Here’s a new support network for parents of male dancers. Via Dance Advantage.
Tag Archive for 'Dance of Life'
Wow, look at the streets of Harlem two nights ago. The Lower East Side was nothing like this, though there was a great deal of honking and small groups of people pumping their fists in the air and cheering as they passed you on the street. And people who didn’t know each other hugged in the subways. Which of course is not exactly how New York is often perceived. But looks like Harlem had a regular street party!
My neighborhood was nothing like this! At least not mid-day and I don’t think the line was that long in the morning…
Hehe, speaking of Mr. Marshall, I remember 16 years ago celebrating with him (among others) the results of another presidential election. We were both grad students in the same program. Ugh, 16 years ago… Anyway, hopefully hopefully hopefully we’ll both feel like celebrating again in a few hours…
It’s almost time for results to start coming in, you guys!
Great thing having a view of your voting place from your window! I was able to wait until there was no line (early afternoon) and sprint down there.
Ooooh, nervously excited…
If you haven’t already, make sure to read (and listen to) Claudia La Rocco’s excellent WNYC post containing interviews with several NYC dance artists speaking about the role of race in their work and how they view the election. She apparently came up with the idea to do the interviews after an angry back and forth between Time Out editors and readers over the fact that the magazine’s list of top 40 New Yorkers who’ve made the most impact on the city over the last decade is, as Claudia put it, rather “monochromatic.”
At least things are different in the literary world. Check out the list of recent Whiting Award recipients. Also, Galley Cat is doing a series of author interviews about the election. Here’s one with poet Douglas Kearney over harmful language used in political speeches. His upcoming projects sound very cool.
(image taken from here)
Last night I was in Brooklyn, and, passing through the Atlantic Avenue subway station, I saw a group near the entrance to the Long Island Railroad registering people to vote. They were pretty busy. This, along with Counter Critic’s post today, reminded me to remind you all to register, if you’re not already. Tomorrow’s the last day in New York to do so for the upcoming election. Go here for info on how to do that; go here for other states.
Mefears in the age of the internet, soon writers and artists won’t make any money at all from their work. Still, far better than people not reading at all, right? (I love his line about the tree in the forest and the writer’s silent scream, and his Fedoku story.)
Anyway, some of these books do look pretty funny.
I absolutely loved this novel and highly recommend it. It’s about three generations of sufferers of early-onset Alzheimer’s (which can come on as early as 30, which I didn’t know). It’s partly a portrayal of the disease itself, partly a meditation on memory and its ramifications, but mostly it’s just a beautifully-written story about the need for human connection. I won’t be forgetting Abel Haggard for a long time.
Here is the author’s website. And here’s a short autobiographical piece, equally compelling, that he wrote the Guardian.
(Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830)
For some reason, this day always seems more fun to celebrate than our own 4th. Maybe just because it’s foreign, but also I think because the French Revolution signified much more historically and on larger scale than our own. Anyway, I seem to have been eating a lot of French food lately (Nice Matin, L’Express, French Roast) because I have a bagful of little postcards announcing tonight’s celebratory feasts at those restaurants. If you’re in NY and you’re so inclined, I recommend Nice Matin.
“Shortly after the article [in the New York Times, about murder convict Gary Gilmore] caught his eye, almost immediately in fact, Susskind’s old friend and associate Stanley Greenberg called, and they had a good conversation. Stanley had written a TV story fifteen years ago about a man awaiting execution. The man had been so long on Death Row that he changed in character, and the question became, “Who was being executed?” Metamorphosis the play had been called, and Susskind always felt that it had had some effect on the end of capital punishment in New York State, and maybe even a little to do with the Supreme Court decision that saved a lot of men’s lives on Death Row.”
From The Executioner’s Song, by Norman Mailer.
Intelligent lawyers leave the law because they know art produces social change, not legal arguments.
Due to an unfortunate problem, I’ll be disabling comments for a while. I hope to enable the comments function again in the near future. Thank you for supporting and reading my blog 
A little over a year ago I attended a panel discussion hosted by Media Bistro on authors who got book deals from their blogs. After being introduced to the panelists, I looked up all the blogs on the internet, and was particularly taken with this one, by author Robert Rummel-Hudson. It was about his daughter, Schuyler, who was born with an extremely rare neurological condition known as bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria, which makes it impossible to move certain facial muscles, resulting in the inability to speak. The blog, and the resulting memoir, follow Schuyler’s journey learning to speak through other means, and the lessons she teaches Rummel-Hudson along the way about being a father.
Well, the memoir just came out and last Wednesday Media Bistro threw a book party for Mr. Rummel-Hudson. Ariel and I went and I finally got to meet him. I’d commented on his blog a few times, so he knew of my blog, and has been reading it a bit as well. Well, he told me on Wednesday that Schuyler really enjoys all the pictures I post of dancers, and she’ll often go dancing about the house, imitating their poses. As for right now, she wants to become a dancer herself 
I swear, this almost made me cry! I bought his book, which he signed, saying, “thank you for giving Schuyler some dancer dreams.” Aw!!!
Anyway, here are a couple of pictures. I didn’t want to scare anyone with a flash so they’re grainy.
This is Rob in the background (in the brown suit) signing books and chatting with people, and Ariel is in the foreground boozing it up. Haha, just kidding, she only had one glass of red wine and only because of me :S
And here’s Ariel again at a restaurant we went to afterward, called Banc Cafe, which we both loved. Her mom sweetly treated us, albeit from afar. Because Ariel had recently been sick, and, since Ariel now lives in NY far from her family in Alabama, her mother felt badly not being able to comfort her with some good home-cooked meals, so she directed Ariel to take herself and me out for a great dinner. And great it was! This is obviously the dessert portion — Ariel is having apple pie and I an enormous chocolate mountain thingy and chocolate martini. Thank you Mrs. Davis!!! Lovely lovely night
Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
Nicole testified this morning. So sad. Small protest in morning but huge when we came out for lunch. Cameras everywhere. More to come…
Thursday night I got together with several friends and we went out to a great restaurant in Soho / Nolita, FR.OG (standing for “French Origine”; starting from left of table is: Allison, Marion, me, Kathy, and Alyssa). Dishes combine the flavors and spices of North Africa with French culinary style and technique. Though it was a bit pricey, and not something I’d do but for a special occasion, I found the food excellent.
I had the duck leg pastilla, delicious diced duck meat combined with what tasted to me like Moroccan spices in a light pastry shell coated with honey and almonds, along with lightly-dressed baby arugula side salad. Only thing was, no way could I eat even half of it, and it didn’t heat up so well the next day — the pastry crust was soggy by then and I could no longer taste the delicious honey-ed bottom. Why do restaurants serve such blasted big portions!!! Marion, from Ireland, said this was the first thing she noticed when she arrived here — American food portions are off the scale… I tasted her cigare of chicken, by the way, though I’m not usually a fan of chicken. But it was really unexpectedly juicy and the skin was crunchy and flavorful — the best chicken I think I’ve had.
And they had an excellent cocktail list. Frozen hot chocolate martini, mmmmm.
Maybe too excellent a cocktail list… Of course we HAD to try everything! And the drinks were so delicious you couldn’t really tell they contained any alcohol, until you stood up…
By the end of the evening we were a bit tipsy… and we suddenly somehow found ourselves downstairs near the kitchen trying to meet the chef. This was partly because we’d so enjoyed the food and were interested in knowing how it was prepared and where the chef came from (Queens, as it turned out), but also because, admittedly, a few members of our party were drawn to the restaurant because of the chef’s very attractive profile on the website Poor man was more than a bit weirded out by all these women pawing at him and asking him questions galore. And I learned that a couple of my friends are apparently more cynical and untrusting even than I: because he seemed so stunned at all the attention, they suspected perhaps a line cook had been sent out to entertain us in lieu of the real chef. But I don’t think so — the guy in the middle above looks like chef Jarret Brody, right?… (If you aren’t taken to his pic on the link, click on “a place to eat”)
Anyway, fun night out with the ladies If you’re ever in SoHo / Nolita, there’s lovely food to be found here. And you can request to meet the chef and see if you get the same guy…
I am so sick of the way the media is making the Democratic race into a race and gender war and the terms they’re using to construct it falsely. All I heard all night was that Clinton won among “women” while Obama prevailed among “Blacks.” What exactly are Black women then — doesn’t this language kind of negate them? Just when my blood was boiling over it, the reporter added, “oh and a footnote, a footnote: Black women voted for Obama by …” (whatever the percentage was). “A footnote”? How insulting.
While I’m mostly pleased with the Super Tuesday results, I am thoroughly disgusted by the media coverage, at least on network TV. They act like Hillary’s a big loser for not doing better, when, hello, she secured the most delegates and won the biggest states. On the other hand, the way they talk about Obama, it’s as if they’re patting him on the head, saying ‘good boy, good boy, you did really well, considering…’ Considering what? That he’s Black? That he’s young? It’s like he’s a child or someone with some huge handicap.
And right now on ABC some male jackass pundit is saying the Democratic party needs to decide whether it wants to be forward-looking, appealing to young people aged 30 and under, or looking backward to the good old days, appealing to the 60 plus crowd. Could the party possibly be both, dumbass? Ugh. Idiots. Okay, I’m tired and going to bed…
Happy Super Tuesday, everyone! And happy NY Giants parade, NYers
With helicopters and screams and wooo’s and honking horns… methinks I may not see any sleep tonight. I wonder what it’s like back home (where the game took place) … besides warm! Can’t complain though — it’s in the 50s here Anyway, congrats Giants fans!
(photo by Andrew Eccles, from Alvin Ailey’s REVELATIONS)
Most of us have today off from work. As we return from ski trips or take advantage of holiday sales or just veg out, let’s just not forget why.
Ugh. Last night I had another reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe, as part of the Writers Room member reading series. (above photo is from a reading there last year; I felt like such crap last night I wouldn’t let any friends — including Ariel, who wrote about the evening here — take pictures). I almost didn’t give the reading because I was feeling depressed and sick (the two probably contributed to each other; having grown up in warm sunny Phoenix, I am just fundamentally not a cold-weather person and it seems like I often spend an entire winter down with something off and on). Anyway, another person had to back out last minute so I decided to be an adult and refrain from flaking out on something I’d committed to. Plus, Stan Richardson, playwright and curator of the series, is such an amazing person. He made me feel so much better and talked me out of my insecurities with his spectacular sense of humor. He really is a great person; thanks Stan
For the above reasons, it didn’t go as well as the first…. although I feel like that’s how life often is. Of all of my many court arguments over the years, my very first went by far the best — the presiding judge actually telling me it was well-crafted and well-articulated. Also, with my first reading, I just gave a brief intro to my novel then began reading; here, I was reading from another section further in, so I felt like I stood up there talking about what the manuscript was about and what came before the excerpt more than actually reading it. Anyway, it was brief and I survived.
The guy on after me though was really good. His name is Steve Reynolds, and he read from his memoir, portions of which will be published in Reader’s Digest, on surviving oral cancer. Oh — the theme of the night was “Doctors,” so all of ours dealt with medical conditions. Mine was about my main character’s having to go for a gruelling Barium Swallow exam after sensing a ball the size of a fist in her throat, and the playwright who followed us, Susan Haar’s consisted of two really good monologues from her newest play about a character who is sexually assaulted while in a coma. So, definitely an uplifting night in Cornelia Street Cafe!… Anyway, Reynolds is a great writer, who has attained enough ironic distance from his condition to write about it with both laugh-out-loud humor and sobering poignancy. He’s really able to make you feel what he’s feeling as he goes through the various stages.
At points, his excerpt even created a bit of commotion. A non-smoker, he was obviously befuddled at his diagnosis. He’s further dumbounded to learn (as are we!), that it’s actually caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV, the same one that causes cervical cancer in women), and whose chances you have of contacting rise the more sexual partners you have. According to stats, he tells us, once you have more than six partners, your chances of getting — either oral HPV or cancer; I’ve forgotten now because I was so blown away by the number — increase 420 percent with every new partner. This is over the course of a lifetime. Afterward, when Stan re-took the mike, he repeated, “420 percent??” “Yep,” Steve responded. Murmurs abounded and everyone’s face seemed to bear a rather horrified look of concentration. “I mean, if you’re a single woman in her 30s there’s no way you haven’t had more than that!” said a wildly gesticulating woman in the audience (okay, my friend! — but not poor Ariel — she looked mortified that people actually spoke about such things in public. I remember being new to New York once too, )
Anyway, afterward, I dragged my friends to Caffe Vivaldi around the corner, which is just kind of a nostalgic place for me, since I used to go there frequently when I first moved here. Unfortunately it doesn’t look much like I remember it: instead of being a quintessential cafe with every hot cozy drink and soothing fattening thing imaginable and loads of tables suitable for chatting by the fireplace, it’s now become a small dark music-hall, with the chairs and tables all shoved to one end to accommodate a huge piano and band area on the other. And of course once the band begins playing — they have two sets per night so they start early — conversation must end. And gone is their European staff who made the perfect panini and served good wine. Having said all that, I still rather enjoyed the first musician, a singer and pianist named Jess King. Her lovely, soulful voice and dark, melancholy tunes were perfect for my blue funk. She made me cry at one point and sometimes that’s just what you need — a good cry. Anyway, check her out here or here. And, to hear her in person, she plays there every other Tuesday night. I loved her.
Ugh. Last night my agent sent me another editor’s rejection on my novel. They’re all saying the same thing: ‘I liked it but didn’t love it enough to take it on.’ The vast majority of novels I’ve read I’ve liked but didn’t love — some I didn’t even like at all — but definitely most fall into that first category. The last ‘rejector’ said she thought I was intelligent and at points the book was laugh out loud funny, but she just didn’t fall enough in love. Last night’s said she liked the plot very much but wasn’t “head-over-heels immersed” enough to fight for Sophie “in-house and out in the world.” It sounds like Sophie’s going off to war or something! I guess it is kind of a war to get the average person to pick up a book, particularly if that book is fiction. Which then makes it a war to get the publishing house to invest money into producing it.
Ugh. I guess I’ve spent enough time away from it that I should re-look and make some changes. Or maybe I should just resign myself to the fact that a good many writers never get their first novels published and throw myself into the second… It’s just so daunting because I really think a novel has to be, if not the hardest piece of art to make, then at least the one that takes the longest.
In any event, Cedar Lake Ballet is holding a shindig for dance bloggers tonight and I’ve already told a friend he’s going to have to take notes on the ballet for me because I intend to get thoroughly plastered at the pre-show cocktail party!
If you’re bored, take part in this interesting study on how people learn to read. I’m not sure the test measures exactly what it sets out to, but I don’t want to say anything more so as to skew the results. I found it from Maud Newton.
Can someone please tell me there is no way in the universe this dancer is turning counterclockwise? I can’t for the life of me see her rotating anything but clockwise, and perhaps ridiculously, I have spent the last half hour staring at her. Every right-brained / left-brained test I have ever taken has indicated I am either slightly left or else “whole” — like this one, where I received a score of 10 — right in the middle.
I got the “dancer test” from Miss Tango In Her Eyes, who saw the woman rotating the same way I did. By the way, Miss Tango’s blog is the story of a Canadian woman who fell so in love with Argentina’s national dance, she decided to pack her bags and head down to B.A. for a few months to partake fully of the tango lifestyle. Several months ago, on a hunch, she decided not to board her returning flight to Vancouver. Five days later she met someone and fell in love. Their baby was just born. Awwww!!! I wish I could do something that right-brained…
Thanks to reader Sharon for alerting me to this new social networking site, Ballroom Dance Channel. Founded by Dancing With the Stars pro dancers Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Tony Dovolani, and Elena Grinenko, it is geared toward, as the name implies, fans of ballroom dance, and of the show. It’s similar to Kristin Sloan’s The Intermission (for all dance aficionados but mainly ballet), and Ken Davenport’s BroadwaySpace.com (for those involved in theater). Perhaps these more specialized social networking sites can avoid some of the pitfalls of their mammoth brethren.
Ironically, as internet technology allows people better ways to connect with each other in virtual time, it works to hamper that connection in real time. Of all the talk about Amazon’s new Kindle (basically an ipod for books, blogs and online mags), Meghan Daum’s critique is my favorite. She basically says that glancing at the cover of a fellow airplane traveler’s book was a perfect conversation starter. A fellow book lover, I agree with her — not just on planes, but in cafes, the park, the subway — recognizing a favorite book in the hands of another is a sure point of connection. I guess there’s always Shelfari though, which likely can be accessed from one’s Kindle…
In other news, it appears that Elizabeth Berkeley is to host Bravo’s new reality dance show, “Step It Up And Dance.” I knew she had some connection to dance, since I saw her on the red carpet. Also, Pasha & Anya are scheduled to perform in Stamford, Connecticut later in December (thanks to Laurel for that info!), in a ballroom dancing extravaganza called “Rhythm of Love,” which also stars some of my other favorites, new national American Smooth and Rhythm champs respectively, J.T. Thomas & Tomasz Mielnicki, and Jose DeCamps & Joanna Zacharewics. If you love ballroom and you’re not too far from southern CT, this should be a fabulous night. Book-wise, if you’re in NY, this weekend is the (free) Small and Independent Press Book Fair in midtown. Go here for a schedule of events.
Am bouncing off the walls waiting for tonight!
I’ve been researching the standards by which forensic handwriting analysts take handwriting samples — I know, excitement uncontained … actually it is pretty interesting though, how one is able, or not, to compare two pieces of handwriting to see if they are written by the same person. Anyway, in my research I came across an article devoted to handwriting analysis, as in how to tell one’s personality traits through one’s handwriting. Even though I have about as much faith in this as in, say, astrology, of course I am now obsessing over my own handwriting…
(For the record, handwriting expert testimony is only admissible in court as proof of forgery, NOT to show that someone has a criminal mindset and therefore may have committed the crime they’re charged with because of their handwriting!)
Anyway, according to this chart (scroll down to the cursive), I’m independent, but have some self-esteem problems. I write with lots of big loops, which this person says indicates independence. But, I tend to cross my t’s down low — mainly because I think they’re cute that way — instead of up high. Supposedly, high crossers have high self-esteem and low crossers, I assume, the opposite. Hmmm. I have esteem issues! But high crossers are also competitive and who wants that?… Although, I can be a bit that way… Also, according to the chart, people who make weird loopy things with their lowercase letters whose tails extend below the line (as in ‘y’ or ‘j’) may have some perversity issues. I think I remember Ariel showing a picture that a certain ballet superstar autographed for her when he guested with the Mobile Ballet, and I think I remember his final ‘g’ being a bit crazed down there. But that was on her old blog, which she’s taken down so no way of checking…
Okay, back to serious work!
I don’t know who in the dance community annoys me more: those who consider themselves hipper than thou and call themselves “downtown,” or those who consider Ballet the only form of dance.
Spurred by Eva’s suggestion, I went to Bryant Park this afternoon to take part in the first ever group photograph of the New York dance community, organized by Belgian online dance initiative Sarma and local dance collective Chez Bushwick. Everyone who considered themselves part of the dance community was invited. Since I’m a dance blogger, ballet and modern fan and amateur ballroom dancer, I decided that included me.
When I arrived I spotted a robust, jovial-looking, curly-haired man wearing a t-shirt that announced he was a member of the photo op, and headed toward him. I kind of look like Sylvia Plath but shorter and with darker hair, or maybe Suzanne Farrell but not anywhere near as pretty I have long hair and was wearing a ballet-y black bouncy-skirted sundress bow-tied at the waist by a red silk scarf, and sandals whose straps were topped with embroidered flowers. I was carrying an oversized pink bag bearing books. After making brief eye contact with me, the man peered around me to another woman and began greeting her, until I stopped right in front of him.
“Oh hi,” he said to me, surprised. “Um, we’re actually taking a photograph of the New York dance community here. Would you like to participate?” he asked hesitantly.
“Uh-huh, that’s what I’m here for,” I said.
“Oh. Oh good,” he said handing me a piece of paper announcing the rules (you gave them permission to use the photos of you on the internet and in magazines, yadda yadda). He also told me after the picture was taken, I was to sign my name on a roster of attendees and would receive a sticker entitling me to a free drink at one of the concession stands. He then told me they were running a little behind schedule and directed me to take a seat at one of the tables in an adjacent elevated area along the path.
I did as he suggested. Turned out to be the perfect little perch for me since its elevation gave me a good view of the crowd. I enjoy being an observer. Plus, I was having a bad hair day and was a little worried of running into Marcelo or David or one of my ballet heartthrobs, so could be on the lookout and duck for cover if need be. I had nothing to worry about as it turned out: there wasn’t a soul from the ballet world there.
Many people began arriving, and I didn’t know anyone. Finally, I spotted a fellow blogger in the crowd. As he was making his way to the tabled area after receiving his instruction paper, I waved to him.
“What are you doing all the way over here?” he said as he approached. I didn’t really understand the question so responded with a quizzical look.
“We don’t ever see each other,” he then announced, “because you’re a snobby elitist who only goes to uptown things. I go to all the cool downtown things.”
I just stared at him, not really knowing what to say. He laughed. Apparently I was supposed to take it as a joke.
“Well, I’m going to go around and meet new people while you sit here like a wallflower.” And he was off.
I kind of sat there stupefied. I think I saw Eva, but after that didn’t feel like getting up to say hello. Maybe some other time. I saw Jonah Bokaer, one of the organizers of the event and a dancer with Merce Cunningham. He’s rather cute in person He was going around giving people who looked like they belonged small bottles of water. That didn’t include me. He looked right through me when he passed directly in front of my table even though I had my piece of paper with the instructions prominently displayed. A twenty-something woman with dark hair bearing a green “press pass” around her neck was going around with a notepad. She stopped at a table in front of me at which sat a man and two women with really cool-looking dreadlocks. I overheard them tell her they were retired dancers, now choreographers. I wondered if the interviewer was Gia.
About half an hour later, an announcer muttered something over a microphone that barely worked. From the crowd’s actions, I figured he was telling people to line up to his left. I followed suit, but kind of wish I’d just have stayed where I was to take pictures. I got a space all the way in the back of the crowd. I could hear him now telling taller people to move to the back, but apparently the average man over six feet either doesn’t understand English or has no sense of his size in comparison to others. Or else “downtown” male dancers are just rude. Some tiny women in the back brought over some chairs and stood on them. Soon, a security guard was in on the action ordering the people to get off the chairs. They paid him no mind. He yelled louder. They continued to ignore him. I couldn’t believe their audacity. And it did look dangerous: the plastic chairs were very insubstantial and the ground was really rocky and unstable. I wouldn’t stand on such a thing and these were dancers. He walked right up to one of them and yelled in her face to get off the chair or else. This was far more exciting than the photographer up front!
“Oh come on, officer” she whined like a character in Rent. Thankfully the last picture was snapped and the whole experience over, so there was no further trouble.
Good thing about being in the back was I was first in line to record my name. That of course didn’t mean I was actually first to do so. As the man handed me pen and paper, someone reached over my head and snatched the whole right out of my fingers, bumping me on the crown with the back board. Other pens and rosters were handed about, arms flying feet stomping everywhere. About fifteen minutes later I was finally able to scribble my name, identity (blogger), place of birth and email address, and receive my sticker, which I promptly took to the nearest concession stand.
“What’s this thing?” the clerk snapped.
“We’re supposed to get a free drink?” I said.
She laughed shaking her head. “I don’t know nothin’ about this.”
“The dance community gathering, over there,” I pointed to the raucous crowd bombarding the man with the rosters and stickers.
“I don’t know and I don’t wanna know,” she spit.
I guess it was a fitting end to a discomfiting experience. Weird, I was just saying how good it felt to be part of the dance community.
On Saturday night my friend, Evangelina, invited me to a play showing as part of the currently underway NYC Fringe Festival, in which her husband, Michael Batelli, was an actor. I’ve never been to the Fringe Festival before, and haven’t been to a dramatic play in a while, so it was quite a treat.
“As Far As We Know” is a fictional re-imagining of the true story of an Army reservist who went missing in Iraq in April 2004 after his convoy was ambushed en route to Baghdad. Five days later, Al-Jazeera TV broadcast a videotape showing that 20-year-old reservist (whose real name is Keith Maupin but is here given the name Jake Larkin) surrounded by masked men. Six weeks later, another videotape emerged, showing, possibly, some kind of execution, though the tape was of such poor quality that the Army deemed it “inconclusive” both of whether it indeed showed a slaying, and whether, if so, it was actually that of Maupin. Unlike with all other military persons, journalists, and missionaries shown in similar tapes, Maupin’s body was never recovered, and there has been no word from him or his captors ever since. The Army has since promoted Maupin three times, in abstentia, and his family and friends in his hometown of Batavia, Ohio, continue hopefully to await his return.
I’m embarrassed to admit, but, somehow I’d never heard of Maupin. It’s impossible of course not to find his story immensely powerful and poignant, but I was also intrigued by the fact that, to this day, nearly three years later, there’s been no closure. Captors have been so up front with other kidnappings; either they were oddly out of step on this one, Maupin is still being held, or as the play hints, there was some kind of Army coverup. According to the play the ambush was partly the result of information sent by a Private to an incorrect email address, and Larkin’s drill sergeant, who later left the Army disillusioned, tells Larkin’s sister she believes the troops received inadequate training, ultimately confiding that she feels partly responsible.
The story was, interestingly, told in non-linear fragments and used mixed media (videoclips –both actual footage and tapes filmed by the actors — were interspersed with the staging). My only problem was that I found it a little too unwieldy and lacking in focus, which is, I’d assume, wont to happen when something is directed by the entire ensemble instead of a single person. It was, by turns, about Larkin’s family members and how they dealt with the situation, about the politics of the possible Army coverup, and about the Army personnel assigned to assist the family and act as go-between between family, military and media. Kelly Van Zile, who played Larkin’s sister, was a powerhouse of an actress and she really made me feel the sister’s pain as well as her internalized conflict between anger at and desperate need to believe in the military.
But it’s pretty obvious how the sister is going to feel. I thought a more dramatically interesting focus would be the young female Army captain charged, in her first assignment, with acting as liaison between the Army and the family. At the beginning of her portion of the story, she is shown listening to a tape dictating the proper way to break horrible news to a family: succinctly and with restrained compassion. With the Larkin family, of course, since there is no such “news” but only indefinite puzzlement, her job is near impossible, and infinite in duration (the Army moves her into a hotel down the street from the Larkins). The most powerful, most human scenes are those where the sister’s pain permeates the captain’s continuous attempt at a tough exterior and the captain gives in — first allowing the sister to keep hold of an all-important cell phone giving her instant access to the Pentagon (and on-the-spot news of Larkin), then writing personal checks to pay the distraught family’s utility bills, and eventually, against firm orders, allowing the family to attend an emotional homecoming for the soldiers returning from Larkin’s unit.
Glitches aside, though, it was a very compelling play and I’m definitely going to keep my ears open now for info about Maupin.
I’m late in getting this post up seeing as how it’s now mid-week, but kind of coincidental given that I received an email today from one of our servicemen, Paul, from Stamford, Connecticut, now serving in Iraq. Paul tells me that he’s enjoying learning some salsa dancing over there. Thanks for emailing, Paul. Take care of yourself, and please come home safe and sound Oh, and of course please let us know how your salsa is coming along!
Thanks you guys for all of your help and suggestions on what to do about my new little “pet” I’m just now seeing them this morning since all day yesterday I avoided the apartment! Yesterday in the park I completely freaked out over a puppy daschund. I was walking along and didn’t see him until he wagged his little tail at me, causing me to jump sky high. I don’t think he’d ever had that kind of reaction to his presence before and the poor little thing began whimpering; his owner looked at me like I was on something… I then realized how ridiculous it is to be afraid of a tiny little mouse, who, from his behavior yesterday, is likely far more afraid of me: I braved the shower yesterday only to hear some messing about in the kitchen right when I opened the bathroom door. I first screamed, then peered around the door just in time to see him do a swan dive behind the stove. I screamed again and shut myself in the bathroom for 1/2 hour more. When I emerged, I ran over to my desk, far from the kitchen, sat and turned the computer on, when I saw his little shadow coming out from under the nearby futon. I screamed and he turned around and went back underneath! That was the last I saw him, nearly 24 hours ago (but of course I’ve only been in the apartment for about 10 of those hours, and mostly sleeping up in my loft, where my mom told me he wouldn’t climb???) I’m very lazy and never cook in the apartment, so don’t really have much for him to nibble on in here; maybe he got bored and decided to look for a snack elsewhere. Of course, I’m sure he’s still somewhere in the building. I’m not going to be bringing my usual takeout in, though, think I’ll be eating out for the next few days
One good thing coming out of it: for the first time in about two years, I got the nerve to talk to the cute but slightly odd Russian guy next door (just from some odd noises he makes over there — one time I wasn’t sure if he was having an epilectic seizure or sex; I honestly sat there in my loft worrying about whether I should be calling 911 on him). Well, I realized he’s very nice and approachable and smart, and not too weird at all! (He told me to use the trap that kills them instantly though to be more humane). M, I never thought of putting those glue traps in the freezer! I fear I’d never put another food morsel in that freezer though! I think if I see him again, I’ll take Melinda’s suggestion and try to find a non-deadly trap where I can just run the thing outside, although I’d probably scream and he’d fly off the second I touched it… I’d love to get another cat, Philip, but my blasted allergist keeps telling me I’m allergic. Actually, I had quite a crush on that doctor, though I could never figure out if he was gay — he looked like a 50-something version of Rupert Everett Maybe this is a good reason to go back, tell him I need another allergy-to-cats test!
Thanks again for the comments I’m was thinking, geez, what a horrible pig I am that I’ve actually attracted a mouse, so glad to know I’m far from the only one! This definitely beats the water snake who climbed up a toilet in my dorm in Arizona. It wasn’t my room, but I still didn’t go the bathroom for days…
Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
How do i tell if it’s a mouse or a baby rat? Are they scared of water? Am i safe in the shower?
