All Stories Are Valid Part Two: An Unfortunate Story

The new Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimmage came out this week. I haven’t read it. Full disclosure.

I have already seen multiple people on the internet disgusted by this novel because the main character is a man who was falsely accused of rape by a crazy woman. While I obviously have major suspicion about any rape case involving a woman people dismiss on the vague and usually sexist grounds of “crazy,” it does happen. From time to time. It’s obviously the worst thing ever because even one instance of a false accusation is all anyone can remember every time someone is legitimately asking Help. Please.

Perhaps we don’t need more stories about evil-rape-fiction people. They permeate bigoted brains. Why add fuel to the fire? Well, maybe if it’s a good story. Or an important story to the author. Writers have responsibilities to their audience and culture as a whole, yeah, but they are still artists and get to do what they want.

Hey, I for one think it would be really really hard to be a man falsely accused of rape. Just because many men lie about a woman lying doesn’t leave the truthful ones in any less pain. Metaphorically, be wary. In considering what the world has already heard, use care.  ALL STORIES ARE VALID.

Ideas from Clybourne Park

When I read Clybourne Park last year I didn't really like it. I got its merit, but I was like, "Meh." To be fair, I read half, and I was in a bonbon coma trying to read 30 plays in a day for a Production Committee meeting. I was still excited to see it, and oooooooh my God, ohmygod you guuuuuys (yes, that is a Legally Blonde the Musical reference) did it blast my expectations away. Last theatre I saw that I loved this much was on Broadway (Faith Healer).

-Challenging someone's taste that is the biggest offense. If you're ignorant, you are the idiot. If you don't like someone's taste, you are insisting they are.
-It's unclear whether or not simply saying what you really really mean to say, what you really really are thinking in the smallest darkest most primal, disgusting, rude, hateful corner of your mind is what the world needs (hey, we're all thinking it) or if it is impossible to truly access and convey, so might as well leave it unsaid/buried.
-Things never stay buried. But, those graves may outlast you at least.
-There are many outcasts. Some because of ignorance, others because of awkward, some because of practicality. It is better to include them in the trash you're shoveling than shovel around. At one point a character yelled "F YOU" to the deaf girl who had been ignored all night. This was a kind of act of love.
-Music is so moving.
-Movement is so beautiful.
-The benefit of being on bottom is having the moral superiority of being there.
-The benefit of being on the top is having the superiority of being there.
-No matter where you are on the ladder, someone is above. Someone is below. Most of of the time we're probably side by side. (I realize I am white middle class, so that may be the most naive view, but sue me.)
-Saying a horrible thing that happened can be both a scare tactic and/or a considerate necessity.
-I honestly don't know if it's just best to keep living in polite lies because the terrible things that arise from honest rashness are so juicy, so chewable, so ALIVE. And we are all supposedly ALIVE, so what a splash of cold water?
-Everything was to the T literary from the choice of Neapolitan ice cream (racial divides) to the repetition of a few key phrases ("you can't live in a principle"). I avoid this in my own playwriting because it seems so OBVIOUS. Like, what am I, Tennessee Williams lame-o Pop-Tart-eating feminist predecessor? But, when it's on stage, it's not obvious. It's like, cool. Ya dig?

"Can we come out and say what we're actually trying to say instead of doing this elaborate little dance around it?"

Bright Copper Kettles

You guys, my favorite things are really embarrassing. Like, really. Especially considering I'm supposedly an artist OR SOMETHING.

I know I am getting an MFA in theatre, and I really should be more quirky, but Hamlet really is my favorite Shakespeare play. And, I'M SORRY, IT JUST IS. I really do "get" cool music, but I still love Andrew McMahon more than anything ever, and that's...just the way it goes.

But, really, as an educated person with a degree in English, I should have a cool favorite book, and, honestly, I do not. I read my favorite book when I was 13. It's a young adult novel, but it's my favorite. Then, Bearclaw gave me her copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and I read it one Christmas, and it tied my old fave. I know that book isn't exactly hip and cool. It was on the New York Times bestseller list and all, but a lot of people still hadn't read it or heard of it. It's a great book that people didn't really fuss about. So, I was able to pretend I was a gritty literate, but, no. NO. I JUST SAW A STUPID PICTURE OF TOM HANKS IN THE STUPID FILM ADAPTATION, SO NOW MY ONLY EVEN REMOTELY COOL FAVORITE THING IS EL TOAST.

Ugh. I'm the lamest.

Other Lame Favorites I Am Willing to Admit:

Favorite Play: Death of a Salesman
Favorite TV Show: Boy Meets World, One Tree Hill, Mad Men*
Favorite Radiohead Song: "Fake Plastic Trees"
Favorite Mexican: Chipotle
Favorite Coffee: Starbucks


Mocha from Bread Co--not as good at the Bux. Also, my sister eatin' a brownie. January 2011.

Do you SEE? UGH! I'M SO ANNOYING. But, you know what, at least I own this stuff. Because I bet A LOT of people's fave coffee is Starbucks. Duh. That's why they're so popular. It's good stuff, the Bux. But, at least I say, "Yeah, my favorite drink isn't from the arty little joint in the school of design. I love love mocha frappachinos--what of it?" At least that's what I tell myself.

*This is cool, but it's kind of so cool that it's not anymore.

Easy A...Minus

Hunny & me in 2006

LC, Pookie, and I went and saw Easy A a couple days ago. I actually really enjoyed it. I mean, part of it is that over the past year my taste in movies has gone from believable dramas to trashy comedies I don't have to think about. But, regardless, there were a lot of really funny literary-esque lines...like referring to girl friendships as "Gossip Girl in the Sweet Valley of Traveling Pants."

Of course, in movies like this the ever-obvious problem is that plain girl goes sexy is always way cheesy because let's face it, it's a movie star. You know--She's All That or whatever. But, here, it was like...they didn't even TRY. She was super cute and trendy but "invisible"--not possible. I mean, come on, they didn't even put her hair up or give her glasses! Classic moves of geek to chic!

Anyway--the other thing is that Emma Stone looks, like, identical to my HS bestie Hunny. They make the same facial expressions and everything.

I get on my dirt bike and ride to my girls'. I'm gunna lay down the law and tell them what's goin' on.

Greenlake

My dad just sent me a care package of silly camp things including a new book by Louis Sachar called Stanley Yelnat’s Survival Guide to Camp Greenlake. It was a breezy read. I mean, I read Holes in 5th Grade, and this was its gimpier younger sibling. It was a smattering of recap from the book and little short stories about the characters with some unfitting information shoved in. Naturally, I put the book down and immediately asked, “Louis Sachar, why would you write such a stupid book?” I loved Holes. Like, still, I pick it up from time to time and get totally diggin’ on it. So…why follow it with drivel?

I don’t think I’ve ever finished a piece of art. For real not a one. I’ve been published, but I’ve never felt like those poems, essays, whatevers were perfect. I’ve had performances I have been proud of, but there is always room for improvement. I’m not actively working on most of my projects at 90% completion, and sometimes they then have to exist that way forever. My performances now captured on DVD—can’t change those. So, maybe…Louis Sachar wasn’t ready for Holes to hit it big, to become a movie, to become his claim to fame. Maybe he has thought of these snippets he wishes he had added. Maybe he has been thinking about them for ten whole years, and he just couldn’t take it anymore.


LZ 2010--Object Dance-Off

But, it’s like when you’re really in the mood for something to eat. Say quesadillas. But you don’t have tortillas, so you just eat crackers and cheese, but it’s not cheddar. It’s swiss, and that’s not ideal. And now you’re full, but you actually just want the quesidilla, but now, even if you ran out to a Mexican restaurant like you should have in the first place you’re uncomfortabley full of cheese. But, you’re not happy. So you eat the strawberries you were saving. But, that is not settling. So, you eat some chocolates. And a Twizzler. And, then, you just want to puke. And you’ve suddenly downed all your ice cream. And you should have just stuck with the decision you initially made instead of junking it up.

Easy for me to say.

They say the meek shall inherit, you know the book doesn’t lie. It’s not a question of merit. It’s not demand and supply.