Business with the sea...

Again in California
My knees dug in the shore
Pacific waters called again
And asked my soul for more

But there's no more to sacrifice
My heart is just a sieve
The land has stopped, sea appeared,
I've nothing left to give.

 And they say the tides can pull you
 No matter where you flee.
 It's life you must attend to

 So the waves won't let you be.

       No, the waves won't let you be
       When you have business with the sea...



 

Important Teachers: A List

I have been so blessed with truly remarkable teachers in my lifetime.

As discussed with Jean Gaede, whom I see often (at my Broadway performance of Master Class, and a woman who has flown over from America specifically for weekend performances of Fiddler and Carousel), that people should consider themselves extraordinarily lucky if they have even one spectacular, life-altering teacher in their lifetimes--I have been blessed with many.

I have also been blessed with some terrible teachers. And I say "blessed" deliberately for these teachers, though they may have taught me little (to nothing) of the subject on the “tin,” taught me an awful lot about how to educate myself, how to get by, how to be tough, patient, diplomatic, and oftentimes, flat-out do their job FOR them.
     ...You have any of those? Yeah. Those were valuable men and women in their own right. Thank you bad teachers: you mattered too.

So without further ado, the list (and thank you, Mrs. Zarider, who taught me to count…) in no particular order.

*

1. Joanne Devine & Barbara Zarider (1st grade - 1989-1990)
     Two new mothers who wanted to be a part of their young children's lives but still wanted to teach? Mrs. Devine and Mrs. Zarider decided the best way forward was to team up! Mrs. Z took Monday, Tuesday and every other Wednesday, and Mrs. D took the end of the week. Mrs. Z specialized in all things numbers, Mrs. D was a language and reading expert for the district. When I entered first grade at El Rodeo I was new in the area and at the school, most everyone else had come up from pre-school together and they took me under their wings and made me feel special and noticed and right at home. Nothing like the "tandem-team" that taught me how to read and how to count. I'll never forget them.

2. Tom Kearny (Science - Derby Middle School 1996-7) 
     Mr. Kearny was one of those teachers that comes along once in a lifetime—the kind you never forget, never forget what they taught you, and never forget that they taught you how to learn and love something that you never would have even considered loving so passionately were it not for their influence. Mr. Kearney was more than a science teacher, he was a poet-- one of those men who saw poetry in the clouds, in the water cycle and the stars, and you could feel that poetry oozing from him like a perfume. He was that teacher you become friends with... when you are twelve.


3.  Jean Gaede (Russian Literature & Contemporary Classics - Interlochen Arts Academy 1999-2001)
     When Jean Gaede and I first crossed paths, she thought I was a lightweight—and I suppose, at least on the surface, I very likely was.
     I had come to the Academy from the summer camp (where the attitudes of students are not at all academic), and a substantial adjustment must be made. I was also adjusting to being away at boarding school, a secret introvert masquerading as an extrovert, awake-in-the-dark-of-the-night nervous about my father's health, and, crucially, making an excellent show about how... none of that was the case.
     Pushkin first captured my imagination, then Tolstoy's short stories which invigorated my conscience, and eventually the haunting and pivotal Dostoevsky masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov. Brothers K was our turning point—I read all 1,000 pages of it (unlike many of my cheating classmates!), I "got it," and she knew it. Our eyes locked one day after my oral report on Ivan Karamazov and "The Grand Inquisitor" and we never looked back.
     Jean Gaede has flown over to London, and to New York to see every show I've ever done, and her influence on my reading life is irreplaceable.

4. Robin Ellis & David Montee (Acting teachers and Directors of The Miracle Worker, Snoppy! The Musical, She Loves Me, Merrily We Roll Along and As You Like It - Interlochen Arts Academy 1999-2001)
     What is there to say other than that these two taught me everything I know, or rather, every practical thing I know about being in the theatre? David and Robin fostered a love of the theatre so strong that no amount of external real-life beatings could ever extract it from my spirit. They raised the bar and told me to rise to it—then raised it again and again...
     They "saw" me, they "got" me, and most pivotal of all they truly celebrated all that I was, had to potential to become, and could ever hope to be as an artist and a human being. All of this at a time in my life where every single moment was as essential and as relevant as breathing. I lived for their wisdom, humor, knowledge and guidance. They motivated me to work harder than I ever knew possible—help me discover another gear deep within me that formed the artistic being I am today.
     I have journal after journals full of their lessons that I still use today in my work. The memories of the shows we did together are ever-present and inexorable from my memory, they were the ground-zero of my existence as a creative artist. I feel that in the universe of their glow I truly became the artist I am today. I came alive at Interlochen, under their watch. There is no better, higher, or more grateful praise than that.

5. Judy Chu (British Literature - Interlochen Arts Academy 2001)
     Lady Chu is THE Lady Chu. Click on the link above for everything my heart could ever say. Need I say more?

6. Mark Saunders (RSAMD 2002-2005)
     Mark was one of those teachers that learns with tremendous joy alongside his students.With the exception of two final year projects (The Bite of the Night and Here Comes a Chopper, to be specific) when I look back at my time in Glasgow, the projects and experiences that stand out all have one connecting factor—Mark Saunders.
     He was the head of the student government on which I served as a representative for my year group, and we made great strides in their together. He was my movement teacher, and, having always been a keen "mover" his lessons ignited my imagination—from Le Coq's 7 movements, to Levels of Tension, to Elements, Buffon,  clowning and mask work. But it was working with him collaboratively—with him at the helm guiding a group. Though I played a small supporting role in Pericles (one of the Second Year Shakespeare plays), I enjoyed every second of it; as well as the Voice and Movement Project: a 10 week experience that serves as a culmination of all you have learned in both departments. It is devised, based loosely on a theme, and the source of extraordinary frustration for some, and joy for others. My group's offering was trans-formative for all of us.
     I'm also glad to say that I now see Mark annually in some city or another and it has become a great tradition of ours to explore the city we are in with as much vigor and gusto as we brought to the classroom.

7. Adrian Howells (Guest Artist and Director of Here Comes a Chopper - RSAMD 2004-05)
     Adrian's theory of teaching and directing is that everyone operates at their best when their "love tanks" all full! And of course he is correct. He is also the originator of the sentiment that in creation, "IT IS ALL ALLOWED." Sensitive, thoughtful, charming and profoundly creative in the most glorious way, Adrian is an artist first and lives artistically-- he taught me by example how to be an artist in the world, but he also taught me that magic lies beyond the comfort zone. When I look back at my higher education, Adrian's influence is rooted in the memory—so much of what I transformed into in Glasgow was because of him. I am honored to have been lead by him as a young person, and even more honored to call him a friend in the present.*

[*Update as of 2014: Adrian Howells sadly took his own life in 2014, at the too-young age of 51. Words fail to express the loss to my own little life and the world. However, I wish to send him every good wish, no anger, and remind him that even in his absence, "it is all allowed—" even leaving us too soon.]

*

This of course is a list of people who  had the "title"— not to mention the countless mentors, role models and colleagues that always have wonderful lessons to share.

Who are your greatest teachers?

Don't Worry...

We Ourselves are the Authors...

“…And with these the sense of the world’s concreteness, irreducible, immediate, tangible, of something clear and closer to us: of the world, no longer as a journey having constantly to be remade, not as a race without end, a challenge having constantly to be met, not as the one pretext for a despairing acquisitiveness, nor as the illusion of a conquest, but as the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that the earth is a form of writing, a geography, of which we had forgotten that we ourselves are the authors.”

–Georges Perec, “Species of Spaces”

Ask Al: The Avant-Garde

Did I tell you guys I was teaching the good children of the future at Pace University?
Well I am.
I am now Professor Silber.
Like... there are pieces of paper, official looking pieces of paper with THAT EXACT MONIKER on the top of the page.
"Prof. Silbs" if you will (and I know you will...)

You know what happens when you have to travel for work in the winter?
     There is inevitably a  blizzard.
And you know what happens when there is a blizzard?
     They cancel all the flights back East.
And thus, you cannot TEACH THE CHILDREN.
For [*War Movie Voice*] ...you cannot get to them.

YOU ARE STUCK.
In the middle of the desert.
With nothing to comfort you but the sunshine.
And a hot tub.

But does that stop Al Silbs? Why NO.
Because Al Silbs makes her class a VIDEO.
With her iPhone.
and THAT is how you handle being stranded! ReSULT!

Welcome to the [*alienating lighting shift*] THE AVANT-GARDE. [*aaaaand BLACKOUT*]

Enjoy good students of Pace University.
And enjoy, ye readers of London Still.

FIN.
PS) Feel free to do the homework in the comments if you like!

Baby Steps

(1-3 weeks on…give or take…)

“Dr. Marvin…You can help me…for the first time in my life, I feel like there’s hope…”
—What About Bob?

*


What About Bob was on.
Of course.
It had been on, solidly, for a week.


[On screen:  We are in Dr. Leo Marvin’s fancy Midtown-Manhattan office. There are awards on the wall, sleek metallic lamps, a large window overlooking the city behind the small, and a bronze bust of Dr. Sigmund Freud that surrounds an arrogant psychiatrist wearing a navy jacket and red tie. After listening to Bob Wiley—his newest patient for only a matter of minutes—Dr. Marvin recommends the following…]

    Dr. Marvin: Bob, there is a groundbreaking new book that has just come out— ah!

[Dr. Marvin selects one from dozens of copies of the same, completely visible, book…]

    Now not everything in this book, of course applies to you, but I’m sure that you can see, when you see the title, exactly how it could… help.

    Bob:  [reading the title] “Baby Steps?”
    Dr. Marvin: —It means setting small, reasonable goals for yourself, one day at a time. One tiny step at a time.
    Bob: [wonderstruck] …B a b y  S t e p s…
    Dr. Marvin: For instance, when you leave this office, don’t think about everything you have to do in order to get out of the building, just think of what you must do to get out of this room, and when you get to the hall, deal with that hall, and so forth. You see?
    Bob: Baby Steps!
    Dr. Marvin: Baby Steps.
    Bob: Oh boy…


Baby steps…
    deep, right?
Hilariously deep.
And agonizingly accurate.


*


Grey had moved the television from the master bedroom into the upstairs office across the landing. The master bedroom having a kind of force field around it at this juncture—invisible and undiscussed. I think all of us were aware that we did not want to be those people, whoever they were. Those people—the ones that got all histrionic about the loss of a loved one. As if that were somehow not okay.

Mom and I spent a lot of time wondering if we were reacting “normally.” Grey, Lilly and Kent spent a lot of time wondering the same thing. What do you do when you are eighteen and nothing this devastating has really ever happened to you yet? You can’t say things are “okay” or “allowed” or “understandable” because you have no idea if they are or aren’t— you are eighteen. You are a fetus.  The closest you have ever gotten to death is the class guinea pig dying in kindergarten.  You do not yet realize what you do not yet know.

So, in that vein, we did not actively close off The Room of Death. No. We just operated under a silent agreement that all would be quiet. We’d keep it light. We could and would pretend that all comings-and-goings to and from The Room of Death were nobigthing. Look at me Death, our silent attitude would manically screech, check me! Check me as I casually use the Master Bathroom as a legitimate alternative to other household bathrooms! I am using it because there is a shower/bath, and because it is a valid option and therefore should be utilized as such. The ‘someone died here like 5 minutes ago’ thing? Yeah. It is nobigthing.
It was.
It was a big thing.
So despite the odd gesture to waltz in and out of the room like dingbats, it pretty much remained untouched.

Hey-You-Guy-Brenda and Kent had gotten to work on the master bathroom (or, The Bathroom of Death, if you will--and I hope you will)— sorting through every pill, tube, catheter, plug, prescription bottle, and machine and, without a great deal of ceremony, threw all of it away.
    “We disposed of the disease” Kent said after returning from wherever these trinkets had been discarded, “and left the man.” Indeed—the gold watch, the spare loose coins he always counted as he thought and calmed himself, the scraps of paper covered in his signature all-caps scrawl, the distinctive cologne that smelled so much of him it pierced directly into my heart.

Those days were full of harrowing little tasks like that.

The death-sheets were cleaned and folded, the bed made anew, the room scrubbed down, the machines carted away—as if none of it had ever happened at all. Mom’s friends, along with mine, took on the duties that would eventually create The House of Death we came to know after the act itself was long past. All that could remind us of the horrors of terminal disease remained burned in our memories alone.

But the absence of objects is, too, a kind of silence.

No one could have prepared us for the pulsing soundlessness that perpetrated every waking moment, that the lack of Michael, along with the lack of his artifacts (both of the life and the lack-of-life variety) would in fact leave us with no touchstones to our anguish, no weapons with which to dig out emotions trapped so deep within our chest cavities only crude surgery could release them.


*


Dad’s office across the hall already had a small twin bed in the corner, and was now doubling as, what could only be described as “Mom’s Temporary Place of Sleeping.”

At the time we had one of those late-90s TVs with a built-in VHS player. It would swallow the already war-worn copy of Bob, and every time it reached the end of the tape it would automatically rewind, eject, and the VHS tape would sit in the open mouth of the TV, awaiting instruction—a blank face with its tongue sticking out.

Before a second of silence could go by I would panic, rushing to the machine to push the cassette back in. There are no words to describe how much I loved the way it swallowed the tape with such efficient, satisfying obedience, and adored the sound of the pre-digital cogs churning within, of each electronic stage it took to bring Bob’s infinite wisdom back to me again.

    Dr. Marvin: Are you married?
    Bob: I'm divorced.
    Dr. Marvin: Would you like to talk about that?
    Bob: There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't. My ex-wife loves him.

And again.
Bob— with his judicious ability to ask for exactly what he needs.

    Bob: [to man on bus] Hi, I'm Bob. Would you knock me out, please? Just hit me in the face…

And again.
Bob— knowing there is soundness even in folly.

    Dr. Marvin: I want some peace and quiet!
    Bob: Yeah, I'll be quiet.
    Siggy: I'll be peace!
    [Bob and Siggy burst into giggles]

And again.
Bob— reaching through the screen and speaking the truth directly to me…

    Dr. Marvin: Why are you always wearing black? What is it with you and this death fixation?
    Siggy: Maybe I'm in mourning for my lost childhood…

It was in this period that I came to know Bob beyond reason or sanity. In that week I exceeded being comforted by the light, harmless comedy. Not surprisingly, in fact, I did not laugh at all. I watched because it comforted me. I watched it because the “this moment,” and every moment that clicked along, really sucked, and it reminded me of life, of everything, before it.


Bob— on endless loop.
Bob— more comforting than any therapy (be it “Baby Steps,” “Isolation,” or “Death” therapies) or friend or food or love.

*

I would jolt— Dad and Bill Murray always shared a kind of “cadence,” particularly when Bill Murray went into his “child-like comedy” mode. “HA!” Bob would burst out, and I would jolt upward, certain Dad was back before I remembered, and sank back into myself, and the bed, once more. If I kept it on, somehow Dad would come around the corner any second and join me.

After a few days a family friend came over and into the room. She stood over me and glanced over my particular state of wretchedness and attempted to conceal how much the sight of my despair turned her stomach. She caught herself mid-shudder and plastered a frighteningly cheerful smile on her face,
     “I see we are doing a little too much sitting in this bed and not enough getting on with things?” My eyes moved toward her but my body remained motionless too dazed to be embarrassed, and, with the concern and temperament of a toad, my eyes peeled away form her and back toward the screen, not even daring to respond. She sighed and left the room slowly, unable to stir me.

She was trying to help.

Was she trying to tell me that my love of Bob was wrong? Because if Bob was wrong, then I didn’t want to know what right was.

*

I had been in the bed for a week. Pajamas filthy, hair matted, and Bob on a bender of inexhaustible re-runs. I did not know what time it was. I did not know the day. All I knew was that it was dark. In every sense. And that I was alone.

But Bob was there, and the blue flame from the small television flickered, more comforting than a fire.

I opened my eyes to discover Bob helping little Siggy to dive...

My beloved Bob approaches the dock to discover Siggy, dressed fully in black and all alone, sitting on an upright wooden post, red bicycle discarded beside him, despondently playing a hand-held video game. Siggy’s father Dr. Marvin has insisted Siggy learn to dive despite Siggy’s paralyzing fear, and earlier on, dropped Siggy in the water without warning. Bob is elated, having just returned from his first experience of sailing, and is still draped in his orange life-vest which he has left casually untied atop his bright blue shirt that reads “Don’t Hassle Me, I’m Local.”

Bob gazes upon Siggy and approaches slowly.

Bob: Notice anything different about me? 
Siggy: [he contemplates Bob for a moment] No. 
Bob: Do you sail? 
Siggy: No. 
Bob: Well I just picked it up. Heh! [He chuckles] Wonder what I’m gonna pick up next? 
Siggy: Try diving. [He retorts sarcastically, returning to his video game] 
Bob: Alright, diiiiiving… 
Siggy: I know a great teacher. [He sighs. Considers for a moment, before venting a confession to Bob] I mean, my dad just dropped me in the water. Without warning me first. I mean, I nearly drowned! My whole life passed before my eyes. 
Bob: You're lucky you're only twelve. 
Siggy: It was still grim.

I knew exactly what he meant. 

Siggy [cont]: I mean what is it with him and diving? What’s the big deal? 
Bob: Well…[Bob walks out further onto the dock and, seeing the depth of the water declares] WHOA… [tying his life-vest on tightly before continuing] ...He probably just wants to beat it, that’s all. You know, he probably just wants you to dive, because you’re afraid of diving. 

Siggy rolls his eyes as only a twelve-year-old can, but knows Bob is right.

Bob [cont]: Did I tell you? I sailed on my first try! [Bob extends his arms like a proud child] …I just let the boat do the work that was my secret. But with diving, what’s the thing? What’s the trick? Siggy: I dunno… it’s supposed to be easy… Bob moves his feet around, revving them into the ground like a nervous foul. 
Bob: well… can you give me a handle on it? 

Siggy puts down his video game and comes over to Bob at the end of the dock.


...I don’t want to go into more detail.
I don’t want to get into the hows and the whats of the next few moments, because I want you to see the scene for yourself.

All I will say is this: Siggy dives.
And he dives because Bob helps him.

Does Bob realize he is helping? I don’t know. Every time I see this scene I change my mind again—no, I think, Bob is innocent, he doesn’t know he is the most profound man alive, an all-knowing guru of almost spiritual depth. The next time round I think yes, Bob knows what he is doing, he may not be able to help himself, but he can help this little boy…
I don’t know.
I like that I don’t know.

What I do know is this: Siggy faces his greatest fear. And he does because Bob helps him.

I burst into tears. Which was odd, because I had not yet cried. Not once. And there I was weeping into the strange un-used cushions of an unfamiliar bed in my father’s old office, across the hall from the room in which he had died what felt like both moments and ages ago, and all I wanted was for Bob to reach through the screen and help me.

Warm Woolen Mittens

©Nick Bantock

1. Monograms

According to Wikipedia,

"A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of uncombined initials is properly referred to as a cypher (e.g. a royal cypher) and is not a monogram.^"

Basically: I like them. And I like the letter 'A' a LOT. And though it is mostly because my name starts with A ("mostly" being somewhere between 70-95%) it is also because I find letters to be graceful things, and their shape, line, structure, movement, all seem to articulate a little something about us. I identify with the "A" not merely because my name begins with it, but because of the swoosh of the three lines used to make the uppercase model, and the blobby little bubble who wears a hat used mostly in type-faced version of lowercase "a" (which I have infamously utilized even when writing by hand for over 15 years).   

Remember how Mary Tyler Moore and her "M" made such an emotional impact when she moved from her small apartment to her larger one in 1975?  (if not, check out the clip at 13:22 here)...

How miraculous that a collection of almost random scratches come to form and represent all the words we know and some we have yet to know? Those scratchings, when stood on their own, serve as a symbol, a quiet reminder, a whispered essence of who we are. 
 

2. Dark chocolate with hazelnuts.

Why do people eat anything else ever? Dark chocolate with hazelnuts is better than kittens and sunshine and Christmas... and when all four of these things combine? 
Well that would be bliss. 
Bliss I tell you.

Emma Williams: blind friend-date

3. Friend-Dating

Some of the best pals I've ever met, and some of the very greatest in my everyday life are friends I have met on a "friend date."

What is a friend date you ask?
Why, according to the Urban Dictionary: 

"...a friend date is a situation in which two platonic individuals partake in activities (such as movies, coffee, or a walk on the beach) that have the appearance of a regular date, but have no romantic or sexual intentions."

 I was "set up" on a blind friend-date with fellow actress Emma Williams in London somewhere around 2006 by a mutual friend who thought the two of us would be great pals. It was love at first friend-date. We never looked back.


4. Drinking through a straw

I am going to openly admit here that I always steal an extra straw from Starbucks whenever I go so that I may take it home and drink with it at The Winter Palace. I love a straw! It is human innovation at it's most innovative and simple! 
Steps:

1. Place lips around long, hollow cylindrical device.
2. Utilize suction: muscular action reduces air pressure in the mouth, whereupon atmospheric pressure forces the beverage up the straw.
3. VOILA! YOUR BEVERAGE DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR GOB! 
4. Repeat. Enjoy.

I mean: amazing. 

5. Rubber Stamps

Before the printing press, the written word was the responsibility of the monasteries. Each book was written and illustrated by hand, highly inaccessible and very expensive to produce. Each block was carved by hand with every ideogram in position, which meant a completely new carved block for each page! This was the year 1 B.C. (so... you know... give them a break...)

In 1444 Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith and printer introduced modern book printing by inventing a mechanical moveable type and the printing press machine. It played a huge role in education, news and the Scientific Revolution. This was used widely until the second half of the 20th century. Primitive printing blocks were made of woodcuts, photoengraved copper, linoleum blocks, magnesium plates and zinc metals.

And while I am all into the Industrial Revolution and all-- THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT. I love a rubber stamp and I am not afraid to show it! I remember the first time I ever used a rubber stamp: one of an almost lithographic-ly detailed heart. My mom presented me with a piece of paper and an ink pad and when I reproduced the heart over and over (and over) again I thought a miracle was taking place. There is something about the act of physical reproduction: an act of man-powered magic that cannot be replicated by the technological age. 

©nick bantock - responsible for my adult love of stamps

I would wager that engineers themselves still experience this feeling with their tablets and MP3 players, but for us ordinary punters out here in Normals-ville, nothing is comparable to the "real thing." When one touches a screen and "stuff happens" it is simply not the same as watching the cogs of a clock physically mesh together. Or pressing rewind and watching a tape actually roll backwards and play a recording from a different part of that same strip of tape. So it is with the rubber stamp. For one brief moment, our hands are a tiny little printing press that no laser printer can compete with.


The enhance any piece of paper be it a letter, an envelope, a note or a tax return. 
The are elegant and mystical.  
  
  They are like warm woolen mittens, and they get my *stamp* of approval. 

On translations

Larissa Volokhonsky & Richard Pevear

"Dear Al,
Do you suggest a specific translation of 'The Master and Margarita?' Also, you're right, covers do matter! Thank you.
From, M "


Dear M,

Why yeeeessss. Да. Oui. Sí. Ja. 是

On translations:

In translating literature from one language to another in GENERAL, it is important to convey not only the literal meaning of the story, but the culture, dialogue and thought flow, and essence of the characters being conveyed.

Because Russia, but particularly Soviet Russia is such an extra foreign mystery to Westerners, cultural conveyance is of even more import.

Russians (and of course, subsequently, their LANGUAGE) are very... VERY direct in their everyday conversations. They say exactly what is needed, often coming across as harsh or rude to the smiley, overly polite English speaking world. But keep in mind, Russia is cold, you don't want to have long talks in the street. And in Soviet Russia people never wanted to display their true emotions or feelings in public, lest they be overheard, doubted, and subsequently punished for any reason. Out in the "world" Soviet Russians were (and in many ways still lingeringly are) very suspicious. There was no sidewalk restaurant culture (anyone might overhear your lunch conversation!), shopping and socializing were not about personal pleasure but about necessity.

HOWEVER, once a Russian trusts you and welcomes you into their HOME? Well, you might not ever make it out for they will shower you in love and affection and pet names and pickles and guitar serenades and litres of vodka and ostensibly a veritable tsunami of emotional openness and truth we hear so often in their music. This is so prevalent in their language I don't even know how to fully convey it other than in ALL CAPS. [*she yells*] TO YELL AT YOU ABOUT IT IN ALL CAPS!!

You know who does this best?

     Husband and wife team Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
     They nail it.

Not only in the prose (which is *ga ga ga gorgeous*-- particularly in their recently released War and Peace, a translation that made the book readable and not dry at ALL)
     but crucially, in the dialogue.

Also crucial is the footnotes. Their footnotes explain everything you could ever want to know about what you are reading (and probably many things you did not realize you wanted to know, plus a few things you didn't really need to know but now you feel like a freakin' Master-MIND and Margarita...sorry...). Anyway they manage to do all of that in a comprehensive, yet utterly concise way. Best footnotes out there. [1] Here is a link to their brilliant essay on The Master and Margarita -- I highly encourage a perusal.

CONS: The bummer about the Penguin Classics edition of M&M?
     1. the font is so tiny you get an ocular migraine.
     2. The main character's name is 'Bezdomny' which is the literal word for "Homeless"-- it is clearly a direct joke, like Dickens naming a bumbling workhouse officer Mr. Bumble. However, there is something about using the word "Homeless" as his actual moniker throughout the book that... irks me. Not sure why. Just personal preference I suppose.
     3. [::sigh::] The cover...? The American cover anyway is (I'm so sorry Kasimir Malevich!!) not whimsical. It is "An Englishman in Moscow" and basically just not what I want...
          ...which is a black cat. 

And YES, M, yes: covers matter. 
They matter very much. 
[*evidence below*]

...*THIS...*

I want bat-shit Bulgakov-crazy shit liiiiike...

[1] truly

Miracle of Lights

Deep in the shadows of old Jerusalem, the ancient Jews fought against oppression. They joined together, rose up, and defeated the oppressors who had outlawed their faith and desecrated their holy temple.

In the ruins of their newly won city, the ancient Jews stood in the silence and agreed: they must cleanse and re-dedicate the temple. They would reignite the menorah—a beacon of light that would burn all day and all night—as a symbol of their fortitude, and, in every way, their faith.

According to the Talmud, olive oil was required to keep the menorah ablaze within the Temple. But when the Jews returned to their oil supply, they found that there was only enough oil to burn for a single day. Eight days would be required to prepare a new supply of oil. The light in the temple would be doused long before then.

But a miracle happened.

The oil in the temple lasted eight incredible days: exactly the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. Thus, Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights came to be.

Beyond all reason or logic, we too—like the light in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem—are inextinguishable. In the darkest and most desperate hours, when we mine ourselves for more than we ever could conceive was possible, the fuel is there. So that we may continue on.

Hope may be fragile, but it is there.

     Like light. . .

Sometimes blazing, sometimes merely a tender, trembling flicker that regardless, cannot be extinguished, that flame winking even in the darkest hours. So our ancient ancestors have taught us. So we continue to learn again and again as time churns ever onward.

Hope accompanies all new beginnings. . .

Happy Hanukkah everyone. May we all mine ourselves for more-- tonight and always. 

Backstage Madness: "His iPod Singing!!!"

Soo... yeah.
LOOK: Sometimes you are in a one woman musical about war crimes,
     and you share a dressing "area" with the girl who is doing the one woman musical about a girl raised in Kabul as a boy
          and the fun-loving ASM.

And sometimes, when Hunter Foster sings from his one-man musical about his brother dying in the Rocky Mountains, he sings this line -- this MAGICAL LINE about an iPod (that is so brilliant as to be ridiculous, or ridiculous as to be brilliant-- EITHER WAY!) -- and you all have to stop EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING and lip sync to Hunter Foster or else the world will explode.

I love the theatre.

EVIDENCE:

Grandma

She took me upstairs to talk.

I now realize Edna merely wanted to calmly express her hurt: I didn’t mention anyone from his original nuclear family in the Eulogy. Not once. (You know what's awesome? Irony. People my age learned what it means from Alanis Morissette so our grasp is tenuous at best, but when it plays out over life-and-death situations it can get pretty trippy. Listen, I want to be sorry for it, even in the present. Yet, while I can see it as a grievous social error filled with pointed animosity and bluntness, I admit: I am not sorry I did it. Or perhaps, did not do it…) I was so done with them I simply could not see or honor the nature of her anguish (for even the cruel and selfish can be bruised).


Once, I drew a portrait of her— a crude pen and marker drawing completed by a seven-year-old, wrinkles and all. I gave it to her hoping she would like it. But she looked down and saw the way a child saw “wrinkles” and had drawn “age” and was hurt. I hadn’t intended to mar her vanity or break her heart in any way. Still, she took me aside,  “One day you will have wrinkles and be old too, and there is nothing wrong with that.”

I wanted to tell her that I knew that. I was just trying to draw a picture of my grandma. But I don’t know that she ever forgave me for it. I now see that I had challenged her greatest (and perhaps, in her psyche, her only) commodity.


Yet, I thought: this is the woman who, despite grave warnings from her overbearing husband, flew to San Francisco to talk to Deborah face-to-face after she came out (in a vitriolic letter that arrived one day in the mail), and tried to be enthusiastic about PFLAGG.

The woman who heard I loved an authentic 1930s cocktail dress from a vintage store and went out and bought it for me.

Who wanted me to discover the “thing” it was that I liked so she could actively look for things to help build a collection of (and how I sort of wish I could tell her now that it was owls). I always felt she forced this collection business on me— nutcrackers, spiders, lobsters, but in hindsight I think it was her way of keeping me in her mind, of her fragmented form of connecting.

I saw the repressed artistic soul— the musician with a flair for jewelry, the best sculptor I have ever met, unable to fulfill her longings, possibly envious that I was afforded every freedom to do so.

The woman who tried to teach me to play the piano, and failed. I still have the books from the 1940s that she used to teach all those children on the block in Detroit. I wish I had been less intimidated by both her and her piano.

The woman who tried to reach out by taking me to the Fisher to see the tour of Jekyll and Hyde when I was fourteen. We had a wonderful day, a matinee and dinner after the show. I see now that she wanted to connect with me on a level that she knew I would appreciate. No more forced collections or wading through false histories, just the two of us in a theatre. It felt like home. That was probably the best day I ever had with her. We actually spoke, like people. She told me stories about the family, revealed some of the darker corners of her true feelings about everything and everyone, spoke to me more and more like a woman as the day progressed and I have to say I think the connection she longed for with me as a child actually sparked that day. I think it was the best couple of hours we ever spent together.

The woman who taught me how to play “another form of solitaire” called Thirteen (where you match all of the double cards that make up thirteen), and would patiently watch me assemble and disassemble the pyramid over and over again. It wasn’t until today, as I am sitting here writing this that I realize her whole life was another form of solitaire.


All these stories aside, I would never be able to forget how profoundly she screamed at Rabbi Syme on Tuesday, even as her unvisited son’s body lay upstairs. How ferociously she protested that I “didn’t even know him.” How her small, weak, once beautiful face transformed before my eyes to the face of a demon; maggots crawling from the crevices, rot at every corner like a frantic, desperate, ghoul, before returning to the world again.


It wasn’t that I didn’t know him.
It was that they didn’t know me.
And that was more threatening than anything.


    “You know what Grandma? Let’s just say it.”

It was okay that she didn’t like me. It was alright that this was true— because first, I didn’t think much of dishonesty and she was rife with it, and second and more crucially, I wasn’t very likeable. Not to her.

    “Let’s just get it out in the open—none of you have ever really liked me.”

She looked at me, thunderstruck.
Her hands lay over her face impaled with horror.
That was when I saw it:
    Her hands.


Back then, when my extended family was still speaking to me, people were always coming up to me and remarking upon how greatly I resembled Edna. I suppose I’m aware now that that is no small compliment.
But I don’t see it.
Perhaps because I don’t want to, perhaps because I can’t see the beauty in myself that others do (demons that have nothing whatsoever to do with Edna), or perhaps because I never really knew her so cannot see her face in mine.

But we have the same hands.

There they were, covering her horror-struck, once beautiful face, completely in awe of the fact that her granddaughter had just taken it there.

Small, with large palms and fingers prone to swelling, nail beds like a child’s, dry cuticles, skin baby soft, and subtly expressive. They looked as if they were created to work hard, to milk cows, to cook, freeze, and scrub. They were not long and lean, they were not what you see in magazines. They were the hands of a feminine warrior— the kind of hands jewelry looks out of place on, rings laugh, bracelets scoff, the hands too humble, too common looking to support the grandiosity of adornment. When I look down at my hands now it is undeniable— I see her clumsily cutting onions, I see her coaxing immaculate, expressive birds out of marble, I see her wrinkles and age and know that “there is nothing wrong with that.”

Oh Edna, I did not know you, and there are terrorist cells more nurturing than you.
But I have your hands.

       And that is the possibility of something.

The World Rejoices as Richard Schiff Releases Alexandra Silber's "The West Wing Song"

Richard Schiff puts a knife to "The West Wing Song"

The final update. Over and out.

By David Gordon • New York City

After a truly nail-biting two weeks, Glengarry Glen Ross star Richard Schiff, perhaps best known as Toby Ziegler on the hit NBC drama The West Wing, has released his hostage.
Broadway and West End veteran Alexandra Silber's "The West Wing Song," with lyrics set to W.G. Snuffy Walden's Emmy-winning West Wing theme, found its way back into society on Sunday, November 11, shortly before 11:30am.
Over the past two weeks of the hostage situation, Silber and Schiff's Twitter followers and famous friends lobbied for the song's safe return. West End stage actress Emma Williams submitted this poem , written in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. Tony Award-nominee Manoel Felciano (Tobias in John Doyle's Sweeney Todd revival) submitted this acrostic sonnet . And, as TheaterMania reported, even Aaron Sorkin, the allegedly internet hating, Oscar and Emmy-winning creator of The West Wing, joined the good fight.

Silber believes her confessional video is required watching before you view the original "The West Wing Song" in all its glory below.