Fragile Industries

CSI: Bakersfield-By-The-Sea

So Monday, after my button-induced meltdown, I took a restorative, life-affirming walk on the beach.  Lately I'm making a point of including this luxury in my routine.  All those online dating profiles claim to enjoy seaside strolls, a lot of people between the Left and Right Coasts spend fortunes annually to feel sand between their toes, and here I am growing fungus indoors while a beautiful beach is literally paces away.

This is complicated by the fact that Mr. Sun is not my friend.  I avoid direct photon exposure diligently.  It's not just the wrinkle/skin cancer issue, although my complexion is the color of mayonnaise and as prone to spoilage in hot sunlight.  Even with the SPF 8000 I dab on daily, I have never enjoyed the sensation of anything stronger than the most watery winter sun on skin.  Accordingly, I make my beachside pilgrimages at dawn or dusk, or wearing protective gear that looks like the Nomex suit that Woody Allen's LA friend wore in "Annie Hall," if you remember that scene. 

So there I am, covered in hats and sunglasses and shawls, breathing the iodine tang of the kelp and salt, among distantly scatttered midweek, midday loafers, fishers, dog walkers and fellow perambulators.  I watch the silly sandpipers and scuttling crabs on the rock jetties.  My routine is to  walk one way to the pier along the waterline, then back along the high tide wrack line, if the water is out.  That way, I can find more interesting STUFF to hoard and hopefully use in a nature or rust assembly.  I only allow myself one object at a time to keep my STUFF mania in check.  The pickings are usually slim and most of the time I return empty handed.

Some beaches in the Carribean and Florida Keys are renowned for a profusion of perfect shells.  Some turn out amazing, complicated sculptural driftwood.  There's a tiny, secluded beach near Carmel just down the coast from a Gold-Rush-era dump that is regularly covered with what appear to be jewels -- beach glass from all the old bottles after a century of water and sand erosion.  It's spectacular.

Here in Bakersfield by the Sea, we get sand, beer cans, cigarette butts, very boring pebbles, kelp remnants and the occasional waterlogged Hello Kitty band-aid.  And blots of oil-drilling spillage that make a pair of crusty beach flip-flops mandatory unless you want to turn into the tar baby.  Ah, nature.  Monday, I had found nothing of interest and was returning across the dry, hot stretch in front of my lane, when something sticking from the sand caught my eye.  A deep umber, varigated, triangular flap about a foot across the base and half again as tall, curled over at the top like a jester's cap.  Driftwood, I thought, and bent to look at it's peculiar texture.

The smell hit me first.  I suddenly remembered an ill-advised breakfast choice in London years ago.  Kippers, an acquired taste.  Oily, rotten, fishy.  Then I noticed that it was really quite embedded, and definitely not wood.  I grabbed a piece of legitimate driftwood and prodded gingerly around  the base.  Whatever was down there was far broader beneath the surface, and within a few inches I saw the telltale boiling rice of maggots.  EWWW.  There was a great expanse of dead marine something that seemed to extend for quite some distance, with only the tip revealed.  Dead whale iceberg.  Well, maybe not whale, but porpoise or shark or adult seal.  Maybe a small sea lion.  How did something so large it become so deeply buried so far up the sand?

Now I love reading about forensics and watching CSI (only the original, the knock offs are shite), but my fieldwork has been limited to identifying the rodent and avian corpses brought in by the cats.  I was discouraged from further investigation by the smell and the overall ick factor.  I had also forgotten to pack my shovel and yellow crime scene tape.  Still, the possibility that some unattended child or dog could have far too much fun unearthing the beast disturbed me.  I tossed the dispaced sand back.

I looked through the Government section of the phone book when I got home, certain that a coastal town or county would have some division charged with clearing waterfront carnage.  Nothing looked close, so I punted and called City Hall Information.  They've come through before and are unfailingly pleasant as they slice through layers of voice mail menu hell.  I was referred to Animal Control, and the staffer there said that yes, they dealt with dead animal carcasses.  "Dog or cat?" she asked.  Think wetter and a whole lot bigger, I said. "We don't deal with any marine life," she said emphatically.  I reminded her that life had, like Elvis, left the building, but she had already hung up.  I called the Parks Department, but my beach is not THEIR beach, they informed me.  I called county and city offices at random.  No one gave a shit about the late lamented creature or the potential health hazards created by its partial interment.  I called City Hall back and explained the situation.  Again, brisk bright and cheerful help came through.  She warned me that she would put me on hold while she did the detective work on the other line.

I went back to sorting buttons while "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" segued into an uptempo variant of "Caravan" on Muzak.  Ten minutes later, my ace at City Hall was back.  She had gone up the chain of authority all the way to the California Coastal Commission.  My beast had already been reported five days before, and it was "in process."  What does that mean?  She laughed ruefully.  "You're not going to believe it, but they have to determine cause of death before they can move it, and the state necrospsy [look it up] specialist is very busy lately."  I remembered that in the last few weeks, not one but two blue whales, big enough to swallow boatloads of hapless Jonahs, had drifted ashore, dead as doornails and stinking to high heaven.  Oddly, both ended up on beaches within a few miles of mine.

This morning, the pathetic flipper still thrusts vainly at the sky, the edges a little more ragged, but just as securely lodged.  I suppose dogs and kids are smarter or more oblivious than I thought.  And the Coastal Commission sits behind a desk somewhere filling out more forms, environmental impact reports, and funding requests to study the problem.  Hey guys, here's the shovel, what's your hurry.

In the meantime, I've figured out that the shores of Bakersfield-by-the-sea may not specialize in glittering treasures, but we've got the dead sea mammal market cornered.   Let's alert the Tourist Bureau and see what kind of marketing spin they can put on this!

Order from Chaos: The Tide Has Turned

This is my story of STUFF.  I've been engaged, with varying degrees of intensity, in the process of dealing with STUFF since I moved here to Bakersfield-by-the-Sea in 2004.  I moved here literally with the shirt on my back and nothing else.  My first order of business the next day was to buy a few low-cost changes of t-shirts and undies at Target.  Through the kindness of friends, my cat and car arrived before the week was out.  I should have known when I was well off.  Within a month, virtually everything contained in a three-bed, two-bath house complete with huge and full basement and garage arrived in a giant Bekins truck and took up temporary residence in a storage locker.  I had packed some myself, the rest was done by my ex, and although he did an excellent job, I didn't know, for example, if the box marked "XMAS" meant wrapping paper, ornament, holiday dishes, lights or that giant wicker reindeer.  And so on, through "Kitchen", "Books" and "Clothes."  Not his fault, but the sheer volume of STUFF prevented a careful catalog or editing. 

A few months later, I moved the whole mess into a medium-size condo, and once I had placed the furniture, and opened the boxes obviously containing the necessities of life, I stacked the mystery boxes to the sides of the garage and explored them only to the extent that internal storage and deep depression permitted.  Once I had enough clearance for my VW Beetle, a certain paralysis took hold.  My former manic enthusiasms were painfully demonstrated by the sheer number of boxes labeled "Fragile: Cakestands" or "Eggbeaters" or whatever other collection frenzy I had embarked upon during my years in San Francisco.  Just reading the notations brought on blue fugue states   Instead, I indulged in a new buying spree for art and craft supplies, and since I make, among other things, assemblage from "found objects" (translation: anything and everything, dirty, tattered and rusty preferred) I had free reign to collect STUFF that defied easy categorization.   I kept up with most of it in the craft room/studio, with shelves, a closet and a huge wardrobe crammed with boxes labeled "Doll Heads, Medium" and "Game Pieces" and, in desperation, "All Kinds of Metal Shit."  Still, eventually, inevitably, it got away from me over the next two years, despite occasional efforts to organize.   Piles of STUFF nearly prevented any movement at all in the room.

When I knew I was moving into two rooms and a bath in my mother's immaculate house which she had organized with a Virgo's OCD intensity, I made a herculean push and succeeded fairly well in sorting all non-art/craft possessions into "Keep & Move In" "Sell" "Donate," a carefully disciplined "Store" category and an amazing tottering pile of "Toss".  I packed up new boxes, neatly labeled, or simply opened and closed the existing ones and moved them into the appropriate class.  I placed ads in the paper, called any charity that made pick ups, and bagged the "Toss" and made midnight runs to the dumpster behind Ralph's.  It was grueling and took the entire month  Then came the day before the move and I realized I had 24 hours to tackle the art/craft STUFF.   I swallowed my secret emergency stash of three hits of speed (overlooked in my sobriety housecleaning, found during the bathroom clearance and hoarded for just this contingency). Starting at the door of the craft room, I filled a box with what came to hand, scribbled "CRAFTS" on the side, slapped on tape, toted it downstairs and repeated the process.  By that time the next day, with no sleep, two pizza deliveries, and a run to Target for a car full of more big ass plastic tubs, I had reached the back wall and the movers were ringing the doorbell.  The "CRAFTS" stack dwarfed all others.  Mom had promised me the use of her small but immaculate office for a crafts room, so now I had three empty rooms and half a garage to fill at my destination.  Practicing the familial talent for denial that has served me so well, I said, "I'll think about that tomorrow," and spent six months sorting, shelving and dealing with everything BUT the "CRAFTS," which ended up filling, floor to ceiling, the half of Mom's immaculate garage not taken up with her big ass Mafia car.

It has now been a calendar year since I've done arts/crafts except for educational excursions with supplied materials.  I have made half-hearted stabs at unpacking, with the unhappy result that the living room AND the garage AND the craft room were filled with boxes, opened and abandoned in despair.   There was no easy starting point.  There was no starting point at all.

After my trip to Minnesota for my book art tutorials, I was newly energized.  In late May, I began.  The pace was glacial, and some days I only had ten minutes before my back was screaming, or panic, hyperventilation and nausea set in.  Some days were better, and slowly, generic "CRAFTS" became piles of categories, reorganization of which were required sometimes as new sub-categories emerged, or a newly decanted mystery box revealed a fundamental flaw in the system. 

In the meantime, the office-craft-room-studio-to-be was remodeled: the very '80's padded brocade came off the walls, requiring resurfacing before the repainting could be done; existing shelving and cabinetry was cleaned and reinforced; new book shelving installed, twelve (12) tall plastic drawer units purchased, file cabinet refurbished and filled with folders; and computer desk delivered and "EASY NO-TOOL ASSEMBLY" accomplished with a great deal of profanity and perspiration.  All of this awaited the "two-weeks-promised-but-two-months-in-practice" purchase and installation of the Pergo floor (Thanks, Lowe's, grrrrrrr...) to replace the carpet, destroyed by my mother's late cat.

Several of the category piles have been sorted to a fine anality and are in place: paper (oh, yeah, it sounds easy, but if you Google "paper storage" or "paper organization" for crafters, you'll see how obsessive an enterprise this is); jewelry and beading supplies, ribbon and fibers and lace oh my, "fasteners" (I know what it means, never mind), some books, some scrapbooks, some of the "All Kinds of Metal Shit," all stamps and ink and stamping accouterments, and my entire collection of collage images equaled only by the Library of Congress.  Still to go: general office supplies, adhesives, computer-related miscellany, cloth, knitting, "All Kinds of Wood Shit", game pieces and decks of cards (tarot, playing, Beatle and Diana Rigg Avenger Cards, among others), and the remainder of the unfinished categories mentioned above.

All of this has been slowly driving my poor mother around the bend.  She grew up with clutter and in reaction makes Felix Unger look like a piker in the neat department, and although she has one or two beloved collections (jewelry, lamps, vases), she would be happy in a single well-lit room with one spoon and one bowl.  Her mother's clutter gene skipped to my generation, so we are each other's karmic punishment for our respective schools of OCD.  I cannot harness her abilities to conquer this insanity, however, because a) she takes one look at it and runs shrieking from the room, erupting in hives, b) her preferred solution is to grab kerosene and light a match, and c) she's on an oxygen tank, for god's sake.  I may be certifiable, but I'm not a monster.

Now I have gotten my ass in high organizational gear, and I'm actually having fun.  The garage is empty but for the Mafia Car and a new "donate" pile which will disappear on Thursday to benefit the battered women's shelter.  My labeling machine is my new best friend, and better descriptions appear on the drawers than "Miscellaneous Smelly Crap" (that referred to some mildewy yardage purchased at a garage sale for a song, now washed, ironed, folded and Febreezed into submission).  I still have my idiosyncratic poetic bent in description, but I know the drawer next to "Beads" (color sorted!) which I have marked "Sparkletown!" holds sequins and rhinestones.  By size and color.

I am now at the stage I call "sorting pepper from fly shit."  For example, I have far too many buttons to simply have a "Button" drawer.  No, they must be sorted into those with holes and those with shanks, by color, source material (cloth? wood? plastic? metal? shell?) and "interesting" from "plain."  I sit in front of HGTV by the hour surrounded by those wonderfully useful plastic hardware/fish hook/etc bins making decision after decision, feeling hugely competent and accomplished.  This flush of success has its drawbacks.  Last night I had a single endless dream of sorting, what I don't know.  It was very boring.  This morning, diving back into the button process, I was nearing the end when a button of wood and leather with both silver and gold accents came up.  I screamed "FUCK YOU!" at the defenseless thing, startling my mother from her paper and coffee across the table.  We giggled, my giggles began to verge into hysteria, and I knew it was time for a calm, restorative walk on the beach.

Which did the trick of taking my mind off of things.  Mostly because I discovered a dead and rotting body half-buried in the sand.  Really, no lie. But that's another story.  I'll get to that later. First, back to the buttons.

That's COLD, Man ...

 

Sunday Morning O.J.

Interviewed yesterday by the LA Times, O.J. Simpson protests his most recent legal woes, under suspicion for armed robbery in Las Vegas:

"I don't hang out with gangsters, I hang out with golfers."

Shopping with Fragile Industries

I had half an hour to kill, and decided it's time for a new feature on Fragile Industries.  I bring you the weird and the wonderful, or at least the purchaseable, from around the Web.  Forget Tim Gunn's Guide To Style, I gotcher style right here.  Home decor?  Leave it to me.  That anniversary gift for Mom and Dad?  Just ask Fragile Industries.   I will regularly (well, I don't do ANYTHING regularly, but maybe now and then) offer my three most recent most favoritest retail opportunities.  Starting ...

NOW!

1. My recent adventures with spammers left a bad taste in my mouth, but nothing as bad as the alleged meat product celebrated here.  If you like to Spamalot (just leave my email alone, please):

http://www.spamgift.com/

Featured item: Spam bobble head.  Think it's painted in China?  It still couldn't be as toxic as the real thing.

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2. Perhaps you prefer your kitch to be out of the kitchen and into the surf.  Your mantra is "Book 'im, Danno."  Unlike most of humanity, a ukelele is music to your ears.  Then garb yourself with these eye-gouge-worthy originals:

http://www.thehanashirtco.com/?p=primo_shirts

Featured item: Not only will the background cause pain even for the color-blind, there's the Guaranteed Tim Gunn Disapproved Tiki! I give you the 50s Way Bad Tiki Man Vintage Hawaiian Shirt:

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3. Turning a leaf to the literary, are you a Gold Bug?  Do you spend your time ravin' about The Raven?  Did you leave your Telltale Heart in Baltimore?  Sheer Poe-etry here:

http://www.poemuseum.org/online_store/online_store.html

Featured item: This fully poe-seable "Li'l Edgar" looks alarmingly like Robert Goulet! 

Dies Irae, Part Two

So, last Sunday, Verdi's Requiem.  Robert arrived 5 minutes early.  I am usually within at least a minute of being punctual, but tend to use every last millisecond to get ready.  On his knock, I was perfectly coiffed and made up, but stark naked, so poor Mom had to huff and puff to get the door.  On the stroke of the appointed hour, though, I was out the door, properly dressed and equipped with cigarettes, reading glasses, car snacks and all other essentials.

Robert had kept his promise and arrived bearing a massive display of gorgeous dahlias, yellow and cerise and maroon, all different kinds, several as big as dinner plates.   He was agreeably fussy over Mom, folding her into her seat and buckling her belt as tenderly as a new father with a newborn.  We sped towards LA, again feeling like divas.  It's distressing how easily I slip into Pampered Princess mode.  Mom is equally at home with luxury, and I can see her eyes light up with good-looking male attention.  It is SO politically incorrect -- I can hear my Bay Area friends tut-tut -- but it feels SO good when we treat ourselves.

The courtyard of the Music Center was entirely walled off and tented with tarps and ivy-covered trellises for this weekend's gala opening celebrations of the new season.  As a result, the entering crowds were bunched into snaking lines around the sides.  Fortunately, Robert dropped us virtually at our seats (I think if the big black boat could have fit through the lobby, he would have) and we were early enough that there was a minimum of inconvenience to Mom, who really cannot stand or walk for long.  We again had great seats, center orchestra, and fought our way in once the doors opened.

Parenthetical rant: for the life of me I cannot understand why the Pavilion orchestra has NO aisles.  Well, yes, I do understand the fiscal reasons -- center aisles would eliminate the best seats and side aisles ghetto-ize the far right and left seats, in addition to eliminating revenue-producing seating.  However, it really penalizes any one less than fully able.  The completely disabled are relegated to horrible sight lines at the far sides, and those with canes (or oxygen tanks) or whatever who want center seating must bumble through a wide sea of legs and feet in a mincing side-step, apologizing the entire way -- past 30 or more patrons if one is in the center.  Like boarding a plane, there should be an early seating opportunity for those who need it when a public theater insists on configuring seating in this way.  We were there early enough (before the house doors opened) to have taken advantage of this courtesy, had it been offered. Also, there are no rest rooms on the main floor, requiring an elevator trip and long walk around the building for those who cannot climb stairs.  Disabled access is becoming quite a peeve for me now that I can see its effects close to home.  I have taken to scrawling nasty notes and tucking them under windshields when I see cars without placards or special plates in the handicapped spaces.  Mom is reluctant enough about leaving the house without being impeded by the thoughtless. Humph!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming: In a word, it was glorious.  Verdi's Requiem has an interesting history,  Verdi was not at all religious, and had little use for liturgical music.  He was first and foremost an opera composer.  When Rossini died in 1868, however, Verdi and several other of his contemporary composers were suitably moved to work on a Requiem in his memory together, patchwork-quilt style.   Verdi, ever the egoist, kept the best and last movement for himself, the passionate "Libera me."  The joint effort for Rossini never took off, however.  Five years later, poet and political firebrand Alessandro Manzoni died -- a hero to all of Italy and Verdi especially, whose works echoed Manzoni's nationalism.  Verdi went back to his Requiem fragment and composed an entire work in Manzoni's memory from the end to the beginning, a topsy-turvy method that succeeded brilliantly.  Verdi's lack of religious fervor is replaced by an Everyman's rage against death.  Somehow, it makes the traditional mass timeless and ecumenical.

The Requiem is arguably Mom's favorite musical work.  I know I've heard it since birth on records (remember records?) alongside the continuous household fare of Broadway musicals, Streisand, Garland, and Sutherland's Lucia di Lammermoor.  (Is it any wonder I grew up queer?)  This was the first live performance of the Requiem for both of us, and we picked a good one.  There is no way to reproduce the dynamics of the piece in a recording.  This isn't easy listening, soundbite classical.  It is an emotional hurricane, from devastation to calm eye of the storm and back again.  The Requiem roars from its signature romper-stomper "Dies Irae" ("The Day of Wrath") -- double chorus and kettledrums raging at top volume, fluttering in the listener's diaphragm.  Then it executes a pirouette into pianissimo awe, barely perceptible trembles of melody in the face of the Almighty, in some of the following passages, interrupted by reprises of the furious "Dies Irae" motif.  Four soloists, a soprano, mezzo, tenor and bass, sing alone and in various combinations with one another and the chorus, for a dizzying array of effects.  It is as if the opera composer in Verdi knew that, as a purely concert piece, without staging, the music alone had to produce the shock and awe to equal his big-ass operas such as Aida, with pyramids, wild animals and triumphal processions.

And he made it work. 

I'm an easy crier for live music, and predictably, I did so, but towards the end I was beyond tears, limp yet enlivened by the sounds pouring through me.  The soprano and tenor (he was a last-minute substitute) were adequate, but the low voices were exceptional.  I was prepared to dislike the mezzo, Stephanie Blythe before she opened her mouth for the petty reason that she wore a blue gown while every single other human -- chorus, orchestra, soloist and conductor alike -- wore black.  It seemed to me to be a Bette Davis move (remember the red dress in Jezebel?).  I forgave any past and future divatude on her part when I heard her.  Her warmth, richness and modulation is equal to or better than my previous favorite mezzo, Olga Borodina, and I hope she comes back to LA frequently.  The bass, Rene Pape, is of course everyone's favorite "low man" -- he is so bloody elegant, and brings intelligence along with a magnificent voice.  While everyone else sat like mannequins when not actively performing, I could see on his face a restrained, yet visible response to every note.  Although standing perfectly still during his solos (none of the florid theatrics of, say, Pavarotti's concert work), deep thought was evident in his vocalization. It was a quality I remember from his role in Meistersinger in 2000 or 2001 with the San Francisco Opera. 

Side note: Along with a bazillion other supernumeraries, I had great fun in that behemoth production, a brutal 5-hour marathon that needed an abundance of happy, goofy peasants.  In one scene, the peasants swarm the stage in their nightgowns after various witching hour alarums, and the director kept asking for bigger loopiness from us.  I was (not by accident, mind you) the last to make the harum-scarum dash from the stage and practically crippled myself with rubber-legged, arm-waving abandon.  The director stopped the rehearsal and called everyone back and asked me to repeat myself.  I was sure I had gone too far for even opera, where the motto for supers is usually 'bigger is better," but, red-faced, again executed a near-epileptic run that would embarrass Jerry Lewis.  The director then told everyone that my excess was just barely enough.  I usually got a laugh from the audience, one of the few Wagnerian opportunities for a giggle.  It's one of my favorite moments from supering, a rare time when being noticeable was a good thing.

Back to Verdi and LA: Before the performance, Domingo gave a brief speech dedicating the work to his late production partner at the LA Opera, which had been planned for months.  Pavarotti's passing last week gave another dimension to the Requiem, Domingo said, and the performance was dedicated to his old friend as well.  I think Placido would have been well pleased.  The audience certainly was, another standing O, and I gladly joined them, wincing when all around me shouted "Bravo" as the soprano and mezzo took their "Brava"-worthy bows.  I heard a new one from behind me during the frenzy: "Bravito!"  What's up with that, a little tiny triumph?  Oh well, bravi al tutti.

Celeb sighting: William Devane, sitting directly in front of us.  He still looks just like JFK, but after all these years, what JFK would look like today if he had stayed home from Dallas in '63.  And (this always surprises me) shorter than expected.

So, another wonderful venture into LA, air-conditioned and effortless.  I'd like to do this again -- weekly would suit me just fine, but, realistically, twice a year seems like a good compromise.  Some good stuff is coming to the theaters this next year, so I'm going to work on Mom like water on a stone over the coming months.  What made this excursion perfect for Mom was the sight of her ex-husband passing our limo in his flashy Corvette.  We both waved regally, employing the old "unscrewing a big light bulb" trick of the royals, but behind the limo's tinted glass our exercise was lost to him.  Still, it made her day.

Dies Irae, Part One

This afternoon,  Mom and I had another adventure into the wilds of LA, courtesy of Robert, "our" driver, to take in Verdi's Requiem, by the LA Opera.  But first, a backflash:

Last June we finally realized my 50th birthday present, nearly a year late.  Mom offered me my choice of LA Opera performances in July '06.  It was a sorry season.  All the good operas had bad casts, and the good casts were in questionable material.  I'd never been to the LA Opera but have been starved for a fix since I moved here.  We settled on a semi-opera nearly a year in the future: Luisa Fernanda,  a zarzuela -- Spanish operetta that was very much a family affair: starring Placido Domingo, singing a role his father had performed many times in Mexico, and with his granddaughter as a darling supernumerary.  We bought tickets far in advance and had excellent seats, and after debating the pros and cons of getting to and from LA at night in a stress free way (a hotel? not enough portable oxygen and Mom hates overnight travel -- me driving my Beetle?  the claustrophobia scares Mom into hyperventilation, not good on oxygen -- me driving Mom's Town Car? her posessive back seat driving of her car drives me to hyperventilation).  Settled on renting a Town Car and driver, a luxe addition to the birthday present that makes us both feel like the divas we are.   For an excellent summary/review of the performance, see: http://www.operawarhorses.com/2007/07/05/los-angeles-opera-brings-zarzuela-back-home-luisa-fernanda/ .

I would add my personal observations: this first offering by LA Opera of zarzuela  to all of LA, which is now majority Latino, primarily Mexican, is long overdue, and was visibly and (at the final curtain) audibly embraced by the audience, with a five-minute, whooping, hollering standing ovation.

LA audiences are notorious for granting the big standing O.  It's been said that a melodious fart will bring an LA audience to its feet.  SF, where I got my musical chops -- I was a theater buff on arrival from LA to SF, but opera unfolded for me in SF -- is much more restrained.  We were all far too cool in the foggy City by the Bay to show deep appreciation unless the earth moved.  Which it did, one April morning in 1906, and Caruso was in town, having performed in Carmen the night before.  He never returned, terrified by The Big One.  During my tenure, a good performance at SF Opera got a good hand and several curtain calls, but only a few opera queens and hayseeds stood.  In ten years onstage and off I could count the full audience standing ovations on one foot.  However, we in the audience did know the difference between shouting "Bravo!" (male artist), "Brava!" (female artist), and "Bravi!" (collective).  (Backstage note: we in the wings also knew to say "Break a leg" only for theater, "Merde" for ballet, and "Toi, toi, toi" for opera.)

But in LA, I was amazed and moved by the reaction to Luisa Fernanda -- a slight bit of musical theater, though brilliantly staged and performed.  The audience was largely Latin.  I mingled more than Mom, who, immobilized with oxygen tank, stayed in her center orchestra seat.  My mobility and gregariousness pre-curtain and intermission was largely motivated by the fact that I'd forgotten to put cigarettes in my evening bag and had to bum smokes from the very few other smokers.  Before curtain, I met Pablo, from Peru, and his boyfriend.  At intermission, I was drawn, partly by the scent of burning nicotine and partly by his absolute talldarkhandsome gorgeousness, to a nameless young man immaculately dressed in a hand tailored (had to be) suit, cornflower shirt with white collar and to-die-for silk tie (Sulka?) who graciously opened his silver case and handed me a Dunhillls, lighting it with his silver Zippo-style lighter.  I wanted to lick him, anywhere.  He made Antonio Banderas look ugly.  An Arrow Collar ad for Spain.

LA has a Latin elite, and they were all there yelling their heads off when the curtain fell, shouting all sorts of things, including "Bravo."  The gratitude for bringing this cultural treat back home for the first time in a century was palpable.  Parents brought perfectly-dressed and behaved youngsters to appreciate the form.  I was more touched by this enthusiasm and support than even the wonderful performance.  I finally knew that LA, contrary to all expectation, does have a cultural future, especially if it moves to include the new audiences along with the WASP bluehairs.  Well done, Placido.

Another personal note: I was blown away by the direction -- Luisa Fernanda was entirely staged in black and white, with grace notes of red (a single balloon, an invisibly suspended rose) quite minimally, with inventive uses of scrims, sheer curtains, and a rear-projection screen/box that framed the action beautifully.  Once home, I read the program (I had also forgotten to pack reading glasses) and discovered it was directed by my Most Loathed Opera Director Of All Time: Emilio Sagi.  Mr. Sagi directed Don Carlo in SF, and he was a weird and evil little critter.  Small, not English-speaking, and given to rubbing his hands together frantically while intensely watching rehearsals for the smallest misstep.  I was quite given to missteps in Act II, in my role as one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.  In the processional, four of us were to carry the canopy over the queen, rehearsing with what was essentially a muslin sheet tied at the corners to bamboo poles.  This was a rehearsal canopy, but Mr. Sagi demanded that it be perfectly taut and that we remain in lockstep, even as we turned corners, which required some fancy footwork, arcs being what they are.

Once we began stage rehearsals with the real canopy in costume, the real fun began.  Our costumes were corseted, Elizabethan-collared gowns with two-foot trains.  The queen wore an even more elaborate gown with a four-foot train.  The canopy weighed approximately 300 metric tons and was about four feet by three feet.  Stationary, we were a puddle of slippery overlapping satin, both hands clutching the poles and no hands available to finesse the drape and drag of our trains.  Moving, none of us could maneuver without seriously injuring one another, including the queen (the lead soprano), while staring straight ahead as directed.  To top it off, the now rigid structure of the real canopy was wider than our entrance aperature onto the stage and would not permit us to flex it inwards for our passage.  I was front and downstage and supposed to be the lead mule for our little group.  Mr. Sagi had a meltdown hissy fit and hurled abuse in mixed Spanish and some very idiomatic Anglo-Saxon at me, running down the aisle from his director's chair onto the stage and into my face.  No one seemed able to translate the physical impossibility of the task.  I burst into tears and the Chorus, gathered onstage for this processional, rose as one and defended me, one motherly mezzo clutching me to her ample and protective bosom.

Finally, several stagehands demonstrated the problem somehow and at the next rehearsal, the archway was wider, but our trains were never adjusted.  Every performance was a tightrope walk, and more than once one of us, including the queen, executed a graceless backwards lurch as we stepped on each other's skirts.  I cursed Mr. Sagi's name every time.

However, I forgave him everything when I saw Luisa Fernandez.  I must admit that his vision is brilliant.

Robert, our driver, a man who surely isn't much older than me if at all, fell madly in love with Mom.  He's driven Everyone who is Everyone in LA and entertained us on the way to LA with tales of bad behavior.  Rod Stewart, for example, has a lot to learn about parenting.  Judge Judy is a terrible backseat driver (no surprise there, either).  But he was Jennifer Jones's personal driver for years, and obviously worshipped her.  No dirt about Jennifer.  As we made the 2-hour rush-hour drive, a little of our Hollywood past slipped out, and Robert became convinced we too were royalty.  He fluttered about offering supporting arms and assistance in and out, brought chilled water and snacks for our return.  On the way home, I asked him to stop at the closest 7-11 or whatever for a pack of my own goddamn smokes.  He kept me company outside the car as I hoovered down on a refreshing cigarette to last the rest of the evening (non-smoking car, Mom on oxygen, etc.) while Mom stayed inside.  He kept saying, "Your mother is a beautiful woman.  No, really, really beautiful."  He asked her favorite color flowers and correctly guessed it -- the same as Jennifer Jones, yellow.  He promised to bring a bouquet of home-grown dahlias (he seems to be an obsessive gardener) for her next time.  Once home, Mom was endearingly touched by my telling of his devotion.  We had to have Robert again for this trip.

OK, flashforward to today:  Our second venture to the LA Opera.  Part II tomorrow, I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.

Back and Living, With e-Paranoia

Pen!s! C!alis! V!agr@!

Someone hijacked my art website e-mail account yesterday.  In about 20 hours, I received over 300 messages, mostly "undeliverable" e-mail notifications and denials of requests to join Yahoo groups.  My bulk folder / trash held an amazing 5000 more.  The body of the few I opened consisted of the usual ads for erectile dysfunction medication and penis enlargement.  Obviously, some enterprising spammer used the mail linked to my domain name as a launch pad for a major campaign to capitalize on little, limp penises.

Talk about pricks.

What does it say about our society that the biggest bane of online communication is almost entirely driven by male sexual anxiety?  When was the last time you received spam related to female sexual dysfunction?  We have a lot to complain about, but there's no magic pill to teach men about foreplay.

I've added more spam filters, adjusted some settings that may have left me vulnerable and notified Yahoo, for all the good that will do.  So fair warning, if you send me an e-mail with any of the above, bold-faced terms or variations thereof in the subject line, it's gonna bounce back.  Sorry.

More e-Paranoia

It has come to my attention that someone is doing Google searches with my first and last names and the terms "gay" and "lesbian."  Sadly, the pickings are few.  I've never used my full name here on the blog and I'm not about to, so that didn't come up (or out).  Still, I'm obviously not doing my part to create a queer online presence.  Unlike Senator Larry Craig, I am eager to do so, however, and I apologize to whomever is checking my rainbow credentials for my failure up till now.

On the off-chance that individual reads this blog, rest assured, I'm queer as a 3 score on the Kinsey scale.  That means I'm bisexual.  That means I fall in love and in bed with men and women.  Not lately with any two-legged mammals, my (also queer) boycat Peabody and Kitch the feline Bitch are my most viable sleeping partners for the past while, but that's by choice.  I am out and support the rights of all sentient beings to make their own choices. 

If there is any ambiguity on this subject, you know my name, look up the number, and I'll amplify at great and glorious length.  In the meantime, I could forward some of my recent spam if you have any personal anxiety on sexual topics.

Hope this clarifies things for you.

Living, In General

I'm fine, even if I've dropped from the radar lately.  Since late winter, I was in a non-communicative mode, a familiar cycle.  I seem to have regained writing ability and desire to do so in the last week, so I may (no promises) return here more regularly, now that my only hits have dropped to obscure Google searches.   I may even read your blogs again. 

Highlights of the last months: travel, instruction, introspection, blue ribbons for art at the County Fair, enjoying the perfect spring and summer weather here in paradise, missing old friends, cooking, elder caregiving, nightly viewing of (and cheering for) Countdown on MSNBC, Netflixing my way through the entire oeuvre of Daniel Craig, my sweet local queer church, oodles of reading on my various obsessions: infectious diseases, American frontier history, theology, the Manhattan Project, brain function, genetics, germ warfare -- along with some damn good recent fiction.  Recommended titles in various categories: The Kite Runner, A Beautiful Mind, Born on a Blue Day, Mere Christianity and the Narnia Chronicles (again),  The History of God, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Last Solution, The Genome War, Little Children, Bioterror (by Ken Albiek), 109 Palace Road.  Look 'em up on Amazon yerself, I don't have all day here, ya know.