As I compose this title I chuckle at the SHEER NERVE of it.
I am a stay-at-home Mom who has left the house precisely twice today. Once, to take the child to school (other child is on a field trip; and I have a "lift-share" -- cute English term -- in the evening); and once to get milk. I'm glad that England is (usually) not a violent culture, and grateful for the fact that West Berkshire is largely handgun-free, because otherwise someone would probably come shoot me for having so much free time.
People, please have mercy on me in your judgment. And know that tomorrow I will NOT be able to spend hours playing on my computer because I will actually have big, important things to do like get my Volvo serviced.
Yes, the hours flew by today. I was a blogging fool with my shiny, fun toy.
Sum total of today's accomplishments: sent 18 emails (4 of them could be classified as "business" as they were loosely associated with my half-hearted job hunt -- so that's okay). Two of them were to Sigmund. His response to the first was, and I quote: Have you been drinking ? I then had to form a rebuttal as I was drinking nothing but lightly caffeinated tea. (hence the need for milk) One of them was to someone who may or may not be in Managua. Several had something to do with blogging, although they weren't actually blogs.
I also engaged in a debate about the impending food crisis and rising grain price --with all of its attendant causes.
I also commented on an article in More Intelligent Life . . . and envied, not for the first time, the perfection of someone else's writing and observations.
I also checked in with my favorite food blogs and my favorite person in south Texas in a town that begins with "port."
I also updated my profile, which meant some time scanning my bookshelves and Ipod and thinking about all of my favorite things.
I then randomly clicked on "A Thousand Acres," "Jonatha Brooke," and "Moving On" -- and found a fellow enthusiast for each of these special interests. My new friends, in case you are interested, are a creative writer who lives in the north of England, a really funny Mom who lives somewhere in the U.S, and a blues musician from Chicago. He had a very detailed post about the music scene in Chicago -- past and present. I couldn't say much to that, so I offered him a story about me and "Moving On" that no one else in this world knows.
Well, it was all fun and games and I was complacent about dinner because I had fed the youngest child two pieces of cinnamon toast (from the last of the homemade oatmeal bread) and Sigmund said he was going for a run after work. (Sigmund has been engaging in both the Dutch and the British drinking cultures this week.) Then, so suddenly, it was 8 pm and Sigmund was home and I couldn't find the recipe for the chicken thing that I was going to make for dinner! What to do?
Well, I looked to Nigella in my hour of need. I have already referenced Nigella, in these few short weeks of posting, and I can't promise that it won't happen again. Nigella and I have been friends for a long, long time. I was reading her food columns in British Vogue back when the 90s were middle-aged and I was first in line to buy the wonderful "How to Eat" in 1999. This was back in those halcyon days when Nigella could do no wrong. These days, the UK public (or at least press) makes mock of Nigella on a regular basis. But I put that down to envy, as Nigella is rich, beautiful, a good writer, and someone who still has a thin face even when she puts on weight.
It has come to my attention that some people have trouble getting dinner on the table not because they have been frittering away time in the blogosphere but for more worthy reasons. A 12 hour working day combined with single parenthood would be one good example.
For these good people, I offer up the following recipe: brought to you by Nigella, and made by me tonight. It was quick, nutritious, and crowd-pleasing. (If you can call three people a crowd.) It also had the virtue -- which I must say is a first for me in last-minute cooking -- of only containing ingredients which I just happened to have on hand.
Voila! "Pollo alla Cacciatora"
INGREDIENTS:
1 T olive oil
75 g pancetta cubes
2 shallots (or similar)
clove or two of garlic
1 t rosemary, finely chopped (I used fresh, because I have it in the garden, but I'm sure dried is perfectly fine)
500 g chicken breast (I used two breasts -- frankly, I've got no clue about what 500g might be. The beauty of this recipe is that it doesn't really matter. If you think I stuck to the recipe you don't know me and you are having a laugh.)
1/2 t celery salt (I actually had this, but I doubt you need to bother)
125 ml white wine (this is the good part; you can either use the manky wine left in the fridge that someone brought you, or you can open a decent bottle and drink the rest of it with dinner. I went for a combination of the two approaches.)
1 400g can chopped tomatoes (please don't ask me to convert into ounces; it's just that standard medium sized one)
2 bay leaves
1/2 t sugar
1 400g can cannellini beans (if you don't have these, just serve it over pasta or rice)
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS:
Saute the onion, garlic and rosemary in the olive oil a couple of minutes.
Add the chicken (cut up smallish; but hey, cut it however you like) and sprinkle with celery salt.
Pour in the wine, and let bubble before adding everything else but the cannellini beans.
Simmer for 20 minutes -- during which time you can either see to some chores, or sit down with the paper and a glass of wine (my choice).
Drain the beans and add to the pan. Give them a minute to heat up and you are good to go.
I just served this with bread. I would usually bother with a salad, but tonight I didn't. Anyway, I counted at least three vegetables in this dish plus one legume.
Enjoy, my frazzled friends, your "express" but still reasonably home-cooked meal.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
The Poetry Wars
Since I devoted yesterday's post to the misery of the English character, today I shall seek to redress this imbalance by extolling the virtues of its newspapers. One of the delights of living in the UK, daily renewable, is the quality of the journalism. This is not to say that the UK lacks trashy journalism -- indeed, it excels in it. However, there are at least four excellent broadsheet papers and they are available every day.
Bee's Primer for UK journalism
(highly subjective, and possibly prone to error)
This is not a trivial matter, people: the paper you read is a highly coded business in class-bound England. It says as much about you as your accent does.
The broadsheets: all high-quality journalism; may differ in political slant -- although that is not always obvious to me, Sigmund and Jenni once had a lively debate on the topic.
The Guardian/Sunday Observer -- traditionally the "left-wing" newspaper; associated with intellectuals and liberals. Nigel Slater and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are the regular food columnists -- foodies take note. Simon Hopkinson also does the odd column.
The Daily Telegraph -- conversely, this is the Tory paper. Rich public school boys. "Sir" Conrad Black headed it during the 90s, and we all know what happened to him. Tamasin Day-Lewis wrote the food columns for many years; not sure who is doing it now as Sigmund won't let this paper cross the threshold. (Not too sure why, exactly, as he regularly gets in bed with oil and gas folk and bankers. Maybe leftover bias from working class immigrant origins?)
The Independent -- as its title proclaims, it aims for some non-political space or middle ground. More like The Guardian than The Telegraph. I think it has the smallest readership of the four; appeals to iconoclasts, who are always a meager group in the population pie-chart.
The Times -- the classic. Still has the largest readership. If you read a novel from before, say, 1970, the characters will invariably be reading The Times. Middle-brow; middle-weight according to my friend Jenni, who is a snob about such things. Home of the acerbic, prolific columnist A.A. Gill. I really like the Sunday Times, which has good Cultural sections, but Simon says that The Observor does proper news better.
The Daily Mail -- in a Venn Diagram, The Daily Mail would occupy the middle ground between quality broadsheets and tabloid trash. It is a middle to lower-middle class paper. My mother-in-law, and most of the nation's elderly, read it. It does a good Sudoku and TV section. There is little to no international news, and an over-emphasis on various smalltime outrages, scandals, and swindles. The dominant theme seems to be that the country is going to hell in a handbasket and any right-thinking person might as well emigrate. Ironically, the paper is very hard on immigrants -- who are blamed for much of society's problems.
The tabloids: all trash
The Daily Express -- trash which devotes 3 out of 5 front pages to Princess Diana. Madeline McCann is the backup for Di's days off.
The Daily Mirror -- just trash; not sure what kind they specialise in
The Sun -- trash best-known for their "Page 3 Girls" (boob shots, basically)
Now that we have that sorted . . .
Because the big four battle it out for the literate and presumably more affluent portion of the population, there are often incentive "supplements" to entice the consumer. These may take the form of DVDs, or "best of" guides, or educational pamphlets of some kind. This week, The Guardian and The Independent are battling it out with their Great Poet guides. So far I've gotten a John Donne and a W.H. Auden. I should have had a T.S. Eliot, but when I got home from the grocery store I was sad to find that my paper was poet-less. The little book must have fallen out somewhere.
Is it just me, or do others find it charming that there is obviously a belief that poets can sell papers! I just can't see this happening with the Houston Chronicle vs Austin American-Statesman.
By the way, I'm really quite bummed about the missing Eliot guide. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is probably the first "adult" poem that really grabbed me. At one point, I had several stanzas of it memorized, but my sieve-like brain has lost most of them. Incidentally, did anyone catch the "Prufrock" reference in my "Beans" post?
This is really stretching the poetry topic further than it was ever meant to go . . . but I was poetry in motion this morning on the tennis court. My volleys were crisp and precise, and my serve was killer. Non-tennis players: There is a resounding, perfect THWACK that you get when you hit the ball just right. It is one of the most satisfying physical sensations. "Sweet spot" sounds so salacious for a reason, you know.
And finally, for all the Democrat homeys out there working to take the White House back from the Bushian stranglehold: some words from Gore Vidal.
Bee's Primer for UK journalism
(highly subjective, and possibly prone to error)
This is not a trivial matter, people: the paper you read is a highly coded business in class-bound England. It says as much about you as your accent does.
The broadsheets: all high-quality journalism; may differ in political slant -- although that is not always obvious to me, Sigmund and Jenni once had a lively debate on the topic.
The Guardian/Sunday Observer -- traditionally the "left-wing" newspaper; associated with intellectuals and liberals. Nigel Slater and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are the regular food columnists -- foodies take note. Simon Hopkinson also does the odd column.
The Daily Telegraph -- conversely, this is the Tory paper. Rich public school boys. "Sir" Conrad Black headed it during the 90s, and we all know what happened to him. Tamasin Day-Lewis wrote the food columns for many years; not sure who is doing it now as Sigmund won't let this paper cross the threshold. (Not too sure why, exactly, as he regularly gets in bed with oil and gas folk and bankers. Maybe leftover bias from working class immigrant origins?)
The Independent -- as its title proclaims, it aims for some non-political space or middle ground. More like The Guardian than The Telegraph. I think it has the smallest readership of the four; appeals to iconoclasts, who are always a meager group in the population pie-chart.
The Times -- the classic. Still has the largest readership. If you read a novel from before, say, 1970, the characters will invariably be reading The Times. Middle-brow; middle-weight according to my friend Jenni, who is a snob about such things. Home of the acerbic, prolific columnist A.A. Gill. I really like the Sunday Times, which has good Cultural sections, but Simon says that The Observor does proper news better.
The Daily Mail -- in a Venn Diagram, The Daily Mail would occupy the middle ground between quality broadsheets and tabloid trash. It is a middle to lower-middle class paper. My mother-in-law, and most of the nation's elderly, read it. It does a good Sudoku and TV section. There is little to no international news, and an over-emphasis on various smalltime outrages, scandals, and swindles. The dominant theme seems to be that the country is going to hell in a handbasket and any right-thinking person might as well emigrate. Ironically, the paper is very hard on immigrants -- who are blamed for much of society's problems.
The tabloids: all trash
The Daily Express -- trash which devotes 3 out of 5 front pages to Princess Diana. Madeline McCann is the backup for Di's days off.
The Daily Mirror -- just trash; not sure what kind they specialise in
The Sun -- trash best-known for their "Page 3 Girls" (boob shots, basically)
Now that we have that sorted . . .
Because the big four battle it out for the literate and presumably more affluent portion of the population, there are often incentive "supplements" to entice the consumer. These may take the form of DVDs, or "best of" guides, or educational pamphlets of some kind. This week, The Guardian and The Independent are battling it out with their Great Poet guides. So far I've gotten a John Donne and a W.H. Auden. I should have had a T.S. Eliot, but when I got home from the grocery store I was sad to find that my paper was poet-less. The little book must have fallen out somewhere.
Is it just me, or do others find it charming that there is obviously a belief that poets can sell papers! I just can't see this happening with the Houston Chronicle vs Austin American-Statesman.
By the way, I'm really quite bummed about the missing Eliot guide. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is probably the first "adult" poem that really grabbed me. At one point, I had several stanzas of it memorized, but my sieve-like brain has lost most of them. Incidentally, did anyone catch the "Prufrock" reference in my "Beans" post?
This is really stretching the poetry topic further than it was ever meant to go . . . but I was poetry in motion this morning on the tennis court. My volleys were crisp and precise, and my serve was killer. Non-tennis players: There is a resounding, perfect THWACK that you get when you hit the ball just right. It is one of the most satisfying physical sensations. "Sweet spot" sounds so salacious for a reason, you know.
And finally, for all the Democrat homeys out there working to take the White House back from the Bushian stranglehold: some words from Gore Vidal.
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper.
Half never voted for President.
One hopes it is the same half.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
The English -- a dour race?
Something funny happened on the way to Sunday Lunch last weekend.
(Define terms: Sunday Lunch = beloved English ritual. The apotheosis of Sunday Lunch is roast beef, roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, carrots, broccoli and gravy. It is a deeply satisfying meal and meant to be enjoyed after a long walk in bracing weather. If you aren't going to exercise first I recommend starving your family by not feeding them breakfast. Either way, the stomach is prepared to receive large quantities of gravy-drenched food and the Mother has neatly avoided cooking on Sunday.)
So where were we? Yes, in the car . . . driving up Ashmore Green Road (very narrow; requires careful driving past horse and pedestrian traffic). We passed by a man -- nothing unusual in that -- but then he WAVED at us. Whole family in unison: "Do you know that man?"
Clearly, I've been in England too long.
Let me explain.
English people do not just wave or smile gratuitously; they are not like Americans in this way. Unless they know you, and maybe not even then, they are unlikely to acknowledge your presence. Perhaps it is some vestige of the old style of good manners; when it was thought impolite to address someone before being formally introduced. Perhaps it is just ill humor or a general lack of joyousness or the fact that your average English person would rather choke than utter that American commonplace "have a nice day!" I really don't know. But what I do know is that I've obviously started to adjust.
In less than a month I will be visiting my parents in Salado, Texas -- and yes, before you ask, home to the famous Stagecoach Inn. I don't know what the exact population of Salado is -- several thousand, I guess -- but when I go for long walks there I feel like I know each and every Saladoite. Every car (usually truck) that passes contains a person waving to me as if I were his or her long-lost best friend. If it's not too hot, and the windows are rolled down, I (or you, if you were there with me) am bound to get the full "Howdy" treatment. That behavior passes for normal in small-town Texas, but I'm starting to worry that I'm going to strain my neck -- what with the constant jerking backwards to query "do I know you?"
I'm reminded of an English friend who once visited Texas and chewed out a poor friendly little bag-boy after one chirpy greeting too many.
Okay, I'm not claiming to be the first person to notice that the English are a little, say cheerless, at times. They don't really go in for sober enthusiasm: it's a downright oxymoron. However, I would like to point out that when I finally got around to reading the Sunday newspaper (Monday morning), I saw this headline: You Brits just love being miserable.
Former New York Times journalist Eric Weiner has just written a book titled The Geography of Bliss -- and apparently, the Brits are perversely challenged in the bliss department. Weiner writes:
(Define terms: Sunday Lunch = beloved English ritual. The apotheosis of Sunday Lunch is roast beef, roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, carrots, broccoli and gravy. It is a deeply satisfying meal and meant to be enjoyed after a long walk in bracing weather. If you aren't going to exercise first I recommend starving your family by not feeding them breakfast. Either way, the stomach is prepared to receive large quantities of gravy-drenched food and the Mother has neatly avoided cooking on Sunday.)
So where were we? Yes, in the car . . . driving up Ashmore Green Road (very narrow; requires careful driving past horse and pedestrian traffic). We passed by a man -- nothing unusual in that -- but then he WAVED at us. Whole family in unison: "Do you know that man?"
Clearly, I've been in England too long.
Let me explain.
English people do not just wave or smile gratuitously; they are not like Americans in this way. Unless they know you, and maybe not even then, they are unlikely to acknowledge your presence. Perhaps it is some vestige of the old style of good manners; when it was thought impolite to address someone before being formally introduced. Perhaps it is just ill humor or a general lack of joyousness or the fact that your average English person would rather choke than utter that American commonplace "have a nice day!" I really don't know. But what I do know is that I've obviously started to adjust.
In less than a month I will be visiting my parents in Salado, Texas -- and yes, before you ask, home to the famous Stagecoach Inn. I don't know what the exact population of Salado is -- several thousand, I guess -- but when I go for long walks there I feel like I know each and every Saladoite. Every car (usually truck) that passes contains a person waving to me as if I were his or her long-lost best friend. If it's not too hot, and the windows are rolled down, I (or you, if you were there with me) am bound to get the full "Howdy" treatment. That behavior passes for normal in small-town Texas, but I'm starting to worry that I'm going to strain my neck -- what with the constant jerking backwards to query "do I know you?"
I'm reminded of an English friend who once visited Texas and chewed out a poor friendly little bag-boy after one chirpy greeting too many.
Okay, I'm not claiming to be the first person to notice that the English are a little, say cheerless, at times. They don't really go in for sober enthusiasm: it's a downright oxymoron. However, I would like to point out that when I finally got around to reading the Sunday newspaper (Monday morning), I saw this headline: You Brits just love being miserable.
Former New York Times journalist Eric Weiner has just written a book titled The Geography of Bliss -- and apparently, the Brits are perversely challenged in the bliss department. Weiner writes:
For the British, happiness is a transatlantic import.
And by transatlantic, they mean American.
And by American they mean silly infantile drivel.
Britain is a great place for grumps,
and most Brits, I suspect, derive a perverse pleasure from their grumpiness.
I've traditionally blamed this grumpy attitude on the weather. Seasonal Affective Disorder. All of those Northern Europeans killing themselves after months of being smothered in thick, damp cloud. But what if it's something else? Is happiness just unseemly in England? Is this going to start rubbing off on me, too?
I'm not sure if Happiness is alive and well in England, but at least they still have HUMOUR. (That would be "humor" to you Yanks.)
In lieu of closing remarks, I bring you the witticisms of Lucy Mangan. Her self-deprecating writing style brings me joy with the arrival of every Weekend Guardian. Here is some select commentary from an account of her first visit to NYC.
Everything that I've heard about America is true.
It is unconstitutional to be hungry here.
I've never noticed it before, but eating out in England
always incorporates a punitive element.
Either the waiters, the price or the joyless munching
of your fellow diners suggests that you really should
be indoors eating powdered egg and sucking on a used teabag.
None of that here.
The whole city is like some vast, walk-in larder.
Monday, 10 March 2008
JC likes cat faces
On Monday afternoons I tutor a little boy (initials JC -- there is no Jesus Christ reference here) whose unique character always delights me. He has been diagnosed as slightly autistic, but he doesn't really have the characteristics usually associated with it. For instance, he will make eye contact and he doesn't mind being touched -- which is fortunate, as I tend to be a very tactile person!
(By the way, if you haven't yet read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time you are missing a treat. The narrator, an autistic teenager, has the most beguiling mind.)
JC does, however, have a few unusual qualities: first and foremost, his obsession with cats. His conversation is 99% about cats. He carries a cat (Pippa; real name, as I don't think stuffed animals need blogonyms) around with him at all times. He will only read (or be read to, as the case is) books about cats. He begs me, over and over, to allow him to build a "cat house" in the backyard. What does this cat house look like in his imagination? I often wonder.
JC can recognize two words: his name and "cat." Sometimes he can recognize "and," but I am suspicious about this because if you ask him to identify "the" he will almost always reply, with much gusto, AND!
We have spent hours looking at "the." After all, "the" is all over the place. You can't avoid "the;" particularly in titles and opening sentences. We practice saying "the" and noticing how our lips vibrate when we hold our tongues between our teeth. (Just try it.) If you ask James which sound makes your lips vibrate he knows it straight away . . . he just can't recognize it on the page. We make lists of (short) words that start with "th." But still, if I point to "the" and ask James to identify it, he will invariably say "and!"
Unfortunately, "the" is on the basic sight word list at JC's school -- and until he can master it, he is pretty much stuck at the ground level.
How mysterious is the mind! For all I know about the reading process, how much still eludes me . . .
What synapses have to connect before a little boy can read "the?" My girls learned to read so effortlessly. Sound-letter correspondence was an easy code to crack, and away they flew through words, then sentences, then books entire.
Every Monday we make sentences with JC's "special" words -- what we call his "word collection." We write the words on index cards with fat blue ink, and he tries to link them together in short sentences. His name + likes + the ______. But the only word he is interested in liking is "cat." Today was a breakthrough of sorts, I guess. When I asked what ELSE he liked, he carefully pondered this question and then replied, most enthusiastically: cat FACES!
(By the way, if you haven't yet read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time you are missing a treat. The narrator, an autistic teenager, has the most beguiling mind.)
JC does, however, have a few unusual qualities: first and foremost, his obsession with cats. His conversation is 99% about cats. He carries a cat (Pippa; real name, as I don't think stuffed animals need blogonyms) around with him at all times. He will only read (or be read to, as the case is) books about cats. He begs me, over and over, to allow him to build a "cat house" in the backyard. What does this cat house look like in his imagination? I often wonder.
JC can recognize two words: his name and "cat." Sometimes he can recognize "and," but I am suspicious about this because if you ask him to identify "the" he will almost always reply, with much gusto, AND!
We have spent hours looking at "the." After all, "the" is all over the place. You can't avoid "the;" particularly in titles and opening sentences. We practice saying "the" and noticing how our lips vibrate when we hold our tongues between our teeth. (Just try it.) If you ask James which sound makes your lips vibrate he knows it straight away . . . he just can't recognize it on the page. We make lists of (short) words that start with "th." But still, if I point to "the" and ask James to identify it, he will invariably say "and!"
Unfortunately, "the" is on the basic sight word list at JC's school -- and until he can master it, he is pretty much stuck at the ground level.
How mysterious is the mind! For all I know about the reading process, how much still eludes me . . .
What synapses have to connect before a little boy can read "the?" My girls learned to read so effortlessly. Sound-letter correspondence was an easy code to crack, and away they flew through words, then sentences, then books entire.
Every Monday we make sentences with JC's "special" words -- what we call his "word collection." We write the words on index cards with fat blue ink, and he tries to link them together in short sentences. His name + likes + the ______. But the only word he is interested in liking is "cat." Today was a breakthrough of sorts, I guess. When I asked what ELSE he liked, he carefully pondered this question and then replied, most enthusiastically: cat FACES!
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Beans vs Rice
I am no great lover of routine.
Despite the fact that my life is measured out in school runs and "coffee spoons," I do everything I can to subvert the routinization of time which lets life slip by almost without our noticing.
I realize that most people thrive under the yoke of routine -- especially those people who have young children or like to get lots of things done. I suppose that routine can be a comfort: my own daughter, who is used to being fed at irregular times, was charmed by a recent visit to Nanny's house. There, she could be assured of toast and tea at 8 am; coffee and biscuits at 11 am; a light lunch at 1pm, and so on. Routine keeps life on the rails; I can see that.
However, while I may appear as conventional as the next person, inside I am like a wild mustang who likes to kick out now and then . . . just to console myself that there is still some open space there.
"Wildness" being a highly subjective term . . .
it's not that I want to chuck it all in and disappear to Goa; and I wouldn't even if I could 'cause my fantasies just don't work that way; but I like to create little opportunities of unexpectedness in my days, and I relish the little departures from the routine.
Last Wednesday, dear friend Jenni -- a frequent weekend guest -- had a justifiable work reason to make a pit stop at our house for the evening. As I was preparing dinner, it occurred me how unusual it was to be entertaining during the week. Dinner is usually a fairly brisk affair, no matter how much care I take with the food. The husband and children scarf it down, with minimal conversation, and then it's time to clean up, sort out homework and paperwork, and then coax everyone to bed . . . because the alarm goes off at the heinous hour of 5:30 am every weekday morning. This is not exactly life the way I want to live it, but school and work do have their own relentless groove, don't they?
(I resist, as much as I am able, any and all children's activities which are scheduled for the weekend. While this may not sound like heterodoxy, I assure you that is feels like it in my own little middle-class corner of the world. I firmly believe that weekends are for fun and leisure for parents, not just for children-- and neither can be found on the motorway or dismal waiting room or cold, muddy playing field.)
So how do beans fit into all of this? You might well ask.
A little bean preamble: Almost all Tex-Mex food comes with beans and rice on the side. I have never conducted a proper poll, but I have noticed that most people tend to prefer one over the other. In fact, I vividly remember a conversation (that took place about 13 years ago in San Antonio) in which one of my favorite all-time people revealed that she evaluates Mexican restaurants according to the quality of their rice. Revelation! I myself am not bothered by rice -- and that goes for any cuisine. I prefer pretty much any carb to rice -- whether you're talking potatoes, bread, pasta, or beans. I think that rice is a bland, dry food -- but many people that I love and respect seem to adore it, so viva la difference! My best Houston friend, Laurita, and I often shared the chicken taco platter at the Taqueria and that worked perfectly: one taco each, the rice for her, and the beans for me.
Let me define my terms, though: I'm not talking about refried beans; I'm referring to what some call "charro" beans -- spicy, savory beans that are brothy, almost soupy. I've tried making these beans at home many times, but I've never achieved greatness. While this culinary shortcoming was of little importance in Texas, where there are good beans a-plenty, it matters more in the English countryside. If you want to eat good food you generally have to make it yourself; also, you have to plan ahead. Pinto beans need soaking.
I've been wanting to try Homesick Texan's flour tortilla recipe, so Jenni's arrival for dinner was just the excuse I needed to give the pedestrian nightly ritual more of a fiesta flavor. I decided on the menu: chicken fajitas, chips and guacamole, beans -- with orange/lime ice cream for dessert. Last year for my 40th, Jenni and some other old friends helped me celebrate by gathering at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Covent Garden. The company was great, but the food was pretty dire. I was pretty sure that I could do better.
While flipping through my cookbooks, I found a recipe for "Lively Oaks Ranch Beans" from Flavors -- the San Antonio Junior League cookbook. With some trepidation, (due to previous disappointments), I decided to give it a go.
Well; I could hardly pat myself on the back enough. I ate beans (with some cheese sprinkled on the top, and a handful of tortilla chips for scooping) for lunch the rest of the week.
Lively Oaks Ranch Beans
(attributed to Mr. Earl Fae Cooper)
1/2 c diced salt pork (I used pancetta, and it worked out fine)
2/3 c coarsely chopped onion
1/2 c chopped celery
1/2 c finely chopped green pepper
3 quarts water
1 lb pinto beans, washed (and soaked for about 6 hours by me; maybe if you boil them long enough this isn't necessary, but I didn't want to take the risk)
1 14 oz can tomatoes
1 t chili powder
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 T Worcestershire sause
Salt to taste
Bring first four ingredients to boil in the water; then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add everything else, but the salt, and simmer for 4-5 hours. Add salt to taste.
I only simmered for about 3 hours and they were really good; but the longer you simmer, the thicker the brown bean "liquor" will get, and the beans will become softer -- almost velvety.
I don't know if it was the gin and tonic; the presence of a beloved friend, who came bearing books; the flour tortillas; the novelty of conversation with dinner; or just the beans. But Wednesday night dinner -- usually a forgettable experience -- was far from routine this week.
Despite the fact that my life is measured out in school runs and "coffee spoons," I do everything I can to subvert the routinization of time which lets life slip by almost without our noticing.
I realize that most people thrive under the yoke of routine -- especially those people who have young children or like to get lots of things done. I suppose that routine can be a comfort: my own daughter, who is used to being fed at irregular times, was charmed by a recent visit to Nanny's house. There, she could be assured of toast and tea at 8 am; coffee and biscuits at 11 am; a light lunch at 1pm, and so on. Routine keeps life on the rails; I can see that.
However, while I may appear as conventional as the next person, inside I am like a wild mustang who likes to kick out now and then . . . just to console myself that there is still some open space there.
"Wildness" being a highly subjective term . . .
it's not that I want to chuck it all in and disappear to Goa; and I wouldn't even if I could 'cause my fantasies just don't work that way; but I like to create little opportunities of unexpectedness in my days, and I relish the little departures from the routine.
Last Wednesday, dear friend Jenni -- a frequent weekend guest -- had a justifiable work reason to make a pit stop at our house for the evening. As I was preparing dinner, it occurred me how unusual it was to be entertaining during the week. Dinner is usually a fairly brisk affair, no matter how much care I take with the food. The husband and children scarf it down, with minimal conversation, and then it's time to clean up, sort out homework and paperwork, and then coax everyone to bed . . . because the alarm goes off at the heinous hour of 5:30 am every weekday morning. This is not exactly life the way I want to live it, but school and work do have their own relentless groove, don't they?
(I resist, as much as I am able, any and all children's activities which are scheduled for the weekend. While this may not sound like heterodoxy, I assure you that is feels like it in my own little middle-class corner of the world. I firmly believe that weekends are for fun and leisure for parents, not just for children-- and neither can be found on the motorway or dismal waiting room or cold, muddy playing field.)
So how do beans fit into all of this? You might well ask.
A little bean preamble: Almost all Tex-Mex food comes with beans and rice on the side. I have never conducted a proper poll, but I have noticed that most people tend to prefer one over the other. In fact, I vividly remember a conversation (that took place about 13 years ago in San Antonio) in which one of my favorite all-time people revealed that she evaluates Mexican restaurants according to the quality of their rice. Revelation! I myself am not bothered by rice -- and that goes for any cuisine. I prefer pretty much any carb to rice -- whether you're talking potatoes, bread, pasta, or beans. I think that rice is a bland, dry food -- but many people that I love and respect seem to adore it, so viva la difference! My best Houston friend, Laurita, and I often shared the chicken taco platter at the Taqueria and that worked perfectly: one taco each, the rice for her, and the beans for me.
Let me define my terms, though: I'm not talking about refried beans; I'm referring to what some call "charro" beans -- spicy, savory beans that are brothy, almost soupy. I've tried making these beans at home many times, but I've never achieved greatness. While this culinary shortcoming was of little importance in Texas, where there are good beans a-plenty, it matters more in the English countryside. If you want to eat good food you generally have to make it yourself; also, you have to plan ahead. Pinto beans need soaking.
I've been wanting to try Homesick Texan's flour tortilla recipe, so Jenni's arrival for dinner was just the excuse I needed to give the pedestrian nightly ritual more of a fiesta flavor. I decided on the menu: chicken fajitas, chips and guacamole, beans -- with orange/lime ice cream for dessert. Last year for my 40th, Jenni and some other old friends helped me celebrate by gathering at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Covent Garden. The company was great, but the food was pretty dire. I was pretty sure that I could do better.
While flipping through my cookbooks, I found a recipe for "Lively Oaks Ranch Beans" from Flavors -- the San Antonio Junior League cookbook. With some trepidation, (due to previous disappointments), I decided to give it a go.
Well; I could hardly pat myself on the back enough. I ate beans (with some cheese sprinkled on the top, and a handful of tortilla chips for scooping) for lunch the rest of the week.
Lively Oaks Ranch Beans
(attributed to Mr. Earl Fae Cooper)
1/2 c diced salt pork (I used pancetta, and it worked out fine)
2/3 c coarsely chopped onion
1/2 c chopped celery
1/2 c finely chopped green pepper
3 quarts water
1 lb pinto beans, washed (and soaked for about 6 hours by me; maybe if you boil them long enough this isn't necessary, but I didn't want to take the risk)
1 14 oz can tomatoes
1 t chili powder
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 T Worcestershire sause
Salt to taste
Bring first four ingredients to boil in the water; then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add everything else, but the salt, and simmer for 4-5 hours. Add salt to taste.
I only simmered for about 3 hours and they were really good; but the longer you simmer, the thicker the brown bean "liquor" will get, and the beans will become softer -- almost velvety.
I don't know if it was the gin and tonic; the presence of a beloved friend, who came bearing books; the flour tortillas; the novelty of conversation with dinner; or just the beans. But Wednesday night dinner -- usually a forgettable experience -- was far from routine this week.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Dorothy Wordsworth finally gets her 15 minutes
I would hardly describe myself as Wordsworthian; indeed, in my Wordworth/Keats seminar in grad. school I had a tendency to skim the old fellow and then improvise madly when asked to elaborate on the text. I always thought Wordsworth was a bit of a bore, actually.
I am not terribly Wordsworthian when it comes to appreciating the glories of nature, either. I function best in that temperate zone between 60 and 80 F. and will notoriously avoid venturing out in hostile weathers. This works out pretty well for me as I am perfectly happy to spend the entire day in bed reading -- if I am allowed to do so. (Of course I am not allowed to do so, but I do always insist on a leisurely weekend session spanning at least two cups of tea.)
Having thus established that I am not in any way obsessed with Wordsworth, I will now devote my second in a two-part series of blogs on, or at least concerning, him. Blame it on the daffodils, which are just about to peak . . . that is if their tender frilled heads aren't ripped off by the gale-force winds that are supposed to hit tomorrow.
Having recently mentioned Wordworth's famous image of the dancing golden daffodils, I was intrigued to learn that he basically ripped off his sister Dorothy for this, one of his best-known phrases. Apparently, the words were lifted straight from her private journal.
A biography of Dorothy Wordsworth, devoted sister to William, has just been published over here and all of the papers have been falling about to describe her rather strange and emotionally incestuous relationship with her brother. The theory is that William plundered Dorothy's journals on a regular basis: not just for her words, but also for access to her emotional experience.
"She was intense, romantic in the sense of having a heightened sensibility, and her emotional responses were both encouraged and cannibalised by her brother in the service of his work."
(Virginia Rounding, The Observor)
I've had a pet theory for years that "unemotional" (ie, repressed and not very talkative) men invariably choose women with strongly emotional and gregarious natures -- and then feed off them. However, the very repressiveness of their own taciturn nature tends to have a dampening -- whether deliberately or just inevitably -- effect on the singing-bird nature of the woman.
The review suggests that Dorothy started going off the deep end later in life -- the pressures on her to act decorously and modestly at odds, apparently, with her rather wild, emotional nature. After her brother married, she continued to live with the couple in a somewhat awkward threesome. Then when William dies, she ends up being taken care of by his wife -- quite mad by the end.
Although literary criticism has always been aware of her important role in William's life, it does make me cheerful to think of her journals living on and being reassessed -- 200 years after they were written. Wordsworth may have gotten the credit for the dancing golden daffodils, but perhaps Dorothy was the one who truly thrilled to them.
I am not terribly Wordsworthian when it comes to appreciating the glories of nature, either. I function best in that temperate zone between 60 and 80 F. and will notoriously avoid venturing out in hostile weathers. This works out pretty well for me as I am perfectly happy to spend the entire day in bed reading -- if I am allowed to do so. (Of course I am not allowed to do so, but I do always insist on a leisurely weekend session spanning at least two cups of tea.)
Having thus established that I am not in any way obsessed with Wordsworth, I will now devote my second in a two-part series of blogs on, or at least concerning, him. Blame it on the daffodils, which are just about to peak . . . that is if their tender frilled heads aren't ripped off by the gale-force winds that are supposed to hit tomorrow.
Having recently mentioned Wordworth's famous image of the dancing golden daffodils, I was intrigued to learn that he basically ripped off his sister Dorothy for this, one of his best-known phrases. Apparently, the words were lifted straight from her private journal.
A biography of Dorothy Wordsworth, devoted sister to William, has just been published over here and all of the papers have been falling about to describe her rather strange and emotionally incestuous relationship with her brother. The theory is that William plundered Dorothy's journals on a regular basis: not just for her words, but also for access to her emotional experience.
"She was intense, romantic in the sense of having a heightened sensibility, and her emotional responses were both encouraged and cannibalised by her brother in the service of his work."
(Virginia Rounding, The Observor)
I've had a pet theory for years that "unemotional" (ie, repressed and not very talkative) men invariably choose women with strongly emotional and gregarious natures -- and then feed off them. However, the very repressiveness of their own taciturn nature tends to have a dampening -- whether deliberately or just inevitably -- effect on the singing-bird nature of the woman.
The review suggests that Dorothy started going off the deep end later in life -- the pressures on her to act decorously and modestly at odds, apparently, with her rather wild, emotional nature. After her brother married, she continued to live with the couple in a somewhat awkward threesome. Then when William dies, she ends up being taken care of by his wife -- quite mad by the end.
Although literary criticism has always been aware of her important role in William's life, it does make me cheerful to think of her journals living on and being reassessed -- 200 years after they were written. Wordsworth may have gotten the credit for the dancing golden daffodils, but perhaps Dorothy was the one who truly thrilled to them.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Newbury Culture Vulture
I've just lived through nearly a week of no broadband service -- and even now am having to make do with the dubious charms of dial-up, just until we get our little modem-warranty issue resolved. It's been a week marred by hissy fits with technical support staff, and my whining has achieved nothing. I've learned that if you are not "account holder" you will get nowhere in this world; being wife-of-account-holder means pretty much zilch. Having your name on the utility bills is the key to everything -- a crucial feminist lesson that is having to be re-learned.
Searching through the flotsam and jetsam of my week for a little subject-material -- and discarding my new washer and dryer, despite their "A" energy ratings, as newsworthy -- I have settled on a pair of cultural experiences, one touching, funny, and uplifting, and the other depressing as hell. In that spirit, I bring you Diablo Cody and Stephen Sondheim.
Although West Berkshire is no NYC, or even Houston, when it comes to bagging cultural experiences, if you plan ahead you can find the odd happening. (I like the way "odd" can be used to indicate both infrequency and strangeness.) Therefore, when I noticed that our local theatre was offering a Stephen Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along, I resolved to attend. I'm not that versed in Sondheim, although I did see Follies on Broadway some years ago -- and I loved the new Tim Burton telling of Sweeney Todd -- but I have an overall impression of Sondheim being a witty fellow, even if the material is dark. If only I had bothered to google "Merrily" before rolling along for a rollicking evening of musical entertainment, I could have discovered that the original Broadway production closed after only 16 performances. If you ask me, this is the single most depressing entertainment experience I have ever endured . . . and seeing Schindler's List on New Year's Eve is in a second place so distant that it hardly seems the same race. At least that movie was beautiful and moving -- in addition to being tragic and an all-around downer.
But let me set the stage: it was a rainy, windy Monday night and ten mothers (much like me) had all rushed through the dinner routine in order to make way for a rare weekday outing. It was the 40ish birthday of one of us: and this good woman had just suffered through a frightful two years of battling breast cancer. Several of the women in the group are nursing sick or dying parents. At least half the number, to my knowledge, are seriously fretting about money difficulties these days. Mostly the marriages are intact, but a few have been battered by extramarital affairs and threatened bankruptcy. Almost all of these friendships formed through mother-toddler groups; now the children are all past the cute, all-consuming stage of infancy and toddlerhood and range somewhere between emerging and full-blown adolescence. I would guess that most of these women, as parents, feel that they are in the late-middle stage: it is still a hard slog, with many pitfalls to come, yet one is so aware now of children growing up and away. The oldest ones will be going to University in a few years. Time, both the short-term and long-term kind, seems limited now. Days are packed, but the weeks melt away almost without registering.
Well, I am really getting in the spirit and thoroughly depressing myself now. If you had been in the audience, perhaps you would have seen a reasonably attractive collection of well-preserved 40 somethings -- all clutching their G&Ts, smiling, a bit giddy about being out at night, all ready to be entertained.
None of us realized that the title of the show was going to be ironic.
First scene: the show opens at a Hollywood party, full of drunks, syncophants and suspicious wives. One of the main characters, Frank, is the host of this party -- an epic disaster which reveals him to be the protypical "sell-out." At one point a serious musician, now a producer of mediocre movies, Frank has traded his artistic integrity for financial success -- and everyone in the drama has some bitter stake in this career trajectory. In the course of the opening number, both of his long-term friendships and his second marriage -- seen to be limping along for years -- are irrevocably sundered. His first wife, and the son from that marriage, are ghosts in the background; in the foreground is his latest affair with the ingenue from his film. She is one-part cunning, one-part innocence; he is a stew of cynicism, guilt, and the longing to feel something again. The entire scene feels like the lancing of a boil. Every emotion is poisonous.
One of the "features" (is idiosyncracies the more accurate word?) of the The Watermill Theatre musical is that the actors play all of the instruments as well. While one can admire the multitasking proficiency that allows the actors to emote, sing, and strum -- and do all this without bumping into each other on the very tiny "in the round" stage -- it makes for a rather vigorous viewing experience. There's just so much going on. In a scene like I've just described, the tone of which is mostly angry, the sheer stridency of singing and playing is totally overwhelming. At one point, Frank's first wife sings Not a Day Goes By -- which was, for me, the only recognizable tune from the show. If you read the lyrics, you can perfectly imagine Liza Minnelli belting out this tune. It's basically a great break-up song; a torch song with a more modern vibe. Instead of being a paen to love and lust, it's a lament about being haunted by a relationship that didn't work out. I'm sure there's not a person in the over-30 portion of the world that can't relate. However, in this rendition, the many possible shadings of emotion have been crystallized into intense bitterness. It jangled my nerves to the point of discomfort and ultimately left me questioning the point of the exercise. I know that theatre is meant to be cathartic, but I found that the opposite was true in this case. I felt like an innocent bystander who is suddenly doused with BLECH; one minute you are standing on the sidewalk in your starched white shirt, and the next minute a hurtling car plows throughs a puddle and showers you with the dirty, greasy offspill from the road.
It is always tricky to play around with chronology. There's a fine line between mentally challenging your audience and just plain confusing or irritating them. I can think of a few examples of playing around with time -- Memento and The Time-Traveller's Wife come to mind -- in which this narrative device totally serves the story, and indeed is an integral part of the story. Merrily We Roll Along is quite a different case, though. In this show, the first scene is the last; in other words, you start with the denouement and then spool backwards. Instead of the more common flashback, the entire story is told through counter-chronology. Inevitably, by the time we reach the last scene we are being introduced to three wide-eyed talented young hopefuls. Newly arrived in New York City, they have met up on the roof -- literally gazing at the stars and sharing their dreams. Even if the show had started at this place, I suppose one could have predicted the inevitable ending . . . all washed up in the suds of middle-aged disappointments. However, starting the show at "the end" somehow taints it all. Even the "novelty" number about the Kennedy years is impossible to enjoy; jokes about all of the numerous Kennedys are overlaid with our knowledge of how many of them will ultimately die tragically and prematurely.
In some ways, Merrily We Roll Along is one of those overly self-referential studies of the NYC theatre world. I suppose that all "talent" gets eaten up and spit out, to some extent. NYC is a hard place -- that's a cliche, if true, and Sondheim isn't the first to say it. However, it does seem that there is no other place in the world where so many talented people converge -- thinking that they are "special;" hoping for singularity -- and then being crushed gradually by the sheer brutality of numbers. There are many reasons why middle-age can be so sad, but this show finds the bruise of disappointment and then pummels it over and over. Behind you are the irrevocable choices and mistakes; in front of you are only the narrowing range of possibilities. I don't always feel this way about being 40ish -- indeed, I can really believe in its possibilities at times; all that bunk of really starting to know yourself (confidence, wisdom, blah, blah, blah) -- but this depressing vision really laid waste to our festive birthday get-together.
Happily, my next cultural experience was an entirely different one: instead of leaving the theatre weighted with despair, I felt buoyed up. Although no one in England seems to have heard of Juno, the amount of hype it has gotten in the U.S. makes one feel almost compelled to offer an apologia: yes, it really is good despite the fact that everyone seems to like it! I had been looking forward to this one for weeks, and it really didn't disappoint.
A brief aside: Anyone who knows me knows that I love movies. They are my number one escapist option, and an activity that I like to share with friends. Two of my ongoing (and interrelated) gripes about the English countryside concern the fact that (1) there are no movie theaters in our area and (2) no one seems to go to the movies. I had not quite realized how much of my conversation had revolved around discussing the latest movies until I started hitting the brick walls of indifference and obliviousness. My initial impression of bloggers, admittedly noncomprehensive, suggests that people who are willingly to write for hours on random subjects are also likely to be Netflix members.
Sometime in November, our local Corn Exchange -- previous seat of agricultural commerce, currently serving as an arts centre -- opened "Screen One," a tiny little four-rowed theater about as big as the average American's media room. You can't get any popcorn, but there is a little kiosk selling typically English "sweets" and warm Cokes, and rather than a once or twice a month offering, they are showing movies there every day! And not only do they show movies, even better, they show the sort of movies that I like! I suppose it sounds a bit over-the-top to suggest that this is life-transforming, but I could I get away with "life-enhancing?"
Anyway, last Saturday I took my girls to see Juno -- and it was funny and touching. Like one of my favorite-ever "teen" movies, Clueless, it has a creative teenage argot and many quotable moments. However, it was so much more than that. From the opening credits, you feel that you are going to see a vision that is unique and fully-realized -- and you really do. The storyline -- pregnant teenager has to make a choice -- could go terribly wrong in so many different ways. Too sentimental; too judgmental; too trivial; too manipulative . . . the possibilities are almost endless. Instead, writer Cody and director Reitman somehow manage to steer an almost faultless middle way which is never a compromise. The story isn't predictable, and neither are Juno's choices, but somehow the outcomes are perfectly right for the characters. Also, I know this might sound bizarre -- considering that she gets pregnant at 16 -- but I hope my girls might one day find a relationship like the one between Juno and Paulie. If you've seen the movie, you will understand. Even if you don't have a teenager, please see this movie. It really is a love story for all ages.
Laurita: We have shared so many bad movies. I really, really wished that we had seen this one together.
Finally, I love it when life isn't predictable. Despite the many depressing paragraphs I wrote about Merrily We Roll Along and the way it made me feel, I leave you with the counterbalancing fact that Diablo Cody -- writer of Juno and one-time stripper -- won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The first thing she said, when she accepted her award -- all proud pink tatoo and cut-up-to-there leopard print dress -- was "This is for the writers . . ."
Searching through the flotsam and jetsam of my week for a little subject-material -- and discarding my new washer and dryer, despite their "A" energy ratings, as newsworthy -- I have settled on a pair of cultural experiences, one touching, funny, and uplifting, and the other depressing as hell. In that spirit, I bring you Diablo Cody and Stephen Sondheim.
Although West Berkshire is no NYC, or even Houston, when it comes to bagging cultural experiences, if you plan ahead you can find the odd happening. (I like the way "odd" can be used to indicate both infrequency and strangeness.) Therefore, when I noticed that our local theatre was offering a Stephen Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along, I resolved to attend. I'm not that versed in Sondheim, although I did see Follies on Broadway some years ago -- and I loved the new Tim Burton telling of Sweeney Todd -- but I have an overall impression of Sondheim being a witty fellow, even if the material is dark. If only I had bothered to google "Merrily" before rolling along for a rollicking evening of musical entertainment, I could have discovered that the original Broadway production closed after only 16 performances. If you ask me, this is the single most depressing entertainment experience I have ever endured . . . and seeing Schindler's List on New Year's Eve is in a second place so distant that it hardly seems the same race. At least that movie was beautiful and moving -- in addition to being tragic and an all-around downer.
But let me set the stage: it was a rainy, windy Monday night and ten mothers (much like me) had all rushed through the dinner routine in order to make way for a rare weekday outing. It was the 40ish birthday of one of us: and this good woman had just suffered through a frightful two years of battling breast cancer. Several of the women in the group are nursing sick or dying parents. At least half the number, to my knowledge, are seriously fretting about money difficulties these days. Mostly the marriages are intact, but a few have been battered by extramarital affairs and threatened bankruptcy. Almost all of these friendships formed through mother-toddler groups; now the children are all past the cute, all-consuming stage of infancy and toddlerhood and range somewhere between emerging and full-blown adolescence. I would guess that most of these women, as parents, feel that they are in the late-middle stage: it is still a hard slog, with many pitfalls to come, yet one is so aware now of children growing up and away. The oldest ones will be going to University in a few years. Time, both the short-term and long-term kind, seems limited now. Days are packed, but the weeks melt away almost without registering.
Well, I am really getting in the spirit and thoroughly depressing myself now. If you had been in the audience, perhaps you would have seen a reasonably attractive collection of well-preserved 40 somethings -- all clutching their G&Ts, smiling, a bit giddy about being out at night, all ready to be entertained.
None of us realized that the title of the show was going to be ironic.
First scene: the show opens at a Hollywood party, full of drunks, syncophants and suspicious wives. One of the main characters, Frank, is the host of this party -- an epic disaster which reveals him to be the protypical "sell-out." At one point a serious musician, now a producer of mediocre movies, Frank has traded his artistic integrity for financial success -- and everyone in the drama has some bitter stake in this career trajectory. In the course of the opening number, both of his long-term friendships and his second marriage -- seen to be limping along for years -- are irrevocably sundered. His first wife, and the son from that marriage, are ghosts in the background; in the foreground is his latest affair with the ingenue from his film. She is one-part cunning, one-part innocence; he is a stew of cynicism, guilt, and the longing to feel something again. The entire scene feels like the lancing of a boil. Every emotion is poisonous.
One of the "features" (is idiosyncracies the more accurate word?) of the The Watermill Theatre musical is that the actors play all of the instruments as well. While one can admire the multitasking proficiency that allows the actors to emote, sing, and strum -- and do all this without bumping into each other on the very tiny "in the round" stage -- it makes for a rather vigorous viewing experience. There's just so much going on. In a scene like I've just described, the tone of which is mostly angry, the sheer stridency of singing and playing is totally overwhelming. At one point, Frank's first wife sings Not a Day Goes By -- which was, for me, the only recognizable tune from the show. If you read the lyrics, you can perfectly imagine Liza Minnelli belting out this tune. It's basically a great break-up song; a torch song with a more modern vibe. Instead of being a paen to love and lust, it's a lament about being haunted by a relationship that didn't work out. I'm sure there's not a person in the over-30 portion of the world that can't relate. However, in this rendition, the many possible shadings of emotion have been crystallized into intense bitterness. It jangled my nerves to the point of discomfort and ultimately left me questioning the point of the exercise. I know that theatre is meant to be cathartic, but I found that the opposite was true in this case. I felt like an innocent bystander who is suddenly doused with BLECH; one minute you are standing on the sidewalk in your starched white shirt, and the next minute a hurtling car plows throughs a puddle and showers you with the dirty, greasy offspill from the road.
It is always tricky to play around with chronology. There's a fine line between mentally challenging your audience and just plain confusing or irritating them. I can think of a few examples of playing around with time -- Memento and The Time-Traveller's Wife come to mind -- in which this narrative device totally serves the story, and indeed is an integral part of the story. Merrily We Roll Along is quite a different case, though. In this show, the first scene is the last; in other words, you start with the denouement and then spool backwards. Instead of the more common flashback, the entire story is told through counter-chronology. Inevitably, by the time we reach the last scene we are being introduced to three wide-eyed talented young hopefuls. Newly arrived in New York City, they have met up on the roof -- literally gazing at the stars and sharing their dreams. Even if the show had started at this place, I suppose one could have predicted the inevitable ending . . . all washed up in the suds of middle-aged disappointments. However, starting the show at "the end" somehow taints it all. Even the "novelty" number about the Kennedy years is impossible to enjoy; jokes about all of the numerous Kennedys are overlaid with our knowledge of how many of them will ultimately die tragically and prematurely.
In some ways, Merrily We Roll Along is one of those overly self-referential studies of the NYC theatre world. I suppose that all "talent" gets eaten up and spit out, to some extent. NYC is a hard place -- that's a cliche, if true, and Sondheim isn't the first to say it. However, it does seem that there is no other place in the world where so many talented people converge -- thinking that they are "special;" hoping for singularity -- and then being crushed gradually by the sheer brutality of numbers. There are many reasons why middle-age can be so sad, but this show finds the bruise of disappointment and then pummels it over and over. Behind you are the irrevocable choices and mistakes; in front of you are only the narrowing range of possibilities. I don't always feel this way about being 40ish -- indeed, I can really believe in its possibilities at times; all that bunk of really starting to know yourself (confidence, wisdom, blah, blah, blah) -- but this depressing vision really laid waste to our festive birthday get-together.
Happily, my next cultural experience was an entirely different one: instead of leaving the theatre weighted with despair, I felt buoyed up. Although no one in England seems to have heard of Juno, the amount of hype it has gotten in the U.S. makes one feel almost compelled to offer an apologia: yes, it really is good despite the fact that everyone seems to like it! I had been looking forward to this one for weeks, and it really didn't disappoint.
A brief aside: Anyone who knows me knows that I love movies. They are my number one escapist option, and an activity that I like to share with friends. Two of my ongoing (and interrelated) gripes about the English countryside concern the fact that (1) there are no movie theaters in our area and (2) no one seems to go to the movies. I had not quite realized how much of my conversation had revolved around discussing the latest movies until I started hitting the brick walls of indifference and obliviousness. My initial impression of bloggers, admittedly noncomprehensive, suggests that people who are willingly to write for hours on random subjects are also likely to be Netflix members.
Sometime in November, our local Corn Exchange -- previous seat of agricultural commerce, currently serving as an arts centre -- opened "Screen One," a tiny little four-rowed theater about as big as the average American's media room. You can't get any popcorn, but there is a little kiosk selling typically English "sweets" and warm Cokes, and rather than a once or twice a month offering, they are showing movies there every day! And not only do they show movies, even better, they show the sort of movies that I like! I suppose it sounds a bit over-the-top to suggest that this is life-transforming, but I could I get away with "life-enhancing?"
Anyway, last Saturday I took my girls to see Juno -- and it was funny and touching. Like one of my favorite-ever "teen" movies, Clueless, it has a creative teenage argot and many quotable moments. However, it was so much more than that. From the opening credits, you feel that you are going to see a vision that is unique and fully-realized -- and you really do. The storyline -- pregnant teenager has to make a choice -- could go terribly wrong in so many different ways. Too sentimental; too judgmental; too trivial; too manipulative . . . the possibilities are almost endless. Instead, writer Cody and director Reitman somehow manage to steer an almost faultless middle way which is never a compromise. The story isn't predictable, and neither are Juno's choices, but somehow the outcomes are perfectly right for the characters. Also, I know this might sound bizarre -- considering that she gets pregnant at 16 -- but I hope my girls might one day find a relationship like the one between Juno and Paulie. If you've seen the movie, you will understand. Even if you don't have a teenager, please see this movie. It really is a love story for all ages.
Laurita: We have shared so many bad movies. I really, really wished that we had seen this one together.
Finally, I love it when life isn't predictable. Despite the many depressing paragraphs I wrote about Merrily We Roll Along and the way it made me feel, I leave you with the counterbalancing fact that Diablo Cody -- writer of Juno and one-time stripper -- won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The first thing she said, when she accepted her award -- all proud pink tatoo and cut-up-to-there leopard print dress -- was "This is for the writers . . ."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)