detroit and america

Dina just sent me this article because we've been talking about the play Detroit, by Lisa D'Amour... I'm so glad she did. It's a long piece but so moving and so important. And it has great pictures.

I have some people from Michigan, from Saginaw and Flint. And one of my best friends is from Detroit. And I loved the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. So, I'm really interested in Detroit. Also because it is potent. It is a real place that is also a reflection of empty promises and corruption and really terrible thinking. 

The article also reminded me of the fascinating recent profile of Theaster Gates in the New Yorker.  I'm so happy these people exist in the world and they're at it every day doing their good work.

I'm also really glad I wanted to hyperlink Lisa's name. It made me do a little internet-stalking and I learned more about Lisa from her website. I knew I really liked her world view and way with language and all that from reading (and seeing the production of) Detroit. Now I know we are also very kindred. She recently did an installation called Nest that was part environmental installation, part devised theater piece, part social inquiry. I also have my Nest... that endeavored to engage similarly.  And she wrote and directed a theater piece called "Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea" for Swoon's moving installation of homemade barges a few years back. I love Swoon and that project especially. I wish I could have seen the show.

Ahh, theater... ephemeral as neighborhoods. 

crazy kids

I love how free-spirited these kids are and I hope they won't feel like they have to stifle or censor themselves as they get older.
I also hope their classes get more diverse!
I also really like this band. I had never heard them before.
Thanks for sharing, Will.

two messages I believe in.

watch this:


That made my eyes tear up. For me, sixth grade was the worst. I felt really, really alone and weird and like there was something wrong with me. The boy in the trailer breaks my heart because I just know he is going to the best and coolest kind of person ever if he can just get through the next 5-7 years. I wish he could know that I care about him. And think he's so much cooler than the a-holes behind him on the bus. I wish he could know that everything really is going to get better.

Around the time I was in 6th grade (really from 2nd grade through 6th grade) I loved to listen to a storybook on tape every night as I was falling asleep. I listened to the same one over and over. Which was also the book that was the first book I read aloud but I'm not going to say what the title of it was because you might become distracted from the point I'm really trying to make, about how wonderful it is to listen to someone tell a story in the dark. I listened to this as I was falling asleep the other night and I recommend it highly. Will has a great voice, a sort of ambiguously regional but extremely local-feeling radio station voice, and also a great voice in the other sense. listen here. (I especially recommend the interview/play that starts a little over 18 minutes in.)

holding on to things

I have spent a considerable amount of time, extremely intermittently, 'moving' over the past several months.
Due to a convergence of events which include traveling for work (I have spent 2+ months in five different cities on both coasts in the past 24 months!), my mother moving out of her house, and me moving out of my LA house-- I have been much encouraged to 'get rid of stuff.' And here begins the quandary.
I used to give my friend Adam a hard time because he was so good at getting rid of stuff, I sometimes wondered why the objects themselves didn't mean more to him. Letters, cards, photos, etc. It turns out I was reading him wrong. He is constantly streamlining his belongings and yet he holds onto and invests more in the friendships he maintains from growing up, etc. than anyone else I have ever met. Which seems like the important thing. And he gets photograph printed. Which is just way too rare and awesome.
Personally, I have a very hard time throwing things away. The sunflower Susanna left me in our shared locker at Boston Ballet in 1991? It's on top of the bookshelf in my bedroom in my mom's house. ...The set of pajamas I tried to sew in 1993. Every letter Nick Farrell wrote me between 1992 and 1998. Photos and drawings and collages and all those triangle-folded notes from high school. My typewriter. My old pointe shoes. The tulle I wanted to save for a costume. The other tulle. Every Vogue and Sassy magazine from 1992-1997. The endless christamas lights I must save for parties and shows... It just gets to be too much! And yet, how do you know what of get rid of and what to hold onto?
My sister and I used to mine the room my mother grew up in for clues and artifacts from when she was our age. We would delight in cryptic letters and take pictures in her old clothes. I am so grateful there was something left there for us to uncover.
I really enjoyed the 7 1/2 month period I spent living out of a suitcase last year, and I know that was largely a function of not carrying around so much baggage, both figuratively and literally. Now I live in a 5th floor walk-up and every time I'm about to acquire something I ask myself if I really want to carry it up all those stairs, and then carry it down again at some point in the not-too-far future. But I also feel so tied to the stuff that is sitting in boxes in my mom's house. It's not just that I want to have certain books around me, I want to have THOSE books, with the notes in the margins and the dog-eared pages. I want to be able to unravel tightly-wrapped notes and travel as if through a wormhole to my mind circa-1995. I want my daughter or grand-daughter to be able to slip on my old pointe shoes and feel where I stood.
I actually threw out Susanna's sunflower just recently; it had almost turned to dust, but I'm glad I saved it all these years. She got it for me when I was having a bad day and sometimes when that happens now I remember what she did, and I can see it there in the locker bursting with color and life, and it makes me feel better. If I had thrown it out as soon as it faded, I might not have remembered.

Full disclosure: It is a snowy day here in NYC and a sort of day-off before a very busy spell. I just listened to This American Life #199. It's called The House on Loon Lake and it's a really good one.

lightning

That is not a metaphor. It is crashing so loudly and so brightly, it feels very near.
I am such a lucky girl this week and I have so much to process.
It was the first week of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab, the opening of One Child Born: The Music of Laura Nyro by Kate Ferber and Louis Greenstein, (that I am directing), and casting is set for Three Days of Rain (also directing, goes up in Texas in September). I also got to see my mom and my cousin Katie.
The Lab is a recipe for incredulity. This week alone we talked with:

Kate Whoriskey
Declan Donellan
Lev Dodin
Winter Miller
& Mark Bennett and numerous musical-theater peeps (composer, lyricists, etc.)

and did:
a 3-day 'moment workshop' with Andy Paris (Tectonic Theater Project)
some strenuous physical work with a Grotowski practitioner
movement work (and psycho-drama!) evoking MAAFA (or, Middle Passage) with Jesse Wooden, Jr. and his company Meyerhold's Biomechanics with a theater company that uses his principles and etudes in the conception and execution of their work

I missed Ntozake Shange's talk because of my callbacks... but I doubt if I would have been capable of taking in and synthesizing much more stimulation.

All this movement work and discussing it in terms of its groundbreaking-ness has me feeling very appreciative of my coming to theater through dance, and slightly anti-hero-worshipful of some of the people who gave existing quantities clever, intellectual names. Many of the big ideas are intrinsic for dancers/choreographers-- and it is fascinating to me how many of my directing peers in the Lab seem to revere artists like Pina Bausch-- while going about their craft in a completely different way. I used to talk with my friend Sam about how being a choreographer is quite like being a director, only it is harder-- because you are also the playwright. I don't think he agreed with that. But then, at that point I was a choreographer and he was a director and we are so often protective of that thing we do, aren't we?

I walked around DUMBO this afternoon too and had to keep pushing the bitter feelings down and away. This place that has had such a formative effect on me-- and I once thought I was making an impact on it-- has no memory of me. No trace. There's a bigger and better flea market than any DUMBO Bazaar. The first three homes of my fledling Nest are alive and well and seem to be carrying on respectable and legitimate cultural commerce. Then again, the beer still tastes good and the view is still magnificent; for now anyway.
The girl who is living in the apartment I lived in hung a piece of fabric over the glass door to the balcony just like I did. There's a problem there of too much light coming in all at once in the morning and almost blinding you.

these modest facts

I wrote this 20 days ago but wasn't connected to the internet so then I forgot about it until today. Since I have been so remiss in posting here I'm scraping together even the ones I had forgotten.

John Updike wrote a poem called “Peggy Lutz, Fred Murth” on December 13th, 2008. He died shortly after Christmas, less than two weeks later. Several poems from his final months were published in a recent issue of the New Yorker and it took me several times with the issue before I got through more than a line or two of each. Poetry for me requires a very specific state of mind. Patience. Generosity. Curiosity. Patience again… And compassion, or a willingness to be open and sensitive. To let down the guard of my workhorse self and let the cogs in the machine in my head move about, float a bit, and maybe—hopefully—re-attach in some new and different, transformed way. I can’t be doing three or four things at once and I can’t be thinking about any other thing—at least not until moved to do so by the words on the page. Surprisingly, rare as it is in my day-to-day life—this mode, the state poetry is in-- is probably my favorite. Because, it is also the state where I can really feel. Really think. And really listen.
[I love Mach-4 (as in flight not razor) mode too, don’t get me wrong—and I love feeling fast, efficient, productive. But there’s a little something special about that dreamy other place—where the rules of punctuation and linearity fall away.

from the poem:
“I’ve written these before, these modest facts,

but their meaning has no bottom in my mind.
The fragments in their jiggled scope collide
To form more sacred windows. I had to move
To beautiful New England—its triple
Deckers, whited churches, unplowed streets—
To learn how dreary and deadly life can be.”

I really love this poem and this part of it. I grew up in a triple-decker on a hill in Dorchester that the plows often overlooked. Snowstorms meant going out into the world knowing that more than likely the trip home at the end would include a group effort push of the car up the hill.
In the past few months I have been filling out a lot of applications (fellowships, grants) and prepping for some interviews where questions like "tell us about yourself as an artist" laser at me with terrifying frequency. It was terrifying until I really organized my 'story' -- of truths of course-- but where the ordering and delivery can really shape a stranger's understanding. I lined up and made sense of my modest facts. And I am finding Updike's observation to hold true-- their meaning has a sort of infinite bottom.

heroes

Yesterday morning I watched Hilary's farewell speech to the Senate. She reflected on the past eight years, being a brand-new Senator during 9/11, on the challenges she has faced, the successes that have occurred, and as she was speaking I got a little teary. I felt so proud to know and love New York as much as I do, and I felt like a real New Yorker. [This is a feeling I am somewhat oriented towards listening to since I have been such a tumbleweed/gypsy lately.]
Yesterday afternoon I followed the news on the US Airways flight and the 'hero of the Hudson' (Why is the NYPost so brilliant with its headlines?!) and I felt moved to tears again.
Watching Bloomberg's press conference this morning-- again-- MOVED. As the Mayor put it-- we should all be grateful and go forth into the day with a smile on our faces...
Now, to paraphrase passenger Vince Spera--'if anything bad has to happen to me or anyone I love-- I pray that it happens in the great city of New York.'

overwhelming

I remember reading this Wordsworth poem junior or senior year of high school, with Eben sitting behind me... and feeling its potency then.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
(1807)

Today, this week, month, year, several years?? there are moments when I feel a bit overwhelmed. By the amount of books I want to read. By the number of movies I feel it is imperative to the continuing development of my soul that I see. By the quantity of news that I feel it is my responsibility as a privileged member of a media-laden society to process... By the phone calls I would like to make to stay in touch. By the disconnect between the number of ideas I have and the number of them I have brought to fruition. By my love for people. By my anger at people. By my compassion for people who are suffering, those I know and those I don't know. The list goes on and on.

Last night I went to a fun reunion-of-sorts party which had the unusual distinction of including speeches. Maybe because the party was celebrating my friend Sam's brief return to NYC from Obama-land... and he has been so close to such a great orator for a bit, and maybe because of how monumental this week was, and because many of us at the party went to a high school where declamation was not just revered but PRACTICED... we were all game. A college friend got us warmed up with a more conventional toast, and then Sam took the step ladder and went on for a bit. He told stories from the trail, stories we will probably learn in the coming weeks (about for example, Barack's first night in NYC as a transfer student at Columbia, when he slept under the stars in an alley on 109th Street), and he talked about how much the people that are his support team have meant to him these past two years especially. He grew up in a neighborhood in Boston called Jamaica Plain and many of his childhood friends were there to raise their glasses last night. He talked about his girlfriend Sasha and how much of a rock she has been, and how having her there to listen to him gripe, or share in his glee, or just shoot the proverbial shit with has gotten him through more than anything. I was really happy for him. I am really happy for him. He is the kind of sensitive, thoughtful, complex-minded individual you might assume would favor a career in the arts or education over politics.

And you know the most amazing thing-- instead of going to Washington, where he could surely get a cushy job in the administration-- he is choosing to keep doing what he has been doing. Finding people who have never participated in politics ever before maybe, talking to them, getting them excited, and sharing their stories... He is choosing to stay with the movement, and effect change from the outside in-- rather than play the conformity game with the bureaucrats in Washington. And the really exciting thing to me-- the macro-level reality is-- when this Obama-thing started two, or four, or arguably more, years ago-- it must have seemed like a near-impossibility. The people involved must have felt pretty overwhelmed by the amount of change him being elected President would effect. The paradigm-shifts. The mind-opening...

Ahhh... but we did it. Here we are. It wasn't easy. Change is not easy (Sam kept saying that last night, I guess it is something Barack says pretty often...). As Sam put it, "It's fucking hard. But it's worth it. It's so exciting."

What would I prefer-- to NOT be overwhelmed??
Please.
Unlikely.

please vote

My good friend Sam Graham-Felsen, who has been working for Obama for 2 years, has a link to this speech on his gchat tag. I personally love Henry IV, parts I and II and Henry V-- following young Prince Hal's youthful and privileged ignorance, adventures and debauchery, and ultimate pursuit of wisdom through exploration and education. Apparently our friend Chris Roma learned this speech for declamation in 11th grade at Boston Latin (our high school) and has not forgotten it. Sam said he used to recite it in their college dorm room. I think it's a good message for today.
Oh yes- and PLEASE GO VOTE!!!

how do you do your best thinking?

a Saturday Night Live sweatsuit!!
what a concept!
today:
I did my best thinking walking through the streets of the west village in new york city. These streets are so deeply satisfying as is the cup of coffee inside the cafe.

Yes the streets and residents and shops are well-kept and seem almost frozen in time (a better time?). Everything is VERY nice but without the ostentatious flair of Soho or either of the Uppers... or even Williamsburg, DUMBO, Park Slope... The West Village feels a little more heterogeneous (at least it is not overwhelmingly nouveau-riche, hipster, trust fund artists, or lesbians and babies. Maybe it has to do with the well-cultivated bohemian look the younger people here don, I believe the look to be more aligned with the souls of the older folks-- I believe maybe they did protest in Tompkins Square in '88 and hung out at CBGB's and maybe they have written great songs, made great films, paintings, stories, etc.)

Mostly though I think it is the scale that is so satisfying. The very HUMAN scale-- the relationship between the street width, the building heights, the sidewalks and the trees. Old trees. Cobblestoned streets. History happened here...
The perfect street by this criteria-- at least that I know of-- is called Theater Street. It is in St. Petersburg, Russia and it is home to the Vaganova Institute-- the training grounds for the world-class Kirov Ballet.

My mom called me this morning because she had heard the Vaughan Williams piece "Lark Ascending" on the radio and she had a strong emotional reaction to the memory of the choregraphy piece I made to the music in tenth grade. She called me to say how proud of me she is, and (in a vein similar to all mothers I am certain) how 'I am so special.' Of course, like most people in their 20s with career uncertainty, no significant other, etc. my thoughts went in the direction of-- "Oh no!! What happened?"

I distinctly remember being in 5th grade, right at the beginning of the school year, and thinking, "oh no, how will I ever do as much cool stuff as I did last year?" [At that point looking back on the year prior included such highlights as dancing The Firebird, winning the spelling bees (Spanish & English), being in the hospital with a rare life-threatening condition, knowing someone who knew someone in Dirty Dancing, winning a $75 savings bond in an art contest, starting to play the flute on a 'curved head joint', doing a REALLY good science project...] In hindsight of course, it all seems incredibly normal. Nothing really spectacular but yes, probably all combined pretty big stuff for a ten year-old.
It is funny because every fall I have pretty much that same fear. What will I do this year that is as exciting, impressive, inspired, as something I did last year?! And I always quiet those fears because they really aren't very helpful, and after so many years of them-- I've learned again and again that each year really is more exciting and full of surprises.
Also, I got sent a picture of one of my best friends at age 10 and its great and raw Harrington and amazing how much who he is now at 30 was already at work in his little 10 year-old version.
And I KNOW the same was true with me. And the same is true of my 6-month old nephew. He loves reading, music, and dancing, and laughing, and breasts. (Just kidding-- well, not really.)
I understand that part of getting older involves more reality interspersed with the creative flights of fancy... and yes, I have chosen to make a go of it in a career that embraces the imagination, which is why I really have to remember that even though it feels like a luxury to meander through these winding well-scaled streets... I have always gotten a lot of my best thinking done on my feet. And isn't that worth something-- knowing where and how you do your best thinking? What's your best thinking outfit? Tunes? Partners in crime? What's your best thinking city or country?

Lucky me, my best thinking starts right outside my front door-- even if it is a different street every other week. Maybe that's a giant part of it actually. I keep moving, different week-- different neighborhood... but each time I step outside my feet are taking me on a new adventure and my mind is at it again.

seether

Remember the Veruca Salt album from 1994? Seether I think it was called.
"I can't see her till I'm foaming at the mouth..."
In the song it sounded like she was saying 'seethe her' -- which is what I am feeling just now.
I am sick of the RNC saying that Sarah Palin has more experience than Barack Obama. She actually said 'being mayor of a small town is sort of like being a community organizer, except you have actual responsibilities.' Or something like that. She was the Mayor of a town with 7,000 people and she has been the governor of Alaska for 20 months. The state of Alaska has a huge budget surplus because of it's oil and the federal money pumping into the state to keep the people who own all that land happy. In case you haven't noticed Sarah Palin, the rest of the country does not have a budget surplus. Similarly, hardly anyone lives in Alaska. And those who do are not the most diverse group of people. Hello Republicans-- America is a diverse country and a country in need of people with experience working with MANY different kinds of people.
My parents were community organizers in Little Rock, Dallas, New Orleans, Vermont, New Hampshire and Boston. I can tell you first hand that community organizers are the people who do the jobs that no one else wants to do. Community organizers are the people who help the people who can't always pull themselves up by their bootstraps-- because, as Obama so generously and perceptively recognized in his Convention speech, sometimes people don't even have boots on. And a lot of time-- this is through no 'fault' of their own-- as many of the people speaking this week at the RNC would have you think.
I grew up in a neighborhood in Boston where a lot of my classmates faced incredible challenges, brothers or sisters being shot while playing, no food, no shoes, tattered clothes, no health insurance etc., and these classmates were children. Innocent children. And they were great children and they are great people today-- firefighters, teachers, police officers... and if they were growing up right now, or under a McCain/Palin administration-- I can only imagine. If the abstinence education Palin supports didn't work, (as it didn't in her own family)-- and they were to get pregnant, with the Supreme Court getting increasingly socially conservative abortion might not be an option and so these young people would have the challenges of a family on their hands at a time when unemployment is at a high, financial aid for college is at a low ... it just terrifies me to think about.

I can't stand the appropriation of 'real' Americans by the Republican Party to refer to relatively well-off white people. I can't stand the accusations flying that the people challenging Palin's credentials are sexist. It is not because she is a woman. I love women and and I am glad she is a woman but that has nothing to do with it. The people saying that anyone saying 'she might not have her priorities straight' is sexist-- because I felt the same way when Edwards chose to campaign despite his wife's Cancer coming back. When you have a 4-month old with Down-Syndrome and a 17-year old who is SO FAR oFF from the values you are espousing FOR THE COUNTRY, I think you need to assess what is most important right now. Man or woman. I don't feel like it should fall on Ms. Palin's shoulders any more than on Mr. Palin's shoulders, but I think we can look to how a candidate looks out for their family as a sign of how they are going to look out for a WHOLE COUNTRY.

who are your heroes?

To tell you the truth, I am feeling a little overwhlemed. Now-- the good news is-- I kind of love this feeling. It makes me feel alive, engaged, inspired, focused, excited, and ultimately, HOPEful. I thrive on it.

I am really excited about Hillary and Barack. I am really excited about the incredible Democratic turnout in the myriad precints acorss the country that voted on Tuesday. I am excited that I had INCREDIBLE conversations with many different people, friends, people my parent's and my grandparent's ages, even Republicans, about the candidates and what this election means. I am excited that this dialogue is in full swing, and not at all over. I think it is really good for the country.

I wanted to tell you about a good friend from high school who has really inspired me this week. In high school he was funny and popular, an actor and an athlete, and smart, and very pure of heart. Two of my favorite personal memories from high school include sitting in a tree by Jamaica Pond with Sam, and, him making me a mix tape (!), of him playing the piano and singing I think. Wow, very special. I wish more of these high school students I work with were so bold and brave and original!

Anyway, Sam didn't take the oft-traveled road from Latin School to Harvard to law school/med school/business school/investment banking/lucrative consulting. He spent some time in NYC working on documentary films and fell in love with Obama at that shockingly moving speech at the Democrtaic Convention in Boston in 2004. Now, he travels with Obama and writes his official blog. He says he never thought he would be working in politics and he wouldn't be if he didn't believe in Obama as much as he does, and how much he believes we have the opportunity to make history here. And I am not taking about Obama's race/ethnicity.

Anyway, here are a few links I've been enjoying in the past few days. As if you aren't already inundated with information. Well, some of 'em will make you think, or laugh, or smile. So, if you have a moment, check 'em out.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog
http://jasongrote.blogspot.com
http://foundmagazine.com/find/203
http://gallivantingmonkey.blogspot.com
http://foundmagazine.com/find/242

[Since I'm using Internet Explorer the whole link thing isn't working too well for me... so make like its arts and crafts time and do the old cut-and-paste...]

a room of my own

Early morning drop offs at the Boylston Street entrance I would wind my way left, through the expansive Adult Fiction section of comfortable chairs filled with happy, bedraggled often shoeless bums, not that they didn’t have any shoes, but they seemed at ease in their socks, curled up with a book or ten, probably one of the reasons I still have an unusual appreciation for homeless gypsies—they are often quite thoughtful and well-read…past the librarian’s “pick of the month”—usually some John or Abigail Adams historical thing and/or the latest from Dennis Lehane or Sue Miller, Boston’s own, of course… through the outdoor courtyard that always reminded me of the Hermitage Museum in Russia, the largest museum in the world, or maybe that was the Louvre, well, I was eleven when I visited it and it felt endless anyway… through the McKim building lobby, past the Map Room and up the grand staircase, with the frescos and the lions, (cousins of the ones outside the New York Public Library main building on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue?) … through two more inviting thresholds, and finally, the wrought-iron gated Bates Hall Reading Room.

Incredibly high arched ceilings, a wall of windows with books below, long wooden tables from end to end, and little green desk lamps on every table. My own little ecstasy. I would spend entire days in this room. I would eventually discover little peep-hole windows looking out on Copley Square and the Trinity Church, I would commune with nearly every bust at one point or another, (Ben Franklin was my favorite), and I would pick up many unknown books and peruse them for interesting pictures or lines. I can’t quite remember any of what I ‘learned’ in this room, but I so remember the feeling it gave me, and the peace, and the sort of solidarity I felt with the others in the room. For whether they were homeless or scholars, they were similar to me—book people.

I began my 8th grade year not enrolled in any school and not exactly homeschooling either. I wasn’t lazy or a drop-out, I simply had parents with quite unorthodox views on education and formal schooling I guess. I was very busy. I was in the professional track at Boston Ballet School, I worked at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, mostly with a four-year old girl who was in a bad place after being hit by a car, I took Algebra I by mail from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and I had French and Sewing lessons on Friday mornings from one of my mom’s favorite Harvard students. (I remember learning a little French, getting to about the half-way mark on a pair of pajamas with cows on them, and eating lots of sesame noodles that I was too shy to confess were too spicy for me… but mostly I got some ideas on how to be ‘cool’ and smart—which Melissa was, and a concept which I’d had little exposure to before…) I remember that early on I decided that I was missing a ‘science’ component so I proposed a weekly article summary/analysis assignment. I used the Health/Science section of the Globe or the New England Journal of Medicine or something, ‘turned it in’ to my mom or dad, and they generally said ‘very good’.

The majority of my time though, was spent at either the Public Library or the Boston Ballet in the South End. I could walk between them and did so almost every day, crossing Copley Square and the diagonal plaza outside the Hancock Building, up Clarendon on the overpass of the Pike, and downhill by the sketchy bar that recently became DeLux, past Lasker’s Variety, past the frame shop where I would usually admire the Doisneau photos of Paris or the painting of the woman in the red dress and the tuxedoed man dancing in the rain, a maid extending an umbrella out over them, or the sort of shocking photograph of a girl in the foreground in her underwear and her boyfirend’s button-down, putting on lipstick in front of mirror but with her legs sort of open, her toes propped up on the vanity table, and in the background a shirtless boy in bed, similarly tousled, but completely transfixed by the bewitching woman in front of him…

I have the images in my head but I wonder now if I am describing them accurately. I wonder if the feeling I remember is actually the feeling I felt at the time or some amalgam of all the feelings I have felt in the interim, my own feelings about the feelings, and the inevitable romanticization of the past—especially, of youth. It is a very strange thing how much I like the feeling of remembering. For one thing I guess I am sort of struck by how vivid the memories are. I remember the rough feel of my black Army Navy pea coat against my wrists and I remember how hard it was to get those big buttons through the rigid and economically-cut holes. I remember my black courier-style bag and all the useless crap I used to keep in there…

I am often accused of having a ridiculous memory, it gets me or other people into trouble much more than it seems to be a good thing, and I often wonder why it is so good. I have engaged in plenty of supposed brain-cell killing activity, and yet it prevails. I think of the ‘chicken or the egg?’ scenario—asking myself which came first—the ability to remember so much or the pleasure I find in actively remembering. Maybe it is part of being born a book person—and, a writer. I wonder if my ability to imagine the description/poem/story of myself engaging in any experience almost as it is happening is somehow self-consciously creating a code or touchstone for my later self to access.

I always loved writing and my favorite way to start a story has always been with a picture, whether mental or actual. My most wonderful and pure writing experience took place in 5th grade after my class had spent a couple weeks reading books based in Japan and a day or two watching videos about Japanese life. We had written haikus in class and learned how to make some basic origami. I missed a couple days of school and to ‘make up the assignments’ my wonderful teacher Eloise allowed me to write a short story using a picture postcard showing a typical Japanese home. I created a boy main character and immediately felt myself enter into his life, into the picture, complete with relatives in nearby rooms, the smells of rice and seaweed cooking, and the quiet shuffling of feet. If I had a terrible accident now and woke up with some kind of amnesia I almost wonder if I could connect as much to that story I created of the boy—because the feelings felt so real to me as I wrote them, as to my own actual personal history.

As I have gotten a little older I notice my ability to put myself in someone else’s shoes has weakened a bit. Perhaps I have more clarity on my own perspective, it has sharpened and the edges are less round, and I am also a little more set in my ways. I don’t remember every detail quite as much, quite as vividly, and sometimes I worry I don’t feel as much as I used to. I know this is a common idea, it has echoed through many books I have read, and certainly many people see it as more of a blessing than a loss. I agree wholeheartedly that it would be tiresome to go through life with the rollercoaster-like emotional range and vulnerability I had at 15, and clearly one of the main reasons for all the excitement of youth was the series of ‘firsts’ … but I think it is sad when months and years blur together like gray-scale palettes devoid of memory-making moments or experiences. Anyway, I guess that is what I’m working on, continuing to work on, with this blog, with the relationships I have with people, with my acting, my writing, my photography … and so on.

Ahh, perhaps I should take a vivid mental picture of this most special place to me—and then I can come back here any time. At least, as a jumping off point.

thank you for waiting, leaves

There’s really no getting around it
NY makes me feel a lot of things:

Im not sure how exactly it works, or if there’s a particular order but here’s a smattering, and this is not specific to this trip—but really to every trip, or the many years I spent living there:

1. Nostalgic – for the firsts that happened there, for the memories that happened there, for the life I lived at different times there, for the times I heard about but wasn’t yet born for (60s and 70s, 1880-1910s… etc)
2. Inspired – theater on the stage or on the subway/bus/street, the brilliant design and fascinating development of the city itself… the people, the people again
3. Excited – what could happen? Anything! (Like a kid in a candy store)
4. Full of curiosity and passion – so much to see, listen for, smell, so many experts, so many people with their own burning intensity
5. Connections with people both known and unknown
6. Fun—dancing, talking, walking, seeing, kissing, running, eating, pingpong
7. Lonely—it is a wonderful place to be alone, but it also a wonderful place to have a partner in crime, a best friend, a love of your life…
8. Something Extreme – in the last year the times I have been to NYC have had blizzards, crazy rain that shut down the subways, and A TORNADO (in Flatbush!)

Makes me think of the song my dad used to sing:
‘I have often walked down this street before
But the pavement never stayed beneath my feet before’

I spent quite a lot of time in the last 48 hours following my own tracks.
The tracks didn’t show, in many cases my sense memory outlasted the cement even… but it wasn’t the ground I came for I guess. It was the path. Or the memory. Or the signs that the distance between the past and the current path might give me…

From the 10 years ago place I felt proud and excited at being able to express myself better and with greater clarity and confidence than I had 10 years prior. The teacher I used to have ‘issues’ with sat across from me and we bounced ideas around about strategic planning for the future of the wonderful program that changed my life so much… then, on the station platform and Metro-North train along the Hudson I remembered how exactly I felt when I had sat sharing headphones, giggles and the pages of a journal with my best friend. Not surprisingly, I saw two teenage girls who looked just like Sarah and me.

From twenty years ago the way I felt in my first New York City cab ride. Nighttime. Sticking my head out the window. Just like the movies…

From seven years ago… On 10th Street and 1st avenue I remembered feeling like I might have met the person I was going to spend the rest of my life. We shared a passion for art and literature and theater and insatiable curiosity and romanticism and all the memories came flooding back of cold nights nearly running with excitement from the N/R on 8th Street across Lafayette and 3rd Ave, by St. Mark’s Book Shop, taking the Stuyvesant Place shortcut to 10th, and walking past 10th Street Lounge and the sushi place that took care of my fish once when the street was closed after the crane for the luxury high-rise above Theater for a New City fell…

From nine years ago… At DOJO I remembered being an 18 year-old who was so excited to find a place that had yummy, healthy food and beer and was cheap and didn’t card, even me…

From five years ago… I remember living on MacDougal Street and the adventures that living in that close proximity to so much that was exciting to me allowed for. Many early-morning walks home.

It goes on and on. The first play I saw at the Rattlestick, … Adam Rapp’s Faster, and how exciting that was, and to now, not so many years later, go see a play there and have the director and half of the actors and designers involved be good friends. The world moving closer? Or are we all expanding only to close some of the perceived gaps?

Clinton and Henry Streets in Brooklyn and the time I spent there. The funny realization that the memory of that time has now been altered and informed by my attachment to certain works of fiction and characters and their stories specific to those places—(Mingus Rude from Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude, Paul Auster, etc.)

One of my oldest friends in the world Nick and the funny way things both change so much and stay the same. Ping pong and Brooklyn forever.

I know the tracks from these times, these people are connected to the path now, and I know I love all the new stops and/or memory pegs added to the path this weekend. New touchstones, new paths from Union Square to 9th Street, new Israeli brunch places in Brooklyn, new unmarked dance halls hidden above unassuming restaurants, new orange, amber and red leaves falling, new ideas and seasons shared with old and older friends… and fortunately… new feelings.

Splash of Colors

My Mom sent me this article this morning from the Boston Globe. It is sort of a funny coincidence to me that she sent it because while I was watching the Red Sox play (AWESOMELY!) yesterday and interacted with many (RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME!) fellow Boston peeps I made a note to myself that I would write a bit about 'where I come from' today. Boston and it's people really do have a special spark. Especially in October. Go Sox!

So, another coincidence is that shortly after I moved to LA I went to an audition at the American Film Institute and as I was on the winding driveway I saw Corita's colors. And then her name. The Corita Art Center. I had completely forgotten she even spent any time in LA. Then, a little over a month ago, shortly after moving to a part of Los Feliz (an especially green, pretty unique and sort of 'intellectual' funky part of LA next to Silverlake and Griffith Park) ... while on a run one day I ran by the Convent that Corita had lived in. The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was literally a stone's throw from my new house. What a special presence here.

Corita was like a godmother to me and many of the other women in my family. She was a mentor to my Aunt Sara, who's art now finds itself manifest in a sucessful fashion line (www.SaraCampbell.com), she was the one of first real artists I knew closely, she was the first 'old' person I really knew (and wasn't afraid of), and, she was the first person I felt close to who died. I remember visiting her in the hospital when I was 6 and she had cancer quite bad and she was playing with me still and making me laugh. She gave me some of her breathing tubes and other parapharnalia and I remember taking it home and playing in the bath with it, and pretending that my dolls had Cancer but were at a water spa and were going to get better because of a Dr. Corita.

Anyway, the tanks she painted were very close to where I lived from age 5 to 18 in the Dorchester section of Boston. I would see them all the time and smile and feel 'the world is an amazing place' every time. There was a lot of artwork by her in the apartment, and then house, I lived in growing up too. I don't have pictures of the paintings which accompanied these lines but a few of my favorite pieces had the following written on them in her very specific flowing cursive...
"The crocuses always come up."

"After ecstasy, the laundry."

"Of love,
be
(a little)
more careful
than of anything"


DORCHESTER
Belatedly, Dot says tanks, Corita
Kent's creation now embraced, and analyzed
By Michael Corcoran, Globe Correspondent | October 21, 2007

It has been more than 36 years since Corita Kent painted the Boston Gas tank on Commercial Point, but the intrigue over the colorful work of art has not waned.

Now, it's even the topic of scholarly discourse.

The work, which Kent designed to represent "hope, uplifting, and spring," will be the subject of a panel discussion next Saturday on "the art of Corita Kent and the history of the Rainbow Gas Tank." The event is being held by the Dorchester Arts Collaborative and Dorchester Historical Society at the Savin Hill Yacht Club, and is open to the public.

"It seemed to me that we should celebrate the fact that we have, right here in our neighborhood, the largest piece of copyrighted public art in the world," said Joyce Linehan, chairwoman of the arts collaborative.

The event will feature a panel discussion with artists and others familiar with the Kent's art, and on public art in general. It will cover the life of Kent, who died of cancer in 1986 at age 67, as well as the history of the tank, which Mickey Myers, a friend of Kent, described as "a sign of hope that we are not alone."

The painting was commissioned in 1971 by then-Boston Gas president Eli Goldstone, who thought it would be good to turn the two gas tanks into a work of art.

The design on the 140-foot-high tank features a vibrant rainbow splash and is easily visible from the Southeast Expressway. The original tank was torn down in 1992 and the painting was recreated on the remaining tank, now owned by National Grid.

"I think it is an interesting example of a piece of public art that has been closely identified with Boston," said Ricardo Barreto, executive director of Urban Arts at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, who will moderate the forum. "It's a piece that people were skeptical about initially, but has since become a symbol of the city to some extent."

Part of this skepticism may have stemmed from the whispers that Kent intentionally inserted a silhouette of Ho Chi Minh, the longtime Vietnamese revolutionary leader, to make an antiwar message. This idea has made the iconic piece of art somewhat divisive. When the original tank was torn down in 1992, veterans' groups demanded the design not be included in the replacement.

Kent denied that Ho's likeness was on the painting, and many doubt the validity of interpretations to the contrary.

According to Alexandra Carrera, director of the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles, Kent's style wasn't well-suited to concealing an abstract representation of someone's face. "There was nothing really meticulous about her paintings," said Carrera. "I don't think there was anything to the rumors."

Myers, who is executive director of the Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville, Vt., also said there is nothing to the rumors.

"I can tell you from [seeing] those earliest sketches there was never any intention or goal to create a portrait of anyone or to make any form of political statement in Corita's brush strokes."

But controversies aside, the painting has persisted through the years as a slice of quintessential Boston. Paul White, who in the early '70s served as state senator for the district in which the tank is located, said that while constituents initially didn't know what to make of the eccentric design, it has grown on the people of Dorchester.

"It's a real unique community icon, it has an identity, and it is so different from public construction, which can be so bland," said White, who will take part in the panel discussion. "It has endured because, despite its age, it continues to be a fresh image."

"Anyone from the community will instantly recognize the gas tanks," said Barreto.

"The traffic reports even cite the tanks when giving traffic reports. It is really a piece to celebrate, and I think people would be really disturbed if it were gone."