The worst part of my 1980s temporary employment experiences, and later, of my general corporate experience, was having interactions with the endless permutations of the workplace character I'll call Creepy Guy. He morphs into different shapes and sizes and ages, but in most businesses there's been a version of Creepy Guy to bother me. I've been lucky in my last few freelance positions, and in general I think the hysterical fear of litigation drummed into agitated managers by the mandatory sexual harassment awareness training that's swept across America in the past 15 years has led to a huge improvement. Now Creepy Guy is more often just Inappropriate Guy with No Social Skills, and even he seems to be harder to find.
In my own experience, Creepy Guy has been a gawky 20-year-old who hung out under a staircase so he could look through the slats up my dresses when I walked upstairs to the lunchroom, and who refused to stop peeping even when I confronted him (so I moved my lunch breaks to my car); a Paul Williams look-alike who called the secretaries in his ad agency (including me) "Sweet Buns" and handed out what he said were company-sponsored questionnaires that would help a bra manufacturer make better products if we filled in questions about our breasts and gave them to him to pass along (I read him the riot act and he never spoke to me again); and there was that turtle-like fellow who offered all the young women in the department unwanted neck massages, which always ended up with his hands sliding down toward the unwilling participant's sternum until she pushed him away. Eeeew.
Another time, Creepy Guy was a wholesome-looking guy with a stiff, Mr. Spock-like mien, who would change the direction in which he was walking in order to follow me if I passed anywhere near him, and would follow me into elevators and around the building until I turned and asked him to stop. One day this particular Creepy Guy grabbed my hand while I stood in a nearby cubicle writing a note to someone and quickly brought my hand to his lips and then licked my wedding ring before I could voice my disgust. I reported him; he got a mild reprimand. That same year, Creepy Guy took the form of the guy who asked me to babysit for his kids several times, which I did, happily, thinking we had a nice, easy-going office rapport; once I knew his wife and kids better, he figured it was a good time to invite me to babysit him when his wife was away.
Creepy Guy was once the coworker who stopped sleeping at night because he was convinced aliens would abduct him while he slept unless he worked all night and only slept during daylight hours. He'd be twitchy and irritable during the day, and hopped up on coffee and huge helpings of sweet desserts consumed in front of his computer throughout the night. Creepy Guy also took the form of the guy who recommended a religious cult with a sexual emphasis to me, and who offered to give me personal instruction. There was the other time when Creepy Guy was a Yukio Mishima fanatic and martial arts devotee who owned every book and movie related to Mishima's life or writings, and was eager to share them with me and tell me why Mishima's blend of S&M, fascism, and poetry was a beautiful mix. He rather scared me.
Sometimes Creepy Guy's a nervous, shy, little guy; sometimes he's tall and menacing, like the coworker who had frenzied outbursts complete with flailing arms and flying spit as he hurled loud sentences full of obscene invective at me when he didn't think one of the articles I edited for a newsletter was sufficiently edifying. He made it clear that he thought my work, and by extension I, was a form of time- and space-wasting excrement because I wouldn't alter the article to include a sentence vilifying a coworker with whom he'd had a tiff.
The Creepy Guy who sneaked into my cubicle after hours and read and commented on reminders I had written to myself on Post-It notes by affixing other, smaller Post-It notes with his own observations to my private notes, was the same Creepy Guy who accused me of wearing too much perfume on days when I wore none. The only Creepy Gal I can think of with whom I've worked could have used that perfume; her body odor was so extreme it could be detected from three cubicles away. Honestly. She had a voice like a drunken, belligerent Greta Van Susteren crossed with a moaning Janis Joplin, even at 11 o'clock in the morning, when she finally bothered to show up at work: it was whinging and nasal and loud. At least Janis Joplin had an excuse: kick-ass blues pipes. And Janis was down-to-earth and nice to my dad when she bought a sandwich from him at the San Francisco deli at which he worked in the 1960s. But that's another story.
Creepy Gal was clueless, yes, but not the walking, twitchy, screaming invitation to HR to intervene and set boundaries that the Creepy Guys were. Not that HR ever did intervene in any of those cases, even when notified. I think now they would in a heartbeat, but in the 1980s and 1990s, even at places like Apple Computer that had a more open-minded, modern, progressive world view, there was still way too much tolerance of that kind of numbing, disrespectful, humiliating garbage around. When I read or hear (mostly young) women say that feminism's dated and unnecessary, I want to take them back in time to see what women used to have to go through before feminists started holding society accountable for the way we treat women. And most people weren't as willing to stand up, complain, shove back, and stand their ground as I was, because they feared losing their jobs more than I did and didn't want to be seen as being pushy, difficult feminists. But my pushing back and speaking up always seemed to surprise these guys, partly because I'm sure they'd always gotten away with it before, but partly because they didn't expect a short, perky, friendly chick in girly clothes who brought homemade cookies to meetings to have a spine and fight back when dissed. Joke's on them.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Pushing Up Daisies
You know how, when you finish a satisfying novel, the characters wander around in your head for a few days afterward, and you feel a longing for them, an ache and an empty place in your heart that comes with the realization that you can never know more of them and their stories than you know now? There's that bitter knowledge that you'll never get to look forward to the next scene, the next interaction, the next terrible mistake or death or epiphany on the part of the characters. The pleasure of immersing yourself in a fresh piece of their lives and history for a while is now over. When the story ends there's some sense of closure and peace in finishing the book, but if it's a good enough story, it is, in a way, more painful than satisfying, and you want to open to the first few pages again and remind yourself of the self you were when you last read those words, and of how it felt to be invited into that world the first time around. Which you can never do again with that story.
That's how I feel now that the television series "Six Feet Under" has ended. The last episode was very satisfying, since we did get to see that there was a way out of the difficult present into the hopeful future for all the characters. But it also underscored my feelings of loss and sadness about the end of the characters' lives, since the ten-minute "valedictory," as some have called it, which ended the show and the series was a fast-forward skip through time to the highlights of the characters' lives to come, and to the deaths of each of the remaining major characters. The show centered on the people who live and work in a family-owned funeral home and the continual requirement that they focus on and deal with the deaths of others, as well as their own debilitating pain and inability to cope with the deaths of those they love. Thus, the natural, appropriate, and organic resolution to their stories is the brief but solid and final ending of each of their lives, whether in the present day or in a future glimpsed through a montage during the final moments of the series. The ending was wonderfully, sadly appropriate to the subject matter of the show, and, as the show did every week, it forced viewers to acknowledge the inevitable yet mysterious end of life, the one certainty we all face.
I loved that aspect of "Six Feet Under." Every week's show began with a death, often presented in a shockingly humorous way. Sometimes it was a stranger whose funeral arrangements would be dealt with during the show; sometimes, as in the very first episode, it was the death of someone dear and integral to the lives of the characters in the story. There was no escaping the specter of death; the characters sometimes courted death, sometimes cheated it, but always had to deal with it, ultimately.
Sometimes the inability of the Fisher family (and most of the people with whom they created relationships) to face emotion straight-on and work through it made them do reckless or thoughtless things out of their own fear and denial of their feelings or desires. Nate, the one family member who was devoted to working through his pain and considering it carefully, ended up wallowing in it, citing it as an excuse for egregiously bad behavior, and he became a narcissistic pain in the ass. But Nate also brought other fascinating characters into his orbit, and one could sympathize with the universality of his concerns at times, when he wasn't being such a selfish, careless S.O.B. His navel-gazing, his constant questioning about whether this is all there really is to life, and his whining about whether we should give up and live with what we have or whether we should always strive for something more meaningful, were presented in a way that made me and, it seems, almost everyone else lose whatever tender feelings we had for him. But he felt real. His questions were annoyingly asked and the answers he found led him to ignore the needs and rights of others when they got in the way of his own personal vision quest, but who among us hasn't asked himself or herself variations on those same questions? The imperfections in his character, his choices and his lashing out at others, made him fascinating to watch, and he often acted as a catalyst who set other emotional fires burning in other characters.
All of the characters in "Six Feet Under" could be quite wonderfully, humanly appealing in one scene, then maddenlying selfish and carelessly destructive in another. This fluidity of behavior was always well grounded in a carefully constructed understanding of each character, though; their actions could be surprising, but they were always understandable and had some weird internal logic given what we knew of the character. They were fully rounded, fleshed out, so well understood by the writers and directors of the show that there was a satisfying consistency to them that allowed me to enjoy it when they acted out and did surprising things when under pressure, because whatever craziness they indulged in was a natural outgrowth of their experience, their personalities, their well-established patterns of behavior and choice when faced with problems.
Some people gave up on the show along the way because they found the disasters, deaths, pain, and bad fortune too unrelenting and therefore either overwhelmingly sad or laughingly unbelievable. But the show was never meant to be a perfectly realistic, day-to-day depiction of actual lives. There were elements of fantasy and the supernatural in it from day one. Dead characters come back and have conversations with living ones regularly, and it's never made crystal clear whether they're actual ghosts or just the darker sides of other characters' own natures who are asking the questions or exposing the fears or insecurities that we all share. They serve as catalysts who force characters to face demons, to get angry at those who have left them, to remember what's important, and to come up with cogent arguments against their worst fears.
Sometimes characters have conversations with the bloody corpses they're cleaning up in the basement of the funeral home before a viewing, and these conversations are jarring and disturbing, and the visuals are occasionally more than I want to watch. But I love the realizations that come from these conversations with the dead, and the reminder that our relationships with others don't end just because one of us dies before the other; we continue to consider what those whom we've lost meant to us and mean today. We can get angry or forgive or question or understand them differently for the rest of our lives, and alter our understanding of our relationships as a result. I have found this very true, and both painful and helpful in considering my relationships with my late parents. My relationships with them continue to change and deepen, though one has been dead for four years and the other for over ten.
The writing on "Six Feet Under" was exceptional. It was witty and wicked and often vulgar or shocking, but, I felt, refreshingly so. There were many well-crafted lines, but ultimately the words sprung from each character's lips for a reason and in line with what we knew of the character's motivations and means of expression. The dialog grew out of the characters, the characters didn't have to bend themselves around the dialog in order to stroke the egos of the writers, directors, or producers.
The acting was first-rate. It was a pleasure to be introduced to so many fine actors, many with a strong theatrical background, most of whom I was not familiar with. I'm especially fond of the work Lauren Ambrose (Claire) and Michael C. Hall (David) did in this show. David was my favorite of all the characters; I loved his uptight prissiness and his hatred of himself for being uptight and prissy. When he unclenched his fists and let go of his grimace and showed that wonderful, open, loving face to the people he loved, I believed totally in his character and his essential goodness. I loved his devotion to his lover (and, eventually, husband), Keith (played wonderfully by Mathew St. Patrick), and felt his angst and agony and his self-loathing over being gay, and his constant battle to be respected by others, and by himself, despite and sometimes because of his being gay. When he got to take on crazy fantasy sequences or let his hair down in sex scenes, his relief (and my own) was palpable. I would love to have seen his portrayal of the Emcee in "Cabaret"—he took over from Alan Cumming (whom I also love) in the extra-bawdy Broadway revival a few years ago. The revival of "Cabaret," one of my all-time favorite musicals, was directed (to wild acclaim) by Sam Mendes, who directed the film "American Beauty," which was, of course, written by Alan Ball, the creator of "Six Feet Under." (So now we see how it all comes together....)
Alan Ball has made it to the pantheon of great television writers and directors for what he did with this show. He directed and wrote many of the episodes, including the final one. His ability to look ugliness straight in the face, turn it sideways, and find the beauty in it for us is uncanny. I fell in love with his work when I saw "American Beauty," which he wrote. So many people loved that movie instantly when it came out that it has suffered a backlash. Some now call it pompous or mannered, a good outlet for middle-brow angst, which is just what the few critics who don't like "Six Feet Under" have said about it. I say, what's wrong with wonderfully presented angst? How could I not love a show which shows families in all their ugly disfunction and trauma, which drags us into people's breakdowns and bad behavior and cruelty, but also shows us how much pain people are willing to go through because they refuse to stop loving, stop trying, stop hoping? There was a great deal of pain in this show, but there was also immense heart, much laugh-out-loud humor, delight, hope, and, most of all, love.
Ball's "American Beauty" has violence, inappropriate sexual desire, casual drug use, a lovable pusher, a harridan of a wife, transgenerational discord, and murder. But Lester Burnham, played so beautifully by Kevin Spacey, leads us through the movie to the death he has prepared us for by showing how, oddly and surprisingly, he made his way to a place of great love and happiness in the moment of his death. The disturbing and unexpected deliverance of Lester, of his daughter Jane and her boyfriend Ricky, and even of Angela, the teen object of Lester's obsession, are, like Ricky's videotape of a plastic trash bag swirling in the wind, oddly, disturbingly, incongruously, and, at the same time, perfectly beautiful. Ball's insistence on finding treasures in the mundane, and hope and love among the frightening and painful, raise his talent above most other Hollywood writers. He makes me think, ask myself big questions, and care deeply about his characters. And I love that.
That's how I feel now that the television series "Six Feet Under" has ended. The last episode was very satisfying, since we did get to see that there was a way out of the difficult present into the hopeful future for all the characters. But it also underscored my feelings of loss and sadness about the end of the characters' lives, since the ten-minute "valedictory," as some have called it, which ended the show and the series was a fast-forward skip through time to the highlights of the characters' lives to come, and to the deaths of each of the remaining major characters. The show centered on the people who live and work in a family-owned funeral home and the continual requirement that they focus on and deal with the deaths of others, as well as their own debilitating pain and inability to cope with the deaths of those they love. Thus, the natural, appropriate, and organic resolution to their stories is the brief but solid and final ending of each of their lives, whether in the present day or in a future glimpsed through a montage during the final moments of the series. The ending was wonderfully, sadly appropriate to the subject matter of the show, and, as the show did every week, it forced viewers to acknowledge the inevitable yet mysterious end of life, the one certainty we all face.
I loved that aspect of "Six Feet Under." Every week's show began with a death, often presented in a shockingly humorous way. Sometimes it was a stranger whose funeral arrangements would be dealt with during the show; sometimes, as in the very first episode, it was the death of someone dear and integral to the lives of the characters in the story. There was no escaping the specter of death; the characters sometimes courted death, sometimes cheated it, but always had to deal with it, ultimately.
Sometimes the inability of the Fisher family (and most of the people with whom they created relationships) to face emotion straight-on and work through it made them do reckless or thoughtless things out of their own fear and denial of their feelings or desires. Nate, the one family member who was devoted to working through his pain and considering it carefully, ended up wallowing in it, citing it as an excuse for egregiously bad behavior, and he became a narcissistic pain in the ass. But Nate also brought other fascinating characters into his orbit, and one could sympathize with the universality of his concerns at times, when he wasn't being such a selfish, careless S.O.B. His navel-gazing, his constant questioning about whether this is all there really is to life, and his whining about whether we should give up and live with what we have or whether we should always strive for something more meaningful, were presented in a way that made me and, it seems, almost everyone else lose whatever tender feelings we had for him. But he felt real. His questions were annoyingly asked and the answers he found led him to ignore the needs and rights of others when they got in the way of his own personal vision quest, but who among us hasn't asked himself or herself variations on those same questions? The imperfections in his character, his choices and his lashing out at others, made him fascinating to watch, and he often acted as a catalyst who set other emotional fires burning in other characters.
All of the characters in "Six Feet Under" could be quite wonderfully, humanly appealing in one scene, then maddenlying selfish and carelessly destructive in another. This fluidity of behavior was always well grounded in a carefully constructed understanding of each character, though; their actions could be surprising, but they were always understandable and had some weird internal logic given what we knew of the character. They were fully rounded, fleshed out, so well understood by the writers and directors of the show that there was a satisfying consistency to them that allowed me to enjoy it when they acted out and did surprising things when under pressure, because whatever craziness they indulged in was a natural outgrowth of their experience, their personalities, their well-established patterns of behavior and choice when faced with problems.
Some people gave up on the show along the way because they found the disasters, deaths, pain, and bad fortune too unrelenting and therefore either overwhelmingly sad or laughingly unbelievable. But the show was never meant to be a perfectly realistic, day-to-day depiction of actual lives. There were elements of fantasy and the supernatural in it from day one. Dead characters come back and have conversations with living ones regularly, and it's never made crystal clear whether they're actual ghosts or just the darker sides of other characters' own natures who are asking the questions or exposing the fears or insecurities that we all share. They serve as catalysts who force characters to face demons, to get angry at those who have left them, to remember what's important, and to come up with cogent arguments against their worst fears.
Sometimes characters have conversations with the bloody corpses they're cleaning up in the basement of the funeral home before a viewing, and these conversations are jarring and disturbing, and the visuals are occasionally more than I want to watch. But I love the realizations that come from these conversations with the dead, and the reminder that our relationships with others don't end just because one of us dies before the other; we continue to consider what those whom we've lost meant to us and mean today. We can get angry or forgive or question or understand them differently for the rest of our lives, and alter our understanding of our relationships as a result. I have found this very true, and both painful and helpful in considering my relationships with my late parents. My relationships with them continue to change and deepen, though one has been dead for four years and the other for over ten.
The writing on "Six Feet Under" was exceptional. It was witty and wicked and often vulgar or shocking, but, I felt, refreshingly so. There were many well-crafted lines, but ultimately the words sprung from each character's lips for a reason and in line with what we knew of the character's motivations and means of expression. The dialog grew out of the characters, the characters didn't have to bend themselves around the dialog in order to stroke the egos of the writers, directors, or producers.
The acting was first-rate. It was a pleasure to be introduced to so many fine actors, many with a strong theatrical background, most of whom I was not familiar with. I'm especially fond of the work Lauren Ambrose (Claire) and Michael C. Hall (David) did in this show. David was my favorite of all the characters; I loved his uptight prissiness and his hatred of himself for being uptight and prissy. When he unclenched his fists and let go of his grimace and showed that wonderful, open, loving face to the people he loved, I believed totally in his character and his essential goodness. I loved his devotion to his lover (and, eventually, husband), Keith (played wonderfully by Mathew St. Patrick), and felt his angst and agony and his self-loathing over being gay, and his constant battle to be respected by others, and by himself, despite and sometimes because of his being gay. When he got to take on crazy fantasy sequences or let his hair down in sex scenes, his relief (and my own) was palpable. I would love to have seen his portrayal of the Emcee in "Cabaret"—he took over from Alan Cumming (whom I also love) in the extra-bawdy Broadway revival a few years ago. The revival of "Cabaret," one of my all-time favorite musicals, was directed (to wild acclaim) by Sam Mendes, who directed the film "American Beauty," which was, of course, written by Alan Ball, the creator of "Six Feet Under." (So now we see how it all comes together....)
Alan Ball has made it to the pantheon of great television writers and directors for what he did with this show. He directed and wrote many of the episodes, including the final one. His ability to look ugliness straight in the face, turn it sideways, and find the beauty in it for us is uncanny. I fell in love with his work when I saw "American Beauty," which he wrote. So many people loved that movie instantly when it came out that it has suffered a backlash. Some now call it pompous or mannered, a good outlet for middle-brow angst, which is just what the few critics who don't like "Six Feet Under" have said about it. I say, what's wrong with wonderfully presented angst? How could I not love a show which shows families in all their ugly disfunction and trauma, which drags us into people's breakdowns and bad behavior and cruelty, but also shows us how much pain people are willing to go through because they refuse to stop loving, stop trying, stop hoping? There was a great deal of pain in this show, but there was also immense heart, much laugh-out-loud humor, delight, hope, and, most of all, love.
Ball's "American Beauty" has violence, inappropriate sexual desire, casual drug use, a lovable pusher, a harridan of a wife, transgenerational discord, and murder. But Lester Burnham, played so beautifully by Kevin Spacey, leads us through the movie to the death he has prepared us for by showing how, oddly and surprisingly, he made his way to a place of great love and happiness in the moment of his death. The disturbing and unexpected deliverance of Lester, of his daughter Jane and her boyfriend Ricky, and even of Angela, the teen object of Lester's obsession, are, like Ricky's videotape of a plastic trash bag swirling in the wind, oddly, disturbingly, incongruously, and, at the same time, perfectly beautiful. Ball's insistence on finding treasures in the mundane, and hope and love among the frightening and painful, raise his talent above most other Hollywood writers. He makes me think, ask myself big questions, and care deeply about his characters. And I love that.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me
I’ve never cared much for clowns. I don’t have coulrophobia (fear of clowns), though this fear is apparently surprisingly common. I just find pretty much everything they are and most of what they stand for annoying. I don’t hate them, but I avoid them when I can, and I’ve been sorely tempted to buy myself a “Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me” T-shirt. Apparently many of my fellow Americans agree with me.
My beloved Uncle Steve is the exception to my anti-clown rule. He finally retired from his recurring role as Tidy the Clown in the annual Redwood City (California) Fourth of July Parade this year after about 25 years of clowning around in public, and I must say I did enjoy him. But he was a gentle clown who pushed a bottomless garbage can down the street, popping junk into it and leaving a trail of trash behind him as the debris went right through the bottom of the can. When he's a clown, the joke's on him, and the audience gets to giggle at his cluelessness.
Steve's alter ego, Tidy, recruited elementary school kids to be his clown sidekicks every year, and the result was charming and sweet. Tidy stuck flowers into piles of pucky left by the horses of the mounted police that went before him, and only approached people if they seemed open to it; he'd never force himself on a child. He's more the sweet, Chaplinesque Little Tramp sort of clown, not the barrelling, bamboozling, freakazoid clown one finds on, say, ice cream cone packaging. (That is one horrifying dude.) I can make exceptions for someone like Tidy, but in general, keep Bozo and his ilk faaaar away from me.
The sort of clown my uncle represents is endearing and enjoyable, a sort of old-style, mid-20th-century, fun-loving clown. But nowadays such cuddly clowns are rather rare. The cheerful, perky clown toys of the past have given way to more garish and ghoulish representations in the general media.
The general idea of the American clown, a white-faced social misfit clad in oversized and odd clothing, ignoring people’s personal space, attacking them with seltzer bottles or squirting flowers, and using them as the butt of public jokes as a way of seeking attention, pretty much sums up the worst of American behavior in one self-parodying, campy, over-the-top package. It’s nearly everything I hate about our embarrassingly accurate national stereotype: garish, self-absorbed, pushy, willing to trod on other’s toes, thinking our needs are greater than everyone else’s, ever ready to laugh at others’ humiliation but in a touchy, bad-humored funk when the table is turned and the joke’s on us.
To be fair, clowns of other cultures (e.g., buffoons like Pantalone and Arlecchino in the commedia dell’arte tradition, or Britain’s Punch and Judy puppet versions of clowns) are also caricatures with distinct, overscaled features, costumes, and gestures, all of which predate the founding of the United States by many years. I’m being unjust in blaming American culture for the American clown tradition, I know. They come from a long and, to my sensitivities, annoying tradition of making the audience the straight man, barrelling over others for laughs, and making light of humiliation and slapstick violence. It’s the sort of thing that Roberto Benigni did in his Holocaust-lite Oscar-winning crowd-pleaser, “Life is Beautiful,” a few years ago—much to my disgust and dismay. (Though I couldn't stand the film, you can find a well-written, carefully researched, and generally supportive article recounting critical reactions to the film and describing the film's place in Italian cinematic history, as well as its place among movie depictions of the Holocaust, here. For a description of the film that agrees with my take on it, see David Denby's article, "In the eye of the beholder," published in The New Yorker, March 15, 1999. Sadly, I can't find the full article on the Web.) I found nearly everything Benigni did in that film either offensive, maudlin, self-aggrandizing, disrespectful, or embarrassing—or all of those things rolled into one.
I’m not actually a humorless prig; I can cackle and guffaw with the best of them, and I laugh so hard I snort more often than I care to admit. I can enjoy dark humor, tacky humor, vulgar humor, but I can rarely appreciate or enjoy slapstick physical comedy or farce, unless they’re so bizarrely irrational (e.g., my beloved Monty Python) that it’s impossible to empathize with the person playing the butt of the joke. Otherwise, I usually become uncomfortable when the laughs come at the expense of someone else’s pride, safety, or happiness. Even when the straight man is set up to seem an unpleasant sort who deserves his comeuppance, I generally don’t like seeing others derive happiness from the suffering of others. But then, I don’t appreciate most light romantic comedies, either. I can watch “Six Feet Under” or “The Sopranos” all day long (gimme that angst!), but ask me to watch ditsy women trip over themselves to get the attention of pretty boys with great abs for an hour and really, I’d rather floss my teeth or weed my garden, thank you very much.
Of course, I’m not alone. A quick search of eBay will find you scores of scary clown puppets, figurines, and posters that the sellers recognize as distinctly creepy. A walk through the aisles of your local Blockbuster shows DVD covers emblazoned with killer clowns in the horror section. "The Simpsons" even featured an episode in which Bart is so frightened by the clown-inspired bed Homer makes him that he stays up all night chanting, “Can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me.” This is apparently the genesis of the refrain now printed on T-shirts worn by proud coulrophobes across the nation. (Leave it to Matt Groening to explore odd undercurrents of our nation in such a fun and funky way.)
I don't know whether it's worth it to resurrect cheerful, inoffensive clowns, since even they had elements that have scared children for centuries; outsized features, crazy make-up, and disturbingly child-like behavior coming from an oversized adult are just odd. I prefer my comedians to take the forms of everyday people, I guess. I like my fantasy worlds to feel as close to a world I can believe in as possible, so I can get lost in them more easily. Some like fantasy characters and scenarios to be as outlandish as possible in order to feel truly immersed in another world and way of thinking, but I'd rather have some emotional connection to fictional characters so that I can care about them and identify with them, and for me, that usually involves making them feel as much like realistic human beings as possible. I also prefer it if they don't step out of their boundaries and squirt me in the face with a shot of seltzer water. I'm funny that way.
My beloved Uncle Steve is the exception to my anti-clown rule. He finally retired from his recurring role as Tidy the Clown in the annual Redwood City (California) Fourth of July Parade this year after about 25 years of clowning around in public, and I must say I did enjoy him. But he was a gentle clown who pushed a bottomless garbage can down the street, popping junk into it and leaving a trail of trash behind him as the debris went right through the bottom of the can. When he's a clown, the joke's on him, and the audience gets to giggle at his cluelessness.
Steve's alter ego, Tidy, recruited elementary school kids to be his clown sidekicks every year, and the result was charming and sweet. Tidy stuck flowers into piles of pucky left by the horses of the mounted police that went before him, and only approached people if they seemed open to it; he'd never force himself on a child. He's more the sweet, Chaplinesque Little Tramp sort of clown, not the barrelling, bamboozling, freakazoid clown one finds on, say, ice cream cone packaging. (That is one horrifying dude.) I can make exceptions for someone like Tidy, but in general, keep Bozo and his ilk faaaar away from me.
The sort of clown my uncle represents is endearing and enjoyable, a sort of old-style, mid-20th-century, fun-loving clown. But nowadays such cuddly clowns are rather rare. The cheerful, perky clown toys of the past have given way to more garish and ghoulish representations in the general media.
The general idea of the American clown, a white-faced social misfit clad in oversized and odd clothing, ignoring people’s personal space, attacking them with seltzer bottles or squirting flowers, and using them as the butt of public jokes as a way of seeking attention, pretty much sums up the worst of American behavior in one self-parodying, campy, over-the-top package. It’s nearly everything I hate about our embarrassingly accurate national stereotype: garish, self-absorbed, pushy, willing to trod on other’s toes, thinking our needs are greater than everyone else’s, ever ready to laugh at others’ humiliation but in a touchy, bad-humored funk when the table is turned and the joke’s on us.
To be fair, clowns of other cultures (e.g., buffoons like Pantalone and Arlecchino in the commedia dell’arte tradition, or Britain’s Punch and Judy puppet versions of clowns) are also caricatures with distinct, overscaled features, costumes, and gestures, all of which predate the founding of the United States by many years. I’m being unjust in blaming American culture for the American clown tradition, I know. They come from a long and, to my sensitivities, annoying tradition of making the audience the straight man, barrelling over others for laughs, and making light of humiliation and slapstick violence. It’s the sort of thing that Roberto Benigni did in his Holocaust-lite Oscar-winning crowd-pleaser, “Life is Beautiful,” a few years ago—much to my disgust and dismay. (Though I couldn't stand the film, you can find a well-written, carefully researched, and generally supportive article recounting critical reactions to the film and describing the film's place in Italian cinematic history, as well as its place among movie depictions of the Holocaust, here. For a description of the film that agrees with my take on it, see David Denby's article, "In the eye of the beholder," published in The New Yorker, March 15, 1999. Sadly, I can't find the full article on the Web.) I found nearly everything Benigni did in that film either offensive, maudlin, self-aggrandizing, disrespectful, or embarrassing—or all of those things rolled into one.
I’m not actually a humorless prig; I can cackle and guffaw with the best of them, and I laugh so hard I snort more often than I care to admit. I can enjoy dark humor, tacky humor, vulgar humor, but I can rarely appreciate or enjoy slapstick physical comedy or farce, unless they’re so bizarrely irrational (e.g., my beloved Monty Python) that it’s impossible to empathize with the person playing the butt of the joke. Otherwise, I usually become uncomfortable when the laughs come at the expense of someone else’s pride, safety, or happiness. Even when the straight man is set up to seem an unpleasant sort who deserves his comeuppance, I generally don’t like seeing others derive happiness from the suffering of others. But then, I don’t appreciate most light romantic comedies, either. I can watch “Six Feet Under” or “The Sopranos” all day long (gimme that angst!), but ask me to watch ditsy women trip over themselves to get the attention of pretty boys with great abs for an hour and really, I’d rather floss my teeth or weed my garden, thank you very much.
Of course, I’m not alone. A quick search of eBay will find you scores of scary clown puppets, figurines, and posters that the sellers recognize as distinctly creepy. A walk through the aisles of your local Blockbuster shows DVD covers emblazoned with killer clowns in the horror section. "The Simpsons" even featured an episode in which Bart is so frightened by the clown-inspired bed Homer makes him that he stays up all night chanting, “Can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me.” This is apparently the genesis of the refrain now printed on T-shirts worn by proud coulrophobes across the nation. (Leave it to Matt Groening to explore odd undercurrents of our nation in such a fun and funky way.)
I don't know whether it's worth it to resurrect cheerful, inoffensive clowns, since even they had elements that have scared children for centuries; outsized features, crazy make-up, and disturbingly child-like behavior coming from an oversized adult are just odd. I prefer my comedians to take the forms of everyday people, I guess. I like my fantasy worlds to feel as close to a world I can believe in as possible, so I can get lost in them more easily. Some like fantasy characters and scenarios to be as outlandish as possible in order to feel truly immersed in another world and way of thinking, but I'd rather have some emotional connection to fictional characters so that I can care about them and identify with them, and for me, that usually involves making them feel as much like realistic human beings as possible. I also prefer it if they don't step out of their boundaries and squirt me in the face with a shot of seltzer water. I'm funny that way.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
My Roundabout Introduction to Blossom Dearie
When I was a child, ABC's Saturday morning cartoon line-up was punctuated with wonderful short musical cartoons sponsored by Nabisco: the famous "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoons. The educational songs created for these cartoons were so clever, catchy, and memorable that they were all rereleased on video in the 1990s for the children of the children who enjoyed them over 30 years ago. I grew up on the "Multiplication Rock" and "Grammar Rock" videos; my daughter loved them 30 years later.
Much of the appeal of these videos was that each was just the length of a pop song, and the music and lyrics were written by proven and talented professional musicians, not by earnest professional pedagogues. They were quick and full of information, and had busy, funny animation. And they were the only regular music videos for kids on TV then; there were weak shows with live-action singers or talentless oafs in bad costumes doing pathetic songs, like on "New Zoo Revue," and there were catchy theme songs on the somehow compelling yet also vaguely disturbing Sid and Marty Krofft kid shows like "H.R. Pufnstuf" (which starred Jack Wild, who played The Artful Dodger in the musical film "Oliver!"), "The Bugaloos" (whose villain was played by comedian Martha Raye, probably most famous to people my age as a denture adhesive pitchwoman) and "Liddsville," that bizarre show about the land of talking hats starring Charles Nelson Reilly and Butch Patrick (a.k.a. Eddie Munster). But MTV didn't exist yet and catchy musical TV ads for dolls or games (from "Life" to "Mystery Date") were no match for three-minute musical cartoon masterpieces like "Three is a Magic Number" or "Conjunction Junction" or "I'm Just a Bill." These songs were so good that a number of popular rock bands covered them on the album "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks."
Of all the songs in the "Schoolhouse Rock" oeuvre, there was one that shone out as a particularly elegant little gem: "Figure Eight." My mother loved it so much that she bought the "Schoolhouse Rock" album on vinyl many years ago just to listen to that song. This ode to the number eight was illustrated by a figure skater and the song was sung by a woman with an unbelievably darling name and voice: Blossom Dearie. The dearest part is that she was born with that name. And the best part is that sweet, small, clear voice has sung some of the lightest, crispest, most refreshing versions of a number of jazz standards I've ever heard. She also has a fresh, spare style of piano playing that underscores that little pussycat voice.
I remember seeing Blossom Dearie interviewed on TV in the 1970s; she had wit and sparkle, and I was rather amazed that her tiny little voice seemed not to be a put-on but the real deal. When I started listening to her recordings of jazz standards years later, I found there was less cutesiness than I expected, and more of a wistful, light yet wry quality to her singing. I love the way she delivers Dorothy Fields' lyrics in "I Won't Dance" ("For heaven rest us, I'm not asbestos") and the light but knowing quality of "They Say It's Spring." "Rhode Island is Famous for You" makes my daughter and me laugh, and it's fun to compare her version of that song to Michael Feinstein's. While I love Feinstein's direct, swoony, passionate if sometimes campy treatment of lyrics, and think he does that song well, Blossom Dearie's delivery has a quiet humor and a conspiratorial wink, whereas Feinstein's is more of a showman's romp, bigger and bolder and more obvious. Both have their place, but Dearie's intimacy makes me feel like I'm in on a more sophisticated joke.
Much of the appeal of these videos was that each was just the length of a pop song, and the music and lyrics were written by proven and talented professional musicians, not by earnest professional pedagogues. They were quick and full of information, and had busy, funny animation. And they were the only regular music videos for kids on TV then; there were weak shows with live-action singers or talentless oafs in bad costumes doing pathetic songs, like on "New Zoo Revue," and there were catchy theme songs on the somehow compelling yet also vaguely disturbing Sid and Marty Krofft kid shows like "H.R. Pufnstuf" (which starred Jack Wild, who played The Artful Dodger in the musical film "Oliver!"), "The Bugaloos" (whose villain was played by comedian Martha Raye, probably most famous to people my age as a denture adhesive pitchwoman) and "Liddsville," that bizarre show about the land of talking hats starring Charles Nelson Reilly and Butch Patrick (a.k.a. Eddie Munster). But MTV didn't exist yet and catchy musical TV ads for dolls or games (from "Life" to "Mystery Date") were no match for three-minute musical cartoon masterpieces like "Three is a Magic Number" or "Conjunction Junction" or "I'm Just a Bill." These songs were so good that a number of popular rock bands covered them on the album "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks."
Of all the songs in the "Schoolhouse Rock" oeuvre, there was one that shone out as a particularly elegant little gem: "Figure Eight." My mother loved it so much that she bought the "Schoolhouse Rock" album on vinyl many years ago just to listen to that song. This ode to the number eight was illustrated by a figure skater and the song was sung by a woman with an unbelievably darling name and voice: Blossom Dearie. The dearest part is that she was born with that name. And the best part is that sweet, small, clear voice has sung some of the lightest, crispest, most refreshing versions of a number of jazz standards I've ever heard. She also has a fresh, spare style of piano playing that underscores that little pussycat voice.
I remember seeing Blossom Dearie interviewed on TV in the 1970s; she had wit and sparkle, and I was rather amazed that her tiny little voice seemed not to be a put-on but the real deal. When I started listening to her recordings of jazz standards years later, I found there was less cutesiness than I expected, and more of a wistful, light yet wry quality to her singing. I love the way she delivers Dorothy Fields' lyrics in "I Won't Dance" ("For heaven rest us, I'm not asbestos") and the light but knowing quality of "They Say It's Spring." "Rhode Island is Famous for You" makes my daughter and me laugh, and it's fun to compare her version of that song to Michael Feinstein's. While I love Feinstein's direct, swoony, passionate if sometimes campy treatment of lyrics, and think he does that song well, Blossom Dearie's delivery has a quiet humor and a conspiratorial wink, whereas Feinstein's is more of a showman's romp, bigger and bolder and more obvious. Both have their place, but Dearie's intimacy makes me feel like I'm in on a more sophisticated joke.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Monsieur Ibrahim
I just watched the lovely 2003 French film "Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran" ("Mr. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran") over the weekend, and I found it a real gem. It's a story of a 16-year-old boy, Moise (known as Momo) living in a working-class Jewish district of Paris in the 1960s. He looks after his father, a selfish, depressive man who is never satisfied by anything Momo is or does. Abandoned by his mother as a small child, Momo has never known parental love or kindness, so he seeks womanly tenderness from the prostitutes who work the streets of his neighborhood, and he filches money from his father so he can afford to buy some pleasure. He's rather sullen and quiet, with no real friends and no one to help him learn about life's possibilities and love's responsibilities.
Momo makes daily visits to the local grocery owned by Monsieur Ibrahim (Omar Sharif), a Turkish Sufi who seems to know more about what is in Momo's heart than should be possible. The two strike up a friendship, and Monsieur Ibrahim teaches Momo about loving kindness, about how to make himself more appealing to others so he can get what he wants out of life, about enjoying the world and the people in it. It could have been a paint-by-numbers sort of coming-of-age story, but instead the interactions feel very real and subtle, and Sharif's performance is extraordinary. He brings a real joie de vivre to the role, but in a quiet, understated fashion. Monsieur Ibrahim is a nonjudgmental, spiritual man who finds beauty in his Koran and keeps that beauty in his heart at all times, and his connection with this drifting young Jewish man gives Momo's life meaning and roots while still broadening his horizons, both literally and figuratively.
The religions of the two characters impact the story very little. Momo and his father appear to be secular Jews, and Monsieur Ibrahim's Sufi Muslim beliefs are important to him but are flexible and nonjudgmental enough to allow him to show kindness and appreciation for prostitutes, as well as a desire and willingness to understand the beauty in other religions' houses of worship, to which he takes Momo on fieldtrips. But some have chosen to read a lot more meaning into the fact that the characters are of differing religions than actually exists in the movie. There will always be those who cannot handle a story of kindness between people of differing beliefs.
There is some argument on the internet among a few viewers of the film who dislike the fact that Momo's Jewish father is so unlikeable and careless about the boy, and that Momo's true teacher and father figure is a Muslim. They have chosen to read anti-Jewish sentiment into the story which I do not believe exists. My take on the film is shared by the vast majority of people who have seen it, apparently, but a couple of outspoken critics find the idea that a film that shows a sympathetic Muslim and an unsympathetic Jew must therefore have a message of hidden hatred of Jews, as if art can never show people of one religion or another having unattractive characteristics without painting all of their ethnicity or religion as bad. This sort of sweeping condemnation has as its basis a sort of bigotry of its own, and assumes that viewers are too stupid to recognize that an individual character does not have to represent an entire ethnic minority.
I had no idea that Omar Sharif could give a performance of such subtlety and beauty; he was perfectly cast in the role and he brought much of his own personal experience to it. I always think of Sharif in his blockbuster days, from "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago" and "Funny Girl," in which he gave fine and capable performances, but none of which allowed him moments of introspection. His international playboy persona didn't help me to believe him capable of the sort of intimate gestures and nuanced emotions that flash across his face in this role. The DVD commentary by Sharif is thoughtful and articulate as well. I love getting a whole new perspective on an artist after having my eyes opened to his talents and possibilities. This film was a very pleasing surprise.
Momo makes daily visits to the local grocery owned by Monsieur Ibrahim (Omar Sharif), a Turkish Sufi who seems to know more about what is in Momo's heart than should be possible. The two strike up a friendship, and Monsieur Ibrahim teaches Momo about loving kindness, about how to make himself more appealing to others so he can get what he wants out of life, about enjoying the world and the people in it. It could have been a paint-by-numbers sort of coming-of-age story, but instead the interactions feel very real and subtle, and Sharif's performance is extraordinary. He brings a real joie de vivre to the role, but in a quiet, understated fashion. Monsieur Ibrahim is a nonjudgmental, spiritual man who finds beauty in his Koran and keeps that beauty in his heart at all times, and his connection with this drifting young Jewish man gives Momo's life meaning and roots while still broadening his horizons, both literally and figuratively.
The religions of the two characters impact the story very little. Momo and his father appear to be secular Jews, and Monsieur Ibrahim's Sufi Muslim beliefs are important to him but are flexible and nonjudgmental enough to allow him to show kindness and appreciation for prostitutes, as well as a desire and willingness to understand the beauty in other religions' houses of worship, to which he takes Momo on fieldtrips. But some have chosen to read a lot more meaning into the fact that the characters are of differing religions than actually exists in the movie. There will always be those who cannot handle a story of kindness between people of differing beliefs.
There is some argument on the internet among a few viewers of the film who dislike the fact that Momo's Jewish father is so unlikeable and careless about the boy, and that Momo's true teacher and father figure is a Muslim. They have chosen to read anti-Jewish sentiment into the story which I do not believe exists. My take on the film is shared by the vast majority of people who have seen it, apparently, but a couple of outspoken critics find the idea that a film that shows a sympathetic Muslim and an unsympathetic Jew must therefore have a message of hidden hatred of Jews, as if art can never show people of one religion or another having unattractive characteristics without painting all of their ethnicity or religion as bad. This sort of sweeping condemnation has as its basis a sort of bigotry of its own, and assumes that viewers are too stupid to recognize that an individual character does not have to represent an entire ethnic minority.
I had no idea that Omar Sharif could give a performance of such subtlety and beauty; he was perfectly cast in the role and he brought much of his own personal experience to it. I always think of Sharif in his blockbuster days, from "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago" and "Funny Girl," in which he gave fine and capable performances, but none of which allowed him moments of introspection. His international playboy persona didn't help me to believe him capable of the sort of intimate gestures and nuanced emotions that flash across his face in this role. The DVD commentary by Sharif is thoughtful and articulate as well. I love getting a whole new perspective on an artist after having my eyes opened to his talents and possibilities. This film was a very pleasing surprise.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
The Wham of Sam
A few months ago, I was doing a difficult job that lasted six weeks instead of the two I thought I'd signed on for. I was commuting about 10 hours a week (and I hate driving), and the job required intense focus on thousands of important details. I learned a lot, the people were kind and helpful, and the work they did was important, but I felt out of place, frustrated, and blue.
I tried reminding myself of all the things going right with the job: I was employed, working with good folks at an institution that improves people’s lives, making enough so that I didn’t have to work two jobs, and setting a good example for my daughter by showing that sometimes we do things we don’t enjoy in order to pay our dues, fulfill our obligations, be helpful, and earn a living. Of course, while my brain understood all this, my heart felt cranky and sad. I was frustrated that the talents I feel are the most valuable and worthy ones I have to offer weren’t being used to the extent I'd like to use them. And then I had my Sammy Davis Jr. epiphany.
To try to make the hours in stop-and-go traffic feel less gruesome, I realized I needed to find fresh and uplifting tunes. I love NPR, but sometimes focusing on the latest events in Fallujah while stuck on a bridge for 30 minutes just feels too nasty and I need music. I rummaged through my CDs and found one I’d bought a few months back but hadn’t listened to much yet. It was a CD of songs performed by a man I must now admit I used to think of as one of the poster children of Vegas kitsch: Sammy Davis Jr. But the best part is the name of the album: “The Wham of Sam.”
I must digress at this point. Are you already asking yourself, why would Laura buy Sammy CDs in the first place? Well, because I heard one of his songs in a store somewhere and was reminded what a fine voice and a great sense of expression, style, and warmth he had at his best moments. The many TV appearances he made during the 1960s and 1970s were so filled with Vegas schlock and corny overstylization that he was almost a self-parody by the time I started listening to music in earnest. He was doing campy, obvious, cool cat riffs during his showy performances on Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas and The Tonight Show, and I couldn’t be bothered. I knew I’d loved his portrayal of Sportin’ Life in the film “Porgy and Bess” when I’d seen it on TV as a tiny kid, but I don’t think it’s been on TV since about 1970 so my memory is now faint, and I loved his voice of the Cheshire Cat singing “What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?” in a strange 1966 animated parody variation of “Alice in Wonderland.” His turn as groovy evangelist Big Daddy in “Sweet Charity” was a kick and featured a fun song, “The Rhythm of Life,” but somehow I forgot about that. The big hits he had when I was a kid, like “The Candy Man,” felt too cutesy and pat to me, and I dismissed him, with his goofy hipster patois and giant diamond rings, his membership in the Rat Pack, and his public support of Nixon was too bizarre. (I still shudder when I remember the much-publicized photo of Sammy’s adoring, awkward, full-body hug of Nixon.)
But when I heard him singing over the speakers at some chain store I thought, damn, no wonder this man was so popular. Listen to the feeling he puts into that line! What clear, clean enunciation! What sophisticated, tasty phrasing! So I swallowed my pride and hung out at a CD store listening station for a half hour, listening to selections from a number of his albums. I bought two, one of ballads and one of swingier songs. What a good move that was. But then I got distracted and hardly listened to them.
Anyway, back to my commute-hour epiphany. I popped “The Wham of Sam” into my CD player, and right there, boom, I was hooked with the first song, the star of the album, “Lot of Livin’ to Do.” The horns grabbed me immediately, and the energy, which starts out high, somehow continues to build with every measure of the song. The band arrangement by Marty Paich is fabulous, swingy in the style of Sinatra’s terrific “Ring-A-Ding-Ding” album (one of my favorite albums of all time, by anyone--it was arranged by the legendary Nelson Riddle).
"Lot of Livin' to Do" is big and brassy and has something new going on at every turn, but the band never outshines Sammy, whose phrasing is exactly right. His syncopation is so sure and it builds right up to the payoff moments. He knows when to pull back a little and when to let it rip. The intonation and enunciation are beautiful, but beyond his technical chops, he works the lyrics just right. He’s thinking about what he’s saying, he means what he’s singing, and I believe every word. He was sizzling and I was thrilled, sitting right there in a traffic jam at 8:30 a.m., bouncing up and down in my seat.
I must have listened to that song six times in a row on the way into work. The words crept into my brain and Boom! I had a revelation. The words aren’t Shakespeare; they’re standard upbeat lyrics, and the song was originally written for the musical “Bye Bye, Birdie,” which is fun but not Sondheim, you know? But somehow, sung with that bravado and joy and excitement and underscored by that hot band, the lyrics spoke to me:
"... [T]here’s wine all ready for tasting / And there’s Cadillacs all shiny and new / Gotta move ’cause time is a-wastin’ / There’s such a lot of livin’ to do. / There’s music to play, places to go and people to see / Everything for you and me / Life’s a ball if only you know it / And it’s all waiting for you / You’re alive, so come on and show it / There’s such a lot of living to do.”
I heard it, and I believed it. I figured, hey, this tiny little man had a four-pack-a-day cigarette habit, a glass eye, grew up without his mom, had to deal with racism from day one, and had to perform in hotels that he was barred from sleeping in because of the color of his skin (until he became a big name and helped break the color barrier in show business). And man, did he love life. He ate it up and went right over the top, drinking and smoking and skirt-chasing too much, and hanging out with some unsavory folks, yes--but he also took a song like “Lush Life” and sang it like he’d lived it. Damn, he sang every song as if he lived it. And meant every word.
He brought fun and swing and life into everything he sang. Sometimes the hipster kitsch of it was too much for me, and sometimes the low-brow, I'm-gonna-please-everybody style of his later years felt like he'd dumbed-down his act, especially considering what sophistication he was capable of. His desire to please everybody and be up, up, up all the time cheapened his rep in the eyes of many of us, but the joy he brought to life, the beauty he found in it and made for others, and that devotion to wringing every drop from it reminded me how lucky I was and how many wonderful things are around for me to enjoy. I thought it seemed a sin to waste another day in disappointment that I’m not doing more exciting work, and I vowed I’d make good things happen, find them, make sure they’re a part of every day of mine, and every one of my daughter’s days, too. I figured if Sammy, who had so much garbage to contend with, could take his talent and shoot it off like fireworks, why can’t I take whatever gifts I have and make something fine and exciting of them, too? I may not be the dynamo Sammy was, but I don’t have his struggles either. And one doesn’t have to be a superstar to find something splendid in each day, or to make fine things happen.
So from that day forward I've reaffirmed my dedication to finding and doing good work, to making beauty, to learning something good and doing something kind each day, to being grateful for the opportunities to enjoy life more and to worry less about my dwindling savings (and how long it takes to find good jobs), and to writing regularly and with purpose. So, in a roundabout way, I have Sammy to thank for getting me off my tush and starting this blog. The wham of Sam, indeed!
I tried reminding myself of all the things going right with the job: I was employed, working with good folks at an institution that improves people’s lives, making enough so that I didn’t have to work two jobs, and setting a good example for my daughter by showing that sometimes we do things we don’t enjoy in order to pay our dues, fulfill our obligations, be helpful, and earn a living. Of course, while my brain understood all this, my heart felt cranky and sad. I was frustrated that the talents I feel are the most valuable and worthy ones I have to offer weren’t being used to the extent I'd like to use them. And then I had my Sammy Davis Jr. epiphany.
To try to make the hours in stop-and-go traffic feel less gruesome, I realized I needed to find fresh and uplifting tunes. I love NPR, but sometimes focusing on the latest events in Fallujah while stuck on a bridge for 30 minutes just feels too nasty and I need music. I rummaged through my CDs and found one I’d bought a few months back but hadn’t listened to much yet. It was a CD of songs performed by a man I must now admit I used to think of as one of the poster children of Vegas kitsch: Sammy Davis Jr. But the best part is the name of the album: “The Wham of Sam.”
I must digress at this point. Are you already asking yourself, why would Laura buy Sammy CDs in the first place? Well, because I heard one of his songs in a store somewhere and was reminded what a fine voice and a great sense of expression, style, and warmth he had at his best moments. The many TV appearances he made during the 1960s and 1970s were so filled with Vegas schlock and corny overstylization that he was almost a self-parody by the time I started listening to music in earnest. He was doing campy, obvious, cool cat riffs during his showy performances on Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas and The Tonight Show, and I couldn’t be bothered. I knew I’d loved his portrayal of Sportin’ Life in the film “Porgy and Bess” when I’d seen it on TV as a tiny kid, but I don’t think it’s been on TV since about 1970 so my memory is now faint, and I loved his voice of the Cheshire Cat singing “What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?” in a strange 1966 animated parody variation of “Alice in Wonderland.” His turn as groovy evangelist Big Daddy in “Sweet Charity” was a kick and featured a fun song, “The Rhythm of Life,” but somehow I forgot about that. The big hits he had when I was a kid, like “The Candy Man,” felt too cutesy and pat to me, and I dismissed him, with his goofy hipster patois and giant diamond rings, his membership in the Rat Pack, and his public support of Nixon was too bizarre. (I still shudder when I remember the much-publicized photo of Sammy’s adoring, awkward, full-body hug of Nixon.)
But when I heard him singing over the speakers at some chain store I thought, damn, no wonder this man was so popular. Listen to the feeling he puts into that line! What clear, clean enunciation! What sophisticated, tasty phrasing! So I swallowed my pride and hung out at a CD store listening station for a half hour, listening to selections from a number of his albums. I bought two, one of ballads and one of swingier songs. What a good move that was. But then I got distracted and hardly listened to them.
Anyway, back to my commute-hour epiphany. I popped “The Wham of Sam” into my CD player, and right there, boom, I was hooked with the first song, the star of the album, “Lot of Livin’ to Do.” The horns grabbed me immediately, and the energy, which starts out high, somehow continues to build with every measure of the song. The band arrangement by Marty Paich is fabulous, swingy in the style of Sinatra’s terrific “Ring-A-Ding-Ding” album (one of my favorite albums of all time, by anyone--it was arranged by the legendary Nelson Riddle).
"Lot of Livin' to Do" is big and brassy and has something new going on at every turn, but the band never outshines Sammy, whose phrasing is exactly right. His syncopation is so sure and it builds right up to the payoff moments. He knows when to pull back a little and when to let it rip. The intonation and enunciation are beautiful, but beyond his technical chops, he works the lyrics just right. He’s thinking about what he’s saying, he means what he’s singing, and I believe every word. He was sizzling and I was thrilled, sitting right there in a traffic jam at 8:30 a.m., bouncing up and down in my seat.
I must have listened to that song six times in a row on the way into work. The words crept into my brain and Boom! I had a revelation. The words aren’t Shakespeare; they’re standard upbeat lyrics, and the song was originally written for the musical “Bye Bye, Birdie,” which is fun but not Sondheim, you know? But somehow, sung with that bravado and joy and excitement and underscored by that hot band, the lyrics spoke to me:
"... [T]here’s wine all ready for tasting / And there’s Cadillacs all shiny and new / Gotta move ’cause time is a-wastin’ / There’s such a lot of livin’ to do. / There’s music to play, places to go and people to see / Everything for you and me / Life’s a ball if only you know it / And it’s all waiting for you / You’re alive, so come on and show it / There’s such a lot of living to do.”
I heard it, and I believed it. I figured, hey, this tiny little man had a four-pack-a-day cigarette habit, a glass eye, grew up without his mom, had to deal with racism from day one, and had to perform in hotels that he was barred from sleeping in because of the color of his skin (until he became a big name and helped break the color barrier in show business). And man, did he love life. He ate it up and went right over the top, drinking and smoking and skirt-chasing too much, and hanging out with some unsavory folks, yes--but he also took a song like “Lush Life” and sang it like he’d lived it. Damn, he sang every song as if he lived it. And meant every word.
He brought fun and swing and life into everything he sang. Sometimes the hipster kitsch of it was too much for me, and sometimes the low-brow, I'm-gonna-please-everybody style of his later years felt like he'd dumbed-down his act, especially considering what sophistication he was capable of. His desire to please everybody and be up, up, up all the time cheapened his rep in the eyes of many of us, but the joy he brought to life, the beauty he found in it and made for others, and that devotion to wringing every drop from it reminded me how lucky I was and how many wonderful things are around for me to enjoy. I thought it seemed a sin to waste another day in disappointment that I’m not doing more exciting work, and I vowed I’d make good things happen, find them, make sure they’re a part of every day of mine, and every one of my daughter’s days, too. I figured if Sammy, who had so much garbage to contend with, could take his talent and shoot it off like fireworks, why can’t I take whatever gifts I have and make something fine and exciting of them, too? I may not be the dynamo Sammy was, but I don’t have his struggles either. And one doesn’t have to be a superstar to find something splendid in each day, or to make fine things happen.
So from that day forward I've reaffirmed my dedication to finding and doing good work, to making beauty, to learning something good and doing something kind each day, to being grateful for the opportunities to enjoy life more and to worry less about my dwindling savings (and how long it takes to find good jobs), and to writing regularly and with purpose. So, in a roundabout way, I have Sammy to thank for getting me off my tush and starting this blog. The wham of Sam, indeed!
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Laura's Answer to Proust's Madeleine
Oh, how I've hated not being able to blog this past week! I've wanted to write about David Lean's 1948 version of "Oliver Twist," about Blossom Dearie's voice, about my Sammy Davis Jr. epiphany, the nickel-sized frog that jumped in my shoe for a ride last week, why I can't stand Picasso, why I love "Six Feet Under." Instead of writing about any of that, I've been snowed under with time-sensitive, must-do, much less inspiring writing that had to be done. So until I make a space in my day for more concentrated thought, I thought I'd share something unexpected and delicious with you. So, how about my favorite cookie recipe?
Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is famously based on memories evoked by madeleines, those lemony, shell-shaped spongecakes. (People call them cookies, but they really aren't.) I quite enjoy a good madeleine, though I find them a bit trickier to make than they should be, and while they can be sublime, they can also be dull and rubbery if not done right. They're time-consuming and fussy, need to be baked in special pans that are difficult to remove them from and hard to clean, and half the time they come out disappointing.
I much prefer the perfect crumb, slightly salty sweetness, and intoxicating almond aroma of my favorite almond cookie recipe. I've probably made over a hundred types of cookies in my lifetime, but these get more consistent raves than any other I make, and they're perhaps the easiest cookies I make as well. Simple as they are, they're a little different from the average cookie and they feel more sophisticated despite their simplicity. I think of them as the little black dress of cookies.
My almond cookies are simple to make, delicious, popular across age and cultural divides, inexpensive, the recipe makes a ton, and they even freeze well (double bagged in Ziploc freezer bags). What's not to like?
I'll write more very soon. I promise. Cross my heart. Until then, have a cookie.
ALMOND COOKIES
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups shortening
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon almond extract
Blanched almonds (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift flour with sugar, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Mix in shortening and knead thoroughly for several minutes. Combine egg and almond extract; mix well into flour mixture. Roll a tablespoon of dough into a ball, place on ungreased baking sheet, repeate a zillion times. (I line baking sheets with parchment paper; it makes cleaning up so fast.) To make these look more like the tasty almond-flavored tea cookies I used to love at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park when I was a child, make a depression in the top of each cookie with your thumb. A blanched almond may be pressed into the center of each. (If you just roll these into balls and bake them just like that, they come out great, too.) Bake for 14 to 18 minutes. Makes six dozen.
Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is famously based on memories evoked by madeleines, those lemony, shell-shaped spongecakes. (People call them cookies, but they really aren't.) I quite enjoy a good madeleine, though I find them a bit trickier to make than they should be, and while they can be sublime, they can also be dull and rubbery if not done right. They're time-consuming and fussy, need to be baked in special pans that are difficult to remove them from and hard to clean, and half the time they come out disappointing.
I much prefer the perfect crumb, slightly salty sweetness, and intoxicating almond aroma of my favorite almond cookie recipe. I've probably made over a hundred types of cookies in my lifetime, but these get more consistent raves than any other I make, and they're perhaps the easiest cookies I make as well. Simple as they are, they're a little different from the average cookie and they feel more sophisticated despite their simplicity. I think of them as the little black dress of cookies.
My almond cookies are simple to make, delicious, popular across age and cultural divides, inexpensive, the recipe makes a ton, and they even freeze well (double bagged in Ziploc freezer bags). What's not to like?
I'll write more very soon. I promise. Cross my heart. Until then, have a cookie.
ALMOND COOKIES
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups shortening
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon almond extract
Blanched almonds (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift flour with sugar, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Mix in shortening and knead thoroughly for several minutes. Combine egg and almond extract; mix well into flour mixture. Roll a tablespoon of dough into a ball, place on ungreased baking sheet, repeate a zillion times. (I line baking sheets with parchment paper; it makes cleaning up so fast.) To make these look more like the tasty almond-flavored tea cookies I used to love at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park when I was a child, make a depression in the top of each cookie with your thumb. A blanched almond may be pressed into the center of each. (If you just roll these into balls and bake them just like that, they come out great, too.) Bake for 14 to 18 minutes. Makes six dozen.
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