Home Movies

I/29/15

It's late on Christmas night. I'm gathered with a family to watch some old home movies. I realize suddenly that this is not my family. I'm actually in the living room of Gena Rowland's Los Angeles home, along with the brood of now adult children she shared with John Cassavetes.

The movie, projected onto an old fashioned fold screen on medal legs, has just started. Gena has decided to go to bed and not stay up to watch. I look down a hallway off of the kitchen just in time to see the back of her head disappear into a bedroom.

Everyone turns their attention back to the screen. It seems a strange mix of family footage and scenes from Gena's work in motion pictures. I'm taken with the image of Gena posing with her children on an over sized burnt orange couch. One moment she is completely engaged, laughing and showing off her children, and in the next, the smile evaporates from her face and she recedes into the background without ever moving.

I don't want to watch anymore. I get up and go to the kitchen when it occurs to me that I haven't seen Gena's three Emmys around the house.

"They must be in the bedroom," I conclude, and start to devise a plan to get in there and have a peek.

[this dream is the kind that would normally really upset me, but honestly, it was so cool to see Gena Rowlands, plus movies within the dream! I also find it interesting that her home movies were kind of a mishmash of real life and narrative film, given that the home she shared with Cassavettes served as the shooting location for several of their collaborations. The illustration is three separate red pencil drawings blended digitally.]

I Had A Farm In Africa...

"I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

So goes the opening line of Isak Dinesen's celebrated memoir, as well the first words spoken in the motion picture of the same name, Out of Africa. I've been thinking about the book all week and how much I enjoyed reading it nearly thirty years ago as I rode the train into Center City Philadelphia on my way to rehearsals at the Walnut Street Theatre for a play In which I was performing. (Performing is a generous description as I was actually moving furniture around the set while wearing a French Restoration costume.)

The book took me out of myself and away from a bleak, grey winter. It's funny how I don't remember a lot of detail from the book, but I completely remember the feeling of transformation, of being happily lost a midst the tall grass, and the joy of vicarious exploration.

The film version did much the same thing for me this past Tuesday when I happened upon it while channel surfing as I waited for the State of The Union address to commence. I never did flip back to CNN until after the movie was over. It's just as well. I get far too anxious watching these annual addresses, and especially the opposition responses. I was much better off luxuriating in John Barry's lush score, the picture perfect cinematography and costumes, and the ill fated romance between Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

Lady Parts

Lady Parts refers to the title of Andrea Martun's recent memoir of the same name. I received a copy of it for Cheistmas from a thoughtful friend. Alas it still sits on my desk unopened, but I feel certain I shall dive into Lady Parts soon. I may need to rework that last sentence. 

Anyway, a belated Happy Birthday (January 15) to the hilarious and inventive Andrea Martin, seen here in my approximation of one of her more serious stage roles in Tenesee William's The Rose Tatoo. 

Well, La Dee Da, La Dee Da, La La

Traffic Starts Jumpin'

1/4/15

I'm on a crowded bus it's raining. The bus

starts to ascend a steep ramp en route 

to an enormous bridge. This makes me somewhat nervous. 

 In the back of the bus by the bathroom, 

a drag queen dressed as Dolly Parton strums her guitar. 

I suggest we start a singalong. Dolly 

plays "Nine To Five" and the whole bus sings the first 

verse and the chorus. We get to the 

second verse and no one seems to know the words.     

We repeat the first verse but we totally 

fuck it up; we're "out on the street" where the traffic 

jumping before we "jump in the shower 

and the blood starts pumping." No good.

Drag queen Dolly stops playing and, ever resourceful, 

writes the words to the second verse on a sheet of poster 

board, and we continue singing. We 

make it across the bridge, and my anxiety has passed. 

Kitty, I Forgive You

      1/1/15

   How you remember Kitty Carlisle, if you remember Kitty Carlisle

   Hart, will probably depend on your age. If you’re over 70, you

   may remember her as the Marx Brother’s costar in films like

  “A Night At The Opera,” or as a star of operettas and Broadway

   musicals. 

   If you’re younger than that, you may remember her as the 

   be-gowned and bejeweled panelist on To Tell The Truth.  Or

   as the long time Chairperson of the New York State Council

   of the Arts.

   Well, to tell the truth, I didn’t much think about her one way or

   the other until after she died and I read her obituary in the 

   New York Times. Along with  a list of accomplishments and 

   performing credits, there was this nugget of wisdom from Kitty:

   She greeted each new day by studying herself in the mirror and 

   saying, “Kitty, I forgive you!” 

   I tried it for a few days, hoping it would help ease

   my overactive conscience, but honestly it just felt

   ridiculous. Still, it’s a philosophy and a ritual I greatly

   admire, and I’m hoping 2015 is the year that I truly

   embrace it, in spirit if not in practice.