A Sunday Alone in One’s Room, with Ian McEwan

March 11, 2012 at 4:06 am (Books, Plays, Sundays)
Tags: , ,

When in Bacolod, self reads.  Reads, reads, reads, reads.

It’s a different kind of reading than she does in California.  She lives and breathes the words of each book.

Perhaps heat is a factor.

Indolence.

She feels like 12 again, reading La Tontine or one of her Tita Tancing’s vast collection of Mills & Boon romances.

Here’s what she read a few minutes ago, from Ian McEwan’s Atonement:

Cecilia knew she could not go on wasting her days in the stews of her untidied room, lying on her bed in a haze of smoke, chin propped on her hand, pins and needles spreading up through her arm as she read her way through Richardson’s Clarissa.  She had made a halfhearted start on a family tree, but on the paternal side, at least until her great-grandfather opened his humble hardware shop, the ancestors were irretrievably sunk in a bog of farm laboring, with suspicious and confusing changes of surnames among the men, and common-law marriages unrecorded in the parish registers.  She could not remain here, she knew she should make plans, but she did nothing.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Leave a Comment

Things Self Learns From Reading THE NEW YORKER of 28 November 2011

February 21, 2012 at 6:23 pm (Lists, Plays, television)
Tags: , , , ,

  • “For new adulterers, reduced circumstances are just another part of the romance.  Each attempt to avoid detection –  the cheap hotel rooms, the seedy restaurants, the run-down vacation spots –  is a novelty, even a return to youth.” –   From the “Briefly Noted” review of Anne Enright’s fifth novel, The Forgotten Waltz.
  • Helen Dunmore, author of The Siege, about the long siege of Leningrad in the Second World War, has written a sequel called The Betrayal, a novel in which “the effects of repression replace those of deprivation . . .  “
  • The issue’s short story is by Alice Munro (maybe her 50th appearance in this magazine –  BWAH HA HA!)
  • John Lahr, the New Yorker’s theater critic, begins his review of a new play with:  “Alan Rickman is the go-to actor for supercilious.”
  • There is a teensy ad on p. 83  for Austen Riggs Center:  “A distinctive psychiatric hospital:  Intensive psychotherapy in an open community.”  On the same page, an ad for Gunderson Residence of McLean Hospital:  “Highly specialized residential treatment for women with BPD” (Of course everyone knows what BPD stands for!  Everyone who reads The New Yorker, that is)
  • Jane Birkin is appearing LIVE IN CONCERT.  There was a time when self knew this woman as an actress.  That time was long long ago.
  • The show “2 Broke Girls” is “a genuine ratings hit,”  according to New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum.  Self watched a few episodes on the plane to New Delhi.  Oh, yeah.  Yeah!  You go, Kat Dennings!  Self loved all your scenes in “Thor,” you stole them from Acknowledged Beauty Natalie Portman.  Now Dennings gets to be called (by Nussbaum) “a baby Roseanne.”  This is because Dennings plays “a waitress who insults her customers, a poor girl who walls herself off with defeatist sarcasm.”
  • Self encounters the term “sardonic brunette” for the first time.  According to Emily Nussbaum (again), the “sensibility” of the sardonic brunette “echoes back to Rosalind Russell.”  Modern incarnations of the type are:  Roseanne, Janeane Garofalo, Sarah Silverman, Sandra Bernhard, and Tina Fey.  In the era of Lucille Ball, “it was exciting simply to see a woman clown, even if she always lost, even if she was literally spanked for her rebellion.”  A little further in the same piece, self learns what a “dead joke” is:  “I’ll say I’m ugly before you can.”  She also learns that this kind of joke is “from an older style of female comedy.”  And boyfriends can be considered guilty of such a thing as “a thought crime”: glancing at another girl.  Also  the hit show Glee “likes to insult fat people and then sing songs about how wrong it is to bully them.”  Another show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, is “hilariously filthy.” The guy who was being sexually harassed by Jennifer Aniston in “Horrible Bosses” is here:  self really likes the way he whines.  His voice reminds self a little of Joe Pantoliano.
  • Self also learns (again via Nussbaum –  Nussbaum is an absolutely brilliant writer!) that there are contexts in which a sense of “entitlement” can function as “a kind of superpower” because it makes a person believe that she deserves “a better life.”  Okay, self can definitely buy that.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Leave a Comment

Books Reviewed in The Economist of 13 August 2011

October 8, 2011 at 2:34 am (Books, Plays, The Economist)
Tags: , , , , ,

Here are the books (The Economist doesn’t publish the names of the reviewers):

  • Julie Salamon’s “engaging new biography” about American playwright Wendy Wasserstein, Wendy and the Lost Boys:  The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein
  • Belinda McKeon’s Solace, about a young couple who meet and fall in love “at a Dublin house party . . .  in the shadow of an old family feud” (The reviewer describes their meeting as “a Romeo and Juliet attraction.”)
  • Sebastian Barry’s newest novel, On Canaan’s Side, which is on the longlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize for Fiction:  “For Sebastian Barry, an Irish novelist and playwright, history is not passive but an active force that pursues his characters and clouts them over the head.”
  • Matthew Parker’s The Sugar Barons:  Family, Corruption, Empire and War in the West Indies, “a tumultuous roller coaster of a book.”
  • Jamil Ahmad’s first novel, The Wandering Falcon, “about the Pushtun and Baluchi tribes that make up Pakistan’s wild west.”

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Leave a Comment

News Flash! A Musical on Cory Aquino!

July 29, 2011 at 4:38 am (Links, Plays, Recommended)
Tags: , , , ,

How long has self been waiting for this to happen?

Ever since self read a line from an American novel that went: “At least, no one expects me to get out of bed and be Cory Aquino today!” she has known that Cory, the Musical, must eventually come to be.

And now it has!

Courtesy of new FB friend Jude Cartalaba, comes this news flash!

A NEW MUSICAL ON CORY AQUINO TOURS NORTHERN PHILIPPINES

To which self can only respond:  FAB!  FAB!  FAB!

The musical is called “Cory ng Edsa” (Nice title!).  It is produced by Philippine Stagers Foundation, in partnership with the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation.  It had its official premiere at the College of Saint Scholastica, Manila, on July 16.

“Cory ng Edsa” is scheduled to be performed in the following Philippine locales:

  • Urdaneta City
  • Olongapo City
  • Dagupan City
  • “the province of Bohol”

(Why no Bacolod?  Self would see it for sure if it was produced there!)

And lest she wear out dear blog readers with her excitable superlatives, she’ll put the link to an article about the current Philippine tour, here.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Leave a Comment

Third Friday of May (2011): Sunny, Finally; Penny’s Play; Still Checking Submishmash

May 20, 2011 at 9:46 pm (Family, Flowers, Links, Lists, Places, Plays, Recommended, Surprises, Weather, Zack)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It is a spectacular day, dear blog readers.  Self spent some time watering, hauling around the old green bucket.  All (or nearly all) of her roses are profusely blooming.  Finally!  Last year, she was ready to give up.  She single-handedly dug holes for each of her almost 20 roses –  the Betty Boop, the Chihuly, the climbing New Dawn, the climbing Don Juan, the Fourth of July, the Sheila’s Perfume, the Sunflare, the Winsome, and so forth and so on  —   nursed them through their early stages with lavish applications of water and fertilizer, and still, her garden refused to reward her efforts.  This year, she decided that she would not worry about her garden any longer.  And as soon as she made that decision, everything bloomed, all at once.

Tonight is the start of the second (and closing) weekend of Penny’s play, “Booze in the Boroughs.”  Did self impart to dear blog readers how, as she sat in the audience exactly a week ago (the space was SRO), she relished every minute, and wished she’d succeeded in getting her nephew to come along?  (But, Friday night in New York, of course young men have plans!)  The action of the play begins in Central Park, winds through the Bronx, the Staten Island Ferry, Brooklyn, and Queens.  Various characters meet, share, ignite.  Here are the play particulars:  It is showing on Joria Mainstage, at 260 West 36th Street, on the 3rd Floor.  It is showing tonight, Saturday and Sunday.  Penny mentioned it might be taken to other places, one of these others being Seattle.

Self was sorry that, during her last trip, she did not get to see:

  • Drew
  • the Metropolitan Museum  (She only got as far as the front steps, where she sat and listened to a band sing “Under the Boardwalk.”  But the day was simply too beautiful, self thought, to spend inside a museum.  She remained outside, and indulged in a peanut butter and fudge cupcake from a vendor called “Cakes and Shakes” –  to die for.  That was her lunch)
  • Minette
  • the Whitney (She usually makes it a point to visit this museum, every time she is in New York.  She actually likes it better than the Metropolitan.  It feels less overwhelming.  They had a fantastic Cy Twombly retrospective, a couple of years ago)

She made an effort to contact Paolo Javier, who she read with years ago, at the Asian American Writers Workshop.  She e-mailed his publisher.  The man was so nice, he answered right away, and said he personally hadn’t seen Paolo in many years.  How do people lose each other?  Time is really a river …

But, here she is, and tomorrow she and hubby are meeting up with son in Monterey, at a pet cemetery where we will finally lay poor Gracie to rest.

Self decides she will e-mail that literary journal, the one that supposedly accepted her piece without a formal notification (She only found out when she logged into Submishmash and saw –  Green!  Her first green in a year!)

She sent out a novella this morning (Deep breath)

Zack is in New Orleans.  She promised him a lengua burrito from the place at the corner of Jefferson and El Camino, next time he is in her neck of the woods.  In the meantime, here’s something about his book from The Wily Filipino.  (Zack’s going to be in Europe and Morocco in June.  Self is of course dying of jealousy)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

1 Comment

Brooklyn Academy of Music’s KING LEAR Sold Out

April 26, 2011 at 4:18 am (Calls, Conversations, Plays)
Tags: , , , ,

Self is going to be back in the Splendid City for something like four days, in early May.

She’s there to help Penny celebrate a spectacular birthday, and also to see the premiere of Penny’s new play, “Booze in the Boroughs” at Joria Productions on 34th Street.  It opens on Friday, May 13.

Penny recommended “Jerusalem” as another play self has to catch while she’s in New York.  Penny knows how to pick her plays, for the last one she picked, “Red,” with Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko and a young man named Eddie Redmayne playing his assistant, was truly the highlight of last year (not counting, of course, the trips to the Philippines).

Self inquired of her brother-in-law whether he would like to see “Jerusalem,” but he can’t since he has to work and the only time self has free is on weeknights.  “It’s three hours long,” he told self.

He had another play recommendation, Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia.” According to brother-in-law, it is the best play on Broadway right now.  And brother-in-law knows whereof he speaks:  he absolutely loves plays and watches at every opportunity.  He has brought his kids to see so many plays that they know everything that has been on Broadway in the last 20 years.

But the production self really longs to see is the “King Lear” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  That one stars Derek Jacobi.  Self looked up the BAM Box Office tonight, and was completley dismayed to read:  VERY LIMITED AVAILABILITY.

Under “Ticket Status,” there is this message:

Tickets to King Lear are currently unavailable to the general public due to popular demand.  A limited number of front orchestra seats are available to Friends of BAM at the Benefactor level ($1,000) and above for select performances.  To become a Benefactor, call …

Aaargh!

Let’s see, what else happened today?  She went to the Redwood City Library and put a hold on Mark Twain’s Roughing It.  She got a call from Edwin Lozada, who heads PAWAINC (Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc)  He reminded self that she had agreed to read with three young poets this Sunday, May 1, at the San Lorenzo Public Library.  Self tried her best to weasel out of it by telling Edwin she was “retired.”  But he said, come on, the editor of the Walang Hiya anthology would do it, but she can’t because she is signing books at the LA Festival of Books this weekend.

Oh, so self is the stand-in?  Self is soooo flattered!

Since it’s been so long since self’s had a reading (in the United States), she is experiencing twinges of anxiety.  Could Edwin please read for her?  She fears she doesn’t really have the necessary joi de vivre!  Or, rather, all the joi de vivre she has is reserved for blogging.

Besides, she has a terrible crick in her neck.  And reading from a story will necessitate self looking down, and that will not be a good thing for anyone with neck or shoulder pain.  Especially for one who is also suffering from anxiety.

Since Edwin is really so nice, he said OK, he would read her story for her.  Self can therefore sit in the audience, disguised in a wig and enormous glasses, sort of like Anna Wintour.  Or like Ruth Reichl, eminent food critic, when she goes to a restaurant and wants to remain incognito.

So all self has to do is pick a story for Edwin to read.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Leave a Comment

Cal Shakes/ Shakespeare’s Birthday

April 22, 2011 at 11:48 pm (Family, Plays, Recommended)
Tags: , , , , , ,

Among the messages received today was one from Cal Shakes. This company is so good that self has never, ever been disappointed in a production, not since the very first one she took son to, about a decade ago.  She’s seen four.  She hopes she can go again this summer.

Her first Cal Shakes play was “Romeo and Juliet.”  She’d packed bottles of wine and trays of sushi and sourdough baguettes and salami.  Afterwards, sitting close to the front, she was entranced by the young, good-looking actors.  This is how “Romeo and Juliet” has to be:  it’s about what it’s like to be 15 and cursed with beauty and longing and everything.  Adam Scott was Romeo, that pretty much says it all.  Until that play, self had never heard of him before.  Now, he’s all over TV . . .

The next play self caught was “Richard III.”  Also fun.  This time, hubby and self sat in the front row and got cricks in our necks.  Son was with a friend and they sat on the grassy knoll behind.

The third play was “Henry IV” and “Henry V,” combined into a very fleet production.  Falstaff actually knew how to play the saxophone.  You don’t know what it is, but it’s Shakespeare + being outdoors + music + sun, all of these combined –  that sets your heart to singing.

The last play we saw was in 2009:  a musical version of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”  It was magical.

Hubby doesn’t really enjoy watching plays, but he always comes along, and self packs a picnic lunch, and son invites some friends (Two years in a row it was the same friend, Aubert, because Aubert loves to act).  It is always a sunny summer afternoon, and we always get roasted by the sun, and by the end of the day we are so tired, but also energized from the realization that we have done something both intellectually and emotionally pleasing.

She gets the Cal Shakes newsletter, and today there was a very exciting message: In honor of Shakespeare’s “official” birthday, which is this Saturday, they are making patrons a special offer, which will remain a mystery until the Monday after Easter, which is to say: this Monday.

Gee, self can hardly wait!

This year’s season includes “The Taming of the Shrew,”  directed by Shana Cooper, and Jonathan Moscone directing George Bernard Shaw’s “Candida.”

Anyhoo, here’s what the latest Cal Shakes newsletter has to say about Shakespeare’s birthday:

Shakespeare’s birthday is an eternal mystery; we know he was baptized on April 26, 1564, but have chosen to celebrate his natal day on April 23. Was it a scholarly error, a celebration of another holiday (St. George’s Day), or the human race’s eternal thirst for nice, round numbers — since he died on what would have been his 52nd birthday?

Regardless of the reason, this Saturday (which is to say, tomorrow) there will be celebrations around the globe in honor of Shakespeare’s 447th birthday.

It’s also Holy Saturday.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Leave a Comment

Heads Up, New York Dwellers!

November 20, 2010 at 8:44 am (Authors, Lists, Plays)
Tags: , ,

Friends Always Creating Theater

Otherwise known as F. A. C. T.

Has its end-of-the-month reading series this Sunday, Nov. 21, 2010

3 p.m.

at Joria Mainstage, 260 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY

Here are the six plays being presented:

  • Bitten, by Penny Jackson

Stella tries to share her wisdom, and a little whisky, with her grandson …  but who is the wiser?

  • Prototype of the Perfect Man by Nathaniel Kressen

Women have always searched for the ideal partner.  As one finds out, sometimes you get what you pay for.

  • Three Days Lying in a Yard by Mark D. Ransom

Sometimes what keeps a couple together is coming to terms with finally being apart

  • Play with Your Food by Bill Kozy

Diets, food-table warnings, calorie counts, maybe we need to take a break and have a little fun with our meals!

  • You Gave Me Nothing by Chris Purnell

A classic tale of woman vs. genie –  but this time, they both need to be careful what they wish for!

  • Work Break by Steve Sherman

A park bench play about pomegranates, pie and the fine line between adversary and friend

Suggested donation:  $5

Following the readings, there will be FREE wine and MINGLING!

Stay tuned.

2 Comments

Inspired, Today, Last Friday of October 2010

October 29, 2010 at 4:51 pm (Books, Plays, Recommended)
Tags: , , , , , ,

Self just returned from the library.  She decided to check out a book by Orlando Figes called Natasha’s Dance:  A Cultural History of Russia.  OMG, it weighs a ton, and is nearly 700 pages long!  She decides to bring it to Manila.  It will nicely fill up her suitcase and will balance out all those boxes of See’s chocolates she is bringing home for family and friends.

Self mailing out a couple of things today.  She is inspired!  These things tend to go in cycles:  there are months when she can’t be bothered, and then there are days like today when she seems to want to plaster her words all over the universe.  Whether or not anything will stick …

Wasn’t last night’s Giants game fun?

This morning, looking at her new messages, she finds information on an exceedingly interesting event at Stanford.  Here are particulars:

The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University announces

The Stanford Food Summit

WHEN:    Wednesday, 3 November 2010

8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Arrillaga Alumni Center

Description:   An unprecedented gathering of Stanford experts on food-related issues from across all of the University’s seven schools will provide a catalyst for generating solutions to some of the nation’s and the planet’s most challenging and important crises, including:

  • the national health crisis
  • the climate crisis
  • outdated national food policies
  • the hidden toll of industrial food production

and much more

Click for more information.

Stay tuned!

Leave a Comment

Today, Upper West Side

September 23, 2010 at 6:13 pm (Food and Drink, Places, Plays, Writing)
Tags: , , ,

Pinkberry:  mango and watermelon swirl.

Isabella’s on Columbus and 77th.  Honeydew and prosciutto salad.  Tiramisu.  Glass of white wine.

Penny, always so good to see you!

Happy with work.  Self finished a play!

A toast.  Penny and self had a toast.

Gorgeous weather.

No problem getting a cab.

Back to San Francisco today.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

2 Comments

« Older entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 95 other followers