Friday, April 29, 2011

Back to the Movies

First, I must send my apologies to the 10th Daughter of Memory folks.  I finally entered a post and was supposed to vote on the other posts for the one I liked best.  Well, I read all the other entries and then thought about them.  Apparently, I thought about them too long because when I went to vote, voting was closed.  So Mea Culpa.

I recently watched the A-Team movie.  I loved that show as a kid and so found the movie totally amusing.  My husband, who didn't really watch the TV show, didn't care for the film all that much.  I wonder if that had something to do with it.  I loved the Charlie's Angels movies and I watched the show as a kid.  I liked The Incredible Hulk film.  But that might have been because Edward Norton was in it.

Let's not forget the Star Trek films.  Love them!

You know what they haven't made yet?  A Bionic Woman movie.  Oh, I just loved, loved that show.  I especially liked it when they did Bionic Woman/Six Million Dollar Man shows together.  That would be a fun movie.

As I watched CSI last night, I began to wonder what current TV shows might get made into movies in the future.  CSI would be a good choice but only with the Grissom character.  They could do an American Idol movie except turn it into fiction.  You know, some kid from the sticks, against all odds wins the competition.

I like the show  Burn Notice.  That could be a fun, shoot 'em up movie.  But the thing is, the TV show had to have some sort of hook or joke that could be carried into the film.  Charlie's Angels had beautiful women with guns, now that's fun.  In the A-Team, each of the guys has his own personality quirk.

I don't think a show like Glee could be a movie.  Too bland.

Well, since I don't own a DeLorean, I can't answer the question about what current shows will eventually get made into films.  I guess I'll just have to wait.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Tenth Daughter of Memory: A First Time Post

This is my first attempt at a Tenth Daughter of Memory Post.  The subject is "A Cat May Look at a King."  For other posts and for the blog itself, click here

Well, here goes:

A Cat May Look at a King  

Cold, clammy night yanks the coarse grey blanket over him as rosy fingered dawn tries to draw it back

Through streets bubble wrapped in cobble stones, a skinny, sure-footed cat skirts half-dead drunks and slips by hags who sweep out the night’s remains.

Slowly, a city awakes, rising unsteadily to its feet like a newborn calf.
“It’ll be busy for sure today.”
“You won’t see nothin’, there’d be too many”
“Still, I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I can’t go it’s not right.”
The symphony of day begins its first movement.

The mangy pile of bones and fur makes its way north and then east pushing through smells as thick as molasses of day old fish and beer mixed with feces and perfumed with the stench of blood

Yellow sunlight finds a group of men standing outside a prison, anxiously waiting for someone else to take over their task.   The cat ignores them and continues on finding an immense stone structure across town.

Soon the streets fill with men, women, children…there are too many, too many.  A carriage rattles over the cobblestones pushing its way through, parting the crowd like the red sea.

As the cat climbs staircase, the faint sound of drums wafts through the building.  The woman, not sure that she had heard it, looks up from her morning prayers. 

The drum beats increase in volume and now the woman is sure.  She looks down at her hands, now wrinkled and old.  They used to be so smooth and pretty, she thinks.  The envy of all… Her thoughts drop as the knowledge that her past is dead sinks deep into her soul.  Looking up, she notices the cat staring at her son, already showing the disease of his older brother, another dauphin.

The woman falls to her knees, “The king is dead, long live the king.”

Monday, April 18, 2011

Much Ado About Nothing

I've got nothing to say, which is odd for me.  I've been busy though, busier than I thought I would be after the show.  The weather turned nice so we have some yard work and gardening to do.  It's taking a while though because we've had guests and stuff on the weekends.  But I am glad to report that the 3 holly trees that I can't stand are finally down!  Now, we just have to clean up the debris.

I've also had to drive my kids around to their various activities.  All the events at my children's elementary school seem to have been scheduled for the next 2 months.  Plus, my daughter is "graduating" from 6th grade so she has twice as many functions.  I don't get the graduation part though.  When I went into middle school, all I did was change schools;  there was no graduation ceremony, no going out to dinner, and definitely no presents.  Sometimes I think we over-celebrate our kids' accomplishments.  What's going to happen to them when they get a job and they don't get a gift for completing an entire week of work?!

Then there are my regular activities:  running (I'm doing the 10 mile Broad Street run in a week) and singing (I changed teachers this year and really like my new one).   Oh, and let's not forget the daily chores:  food shopping, cleaning, cooking, laundry, beer drinking, watching bad television.  So you can see I've got a lot to do.  Unfortuneately, it's nothing to write home about.  Or, even a blog post about.

But don't worry, I'll be back.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Memories by Rote

Before I begin, let me just say that No, I won't be ending this post with a video of Barbara Streisand (or anyone for that matter) singing "Memories" from Cats.  I'm in theater.  I know better.

I've been thinking about memory lately because I just finished Antonia Fraser's book Must You Go? about her life with Harold Pinter.  It was only a few years ago that I discovered that the two of them were married.  I find that odd because I love Antonia Fraser's biographies and Harold Pinter, well, he's Harold Pinter of              the                     pauses.  (Oh, and some great plays).  The book intersperses her diary entries with her memories of that time.  The book has made me want to keep a diary or journal of my everyday life.  Not that I plan on publishing my memoirs anytime soon or in the future.  Of course that hasn't stopped me from coming up with titles for them.  It'll be interesting to look back and see what I remember or how I remember the events of my life.

I'm also thinking about memory because I just started reading Joshua Foer's book Moonwalking with Einstein which is about (as he puts it) the art and science of remembering everything.  He's the brother of Jonathan Safran Foer who wrote Everything is Illuminated which was made into a movie with Ewan McGregeor (I think, I can't remember).  Anyway, he begins by discussing the Memory Championships where contestants have to learn a long sequence of numbers in a short amount of time.  My question is obvious:  Do these contestants remember the sequence the day after the championship?  I'll let you know.

I think this memorizing is quite different from memories.  Memorizing facts or numbers or lines (in my business) is different than remembering an event.  Or at least I think so.   I've always been good at memorizing facts for a short period of time and then totally forgetting about them.  The facts that stick with me are ones with a story associated with them.  In Middle School, we had a test on states and their capitals.  I couldn't remember the capital of Idaho so I cheated and looked on someone's paper.  I'll never forget now that it's Boise. 

What always impresses me are people who can recite full pages of dialogue from movies they have seen once or twice or remember that Elijah Wood was in  Back to the Future II.  And incidentally, Elijah Wood was actually in Everything Is Illuminated, not Ewan McGregor.  I constantly mix up actors and facts and things.  It doesn't prevent me from guessing wildly at Quizzo and convincing my teammates that I'm right.

So I guess I'd say that remembering facts is different from remember events that happen to us.  Of course the facts of the events may be fuzzy to us but the feelings are still there, or have they changed as well?  It's a funny thing, memory.  I wish I had a point but I don't so I'll leave you with a quote from Harold Pinter:

The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember. 

Friday, April 8, 2011

Poetry Moment

While, I'm still a bit depressed over the closing of Superior Donuts, I thought I'd turn to more positive matters.  My daughter, who loves to write, got Runner-up in a county-wide poetry contest for her age group.  She entered on a whim and she'll get $25: getting paid for writing, not bad.   So, in honor of her great achievement, I am sharing 2 of the poems with you. The 3rd poem, which I posted on my blog a while ago, was about Halloween.  I'm not saying it's not good, I just really like these two poems:

Journey

When lead touches paper
One hand gains passage
To an impossible form of the impossible.
The village the hand must cross
Consists of long empty roads
Slowly filling with people.
But when the lead breaks
The strong connection is lost
Until the thoughts reinvent themselves
And the journey resumes.


I Was a Giant

I was a giant, once.
I moved the people in their houses.
I arranged cities.
I created scenes and played them out.
But I wish I had enjoyed it
And cherished it
Because I wasn't going to stay
Young
Forever.

Monday, April 4, 2011

A Jack Daniels Ramble

I was out with my cast the other night when I noticed that one of the actresses had a Jack on ice.  I went out with my cast a lot during this show.  It was one of those shows that you have to, in the words of one of the actors, "hold in your heart because they don't come around that often.."  We've all had that experience, on a project, on some sort of work thing.  It's precious.  I'm so grateful.  Anyway, she had Jack Daniels and it brought back memories.  Well, okay, the only one I have about Jack Daniels.

I went to the University of Vermont, not known as a great theater school.  But we had a small community of dedicated actors, directors, etc. and we got along and fought and loved like you do.  We decided to have a formal Christmas or Holiday soiree.  I have no idea how it came about but there we were, in someone's house, trading secret Santa gifts, all in our finest regalia.  I must have been 20 or 21. 

There is this great line in Superior Donuts.  Actually, it's my favorite line.  Arthur (the old hippie) is talking to Luther (who has had Franco's fingers cut off because Franco owed him $16,000):

Arthur:  He's 21 years old.
Luther:  Old enough to know better.
Arthur:  Yeah, cause you and me, we made good decisions when we were 21.
Do you remember decisions made at 21?  Not always the best?  Or are you one of those?

Anyway, there I was in my long velvet black skirt, an off-white puffy blouse complete with big shoulders and lace; this was, after all, the 80's.  I remember sitting in a bedroom with another woman (I can't remember who it was) passing a bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth and declaring our mutual admiration for one another.  This was Vermont after all:  Get drunk and love.

You know, now that I think about it, we may have fought that night with Jack but all I remember is the love. 

Isn't that all we should remember?