RANDOM EASTER STUFF: The eyes are the impermeable windows to the souls of Peeps

the Washington Post has a fabulous slideshow of peeps creations here, and I would love to post the winning image and some of the others but their code does not allow for right-click, save as. I get that; most people do not attribute that which they borrow from other sites. But I would have credited them. There is always a way around that, but I am in a rush to polish my bonnet and pick lint off my pastels for an easter brunch with my family, the biological one, the one that is nice to me. Someday I will start that book… but for now, Peeps are the bomb!

Peeps with daddy issues

To further illustrate my integrity, I lifted this image from Neatorama, and am linking to it with props.

Sushi Peeps Style

Evita, cast entirely by Peeps

These scientists tried to dissolve peeps, and documented their research — hilarious!

What's left of Peeps after a solubility test; the eyes cannot be thwarted, not even after bathing in acetone, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide

Also borrowed from Neatorama.com.

Chocolate-covered peeps; it was bound to happen.

 

SHARED POST: I AIN’T NO BROKEN WINDOW

An important read from Arise For Social Justice, a “Western MA low-income rights organization which believes we have the right to speak for ourselves. Our members are poor, homeless, at-risk, working, unemployed & people pushed to the side by society. We organize!: voting rights, housing, homelessness, health care, criminal injustice & more!”

Why do we stigmatize fellow human-beings who are less fortunate? To look at them as unsightly is to be devoid of empathy for people who are just like us, yet not like us, yet possibly like us, for one big financial or physical catastrophe could take many of us down. Read on — “Jenise Standfield from the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco posted this essay online today.  Springfield had its own Broken Window proponent, former police commissioner Edward Flynn, who would have his officers take pictures of homeless people, so this article struck home to me.”

…

The person credited with coining the theory of Broken Windows policing died last month and people are starting to ask what Broken Windows are all about.  Those of us who have been identified as no more than a broken window are sick of it.

The Broken Window social theory holds that one poor person in a neighborhood (or, using social theorist James Q. Wilson words, “a vagrant or a drunk”) is like a first unrepaired broken window.  If the window is not immediately fixed, if the vagrant is not immediately removed, it is a signal that no one cares, disorder will flourish, and the community (warehouse) will go to hell in a hand basket.

For this theory to make sense, you first have to step far far away from thinking of people, or at least poor people, as human beings. You need to objectify them.  You need to see them as dusty broken windows in a vacant warehouse.

Wilson himself admits that his reasoning here seems unjust.  One drunk or vagrant suddenly becomes a score of drunks or a hundred vagrants.  They will destroy an entire community, and they will destroy an entire downtown business district and that is why we now have Business Improvement Districts with police enforcement to keep that neighborhood flourishing and poor unsightly people out of it.

TO READ THE REST OF THIS ESSAY, AND I WISH YOU WOULD, CLICK HERE.

The Practical Princess Part II

CONTINUED FROM WHERE PART I LEFT OFF.

EXCERPT FROM PART I, ABOUT THE DINOSAUR TRACKS PARK OFF ROUTE 5 IN HOLYOKE:

“At times the parking lot is full, and it seems there is always a Subaru something-er with roof racks parked in the lot, as kayakers seem to use this spot as frequently as hikers, as well as families and sometimes people walking alone or mothers with a child or two. It seems safe, an innocent diversion even, far from the flats of Holyoke where I have my studio and where I exercise increased caution. So I thought nothing of taking my dog Jamoka for a walk there, that day a few years ago, a day much like today… beautiful, breezy, sunny, quiet..”

We’d been here often, perhaps  daily at times, and at least once or twice a week, for many months. That there were days we left without having our walk because of all the cars overcrowding the little arc-shaped slip of a parking lot seemed to reinforce that this was a safe and well-inhabited spot. Jamoka loved to walk out onto the sun-warmed rocks and down into the water where they made a little ramp, and then he’d lie in the sun and dry off, after first doggie-shaking off the excess water followed by that little butt-only wiggle-flourish he’d do and I’d laugh out loud every time. On the way down the path I’d throw sticks I’d collected along the trail and he’d gleefully run for them, tongue flying, through the woods and over downed trees, ultimately diving into the river and doggie-paddling triumphantly back with the stick held aloft in his mouth. I’d wade around up to my knees collecting and throwing the sticks that he’d drop just shy of dry land and then we’d sit and watch the dusk gather unto itself and start the uphill walk back to the car before the dusk actually began it’s show.

On this particular day of which I write the tiny park was an especially glorious, quiet, and un-crowded retreat; as we’d headed down the trail I’d encountered only a very charming and smiley elderly man and his companion, a boy who was possibly his adolescent grandson and who was also very endearing, noticeably well-mannered, and eager to recount that which he’d learned in school about dinosaurs and tracks. the boy had told me all about the age and history of these tracks including how they rated to others he’d studied and encountered in his travels, as driven by his interest in geology. I remember being rather fascinated, thinking to myself “I must tell ___ or ____ about this! Who knew —-?”, yet that was all quickly erased, existing now only as blanks in my memory of that day, though for some reason I can recall almost all but those sundry dinosaur facts.

It was a ridiculously picture perfect day; the sun shined so brightly, the sky a  cartoonish blue complete with such fluffy cotton clouds as those crudely shaped by a child un-self-conscientiously wielding an ample supply of chalk, and a soft breeze blew which I very much remember thinking of as “delicious” (I have always had a thing for wind), which, combined with the tweeting of myriad birds and the waves lapping against the rocks, seemed the most delightful cacophony of sights and sounds as we sat on the rock looking out onto the river. I felt consciously content, happy.

But then, though it was far from dusk, I felt a gnawing unease and decided it was time to go; I was hungry and had dinner plans that night for which I’d need to change clothes.  As I gathered up the sweater upon which I’d been sitting and picked up my cell phone, the one I always carried in my hand due to my aversion to carrying a pocketbook, I hoped that whatever dinner plans I’d made would consist of a cookout so I could get more of this lovely, near-perfect day.

As I stood up, which signaled to Jamoka that it was time to go, I remember thinking it had suddenly gone very quiet and wondering if the birds were all at dinner or having naps.  Looking around, I realized everyone had left but for us — it was definitely time to head home. As we started from the clearing by the water toward the trees and the trail to my car, I saw something move through the trees, and then something else; my instinct told me it was not the elderly man and has grandson and I longed for the sight of them, as instinctual warning bells clanged in my mind.

And then a guy appeared, looking a bit shifty, and slowly there appeared another, and another. I felt that feeling I get when I know something isn’t right or when I hear a strange noise in the middle of the night which seems to be inside my home. They seemed about 20ish and looked to be the type one sees in the flats of Holyoke, from my personal experience, and one had a hoodie on which pretty much obliterated his face, which seemed odd for such an almost-hot day.

Now a fourth appeared, much heavier, sloppier, and I was closer now, close enough to see them give each other the side-eye, as some signal seemed to pass through them. They each moved slightly, nodding at each other and looking toward me, forming a line across the only entrance to the narrow trail and, once in place, turned almost at once and faced me, looking directly AT me now, and not toward me and that’s when my being seemed to seize.  I glanced at Jamoka to my left and he was not wagging his tail, which to me was a sure sign that he had a bad vibe. I wondered how Jamoka would protect me from 5 men.

And then there were 6, and I froze, as one last man appeared and stood across the last small gap between their human chain and the entrance to the trail, tilting his head back and looking me over through slitted eyes, spreading his legs apart as if expecting some sort of impact, as if to lower his center of gravity, with arms crossed.

I saw that now they had all 6 of them assumed this legs-apart, arms-crossed, leering, determined, hard and hardened stance and were all facing me, eyes on me, all on me alone, for a split second on Jamoka, gauging his strength and ferocity perhaps, nodding almost imperceptibly yet again to each other, slow smirks appearing on a few faces, a bored look on another, cheshire cat smile of anticipation or excitement on another, who seemed to lick his lips, with resulting palpable tension in the air which seemed to thrill them as their body language said little yet everything; I was in danger, this was the only certainty, I felt extreme fear in every cell. I started mulling, figuring, running through every possible scenario, option, in what felt like minutes but which was about 10 seconds in reality. I was 12 feet away now and I heard no sounds but the water hitting the rocks. What had happened to the birds? How could the sun be shining and how could the cartoon clouds just… be there… as if nothing were wrong? Time seemed to stop, and my mind went into fast forward; and this is what I thought, for it is imprinted on my memory and has been relived in many a dream:

They will hear me call 911 and there is no way a dispatcher will get anyone here in time to help me. Calling for help is useless. It would only take them a few minutes to attack. There is not time to explain to a dispatcher or to anyone where I am exactly. There is nowhere to run. They have me surrounded but for the water behind me. They cannot be up to any good. They have  spread out like a line of soldiers and they all have sinister faces, evil, they are frowning, why are they frowning at me? EVIL. Evil is here. I am done. What will happen to Jamoka? Will he rip them to shreds? There are too many. OH SHIT, A ROPE!? What is in that guy’s pocket? Am I dreaming. This is NOT happening. Denial will do me no good. Will they let me by? Maybe it’s not a rope, they don’t even need a rope. No. No. No. I can’t risk getting close enough to find out and I can’t turn around. I have to go through them. I have to get out. To hesitate is to show fear, Fear would appeal to their worst characteristics. They will be excited by my fear.

I wonder if they know how to swim.  Maybe they don’t know how to swim.. If they don’t know how to swim then maybe Jamoka and I can run and jump into the river and swim down river using the current to help move us more quickly and we’ll emerge on the riverbank farther down. Will Jamoka know to follow me? What if he doesn’t? I will not leave him. We are in this together. Why is he frozen like that? Then we will have to walk along Rt 5 to my car but that’s ok because cars will be driving by and will see me, or them chasing me.  I can run out into traffic. But what if Jamoka follows me into traffic? I wonder if that guy from the trophy house is out walking his dog along RT 5. It is usually at this time. But he can’t help me. He’d get hurt. He’d have no time to call the police either. His dog might be able to help. No his dog has only 3 legs.

Oh my god, they just took a step closer and spread out more. They are blocking every possible direction between me and the road. We are too low to be seen by passing cars. Why didn’t I notice everyone else leave? If I scream I wonder if anyone will hear me. What if I can’t scream, like in those dreams? They just moved toward me again. This is like a bizarre game of chess. One is grabbing his crotch, no, is he? He IS  looking at me, into my eyes, they are ALL looking into my eyes… there is no way that is not a signal. Is this how it ends? It can’t be.  It’s not fair, it can’t be, I have overcome far too much for it to end this way. Jamoka will be scarred for life by what he sees, or he could get killed trying to help me. SHIT. Who will take him in if he makes it? Dianna?

I wonder if, when my father sees this on the news, he will care at all. No, I doubt it. I guess Marty didn’t need to go to all that trouble to steal my half of the inheritance. It won’t matter now. See? He didn’t need to go to all that trouble. I wonder if he will feel at all ever guilty. Will my father even mourn a little bit? No. I should have a will. Who will get all my art and all my belongings? What if the landlord takes them? No, I want my friends to get everything. Maybe my father will try to claim it all? I could actually see that. Marty stole my money but for some reason he wouldn’t give back my paintings though I asked him WHY the hell he would even want them given that he admitted his theft and practically gloated about it. They would have my stuff on eBay in a week. But no, my friends won’t allow that, no way. He will tell all the relatives it was my own damn fault like he told me when I was chased by the 5 drunk guys in the North End after dropping Melissa at Logan Airport — and they LOVE her — so she’d not have to pay for a cab. Everything is always my fault. I got out of that potential gang rape when they yelled “LOOK! It’s a girl! let’s get some asssss”. But I had room to run and already had my keys intertwined in my hands, the vestibule key ready.

Why do I care what they will think after I am gone? They have never valued my life. This time I have no room to run past the group of guys and no key in hand to slide into the lock, just in time. Why is my mace at home? Where is my mace? It would never work with 6 guys. They could simply grab it and use it on me. FOCUS.

If there were only one of them I could try the moves we learned in self-defense class at UMASS. Maybe Matt is watching me from the beyond like he does and will send help. Grammie and Grampie are always watching me. I definitely have guardian angels, they saved me when I skied off that cliff; they turned me around in mid-air so I didn’t hit the trees head-first. I almost bit it then. Yes, they will help me. NO, I have to help myself. Maybe someone will show up any minute and they will save me. Maybe these guys will leave me alone. NO, that is stupid thinking, they have a plan, that much is glaringly obvious. Maybe they will just gang rape me and leave me? But if Jamoka attacks them will they kill him? No, cannot let anything happen to Jamoka.

Did they just take another step? Oh shit now 3 of them are grinning, smirking, look away, no don’t look away, act confident, be alert, think, did I just hear a zipper? My mind is playing tricks on me, they are screwing with me,. warning me, that will be the end, snap out of it, do something. BE the Practical Princess. What would she do? She’d use her wits against them. She’d throw them an effigy dressed as herself, filled with gunpowder – how can I do that? They can’t be too bright, outwit them. Look confident. Someone is snickering, this is a game to them, they are bad, definitely bad people, EVIL, I need someone to show up right now, I will invent people, people very near, it’s worth a shot, How many people do I need? I can only pull of a few, maybe that will be enough… I don’t have time to even dial out. I’ll fake it… now, it’s gotta be now… NOWNOWNOW, DO SOMETHING, nothing to lose, everything to gain… be confident…. DO SOMETHING. This will NOT be how it ends. 

“Hey Dean!”, I began cheerfully, after doing a little ‘oops’ maneuver, as if jolted by the vibration of the phone, and putting my phone to my ear as one finger pushed the green button twice thus dialing the last call, “Yeah, I am on my way… no, yes, to meet YOU, yesss, at the parking lot…huh?.. yes, at the parking lot, like I said I would … yes, right now… (using that “duh” tone of voice, which I usually disdain)…

As I spoke, to a ringing phone, I started walking purposely and confidently toward the men, continuing my “conversation”, trying to act as nonplussed, as natural as possible, looking at the ground a few steps ahead of me as one does on uneven terrain, heart pounding, turning to Jamoka saying, “Come on little guy! Let’s go see Uncle Dean!”, praying they’d not hear the pounding of my heart, and call my bluff… it wasn’t perfect but it was a shot… make the call seem very natural, not an act…

“I am NOT late! I am NEVER late! NOoooo, bullSHIT, I AM here, yes, on my way up the trail… you ARE? Then why are you pretending you didn’t see my car? loser!….

By now Dean has mercifully answered though I cannot fill him in on what is going down, and he is saying, “What ARE you talking about, Mo? Are you ok? Where ARE you?…”

“…No, not at all. Yeah, well just keep walking and you’ll see me, we are heading toward each other… Yes! About 20 steps from the parking lot, right below the dinosaur tracks…”

Dean is now asking if I am ok, should he come to meet me? Do I mean I am at the dinosaur tracks on Rt 5?….

“Yes, exactly! …. what? You can? I don’t see youuuuuu? (craning my neck, looking into the woods over the men’s heads) Oh, well, then I am more like 15 feet away from you, no, not yet, but I don’t have my glasses… (squinting [hoping it is not too theatrical] into the woods between the two men closest to the mouth of the trail)….  Billy is here too? No, it’s fine that you brought him. I am surprised Mr. Vanity took a night off from the gym. So where are we going for dinner?” (NOTE: Billy is not a Mr. Vanity type, I actually call him Mr. Fabulous, Mr. Sir, or Mr. Elusive, but I wanted to get the idea across that my men were capable)

I am hoping Dean thinks to jump in his car and head over to help me… knowing there isn’t likely anything he can do, yet feeling guilty if he does show up and ends up in danger too, knowing there isn’t possibly time for Dean to help, though he is not even a mile away…

“Wait, I think I do see you guys…”, (craning, smiling directly at the man chain, as if I am about to bump into my men friends)… “Wait, are you wearing pink?”

Fortunately not one of the men turns around. They are holding their stance yet I think I feel some shifting or re-assessment of plan…

At this point I was about a foot from the line of men blocking the trail and Dean hadn’t actually said he was en route but was staying on the phone with me. Not more than a minute has passed since I “answered’ my phone. Time is moving too fast and not fast enough. That I could hear the fear and concern in Dean’s voice ever-so-briefly snapped me out of my act but then fear turned back to adrenaline channeled into my faux chipper “call”, but here was my big moment when I’d try to get past the men… it was the moment when I’d succeed, or not… FOCUS.

As I approached the human blockade I took a deep breath and said into my phone, “Well, this DOES count as being on time… I’m, like, a few yards away from you. Will you stop saying I’m late? Uh-huhhhh…”, and as I broke through the human chain – at this most crucial and precarious fraction of a moment — deftly taking a casual diagonal side-step around the legs most directly in my way, and thus slipping nonchalantly between the middle guy and the next guy in line, I threw them a smile.  I smiled right at them and added a conspiratorial eye roll regarding the shit I was clearly taking on the phone for being late. And suddenly I was past them, almost free.

It took all I had to not turn around and to refrain from breaking into a run.  It seemed imperative to be confident, to not show fear, to NOT turn around, though I was tensed for the smallest of noises which might indicate that they had even merely turned around to watch me go, their prey; I consciously identified as “the prey” during this ordeal. I heard the single crackle of a twig but I did not turn around, instead I laughed into the phone at some pretended bon mot. The tension was achingly palpable and I feared that to run would blow my confidence act and trigger a chase, if they sensed fear they’d know I was meeting no one on the trail, my charade would collapse, so I continued the “call” all the way to the parking lot and then, suddenly, I was running to the car, shoving Jamoka in the back seat, and hitting the button that locks all the doors.

Even with Dean still on the phone (by now I had assured him that I was in my car, safe, though I would not feel safe for a long time) I could not feel safe till I had pulled out onto RT 5 and pulled into traffic gunning the engine, thinking at this point that should I get pulled over for speeding it might serve me well, that they would have time to catch the guys, but then my mind raced still, and I was simultaneously afraid to have to identify these guys and… for what? They’d not touched me. I was safe. And so I slowed down.

I don’t know if I stopped at Dean’s house on my way home as he’d suggested on the phone; maybe I did, or maybe I went straight home and locked the door, sobbing. I have forgotten all but the beauty of the day and how it so suddenly changed, on my evidently successful “acting”. To be that close to… to that which I could not allow myself to picture (though I ponder it still), was traumatic. I did grudgingly allow for a bit of self-congratulatory sentiment for my quick thinking, but yet, I cried at odd moments over the next few weeks, maybe even months. For to be that close to the possibility of a violent death, to the R word which is every woman’s fear, to contemplate all 100 pounds of me trying to fight 6 men, is all too much to ponder.

In fact, what began since that day, by way of forcing myself to focus on something/anything else as I  drive through that area, has become a somewhat obsessive game of sorts, in which I delight with almost too much glee; driving down that patch of Rt 5 I now focus on “the trophy house” (many frequent drivers of Rt 5 along the Holyoke/Easthampton line will know the teeny house with the trophies in the front window, will know what I mean, instantly) to an unusual degree, calling Billy or Dean to report with awe and wonder that “Trophy Guy” has now moved all his trophies to the other window! Now they are in a circle! Now they are in a square! OMG! Today they are all lying on their side! Maybe he is cleaning? Maybe he no longer bowls and as such does not want them around as a reminder of his bowling days? Whoa, They are back! There is one less today! OMG, I saw “Trophy Guy” walking his dog and he isn’t limping so maybe the one I saw last week which seemed shinier than the others IS new?!

I realize only now, as I write this, that the trophy house has become symbolic of the use of my extraordinary wit in my conquest of the 6 Bad Men.

So long as the trophies are there, in whatever new arrangement, they are a reminder that yes, I am The Practical Princess.

And I still call Billy and Dean to report on the ever-changing display of trophies in that teeny house near the tracks.

The Practical Princess

NOTE: This is a work in progress but I hit “publish” anyway because I promised…

Åt some point in my childhood, probably around age 6 or 7ish, I received this children’s book as a gift — The Practical Princess – and it immediately became my favorite book of all time, ever. Written by Jay Williams, and illustrated by Friso Henstra, it is an astonishingly beautiful and, well, very practical, children’s book; a huge departure from the typical literary  fare for children of that era, revolutionary for its time. Yet it only became apparent a few days ago in therapy how very deeply impactful it had been on my development as a person, after relating yet another anecdote about escaping harm with quick-thinking.

I have been a voracious reader from the days of  Fun With Dick and Jane on, often climbing the tallest tree in my yard and precariously perching in a crook of the tree at the top, so I could read without being reached  – for chores, punishment, or random admonishments — and would stay there all day reading Nancy Drew mysteries one after another.  Coincidentally, the first thing I thought when I first met my therapist years ago was that she looked a lot like my vision of Nancy Drew as derived from the era in which my books had been illustrated — Nancy Drew gets a new look for each generation — and I found this resemblance extremely comforting, fateful even.

I also very much identified with Ramona The Pest, and admittedly still do. I’d always marvel at the kids who seemed so wise and composed, like old souls or some such thing; my way seems fated to bumble through life blurting out whatever I am thinking, like last night at dinner with friends when during a discussion about something else entirely I blurted, “I went for a walk in the woods naked the other day with a friend” and it took Larnett 5 minutes to process it, pondering, pausing, later saying, “WHAT? Did you just really say what I think you did?”, but then Larnett shows up along with Amy G. in a previous post, for saying “Next to ‘Free Association’ in the dictionary there is a picture of Mo”, so, there’s that.

But the benign and innocent world of Ramona The Pest is a far cry from the topic of this post — I segue as much as I free associate and blurt.

Years ago I had learned in a trial by fire — a studio fire to be exact, of which I bear scars still in the form of often irrational fears which, left unchallenged daily, could well lead to agoraphobia — that I tend to automatically react with lightening fast and flawless judgement in times of emergency. Of all the fallout from that trauma, this one fact is the most palatable, resonant and important, yet in looking back, during therapy this recent morning, I realized that I have at many times in the past displayed precise and immediate assessment of danger — whether it be by way of people or situations — and subsequently react with instinctual and rapid plan-making and execution, saving myself (three times, that I can recall) from what may well have been gang rape, death by fire, and incalculable other potential harms.

This story absolutely assisted in facilitating that reaction. No one thing can determine who and how we are, and yet at a prime developmental period this book absolutely contributed to this, and also to my eventual feminist philosophy and art, as it made it glamorous, perhaps, to be practical and fearless. My fearlessness was obvious from a very young age and did not exactly endear me to my father, but that’s a whole other story.

In googling the author today I came upon this: ”Williams was also one of the first and best of the authors who responded to the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s by writing a new kind of fairy tale. Though his stories are traditional in their choice of episode and motif, they also overturn nearly all the conventions of the genre to illustrate new ideas about women.

Williams’s famously funny and very influential picture book The Practical Princess (1969) reworked both ‘Rapunzel’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’.

Its heroine, Princess Bedelia, has been promised to a dragon, but instead of waiting for a prince to rescue her, she explodes the monster by arranging for a straw figure filled with gunpowder to be dressed in her court robes and thrown into its open mouth… Though there are now many stories like these in print, when The Practical Princess and Petronella first appeared, they caused a minor sensation, and as a result both readers and writers now approach fairy tales in new and interesting ways.” [source]

The dinosaur tracks trail/park at first seems merely like a little parking area on RT 5 along the Connecticut river in Holyoke, just over the Easthampton line. It’s a little slip of a parking area, an arc one eases into off Rt 5 with little fanfare. But it leads to a little path through some fairly dense woods down to the Connecticut river, with big flat-sh rocks which reach out into and over the water, on which one can sit or stand, or one can walk the rocks like a ramp down into the water and wet one’s ankles or throw a fishing line.

There is an informational sign encased in lucite in the parking area which explains the who, what, where, why and how of the tracks but I forget what it says and have never been back — I just can’t go back — since the beautiful early summer day when I last visited and so I have no picture to post of it. At the beginning of the wooded path, in an open and sunny clearing, said dinosaur tracks are perceptible, if one is paying attention and is looking for them,  often marked by graffiti. Sadly, it is also clear where some of the tracks have been completely unearthed and likely carted off, probably for sale wherever such things are sold.

After passing the tracks, the trail leads through a fairly densely wooded area for about 30-50 yards (I am terrible at measuring distances) through trees neither particularly tall or short, down to the Connecticut River to the rocky outcroppings at which point one is facing the river, from which point one can clearly see across the river to the houses on the other side, and one imagines those riverfront people can likely see those of us on this side of the river.

At times the parking lot is full, and it seems there is always a Subaru something-er with roof racks in the lot, as kayakers seem to use this spot as frequently as hikers, as well as families and sometimes people walking alone or mothers with a child or two. It seems safe, an innocent diversion even, far from the flats of Holyoke where I have my studio and where I exercise increased caution. So I thought nothing of taking my dog Jamoka for a walk there, that day a few years ago, a day much like today… beautiful, breezy, sunny, quiet…

TO BE CONTINUED…. tomorrow perhaps, after I scan more images from my book and write the rest of it.

READ PART II

Long Night’s Journey Into Theater and Non-Sibilant Consonants

Original window card, 1956

February 28, 2012
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Majestic Theater, West Springfield, MA
www.majestictheater.com
through April 1, 2012
review by by Robbin M. Joyce at [SOURCE]

“One could safely make the argument that there wouldn’t be legitimate theater in America were it not for Eugene O’Neill. Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which won both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is his masterwork – an autobiographical work and one of the greatest plays this country has produced. The action covers one heart-rending day in the late summer of 1912 at the family’s seaside Connecticut home. For the Majestic production, noted film and television actor Ken Tigar (The Gin Game, Death of a Salesman, The Sunshine Boys) returns to our stage as James Tyrone, the patriarch of the family.”  [SOURCE]

From wikipedia — As to Eugene himself, by 1912 he had attended a renowned university (Princeton), spent several years at sea, and suffered from depression and alcoholism, and did contribute to the local newspaper, the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. He did go to a sanatorium in 1912–13 due to suffering from tuberculosis (consumption), whereupon he devoted himself to play writing. The events in the play are thus set immediately prior to Eugene beginning his career in earnest.

__________________________________________________________________________

CONTEST! Guess from where I lifted this image?

Last weekend I went to Majestic Theater (on their website and literature they don’t call themselves “THE Majestic Theater, so I am leaving off the “the”)  to see Long Day’s Journey Into Night with 8 friends, which means there were 9 of us, which is totally irrelevant, after a traditional Irish dinner (corned beef, cabbage, green) and I was pleasantly blown away and even sort of epiphanied (added to dictionary) by this performance. I’d read the play ages ago but had never seen it performed live so I have nothing to compare it to, but you know an actor is GOOD when you forget you are in a seat in a row of seats between other rows of seats.

The role of the father (Kenneth Tigar, as James Sr) is played by an actor with a very impressive Hollywood resume, spanning from playing ‘Steve’ in The Happy Hooker in 1975 to an appearance in Nurse Jackie (2011), with roles in Beverly Hills 90210, The Waltons, Barney Miller, The Man From Atlantis — the list is long and I’m out of gluten-free almond horns, which matters.

Beth Dixon is riveting as the mother, and has Hollywood/IMDb credits running from The Ballad of The Sad Cafe to Game Change (TV movie, 2012), and I noticed that both she and Tigar (first-name basis already) have a number of Law & Order credits at IMDb, which caused me to wonder if they’d ever crossed paths on set and then one got the other into productions at Majestic, or if they both happen to be from here or live here, or if maybe L&O is a really big employer (likely, I hear there are a lot of them), or if theaters send out casting calls far and wide and they came out here just for this show. The Majestic website has little such info, which I think is a shame. A site with fresh and lively content could go far toward nurturing enthusiasm, anticipation, and thus selling tickets. They should hire me to keep it updated daily with snips and snails and theater tales – backstage scenes, stories of how the set was designed, structural and aesthetic hurdles overcome, pictures in progress, in situ. Yes. Definitely.

I’d been meaning to get to the Majestic for years and finally here I was, here we were, spanning a few rows and facing a very simple and yet extremely stunning and authentic-seeming stage design with equally-stunning lighting (Yay Dan Rist! Hi!). It seemed so perfect for a summer cottage in CT with mediocre furnishings and characters in well-worn clothes (I wonder if they shop at Savers too!)playing out all-too-familiar scenes of well-worn, also threadbare, intrinsically and emotionally-interwoven relationships.

I suppose I’d not expected a remarkably high level of acting talent — not because  there is not talent in the valley, but, well, I suppose I don’t know what I expected — but I was fully engulfed in the tale from the moment it began. I would love to have seen ushers, for many reasons, if only to be all the more engrossed in the period aspect, or, for the f*cktards (foreshadowing), but that’s a potential distraction so, never mind.

Written in 1956 and comprised of four acts, LDJIN is widely considered to be O’Neill’s masterpiece and indeed it is a phenomenal work, and for which he was posthumously awarded the  Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1957 — so close, but then death is always so close and success so seemingly far. It is a feat of riveting, complex, and at times tragically convoluted intricacies as co-developed among four very different and all-too-alike individually damaged and developmentally arrested family members; the sort of simultaneously individual and interpersonal wreckage between each and all adding up to many different relationships altogether, lined with a just a whiff of hope and heavy with habit, such that can only develop between families as a result of the inherent hierarchies, shifting roles, and similar-but-different life experiences as borne and honed from within that same family. One gets the sense that not a one of these people is at all self-aware. The era in which it is set has little bearing on the story as each of the intertwined relationships are of the sort that will be familiar to all persons in varying degrees and across eras, yet in this case, of a degree amplified to fascination for the audience. That amplification seems organic, as in they came by it honestly, and does not seem to be a creative trick to ensure that the story is both comprehensible and entertaining — these folks are that far gone and their issues encompass addiction, grief, resentment, regret, delusion, envy, bitterness, passive-aggression and profound defeat. For to be human is to be complicated and to be a member of a  family holds the rife potential to be in a simultaneous cluster of relationships so exponentially complex, enduring, and so devastatingly familiar, like a filed of landmines.

Rumored to be largely autobiographical — and thus ever more fascinating, for to have a glimpse into the mind of a creative genius is a rare view — the story is told entirely through dialog with little of great import to be gleaned by way of the physical — the story of this complexly dysfunctional family is peeled away layer by layer, line by line, as amplified by tone, volume, and facial expressions, posture even.  Hence, It is a work in which to miss a single line of dialog can mean that so much of the subsequent is missed, as one struggles to grasp that or who which has just been introduced by a brief, casually-tossed line, and for this reason one can be abruptly snapped out of the reverie of enjoyment (we cringed, we laughed, we empathized) as each foible comes to light if there are f*cktards sitting behind you, talking.

Before leaving from dinner for the theater, and saving dessert for later so as to not be late and thus disrupt the performance, all 9 of us used the restroom, turned off our cell phones, and set off to see this famous feat of anthropological wordplay and thespianing (add to dictionary). All through dinner I’d quite consciously limited my usually high water consumption, and I did not get a drink from the lobby concession, no ice cream ‘novelties’ (they don’t have them) or wine (they do). As we took our seats we sort of waved and smiled at each other and then faced forward, prepared for the show, prepared to be quiet. We had seats off to the left so our view was often that of the backs of one or more characters and thus their words were not as loud as those actors facing and projecting their voices toward out seats, so I leaned forward eagerly awaiting a slice of an afternoon of Eugene O’Neill’s dysfunctional and inspirational younger life. I love watching characters unfold, trying to figure out who and how they are, striving to not miss a sigh or an extra step, as if I am uncovering clues to a mystery. There was some VERY fine acting (though I do not agree with the the respective assessments by the author of the sole review I found, as linked above) and I tried to focus more intently on those so as to not be as aware of the acting that had me wondering if an actor was uncomfortable with the role or was, well, possibly an imperfect fit. The mother and father used that funny yet lovely archaic affectation of elocution one finds in old movies and so I wondered if people spoke like that back then or if actors of that era spoke that way. I like it.

I was so into the play in fact, that this crazy(!) thing happened (which may have been abetted by the hemp tea ;-)…

All of a sudden I had this crazy overwhelming desire to know what it felt like to be on a stage, under the lights, playing a character, reciting lines I’d painstakingly memorized and practiced, with no ability to stop and laugh or run to the ladies’ room and start over; to be so into a character that it simply flowed out of me, rather than reciting lines and consciously trying to make my marks, or suffering an attack of nerves, wondering if I was doing well or not but not being able to stop; I even had a flashback to the last time I was on stage back in 3rd grade when I had some minor role in a play I cannot recall in which I was one of 3 “kitchen women” or some such thing. I even remembered, where I had not before, actually enjoying that brief minutes-long performance’ and waiting in the wings, feeling a rush when it was “time” and I had to run on stage, though the idea of being on a stage in front of people was not a part of this epiphany-like reverie.  No, yes, I was that engrossed in this story, so brilliantly told and deftly portrayed, especially by the character of the father and the mother, that all of a sudden I felt a struggle between this crazy notion and concentrating on the play which, till now, had been an effortless giving over of myself.

The costume I'd like to wear, for the show I will be in, with no audience, which makes this costume so... gloriously surreal, at which no f*cktards will be allowed.

And then the f*cktards starting talking. TALKING, not making sibilant consonants, not whispering, talking. While their voices were not street voices, they were absolutely not whispers. I turned around a few times, I leaned as far forward in my seat as I could, I put my hands to my ears to try to block out their sounds and have better reception from the stage, and finally I got up and moved my seat to the farthest left seat in our row. What could be so important? Were they dissecting the play as it went on, or comparing notes, or was one filling in the other as to what was going on? I wanted them to STFU.

So at this point you’d think the couple talking about… whatever the hell they were talking about, it doesn’t matter — it’s no secret that it’s very wrong to talk in a theater — would notice this and stop. I’d not made a big deal about moving my seat, I’d hunched over and quickly and silently slid sideways into it, yet there is no way they could have missed it as I was in their line of vision. But no, they continued for the rest of the first two acts and though it seemed they took it down a notch, it was still by no means whispering and it absolutely meant that I missed lines, approximately 1 in 10 of all lines. That’s a lot of story to miss for such a complex portrait of the collective and respective psyche(s) of a family unit with it’s vastly differing backgrounds and values, hopes and fears, and cohesive…  unit-ness(?). I am going to let that stay.

At intermission we regrouped in the row, as people do, before heading out to the lobby, and when asked I explained that I’d moved because I could not concentrate, missing entire lines because of the talking couple behind me. Then I followed the few darting eyes in my friends’ faces and realized the f*cktards were right being me and had heard the entire exchange. They seemed slightly surprised (who US?), and from that brief glance I gleaned that they were not contrite — THAT was why they looked surprised, as I saw it. And so I absolved myself for their overhearing of my unemotional, matter-of-fact explanation, musing that perhaps they needed to be made aware that they were obstructing the auditory view of a fellow theater-goer and perhaps I will now be able to catch ALL of the next two acts. I was sighingly wrong (added to dictionary).

I have been struggling with such situations all of my life, thinking it best to not say anything lest I be misconstrued as confrontational and/or that people do not appreciate frank discussion, — and then you never know if people are that sort who FREAK OUT at any whiff of anything other than approval. we all know those — and it has been my mission for years to learn to politely but firmly address all such ‘Seinfeld moments’. I’m not there yet.

But, anyway? It was a great play and I loved it. I’d like to see it again some day so I can experience ALL of it, and today I googled it to find out what I missed, which was informative and amusing, but I should not have needed to do that. I *think* I started this post with a point in mind but thirty minutes ago so whatever it may have been, if at all, has dissipated and so I am just going to end this. Here.

OH! One last thing… do you think it would work to carry a sign that says SFTU and hold it up, like at an auction, when this shit happens? Just wondering…

Soaring, loopfully

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gif for now… resulting post to come…

(yeah, lately all my posts are to come, but this time I am going to follow through… sometime in the next few days)

For now, some of my favorite words and phrases: random beneficial, sang-froid, nonchalant, fella, inadvertently, la-di-da, teapot, tempest, rue, lieu, wondrous, onomatopoeia, sushi, fabulosity, withershins, vermillion,  soar, Fleur-dilis, toast, zoo, superfluous, hootenanny, git ‘er done,  Mr. bubble, Mr. Sir,  surreal, conceptual, paradigm, zeitgeist, fluency, wizzle, effervescent, calm, pottle, dawdle, meander, peruse, oblivion, enigmatic, courage, ennui, caddywampus, diddly, ninjury, nuance, majuscle, mon amiee, monolith, morass, snazzy, pesky, rendezvous, roua, fandangle, finesse, bangalored, boondoggle, boom, bip, ancillary, egdesiast, endeaver, entreat, fanfaronade, fluff, effluvient, eek, leak, gaberlunzie, fancy, tango, touche.

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