell into ruins in the 1930s and was rebuilt and restored in the late '60s by its current owners (one of whom is a partner in Ritz-Carlton, which now operates a swanky golf course called White Witch on the premises). But it was kind of silly fun nevertheless. There's a pub in the basement that sells a rum punch called "witch's brew" that you can buy and sip on as you take the tour. The last stop is Annie's grave. Did she exist at all? Apparently there's no real proof of that, but I'm sure the legend attracts a lot more visitors than it would if it were just another old plantation home. |
| posted by 125records @ 9:41 AM |
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| Tuesday, June 26, 2007 |
| Today: I buy a thousand-dollar skirt |
It's about 9 PM, and our housemates here in Jamaica are still not back from Negril -- if they go out dancing again, who knows when they'll be home. Most of them had a fabulous time at Margaritaville last night -- four came home at 3 AM. It's funny, even when I was in my 20s, I hated going dancing. I'd go see live music if I was interested in a band, but going to a disco? No way! It sounds like this is a great place for those who do enjoy nightlife, though. I'm already about 2/3 of book #3 (Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason). Reading mysteries -- that's my idea of a fun evening!
Joe & I walked down to Half Moon again and had a late lunch there to give our wonderful staff here a bit of a break on the cooking. It was pretty good, but I suspect that what Patrick (his aunt owns the house) told us is true -- the best food on the island is here. I think I could definitely adjust to having a personal chef. Anyway, Half Moon is so vast that we hardly saw anyone else walking along -- folks sped past in personal golf carts, marked with their suite number. It's probably about a mile from the entrance nearest us to the shopping village. By the time we finally got back to the house, we were both sweating like crazy, so we went in the pool. I only go in a pool about every other year, so you know it must be really hot. Right now, Joe is watching the A's vs. the Cleveland Indians in espanol on some Spanish channel. Who knew that you could see the A's play this far from home? (Drat -- they lost!)
One thing that really amuses me about Jamaica is the local currency. One US dollar is worth about 68 Jamaican dollars. One of the bottles of wine we had last night had a price tag of about $500 on it. We bought a couple postcards yesterday with American money and got a $30 coin back in change.
The biggest reason I didn't want to go to Negril was to avoid the hustlers who are continually approaching tourists and trying to sell them goods & services -- I had enough of that in Cancun, and found it really uncomfortable. We have gotten a little bit of that here, though; a local woman, who seems to be friends with one of the staff here, visited the house yesterday with a suitcase full of jewelry, straw bags, etc. She also offered to custom make dresses, skirts or shirts for us. We were on our way down to Half Moon yesterday while everyone else was looking at her wares, but she came back today when I was the only one around, with all the stuff people had ordered. I couldn't believe that she'd managed to turn around the order that quickly, but the clothing was really nice, so I wound up ordering a skirt. It was only $15 (that's a thousand-dollar item in Jamaican dollars!). The unemployment rate is so high here, I figure this young woman is probably employing at least a few local seamstresses to make the things she sells so I'm happy to do some small part for the local economy. I just don't want to feel taken advantage of.
Here's a pic of the house where we're staying:
I realize I'm not going to get a lot of sympathy about my reluctance to come here. I'm feeling a little better about it today.
I think our housemates want to go rafting tomorrow. I'm sure I'll pass that up, too, because I am the least adventurous person ever. At least I still have five books to read. Maybe I'll even go in the pool again. |
| posted by 125records @ 6:49 PM |
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| Monday, June 25, 2007 |
| I don't want to go to Margaritaville |
I covered Wednesday in the last blog entry; here's what else I was up to in New York:
Because there are literally thousands of things to do in NY, I can never get to everything on my list. Last time we visited, I hadn't had time to go to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, so I wanted to make sure to check it out this time. I'm a big fan of visiting historic homes and have been to many all over the country. They tend to be gorgeous, perfectly restored houses that belonged to the super-wealthy. The Tenement Museum is different -- it was home to 7,000 (!) recent immigrants during the 70+ years of its existence as a cheap rental. In 1935, city housing codes were made more stringent and the owner of the building didn't want to bother making the necessary changes, so all the tenants were evicted. The ground floor storefronts were rented out, and meanwhile, the rest of the building was untouched for decades. Voila -- authentic peeling wallpaper and scuffed floors. Even a painting in the front hall has been left intact; you can barely make out the image because it's so covered with coal dust.
The museum can only be visited on a tour (given every 20 minutes) and groups are small (15 people max), so I had to wait around for an hour or so, since the next couple tours were already sold out. Luckily, there's a nice big museum shop, plus a gelato place down the street, so waiting is no hardship. My group's guide was a typically loquacious New Yorker and full of interesting info about the neighborhood. We learned about two real immigrant families, one from Italy and one German Jewish, who lived in the building.
Joe didn't think visiting a cramped tenement on a hot day sounded like fun, so he went to Times Square to see if he could get some half-price Broadway show tickets at the TKTS booth. Last time we were in NY, we had wanted to see "Spamalot," which had just won the Tony Award for Best Musical, but even full-price tix were completely sold out. Two years later, the tickets were available. All of the stars (Tim Curry, Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce, the Tony-winning Sara Ramirez) had long since moved on; in fact, two of the major roles were played by understudies. This year's Tony winner, "Spring Awakening," was the hot ticket in town. (Luckily, "Spring" is coming to San Francisco next year.)
I'm still not completely sure why I didn't care for "Spamalot." It seems to have a lot in common with another film-to-musical adaptation, "The Producers," which we saw in '05, some time after Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane had departed the cast. And yet I loved "The Producers." I'm a big fan of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," so it's not that -- I did enjoy seeing some of the classic bits from the movie, like the Black Knight and the French Taunter, reenacted on stage. Maybe it's because the movie of "The Producers" was about a musical, whereas "Holy Grail" was just a lovably low-budget comedy that doesn't lend itself to huge, gaudy production numbers. For me, the play's worst sin is including "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life," which all Python devotees know comes from "Life of Brian," not "Holy Grail." The "Life of Brian" scene, where the cheerful song is sung by men hanging from crucifixes, is shockingly hilarious; in "Spamalot," the number just doesn't fit. It seems awkwardly shoehorned in. At least Mel Brooks didn't try inserting "The Inquisition Song" into "The Producers." Here's a good anti-"Spam" piece from Slate.com that states things more eloquently than I just did.
At this point, I'm going to interrupt my NY travelogue (though there's more to come!) and talk about Jamaica. No, not the one in Queens; the one in the Caribbean. When I lived in Baltimore, I used to catsit for a woman who went on a vacation to a different Caribbean island every year. Photos of palm trees and white sand beaches decorated her walls. For some reason, it never occurred to me to want to visit the Caribbean. St. Petersburg, FL, where I travel each year to visit my parents, seemed tropical enough. And yet somehow -- thanks to a charity auction -- I have wound up in Jamaica for a week. Ironically enough, I've been stressing out for months about my impending vacation to the land of "no worries, mon." We arrived yesterday, flying in from JFK. (Celebrity sighting!!! Joe spotted Kevin Smith and his wife in the New York airport. Despite the fact that they were going first class, which has separate lines, it took them just as long to check their bags and go through security as it did us poor peons in coach. Not surprisingly, the film director/professional raconteur boarded an L.A.-bound flight at the gate right across from ours.)
We are staying in a palatial home with a wonderful staff and a breathtaking view of the ocean. The food is exquisite -- huge platters of rice & beans, plantains, tropical fruits, et al. And yet I can't help but feeling that I wish I were back in crowded ol' New York with eight zillion entertainment options to choose from. Am I too type A for the islands? Practically the first thing we did after arriving was set up the internet access, which had been installed, but the modem & cables were still in the box.
This morning, Joe & I walked down to the beach (which is a private beach belonging to a super-fancy, pricey resort called Half Moon, but they're OK with letting you in as long as you look like a well-off tourist -- i.e. white -- and also want to have a drink or buy something there), and then I sat by our home's pool and I finished the second of my stack o'books, Carolyn Hart's The Dead Days of Summer. Right now, it's 10 PM and our eight housemates are off at Margaritaville in downtown Montego Bay. Going to Margaritaville, to me, sounds about as pleasant as having a cavity filled. The people we are staying with, whom we don't know all that well, are pleasant companions but they're more interested than I am in going out & partying. I explained that I'd been to the M'ville in Las Vegas and it was too crowded and noisy and smoky for me, so I assume the other clubs in the chain are likewise. Tomorrow, they're all going to Negril, which is about 90 minutes away; travel advisories like this one have me frightened of crime & harassment, so I probably won't go along. Because I carry on my family tradition of being a huge worrywart, I feel more comfortable staying in our gated estate or visiting Half Moon, which has an even higher gate, plus guards. And I'd only go there during the day.
Probably a lot of the people reading this think I'm insane and wish they could trade places with me right now. I have six days left so I'll try to relax & enjoy it a little bit more. |
| posted by 125records @ 7:31 PM |
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| Wednesday, June 20, 2007 |
| Getting to & being in New York: a two part entry |
Once again, I am coming to you from an airplane, although this trip has the slight advantage over my last one in that I was not hit in the head by falling luggage. As I write this, we're still two hours away from our destination (JFK Airport in New York) and you know what? I'm fine with that. This flight is perfectly OK, mainly because we were able to use frequent flier miles to upgrade to business class. Also, I read a self-help book last night called Flying Without Fear and have been trying to remember all of its principles. I'm wearing a rubber band around the palm of my hand, which I'm supposed to snap if I find myself getting frightened. I have also memorized the mantra "It's a comfort issue, not a safety issue" (which you're supposed to repeat to yourself when there's turbulence) and the various breathing and relaxation exercises. I'm wearing my noise-canceling headphones and listening to soothing music (Jose Gonzalez). Yes, I'm doing fine.
I often think I would be perfectly happy flying long distances if I could have log on to the internet on the plane. But if we had internet access, does that mean people would also be able to chat on their cell phones? Because that would suck. Our plane was two hours late taking off, and I spent an agonizing half hour at the gate overhearing loud cell phone chatter. One guy, a well-dressed young business type in his 20s, apparently decided to take advantage of the delay by calling every person in his directory, even folks he hadn't talked to in months. "What's up?" he asked one of them. "I'm chillin' and I'm illin', like we do in the 'hood," said the guy, who seemed like an ex-frat boy, NOT someone who grew up in the 'hood. Gag.
Flying in biz class offers me the priceless opportunity to observe the American class system in action, which is something I've long been fascinated by. You might think you're at the top of the heap because you're flying business, you're not back there with the rest of the hoi polloi, but then you realize there's always someone higher up than you are. For instance, for domestic flights, you're only allowed to access the Red Carpet Club if you're in FIRST class, not business. There are twelve first-class seats at the very front of the plane and their chairs probably recline further back or something. They might get fancier food -- we had a choice of grilled chicken, pan-seared beef tenderloin or pasta Alfredo -- and better wines.
But even in business class, there's a hierarchy. Flight attendants get a list of all the passengers and how they paid for their ticket. Folks like us, who used miles to upgrade, are the lowest on the business-class totem pole. I noticed that even though we're in the second row, the flight attendant asked several other passengers for their entree choices before coming back to us. If you paid full fare, you shouldn't get gypped out of the beef tenderloin if that's what you really want!
The thing about playing the status game is that it's unwinnable. I recently read an article about status handbags that said some wealthy Manhattanites are paying up to $50,000 for the latest hot, limited-edition bag; $1,000 bags are considered far too common. But even if you buy a $50K handbag, how many times can you be seen in public with it before your friends start to roll their eyes at the very sight of it?
The captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. It's a comfort issue, not a safety issue!
The most crucial part of flying is always making sure you have the right book along. I already had seven books picked out for the trip (yeah, that sounds insane, and I do realize there are bookstores in New York, but it's a comfort issue...) and then I found an eighth on the Friends of the Library sale shelf yesterday -- Lee Child's Persuader, which I bought for a dollar. He's one of those authors I've been meaning to check out for a long time, and his books are always lauded as page-turners. Having read the first 150 pages of Persuader, I strongly recommend Lee Child for airplane trips. The book is extremely hardboiled and action-packed. How can you worry about a little thing like turbulence when Jack Reacher is getting shot at by bad guys?
So, yeah, everything's cool. But it would have been cooler if I'd remembered to rip the Fujiya & Miyagi album for my iPod before leaving.
P.S. to any of my clients who might be reading this. I realize I sent out an email that said I was going to have no internet access for two whole weeks. For months, I thought that was the case. I envisioned staying away from my computer and coming back home and finding eight hundred unread emails and it made me feel all angsty inside. Then I found out that the place we're staying is supposed to have internet access after all, so we brought the laptop with us. But I'm going to try my best not to work. Even the self-employed deserve an occasional break.
OK, I am now on the ground -- well, on the sixth floor of our hotel in New York. As it turned out, the "two hours" until arrival turned into about three and a half, since bad weather at the airport prevented us from landing on schedule and forced the plane to go around and around in circles. We finally got into JFK at 1:15 AM and made it to our hotel at 2:30. The whole thing would have been nightmarish if we'd been in coach. In business, we got to choose from a box of flavored chocolate truffles. (What did they get in first? An entire box of chocolates each?) I was able to read 150 more pages of Persuader and really, getting in so late didn't matter much, since we were still on West Coast time.
Today, we went to a matinee of "Frost/Nixon," an excellent new play by Peter Morgan, whom we'd seen interviewed at the San Francisco International Film Festival. I was particularly excited to see Michael Sheen, who was so terrific as Tony Blair in "The Deal" and "The Queen." He was equally fantastic as Frost, and Frank Langella is amazing as Nixon. The play made me curious about the real Frost/Nixon interviews -- we found some snippets on YouTube. Apparently some of the play is true, and other parts are made up, such as a climactic drunken phone call from Nixon to Frost on the eve of their interview about Watergate. One thing that bugged me a little bit was that Nixon was such a card. Did he even have a sense of humor? The onstage Nixon is downright hilarious at times.
After "Frost/Nixon," we ambled over to Hell's Kitchen, which sounds far rougher than it actually is, and attended a taping of "The Colbert Report." Not only was it awesome but I GOT TO SHAKE STEPHEN'S HAND. He was kind of in a hurry so I didn't have a chance to chat with him, but that's OK, because I'm sure I would have just said something dumb. Then we went to my favorite Thai restaurant, Chanpen, for dinner. Eventually we got back to the hotel and I had to wash the hand Stephen had touched, darn the luck.
I always have such a fun time in New York. I could never live here, because it's too noisy and crowded, but it's one of the greatest places in the world to visit. |
| posted by 125records @ 9:08 PM |
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| Sunday, June 17, 2007 |
| Geniuses in Berkeley, Part 2 |
I always hope that my theater reviews will convince someone in my (ahem) vast reading audience to go out and see a play. At least my recent entry on Mike Daisey's one-man show "Great Men of Genius" persuaded my dear husband to go. We both saw Parts 1 & 2 (Brecht & Barnum) this afternoon, and he stuck around for Tesla & Hubbard this evening. The advantage of seeing them all in one day is that you save $25. Perhaps he'll weigh in here and let us know what he thought (hint, hint!). I didn't think they were quite as good as Tesla & Hubbard, but there was still plenty of brilliant stuff, especially the way Daisey connects P.T. Barnum, "America's Next Top Model," "Puppetry of the Penis" and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." He told a sidesplitting story about being a "Star Trek"-worshiping fat kid who got the chance to appear on the Bangor, Maine, state fair's re-creation of the Starship Enterprise's bridge, and the horror he experienced when his uniform shirt showed off his man-boobs. Daisey is funnier than most of the stand-up comedians I've seen. I wish there were more than four "Men of Genius" monologues to enjoy!
I just noticed that Mike linked to my review on his web site, side-by-side with the professional critics, so he must have one of those Google Blog Alerts set up. Since you're probably reading this, Mike, thanks for five ridiculously entertaining hours, and I'll see ya' on the 3rd for "Tongues Will Wag" (a new monologue he's workshopping here, before he and his collaborator Jean-Michele Gregory leave our fair city). Come back again next summer!!
The trouble with living in such an entertainment-rich area is that whenever I leave, I'm always missing something good. Next weekend, I'll be out of town, and the Cerrito Theater's Cerrito Classics series will be presenting "a gorgeous new print" of "The Sound of Music," one of my all-time favorite movies. Aaaagh! Meanwhile, over at the Ashby Stage, the excellent local actor Richard Louis James will be celebrating Pride Week with "Tea 'N Crisp," his one-man show about the legendary Quentin Crisp. Between those two, and "Great Men of Genius" still running (through July 1), there's no excuse not to go out and see something fantastic in the East Bay next weekend! |
| posted by 125records @ 7:28 PM |
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| Wednesday, June 13, 2007 |
| There's a rat in the kitchen |
TiVo is currently offering a nine-minute, free preview of the forthcoming Pixar film "Ratatouille." I've seen a lot of Pixar films, and Patton Oswalt, my favorite comedian, plays the lead role, so I was eager to watch it. However, the preview didn't do a very good job of convincing me that I wanted to see the entire movie.
The storyline is about a Parisian rat named Remy who longs to be a chef. In one of the TiVo clips, Remy, who had been peering into the kitchen of a fancy restaurant through a skylight, suddenly finds himself in the kitchen, where he saves a dreadful-tasting pot of soup by adding a few selected herbs and spices. I guess Remy is sort of cute, but let's face it, HE'S A RAT! The idea of eating anything that a rat has been touching with his grubby little paws is horrifying to me. I'm sure the film is beautifully animated and the rat's story is inspiring and heartwarming, in the Pixar tradition, but if it proves to be a box-office disappointment, I blame the Rat Factor. Most normal human beings just find them icky. Granted, a lot of folks don't like bugs, but the creepy-crawlies in "A Bug's Life" seem positively adorable in comparison to Remy and his pals. |
| posted by 125records @ 1:39 PM |
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| Monday, June 11, 2007 |
| Geniuses in Berkeley |
Regular readers know I am a fan of the one-man show, so you'd think a five-hour-long monologue would be right in my wheelhouse. However, I was intimidated by the marathon length of Mike Daisey's "Great Men of Genius," a four-chapter meditation on the lives of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla and L. Ron Hubbard. All four parts of "Genius" are being presented on Sundays this month at the Berkeley Rep; the parts may also be viewed individually on Wednesday through Saturday. Anyway, I decided to buy a ticket to Sunday night's performance of the Tesla/Hubbard monologues. (There's a dinner break after Brecht/Barnum.)
Naturally, after being thoroughly entertained and enlightened by the show, I wished I had gotten there at 2 PM so I could have seen the earlier half. Ah well; I'll catch it next weekend.
I saw Daisey's "21 Dog Years" a while back, and found his performance style, with its wild gesticulations, to be a little too in-your-face, as overcaffeinated as a triple espresso. "Dog" tells the story of Daisey's employment at Amazon.com in the early days of the dotcom boom, a topic ripe for broad satire, but I thought it could have used more nuance. But Daisey is still young (34) and I was interested to find out how he had grown as an artist. The answer: a lot. If "Dog" sometimes felt like one of those heavy metal songs that bludgeons you over the head with its loud drums & guitars, "Great Men" is a symphony, complete with artful crescendoes and quiet passages that will have you on the edge of your seat, absorbing every word.
The solo monologuist must be a person of some ego, since he is, in essence, asking us to pay to come hear him talk about his life -- something you could get for free just by riding any AC Transit bus through Berkeley. The best practitioners of the form, such as the late Spalding Gray and Josh Kornbluth, are able to connect their personal sagas to some larger, universal truth. That's what Daisey achieves in "Great Men," which alternates passages about the lives of Tesla and Hubbard with anecdotes from his own life. The biographical information is fascinating and makes the show seem less solipsistic than something that's All About Mike. In fact, some of the stories about Tesla are so bizarre that I felt compelled to Google them when I got home to make sure that they were true. (They were.) But I have to admit that even placed next to the strange, sad life of Nikola Tesla, Daisey's tales of his high school science fair held my interest just as much; plus, they had the entire audience in stitches.
It's clear why the Hubbard monologue is the last one in the set and it's also a good indication of what a true artist Daisey has turned into. The personal story he weaves is so subtle that in the lobby afterwards, I heard people discussing it in hushed voices: "Was he saying that his grandfather..." You draw your own conclusions, and it stays with you afterward. As for the Hubbard stuff, Daisey's got guts, going after the organization he describes as "the most litigious in the history of the world."
Is it too early to declare "Great Men of Genius" the theatrical event of the year? It's certainly one of the most ambitious, a grandiose idea that's paid off in a big way. |
| posted by 125records @ 10:44 AM |
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| Wednesday, June 06, 2007 |
| The tipping point |
"Knocked Up" -- is it too "cuddly"? Writing in the Huffington Post, Peter Bart finds it hard to believe that "a sleek TV career girl" would find "the 'a' word... truly unmentionable." First of all, if Alison had gotten an abortion, there wouldn't have been a movie... or at least not one called "Knocked Up." Secondly, there is a scene in the movie in which Alison's mother approvingly mentions a young woman who got pregnant at a non-advantageous time, had an abortion, and then had what she describes as "a real baby" years later. Is it really so hard to believe that Alison -- who had, after all, seen her tiny fetus in an ultrasound -- would stop and think to herself, "Hey, this is a real baby?" Even her glamorous TV life might pale in comparison to a human life growing inside her. Plus, a somewhat unambitious mate = killer househusband!
"[T]he guy (Ben) instantly commits to be the Perfect Father" -- no, actually, he doesn't; that's why Alison dumps him a few months into the pregnancy. (It is a romantic comedy, so I assume I'm not spoiling anything here. The path of true love in the movies can never be conflict-free.)
"Are we so 'values driven' that we're prepared to overlook the fact that the 'values' of this film defy credibility?" fumes Bart. Dammit, if there's one thing I hate, it's when movies "defy credibility"! When it comes to Hollywood entertainment, realism is obviously of primary importance. Like, say, when a young man is bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes a superhero -- that could totally happen! I don't know if "Knocked Up" is "credible," but I think it's at least plausible. Bart may call Ben "a chubby, emotionally stunted stoner," but I think he's kind of cute 'n cuddly. I'd actually take Seth Rogen over Brad Pitt any day. Surely I'm not the only female in the universe who feels this way?
On a different subject: I have an appointment for a haircut in a few days, which always makes me nervous. Not the haircutting itself, but what happens afterward. My hairdresser is self-employed and works out of her home. I started going to her when she worked at a salon. I always tipped her generously in cash at the salon, but when she started working on her own, I assumed I wouldn't have to tip anymore -- I'd always heard that you never tip business owners. However, her credit card receipts have a tipping table at the bottom (the kind that "helpfully" point out what 15% or 20% of your total is), so, oops, I guess that means I should tip. (I'm easily intimidated.) I don't want to be perceived as ungracious. But it kind of bugs me. I found an interesting thread on the subject here, and obviously opinions differ.
One pro-tipping respondent points out that even a salon owner has to pay for all her products, insurance, social security taxes, etc., and of course since they're self-employed, they don't get paid if they're sick or on vacation. Guess what? That applies to me too. I've got to pay for my computers, software upgrades, DSL, web hosting, fund my own retirement plan, etc. And none of my clients has ever tipped me. Then again, I don't tip the plumbers and painters who have worked for me over the years. I do give a generous tip to deliverypeople who have to tote furniture up to my apartment (something I'm sure the people who have visited this place will understand).
Bottom line: tipping is anxiety-provoking, confusing and bothersome, and I wish it could be done away with. |
| posted by 125records @ 2:11 PM |
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| Monday, June 04, 2007 |
| A good rom com is hard to find |
Romantic comedy is a tough genre to do well -- it's easy to make them too sappy or predictable or cutesy. Still, I admit a certain fondness for them, and I'm glad that at least one filmmaker seems to be committed to doing them right. That person is writer/director Judd Apatow, whose first feature was the thoroughly delightful "The 40 Year-Old Virgin"; happily, his follow-up to that hit, "Knocked Up," is just as good, if not better.
"Knocked Up" stars Katherine Heigl as Alison, a willowy blonde employee of the E! cable channel. She's so excited when she gets a promotion that takes her from behind the scenes to on-air talent that she celebrates by going out clubbing with her married sister (Leslie Mann), and after a few too many drinks, she has a one-night stand with Ben, a chubby, unemployed slacker (Seth Rogen). When she awakens the next morning and sees Ben's pasty white rear end in her bed, she's not thrilled, but Alison is a nice person and invites Ben to breakfast. They don't exactly have much in common, and that seems to be that -- until two months later, when Alison discovers she's pregnant. The only guy who could possibly be the father is Ben. Despite that fact, Alison decides to keep the baby, and give Ben a second chance.
The reason "Knocked Up" works is because even though Ben's kind of a loser -- he lives with a bunch of guy friends, and when they're not smoking pot or playing ping pong, they're putting together a web site that indexes female celebrities' nude scenes in movies -- he's really a good guy, funny and sweet and well-meaning. Alison may be out of Ben's league looks-wise, but I suspect most women who see the film will be charmed by him. The relationship between Ben and Alison's brother-in-law Pete (Paul Rudd) is also a lot of fun, especially a scene where the two, desperate to take a break from the womenfolk (and, in Pete's case, his two kids), escape to Vegas, take hallucinogenic mushrooms, and go see Cirque du Soleil.
Sex, drugs and Cirque du Soleil -- this is a defiantly R-rated, adult comedy. But despite all the raunchy bits, what really sticks with you is the movie's great big heart.
"Knocked Up" is 2 hours long and David Mamet's "The Cryptogram," currently being produced by Shotgun Players, is barely 75 minutes, but it seems far longer. I'm usually a big fan of Mamet, but "The Cryptogram" is not, in my opinion, one of his better plays. It's about a young boy, John, who is having trouble sleeping, and the late-night interactions he has with his mother, Donny, and a family friend, Del. At first, the boy is waiting for his father to get home. Then we learn that the father isn't coming home -- he's left Donny. Or maybe he left because John is such an irritating chatterbox. I honestly think the child actor who plays John, Gideon Lazarus, does an excellent job; it's just that the character is annoying as all get-out. The gentleman sitting next to me in the theater was actually whispering under his breath, "Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed," at a couple points when John is onstage; as soon as the lights went down at the end of the show, he sprang from his chair, as if he couldn't get out of there fast enough. God help Ben and Alison if their child turns out to be anything like John. |
| posted by 125records @ 10:06 AM |
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Name: Sue
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