Insomnia Cure

Like anorexia, obesity, addiction to Warcraft, and fundamentalism, I think insomnia is a product of our culture. Rather than interpreting these various phenomena as "purely" psychological or physiological, a social view of U.S. culture as having certain toxic effects helps one not to blame oneself for various dysfunctions and addictions.

I am somewhat of a light sleeper to begin with, and stress means that if I wake during the night (to pee, because the dog needs to go out, because my son wakes and calls to me, etc.) it can be hard to fall back asleep. When I had Lane, I also had baby-related insomnia in a big way: by the time he slept through the night, I couldn't. A therapist recommended an excellent book, Say Goodnight to Insomnia and I recommend it heartily for the clear, calming, book full of good sense that it is. Really helped me to know I would not die of insomnia and that I could be ok in time. I also took benadryl, which had the lovely effect of giving me a solid 6 hours a night but dried up my milk so I stopped breastfeeding much sooner than I'd planned. (My OB should have warned me, but did not, dang it.) Some folks can't do the Benadryl/Tylenol PM type route because it makes them wonky for too many hours (or days), but at least it's not addictive and doesn't give you short-term amnesia and cause you to crash your car like Ambien! (I have friends who have experienced both!)

But I've found myself a new cure that works best of all: books-on-tape and my iPod. I have a bunch of books of light and frivolous nature (most by P.G. Wodehouse) on my iPod, and I simply turn them on very softly and listen when I wake in the middle of the night. Except for the harsh nightlight that is the iPod screen, it doesn't disturb my spouse beside me, doesn't involve altering my body chemistry, and can be used over and over. Between free downloads from the public library and iTunes, I've got wonderful radio plays and classic literature, silly comedies and mindless mysteries. I have new books that I haven't listened to for when I first lie down to relax me if I need it (instead of TV) and old favorites (especially Wodehouse's Blandings Castle tales) that I know almost by heart.

I find myself wondering if I'm the only one who does this. In any case, it really works for me.

Holocaust Imagery in Recent Films

There was a huge mound of discarded children's shoes in Pan's Labyrinth and another of peasants' shoes early in Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Mountains made of the shoes of the slaughtered (whether by a horrible Freudian monster or a monstrous government) is an easy invocation of horror and an obvious allusion to the Holocaust (one of the easiest horrors to summon for our twenty-first-century western consciousness).

These two films were so very different in focus and tone, yet both use this stock Holocaust image to magnify/simplify our awareness of Evil in the deaths of "chosen" people: children--the ultimate innocents--in Pan's Labyrinth and those who resist the government in Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Pan's Labyrinth arguably earns its usage: the Holocaust is part of our consciousness and unconcious fears as viewers, plus the filmmaker wishes to draw connections between the Spanish fascists of the Spanish Civil War era and the Nazis. By comparison. Pirates 3 is all about shortcuts that maximize pathos with the least amount of filmic space (so we can get to the action-adventure scenes, the special effects, and the Johnny Depp scenes).

Yet I am surprised to have found this image in both films. Has anyone noticed similar imagery in other films recently?

Well Fallen, Mr. Falwell

So, Jerry Falwell is dead. May his legacy of hatred and intolerance join him in the nothingness that I believe meets us all at death. May all the wickedness, cruelty, bigotry, and hypocrisy he spouted vanish into resounding silence for the future and instant forgetfulness smack into the minds of his followers with the same certainness in which his life ended (sans rapture, I might add).

I almost wish I believed in hell at times like this, for that is surely where Falwell would be right now if it existed. In sincerity, though, I simply wish that respect, tolerance, love, peace, kindness, gentleness, honesty, concern, care, and fun would find their way into the hearts of the Religious Right, and especially into their leadership.

Morality does not necessarily come with religious faith and, often, the opposite seems true: the louder the voice from the pulpit or the pew, the more immoral and irrational. Falwell did grievous wrong to his constituency and to all those who lent him even half an ear for half a moment. We can see it in his every word, but I don’t want to reprint them here lest they pollute the internet more than they already do. (But do visit Mark Morford’s Falwell column to read some of the saddest and most evil and know fully whereof I speak.)

When you’re through, you might want to read the wit and wisdom of that bizarre combination of iconoclast and neocon Christopher Hitchens at Slate.com or watch him on CNN, spouting anti-Falwell/anti-religion rhetoric with more persuasive and powerful gusto and sparkling white male Britishness than anyone else on the planet can muster (well, there’s always Richard Dawkins). I am so glad ethical athiests are starting to have some voice in the media!

To conclude, let me add how much I resent Falwell for making me have to write this blog entry. We all have better and more positive things to do with our time than combat the evil he spewed into the world in his power-mongering way...evil that will continue to impact this nation's populace and leadership, sadly, even after his death.

I think today would be a good day to plant a tree in reverent honor of a future without Mr. Falwell in it. And hug your LGBT friends. (Any excuse for a tree or a hug is good, eh?)

Vonnegut's A Man Without A Country

I just finished reading Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country. It's full of powerful opinions from the Left, wise and well-earned outrage. In fact, I don't think I disagreed with anything he said, though I have my own pessimistically idealistic feeling the species won't die out in the next 100 years, even if we are speeding towards doom at a rate unprecedented or unimagined by previous generations. Each generation has doom-predictors: we're just moving faster because our technology moves faster. And, in this country, because we let the dumbest and greediest lead in every facet of life. The book reads quickly and smoothly and delightfully in a pithy, witty, and often powerful way. From religion and politics to death and the arts, I share his perspectives.

Vonnegut does disappoint me, however. Or no. I could tell where he'd go in ways that I've grown accustomed to yet regret. Old-school white male focus is my frustration. He makes reference to men and women (with only one chapter doing a bit of Venus and Mars, and then only superficially), but all the wisdom he finds -- in literature, politics, arts, sciences, and his personal experiences -- come from the minds, mouths, and pens of white men. Lincoln, Hemingway, Twain -- I could catalog it but I won't. But references to famous wise women are absent, with the single exception of one reference to a few word's from Emma Lazarus. And people of color are praised for maintaining extended families (Navaho, the Ibo) and the Blues (African Americans), but only Martin Luther King is named (in passing).

We are products of our times and places and Vonnegut's more wise here than foolish...though it would have been so nice to write this post without a caveat. Hence, I'll end it elsewise.

Kurt is up in heaven now; and if this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

New Haircut!

Labyrinths Beat Bridges Every Time

Have meant to blog about Pan’s Labyrinth for some time, but haven’t gotten to it. Life has kept me away from the blog too long. Have been doing lots of theater (just finished Chekov’s “The Bear” and now am cast as Lois/Bianca in Kiss Me Kate). And work has been hectic, with me having to chair our biennial Women’s Studies Conference. But why blog about that when I can blog about Pan’s Labyrinth and Bridge to Terabithia!

Pan’s Labyrinth is a rich yet broadly scripted film that I did very much enjoy. My enjoyment was qualified by what I considered a very unnecessary amount and type of violence plastered all over the screen in places. We know the commander is an evil bastard from the moment we meet him (or before, when the young female protagonist is told to call him Father and doesn’t want to). But when he crushes her hand upon meeting her, we know he’s a sadist with no conscience and, for this Grimm’s fairytale-like narrative, enough. But no, we get gratuitous (imo) scenes like him punching a man in the face until he’s dead (I turned away, perhaps he punched him elsewhere or did other things, but I couldn’t look and plugged my ears, too). Other scenes were arguably more necessary in their violence, like when he stitches up the gash in his mouth and it has psychoanalytic vaginal overtones. But mostly I think the graphic violence was about director del Toro having been the director of flicks like Mimic and Hellboy.

The plot was arguably also not particularly original: the little girl who escapes the bad world around her through fantasy tainted by that world. There’s no escape is the message. And she dies as a martyr, also wringing the tears from us and evoking Jesus and not wildly original.

The fantasy world and its creatures were damned creepy and intense, though. One monster that eats little children (we see the carnage in Goya-like paintings and in a pile of children’s shoes that is directly evocative of the Holocaust – as are other elements as this is fascist Spain). I think of it as the miscarriage monster and it’s gorgeously hideous and a Freudian field day to analyze.

I also adored the use of sound in the film. Creaking leather was big throughout, as were the creaking building, beds, creatures, and humans. I’d need to see the film again to analyze that element further, but it definitely caught my ear.

By contrast, I have far less of interest to say about Bridge to Terabithia, which used some similar images: fantasy as escape for kids and marred by real life ugliness; martyred little girl. I think my very negative response to the film comes at least in part by how wrongly it was advertised. There’s precious little actual fantasy in the film and the ads make it look like a lovely little escape. I’d never have taken my son to Pan’s Labyrinth because I knew it was adult content with a child actor; I wouldn’t have taken him to Bridge to Terabithia either, if the ads had represented the content accurately.

As another reviewer my husband read (sorry, no citation at the moment) said: the film cannot bridge the gap between the touching fantasy escapism and the grim reality of killing off the seventh grade girl. She is the heart and soul of the film, the savior and martyr, the delight from beginning to end with her individualism and her pain, her enthusiasm and her art.

The plot is contrived, beginning to end. The boy who is ignored by the impoverished and too-full family, desperate for Daddy’s love but Daddy gives it only to his baby girl: not original. Suffering bullies at school, having a crush on a teacher: blah blah blah. And then here is that teacher. Totally hot hippy music teacher (who’d have been fired for singing hippy songs at my son’s school) suddenly gets the brilliant idea to pick up and take ONE YOUNG BOY to the museum ALONE. Can you say Statutory Rape Charges? It’s all “necessary” to show the boy be selfish for one stupid moment so the glorious girl can have an accident when alone and he can feel guilty the rest of his life. Or at least until he reconciles everything by donating his fantasy world to his undeserving little sister. What an ending. Dreadful.

In the end, both films left me conflicted. But Pan’s Labyrinth is ultimately a powerful and compelling film with evocative and rich imagery – a compelling filmic experience. Bridge to Terabithia, by contrast, is an unworthy mess.

Dog Whisperer Fan

I confess it: I love The Dog Whisperer, on many levels.

First, the dog psychology Cesar Millan uses is absolutely practical, useful, and right on the money. We’ve taken our basically good but nervous dog Josie and helped her be more secure, calm, and obedient in only a few days using Millan’s simple, common-sense method.

It is amazing how repetitive the show gets while remaining entirely watchable. I can now predict exactly what he’ll do or recommend on every episode, with the same sparkling results every damn time. The people always overindulge their dog, let it run the house, and substitute affection for discipline in a way the dog does not understand. The dog thinks that its neurotic behavior (whether aggression or nervous anxiety) is a good thing when the people use love and affection to try to calm it down, and in five minutes Millan takes the dog for a walk and gets it obedient and calm, even if it takes him getting bitten a time or two to do it.

I also enjoy the show because Millan is such an entertaining little macho powerhouse. I don’t think I could stomach him if he were only macho, though. He actually does seem to care about the owners and analyzes and treats them like a good therapist while smirking his “seen it all” smile as they think their situation with their dog is entirely unique and out-of-control while he knows it’s just another typical owner not giving the dog enough exercise or discipline.

Moreover, Millan and his dog pack definitely have a literal and symbolic “animal magnetism” that is engrossing to watch, and I definitely find myself attracted to him and his human-dog worldview.

I really want to see the South Park episode with Millan disciplining Eric Cartman and my Dog Whisperer life will be full! The excerpts I saw on YouTube were hysterical!

Meanwhile, how about a Cat Whisperer to get our fluffy monsters to stop clawing the furniture!

Trying to Talk to a Policeman

I was driving home after 10 the other night, returning alone from final dress rehearsal of It’s a Wonderful Life, my husband having taken our son in his car just before I left. En route, I decided to call my mother about something or other related to ongoing bits and bouts of depression about my father’s death and the ending of a close friendship only a month apart. She began to tell me of some stressful things that happened during her day and as we talked I lost track of speed limit. About a mile from home a cop pulled me over. I was going 65 in a 55-mph zone.

The usual things happened: he took a long time checking my plates sitting in his car, then walked v e r y s l o w l y over to my door and flashed his flashlight throughout my messy little red Focus with kids’ toys and tissues and empty water bottles everywhere. He acted as if I were dangerous, perhaps because my leather bomber jacket seen from behind makes me look so butch. He demanded my license, registration, and proof of insurance. I was flustered, frustrated, and increasingly depressed as he took his time looking over what I handed him (after rummaging through my equally messy glove compartment). Pretty soon, my eyes were filling with tears, and all I wanted was to go home. He aimed his flashlight at me as I dabbed at them and I looked up into that too-bright light and said, “Look, my father died a few weeks ago, I was having a stressful conversation with my mother though I shouldn’t have been talking on the phone in the car, and all I really want to do is go home. If you need to give me a ticket, that’s fine” or words to that effect, all said deferentially and with as much patience and as few tears as I could muster.

He nodded sagely, then went behind the car and looked at my license plate some more and waited for the report on my driver’s license (don’t they have computers in their cop cars yet?). When he returned, I noted that he had not taken out his pad for writing speeding tickets, which made me happy, as I didn’t particularly want a speeding ticket. But he did pipe up with a fascinating question:

“Do you hate our president?” quoth he.

“Do I what?” said I.

“William Bush: do you hate him?”

“Who?”

“The president.”

“George Bush?” I asked, trying not to sound too condescending as I was asked this entirely inappropriate question. I then remembered the W with red circle-slash on the back of my car. I smiled through soggy eyes. “No,” I said with a little laugh, “I don’t hate anyone. I disagree with many of his policies, but I don’t hate anyone. I’m tired and all I want to do is go home and go to bed.”

He replied, “Sounds like you’re going through some real chaos right now. I’m just going to give you a verbal warning. Remember, this is a 55-mph zone not 65.”

“Thank you,” I said, sincerely. “I really appreciate your not giving me a ticket.”

He added something about getting home safe and we parted company, him doing a dandy super-swift U-turn in the middle of the road that would have landed anyone else with a pricey ticket.

I don’t think I really need to analyze this for my readers, do I? Clearly, he should not have asked me that question about our president, “William” Bush. That he did not know Bush’s name is funny in an absurdist theater way. And that he would have given me a ticket if I said I did hate Mr. Bush is obvious and infuriatingly sad. But that’s how things are when you have to talk to a policeman in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Yee-haw.

DaVinci Code: Take 2

Life and death intervened to keep me from blogging about finishing The DaVinci Code before now. But here's a bit:

In the end, I really enjoyed the novel. It was escapist when I needed some escape; it challenged Christian religio-cultural supremacy when I needed to bask in such challenge. I stand by my critiques of the novel’s limitations, but once I accepted that this was an action-adventure thriller with some juicy if superficial political critique of the Church (many aspects lifted whole from other texts) rather than Good Literature (a.k.a. beautifully written prose with richly crafted characters, etc.), then I just dove in and enjoyed it for what it was. The reading dovetailed nicely with my readings of Richard Dawkins, which was another factor in its timely favor for me. Dawkins deserves and will get his own blog entry here one of these days. I share many of his perspectives but not all. He is sexist and throws babies out with bathwater too often, but he is also such a reassuring voice admist the excess of religious rhetoric dominating our culture and much of the world today. But I think I may have to blog about Talledega Nights and Nacho Libre next.

Talledega Nights: Over and Over

I have now seen the film Talledega Nights FOUR times. What does this say about me, about the film, and about the state of the union? Instead of answering those questions, here is an overview of my viewing experiences.

Before the first time: Saw the previews and actually laughed. Saw a making-of and enjoyed knowing the actors had done some behind-the-scenes roleplay at Nascar tracks. Thought the critique of redneck racing fans might do my Yankee heart good.

First time: Saw it with my son at the multiplex. It was the only film out that I thought he and I both might be able to stand. We both laughed aloud, though we found the writing of the kid characters excessive and unfunny.

Second time: Played for $2 on the campus of MTSU so dragged my hubby and my son to it again to see if Chad would enjoy it. He did. Again, we laughed aloud, and I paid particular attention to Sasha Baron Cohen’s character, his accent and facial expressions, especially. Chad and I particularly grooved on the long kiss at the end. And we both think the actress playing the wife is superb in the role.

Third time: Saw it without the sound on the airplane going to California (first trip) in early November. Enjoyed paying half-attention to the now-familiar funny bits and ignoring the rest—like moments of lousy editing (like the whole Susan character, which is fabulous in the bar scene but obviously cut out to make little sense in the rest of the film) and jokes that didn’t quite work (again, the kids and their change of character).

Fourth time: Watched it in the hotel with my brother when on the second California trip after my father died, thinking it would be good escape for me and Reid. Watching it with him made me see how stale some of the jokes were and how fluffy the critique (so interspersed as it is with cheering on the redneck). The knife in the leg scene is still hysterical, but even better in the outtakes. We also saw Anchorman when I was in CA the first time, and I opined then that Talledega Nights is better, more cohesive, more sustained critique…but after seeing it the fourth time I’m less sure. I don’t think Anchorman truly worked; it changed direction in the film several times, particularly re the purpose of the gender battle, but it had some great improv moments. When we finished with Nacho Libre and I thought it wasn’t much worse than either film (though somehow Will Ferrell is growing on me and Jack Black isn’t), well, Reid and I both decided that how funny a film is has much to do with mental state and energy. And when we watched the films, we had little energy and a seriously depressed mental state. Less so when we saw Borat on its opening weekend when things seemed stable with my dad and my brother and I were seeing a film in the theater for the first time in many, many a year. (Not that Borat, too, didn’t have its limitations, but it’s politics were much more upfront—even if rednecks can ignore them and just laugh at the foreigner jokes.)

The Da Vinci Code: Why Didn't Someone Tell Me...

...this is pulp crap?

I mean I know I should have been paying attention to what people were saying beyond the religious nuttiness, but I didn't. I just did not know that it is chock full of superficiality, predictability, sexism, and mediocre writing skills. Now, I confess entirely that I'm only on page 100, but I just had to pause and put down my thoughts (at least in part because I want something over my pirate pic below because someone told me it makes me look like I'm pumped full of testosterone with my dominant jaw and obvious pumped body! I'd love to look macho when I'm TRYING but I thought I looked hot and more femme than butch in that pic!). Anyhow, back to The Da Vinci Code...

To exemplify my critique, let's begin with Silas's backstory in Chapter 10. I could have guessed the S&M albino thug would have an abusive alcoholic father. I didn't think the novel would bother with his backstory, assuming, as readers likely would, that he'd have some horrid upbringing that led him to zealotry and a willingness to do others' bidding, no matter what was asked. Like Jaws or Oddjob, those over-the-top villain's assistants in the James Bond films, the albino Silas is our generic creepy evil-doer in service of the more evil-doing head villain. So, I didn't need his backstory. When I got it, it was entirely predictable and superficial, down to the butcher knife he used to stab his no-good, spouse- and child-abusing father in the back--and everywhere else, repeatedly. (I'm not arguing, by the way, that alcoholic men don't abuse and even murder their spouses with alarmingly culture-defining frequency; just that it was an easy/cheesy backstory for our albino villain's assistant.)

For sexism, I was truly surprised to see that, with the exception of Silas (who is, let's face it, an emasculated mess), the male characters are referred to by their last names (Langdon, Fache, etc.) while our intrepid cryptologist is always spoken of by her first name (Sophie). She becomes more personalized, less professional, more vulnerable. And I wonder if the author, Dan Brown, did this on purpose or not. I tend to think not.

I could go on, but let me pause here until I finish the novel and just say the whole thing has a kind of cheesy noir feel to it, artificially imposed and leaving me with a smirk on my face the whole time I'm reading it. Nonetheless, the religious symbology stuff is engaging and it is serving its purpose for me: escapism while I care for my very ill father.

What's New and Fabulous, Elyce?

What's new, Elyce? First and most fabulous, of course, is ME! I've lost almost 25 lbs. now, am bleaching my teeth, and had a fabulous Saturday Hallowe'en pub crawl with friends, dressed as a pirate babe! Men are giving me doubletakes these days and I must say I love it and need it! I'm also taking the motorcycle safety class soon and then, if it goes well, I plan to buy my friend Deb's 1999 Honda Shadow. (Can you say midlife crisis?!)

What are you reading, Elyce? Well, Chad and I are in the middle of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and loving it. He's a cocky fella, but so are most Christians we know, with perhaps less reason! He includes many gorgeous quotations from our country's "founding fathers," such as this gem from John Adams: "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" Zowie! Or this delight from a later Adams, Douglas (author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy): "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" I know, I know: most of my friends reading this are agnostic or lapsed/casual Christians or Jews, but I'm enjoying the possibility of claiming well-deserved respect for atheists--and I'm hoping by the end of the book I can claim the title proudly (I feel sometimes like a cowardly agnostic...I so WANT to believe in reincarnation, but I really don't believe in God, just in being a good, caring person). As Dawkins' says about atheism, "I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an athiest when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further."

What's your next show, Elyce? Just got cast as Mother Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. Too funny, isn't it? (Lane has also been cast, as a newspaper boy who cries out "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Local boy wins Congressional Medal of Honor!" It will be our first show together!)

And after that, Elyce? After the first of the year, I've been invited to play the young and beautiful widow who scorns, threatens to duel with, then falls for a brusque soldier in Chekov's early one-act play, "The Bear." It's a lovely role and the director will be my longtime MTSU colleague in English (now retired) Ayne Cantrell. How cool is that?

Anything else, Elyce? Heading out to visit my Dad Saturday for nine days. Send healthful thoughts for painless longevity his way.

Frida Kahlo Meets Moses

Though we didn't win a prize at our theater friends' "Famous Dead Persons" Halloween party, we do think we were the most provocative couple there!

And I'm amazed how much I actually looked like Frida Kahlo!

Career, Cukor, and Me

How do I feel about my career? Well, it’s important to my sense of self and well-being. I feel needed, wanted, useful, productive, smart, and important enough to avoid debilitating moments of self-doubt. I place value in education and I enjoy teaching and learning. I write well and I like writing. Not sure about cause and effect in all of this. Do I enjoy writing because I do it well or have I developed the ability to do it well because I enjoy it. Probably, the answer is “yes” (or “all of the above,” as my friend Rick would say).

I also love acting. Would I love it as a career? I’m not sure. Certainly, there is the theatrical within teaching: the students as audience to teacher as performer. The best teachers, so I am told, let the students perform. But I also believe that there are times when you just have to lecture, to bring new ideas rather than just asking questions to let students discover things on their own. There are some thoughts that some people just won’t come to without someone pointing out a path to them. In any case, teach is not acting. Students are a far less grateful audience most of the time, nor are they in the classroom to applaud their teachers. Nor should they be. So I also like acting for its own sake. I like performing someone else’s words when well or entertainingly written. I like singing good songs. And I love applause.

I have no desire to be a director. Never a behind-the-scenes type though I admire those who are content or thrive there. I enjoy taking photos, but I’d rather be in them (if well taken and make me look good). I love contemplating bringing something to the stage, but I’d rather bring it there bodily (and enjoy the applause).

All these not-new thoughts have been swirling around my head today as I read Gavin Lambert’s interview book On Cukor. Cukor loved the theater from age 12. Wasn’t great at school. Never wanted to act. Guessed he’d love directing without really understanding it. Saw every show he could in NY whenever he could as a young adult. Did assisting, stage managing, coaching, then directing. Then went to Hollywood and became a dialogue coach in the early days of “talkies.” Eventually went on to direct 80+ films. Privileged child of Hungarian Jewish immigrant parents who wanted him to be a lawyer but let him forge his own path with privileged-class indulgence.

I bring all this up because, for one, I’m trying to figure out why I am writing a book on gender in the films of George Cukor. Well, I love analyzing, I love gender studies, I enjoy film and am getting very good at critical analysis and teaching thereof. Then, Cukor and I are the children (or children’s children in my case) of European Jews who aren’t religious—though he had more class privilege than my folks or my folks’ folks on either side. And he was a closeted gay man who chose the discreet, conservative route most of the time and maybe I have in some ways but mostly not so much. I know I’m getting a great deal of pleasure writing this book. Some ideas come easier than others, some chapters come together easier than others, some films are more enjoyable and fit my schema easier than others. And I love reading all the gender theory and queer studies analyses and film criticism and film history. Maybe there’s no more to say than that it is a happy coincidence that I’m finding a blend of films I like to study, an approach I enjoy that will likely get published, my son is old enough to enable me the mental space I need to write a book, and few people have written on Cukor’s films. He’s kind of this odd combination of highly successful team player and underdog and I can’t always relate to him or his films, but I enjoy him and his films and anyhow it’s just working so there you go.

Though I’ve rambled on for several paragraphs, the specific purpose in beginning this was to cite a few quotations from Lambert’s book about Cukor that I find intriguing. They speak of a way of being and feeling that sometimes really speaks to me and reflects my worldview and other times really does not. Here we go:

“There are artists whose work is basically a release from personal tension, and there are others for whom their work is an extension rather than a tension, a mode of pleasure and a way of expressing curiosity about their world.”

This really makes me think of my mom. As for me, I think work for me is a combination of tension and extension, but in any case I love the words: extension vs. tension. I am very curious but also sometimes very threatened, so work for me is a way of sorting this out, seeking the new while protecting myself from the threatening. This assumes we mean teaching and research as art. If we’re talking acting, then we’re talking release from tension while engaging in pleasure, but in my life that also means not talking about career. Hence, my choice of doing more comedy and musicals than serious drama, which is compelling but not escapist for me usually.

Quoted within Lambert’s book is also this, from a letter by Lesley Blanch (don’t yet know who that is): “I think he has not, or has passed, ambition, in the destructive sense. This makes him utterly free. And being perfectly sure who he is, what he is, he does not envy—is not eaten up by competition.”

Oh, to reach this before I am, as Cukor was when Lambert interviewed him, 70. I think of myself as someone who is not destructive because of my ambition and envy, but I know there are times—at work, at home, with friends—where I am more competitive than I should/need be, more jealous or envious than I wish I were, more “eaten up” than I would like to be. I don’t envision being “utterly free,” nor do I think Cukor ever was. No one is. Cukor was semi-closeted his whole life, never truly loved his looks, lots of things. But as for career, he made his peace with it. I think I have too, for the most part. No desire to be an academic superstar, though not complacent and still with desire to do more, like this book, my first attempt to write a complete scholarly tome—to make the time and mental space for it despite a heavy workload.

If I can get to a space truly beyond destructive ambition, I sometimes feel, I will achieve the humility Cukor does seem to exude. Whether from a self-doubt related to his sexual orientation and ethnic looks amid the thin, white Hollywood ideal or a true inner peace, I love that Cukor could look back on his career and say he had “an almost mystic respect for other people’s talent.” I have moments of this, as when I admired the actor’s portrayal of the Jester in Once Upon a Mattress in the recent production I was in or this same actors work and the skill of the director in the production of The Bald Soprano I saw when I was doing The Hot L Baltimore. It’s not that I’m cocky and think I’m the best actress ever; it’s that I sometimes am too much in my own head (often in my own insecurities) to pause to really and truly respect other people’s talent. Again, not slamming myself here and not idolizing others; indeed, I think I can be more generous and giving than most people I know. Am just expressing a desire to be a little more generous, a little more patient with self and others, a little more listener than speaker. I’m better than I was and not as good as I hope someday to be. And that’ll do for now.

O Leafy Sea Dragon, who can match thy wonderosity?

Please meet my new favorite animal, the Leafy Sea Dragon. A stunning creature, a seeming blend of plant and animal of a species in which the male does the pregnancy and childbearing. Amid the moon jellies and manta rays and the utterly creepy-cool moray eels, I found you and could barely tear myself from your tank at the Chattanooga Aquarium. All hail the seahorses and their champion, the Leafy Sea Dragon!

Rethinking Country Music

You know, I have a lot of "re-" posts on this blog. Rethinking, reconsidering... I find this blog a useful place to work through second thoughts, reevaluations, new perspectives, or returns to subjects from fresh angles.

Being in Tennessee, perhaps it's predictable that sooner or later I'd rethink country music. But it's probably not in a predictable manner. I still don't listen to the vast majority of country, though I've always liked Patsy Cline, and who could dislike "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" on the jukebox? I think my friend Kate has always liked "Rocky Top," and though I didn't like it when younger, I've since come to enjoy the knee-slappin' twang of it. (Wasn't it you who'd enjoy it on the Rainbows Bar jukebox? Or do I misremember?)

But I still dislike the majority of country and worse for me is the political conservatism that seems to accompany it and, especially, its fans. I don't groove on white trash anthems or sappy break-up songs or high hair or "boot scoot boogies" or cowboy-hatted bubbas. This is, in part, cultural bias. Or at least cultural difference I can't get past.

Nonetheless, there are some artificial distinctions here that require me to say that, in certain circumstances, I do like country. I like rockabilly. I like bluegrass. I like "Ring of Fire" and "Jolene" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" sung with all the fervor singers can muster for a religion I will never understand.

More importantly, dismissing country wholesale means dismissing a folk tradition and a long and compelling history. One I'm proud to say I'm reading in Charles Wolfe's 1977 book about the relationship between country music and Tennessee, called Tennessee Strings.

I saw Walk the Line last night on HBO when flipping channels and found it badly written but engaging enough to watch most of. And it made me thinkg of Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly and Elvis all playing alongside Johnny Cash and the artificiality of country/rock distinctions with their performances and songs. And I really wanted to talk to Charles. But he's gone so I can't. Which is really unfortunate. I'm rethinking and he's unavailable for comment. A colleague replied that perhaps he was up in heaven having a beer with Johnny Cash even now. Great image. And if I believed in an afterlife, it would have been even better.

Another person I know is a book editor and just finished an editing job that should really be called writing a book (but won't because his name won't be on it as author or ghostwriter or assistant - just in the acknowledgements page, I imagine) about Johnny Cash, a guy's memoirs related to touring with Cash. Maybe I'll pick that one up too after I finish some of Charles' work.

Anyhow, I don't imagine becoming a country music fan anytime soon (or probably ever), but the history and study of it is definitely worth my time.

Need a Good Smile, Laugh, or Cry?

Free Hugs

This video made me sob like a baby. Sad sobbing, happy sobbing. Not even sure how it triggered the downpour. Something about how afraid we all are so much of the time. Distrustful, isolated, cynical.

In particular, we're so afraid to touch. Afraid that people are lechers who'll steal something from us, pickpockets, mentally ill. No question, I sometimes fall prey to this, too. Though I'd absolutely hug someone with a "Free Hugs" sign. As long as they didn't push religious literature on me.

This also reminds me of a documentary I saw years ago about middle-class women who'd been dumped by their husbands for younger women. They talked about wanting to be desired, just longing to be touched. They banded together and hugged each other.

Reconsidering Judy Garland

For the book I’m writing on gender in the films of George Cukor, I’ve recently spent a lot of time contemplating the film A Star is Born and the career of Judy Garland. I’ve never been a big fan, having generally been annoyed by her girl-next-door persona in the Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney, and finding her equally offputting as an adult in sappy flicks like Easter Parade. Despite being a person given to (feminist) critical analysis, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that Garland herself might not have wanted to be this hyper-earnest trifle of an actress. Certainly, the power of her voice exceeds the characters she mostly played at every opportunity. And she looks physically awkward often, like she has neurotic tics, especially in adulthood.

So, reading about Garland in A Star is Born, including the history of the film and how Garland ended up making it, as well as more contemporary critical study (including key works by Richard Dyer on gay men’s relationship with Garland), has led me to rethink the ease with which I dismissed Garland because watching her always made me uncomfortable.

A Star is Born is a film in which Garland’s discomfort is visible in every frame, in part because the film is so (intentionally) autobiographical and because the pressure was on: encouraged by her then-husband, producer Sidney Luft, she made the film as a come-back after having her contract canceled with MGM. This film was to show the “real” Garland, the power of her voice and acting, addressing the evils of the Hollywood studio system and its pressures on actors to be more machine than human.

Certainly, the power is there. When Garland sings “The Man that Got Away,” arms shooting out in all directions and the improvisational feel absolutely tangible, her belt is enough to shake the rafters in a way I can only envy and adore.

Yet, even as the film sells authenticity like a hot stock tip, there is the usual Hollywood artifice all over this film. That belted voice is taped then mouthed by Garland in the actual film, however strong the song seems. In many scenes, she is corseted and forced into ridiculous gowns and dresses to produce that starlet look, even as the film critiques Hollywood’s beauty norms and demands of its stars.

Most compelling to me as I analyzed all of this while rescreening the film was an article entitled “Feeling and the Filmed Body: Judy Garland and the Kinesics of Suffering” by Adrienne L. McLean from Film Quarterly. McLean analyzes Garland’s quirky and neurotic-seeming body movements and their relationship to the way her body was controlled and filmed. She argues, “The signs of Garland’s neurosis and pain not only appear in but are in no small measure caused by the struggles of her body and temperament to adapt to the demands made upon them over time by the visual conventions of women’s stardom itself.” Read the rest of the article here yourself to appreciate the rich analysis of her singing style, her dancing, and her movements in general as they relate to the demands of Hollywood. Truly engaging stuff.

Now, you may already know that Garland was heavily corseted for her role in The Wizard of Oz. The post-pubescent Garland had to be rendered pre-pubescent for the film. And such control and youthening happened to her throughout her young adult career. Her hair was dyed and she was heavily made-up, always. She was even made to wear nasal prosthetics to remove some of the pugness of her nose. Garland also had scoliosis, so she was only allowed to be filmed from certain angles that would not show a hunch in her back. As a more mature adult, she continued to be heavily corseted as she gained weight. She was under 5’ tall, so she always had to be made to look longer and less short-waisted. McLean makes plain that the short, stocky top/middle-heavy body of Garland is perfect for projecting the powerful voice she had. Instead, her body was controlled and regulated by norms that both hampered her movement and made her look awkward and neurotic when trying to use her body to belt those amazing songs. There simply was no acknowledgement of the fact that some people just don’t look like pointy-nosed hourglass models of Hollywood femininity—and of course that is still true today.

I can only imagine what that kind of manipulation of one’s body does to one’s sense of self and self-esteem. Clearly, the diet pills and the alcoholism and the suicide attempt make that plain.

I always knew Garland was a victim of her stardom, but now I know more fully why I cannot watch her act like the perfect American sweetheart in those Andy Hardy films or as the Plain Jane in need of transformation in Easter Parade. I feel badly that I was suckered into misreading distress for complacency in her performances. And I’m glad to have another perspective now.

Fresh Air was Stale Today

I’m not a huge fan of Terry Gross, but my heart really went out to her today as she appeared to struggle openly in an interview with John Hagee of “Christians United for Israel,” a right-wing end-of-days evangelical mess of an individual with delusions of grandeur, a condescending attitude toward Jews, and a loathing of all things Islam. He’s one in a growing number of loud voices arguing that Islam is an inherently hateful religion advocating the slaughter of Christians and Jews. Now you can guess how I feel, as a Jew, about Christians who champion Israel with even louder voices than Jews. And you can imagine my bafflement at the idea that Islam is a violent religion when the Hebrew Bible (a.k.a. Old Testament for my Christian friends and nemeses) is so full of examples of eye-for-an-eye justice and giddy stonings. But this idea that the wrongs in today’s world can all be laid at the door of Islam is horrifically disturbing. By all means pay attention to “radicals,” to fundamentalism – but let’s have that across the board. Any group that sees only one path to the Truth that requires dismissing, banishing, or destroying other ways of living is dangerous to all. And we all know Islam by no means has a corner on the claim to Truth market nor on the wishing or doing ill to others. As Hagee mouthed off his nonsense about the second coming and the protection of Israel, his belief that the Christian Bible has greater authority than the U.S. government and that there can be no compromise on that score, and his open disrespect for “Islamists” (you just knew he wanted to use Bush’s new favorite term “Islamofascists”), all I could think of was how poignant were Terry Gross’s silences after she asked each question. One or two follow-ups to try to get him to clarify the depth and breadth of his judgmentalism, his closed-mindedness, his ignorance, his overconfidence in every word out of his mouth, and the rest was silence or quick movement to the next topic. I felt dirty just listening to all the vile nastiness spewing from this man’s rhetoric, rhetoric he may even believe. I can only imagine how it must have felt to sit beside him and know with certainty that nothing you could say would shake this man’s “faith” in his own Superiority, his own Rightness, his own—in the words of Stephen Colbert—Truthiness. Just keep saying it, preaching it, praying it, writing it, forwarding it in little vicious “true” stories via email chain letters to family members you know damn well don’t agree with a word out of your mouth. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll silence the little voice in your head that reminds you that loving your neighbor will do more to stop hatred in the world than any doom-and-gloom gospel you care to make up from your arbitrary personal interpretation of that gloriously confounding and partial mistranslated text called the Bible. Me? I need to not listen to you, to try to forget you exist, for as long as possible, so I can find peace and love in whatever small spaces they still exist on this glorious and terrible planet.

Jerry Springer Made Me Happy?

Doing dishes and tidying the livingroom this morning, I put on Air America Radio as background entertainment. My general experience of the station is a repeated chant of "preaching to the choir" without much content or opinion I didn't already know or believe. The station also, of economic necessity, has dreadful repetitive annoying cheaply made commercials for annoying products and services I (and the bulk of the Left listening, I venture to say) do not want or need.

But there is value in preaching to the choir, at very least as balance to the dreadful preaching to the choir of Right-wing talk radio. It can be good to hear an "official" media voice reflect my perspective. It can be refreshing to hear dozens of callers phone in and none of them lament the lack of prayer in school, celebrate the greatness of owning guns, cheer on the destruction of the environment, or champion Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq, Katrina, or anything else he's "handled." And this is true even when the callers are as rhetorically ineffective as their Right-wing counterparts, because it reminds me that there actually are progressive bubbas out there.

Today I happened in upon the Jerry Springer radio show. It was the usual banter and series of repetitive callers and it felt as superficially comforting as always. But then Springer told one caller that things would turn around, and soon. I'm used to this line and to continuing to wait for the Democrats or a truly progressive third party to emerge and be the voice of the 70+% of this country who are well and truly sick unto death of every word that comes out of Bush, Rice, Cheney, and the rest of the current administration. I keep being told that the next election it will all change, but I'm still reeling from just how many people have taken so many years to see through the evil (and I don't use that word lightly) that is going on in Washington -- largely by Republicans but also by Democrats. And how many people (even if only 30+%) still have any confidence in "W." and his cronies.

But, somehow, Springer's words still penetrated my pessimistic and justly cynical mind. He said, simply, "Progressives always win." And, thank heavens, that actually is, relatively speaking and with multiple qualifications, true. Emancipation of the slaves did take place. Women do have the right to vote. Integration was made law. We do have a social security system. We do have some healthcare for the poor. One can join a union. I can write this blog, critical of the president, without being imprisoned. Again, all this is relative: I could write many times the number of sentences above about injustices and wrongs that have not and may never be addressed, both related to the rights above and to many other vital issues. I do realize all that. But, in the end, I do believe that progressives do move us forward in this country, however long and rocky the road, however many times we get one step forward and two steps back. It will not be soon enough, but sooner or later gay marriage will be a national right, we will have a liberal woman president and/or a president of color, the corporate capitalist mindset will give way to true democracy. I just hope I'm alive to see all of this and more and cheer it on with equal gusto to the deep sorrow and anxiety I feel about the state of the nation -- and most of the world -- right now.

However odd it is that Jerry Springer is on Air America saying "Progressives always win," I thank him for reminding me.