The Rational Feast

Revenge (served piping hot)

2011-08-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, Tiger Woods announced two things. First, that he was coming back to the PGA Tour after three months off due to injury. Second, that he had fired his long-time caddy, New Zealander Steve Williams. In many ways, this second piece of news was the bigger bombshell. Certainly Williams didn't take it well, and the animus he felt at his firing was clear from some of the comments made after he was downsized by the former number one golfer in the world.

Today, though, Stevie got his revenge. After Tiger had let him go, Australian Adam Scott put Williams on his bag for this week's WGC Bridgestone Invitational, a tournament Woods and Williams had teamed up to win seven times previously. Based on the results, perhaps Steve's expertise at the Firestone Country Club was more valuable than Tiger thinks, as Williams guided Scott to a four-stroke victory.

In a giant "neener-neener" to his former boss, Williams was quoted after the event as saying that of all his 145 wins on tour as a caddy (including multiple victories at all four majors), that this was "the best week of my life."

Tiger, meanwhile, finished over par for the tournament, tied for 37th. Another helping of humble pie, Mr. Woods?

James Lipton - Spectacularly Wrong

2011-07-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

James Lipton has never been one of my favorite television personalities. It's not that he's annoying, just a bit pompous. Not that there's anything wrong with that. At least if your pomposity has some justification, like being right virtually all the time.

Last night, Lipton was a sort of host at the SF Symphony's night of movie music, part of its summer series. Two things happened that cemented my opinion of Lipton as a public personality. First, when he stepped on stage, he discovered his TelePrompter was not working. When he realized it was going to take more than a minute to get it operational, instead of chatting with the audience -- or ever greeting us -- he stood in stone silence as the tech crew assembled to get things running. Finally, after a few minutes, the conductor got the symphony playing something to fill the silence.

But the worst of his offenses came in the last of several commentaries about the music the symphony was playing. These were mostly interesting, but in his comments about "E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial," he spoke with great conviction that it was the "willpower" of Elliott and his friends that made the bicycles fly. Poppycock! It's clearly E.T.'s powers that gets the bikes airborne. He uses his powers earlier in the film to refresh a faded flower and to heal a cut on Elliott's finger. Plus, during that sequence, Spielberg puts the camera on E.T. to show his eyes narrowing in concentration. It's SO completely wrong-headed. I just can't imagine how he got it so wrong.

And this is my outlet for my indignation.

Portraits in Contrast

2011-06-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

A book of photography devoted to similar portraits of highly dissimilar (in many -- but not all -- ways) people.

New York, April 2011 - Day Thirteen, "The School for Lies"

2011-04-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

“The School for Lies”
Hamish Linklater probably thinks I’m stalking him. On my last trip to New York, he was in the same audience as I was at two different shows – something we both noticed. Earlier on this trip he was in the audience at “TIHGTOCASWAKTTS.” This time, however, no coincidences were required – he’s starring in David Ives’ brilliant, biting, hilarious adaptation of Moliere’s “The Misanthrope.”

Ives has translated the classic into mostly contemporary language – but he’s kept it in verse, which sounds like it could be clumsy – but it rarely is. And since Ives has his characters using words and phrases that wouldn’t sound out of place on any street corner or college dorm – “What’s yours or mine or any man’s friendship worth, if you give it to any douche on Earth?” – it still feels incredibly current and relevant. Which, of course, adds to the bite when Moliere’s timeless satire is aimed not just as mendacity (as the title implies), but politics, society and culture. (“Sycophants who are brown well past their noses,” was another favorite of mine.)

You’d have to really hate verse not to find something to like about “The School for Lies.” Linklater (who you might know from his TV work on "The New Adventures of Old Christine") is deadpan funny, and his supporting cast mostly just as sure-footed. Ives’ script delivers zinger after zinger and one inventive rhyme after another. And if that doesn’t sell you, it’s worth the ticket price just to see William Ivey Long’s costumes. (John Lee Beatty’s set is lovely, too.)

If you love language, don’t miss this one.

New York, April 2011 - Day Twelve, "Carson McCullers Talks About Love"

2011-04-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

“Carson McCullers Talks About Love”
I went to this show not because I’m a huge Carson McCullers fan (I’ve never even seen the movie version of “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” let alone read it or any of her other books), but because of the two composers, singers/songwriters Duncan Sheik and Suzanne Vega. I owned (and enjoyed) Vega’s crossover album, “Solitude Standing,” and loved both Sheik’s one radio hit (“Barely Breathing”) and his score for “Spring Awakening.” And since Vega was singing the title role of McCullers, I went to one of the first previews.

I think they may have something here, even though the book needs a fair bit of work (it’s too soft and mundane right now) and Vega is a much better actress when she is singing.

First, the material is incredibly rich. McCullers is a tragic figure, successful and famous before she was 25, her left side paralyzed by a series of strokes before she was 31, and was dead at 50. In those few years, though, she lived and loved and wrote and hung out with the cream of the New York intellectual scene: Truman Capote, Paul Bowles, Tennessee Williams, W. H. Auden, et al.

Second – and more important to the show’s future – the songs are lovely. Some haunting, some sprightly, all delivered tenderly by Vega. I’d buy the album today if they had one. When she stands, near the end of the show, her left arm pinned to her side (the effects of the stroke) and intones “Do you know how love should be begun? A tree. A rock. A cloud,” it simultaneously broke my heart and filled me with hope.

Part of that hope is that the producers find a way to reach an audience larger than the 95 who can fit inside the village’s Rattlestick Theater.

(Odd synchronicity: just as I finished this review, “Solitude Standing” began to play in iTunes, after the instrumental music I had chosen to write to – the soundtrack from “The Social Network” - had finished.)

New York, April 2011 - Day Eleven, "The Importance of Being Earnest" & "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide..."

2011-04-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

The Importance of Being Earnest
Yes, you’ve probably seen it before, most likely at a local high school. “Earnest” has been a staple of youth theater for decades. The problem is, kids miss the satire present in the farce. Brian Bedford, the director and star of this wonderful new production, most assuredly does not. Beneath the veneer of the very correct manners on display, the blood is flowing freely. And not just from the characters – Wilde himself is skewering the aristocracy for their idleness. His references to “The Society for the Prevention of Discontent in the Upper Classes” and an article titled “The Influence of a Permanent Income on Thought” are just two of my favorite examples.

All the Wilde wit is on display, the costumes – especially the gowns created for Bedford’s portrayal of Lady Bracknell – are stunning, and the cast is terrific.

Even if you’ve seen “Earnest” many times, I doubt you’ve seen a production as top-notch as this one.

“The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures”
Gus thinks he’s losing his mind. Though none of his children or his sister can sense the change – he’s the same card-carrying communist worker’s organizer homophobic curmudgeon he always was – Gus can sense things slipping away from him. Out of his grasp. Out of his control. He’s decided it’s Alzheimer’s.

So he’s decided to kill himself. For real this time. His first attempt came on the anniversary of his wife’s death. Which also happened to be their son Pill’s birthday. Now it’s a few days past that anniversary and Dad is laying out a new set of final plans. “You were going to give him a matched set?” his brother Vito asks.

Think of this show as a complement to “August: Osage County.” That story begins with a father missing (soon revealed to be suicide) and a family coming together to deal with each other. Here the family assembles to deal with the father. To decide – in a collective, consensual fashion, true to their communist roots – whether or not he ought to be allowed to exercise this option. And, like “August: Osage County,” it takes more than three and a half hours to determine what is to be done about dad – and it absolutely flies by.

“TIHGTOCASWAKTTS” is the latest by Tony Kushner, who won the Tony and the Pulitzer for “Angels in America,” and I have to admit it’s the sort of thing I tend to like: lots of talking, lots of ideas, wit, banter, intimate secrets revealed… With that caveat, I’ll tell you that I was enraptured by it.

Some of the performances got a little out of tune now and then, but they’re still in previews, so I’ll assume they can iron those out. And while they’re at it, I bet Tony will make some cuts to help the show move just a touch faster.

Even as it is, “TIHGTOCASWAKTTS” is deeply compelling. Every character has something at stake, each revelation has echoes and overtones. When Gus explains why he wants to check himself out, he tells the story of a friend of his, a typesetter, whom he watched slip away into dementia, his hands reflexively making the motions of his work even as he lay slowly dying in a hospital bed.

Typesetting. Communism. Homophobia. What do these three have in common? They are all dead concepts – save for a dwindling minority who still cling to them. In the case of homophobia, it’s a significant minority – at least in the U.S. While steady progress is made (the lifting of DADT, the President’s refusal to defend DOMA, marriage equality in five states and DC), the beast of hatred can, in its death throes, still claims victims: those bullied to death, partners forced apart by immigration laws, homes torched by arson. The list is long.

So is “TIHGTOCASWAKTTS.” But Kushner uses the time wisely to explore the consequences of hanging on to dead ideas. Highly recommended. (At least, if it sounds like your kind of thing, too.)

New York, April 2011 - Day Ten, "By The Way, Meet Vera Stark" & "Good People"

2011-04-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

"By The Way, Meet Vera Stark"
In my review of “Kin,” I proffered the notion that just because life doesn’t always give you what you want, you better learn how to be happy getting what you get. But after seeing “By The Way, Meet Vera Stark,” at the Second Stage Theater today, I realized that’s a statement that’s much easier to make when you’re a somewhat privileged white male. If you’re a black woman, especially a black woman in 1933, even when you get what you want it can turn out to be sorely lacking.

“By The Way, Meet Vera Stark” is the latest work from playwright Lynn Nottage, who penned the wonderful “Intimate Apparel” and the Pulitzer-winning “Ruined.” The lady of the title is maid to a Hollywood starlet -- but with big screen dreams of her own. For Vera Stark, though, the big dream isn’t to be a star, it’s simply to be cast as the maid to "The Belle of New Orleans" – who has a significant number of lines, not the usual “yes’ms ” and “yassirs” of the slaves and lackeys that made up the majority of roles for negro actors in the depression.

Without giving too much away, the first half of the show is set in 1933, and shows how Vera uses the stereotypes inflicted on her by the culture in power to make the first steps toward achieving her goals.

But it’s the second half of the show where Nottage’s brilliance (and passion) come pouring through. It’s 70 years later and a panel of black intellectuals are now dissecting and deconstructing the career of the great African-America artist Vera Stark – in part by looking back to the very end of Stark’s career, an appearance on a Mike Douglas-style TV talk show. The point of view shifts from the 2003 commentators/intellectuals in a panel discussion, to the set of “The Brad Donovan Show” in 1973.

Vera is past her prime, overdressed and just the tiniest bit drunk – but is still relatively restrained in her indictment of 1930s Hollywood. Rage is left to the radical intellectual onstage, Afua Assata Ejobo (Karen Olivo), supported (somewhat) by the less radicalized Carmen Levy-Green (Kimberly Hebert Gregory). Herb Forrester (the very funny Daniel Breaker) moderates their discussion and grounds us in space and time.

Nottage does a wonderful job of showing how much easier it is to talk about struggle than to actually live it, and the 1973 talk show appearance serves as a fulcrum between those two experiences.

The show still has two weeks in previews, so they can work on timings and tighten things a bit, but it’s already a wonderful play, well worth your time.

"Good People"
There are choices we make – and choices that we never get a chance to make. How much of what we become is due to our own virtue (or lack thereof) and how much should be ascribed to fate or the accidents of birth and situation? This question of control over your destiny is at the heart of David Lindsay-Abaire’s newest (and terrific) play, “Good People,” now playing at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater.

As the play opens, Margaret – played with a delicious dishevelment by the ever-amazing Frances McDormand – is being fired from her job at the dollar store for being late one too many times. It’s not that Marge (as her name tag reads) is a shirker, it’s just that she has a lot going on in her life that is beyond her control, most of it related to her adult daughter who is developmentally disabled. Working a $9.40/hour job doesn’t give Marge the leeway to hire someone to care for her daughter while she’s at work, so she has to rely on her unreliable landlady, Dottie (Estelle Parsons). When Dottie is late (which is often), Marge is late.

Mike (Tate Donovan), on the other hand, found a way to escape the hardscrabble background he and Marge shared as children growing up in Boston’s south end. He got into college and medical school and now works as a reproductive endocrinologist and lives in tony Chestnut Hill. When Marge reaches out to Mike in the hope of securing new employment, their lives get entangled in ways that neither of them could imagine – or desire.

Lindsay-Abaire, one of my favorite contemporary playwrights, somehow finds a way to keep Marge a mostly sympathetic character, even when she is a source of chaos in Mike’s life. The cast surrounding McDormand are excellent, especially Patrick Carroll as Stevie, the dollar store manager who fires her.

Ultimately, once we reach the tender conclusion, the choices Marge and Mike have made over their lives define them still, for good and ill.

New York, April 2011 - Day Nine, "Baby, It's You"

2011-04-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

It’s a wonder the story of Florence Greenberg wasn’t the first jukebox musical. A housewife from Passaic, New Jersey, Greenberg discovered a group of girls at her daughter's high school and took them to the top of the charts, founding a record company and partnering – both professionally and romantically -- with songwriter and producer Luther Dixon, during a time when interracial relationships were illegal in many states. Drama, politics, love, great songs – it’s perfect material.

I can hear the pitch now. “It’s ‘Jersey Girls’ go to ‘Memphis’! That’s two Tony winners in one! How can it miss?”

As it turns out, whether it hits or misses depends on the target. Are you aiming for a somewhat sophisticated theater crowd that likes intelligence and wit and imagination – and doesn’t mind being entertained along the way? Or are you after the family from a corn-exporting state who are in New York for the first time, can’t get into “Wicked” but have already seen “The Lion King”?

The producers of “Baby It’s You” are likely praying for a success similar to that of “Jersey Boys.” They’re not going to get it. “Baby It’s You” is too didactic and simple-minded. “Jersey Boys” is simple, almost a comic book on stage (and I mean that in a good way), but it’s not simple-minded. Its book is a wonderful example of efficiency in storytelling. “Baby It’s You,” on the other hand, is constantly grabbing you by the hand, forcing its story on you. Too much gets told to the audience that we could be shown instead. And showing is a lot more powerful than telling.

“Baby It’s You” is also bubbly and shiny and colorful. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of my favorite shows are bubbly and shiny and colorful. But Florence Greenberg’s story isn’t always a bubbly one. (Florence is played by the wonderful Beth Leavel, who is the main thing that’s right about this show.) She neglected her family, was a hard-nosed businesswoman and was involved in a very controversial relationship. The show might match the story better if it was a smidge darker, a lumen or so less bright.

But I understand why the producers chose not to go down that road. Going at this material in a less conventional way involves a tremendous amount of risk. Pull it off, maybe you make something great and you win the Tony and everything’s peachy. If you don’t, there goes your money.

If, on the other hand, you focus on what makes the tourists at the TKTS booth in Times Square choose your show over “Jerusalem” or “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” or “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” you might just see some return on your investment.

After all, it is show business.

New York, April 2011 - Day Eight, "The Divine Sister"

2011-04-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

Here’s today’s reason for keeping my review brief: you’re never going to be able to see this show. It closes May 1, won’t likely move anywhere, and even if it does, the experience wouldn’t be the same without writer/star Charles Busch.

Charles Busch, if you don’t already know, is one of New York’s top playwrights/performers. I started to write “he’s best known for his drag shows, such as “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom,” “Die, Mommie, Die!” and “Shanghai Moon.” But he’s also well-known as the author of “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife,” which ran for over a year on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony for best play. Either way, he’s a talent.

“The Divine Sister” is one of the drag shows. It’s Busch’s send-up of any movie or play ever made about (or including) nuns, from "Song of Bernadette" to “The Trouble With Angels” to “Agnes of God” to “Doubt.” Busch plays the Mother Superior of St. Veronica’s School and Convent, which is on the verge of having to close. Will she be able to persuade the local rich “jewess” to sign over her mansion as a new school building? Does the new postulant really have the power to heal? Will Mother Superior’s life before entering the convent come back to haunt her? And what’s going on with the severe nun visiting from Berlin?

All is revealed, of course, in a very plot heavy, slightly absurd comedy. It’s not a great production, but it’s way off-Broadway and it’s not trying to be something it’s not, so I’ll cut it a lot of slack. It’s a good time, life lessons/politics only intrude once or twice in the show (“We live in a world that’s changing.” Pause. “We’ll have to see what we can do about that!”) the performers are great (so damn much talent in New York!) and Busch put in some terrific lines – and not just for his character. The one that is sticking with me, though, plays to my inner sixth-grader: Mother Superior is counseling Sister Acacius and says, “What is it you can’t face?” But she pronounces “can’t” with a very British accent and Sister Acacius thinks…well, you can guess what she thinks. “Did you just call me…?” Then it becomes a callback throughout the show and gets a laugh every time.

Campy fun, and if it came to a community theater near you, you’d probably have a good time.

New York, April 2011 - Day Seven, "A Minister's Wife" and "The Motherf**ker with the Hat"

2011-04-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

It would be hard to find two shows more different than this pair. "A Minister's Wife" is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's "Candida" and is set in the study of a proper English minister in 1898. "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" is a play set in present day New York, in three different apartments, none of which is particularly appealing. In "A Minister's Wife" the action -- such as it is -- revolves around whether a young poet can steal the heart of the minister's wife. But, as with the standard British drawing room drama, very little is spoken of directly. In "The Motherf**ker with the Hat," there is very little that isn't spoken of directly. Infidelity (and there's plenty of it), backsliding addicts, violence of all sorts...it's all there.

But there are a few things the two shows have in common. Both have great sets. Both have solid acting. Both left me entirely cold.

New York, April 2011 - Day Six, "The Book of Mormon"

2011-04-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

When “The Last Temptation of Christ” was released, many mainstream churches were in an uproar over a scene near the end of the film that depicts Christ living a life as husband to Mary Magdalene and father to their children. Blasphemy to even suggest that the Lord God was getting a little! That He could have a human side. There were protests outside theaters and the movie studio; people carried signs and promoted boycotts.

To my mind, Christian churches were missing a huge opportunity. Because when I watched the film, it nearly converted me. That scene of Jesus as a family man was the last temptation of the title. Satan’s final ploy to get Christ to give up all this “redeeming mankind” bullshit was to show him the happiness of an ordinary life: someone who loves you. Children to carry part of you on into the future. It could all be yours, Satan says. But Jesus lets himself be crucified anyway. For us! To give miserable losers like we humans a shot at eternal life. That’s the sort of guy people could accept as their personal savior.

There hasn’t been much protest over the massively profane “The Book of Mormon,” currently playing at the Eugene O’Neill Theater (the LDS Church released a one-sentence statement*, then wisely refrained from contributing to the publicity machine), but I can’t imagine it’s going to be on the itinerary for any church field trips, Mormon or otherwise.

Which is a shame. Not just because “The Book of Mormon” is the funniest thing on Broadway in a long, long time, maybe ever, but because it’s also maybe the most faith-promoting thing on Broadway ever. Or at least since the cancellation of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

Don’t get me wrong – it’s also the most blasphemous thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve been witness to some serious blasphemy. It’s profane, but not in the near-constant manner of David Mamet or “Deadwood." But when it is profane, it’s so over the top that it makes profane look like amateurfane. And as far as pushing the limits of taste and probity, I have seven words for you: Hitler. Gets. A. Blow. Job. In. Hell.

And though it skewers Mormonism (with the sharpest kebab on the block) its underlying message is this: it doesn’t matter if it’s made up. Faith – even in a fiction – has value if it brings people together in a community and helps them be nicer to each other. As one of the songs says, “a Mormon just believes.” So does every pious Catholic, Lutheran, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain…and ultimately even every physicist. We all must, because nothing adequately explains why we’re here. And why we have the capacity to ask that question in the first place. Sure, it would be easier if there were some physical evidence of a supreme being, but as one of the characters says, the requirement for faith is “sort of what God was going for.”

But if you’re not in the mood for a faith-promoting musical, feel free to enjoy “The Book of Mormon” for any (or all) of its other compelling aspects. I think I’ve already mentioned that it’s funny. Silly funny, smart funny, gross funny…funny funny. The songs are bouncy and engaging, the cast is terrific…it works on all levels.

It just won’t work for all people. If you can’t see past the profanity and blasphemy to the soft, creamy center, if you’d rather be offended than entertained, try one of Broadway’s other options. “Anything Goes” for example. It’s also an A+ production, has better songs, and pretty much zero chance of offending.

*"The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people's lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ."

New York, April 2011 - Day Five, "House of Blue Leaves"

2011-04-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

Two things conspire to make this a brief entry. First, I have deadlines to meet. Paying deadlines. Second, I really need to see this again before I can pretend to make sense of it in a reasoned fashion.

So let's keep this as concise as possible.

The stars -- Edie Falco, Ben Stiller and Jennifer Jason Leigh -- are excellent. Especially Edie as the delusional paranoid agoraphobic (second agoraphobe of the trip!) Bananas.

The set -- stunning.

The play -- a revival of a brilliant, whacked-up maelstrom of desire and broken dreams and insane humor and celebrity-mad nuns-- is hysterical. In several senses of the word. I think it may be a metaphor of humanity coming into self-awareness, but as I said, I need to see it again.

David Cromer -- who helmed my last favorite play in New York, an amazing revival of "Our Town" -- is just as sure-handed here.

Bottom line? Go, if you think you can handle it.

New York, April 2011 - Day Four, "Peter & The Starcatcher" & "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"

2011-04-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

“Peter and the Starcatcher”
It’s very easy to go astray when you’re attempting to appeal to adults and children with the same entertainment. Sometimes, as with the recent “Toy Story 3,” it turns out brilliantly. The adults get the sophisticated themes and understand the landscape of the underlying emotional territory, and the kids love the silliness and colorful action. “Princess Bride,” “Shrek” and “Wicked” have walked that same delicate line with a fair bit of grace.

“Peter and the Starcatcher” – despite its terrific cast, tight direction and gag-packed script (thanks in part to Dave Barry, one of America’s greatest humorists) – weaves like a drunken sailor from the port (silly fun for the kids!) to starboard (sophisticated themes, witty wordplay and double entendre for the adults).

The nautical reference here is apropos, as almost the entirety of the show takes place at sea, on two different ships: the Wasp and the Neverland, both bound for a mystical land. One is laden with a trunk full of “star stuff,” and the dread pirate Black Stache wants to deliver it to an evil king who will use it to wicked ends. Thwarting him are 13-year old genius Molly Aster, who will grow up to be the mother of Wendy, Michael and John (this show is to “Peter Pan” as “Wicked” is to “The Wizard of Oz.”) and three orphan boys, one of whom will never grow up.

There is a lot of smart, funny stuff here. Christian Borle as Black Stache is absolutely wonderful. Without him, I think the show might wither and die entirely. He gets off some brilliant lines:

Touting the pirate life, he says, “A little swash, a little buckle…it’s just like bread, you’ll love it!”

Referring to the hard to track crocodile that ends up eating his hand he says “He’s as elusive as the melody in a Philip Glass opera.” (That's one that takes a pretty culturally savvy audience to pick up on.)

And when Molly touts her strengths (in a confident but not cocky way), he sidles up to her and says, “And I bet your milk shake brings all the boys to the yard, too.”

They’re all funny, but they require a sophistication and cultural literacy that children (and not that many adults, either) posess.

Entertaining and fun, but not entirely successful.

“Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”
Not smart enough for New Yorkers, and too gay for the bridge & tunnel crowd, this mashup of “Mamma Mia!” and “La Cage Aux Folles” (but based on the excellent Australian film) is going to have a hard time finding an audience to fill the 1740-seat Palace Theater eight times a week. The audience at the Sunday evening show I attended was quite appreciative, but there’s really very little to recommend here.

At the end, it’s all just about the costume changes. And that’s not enough.

New York, April 2011 - Day Three, "The Other Place" & "Catch Me If You Can"

2011-04-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

“The Other Place”
Dr. Juliana Smithdon has a brilliant mind. Perhaps even a beautiful one. But that’s where the beauty ends, because Juliana (played by the sort-of adorable Laurie Metcalfe), a world-class medical researcher, is not necessarily fun to be around. She’s short-tempered, angry, mean even. But above all, she is deeply, deeply wounded. But her pain can’t kill her brilliance and wit. “Are you flirting with suicidal thoughts?” her husband asks her. “I’m dating them, actually,” she responds. “But they won’t put out.”

When you finally discover the source of the wound – or wounds, I should say, for she was hit from two directions – you’re willing to forgive her acid tongue. For with her brain under attack from within, Juliana believes she may not be able to count on her wits for long. Her brilliance may slip from her control and she wants to use it for as long as she has it.

Metcalfe gives a stunning performance, falling apart right before our eyes in the tragic climax. And she does it against a set that echoes the fragmentation going on onstage – of minds and families and dreams.

“Mamma Mia!” it’s not. But “The Other Place” is well-constructed, funny, tragic, sharply-directed and worth your time – if you don’t mind a few tears.

“Catch Me If You Can”
“Catch Me If You Can” is as much a con as its anti-hero, Frank Abagnale, Jr. is. It has most of the trappings of a musical -- but ultimately it can’t pull them together into anything authentic. Thank god for Norbert Leo Butz – his Carl Hanratty (the role played by Tom Hanks in the movie) – is alone worth the price of admission. Without him, I don’t think I would have stayed engaged long enough to notice that Aaron Tveit still has a terrific voice and charming stage presence, or that some of the songs were funny enough, or that the show broke the fourth wall in some interesting ways.

I think one reason I felt conned by the show was that the show took too long to get rolling. My suggestion to the producers? Put “Don’t Break the Rules” earlier in the show. It’s a great number. And if you put it right after we meet Frank, it sets up the motivations behind the epic battle of wits between the two, which is the most fascinating part of the story, but often gets lost among the side plots.

“Catch Me If You Can” is not a bad show, it’s just not very good. As I said, it’s a con, but an entertaining enough con that a fair number of showgoers will fall for it and never be the wiser.

New York, April 2011 - Day Two, "Kin"

2011-04-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

As the Rolling Stones said, "you can't always get what you want." And even though you try, sometimes you can't always get what you need. Truth is, you get what you get.

This is the truth at the heart of "Kin," a sharp, intelligent new play at Playwrights Horizons. Actually, the real truth is this: you get what you get, and if you can't learn to deal with that, you're in for a rough life. Isn't there a Buddhist maxim that happiness lies not in getting what you want, but wanting what you get?

Though they strive mightily for what they want and need, the characters in "Kin" are thwarted at almost every turn. And it's not like they're even reaching for the stars -- all they want is a little genuine human connection. A father wants to connect with his daughter. A young couple, both wounded by past loves, want to know if they're really right for each other. A woman wants to move beyond a trauma from her past enough to leave her house for the first time in more than two decades.

The play begins with an uncomfortable break-up (the exact opposite of human connection), and in the few scenes after, it isn't always clear how the characters are all connected. They seem to drift in lonely bubbles of their own. But as Bathsheba Doran's compelling, naturalistic (but still quite theatrical) scenes unfold, one by one, the intricacies of their connections become clearer and clearer and by the time the play ends, everyone has come to a place where they seem comfortable -- happy, even -- with what life has given them. As one character says to another who has asked her advice on what to do about a woman he loved who spurned him, "For god's sake man, give chase!"

The characters in "Kin" start out passive and resigned, but ultimately give chase to their happiness.

New York, April 2011 - Day One, "Anything Goes"

2011-04-14T21:48:00.000-07:00

In 1934, when Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" was first produced, the world was in the midst of a depression and people looked to Broadway as a place where they could forget their troubles for a couple of hours. In 2011, we have Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, pirates, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns, a still-shaky economy, a crazed climate, billionaires becoming birthers, John Kyl telling bald-faced lies on the floor of the Senate and then having a spokesperson say his comments were "not intended to be a factual statement"...I think we could use a little getaway, too.

And the new production of the show, now playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theater is the perfect escape. There are some who confuse humor with wit. No matter, "Anything Goes" has plenty of both and dispenses them liberally. The sets are big and bright and wonderfully deco, the costumes elegant and flashy and fun and the cast -- from Broadway superstar Sutton Foster and veterans Joel Grey, John McMartin and Jessica Walter, all the way down to the excellent chorus -- is brilliant. Adam Godley has all kinds of comic chops and Jessica Stone does an adorable moll.

Then there are the songs: "I Get a Kick Out Of You," "Anything Goes," "You're The Top," "It's De-Lovely" and "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" are all standards for a reason.

But every aspect of this production is first-rate, and for this, credit must go to director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall and musical director Rob Fisher.

Set on an ocean liner crossing from New York to London, the show is like a Shakespearean comedy, with lovers kept apart but finally reunited, ridiculous disguises and mind-boggling misapprehensions. Like Shakespeare, "Anything Goes" can feel very old-fashioned -- guests mingle on board until it's time to sail, and passport control is a little different in the TSA era -- yet despite how clunky the story can be (be prepared to forgive a lot of silliness and throw plausibility overboard) like Shakespeare, the underlying artistry reveals itself in a timeless contemporaneity. Book writers P.G. Wodehouse, et al. had a lot of fun poking at the sanctimonious nature of the clergy and celebrity culture. The same targets are just as vulnerable today. A clerical collar here is always a disguise -- either a way to hide from authorities or fool the faithful. And like some of today's urban culture, the gangster is the biggest celebrity of all.

There are too many ways to praise this production, but only one way to see it -- set sail for 43rd Street and a 2.5 hour voyage of escape. It's OK. You've earned it. We all have.

It sounds fair, but it's not.

2011-03-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

Via Rachel Maddow I learn that the Wall Street Journal is congratulating Governor Scott Walker for his victory in eliminating collective bargaining. Which seems to me is pretty much central to a union having any power at all. But it's one provision of the legislation that's been bugging me, and it's one the WSJ crows about:

"Unions can still bargain for wages, but annual increases can't exceed the rate of inflation."

Which sounds sort of fair, right? If someone is promoted or changes jobs, their salary can adjust to accommodate, but for the union as a whole, wages of public employees would be capped by inflation, which seems on the surface to be equitable. But what if one of the public sector unions contains an expertise that becomes more valuable because of changing market conditions?

Let's say you're a sharp union leader and you believe the future is in technology x. You inspire/convince your rank and file to embrace this technology and you turn out to be right and your union now has a very valuable new skill. One that your state desperately needs.

And you can't negotiate to be compensated in line with the way the market values that skill? Isn't that punishing people for doing what conservatives tend to say to working people who are worried about falling out of the middle class?: 'Get educated, develop new skills, be competitive in the marketplace." What's the incentive for unions to push workers to improve themselves, if they can't be benefit from it? Seems very anti-capitalistic to me.

The Cross-Stitcher is Cross

2011-03-10T12:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a great mash-up of the traditional and the ironic. Subversivecrossstitch.com. Not for everyone, but fun.

Freedom of speech means just that.

2011-03-02T16:03:00.000-08:00

Earlier today the Supreme Court -- in a clear, 8-1 decision, ruled that Fred Phelps and his odious family (also called the Westboro Baptist Church) have the right to be just about as vicious and hurtful and annoying as they like.

It's one of those "I hate what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" decisions. My hope is that this decision will shut up all of those Christianists who claim that marriage equality will lead to a trampling of their religious freedoms. After all, if Fred Phelps can shout "God Hates Fags" in a public space, what is to stop a preacher in a private church from continuing to preach that homosexuality is a sin, which is what so many of them claim?

Let's Make it Sunny, and Share

2011-01-29T15:42:00.000-08:00

I'd have liked to hear more about our evolutionary collaborative roots, but this is nonetheless a very interesting talk on how technology is enabling sharing on a massive scale. My favorite line is about owning a power drill, when most people use them so rarely: "I don't want the drill, I want the hole."

Postscripts in Pixels

2011-01-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

Why does anyone use "p.s." in e-mails? I'm not judging, mind, because I still do it myself. But consider: p.s. stands for the Latin post scriptum, meaning "written after." After what? In the pen and ink days, it was after you'd signed your name but before the letter was sealed and posted. You couldn't edit a letter undetected -- unless you wanted to recopy the entire thing. And since p.s. is more often used as an "oh, by the way..." or an "I forgot to tell you..." that for anything of momentous import, you just add it at the end.

With anything handwritten going the way of tanzanite, we can all edit our missives without anyone knowing the difference. Until you hit send, everything's still up for grabs. Maybe the p.s. for the digital age would be forwarding your sent mail to the same recipient, addending it with whatever you had failed to communicate the first time.

Top 10 of 2010

2010-12-30T11:27:00.000-08:00

2010 winds to a close. And though I only saw about half as much theater (and concerts and nightclub acts) as I did in 2009, I still saw enough to make a solid Top 10 list.

Here – in reverse order of preference – are the best theatrical experiences of the past 12 months:

10: “Oedipus el Rey” at the Magic Theater
This retelling of the Oedipus story in the barrio and prison culture of Hispanic gangs was beautifully staged and performed. Poetic and haunting.

9: Alan Cumming at the Castro Theater
A night of dishy fun. Cumming sang, told jokes, ragged on celebrity culture – all quite expertly.

8. David Sedaris at Berkeley Rep
This was a simple evening: just David talking and reading from his (then) forthcoming new book, “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary.” What sort of surprised me was how kind and generous David was – he signed books for absolutely everyone who wanted it, and chatted and laughed with his fans both before and after the reading.

7. “Palomino” at the Aurora Theater
Solo performer David Cale did a brilliant job (both in writing and performing) with this piece about an Irish hansom cab driver in Central Park who becomes an escort on the side. Cale played the driver and all the women who loved/hired him. Funny and insightful and wonderfully-constructed.

6. “Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?” at The Jewish Theater of San Francisco
Another one-man show, another great success. Kornbluth has made me laugh about as hard as anyone ever has. This show wasn’t as roaringly-funny as, say, “Red Diaper Baby,” but the cultural insights more than made up for the somewhat reduced humor quotient.

5. “The Brothers Size” at the Magic Theater
One of the trilogy of the Brother/Sister plays, this was my favorite of the bunch. All broke down not the fourth wall, but the first wall, taking us inside the mind of the playwright, sensing his intentions – even as those intentions were being realized right in front of us.

4. “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” at Cal Shakes
Just a restaging of one of George Bernard Shaw’s lesser-performed works, but it was so ably done, and I love Shaw so much that it had to go on the list.

3. “In The Wake” at Berkeley Rep
Set in the Bush years, this show examined the effects of politics and culture on the lives of people who feel they have the power to effect change in those areas but come to realize they are as inconsequential as every other individual without vaults of cash or far-reaching political influence.

2. “Equivocation” at Marin Theater Company
A celebration of language and art, set in the world of Shakespeare and his company of actors. Fun, challenging, entertaining – a smart but thoroughly enjoyable evening.

1. “The Real Americans” at The Marsh
Dan Hoyle (son of great physical actor Geoff Hoyle) created easily my favorite show of the year. Dan spent several months driving around the heartland of America looking for old-fashioned country wisdom – but discovered so much more. Racism, xenophobia, ignorance…but also sincerity and compassion. What’s more, his skewer didn’t spare his intellectual Bay Area aesthetes, either.

This will be staged at Berkeley Rep this year, so you will have another chance to see it. Do so.

Even Geeks can be Luddites

2010-08-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

Brilliant.

Inspired by Nature

2010-07-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

...and man. These faucet designs found their genesis from a variety of sources: penguins, violins, sculpture. I think the penguins is my fave.

This...

2010-07-28T19:27:00.000-07:00

...is the craziest f*#!ing thing I've ever seen. At least today. You must wait for the chorus, and there's a tiny extra dollop of crazy at the very end. (Oh, and Jim...? Shouldn't "his" be capitalized if "Him" is?)

And...applause.

2010-07-12T14:16:00.001-07:00

There is simply no piece of classical music with a more compelling, dramatic conclusion than Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini."

Go ahead, listen to it. Tell me I'm wrong.

The Marriage Equality Cup Final

2010-07-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

This year's World Cup final will feature teams from two countries (Spain and The Netherlands) that have embraced marriage equality, playing in yet another country (South Africa) that has embraced marriage equality. Somebody up there likes us?

The Vuvuzela Wave

2010-07-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

Watching some of the World Cup games, I've decided we ought to send Krazy George to South Africa and get them to do the wave with vuvuzelas: as the "wave" hits you, you stand and blow on the horn. The idea is to get the sound cycling around the stadium in the same way the wave of people do.

Now what I'm wondering is this: if you take two things that were fun to begin with but ultimately grew annoying and overstayed their welcome, do they cancel each other out and become cool for another 20 minutes, or do they cause a logarithmic increase of annoyance?

They Ditched Her

2010-04-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

You may know the story of Constance McMillen, the Itawamba (Mississippi) High School senior who wanted to take her girlfriend (and wear a tux) to the prom. School said no, McMilled sued, with the help of the ACLU she won, she was re-invited to prom. Except it seems the school (or at least most kids and probably some parents) planned a double-super-secret prom to be held someplace else. At the "official" prom, Constance was there with her girlfriend -- and only seven other kids! How fun was that?

I'm anxious to see what investigations into this prove, as the word is just breaking today. But if it's true (and I can't imagine it can be kept secret for long in the Facebook age), it's incredibly twisted and cruel and I hope anyone who is responsible ultimately feels enormous shame for their actions. And if any school officials helped plan this secret prom or keep the secret prom a secret from Constance, I hope they are sued or jailed for perjury.

Slightly Spooky

2010-03-27T09:25:00.001-07:00

In the past couple of weeks we've begun watching season one of the cable drama "Damages" on DVD. The show stars Glenn Close as both the hero and villain of series; she's a high-powered attorney who is brilliant, manipulative, conniving and caring.

But that's not the spooky part. The spooky part is that while watching an episode, I noticed that one of the characters looked a bit like Tom Cruise. He's a recurring character and has been in several episodes, but in this one scene, the resemblance just struck me. So I said to Bob, "doesn't that guy look a bit like Tom Cruise?" Before he could answer -- in fact, in about ONE SECOND, the character on screen with this guy said: "Has anyone ever told you you look like Tom Cruise?"

Like I said, spooky.

More Common Sense from Tom

2010-03-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

Not Paine. Not me. Friedman. Tom Friedman. In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Friedman lays out a few ideas about how to get the "radical center" more involved in politics and perhaps cure some of the negative effects of rabid partisanship that has our system of governance trapped.

Money quote:

"One reason independent, third-party, centrist candidates can’t get elected is because if, in a three-person race, a Democrat votes for an independent, and the independent loses, the Democrat fears his vote will have actually helped the Republican win, or vice versa. Alternative voting allows you to rank the independent candidate your No. 1 choice, and the Democrat or Republican No. 2. Therefore, if the independent does not win, your vote is immediately transferred to your second choice, say, the Democrat. Therefore, you have no fear that in voting for an independent you might help elect your real nightmare — the Republican."

God and Randomness

2010-03-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

In the last few months, my posts here have become less and less regular. This leads me to believe there are fewer and fewer of my readers still out there. (Hi mom!) However, even when I was posting 4-5 times a week, sometimes daily, I was never doing it for anyone but myself.

When I post now, it's for the same reasons: because I have some opinion to get off my chest or some half-baked idea I think might be interesting or some opinion or work of someone else that I think should get a slightly wider reading. Today's post is the latter. It's a brief column from Jonah Lehrer, a science writer for Wired and The New Yorker. He references a study from the University of Waterloo that addresses how people might deal with the random nature of existence by putting greater stock in a controlling hand of G-d. Being a big believer in randomness being responsible for pretty much everything about our existence, I found it interesting. Money quote:

"What this study really reminds me of is the stock market. On the one hand, it's a mostly accepted fact that the stock market is a random walk. (Some smart behavioral economists disagree.) Nevertheless, it's pretty clear that, for the vast majority of investors, it's safe to assume that the market is so efficient that it's effectively random. So how do we react to this information? Do we stop trying to outsmart the S&P 500 and instead sink our savings into a low cost index fund? Do we seek the safety of bonds? Not at all. Instead, we become day traders."

Just Brilliant

2010-03-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

An amazing video that is text only. You have to watch until at least halfway through. That's where the brilliance starts.

Wholly Trinity

2010-03-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Stumbled into this place Saturday night. Viraocha is not just a gallery or a retail store or an art installation -- it's all three in one. And beyond that, it's sort of indescribable. But whatever it is, it's very, very cool.

Johnny Weir Rocks

2010-02-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

Maturity, self-confidence, compassion...Johnny is a real man.

Can't Say As I Blame Him

2010-02-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

An orca at Sea World park has attacked and killed one of his trainers. No one seems to understand why this happened. Speculation by one park employee, though he wisely stated he wouldn't jump to conclusions was that this "could be play behavior."

But that doesn't make sense to me. If this is how orcas play, why would such an incident be so rare? (Although this orca, Tilikum [above, playing the submissive role], has previously killed a trainer, and is the prime suspect in the death of an idiot who apparently snuck into the park in order to swim with the whales.) Orcas know how to be gentle, they know how to be in the water with humans in a cooperative way if they want -- why would the pattern change so abruptly?

Seems to me Tilikum is like a prisoner who got to one of the guards. Captivity -- especially for creatures used to roaming such expansive areas -- will drive almost any mammal (and many non-mammals) insane. And if not insane, it stands a good chance of making them really, really mad and vengeful. Like Tilikum.

Boggles my mind as so how we allow theme parks to capture and enclose amazing, air-breathing, live-birthing, breast-feeding fellow mammals. As I wrote in another post, some animals seem to be able to take only so much abuse off of humans. They refuse to be domesticated. Good for them.

Fascinating Graph

2010-02-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

I didn't realize so many San Franciscans rode public transit.

"Doubt: A Parable" at NCTC

2010-02-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

The first time I saw "Doubt: A Parable," John Patrick Shanley's play about a (possibly) pedophile priest in the Bronx in 1964, it was during its original run off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theater Club, during previews. I remember staggering from the theater, knocked off-kilter by the brilliant economy of Shanley's text, not to mention equal brilliance from the cast, especially Cherry Jones and Brian F. O'Byrne. I saw the play a second time, during its Best of Broadway, again with Cherry Jones, but many of its nuances were lost because the Golden Gate was simply too big a venue.

I wasn't planning to see it again, but good friends were very impressed by the production at New Conservatory Theater Center and insisted I go. I did, more than a tad skeptical. NCTC has hosted a couple of the worst things I've ever seen staged. However, I support them with my presence at many of their shows, and cut them a lot of slack, given the budget and talent pool they have to work with. Sometimes they surprise with their quality ("History Boys"), sometimes they disappoint ("Some Men"). Tonight they sort of blew me away.

From the moment I walked in, this was the best NCTC production I've seen. The set was simple without being austere, and evocative of the time and place. But, I thought, set is one thing -- this could all come crashing down the moment the actors open their mouths. But they didn't. In fact, every one acquitted themselves extremely well, especially Scarlett Hepworth in the role of the twisted Sister Aloysius. When you've seen Cherry Jones and Meryl Streep in a role, it's hard to expect anyone to top those performances. Fortunately, acting isn't a zero-sum game with world ranking points, and Hepworth brought her own (equally valid) interpretation of the character to the NCTC stage and I was just as mesmerized by it. The 85 minutes flew past.

Of course, when you are given a text as brilliant as Shanley's (which ended up winning both the Pulitzer and Tony Awards), that's a great start. But it takes more than a great play to make a great production, and the cast and director Ben Randle also deserve kudos for revealing aspects of the play I'd never noticed before. After the past few productions, I was left in doubt as to whether Father Flynn actually did have an inappropriate relationship with one of the altar boys. When I left the theater last night, I had much greater certainty about what the character was up to. I'd also been a little confused by the last line of the play, but now I believe I know what Sister Aloysius means when she says, "I have such doubts."

If you haven't seen "Doubt: A Parable," don't wait any longer. This may be the best chance you get. Go see a wonderful production of terrific play.

I pride myself on my packing skills...

2010-02-11T00:15:00.000-08:00

But this is insane.

Herzog Deconstructs Children's Books

2010-02-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

These are both brilliant, though I think I like the first one better.

Whose Way?

2010-02-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

The world is full of strange and interesting stories. Like this one from the New York Times about how the singing of Paul Anka's "My Way" can spark violence in karaoke bars. So much violence that the song is now rarely sung.

"The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”"

The REAL Top Movies of All Time

2010-01-28T09:40:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- "Avatar" is now the top-grossing movie of all time. (It hasn't gotten my $13 yet, but I expect it will this weekend.) The problem is, ticket prices don't remain constant. So it's a lot easier for more recent movies to pass classics in terms of total box office revenues.

But The Hollywood Reporter just published a list of the Top 20 movies based on number of tickets sold, not dollar revenues.

1 "Gone With the Wind" (1939) 202,044,600
2 "Star Wars" (1977) 178,119,600
3 "The Sound of Music" (1965) 142,415,400
4 "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) 141,854,300
5 "The Ten Commandments" (1956) 131,000,000
6 "Titanic" (1997) 128,345,900
7 "Jaws" (1975) 128,078,800
8 "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) 124,135,500
9 "The Exorcist" (1973) 110,568,700
10 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) 109,000,000
11 "101 Dalmatians" (1961) 99,917,300
12 "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) 98,180,600
13 "Ben-Hur" (1959) 98,000,000
14 "Return of the Jedi" (1983) 94,059,400
15 "The Sting" (1973) 89,142,900
16 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) 88,141,900
17 "Jurassic Park" (1993) 86,205,800
18 "The Graduate" (1967) 85,571,400
19 "Star Wars: Episode I" (1999) 84,825,800
20 "Fantasia" (1941) 83,043,500

In case you're interested, "Avatar" would be #26 on this list.

Funny, he never says "roll over."

2010-01-24T20:02:00.001-08:00

A woman in England has taken to recording the things her husband says while asleep. Things like:

"Just look at yourself. Yeah, now look at me. You don't stand a chance. It must suck to be you, I'm sure."

"Yeah, falling in love is WONDERFUL. Especially when it's with me."

"I like the balloons. I want one. If I don't get one, I'm gonna squeeze one out right here, right now.... I warned you!"

"You know, with you you you, it's all me me me. Well fuck fuck fuck fuck you you you."

"My badger's gonna unleash hell on your ass. Badgertastic!"

"The Real Americans"

2010-01-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

Wonderfully surprised last night by a new show in previews at The Marsh in San Francisco. "The Real Americans" is the story of writer/actor Dan Hoyle's attempt to bridge a connection between secular humanist intellectuals like himself (and me, for that matter) and the flyover country where millions of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim, the Earth was created in six 24-hour days, and the reason we can't support health care reform is because all the money to pay for it already went to illegal aliens.

Hoyle spent over three months on the road, visiting Texas, Alabama, Kansas and other parts of the heartland, listening to disaffected, angry (but usually sincere) Americans talk about the political divide in this country from their point of view. He then portrays these people with real honesty and skill. He must do at least two-three dozen different characters, making their voices and mannerisms distinct -- as well as funny, touching and real. Dan succeeds at delivering what I feel is the basis for all good theater: truth. I don't know if he recorded his conversations, or if he just has incredible recall, but the voices all seem genuine and true-to-life.

He also skewers his hipster intellectual friends (and himself), which adds to the genuineness of this piece. He looks honestly at both sides of the divide. (The socially/politically-correct dialogue he gives to these characters is some of the funniest stuff in the show.)

A couple of notes to Dan and director Charlie Varon:

- When you project dialogue on the upstage wall so that we can understand what a character with a deep accent is saying, either do a literal, word-for-word transcription, even if it's not gramatically correct or always easy to understand, or do a full hillbilly-to-English translation and make it funny that way. The in-between way you did it last night just didn't work. Same thing with the projections of the words of the last song Dan did: I imagine things are still in flux since you are in previews, but the projections should match exactly what Dan is singing.

- While we're on the subject of music...Dan can't rap. Sorry to be so blunt with it, but the opening white guy rap is so the polar opposite of Eminem that it fails to rise even to the level of Vanilla Ice. Either change the rap so that it's clear that he is mocking his lack of hip-hop cred, or cut it entirely. As it is, it's a giant rotten egg at the top of the show.

- Dan's second song isn't much either. But by the time he gets to numbers three and four, he's found his rhythm. Fix the first two or cut them.

Other than that, I'm a big fan of this show, in part because I totally identify with Dan's motivations. I, too, want to be an evangelist for reason and logic and science. I, too, respect the service of those who go to Iraq and Afghanistan. I can appreciate the desire for a little "tough country wisdom." But I'm glad it was Dan who went out and did all those interviews with all those people holding on so tightly to their ignorance; I don't think I could have been as patient.

If you live in the Bay Area, make the effort to get to The Marsh and see this terrific little show. (I also suggest Range for dinner either before or after the show.)

Steampunk Goes Mainstream

2010-01-21T05:08:00.001-08:00

The steampunk aesthetic probably traces back at least as far as the 60s TV show, "The Wild Wild West. As you can see from the video, steampunk is about marrying what we think of as modern functionality with technology from the Victorian era. The effect, to me at least, has always had a cool appeal. Others seem to agree, as the art is having its first full museum show at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, England.

Here's an item or two you can buy on etsy.com:

Hate and Ignorance Still Going Strong

2010-01-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

One of the issues being addressed by the Federal Court in the case to overturn Proposition 8 as unconstitutional is whether or not gay people continue to face discrimination. The pro-Prop 8 forces actually went so far as to say that "Will & Grace" airing was a sign that homosexuality has been mainstreamed and therefore discrimination is no longer an issue.

Perhaps the court ought to look in the comments section of stories on gay issues at Townhall.com, a right wing website. Here are a few samples:

"How can we keep allowing someone whom is a degenerate, and lacking any moral code, to run our banking system? How can we trust them to do the right thing when they have rejected the right WAY?"

"So let's call a spade a spade--homosexuals are not equal in the eye's of Nature so why are we trying to force equality where there is none. Nature discriminates, so it is natural for humans to discriminate."

"Again it is the COMMIEQRS who promise transparency like they LIE about EVERYTHING then CHEAT you behind closed doors. Closet Queens, all of them."

"The gays have warped all things good and normal in our society. The gays do now want to abstain from sex, they heavily promote sex. The sign of the rainbow has been twisted from being a sign between God and us after the flood, to a gay symbol. June has been twisted to mean gay pride month and not the month for June brides..."

"You can get legislators to make all the laws you want you freaking freaks. But nothing is ever going to stop people from looking at you with revulsion and disgust when you are in public."

"Homosexuals lead lives of the living dead. God have mercy on them."

"Our once great country is headed for the junk heap of history, driven in great part by sexual perversion. By all means let's hear it for same sex mariage, Hell ain't half full."

Thoughts as THE Trial Begins

2010-01-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

Opening arguments were made yesterday in Federal Court in San Francisco in the trial attempting to overturn Proposition 8. There are plenty of places where you can read transcripts and reports from the proceedings. What I want to call attention to is how easy it is for people to get distracted from the core issues of the case.

Simply put, it's about equality under the law. Nothing more.

It's not about what children will be taught in school as the Alliance Defense Fund is trying to say. It's not about malice or bad intent on the part of the pro-Prop 8 team, even though their e-mails and internal communications were part of the pre-trial discovery process. I don't care if the anti-equality folks' hearts dripped with pure evil and they rubbed their hands in glee and said "exxx-cellent" as they plotted in their back rooms. It's not even about the rights of Californians to decide for ourselves what "marriage" will be.

The only question that should be at hand is, is it constitutional to deny the rights of civil marriage to any two people who are also willing to take on its responsibilities? Does the US Constitution allow you to treat one group of people differently from another?

Will Rationality Reign?

2010-01-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

In a column in this week's Newsweek, Ted Olson, the conservative lawyer who, along with David Boies, is leading a suit brought in the federal court (ninth circuit) to overturn Proposition 8 on the grounds it violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

In this piece, Boies does what few on either side of the issue have done: eliminate emotion and fear-mongering and name-calling and focus strictly on rationality and legal precedent. He even uses an argument that I have been pushing for years, comparing sexuality to handedness.Read the whole piece, but here are a few highlights:

"Subsequent laws and court decisions have made clear that equality under the law extends to persons of all races, religions, and places of origin. What better way to make this national aspiration complete than to apply the same protection to men and women who differ from others only on the basis of their sexual orientation? I cannot think of a single reason—and have not heard one since I undertook this venture—for continued discrimination against decent, hardworking members of our society on that basis."

"The second argument I often hear is that traditional marriage furthers the state's interest in procreation—and that opening marriage to same-sex couples would dilute, diminish, and devalue this goal. But that is plainly not the case. Preventing lesbians and gays from marrying does not cause more heterosexuals to marry and conceive more children. Likewise, allowing gays and lesbians to marry someone of the same sex will not discourage heterosexuals from marrying a person of the opposite sex. How, then, would allowing same-sex marriages reduce the number of children that heterosexual couples conceive?" (This is another point I've made to opponents of marriage equality when they say, "every child deserves a mother and a father." I ask them, how does denying marriage equality increase or decrease the number of children growing up on mother/father homes? No one has had an answer -- because there isn't one.)

"(W)hile our Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our individual religious convictions, it equally prohibits us from forcing our beliefs on others. I do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until we stop invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

"If all citizens have a constitutional right to marry, if state laws that withdraw legal protections of gays and lesbians as a class are unconstitutional, and if private, intimate sexual conduct between persons of the same sex is protected by the Constitution, there is very little left on which opponents of same-sex marriage can rely. As Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented in the Lawrence case, pointed out, "[W]hat [remaining] justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising '[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution'?" He is right, of course. One might agree or not with these decisions, but even Justice Scalia has acknowledged that they lead in only one direction."

The case begins tomorrow. Let's hope the justices are as rational (and as committed to the Constitution's requirement for equal treatment under the law) as Mr. Olson is.

Bad Breakup, Feline Style

2010-01-03T08:19:00.001-08:00

This isn't new, but it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Top Ten Theatrical Events of 2009

2009-12-31T19:23:00.000-08:00

Although this was a tough year economically, it was a wonderful year in so many other ways. We ended the Bush era, my daughter embarked on the first part of her journey to adulthood by going off to college in Maryland, and I got to attend another 70 or so theatrical events of one sort or another: plays, musicals, comedy, cabaret performances, concerts. Some were simply dreadful (I support community theater, but I don't often like it), most of them were enjoyable on one level or another, but a few were truly magical. At least to me. At least on those nights.

In alphabetical order, here are the ten best things I saw this year:

"American Idiot" at Berkeley Rep, Berkeley
This punk rock tone poem -- now on its way to Broadway -- is an evocation of teen disaffection and confusion in the context of a world saturated with millions of conflicting political and media messages.

It's a bit dark and depressing, but that's rather hard to avoid when one of the key themes is “Nobody likes you. Everyone left you. They’re all out without you, having fun.” But “American Idiot” is also a brilliant, explosive, heartfelt work of art. The music is amazing and the onstage band rocks every corner of the house. The story’s a bit thin, but the show’s not about story – it’s about emotion.

"The Floating Lightbulb" at A Traveling Jewish Theater, San Francisco
The Traveling Jewish Theater has changed its name. Since they found a permanent home, it's now just The Jewish Theater. But that doesn't change the fact that they wandered into a terrific production of Woody Allen's play about a young Jewish boy who wants to be a magician. Most really talented actors don't hang around San Francisco too much, they head off to LA or New York because that's where the work is. But a few can't leave the Bay Area, and several of them were in this production.

"God of Carnage" at the Jacobs Theater, New York
"God of Carnage" is one of those shows where you rather despise the characters as people, but love them as characters because they entertain. What's great about the play by Yasmina Reza is how the constrictions of the theater help lay bare the insecurities of the characters. How it puts their bravado on display, revealing a terrible lack of courage.

Although it sounds grim, it's actually quite funny. Hard to imagine how you can milk laughs out of lines like "Every word that comes out of your mouth is destroying me!", but "God of Carnage" manages it.

Jake Johannsen at Cobb's Comedy Club, San Francisco
A lifetime ago, I tried my hand at stand-up comedy. So did Jake Johannsen. In fact, we did our first open mic night sets on the same night. I lasted about a year in comedy, while Jake has gone on to have a solid career. (In fact, his new Showtime special, "I Love You," premieres tonight.) Way back then I saw that Jake had a special talent that I lacked. And every time I've seen him on stage, he's proved me right. I don't know why he hasn't broken into the big big time. Maybe his work is just too smart and too sharp for a mass audience to really "get."

I'm not saying this because Jake and I are still friends of a sort, but because I think it's true: Jake Johannsen is the best, most inventive stand-up comedian working today.

Marilyn Maye at The Rrazz Room, San Francisco
She's a bit old-fashioned, but Marilyn Maye's show at The Rrazz Room was so warm-hearted, so honest and genuine that it swept away all my desire for novelty and hipness. From the moment she walked on stage in her Bob Mackie outfit, she did what an entertainer is supposed to do: entertain. Great songs, great stories and a love for her audience that is palpable combined to make this a very special evening.

"Next to Normal" at the Booth Theater, New York
Although "Next to Normal" is ostensibly about how a family copes with a mother who suffers from bipolar disorder with delusions, it's also about the condition of being human. It's about how we connect -- or not -- with our fellow beings. It's about what we give up in order to grow, and how we grow up by giving. It's about the fragility of love, the tenacity of biology, the frustration of not getting what you want -- and the perils inherent in getting it.

But what may be most brilliant about this show may be that it's about whatever is most important to you right now. And isn't that what makes art, art?

"Our Town" at the Barrow Street Theater, New York
In making art we attempt to expand or compress time or reality -- or both -- in order to make clearer to ourselves and others some aspect of existence. To make some part of the human condition more accessible.

The production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" at the Barrow Street Theater is one of those rare works of art that is scaled just right. Time and reality are expanded and compressed just the right amount in just the right ways to create an experience that is both the epitome of the theatrical experience and something I've never really felt before in a theater. The boundary between audience and players are blurred throughout - and occasionally erased almost completely.

What both director David Cromer and Thorton Wilder have succeeded in doing in this specific instance of art is to remind us of our common humanity. Grover's Corners is, in fact, our town. It is our earth, our existence. It is what we all share -- and it is both mundane and magical, ordinary and awe-inspiring. Often at the same time.

Steely Dan at The Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco
One of my favorite bands of all time, and one of the few I'd never seen perform live -- mostly because for most of their career they never performed live, preferring to concentrate their efforts in the studio. Now, more than 30 years after their initial success, they occasionally go on the road. On the night I saw them, they performed -- in order -- the entire "Royal Scam" album, which is probably my favorite Steely Dan record, then went on to play a whole other set of songs from the rest of their oeuvre. I knew all the words, danced in the aisles like a teenager and generally had a terrific time.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Intiman Theater, Seattle
A beautifully staged, beautifully acted production gave me an appreciation for this masterpiece that I'd never gotten from the movie version.

"Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them" at The Public Theatre, New York
It's not really about torture. It's about reconciliation. It's about the desire to take back your bad decisions and make things right again. But since it's written by Christopher Durang, it goes at these serious issues in a relatively absurd, outlandish, biting, and frequently brilliant fashion.

One of the main characters, Leonard, is an arch-conservative who obsessively toes all the standard lines. He's like one of the suits in a Tom Tomorrow cartoon: spouting the justifications of the Limbaugh dittoheads with such unashamed fervor that it lays bare the ridiculousness of their positions.

This is satire that cuts so cleanly that it takes a while to realize you're up to your ankles in blood.

SUV Maestros

2009-12-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

"We've got Tommy on jumper cables, Jules playing steering wheel, and the Amazing Latchtones on doors and windows!"

New York, Winter 2009 - Day Ten, "The Understudy"

2009-12-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

I suppose one could do a festival of plays that take place entirely in theaters – “Noises Off, “Follies,” “Curtains,” “A Chorus Line,” “Phantom of the Opera” – I could continue. In fact, of the ten shows I saw on this trip, two (“Our Town” and “So Help Me God”) took place in theaters, and a third, “Circle Mirror Transformation” placed its action in a rehearsal studio which basically functioned as a theater.) Perhaps this plethora of titles is indicative of the navel-gazing often associated with theater types. Could it be that we are so self-absorbed and juvenile that we return again and again to the womb of the stage? Or is it just that we follow the adage to “write what you know?”

Whatever the reason, Theresa Rebeck has added another play to this canon of works -- "The Understudy," currently playing at the Laura Pels Theater as part of Roundabout Theatre Company's season.

The setup is pretty simple: Harry (a hilarious Justin Kirk) is a theater veteran, newly-hired to understudy a big movie star (Jake, played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar) in a surprise Broadway hit: a lost masterpiece of Franz Kafka's. Coming from two different worlds, there's bound to be some envy, especially when Jake claims that his $2.4 million fee for acting in a recent action blockbuster isn't really all that much after you pay your agent and manager. Harry's also a little judgmental about the quality of Jake's performance. So there's bound to be some tension on the set.

This tension should ordinarily be quelled by the sure and steady hand of a stage manager, the one person on a show whose job description (in part) is to never get flustered. But Roxanne (played delectably by Julie White, whose presence in the cast was probably the main reason I selected the show) is perpetually flustered -- by her late arriving movie star, by a prop gun that goes missing, by an unseen stoner tech who keeps hitting the wrong cues, but mostly by the fact that Harry was Roxanne's fiance until he skipped town two weeks before the wedding. (Roxanne doesn't know it's Harry who has been cast because he changed his name for professional reasons, so his presence on set is a big surprise for her.) Roxanne refers to her wedding dress, still in her closet six years later, as "a wound on a hanger."

"The Understudy" has its problems, but since we're in the theater, I'm willing to suspend a bit of disbelief and just go ahead and enjoy the snarky comments and all the funny insider bits that would fly right past most people but that a savvy New York audience just eats up.

As insider-y as "The Understudy" gets -- and it's pretty darn insider-y when you're cracking wise about the perceived value of Equity cards vs. SAG cards and the mercury poisoning a real Hollywood actor used as an excuse to get out of an off-Broadway production he wasn't enjoying -- it still meets the criteria of being universal enough. "The Understudy" is about power and clout and insecurity and confidence and professionalism. You just have to look past the jargon and the private jokes and enjoy the foolishness of people pretending to be other people (pretending to be still other people) and laugh because it makes you feel good.

New York, Winter 2009 - Day Nine, "This"

2009-12-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

Do we take things too seriously? Is life all just a game with a set of rules that feel somewhat ad hoc, not to mention highly-fluid, but infractions of which are nonetheless strictly punished? Should we, as I believe I heard Bugs Bunny say once, not take life too seriously because we'll "never get out of it alive?"

This seems to me to be one of the core conundrums at the heart of Melissa James Gibson's new play, "This," now playing at Playwrights Horizon. The five characters who populate the stage are all bright, successful (at varying levels), skilled (at varying levels) and wounded. At varying levels.

Merrell and Tom and Jane and Alan all knew each other in college. Tom and Merrell got married, Jane married Roy (who appears in this show only as cremains) and Alan is presumably the same verbally-gifted, bitchy, complainy gay man he always was. Jean-Pierre is a French "Doctor without borders" that Merrell wants to set Jane up with, it being nearly a year since her husband (the aforementioned cremains) has died of an unnamed disease.

This is the sort of show that's right up my alley. It's filled with wisecracking urbane sophisticates who wax philosophic on various topics with greater or lesser degrees of irony. They indulge a little too much (which leads to an hysterical moment where the character holding the two bottles which contain all the remaining liquor asks someone to "pass the Triple Sec" and another character reaches out and lifts her elbow so the bottle in her hand comes into her view), and they talk constantly. Like I said, perfect for me.

And though I loved the show, laughed a lot and appreciated the amazing set by Louisa Thompson, and the theatricality of it all, and though I loved all the intellectual banter, I felt something was missing. Some sort of soul to the play. Maybe I just didn't like the perfectness of all the character's jobs: Merrell is a jazz singer/pianist in nightclubs, Tom an artistic cabinetmaker, Jane a published poet now teacher, Jean-Pierre is the aforementioned philanthropic man of medicine and Alan makes his living as a professional mnemonist, a man with a prodigious recall -- a skill which comes to hilarious use late in the show. Maybe it's because some of the topics discussed feel too much like the cute things a writer jots down in a notebook but didn't always seem connected to the characters.

Overall, though, I'd say "This" is worth a look.

New York, Winter 2009 - Day Eight, "Hair"

2009-12-24T14:30:00.000-08:00

I remember the cast album for "Hair" quite clearly. My oldest brother (20 years older) owned it, and when it was first out it was played with some regularity in his house, usually after a Saturday night dinner where some not insignificant amount of wine was consumed. I was 11 or so when the cast album was released, so some of it went over my head. I remember someone asking me if I liked the record, and when I said "yes" my other brother said "you like the one about fellatio?" my mother chided him. I knew some of the words in the number to which he was referring ("Sodomy"), but that wasn't among them at the time.

But this is all really beside the point, isn't it? I guess the point was that I went into this new production of "Hair" with a relative familiarity with the music. I'd also seen the cast perform during the 2009 Tony Awards, and loved it. Their performance was wild and energetic and unleashed -- and it's even more so live.

Be warned, this is not a production for children. This warning is too late for a seemingly single dad, who brought three 5-6 year olds to see the rather overt sexuality, hear the F-bomb dropped with some regularity, and hum along with the aforementioned "Sodomy": "Sodomy...fellatio...cunnilingus...pederasty." So keep anyone under 16 or so at home, but come and enjoy yourself.

Unlike last night's dreadful "Finnian's Rainbow," this revival has almost as much relevance as it ever did. When one character says "war is about the white people sending the black people to kill the yellow people to protect the land we stole from the red people," the only alteration that would be needed to make that more contemporary would be to change "yellow people" to "brown people." We're fighting an unpopular war abroad and are torn apart by political and generational divisions at home. Yet the message of "Hair" remains the same: love each other. And let the sun shine in.

New York, Winter 2009 - Day Seven, "Superior Donuts" & "Finnian's Rainbow"

2009-12-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

"Superior Donuts"
Poor Arthur Przybyzewski. Past his mid-life crisis, he's spent his years mostly running away from things -- the draft, his wife, their child. Now, living an isolated, lonely life running the donut shop his family opened more than 60 years ago, Arthur seems to have finally stopped running. The question is, has he stopped growing?

But perhaps the biggest question people were asking with this play was whether Tracy Letts, fresh from his Tony/Pulitzer/Drama Desk award winning triumph, "August: Osage County" would be able to top that triumph. The short answer is "no," but my guess is that he wasn't even trying to. My guess is this much smaller story came to him and he decided it was what ought to be next. Unfortunately, critics and audiences can be a lot less open-minded than a playwright might hope for, and Letts has endured a lot of criticism (and half-empty houses and an early closing date) for this follow-up effort.

Much of that criticism, however, is well-founded -- though it deserves mostly to be aimed at the production and not the playwright, for Letts has created an engaging, funny play that deserves our admiration. Unfortunately, he's been let down by his director, Tina Landau, who lets the play open with a sluggish, aimless pace. The supporting cast didn't seem to be giving it their all, either, though that may be due to the fact that it was two days before Christmas, the house was half-full and the play is closing on January 3. Easy to imagine their hearts might not have been entirely into it.

"Superior Donuts" doesn't really find its balance until the appearance of Franco Wicks (the energetic and sharp Jon Michael Hill), a self-described "self-starter" who talks his way into a job and starts working on improving the surroundings, starting first with his new employer. Arthur, an aging hippie, wears his hair in a pony tail. "You know who looks good in a pony tail?" he ask Arthur. "Girls...and ponies."

"Superior Donuts" is generally described as a comedy, and it has lots of funny lines. (One of my favorites being when Arthur defends himself against a charge or racism by saying to Franco "I hired you, didn't I?" To which Franco responds, "Scoot over, Lincoln, make room on the penny!"

The drama comes primarily from the fact that Franco has a secret or two that will be revealed over the course of the play, and Arthur will have the opportunity to finally complete something difficult in his life without running away from it. That moment, which happens in the very last line of the play, brings "Superior Donuts" to a tender, touching close. I'm sorry the play's run is closing, because Letts' follow-up to "August: Osage County" deserves better.

"Finnian's Rainbow"
My main question is "why?" Why recycle this chestnut? The songs aren't that great and the story is hackneyed and outdated. Why did the marvelous Cheyenne Jackson decide this was the best move at this point in his career? But the biggest why is why, after the original ran for 723 performances, wasn't that enough?

New York, Winter 2009 - Day Six, "Let Me Down Easy"

2009-12-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

Anna Deavere Smith is a woman of many talents, chief among them listening. She's made a bit of a career finding people with interesting stories, getting them to tell her those stories, then recreating them verbatim (or nearly so) in solo performances where she will play a range of people who are linked in some way. Sometimes the linkage is their joint association with a specific event -- the Crown Heights Riot for one. In her new show, "Let Me Down Easy," now playing at the 2econd Stage Theatre, the common thread is a single word: grace. What is it? What are our lives without it? Can we earn it? Can we give it to others? Most important to it, does it increase or decrease under pressure, especially the pressure of ill health?

Smith never addresses these questions in even an oblique way. Rather she presents a series of 20 brief portraits of a wide range of individuals, from celebrities such as Lance Armstrong, Ann Richards, Lauren Hutton and Joel Siegel to an array of unknown people: doctors, patients, a musicologist, the director of a South African orphanage. Each gets skewered a bit, but not without softening the blow with her deep respect and love for each of the subjects. You get the sense she thinks virtually of them are a little bit crazy for one reason or another -- but always gives them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps in hope that people will do the same for her minor insanities.

Though things do tend to get a bit overblown from time to time (the orphanage director who tells of how she sits up with each dying child was a bit too playing the heartstrings with a 2x4 for me), this was almost entirely a wonderful, brief series of visits from a collection of characters who take the stage one at a time. The space begins in a very neutral state: just spare white-on-white furnishings. As Smith takes on -- and then sheds -- the props and items of clothing associated with each character, the stage ends up littered with the detritus of their stories.

FYI - there was no theater on day five of this trip. Hence the break in order.

New York, Winter 2009 - Day Four, "Circle, Mirror, Transformation" and "Fuerzabruta"

2009-12-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

"Circle, Mirror, Transformation"
It's either real but not true, or true but not real -- but it's not both. Although it's getting mostly great reviews and has been extended, there's a certain lack of genuineness that keeps me from getting more excited about a show that made me laugh hard many times.

The cast (especially the absolutely delightful Tracee Chimo, who gives a brilliant physical performance) is excellent, but the setup never quite gelled for me. The play takes place inside a community dance/aerobics/yoga studio in Vermont, where an acting teacher has finally begun a "creative drama" workshop for adults. Though the improv games they play during these classes are well-realized and often hysterical, I couldn't get over the fact that these four students become such excellent actors and reveal so many personal details in just six weeks of class. It began to feel like both a writerly and actorly showcase, and not a real play.

So ultimately disappointing.

"Fuerzabruta
Like their previous show, "De La Guarda", the creators of "Fuerzabruta" are working in a theatrical language that seems to me how an alien culture might attempt to communicate with us when there is no common language or culture or history. There's no story here, only the barest of thematic threads -- human struggle against (or perhaps dances with) forces that are far more powerful than they.

I love an intricate story more than most, but I still enjoyed every one of the 70 or so minutes of this show, because I love the kind of interactive, somewhat obtuse (but sensorily-rich) theatrical techniques director Diqui James has developed -- from the giant treadmill to the enormous acrylic pool suspended above the audience where the cast frolic as though on an outsized slip 'n slide made of really durable Saran Wrap.

As I write, I see that this is where that lack of a common language presents a hurdle. I can't adequately explain what's going on -- nor could I. Because the show isn't about explanations, it's about experiences. And you just have to experience "Fuerzabruta." Because it is undeniably magical.

Just remember that you'll be experiencing that magic on your feet: there are no seats in the performance space.

New York, Winter 2009 - Day Three, "So Help Me God"

2009-12-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

I'll confess there were times in "So Help Me God," especially near the end, that I thought Kristen Johnson might be pushing a bit too hard in her performance as a tyrannical Broadway diva, prepping a new show. That she was giving it just a bit too much throttle coming out of the corners. But when you're playing a stratospherically psychopathic narcissist, it's hard to go over the top when you keep finding a new top.

There is nothing Lily Darnley won't do to further her own interests, no matter how callously wicked or wantonly cruel that might be. But her cruelest cut of all is being in such a limited run hit. The show closes tonight. Which is apparently one of little tragedies Christmas can bring along with its joys, because Johnson was hysterical.

New York, Winter 2009 - Day One Two, "Our Town"

2009-12-18T21:12:00.000-08:00

I've long believed that a good definition for "art" is "life...to scale." In making art we attempt to expand or compress time or reality -- or both -- in order to make clearer to ourselves and others some aspect of existence. To make some part of the human condition more accessible.

The production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" at the Barrow Street Theater is one of those rare works of art that is scaled just right. Time and reality are expanded and compressed just the right amount in just the right ways to create an experience that is both the epitome of the theatrical experience and something I've never really felt before in a theater. The boundary between audience and players are blurred throughout - and occasionally erased almost completely.

The Stage Manager, played by Jason Butler Harner, speaks directly with the audience in a natural, comfortable way. He looks to us for our opinions, even manages to cast several of the audience in the performance by handing them cards with questions to read. A cast member exiting said "Good evening, Miss Holcombe" to one audience member and "How ya doin' Stew" to another. (Or something along to those lines.) One row of seats can be said to be on stage, even though it's on the exact same level as the next row of seats behind it.

What both director David Cromer (who originated the role of the Stage Manager in this production) and Thorton Wilder have succeeded in doing in this specific instance of art is to remind us of our common humanity. Grover's Corners is, in fact, our town. It is our earth, our existence. It is what we all share -- and it is both mundane and magical, ordinary and awe-inspiring. Often at the same time.

(Regarding the odd title of this post, Day One was cancelled due to food poisoning."

The Triple Zero House

2009-12-13T22:08:00.000-08:00

An interesting story in Scientific American about how architects are designing homes that actually produce more energy than they use.

The Birth of Ca Phe Sua Da

2009-12-07T08:11:00.000-08:00

Click here to read a bit of background on one of my favorite coffee drinks -- which I virtually never get to drink because it's almost never offered in a decaf version and it's so wildly caffeinated that I jangle like a wind chime in a typhoon for about six hours after drinking one.

The Cowards of Albany

2009-12-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

Today, the state Senate of New York -- or at least quite a few of its senators -- showed just how cowardly and self-serving American politics has become. When, after a year of lobbying and many failed attempts (which were likened by Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God to Lucy never letting Charlie Brown kick the football) to bring the issue of marriage equality to a vote, legislation finally reached the Senate floor today.

Given the political climate (the defeats in Maine, California -- and just about every place else in the country), I didn't really expect the measure to pass. The political climate is also why I shouldn't be surprised that the vote was as lopsided as it was: 38-24. In the months and weeks leading up to this vote that was on-again-off-again several times, it was thought the measure's backers might have as many as 35 votes. Although that was optimistic at best, backers thought they had a real chance at getting 32 votes, the amount needed to pass, and certainly expected to receive 30 votes, or very close to it.

But two interesting things happened when the bill hit the floor. First, only one senator, Ruben Diaz, chose to speak against the measure. (And he a Democrat, no less. Has he read the Democratic party platform?) And his primary argument was the only one opponents of marriage equality can use, since there is no logical reason to deny it -- the Bible. Second, those nearly 30 votes quickly contracted to 24 when it became clear the measure would not pass.

After all, with such a hot-button issue, why be on the side of equality and justice when it's clear most voters aren't? Forget that you're supposed to be a leader, not just a mouthpiece for any bigotry a majority of people feel comfortable with. Just dodge the civil rights issue of your time and enjoy the benefits of re-election and the perks of power. But don't expect history to treat you as kindly.

That's why the Republicans (and Democrats) who lost their chance to be on the right side of the issue didn't speak up; they know, in their heart of hearts, that they couldn't argue against equality without appearing either foolish for taking a position that defies logic, or advocating theocracy. (Something Ruben Diaz was happy to do, saying legislators ought to consult their Bibles when making legislation.)

Once the vote was complete though, the Republicans started talking. “Certainly this is an emotional issue and an important issue for many New Yorkers,” said Senator Tom Libous, the deputy Republican leader. “I just don’t think the majority care too much about it at this time because they’re out of work, they want to see the state reduce spending, and they are having a hard time making ends meet. And I don’t mean to sound callous, but that’s true.”

What? True that you sound callous, or that you are callous?

But beyond that, what does extending the rights and responsibilities of marriage to LGBT people have to do with unemployment or state spending? Nothing, of course. But LGBT people are a convenient (and relatively powerless) minority, and this issue makes for a lovely distraction from the fact that the economy still sucks for working people. So the right latches on to this issue as a way to show they are still in touch with the feelings of the common man. And when it comes time to justify their votes, they don't talk about the issue itself, but use popular opinion as an excuse for why they can't do the right thing. Sickening.

But as posters plastered throughout London during the Blitz said, "Keep Calm and Carry On." LGBT Americans are in a somewhat similar position as Londoners in the early days of WWII. We face the attacks of a powerful, evil (though they think they are doing the right thing) enemy, but if we keep our heads down, go about our business and keep pointing out what the right thing really is, the enemy will one day be driven back.

We lost today. Equality will ultimately be victorious.

He's as Mad as Hell...

2009-12-01T10:59:00.000-08:00

...and he's not going to take it anymore.

Once again, Andrew Sullivan taps the anger and passion I feel about the direction of our country. In one his posts today, Andrew sets out a manifesto for what he cannot accept in a political movement; in this case, why he can't get behind today's "conservative" movement, even though he has always identified as a conservative.

Money quote:

"I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs."

Read it all.

Amazing card manipulations

2009-11-23T23:46:00.000-08:00

What if Dimitri Arleri had decided to be a surgeon instead?

Just Hang On, Baby

2009-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

Click on this link for a fascinating story about a Chicago options trader whose hobby is fishing for large, fast, ferocious tuna -- from his kayak.

Money quote:

"It never occurred to the authorities that someone might be crazy enough to want to catch a bluefin while sitting in what amounts to a floating plastic chair and enjoying what Melville called a “Nantucket sleigh ride.”"

Dance it up, boys!

2009-11-20T15:52:00.002-08:00

Crazy moves.

Callous? Stupid? You decide.

2009-11-12T09:13:00.001-08:00

A couple of days ago a bill landed on the desk of Rhode Island governor Don Carcieri which would add "domestic partners" to the list of people who are allowed to make funeral arrangements for a person. Carcieri vetoed the bill. His reason? According to CBS News it was that the legislation represents a "disturbing trend" of the incremental erosion of heterosexual marriage.

If you've read any accounts or heard stories of gay partners in long-term relationships being denied the right to even attend their partner's funeral, let alone make the arrangements for the service, you know how painful and humiliating it can be. You can read a few in the comments section on the post regarding this story at Joe Jervis's blog. Here is just one: "Shortly after my partner was killed in a traffic accident, his mother had his remains moved to another location and refused to tell me where they took him. They actually dug him up and when I went to the cemetery, I found an empty grave. She said that she didn't want me "desecrating" his grave by putting flowers on it. Earlier, I was allowed to attend the funeral, but was told that the burial was for "family only." We had lived together for six years."

There are many stories like this. And it seems callous of Carcieri to deny committed couples the right to make funeral arrangements for each other. Given that the bill was passed out of the legislature with a veto proof 64-1 margin, it also seems sort of politically brain-dead.

However, Carcieri did make one point that I sort of agree with. The bill established criteria for what constitutes a "domestic partnership" and Carcieri believes those criteria are sort of vague. They include living together at least a year and being "financially interdependent," such as owning a home together or sharing a credit card. Carcieri believes a "one year time period is not a sufficient duration to establish a serious bond between two individuals...[relative to] sensitive personal traditions and issues regarding funeral arrangements."

Here's where I agree (and where this starts to sound like "The View"). Say your daughter has shacked up with a guy and he talked her into adding his name to her credit card. If your daughter died and the live-in BF wanted to have her body cremated in defiance of your wishes and religious tradition, I have a hard time seeing why his wishes should take precedence over those of her family.

Clearly it's not that I don't want people in committed relationships to be able to make funeral arrangements for each other (or inherit without taxation, visit each other in the hospital, etc.), it's just that when it comes to important issues such as these, that's what marriage is for. If you want those rights, you need to take on the responsibilities, as well. It's just another reason why we need marriage equality.

Thought Experiment

2009-11-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

Here's the question for today. Let's say someone has told you that tomorrow morning you will dropped at a randomly chosen place on one of Earth's land masses and you have to make your way back home. You get to wear whatever you choose in terms of clothing, but you only get to take one other man-made thing with you. What would you choose? A knife or other weapon, perhaps? A satellite phone? A Visa card? Other than those three, I can't think of anything else that would be a reasonable choice.

The chances are good you are going to end up in a very inhospitable environment. About a third of the land masses are either mountain ranges, deserts or capped with ice. Even if you hit the two-thirds that is mostly habitable, odds are you aren't going to be anywhere near a city or town of any size. So what item would be most useful to you?

The satellite phone is a fine option because you can immediately call for help. But if you don't know where you are, how can you tell people how to find you? (Though I suppose the authorities could probably track the phone signal to you, if you could convince the authorities it wasn't a prank before the battery ran out.)

A weapon is also useful, especially if you end up dropped in an inhospitable environment where you might face wild animals or even human threats. I suppose you could also use the weapon to obtain money or goods through the threat of force, but you would also likely run into people with bigger and more weapons who might thwart this plan of action.

I think a strong case can be made that a Visa card could be the winner. It may be of little use in a jungle or in a desert, but once you got yourself to almost any sort of settlement, it would be a widely-recognized symbol that you would be able to pay for the assistance you are requesting and would be greeted with more warmth (and likely equal respect) than you would brandishing a weapon.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Gettin' Jiggy with Aaron Burr

2009-11-03T21:31:00.000-08:00

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of "In The Heights," 2008 Tony winner for Best Musical, performing at the first White House poetry jam. Beautiful.

Legalize it, tax it, regulate it

2009-10-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

Here is an article from today's New York Times.

One quote jumped out at me: "In a memorandum on Oct. 19 outlining the medical marijuana guidelines, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden said marijuana was “a dangerous drug, and the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime,” adding that “no state can authorize violations of federal law.”"

Dangerous? By what criteria? It's impossible to overdose on, there's no risk of physical addiction, the risks that come from smoking it are minimal and even those can be mitigated by ingesting it or vaporizing it. By every measure it is much safer than alcohol and far safer than tobacco.

Think of the resources we waste pursuing, arresting and incarcerating those involved in the growing, selling and use of marijuana. Then think of the revenue boost we would get from taxing it.

Please, please, please can't we approach public policy issues with common sense and rationality and not baseless fear-mongering?

Nagging Thoughts

2009-10-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

Recently, the Research Digest Blog asked a group of respected psychologists and neurological researchers to describe one thing about themselves that - despite all their knowledge and training - they still don't understand. Some answers (they had to be 150 words or less) are fascinating, some just egoistical. But they are all interesting in their own way.

Here's what Stephen Rose had to say: "A lifetime studying the neurobiology of learning and memory, and I still wonder about St Augustine’s questions 1600 years ago: "How does my brain/mind encompass vast regions of space and time, abstract thoughts and numbers, false propositions" - or for that matter the memory of my fourth birthday party or what I had for breakfast yesterday. Meantime, I am embarrassed by the naivete of my fellow neuroscientists who mechanically collapse mind into brain, or claim to be able to localise within that mass of tissue: equity, empathy, romantic love... "You’re nothing but a bunch of neurons" claimed Francis Crick, locating consciousness in the anterior cingulate gyrus. Lombroso redux indeed! As the mind is wider than the brain, to misquote Emily Dickinson, what other sciences/knowledges do we need to bring to bear to understand ourselves?"

To Hell with Bipartisanship

2009-09-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

As ABC News said today: "If Sen. Max Baucus' bill -- with its smaller price tag, no employer mandate, and no public option -- doesn't draw at least a few Republicans, what will?"

For the past several months, the President and Democrats have been reaching out across the aisle, looking for some thread of bipartisanship as we struggle with how to fix a healthcare system that is so broken that nearly 2/3 of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical expenses -- and 80% of those bankruptcies are from people who actually had health insurance.

As much as I've hoped Congress would work to find common ground through common sense solutions, that's apparently not going to happen. (I guess I don't have the influence I ought to.) That's why it's time to end the bickering -- in a partisan way. The American people elected a Democratic president and put strong Democrat majorities into both houses of Congress. I can't speak for the other 127 million voters, but I cast my vote in the hope of getting something done, and putting this country back on a progressive track after eight years regressive, macho posturing and pandering to base instincts.

So I say to hell with bipartisanship. Screw the Republicans. They had their chance. Americans voted for Obama and the Democrats because we wanted change. If we'd wanted to remain beholden to special interests and old ideas we would have voted for John McCain and the Republicans. We didn't. So if the Republicans refuse to come along, leave 'em behind. Vote for a solution that works for America, not one that works for the Republican minority.

"American Idiot" at Berkeley Rep

2009-09-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

I can’t really say I ever went through a “punk” phase. In 1978, during my junior year of college, when the Sex Pistols were on their first U.S. tour, my roommate and I ripped up a couple of t-shirts, wrote slightly rough, provocative words on them (“bite” is the only one I remember today), spiked our hair and manipulated safety pins to look like they were piercing our cheeks. Then we walked around campus for an afternoon and enjoyed the stares – this was BYU, after all!

Though the punk sensibility never really fit me (I’m just not that nihilistic), I – like most teenagers – identified with the sense of angst and rage at a larger world of which you’re not yet truly a full participant. I liked the Sex Pistols (in small doses), loved The Clash (still do), but found my own way of dealing with the anger and anxiety of youth.

It is that sense of angst and aimlessness and limited options that provides the backbone for the new musical version of Green Day’s mega-platinum, Grammy-winning punk rock opera “American Idiot” that is currently in previews at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater.

“Opera” may be a misnomer in this case. The show is more of a punk rock tone poem in that there is really very little story going on here, but rather an evocation of teen disaffection and confusion in the context of a world saturated with millions of conflicting political and media messages.

“American Idiot” centers around Jesus of Suburbia, a young man who hangs out in the 7-11 parking lot with his friends before he and his two best buds Will and Tunny go their separate ways: Jesus heads to the big city, Will ends up an Army grunt in Iraq and Tunny stays home with his knocked-up girlfriend. (Or maybe it’s Tunny who goes to Iraq, I wasn’t really sure which one was which.)

All three of these young men spend far too much time in basements and on worn-out, Levitz-level furniture, parked in front of TV sets, taking in the endless stream of media – that is represented for us on a towering set covered with propaganda from multiple generations and pockmarked with 20 or so flatscreens that display a variety of video and animations throughout the show.

Somewhere inside them, these three boys must have dreams – but we never get to learn what they are. In “Rent” and “Spring Awakening” – the two shows most closely related to “American Idiot”, the longings of disaffected youth are spoken. They want to create art, or get laid, or break free from their parents. Here the main characters’ dreams – if indeed they have any – are kept from us. We know those dreams are there because we can see the disappointment and anger they feel at not achieving them, and in the realization that they have no discernible means of achieving them.

If any dream at all is voiced, it’s in the very first line of the show: “Don’t wanna be an American idiot!” That’s the extent of their aspiration – to not be a mindless drone in a world run by giant corporations and heartless, terror-producing governments. Jesus, Will and Tunny don’t know what they want to be, they just know what they don't want to be.

If this all sounds a bit dark and depressing, it is. Sort of. It’s rather hard not to be when one of the key themes of a show is “Nobody likes you. Everyone left you. They’re all out without you, having fun.” But “American Idiot” is also a brilliant, explosive, heartfelt work of art that – if you can handle volume – you really ought to see. The music is amazing and the onstage band rocks every corner of the house. The story’s a bit thin, but the show’s not about story – it’s about emotion.

I have only two quibbles with the show. First is with the set design. The screen placements aren’t quite haphazard, but they’re not linear, either, and the hanging car seems out of place. The whole thing is a bit derivative of U2’s amazing ZooTV tour, yet it lacks the chaotic energy that made that environment so compelling.

Second quibble is the cast. Mostly excellent, but if this production ends up on Broadway – as I expect it will – they might want to consider recasting some of the ensemble and perhaps even John Gallagher, Jr. as Jesus of Suburbia. I loved him in “Spring Awakening,” but for some reason he didn’t always connect with me in this role. One part that should not be recast is Tony Vincent as St. Jimmy. From the moment he appears on stage, he commands your attention. When this gets to Broadway, look for a Tony nod for him.

Quibbles aside, if you’re anything like the audience last night at Berkeley Rep, you’ll love “American Idiot.” The standing ovation was almost immediate. And with good reason. For a production that is still in early previews, “American Idiot” is polished, shining with a grungy glamour and working hard to shake everyone out their anxiety-ridden stupors, whether the cause is teenage angst or the middle-age realization that maybe all your dreams aren't going to come true. But that’s OK. After all, happiness lies not in getting what you want, but wanting what you have. And what you have in “American Idiot” is the most interesting American musical to come along since, well, “Spring Awakening.”

Both Sides Now

2009-09-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

A quick look at the choice currently facing our President.

It's All Bullshit

2009-09-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Wine competitions, that is.

Back at Work -- for Today

2009-09-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

Since I began this blog I've had periods where I wrote several posts a day -- as well as periods where I went as long as a week without writing.

However, it's now been more than two weeks since I last posted. I don't know if any of my nine regular readers are still out there, but I figured you deserved an explanation for my absence.

Facebook must be part of it. I now have another outlet for interesting links and (brief) half-baked ideas. Facebook is easy and fun and several dozen of my friends and family are part of my Facebook community.

Priorities factor into the situation, as well. I've had a big proposal I was working on, plus another smaller project; they received most of my attention.

But as I reflect on it, I think the biggest reason I haven't been posting is also the biggest reason I should be posting: the increasing political polarity that is happening in America.

In one of my earliest posts I said: "I can’t help believing that most Americans don’t feel represented by politicians who become more and more entrenched in their partisanship with each passing day. I simply refuse to believe that most Americans aren’t disgusted by the posturing and vitriol and name-calling being passed off by talk radio and cable news pundits as the "national debate.""

Unfortunately, in the 3-1/2 years since I wrote that, nothing has changed. We have a new president, but no truly new agenda. As was ever the case in politics, promises seem to be there to be broken. Congress continues to focus on differences, with the right wing pulling even harder to the right and the left allowing themselves to be pulled. There's movement, but the two sides never seem to get closer to each other. Or to us.

Bottom line, the political scene is depressing as hell. And I don't know what my little, lightly-read blog can do to help (and I still don't like to post unless I have something at least semi-interesting to say), so I keep quiet. For now.

NOTE: the photo is of the trail from the fourth green to the fifth tee at my favorite local golf course, and is the first photo I took with my new digital camera.

Choose Your Battles

2009-08-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

Drug abuse is an awful thing. I can't imagine there is an American family that hasn't been wounded by an addiction of one or more of its members to one or more substances. Kind aunts racked with cigarette-caused lung cancer. Adorable nephews seized by the death grip of methamphetamine. Fathers neglecting their families while lost in alcohol-induced stupors. Fortunes blown on cocaine, futures surrendered to heroin.

Nicotine and alcohol are and will remain legal, regardless of the dangers they pose. Given the addictive nature and inherent dangers of heroin and cocaine, it's hard to imagine any sort of push to legalize their production and distribution.

But marijuana? By all scientific measures, it's far safer than either cigarettes or alcohol. One can become emotionally dependent on pot, but there is absolutely zero risk of physical dependence. There are no withdrawal symptoms even if a daily user one day simply stopped.

But the people who like it, like it. And there are millions of them, all across the country. They like getting a little buzz on after work or before going to a movie or having a delicious meal or making love. Some use it to treat nausea or insomnia or arthritis -- and it works for them. So there is demand for it. Lots and lots of demand.

This comes to mind in thinking about Barack Obama's recent statement during his visit to Mexico, when he said, "the United States will also meet its responsibilities by continuing our efforts to reduce the demand for drugs..." Sorry. Not gonna happen. You can't reduce demand. People like the way marijuana makes them feel. Just like the way other people like the way a couple of shots of Jameson or a long drag off a Camel Light makes them feel. I mean, it's nice to imagine you could convince some people they'd be better off not smoking or drinking or toking, but demand comes from a place deep inside people that government simply can't get to.

So if you can't reduce demand for a substance, even when that substance can have negative effects (especially when used habitually or to excess), what do you do? We tried banning alcohol, interdicting it, making criminals out of people who were just after a bit of relaxation or reduced inhibition -- not to mention allowing real criminals to get easy access to some real money by supplying the in-demand contraband to willing buyers.

You can educate people on the dangers of use and abuse. Cigarettes hold no interest to me, partly because of the cancer risk, but partly because the four times I've used tobacco, the nicotine high never did anything for me. Other than make me dizzy. I wouldn't go near crystal meth. Or heroin. I ingest caffeine only occasionally, partly because it makes it hard to fall asleep if I have it after about 11:00 a.m. and partly because I don't like having to have a cup of coffee to get started in the morning. I don't like that sense of being dependent.

But not everyone is as easily educated as I. So let's agree then that meth, heroin and cocaine are the big three bad boys of the drug world, the substances we think are so dangerous we can't let anyone use them. Problem is, the demand hasn't gone away. People who need heroin or meth or coke really need them.

Problem is, the people who like their pot (and get it from Mexican sources who also trade in the harder stuff) are partially funding the efforts of drug traffickers to evade the law. The millions that come in from mostly harmless pot can be used to buy planes to smuggle heroin and guns to protect the shipments (or kill off rival drug lords).

So why not legalize marijuana and pull the money rug out from under them? That's the thesis of a thoughtful letter from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers. Money quote:

"Mexican organized crime would be devastated if we could run marijuana through legal channels. They make most of their money from pot. Not only that, but they use their vast distribution networks for marijuana to move their other drugs. More marijuana is consumed in this country than all other illegal drugs combined. The black market for illegal drugs is mostly a black market for marijuana. All the drugs can be found in this black market though, with most of them coming from the same organizations up the line. When we legalize marijuana we're going to take millions of participants out of the black market for illegal drugs. This will make it harder for these Mexican DTOs to get their cocaine, meth and heroin and whatever else they are selling out to the public. If we have "pot stores" like liquor stores, these pot stores will be no more likely to sell all these other illegal drugs than liquor stores. The black market for illegal drugs and organizations like these Mexican drug trafficking organizations will shrink down to something much smaller and easier to contain."

If we're going to continue to have a war on drugs, let's at least fight the right enemy.

Look Out Below!

2009-08-13T00:44:00.000-07:00

There are thousands of large objects -- asteroids, mostly -- that could one day collide with Earth with enough impact to render our dear blue sphere inhabitable to a demanding species such as ours. Fortunately, space is large and can contain thousands of objects quite safely for quite a long time. About 500,000 years or so. On average, that's about the amount of time between catastrophic impacts, like the one that may have turned the dinosaurs into the extinction cliche they have become.

NASA, however, has been trying to keep an eye on them for us. For the past years, they have been watching for and cataloging as many of the larger objects as they could. In fact, they are closing in on identifying at least 90% of all objects in near-Earth orbits that are larger than a kilometer across. If one of those hits the Earth -- anywhere -- humanity's lights will be turned out permanently. The agency was planning to catalog 90% of smaller objects, too, those that are a minimum of 140 meters across. Though much smaller, they could still leave a nasty mark.

Unfortunately, budget cuts have meant this goal will likely not be met. Which means one morning we could wake up to find a giant rock hurtling toward us.

I'm all for watching out, but if we see one coming, can we really do anything about it? NASA has a plan to try and deflect such an object, if it can be detected early enough, but do we really have the capability to turn a giant asteroid from its course? You can find a link to NASA's deflection plan here.

Here's the Cliff Notes: "Unless there are decades of warning time, hazardous NEOs (those are Near-Earth Objects) larger than a few hundred meters in diameter may require large energies to deflect or fragment. In these cases, nuclear explosions, either stand-off or surface blasts, might provide a suitable response. For the far more numerous objects that are smaller than a few hundred meters in diameter, and provided there is a sufficient warning time, a kinetic energy (KE) impactor spacecraft might be sufficient to deflect the hazardous NEO so that it would miss the Earth at the time of a predicted impact."

Key word in both those instances: might.

So wear a hat.

These are Real People We're Talking About

2009-08-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

Whenever people get caught up in the abstract rejection of marriage equality -- almost always with religious "justification" (if the haters can put "marriage" in quotes when referring to my relationship...) -- I think it's important to remind them that the denial of equal civil rights has real consequences on actual human beings. Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal brought that home once again with a great piece yesterday, in which he details the struggles of his gay brother and the brother's partner of 30 years when one of them was hospitalized with a serious infection.

Money quote:

"Having just been told, at 3 a.m., that his partner of three decades might die within hours, Mike Brittenback was told something else: Before rushing to Bill's side, he needed to collect and bring with him documents proving his medical power of attorney. This indignity, unheard-of in the world of heterosexual marriage, is a commonplace of American gay life.

Frantic, Mike tore through the house but could not find the papers. He would need to retrieve them from a safe-deposit box. Which was at a bank. Which did not open until 9 a.m."

Target of Terror

2009-07-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

While there have been plenty (far too many, in fact) instances of gay-bashing in this world, this is the first incident which I've heard of that feels like what we normally think of as "terrorism."

At the Outgames, currently taking place in Copenhagen, two bombs were thrown onto the running track at the stadium, injuring one runner. Earlier, three men were beaten on the streets of Copenhagen after the opening ceremonies. The hate, the hate, the hate -- what does it accomplish?

An Affirmation of Life

2009-07-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

Reflections on the momentous achievement (despite the ultimate defeat) of Tom Watson in this year's Open Championship by Tom Friedman. Money quote:

"Watson has unique golfing skills, but if you are a baby boomer you could not help but look at him and say something you would never say about Tiger or Kobe: “He’s my age; he’s my build; he’s my height; and he even had his hip replaced like me. If he can do that, maybe I can do something like that, too.”

Answer the question, congressman (woman)!

2009-07-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

It's a simple question, yet they avoid it. Hard not to get fed up with politicians, isn't it?

Africa Unite!

2009-07-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

With the rest of the world.

The completion of a new submarine fiber optic cable will give Kenya and several other East African countries faster, more widespread, less expensive access to the Internet. Which means some huge opportunities for people in those countries to more effectively participate in the global economy. Which seems like a good thing. One of these days, when you call United Airlines, instead of getting someone in Bangalore, you might end up talking to Mombasa.

Handicapable

2009-07-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

Labels get a bad rap. Yes, in some instances they can be abused when people allow stereotypes to affect their judgment of individuals based on attributes shared by a broader group. But when they are accurate (and used judiciously), they can communicate a lot of information very efficiently.

This thought comes to me as I apply for an online golf handicap and am asked to choose what sort of golfer I am from the following list:

Beginner
Hacker
High Handicapper
Bogey Golf
Mid-80s
Low Handicapper
Scratch
Teaching Pro
Touring Pro

Those are labels that work. Each is just about the right amount of information to determine how good a golfer someone is, and therefore how comfortable you might feel playing a round with them.

I'd quibble about the Teaching Pro and Touring Pro categories. I understand why the service would want that information, but it spoils the climb from least-skilled to most-skilled. At least the inclusion of Teaching Pro does, since I've known several teaching pros who are no longer scratch golfers. Give the pros a different box to click.

Now it was time to label myself. I was tempted at first to select "Mid-80s" for my skill level, but only for a moment until checking "Bogey Golf." I may have had a few rounds in the mid-80s, but I'm a much more reliable 88 or 92 still.

Then it got worse. They wanted to know my personality. But for this far more complex labeling task I was offered only four options:

Competitive
Passive
Playful
Focused

Which is why the choice was much tougher. I'm definitely competitive. (Oy, am I compeititive.) Certainly not passive. Playful? Yes, but I don't want people to think I'm frivolous. Focused? On golf, yes. In general? Well, I'm not called "ADD boy" by one who knows me well for nothing. Competitive it was, though I worry some might read "competitive" as "jerk who yells at himself, throws clubs and plays head games with you".

As labels, that meager collection doesn't tell you much. How much harder is it to choose 30 or so traits and let people choose three to describe themselves?

The Naked Truth About Air Safety

2009-06-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

Air New Zealand has made the best safety video ever. It's not just the breezy approach to an ordinarily stuffy subject...it's those uniforms. (That came in a can.)

Can He Be Trusted?

2009-06-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

Earlier this evening, 250 or so leaders of the LGBT movement had the opportunity to speak with President Obama about his administration's lack of movement of several issues of important to LGBT people. this is one of the reports coming out of the meeting, which was held in the East Room, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

Obama apparently mollified the attending leaders, who cheered his encouraging words: "I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that. It's not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half-century ago."

But he went ahead and asked for patience anyway. Even though for people like Lt. Daniel Choi and Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, it's almost already too late.

Soon, he tells us. Soon we will get what the Constitution guarantees us. Wait just a little while longer. He wants, he says, to make sure that change (as he put it when speaking of overturning DADT) "is administered in a practical way and a way that takes over the long term."

I'll give him some more room. After all, Ronald Reagan wouldn't even say the word "gay," and today Obama asked some of us to stop by for cocktails.

I just want to know, how long is soon?

A little something...

2009-06-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

...from my former neighbor, Robert Hass, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. 18 or so years ago I lived in Inverness, California, a hamlet on Tomales Bay or rather remarkable natural beauty. (That's not the house in the photo above, but it gives you some idea of the loveliness of the region.) We rented the house, but the small cabin on the property (that had once been the garage) was rented separately to Robert Hass and his wife Brenda Hillman, both poets. Bob would go on to become the United States' poet laureate. They lived and taught in Berkeley (still do), but they came to Inverness on the weekends to write and relax and hike. I remember Bob's reaction upon meeting my daughter, then an infant: "she looks like a little Buddha."

Anyway, click the link. Bob's a very interesting guy.

Bring 'em On!

2009-06-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

According to a new Pew poll, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee are the most popular figures in the Republican Party. A dual-bill in 2012? We can only hope.

We Need MORE Like Him

2009-06-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Lt. Victor Fehrenbach, being ousted from the Air Force because of his sexuality. But click the play button and hear what he has to say -- and what some of his current and former squadron mates have to say.

How can Obama let DADT continue?

2009-06-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

This is the first time The Rational Feast has not included a headline for a post. I just can't find the words to sum up k. d. lang in this clip.

There are voices I've heard both live and recorded and not felt that one outshone the other. Bono. Cher. Even Springsteen. Though his live shows were amazing, it wasn't because of his voice. It was his energy and storytelling and musicianship and the amazing E Street Band. The voice was fine, but it didn't jump out in comparison to the recorded version.

But some voices, when you're in the same room with them, even if the singer is amplified, have something about them that hits an ineffable "wow" space for me. k. d. lang is one. Van Morrison is another, especially in a small venue. But it's k. d. that just annihilates me. I mean, listen to her on this. The control and precision -- linked with a real sense of abandon and freedom...well, I'm out of words.

Good for him!

2009-06-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Apparently a San Francsico-based photographer who was a volunteer on the playground build that Michelle Obama visited as part of her west coast trip had the chance to have a few words with her about the need to repeal DOMA. You can read the whole thing here, but the upshot is that he told her how important it is to get rid of DOMA and the First Lady said she agreed and said it's going to get done.

Let's not forget...

2009-06-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

...that at the core of the problem in Iran is the fact that the "Supreme Leader" derives his power not from a mandate of the masses, but from his supposed connection to, or understanding of, the wishes of an invisible superbeing. This is simply no way to run a government. Over at Slate, Michael Lind agrees. Read what he has to say.

Money quote: "Replacing a Muslim monarch like the shah of Iran with an "Islamic republic" is merely replacing a more autocratic with a more populist form of theocratic tyranny. Liberal democracy is sometimes defined as "majority rule with minority rights," but that is misleading. If a religious majority rules, not on the basis of secular reason, using arguments that can convince nonbelievers as well as believers, but on the basis of supernatural dogma, then you simply have a form of religious tyranny with a multitude of small religious tyrants."

From Inside Iran

2009-06-19T18:20:00.001-07:00

Click here for an interesting interview with an anonymous photojournalist working inside Iran.

Money quote: "Landline to landline is still ok, but when people are out in the street then is useless. I can say the most effective way of communication at the moment is "word of mouth", people keep talking in the streets, they pass the messages and the info to each other and then one person tell 10 friends and then it goes on and on. The amazing part is even if there are changes happening last minute people still manage to pass the info!!"

What Exactly is Going On in the Toll House?

2009-06-19T14:00:00.001-07:00

Is eating raw cookie dough a gay thing? I know I'd rather have chocolate chip cookie dough than any chocolate chip cookie I ever had. And my ex-mother-in-law's icebox cookie dough? I think I could live on it.

But is it somehow gay? I ask this, because two of the biggest gay blogs, Joe.My.God and Dan Savage's SLOG both have items about a recall of Nestle's Toll House Cookie Dough due to E.coli.

What up?

A Lovely Tribute

2009-06-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

No golf fan should miss this link to a segment Charlie Rose did with Jim Nantz and Jaime Diaz, talking mostly about the U.S. Open. Rose dedicates the segment to Nantz's father, who passed last year, and Nantz relates a touching story about watching last year's Open, in the hospital, holding his father's hand. When Tiger made the putt on the 72nd hole to force the playoff, Nantz thought it a blessing that he would be able to spend one more day with his father, doing something they both loved.

Watch it. I'll embed a link if it becomes available.

Awesomeness Comes in a Box

2009-06-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

So Much for Advocacy, 2

2009-06-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

In the Tony Award-winning play "The God of Carnage" (spoiler alert!), the character played by James Gandolfini releases his daughter's pet hamster into the street because the noise from the rodent's wheel was disturbing his son's sleep. Of course he tells the daughter a lie -- the cage must have been left open, he claims, and the animal must now be better off, playing in a woodland paradise. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the character lied to the hamster itself: "You're going to be so happy with your other animal friends. It must be lonely for you in this cage."

I bring this up because I feel a bit like that hamster. Or the daughter. Or both. Either way, I was lied to. Obama made lots of promises to gay Americans (some of the best don't come until 2:55 in)...

...but so far, he's failed to live up to any of them. Then he went beyond just failing to take action, allowing his Department of Justice to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in the most ridiculous, reactionary way possible. The brief the DOJ filed in response to a suit by a California couple used arguments that sounded like something a graduate of Jerry Falwell's madrassa (as Dan Savage put it) would come up with: "There's no inequality of marriage rights, any man can marry a woman. And vice versa." "It's too expensive to extend rights to gay folks." "Homosexuality is like incest." (I've worded those a bit more bluntly than in the actual brief, but trust me, those are the core sentiments.)

So you can imagine how I feel like that poor, lied-to hamster. Told that good things are coming -- then kicked to the curb and abandoned to harsh elements and predators. The DOJ's brief in this case contains some of the most despicable anti-gay rhetoric imaginable.

Amid all the gloom across the gay blogosphere (I'm not the only one who feels betrayed), there are a few lights who are looking hard for a silver lining.

Laurence Tribe, the noted legal scholar, believe the specific case challenging DOMA's constitutionality (the case in which the DOJ filed this ridiculous brief) is the wrong case and hopes it goes away quickly: "As someone who wants to see DOMA dismantled and invalidated, I would love it if this ninth circuit case would evaporate into the ether. Even though I personally believe that DOMA is unconstitutional, I think that this particular lawsuit is very vulnerable; it’s not anywhere near as strong as the one that was brought in the federal district court in Massachusetts...the [Smelt] lawsuit in the central district of California...is basically a bet-the-farm lawsuit that almost dares a conservative Supreme Court to slap it down."

Dale Carpenter, writing at the Volokh Conspiracy states that "For lots of reasons, gay-marriage advocacy groups would like to see this case go away, but go away without damage to the substantive constitutional case against DOMA. A dismissal on jurisdictional grounds would nicely suit that purpose, and that seems to me the most likely outcome."

However, he also goes on to say that "the DOJ brief goes further than it needs to go at this point in the case by addressing the merits of the constitutional issues in the case," and calls out a few specific tidbits in the brief, such as the fact that it is "identical in form to the defense of Texas's Homosexual Conduct law in Lawrence v. Texas: a law banning only gay sex doesn't discriminate against gays because it equally forbids homosexuals and heterosexuals to have homosexual sex and because it equally allows homosexuals and heterosexuals to have heterosexual sex. This sort of formalism has incited howls of laughter over the years when made by religious conservatives. Now it's the official constitutional position of the Obama administration."

Some are claiming that some of the arguments are so ridiculous that it's just another example of Obama being cagey, presenting a case that's likely to be dismissed because of faulty logic.

Over at centerblue.org, they are telling folks to "calm down": "by insisting that such measures come out of Congress he covers his ass, and also ensures that he doesn’t end up weak and ineffectual like Clinton became when he was forced to sign the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “compromise.” That’s politics, folks. Can he push Congress to repeal DODT or DoMA? Absolutely, and he should, and we should pressure him to do so. But this lawsuit was not that time."

Some of this may be true. It may also be true that the administration is obliged to defend its laws. My thought is the administration's first duty ought to be to the Consitution.

This one isn't dead by a long shot. But Obama has dealt the gay community a deeply wounding blow, and it will not be soon forgotten - though it could be healed if the man gets his act together and makes good on all those promises.

So Much for Advocacy

2009-06-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

I can understand President Obama not actively working for full equality for GLBT Americans (OK, I can't really, but I'll give him some leeway given what's currently on his plate. But does he have to actively fight against our rights? And with such stupid "logic"?: "If [a State] were to permit homosexuals to marry, these marital benefits would, absent some legislative response, presumably have to be made available to homosexual couples and surviving spouses of homosexual marriages on the same terms as they are now available to opposite-sex married couples and spouses. To deny federal recognition to same-sex marriages will thus preserve scarce government resources, surely a legitimate government purpose."

So we can grant equality only when it doesn't cost anything?

This is beyond despicable.

Timing is Everything

2009-06-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a meeting sponsored by Spectrum, Marin County's GLBT center. Spectrum does some terrific work and Paula Pilecki, the executive director, seems to be doing a great job leading the organization.

The meeting last night was to give an update on what's happening in the marriage equality battle and to discuss what the next steps might be on the road to achieving full civil equality. As you may or may not know, lots of GLBT activists are looking to leverage the momentum created by the extension of marriage equality by courts and legislatures in Iowa, Maine, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire, and get a repeal of Prop 8 on the ballot in November 2010.

While I understand the impatience (if anyone understands impatience, it's me), 2010 is just too soon. Marriage equality is a complex political issue, but at it's core, it's a generational issue. Old folks, raised in a world where closet doors were mostly hammered shut and the few gay folks who dared to sneak out were subject to criminal prosecution, don't like it. Don't see the need for it. And nothing is going to convince them otherwise. (Read here about former family friends who voted "yes" on 8.) On the other hand, people under the age of 30 or so are overwhelmingly in favor of full civil marriage equality. They don't even know why there's a question.

Unfortunately, by 2010, not enough of the intransigent old folks will have died, and not enough teenagers will enter the voting ranks.

So if we're smart, we'll wait. Until 2014, or 2016, when we can almost assuredly repeal Proposition 8.

Attorney Dale Carpenter put it better than I. Money quote:

"The problem is that losing has consequences beyond the immediate loss. Initiatives -- from gathering the needed signatures to running an effective campaign to winning -- require a huge investment of money, people, and time. Such resources are finite. The $60 million or more that will be spent in 2010 could go to other things, like state and congressional elections or fighting a possible SSM repeal (Maine? Iowa?) or amendment ban in another state. Those volunteers and organizers could be doing other productive things with their time. And losing in 2010, especially if the margin is greater than in 2008, will be deflating. It will harm morale. It will scare off legislators elsewhere. And it will be taken (incorrectly) as a sign that the tide is beginning to turn against SSM, with numerous political consequences in the short term."

Cheney the Mendacious

2009-06-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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Dick (Uncut)

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Wow.