Airline Highway, Steppenwolf Theatre

Went to see this play people have been that's so ravin' about before the holiday. I kept meaning to write about it. Now my memory is a little fuzzier, which, in some ways, makes for a better critique.

The play looked great. Everyone LOOKED right. The setting was disgusting and perfect. I was transported. The only technical error spotted was from Bisque's eye. He said, "I don't think they would have had name brand chips." It is a good point. At a party of homeless strippers and duggos, maybe they'd go for the Jewel-brand tortilla chips instead of the Tostitos. Just a hunch.

How did I feel? This is the primary question. I felt, complacent. Mostly. I never felt a real strong pulling thing. I was in the balcony, but that hasn't stopped the power of theatre before. Did I care about these people? Um. Here's the true thing. I felt the people I met were in unpleasant lives and while it wasn't their fault, they were not extremely proactive to change. For some, I don't think they minded. For some, I think they very very much did. Perhaps that is the point of the play--a sort of conservative view of the lower class. "They could change, but they won't. They're weak."

"People don't change." A sentiment repeated and proven, I think, by the text. Perhaps the happiest of the folk was that old man on his bicycle. Tragically stuck in a hippy mind with an ol' lil body pedaling to the radio. Or was it tragic? Was it just fine because when all was said and done he was happy? He had the last big speech of the show. A poem. I thought it strange since he was such a minor character and none of his words held much strength to me, but upon writing this...

I found the play very deliberate. The symbol of Bait Boy's pink shirt coming off, his tattoos exposed, his speech morphing. The iPad of the yuppy kid, when she dropped it, the storytelling and the talking about the storytelling. I don't think deliberate is bad by any means. I'd rather deliberate than cloudy.

There is a huge emphasis on the choices you make at 16 do matter. I believe this. Sometimes I couldn't tell if we weren't supposed to believe this, or if that's a mantra of losers. "If only..." The carrying of baggage that can be can be can be dropped. But people that ever tell you, "This doesn't matter," don't know what it is like to be alive and get things you want. In reality everything matters. Instead, say, "This matters, but what you do next matters more."

Overall, I think I enjoyed this play just fine. It is going to Broadway, and there is zero chance I would recommend anyone see if for how much that ticket will cost. At the Step with a student discount, a good little Thursday night. Without? Hm. I don't think you need it. I will say that theatre is lasting. These ideas are stronger with colors and words and fake people on stage representing them. I don't believe I was changed from this production. I don't believe I learned very much, but I did think in a deep way, and that is what it is all about.

Not Listening When You Say Goodbye

I never thought I'd be this old and still feel the first days of summer. But here it is.

Walk out of the grocery store, it's like I'm inside an Easy Bake Oven. The light-bulb glow has tanned my skin. Sauntered through the gate of the high-end hotel pool with the salt water and falls. Live band playing "Chicken Fried" and "Santeria." I sing along and Bisque dunks me.

Cager and Ro come home at 9:30 on Friday. We go out for shaved ice. I got cherry limeade. Feels like high school, we're talking about AIM. People in our living room when we get back. We sit around, we sit around, what else is there?

I try to clean my room and get bored easily. Close my eyes to Third Eye Blind, eat Cap'n Crunch at 2 AM and watch Breaking Bad until dawn. I'm jet lagged but it's more. It's bein unemployed and out of school. I keep having these half thoughts of "Next semester," and then they evaporate because it is done.

I could worry about money and try to eat healthier, but I haven't been. It's early and I'm young. We watched Scream Sunday night. I will always love it. I'm too defiant for a regular work out. I just want to run and run into the sun.

Were We Wild And Young?

When we were 16, my friend wrote on her LiveJournal, "I shouldn't be sad. My boyfriend's awesome and the Sox are winning." I doubt she remembers the day or why she was blue. The journal has been deleted, but that line has always stuck with me. And perhaps high schoolers can be myopic and immature, but sometimes they're more keen than any of us could dream to be.

I don't remember, were we wild and young?

All that's faded into memory.

I feel like somebody I don't know.

Are we really who we used to be?

Am I really who I was?

The lights will draw you in,

and the dark will bring you down.

And the night will break your heart

only if you're lucky now.

Homeward

Buckingham Fountain 2012

When the Working Day Is Done, Oh

My roommates and I stayed up until 1 AM watching the newest episode of Catfish. Just three lil brunettes side by side on the sofa. Laughing our faces off.

I really loved living with a dude for the previous two years. The garbage disposal was fixed, jars were opened, he didn't care what I was writing about, he played video games alone in the basement. But now?! Now I walk around the house in tanks and undies. Rora puts Dream on the sound-system and we all sing and dance "No chai-ains to unlock!" Ro comes home to make a cuke sandwich when I haven't left for school yet and we gossip our brains out. I get home as she does, hide behind the fridge, and scare the daylights out of her.

I'd say I was in college again, but I don't think that was as fun.

March slumber party!

Aforementioned

"My mum used to say to me, 'You can't have fun all the time,' and I used to say, 'Why not? Why the ____ can't I have fun all the time?'"

Green Analysis of Looper (Spoilers)

First of all, I really enjoyed Looper. Everyone I knew who had seen it from students to my dad had given it a serious thumbs up, so I had high expectations, and those expectations were certainly met. The movie is intriguing, beautifully crafted, and digestible enough to make sense, but complex enough to make you work/feel kind of smarty.

I also really appreciated the theme of conscientious environmentalism that can be applied to the film. As 20 somethings in a broken world they inherited, the Loopers feel as though their youthful behavior--while destructive--is theirs to enact. Again, they never asked to be part of that society in the first place. Even when directly faced with the consequences of the future, even for themselves, they do not want to change their ways.

The film also shows the heart of the struggle with environmental progress via Bruce Willis's character as he simultaneously demands a better future but refuses to change his own desires. We are empathetic to his emotion because we see that he is hopeful for a genuinely good thing. At the same time, by the end of the film we see that perhaps Willis is not wrong in that what he wants is a good thing...but that doesn't mean that overall he is working toward the greater good. To me, the projected solution of the film in terms of breaking the harmful cycle is something like, "Look. We get that you are but a human lost in the wide world without any personal responsibility for things, but just take some, would you? And furthermore, recognize that maybe you see something you could sacrifice as unsacrificable, but have you ever considered that perhaps there is more good--dare we say--BETTER good to fill the hole in your preconceived idea of perfection?"

There's a lot more to say on this topic (IE the use of retro fashion portraying this selfishness is not new to any generation), but I also have a lot of homework and grading to do.

Spent Gladiator

Do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive.

Do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away.
Let people call you crazy for the choices that you make.
Climb limits past the limits.
Jump in front of trains all day.

And stay alive.
Just stay alive.

Play with matches if you think you need to play with matches.
Seek out the hidden places where the fire burns hot and bright.
Find where the heat's unbearable and stay there if you have to.
Don't hurt anybody on your way up to the light.

And stay alive.
Just stay alive.

People might laugh at your tattoos.
When they do get new ones in completely garish hues.
I hide down in my corner because I like my corner.
I am happy where the vermin play.

Make up magic spells .
We wear them like protective shells.
Land-mines on the battlefield.
Find the one safe way.

And stay alive.
Just stay alive.

RADiohead

Last night I saw Radiohead in concert. Here's what I think:

-It was huge. 20,000 people huge.
-This band has been popular, like, really popular, with all sorts of people for 20 years. What what what?
-The tiny little Tom moved his body like wild, but he was still so tiny.
-It was good, but my mind wasn't blown open, which is what people said would happen. Don't get me wrong, it was good. But my mind is chillin'.
-There are many parallels to Brecht and what happened last night. The A-effect, cigar theatre (people eating nachos pre-show since it was in a stadium), the purposeful cliche being loved by all ("High and Dry" and Brecht's Three Penny Opera).
-My favorite songs were the slow ballads. "Paranoid Android" was, of course, wunderbar, and "15 Step," but I liked "Lucky" maybe the best?
-Skars saw it with me. He sat on my left and yelled "Woo. Spring Break!" as we rallied for the inevitable encores.
-When its so big and bold and packed, I guess you just want music, but I would have liked some banter, some chatting. Let me know you, Radiohead!
-There are a lot of Radiohead songs that melt me right into a puddle of goop. Listening to those today--ones that weren't played last night--seemed...brighter? More electric? Like, I love this song, but now it's underscored with a personal...THING. I was there. I've been in a room with this voice. This stringy sweet voice.

Bloom
15 Step
Airbag
Little By Little
Myxomatosis
Gloaming
Magpie
Pyramid Song
Daily Mail
Arpeggi
Packt Like Sardines
Identikit
Lotus Flower
There There
Feral
Idioteque
How to Disappear Completely
Kid A
Lucky
Bodysnatchers
Give Up the Ghost
Reckoner
Paranoid Android



And for a minute there, I lost myself.
I lost myself.

Please Communicate

On Wednesday everyone was happily piling into the big classroom we hold our sketch writing meetings at school. There's a bunch of us, and we get together joyfully--laughing, making cracks, bubbling. And suddenly a stern woman--probably my mother's age--stomped into the doorway and asked Sid--sitting at the front of the room--pointedly, "Are you even a real class? Do you even have this room reserved?" Yes, he answered. We have this room reserved. "Because I don't think you do. I don't think you do. People are trying to work here, and you're all very loud, and there is a lot of profanity." She was steaming at us, but to us, hyped up on creative promise, she appeared as a deflated balloon.

Sid tried to pull up the room reservation, but the system was down. The woman stood, actually rudely since...we did have a right to be in that room. Even if we hadn't reserved the room, which we had, people are allowed to be in a space, and if they are converging, it's pretty unloving to insert oneself abrasively. She hissed, "There have been lots of complaints!" I smoothed my shirt and said calmly, "Who has complained? You are the first person who has ever talked to us."

"People have complained. Lots of people have complained to me!" We couldn't show her the reservation, but, again, even if we hadn't had one, what could she say, "You're not allowed to be in this classroom that no one else is using right now"? She started stumbling in her anger, murmured to keep the noise and profanity down, and exited disdainfully.

She knew her actions were not appropriate, you could tell the way she backed down but didn't back down. She very clearly had simply been annoyed with us before and bottled it up until she couldn't take it anymore and exploded on a group unknowing young people.

Takeaways:
1. Going in angry usually makes you look like a fruit basket.
2. COMMUNICATE AT THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY. PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW!

I considered finding her office and apologizing--but I didn't because I suspected she would be understanding, but if she wasn't...I would have been extremely rude, which is a rarity for me, but definitely possible, and to be avoided. Here's why I would have been rude: our classroom is in the women and gender studies wing. The woman was most definitely a women/gender studies professor. Hence, she was probably so annoyed by some of the things she heard spilling out of our student sketch team pitch meetings, but she honestly has NO IDEA what really happens in those meetings. Because for every time someone screams an offensive slur in a script, we have a ten minute conversation about how the desperate single character at the Valentine's party should be a male so the sketch can be more progressive and less stereotypical. Lady, I would have yelled, I care so much about the stuff you care about it makes me sick!

So, I just left. But, Chelle did apologize. And, the woman was very understanding and apologetic herself. Also, we're moving rooms.


Baby chicks. State Fair 2011.

I did scream on campus this week. I yelled at a pro-life protester who stopped me on my way to work to tell me about how all fetus must live. I asked her if she was a vegetarian. Nope. I walked away. She stopped me. Bad move, girl. Bad move. Insert: 20 minute debate about the ethics of killing animals versus embryos. I believe everything I said was Right, but it definitely wasn't Good. She's not going to stop eating meat. She's still going to support over-population and starving children via her beliefs. Plus, I believe what I believe to encourage a sense of Love in this earth, and probs me literally pointing at her. yelling "HYPOCRITE!" with raised voice and hellfire eyes was not in accord with the whole promotion of Love thing. I'm working on it, you guys. I'm working on it.

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe.

Offer Up

Time is never time at all.
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth.
And our lives are forever changed.
We will never be the same.
The more you change the less you feel.
Believe, believe in me, believe
that life can change, that you're not stuck in vain,
we're not the same, we're different tonight.
Tonight, so bright, tonight.
And you know you're never sure,
but you're sure you could be right
if you held yourself up to the light.
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake--
the place where you were born.
Believe, believe in me, believe
in the resolute urgency of now,
and if you believe, there's not a chance tonight.
Tonight, so bright, tonight.
We'll crucify the insincere tonight.
We'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight.
We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight.
The indescribable moments of your life tonight.
The impossible is possible tonight.
Believe in me as I believe in you tonight.


STL High School Gang--together for NYE.

Hiding at the Bottom of Your Swimming Pool Some September

Thanksgivin' Turkey Trot with Pookie. 2010.

LOOK AT US WEARING COATS LIKE SUCKERS! It's mid September, and it was over 100 today. I read about Shakespeare by the pool in my two piece. Word. Up.

I thank the heavens above for the things that remind me of the good parts of growing up in the Chicago suburbs. The feelings that I can only name by the images and sounds associated with them. Dark blue kitchen tablecloth, chirpchirpchirp, eating sliced strawberries with wet hair, spiders in glass jars, train whistles in the early morning, pine cones, fat comic anthologies, the railing of the public library.

And I thank the heavens for the flecks and flakes of it that have followed me here. And I thank the heavens in general.

And it's unclear.
This may be the last song.

Not Watching Spring Break!

1. At the gym, turn on MTV.
2. See that it's MTV's Spring Break.
3. Wonder what the point of MTV's televised Spring Break is. Kids that are doing it are there--having fun. Kids that aren't are watching and feeling lame about their lives.
4. Wonder if the majority of kids currently on MTV's Spring Break spent a Spring Break watching MTV's Spring Break, feeling like a loser middle schooler/ high schooler, and promising to one day BE on MTV's Spring Break.
5. Therefore, by broadcasting what a "cool" Spring Break is, MTV has defined it for hella peeps and perpetuated it through peer pressure via programming.
6. Realize a sad cycle for our youth.
7. Decide to watch MTV's Spring Break to see how lame it is.
8. Change my mind!
9. Decide not to even give MTV's Spring Break that satisfaction!!!!!
10. Listen to "Put on a Happy Face" from Bye Bye Birdie!


My Spring Break partners in crime. Photo post-Robin Hood. May 2010.

And spread sunshine all over the place. Just put on a happy face.

Mini-Van Disease?

Tonight coming home from the One-Act Festival, a bunch of wild kid-a-ma-jigs hitched a ride with Huntie, Mama T, and I. They bee-lined for the backseat and immediately began squawking, carrying on, scream/singing, and generally being nertz.

I seriously think there is this condition that overcomes all people under the age of 30: If you are in a mini-van with a driver and two or more people in the backseat, you go bonkers and forget there are even people there listening to you at all. It's automatic--re-living the fifth grade carpool. God knows what my father heard as he silently chauffeured me and my wild little friends.


ACTF 2010--also, the people in the car tonight, oddly enough

You were gunna be my Judy Garland. We were gunna share your Tinman heart.