| 2009 Pulitzer Predictions |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|12:41 am] |
The Dark Side or Nixonland for non-fiction
Lush Life or The Lazarus Project for fiction
No Prize, Ruined, or Reasons to be Pretty for drama
Wathing The Spring Festival or Colosseum for poetry
Frank Rich for opinion
Terry Teachout for criticism |
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| A Toast to Dave Mullineux |
[Jan. 29th, 2009|09:46 am] |
Most everyone I know and remember well is on Facebook now, from my elementary-school best friend to a new singing partner, so much so that the exceptions really are exceptions.
From time to time I've wondered whether Dave Mullineux, the most entertaining co-worker I have ever had, was registered on there. If he were, we wouldn't have any mutual friends; we worked together, but I don't think he ever met anyone I knew. I googled and found his obituary tonight, pasted below; sad of course, but reading it gave me a sense of the full life he led.
I lived in Seattle for a year when I was 19 and 20. Followed some friends who had just graduated from college out there, at a time when I wanted to just have a job and pay rent and live life rather than be in school. Someone had a sister who worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for $9.50 an hour, which sounded like a lot then, summer of 1990. And so I went out there.
I had done some temp work in Minnesota at a student-loan guarantor, and found a job out there in the same industry. Clerical work, managing paperwork, typing on an actual typewriter.
Dave was a claims analyst, claims manager, something like that. 24 years old, from England, he had been one of the top 100 darts players in the U.S. The trouble was, and he said that this was true of all the top darts players, that drinking relaxed his muscles enough to throw precisely, so when he stopped drinking he couldn't compete anymore. He also had been married and divorced by the time I met him, married long enough for him to have a green card, at least.
So he was in a rough spot, or getting out of one. But he was one of the funniest people I had ever met. Half of it was the accent, half of it was him. He took some kind of metal plate out of a filing cabinet one morning and played it like a didgeridoo, singing a song that went something like "Tie me kangaroo down, boys" and then would sing it again for anyone walking through the office. We were near Puget Sound, on the fifth floor of an early 20th century office building, and gulls would land on the window sill, and Dave would name the gulls after the odd names in the loan files he was processing. The one I remember was Hectamarie S. [something].
It wasn't just the accent, it was his timing and character. Lunchtime: "Eric, I feel like a little wonton soup." Funny, with his accent. Or, one day, he was at his desk with a paper clip elongated into a straight metal line, sticking in his ear. "Eric?" he said. "Do you know what the three great pleasures in life are? Orgasm. Sneezing. And this."
"Eric? Do you know that I have been from Phoenix, Arizoner, all the way to Tacomer?"
And one day, with relish, as he was getting ready or a visit back to England: "Eric. I'm leaving on a plain jet, don't know when I'll be back yet."
He was excited to read that Phil Collins was playing at the Tacomadome, in nearby Tacoma, and convinced me and two other co-workers to go. During a few minutes of distorted guitar noise, that would eventually lead into "In The Air Tonight", he said something like, "This isn't music. This is art or something."
Anyway, soon enough I left Seattle and went back to the midwest to finish college, and since e-mail and Facebook and all didn't exist, we lost touch. But he is still one of the most entertaining people I've ever known, and whenever I make a joke with a British accent, it's Dave who I'm imitating.
He came up in a phone conversation tonight, so I thought to google him. I found his obituary from last year; apparently he died from a fall. But I also found the columns that he wrote for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (I'll paste one below). I love knowing that he wrote and published, since he did nothing of the kind at the time. And I love knowing that he found some grounding and happiness since the time I knew him. Salut, Dave M.
Obituary:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/314719_obitmullineux09.html
One of his columns:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/208889_firstpersongiving.html |
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| Pinter Stories |
[Dec. 26th, 2008|09:46 pm] |
1. 16 years old, summer between junior and senior years of high school. My friend Atom suggested we get rush tickets to a Wednesday matinee at the Guthrie, in Minneapolis. Beautiful summer day. Besides a grid of twisted metal hanging above the stage, what I remember most about this production was how the second act, the one in which interrogators point a flashlight at Stanley and back him up against a wall, ended perfectly with "Birthday" by the Beatles playing through the theater's speakers at an ear-splitting volume.
2. 18 or so, read One for the Road in one sitting in a bookstore in St. Paul, either Odegaard's or The Hungry Mind, the 1984 Methuen edition with photos of Alan Bates as the Interrogator. Loved it, though it was the brutality of the writing, the bluntness and harshness of it, that pulled me in -- what pulled me in was how actable it was. Only later did I realize how almost unbearable the play would be to experience, either from an actor's perspective or an audience's; at the time, on paper, I'm a bit ashamed to say that it just seemed like a thrill ride.
3. Saw a college production of Betrayal. What I remember is my friend Noah, can't remember if he played Robert or Jerry, in a funny, garish period cardigan sweater. More vividly, what I remember is how one particular scene between the two men ends with a question and answer. In this production, the scene ended mid-conversation instead of with the definitive thunk of an ominous scene-ending verbal punch. One effect of the deliberate pauses and silences, at least when I read it on the page, was to make the spoken lines seem all the more harsh and loaded, so ending the scene by taking the audience out of the conversation, instead of closing it with a harsh button, was a choice I hadn't imagined.
During my year after college as a Watson Fellow, I saw a few Pinter productions.
4. Saw his version of Mamet's Oleanna in London, having already seen two other productions that year (one of them, performed in Flemish, in Antwerp). In both of those earlier versions, the director chose to have Carol sit in the professor's seat during the third act. Each time, it pulled me out of the play a bit, in that it didn't seem credible and also seemed a bit too obvious embodiment of the play's crucial shift in power. In Pinter's production, he had Carol place her jacket over his chair -- the effect was more ghostly, more ambiguous, more theatrical, and more credible.
What I also remember is how the pauses between the characters felt purposeful and effortless, and how unpretentious in general Pinter's direction was. The moments of stillness were deeply effective, but they didn't draw attention to the craftsmanship of either Mamet the playwright or Pinter the director -- they just made complete sense in performance: always a character choice and never a stylistic tic.
Also, Pinter's production was the only version of Oleanna that I've seen where it's actually an even fight between the two characters. It helped having John be a British professor and Carol be an Irish student; her resentment and rage always followed a perfectly clear, logical argument that actually evoked empathy.
Best of all (in my opinion), Pinter kept an ending to the play that Mamet himself had cut in production. The published script ends with John ranting about political corectness and threatening Carol with a chair, thus becoming the villain she drove him to be. In the original ending, the same scene occurs, with John threatening Carol with a chair. I can't remember if he attacked her in this production; I think he did. [edit: Now I remember; he threw her down under the desk and kicked her.] Then -- and this is the version that Pinter used, unpublished in English, although, oddly, the French translation of Oleanna keeps this scene), Carol emerges from the fetal position saying, "I have a letter." The gist of it is that John can keep his job if he reads this letter of apology in front of the university community -- she'll drop the charges, she'll let him have his job. "Say it," she says, as he reads the letter to himself. "'I have failed in my efforts to educate the young.'" Silence. "Say it again." Pause. "'I have failed in my efforts to educate the young.'" Blackout.
5. Around that same time, I saw Sam Mendes's National Theatre production of The Birthday Party at the Lyttleton. I remember the set emerging from the rear of the stage, and some other scenic trickery. Other than that, what struck me in the play's opening moments was the old-fashioned comedy of it -- played by British actors with British manners and cadences for a British audience, the play seemed less provocative and abstract and more grounded in a conventionally comic situation (I thought of Benny Hill at the time).
6. I had read Pinter's Moonlight during that Watson year. As with any of his other plays, I had read them with no knowledge or understanding of British culture and so followed them rhythmically, but really didn't "get" them at all. I got the starkness, I got the poetry, but I didn't get the manners that were so essential to understanding his work until I saw that Mendes production.
A few months later (all of this is spring of 1994), I saw the Toneelgroep production of Moonlight in Dutch, as Maanlicht. It matched my abstract understanding of the plays; I knew the script well enough to follow the story, but I didn't really get it, beat by beat. Beautiful design, though.
7. Four years later, I saw the Organic/Touchstone production of Moonlight in Chicago, at the former Steppenwolf/St. Nicholas/ComedySportz theater on Halsted near Diversey. The play really came to life to me then; the two sons, estranged from their father, seemed like credible emotionally stunted men who spent their days reenacting Monty Python-like comedy routines. Once again, seeing the play, and seeing these abstract scenes grounded in specific behavior, took both my understanding and experience of Pinter's writing to a deeper level.
I asked Ina Marlowe, who directed the show and ran the Organic/Touchstone, whether they would produce Moonlight if it were a new play by an unknown playwright. She said no. Given the difficulty of the play and the company she ran, I understood the answer. |
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| Thanksgiving, Friendship, and Corn |
[Dec. 1st, 2008|04:33 pm] |
When I was 20, I lived in Seattle, renting a studio apartment on Capitol Hill and working an office job. I was 2,000 miles from my hometown, and so that year spent Thanksgiving there instead of with my family. My friend Renee and her boyfriend were house-sitting at her boss's house, a funky place with a piano, and eight or so of us spent the full day together there, surrounded by a generous stranger's stuff. Renee and Brian were good friends of mine at the time, and I remember their other friends, strangers to me, were there as well. Most of them were vegetarians, so we had spaghetti as the main course. We watched Saturday Night Fever and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We all had the day off from our weekday jobs and were spending it together.
That was the first time I thought of Thanksgiving as a holiday about friendship and adopted families, with Christmas and the other December holidays being for the family.
I was talking with Rose, a painter (I think), about this at a similar dinner last Thursday. And she made the same case I did, but put it in the context of Thanksgiving as this particularly American holiday, and what makes it so. The wrongs of history that followed aside, it hit me: the pilgrims were having this meal not with the people from their past (the family) but with the people who were essential to their present and future, in this place far away from their homeland, and eating these things that would have been unusual at a holiday dinner back in Europe: turkey, corn. I imagined some kid in the mid-1950s going from the Midwest to Columbia University, and staying in New York over the holiday and listening to jazz and eating food that was once exotic and now familiar in this new world. The food of the adult present, the people of the adult present; a holiday that celebrates the present day. |
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| Tasting Note |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|08:49 am] |
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Five years ago, December 2003, back when the dollar was still strong, Binny's had a crazy two-day Champagne sale right before New Years' Eve. I bought a '93 Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame for a song, stowed it away through a few moves and a few summers, and was never sure when to open it. Thought it might be good for an engagement, or a wedding, or some impulsive random time. Met up with a few folks for election night and opened it for Obama's victory speech. Knew this was the right time. Wasn't even sure if the bottle would be good, if it had survived. Smelled like an almond croissant, tasted like honey and bubbles. The right night. |
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| Not Bad |
[Oct. 29th, 2008|02:10 pm] |
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The baristas at my neighborhood coffeehouse, until today, have always played the same mix CD when I'm here: some mix of Jason Mraz, Melissa Ferrick, and others. Today, though, instead they're playing the three same Blue Joni Mitchell songs over and over and over and over: "All I Want", "A Case of You", and "Carey". If they're going to limit themselves to three songs, these aren't bad ones. |
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| Macro to Micro |
[Oct. 28th, 2008|12:17 am] |
Best of both worlds: on one hand, in rehearsal with two actors, no stage management, conversation and then read-through and then conversation and then read-through, all good, and at the same time on a real stage instead of in an apartment or borrowed office.
The short play I'm directing alludes to the Cronulla Riots of December 2005. Who knew there was a race riot involving 5,000 people in Australia three years ago? Not me. |
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| "We Almost Lost Detroit" |
[Oct. 20th, 2008|01:23 am] |
My senior year of college I had a radio show called The All-Skate Direction. It ran on Wednesday nights from midnight until I felt like shutting down the station. I played this song a lot. |
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| In Case You're Wondering |
[Oct. 9th, 2008|01:14 pm] |
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The gypsy sellers who pass through college campuses in October 2008 still offer giant Reservoir Dogs posters. And, I discovered first-hand today, college freshmen are still playing "Free Bird" on acoustic guitars. |
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| Sunday |
[Sep. 14th, 2008|05:35 pm] |
Had callbacks this morning for a short play I'm directing in November. Tiny theater, the perfect kind of room for an intense, conversational play. Good actors. Seeing the other directors at work was a good reminder that actors can read a scene cold, without much context or guidance before they begin.
My only hesitation about taking the big-play job was knowing that the economy could be much worse by early November, when I will be available again for permanent, salaried work. Something in my gut said that things could get worse very quickly now. With the collapse of Lehman Brothers, that might be a legitimate concern.
On the bus back to the city yesterday, I saw a giant big-box store, the size of a Wal-Mart or a Best Buy, with an AVAILABLE banner stretched across it. From time to time I've wondered if we'll see neighborhoods of empty, giant stores in areas like North/Clybourn in Chicago. For a long time I've thought that, as we grow older, we'll be nostalgic for the years when gentrification was a problem, when we focused on the downside of new, shiny storefronts, or a new neighborhood venue for coffee, for god's sake; when that was what made a difference between a vote for Al Gore and a vote for Ralph Nader. |
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| Robin Holcomb - "Widowmaker" |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|11:45 pm] |
I like how the compression from the camera mic gives this 1990 song the remoteness of a much older record. Downside is that the lyrics get lost.
One of the most underrated songwriters out there.
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| Sudden Endorsement |
[May. 9th, 2008|03:22 pm] |
Found the new standard for Chicago coffeehouses this afternoon: Noble Tree Coffee, on Clark Street next to the Galway Arms. A three-story brownstone, lots and lots of tables and armchairs and a floor lamp for each table -- it's like they found all the furniture at the closing of a large hotel or old private club -- plus Metropolis Coffee and free wi-fi and (at least this afternoon) some quiet solo Townes Van Zandt in the background. I'm still loyal to the Bourgeois Pig as reliable and comfortable and suited for productivity, but this place is startiingly good. |
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| Assembling The Ticket |
[May. 7th, 2008|12:45 am] |
My hope is that the lengthy New Yorker profile a few weeks ago was the start of an image-building campaign. |
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| Formative |
[Apr. 8th, 2008|01:03 am] |
Last fall my friends John and Jenn stopped by with their three-year-old daughter, Ada. We were visiting and they wanted to keep Ada entertained, so they set her down and played the Free to Be...You and Me soundtrack, and I burned it into my iTunes, though I already had the songs burned into my memory. I watched this movie once a year in elementary school, and I can't help but think it had a good influence on us Minnesota kids.
Rosey Grier: "It's All Right to Cry"
"Sisters and Brothers"
Marlo Thomas: "Free to Be, You and Me"
For years I've wanted to put together some kind of tribute CD with bands covering these songs: ideally Low doing the title song, Rufus Wainwright doing the Rosey Grier one, White Stripes "Sisters and Brothers"... |
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| Highbrow and Lowbrow |
[Apr. 3rd, 2008|05:28 pm] |
Highbrow:
Pulitzer Prize predictions:
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts - Drama
Time and Materials by Robert Hass - Poetry
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson - Fiction
The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross or Imperial Life in Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran - Non-Fiction
Lowbrow:
Laura Brannigan: "Self Control". |
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