Man vs. Parking Space

So while I'm at work soothing the jangled nerves of this great country's future tempers/part-time indie filmmakers (which is pretty rich coming from me, considering the path my career took during my first two years in New York City), I have to wonder: what's going down in Cobble Hill? What happens in my neighborhood while I'm sitting high up in my sixth floor office, gazing out the window and wondering if the guy in the window across the way is wearing a shirt or if his bare chest is really that alarming shade of maroon, and should I call someone for help in case it's the latter, or would that just result in awkward inquiries and possible legal action?

On my walk to the subway this morning, I passed a car trying to pull away from the curb, but because there's currently more snow on the ground than on the bathroom floor of Studio 54 on New Years Eve, it was going nowhere fast. The first couple guns of the engine, I figured the driver would give up and go back home for a smoke and another cup of coffee. Even as someone who's never driven anywhere other than the Big Island, I knew that car wasn't getting out of that snowdrift. But the dude just kept gunning that engine, even though steam was coming up from where the wheels were melting the snow and the street stank of exhaust. I actually turned around and walked backwards on an icy sidewalk to see how far this was all going to go. Dude was still standing on that gas pedal before I had to turn around and go about my day.

Ten hours later, I'm walking the same route back home from the subway, and damned if Dude still isn't trying to get the car out of that same parking space. The car hasn't moved an inch as far as I could tell. And now he's got about five or six friends gathered around him giving advice. They've wedged a bunch of flattened cardboard boxes under the wheels to try and get some traction. These are my neighbors, toiling away under the streetlamps, undaunted by the cold, probably trying to get the project done before we get another three to six inches dumped on us tomorrow.

Here's the thing: I know that Dude wasn't trying to get out of that parking space the whole time I was at work. That's just silly; he had to have taken breaks, gotten some lunch, maybe called a cousin with a garage in Sunnyside to get advice, otherwise he'd have run out of gas and burnt the motor out. But in the movie of my life, from my limited little Big Island Rachel perspective, that man devoted his entire day to getting that car away from that curb, slowly adding and losing friends and comrades on his mad quest for glory, trying hot water and sand and sawdust and salt and all manner of schemes to lose his car from winter's vile grip--to no avail. Many were the times he sank down to his knees on the sidewalk and cursed the cruel fate that doomed him to this exercise in futility. Perhaps he reflected with keen awareness the hubris that led him to own a car in New York City. Perhaps, even now, at this late hour, he struggles on, dauntless (what is daunt, by the way, does anyone know?), unswayed by the dark and the cold and the exhaust fumes. A lonely warrior, a brave soldier of Cobble Hill.

He stands as a beacon of hope and perseverance to us all.

And Tartuffe?

Americans don't really do farce. We do great satire, but I think we take ourselves a little too seriously when it comes to comedy. At the end of the day, even the stupidest sitcom has one or two moments where the characters turn into real people, have a heart-to-heart, and remind the audience that for all their crazy schemes and outrageous situations, they're just like us: flawed, but fundamentally human.

Farce, on the other hand, is basically a live-action cartoon, and relies on unrealistic, somewhat one-dimensional characters who are just too stupid or greedy or awkward to generate sympathy. Farce lacks self-awareness and sentimentality. "Seinfeld" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" are the only two American TV shows that I can think of off-hand that could be called farces, because the characters don't invite empathy or even feint toward personal growth and development. They aren't humans, they're caricatures.

I happen to love farce. I feel that outside of a really good sitcom like "Roseanne" or "Community," sentimentality in comedy is unearned and unwelcome. It always feels like it was thrown in at the last minute because logic dictates that 1) comedy makes you laugh, so 2) comedy makes you happy, so 3) comedies must therefore have happy endings for the characters (hence the old writer's expression, comedies end in weddings, tragedies end in funerals). It's sound logic if you're a good person, but I'm actually kind of a bastard and I like to laugh at the stupidity and suffering of those hapless on-screen idiots.

One of my favorite purveyors of farce--besides most of the comedy lineup of the BBC--is Moliere (real name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622 - 1673), a Frenchman who Wikipedia calls "one of greatest masters of comedy in Western literature," so you know it must be true. Last night, a friend took me to see an off-off Broadway production of Moliere's "Tartuffe," presented by the Workshop Theater Company, and a grand time was had by all.

"Tartuffe" is about a con artist who pretends to be a devote religious man in order to worm his way into the household of an aristocratic gentleman. The gentleman thinks the sun rises and sets out of Tartuffe's ass, but everyone else in the house knows the man is a hypocrite and a fraud. They just can't convince the master of the house to see the truth, and Tartuffe's influence is wrecking everyone's life. Will the gentleman force his daughter to marry Tartuffe? Will Tartuffe succeed in seducing the gentleman's comely wife? Will that sassy servant ever shut up? Are they really going to do this whole thing in rhyme?

The cool thing about a Moliere production is that even the English translations of his works can be set to rhyme. If you have actors that can commit themselves to what basically amounts to bawdy Dr. Seuss dialogue, the whole thing really pops. In college, I saw a production of Moliere's "The Miser" that wasn't in rhyme, and it was good. But the surreality that's the bedrock of a good farce gets a chance to shine when the characters speak in rhyme. See what I did there?

And here's a tip for the out-of-towners. Off-off Broadway shows are surprisingly affordable, less than $20 a seat, with professional actors and everything. I highly recommend going to an off-off Broadway show rather than a Broadway show if you're coming to visit me. The terms "Broadway," "off-Broadway," and "off-off Broadway" just refer to the number of seats in the theater, not to the location of the theater itself. You can see an off-off Broadway play without leaving the safe and shiny tourist ghetto.

New Years Redesign

I rather like the Buddha and Lady Liberty together like that. Not a lot of people realize how many Buddhists live in Hawaii. Mum and I were once in Hilo, on the east side of our island, for a Christmas concert with the children's chorus (we were music geeks together for a brief time, Mum and I, she in the adult and me in the kiddy chorus). We decided to drive around the neighborhood after the show and look at Christmas lights, but we didn't see a single display. Took us twenty minutes to remember that Hilo is mostly Japanese people, who are mostly Buddhist, an equation that results in a net total of zero Christmas displays. Lovely gardens, though. Rains quite a lot on the east side.

This Christmas I was back on the Big Island for holiday, visiting with Mum and Sister. I managed two days of work in the Sister's office--my customer service stories pale in comparison to hers, she works with addicts and youth offenders--one trip to the beach, one moonlit walk around the cow pasture and coffee orchards with the cat at four in the morning, one day of ironing quilt material, and three days of yardwork in my nightgown with no underwear on.

All in all, a successful vacation. Good to be back, everyone. Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!

Remembering the Epidemic: AIDS in the Village

This was a bit misleading. I came to this talk at the LGBT Center in Chelsea on Tuesday night with a wad of tissues in my pocket, totally expecting to bawl like a lost kitten over tales of death and loss in the early days of the AIDS epidemic in New York's gay community. Instead, three doctors--one of whom treated the very first AIDS sufferer in the city--gave a college-worthy talk on the various aspects of HIV epidemiology (hope I spelled that right). Demographics, statistics, public perception, even a progression of the medical community's understanding of the disease. Did you know, for instance, that HIV was initially called GRID (Gay Related Immuno-Deficiency)? Or that the research for cures and treatments was held up for months because of a bragging-rights struggle between the French and American doctors who each claimed to have discovered the virus?

Other factoids: the fastest-growing demographic for new HIV cases is under 25s and over 55s. Under 25s, not hard to figure out, they think they're young and invincible and perceive HIV not as a death sentence but a chronic, manageable condition. Over 55s, bit more of a head-scratcher, but the doctors think it has something to do with the availability of Viagra--that's not a joke, though it sounds like one--and possibly with the fact that many gay men want to have a little fun while they still look good and "can still get vertical," a quote that's a lot funnier than it should be, in my mind. But the really tragic bit about the over 55s is that a lot of those new cases are straight women. One doctor said that he took a survey among over 55s and found that while 30% of the men had been tested for HIV, none of the women had ever been tested. That statistic made me took a look around the room and realize that of the 40 people attending the talk, maybe 8 or 10 of us were female (and all of us were white). This highlighted--highlit?--for me ongoing issues about outreach and awareness.

Now seems the appropriate time to remind everyone to get tested regularly for HIV, always practice safe sex, and get lots of practice.

Since I'm not doing the Village Voice street teamstering anymore, my social life has shrunk considerably, but I like to think that I'm making up for that by going to events that actually interest me. The classic quality for quantity switch, if you will. This talk may not have been as exciting for my readers as the Electric Zoo fiasco, but I felt like a more well-rounded human being for having attended it. And really, isn't my smug sense of self-satisfaction what this is all about?

We're not paying for this!

I don't often write about work anymore, because I'm gainfully employed now and have to be careful about posting anything that might get me bundled into the back of a black van while I'm walking home from the bodega with my beer and ice cream, the camera frame lingering on the broken glass and melting ice cream in the gutter before the fade to black and the song "Last Dance for Mary Jane" plays over the credits.

But this is just silly and innocent enough to slip under the confidentiality radar. My department is moving to a new building on campus, so naturally we want everyone to know that we aren't going to be where we've been for the last 15 years. Tall Boss came up with the idea of having students make chalk drawings on the brick walkways around campus with big colorful arrows and footprints leading the way to our new digs--we are an art school, after all, so this would engage the students, and everyone pays attention to where they step--but that plan was too logical and the school wouldn't let us do it. Tall Boss then made a couple of funny signs, old trucks comically overloaded with households goods and the like, announcing the move. They were witty and informative, and while no one really reads the signs posted around campus, we can say that we tried.

Off the signs went for approval and printing, and here's where I stepped in. All of the Bosses are at a conference this week, so Tall Boss left me the task of making sure the posters were printed and put up around campus. Beginning at 9AM, I called the PR office every half hour to check on our order. Did they receive the signs? Did they have changes to make? Did they send me the changes for approval? No, don't send them to Tall Boss, he's at a conference, just send them to me. I have instructions to just approve whatever changes you've made, we need to get them up today before it starts to rain. Okay, I approved them--oh, you're at lunch, I'll call back. Did you receive my approval? Did you send them to the printer? Sorry to bother you, it's me again and the rain started, did you send them to the printer yet?

There's another person in my office who used to work for a newspaper, and this entire process delighted him to no end. "Once a journalist, always a journalist," he said. "Hound 'em 'til they answer."

The posters were finally ready at 4PM, so I went to pick them up. We'd ordered 50; they only gave us 25. Whatever, we needed to get them up so people know that we're moving. Wow, they changed our design. I mean they REALLY changed our design. The signs now reads, huge and highlighted in yellow"The office will be CLOSED," and then smaller "on December 3rd and 6th," and then underneath a campus map, in tiny 14-size font at the very bottom of the sign, "We're moving to a new location."

When I went to Student Activities office to get the posters stamped with the school seal, the student worker took one look at the sign and said in horror, "The office is CLOSING?!"

"Yes," I said. "Forever and ever. Budget cutbacks. Screw it, you're all on your own."

Back at the office, everyone agreed that the signs were absolute shite. They put the most important message at the bottom, in tiny letters, and put the least important information at the top and then highlighted it. Furthermore, since we're only going to be closed for two days, after those two days pass, no one will look at the signs anymore, thus further negating the true purpose of said signs, which is letting people know that we've moved.

Whatever. Tall Boss said to just approve them and get them up, so my coworker and I trooped off into the rain to put the posters up on every bulletin board on campus.

That was yesterday evening. Today, for those who don't know, is World AIDS Day, and guess how this school commemorates the occasion?

By putting black canvas over every bulletin board on campus.

To reiterate: we're not paying for those signs.

Edward Hopper exhibition at the Whitney

My work ID card gets me in free to some of the museums around town, so last Friday the BF and I went to the Whitney Museum to see their special Edward Hopper exhibit. Edward Hopper did a lot of his painting at the Whitney when it was an institute, before it was a proper museum, so they're well-suited to put on an extensive show. Conclusion: the Whitney is holding out on us.

The Whitney is not a very large museum. It's smaller than the Guggenheim, loads smaller than the Met, and could even be smaller than the Frick now that I think about it. That's actually why I like the Whitney. It's the perfect size for my chicken-like attention span. The Hopper exhibit was about six rooms large and by the time we reached the last room, I was all arted-up and ready to go brag to passerby about my sophistimicated sensibilities. But the BF observed that the Whitney only put out about an eighth of the Hopper paintings that they actually had in their collection. See? They're holding out on us, man! Somewhere in this city, art junkies are shaking and sweating for themes of sexual isolation and the alienating aspects of American life. Soon they'll be looting the postcard stands in Central Park for Charles Sheeler photographs and digitally retouched pictures of Times Square; the despair created by the juxtaposition between the two is almost as good as the pure Paris-era Hopper.

If you understood that, you are. Such. A. Nerd. Congratulations. Have a clown smoking a cigarette.

No More Street Team?

There's a new post over on Big Island Rachel's Books. I review Monique Truong's "Bitter in the Mouth" and break down the meaning and correct usage of a plot twist.

I haven't been having as many adventures as I usually do these past couple of weeks. My October adventures really wiped me out, and since I started the new job, I haven't gotten any assignments from the Village Voice, which is how I usually go on adventures. I don't know if the Voice has fired me or if they just don't have the funds to send out the Street Team, but I haven't heard from them in over a month, and I'm strangely okay with that. I had a good time with the Voice the last two years and saw parts of the city I'd never think of going on my own. I got to see mermaids, jazz, skateboarders, crazy people, and that guy from Depeche Mode, and I got a lot of street cred by telling people that I worked for the Village Voice. But I won't miss schlepping those heavy bags of swag around Williamsburg in the middle of the night when it's 13 degrees out and sleeting, I can tell you that much.

So, not a lot of adventuring lately, just some quiet, quirky observations about being an employed and fully functioning member of society.

Huh. I got nothing. Go read my book review. I think books are the only interesting thing I'm going to be talking about for a while.