Tasty Web Sites

Ah, babies, I am so busy enjoying the sheer ultrafabulousness of my life that I've been too overwhelmed by the swirling vortex of wonderment I'm spinning in to take a moment to fashion another show-stopping delight of a blog entry for you.

Or something like that.

So while I change from this little sequinned, split-level, scanty-but-sensational evening gown into my whirly-girly perfect party dress for another champagne-soaked night on the town with my coterie of adoring admirers, let me just take a quick minute to share these scintillating sites with you for your perusing pleasure.

• The Fagat Guide: Wickedly witty site, home of insights from darling gay guys, including dish on Bravo's brilliant fashion reality show, Project Runway (the only, only, only reality show I will watch, not only for the drama but especially for the chance to watch wildly talented people create art out of next to nothing—how I pine for the show during these long months of hiatus); how to parse a Dolce & Gabbana ad; and only-in-New-York stories.

• Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog: Inspires prolonged laughter. Subtitled, "I keep track of Condoleezza's hairdo so you don't have to," this blog includes terrific politically themed photos and favorite features such as "Sparkle Pony Interactive," which lets you vote on the following question: "Which would you enjoy more? An elegant sit-down dinner with Condoleezza Rice; bloodthirsty ticks applied directly to your eyeballs; scabies; awakening to find Charles Krauthammers' mutilated corpse in your bed; flying in a helicopter with Tony Snow; or spontaneous finger loss?"

• Jesus of the Week. 'Nuff said.

With the Lights Out, It's Less Dangerous

With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido
Yay!

When Nirvana released the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in 1991, it helped make them into rock gods. Ironic, isn’t it, since the song was Kurt Cobain’s dig at mainstream culture. According to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, “Kurt really despised the mainstream. That's what ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was all about: the mass mentality of conformity.” But the song, which Rolling Stone magazine ranked ninth in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, was too catchy, sexy, moody, hard to understand, hard-edged, frayed and nearly perfect to escape the clutches of the mainstream. Its hard-to-decipher lyrics were skewered by Weird Al Yankovic in his parody, “Smells Like Nirvana,” which featured lines like:

What is this song all about?
Can't figure any lyrics out
How do the words to it go?
I wish you'd tell me, I don't know

In a 1994 MTV interview, Kurt Cobain said of the parody, “Oh, I laughed my butt off. I thought it was one of the funniest things I ever saw. He has some good people working for him. . . . They really know how to reproduce things to the T. He had the exact same setup. It's the same video with him in it. It's great.”

For an entertaining roundup of horrible cover versions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," you must check out April Winchell's awesome multimedia site full of free audio clips that will keep you listening and chuckling in amused horror for hours, long after you've exhausted the "Teen Spirit" covers in polka, disco, Paul Anka and Gregorian chant versions. Winchell (daughter of the late ventriloquist Paul Winchell, who was also the voice of Tigger for Disney for many years) has a radio show in Los Angeles and has put together a very funny Web site complete with the best collection of odd aural pleasures I've found online: corporate training tapes, celebrities like Leonard Nimoy and Farrah Fawcett singing (they really shouldn't), Abba covers in Hindi, masturbation tips from a NYC phone hotline, Johnny Cash singing "I Walk the Line" in German, Dolly Parton singing "Stairway to Heaven," a whole section devoted to terrifying Christian recordings—you name it.

The original "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a perfect blending of droning, captivating, chant-like repetition; buzzing power chords; barely understandable but still compelling lyrics and ragged-voiced angst. It encapsulates suffering, cynicism, dry humor and teen alienation. It felt fresh 15 years ago, and it still sounds fresh and raw today, despite being named the Most Played Video on MTV Europe in the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records. Even though it’s one second over five minutes long, it doesn’t feel drawn out; its pacing, its bridges, even its repetition make it somehow stronger rather than monotonous. The layering of instruments makes for a great, pulsing wash of sound, but within the layers are subtleties, long-held and echoing guitar notes, a threatening bass line, and Cobain’s growling voice matching the bending notes and jagged timbre of the instruments around him, so his voice becomes an instrument to match them. The melding of his own voice and the growling guitar when he says “Yay!” is spookily satisfying, and gave me the same little shiver after the hundredth listen that it gave me the first time.

While the music on Nirvana’s second album, “Nevermind,” from which “Smells Like Teen Spirit” comes, is classified as grunge, it’s really just a polished, pure and more accessible form of punk, slowed down enough to be grabbed and ridden on, but it channels the anarchic spirit of British punks like the Sex Pistols, whose seminal album “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” probably inspired Cobain to name the Nirvana album “Nevermind” in their honor. (Some say it’s also a tribute to the Replacements song “Nevermind.”) Unlike American punk bands like the wonderful Ramones, whose screamingly fast-paced songs about sniffing glue and teenage lobotomy patients, punk rockers and beating on brats with baseball bats were essentially all in good, mindless fun, the Sex Pistols really were about anarchy, giving the finger to the establishment, protesting the moral bankruptcy of middle- and upper-class British twits, the monarchy and the conservative political leaders of the 1970s and 1980s. They were the real deal, and Cobain admired that twisted, angry, anarchic vibe. That vibe was bent, reformed and polished into some of Nirvana’s best work, and their songs were musically inventive and attractively melodic enough to grab people who would never give straight punk a second thought while being honest enough to appeal to pure punks as well. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was essentially a crossover hit, and its success rather embarrassed Cobain, since it made him and Nirvana superstars beyond imagining and, it seems, beyond Cobain’s ability to handle the attention, the adulation, and being co-opted by the mainstream until he became a media darling largely against his will. His drug problems and ultimate suicide of course only fueled his legend and turned him into a mythic figure of alienated youth and artistic purity tarnished by too much interaction with the filthy mainstream, the same mainstream which his widow Courtney Love alternately woos and trashes.

So where does the title come from? Kurt Cobain dated Tobi Vail of the group Bikini Kill, she used Teen Spirit, a deodorant marketed to teen girls. Bikini Kill member Kathleen Hanna painted “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit” on his wall to imply that he was marked with his girlfriend’s scent, but Cobain didn’t realize the reference and thought he was being complimented on his spirit of youthful rebellion. Again, how ironic: his anti-mainstream screed also served as inadvertent advertising for a Colgate-Palmolive product aimed at the teen masses.

Emotionally Scarring Toys

In December 2005 researchers at England’s University of Bath released the results of a study that found that children, especially girls, see torturing and mutilating their Barbies as a common and enjoyable form of play. An article in the London Times stated that “mutilation ranged from cutting off hair to decapitating and putting the dolls in microwaves.” Children ages seven to eleven were said to “see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a 'cool' activity,” according to the article. The children were aware that they were being exploited by “over-marketing and over-charging” and that rejecting the doll was a “rite of passage” engaged in by children who felt they’d outgrown their Barbies. “Barbies are not special,” said the researchers. “They are disposable, and are thrown away and rejected.”

I considered my own and my daughter’s history with Barbies, and I had to take issue with some of the article’s findings. Cutting Barbie’s hair isn’t really an act of mutilation in the way that putting her in the microwave is; children know that cutting their own hair gets them in trouble, but cutting Barbie’s hair gives them the satisfaction of distorting her appearance and messing with the standard and approved way of viewing her, yes, but it also lets them know what it feels like to cut hair. The Barbies I grew up around often had missing toes; this is not because we wanted to bind their feet golden lotus–style and further fetishize their sexual-fantasy-based bodies but because chewing the rubbery plastic felt good and eventually gnawing away at them resulted in their coming off completely in the mouth in a pleasant if slightly disturbing fashion. Pulling Barbie heads off was common when I was a child, not because we were acting out scenes from Robespierre's Reign of Terror but because we wanted to trade them around among dolls with different features and outfits. We also pierced our dolls’ ears (leaving them looking grey and infected) and bent their knees back and forth so much for the sheer pleasure of hearing the click click click of their joints that their skin tore.

But do people take pleasure in creating their own torture tableaux featuring Barbie, Ken and all their plastic molded-bodied friends? Of course. Their constantly perky expressions and injection-molded perfection do invite children to challenge their prefab poise. They look so inviting in the box, but take them out of the vivid fuchsia packaging and their clothes are hard to put on, and their hair gets bunched up and never lies flat again and gets permanently dull and stringy when Barbie is invited to play in the bathtub. Ken’s spray-painted hair wears off and he ends up with flesh coloring showing through in patches that have nothing to do with standard male-pattern baldness. Barbie is not only free of genitalia, but sometimes has molded skin-colored patterns simulating underwear built right into what would be her buttocks if she had any gluteal muscles to cover her sorry, skinny ass.

Barbie’s original design was based on that of the Bild Lilli, a 1950s German sex doll aimed at men. Don’t believe me? Check out this side-by-side comparison. When Barbie debuted in 1959, many parents found her obviously sexualized nature disturbing. But, of course, this aspect of her is partly what has always made her so alluring to children. She’s the premiere socially sanctioned sexualized plaything that allows young children to engage in pre-sexual roleplay and pretend to embody the roles they think are expected of them as they mature. Children live out stereotypes with Barbies and also challenge them and laugh at them.

The by-now widespread delight that children take in trashing their Barbies when they feel they’ve outgrown them might be a reaction to the stereotypes, expectations and mass-merchandizing overconsumption extravaganza that Barbie represents, at least in part. But often Barbie’s mutilation is an unintentional byproduct of trying to personalize her and make her more interesting and individual. When this attempt results in a Barbie who is almost always less appealing as a result, both her loss of allure and her inability to grow into something uniquely appealing make her a sorry remnant of a time of earlier naivete and a reminder of failed attempts at creating more individualized beauty. Rather than feel bad every time we see what our attempts at beautification have done, it’s easier to dissociate her from her former status as beauty icon if we take her destruction even further. If she’s ugly and all the gloss and perfection that we once admired in her is gone, why not turn her into a doggy chew toy or see what happens if we take nail polish remover to the paint on her face? If we turn her into a science experiment, we feel less disappointed in her lost glory.

In 1992, Barbie’s reputation for mindlessness was bolstered by the release of Teen Talk Barbie. This talking Barbie spewed forth phrases like “Math is hard!” and “Will we ever have enough clothes?” A group calling itself the Barbie Liberation Organization soon became famous for engaging in acts of Barbie sabotage, exchanging Barbie’s talking guts for the voice hardware found in Mattel’s Talking G.I. Joe dolls. The BLO repackaged three hundred dolls and slid them back onto store shelves. When unsuspecting little girls tried their new Barbies at home, the fashion dolls grunted out “Vengeance is mine!” and "Dead men tell no tales," while little boys' new G.I. Joes cooed “Let’s plan our dream wedding!”

Of course, some toys are less than glorious to begin with, and only become more disturbing or ridiculous with time. Others begin attractively and grow frightening with disuse or misuse. Such are the toys found on one of my favorite Web sites, DisturbingAuctions.com. The site’s home page states that Disturbing Auctions “is dedicated to the research and study of the most bizarre items found for sale on Internet auction sites. Not the obviously fake auctions, like the infamous human kidney, but truly tacky stuff that people really, honestly, believed that someone would (and in some cases did) buy.”

DisturbingAuctions.com features home furnishings including the velvet painting of Jesus blessing an 18-wheeler, accessories such as the purse made of a bull’s scrotum, clothing, such as used gym shorts and a matching used jock strap, and haute cuisine, including 200 freeze-dried pork chops. But nothing can compare to discovering the hideous figurines, including the “Check Out My Ass Clown” (make sure to look at the optional magnified view for ultimate flamboyant clown perusing pleasure), the items classified as Terrifying Dolls, or, my favorites, the Emotionally Scarring Toys.

The Terrifying Dolls category features the pained, shriveled and body-part-challenged Puppet Assortment, the pinheaded Li’l Head Doll, and Baby Tears-Your-Flesh, a.k.a. Little Dolly No-Head. Big Hands Baby and the Saddam Hussein puppet also get honorable mention.

Clowns have a special place on Disturbing Auctions; there is a clown brooch, a clown ashtray and a vicious Cranky Clown Lava Lamp, among other items. Dead stuffed frogs also have their places, as does the stuffed and mounted genuine Deer Butt. The Clark Gable candle puts one in mind of a wax-covered severed head, and why the seller of the Inflatable Ladies' Legs had to mention that they fit in the mouth when not inflated is anyone’s guess.

Still, the Emotionally Scarring Toys is the biggest, juiciest treasure trove of outrageous kitsch. From the Dean Martin Hand Puppet to our beloved Big-Ass Donkey, from Darth Small to the marvelously named Pooduck, it’s hard to find an entry that isn’t deeply, horribly, hideously wrong down to its very core.

While most of the site has stayed static for years, there is a related site, DisturbingAuctions.com/daily, where visitors can post their own horrific online auction discoveries and attach their own witty (or, more frequently, just vulgar) commentaries. There are occasional gems to be found here, but the older, original DisturbingAuctions.com site has the most consistently hideous and perfectly captioned offerings. All hail the Pooduck!

Painful Blessings

For the past three years I've been building a lush woodland garden around my home. I live directly next to a greenbelt and a creek runs alongside my house from some rooms I can hear the creek as it rushes by in the rainy months, and in spring and summer months the sounds of nickel-sized frogs lull me to sleep. In these months when the weather is warm enough to leave the windows open, I hear the coyotes' nighttime choruses of yips even more distinctly, though their calls to each other echo along the creek even in the cooler months, and I hear them even when all the windows in my home shut out the storms and the cold.

In these spring months, my daughter and I delight not only in all the budding, bursting, blooming plant growth in our garden, but in the frequent presence of gorgeous little animals. We love to watch the birds, an occasional vole or chipmunk, many entertaining squirrels, and, when we're very lucky, rabbits.

Others in our neighborhood complain about the rabbit population and how rabbits devour tender garden shoots. They resent the rabbits and even laugh when their dogs chase bunnies through the streets. Now, I've planted many times more plants in my garden than anyone else in my neighborhood has, even those who have larger lots, and I've lost several hundred dollars worth of shrubs, perennials, ground covers and many bulbs to rabbits in the past three years. So what? Yes, I'd like to see more of those bulbs, and I wish they hadn't done such damage to several of my favorite new flowering shrubs. But they're rabbits. That's their job. And they're gorgeous. The shapes of their bodies, their limbs, their delightful white tails that bob along and disappear when they're surprised between a fuchsia and some hostas, the exquisite texture and shading of their fur, their long and tender ears, their perfect faces: to us, they're some of the most beautiful creatures on the planet. When they come to feast on our clover or hide in our perennials, we feel honored by their presence. If we drive up and see them on our little lawn out front when we get home, we quietly go out to watch them and talk to them in soothing tones. If we see one out back while we're eating breakfast, we feel we've started the day with a blessing. For us, they're not only symbols of spring but of nature in general; of regeneration, yes, but also of vulnerability and of fleeting beauty, and since they rarely stay long, we treasure each visit and call up or down the stairs to each other to remind ourselves that we're witnessing something special, and how lucky we are to share in it.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I really had to do something about the groundcover that was overtaking the berm under my cherry tree near the front porch. The sweet woodruff that I'd planted there so nonchalantly last year had taken over rapidly and hidden all the other tender little things I wanted to focus on, so, reluctantly, I admitted that I needed to pull it up in great bunches. I pulled back a big armful and set it down behind me, and as I turned back to the berm I noticed a hole about two inches across. I moved closer and peeked inside, and I could see movement and three small heads. There was a trio of some sort of animal with heads perhaps one by two inches in size, and as I looked carefully I saw that they were newborns and their eyes were still closed. As they sniffed around after I'd disturbed their quiet I realized that I had found a little nest of tiny bunnies. We'd seen a pair of rabbits on that very berm a day before, and now we realized why. In my determination to try to push nature around, I'd unearthed a little treasure hole. I felt awful; I took my clusters of freshly-pulled sweet woodruff and piled them before the hole again to keep it from being too open and obvious a target for neighborhood cats, dogs, coyotes or other predators. I was glad I'd been wearing rubber gloves so that I hadn't spread too much of my human scent around their home. I ran to get my daughter so that she could peek at them, too, and we cooed and sighed and made happy girly noises in our delight at finding a whole small furry family living in our garden right outside our front door.

Since then we've noticed adult rabbits in our garden every few days, mostly the rabbit we believe is the bunnies' mom, filling up on good green things so she can offer warm milk to her babies. We've tried not to disturb the little family, but we've been excited and pleased at the prospect of meeting the little ones when they decided to go abroad into the garden at large.

This afternoon I was working in Seattle on a freelance editing job. I was just finishing up a week's project and the five hours of sleep I had last night had worn off some time before. I was grinding through the last of my work when I got a call from my daughter telling me that one of the babies was sitting on our porch at that moment, and that it had let her get within two feet of it. It was gorgeous and still, and looked at her patiently with big, dark eyes. She was mesmerized, and so was it. She noticed that flies were hovering around it, though, and it wasn't flicking them away or running from her. We thought nothing of that, though; it was a young thing, so perhaps it didn't know enough to fear us yet.

An hour later we were looking gently around the garden to see if we could find the magic bunny. Horribly, we did; it was lying dead on the berm, about five feet from the hole in which it was born. It didn't look like it had been attacked by one of the dogs careless neighbors let run loose around our home. It was a hot day, and we haven't seen any of its family for a few days, and I fear it may have been abandoned when the others left the little hole, and that it might have starved and suffered from dehydration.

Its little body was among the loveliest I've ever seen: dark, lovely eyes still open to the world, the large white tail, perfectly formed little feet, dear long ears, inviting toast-colored fur. I asked Lily whether she wanted to be with me when I buried it, and she said she wanted to stay with me through everything. So we wrapped our bunny in the funnies; we figured it wouldn't have wanted to be in a hard, dark box, and that a little paper shroud would disintegrate faster than fabric and would let it become part of the ferns in the back corner of our garden more quickly. We couldn't bear to lay it alone in the soil, so we buried it with clover and our favorite variegated pineapple mint, and laid it in a quiet corner with rich soil. We laid a perfect purple clematis blossom and a fragrant sprig of dwarf lilac above its little body, and thanked it for spending its last hours in our company.

A couple of years ago an exquisitely colored love bird, clearly formerly someone's pet, flew onto our driveway while I was gardening and looked up into my face. It was tired and didn't want to be held, but it wouldn't go further than one of my rhododendron branches, so I knew it was weak. I took it in and let it rest in a ventilated box and asked around the neighborhood, but nobody knew it. We put up "FOUND BIRD" signs and took it to the vet to make sure it was okay, but within two days it became listless and had trouble eating. We put its cage in a warm spot and placed a heating pad against the corner and a blanket around the base of the cage, since the vet said the bird, who appeared so healthy, actually showed significant liver damage from being fed too many fatty seeds. It was a very sick little thing and needed warmth and love.

That night, it died in the warm little corner we made for it. We mourned the beautiful bird we had known for so little time, but we also felt blessed that it had chosen to live its final days with us. The same was true with the tiny bunny; for whatever reason, it got as close to us as it could. Yes, it may have simply been seeking a shady spot on a hot day, a cool porch to rest on as its body slowly depleted itself of nutrients. But still, we felt that this small rabbit, like the lovebird, had given us a gift by allowing us to get so close to it and to show it kindnesses just before and after death. We felt humbled in the presence of such beauty and such an early end to its life, and grateful to have seen something so ephemeral and precious up close, right in our own garden.

I spent an hour in the garden after I buried the rabbit. I watered and admired all the new growth, and wondered at how much had happened there in just the last five days since I last took a considered look around at it all. And I wondered at how fast that little rabbit had grown, and at how much hidden life there is all around me in my garden, and how many dramas and stories and secrets there are going on in the houses of the neighbors around me. I realized how odd it is that we can feel alone in such a densely populated world with so many animals right below our feet, and so many tender people right on the other sides of those thin walls we walk and drive by every day.

It was painful for my daughter to have the remarkably lovely experience with the perfect bunny less than two hours before she discovered its lifeless body four feet away. There was a cruelty to the situation, to the rough juxtaposition of great fortune and loss. But we were better for having had it, even with the pain. We again felt the blessing and honor of being chosen by a tender creature in its final hours, and were reminded how fragile the trust it put in us was, and how much responsibility we have to honor and appreciate it.

Fosse Fan

I took my daughter to see the Stephen Schwartz musical "Pippin" yesterday at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre for Mother's Day, and it was terrific. I'd seen it in San Francisco nearly 30 years ago when it toured the country, and I grew up knowing all the songs from it. I thought this production was more fun and fresh feeling than the version I saw all those years ago, which surprised me, because the actors in most of the other shows I've seen at the 5th Avenue seemed to have phoned in their performances. "Pippin" by contrast was filled with passionate performers who looked like they wanted to be there and had the moves, the pipes and the desire to perform that can make live theater so exciting. The sets were clever and attractive, the choreography was pleasing if not as crisp as Bob Fosse's original moves, and the male leads were sexy as all get-out and wore fetchingly form-fitting clothes, and sometimes not many of them, so I'm willing to admit that I might have been blinded by beauty over quality to some extent, but I really did feel the whole production was strong and very entertaining.

I grew up knowing all the songs and sang several of them at pops concerts in the seventies, so I'm nostalgic about the show, which also clouds my eyes a bit, I guess. But I've been a fan of composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz since I saw his hit "Godspell" when I was a child. Lily and I really enjoyed another musical by him, "Wicked," when we saw it on Broadway last year. I thought "Wicked" would be a dumbed down crowd-pleasing show with more flash than cleverness, but the story and lyrics were actually wittily written and the music was a pleasure to listen to. The variations on the "Wizard of Oz" theme actually showed depth of thought and meaning. What a lovely surprise.

We went on to read the book on which it was based, which is much darker than the musical version, and became huge fans of Gregory Maguire's writing. We've now read four of his novels, all of which are based on fairy tales we've all grown up knowing by heart but which turn the stories on their heads, give the background and readjust our perceptions of the main characters and their motivations. Rather than slipping into lighthearted fantasy, each one unearths the darker side of fairy stories, human nature and history. Maguire himself lived a sort of dark fairytale childhood; his mother died in childbirth and his father couldn't look after him on his own, so young Gregory was sent to an orphanage for his first five or six years before his father remarried and took him back. He says the sad part ended there, because his stepmother was actually not wicked but a kind and loving soul who raised him well. But throughout his life he's had a special affection and aptitude for seeing into such fantasies and pulling out something rich and dark.

His stories would be nothing without good plots, of course, but what keeps us (and writers like John Updike who also enjoy his work) coming back for more of his stories is his fluid writing, his lyrical style, his fresh and mesmerizing way of leading us into his characters' heads. All of his characters are flawed, some make grave mistakes, most are outcasts of some sort or other. Quite naturally, they make much more fascinating reading than the polished golden heroes of Disneyfied fairy stories we usually find nowadays.

So there I was yesterday enjoying "Pippin" again after all this time and sharing it with my almost-teen daughter, who loves musicals. I'd remembered that this was a slinkier, steamier musical than most; Bob Fosse directed the original, after all, and most of his work drips with decadent sexual overtones. However, I'd read a review that described this production as a bit tired and mired in the seventies, and missing the late great Fosse's oomph this time around. So while I expected some bumping, grinding, sexy costumes and sinuous suggestiveness, I can't say I expected the orgy scene in full fetish gear. It wasn't the most wholesome extravaganza, but Lily's nearly 13 and it gave us fodder for a little amusing chat afterwards. She's a bright, down-to-earth girl and the show was very stylized, so while there was no mistaking the fact that there were sexual overtones dolloped all over the show, it wasn't "Desperate Housewives."

As I thought about the show and of Fosse's other works, I considered the thread of raunchy, threatening sexuality that runs through his major later musicals and through his excellent, disturbing non-musical film "Star 80." In "Cabaret," "Chicago" and "Pippin" the songs and dancing are truly integral to the story: all action doesn't stop when a song starts, and, especially in the Kander and Ebb musicals "Cabaret" and "Chicago," the songs add a lot of richness to the understanding of the characters, the historical setting, the mood. The stories could stand without the songs (and indeed, "Cabaret" is based on Christopher Isherwood's "Goodbye to Berlin"), but the songs in those shows really move the action along and tells us something deeper than most musicals do. They're darker and dirtier than "Pippin" is, and while I like "Pippin," I think "Cabaret" is one of the masterworks of the musical theater, and perfectly suited to the troubled, brilliant Fosse.

But again, I consider how drawn he was to stories of disturbing, bent or bruised sexuality. In "Cabaret" Sally Bowles wants to act wild and with abandon, and brags of her "divine decadence," but it's really bluff, and she puts herself into emotional jeopardy by flirting with love but retreating into sex when true feelings become too scary. In "Pippin," the lead character, a hapless son of Charlemagne, throws himself onto all of life's grandest stages in an attempt to be grander than he is, but he finds himself feeling empty, lonely, broken as a result. "Chicago" stars two ruthless women who kill their men in jealous rages and use their sociopathic sexuality to draw fame and fortune around them as they step on everyone below. In each story, good men get used and broken, burnt like moths attracted to the deadly flame of femmes fatale. Fosse's fantastical autobiographical film, "All that Jazz," which I've found a surprising number of people list as among their favorite movies of all time, shows him (in the guise of Roy Scheider, in what I think is his strongest film performance) as painfully aware of his tendency to hold women at bay while loving them fiercely, if at a distance, and of his countervailing tendencies to try to draw too much of life in at once while driving away the parts of it he most loves. Rather like the main characters in the stories he was drawn to choreograph and direct.

Intensity

My first clear memory is of a trip I took with my mother and grandmother to the San Diego Zoo when I was about three years old. I remember a pole with three flat, circular wire baskets placed concentrically on it, and each basket was filled with fluffy yellow chicks that visitors were invited to approach and stroke. I remember being thrilled and running to them in my delirious haste to touch their tiny, soft bodies. But as I stuck my hand in the basket, they all rushed away from me and hurled themselves out of the basket. I remember feeling shock that I should come so close to something so wonderful and then scare it away. I knew that I wanted only to stroke them, but by my bold actions I frightened them. My intensity and desire to enjoy them chased them from me and left me with empty hands. I remember crying desperately about the lost opportunity. Thus, my earliest memory is about losing something not despite but because of the magnitude of my appreciation for it.

Many of my other early memories also have to do with feeling punished for being open about my feelings. I was not a drama queen; I had no tantrums, I didn't stalk anyone. In fact, I kept to myself most of the time, but when I did express myself, I meant what I said. And what I said was deeper and often truer than what others spoke of, much older and more thoughtful than my years, and such directness makes some people uncomfortable. Especially kind directness. Be sarcastic and folks may think you're bold and funny; be tender and honest and many people don't know what to do around such pure feeling. I've never liked to play games and pretend that I don't feel something when I do. Punished or not, I've always felt that, much as I wanted others' approval, I'm the one who has to live with myself, and if I'm not honest, I don't want to be around myself.

Sometime after the San Diego Zoo chick fiasco when I was perhaps four or five, my mother came home from work one day with a tiny chick in a shoe box. I don't know whether I was to have kept it or whether she borrowed it for the night from the Future Farmers of America advisor at the high school where she taught, but I knew it was mine for the night at least. At first I was delighted; here was my chance to appreciate and nurture an exquisite, vulnerable creature. But it was soon clear that the chick was in great distress. It peeped constantly and wanted nothing to do with me. When I went to bed, it was still peeping sadly. When I awoke, it was dead. I felt such guilt, even though I hadn't brought the chick home or failed to do what I was told to; I was a tiny girl, but I felt responsible for its suffering and death all the same, because it had been mine in some sense. I felt somehow that I should have known what to do to care for the little helpless bird, that somehow I should have known better, been cleverer, stayed up all night with it, something. It didn't occur to me that my mother had acted inappropriately in bringing home a tiny creature that needed special care, food, warmth and companionship and helped me to provide none of that. The feeling that my awareness and empathy required action stuck with me. Yet sometimes showing too much personal concern toward another's emotional situation can also be overwhelming to someone who doesn't have the energy to respond. I've had to learn to offer my feelings and insights, and step back so others have room to breathe.

There's always been a connection for me between feeling that my intensity has the ability to alienate others and also that my intensity gives me the responsibility to know more, do more, share more. I have often felt that because I have a capacity to show care and awareness of others' feelings, I should. And sometimes I'm conflicted because I feel that expressing myself might push others away, but that not speaking what I feel would be to be dishonest to myself or another. If I do what I most want and say what I feel deeply, I may make others avoid me or fear that I won't know when to stop. But I do know. And if I don't let them know what's in my heart, I've lost the chance to show them how much value I see in them and how much I want their happiness. Intensity and a willingness to speak openly and passionately has so much more emotional resonance to me, and the honesty of it makes me feel more real myself. But sometimes people just want to relax into shared good feeling. They have more unwanted intensity of other sorts than they can handle and just want some ease for a change. I can see it, I can understand it, I know that's a valid and even valuable point of view. But for me, that's a tricky one.

Fluffy Mackerel Pudding

In the early 1970s, Weight Watchers and other companies created packs of recipe cards that they gave away with hideous giant plastic recipe boxes in order to try to hook gullible Americans (and perhaps Canadians, though I hope they had the good sense not to follow their U.S. cousins) into subscribing to a series of monthly recipe packs which arrived with billing statements and hefty postage fees. The special introductory offers provided a free recipe box and the first set of recipe cards in the hopes that the person ordering them (a.k.a. the sucker) would then get (and pay for) a new set of recipe cards every month. After a year or so, the sucker would have a whole collection of supposedly mouth-watering original recipes that would allow a hungry family to eat hearty, wholesome meals that would satisfy all their nutritional needs and cravings for just pennies a serving. Once the vast majority of Americans realized they could get a free plastic recipe card box and 24 or so cards featuring scary color photographs of unappetizing food and then cancel their "memberships" in the recipe clubs, they were all stuck with giant awkwardly sized recipe boxes into which nobody could fit any of the recipes they might actually want to keep. I know this because I ordered my own giant plastic free recipe box when I was about 11, and I kept it for years figuring I would someday figure out how to store actual recipes in it, to no avail.

A few years ago, I somehow stumbled onto a brilliant Web site with fabulously unappetitizing (and splendidly captioned) examples of Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974, and every few months I go back to the site to laugh until I snort and my sides ache. Whenever I do, I always start my pilgrimage to Tacky Town with my personal favorite recipe: "Fluffy Mackerel Pudding," the highlight of the "Convenience Fish" section. The name speaks volumes. But I'm always delighted when I make my way through the pack and get to other mouth-watering delights such as "Hot Wrap Ups," which include the delicious hot lettuce, pickle, chive, caper and celery combo, as well as "Rosy Perfection Salad," an exciting little number featuring shredded red cabbage in molded purple gelatin. Who could say no to a brandy snifter full of "Jellied Tomato Refresher," or a man-pleasin' pan full of "Mackerelly"? The "Fish 'Tacos'" which are completely free of tortillas look especially authentic and enticing, with their shredded green cabbage, tomato chunks and some sort of chopped fish on a bed of . . . toast. And in the "Budget Best Bets" category, don't forget "Frankfurter Spectacular," a sexy little dish of hot dog halves wrapped around a pineapple core and garnished with carrot, potato and pineapple chunks. Between meals, why not fix yourself a plate of "Polynesian Snack," featuring the excitement you can only find in a dish composed of canned bean sprouts, buttermilk, pimiento and fruit pieces. That's snackin' satisfaction! For a peek at "Snappy Mackerel Casserole" or the famous tortilla-free "Marcy's 'Enchilada,'" you must check out the Candyboots Web site. The wicked captions make enjoying these recipe cards a pants-wettingly entertaining experience.

The World's Fastest Indian

I saw a lovely little film a couple of weeks back that I keep thinking of and wanting to write about: "The World's Fastest Indian." The film stars Anthony Hopkins as New Zealander Burt Munro, who, in his sixties, became the world's land speed record holder on his 1920 Indian motorcycle. This movie is so full of small pleasures, quiet humor, perfect period details and lovely actions and reactions by Hopkins that I enjoyed myself completely while I let the story wash over me.

Some have felt it too sweet and too pat a story, sort of a "chick flick for guys," as one imdb.com member put it, and one can tell from the beginning in what general direction the movie will go. The writing doesn't match the quality of the story, direction or Hopkins' acting, but the undeniable power and appeal of the underlying true story and Hopkins' dry wit and careful performance save it from being painfully sweet. The art direction was spot-on, and the visuals pulled forth so many pleasing sense memories from the back of my mind. Burt's shed (also his home) and his clothes and surroundings brought forth the memory of the pleasingly acrid, greasy tang of old motor oil in a rickety shed housing an old vehicle; the feel of the broken-in leather on an old motorcycle seat; the pleasing patina of heavy chrome-plating.

Some details didn't ring true and were indeed too pat; many of the supporting characters felt contrived and their dialog rang false, but the center of nearly every scene is Burt himself, and the determined, quiet way that Hopkins holds the story together by being completely present and aware, and looking as if each thought or action had just occurred to him at that moment, brings an element of reality to the story that held my interest and gave me continuing pleasure from start to finish. The story is also just a remarkably good one: if I didn't know it was based on a true one, I would have found it farfetched, but it's simply a genuinely inspiring true-life tale.

So much of good acting is believable reaction, seeming to be in the moment and responding viscerally and immediately, appearing to be thinking a thought at the same moment that the audience member thinks it, showing complete respect and immersion in the story's version of reality, and not showing off preparation and craft by overacting or pandering. This role is in the vein of other beautiful, contained performances by Hopkins in films like "Remains of the Day," "Howard's End" and "The Elephant Man." When he plays careful, contained men who let their emotional vulnerability slip out from behind a mask of composure and certitude in rare moments, I find him mesmerizing. When he lets himself play a psychopath, like Hannibal Lecter, or a sniveling schemer, like Richard in "The Lion in Winter," or a man who loses his grasp on his life and undermines his happiness by losing his temper in the fine but little-seen "The Good Father," he's also impressive. But I love him best when he plays the man with the stiff upper lip who crumbles just enough under pressure to show us what he's really made of, for good or ill.

Director Roger Donaldson also directed Hopkins to wonderful effect in the 1984 film "The Bounty" about the famous mutiny at sea led by Fletcher Christian against his captain, William Bligh. Mel Gibson plays Christian, and he's worth watching not only because it's one of his strongest performance but also, I will admit, because it was filmed at the apogee of his once-considerable beauty. However, the film's success really hangs on Hopkins' performance, and it is a fine one of both boldness and subtlety.

Oscar Picks

Best Picture: “Brokeback Mountain”

“Brokeback Mountain” is my choice and I think it will be Oscar’s as well. I loved “Capote,” enjoyed “Crash” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” enormously, and I respect “Munich” (though I thought it more flawed than the other nominees, though well acted), but “Brokeback Mountain” was not only an excellent film story well told, it was also socially influential and groundbreaking. The provocative subject matter made many heterosexual people question their stereotypes about gay men, and it seems to have helped a number of straight folk to understand more clearly and viscerally that people don’t always choose with whom they fall in love, and what the consequences are when people are false to themselves and those around them. It was touching, wonderfully directed, beautifully acted, and thought-provoking: I think it's a shoo-in. “Capote” was a terrific movie, every bit as beautifully acted and directed, but because it was smaller in scope and in influence I don't think it has a chance. “Brokeback” also surprised many conservatives and proved to them that Middle America can watch, root for, and enjoy a movie about gay people in love, which I think is a fabulous message. I hope the film wins the Academy Award so that its fame will reverberate and its influence spread for as long as possible.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:
Philip Seymour Hoffman

I thought it was amazing that Philip Seymour Hoffman could inhabit the persona of Truman Capote so perfectly and yet not become a caricature or distract from the story. He made that voice and those mannerisms work, made them charming, real, and frightening by turns. I've always thought he was an exceptional actor but I think this is the film that will get him the leading roles he deserves. I believe the Academy will agree with me, but Heath Ledger is a close second; he was so moving, so believable, so far from his usual screen persona. His character was so sympathetic despite his taciturn ways; it was horrible to watch him seal his own misery with his fears. I loved the character, and thought about his performance a great deal afterwards. If he wins, I will understand the choice and can support it. I think the “Brokeback: brouhaha may give him a victory, but I think Hoffman will ultimately win out.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
Felicity Huffman

Felicity Huffman was funny, moving, and brave as the transgender heroine of “Transamerica.” It was a delightful performance, and Oscar does love it when attractive, appealing women (especially those over 30) allow themselves to look unattractive and vulnerable. Huffman is bright, articulate, and outspoken, and she’s been waiting for a worthy leading role for a long time. But the Academy loves Reese Witherspoon and would be delighted to celebrate her for having been the very best thing about “Walk the Line.” She was really the nurturing heart of that movie, and her character, June Carter Cash, had to show why she was Johnny Cash's obsession and his salvation. Witherspoon sparkled in the role and made it easy to see why Johnny Cash could want to build a world around her. Her portrayal of June Carter was intelligent and subtly done, and she came across as capable of much more subtlety than she is usually allowed in her usual pretty, perky comic actress roles. I think she's a strong contender, but I think Huffman’s range of emotion the “Transamerica,” the growth of her character, and the physical and vocal transformation she accomplished through sheer talent and force of will win in the end. Still, Witherspoon has a very strong chance.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:
Jake Gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was of course a co-leading role, so much more than a supporting actor, and if he hadn't been so strong and worked so compellingly with Ledger, if they hadn't had chemistry and a carefully balanced mixture of virility and vulnerability that was believable both individually and together, the whole thing wouldn’t have worked. George Clooney was very fine in “Syriana,” and I see why he’s received some awards and acclaim for it, but Gyllenhaal was more crucial to “Brokeback” than Clooney was to “Syriana,” and he had more chance to show subtleties and varied emotions and motivations than Clooney's character had, and he met the challenge. So I have to vote for Jake, and I think Oscar will, too.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role:
Rachel Weisz

If I have my way, Rachel Weisz will get this award. She was more crucial to the film, to the motivation for Ralph Fiennes’ character, and to the forward movement of the story than the other nominated actresses were for their films. I loved Catherine Keener as Harper Lee in “Capote”; I thought she was just right for the role, but she had less to do, less range, and the actions of her character weren’t as pivotal to the emotional resonance of the film. Amy Adams was cute, but I just didn't find “Junebug” a compelling film or her character very fully realized (not her fault, just the way the character was written). Michelle Williams was very good, but more peripheral to her film than Rachel Weisz's character was to “The Constant Gardner,” which was a very fine and moving film, one of my favorites of 2005. Rachel Weisz’s character was completely necessary for the story, Fiennes’ performance, and the emotional impact of the film. Go Rachel!

Best Director: Ang Lee! Ang Lee! Ang Lee!

Ang Lee’s direction of “Brokeback Mountain” was perfect. It got the details right, including the overarching feel, the sweep of the land and the story, the tenderness and the roughness of the characterizations, the quiet spaces when nothing needed to be said, the tone and power and chemistry between the characters, the senses of failure and disappointment and betrayal felt by all the main characters at one time or another. I sensed his strong hand throughout without his ever getting in the way of the writing, the setting, or the acting. He got wonderful, realistic, compelling performances from the actors, built tension perfectly, paced it wonderfully, and let the story seem to tell itself, without hitting the audience over the head with meaning or self-importance and without telegraphing what was to come. It was intelligent, and it assumed the intelligence of the audience. He led, but never got in the way. I loved his work, and so will Oscar.

“Crash” was a hell of a good story, compelling and exciting, and it was bold, powerful and relentless throughout. I thought it was great filmmaking, but I felt it often pushed the boundaries of believability because each substory was a hyperreal, extreme distillation of a scenario punched up to a series of emotional peaks beyond daily reality. One or two in a film mixed in with more realistic stories would be more believable, but it was meant to be beyond reality to push us to a better awareness of the less sensational horrors of racism that run through our daily lives. Though I enjoyed it tremendously, a lot of people were pushed away from “Crash” because it felt so over-the-top to them, and it knocked them on the head with its messages by being so unrelenting with each story building to a fever pitch, each subplot building to a crescendo, so that, when put together, it felt like a pounding, diatribe-filled runaway train to some viewers. Compare that to the strength of “Brokeback Mountain” and its message, which is just as unmistakable and moving without hitting you on the head, even though a major character is murdered just for appearing gay. Its direction carries it along in an organic, natural, believable way. It’s kind of like comparing apples and orangutans to compare the two, since they have different reasons for being. “Crash” is all about the feeling of being in a metaphorical racial car crash where the consequences of race hatred leave people obviously broken. “Brokeback Mountain” is about the insidiousness and hidden nature of hatred and fear. I enjoyed both films very much, but I think the range of skills shown by Ang Lee is greater and deeper in “Brokeback Mountain” than that shown by Paul Haggis in “Crash.”

Original Screenplay:
“Good Night, and Good Luck” (by a nose)

This is a hard one. “Crash” was clever and fresh and important. “Good Night, and Good Luck” was carefully researched, witty, and captured all the essential points of an important historical situation and person without rendering them dry and dull. I didn’t see “Match Point” because I find Woody Allen, whom I used to love, largely stale and misogynistic nowadays, and because I found “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” to which “Match Point” has so often been compared, morally bankrupt, mean-spirited, and repugnant. “The Squid and the Whale” disappointed me greatly; there was so much mean-spiritedness, nearly all the family interactions were so disturbed, and each character was so self-absorbed and hurtful. “Syriana” was clever and impressive, but ultimately, I thought, unnecessarily convoluted. It was made difficult to follow on purpose, but I thought that difficulty undercut its power, unlike a film like “Memento,” where the confusion is integral to understanding the character, building the tension and surprise, and making the payoff work. I think it’s between “Crash” and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and it’s a really close call. One is so exuberant, the other played so close to the chest, and both are insightful about issues close to our hearts, i.e., tolerance and being vigilant about seeing that civil liberties are respected. I think “Good Night” will win, but Oscar could very well go for “Crash” and I’d be happy either way.

Adapted Screenplay:
“Capote” (though it’ll be a photo finish)

“Capote” was wonderful, and the fact that it worked so well is largely because the script was exceptional, and, surprisingly, not too wordy. The writer, director, and actors weren’t afraid of silences, or of behavior telling the story instead of having to spell everything out with words. I loved it and would be thrilled if it won. But the script for “Brokeback Mountain” was also exquisitely crafted and basic to its success as a film. I’d like “Capote” to win, but I enjoyed “Brokeback” so much that I’d be satisfied if it takes the Oscar, too.

Cinematography: “The New World”

“The New World” is my choice, both because I think it deserves it and because I think it will win. Why didn’t more people see this movie? It’s remarkable. The natural world is a key player in it; Terrence Malick’s trademark seduction of and by nature is a basic and important element to the story. I loved it; it’s exquisite to look at, and told with very few words; the dreamy visuals are absolutely key, not just to the enjoyment but also to the story, which is moving. I also loved Malick’s “The Thin Red Line,” which has a similarly beautiful, dreamy quality. People who found that too drawn out or too full of interior monologues will probably find the same issues with “The New World,” but I found both films powerful and moving works of art. The young woman who plays Pocahontas (who is never called by that name throughout the entire film) is Q’Orianka Kilcher, and she is a wonder; what perfect casting. (Interesting trivia tidbit: She’s the cousin of singer Jewel Kilcher, a.k.a. Jewel.)

Animated film:
“Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit”

Nick Park’s claymation short films have won several Oscars, all deserved, and I think and hope he’ll win again for this full-length Wallace and Gromit movie. I’m a huge fan of his and have been for over a decade. (Have you ever seen the short subject “Creature Comforts,” for which he won his first Oscar? It’s delightful.)

Documentary:
“The March of the Penguins”

Yes, it was cute and charming; “The March of the Penguins” was also brilliant, technically amazing and difficult filmmaking. It’s beautiful, captivating, it was difficult as hell to film, wonderfully edited, compelling, sweet without being saccharine or too anthropomorphic. No wonder it’s been the monster-hit documentary of all time. I want it to win, and I think it will.

I Carry Them in My Heart

My grandmother died in 1979, and I've missed her every day since then. She was a pure light in my life, troubled and sad and problematic, but her heart and her love were always pure, almost holy. She was unwavering in her love for me, completely unconditional and unselfish. She was never angry with me, never in a hurry, never temperamental or judgmental or unkind. Never. I can't imagine a more gentle heart than hers. She lit up when she met me at the door after school, always interested in what I had to say, and content to sit and hold my hand and talk about the olden days. She was never too tired to play a game with me or to hear me talk. I was a comfort to her, and she made me feel that I was always just right in her eyes. In my uncertain world of fair-weather friends and a distracted, frustrated mother, my grandmother's love for me was a certainty. I couldn't always be certain of her stability; she had mental and emotional problems, and constant leg pain and depression clouded her days. But even in her pain, physical or psychological, she was never unkind, always forgiving, ever loving.

When I was nine years old, my grandmother had a nervous breakdown. In trying to understand why her beloved mother had fallen apart psychologically, and in trying to figure out the basis for her own fears and troubles, my mother took a year off from teaching and earned a master's degree in counseling. Her thesis was a study of her mother's psychological life. She interviewed her father and sister and even herself, and put together what she could of the history of my grandmother's depressions, fears, and occasional breaks with reality. She taped these interviews and, after she died in 2001, I found a tape of my mother interviewing my grandfather in early 1973. I was thrilled to have it, but too afraid to listen to it. The idea of hearing my mother's inquisitive, professional tones on tape felt like too much to bear, and imagining my grandfather with his anger, vulgarity, spite, bitterness, brittleness, and self-absorption lashing out at my grandmother and swearing about how she had let him down, when in my heart I knew his seething anger and belittling of her are what broke her spirit in the first place, seemed too cruel a strike against my grandmother's memory. So I preserved it but did not listen to it.

Around the same time, I found an even more important jewel: an audiotape of me at age 12 or 13 interviewing my grandmother about her memories of her youth which I made for a school folklore assignment. Bless the teacher who made students interview someone about his or her personal history, for it inspired one of my most precious possessions. I finally had the strength to listen to my tape recently, and it was wonderful. I had set it aside for years, too, but I finally listened to it and made a copy of it in January.

My grandmother had loved telling me stories about her childhood for as far back as I could remember. I was the grandchild who loved those stories the most; I would ask over and over again to hear about the time she went berrypicking, disturbed a wasps' nest, and got stung all over her body, barely surviving. I wanted to hear about her Finnish grandfather's purchase of famous race horses, even when his family was strapped for cash and living through winter on little more than potatoes. I liked learning about the igloos neighbor boys would build during harsh Northern Michigan winters, and about how the girls would brew great pots of coffee and carry them into the igloos to enjoy with the boys when building was done. Grandma's stories about all the locals sharing a communal sauna, men and women and boys and girls all happily naked together, scraping their skins with birch bark, tossing water onto the coals to make the steam, and running out into the snow to dive through a hole cut in the ice over the river to cool down after a long steambath were so fresh, seventy years later. I loved hearing her sing Finnish folksongs and telling me about her family, and she loved nothing more than sharing her memories with me. Her treatments for her mental illness had left her with little short-term memory, but she remembered her childhood as clearly as if she were still young, and living in those times again in her memory and taking her beloved granddaughter with her gave her one of the greatest joys of her old age.

Last month I finally felt I had the strength to sit down with the old cassette and listen to my grandmother again. I feared the tape would stretch or that it would be unintelligible after all this time, that she wouldn't sound as I remembered, or that the sound of my young voice would embarrass me. I worried that hearing us together would bring forth once again the horrible sense of loss I felt when she died. But I put the tape in my old dubbing tape deck and, as I dubbed it to a fresh tape so I could have a backup in case the original failed me, I sat by the speakers and listened. The sound quality was scratchy and I had to turn the volume up to hear our voices, but I was shocked to hear how much like my current self I sounded. It was wonderful to hear my grandmother's gentle little voice, and I was delighted to hear how natural our conversation was, how enthusiastic we both were, and how clear and correct my memories of my grandmother were. We were as close and comfortable with each other as I remembered, and her stories were sweet and interesting, as I've always remembered them. And while I cried and shook my head as I heard her speak, and I did feel a flood of sadness and loss, mostly what I felt was wonderment that this terrific invention, the cassette tape, gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in my grandmother's stories and company again.

I listened to the tape of my grandfather and mother again. Not all of it; I haven't been able to listen to all of my grandmother's tape yet, either. Both take a lot of emotional energy and focus. But my grandfather's tape was also a wonderful gift. He was as harsh, self-pitying, unkind, and angry as I remembered him, and I can't imagine how my dear grandmother with her sensitive ways could stand to live with him for so long. My mother was also true to form: curious, enthusiastic, articulate, speaking directly to him but also adjusting her questions and showing more empathy toward him than I anticipated in order to try to break through his defenses enough to learn more about what made her family the way it was. I admired her courage in facing him, for he always made it clear that she was never the favorite, and that he felt everyone and everything beneath him in some way, and she felt understanding him and her mother was more important than her discomfort in dealing with him. Later in life facing that sort of anger was beyond her strength—she feared it too much to work through it, and hearing him speak with her, I understood better where that fear had come from, and how hard it must have been to have such a tender, broken mother and such a bitter, insulting father, and to try to look out for herself without dominating and squashing those around her. She adored her mother and felt the anger of her father all her life, but also saw how much more success her father's attitude had in the world than her mother's did, and I think the clash of outlooks and behaviors always caused painful internal battles in her, and kept her from engaging with others as completely and healthily as she desperately wanted to.

Instead of feeling the huge gap and sadness over the losses of my mother and grandmother anew after hearing these tapes, I felt closer to them again. I felt sorry for my mother's struggles to understand and stand up to her father, and admired her desire to understand and be loving toward her parents despite their difficulties. Best of all, the many years since my grandmother died disappeared for a little while, and the comfort of her company lingered. I suddenly felt she wasn't so far away and hadn't been gone so long. Not only did the hearing of her voice and remembering the stories make me feel this closeness, but the pleasure of knowing how well I'd preserved her memory in my heart gave me great comfort. We really do carry those we love with us in our hearts; they do live on; they aren't so far away.

Beautiful City with an Ugly Past

Last week I spent four lovely days in Charleston, South Carolina, once the grandest and wealthiest city in the South, and still home to some of the prettiest streets I've seen anywhere. The lower ends of King and Meeting streets offer hundreds of beauties, but Church Street is the richest with treasures, including, as one would expect, many fine churches, one of the oldest theaters in the country, and gorgeous homes. Charlestonians' love for their city's architectural history is evident; several hundred colonial buildings still stand, and about two thousand antebellum buildings remain, many of them in outstandingly fine shape. One can walk miles down centuries-old streets and see one well-maintained historic house or church after another. One sees exceedingly grand "urban plantations," wrought iron gates and decorative work to rival those of New Orleans, dramatic palm trees, and tall classical columns. Some of the fancy wrought iron work served a more sinister purpose than simple adornment or added security for the inhabitants—metal window covering and tall gates or walls topped with pointed spikes made escape by slaves more difficult.

Other homes, at least as beautiful to my eye, are the more modest merchants homes on cross streets like Tradd Street. All over town one sees the one-room-wide "Charleston single houses" placed with the narrow end on the street, allowing houses to be close together on narrow lots. Typical lots were only 40 to 50 feet wide. Single houses feature front doors that open not onto their houses themselves but onto verandahs (which they call piazzas) to allow private and expansive outdoor spaces in which to spend their hot, humid summer afternoons and evenings and to provide ample shade and ventillation to cool the interior in sunshine or rainy weather. One sees Charleston single houses everywhere in every size and all states of glory or, if one travels into North Charleston, into sad states of disrepair.

That anything survives of Charleston's architectural past is something of a miracle; the city has lived through hurricanes (and suffered terrible devastation in 1989's Hugo), the Revolutionary and Civil wars, fires, earthquakes and a cyclone. It was right in the thick of things during both of our country's major domestic wars; indeed, the "war between the states," as one woman at St. Philip's Church still refers to it, began in Charleston's harbor, at Fort Sumter (itself worth a short boat trip and an hour's visit). (Fort Sumter's tour guide referred to the Civil War as "the unpleasantness.")

For one who loves visiting houses of worship and graveyards, Charleston provides a feast. There are several grand Episcopal and Anglican churches in town worth a visit, including St. Philip's and St. Michael's, the latter having provided solace and a place of worship to both General Washington and General Lee. Both offer perfectly maintained interiors and colonial box pews of the sort one also finds in colonial churches in New England. Their churchyards feature wonderful gravestones from as far back as 1730. The gorgeous Circular Congregational Church, a Romanesque stone church with a correspondingly lovely churchyard, is quite unusual and, despite the massive, fortress-like construction, feels welcoming because of the soft curves of the exterior. This church's graveyard is the oldest in the city, and still has one grave from the 17th century. Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue is the country's second-oldest and the oldest in continuous use, and home to the American Reform Judaism movement.

I was surprised upon reaching Charleston and driving down King Street, the city's main downtown commercial thoroughfare, to see how much the city looks like a Caribbean island: so many tall, elegant plastered buildings in pastel colors surrounded by palm trees. South Carolina's state tree is the palmetto, and these elegant palm trees can be found everywhere. The city and surrounding plantations were established by many planters and traders who moved here from Barbados and the Bahamas, and the climate here is subtropical, so it makes sense that it should feel so connected to the Caribbean.

Dubose Heyward grew up in Charleston and wrote a book, Porgy, about the poor black Charlestonians of Cabbage Row; he turned the story into a libretto and George Gershwin came down to Charleston to spend a summer writing the music to the beautiful "folk opera" Porgy and Bess. One can walk past two of Heyward's homes and see where Cabbage Row once stood, though now the area is full of grand historic houses and endless plaques declaring the historical significance of the area, and no trace of the laboring blacks who once lived and worked here. Indeed, all of downtown Charleston is surprisingly white now, despite having been built largely by the skills of a once majority-black population. Indeed, as many as 80% of all slaves brought to America came through Sullivan's Island in Charleston's harbor. The slave trade and slave labor are what made Charleston the wealthiest city in the Southern colonies, and the first major city in the South. This beautiful city was built quite literally on the backs of the first black Americans.

The South Carolina Lowcountry was a melting pot for several cultures, and one major influence was the Gullah culture. The Gullah language, an English-based dialect rooted in African languages used by African-Americans of the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, has been in use for more than 300 years, and has been kept alive because many of the speakers have been geographically isolated on barrier islands. The Gullah people brought their extensive knowledge of rice and indigo farming to South Carolina when they were kidnapped and forcibly taken from their West African homelands to the colonies from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Slave labor was not the only important thing they provided to those who enslaved them; slave "owners" also took advantage of their extensive agricultural knowledge and put it to use. Many of those captured and forced to leave Africa brought with them basket-weaving skills that were of great use in storing agricultural products and in general household organization in the American colonies. The tradition of coiling and weaving sweetgrass baskets continues today, and in the public market and in other spots around town, once still sees African-American local women weaving and selling these baskets to tourists.

Carolina gold rice and indigo were two of their most important export crops, and Carolina's economy, like that of all Southern colonies and later states, was based heavily on agriculture, and the only way to be able to afford to run labor-intensive agricultural plantations and make the vast profits plantation owners had come to expect was to do it on the backs of slaves. The city of Charleston and the entire state were once majority black; before the Civil War the swamps were cleared, canals dug, plantations planted and harvested, homes built and maintained, food cooked, babies tended, clothes mended, horses shod, iron wrought, water gathered, and washing done for hundreds of thousands every day by people housed in leaky huts or in hay lofts or who slept on kitchen floors in cooking houses. The babies they tended and the cosseted young mistresses they dressed and fed slept on five-foot tall feather beds next door, filling the chamber pots that their darker-skinned property would empty for them the next day, before polishing the white folks' silver, making their candles, and decanting their wine.

Capote

"My major regret in life is that my childhood was unnecessarily lonely."–Truman Capote

The Truman Capote I grew up watching and reading was the Capote who appeared, usually drunk or drugged, odd but always interesting, on afternoon and evening talk shows, spinning stories about the fabulously famous and wealthy crowd with whom he ran. He was a professional personality by the time I was aware of him, but I also knew that he'd written much-admired stories that had been turned into very famous and popular films. I knew that my mother admired his work, and that he had written "A Christmas Memory," one of the most beautiful, understated, tender stories I've ever read. The fact that it was based in his own experience made it all the more lovely to me. I felt sad for and protective of him at a young age, because I knew that the man who had written that story had been a tender and hyperaware child, like I had, and had seen the fear and pain in life as clearly as the joy and the secret beauties of it.

My mother taught "A Christmas Memory" to her high school English students for many years and she introduced it to me when I was about ten. I was completely taken with this story of a young boy abandoned by his parents and living with his disapproving southern aunts. This boy's best friend was the childlike old-maid cousin with whom he also lived, a woman who flew handmade kites with him and took him to buy moonshine whiskey from Mr. Haha Jones so they could make their annual batch of fruitcakes, one of which they sent to President Franklin Roosevelt every year. Capote had taken the littlest details and moments in what others might see as an unexceptional situation and spun them into a rich and compelling story, simple and straightforward but with every word in place, every emotion sparely but elegantly woven into the words. I think it's a short masterpiece; it is perhaps my favorite short story, and the one I've read more often than any other.

It was immediately clear to me that Capote got the tone, the subtleties, the story, and the total devotion of the characters for each other exactly right. That he was the model for the boy Dill in his friend Harper Lee's story To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel that I find close to perfect, made him all the more special to me. I have read and reread "A Christmas Memory" to myself and others most of the Christmases of my life, and cry as regularly as clockwork when I come to the last bittersweet page. This was a man who clearly understood loss and loneliness, and who understood empathy and tender connection to another like few writers I'd come across. There was something beautiful and tender and true in him and in his art that I, and millions of other people, were drawn to, and wanted to believe in.

When Capote died in 1984 among swirling stories of long-term drug and alcohol abuse, he also left behind him a parade of disaffected friends who felt he'd used and abused them, that he'd betrayed their friendship and their secrets in order to steal their souls so that he might make not only his party anecdotes but his writing come to life. He had been such a wildly successful New York socialite, courting and collecting the loveliest, richest, and most prominent socialites as his "swans," as he called them, for years. He hosted the New York social event of the decade, the famous and successful Black and White Ball, in 1966. Best-dressed list icons like Lee Radziwill and Babe Paley attended parties with him and had him to their summer homes, traveled with him and relished his delicious gossip. He wangled his way into the hearts of dozens of people who felt he understood them intimately and would respect and love them not only despite but because of their foibles. When he wanted to be charming, nobody could outcharm him. He made people of all types and of any social standing believe he loved them for the tender, misunderstood people they were inside their suits of shiny invincibility; they felt not only understood by him but safe with him. And then he spilled out their secrets for everyone to see.

For years he gathered their lives into his short stories and promised a splendid, insightful book to his publisher, talk show hosts, and the world, and we all waited with bated breath, knowing that when Capote had the time to build a work, like In Cold Blood, he would carefully piece it together just so and make the wait worthwhile. He had shown his mastery of the short story form very early in life, and, when sober, he was an insightful and entertaining fellow. He was also extraordinarily catty when he wanted to be, and, when one wasn't on the receiving end of that acid tongue, he could be shockingly funny. But his charm was so extreme and his magical power of diverting attention from the things that everyone should have known that he was a sponge who missed no details, a writer first and foremost, insightful and ruthless when exposing the hidden motivation, the raw nerve.

So he gathered his swans' secrets and then poured them out onto the page with such clarity, and so little effort at concealing the identities of his characters' inspirations, that he immediately and permanently drove most of his friends and their associates away and turned their feelings for him from indulgent and loving exasperation to anger, fear, and resentment. To learn of how almost all the doors of society slammed on him one by one after he had been the toast of New York, the shining star of literary society, was to feel that, no matter how much he deserved what he got, it was still a terrible shame, that there must have been some mistake somewhere, some misunderstanding.

Knowing his downward trajectory during the last 15 years of his life makes "Capote," the outstanding new film about his years researching and writing In Cold Blood, even more riveting. The film constructs, with not one extraneous scene or unnecessary bit of dialog, an understanding of his place in literary society, and his chameleon-like ease at blending into the lives of the people whom he wanted to capture and luring them into trusting him with their lives and stories. His ability to say exactly what a publisher, a murderer, his lover, his oldest friend wanted to hear in order to court their love or trust, and seem to mean each word he said, is juxtaposed rivetingly with his ability to cut them off at the knees, dismiss them, insult them, or ignore them when their needs don't suit his. The performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman is astonishing, not only because his impersonation of Capote's strained, high, tiny voice and his fussy mannerisms is so remarkably good, but because he moves effortlessly between charm and seemingly endless empathy to self-absorption of enormous proportion so smoothly and naturally. We both admire and revile him. In their roles, excellent actors Chris Cooper and Catherine Keener show indulgence and affection for him, as well as wariness and disgust with his deceit of others, of them, of himself. The script is often spare and the pacing, while perfect, is never rushed; what is not said by the characters is as important and full of meaning as the well-crafted dialog. We learn just enough about any character, any situation, to be able to piece together what its meaning will be to those involved. His actions and the reactions of others are carefully calibrated so that we are never in the dark as to what is going on or how his actions will reverberate, but we are trusted to be able to let the story build in our minds; the writer, director, and actors don't spoonfeed us but deftly piece the feelings, words, and actions of the characters together so that the story builds and intermeshes exactly as it should. This is how a subtle story should be told.

The Mirror Crack'd

My first passport photo was taken for a dual passport I shared with my mother when I was 12 and she was 33. In 1975, the U.S. Passport Office allowed a parent and child to travel on the same passport, so my mother and I went to Europe for a whirlwind 15-day, seven-country guided tour carrying the same drab green passport and staring solemnly out of the same black and white photograph. Since my mother and I were nearly always together in those days, finishing each other’s sentences, answering the phone in voices with identical inflections, and harmonizing perfectly when singing together at the piano almost nightly, it made sense that we’d share an international identity and that our two images would meld into one on our most important official and universally-recognized document.

My mother was a high school English teacher for 37 years. She began at age 23, straight out of Cal Berkeley, freshly divorced from my father, with a toddler to care for and almost no money. She was a very talented pianist and singer as well as an enthusiastic and vivacious young teacher, so she never lacked for friends, activities, or boyfriends. I spent a lot of time with my wonderful grandmother while my mother was teaching, dating, or performing, and Grandma was the infinitely patient and loving influence in my childhood, the gentle hand, the quiet homebody at the center of my world, while my mother was the dynamic, exciting spitfire zooming in circles around me. I adored them both. But while my grandmother was devoted to me and could only see the best in me, my mother was exciting but mercurial, generous with praise but also with criticism, laudatory of my talents yet loudly dismissive of my feelings, quick to embarrass me with her bragging about my accomplishments and with public commentary about what she considered my oversensitivity and klutziness. She saw me as an extension of herself, her talents, her interests, and her public face.

As a school teacher who taught only a mile from her home, my mother considered herself something of a public figure and an example to the community, and she made it clear to me that I must always be above reproach in order to reflect well on her. I was never to correct her before others (or in private, actually), and I had better look good and behave appropriately at all times. She wangled any secret thoughts or feelings out of me and then berated me for having them when they were not in accord with hers. To disagree was disloyal, to tell others of my disagreements with her was betrayal. I learned more of her secrets than is appropriate for a child to know about a mother; it was my job to hear her troubles and bear them with her, build her up, support her, soothe her and humor her. I was there to give her strength during her weakest, scariest moments and then help her present to the world the illusion that she was always strong and happy. And she presented herself to the world with panache; she was an excellent and exciting teacher, upbeat and bubbling over with enthusiasm and warmth for her students, pushing them to work harder and better than was expected of them elsewhere. As long as she was undisputed queen of the classroom and her mastery was acknowledged, she was a generous, bold, and confident monarch and a fine educator.

Mom built me up and took great pleasure in my accomplishments, as I did in hers. She provided me with beautifully tailored clothing created by her own hands, and I received compliments on my clothes regularly from the time I was a toddler until I was in college. I joked with her that my reply to the hundreds of compliments I received over the years on my mother-made wardrobe had become rote: "Thanks-my-mother-made-it." She showered me with gifts at birthdays and Christmas, and she took me with her on trips and to plays and special events. She shared her enthusiasms with me and loved me devotedly, but she loved me as an extension of her own being and expected me to mirror the best of herself back toward her and out toward the world. She took great umbrage at any attempts on my part to express an opinion or taste or feeling that did not accord with hers, and punished me for diverging from her path.

She would not acknowledge her lack of boundaries or her inappropriateness, of course. Nor would she admit to being self-absorbed or insensitive to me when she ran roughshod over my plans or opinions. She would instead tell me how unkind and hurtful I was to question the perfect sensitivity and understanding behind her actions. For her to acknowledge that she sometimes based her actions on self-serving motives and was not always aware of or sensitive to the needs or desires of others would have been on a par with declaring herself to be a serial killer. In her mind, I must agree that she was exceptionally and exquisitely aware of all her motivations and of the needs of others, or, if I were to disagree or challenge her behavior, I must be implying that she was a grasping, selfish, cold-hearted user. To try to discuss with her the pain she caused by her behavior was to be accused of callousness and cruelty toward her. There could be no middle ground: I was either for her or against her.

That is the way of the narcissist.

As I grew older, my mother would come to my home and rearrange my furniture while I was out of the room. She cut me off in mid-sentence when she found my opinions too intricate for her attention span or too tiresome for her mood. She questioned me on my choices of food, clothing, furnishings, and decorative items, and would expect me to justify any opinion that differed from hers, often repeatedly, wondering when I would finally see the error of my ways and see the wisdom in valuing her choices above my own. She refused to refer to a new baby born to a relative by his true name for over a year because she did not care for his parents’ choice, and, even in the presence of his parents, she would only call him by his middle name until I finally insisted that she was being disrespectful and thoughtless and could not rename people at will to suit her tastes.

My mother’s need to have me mirror her tastes and thoughts, and her fear of my disagreement with her (even when I was silent), led to my feeling great internal conflict at an early age, and to fearing that I had only two choices: I could be true to my mother and have her on my side, or I could be true to myself and be seen by her as betraying her, and be punished and lonely as a result. Since I had been her astonishingly apt protégée and had basked in the glory of her approval by being as agreeable, hard-working, supportive, academically successful, talkative, and mature as I possibly could throughout my childhood, I had endeared myself to her and grown exceptionally close to her at the expense of fitting in with my peers. I had to choose her over them, to fit in with her needs and to see the world through her adult eyes, and that had made me ill suited to the job of appealing to other children. I had to choose whether to be loyal to children, whose tastes and behaviors were nothing like those of my mother and her friends, and who were more directly nasty to me than my mother was, or to be loyal to my mother and her needs. I had no siblings, and my only nearby cousins were either significantly older or much younger and showed little more than tolerance of my company. My vocabulary and interests set me apart from other children, and my physical ineptitude and love of food made my body feel unwieldy and traitorous, and other children who envied my ease with schoolwork and comfort with the teachers latched on to my failings and would not let go. The more they tripped and taunted me, spread lies about me, hurled wet newspapers at me as I walked home, spit in my hair, or broke into my locker to steal my books and ruin my gym clothes, the less I wanted to be a child, and the more I wanted to be an adult and in adult company.

Though my mother berated me regularly, she also praised me often. She humiliated me before others but she also told me how exceptional I was, how bright, how kind, how talented, and I felt needed and important to her happiness even as I feared not being good enough to merit her approval. I fought to keep her wobbly spirits afloat and her mood high enough to avoid being berated again as she felt into a funk. I felt frightened but valuable when called into service as her therapist while she wept on my shoulder about her very grown-up personal problems. I hid my own depression from her to try to avoid bringing her down, and out of fear that she would not buoy me up as I did her.

Over time I came to believe that a nightlong migraine was an unfair and extreme price to have to pay for an afternoon’s visit with my mother, and that it wasn’t actually my job to look after her anymore at the cost of my own health and happiness. To recognize the pain she had caused me by forcing me to run interference with the world on her behalf, and to have her refuse to acknowledge what she had done, made it hard for me to forgive her for putting me into such an inappropriate and damaging role. I tried to discuss it with her, but her defenses and fears were such that she could not acknowledge any error without feeling she must take all the guilt of the world on her shoulders. Those with narcissistic personalities share this trait: for them to acknowledge any chinks in their armor is to see themselves as completely unarmed against the world; to apologize for any error is to accept responsibility for all the world’s suffering. There is so much fear that a bit of empathy with others will flood them with more suffering than they can handle that they put up intricate barriers against such feelings. I could write her ten-page letters and have her ignore the eight pages in the middle entirely, or, worse, have her put them away unopened, or throw them in the trash if she didn’t want to see what I had written. I hedged my feelings with kind words, praise for all she had done well, gave careful and lovingly reasoned explanations of why things she’d done were problematic, and offered hope about the future happiness we could share once she chose to discuss our history honestly, but she would ignore my every expression of difficulty or desire for discussion or acknowledgement, talk around the problems, or, more frequently, refuse to engage with me in any discussion of them.

Right up until the sad end of her life when she died of lung cancer, there were still some days when we meshed wonderfully, finished each other’s sentences, laughed loudly over shared memories. There has never been anyone else in my life with whom I could toss out favorite lines from plays or poems and know they would be recognized and enjoyed. Nobody else has swooned over and stood crying before beloved paintings with me, or sung a duet with me with great passion while sight-reading an intricate Leonard Bernstein score and accompanying me on the piano at top speed with barely an error. On those days I loved feeling like we were extensions of each other, cherished having had so exuberant and expressive a mother with such lavish tastes and grand talents. I miss having been so important to someone of such intensity. I still grieve my difficult childhood, the fear I learned from knowing too much about the world and its sorrows at too early an age, and the sadness that came with feeling I could not count on anyone else to prop me up when I was sad, or keep me safe from loneliness and humiliation. But I also miss those glorious days I shared with my mother, our shared history, and the feeling of being connected with another human being on so many levels. I grieve what I lost when she died, and I grieve what she could never give me while she lived.