Normally I have the flu at this time of year, or at the very least a runny nose. But today I was walking around in a T-shirt. Crazy weather, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it. I'm not much for winter, so any time there's a warm day I catch myself hoping for spring. Then I remember that it's January, not April, and I'm in the northeast, not California. *sigh* Still, I'll take one day's reprieve from the cold if that's all I can get.
There was a mouse on my desk. I screamed, figuratively speaking, like a girl. The fact that I am a girl didn't make this any less embarassing.
The mouse, in terror, fled beneath my radiator, where there's probably a hole it uses to get in and out. I don't really want to look under there right now.
There's a whale in the Thames.
No, seriously. It probably hung around the mouth of the river for a while, then was spotted by a train rider by Waterloo Bridge. It went past the London Eye and Parliament, and beached in the Chelsea before being helped back into the water again. It's being encouraged to turn around and swim back into deeper waters, but- well, being a whale, it'll pretty much do whatever it wants to do. Hopefully it'll live through the experience. Meanwhile, I'm wishing I was in London again, just for a day. I even know the right Tube lines to take.
New-look Hamas spends £100k on an image makeover
Um, you're joking, right? I mean, I know Hamas wants to be counted as a legitimate political party in Palestinian elections, but what are they thinking?
"Hamas is paying a spin doctor $180,000 (£100,000) to persuade Europeans and Americans that it is not a group of religious fanatics who relish suicide bombings and hate Jews."
Gee, why would anybody think that? Maybe because you commit suicide bombings and profess to hate Jews? Hiring a spin doctor isn't going to change what this organization did. Ever. But of course, Mr. Spin doesn't think so.
"Hamas has an image problem. The Israelis were able to create a very bad image of the Palestinians in general and particularly Muslims and Hamas. My contract is to project the right image."
No, sweetie. When you blow people up, the little bits of human flesh sticking to you make you look bad. No Israeli assistance needed.
But hey, you know what? As cynical as all of this sounds, it could very well work. Yasser Arafat got a Nobel Peace Prize, and he was an undoubted terrorist pioneer. Hijackings, bombings, attempted coups- he did it all. And the PLO is considered a legitimate negotiation and political party nowadays. This is sick. If the membership of Hamas wants to accomplish change through purely political means from now on, they should try forming another party, or radically change the one they already have. Hiring an expensive media consultant doesn't count. Put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig.
If you're mit freuden and you know it, clap your hands.
A 42-man provisional American roster for the WBC has been announced.
This is one deep roster- I'm thinking the Dominican Republic can compete in terms of sheer star power, but not too many other countries can. I've arranged the players in approximate order of preference, for the most part, but I have to admit there are some holes in my knowledge, especially with the catchers, and I only gave the stats a quick glance before dumping them wherever. I'm already up to my ass in homework, okay? ;)
Infield:
Derrek Lee (1B)
Mark Teixeira (1B)
Chase Utley (2B)
Craig Counsell (2B)
Derek Jeter (SS)
Michael Young (SS)
Jimmy Rollins (SS)
Bill Hall (SS)
Chipper Jones (3B)
Morgan Ensberg (3B)
David Wright (3B)
Outfield:
Barry Bonds
Johnny Damon
Ken Griffey, Jr.
Vernon Wells
Lance Berkman
Carl Crawford
Starting Pitchers:
Roger Clemens
Dontrelle Willis
Andy Pettitte
Jake Peavy
Roy Halladay
C.C. Sabathia
Tim Hudson
Jeremy Bonderman
Al Leiter
Relief Pitchers:
Brad Lidge (RHP)
Huston Street (RHP)
Billy Wagner (RHP)
Chad Cordero (RHP)
Brian Fuentes (LHP)
Todd Jones (RHP)
Joe Nathan (RHP)
Scot Shields (RHP)
Mike Timlin (RHP)
Dan Wheeler (RHP)
Catchers:
Jason Varitek
Joe Mauer
Brian Schneider
Michael Barrett
Paul Lo Duca
Chad Moeller
The roster will have to be trimmed to 30 eventually, and you bet your ass they'll find a space for Alex Rodriguez if he decides to join up, but what we have for now isn't bad at all. I'm a little startled by the presence of only one lefty reliever, but a good closer can eliminate batters on both sides of the box, so we don't exactly need a LOOGY in this situation. Really, though, the whole roster is a case study in how much easier it is to find good hitting than good pitching. The dugout is stuffed to the gills with good bats, but there's more quality variation in the bullpen. I mean, Al Leiter? His own team doesn't consider him a starter anymore, and for good reason.
So despite my slight ignorance, I'm going to suggest the following cuts- Leiter, Lo Duca, Hudson, Rollins, Hall, Moeller, and Bonderman. Obviously more people than that will have to be dumped, but I'm tired. D'you know how long all the HTML coding took me?
I have an irrational hatred of Jason Varitek, so it'll be tough to cheer for him, but my beloved Jorge has been blocked by Steinbrenner from playing in the tournament at all. Not that I entirely blame the big Stein- Jorgie's not exactly young, and catchers tend to wear down on you. Nevertheless, the talent dropoff in the catching corps is horrible, so I'd better hope Varitek gets plenty of playing time. I guess it'll be good practice for learning to like Johnny Damon this season. *gag*
Also, a small something I noticed while getting all the URLs for this entry- Paul Abbott is still with the Mariners? Damn. That brings up a lot of fun memories of postseasons past.
I've finally arrived back at my home campus after being away for 8 months. My new room is in this obscure dorm that's conveniently placed in between more notable buildings, so it's pretty easy to find once it's been pointed out to you. :)
Ah, what more can I say about my new dorm? The door, once opened, never wants to release my poor key. My mini-fridge is under my bed, which means I'm sleeping about 3 feet in the air and now have an unnatural terror of rolling over at night. But what's really fun are all the little touches that make it clear this ancient building was retrofitted for modern dorm living.
There's the coat-hanger pole that's a little too far forward to let the closet door easily close. Well, if you actually hang coats on it. There's the old-fashioned radiator- I'm staying 2 feet away from that thing at all times. There's the 4-step process for opening or closing a window (unlatch two latches to open the screen, then you can get to the window itself). There's the Ethernet jack, which somehow spits out my cord every 10 minutes or so. My favorite part, though, is probably the plugs, which are cleverly hidden in the black molding so you'll never find them. Brilliant.
There's no designated area for hanging artwork, so my posters, calendar, and other assorted scraps of paper will have to stay in a drawer unless I want to risk being fined for the illicit use of thumbtacks. The bathroom is only lit by one bulb, so entering the stall is like shutting yourself in a closet. The shutters go down, but I haven't found a way to make them go all the way back up yet. The bottom drawer of my desk doesn't close. Also, the paint on the ceiling of the bathroom is peeling so badly I'm afraid it might attack me. Boy, I can't wait to take a shower tonight.
Now, it's not all bad. I have a single-type space, and my roommate seems like a nice enough guy. It's non-smoking, so I'm being spared the stench and constant fire alarms of last year. And you'd have a hard time beating the location. Besides, it's only one semester, right? I guess I was just spoiled by my awesome flat in London.
Never mind, though. Next semester I'm a senior and I'm getting any damn room I want.
As per tradition, during winter break I went to shows that were soon to close. In this case, they were Souvenir, starring (and I do mean starring) Judy Kaye, and Edward Albee's Seascape, featuring a wonderful ensemble of four. Both closed on Sunday, and also per tradition, I obviously delayed writing my reviews.
Hmm. While I'm at it, I'll also review Off-Broadway's Dog Sees God, which doesn't look like it's going to close anytime soon.
Souvenir
This play's text was the weakest of the three. With a few exceptions, I generally don't like exposition and fourth-wall-breaking narration, especially when it runs through a whole show. Unfortunately, Souvenir was in the format of narration scenes interspersed with the narrated memories being enacted. The narrator in this case, Cosmé McMoon (Donald Corren), was charming enough, but after a while his reminiscing beside the piano got repetitive.
He was reminiscing about the character who is really the show's star, despite having less stage time- Florence Foster Jenkins, a woman so entertaining she also merited a play on the West End this season- Glorious, starring Maureen Lipman. In Souvenir, the "socialite soprano" was played to perfection by Judy Kaye. Her story seems straightforward enough- from 1912 to her death in 1944, Jenkins gave a series of vocal recitals for charity, inviting only her society friends until public demand prompted her to give a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert, her last. The catch is that she couldn't sing.
I don't just mean that she couldn't keep a beat, or that her pitch was off, though both of those things were true. She was truly atrocious, with almost no sense of pitch, no ability to hold a note, and a downright startling timbre from an aspiring coloratura soprano. Most amazingly, she was really convinced that she was a great singer. And so Souvenir touches on themes like self-confidence and artistic independence, especially when contrasting "Madame J" to her neurotic accompanist McMoon, who was continually embarassed by her even as he wanted to protect her from humiliation. Corren and Kaye trade parent-child roles beautifully throughout the play, and quickly settle into the chemistry of partners who have worked together for years on end.
But while Corren has to be given credit for delivering the thankless sinew of this play, it's Kaye who fills out its flesh. The first time she opens her mouth to sing, she's so mind-bendingly horrible the only possible reaction is to laugh hysterically, and watching Corren react to her only makes it better. The whole time, she convincingly manages to play Jenkins as a woman who is almost childlike in her conviction that she's a great soprano, yet somehow very mature in her determination not to let the opinions of others get her down. She and McMoon play an increasingly affectionate tug-o-war through the Depression and into WWII, culminating in the fantastically over-the-top Carnegie Hall concert. But the play's true crown jewel is the part when we finally get to hear how Jenkins thought she sounded. You see, Kaye really is a good soprano, and she delivers a heart-melting Ave Maria to end the show. With her singing alone, she somehow made this less-than-perfect play into an exquisite whole, if only for a couple of minutes. Following that up with the bows was the best idea author Stephen Temperley and director Vivian Matalon had.
Seascape
Unsurprisingly, Seascape had by far the strongest text of these three plays. It's Albee, after all. The plot here centers on a couple of retirees- Nancy (Frances Sternhagen) and her husband Charlie (George Grizzard), spending an idle day on the beach while wondering what they will do with their futures. Nancy thinks of retirement as freedom at last, a chance to travel the world and do all the other things they couldn't do while burdened by children and careers. Charlie, on the other hand, sees retirement as a respite, a chance to finally lie down and rest after a life hard lived. So most of the first act is spent as a conversation between them.
Sternhagen and Grizzard make a very convincing old married couple- occassionally bickering and even exasperated with each other, but always affectionate. But I thought the play really came to life when the lizards came in. Well, two people in lizard costumes, to be exact- their names, as we find out in Act II, are Leslie (Frederick Weller) and Sarah (Elizabeth Marvel), a young couple that's decided to come up from the sea and explore dry land.
Weller and Marvel make interesting choices playing characters that speak fluent English, but aren't really human. Sarah and Leslie don't know about tools and have no concept of love, and as Charlie and Nancy slowly teach them about mammalian reproduction, anatomy, and evolution, gradually there emerges a play about what it is to be human. By the time it ends, it is clear that the seascape is Eden, but the "fall" is as enthralling as it is heartbreaking. The lizards know, by then, that they can't go back to the sea, and maybe it was too late as soon as they decided to leave.
Dog Sees God
This show originated in the 2004 Fringe, where I wish I'd caught it instead of a mediocrity like The Passion of George W. Bush. A takeoff on what would happen if the characters of the Peanuts comic strip finally grew up and went to high school, it's a rather uneven production, but it has more than enough high points to sustain it, and an excellent young cast that more than does justice to the material. To avoid accusations of copyright infringement, the show mostly uses aliases for the characters, but if you have a basic familiarity with Peanuts it soon becomes obvious who's who. I'll use the aliases in my review to make life easier. For me, that is.
The play begins as C.B. (Eddie Kaye Thomas) mourns the death of his dog along with his little sister (America Ferrera). C.B. has outgrown his childhood clumsiness to become a bullying jock along with his clean freak buddy Matt (Ian Somerhalder). Tricia and Marcy (Kelli Garner and Ari Graynow) wear very little and spend their lunchtimes spouting Valley girl inanities, gossiping viciously, and vehemently denying any hints of lesbianism. The endlessly picked-on Beethoven (Logan Marshall-Green) just slouches over his piano and tries to avoid trouble. Van (Keith Nobbs) is a pothead who will smoke anything, up to and including the ashes of his childhood blanky, and Van's sister (Eliza Dushku) has been put in a mental institution for her pyromaniac tendencies.
It's kind of obvious this play came from the Fringe, isn't it? Okay, so the "let's screw up these characters" impulse got a bit out of control, but the play still has moments when you can see how the child became the teenager, and let's face it- there's something inherently hilarious about seeing an innocent childhood cartoon become a druggie.
Anyway, C.B. realizes that he wants to know what will happen to his dog after death, so he goes around to all of his friends to ask. It's when he asks Beethoven that things start to spin out of control. A few lunchtimes, a party, a gay love affair, and a performance art piece later, the play instantaneously plunges into much deeper darkness, one that perhaps it can't completely sustain.
Since I'd rather not give away any plot points, I'll focus more on the characters. Thomas' C.B. still has hints of his childhood depressive personality, but one key character change of his really seemed to come out of nowhere. To be fair, the writing there was rather sketchy, though. Ferrera is a delight as his outspoken little sister, and Nobbs somehow manages to stay in the pothead stereotype while making his own character out of it. I thought Beethoven was a bit of a one-note whiner, even if he did have reasons for it, but he did provide amusement in the form of "good-looking guy attempts to appear nerdy through the use of glasses, a bad haircut, and really bad posture." Oh, show business. We couldn't have an actor who was actually plain-looking, of course.
I'm afraid that Tricia and Marcy, while occassionally funny, mostly served to annoy the crap out of me. They were just too over-the-top and strident in their "ditzy slut" roles. But Eliza Dushku really did a great job as Van's sister. Okay, fine, Lucy. C.B.'s visit to her padded room was one of the highlights of the show, because she's really the character that best executed the show's concept. She's still Lucy the bully and perpetual liar, with a strange fondness for C.B. and her own crazy take on the world (which turns out to be not completely crazy after all). Dushku exuded an almost sisterly affection for Thomas, while remaining unabashedly and downright proudly crazy. If the rest of the play had been more like that scene, I could recommend it more whole-heartedly on its own merits rather than mostly as an amusingly dark take on Charles Schulz's characters.
It's probably too late at this point, but if Ariel Sharon isn't going to live, I hope he dies a painless death. I still can't stand the guy, but he ended up doing some good. And I'm not going to deny that the withdrawal from Gaza was a good thing just because it came from a "bad" source.
On that note, fuck you, Pat Roberston.
Kadima.