To Wait

After much schlepping and kvetching waiting on line to get tickets to Hamlet at Shakespeare in the Park (we arrived at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater at 7:45am for the free ticket distribution at 1pm and were the last bunch to receive – many homeless people make good money by camping out all night, then scalping the tickets in the afternoon, though frankly it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between derelicts and professors), I was in row X on a beautiful June evening watching this epic play, which received its partial due.

As a former student of the simply yet ostentatiously named “Hamlet: the Seminar” at Cornell, I’ve seen most of the cinematic versions (with Mel Gibson, Ethan Hawke and Kenneth Branaugh to John Barrymore and Laurence Olivier in the eponymous role) and many stages versions, ranging traditional collegiate retellings and a Japanese cast in provincial England. Needless to say, I have my opinions on the play.

Michael Stuhlbarg, who seems to be considerably experienced in the Old Masters, was exemplar as Hamlet. He articulated beautifully and spoke with energy, both of which are essential in an open-air forum, where distractions from planes overhead, children shouting outside the theater and a remarkable lack of legroom are rampant. He imbued the language and gradual-decision-making, which Hamlet it notorious for, with beautiful accent marks. Some critics complained that he was overly manic, but that is a hard point to argue when the text itself calls for an “antic disposition”. Stuhlberg relished in the comedic timing and pervasive mood swings of a scholar (which Hamlet, as a former student at Wittenberg, most certainly is).

Unfortunately, his freewheeling talent was not the overarching theme. Claudius, played by Andre Braugher, who also has considerable Old Master training, seemed stilted and even uncomfortable in his clothes. He speech was often garbled, although delivered in an assured baritone. He seemed neither devious or brutish; he just delivered the lines. It was a bit disappointed, especially because – frankly – more attention was brought to the role on account of the color-blind casting.

I like a Hamlet imbued with depth, otherwise, it’s a by-rote recitation of the Most Famous Play. The realm of interior possibilities within a character is what has allowed this inscrutable play to hang around for 400 years. I was particularly disappointed with the lack of development of the female characters in this version, which may primarily be the fault of the director.

Gertrude, played by Margaret Colin, wore power suits which hearkened Jackie-O and Hilary Clinton (ball-busting first ladies?), but brought to the part the charisma or power of neither. When, in the bedroom scene, after Hamlet has mistakenly killed Polonius hiding behind the arras, she utters the climactic “Hamlet, thou hast split my heart in twain,” she might as well remind him to pick up a quart of milk immediately after. The various possibilities – that Hamlet’s revelations about homicide and conspiracy have affected her, or that, conversely, she is play-acting to get him the hell out of her room – have been flattened.

Ophelia, played by Lauren Ambrose, was pretty enough, but – as is my biggest test for any Ophelia – did not seem an intellectual equivalent to Hamlet. Yes, she is pushed around by her father and the king, and to a certain extent Hamlet, (which might be why she sported awful pink platform shoes - a little heavy-handed costuming tipping off her vulnerability), but her mad scene seems simply a result of enormous grief, and not tinged with an existential sense of the unfairness of her lot.

The most affecting part of the play was the dumbshow of Hecuba’s grief, enacted by beautifully crafted human-sized puppets. It prompted a huge interest, for me, in the work of puppeteer Basil Twist, and I am looking into interviewing the Puppet Kitchen for my job. This scene is nestled in a usually-overlooked part of the play, about mid-way into the thick of it. Out-of-town players arrive and metadramatically create an arresting scene of widowhood and sorrow, from a historical legend dating back to the Trojan War. It actually brought tears to my eyes, and was a great inclusion, especially during a scene with usually involves throw-away and blustering speeches.

Sam Waterson’s Polonius was also of note. Did I fall for him because he is Sam Waterson? Yes and no. Not the most ground-breaking Polonius – it took until Act II, for the most of the audience to get his pompous-but-harmless schtick (“either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited”), but his diction and energy was refreshing.

All in all, I was so glad to be there and it had terrific aspects (not least of which was food for critical thought). But next year, I think I’m going the scalping route.

Steam: Intelligent Women Behaving Stupidly

Why is Maureen Dowd such a flagrant bitch about Hilary Clinton? Her smarminess, unwillingness to forgive and lazy criticism makes her exactly like the targets she ridicules. Get smarter.

Sofa NY

Last rainy Saturday, my dad and I teamed up after a Cajuny brunch, to attend the SOFA show at the Park Avenue Armory. SOFA is a clever acronym for for Sculptural Objects and Functional Art. My poor dad was expecting some nice upholstery, but wound up staring at some inscrutable objects.

In my old age - and through my work at a craft non-profit - I've developed a strong taste for high-quality, handmade functional objects. For the time being, of course, I'm living in a shetl on the sixth floor of a walk-up tenement, with some top-grade K-mart furniture (and some salvaged from the streets - although repurposed is the new new), but hopefully one day, I'll be able to live through expression. Or express to live. Or whathaveyou.


The concept of "recession" seems not to have hit this sphere, although many small-scale artisans are scaling back their traveling exhibiting. There were many museum- and collector-grade works, there were many works of poo. I myself have a penchant for furniture design, especially beautiful, sinuous woods. I know that inclination could be perceived as old-school, sort of like championing neo-classical architecture to a group of postmodernists. But furniture is as functional as you can get. Vessels of ceramic and glass, sconces, jewelry - all of these items are better enjoyed if you have somewhere to put your butt.


All in all, it was similar to being in a chocolate store while on Weight Watchers, but not really liking the selection anyway (too much marzipan, not enough peanut brittle). It is heartening, though, to find a niche of manumakers in a global economy so fraught with industrial production.

Primosey Path

Rant against Staples™.

I should've known better than to trust my puppy of a literary magazine to the Copy and Printing Center Hell that is Staples. But I was wooed - wooed by my mom's corporate coupons, and wooed, literally, by their shiny paper. I dallied down the primrose path and am left betrayed, bereft, but mostly enraged that it's taken them almost a week to make 60 copies of a small booklet. A ghettoer store would've had it next-day. I could've fed an immigrant family.

But instead, I am sitting on a stoop in Soho, diatribing in futility about corporate culture. This enraging behemoth could not get their shit, and subsequenty my shit, together in time to review for accuracy before I take my West Coastal Odyssey. I'm not a betting person, but my fury will be unparalleled if they fuck up, leaving too narrow a margin for their impaired copying skills to fix before the Magazine Release Party. 

Because no one can take responsibility, no one is taking responsibility and it scans my perspective darkly. Against those stupid hipsters in stupid socks bungeeing a mattress to their stupid Suburu. Against the tourists - and this act has often been the subject of my poems - stopping short in front of me. Next time I'm in fucking Omaha, I'll be sure to park my fat ass in the middle of your intersection for HOURS, delaying whatever hopping business you have to attend to. 

I have somewhere to go, not because I'm an o-so-speedy-New-Yorker but because I have laundry and packing and a life outside the office. Don't blame me for knowing where the subways are! Move the fuck over to the side of the sidewalk. When I'm in conservative areas of China, I dress modestly. WHEN IN NEW YORK, MOVE RAPIDLY. Especially away from the entrance of Staples. I will eat you. I am plumping my ass for my Great Omaha Stand. 

Lastly, it is uncommon courtesy to give an accurate estimate for when something will be done. There are somethings that a lying response is preferably for: my ass in jeans, the extent of my mom's love, how well I tapdance. The printing of my magazine is another thing. The decent thing would be a real estimate. It could have spared Staples the wrath I'm now disseminating to my two readers. 

Stretching Panties!

This is the motherload, folks. I present to you a magazine of small ambitions and huge-big, lardy heart: Stretching Panties.

Release Party at Nightingale Lounge on Wednesday, May 28. And there will be much rejoicing.

Book Review - Anagrams

This book was devastating – devastatingly funny, devastatingly honest. And its denouement, or the final unraveling of plot complexities, is devastatingly sad.

Let me back up for a minute. "Anagrams" rearranges and frames three characters dynamically against each other, first in a sequence of short scenes, then in a longer sustained story. So the key characters – like letters in an anagrammatic word – function differently, contribute to a separate-though-equally-plausible reality, when located in varying relationships with each other.

The elements consist, primarily, of Benna, Gerard, and Eleanor. The first two are archetypal lovers and their affairs shift “requitedness”. Eleanor, as friend and rival (both imagined and real), perhaps functions hermeneutically, as a way to comment on the story, present a foil, or just add a third tip to the triangle, echoing the question: why is it so hard for two people to just love each other?

Known principally as a short story writer, Moore creates a novel with a vividly cinematic eye (an image of a menstrual stain on a nightgown waving in a tree at a yardsale resonates with loss and loneliness) paired with pithy humor. Her dialogues (and internal monologues) capture our awkwardness and nerdy, punny humor (“endurance is a country in Central America”).

The characters are often pictured as flailing intellectuals, with jobs like hotel lounge pianist, geriatric aerobics teacher, poetry teacher at a community college, representing, yes, characters of a certain age, angry at themselves for not making harder decisions, for not taking harder chances, and angry at the world for making it so damn hard. I’m quick to point out that it’s not an angsty anger. It’s the anger you feel for someone you want to live with forever, but who always leaves an eggy mess on the kitchen burners and really, why do you always have to clean it up? It’s a relatably self-conscious, and hilarious, despair.

I read this book very slowly, so it wouldn’t be over soon, so I could savor each bite. And it is biting. The description of the book as a love story, and of the characters as angry, does not quite give the novel credit. Its metapoetic touches, and light sense of balance and boundary, enables it to evade those clichéd generalizations (really, even the generalization of it as a novel is not apt). It’s sensitive, sad, and flirty. It’s solid, addicting and silky. It is, as they say, a “good read”.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/23/magazine/0323-MOVERS_index.html