Avocado Juice

Have I mentioned to enough people yet that I'm addicted?

I see a cart on the street. Some green, rough skinned fruit. Blender. Questionable looking ice.

A beeline, I tell you. I've found that the grosser looking the set-up, the better the juice. My plan is to set up shop somewhere amidst the construction in the Bowery - I figure that should make me tops...

Anyhow. Na Trang was worth all it took to get there - super town, could live there really. Dream of a beach town, full of Aussie ex-pats who kept saying things like "I had a pash on the beach". I love "a pash" better than "a snog" by damn far. Also, love those rough and tumble friendly types who are just so willing to bring any old person in and make her feel as though she's amongst friends. Met a trio of Queensland travellers and a few of their local friends - diving. Good for that at least, the underwater - dynamite fishing has pretty much destroyed the reef, though it seems to be starting the long process of regrowth. Saw some gorgeous blue starfish, cuttlefish and a few genuinely new looking forests of coral. Great colors. Those were moments. The rest was a bit...you know. When a dive is boring. You listen to yourself breath alot...

So, the Aussies were there and they pretty much swooped me up and took me out for a totally singular night on the town, which felt GREAT after missing friends all these days.

Hard to leave those sandy alleys...probably would have stayed on, if I had even half an inkling of not getting myself back to NYC and fast!

Hanoi, now. Quick.

Twenty-five bucks and a cracker, do you think that's enough...

Name that tune!

PW, no fair! You know all the tunes.

OK. This might be a bit longer than usual as I've got lots and lots to catch you up on, as I've been on the back of a motorcycle for the past three days descending from Dalat to Nha Trang. Cool mountains to sunny beach (and, I'd better get my rather sore bum over to the dive shop soon enough if I plan on descending further tomorrow!)

What to say about this much touted EASY RIDER trip - it was a mixed bag - just beatiful in some ways and in some ways was very weird as I was subtly (yet RELENTLESSLY) sexually harassed by my driver. Which is not something that feels great when you're in the middle of nowhere and the guy is your only link to the wide world. And your passport is strapped to his bike. And you have no clear idea where you are, where the next stop is or what you would do if something truly upsetting happened.

Which is, in itself, truly upsetting. But...

All in all, it turned out to be nothing too bad or unhandleable - just a constant guard up fending off kind of thing -- and, if that's the worst that a trip on my own to SE Asia can dish out -- well. Then. Hey!

The upshot though is this - if you do this, be VERY picky about the rider you take. They might seem innocent at first, but if I had to do it again, I would think thrice.

That out of the way, there was so much to see - the great, beautiful center of this country. Rolling hills and jungle; crashing smoky waterfalls. Definitely a trip to do with someone you like! We stopped just about everywhere, to see how everything was made, grown and processed - mostly in small private homes that welcomed me in and allowed me to poke around. A mushroom grower; silkworm grower; coffee plantation; rice paper noodle maker (yum. yum. yum.); pepper dryers; brick makers; cement bonsai dish casters. Endless places, endless faces. Tribal villages, set against the rice fields at sunset. Roaming elephants. Waterfall hotels with cicadas so loud they burned my brain. Oh, and.

OVERRUN with cicadas - after dinner I unlocked my door to a veritable plague! A plague I tell you! I could barely get the bug net down - as it was i trapped about ten inside and had to flipflop them to death before climbing in! HAHAH! Later in the night, they had infiltrated. Had to pull in the flips again...smacked and smacked and smacked until the buzzing dimmed...

I sit here now, sunburned feet - trying to make the impressions fit into a quick couple of words. All bad aside, this was a great thing to do.

Away from cities: two books and two bus rides later

Wow.

The last few days feel as though they've flown by, having left Pnomh Penh for Saigon; arrived in that new, big, bustling city of scooters; and, now, found my way up into the chilly central highlands. Dalat, to be specific!

First Saigon - crazy, somewhat endearing and far too full of people! I spent most of my time just trying to navigate District 1, the so-called center of a town as sprawling as anything LA has to offer. Sightseeing of a sort at the Cu Chi Tunnels - it felt wrong somehow. Wrong to be tramping over ground where so many met such violent ends. Tunnels themselves were a claustrophobic testament to a country's absolute RESOLVE. To think of living down in those deep holes, crawling around and plotting war...well, one realizes why we couldn't possibly have fared differently here. Why we can't possibly fare differently in Iraq today. Ah, correlations. Geography changes, lessons seem not to apply.

Enough politics. Though on a last note, I saw a chilling exhibition of war photographers and their works; that is to say, war photographers who were killed while on assignment, following their story - in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. Gorgeous looking young men, with keen eyes and messy hair. Men that were born in places like Vermont and died on Route 1 Pnomh Penh in April of '74.

Thankfully left this behind with seven hours on a bus and am now sitting in the cool air of DaLat. Tomorrow I set out for my big three day motorcycle trip into the countryside - should end up somewhere near the coast...

Hm.

Think no computers for awhile...so.

Oh, and by the way, the books were the devastating I MARRIED A COMMUNIST and the truly lovely little Nicole Krauss book THE HISTORY OF LOVE.

Swimming From Cambodia

Well, not exactly.

But, some Spaulding Grey tribute is necessary when one has spent even a moment in this country, no? For me at least. So there you go, naked guy in the rumpled suit.

Leaving Pnomh Penh in an hour, sipping a coffee in this super civilized airport that sparkles with shiny newness. Funny port of entry and exit, bearing little resemblance to the whole. Adjusting to my new group-lessness; always a difficult thing after the whole adjustment to groupness. Funny thing these trips - one goes into them feeling quite alone and striking out. Two weeks later there's that insta-bond familiar to all who spend time with strangers under extenuating circumstances. So...I miss them. Funny. Yesterday was a bit of a travel fog with the bus from Siem Riep (temples, lots of temples - if you go, skip the sunset and hit the non-touristy circuit whenever possible. Soon the place will be a Disneyland of destroyed archeological possibility). Six hours later I am here in the city. Today, it's off again.

Saigon.

Cuchi tunnels and wriggling around like the Vietcong, maybe a stop to see the entombed HCM himself. I'll let ya know...

Missing you all, everyday.

Sunset

Let it be known that the least important or interesting thing a person can do in Siem Riep is to see the sunset over Angkor Wat - a mob of awful tourists lurk, dusty, at the top. They pounce on any sign of orange in the sky and move en masse, damp from a day's climbing and dodging stone outcroppings. SKIP. Major SKIP.

But, do see all else soon. The future is bleak, considering that the few people who have been here before call the place an 'archealogical disaster' - the number of visitors has expanded exponentially. Still, now, in the off season it is a revelation and a beauty to behold. Breathtaking I would even say.

Also.

I've been invited to Burma.

Some people (a-hem, myanmar!) 's worst fear come true. Relax though. It's for next year! Oh, yes. Another worst fear come true..the pre-pre-pre far trip planning! But, oh yea, will I go.

Pnomh Penh

I don't believe that I've said enough about the city of Pnomh Penh, what it feels like to be in this place. A strange one. Like a city waking up after a long sleep and shaking its limbs - lively on all fronts. Our hotel is nestled into a district about a mile and a half from the more touristy riverfront area (a nice walk, down wide boulevards and through some central gardens/open areas past the palace). There are tuktuks outside, same guys everyday. They know us by now, the end of the build. They wait, in the morning, for Jack our group leader to take his daily 6 a.m. ride to the bakery for fresh croissants. I see them as I leave for my run - they say hello, wave me on, tell me what to expect in terms of bread as I reenter. Altogether pleasant.

The traffic is abyssmal. Like any SE Asian city, the streets are clogged with all manner of transport - motorbikes, SUVs, bicycles. The trick to crossing is to take a deep breath and move forward without giving anything a second thought. It's all about the physics of movement and adjusting pace ever so slightly as necessary. in our bus, at times, we are stuck for an hour just trying to get home. The AC makes in fairly easy to bear, as does the view out the window.

At night, WEsterners SWARM and I mean SWARM the riverfront, the restaurants, the streets. There are so many of us! What's everyone doing! Loads of good places to eat, more to drink. Think lots of people here come for a permenant drunk, or at least the semblance of one. Best place for happy hour is the FCC, looking out on the river and feeling the breeze. Lots of other nice-ys too though for anyone willing to branch out and find some of the 'good'ice (which is the circle, not the square) LOL.

There is little by way of begging, or even curious stares. Everyone seems to enjoy growing prosperity, or at least hope - but, with a past like this...sunny sides are easily found.

I'll miss it here, as we move off and onward. The build ended this morning. WE go en masse the fifteen of us to Angkor Wat - then, it is me, on my own for ten days. Don't have solid plans, bookings, etc. I'll email when I can, and try to post - though honestly, after working on this last screenplay for three months, writing for fun feels...............not so easy!

Love ot everyone and thanks for all of your notes and emails.

Tuol Sleng

So, we're keeping a group journal for this trip...and, although no one who knows me will believe this, I HAPPENED, and I repeat happened, to be passed the thing on the day of our journey to The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng (S-21, the detention/torture facility within Pnomh Penh).

There's not so much to say actually - again, the horror of the situation defies not only words, but emotion. When such egregious crimes have been committed - how can someone have a proper reaction? What is the proper reaction when confronted with utter and compete horror...the Khmer Rouge (like the Soviets) were all for the niceties of imprisonment and execution, keeping detailed records on the most minute details - before and after photos of victims. These are displayed at S-21, alongside the original instruments of torture; the tiny cells in which inmates were housed - replete with scratched doors, still oily from so many grasping hands. Every tour guide emphasized, with amazement, the fact that Pol Pot was Cambodian - killing, starving, torturing other Cambodians. Work/Death were the only two ingredients acceptable for a life under Ankar.

There is a great Philip Short biography of Pol Pot that came out last year, should anyone be interested in a factual historical look at the relevant forces that not only brought his regime to power, but that shaped him as a young student in Paris.

For a more fraught and frankly emotional account, look for First they Killed My Father' - a first person account of the atrocities.

Mango Coconut Rice

Much needed day off yesterday...well,not day off exactly. More like a day repurposed. Still full of stuff that required bus, entire group, etc. Visited an orphanage in the morning - I must say, it wasn't tougher than the garbage dump we visited afterwards. A fledgling Manila or Lagos with children running after the trucks, climbing aboard and sliding down in the sludge in pursuit of a plastic bag. Sobering and beyond real comprehension...how can an outsider even begin to experience empathy or pity when there is so very little to do on a practical basis. That's what I ask myself and throw up my hands and try to work harder on the house we're building. Those kids at least will not be barefoot on reconstituted refuse...that's the hope at least.

In stark contrast, the evening was filled with a cultural program welcoming our group. Traditional Khmer dancing, cooking lessons and other flotsom...how can a person truly cry in the morning and then eat mango coconut rice in the evening. Wally Shawn...calling Wally Shawn.

Read THE FEVER. You'll get my point.

Realizing I'd better make some better plans for the second half of my journey - time's a ticking and I'm just learning the river is too low to take a boat to Battambang. Reconfiguration to occur this evening - but, think I'll just shift and head to the dive boat a day or two early.

I'm spoiled with email here - it could end at any time, but for now is a joy. As are my runs along the Mekong. Perfect songs today...got into that groove...

Day 3 or how life is more about bricks in Cambodia than Shashamene!

Here's one for you Ethiopia types out there who might be reading...or, for those of you who are asking "How is this work different than what you did in Ethiopia?"

Well.

First of all, this is no Habitat "village", as it was in Shashamene (with seventy some houses of same design on a deeded plot of land). These houses are built on a case by case basis for qualifying families who already HAVE land. We have two going, each of different design but consisting of similar materials. BRICK. And plenty of it! I'm becoming quite the mason, until things get over my head. Then, the rows get wobbly and someone must come behind with tapping trowel in order that I don't collapse the thing on my head.

There's a similar amount of super-heavy lifting. Heavier, it seems, since we do it BASKET by BASKET, not on a clever barilla. I never thought I'd be longing for one of those...huh...but, long I do. Çause the baskets are rough as hell on the back and not at all effective when trying to move a massive pile of clay dirt or gravel or stones all the way over to the other side of the lot. Well, they are better than hands.

Anyway, yes. The work is different. And, it's still just as enjoyable to be outside watching a house go up - no matter the materials used to construct. There are less kids here than in Ethiopia (about seven as opposed to what seemed like scores). The homeowners are not as helpful, they are in fact a bit critical if things aren't quite perfect!

I'm so sleepy every night I can barely stand to check my emails - but, I am checking.

Last night had the lovliest happy hour at The Foreign Correspondent's Club (as in the one in The Killing Fields) - everything it is cracked up to be, for sure. Though not many correspondent's left (might change with the anticipated Khmer Rouge trial???). Anyway, tropical and great with a view of the Mekong and Tuel Sleng - wooden beamed ceilings and slow whizzing fans...afterwards, at dinner, I was a great champion of ordering...

deep fried tarantulas.

I screamed as I watched everyone else try a leg.

Long flights, arrivals and the city

As i just wrote in an email..this place is Westernized, man! Loads of products available like Listerine and Kettle Chips, Evian water and Neutrogena soap. Compared to Ethiopia it is like being in New York City opposed to Chippewa Falls (huh?) The flight was too long and I zoned out on bad movies and long hours of slow reading the mega-issue of Vanity Fair. Blha. And, Blah. But, spent a few hours this morning walking wide boulevards and gazing at moldy colonial architecture...nearly dry Mekong river...Silver pagoda. Glad I"m here. Tomorrow begins work proper...HOT work proper. It is nearly ninety degrees and we are building in the flattest, driest plot of land I've ever seen. Pouring cement and laying masonry...practical skills.

Do a habitat trip. You won't regreat it, I think

Cambodia

Friday at noon...that's the day I take off for Pnomh Penh. A worrisome hour long layover in Bangkok (will my luggage make it from plane to plane in such a short amount of time?) What does a girl do with twenty hours to herself in COACH? No fair making unusable suggestions...any book recommendations, however, would be appreciated.

In the middle of planning my post-Habitat itinerary - rough idea of spending extra time in Ankor Wat and then moving down to the coast for some live-aboard scuba diving. Live-aboard being the only feasible way to get thyself out of the blast sites/fishing beds where life consists of some ashy apocolypse covering what used to be living reef. Then, onto Hanoi, where I will look for that art gallery covered so specifically and oddly by the NY Times last week. Mai. OK. And, hopefully, will hit China Beach - not solely due to my love of the TV show. Mostly 'cause of the surfers! And, yes for those of you who are wondering, I will climb aboard a board with my limited skills and be buffeted by that surf. So, expect me back with bruisers. Hopefully, no bites.

I will try to post regularly, rather than sending mass emails..so, bookmark me for God's Sake!!!!!

Learn To Sing Like a Star

New Year's Resolution to try and be a better blogger, especially now that things are all linked up in google for the ultimate in user friendly interfacing.

Just giving a listen to the new Kristin Hersh record (see above title) - talk about user friendly interfacing! The ultimate in her special brand of eye-spinning tranciness, especially 'Poor Wayfaring Stranger' which has never sounded quite so...ummm...unpoor.

The Resevoir

Nothing like running in a brand new place...it presents a rare opportunity to see a place for the first time at one's own speed. Things are observed that, by car - even by bicycle, are not possible. The quality of the light as it changes in the sky, the human composition of a neighborhood (fancy prams/handholding toddlers; big dogs/poodles; speed walkers/joggers); it all opens up in front of you as you slap the pavement and check your ipod nike+ for how many minutes have passed. How far until the curve in the fence?

Pickles and Peas

I have a new hero and his name is Daniel Kramer.

His production, at St. Anne's Warehouse via London's Gate Theater, of WOYZECK is incredible. There are peas. There are tricycles. There are Dolly Parton songs. Elvis, too.

By the time the actor playing the title role strips his clothes off three-quarters of the way through the production, it is nearly unbearable. Physically painful, the image of his gaunt body, post-beating.

Sheer lovliness. Breath-taking production design. I don't want to say more, for I urge you to click on the link above.

Late Night, Grand Hotel

Post olive-harvest hike, in Italia, late-October. Me and my nano, a Nanci Griffith tune that struck a cord.

I'm working on a morning flight
to anywhere but here
I've watched this evening's fire
burn away my tears
all my life i've left my troubles
by the door
because leaving is all i've ever known before

it's not the way you hold me when the sun goes down
it's not the way you called my name and left me standing on the ground
it's not the way you say you hear my heart when the music ends
i am just learning how to fly away again

and maybe you were thinking that you thought you knew me well
but no one ever knows the heart of anyone else
feel like garbo in this late night Grande Hotel
cause living alone is all i've ever done well.

"You probably cheated at Choose Your Own Adventure!"

Little chat message from PW to me that seems to bear repeating.

My question, right back at him - wouldn't we all, Paul, wouldn't we all?

Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember carefully flipping through pages whilst holding my place until my fingers were stretched and fanned throughout the book in order to fulfill every possible outcome; and then every possible outcome based on the myriad first possible outcomes; and then...um....jeez!

What is it about me and my intense dread of regretting the road not taken. I still have trouble believing another astute piece of observation, cum advice, about the glories of the 'chosen path'. The path is fun. The path is MORE. The path transcends the crossroads. Go down a path and you too will flourish and thrive in your maturity and wisdom....

Ugh. I am the worst decision-maker going.

Here comes the sun. I'm gong outside.

There. A decision.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie

Although I've heard more positive responses with regard to my kook-o film dispatches; I feel the need to climb up on my political soapbox once again and insist that you all click the above link and buy a couple of tickets to the Alan Rickman production 'My Name Is Rachel Corrie', now playing at the Minetta Lane theater in New York. Below is an excerpt from one of Corrie's final emails -- one which I find to be particularly stirring and right in line with the sinking feeling I have that yes, indeed, we should all drop everything and devote our lives to making horrible things like this (and much else) stop.

February 27 2003

(To her mother)

Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside. Sometimes the adrenaline acts as an anesthetic for weeks and then in the evening or at night it just hits me again - a little bit of the reality of the situation. I am really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house was going to be exploded. Jenny and I stayed in the house with several women and two small babies. It was our mistake in translation that caused him to think it was his house that was being exploded. In fact, the Israeli army was in the process of detonating an explosive in the ground nearby - one that appears to have been planted by Palestinian resistance.

This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their heads and around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses - the livelihoods for 300 people. The explosive was right in front of the greenhouses - right in the point of entry for tanks that might come back again. I was terrified to think that this man felt it was less of a risk to walk out in view of the tanks with his kids than to stay in his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be shot and I tried to stand between them and the tank. This happens every day, but just this father walking out with his two little kids just looking very sad, just happened to get my attention more at this particular moment, probably because I felt it was our translation problems that made him leave.

I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs. Of these 600, many have moved, because the three checkpoints between here and Ashkelon (the closest city in Israel) make what used to be a 40-minute drive, now a 12-hour or impassible journey. In addition, what Rafah identified in 1999 as sources of economic growth are all completely destroyed - the Gaza international airport (runways demolished, totally closed); the border for trade with Egypt (now with a giant Israeli sniper tower in the middle of the crossing); access to the ocean (completely cut off in the last two years by a checkpoint and the Gush Katif settlement). The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world. There used to be a middle class here - recently. We also get reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe were delayed for two weeks at the Erez crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of two-week-old cut flowers in the European market, so that market dried up. And then the bulldozers come and take out people's vegetable farms and gardens. What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.

You asked me about non-violent resistance.

When that explosive detonated yesterday it broke all the windows in the family's house. I was in the process of being served tea and playing with the two small babies. I'm having a hard time right now. Just feel sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all the time, very sweetly, by people who are facing doom. I know that from the United States, it all sounds like hyperbole. Honestly, a lot of the time the sheer kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming evidence of the wilful destruction of their lives, makes it seem unreal to me. I really can't believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me, again, like it has hurt me in the past, to witness how awful we can allow the world to be. I felt after talking to you that maybe you didn't completely believe me. I think it's actually good if you don't, because I do believe pretty much above all else in the importance of independent critical thinking. And I also realise that with you I'm much less careful than usual about trying to source every assertion that I make. A lot of the reason for that is I know that you actually do go and do your own research. But it makes me worry about the job I'm doing. All of the situation that I tried to enumerate above - and a lot of other things - constitutes a somewhat gradual - often hidden, but nevertheless massive - removal and destruction of the ability of a particular group of people to survive. This is what I am seeing here. The assassinations, rocket attacks and shooting of children are atrocities - but in focusing on them I'm terrified of missing their context. The vast majority of people here - even if they had the economic means to escape, even if they actually wanted to give up resisting on their land and just leave (which appears to be maybe the less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave. Because they can't even get into Israel to apply for visas, and because their destination countries won't let them in (both our country and Arab countries). So I think when all means of survival is cut off in a pen (Gaza) which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as genocide. Even if they could get out, I think it would still qualify as genocide. Maybe you could look up the definition of genocide according to international law. I don't remember it right now. I'm going to get better at illustrating this, hopefully. I don't like to use those charged words. I think you know this about me. I really value words. I really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.

When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I've ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible.

I love you and Dad. Sorry for the diatribe. OK, some strange men next to me just gave me some peas, so I need to eat and thank them.

Rachel

When they kiss you I bet they put their bubblegum in your mouth

Wait a minute. Are there any closet STEALING HOME fans out there - 'cause it's on Cinemax right this very second and I must say I was shockingly jerked back in time to my teenage love of earnestness and Jodie Foster's irresistible blonde limbs (plus that great husky voiced 'I love ya, Billy Boy' right before she prances off to the sure hell of becoming a middleclass wife and her ultimate demise).

What an odd film, it is though. But, can I just put it out there that this kind of earnest wannabe schmaltz, starring Mark Harmon has about a zillion fairly great moments PLUS both Foster and Blair Brown at the exact peak of perfection. Young and soft and round and just...lovely. Dewy - one might say dewy. Anyway, to be sure it has its fair share of cringe inducing scenes; but, overall there's just something about the Jod-ster and her dead-on take of 'that girl'. The one we all, guys and girls included, sort of fall in love with during our adolesence. The cool babysitter who gives us our first puff of a cigarette, our first swallow of rum, our first glimpse at sexuality. And then she goes and offs herself. Well at least in this movie that's what she does. Right off the bat, she's dead and he's got the ashes, not to mention that he's turned into an honest to god loser somewhere between the age of 18 and 40. Or um....right, yeah, somewhere between stealing home and now. So.

Not that I want you to run out and rent it, but...if you could just close your eyes and remember the film and how you felt when you watched it (if you ever did)...it's one of those things. One of those evokers of fond feelings and true insight somehow into who we were when we were young. Kind of like all that nostalgia packed together into 90 minutes belongs to us all. Rum and cokes and losing our virginity, singing on the beach while fireworks go off overhead, the weird uncomfortable thing it is to be 17 and just thisclose to losing our childhood. But, not yet knowing enough to be sad about it...

Ah. Tuesday nights with Cinemax

Why I'm more Pro-Black Dahlia today than I was yesterday

O.K., enough already. First of all, I'm sick of hearing it everywhere - onstage last night, while listening to music; on the phone; in the subway; standing on line at the supermarket.

THE BLACK DAHLIA is an awful movie (enter primordial scream of countless accusations - bad script, bad acting, bad, bad, bad! BAD!)

And so it goes. I'm sure everyone has heard this litany of criticism echoing on down the line. People, I ask, what do ya like?! What have you been brainwashed into accepting as 'good film-making'? Sentimental Indy garbage with an earnest story and actors trying desperately hard. Hey look at me act. Hollywoodland is an example of earnest talent at work. Look at them act, look at them make a movie, look at them try and fashion a meaningful story from a film noir script. Look at them try and copy CHINATOWN and fail.

DePalma is fearless, and always has been - that's why any of his films will kick most film's ass any day of the week. Then bust it's head open and splatter its brains on the sidewalk, while following its double as it walks away in a crane shot that swoops up and locates us in the vast wasteland of the Angelika Film Center.

His pretty pop candy, drenched in brainsplattered pools of fake blood and outrageous performances is so damn dead-on American we can't bare to watch it. The same way some of us can't stand the work of Andy Warhol. We don't want to admit that we are what we are, a population whose surface shines with all that is meant to be inside. We live to be looked at, more now than ever before. And DePalma's films begged to be looked at. They shimmer with visual beauty and stunning cinematography.

The title link will take you to an A.O. Scott primer on this DePalma split we've got going on around here. I can't say anything better than it's said here (though I'm sure you'll notice he never references his own opinion, which I gather is the opposite). Read it and weep.

Lost and Found

Last night I went to Montclair, New Jersey to see this piece of theater - so damn good and I highly recommend it to everyone. Not difficult to get out there at all, especially with the bus. So no excuses. The Bierce story on which it is based is a masterwork of simplicity and Jamesian spookiness, capturing a specific 'America'. The piece (a staged chamber opera) does the story proud, by mirroring its sensibility along with its sense.

My friend Laurie designed the projections (her theater company creates a deeply layered look using scrims, projected images and film).

Now MOVE!

THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD
Thursday September 14- 8PM
Saturday September 16-7:30PM
Sunday September 17-3PM

Kasser Theater Montclair State Univeristy Montclair NJ

All seats $35
FOR TICKETS & INFORMATION:
http://www.peakperfs.org
OR contact MSU Box Office (212) 655-5112

Complimentary Round trip Bus Service
with ticket purchase from Maritine Hotel
9th Avenue between 16th & 17th Street

Composed By David Lang, Written By Mac Wellman, Directed by Bob McGrath
Set Design: Jim Findlay, Film: Bill Morrison, Projections: Laurie Olinder
Costumes: Ruth Pongstaphone, Lighting: Matt Frey