While we’re on words, could we all just agree to pronounce “upheaval” the way it’s spelled? It sounds better with the “ph = f,” I swear. Listen: “Everything is in total ufeavul!!!” See? Better. Better like kerfuffle. Plus, it doesn’t make me think of gagging and earthquakes like “up-heaval” does, so that’s a bonus.
20/20 blindsight: The inability to see one’s mistakes, even when looking back on them.
See also: Bush Administration.
I’ve just returned from a bachelorette party at a house on the shores of the Pacific up in Bodega Bay. How charming. How lovely. How…girly.
Spending the weekend with all those girls got me thinking about women and what I think is the difuse and assimilated state of feminism today. To see what some of the best of us are up to, check out Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda making an apple pie with Stephen Colbert (Part II here) and Judith Warner saying all manner of smart things over on her blog at the the Times.
Oh, and speaking of pie, if you’re ever anywhere within an hour’s drive of Sebastopol, CA, you must, without fail, go to Mom’s Apple Pie. Their pies rock the Russian River Valley and their sandwiches are to die.
I’ve been training on the trapeze for a couple of years. Doesn’t that sound awkward? “Training on the trapeze.” You can’t say “playing trapeze” as if it were soccer, baseball or Red Rover. You can’t say “trapezing” the way you say “dancing” or “pole vaulting.” I tried “doing circus” but that sounds wrong. And dirty, but not in a good way.
I suggested “to circus,” as in, “I just got back from circusing,” but then R asked, “As in, I just circused all over my shirt?” so I had to stop using that.
“Circused” was followed by “three-ringing” and “big-topping.” As in, “I was so three-ringin’ it last night,” and, “I totally big-topped on Saturday.” See? You have no idea what I mean. The truly great words are multi-purpose like that. See: f***.
This has been a tough week for the blog, what with starting a new job and all, but for those of you who also work in offices, allow me to make a couple of useful, health-related suggestions before we close out the workweek.
First, it’s flu season. To make sure you stay germ-free in your crowded office environment, check out this video on how to cough on Coughsafe.com. Share it with your co-workers. Perhaps you could call a meeting especially for that purpose. If you wear a lot of tank tops, it’ll take some additional practice, but hang in there: you’ll get it.
Next up, if riding your bike to work isn’t an option or you just feel like you’re not getting anywhere on the job, why not get a bike you can ride at work to make it feel like you are? I’m sure it won’t be disruptive for anyone who sits near you, and it doesn’t look at all distracting.
Amy Sedaris was in San Francisco recently promoting her new book I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence.
She was being interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle‘s TV critic, Tim Goodman. He’s young-ish, genial and not at all stodgy or self-involved like some of the older and younger, respectively, interviewers that City Arts & Lectures has hired in the past. He appears to be a perfectly normal 40-something who looks like he lives in the city and goes for drinks a couple of times a week.
After chatting for a while about what she likes and dislikes about entertaining guests (likes selling them things off her bargain table, hates when they bring sunflowers), Amy asked Tim if he enjoyed entertaining as well. With no hesitation or sarcasm, he replied calmly,
“No. I don’t really like people.”
What an excellent answer.
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I started a new job this week. This has resulted in a sum total of three thoughts for today.
1. Girls like diamonds because they are shiny. Magpies like shiny things. Ergo, girls = magpies.
2. Aaron Sorkin is one of those guys who is just not funny when he’s trying to be funny. Studio 60 is no West Wing, my friends, but it would sure be closer if they ditched the self-righteous blonde. Don’t feel bad, Aaron, no one can write about their exes for at least five years. Give it up.
3. As far as I’m concerned, this is the funniest sketch ever on Whose Line Is It Anyway?. I understand that having watched enough episodes of the show to use the word “ever” makes me a little bit of a loser, but I can live with that.
That’s all. Those are today’s theories. Take ’em or leave ’em.
I was wearing my very favorite boots, the black ones with the olive green spats attached when the woman came up to me in the cafe in San Francisco. The green spats are leather and are knotted with leather cord right above the arch seam. They come up about four inches above my ankles and I love them because they are cool. She said they were unique and where did I get them?
“I got them in New York at this little French shoe store on 8th Avenue. It’s the size of a closet and is the single greatest shoestore in the world.”
“I go there myself,” she said.
Two hours previous, I had gotten a text message. A friend from Boston, in New York for the day, asked for the address of the shoe store in SoHo, the one I always go to, the one I love.
“Chelsea,” I replied. “8th Avenue between 17th and 18th.”
What are the chances of that, all in one day?
From that store, I have the pink and camel version of the spat boots. I have a pair of black, knee-high boots that lace up the back all the way from the heel. I have a pair of shiny black leather ass-kicking shoes. I have a pair of yellow high heels with taupe accents that buckle across the top and are the most comfortable heels I’ve ever worn. I have a lot of their shoes. They are phenomenally comfortable, incredibly well-made, last forever and are totally unique.
You’ll like them. I promise.
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Picture this: an empty stage designed for a full orchestra, three long banners vaguely depicting strips of St. Peter’s Square at the very back, music piped in from some Eastern European disco still playing remixes of tracks from the early 90’s, costumes that look like they were designed by a crazed lunatic let loose in a spandex factory with a pair of scissors and a bad case of colorblindness, a set of ten performers only three of whom appear on the cavernous stage at one time, no choreographer, no set designer, and no artistic director. What’s that spell?? FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!!! NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES!!! A GREAT WAY TO SPEND $36 AND A SUNDAY AFTERNOON!!! Welcome to the Moscow Circus.*
I had the misfortune to attend their final performance at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall last week, and, let me tell you, by the end I was just grateful no one had died or been raped. It’s too late to hope that they weren’t all dropped on their heads because, judging by the quality of the show, most of them already have been. All the acts were either downright disturbing or just a series of stop-and-start moves and poses with very little to connect them.
In the first category was the family of two jugglers/acrobats and their “son.” I use quotation marks because after bringing him out in a full clown suit and tossing him around like a doll – including throwing him down on a table, grabbing his ankles and bouncing his legs beyond the edges of the table repeatedly, spinning him around and doing it again – I doubt he’s going to be functionally male for much longer. For the record, forced contortion is about as entertaining as watching videos of skateboarders riding railings and landing on their crotches. It’s even more unsettling when the person doing the molesting is the kid’s mother and she’s wearing what appears to be a bright yellow G-string panel bikini over a skin-tight, wildly striped bodysuit.
The boy appeared later in a hand-balancing act with his dad. I don’t think he set a trick (meaning hit the position and held firm) through the whole routine, a clear indication that he was not performance ready. It wasn’t a surprise then that on his second trick, he fell from about shoulder height to the floor in a heap. His dad gave him an arch look, they went on, and three or four tricks later, the kid lost his balance again and came down like a sack of potatoes. I’m just hoping that my $36 is going into a fund for his future therapy or catastrophic accident insurance.
The rest of the acts – a couple of silks routines, two redundant hand-balancing bits, some low-level clowning – were old-school circus, and not the good kind with elephants that can count, a guy with six heads, and lots of raucous tearing around. This kind is a bunch of unrelated acts performed back to back like a talent show. The performances follow the same formula: they consist of a series of tricks and almost no choreography. You can almost hear the aerialists whispering, “Ta DA!”
The thing is, no one likes a show-off. It just makes you want to take the guy out back and kick his ass for being such an arrogant prick. If the event – like the ski jump or the 100-meter dash – is purely technical, a demonstration of strength or fitness, fine. We all know what we’re getting when we buy our tickets.
In contrast, when I go to a performance, I expect, well, a performance. Not a demonstration. A performance. And a performance does not consist of you and your boyfriend climbing up to the ceiling on bands of silk, spending a minute or two setting up some complicated contraption for hanging from your neck and then, well, hanging from your neck. I’m excited for you that you can hang from your neck – go you! – but that’s not a performance, that’s a trick. Plus, the obvious during-act set-up thing is a no-no in my book. It’s like someone explaining the mechanics of a magic trick and then yelling, “Surprise!” I’m just not that surprised. Go figure.
It’s clear why we’re all so excited about Cirque du Soleil if this is what was on offer before they came along.
*Don’t be fooled by their web site: there were no trapeze acts, no bars, no rings and no dogs on this tour. Probably just as well for the dogs, given how it’s working out for the kids.
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