Sorry for being a lazy blogger, AGAIN--February got crazy. March is crazy. Yesterday we hosted our 22nd annual graduate student run art history symposium, and it went really well. I slept for 10 hours last night--for the past few weeks I've been waking up at, say, 3 am, panicking about something I was forgetting, or something sympo-related that I neglected to do. I am the chair of the grants committee, which means that I'm STILL not DONE. (A lot of photocopying, receipt-gathering, signing stuff, filling out online paperwork, and running to a couple financial offices this week!) All the committee chairs were my year, which is great, because we get along really well, but working with friends can be a total pain. I felt like we all had to be super polite and placating the whole time, when it's less of a worry with colleagues if you ask them to do something without prefacing it with "I know you're really busy, but if you could please get the caterers invoice to me, because I actually needed it yesterday, but you're doing a great job, blah blah." And after being on campus for 12 hours yesterday, I need to do some grocery shopping and cleaning and gym-ing and such today. It was worth it, though! Our six student speakers were great, and we give them an honorarium, which is really rare. All of them told me that we were super organized (ha ha!) and nice, and some of them are now thinking of applying here. It makes me glad to be a part of this department.
ANYWAY. I've been having fun these past few weeks too (as well as grading 98 exams on Leonardo, some of which were trainwrecks and some of which were excellent). One of my friends here loves musicals as much as I do, so we went to two really great things: a sing-along Sound of Music, and Bernadette Peters in concert. Hence the title of this post: divas. I've seen the Sound of Music about 871937 times (rough estimate) but this was the first time on the big-screen, and it was totally fun! They included the words, and we had certain things we had to do during it--like boo the Nazis, hiss for the Baroness (although I think she has the best lines), and act out Do-Re-Mi. And what I realized was not only how much I want to go Salzburg (and walk around it wearing nothing but drapes), but how gorgeous Julie Andrews was (and still is, really). Her skin is flawless, especially on the big-screen. I honestly don't think she has pores. We watched the movie a week later during Thursday Girls Night (mani-pedis, facials, wine) with more friends and we all agreed that Julie Andrews is a fox. And Bernadette Peters! She is 64, and my legs will never look that good--she was wearing a glittery dress with a hiiiigh slit. She also sings better than I will ever do anything. And all of her movements were so dramatic, and diva-y, that it was pretty fabulous.
Divas don't just occur onstage--now that I think about it, I've been dealing with a lot of academic divas over the past month. Some of them mean well, but are just dramatic--and some don't mean well. We had a speaker a few weeks ago as part of our regular lecture series, and they always have lunch with the grad students on the day, and she had zero interest in talking to us, either small talk or about our research. She was a prime example of what I've started referring to as "East Coast pretension". It got so awkward that we just resorted to asking her questions about her work. I'm reasonably certain that I'm not a diva, as I have little patience for that. But it's not always bad. And I think assertive, confident women sometimes get unfairly cast as divas, which is, well, unfair.
Slightly related, in terms of musicals--I went to see In the Heights this week and it was FANTASTIC. I suppose there were divas in that too, but I am so impressed with Lin-Manuel Miranda in general that I just wanted to mention how good it was. It made me miss NYC something fierce. (NYC is probably the diva capital of the universe.)
Showing posts with label culture vulture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture vulture. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Friday, 2 December 2011
Wocka Wocka Wocka
I will never stop loving the Muppets.
In point of fact, how could someone NOT love the Muppets? The jokes are witty, the songs are catchy, the stories make you a better, kinder person. The Muppets taught me that it's okay to be different, that laughter always helps, and that if you work together and stick with your friends, things will turn out just fine. I'm approaching finals week, have forty papers to grade for Monday and about 30 pages to write this weekend, I'm going Christmas shopping and have a lunch date tomorrow and am all stress-stress-stress all the time, but for a few hours tonight The Muppets just made me happy, for the first time in a few days.
The new movie is great. It really is. I consider myself a little bit of a Muppets connoisseur (read: huge nerd) and it was very enjoyable. It's actually a bit sad, because it's about the Muppets being split up and missing one another, which is something I've been feeling a lot recently about my friends from college, but they get together for one last show to save their theater. I won't tell you what happens (though you can probably guess..)! The celebrity cameos were hilarious as always (I was hoping for Steve Martin, but no luck), the songs were actually pretty good, and the jokes were plentiful. The new Muppet, Walter, is ADORABLE. His talent is whistling! I actually think this movie was aimed at original Muppets fans, because it was a lot about how people have forgotten the Muppets because, as the Bad Guy says, people want "a hard, cynical act for a hard, cynical world." Except we don't, of course. I went with five of my friends and it was such fun--we all ended up crying, too. And smuggled in a bunch of candy. Most people in the theater were probably my age, or older. And then we sang Mahna Mahna in the parking lot.
One of the many things I love about the Muppets is that they have such a wonderful combination of silliness, wittiness, and a bit of nostalgia. While I'll always love "Good grief, the Comedian's a Bear!" some of the songs mean more to me now that I'm older, like "I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along" from The Muppet Movie with lines like "It's not often you see a guy that green have the blues that bad," or "You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. / There's something irresistible-ish about 'em. / We grin and bear it 'cause the nights are long. / I hope that something better comes along." The "Rainbow Connection" makes me tear up, and Statler and Waldorf always make me laugh.
The Muppets have been there for me throughout the years. When I get sad about missing home and have too much to write I listen to the songs and skits. The songs are awesome, in the movies and especially the shows, "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" or Beverly Sills and "Pigoletto" (I mean, Pigoletto! that's awesome) or something low-key and sweet like Rowlf singing "Cottleston Pie". The Great Muppet Caper is my favorite of their movies, but I like them all. When I moved to Brooklyn, one of my friends got me The Muppets Take Manhattan as a housewarming present. The Muppet Christmas Carol is my favorite Christmas movie. My ex-roommate sent me Muppets Yahtzee over the summer, and my old subaru was named Kermit.
Jim Henson died when he was 53, which is sad and too young for anyone to die, but as someone who spread such a message of hope and inclusion it somehow seems even more sad. But I'm so glad that his legacy is living on in the people who work on The Muppets now. At his funeral, Harry Belafonte sang "Turn the World Around," just as he did on the Muppet Show. I didn't really know this song before I listened to it awhile ago, but it really is perfect, and something that makes so much sense for Jim Henson.
I'm going to close now with a few of my favorite quotations from the Muppets, but before I do, let me just say: thank you, Muppets, for being such a happy part of my happy childhood, and still being around now that I'm a happy 24 year old.
Ah, a bear in his natural habitat. A Studebaker!
Fozzie: [going over check list] Wax lips?
Zoot: [checking his pockets] Man, I just had them!
Dr. Teeth: Did ya leave 'em in your other pants?
Zoot: I don't have no other pants!
Kermit (Bob Crachitt): Uh, if you please Mr. Scrooge, half an hour off hardly seems customary for Christmas Day.
Rats: No, no.
Scrooge: How much time off *is* customary?
Kermit: Why, uh... The whole day.
Rats: Yeah, yeah!
Scrooge: The *entire* day?
Rats: No, no. That's the frog's idea...
Kermit: Quiet! (everyone gets quiet except Janice)
Janice: Look, Mother. It's my life. OK. So if I want to live on a beach and walk around naked... Oh.
Rizzo the Rat: [falls down a chimney] Hey! I'm stuck! Get me out of here!
Gonzo: I knew you weren't suited for literature.
Life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending; we've done just what we've set out to do, thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you!
In point of fact, how could someone NOT love the Muppets? The jokes are witty, the songs are catchy, the stories make you a better, kinder person. The Muppets taught me that it's okay to be different, that laughter always helps, and that if you work together and stick with your friends, things will turn out just fine. I'm approaching finals week, have forty papers to grade for Monday and about 30 pages to write this weekend, I'm going Christmas shopping and have a lunch date tomorrow and am all stress-stress-stress all the time, but for a few hours tonight The Muppets just made me happy, for the first time in a few days.
The new movie is great. It really is. I consider myself a little bit of a Muppets connoisseur (read: huge nerd) and it was very enjoyable. It's actually a bit sad, because it's about the Muppets being split up and missing one another, which is something I've been feeling a lot recently about my friends from college, but they get together for one last show to save their theater. I won't tell you what happens (though you can probably guess..)! The celebrity cameos were hilarious as always (I was hoping for Steve Martin, but no luck), the songs were actually pretty good, and the jokes were plentiful. The new Muppet, Walter, is ADORABLE. His talent is whistling! I actually think this movie was aimed at original Muppets fans, because it was a lot about how people have forgotten the Muppets because, as the Bad Guy says, people want "a hard, cynical act for a hard, cynical world." Except we don't, of course. I went with five of my friends and it was such fun--we all ended up crying, too. And smuggled in a bunch of candy. Most people in the theater were probably my age, or older. And then we sang Mahna Mahna in the parking lot.
One of the many things I love about the Muppets is that they have such a wonderful combination of silliness, wittiness, and a bit of nostalgia. While I'll always love "Good grief, the Comedian's a Bear!" some of the songs mean more to me now that I'm older, like "I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along" from The Muppet Movie with lines like "It's not often you see a guy that green have the blues that bad," or "You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. / There's something irresistible-ish about 'em. / We grin and bear it 'cause the nights are long. / I hope that something better comes along." The "Rainbow Connection" makes me tear up, and Statler and Waldorf always make me laugh.
The Muppets have been there for me throughout the years. When I get sad about missing home and have too much to write I listen to the songs and skits. The songs are awesome, in the movies and especially the shows, "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" or Beverly Sills and "Pigoletto" (I mean, Pigoletto! that's awesome) or something low-key and sweet like Rowlf singing "Cottleston Pie". The Great Muppet Caper is my favorite of their movies, but I like them all. When I moved to Brooklyn, one of my friends got me The Muppets Take Manhattan as a housewarming present. The Muppet Christmas Carol is my favorite Christmas movie. My ex-roommate sent me Muppets Yahtzee over the summer, and my old subaru was named Kermit.
Jim Henson died when he was 53, which is sad and too young for anyone to die, but as someone who spread such a message of hope and inclusion it somehow seems even more sad. But I'm so glad that his legacy is living on in the people who work on The Muppets now. At his funeral, Harry Belafonte sang "Turn the World Around," just as he did on the Muppet Show. I didn't really know this song before I listened to it awhile ago, but it really is perfect, and something that makes so much sense for Jim Henson.
I'm going to close now with a few of my favorite quotations from the Muppets, but before I do, let me just say: thank you, Muppets, for being such a happy part of my happy childhood, and still being around now that I'm a happy 24 year old.
Ah, a bear in his natural habitat. A Studebaker!
Fozzie: [going over check list] Wax lips?
Zoot: [checking his pockets] Man, I just had them!
Dr. Teeth: Did ya leave 'em in your other pants?
Zoot: I don't have no other pants!
Kermit (Bob Crachitt): Uh, if you please Mr. Scrooge, half an hour off hardly seems customary for Christmas Day.
Rats: No, no.
Scrooge: How much time off *is* customary?
Kermit: Why, uh... The whole day.
Rats: Yeah, yeah!
Scrooge: The *entire* day?
Rats: No, no. That's the frog's idea...
Kermit: Quiet! (everyone gets quiet except Janice)
Janice: Look, Mother. It's my life. OK. So if I want to live on a beach and walk around naked... Oh.
Rizzo the Rat: [falls down a chimney] Hey! I'm stuck! Get me out of here!
Gonzo: I knew you weren't suited for literature.
Life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending; we've done just what we've set out to do, thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you!
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Why I Like Opera
I went to La Boheme on Friday night with my usual opera going friend and another friend who hadn't been to an opera before. La Boheme is the most played opera in the US, but I've never seen it live. I like Puccini as much as the next person, and have listened to La Boheme quite a bit, but I'd never realized that 1. parts of it are pretty funny, and 2. parts of it are gut-wrenchingly sad. It also made me quite nostalgic, as I listened to it a lot right before I went to Paris for a few days in the fall of 2007. My friend Jess and I stayed in the sketchiest hotel ever (no, really, she can corroborate this--there were a lot of hijinks that trip, in point of fact) but what mostly stuck with me about the hotel, other than the broken elevator and the winding staircases, was this view, from our tiny bathroom.
As I looked out the window, I remember thinking that this must have been what it was like to be in La Boheme, minus the consumption. I wanted to live in a garret, be a starving artist, and be able to look out at the city every night.
Well, the opera was awesome, as these opera performances tend to be--I'm so, so glad I go to a school with a world-renowned opera program. Almost better than the music, which was great, was the SETS. I've never seen such sets. The sets were such that one of my friends punched me in the arm at one point because we both were so pumped. The sets rotated as they were singing--the balcony of the Parisian garret turned and became the dingy interior of the poor artist and poet's apartment.
Most impressively, this rooftop apartment moved offstage, the lights dimmed, a rumbling could be heard, and a NEW set moved forward. Suddenly there was a cafe scene, complete with a bridge, and a marching band, at least 50 cast-members, and even vendor's carts. The audience burst into applause. Check out more of the sets here.
One of the reasons why I like operas is because they force you to suspend belief. Over the course of 2 1/2 hours, I had to believe that people could fall in love instantly, that hearts could be quickly broken and mended, that bohemians lived together by conning their landlord, and that sometimes things just end in sadness no matter how much we want them not to. When Mimi died, it was unnoticed by the other protagonists for a little while, but the audience knew--the girl behind me hissed, "NO!" And when Ridolfo notices that his friends can't meet his eyes (they've realized she's died) he exclaims in this extraordinary, anguished outburst. My Italian isn't good enough to translate it exactly, but even if you'd never heard Italian before it wouldn't matter, you just know that it sounds like loss, like pain, like anger. And then he stalked outside, and stood in what suddenly had become the chilly Parisian air, with snow falling, and just stood there as the curtain went down. I had chills, one of my friends was crying, and the entire theater was silent.
Other music doesn't have this affect on me, and I don't know what it is about opera that causes me to have a more emotional connection. And I know it's not like this for all people--I've heard the argument that it's too flashy, too substantial, too earthly to really be something transcendent or moving. And I suppose in some ways that is true. I think perhaps there is a corollary between those of us who like Baroque Art and those of us who also like opera--a longing for something so excessively beautiful that it sometimes hurts. You feel too much, if that makes sense. There are parts of Marriage of Figaro that are so stunningly perfect that they make me tear up, not because they're sad, but because they are so lovely that they make you feel something, deeply.
I don't know that much about opera, truth be told. I can tell bad singers from good ones, and I'm getting better at hearing differences in different versions (like I can now--sort of!--do with wine) and different singers approaches. I really can't name any favorite singers, other than Jussi Bjorling, but to me that's not really the important part. The important part is that for 2 1/2 hours, the whole audience was transported to Paris, to a garret full of starving artists and a cafe full of wine and song. To see a relationship come together and fall apart, to hear declarations of love and heartbreak. So much pathos, and so much beauty.
Here are two scenes from movies that evidence my feelings pretty perfectly, Philadelphia and the Shawshank Redemption. I remember once, my sister and I went to see Cosi Fan Tutte, and the old man next to us was so delighted by everything that was happening that he'd laugh for a good 10 seconds longer than everyone else, which was cracking ME up. There was a great set change there too, and he spontaneously started clapping, just like people did this past Friday. I glanced over at him, and his face was so happy. That's why I like opera.
As I looked out the window, I remember thinking that this must have been what it was like to be in La Boheme, minus the consumption. I wanted to live in a garret, be a starving artist, and be able to look out at the city every night.Well, the opera was awesome, as these opera performances tend to be--I'm so, so glad I go to a school with a world-renowned opera program. Almost better than the music, which was great, was the SETS. I've never seen such sets. The sets were such that one of my friends punched me in the arm at one point because we both were so pumped. The sets rotated as they were singing--the balcony of the Parisian garret turned and became the dingy interior of the poor artist and poet's apartment.
Most impressively, this rooftop apartment moved offstage, the lights dimmed, a rumbling could be heard, and a NEW set moved forward. Suddenly there was a cafe scene, complete with a bridge, and a marching band, at least 50 cast-members, and even vendor's carts. The audience burst into applause. Check out more of the sets here.One of the reasons why I like operas is because they force you to suspend belief. Over the course of 2 1/2 hours, I had to believe that people could fall in love instantly, that hearts could be quickly broken and mended, that bohemians lived together by conning their landlord, and that sometimes things just end in sadness no matter how much we want them not to. When Mimi died, it was unnoticed by the other protagonists for a little while, but the audience knew--the girl behind me hissed, "NO!" And when Ridolfo notices that his friends can't meet his eyes (they've realized she's died) he exclaims in this extraordinary, anguished outburst. My Italian isn't good enough to translate it exactly, but even if you'd never heard Italian before it wouldn't matter, you just know that it sounds like loss, like pain, like anger. And then he stalked outside, and stood in what suddenly had become the chilly Parisian air, with snow falling, and just stood there as the curtain went down. I had chills, one of my friends was crying, and the entire theater was silent.Other music doesn't have this affect on me, and I don't know what it is about opera that causes me to have a more emotional connection. And I know it's not like this for all people--I've heard the argument that it's too flashy, too substantial, too earthly to really be something transcendent or moving. And I suppose in some ways that is true. I think perhaps there is a corollary between those of us who like Baroque Art and those of us who also like opera--a longing for something so excessively beautiful that it sometimes hurts. You feel too much, if that makes sense. There are parts of Marriage of Figaro that are so stunningly perfect that they make me tear up, not because they're sad, but because they are so lovely that they make you feel something, deeply.
I don't know that much about opera, truth be told. I can tell bad singers from good ones, and I'm getting better at hearing differences in different versions (like I can now--sort of!--do with wine) and different singers approaches. I really can't name any favorite singers, other than Jussi Bjorling, but to me that's not really the important part. The important part is that for 2 1/2 hours, the whole audience was transported to Paris, to a garret full of starving artists and a cafe full of wine and song. To see a relationship come together and fall apart, to hear declarations of love and heartbreak. So much pathos, and so much beauty.
Here are two scenes from movies that evidence my feelings pretty perfectly, Philadelphia and the Shawshank Redemption. I remember once, my sister and I went to see Cosi Fan Tutte, and the old man next to us was so delighted by everything that was happening that he'd laugh for a good 10 seconds longer than everyone else, which was cracking ME up. There was a great set change there too, and he spontaneously started clapping, just like people did this past Friday. I glanced over at him, and his face was so happy. That's why I like opera.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Ogres
Some friends and I went to see Shrek: The Musical tonight, and before you judge me, let me just say that it was so fun. Yes, the songs were fairly forgettable, and if you've never seen the movie you'd probably not like it, but the message is really good: not judging people based on their appearance and knowing that being different is ok, and people will still love you. If you're in your mid-20s or younger, you probably grew up knowing about Shrek. It's never been one of my favorite movies, but it does have its moments. The audience was a mix of parents with young kids and college kids--we were next to a couple frat-y looking guys who had a great time.
And the special effects! The dragon was a 25 foot long PUPPET, there were strobe lights and awesome make-up and suits of armor and all sorts of fun things. There were quite a few "adult" jokes, and some sneaky broadway references--I caught ones to Gypsy, West Side Story and Wicked, and the BEST one: Donkey and Shrek are walking along and the background is moving behind them, and suddenly the Lion King music started and a giraffe and some birds popped out for a bit and then ran off. Awesome.
For 2 hours, I didn't think about all my reading, lesson planning, or non-written statements of purpose, and just enjoyed feeling like a kid and looking at really amazing set designs. I love art history, but without occasional bouts of music (musicals, symphonies, operas) I really do think I would lose my sanity.
As one of my friends summed it up during intermission: "today is a great day. You got a giant fake check [sidenote: I did. It's not that giant, but it is bigger than a notebook. I do not know what to do with this, it's laminated and has the museum as the background. The suggestions so far are: frame it, stick a bunch of magnets on the back to make a big magnet, or turn it into the world's largest coaster.] L brought Nerds for us to eat, and A is texting a boy. And we just saw a giant singing dragon." And that pretty much sums it up!
La Boheme tomorrow night! Maybe I will remain sane after all...
And the special effects! The dragon was a 25 foot long PUPPET, there were strobe lights and awesome make-up and suits of armor and all sorts of fun things. There were quite a few "adult" jokes, and some sneaky broadway references--I caught ones to Gypsy, West Side Story and Wicked, and the BEST one: Donkey and Shrek are walking along and the background is moving behind them, and suddenly the Lion King music started and a giraffe and some birds popped out for a bit and then ran off. Awesome.
For 2 hours, I didn't think about all my reading, lesson planning, or non-written statements of purpose, and just enjoyed feeling like a kid and looking at really amazing set designs. I love art history, but without occasional bouts of music (musicals, symphonies, operas) I really do think I would lose my sanity.
As one of my friends summed it up during intermission: "today is a great day. You got a giant fake check [sidenote: I did. It's not that giant, but it is bigger than a notebook. I do not know what to do with this, it's laminated and has the museum as the background. The suggestions so far are: frame it, stick a bunch of magnets on the back to make a big magnet, or turn it into the world's largest coaster.] L brought Nerds for us to eat, and A is texting a boy. And we just saw a giant singing dragon." And that pretty much sums it up!
La Boheme tomorrow night! Maybe I will remain sane after all...
Friday, 28 October 2011
A View From the Bridge
Sometimes, I really miss Brooklyn. I lived there for a little over a year, and sometimes there is nothing I want more than to people-watch in Prospect Park, wander Brighton Beach, eat falafels in the Slope while ambling by the brownstones, read a book on the promenade, visit with the guys at the corner-store, hear Eye of the Storm screaming by on their firetruck, and most of all get Thai food and curl up with a quilt with my cousin and watch Mad Men. I even sometimes miss the guy who played the guitar on the street by our place who would always serenade us, yelling about how our beauty was like the stars in the sky, the meth addicts loitering in front of our place with their stories (we lived next door to a methadone clinic), and the shenanigans that transpired on the buses. And sometimes I do not miss it at all--the compressed feeling, like sardines in a can, that you get when you are surrounded by people ALL THE TIME, the noise, the poverty that is always around you and that you can't ignore (and shouldn't, actually), the grumpiness, and how packed the subways are at rush hour.
Tonight, I went and saw A View From the Bridge, which is what prompted these Brooklyn musings. I was not that excited about this opera going in, for two major reasons:
1. I am a snob and am not that fond of modern and/or English-language operas. This one was first written and performed in 1999, so it was quite new, and I had doubts. Things just don't *sound* as good in English. Which is biased, because if you were fluent in Italian, more traditional opera dialogue would be just as dumb, but in English it just seems so banal. "Eddie, what are you doing?" "You can never have her", etc. Of course, my favorite duet from The Marriage of Figaro is about two women writing a letter, but it's different because I don't *really* know what they are saying. Modern operas try really hard to be dissonant sometimes, too, so it's not something I'd want to listen to for fun.
2. A View From the Bridge was originally an Arthur Miller play, which was adapted into an opera. I can't handle Arthur Miller. I cry every time. We had to read The Crucible and Death of a Salesman in high school, and if that wasn't bad enough, in my sophomore year in college, I took an intro to sociology class with mandatory movies every Sunday night [most work I'd done up to that point, worst grade I ever got in college. One of the most important, wonderful classes I've every taken], and we had to watch Death of a Salesman. With Dustin Hoffman in it. I cried, WAY too much. (because how many Willy Loman's do you know, people who defer and defer the American Dream until it's too late? It's heartbreaking.) ANYWAY, I swore that I was not dealing with Miller again, but got tricked into this opera.
And I have to now eat my words, because it was stupendous. Yes, the music was not my favorite. Yes, I will never be a huge cheerleader for modern operas, but I have never witnessed a musical, play, or opera, that was as suspenseful as this one was. I didn't know the plot beforehand, which helped a lot. It was all crazy and Sicilian, with incest (not sure if that's as explicit in the play), and kiss of death and spitting, and having to defend your honor. Very mob-heavy, depressing yet interesting. As someone who find displays of machismo completely unattractive (in fact, the exact opposite of the men I usually am interested in), for some reason I have an odd fascination with the mob. It was a very good adaptation of the play, and some of the music was actually really good--an aria about New York, and the very dramatic crowd scene, in particular. It was sad that the theater was so empty--it's homecoming weekend and Halloween weekend, so that might help explain it, but I think people often don't want to give modern opera a chance. This opera opened my eyes to how good modern opera can be, so I'd definitely encourage people to check them out when they can!
A View From the Bridge is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where I don't think you can actually see the Brooklyn Bridge (slight problem with the title!) but still. Red Hook is an enigma. You can't get there by subway, so you have to take the bus. It's full of trendy-ish coffee places and dilapidated warehouses. It's the site of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and the only place in Brooklyn where you can see the Statue of Liberty head on. I worked in Red Hook for about six weeks, doing arguably the weirdest job I've ever had. I was scanning 1950's military plans from France, as well as preparing documents from doctors offices to get them ready to be scanned. So basically, I spent 8 hours a day at $10 an hour taking staples out of things and listening to NPR. One of my friends referred to this as my "Bartleby the Scrivener phase" and she was so not wrong. I also re-designed their website for a few days, and wrote copy for the owner's father's business, which was in personalizing things like golf-balls and leather satchels. Totally weird.
The best part about working in Red Hook was that there was a great grocery store across from my warehouse, so I would go over there and get a pecan roll to have after my lunch. I was working there through May and June, so it was just becoming warm, and I would go sit on the dock, my back on the warm brick building, eat my roll and look at Lady Liberty. At the end of the day, I'd take the bus to Borough Hall, and walk through downtown to my subway stop, passing the street vendors with their used books and wooden bracelets, the Bubble Man--who used bubble wands the size of my face to blow giant bubbles, the nurses and businesspeople, the deli where I used to grab a bagel sometimes, and the musicians outside Borough Hall. I miss that, sometimes.
Best song about Red Hook (I think) is Joey, by Bob Dylan, about Crazy Joe Gallo, mobster and murder-victim. The mob-culture of honor and respect is central to A View From the Bridge, and I think it was central to Red Hook at one time, too. Dylan's song ends after Joey has been shot down in Little Italy, and summarizes a lot of these themes well:
Tonight, I went and saw A View From the Bridge, which is what prompted these Brooklyn musings. I was not that excited about this opera going in, for two major reasons:
1. I am a snob and am not that fond of modern and/or English-language operas. This one was first written and performed in 1999, so it was quite new, and I had doubts. Things just don't *sound* as good in English. Which is biased, because if you were fluent in Italian, more traditional opera dialogue would be just as dumb, but in English it just seems so banal. "Eddie, what are you doing?" "You can never have her", etc. Of course, my favorite duet from The Marriage of Figaro is about two women writing a letter, but it's different because I don't *really* know what they are saying. Modern operas try really hard to be dissonant sometimes, too, so it's not something I'd want to listen to for fun.
2. A View From the Bridge was originally an Arthur Miller play, which was adapted into an opera. I can't handle Arthur Miller. I cry every time. We had to read The Crucible and Death of a Salesman in high school, and if that wasn't bad enough, in my sophomore year in college, I took an intro to sociology class with mandatory movies every Sunday night [most work I'd done up to that point, worst grade I ever got in college. One of the most important, wonderful classes I've every taken], and we had to watch Death of a Salesman. With Dustin Hoffman in it. I cried, WAY too much. (because how many Willy Loman's do you know, people who defer and defer the American Dream until it's too late? It's heartbreaking.) ANYWAY, I swore that I was not dealing with Miller again, but got tricked into this opera.
And I have to now eat my words, because it was stupendous. Yes, the music was not my favorite. Yes, I will never be a huge cheerleader for modern operas, but I have never witnessed a musical, play, or opera, that was as suspenseful as this one was. I didn't know the plot beforehand, which helped a lot. It was all crazy and Sicilian, with incest (not sure if that's as explicit in the play), and kiss of death and spitting, and having to defend your honor. Very mob-heavy, depressing yet interesting. As someone who find displays of machismo completely unattractive (in fact, the exact opposite of the men I usually am interested in), for some reason I have an odd fascination with the mob. It was a very good adaptation of the play, and some of the music was actually really good--an aria about New York, and the very dramatic crowd scene, in particular. It was sad that the theater was so empty--it's homecoming weekend and Halloween weekend, so that might help explain it, but I think people often don't want to give modern opera a chance. This opera opened my eyes to how good modern opera can be, so I'd definitely encourage people to check them out when they can!
A View From the Bridge is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where I don't think you can actually see the Brooklyn Bridge (slight problem with the title!) but still. Red Hook is an enigma. You can't get there by subway, so you have to take the bus. It's full of trendy-ish coffee places and dilapidated warehouses. It's the site of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and the only place in Brooklyn where you can see the Statue of Liberty head on. I worked in Red Hook for about six weeks, doing arguably the weirdest job I've ever had. I was scanning 1950's military plans from France, as well as preparing documents from doctors offices to get them ready to be scanned. So basically, I spent 8 hours a day at $10 an hour taking staples out of things and listening to NPR. One of my friends referred to this as my "Bartleby the Scrivener phase" and she was so not wrong. I also re-designed their website for a few days, and wrote copy for the owner's father's business, which was in personalizing things like golf-balls and leather satchels. Totally weird.
The best part about working in Red Hook was that there was a great grocery store across from my warehouse, so I would go over there and get a pecan roll to have after my lunch. I was working there through May and June, so it was just becoming warm, and I would go sit on the dock, my back on the warm brick building, eat my roll and look at Lady Liberty. At the end of the day, I'd take the bus to Borough Hall, and walk through downtown to my subway stop, passing the street vendors with their used books and wooden bracelets, the Bubble Man--who used bubble wands the size of my face to blow giant bubbles, the nurses and businesspeople, the deli where I used to grab a bagel sometimes, and the musicians outside Borough Hall. I miss that, sometimes.
Best song about Red Hook (I think) is Joey, by Bob Dylan, about Crazy Joe Gallo, mobster and murder-victim. The mob-culture of honor and respect is central to A View From the Bridge, and I think it was central to Red Hook at one time, too. Dylan's song ends after Joey has been shot down in Little Italy, and summarizes a lot of these themes well:
The sun turned cold over President Street and the town of Brooklyn mourned
They said a mass in the old church near the house where he was born
And someday if God’s in heaven overlookin’ His preserve
I know the men that shot him down will get what they deserve
Joey, Joey
King of the streets, child of clay
Joey, Joey
What made them want to come and blow you away?
Monday, 3 October 2011
Thus Do They All
I saw Così fan tutte [Thus do they all, or, Women are like that] two days ago. It's one of my favorite operas, not so much because of the plot, but more because of the sheer gorgeousness of the music--that Mozart knew what he was doing. I love any of the three Mozart-da Ponte collaborations, but in comparison to the others, the plot of Così is pretty sexist, and is actually rather thin. There is really not much action, although there is the usual requisite amount of cross-dressing, which is always a fun time.
Basically, it goes like this: two officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, are bet by their older (and wiser?) friend, Don Alfonso, that their fiancés are fickle, like all women, and would not be faithful to them if left to their own devices. The men reluctantly agree to try and scheme their fiancés to see if they will be unfaithful, so they go with Don Alfonso and tell the women, Dorabella and Fiordiligi (side note: is that not the greatest name ever??) that they have been called to war. Then, they double back, dressed as Albanians, and seduce the opposite one's fiancé, who, of course, succumbs. For what it's worth, Fiordiligi has a bit more moral fiber than her sister (and also some great arias), but eventually they both "cheat" on their fiancés, who are also cheating on THEM, if you think about it. At the end, the men reveal themselves, after a lot of clothes swapping and scheming from Don Alfonso and the tricksy maid Despina, who steals the show. They ultimately forgive each other, of course, and they go back to their original partners. Although--I think they should have stayed with the people they switched for. Actually, our production ended rather ambiguously, as they moved back to their original couplings, but seemed conflicted about it. It was an oddly uncomedic ending for an oddly comic work.
As I said, I'm not wild about the plot, but the music is so good that I don't really care. Listen here and here and here and here!! IU, as usual, did a wonderful job. I went with two friends, after a lovely Vietnamese meal. The Despina our night was fantastic, as was Ferrando in particular, although the entire cast was great. They updated the set to late 19th century Florida, and it worked quite well--it wasn't a drastic enough change to totally modify the mood of the opera as a whole. I cracked up inopportunely twice, the first time because one line was about "mustaches being feathers of love," which made us giggle, and the second because Dorabella was kissing Guglielmo, and my friend jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow and hissed "hussy," which also made me laugh. It is a funny opera in general though! Any downsides? The woman behind me coughed on my hair for the entire overture, and the plot made me think about something that I didn't really want to think about: my sexism.
I think the general sexism of this opera was more nagging this time because I have found myself being rather sexist lately, which is something that I am usually not. (Because being a feminist means that you think the sexes are equal, not that women are better than men.) Mostly this stems from the fact that my friends have not been having good luck with men lately. My general relationship prospectives are usually so non-existent that I don't really count in this, but there have been some really stupid moves made by some of the men that I interact with, especially in the way that some of my friends have been treated. So I have been finding myself dismissing all males in their mid-20s off-hand as egotistical, poisonous, and self-centered, or slackers who are looking for a meal ticket, or workaholic grad students who are too busy and/or dismissive to deal with their feelings (or lack thereof). This generalization is not fair. Some of my friends are in lovely relationships, and I have nothing to personally complain about. At the same time though, my gut reaction is to write off men my age as unreliable, fickle, and changeable, which is EXACTLY what Don Alfonso argued about women.
Not all men are fickle, and not all women are either. Perhaps that is the overall message to take from Così fan tutte. We're all just people, no better than each other, trying to pick our way through dating minefields, schoolwork, bills, and hormones, to find out about each other. Thus do we all. And best of luck to us.
To quote Regina Spektor, in her excellent song Ghost of Corporate Future:
"And people are just people,
They shouldn't make you nervous.
The world is everlasting,
It's coming and it's going.
If you don't toss your plastic,
The streets won't be so plastic.
And if you kiss somebody,
Then both of you'll get practice.
The world is everlasting
Put dirtballs in your pocket,
Put dirtballs in your pocket,
And take off both your shoes.
'Cause people are just people,
People are just people,
People are just people like you."
They shouldn't make you nervous.
The world is everlasting,
It's coming and it's going.
If you don't toss your plastic,
The streets won't be so plastic.
And if you kiss somebody,
Then both of you'll get practice.
The world is everlasting
Put dirtballs in your pocket,
Put dirtballs in your pocket,
And take off both your shoes.
'Cause people are just people,
People are just people,
People are just people like you."
Friday, 23 September 2011
Strange Fruit
The Lotus Festival is this weekend and I am going tomorrow--and will hopefully write more on that later! Lotus is a world music festival that is here every fall and everyone gets SUPER jazzed about it. I was sick last year and so slept through it, but I am really looking forward to checking out events tomorrow. (I'm also going to a big cat rescue center in the morning--like, with lions and lynxes and such. Tomorrow should be awesome.)
Anyway, as a precursor to Lotus there have been some events on campus, and today outside the Art Museum was a performance by an Australia group named Strange Fruit. Two friends and I ventured outside to watch, and they were so cool! It is three women and they do a performance art that is a combination of acrobatics, dance, and high-wire walking, all set to various types of classical music. It is hard to describe. They each have a 14 foot long flexible pole, which is affixed to the ground. They each shimmy up their pole, while wearing what look like bloomers, bustiers, and really elaborate hair styles. One had a Tower of Pisa shaped building balanced in her hair, and they all had a lot of gold and glittery eye make-up. Once they get to the top of the pole, they lock their legs into an apparatus so they stay put, and then pull up these hoop-skirts from the ground and put them on, so in the end they resemble bells. And then they spin and flop back and forth, sometimes in unison and sometimes not, and sometimes acting out scenes. Here is a video of what they did today, titled The Three Belles. Here is another video of the same program, but in a different setting.
It was such a surreal looking thing: three belles who look like...bells, floating through the air with seemingly no effort at all. All in front of our museum, with people milling around--older folk, little kids, students, etc. The sky was perfect, blue with puffy white clouds, and floating women. It was, actually, pretty magical.
My day could have used some magical, truth be told. I made a student cry by giving her (really, really gentle) criticism about the first draft of her paper. We *told* them to pick one thesis and stick with and she had six, so I told her she had to commit to one. Which then made her paper a lot shorter, so she started panicking and then started crying. I got on my kindest tone and told her that everything would be okay and that we could look at her object for awhile and come up with some ideas together. [their assignment is to analyze an "unknown" object visually and then hypothesize about its use. The objects are "unknown" because the professor lied about the dimensions and the materials so they really can't look anything up, and then he tells them the real purpose of the objects at the end of the semester. Rather sadistic, but actually a pretty nifty assignment.] Anyway, by the end of the meeting she had calmed down, but she was right at the beginning of my THREE AND A HALF HOURS of constant student paper meetings--seriously, I ran to the bathroom once and that was it. Although, rather nicely, one of my friends texted me in the midst of it and said, "I just walked by your office and saw you earnestly molding a young mind, you're so adorable" so that made me feel better about myself. Also, I missed a departmental luncheon while doing this, but was able to get some delicious leftovers from the secretary, who understands graduate students and our need for free food.
Then I went to the library for a few hours--with a Strange Fruit interlude--went to a really disappointing lecture about film, and then went to another departmental reception, where I got to talk to my friends, drink pinot grigio, and eat canapes. Also, relied crying story to my advisor, whose response was, "aw, your first crier! Congratulations! I really hate it when they do that." Then I came home, because ten hours on campus on a Friday is just a bummer. I video-chatted with my family which improved my day a hundredfold, and now am eating oreos, going to take a bubble bath, and curl up with a Nero Wolfe mystery (just started this series--verdict so far: delightful.) Bed before 10 on a Friday? Sounds good to me.
Will leave you with one last video: the goddess-like Billie Holliday singing the haunting Strange Fruit.
Anyway, as a precursor to Lotus there have been some events on campus, and today outside the Art Museum was a performance by an Australia group named Strange Fruit. Two friends and I ventured outside to watch, and they were so cool! It is three women and they do a performance art that is a combination of acrobatics, dance, and high-wire walking, all set to various types of classical music. It is hard to describe. They each have a 14 foot long flexible pole, which is affixed to the ground. They each shimmy up their pole, while wearing what look like bloomers, bustiers, and really elaborate hair styles. One had a Tower of Pisa shaped building balanced in her hair, and they all had a lot of gold and glittery eye make-up. Once they get to the top of the pole, they lock their legs into an apparatus so they stay put, and then pull up these hoop-skirts from the ground and put them on, so in the end they resemble bells. And then they spin and flop back and forth, sometimes in unison and sometimes not, and sometimes acting out scenes. Here is a video of what they did today, titled The Three Belles. Here is another video of the same program, but in a different setting.
It was such a surreal looking thing: three belles who look like...bells, floating through the air with seemingly no effort at all. All in front of our museum, with people milling around--older folk, little kids, students, etc. The sky was perfect, blue with puffy white clouds, and floating women. It was, actually, pretty magical.
My day could have used some magical, truth be told. I made a student cry by giving her (really, really gentle) criticism about the first draft of her paper. We *told* them to pick one thesis and stick with and she had six, so I told her she had to commit to one. Which then made her paper a lot shorter, so she started panicking and then started crying. I got on my kindest tone and told her that everything would be okay and that we could look at her object for awhile and come up with some ideas together. [their assignment is to analyze an "unknown" object visually and then hypothesize about its use. The objects are "unknown" because the professor lied about the dimensions and the materials so they really can't look anything up, and then he tells them the real purpose of the objects at the end of the semester. Rather sadistic, but actually a pretty nifty assignment.] Anyway, by the end of the meeting she had calmed down, but she was right at the beginning of my THREE AND A HALF HOURS of constant student paper meetings--seriously, I ran to the bathroom once and that was it. Although, rather nicely, one of my friends texted me in the midst of it and said, "I just walked by your office and saw you earnestly molding a young mind, you're so adorable" so that made me feel better about myself. Also, I missed a departmental luncheon while doing this, but was able to get some delicious leftovers from the secretary, who understands graduate students and our need for free food.
Then I went to the library for a few hours--with a Strange Fruit interlude--went to a really disappointing lecture about film, and then went to another departmental reception, where I got to talk to my friends, drink pinot grigio, and eat canapes. Also, relied crying story to my advisor, whose response was, "aw, your first crier! Congratulations! I really hate it when they do that." Then I came home, because ten hours on campus on a Friday is just a bummer. I video-chatted with my family which improved my day a hundredfold, and now am eating oreos, going to take a bubble bath, and curl up with a Nero Wolfe mystery (just started this series--verdict so far: delightful.) Bed before 10 on a Friday? Sounds good to me.
Will leave you with one last video: the goddess-like Billie Holliday singing the haunting Strange Fruit.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Veiled does not Equal Gagged
This event happened a little over a month ago, but it is something I've been thinking about since then. For the first time ever, I went to a mosque. As most of you know, I spent my summer taking intensive Arabic, and my professor, who is a practicing Muslim, invited us to go to a Friday service with him and his wife. It was during Ramadan, which is the Muslim holy month (usually corresponds to August, time-wise) and a large part of Ramadan is that you fast during daylight hours. I have never fasted for religious reasons (and there is a very good chance that I never will), but one point of fasting during Ramadan is to instill humility in the participant, so they think about people in the world who do not have food and who do not eat (or eat enough) on a daily basis. This is something that we, especially Americans, should really, really be more aware of, and I like that aspect of it.
During Ramadan, fast is broken at sundown with a dinner called iftar (which, if I remember correctly, means "breaking of the fast"). Many mosques will have community dinners, followed by the usual recitations of the Qur'an and prayer. Instead of going to the mosque in town, we went to the Islamic Society of North America's mosque/headquarters, which, for reasons that continue to baffle us all, is actually located in Plainfield, Indiana, about an hours drive from here. ISNA has a well-deserved reputation for being more open to non-Muslim visitors, which is a reputation that the mosque here does not have--also, the mosque in town is run by some old-school guys who still insist that women pray in a separate room (located in the basement). I would not have gone to a mosque with such a set-up, which is also the reason why my professor and many other people this community don't go there either. ISNA is much more egalitarian.
So we drove up and met up with some other people from my class and my professor and his wife (who are both so cool), and broke fast. I had pseudo-fasted that day, which (for me) meant not eating since breakfast, and as sunset is pretty late here in the summer (9 pm or so), it was nice to eat! The food was amazing, prepared by people who go to the mosque. There were many different rice dishes, some delicious curried eggs, salads, moussaka, kebabs, and dates and figs. Afterwards we had cups of chai tea and went upstairs to begin the prayers. I took two pictures when a classmate and I were poking around looking for a bathroom, so I was able to see the prayer hall without anyone in it, and it's a beautiful space. I study Catholic art and am aesthetically drawn to honkin' huge amounts of stained glass and gold and paintings, but those trappings do not feel overly spiritual to me. The relative simplicity of mosque art and architecture is a lot more soothing, and a lot more conducive to actually thinking about religion and reflecting on yourself.
This doesn't really do it justice, because there was a lovely portal and series of windows that you can't see, but this is the general view of the prayer space. The carpet is stripped so you know how to line up in rows (much like pews). As is common practice, men are up closer to the front and women are to the back. I totally understand that for women this might be a modesty concern (and frankly, I wouldn't want to have to bend and kneel in front of rows of men), so this arrangement does make sense to me.
This is the entrance area to the prayer hall, which is also clad in neutral colors and is a calming space--I think there was water in the center well, surrounded by plants. As you can sort of see, there are two carpet runners, one on the right and on the left. As you face the prayer hall, women enter on the left and men on the right. You line your shoes up against the wall, and then walk on your respective carpet in, stepping with your right foot first over the threshold. There were probably only 100 people at the service and the mosque can hold much more, so there was a lot of space in the middle, as the women stayed further back and to the left. There were 6 of us students (3 men and 3 women), so we split up and then sat against the back wall to observe. They start off with prayers, with a man (I'm not sure if imam is the right term, but it's usually an older, male member of the church) reciting. Since I didn't know the meaning of most of the words (especially when spoken so FAST), I could focus instead on the cadence of speech and the movement of people's bodies, which was very cool to see.
After the prayers, recitation of the Qur'an began. Our professor got us Qur'ans from one of the bookshelves and got us onto the right page. And I was actually able to follow along! Well, for the most part. At certain points you jump back to the first page and then pick up back where you left off, so once I figured out that rhythm, it went pretty well. We were there for about an hour (recitations would go on for another hour or so) and then we left. It's culturally very different in that you can congregate at the back of the prayer hall and talk, even while prayers are happening (as long as you're not right behind people praying) and the kids ran in and around the prayer hall and no one told them to knock it off (let me tell you, as someone who spent a lot of time in Lutheran churches as a child, that there is no running during services--least of all because the pews get in the way!)
All of this brings me to the title of this post: all of the women at the mosque were veiled, including me.
If you had asked me a few months ago what I thought about hijab or burqa I would have said something like, that it was a personal choice and that countries shouldn't regulate or force women to either not cover their heads (like France), or to cover their heads. I still stand by this assessment. One thing that is even more clear to me now is that judging people based on their religion alone is dangerous and stupid, and that judging a woman based on whether she decides to cover her hair (or not) is even more dangerous and stupid. There are plenty of reasons to veil, and plenty of reasons not to, and I do not think either decision makes a woman any less of a feminist. Case in point: my professor's wife, B., who follows hijab. She is also totally stylish, cool, young, smart, and hip. She's my age, and only recently decided to follow more strict guidelines about dress, not because anyone told her to--her parents are Syrian and pretty traditional, but didn't force veiling on their daughters, which is important. Yes, hijab is sometimes dictated by men (and that is where I start having problems with it), but a lot of times it has nothing to do with men at all. This is a concept that I think sometimes my friends/professors (ie liberal, secular, academics) have trouble reconciling, and I am certainly conflicted about it, too.
I took a really excellent class on women and religion in my senior year of college (taught by this blogger, actually) and we read a great book called Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, edited by Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur. One of my favorite parts, and one which has stuck with me throughout the years, was a long poem by Su'ad Abdul-Khabeer, titled "A Day in the Life". In it, she discusses the pressure for Muslim women to conform, both from traditionalist Muslims, and Westerners who want to "liberate" them. I'm going to quote from it now.
some of my sisters
are in combat
with ideas newly born
and words older than the world;
yet, to cover or not cover
Is not my battleground.
...
See, clothes do not hide the woman
They announce her.
...
When they only offer scarves
studded with restriction,
the rear masjid entrance,
and a stay-home free card.
Then,
I don't feel beautiful
and I am.
...
If you had asked me
I would have told you
I don't have any brothers,
My father rarely prays
and when he does
It is for my happiness
and my scarf
did not come with detachable weapons
nor dyed with subversive messages.
No.
My scarf
is about
Claiming space.
but you didn't ask.
...
There is a lot more, and I would encourage you all to check it out. And think about it. I have been.
During Ramadan, fast is broken at sundown with a dinner called iftar (which, if I remember correctly, means "breaking of the fast"). Many mosques will have community dinners, followed by the usual recitations of the Qur'an and prayer. Instead of going to the mosque in town, we went to the Islamic Society of North America's mosque/headquarters, which, for reasons that continue to baffle us all, is actually located in Plainfield, Indiana, about an hours drive from here. ISNA has a well-deserved reputation for being more open to non-Muslim visitors, which is a reputation that the mosque here does not have--also, the mosque in town is run by some old-school guys who still insist that women pray in a separate room (located in the basement). I would not have gone to a mosque with such a set-up, which is also the reason why my professor and many other people this community don't go there either. ISNA is much more egalitarian.
So we drove up and met up with some other people from my class and my professor and his wife (who are both so cool), and broke fast. I had pseudo-fasted that day, which (for me) meant not eating since breakfast, and as sunset is pretty late here in the summer (9 pm or so), it was nice to eat! The food was amazing, prepared by people who go to the mosque. There were many different rice dishes, some delicious curried eggs, salads, moussaka, kebabs, and dates and figs. Afterwards we had cups of chai tea and went upstairs to begin the prayers. I took two pictures when a classmate and I were poking around looking for a bathroom, so I was able to see the prayer hall without anyone in it, and it's a beautiful space. I study Catholic art and am aesthetically drawn to honkin' huge amounts of stained glass and gold and paintings, but those trappings do not feel overly spiritual to me. The relative simplicity of mosque art and architecture is a lot more soothing, and a lot more conducive to actually thinking about religion and reflecting on yourself.
This doesn't really do it justice, because there was a lovely portal and series of windows that you can't see, but this is the general view of the prayer space. The carpet is stripped so you know how to line up in rows (much like pews). As is common practice, men are up closer to the front and women are to the back. I totally understand that for women this might be a modesty concern (and frankly, I wouldn't want to have to bend and kneel in front of rows of men), so this arrangement does make sense to me.
This is the entrance area to the prayer hall, which is also clad in neutral colors and is a calming space--I think there was water in the center well, surrounded by plants. As you can sort of see, there are two carpet runners, one on the right and on the left. As you face the prayer hall, women enter on the left and men on the right. You line your shoes up against the wall, and then walk on your respective carpet in, stepping with your right foot first over the threshold. There were probably only 100 people at the service and the mosque can hold much more, so there was a lot of space in the middle, as the women stayed further back and to the left. There were 6 of us students (3 men and 3 women), so we split up and then sat against the back wall to observe. They start off with prayers, with a man (I'm not sure if imam is the right term, but it's usually an older, male member of the church) reciting. Since I didn't know the meaning of most of the words (especially when spoken so FAST), I could focus instead on the cadence of speech and the movement of people's bodies, which was very cool to see.After the prayers, recitation of the Qur'an began. Our professor got us Qur'ans from one of the bookshelves and got us onto the right page. And I was actually able to follow along! Well, for the most part. At certain points you jump back to the first page and then pick up back where you left off, so once I figured out that rhythm, it went pretty well. We were there for about an hour (recitations would go on for another hour or so) and then we left. It's culturally very different in that you can congregate at the back of the prayer hall and talk, even while prayers are happening (as long as you're not right behind people praying) and the kids ran in and around the prayer hall and no one told them to knock it off (let me tell you, as someone who spent a lot of time in Lutheran churches as a child, that there is no running during services--least of all because the pews get in the way!)
All of this brings me to the title of this post: all of the women at the mosque were veiled, including me.
If you had asked me a few months ago what I thought about hijab or burqa I would have said something like, that it was a personal choice and that countries shouldn't regulate or force women to either not cover their heads (like France), or to cover their heads. I still stand by this assessment. One thing that is even more clear to me now is that judging people based on their religion alone is dangerous and stupid, and that judging a woman based on whether she decides to cover her hair (or not) is even more dangerous and stupid. There are plenty of reasons to veil, and plenty of reasons not to, and I do not think either decision makes a woman any less of a feminist. Case in point: my professor's wife, B., who follows hijab. She is also totally stylish, cool, young, smart, and hip. She's my age, and only recently decided to follow more strict guidelines about dress, not because anyone told her to--her parents are Syrian and pretty traditional, but didn't force veiling on their daughters, which is important. Yes, hijab is sometimes dictated by men (and that is where I start having problems with it), but a lot of times it has nothing to do with men at all. This is a concept that I think sometimes my friends/professors (ie liberal, secular, academics) have trouble reconciling, and I am certainly conflicted about it, too.I took a really excellent class on women and religion in my senior year of college (taught by this blogger, actually) and we read a great book called Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, edited by Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur. One of my favorite parts, and one which has stuck with me throughout the years, was a long poem by Su'ad Abdul-Khabeer, titled "A Day in the Life". In it, she discusses the pressure for Muslim women to conform, both from traditionalist Muslims, and Westerners who want to "liberate" them. I'm going to quote from it now.
some of my sisters
are in combat
with ideas newly born
and words older than the world;
yet, to cover or not cover
Is not my battleground.
...
See, clothes do not hide the woman
They announce her.
...
When they only offer scarves
studded with restriction,
the rear masjid entrance,
and a stay-home free card.
Then,
I don't feel beautiful
and I am.
...
If you had asked me
I would have told you
I don't have any brothers,
My father rarely prays
and when he does
It is for my happiness
and my scarf
did not come with detachable weapons
nor dyed with subversive messages.
No.
My scarf
is about
Claiming space.
but you didn't ask.
...
There is a lot more, and I would encourage you all to check it out. And think about it. I have been.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Cultural Wanderings
So although my last few posts have been about class, there is a lot more going on. Even when I've been studying vocab (which is, like, all the time) I'm not by myself: for instance, the past two nights have been study-heavy since we have our first test tomorrow, but they also involved cooking dinner with friends, going for walks, eating ice cream, and watching Funny Face while we practiced spelling. (also, I can't get with Funny Face, although I'm glad I saw it. The plot is weird and feels super dated. Good dancing though!)
Anywho, more important than school (always, especially in the summer!) is fun and adventure. So on Thursday, we surprised a friend with tickets to see David Allan Coe for her birthday. I'm not big on country music in general, unless it is older and rock-based, ie Johnny Cash. Coe was actually quite good, too. He is a rebel/outlaw country singer with a whole bunch of tattoos (see below) and a whole bunch of raunchy stories (involving Willie Nelson among others) but he was very personable and really fun. I only knew one of the songs he sang, "Mama don't let your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys" but I think his most well known one is probably "You Never Even Called me by My Name," and it's a fun one too.
If you are wondering what the deal is with those beard pig-tails (as was I) he used to have long hair to match them, but then last year at a gig in Alabama someone threw a whiskey bottle at his head! During a show! And his head got cut and infected due to his hair dye, so he had to shave it. We were totally baffled by this--how did they get a bottle? (the bar we were in doesn't even let people have bottle caps on show nights, in case people flick them on stage) and why were they so angry that they felt the need to throw it? Questions, questions.
None of those beers are ours, by the way! And this is Coe's son (Tyler?) who was really, really good. His whole band was really talented, and his roadie has the most perfect curly-mullet that I've ever seen. The opening act was actually great, too--The Cox Brothers, a local band from Brown County. This is country I can appreciate! Also, my friends are super cute:
Then yesterday, two of us ventured to the Farmers Market (I got local honey, she got Thai basil) and an antique store where we fawned over old jewelery before meeting another friend for lunch. I've been making the rounds of the restaurants here, but I had never been to Roots, which has a prominent place on the square. It's vegetarian/vegan, and has outdoor seating which is always a plus (although we actually ate inside which is pretty too, a lot of wood and plants). I had a portobello-spinach melt with sweet potato fries and the "house juice". I'm a recent mushroom-convert, but this was nice as it was portobello strips on hearty wheat bread, so it wasn't soggy like some portobello sandwiches tend to be. Plus, put caramelized onions, spinach and melted cheese on a tin can and I would eat it. The "house juice" was like natural ginger ale plus limes. It would be especially refreshing if you had a cold! Then we booked it over to the Buskirk-Chumley to see...MY FAIR LADY.
My Fair Lady is arguably my favorite musical, but I've never seen it on stage before now. It was spectacular, I think because there are not many (any?) subpar songs in it, because it is funny, and most of all because the cast was tremendously good. The three leads--Eliza, Higgins, and Pickering--were not locals, but I believe everyone else was. The English accents were spot on (I'm always a bit worried about Americans doing English accents, as it could result in a Dick Van Dyke-Cockney Accent fiasco) but they were really very good here. This Higgins could actually sing, and sing well, which Rex Harrison (as wonderful as he was) didn't do as much. Since I was used to hearing Higgin's songs sort of spoken, sort of sung, this musicality was different, but equally good. Alfred P Doolittle, Eliza's gin-swilling father, was perfectly slapstick and weaselly, and his dance numbers were fun. The costumes were stellar--the hats! The dresses! Especially at Ascot. The three of us were so excited. I just rewatched a few clips of the movie and the stage version (as is often the case) feels freer, funnier, and less staged (pun intended!), maybe because no one was lip-synching. I still am so ambiguous about the ending, though. Are they friends? Should they be more than that? You really get a sense of Higgin's loss and bewilderment when he sings "Accustomed to Her Face" on stage--it was heartbreaking. I decided this time that she absolutely should not have married Freddy--he is too weak. But I think I'd rather have Eliza open a flower shop on her own, than be simply coupled with someone. For more on this production, see here and here. Oh, one more thing--the music was provided not by an orchestra, but by two grand pianos. And it worked really well!
Afterwards we were all giddy with sensory overload and sexy Freddy Eynsford-Hill singing "On the Street Where you Live" and we got chocolates next door to celebrate. Blu Boy Bakery actually connects through the theater, which is very convenient! I had a chocolate mudslide cookie--I don't know how they make them, but it is like a brownie in cookie form with chocolate chunks, but then there is also melty chocolate inside. One of my friends said she once put one of them in the fridge and it was STILL melty. Mysterious, but oh so good. Then we walked around campus in the late afternoon sun.
The agenda for today is less exciting--grocery shopping, studying and more studying, a few phone dates with good friends. But no matter how much I might tweak out about Arabic, let there be no doubt: I love this town!
Anywho, more important than school (always, especially in the summer!) is fun and adventure. So on Thursday, we surprised a friend with tickets to see David Allan Coe for her birthday. I'm not big on country music in general, unless it is older and rock-based, ie Johnny Cash. Coe was actually quite good, too. He is a rebel/outlaw country singer with a whole bunch of tattoos (see below) and a whole bunch of raunchy stories (involving Willie Nelson among others) but he was very personable and really fun. I only knew one of the songs he sang, "Mama don't let your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys" but I think his most well known one is probably "You Never Even Called me by My Name," and it's a fun one too.
If you are wondering what the deal is with those beard pig-tails (as was I) he used to have long hair to match them, but then last year at a gig in Alabama someone threw a whiskey bottle at his head! During a show! And his head got cut and infected due to his hair dye, so he had to shave it. We were totally baffled by this--how did they get a bottle? (the bar we were in doesn't even let people have bottle caps on show nights, in case people flick them on stage) and why were they so angry that they felt the need to throw it? Questions, questions.
None of those beers are ours, by the way! And this is Coe's son (Tyler?) who was really, really good. His whole band was really talented, and his roadie has the most perfect curly-mullet that I've ever seen. The opening act was actually great, too--The Cox Brothers, a local band from Brown County. This is country I can appreciate! Also, my friends are super cute:
Then yesterday, two of us ventured to the Farmers Market (I got local honey, she got Thai basil) and an antique store where we fawned over old jewelery before meeting another friend for lunch. I've been making the rounds of the restaurants here, but I had never been to Roots, which has a prominent place on the square. It's vegetarian/vegan, and has outdoor seating which is always a plus (although we actually ate inside which is pretty too, a lot of wood and plants). I had a portobello-spinach melt with sweet potato fries and the "house juice". I'm a recent mushroom-convert, but this was nice as it was portobello strips on hearty wheat bread, so it wasn't soggy like some portobello sandwiches tend to be. Plus, put caramelized onions, spinach and melted cheese on a tin can and I would eat it. The "house juice" was like natural ginger ale plus limes. It would be especially refreshing if you had a cold! Then we booked it over to the Buskirk-Chumley to see...MY FAIR LADY.
My Fair Lady is arguably my favorite musical, but I've never seen it on stage before now. It was spectacular, I think because there are not many (any?) subpar songs in it, because it is funny, and most of all because the cast was tremendously good. The three leads--Eliza, Higgins, and Pickering--were not locals, but I believe everyone else was. The English accents were spot on (I'm always a bit worried about Americans doing English accents, as it could result in a Dick Van Dyke-Cockney Accent fiasco) but they were really very good here. This Higgins could actually sing, and sing well, which Rex Harrison (as wonderful as he was) didn't do as much. Since I was used to hearing Higgin's songs sort of spoken, sort of sung, this musicality was different, but equally good. Alfred P Doolittle, Eliza's gin-swilling father, was perfectly slapstick and weaselly, and his dance numbers were fun. The costumes were stellar--the hats! The dresses! Especially at Ascot. The three of us were so excited. I just rewatched a few clips of the movie and the stage version (as is often the case) feels freer, funnier, and less staged (pun intended!), maybe because no one was lip-synching. I still am so ambiguous about the ending, though. Are they friends? Should they be more than that? You really get a sense of Higgin's loss and bewilderment when he sings "Accustomed to Her Face" on stage--it was heartbreaking. I decided this time that she absolutely should not have married Freddy--he is too weak. But I think I'd rather have Eliza open a flower shop on her own, than be simply coupled with someone. For more on this production, see here and here. Oh, one more thing--the music was provided not by an orchestra, but by two grand pianos. And it worked really well!
Afterwards we were all giddy with sensory overload and sexy Freddy Eynsford-Hill singing "On the Street Where you Live" and we got chocolates next door to celebrate. Blu Boy Bakery actually connects through the theater, which is very convenient! I had a chocolate mudslide cookie--I don't know how they make them, but it is like a brownie in cookie form with chocolate chunks, but then there is also melty chocolate inside. One of my friends said she once put one of them in the fridge and it was STILL melty. Mysterious, but oh so good. Then we walked around campus in the late afternoon sun.
The agenda for today is less exciting--grocery shopping, studying and more studying, a few phone dates with good friends. But no matter how much I might tweak out about Arabic, let there be no doubt: I love this town!
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Grrl Power
I've had three random cultural experiences lately that involve female empowerment in varied ways; some positive, and some not. Here are my thoughts on them:
1. Legally Blonde: The Musical
Now, before you scoff, I should say that I really like Legally Blonde the movie. (Not as much as Spiceworld, but not everything can be Spiceworld, I suppose.) It's funny and cute and Elle Woods is a smiley role model who makes it through Harvard Law and takes on her sexually harassing professor and wins her court case and gets her man! So when one of my friends suggested we go to the musical version to blow off some academic related steam, I said sure.
The first thing we noticed was that the audience was about 98% female and about 95% blonde. After we sat down in our balcony nosebleeds, my friend said she'd never smelled so much perfume in her life, and I would agree. Elle is a sorority girl, and these, I can hazard a guess without overgeneralizing, were her people. And they were excited to be there! Sorority culture is pretty foreign to me, as my undergrad didn't have them, nor, admittedly, would I have probably joined one if they did. But, apart from the (alleged?) cattiness and (alleged?) superficiality, I think anything that promotes female solidarity and sisterhood is probably a good thing.
Okay, so Legally Blonde is not amazing, musically, but so help me, some of those songs are CATCHY. It has numbers titled, for example, "Omigod You Guys", with lines like "they're just like that couple in Titanic/except no one dies." Aaand, that was stuck in my head for way longer than I care to admit. "Bend and Snap" lived up to it's expectations, and "Ireland" was actually pretty lovely. Plus, Paulette is the best.
(Yeah, that's a lotta pink. Thanks to alkpop for the image!)
2. A graphic novel about Isadora Duncan
This was the weirdest thing I've ever checked out of a library, I think. I was there to get another graphic novel, which wasn't there, so I just grabbed this graphic novel instead. I'd like to say that I liked it, but I didn't. So much of it was Duncan saying, "no one understands my art! I believe in truth and beauty! I'm so misunderstood!" Which was, I'm sure, true, but a little bit preachy. I did learn a lot, as the only thing I knew about Duncan before this was her untimely death, and she was actually a pretty cool lady. She was uncorseted at a time when women didn't do that, and she had multiple relationships and children with different fathers, and she didn't really care what people had to say about her. And she formed a school, which is still in existence. Duncan had success and lived in some amazing places (Paris, the French countryside, Moscow, Munich, Athens, New York, Chicago) but her story ultimately just made me feel vaguely depressed. The underlying message of this retelling of her story was that history was not kind to unconventional women. But oh my, could she dance.
(Thanks to Duncan Dancers for the images!)
3. Little Women: The Opera
I have, oddly enough, seen this opera twice. The first time was at Chautauqua, and mainly what I remember is that it was 9000 degrees in the balcony, and at one point my sister leaned over to me and whispered, "if Beth doesn't hurry up and DIE soon, I am going to get onstage and KILL HER MYSELF." Which kind of sums it up. The musicality of the Little Women I saw this past weekend was very good--especially Professor Bhaer, who had a nice aria about Goethe. So the singing was delightful, but I am not fond of the music itself, which meant that I couldn't really enjoy the opera as much. This is going to make me sound very stuck in my ways, but modern operas don't do it for me. This was composed in 1998, and it's too choppy for my tastes, although for that reason, the one aria that was a telegram actually worked pretty well.
At its core, Little Women is about sisterhood, about the four March sisters, and especially Jo, who doesn't want things to change. The point being, of course, that things must change, which eventually Jo realizes too (although it takes a LONG time, and a lot of whinging on her part..) I would imagine that it's physically a hard opera to sing. "Write Soon" was, to me, the best ensemble bit, and I did enjoy that.
Jo is a proto-feminist, a smart, savvy, independent writer. I don't remember if this is in the book (having last read it/had it read to me when I was about eight years old), but in the opera at least, Aunt March gives Jo her house in her will. And Jo turns it down, because there is more to life than "being surrounded by books and living in a house of stone" I would heartily agree, but as my life, currently, is being surrounded by books, it was a definite buzzkill on my mood.
(I thought Jo was my favorite, but it might be Meg. Thanks to Book Group Buzz for the image!)
And to close with the immortal movie, Spiceworld: "They're hot, Chief! They've got fire in their eyes, hunger in their bellies... and great big shoes on their feet!" Something, indeed, that Elle Woods could get behind.
1. Legally Blonde: The Musical
Now, before you scoff, I should say that I really like Legally Blonde the movie. (Not as much as Spiceworld, but not everything can be Spiceworld, I suppose.) It's funny and cute and Elle Woods is a smiley role model who makes it through Harvard Law and takes on her sexually harassing professor and wins her court case and gets her man! So when one of my friends suggested we go to the musical version to blow off some academic related steam, I said sure.
The first thing we noticed was that the audience was about 98% female and about 95% blonde. After we sat down in our balcony nosebleeds, my friend said she'd never smelled so much perfume in her life, and I would agree. Elle is a sorority girl, and these, I can hazard a guess without overgeneralizing, were her people. And they were excited to be there! Sorority culture is pretty foreign to me, as my undergrad didn't have them, nor, admittedly, would I have probably joined one if they did. But, apart from the (alleged?) cattiness and (alleged?) superficiality, I think anything that promotes female solidarity and sisterhood is probably a good thing.
Okay, so Legally Blonde is not amazing, musically, but so help me, some of those songs are CATCHY. It has numbers titled, for example, "Omigod You Guys", with lines like "they're just like that couple in Titanic/except no one dies." Aaand, that was stuck in my head for way longer than I care to admit. "Bend and Snap" lived up to it's expectations, and "Ireland" was actually pretty lovely. Plus, Paulette is the best.
(Yeah, that's a lotta pink. Thanks to alkpop for the image!)2. A graphic novel about Isadora Duncan
This was the weirdest thing I've ever checked out of a library, I think. I was there to get another graphic novel, which wasn't there, so I just grabbed this graphic novel instead. I'd like to say that I liked it, but I didn't. So much of it was Duncan saying, "no one understands my art! I believe in truth and beauty! I'm so misunderstood!" Which was, I'm sure, true, but a little bit preachy. I did learn a lot, as the only thing I knew about Duncan before this was her untimely death, and she was actually a pretty cool lady. She was uncorseted at a time when women didn't do that, and she had multiple relationships and children with different fathers, and she didn't really care what people had to say about her. And she formed a school, which is still in existence. Duncan had success and lived in some amazing places (Paris, the French countryside, Moscow, Munich, Athens, New York, Chicago) but her story ultimately just made me feel vaguely depressed. The underlying message of this retelling of her story was that history was not kind to unconventional women. But oh my, could she dance.
(Thanks to Duncan Dancers for the images!)
3. Little Women: The Opera
I have, oddly enough, seen this opera twice. The first time was at Chautauqua, and mainly what I remember is that it was 9000 degrees in the balcony, and at one point my sister leaned over to me and whispered, "if Beth doesn't hurry up and DIE soon, I am going to get onstage and KILL HER MYSELF." Which kind of sums it up. The musicality of the Little Women I saw this past weekend was very good--especially Professor Bhaer, who had a nice aria about Goethe. So the singing was delightful, but I am not fond of the music itself, which meant that I couldn't really enjoy the opera as much. This is going to make me sound very stuck in my ways, but modern operas don't do it for me. This was composed in 1998, and it's too choppy for my tastes, although for that reason, the one aria that was a telegram actually worked pretty well.
At its core, Little Women is about sisterhood, about the four March sisters, and especially Jo, who doesn't want things to change. The point being, of course, that things must change, which eventually Jo realizes too (although it takes a LONG time, and a lot of whinging on her part..) I would imagine that it's physically a hard opera to sing. "Write Soon" was, to me, the best ensemble bit, and I did enjoy that.
Jo is a proto-feminist, a smart, savvy, independent writer. I don't remember if this is in the book (having last read it/had it read to me when I was about eight years old), but in the opera at least, Aunt March gives Jo her house in her will. And Jo turns it down, because there is more to life than "being surrounded by books and living in a house of stone" I would heartily agree, but as my life, currently, is being surrounded by books, it was a definite buzzkill on my mood.
(I thought Jo was my favorite, but it might be Meg. Thanks to Book Group Buzz for the image!)And to close with the immortal movie, Spiceworld: "They're hot, Chief! They've got fire in their eyes, hunger in their bellies... and great big shoes on their feet!" Something, indeed, that Elle Woods could get behind.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
David Sedaris
I've never been big on book signings, but David Sedaris seems to be the exception to the rule. I wasn't planning on waiting around until the small hours of the morning to meet him, but that is what happened a few weeks ago, when he came to do a reading at the IU Auditorium.
Here is why I wanted to meet David Sedaris:
1. His books have actually made me laugh out loud, in public, and have been familiar things to read when I'm scared or stressed in a new place.
2. His reading of the Santaland Diaries for This American Life got me through working retail in NYC last year. I listened to it a freakish amount, and it always helped to remind me that it could be worse. I could be wearing an elf costume and getting yelled at, instead of just getting yelled at. Also, his rendition of Away in a Manger, sung like Billie Holiday, is gold.
3. He sums up how I feel about so many things, except in a way that is funnier than me. Sallie Mae, language classes, Dutch Christmas legends, the way Americans act in Paris, the importance of soap operas, his love songs to NYC, the manicness of his family--all of it.
4. One of my best friends from home wanted to come out for it and couldn't, and I wanted to have a good report back for her.
David Sedaris is one of those people who is funny in print, but even better when read aloud. I have never been in an auditorium where there was so much laughing, howling even. I was next to these two older women from South Bend, and they were both doubled over for most of the night. His writing can be raunchy and downright disturbing, but there is always a kernel of truth to it, that makes you think in the midst of all the absurdities. It sounds like a cliche, but parts of his stories make you laugh one line and then tear up the next. After hearing him read, I decided to buy his newest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, a sort of book of animal fables, which he calls a bestiary, because, as he put "fables tend to imply that there are morals involved, and I don't have any of those." (sidenote: this is a DARKLY funny book. I'm not sure what to make of it, although I did very much like it by the end. If you like DS, you would like it. If you normally don't, you would decidedly not.)
What is cool is that Sedaris tries out some of his newer material on the audience, and judging by their reaction, tweaks it or adds it to the book he is currently working on. The best part was his reading of excerpts from his diary. He edits at the podium, too--you can see him circling things or crossing them out or putting stars next to them, or he'll say things like, "oops, wrong placed apostrophe! Apologies."
So afterwards I joined many other people in line, which seemed to not go forward at all as the hours went by. The reason the line was taking so long is because Sedaris spends seriously 5 minutes with each person. And the line kind of turned into a big party--people were reading his books out loud, ordering pizza and sandwiches to the line, giggling about his police protection--who looked like identical twins, or lying down coats and taking a nap. People had taken the train in from Chicago, some had 8 am classes, the woman next to me was in town from Sarasota, and we all stayed. "He'll stay until he's met everyone," said the booksellers. I wasn't the end of the line, by a long shot, and I didn't get to meet him until 2 am.
My first impression was how TIRED he looked, with redrimmed eyes and the stubble start of a beard. At the reading, he'd mentioned that his flight had gotten canceled that morning, and I checked later and he was reading in Atlanta later that day. Book tours must be exhausting, all that hand shaking and forced cheerfulness. Except, with him, it WASN'T forced. I managed to tamp down my first inclination, which was to say, "god, you poor man, you look so tired." Instead, I said (very suavely! HA), "thank you for staying here so late. I'm glad you did."
"My pleasure," he said, with a smile. Then he asked some questions about me, and who the books were for, and we discussed lawnmowers (the inscription in mine says something about lawnmowers--don't ask), and then out of nowhere, he said, "are you here alone tonight?" (when I told this to the friend who so graciously picked me up, she gasped and said, "was he trying to SEDUCE YOU?!" I had to explain that's he's gay and been monogamously partnered for years.)
"I am," I replied. (I actually ended up having a seat near an acquaintance--neither of us knew beforehand that the other was going to be there--but like any normal person she had managed to snag him for a signing before the show, and was now presumably asleep.)
"Well!" Sedaris said, pulling a box out from under his chair. "Then I have something for you. Here are some business cards that say, 'Stop Talking' on them. You can hand them out to annoying people at movies, or people on their phones, whatever. And it's much more polite than saying 'Shut Up', or something."
"People on their cell phones are the worst, especially on the bus!!" I said. And then we had a nice little vent about why we dislike cell phones. And then we shook hands. I said goodbye to the people in line, and went home to read.
I said nothing witty or interesting, but I did make him laugh at one point, and was totally starstruck. And he was so nice. If you like his work and have a chance to see him, I would so recommend it.
For more on David Sedaris, if you are uninitiated, here is a bio. Check out here for some of his audio, including the Santaland Diaries. And here for a fairly comprehensive older interview. And finally, an abstract for his newest New Yorker article, and a past one on voting, since I just watched the NY gubernatorial debates (which were, by the way, as funny and heartbreaking as David Sedaris so often is.)
Here is why I wanted to meet David Sedaris:
1. His books have actually made me laugh out loud, in public, and have been familiar things to read when I'm scared or stressed in a new place.
2. His reading of the Santaland Diaries for This American Life got me through working retail in NYC last year. I listened to it a freakish amount, and it always helped to remind me that it could be worse. I could be wearing an elf costume and getting yelled at, instead of just getting yelled at. Also, his rendition of Away in a Manger, sung like Billie Holiday, is gold.
3. He sums up how I feel about so many things, except in a way that is funnier than me. Sallie Mae, language classes, Dutch Christmas legends, the way Americans act in Paris, the importance of soap operas, his love songs to NYC, the manicness of his family--all of it.
4. One of my best friends from home wanted to come out for it and couldn't, and I wanted to have a good report back for her.
David Sedaris is one of those people who is funny in print, but even better when read aloud. I have never been in an auditorium where there was so much laughing, howling even. I was next to these two older women from South Bend, and they were both doubled over for most of the night. His writing can be raunchy and downright disturbing, but there is always a kernel of truth to it, that makes you think in the midst of all the absurdities. It sounds like a cliche, but parts of his stories make you laugh one line and then tear up the next. After hearing him read, I decided to buy his newest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, a sort of book of animal fables, which he calls a bestiary, because, as he put "fables tend to imply that there are morals involved, and I don't have any of those." (sidenote: this is a DARKLY funny book. I'm not sure what to make of it, although I did very much like it by the end. If you like DS, you would like it. If you normally don't, you would decidedly not.)
What is cool is that Sedaris tries out some of his newer material on the audience, and judging by their reaction, tweaks it or adds it to the book he is currently working on. The best part was his reading of excerpts from his diary. He edits at the podium, too--you can see him circling things or crossing them out or putting stars next to them, or he'll say things like, "oops, wrong placed apostrophe! Apologies."
So afterwards I joined many other people in line, which seemed to not go forward at all as the hours went by. The reason the line was taking so long is because Sedaris spends seriously 5 minutes with each person. And the line kind of turned into a big party--people were reading his books out loud, ordering pizza and sandwiches to the line, giggling about his police protection--who looked like identical twins, or lying down coats and taking a nap. People had taken the train in from Chicago, some had 8 am classes, the woman next to me was in town from Sarasota, and we all stayed. "He'll stay until he's met everyone," said the booksellers. I wasn't the end of the line, by a long shot, and I didn't get to meet him until 2 am.
My first impression was how TIRED he looked, with redrimmed eyes and the stubble start of a beard. At the reading, he'd mentioned that his flight had gotten canceled that morning, and I checked later and he was reading in Atlanta later that day. Book tours must be exhausting, all that hand shaking and forced cheerfulness. Except, with him, it WASN'T forced. I managed to tamp down my first inclination, which was to say, "god, you poor man, you look so tired." Instead, I said (very suavely! HA), "thank you for staying here so late. I'm glad you did."
"My pleasure," he said, with a smile. Then he asked some questions about me, and who the books were for, and we discussed lawnmowers (the inscription in mine says something about lawnmowers--don't ask), and then out of nowhere, he said, "are you here alone tonight?" (when I told this to the friend who so graciously picked me up, she gasped and said, "was he trying to SEDUCE YOU?!" I had to explain that's he's gay and been monogamously partnered for years.)
"I am," I replied. (I actually ended up having a seat near an acquaintance--neither of us knew beforehand that the other was going to be there--but like any normal person she had managed to snag him for a signing before the show, and was now presumably asleep.)
"Well!" Sedaris said, pulling a box out from under his chair. "Then I have something for you. Here are some business cards that say, 'Stop Talking' on them. You can hand them out to annoying people at movies, or people on their phones, whatever. And it's much more polite than saying 'Shut Up', or something."
"People on their cell phones are the worst, especially on the bus!!" I said. And then we had a nice little vent about why we dislike cell phones. And then we shook hands. I said goodbye to the people in line, and went home to read.
I said nothing witty or interesting, but I did make him laugh at one point, and was totally starstruck. And he was so nice. If you like his work and have a chance to see him, I would so recommend it.
For more on David Sedaris, if you are uninitiated, here is a bio. Check out here for some of his audio, including the Santaland Diaries. And here for a fairly comprehensive older interview. And finally, an abstract for his newest New Yorker article, and a past one on voting, since I just watched the NY gubernatorial debates (which were, by the way, as funny and heartbreaking as David Sedaris so often is.)
Saturday, 2 October 2010
Il Barbiere di Siviglia
I like opera (love opera, if we're talkin' Mozart) and I especially like operas where there is a lot of cross-dressing and espionage and mistaken identity and gratuitous silliness. So even though I had never seen The Barber of Seville (or Il Barbiere di Siviglia, if you prefer) before last night, I knew that I would probably enjoy it. And I did!
(ok, technically that is the Rabbit of Seville, which you can watch here. I've had Bugs Bunny's version stuck in my head all. day. Thanks to filmsnobbery.com for the image!)
On my third day of orientation, I decided it would be a good idea to buy season opera and ballet tickets, because 1. if I waited I would make up excuses (cost, busy-ness) not to do it, 2. as aforementioned, I like opera, and 3. it's cool that there are actually operas here. The Jacobs School of Music is a conservatory (a thumping good one, it turns out) which is a part of IU, and they put on six operas a year, as well as three ballets. Tickets for all of these costs less than one ticket for a not very good seat at the Met. It turns out that one of my sister students likes opera too, so we went to dinner and then headed over. Dinner, by the way, at El Norteno on Walnut--decently priced, fast service, tasty enchiladas, complimentary chips, cold beer. Also, there is a large stained glass window that takes up almost the whole back wall of the restaurant. Lovely.
(thanks to the Jacobs School for the image. You can see, sort of, the rather nice Calder sculpture at the left.)
The theater itself is very modern looking with a purple and orange (!!) color scheme with white, bubble-like boxes. For whatever reason, it works surprisingly well. And the opera! I honestly thought the singing was comparable to ones I've seen at the Met, and probably a little bit better than Chautauqua. The orchestra had a few problems--there were certain points when they were just slightly behind (or ahead) of the singers. There is one point where about 8 people are singing at once, at slightly different tempos, and the orchestra had a little problem with that. But overall, it was great. I don't think the music is that glorious, but the famous Figaro aria (you know: Figaro Figaro Fiiiiiggggaaaarrrooo la la la la la, that one) is pretty darn cool. And he sang it while hopping on and off a bed, which is also cool. (for another version, check this out.) I was initially underwhelmed by Almaviva, mainly because his wig looked too much like a mullet, but he turned out to be very good. I think Dr Bartolo totally stole the show though--he was a perfect mix of pompous and vulnerable.
What was also great was that no one booed. This seems like an odd thing to say, but people at the Met do. Boo, I mean. I told my friend this, and she responded, "Sweet Jesus, what do they think it is, a Roman Colosseum?" I can't explain it. It does crack me up that something so "high brow" has such a "low brow" side to it, although it's also infuriating at the same time. I have never been to an opera at the Met where the people around me were not complaining about something. Granted, the man behind us last night was pretty grumpy because they turned the end of Act 1 into something sort of surrealist, but by and large people were happy, and STAYED UNTIL THE END OF THE CURTAIN CALLS. It was very refreshing.
Oh, one more thing--the sets were phenomenal. It was a rotating stage that switched from outside Bartolo's house, to Figaro's house, to the inside of Bartolo's house, which had all these rotating panels and the like. It worked very well.
The Jacobs School of Music, I just learned while looking up images, streams some of the operas LIVE, and also has videos of past performances and podcasts, all on their homepage. It is set up really well, so do check that out. And because Bugs Bunny isn't silly enough, here are the King's Singers doing the overture, a'capella style.
(ok, technically that is the Rabbit of Seville, which you can watch here. I've had Bugs Bunny's version stuck in my head all. day. Thanks to filmsnobbery.com for the image!)On my third day of orientation, I decided it would be a good idea to buy season opera and ballet tickets, because 1. if I waited I would make up excuses (cost, busy-ness) not to do it, 2. as aforementioned, I like opera, and 3. it's cool that there are actually operas here. The Jacobs School of Music is a conservatory (a thumping good one, it turns out) which is a part of IU, and they put on six operas a year, as well as three ballets. Tickets for all of these costs less than one ticket for a not very good seat at the Met. It turns out that one of my sister students likes opera too, so we went to dinner and then headed over. Dinner, by the way, at El Norteno on Walnut--decently priced, fast service, tasty enchiladas, complimentary chips, cold beer. Also, there is a large stained glass window that takes up almost the whole back wall of the restaurant. Lovely.
(thanks to the Jacobs School for the image. You can see, sort of, the rather nice Calder sculpture at the left.)The theater itself is very modern looking with a purple and orange (!!) color scheme with white, bubble-like boxes. For whatever reason, it works surprisingly well. And the opera! I honestly thought the singing was comparable to ones I've seen at the Met, and probably a little bit better than Chautauqua. The orchestra had a few problems--there were certain points when they were just slightly behind (or ahead) of the singers. There is one point where about 8 people are singing at once, at slightly different tempos, and the orchestra had a little problem with that. But overall, it was great. I don't think the music is that glorious, but the famous Figaro aria (you know: Figaro Figaro Fiiiiiggggaaaarrrooo la la la la la, that one) is pretty darn cool. And he sang it while hopping on and off a bed, which is also cool. (for another version, check this out.) I was initially underwhelmed by Almaviva, mainly because his wig looked too much like a mullet, but he turned out to be very good. I think Dr Bartolo totally stole the show though--he was a perfect mix of pompous and vulnerable.
What was also great was that no one booed. This seems like an odd thing to say, but people at the Met do. Boo, I mean. I told my friend this, and she responded, "Sweet Jesus, what do they think it is, a Roman Colosseum?" I can't explain it. It does crack me up that something so "high brow" has such a "low brow" side to it, although it's also infuriating at the same time. I have never been to an opera at the Met where the people around me were not complaining about something. Granted, the man behind us last night was pretty grumpy because they turned the end of Act 1 into something sort of surrealist, but by and large people were happy, and STAYED UNTIL THE END OF THE CURTAIN CALLS. It was very refreshing.
Oh, one more thing--the sets were phenomenal. It was a rotating stage that switched from outside Bartolo's house, to Figaro's house, to the inside of Bartolo's house, which had all these rotating panels and the like. It worked very well.
The Jacobs School of Music, I just learned while looking up images, streams some of the operas LIVE, and also has videos of past performances and podcasts, all on their homepage. It is set up really well, so do check that out. And because Bugs Bunny isn't silly enough, here are the King's Singers doing the overture, a'capella style.
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