sundries

[rm]

I slept 7.5 hours last night after going to the theater and then going back to work to finish a nightmare project until nearly 4. The whole thing really sucked and I feel tired and overwhelmed.

Tonight is my class reunion starting, inconveniently, at 7:30pm. It's late enough now that it's silly to get up, showered, look nice and go to NYCC or down to Soho or whatever for just a few hours before coming home and getting ready for that, but it also is not raining out and I should do _something_ today (I still need a new pair of boots; I still need a couple of belts I don't hate), although back to bed is a temptation.

Albeit, not really a temptation I can succumb to -- I have other work to do, and stuff I need to be doing for D&J and other creative projects.

I am, I have to confess, really excited for my class reunion (for which I totally need to come up with the elevator pitch response for "what do you do?" -- darlings, what do I do?) for one silly reason if no other. I get to wear my awesome dress again. And it's not just that I look great in that dress. It's that it's associated in my mind now with something that was really magical and awesome for me, and I didn't screw up in some stupid way, and so it's a bit a good luck charm.

I think my new anxiety response is the urge to go platinum blond again. I almost did it before the NYMF party a couple of weeks ago and now I want to do it again -- but this time I think it's a reaction to my reunion.

Also, having recently discovered, through the purchase of the best jeans I have ever owned, that I can go very fitted and still look masculine, I am thinking about a new, slimmer Duchess suit. Specifically, the 8 1/2, specifically in grey (I don't know if any of the greys on the Scotch Basic site are as light as I want in color, so I may need to talk to them about other, pricier fabrics). Thinky thoughts?

Meanwhile, I am still very much on this "yes, yes, poly-romance, 1930s film industry" thing. The 1930s film industry isn't really a period or a setting I've spent much time with, though. Anyone have book recs for me, fact or fiction? I'm narrowing down medium for this thing and edging closer to plot, but I'd love to find some "reading for pleasure" on this front that's also potentially useful.

So, anyway, I saw The History of War, which is about a little boy interacting with world conquerors while writing a school paper, at NYMF last night, and I don't want to trash the hell out of it, because for me to work so hard to like something, says it has something fundamentally compelling going on.

However, it desperately needed to define its heightened world (dream? ghosts? fantasy? heightened reality?) -- it wasn't that in this regard it needed realism, but it needed consistency. Especially when the step dad got shot -- metaphor, reality, who did it? Yadda yadda.

It also desperately needed to decide its position on the dictators of the past. Because the song Hitler did? Went from funny to creepy to very wise (in fact, had the show stuck with the "I just want to be seen" excuse for conquer and slaughter, I would have been ALL OVER IT) to absolutely terrifying monologue about Jewish. Any of those things I could work with when you have Hitler on stage, but I can't work with all of them without any discernible objective.

In problems that may just be mine -- if you're going to put Alexander the Great on stage he needs to be more than just an extended gay joke that then either does or doesn't connect (I couldn't tell) to the boy becoming his protege. Also, do some fucking research and make it clear you're making choices about it -- Alexander was likely a short, stocky man who was not the beautiful youth he marketed himself as. He can be either in your show, but you need to know what you're choose and why (see: Hitler).

Also, the climatic moment with the mother? Now It's Time For the Moral Lesson of Our Show -- look, it's musical theater. I can't ask you not to be heavy-handed, nor would I want to -- but more elegant would be good.

There were also huge structure issues, that it was clear where they came from (yes, the reveal about Manfred's dad is powerful where you left it, but no longer fits the shape of the rest of the show -- SERVE THE STORY).

Things that were awesome:

- Everything about the Caesar number. The acting, the song, the whole deal.

- Alexander's "I Will Conquer You" song. While it was written to be another extended gay joke in a lot of ways, the actor brought EVERYTHING he had to it, and I actually found it very moving.

- Most of the book. Particularly the scenes with the soldiers on the hill. Well fucking written those. Also, when Manfred is reading his lists. They're exceptionally constructed and eerie, and I wish I could remember them better to tell you about them.

- Most of the performances, even if actors weren't always given enough to do. Again, I'm looking at the soldiers on a hill.

My overall feeling: if this is the quality of stuff at NYMF, D&J is so there. Although do you know what is awesome? Getting out of the theater and having voicemail form my collaborator addressing a thing I was worrying at and making it better.

sola will be participating in a 24-hour video-gaming marathon to raise momey for children's hospitals. Follow the link to help with the fund-raising.

The rescue drill has reached the Chilean miners, who are expected to start being brought to the surface sometime next week.

Universal has pulled a trailer that uses gay as an insult after Anderson Cooper and others complained. I want to take a moment here to say something I said on Twitter yesterday: Don't go explaining to gay people why using gay as a pejorative isn't an insult, saying the word is being used in a different context. Yes, language changes, but it's not a different context. The joke in the trailer was saying something about owning a hybrid car as being "so gay." The context there is actually "pathetic" with the implication being "unmanly" and the usage is about misogyny and homophobia. And if you try to tell me otherwise, you are very ignorant or very rude. When being queer is not any sort of oppressed, marginalized or risky position in society so much so that no one could grasp why being gay is bad -- then you can tell me the language has changed.

And just in case you weren't clear that being gay can still be perilous anywhere, anywhen. In New York City, not only have we had recent anti-gay assaults in our gay neighborhoods, but nine men have been arrested for luring three men to a party and then assaulting and torturing them, because they were gay. My city, you people. Mine.

1903 raid on the Ariston Baths was NYC's first anti-gay raid.

For gay tweens (11 - 14) in the NYC-area, it gets better starting now, even if high school looms as a place where it may, potentially, get worse.

Campaign to save gay bar in Cardiff.

Puttenham: nice pub, ancient church, good place for public sex, which, btw, is quasi-legal in the UK.

Comments

[yamx]

Err... do you read german at all? Because Tanja Kinkel's Unter dem Zwillingsstern is a novel set in the 1920s/30s film industry in both Germany and the States. But it appears there's no translation.

Yay! on the Chilean miners. This is so much earlier than the projected Christmas date. :)

As for the trailer--all the articles I've seen said the line had been pulled from the trailer. Has it been pulled from the actual film?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Just the trailer is my understanding.

And I can sort of muddle through business emails in German, but not much more. Which is tragic, because I WANT TO READ THAT BOOK, since I'm not sure my project is set in the US, and I'd like to think about other locales.

[yamx]

Well, I suppose that's good in that more people are going to see the trailer than the film, but still. Unless the character saying it is meant to be an insensitive ass, then maybe it'd fit...

Hmm... maybe if you just gave the book a try, you could muddle through? If I remember correctly, it uses pretty straightforward language. I once read a Star Trek tie-in novel in French, and that is not a language I was ever fluent in.

Though it's obscenely expensive over there. If you want to try, let me know and I'll pick one up and mail it to you. Or wait--you could probably pick it up while your in Switzerland. Most bookstores could order it by the next day. Or buy it used from Amazon.de (you could use your .com account) and have it mailed to the hotel, or Patty's address... But if all of that seems to complex, just shoot me a PM. :)