Mailer and McLuhan

Marc Smirnoff mentioned this discussion between Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan in his editor's column for the latest issue of The Oxford American. The column is about the need for criticism and Smirnoff's exasperation with McLuhan.

Anyway, both men are fascinating to listen to - they seem to be talking to each other from completely different places in time. This first segment has some devastating descriptions of our relationship to nature.






And then there's this classic scene.

5 Things: Tree Play

1. Plant Sprouts In Man's Lung.
2. Too Strange To Be True? Tree Sprouts in Man's Lung. (no. not a pea sprout this time, a tree.)
3. Derrida On Love and Being.

Boy Meets Girl Structure Slightly Twisted #7

Then, of course, there is the sad, dumbed-down American version of the film starring Keifer (24) Southerland and Sandra Bullock.



It's not their fault.

Thinking Too Much About Nothing At All

I drove out to this county municipal building in San Jose a few months ago. I guess it must have been on the southeastern side of the city where there are miles of industrial and construction-type buildings. The building(s) were a set of cubes - that sort of nondescript, beige concrete, soul-sucking architecture that was all the rage in the 70's and 80's. Anyway, the Department of Environmental Services (where I signed up for the Food Safety class and test) was on the 3rd floor, so I had to take the elevator. Not a big fan of elevators, but I've progressed somewhat since I was three. I can actually get in one instead of standing outside it and screaming - a habit that started when I was a baby, apparently, the screaming. But like I said, I manage now and even if it gets crowded, I can still keep it together by breathing and willing the door to open at the appropriate moment. But don't ask me to look too closely at how some thing or other works (like my son asked me to look at the door of the elevator at Whole Foods the other day, how there are two of them and how they close behind you and whoops, almost lost it).

Let me just say that I don't mind all elevators. I like glass elevators because if the building is high enough it kind of feels like you're levitating, which you are. There's an elevator at Border's Books in Palo Alto that I like because it has this amazing sound, a low hum and thrum, that I am absolutely going to record and use in a show some day. I like the elevators at the MLK Library in downtown SJ because they open out and it feels like flying or at the very least like maybe you're a character in the Matrix or something. If they were faster, it really would be perfect.



But the elevator at the county municipal building was slow and jerky and too quiet so it kind of felt like being sealed in and that can be a problem. Luckily, I was alone. But I started thinking about this article that appeared in The New Yorker in 2008 about Nicholas White who was stuck in an elevator for 41 hours.

Passengers seem to know instinctively how to arrange themselves in an elevator. Two strangers will gravitate to the back corners, a third will stand by the door, at an isosceles remove, until a fourth comes in, at which point passengers three and four will spread toward the front corners, making room, in the center, for a fifth, and so on, like the dots on a die. With each additional passenger, the bodies shift, slotting into the open spaces. The goal, of course, is to maintain (but not too conspicuously) maximum distance and to counteract unwanted intimacies...

Now every time I get in an elevator I feel like I'm doing some kind of performance. And being the kind of actor/person I am, I start to want to fuck with that and see if I can shake things up a bit. It hasn't gotten out of hand yet. This is just the idea stage right now. Because I also get caught up in a recursive loop where after I move around in the elevator attempting to defy the odds, I think that maybe I'm only making the next obvious choices, then I start thinking that there's absolutely no move I could make that isn't predetermined by the geometry of the box.


(n.b.: just watching this makes me feel like I'm being buried alive )

I find myself trying to engage other passengers in the performance. By facing them or talking to them or standing at an odd angle, or getting off at the wrong floor and then getting right back on. But how to tell if it's working? How many possible permutations are there? I'd like create a film that overlays all these floor patterns and then maybe make a dance of it.

Big Red Movie

John Malkovich. Diane Lane. Secretariat. This makes me weepy and breathless.



Watch the Derby win here, here, here, here (the actual race), and here. Yes. It's the entire Derby telecast! But wait. There's more. The Preakness and the Belmont are out there too! Plus Ruffian, Alysheba, even Man O' War. Right here.






I've probably posted this before, but hey.

Boy Meets Girl Structure Slightly Twisted #6

Mark Lanegan & Kris Delmhorst: Music for writing into the night

Jérôme Bel

Last night I saw Jérôme Bel's Cédric Andrieux or rather Cédric Andrieux performing himself. Much to say about the performance, but in the meantime - this piece is quite juicy.

PDX

I predict posting will be light for the next four or five days. I'm headed up to Portland in a few hours. Between seeing shows, eating great local food, and continuing the writing marathon, I'm going to be a busy gal.

Hopefully, I'll be recharged or take the sleep deprivation into triple quadruple infinity overdrive and push past this plateau I seem to be on.

Yesterday I went to order Jonathan Franzen's new book, Freedom and was told that pretty much every warehouse across the country is sold out except...Portland. So I'm making a trek to Powell's (well, I'd go there regardless).

Thom Yorke

5 Things: Coming Up for Air Edition

So the nose is to the grindstone, the blood on the tracks. Strange pudding, indeed.

Here are a few links to some writing around the 'sphere that has been inspiring me in the past few days.

• This week's Come-to-Jesus moment: Dear Sugar, The Rumpus Advice Column #48: Write like A Motherfucker.
• Go here, read and then just follow some of Kyle's links.
• Laid Out Plain and to the Point: A few words from Liviu Ciulei.
• This song on repeat.
• Clicking through Aaron's Short-a-Day list. Since reading has been curtailed, the next best thing is compiling a reading list.

Bonus: thinking about what an awesome field trip this would be. In case you don't want to wade through the syntax, which, admit you must, is pretty amusing, the kicker is in the second to last paragraph where Matthias Lilienthal describes the last work he's making before he retires - a multi-stage adaptation of Infinite Fun by Big Dave, himself (Thanks, JW).

Big List: Escape From My Fort or Who Am I Kidding Edition

Escape from My Fort:
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll & adapated by Brian Markley. AtmosTheatre @ Theatre in the Woods. This may be sold out, but check and see. I saw the show last Saturday and have much more to say, but that's for another post. If you can't make it this summer, plan for next year. They're doing Twelfth Night. Before you wonder why you'd hike into the woods to see that, answer me this. When was the last time you heard Shakespeare performed outdoors unmiked? When was the last time you heard Shakespeare anywhere unmiked? How many of you care? Am I alone here? Gosh, I have a whole rant on mics ready to go.

TBA Festival. I'll be in Portland September 10 - 13. Highlights: Charles Atlas, Liz LeCompte, Wooster Group, Jérôme Bel, Mike Daisey, & Gare St. Lazare Players.


Who Am I Kidding?
I really hope to see the rest of these shows. I've been in a kind of purgatorial lock down since June. Writing. Writing. Writing. And still haven't written my way out of anything yet. This will go on for another couple of months. If I can continue to manage the psychology.

The Burroughs and Kookie Show: Late Night in the Interzone. Written & performed by Christopher Kuckenbaker. September 10 at 10:30pm - September 19 at 10:00pm @ The Exit Theatre.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by John Fisher, adapted from Oscar Wilde @ Theatre Rhinoceros. Through Sep 19.

MilkMilkLemonade by Josh Conkel. Impact Theater @ La Val's Subterranean. Through Oct 2.

Killer Joe by Tracy Letts. Renegade Theater Experiment. September 11 through October 2.

In the Wound by Daniel Bruno, adapted from Homer. Shotgun Players. Through October 3.

Killer Joe by Tracy Letts. Renegade Theater Experiment. Through October 2.

Etiquettte. Rotozaza @ YBCA. September 16 through October 3.

Scapin by Moliere @ ACT. Bill Irwin in the title role. September 16 through October 10.

Jeff Buckley

.
And this. And this (the video is groovy too, but it kind of takes away from the song. I advise just listening.). Okay! One more: Dido's Lament and here too.

Dido's Lament
Thy hand, belinda, darkness shades me.
On thy bosom let me rest.
More I would, but death invades me.
Death is now a welcome guest.

When I am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble in thy breast.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.