ten red hen

So many goddamn people in the Bay Area have iPods, with the tell-tale white headphones, that the communter BART ride looks like some movie of a dystopic future where people are controlled by the government via headphones which are surgically installed--receiving their morning doublespeak instructions or news or something.

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Coach Pat Summitt, the woman responsible for pretty much creating and shaping the current face of women's college basketball, reached the record for the winningest coach in Div. 1 Basketball History. The University renamed the floor "The Summitt." All day, when I think of it, it literally brings tears to my eyes.

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Why I Love Pauline Kael, Reason 476:

From her review of Raging Bull,

I'm supposed to be responding to a powerful, ironic realism, but I just feel trapped. Jake says, "You dumb f--k," and Joey says, "You dumb f--ck," and they repeat it and repeat it. And I think, What am I doing here watching these two dumb f--ks?

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ALSO--watching an all-time family fave, South Pacific, and thinking about the tremendous suspension of disbelief the audience must maintain--a leap in faith I take almost too willingly--to access the pleasures of the musical. Not just in terms of storyline, or the convention of characters bursting into song in order to communicate in the play-world, but in terms of the dated, embarrassingly well-meaning, sexism and racism of the era.

I've been watching musicals because I want to direct one, hopefully very soon. And I think these cringe-worthy, tricky moments might provide wonderful interpretive opportunities. A director I greatly admire once told me that during her time as a student at Yale Drama, she did a Brechtian de-construction of "Bali Hai" from South Pacific. At the time, I thought it was simply clever, but I really get it now. I'm interested, now.