Entry tags:
Adventures in New England
WOW, what a weekend. Saw lots of people briefly, spent large stretches of the weekend prone with laughter. In summary:
Woke up at 3am on Friday, slept for most of flight to Boston. Discovered lack of food at Logan Airport, hopped over to South Station for foodstuffs. Got in touch with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yarngeek, who met me at South Station after she left work for the week. Hung out until ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eccentric_hat arrived from her plane, 1.5 hours later. Was enthusiastic about Isherwood. Read lots of Yiddish Policeman's Union while I waited.
With Barbara and Marjorie, went to Cambridge, metmilitantgeek and Joyce-who-isn't-technically-an-FP-anymore-is-she for dinner. Bid a fond adieu to Barbara and Joyce and went to see Cabaret at ART.
I really liked the production, although (ironically) I'm not really all that sold on Amanda Palmer as the emcee. I liked Alan Cumming a whole lot more. But I loved the very gray fourth wall that the cabaret performing space afforded. With the cabaret boys and girls circulating among the audience it felt very much like being in the Kit-Kat Klub environment, even while there was very definitely a wall--the cast may have been playing prostitutes, but they ::weren't:: prostitutes, so the audience couldn't respond. (For instance: at one point the hottest of the cabaret girls sidled up next to me, put her bowler on my head, sung the soprano chorus line to the song onstage, collected her hat, and strolled off again.)
Far and away the one who stole the show was Thomas Derrah in Nathan Lane-esque drag as Fraulein Schneider. He's an incredible tenor belter, and I liked him best of Schneiders I've seen. He played the role with a lot of tenderness and pathos, and since the Schneider/Schultz romance is the thing that generally affects me the most I was particularly attuned to it. In general there was some interesting gender stuff at play, most of it of the in-your-face, fuck-you variety, which was a lot of fun. I loved "Two Ladies" with Palmer as the emcee and two men in drag as her ladies. All of the cabaret cast drag was intentionally sloppy and line-blurring--Palmer was in an open jacket over ace bandages and the "two ladies," for instance, were in wigs, makeup, petticoats, and enormous silver codpieces.
The Nazi element, if anything, was even more intense than it normally is, and I'm still uncomfortable thinking about it (in, I think, a good way). At the end of "If You Could See Her" the emcee pulled off the mask, revealing that the woman playing the Jew had a black eye. She stood there, dejected, while Palmer capered around her in Nazi-ish garb. Not one person in the audience applauded. (The audience was equally unsure what to do with themselves at the end of the party scene, but they eventually applauded.) The last shot of the play was a really visceral reenactment of the gas chambers, which turned my stomach. (But maybe it wasn't as visceral as I thought, because neither Dani nor Marjorie was entirely sure what was going on.) Isherwood, more than anyone else I've read, makes the rise of the Nazi party in Germany conceivable. He charts the change from a bunch of petty nationalists to an internationally destructive force in a way that is terrifying because of exactly how petty and easy to ignore it is, and I felt like this production really drove that home.
Side note: the actor who played Ernst was breathtakingly hot, even more so after he revealed himself as a Nazi. Wow. I was consoled by the fact that he is apparently a professional model. Awkward. My id: let me show you it. Oh man, but he kissed Cliff immediately before he had his thugs beat him up. Id, please go home.
We had a long distance to travel before the next morning, so we took off immediately from Boston, spent longer than reasonable trying to escape the labyrinth that is the Boston street system, and finally made our way to Concord, NH, for the evening. The late-night hotel clerk was one of those very New England middle-aged man, complete with very strong New Hampshire accent and skeptical attitude. We woke up 5 hours later and set out for Burlington. The main thing that New Hampshire affords, in addition to its beautiful vistas full of peep-worthy leaves, is very many jokes about libertarianism and the tragic demise of the Old Man in the Mountain. For instance: "Little known fact, 'live free' is New Hampshire for 'own a sawed-off shotgun.' So the motto is really 'own a sawed-off shotgun or die.'" We amused ourselves thusly until we crossed the Connecticut River (HEARTS) into the Green Mountain State.
We got to the Burlington area around 9:30 and stopped for breakfast before the wedding.manifesto_tea is married, guys! Wedding-type details: she wore a home-made dress and her SPOUSE omg Jaska wore a tuxedo shirt and a kilt that Katie had made. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, and then we went to the reception, which was at a farmhouse that belonged to a family friend. The reception was really lovely. We sat at a table with some of Jaska's friends and learned that J is in fact a very good egg. The dancing was contra, the sun was shining, the new spouses were charming and lovely. We mostly hung out in the shade with some of J's friends and watched the dancers, rather than participating. At the very end, before they took off for their honeymoon, K and J signed their marriage certificate.
For the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday we hung out in Burlington. We saw the Lake Champlain waterfront, and very many excitingly decorated statues of cows. We did not see Champ. Dani's dad arrived Saturday night and hung out with us on Sunday--it was really good to see him. Finally, themilitantgeek family left Marjorie and I at the airport while they went on with their planned Maine adventures. On the way home I started reading Wolf Hall, which is just as good as everyone says it is.
And now I am, sad to say, back in the real world. Not recommended. In all, I'm glad I was able to cram so much in to the weekend, but I'm left feeling like I really need to find another time for a dedicated visit with K and J.
Woke up at 3am on Friday, slept for most of flight to Boston. Discovered lack of food at Logan Airport, hopped over to South Station for foodstuffs. Got in touch with
yarngeek, who met me at South Station after she left work for the week. Hung out until eccentric_hat arrived from her plane, 1.5 hours later. Was enthusiastic about Isherwood. Read lots of Yiddish Policeman's Union while I waited.With Barbara and Marjorie, went to Cambridge, met
militantgeek and Joyce-who-isn't-technically-an-FP-anymore-is-she for dinner. Bid a fond adieu to Barbara and Joyce and went to see Cabaret at ART.I really liked the production, although (ironically) I'm not really all that sold on Amanda Palmer as the emcee. I liked Alan Cumming a whole lot more. But I loved the very gray fourth wall that the cabaret performing space afforded. With the cabaret boys and girls circulating among the audience it felt very much like being in the Kit-Kat Klub environment, even while there was very definitely a wall--the cast may have been playing prostitutes, but they ::weren't:: prostitutes, so the audience couldn't respond. (For instance: at one point the hottest of the cabaret girls sidled up next to me, put her bowler on my head, sung the soprano chorus line to the song onstage, collected her hat, and strolled off again.)
Far and away the one who stole the show was Thomas Derrah in Nathan Lane-esque drag as Fraulein Schneider. He's an incredible tenor belter, and I liked him best of Schneiders I've seen. He played the role with a lot of tenderness and pathos, and since the Schneider/Schultz romance is the thing that generally affects me the most I was particularly attuned to it. In general there was some interesting gender stuff at play, most of it of the in-your-face, fuck-you variety, which was a lot of fun. I loved "Two Ladies" with Palmer as the emcee and two men in drag as her ladies. All of the cabaret cast drag was intentionally sloppy and line-blurring--Palmer was in an open jacket over ace bandages and the "two ladies," for instance, were in wigs, makeup, petticoats, and enormous silver codpieces.
The Nazi element, if anything, was even more intense than it normally is, and I'm still uncomfortable thinking about it (in, I think, a good way). At the end of "If You Could See Her" the emcee pulled off the mask, revealing that the woman playing the Jew had a black eye. She stood there, dejected, while Palmer capered around her in Nazi-ish garb. Not one person in the audience applauded. (The audience was equally unsure what to do with themselves at the end of the party scene, but they eventually applauded.) The last shot of the play was a really visceral reenactment of the gas chambers, which turned my stomach. (But maybe it wasn't as visceral as I thought, because neither Dani nor Marjorie was entirely sure what was going on.) Isherwood, more than anyone else I've read, makes the rise of the Nazi party in Germany conceivable. He charts the change from a bunch of petty nationalists to an internationally destructive force in a way that is terrifying because of exactly how petty and easy to ignore it is, and I felt like this production really drove that home.
Side note: the actor who played Ernst was breathtakingly hot, even more so after he revealed himself as a Nazi. Wow. I was consoled by the fact that he is apparently a professional model. Awkward. My id: let me show you it. Oh man, but he kissed Cliff immediately before he had his thugs beat him up. Id, please go home.
We had a long distance to travel before the next morning, so we took off immediately from Boston, spent longer than reasonable trying to escape the labyrinth that is the Boston street system, and finally made our way to Concord, NH, for the evening. The late-night hotel clerk was one of those very New England middle-aged man, complete with very strong New Hampshire accent and skeptical attitude. We woke up 5 hours later and set out for Burlington. The main thing that New Hampshire affords, in addition to its beautiful vistas full of peep-worthy leaves, is very many jokes about libertarianism and the tragic demise of the Old Man in the Mountain. For instance: "Little known fact, 'live free' is New Hampshire for 'own a sawed-off shotgun.' So the motto is really 'own a sawed-off shotgun or die.'" We amused ourselves thusly until we crossed the Connecticut River (HEARTS) into the Green Mountain State.
We got to the Burlington area around 9:30 and stopped for breakfast before the wedding.
manifesto_tea is married, guys! Wedding-type details: she wore a home-made dress and her SPOUSE omg Jaska wore a tuxedo shirt and a kilt that Katie had made. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, and then we went to the reception, which was at a farmhouse that belonged to a family friend. The reception was really lovely. We sat at a table with some of Jaska's friends and learned that J is in fact a very good egg. The dancing was contra, the sun was shining, the new spouses were charming and lovely. We mostly hung out in the shade with some of J's friends and watched the dancers, rather than participating. At the very end, before they took off for their honeymoon, K and J signed their marriage certificate.For the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday we hung out in Burlington. We saw the Lake Champlain waterfront, and very many excitingly decorated statues of cows. We did not see Champ. Dani's dad arrived Saturday night and hung out with us on Sunday--it was really good to see him. Finally, the
militantgeek family left Marjorie and I at the airport while they went on with their planned Maine adventures. On the way home I started reading Wolf Hall, which is just as good as everyone says it is.And now I am, sad to say, back in the real world. Not recommended. In all, I'm glad I was able to cram so much in to the weekend, but I'm left feeling like I really need to find another time for a dedicated visit with K and J.
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I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on YPU. Er, especially because I absolutely loathed it.
Alas for missing Champ!
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It's weird because it is completely unrelated to my experience as a Jew, but there are parts of it that just ring incredibly true for me. The cadence of the dialog feels like home, somehow (although it feels like extended family, not like my parents and siblings).
More than anything, I picked it up again this time because I've been fixating on Israel-As-Biblical-Jewish-Homeland vs. the political reality of Israel-As-Jewish-State. I find myself oddly jealous of the characters in YPU, no matter how much their lives suck and how much better our 20th century was than theirs, for the fact that they still have a pure Eretz Yisroel that they can yearn for. Which is... really odd, now that I think about it. And really ironic given the way the novel ends.
no subject
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I agree, for the most part the desolation in Chabon's books is pretty overwhelming--I hated Wonder Boys for exactly that reason (Gentlemen of the Road is much better on this front). I think a lot of that has to do with his lingering attachment to the "literary" genre. I think his books get increasingly less desolate as he's moved towards embracing other genres. But yeah, every time I get burned out on Chabon it's because nothing ever ends happily for anyone.
I always come back, though, because I love following the road that gets his characters where they go. I come from depressive, snarky Jews, so while I agree that that particular branch of Eastern European Jewry is over-represented, it's one that feels... familiar, I guess.