Another trend for the new year---ultralight. Two years ago I went on a weird binge of deciding I needed to get real outdoor gear. I had been motivated by my trip to France the year before that, when I realized how poor my gear was, and how it limited my movements and options. Then when I got back to Colorado in spring 2010, I got obsessed with visiting REI everyday and figuring out what I wanted to buy. I went through a phase of buying out lots of gear with the idea of being able to take off on the spur of the moment and hike up into the mountains, if need be.
This phase culminated in the trip I took this past summer/fall to the west coast. I camped using much of my gear, although some of it turned out to be a bust, and hardly useful at all. I guess that's a common experience. Nevertheless it did allow me a great spontaneity of travel---being able to camp anywhere I wanted, and to take off into the mountains in my car on whim, as I did when I left Fresno and headed up into the Sierras. I felt very mobile.
But now I feel like I've entered a new phase again. For one thing, I've decided that I'm going to take to the road again, but I am going to ditch my car. I'm either going to sell it or store long-term, I haven't decided which. I'm going to go back to being on foot, and carrying everything on my back. Where I'll go...well I haven't decided that, but I know this is the right thing.
As part of this, I've decided to embrace the concept of "ultralight," which is a trend in backpacking that, as it sounds, indicates that one tries to travel as light as possible. Every ounce counts.
I've learned that many of my gear choices from 2010 were poor choices on this score. They were okay for car camping, but were not ok when one tries to minimize the weight one carries on one's back. So it means buying a bunch of new gear. I've been making out a list of what I need, and using the site geargrams.com, which lets one keep a gear library/list organized by weight and category.
My first major purchase was a new backpack. This stung somewhat, since I'd recently bought a 350 dollar Gregory Baltoro internal frame that is awesome, but is over seven pounds in weight. I never have really used it, except to keep it in the trunk of my car. But it's too heavy.
I wound up purchasing a new Golite Odyssey on sale for a mere ninety bucks at the local Golite outlet in downtown Fort Collins. It's about three and half pounds. I could have gone even lighter, but I wanted to keep some excess capacity in the bag, because I figured I may need it for the various kinds of travel I might do.
It was fun to buy it. I thought about it for a couple weeks and finally dove in while the clearance sale was going on. It was especially fun to buy it here in my hometown. It reminded me of buying my old blue Camp Trail Explorer pack way back in the spring of 1985, at a little now-defunct store on South College, earned with money I made delivering singing balloon-a-grams. Lots of helium involved. I took that to Europe that summer, and trekked through the Eastern Bloc, Turkey, and all the way to the ruins of Troy. It was "the trip that changed my life" right before I went off to Oregon as a transfer student.
I need that kind of energy of transformation again, and I felt a little of that old magic buying the Golite backpack. I was all of twenty years old back in the summer of 1985, and the world felt so different. Times have changed. It's freaking awkward trying to feel that way again. It's more than a little bit painful to feel how the world has changed, and trying to feel that optimism about life again. It seems so easy when you are young, to think you can summon newness into your life no matter what age you are. When are approaching fifty, it is a different story. You have to find a way to give yourself permission to be new, and that is not so easy to do sometimes. Or least it doesn't feel that way. I have to fight the voice that says "who the hell do you think you are, getting another chance to be new?"
Or as Satan himself once told me, in play:
Can't be born twice over, Can't be!
I thought it was good luck that while I was trying the pack on, I remarked to the attendant that I felt lighter with it, than without it, as if it were filled with helium. He replied that they had actually joked about helium-filled packs.
Then I walked down College with my back and stopped at a food cart vendor (something that didn't exist here in 1985). It was directly across the street from the offices of the long-defunct Balloon Family, my place of work. The building was bought out a decade ago by a locally famous billionaire businesswoman and turned into the headquarters of her charitable foundation.
I looked at the chalk board of food items and realized they were all Greek items, exactly the same kind that one buys in Greece---spinach pies, cheese pies, baklava. I could tell at once that the proprietor was Greek, so I used some Greek phrases interacting with him while I ordered. I showed him my new Golite Odyssey backpack.
"Maybe I'll use it in Greece," I told him, before biting into my spinach pie.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Nutritional Upgrades
My new regimen:
1. Beyond Tangy Tangerine, 2 scoops daily. The directions suggested four scoops daily for my body weight, but I decided to halfsy on that for now, because this stuff costs fifty bucks a jar, and I wanted the first jar to last a whole month, rather than fifteen days before reordering. I'm very pleased with the results. Among other things, it's like coffee for me---I never forget to take it. My body seems to like it a lot. I'm getting down to the end of the first jar now and need to reorder, which I'm going to do without delay. I'm also getting a jar for my dad, after telling him about it.
2. Powdered Whey, two scoops daily with milk as chocolate-flavored shakes. I bought some off the shelf from Whole Foods for about fifteen bucks for a large jar. I have one shake for breakfast, another for lunch. It has pretty much replaced all the sugary crap I used to eat, including Starbucks Frappucinos, which I don't miss at all. Very pleased so far.
3. Omega-3,-6,-9 gel tablets. I take three of these a day, one with each meal, for "essential fatty acids."
4. Magnesium chelate tablets, three per day. I bought these for my tendonitis. They seem to have really helped. It really makes me think that the off-the-shelf fruits and vegetables we are eating are truly stripped of basic nutrients.
To say that I feel like a new man, and that I feel in the best shape of my life, why only exercising mildly, is just for starters. Among other things, my mood has great improved, even in the midst of things that would otherwise cause me grief and sorry (including the state of the country and the world).
I don't weigh myself, but from my beltline it's obvious that I've already lost a few pounds (all the while gorging on chocolate over Christmas). It has definitely cut down on my sweettooth cravings in a huge way, and I no longer seem to be prone to overeating (both lifelong problems for me). The key point is that this has taken zero willpower on my part. I has just "happened" somewhat like magic.
One final bonus I noticed today while looking in the mirror is that the chronic rosacea on my nose seems actually be subsiding. My ex-wife was concerned about this years ago---my nose was always beat red and broken out in small lesions. I had given up that anything would ever change it, but today, in my mirror, my nose actually seemed more brown than red for the first time in living memory.
Of course I know that none of this is scientific at all, but I'm not out to prove anything, just to feel better---and that seems to be happening.
1. Beyond Tangy Tangerine, 2 scoops daily. The directions suggested four scoops daily for my body weight, but I decided to halfsy on that for now, because this stuff costs fifty bucks a jar, and I wanted the first jar to last a whole month, rather than fifteen days before reordering. I'm very pleased with the results. Among other things, it's like coffee for me---I never forget to take it. My body seems to like it a lot. I'm getting down to the end of the first jar now and need to reorder, which I'm going to do without delay. I'm also getting a jar for my dad, after telling him about it.
2. Powdered Whey, two scoops daily with milk as chocolate-flavored shakes. I bought some off the shelf from Whole Foods for about fifteen bucks for a large jar. I have one shake for breakfast, another for lunch. It has pretty much replaced all the sugary crap I used to eat, including Starbucks Frappucinos, which I don't miss at all. Very pleased so far.
3. Omega-3,-6,-9 gel tablets. I take three of these a day, one with each meal, for "essential fatty acids."
4. Magnesium chelate tablets, three per day. I bought these for my tendonitis. They seem to have really helped. It really makes me think that the off-the-shelf fruits and vegetables we are eating are truly stripped of basic nutrients.
To say that I feel like a new man, and that I feel in the best shape of my life, why only exercising mildly, is just for starters. Among other things, my mood has great improved, even in the midst of things that would otherwise cause me grief and sorry (including the state of the country and the world).
I don't weigh myself, but from my beltline it's obvious that I've already lost a few pounds (all the while gorging on chocolate over Christmas). It has definitely cut down on my sweettooth cravings in a huge way, and I no longer seem to be prone to overeating (both lifelong problems for me). The key point is that this has taken zero willpower on my part. I has just "happened" somewhat like magic.
One final bonus I noticed today while looking in the mirror is that the chronic rosacea on my nose seems actually be subsiding. My ex-wife was concerned about this years ago---my nose was always beat red and broken out in small lesions. I had given up that anything would ever change it, but today, in my mirror, my nose actually seemed more brown than red for the first time in living memory.
Of course I know that none of this is scientific at all, but I'm not out to prove anything, just to feel better---and that seems to be happening.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Finally, the New Year
The last few years, I watched less and less network television to the point where I don't have any regular comedy or drama shows that I watch anymore. Nearly all the television I enjoy watching anymore is Turner Classic Movies (which I don't have access to right now). But I decided after the end of Lost on ABC that I was done with the regular networks forever.
One of the last events on network television that I make a point of watching is the Tournament of Roses parade. I love waking up on New Year's Day and flipping on the television just in time to see the floats coming down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.
This year New Year's fell on a Sunday, so it was all delayed a day. The parade wasn't until today---the second of January, so yesterday didn't even really feel like New Year's Day, but like an extra day in between New Year's Eve and the real New Year's Day (today). I took the opportunity simply to rest and meditate.
Today finally felt like New Year's. I even watched the Rose Bowl game as well, and was pleased that Oregon won, since my visit to Eugene this past year was a definite highlight of 2011. I stayed there on a game weekend, and my motel was right near the stadium. I woke up there on a Saturday morning to find legions of fans streaming past my window.
But now it's time to face 2012 for real. Yes, I realize it's just a turn of the calendar, but New Year's Day is actually my favorite holiday of the year. I love the chance to start new things, and to leave old things behind. I love making resolutions. I love giving myself permission to overhaul my entire life if I want, and to reorient my thoughts and goals all at once. One can do that at any time of course, but it is never so easy for me to day as it is during the first week of January.
This past year was a tough year personally, as it was for many people out there, but I actually accomplished a lot, and ended the year in a much, much better position in many ways than last year. Financially, I not only was able to get off my back and out of distress, but am in the most solid position I've been in for many years.
Physically, I'm in very good shape too. I spent the last couple months of the year in sharp pain from tendonitis, but the good part was that I discovered the magic of magnesium supplements and was able to cure myself of it. That encouraged me to go further and I've developed my own regime of vitamin supplements, protein whey shakes, and fatty acid tablets.
Never have I felt so good in my life. After years of thinking that my body was in inevitable decline, I've felt like I've been granted a new lease on life. A couple days ago, I went for a walk and wound up going all the way to downtown (five miles). I was going to take the bus back, but decided to walk part of the way back and catch the bus on the way. I wound up walking all the way back as well---ten miles just spontaneously on foot, and at the end I felt no fatigue or foot pain at all. I could have kept walking easily. I haven't been able to do that in many years.
Feeling financially stable and physically fit is a great way to start the New Year. It means I can concentrate on other resolutions for 2012, a year that everyone seems to be dreading. But not me.
Who knows? Maybe next year I'll go to the Rose Parade in person.
One of the last events on network television that I make a point of watching is the Tournament of Roses parade. I love waking up on New Year's Day and flipping on the television just in time to see the floats coming down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.
This year New Year's fell on a Sunday, so it was all delayed a day. The parade wasn't until today---the second of January, so yesterday didn't even really feel like New Year's Day, but like an extra day in between New Year's Eve and the real New Year's Day (today). I took the opportunity simply to rest and meditate.
Today finally felt like New Year's. I even watched the Rose Bowl game as well, and was pleased that Oregon won, since my visit to Eugene this past year was a definite highlight of 2011. I stayed there on a game weekend, and my motel was right near the stadium. I woke up there on a Saturday morning to find legions of fans streaming past my window.
But now it's time to face 2012 for real. Yes, I realize it's just a turn of the calendar, but New Year's Day is actually my favorite holiday of the year. I love the chance to start new things, and to leave old things behind. I love making resolutions. I love giving myself permission to overhaul my entire life if I want, and to reorient my thoughts and goals all at once. One can do that at any time of course, but it is never so easy for me to day as it is during the first week of January.
This past year was a tough year personally, as it was for many people out there, but I actually accomplished a lot, and ended the year in a much, much better position in many ways than last year. Financially, I not only was able to get off my back and out of distress, but am in the most solid position I've been in for many years.
Physically, I'm in very good shape too. I spent the last couple months of the year in sharp pain from tendonitis, but the good part was that I discovered the magic of magnesium supplements and was able to cure myself of it. That encouraged me to go further and I've developed my own regime of vitamin supplements, protein whey shakes, and fatty acid tablets.
Never have I felt so good in my life. After years of thinking that my body was in inevitable decline, I've felt like I've been granted a new lease on life. A couple days ago, I went for a walk and wound up going all the way to downtown (five miles). I was going to take the bus back, but decided to walk part of the way back and catch the bus on the way. I wound up walking all the way back as well---ten miles just spontaneously on foot, and at the end I felt no fatigue or foot pain at all. I could have kept walking easily. I haven't been able to do that in many years.
Feeling financially stable and physically fit is a great way to start the New Year. It means I can concentrate on other resolutions for 2012, a year that everyone seems to be dreading. But not me.
Who knows? Maybe next year I'll go to the Rose Parade in person.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Resolutions
As if fulfilling the appearance of Jupiter, the new year began with a rather auspicious start. On the way home from Boulder, on a dark highway south of Loveland, I was pulled over by the flashing lights of a police cruiser from a deputy of the Larimer County sheriff's office. Knowing that cops were everywhere, I had been making sure to drive very carefully.
It turns out I had a headlight out. The deputy could tell I hadn't been drinking so everything was chill (I was glad I turned down the beer in the tent at Occupy Boulder) After scrambling to find my registration, everything turned out OK. He didn't even write me a citation. Instead he just chatted with me, rather sympathetically. I told him I'd been to see a movie, and he asked which one. I told him that I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. He asked me what I thought of it. I told him it wasn't as good as the first one. So that was my first movie review of the year.
It was actually quite a nice feeling, when I drove off without any damage at all. If only all of life's stresses could be melted away like that.
As I drove on into the dark, my mind focused on something that had been going through my head. I thought of how in the past year, I have felt the sharply mounting distress across the country, and have tried to warn and share this insight with as many people as possible. Partly this has been through Facebook, where I have "come out the closet" after a couple years of being laid back, and have been posting many links that have actually caused several people to defriend me. I knew that would be the price. It was part of my plan all along, I think. If they defriend me, then I know at least they read and absorbed what I said.
Facebook, I've said, has felt like a ministry. Although I've found it to be like a quagmire of nothingness at times, I've felt like I had to participate in it, because this is where our culture is right now. I wanted to understand that, and know why things are they way they are, and to "take the pulse" of that part of the world.
But now I feel as if I've reached a limit of my ability to do that. I think I've said what I needed to say. I can't go on with that form of "ministry." It's time to let it go.
While driving, I meditated about how I need to shift into a new mode. While the world is cracking up---and it surely is---it no longer serves the world for me to convey the kind of distress I've been relaying. I'm not doing myself or anyone any good by doing that.
I need to shift into a mode of trying to show people that there is a way forward out of this. I need to start conveying the confidence that I feel inside, that through all of this, there is a miracle that is available to us---a way forward. I need to embody that in my words and actions. I need to inspire that feeling in others by how I act, and what I say. It is time to start focusing on that.
How I'm supposed to do that, I'm not sure. One of the huge themes I am facing in so many things right now is that I don't have any idea of the master plan. That has freaked me out, because I tend to want to know the longterm route of things. But I have to trust that there is a step-by-step way forward for me at every turn. I truly have to take it day by day. Or as a friend of mine said, step, breathe, step.
In the spirit of that, I knew what the first step I had to take. I have to get off Facebook. I was thinking of simply deactivating my account, but I realized that this might erase all of my posts on other people's pages, and leave no way for people to contact me, if they wished. So I decided the best thing to do would be log out, and simply resolve to not log back in. I'll have to tell my sisters that they will have to relay any important family news to me by other means.
So when I finally got home, one of the first things I did before going to bed was to fulfill my first resolution. My ministry is over. It's time to start actually meeting people in person. And also it has given me new impulse to write this blog as much as possible, perhaps every day, after letting it lapse. Of course now I write about much more than movies, as I once did, because I don't go to very many movies any more, and I need to say things beyond the vehicle that once provided. The same with theater performances. But I still want to go to as many as possible. That won't change.
So what's out there for me? Where I am supposed to go in the new year? Who I am supposed to meet? What am I supposed to say? Like so many others right now, I am completely at a loss to furnish answers to those questions. But I know that this the way it is meant to be. I'm not supposed to know the answers to those questions right now. I'm supposed to voyage out and learn what the answers are. So here I go.
It turns out I had a headlight out. The deputy could tell I hadn't been drinking so everything was chill (I was glad I turned down the beer in the tent at Occupy Boulder) After scrambling to find my registration, everything turned out OK. He didn't even write me a citation. Instead he just chatted with me, rather sympathetically. I told him I'd been to see a movie, and he asked which one. I told him that I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. He asked me what I thought of it. I told him it wasn't as good as the first one. So that was my first movie review of the year.
It was actually quite a nice feeling, when I drove off without any damage at all. If only all of life's stresses could be melted away like that.
As I drove on into the dark, my mind focused on something that had been going through my head. I thought of how in the past year, I have felt the sharply mounting distress across the country, and have tried to warn and share this insight with as many people as possible. Partly this has been through Facebook, where I have "come out the closet" after a couple years of being laid back, and have been posting many links that have actually caused several people to defriend me. I knew that would be the price. It was part of my plan all along, I think. If they defriend me, then I know at least they read and absorbed what I said.
Facebook, I've said, has felt like a ministry. Although I've found it to be like a quagmire of nothingness at times, I've felt like I had to participate in it, because this is where our culture is right now. I wanted to understand that, and know why things are they way they are, and to "take the pulse" of that part of the world.
But now I feel as if I've reached a limit of my ability to do that. I think I've said what I needed to say. I can't go on with that form of "ministry." It's time to let it go.
While driving, I meditated about how I need to shift into a new mode. While the world is cracking up---and it surely is---it no longer serves the world for me to convey the kind of distress I've been relaying. I'm not doing myself or anyone any good by doing that.
I need to shift into a mode of trying to show people that there is a way forward out of this. I need to start conveying the confidence that I feel inside, that through all of this, there is a miracle that is available to us---a way forward. I need to embody that in my words and actions. I need to inspire that feeling in others by how I act, and what I say. It is time to start focusing on that.
How I'm supposed to do that, I'm not sure. One of the huge themes I am facing in so many things right now is that I don't have any idea of the master plan. That has freaked me out, because I tend to want to know the longterm route of things. But I have to trust that there is a step-by-step way forward for me at every turn. I truly have to take it day by day. Or as a friend of mine said, step, breathe, step.
In the spirit of that, I knew what the first step I had to take. I have to get off Facebook. I was thinking of simply deactivating my account, but I realized that this might erase all of my posts on other people's pages, and leave no way for people to contact me, if they wished. So I decided the best thing to do would be log out, and simply resolve to not log back in. I'll have to tell my sisters that they will have to relay any important family news to me by other means.
So when I finally got home, one of the first things I did before going to bed was to fulfill my first resolution. My ministry is over. It's time to start actually meeting people in person. And also it has given me new impulse to write this blog as much as possible, perhaps every day, after letting it lapse. Of course now I write about much more than movies, as I once did, because I don't go to very many movies any more, and I need to say things beyond the vehicle that once provided. The same with theater performances. But I still want to go to as many as possible. That won't change.
So what's out there for me? Where I am supposed to go in the new year? Who I am supposed to meet? What am I supposed to say? Like so many others right now, I am completely at a loss to furnish answers to those questions. But I know that this the way it is meant to be. I'm not supposed to know the answers to those questions right now. I'm supposed to voyage out and learn what the answers are. So here I go.
Stargazing@Occupy Boulder
For New Year's Eve, I decided to end the year 2011 where it began---in Boulder. I drove down in the early evening and treated myself to a movie, seeing Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows at the Regal Century, the multiplex that is part of the outdoor lifestyle center on the site of the old Crossroads Mall.
It had been a couple years since I'd been at that theater. The last time I was there was to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in early 2010. I noticed that the tickets now cost ten dollars and fifty cents. Wow.
I really enjoyed the first Sherlock Holmes movie two years ago, but this new one was a real eye-opening. It simply confirmed how quickly Hollywood, and America as a whole, is disintegrating. The story seemed chaotic and meaningless, lacking all the cleverness and wittiness of the original. Gone was the intricate mystery-solving of the conspiracy in the first one, replaced with the blunt tropes of the War on Terror, projected back in time to 1891. This is what happens when we live in tissues of compounded lies, I thought. I takes it toll on art.
The movie got out just after ten p.m. I decided to drive up to the illuminated star on Flagstaff Mountain, where I spent midnight last year. It was much warmer evening this year---last year it was one of the subzero end-of-the-world cold type of nights. There was also much less snow.
I didn't stay and climb up to the middle of the star, as I did last year. I just stood outside in the mild air by the road and meditated on the incredible year that had just passed, and all the ways I felt so different than one calendar year before. A young couple was playing and sliding up in the lights on the mountain side. I could hear their laughter and voices. It was very pleasant.
But the best part was that above the star, hovering above the dark shape of the mountain was the bright light of the planet Jupiter, almost like a heavenly mirror of the star on the mountain side. It felt like a good omen for the year ahead.
With about an hour left before midnight, I decided to fulfill my resolution to spend midnight down at the Occupy Boulder encampment at Sister Cities Park. On the way up to Flagstaff Mountain, I had driven by it and seen the tents beside the creek on Broadway, just south of downtown.
On the way back down there, I stopped at a convenience store and bought several large cups of hot chocolate. I drove back down the hill on Broadway and parked on Arapahoe across the street from the library. I filled my backpack with several boxes of Clif Bars that I had been toting around as provisions for several months on my travels, and took them and the hot chocolate over to the encampment in front of City Hall on Broadway. It was ironically right across the creek from a hot dog stand that I had remembered visiting on my first trip to Boulder in 1978, when we moved to Colorado.
When I had driven by earlier, I had seen several people standing out by the tents, but now I saw no one around. It seemed like the camp was deserted. But I heard some guitar music from inside one of them. I called out "Free Hot Chocolate!" I guy in his twenties with dark hair came out. He said he didn't want any hot chocolate, but he invited me into the tent, so I went inside. There were two other people there, a guy with a beard and a young woman wearing a stocking hat. I took a seat in one of the shares. The young woman took eagerly took one of
cups of chocolate and started sipping on it. I poured myself some from the other cup, using a red squishy cup that was part of my camping gear.
A couple other people came into the tent after a few minutes until we were all crowded inside. Beer and other things were passed around. It occurred to me rather quickly that none of the people there cared anything about the political ramifications of the Occupy "movement." This was simply a homeless camp. Everyone there was simply trying to survive. It seemed a world away from the community meeting at the Nomad Theatre. None of those lawyers was done here tonight.
Everything seemed broken. It was hard to carry on any time of conversation with anyone, except the guy with the bear, whose name with Sean, and who said he had been homeless for three years. I tried introducing myself and shaking hands with the people who came in the tent, but the idea of greeting each other that way seemed to be a foreign concept. I felt like I was I was smack in the middle of the American Crack-up.
"Do you think we had actually make one complete brain here, with the people here?" Sean asked me.
"I don't know," I told him. "Maybe eighty percent of one."
I felt awkward being there---as if I were an interloper in some degree, but mostly because I realized how tense I was, and how the vibes of my tension were apparent when I was trying to hang out with these people. I could feel so strongly how have been under so much self-imposed stress lately. I felt like I was too high strung to be sitting there. I felt embarrassed and unworthy, as if I needed to peel off layers of ego. I had to struggle to overcome that. It made me wish I could relax more, and be a better listener.
I wound up emptying my backup of all the Clif Bars I had, and leaving them there, also with the camp glow stick in rainbow colors.
"Do you carry around a whole supply of Clif Bars?" one of them asked me, incredulous.
"You're not going to believe this," I said, "but I actually lugged these boxes of Clif Bars all the way out to West Coast and back."
That just blew their minds. "I took them to ocean and back," I said.
"Were they blessed by the Pacific Ocean?" Sean asked me.
"I guess they were," I said.
For a few moments things took a spiritual tune. Sean even did a rendition of Kum-Ba-Ya, which the young woman (whose name was Alex), hadn't ever heard before. Then we all agreed for God "to bless America and everyone else."
After midnight I went outside and showed Sean the planet Jupiter, which was still above City Hall. I listened to his theories on the "Collapse" that it is progress. He asked me: "are you one of those religious people?"
"Absolutely," I told him.
"What are you? Christian? Catholic?"
I thought about it a second. "Yeah, I guess so," I told him. "I try to be a bit of everything."
Then I said good-bye to him, giving him my pair of gloves, which he was grateful to receive. Then I went back to my car, walking back across the creek and past the old hot dog stand.
In a couple days from now the City Manager has resolved to clear out the camp from in front of City Hall. I could understand why it is probably going to happen, despite the efforts of the well-meaning progressive lawyers. But at the same time I was thankful that the tents were there that night, so that Sean and his friends could be inside a tent that night, and not out in the cold.
Now what about those layers of ego that I am carrying? What am I going to do about those?
It had been a couple years since I'd been at that theater. The last time I was there was to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in early 2010. I noticed that the tickets now cost ten dollars and fifty cents. Wow.
I really enjoyed the first Sherlock Holmes movie two years ago, but this new one was a real eye-opening. It simply confirmed how quickly Hollywood, and America as a whole, is disintegrating. The story seemed chaotic and meaningless, lacking all the cleverness and wittiness of the original. Gone was the intricate mystery-solving of the conspiracy in the first one, replaced with the blunt tropes of the War on Terror, projected back in time to 1891. This is what happens when we live in tissues of compounded lies, I thought. I takes it toll on art.
The movie got out just after ten p.m. I decided to drive up to the illuminated star on Flagstaff Mountain, where I spent midnight last year. It was much warmer evening this year---last year it was one of the subzero end-of-the-world cold type of nights. There was also much less snow.
I didn't stay and climb up to the middle of the star, as I did last year. I just stood outside in the mild air by the road and meditated on the incredible year that had just passed, and all the ways I felt so different than one calendar year before. A young couple was playing and sliding up in the lights on the mountain side. I could hear their laughter and voices. It was very pleasant.
But the best part was that above the star, hovering above the dark shape of the mountain was the bright light of the planet Jupiter, almost like a heavenly mirror of the star on the mountain side. It felt like a good omen for the year ahead.
With about an hour left before midnight, I decided to fulfill my resolution to spend midnight down at the Occupy Boulder encampment at Sister Cities Park. On the way up to Flagstaff Mountain, I had driven by it and seen the tents beside the creek on Broadway, just south of downtown.
On the way back down there, I stopped at a convenience store and bought several large cups of hot chocolate. I drove back down the hill on Broadway and parked on Arapahoe across the street from the library. I filled my backpack with several boxes of Clif Bars that I had been toting around as provisions for several months on my travels, and took them and the hot chocolate over to the encampment in front of City Hall on Broadway. It was ironically right across the creek from a hot dog stand that I had remembered visiting on my first trip to Boulder in 1978, when we moved to Colorado.
When I had driven by earlier, I had seen several people standing out by the tents, but now I saw no one around. It seemed like the camp was deserted. But I heard some guitar music from inside one of them. I called out "Free Hot Chocolate!" I guy in his twenties with dark hair came out. He said he didn't want any hot chocolate, but he invited me into the tent, so I went inside. There were two other people there, a guy with a beard and a young woman wearing a stocking hat. I took a seat in one of the shares. The young woman took eagerly took one of
cups of chocolate and started sipping on it. I poured myself some from the other cup, using a red squishy cup that was part of my camping gear.
A couple other people came into the tent after a few minutes until we were all crowded inside. Beer and other things were passed around. It occurred to me rather quickly that none of the people there cared anything about the political ramifications of the Occupy "movement." This was simply a homeless camp. Everyone there was simply trying to survive. It seemed a world away from the community meeting at the Nomad Theatre. None of those lawyers was done here tonight.
Everything seemed broken. It was hard to carry on any time of conversation with anyone, except the guy with the bear, whose name with Sean, and who said he had been homeless for three years. I tried introducing myself and shaking hands with the people who came in the tent, but the idea of greeting each other that way seemed to be a foreign concept. I felt like I was I was smack in the middle of the American Crack-up.
"Do you think we had actually make one complete brain here, with the people here?" Sean asked me.
"I don't know," I told him. "Maybe eighty percent of one."
I felt awkward being there---as if I were an interloper in some degree, but mostly because I realized how tense I was, and how the vibes of my tension were apparent when I was trying to hang out with these people. I could feel so strongly how have been under so much self-imposed stress lately. I felt like I was too high strung to be sitting there. I felt embarrassed and unworthy, as if I needed to peel off layers of ego. I had to struggle to overcome that. It made me wish I could relax more, and be a better listener.
I wound up emptying my backup of all the Clif Bars I had, and leaving them there, also with the camp glow stick in rainbow colors.
"Do you carry around a whole supply of Clif Bars?" one of them asked me, incredulous.
"You're not going to believe this," I said, "but I actually lugged these boxes of Clif Bars all the way out to West Coast and back."
That just blew their minds. "I took them to ocean and back," I said.
"Were they blessed by the Pacific Ocean?" Sean asked me.
"I guess they were," I said.
For a few moments things took a spiritual tune. Sean even did a rendition of Kum-Ba-Ya, which the young woman (whose name was Alex), hadn't ever heard before. Then we all agreed for God "to bless America and everyone else."
After midnight I went outside and showed Sean the planet Jupiter, which was still above City Hall. I listened to his theories on the "Collapse" that it is progress. He asked me: "are you one of those religious people?"
"Absolutely," I told him.
"What are you? Christian? Catholic?"
I thought about it a second. "Yeah, I guess so," I told him. "I try to be a bit of everything."
Then I said good-bye to him, giving him my pair of gloves, which he was grateful to receive. Then I went back to my car, walking back across the creek and past the old hot dog stand.
In a couple days from now the City Manager has resolved to clear out the camp from in front of City Hall. I could understand why it is probably going to happen, despite the efforts of the well-meaning progressive lawyers. But at the same time I was thankful that the tents were there that night, so that Sean and his friends could be inside a tent that night, and not out in the cold.
Now what about those layers of ego that I am carrying? What am I going to do about those?
Friday, December 30, 2011
Some Private Thoughts
How I miss you so much already. I have so much sorrow for having lost you as a friend. It's true---I let things get out of hand in my mind, as I am prone to. In some ways, I knew exactly that it would cause you to say what you did. It was almost as if I were trying to make you say that, on some level, just to get a reaction out of you.
You say: I was a good friend. I don't think so. A good friend would have found a way to stay friends. I spent so much emotional effort this year, trying to make contact with you again, trying to restore our friendship.
As I mentioned before, I had a lot of old feelings to burn off. A lot of it was guilt over my actions from years before, that I was the cause of your pain. I wanted to tell you that. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was, for the pain I helped cause you. I wanted to tell you that I would do it all differently, if I could. I was trapped by that, for all these years. For some reason, it was important for me to tell you that I would do the things now I should have done, those years ago. But I know that is not what is meant to be. Yet somehow it was important for me to convey it. Forgive my wretched clumsiness, I beg you.
If I had a wish, it would be for you to give me yet one more chance, to be friends. I know you need one. I need one too. We can be friends to each other, I truly believe, and leave the old things behind. I'm ready to do that. I think it took your last message to really wake me up, and let me move beyond the old.
I'm ready to help you, if you want. You know that I know things about you that you have told to no one else. I am not scared of the dark things in you, that scare you to talk about. Maybe I am the only person in the world for which that it true. But it is true.
When you are ready, come back to me. I will never give up hope of hearing from you---ever. You are too close my own soul. And yes, I love you, as Jonathan loved David, "like his own soul." (1 Samuel 18:1-4).
You say: I was a good friend. I don't think so. A good friend would have found a way to stay friends. I spent so much emotional effort this year, trying to make contact with you again, trying to restore our friendship.
As I mentioned before, I had a lot of old feelings to burn off. A lot of it was guilt over my actions from years before, that I was the cause of your pain. I wanted to tell you that. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was, for the pain I helped cause you. I wanted to tell you that I would do it all differently, if I could. I was trapped by that, for all these years. For some reason, it was important for me to tell you that I would do the things now I should have done, those years ago. But I know that is not what is meant to be. Yet somehow it was important for me to convey it. Forgive my wretched clumsiness, I beg you.
If I had a wish, it would be for you to give me yet one more chance, to be friends. I know you need one. I need one too. We can be friends to each other, I truly believe, and leave the old things behind. I'm ready to do that. I think it took your last message to really wake me up, and let me move beyond the old.
I'm ready to help you, if you want. You know that I know things about you that you have told to no one else. I am not scared of the dark things in you, that scare you to talk about. Maybe I am the only person in the world for which that it true. But it is true.
When you are ready, come back to me. I will never give up hope of hearing from you---ever. You are too close my own soul. And yes, I love you, as Jonathan loved David, "like his own soul." (1 Samuel 18:1-4).
Thursday, December 29, 2011
@The Nomad, Boulder
Last night I found myself down in Boulder for the first time in many weeks. I had wondered how I would feel being back there, thinking it might fill me with a heavy heart, but instead all I felt was great release and joy. Perhaps it was the warm wind coming down off the mountains before sunset.
I was there to attend an event at the Nomad Theatre, a peformance space on Quince Street in North Boulder. But I was not there to see a dramatic performance, but rather to go to a town hall meeting of Occupy Boulder.
I'd read about on Facebook and had decided to go, as the first step in what seems to be my new direction in life, which is to attend and observe as many events as possible of what appears to be this chaotic proto-revolution and revolt that is in progress, and which I believe will grow only stronger and bigger in 2012.
The meeting started around five o'clock. The purpose was to discuss strategy to combat an impeding rule from the Boulder City Manager that would basically outlaw the current occupy encampment at Sister City Park.
The building is an old quonset hut---a very quaint space. There were already cookies laid out on the table at the entrance, and a row of clipboards with email signups and petitions.
About a hundred people showed up. Ironically it felt much like a theater performance. They even were handing out folded paper programs with a "cast list"---an lawyer for the homeless, an ACLU representative with an Arabic name, and a grey-haired local activist woman. As I watched them speak on stage, and discuss the proposed ordinance, I couldn't help but be struck by the complete blending of dramatic performance and politics, all rolled into one.
I loved watching it, partly because it all felt so haphazard. What the hell is this all about? Nobody really knows. It just feels like democracy, as if we are rediscovering something long lost in this country.
I enjoyed it all, until the fourth speaker, who was a Denver lawyer who spoke about filing injunctions. He went off on a tangent decrying the "Tea Party" (which got some applause from the audience) and speaking about how this whole thing was not an issue of individual rights but "collective rights." That made me cringe. Then he spoke about how this issue wasn't about the Constitution, but could actually be fodder for the Organization of American States human rights council, which he said was the human rights organization "for this part of the world." The old liberals in the audience let out sighs of happiness at the bashing of the Constitution and the mention of unelected world government, whereas I felt disgusted. It reminded me of how much I differ with many of those in this "Occupy Movement."
But that's OK. I can deal with that. For now I'm just going to keep going to these "performances."
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Solstice Decision
On Dec 20, 2011, at 5:55 PM, Matthew Trump wrote:
Uncle ChainSaw,
> Have decided to start traveling the country after Jan. 1 visiting as many Occupy sites as possible and handing out free food and the Word. Am spending NYE at Occupy Boulder.
>
> After thinking I would not go, am starting to strongly consider going to the Million Tent Occupy in DC on Jan. 17.
>
> See you there?
>
> -m
On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 10:55 PM, XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Puzzle tzar,
Welcome back to Jazz and Justice.
I have a few old tents I could take for a, hopefully crowded, walk mid January.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 1:06 PM, Matthew Trump
Awesome. See you there. I'll be the one in the camouflage hunting cap.
Uncle ChainSaw,
> Have decided to start traveling the country after Jan. 1 visiting as many Occupy sites as possible and handing out free food and the Word. Am spending NYE at Occupy Boulder.
>
> After thinking I would not go, am starting to strongly consider going to the Million Tent Occupy in DC on Jan. 17.
>
> See you there?
>
> -m
On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 10:55 PM, XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Puzzle tzar,
Welcome back to Jazz and Justice.
I have a few old tents I could take for a, hopefully crowded, walk mid January.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 1:06 PM, Matthew Trump
Awesome. See you there. I'll be the one in the camouflage hunting cap.
Monday, December 19, 2011
To Aurora
Forgive me.
I don't need the things you said
that I need from you,
that you can't give me
I know they are not in your power to give
I know where your struggle must be
I felt the deep despair in you
and rejoiced at being needed as a friend
at being greeted with such relief
as a balm to your anguish
even as I suffered with you
I felt your pain and reached out
And spoke in the only language I knew to you
The clumsy metaphors of our old ways of being
To at least show that you are loved
Thinking I might provoke your tears
To help speed your healing
Instead I drove you away
And earned only sorrow
for both of us
I hope someday the songbirds sing again
That I hear your voice in gladness and friendship
In some epoch when the stars have come back out
Forgive me.
I don't need the things you said
that I need from you,
that you can't give me
I know they are not in your power to give
I know where your struggle must be
I felt the deep despair in you
and rejoiced at being needed as a friend
at being greeted with such relief
as a balm to your anguish
even as I suffered with you
I felt your pain and reached out
And spoke in the only language I knew to you
The clumsy metaphors of our old ways of being
To at least show that you are loved
Thinking I might provoke your tears
To help speed your healing
Instead I drove you away
And earned only sorrow
for both of us
I hope someday the songbirds sing again
That I hear your voice in gladness and friendship
In some epoch when the stars have come back out
Forgive me.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
You Gotta Believe
Sunday evening's fun activities with my nieces culminated in a game of "drawing," with Sarah pretending to be a teacher leading Maura and I in making a drawing. It starts with "Put your name on the top of the page...and the date..." And then we have imitate everything she puts on the page, using the same color markers from the plastic tub. She handed them to me as she finished, so I could copy what she just did.
At one point she used a brown marker to color in an entire section she had already drawn. She made it dark and thick on the page. When it was my turn, I asked, "Is it ok if I do it lightly?" I asked. "I don't want to dry out the Magic Marker."
"It's not MAGIC, Uncle Matt!," said Maura, completely amused at my comment.
Generation gap, I guess.
At one point she used a brown marker to color in an entire section she had already drawn. She made it dark and thick on the page. When it was my turn, I asked, "Is it ok if I do it lightly?" I asked. "I don't want to dry out the Magic Marker."
"It's not MAGIC, Uncle Matt!," said Maura, completely amused at my comment.
Generation gap, I guess.
Beautiful Day
It was over sixty degrees today here in Colorado. I was lucky to get to spend the day down in Westminster with my sister's family, and in particular with my nieces. We watched part of the Broncos game (my sister has a case of Tebowmania). During halftime my nieces and I went out into the park across the street to play soccer. The "soccer" was really just them kicking their balls around while I tried to intercept them. But after about five minutes it gave way to a sunnyday snowball fight. A perfect last Sunday of Advent, all in all.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Fresno Loves Me Redux
This afternoon I got a call from my friend Nick Z. who lives in Portland. I knew him back in college and he has gone on to be a successful playwright, among other things.
He wasn't calling about anything theater related, but rather because I had seen his post on Facebook requesting people to purchase raffle tickets for his son's private school fundraiser. I was happy to jump in with the chance to help a friend. Besides the first place is a trip to Hawaii, one of the few states of the Union I haven't visited yet. I had a chance to go there many years ago in college, and foolishly didn't go. I told Nick that I intend to get to Hawaii in 2012, and it would awesome it were free.
He asked when I was coming back to Portland and I told him I intend to be there sometime in Spring, but I'm not sure when. I told him that I was planning to be there after heading down to Fresno again, as I wanted to see a friend of mine there in a new show.
Since Nick is a theater professional, I entertained him to no small measure by my stories of being entangled with the amateur theater community of Fresno, and how I had become an acting coach helping Rick to perfect his Gary Cooper imitation, something I blogged about a couple months back.
"The director of the show even started asking me for advice," I told him. This part I didn't blog about. It's a fun story.
The show that my friend Rick had an interesting history. It turns out that the original director of the show was a local Fresno guy who had gone to New York and made it big directing Broadway musical shows. His specialty was choreography. The locals had brought him back in order to direct a show in his hometown, but for some bizarre reason, they made him direct Stalag 17, which a serious drama about American prisoners in a German prison camp in World War II.
Moreover, the returned local guy directed the show only through rehearsals and up to opening night. After that, he promptly returned to New York and left the show in the hands of a local woman with the strict stipulation that nothing about the show be changed. He enforced this stipulation by review of nightly video feed of the show to New York.
The whole weird situation left no small amount of grumbling among the cast. By far the strangest part was the curtain call at the end of the show. Instead of a straight conventional bow, the cast came out onto the stage area of the black box and then, spread out among the cots and tables of what was supposedly spartan prisoner barracks, launched into a chorus-line type dance routine, with both the SS Nazis and the American prisoners pretending to march happily together and doing several awkward leg kicks. Tick warned me about it in advance, yet nothing could prepare me for how absurd it looked when I saw the first time.
I should mention that every night I went to the show, I sat in back near one of the stage entrances, all by myself, mostly because I'm claustrophic and like to spread out. I noticed during the second night that the replacement director sat only a few feet away from me and one row down. I could tell it was her because of red hair, and the fact that she was taking notes during the show.
After the Friday night show, I told Rick that the dance-number curtain call was the stupidest thing I had even seen. He told me that the grumbling was getting worse and worse each night among the cast at having to do it. "You gotta get them to change it," I told him. "It's the worst thing about the show."
On Saturday night, the last night I went to the show, I noticed the director sitting near me again. At the end of the show, I was prepared to see the same absurd Nazi-American dance number, but instead the cast came out and performed a simple conventional bow to the audience. Something had changed.
As the applause died down and the actors left the stage, I waited for everyone to leave, as I usually do. The director stood up in her house and walked past me. As she did, she asked me directly, "So did you like the curtain call tonight?"
You could have knocked me over with a feather. What the hell? Why was she asking me that? "Oh yes, much better," I said.
Outside in the alley I asked Rick what had happened. He said that before the show that night, the cast had risen up and finally demanded that to the replacement director change the curtain call, and she had agreed, notwithstanding orders from New York.
So it didn't have anything to do with me at all. Just a coincidence that the director had asked me that. She had obviously seen me sitting there on previous nights.
Just a coincidence...
Meanwhile Rick has started rehearsals for Crimes of the Heart. It opens a couple days before New Year's Eve. I'm looking forward to seeing him on stage, and to being back in Fresno, where Rick said that the folks in the company still ask about me, and where somehow I have become a theater guru.
He wasn't calling about anything theater related, but rather because I had seen his post on Facebook requesting people to purchase raffle tickets for his son's private school fundraiser. I was happy to jump in with the chance to help a friend. Besides the first place is a trip to Hawaii, one of the few states of the Union I haven't visited yet. I had a chance to go there many years ago in college, and foolishly didn't go. I told Nick that I intend to get to Hawaii in 2012, and it would awesome it were free.
He asked when I was coming back to Portland and I told him I intend to be there sometime in Spring, but I'm not sure when. I told him that I was planning to be there after heading down to Fresno again, as I wanted to see a friend of mine there in a new show.
Since Nick is a theater professional, I entertained him to no small measure by my stories of being entangled with the amateur theater community of Fresno, and how I had become an acting coach helping Rick to perfect his Gary Cooper imitation, something I blogged about a couple months back.
"The director of the show even started asking me for advice," I told him. This part I didn't blog about. It's a fun story.
The show that my friend Rick had an interesting history. It turns out that the original director of the show was a local Fresno guy who had gone to New York and made it big directing Broadway musical shows. His specialty was choreography. The locals had brought him back in order to direct a show in his hometown, but for some bizarre reason, they made him direct Stalag 17, which a serious drama about American prisoners in a German prison camp in World War II.
Moreover, the returned local guy directed the show only through rehearsals and up to opening night. After that, he promptly returned to New York and left the show in the hands of a local woman with the strict stipulation that nothing about the show be changed. He enforced this stipulation by review of nightly video feed of the show to New York.
The whole weird situation left no small amount of grumbling among the cast. By far the strangest part was the curtain call at the end of the show. Instead of a straight conventional bow, the cast came out onto the stage area of the black box and then, spread out among the cots and tables of what was supposedly spartan prisoner barracks, launched into a chorus-line type dance routine, with both the SS Nazis and the American prisoners pretending to march happily together and doing several awkward leg kicks. Tick warned me about it in advance, yet nothing could prepare me for how absurd it looked when I saw the first time.
I should mention that every night I went to the show, I sat in back near one of the stage entrances, all by myself, mostly because I'm claustrophic and like to spread out. I noticed during the second night that the replacement director sat only a few feet away from me and one row down. I could tell it was her because of red hair, and the fact that she was taking notes during the show.
After the Friday night show, I told Rick that the dance-number curtain call was the stupidest thing I had even seen. He told me that the grumbling was getting worse and worse each night among the cast at having to do it. "You gotta get them to change it," I told him. "It's the worst thing about the show."
On Saturday night, the last night I went to the show, I noticed the director sitting near me again. At the end of the show, I was prepared to see the same absurd Nazi-American dance number, but instead the cast came out and performed a simple conventional bow to the audience. Something had changed.
As the applause died down and the actors left the stage, I waited for everyone to leave, as I usually do. The director stood up in her house and walked past me. As she did, she asked me directly, "So did you like the curtain call tonight?"
You could have knocked me over with a feather. What the hell? Why was she asking me that? "Oh yes, much better," I said.
Outside in the alley I asked Rick what had happened. He said that before the show that night, the cast had risen up and finally demanded that to the replacement director change the curtain call, and she had agreed, notwithstanding orders from New York.
So it didn't have anything to do with me at all. Just a coincidence that the director had asked me that. She had obviously seen me sitting there on previous nights.
Just a coincidence...
Meanwhile Rick has started rehearsals for Crimes of the Heart. It opens a couple days before New Year's Eve. I'm looking forward to seeing him on stage, and to being back in Fresno, where Rick said that the folks in the company still ask about me, and where somehow I have become a theater guru.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Fictons, Foreshadows, Flasbacks: Senior Dance Showcase @ University Dance Theatre, Colorado State University
Seen: this evening
So here I am, back where it all began.
Last week after I went to Fiddler on the Roof at the new building of my old high school, I realized it was probably time at last to go see some kind of show at the old building, the one I and my friends knew as Fort Collins High School, and which is now the University Center for the Arts for Colorado State.
The renovations were done over the last decade---the entire building was gutted and remodled. I'd been inside since then, but only in passing. I hadn't poked around much, or gone to any kind of performance.
After looking over the schedule at the CSU website, I decided the senior dance recital was my best bet. It was to be held in the University Dance Theatre inside the building. I was curious to see where that was, in relation to old school plan.
I got to the box office about an hour beforehand, which left me time to walk around the building, which was open, as an campus building was, during finals. I walked along the first floor and up the main staircase where we used to sing the Alma Mater on the landing every Friday at noon.
What I was most curious to see is what had become of the old auditorium where I had performed on stage. The sign above the entrance indicated it was now the Organ Recital Hall. I tried the door: it was open. I walked inside and saw the old space I knew, now dominated by a giant pipe organ on the old stage.
The lights were on, but the auditorium was empty. Delighted at the chance to be there, I walked up towards the stage. I could see that besides all new seats, the stage itself had been extended about fifteen feet and was occupied by a grand piano. I could see where the old stage still was. It seemed some of the same wooden planks were there, by their wear compared to the newer part.
I walked up onto the old part and crept out towards center stage in front of the pipe organ. The first thing I remembered was the very first time I came out on stage, as Mr. Webb in Our Town, thirty-one years ago, introduced by the Stage Manager, my friend Ken, who passed away a few months ago while I traveling on the West Coast.
I paced around a few minutes and remembered other lines from the other dramas I had been in.
My skin...it's...healed...
As I stood leaning against the wall soaking in a few moments of remembering, the door opened on stage and a young Asian man poked his head in. He saw me and said, "the concert is over now." Evidently there had been a vocal recital there earlier in the evening.
I explained to him my story in brief, and that was just there to reminisce. I told about parts of the auditorium that had changed. He seemed to know more than he should have.
"The tower...," he said, pointed upwards. "It's blocked off now."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I climbed it once. There used to be all sorts of secret passages backstage. I guess those are gone," I said, looking at the massive pipe organ.
Having gotten my fill, and having exhausted my memory of my lines from various roles, I left and went back down the hall towards the dance theatre, which turned out to be inside the space once occupied by what we called "The Small Gym" of the high school. My main memory of that place was the ritual of card pulling at the beginning of each semester to select classes.
Before the performance I sat in the nice chairs in the remodeled hallway and kibbutzed on the conversations of the dance students and their parents and boyfriends.
The recital was well attended and entertaining. I'm not much to judge either the choreography or the performances, so I can't say much.
There were four solos, and two ensemble performances, the largest of which had about twenty dancers on stage. Of course over eighty percent were young women---beautiful and graceful. The content seemed so innocent when the world is so uninnocent. There were no political statements or anything of that type in the content or choreograph. I couldn't help thing how little has really changed from the days when co-eds were required to take "eurythmy" as part of their undergraduate coursework.
May it always be so innocent, I thought to myself.
So here I am, back where it all began.
Last week after I went to Fiddler on the Roof at the new building of my old high school, I realized it was probably time at last to go see some kind of show at the old building, the one I and my friends knew as Fort Collins High School, and which is now the University Center for the Arts for Colorado State.
The renovations were done over the last decade---the entire building was gutted and remodled. I'd been inside since then, but only in passing. I hadn't poked around much, or gone to any kind of performance.
After looking over the schedule at the CSU website, I decided the senior dance recital was my best bet. It was to be held in the University Dance Theatre inside the building. I was curious to see where that was, in relation to old school plan.
I got to the box office about an hour beforehand, which left me time to walk around the building, which was open, as an campus building was, during finals. I walked along the first floor and up the main staircase where we used to sing the Alma Mater on the landing every Friday at noon.
What I was most curious to see is what had become of the old auditorium where I had performed on stage. The sign above the entrance indicated it was now the Organ Recital Hall. I tried the door: it was open. I walked inside and saw the old space I knew, now dominated by a giant pipe organ on the old stage.
The lights were on, but the auditorium was empty. Delighted at the chance to be there, I walked up towards the stage. I could see that besides all new seats, the stage itself had been extended about fifteen feet and was occupied by a grand piano. I could see where the old stage still was. It seemed some of the same wooden planks were there, by their wear compared to the newer part.
I walked up onto the old part and crept out towards center stage in front of the pipe organ. The first thing I remembered was the very first time I came out on stage, as Mr. Webb in Our Town, thirty-one years ago, introduced by the Stage Manager, my friend Ken, who passed away a few months ago while I traveling on the West Coast.
I paced around a few minutes and remembered other lines from the other dramas I had been in.
My skin...it's...healed...
As I stood leaning against the wall soaking in a few moments of remembering, the door opened on stage and a young Asian man poked his head in. He saw me and said, "the concert is over now." Evidently there had been a vocal recital there earlier in the evening.
I explained to him my story in brief, and that was just there to reminisce. I told about parts of the auditorium that had changed. He seemed to know more than he should have.
"The tower...," he said, pointed upwards. "It's blocked off now."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I climbed it once. There used to be all sorts of secret passages backstage. I guess those are gone," I said, looking at the massive pipe organ.
Having gotten my fill, and having exhausted my memory of my lines from various roles, I left and went back down the hall towards the dance theatre, which turned out to be inside the space once occupied by what we called "The Small Gym" of the high school. My main memory of that place was the ritual of card pulling at the beginning of each semester to select classes.
Before the performance I sat in the nice chairs in the remodeled hallway and kibbutzed on the conversations of the dance students and their parents and boyfriends.
The recital was well attended and entertaining. I'm not much to judge either the choreography or the performances, so I can't say much.
There were four solos, and two ensemble performances, the largest of which had about twenty dancers on stage. Of course over eighty percent were young women---beautiful and graceful. The content seemed so innocent when the world is so uninnocent. There were no political statements or anything of that type in the content or choreograph. I couldn't help thing how little has really changed from the days when co-eds were required to take "eurythmy" as part of their undergraduate coursework.
May it always be so innocent, I thought to myself.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
All About Eve (1950)
Seen on TCM, last month.
It seemed appropriate to begin my discussion of Monroe by this, her first real speaking role. I've seen it a couple times now, and also fairly recently, so it is fresh in my mind.
Bob Osbourne, the host of TCM, loves this movie, as I've come to infer over time. It took me a while to understand why classic movie buffs like him love it so much.
Simply put, one can argue that this movie, released as it was at the midpoint of the Twentieth Century, is in fact the quintessential motion picture, and the movie that defines the transition to Postmodernity itself. Certainly it would be on the short list of any movies that one could nominate as such.
I realize that this is a strong endorsement, but it is a very powerful movie. Among other things, it is perhaps the defining role for arguably the greatest single actress of the 20th Century---Bette Davis. And of course it is the movie that introduced Monroe to the world.
But what really makes this movie so singularly great, in the way I've described? Specifically why is the movie that defines the transition to Postmodernity?
It has a lot to do with the fact that it is a movie about the theater, that is, the legitimate theater, as it was once called. Most of the characters are Broadway actors, and the movie is about the world of stage actors.
One can see the essence of the importance of this in the famous "party scene", the one which Davis utters arguably the most notable line of her screen career: "Fasten your seatbelts..."
Watching this scene the last time I saw the movie, I could not help be struck by the lines uttered by the "actors" to each other. The lines dripped of insinuation, irony, and sarcasm. There was a tension of subversion and misdirection in almost every line.
To today's audiences, irony delivered in this way is quite normal. To say we're used to it is an understatement. In fact, it is the norm today. Yet sixty-one years ago, it was not the norm. It was, in fact, shocking for most audiences to see people behaving this way to each other.
It hit me: we're all supposed to be actors now. It brings to mind something I read, about how until recent times in history, actors (that is, stage actors) were held in fear and contempt by ordinary society because of their seeming "magic" ability to change personality. Actors could not be trusted to be "real" according to normal definitions of character. They were fluid.
This kind of transformation is the essence of drama. The surface is not the real. There is a deeper level. The purpose of drama is to reveal it.
The core idea of Postmodernity is a takeover of society by the dramaturgical. Everyone now knows that personality is fluid. Irony is king. We must all "act" this way and must all be aware of this in each other. The real is fleeting and an illusion.
In other words, we are all supposed to be at that party scene from All About Eve now, all the time. And like the characters at the banquet that frames the story, we are all supposed to be privately miserable while clapping our hands with a smile on our face.
The movie has even deeper levels. One of the richest aspects of it is the focus on the transition of the feminine character in Postmodernity (hence the title), anticipating the emergence of the ubiquitous "princess" of contemporary society. The vanity of women, once considered a vice, is now promoted shamelessly as a great virtue. The goal of love has been replaced by the desire for universal attention through fame. Nowhere is this more eloquent than in the very last shot of the movie, when Eve, supposedly the young ingenue, is usurped by her even younger version, who seems shockingly contemporary in her ego-driven nature. One could almost argue that it hinges on horror at that moment (especially coming on the heels of the scene in which George Saunders delivers his "I own you" speech in the New Haven hotel room).
Horror, yes---another one of the cornerstones of Postmodernity.
So what about Monroe? Her performance is limited to one scene---the aforementioned party scene. She is introduced as the bubbly "new find" of Saunders' character, and treated by him with contempt. She's a throwaway to him.
But the great meta-message of the movie if you will is how much Monroe utterly dominates the scene during her brief time on it. It is impossible not to look at her.
Even though it is supposed to Anne Baxter (Eve) who is the young starlet, Monroe is utterly in a class by herself among the other actresses there. It is as if she is a new type of woman, emerging out of the already nascent world of Postmodernity destined to become its archetype and queen. She has synthesized all the elements of the entire previous generation of Hollywood actresses and is the living personification of the next phase of American culture.
It would be easy to say that next to her, Davis looks old fashioned. But the genius of the movie is that Davis is supposed to be old fashioned. But so is Baxter.
Here she is...there has never been anyone like her on screen. Just watch her eyes as she is listening. There is genius in them. It is unmistakable.
It seemed appropriate to begin my discussion of Monroe by this, her first real speaking role. I've seen it a couple times now, and also fairly recently, so it is fresh in my mind.
Bob Osbourne, the host of TCM, loves this movie, as I've come to infer over time. It took me a while to understand why classic movie buffs like him love it so much.
Simply put, one can argue that this movie, released as it was at the midpoint of the Twentieth Century, is in fact the quintessential motion picture, and the movie that defines the transition to Postmodernity itself. Certainly it would be on the short list of any movies that one could nominate as such.
I realize that this is a strong endorsement, but it is a very powerful movie. Among other things, it is perhaps the defining role for arguably the greatest single actress of the 20th Century---Bette Davis. And of course it is the movie that introduced Monroe to the world.
But what really makes this movie so singularly great, in the way I've described? Specifically why is the movie that defines the transition to Postmodernity?
It has a lot to do with the fact that it is a movie about the theater, that is, the legitimate theater, as it was once called. Most of the characters are Broadway actors, and the movie is about the world of stage actors.
One can see the essence of the importance of this in the famous "party scene", the one which Davis utters arguably the most notable line of her screen career: "Fasten your seatbelts..."
Watching this scene the last time I saw the movie, I could not help be struck by the lines uttered by the "actors" to each other. The lines dripped of insinuation, irony, and sarcasm. There was a tension of subversion and misdirection in almost every line.
To today's audiences, irony delivered in this way is quite normal. To say we're used to it is an understatement. In fact, it is the norm today. Yet sixty-one years ago, it was not the norm. It was, in fact, shocking for most audiences to see people behaving this way to each other.
It hit me: we're all supposed to be actors now. It brings to mind something I read, about how until recent times in history, actors (that is, stage actors) were held in fear and contempt by ordinary society because of their seeming "magic" ability to change personality. Actors could not be trusted to be "real" according to normal definitions of character. They were fluid.
This kind of transformation is the essence of drama. The surface is not the real. There is a deeper level. The purpose of drama is to reveal it.
The core idea of Postmodernity is a takeover of society by the dramaturgical. Everyone now knows that personality is fluid. Irony is king. We must all "act" this way and must all be aware of this in each other. The real is fleeting and an illusion.
In other words, we are all supposed to be at that party scene from All About Eve now, all the time. And like the characters at the banquet that frames the story, we are all supposed to be privately miserable while clapping our hands with a smile on our face.
The movie has even deeper levels. One of the richest aspects of it is the focus on the transition of the feminine character in Postmodernity (hence the title), anticipating the emergence of the ubiquitous "princess" of contemporary society. The vanity of women, once considered a vice, is now promoted shamelessly as a great virtue. The goal of love has been replaced by the desire for universal attention through fame. Nowhere is this more eloquent than in the very last shot of the movie, when Eve, supposedly the young ingenue, is usurped by her even younger version, who seems shockingly contemporary in her ego-driven nature. One could almost argue that it hinges on horror at that moment (especially coming on the heels of the scene in which George Saunders delivers his "I own you" speech in the New Haven hotel room).
Horror, yes---another one of the cornerstones of Postmodernity.
So what about Monroe? Her performance is limited to one scene---the aforementioned party scene. She is introduced as the bubbly "new find" of Saunders' character, and treated by him with contempt. She's a throwaway to him.
But the great meta-message of the movie if you will is how much Monroe utterly dominates the scene during her brief time on it. It is impossible not to look at her.
Even though it is supposed to Anne Baxter (Eve) who is the young starlet, Monroe is utterly in a class by herself among the other actresses there. It is as if she is a new type of woman, emerging out of the already nascent world of Postmodernity destined to become its archetype and queen. She has synthesized all the elements of the entire previous generation of Hollywood actresses and is the living personification of the next phase of American culture.
It would be easy to say that next to her, Davis looks old fashioned. But the genius of the movie is that Davis is supposed to be old fashioned. But so is Baxter.
Here she is...there has never been anyone like her on screen. Just watch her eyes as she is listening. There is genius in them. It is unmistakable.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Operation Monroe
These last few weeks I've been laid up with a shoulder and neck injury---tendonitis, as it turns out. My mobility limited, I've taken refuge in my old habit of watching old movies. Since I don't have TCM where I am staying, I decided to rejoin Netflix and catch up on some classic films I've been wanting to see. Usually this would be too daunting of a task---too much choice, but I decided to make it easier on myself by assigning myself a theme. Last month on TCM was "Blonde Bombshell Month," and since I didn't get to see most of those movies, I decided I would go with that as a basis, but would go to even one more level---a Marilyn Monroe film festival.
Rather shamefully, Monroe is a big blank spot in my appreciation of classic films. As I've mentioned before, I think I saved watching many of her films until I'd absorbed the generation of actresses before her---Stanwyck, Rogers, Davis, Crawford, Garson, Dunne, Hepburn, Garland, Young, and their contemporaries. They got their start in the 1930s and would have been the actresses that Monroe watched while she was a girl.
Now I feel like I'm ready for a fuller appreciation of Monroe. My first three disks from Netflix are sitting on my DVD and ready to be loaded. It's going to be a fun couple weeks.
Rather shamefully, Monroe is a big blank spot in my appreciation of classic films. As I've mentioned before, I think I saved watching many of her films until I'd absorbed the generation of actresses before her---Stanwyck, Rogers, Davis, Crawford, Garson, Dunne, Hepburn, Garland, Young, and their contemporaries. They got their start in the 1930s and would have been the actresses that Monroe watched while she was a girl.
Now I feel like I'm ready for a fuller appreciation of Monroe. My first three disks from Netflix are sitting on my DVD and ready to be loaded. It's going to be a fun couple weeks.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Fiddler on the Roof @ McNeil Peforming Arts Center at Fort Collins High School
Seen: last night (December 3)
So there I was, back at my old school, the place where I first set foot on stage as an actor, and where I did nearly all of my theater work.
Except it wasn't really. The old building, the one I went to, was closed in the 1990s and is now part of the CSU campus. The new one was built on the edge of town to replace it. Back in the day, we used to pride ourselves on our cool building---towers and pillars and all that. We thought it made us better than the other schools with their inferior postwar boxlike buildings.
I got tipped off to the production by a friend on Facebook and decided to go. It was my first time in the new building. I drove through the cold and ice and navigated the maze of the parking lot to get to the entrance.
I can't say that I was impressed by the building itself. It was completely the kind of cheap blah structure one might have feared they would build. I felt no connection to it all. The only jolt of feeling like I was in anything like my old school was seeing a girl in a purple and gold letter jacket in the lobby. That took me back.
But the auditorium is nice and expansive. It's named after the beloved orchestra director back from my day.
Driving there, I couldn't help but muse at the irony of the production I was about to see. During my three years at FCHS, I had three large dramatic roles, one per year, and was also the stage manager of the fall musical comedy during my senior year. One of the dramas was about the life of a small New England town at the turn of the century. One was about a soldier going off to die in Vietnam. In both of those. The third was one based on the Old Testament and was about the trials of believing and trusting in divine Providence. The musical comedy that I stage managed was about the excitement of the outside world coming to a small Midwestern town.
It occurred to me that if you rolled all of those productions up together into one, you would probably come up with, well, Fiddler on the Roof.
In fact, in my last role, I played a Jewish father of a large family. But in that case, my children didn't have as nice a fate as Tevye's daughters. Not at all.
What can I say about the production? It was a high school musical. It made me wish I could see our production from the fall of 1982, to compare it. The auditorium was beautiful. We would have given our eye teeth to have that kind of facility. Or maybe not. There was something charming and rustic about having to make due in the old auditorium. There were so many weird secret nooks and crannies. It felt like a real "theater" somehow. So I didn't envy the kids in the new building at all.
Among the changes in the new facility is that the seats have numbers and the tickets actually were reserved. Our seats didn't have numbers at all. But we did have a balcony. I asked for a seat in the very back. During the intermission, I stood against the railing by the light booth and looked out over the parents and students and everyone else in the audience, standing and moving in the aisles.
At that moment I had a flashback to how I used to feel way back when, about my place in the world, about the town I lived in, and about the world as a whole. I was so idealistic back then, and I knew it. I wanted to be connected to everyone, and feel and experience love in a universal way with humanity. I knew it was a grandiose notion, but somehow I had the notion that I should capitalize on my youthful idealism to soak in as much of that as possible.
That kind of attitude made me feel so alive. Back then I wanted to talk to as many people as possible, and experience as much of life as possible in the outside world, like an ambassador of hope and love. It's an attitude that carried me forth all around the globe and late me make friends everywhere I went. All of that kind of feeling of connection kept getting reflected back to me.
As I looked down the rows at the people in the auditorium, it occurred to me that I have not felt that way in a long time. Instead I have been going through the world with such isolation. I have not wanted to connect to people. I have not trusted that. I have been able to see only the blindness and desolation of the people in my town, and in the world. I have felt on a solitary mission.
I miss feeling that connection. Perhaps it is the way the world has been spinning so rapidly lately, but for a moment, I had a glimmer of a window back to my old self, that one who wanted to connect and project love, and experience it back from others.
After the production I walked back out through the lobby and saw the same girl with the purple and gold letter jacket. I thought of a girl I knew from long ago, my date for the junior prom. She hated this place and the people here. She left behind Fort Collins right after high school and never looked back. She went off and married a naval officer, and had a couple kids. The world have to end for her to show up on Facebook. Maybe she had it right after all.
I am so sick and tired of this war. When do we get America back?
So there I was, back at my old school, the place where I first set foot on stage as an actor, and where I did nearly all of my theater work.
Except it wasn't really. The old building, the one I went to, was closed in the 1990s and is now part of the CSU campus. The new one was built on the edge of town to replace it. Back in the day, we used to pride ourselves on our cool building---towers and pillars and all that. We thought it made us better than the other schools with their inferior postwar boxlike buildings.
I got tipped off to the production by a friend on Facebook and decided to go. It was my first time in the new building. I drove through the cold and ice and navigated the maze of the parking lot to get to the entrance.
I can't say that I was impressed by the building itself. It was completely the kind of cheap blah structure one might have feared they would build. I felt no connection to it all. The only jolt of feeling like I was in anything like my old school was seeing a girl in a purple and gold letter jacket in the lobby. That took me back.
But the auditorium is nice and expansive. It's named after the beloved orchestra director back from my day.
Driving there, I couldn't help but muse at the irony of the production I was about to see. During my three years at FCHS, I had three large dramatic roles, one per year, and was also the stage manager of the fall musical comedy during my senior year. One of the dramas was about the life of a small New England town at the turn of the century. One was about a soldier going off to die in Vietnam. In both of those. The third was one based on the Old Testament and was about the trials of believing and trusting in divine Providence. The musical comedy that I stage managed was about the excitement of the outside world coming to a small Midwestern town.
It occurred to me that if you rolled all of those productions up together into one, you would probably come up with, well, Fiddler on the Roof.
In fact, in my last role, I played a Jewish father of a large family. But in that case, my children didn't have as nice a fate as Tevye's daughters. Not at all.
What can I say about the production? It was a high school musical. It made me wish I could see our production from the fall of 1982, to compare it. The auditorium was beautiful. We would have given our eye teeth to have that kind of facility. Or maybe not. There was something charming and rustic about having to make due in the old auditorium. There were so many weird secret nooks and crannies. It felt like a real "theater" somehow. So I didn't envy the kids in the new building at all.
Among the changes in the new facility is that the seats have numbers and the tickets actually were reserved. Our seats didn't have numbers at all. But we did have a balcony. I asked for a seat in the very back. During the intermission, I stood against the railing by the light booth and looked out over the parents and students and everyone else in the audience, standing and moving in the aisles.
At that moment I had a flashback to how I used to feel way back when, about my place in the world, about the town I lived in, and about the world as a whole. I was so idealistic back then, and I knew it. I wanted to be connected to everyone, and feel and experience love in a universal way with humanity. I knew it was a grandiose notion, but somehow I had the notion that I should capitalize on my youthful idealism to soak in as much of that as possible.
That kind of attitude made me feel so alive. Back then I wanted to talk to as many people as possible, and experience as much of life as possible in the outside world, like an ambassador of hope and love. It's an attitude that carried me forth all around the globe and late me make friends everywhere I went. All of that kind of feeling of connection kept getting reflected back to me.
As I looked down the rows at the people in the auditorium, it occurred to me that I have not felt that way in a long time. Instead I have been going through the world with such isolation. I have not wanted to connect to people. I have not trusted that. I have been able to see only the blindness and desolation of the people in my town, and in the world. I have felt on a solitary mission.
I miss feeling that connection. Perhaps it is the way the world has been spinning so rapidly lately, but for a moment, I had a glimmer of a window back to my old self, that one who wanted to connect and project love, and experience it back from others.
After the production I walked back out through the lobby and saw the same girl with the purple and gold letter jacket. I thought of a girl I knew from long ago, my date for the junior prom. She hated this place and the people here. She left behind Fort Collins right after high school and never looked back. She went off and married a naval officer, and had a couple kids. The world have to end for her to show up on Facebook. Maybe she had it right after all.
I am so sick and tired of this war. When do we get America back?
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Now, Voyager (1942)
| ||||
---Whitman Seen tonight on TCM. One of those mega-classics that had escaped me up until now. A very good movie to watch for those who've spent time in the LB. "Are you the same woman who just a few months ago had not a single interest in the world?" (I want to learn to talk like Claude Rains---"like honey poured on gravel," as Richard Chamberlain once said.) |
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Matrix (1999)
My creative writing teacher in college said the best advice he ever got about writing was from a well-known published author who told him, "follow the rabbits that cross your path."
But those rabbits can be scary at times. Reminds me of the signature scene from one of the most significant movies of recent vintage, one worth revisting. Pills can be overrated in reality, of course, but the metaphor is interesting.
Also I think I like the Portuguese subtitles in that clip.
Como un zunido na sua cabeça...
But those rabbits can be scary at times. Reminds me of the signature scene from one of the most significant movies of recent vintage, one worth revisting. Pills can be overrated in reality, of course, but the metaphor is interesting.
Also I think I like the Portuguese subtitles in that clip.
Como un zunido na sua cabeça...
Monday, September 26, 2011
Shall We Dance? (1937)
And speaking of Fred Astaire...
Well, actually I could entitle this post On Ginger, because I intend to use it to talk about Ginger Rogers, who is probably my all-time favorite movie actress.
When I start to write about Rogers, one of the first things that pops into my head is that an old feminist quip from the 1960s/1970s that went, "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels."
What a crock! There are so many things wrong with this statement on so many levels, it makes me angry to think about it.
First off, as a statement of fact, it is flat-out false. Rogers did not do everything Astaire did. That would be nearly impossible. Among the reasons is the difference between the male and female bodies and how they move while dancing. Even my super-feminist ex-wife, who introduced me to dancing lessons twenty years ago, would have admitted that in a second. Moreover, Astaire is not just any male dancer but arguably the most uniquely talented of all time. His signature moves, of swinging his legs pendulum-like while the rest of body undergoes seemingly independent motion, is something that Gene Kelly wouldn't even be able to pull off with the same grace. And Kelly was really, really good, of course.
The quip actually refers to the fact that in traditional ballroom dance, the man is the lead. The lead (the man) steps forward with his left foot on the first beat, while the woman steps back on her right foot. It's just convention. Anyone can dance anyway they want to, and either partner can lead if they want, but well, somehow people often like it the traditional way, no matter how much others may not like it.
But Astaire and Rogers rarely danced like that. Most of their dancing screen time together is spent dancing side-by-side, facing camera. Also Rogers wore heels on screen only when the plot called for her character to be wearing heels. She often wears flats in many of the complicated numbers (and roller skates).
Rogers never tried to do most of the things Astaire did on screen. She did her own thing. Yeah, her own thing, with moves that Astaire never could have pulled off. How terribly patriarchal and retrograde!
And what was her thing? If Astaire's signature was his pendulum legs, then Rogers true genius was in her twirl. Better than any other dancer in the history of Hollywood, Rogers was the master of circular motion, the adaptation of the pirouette into fluid motion on a sound state, often moving back and forth to Astaire like a yo-yo, but of her own free will, not his. The twirl is not something that a male dancer could pull off in the same way. Kelly could do it with power, but it is Rogers to capture something that seems to be lost on current audiences: feminine grace. I love how she seems to know exactly where her dress is, and how to make it slow at the end of the swirl and reverse direction right in time with the music.
One of the reasons that Shall We Dance? is probably my favorite pairing of the two great dancers is that specifically because it calls attention to Rogers' twirl. Actually in the movie, Astaire calls it her "tweeeeest" (as in twist). He character at that point is pretending to be a Russian dancer, but of course Rogers has already learned that he is faking the accent. When I saw that scene I smiled, because I'd already developed my theory of Rogers' twirl, and I knew immediately that this was something recognized by people at the time, although it seems lost to today's audiences.
Rogers' ability to somewhat cynically dismiss Astaire's corny humor, all the while falling for him, is what makes a lot of their movies have spark and life. Shall We Dance? is almost a primer in in the ins-and-outs of misunderstandings that crop up in a love affair, and the necessity for the man to be persistent and patient in pursuing his True Love. These are lessons of classical romance that were once the common wisdom of our society but which were rarely told to my generation.
Rogers always gets me when he starts to sing to. By no means could she match, say, Garland, in terms of vocal solo performance, but like in her dancing, Rogers' great skill was in how she used her voice and her body in character. She has an unmatched ability in my book to seamlessly go from talking/walking to singing/dancing as if there were no line between them. If (post)modern audiences lack a full appreciation for Rogers, I think it because they don't like her characters, who are very traditional in how they interact with men on screen.
I love the scene with her walking the dog, and the little story that is told in complete silence, moving the story along without a word of dialogue. My favorite musical number in this movie is when Rogers launches into her nasal drone, "The odds were a hundred to one against me..."
Bonus video: Rogers at age 92, doing the salsa.
Well, actually I could entitle this post On Ginger, because I intend to use it to talk about Ginger Rogers, who is probably my all-time favorite movie actress.
When I start to write about Rogers, one of the first things that pops into my head is that an old feminist quip from the 1960s/1970s that went, "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels."
What a crock! There are so many things wrong with this statement on so many levels, it makes me angry to think about it.
First off, as a statement of fact, it is flat-out false. Rogers did not do everything Astaire did. That would be nearly impossible. Among the reasons is the difference between the male and female bodies and how they move while dancing. Even my super-feminist ex-wife, who introduced me to dancing lessons twenty years ago, would have admitted that in a second. Moreover, Astaire is not just any male dancer but arguably the most uniquely talented of all time. His signature moves, of swinging his legs pendulum-like while the rest of body undergoes seemingly independent motion, is something that Gene Kelly wouldn't even be able to pull off with the same grace. And Kelly was really, really good, of course.
The quip actually refers to the fact that in traditional ballroom dance, the man is the lead. The lead (the man) steps forward with his left foot on the first beat, while the woman steps back on her right foot. It's just convention. Anyone can dance anyway they want to, and either partner can lead if they want, but well, somehow people often like it the traditional way, no matter how much others may not like it.
But Astaire and Rogers rarely danced like that. Most of their dancing screen time together is spent dancing side-by-side, facing camera. Also Rogers wore heels on screen only when the plot called for her character to be wearing heels. She often wears flats in many of the complicated numbers (and roller skates).
Rogers never tried to do most of the things Astaire did on screen. She did her own thing. Yeah, her own thing, with moves that Astaire never could have pulled off. How terribly patriarchal and retrograde!
And what was her thing? If Astaire's signature was his pendulum legs, then Rogers true genius was in her twirl. Better than any other dancer in the history of Hollywood, Rogers was the master of circular motion, the adaptation of the pirouette into fluid motion on a sound state, often moving back and forth to Astaire like a yo-yo, but of her own free will, not his. The twirl is not something that a male dancer could pull off in the same way. Kelly could do it with power, but it is Rogers to capture something that seems to be lost on current audiences: feminine grace. I love how she seems to know exactly where her dress is, and how to make it slow at the end of the swirl and reverse direction right in time with the music.
One of the reasons that Shall We Dance? is probably my favorite pairing of the two great dancers is that specifically because it calls attention to Rogers' twirl. Actually in the movie, Astaire calls it her "tweeeeest" (as in twist). He character at that point is pretending to be a Russian dancer, but of course Rogers has already learned that he is faking the accent. When I saw that scene I smiled, because I'd already developed my theory of Rogers' twirl, and I knew immediately that this was something recognized by people at the time, although it seems lost to today's audiences.
Rogers' ability to somewhat cynically dismiss Astaire's corny humor, all the while falling for him, is what makes a lot of their movies have spark and life. Shall We Dance? is almost a primer in in the ins-and-outs of misunderstandings that crop up in a love affair, and the necessity for the man to be persistent and patient in pursuing his True Love. These are lessons of classical romance that were once the common wisdom of our society but which were rarely told to my generation.
Rogers always gets me when he starts to sing to. By no means could she match, say, Garland, in terms of vocal solo performance, but like in her dancing, Rogers' great skill was in how she used her voice and her body in character. She has an unmatched ability in my book to seamlessly go from talking/walking to singing/dancing as if there were no line between them. If (post)modern audiences lack a full appreciation for Rogers, I think it because they don't like her characters, who are very traditional in how they interact with men on screen.
I love the scene with her walking the dog, and the little story that is told in complete silence, moving the story along without a word of dialogue. My favorite musical number in this movie is when Rogers launches into her nasal drone, "The odds were a hundred to one against me..."
Bonus video: Rogers at age 92, doing the salsa.
High Society (1956)
And speaking of Cole Porter songs...
While waiting to see my next live theatre performance, I've decided to write about a few classic movies I've seen lately and which I really enjoyed.
I got re-see part of High Society a few months back on TCM. It's one of those movies that if it comes on, I'm going to wind up watching part of it, guaranteed. It's among my all-time secret favorite movies. I say "secret" because one is not really supposed to like this movie all that much.
Yes, I know it's a remake of The Philadelphia Story (1940), and although I like that earlier film, it's actually not anywhere near the top of my list as far as comedies from that era. I think Grant and Hepburn did better work together, and Jimmy Stewart is underused, all in all. But I know my opinion is in the minority here.
As for the 1956 movie. C'mon, it stars Grace Kelly. You really need more to appreciate it? But I shouldn't talk: I was late in really becoming a huge fan of hers---I had learn to appreciate the early generation of actresses first (somewhat like how I purposely waited to appreciate the genius and significance of Monroe).
But mostly my appreciation stems from that fact that I just love the musical numbers in the remake, written by Cole Porter specifically for the film. I think that was a stroke of genius. They turned me into a Bing Crosby fan.
Yes, this movie would near the top of my list if anyone asked me for a movie sure to make them smile.
But to be sure, in case you haven't seen it yet, and in case the opinion of others counts to you about the movies you watch, then best to watch and appreciate this one by yourself the first time through.
While waiting to see my next live theatre performance, I've decided to write about a few classic movies I've seen lately and which I really enjoyed.
I got re-see part of High Society a few months back on TCM. It's one of those movies that if it comes on, I'm going to wind up watching part of it, guaranteed. It's among my all-time secret favorite movies. I say "secret" because one is not really supposed to like this movie all that much.
Yes, I know it's a remake of The Philadelphia Story (1940), and although I like that earlier film, it's actually not anywhere near the top of my list as far as comedies from that era. I think Grant and Hepburn did better work together, and Jimmy Stewart is underused, all in all. But I know my opinion is in the minority here.
As for the 1956 movie. C'mon, it stars Grace Kelly. You really need more to appreciate it? But I shouldn't talk: I was late in really becoming a huge fan of hers---I had learn to appreciate the early generation of actresses first (somewhat like how I purposely waited to appreciate the genius and significance of Monroe).
But mostly my appreciation stems from that fact that I just love the musical numbers in the remake, written by Cole Porter specifically for the film. I think that was a stroke of genius. They turned me into a Bing Crosby fan.
Yes, this movie would near the top of my list if anyone asked me for a movie sure to make them smile.
But to be sure, in case you haven't seen it yet, and in case the opinion of others counts to you about the movies you watch, then best to watch and appreciate this one by yourself the first time through.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Me the Acting Coach
My experience hanging out at Second Space in Fresno was fun for so many reasons. As I mentioned, I felt like I was almost part of the company there after going to three shows on successive nights.
I sat in exactly the same seat, off the corner by one of the exit doors, away from the rest of the crowd (I'm claustrophobic that way).
Among the ways I got involved was an acting coach for my friend Rick. It's not that I know much about stage acting, but for his particular role, I turned out to be a really good source of knowledge. His character, Sgt. Reed, is supposed to have been an actor back in New York, before he got shot down and interred in the German prison camp. His fellow prisoners are always having him do impressions of famous actors from that era, something that Rick can actually do well. His Bogart was spot on, and his Jimmy Stewart was uncanny. But I told him his Gary Cooper sort of sucked.
He said he wasn't surprised, as he hadn't really seen any Gary Cooper movies. As I happen to a huge Gary Cooper fan, I spent some time with him after every performance, giving him pointers on what to do.
He's supposed to do a Cooper as a cowboy in a gunfight. I told him to stand with stiff wooden legs, and to rock gently back and forth somewhat awkwardly. I taught him how to talk like Cooper, low and out of the corners of his mouth, and to fix his eyes open and wide like Cooper does. I told him that when he draws and shoots, he should immediately transition from stiff and wooden to a quick crouch with deadly aim.
Rick is a great study and super smart. He picked all this up quite easily. I was amazed at how well he improved over the course of three nights. By the time that matinee arrived, he had it down almost completely.
But something was still bothering me about it. While I was driving back up to Oregon, it hit me. At one point, before he draws his imaginary gun, he is supposed to turn and pretend to spit. I realized that he was turning his head way to wildly to the side.
From Eugene, I wrote him an email. "Cooper would NEVER do that," I wrote him. "Turning your head way to the side to spit like that would get a person killed in a gunfight. Cooper would never take his eyes off the guy in front of him."
I told him to just jerk his head quickly to the side, and to pretend to spit out of the corner of his mouth, but while keeping his eyes fixed on the same point ahead of him.
He said he'd take my advice. He's really eager to improve as an actor. I figured it would work especially well for the Sunday matinee crowds, which skew towards the oldest demographic---people who probably saw plenty of Gary Cooper movies back in the day.
I know he'll do fantastic, or as the old song goes, super duper!
I sat in exactly the same seat, off the corner by one of the exit doors, away from the rest of the crowd (I'm claustrophobic that way).
Among the ways I got involved was an acting coach for my friend Rick. It's not that I know much about stage acting, but for his particular role, I turned out to be a really good source of knowledge. His character, Sgt. Reed, is supposed to have been an actor back in New York, before he got shot down and interred in the German prison camp. His fellow prisoners are always having him do impressions of famous actors from that era, something that Rick can actually do well. His Bogart was spot on, and his Jimmy Stewart was uncanny. But I told him his Gary Cooper sort of sucked.
He said he wasn't surprised, as he hadn't really seen any Gary Cooper movies. As I happen to a huge Gary Cooper fan, I spent some time with him after every performance, giving him pointers on what to do.
He's supposed to do a Cooper as a cowboy in a gunfight. I told him to stand with stiff wooden legs, and to rock gently back and forth somewhat awkwardly. I taught him how to talk like Cooper, low and out of the corners of his mouth, and to fix his eyes open and wide like Cooper does. I told him that when he draws and shoots, he should immediately transition from stiff and wooden to a quick crouch with deadly aim.
Rick is a great study and super smart. He picked all this up quite easily. I was amazed at how well he improved over the course of three nights. By the time that matinee arrived, he had it down almost completely.
But something was still bothering me about it. While I was driving back up to Oregon, it hit me. At one point, before he draws his imaginary gun, he is supposed to turn and pretend to spit. I realized that he was turning his head way to wildly to the side.
From Eugene, I wrote him an email. "Cooper would NEVER do that," I wrote him. "Turning your head way to the side to spit like that would get a person killed in a gunfight. Cooper would never take his eyes off the guy in front of him."
I told him to just jerk his head quickly to the side, and to pretend to spit out of the corner of his mouth, but while keeping his eyes fixed on the same point ahead of him.
He said he'd take my advice. He's really eager to improve as an actor. I figured it would work especially well for the Sunday matinee crowds, which skew towards the oldest demographic---people who probably saw plenty of Gary Cooper movies back in the day.
I know he'll do fantastic, or as the old song goes, super duper!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
A Calm Day of Driving and Reflection
The landscape of Eastern Washington looks amazing open after having on the West Coast for a couple weeks. A good day to reflect and think as the highway rolls by. Seven years ago today I left New York City as a resident for the last time. Can't help but wonder what the next seven years will bring.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)