Category Archives: Politics and Culture

Vanya and Sasha and The Assembled Parties and The Explorer’s Club

Politics and Culture, Theater, Movie, Event, Misci Reviews, ,

So the better-half and I have been seeing plays this summer. (Thank you TKTS.) We have to do something while waiting for opera season.

I already wrote about Macbeth. The following week we saw Vanya and Sonya and Marsha and Spike. This before Sigourney Weaver left the cast. It was sit-com, and it wasn’t even great sit-com. David Hyde Pierce’s timing was precise. Kristine Nielsen managed to actually give a moving performance, no small feat when the script undermined her character by always going for punchline over feeling. We found Shalita Grant grating and her character bordered on some loyal servant/magical Negro stereotype. Billy Magnussen was over the top. Sigourney Weaver is greatly in need of a new action franchise. And whatshername who played whatshername was kind of forgettable.

What was most annoying was all the ways the play pandered to the audience and avoided challenging any of its expectations. First, if you get the Chekov references you get to feel smug, but if you don’t, you still get to enjoy the show as (too) much is explained. Second, there are cringy-knowing references including a line about the half-price ticket line. Third, there’s a rant about technology separating us spoken by a late middle-aged character. (It was soooo 2002) Get off Vanya’s lawn!

Our next dramatic excursion was to The Assembled Parties, which I wanted to see because of the participation of Tony award winner, Dame Judith Light, who I’ve admired since her days as doctor’s wife/belle de jour Karen Wollack. Light has made a career out of realistic portrayals of over-the-top characters including real-life husband and child poisoner, Marie Hilly in the made for TV classic, Wife, Mother, Murderer. But hers was not the stand-out performance. Jessica Hecht in the lead role was a revelation. We were surprised to read that Remy Auberjonois had only recently stepped into the role of Jeff as he not only played well with others, but seemed to own the part. Of course all the actors were upstaged by the 14-room Central Park West apartment in which the action is set. The play already closed, so if you missed it, you missed it, but if it comes back in some form, bring a hankie.

Last night we saw The Explorer’s Club at City Center. It was a very well done farce. What’s not to like? Nothing. Most critics have already written about the drinks being thrown around the stage and expertly caught. How do they do it? Who knows? Don’t go home and try it with your spouse. Don’t ask me how I know. The play wasn’t only written funny. It was played funny, and expertly. It’s hard to pick standouts when the entire cast shined. Tickets are cheap(er than Broadway), but if you go to the TKTS booth, bring CASH. Show closes August 4th.

Side note: I had never heard of David Furr before but after seeing his performance in the above, I came across his youtube series, Jersey Shore Gone Wilde, in which he and Santino Fantana recite dialogue from Jersey Shore in the style (and period costumes) of Oscar Wilde. Off-topic, but here’s a clip of that.

Next post will be on TKTS line a how-to primer, along with info on its particular annoyances and delights.

(Hey maybe you enjoyed this post. Or maybe you think I’m a snot-nosed know-it-all. In either case, the best way to say “thank you” or “screw you” would be by reading and then writing a customer review of one of my books.)

Angela and Rick 4-Evah!

Politics and Culture, ,

Could I state out loud and explicitly that I not only don’t think the state of Florida brought its A-game to the prosecution of Zimmerman, I think they purposely didn’t bring their A-game because of concerns that a guilty verdict would have threatened gun laws, stand your ground, and police procedures while also leading to some angry Republican voters staying home next election if there had been a conviction? And maybe THAT’s what the DOJ should be looking into as well?

The above scenario would not require much of a conspiracy either, just a prosecutor who is made to understand by the medicaid-fraudster governor, the implications of a vigorous prosecution, but not asked explicitly to do anything.

Maybe it went something like this:

Governor Scott: Now, of course if you decide to prosecute this case, I hope it’s because you want to do the right thing and not because we don’t want the jack-booted Federales in the DOJ breathing down our necks, and energizing the Dems.

Corey: Of course, Governor. If we find enough evidence we’ll go ahead with it.

Governor: Good. And if you go ahead with it, I want to see you prosecute vigorously, even if it means making our police look like racist-idiots for not arresting the guy in the first place, or even knocking on doors to see if the kid belonged to anyone. Not to mention how it’s going to stir up more b.s. over conceal and carry, and stand your ground — both of which are supported by the Koch brothers — major contributors to our party — who would not be happy if that were to happen…

Corey: I understand completely sir. We won’t let any political considerations stop us although a victory still won’t get us votes from the African Americans, and could lose us some of our base, especially if certain issues, such as you brought up, are raised. We must do our best to get a conviction, no matter the cost.(She looks around the room as though aware of cameras and microphones, and then places a finger by her eye and winks.)

Governor:(He looks at Ms. Corey and then around the room) Ms. Corey do you have something in your eye?

Corey: Of course, Governor. What else could it be?

Governor: So have you thought about a strategy if the state goes forward?

Corey: Well, as a matter of fact, Governor, I have been thinking about. If we do prosecute, the best strategy going forward is to avoid all that race talk. And it’s not about gun laws. Guns don’t kill people after all, so bringing that into it would just be counterproductive as would disrespecting our police force in any way. I was just thinking that any defense lawyer would do everything he or she could to keep minorities off the jury, especially African Americans. I say we let them. Could you imagine how much more legitimate it would be if we got a conviction, which I’m sure we will due to our vigorous prosecution, with an all-white jury?

Governor: (Looks confused, but notices Corey seems to be nodding her head slightly) Well, I leave it to your judgement. I wouldn’t want anyone to think you were anything but independent, whatever your political ambitions in the future might be.

Corey: Thank you for your faith in me, Governor. I hope you’ll always be able to count on me… to uphold the highest standards. I’ll be working with the prosecutors very closely on this one.

Governor: I’m sure you will. Thank you, Ms. Corey.

Corey: You very welcome, Governor. And oh, do you have something in your eye?

Governor: Yes. What else could it be?

Here’s a clip of Corey looking strangely relieved after the verdict. No second guessing, here.

(Hey, like Marion’s Blog? Why not check out some of her other stuff here?)

What the F**k is wrong with people? Part 10,012.

Politics and Culture, Theater, Movie, Event, Misci Reviews, true story, , ,

So a couple of nights ago, the better-half and I go to see Alan Cumming in MacBeth. There’s only a few performances left, and this is not a review, but here are a few observations:

  • That Shakespeare guy, we all owe him for inventing the language: sound and fury, dagger of the mind, be-all-and-end-all, a poor player that struts, milk of human kindness, something wicked this way comes, sorry sight, etc. And that’s just one play!
  • Because of the concept, it helps to brush up your Shakespeare – specifically the basics of the Scottish play although the Playbill offered helpful notes.
  • It was thrilling and unexpected to see theater this alive on Broadway.
  • Alan Cumming was brilliant.

There are two other actors on stage at times, but mostly, this is a one man show, with Cumming playing everyone but Banquo’s ghost. That’s a lot of acting, and it feels both amazingly fresh and original, and also somehow retro – reminding this viewer of the old-timey (1980s) monologists who could fill the stage with distinctive characters, all embodied by a single being. And he doesn’t have to do this either. He’s a television star now with a regular paycheck. He’s there for us. We ought to show him some respect.

Which is why once I was back out on the street, I began to rant.

See here’s the thing:  Showtime is at seven. That’s what it says on the ticket, and Tuesday nights most non-musical plays start at 7:00. Remember this is one guy (mostly) on stage for 100 minutes straight. Not only isn’t there an intermission, there are really no “breaks” in the usual theatrical sense. So basically once it starts, there is no point at which latecomers could enter the theater without disrupting other audience members, and possibly Mr. Cumming himself.

And yet….

People seemed to trickle in for a good twenty minutes, accompanied by ushers leading them to seats, which meant people had to move and stand to make room. Some of these assholes (and I use the word because they are) had seats in the first few rows where it is not unlikely their presence could be felt by the players strutting their stuff.

Maybe you’re an idiot who assumed the curtain was at eight. Maybe you got stuck at the office. Your train was late. Your cat died.

I don’t care.

If you can’t get there on time, please stay home.

Another thing: When did it become permissible to have a snack while watching live theater? Five minutes before the lights dimmed, there was actually a concessions guy walking through the orchestra section hawking his wares. And during the performance, the sound of chewing could at times be heard accompanying the Scottish burr onstage.

I blame cell-phones. Not that I heard any. People did seem to heed the electronic device warning, at least within my hearing, although some pork-pie hat, soul-patch type two rows in front of me was standing and texting right up until the lights dimmed. I mean, I blame cell-phones for being the greenhouse gas of global narcissism, although it probably started before that, maybe with walkmans and oblivious joggers tuning out other pedestrians as they occupied their own private space in public.

I also blame the management of the Ethel Barrymore Theater for not managing this. Are they afraid if they don’t let the latecomers in they’ll make trouble? Are they so hard up for cash they need to sell concessions before the show begins, afraid they are somehow being cheated because no intermission means less money? Or is it just that they’ve accepted we’ve all become such big wah-wah babies that we are incapable of getting someplace on time and cannot go without snackies for more than two minutes? Maybe they were passive-aggressively hoping to provoke Cumming into pulling a Lapone?

Why can’t Broadway be more like the Metropolitan Opera? You don’t see this shit at the Met. First off, the other patrons would beat the crap out of anyone creating a disturbance, and by disturbance I mean shifting too loudly in your seat. Second, the Met just doesn’t play that. They lock the doors when the orchestra starts. They put the latecomers into a special room of shame, in which they must stay, maybe forever.

They check your bags when you walk in the front door, and the ushers give you the once over before you get to your seat. They’ll grab any food they see on your person and feed it to the homeless.

Have I turned into a bitter old coot yelling at people to get off my lawn? No, I have not. I don’t have a lawn. I live in a city with a lot of other people, and space must be shared, which means no one gets to act like they are in their own living room. No one. I don’t care who you think you are, who you work for, what you paid for your ticket, or how very educated you are. People have to look around and get it through their thick skulls that other people exist.

End rant.

(Enjoy this? There are plenty more rants on these pages, and you can see more of Marion’s work here.)

Your Saturday Book Review — Moses and Monotheism

book reviews, Politics and Culture, , ,

Since I’m slogging through A Naked Singularity and won’t be ready to review it for at least another week or three, I’m stuck writing about a book I read previously. So this week, it’s Moses and Monotheism by Sigmund Freud, which I think I last looked at sometime before the birth of a niece who just graduated college.

You may have already bounced from this blog, or you may be asking yourself, “Why? Why the hell would I want to read anything by that discredited, misogynist fraud?”

Here’s why: No matter what you think of psycho-analysis, Freud was a hell of a writer. He may have been clueless about women. His take on “penis envy” was likely his own projection based on his being a circumstanced Jewish guy with maybe not the world’s largest genitalia, in the land of the uncut German uber-schwanz. And some of the other stuff may also have been personal, more about him than about a theory that explains everything, but even in translation, his prose is sharp and his voice distinctive. He’s got skills!

Moses and Monotheism is an essay written toward the end of his life (1937) when he was on a crap-load of morphine for the oral cancer that was torturing him, and maybe chasing it down with a little of his old favorite — cocaine. There’s an urgency to the writing that makes it easy to imagine Freud composing it the wee hours of the morning, when even doped up, he desperately needed to distract himself from both the physical pain of his cancer, and the spiritual pain of exile as he watched the world he knew come to an unimaginably horrible end.

It’s a short, tight, highly-accessible work — an essay in which he retells the biblical story of Exodus through the lens of psycho-analysis. It’s a great example of taking a hypothesis and running with it over hills and into valleys, cul de sacs, and labyrinths.

Freud goes through the “baby floating downriver in a the basket” fairytale and posits early on that Moses was an Egyptian, and the myth was needed to hide his Egyptian heritage. Then he follows through with much further speculation based on “If Moses was an Egyptian then ….” He writes of Judaic-monotheism’s being rooted in the proto-monotheism of ancient Egyptian worship of the sun god. Because that was primarily a cult of the royals, Freud further concludes that Moses was not just any Egyptian, but indeed a “prince” of Egypt. He further posits that “if Moses was an Egyptian” of course he would introduce the nomadic people he had decided to liberate,  lead and civilize to the Egyptian custom of circumcision.

He continues to (psycho) analyze biblical passages for their hidden meanings, using his Oedipal theory to conclude that at some point Moses’ “people” rebelled and killed their (father) leader. He sees in the story of Exodus, the cover-up of a great crime.

In terms of how to how to deconstruct a text, create and solve a puzzle, and impose an original new text – it’s a masterful job, and one from which we can all learn. Whether or not any of it is “true” is another matter entirely.

Courtesy — It Works!

Politics and Culture,

Per a recent CNN blog: In response to customer complaints, Whole Foods is enforcing an English only policy during work time on employees, in – of all places – 47% Hispanic New Mexico.

Whole Foods is known for being staunchly anti-union, so this is no surprise, but before going all politically correct regarding the language issue, is it possible that both sides of this “debate” are missing an important point?

I get why employees want to be able to speak the language they are most comfortable in to each other, and why most Spanish-speaking people are resentful of “English only” anything — especially in a place like New Mexico where many residents are quite proud of their heritage.

I understand why customers aren’t comfortable when employees are speaking in a language they don’t know. Their reasons include statements like: “My grandparents came to this country and they had to learn English.” That may not be particularly rational, or even historically correct – said grandparents may have come from an English speaking country, or they may never have actually learned enough English to get by without help. There might even be an underlying prejudice, and there’s a limit to “the customer is always right.” Sometimes the customer may ask for something that clearly is not right, as in “Fire the girl with the headscarf or I won’t come back.” Assuming the headscarf, and not job performance, prompted the complaint, the correct answer from management would be, “We’ll miss your business.”

But the “English only” crowd may have other reasons besides “English is the official language of these United States” which is not a true statement no matter how often it’s said. They may feel like people are talking about them when they can’t Continue reading Courtesy — It Works! →