Windblown World.

I do really enjoy Kerouac's journals though. I read bits and pieces from this compilation called Windblown World for a report a couple years ago, and I keep meaning to pick up a copy so I can read the rest. This was part of one of his entries, and I adore it:

If all our greatest writers had been men who were constitutionally unhappy and constitutionally defeated in the world, we would have reason to despair of all knowledge and imagination, or if not that, despair of the utter lack of responsibility in imaginative talented men. But there are great writers who were true men in every sense -- Mark Twain is one. An uncomplaining man, a man who did not believe that literature is a constant tale of sorrow and nothing else. What does the gloomy sophomore write in his melodramatic tragedy? -- certainly not the whole truth. Mark Twain piloted steamboats, dug for silver in Nevada, roamed the West, 'roughed it', told jokes with other men, hunted, worked as foreign correspondent, newspaper editor, lecturer, and was a family man -- and yet, he did not have to sacrifice all that to his 'art,' he lived and wrote, he was a full man and a full artist, equally happy and whole as unhappy and unwhole, equally gregarious as he was lonely, equally, healthily, simply all things, and I believe he asked that his work not be compared to 'literature as it is known' because he wasn't doing 'that kind of thing at all.' He was just writing, not what he thought 'literature' demanded of him... Let's have another man who lives his life in the world, complete, and also writes great books.

It's easy to look at someone in retrospect like that, and idealize his life. I'm sure Twain wasn't as content with that constant struggle between being whole and unwhole, as Kerouac makes him seem. That's the thing though: it's such a terribly wonderful balancing act. Here's from another entry, which I also enjoy immensely:

The flesh has ceased to mean anything to me. What does it matter whether I gain the meager satisfactions of the penis or not? What has that foul, insuitable, lame worm to do with me? – even if it fills at the sight of a thigh? So no? The sun goes up, the sun goes down – so? The sea is golden; does that make me golden? does that make me salt
What’s me? Me is that which want to be amazed without natural cessation, in an eternity of ecstacy.
Rules? Laws? To me, what?
I am free to want what I want.
I want uninterrupted rapture. I believe this has been made manifest to me in dreams, and in music, and in the pages of Dostoevsky, in the lines of Shakespeare, in sexual joy, in drunkenness, in being high on tea. Why should I compromise with anything else or with the “Bourgeois” calm of the backyard lawn, The Edgar Guest concession wild, wild happiness.
On tea I have seen the light. In my youth I saw the light. In my childhood I bathed in the hints of light; I hankered, eager.
I want a blaze of light to flame in me forever in a timeless, dear love of everything. And why should I pretend to want anything else? After all, I’m no cabbage, no carrot, no stem! a burning eye! a mind of fire! a broken goldenrod! a man! a woman! a SOUL!
Fuck the rest, I say, and PROCEED!
(This is what I want to write, not stylistic crap!)

Some of his phrases are just so perfect, I can't even stand it. The way that only a handful of commonplace words just seem to belong to each other, it's like they burst from some secreted, unreal place, and just flowed forward and came out together. And the imagery is so vivid, I can see this whole flash of color and light and darkness when I read these simple combinations of words, and it takes my breath away. That sounds so ridiculous, but it's true. It's exhilarating. I love it. It's so...raw. Perfect.

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Now playing: Wilco - Misunderstood

Too much perspective? (Even this is too long still.)

Sometimes I feel like I see everything from so many different angles that I don't know which one is the one I believe in the most. I think I have this fear of being too absolute, too extreme, too single-minded. There's something to be said for stability and more to be said for permanence and legacy, but I like transience, too. I like being able to change my mind. To me, seeing anything as absolute is a trap and it hinders growth, it stops you from being able to learn and grow. I like being flexible and I like the fluidity of being open to multiple possibilities. I often don't like having to choose one way or another when I relate to both. I prefer to evaluate case by case, and not choose a blanket answer that is intended to encompass everything.

I'm in between about a lot of things, and sometimes I worry that I don't have definite, assertive opinions or beliefs of my own. I know I do. I just also know that it's not important to me to have absolute opinions on a lot of things, and I know I feel different ways at different times in different situations. I don't like feeling chained to one concrete belief. I don't like the feeling of being trapped that accompanies that. I like feeling free. I don't like narrowness.

Or maybe it's that I don't like broadness? I mean, I hate it when someone asks me if I'm pro-life or pro-choice. I don't think it's that simple. I understand logically and emotionally both sides of the argument. Sure, it's ethically shady, but I also think it's wrong for a baby to be born into a world that doesn't want it, where it will only be abused and mistreated. In that way it's cruel. At the same time, I'm usually an "everything happens for a reason" kind of a gal, and messing around with a potential life isn't something I think I'd ever consider. But my life is a piece of cake. I don't have to endure extreme adversity and it's easy for me to believe in some kind of fate. It's not like I'm a fourteen-year-old rape victim who's pregnant by her attacker or something. If I were, I don't know how I'd feel. I can't say. So I generally say that I think a woman should have the right to choose, but I also think most women shouldn't choose abortion. Even that's simplifying it more than I'd like.

I can choose to see things the way I want to. I can choose to see people as a bunch of foolish, ignorant jerks who are going to lead to the demise of all humanity, or I can see them as the last pillar supporting humanity from crumbling. I can be cynical and realistic or romantic and idealistic. It's not just that I can be these things--I generally feel like I am all these things. I'm sarcastic and cynical and pessimistic by turns, but eternally hopeful and idealistic at the same time. I want to see the best in people but often, they just show their worst. Being optimistic and idealistic can translate into naivete, though--like Gatsby or The Quiet American--and I don't want that, either. I see it sometimes in others and I know I know better than to have blind faith in people; I'll just end up painfully disillusioned if I do.

I go back and forth between the two outlooks all the time. I can try to be one way or another but I don't like doing that, because that's not me. As I told someone last night, I just am what I am, and that happens to be a lot of different things at different times. I hate it when people make me feel like that's wrong, like things have to be black and white, one way or another. Like I'm wrong for seeing things so many ways and relating to them all. There's a lot that I don't understand, that I can't relate to, that I can't imagine, that I disagree with. But I love it when I meet someone who is able to explain the unimaginable to me in a way that I can understand. Without being open to other perspectives and trying to identify with others, how could you understand anything?

I also decided today that I don't like it when I feel like I have to "try" to be myself around people. I don't like pandering and I don't like compromising myself, even though intrinsically I like making people happy, and there's a lot of things I don't mind doing or just don't care about that I'm willing to compromise on, if it'll make others happy. I hate it when I realize that I'm acting in a way I don't like around certain people, because then I have to make an effort to be myself and not to let them bring out this behavior that doesn't feel like my own. It's just not that frequently that I find people that I feel comfortable being myself around. I hide a lot, even though I know I shouldn't--that's just how I am. I suppose it's because I know there's so much that's contradictory about myself that I don't let myself show that unless I feel like a person will understand that I'm not being overtly, obnoxiously hypocritical or mockingly facetious and arrogant. I suppose. I don't know.

People close to me are always telling me to speak up more, or be more assertive, and stuff like that, but I like flying below the radar. Sometimes other people will tell me I'm the kind of person that doesn't say much, but when I do say something, others listen because it'll be good. I don't think this is necessarily true. Often when I do speak up, people still talk over me or just don't listen. I'm also quiet a lot of the time, though, because I don't have anything to say about the topic at hand. If I don't have anything to say, it's probably because 1) I don't have a definitive opinion or 2) one of my biggest pet peeves is people who talk pompously about things they know nothing about. You want to talk about how Michael Phelps smoked pot? Congratulations, talk away. I don't really have anything to say about it, other than I think it's been blown way out of proportion. You want to talk about philosophy or music theory? Awesome. I'll listen, and I'll be interested. But I'm not going to tell you what I think of Plato's Republic, and I'm not going to argue you when you say Beethoven is better than Mozart, because I wouldn't have a bloody clue as to what I was talking about. I know who Plato is. I listen to Beethoven and Mozart's works. But I'm not going to pretend I am anything more than vaguely familiar with them in a very rudimentary way. I'm not going to bullshit about it. But if you want to recommend a piece to listen to and explain why you like it and what I should listen for, then fantastic.

And if you want to talk about the injustice of the admissions process at tier one colleges and universities, or modern American playwrights, or why TV news programs make me angry, or pretty much anything I write about on here, then just try and get me to STOP talking. But who wants to have a conversation about any of that? Hell, that's one of the main reasons I write so much on this stupid thing--who wants to ponder all this shit with me. Hahaha. Someone told me the other day that I should write a screenplay, and I asked what should I write about? They asked me in return, "Well, what do you have to say?" I said not a heck of a lot, but that was a silly untruth, and I didn't realize it until later on. I have a lot to say--I just can't always find ways to say it, let alone creative ways, or people who care to hear me. That's how it finds its way here. Which isn't exactly an awful thing. I'd hate it if I had absolutely nothing to say about anything ever.

I realized one of my problems when thinking about the "Future" is not that I don't know what I want to do--there's just way too many things that I want to do, and I can't make myself pick just one. I can't shut out everything else to specialize on one thing. I keep telling myself that I'm better off for picking one thing and learning a lot about it than knowing a shallow amount about a lot of things, but I don't feel like anything works like that. Everything's interdisciplinary, especially in the arts. Everything overlaps. There is no one single field. Even my specialized classes overlap. Everything in both my majors intersects all the time. And I know I mention this all the freakin time, but it's true. And I don't want to pick just one thing to focus on. I don't want to end up cornered into one field. Even though I sort of know in the back of my mind that that will never happen. And I don't want my voice to be any more limited than it already is. Which is quite a lot.

Meh. Too much thinking.

The Many Facets of Cary Grant

I never used to understand how people could devote themselves to studying one topic or one person. I used to think biographers must get so tired of reading constantly about one person all the time. But I can understand that continuous fascination now - at least, in regards to Cary Grant.

I've only seen six or seven of his movies, and they're all from the 1930s, the decade of Screwball Comedy, which is wonderfully underrated these days. Every once in a while, I'll get on a Cary Grant kick, and become absorbed in watching movies starring him or reading more about him. When I first started reading Marc Eliot's biography of him, before I knew anything about Cary Grant, I wasn't expecting very good writing - it's over 380 pages. Granted, he went into pretty rich detail about many of Grant's 70+ films and about what Hollywood was like back then, but even without all the extra depth, it'd still be a long book: Cary Grant was fascinating.

As an actor, he was amazing. I haven't seen him in any of his more serious roles, but I will soon. Even without that, Cary Grant was wonderful at comedies. On screen, he was charismatic, charming, witty, and quick-tongued; since he was originally trained as an acrobat for Vaudeville performances, he was great at physical comedy as well, from trips to double takes and pratfalls in general. Yet you would never mistake him for a slapstick actor: he always did it gracefully and made it look so easy. The funny part is, everything he did was calculated. He didn't like performing spontaneously, he didn't like improvisation - he liked rehearsing over and over until everything was perfect. As much as he could, he chose his roles and directors carefully, never wanting to be the pursuer - always the pursued. In the comedies, he was the quintessential leading man; in the more serious films, his darker side came out beautifully. Hitchcock perfected that, it's said. I also read once that Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart were Hitchcock's favorite leading men for his films - he directed them four times each over the course of their careers - because Cary Grant represented Hitchcock as he wanted to see himself, and Jimmy Stewart represented Hitchcock as he existed.

As a part of classic Hollywood, Cary Grant is legendary. Even disregarding his status as a performer. He was the first major actor to break the studio system. It used to be that an actor signed an exclusive contract with a studio and could only make movies for that studio, unless the studio heads agreed to lend him out to another studio for another picture. The actor didn't have much say in his career decisions. Cary Grant, though, got his agent Frank Vincent to negotiate nonexclusive contracts with both Columbia and RKO simultaneously. The Academy punished him for that. He never won an Oscar; the only Academy Award he received was an honorary one in the 1970s. 1973 I believe. There are several films where this is conspicuous - you can look at the list of who was nominated for the film, and the absence of his name is extremely noticeable, like The Philadelphia Story - Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Ruth Hussey (the other 3 leads) were all nominated, and it was also nominated for Best Screenplay, Director, and Picture. Jimmy Stewart won (though he said it was his reward for not winning the year before for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and it won Best Screenplay. Grant didn't even to go the ceremony.

His early family life wasn't boring either. He came to the U.S. as a teenager in a Vaudeville troupe. His mother Elsie was committed to a mental institution before then; she'd been considered mad since her first son, Cary's older brother, died as a little boy. This was back when Cary Grant was still just Archie Leach from Bristol. He lived in New York with the troupe for a while, eventually finding his way to Broadway. His last stage role was a character named Cary Lockwood, then he signed with...Paramount I think. Publicists recommended he change the "Lockwood" because, I think, another star already had a similar name. Since the C and G initials were apparently doing Clark Gable and Gary Cooper well, he chose Grant.

He was married five times. His first wife was jealous of his relationship with friend/housemate and possible lover Randolph Scott. His second wife was an heiress who was giving money to her Nazi-supporting ex-husband. He had to start spying on her for J. Edgar Hoover so as not to be sent back to Britain and be drafted for the war. His third wife got him into the psychotherapy program she was in - which got him into LSD when the drug was still in experimental stages. His fourth wife gave him his only child, his daughter Jennifer, when he was about 62. And his fifth wife was still Mrs. Cary Grant when he died at 83.

The idea of the "real" Cary Grant still mystifies people. On screen, he had that charming, comedic, leading-man persona. So that's who he became in real life. He worked hard to maintain his physique, and to make sure he was always dressed impeccably. The man isn't still a style icon for nothing. In life, his look was carefully planned, yet on screen, he carried himself with a careless grace in such a way that you didn't think of him as a distant, unobtainable star, but as a human. The comedies focused on his light, ideal romantic side, while it's said that Hitchcock brought out the real Cary Grant by focusing on the dark, which I love. I like to think that the lines between the actor and the person blurred in his own confusion, and I hope there was a side to him that no one ever truly discovered. Everything about him was calculated - he shaped an image and persona and career that he wanted people to identify him with - and I heard a critic say that he stands out among actors from that period in that he never let himself become identified with an era. Clark Gable and Gary Cooper aren't seen today the way Cary Grant is, and their body of work doesn't hold up the same way his does.

"Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant. I have spent the greater part of my life fluctuating between Archie Leach and Cary Grant; unsure of either, suspecting each. I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until I finally became that person. Or he became me."
- Cary Grant

The world could use a few more cowboys.

I really enjoy the image of the cowboy as an Americanized version of the knight, and the chivalrous ideas it conjures. Well, a twisted, roughed-up version of chivalry. And honor.

The American cowboy is kind of archaic nowadays - not too many of 'em around. It's a shame. The world could use a few more cowboys.

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Now playing: Paula Cole - Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

(I thought it was appropriate. Hehe.)

These angry people who are waiting to judge you...

...Have their own judgment that they'll have to live up to...
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, "Life is Beautiful"

So lately I've been frustrated with the human tendency to judge others. It's just something that I hate accepting. Ironically.

My whole problem with people who tend to make snap judgments of others and hold it against them is connected to my annoyance with people who pretend to be what they aren't. If that makes sense. Occasionally someone will tell me they like that I'm just myself, I don't try to be anything, I just am myself, and I'm so accepting of everyone else. I don't quite understand why people ever try to be anything. You are what you are, and that's just how it is. I don't understand how people who try to be someone else, who are forever acting, can ever be truly happy.

What I understand more is people who hold themselves back. Who are never fully comfortable with just being themselves, in part because of people who judge them. I guess I understand that better because that's where I feel like I am right now. Trapped. Not completely free to just be myself, not because I want to be someone else, but because for some reason I can't understand, I feel like I need to hold myself back.

I wonder if I feel, unconsciously, like the people I know have this image of me that isn't quite accurate because they don't quite understand, and I, for whatever reason, feel like I need to continue to be what they think I am, to maintain the image of me that they see.

I guess, like usual, it all comes down to fear and love again. Mmm.

I have more to say but I'm beat.

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Now playing: John Mayer - Dreaming With A Broken Heart

I was being facetious.

I think it's funny how different aspects of our personalities are highlighted around different people.

I feel like generally, people try to be themselves. Or say they just "are" themselves. That they don't try to be someone they're not, or pretend to be someone they're not. I think these people generally tell the truth, or at least, think they're telling the truth. But I also think that they're not always wholly themselves. Different facets of themselves shine around different people, all of them part of a single person, though they may seem like completely separate personalities. When these are all together as a unified whole, I think that's when a person is most "himself".

It's easy to find people who bring out different parts of your personality, but I think it's difficult to find people around whom you feel like you are being wholly and completely yourself, in purest and most unaffected form. I even think it's easier to find people who bring out the best in you - or who bring out the worst. Finding someone whom, when you're around him or her, you just think, "I feel like myself" - always - that doesn't happen often, I don't think. And in a way, it's kind of a miracle.

That's all.

Life really bugs me.

Well, no.

What really bugs me is the realization I made at the beginning of freshman year that, for the rest of my life, I'm going to have to keep proving my worth to everyone I meet. I realized that, in a way, everything I did in high school, I did in part for the wrong reasons. Partly, I was so involved and worked so hard because that's who I am. I tried doing the non-involvement thing last year, and it was miserable. Now I'm over my head in activities and such again, and as rough as some days are, it's infinitely better than not doing anything and not being involved at all, though, I had probably needed that downtime given how burnt out from high school I was.

But part of the reason I was so burnt out in high school is because I kept thinking I had to. Getting into college is so competitive, I needed to keep doing all this stuff, to be such a perfectionist, so I could have the privilege of choosing a college, and not depend on a college choosing me. In the end, I probably went to the least selective of all of them. But also the cheapest. But that's neither here nor there.

At the beginning of last year, I was thinking about double majoring, and I didn't know what to do. I thought I might want a writing-based career, but then I realized that a) I didn't think I was good enough a writer to succeed or even live by writing, and b) I didn't want to spend the rest of my life submitting my work to someone else to have them tell me whether or not it's good enough. And to make a living by writing, that's what you need to do. Whether it's an editor telling you whether or not it's good enough, or the public telling you whether or not they like it, writers make a living not by enlightening through their works, but by being judged whether or not it's good enough, and I don't think I could live like that. I don't write for anyone else but me. It's my thing. I don't think I could do that. The only way I possibly could, I think, is as a critic, but a) that's such a difficult field to break into, and b) I don't think I could be okay with a life of writing about other people's work. I mean, I could, but only if I kept creating myself, and I don't think I could do both.

Notice any trend throughout all of that? Yeah, the whole me thinking thing kind of keeps getting in the way. But what happens if I don't think about that? I don't know. I've got too many interests to devote myself to just one. Maybe I'll hope one of my friends gets really rich and gives me the capital to write and publish myself. Muahaha. I'm going to have to marry rich. Except I'm mildly certain I'm not going to marry at all, which kind of throws a wrench into that plan.

So I keep thinking about all this stuff, and then stopping and realizing, wait. I should just stop thinking and worrying about everything. Whatever happens, happens, and as long as I don't just sit around on my ass waiting for things to happen, everything should just fall into place. Everything works together for good, right. (Though I can't get rid of the nagging suspicion that that's the kind of idealistic assumption that's going to be my downfall. Damn being a worrier by nature. Damnit.)

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes."
- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

An addendum of sorts to that last post...

Addendum? Is that even a word? Whatever. Just something else I meant to add to that post this afternoon, the one about what you do vs. who you are.

It's funny how the emphasis between the two shifts. Sometimes, like I said, we're insisting, "Just because he did something bad, doesn't mean he's a bad person," but we also point out that "Actions speak louder than words," and really, all the world really knows of you is what you do. Personally I find it frustrating because even though it's not like I don't care what people do, it can be really difficult to discern to what extent their actions represent who they are, what they value, etc., and that's the kind of stuff I want to know. Who was it, C.S. Lewis maybe, who said something like, "Friendship is a slow-ripening blossom" or something like that? Or it was Aristotle and "Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit." Hahaha. Not even remotely close. Same sentiment, and that's what I was getting at. I'm impatient. I don't like having to wait, because often, it doesn't take me that long to trust them as a friend. Which is kind of funny considering I'm slow to trust in general. But whatever. Major digression. What else is new.

The whole thing I was getting at, is how I think it's funny that when we have conversations with other people, we spend so much time talking about what we do. When we ask someone, "How was your weekend," we usually follow it up with "What did you do?" or "What happened?" If they say, "Nothing," then we're disappointed. Bored. Stories about things that people have done entertain us. So in that sense, aren't our actions superficial? Small talk is about the trivial, and about what we do. That's about it. Conversations about things that matter are labeled as "serious", and consequently as "boring" or "depressing". Well, unless you're me, or similar. Haha. But I mean, I don't really have a problem talking about more abstract stuff, or what I believe in, or any of that kind of stuff, that other people avoid because it makes them uncomfortable, or that they only talk about with "close" friends. Try talking to an acquaintance about something like that some time, and watch how fast they clam up and get flustered. It's annoying, because that's how I am when I try to make small talk, hahaha. Well, sometimes. Lately.

I suppose because it's easier for me to talk about that kind of stuff, I've always been that kid who more enjoys sitting and talking with the adults than with the kids. I dunno. It's not that I don't like to hear stories about what my friends do - I suppose I'm more honestly interested in that than most people, because it doesn't matter to me whether or not what they do is "entertaining - but I'm interested because I care, and I care because I like them as a person, not just what they do. It's just frustrating because I'm not really interested in surface bonds based on what they do that's entertaining. Not worth wasting my time. Tell me something worth knowing about you. Tell me why I should like you. Why I should respect you. Well, that's not really what I mean. I suppose keen observation will tell you more about a person than them saying "I'm trustworthy" or "I don't lie" or something like that. I guess...I don't know. I shouldn't write this late. I'm not making sense. I'm not finding a decent way to verbalize what I mean. Maybe I'll try another time.

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Now playing: Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life

I'm assuming you already know or don't care who won the NCAA Men's Basketball finals...

Okay, really quick: during the last half hour of my incredibly lame night at work, 2 guys came in to watch Kansas and Memphis in OT during the NCAA finals. Kansas ended up winning by like 7 points, and the MVP was Mario something who made the 3-pointer to tie it up to begin with when Memphis missed a bunch of free throws or something. So the game is over and the announcers are talking about how amazing this kid is and how the way Kansas came back from being 9 points from behind to win by 8 or whatever it was is going to go down in the history books, blah blah blah. They're replaying this kid's game-tying 3-pointer and the crowd is still going wild, and they're talking about how this kid is going to be known for this shot for the rest of his life, how he's always going to be remembered for this, and so on and so forth.

I couldn't help stand there and think, wow. If this kid never does anything else to be remembered by, if all the happiness of his life hinges on a three-point shot during a basketball game when he was in college, then that's really, really sad. I mean, I'm not saying that it wasn't amazing or that he doesn't deserve to be remembered for it or that there isn't a really good chance that this is what he'll be remembered for even if he does continue to have a more illustrious career, and that's way more than I'll ever be remembered for by anyone. But still. How's he going to feel years from now when he can barely make a free throw, and his entire life has been defined by making a great shot during a single basketball game that, odds are, a lot of basketball fans don't even remember any more. I guess if he's lucky, he'll manage to go out there and do great things off court and be remembered for them as well and be able to do something that makes him happy and doesn't let the highlight of his life be this one shot. Poor kid. He's got a lot of pressure on him now.

"You know, there is nothing greater than deciding in your life that things maybe really are black and white!"

I think I will forever be in awe of people who can do that - who can just look at life and the world in general and see nothing but black and white, right and wrong, with no gray area.

I used to like the gray areas. Somehow, that was comforting - knowing that if I never found the answers I was looking for, it was okay, because sometimes, there are no right answers.

Now it pisses me off and it's probably the one thing I struggle with the most.

I was going to write more about uncertainty and faith and forcing yourself to adapt to function in the world. And something else about denial and misinterpretation and self-deception and The Talented Mr. Ripley. And about how difficult it can be to change your basic nature and overcome inherent (and sometimes also seemingly irrational) fears and such. But now I really don't feel like it.

I think I'm developing carpal tunnel in my right hand/wrist. Booo.

"His eyes look fondly into mine, with gratitude for my understanding...

...He needs, and he appreciates what he receives, but he is not strong enough to give."
- Marie Antoinette on her husband Louis Auguste in Sena Jeter Naslund's Abundance

So I just finished reading the aforementioned novel. Every review quoted on the cover was accurate: it was indeed "opulent," "rich," "enchanting," "fabulous," "illuminating," "poignant," "vivid," "detailed," "exquisite," "intimate," and of course, "beautiful." What I admired most about the novel, though, was that it was also "sympathetic."

The novel opens with this quote:

"Oh, you women of all countries, of all classes of society, listen to me with all the emotion I am feeling in telling you: the Fate of Marie Antoinette contains everything that is relevant to your own heart. If you are happy, so was she....If you have known unhappiness, if you have needed pity, if the future for you raises in your thoughts any sort of fear, unite as human beings, all of you, to save her!"
- Germaine de Stael, from Reflexions sur le proces de la reine ("Reflections on the Trial of the Queen"), 1793.

Divided into five acts, one review said it was like a Shakespearean tragedy. While the first act depicts the young Dauphine when she first arrives in France and is adjusting to her new life, the second act delves into her court life and explores her pain over her unconsummated marriage. The third act begins with the coronation of herself and her husband as monarchs and the birth of their first daughter. The fourth act is the queen in early motherhood and the beginning of her downfall, and the fifth is the royal family's imprisonment in Paris and the eventual execution of the king and his wife.

While the first two acts paint a charming picture of the young Marie Antoinette (from when she was 14 - 19), and explore the roots of her extravagant nature, it is the last two acts that emphasize her humanity and really present a different perspective of her life. Everyone knows the Marie Antoinette that the poor of late-18th century France knew: the queen who cared so little about how gossip sketched her, but supposedly cared only for her own desires and nothing for her people. Abundance, though, portrays her as a naive, ignorant young royal who loved her people but was incapable of acting in their best interests.

The story of Marie Antoinette has always held a certain fascination for me, ever since I was little and had a book, one of the Royal Diaries series, about her. It was written as though it were the diary of hers from the time she was 11 or so, in Austria, until she moved to France, if I recall. There was an afterward that explained her tragic downfall. Since it was a children's book, it was written in a much more sympathetic manner than I think most other history texts of the time regarded the queen, and I never quite believed she was the terrible, cruel monarch history made her out to be. Which I guess is another reason I really liked this sympathetic view of her.

"Do so much good to the French people that they can say that I have sent them an angel," Empress Maria Theresa of the Austrian empire told her daughter when she sent her away to Paris. Throughout her entire time in France, this novel demonstrates how she so wanted her people to love her. She wanted to care for them. She prayed for peace in her country always, safety and good health and happiness for all her people, and when she wasn't indulging in different escapes from the realities of her unconsummated marriage and her difficulties as queen.

If I had to choose a favorite quote of all time, it would probably be Celine in Before Sunrise: "Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?" Even here it's true. It fits everything - it's the ultimate motivation. We give so much love that we want it in return, and everything we do, in some way or another, begs others for love. In Holiday, when Julia tells Johnny she loves him and he asks her, "That's the main thing, isn't it?" she replies, "Darling, that's everything." And I guess it is. Perhaps I'll expand on this another time.

Okay. One last passage. Sorry this is so long again. I ramble when it's late.

"All of them conspire to bring me a priest of the old type, whose allegiance is to Rome and not the republic, and I receive much comfort from confession and communion. I learn that the wars are not going well for France, and the priest holds out some hope that the republic will be crushed and the old regime reinstated. I do not think that the foreign armies will reach me in time, and if they do arrive at the gates of Paris, I will promptly be butchered - still my only hope is for foreign rescue, and I know for this cause Fersen is working night and day.
"I whisper, 'Father, is it not ironic that in my greatest hope also lies my greatest danger?'
"'The human condition is defined by irony,' he murmurs. 'From that prison, there is no escape except through faith in the ultimate goodness of God.'"

Getting back to this...surprise surprise, right...

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way."
- Charles Bukowski

Okay, so I fibbed a little. I'm only getting back to one part of this. But it's a good part, I swear.

I love that statement, that distinction, between the intellectual and the artist. Lately I've been thoroughly overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of a number of different works, and it's made me think about the mediums of art.

I saw Edward Albee's Peter and Jerry the other day. I had read the second act, The Zoo Story, before, and seeing it played out on a stage by two astounding actors was amazing, especially with front row, center seats. But I was even more floored by the first act. The Zoo Story was written in 1958 - it was Albee's first play - and I love it for its timelessness and for its daring, for the way it calls society out on the way they reject eccentricity and those who don't fit into their neat, structured world. Homelife, the first act that Albee wrote in 2001, was quite possibly even better.

In it, Albee looks at one of these picture-perfect people - Peter, who represents The American Dream in The Zoo Story - and looks at the flaws of his relationship with his wife Ann, at the cracks in the egg. Peter has an executive position at a publishing house, two daughters, two cats, two parakeets, and a brownstone on East 74th Street or so. He and his wife live comfortably. Yet, in Homelife, he discovers that though she appreciates the secure, smooth, orderly little world he has built, sometimes it's not what she wants. Ann reveals insecurities, fears, loneliness, and desire that she has been hiding for years as she explains that it's not that she's unhappy, not that she doesn't love him - she just wants more. She wants a little chaos, a little something different. She wants to shake him from his placid perch and rile him up a little - she wants him to act more like the animal he is.

You can see Peter struggle to comprehend this and accept it, and when the second act begins and Jerry presents another threat to his perfect little world, the meaning of it is a thousand times stronger. As is Jerry's final declaration to Peter: "You are an animal - not a vegetable." The depth, the focus, the layers, the intensity of the meaning and the incredible statement about life that these two acts make together - it's amazing to me, not only that Edward Albee wrote it, but that forty years passed between when he wrote the second and when he wrote the first, and that the more recent one is possibly even sharper and more astute than the first. The critic who reviewed it for the New York Times called Homelife a slap in the face and The Zoo Story a punch in the gut. He nailed it. But truly, the playwright is an artist - one with incredible skill and talent.

The other night, then, I watched an old movie called Holiday for the first time. The screenplay, which was by Donald Ogden Stewart, had been adapted from a play by Phillip Barry, who also wrote the play upon which the film The Philadelphia Story was based. Though The Philadelphia Story was better than Holiday, I still enjoyed the latter immensely. It was fun. Playful. Delightful and charming.

Yet, at the same time, it had a lot to say. The main character, Johnny Case, is in finance, and comes of no background worth mentioning. His plan is to make enough money to take a holiday, and then quit his job, and take time to discover himself, and to discover what it is he's working for - he wants what he does to mean something - he wants to find meaning in general. His fiancee Julia Seton is a rich heiress, spoiled and coddled, and she doesn't agree with him at all. Her sister Linda, though, is frustrated with wealth, society, and her life in general, and she rebels and does whatever she can to escape, including spending most of her time in the old "play room." Their brother Ned shares Linda's views, only chooses to avoid his life by seeking solace in alcohol instead of dealing with things or trying to change theme - he lives with a resigned, sluggish attitude.

Aside from making a statement about how people view life and choose to make it worthy, it cleverly shows how people can be blinded by "love" and see a person as they want to see him, not for whom he truly is. Yet, the whole thing is humorous and overall, very amusing. It's marvelous.

In both of these cases, the writing is superb. But what makes them a thousand times stronger to me is the fact they are both also performances. Theater and film are both aural and visual, combining sound and speech and music with setting and physical expression. In Peter and Jerry, you can see what Albee is getting at in his writing. You can understand the words and know what is meant by them. But to see those feelings written on the faces of the characters, in their body language, to hear them in the tone and inflection of their voices - it's so powerful. And in Holiday, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn and the rest of the cast fall into rhythm perfectly. Their timing as they sail through their repartee over and over is great not only in terms of how they relate to each other, but for capitalizing on every comedic possibility. Their reactions, their smiles, their pauses, are all perfectly synchronized.

Seeing that, as well as a few interviews with actors on working with another director, Nancy Meyer, reminded me how much a film or play relies on the pacing and the rhythm. Movies and plays are really just intricate dances, like a full company number in a musical. Timing does so much - it not only sets the pace, but thereby also sets the mood, the feeling, the undertone. It just really made me appreciate so much more everything that goes into a truly great play or movie. There are so many individual threads that need to be good in order for the whole thing to be great. When you really think about it, it's a wonder that there are as many great films and plays as there are. But I guess you can appreciate them that much more.

P.S. Sorry this is wicked long.

Creepiness vs. Human Nature

Alright, so I get really annoyed by the fact that often, when people are just being nice, they're perceived as being creepy. Except I'm a total hypocrite because there is a guy who keeps stopping by my place of employment who is, most likely, just being friendly, but he creeps the heck out of me. Though, in my defense, he is rather stalker-ish. Like, stopping by at other times and asking people when I'm going to be working. And he keeps asking about UAA meetings so I think he might have an Asian fetish. Like I said...wicked creepy. But I think I'd rather be hypocritical and suspicious than be open-minded and optimistic and get assaulted at 11:30 at night in a building empty minus one other person, who might not even hear me scream. Yeah.

It's so odd, though, how what we construe as "creepy" or "awkward" or "weird" is often not that unusual or creepy at all. I mean, when it's some stranger you don't know from Adam...well, then I can understand the misunderstanding - how are you supposed to know what he's really like, what the real intentions and personality are? But when it's someone you've met, or know through a friend...well, odds are, the person is just being friendly. Say you've just met a friend of your best friend that you've never met. Any relatively friendly person is going to try to get to know him - try to talk to the person, ask questions, and just get acquainted with him in general. How annoying is it when the unknown friend is completely unresponsive and doesn't even make an attempt to talk to you? It's not weird for you to try to talk to the person, but they act as if it is.

I was talking to someone online one night who I haven't known very long, and he was giving me "his take" on my sister and why she behaves the way she does. Out of curiosity, I jokingly asked for his "take" on me, and he asked why I wanted to know. I said I was just curious, and he informed me, he almost never tells people what he thinks of them, to them, because it's just kind of awkward. I said that I don't just randomly say to people, "Hey, this is what I think of you," but if they ask, then why shouldn't I just be honest? If they ask, they can handle whatever I'm going to say, and it's not like I'm going to point out all the horrible truths about them - besides, if they're talking to me to begin with, I probably don't have anything terrible to say. And if I do, I'm going to at least be tactful about it. Jeez.

My point is, though, even if we say we don't care what other people think of us, we care what the people we like think of us - the people who are important to us. Often times, it's hard to read them - hard to discern if they care about you. So wouldn't it be easier just to ask about it? I mean, sure, it may be awkward at the time, but it's not like thereafter it'll always be awkward. Odds are, both parties involved will forget about it almost right away. So why is it that we have such a hard time just being frank about what we think and how we feel when other people are involved? Silly.

Then there's the stuff that really kind of is creepy, but isn't meant in a creepy way. Facebook stalking is a perfect example. It's the kind of thing that everyone does, but no one talks about. Checking out someone's Facebook that you're interested in, whether as a friend or otherwise, a dozen times a day, to the point that you feel kind of weird, knowing so much about them, but really aren't very close with the person. Then when you do talk to them in person, it's like, "Um, I totally know this already...but I don't want to admit that I stalked your Facebook." You don't mean to be creepy, and you have no intention of using this information in a weird way, but if the person knew, they'd think you were crazy. Spring Awakening puts it best:

In the midst of this nothing, this mess of a life,
Still there's this wanting just to see you go by.
It's almost like lovin', sad as that is,
May not be cool, but it's so where I live.
It's like I'm your lover, or more like your ghost,
I spend the day wonderin' what you do, where you go.
I try and just kick it, but then what can I do?
We've all got our junk, and my junk is you...

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Listening to: Spring Awakening - My Junk