Resolutions -- or Goals! -- for 2012

It's that time of year again, and I have to assess 2011's goals and repurpose them for 2012.

Thankfully, this is not too hard to do, since I have been pretty steadily working on each of my 2011 goals and thinking a lot during the last week about how to revise them for 2012.

Here we go!

2011's goals were, as I took them in this blog:

1. Improve Overall Health
2. Change My Living Situation
3. Manage My Resources
4. Build a Better Community
5. See Creative Work to Closure

Health: This was only an okay goal, over the course of the year. While I worked on stabilizing my hormones and depression, I did not embrace exercise. For that reason, my weight and overall condition did not improve (note to self: it's true about exercise!). Positive outcomes: my depression is under control, my mood swings and other perimenopause symptoms are under control. My allergies/sinus problems flared up in the final weeks, but using a humidifier every night (!) as well as increasing my intake of H2O hugely improved that, rather than the OTC remedies I started with. Overall, I am in great health. Negative outcomes: my LDL cholesterol is high and not coming down, my weight is still over the line and not budging except bits and tweaks. I need to lose serious poundage and remember to maintain my health through habits of hydration, nutrition, movement, and meditation.

Living Situation: 100% improvement, maybe 150%. No more crackhead landlord, no more cracker box, reduced rent, more green space, and more light. Thsi one was a total success, despite sacrificing a good deal of savings on the 3-month overlap of spaces.

Resources: Time is a constant battle, between "shoulds" and "want tos." Yo, I'm human. However I did add the Rescue Time Robot to my desktop, and it tells me I am 79% more productive than average. So shut up, Critic's Voice! Money is another, different battle, but this year I did pretty well. I have a more affordable appartment (and even though I might only be saving $100/month, the happiness factor makes that huge). I rearranged my retirement $$ is a way that makes me feel more secure. I opened several successful venues of frugality for decluttering, including selling unwanted items. Energy is the real battle, and that's the 2012 focus.

Community: This, too, was a success. I joined a short story group of women I enjoy and while we've only met once, I look forward to more meetings. I opened myself to the performing community in town, and am building bridges there. I opened myself to the community on my campus, and am trying to open out of my division, my school, and into the university in a positive way. I need to set more goals here, however, and be open to groups of strangers.

Creative: This was a big success! I sold my first novel (coming out in June!) and have almost completed the second, which I am certain will be equally salable. I sent out my short plays in a month-long binge and have had one hit so far, and three rejections (so I've got a long way to go). It felt great, however, challenging myself to complete and submit projects.

Overall, 2011 was a good year in terms of my goals. I plan to build on that in 2012:

Improve Overall Health: not much change here in direction. However, I plan to focus specifically on maintaining good habits (like using the humidifier every night) while building new ones (like 30 minutes of movement every day). I'd like to add daily meditation and vitamins, but I think I'll be conservative in this area, since it is one that truly needs daily focus.

• January-April: make it a habit to spend 30 minutes every day in movement of some kind
• May-August: add daily meditation (which will work with my 2012 summer plans)
• Sept-December: add supplements and vitamins
• get a mammogram
• get a colonoscopy
• get a dermascan 

Living Situation: This is easy. Renew lease on apartment (i.e., don't move!). More, start researching the pre-fab house I love in detail through contacting the company and chatting with them. And start looking at the places I think I want to build it: Oregon, Northern California, and Washington are the three places I'm thinking about now. But they might stink once I look around. So... research.

Resources: As ever, my biggest battle will be managing time. I have come to hate scheduling and to-do lists. And yet.... I need a new car, I need a new mattress & box spring, I need to pay down (or off) my credit cards. All worthy goals, all hard to do at the same bloody time! This year I want to build on my basic foundations of frugal saving and repurposing and decluttering: I find that I am about done with the wholesale donations to Goodwill, etc., and while that is an easy and intelligent manner of getting things OUT OF MY HOUSE (and onto my tax savings) I must needs find other ways to open what one of my favorite blogs refers to as "additional revenue streams." And finding new energy is part of the Health intiatives above, plus the hormones.

Community: continued reaching out, across phone, email, work/personal connections to develop relationships with new people/groups as well as people I already like, love, and connect with.

• Habitat for Humanity: in the Dallas area
• Alum group: for connections and fundraising/support of current programs
• Short story group
• Theatremakers/academics/women in both

Creative: Here, I have very specific goals

• Finish and sell second and third novels
• Binge with short plays in February and Sept-Oct
• Journal daily: dreams, ideas, etc.
• Finish and send two reviews
• Finish and send encyclopedia entries
• Polish and send two articles (from ALA papers, 2011) to journals
• Present two-three conference papers (one scheduled, July)
• Blog daily (in either blog) and continue to post my own photos

Here is my overall goal for 2012: Make lemonade all year long, every day.

I am so tired of negativity, including my own. I really believe everything is an opportunity, seen in the right light. Context and response are everything... they can turn what looks like failure or an impass into something wonderful. Not to be goopy or stupid about it, but to stop letting myself define my view by others' vision. Ugh! Especially since I am butt-tired of the men in my life having stupid, negative, misanthropic outlooks anyway.

Oh, does that sound negative? Nope: it's all good.

Priorities

It is quite possible that my priorities are out of order. I mean by other people's standards or expectations.

This is something I have been considering for some time.

For example: after I moved again (to this lovely new apartment), one co-worker remarked, "You moved? Again? Why don't you just buy a house?" Like me, she meant. Her first act on moving here 17 years ago, was to buy a house. Of course, she was hired at a better income level and with complete security so... we weren't exactly in the same place then. Another colleague, from a different department, said something similar only a couple days ago: surprise that I moved again, to another apartment, rather than buying a house.

But why have I moved four times since I came to this town, living in five different apartments for periods between one and seven years? Why not buy a house and be like everyone else with homeowner security?

Good questions.

For example: after I got tenured and promoted the first time why didn't I turn around and focus my energy on the next promotion? (There aren't all that many in the academic world, outside of moving into administration, ugh.) Why didn't I invest my time in writing and publishing in academic journals and books, like everyone else? Especially since I like research and find history fascinating. Why put my time into teaching, which is more and more becoming a low-level activity for professors? In other words, I am not defining "success" in traditional academic terms, and possibly not in the terms of My U.

What then are my priorities in the area of teaching, research, and academic progress?

Good questions.

As a kind of sideways answer, I can say that 2011has been about exploring and pushing at new areas in my life for balance. Like improving my living situation by moving to this fab new apartment, decluttering my goods, and turning toward buying land and building a house for retirement (2012 project!).

Like building a new community, improving my current community, and making new ties professional and personal for career, health, and sanity reasons. Initiating new projects to build connections across job and personal lines.

Like changing my diet to a non- (or low-) sugar/no processed or fast foods/three-meals-two-snacks a day minimum. Increasing exercise -- walking, biking, yoga -- for heart health. Taking care of allergies.

Like adding creative habits to my weekly activities: writing prose, photography, cooking, even teaching.

Like working on my resources: money of course, but also time and possessions and friendships and skills. Like using my time in more intelligent, more positive ways -- ways that please me, support me, feed me.

Some of this I have been successful at -- on my terms. So considering priorities and consciously setting some -- for 2012 -- is next. And I can say that it has been a long time since I've even been interested in setting short-term or long-term goals. This is another healthy step.

10.26 -- Natalie Merchant's birthday

Love this song!



Beautful celebration of different women.

The New Novel

Yesterday wrote 13 pages on the new one. Playing catch-up after a week without. Felt fantastic!

And... more news

Yesterday, I hired one of my former students to research grants for current projects. If we find some stuff to pitch, she'll help me write grants for funding or underwriting. I'm hoping we can find some monies to over-fund the department projects.

This is a great thing! She'll do the research, she'll help with the writing and the pitch, she'll be paid and earn creds for resume, I'll get money.

Downside? None.

And I'm giving her my Craigslist coffemaker (my dream coffeemaker!) and my Craigslist chair and footstool. Even more upside! These things will be out of my house, out of my life and happy happy happy with new people. Sigh... of pleasure.

Follow-Up: Glass Half-Full

In the spirit of optimism, I follow up yesterday's email of discouragement and astonishment with one of optimism.

If, as I believe, we are moving toward a period of disconnect between our academic pedagogy (or teaching) and free-for-all practice sans faculty, there are good things about this, for me, as well.

Like the opportunity to look outside my own department for collaboration. Right now, the projects I have built with colleagues from Medieval Studies and Creative Writing, from Music/Composition, from French, and from Film and Media Studies/Playwriting as well as the proposal for an interdisciplinary course including faculty from Music, Dance, and English to be taught in Spring 2013--all of these make me very happy right now.

Because of the chance to work with friends and new colleagues on exciting short-term projects.

Like the opportunities for my students I created and am creating. Getting my students into collaborations with professional actors and directors, with award-winning playwrights, with students from other disciplines, and even with each other. Getting my students produced and published. Getting my students into excellent internships.

Because of the chance to let my students test themselves in the Big World and to bring their writing to completion, in front of an audience.

Like the opportunities for my own writing and artistic work. The novel in pre-publication and the one being written. The three book reviews. The dramaturgy situation with a local theatre and playwright friend. The encyclopedia entries. The historical study in process. The two articles being developed from conference papers. The grants I hope to win for my own projects and the residencies I plan to earn.

These are short- and long-term projects that excite me, and that will make me a better writer/teacher/scholar/person.

Like the time to be spent with friends and family, instead of co-workers.

After all, one of my 2011 goals was to create a better, stronger community external to work. Which is all on me, after all. I've been doing pretty well, but attention must be paid!

All of this is made possible by the very argument of yesterday. Seen in this light, the glass is more than half-full.

Career "something" for Saturday

Today's career move was actually "moves":

First, across my virtual email desk came a request for interest in turning the recent presentations for the Crime/Mystery Colloquium into a published volume of collected essays. I immediately returned my "Yes, please!" and an attached abstract of my paper, as requested.

Second, I contacted two former students about projects. The first one I hope to hire to write a couple of grants for me, to produce student writing with professional actors and directors (and pay them decent wages for said work!), and the second one to schedule some Skype workshops with my writing classes.

Just throwing it out into the universe!

Binging... in a good way

As I noted last week, I recently participated in a submission binge with other playwrights. Throughout the month of September, fellow writers and I shared submission opportunities as well as advice, support, and cautions.

I chose to focus on submitting only short pieces: monologues and ten-minute plays. I did so because I knew I had one monologue and two short plays ready--in my opinion--for submission, unlike the longer pieces I have written. All of these different pieces are older, not written recently, and because I didn't really plan ahead, I hadn't read and "rid up" the longer pieces. And I thought that with only a few short pieces I'd be more able to determine what I should send where: only short pieces, with certain styles or subject matter, or number of actors, or minimal set.

What happened was a surprise, on several levels. First, I ended by submitting one monologue and eight different ten-minute plays to a total of thirty-nine different sites, with a total of 54 submissions. Since my goal was 30 total submissions, this was far and away a success.

Second, although I started out planning on submitting only one monologue and two plays because they were "ready," I ended by making minor and major fixes on six more plays and sending those out, too. In one case,only to one site, but still: that's one play to one site more than I had done in August.

Finally, this was good for my writer's morale, since I hadn't felt much like a playwright in some time. I'd been concentrating on the novel and the conference papers-turned-articles, and mutli-tasking as a writer is difficult, as I've learned. It's not the writing itself that is difficult, but keeping the energy of the different genres and subjects focused and moving forward, as well as finding depth in each piece when you're splitting your attention. But now I've thrown out 54 submissions into destiny's wind, and I'm waiting for the results.

Of course, it will be two to six months before I hear from most of them, and up to a year for a couple. So being ready to send more submissions as they roll across my desk (and I'll be checking every Friday and Saturday among various sites)... which they certainly will.

News: Novel

So... yes, I am going to be a published author for fiction. I've already been published as a scholar, but this is new territory for me. I've written a novel, that's due to be published in 2012. I'm waiting on a specific date, because I'm just about to start the editing process with my official editor.

When I know more, I'll pass it along. I am very pleased and excited about this: it is certainly what I would term a "popular" novel, not intended to be considered great literary fare. But I wrote a compelling story with interesting characters. In my opinion.

And frankly my aspirations are not to be literary--which I consider in most senses to be pretentious--but read.

Many of my favorite authors "aspired" to the stature of popular or "low culture" status: Charles Dickens, George Sand, Edith Wharton, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Robert Crais, and J. K. Rowling, for example. And every playwright prior to the advent of the avant-garde in the late 19th century.

A wonderful gallery of colleagues.

Goodbye, September. Hello, October!

Well, so much for good intentions! Although I enjoyed writing about my delightful meals in Savannah I got nowhere with my plan to blog about food everyday. One of my favorite topics, from any standpoint, and I still couldn't get myself on the page. What gives?

September.

Warning: whinging ahead! I am actively soliciting your feedback and suggestions on how to "get on with it."

I have been surprised by the number of challenges September brought to my life from all directions. If you've been trying to follow my blog this month, I have been more notable by my absence than my presence.

Why? September!

Work challenges! This first month of classes and administration and student interaction has been a series of uphill sprints.

T-shirt armor

Just when I thought I was done and back on level ground, uphill again... full speed!

Before I get into full-speed whinging, though, let me point out the following:

1. my first novel got bought this summer and I hope soon to have a publication date from my publisher;
2. in a recent binge, I submitted 8 short plays and 1 monologue to 54 different site for production or competition;
3. I've got my senior undergrad playwrights involved with student composers, nationally known writing mentors, and, soon, local professional directors and actors;
4. I've got my junior and senior undergrad writers involved in a Spring 2012 celebration of the 600th birthday of Joan of Arc, where their original writing will be featured in public performance;
5. I'm writing three reviews of scholarly monologues for two different journals;
6. My recent conference paper went smoothly and offers yet another possible article, with some rewriting and development;
7. I'm writing encyclopedia entries for French theatre (17th-19th centuries), due in December, by invitation and for remuneration;
8. I've been invited to help form a local short story "bookclub" with some women I really like.

This is all good stuff that's happening: improving my community, working on my creative projects, supporting my teaching, and certainly developing my career credits. And the list above all makes me happy... countering:

Challenge #1: Not becoming sucked into an All Work/All The Damn Time situation. This is a constant challenge for me, and always has been. I tend to immerse myself in my work, and this year (2011) is supposed to be about finding balance. Making work 20% of my life, instead of 95%.

This requires me taking the time to schedule time with friends, making new connections across campus, and using the 15-minutes-per-task approach to house maintenance and grading. I am certainly more conscious about getting other things into my day; I have also realized that I have to set boundaries for myself about putting time into preparing classes, grading, and my own writing.

And yet! (Devil on my shoulder, here...) I am trying to infuse new thinking into my classes, which had begun to feel "old" and boring. To break old habits of putting off grading until the "night before" and to keep the classroom lively and fresh. This requires consistent time invested daily: for my class meeting Tuesday and Thursday, for example, I am spending time on the class on Friday, Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday, beyond the in-class time or student meeting time. Too damn much!

Challenge #2: My absent colleagues. Seriously. I work in a graveyard, where the colleagues on my hallway (five men) all keep their office doors closed all the time. I see my colleagues once monthly, at our faculty meetings. I share no committees with my colleagues--because we have no committees. Seriously? In an academic department? Grant you, I don't want more meetings per se, but I am in our building four days out of every week, and I see 1-2 colleagues weekly. In a department with 17 faculty members.

Not in my hallway!

This is just... weird. We never socialize; for instance, right now we've just welcomed three new colleagues and a guest artist with... nothing. Pointing them out at faculty meetings. The guest artist is with us through October and I've yet to see him. All email, all the time. This mostly just makes me feel disconnecte
Challenge #3: Return to Drah-Ma that comes with being back in classes and the few small meetings. Email seems to heighten Drah-Ma, rather than diminish it. Moments of over-reaction, over-acting, and under-empathy. Sigh.

Challenge #4: Maintaining the good eating, sleeping, and creative habits I flourished with this summer. Keeping the fridge stocked with fresh vegetables and fruits, then remembering to eat them (ah!). The Lazy Me emerges, looking for the quick grab-and-eat stuff of the past, the extended nap, the "do it tomorrow, Scarlett" attitude I worked so hard to nix.

Off on an adventure!

Sorry to be so spotty about entries lately. I am off today to Savannah, Georgia, to a conference and have been writing and prepping my presentation over the last week. It is al-most ready to go, which is good, although I am not up until tomorrow at 4 pm.

Very excited about going to Savannah, which is a place I have never been before. I plan to visit the home of Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, as well as do a walking tour of the historical sites on Saturday. And eat good Low Country cooking and barbecue.

My presentation is on William Gillette, the American actor who created the persona of Sherlock Holmes for the stage, which then made its way into film and television. I am talking about the enduring legacy of Gillette, even in the newest batch of Holmes films and programming.

William Gillette, about the turn of the century

Gillette as Holmes on stage

Gillette was an inventor and playwright as well as actor, and left his "castle" in Connecticut, which one can still visit. He was a friend and protege of Mark Twain.

September goal

Yes, on top of the "7 in 7" I am adding a September goal... in part because my month has gotten hijacked by teaching, thanks for inspiration from Unclutterer.

Why am I surprised that the 14 hours I spend weekly in the classroom, plus the 14-20 hours spent weekly preparing the classtime has hijacked my house, my cooking, my friendships, and my personal work? It is, after all, familiar territory. I spend 1-2 hours outside class for every hour I spend teaching... plus meetings with students, emailing students, in meetings with faculty peers, and planning projects (two on burner now).

This is, however, why I set the resolution about both Community and Creative Work for 2011: so that my day-to-day teaching would not overshadow these necessary elements of my life.

Completing the organization and decluttering of my study is a necessary step in both these areas, since the study includes not only my at-home writing/research space, but an area for sitting down with friends.

What needs to be done, now? Completing the organization of my study. Started it, got well into the task... and then stopped. I need a new shredder (killed mine!), need to file paperwork, need to hang bulletin boards and framed art, need to clean off flat surfaces.

October 1 is the new deadline for this project being DONE.

1. Buy new shredder
2. Shred sensitive documents
3. File all retained documents in filing bins
4. Hang bulletin board
5. Hang framed sampler
6. De-clutter flat surfaces and study floor
7. Get rid of cartons, boxes, extra bins in recycling and Goodwill

 Good luck to me!

Goals 2011: Updates

For myself, I am checking in on my 2011 goals.

Improve My Health: I am really pleased with my work over the last couple of months (the summer) in this particular area. After hearing about the jump (whoo!) in my LDL cholesterol, I took specific action here: red yeast rice, oatmeal, increased activity. I am revising my eating habits to eliminate sugar, processed foods, white flour, and other nasty triggers. How do I know it's working? Last night I went out to eat at a local restaurant that specializing in souffles. I had a souffle for dinner that had great flavor (tomato and pesto) but was basically a triple helping of bread pudding, with apricot tart and ice cream for dessert. did I feel bad? Yes. Bloated, sleepless, congested, constipated, and all-around uncomfortable from both the amount of food and the nasty sugar-carbo dump. Don't mean to overshare, but this is a good thing. It means that on a daily basis I am eating a healthy, well-portioned, non-sugar diet incorporating fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein. Yay, me!

Stated goals: on track with room for still-signicant accomplishments in 2011

Living Situation: Well, my living situation has improved for the better, as we all know. I lurve my New Apartment, and it is slowly but surely getting clutter-free. This week, I did whip the Dreaded Study into shape, and will continue that work this week; the plan is that by Wednesday it will be where I want it for the beginning of the semester.

What's next? Managing resources (time and space) to make the apartment rally comfortable and workable.

Managing my Resources: I am still working on managing my time and focusing better. Some days, it simply feels as is I have ADD: I am scattered, multi-task without balance, and feel at the end of the day as if nothing was accomplished although I was "busy" all day...

Financially, I have re-tracked my retirement funding and alrady (since January) seen a significant growth in that area. This summer I also started gradually increasing my own donations so that by the end of the year I will have shifted pre-tax dollars to retirement funding in such a way as to not feel the loss. I have also paid down or eliminated my credit card debt positively, and my overall credit rating is excellent. By spending time focusing on my spending habits, I have been able to curtail impulse spending as part of my overall move toward decluttering/minimalizing my life. While I will never be a "100 things" or a "six items or less" person, I have definitely moved away from old habits of getting and spending.

This fall, I intend to focus on time as my significant resource: time for student work, time for my creative endeavors, and saying "no."

Build a Better Community: This goal is tough. The community I was tied into has scattered significantly during the last year, and I am still looking for new ones. I beleive my greatest challenge this fall will be re-integrating myself into my department at My U well, and on my own terms. I have already been talking to colleagues about creating new "groups," and I realize that I have work to do in recognizing and building community.

Part of this is about me seeking out communities for various aspects of my life. I both want and need to reconnect with my own students. I need to connect to communities that reach across campus outside of departmental lines. And, yes, doing the work that community building entails: meetings, contributions, nurturing and working. Too often, this doesn't interest me. Why,  I am still uncertain.

Seeing Creative Work to Closure: Here, I have been very successful.

• brought playwriting festival to successful fruition, including 7 scripts nurtured (March)
• completed, edited, and submitted novel to publisher and received contract (to be signed, this week)
• proposed, wrote, and presented paper at national conference (May; now, rewriting as article)

I have avoided perfectionism and space issues. I have just submitted four more paper proposals (through summer 2012) and am 1/3 of the way through my second manuscript. I have initiated a writing schedule and am doing a pretty good job of keeping it... most days. I am also setting monthly goals--more manageable for me.

July's goals:

1. increase weekly activity for good of LDL lowering
2. get all clutter out of dining room
3. get second ms. 2/3 completed
4. get all syllabi completed
5. initiate one new student-based activity for fall

The Dreaded Study--in progress!

I did make progress yesterday, in putting up the new shelves and reorganizing both sets overall. I also started the process of identifying what will become "Goodwill" donations and what will stay, among my office supplies and organizing tools.

Basically? The second bookshelf is in place, the floor is clean, the cardboard/paper clutter removed. (Photos to come!) Lots more to do in here, but substantially less than yesterday.

I keep focusing on two ideas. First, that organized clutter is still clutter. Second, for me, out of sight = unused clutter. So labeling and open/clear containers will work best.

Here are some pictures I found around the 'net of offices that seem dreamy to me. Most are small spaces, smaller than my own and focused only on "office" work. But I like the minimalism, the clean design, and the colors. Although I would never have an office in avocado--a brighter green, yes, but avocado reminds me too much of the kitchen we had when I was about 7: 1970s avocado greeeeeeeeeen.

These next ones are another kind of office I crave: the one "out back," away from the house.

I love these! They suggest a lack of household distractions--like laundry, the phone, the state of the kitchen floor. One's own little island paradise.

This one's crazy:

And this one's self-evident.

Ooh la la!

Claudette Colbert

Colbert is one of the best comediennes of her era (the 1930s and 40s) as well as one of the most stylish stars of the movies.

Her career started in the 1920s, when she was just a girl. She was born in France--actually, in the eastern Parisian suburb I lived in on sabbatical--in 1908, so her first movies, made in 1927, were when she was just 19.

Like Davis, she made a bunch of minor melodramas initially, really breaking out in 1934 with It Happened One Night, with her co-star Clark Gable. For both of them, it was a break-out picture, but before she made this, she made 26 films between 1927 and 1934. Any of those are fun, but it was her appearance as the Empress Poppaea with her bath of asses' milk that made early censorship happen. Forget Janet Jackson--this is the original peek-a-boo, and Colbert is great, just acting while naked. But don't ignore the "slavegirls'" BDSM chains and peek-a-boo dresses, either.

Her final, great film might be The Egg and I (1947) with Fred MacMurray (of future My Three Sons' fame). Like Davis, in the 1950s her career turned to TV, but by 1961 she was done, retired from the spotlight, until her final appearance in 1987. Unlike most actresses, she had only two marriages, one short when young, and one long marriage to a surgeon who died in 1968.

My favorite Colbert films include:
The Wiser Sex (1932) with Melvyn Douglas and Franchot Tone, two very classy actors no one knows anymore.
I Cover the Waterfront (1933)
It Happened One Night (1934), the great classic comedy

Cleopatra (1934) -- watch this, then the Liz-and-Dick one. Laugh!
Imitation of Life (1934) which also stars the great Hattie McDaniel; later this was a Lana Turner tear-jerker of the 1950s, of the same title, with the great Juanita Moore. I prefer the Colbert version, perhaps because it is more honest about the issues of "passing" and race that are central to this piece.
The Gilded Lily (1935) with Fred MacMurray and Ray Milland.
I Met Him in Paris (1937) with Melvyn Douglas and Robert Young, later of Father Knows Best on TV.
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938) -- a pretty great comedy with Gary Cooper.

My personal favorite of all is The Palm Beach Story (1942), with Joel McCrae, Rudy Vallee, and Mary Astor. Simply brillant! Here's the trailer, with French subtitles.



Since You Went Away (1944) is one the host of "at home" picture studios made during WWII about life without husbands and fathers. It also stars the beautiful Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton, who were  a great movie couple as well.
The Egg and I (1947) is charming and surprisingly holds up well. It includes Ma and Pa Kettle, too, so if you've never seen Marjorie Main in this role, definitely find it!



Colbert's films are definitely a record of the star system (she refused to be filmed from the left, for instance, after learning about film lighting) and the studio/contract era of Golden Hollywood. Unlike davis she was never considered a "great" actress, but watching her films you see that she had strong comic timing, the ability to handle complex language (whether comedy or drama) as well as weaker dialogue (and make it look good), and that she was a professional. She, too, made the transition from ingenue to "mature" roles gracefully.

Local Productions of New Plays

In the past couple of weeks I've seen two new plays performed in town. The first is Ponzi by Elaine Romero and the second is The Shipment by Young Jean Lee.

Ponzi is the story of a wealthy young woman who becomes friends with a couple, then lovers with the husband and a kind of mentor to the wife. Katharine never wants to be seen as a fool, and she guards her money and her heart carefully; she reminds me of a Moliere protagonist, although the play isn't a comedy. Perhaps it might be called a serious coemdy of manners. The contemporary setting means that one cannot but think about Bernie Madoff and other recent financial scandals. But Katharine is fooled, because while she wants to be smart she also wants to be loved, and her desperate neediness enables her to be tricked by the charismatic husband.

This play was a commission, which means this was its world premiere.

In this case, I don't think the production served the play as well as it could have. I actually found the directing, the casting, and the design distracting me away from the plot itself. The actors playing Katharine and the husband were simply more experienced and therefore smoother onstage than the actress playing the wife; the wife is described as "naive," but instead she came across as not very smart. Her worship of the off-stage financial guru Jack was a huge red flag in the plot and never convinced me: why, again, was he so inspiring? But I was also unconvinced of the husband's necessary charisma: it is obvious that he has the looks, charm, and "sincerity" to get Katharine flat on her back in a hotel bed in one scene and rethinking her financial choices in two... didn't see it because the actor didn't sell it.

I also think the play moved too fast, so that the interesting moments of silent connection were cut short, mostly by the directing. The actors also rarely touched each other with meaning, and I never felt either of the two women were comfortable in their bodies--which they should be at the top of the play. Perhaps it was because of the costumes and shoes, which distracted me over and over.

Ponzi has a lovely three-hander possibility--which means productions!--but needs a little more nurturing and some serious attention from a very good director to reach its potential.

I was also curious about the Tarot designs built into the scenes' titles and projections. Nothing in the play itself reached out to them, but the significance was somehow very clear to the author. How tarot reading/layout/meaning connected to the notion of ponzi games or these three people, I don't know. I know a lot about tarot, so I appreciated the meanings, but they would have been opaque to most viewers, something pretty to see rather than something necessary, another layer of meaning.

The Shipment was curious as well. With a cast of five young Afrian-American actors--including two students from our department--it is a play that centers around race. One of its central messages is that here in 2011, even with Obama as President, Americans have not resolved race.

No fooling.

Or gender, or class, or nationality, or anything else that divides us.

I'd like to meet the people who think we have resolved or solved these things. Talk about naive.

The Shipment seems to present a series of episodes, unrelated one to another, that enact different racially-loaded actions (I don't know really the word: events, moments, positions?). The play opens with one young man, in a tuxedo, dancing. A second young man joins him, also in a tuxedo, and at first they "compete" in the dancing, then pair up, then return to battle. The moment was contradictory: at once charming and well-done because of the performers, behind it winked the memories of black dancers tapping in films (Sammy Davis Jr., Bill Bojangles Robinson, the Nicholas Brothers) and the whole host of blackface performers from Daddy Rice to Fred Astaire. That was followed by a DJ/hip-hop dancer, again both male, in tuxedos; the dancer's movements and gestures are overtly sexual, evne sexual positions, as he makes eye-contact and grins at the audience like the tap-dance duo.

Then came a stand-up comedian, with the same contradictory/two-faced message: one, a sharp, funny "routine," wherein he talks about wanting to docomedy about poop but having to talk about race because he's black, and two, again the winking image of Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor and the "stereotype" of the foul-mouthed black stand-up guy. The language (and some of the imagery) is in-your-face dirty (sexual, scatological), but the ideas embedded in it should catch a corner of your brain. This seems to be the "Theatre of Cruelty" segment, where the audience is abused, but given flashes of insight--if you can hold on--that suggest something worthwhile, deeper in the message.

One of the problems here is that this is not a stand-up routine, per se. It is an actor playing a stand-up comedian who is performing his routine--a routine which has become a problem for him (the stand-up guy) while still being successful as a stand-up routine. The moment calls for the actor to present the comedian and the routine as two separate things that are constricting and destroying each other--a complicated piece of performance the young actor I saw was not able to pull off.

This is followed by segment done in a deliberately simple style--with no emotional affect, though lots of drama--about a young man who wants to be a rapper but becomes a drug dealer instead; and finally by what seems to want to be a "realistic" sequence about a party of friends and co-workers. Unfortunately, again, the young actors played the final two sequences in a very similar style vocally and physically (creating two-dimensional allegories, rather than full-bodies characters), and the result, for me, was few moments of not feeling absolutely shoved back by the production--Brecht's "alienation" rendered one direction--which left me too distanced by the parody and politics to connect to the message.

I kept thinking The Shipment was deliberately trying to evoke a "minstrel show" air, but one turned on its head by a Korean-American female playwright and an African-American cast. If this is a kind of  new minstrel show, one that parodies the stereotypical parodies that the white-performer minstrel show developed in the 19th-century (which are perhaps some of the roots of the dancing, foul-mouthed, drug-myth narratives of contemporary American regarding blacks, generated both by African-American and white American actors, writers, and spectators), something missed. The young actors didn't seem to grasp the notion of playing characters and stereoypes/situations simultaneously, in a Brechtian mix--but that is a difficult feat. And the playwright too often left it to me, the audience member, to say, oh, this is like a minstrel show! this is a parody turned on its head! she is playing with race humorously! in other words, to get the message by extension.

The actors did an amazing job--all very young, they stepped up to the challenge of this piece as an ensemble beautifully. I suspect they didn't grasp the deeper nuances of this complex piece, and frankly even if they had, it would be hard to make it all work. The play, too, was interesting, but the structure was what was supposed to carry the bulk of the message and it isn't carrying the weight. There are no layers underpinning her humor and insight. The playwright wants to confront and disconcert the audience, to make them uncomfortable, but she also wants to entertain, as well as diffuse the blame (who is to blame for continuing stereotypes and racial inequities? she winks both ways, but never comes right out with it).  The production was definitely successful in its design and in making me think about it for the last few days (like Ponzi) off and on, about what I liked and didn't get, etc.

Untimately, both productions made me think about various aspects of playwriting (always good) and new plays in production, and our relationships with the audience. So that's all good.

Good Things that Happened Yesterday

1. Met a friend for dinner. Had great convo with her about her work and mine. Left 3/4 fries and 1/4 burger on my plate...
2. Finally heard from publisher: only prelim message, but finally! Fingers crossed.
3. Offered tickets for local show, which has gotten great reviews. Hope to see it this weekend, before it closes.
4. Found a movie gift card someone had given me, that I had forgotten all about. Score: free movies!
5. Sold something on Craigslist within a day of reposting it with better pictures.
6. Was the high bidder on eBay for something that I had been looking for, for a long time. At 25% or original price, including shipping.
7. Uploaded my pictures from DC.
8. Got great advice from two friends and myself about how to rethink upcoming classes and production events, which led to a flurry of ideas about fall's classes, assignments, lectures, and programs. Great feeling.

Wow!

Men in Power, or Tonight's Opera Talk

Tonight I am one of three panelists taking part in the discussion "Sex, Guilt, and The Diva" in the Dallas Opera's summer subscriber series. We are focusing specifically on La Traviata and Katya Kabanova.

My role, as explained to me, is to be the theatre expert (both plays are based on 19th-century dramas) and to offer feminist insight. I was told we want our discussion to be informative but not academic, and fun. All of which is great, and right up my alley.

Facts: La Traviata, Giuseppi Verdi's 1859 opera, was based on Alexandre Dumas fils' novel/play La Dame aux Camellias (usually referred to as Camille,which was in turn the title of the 1936 film starring Greta Garbo base don Dumas's novel/play). All versions focus on a courtesan who falls in love with a young, middle-class man and leaves her demi-monde life behind. In turn, his father comes to her and begs Marguerite/Violetta/Camille to set the young man free for the sake of his family's honor; she agrees, and returns to her old life, just in time to die from consumption (tuberculosis).

Katya Kabanova, Leos Janacek's 1920 opera is based on Alexander Ostrovsky's 1860 play The Storm. One of Ostrovsky's social dramas, the play and opera tell the story of Katya, a young wife who is bullied by her mother-in-law and her husband. She loves a neighbor and, while her husband is away, is tempted to meet the lover at night, which her mother-in-law discovers. When her husband returns, Katya confesses in front of all the neighbors, and then drowns herself in the Volga.

Verdi's opera is much more "traditional" in its structure and the style of the music. It is the second most performed opera worldwide (The Magic Flute is #1, and also part of this year's season in the Big D). Both operas dervive from plays that are, surprisingly, critiques of middle-class values, even while the middle-class values triumph. Both women die--one from consumption (a wasting disease) and one from suicide (derived from the guilt of adultery). Both plays and operas openly depict the double standard about sexuality for men and women, as well as the reality of women's limited opportunities.

Both are about doomed love, as well, which is, of course, the central draw for many spectators, as well as the gorgeous music.

I'll tell more about this tomorrow... but it has made me think about our recent news items about "men in power," since both authority, sexuality, and middle-class values seem to be a common thread.

Back on line!

I've been out of town and dealing with stepping up to the summer schedule I created for myself. That's been giving me a lot of "to do" priorities.

 

Things I'll be talking about in the next week or so:

1. My annual check-up and summer cooking
2. Big D's Farmer's Market: is it worth it?
3. My trip to the Great NorthEast
4. Paris: the Caillebotte Brothers' exhibition (would that I were in Paris!)
5. Downsizing my stuff
6. Temptations
7. Men in Power
8. Bad Chat

Yes, a lot has happened that I've been thinking about, talking about, and doing. Looking forward to sharing!

What I'm working on right now

Next Friday morning I'm giving a paper at a conference. I sent off the suggestion to a panel just on a whim--to a fellow academic I knew some time ago but haven't been in touch with for some time.

The title of the paper is "Women Writing Women: Herstory in American Drama."

The subject is three plays, each written by a woman, about three famous American women; the larger, more general topic is biography, gender and American drama. The plays are Alison's Room by Susan Glaspell, Alice in Bed by Susan Sontag, and Charm by Kathleen Cahill. As I said, I proposed this paper on a whim, actually just after seeing Charm here in Big D, and really with an interest to doing something in American dramatic literature again.

But funny connections have emerged as I work on these three plays, which will weave into my discussion and, hopefully, into a longer article.

Alison's Room is the Pulitzer Prize play by Susan Glaspell, possibly the first great women playwright in America. You may never have heard of her because she was a contemporary and friend of Eugene O'Neill, and his fame overshadowed hers. But they were the two playwrights first produced by the Provincetown Players, and nowadays Glaspell is often "known" for that. She was, however, also a journalist, short story writer and novelist, and in fact wrote in most genres with an impressive career. Alison's Room is her "biography" of Emily Dickinson, and takes up the subject of Dickinson's legacy as a woman, as much as a poet.

Glaspell

Dickinson

Alice in Bed by Susan Sontag is a freely imagined biography of Alice James, the sister of William and Henry, who was an invalid almost all her life, until breast cancer killed her at 43. Sontag, of course, is best known as an intellectual and writer of philosophy and critique on many topics, but this is her sole play.

James

Charm by Cahill is about Margaret Fuller, again a kind of imagined biography of the woman who wrote Woman in the Nineteenth Century, the first American document on feminism and a colleague of the New England transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau.

Fuller

All three women--Dickinson, James, and Fuller--lived in approximately the same period, the middle 19th century. All three playwrights--Glaspell, Sontag, and Cahill--take a less-than-documentary look at their subject matter.

But the major things I realized in starting this project are these:

• these "imagined" biographies are the only ones I could find by women about famous American women: meaning published, produced, award-winning, "known" beyond a small circle;
• all of the more famous or successfully produced biographies of American women are written by male playwrights;
• film offers more biographies--again, written almost entirely by men--and is a more successful venue.

Why? I think--and this is part of my discussion in the paper to come--because famous women are not famous for the same action-oriented, active things men are famous for. Women are neither presidents nor generals, inventors nor explorers, public speakers nor society transformers... and yes, I know that is an inaccurate as well as sweeping generality. When women are famous for the things I've mentioned, it is often in a woman-dominated sphere or for a woman-friendly topic (like birth control) that is somewhat controversial and has little "action" (i.e., violence, fighting, or car chases) associated with it.

And in considering those women who do these things, their biography is most often directed to their personal lives: as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, or women who give up love, or lose love through their ambitions. Who sacrifice for their family, or who sacrifice their family to their ambition/art/cause.

This is not the focus of male biographies--a fact which is not new.

But I am also curious about the attitude these female playwrights take toward their subjects: Glaspell toward Dickinson, Sontag toward James, Cahill toward Fuller.

Oh, and Sontag includes an "Alice" teaparty where James has tea with Fuller and Dickinson... that's one of those weird coincidences I had forgotten about when I proposed the paper. It is a kind of Mad Hatter meeting among these three American women.

In any case, I am hoping this continues to give me insights into my work with French actresses and the men who "imagined" them.