La Boheme – Drafted a month ago and I forgot to publish it

Yesterday I finally saw the opera “La Boheme.” It made my cry. Oh man, the music and the story, how could anyone walk away dry-eyed? The first time seeing a masterpiece (lately, Beckett, Albee, Puccini, O’Neill, etc.) in a theatre is always powerful to me.

Below is the self indulgent backstory of my personal interest in this opera. Feel free to peruse other things online, or go outside for a walk. Seeing this opera live completed a large, discontinuous circle for me.

On my first visit to Paris, 29 years ago this summer, the first thing I did was buy a one-way train ticket to Barcelona, my home at the time. I hurried to buy the ticket not because I wanted to leave but the opposite: I planned to stay in Paris until I was dead broke, and I did: sleeping in a run-down hostel, wandering and walking everywhere, buying food at markets and eating outside in parks and on museum steps. Swedish co-hostelers took me to the catacombs, museums, translated everything and helped me thrive. I visited cathedrals during High Mass, heard Muslims being called to early morning prayers, saw Roma people playing music and dancing. Sigh. When my francs disappeared, – and that didn’t take long – I left my backpack in a train station locker, enjoyed one last stroll through an incredible place-event-feeling, and then took the night train home to BCN. 

Well, that was disappointing

For the first time in 6 years, maybe longer, I recently left a play unfulfilled, unexcited. I’m not educated in theatre and don’t see a lot, probably 15 plays in the last 5-6 years, usually something by a master like Beckett, Albee, Shaw whose work is brought to life by a well established house – Steppenwolf, Berkeley Rep, American Conservatory Theatre, the Abbey in Dublin. That’s pretty safe, but then I’ve also seen a few lesser known playwrights in smaller venues without being disappointed.

Maybe I’m easy to please because theatre is a big deal to me, and I’m always willing to buy the premise right away, whatever it is: A man falls in love with a goat, a happy woman is buried to her waist in stone, a library book 120 years overdue is returned (Underneath the Lintel is the last one, less well known than the others by Albee and Beckett).

I like walking into a theatre, looking at the set and the house as the lights go down and the players enter. I believe it, the stories and the discussions, and I care about the people. Kinda funny, huh? Sometimes a line or a character isn’t authentic – authentic being different than believable – but that’s been a very small problem in everything I’ve seen recently. I care about the characters in a way I never do in movies. (Nothing to say about TV since mine is seldom on. I did, however, binge watch Breaking Bad and I almost cared about Jesse and the teenage son, but not like real people on stage.)

I never read the play ahead of time. I might skim a review but barely. Looking at the people as the plot develops, not being sure what will happen and not even trying to predict, those are parts of the thrill. (Luis Bunuel has a very funny anecdote in his autobiography about predictable plots. He has another funny anecdote about Mexican actors and short sleeved shirts. I should quit buying new books and just reread the ones I already have… Hm, looks like I get distracted easily, but not in the theatre!!)  Maybe I should take a course and become more educated and knowledgeable, but I don’t have the patience for lectures any more. Last week I attended Berkeley Unchartered. Many of the presenters were decent speakers but few of them kept my attention for their full 20 minutes. I’m blaming me, not them. Lack of patience was something I learned in grad school and it seems to be the only skill I’ve honed since!

After seeing The Iceman Cometh several years ago I wrote a longish (gushing?) email to a colleague, a very smart, insightful, professional critic. I said something about the genius of writing, the daringness of the actors, the incredible creativity and teamwork, the combination of spontaneity with rehearsal, blah blah. His reply was, “Wow, that really moved you! To me it was just another piece in a theatre.” I feel like he does in most lectures I attend, but I’ll keep my artistic naiveté.

The name of the play that disappointed me. Ach, it doesn’t matter. If something looks good to you, go see it. If it’s not everything you hoped for, that’s OK. A bad night at the theatre is still a good night, unless, um, you’re Abe Lincoln.

30 days hiking in California

I hiked, strolled, sometimes clambered through forests and creeks, across beaches and fields and rocky terrain, up and down hills. I talk to the trees and the animals and the waves, and then laugh at myself and them because they answer so quietly. I like their voices. I like crazy pelicans and cormorants and gulls above crashing waves. I like soft trails, creeks that giggle and tickle, woodpeckers that pound, the susurrus of the wind, branches that crackle and moan, unknown animals hiding in the brush. Some redwoods remind me of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais in their brilliant colors and solid, subtle forms. The night is too dark for forest hiking but the stars light up the beaches enough for slow walking, then lying on a blanket looking up. Humans smile more when we’re outside, don’t we?

Arizona was where my serious hiking started: Up and down (little) mountains on hard paths with beautiful cactus, amazing views, snakes, lizards, birds. After the rains, and during, the air is immaculate, so light and clean you can almost lick it.

My first real hike, I think, was with Isaac, no surprise there, in the Connemara National Park. I got tired and afraid of heights so he went to the top, wherever that was. Now we’ve hiked together in other places and I can almost keep up with him.

This week in Oakland I’m ambling around Lake Merritt, and it’s wonderful – warm and filled with the best birds: brown pelicans, coots, egrets, herons, cormorants, grebes. A few scaups have arrived, too.

Sunday I go back to Manresa State Beach for three days to walk the long beach and hike the improbably named Forest of Nicene Marks. Then I return for walking in Oakland and San Francisco, and plan the next little adventure.

In politics, in art, there are many people who care, who try and don’t give up. Here are two, no, three examples:

This afternoon at the Jewish Film Festival I saw a film titled In the Image: Palestinian Women Capture the Occupation. Presenting the occupation through the eyes of Palestinian women with video cameras was brilliant, difficult to watch, horrifying, but also left me hopeful thanks to the closing words of a Palestinian woman who had recorded her brother’s murder: “I hate the soldier who did this but I would not kill him and cause his family the grief that he caused mine.” The film received a standing ovation from the sold out crowd. My companion, whose orthodox son and family live in a West Bank settlement, was in tears like most in the audience. (My friend’s son has no radio-TV-Internet and calls the USA to find out what’s happening in his neighborhood.)

Friday night I saw a one woman show called Tough where a young dancer named Chris Black created a dance based on the life of John L. Sullivan, the boxer. What a wacky idea… that works so well! Have you ever seen something where you want to rewind and watch the whole thing again? That’s how I felt Friday night. This Potrero Hill theatre was created to showcase experimental pieces – its creation and maintenance encourage me, and the tremendous power of this particular piece inspire me. Ya know, Chris Black put it all together, made it happen, made it work. Ya gotta believe in people.

As I was writing this, I remembered a film I watched with my friend Martha – we did rewind it and watch again, El Secreto de Sus Ojos. This is my 3rd example of caring and not giving up. I added this because the other things might not be in your neighborhood.

Two columns I’ve published in the Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-pet-0611-20140611,0,7085892.story

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-08-09/news/0908080204_1_facebook-social-networking-sites-mom

My son Isaac says I overstated my case in the first. Yeah, maybe; sometimes I feel like this.

Oakland, California

“I said I was a Panther – let me correct that. I am a Panther.”

He had slowly walked over and sat across from me in the afternoon sun, wearing long sleeves and suspenders, sports coat and hat. “Have you lived in Oakland a long time? I asked.

“Oh, you could say that. I graduated from Alameda in 1953.”

“So you were in Oakland during the days of the Black Panthers?” I started the conversation.

“I was in the same congregation as Huey Newton. I was a Panther,” and then he briefly reminisced about his trip to Chicago where he had met with the Blackstone Rangers after Huey had called ahead and told them to treat him well.

His daughter came out with lunch, they moved to the shade, and that’s when he corrected himself. “I am a Panther,” he said. One week from today the distinguished Black Panther turns 79. We need the Black Panthers more than ever, and the Gray Panthers, too!

Yeah, Oakland. My first trip to the East Bay was less than five weeks ago, looking for a place that was a real place with more life and history and future than the Valley of the Sun. It happened faster than expected but I’ve been living on Lake Merritt, Adam’s Point to be exact, just over two weeks. I’m circulating – coffee houses, bookstores, cafes, shops, parks, galleries – trying to see and feel Oakland. I went to a party celebrating Oakland Indie awards and felt Oakland excitement and vitality and pride; I watched a basketball playoff game in a sports bar where I was a minority of one.

For 20 some years I lived eight miles from downtown Chicago in Oak Park, a diverse town, yes, and filled with professors and professionals. Then I moved to Scottsdale, not diverse and definitely not cosmopolitan even though downtown with a beautiful library, performing arts center, and many bars and shops was a short bike ride away. My job ended April 5 so I could go anywhere in the world. The logical options for me were California, Ecuador, Barcelona, maybe Portugal. My brother in Kabul suggested looking at Vietnam or Thailand. In the end, I looked at one city, one spot, went back to Arizona, packed and drove away.

I might be done moving now; I might be home.

The big news today: Taxes are too complicated and N. Korea is a serious threat

NPR is on my radio all day so I hear the same news reports over and over. Going by NPR and cartoonists, including Dilbert, taxes are incredibly, unnecessarily complex and impossible to understand. For normal Americans whose income comes from wages, the 90%, taxes aren’t very complicated and tax prep programs make them even easier. My income last year included wages, restricted stock options, a company paid move, and a few deductions. Using a familiar tax prep program, my taxes took maybe an hour to prepare. It’s arithmetic and I didn’t do the calculations.  The problem isn’t a complex tax code, but an unfair one – sure wish news coverage focused on the inequalities of taxes (investments taxed lower than wages, etc.) rather than supposed complexities.

Fun fact: What president orchestrated the biggest American tax cut and when? LBJ and the Democratic Congress in 1964. Look it up

News two, North Korea and a nuclear threat. Umberto Eco (The Prague Cemetery) claims every country needs an enemy. That’s seems accurate for the USA, and every American enemy lately has had an unstable, psychotic leader with nuclear weapons. (The unstable part is important because a rational leader would never attack the most aggressive military of the past 100 years.) So we’ve heard this before about the leaders of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Venezuela, Cuba, the Philipines, Chile, Congo, Vietnam.  </end of rant>