a little red hen

Seattle, bigger city in the Wild West

Readers of Hattie's Web will know that the traveling grandparents convened in that bigger place than Portland.  We learned of a certain self-consciousness here in Rose City about that home of Microsoft--faster cars, bigger museum, more famous sites (Bill Gates' home, Pike's Place).  Our former home in Baltimore was kind of that sort, second city to Washington, D.C. (until its murder rate soared).   

But now, Portland, Oregon, is firmly on the map of the cognescenti.  Began with anointment by the New York Times in very regular stories--food, music, sustainability awareness.  It seems to have reached its apotheosis with the new IFC series, "Portlandia." In the interest of "real reporting," that stuff political blogsites claim we'll get when print disappears, I was going to watch the entire first program.  Too elusive (had to sign in and thought I'd be tempted to leave a comment), so chose this one about a feminist bookstore.  Watching this scene sent me down memory lane to Baltimore in the 1970s.   John Waters, the filmmaker, gay man whose movies have put funky Baltimore on the map, plays a straight guy here.  Could have been the long-gone feminist bookstore, 31st Books in Balto.  For a moment in time, yours truly was the token straight woman on their board.  [Never, never agree to be "the one."]  And I'm embarrassed to confess, swept up in the fervor of those promising days, outfitted in my Indian blouse/jeans/cowboy boots,  I stood behind the counter and indicated to the man standing before me that he was someplace he was not welcome.  The fervor remains; the behavior is mellower.

But why?  Because 90 per cent of me no longer believes that I can be an agent of change in troubled, patriarchal American society.  On the drive to Seattle, we listened to a program on Canadian broadcast about competition among young girls, bullying,  and its effect on their grown-up lives.  If you have granddaughters, "It's a Teen World" could be startling--unless you know it already.  [I've only heard the first of the three so far.]

Seeing Marianna and Terry in suburban Seattle was delightful as always.  We treasure those few with whom we can have intense conversations about ideas.  And we laugh a lot thanks to Marianna.  This trip she walked us to closeby Ballard Locks.  Always entranced by both rolling and still waters, the views in the dying light were perfect.  And keeping up with Marianna's stride was a boost to the body's system--10,000 steps that day on my pedometer.

Yes, as M reported, we saw "True Grit" in a vintage movie house filled on a Saturday night.  Ron had been wanting to see it perhaps as a remembrance of all those many, many boyhood hours in a Brooklyn movie house known as "the Dump."  Among us, I was the one who unequivocally hated the whole thing:  violence through guns and fists and attitudes toward women.  Why wasn't the sheriff impressed with the 14 year old heroine's determination?  Why do I ask questions unrelated to screen fantasy?  Announced this was the final western I'd ever see! The only ones I can recall from the past-- unlike my spouse's rich repetoire--are odd ones from the 20th century, "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "High Noon."  On "True Grit" Stuart Klawans nails it in The Nation:

"...the experience cancels itself even as you watch, given the indifferent curiosity with which Joel and Ethan Coen call up and then skim over the themes that have long haunted the western, as if they were mere outmoded superstitions to be ticked off a list. Finally the Coens have achieved the goal toward which their cinema has always tended: a perfect void."

Being resident now in the northwest, I'd like to shift away from my narrow view, much like that famous magazine cover,  "New Yorker's idea of the United States."  But it's hard, people, when Utah may have an official state gun by the time you read this.

"An Iliad," a rage-filled meditation for Veterans' Day

I could lie, you know, the way we've all learned how acceptable that is when talking about America and its wars.  Instead, here's the truth:  it was by chance that I'd bought tickets to see  "An Iliad" on Amistice Day.  Reading about it, my old childish self was distracted by memories of seventh grade Latin class.  Wars, men.

Something shifted. By Monday November 8, knew it was an experience I needed, would regret missing.   Only later realize  the day I'd chosen was November 11. Was it the anti-war revision of  "Hamlet in Love" seen last week in Silverton?

Maybe Sunday's presentation at the Holcaust Resource Center of the OJM (Oregon Jewish Musuem) by Miriam Kominkowska Greenstein, Holocaust survivor, about what led to her "coming out" to paint what she remembered, then recently write her book, In the Shadow of Death.  Ron and I wondered at our good fortune to have been born in the U.S.--if not for different family decisions we could have been young Jews in Poland like Miriam.

Rage...Was the first word from the Homeric storyteller's mouth as he staggered into our presence.  In his tattered, dirty clothes, Joseph Graves, the actor, became a mesmerizing presence who demanded our attention over one hour and 45 minutes--with no intermission.  By turns he delivered a drunk's litany--the endless names of Greek ships in Troy's harbor--why did my 1940s class avoid telling of the carnage?

Rage...Nine years the Trojan war lasted.  How contemporary for you and me.  Graves points to the ramparts of Troy where the beseiged citizens watched as if it were theatre.  Something like this happened in the hills around Washington, D.C. at the start of the Civil War.  He never let up-- wove into his telling names/places of world's conflicts, over the centuries.  Could I put pictures of cities to all of them?  Oh, those were the words of the muted graphics on the walls around us.  What happened to the picture book I had of beautiful  Sarajevo in the 1920s?

Who is this man before me:  he has stopped and looked me in the eye.  So close I want to ask him questions.  But he's gone as he races around the stage, throws benches, himself onto the ground.  He is not a young actor but has enormous strength and conviction.  The text of  "An Iliad" might be his but is not.  Another actor, Denis O'Hare, collaborated with Lisa Peterson, Resident Director of Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.  Their brilliant re-imagining weaves in the present to the war-marked history of centuries past.

Rage...Wandering industrial streets after meeting Miriam Greenstein at OJM, we found a door marked "Open."   Several male voices invited us in.   It was the studio of Ryan Birkland, former Marine turned art-maker.  Talking about how oblivious politicians seemed to the wars Iraq/Afghanistan,  we  discovered he too had met that other former Marine and artist, Ehren Tool, when his exhibition was in town.

Rage...People in England and Germany are in the streets as I write.  Am I living in Troy, waiting for...you.   Take four minutes to watch this YouTube video of Joseph Graves talking about the play plus a moment or two from  his performance.

Photo at top of post: the stage at the end.  Our storyteller has thrown the Eisenhower jacket to the floor covered by a pretty Oriental, somewhat worn, rug.  He has left us with an encyclopediac review of all the wars, begun for all the wrong reasons when reason might have taken another path--if the god of reason was not ruled by restless male warriors. 

 

 

 

 

 

"Hamlet in Love," dinner with Leartes: Silverton!

Last week East coast people looking over our retirement community asked if we missed NYC.  Of course, we'd like to see our Roxie more, even on Skype (hint to her parents).  And there's a certain Jewish aura to the streets and citizens missing here.

But for having a good time, in addition to our local family, many possibilities keep springing up.  Seems more accessible than New York.  One has to look.  Last spring we met Carol Storke and Michael Smith at the intermission of  August Wilson's, "Radio Golf," presented in a converted black church in Portland's Albina neighborhood.  Talking quickly, as New Yorkers are prone to do, we learned we had much in common from our urban pasts.  One big difference:  they are now farming in Silverton, Oregon.  We heard about the town a couple of years ago from blogger, Lydia at Writerquake but had not been there yet.

Michael is a playwright, has written more than twenty of them--and poetry (read on his blog).  His past includes time as a theatre critic  for the Village Voice, a once-wonderful free weekly in New York.  Like many other publications, it barely resembles what we read eagerly in the 1960s and 70s when he was there.  We traveled to Silverton for his his latest, "Hamlet in Love" in a black box space at the local high school.

There was this brief summary in a Salem (state capitol) newspaper:

In this fresh take on Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet's father's ghost is only a voice in the young man's mind, and his suspicion that his uncle murdered his father proves not to be the case. His love for Ophelia blossoms, and no one dies.

Kristine Thomas, took time for a thoughtful interview with Michael for OurTownlive.com.  She drew out  more on why he felt compelled to reconfigure this particular Shakespearean drama.  "I don’t believe in ghosts so I don’t necessarily believe what happened in the play is true.”

We sat very close.  Young Hamlet (Kory Crozen), intense, saturnine, narcissistic--pulled us toward him in the first moments of the play.  We were convinced he was a little mad.  (He'd changed before I could get picture in authenic costume.)  So too was Alfred St. John Smith as his friend Laertes.  Ron was struck by how Alfred had been a light-hearted dinner companion then morphed a half hour later into Laertes (middle in photo)-- keeping all together for his good friend Hamlet.

Gertrude (Kelley Morehouse) gave a stately, measured performance and wore a terrific dress.  We learned afterward that she'd never been an actor before and came aboard late in rehearsals replacing someone who had to leave.  Claudius (Vere McCarty on left) cut a stately figure in an altered role for this up-dated view of Hamlet's story.  I entirely missed a picture of Ophelia (Dianna Bates)--and another gorgeous dress.

Draining the warlike and bloody aspects from the old story pleased me.  How Michael Smith pulled it off is for you to experience by taking a trip to Silverton (by November 14).  Hard metal seats; take pillows.

We can't promise a delicious chicken meal with potatoes and peas from the garden like the one Carol prepared for us but we saw several places around the town center that we'd like to try on another visit.

Along with a good number of tempting vintage stores with small objects we try not to buy.

 

Landscape on the way to school & Dead Man's Cell

  Another term, another class at Portland State, "Understanding Theater."  A neighbor  took it last year with a different instructor, told me he learned much from attending local  theater and analyzing.  From the catalog, "...dynamic relationship between theater and society..."

Turned out to be a little more.  Besides attending three plays, students also had to write four pages of a play for the final. Turn it in before the end of the quarter (whiz by unlike semesters), prof selects several for students to produce.  Challenge to face my ambivalence about doing more play writing.  In my situation as a Senior Auditor,  my play would not be in the drawing; I hoped to use the nudge to get going again. 

Now a number of weeks have passed. The prof, a working theatre professional, has been distracted by work on a theater production in another city.  Ended classes early after the first few meetings, had us meet in small groups to discuss our plays.  Good news for me:  began a new play.  "Knitting in Public: PDX," another riff on earlier play, similar title, different location and theme.

First week of class, walking along Broadway, main thoroughfare that runs through PSU campus, I was surprised by this "mid-Century Craftsman bureau"  crowding the sidewalk.  Behind the "For Sale" sign--if you enlarge the first photo--is an electrical box that controls street-crossing.  It acts as a message board and the plea here what is often posted, "Stolen Laptop." Reward of $2,000 indicates there's much valuable material  inside.  Hope it is not someone's PhD dissertation.

The class met in the newly-refurbished Lincoln Hall, the setting for Fine Arts programs.   I went to the first seat I could see in the semi-dark of a small theatre space.  Lucky for me, I plopped down next to Denise who could tell I was literally in the dark.  She helped me follow our prof's unorganized style.

Those are her hands examining the drawers in the bureau above.  She pointed out how each drawer was put together. The one with dovetail joining--right hand drawer--indicates it may have been a replacement. I wondered if someone might roll it away on its casters.   Denise has an impressive background desiging commercial interiors.  Out of work for almost two years, she decided to get another B.A. 

Denise joined Ron and me at a production of "Dead Man's Cell Phone"  by Sarah Ruhl.  It was the last play we saw off Broadway before we left NYC.  It is very funny--and dark.  The script is a little too clever at points and the ending something like a Beethoven symphony with endings that are not the end.  The acting was very good-- something we've been impressed with at all the Theatre Vertigo plays and readings.  I suppose it's equivalent to "off-off Broadway" but not sure how that's referred to in Portland.

That play followed the Thursday afternoon I'd  schlepped to class through the rain.  Put many steps on my pedometer:  a good thing.  Small group of us waited about 30 minutes until someone entered at stage left, "Class cancelled."  Think I'll not return.  Need to research material on attitudes in Islamic societies about women wearing hijabs.  Will spend my time at school..."independent study" it might read on my imagined transcript.

POST-SCRIPT:  But wait, something was not quite right with my memory of the play.  Googled the review in March 2008 New York Times.  Oh, neither of us liked this this one and it was not our last play-going in the City.  Mary Louise Parker (he likes, I do not) and Kathleen Chalfant (always a favorite) were in it.  So what was the last play we saw?  We both recall standing on line in Tribeca, nice July (?) 2009 day as we waited to go in.  Sometimes the memory thing does make it hell to be old!

 

Toy Piano & Phyllis Chen Amaze Curious in Portland Lounge

Because  many experiences have come my way and been unheralded blogwise, I'm writing about this one right away, the morning after it occurred.

Too quickly I read this notice in The Oregonian about a performance on a toy piano.  Could be something to take our almost-eight year old grandson to hear?  He's enjoying piano lessons he takes from the woman next door.  You can hear her practicing when she does not have students.  Much nicer than living next door to a heavy metal group; could happen in that neighborhood too.

Ordered the tickets.  Email confirmation noted the venue, Doug Fir Lounge.  Oh.  Called and learned you had to be over 21 to attend.  Ron and I went instead of Zach and me to listen to  Phyllis Chen was here from her home in New York City.  We entered a world far outside our experience.

It began with a stamp on our left wrists; they were quite particular about the location.  Down stairs, darker and darker.  Yes, it felt like rabbit hole entry.  Could hardly see at the bottom.  Seemed to be a large place with very few chairs.  As we moved toward the stage where there was some light, a man, who turned out to be another audience member said, "No seats left.  People stand and move toward the stage."  Okay.

Half hour early, we saw wood benches attached to half-sawn logs on the walls.  Sat down, very hard...did we have it for two hours?  Ron went back to the car, returned with cushions we use there.  Much better. 

Portland performer, Courtney VonDrehle, playing accordion--not his usual instrument, opened.   Who would know as he did pieces he and others had written--all engaging, one with a Yiddish title, none sounding like anything we'd ever heard from an accordion (thinking 1950s weddings).  Courtney composes for 3 Leg Torso, is a member of another group, the Afro-Hebrew Klezmocracy.  We are in Portland.

Phyllis Chen appeared after a bit of waiting as we watched electronics arranged.  So limber as she dropped to the floor, crossed her legs, and addressed the toy piano.  It turned out, she explained, that John Cage had written several pieces for the toy piano.  She played the first one which was light,  sounded more melodic than Cage usually does.

"Uncaged Toy Piano" is a competition she began two yeas ago.  "I'm like a kid at Christmas when I tear open the submission envelopes!"  She played a recent winner  by a Japanese composer.  It required her to play the white keys with her left hand, the black ones with her right.

Next, the Teapot "Tsunami" by Japanese composer, Georg Hajdu.  Chen played a regular piano; she is quite accomplished on the everyday instrument as you can hear on her website. A blue porcelain teapot rested near her and  recorded as she played, then played it when she finished.  Her hand movements during the playback brought to mind the mysterious operations I associate with the Theremin, an early 20th century electronic wonder.

There was more!  Rob Deitz, video artist, joined her on his instrument, an Apple laptop.  All electronics were engaged.  Chen played the toy piano again.  Her ear appeared projected on a sheet behind them. The camera followed the movement of her earring as it found its way into its pierced place.  Then an old-fashioned music box fed a paper roll sitting on top of  the toy piano--another "instrument."  It would have been great to have a program!

Finale:  a winner for a raffle by the evening's sponsor, Portland Piano International, whose goal was to host an alternative venue for Chen's music...to reach an audience not usually exposed to classical music and its many variations.  A very pleased young man won a slightly larger red toy piano.  Who knew there was going to be a raffle?

Many mysteries of the evening, all appreciated by these two old New Yorkers.  In truth there were other gray-hairs attending; Ron decided they were all piano teachers. Reading more on her site and blog, I see that Phyllis Chen (signing CD here and in better light for photo) has a work-in-progress, "Down the Rabbit Hole." I'm definitely looking forward to hearing this one.

Mystery Update:  Oregonian, local paper, helped me and you out in Saturday's review by James McQuillen, "A toy piano concert that is seriously good."   Fills in all the spaces, corrects all my attributions of wrong composer, gives names, "Toy Toccata," and "Exposiciones"  to what Chen played.  And more detail on "Nothing Is Real," by Alvin Lucier--the amazing teapot exploration.  I love reading the Saturday paper...more later.

"Radio Golf," August Wilson's Final Play

Complaining weekly about the whiteness of Portland (and Oregon), I have nowhere to go with this thorn in my perfect little life here.  All week I've been handing out postcards about  a local theatre production of  "Radio Golf," the last of August Wilson's ten-play chronicle of black life in mid 20th century Pittsbugh. 

Every man, woman, and child over 15 ought to  be required to troop on over to the Portland Playhouse (small church converted to a performance space).  Sit down on a couch or chair,  open up to Wilson's picture of the pain and pleasure African Americans have always known in their own settings.  People keep asking if we miss New York.  No, we mostly miss living in a colored world.  Asians running ethnic restaurants, Hispanics cooking in most eating places--but not living in my West Hills neighborhood.  What's with all these white people?  How did they conspire to be so cut apart from the America I've known--Baltimore, St. Louis, Oberlin, New Orleans, Louisville, New York of course.

But I get in the way of celebrating last Sunday in Albina, an historically black residential neighborhood.** Decided to wear this pretty little hat bought from its maker at a local Saturday market many years ago.  "Oh, it's Easter," did not occur to me until we were halfway there.   Influenced by the dominant culture here or feeling my hair continues to whiten so consider again little caps to hold back my fading from view?

We arrived early for the play and sat in the car in front of a house with a wreath,  "Happy Every Day."  As I  knit, a woman drove into the driveway, got out of her car.  Her shoes were bright pink.  We exchanged hellos  and I held up my mauve gloves, "These match your shoes!"  She nodded and chuckled on her way inside.

Five minutes later a man came out of the house, got into a car parked in front of us.  Soon the woman reappeared, wearing black shoes now, opened the passenger door and asked, "You hear from Johnny?"  Her voice had a cadence Ron and I know so well.  We never hear it in Portland--the way a voice sounds in a question from one black person to another.   You had to be there--and be us to--understand our  pleasure and sadness.

The Oregonian went all out to promote "Radio Golf" on the cover of its entertainment section.   There is  an excellent slide show of the set and scenes from the play.  Also, the story of the two young white Weaver brothers (Michael at right in photo) started Portland Playhouse only last year.  The "campaign poster" in the photo is of Harmond  Wilks, played by Lawrence Street, a real estate developer planning to run for Mayor of Pittsburgh.Notable too was that this is a co-production with BaseRoots Theatre company, also a recent addition to Portland's performance scene  with a mission is to "showcase the unique African-American experience."

We enjoyed the play--especially the outstanding acting.  Two of the five actors are members of BaseRoots.  Kevin E. Jones who plays the oldest character, Elder Joseph Barlow, and Victor Mack as the fast-talking neighborhood deal-maker, Sterling Johnson, struck us as the men August Wilson felt closest to in this play.     As a black man on his way up and ready to change the old rundown Hill District neighborhood, Bobby Bermas is Roosevelt Hicks.  He swings his golf clubs with bravado and determination that had us believing that playing the white man's game would bring him success.  The Willamette Week review reflects my own reservations about the play while also calling it "...the best show in town." 

At the last minute I'd changed our tickets when I  learned  there'd be talk-backs at Sunday performances.  Most of the audience stayed, asked questions, and listened to the actors' describe differences they'd experienced as black performers in Portland compared with other places. We missed more of an African American presence among us and I think they did too.    Kimberly Howard (far right) from the Oregon Cultural Trust, one of the sponsors, moderated and told of Portland  Playhouse efforts to bring in more black audiences, particularly from  public schools.  

Other Wilson plays have been have been more powerful for me ("Joe Turner's Come and Gone" for one) but none of them--in Baltimore or New York--have gifted me with as pleasurable a total experience as this one... at the right place and in the right time. 

UPDATE:  "Radio Golf" run extended to May 16

**Nothing useful in Wikipedia, but so much in this research paper pdf from the University of  Oregon.

And now I have knit chickens...

A few weeks ago, I went back to Close Knit, a favorite yarn shop here.  Last winter I bought Noro yarn and pattern there to make this vest;  finished when we returned to New York.  One of my more successful yarn projects.  It  helped that there was an already-knit version I could try on  to check out the fit. 

Knitting chickens, representations of them not the actual bird, has moved  along my plan to knit kids' toys.   First,  a yellow Polka-Dot Chicken from Susan B. Anderson's "Itty-Bitty Nursery."  I was going to give this to Zoe but decided to keep it.

I rationalized that her baby sister might tear it  and get into this bag of  beads used to weight the bottom.  Zoe shares my fondness for chickens,  chases  uncaged ones resident in the nearby schoolyard. Hope  they  make it through the winter.

Because she's partial to dots, I added them to another  Susan B. Anderson pattern for a striped chicken.  And produced this larger hen for her to take home.  On visits with us, she plays with the smaller one. Clara is the name she gave to  both.  Sounds  old-fashioned from a modern little girl.

 
Sent off this sweater for Roxie's Purple Bear that I made in August, just before we left NYC. I've started another animal for her,  a Hippo from Susan B. Anderson's new book, itty-bitty toys.  Did Susan and I meet at Knitty City?  I have a signed copy of the other Itty-Bitty. She is a very inventive designer who blogs here.

Feeling quite righteous because I'm only using yarn from my stash for these projects.   Found more funky chick patterns at Ravelry--that comes after the Hippo and another vest for myself, this time with Ron's yarn.

Recalling my hen obsession while she was in Paris, Maxine Levinson at Knitty City sent me a photo she snapped of a poulet store.  I lost it and effort to retrieve it via Google led to a blog called Paris Breakfasts.  Discovered many sides of  chicken enthusiasm among the French.  Something little red hens everywhere are trying to tell us?

Starting to use her as my avatar.  Please note the beaded necklace.

Posting less than I'd like because we continue to have a busy time in Portland, O, with taking classes, finding intriguing lectures.  This week the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard came through to promote his book, "Good without God: what a billion nonreligious people do believe."    Saw Philip Glass' new opera,"Orphee" and liked the music.   A group  sat in the lobby doing live blogging.

More  boxes await attention.   Though I feel frustrated about my ability to influence national politics, there are local issues to work on.  Oregon, like California, has votes often on initiatives outside regular elections.

The outcome of Initiatives 66 and 67  will have profound effect on funding for schools and social services.  "YES" is the word for the  January 28 election. 

"The Way We Get By," a movie for all of us--seniors & others

Tonight on the PBS program Point of View, I'll be watching again a beautifully conceived movie we saw last July before we left New York.  With a low-key title, "The Way We Get By", is one you will want to see no matter your attitude toward U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Is it anti-war?  Not exactly.  Pro-war?  No.

It is about women and men like us:  older citizens, looking for a way to make a difference, some hoping to relieve their loneliness as spouses and friends are gone.  There had been little publicity on the film when we saw a notice about it last July.  And I was not quite sure what to expect reading it was a documentary about a group of seniors in Bangor, Maine, who meet soldiers both leaving for and returning from war.

It's this airport where most soldiers leave the U.S. and the Maine Troop Greeters have welcomed home or said goodbye to one million of them!  I spoke with Gita Pullapilly, the film's producer, and asked if Grandmothers Against the War had been contacted for support.  She'd tried but had not heard back.  

But my effort to contact my friend in the group,  Joan Wile, did not get a response either.  Too bad because the story is not a pro-war or anti-war one.  The three "Greeters" focused on make that clear:  they wanted to do something for these soldiers to let them know we are aware of them, care about them.  My argument with "Grandmothers" always was that we of all people needed to find ways to do more than demonstrate; we could give time to families directly affected by the wars.

We even had a chance to meet the director (son of one of the Greeters) who has just married the producer (it's all on the PBS website.  We got an update and chance to talk with another featured Greeter  who had successfully recovered from heart surgery.  It was all very personal--and political--in the best sort of way.

If you do not have a chance to see it tonight, "The Way We Get By" is traveling around the country and may show near you.  Their dedication moved me so much as a pacifist who has looked for a personal way to express gratitude to women and men in the military even as I oppose the idea of war.

There's also a DVD out now that could be passed around among friends who are eager to see often-unseen older folks as caring actors in the public space.

"Small Is Beautiful" in my everyday life

Last night we picked up our daughter and went to a downtown movie.  Last show, we were the only ones at Lloyd Center Mall to see "The Informant."  Curious film--glad for lack of violence or gratuitous sex--maybe I missed the point?  Afterwards,  realized I'd dropped my Ron-knit-hat and new gloves.

[Aside:  Minor challenge is adjusting to current Portland weather.  Thought cold times had arrived--wrong.]

Called the Mall this morning, got number for movie office.  "Wait a minute," the woman said, "let me look."  She returned, described my lost articles.  Later today I'll pick them up at the box office.  Meanwhile we had a brief and pleasant exchange about the oddness of being alone at the movies.

Oh, I am liking so much the scale of life here.  Take Sunday morning just passed.   Along with 17 others,

[Aside: Every now and then some of that much-advertised rain appears]

I scribbled away for two hours at a Community Writing Workshop at HOT LIPS Pizza on Hawthorne.  Write Around Portland puts these on to give new and not-so writers the "experience of the transformative power of writing in community."  Very intergenerational--17 on up, one other grandmother, other recent transplants.

[Aside:  Hot Lips' pizza has been a favorite since our family settled nearby...delicious Pear Soda, a new addition...and the jams.  Website text on how they came to add these by accident rather than corporate plan is my notion of  modern Portland-style, as contrasted with old-fashioned.  Again, more later.]

Why the workshop, I hope you ask.  Need a jump start on writing in general plus a push to working more on  my plays about life among the not-so-old  as we get more so. Preferring "old" lately as adjective and noun.

[Aside:  The WAP session was a push.  More came from unpacking another book box (endless), finding books of ten-minute plays.  More later.]

In synch with E.F. Schumacher and the beauty of "small,"  decided to get rid of many more books.  Reading Fran Johns' postings on the True/Slant blog, listening to children of the old talking about the burden of parents' wish for them to receive their "stuff," resonated.  Okay, they really, really live in the here-and-now--a thing or two from Mom and Dad's pile and that's it.

  [Aside:  Our son-in-law cherishes his grandfather's college football helmet, our daughter dresses her children in sweaters I knit for her--and saved.  My daughter-in-law in New York took on this blue baby dress of mine.]

Keeping the flame of  Schumacher alive is a society with a number of programs,  and a blog.  Good ideas do not go out of style.

 

What's a grandmother to do?

This was fun.  Our seven-year-old grandson came to dinner at our place following an afternoon movie.  He is very interested in cooking thanks to input from his father and other grandma.  This was such a delightful time for us that I reluctantly speak of the movie.

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," is a quirky title of a very popular children's book.  I'd heard of it and wondered.  Before we left NYC, there was a very upbeat review in the New York Times.  Surely this would be more appropriate for Zach than the one we tried a couple of years ago, "Ratatouille."  In this "Common Sense" rating system, it was pronounced swell even though 100% of parents said, "too violent."  Yes, it  scared our grandchild, puzzled us; we fled early.

He was anxious to go to "Meatballs."  A movie is a rare experience in his TV-less household where he only sees children's videos.  Sunday afternoon at Lloyd Center in downtown PDX--a mob scene.  We watched, thought it would never end.  Zach loved it.What's my problem here?  In "Willamette Week," Aaron Mesh had a single complaint in his review:

Ron Barrett’s original pen-and-ink illustrations were intricate and moody, filled with awe and mystery as well as peanut-butter-and-jelly blizzards. The edibles that fall from the sky in Sony’s CGI cartoon look like Fisher Price play food...

For me there was a disgusting aspect to the stuff. The excessive size and intensity of the food presented the too-muchness as something to be desired.  And it went on too long.  And what was the idea behind the stereotyped African-American policeman?  He was presented as a heavy with a heart of gold, redeemed by loving his little son.  Strange. 

And the father of the hero, the only person of age in the film, was a heavy-footed who really did not get his son's ideas.  Especially as they all related to his (how old was he supposed to be?) computer science wizardry.  Father did not even know how to turn the damned computer on--a crucial task in the adventure.  Piling up the cliches was the air-headed girl reporter who turns out to be smart toward the end.  Can't remember whether this was when she put on eyeglasses or took them off. 

Well, I survived those classic Disney mother-loss dramas "Snow White" and "Bambi," so Zach will no doubt weather (oops, unintended pun) "Meatballs" with his own family's values intact.