What I Read and Watched

Beyond Bad Girls

2012-02-15T10:47:00.003-05:00

I read Chesney-Lind & Irwin's Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Violence & Hype, which looks critically at the somewhat recently "discovered" phenomenon of the "mean girl".

The authors argue that this focus is really part of a feminist backlash, reinvoking age-old negative stereotypes of girls and women as duplicitous. The cultural focus on "mean girls" detracts from more serious problems faced by girls, and folding "relational aggression" into anti-bullying programs means that girls are being increasingly surveilled and policed, and their relatively minor actions are viewed as as serious and damaging as more openly aggressive and violent behavior which is more typical of boys.

Punishment & Modern Society

2012-02-15T10:43:00.003-05:00

I just reread David Garland's Punishment & Modern Society, and, again, was awestruck by the breadth of his analysis. He examines the theories of Durkheim, Weber, Marxists, Foucault, and Elias in terms of their concepts of punishment and its relation to society. The elucidation of the theories is excellent, as is the analysis and critique. He concludes with a call for a coherent sociology of punishment that explores both the role culture plays in punishment and the role punishment plays in culture.

Bad Boys

2012-02-09T11:59:00.004-05:00

Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity by Ann Arnett Ferguson is an excellent analysis of the ways in which black boys are singled out and stigmatized in desegregated public schools.

Bad Boys is based on three years of field work at an school in California in the 90s, and the insights I'm sure are no less true today. Teachers and administrators, black and white, respond to these boys through the lens of racism, and these boys come to school with comportment styles formed in the face of our cultures racism. The institution of the school rewards those students who most conform to white middle class standards, and those who are routinely punished are denied school resources and put in an institutional cycle that leaves them behind academically. Looming large over them is the specter of the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system, and Ferguson's book offers some explanation for the disproportionate numbers of black men in our jails.

Overboard

2012-02-05T11:51:00.004-05:00

I know it is embarrassing, but I really liked the movie Overboard when it first came out in 87. It was embarrassing to like it then. For one, I am not a fan of either screwball or romantic comedies, and you put them together, and of course I should hate it. For another, this film is strongly sexist.

And in spite of all this, I enjoyed it on second watching, nearly 25 years later.

The movie starts off with Goldie Hawn parading around her yacht in a ridiculous parody of a socialite bitch. She talks with booming hauteur and bosses everyone around. She fires a carpenter (Kurt Russel) in a belittling and totally bitchy manner, and he yells at her about how miserable she is.

Then, she falls off the boat and has amnesia. Her husband doesn't claim her because he is sick of her shrewishness. And the carpenter decides as a gag to take her in and pretend she's his wife. Hilarity ensues as Goldie is reduced to white trash living, with four overly rambunctious untamed sons and a ridiculously messy home. But, guess what? Goldie learns to care about other people and take pleasure in life. She becomes the caring, supportive, strong yet sexy housewife. And, the icing on the cake: she and Kurt Russel fall in love!

But what happens when she regains her consciousness???? I won't tell.

About a year ago I watched Foul Play again after decades, and was completely charmed by Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. I felt the same about her in Overboard. I guess next up is Private Benjamin...

Contagion

2012-02-03T12:28:00.002-05:00

Last night I watched Contagion. I had been very excited to see this, as I found the trailer gripping. Even though friends told me it wasn't good, I still thought I would get into it. It just seemed to tap into fears that I kind of get off on indulging sometimes. Illness, death, the end of the world...

This had actors in it who I like a lot, and there was a good use of music and cinematography. The story centered on the medico-administrative aspect of containing a rapidly spreading deadly virus that was killing millions of people throughout the world. It was filmed in a way that created suspense. But in spite of this, most of the movie felt flat, predictable, and slightly plodding.

Act Your Age!

2012-02-01T00:44:00.003-05:00

Nancy Lesko's Act Your Age!: A Cultural Construction of Adolescence provides an interesting overview of the 19th century construction of adolescence, and the cultural residue these values have, particularly in terms of the masculinization and hierarchical organization of high school.

Albert Nobbs

2012-01-29T15:41:00.003-05:00

Last night I saw Albert Nobbs, a film starring Glenn Close about a woman in 19th century Dublin who has lived her entire life as a man.

Glenn Close's subtle and painful performance was brilliant, although rather difficult to watch. Albert Nobbs is a repressed, clueless waiter in a hotel, who has no understanding of human emotions and who is deeply isolated. He meets another man who is in fact a woman and who lives very happily with another woman. This idea of domesticity and companionship opens up possibilities for Albert, who chooses a maid in the hotel to be his future partner. She is in love with someone else and toys with Albert. The scenes of their stilted courtship are awkward and unpleasant, and you realize that there is no hope for him.

Albert Nobbs was very interesting, but in spite of the melodrama and great acting, it left me kind of cold.

Yiddish With Dick and Jane

2012-01-21T15:20:00.003-05:00

The other day I read Yiddish With Dick and Jane, a wonderful book following the format of the classic children's reading primer.

Dick and Jane have separate families, and the storyline, although written in that "see-Jane-run" style, includes adult themes such as a grandmother having a stroke, Dick's wife cheating on him, homosexuality, and Jane's sister's adult unhappiness. The book is hysterical and each page introduces a new Jewish word, such as schlep ("See Jane schlep - Schlep Jane, schlep") and nu and many others.

It is such a fun book it has inspired me to order Drek!: The Real Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You.

Midnight in Paris

2012-01-20T15:40:00.004-05:00

Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen's most recent movie, is a very pleasant, delightful, easy going movie. It's about an American man and his fiancee in Paris; he is a screenwriter who regrets not having pursued a career as a fiction writer, and is working on his first novel. His fiance is negative and unsupportive, and seems fixated on material things while he is grappling with creative struggles.

He romanticizes Paris in the 20s, and miraculously gets transported back to that era, where he interacts with the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and the surrealists. During these encounters he becomes more inspired to pursue his art and make a meaningful life for himself.

The time travel and scenes with key figures from the literary and artistic era were well executed. Light and breezy, filled with clever dialogue and interesting insight. Owen Wilson played the traditional Woody Allen character, and he was so agreeable and likeable -- he really brought something to the role, making him sympathetic so that you are on his side (which, for me, is usually not the case with the Woody Allen persona)

My only problem with Midnight in Paris was the portrayal of the fiancee and her family. They were very broadly drawn and it was hard to take the relationship troubles too seriously. Because of this it lacked a dramatic center.

Hide/Seek

2012-01-13T10:21:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I saw Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at The Brooklyn Museum. This is an exhibition of portraiture by gay artists exploring coded depictions of gender and sexuality through time.

The show was presented chronologically, starting with Thomas Eakins and ending with Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz.

All the chosen works had an element of coded homoeroticism or gay identity, and together Hide/Seek presented an interesting narrative of homosexuality in American art. But perhaps for me it was too coded, too genteel. Also, I was not familiar with about a third of the artists, and would have liked some biographical information. Instead, the wall text (which weirdly was displayed at knee level) directed the viewer on how to read each image, which I found intrusive.

It was interesting to see an Agnes Martin portrait, and one of my favorite pieces was Romaine Brooks' haunting and shadowy self-portrait. I would have liked to see more lesbian desire in the show, and strongly felt the dearth of women.

The final gallery addresses the AIDS crisis and included AA Bronson's dramatic "Felix".

Alice

2012-01-11T10:17:00.003-05:00

Last night I finished watching Alice on Watch Instantly. I had started it a few nights ago, and found it unbearably tedious, but something made me want to see it through to the end.

It is a late 90s Woody Allen movie staring Mia Farrow as a rich housewife. She has a crush on another man, and begins to explore what she wants out of life. She does this through visits with a Chinese healer who gives her herbs that open her up to herself. The herbs do things like bring back ghosts and make her invisible. There are some amusing moments, but basically I found Mia Farrow whiny and insipid and intolerably boring.

Pina

2012-01-08T11:18:00.005-05:00

On Friday I saw Pina, a 3-D documentary memorial to the choreographer Pina Bausch.

I was only aware of Bausch from the haunting segments included in Almodovar's Talk to Her, and back then I became instantly fascinated and curious about her work.

Pina, directed by Wim Wenders, is an incredible film that captures many of her complex and emotionally wrenching dances. Although it doesn't show any dance in its entirety, you fully enter each and experience their incredible power, beauty and ingenuity. The 3-D effect was brilliantly and subtly used, adding depth and dimension without tricks or kitsch. The dances took place on stages, as well as in urban environments.

Pina was breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and riveting. It gave me a wonderful introduction to her work, and I hope to see some of these dances performed live.

Empathy

2012-01-03T10:47:00.004-05:00

I first read Empathy in the early 90s, and loved it. I just reread it and it was even better than I remembered.

Written by Sarah Schulman, it is kind of an existential novel about lesbian identity and the search for meaning in the contemporary world.

It centers around two characters who are each somewhat at sea in New York City where people are dying of AIDS, nodding out on the street, or living in a stupor of consumerism. One of them is a street corner psychoanalyst. He gives out cards on the street and only sees patients for three sessions. The other main character, Anna O (named after the famous hysteric) is his patient. Together they enter into a wonderful dialogue and both try to manage their alienation -- romantic, political, social, and familial.

The writing and dialogue have a special surreal quality, where people really speak themselves. It cuts to the heart of things. Each character exquisitely observes themselves and others in a way that makes Empathy very intimate and very intelligent.

Deconstructing Harry

2012-01-01T21:45:00.004-05:00

I enjoyed Deconstructing Harry, a 1997 Woody Allen movie.

I have a number of problems with his films. Although in some ways I identify with his self-absorption and neurosis, I find his presence in his films to be alienating. The way he creates emotional chaos in those around him while remaining unchanged himself. He is good at illustrating the wedge he creates in relationships, but completely incapable of depicting anything bonding between his character and others, and so I never understand why any of them are drawn to him.

In spite of this, Deconstructing Harry is smart and interesting. Great scenes, great bits of dialogue, great performances here and there. It is about a writer struggling with problems in his personal and creative life, and the fictional depictions of these are interwoven with the actual plot, so it's stories within stories. One of the writer's stories is about an actor who is out of focus, and I found this to be a particularly interesting idea. One of my favorite scenes was the meltdown fight he has with his ex-wife, played by Kirstie Alley, who is excellent -- fucking excellent -- at portraying emotional hysteria.

The Nutcracker at BAM

2011-12-28T11:46:00.003-05:00

Last night I saw The Nutcracker at BAM. The company was The American Ballet Theater, and the choreographer was Ratmansky, and it was rather different than the production I saw at Lincoln Center as a child.

An exuberant, silly, cotton candy ballet, it was thoroughly delightful. I got impatient for real dancing during all the kitschy set up in the first act, but was rewarded in the second act.

War Horse

2011-12-25T23:17:00.002-05:00

I guess I enjoyed Steven Spielberg's War Horse. It opened today, Christmas, and I saw it with my mom.

It's ruggedly sentimental, predictably schmaltzy. An epic story of a horse and the boy who loves him. The horse ends up in battle in WWI, and there is a lot of violence and drama. But somehow I felt one step ahead of the story, easily sensing what would be coming next. In spite of this, the narrative and cinematic tricks all worked on me: I cried.

I like it when a movie makes me cry. And I guess I liked this movie, even though I didn't really think much of it one way or the other.

MOMIX Botanica

2011-12-23T23:19:00.004-05:00

I saw MOMIX perform Botanica tonight at the Joyce. It was such an incredibly beautiful, awe inspiring, exuberant piece!

Based on the seasons and an exploration of natural processes, Botanica is made of many very short dances, each which inventively -- extremely inventively -- use light, props, and illusion to create stunning visual effects. The dances were humorous, erotic, joyful, and sorrowful, and the dancing was graceful, athletic and energetic. I was so thrilled by each piece. My favorites were the marigold flower dance, the dance with the trees, the horses, and this piece pictured here, where a dancer moves against a mirrored surface -- so sensuous and confounding and complex.

Rent Girl

2011-12-19T23:43:00.004-05:00

Rent Girl, Michelle Tea's illustrated memoir about being a young hooker in Boston, is totally engaging.

The writing has a light, conversational style that sucks you in. Vignettes are presented in an offhand fashion. Yet the voice deepens and grows on you and I began to feel invested in the narrator. The tales of hooking are gritty and sad, filled with mundane and sometimes humorous details.

Laurenn McCubbin's illustrations add a tremendous amount to the story, really breathing life into aspects of it.

Rent Girl chronicles Tea's relationships and struggles to find a way to get by financially without compromising self or aesthetics, and in this way it's sort of a coming of age story.

I really enjoyed it!

Righteous Dopefiend

2011-12-02T16:58:00.004-05:00

I am so glad I read Bourgois & Schonberg's Righteous Dopefiend, an ethnography of homeless injection drug users in San Fransisco.

I had been concerned that this photo-ethnography would be voyeuristic poverty porn, but instead it painted a complex, nuanced, in-depth portrait of human suffering, contextualizing individual lives within a socio-economic and political history. Righteous Dopefiend takes the reader into a "Community of Addicted Bodies", exploring the nature of community, habitual drug use, and biopower. The photographs are disturbing and beautiful, and provide detail, texture, and humanity to the work. In addition to being an excellent ethnographic work, Righteous Dopefiend includes journalistic portraits of unique individuals and relationships, and chronicles violence and abuse. Finally, it includes a thoughtful and realistic analysis of policies affecting homeless and indigent drug users.

The Muppets

2011-11-27T17:19:00.003-05:00

After dinner on Thanksgiving I went to see The Muppets with my brother and sister in law.

I had never seen the previous two muppet movies, and didn't really have any feeling about muppets one way or another. I thought this one was kind of bland and formulaic and not particularly entertaining. Although a woman sitting near me in the theater was thoroughly enthralled and delighted. Clearly she had grown up adoring the muppets, and this was a meaningful experience for her. Which leads me to believe it is best suited for children and people who are already big fans.

Gender Rebel

2011-11-27T17:14:00.003-05:00

The other day I watched a documentary on Watch Instantly called Gender Rebel, which follows a few young genderqueer couples. One is dealing with telling her mom about being genderqueer, another is transitioning, MTF, and it follows the strain placed on her lesbian relationship, and the third follows a young genderqueer who is moving from the East Coast where she doesn't feel safe to San Francisco in search of a community.

I found it to be a very sensitive documentary, with a lot of humanity, and very interesting and engaging for its 45 minutes. It didn't however explore gender issues in much depth or offer any kind of analysis.

Ties That Bind

2011-11-23T00:50:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading Ties that Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences by Sarah Schulman.

I had recommended it for a student, and then thought I should check it out myself. It turned out to be impossible to put down.

Ties that Bind is about the active exclusion of gay people that exists at every level in our culture. The family is a primary, crucial institution for instilling and enacting homophobia and heterosexual privilege, and Schulman unflinchingly examines the injustice of this shunning. It is a call for third party intervention, for others to defend the rights to dignity and inclusion that the victims deserve. It includes very interesting sections on other kinds of victimization and abuse and silencing, which illuminate the particular consequences for queers. It also includes examples from the authors personal history which very powerfully illustrate the injustices of homophobia in the family, as well as in the world of art, entertainment, and publishing.

The Piano Teacher

2011-11-20T00:24:00.003-05:00

I just finished watching The Piano Teacher (on Watch Instantly).

About a decade ago I was on a real Jelinek kick, and read several of her novels, all of which I was really into. I think, if I remember correctly, that I liked The Piano Teacher the least. Still I have been meaning to see the French film version of it for a long time.

So... I just don't know what to think. I suppose that is a good thing, when the director doesn't impose a point of view on you. But it's rather disconcerting.

The Piano Teacher is basically a character study, focusing on a kind of archetypically repressed woman. Hair back, high collared shirt. She is a highly intelligent, highly controlled, curt and acerbic musician who teaches piano at a conservatory. Her personality is so cold, so unforgiving, and so stiff, that it is very difficult to empathize with her. This becomes a particular problem when she mutilates herself, and when she does one very cruel thing to one of her students. Not being able to connect with her makes these things, and others, very agitating to watch.

She lives with her overbearing and unkind mother, and she has a few dark sexual predilections. But the story centers around a relationship between her and student at the conservatory who pursues her, and whom she ultimately engages in masochistic fantasy.

I felt agitated and disturbed throughout the movie. But I was mesmerized by the pacing, the control, and the acting. It was an unpleasant experience, but a powerful one.

The Mere Future

2011-11-18T19:50:00.003-05:00

I LOVED The Mere Future by Sarah Schulman. I read it very quickly, totally captivated by the unique, at times beautifully dissonant, and emotionally sharp prose.

It takes place in Manhattan in the future, and the city has been transformed by a charismatic leader with an astute aesthetic sense. The novel explores a number of interrelated characters. Their inner world and social identity are illuminated by the wonderful writing, and my only complaint is that as the plot quickened I knew the experience would be over before I was ready to say goodbye to the characters.

This was the first book I read on my iPhone. It was kind of ironic, reading a dystopic novel that addresses the alienation of consumerism on the device I am increasingly dependent on.

Sarah Schulman at RADAR event

2011-11-13T12:49:00.003-05:00

Last night I went to a great RADAR event held at Viracocha, a very cool store in the Mission. The reading took place down stairs in a wonderful space (that included a bar!).

Ali Liebegott read from a novel she is working on, and the selection she shared was about an intense scene involving a dog. I really liked the work.

Then Sarah Schulman read from her new novel, The Mere Future, and it sounded like such an interesting and evocative work. In the 90s I read and loved Rat Bohemia and Empathy, and now, in addition to wanting to go out and get The Mere Future, I want to re-read those novels, which I remember as being wonderfully written.

After the reading Michelle Tea interviewed Sarah Schulman and the discussion was fascinating. The audience got insight into Schulman's writing process and experiences as a queer writer making literary space for herself and her community in the world. All in all a great event.

Sybil Exposed

2011-11-06T14:50:00.003-05:00

Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case, by Debbie Nathan, is a marvelous, marvelous read. Completely impossible to put down.

It is a biography of the three central women behind the Sybil book -- the real life Sybil, Shirley A Mason, her shrink, Connie Wilbur, and the author Flora Schriber. It describes the histories and issues of these frustrated women and the ways in which they manipulated and exploited each other. In particular it focuses on the ways in which Wilbur manipulated Shirley into acting out, and the ways in which the diagnosis of MPD was constructed out of thwarted needs and misguided attempts at finding satisfaction. The diagnoses, is a hoax; but it tapped into anxieties and concerns of two generations of American women, the pre-feminist and early feminist women who were negotiating new female identities...

I loved reading this book. I gobbled it up on the plane to Syracuse and back and was disappointed when it ended...

Sidewalk

2011-11-06T14:41:00.003-05:00

Sidewalk is a terrific documentary based on Mitch Duneier's ethnography of street booksellers in Greenwich Village. It allows you to really get to know several of the men, and provides an understanding of many of the conditions and obstacles faced by the homeless.

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

2011-11-06T14:37:00.002-05:00

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo is a powerful and gripping documentary about the routine and often sadistic rapes of women in this war-torn country. The violence is at times very difficult to watch, but the documentary is made with sensitivity to this important subject.

No! The Rape Documentary

2011-11-06T14:32:00.005-05:00

No! The Rape Documentary is a wonderful exploration of rape in the African American community, particularly looking at the reasons this form of violence is often silenced.

Bridesmaids

2011-10-27T12:53:00.003-04:00

Bridesmaids looked like the kind of movie that I would just hate - a comedy built around a wedding. I never like them. I find the wedding as a dramatic motif so insulting, and the inevitable hysteria so gratingly shrill. It makes me embarrassed to be a part of the civilization.

But I had heard good things about Bridesmaids so I thought I'd give it a try. And, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. The central character is the maid of honor for her best friend, and enters a rivalry with another one of the bridesmaids who is this just too-perfect woman (played by Rose Byrne who is very wooden and annoying in Damages). Obligatory hilarity ensues.

The thing is, the hilarity is actually well-written and well-acted. The lead, Christine Wiig (I think) is very funny and very relatable, and she carries the whole movie. In spite of some very over-the-top moments, and some very broad comedy, Bridesmaids is enjoyable and worth watching.

Zipper Mouth

2011-10-18T19:53:00.004-04:00

Holy shit, I loved Zipper Mouth by Laurie Weeks so much! I heard her read some sections of it last week at the Luggage Store and was totally entranced. My mouth watering for more, I soon downloaded the novel onto my Kindle and proceeded to devour it.

The writing is fast, with complicated energized manic sentences taking you into the whorls of the narrator's mind. Neurosis, desire, self-contempt and humor all collide in this searing story of a self.

The narrative goes back and forth in time, somewhat crazily and at times jarringly. The protagonist is a lesbian junkie living in a quagmire of self-consciousness and deeply attuned to her mental and emotional processes. Her story is a pastiche of different moments, the present seemingly focused on an unrequited crush on a straight girl.

What makes Zipper Mouth so delicious is the smart, observant, transcendent prose ("the car's interior erotic with the heat of our narcissism"). I hate myself for not having written this. Not that I ever could or would.

RADAR series at the Luggage Store

2011-10-15T12:48:00.003-04:00

On Wednesday night, after a LONG ASS day of work, I went to a reading at the Luggage Store sponsored by RADAR Productions.

It was a great night of queer literature. The prose readings were particularly strong, and my favorites were Alvin Orloff, reading from a novel, Why Are You Smiling? and Laurie Weeks reading from Zipper Mouth. Why Are You Smiling? tells the story of an awkward teenager in the 70s, and the selection he read from included an encounter with a handsome and charming born-again. Zipper Mouth is amazingly written prose exploring neurosis and obsession, and the selection she read included a marvelous rant directed at Judy Davis.

Prohibition, Episode 1 ("A Nation of Drunkards")

2011-10-09T12:49:00.003-04:00

Ken Burns' three-part documentary, Prohibition, is a detailed look at the social history surrounding the 18th Amendment. Last night I watched Episode 1 on the PBS website.

This hour-and-thirty-eight-minute episode ("A Nation of Drunkards") provides rich detail about the rise of the temperance movement, starting prior to the Civil War. It discusses the social role of alcohol in the US from the colonial era forwards.

Prohibition includes evocative still footage of the era, and in-depth profiles of some of the key figures in the temperance movement. In particular, it highlights the role and political agency of women in this campaign and the effectiveness of their dogged, determined, collective action.

So far the second and third episodes of Prohibition aren't available on the PBS website, but I have them in my Netflix queue. Can't wait to watch them.

Picasso at the de Young Museum

2011-10-08T17:22:00.003-04:00

This morning I went to see the Picasso show at the de Young Museum, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris. The exhibition was incredibly crowded and I was irritated at the beginning, but gradually I just gave in to the fact that it was a fairly unpleasant viewing situation. Once I relaxed on it I was able to enjoy the show a lot more. Also, I gave myself permission not to take in every single piece.

It was marvelous to see so many Picassos that I had never see before, and just as wonderful seeing things in real life that I had only before seen reproductions of. This show made me appreciate him much more than I had done before. I saw more joyousness in the works than I had previously been aware of, as well as more darkness and depth. It was a very good show, a very good experience, and I'm glad I went. (It closes tomorrow and I almost blew it off this weekend).

Summer Hours

2011-10-08T13:08:00.002-04:00

Last night I watched Summer Hours on Watch Instantly. This French movie is about three adult siblings dealing with the estate of their recently deceased mother. The family was related to a significant artist who had a significant art collection, and dividing up and selling the estate was a formidable and slightly emotional affair. In addition were revelations about their mother's relationship with the uncle (the artist).

This was a simple movie, well acted, with very little drama. I enjoyed watching it, but was a bit perplexed because there was only the vaguest emotional center grounding it. The estate itself was sort of the main character, with the actors assuming different relationships to it.

28 Days Later

2011-10-06T22:47:00.004-04:00

Last night I watched 28 Days Later. I had actually seen it when it first came out, but have no memory of it. I do, however, remember watching the sequel a couple of years ago and being totally taken by it.

28 Days Later takes place 28 days after a horrible virus has gotten loose. It turns the infected into zombie-like homicidal maniacs within seconds of being bitten. It would be cheesy except it's so well crafted. The story follows a man who awakens from a coma in a deserted hospital in a deserted London and doesn't know what has happened. Luckily he meets up with two humans who haven't been infected and who have somehow managed to survive. They meet up with some others, lose some along the way to the raging infected, and eventually find their way to an estate that is protected by nine military men. It turns out being with these guys is pretty terrible as well.

28 Days Later is a scary and haunting movie, and I'm looking forward to watching the sequel a second time.

Turandot at the San Fransisco Opera

2011-10-02T02:56:00.004-04:00

Tonight I saw Turandot at the San Francisco Opera. I got $30 tickets through work, and, as I don't really know any opera lovers out here (yet), I went by myself.

I have to say, going to the opera alone really does take a fair amount of the fun out of the experience. (An opera just isn't an opera without Meridita) But I did my best. I got there early and enjoyed a plate of prawns and lentils in the house's downstairs restaurant, with a glass of wine, of course.

This was my second Turandot, and although I appreciated the story much more the second time around, I think I prefer the Met's production. The set tonight was designed by David Hockney and it had bold, flat colors -- fire engine red against black or Mattise-blue. It just had a cut out cartoony feeling to me, at least compared to the Met's lavish set. Also, at the Met I've almost always had orchestra seats, and these were grand tier and were farther away. It was actually a little difficult to hear the singers at some point.

Calif (Marco Berti) sang well but I wasn't drawn by his performance and he really does need to carry the whole opera. Although the Nessum Dorma totally sucked me in. It's just such stirring music; you can feel the whole audience holding its breath. As in the Met production, I preferred the singing and the role of Liu (Leah Crocetto) to Turandot (Irene Theorin). All in all, I enjoyed Puccini's lush and romantic music, and am glad I went.

Downton Abbey

2011-09-27T11:57:00.005-04:00

Last night I finished watching the PBS mini-series Downton Abbey. I gobbled it up on Watch Instantly. Actually, I had started it a few months ago, based on a review on Bitch Magazine's blog. But I couldn't get into it then. Recently, someone else recommended it and I got totally sucked in.

It takes place in 1914 on a large English estate. It is a melodrama about the wealthy family that might lose the estate, the cousin who stands to inherit, and the romantic possibility of him marrying their eldest daughter. She, Mary, is somewhat of a haughty bitch with whom it's hard to sympathize. But her acting is strong and nuanced. There is an intense rivalry between her and her middle sister. Also, about half the drama centers around the household staff. It's kind of an Upstairs Downstairs affair (I never saw that though).

Anyway, Downton Abbey has lots of deliciously bitchy characters, some really villainous. And then there were the good guys, who were always dignified and said just the right thing. Crisp, wry, British dialogue. Maggie Smith was just wonderful. Fun to watch in her elegant, haughty curmudgeonliness. Unfortunately, Elizabeth McGovern, as the American wife and head of the house was rather stilted and awkward in her performance...

The second season of the series starts in January. I don't have a TV, so I'm not sure what I will do. I might have to inflict myself on my friend/neighbor. Or else, buy a TV...

Everything Must Go

2011-09-22T22:08:00.003-04:00

A few nights ago I watched Everything Must Go, a movie staring Will Ferrell based on a Raymond Carver story. It is about an alcoholic who loses his job on the same day that his wife kicks him out of the house -- changing the locks and leaving all his stuff on the front lawn.

I think you are meant to think that he's the jerk in the situation, because he's an alcoholic fuck up. But really I couldn't get passed how fucked up it was of the wife to leave his stuff out and to cancel his access to their joint account. Leaving him with absolutely nothing to do. You are supposed to get past this and become absorbed in his dilemma and the bittersweet way that he deals with it, living on his lawn, befriending the son of neighborhood home care worker, and the pregnant woman across the street. And I did enjoy most of the movie. The acting was good, the dialogue solid, the plot engaging. But there were a lot of holes and in the end I didn't feel like I had anything invested in any of the characters.

Valencia

2011-09-11T11:29:00.003-04:00

I just devoured Michelle Tea's Valencia. I downloaded it on Kindle last night and couldn't put it down. When I got too tired to stay up, I forced myself to go to sleep, and woke at seven this morning to finish it.

It is so fun, so fast, so sexy. Well written, with lots of wry, smart observations. A charismatic, slightly manic voice telling wonderful stories about youth wildly thriving in a particular era. (It is very nineties -- one thing that hit me was when she writes about calling from pay phones and getting answering machine messages. Gone are those days).

I haven't been able to read anything since I started preparing for my move to San Francisco, and I think it's fitting that this the first book I've read since I got here.

Born Innocent

2011-09-09T00:23:00.003-04:00

Born Innocent is a made-for-TV movie that I saw when I was a child. It made quite an impression on me, because I'm pretty sure I even went out and read the book. I hadn't seen it since the 70s, and for some reason felt curious about seeing it again. I knew it would be cheesy, but I thought it would be a guilty pleasure kind of thing.

Born Innocent is about a 14 year old runaway who ends up in a state facility for girls. Immediately the culture of the girls is rough and confrontational, and innocent Chris (played by Linda Blair) is not there too long before she is gang raped with the handle of a plunger by a group of her peers. It is a disturbing, awful scene. She is traumatized and ends up telling a teacher at the institution. Though the teacher believes her, the other adult doesn't. In any event, the possibility that girls are gang raping each other is glossed over.

The girls are tough in a ridiculous cartoon way that is hard to relate to, but you sympathize with Chris simply because she has such a youthful, cherubic face. When she gets to go home, it turns out her mother is kind of crazy and her father is violent and they don't want her. Back in the institution, Chris begins to harden. There is a silly food fight, the loss of a baby, and then a seriously violent riot, instigated by Chris bullying the adult supervisor. In the end, despite the efforts of a sympathetic teacher, Chris has lost her innocence and is a tough girl like all the others.

The homophobic undertones and the blase treatment of violence, combined with the adults' wistful, earnest, over-the-top acting was bizarre, and although I did enjoy Born Innocent, I also felt kind of sick while I was watching it.

The Politics of Injustice

2011-09-06T11:51:00.003-04:00

The Politics of Injustice: Crime and Punishment in America by Beckett and Sasson offers a persuasive argument against get-tough-on-crime policies, and puts forth an analysis of mass incarceration that implicates conservative rhetoric, underlying racism, the war on drugs, and private interests in the dire situation we see today.

Although making a clear thesis throughout, the problem of the crime issue is never oversimplified. The relationship between political rhetoric and strategy, mass media, and public opinion is particularly nuanced. In conclusion the authors recommend adopting alternative sentencing, ending the war on drugs, decriminalizing drugs, reinvesting in social programs, and instituting gun control.

This is an excellent book for undergraduates.

The Adjustment Bureau

2011-09-05T14:13:00.004-04:00

The Adjustment Bureau, staring Matt Damon and based on a Philip K. Dick story, is an engaging movie that is a little sillier than it intends to be, and not as gripping or suspenseful as it needs to be.

It has a fascinating premise -- after a chance meeting with an engaging woman, Matt Damon's character walks into his office to find everything frozen and dapper men in hats, as wells as some in protective gear, doing something sinister to his colleague. It turns out he has seen something he wasn't supposed to see, and had walked into the parallel universe where these slightly sinister, slightly robotic, and extremely rational men make "adjustments" on humans so everything goes according to some plan laid out by the "chairman."

This at one time a conventional, and rather charming, love story at the same time that it is a sci-fi adventure. Matt Damon and the woman are very engaging to watch, but their encounters defy the plan and they must escape being adjusted if they want to be together. There are many surreal twists, where actors go through door after door that opens into surprising and illogical spaces.

The acting is good, and the men in hats are spooky, but ultimately it was kind of a limp movie. A lame debate about fate versus free will is interspersed throughout The Adjustment Bureau, and the ending was both corny and kind of unsatisfying. Also, it wasn't scary enough.

Damages: Season 1

2011-08-30T10:59:00.004-04:00

This week I was obsessed with Damages: Season 1, which I watched on Watch Instantly, two to three episodes at a time.

This series is about a law firm, headed by Glenn Close, that is involved in a complicated high profile case. The defendant, Frobisher, is played really well by Ted Danson. Close plays Patty Hewes, a steely, sometimes creepy, and driven attorney who you can't trust. The drama also centers on a young attorney new to the firm, Helen. I grew to dislike this actress who seemed both wooden and limp at the same time, and was out of her league in terms of the acting talent in the cast.

The story has many twists and turns and you never know who to trust. It also leaps back and forth in time in a way that enhances the suspense and tension. I liked this a lot, but by the end it felt exhausting and strained, and I was a little sick of it. Still, will I watch Season 2?

Absolutely!

The Kennedys

2011-08-23T11:55:00.004-04:00

Over the last few days I watched The Kennedys, an 8-part made for TV movie that mainly centers on Jack Kennedy's presidency.

I found it to be very lukewarm. There wasn't enough politics or social context to make it really exciting or relevant. It was more of a personal drama, which is fine, but a central story line, between JFK and Jackie Kennedy was very weak. Katie Holmes played the First Lady, and in striving to be "graceful" she came across as remote and a little dim. There was no spark there. Nor was there any spark between her and Kinnear, who played Jack Kennedy. I didn't feel them fall in love or sense any bond between them. This made their marital troubles seem just oh so blah and unimportant.

The most engaging part of The Kennedys was the relationships between the three central men, Jack, Bobby and Joe. These scenes crackled and Tom Wilkinson was wonderful as the domineering and ambitious father. And by the end, I was horrified by Bobby's assassination (Jack's just felt like so what).

Ted Kennedy was nowhere to be seen. In fact the only other one of the siblings in the film was the sister who got lobotomized. Her brief storyline was presented only in relation to her parents, not her brothers.

All in all, this was watchable but forgettable.

Shutter Island

2011-08-21T12:05:00.004-04:00

The other night I watched Shutter Island on Watch Instantly. Actually, I finished watching it yesterday afternoon, and had been watching it in bits at night for a while.

I did not enjoy this movie. It seemed to employ every cliche in the book -- cliches about mental institutions and evil doctors; detective story/noir cliches; and horror film cliches. It felt really labored watching the actors make it through.

However, the ending kind of throws everything out of whack and kind of makes up for the heavy handed shlock. It's one of those movies you think about a lot after it's over, in spite of its flaws; and one of those movies you might watch again, just to see it from the beginning knowing how it ends.

To summarize the premise of Shutter Island, a federal marshal and his new partner are investigating a missing patient at an institution for the criminally insane. The hospital is on an island that can only be gotten to by ferry which is controlled by the institution. Once there, the two investigators are isolated in the creepiest of environments, and it is possible that they are victims of an evil conspiracy...

Gertrude Stein: Five Stories

2011-08-20T21:26:00.005-04:00

I just got back from a wonderful exhibition at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum. "Gertrude Stein: Five Stories" is an aesthetic exploration of Stein's life told in five sequences.

The first, "Picturing Gertrude", presents young photos of her and her family, but is really focused on her as she was photographed by significant artists. In this way, it is very much about Stein's unique and formidable appearance. To understand this woman and writer, and her impact on art, means understanding what she looked like.

The second, "Domestic Stein," focuses on her life with her partner, or "wife", Alice B. Toklas. This section chronicles their domestic partnership and the creation of their home, salon, and fashion aesthetic. Again, it is represented largely through photographs of the two women. They were photographed together as a couple frequently, and this "story" was particularly significant in that in anchors Stein's life and persona in her lesbian relationship.

Perhaps the most important "story", and literally the central one, is "The Art of Friendship" which presents the artistic and social circles which Stein inhabited. The many famous men who Stein was friends with are a critical part of her legacy. Yet somehow (and I'm really not sure why) I found this the least dynamic part of the show. It seemed a little rushed, too. Interestingly though, it took it's time with her opera and theater collaborations, and included footage from a dramatic ballet which Stein wrote the words for. I had no idea she created librettos...

The fourth part, "Celebrity Stein" chronicles her tour of America, her fame in her own country following the publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and follows her interest in the World War and her writings on war. Interestingly, the exhibition mentions that she and Toklas were protected Jews during the Nazi occupation of France, but there is little information as to what this was like for the couple.

The fifth and final "story", "Legacies" showcases the impact Stein had on art after her death. Featuring the Andy Warhol portrait, this section includes pieces by Glen Ligon and other's (I can't remember the name of the female artist whose work was an inverted image of Stein created entirely with spools of thread, seen through a glass viewer...).

The sections that were most significant for me were the second and fifth. It was very moving seeing a public lesbian relationship from that era highlighted and given significance. The small final section put her enduring work into context.

Although each story included brief bits of text from Stein's work, I would have liked if more of her unique and difficult language was included.

Damage

2011-08-14T11:56:00.004-04:00

I watched Damage last night on Watch Instantly. This early 90s film by Louis Malle (who I love) stars Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche as sexually obsessed lovers.

Binoche's character, Anna, is dating Jeremy Irons' character's son. Binoche and Irons have an intense erotic attraction that neither of them can ignore, but for some reason Anna doesn't leave the son. I found this to be a major flaw in the movie. Or a major character flaw. It made her unlikeable to me. Irons' character was of course unlikeable too, but his quiet and pained performance commanded much more sympathy. Binoche's Anna was presented as mysterious and having a tragic past, and presented as emotionally elusive... Perhaps a kind of femme fatale... In any event, in spite of the sexual heat, there was something cold and impenetrable (and a little boring) about their relationship). Although the ending was beautifully executed and powerful, there was something empty about it. I suspect this emptiness comes from Irons' restrained performance: his emotions for his son (and anyone else) were not accessible, and this made the ultimate tragedy seem sort of academic in a way.

At first I was turned off by Damage. But I got sucked in and really began to appreciate it. (By the way, it's possible I've seen it before, certain scenes, including the haunting ending, were extremely familiar to me)

Blithe Spirit

2011-08-12T10:50:00.005-04:00

Last night on Watch Instantly I watched the 1945 English film, Blithe Spirit about a married man who becomes haunted by his previous wife. The film centers around the upheaval this causes in his marriage.

The dialogue is very taut and crisp. Fast-paced banter that at times is too quick, too sharp, a bit too bitchy, and too... verbal. It's a very verbal talky film, but because it's so well written and well-paced it is thoroughly enjoyable. It also features a hilarious and earnest medium.

Blithe Spirit moves very quickly and has a breezy feel. Although a ghost story, there is no gloom and doom (in fact it is VERY blithe).

Crazy, Stupid Love

2011-08-11T11:37:00.002-04:00

The day before I left for San Francisco (three days ago) I saw Crazy, Stupid Love with my mother.

This sensitive, yet slightly screwball romantic comedy was just what I needed to calm my nerves.

Starring Steve Carell, it's about a long married man with kids whose wife (Julianne Moore) suddenly wants a divorce. He finds himself adrift in the singles bar scene and a suave younger man (Ryan Gosling) takes him under his wing. There's a whole Eliza Doolittle situation that goes on for a while. Then the movie focuses more on the damage to the family and the emotional needs of the characters. There are a couple of subplots as well, and everything comes together in an amusing, improbably mess. Of course, things resolve the way you want them too (except for one subplot with the teenage son; as the Times wrote, this resolution was "icky and insensitive").

Dr. John, Chuck Brown, and Red Baraat!

2011-07-31T09:25:00.003-04:00

I saw an AMAZING concert last night at Celebrate Brooklyn. It was fan-fucking-tastic.

I went to see Dr. John -- who was fabulous. So great. Exactly how I expected him. No disappointment there. He is fantastic.

But, I was also blown away by the two opening acts. Red Baraat, a "Bhangra funk" band that included a lot of brass (including a sousaphone) was so incredibly energetic and exciting. I loved their funky, Indian-inspired, eclectic sound. It was hard not to dance (although I didn't). They kind of reminded me of Balkan Beat Box, who I love as well.

Next up was Chuck Brown, who I also had never heard of. He is apparently the godfather of go-go (had to look that up this morning). He had the deepest voice I ever heard and his funky "go-go" music was incredible. Again, hard not to dance (although again, I didn't).

Finally, Dr. John. The audience went wild for him.

The awesome concert made me very happy, but for some reason I got very tired toward the end and was wiped out from all the incredible musical talent and energy.

(the photo here isn't from last night; I got it off the internet, but I think he was wearing the same outfit.)

Dear Zachary

2011-07-30T10:33:00.003-04:00

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about his Father is a moving and gripping story about a young doctor who is murdered. The filmmaker was a childhood friend of the man, and he started making this documentary as a kind of letter to the man's son (who had not yet been born at the time of the murder).

The wonderful footage of the life of the murdered man, Andrew Bangby, really made you feel like you knew him; it definitely captured his spirit and worked as a perfect memorial. However, the film was more than a testament to this great guy. It chronicles his parents in the aftermath of the murder trying to get custody of his child, Zach. Zach's mother is the one who killed Andrew, and the court drama surrounding her extradition is a big part of the film. Andrew's parents emerge as these wonderful, brave, loving, and wronged people. You really feel their intense grief, and feel like they are so strong throughout this terrible experience. And things only get worse...

Dear Zach tells a good story. However, I felt the style was too frenetic. I would have liked a slower, more straightforward telling. Also, it moralized slightly at the end about having a swifter surer justice system, and I'm not sure how I feel about it taking that direction.

The Feelies!

2011-07-24T06:33:00.002-04:00

Last night I saw The Feelies at Celebrate. They were amazing! It was truly an awesome show.

Awesome in spite of the 100+ degree heat yesterday. Sitting at the bandshell I was sweating my fat ass off. But it was totally worth it.

I remember The Feelies from college. I had the album The Good Earth, and I listened to it all the time. I wasn't aware of their other albums, but everything they played last night was terrific. I don't know how to describe their music, so I won't.

Maurice

2011-07-10T09:59:00.005-04:00

The other night I watched Maurice, the 1897 Merchant-Ivory movie based on the book by EM Forster.

Recently I badly wanted to read the novel, but it is not available on Kindle. I had heard that it's a frank story about a gay man in England at the turn of the century, and was very curious about it. It was published posthumously.

Maurice is a young gay man that has an intense romantic friendship with a college friend. The romance is physical, but it seems that the friend, played by Hugh Grant, never wanted to go all the way sexually (if I understood correctly). Eventually Grant's character becomes too afraid of living the life of a gay man, and renounces his romance with Maurice and marries a woman.

Maurice is tormented by his sexual feelings and goes to a doctor and hypnotist, to no avail. Eventually (SORRY: Giving away the plot), a servant falls in love with Maurice and pursues him. They have a few passionate encounters, a little relationship drama, and the movie ends with them together. How they would navigate the class and sexual mores of the time is unclear.

Maurice is beautifully and sensitively told, and I'm not sure why I didn't quite love it.

Inside Job

2011-07-02T21:38:00.004-04:00

I just finished watching Inside Job, the documentary by Charles Ferguson about the economic meltdown. It gave me such intense agita to watch this. Although there was little information that I wasn't already aware of, it was intense having the story all laid out. The interviews were great. Some very pointed questions were asked, and evaded, and there were some tense moments. Basically, the power held by a small group of the super wealthy is just unconscionable, and the extent to which they are intertwined with government is truly frightening.

Steel Pulse at Celebrate

2011-07-02T10:02:00.004-04:00

Last night I saw Steel Pulse perform at Celebrate Brooklyn.

It was an incredibly crowded concert with awesome energy in the audience and it felt wonderful and exciting to be there. The music was terrific -- they sounded great, and I enjoyed dancing.

Only problem was, I went by myself, and it just wasn't as fun as it would have been had I been with a friend.

I got there early to get a good seat, but everybody was standing so that was moot, I couldn't see a thing. But, like I said, they sounded great. Because I spent so much time waiting on line and waiting in the venue for the concert to start, once it did I had to pee like a motherfucker which was distracting. I left the concert an hour in. It was a great show, but I had to pee and I kind of was done.

Right now I think I'm going to download some Steel Pulse. I loved them and really hadn't heard them since college.

Pride NYC 2011

2011-06-27T10:39:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was the first time I went to the Pride parade in about a decade. It was so much fun! My friends and I had a great spot on 19th and 5th, right behind the barricade. It was awesome. Although on an intellectual level I'm critical of the institution of marriage, it was thrilling celebrating Pride a day (or two?) after New York passed gay marriage. Very exciting.

The weather was perfect, warm and mild. Not too hot, not too sunny, not too humid, and the spirit in the crowds was great.

Topped the afternoon off with many margaritas at Rosa Mexicano...

Least Weasel Chapbook Launch

2011-06-27T10:29:00.005-04:00

On Saturday night I went to a wonderful reading reception for the launch of 6 new chapbooks by Least Weasel.

The readers were:

Brenda Iijima, who read from Glossematics; Joanna Fuhrman, who read from The Emotive Function; Christopher Funkhouser, who sang his poems from Electro perdix; erica kaufman, who read from the amazing Instant Classic; and Christina Strong, who read from Fifth Plateau. The sixth reader, Jane Rice, couldn't be there, so the publisher read from her book of poems, The Truth About the World.

It was a great evening of interesting, well-crafted poetry. I enjoyed Fuhrman, Iijima, and kaufman's work the most.

Muriel's Wedding

2011-06-24T09:19:00.003-04:00

I am pretty sure that I had liked Muriel's Wedding when it first came out in the early 90s, so I was surprised by how intensely it grated on me and turned me off when I watched it again last night on Watch Instantly.

About 25 minutes in I turned it off. The screeching mean girls did not seem funny to me. Muriel's awkwardness and neediness just seemed sad, and I found there to be something unlikable about her.

However, friends on facebook encouraged me to keep watching. And I was rewarded with a few wonderfully awkward and interesting moments. Particularly worthwhile was Rachel Griffiths as Muriel's true friend. Still, overall Muriel's Wedding was shrill and pathetic, with a lot of unredeemed meanness. Muriel's family was so sad that I could find no humor in it. And the woman who played her mother was so good at portraying the beaten down hopeless and neglected wife that it was her sadness and tragedy that stood out most for me.

Look! Look! Feathers

2011-06-17T11:09:00.004-04:00

Mike Young is an amazing prose writer!

I just finished a sharp, dynamic, poignant, and expertly written collection of his short stories, Look! Look! Feathers.

These stories take place in pockets of suburban subcultures. Often written from the collective first person (is that the phrase? what I mean is the narrator speaks from the perspective of "we"), there is a strong sense of community within these small towns and cliques, a sense of belonging even while there is simultaneously a strong undercurrent of alienation, isolation, and twenty-first century futility.

What stands out most about these stories is the powerful crackling prose. The writing is fast and just bursts. I want to quote at great length, to give a sense of the spit-fire energy. The characters all have a dynamism because they are wrapped in this wonderful friction of language.

I enjoyed all the stories immensely. My favorite, however, was "Susan White and the Summer of the Game Show", about what happens to a small town when an invasive reality show descends on them. Also, "Stay Awhile If You Can". Oh, it's hard to choose -- I loved them all.

Hal Willner's Freedom Rides Project at Celebrate Brooklyn

2011-06-17T09:29:00.003-04:00

Last night I went to an interesting concert in Prospect Park, one I had been looking forward to for a while. Hal Willner's Freedom Rides Project brought together some musicians I was very excited to see: Toshi Reagon, Lou Reed, Roseanne Cash... The event was to commemorate and celebrate the Freedom Riders 50 year anniversary.

I'm afraid I was a bit disappointed in the event. It seemed not to have cohesion, and, more importantly, it seemed to lack in spirit.

The audience was all white, which I was not expecting. The large band that backed the performers seemed at times to be competing with them, and the contemporary arrangements at times seemed a bit discordant, cacophonous, and uncomfortable. For instance, a marvelous and powerful singer, Catherine Russell, had to belt out her song on top of them, and it took away from my ability to hear and appreciate her amazing voice.

Things seemed to pick up more when Tao Seeger came on; I think he was the first performer to directly address the Freedom Riders and the civil rights movement. He was a great, energetic, charismatic perform aer, and he got the audience singing with him. However, it felt a bit awkward or off, being in an all white audience singing about the freedom of riding on the front of the bus.

Toshi Reagon was awesome. She came on next and also talked about rights movements, comparing the civil rights movement to the need for women's rights right now. Her two numbers were wonderful.

I really wanted to hear more of Roseanne Cash, Tao Seeger, Catherine Russell, and Toshi Reagon. They all stood out for me (much more so than then straining Eric Mingus) (even more so than Lou Reed -- it was cool to see him live, but he seemed a bit to be phoning it in).

All in all, a good but uneven show.

Memorial reading for Akilah Oliver

2011-06-16T09:29:00.004-04:00

Last night I went to a memorial reading for the dear, wonderful, deeply questioning, and relentlessly beautiful poet Akilah Oliver. It was held at The Poetry Project, and sponsored by belladonna.

A number of poets read their own work in tribute to her or inspired by her, which was very touching. Most read from Akilah's own impressive, incredible body of work -- her explorations of desire, of subjectivity, race, culture... and most piercingly, of loss and grief. Her poems all contain a lucid, brave, and vulnerably honest voice that haunts me and makes me so sad for her passing.

One former member of Akilah's group, The Sacred Naked Nature Girls, performed, nude, riding a bicycle. It was heart wrenching, in part because Laura Meyers was such a talented performer, but also because it invoked a younger Akilah, the Akilah right before I met her in 1996. I remember her talking about The Sacred Naked Nature Girls, and wishing I had had an opportunity to see them. I felt Akilah's presence so sharply and sweetly during this performance.

At the end of the reading there was a screening of her reading her own work. It was so intense -- after two hours of people reading her work, invoking her through her language, to see her physically, in high resolution, and to hear her warm, firm, and living voice. The last line was, I believe, "someone is calling my name" -- and, of course, we all were, and are, and will for a long, long time.

The Bright Stream

2011-06-14T09:11:00.005-04:00

I saw a marvelously joyous ballet last night: American Ballet Theater's production of The Bright Stream at the Met.

This ballet was originally produced in Russia in 1935, and was re-choreographed by Ratmanksy in 2003. It is a comedic ballet that takes place on a farm collective, and has a silly and somewhat complicated plot. It involves a dancer dressed as a dog, a man in a Sylphide costume, a woman dressed as a man, and elderly gentleman on a bicycle.

I, however, did not worry myself over the narrative one bit. Instead I enjoyed the rousing music and delightful dancing. The evening was such a pleasure. When it was over I felt like I wanted to see an entire other act.

Our seats were in the highest section, which made it somewhat difficult to really see the dancers, but allowed me to appreciate the choreography and entire staging. Also, the long thinness of the ballerinas arms was particularly apparent and lovely from afar.

The score is by Shostakovich, and the principal dancers were Paloma Herrera, Marcelo Gomes, and Gillian Murphy.

Ballet Nacional de Cuba: La Magia de la Danza

2011-06-09T23:21:00.003-04:00

I LOVE ballet! And I'm so glad I got to see Ballet Nacional de Cuba present La Magia de la Danza at BAM tonight!

The performance featured scenes from several classic ballets: Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Coppelia, Don Quixote, and Swan Lake, as well as another ballet, Gottschalk Symphony. The classic ballets were all re-choreographed by Alicia Alonso, the Director of the company. Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with any of these ballets to appreciate her changes.

It was a remarkably beautiful and joyous evening. The dancers were amazing. Even though our seats were very high up, I felt I could see everything quite well and could take in the full staging.

Low Life 5: Flaming Queens at the Howl! Festival

2011-06-07T09:33:00.003-04:00

I enjoyed a wonderful set of performances on the main stage at the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park. Particularly entertaining was Low Life 5: Flaming Queens, a raunchy and dynamic drag cabaret.

The acts included a trio of bishops or cardinals dancing to an image of a crucified Justin Beiber (and going down on him); a terrific Diana Ross impersonator; a sexy male stripper; and a French duo costumed circa 1700s (or whatever, point is: great wigs)

Mary and Max

2011-06-04T22:21:00.005-04:00

I just watched an extraordinary claymation film, Mary and Max.

It is about a friendship that develops through correspondence between an unhappy child in Australia and fortysomething Jewish man in New York with Asperger's syndrome.

Visually grim and wonderfully detailed, Mary and Max is an exploration of loneliness. Both characters have an incredible sweetness and honesty to them, and the narrative spans many years, into Mary's adulthood.

I was immediately drawn into the movie, and was fascinated and touched by the characters. Although the plot gets slightly over the top, all in all it is marvelous, dark, and moving.

By the way, Philip Seymour Hoffman voiced Max, and he was terrific. I think he is not only a phenomenal actor, but he is so good at choosing unique projects.

Transamerica

2011-05-29T11:15:00.004-04:00

I had some mixed feelings about Transamerica. On one hand it's a very solid film. On the other it seems off in several moments, and many of the characters were sort of two dimensional.

Transamerica stars Felicity Huffman as Bree, a pre-op trans man. Her performance is excellent. She conveys a range of emotions, such as fear, hope, and insecurity, with an awkward dignity that makes her a real, full character. Some of the fussy mannerisms seemed like an odd choice to me. Bree's chosen style of womanhood seemed old fashioned and caricature-ish, but it created a tension that was important to the film.

The narrative centers around Bree connecting to a son she never knew she had. He is a sullen fuck up and lost soul, and although there was a lot of potential there, I felt this character was thinly drawn. As was Bree's family members. Particularly her mother who was monstrous in an unreal way that seemed almost cartoonish.

It's sounding like I didn't like Transamerica, but I did. Felicity Huffman was amazing, there were some great scenes, and it's an interesting (if contrived) story.

The Panic in Needle Park

2011-05-22T18:21:00.008-04:00

The Panic in Needle Park is a gritty, depressing, unsentimental movie from 1971 with Al Pacino and Kitty Winn. They play heroin users who are in love, and the film is like an extreme close-up of their relationship.

It is rather slow, and is much more character-driven than plot driven. The directing was strong in a claustrophobic, disturbing way that I appreciate. And the acting was excellent.

I usually don't care for junkie movies, but this takes place in 1970 in "Needle Park" on 72nd and Broadway. I grew up on West 78th, and was curious about whether I'd recognize the neighborhood (I didn't). For some reason I was also drawn to the title. And vintage Pacino...

The screenplay, surprisingly, is by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne and it is directed by Jerry Schatzberg. There were many acutely tense moments, and the ending was powerful (and had an understated pathos to it... very moving.)

Barnacle Bill and The Major Toms

2011-05-22T12:48:00.003-04:00

I had a great time last night at The Bowery Electric. I saw Barnacle Bill, a pop-rock band that was really fun and had a lot of great songs. There was something vaguely eighties, without being campy in any way, that I particularly liked about them.

The The Major Toms, a band that performed all Bowie songs. The first couple were unfamiliar to me, and they were fucking great. The songs, the band, the lead singer in particular. They totally rocked, hard. And the sound was terrific.

All in all a great night of excellent music.

Lady Gaga The Monster Ball Tour

2011-05-21T09:54:00.002-04:00

Last night at my mother's house I watched the HBO special, Lady Gaga: The Monster Ball Tour.

I missed the first 20 minutes, but what I saw was really fabulous. She rocks very hard and has terrific energy and a strong voice. I love her wild, aggressive aesthetic and really enjoy her hit pop numbers. I was only aware of about four or five songs: Bad Romance, Poker Face, Alejandro... so most of the numbers I was not familiar with, but I was riveted by her, her clothes, the choreography, the music.

When she talked to the audience she was slightly insipid, but it wasn't that annoying. Her message is, don't ever not feel like a star.

Anyway, I might have to make my mother rewind the DVR so I can watch the beginning of the concert. Also, think I'm going to have download those Gaga hits.

Registered Sex Offender

2011-05-17T09:11:00.005-04:00

Last night I watched an indie mockumentary, Registered Sex Offender, on Watch Instantly. I had never heard of it and it was recommended to me by Netflix.

Directed by Bob Byington, this is a snarky, irreverent, dark comedy following an obnoxious (but funny), recalcitrant, and lazy sex offender as he reenters the community after a prison sentence. He and the filmmakers make a mockery of the system and the absurdity of policies like forcing people to go door to door and introduce themselves as registered sex offenders.

True to the style of mockumentaries and the new aesthetic of the awkward, there were many subtly amusing, tense scenes that I confess I enjoyed watching. Particularly the scenes of group therapy, individual therapy, and community service. However, the difficulty of the subject matter and the fuck-you-attitude of the anti-hero made me uncomfortable, and I'm not sure over all how I felt about Registered Sex Offender. The ending in particular kind of confounded me; it didn't seem in the spirit of the whole piece. Also, at times I was aware of the actors acting, which was slightly distracting. Although for the most part I think they did a great job.

Toy Story 3

2011-05-14T20:37:00.005-04:00

Totally enjoyed Toy Story 3!

Cried like a baby at the end.

(Skipped Toy Story 2)

This one is about the fate of the toys after their owner, Andy, grows up and prepares to leave for college. The adventure parts of the movie were kind of scary, and I wondered if it was too scary for kids. Then I remembered how good it felt as a child to be scared by an animated movie, and realized that the resolution makes up for the intense fear, and that the experience can be cathartic.

The ending, sentimental as it was, was very moving and satisfying. Totally had me in tears.

Toy Story

2011-05-11T22:19:00.000-04:00

I watched Toy Story because I have heard such good things about Toy Story 3 and feel like I have to watch all of them to watch the third one. It's stupid, I know. But people have told me they're all good.

And Toy Story was pretty damn good. Not amazing or anything, but totally engaging. The animation was excellent. The narrative and characters were a bit of one-dimensional (and I realize it's really for kids), but the writing was good enough that I wasn't bored at any time. So I guess I liked it.

My favorite part were the creepy toys that the bad kid made. It was scary when Woody and Buzz were trapped in the room with them, and I bet it must have been terrifying for children.

One thing I thought was interesting was a sort of implied class thing with the bad kid. His home environment was physically decrepit. He slept on a bare mattress and his carpet was threadbare and holey. I don't know what to make of that. It's just something I noticed and feel kind of critical of, but I haven't really unpacked that criticism.

Rigoletto at the Met (encore)

2011-05-07T10:18:00.005-04:00

I won tickets to the Met AGAIN. This time was for Rigoletto, which I had seen earlier this year with Meridita. It is such a powerful opera with such great music that I was very excited to see it again.

And I'm very glad I did! It was wonderful! Possibly one of my favorite operas. The characters are very interesting (though none quite likable). I thought last night's Rigoletto, played by Zeljko Lucic was incredible. His emotion was so strong, and his singing powerful in this dreadfully good intense way. Also amazing was Nino Machaidze who sang Gilda. Her voice was just incredible, and, as my friend Leah pointed out, the duets with Lucic had a terrific musical and artistic chemistry. The entire second act was a delight, with one terrific musical moment after another.

I was also very taken by Giuseppe Filianoti as the Duke, and Stefan Kocan as Sparafucile, the assassin (I think I've seen Kocan perform before).

Okay, confession time: Friday nights are hard for me after a long week of work, and the glass of wine at Tout Va Bien in Hell's kitchen didn't help: I fell asleep! During the scene in the inn in the third act; it wasn't that I was bored, it was just that I was so tired. And the long intermissions really drain your steam. It was embarrassing though. I snored and Leah had to jab me!!!

Billy the Kid

2011-05-05T21:31:00.006-04:00

I just watched a very sweet, fascinating, intimate documentary. Billy the Kid, directed by Jennifer Venditti follows a fifteen year old boy over the course of a few weeks (I think). Billy is a social outcast in his high school, and he has a very earnest, odd manner that is endearing in this complex way.

The filmmaker zeros in on him, and it becomes this wonderful window into a very special vulnerable soul. Billy has something "wrong" with him. He is an odd kid. In the interview with the director on the DVD -- which is very much worth watching -- it emerges that he has Aspergers. But the director didn't want to label him, she wanted the viewer to experience him and experience his viewpoint. This was a great choice, because it removes an intrusive and facile clinical perspective and instead opens up the story-telling and exploration of character.

Billy the Kid kind of centers on an awkward romantic narrative, where Billy gets his first girlfriend. It's very tender, and silly, and just kind of amazing to watch. His relationship with his mother is also very touching. He asks her these straight-forward honest questions, like : "why is it when I'm attracted to her my heart beats like it's about to burst?"

A Visit from the Goon Squad

2011-05-03T22:04:00.005-04:00

Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad is breathtaking! It's an incredible work of fiction, beautifully and intelligently rendered.

It's a series of stories with interconnected characters, told from all different points of view and going back and forth in time. Each chapter brought me really into the characters, because the writing was so detailed and rich and every scene was so real. Each worked wonderfully on its own. But what was amazing was how it came together, how you got a panoramic view of contemporary life, at the same time that there was so much intimacy.

I was deeply moved at many points, and by the end I was simply blown away.

The Murder of Emmett Till

2011-05-02T20:52:00.003-04:00

Just watched a 2003 PBS American Experience program, The Murder of Emmett Till.

I hadn't known much about this case, not much more than it was a famous lynching of a black boy who whistled at a white woman in the South. The Murder of Emmett Till tells the story very well, in a pretty basic, straight-forward narrative. Because it was so high profile at the time, there was plenty of footage. It seemed even as the events unfolded that people realized something historical was happening.

This is a well done 53 minute piece. Not a ton of analysis or anything, but it gives a strong sense of the ugly and pervasive racism of the South in the 1950s, as well as of the significance of this event for the civil rights movement.

Sybil

2011-05-02T18:48:00.004-04:00

Last night I watched Sybil -- I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. (I can't believe my parents let me watch it!) It is so creepy and actually surprisingly well done. I don't quite know what I had expected, but I really got into it. Yes, it's got a little of a cheesy/dated quality to it, but it was totally engrossing.

The story is well known (in fact I read the book when I was a kid too), about a woman with multiple personalities who was horribly tortured by her sadistic and crazy mother as a child.

Sally Field plays the part so well that it was painful to watch, and Joanne Woodward was calm and warm and nurturing and patient as the psychiatrist/good mother who helps her get well.

The ending comes on kind of quickly, and it's wrapped up a little too neatly with a cathartic scene at the end. But it was still satisfying.

I feel like I should be critical of the doctor-as-savior thing (and really it was kind of unbelievable that this woman spent all her time and personal energy on one patient who never pays her), but I couldn't help being sucked into the ideal therapeutic relationship and I kind of bought it hook line and sinker...

Coney Island Gala!

2011-04-29T09:39:00.003-04:00

Last night I went to a totally fun gala benefiting Coney Island. It took place at a club called Amnesia on West 29th Street.

I've been to this event a few times and it is always incredible. Last night featured tantalizing "ambient artists" throughout the venue -- hoola-hoopers, gogo girls, and aerialists. There was a silent auction and I bid on a couple of things, including a beautiful painting by Meridith McNeal, and a photograph from the Mermaid Parade (I am not sure if I won...). Finally, the evening included a freak show performance with very entertaining strip tease numbers, and a gorgeous fire eating performance by Insectivora.

After the event Meridita and I went to dinner at Bottino, where we shared a salad and the freshest ravioli I have had in my life.

First Class/Second Class

2011-04-28T10:14:00.003-04:00

The group show First Class/Second Class at Asya Geisberg Gallery, co-curated by Geisberg and Leah Oates is fantastic -- it is complex and dynamic, with each of the works resonating and dialoguing with the others.

Exploring class from different perspectives, this show features a number of photographers as well as other artists who investigate poverty, wealth, resentment, alienation, pop culture and materialism, and conflict.

Pictured here is a detail from Holly Jarrett's installation, "Pig's Palace", a kind of shack created from found materials ornamented with kitschy wall paper and many images of Justin Beiber. Literally stepping into the piece I felt both overstimulated and cramped -- an important sensation, I think, for a piece about working class lifestyle and, perhaps, limited possibilities.

The photographs in First Class/Second Class depicted different elements and visions of class: rural and urban poverty, rendered compassionately and without a sense of voyeurism. A work by Miles Ladin, capturing wealthy people at what I think was a gala, was particular striking, conveying a surreal sinister alienation. It made me think of Larry Fink's Social Graces (I think that's the title of the book).

Particularly poignant were Rebecca Morgan's self portraits depicting self-loathing, resentment, fear, isolation and aspiration. These were beautifully rendered pieces that spoke to me on the most personal level.

Tea with Mussolini

2011-04-25T09:07:00.008-04:00

Wow, Tea with Mussolini is a total mess! This 1999 Franco Zeffereli film, with an awesome cast that includes Joan Plowright, Judi Dentch, Maggie Smith, Lilly Tomlin and Cher, just barely manages to not suck. It was a sprawling mess of a movie, but still at the end I was all teary eyed.

That is, I kind of have to admit I enjoyed it. It's about a group of expats in Italy during WWII. Mostly British biddies who are enamored of Italy and Mussolini, as well as two notable American's, Cher, who is extremely wealthy and willful but warm and caring (and, it turns out, Jewish) and Lilly Tomlin, who is sort of incidentally a dyke, although this is sort of like a random fact just tacked on. The ladies all pitch in the early education of a young motherless Italian boy before he is sent off to school in Germany, and their care and attention and eccentricities have deep meaning for him. Years later, when Mussolini enters war with England and America, and the ladies are under custody, he and the American Jewess come to their rescue.

I can't help thinking this could have been great. But it just seemed to keep missing it's mark. Not quite funny enough, not quite dramatic enough, etc. The characters all had a degree of charm, but were also rather two dimensional ("I'm the shrew!" - "I'm the ditzy hysteric!" -- "I'm the wise and warm one!" - "I'm the dyke!" -- "I'm the lovable rich eccentric!", etc.).

Traveling Light

2011-04-23T15:51:00.005-04:00

Kath Weston's ethnographic account of her journeys on Greyhound buses throughout the US is kind of stunning in an understated way. Traveling Light: On the Road with America's Poor is rich with anecdotes about the members of the working poor and underclass who she encounters. There are so many stories here, so many characters, that you get a wonderful sense of the breadth and contours of American poverty, without feeling beaten over the head with it.

Interspersed with analysis of class, race, the economy, etc, Traveling Light brings these stories into perspective, and the work is thoughtful and compassionate.

My favorite chapter was the last one, that chronicles her experience of the South prior to Katrina. And most important to me was the beginning of the author's note at the end:

"Anyone who writes about what it means to live without ready access to cash knows how hard it is to break with genre conventions and refuse to play the voyeur. How many volumes have been written in which well-meaning elites go slumming in order to regale a middle-class readership with stories of hardship?"

I was glad she wrote this, because it eloquently captures the problem I had with Nickel and Dimed, and Weston managed to avoid that voyeurism -- I'm not sure how exactly... somehow her perspective didn't intrude on the material, somehow she took the people she met and the experiences she had at face value without serving them to her readers with a sense of "can you believe how much this sucks?!". I really appreciated her writing and the sensibility which came across in this work.

The VindleVoss Family Circus Spectacular!

2011-04-23T11:06:00.004-04:00

Also at Dixon Place as part of the Puppet Blok! series last evening: The VinldeVoss Family Circus Spectacular! featuring Karim Muasher and Carrie Brown.

Using old school vaudeville tropes, and delightful clowning techniques, the two performers played an anthropologist and his prized zombie. The two were very charming together, and the performance was pretty engaging -- they did a lot to create the circus feel, including passing out popcorn and glow sticks. However, the humor began to drag for me, and although the piece was strong and entertaining, the charm started to fade by the end.

The Quiet Way

2011-04-23T10:56:00.008-04:00

Last night I was privileged to see an excerpt of Casey Llewellyn's The Quiet Way performed at Dixon Place as part of its Puppet Blok! series.

The Quiet Way is an abstract poetical musing on art, gender, and the meaning of it all, beautifully and touchingly rendered with paper cutout shadow puppets projected behind Llewellyn. It also included an actor in addition to Llewellyn moving against the light to create evocative shadows while delivering monologues about gender and being. The words of The Quiet Way were beautiful, and I would love to see a copy of the text.

Also, the audience was an active participant in the piece. Words were projected against the wall that were our lines, and we all became implicated in the existentialist project.

It is a great piece and I look forward to seeing it when it's completed.

By the way, the facebook description reads:

"The Quiet Way is a landscape to be entered. The piece unfolds in a constant present, as figures such as Girl who Reads, Robert Llewellyn who is a Girl (by others’ designation), Lapdog and Dust endeavor to find freedom within the confines of language. The play uses Eileen Myles’ words, “I just knew in a quiet way I was ruined if I agreed to be female,” as a jumping off point for the interrogation of gender, sexuality, transformat...ion and the scraping of the self against the outside. The piece draws on a wide breadth of performance language—including puppetry, dance, poetry and live music—to call attention to the moment of speaking and the problem of self-expression. The Quiet Way asks, what do you agree to? Where do you want to go?"

Frida

2011-04-19T21:39:00.004-04:00

I recently, through a friend on facebook, discovered Lila Downs, who I can't stop listening to. Googling her, it turns out her career really took off after she sang in the movie Frida. Which then was on my mind, so I watched it tonight on Watch Instantly.

Directed by Julie Taymor, who gets so much right but rarely fully hits the mark, Frida seems to me to be true to the spirit of Kahlo's paintings. That is, something about Taymor's artistic decisions resonated with my experience and memory of the paintings I've seen.

The movie was very focused on the relationship between Kahlo and Diego, and it wasn't really that interesting. In general I'm not a fan of biopics, but this one was good enough, as far as they go.

Like Water for Chocolate

2011-04-16T23:50:00.003-04:00

I watched Like Water for Chocolate tonight. It's a Mexican movie that takes place in the turn of century, during political upheaval. It's a magical realist love story about a young girl who is deeply in love with a young man whom she can't marry because her mother wants her, as the youngest daughter, to stay single and take care of her when she's old. So instead the young man marries one of her sisters.

It follows how they all live together with this illicit passion in the household. It is beautifully rendered, but I didn't fully get into it. Part of my problem was I didn't care for the young man at all. The ending was also a bit over-the-top.

Capriccio with Renne Fleming at the Met

2011-04-16T11:49:00.004-04:00

The good news: I won Varis orchestra seats at the Met for the FOURTH time (last row in the orchestra, but still).

The amazing news: it was an opera starring Renee Fleming.

The bad, bad news: The opera, Capriccio, totally blew.

When I described the story to Meridita, who was so good as to accompany me, saying it's about a dinner time conversation about art, she laughed and said, "So it's like My Dinner with Andre as an opera?"

Yes, and let me tell you a CONVERSATION (particularly a 2 and half hour conversation) does not make a good "plot" for an opera. It was so fucking wordy. And nothing happened. To make it worse, there was no intermission (Meridita said they do that on purpose knowing no one would come back if you let us out).

The audience was having a tough time. In addition to general fidgeting, coughing, and candy wrapper rustling, people actually kept getting up an leaving. There were many, many times where I had to force myself not to look at Meridita out of fear that we would start laughing uncontrollably. The two women next to me were having a similar problem.

The music was very enjoyable. Sometimes (ironically since the "debate" was about poetry versus music), I stopped reading and just watched and listened. Renee Fleming sang beautifully, in warm, rich voice. But my favorite was Peter Rose as La Roche, a commanding bass who sang dramatically and lovingly.

Oh, and there were many points in the last forty minutes where it seemed like it was about to end. At one point everyone left the parlor, and the servants came out commenting on the action. I couldn't help during that scene to be reminded of the Oompa Loompas... And don't let me forget the scene where Renee Fleming seemed to be having a very private moment with a rose...

The Abstinence Teacher

2011-04-15T09:26:00.007-04:00

I enjoyed reading The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta. However, it was nowhere near as good as Little Children, which was darker and somehow drew me into the characters in a deeper way. In The Abstinence Teacher the characters are kind of broad and there is something farcical about it as a whole. That said, the story was good; funny and smart and well written. It tells the story of a suburban town in the Northeast which is beginning to be infiltrated by Christian fundamentalists. It centers on two characters, a sex ed teacher who is being forced to teach an abstinence curriculum, and a relatively new member of the church who is a former druggie and whose commitment to Christ is rather shaky. In spite of the weakness of the novel, I had a hard time putting it down and was kind of disappointed when it ended. The ending, by the way, was rather sudden. When you read on a Kindle you have much less of a sense of how much is left of a book, and in this case I had no idea I was reading the last chapter.

Maddy Owen-Dunow, Carlea Holl-Jensen, and Alex Morris at Barbes

2011-04-10T13:12:00.002-04:00

Nelly Reifler put together another great event yesterday evening at Barbes. She is so great at finding talented, interesting, and charismatic writers. It is always a pleasure to be in the audience at Nelly Presents at Barbes.

Yesterday I got to hear three young writers: Maddy Owen-Dunow, who read an evocative short story in the second person; Carlea Holl-Jensen, who read a few pieces including a highly intelligent story written from the perspective of Charlotte Bronte's unborn child; and Alex Morris who read insightful and narrative poems.

Where the Wild Things Are at NYC Opera

2011-04-09T16:27:00.006-04:00

This afternoon I saw a special benefit performance of Where the Wild Things Are at New York City Opera.

It wasn't a full production, but a concert performance. The orchestra was on stage, and the singers performed on platforms in the back. Most fantastic, however, were the projections of wonderful, vibrant art by Rush Kids and Teens. These fantastical, whimsical, and surprisingly complex images made the whole event really come alive.

Samples of their art work were on display in the promenade, and I took a bunch of pictures with my phone which didn't come out.

The music was great, and Danya Katok, who sang Max, was delightful. The orchestra was conducted by Julien Kuerti.

Tosca at the Met

2011-04-09T09:51:00.003-04:00

Wow, what an incredible opera: Last night Meridita and I saw Tosca at the Met. I had won tickets (once again!) through the Weekend Ticket Drawing program they have. True, our seats were second to last row of the orchestra, but they weren't nosebleeders and it was just fine. The opera blew me away. Meridita and I had seen it in HD outdoors at Lincoln Center last year, but I wasn't that taken by it. This was a whole different story. Both Meridita and I were totally sucked in by the drama and completely caught up in the action. There was just something about it that was dramatically more riveting. The singing was incredible. I was particularly blown away by the beauty of Violeta Urmana's voice as Tosca, and Salvatore Licitra's aching Carvaradossi. Marco Armiliato conducted and James Morris sang Scarpia.

Wendy and Lucy

2011-04-07T21:25:00.004-04:00

I watched Wendy and Lucy just now on Netflix Watch Instantly, based on a friend's recommendation on facebook.

This very quiet, very focused movie is difficult to watch. It is about a young woman (played firmly and sensitively by Michelle Williams) who is traveling in her car with her dog and a limited amount of cash. She is heading to Alaska to find work when her car breaks down and she loses her dog.

Wendy and Lucy chronicles the two days she spends in desolate town trying to find her dog and get her car fixed. It is a subtle movie that manages to be tense and frightening the entire time. There is very little relief, in fact none, from the sense of isolation (that's not quite the right word) and the terrible insecurity of not having money. This is a slow movie that had it not been so well crafted would possibly have been excruciatingly boring. Instead it shimmered.

The Good Son

2011-04-03T21:35:00.004-04:00

I rarely have a craving for schlock, but sometimes it just appeals to me in an irresistible way. Hence, tonight I watched The Good Son, a thriller/melodrama about a bad seed.

A little boy's mother dies, presumably of cancer, and his father has to go on a business trip and leaves the boy with his brother's family which is comprised of the parents, a little boy and a little girl. You learn there had been a baby brother who died recently, drowned in the bathtub.

So the family's son, played by Macauley Culkin, has a sickly sweet demeanor and it turns out he is evil. The boy staying with them figures this out and it is up to him to save the family.

I could have sworn I'd seen The Good Son before, but I think it's that it's so filled with visual and dramatic cliches that it just seems that way. One good thing, the ending was intense, and rather surprising.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers!

2011-04-03T14:29:00.004-04:00

On Friday night I had such a wonderful treat: The Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Minetta Lane Theater in the West Village.

I can't believe how much fun I had and how much I enjoyed these amazing, talented, and generous performers. The juggling was beautiful and mind-boggling, and the whole performance was filled with exuberant, joyous, old fashioned humor. It is so rare these days to just be purely entertained. It was really cathartic to just laugh and be amazed for 90 minutes. I can't remember when I last has such a good time at the theater.

Erica Kaufman at The Poetry Project

2011-03-31T09:38:00.003-04:00

Last night I heard Erica Kaufman read at The Poetry Project. I am a huge fan of her work, which is always sharp, crisp and complex. She read her long poem "Instant Classic" as well as selections from her book Censory Impulse. Her poems display so much amazing verbal facility, such a pleasure and project in language. Playful, yet intellectually earnest; an exploration of language that is firmly rooted in a human voice, a human perspective and experience, and a human questioning of experience.

Jack Wilkins and Howard Alden at Bella Luna

2011-03-30T11:28:00.004-04:00

Last night I went with a friend to a restaurant on the Upper West Side, Bella Luna, which features live jazz every Tuesday night. We saw guitar players Jack Wilkins and Howard Alden perform beautifully. They were excellent, and my friend was particularly moved by their Moon River. I can't wait to go back again.

Catfish

2011-03-29T09:34:00.003-04:00

I watched an interesting documentary last night that my brother recommended, Catfish. It follows a young photographer who gets involved with a woman on facebook, and begins to develop deep feelings. They meet in an odd way, the girl's 8 year old sister sends him a painting she did of a photograph of his, and he begins a correspondence with the 8-year old prodigy and her mother, before engaging with the 19 year old sister. He gets enmeshed in this family, and suddenly things start to not add up, and he does some investigating... The story is told largely through texts, g-chats, and facebook newsfeeds, so it's very 21st Century. The main character was kind of self-satisfied and annoying, but when they eventually uncover the girl's real identity I found myself fascinated by her, and would love to have known more. It's definitely worth watching.

Judy Linn at Feature Inc.

2011-03-20T10:44:00.004-04:00

Last night I went to the opening of Judy Linn's photography show at Feature Inc., "69-76 Photographs of Patti Smith."

This was an interesting (although somewhat predictable) exhibit of early fashion shoots of Patti Smith, and others; beautiful posed black and white photographs of a woman who is now an icon.

There was a sweetness to these pictures of two young people horsing around, posturing, playing for the camera. Particularly because they didn't know how famous they would become. As the friend I went with observed, there was also a freshness to their hipness -- less derivative and straining than today's hip set. More authenticity, I guess.

Doug Varone and Dancers

2011-03-17T09:48:00.005-04:00

Last night I saw the company Doug Varone and Dancers perform an extended piece, Chapters from a Broken Novel, at the Joyce.

This was a beautiful, lyrical, and at time harsh and aggressive dance. Very complex and stylized. Very emotional, but very controlled.

There were twenty separate dances, each rich and evocative and dense. Each complete in and of itself. Of course I liked some more than others. For instance. a piece where the cast of 7 dancers kept moving each others limbs. It had a mechanical yet haunted effect; or some of the more "dancy" pieces with the entire company. However, I enjoyed the whole thing thoroughly, was engrossed for every minute.

The music, by David Van Teighem, was a little difficult for me to adjust to at first. But once I did, after the first piece or so, it worked so, so well with the movement.

I went with a friend who said that sometimes dance feels cold for her. I could see that coldness a bit in this work, in a way. Even though it was highly emotional and intense, it was also very controlled and highly aesthetic. Some of the emotion at times felt jarring and confrontational (not in a bad way, though).

My only problem with Chapters from a Broken Novel is the title. It made me strain to find narrative coherence between each dance, and this was distracting and unnecessary. The word "novel" was a stumbling block for me.

Megamind

2011-03-12T22:33:00.004-05:00

Megamind is terrific!

I just watched Megamind, an animated feature about a super-villain. It is presented from the point of view of the villain, and totally makes fun of the smarmy super-hero. The tone of the first part of the movie is pure sarcasm, and it is done in a kind of jubilant way that is very charming.

When Megamind accidentally kills his rival and gets to be "evil overlord" of the city, he is thrown into an existential crisis. He tries to make a new superhero rival, and this backfires. As the plot moves forward several of the characters evolve, making this a nuanced movie where good and bad are relative and complex...

It was laugh out loud funny (my favorite part was the newfangled super-hero's pretend "space dad") and visually exciting. And the narrative was very engaging.