The ghost of notebooks past

I flipped through half a dozen old journals last night. Since many people only know the one thing about me, that I write, I get notebooks as gifts all the time. Gift books tend to be decorative, so pretty, but not ideal. I need ugly books that I can fold up, rip apart, bend inhumanely. The book itself is not the art. 

It dawned on me how little I work on my Serious Literature. I’m at a point where I have publishable short stories that would surely knock an associate editor’s teeth out, but I’m too lazy to submit. Let’s not even talk about the last time I started a new story.

Writing comedy has changed my writing habits for the better, though. I’ve gotten more conscientious about rewriting. Like most writers, I’m guarded about my work. I don’t trust anyone to give me good feedback on second drafts. I’m more self-conscious about second drafts than first drafts. First drafts are always shit. (I say that as an arrogant piece of shit who’s had first drafts published.) Writing and performing jokes means rewriting the same thing many times, either pen-to-paper or just in my head. I don’t give myself the time or the comfort of self-consciousness. I wasted too many years in that chamber. In a technical sense, my joke rewriting involves small tweaks; I creep up on a concept with small soundless steps. My prose rewriting involves larger changes in angles; I charge at it, running until the field disappears beneath my feet and I have to try again. 

Yesterday I got around to reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. It’s a tidy little book about writing that made me think about my own processes. One excerpt stuck out to me:

My Al-Anon friend told me about the frazzled, defeated wife of an alcoholic man who kept passing out on the front lawn in the middle of the night. The wife kept dragging him in before dawn so the neighbors wouldn’t see him, until finally an old black woman from the South came up to her one day after a meeting and said, “Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.” And I am slowly in my work – and even more slowly in real life – learning to do this.

Ditto.

Catching up

I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been busy with a few projects and blogging fell off.

The book Atheist Voices of Minnesota came out this year. I contributed an essay and helped in various ways. My involvement was so encompassing that to enumerate each part would make me sound boastful, and I don’t believe in bragging. Last month I wrapped up an editing project for another book in a similar vein. I’ll post a link once it’s published and I have the go-ahead from the author.

I’ve been doing stand-up comedy since April. My prose writing has fallen off since then, unfortunately. I used to mock (okay, I still mock) NaNoWriMo, but my own book hasn’t been touched since spring. I don’t regret it. I follow what excites me. I’ve loved stand-up ever since I saw Richard Lewis for the first time as a four- or five-year-old girl. I read biographies about Lenny Bruce before I hit my teens. I used to have weird dreams about Steven Wright at debate camp in high school. I started listening to Emo Philips in college and that was when I started thinking I could do stand-up too. His energy tends toward the feminine and I still (probably incorrectly) see myself as more feminine than masculine.

I know what’s missing in all that. It took me too long to discover women comics that I liked. IS THAT BECAUSE WOMEN AREN’T FUNNY? No. By the time I saw people like Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller, they seemed more like socialites and untouchable icons than comics. Without the Internet, I didn’t have the resources to see why the legends were legends. I liked who I liked, I like many women comics now. I apologize not.

Part of me just wants to tell jokes: long jokes, short jokes, dumb jokes, smart jokes; another part of me feels obligated to represent for women, to have opinions about women in comedy. I am a feminist, after all. But I’ve only been doing stand-up for eight months. It feels precious and pointless to have politics about something when I’m an amateur. Other comics are nice to me and I get stage time. That’s all I really want.

December @ Form + Content: Dreams and Effigies

For the month of December, Form + Content has curated an exhibition titled Dreams and Effigies. I have high hopes for it, since this fierce item from Ellen Skoro jumped out at me:

This image is from Skoro’s installation, Peace Predator. The work is meant to show both the brutality and tenderness of animals in the wild. This isn’t normally the kind of imagery that draws my eye, but I’d like to give it a chance.

Camille J. Gage’s installation, The Chamber of Dreams and Light, explores spirituality, life and death, and sleep and dreams. I expect to gravitate more toward Gage’s work, but both parts of the exhibition are intriguing.

Admittance to Form + Content is free to the public. Opening reception is December 17. See F+C.org for gallery info.

Review: La Cage Aux Folles

Thanks to the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s Blogger Night, I took my mom to see La Cage Aux Folles on opening night. Starring George Hamilton as Georges and St. Paul native Christopher Sieber as Albin/Zaza, this touring revival of Jean Poiret’s 1973 play brought the fuchsia to a fever pitch, but never lost its heart.

The story, like a whisper-thin ribbon floating amid the raucous dance numbers, tells of Georges and Albin, two flashy yet doting parents, coming to terms with their son’s engagement to, gasp, a young woman named Anna. Anna comes from a conservative household, and Albin’s stage character Zaza is strongly encouraged to make herself scarce when the future in-laws pay a visit.

A 72-year-old Hamilton, with a Golden Globe award and a career spanning four decades under his belt, brings with him a suave air that flirts with gravitas. Forget about his perennial tan — he sings beautifully, he dances gracefully, and he plays the perfect bedfellow for the incomparable Albin/Zaza of Sieber.

Sieber’s character threatens to go over-the-top; it almost becomes too much. But the mincing hysterics would give way, just in time, to smaller, intimate moments, where the audience, feels so very close to him, that he’s singing just for himself. While Hamilton has the most name recognition, this show belongs to Zaza.

But let’s not forget La Cagelles, the cadre of dancers so talented that, for one reason or another, make loins ache with aggressive splits, dizzying twirls and aloof costume changes. My personal favorite, Hanna, went hardly a moment without a whip in hand, and for that I tip my hat.

By the time the last number rolled around, I realized it had been far too long since I’d watched performers slink one by one down a broad white staircase. I didn’t know how much I’d missed pink until the psychedelic lighting swirled and a preposterous elephantine corset  sat like a blue and white bunny before me. It was a delicious night.

La Cage Aux Folles is playing at the State Theatre now through October 23.

Girl Held in Home: Event at Common Good Books

One of my strange pleasures is a good public book reading. In an age where a vast majority of content is transmitted via the zombie of technology, all pulse and no heart, I relish a chance to hear a story told in person, even if it’s a few pages at a time. Performance, in small and large doses, is sorely lacking appreciation. (If it’s not downloadable on iTunes or playable on a Kindle, it may as well not exist!)  That’s why I always open e-mails from Common Good Books in St. Paul. Big name authors, such as Irvine Welsh and T.C. Boyle, bring in the crowds of fair-weathered fans of literature, while local authors attract a hodgepodge of closet literati, hobbyists, and weirdos like me, whoever I am.

Of special interest to me this month is Elizabeth Searle and Alan Davis’s event, Literature in the Age of Terror. The teaser for Searle’s book, Girl Held in Home, talks about a distasteful Halloween costume the author encountered shortly after 9-11. Her novel depicts two families, one of which is a suspected terrorist cell. It’s said to be wildly satirical, and I’m curious as to how deeply the discussion will pursue questions of “taste” in terms of art. Armchair critics everywhere sit in waiting, ready to unfurl a “Too soon” should anyone make a joke about a recent death. Like when a mother says ‘maybe,’ oftentimes the real meaning is ‘never’. No amount of time is enough, yet the humor, and the larger conversation, will be had.

Alan Davis’s book, So Bravely Vegetative, deals in stories of post-Katrina NOLA and post-9/11 New York. His teaser doesn’t hint at any sort of biting edge (not to say it’s bad reading), but his insight on writing in and through tragedy will surely add gravitas. One of the scheduled questions asks, “Does a writer have a special responsibility to address the issue of terrorism in works of fiction?” Writers don’t have any responsibilities, much less any of a special nature. If you’re a writer and you want to write about something, anything, do it. Or don’t do it.

Start: 10/14/2011 7:30 pm

COMMON GOOD BOOKS with NINA’S COFFEE SHOP

165 Western Avenue North

Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102

Heads up! La Cage Aux Folles in Minneapolis

On a last-minute whim, I entered a contest for theater bloggers in the Twin Cities. Thank goodness for the Hennepin Theatre Trust! I won a pair of tickets, and I’ll be at opening night of La Cage Aux Folles at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. Of course, a review will follow soon thereafter. I invited my mother, not at all expecting her to be interested, but she’s tentatively accepted. When I explained the plot, she exclaimed, “Oh, it sounds like that movie with Nathan Lane!” Indeed.

Makeups

I must step forward and say that my attentions have been diverted by my new makeup blog, The Makeup Gun. Poor PM is suffering a bit, but I’ll work on changing that by the end of the week. Tonight and next Wednesday I’m training to do special effects makeup for The Soap Factory’s Haunted Basement. It’s a volunteer gig, and I hope to learn more about special effects techniques.

Not in our town (or any town)

I’m something of a news junkie, and came across a local story about a proposed mosque location in Plymouth, MN. About 40 Muslim families will eventually worship there thanks to the unanimous city council decision made this week. However, just a week ago, tension arose when 16 out of 200 Planning Committee meeting attendees opposed the mosque.

One of the opponents, Constance Sambor of Plymouth, told KARE she believes the spot across from the Plymouth City Center is not appropriate for a mosque. She said she felt muzzled by the commissioners at the session, who asked her to restrict her comments to planning and zoning issues such as parking and traffic flow.

“What’s it going to take for Americans to wake up to the Islamic agenda in this country?” she said, adding that she probably would not go to the city council’s meeting after Wednesday’s experience.

I feel embarrassed for this woman as I read her comments. First, the Planning Committee only discusses issues like zoning and planning; they don’t deal with philosophical or religious complaints. Second, she refused to attend the more relevant meeting despite her opposition. It would have been a much better forum for her rantings.

This story first caught my attention because it was posted on Facebook by our local NBC affiliate, KARE 11. I thought, ‘How outrageous!’ The initial opposition made headlines and fellow readers responded incredulously. But reading today’s follow-up, I wondered how a slim minority of bigots merits this sort of publicity.  A relatively unimportant gathering brought out a dozen crazies; when have you gotten involved in local politics and failed to meet outlandish characters? Anyone involved in local government knows that opponents typically outnumber supporters at hearings and meetings. Supporters hear about an idea and assume it’s so good, there’s no reason it won’t pass. I remember attending caucuses in my neighborhood in 2008 and thinking, ‘These are my people; wow.’ Sanity is not everyone’s forte. I’m sure the rest of the attendees felt a similar sentiment.

I think the arc of the story rests on self-congratulation. The garden-variety religious zealots take to e-mail, voice mail and vague flailing while the rest of society carries on. Since 9/11, we’ve become desensitized to the ideological leftovers from the war on terrorism. Whatever hasn’t been swept under the red,white and blue umbrella of the Tea Party finds expression wherever it can.

Zealots, despite their many failings, can get attention, if only for decent people to put themselves on a pedestal by comparison. ‘Look! We overcame the nutball brigade!’ Such is public life.

All those Oscars gave her exquisite upper body strength

 

In case you woke up wondering, “What’s Kate Winslet up to these days,” Richard Branson’s grandmother can tell you. Why? Because Kate Winslet carried her out of the Branson estate, which had caught on fire due to being struck by lightning.

I heard about this incident first thing this morning. Without all the facts, I imagined Kate Winslet outside the mansion, peering meaningfully into the flames, then trotting inside to save a 90-year-old woman. Kate Winslet may be magical, but she’s not a SILLY WOMAN.

Only if there’s sparkles and gambling

A few days of 100+ degree temperatures will confine even the chillest among us to hole up wherever there’s air conditioning magic. I used to think I loved heat. I love the dry heat of Las Vegas, the humid heat of Key West, and the manufactured heat of a sauna. But plain old mid- to late-July Minnesota heat keeps me in one place pretty much all day. It drives a lady mad to live this way, so I found a quirky (oh no) way to get out of the house.

 

 

The Soap Factory, an installation art gallery in northeast Minneapolis, is broadly known for its Haunted Basement horrorshow. I went to it once in 2009. I tried to go in 2010, but decent tickets sold out weeks in advance.

 

So what do they have to do with me? The Soap Factory is desperate for volunteers to help with their upcoming event The Amazing Adventures of the Corporate Wizard in the Land of LARP. Frankly, I barely understand what I’ll be doing. My connection to any LARPing whatsoever was tangential at best and a few years behind me. But! Volunteers get to dress up in costumes created by artists and there’s going to be food. FOOD. Lillian Egner, the volunteer coordinator, sent me a list of shifts for the July 29-July31st event. One shift alone will use 100 volunteers. As we say in my neighborhood, that’s cray-cray. The last time I volunteered for anything, I was washing dishes and doing a shit-ass job of it. This time will be different. I think.