Saturday, May 15, 2010

Please Give

Nicole Holofcener makes movies about people I recognize.   It is a relief to sit in the theater and not have to watch young men shooting each other, or middle aged men pairing off with very young women, or young men in buddy movies where the arc of the story begins with pure foolishness and ends with a little less foolishness. I know that I will see the Iron Man movie (I love Robert Downey Jr) and will be tempted by Robin Hood (Russell Crowe is no slouch) but still, superheroes and medieval legends are not the concern of my everyday life.

So when middle aged women with inner lives are portrayed on the screen I snap it up.  Why should  Meryl Streep have a lock on this?

This is Holofcener's specialty, and Please Give is her latest and most wonderful. I read  that Catherine Keener is her muse.

Long live Catherine Keener.













The movie begins with a series of mammograms shown while the Roches sing "No Shoes" in the background.  It was inevitable that mammograms would feature in a film at some point.    Accompanying the images with such a finger snapping tune leavens the tone and introduces a breast technician as a leading character. The movie shows how we feel about cast off furniture and clothes of the dead, and our ambivalence at living in the richest city in the world while surrounded by the homeless.

Any mother who has ever lived with a daughter whose whole feeling of self worth centers on having the right pair of jeans will also recognize herself in this movie. 




Sunday, May 9, 2010

Good Morning


Good Morning

In the sink the cat’s dish gets a swish.
The dregs need rinsing
from yesterday’s coffee.
The kettle needs filling.
The pilot light clicks then whooshes
 into flame, and turns the copper bottom red.

In the tub, three minutes for the sponge bath end
just in time for the kettle’s whistle.

Damp feet step gingerly beneath a bath towel.

The filter sits in the cone,
the cone on top of the carafe,
 the coffee, one half cup, in the cone.
Steamy the water that falls on the coffee,
then the scent of beans

The cat begins to eat

 The day can now begin


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Marina Abramovic at MOMA



Marina Abramovic has a great head.  Her  eyes stare intently under strong brows, her mouth shows no emotion yet her lips are expressive with curves, and her hair and her body and her whole presence are at peace with themselves and the world.  Her face and demeanor remind me of Georgia O'Keeffe.  She is a very serious performance artist. 

She creates works designed to make you uncomfortable.  It is legitimate art, but when she throws her naked self at a pillar over and over again, and then walks back to repeat this gesture of futility, all I can think of is the physical damage she is doing to her body, which is her medium.  I know it is her right to do that to herself, but I can't help but feel sorry for the chronic masochism involved.

I liked best the work on video and in photographs that showed her performances with her partner, Ulla.  Below is their piece, "Rest Energy."
There was tension between the two of them that took a little bit of the heat off the audience.













As it is, many people are participating in "The Artist is Present" by sitting across from her in a chair, and being photographed under magnificent lighting.



Artsy's page on Marina Abramovic

No Sherman Alexie, alas

 PEN International Voices Festival  for some reason replaced Sherman Alexie with Christopher Hitchens, an intellectual and excellent polemicist who thought that Henry Kissinger should have been tried for war crimes, and made an excellent case for it in his book.   But Christopher Hitchens is no Sherman Alexie.




Here is a clip of Alexie on the Colbert Report explaining why he won't put his books on the Kindle.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Times Square May 1, 2010


On the way to the theatre last night, I ran into a police barricade.  No matter what block we turned to, from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Ave, from 45th St to 46 St., police insisted that we stand back,  get out of the way.  I had a flashback to the Republican National Convention when we tried to march peacably along a preordained route and police kept yelling at us to go a different way as if we were the source of the trouble and not the war in Iraq and other misconceived political decisions that brought us out to have our say.

Last night was a simple matter of walking to the theater and being redirected to the curb. When I asked a police officer what was the matter, she only said, "A smoking car."  Then she said very indignantly, "get out of the way. You aren't doing any good standing there."

Another person said, "Its the Islamists."

Times Square requires advanced pedestrianship in the best of circumstances, that is when thousands of tourists, vendors, residents, crooks, and others are walking in a zigzag pattern.  You have to bob and weave just to get through the street.  But when people are in the way because of a police barricade, and then you try to get to the front of the line and ask a police officer what is going on, you have to be pretty aggressive with your zigging and zagging.

 I had bought tickets to see a play.  The play was going to start momentarily.  The police prevented us from attending. After a while the police said that all performances were canceled.  This was after they said to call the theaters.  There was no way to get through to the theaters by phone or foot or email or anything.  Now I have two tickets for last night's performance. When I wrote to NY1, they forwarded this announcement from the Broadway League:


"There were no evacuations from Broadway theaters last night. Due to police activity that closed a few streets in Times Square, there were some late curtains but all shows did go on. For exchanges or refunds, theatregoers should contact their point of purchase. All Broadway matinee and evening shows will go on as scheduled today. 
The proper authorities are doing their jobs to keep Times Square safe for everyone, and Broadway shows are setting their stages to delight audiences."
- Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director, The Broadway League


The smoking car was treated as a serious terrorist threat.   It contained two containers of gasoline, some propane, a couple of alarm clocks, and some fireworks.

I know that there are people trying to do us harm, and that it is the job of the police to keep us safe, but I hate it when the police lie to me. 

Bomb Scare Times Square May 1