Danny Collins

I really enjoyed Danny Collins. Starring Al Pacino, it's about a cheesy older performer, sort of like Neil Diamond (who I like, by the way), who receives a letter written to him 40 years before by John Lennon encouraging his song writing. This spirals him into a crisis about finding himself creatively, and also involves trying to connect with the grown son who he has never met.

It's kind of silly throughout. The grown son wants nothing to do with him at first, and his pouty stubbornness seems a little bit of a cliche, not about character but simply a plot device. In Danny's crisis he moves into a generic hotel (a Hilton I think) and develops a really fun flirtation with the manager, played by my favorite, Annette Bening. I enjoyed this "patter" quite a bit.

Even though Danny Collins is kind of cliche and fluffy, I was very entertained throughout and thoroughly invested in it. I even cried a bit at the end.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (season 1)

I just finished watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the 13-episode Netflix series.

At first I found the pitch of it to be too shrill and abrasive, and the tempo too chaotic. After 16 minutes I didn't think I could watch any more. But a few days later I tried again and became hooked.

The show centers around a young woman who had been held captive in a bunker for 15 years with three other women. Their kidnapper was a crazy doomsday preacher. The series opens with them being rescued and released. After a media hoopla Kimmy decides not to  return to the Midwest, but to make a go of it in NYC. Hilarity ensues. She meets up with a wacky gay roommate, Titus, and gets a job as nanny for a deluded narcissist, Jacqueline.

The humor is very fast paced. Very Tina Fey. Off-beat and surreal. Very broad, but with an absurdity that makes it more palatable. Although there is a dark side -- the subject matter is of course disturbing -- Kimmy's resilience and perkiness is actually kind of uplifting and at moments it is almost a "feel good" comedy.

My favorite character by far is Jacqueline, brilliantly played by Jane Krakowski. She is so out of touch that she doesn't know where water comes from and when she loses her maid she gets trapped in her own dress because she doesn't know how to unzip it.

GUTS at Dixon Place

Tonight I enjoyed two really fabulous performers at Dixon Place. Dia Felix has put together what so far is very much a marvelous series, Guts.

I got to see Morgan Bassichis deliver a monologue that started with reflections on the Going Clear documentary (which I just saw the other night) and a lifelong fascination with cults, then Morgan explored an interest in fathers, and ended with an engaging story about losing a friend a friend in the woods. Morgan was incredibly funny and just so great to watch.

Becca Blackwell's monologue centered on her relationship with her vibrator, from when it first entered her life to her present day involvement with it. Her humor is delivered in a polite, unassuming manner, but at the same time it's unapologetically in-your-face.

What made both performances so incredibly great was how amiable and conversational they were. They are just both very charismatic and talented artists.

Citizen

I just finished a beautiful book, Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric.

The prose poem is a meditation on contemporary black experience and subjectivity -- the endurance of racism and it's omnipresence into so many layers of human life and interaction. The loveliness of Rankine's writing is a wonderful enigma, that through such beauty she exposes such ugliness.

Citizen presents her words in juxtaposition with many haunting images, such as the art of Glenn Ligon, Nick Cave, Carrie Mae Weems. These images dialogue with the reflective prose in a particularly powerful way. Citizen confronts the racist murders of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner. It moves in and through these horrors with writing attempting to make sense of it -- but there is such senselessness:

"because white men can't
police their imagination
black men are dying."

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

Last night I watched Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. This documentary about the controversial organization was a little monotonous (certainly not as engaging as The Jinx!).

Because I had read A Queer and Pleasant Danger, I was already familiar with some of the stuff, about the audits and the levels, and the Sea Org, etc. Going Clear focuses on the voices of former Scientologists, many who had been in the religion or organization for decades. Their stories, about the absurdities and abuses, were very interesting. I would have liked to have heard from current, practicing Scientologists as well.

One of the things that particularly disturbed me is that once someone reaches the highest level they get a locked briefcase filled with the handwritten writings of the mad man, L. Ron Hubbard. This explains the creation myth about a world like 1950s America that gets taken over by an overlord and tons of bodies are frozen and dropped into the earth... very crazy shit. But, is it really any crazier than any other religion's creation myth?

My take on it is that Scientology is a mix of religion, psychological treatment, fascism, and science fiction.

The Jinx

I forgot to write about The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, a 6-part documentary I wanted last month.

I found this story of Robert Durst, suspected of two murders and acquitted of a third, to be so fascinating. 

It was filmed in a dramatic way that was very effective. I normally cringe at reenactments, but I think they worked very well here. The story could easily be told in 2 hours, but, except for the final episode, I didn't feel like it was drawn out. I was literally on the edge of my seat while watching this.

The day the final episode aired, Durst was arrested in New Orleans. In that final episode he was confronted with an envelope he had addressed, which exactly matched the handwriting of a note sent to the police after one of the murders. It was very damning evidence. But the real drama came after the interview was over. He went to the bathroom and without realizing the mic was still on, he mumbled all this stuff, including "killed them all, of course". It was so dramatic!

I am one of the few people who did not here these mutterings as a "confession" -- It seemed to me more that he was echoing what he presumed people were now going to think. I assume a good lawyer would be able to make this argument successfully in court. But maybe not.

A Certain Slant of Sunlight

I just reread the truly special Ted Berrigan collection of poems, A Certain Slant of Sunlight. I hadn't read these in over a decade, and I experienced them as wondrously fresh today. It is one of my favorite book of poems. Although there are many wry  moments, and some mildly and humorously cranky, it's a book of poems that really carries the air and pleasure of sunlight hitting in a particular way. The poems all have Berrigan's unique conversational lyricism and almost all of them contain little surprises, unexpected turns of phrase. I remember once reading or hearing that art or poetry is supposed to make the familiar strange. I think Ted Berrigan's poems are so comforting and elevating because the both familiar and strange at the same time.

Famously these poems were all written on blank postcards, which gives them all a similar length, but within this space the poet goes in so many directions, and the poetry is more expansive than it is contained.

Here's one of many, many good ones:

STARS & STRIPES FOREVER

 for Dick Jerome

How terrible a life is
And you're crazy all the time
Because the words don't fit
The heart isn't breakable
And it has a lot of dirt on it
The white stuff doesn't clean it & it can't
       be written on
Black doesn't go anywhere
Except away & there isn't any
Just a body very wet & chemistry
which can explode like salt & snow
& does so, often.


And some random favorite lines:

"never be born, never be died."

"... O lovely line that doesn't give an
    inch, but gives."

".... I had the unmistakable signature
of a mean spirit."