Cate Blanchett and A Streetcar Named Desire

You may have seen Ben Brantley's rhapsodic review in the New York Times recently of Cate Blanchett's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He absolutely stopped me in my tracks with these words in particular: "Ms. Blanchett’s Blanche is always on the verge of falling apart, yet she keeps summoning the strength to wrestle with a world that insists on pushing her away. Blanche’s burden, in existential terms, becomes ours. And a most particular idiosyncratic creature acquires the universality that is the stuff of tragedy."

But when we inquired about tickets to this remarkable performance and production, we learned that the entire run was sold out. Not to be deterred and with memories of a similar situation when Ian McKellan was at BAM in King Lear, we headed for Brooklyn to stand in the cancellation line for a Saturday matinee. After a surprisingly pleasant wait of almost two hours in which we bonded with some of the other expectant patrons, and with ten minutes to go before the start of the show, we learned that tickets were available in Row D of the Orchestra section on the aisle. We grabbed them, skipped a much needed bathroom break, and settled into our perfect seats. The start of the performance was delayed slightly and for perhaps three or four minutes before the actual opening, an anticipatory hush fell over the audience. Hardly anyone spoke as we all waited patiently for greatness to reveal itself in the partially lit theatre. Then the bluesy, New Orleans music came up, and a spotlight illuminated Cate Blanchett's Blanche Dubois as she rode into town on the Streetcar named Desire headed for that section of the city known as Elysian Fields.

For the next 3 hours and 15 minutes we sat in on the lives of Blanche and Stanley and Stella and Mitch. Thankfully, there was an intermission in the middle that allowed us, finally, to relieve ourselves. But all the rest of the time we were riveted on Blanche and her struggle to stay strong. In the end, like the dishes that Stanley smashes to the floor and the radio that he hurtles out the window, Blanche is destroyed. But it is a most divine destruction. Blanchett turns out to be every bit as good as Brantley claims, though it should also be noted that the entire cast does a remarkable job. In the end, Karen and I were weeping, but to my surprise, I continued to cry as we left the theatre. What was it about Blanchett that elicited such raw and unfettered emotion?

Well, first it must be said that the true hero of any great production of this play is the author - Tennessee Williams. I do not care what anyone says about Arthur Miller or Eugene O'Neill or someone else. For me, the greatest of all American playwrights is Williams. Second, I can't quite say why Blanchett's Blanche moves me so much (funny, isn't it, the similarity between the actress's name and the character she is playing), but it is something about her ability to completely lose herself in this character, to be her without any sign of let-up or release. In all the intensity and strangeness that is Blanche, Blanchett inhabits her world, and yet as Mr. Brantley points out, somehow makes it possible for us to relate to her as well. It is a great and ultimately inexplicable performance, as all such performances are.

Author of Hokey Pokey Dies at 104

On November 23rd, 2009, Robert Degan, one of the people officially attributed with authorship of the famed Hokey Pokey Dance, died in Lexington, Kentucky at the age of 104. Mr. Degan, a well known guitar and banjo player in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area for many years was also a member of the Scranton Sirens in the 1920s, a jazz group that at one point counted both Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey as members. Working with Joe Brier at a resort near the Delaware Water Gap in the 1940s, Mr. Degan produced his one and only musical copyright "The Hokey Pokey Dance." Larry LaPrise also claimed that he had written a very similar version of the song which resulted in a long term dispute about the song's official authorship, a dispute which was finally settled out of court in the 1950s. The words of the song penned by Mr. Degan and his collaborator Joe Brier are slightly different from the better known version attributed to Mr. LaPrise. Here is how the first part of the Degan and Brier version goes:

Put your right hand in,
Put your right hand out
Put your right hand in and you
wiggle all about.
Everything is okey dokey when
you do the Hokey Pokey
That is what the dance is all
about.

Despite this success with the Hokey Pokey, Mr. Degan eventually gave up his music making and became a furniture salesman in Lexington, Kentucky for many years until he retired in 1970 at the age of 65.

The preceding comes primarily from a December 3rd obituary in the New York Times, but I have learned from other sources of a legend that Mr. Degan continued to refine the lyrics and the melody for the "Hokey Pokey Dance" using different articles of furniture. One of the many versions that he experimented with is as follows:

Put your arm chair in
Put your sling back out
Put your Eames chair in
Your comfort is what counts
When you're doing the Hokey Pokey
You're finding a seat that's right
You've got the right one now so just
sit there nice and tight.

Mr. Degan is reported to have experimented with over a hundred variations on these lyrics. He is alleged to have said a few weeks before his death that he had just about finished the definitive version of the Hokey Pokey. Unfortunately, none of this work could be found in the papers that he left behind. Nevertheless, the "Hokey Pokey Dance" remains Mr. Degan's legacy. The next time you have an occasion to launch into the Hokey Pokey, please keep in mind the troubadour from Scranton, Pennsylvania - Robert Degan.

The Lurking Dangers of the Subway

Yesterday, as Karen and I were hurrying down the steps into the subway to catch the express train to downtown that was just starting to pull into the station, she either caught her heel in the hem of her pants or hit a little bump on one of the stairs and was suddenly sprawled in the middle of the stairway with one hand hanging on to the railing and both of her shoes knocked off her feet and out of her reach. As the people below and above us briefly halted their forward momentum so that we could gather ourselves together, Karen quickly righted herself as I grabbed her shoes and we skittered into a very crowded subway car. But this only meant we were narrowly averting one danger to encounter another. For with Karen quickly slipping on her shoes, it was too late for us to spy a corner where we could find a safety bar to hold onto. With both us stranded in the middle of the subway car, I reached for the low ceiling and tried to hold my hands in place there, as Karen grasped me around the waist to keep herself stable. It was not the sort of arrangement suitable for a trip to Washingon Heights, but it got us safely to 42nd Street when the car emptied out just a bit. The rest of the trip was uneventful, Karen to 14th Street, me to Chambers and then onto the Ferry, but it certainly got our adrenaline running.

You see, the subway is no place for the faint of heart. There are so many lurking dangers - cracks in the pavement, bumps on the stairs, turnstiles that aren't large enough for those bags of groceries you just bought, gaps between the station platforms and the entrance to the cars, rats abounding, especially late at night when the people are scarce and you think you're safe. Scariest of all perhaps are the amateur performers who are everywhere underground looking for a handout, some of whom are talented, but this time of year you are as likely to run into someone singing Silent Night off key as you are a bongo player with rhythm. So if you dare to descend into the subway, stay alert. There is no telling when something dangerous might come your way. Look out! Here comes somebody now running right at you because he's late for an appointment. Get out of the way before it's too late!!

Nicolas D. Kristof and the need for a new American Foreign Policy

Well, Kristof has said it again, right there in the December 3rd New York Times. We need a whole new approach to foreign policy that focuses on how we can help people around the world through education, healthcare, and democracy, not through force and military intervention. This new direction in foreign policy, which should be made universal and implemented immediately, is being put forward, of course, in the context of President Obama's recent decision to escalate America's military presence in Afghanistan. For those who recall the United States' misguided escalation in Vietnam and the Soviet Union's own ill-fated deployment in Afghanistan, this recent decision is almost certainly a mistake, first from a tactical or strategic point of view, second with respect to everyone's long term best interests, and third, inevitably but undeniably, from a moral perspective. It will not only fail to stabilize the situation, it will make things worse by creating a "nationalist backlash" that will unleash more terrorism and more hatred for the U.S. I really think we pretty much know this to be the case, by the way, but the pressure from the military-industrial complex is so intense to fan the flames of this situation, to see it as a dispute that can only be resolved with force, that the people that represent this complex cannot be denied by a President whom I fear is increasingly weakened by the conservative forces arrayed against him.

Kristof quotes Greg Mortenson, the author of Three Cups of Tea who has built dozens of schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the effect that congressmen and generals in the U.S. made this decision to escalate "with nobody consulting Afghan elders. One of the elders' messages is we don't need firepower, we need brainpower. They want schools, health facilities, but not necessarily more physical troops."
Kritof adds, based on Mortenson's own experience, that 20 schools could be built - TWENTY SCHOOLS! - for what it costs to deploy one soldier for one year in Afghanistan!

And he ends his column with these words: "My hunch is that if Mr. Obama wants success in Afghanistan, he would be far better off with 30,000 more schools than 30,000 more troops. Instead, he's embarking on a buildup that may become an albatross on his presidency."

From now on, we need to make the case against such military buildups, unless we can be certain that there are good political and moral reasons for them. Such a case has not been made. Instead, we need to use America's wealth and power to distribute the goods that have helped to make us so strong. Only then will we begin to make any progress at all toward constructive and peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world.

The Rhythms of School

I have been in some sort of teaching position for over 35 years now. One of the things I rather like about being in schools, at least as they are currently structured, are their distinctive rhythms. Virtually everyone knows the exhilarating feeling of being released for a long summer break or the exciting anticipation of a new school year about to begin. What gets mentioned less often is the trajectory of a typical semester in which the work load and the pressure build fairly steadily as the term proceeds until that pressure, at least for many students and a few faculty as well, grows so intense that it gets in the way of everything else. I am working with a few students this very semester who are experiencing that sinking feeling of needing to get everything done as time seeps away from them.

But the up side of that pressure is being released from it; few feelings are more pleasant or more gratifying, particularly if you have performed well. I am not only working with students who are experiencing that pressure, I am feeling it myself, but I can also anticipate the feeling of being freed of that pressure and what I plan to do with my new found freedom as a resident of New York City.

One plan is to take in a museum a day. There is an ongoing exhibit about Lincoln in New York City at the New-York Historical Society that merits another visit. A show about the photographer Man-Ray at the Met should prove interesting. The curving walls of the Guggenheim are still covered with Kandinskys that demand another look, and a new program in their Works and Process series exploring the connections among Sex, Stress, and Music is calling as well. MoMA has a kind of crazy show about the film director Tim Burton, but it is rather fun and a bit more than at first meets the eye, which means we'll be back at MoMA again. The Whitney offers the abstractions of Georgia O'Keeffe, and the Museum of the City of New York is exhibiting some fabulous photographs from Look Magazine that require a look. Penultimately, and, of course, this is only the beginning of what will become a longer list, the museumofSEX down in Chelsea is advertising Sex in Action and Naked Ambition, two shows that are perfect for the holiday season. Finally, the Morgan Museum invites folks to see the original manuscripts of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Now that really is a holiday season must and another great way to unwind from that pressure-filled school semester.

Hair Loss Post and Christopher Plummer

I hope that all you loyal readers noticed something striking about yesterday's post. Right alongside my hysterical post about my balding head were a series of google ads to prevent hair loss. How does that work? What mysterious technical process makes it possible for the ad people to absorb all those posts out there and then to affix the appropriate promotional blurb?

On a tenuously related note, I went to see an interview with the actor Christopher Plummer at Film Forum last night and even at the age of 80 (80th birthday this month), he has a full head of beautiful, white hair. Not only that, he gets to be Christopher Plummer! You see, not only is Christopher Plummer one of the finest actors of our time, especially as a stage actor, though he's done some fine film work, too, he is clever and charming and incredibly articulate as well. Not sure it's entirely fair for someone to be so talented and so entrancing as a person, too, but that's pretty much how he comes across. At this interview, by the way, it was suggested that Mr. Plummer's new theatrical memoir, In spite of Myself, is one of the great books about the theatre in recent memory. Sounds like the perfect read for a long plane flight or for a series of relatively short rides on the Staten Island Ferry.

No Greatness, No Transcendence

Okay, I'm tired of greatness and transcendence. I yearn for something simple, something everyday, something so firmly rooted in reality it can't be misconstrued for anything else. That fundamental thing I am thinking about a lot lately is hair and how quickly I am losing mine. People used to say to me, "you have such a thick head of hair, you'll never go bald." But they were wrong, tragically and glaringly wrong. Here I am approaching 60 and the hair at the front of my head and extending back at least four inches is thinning at an alarming rate. Oh, sure, at this point I can hide that loss of hair with a strategic combing or two, but the truth must be faced openly and courageously. In the next two to three years, I will have only thin slivers of hair covering the top of the my head and even those will eventually vanish, leaving my pate hopelessly exposed. And once my hair goes, all the world will see me for what I am, an aging man suffering from a severe case of loss - of hair, of wit, of knowledge, of the ability to remember not just a few names, but all names. I will end up bereft of everything, save recollection of only the lifetime batting averages of baseball players from the 1930s and 1940s. There I'll be, all alone, scrunched down in a tiny, unlit corner repeating those averages over and over again: .325, .367, .344, .333, .358...