Desire-less, 4

This is the one that got it all started. It’s taken me 4 days to face it…
I do not desire my world designed to my aesthetic.

Desire-less, 3

I do not desire to be doing other things (e.g., meditating) when I have to do something else (e.g., walking the dog before off-leash hours end).

(click for full-size)

Topless in Manhattan…

…or Another Example of what I Love about New York

Today I was walking up Broadway just past noon, when I noticed a young woman in tan jeans walking ahead of me. She had shoulder-length red hair and was carrying a handbag. It dawned on me that her back, which was bare–I presumed from a halter top — in fact did not show evidence of any ties or straps from a halter top. Was she, gulp, topless? It was impossible to tell from her unassuming demeanor, or from the expressions of people passing her from the opposite direction, so I deduced she was not topless. But I sped up to gain on her to make sure. A ricochet look into a storefront window gave me the confirmation: sunglasses, earrings, pants, swinging handbag, — she was dressed and accessorized like any young woman on the upper east side, but with no top.

I assume she was doing a performance art piece and had not had a wardrobe malfunction. I love that she could expect to take this stroll without incident, and even more that we would experience it with such nonchalance. I would have loved to include a photo of her with this post, but I felt so provincial when I reached for my phone, that I immediately abandoned the idea as obscene. Our paths coincided for a long block, then I left her standing on a corner waiting for the light to cross 14th Street to Union Square, where she would add a bit of excitement to occupy wall street’s new protest there.

I imagine she’s now at home enjoying a t-shirt in the privacy of her home. I feel grateful for everything that her action brought up for me: titillation, wonder, pride; and thoughts of women’s issues, performance, audience.

And the art of it endured; I was shocked at my initial reaction when a couple hours later, I saw a buff man without a shirt, sweaty from running, pass me. I thought, that guy’s topless, too! Oh, right he’s a guy.

MLK applies in so many ways

I have made it an annual ritual to watch King’s 17-minute speech to honor his holiday and ponder the racial injustice that he so powerfully fought. I hope you will join me in this ritual and keep the holiday in its true spirit, which is so easily forgotten.

This year as I watched, I substituted the words 99% and 1% each time he said “Negro” and “white,” and it pretty much made sense as a prognostication of the history that is trending the majority of us into the 2nd rate citizen ranks that blacks in America have endured for 200+ years. — Yes, first only economically, but then who knows?

 

 

This speech is Art and Literature and Yoga all rolled into one. It is a call to greatness.

And to consider parallel the underlying issue with corporate influence on the nation leads me to share this second video in the same spirit. I have been stunned by the lack of a social conscience –or perhaps more accurately, an inability or unwillingness to do anything about the portrayal of women, and especially girls, in media. Rosario Dawson’s prediction here that our future leaders look like women and like people of color is a restatement of King’s great “dream.” The video below says it all with eloquence and purpose.

 

 

Seminar

To be a good teacher is to meet students where they are and help them reach their potential. To be an artist, and perhaps that would be best pronounced in it’s French translation, artiste, may be to engage in the too painful act of casting pearls before swine.

That is the opinion of what turns out to be the one-in-two protagonists of Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar, now at the Golden Theatre, directed by Sam Gold and starring Alan Rickman. The play begins by setting a foursome of ambitious young writers against a tyrannical “genius” novelist, editor, and journalist in a 10-week highly select writing seminar. Each of the foursome is a stereotype: the rich, white, feminist; the vixen who seems to relish doing what it takes; the well-connected mover and shaker; the holier-than-it-all artiste who won’t sully his writing with mere mortals’ eyes. The great cast brings the types to humanity, though, and brings an insider’s understanding of the hearts and souls of those who, as Kate, played by Lily Rabe, says, keep civilization from anarchy.

Ms. Rebeck’s writing manages to touch on the core of the professional writer’s challenges while keeping the characters utterly believable, blending idealism and human fragility — and it gives the delightful Alan Rickman a deep vein of passion to fuel his trademark world-weariness.

The beauty of Seminar is that while the topic is potentially of interest of to only a couple hundred budding writers, the play brought laughter and delight to a varied Broadway audience who recognize the contribution of writers to culture: the screenwriter, the sensationalist, the memoirist, and yes, even the artiste, the Jane Austen of our era, who evokes a greater possibility to the tune of post-modernism, magical realism, or whatever-ism, from the precise use of language. We are interested in what makes artists tick — how do they spill their guts when there are numerous threats to their sense of self-worth from doing so?

Jerry O’Connell shined as Douglas, finding a perfect reaction to being called a “whore,” when also told that his talent was undeniable. Hettienne Park and Lily Rabe also found wonderful expressions of their types, whose characters ultimately find their own truths. But Hamish Linklater, as Martin, had nowhere to hide, all saw his dread of exposure. It was only when pushed to the wall that he dared bare/share his soul. Through that act, his parallel to Professor Leonard emerges, and ultimately leads to the play’s delightful conclusion.

This production reminded me of the classic style of play commented on in industry gems, such as “All About Eve.” The play provided hope for the future of literature.

Once — again

I had the opportunity to see the New York Theatre Workshop staging of Once, a play based on the John Carney film starring Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. I went in thinking it unusual for an adaptation to buck the more typical play-to-film route. It turns out lots of films turn into plays (if you don’t believe me, look here), and interestingly musicals are often the ones to do it. This production, directed by John Tiffany, uses Hansard and Irglova’s songs in a book written by Enda Walsh and boasts a cast of superb singers and musicians led by a convincingly brooding Steve Kazee and truly charming Cristin Milioti.

The leads, who have the same generic names, “Guy” and “Girl,” as in the movie, sang the daylights out of the hit songs that made the movie’s soundtrack, including “Falling Slowly,” which won the 2008 Oscar for best song (here’s this production’s version as an MP3).

The live conversion brought delicious treats, including watching the performers knock out flawless instrumental performances while singing in character (the cast is the only orchestra), and a clever use of supertitles to reverse translate English lines into the Czech the Girl’s family would naturally have been speaking; and I couldn’t resist the offer to walk up onto the beautiful bar room set to order a pre-show Guinness from the set bar. The smooth incorporation of dance and instrumental performance kept making me forget that this was also classic American musical theatre until the “numbers” were underway. The entire supporting cast was a pleasure to watch, with Elizabeth A. Davis shining as the siren who “seduces men for fun” when she’s not wielding a mean fiddle and David Patrick Kelly leading a pre-show hootenany that had us all toe-tapping as we found our seats.

The story of Once translated beautifully in this production, its tale of frustrated artistry and the force of love was moving and inspiring with a purity that invites the rare sincere use of the word “sweet.”

The run at NYTW was extended through January 15, and the production moves to Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on February 28.

Occupy What?

I hear a lot of people of all political persuasions expressing frustration or even disdain for those in the occupy movement and it’s “lack of message.” I believe that lack of message allows for a breath in the endless political posturing that keeps us in such a rigid stalemate. Some patience with what the occupiers are bringing us could yield some fascinating new ways of thinking. One such example is from filmmakers Velcrow Ripper and Ian MacKenzie, which may seem naive at first but has a very substantive core message: a purchasing society does not need community and community is what is missing in America; love is a value as much as currency. Take a breath and allow in some alternative viewpoints.