Friday, December 24

Reading:
Trying on a handful of books since finishing Moneyball. Can't decide what I'm in the mood for!

Plays:
11 monumental first acts by my students!

TV:
Several minutes of The Daily Show

Movies:

Guess I have been working and getting ready for Christmas, come to think of it

Sunday, December 12

Listening to:
A Family Affair (Wolfe) in progress
Under the Banner of Heaven *****

Reading and Re-Reading:
Moneyball *****
Beat the Sunset **
Circle Mirror Transformation *** (final scene won it that third star!)
Old Times *****

Watched:
Princess Bride *****
Ferris Bueller's Day Off ***
Thank You for Smoking didn't finish
Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part 1 ***** (my memory of the book's details: **)
Several Inane Movie Trailers
Too Much TV (although enjoyed), and that reminds me, RIP The Good Guys, probably

November 14

Oh hell. It's been over a month! In the interest of time, how about a 5-star system?

SEEN--THEATRE, NY:
La Bete****
Middletown*****!!!
Brief Interlude*****
Next to Normal***1/2
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson***
Woyzeck (rehearsal)****

THEATRE, Portland:
Alice & Wonderland***
An Iliad****
The Little Prince***
Violet****

MOVIES:
October Sky****
The Social Network*****
Ferris Bueller's Day Off***

READ--BOOKS:
Portobello (Rendell)***
Moneyball (in progress)*****
Just Let Me Lie Down: Necessary Terms for the Half-Insane Working Mom****

READ--PLAYS:
The Changeling (again, with class)*****
The Merchant of Venice (ditto)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (ditto)

LISTENED--BOOKS:
Emma*****
The Power of Now (in progress)

WATCHED--TV:
Primarily Castle, The Good Guys. A little bit of Modern Family and Glee. That's all I can think of.

Sunday, October 3

Read: One Day
Read: Misc plays for work
Reading: Moneyball
Reading: Just Let Me Lie Down
Watched: as much Giants baseball as possible
Finished listening to Half the Sky; buying several copies as gifts
Listening to Leaving the Saints (again)

Saturday, September 25

Plays read:
Merchant of Venice
Moonlight and Magnolias
Drawer Boy

Books on CD:
Northanger Abbey
Half the Sky

Books read:
Before Midnight (Wolfe)
Eating Animals
Moneyball
The Monster in the Box (Rendell)

Theatre:
My show!
The Agony and Ecstacy of Steve Jobs
Romeo & Juliet (Nature Theatre of Oklahoma)
Long Day's Journey Into Night

Movies:
Stranger Than Fiction
Eat Pray Love
We Are Marshall
The Broken Hearts Club

TV:
Leverage
Psych
Glee
Modern Family

Friday, August 6

Reading: Eating Animals. Like it very much so far.

That reminds me, think it's time to give myself half credit for Omnivore's Dilemma and let it go. It is very good and informative and I've got a lot out of it, but it's at a point of diminishing returns for me now.

Other reading: Alex's new novel, Book of Shadows. My favorite of hers so far!

That's about it, I do believe.

Theatre: saw Maddie and Case in a show at the Washington County Fair last weekend. It was OK, fair fair fare. They were darling, of course. And then we came back to the tent for Brothers from Different Mothers, a crackerjack juggling comedy act. Otherwise, not much theatre to speak of!

Have watched quite a lot of TV online: The Good Guys, Leverage, Psych. Hmm, I seem to enjoy a crime-solving caper.

Sunday, July 25

Movies: Inception, The Painted Veil

Theatre: London Assurance (NT Live), Portrait of the Widow Kinski by Sarah Jane Accuardi, Necessity by Sam Gregory, Gnit by Will Eno (all JAW)

Books: Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card, Book of Shadows (in progress) by my friend Alex, The Alchemy of Theatre (in bits and pieces
Plays read: Girl in the Goldfish Bowl by Morris Panych, Private Eyes by Steven Dietz

Really nothing on CD as not driving much these days (yay)

Hmmmm . . . I've been reading almost constantly, so feel this is probably not complete, but it's all that comes to mind.

Monday, July 5

Reading in progress: Ender's Game, Committed.

Had to turn Mrs. Dalloway back in to the library, so will switch over to Bruce Feiler's Abraham for my listening pleasure. Read this one a few years ago while researching a play and am eager to read it again. Also, Feiler's been on my mind as he is very ill--dying perhaps. He is such a brilliant guy with such far-reaching interests; I want to read all his books. But may not be able to take on his most recent. We'll see.

Anyway, will I ever be done with Mrs. Dalloway? It has struck me completely differently each time I've read it, in ways too intimate and complex to talk about in a few sentences.

Meanwhile, my reading aspirations are growing to the point where I can barely manage the lists, much less the reading. But this is one overwhelm that doesn't trouble me, for some reason. I'll either read these things or I won't.

Theatre: two more readings by two talented friends: Nick Zagone's Lee Marvin Be Thy Name, a funny and sweet testosterone fest, and Eugenia Woods' Famished about a mother/daughter's relationship with food, which was far more interesting than I expected, simply because of the exquisite writing. I am personally tired of food as a literary topic (tired for now, I mean--it's so big that that's sort of like saying you're tired of love or travel as a topic), but Eugenia's work was wonderfully fresh and unpredictible.

Movies/TV: We all watched Sugar, a terrific bittersweet and wise baseball movie, and I watched Infamous, one of the two movies from a couple of years ago about Truman Capote and In Cold Blood, which I both admired enormously and found deeply painful. The brutality of the murders is more than you can really process and left me feeling hollow, but the movie's statements about art are valid and well earned.

I think that's about it. I've sort of forgotten the stack of plays I brought home from campus in May--want to get back to those. And I have some plays to read for next season's planning as well.

Also, the boys and I are planning to see Karate Kid again this morning, this time with Dad!

ONE LAST THING: I'm struck by the amount of re-reading I'm doing these days, and also by the fact that many of the titles I'm most looking forward to are ones I've read before. As recently as a year ago, I would have felt this a waste of time--might have picked up an old favorite now and then, but would have felt I should really be reading something new to me. Now, I feel like if I'm passionate about reading something, it's the right thing to read, and off I go. Isn't that strange and great.

Saturday, June 27

How am I supposed to keep track? It has been three weeks, and I have had a lot more time to read! What is this "keeping track" business?

Currently:
Reading Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I like it almost as much as Eat, Pray, Love. It doesn't have the same epic shape, but the voice and scope are both great.

Reading Ender's Game to be able to talk with Julian about it. Got a slow start, but now very engaged.

Reading for my current writing projects--one on back burner, one on front burner, very satisfying to be doing all of it!

Watched two good readings in my company's new play festival, Matt Zrebski's Kiss Gobelinus and Patrick Wohlmut's The Last Tale of the Thracian Mirror.

Saw 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee with Ryan, Julian, and our friend Jody. Fun! We're still quoting, occasionally. Choreography was especially good.

Saw Karate Kid with the kids. VERY well done. I'd have to watch the original again to see if I liked this one better (feel like I did). The Beijing setting and darker tone made it fresh, and Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith were terrific. Good storytelling all around.

Listening to my longtime favorite novel, Mrs. Dalloway, on CD. It is affecting me differently than ever before, i.e. tears (sometimes in floods). Interesting.

Taking in some summer TV that's not bad: Leverage (Portland!), The Good Guys.

Have brought home a giant stack of movies from the library. We'll see.

Further back:
Read Allen Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, a speculative novella about Elizabeth II suddenly getting a taste for reading. It is delightful and made me think of two friends in particular whom I want to send it to.

Watched State of Play with Ryan. I love journalism movies, as a rule.

Tried to start the series Dexter as it comes highly recommended. Couldn't hang. Too scary.

Did not watch any World Cup. I'm American.

Friday, June 4

Have been reading a lot and not keeping track, so this may be gappy! Let's see.

Listening to Persuasion in the car; last new Austen for me. (But looking forward to circling back around to Emma, then NA, then S&S. I will read her letters, juvenilia, etc., someday, I'm sure--right now just loving the novels again.)

Reading LOTS for my new play. Mostly primary material from the 1820s. Very fun (for a history geek, as I think I am quickly becoming).

Reading plays, some new to me, some not: Mauritius, The Little Dog Laughed and As Bees in Honey Drown, Valley Song. Probably one or two more.

Novels: couple of light mysteries, none to write home about; book of supernatural short stories not for bedtime (although keeping it on my nightstand--what's wrong with this picture?). Also The Uncommon Reader by Allen Bennett, which is a delight. I think I inherited it from my mother-in-law, which is kind of nice, too.

Seeing: friend's educational show on cyber-bullying and online addiction (v good piece!). Some other friends in a bill of plays written by at-risk teenagers--noble project but very tiring evening.

Movies? Can't think of any. TV? not much, other than Glee. Oh, I know, watched the movie of Fast Food Nation with Ryan and Julian last weekend. It was pretty rough and I finally quit about 15 minutes before the end; the boys finished it and watched an attached documentary as well. More power to them.

Sunday, May 16

Finished Lush Life, passed it on to Ryan as a great read I think he'll dig.

That reminds me, Julian is now reading Born to Run , one of my favorites from, I believe, last summer. I may have to flip through it again to refresh on some details. Then I think my student Case wants to borrow it.

Listening to a recorded Pride and Prejudice in the car. Not the best best reader, but OK. I'm quite astonished at how new it all seems to me--especially how much of Darcy's inner life is threaded through it from the early chapters on.

Re-read for work: Long Christmas Ride Home. Exquisite. Best.

Finishing a murder mystery in a series I may be done with, fun but kind of monotonous. (No, not my bf Archie and his boss!)

Theatre: Saw Madeline and the Gypsies today at NWCTS. Strange unfocused staging, haphazard story telling, but undeniably fun and full of talent. Went with a friend and a total of six kids, three boys and three girls. The girls sat nicely.

Theatre: new Alan Bennett play The Habit of Artthrough National Theatre Live broadcast. In many ways a pale copy of History Boys, but no matter. Richard Griffiths and Alex Jennings bigger than life, and all funny and smart and yearning; who am I to complain?

Extremely long faculty/staff awards ceremony at school. Oh so long. My friend Sarah got a big award, so that made it cool.

And tonight, young Haley (student) gave her senior recital in vocal music. One of a very few things that could have dragged me out to Forest Grove at this particular time. Very much worth it.

Sunday, May 9

Carrying on with Lush Life on CD. Great. Some of it reminds me of the best of William Goldman's storytelling, which never gets quite this complex, but almost. I realize Price is considered literary and Goldman something else, but hey--my blog, my rules.

Read/reread/watched for work: Gross Indecency, Sally's Rape, Wilde, Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Watched: You Light Up My Life on DVD. Sometimes you just have to get your Zaslow on.

Watched: Show Business: The Road to Broadway, very fun documentary with a good balance of insider/general interest. Reminded me how much I treasure Caroline, or Change.

Read: Where There's a Will (early Wolfe).

Theatre: Frogz for Mother's Day at Imago Theatre, Portland homegrown Mummenschanz-y perennial. Perfect M Day fare; Natey was enchanted, and we all had a great time.

Sunday, May 2

Listening: Lush Life Started in print format, but switched to CD, which I like much better in this case. Bobby Cannavale nails it!

Read: As Bees In Honey Drown by Douglas Carter Beane. This guy is hilarious. Similar themes to a number of other works I like a lot.

Re-read for work: Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act
That got me to pick up Valley Song, which I saw 15 years ago (with Fugard!); great to refresh on the details. I am in love with this play. The text brings it back in breathing, moving life. Worth a read every ten years or so. Youth/age, fading/bursting, pumpkins/dreams. Thank you.

Gosh, 1995. I wonder if I was pregnant with J when we saw it.

Saw: 12? or so Senior Projects presentations at school.

Saw: Dance concert at school. rocky first half, lovely second half (preview, though I also think I just didn't like the first half as much).

Sunday, April 25

Finished: Where Men Win Glory (audio)

Started: Lush Life Very catchy.
Picked up again: The Omnivore's Dilemma

Reread for work: Top Girls,Colored Museum, The Serpent

Saw: Eric Schlosser talk

Theatre, movies, TV? Meant to see my friend Libbi's aerial theatre show, but too tired from verkakte sleep schedule. Watched the end of a Giants game in graphic mode with the boys last night, then fell asleep by 10.

Sunday, April 18

Reading for work: Buried Child, Top Girls, misc stuff for teaching, 9 kabillion emails. Oh, and Wired magazine.

Listening: Where Men Win Glory, picking up around half way through (where I was when book got recalled to library

Watching: no theatre this week! No movies, either. TV? Can't think of any. Oh--Lost. We are caught up, amazing.

Sunday, April 11

Quick Quick:

Saw:
Date Night on a date!
Luau at school. Good, although I was so tired I would have happily lay down on the bleacher bench and fallen sound asleep with 400 people shouting "woohoo" all around me.


Read: Am only reading one thing right now, primary source material for a new play. Trying to get it in my bones.

Other that that, work work work.

Sunday, April 4

Bugger all, I seem to have deleted a post. One thing this blog has shown me is how much time I spend gobbling up stories via every possible delivery system. Theatre, movies, CDs, TV, chomp chomp gulp gulp gulp. Which means that the accidentally deleted post probably represented two or three plays read,at least one movie seen, two or three hours of TV, novels both read and heard, and what else?

Well. On with it.

Read: two what I guess you would call "Chick Lit" mystery novels--?--by Harley Jane Kozak, who is a friend of a friend. One higher-aspiring novel called The Wife's Tale that I noticed in the New Arrivals shelf of the library and started reading while waiting for someone to help with a donation. I only mention this because I almost never read contemporary novels. I'm not snooty or unsnooty or counter-snooty about it, I just don't usually pick up new fiction. New non-fiction, yes, old fiction, yes. But everything in this paragraph is new fiction, and I read it, and I liked it.

Re-read a lot of Artaud for theatre history class, which is mostly like reading Artaud for the first time, even after many readings. Reading for classes is light right now, for both students and me, by design. Other things afoot. Have my directing students working with a play called Antigone's Red by Chiori Miyagawa, which is full of mystery and dread and love.

To refresh for a class where I was playing student, listened to some of Mansfield Park in two different versions, and am here to recommend Juliet Stevenson over the other reader. (Duh, but I think I should get points for being open-minded enough to look into it.) Finished the week by finally watching the 1999 movie, which was ambitious, daring, and maybe a bit confused, but also quite thrilling.

Listened to some Wodehouse round the edges as I was waiting for my Austen CDs to arrive. And am now listening to Bridget Jones's Diary. Both make me chortle, and I don't mind saying so. (Actually, Barbara Rosenblat, who is the Bridget Jones reader, is one of the best I've ever heard.)

Watched Fantastic Mr. Fox with the family. Full of surprises, I thought. Good weird and delightful.

Light on TV, just an episode of Lost with Ryan I think.

Saw Philadelphia Story at a local community theatre because a friend was in it. She was darling and vibrant. Rest of the show not great, but it's a play that kind of fascinated me--I think partly because it's probably harder to communicate to a cast and via them to an audience than any Restoration Comedy. Interesting challenge.

Saw 4:48 Psychosis with my directing class. It is hard to see Sarah Kane, hard even to get up the will to commit to going to see her, and then also hard to see what's actually being done when one's head is so full of what it might be. Well, The Theatre and Its Double. This production was simple, courageous, tightly put together but with room to breathe and grieve. Very, very glad I went, and with the people I went with.

That's all I can remember. Some things lost to memory, no doubt, but the point is made that I am a glutton for entertainment, narrative, and ideas. Actually, I feel OK about all of it, high-, low-, and middle-brow, but think it might be good to be a little more deliberate in my consuming. For that matter, it might be good to get the hell through Omnivore's Dilemma for once and for all.

"Pages of O.D. read: 12 (v.bad!)"

Saturday, March 20

FIRST DAY OF SPRING BREAK!

Read this past week:
Raisin in the Sun and Tea and Sympathy for class. Felt transgressive assigning T&S--not a play on anybody's radar anymore. Students responded strongly to it. I love when they love old chestnuts like that. Makes you forget they're chestnuts.

Re-read hunks of Mansfield Park and am having the delightful experience of sitting in on an English class devoted to Austen.

For work: did quite a bit of reading about some directors my students are currently studying--Wilson, Bogart, Suzuki--and also about cross-racial casting. Lots of fun stuff.

Watched: Long Day's Journey Into Night for the kabillionth time. Dean Stockwell ran away with it this time, for my money.

Watched: a couple more episodes of Nero Wolfe Mystery, a couple episodes of Psych, an episode of Lost. Too much TV!

Listened to Please Pass the Guilt, kind of a lesser, weird, late Wolfe--somewhat interesting, though, for throwing Fred, Orrie, and Sal into the mix in a more concerted way. I have been slightly spoiled about the final (Stout) Wolfe book, and I believe this one is moving them into position for that.

Theatre: a student's musical theatre piece consisting of an original book and borrowed songs. Not brilliant but good-spirited and with a couple of appealing performances. Also watched a handful of auditions for a student's senior project, which is a solid and sometimes beautiful play about the pirate Grace O'Malley.

I have a cool job.

Saturday, March 13

Read: Dead Man's Cell Phone

Reading: Omnivore's Dilemma (still) (still good)

Work reading/re-reading: Short Organum for the Theatre, Good Person of Setzuan

Listening: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Please Pass the Guilt, NPR all-Sedaris podcast

Saw: Rubber n Glue in my department, show both written and directed by my friend Matt, because he rocks most awesomely

Watched: two episodes of the A&E Nero Wolfe Mystery series (started this in November, dunno why I haven't been including it--I watch about one a week. If you ever want anything pretty to look at, this is the show for you.

Saturday, March 6

Seen: Nation from NT Live
Switch evening of one-acts at Lincoln High
Percy Jackson/The Lightening Thief
Taming of the Shrew/The Women's Prize @ Bag & Baggage
Ten hours of Art History presentations, don't ask
Bits of rehearsals for two shows at school

Read for work: Uncle Tom's Cabin (the play) and Under the Gaslight. A lot of Gertrude Stein--delectable--and Machinal by Sophie Treadwell

Read: My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World

Listened: The Gambit and The Mother Hunt, both Wolfe

Monday, February 22

I'd gotten into a pattern of posting at week's end, which was handy, but then we traveled the weekend of the 13th/14th, and this weekend I was just kind of blue. So what the hell, I'll hop back on here!

Read: Broadway Nights--light, funny, Acito-esque.

Started reading The God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza's most recent play, but couldn't get much traction. Two couples meet to have a civil conversation over the son of one couple's having beaten up the son of the other couple's. Slowly, their parental and class anxieties dribble forth and yada yada yada. Probably great with the kind of killer cast that did it on Broadway, but tiresome reading--or maybe I need to read the Broadway translation (reset from Paris to Brooklyn) instead of the London one (London). It's potentially kind of Virgina Woolf meets Ayckbourn, which means it could well be my cup of tea, but not just at the moment.

Finished Mansfield Park with its couple of truly unexpected jaw-droppers toward the end. Could it be my favorite Austen? (Could it?) I'm obsessed with it to the edge of writing fan fiction. I may get to sit in on a friend's class next month when they talk about it!

Made only a little headway in Omnivore's Dilemma. It's very good, I've just had too many other books going to make much progress.

Ten days ago or so, saw A Single Man. A bit too much for the state I've been in, but good. Very artsy, very well acted, nothing on the nose.

Saw a rehearsal of a guest artist's show at my school. Very promising, with lots of time still to refine.

Re-read for work: Miss Julie, Spring's Awakening, Votes for Women, something else?

Watched a lot of Olympics this weekend. Oh, and we went downtown and saw a Harlem Globetrotters game.

Saturday, February 6

Listened to Where Men Win Glory through the 5th disc (of 11), then had to give it back to the library as someone else had it on hold. Now I'm back in the hold queue at #19. It's very good. Rich in information and, although you sense Krakauer's admiration throughout, doesn't hold back on revealing Tillman's more regrettable tendencies and acts. Good, efficient rundowns on the development of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, of the 2000 recount, of the Bush administration's unconscionable lack of response to intelligence leading up to 9/11. Way too much football for me--I would have been happy to collapse several of the descriptions of specific games into a sentence ["Pat continued to excel at football." "They played in the Sun Bowl, which is a big deal."] But all in all, as I said earlier, the writing is really good, and much more elegant and persuasive than Into the Wild.

Last Sunday, I saw Introducing . . . Playwrights West at CoHo Theatre, but "saw" is something of an understatement as I also directed it and wrote one of the eight short plays. What I really thought: an exciting and successful evening. Because we chose not to have a theme or unifying gimmick (a choice I was squarely in favor of till I was drafted to direct), there wasn't quite the satisfying roundness of some other similar evenings I've been involved with, but I think even that worked. And, although I expected I'd be shakey and out of body all night because of perceived high stakes (our company's first public event) and minimal preparation (one 4-hour rehearsal!), I actually managed to enjoy both the show and the champagne schmoozing afterwards. Lots of dear friends there, which was nice. And I've been getting lovely thank-yous and kudos (for the company and me personally) all week, which is also nice. I do want to flesh out my piece just a little and then I might start submitting it--although probably the effort would be better spent on anything else, as it is a 9/11 play, and those are Uncool.

Saw boom last night at Theatre Vertigo. Good play with a terrific premise: A nebbishy biology grad student has invited a young woman (herself an undergrad in journalism) to his basement lab/apartment for sex. Fairly quickly, it's revealed that he believes a comet is going to hit the earth and end life for everyone above ground. Then a comet does hit the earth and end life for everyone above ground, and he tries (repeatedly, over many months) to convince her to restart the human race with him. There's also a narrator/puppet master/docent who works the special effects and provides commentary, as the boy/girl story is actually being played out in a sort of natural history museum, many (many) years in the future. I felt like it the script could have used one more go to integrate the two levels of reality, but that also may have been directorial and/or production limitations. Anyway, fun. Saw it with Maddie, Libbi, and Case.

Re-read (for classes) Camille and A Doll's House.

Reading on Kindle: The Omnivore's Dilemma. Not sure how I feel about the Kindle. Haven't entirely embraced it yet, but it's handy in some cases. What I like best (so far) is that it will save bringing more square inches of stuff into my home. It won't do the same for my office, as I generally need actual physical books to read from in class, lend to students, make copies, and so on. Omnivoreis great, anyway.

Listening to in the car: Mansfield Park read by the wonderful Juliet Stevenson (whom I've met!). It is delicious, and has the same effect that all the Rex Stout had for the several months when he was my car buddy--a good boost every time I drive! As much as I was admiring and even enjoying the Krakauer book, it wasn't fun. This is fun.

Watching: Lost. I also watched Leverage this week since my friend Matt was on it, but it turned out he only had about 4 seconds of screen time. A show that is partly addicting and partly annoying, and is filmed here in Portland, which makes it be fun to spot actors and locations.

Friday, January 29

Saw a friend's show last night that didn't have much to recommend it, but who knows what it might have been under different circumstances?

I am listening to Where Men Win Glory on CD these days. Came to it because of my interest in the Tillman family, as Pat's younger cousin was a student of mine (and one of my dearest) a few years ago. I heard a lot about the events from her, even right as they were grappling with testimony and so on.

And actually I am finding it quite compelling--much better written than Into the Wild, and hats off, Krakauer, for that, and so far a skillful telling of a profound and far-reaching story. And what do you know, G, G, and S is kind of paying off as I feel more up to speed on world geography than before.

Am now at the part--6 chapters in, I guess--where Krakauer describes the founding of the Taliban. I never really thought about what the Taliban replaced: reprehensible and consciousless warlords. "No one ever talks about all the good things the Taliban does!"

Other than that, I'm not reading much, just working countless hours. Not watching much TV either, although we've squeezed in a few more hours of Lost and might be caught up in time for the new season.

And I have been trying to get up to speed on my Kindle. It's not hard, really, but there's learning the controls and then loading up some books and then actually reading, and with my schedule I'm still on Step 1.

Sunday, January 24

Finished: Guns, Germs, and Steel I never came around to this, much, and finished it only because I felt I must. I guess in the end I picked up some big-picture info I wouldn't have absorbed any other way, but I never did like this author's writing style or his apparent complete lack of wonder. I did dig--think I said this before--the too-short section on languages. And a chapter toward the end that outlines the development and structure of bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states is interesting.
Edited to add, several weeks later: I think the CD I listened to most have been substantially abridged. Julian keeps mentioning whole ideas that weren't in the version I heard.

Finished: The Jane Austen Book Club

I seem to be inhabiting a fairly small literary world these days. Reading lots of Rex Stout and lots of Jane Austen, I suspect for the same reasons. And, as it turns out, Stout once said this, late in life, to his biographer, John J. McAleer: "I used to think that men did everything better than women, but that was before I read Jane Austen. I don't think any man ever wrote better than Jane Austen." Too true.

I know why I read them both: good sentences. I love good sentences. I could spend days in one, and sometimes do. I dream of writing one. Someday I hope to live in one.

Oh, and I know another reason. Both writers immerse you in orderly worlds, where there are rules and ways. Sometimes (often) those rules and ways are transgressed, and often therein lies the plot, but there is an elegant structure in Wolfe's daily schedule and his refusal to talk business at mealtime, just as in the way class inhabits and directs every interaction in Austen, and etiquette is--if sometimes breached--understood by all. In contrast, my life feels like constant chaotic disruptions against a backdrop of chaos.

So, anyway, I read Rex and Jane, and it turns out Rex loved Jane, and then I watch the Jane Austen Book Club movie, and that sends me back to reread the book. Which left me cold the first time, and which I find absolutely wonderful this time.

Saw: Where the Wild Things Are. Much discussed by Ryan and me, not so much by the boys.
Hamlet (CoHo Theater)--not an adaptation, but a skillful streamlining, lasting 2-1/2 hours with five superb actors. There were a couple of choices that didn't make sense to me, but overall: exquisite.

TV: too much, but the important ones are Lost (we're trying to get up to speed before the new season starts) and (dare I say it!) A Nero Wolfe Mystery (the only series I own complete, and I'm watching it for the first time, from beginning to end)

Reading: plays I'm working on (directing, not writing--well, I wrote one of them)
The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China, a kids book with a ton of great pictures

And just started listening to Where Men Win Glory

Also reading a crapload of email and catalog copy for work. Well, it has to be done.

J A B C Quotes

Dogeared from The Jane Austen Book Club

[Grigg, the one man in the club, says about Northanger Abbey, "there's something very pomo going on there."] "The rest of us weren't intimate enough with postmodernism to give it a nickname. We'd heard the word used in sentences, but its definition seemed to change with its context. We weren't troubled by this. Over at the university, people were paid to worry about such things; they'd soon have it well in hand."

"No one with real integrity tries to sell their integrity to you. People with real integrity hardly notice they have it. You see a campaign that focuses on chracter, rectitude, probity, and that's exactly when you should start asking yourself, What's this guy trying to hide?"

"When I was driving to the hospital," Sylvia said, "I thought if Allegra was all right I would be the happiest woman in the world. And she was, and I was. But today the sink is backed up and there are roaches in the garage and I don't have time to deal with any of it. The newspaper is filled with poverty and war. Already I have to remind myself to be happy. And you know, if it were the other way, if something had happened to Allegra, I wouldn't have to remind myself to be unhappy. I'd be unhappy for the rest of my life. Why should unhappiness be so much more powerful than happiness?"

Saturday, January 16

Novel this week was Some Buried Caesar, a Wolfe novel I picked because it is the first to feature Lily Rowan. She is quite a number in this book! And always, of course.

Seem to be sticking closely to comfort reading. Well, we had a rough week.

Listening to Guns, Germs, and Steel. More or less forcing myself to finish it despite finding it very boring. Except the section on language development, which could have been ten times longer and more detailed.

Also reading some stuff for work, but not yet in any orderly way.

Seeing: yesterday and today I watched 150 auditions. Ten (at most) were dazzling, ten (at most) were bad, and the rest were solid, respectable, watchable. I love actors, so it's not a bad way to spend time as far as I'm concerned.

Seeing: Natey and I watched G-Force once and Hotel for Dogs a half dozen times. The ending of H for D is sweet and makes me cry, but still in all I'd prefer not to watch it so much. Then again, rough week, and if Natey wanted to watch it while his Dad was gone and his Grandma was dying, why not?

Friday, January 8

Reading: Finished The League of Frightened Men a couple days ago. It's the second Nero Wolfe book (probably the 10th or 12th I've read), which means it's interesting to see how different it is stylistically from the later books. (Because of the war, there was a pretty big gap between the first two or three and the rest of the series.) Wolfe and Archie get a lot more lovable once Stout finds his stride, although the narrative voice here is still engaging, and it's cool to see space being carved out for some things we will come to count on. Mostly, what's great about this particular book is a really engaging premise--the client being not one person but a group of men who have reason to fear mortal threat from a really fascinating villain. What's startling, though not enough to put me off the book(s), is the unreconstructed attitude toward disability and people with disabilities. Paul Chapin is a villain because he's (as Archie refers to him many, many times) "a cripple," and he's suffered a crippling accident, it's suggested, because there was something wrong with him in the first place--a sort of inverted and overly intense character. Rex Stout, as progressive as he was in so many ways--and more so as the years went on and his writing spanned four decades--was not progressive in this way.

Seeing: Ryan and I are making our way through the most recent season of Lost. We dropped the thread halfway through last spring, but are picking it up now and really enjoying it.

And seeing: caught an early show of Up in the Air yesterday, which left me with no idea what all the fuss was about. After some overworked opening credits against an overworked version of "This Land is Your Land," the whole thing was thin and unsatisfying, save for one or two unexpected developments that hinted at what might have been. The two leading actors are fun to watch for their gorgeousness and charm, but Anna Kendrick, who was terrific in Camp was a one-joke attraction here.

I think it's a case where if I'd seen this out of the blue (on a plane, perhaps) without any expectations, it might have worked as a lightweight diversion. But because of its hype as a culturally significant blah blah blah, I left the theatre annoyed and baffled. That said, every year there is at least one major movie that gets tons of award attention but just leaves me cold or worse--Fargo, American Beauty, Forest Gump. To each his own, really.

I was able to read and see a ton over break and prior to rebooting this blog, but am clearly slowing down on both fronts now that I'm back at work. And working way too much already!!!

I started this particular blog almost two years ago when I wanted to post a lot of theatre-going notes at once, thinking then that I might or might not keep it up for notes on plays I read or saw. "Might not" has prevailed for a number of good reasons. But now I'm thinking it would be a handy place to keep a simple list of what I read or see from here on out. I may or may not write more, but at least, like my smart husband, I will have one place to track the plays, movies, books, other, that I read and see.

Today is the first of 2010. Today I finished watching The Jane Austen Book Club (which I liked enormously more than the book), and took Nathan and Cassidy to the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel this morning (which gave me a headache). (But the Percy Jackson trailer gave me goosebumps and made me cry a little.) I am in the middle of a Nero Wolfe book (as usual).

I am also alternating between two books on CD in the car: Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel (which everyone but me seems to find fascinating) and Ken Robinson's The Elment (fun and interesting and frustrating so far in that (the frustrating part) it's a lot about the current bollocks of our approach to education).