Man I do not know, interrupting me as I was reading on the train today: "What's your book about?"
Me,
wondering why people interrupt strangers to ask what a book whose title
they don't even know is about when the answer can't possibly have any
more meaning to them than selecting a random ISBN and Googling
it, while I also tried to figure out how long a description someone who
can't actually care wants and whether that description should be
plot-based or thematic, and finally deciding to whittle down Elizabeth
Gaskell's excellent 446-page North and South to one sentence
fragment: "Ummm… Class conflict, gender relations, moral responsibility
vs. the exertion of one's own human rights, how a free market works, and
the right to assert one's independence in mid-1800s England…." (I
suppose I could have gone with the far more interesting-sounding and
equally true "a man and a girl-almost-woman disagree about everything
under the sun, which makes him fall in love with her and makes her hate
him, and 400 pages later after she becomes rich and everyone else in the
book dies, she grows up and falls in love with him, and it's awesome
because their entire relationship is based on having long discussions
where they do nothing but passionately disagree with each other about
politics and world views while always listening respectfully," but
somehow the shorter, boring, admittedly uninviting answer is what came
out.)
Him: "England?"
Me: "Yeah" [still making eye
contact, wondering if this was the end of the conversation and I should
go back to reading or if I was supposed to either say something more or
wait for him to say something]
Him: "Huh"
Me: [slowly and
awkwardly returning to my book, wondering what possible variations in
this dialogue could have produced less uncomfortable results for both of
us]
But then there was the guy I didn't know who interrupted my reading Hatchett with "Hatchett!
That's a blast from the past! Doesn't the poor kid have to go through
that all again in another book, too?" and I wound up having a long,
interesting conversation with him... about the evolution of the English language
and how English is taught in our education system.
The moral of
the story? If you're going to interrupt someone you don't know to ask
about the book they're reading… it might help to have a follow-up
sentence. And if you're on the receiving end of the question about your
book... Well, just hope you're not reading Dickens's The Pickwick Papers.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
When dinner goes awry... hide in the bathroom and write
I have escaped to the very luxurious, huge bathroom of a 5-star (and
then some) restaurant where I am attending a dinner party as a guest of
people who can afford such 5-star restaurants (Red Lobster on coupons
is more my style). The reason for my escape? The subject matter is
currently focusing on foie gras. (For those of you who don't know, that
would be the sickened fatty liver of ducks who have had a tube forcibly rammed down their throats as it spews corn mixed with fat into their
stomachs with the intent of making them as ill as possible. Otherwise
known as tortured duck liver. Somehow it's still legal.) I tried to
change the subject by flat out telling them I was getting nauseous, but
that didn't work. Because of the recent attempted ban on it in
California, someone at the table who loves it had to order it in
protest. And talk about it. In detail. So I am in the bathroom, staring
at stalls that each look like a miniature spa. Heated floors, wood
counter, sink, wall-to-wall mirror, luxury soaps and lotions, moist
towels and dry towels, flowers... in each stall. Wandering the halls
of this bathroom, I have already gotten lost once. I've also googled
the name of the miniature lotions they have -- A full-size bottle of it
would be $50. It smells exactly like my $11 bottle of Bath & Body
Works' White Tea and Ginger. Oh and there are illustrations on various
buttons on the toilets to demonstrate what they can do.... They look
painful and look as if they involve a pitchfork. I assume there is not
actually a pitchfork that reaches out of the toilet, but I suppose
anything is possible at this restaurant. On my way to the bathroom, I
passed a bottle of whiskey that the hostess said costs $150 for one
shot. A shot.
Dinner hasn't exactly been
smooth sailing up until now either. There was nothing on the menu I
wanted to eat, so I attempted to order a salad with the dressing on the
side. The waiter wouldn't let me order just a salad; I had to order an
entrée -- despite the fact that the rest of the table was ordering
hundreds of dollars worth of food and drink, and the salads were priced
as high as an entrée at a mid-level restaurant. When I explained there
was no entrée I could eat, trying not to make a scene for the
rest of the table, they nevertheless insisted I had to order one. So I
requested it instead be boxed up and given to a homeless shelter.
Needless to say, that didn't fly at swanky-stuck-up French restaurant.
When he gave me attitude, I nicely told the waiter that he could bring
me the meal, and I would box it up myself and feed it to the homeless
man I'd passed 50 feet from their door on the way in. The waiter blew
his top and was replaced with a different waiter. I haven't seen
original mean French waiter since then. I succeeded in getting just a
salad, but not in getting the dressing on the side: "The chef does not
intend to have the dressing on the side. He must determine the amount on
it."
I like going out to restaurants.
Hypothetically, I like dressing up and going to a nice fancy restaurant
every once in a while. However, sometimes what I like more than that is
escaping to the bathroom to write about it. I guess I'll press "post"
now and head back out. Next time I go out to eat I think it's going to be at a diner.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Why I Love Theatre
In the play The Elephant Man, the horribly
disfigured John Merrick spends much of his time painstakingly working on
a model of St. Phillip's Church with his one good arm and hand. The
model serves as a central symbol in the play -- as Merrick builds this
"imitation of an imitation" of grace, so too does he rebuild the way he
is perceived by others as he strives for, and increasingly achieves, a
more normal, complete life and more human connections. In a climactic
scene late in Act II, Frederick Treves, the surgeon who has taken
Merrick in and become his friend, becomes passionate when confronted by
Merrick about a great wrong he has done because of his belief in "rules"
-- a wrong which truncated both a beautiful relationship between
Merrick and Mrs. Kendal as well as Merrick's personal growth and
emotional fulfillment. As currently staged on Broadway, as the two men
argue, at one point they are separated only by Merrick's
nearly-completed model on the desk between them. The tension inherent
in the text becomes all the greater through the great power Treves has
at that moment to destroy the model just as he had the emotional moment
between Merrick and Mrs. Kendal shortly before.
This particular audience at the performance I attended was the most silent, attentive audience I have ever seen at a Broadway show. If there were the customary candy-unwrapping, phone-checking, impatient, whispering, disrespectful audience members who seem to only attend for the bragging rights of having seen a movie star in a play and treat the theatre as if it were their living room, they were nowhere to be found in my section of the house, which sat in rapt, silent attention. And yet, as Treves lifted his hands off the edges of the desk and floated them inches above the model, I heard gasps around me. As the actor's voice rose and the hands trembled, threatening ever so gently to come down on that model and perhaps dash it to pieces, an older, distinguished-looking gentleman in front of me involuntarily let out a hoarse "No!" and immediately covered his mouth, apparently shocked by the protest that had escaped from him.
And that is why I love theatre. In movies and television, sure, people yell at the screen to tell our heroes not to close that door without looking behind it, not to go into that toolshed, not to reject that lover… but no one gasps or yells at a screen because a character's hands are inches above a cardboard model while he's in a passionate state. That emotional tie between the characters and the audience, the electric spark between living breathing human beings that makes Hitchcock-worthy suspense out of a piece of cardboard and causes a loss of emotional control in an audience member who most likely would never think of speaking out at either a stage or a screen… that is why theatre is magic.
This particular audience at the performance I attended was the most silent, attentive audience I have ever seen at a Broadway show. If there were the customary candy-unwrapping, phone-checking, impatient, whispering, disrespectful audience members who seem to only attend for the bragging rights of having seen a movie star in a play and treat the theatre as if it were their living room, they were nowhere to be found in my section of the house, which sat in rapt, silent attention. And yet, as Treves lifted his hands off the edges of the desk and floated them inches above the model, I heard gasps around me. As the actor's voice rose and the hands trembled, threatening ever so gently to come down on that model and perhaps dash it to pieces, an older, distinguished-looking gentleman in front of me involuntarily let out a hoarse "No!" and immediately covered his mouth, apparently shocked by the protest that had escaped from him.
And that is why I love theatre. In movies and television, sure, people yell at the screen to tell our heroes not to close that door without looking behind it, not to go into that toolshed, not to reject that lover… but no one gasps or yells at a screen because a character's hands are inches above a cardboard model while he's in a passionate state. That emotional tie between the characters and the audience, the electric spark between living breathing human beings that makes Hitchcock-worthy suspense out of a piece of cardboard and causes a loss of emotional control in an audience member who most likely would never think of speaking out at either a stage or a screen… that is why theatre is magic.
Monday, February 16, 2015
The importance of closing your browser tabs before you bring your computer to work
From the journal archives. Even the most professional of us can be brought down by an open browser tab...:
Thursday, February 12, 2015
In the green room
Green rooms are an odd thing. Five of us in here, three are silent and reading or on their phones, and two are completely and utterly unable to entertain themselves or handle silence, so they force conversation with each other that doesn't stop for an instant, yet seems completely devoid of any actual connection or interest. They seem bored out of their minds talking to each other, and one's response bears little to no connection to the other's previous statement, but the silence that would result from their ceasing to speak would be intolerable to both. So they keep saying words that neither is listening to. One said, "That TV -- it's in a stand. The whole thing's a stand. I see the base of it. The stand holds the TV in." The other responded, with an understanding nod, "A long time ago -- many years ago -- I was walking behind a tall guy. I thought it was some random guy. And you know what? It was Christopher Reeve.... Yeah... Christopher Reeve...."
Good listening skills, guys.
I did inadvertently just silence them. As they were half-complaining about why they had to wear coats for the scene (why does one normally wear a coat?), I, confused by their confusion, looked up from writing about them to pipe up, "Because it's an exterior. The sides [script pages to be shot that day] said it's outdoors."
One said, "Oh, really? It's an exterior?"
I replied, "That's what the sides said. It says 'Exterior'" (blank confused faces from them staring at me) "...So we're wearing coats."
That got a "hmmm"... and silence.... I definitely accidentally put a lid on the random exchange of objectiveless words.... I feel somewhat bad. Perhaps I squashed their imagining that the scene takes place in a sauna... (one that requires winter garb, of course).
Ooo, one of them just very slowly (as if with the hope that such slow speed might make his action invisible to the naked eye) reached over to the end table next to the couch to pick up the sides.... Perhaps he's wondering if it holds the answer as to why he's in a priest costume, too....
Good listening skills, guys.
I did inadvertently just silence them. As they were half-complaining about why they had to wear coats for the scene (why does one normally wear a coat?), I, confused by their confusion, looked up from writing about them to pipe up, "Because it's an exterior. The sides [script pages to be shot that day] said it's outdoors."
One said, "Oh, really? It's an exterior?"
I replied, "That's what the sides said. It says 'Exterior'" (blank confused faces from them staring at me) "...So we're wearing coats."
That got a "hmmm"... and silence.... I definitely accidentally put a lid on the random exchange of objectiveless words.... I feel somewhat bad. Perhaps I squashed their imagining that the scene takes place in a sauna... (one that requires winter garb, of course).
Ooo, one of them just very slowly (as if with the hope that such slow speed might make his action invisible to the naked eye) reached over to the end table next to the couch to pick up the sides.... Perhaps he's wondering if it holds the answer as to why he's in a priest costume, too....
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Why you can't learn stage management from a textbook
Over headset, after hearing a loud crash sound backstage while I was calling the show:
Me: What was that?
ASM: I think [one of the run crew] ran into a couple milk crates, sorry.
Me: Is he okay?
ASM: Yes.
Me: Was he wearing clothes?
ASM: Actually, yes.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
There's a fake Buddhist on my TV screen
One day early in my first semester of college in T206, Introduction to
Television Design and Production, we watched a scene from Band of Brothers
-- one with bombs and shooting and violence and chaos -- first with no
music, then with "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," then with classical
music, then hard rock, and then several other options, and finally we
had to select which we thought was actually used and why, and which we
would have used and why. After analyzing and discussing it, I very
clearly remember the professor saying, "And this is why this course of
study and this profession will forever ruin for you the experience as
you know it of watching movies. You will never again just sit and watch
a movie as a passive observer. You will always be analyzing and seeing
it from the eyes of someone inside the industry. Your perception will
be altered."
That professor was absolutely right. I can no longer watch movies the way I once did. But that's okay, because sometimes my breath is taken away in admiration of a director's unique choice when facing the same exercise we did that day in class (Thorin and the Orc on the mountaintop in the climactic moments of the final Hobbit film with not a single note of Howard Shore's gorgeous score? That wind and their breath were more beautiful and moving than any notes could have been, and that simple choice turned the scene into a highlight for me in the 39,859,403,947,690-hours long trilogy.). However, working in this industry has changed my perspective in more ways than I expected. In addition to analyzing everything I watch, I've come to realize that my perception and experience of movies and television have also been altered by getting to know actors whom I then see on the screen. Before I became a P.A. on a show with Eartha Kitt and later her backstage assistant, I had never watched her in anything. Nowadays, watching reruns of the old Batman TV show, I am completely unable to see Catwoman. I see the awesome lady whom I went shoe-shopping and brunching with, who purred in the wings while doing the splits at age 80, who took me to get my first (and to this date only) manicure with her, and who told me she would never forgive me if I didn't do something with my dance. An arch-villain bent on destruction and chaos? Nope. I just can't see it. Another actor I did a show with, one of the nicest, most fun people I've encountered in this industry, recently played a scheming evil henchman on a TV show I watched. He's a fantastic actor, but I just couldn't see the murderer. I was very sad when he got shot and met his demise.... I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be my reaction. Most recently, a very sweet, friendly actor with whom I worked had a large guest star role on a show as someone you were supposed to think was bad for about 55 of the 60 minutes. I knew he had to be a good guy, because the actor was just such a nice person. Yep. MAJOR TWIST right at the end that he's actually good -- Sorry, saw that one coming a mile away.
And then there's what's happened twice in the last month. Watching one of my favorite TV shows, there in the opening credits listing guest stars, I saw the name of an actor I did a show with. This particular actor had one of the worst temperaments I've seen. In addition to his regular condescension to everyone, he was prone to horrible outbursts where he would yell at everyone and go off on a tirade.... and then he would always follow it up with "I'm a Buddhist, so I'm not normally like this. You're just making me behave in a way I don't normally behave. I never yell. I'm a Buddhist." I don't know what his relationship with his faith was like, but I do know that his normal behavior was not peaceful and anti-aggressive -- it was yelling at everything in sight and throwing temper tantrums like a baby. But it was never his fault... because he's a Buddhist... so therefore everyone else was always to blame for his poor non-Buddhist behavior. I also once encountered him on the stairs talking to his girlfriend about when he could see her so that his wife wouldn't know about it. I'm sure that wasn't his fault either.
Anyway, as soon as he came on screen, I yelled out, "He did it! He's the murderer!" (I have an annoying habit of always announcing who the murderer is on TV shows within seconds of their appearance on screen. I am right 99% of the time based on the "if they have 5 lines or under and the information in those lines could just as easily have been given to another character, then they are the murderer" rule.... My fiancé and I disagree about whether murder mystery TV shows with remarkably dimwitted detectives are better when enhanced by audience participation and commentary....) As the show progressed, I remained convinced that he was the murderer -- despite the fact that his role was quite large, and therefore, with this particular show's identical-formula-every-week rule, he couldn't possibly be the culprit. Nevertheless, I knew that this week would be the exception to the formula rule, because who could possibly make a better surprise killer than the "I'm the most peaceful guy ever until I blow up and lose my tempter 5 times a day" man?
......He was not the killer. He was just a nice man. The killer was that character who had about 5 lines which could easily have been given to someone else and then didn't appear again for the next 40 minutes. As always. But because I knew what the actor was like in real life, it had drastically altered my perception of his character. Then last night, watching one of my favorite shows, all of a sudden another actor I'd worked with popped on screen... ostensibly as a good guy, but once again I was convinced there was a twist. This particular actor was such an arrogant smug know-it-all that I was sure he would pull out a gun and shoot someone in the back. The rest of the episode I kept waiting for it... Nope... The only damage he did was chewing up the scenery during his few lines.
So yes, working in this industry has changed my perspective, and I will probably never again just watch a movie or TV show as a passive observer. The forever-analyzing part doesn't bother me... but I will cross my fingers that I never again see But-I'm-A-Buddhist or Smug-Arrogant-Know-It-All on my TV screen playing good guys. Or else my 99%-correct rate is going to take a serious beating and I might just lose out in that audience-participation-and-commentary-enhances-whodunnit-TV-shows battle with my fiancé....
That professor was absolutely right. I can no longer watch movies the way I once did. But that's okay, because sometimes my breath is taken away in admiration of a director's unique choice when facing the same exercise we did that day in class (Thorin and the Orc on the mountaintop in the climactic moments of the final Hobbit film with not a single note of Howard Shore's gorgeous score? That wind and their breath were more beautiful and moving than any notes could have been, and that simple choice turned the scene into a highlight for me in the 39,859,403,947,690-hours long trilogy.). However, working in this industry has changed my perspective in more ways than I expected. In addition to analyzing everything I watch, I've come to realize that my perception and experience of movies and television have also been altered by getting to know actors whom I then see on the screen. Before I became a P.A. on a show with Eartha Kitt and later her backstage assistant, I had never watched her in anything. Nowadays, watching reruns of the old Batman TV show, I am completely unable to see Catwoman. I see the awesome lady whom I went shoe-shopping and brunching with, who purred in the wings while doing the splits at age 80, who took me to get my first (and to this date only) manicure with her, and who told me she would never forgive me if I didn't do something with my dance. An arch-villain bent on destruction and chaos? Nope. I just can't see it. Another actor I did a show with, one of the nicest, most fun people I've encountered in this industry, recently played a scheming evil henchman on a TV show I watched. He's a fantastic actor, but I just couldn't see the murderer. I was very sad when he got shot and met his demise.... I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be my reaction. Most recently, a very sweet, friendly actor with whom I worked had a large guest star role on a show as someone you were supposed to think was bad for about 55 of the 60 minutes. I knew he had to be a good guy, because the actor was just such a nice person. Yep. MAJOR TWIST right at the end that he's actually good -- Sorry, saw that one coming a mile away.
And then there's what's happened twice in the last month. Watching one of my favorite TV shows, there in the opening credits listing guest stars, I saw the name of an actor I did a show with. This particular actor had one of the worst temperaments I've seen. In addition to his regular condescension to everyone, he was prone to horrible outbursts where he would yell at everyone and go off on a tirade.... and then he would always follow it up with "I'm a Buddhist, so I'm not normally like this. You're just making me behave in a way I don't normally behave. I never yell. I'm a Buddhist." I don't know what his relationship with his faith was like, but I do know that his normal behavior was not peaceful and anti-aggressive -- it was yelling at everything in sight and throwing temper tantrums like a baby. But it was never his fault... because he's a Buddhist... so therefore everyone else was always to blame for his poor non-Buddhist behavior. I also once encountered him on the stairs talking to his girlfriend about when he could see her so that his wife wouldn't know about it. I'm sure that wasn't his fault either.
Anyway, as soon as he came on screen, I yelled out, "He did it! He's the murderer!" (I have an annoying habit of always announcing who the murderer is on TV shows within seconds of their appearance on screen. I am right 99% of the time based on the "if they have 5 lines or under and the information in those lines could just as easily have been given to another character, then they are the murderer" rule.... My fiancé and I disagree about whether murder mystery TV shows with remarkably dimwitted detectives are better when enhanced by audience participation and commentary....) As the show progressed, I remained convinced that he was the murderer -- despite the fact that his role was quite large, and therefore, with this particular show's identical-formula-every-week rule, he couldn't possibly be the culprit. Nevertheless, I knew that this week would be the exception to the formula rule, because who could possibly make a better surprise killer than the "I'm the most peaceful guy ever until I blow up and lose my tempter 5 times a day" man?
......He was not the killer. He was just a nice man. The killer was that character who had about 5 lines which could easily have been given to someone else and then didn't appear again for the next 40 minutes. As always. But because I knew what the actor was like in real life, it had drastically altered my perception of his character. Then last night, watching one of my favorite shows, all of a sudden another actor I'd worked with popped on screen... ostensibly as a good guy, but once again I was convinced there was a twist. This particular actor was such an arrogant smug know-it-all that I was sure he would pull out a gun and shoot someone in the back. The rest of the episode I kept waiting for it... Nope... The only damage he did was chewing up the scenery during his few lines.
So yes, working in this industry has changed my perspective, and I will probably never again just watch a movie or TV show as a passive observer. The forever-analyzing part doesn't bother me... but I will cross my fingers that I never again see But-I'm-A-Buddhist or Smug-Arrogant-Know-It-All on my TV screen playing good guys. Or else my 99%-correct rate is going to take a serious beating and I might just lose out in that audience-participation-and-commentary-enhances-whodunnit-TV-shows battle with my fiancé....
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Sometimes the best seat in the house isn't in the audience
From the archives of my papery blog (aka my journal), when I was the Assistant Stage Manager on a show in the round, such that my ASM
station was in a corner between some seating risers, giving me a
wonderful view of the audience on all four sides. The show consisted of
selections from Shakespeare (including a 20-minute cutting of Macbeth that tracked
the relationship between Macbeth and Lady M from the beginning through
the end), interspersed with commentary from the actors:
I'm writing this from my corner in the theater in Act 2, and there's a guy in the last row of the center section (he was a late-seater, making for a very noisy and distracting entrance as he climbed over everyone in all the rows in front of him) who's got his coffee balanced on the riser railing and has baggies of food on the seat next to him, and he's shoveling nuts or something into his face. Before that he was writing... with both hands at the same time.
(45 minutes later) He just slept through Macbeth.
The following week:
Tonight during the show a woman starting staring at me with a creepy smile, craning her neck at a 90 degree angle to do so. After a couple minutes of intermittently staring back, I wondered aloud on headset what she was up to. She slowly lifted a finger to her mouth in a "shhh" gesture and continued staring at me with the creepy smile for a few more minutes. And then just before the end of the show, she turned to me, gave me the same creepy smile, and nodded, before returning her gaze to the stage.... Between that and the curtain behind me making a noise and moving when there was no one there and no draft, I'm pretty sure I'm in the opening of a horror film....
Yep, the best seat in the house is definitely sometimes at a stage manager's station....
I'm writing this from my corner in the theater in Act 2, and there's a guy in the last row of the center section (he was a late-seater, making for a very noisy and distracting entrance as he climbed over everyone in all the rows in front of him) who's got his coffee balanced on the riser railing and has baggies of food on the seat next to him, and he's shoveling nuts or something into his face. Before that he was writing... with both hands at the same time.
(45 minutes later) He just slept through Macbeth.
The following week:
Tonight during the show a woman starting staring at me with a creepy smile, craning her neck at a 90 degree angle to do so. After a couple minutes of intermittently staring back, I wondered aloud on headset what she was up to. She slowly lifted a finger to her mouth in a "shhh" gesture and continued staring at me with the creepy smile for a few more minutes. And then just before the end of the show, she turned to me, gave me the same creepy smile, and nodded, before returning her gaze to the stage.... Between that and the curtain behind me making a noise and moving when there was no one there and no draft, I'm pretty sure I'm in the opening of a horror film....
Yep, the best seat in the house is definitely sometimes at a stage manager's station....
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