francoise hardy

i was just listening to the lovely vogue years compilation the guys from saint etienne put together.  i hadn’t listened to francoise in a while since i od’d on 60s pop after the breakup of december 2005.  however, after getting a larger capacity iphone recently, i’ve been putting some of these classics i used to enjoy on the phone so i can revisit them.

there is something about hardy’s voice i can’t quite figure out.  it’s incredibly lovely but it doesn’t try to be.  it’s incredibly emotive and yet she rarely engages in vocal pyrotechnics.  there is something cool, alluring and distant about her (and my poor french only adds to the effect).  she puzzles me and yet there is always something at the core of her songs that moves me profoundly.

i first got into her thanks to isabelle huppert’s beautiful take on her “message personnel” in 8 women.  i think i probably love 8 women to death just because of huppert and hardy’s song (danielle darrieux also gets to sing one of hardy’s songs later in the film . . . “il n’y a pas d’amour heureux”).  saint etienne also reimagined her signature tune “tout le garcons et le filles” on their misadventures of saint etienne album.  i picked up the vogue years, comment te dire adieu and tant les belle choses as well as another best of over the years.  her voice was an anchor for me 2006-2007.  i must have played “voila” about 1,000,000 times.

joni mitchell wrote “songs are like tattoos” and revisiting hardy’s songs after the heartbreak she helped me through has ebbed away, i feel like i am staring at a ruin or a monument.  even though it’s only been a couple years, it feels like a lifetime.

“message personnel”

“la maison ou j’ai grandi”

“voila”

off to the beach

looks like we’ll have some good weather at the beach this weekend!  hurrah!

i’ve got the iphone/pod, yoga mat and backpack ready and i’m off after work.

it’s been a little rough going out at the island this year due to crazy weather.  hopefully we’ll have some big fun this weekend and lots of sun time.

i am astrologically f*cked

thanks rob brezney:

my sun sign:

the iliad is an ancient greek epic poem that describes events near the end of the trojan war. most modern critics regard it as a foundation stone of western literature. in my opinion, though, it’s mostly just a gruesome tale of macho haters who are inflamed with pride, treat women like property, and can’t stop killing each other. i share the perspective of poet diane di prima, who once had a dream in which the iliad was cast as gangsta rap. now please adopt the style of our critique for use in your own life, aquarius. what supposedly noble or important situation is actually pretty trivial or cliched? it’s time for you to tell the truth about the hype.

my rising sign:

at the farmer’s market, an escape artist performed in the middle of the street. as a crowd gawked, he had two big strong men tie him up tight in a straitjacket and 50 feet of chain. for the next 20 minutes he shimmied and contorted and bent over backwards. his face grew red and sweaty. there were no houdini-like magic tricks. there were no puffs of smoke or magic boxes or mirrors or distracting assistants. he rarely spoke as the ordeal progressed, but in the end, after the last of the chains slipped off and he wrestled his way out of the straitjacket, he said simply, “now i invite all of you to go home and use what i just did as a metaphor for your life.” it was a supremely sexy performance, and i realized maybe it would help you with your current situation.

wtf am i supposed to do with this?

(still feeling a bit sore about a drunken conversation i had last night)

finding the new play

i recently started the new play, which i am tentatively calling the golden vanity.  it’s amazing to me how scary beginning a new project is.  i started off on an enthusiastic vibe and this morning i awoke terrified that i have no idea what i am doing that this play will be a giant disaster and people will laugh at me.   i am now blocked of course.

the play reminds me of the silent concerto in a way because it’s contemporary and close to my “real” life.  i worry because i don’t do this sort of “real” stuff very well.  i do tragic singers, vampires, hustlers, and dead mothers beautifully.  people dealing with their own little emotional dramas seems to not work for me so well.  probably because i understand ideas before i understand people.  i sometimes feel like i’m from another planet because (typical aquarian that i am) i just march in squiggly lines while everyone marches in a straight line.  when everyone decides to go squiggly, my line gets straight.  perhaps i enjoy sticking out and being a little different, but when i am compelled to write a chamber piece about four people struggling with their respective emotional issues, my inability to understand basic human psychology rears its ugly head.  i mean, who writes a play set on fire island inspired by strauss’s four last songs and ariadne auf naxos?  i actually have a character who walks around listening to strauss on his ipod on fire island.  fire island is about lady gaga remixes not strauss.  who’s going to see this play?  who?

i’m trying to respect that this is part of my process.  two years ago, when i was beginning work on the october crisis (and i don’t have to remind you how hard that one was to start, i was coming off a bad case of writer’s block then), the play wasn’t anywhere near the play it became.  i just have to be gentle and patient with myself.

besides, i think i learned something from the silent concerto and its flaws have helped me become a better writer.

elaine stritch

i’ve loved this woman since i first discovered her singing “the ladies who lunch” in company (the first sondheim cast album i heard).

there’s a lovely article about her in the times as she is starring in the fully monty at the paper mill playhouse (or the paperback playhouse as one of her friends in the article calls it).

older vs. younger gays

i just read this great article in nymag.

it really struck a chord with me.

i’m in a weird age/cultural place within this debate.  at 35, i’m smack in the middle of this generation gap.  culturally i have things in common with both groups, but probably align myself with the older people a bit more.  i was pretty much raised in old school gay cultural consciousness and as a result i’ve always felt more comfortable dating older men.  i love the energy and questioning i’ve experienced from younger people (well, ok, i’ve been frustrated by it especially when they’ve criticized my love of divas and musical theater . . . but i lived), but i often feel like an alien around them.

i was particularly moved by this bit:

were we that uninterested when we were that young? actually, no, we weren’t; we were thirsty to acquire the vast range of knowledge, tastes, and encoded references that seemed to derive from some mysterious user’s guide to homosexuality, because even if we then rejected them, they still constituted a lingua franca (in an era well before lgbt studies programs or even many books on gay history made that kind of information easily accessible). now, a familiarity with those movies, those plays, and those books will likely get you branded an “old queen” by people for whom “old” is by far the worse of those two epithets (unfortunately, a morbid fear of aging is one of the few ideas we seem to have done a good job instilling in the young).

for gay men who came of age 25 years ago in a tougher environment, knowing your (sub)cultural iconography was not only a way of connecting to past generations but a means of defiantly reorganizing the world, of asserting your right to literally see, hear, and perceive things differently. the need to hide yourself was thus transformed into the privilege of joining a private club with a private language. but to many younger gay men who grew up with gay public figures, fictional characters, and references, it’s a dead language—a calcified gallery of judy garland references and all about eve bon mots that excludes them as much as it does the straight world.

when i came out, i was very excited to learn all these “secret handshakes” of gay culture.  in many ways, while i felt my latino identity was something thrust upon me, my gay identity felt chosen.  i was happy to adopt gayness hoping that it meant i would be part of a group that would value sophistication, education, and creativity (things i felt were verbotten in my working class latino neighborhood in hialeah, fl) . . . of course, i was in for a rude awakening when i saw all gay men were not a mashup of cole porter, david leavitt and federico garcia lorca.  gay culture wasn’t necessarily more accepting than “straight” culture.  in fact, it can sometimes be a pretty brutal place. 

all of this is on my mind as i begin the golden vanity.  this play scares me to pieces because it is born out of the current gay zeitgeist.  i have no idea what the hell that means.  it does seem to me gay culture and politics are in a state of transition.  and i am very much interested in writing this play about being in a state of transition . . . where the past needs to be let go and the unknown future embraced.  it’s all very raw and scary now because i feel there’s a temptation to turn the play into a rant about gay men (it is set on fire island after all . . . a place i’m not as wild about lately as i used to be).  i’m treating this very delicately and reminding myself it’s about four (maybe five, not sure yet) distinct people.  i have to be a very tough dramaturg and leave the politicking to my subconscious and focus on the human aspect (which in my experience makes a more effective political statement than didactic whining . . . something i did too much of in the silent concerto)

i’m focusing on two characters now and just letting them speak to me individually.  they start the play (i think) and i need to get to know them separately before i put them in a room together and have them talk.  so far they’ve surprised me every day and i’m enjoying visiting with them every time i open up my notebook.

david adjmi’s stunning

i caught lct3’s production of david adjmi’s stunning last night. 

i have not stopped thinking about it since the final blackout.

in a nutshell, it’s a play about a teenage bride living in the syrian jewish community in midwood.  she hires an umberto eco reading african american maid and their relationship changes both of them in an irrevocable way.

i’ve been a fan of david’s for a few years now, but this is the first time i’ve seen a play of his on stage (it’s his first professional new york production, i believe).  everything that i admire about his work was in full effect here: it is philosophically rich, darkly humorous, and exceptionally courageous.  i admired the dexterity with which david was able to maneuver the tonal shifts in the work and the generosity he displays as an artist as he never lets his characters lose their humanity even when they descend into the darker places of their psyches.

the production was equally exceptional.  it’s no surprise anne kaufman directed this play with elegance and intelligence.  the performances are incredibly beautiful particularly cristin milioti’s panic attack prone lily and charlayne woodard’s beautifully complicated blanche.  they rank as two of the best peformances i’ve seen in a while.

the play opens officially on thursday and it runs just until the 27th.  please run and see it not only to support the incredible artistry of this production but this exciting new lct3 initiative where Lincoln Center Theater dedicates itself to bringing exciting new work at affordable prices to new audiences.  also make sure to read this article from the new york times about david adjmi. 

2009: the year in music so far

patrick wolf makes bachelorhood feel much better 

so we’re at the half way point of 2009.  how the hell did that happen?

anyway, it’s been a great year for music.  i have enjoyed the following albums this year:

grizzly bear–veckatimest
neko case–middle cyclone
patrick wolf–the bachelor
antony–the crying light
st. vincent–actor
dirty projectors–bitte orca
yyys–it’s blitz!
jenny wilson–hardships!
dm stith–heavy ghost
passion pit–manners
bill callahan–sometimes i wish we were an eagle
aboa sleeping–burning hearts
au revoir simone–still night still light
bat for lashes–two suns
woods–songs of shame
sunset rubdown–dragonslayer
sin fang bous–clangour
telepathe–dance mother
telefon tel aviv–immolate yourself
andrew bird–noble beast
peter bjorn & john–living thing

when did new york city turn into portland?

because we’ve had a series of crappy weeks weather wise for the last couple months.

i didn’t take the picture above, but it’s what manhattan’s looked like this spring.

what gives?

next to normal at the tonys

tears all over again.

congrats, gang!