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Have you met Mark?
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| I feel compelled to write about Mad Men, having watched the first two episodes of the new season (and about to watch the third.) I don't know exactly what I want to say, or how eloquently I'll say it, but I need to put my feelings about this show down.
It's been...a long time since I've seen TV this good. TV that made me feel so much. And not neat, tidy, easy feelings, but messy and complex feelings - that's why I don't know exactly what I want to say. The show doesn't want me to be able to talk about it in an allegorical sense - like all great art, it's too smart for simplistic metaphors and morals. Summer TV doesn't offer much in the way of true emotion - it's mostly fun fluff like Burn Notice and Eureka. (Of course, I guess that's true of most television in general.) Before I even say anything, I think AMC is to be commended for allowing Matthew Weiner (who really doesn't seem like the easiest person to work with) to fully realize his vision, even when that vision is harrowing and unnerving. Or joyous, for that matter. As Don Draper says in the second episode of the season, “Let’s also say that change is neither good or bad. It simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy. A tantrum that says, ‘I want it the way it was’ or a dance that says, ‘Look, it’s something new.’” And change is life. And life is what Mad Men documents.
It's no secret that I empathize greatly with Peggy Olson. I love watching her evolve from a young naif into a smart, successful woman. And honestly, no matter how fascinating Don Draper is, no matter how interesting the various historical-themed plots are, Peggy's story is the story I care about. I care about Don and Betty, and Joan, and even Pete, sometimes, but Peggy has my heart. But before I talk about her, I want to touch on another subject that is the focus of these episodes - the tearing down of Penn Station. I talk about this a lot with my friends, and I loved hearing Paul's line about how New Yorkers need a memory; they need to have a past. It's a little surprising how many people my age don't know anything about the original Penn Station, and more than a little sad. And it's change.
For Don, though, it almost seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's obvious how much he still loves Betty, and it's just as obvious that he still feels he can be more open with a stewardess that he just met than his wife, with whom he's had two (and soon three) children. And so he beds the stewardess (or at least, he would've if he could've) while his loving wife believes he doesn't cheat on her anymore. Because he's alone; he can't open up to the people who love him.
Peggy's alone too. From the moment Ann-Margaret starts singing "Bye Bye Birdie," she feels that loneliness more keenly than ever. We've explored Peggy's...uniqueness before, in the "Maidenform" episode (Peggy: "...am I [a Marilyn or a Jackie]?" to which the boys respond, "You're more classic...like an Irene Dunn." That's not what anyone wants to hear.), but here we see exactly where this feeling takes her. As the guys are panting over Ann-Margaret, they casually dismiss and insult Peggy because she's NOT one of the girls. But she's not one of the boys either, so she can't exactly trade barbs with them. When she talks to Don about possibly taking the campaign in a different direction, he gently chides her for fighting the obvious hook - men want Ann-Margaret, and women want to be her. In a line as poetic and elusive as Don himself, he tells her, "Keep some of your tools inside the toolbox."
In order to combat these feelings of inadequacy, she goes to a local college bar after work, and manages to pick up (using one of Joan's lines, no less) a boy who seems even younger than she was when she started at Sterling-Cooper. Elisabeth Moss manages to turn inscrutability into an art form yet again, as Peggy's seduction of this boy is at turns a cathartic/happy release and a depressing low point for someone who deserves so much more. The post-coital (kind of, although they didn't actually have sex) scene between Peggy and her boy is pitch-perfect - two people saying one thing and talking about another. And what is the effect that this event has on Peggy?
Well, I think we can take any experience and take something positive away from it. I think that will happen here. Peggy's too smart for it not to.
The episode ends with Peggy and Don, but before that happens, there's another scene of great beauty that would be trite and maudlin in a lesser show. Don and Betty watch their daughter participate in a May Day dance. Don is captured by the beauty of the teacher leading the dance while softly touching a blade of grass. It is, quite literally, a dance that says, look - it's something new.
These two episodes make me want to dance. This is umbrella-shattering art here, as DH Lawrence would say. Mad Men is back, and it's still the best show on TV. | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment   |
| I am doing a list of kids' books as well. No commentary, just cause I don't think people care nearly as much about my favorite kids' books.
A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones
Roxaboxen by Alice Mclerran
No Jumping on the Bed by Tedd Arnold
Teddy Bear Christmas (Not the real title but I can't remember the actual title - it's about a father bear, daughter bear, and son bear who are trying to find a Christmas gift for their mom. They can't find anything so they get themselves wrapped up and ship themselves to their mom in a package in the mail! Surreal)
Big Dog, Little Dog by PD Eastman
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
The Final Battle by CS Lewis
My Teacher Flunked the Planet by Bruce Coville
The Night Room by EM Goldman
The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
Love You Forever (a classic) by Robert Munsch
Corduroy by Dan Freeman
Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business by Esphyr Slobodkina
I know I have two Cormier books listed. I wanted to list a dark fantasy/horror book, but honestly I can't remember the title or the author. And also Cormier did blow my mind when I was a kid.
Couple of runner-ups:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler by EL Koningsburg
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Anything by Katherine Paterson | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- The first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes.
This is going to include children's books. It just is. I'm also going to include commentary.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
One of my all-time favorite books. One of those novels that charts the vast reaches of the imagination; it could never be filmed, or exist in any other medium. It's always exciting, no matter how many times I read it. And the same goes for Ellison's second, unfinished novel, posthumously published as Juneteenth.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Two books, yes, but I'm counting them as one. I trust no one will stone me for that. I guess it's pretty obvious already that I love the fantastic. Maybe that's why I don't watch procedurals on TV - I don't care about stuff that happens in the mundane realm of the everyday. I want to live in the world of the unreal. And it's difficult to get more unreal than Alice's Wonderland. Another very good book is a "tre-quel" titled Automated Alice, written by Jeff Noon. I highly recommend it. (Those of you familiar with the original books will get the "trequel" joke.)
Ulysses by James Joyce
What is there to say about this book that hasn't been said? It's frustrating and infuriating and VERY slow going, but it's also like cracking a code and analyzing puzzles, which I love doing. And I got through it, which is something I cannot say for Finnegans Wake.
All God's Chillun Got Wings (my one play that I just had to include on this list) by Eugene O'Neill
Reading this play was an incredibly emotional experience. I read it, and then re-read it again immediately, weeping through the last scene. I've never seen it, but I want to.
Fish Out of Water by Dr. Seuss's wife(!) - Helen Giesel
Very few books make me think of my childhood and my grandparents as much as this one does. I always thought the wise old pet-shop owner was very like my grandfather.
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
However, this is another book that immediately makes me think of my childhood and grandparents. I love children's books. I could seriously do this for fifteen children's books (and I just might) but I had to list this one too. Full of humor and exotic adventure. It's the simple things.
Perelandra by CS Lewis
I love a lot of CS Lewis's books, but if I had to choose one (which I guess I don't), I'd pick this one - the perfect melding of Lewis's philosophical and theological ramblings with an intense character-driven thriller. And the ending is truly lyrical and moving. And it's also not besmirched by Lewis's infamous mother/whore thing.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Funny that I put this right under Perelandra, since I think both are psychological thrillers - that's what draws me to them. And of course, this book has some of the greatest characters of Western literature.
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
There's another book, Tintin in the New World (which is not nearly as good as this book), which uses the tagline "...up until now, he has never charted the restless territory of his own mind." I think that's an evocative phrase, and it evokes nothing so much as the feeling that this book brings to me. I especially think City of Glass, the first part of the trilogy, is a modern masterpiece - a novella that is frightening, surreal, mysterious, and true.
Sandman by Neil Gaiman
So I had to put one comic on this list, and I've often said that Sandman is the greatest comic I've ever read. Alan Moore has what seems to be an endless supply of brilliant ideas, but often lacks a beauty, lyricism, warmth. Sandman has that in spades. If I had to give someone one issue to convince them of the series' brilliance, I'd give them the issue, "A Dream of a Thousand Cats." It combines a brilliant premise and great storytelling with a truly touching climax, and a chilling denouement, all in 22 pages.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolfe
The first stream-of-consciousness novel I ever read. I read it when I was 13, and I remember I tried to write stream-of-consciousness stories for years after that, but the device, in my hands, always sounded forced and trite and unnatural. I still can't make my way through Remembrance of Things Past, but I love this book. Like many of the books on this list, it touches something within me that I can't quite name, and it makes me cry.
Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger
Salinger...is there any author whom I loved more when I was a teen? He is a master of conciseness. Every single word in this book means something. Especially in Franny, the book is all about what she doesn't say. When I was younger, I thought that it was the most brilliant character work ever. I still think it's pretty darn good.
The Plague by Albert Camus
Maybe cause I had such a strong Christian upbringing, I was always intrigued by existentialism. It never had the desired effect on me, because I had a moral compass, but the ideas that the existentialists stirred fascinated me. Honestly, it's probably part of being a teenager. Just most teens don't read Sartre's plays, and Camus's and Kafka's novels. (I'm guessing here. I wish I were wrong. We'd have much more literate youtube emo teens if they all followed the existentialist reading list!)
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
I think about this book maybe once a week. Another strongly moral book, another fantasy with SF undertones - is anyone detecting a pattern? (Wait till you see the last book on this list!) I also love A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which honestly might be even better, but this was my first L'Engle book, and the one I think of most frequently. I'm so sentimental.
Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard
A Christian allegory! But seriously, I love allegories. They are one of my favorite genres. Just like Ulysses, they are puzzles. Usually pretty easy to figure out, but still. The trick to a good allegory is to make it work on a character and plot level, as well as on a symbolic level.
There you go. More than I've written on here in...a long time. But I love books. And this gives me a chance to share a piece of myself with you lj friends who don't really know me.
One final thought: the end of Pushing Daisies was kind of beautiful. Especially because the ending was really only the beginning.
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| Actually, I just have a question. For the more technology-minded of you, why can't my PC play HD video? I have four gigs of RAM and a great video card, and still it's very choppy! Shouldn't my PC be able to handle this? Do I need to reduce the number of programs running in the background?
Can anyone offer any advice or recommend any programs I should use to help me out? Thanks!! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I love The Simpsons, and tonight's episode was funny, but SO WEIRD. Seriously, sometimes The Simpsons are surreal but never as surreal as this! Did anyone else see this? Was it a parody of something that I haven't seen?
And after a year and a half, I lost my iPod/had it stolen. RIP sweet Ipod.
I have a new roommate! Say hello to June! I mean, April! | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| I wrote this on ATC, but I'm reposting it here for those of you who don't go on ATC. Also so I can have it for posterity.
So Katie and I saw a concert of the new musical Einstein's Dreams at Symphony Space tonight. If any of you have a bootleg or come across one, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I was using Leslie's recorder, but I forgot to change the battery, and I managed to record four minutes of the show. :( :(
( my feelings on the show )
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| I know this journal is basically defunct, and I apologize. I do want to write about the film Notorious, which was not great, but elicited a strong emotional response from me because of my childhood connections to the subject. But I'm not feeling that right now.
What I do want to write about right now is the cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which is rerun on Toon Disney. It's from the 70s, I think (I can't be bothered to Wikipedia it right now), and I have to say that it is the FUNNIEST, most TERRIBLE cartoon EVER!!! Seriously, I cannot stop watching them because they are laugh riots! The premise of the show is that Iceman and Firestar go to the same university that Peter Parker does, and he discovers their identities and asks them to team up with him. Then they basically go fight crime together.
The catch here is that EACH of them behaves like complete morons!!! I guess I can accept it from Iceman and Firestar, who are team players, but Spider-Man is a) supposed to be a brilliant scientist, and b) a solo act most of the time. Peter Parker is literally carrying the idiot ball throughout the entire show! It is ridiculous how stupid he acts! He swings behind a bunch of boxes in a warehouse in one episode and stands there for like half a minute while the bad guy pounds on the boxes until they topple and fall on him. Instead of swinging out of there immediately, he stands and dodges the boxes on the ground, catching one that's about to hit him. WHAT?? Iceman is on a date with Mona Osborne (apparently Norman's niece), and he hears an eerie voice ask her if he can have the next dance. He says, "If you want to, Mona," and then SEES the Green Goblin swoop in and steal her away, while calmly standing there. (The ridiculous justification is that this takes place on Halloween; apparently everyone constructs their own goblin gliders and gets into character when going out on Halloween.) But the all-time funniest scene has to be in the pilot episode. Which I will now post in its own entry, simply because I am not quite sure how to post it in this one. The hilarity starts about 7 and a half minutes into the video, and bear in mind that Peter Parker has already run into Firestar and Iceman on campus as Spider-Man, so he knows that they attend as students.
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| Hey kids,
Just wanted to call everyone's attention to the plight of [title.of.show] - it's closing. Soon. I love this show, and I love these people, and I'd consider it a huge personal favor if you would sign the petition here to get them on Ellen. (That's funny, cause there's a song in the show where they sing about getting to be on Ellen.)
And if you want to save the show because you like it, or because you really like me, or because you're just sad to see any show close and put people out of work, or because you feel bad that it's closing so early and will deprive lots of people of pleasure - read the [tos] blog here, and maybe write a letter or two. I know I will, and I never write letters.
Come on guys! It worked for Star Trek: The Original Series!
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| Since I've last posted, many things have happened.
- Katie, Jordon, and Allison moved in three blocks away! Yay!
- Bridget moved here and stayed with me for a week and a half! Yay!
- Our apartment got broken into and all of our computers were stolen, along with some jewelry. Boo. I lost all my scores and bootlegs too. I still have my old hard drive but it's dead. I've got to see if I can get my data recovered, cause I do not want to search for all of that stuff again. Arg.
- Jillian sent me The Office: S4 on DVD cause she felt bad that our stuff got stolen! Yay! I love Amy Ryan!
- Speaking of Amy Ryan, I've watched the first three seasons of The Wire! It's a great show!
- I saw Tale of Two Cities with Sharon. Meh. It wasn't terrible, but it certainly was not great. I did like Aaron Lazar and Greg Edelman. And James Barbour has a great voice. But yes, it's very much a Les Miz style show that's not as good as Les Miz.
- I met Charles Strouse at the Drama Bookstore! Yay! And he told me he as extremely flattered to meet me.
Some other stuff happened too. The NYMF festival starts soon! Lots of exclamation points here. I'm going to go take a shower so I can do stuff with Katie. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| Seriously, how come I can't open a newspaper (figuratively) without reading about this Montauk Monster? It's so funny that this little thing has become a local phenomenon, with lots of people arguing about what it might be, if it's even real at all, or if it's some viral marketing slogan.
Ok, for those of you who aren't initiated, here's the Wikipedia page. Everything's on Wikipedia. Also, the Montauk Monster has its own blog, apparently.
Our own expert weighs in, below.
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| I had an odd night last night. My friend Josh whom I work with is leaving Nature to go to law school, so we all went out for drinks with him last night, and it was great. Then I came home, talked to Jillian, and watched like ten minutes of Kathy Griffin on Bravo, and I was tired so I went to sleep.
Well, my phone rings like thirty minutes later, and it's a text message. So I put my phone on vibrate and go back to sleep. I rolled over in my sleep to my bookcase, I guess, where my phone is sitting, cause I wake up like an hour later cause I'm vibrating. I see I got another text message. I read it (cause I have to read it anytime I get a text) and go back to sleep. Ok, like two hours later, the same thing happens. Why am I so popular all of a sudden? Anyway, I had to read that text too, and then I finally went back to sleep.
I don't know why I wrote this. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
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Last night, Annie and Randi and I saw the Keenan-Bolger show. They are all so little and funny and the show was really sweet and touching - it was an account of a year (1993) in their life, when Celia was 15, Maggie was 9, and Andrew was 8. It was the last time they were all on stage together, in The Secret Garden. They started off with a cute song about being Keenan-Bolgers, and related stories about growing up with two hippy communist parents, being the only white kids in an urban Detroit public school, and singing a mixture of protest songs and showtunes on road trips. The show ended with them singing a moving trio arrangement of their mother's favorite lullaby - "Goodnight, My Someone." It was a special night.
After that we headed to Marie's, because Miles LOVES Jim Allen. (Well, I love him too.) I convinced him to pull out "The Song Is You" even though I couldn't sing very well last night (I'm fighting a small cold), and then he challenged me with three obscure songs, none of which I knew, although I had heard all of them before. (One was from Ben Franklin in Paris, a show I own the cast recording of but am not familiar with, one was from Starmites...ugh, and one was a Kander and Ebb song that wasn't from a musical.) Miles played some Gershwin on Jim's break, and we tried to cheer up Sharon a little bit. It was a pretty fun night, and it was really hilarious to watch a 55 year old guy hit on Miles so much. (Not Jim...but Jim hit on Miles a lot too. I don't think Jim's 55. Plus he hits on everybody.)
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| I saw A Catered Affair last night, finally. And I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would, although I didn't think it was really great. It seemed as though Fierstein and John Bucchino made this into the piece they wanted it to be, and it works on its own merits for the most part, as long as you don't compare it to the source material (difficult to do, certainly.)
It's very clear they wanted this to be a story that war and loss is a large part of. That alone makes it very different from the movie. But it works in some ways - it provides more tension that leads to the big blow-up late in the show, and provides an interesting family dynamic for Janey and Aggie that's very different in the movie. The other huge change - the gay Uncle Winston - actually would've worked better if they had just toned it down a bit. Ok, so he's out and open at home, but you'd think he'd be just a little more careful, a little more nervous when out on the town. There was none of that in Fierstein's performance. I think with just a few cuts and changes to that character, the show would've worked a lot better. I actually liked "Immediate Family," the song he sings when he's drunk to the groom's parents, but the reference to his lover's head in his crotch again just went too far. I can't believe that this openly gay man has never been persecuted or doesn't know the risks of his lifestyle at that time.
But I think that a lot of what's there works. The moment when we see Janey in her white dress and veil for the first time, at the end of that duet with her mother, is quite moving. Tom Wopat's big number at the end was very good, living up to the hype. Faith Prince is just as good as everyone says she is, and she really holds the show together. Janey and Ralph's duet "Never Stop Saying I Love You" is gorgeous, and its reprise made me cry a little, and I also really loved "Coney Island."
Overall, this show is not only way better than Cry-Baby, I actually liked it more than I liked In The Heights. This definitely should've been nominated for Best Musical at the Tonys, even with my reservations. It's sweet piece, and I'm glad I saw it.
I haven't written about several shows lately. A lot's been happening! I am busy. I love it though. Going upstate tonight for my Grandfather's birthday - I'll be back in the city on Sunday, just in time to catch the matinee of [title of show], my third time seeing it. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's official - someone up there is mad at me.
So both Passing Strange and Adding Machine are closing July 20th. And Jordon's in town all next week. And Brady wants me to do her musical which would rehearse all next week. When am I going to go back to Adding Machine? When am I going to go back to Passing Strange? When am I going to be able to spend time with my friends? When will I ever see you, Ella? | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Ok, I saw Damn Yankees last night.
It's such a weird show. I came to the show with almost no baggage. I've seen the movie once, and I found it diverting but not great, except in Gwen's scenes. And I never listen to the OCR (which I own), because I am not a fan of the score and it just seems like a poorly-recorded album to me.
But I have to say, I had a great time last night. It's funny, this has to be one of the worst-constructed shows ever to become a "classic" musical (I use classic in the sense that it's known, high schools do it, etc.) So many of the songs sound like trunk songs written to be hits shoved into the story (I feel like Pajama Game has a much better and more character-oriented score), and the leading lady is really peripheral to the action. It's just a really weird show, and even having such a good time in the theatre, I still don't love the show. If I never hear "Who's Got the Pain" again, that will be fine with me. But even songs that are pretty good, like "Two Lost Souls" and "Near To You" seem like they were written for radio play and not for those characters. "The Game" is a lot blander, musically and lyrically, than any of the comedy numbers in Pajama Game. And could "Heart" be plugged any more than it is? I know "Hey There" is reprised a few times in PG, but each of those reprises mean something, whereas "Heart" is sung because, hey, why not?
Sean Hayes is pretty brilliant as Applegate, I think. He definitely radiated star quality and presence last night, even outshining Jane Krakowski (whom I liked), and he had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand. I actually thought Krakowski's dancing was quite good, and I'm very happy they did the original Fosse choreography. I mean, she's not Gwen Verdon, but no one is. And she does have that right mixture of innocent sexuality and goofiness that Lola needs (and that Gwen had.) I thought she was very right for this role. I loved her "A Little Brains, A Little Talent," which I do think is one of the best songs in the score. Cheyenne started off strongly, hitting "Goodbye Old Girl" out of the park (so to speak), but did lack energy overall. He seemed to be playing negative choices too often, which is a trap that an actor in this role can fall into, I think. Randy Graff was terrific, as was PJ Benjamin - I actually cried a little when they reconciled at the end of the show. And I did think that Veanne Cox and Kathy Fitzgerald were hilarious. I even liked Megan Lawrence, whom I'm normally not a fan of at all.
So I really did like it and I would like to see it again, for those performances and because it's such an old-fashioned good time. But really, the show is so weird, and I don't think I'll ever like it the way I like Pajama Game. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Well, I saw Passing Strange again last night, and it is still holding up terrifically. And what I love about this show is that Stew and the actors (and maybe Annie Dorsen) are still experimenting with different things and finding stuff that works better, even this long after opening. I really respect that. This show would die if it got stale, and I really have to hand it to them that they are working so hard not only to keep things fresh but to make the show better for audiences still coming in.
The orchestra and the mezz were almost completely full, but I heard that there were only a few people in the balcony. We talked to Daniel Breaker and Stew afterwards, and Daniel was pretty concerned about the grosses, but Stew said that whatever happens, he'll be happy with - he said he'd love to keep doing the show, but he'd also love to take it on the road or let it lay fallow for a while and then revisit it a few years later. Anyway, I figured that I can't like a show this much and not try to get you guys to go see it one more time. Really, it's very similar to Sunday in the Park with George in its discussion of life, love, and the creation of art.
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Have you met Mark?
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