At the Black Pig's Dyke

At The Black Pig's Dyke by Vincent Woods

So far I have been only able to find this play in Far From The Land: Contemporary Irish Plays (Play Anthologies). It is not sold separately, nor anywhere else in the universe.

This is one of my favorite plays in the world probably because it's so extreme. Here's the basis: the plot follows a family through the story of the generations. Throw in some mummers(straw people, hay people etc), a wedding, some evil threats by a jealous lover, song & dance, a little death and you got your self a grand ol' time!

Word to the wise, you may have to read this a couple times to understand it, because it is nonlinear and jumps back and forth between generations and the mummers are Greek Chorus-like. It is a very short play, so you can get through it twice in one sitting.

I love it because it is very atypical.  It would be a great dramaturgical piece to work on. There is great potential for lighting & sound effects and no one has ever heard of this brilliance that is this play. I think it only has been produced twice- EVER. 

Eat Pray Love

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia- Elizabeth Gilbert

This book, well I loved it. Loved it so much that I read it in one afternoon- start to finish- one afternoon. Every woman goes through the spiral of emotion that Elizabeth Gilbert goes through. It just took her to Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself. I wish I could do that.... But then again, my downward spiral of emotion is more like, "Where am I going to get my next job?", "Do I want pasta AGAIN for dinner?", "How am I going to afford rent?" not nearly as deep of a spiral as Elizabeth's.

Italy has got to be my favorite. The language is beautiful, the scene is beautiful, the imagery is beautiful. Ohhh.... how I wish I could just eat all that splendid Italian food and hang out with those amazing Italian men.  Ok, Anne, stooop drooling.

India was a struggle to get through for me. Frankly, I am not as religious/spiritual as people think and don't have that much self discipline. I couldn't even sit still on a wooden bench at the beach, reading this book, let alone sitting without moving for 2 hours with mosquitoes crawling and biting every aspect of my body.  I would much rather sleep and pig out with my M&Ms than motivate myself to get up early and meditate. Nope- not for me. I did kinda find it enlightening though, when she finally "gets it".

Indonesia was ok. The plot thickened and Indonesia had more of a beginning, middle and end in itself than the others. For some reason, I knew that this book was going to have a tidy ending and everything was going to wrap up. Not sure if I liked that or not.

There are some things that keep sticking to me....such as the WORD that is you. I've been thinking about this and well I think my word is FOCUS. It's been on my mind a lot lately. (Thank you thesis defense.) My friend Will thinks that "Just Do It" is my personal slogan... however, he thinks it is more of a "Just Fuckin DO IT!" I am a DO-ER, but slowly learning how to not always be. So I think it is...

FOCUS.

All People are Famous

ALL PEOPLE ARE FAMOUS:(INSTEAD OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY). by Harold Clurman


This is what I want to do when I get around to writing my own autobiography, to write it about all the people who have influenced me to do things the way I did them.  This is what Harold Clurman did.

The book reads as a who's-who of the drama field in the 1930-1950. Clurman's close friends range from Alfred Stieglitz to Pablo Picasso to Jacqueline Kennedy and Arthur Miller to Andre Gide and Clifford Odets and Stella Adler (his wife). Apparently his crowd was the right crowd to hang out in-- well until people started naming names for HUAC. Can all my friends be that famous, when I am as established and successful as HAROLD CLURMAN? I'll take all that to-go, please, but hold the Great Depression and Communism please.

Harold Clurman, second from right, talks with actresses Ellen Burstyn, left, Kim Stanley, second from left, and Maureen Stapleton in 1979. Courtesy of The Wall Street Journa

There are many life lessons and great quotes throughout this book....

ON LIFE & LIVING:
- "I felt that the 'good life' should be achieved only through an understanding of the greatest books"- Clurman on his father

- "Heavy drinking is not the only vice common among artists, who are of course just like other people"- Clurman

- "We not only forget our lesser talents but neglect many of our masters"- Clurman

- "'La vie est une lutte'- life is a struggle- it is not particularly original thought"- Clurman on Carlos Chavez

- "Getting to know people, whoever they may be, is what's important; life, after all, is just one person and another"- Clurman

- "For me, the blessing of life is living it.  Life's sorrows are not accidents, they are part of the process and texture of existence. It is natural to fear pain, through it is not always good to avoid it"- Clurman

"'Harold has turned his every weakness into an asset.' It's true: I was lazy, so I forced myself to become active; I was very shy, so I taught myself to be bold"- Clurman on Clifford Odet's idea of him




ON ART:

Harold Clurman standing in front
of the theatre named in his honor, 1980.
Photo: Jack Mitchell

- "I rarely heard him talk of 'art'- only of the heart, blood, and brain that went into the making of it" -Clurman on his father

- "I am a consumer... I consume art"- Clurman's friend Sonny

- "He was committed to the artists, not simply as individual talents, but as representatives of something astir int he country, something bigger than the art world- life in America itself"- Clurman on Alfred Stieglitz

- "Asked after his first Martha Graham recital why he refused to attend a second, he was capable of replying, 'I'm afraid she's going to give birth to a cube"- Clurman on Stark Young's response to Martha Graham

- "Theatre folk are generally innocents: unpretentious ,sentimental, credulous, enthusiastic, and, where their immediate professional interests are not threatened, generous and kind-hearted"- Clurman

- "He is in a quest of a God he cannot find. If he did not write, which he never ceases to do, he would go mad"- Clurman on Tennessee Williams

- "'The problem in theatre is to find good plays.' 'The problem in the theatre', I rejoined, 'is to create a Theatre"- Clurman and Andre Gide




 ON THE TIMES:

Clifford Odets' iconic 1935 play Waiting for Lefty was first produced for The Group Theatre in New York City, pictured above. Lefty, a play about a taxi drivers' strike, sought to engage the audience with the production and meld leftwing labor politics and artistic forms. Seattle's production of Lefty, in 1936, proved to be contentious because of the long history of labor radicalism in the state.

- "America sis not need to import Dadaism or to imitate it, though some sophomoric intellectuals thought it the ting to do- American was Dada: flighty, vulgar, impudent, crazy, brash. At the same time it was desperate and eager in its quest for sound values. This chaos made the twenties a period of generative ferment"

- "It is difficult to know what periods or social conditions foster creativity. Rose was ridden with beggary, starvation, murder, rape, and pillage when Michelangelo was at work there and numerous architectural masterpieces emblematic of the glorious eventide of the Renaissance were being built"

Because there was so much politics swarming about the arts world, it was very hard, not to get swept up in the upheaval. I wonder what kind of great art all this political fuss today is creating??

No Applause Just Send Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous

No Applause Just Send Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous
By Trav S.D

Vaudeville is dead,....[but] like a phoenix, rising from the ashes, with scores, perhaps, of hundreds, of new variety venues popping up at alternative theaters and nightclubs throughout the nation....its ghost has continued to haunt us thereafter, and has even possessed the souls of the living in order to walk the earth again."

Sounds creepy.
 
This book is actually really great because it tells the story of vaudeville and what we know of vaudeville today, how vaudeville started and how modernism shaped it, how people have interpreted "vaudeville" into what they are doing, or the "it's because of vaudeville that this and this occurred" (such as the negative connotation of the word 'actor') and "this comes from vaudeville" (Circus Amok) and so-and-so got their start in vaudeville (Babe Ruth, Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, Will Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein, etc) kind of stuff. This is a historical book on vaudeville, but doesn't read like a history book.

"This is why vaudeville will always triumph, for it is merely an expression of people's longing for surprise, invention, joy, laughter, tears, transcendence.  it is the theatrical embodiment of freedom, tolerance, opportunity, diversity, democracy, and optimism.  The Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin called this tendency to break out, to laugh, to enjoy living in one's body 'carnival'; but there is another name for it, a tremendous word: vaudeville. A syllogism lies before us. Vaudeville is the life spirit itself, it is our very humanity.  And this is why vaudeville can never be 'dead'. For the day vaudeville flatlines is the day you can also write the epitaph for the human race" (295).

So, all you people who think vaudeville is dead- TAKE THAT!

This Side of Paradise: F. Scott Fitzgerald

This Side of Paradise is a kind of "Dead Poet's Society" without the Robin Williams aspect. The story follows this group of college boys in whatever endeavors their college paths lead them. This is obviously one of Fitzgerald's earlier works, because the character's are not fully developed and don't have an overall arch- with a beginning, middle and an end. "Fitzgerald’s success started with the publication of his first novel This Side of Paradise in 1920. The novel is written in three distinct parts that explore the romantic and mental maturation of a young Midwesterner named Amory Blaine as he attends Princeton (like Fitzgerald did himself), serves in WW1 and suffers romantic rejection in New York after the war."- Dan@Central

Book Two starts off with The Debutante, a play script, written in the middle of this book. The play also has the same characters, but I am not sure the sequence of whether The Debutante directly follows This Side of Paradise or if there are several years in between. It's difficult to read a novel and then switch to a play with the same characters, because the novel is third person point of view and the play is first. Different writing forms lead the brain to think and picture what is happening differently. The Debutante then switches back to novel form and remains in novel form throughout the rest of the book.

The entire book in interspersed with poetry- a stylistic writing that symbolizes the action or what the characters are feeling in that particular moment. This poetry acts as as the music in a musical- giving the audience another view of the story. "Blending poetry, letters, free verse and traditional narration, Fitzgerald offers a glimpse into the world of Amory Blaine and the “Roaring Twenties” with masterful skill that foreshadows the literary genius that emerged five years later with the publication of The Great Gatsby in 1925."- Dan@Central

The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada- Lauren Weisberger

So if I ever meet Miranda Priestly (not as if I would recognize her on the streets), but I would seriously bitch slap her across the face. A of all there is no reason why that woman deserves all the praise and bowing and B of all- what would you do in Andy's (4" Jimmy Choo) shoes?

This book kept me going. I missed my subway stop a couple of times, because I didn't want to stop reading. I read over my lunch break- forgetting to eat lunch because I kept wanting to read the enduring pain and torture that Miranda Priestly put her indentured servants Andy & Emily through.

I felt every character's pain: Andy's life long pain every time the phone rang, or that scolding bark of "Ahn-dre-ah", Andy's pain in hoping that somehow this will make a difference in her life. Lily's pain of the whole college thing- but not wanting to do the college thing, so she goes drinking and gets herself into a little trouble (I can relate to that). Alex's pain of loosing the person you love to their own work and standing aside watching them grow different and there is nothing you can do about it. Emily's pain of being at Runway longer than Andy, but not having enough courage to quit a job that you hate only because there is some sort of tiny tiny tiny silver lining at the end.

In Andy's shoes- would you stop and give Starbuck's to the homeless that you pass every day on the streets- on Runway's credit card? (I would like to think I would.)

- would you stay in a job that you hate for as long as she did? (I do.)

- would you leave your family and best friend and boyfriend aside because work comes first? (I do that sometimes....- oops.)

- would you have the balls to tell your boss off to her face in the middle of a very important fashion show? (I dont think I would- not to her face.)

- would you be someone fake- just so you fit in with everyone else? (sometimes I do. sometimes I dont.)

- would you read this book again because it makes whatever misery in your life disappear, because nothing compares to having to work at Runway like that every day? (I would.)

Composure of a Sphinx

So just finished reading the JFK book. The author, Robert Dallek, stated that JFK had the "composure of a sphinx"- not really sure what that means- but as I kept reading, it all made sense.

Similar to a sphinx, JFK holds his head high and remains a strong figure to those around him. He was always confident and calm and had an army of followers who believe in him and help him get to where he needs to be. JFK once said, “A reporter is reporting what happens. He is not making it happen. He isn’t participating.” JFK did everything he could to be an instigator of change and participated in that change.

By analyzing the government and noticing ways to change the way things were run, JFK stood on the shoulders of greatness and single-handedly improved the way the US government was running. Sphinxes (not sure if that is the plural- sphinxi??) usually depict the head of a royal family member on a lion. The lion itself is a symbol of greatness and royalty- strength and power. Using that as a structure to depict a member of a royal family is literally putting them on the shoulders of greatness.“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determining whether we use the power or power uses us” (203).

JFK is one of those people who see where he would like to be in the future and powers through until he gets there. “At the age of twenty-three, Jack understood that he needed a life-work, just as important, he had considerable confidence that he would succeed. His background and experience had created a belief in himself as someone special, as standing apart from the many other talented, promising young men he had met at home and abroad. His privileged life had opened the way for success, but it was hardly the full measure of what would make for an uncommon life” (68)

JFK's life ended prematurely- he had not finished with what he started. So as a sphinx guards the dead, I leave you with this- “How can there be any possibility in…death?” (154)

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