a little red hen

"The Copier," Remarkable Music and Dance

Wednesday night we were in the audience for a dance/installation performance of THE COPIER, a new work by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.  Program notes prepared us,

...takes its inspiration quite literally.  The flare of a copy machine's light sweeps like a lighthouse beacon [see photo #5 at top] over the floors and walls...Music begins and ends the rhythm of a cantakerous computer printer and other natural and synthetic sounds captured from the city.

Because it was billed as interactive, my first photo--now lost--was of our feet.  We ended up sitting in the perfect spot though the program invited otherwise, "You are welcome to move freely...Seating is not provided and is not encouraged."

Used to theatre spaces, we walked across the huge industrial space to the one place to sit.  Strips of paper, shredded paper, began to fall from high up, an opening in the brick wall behind us.  Birds began to twitter as we waited for the dancers.

Only 40 minutes long, it was one of the most satisfying theatre experiences we've had.  The dance was slightly reminiscent of Merce Cunningham yet warmer, more accessible.  That must have been influenced by the way it was choreographed and conceived, as the program noted, by "Jill Johnson in collaboration with the dancers."

We were caught up in the pulse of David Poe's score.  It could have been fun to move around the edges of the dancers' space but all seemed to be waiting for the other brave soul to do it.  At the end, on the way out, a young man with an Apple laptop downloaded photos from those of us who wanted to do so.  When I asked about people not moving about, he said that the night before they had only gone so far as to play with the paper.  Missed my chance by resisting the urge.

Now the company has a copy of my lost-feet photo.  I still have the one Ron took, ostensibly of me, far right, with the New York Times' photographer (man in the green shirt with very nice camera?) surrounded by many, many more of these souvenirs from an unexpected, excellent, brief experience.  By chance, it was an August synchronicity: the birth of our newest grandchild and my own move to the next stage of aging.

Today Claudia La Rocco's review in today's N.Y. Times reflects what she felt two nights earlier.  Her focus only misses my own unnatural attachment to my scanner.  But how could she know?

Olympics Frenzy: A View from Grandma

Chinese women and men, 8/9/08, Long Beach on Long Island, New York, play volleyball.  Net provided by beach, Chinese flag is their own.  Why so important to them?  Read HERE.

Over at Hattie's Web strong negativity toward the Olympic games.  My inclination would be different, though I agree with her points about organized "sports" in the U.S. as an overblown commercial enterprise.  But, my immodest proposal, is to reframe the conversation around Americans and sports.

Hattie and I are both grandmothers to children who live in the Northwest.  I think it would be useful for us to begin a conversation about the value of chilren's school sports to alleviate troublesome issues in the culture--bullying, obesity, excessive competitiveness.  We could re-visit Mister Roger's Neighborhood and co-op-er-ation, perhaps encourage a revival?

I'd ask local politicians to pay more attention to funding public school sports as a direct line to reducing childhood obesity.  New York's Mayor Bloomberg has made calorie posting on menus his latest public health campaign.  This is the same mayor who made a controversail decision for an exclusive deal with Snapple, sugary, fructose-filled beverage, for NYC schools.    While it did nothing useful for kids' health, it also turned out to be a seriously flawed financial arrangement.

When I taught second grade on New York's  lower east side in 1966, it was not possible to use the glass-littered concrete "playground" next to the school.   No indoor program.    The best I could do was walk us to nearby  Thompkins Square Park,  famous at the time as an encampment for homeless people, a hippie hangout rife with drugs. 

Currently, I hear the eliminations of phys ed in public schools across the country.  In New York:

One reason for the lack of physical activity in the city's 673 elementary schools, according to a [2003] study by State Assemblyman Jeff Klein's oversight committee, is that many of them do not have functioning playgrounds; that space is filled with "temporary" trailers for extra classrooms needed for these overcrowded schools. Some of the trailers have been there for as long as eight years.

Today I tried my idea on another grandmother at lunch.  What about elders taking on issues  outside their immediate, personal concerns?  I asked her if we are too ready to accept  our invisibility in the public space.  Are we so anxious for approval from our grown children that we accept the "walking on eggshells attitude," described in this book by Jane Isay as the best way to negotiate these relationships?

Gee, I thought our lifetime of experiences and our perspective as "historians" were meant to be important in the life of a growing family, a community, a nation.  We need to claim our rights as "gatekeepers for the future."   That's the beauty of blogs--to have our say--at least among ourselves.  I have some topics in mind.

What do you think, Hattie, and the rest of you elder-lurkers?

Addendum: It was through our connecting through Time Goes By,  that it was possible for  Claude at Blogging In Paris and me to develop the idea a few months ago for our  online excercise support group,  ELDEREXERCISE.  Going very well, thank you.

We all use Ronni Bennett's  blogposts as a touchstone,  a rich medium.  On my visits to TGB, I often click on one of the sidebar blogs and discover another fresh, Elderblogging voice.  Ronni clearly enjoys being our link  to the content and ideas she generates.  She encourages us to branch out, make our voices heard.  Whenever we do, it's a tribute to her efforts.

75 Years, Me and the New Deal

Though this sculpture was made, oh I don't know because he refuses to date his work, some fifteen years ago, it's a fit as a contemporary representation.  Nick Bloom, our son who writes books, father to Roxie, brought home two beautiful ceramic figures.  Each almost two feet tall.

Hollow inside, I pronounced them perfect to store our ashes.  What he had in mind is unknown and we have never discussed it in a serious way.  They simple are. His art-making is less burdened than mine.

Photographing them again,  I paid special attention to the good match between the  stance of each to who my spouse and I are.  Us--seen by our son--and others.  Though the Queen here smiles, the hands on hips pose, says, "I'm watching your moves."  The King is more cheeful, on the verge of dancing.  Yes.

Rachel, our daughter, is a very good photographer who has retreated from the practice since work and family have taken over her life.  Every now and then when we're together, I'll handed her my camera and the results are wonderful.  Somewhere there's a black and white of Ron and me that she did in the 1980s but searching for it will distract from today's, August 5, business.

Anna Deveare Smith, in a special issue of The Nation on "The New Deal at 75," writes "Something was really happening. It wasn't smoke and mirrors."

Shaped by that intensity of purpose, I still carry it.  Mellowed a bit and still intent upon meaningfulness in the years ahead...with family, with community.  As a very fortunate American of my era, what can I do to pass along that good fortune?  I think about this a great deal in drawing my own portrait for the coming decade.

I've decided to make the entire month of August my birthday-- to celebrate, to figure out coming shifts and/or stasis. 

Already been celebrating in low-key way and tonight a Chinese meal with Ron, then opening of "First Breeze of Summer,"  off-Broadway revival.  Instead of a Condom Amulet, think I'll do my own revival by wearing this ceremonial neckpiece I made in the last century.

I am so vintage!  Hands still on hips,  smiling on this next  journey into the unknown.

Funeral Parade--with Drums--from My Window

"What's that music?" Ron leaned out the window facing 125th Street yesterday afternoon.  Sounded like a jazz funeral parade in New Orleans, the one you couldn't help but follow.  Yet different.

Barbara Ann Teer, founder of the National Black Theater died last week at 71.   When she moved from an active life on the stage to devoting herself to  the NBT, she stated:

We must begin building cultural centers where we can enjoy being free, open and black...where we can find out how talented we really are, where we can be what we were born to be and not what we were brainwashed to be, where we can literally ‘blow our minds’ with blackness.

Once again we found ourselves fortunate to live beyond the proper confines of the "upper west side," and within Harlem's boundaries.  Ron would point out details he noticed as we ran from one window to another to follow the parade as it turned from 125th onto Amsterdam Avenue below our window on the 21st floor.  "I got teary," he said. I wonder if picture-taking gets in the way of my own strong emotions.

The tourists on the double-decker bus (see final photo) probably never learned they were privileged spectators to a remarkable ritual, rarely seen in New York City.  The explanation came to us in today's New York Times headline, For Champion of Black Theater, A Funeral through Harlem's Streets.  There are many fascinating links for more about the visionary Dr. Barbara Teer,  known as "the queen of Harlem."

UPDATE:  More details at UPTOWN Flavor, a lively blog about all aspects of the neighborhood--events, art, politics.  Discovered independent movies are shown Wednesday and Thursday night in Morningside Park. 

Lisa Daehlin Sings Saturday, NYC...

Join us May 17 if you're in the City.(Enlarge invitation for details.)

Singing brought Lisa here from Minneapolis a few years ago.  Along the way she discovered her "inner-knitter," now creates designs for publications like this "Lace Dolly Purse" in the Bag Style book, Interweave Press.

Knitting brought us together at the original UWS (upper west side) Knitting Circle when she amazed us with her riffs on lacy scarves.  In 2007, a supporter of the Knit a Condom Amulet Project, she created three unusual patterns that are among the most-viewed on the site.  To answer those who have asked how to use the Breast Pouch and Bra, a friend modeled for the photo at the left. It's on Lisa's own new website, DeLisa.us.

Two years ago, she developed knitting and crochet classes for the Continuing Ed roster at Cooper Union--famous for architecture and engineering programs.  And there's her day job! 

Someday there's going to be an opera about knitting and singing and the days and nights of a creative woman in this city.  Word is that there's someone ready to do the libretto, another who'd write the music to encompass her many paths-- 

Crochet class flyer

Teaching at Harlem Knitting Circle...

With Eunny Jang, Interweave Knits Editor, at Knitty City... demos use of Breast Pouch for business cards, an action view.

By the way, if you're here for the weekend, Sunday, May 18, is AIDS WALK New York, more information at www.aidswalk.net or call (212) 807 9255.

 

"STRETCH (a fantasia)," must-see play, hurry...

Next week we re-visit playwright Susan Bernfield's wondrous evocation of all things Nixonian--and its dependence on dependent women-- STRETCH (a fantasia).  Runs through May 26.  You need to decide as you read this to buy one of its cheap tickets (under $25), because it has just received an over-the-top review in The New York Times.

Last July, I wrote here about my amazement at how far the piece had come since its first, fledging outing.  Now, in it's third re-working, it's having a longer run.  Not long enough in my book.  We have much to learn from the aging Rose Mary Woods, loyal secretary to Nixon, as she remembers the past from her wheelchair in an Ohio nursing home.

This richly detailed image (click to enlarge) of objects creating a Nixon portrait was designed for the show's  advertising by Another Limited Rebellion who see their work as "design therapy." It's a veritable kitchen sink of elements from the play--contemporary campaign stickers, reel-to-reel audio tapes, cocktail glasses.  And typewriters, so central to this political tale.  All supports Susan Bernfield's view that connects yesterday and today in America's ongoing dysfunctional political landscape.   The vintage click-clack of an IBM Selectric is one of several instruments in the Rachel Peters' music for the play.

Kristin Griffith plays Woods, young and old, and is terrific.  "Commanding performance," the Times noted up front in its review.  Another actress over 50, I'd add--and it's about time. 

My wish in last year's post was that STRETCH would return for  longer  than a four day run.  Okay, its one month this time.  More, more, please!

 

Women with Wrinkles--Acting!

Carol Rosegg's photo appeared in the New York Times review of "Vita & Virginia," one of two plays I enjoyed last month in their final perfomances. The pose was not replicated by Kathleen Chalfant, left, as Virginia Woolf and Patricia Elliott as Vita Sackville-West.  They were always at a distance of several feet apart. 

Each stood behind a music stand with the script before her.  Often one or the other would turn to direct her words to her partner, but they were never close.  This seemed right since the text was letters.  And pointed up the geographic and emotional distance in their relationship.  Some of that had to do with their class difference, some with Woolf's reluctance to be intimate.    "I was always sexually cowardly," Woolf writes in one early letter.

Eileen Atkins has adapted a correspondence that spanned rom the 1920s through early World War II. Atkins, a woman of many theatrical parts--actor, writer was the co-creator of the British TV series, "Upstairs, Downstairs." (From the halcyon days of the early 1970s when parents and children sat together to watch television.)  As skillfully as she's assembled the letters, Atkins' adaptation is enhanced by the two women who performed.  (Atkins herself appeared as Woolf in the first production of "Vita & Virginia.")

You will not be surprised that the audience was older women like me.  Two younger women sat next to me and I would have liked to know  if they had many friends who'd come to see it.  There's a picture HERE of Chalfant who looked just right--wrinkles not hidden and reading glasses with extended earpieces perched at the end of her nose--to be playing Virginia Woolf.   She and Elliott made me feel I was walking in an English garden and overhearing an intimate conversation between two very verbal women struggling with their times and complex choices--married to men and somewhat closeted lesbians.

[I now long for a pair of these "funky" glasses which seem more to the point and more glamourous than my ordinary bi-focals .]

Two days later, we went to an itty-bitty space on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village for "Kitty and Lina" --unknown to us except through a review in the Times.  Once again the publicity photo gives a skewed idea of what's ahead.  Sitting in the audience before the play began, we wondered why there was only one chair next to a small round table.  Would one of the actors stand throughout the performance?

No.  First Jennifer Boutell appeared as Kitty and told a story of coming eagerly to New York from a Baptist family in Texas.  We listened as her dream of joining the Actors' Studio and stardom elluded her. Life became drearier as she struggled to make ends meet.  She exited.

Lina, played by Marilyn Bernard, pranced into view and immediately engaged us. As a starter, she advised she was a pretty snappy woman who would go home with one of the men in the audience.  Gliding to the chair, she pulled a cigarette out of her purse, put it into a holder, then was briefly indignant with the stage manager when told she could not smoke in the theatre. 

In her life story of a single woman in 1950 and 60s New York, I was reminded of women I'd known who had a great deal of charm and few skills.  Often their road to survival was pleasing men.  That's Lina.   We meet her after many years of an affair with an older married man, who has left her for a woman the age she was when she arrived in the City.  Now alone in a youthful New York, she is, in the words of the Times' reviewer, "saucy and poignant." Another terrific older woman in theatre...three in one week! 

The Vagina Monologues and MACBETH

Lisa Daehlin, the exceptional knitter/crocheter/singer, and I were the over-twenty-somethings at last Saturday night's "The Vagina Monologues" at Columbia University.  Though 2008 marks the tenth anniversary of Eve Ensler's "organized response against violence against women," it was a first-time for each of us.

We both were impressed by how much has changed for college students.  The auditorium, on the second of three nights, was mostly women plus a representative number of men.  We joined their enthusiasm, were touched by the openness about their concerns. Lisa was an undergraduate twenty years ago-- nothing like this in Minneapolis, her home base.  And we know what a desert it was in the 1950s, my era.

Original monologues were a first at this year's presentation.  Performed with great fervor, they were less "polished" than the VM script itself and very powerful.  The six performers were talking for themselves about eating disorder, about gender identity.  Very funny one about visiting a therapist.  The only review online is HERE from an undergrad magazine at Columbia.  None in "The Spectator," semi-official daily emanating from the School of Journalism.  Because Barnard College is the source?  I've always been puzzled by the relationship of Columbia to this women's college.

At intermission I talked with two Barnard women at a table in the lobby to promote this year's "Take Back the Night" events in April.  That energy began in 1976 in Belgium with marches through dark streets by women who wanted to feel safer in the public space.  These were happening more generally throughout the U.S. in the 1980s.  I'll have to dig up a photo from one in Baltimore--and that red tee-shirt.  Currently it is college campuses that keep the flame alive on this issue-- as crucial as ever.  I'd like to see this year's efforts draw in the community around Columbia, my community--a concept that's always a challenge.

Oh yes, Macbeth with Patrick Stewart.  Ron and I saw that the next day at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Talk about culture disjuncture!  Again, it was via another that we happened to be there.  A friend could not attend, asked if we'd buy her tickets.  Okay--and who was Patrick Stewart?  Do I hear a gasp from readers younger?  We were very busy in the day of "Star Trek."  Seeing clients at night, raising kids by day.  All the pyrotechnics that worked for last year's "The Coast of Utopia", Tom Stoppard trilogy, were mostly annoying for me in this production.

Flashing light shows?  We had not done discos either; amazing how culturally disadvantaged we can feel.  [Aside:  This is why much on TV, stuff in the entertainment section of NY Times does not speak to us pre-boomers.]  My very least engaged moment, enjoyed by Ron and NY Times, was this one.  Stewart walks to refrigerator (Macbeth reimagined as 1950s Russia, see review above), takes out plate, slices bread and deli meat (symbolic?), makes sandwich and eats it while speaking.  Somewhere in Second Act. 

Patrick Stewart is a fine actor; we could feel that beyond the distractions.  I would love to see him in something more about the play, less about the production.  We came back to ourselves with a Middle Eastern meal at a modest place on Atlantic Avenue--Bedouin Tent, no website.

 

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues in December?

"Even cowgirls get the blues," a popular expression in the 1980s,  always made me smile.  But I never really knew what it meant.  That no one is immune from feeling sad?

Hoping to perk myself up in that little red hen way, I purchased some eyelash yarn on sale at Knitty City.  Maybe it could evolve into a seasonal condom amulet.  It did. I hung it briefly on the wreath in my building's lobby.  Simply knit a swatch, stitch together the long edges, voila!--a fuzzy red ornament with blue condom.  Loop made with finishing yarn for convenient hanging on a tree or mistletoe.  Happy Safe Sex to all!

As if to dampen everyone's holiday spirit, the past month has offered more somber political misadventures daily.  Naomi Wolf minces no words in the title her new book, "The End of America."  The subtitle is "Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot."  The link is a YouTube video of her talk to a crowd in Seattle.  Before she spoke last week at Bluestockings Bookstore, she and I had an exchange--first about the confusion in the public space that mixes her up with the other political writer Naomi Klein.

We spoke about blogging; she mentioned being interviewed HERE, an anti-war site.  In talking about Elderblogging and LRH, we exchanged about technical stuff that mystified her.  She was suprised I'd been able to take a digital photo of her appearance on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now TV show.  Sure enough, when introduced, Wolf was given the "other Naomi" last name.  One of the by-products of living long:  my once unusual first name has become almost common.

Time Goes By, happily back online, features several posts about Wolf's thesis.  Every time she begins with this message, "...not a warning..a difficult message with hope on the other side."  At the end of her talk and book is a link to the American Freedom Campaign which promotes learning more about the erosion of the U.S. Constitution--and doing something about it by writing those who were elected to represent us.

Yesterday's inspiration--and we do need it--provided by listening to Al Gore read his acceptance speech for his half of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Read it HERE if you missed it.  Thanks again to Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!, the Peace Report, for providing this to viewers.

LYSISTRATA film appears briefly in NYC

"Where did you get that shirt?" Joan Wile asked.  We sat next to one another along with a bunch of other Grandmothers Against the War for a screening about the unprecedented, worldwide, anti-war theatrical happening in 2003, Operation Lysistrata, (film clips at this link).  It was Joan who had emailed me about it.

Joan is the instigator of the GAW, the group that has held a peace vigil, rain/shine/holidays, every Wednesday from 4:30 to 5:30 in front of Rockefeller Center. She is one of the 18 grandmas arrested here a couple of years ago for their peaceful protest at the Times Square Recruiting station.  Out of that initial action, the Granny Peace Brigade grew,  now includes a counter-recruitment effort which is described--with videos--at their website.

The film shows the time before the Iraq War began, the  energetic anti-war ferment.    Malachy McCourt, who sang to all us marchers in February 2003 as we rallied against the impending war, sat behind Joan and me.   "...Tens of millions of people took to the streets all over the world....organizers say half a million in New York City [more here at Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" site]. 

"Joan, we were so hopeful then," I sighed.    The film reminds us that many young people responded to the immodest notion of performing Lysistrata in cafes, parks, living rooms all over the world.  Michael Patrick Kelly, the filmmaker and his co-producer, Suzanne Hayes Kelly, answered questions about their documentary.  The screening was part of their effort to secure the small amount needed to produce a CD for distribution through their website.  [Contact Aquapio Films to learn more.]

It was cold as hell that March 3 in New York City.  Did one happen in your own locale (list here)? Imagine:  high school students--home-schooled 15 year old in the film used plastic dinosaurs for his unusual performance-- people all ages all over the U.S. diverse colors, gender prefs.  Touch-and-go to find a group in North Dakota but two cities signed on.   We owe a lot to Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower, who conceived The Lysistrata Project.  That night the play was presented to a sold-out audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Appearing were Kathleen Chalfant, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, F. Murray Abraham, many more New York-based actors. You can see them in the film--along with wannabes worldwide like you and me.   

Joan and I, tee-shirt-wearing grandmas, continue to be hopeful, ask questions of authority.  She did not know details of The Thought Crime Bill.  Have to tell her about my latest idea after hearing the latest on The Bill.  It's skipped into the Senate; new number is S.1959.  Targets the internet in particular.  Five years ago we reveled in our freedom to protest--though the film reminds that not everyone supported the huge demonstrations nor the performance of Lysistrata itself.  Restrictions on the internet would deprive us of the unprecedented connecting possible through the ether:  59 countries and 1,029 readings.