| Thursday, July 02, 2009 |
| "I've been to the zoo." |
We saw Edward Albee's "At Home at the Zoo" at A.C.T. last night, bringing the season to a close. The play's history is quite interesting. Act Two, "The Zoo Story," was written in 1958 and became a popular one-act, winning an Obie Award for best play. Act One, "Homelife," was written almost 50 years after "Zoo," and the playwright now insists that they be performed together. "It kept occurring to me, probably from very early on, with the first production, that it's not quite in balance, I don't know enough about Peter," Albee told the San Francisco Chronicle. Then I got very busy for a number of years, and one day, about 10 years ago, it occurred to me to fix it. Then I waited about another five years and fixed it."
That's probably some kind of record. In any case, despite the fame of "Zoo," "Homelife," a scene from the marriage of Peter, one of the two characters in "Zoo," is perhaps the stronger of the acts. "I think the first act is a little better written than the second," said Albee. "I think I've learned my craft a little more."
Anthony Fusco, a familiar face at A.C.T., plays Peter in sort of a low-key, slightly nebbishy, Bob Newhartian manner. I had never seen "Zoo" before, so I was able to experience the play as a whole. Both acts revolve around extended monologues: "Homelife" builds to a set piece in which the long-married Peter tells his wife, Ann (Rene Augesen), about a college sexual encounter that went wrong; "Zoo" features a seemingly random encounter in Central Park between Peter and Jerry (Manoel Felciano), in which the latter man tells "the story about the dog" -- his attempt to befriend, and then kill, a neighbor's hostile pet.
Peter is sitting on a park bench reading a book, minding his own business, when the manic, overbearing Jerry comes up to him and strikes up a conversation. It reminded me a little too much of times when I've been accosted by random people on the bus who want to chat (admittedly, that doesn't happen so much in Oakland as it did in Berkeley; plus, I have learned to wear my iPod, even if I'm not actually listening to anything). I think the tragic outcome of the encounter totally vindicates my instincts not to want to talk to strangers.
Anyway, it's a very good production, and while Felciano has by far the showier role, I think the night belongs to Fusco and his nuanced portrayal of Peter. Afterward, Joe expressed some regret over our earlier decision not to renew our season tickets, but I assured him that we can keep going -- I just want the ability to steer clear of any clunkers like "War Music." Next season kicks off with an innovative-sounding British production of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter."
As I do every year, let's rank the 2008-09 plays from best to worst! (Can you guess what the "worst" will be?)
1. "The Quality of Life" by Jane Anderson
2. "Boleros for the Disenchanted" by Jose Rivera
3. "At Home at the Zoo" by Edward Albee
4. "Rock and Roll" by Tom Stoppard - this might have been a tad too erudite for me but Joe ranks it #1.
5. "Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins" by Stephen Temperley - I didn't write much about this one, but it was much more fun than I expected, and Judy Kaye was heartbreakingly good as Jenkins.
6. "Rich & Famous" by John Guare
7. "War Music" by Lillian Groag
I suspect that Joe might argue that "Rich & Famous" was more painful to sit through than "War Music," but I would argue that while "Rich & Famous" was garden-variety bad, "War Music" was so misguided that it should never have made it to the big stage. It was commissioned by A.C.T., so presumably they would have lost a bundle if they had pulled the plug on it, but I just have to believe that the artistic directors and actors knew they had a stinker on their hands and decided to muddle through. |
posted by 125records @ 9:53 PM  |
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| Monday, June 29, 2009 |
| Sugar Sugar |
I mentioned earlier this month that I was giving up sugar for the month of June, and am now reporting back to say that I did it -- sort of. It is extremely difficult to cut sugar and high fructose corn syrup completely out of your diet unless you shun processed food altogether.
On the "pro" side, I found out about some products which I really enjoyed and plan to keep in my regular diet. Galaxy Granola's "not sweet vanilla" flavor is delicious and I bought a new bag today (it's available at Whole Foods) even though the sugar experiment ends tomorrow. I also found I prefer Organicville ketchup to Heinz -- for one thing, it's thicker so you don't get that "ketchup water" in the first squeeze that you do with most brands. However, trying to find veggie burgers that have no added sugar is too much trouble. I only found one brand (Safeway's Eating Right) and they're OK, but I prefer my old Trader Joe's standby.
We went to a couple of events where cake was served, and I had no trouble avoiding them. I read a fabulous piece on the blog Kateharding.net about the problem many women have with overeating -- the author eventually realized that there wasn't a "worldwide fry shortage looming," and she could eat French fries if she felt like eating them, and if she didn't, she could eat something else. I just decided that this month I wasn't going to eat sugar, and to bear in mind that there's no worldwide cake shortage, and eventually I hope to decide on a case-by-case basis, do I really want to eat cake today, or would I rather have another slice of watermelon? (I did have one dessert that undoubtedly had some sugar in it -- a fruit crisp at Rivoli. Usually I head straight for anything chocolate, but I have to say that the fruit crisp was awfully good.)
The rest of my slip-ups were pretty much inadvertent: one instance of eating restaurant ketchup (maybe Organicville should make their product available in little packets!); a few dried cherries; and some cranberry juice, which probably had high fructose corn syrup in it. I had rum at Forbidden Island, which Joe pointed out is fermented sugar cane.
All in all, I think it's a good idea to once in a while try to shake up your old habits, as our pals Michael & Susan are doing this month with their car-free challenge. Learn some new things, eat some new foods, break out of your usual routine. |
| posted by 125records @ 7:39 PM |
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| Friday, June 26, 2009 |
| Speaking ill of the dead |
There is a Swedish word, lagom, which can't be translated directly into English but means "just enough" -- not too much, not too little. Just right.
I grew up with lagom, in a smaller house than we could afford, but it had three bedrooms and that was enough for the four of us, wasn't it? It's a concept that stays with me today.
Yesterday, I wrote about the important lesson I learned during my childhood, that of living within your means and not going into debt. Today, I read that Michael Jackson was estimated to be anywhere from $300-400 million in debt when he died: "An accountant testified that the singer had an 'ongoing cash crisis' and spent $20-million to $30-million a year more than he earned."
For most people, being $20-$30,000 in debt is a crisis, nevermind $400 million. There was always someone to bail out M.J., though. One of the king of Bahrain's sons reportedly "gave Jackson millions of dollars to help shore up his finances, cut an album, write an autobiography and subsidize his lifestyle." Of course, if he'd lived to perform the 50 concerts on his "farewell tour" in London, that would have helped his cash flow considerably.
Michael Jackson was definitely the antithesis of lagom, and that's probably why I found him so horrifying. I mean, look at this blog post about a collection of memorabilia that was displayed in L.A. earlier this year. LOOK AT THIS!!! He commissioned it!
I grant you that M.J. made some popular and wildly influential music, although it was never my cup of tea (back when Thriller was selling a kajillion copies, I was listening to Roxy Music's Greatest Hits). But the guy spent the last couple of decades celebrating his own wonderfulness. Who could forget the 50-foot-tall "Jackobot" he planned to erect in the Las Vegas desert, or the 35-foot-tall statue he actually did erect in Prague? Then there was his 30th-anniversary special, a $5,000-a-ticket salute to himself. Oh, and the fact that he crowned himself the "King of Pop." And the scrolling list of Great Moments of History that once appeared on his personal web site, highlighting "historic events such as 'Martin Luther King is born,' 'The Berlin Wall falls,' 'Nelson Mandela is freed,' and finally, 'June 13, 2005, Remember this date for it is a part of HIStory.'" (That's when he was declared "not guilty" of child molestation.)
Of course, it's entirely possible that all of the hoopla was covering up a whopping case of low self-esteem, since he did seem to do quite a lot to obliterate his actual appearance as an attractive African-American male. Yes, he had a crummy childhood and an abusive dad. But I guess no one will ever know exactly what turned him into such a freak show.
When he was accused of being a child molester, I assumed he was lying about being innocent since he lied about so many things -- no one in their right mind could honestly believe his only plastic surgery was "minor work on his nose" for sinus problems, for instance. It's a little embarrassing to admit, but those E! reenactments of his trial provided me with more entertainment than his music or videos ever did. I was totally hooked on those irresistibly cheesy dramatizations and the attorneys who provided commentary (oh, Shawn Chapman Holley and James Curtis, where are you now?).
Out of everything that's been written so far about M.J., the most poignant by far is this blog entry by his ex-wife, Lisa Marie Presley. She recounts a long-ago conversation in which Michael predicted that he would wind up dying like Lisa's dad did. Presley's straightforward account, even the words "Our relationship was not 'a sham,'" seems honest and clear, whereas every one of Michael's public pronunciations always struck me as unadulterated, self-serving bullcrap. "In trying to save him, I almost lost myself," she writes. In that moment, the crazy celebrity freak show stuff falls away, and we're left with a woman who had to leave the man she loved in order to save herself. That, not all the encomiums and paeans to a talent lost, was finally what moved me. |
| posted by 125records @ 7:49 PM |
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| Thursday, June 25, 2009 |
| Lessons learned |
I haven't been blogging lately, but I have been keeping busy. Neal was here for a few days, which is always fun. He is the opposite of the folks referred to in this Garrison Keillor column: "I am stuck with houseguests who are unable to sit in a room without me for more than 15 minutes. They follow me around like faithful collies. We ran out of conversation on Friday and they're here until Wednesday." (Hey Garrison, clip 'n send your column to those folks and I suspect they'll never darken your doorstep again!) Neal is, like me, self-employed, and always has endless amounts of work to do on his ever-present laptop. The best guests are the most self-sufficient!
We went to see the free Elvis Costello show at Amoeba Records in San Francisco (along with approximately 950 other folks), to a Q&A about health policy with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, and hiking in Muir Woods. Neal and I hiked while Joe (who has a bum knee) sat on a bench near the visitor's center reading Tod Goldberg's Burn Notice: The End Game.
We were going to hike a trail that was marked "easy to moderate," but instead we somehow wound up on the Dipsea Trail, which is listed as "strenuous." I am used to walking the flat urban streets of my hometown but somehow made it up the steep, steep hill (stopping for breath a few times). The coolest thing about it was that we managed to walk for 90 minutes before we saw another human being. Muir Woods is an extremely popular tourist attraction, but obviously most people don't bother getting off the main boardwalk loop. If you, like Keillor, crave solitude, just go into the woods and keep walking... I suspect that you can find peace and quiet even on some of the "easy" trails if you go far enough, but the Dipsea is definitely good for working those leg muscles.
It's a little embarrassing that I've managed to live here for a dozen years without visiting Muir Woods, so I'm glad I finally got to go!
Since I've been busy, I am now trying to catch up on work and other stuff. Walking the dog today, I was listening to last weekend's Marketplace Money, one of my favorite radio shows/podcasts. One of the stories featured listeners telling what they had learned about finance from their dads, in honor of Father's Day. No one asked me, but here is my money lesson anyway:
Before he retired, my dad was employed by a bank in one of those "private banking" divisions that cater to high net worth individuals. So he was always dealing with doctors, lawyers and the like who earned substantial salaries. However, sometimes those people would come to him asking to borrow money, because they were in debt -- perhaps they'd overspent on a house or a boat, or their credit card balances had just spiraled out of control. He told me that whether you make $20,000 a year or $200,000, if you spend more than you earn, you will go broke. I have taken that advice to heart and as a result, the only debt I carry is my mortgage; I pay off my credit card balance every month. If you're a parent, teach your kids to live within their means -- it's a valuable lesson and one that has always served me well. |
| posted by 125records @ 6:30 PM |
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| Sunday, June 14, 2009 |
| The art of exercise |
Regular readers know that I am always looking for opportunities to add more walking into my daily routine, so when I heard about East Bay Open Studios, I chose the ambitious goal of hoofing it to every Open Studio in my town. In the end, I didn't quite make it to all of them, but I saw a lot of art and walked many miles.
In parts of Oakland and Berkeley, the studios are highly concentrated -- there may be several within a few-block radius. Here, however, they were pretty spread out. I probably walked a good 10+ miles over the three days I toured studios.
Most of the studios were located in people's houses or garages. I loved being able to go into their homes and yards. For me, that was almost as appealing as the art. One textile artist, who is only about five blocks away from me, lives and works in a charming cottage that dates to the 1880s. Pat Payne, who creates large-scale steel sculptures of birds, had one of the prettiest gardens I've ever seen, a beautiful setting in which to view her work.
In a few cases, there were several visitors checking out the art, but more often, it was just me and maybe one other person. I'm not big on chatting with people, but in this situation, I really had to; if you're the only person walking around looking at the art and the artist is right there, you sort of have an obligation to talk to them about it. Some of it was more to my taste than others, but I tried to find something nice to say about everything. Ceramic artist Alexandra Odabachian (who doesn't have a web site -- maybe I should have brought business cards on my walk!) was probably my favorite discovery; I would love to buy some of her pieces someday. And check out Deborah Griffin, who takes vintage photographs and postcards, scans them, and uses them to make whimsical digital collages. I also liked Margaret Fago's watercolors of San Francisco Bay's birds and sailboats.
One mixed media artist, who had displayed his work outdoors, was deep in conversation with another man when I arrived, but an enterprising eight-year-old neighbor boy had set himself up as the exhibition tour guide, complete with an "official" badge. He took me on a comprehensive but slightly too quickly-paced tour of the artwork, rattling off every piece's name and even translating the one with a Spanish title. ("'Ventana' -- that means window!") At the end of the tour, he asked me if I had enjoyed it, and when I said I had, he brandished a fistful of $1 bills, letting me know that some people had enjoyed their tours enough to provide him with a tip, though he assured me it wasn't mandatory. I was happy to give him a dollar; who can resist such charming chutzpah?
As a bonus for the hungry traveler, nearly everyone has snacks available, ranging from the token bowl of mixed nuts to some pretty good-sized spreads -- platters of veggies and dip, cocktail wieners and meatballs, bowls of fruit, wheels of Brie, bottles of wine. I was grateful to be able to fortify myself with some baby carrots and water before setting out for the next studio.
Open Studios takes place every June, and involves over 400 artists throughout the East Bay. It's a fun, cheap, and (if you walk or bike) healthy activity; I'll definitely look forward to this event in the future. |
| posted by 125records @ 6:36 PM |
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| Friday, June 12, 2009 |
| I, Pundit |
I once thought it would be my life's ambition to be interviewed on "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," although I've come to realize as the years pass that it's extremely likely I will never accomplish anything worthy of getting a spot on that show. Then I figured I'd be willing to settle for "Forum" (our local equivalent to "Fresh Air"). I eventually downgraded that dream to calling in and asking a question on "Forum." Which I totally did, a few years ago. I think it was on a Tuesday and that night, a couple people at my book group asked, "Didn't I hear you on 'Forum' this morning?" Yes... yes, you did.
It had never occurred to me to fantasize about someday being interviewed for a Canadian newsweekly, but if I had, I would be hoisting up the "Mission Accomplished" banner today.
I hope my dad doesn't mind that I mentioned his age. He is in his 70s, but it's a youthful and vital 70s. |
| posted by 125records @ 1:18 PM |
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| Sunday, June 07, 2009 |
| What happens in Vegas |
I must admit to a bit of schadenfreude upon hearing that "Land of the Lost" is turning out to be a huge bomb, since for the past several weeks, I've been cringing in agony at its horrible commercials and trailers. Long before it opened, I told Joe I'd be willing to bet that "LotL" would get worse reviews than "Night at the Museum 2," and I am so vindicated. ("LotL" has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 28% fresh, vs. 44% for "Night.") "LotL" just looked awful. Of course, frequently a movie I think looks like it'll be about as much fun as spending an hour in the doctor's waiting room with only 2-year-old issues of Newsweek and Sunset to pass the time winds up making a kajillion dollars, so I'm actually surprised "LotL" wasn't a huge hit.
Apparently, instead of "LotL," everybody was out seeing "The Hangover" this weekend. "The Hangover" is a raunchy R-rated comedy, and many of the reviews have emphasized its lack of star power, but you know what? Ed Helms (formerly of "The Daily Show") and comic Zach Galifianakis are my idea of stars. Zach G., whom I first discovered via "Late Show with David Letterman" back in 2000, is one of the funniest men alive, and is directly responsible for one of the most hysterical things I have ever seen at a comedy show. See, there are these guys who busk outside the American Conservatory Theater on most performance nights singing the old spiritual "Down By the Riverside." That's the only song I've ever heard them sing, and it's become sort of a running joke with Joe & me. Anyway, we went to see the Comedians of Comedy tour a few years back, and Zach had actually gotten the "Down By the Riverside" guys to join him onstage to sing. I don't remember the exact set-up, but the lyrics were, "She ain't gonna e-mail you no more," and it was hysterical. I will love Zach forever for that bit, which is immortalized in one of the Comedians of Comedy movies.
I'm delighted that Zach is getting such acclaim for "The Hangover," and he is scary-brilliant in the film, playing the awkward, desperate-to-fit-in future brother-in-law invited to the bachelor party in Vegas just because, well, the groom feels obliged to let him come along. He winds up inadvertently drugging the three men (the groom and his two best friends), which leads to a night of total debauchery... that none of them remember the next morning. There are some pricelessly funny moments in "The Hangover," such as Zach's character Alan's comment about blackjack: "Counting cards isn't illegal, it's just frowned upon, like masturbating on an airplane." "I'm pretty sure it's illegal to masturbate on an airplane." "Well yeah, ever since 9/11 people have been so sensitive. Thanks a lot, bin Laden." (I thought that was hilarious. If you don't, this movie's obviously not for you.)
The film sort of runs out of gas when the men are threatened by a mincing Asian gang lord who claims they owe them a great deal of money, but no one expects a movie of this type to bat 1.000. Like "Superbad" and "Borat" a couple years ago, before too long, you'll be tired of hearing everyone repeat their favorite jokes and catchphrases from "The Hangover."
Truly, it is the golden age of dude movies. I know I've complained about this before, but as a comedy fan, I've seen pretty much every one of these flicks, from "Old School" to "School of Rock," from "Role Models" to "Knocked Up," and at this point I would be thrilled beyond belief to see a similar type of comedy about the ladies. I was looking forward to "Spring Breakdown," with "SNL" vets Rachel Dratch and Amy Poehler, but the film won't even be getting a theatrical release. I suppose I'll have to wait for "30 Rock" to come back in the fall to get a female comedy fix. Thank goodness for Tina Fey's Liz Lemon.
Meanwhile, the grand poohbah of the dude comedy, Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"), has a new release coming next month, and at least I'll be able to save my ten bucks and skip it. Why? Because the trailer for "Funny People" played before "The Hangover," and I think it's safe to say that every significant plot twist in the movie is given away in the preview. Star Adam Sandler is (redacted), but wait! then it turns out he's not really (redacted), and then he falls in love with (redacted), except she's (redacted), but you know they'll be able to work that out. I kind of hope the movie sucks because if it's great, I'll be crushed that I didn't have a chance to see it before watching the entire film condensed into a 2-minute trailer. |
| posted by 125records @ 3:36 PM |
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| About Me |
Name: Sue
Home: San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States
About Me: Email me: talk at interbridge dot com
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