Dark Lady Dances Carol-Tandava's Blog

Projection Reflection

2012-01-24T13:30:00.001-08:00

In yet another discussion about my recent "Projection" entries -- my Adventures in Projection and Projection Flashback -- a friend suggested that Alice (of the latter entry) was jumping to conclusions rather than projecting.

Which made me ponder: What is the difference between jumping to conclusions and psychological projection?

They are both related, as both create a full, defined image of a person or situation based on very little actual data. And in Alice's case, I would say she certainly engaged in "Mind Reading" (per the Wikipedia entry) as she decided she knew my intentions, when of course she didn't and couldn't have.

So, yes, her conclusions were jumpily unwarranted.

But the intensity of her anger towards me and the ridiculous scope of her accusation indicated something more at work than merely a conclusion, which is more a mental process: You take a small amount of data and fill in the rest with data from your bank of personal belief and experience.

Now, yes, emotion may play a role here, but it's secondary to thought. And if given convincing contrary data, that thought process can be adjusted to a more accurate conclusion. (One hopes).

But I've found that two key elements of psychological projection are (1) strong emotion; and (2) a vigorous refusal to see anything other than the projection. Indeed, any contrary data is either ignored altogether, or mindbendingly woven into the projection. (In other words, if you are someone's screen o'projection, you will be damned if you do and damned if you don't -- everything will be used against you in their court of craziness to shore up their image of you).

According to Jung, the refusal to let the projection fall is tied to the projector's need to deny in him/herself the very qualities he/she is projecting.

So denial of one's own qualities is the third key element to projection.

The projector NEEDS to project the qualities away from him/herself, to create a scapegoat to be sent off into the desert. This has a dual purpose: (1) it deflects attention of the projector's unwanted qualities onto another (as though others aren't smart enough to realize "whoever smelt it dealt it"), and (2) it creates the illusion that the projector can rid him/herself of those qualities simply by destroying the object of projection -- which is exactly what Alice did. Great for everything from teen cliques to genocide. Yay humanity.

In Alice's case, it turned out that she, in fact, was very destructive to the relationships of the people around her. Most likely, her sister's fight with her financé was caused by something she herself had said or done. But of course, she was not able to consider that possibility, especially when it was so much fun to verbally beat the crap out of a naïve teenager.

Of course, I can look back now and say, "Oh yes... of course I was completely innocent. How could I have thought otherwise?"

Easily.

Because when one is the object of projection -- especially in the midst of it, without the perspective of years and self-knowledge -- it is very difficult to tease out the real self from the projected image precisely because the projection often contains a hint of truth about the object.

As another friend noted, when he read the story about Alice:

"The same thing has happened to me more than once. Nothing I really care to share with the public but... yeah. I can relate!"

In the case of Alice, and from the vantage point of many years' growth and introspection, it is very clear that I was innocent. Although I didn't feel that way at the time... for weeks I believed I was exactly what she told me I was. Or worse, I didn't know what I was...

Usually in these situations, there is always the specter of: "Are they RIGHT?" Because a lot of the time the other person will be a tiny fraction right ... but they make it their entire vision of us.

As Jung observed: "Something that strikes [the projector] about [an] object [of projection] may very well be a real property of that object. …it frequently happens that the object offers a hook to the projection, and even lures it out. This is generally the case when the object himself (or herself) is not conscious of the quality in question."

And this is a curious thing...

If Jung is to be believed, Alice had in fact seen a part of me of which I was unaware, and which was calling both my and her attention to bring it into consciousness.

So what was this part of me? I believe it was related to sexuality -- or at least what sexuality represented to me at that time, in terms of being "grown up."

Although I was a "precocious" teen (as the Older Men who hit on me liked to say), I was extremely young psychologically and emotionally. Ironically, I had spent the bulk of my childhood intently focused on Being Mature -- to join the utopic World of Adults as soon as possible -- so in many ways I prevented myself from growing up.

I was very unpopular with boys my age (well, with just about everyone my age), but as I got tall and womanly, I seemed at least 10 years older than I was. And there is no shortage of Older Male fish looking for a taste of jailbait...

I think part of me must have sensed the negative aspects of sexuality -- that it is used destructively, to control, manipulate, even injure -- but I did not want to deal with that part at all.

I wanted the good part: affection and attention. Because affection feels so good, and attention looks an awful lot like love, because when we love a thing, we give it our full, adoring, undivided attention. Unfortunately, the reverse is rarely the case....

And this is the truth that was burrowing its way into my awareness, and which I was desperately suppressing: Sexuality is attractive, and it seems to bring love and connection, but it can also very often do the opposite, injuring and exploiting both parties.

So perhaps many women are completely unaware of these negative aspects, and so they don't form a compelling shadow that attracts the kind of projection that I was receiving; or they have no problem embracing the negative side and gleefully cock-tease their way towards ego fulfillment.

And maybe it works for them... I have seen many romantically successful women get away with all kinds of crap that would make me want to crawl into a sewer. And their men put up with it... dare I say, even want it. (Hence books like Why Men Marry Bitches).

Hell, my own grandmother's "feminist" advice was to marry a rich man, then divorce him and take all his money.

Ugh.

But that's not what I'm about.

And even at that age, as I was becoming aware of these negative aspects, I was also at deeper levels realizing that I did NOT want to be a part of that dynamic. Yes, I wanted attention and affection, but I wanted it to be real, to be personal -- not the result of a biological response, and not to be exploited for material gain.

And I suppose it took Alice's telephonic witch-burning to cast the first light on what I truly did want.

Projection Flashback

2012-01-12T14:51:00.000-08:00

Discussing yesterday's Adventure in Projection with a friend, he remarked: "I would argue that projecting of a view onto others is not a male trait but a human one."

And I would agree.

In fact, my very first traumatic experience of being slammed with another's projection came at the hands of a woman.

The summer before I entered college, I met a graduate student of my new university whom I will call Alice, because that was her name.

Big-eyed, frizzy-haired and barely five feet tall, Alice was a good friend of a DJ at the radio station where I was an intern and took an immediate shine to me. I had not yet learned to be wary of immediate shines and, as a socially awkward and less-than-popular teen who craved any kind of friendly attention, I shined right back.

She asked if I wanted to go clubbing that weekend and, even though I was four years under age, I was six feet tall and looked 25, so I eagerly accepted her invitation. We traipsed through the then-hot spots like Limelight and The Tunnel and finished off at some gay bar in the West Village where I was mistaken for a transvestite. (I cleared the matter by putting my suitor's hand on my crotch; he recoiled in horror.)

Alice squealed with delight at my ballsy ball-lessness and asked if I wanted to go for a nightcap in her neighborhood. We got in a cab and emerged somewhere in Sunnyside. After a few more beers, we decided it was too late and too far for me to make it home to Brooklyn so she invited me to crash at her spacious one-bedroom.

"So the bathroom's there, and here's the sofa bed," she smiled warmly, "It's pulled out because the leg of my bed is busted so I've been sleeping out here. We can just crash together.... if that's OK...?"

"Um... sure..."

I bathed quickly, put on a long T shirt and passed out the moment my body hit the bed. I woke up only a few hours later to find her staring down at me.

"I was watching your eyes as you slept," she cooed, "I was wondering what you were dreaming about."

"I... I don't remember."

Now, to you, dear readers, I'm sure it's very clear what was happening here.

And even I, at that time, was dimly aware at an intuitive level. But my "rational" (or "rationalizing") side had Olympic-strength powers of denial. I vigorously argued down nearly every soul-saving impulse I had: "How can you judge her? She hasn't touched you or made any suggestive remarks. She just wants to be your friend!"

So we went to breakfast; she asked me to call her when I got home. I did.

She called me nearly every day for the next week or so. When was I available? Would I like to get together for this or that?

She belonged to a little poetry group in Park Slope and asked if I'd like to share some of my work. I agreed, and arrived the next Saturday at a prim Brownstone near Sixth Avenue. It belonged to a young sober but artsy couple, both decidedly diminutive.

There were a few others in that mould ... formless cotton dresses, colored khakis and polo shirts, but also tasteful, unique silver jewelry on both the men and women. (Can you say "Trust Fund"??)

We went around the circle reading our various poetical offerings. I was the only one who wrote in rhyme.

At the end of the session, I ran to the bathroom to evacuate the considerable amount of jasmine green tea I'd consumed. When I opened the door, the apartment was dark and the male half of the apartment's native couple stood in front of me.

"Are you OK?" he asked

"Sure ... uh ... sorry. Did I take too long?"

"Well, everyone's already gone."

"Oh. OK. Well, I guess I'll see you later."

I grabbed my bag and skipped down the long stoop.

Alice called the next day and asked if I wanted to come to her birthday party. "Sure!" I said, now fully enjoying the social life her friendship was bringing me.

The party was a lively chatterbox of even cooler artsy types. And Alice, apparently, had a new boyfriend -- a tall Bill Murray handsome-ish guy in a silky button-down that looked faintly creepy to me. Whew, I thought; she was straight after all.

More radio people showed -- including her friend the DJ whom I'd secretly been crushing on. There were actors and graphic artists, writers and sculptors, all seemed charmingly humble and even geeky.

My favorite conversation compared the original Star Trek with the then-new Next Generation. This playful argument dwindled to include only me and a young man who insisted that no bald, stiff-backed Bard-head could hold a candle to his James Tiberius.

Finally the man was pulled away by a woman whom I later heard crying and yelling in the hallway. I shrugged and went back to the beer table.

In retrospect, there was something very wrong with the party from around that moment on (and probably before). But my denial-side rationalized: People get silly and crazy at parties, so some emotion is floating around. So what. And it has nothing to do with me, anyway....

I and the other stragglers crashed on the couch, chairs or floor. As we groggily pulled ourselves up in the morning, it seemed there was a move towards a group breakfast.

"No," Alice said, "There isn't."

I got my stuff and left.

I didn't hear from Alice for a while after that.

On a Saturday morning, over an hour before I was supposed to be up for a Shakespeare class, the phone rang. My mother woke me urgently -- something she would never have done unless she had been told it was an absolute emergency.

It was Alice.

"I just wanted to tell you that you're a horrible person and I never want to see or speak to you again."

"Uh.. huh... Whaaa??"

"I invited you into my circle of friends because I thought you were nice and pretty and smart and I liked you. And all you have done is try to destroy my friendships and hurt the people who are important to me."

"What..??? What are you talking about...?" (I'm actually not sure I was articulate enough to say even this ... but the dumbfounded question repeated endlessly through my mind.)

"At the poetry circle you KNEW my friend and her husband were having troubles, and you stayed behind after everyone had left so you could hit on him, and they almost divorced! And at the party, my sister got in a HUGE FIGHT with her fiancé because of something you said!! And then you kept coming on to MY BOYFRIEND?"

Whaa..?? The creepy guy in the disco shirt?? Really??? Did I? Had I...?

"So I just want you to know I know what you're all about and I'm DONE with you!!"

And she slammed the phone down.

The back of my throat burned as tears surged down my face. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. Was I that person?? Was I some vicious, destructive femme fatale? A fledgling Marquise de Merteuil determined to control and exploit everyone around me?

Um. No.

I was an insecure, earnest 17-year-old desperate to be loved and accepted.

But I didn't know myself well enough to be able to stand against her definition of me. For days and weeks I cried buckets, barely able function, feeling as though my innards had been ripped out and stomped on. How could my perceptions be so completely different from the story she was telling me...?? It made no sense....

If, indeed, I had had any self-awareness at all at that time, any ability to unpack that stinking load of horseshit she had dumped on my virgin ears, it would have been very clear:

She kept saying, "you knew" and "all your fault" -- about people and situations where I did not and could not have had any knowledge -- as she repeated, "I know all about you" and "I know who you really are"...

Of course she didn't; she didn't know me at all. Nor was she capable of doing so.

But such is the case with projections. To a narcissist, everyone and everything is a extension of themselves with no perspective or even life of its own. They believe the world sees and knows as they know, so in her mind of course I "knew all about" her, when the real me hadn't a clue.

Something inside of her was undermining her life, perhaps damaging her relationships. For all I know, there was no real damage in the relationships of her friends and her sister, but she was likely projecting her own inner state onto them too. And since she clearly could not bear to hold herself accountable for any of this discord -- real or imagined -- she needed a scapegoat:

Me.

"She wanted you and couldn't have you," observed my psych-major pal, "So she had to destroy you. Simple as that."

Years later, I came to know a mutual friend who confirmed that, in fact, Alice's life had been out of control, as she grasped towards unavailable people and things in her field of aspiration -- just as I had been doing, actually -- which is perhaps the similarity that had really brought us together.

But I was 17 and she was 23.

My friend described her as being sexually confused: occasionally bisexual, dating men, but in frequent pursuit of straight women. He told me about one in particular whom she deemed her "best friend," and whom she would manipulate with carefully doled out praise and criticism.

Many, many years later, visiting the psychiatric wing of St. Vincent's Hospital, I saw her. She smiled at me sheepishly, and turned away quickly. I wondered if she had realized the damage she had done to me...

Part of me wanted to scream, "You crazy fucking bitch! Do you realize you fucking traumatized me when I was a kid?!?"

But I didn't. I imagined she was probably there for treatment of some sort, so perhaps she was fixing whatever had been wrong in her life. And if she was, then she may have had some awareness of the pain she'd caused me and others.

And if she didn't, then my attacking her wasn't going to change anything. All it would do was confirm her projection of me.

And I knew: That's not who I was.

Assault by Projection, and Other Weird Adventures in the New Year

2012-01-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the birthday party of a musician who is an especially beloved member of the bellydance community.

The place was packed with dancers and musicians (some of whom had seen my solo show show the Sunday before), so there were a few discussions about it and I handed out flyers here and there to friends and friends of friends.

I also laid about 10 flyers on the counter near the bar (which is where people usually put promotional stuff), and three on the bar itself.

But most of the time, I was dancing along with everyone else. At one point, I picked up a votive candle and began dancing with it in my palm. Since the candle was little more than wick in oil, it was tricky to balance it perfectly to keep the flame from going out -- which it finally did.

I went to find a match, but a shortish young guy in a white button-down shirt gave me a freshly lit one. “Thank you!” I grinned, and returned to the floor.

About an hour later, a man from the table where I’d first taken the candle complimented me on my dancing and raved about how much they liked the woman who had performed professionally that night. He loved that, although she was “older,” she was truly ageless when she danced... The group was dumbfounded by her beauty and grace, because they did not know what to expect from a bellydance event (the guy I was talking to had met the birthday boy casually a few weeks before and agreed to swing by).

So I told them that this was the very topic I address in my solo show -- about how beautiful and empowering bellydance is -- that it isn't a dance of seduction (as is often portrayed) but of owning one's own strength, power and grace … They asked about my performance dates and I ran back to my bag to get some flyers and handed them to the guy and his friends.

Within seconds, the very guy who had given me the candle while I was dancing rushed up to me and barked, "I want you to stop handing out flyers! You put them all over the bar. You've been doing this all night, and you have to stop!" And he returned to the bar.

I thought about this for a minute... If I had been indiscriminately laying them on tables and forcing them on people I didn't know, then he might have a case. But I hadn't been. I was giving them only to people I knew, or people who had expressly asked for them.

I was not going to stand for being bullied and accused of doing something that I had not been doing.

So I strode up to Mr. Manager and said, "It was completely inappropriate for you to embarrass me in front of those people. I gave them the cards because they ASKED for them, and for no other reason. I have not been ‘handing them out all night.’ I have been giving them to friends only. You have no right to accuse me of doing something I wasn’t doing!! So FUCK YOU!"

I went back to my table and stuffed $40 in the billfold for a $30 check and went to the bathroom. I was in there for barely a minute when I heard a booming knock at the door.

When I got out, the manager huffed, "I want you to pay your check and leave!!"

"Excuse me??" I said.

"You are being very rude and are talking down to me and are using obscene language," he babbled, "and I want you to pay your check and leave!"

Then we went back and forth more about the flyers -- about whom I had given them to, when and why. "Well, I've removed all your flyers from the bar,” he pronounced, “They're torn up. Destroyed. Gone. They're in the trash. So pay your check and leave."

The waiter came back with my change. "Keep it," I mouthed, then turned to the manager. "I HAVE paid my check."

"Then get your things and get home safely."

"But.... " I added.

Now, even though I had planned to leave, now that this gentleman was digging in his heels and bullying me yet more, it was time for him to learn that my heels were longer and sharper.

"I am not ready to leave." I jutted my chin and went back to my table.

He bristled. “I want you to leave. So get home safely.”

"Well, I’m not going. So I guess you'll just have to call the police."

"OK!" He sniffed and went off to another area of the restaurant, presumably to call the police. I gathered my things and started making my goodbyes. But as I passed by the bar, I ran into a guy I'd been speaking to earlier who asked me to stay a little longer.

"I don't know," I grimaced, "This manager is kind of flipping out. He said he has called the police to have me thrown out."

"What?? Why?"

"For handing out flyers."

"But you know everyone here!"

"Yes.. I know. The guy's a nutcase."

"Oh come on.. the police aren't going to come. They have better things to do than indulge this fool."

And I realized, my friend was right. I wasn't being disorderly. He had no legitimate complaint against me. If the police were REALLY bored enough to show up, I would just say that the manager and I had had an affair a few weeks before, that he was bad in the sack and I had dumped him. And now he was getting his revenge.

But most likely, I knew, that would not be necessary. And it would have been kind of cruel on my part -- although not undeserved -- and I don’t like being cruel.

Anyway. It was clear he had no way to get rid of me. I knew it, and he knew it.

So when the manager finally strode up to me and said, "The police are on their way,” I responded, “Well then, I guess I'll just have to wait for them." And took off my coat.

Then I looked at him very level (or not so level since he was quite a bit shorter than me), and said, "You are a child and a fool. You need to learn how to pick your fights."

I tossed down my coat and my friend bought me a beer.

And then my friend said, "You know, I think maybe that guy likes you."

At first, this seemed quite crazy to me... but then I realized … maybe not....

This sort of thing has happened to me a lot... men find me attractive, but maybe not approachable. They assume I will reject them, or I am not the sort of woman they are usually attracted to, and so they get angry at themselves for their attraction.

And this brings out some very strange behavior in them.

It is as though they experience me -- albeit unconsciously -- as having some kind of power over them, so their response is to attempt to exert power over me. Sometimes it can be playful or not-so-playful teasing, but often enough it is vicious to the point of ruthlessness.

I thought about the evening. He had been watching me dance attentively enough to replace the candle. And he must have been watching me continuously when I was speaking to the birthday boy’s friend. I had not handed out any flyers in nearly an hour at that point, so he must have been waiting to pounce....

I looked over to where he was standing. The bartender was giving him a bear hug.

At the end of the night, having polished off my beer, I blew a kiss to this poor, sad man. "I love you!" I said, almost sincerely.

I was kind of grateful for the incident ... In the past, when I have been the object of these kinds of negative projections, I have folded. I've accepted or apologized and taken it all on myself. “Oh I’m so sorry for being the horrible person you are telling me I am (but which, actually, I am not...).”

Or worse, I've found myself living out their projections... as if their perception of me suddenly became my reality, that I could not help but live out (like when a person calls you crazy, you just end up seeming more crazy as you try to insist you are not crazy).

But now, because this ridiculous man had attacked me so strangely and inappropriately, he had given me the chance not only to stand up against the projection, but to completely disprove it in my own actions and the reactions of others.

I grabbed my bag and skipped off to the subway -- laughing all the way.

Tandava's Guide to the Zone--2011-12 Version--Part III: New Year's Day 7pm to 5:30am

2011-12-30T12:04:00.000-08:00

Moving right along, here is the third installment of Twilight Zone episodes to be aired on to be aired on SyFy from 7pm New Year's Day through 5:30am January 2nd.

This list continues from Part I (New Year's Eve, 9:30 AM through midnight) and Part II (midnight New Year's Day through 7pm).

First is the short list including the ever-changing Time Top 10, my personal favorites, and other noteworthy episodes. (By the way, you can go to Time's list and vote for your own!)

So, the categories are:

(1) Episodes on the Time Top 10 List – These are the acknowledged classics – in red.

(2) My Personal Favorite Episodes – These are underrated gems with strong scripts and beautiful performances – in green.

(3) Episodes Worth Watching – These have flawed scripts or execution, but often have strong performances and/or ideas – in blue.

Unfortunately, some of my favorites which were in last year's marathon are missing from this one, such as "A Quality of Mercy," "Mirror Image," "The Changing of the Guard" and "Nothing in the Dark." These were replaced with less-stellar offerings such as "The Jeopardy Room, "Caesar and Me", "Uncle Simon" (ugh!) and "The Brain Center at Whipple's." But at least SyFy did include faves like "The Silence" and "The Sixteen-millimeter Shrine" which were not in the 2010-11 marathon.

And, as with last year, Part III still has many gems worth setting time aside for. The run from 7:00 PM through midnight is particularly chock-full of classics.

Enjoy – and happy 2012!!

My Favorites – Short List
(Click the time to jump to the episode description.)

7:00 PM – The Odyssey Of Flight 33
7:30 PM – Living Doll
8:00 PM – The Obsolete Man
8:30 PM – Eye Of The Beholder
9:00 PM – Time Enough At Last
10:00 PM – The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
10:30 PM – To Serve Man
11:30 PM – Nightmare At 20,000 Feet
1:30 AM – Mr. Denton On Doomsday
4:30 AM – Long Live Walter Jameson

Full List – With Descriptions

7:00 PM – The Odyssey Of Flight 33 – A 707 picks up a freak tail wind and travels back in time. Run-of-the-mill by modern sci-fi standards, but notable for its apparently realistic cockpit dialogue created by Serling's aviation writer brother, Robert Serling.

7:30 PM – Living Doll – "My name is Talky Tina – and you'd better be nice to me!" Telly Savalas takes on June Foray's creepy voiced doll. This one gave me nightmares. #1 on the Time list.

8:00 PM – The Obsolete Man – The superb Burgess Meredith is back to his book-loving ways, this time as a librarian in a dystopic totalitarian future, where both he and his books are declared obsolete.

8:30 PM – Eye Of The Beholder – A classic (#9 on the Time list) about the relativity of beauty, the lengths we will go to be beautiful – or to at least conform – and the dangers of conformity. Note: the girl at the end (Donna Douglas, of Beverly Hillbillies) is a different actress than the one under the bandages (Maxine Stuart), but she speaks in her own voice – doing a very good impression of Stuart!

9:00 PM – Time Enough At Last – Burgess Meredith at his lovable best as a devoted bookworm constantly thwarted by his boss, wife, and everyone else – until a touch of armageddon gives him new lease on life. #10 on the Time list.

9:30 PM – A Stop At Willoughby – Beleagured exec finds himself in his childhood hometown. Similar to "Walking Distance" but trades insight for sentiment. Some people really like this one; I can do without it.

10:0 PM – The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street – #4 on the Time list. The text of one is included in grade-school anthologies. Beautifully written masterpiece about fearing thy neighbor. The brilliant Claude Akins is considered the lead, though it is a true ensemble piece. Don’t miss it.

10:30 PM – To Serve Man – Aliens come to earth offering solutions to all the world's woes; their trouble-entendre mission: "To serve man." An undisputed classic, #8 on the Time list.

11:00 PM – Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up – This was voted 8.5 on the IMDB, but I think it’s dopey and ridiculous. Bus passengers are stranded at a diner – but there is one too many. Oh, and rumor has it that a spacecraft crashed nearby. Give me a break.

11:30 PM – Nightmare At 20,000 Feet – "There's a man out on the wing!!" Shatner at his whiteknuckle best. #6 on the Time list.

12:00 AM – The Shelter – "Maple Street" meets the lazy grasshopper. The industrious ant of this tale has built a bomb shelter for his (and ONLY his) family, and his neighbors scoff – until there is an emergency... Bloated prose and one-dimensional characters make this a must-miss.

12:30 AM – Mr. Bevis – Loser gets all he desires (money, nice apartment), only to learn he can’t be his true whackadoo self and keep up appearances. Moral: Enjoy who you are.

1:30 AM – Mr. Denton On Doomsday – Touching old west tale about top-gunslinger-turned-town-drunk finding redemption. Fine performances by Dan Duryea, Martin Landau and Doug McClure.

1:30 AM – The Fever – Well-acted but ultimately hokey morality play about gambling addiction.

2:00 AM – Nightmare As A Child – Freaky, annoying brat spooks schoolteacher. Or does the marm have more to fear? Find out, if you can stay awake through this snoozer. Features TZ's favorite female child actress Suzanne Cupito (aka Dallas' Morgan Brittany); also featured in "Caesar and Me" 1:30 PM 12/31).

2:30 AM – What's In The Box – Lame and ridiculous episode about a couple’s bickering leading to accidental murder and capital punishment. Freaky TV predicts it all. There, now you don’t have to watch it and aren’t you glad?

3:00 AM – The Prime Mover – Compulsive gambler cajoles his telekinetically-enabled pal (an enjoyable Buddy Ebsen) into to helping him cheat Vegas. Doesn't work out too well, but could be worse. Moral: Be happy with what you have; know when to quit.

3:30 AM – Mr. Garrity And The Graves – A more humorous take on the “value of mortality” theme explored in "Long Live Walter Jameson," "Escape Clause," and others; add to this "be careful what you wish for” of "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain," "A Nice Place to Visit," etc.

4:00 AM – Perchance To Dream – Neat psychodrama with some freaky felinesque dream sequences. Not bad; not great.

4:30 AM – Long Live Walter Jameson – TZ's most successful working of the "morality of mortality" theme features fine performances, a strong script and a touch of righteous revenge.

5:00 AM – What You Need – Magical peddler who can give people exactly "what they need" moments before they need it is menaced by a small-time thug. Comeuppance awaits the thug, and the peddler reveals a refreshing hint of cold-bloodedness, uncharacteristic of the Zone. Mixed feelings about this one mostly due to the script's weak dialogue. Based on a superior short story by Lewis Padgett.

Tandava's Guide to the Zone--2011-12 Version--Part II: New Year's Day Midnight to 7pm

2011-12-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

Continuing the list from yesterday's entry, below is a complete list of Twilight Zone episodes to be aired on SyFy from midnight New Year's Day through 7pm.

A third entry will follow covering 7pm through 5:30am Sunday morning.

First is the short list including the Time Top 10, my personal favorites, and other noteworthy episodes.

So, the categories are:

(1) Episodes on the Time Top 10 List – These are the acknowledged classics – in red.

(2) My Personal Favorite Episodes – These are underrated gems with strong scripts and beautiful performances – in green.

(3) Episodes Worth Watching – These have flawed scripts or execution, but often have strong performances and/or ideas – in blue.

My Favorites – Short List
(Click the time to jump to the episode description.)

12:00 AM – The Midnight Sun
12:30 AM – People Are Alike All Over
1:00 AM – Walking Distance
2:00 AM – Two
3:00 AM – A World Of His Own
4:00 AM – The Lonely
5:00 AM – A Thing About Machines
6:00 AM – The Sixteen-millimeter Shrine
7:00 AM – Judgment Night
11:00 AM – King Nine Will Not Return
12:00 PM – The Grave
12:30 PM – Death's-Head Revisited
1:00 PM – One For The Angels
2:00 PM – It's A Good Life
3:00 PM – The Hitch-hiker
3:30 PM – The Dummy
4:30 PM – The Invaders
5:30PM – The Midnight Sun
6:00 PM – The Masks

Full List – With Descriptions

12:00 AM – The Midnight Sun – Earth has been knocked off its orbit and is gradually approaching the sun. Thermometers pop, a painting melts off its canvas (this is actually a painted wax tablet on a hot plate!), but this apocalyptic tale is most interesting for its relationships – an excellent script, beautifully acted.

12:30 AM – People Are Alike All Over – Astronaut Roddy McDowall crashes on populous Mars, and consoles his fears with the thought that Martians (who include the radiant Susan Oliver) and humans must be "alike" ...

1:00 AM – Walking Distance – I LOVE this episode, a classic (#2 on the Time list) about a frustrated exec who, longing for his boyhood days, visits his hometown – only to find himself a grown-up amidst his own childhood. Insightful lesson about valuing the present and not romanticizing the past.

1:30 AM – I Shot An Arrow Into The Air – Three astronauts survive a crash on an asteroid (where the atmosphere and gravity are the same as on Earth, but no one notices this). Limited provisions stir bloodthirsty behavior. Yes, Rod, people in crisis are just no darned good.

2:00 AM – Two – Apocalypse survivors Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery approach each other warily in this sparsely written, beautifully acted episode.

2:30 AM – Uncle Simon – Two despicable people in a screeching, unredeemable story. Sadistic eponymous Uncle berates greedy, gold-digging niece caretaker into an "accidental" (and fatal) lapse in care. Twist ending? Yeah, but who cares. By the time it's over you'll want to twist off your head. Geeks may get a kick out of the brief cameo of Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot; the ambulatory prop also appears on "The Brain Center at Whipple's" (6:30 AM 1/1) and in miniature in "One for the Angels" (1:00 PM 1/1).

3:00 AM – A World Of His Own – Sweet story about the reality of reality features the only time Serling interacts with his characters.

3:30 AM – Hocus-Pocus and Frisby – A braggart gas station attendant's tales of prowess are believed by some seriously gullible aliens who want to take him home as a specimen of Earth's finest.

4:00 AM – The Lonely – Convict Jack Warden spends lonely days on an asteroid until his supply ship pal brings him a realistic robot – in the ethereally beautiful form of a young Jean Marsh (best known as Rose from Upstairs, Downstairs). A touching, romantic story. Features Ted Knight as an obnoxious crew member.

4:30 AM – A Short Drink From A Certain Fountain – Here we go again with the be-careful-what-you-wish-for theme. Rich geezer wants to keep up with his greedy vain young wife; comeuppance awaits them both.

5:00 AM – A Thing About Machines – One of my all-time faves about a guy who beats up on his machines – which, in 1960, included his typewriter, electric razor, TV and car – and they gang up to have their revenge. The dawn of Skynet... ("Now, why don’t you get out of here, Finchley!!")

5:30 AM – The Arrival – Mystery plane lands itself at airport. Could it all just be an illusion? Ummm... maybe...

6:00 AM – The Sixteen-millimeter Shrine – Luminous Ida Lupino as a reclusive aging movie star, immersed in the films of her youth. Sunset Boulevard, served up Zone-style with a bittersweet dose of wish-fulfillment. Score is by Sunset Boulevard's composer/conductor Franz Waxman. Catch Lupino's deft direction in "The Masks" at 6:00PM.

6:30 AM – The Brain Center At Whipple's – CEO Whipple automates manufacturing with low-maintenance machines. Does he understand "the value of a man"? Go tell it to Skynet. Features the second of three cameos of Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot in the TZ; others include "Uncle Simon" (2:30 AM 1/1) and "One for the Angels" (1:00 PM 1/1).

7:00 AM – Judgment Night – Nehemiah Persoff just knows a nearby U-boat will blast his passenger steamer. But no one one board will believe him! (And exactly how does he know anyway...?) Excellent performances, great ending and a sweet cameo by The Avengers' Patrick MacNee

7:30 AM – The Last Rights Of Jeff Myrtlebank – Small-town good ol' boy James Best wakes up at his own funeral, and seems much improved by the experience! Cute, folksy tale.

8:00 AM – The Four Of Us Are Dying – Guy who can change his face learns he can’t change his scumbag nature.

8:30 AM – The Jeopardy Room – Defecting ex-KGB Martin Landau has three hours to find the bomb in his hotel room planted by his former Commissar, sniper-rifle-wielding John van Dreelen: If he tries to leave, he gets shot; if he doesn't find the bomb, it goes off (or is he supposed to get shot then, too?). Poor writing, overwrought direction and too many plot holes make this episode unsalvageable even by Landau's typically fine acting.

9:00 AM – Black Leather Jackets – Evil leather-clad alien (dressed this way to "blend") falls for local Earth girl in this poor man's Avatar.

9:30 AM – A Piano In The House – Enchanted ivories reveal uncomfortable secrets; akin to "What's in the Box" (2:30 AM 1/1) and "A Most Unusual Camera" (6:30 PM 12/31), and slightly better than either.

10:00 AM – A Nice Place To Visit – Another be-careful-what-you-wish-for morality tale about the true nature of Heaven and Hell. In 1960 it might not have been painfully predictable...

10:30 AM – Twenty-Two – Recovering dancer is troubled by prescient dreams. "Room for one more, honey!" Shrill performances, flat writing. Mediocre tale best suited to Internet urban myth.

11:00 AM – King Nine Will Not Return – WWII B-25 Captain Robert Cummings finds himself stranded in the desert with only the carcass of his King Nine, lost 17 years before. Is it a hallucination? Time travel? Both? The de rigueur twist ending is now a TZ cliché, but still worth watching for a strong script and Cummings' excellent performance.

11:30 AM – The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms – Spooked National Guard tank crew gets drafted into Custer's 7th Cavalry. Big whoop.

12:00 PM – The Grave – Spooky old west tale of a dare gone bad, featuring James Best, Lee Van Cleef and Lee Marvin. Also recycled on the internet.

12:30 PM – Death's-Head Revisited – Former Nazi captain's trot down memory lane via Dachau brings him to some unexpected denizens. Top-notch performances by Joseph Schildkraut and Oscar Beregi Jr.

1:00 PM – One For The Angels – One of TZ's more successful dark comedies features Ed Wynn as a fast-talking salesman who must use his skills to save a child's life. Features the third of three cameos of Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot (miniature, in this case) in the TZ; others include "Uncle Simon" (2:30 AM 1/1) and "The Brain Center at Whipple's" (6:30 AM 1/1).

1:30 PM – The Old Man In The Cave – Confused story set in a post-apocalyptic future of 1974 (!!!). Town listens to the “old man” until soldiers tell them not to be superstitious – and it doesn’t work out well for anyone. What’s the message? Don’t trust your own perceptions? Ugh. Only worth watching for a young James Coburn.

2:00 PM – It's A Good Life – One of the most famous episodes (#3 on the Time list) featuring little Billy Mumy as a terrifying child who can create and destroy at will. The brilliant Cloris Leachman is his petrified mother. ("That’s a good thing you did… A real good thing… Now please wish it into the cornfield!").

2:30 PM – Dead Man's Shoes – Bum dons dead gangster's wing-tips and finds himself stepping into the thug's revenge-thirsty ex-life. You might feel bad for the bum if you find yourself caring about anything in this one.

3:00 PM – The Hitch-hiker – A driver keeps seeing the same hitch-hiker thumbing a ride as she heads west…. A deliciously Hitchcockian morality/mortality play about fear and acceptance of the inevitable. #5 on the Time list.

3:30 PM – The Dummy – Cliff Robertson as a troubled ventriloquist whose creepy dummy will simply not stay in the box.

4:00 PM – Third From The Sun – Trigger-happy world leaders have their finger on the button! Doomsday is near! Time for a select few to secretly gather their families to escape to a nearby planet. Hm... now what planet would that be..?

4:30 PM – The Invaders – Agnes Moorehead's virtuoso 25-minute wordless monologue; riveting with a slick twist at the end. #7 on the Time list.

5:00 PM – The Bewitchin' Pool – Worst. Episode. Ever. Even To Kill a Mockingbird's Oscar-nominated Mary Badham couldn't save this dismal excuse for a story. Spoiled brats escape manipulative divorcing parents by finding their way to SuperGrandma via an enchanted pool. Now, if Grandma dumped the tots in an oven, then we might have a story....

5:30 PM – The Midnight Sun – [Not sure if this is a schedule error; the episode is also listed at 12:00 AM.]

6:00 PM – The Masks – One of the GREAT underrated episodes, and the only TZ episode to be directed by a woman, Ida Lupino (she also stars in “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” 6:00 AM 1/1 ). A crusty millionaire geezer tells his greedy family he will die before Mardi Gras is over – but they must wear freaky custom masks through the evening if they want to claim their inheritance. Gives the term "know thyself" new meaning....

6:30 PM – The Howling Man – A visitor to a monastery is disturbed to find the monks have a screaming guy locked up. Well, they must have a good reason… A lot of people like this one. I think it’s pretty meh. Features John Carradine as a monk.

Tandava's Guide to the Zone--2011-12 Version--Part I: New Year's Eve

2011-12-27T16:58:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to The Zone!

Once again this New Year's Eve corks will fly and balls will drop, and we will all get a chance to spend some time in The Zone (at least those of us with basic cable...).

This year, SyFy (formerly the Science Fiction Channel, or SciFi) will air 81 episodes for its New Year's Twilight Zone marathon (down from 88 last year), starting 9am on 12/31 and ending at 5:30am on 1/2. So that's a lot of Serling for your dollar... but how do you tell the quality from the clunkers?

Unfortunately, SyFy is again not airing any of the beautiful hour-long episodes from Season 4, but there are still classics aplenty among the half-hour episodes. Just like last year, all ten of Time Magazine's Top Twilight Zone Episodes will be featured (they are in red, and alas there are none on New Year's Eve...), along with some lesser known beauties like "The Masks" (6:00 AM 1/1) and "In Praise of Pip" (9:30 AM 12/31), (in green), and finally a few that are not perfect, but have notable performances (in blue).

So what follows here is a short list of my favorite episodes which will be aired on Friday, December 31st, linked to a full list of all episodes, with brief descriptions and hopefully not too many spoilers. Celebrity names and other items of interest are bolded and linked.

In a few days, I'll post a rundown of episodes to be aired from 1/1 through the morning of 1/2.

Happy Zoning!

My Favorites – Short List
(Click the time to jump to the episode description.)

9:30 AM – In Praise Of Pip
10:30 AM – And When The Sky Was Opened

11:00 AM – The Silence

2:30 PM – Mr. Dingle, The Strong

4:00 PM – A Hundred Yards Over The Rim

4:30 PM – The After Hours
5:30 PM – A Game Of Pool
6:00 PM – Long Distance Call
7:30 PM – Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
8:00 PM – A Penny For Your Thoughts
9:00 PM – Night Call
9:30 PM – Five Characters In Search Of An Exit
10:00 PM – Nick Of Time
10:30 PM – Night Of The Meek
11:00 PM – Kick The Can
11:30 PM – Where Is Everybody?

Full List – With Descriptions

9:00 AM – Escape Clause – I only like this one because I like David Wayne, but it’s not a great episode, just a grim morality play about the value of mortality. *Yawn!*

9:30 AM – In Praise Of Pip – I LOVE this episode. I REALLY love this episode (and did I mention I love this episode?). Jack Klugman delivers a top-notch, tragic performance as a dying no-good trying to do right by his serviceman son, Pip (a much less fearsome Billy Mumy). Sweet, sad magical ending.

10:00 AM – Ring-a-Ding Girl – Medium episode about movie star returning to her home town and throwing a “celebrate me” party. Or is she? Even though it’s not great, I always find myself watching this one all the way through.

10:30 AM – And When The Sky Was Opened – Well played, creepy episode about astronauts returning to earth… or did they? Or were they ever here? Or were you?? TZ makes us question our grasp of reality.

11:00 AM – The Silence – Tense, beautifully acted study in interpersonal dynamics and irony. Based loosely on Chekhov's The Bet, there is no supernatural hocus-pocus in this one. And there is no need for any.

11:30 AM – The Hunt – This mediocre folksy tale by The Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. has been recycled as internet glurge. Guy and dog have died and are walking along the road to heaven. Guy at pearly gate says, “No dogs allowed.” Guy says, “I ain’t going nowhere without my hound…” Sheesh.

12:00 PM – I Am the Night–Color Me Black – Murderous bigotry, hatred and fear are bad things. OK. We get it.

12:30 PM – The Rip Van Winkle Caper – It's Treasure of the Sierra Madre with suspended animation and blah writing. Good performances and a fun twist at the end make it sort of worth watching.

1:00 PM – Queen Of The Nile – Dopey episode about life-sucking millennia-old Egyptian queen. Blah blah blah. Skip it. "Long Live Walter Jameson" (4:30 AM 1/1) handles the material much more skillfully.

1:30 PM – Caesar and Me – Satan-spawn dummy drives hapless ventriloquist Jackie Cooper to a life of crime – matched in evilness only by tormenting then-child actress Morgan Brittany (later of Dallas fame). The same material is handled much better in "The Dummy" (3:30 PM 1/1).

2:00 PM – Probe 7 Over and Out – Stranded astronaut Richard Basehart, meets hostile alien female on deserted planet. She hurls rocks at him. Or maybe it's just foreplay. Now, what shall we call this place...? The same story is better told in "Two" (2:00 AM 1/1).

2:30 PM – Mr. Dingle, The Strong – Loud-mouthed salesman pisses away alien gifts on trivial feats. Worth watching for an adorable Burgess Meredith and amusing (and very young) Don Rickles.

3:00 PM – A Kind Of Stopwatch – Blabbering bore gets comeuppance via magical timepiece. Even The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything was better than this turkey.

3:30 PM – The Little People – Ego and physical relativity clash in this memorable (though mediocre) episode, which has been lampooned in The Simpsons, South Park, and Futurama. Good performance by Claude Akins.

4:00 PM – A Hundred Yards Over The Rim – Underrated episode featuring a very young Cliff Robertson as a pioneer dad who will go yards, miles and years to heal his ailing son.

4:30 PM – The After Hours – Stunning Anne Francis finds herself wandering the non-existent floors of a creepy department store. (Wait... is that mannequin watching me??)

5:00 PM – Little Girl Lost – Little girl has slipped into another dimension. Can her parents and their conveniently present physicist pal rescue her before the portal closes forever? Decent script but bland acting. Tune in for the final 10 minutes for all you need to know.

5:30 PM – A Game Of Pool – Taut two-person drama about winning and losing, and what's really important in the game of life. Fine performances by Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters. Not crazy about the ending; the real (and better) ending was done in the 80s TZ version.

6:00 PM – Long Distance Call – Creepy dead grandma wants her favorite grandson to be with her forever, and conveys her wishes via a toy phone. (Now if only Billy Mumy – TZ's favorite child actor – could wish her into the cornfield!) Nice performance by Philip Abbott as the kid's dad.

6:30 PM – A Most Unusual Camera – Lame-assed episode about three greedy morons undone by a magic camera. Hokey, ridiculous, predictable ending. Skip it.

7:00 PM – Stopover In A Quiet Town – At least it was quiet until this nattering couple woke up in a strange house with no memory of how they got there, and no one to ask where they are, or why the grass is made of papier-mâché. And if they'd shut up for two seconds, we just might care....

7:30 PM – Number Twelve Looks Just Like You – Dystopic utopia where everyone is beautifully identical and lifts their pretty mugs with a glass of Instant Smile. Mediocre script saved by Collin Wilcox's terrific performance.

8:00 PM – A Penny For Your Thoughts – Not a classic, but one of my favorites, featuring a young Dick York (the first Darren from Bewitched.)

8:30 PM – I Sing The Body Electric – Sweet story about a robot nanny lovingly bonding with tots.

9:00 PM – Night Call – Originally called "Sorry Right Number," this careful-what-you-wish-for tale features calls from beyond and a beautiful performance by Gladys Cooper. It has also been recycled as internet glurge.

9:30 PM – Five Characters In Search Of An Exit – A soldier, a clown, a tramp, a bagpiper and a ballerina wake to find themselves in a doorless empty room. Well-played and engaging.

10:00 PM – Nick Of Time – A charming script and low-key performance by pre-Kirk William Shatner (yes, I used "low-key" and "Shatner" in the same sentence) grace this cautionary tale about superstition and self-determination.

10:30 PM – Night Of The Meek – Down-and-out department store Santa, Art Carney, loses his job but finds a bag of gifts and plays Santa one last time for the neighborhood kiddies. But is it just an act? Beautiful, touching episode.

11:00 PM – Kick The Can – Timeless story about rest home residents learning that you are indeed as young as you feel. "Look! Think! Feel! Doesn't that wake some sleeping part of you?!"

11:30 PM – Where Is Everybody? – Guy finds himself alone in an empty town, with hints of residents recently present (lit cigarette in ashtray, etc.). Eerie and amusing, most worth watching because this is the pilot that sold the series to CBS.

Post-Christmas Thoughts

2011-12-25T22:02:00.000-08:00

A numbly sweet end to a challenging and transformative year.

I met up with my parents and other family at a Chinese restaurant in Flushing for dinner ... very different from the all-day home-hosted affairs of the past, but it felt right. We chatted comfortably while swinging the lazy Susan around, chowing down on vibrant, chewy meats, rice and veggies.

We were the only non-Chinese in the place and I had to wonder if anyone in the restaurant thought we were Jewish.

Afterwards, my cousin and his wife went for drinks with me and my parents at a little Irish bar a few blocks south of Roosevelt and caught up on family stuff.

I was tired and too mellow for any socializing beyond this, so it was good for me in many ways.

A nice way to end the year.

Thank you, 2011 ... You beat me up, burned me out and changed my life ... all to the good, I think. :-)

Catching Up... Footage of the Halloween Parade!!

2011-12-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

I just got an email from Mama Donna with the below video!

For the past four years, Mama Donna, an internationally acclaimed spiritual teacher and "Urban Shaman," has been specially requested to lead the Halloween Parade, blessing the Parade, spectators, the route itself, and the grand and beautiful city it calls home.

I have joined her as both a member of her Blessing Band and as a member of PURE, who for three years has livened the celebration with dance and music.

So, here is a camera copy (apologies for the background noise) of the start of the parade, where you can see Mama Donna and her Band, along with PURE following. There is some nice footage of Kaeshi and me at 1:47, and me doing a bunch of hip drops and a zaghareet at 1:50.

Funny thing -- I had to go to work later that evening, and went to my building in costume.

As I was signing in, the guard said, "Did you just come from the Parade? I think I saw you on TV!"

But I had to give him ID anyway.... :-D

Time Flies: Be Here Now! (HuffPo Comment)

2011-11-11T10:10:00.001-08:00

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." -- Douglas Adams

Even as a 9-year-old kid, I felt time was subjective, and would often think, "What I'm experiencing now will be the distant past in what will feel like the blink of an eye" (gives you an idea of what kind of kid I was... :-P ).

Yet, waiting for a delayed train is a nearly unbearable agony to me; I'm drawn up from my book and need to stare down the dark tunnel until the moment a hint of light hits the track. (Then, of course, I can relax and enjoy the book.)

Last year, I read an NPR article called "How to Live Forever" which made a facetious case for trying new things to make time "last longer": Once you are expert at a thing, you can do it automatically, which makes time pass more quickly. The discomfort of trying new things slows you down and makes time drag.

I addressed this in my own blog http://t.co/SATuByOt finding that depth and richness of each moment, when one is passionate about one's activity, can create the best of both worlds -- time seems to evaporate in the endeavor, and yet it feels like one has lived through a transformative age in its accomplishment.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Sleepless -- But Not Dreamless -- in Glasco

2011-11-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

This weekend I went upstate to a convent in a tiny town called Glasco, about two hours north of NYC, to do some dream work.

I've been going up here for over ten years, about once or twice a year, on Dream Analysis Retreats. We -- usually a group of four to seven women of a wide range of ages and life experience -- relate and discuss our dreams in Jungian terms.

Dream work is an extremely important part of Jungian analysis, and is one of the surest indicators of healing and growth. After all, your dreams don't lie, so if you believe you have processed some recurring problem or complex, yet the dream symbolizing it continues, then you know pretty well that your psyche is screaming at you that you are not as far along as you'd like to believe.

Likewise, you know you are healing if the dream transforms....

For example, for many years I had a recurring dream about being chased by the Evil Man. I'd lock myself in a room, yet the door wouldn't close, or the lock would be broken, or the door would mysteriously shrink and he would burst right through to attack me.

So what does this symbolize?

For much of my life my thinking (masculine) and feeling (feminine) selves have been at war, and usually the masculine has won out -- as I have talked and rationalized myself into allowing far too many situations that have ultimately harmed me.

Strange as it may sound, it is the strength of the feminine that is required in such situations -- the wisdom that just knows when a thing is wrong, and that knows and cherishes our value just for being ourselves. It is not rational and requires no justification; it simply loves and nourishes. One need never be good enough for it.

Now, as warm and fuzzy as this sounds, if we live only in this feminine womb-scape we would never grow, develop autonomy, or strive towards our dearest dreams and powerful fulfillment. We would never know what we are. So separation, judgment, criticism is necessary -- but without the feminine to softly protect and care for us, the masculine just runs roughshod over us.

Which is how things have been through much of my achingly self-critical life.

As this dream persisted, my therapist would encourage me to talk to the attacker. A crazy idea I thought, and yet in a dream around 2004 (coincidentally, when I started bellydancing) I successfully locked the door against this animus figure, only to decide to open it and talk to him. Far from the insane marauder I expected, he shriveled into a lanky milquetoast who could barely get a word out.

One of the dreams I related this past weekend involved this figure -- but this time, he was a serial killer locked in the bathroom of my childhood home. In the dream, we call the police (psychical reinforcements) to bring him out, but he won't come out. The cops tell me to call his name -- but I can't remember it, which surprises my mother because "he has been living with us for so long."

So, clearly this problem persists in me -- but it has changed. He is no longer attacking; he has now reverted to pure vulnerable boyish silence. Seems he is more scared of me than I am of him. And perhaps he is not so happy with me for forgetting his name...

So that was the realization I had during the first evening of the Dream Retreat, and went to bed pondering it -- unable to think of anything else, actually.

I started to drift off around midnight, hoping to get up around 7:30 and go running along the beautiful trail up there.

But barely an hour later, a frenzied thumping, knocking, banging slammed me awake. And I had forgotten my earplugs!

And this continued through the night: I'd start to sleep for maybe a half-hour, and then -- WHAM, SLAM, BOOM!!

Around 4am I crawled out to the fire escape to see if I could figure out what was causing this... I knew the nuns had been having some work done. Was there a tarp on the roof? Some loose cord, cable, rope? (Something I could use to hang myself maybe?!?!)

As the sleepless, dreamless Night of Misery continued, I bargained: I'd turn off my alarm. If I missed the morning session, then so be it. But if I was still awake when the sky got light, then I'd go out running, no matter how miserable I felt.

The latter won out.

As the sun bleached its way through the venetian blinds, I was a knot of restless anguish -- all the more miserable because I did not have a dream to share. But I dragged myself up anyway and got dressed around 7am.

I'd be OK, I told myself (but I brought my mobile just in case...)

The day was absolutely stunning. A bit frosty, but no longer windy. On auto-pilot, I chugged up the gravel road towards the labyrinth about a mile away. I made a left onto a paved road and hoofed down to the town's main drag, Route 32.

Starting to feel a bit better, I finally came to my second-favorite part of the run: A tight little enclave of McMansions along Joseph's Drive with streets named Canterbury Drive, Lancelot Drive and Camelot Court.

Usually I go straight through on Joseph's, which takes me right back to the convent. But suddenly I was feeling better -- much better -- better than I had in weeks, actually. And those street names were just so darned charming!

So I took a left on Canterbury, figuring it would loop me straight back to Joseph's, but instead I ended up on Lancelot which twisted around, leaving me completely disoriented.

I pulled out my Android, figuring Google Maps would get me out of this. No such luck.

I ran back a few houses, then returned to where Lancelot had left me. I saw a single green street sign to my right. I ran up to it.

And this is what I saw.

"You do realize, don't you, that this sounds like a very interesting dream?" a good friend observed as I related the story some time later.

Yes, indeed it was....

It had all the elements: Misery, anguish, running, joy, bliss, being lost (and lost among such mythically resplendent names!) -- and finding my way -- yes MY way, at a time -- and in a "way" -- that I had least expected.

Take a Stand! (HuffPo Comment)

2011-10-06T10:01:00.001-07:00

Beautiful post, Mama Donna.

I was moved to hear Naomi Klein on Brian Lehrer this morning. http://www.wnyc.org/articles/its-free-country/2011/oct/06/naomi-klein-occupy-wall-street/

She said that the image that moved her to leave her home in Canada and hurry to Wall Street was that of a young woman holding a sign that read, simply, "I care about you."

The most important truth of this moment is that we're in this together: Greed got us into this mess; only compassion can get us out.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Dreaming of 9-11 -- BEFORE the Event

2011-09-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago I had the following dream: Terrorists have blown a huge hole in my office/apartment building; an apocalypse has hit Manhattan, which is covered in a layer of dust. Power is down and I must confront the terrorists alone.

What is weird about this is that I had the dream on September 6, 2001. What is stranger still is that I wrote the dream down on a scrap of paper which I had misplaced until September 10th. And so, that Monday night, I stayed late in my office typing it up.

In his Sense of Being Stared At, Rupert Sheldrake relates several similar experiences -- during the five days before the attacks, Manhattanites had prescient dreams or other premonitions, most involving planes, buildings and/or terrorists. And in most cases these dreams were not typical of the dreamer.

"Oh, I bet New Yorkers have nightmares about dust and skyscrapers all the time!" scoffed my hyper-rational cousin. And they may -- but I don't. And I know this because I have been writing down my dreams since 1996.

A quick word search reveals that this was the only dream of its kind that I have had in the past 15 years, which puts it out of the realm of statistical coincidence and squarely into The Twilight Zone.

In his book, Sheldrake describes "a kind of collective unconscious that allows members of a species to draw from, and contribute to, the collective memory of the species."

But does how could this apply to future events?

Well... I haven't the foggiest, other than to consider more strongly that there are, indeed, more things in heaven and earth -- and perhaps those things like to reach us through our dreams.

But you tell me... Submitted for your approval is my 9/6/01 dream, complete with action movie heroics at the end.

Oh, I am such a product of my culture....

I’m in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan – the Earth’s atmosphere is completely covered in choking dust. (There is also something about a probe that was sent into the deeper reaches of the Milky Way which will soon return bringing either information or more destruction.)

I go into a one-room apartment in a high-rise (possibly mine), though it seems more like an office building. Scott is sleeping on the bed. He is remarkably blasé about the state of the world. There is a lot of dust in the room as well, so he suggests that I turn on the air conditioner to clear it out. I am dubious at first, thinking that the air conditioner couldn’t possibly work because teh power is down, but it does.

As the dust clears, I look out the window and see many office buildings with quite a few lights on. How can there be electricity? I thought there was practically no one left… Are the generators still running? I figure that I should just stop questioning and use the electricity while we still have it.

A very attractive young man enters the apartment.. The three of us go to the lobby of the building where many other survivors are gathered. Panamanian terrorists have blasted a giant hole in the lobby and are announcing that in this “new world” they are claiming America (and hence New York and all the buildings in it) as a territory of Panama. They have not yet seen me, so I slink up a staircase to an inner balcony overlooking the atrium.

A little ways in I find an unmade bed and a female friend crouched beside it. The terrorists announce that they are going to tear-gas us out. I realize that even though gas is everywhere it’s not affecting me. Puffed up with my apparent superhuman abilities, I go down to the lobby and tell the terrorists to get lost. They turn their weapons on us and, in true superhuman form, I telekinetically rip their weapons away from them, condense them in a ball above their heads, and then smash the ball into the left wall of the room. Then I blow the terrorists backwards, which sends them out of the building screaming.

Gathering Storms and Other Stuff I've Been Up to This Crazy Summer

2011-08-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

Last blog entry June 2nd.

If I were a starship captain, I'd be fired for dereliction of duty.

How do frequent bloggers do it? I find it so difficult just to get done what I need to get done... and then to find time to write about it when what I crave is a brain-break of Big Bang Theory and a bottle of beer. Usually I opt for the brain-break.

But, in a nutshell, here is what I've been up to these past 12-or-so weeks:

JUNE:

The first weekend of June, I took Tamalyn Dallal's teacher's training workshop and emcee'd the showcase for it (indeed, the last event I listed on my calendar).

Then, having graduated from the PIT's fifth and final improv level, I signed up for two new PIT electives: Jen Nails' "Do-It-Yourself" Solo Show Workshop, and Alex Zalben's Level 1 Intro to Sketch Writing. Both of these had very nice showcases in early August which I completely failed to mention on my calendar here, but to which people showed up anyway.

But that is August, and I am still in June.

As it happened, I missed the second of both of these courses because I spent a glorious week in Santa Fe at Dunya's Dancemeditation (aka Summer Movement Monastery) retreat at the blissfully restful Synergia Ranch.

And I saw a couple of awesome snakes:

I took a bunch of pictures with my Android which should be visible to the public here through my Facebook photo album.

I actually started a blog entry when I was there, describing the place, the people, blah blah blah, but I never finished it and it is still sitting unpublished in Draft mode along with a half-dozen pieces I did about the production of PURE Reflections in Japan last year.

And I took an awesome six-week Shakespeare Intensive with the Royal Shakespeare Company's indomitable Lisa Harrow. (That's her standing in front of me ... regal and beautiful as ever.)

We did sonnets, soliloquies and scenes. A triple-S threat.

I returned to NYC in late June to learn we had lost a warm friend and dear human being, Adam Hocherman:

JULY:

I danced at Kamasutra Lounge with the Rising Sirens, and took and passed the SharQui instructor training workshop.

I joined Altagracia's Caribbean Roses for a gorgeous Flamenco-bellydance number at Lafayette Grill, and debuted two stunning feather boa fans that I inherited from the ravishing Hannah Nour.

Now all I need is to get my group fitness certification... Not so easy! I shelled out nearly $600 for the materials, but have I had time to study... nooooo!! And why?

Two little words: PURE Reflections.

(This incidentally, is the excellent promo video Lale's husband Kenji put together from his footage from the Japan show. It was created to compete for a $25,000 in the Pepsi Refresh Everything contest, but there were just not enough bottle caps for us... Maybe next month... but I digress...)

We had been asked to mount a production in Taiwan in September -- but we had not worked on the show at all since the Japan production in late November.

Now, bear in mind, when we do PURE Reflections, we are not simply bringing a show to a new venue; we are recreating the entire thing with a whole new set of dancers. So I was absolutely not going to let us present material to a group of women who had sacrificed a week of their time for this project without having it fresh in our bodies and minds.

Also, when we normally produce the show, it is with a cast of 25 or more, to give as many dancers as possible the opportunity to be a part of the production, as well as the soul-searching workshops and rehearsal process. But this time we decided to scale it down to only seven people, to see if the show even could accommodate a smaller space and tighter budget

But even with the smaller cast, scheduling was a bitch.

Key dancers like Kaeshi, Pacita and B were frequently travelling. We had one rehearsal with the entire cast in mid-July and did not have the full cast again until two days before the show.

But I've directed so many plays in similar circumstances, so I knew it could be done.

Two amazing PURE members, Liz and Catherine, stepped up and understudied for whomever was not at rehearsal.

And that brings us to...

AUGUST:

I taught some dance at Greehouse and finger cymbals for Bellyqueen (interesting that I am the only Bellyqueen teacher who is not and will never be a Bellyqueen member... but I have barely enough time to keep up with the Sirens choreography, so maybe being a professional troupe member is not in the cards for me... Ah well...)

I took an improv intensive with the Groundlings' Gary Austin.

But mostly I focused on PURE Reflections.

And we did it!!

The show came together in so many surprising and beautiful ways. Marius Shanzer took some lovely photographs, an Amy and Kenji took footage -- so you'll see some of that when it's ready.

And then there was the Hurricane. Epic destruction not withstanding, I have to say I was kind of glad to have had the weekend off.

And now... I need to prepare for September!

Bringing the show to Taiwan is going to be a whole 'nuther ball of crazy wax. And I can't wait!

Mr. Doodle and the Creeps

2011-06-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

Numbly trudging home last night with over 50 pounds of groceries hanging off my body in various packs, slings and totes, with aching feet and groaning shoulders, I found myself walking alongside a young man munching his way through a bag of chips.

I was barely aware of him for over half of the long block before my building when he said, "I'd offer you a Dipsy Doodle but you don't look like you're in the mood."

As with most women in the city, my first impulse was to cross the street and get away from this creep.

In the past, I've spat, screamed and hissed at men who have approached me on the street. "Who the FUCK do they think they are?!?" I rage and boil.

But then I realized that there was, in fact, nothing creepy, leery or even weird in this particular man's tone. If anything, it was a little shy -- rough and good natured.

Plus his remark was about my mood, and did not strike me as being slimy or patronizing.

Creeps -- inasmuch as they ever notice a woman's mood -- say things like, "Hey baby, I got something to cheer you up."

But that was not this guy.

I laughed and turned to him; he grinned and shrugged sheepishly, raising the bag towards me.

"You know," I chirped, "I am in the mood!"

I reached in and pulled out his last Doodle.

"Have a good night!" he smiled, turned a corner and went on his merry way.

So -- for all the guys who think it's OK to say whatever they want to women on the street -- I began to think, what made this guy's actions not creepy?

In most cases, those exact same words in that exact same situation could have been very creepy indeed. I think part of what disarmed me was that I had come up behind him while he was walking, and not the other way around.

But mostly it was his tone. It was simply not the tone of a creep.

Creeps view any and all attractive women as potential sperm receptacles and little more. They have no more concern or ability to consider a woman's point of view than they would to consider the point of view of candy bar.

In the creep mind, women are there to be consumed.

If a woman tells a creep she isn't interested, this means nothing to the creep brain. If she says she has a cop/boxer/football player boyfriend, then this will usually (though not always) make a dent in him.

To the creep mind (and this is the most generous definition of the word "mind") only the presence of another male possessor can deter his "right" to whatever woman he wants.

Any action of the woman, up to and possibly including bashing him with a soup can, is seen as a come-on. (Once a Ruskie creep asked me for directions while I was pulling gristle out of my teeth. "What is zis sing you are doing wis your tongue???" he slathered. I wish I had puked on him.)

Anyway.

None of that was present with Mr. Doodle.

Granted, he might not have felt the liberty or desire to say something to another man walking down the street, similarly burdened and sad.

But I don't think it's completely wrong for men to speak to women on the street, or for there to be a hint of flirtation about it, especially if their approach does not assume anything.

And Mr. Doodle didn't.

He was just a nice guy who saw a woman in the dumps and wanted to make her laugh.

And it made me sad to think how close I came to shooting him down -- but doubly glad that I didn't.

Ask A Silly Question....

2011-05-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Brilliant playwright and fellow blogger, Don Cummings, posted a semi-facetious list of questions in his thought-provoking blog, Open Trench.

I planned only to comment on a few, but true to form, once I get rolling on an idea, I just can't stop myself...

So here are my semi-serious answers. Enjoy!

Why do so many people loathe the idea of a strong benevolent Socialist government but gladly work for feudal modeled corporations that enslave them?

Two words: Parent Issues. I think many people equate Big Government with an over-powerful, irrational parent, and see corrupt corporations as The Bully Down the Block. They tell themselves that someone will take down the bully (e.g. the self-regulating free market) without realizing that the bully's bully will be even worse to contend with than a misguided but well-meaning parent.

Unfortunately, the parent (and the government) carries a whopping load of archetypal energy, which undermines the child/citizen from inside as well as outside. And so people fear that more. Even when reminded that government can be voted out of power here, they'll say that the "next guy" will be just as bad because all politicians are the same (corrupt -- like corporations aren't), and blah blah blah. In the end, they just need to grow the fuck up.

Why do people in the Midwest continue to deny climate change while their cities and lives are being flattened?

Never underestimate the power of denial -- especially when one's "way of life" (i.e. creature comforts) is at stake. They'd rather ascribe home-flattening gale forces to a misplaced butterfly than to their dependence on fossil fuels.

Why is everything loaded with garlic?

Garlic is tasty and good for you and adds zazz to mundane meals, but you're right it can definitely be overdone. I think American taste buds are overstimulated with salt and sugar, so over-garlicking is probably an answer to that.

Why is it totally cool to have millions of dollars and then want millions more while others cheer you on to obtain it?

The cheerers are living vicariously through the money-whores, fantasizing perhaps that one day they will become like the objects of their obsession. (I wonder if that applies to stalkers, too...)

Why can’t I take a high speed train all across the continental United States in fifteen hours?

What? You want efficient, well funded rail in America? What are you, a socialist???

Why do people continue to buy horrible cheap shit that makes them fat and sick?

For the same reason they drink too much Bud, do drugs and watch too much TV. It's cheap, easy and adequately anesthetizing.

Why do people think they should have something for nothing?

Similar to the Government question: Parent issues. Or more specifically, Mother issues. People who are not yet grown up -- possibly because they did not adequately have their needs met, or whose overbearing parents kept them dependent so that said parents would feel needed/useful to their growing children, and therefore never learned to (1) discern their real needs, and (2) tend to those needs themselves -- expect the world to be one big fat teat for them to suck on.

Why are so many people flaming out publicly?

This dovetails the something-for-nothing dynamic, I think. Unearned success (for 15 minutes anyway) is essentially meaningless. They don't know how they got it, they don't know how to keep it. And, far be it from me to ascribe depth where there is likely none, but perhaps some deeper level of them is viscerally unhappy and unsatisfied with it.

The desire for unearned success reminds me of Marion Woodman's caution for our age: "They crave food that brings them no nurturance, drink that brihngs them no spirit, sex that brings them no union. Because their culture worships matter and minimizes soul, they concretize metaphor and literalize life."

And so they push boundaries, in the same way a two-year-old kicks against its parent. Unfortunately, the public is no forgiving parent, and eviscerates the foolish famous. Or they eviscerate themselves because they just can't help it....

Why do we get old, the whole time pretending we are young?

We want the world to continue believing we are young, because there is no respectable, appreciated place for age in our culture. Despicably sad.

Why don’t I own a Havanese?

Because, deep, deep down, what you really want is an even-tempered rescued mixed-breed pooch.

Why do I continue to run the air conditioner when I know this is slowly eating up all the mountain tops in West Virginia?

Because in the end, even those of us with functioning consciences believe at least a little in the Butterfly Effect over the effect of our own environmental footprints.

Why do men from New Jersey wear clunky pinky rings?

A little bling for the ba-da-bing!! New Jersey guys want to be the Situation. And the Situation just wants to be Joe Pesci.

Why is competition absolutely everything?

It isn't, but for many of us in an ego-based culture, it is because it has to be. But again, this has to do with growing up (or failing to grow up).

The two chief ways we come to know who we are and what we are capable are external -- comparison and contrast -- what am I like and what am I not like. What am I connected to, what am I disconnected from. And what am I better than, and what is better than me. As we grow, hopefully, we come to appreciate our unique complexity, which tempers that kind of comparison with more internally-based knowledge of oneself.

Why is it that even though I would like an economy based on compassion, I somehow understand that this is impossible? Is it because I have been brainwashed?

It's not impossible. There is evidence of it all around us (look at the outpouring of help for Japan and the south). We are capable of compassion; we just need to learn that compassion for others is not necessarily in conflict with self-interest.

Why did I always try to impress people when, really, everyone was already so upset about themselves that all great deeds just made them feel even worse?

You don't know that impressing them made them feel worse about themselves. Most likely, you intended to make them want you more; by showing what you were capable of, you are increasing your value to them -- especially if it is done through friendship. You are basically saying, "See this cool thing I can do? Well, even if you can't do it, you can connect to it just by being friends with me."

I know it doesn't make much sense, logically, but people really do work that way... And a lot of people prefer reflected glory, anyway.

Why is there MRSA at all?

Survival of the most mutable applies in particular to bacteria.

Why is the sun still here?

Depends on what you mean by "here"? It really isn't here at all; it's 93 million miles away. Which is a good thing.

Why are we all alive right now and not at the point of true extinction?

Maybe some ruminating dinosaur asked that just before the asteroid hit.... :-)

Truly, though, we are nowhere near extinction. We are just in an extended teenage phase. Asking why we are still here is like asking why your sister's teenaged son hasn't killed himself in a wheels-and-booze related incident. He may. But he probably won't. And neither will we.

Why are people having all these late life babies that might have had better brains if they had had them twenty years ago?

Babies born to older parents may have "less better" brains (though there is plenty of research demonstrating the opposite), but older babymakers are almost always better, wiser parents. So maybe the kids have "worse" brains, but they will get far more mileage out of the brains they have.

Why is rice pudding so tasty and empty?

It isn't empty!! It's filled with rice! And pudding!!

Why do we look better when we are thin?

Tell that to Paul Rubens. Skinniness is ugly to me; healthiness and comfort in one's body is beautiful, no matter the body weight.

Why do I own such horrible headphones, taken from the back pouch of an American Airlines seat?

Cheap, convenient, and clearly you are content enough with them that you don't care to replace them yet.

Why are clams so tasty in the same way in absolute value uniqueness that cashews are?

Not sure. I prefer oysters to clams and Brazil nuts to cashews in both absolute value and uniqueness.

Why do things change so quickly and then we are so quick to make fun of how things just were? Is this part of the fear of time-death thing?

Yes.

Why do I care?

Enquiring minds want to know......

Worldwide Flooding: When It Rains It Pours (HuffPo Comment)

2011-05-25T12:46:00.001-07:00

A few years ago, while my father was waiting in a hospital lobby for the rain to let up, he noticed a forlorn young man gazing dejectedly at the downpour.

"Man!" he pouted at no one in particular, "Why does it gotta rain!?"

My father looked at him for a long beat and responded, "So you can have water to wash your car."

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Love & War

2011-05-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about a recent falling out with a former lover.

We had not been involved romantically for a few years, and a very nice friendship seemed to be developing between us. Then a month ago he suddenly became distant and guarded.

The last time I'd seen him, he'd told me he would be in New York for a week in April, and so I believed he meant to see me. I cleared time in my schedule for him, and even attended an event he was hosting. But I did not hear from him, and beyond the first hello at the event, he not only avoided me -- he all but ran from me when I asked how he was doing.

Later, I -- along with 3000 of his closest Facebook friends -- learned that he was in a new relationship; I was absolutely stunned that he would behave so childishly. Weren't we friends, after all? Wouldn't he want to share good news like that with a good friend?

Apparently not.

I emailed him a few days later asking why he didn't simply tell me the news. Within minutes, I received a l-o-n-g email from him stating:

"My relationship with G___ is personal, private and what I will share when necessary. I was not hiding anything from anyone. I don't live in that world, either as a participant or as an observer."

Um... OK....

The letter rambled on:

"If I mean to say something, I'll say it. If I mean to share something, I share it. If I don't mean to say something please don't fill in the blanks because it matches your story. My life is just that, mine. What I choose to share I share. ...

"Your assessment of how I treated you is just that: yours. You keep holding onto that story if you need to. I suggest you not. I have no obligation to discuss with you any aspect of my life, none. No one in my life is afforded that. We had no implied agreement to hang out. None. Stop telling yourself those stories, stop creating scenarios...

"I'm not going to apologize for any of my behavior, for it's not callous or cruel. You have placed judgments on my actions, you have created stories about what you needed and wanted."

I was completely taken aback -- first by the cold, high-handed tone, and then by the sheer length and immediacy of the email. It was as though he'd had this little speech planned out for some time....

"Obviously you've been holding onto this for some time," he sneered. And then in the next breath, "A couple of years ago a similar thing happened, if I'm not mistaken."

I had no clue what he was talking about. And who was holding onto what here anyway??

As I looked over the words I started feeling sick -- not just because they were pretty damned callous and cruel -- but because they didn't quite seem directed at me.

I mean, yes, the letter was addressed to me, and seemed vaguely to respond to a few of the points I'd raised ... but it was so completely out of synch with what I had written that I couldn't even imagine the person he was speaking to ...

So I took another tack -- a kind of olive branch -- in hopes of bringing it to a personal level that might remind him of the me whose company he had enjoyed and with whom (I thought) he shared some connection.

"In this area, I admit I have some baggage," I explained, hoping to stir some compassion, "I have lost more than a few male friends to new girlfriends -- a few who were 'exes' of a sort, but most of whom were platonic -- and all of whom were dear to me -- only to be dumped unceremoniously when the new relationship came about."

"Friendship is sacred to me... I don't share myself with everyone the way I had with them, or with you."

I took a breath and hit "send."

"This ... is just another example of you and your story-telling," he shot back. "That is not the case with me, so let go of that baggage. It has nothing to do with me, and is irrelevant. You continue your pain cycle. That's your choice."

He devolved into a parrying pastiche of new-age jargon:

"Whatever you need to hold onto, you hold onto it. This conversation isn't working for me. You've decided to live your life the way you live it. That's your choice."

And finally:

"I wish you peace."

That's new-age-speak for Go Fuck Yourself.

I let it go and went to dance class, feeling more confused than hurt.

Did he really not see that, even as he accused me "fill[ing] in ... blanks [to] match [my] story", he was doing precisely that to me??

Of course not.

And there is the essential blind spot in both loving and hostile relationships.

Both love and war are often the result of eros or shadow projection, respectively. In both cases, we dehumanize the other to fit our needs -- the "story" in our heads of what the world is and how we relate to it.

In a loving relationship, where we are in frequent contact with the beloved, the projection eventually falls. The beloved's humanity asserts itself, and we fall right out of erotic love. If there is a genuine connection that is based on more than erotic projection, a personal love can then develop.

In hostile relationships, however, the projection finds a more stable home because we keep the enemy at bay, so there is less chance that our enemy's humanity will mitigate our hostile projection -- forcing us to fall out of hate.

And I think that is what happened here.

My guess is that my friend may have had some lingering feeling for me based on the good experience we'd had earlier in the year. This, unfortunately, may have posed a threat to the new relationship that emerged a few weeks later.

I don't think my friend was conscious of this, and there may have been more at play than I'm aware of -- but one thing I'm sure of is that he considered me dangerous before he got off the plane in New York and intended to get rid of me entirely.

And the best way to break a personal connection is to supplant it with one's own projections -- which meant he had to avoid me, or he would risk seeing me as I am, and not as the disposable Inconvenient Woman he needed me to be.

It was the Inconvenient Woman he addressed in those emails -- spurned, angry, inconsolable, irrational, resentful, furiously vengeful -- in a word: Dangerous.

While I am certainly capable of all of those qualities and more, I am not her and she is not me -- because she is not a real person at all. She is merely a projection men form to hurl at women in their lives who have become, well, inconvenient.

(It's worth noting here that, after this email exchange, he not only unfriended me on Facebook, he blocked me altogether, as did a few of our mutual friends! And he blocked me from his public "fan" site!! So I must be very "dangerous" indeed.... Oy.)

Reflecting on all of this in dance class (shimmies are great for getting perspective!), I thought back to when he and I first met: his whole-hearted embracing of me, his intoxicating enthusiasm for just about anything I did or said.

Was I a real person to him even then? Probably not.

No. Absolutely not.

When I got home, I looked over the email thread again and decided, even though the exchange was painful, not to delete it.

I'm sure he would say it was just one more thing I -- meaning his version of me -- was holding on to.

But I -- meaning my version of me -- would say it was a stunning example of love, war and how romantic projection can unceremoniously flip into its opposite.

And that is absolutely worth keeping.

Focus, Focus!!

2011-04-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

"I don't know what the heck happened...!" I spluttered after the first botched take of Sarah Skinner's Little Mermaid, for the Venus Uprising DVD of their latest show, Objects of Desire.

Cast as the Sea Witch, it was my job to figure out how to convey the following in about 20 seconds of stage time:

(1) The Little Mermaid has fallen in love with a shipwrecked prince, whom she has rescued and wants to trade her tail in for legs.

(2) She asks the Sea Witch, yours truly, for legs -- but the Witch demands a price. She offers her jewels and hair, but I grab her voice instead.

(3) Then, how to de-tail her (mmmm ... sushi!!).... Sarah, an expert seamstress, created a skirt with a mid-length side zipper. Armed with a scary (and real) knife, I appear to jab the blade into her side, then grab a cord looped into the zipper's pull tab with my thumb, and yank the zipper and knife down so it seems that the blade is raking through her body. (You can see the hilt of it in her side, here:)

Needless to say, I was worried through the dress rehearsal and each performance that something would go wrong with the zipper or knife.

Thankfully, all went smoothly -- until the filming.

Earlier that afternoon, I had been talking with a dancer in another number about my segment. She remarked, "The stuff with the knife looks very scary and real!"

"That's good to hear," I explained, "Because it's hard to grab the zipper and keep the blade straight."

"Well, actually," she said, "You can't see the blade at all because your other sleeve covers it."

This was sort of good news, but I was a little disappointed to hear all my struggles with this prop weren't making much difference.

And this weighed on my mind straight into the filming.

At the moment I "jabbed" the knife into her side, my eyes darted for a half-second to my sleeve. Was it covering? No? Yes? Maybe? I hooked my thumb into the zipper's cord and pulled down.

And it jammed. I fumbled with the knife, nearly dropping it. I yanked the cord again but still couldn't unzip it. Sarah looked down, frustrated, and ripped the zipper open herself.

I felt like crap.

I apologized profusely -- but it turned out part of the frame was blocked so we were going to have to do another take anyway.

"I don't know what happened..." I bleated... But of course I knew exactly what went wrong. Focus, focus!! It is everything in live performance. It's important in filming, too, but less so...

And maybe it was because we had all been so perfectly focused during the mishap-free live run, that we simply had to let up a bit.

Ultimately, we did about four takes because each time SOMETHING went wrong with a prop (other than mine... :-> ) or costume piece.

So yeah, I felt bad -- but not all that bad!

And I re-learned a good lesson: Focus, focus, focus!

Nutshells, Coffee Shops and Scaling Down Area 51

2011-04-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii

I have been writing down my dreams since 1995.

Sometimes I can go a week or two without remembering a dream; and other times I will have so many that I am overwhelmed, and any attempt to capture their details is paralyzed in frustration.

But for the most part, I try to write them down fairly regularly.

Dream analysis is an extremely important part of Jungian analysis, which I began in 1994. Although some consider dreams simple jetsam and flotsam as the brain processes the day's activities and concerns, the Jungian school holds that they have important information and guidance not only about current concerns, but can point to greater trends and psychological developments -- after all, we can't hide from the truth of dreams.

Granted, we can force gratifying interpretations on them, but this becomes more difficult when dreams reoccur with increasing ferocity and smash our respective nutshells.

For example, I used to have a dream that a terrifying man was chasing me, usually through the upper floors of a house or building. I would try to hide in a room and shut the door against him, but something would always be wrong with the door: the lock would be broken or non-existent or the door would suddenly become flimsy as tissue. Once the door shriveled to swinging-saloon-door size, and my assailant easily banged through.

This we took to indicate a psychological porousness on my part -- especially to judgmental "animus" energies. Sometimes, this could literally mean vulnerability to men -- in particular the criticism of men (which has played out in many relationships), but more often it indicated my intellectual, unyielding criticism towards myself -- which gave the harsh words of the various boyfriends undue power.

About five years ago in a dream, I successfully shut the door on the attacker, only to find myself curious about him. I opened it again and began a conversation with him in the dream. And, as is often the case in life when we see those whom we had feared in a different light, he was not terrifying at all.

I never had that dream again.

Of course, my "animus" issue is by no means fully resolved, but this was good progress.

The night before last, I had another dream where both an animus (inner male) and an animus-driven anima (hyper intellectual inner female) figure appeared.

It occurred at a time when I was struggling with what I felt was very hurtful behavior from a puer-type man whom I had cared for (I'll call him Evan), and who had treated me shabbily the last time we met -- and it gave me some very useful insight and guidance.

So here is the dream in its entirety, followed by a brief analysis:

My friend Yolanda tells me that she has bought some “out there” real estate as an investment, having put $20,000 down on $3 million. She shows me an aerial picture of the investment property, which is of some structures in the Navy Yard near where I live, which is now now ("now" as in "the now of the dream") paved over with nice asphalt paths, similar to those of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Two of the structures are round, and one is kind of box shaped, all are shaped strangely, with unusual borders and cuts on the roofs. It all feels very Area 51 to me, and I am suspicious for Yolanda who -- in spite of being one of the most intelligent people I know -- can also be very naive in some common-sense ways because she is quick to rationalize and justify others’ very f*cked up behavior. (Such is the double-edged sword of intellect.)

So I decide to check out this property for myself. I go to the site, walking along the pristine asphalt paths that allegedly lead to her property, but do not see the structures -- or much of anything, for that matter, except for a largish coffee shop run by an Asian family. I go inside for a cup and while I'm waiting, look at a display arrangement on one of the counters. There are two paper cups with sip lids and a small rectangular gift box -- like the kind you'd put chocolates in. I stand directly over it and look down. THIS was the "aerial photo"!! I run off to tell Yolanda but she doesn't believe me, so I take her to the shop and show her the display. “Who got the $20,000?!?” I demand. The owner of the shop -- a middle-aged Mandarin comes out to see what the fuss is about. Yolanda points to him. “I gave it to him!” she says.

I freak out on the guy. I mean I go completely crazy, furiously bellowing at him about fraud and criminal charges, and demand he give the money back to Yolanda immediately, or I will return "with help". With a relenting shrug, he gives us a check for $20,000. I further warn him that the check had better not bounce, and urge Yolanda to deposit it quickly.

Of course, when I told this dream to another male friend, he immediately thought: two cups and a box = female genitalia. And maybe it does -- as much of this dream illustrates an internal war between my masculine (animus) and feminine (anima) aspects. But it is so much more than that....

With the understanding that all figures in a dream represent an aspect of oneself, I must first conclude that Yolanda and the Mandarin man represent, respectively, the hyper-rational part of my feminine self, and the trickster part of my masculine self -- which often collude to cause me lots of trouble -- and can cost me lots of money, time and energy -- as I make "rational" excuses to justify obvious trickster behavior, and make outsized investments in people/relationships that are ultimately not worth it.

Archetypally, the non-animus-driven feminine can see right through the animus-trickster -- in the same way a mother can tell when her kid is full of crap. In many ways, the trickster in one's psyche plays games partly to show you creative ways of looking at the world, and sometimes he just wants to screw with you to make sure you are paying attention!!

So the trick that I often fall for is in believing a desired thing is worth more than it actually is. This has been particularly true of certain men in my life -- especially if they are achieving in an area where I have aspiration, as was the case where Evan was concerned.

And my psyche beautifully illustrated this with the enlarged (i.e. overvalued) photograph of ordinary paperware.

It is also worth noting that the animus figure is Chinese, and the fake real estate reminds me of "Area 51" -- which indicates that I still tend to see these dynamics as alien and not originating in my personal world. For example, in the current case, I believed that I was hurt more because Evan had been cold to me, and not because I had inappropriately overvalued him -- which I had.

Another important piece of information was the $20,000 on $3 million. Granted, $3 million is a lot of money -- but $20,000 is a miniscule .67% of that -- laughable even by savings account standards.

The lesson from this? That even though I am capable of investing HUGELY in relationships, my actual emotional investment in this particular person was minimal -- so I realized that much of my pain was only from wounded pride.

Why the coffee shop? That probably indicated I needed to freaking wake up about this!!!

And the final lesson? When I got mad -- really mad -- the guy took me seriously and, with a shrug, returned the invested money. Why the blasé shrug? Probably to indicate that the trickster plays tricks because that's just what he does, and so when he's caught, he makes good without regret or apology. But it takes a storm of fury to convince him that he is caught.

Now, I did not take this to mean that freaking out on Evan was the way to go -- but rather it would not be productive -- to him or to me -- to hide my feelings.

And with that in mind, I set out the next day to resolve the situation with Evan.

More later on what happened....

Emotional Ledgers and Why They Keep Us from Abundance (HuffPo Comment)

2011-04-04T10:17:00.001-07:00

[The below is a comment to this HuffPo article on "Emotional Ledgers".]

I'm a great believer in "paying forward" and giving freely, without compunction or obligation -- for the very reasons you cite. But sometimes this opens the door to exploitation and abuse.

For example, just over a year ago a friend of mine was in the dumps so I visited him and gave him a backrub. Later he raved about how wonderful it was to simply receive this, precisely because I didn't expect anything back. A few months later, he asked me over -- and expected similar treatment, again with no reciprocation other than the joy of his enjoyment.

Over the following year, this pattern repeated itself several times.

Granted, he is hearty in his appreciation, but I began to feel so taken for granted that it made me physically ill. Bear in mind, he is not my boyfriend, and neither of us has any romantic interest in the other. In fact, we are not even especially close friends beyond this activity!

Then, a few months ago, he asked me to dinner -- and he didn't even OFFER to pay! And, worse, I felt horribly guilty for even hoping that he would because I had been so stuck in my "Giving Tree" mindset.

Not knowing quite how to handle this, I have simply avoided him and stalled his repeated requests for "manual" attention.

I want to tell him I'm feeling taken for granted, without it coming off like a demanding attack. Or do I just keep stalling, and hope he'll figure it out?

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Q&A About Sunday's Benefit for Japan at Je'Bon

2011-03-24T23:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in the midst of scheduling, press-release drafting, and other assorted madness relating to this Sunday's benefit where we will be screening the Tokyo production of PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined (which I've been blogging about -- albeit belatedly -- in parts One, Two, Prologue and sort-of-Epilogue), I got an email from Kaeshi saying that Bellydance Japan wanted to cover the benefit as well as Belllyqueen's Silk Road show, and could we answer some questions for the photoessay.

She took the Silk Road questions, and I fielded the PURE ones.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the mission of PURE -- on a personal, social and cultural level -- and these questions helped me focus and articulate some key ideas about PURE's work.

So here they are....

(1) How did the Je'Bon benefit come together?

In early March, we learned that the DVD of PURE Reflections would be ready by the end of the month, so we planned to do a small screening for PURE members, their friends and family.

When disaster struck Japan on March 11th, we of course wanted to do anything we could to support our Japanese sisters and their country, so we decided to turn the screening into a full-fledged benefit for Japan.

(2) To which organization(s) will the money be donated?

We are raising funds for two highly-rated non-profit relief organizations: AmeriCares and American Humane Association. AmeriCares specializes in disaster relief, providing invaluable aid to the victims of the 2010 earthquakes in Peru and Haiti, and now has a team on the ground in Japan. The American Humane Association provides emergency relief to animals and has created a special fund to assist Japan in its animal rescue, care and sheltering operations.

We chose to support these lesser-known charities because they have demonstrated tremendous efficiency in their use of funds and are focused specifically on disaster relief.

(3) What you wish to achieve through your performance?

As members of PURE, we hope that audiences will be moved by our work and come to a new understanding of dance, beauty and women. We also hope that sharing the Yokohama production of PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined with an American audience will inspire a sense of personal connection to and profound respect for these powerful women who are now facing a terrifying struggle.

(4) What is your message for the Japanese people and/or dancers?

We in America -- who endured the tragedies of 9-11 and Katrina -- are watching with awe the inspiring resilience of the Japanese people, who are facing devestation that is beyond our comprehension. You are in our thoughts and prayers, and we will help you in every way we can -- but most of all, we want you to know that we trust you. We trust the strength of your spirit and the power of your community. We stand with you through this crisis, as you have stood with us, and have the deepest faith in your power to rebuild. And we hope that, even through such tragedy, our cultures can develop deeper bonds and greater mutual understanding.

Tokyo Story Part II: Preparations, Preparations....

2011-03-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

This Sunday we will be screening the video of the PURE Reflections show we did in Tokyo last year to raise money for AmeriCares and American Humane Association's Japan disaster relief.

And though it has taken me months, I still have to tell the story of How PURE Reflections Came to Japan!

So....continuing where I left off ...too many months ago... (yes, I'm a sporadic blogger, but I'm getting better!!)

My plane tickets to Tokyo were bought; the Yokohama theater was rented. Now that money had changed hands, I knew that PURE Reflections was coming to Japan. Or, at the very least I was coming to Japan!! If, heaven forbid, something went wrong with the planning, I would have a nice week-long vacation in the land of the Rising Sun.

But as of October 2010, it was full-steam ahead.

And so much to be done!!

The Tokyo team stepped right up, finding a clean, inexpensive hotel and wrangling our various schedules (we were all arriving and departing at different times due to our work schedules).

I put together a "Show Information" document to go with the Google Group, so we could keep all information in one place. And, the odd mistranslation notwithstanding, the administrative part was going swimmingly.

Kaeshi and PURE Tokyo facilitators Aya and Naho worked out a tentative cast list and rehearsal schedule.

I put together a Q & A detailing the technical and performance requirements of the show, and drafted a few group exercises to guide them into thinking symbolically about The Mirror and body image issues, personifying the "healthy" and "demon" aspects employed by the show's narrative.

Naho created stunning translations to the three songs with lyrics: Kristin Hoffman's "The Waking" and "Ocean in Me", and Tamar-Kali's "Ocean" -- all of which are beautifully evocative of the show's message.

The magnificent BodyPoet Kazuma, who had worked with PURE NYC earlier in the year and was now back in Japan, led the Tokyo dancers through mirror exercises so that they would get used to working improvisationally with each other. And he guided them through "demon" and "angel" exercises.

This was especially important because we wanted to tailor the show towards the Japanese sensibility. When the Demon figure emerges, it lures and then attacks those areas where we are least secure. While there was a lot of overlap, there were surprising differences. For example, one of our Demon sentences was, "Your butt is huge," which one would think would have resonance in a culture that also prized a lithe form -- yet they opted for "You have small eyes."

In addition to "Demon" sentences, the Japanese dancers had to further search their souls for healing sentences, which come into play at the end. Not surprisingly, they opted for more indirect affirmations. Instead of, "I am strong" they chose "I can be strong", and so forth.

Each dancer also submitted three photographs: one in early childhood, one in teenage years, and one as an adult, which is accompanied by their own personal quote.

Lastly, I drafted a full narrative of the story, marked in time with the music, for what would be our very first exercise together. I sent it to Naho, who would be my translator in our first exercise... but more about that later.

For final arrangements before leaving, we divvied up the props and costumes that needed to be brought. I took the free-standing "mirrors" (for which I had found the perfect duffel bag); Kaeshi took the fabric and the mirrors' lighted baseboards.

I meticulously went through each of the four mirror frames -- assembling, marking and disassembling them -- so they would be easy to jam together in a hurry.

The Tokyo dancers had custom ordered Diana Susanto's gorgeous nμde costumes, which Lale and I picked up.

And we were off!!

Yes, I Really Am A Huge Geek

2011-03-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

"Ask Carol, she'll know the answer," I overheard my teacher Ranya telling a fellow student asking about some random something-or-other. "Or at least," she added, "She'll be able to tell you where to find the answer."

Yeah, OK, so I'm a Know-It-All. But not really. I'm probably more of a Would-Like-To-Know-It-All -- or, more accurately, a Has-An-Insatiable-Curiosity-About-Random-Stuff-It-All.

This may have less to do with a desire for knowledge than with a transient indiscriminate obsessiveness about anything that catches my fancy.

In other words, once something lights my fire, I get such a boner to know everything about it, that not doing so leaves me with what can only be described as mental blueballs.

For example, my mime teacher recently sent me this adorable "hand dancing" video ...

... which is done to a song in Italian.

I forwarded it to my father, who wrote back: "Very entertaining and imaginative. Do you know what the song is about?"

Well ... I didn't.

I know Italian well enough but, except for a few words, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. And I just HAD to know why (as well as absolutely everything else about the song).

After a half-hour's obsessive research and link compilation, I wrote back:

The song is called "Tu Vuò Fà L'Americano" ("You Want to Make [Like] an American") and it's actually in Neapolitan so it's pretty hard for me to make out, but the Wikipedia entry tells all about it. [Side note: Wikipedia, by the way, is like heroin to someone like me -- but truth be told, I was this way long before the internet made my indulgences so damned quick and easy.

Anyway.]

The song is apparently about a guy who is pretending to be an American (drinking whiskey & soda, smoking Camels, playing rock & roll, but all the time he is living "out of his mother's purse").

And you can see the lyrics here.

Google translate should be able to render the bottom part readable, as that is in Florentine Italian, but not much of the song itself.

The song used in the video is actually a remix of the 1956 original by Renato Carosone.

The remix is by an Australian duo Yolanda Be Cool (the reference is to Pulp Fiction, when Samuel L. Jackson's character Jules tells Amanda Plummer -- Yolanda -- to "be cool" in the diner scene).

Here is their very cute video.

And... as to the hand dancers themselves ... well I only had about a half-hour for this and had to get some real work done, so it was not included in the email to my dad.

But of course I had to look it up later. So....

They are Up and Over It -- an Irish step dance duo, Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding, who "aim to stretch the concept of Irish Dance to its limits".

And that they do!!

Why You're Not Married (Yet Another HuffPo Comment)

2011-02-28T13:06:00.001-08:00

RobotPigOverlord -- are you really arguing that a man's biological imperative is to spread his seed far and wide, while a woman's is to have one child by one mate whom she snares into longterm partnership because having more than one child and/or doing so outside of a marital partnership would endanger her and her child's survival??

Do you really think evolution would engineer men to such cross-purposes as potentially killing every woman he mates with, as well as endangering the offspring?

Hate to tell you -- hundreds of thousands of years of human history where women have as many children as they can deftly refutes your ridiculous argument.

Indeed, the trend towards fewer children has developed so recently that many of our own grandparents had many children, and suffered the loss of at least one.

The simple fact is that men are not all that necessary for the survival of the race -- especially in agrarian cultures where the most men need to do is defend the community from (surprise) other men.

Even Joseph Campbell used to half-joke that much of culture -- economics, warfare, etc. -- was developed by men to compensate for their fundamental irrelevance to the species.

Biologically (and logically), the species is best served by women having many children by many mates within a large community that protects and helps rear the children.

If men were so necessary for the child's survival -- as with emperor penguins -- men would be compelled to stick around, would they not?
About Most Popular
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Pitfalls of a Child-Centered Family (Another HuffPo Comment)

2011-02-28T10:17:00.001-08:00

Agreed, Athena! What was it John Bradshaw used to say? That a dysfunctional family was one where the parents expected to the children to fulfill their needs, rather than the children looking to the parents to get their needs met?

Ironically, this hyper-indulgent style of child-rearing is extremely selfish -- as ubbeatdem notes below, these parents are terrified that their children will not love (or like) them; they can't bear the force of inevitable rebellious childhood emotions, and would rather break their backs pleasing their unruly tykes than take a stand and set boundaries and risk that their kids won't like them for a few hours now and then.

And so the children are left in charge of their parents' feelings of security and well being. I can't think of a more dysfunctional arrangement than that...

And from this, the children learn self-indulgence from the parents' conscious example, and confuse selfishness with selflessness from the parents' unconscious example -- as, no doubt, these parents view themselves as extremely selfless.
About Parenting
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why You're Not Married

2011-02-25T13:21:00.001-08:00

Very well said, General Public!! I am also very impressed by the quality of comments, many of which are more thoughtful and articulate than the Ms. McMillan's article.

Patty Alvayay's comment, in particular, makes me wonder if perhaps this article is less about getting married and more about staying married... as the thrice-married author admits she was "born knowing how to get married" but flopped, presumably because of these six character flaws which she assumes are shared by all unmarried women.

But even there, I must ask, why is marriage seen as a barometer of character and virtue?

Frankly, the craziest, most selfish, shallow, lying, insecure, slutty bitches I've known have been married! And some of the most selfless, deep, honest, secure, discriminating, wonderful people I've know have been single -- and I'm talking about both men and women!!

There are only two reasons people get married: (1) marriage is their agenda and they are willing to twist themselves into whatever false image they need to be to be what their partner wants them to be; or (2) they meet someone they want to share the rest of their lives with.

Most often marriages are a combination of these reasons, and the ones more based on reason #1 usually -- hopefully -- end in divorce (or murder, I guess); marriages based on reason #2 tend to endure.

But in both cases, the marriage itself happens because each partner is, for whatever reason, what the other partner wants.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

I also recommend this heartfelt response posted on CNN.

The Tango of Ego and Soul

2011-02-24T11:26:00.001-08:00

Dear Judith,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply! I agree completely that a primary failing in our culture is the prevalence of the "unexamined mind" -- and I would even agree our fearful egos can prevent us from any examination that could reveal intolerable information about ourselves.

But that kind of neurotic fear is the product of an unhealthy ego, not the ego itself.

Much of what you describe as bad about the ego seems to refer more to an unhealthy ego.

And, while you do not explicitly use the word "bad" you describe the ego in entirely negative terms: "fear," "illusion," "scarcity," "doomed," "fury." Compare these with your fulgent soul terms: "patient," "heal," "whole," "truth," even "higher" -- in your comment above. Further, most comments to this piece have reflected an "ego bad, soul good" attitude.

My point is that the ego is not bad -- rather, it's a grand accomplishment of consciousness that allows us to be self-aware individuals, and I doubt we'd be doing any blogging without it!

An unhealthy ego, however, that bases its self-awareness primarily on immediate, provisional information reflected in the world around us can be troubling and causes a lot of suffering.

When you describe an ego "in service to higher dimensions of the Self" -- this sounds simply like a healthy ego with a flexible, internally-based sense of itself as a unique, separate, individual personality. Is that consistent with what you mean?

Regards -- and thanks for continuing the conversation!
About The Inner Life
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Things Have a Way of Working Out -- Part II

2011-02-18T14:38:00.000-08:00

So -- thanks to a bunch of margaritas and free internet -- five hours flew by at the airport and I even found myself rushing to the gate at 9pm for my 9:30pm flight.

The flight had many empty seats in the back, and I began to wonder if American just really, really wanted to free up some standby room on the 4:25pm flight.

My suspicion was confirmed when I arrived late at the luggage carousel at JFK (I figured since my bag had been the first on it would be the first off) and did not see my giant rolling duffel among the circling remains.

"Carol Anne Henning!" burst the speakers overhead, "Please report to the luggage security desk!"

I looked around and found the podium with a young woman standing next to my lonely bag. I walked over.

"There you are!" said the attendant, "I've been calling you for a long time. Here..." She pulled my bag up. "It's been waiting here for you for five hours!"

My jaw dropped.

"Yeah. They put it on the earlier flight, I guess."

She pulled the bag towards me. It flopped over. "Ah, it looks like they broke the wheel.... "

"What..??!" I spluttered. "You mean I waited five hours in an airport because they said they couldn't check my bag, and they checked it anyway??"

"Yeah," she signed, "Sometimes they do that."

"Well, this is not cool! I mean, I have to drag this all the way home with a broken wheel like this?" I turned the bag over. The duffel had three wheels sitting in the metal frame at the bottom. The part of the frame between the center and left-hand wheel had been crushed, leaving the wheel to flop at an angle.

"Come over here," she started walking towards the far corner of Baggage Claim, "You can file a complaint in the office over here. Sometimes they have a bag they can give you to replace it."

I did not like the sound of putting my belongings in some random bag, but I also didn't want to drag a gimpy wheeled boulder.

The clerk at the desk took my claim and gave me a number, then said, "They don't reimburse for luggage. You might get something, a replacement or repair maybe. But they never cover wheels or handles or anything sticking out..."

"But it's not the wheel," I protested, "It's the frame of the bag where the wheel sits!"

She looked at the bag blankly.

"They don't cover wheels."

I grabbed the paperwork in huff and stormed out. Waiting for the Air Train, I shuffled some of the heavier items so they sat directly above the right-hand wheel, shifting the weight mostly over the working carriage. Not ideal, but at least it rolled now.

When I got home, got some sleep and repaired my own broken frame of mind, I realized that even if American Airlines did not cover the bag -- American Express might!

I had bought this bag specially for the trip to Japan in mid-November.

For weeks I had been tearing my hair out looking for a bag that would fit the 35.5" uprights for the PURE Reflections mirror frames (which are actually collapsible standing clothing racks), without requiring an oversize charge -- as, say, a golf bag would.

Target came to the rescue with their 36" Rockland Rolling Duffel -- a mere $45 ($40.50 with my AAA discount!).

As we are planning to mount this show in other cities, we definitely needed this bag in good condition. So I checked my AmEx records -- sure enough, I had bought it within their 90-day Buyer Protection window (with only a few days to spare!).

I filed a claim pronto, pronto and AmEx reimbursed me with no questions asked.

The replacement is due to arrive next week!

Sometimes Things Just Have a Way of Working Out....

2011-02-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

It started with the hair crap.

And the magazines.

In LA for the week, I went to visit my Aunt Margaret in Palm Springs.

About 25 years ago, Margaret married a rancher/developer named Al who has created five or six lavish pieces of property in Texas and California to subsidize a sweet retirement in Palm Springs.

A girl from the Bronx, Aunt Margaret takes nothing for granted: she clips coupons and asks for senior discounts; and she is also extremely generous. She has hand-crafted countless semi-precious jewelry sets for her sisters and me, and warmly hosted me this week.

As I was packing to leave, she brought out a huge bag of expensive hair products. "Can you use any of this?"

"Um..." I fished through the bag, pulling a few tubes... "Well, if you really want to part with these..."

"Oh, yes, yes!" she said, "I mean, you have the long hair. What am I going to do with it?"

I grinned, stuffing them in my suitcase.

"You are overweight. Can you pull anything out?" Now it's 3:35pm, and I'm scrambling to check into LAX for my 4:25pm flight and the guy at curbside checkin has put my enormous rolling duffel on the scale.

I had gotten lost on my way to the Payless rental return, which cost me nearly 20 minutes, and I was already running a bit late (as usual). So I rip open the zipper to scrounge for removeables.

I can't take out any of the heaviest stuff -- the hair crap -- because it is liquid and can't go in the carry-ons. I pull out a tuft of magazines about Clearlake Oaks which my aunt Rose-Marie had given me to help lure my parents into visiting her. Then I pull out some heavy souvenirs, including a slab of dark chocolate I'd bought from an LA gourmet shop.

"That looks good," says the guy, and starts the checkin.

"You missed the deadline," he clucks his tongue at 4:42pm. "Let me see what I can do for you." He walks me inside to the main counter where every attendant is busy. The clock is ticking.

"There's not even a supervisor around," he shrugs and walks back to his post.

Finally a female attendant calls me to the counter. I explain the situation. "Is there anything you can do??" I plead.

"You missed the cut-off," shakes her head. "I can put you on a later flight. 9:30pm."

Everything sinks. I have rehearsal and meetings on Sunday. I'll be dead on my feet. I start to melt down, "Oh no.... Oh god... how much will it be?"

"Oh it's no extra," she chirps printing my boarding pass.

I sigh weepily and trudge to security.

And my carry-on gets stopped for "extra screening." Why? The irregularly-shaped slab of dark chocolate!!

Oddly, this makes me feel a bit better; no matter what, I probably would have missed the flight.

I trundle to little Mexican joint near my gate called "On the Boarder." "Do you have a place where I can plug in my laptop?" I ask, explaining my situation.

At first, the guy says no, but then he seats me at a tiny table near the wait station. "How long is your cord?" he asks. I pull it out and he plugs it into the a socket under their register! I order a bunch of margaritas, some food, and tip generously.

I turn on my wireless.

The only hotspot provider is T-Mobile -- my cellphone carrier! I try to sign up for their $10 monthly rate, figuring I'll use the account a few times when I'm back in NY, but each time I try to sign up, I get a dead page.

I call their tech support. There is a "problem creating new accounts at LAX" the rep tells me. Their solution? They GIVE me a free 24-hour account!!

So, here I sit, happily sauced and Facebooked, chowing down on a beef burrito.

In ten minutes I board.

Five hours have flown by as quickly as I hope to fly through the next five.

My New Old Poem

2011-01-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

Chatting on Facebook recently with my dear friend Felise, whom I'd met through Buddhism in what feels like another life, and with whom I'd lost touch until about five years ago, I asked if she remembered the poem I wrote for her when I was but a wee tyke of 21.

Back then, she was a singer-songwriter whose music often dealt with heartbreak and longing. Then she wrote a lovely piece called "Creative Life" inspired by the growth she's achieved through her practice -- which in turn inspired me to write the poem for her.

I came across it recently and polished it up a bit. When I mentioned it to her, she asked me to post it.

And here it is!

Black Wings
(for Felise)

Shall I compare thee to a nightingale:
A beauty draped in black, whose music streams,
Surges, sweeps listeners in its tide. We sail
Upwards on your melodies, buoyed in dreams.
Your passion forges new reality!
On stage, a rebel-black Madonna, you
Embrace, intrigue, reveal the quality
Of your pain and patience, now transformed through
Your craft, your song, your life ... your six tight strings --
Which yet you fret as if held by some man --
But know: through those vibrant cords your heart sings
Freedom, weaves tapestries of breadth and span
And soaring love. For when you sing your strife
Your seared heart celebrates Creative Life.

Tandava's Guide to The Zone -- Part III, New Year's Day (7pm through 6am 1/2/11)

2010-12-29T22:35:00.000-08:00

So I made some changes to Part I and Part II of my New Year's Twilight Zone Guide, which reviews all of the Twilight Zone episodes to be aired on SyFy this weekend.

I added the "blue" category to Part I (i.e. episodes that are not great, but are worth watching for good performances). And, once again, if you are reading this entry in my FB Notes and want to see all the pretty colors, please view it here.

Plus I added IMDB links to all the actor and series' names, as well as jump links to the short lists in both parts so you can quickly get to the descriptions without scrolling.

Now, if you recall, Part I covers episodes airing New Year's Eve from 8am through Midnight.

Part II covers episodes on New Year's Day from Midnight through 7pm.

Part III covers episodes airing 7pm through 6am Sunday morning -- and SyFy has indeed saved many of the best for last! There are so many good episodes that my "short" list is not so short!!

It includes:

(1) Episodes on the Time Top 10 List -- These are the acknowledged classics; titles and times are red with bold underline.

(2) My Personal Favorite Episodes -- These are underrated gems with strong scripts and beautiful performances; titles and times are fuchsia with bold italics.

(3) Episodes Worth Watching -- These have flawed scripts or execution, but often have strong performances and/or ideas; titles and times are blue with bold.

My Favorites -- Not-So-Short List

7:00 PM -- The Invaders
7:30 PM -- Five Characters In Search Of An Exit
8:00 PM -- The Odyssey Of Flight 33
8:30 PM -- Where Is Everybody?
9:00 PM -- To Serve Man
9:30 PM -- Time Enough At Last
10:00 PM -- Nightmare At 20,000 Feet
10:30 PM -- Living Doll
11:30 PM -- The Obsolete Man
12:00 AM -- The After Hours
12:30 AM -- Death's-Head Revisited
1:00 AM -- Two
1:30 AM -- Mirror Image
2:00 AM -- The Changing Of The Guard
3:00 AM -- The Lonely
4:30 AM -- Nothing In The Dark

Full List -- With Descriptions

7:00 PM -- The Invaders -- Agnes Moorehead's virtuoso 25-minute wordless monologue; riveting with a slick twist at the end. #4 on the Time list

7:30 PM -- Five Characters In Search Of An Exit -- A soldier, a clown, a tramp, a bagpiper and a ballerina wake to find themselves in a doorless empty room. Well-played and engaging.

8:00 PM -- The Odyssey Of Flight 33 -- A 707 picks up a freak tail wind and travels back in time. Run-of-the-mill by modern sci-fi standards, but notable for its apparently realistic cockpit dialogue created by Serling's aviation writer brother, Robert Serling.

8:30 PM -- Where Is Everybody? -- Guy finds himself alone in an empty town, with hints of residents recently present (lit cigarette in ashtray, etc.). Eerie and amusing, most worth watching because this is the pilot that sold the series to CBS.

9:00 PM -- To Serve Man -- Aliens come to earth offering solutions to all the world's woes; their trouble-entendre mission: "To serve man." An undisputed classic, #3 on the Time list.

9:30 PM -- Time Enough At Last -- Burgess Meredith at his lovable best as a devoted bookworm constantly thwarted by his boss, wife, and everyone else -- until a touch of armageddon gives him new lease on life. #9 on the Time list.

10:00 PM -- Nightmare At 20,000 Feet -- "There's a man out on the wing!!" Shatner at his whiteknuckle best. #7 on the Time list.

10:30 PM -- Living Doll -- "My name is Talky Tina -- and you'd better be nice to me!" Telly Savalas takes on June Foray's creepy voiced doll. This one gave me nightmares. #6 on the Time list.

11:00 PM -- A Stop At Willoughby -- Beleagured exec finds himself in his childhood hometown. Similar to "Walking Distance" but trades insight for sentiment. Some people really like this one; I can do without it.

11:30 PM -- The Obsolete Man -- The superb Burgess Meredith is back to his book-loving ways, this time as a librarian in a dystopic totalitarian future, where both he and his books are declared obsolete.

12:00 AM -- The After Hours -- Stunning Anne Francis finds herself wandering the non-existent floors of a creepy department store. (Wait... is that mannequin watching me??)

12:30 AM -- Death's-Head Revisited -- Former Nazi captain's trot down memory lane via Dachau brings him to some unexpected denizens. Top-notch performances by Joseph Schildkraut and Oscar Beregi Jr.

1:00 AM -- Two -- Apocalypse survivors Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery approach each other warily in this sparsely written, beautifully acted episode.

1:30 AM -- Mirror Image -- Frightened bus traveller Vera Miles (best known as Janet Leigh's Psycho sister) is sure an evil doppelgänger is trying to replace her. Top-notch acting and direction.

2:00 AM -- The Changing Of The Guard -- It's A Wonderful Life meets Goodbye, Mr. Chips, TZ-style. Sweet, sentimental, with beautiful acting by Donald Pleasence.

2:30 AM -- Twenty-Two -- Recovering dancer is troubled by prescient dreams. "Room for one more, honey!" Shrill performances, flat writing. Mediocre tale best suited to Internet urban myth.

3:00 AM -- The Lonely -- Convict Jack Warden spends lonely days on an asteroid until his supply ship pal brings him a realistic robot -- in the ethereally beautiful form of a young Jean Marsh (best known as Rose from Upstairs, Downstairs). A touching, romantic story. Features Ted Knight as an obnoxious crew member.

3:30 AM -- Dead Man's Shoes -- Bum dons dead gangster's wing-tips and finds himself stepping into the thug's revenge-thirsty life. You might feel bad for the bum if you find yourself caring about anything in this one.

4:00 AM -- Hocus-Pocus and Frisby -- A braggart gas station attendant's tales of prowess are believed by some seriously gullible aliens who want to take him home as a specimen of Earth's finest.

4:30 AM -- Nothing In The Dark -- Aging Gladys Cooper tries to keep Death at bay by shutting her door -- until angelically beautiful Robert Redford shows up. I guarantee, it's not his acting that convinces her to open up..... Worth watching for her nuanced performance -- and his mesmerizing good looks!

5:00 AM -- Ninety Years Without Slumbering -- Ed Wynn fears that if his heirloom grandfather clock stops ticking, so will his heart! Pragmatic pregnant daughter sends him to a shrink for some serious de-Zoning. Too bad. According to Marc Scott Zicree, the original superior script stayed within (and was worthy of) the Zone.

5:30 AM -- The Last Rights Of Jeff Myrtlebank -- Small town home boy James Best wakes up at his own funeral, and seems much improved by the experience! Cute, folksy tale.

Tandava's Guide to The Zone -- Part II, New Year's Day (Midnight to 7pm)

2010-12-27T23:41:00.000-08:00

Continuing the list from yesterday's entry, below is a complete list of the Twilight Zone episodes to be aired on SyFy from midnight New Year's Day through 7pm.

A third entry will follow covering 7pm through 6am Sunday morning (this is very time-consuming, but I'm passionate about my Zone, and I've been meaning to do this for years).

First is the short list including the Time Top 10, my personal favorites, and other noteworthy episodes.

Since the colored fonts do not get picked up in the Facebook feed (and if you are reading this entry in my FB Notes and want to see all the pretty colors, please view it here), I'm adding additional formatting.

So, the categories are:

(1) Episodes on the Time Top 10 List -- These are the acknowledged classics; titles and times are red with bold underline.

(2) My Personal Favorite Episodes -- These are underrated gems with strong scripts and beautiful performances; titles and times are fuchsia with bold italics.

(3) Episodes Worth Watching -- These have flawed scripts or execution, but often have strong performances and/or ideas; titles and times are blue with bold.

My Favorites -- Short List

12:00 AM -- The Midnight Sun
1:00 AM -- Long Distance Call
1:30 AM -- One For The Angels
2:00 AM -- Night Of The Meek
3:00 AM -- Night Call
5:00 AM -- The Grave
6:00 AM -- Judgment Night
6:30 AM -- Long Live Walter Jameson
7:30 AM -- A Quality Of Mercy
10:30 AM -- A World Of His Own
11:30 AM -- Mr. Denton On Doomsday
2:00 PM -- Mr. Dingle, The Strong
2:30 PM -- People Are Alike All Over
3:30 PM -- A Game Of Pool
4:00 PM -- Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
4:30 PM -- Nick Of Time
5:30 PM -- The Dummy
6:30 PM -- Kick The Can

Full List -- With Descriptions

12:00 AM -- The Midnight Sun -- Earth has been knocked off its orbit and is gradually approaching the sun. Thermometers pop, a painting melts off its canvas (this is actually a painted wax tablet on a hot plate!), but this apocalyptic tale is most interesting for its relationships -- an excellent script, beautifully acted.

12:30 AM -- Third From The Sun -- Trigger-happy world leaders have their finger on the button! Doomsday is near! Time for a select few to secretly gather their families to escape to a nearby planet. Hm... now what planet would that be..?

1:00 AM -- Long Distance Call -- Creepy dead gramma wants her favorite grandson to be with her forever, and conveys her wishes via a toy phone. (Now if only Billy Mumy -- TZ's favorite child actor -- could wish her into the cornfield!)

1:30 AM -- One For The Angels -- One of TZ's more successful dark comedies features Ed Wynn as a fast-talking salesman who must use his skills to save a child's life.

2:00 AM -- Night Of The Meek -- Down-and-out department store Santa, Art Carney, loses his job but finds a bag of gifts and plays Santa one last time for the neighborhood kiddies. But is it just an act? Beautiful, touching episode.

2:30 AM -- Nightmare As A Child -- Freaky, annoying brat spooks schoolteacher. Or does the marm have more to fear? Find out, if you can stay awake through this snoozer.

3:00 AM -- Night Call -- Originally called "Sorry Right Number," this careful-what-you-wish for tale features calls from beyond and a beautiful performance by Gladys Cooper. It has also been recycled as internet glurge.

3:30 AM -- Probe 7 Over and Out -- Stranded astronaut Richard Basehart, meets hostile alien female on deserted planet. She hurls rocks at him. Or maybe it's just foreplay. Now, what shall we call this place...? The same story is better told in "Two."

4:00 AM -- The Rip Van Winkle Caper -- It's Treasure of the Sierra Madre with suspended animation and blah writing. Good performances and a fun twist at the end make it sort of worth watching.

4:30 AM -- I Am the Night - Color Me Black -- Murderous bigotry, hatred and fear are bad things. OK. We get it.

5:00 AM -- The Grave --Spooky old west tale of a dare gone bad, featuring James Best, Lee Van Cleef and Lee Marvin. Also recycled on the internet.

5:30 AM -- The Fear -- Reclusive writer and state trooper battle giant (or maybe not-so-giant) aliens in this bottom-of-the-barrel turkey.

6:00 AM -- Judgment Night -- Nehemiah Persoff just knows a nearby U-boat will blast his passenger steamer. But no one one board will believe him! (And exactly how does he know anyway...?) Excellent performances, great ending and a sweet cameo by The Avengers' Patrick MacNee.

6:30 AM -- Long Live Walter Jameson -- TZ's most successful working of the "morality of mortality" theme features fine performances, a strong script and a touch of righteous revenge.

7:00 AM -- The Arrival -- Mystery plane lands itself at airport. Could it all just be an illusion? Ummm... maybe...

7:30 AM -- A Quality Of Mercy -- In WWII Philippines brash Lieutenant Dean Stockwell learns to walk a mile in the other guy's army boots. Good performances all around, plus a pre-Spock Leonard Nimoy in a bit part.

8:00 AM -- The Fugitive -- Cinderella story, sci-fi style. Not great; not terrible.

8:30 AM -- The Gift -- Mexicans fear an (ahem) illegal alien. Too bad, cuz he could have really helped you guys... Crappy script, wooden performances. Skip it.

9:00 AM -- Black Leather Jackets -- Bad leather-clad alien (dressed this way to "blend") falls for local girl in this not-quite-Avatar.

9:30 AM -- A Piano In The House -- Enchanted ivories reveal uncomfortable secrets; akin to "What's in the Box" and "A Kind of Camera", and slightly better than either.

10:00 AM -- The Shelter -- "Maple Street" meets the lazy grasshopper. The industrious ant of this tale has built a bomb shelter for his family, and his neighbors scoff -- until there is an emergency... Bloated prose and one-dimensional characters make this a must-miss.

10:30 AM -- A World Of His Own -- Sweet story about the reality of reality features the only time Serling interacts with his characters.

11:00 AM -- A Short Drink From A Certain Fountain -- Here we go again with the be-careful-what-you-wish-for theme. Rich geezer wants to keep up with his greedy vain young wife; comeuppance awaits them both.

11:30 AM -- Mr. Denton On Doomsday -- Touching old west tale about top-gunslinger-turned-town-drunk finding redemption. Fine performances by Dan Duryea, Martin Landau and Doug McClure.

12:00 PM -- I Shot An Arrow Into The Air -- Three astronauts survive a crash on an asteroid (where the atmosphere and gravity are the same as on Earth, but no one notices this). Limited provisions stir bloodthirsty behavior. Yes, Rod, people in crisis are just no darned good.

12:30 PM -- The Little People -- Ego and physical relativity clash in this memorable (though mediocre) episode, which has been lampooned in The Simpsons, South Park, and Futurama. Good performance by Claude Akins.

1:00 PM -- A Kind Of Stopwatch -- Blabbering bore gets comeuppance via magical timepiece. Even The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything was better than this turkey.

1:30 PM -- The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms -- Spooked National Guard tank crew gets drafted into Custer's 7th Cavalry. Big whoop.

2:00 PM -- Mr. Dingle, The Strong -- Loud-mouthed salesman pisses away alien gifts on trivial feats. Worth watching for an adorable Burgess Meredith and amusing (and very young) Don Rickles.

2:30 PM -- People Are Alike All Over -- Astronaut Roddy McDowall crashes on populous Mars, and consoles his fears with the thought that Martians (who include the radiant Susan Oliver) and humans must be "alike" ...

3:00 PM -- Stopover In A Quiet Town -- At least it was quiet until this nattering couple woke up in a strange house with no memory of how they got there, and no one to ask where they are, or why the grass is made of papier-mâché. And if they'd shut up for two seconds, we just might care....

3:30 PM -- A Game Of Pool -- Taut two-person drama about winning and losing, and what's really important in the game of life. Fine performances by Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters. Not crazy about the ending; the real (and better) ending was done in the 80s TZ version.

4:00 PM -- Number Twelve Looks Just Like You -- Dystopic utopia where everyone is beautifully identical and lifts their pretty mugs with a glass of Instant Smile. Mediocre script saved by Collin Wilcox's terrific performance.

4:30 PM -- Nick Of Time -- A charming script and low-key performance by pre-Kirk William Shatner (yes, I used "low-key" and "Shatner" in the same sentence) grace this cautionary tale about superstition and self-determination.

5:00 PM -- The Bewitchin' Pool -- Worst. Episode. Ever. Even To Kill a Mockingbird's Oscar-nominated Mary Badham couldn't save this dismal excuse for a story. Spoiled brats escape manipulative divorcing parents by finding their way to SuperGrandma via an enchanted pool. Now, if Grandma dumped the tots in an oven, then we might have a story....

5:30 PM -- The Dummy -- Cliff Robertson as a troubled ventriloquist whose creepy dummy will simply not stay in the box.

6:00 PM -- Little Girl Lost -- Little girl has slipped into another dimension. Can her parents and conveniently present physicist pal rescue her before the portal closes forever? Decent script but bland acting. Tune in for the final 10 minutes for all you need to know.

6:30 PM -- Kick The Can -- Timeless story about rest home residents learning that you are indeed as young as you feel. "Look! Think! Feel! Doesn't that wake some sleeping part of you?!"

Tandava's Guide to The Zone -- Part I, New Year's Eve

2010-12-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year! Champagne corks will fly and balls will drop, and many of us will spend at least some time in The Zone.

This year, as every year, SyFy (formerly the Science Fiction Channel, or SciFi) will air 88 episodes for its New Year's Twilight Zone marathon, starting 8am on 12/31 and ending at 6am on 1/2. So that's a lot of Serling for your dollar... but how do you tell the quality from the clunkers?

Unfortunately, SyFy is not airing any of the beautiful hour-long episodes from Season 4, but there are still classics aplenty among the half-hour episodes. All ten of Time Magazine's Top Twilight Zone Episodes will be featured (they are in red), along with some lesser known beauties like "The Masks" and "In Praise of Pip", (in fuchsia), and finally a few that are not perfect, but have notable performances (in blue).

Here is a short list of my favorite episodes which will be aired on Friday, December 31st, followed by a full list of all episodes, with brief descriptions and hopefully not too many spoilers. Celebrity names and other items of interest are bolded.

In a few days, I'll post a rundown of episodes to be aired from 1/1 through the morning of 1/2.

Happy Zoning!

My Favorites -- Short List

9:30 AM -- A Thing About Machines
10:30 AM -- And When The Sky Was Opened
12:30 PM -- In Praise Of Pip
3:30 PM -- A Penny For Your Thoughts
4:30 PM -- Walking Distance
5:00 PM -- A Hundred Yards Over The Rim
6:30 PM -- It's A Good Life
7:00 PM -- Eye Of The Beholder
7:30 PM -- The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
10:00 PM -- The Hitch-hiker
11:30 PM -- The Masks

Full List -- With Descriptions

8:00 AM -- Perchance To Dream – Neat psychodrama with some freaky felinesque dream sequences.

8:30 AM -- The Four Of Us Are Dying – Guy who can change his face learns he can’t change his scumbag nature.

9:00 AM -- The Fever – Well-acted but ultimately hokey morality play about gambling addiction.

9:30 AM -- A Thing About Machines – One of my all-time faves about a guy who beats up on his machines -- which, in 1960, was his typewriter, electric razor, TV and car -- and they gang up to have their revenge. I have to wonder what this episode would look like today! ("Now, why don’t you get out of here, Finchley!!")

10:00 AM -- What's In The Box – Lame and ridiculous episode about a couple’s bickering leading to accidental murder and capital punishment. Freaky TV predicts it all. There, now you don’t have to watch it and aren’t you glad?

10:30 AM -- And When The Sky Was Opened – Well played, creepy episode about astronauts returning to earth… or did they? Or were they ever here? Or were you?? TZ makes us question our grasp of reality.

11:00 AM -- Ring-a-ding Girl – Medium episode about movie star returning to her home town and throwing a “celebrate me” party. Or is she? Even though it’s not great, I always find myself watching this one all the way through.

11:30 AM -- Escape Clause – I only like this one because I like David Wayne, but it’s not a great episode, just a grim morality play about the value of mortality. *Yawn!*

12:00 PM -- Mr. Garrity And The Graves – A more humorous take on the “value of mortality” theme, plus “be careful what you wish for.”

12:30 PM -- In Praise Of Pip – I LOVE this episode. I REALLY love this episode (and did I mention I love this episode?). Jack Klugman delivers a top-notch, tragic performance as a dying no-good trying to do right by his serviceman son, Pip (a much less fearsome Billy Mumy). Sweet, sad magical ending.

1:00 PM -- Queen Of The Nile – Dopey episode about life-sucking millennia-old Egyptian queen. Blah blah blah. Skip it. "Long Live Walter Jameson" handles the material much more skillfully.

1:30 PM -- A Nice Place To Visit – Another “be careful what you wish for” morality tale about what Hell might really be like.

2:00 PM -- The Last Flight – Well-acted drama about WWI fighter pilot who lands in 1960s England. Should he return to save his squadron? You betcha!

2:30 PM -- Mr. Bevis – Loser gets all he desires (money, nice apartment), only to learn he can’t be his true whackadoo self and keep up appearances. Moral: Enjoy who you are.

3:00 PM -- The Old Man In The Cave – Confused story set in a post-apocalyptic future of 1974 (!!!). Town listens to the “old man” until soldiers tell them not to be superstitious – and it doesn’t work out well for anyone. What’s the message? Don’t trust your own perceptions? Ugh. Only worth watching for a young James Coburn.

3:30 PM -- A Penny For Your Thoughts – Not a classic, but one of my favorites, featuring a young Dick York (the first Darren from Bewitched.)

4:00 PM -- The Hunt – This mediocre folksy tale by The Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. has been recycled as internet glurge. Guy and dog have died and are walking along the road to heaven. Guy at pearly gate says, “No dogs allowed.” Guy says, “I ain’t going nowhere without my hound…” Sheesh.

4:30 PM -- Walking Distance – I LOVE this episode, a classic (#8 on the Time list) about a frustrated exec who, longing for his boyhood days, visits his hometown – only to find himself a grown-up amidst his own childhood. Insightful lesson about valuing the present and not romanticizing the past.

5:00 PM -- A Hundred Yards Over The Rim – Underrated episode featuring a very young Cliff Robertson as a pioneer dad who will go yards, miles and years to heal his ailing son.

5:30 PM -- A Most Unusual Camera – Idiotic episode about three greedy idiots undone by a magic camera. Hokey, ridiculous, predictable ending. Skip it.

6:00 PM -- I Sing The Body Electric – Sweet episode about robot nanny lovingly bonding with tots.

6:30 PM -- It's A Good Life – One of the most famous episodes (#2 on the Time list) featuring little Billy Mumy as a terrifying child who can create and destroy at will. The brilliant Cloris Leachman is his petrified mother. (“That’s a good thing you did… A real good thing… Now please wish it into the cornfield!).

7:00 PM -- Eye Of The Beholder – A classic (#10 on the Time list) about the relativity of beauty, the lengths we will go to be beautiful – or to at least conform – and the dangers of conformity. Note: the girl at the end (Donna Douglas, of Beverly Hillbillies) is a different actress than the one under the bandages (Maxine Stuart), but she speaks in her own voice -- doing a very good impression of Stuart!

7:30 PM -- The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street – #1 on the Time list. The text of one is included in grade-school anthologies. Beautifully written masterpiece about fearing thy neighbor. The brilliant Claude Akins is considered the lead, though it is a true ensemble piece. Don’t miss it.

10:00 PM -- The Hitch-hiker –A driver keeps seeing the same hitch-hiker thumbing a ride as she heads west…. A deliciously Hitchcockian morality/mortality play about fear and acceptance.

10:30 PM -- Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up – This was voted 8.5 on the IMDB, but I think it’s dopey and ridiculous. Bus passengers are stranded at a diner – but there is one too many. Oh, and rumor has it that a spacecraft crashed nearby. Give me a break.

11:00 PM -- The Howling Man – A visitor to a monastery is disturbed to find the monks have a screaming guy locked up. Well, they must have a good reason… A lot of people like this one. I think it’s pretty meh. Features John Carradine as a monk.

11:30 PM -- The Masks -- One of the GREAT underrated episodes, and the only TZ episode to be directed by a woman, Ida Lupino (she also starred in “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine”, which is not featured in this marathon). A crusty millionaire geezer tells his greedy family he will die before Mardi Gras is over – but they must wear freaky custom masks through the evening if they want to claim their inheritance.

Tokyo Story Part I: How PURE Reflections Came to Japan

2010-12-21T17:03:00.000-08:00

"Japan beckons cold-footed Carol!"

It is the evening of Wednesday, September 22nd -- barely three days after our Big PURE Weekend of workshops and shows (which I organized and hosted) and I am still catching my breath.

And now, I was going to Japan.

The Monday before, I'd learned that Kaeshi, PURE's Artistic Director, had been approached by Lâle Sayoko, a well-known Japanese dancer and member of PURE, about bringing PURE Reflections to Japan.

Lâle had seen the show and performed with us earlier that year and found the experience so powerful that she had determined to share it with her sisters in PURE Tokyo (PURE's only international chapter -- so far! :-> ). And now her dream was becoming a reality -- more quickly than anyone could have imagined!

Kaeshi, it turned out, was going to be in the Far East for Jillina's Bellydance Evolution show in December, and had been approached to teach a few workshops in Osaka. And while she realized it would not be feasible to bring the entire 30-person cast of dancers and musicians to Japan, it might be possible, she thought, to mount it with a Japanese cast.

"Do you think one week will be enough?" she asked as we headed through Cooper Square Monday night.

"Well... they would really need to understand the show," I replied, "It would take a lot of preparation in the weeks beforehand..."

"I know..." she winced a little.

"Well, you're not doing it without me."

Her eyes popped. "Really? Would you really do that?"

"Sure," I said, "I mean ... I can't let you do it alone."

We checked airline prices that evening. $980! My account wasn't exactly flush, but the show was more important. And even with two people at the helm, mounting PURE Reflections would be an herculean task.

Then I started to worry... What if the dancers aren't that committed? What if it all falls apart in the eight weeks between now and then?

Then my paranoia set in.

I wrote Kaeshi: "I just checked prices and it says $980... was that what it was yesterday, or did it go up like $100 already?"

Her measured response followed moments later: "It is the same price as yesterday. It did not go up..."

I was bursting.

"I am getting slightly cold feet about this," I dithered, "... it's happening a lot faster than I'd thought. Feeling very nervous..."

Her next message warmed my soles: "I think at this point, it's safe to go ahead and buy that ticket. The dancers are already all rearranging their work schedules to suit what I posted about rehearsals... Japan beckons cold-footed Carol! Catching a plane is much like riding a subway, only it looks and sounds a lot different on the other side..."

Well OK then!

And I bought the ticket.

At the next PURE-NYC meeting, Kaeshi asked if any other members would like to take the Tokyo plunge, and the bravehearted Pacita -- who turned out to be an extraordinary Assistant Director -- stepped up. And after a similar announcement during the PURE facilitator weekly web conference our team doubled in size, with Brian and Misha from Sarasota joining, as well Katie from Connecticut (who had hosted the show in May).

And we were on our way!

Bizarro Help Desk Ticket of the Week

2010-12-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, my job makes me channel my inner-Dr. House (only without the whole life-and-death thing... although lawyers certainly like to convince you that everything is life-and-death, but I digress....)

Last week, a Help Desk ticket came in from a secretary at the law firm where I work complaining that "dots" were appearing on her Client Bill printouts, just above the total figure.

"I can't send out a quarter-million dollar bill to a client with dots on it!" she bleated.

First, the Help Desk sent the ticket to Hardware Support, figuring there was something wrong with the printer. But then they printed another bill on regular paper, and there were no dots. So then they figured there was something wrong with Microsoft Word, and the ticket came to my department.

"You know this is probably a Hardware problem," my coworker groaned.

"Probably," I shrugged and went up to visit the secretary who was now pulling out her hair.

She showed me the printed culprit:

"See!" she brandished the forlorn stationery, "Dots!"

I groaned a little. Was it really such a big deal? Yeah, I had to admit -- I'd be a little put off if I were a client receiving a motley bill for a figure larger than my mortgage....

I ran a few more tests -- each time eating up more stationery, which made the secretary grumble since the bill sheets are logged and numbered and must all be accounted for. So I started running through ones that had already been printed, several at a time -- and I noticed the dots didn't appear every time.

And they only appeared just above the Total figure on the pre-printed side of the stationery, containing Firm letterhead, various disclaimers, instructions and a blank line for the date.

I tried printing on the back of the stationery. No dots.

Then I noticed a pattern.

The Bill template has always given us grief because the stationery's Date line is so close to the top margin. In Word, we -- the unfortunate few responsible for configuring Word -- set the margin in the Bill as high as it will go (usually a quarter-inch), but most printers don't like this and push it down -- because printers have their own margin settings.

When Word has a tug-of-war with a printer, you end up with tiny differences from page to page -- something that doesn't usually make a difference until you're dealing with pre-printed stationery and picky secretaries.

So, in every case where the "dots" appeared, the Date looked like this:

Whenever the date cleared the line, there were no "dots."

And I realized that the "dots" were, in fact, a tiny remnant of the date text -- exactly where the type hit the pre-printed line.

In short, it was printer issue. Or, more accurately, a fuser issue.

I don't know much about laser printers, but my guess is that the fuser wasn't running hot enough. The fuser is supposed to burn the toner particles onto the paper, but this printer was not able to burn into pre-printed bits of the stationery. So the toner stuck to the rollers, only to get burned onto the next part of the paper they rolled onto -- which, coincidentally, was directly above the Total line.

The temporary fix: Move up the date even higher and print only one at a time so you don't have the roving margin effect.

The permanent fix: Get a new fuser.

In other words, it was a Hardware problem.

So. There.

October-November Events Archive

2010-12-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

Friday, October 1st @ 11pm
Dancing at Lafayette Grill
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600
No Cover/2-Drink Minimum

Sunday, October 10th @ 4pm
Dancing with the Rising Sirens
at Rakkasah East
Ukrainian Cultural Center
135 Davidson Ave, Somerset, NJ

Tuesday, October 12th @ 9pm
Dancing in the PaperDolls Burlesque
Blue Owl Lounge
196 2nd avenue (corner of 12th and 2nd), NYC
Downstairs
(212) 505-2583
Cover $10

Tuesday, October 26th @ 9pm
Dancing in the PaperDolls Burlesque
Blue Owl Lounge
196 2nd avenue (corner of 12th and 2nd), NYC
Downstairs
(212) 505-2583
Cover $10

Friday, October 29th @ 9pm
Dancing and Emceeing for the Lafayette Grill Halloween Party at
Lafayette Grill
featuring Tango, Salsa, Middle Eastern Dance & Comedy
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600
No Cover/Donations Welcome
$10 Table Minimum

Dancing in PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined
Yokohama CreativeCity Center
6-50-1 Honcho, Naka-ku
Yokohama 231-8315
JAPAN
http://puretokyo.org/reflections.html
¥3000

Stupid Human Tricks

2010-11-30T11:10:00.000-08:00

When I started in IT over a decade ago, temping on a Help Desk, my cavalier (i.e. reckless) attitude toward computers helped me to learn a great deal about how applications worked.

It also destroyed quite a few machines in my care.

One particular evening in the late 90s, I was experimenting with a new media driver and reduced my poor Dell to a black DOS screen with only a flashing cursor (yes, not even a C prompt).

Rebuilding it from scratch took about five hours, and to kill time in the wee hours of the morning, I taught myself how to throw pencils in the ceiling -- not dart-style, where you level the point towards your target with an even-handed throw, but knife-style, where you hold the point, take a breath, and fling with a prayer.

I got very good at this and once put 32 pencils and a letter-opener in the ceiling of a co-worker's office when I'd learned he'd given notice without telling me first.

And although technically this is verboten at my current job, I will still occasionally find the odd Mirado Black Warrior stuck in the ceiling of a copy room or computer lab.

And in such cases, I often can't resist tossing the lonely lead stalactite a mate. (Yes, I know pencils are graphite not lead, but I can't resist alliteration either.)

Unfortunately, my skills are no longer what they were, and it can take me a few throws for the muscle memory to kick in. And when it does, I find myself conscious of exactly what my hand is doing before the throw: loosely wagging the pencil while holding the tip between my thumb and middle finger.

Now, doing this doesn't ensure the pencil will hit its mark; but whenever I don't do this, I always miss.

And it finally occurred to me why this is: For a knife-style (or dare I say Xena-style) throw, the object will spin one-and-a-half times before striking. (See http://bigthink.com/ideas/21815 for details from the Great Throwdini). So what I think I'm intuitively doing here is gauging the weight and length of the pencil so that I am holding it at the right spot and sending it off at the right speed.

Now, this isn't something I seem to be able to teach in a literal way (i.e. hold the pencil here and let it leave your hand at such-and-such a time). But I have been able to "teach" people by just saying: "Throw it as though you want to hit the ceiling with the eraser."

Why does this work? I have no clue. But if you work in an office where the ceilings of a copy or storage room are nicely mottled, try it out.

Grab a sharp-pointed Mirado Black Warrior (they are the most aero-dynamic), long, if possible, as that will give you the most momentum. With your thumb, hold it point-up against the intermediate phalange of your middle finger. Then wag it loosely a few times to get a feel for the weight and chuck the eraser towards in the ceiling.

And let me know what happens.

And, yes, I know you all want to know what happened in Tokyo.

I'm still processing it all, so it will take a while for me to put anything down in writing. But it was incredible ... a dream come true.

I feel very fortunate and humbled to have found PURE -- a great bunch of people who are doing great things.

Here is a shot of us, joined by some of the Bellyqueen and Rising Siren dancers at the Halloween Parade. And check out photos 2 and 5 on CNN!

Don't we look awesome??

Getting Ready for PURE Reflections in Tokyo: Lost (and Found) in Translation

2010-10-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

When we first committed to the daunting project of mounting PURE-NYC's body image dance-theater work PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined in Japan, with a mixed cast of PURE Tokyo members and a handful of PURE members from US chapters, it was obvious that communication would be key.

I created a Google group which has a sleek discussion thread feature which, with the touch of a button, completely translates every email in a given thread -- or at least it tries to!

As the Tokyo ladies geared up, organizing everything from logistics to publicity, a flurry of Japanese emails billowed through my inbox. And every day or so, I'd check the translated group page to see what all the chatter was about, and then weigh in, if necessary.

Yesterday's round told me that Tuesday night would be a Special Evening.

PURE-NYC's good friend, the Japanese-English BodyPoet Kazuma, had given them the DVD of PURE Reflections recorded in April at Columbia -- and many of the dancers who had signed onto the project in blind faith would see the show for the first time.

I chatted briefly online a few hours earlier with Naho, one of the PURE Tokyo facilitators.

"We're so excited to hear what your reaction will be to it," I wrote.

What I really wanted to say was, "We can't wait to hear what you think of it," but for some reason whenever I talk to a non-English speaker, I always find myself imitating their speech pattern (or at least my perception of it... which, come to think of it, probably ends up comically confusing to them).

"I appreciate all your help and very precise comments and advices :)", she wrote back, and then had to take a phone call.

This morning, I saw a long Japanese email on my mobile and ran to the laptop to read the translated thread.

It started:

"Reflections on DVD today held a meeting 10/28. The report. Here are some details as well as topics mix. ... Performance about 58 minutes, after which the 15-minute Q & A."

OK so far. Then followed a bulleted list of their reactions to the show.

First bullet:

"Acting is terrible."

My jaw dropped. Oh god, I thought, they hate us!!

Then I read through the rest of the list:

Scene 1 -- like birth from the sea, motherhood, accept
Scene 5 -- emotional scenes!
Scene 7 -- Demon, scary!
Scene 9 -- Spiral, wonderful scenes of the sun.

And finally:

"Everyone (even those not moving) to the acting, which everybody understands the meaning of the scene."

In other words: They liked us!! They really liked us!!

So clearly it was just a translator issue... right?

I scrolled back up to the fateful characters -- 演技力がすごい -- and brought up a variety of online translators, first Dictionary.com and AppliedLanguage.

Both spat back, "Acting is terrible."

Then my inner-HitchHiker took me to AltaVista's blessed BabelFish, which rendered, "Performance power is enormous." And WorldLingo concurred.

Ahhhhh! Now that's more like it!

But how did this happen?

I broke the phrase down, character-by-character, and fed it to each translation engine.

Piecemeal, it reads something like this: "Performing/Played skill/technology force/power the it does us."

So the issue it seems was in switching "enormous" with "terrible" -- which by colloquial English standards is a pretty terrible thing to do, as we are used it meaning "really, really bad."

But earlier meanings have more to do with awe-stricken fear. Indeed, the word itself stems from Indo-rooted Sanskrit and Avestan for "feared" AND "revered" -- indeed, anything that would cause us to tremble in awe, as enormous things are wont to do.

My guess is that the Japanese character for "force/power" must have multiple meanings which, when combined idiomatically, could render as "terrible," "enormous" -- or, dare I say, awesome ☺ -- and probably dozens of other ways depending on the translator.

Given the vast sea of translational possibilities, the fact that Google and other online translators do as good a job as they do is pretty freaking camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle amazing.

And the fact that there are so many translation engines to offer second, third and fourth opinions is beyond mind-blowing to me.

But in the end, perhaps it is best to remember these two rules of online translation:

(1) Always give your correspondent the benefit of a doubt. Even in the same language, email can be easily misinterpreted; and

(2) Some online translations are best experienced like a John Ashbery poem -- just let let the images wash over, smile sweetly and pretend you understand.

Mobile Updates and More Thoughts on Time

2010-10-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

"One thing I've noticed about your blog," a friend remarked at dinner last night, "If you haven't posted in a long time, you don't write in your next post, 'Gee, I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted...'"

Actually, I used to do that, way back when I kept a blog on LiveJournal. And I think I've done it a few times here, too. But most of my baker's dozen of regular readers know I'm pretty busy.

My weekdays are spent at work, most of my evenings are spent in classes, rehearsals, performances, or some combination of any or all of these things.

And then there are more workshops and classes (both taking and teaching) on weekends.

So, to save some time, I set up mobile updates, with varying success.

I've tried three so far; the first went OK. The second got lost in cyberspace. And the third (last week's) I had composed with my Android's Swype -- which is pretty cool, as long as you don't accidentally brush your fingertip across the part of the screen that might, say, fire off your email before your done.

I ended up completing the entry by logging in via my mobile browser -- which left me with a very limited interface and no end of trouble when trying to, say, move the cursor around or spell check.

But I was determined to get something posted, so I fired that one off with spelling and formatting errors intact (which are now fixed, incidentally).

Now, as I write this, I'm wolfing down some chow before heading off to class and rehearsal with Bellyqueen and the Rising Sirens, respectively, my usual Thursday night activities which go until 10pm.

Monday is similarly spoken for with PURE, which usually includes dinner at Klong after to kibbitz and go over business.

Tuesday is usually karate night (from 7 to 9:30pm, by the time I'm showered and heading out), and somtimes includes a comedy set at Karma, if I'm feeling up to it. For the past two months, however, I've been taking an improv class at The PIT on Tuesdays, which goes until 10pm and leaves me pretty beat.

That leaves Wednesdays and Fridays -- my swing nights.

The past two Wednesdays went to the NY Press Karaoke contest thingey, which was too strange (and I'll go into all that another time), but normally I'll either take an improv class/Anything Goes with Artistic New Directions or Carl Kissin, or ballet with Broadway Dance.

And if I can escape from work early enough, there is no substitute for Dalia Carella's advanced bellydance/modern fusion class, which ends just in time for Bellyqueen's Djam at Je'Bon a few blocks away.

That leaves Friday.

I've been working on so many projects lately, that Friday has been my solo rehearsal day. But at other times (if I'm even in town), I love the Vinyasa Yoga class at NY Health & Racquet Club.

But Fridays are almost always full with other stuff. Like, this Friday will be a special workshop with Yousry Sharif, and next Friday is the Halloween Party at Lafayette Grill, which I'm hosting and dancing in.

And then on the weekends...

Well, during the summer, I try to devote my Saturday mornings to my sailing club TASCA, as I have to teach a certain number of sessions per year to maintian my instructor status (plus it's a really fun way to spend a Saturday). But often I run off to this or that workshop or rehearsal during the afternoon, and don't get much of a chance to practice riding the winds myself...

This fall and winter, I'm taking a Shakespeare class with Charles Gerber of the Workshop Theater Company, and have been planning to take Amir's advanced dumbek class at Bellydance America, but last week it was canceled.

And then Sundays... If at all possible, I try to sleep in and get stuff done at home. But more often than not, there is a rehearsal, show (attending or performing in) begging my attention.

But this Sunday I'm hoping to catch a movie, since I have four movie vouchers that need to be used before the end of the month.

Anyone want to join me?

Some Random Thoughts on the Way to Rakkasah

2010-10-10T10:44:00.001-07:00

Killing time on a delayed train to New Brunswick I came across this article about the perecetion of time: How to Live Forever! Or Why Habits are a Curse.

Appropriate, huh?

At that particular moment, it seemed like we'd been waiting for ages when in fact it had barely been ten minutes. Now as I write this over a half-hour later my contentedly occupied mind barely felt the moments pass.

It's often joked that the length of a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on, but the article's author observes that time is also lengthened or condensed during activites of non-expertise. When one is "expert" at physical routines, our focus is no longer on the minutae of the tasks but the meaning behind them. Indeed, focusing on the details can impair the "expert" level of performance -- it will also make time seem to pass more slowly.

The author finds an interesting irony in our culture, which prizes both expertise AND perpetually vital youth, and so suggests changing our familiar routines and taking up new and challenging activities could make each day seem like an eternity of perpetual youth.

Cute, huh?

But beneath this glib thesis is perhaps a valuable insight: Getting out of our practiced routines forces us to connect with the physical world in ways that can be uncomfortable, but will give greater richness and depth to each moment (and, yes, I think this holds true even for the bathroom scenario.), that could both make time pass more slowly (i.e. richly) and more quickly.

When we are comfortable, too much at ease in our well practiced, routine lives, we are not quite in our bodies and not quite connecting to the world around us. (This point is made beautifully in the classic arty film My Dinner with Andre: "When you're just operating by habit, then you're not really living."). But in order to live full, rich, engaged lives we must stay in contact with the world around us and all of its attendant joys and discomforts.

And contrary to the author's observations, this richness of experience is key to feeling youthful and vital, and has little to do with the sense of the passage of time, but rather with a feeling of engagement with the world.

The best example of this is any activity in which we feel passionately interested -- regardless of whether we are "expert" at it. Then time can seem to disappear, yet the accomplishment is deeply felt, so time passes with a visceral richness -- both quickly and slowly at once.

September Events Archive

2010-10-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 8th @ 8pm
Dancing at
Bellyqueen's Djam Under Je'Bon
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
212-388-1313
$10 cover/$5 minimum

Sunday, September 12th @ 6pm & 8pm
Dancing and Emceeing in Anasma's
On Your Marks,

Get Set... DANCE!
A unique, innovative, global live dance show, where dancers improvise to YOUR suggestions, and

YOUR music selections -- so bring your iPods!!
The Producers' Club, Grand Theater
358 West 44th Street @ 9th Ave, NYC
212-315-4743
$20 adv/$25 at the door
Buy 5 tickets, get one free!!
(NOTE: The 6pm & 8pm shows will have DIFFERENT line-ups. I will be dancing a solo ONLY in

the 8pm show. )

Wednesday, September 15th @ 8pm
Performing Stand-Up Comedy in
Scott Erik's Prodigy Comedy at
The Eastville Comedy Club
85 East 4th Street @ 2nd Ave, NYC
Reservations: (212) 260-2445 email@EastvilleComedy.com.
$5 Cover
2-Drink Minimim
Free Guacamole Served!

Saturday, September 18th 11am-2pm
Teaching the PURE Foundation Choreography for
PURE's Weekend of Dance Workshops
440 Studios
440 Lafayette St, 4th Fl @ Cooper Sq, NYC
(212) 529-0259
$30 adv/$35 at the door

Saturday, September 18th @ 7:30pm
Emceeing and Dancing PURE's Variety Show
at Je'Bon
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
212-388-1313
No cover/$5 minimum

Sunday, September 19th 5pm-7pm
Dancing in PURE NYC's Annual Procession
Performing two PURE Choreographies on
The High Line Elevated Park
(West Village, from Gansevoort Street to Chelsea, 20th Street & 10th Ave)
at the Chelsea Market Passage and Tenth Ave Square
then Processing north of the Park to Pier 66
Join us anywhere along the way!

Emceeing and Dancing in PURE's
Identity-Themed Variety Show
at the Docked Boat
Lightship Frying Pan
Pier 66 @ 12th Ave & 26th St, NYC
No Cover

Dance-Improv, Going to Tokyo and Other PUREly Fabulous Septemberish Things

2010-09-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Is the month nearly over already?

When you're crazy-busy doing things, it's not so easy to find time to write about them.

So, in a nutshell....

This month began on the heels of an intense dumbek teacher's training Retreat -- the first that Raquy has ever held. I definitely bit off more than I could chew, technique-wise, and was suitably humbled by the end of the weekend. Turkish technique is haaarrrddd!!!

Then I jumped into intense rehearsals for Anasma's amazing event, On Your Marks, Get Set... DANCE! This unique show featured a first half of choreographed theatrical dance on the theme of Warrior, Woman or City (or a combination of these themes).

I chose Warrior and worked assiduously with Elisheva and Kazuma to create a narrative solo exploring the genesis of a Warrior Spirit -- and how it can have unintended consequences. My blurb for the program was this:

"The Warrior's fighting spirit is often awakened during childhood, when we are confronted with bullying and random playground cruelty. This Warrior spirit inspires us to stand up for ourselves and develop our physical and mental power. But if that initial injury is not addressed and healed, it can become an impetus for revenge, and the warrior can devolve into brutality and mindless power-seeking."

The second part of the show was entirely improvised, melding dance and improvisational theater. Working from audience suggestions (and the mystery music provided by their iPods!) we created dance scenes, machines and an emotional orchestra, to the great delight of all!

And I was privileged to emcee the entire evening, so I got quite a workout!

The following weekend, I presented the Warrior piece again for the PURE weekend of workshops, variety shows, and our Annual Procession which, this year, was on The High Line, with variety shows at Je'Bon and the rescued docked boat, Lightship Frying Pan. (Actually, the good people at Pier 66 asked us to use the gorgeous big space on their main barge, rather than the groovy but small boiler-room space in the Frying Pan itself.)

Fresh on the heels of our fabulous PURE weekend, we finalized plans to bring PURE Reflections to Tokyo, Japan!

Members of our thriving PURE chapter there saw our April performance at Columbia University and, moved to tears, asked us to mount the production there with PURE TK's dancers.

Here is our promo using footage from that performance (if you are viewing this entry on Facebook, please click here):

Kaeshi and I finalized plans to go there in mid-November to prepare for a November 28th Procession and Performance.

So I shelled out $980 for a ticket to Tokyo on Wednesday, so you can imagine, I am thrilled, nervous and deliriously excited about this!!

Not only is it a dream-come-true for me to go to Tokyo, to do so within the context of creating a work of art so near to my heart exceeds my wildest hopes.

This show, both in process and performance, is a life-changing experience. It is our deepest hope to be able to share it dancers and audience everywhere.

Who would have guessed that our first baby step in this direction would take us clear across the Pacific Ocean!!

Life is strange and wonderful.

July-August 2010 Events Archive

2010-08-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 11th @ 6pm
Dancing and Emceeing in the Theatrical Bellydance
Closing Night Party at
Lafayette Grill
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600
$15 Cover/$15 Minimum

Sunday, July 25th @ 1pm
Dancing with the Rising Sirens
in Stanton Street
Summer Sundays
at the Intersection of
Stanton and Orchard, Lower East Side, NYC
Free and Open to the Public

Sunday, July 25th @ 3pm
Dancing with the Rising Sirens
in Caribbean Rose's Latina Arabe
Showcase at
Lafayette Grill
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600
$10 Cover/$20 Minimum

Sunday, July 25th @ 4pm & 7pm
Saturday July 31st @ 8pm
Dancing Funny in NY Artists' Cringe Fest
(A Festival of Deliciously Awful One-Act Plays, Films & Musicals)
Sunday's Show: "Dow Jones Meets Deep Throat"
Saturday's Show: "Sex Encounters of a Disturbed Mind"
The Producers Club
358 West 44th Street @ 9th Ave, NYC
212-242-6036
$20 (Sun)
$25 (Sat)

Sunday, August 29th @ 6pm
Performing Improv Comedy at The PIT
154 West 29th Street (btw @ 7th Ave), NYC
212-568-7488
$5 Tickets
(PIT Audience gets a 10% discount on food and drink at Mustang Sally's on 7th Ave & 28th.)

Pay No Attention to that Woman Behind the Curtain! (Thoughts on Directing, Part 2)

2010-08-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

The theatre director's hand should be invisible, as though the playwright's words are flowing effortlessly from the page to the stage. Throughout the rehearsal process, a good director must nudge and inspire the actor from within, rather than domineer and control from without.

This invaluable credo is central to the excellent book A Sense of Direction, by William Ball, which I mentioned in my earlier blog entry on theatre directing. Indeed, the Wizard of Oz quote graces the very first pages.

So, from the beginning, I understood that a good director must not be a puppeteer -- and must not hold too tightly to whatever initial vision he or she formed upon first reading the play. What appears on the stage must arise organically, a product of the director's unfolding vision and the actors' intuitive creativity.

The director shapes and prunes, and always keeps faith in the actors, no matter how awful things get in rehearsal. And, when this is done gently and seamlessly, sometimes even the actors are not entirely aware of the director's work, and can find themselves believing the finished performance would have emerged all on its own.

* * *

"What did you make of that last play?" I asked a fellow theatre company member as we headed out of an evening of one-acts.
"Which one?" she asked, searching her mind for images that she had seen less than 10 minutes before.
"The thing about the woman in the bar... in Scotland? She meets this weird drunken guy...?"
"Oh right!" she said and paused. "Not much!! I mean, what was that?"
"That was Life and Death -- the same play I directed a few months ago. Which you liked..."
"It was? No fucking way."

But, yes, it was. It was. In every fucking way.

Earlier that year, I had been given this spare, tense script about a vulnerable American tourist who is beset, seduced, frightened and charmed by a tortured charismatic Scottish nobleman in Edinburgh.

My two actors: Lee, a slight young woman with a hint of toughness, and Greg, a stocky, good-natured 30-something guy from Staten Island.

Lee immediately had a sense of the character's vulnerability and curiosity.

Greg, on the other hand, had no clue whatsoever. In the initial read, he started overacting, hunched over like a slightly deranged Jack Nicholson with a hint of Peter Lorre.

"Um... Let's try it again," I said, "And just sit up straight in the chair. And don't worry so much about acting. Just read the words for sense."

Now he gave me a more straight-backed Jack Nicholson.

"OK," I said afterwards, "That's getting there. And it's good that you're getting a sense of the dangerousness of this character. But remember, she's not running away, so he is charming her, right?" Greg agreed. "So, once again, don't worry so much about acting, just put in the back of your mind how you might talk to a woman you're interested in."

Now he stared at her relentlessly and even seemed to be salivating a bit.

"OK, let's take a break," I said.

Greg went for a cigarette and Lee pulled me aside, shaking her head, "This is really creeping me out!" "I know, I know," I sighed, "Give him a chance."

"Have you ever seen My Favorite Year?" I asked Greg after rehearsal.

"The thing with Peter O'Toole and the Jewish guy?" he asked.

"Yes. Yes, that's the one. Before our next rehearsal, can you watch that and pay special attention to Peter O'Toole's performance? Because, remember this character isn't American, so he should be..."

"You mean kind of faggy-like?"

"Um... yeah...."

"Sure. No problem."

So Greg watched My Favorite Year and came back with a respectable embodiment of an upper-class Brit. We tamed the creepy leering and punched up the properness and things started to work.

But he was still having a hard time with the character's many transitions.

As he is charming and seducing the woman, he delves into increasingly angry and resentful diatribes about his brother being killed in "The American War" (i.e. Vietnam). Then he switches in to charming-mode, and then into dangerous seduction (OK, we kept a bit of the initial creepy leer after all :-> ), and then he goes back into Vietnam-War-anger, then he wistfully reflects on his life in Scotland and then back into charming, and then seduction, and around and around...

And Greg couldn't tell one beat from the next.

So I bought a box of crayons and color coded the script: pink for charming, red for seduction, light green for the early stages of the Vietnam diatribe, and darker green as his anger intensifies, then light blue for the reflective bits, and so on.

I had him monologue about the brother and about the war, about sex and love. We went through the script and found active, riveting verbs for each beat, layering moments of tension and suspension which gave the whole thing a beautiful roller-coaster feel.

In short, I practically breast-fed the guy.

And through it all, there was Lee....

She did well enough responding to what he was now giving her, but since I had to focus so much on him, I was not able to help her develop her character.

Even on opening night, she was working with generalities like, "I'm in Scotland to escape..." From what? Why? What do you want?? We never figured it out. She did well enough because she was a good actor, but I did her a disservice....

The upshot?

The playwright LOVED him -- and hated her. (And she didn't care much for me either.)

It turned out that the piece was semi-autobiographical, and the playwright made the mistake of expecting to see an onstage re-enactment of her own experience with some real-life Scottish weirdo.

She expected to see her own anguish, frailty, desire, frustration, confusion, etc. played out in Lee's eyes. To the playwright, this was a story about the woman. And, perhaps because she was telling her own story, she believed the vividness in her mind's eye would come across in the text, but it didn't.

As the play is written, the woman is just a foil for this bizarre man; to artificially make it her story would only dilute the drama.

Anyway. Everyone loved it. And everyone LOVED Greg.

Lee and I stood aside as exiting audience shook his hand and slapped his back. He continued to receive praise -- and additional roles -- for weeks and months after the show.

And the theatre company loved it so much there was talk of entering it in the Samuel French festival for Best One-Act Plays. And they decided to remount it a month or two before the festival. But this time, without Lee -- and without me.

The playwright cast herself in the woman's role and got some friend of hers to direct the incomphrehensible mess that appeared on the mainstage that summer.

The result was bad. It was worse than bad.

It was instantly forgettable.

But What I Really (Didn't!) Want to Do ....

2010-07-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

... is direct.

When actors whine that "what they really want to do is direct," they are talking about film -- where, in these days of the auteur, the film director is seen to exercise complete control in realizing his or her vision.

Indeed, an auteur -- as a director of signature-style films -- (Jim Jarmush, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, etc.) can be more of a star than any given actor in his (yes his, more often than her) films.

Not so in the world of theatre directors.

"im in theatre class," [sic] pleaded a student on Yahoo's message board, "and i need a famous theatre director and i cant find anything......so please help me........."

Needless to say, the Wikipedia list of theatre directors provided by a thoughtful respondent yields very few recognizable names -- at least to those who aren't in theatre. And the few notables belong to directors who famously crossed over to film: Orson Welles, Mike Nichols, Laurence Olivier, Bob Fosse, and the like.

When I first joined a Manhattan theater company, in my early 20s, with little training and questionable talent, I had less of a clue about exactly what a director did than our young Yahoo poster. Like much of the average audience, I was quick to assign the finished product on the stage entirely to the actor and writer.

As far as I knew, the director made sure everyone knew their lines and didn't trip over the furniture.

And even in my first few one-acts, it didn't seem like the director did much -- other than the lines-and-furniture thing.

This, it turns out, was because those few directors just weren't very good.

This particular company did not actively seek directors; their bread-and-butter was young out-of-towners hungry for any -- and I do mean ANY -- NYC stage experience. So we all auditioned, paid $100 and were guaranteed a role.

If we wanted more roles, we had to do stuff for the company: stage manage, run lights and sound, build sets, clean the theater, run the box office, create flyers and programs -- and direct.

So many of the directors were just actors who were grudgingly putting in hours so they could get their butts back onstage.

And then I was cast in a sensitive, two-person drama about a jilted wife reuniting with her fanatical ex who had run off with a cult.

I was completely lost.

Thankfully, I had a director who had actually studied directing, and who wanted to pursue a career in directing. And she was brilliant!! She helped me understand the meaning and intention of each beat, to clarify and solidify my performance, and create a moving drama.

Slowly, it became clear to me how crucial good directing was -- and how very difficult it was, first to grasp the meaning of the play, and then to guide the actors towards the fullest, richest telling of the story.

About a year later, I was given my first one-act to direct. And, happily, I came across ACT director William Ball's outstanding book A Sense of Direction, which not only gave me essential tools for directing; it changed my understanding of acting as well.

It also seared into my brain the maxim that The Director is Always Responsible -- no matter what, with no excuses; the finished product is the director's responsibility. You can never, ever blame the actor. (Admittedly, a few times I've wanted to blame the writer, but even there, a badly written play can be directed into something worth watching... more on this in another entry).

This uncompromising acceptance of responsibility at first seemed daunting, but ultimately I embraced it as both a challenge and even an act of unconditional love.

I had once heard that to truly love a thing, you can fully -- without delusion or denial -- see it in its current and perhaps flawed state, and you can also see its most beautiful, most fully realized potential. In short, you can see what it wants to be. And through love (and more than a little sweat and tenacity), you can guide it to that fruition.

And I think that many of the actors understood this about me... that no matter how hopeless things sometimes seemed in rehearsal, they knew I had faith in them, in the play, and in the creative process itself, and so they had faith in me.

I soon began to love directing (though, diva that I was -- and still am -- still sought the spotlight when I could), and within a few months I was given my first full-length play.

To this day, the playwright -- who has been produced throughout the US -- considers that production among the best of his work.

He recently wrote, "Some things about that little production I’ll never forget -- some things you don’t even know about -- like my sister’s reaction. She’s passed away now. She came up from Florida to see it. She had no idea what I was up to. I can still see her leaning against the wall afterward, across the room from me, mouthing the words, wow, wow, wow -- blown away."

And many other playwrights have felt the same. Even after I left the company, I had been sought out to direct more work for satisfied playwrights.

And even though I know -- and they know -- exactly how much the director's hand is responsible for what the audience sees... sometimes I forget.

And so do they....

Sometimes, even as the audience cheers, and friends are slapping their castmember pals on the back... I can't help thinking, "Could this have been done without me....?"

To be continued...

Sailing, Synchronicity and Face Blindness

2010-07-02T22:25:00.001-07:00

So I went to my sailing club's little tent this evening hoping to take out a sailboat.

Unfortunately, I arrived close to 8pm and the Dockmaster told me the wind had died down shortly before, so the boats were starting to head in -- at about a half-knot, so it could take an hour to reach the dock.

So, no sailing for me.

But the weather was nice, otherwise, and the sunset was luminous and pink. So I hung out chatting with another member.

We small-talked for a bit, and then I decided to ask about a member whom I'll call Nick Nevins, who had been on my mind a lot.

I'd met Nick a month or two before and we'd emailed over subsequent weeks.

And then Nick suffered a terrible personal tragedy.

There were email announcements and heartfelt words of sympathy on the club's message board. We took up a collection and sent love and good thoughts.

While I'd joined in the collection, I was nervous about emailing Nick as, after all, I didn't know him that well. But I had experienced a tragedy similar to what he'd gone through and hoped I could offer insight or encouragement that could be useful to him.

But mostly I was concerned about him. He hadn't posted to the board or sent any word to the club other than his gratitude for the support.

So, after a beat in the conversation, I asked my new friend, "Have you heard anything about Nick Nevins? Is he ok?"

And he said, "Uh... I AM Nick Nevins..."

The next thing I knew, he was giving ME sympathy for making such a fool of myself!

I told him how I'd been thinking about him but was unsure about reaching out. And he said it was strange that I'd come to the lake that very day since he had been away since the day of the Event.

And I had not been to the lake myself in all that time either...

Synchronicity.

Fast-forward to the train ride home and I start listening to a new podcast of one of my favorite shows, RadioLab.

The topic? FACE BLINDNESS! Yes, really!!

The blurb describes how the famous neuroscientist Oliver Sachs, and PORTRAIT ARTIST Chuck Close, were both born with a condition called face blindness.

"You can sit down with either man, talk to him for an hour, and if he sees you again just fifteen minutes later, he will have no idea who you are. (Unless you have a very squeaky voice or happen to be wearing the same odd purple hat.)"

Now, while my experiences are not quite as extreme as Sachs' -- who recalls stroking his beard in a diner mirror, only to realize his reflection was not! It was, in fact, a bewildered bearded gentleman wondering why Sachs was making faces at him -- for most of my life I have been unable to remember new faces.

Like Sachs and Close, I've come up with techniques to help myself recall details of a face which I try to connect to a name -- though I suck at remembering names, too -- (e.g. Mary has the mole, Joe has the big schnoz), but my circuits overload quickly, the system crashes and I end up remembering useless fragments of faces and names.

I have a few kind friends who help me negotiate parties; throughout the evening, I'll run up to them asking, "Who did I just talk to? Was that the person who poured my drink when we arrived?" And they patiently answer and calm me down without making me feel like an idiot or a lunatic.
It usually takes several focused meetings for me to be able to recall, reassemble and/or recognize a face. But once a face is in, it's there for good.

Thinking about it now, I can't quite say what it is that I recognize when a face finally sinks in. Sometimes I think it has more to do with mannerisms than physiognomy -- though I'm good at recognizing actors in very different roles.

But I NEVER recognize celebrities on the street.

For some reason, they read differently when they are not performing.

I'm also good at remembering voices and I have excellent episodic memory. So if I've met you once and you told me your life story, I can guarantee I won't recognize you the next time I see you (even if it's the next day). BUT, once you start talking, I will remember every detail of your story, as well as where and how you stood or sat during the tale.

Go figure.

It's a frustrating way to live -- especially since people often remember ME, and I feel like a schmuck for not being able to return the favor -- but it's nice to know that there are many others who go through this as well.

Perhaps that is why Nick was so understanding...

Strange -- thinking about him even now, I can't quite recall what his face looks like, but I have a few details.

Mostly, though, I recall how he carried himself, where there was tension in his body, and the way that he walked. So that should be enough to recognize him next time. As long as he is not sitting down.....
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

May-June Events Archive

2010-07-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 2nd @ 2pm
Dancing with the Rising Sirens
with Bellyqueen at
Spring Caravan
Ukrainian Cultural Center
135 Davidson Ave
Somerset, New Jersey 08873
$18

Wednesday, May 8th @ 8pm
Dancing with the Rising Sirens at
Bellyqueen's
Djam at Je'Bon
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
212-388-1313
$10 cover/$5 minimum

Saturday, May 15th @ 8pm
Dancing in PURE's Groundbreaking
Dance-Theater Work
PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined
The Dragon's Egg
401 Shewville Rd, Ledyard CT (Near Mystic)
Note: We are also teaching a BodyLove workshop at 1pm.
$20 at the door
$15 advance

Saturday, June 5th @ 8pm
Dancing and Emceeing in Bellyqueen's
Tamalyn Dallal Showcase at
Je'Bon Noodle House
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
212-388-1313
$15 Cover/$5 Minimum

Tuesday, June 8th @ 9pm
Performing Stand-Up Comedy at
Karma's Gay & Lesbian Night
51 First Avenue ( bet. 3rd and 4th sts,) NYC
212-677-3160
$10 Cover
No Minumum

Thursday thru Saturday, June 24th, 25th & 26th @ 8pm
and Saturday, June 26th @ 2pm
Dancing in Jehan's
Dance-Theatre Spectacular
Cirque Arabesque
at Manhattan Movemement & Arts Center
248 West 60th Street & West End Ave, NYC
646-385-8493
$35

Third Day Back in Civilization (and email updates)

2010-06-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

Although I officially returned from Dunya's blissful Dancemeditation Retreat on Thursday, June 24th, I officially count my return to the mundane world from Sunday because I took a brief weekend sojourn through the magical land of Jehan-world.

In spite of my foot injury, and in spite of the fact that I'd be gone right up until a few hours before opening night, Jehan asked me to dance in her spectacular Cirque Arabesque -- which was a vote of confidence I couldn't refuse.

My mission: Choreograph a routine with fellow amazonian dancer Jaklina (who, at 6'2" and size 8, and makes me look short and round) to complement six other numbers where 1 to 10 other dancers will be performing. This was a vote of confidence I could not refuse.

And somehow, through the use of video, internet and blind faith, we got it together for four amazing shows.

Now... about the Dancemeditation Retreat...

This was my third, for three years in a row ... in a nutshell, we dance for seven hours a day (four hours in the morning, and three in the evening) with a four-hour break.

During the break we rest, meditate, walk, swim, sometimes shop the local fare, maybe hit the internet (although we couldn't pick up a signal this year, and it was a pain to trudge up to the library for wireless).

And we eat -- all ultra-healthy, ultra-vegan, raw food.

Or we don't eat.

Often people will elect to fast, usually eating only watermelon. (Last year I made it through three watermelon fast days.)

But for a reason I never learned there was no watermelon this year, so fasters were confined to a diet of coconut water -- which turned out to be a lot less painlful than I'd imagined

In fact, the only pain was that I was missing all the tasty meals being served, so I only fasted for a day.

But I kind of enjoyed the fast, so I may buy a case of Zico at some point and fast a few days here and there during the summer (it's always better to fast during warmer weather).

The weirdest thing about the Retreat is how time bends, compresses and expands. Things that happened that morning seemed like ancient history; yet the days flew by.

Many times I wanted to blog, but didn't make it to the library.

So I've enabled email updates.

More on the Retreat later.

And my next post will be emailed.... :-)

Writer's Block

2010-06-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

When I was in school I wrote a lot of poetry.

I used to joke that this was because I was lazy and a terrible typist (back in the days of manual typewriters... yes, really), so whenever a writing assignment came up where we could choose between a short story or a poem, I went for the poem.

But the truth is I really liked poetry. I liked its precision and economy -- and that if you wrote in rhyme and meter, you could get away with all kinds of bizarre constructions and multiple meanings.

Verse became my specialty and when I started churning out sonnets in the 11th grade, our English teacher made me a poetry editor of the school magazine -- a privilege usually reserved for seniors.

Throughout grade school's 12 years, teachers entered my stuff in citywide contests, and I often got some kind of prize or "mention" but I never thought of myself as a "poet" -- and I never wrote anything for my own pleasure.

When I got to college, I found I was unable to produce anything without being compelled by an assignment, so I signed up for an advanced poetry class -- and was rejected.

I confronted the professor; he felt the work in my portfolio was "glib." But he was impressed by my tenacity and let me in the class anyway.

But he was right... something had been lost, maybe to self-consciousness, insecurity, vanity. I knew I could impress with verse, so I relied on it, even when I didn't have to because it forced me to choose words carefully in a way that blank verse did not. (I believe I know the reason, psychologically, that this happened -- that that is a subject for another essay.)

So nearly everything I wrote in blank verse was unreadably bad and I didn't do well in the class, overall.

For a few years after college, I wrote maybe a half-dozen poems -- all sonnets -- usually dedicated to various friends.

But for the past 10 years I've written hardly anything.

One friend had a "poetry" birthday party a few years ago, so I wrote her a sonnet and recited it to the blank expressions of her DefJam-style poet pals.

And that was the end of that.

This past year I've told a few friends I'd "write a sonnet for them" but the well has felt dry, and even thinking about it made my brain hurt.

Last night, however, as I strained to will myself to sleep through a punishing headache, I found myself teeming with words about, of all things, writer's block.

Here is the result:

Words
packed incomphrehsibly
pressing impatiently
against the fragile pinhole portal
of articulation.
Single spies emerge
disoriented.
The battalion must wait.

Soulful Living: Why Is Cultivating the Soul So Painful?

2010-06-01T13:22:00.001-07:00

How interesting that you posted those particular Oliver lines; they have been my polaris since I first saw them in Jungian analyst James Hollis' excellent book Creating a Life 10 years ago.

Hollis offers the useful concept of "resonance" when differentiating between "soul" goals and "ego" goals, cautioning against imposing our will to create resonance.

He writes: " When something is of us, is for us, it sets off the tuning fork inside us... The resonance within us cannot be willed; it happens... But resonance is the surest guide to finding our own right path. It constitutes an inner guide amid the imposing images of the outer world and the constant traffic of the intrapsychic world."

A soul goal may, in fact, coincide with an ego goal (and one of my persistant personal problems has been resisting those soul goals which also happen to be ego goals... what can I say, ego goals scare me...), but very often they do not.

If we are attentive to our feeling sensibility, however, we may be more inclined towards soul goals -- although actually choosing them, especially in the face of resistance of those around us, requires tremendous strength

And in those cases, soul choices are painful; their awareness alone can cause conflict and despair. But once that awareness has been awakened, the path of the ego can be equally painful as we know its rewards will ultimately be unsatisfying.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Foot Update

2010-05-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

So... Last Saturday I was upstate and decided to go running that beautiful sunny morning.

About five minutes in, I realize I've gone the wrong way and make a sharp turn on my right heel. And then I feel -- and hear -- a sharp POP in my right heel. For a brief crazy moment I consider "running it off." And then the pain starts.

I limp back.

Fast foward a few days of clinc, ER and podiatrist visits and I learn that I have a heel spur -- a little "hook" of bone which can form at the bottom of the heel, where it connects to the plantar fascia, a tough tendon which helps maintain the arch of the foot.

The spur tore through the plantar fascia, which most likely was the "pop" I heard. Fortunatetly, the foot was not very discolored or swollen when I first saw a doctor later that evening, so it he concluded that the rupture was not disabling. But it was painful.

(Interestingly, the deep-tissue tear caused a pool of blood (hematoma) to well close to the ball of my foot a few days later, even though the injury itself is on the heel.)

Since the doctor I saw on Saturday evening at the Brooklyn DOCS clinic could not take an X-Ray, he advised me to return on Monday.

But, as I learned Monday morning, it turned out that the only DOCS radiologist who took my insurance was on vacation for the week. So that left the Brooklyn Hospital Emergency Room.

Six hours and a minor melt-down later, an X-ray revealed the offending spur.

The treating physician gave me crutches and stronger pain meds and set me up to see a podiatrist in their clinic the following morning (Tuesday)

I arrived a few minutes early to the clinic (a major achievement for me, especially in my state of limp-dom) to find an extremely long, slow registration line and an absent attendant.

Fortunately, I looked pathetic enough to get the attention of one of the medical staff. I showed her my discharge papers and gave her my insurance card. She led me to an administrator's office where he called my insurance company and, after a ridiculously long succession of voice mail prompts, learned the clinic didn't take my insurance anyway.

I had to go to a network podiatrist, but the one my primary care physician referred didn't even answer the phone.

I called another doctor friend who referred me to a pod in midtown -- who, thankfully gave me an appointment on Thursday.

And this doctor gave me good news and bad news.

The good news: Pain notwithstanding, he injury is not serious and should heal with rest -- AND I don't need crutches.

The bad news: Since the injury is on my heel, I need to keep pressure off that part of the foot. Which means wearing this ridiculous weight-distributing Stormtrooper boot for four weeks.

Ah well. Life could definitely be worse.

Yet More Thoughts About Body Image: Getting Lost in the Mirror

2010-05-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

When we first produced PURE Reflections, I had learned about a site called The Belly Project, which seeks to create some perspective about that most preoccupying body part -- the belly.

"Our bellies," the site creators, Karen Rayne and Midwife Christy Tashjian, observe in the blog's "About" blurb, "are intimately related our sexuality and to our reproductive lives. ... So, with that in mind, this blog is a place to come and put our bellies in perspective and to share them anonymously with the great wide Internetz."

I contacted Dr. Rayne and told her about PURE Reflections, and she very kindly posted an article, Dancing Through Body Image, on her personal blog.

In it, she quotes Dr. Rita Freedman, whose book Bodylove had provided a cornerstone for the show's development: "A mirror can be a friend or a foe, a source of bodylove or shame, depending on how you view your image."

A few days later, a comment appeared: "Thinking about that quote... Maybe we’d be a little healthier if we didn’t pay so much attention to ourselves, negative or positive?"

This got me thinking about our culture of self-help, self-image and self-obsession. Is the "mirror" more harm than good? And does it serve us to resist it's pull on our consiciousness?

Many months later, I posted the following response:

Alice, your comment reminds me of the old joke about the guy who tells his doctor, "It hurts when I raise my arm." And the doctor says, "Then don't raise your arm."

Ideally, it would be great if we (meaning young women, in particular) were not so preoccupied with body-image. But the fact is that we are -- because our development of a healthy self-image is severely impaired in adolescence.

During the very time of life when our sense of identity should be most flexible, most adventurous, we are bombarded by over-sexualized, unrealistic and rigid images of what a female body should look like in order to be valued and loved.

While some of us are lucky enough to have friends and/or family to sufficiently "mirror" our essential selves as our personalities boil, seethe and ultimately solidify into an internally-based, healthy sense of identity, many of us do not.

Without an authentic, internal self-image, many of us are left forever searching the world around us to tell us who we are and what we should be, and forever condemning ourselves for not living up to impossible images.

This is the psychological equivalent of missing huge chunks of skin or musculature which, on the physical level, provides our viscera containment and definition; it is organ through which to relate to the world.

Without a sense of identity, we are helpless and in pain.

And denial of pain -- as you suggest -- does not heal the injury; it merely covers the wound to leave it fester.

More Thoughts About Body Image: Wallace & Gromit-Style

2010-05-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a really cute video I came across recently which animates real-life interviews with Wallace & Gromit-style claymation.

Note, in particular, the difference between how the men view and feel about their bodies and how the women do (especially in interviews where men are not present).

This eyebrow-raising exchange between a mother and daughter starts around 3:20:

Interviewer: What do you think her best feature is?
Mother: Her ... best physical feature?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Daughter: Oh, oh no! I just cringe! I just don't know what she's going to say and it's freaking me out!
Mother: I don't even know what I'm gonna to say...
Daughter: See! Yes, my mother! This is my mother!
Mother: Her best physical feature ... is ...
Daughter: Oh!
Mother: ... the shape of her body. Her long waist...
Daughter: (snorting) That's what you alway--
Mother: ...and her big boobs.
Daughter: Mother!!
Mother: The shape of her body. You know she's ... she has ...
Daughter: Underneath the fat...
Mother: Yeah...
Daughter: Right.....

And then, of course, there is the issue of how the women view the men (as opposed to how the men view themselves), which comes up with the Sean Connery comment at the beginning ... and the "fig leaf" comment at the end ... Ouch ...

Thinking About Body Image, Form and Movement

2010-05-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

Halfway through Tuesday, I'm still riding the dizzying high of this past weekend's adventures with PURE, at the gorgeous Dragon's Egg in Connecticut. (I highly recommend this space, by the way, for workshops, performances, and all around meditative-feeling-goodness.)

We remounted PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined, and conducted a workshop in Body Love, leading participants through exercises exploring both positive and negative voices that affect body image -- and inspiring laughter, tears and lots of joyful, unselfconscious dancing.

Towards the end of the workshop, one of the New England dancers remarked that it took a few years of bellydancing -- of seeing women in all shapes, ages and sizes moving beautifully and joyfully -- for her to "get it":

Beauty is not about form, it's about feeling. It's the joy we feel as we dance, or as we watch a dancer embodying and expressing music through movement.

Archetypally, the feminine IS movement.

Think of the waxing and waning moon, never the same from day to day, but still recognized as itself in spite of (or perhaps because of) its mutability.

The feminine knows that the truest image never appears discretely in any static moment; rather the unseen whole emerges over time. If we do not have a developed feminine sensibility, we tend to focus on the moment-to-moment expression of ourselves or others, judging it against a static image of "what should be."

During those moments when we seem to match our ideal image, we may inflate with rapture; but during those moments when we fail, we can just as easily collapse in despair.

If, on the other hand, we can perceive the varying and often contradictory expressions of ourselves and others as parts of a larger whole which we have gleaned over time, then we are less likely to condemn or inflate severely, allowing us to feel whole, healthy and stable as varying images of ourselves are reflected back to us.

But true to its nature, this elusive sensibility can't be taught directly. Words can point the way, and dance classes workshops can provide the forum, but it can only be experienced and developed over days, months and years.

Happy Mother's Day!!

2010-05-09T17:26:00.000-07:00

When I was 21 I wrote a silly little poem as a Mother's Day gift.

I don't remember the name of it, or if it even had a title other than "To Mom" or "For Mom," but I recall the text very well as, even years later, I continue to be astonished at how much moms put up with.

So, with love and admiration for my my wonderful Mom, and for moms everywhere:

FOR MOM

Labor pains
And diaper stains,
Loud, endless crying fits.

Potty training,
More complaining --
It must have been the pits!

Though years of caring
Seemed quite wearing
When I was only five

You held the chore
For sixteen more --
Ma, how did you survive!?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

Everybody's Got One: How to Review the Reviewer

2010-05-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

"Never read the reviews!" was a frequent warning around my old theater company.

Whether an ego-boost or sucker-punch, a review can severely distort an artist's perception of both self and work.

If, however, a critique is honest, perceptive and thoughtful, even the most damning review can provide useful feedback.

How, then, does the tender artist separate the wise (if unpleasant) expert opinion from the clueless praise or petty ravings of the unqualified opinionista? (Note, incidentally, that indiscriminate praise can be just as damaging as criticism.)

While it goes without saying that a reviewer should be a decent writer and have some knowledge of the art form being reviewed, a good critic must have enough self-awareness to discern and account for his/her own prejudices and expectations of an art form, and the influence those factors may have on his/her subjective experience of a work.

For example, a good critic might say, "This wasn't my cup of tea, but it was very well done," or could admit, "I enjoyed this, although it was artistically mediocre", and then be able to offer objective, specific, informed explanations both for his/her reaction and artistic appraisal.

But too often even the most experienced reviewers are so consumed with an idea of what they think a work should be, or with their own unconscious predilections, that they cannot accurately perceive it in the first place.

Scottish author A.L. Kennedy observes of book reviews that they "... end up being about the reviewer's idea of the author ... or even some kind of personal issue the reviewer is working through."

Such was the case with the Columbia Spectator's recent review of PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined.

Although our program and promotional literature clearly describe the show as a "theatrical dance drama" this misbegotten scribbling was titled: "Show Promises Bellydance but Focuses More on Story than Movement".

Worse, its subtitle read, "Although 'PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined' passed itself off as a belly dance show, it was not much of a dance performance at all."

As if this weren't enough, the writer, Columbia undergraduate Diane Wang, digs the hoe of her disappointed expectations deeper in the opening line, "Students who attended last night's 'PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined' solely to experience the art of belly dancing may have been sorely disappointed."

After this initial sucker-punch, the article proceeds with an indifferent account of the show's action.

Her one debatably positive statement describes "a moving progression of women's birth to maturity...." yet it is not clear whether "moving" applies to the show's progression or its emotional effect on her.

Indeed her opinion dully returns again and again to her singular disappointment at not seeing enough dance, even though she acknowledges that when the climactic drama is resolved we celebrate by "dancing through the end of the performance" (which was about one-third of the show).

She criticizes our use of props -- claiming that their use, as well as "pantomime, music, and the background montage ... distracted the audience." Yet music is integral to any dance show, and pantomime is integral to non-verbal theater.

And while the background montage was admittedly intense, we only used one prop -- a mirror for each of the four "Self" characters depicted.

Indeed, in one scene we did not use the mirror at all, employing dance entirely to suggest its presence. Of course her review did not mention this scene at all, concluding merely that, "The show overall lacked an emphasis on dance."

Now, while we would love to express the story's complex psychological narrative entirely in dance, the fact is that the kind of bodily expression such a performance would entail eludes even highly skilled professional companies.

And PURE is not that.

As is stated in all or our literature, and reiterated at the beginning of the show by our director, Dixie Fernandez, and even acknowledged by Ms. Wang immediately after her initial criticism: "PURE is not a conventional belly dance troupe. It is a troupe made up of real women—attorneys, professionals, interpreters, and even school vice principals—who care about and support each other and express themselves through belly dancing."

And while of course we continually develop our dance skill, our chief offering is not deftly dazzling dance, but rather real-life, raw, emotional honesty expressed through dance.

The message of "PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined" -- and indeed the message of PURE itself -- is that dance is a transformative, beautiful art. And it is for everyone.

This must be the starting point for any useful critique of our work, from which its execution and effectiveness can then be judged.

But to simply say that there should have been better or more "expressive" bellydance is useless, irresponsible and ultimately hurtful -- both to the members of PURE as well as potential audience members who may now be negatively influenced by her words.

And it makes me wonder if Ms. Wang would have simply preferred to see a different show altogether.

Or, rather, it makes me wonder if her own prejudices caused her to perceive a different show from the one we presented that night.

March-April 2010 Events Archive

2010-05-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

Friday, March 19th @9pm
Co-Hosting Akim Funk Buddha's Soul Cabaret "Funk Raiser"
The House of Yes
242 Maujer Street, Williamsburg (L to Grand Street)
$10 cover
No minimum

Friday, March 26th @7pm
Dancing and Emceeing in the Diana Tarkhan Gala
Lafayette Grill & Bar
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600
$15 cover
$15 table minimum

Thursday, April 8th @ 6:30pm
Performing Stand-Up Comedy at the Broadway Comedy Club
In the Downstairs Room
318 West 53rd Street (btw 8th & 9th Aves), NYC
Reservations: 212-714-4513
(Note: this reservation line is for this show only.)
$12 cover/2-drink minimum

Sunday, April 25th @ 7pm & 9pm
Dancing in PURE's Groundbreaking Dance-Theater Work
PURE Reflections: Beauty Reimagined
Lerner Hall, Columbia University
2920 Broadway @ 114th St
$20 at the door
$15 advance

This is the Way the World Ends...

2010-04-04T20:28:00.001-07:00

... Not with a bang, but with budget cuts.

I've lived in New York City for a long time.

And -- though I've seen it through some pretty dark days -- when it comes to the subway, I'm a True Believer.

Even through the days of graffiti-riddled, screeching cars of the 70s, the stalls, break-downs and surprise reroutings of the 80s, and let's not forget the days of waiting forever on a freezing outdoor platform, with no signs or announcements, only to learn -- by asking the guy in the token booth -- that no train was coming ... through all of that I always felt New York had -- or could have -- the best subway system in the world.

For a century it has tied the diverse neighborhoods of the city together. And, let's face it, when it's working properly, the subway really is the fastest way to get around.

And over this past decade, the MTA has really stepped up.

Schedules have been available, and many trains have actually managed to stick to them. When service is diverted, there have been signs, announcements -- paper and electronic -- even shuttle buses that actually appear within five minutes!

Yes, for a brief shining moment, we have really had The Greatest Subway System in the World.

And now we have budget cuts.

What does that mean? Fewer people running the trains, managing stations, hanging signs. And those that remain? Barely competent -- if we're lucky. And surly on top of it, because the system is screwing them too.

Some signs of the MTApocalypse?

A downtown V pulls into 42nd Street in the middle of the day, pauses for the requisite 30 seconds -- and then pulls out again! Doors don't open; no one gets on or off the train.

I and a bunch of other passengers run to the conductor at the next stop. He tells us to screw ourselves.

Trains are rerouted for trackwork, but there are no signs, no announcements on the platform. If we're lucky there will be one sign posted -- but on a wall on the other side of the turnstiles -- like people stop to look at the walls when they're running for a train.

A Manhattan-bound Q at DeKalb pulls in on the local track. There are no signs on the platform, of course. I run to the motorman and ask if all trains are rerouted. "Yes," he says -- just as the conductor, who never once poked his head out of the window to check the platform, closes the doors.

The motorman laughs at me and pulls out of the station.

An uptown C pauses at each station for nearly a minute after the doors have closed, while the signal is green.

I peer into the engineer's booth -- she is reading a paperback! So I bang on her door. "Green means go!" I bark.

"Shut up!" she yells back.

A lovely New York moment to amuse the tourists.

Well, there was one bright spot in all of this.

A few weeks ago on my way to work, an expensive bracelet fell into the tracks at Times Square.

An orange vest near the Shuttle platform told me to "let the booth know." I dashed to the booth and gave the attendant a description of the item and location and ran back to the platform -- hoping against hope that someone would arrive quickly.

Minutes later, I saw two track workers walking near where the bracelet fell. I ran up to them and asked if they had been sent to help.

They had no idea what I was talking about (of course). But they were extremely kind and got the bracelet for me anyway.

And what about the person(s) dispatched to help me?

They are probably just getting there now.....

Processing...

2010-03-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

Processing is hard...

Chewing, churning and digesting all that life throws at us is icky, gooey, invasive and often painful.

First my beloved kitty deteriorated over the course of a cancerous month, and finally died in my arms. I had resolved early on that I would not let her die in a vet's office, if she had suffered too much I would have brought someone home to give her the injection, no matter the cost.

In the end, I was glad that wasn't necessary, but am still haunted by her final moments, the traumatic yelp when her heart stopped. Still I second-guess how successful I was at calming her....

But I shouldn't. It's over; let it go.

Or so I kept telling myself.

Then a few weeks later, a great soulmate friend who had been a big brother to me for nearly 25 years, Dave Nolan, a giant in the NY audio archive/underground music scene, died at 48 of a massive coronary heading downtown on the subway, en route to pick up his daughter from afterschool.

My mind, brain, psyche were chewing (read: bawling my face off) furiously on these events (leaving little room for much else) when a few days later, I learned some scumsucker snagged my Amex card and was running up charges.

And then my hard drive, loaded with pictures of Chloe and other friends and family (feline, human and otherwise) and travels from Egypt to California, went kaput.

Nervous about the sliver of disk space remaining, I'd started uninstalling programs, rebooting each time to make sure the stuff was gone (or, rather, reallocated to be "free"), and suddenly, it refused to start up past the DOS screen.

More frantic about the drive than the Amex, I decided to deal with the card first -- and was surprisingly calm on the phone, and they agreed to waive the suspect charges (they haven't yet, by the way).

Things didn't go so well with the laptop.

So with great sighs of despair, I brought the ailing disc to our crack Desktop team who, at first, told me that the entire drive may be irretrievable because of the PGP software we use. (Eek.)

But the laptop specialist assured me that, with my password and the correct PGP version -- even running off another machine -- the data could be retrievable.

Four days later, data is still pawing its way up to a network server, and every once in a while I swing by the desk where it's hooked up like a wafer-thin heart, and lean in close to hear it purr -- a concerned mom looking after her baby -- and ask if there's anything I can do. (There isn't.)

But the Desktop guys indulge me, partly because they like me and partly because I've leaped to their rescue a good share of times. I never forget a kindness, and apparently neither do they. :-) (I will have to get them something nice when this is all over .... something chocolate??? Hmmmm..)

Anyway. My new backup drive arrived this evening, my salvation of silicon.

In all the misery and madness of these past few months, grappling with loss and feeling my own mortality, and the elusiveness of anything I become attached to... well, it's given me a great big honking headache.

There are so many different ways to process experiences like these.

My Buddhists friends say "attachment leads to suffering" -- but it also leads to joy, when the attachment is fulfilled.

My pragmatist friends tell me "that's life, kiddo" (actually, that's probably what Dave would have said ...)

And my narcissistic friends tell me to get over it.

Well, they aren't really my friends.

But I'm not a "get over it" kind of person.

Things get inside of me, because I let them, because I can't seem to keep them out.

And I've come to appreciate that -- even though it can hurt more -- my life is better, my experience is richer, for that porousness.

So when an attachment is ripped away, it hurts like hell.

And the handy-dandy get-over-it aphorisms people like to toss at me (usually because they are uncomfortable with any expression of strong emotion) don't work.

Crying works.

Feeling the pain works.

There is a lot of wisdom in our psyches that our intellect doesn't comprehend at all, because the intellect can only articulate, and much of raw emotional experience can't be articulated. It can only be felt.

But when it's felt, it is doing work -- important work -- processing work.

So as long as I can function, get my daily work done, I will always prefer to step aside and let my psyche do its thing, and have faith that it will resolve on its own over time.

Feeling good is overrated.

Faith, Love & Dignity: My Beautiful Chloe's Final Days

2010-02-16T15:52:00.000-08:00

My dear cat Chloe, barely nine years old, finally lost her 18-month battle with mammary cancer on Sunday, January 31, 2010 at approximately 9am EST.

She died at home, on her own terms, and in her loving mommy's arms.

Sadly, had she been spayed before her first heat, she would have been far less susceptible to the disease. So I thought a fitting tribute would be to enter her in the Humane Society's Spay Day Photo Contest.

Please honor her memory by making even a $5 donation to this worthy cause before 10 P.M. Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, March 4, 2010.

Every dollar donated is a vote for her, and I am hoping that, with enough votes, she will attract the interest of the contest's judges and be profiled in the HSUS's magazine All Animals, as her story -- as those who have read my earlier entry about her and watched the video know -- is one worth sharing.

And as one might expect of a creature who transformed both herself and those around her during her life, her death -- heartbreaking though it has been for me -- proved to be more remarkable still, as she maintained her composure and sociable, affectionate personality right up to the end.

"She has a lot of dignity," observed Dr. G as Chloe peered up calmly from her carrier during what would be her final visit on Saturday, January 30th.

I had made it clear that I did not want to pursue the "clinical option," but I also knew that the progression of this horrible disease might be more than she or I could bear. Research warned about seizures, rupturing tumors, stinking sores, incontinence, weakness and ultimate immobility.

Unthinkable.

As it was, I felt guilty about force-feeding her Mother's Milk twice a day, squirting it into her mouth from a large syringe.

She'd twist her head at the unpleasantness, but she'd allow it anyway. Then I'd brush her silky coat, and she'd purr.

But the positive effects were undeniable: In the three weeks since she'd stopped eating solid food she had lost less than one pound ... but was still, however, a tragically thin five pounds.

My sense was that she tolerated this for me, and that if left to nature, she would have allowed herself to wither weeks before.

She had not merely lost her appetite; she developed a vigorous aversion to food. When I put a dish in front of her and begged her to eat, she'd turn away offended, ultimately walking away in disgust when I didn't get the hint.

I began to wonder if the loss of appetite is nature's way of ensuring death before cancer's full ravages take effect....

But we weren't there yet, and I was clinging to hope that with the chemo and increased nutrition her body would fight the disease and maybe, just maybe, force it into remission.

At least this was my state of mind during her mid-month bounceback, described in my Monday, January 25h entry.

Ironically, she went downhill the very next day.

To keep fluid away from her lungs and heart, we had her on Lasix, a brand diuretic. I refilled the prescription that weekend with a generic and, although the dosage was lower, I fear the strength was greater.

Or perhaps she just had too much of the stuff in her system.

Very late Tuesday night I found her in the bathtub, meowing piteously. But she didn't try to lap the droplets. Instead she jumped (yes jumped!) out -- and leaped headlong onto the toilet!!

She'd pawed her way down from the seat nearly reaching the icky pool before I pulled her out.

I closed the lid and brought her the water bowl. She pawed around it, splashing the floor. It wasn't big enough?

I filled a large square basin for her on the bathroom floor.

She leaned into it, dipped in a paw, then pulled back and looked at me again.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" I pleaded, "What can I do for you??"

She turned longingly towards the toilet bowl.

Well, that was out of the question.

I closed the toilet lid and filled a Tupperware container; still too small ... or too square... or too plastic.

I rifled through the kitchen filling various unsatisfactory dishes and bowls.

And then I saw it: A wide, white glass pie dish.

I filled it with a quarter-inch of water and put it down in the bedroom. She stretched her entire bib over it and looked... content.

She dipped her paws and the side of her face into the pool. It wasn't just thirst: it was vanity!

During feeding, the Mother's Milk would ooze onto her sensitive cheeks and paws where it dried quickly like cement, matting her beautiful fur.

I scrubbed her gently with a warm cloth, and brushed the tender spots as best I could. She rubbed her face and pawed at her cheeks, but it was impossible to remove and our efforts left a raw, balding patch on her left cheek.

I felt awful.

The next day I used my expensive olive oil makeup remover and managed to dissolve some of it -- but not enough for her.

She kept returning to the pie plate.

I found her Thursday evening laying with her head in the water.

"Chloe?!!" I gasped, fearing inadvertent kitty-suicide.

She whipped her head up quizzically, splashing my face.

OK, I deserved that.

I dried her off and put her on a heating pad, but it was too late: all the water sports had given her a dismal sniffle.

She sneezed several times and I left a desperate message for Dr. G.

He called me back at work the next day telling me he could fit us in on Saturday. "If we get her on an antibiotic quickly, maybe we can prevent the cold from turning into something worse."

Worse. Pneumonia. Death.

I thought of her face in the bowl, and then I remembered -- the bowl!!

I had forgotten to close the toilet bowl lid!

I called my parents for help. My father offered to check on her -- not a small favor as they live several miles away and don't have a car -- but they were just as concerned for their grandkitty as I was...

My dad called from my apartment. "Everything's fine; the lid is closed. She even got up to greet me when I went to pet her."

That was what amazed me the most:

As weak as she was, she continued to be as much herself as she could. She greeted me at the door when I came home; she cuddled with me in bed; she even came to the kitchen at feeding time, but still disdained all food.

I had even put a stepstool to help her climb the 2 1/2 feet up to my bed. But she refused to use it.

Even on her last nights, I could feel her jump onto the bed -- scrambling just a little with her weakened hind paws.

When guests visited -- which was frequent as they'd come to give her some love -- she joined them in the living room and purred and purred.

But during that last week, she'd lost her purr.

Each night, I'd fall asleep to the soft, raspy gurgle of her breath...

"It's OK, sweetheart," I said during that week, "You can go when you need to. I love you, and I'll miss you. But you can go."

And then I cried.

But I still hoped...

And even as I planned with Dr. G on Saturday to help her heal, I asked, "What do I do... if she .... goes ... at home on a Sunday... when your office is closed?"

He said I could wrap her in a towel, put the towel in a sealed plastic bag and she'd be OK until Monday.

Yeah. She'd be OK.

Sunday morning I woke up extra early. This was the weekend of the Bellydance Evolution workshops and show.

I'd bought a pass to all the workshops, and though I'd missed one the day before, I was determined to take the rest on Sunday.

But feeding was a long process. I was increasing the amount, so I had to feed her in three or four sessions with at least 10 minutes in between. Plus it took nearly a half-hour to mix the stuff and clean the syringe, bowls, towels, mixers, etc....

But we were going to do this, no matter how much time or effort it took. She could get better....

When I got up around 8:30am, she was under a chair in the living room, but came to the kitchen for feeding.

I sat with her at my breast and gave her the first dose. She whipped her head and writhed a bit, but finally slurped it down.

I fed Simon and Julietta, then returned to Chloe around 9am.

When I picked her up, she let out a more urgent meow which, in retrospect, might have meant something like, "Will you quit feeding me you crazy woman -- I'm trying to die over here!!"

"Come on, sweetheart," I urged, "We can do this." I nestled her in the towel and gave her the next dose, and then another and another....

Suddenly she let out a horrifying yeowl. Her body spasmed, clenched and limp at the same time.

"Oh god! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I laid her on a chair, kneeling in front, desperately holding her fragile body. Her fur stuck out, her eyes flattened into sightless brassy discs.

"Please come back!" I cried, shaking her gently. I eased her mouth open and rubbed her chest.

Her face and eyes softened. She looked at me with a shuddering breath.

I held her close and lay back with her on my chest, looking into her calm, dark and still beautiful eyes.

"It's OK, Chloe," I sobbed, running my fingers along her smooth coat, "I love you. I love you..."

She breathed a few more times and let go.

And I wept. A lot.

Finally I carried her into the bedroom and laid her out on a towel. I prayed, cried, meditated, whatever I needed ... for maybe a half-hour give or take... until I felt something resolve in myself.

Strangely, the other cats completely removed themselves during the ordeal... I didn't see them again for nearly an hour.

I thought maybe they were frightened by the initial histrionics, but they'd seen me lose it before. And things were quiet for a while after....

After some soul-searching, I decided to go to the dance workshops anyway.

I'd be among friends, doing what I love ... and what better way to grieve a death than to celebrate life?

When I packed my dance bag I went back to Chloe's body and, with a final loving pet of her soft black fur, said goodbye and gently wrapped the towel around her.

This post and others like it is from http://tandavadance.blogspot.com ... please visit that link to make comments.

January 2010 Events Archive

2010-02-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

Friday, January 22nd, 5pm-11pm

Dancing in the Hope For Haiti Benefit at
Lafayette Grill & Bar
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600
$10 donation
$20 table minimum

Wednesday, January 27th, 7pm-8:30pm
Emceeing and Dancing in
Bellyqueen's Djam under Je'Bon
Celebrating the Bellydance Evolution Contenstants
Je'Bon Restaurant
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
(N/R/W to 8th St, 6 to Astor Pl.)
$15 Admission

Note: I did not have any public events during February 2010.

Kitty Update and Other Stuff

2010-01-25T15:53:00.000-08:00

So, I had kind of made this New Year's resolution to blog more frequently ... and you see how that's turned out.

See... part of me likes to make this an official-looking newslettery kind of blog.

And the other part of me wants to be able to blog for blog's sake.

So consider this a blog-for-blog's-sake kind of entry. Perhaps I'll create a BFBS tag... we'll see.

Now. About Chloe.

This month has been rough.

I was despondent for nearly two weeks after she was diagnosed at the end of December; indeed during the first week of January, fluid in her chest caused severe labored breathing and I every day I thought I'd come home to an expired kitty... :-(

On Friday, January 8th, I spoke to our vet, the amazing Dr. Giangola, a legend of New York animal rescue.

Although he did not advise another surgery, he suggested that it might be possible to "make her more comfortable" if indeed she did not have long.

I was afraid she might not be able to tolerate the trip to the Upper East Side (his office is on First Ave & 87th Street, and I live in Brooklyn), but he said that if I felt she could make it, I could take her in before 1pm Saturday without an appointment.

Some friends came to visit on Friday evening and gave her so much love and attention that she became more alert and active than she'd been in days.

So the next morning, I took her in.

Dr. G aspirated the fluid and gave her a diuretic.

She was so much better that she crawled out of the carrier on the cab ride home and enjoyed a thrilling ride down the FDR.

She stopped eating a few days later, but Phil and Joseph of the excellent holistic pet food store Whiskers recommended several liquid nutritional supplements (Mother's Milk, Seacure and a few others) which are keeping her strength up.

She's pretty thin now, but not weak and is still able to jump onto her favorite chairs and purr.

Chloe is also LOVING the attention of guests (Simon and Julietta are enjoying it too). So if you want to visit, please let me know. Weekends are best....

Now. Onto other stuff.

Well, there hasn't been a whole lot of other stuff ...

It's not that the extra care for Chloe takes so much time per se, but the thought she would die so quickly, and watching the way she suffered during that first week took an awful toll on me, emotionally and psychologically.

So I haven't had much energy to perform or even get out much.

But I did audition for and was accepted to two new bellydance troupes: Crystal's Unveiled Follies and Bellyqueen's Rising Sirens.

I haven't had much experience with troupes beyond PURE, so this will be a good next step for me.

And speaking of troupes....

So I did not get accepted into the Bellydance Evolution show which, at first, was a great disappointment.

But given the developments and traumas of the past month, it is definitely a blessing in disguise; I don't think I would have had the emotional strength to get up to speed on the eight (yes eight!) choreographies those ladies have to learn in only a few days.

And I know enough of my own limitations to think Jillina chose her dancers well.

Check them out on Saturday night!

And if you can't make it on Saturday, the out-of-town winners (and a few of us local contestants) will be jamming at Bellyqueen's Djam Under Je'Bon, which I will emcee! Yippee!

Not a bad way to end a very rough month.....

This post and others like it is from http://tandavadance.blogspot.com ... please visit that link to make comments. Thank you!

A Blue New Year: Coping with Kitty Cancer

2010-01-04T15:37:00.000-08:00

If, on the night of a cerulean moon, we close our eyes and sit very still, take in great draughts of air, sigh deeply and open our hearts, we will be able to hear Lady Luna sing the blues. Broken-hearted, She watches down on our out-of-whack world, and She weeps.

And Her pain is our pain.

I read those words in Mama Donna's Huffington Post blog only hours after that bluest of Blue Moons -- the New Year's Eve blue moon, which occurs only once every 19 years -- and shed a whole lot of tears.

Very shortly before, I learned that my dear cat Chloe may be fatally ill.

The breast cancer (yes, cats can get breast cancer!) which we had treated with radical surgery the year before...

...had returned and would likely be fatal.

OK. Yeah. She's just a cat.

But I can't help bristling at the cavalier words of those who think indifferently of animal lives, who see furry companions as little more than animated furniture -- delightful, but ultimately expendable, replaceable.

"C'est la vie," said a well-meaning friend with a shuddering hug.

And that's true -- I believe strongly in quality of life, and have respect for a dignified, comfortable death.

But I am still very sad.

I love all of my three cats, and would be devastated to lose any of them.

But Chloe, who is the eldest and the first I adopted, shares a connection with me that has transformed both of us.

Perhaps I sensed this in the beginning when I had offered to foster a pregnant cat for my friend Kathryn, who runs what is now the Anjellicle Cats Rescue at Spoiled Brats.

She told me she had already found a foster for prego-puss, but that there was another cat that she "wanted to get out of the cage."

I realized what that meant when I found myself drawn to a small spooky black cat in the center cage. As I put my hand to the mesh, a razor-sharp claw raked through a fingertip.

"Wow!" said Kathryn, shuttling the frantic fuzzball into a carrier, "I see you've already met!"

The poor creature had been found a few weeks before around Fordham University and was wild to the point of being unadoptable.

But Kathryn had faith in me .... more than I had in myself.

I created a short video describing the events that followed... how, basically, love and steadfast kindness reached Chloe's terrified, traumatized kitty heart, here:

But what I did not describe is how this occurred.

As I say in the video, she was indeed "two little eyes in the back of the closet that occasionally came out to eat, poop and scratch me."

Usually, socialized domestic cats scratch only as a warning, claws not fully extended; but when Chloe scratched -- she meant it.

And she would be unpredictable: Even as she was warming up to human contact, if you touched her the wrong way, came too close or stayed too long, she would let you have it in full feline fury.

She began to like sleeping near my pillow; I wore a face mask because I was afraid she'd lash out an eye in the night. (She has never scratched me during the night, by the way.)

I'd come to work with lacerated, battle-torn hands and arms. I bought New Skin in bulk.

"A cat did that to you??" gaped an astonished co-worker after the spaying episode (described in the video). "And you still have this cat???"

Yes. Though I came close to giving up.

But something about her inspired me to believe she was reachable, and once reached, she would be remarkable.

And that is how she transformed me.

Now.

You can't punish a cat in the knee-jerk ways people punish, say, children.

You can't yell, hit back or be aggressive in any way.

This just terrifies the animal more, and makes it more likely they will injure you when you least expect it.

But somehow I had to let her know that she couldn't do this anymore ... that, most importantly, she didn't have to.

So I did this:

At the moment she'd swat me, I'd grab her -- firmly but gently, taking the razor blows as she dealt them -- until I could sit and hold her between my knees, facing me and tilted back in the "surrender position."

I'd hold her paws folded into her chest and firmly, but calmly, tell her to look at me, directing her head forward with my thumbs.

And I'd say things like: "That hurts mommy when you do that. Your mommy loves you and will never hurt you or let anyone hurt you."

Then I'd feel her body relax just a little, and I'd let her go, pet her and give her some treats.

All was forgiven. Until the next time.

And within a month or two, there were no more "next times."

She stopped scratching altogether.

She became warm, affectionate, trusting and trustworthy. I brought her two siblings (Simon the big-eyed tabby and Julietta the grey-and-white flirt), whom she guards, grooms and sometimes bullies playfully.

She nuzzles my face, purring and affectionate, and sleeps on my head nearly every night -- no face mask necessary.

She is warm and loving to family and guests, but loyally cuddles with her mom, no matter what cushy pal is in the fold-out bed.

She is a unique creature, and my dear, beloved, beautiful friend.

And now I may be losing her.

November-December 2009 Events Archive

2010-01-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 1st, 7-8:15pm
Teaching Beginning Bellydance at Shambhala Yoga & Dance Center
348 Saint Marks Ave
Brooklyn, NY
(718) 622-9956

Tuesday, November 3rd, 7-9pm
Dancing in Artistic New Directions' Smart & Sassy Benefit
The Triad Theater
158 West 72nd Street, NYC
212-362-2590
Tickets $40-$80 (includes 2 drinks)

Friday, November 13th, 10pm-2am
Dancing at Lafayette Grill & Bar
(My set will be around 12:30am)
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600

Tuesday, November 24th, 7:15-8:30pm
Teaching Beginning Bellydance at
Move With Grace Dance Studio
469 Myrtle Avenue( btwn Washington & Hall )
Brooklyn NY 11205
718 230 0013 / 917 627 2307
$15 drop-in

Sunday, November 29th, 7pm-8:30pm
Emceeing
Bellyqueen's Works-In-Progress Edition 1.0 Showcase
Je'Bon Restaurant
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
(N/R/W to 8th St, 6 to Astor Pl.)
$15 Admission

Sunday, December 6th, 3pm-5pm
Acting in Paula J. Riley's
Scratch-to-Script Showcase
The Barrow Group
312 West 36th Street (btw 8th & 9th Aves), 6th Floor
Free Admission
Please call for Reservations: 212-689-4362

Sunday, December 6th, 7pm-10pm
Dancing in Ranya's Holiday Gala
Lafayette Grill & Bar.
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600 call for table reservations!
$15 advance (buy from me or Ranya)/ $20 at the door
(Buy advance tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/90992
$20 table minimum

Thursday, December 10th @ 6pm
Performing Stand-Up Comedy at the Broadway Comedy Club
In the Downstairs Room
318 West 53rd Street (btw 8th & 9th Aves), NYC
Reservations: 212-714-4513
(Note: this reservation line is for this show only.)
$12 cover/2-drink minimum

Thursday, December 10th, 7:30pm-11:30pm
Dancing in
Dalia Carella's Holiday Bellydance Party
Je'Bon Restaurant
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
(N/R/W to 8th St, 6 to Astor Pl.)
$15 Admission