Fool's Gold Coast

Destination: Wedding

Hi, everybody. I've returned from Florida--a day later than planned because, if you must know, I was throwing up on Sunday and didn't feel like sitting on an airplane. The wedding was lovely, though, and--most important--my reading during the ceremony went over like gangbusters. Also, at the rehearsal dinner, I read "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat," which was received well too, once I got past all the pussy in the first stanza. After the third or fourth time I had said the word to only a smattering of nervous laughter, I began to fear I had lost the crowd, but I somehow managed to get them back before the Owl had purchased Piggy-wig's ring, so that by the time the title characters were hand in hand on the edge of the sand and dancing by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon, the audience was entirely in my power.

At the reception, I drank enough red wine to stain my teeth a regal purple and talked for some time to an Australian who, though tiresomely straight, was at least nice to look at, listen to, and lust after. The wine might very well have caused the next day's vomiting, but because I prefer explanations in which I am the victim rather than the cause of bad circumstances, I choose to believe I caught a bug from my three-year-old niece, who had been spewing the contents of her stomach all over the place two days prior.

Unfortunately, she and I were not the only casualties of the weekend. A bridesmaid also succumbed to stomach woes, and, closer to home, my beloved Jack Spade travel bag sustained a tear in the fabric at some point during my travels back home.

Still: rips, bugs, pussies, unseasonably chilly weather (did I mention that?), and straight Australians notwithstanding, it really was a lovely wedding, I promise.


WHILE I WAS OUT:
My review of Lookingglass Theatre Company's Fedra: Queen of Haiti appeared in last week's Chicago Reader.

List of Links 32

Tomorrow I leave for Florida to attend my youngest sister's wedding (at the ceremony, I'll be reading this, not this). I'll be there 'til Sunday; new entries won't appear here until after I return to Chicago. Here are some links that should keep you occupied for the first five minutes or so of my absence. After that, you're on your own.

WELL, WHY NOT?: Bob Dylan sings about Santa Claus.

YOU PUT IN OTHER DETAILS: In a letter from 1957, a little boy offers rocket scientists his adorable ideas on spacecraft design.

STUCK AT ZERO: Martin Filler examines the lack of progress on Ground Zero architectural projects.

RESOLUTELY BRITISH: In a review of Piven Theatre's Two by Pinter, Nina Metz makes a point I strongly agree with: "If nothing else, Pinter's work is resolutely British, so it is not clear why director Joyce Piven (the company's founder) has her actors forgo English accents. I suppose no accent is better than a bad accent -- but Pinter's argot tends to sound impossibly arch without the proper context."

THINGS I DONE WROTE: One year ago: "She asked me if I wanted to read a story to her students. I complied with what I thought was a fairly riveting interpretation of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie."
Two years ago: 1.) "[duh, duh-duh, duh, duh, duh, duh]
Go, Northwestern, go!"
2.) "The problem, I said, is that 'books are static, but the self is not, so rereading a book necessarily involves confronting change.'"

AND FINALLY: A song that I hope is not, under the circumstances, apropos:

Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you on Monday.

A New World

Yesterday was Columbus Day, so of course there was much talk among the dirty liberals in my cohort about imperialism and decimation of natives and incomprehensible post office closings, but I thought the best remark of the day came from a Columbus Day supporter. One of Kito's co-workers pointed out that for all the land-grabbing and Indian-killing that followed Columbus's Dominican vacation, at least one good thing came from the introduction of Europeans to the Western Hemisphere: the invention of Latinos.

I say: hear, hear. Maybe you're okay with the idea of living in a world without Ricky Martin, Chita Rivera, and my boyfriend, but I, for one, am not.

Fore!

Ultimately, when it comes right down to it at the end of the day when all is said and done, I guess I oppose circumcision. I find from experience that most American men of my generation are--in chat room parlance--cut (trust me: I have seen quite a few of the penises of my generation), and my own American penis is no exception. This has little bearing on the matter, however, because had I been consulted, I feel fairly certain I would have objected obstreperously to the procedure--provided, of course, my infant self could have somehow been made to understand what was going on and give voice to his concerns. The point is: nobody asked me before they started slicing and dicing my most sensitive and beloved body part, and I just don't think that's right.

Besides--and far be it from me to criticize anyone's parenting or religious choices--but you have to admit that the practice of mutilating a child's genitalia is, regardless of whether you support it, a teensy bit gross. I mean, at least the Jews have the excuse that God ordered them to do it so that the sons of Abraham would be differentiated from other tribes (why other tribes were apparently looking up Abraham's robe all the time is another matter entirely). We goyim, however, don't even have the ancient holy directive to justify our butchery. Many of us actually choose it for our children for some unfathomable reason. I mean, of all the things to steal from Judaism, why couldn't we steal something good? Like musical theater? Or a decent deli?

I know what you're thinking. "But Zac," you snivel, "I find foreskin unsightly and vaguely unsettling. If I decide to let my son keep his, won't there be hygiene issues? How will he pee? How will he have sex? Is he at greater risk of contracting STDs? Will people think he's anti-Semitic? Will he have to learn a European language? And, most importantly, what. about. the SMELL?"

And to you I say: how the hell should I know? What am I, your own personal penis expert? Do your own damn dick research for once.

Seek and Ye Shall Find 43

Addressing your recent search engine queries.

hornyoldladies
Here.

hedy weiss photo
Go nuts.

Interior sainte chapelle
rodin sculpture balzac
Done and done.
(Those are my own photos, by the way. And if you'd like to see more pictures from my trip to Paris, that can be arranged.)

taking the newspaper into a restroom
Even cartoon reptiles do it!

fool's gold coast
These days it's basically this.

ELSEWHERE:
My short reviews of Theater Oobleck's An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening and Chicago Children's Theatre's The Hundred Dresses are in this week's Chicago Reader.

One Thing after Another 20: How Do You Say No to a Recovering Alcoholic Whose Son Just Killed Himself?

PREVIOUSLY:
1. "Olive has received her co-worker Andrew's suicide note through the mail--along with the suicide notes of several strangers--and has decided to figure out everything she can about Andrew in hopes of discovering why she is getting the notes in the first place."
2. "Olive had listened in secret astonishment as Scott's client revealed herself to be none other than Andrew's mother.
. . .
"That's how Olive ends up at the First Christian Church of Jesus the very next Sunday, sitting just three pews and a little to the side behind Trixie Malchance."
_______________________________________________________________________________

Olive catches up with Trixie in the parking lot.
“Mrs. Malchance!” she says.
“Why, hello,” says Trixie. “Aren’t you my hairstylist’s roommate?”
“I am,” says Olive, “and though I didn’t say anything when we met yesterday, I also knew your dead son Andrew. We shared an office for a day. As it happened, it was his last day as a living person.”
“I see,” says Trixie.
“I thought you might like to have this.” She hands Trixie an envelope. “It is Andrew’s suicide letter. It came into my possession somehow or other.”
“Thank-you,” says Trixie. “Andrew did not have many friends, but it is nice to know someone was there for him in the end.”
“I do not know about that,” says Olive. “In fact, to call us friends per se is not exactly—“
“Say,” says Trixie, “how would you like to accompany me on my counseling session with Rev. Lonnie Lloyd?”
”Oh, I do not think—“
“Please?” says Trixie. “As a recovering alcoholic overcome with grief, I could really use the same kind of support that you gave to my dead son.”
“Gee,” says Olive, “when you put it like that . . .”

What Did She Mean "Little"?

The other day, I was standing at a urinal in a Wendy's bathroom, waiting for the last few drops to fall (the after-tinkles, as my friend Sare calls them), when a Wendy's employee, who was cleaning the stall, called from the other side of the divider, "Is you done?"

"Me?" I said.

"Yeah!" she said. "I don't want to see your little dinker!"

I found it rather amusing.

Your Song

I met Kito on today's date three years ago. This one's for him.

Roughing It

Kito and I had to switch cable providers when we moved into our current apartment, and I have had to live with the horror of not having every channel on offer ever since. RCN isn't available where we live now and Comcast's rates are higher, so we decided that HBO and Showtime are the only premium movie channels we can afford. It has been none too easy, I can assure you. Many's the time I have let my clicker stray to Starz or Cinemax, hoping to forget my troubles with a little Last Chance Harvey or some late-night softcore erotica, only to meet with a cruel onscreen message taunting me with my poverty and lack of credentials. "You're too poor for Last Chance Harvey!" the screen might as well say. "Not for you the delightful repartee and autumnal romance of Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. Why don't you go back to the E! channel where you belong?"

Oh, I have known hardship, my friends. Terrible, terrible hardship.

All That Glitters 87

A look at how I've been diverting myself lately.

Books
READ: Call It Sleep by Henry Roth.
COMING UP: books by Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro.

Movies
SAW: The Wizard of Oz [70th anniversary screening].
THIS WEEK'S MOVIE NIGHT PICKS:
THEME: Tabloid Fodder.
KITO'S SELECTION: My Family [chosen because J-Lo has a small part in it (pretty weak, right?)].
MINE: Cleopatra [the one starring Liz Taylor and a scenery-devouring Richard Burton].

Music
SAW: Son Volt @ The Vic.
BOUGHT: The Beatles, Revolver.

Current Interests
The bizarre, Chicago plays on Broadway, the gays, Barbra, my childhood, female pop stars, theater criticism, Jews, books, alt-country, the Beatles, fashion, Illinois politics, evangelicals, intolerable celebrities.

Fool's Four
FOUR THINGS I LIKE ABOUT THIS BLOG'S NEW DESIGN:
1. It retains a minimalist aesthetic.
2. Yet looks less like a GeoCities page from 1995.
3. More fonts!
4. Wider margins!

Foolish Flashbacks
ONE YEAR AGO: "According to my records, Kito and I fooled around, on average, about two times per week during the month of September (as I am writing this before midnight, numbers are subject to change given any last-minute hanky panky)."
TWO YEARS AGO: "FOUR GAYEST SOUNDING FOOTBALL POSITIONS."
&
"I want to be alone. I also want someone to beg me to abandon my seclusion. There's the rub."

Glitter
Here, kids, have some candy.

[via Boing Boing]

ELSEWHERE:
My short review of Strawdog Theatre Company's Saint Crispin's Day is in this week's Chicago Reader.