Giving Thanks, Day 9

Parking the car in the sun, eating J Dawgs, and listening to John Cage & Lou Harrison with Rob. That's a feast.

Giving Thanks, Day 2

Another list.

• a new recipe for a Dutch baby (apple)
• sitting in the sun by the lake and writing the opening of a new story
• hot water (Mary, you are so, so right!)
• moving furniture
• laying plans to pass on Big Pink to a friend who has the crappiest couch in town
• Simple Green + microfiber cloths
• listening to an enlightening interview with Dr. John Gray
• wearing Rob's sweater
• not watching Kung Fu Panda
• being raised by people who loved to give
• Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor
• finally locating a sweet spot in the house where we can play records on the German Telefunken without our steps causing the needle to skip across the vinyl
• take-out bean and cheese pupusas + that magical pickled cabbage-jalapeño stuff
• KUER's nighttime jazz
• swapping love letters
• more Mexican chocolate brownies
• cold, clean night air
• feeling well enough to attend teacher training
• being taught a new way to deepen gratitude: Each day, write down three things you're thankful for... and then ask yourself, "Why/how did they happen?" 

More cowbell

I find this video udderly moo-ving. (I know. Ouch.) But seriously, who's wants to go with me to make music in France? We'll be outstanding in our field!

Life can be so utterly likable sometimes

Beauties of the day—

• Soon after I crawled out of bed feeling unwell, I turned on the radio just in time to hear the single most nightmarishly wonderful glitch ever uttered by a young female announcer. The fact that she misread breaking news about the world's largest living organism on KBYU-FM, of all stations, only added to my hilarity. I laughed myself simultaneously sick and well and felt much better for the ab work. Poor girl. She managed to mostly keep her composure long enough to finish her report, but I could tell she was about to choke. I imagine when she was finally off the air she probably burst out laughing and then threw up. 
• Today was Day 1 for me of my 21-Day Meditation Challenge from the Chopra Center. It was a good 12 minutes. Care to join me? (Thanks for telling me about this challenge, Robin.) 
• I enjoyed a brief but fun Facebook exchange with one of my favorite people on this planet. (Do you know who you are? I do, at least.)
• I wrote a four-page stream-of-consciousness letter in one sitting. With my bright orange Aurora fountain pen.
• Lovely, funny, generous Charla came to visit on Leland's Flying Pigeon and brought us a great big bag of freshly-harvested salad greens. 
• It was finally chilly enough tonight to wear my best old sweater when I went out for a walk with Rob (which deserves a bullet point all its own, really).
• We picked perfectly crisp sweet apples from a neglected neighborhood tree and brought home enough for apple crisp tomorrow (if we can stop eating them tonight).
• Rob ordered The Book of Imaginary Beings and it arrived today. I can't wait to read it!
• Oh, and I nearly forgot—I discovered this beautiful quote:"If you hear a voice within you saying, You are not a painter, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced." —Vincent Van Gogh

Yes, You May (part 4)

Last installment!

The dress-up direction I received from Justin in preparation for the 30 Strangers shoot was (and I'm paraphrasing him very loosely here): Dress dark and come as you are, unless you're a slob. Fair enough. I went a-thrifting to see what sort of new-to-me black beauty of a top I could hunt up that would work with jeans. I figured if I couldn't have my mom there with me too, I could at least carry on her indigo legacy. Symbols—I like them. What I found instead of the perfect shirt was the perfect dress, retro J. Peterman, in mint condition. Eight bucks. And just right as an expression of the classic style handed down to me by my mother and her mother—one I love but often lay aside. Finding that piece of them felt like a particular blessing. And the dress paired well with the shiny red slingback pumps I'd picked up for I think six bucks during an earlier second-hand spree. I bought those shoes with two special people in mind—my darling vivacious gram, known throughout her life as Lady Bug, and my dear friend Caitlin, who once convinced me that every woman needs a pair of red shoes. The shoot was my first time wearing them. A red bracelet my mother bought for me years ago and enough red lipstick to last me a week completed my simple ensemble, and then it was, "Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup." Well, more or less. Mum told me as we drove to the studio that she got married in red slingback pumps. That's a nice connection.

On the way to our appointment, I revealed a secret to Mum, one that went right along with the generational theme of the day. Now I'm ready to tell it to you too, the nutshell version. On Wednesday of this week, Rob and I will go to an adoption orientation and intake meeting with LDS Family Services. We are laying down real money. Non-refundable money, even. Who knows if anyone will choose us as adoptive parents, but we are determinedly heading down that road of searching. I feel very emotional when I think of it. Inspired. And absolutely terrified. I'm forty-what? (Don't answer that.) And I know how much? Next to nothing? I guess we'll find out if the opportunity presents herself or himself. Anyway, you are all very cordially invited to celebrate the  strange and wonderful step we're taking on Cinco de Mayo 2010. Wherever you are, if you'll include us in your prayers and/or thoughts, and if you'll eat some beans and rice and dance a little salsa in solidarity that day, we will be much obliged.

I still sometimes can't believe I'm saying and doing these things. That we are, Rob and I. It's so surreal.

Isn't life one surprise after another?

So, here we are, finally at Hackworth Photography ready to shoot some photos. Mum and I creep up the stairs and slip into Justin's office and... well, he is just lovely, as I knew he would be. So gracious and engaging. There was nothing forced or difficult or irredeemably awkward about the experience. Justin put the two of us as much at ease as two camera-phobes can get, I believe. I can truthfully say that I had fun, in spite of myself. Plus Mum struck me as just so beautiful, and it touched me to get to do this with her.

But this is the thing I most want to say about Justin—and whether he meant to do this or not probably doesn't matter—he shot my bad side. I mean after he'd been snapping us a while in different positions both together and apart, he sat me down in a chair and aimed that camera right at my beaky half. Do you have a good side that you try to position to face the world? If you do then maybe you know what I'm talking about. It's funny, but if you check out my nose from the left the line of it is clearly my dad's, and not bad at all. I look more like my idea of myself from the left. It's the side on which I part my hair and open my face to view. Check out that same nose and same face from the right, and it's my gram's nose, completely different, a stranger's profile. How can the two sides be or at least feel so different? No one thinks about it but me, I know that. And that's why I imagine Justin didn't consciously make a choice about good side/bad side. He merely shot the side that showed when he sat me down in a chair by the window. I felt my anxiety rise immediately—Oh, don't shoot her! She's the stranger, and she's got a wonky nose! I even laughed out a mild protest, but Justin paid it no mind and kept on shooting. Good for him. And I let him. Good for me. For that hour and a half that he and Mum and I worked together, I let him shoot into my bad side all he wanted. I let him really look at me, and approve of me, and I looked back at him, through his lens.

It was an oddly liberating experience. Something akin to surrender on my part, but a positive kind of surrender. It reminded me of the time, years ago, when my then-boyfriend's sister paid for the two of us to attend an Impact Training course. In those meetings we did a lot of things which took us beyond our comfort zones, but one evening especially made me cringe. That was the time I was assigned to sing a solo in front of the entire class of strangers (except for my boyfriend, of course), a capella. The National Anthem. For me at the time, it may as well have been a command to parade naked down Center Street, I dreaded it that much. I clearly remember though the way I felt once I began to sing, not as melodically as I wished, but not as monstrously as, say, Animal from The Muppet Show. Something began to happen inside me, likely the thing my boyfriend's sister paid too much money to have happen: certain fears shrank in size, leaving space for feeling brave and beautiful.

I suppose I'm actually offering kudos to two people. First, to Justin, for being the sort of interested observer and sensitive responder who subtly encourages his subjects to allow themselves to simply be beautiful. Second, to myself, for permitting someone—a stranger at the outset—to get close enough to take a long analytical look at me, then get closer still by peering into and capturing my foreign, so-called bad side. Somehow my "sides" don't feel as divided after that experience. On May Day, when Rob and I went out for a drizzly afternoon walk by the river, we snapped a few pictures of us together, and I felt a greater sense of ease with just being, and just smiling.

I wonder if any of this sounds sensible to anyone other than me, or if it reads rather like an endless flurry of narcissism. Can't worry over that too much; it is what it is. And part of what it is, is a metaphor for the rest of my life. I love patterns, and here I have a nice personal one to consider: Let go of fear, and beauty naturally increases.

After the shoot, I went to sleep that night and dreamed till morning that I was painting one canvas after another—large, loose, creative, vibrant, saturated images. Hour after hour I painted. I can't clearly recall now any specific subjects; I only remember all the wonderful color.

I felt so ready for May Day this year. I woke up with the words "beauty" and "joy" flying, untethered, in my mind. I felt ready to claim my queendom again.

And this is where I stop. I think I won't write any more serial posts for a while. Back to bullet lists for me, maybe.

Gob(stopper)smacked!

Never mind the snow; it's a golden day.
April 30th is the new October 1st.
Hackworth is the new Wonka.

Comb your hair! Wash your face! Polish your shoes!

The Glass Menagerie: A Must-See!

It was my happy privilege to be invited to attend the opening night performance of Mortal Fools Theatre Project’s The Glass Menagerie. This was my second experience with these Mortals, who are anything but foolish. Their (pardon the pun) killer production of Frankenstein last October drew at least one hearty Halloween scream from me as I piped up with the little girls on the front row—this from the member of the audience perhaps least disposed to shouting in public. And it felt good. 

So. The Mortals have done it again—they’ve delighted me. Only this time I wasn’t gripped by fear as I watched them do their thing—oh, no. With The Glass Menagerie they presented relationship dynamics as familiar to me as, well, my next of kin. It’s true, I may have groaned here and there, but only in empathy. Only in love and frustration and solidarity. I laughed too, for the same reasons.

It’s an interesting thing to see a play I’ve loved for more than half my life (and if you don’t know how many years that represents, good for me). It’s an interesting thing to have read this Tennessee Williams’ classic, one of my favorites, and learned it so well I could even now almost say the lines right along with the characters. I’ve seen this drama repeatedly played out on the stage of my own imagination. I’ve watched the screen version, starring Katharine Hepburn (if you haven’t, you should). It’s been a few years since my last encounter with the Wingfields and their Gentleman Caller. Maybe it was because I collected a smidgen or two of understanding during that time, or maybe it was simply the gift of seeing old friends portrayed by new ones, but this go-round with the Menagerie yielded me some new insights. It should have been obvious to me before, but finally I see it clearly: I lived this play! Or significant parts of it anyhow. And I have witnessed family members living it too. 

Now, before you get all scaredy that I’m going to reveal too much information and veer off into reviewing my life instead of this play, relax. I’ll go no farther than to say that I could kiss these Mortals, truly, for bringing me something new and sweet (though at times quite bitterly so) and showing me something important about my own history. I went to this inspired production, which was skillfully directed by the talented David Morgan, expecting to enjoy it but expecting also to know it. That’ll teach me to take a Fool for granted. There’s always something fresh to learn from a story, no matter how often you’ve heard it. There’s always the chance that some mystery of memory will be at last liberated. Perhaps that’s one reason the Amanda Wingfields of our lives rehearse the same words in our ears again and again: to give us chance after chance to get it. If that’s not a conscious motive, nevertheless it’s an effective one. Or can be.

The Provo Theater is a fitting venue for this production. The stage and seating there are intimate—that is to say, small. The limited space proves no obstacle for David Morgan but rather is an asset, underscoring the close atmosphere and giving the audience the feeling they are near enough to knock over Laura Wingfield’s precious miniatures with no more than a breath. The entire play takes place in a single room with its adjoining fire escape and landing. There are never rearrangements of the set, only once the addition of a few fancies—doilies, a candelabra, a floor lamp—intended to catch a man, or a fantasy. Nat Reed’s inventive set design, with its sloping floor, artfully conveys the emotional imbalance of the family and deftly aims all attention toward the symbol of Laura’s fragile inner life: her glass figurine collection. Spider web-construction walls (which also resemble broken glass) provide a visual representation of the Wingfields’ collective entrapment by the hard realities they each seek in vain to escape. 

I give the Mortal Fools good marks for engaging musical choices (Amy Cloud), imaginative lighting (Josh Gubler), some effective costuming (Landen Gates), and blocking. I applaud the casting; these actors are fluent in the emotional language of Williams and play their roles true to his spirit. The four actors work well together and each delivers a strong performance—certainly no single person carries this show. That said, Karen Baird as Amanda is brilliant. Perhaps it’s because she brings to life the spiritual twin of my late grandmother, another high-octane Dixie belle whose hope sprang eternal in gentlemen callers, but I find her delightful, even in her dogged delusions and mad mothering. I appreciate the underlying sweetness Baird brought to her role; I never liked Mrs. Wingfield before as well as I do in this performance. Her moments at center stage, delivering reminiscent monologues with dancing eyes cast heavenward, are terrific. Another inspiration was the choice to cast Stephanie Breinholt Foster as Laura. Stephanie has real presence; she is never diminutive or vanishing, though her character would wish to become invisible. Thank you, David Morgan, for not taking the easy way out and choosing a mere slip of a girl to play the part. Maybe no slips showed up for audition. Lucky us. Stephanie gives “Blue Roses” substance and possibility, though we know it will never be realized. Her romantic scene with the Gentleman Caller, played by Daryl Ball, is one of the best in the production, and well-played by both; their energy together is excellent. Reese Phillip Purser does some good work as narrator who, attempting detachment, wanders among us as he tells his tale, and again as the tortured character who comprehends his trap but never achieves more than the pretense of actual escape. 

The only real criticisms I have are small indeed, and certainly nothing that should prevent you from buying tickets right away. They are mere distractions, and do bear in mind that this reviewer is generally of the distracted persuasion anyhow: the southern accents (for which I have an ear, having been raised on a Rural Route in the Bible Belt) aren’t quite . . . there yet, at least they don’t feel strong, and I missed the deliciousness of a good drawl. Granted, it’s tough to acquire a genuine Southern accent when you aren’t raised with one (and tough to lose it when you are). Costuming, as I mentioned before, is overall good, however, my date and I may have had some nits to pick with Amanda’s resurrected party dress (a little too homely?) and with the Gentleman Caller’s suit (a little too modern?). These are, perhaps, details which would undoubtedly be helped by generous patronage and by more people buying tickets to shows and providing the costumers with more resources to work with; after all, y’all, vintage suits ain’t cheap. 

The last two items get their own paragraph because of their almost hypnotic power of distraction: during the one slight scene change I mentioned earlier, the stage manager who set out the celebratory doiles and tablecloth, etc., did so in a way that did not agree with the character of Amanda Wingfield; believe me, because I lived with her, she would not have left those frills askew, especially if there was a man on the line. That one tiny detail bothered me so much that I could barely suppress the urge to slip up onto the darkened stage and straighten the fancies, just so Amanda wouldn’t lose her mind. Finally, there were a couple times when there were side conversations happening, just natural “business” of the play, which took away too much attention from the main scripted dialogue. The stage is too close and too small to support that kind of ad libbing. I would suggest that in future the characters mouth or at least whisper those lines instead of actually speaking them aloud, however quietly.

If you haven’t already made plans to see Mortal Fools Theatre Project’s practically perfect production of The Glass Menagerie, then you must hurry. This show plays at 7:30 p.m. Mon/Thu/Fri/Sat through March 27th. If I have anything to do with it, this run will soon be sold out to delighted and enlightened audiences. The best theater in town is happening this month at the corner of 100 East and 100 North! Congratulations to David Morgan, Mark Bell, and the rest of the staff and cast on a beautiful production, and thanks for giving me such wonderful hope for the future of Provo theater. And thanks too for the free tickets!

A Reviewer is Born

VERY excited about this production.

In fact, I'm SO excited about it that I am stealing a night away from this insanely busy week to which I swore I wouldn't add another calendar item, and I am going to SEE this production opening weekend and REVIEW it here like I know what I'm talking about, and I'm not going to regret any sleep I have to lose to make up for those happily-anticipated hours in the theater.

Why?

Because The Glass Menagerie was the first play I can remember reading and falling in love with. Before Harold Pinter, before Sam Shepherd, before David Mamet, it was Tennessee Williams for me.

Also, because I find myself in deep smit with Mortal Fool Theater Project. And I can hardly wait to see what they do with this classic. Their production of Frankenstein was so much fun last year.

Oh, and one last reason: I'd like to get in for free. Wouldn't you? (You should pledge a review as well and see if you get lucky.)

P.S. Hi. I'm back.

The seven wonders of the week

1—A reader's digestive 

I hope to live long enough to devour Arthur Henry King's "Reading List for a Lifetime."

• The Standard Works (the scriptures)
• Homer, "The Iliad" (translator Richmond A. Lattimore), "The Odyssey" (translator Emile V. Rieu)
• "The Bhagavad-Gita" (The Song of God) (translator Christopher Isherwood)
• Aeschylus, "Aeschylus I -- Oresteia" (translator Richmond A. Lattimore)
• Sophocles, "The Oedipus Cycle" (translators Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)
• Plato, "Phaedo," "The Republic"
• Euripides, "Euripides One" (translator Richmond A. Lattimore)
• Herodotus, "The Persian Wars" (translator George Rawlinson)
• Virgil, "The Aeneid" (translator John Dryden or Robert Fitzgerald)
• Livy, "The Early History of Rome"
• Josephus, "The Jewish War"
• Plutarch, "Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans" and "Lives of the Noble Romans" (editor Edmund Fuller)
• Eusebius, "The Essential Eusebius"
• Augustine, "The City of God"
• Bede, "The Ecclesiastical History of the English People"
• Dante, "The Divine Comedy" (translators John D. Sinclair or Dorothy L. Sayers)
• Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Canterbury Tales" (translator Nevill Coghill)
• Niccole Machiavelli, "The Prince"
• William Shakespeare, "Hamlet," "Othello," "Measure for Measure," "King Lear," "Macbeth," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Coriolanus," "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest"
• Miguel de Cervantes, "Don Quixote" (translator Walter Starkie)
• Rene Descartes, "Discourse on Method" (translator Wollaston)
• John Milton, "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regained," "Samson Agonistes"
• George Fox, "Journal" (editor Rufus M. Jones)
• John Bunyan, "The Pilgrim's Progress"
• Jean Baptiste Racine, "Athaliah," "Phaedra"
• Moliere, "Tartuffe," "The Would-Be Gentleman," "The Precious Damsels," "The Misanthrope" (translators Morris Bishop or Kenneth Muir)
• Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver's Travels"
• Antoine Prevost, "Manon Lescaut"
• Samuel Richardson, "Pamela" (Part I), "Clarissa"
• Montesquieu, "The Spirit of the Laws" (translator Thomas Nugent)
• Voltaire, "Candide"
• James Boswell, "Life of Samuel Johnson"
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Emile"
• Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"
• Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
• John Woolman, "Journal"
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Faust I, II" (translators Walter Kaufmann or Charles E. Passage), "Wilhelm Meister"
• William Wordsworth, "The Prelude" (Books I and II)
• John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, "The Federalist Papers" (editor A. Hacker)
• John Keats, "Letters" (editor Robert Gittings)
• Jane Austen, "Persuasion," "Emma"
• Stendhal, "The Red and the Black"
• Soren Kierkegaard, "Fear and Trembling," "The Sickness Unto Death" (translator Walter Lowrie)
• Honore de Balzac, "Eugenie Grandet"
• Karl Marx, "Early Writings"
• Henry David Thoreau, "Walden," "Civil Disobedience"
• Parley P. Pratt, "Autobiography"
• Charles Dickens, "Little Dorrit," "Great Expectations"
• George Eliot, "Middlemarch," "Daniel Deronda"
• Gustave Flaubert, "A Sentimental Education" (translator Robert Baldick)
• Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov"
• Leo Tolstoy, "War and Peace" (translator Rosemary Edmonds), "Anna Karenina"
• Sarah Orne Jewett, "Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories"
• William James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience"
• Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (translator Walter, Kaufmann)
• Henrik Ibsen, "Peer Gynt" (translator Michael Meyer), "Rosmersholm," "Ghosts," "Hedda Gabler"
• Thomas Hardy, "The Mayor of Casterbridge"
• Henry James, "The Ambassadors," "What Maisie Knew"
• Anton Chekhov, "The Cherry Orchard," "The Seagull," "Uncle Vanya," "The Three Sisters" (translator David Magarshack)
• Joseph Conrad, "Nostromo"
• James Joyce, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"
• Sigmund Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams" (translator James Strachey)
• Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain," "Joseph and His Brothers"
• Marcel Proust, "Swann's Way" (translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff)
• John Maynard Keynes, "The Economic Consequences of the Peace"
• D.H. Lawrence, "Women in Love"
• E.M. Forster, "A Passage to India"
• Franz Kafka, "The Trial"
• Hermann Hesse, "Steppenwolf," "The Glass Bead Game" (Chapter 7)
• George Santayana, "The Last Puritan"
• Montaigne, "Essays" (translator John Florio)

2—An amazing quote

Dostoevsky wrote this in a letter to Mme. N. D. Fonvizina after he was released from prison in 1854 (and don't I wish he would write to me).

I am a child of the age, a child of lack of faith and doubt till now, and (this I know) this will be true till the coffin closes over. What frightful torments this thirst to believe has cost and costs me now, one which is all the stronger in my soul the more there are opposite proofs in me. And yet God sometimes sends me moments in which I am perfectly tranquil; in these moments I have formed in myself a symbol of faith in which everything is clear and sacred for me. This symbol is very simple; here it is: to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, intelligent, manly, and perfect than Christ, and not only is not but, with jealous love I say to myself, cannot be. Even more, if somebody proved to me that Christ was outside the truth, and it really were so that the truth were outside of Christ, then I would rather remain with Christ than with the truth.

3—Socca

Oh, blessed chickpea crepes! Thank you, France! Really, you've got to try this recipe, with or without the fresh rosemary. Or the chevré.

4—Anti-Candida regimen

Did I mention that I'm finally back on the wagon? Goodbye, Krispy Kremes.

5—Inversion

Because the air outside is practically unbreathable (worst air pollution in the nation this week, right here) and because January begs for laughter I need to be indoors seeing this. And this.

6—Community seed swap

And I'm in charge of organizing it. That's what they tell me anyway. Will keep you posted.

7—Madness!

I'm a believer

Oh me of little faith. I should have trusted them when they said Communal was amazing. But . . . straight up American cuisine? Really? When was that ever divine?

But guess what, kids. It's true. Every word. Amazing. Heavenly. Deelish. Good enough to make me swoon. And the wallpapers in both bathrooms are nice too.

Try Communal. Have a beautiful meal. Go with beautiful friends, like we did. If you don't have any beautiful friends, go and make friends with the beautiful polenta. And the steak. And the squash with apples. And the brussels sprouts with almonds. And the wallpaper. And the art on the walls. And the big windows. And the service. And. And. And. And. Go. No money? Well, start washing cars, have a bake sale, mow some lawns. Do whatever you must to gather the funds to indulge yourself in some anti-recession joy. Sell your house. Really.

I for one am going to take up oil painting so I can trade canvases for eats. I've never been so motivated in my life. Move over, Brian Kershisnik—an artist is born.

She's a child prodigy, sucker

A library is born

A crazy day, a doctor day, a needles in my head day. Thank heaven for three things:

•this recipe,

•taking advantage of the opportunity to sit in on a playwriting workshop at the university,

and most importantly,

•coming home to find that Rob had completely built and bolted the wall o' Billy bookshelves.

Hurray!

These blessings more than make up for the fact that the nurse must have forgotten to put the usual numbing juice in the syringe with the meds. Owee. But I refuse to be a sorehead about it.

So tonight I started unboxing basement books that haven't seen the light of day for a long, long time. Which do you think were the first books to be placed on these pristine shelves? Pogo comics!

WHAT?! You don't know what I'm talking about? You've never met Pogo possum? Why, you simply must get acquainted. My mama had me reading this stuff as a pre-school tyke, and look how I turned out. (Was that a good selling point? or not?)

Here is an entire book of the stuff, posted online for your enjoyment. It's one I don't have in my collection, so it's new to me too. Have fun going back in time—Walt Kelly was a genius, if you ask me.

This one's for my nephew Sam, who doesn't get it

Maybe this video will help clear up your confusion about John Cage and his music. He's a different sort of guy, alright. But then again, I happen to know a family who also enjoys playing and experimenting with sound (and most everything else related to the senses) and that's the wonderful family which connects you and me.

Maybe after the video, you'll want to take a look at this link and consider making a banging wall and having your own John Cage-style concerts in your backyard. I'm thinking of asking Ahma and Grandfather if I can set one up maybe out by the barn. You ought to see the first fantastic "instrument" I've collected for it!

A-Z Movie Meme

My friend Jessie inspired me to enjoy some viral fun this evening. Many of these movies are favorites of mine, and all of them are to my way of thinking great films. I think there's only one here that I wouldn't volunteer to see again and again, but even that one holds up under scrutiny. Thanks for the idea, Jessie!

Amadeus
Big Fish
Corpse Bride
Dreams
Edward Burtynsky: Manufactured Landscapes
Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life (see below)
Grey Gardens
How Green Was My Valley
Il Postino
James and the Giant Peach
Kitchen Stories
Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief)
The Magnificent Ambersons
Napoleon Dynamite / New York Doll
The Outer Limits (the original TV series)
Pickpocket
Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows)
Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time
Spellbound
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Urga (Close to Eden)
Vertigo
What I Want My Words to Do to You / Wall-E

E.T. the EXtra-Terrestrial (xo xue me, I was dexperate)
Yellow Submarine
The WiZard of OZ

Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life:

Dr. Brian May, YOU ROCK!

This news makes me really happy. Love it! Hey, I think I'll go back to school myself.

No, really.

We are the champions, my friend,
And we'll keep on fighting till the end.

Hey, what's cooking?

Before you watch this YouTube you might need to scroll down to the "Striking a Chord" post and turn OFF the X video. It starts singing all by itself. But you probably already noticed that.

Anyway, bon appetit! (We just got a movie camera, and I can hardly wait to try making something fun like this little film.)

Oh, how I wish I was in New York

It's bad enough we are missing the fun at Rob's family reunion, but now I learn we're going to miss an incredible exhibition of Paul Fusco photographs, "R.F.K. Funeral Train—Rediscovered." What a piece of Americana. I'm eating my heart out. Hey, if you're in the neighborhood, won't you go and enjoy it for me?

And if you're curious about why it's gotten under my skin, just take a look at this three-minute slide show produced by The New York Times. It's narrated by the photographer. This to me is beauty. The real deal.

Independents Day

Like a big bald head

Sharkey`s Day (full version)
by Laurie Anderson

Sun's coming up. Like a big bald head.
Poking up over the grocery store.
It's Sharkey's day. It's Sharkey's day today.
Sharkey wakes up and Sharkey says: There was this man...
And there was this road...And if only I could remember these dreams...
I know they're trying to tell me...something.
Ooooeee. Strange dreams. (Strange dreams). Oh yeah.

And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear. I turn around aagain
And it's love. Oh yeah. Strange dreams.
And the little girls sing: Oooee Sharkey.
And the manager says: Mr. Sharkey? He's not at his desk right now.
Could I take a message?
And the little girls sing: Oooeee Sharkey. He's Mister Heartbreak.
They sing: Oooeee Sharkey. Yeah. He's Mister Heartbreak.

And Sharkey says: All of nature talks to me. If I could just
figure out what it was trying to tell me. Listen!
Trees are swinging in the breeze. They're talking to me.
Insects are rubbing their legs together.
They're all talking. They're talking to me. And short animals-
They're bucking up on their hind legs. Talking. Talking to me.
Hey! Look out! Bugs are crawling up my legs!
You know? I'd rather see this on TV. Tones it down.
And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear.
I turn around again, and it's love.
Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name.

And Sharkey says: All night long I think of those little planes up there.
Flying around. You can't even see them. They're specks!
And they're full of tiny people. Going places.
And Sharkey says: You know? I bet they could all land
on the head of a pin.
And the little girls sing: Ooooeee. Sharkey!
He's Mister Heartbreak. They sing: Oooeee. That Sharkey!
He's a slow dance on the edge of the lake. He's a whole landscape
gone to seed. He's gone wild! He's screeching tires
on an oil slick at midnight on the road to Boston a long time ago.
And Sharkey says: Lights! Camera! Action! TIMBER!
At the beginning of the movie, they know they have to find each other.
But they ride off in opposite directions.

Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear.
I turn around again, and it's love.
Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name.

You know? They're growing mechanical trees.
They grow to their full height. And then they chop themselves down.
Sharkey says: All of life comes from some strange lagoon.
It rises up, it bucks up to its full height from a boggy swamp
on a foggy night. It creeps into your house. It's life! It's life!
I turn around, it's fear. I turn around again, and it's love.
Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name.

Deep in the heart of darkest America. Home of the brave.
Ha! Ha! Ha! You've already paid for this. Listen to my heart beat.

And the little girls sing: Oooeee Sharkey. He's a slow dance
on the edge of the lake. They sing:Ooooeeee. Sharkey.
He's Mister Heartbreak.
Paging Mr. Sharkey. White courtesy telephone please.
And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear.
I turn around again, and it's love.
And the little girls sing:Ooooeee Sharkey. Yeah.
On top of Old Smokey all covered with snow.
That's where I wanna, that's where I'm gonna
That's where I'm gonna go.

Gandhi's Seven Blunders of the World

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle

His grandson later added:
Rights without responsibility

What would YOU add to this list?