Outside the Box
how's that 250th birthday celebration going?
Meow!
Let’s think outside the box - why do blogs always seem to follow calendar trends? Everyone is writing about the Fourth of July then everyone is writing about the heat. If there is a sale going on, then there’s a thousand blog posts on the same topic all hitting your inbox at once.
I only started thinking about fireworks midday yesterday. I actually spent the week considering the topic of the class that I’m teaching later this month in Paris, “Maintaining a Creative Life.” I’m pretty excited about it!
Creative writing isn’t just making a new sentence. Creativity is thinking outside the boundaries of reality. This is going to be the core of what we discuss and then I’ve got some pretty great exercises to share that help us break out of the boxes that we land in over time. For me, it helps to ingest a vast quantity of entertainment across a broad spectrum of media.
This week, while checking out a book at the library (Katie Kitamura’s The Audition - I’m already halfway done! Like getting a perfect sandwich right after a hike), I found myself talking to Jessie (who works at the New Amsterdam branch of the library, aka “my” library) about Mrs Dalloway, and Jessie related that some people in her book club found the book hard and therefore didn’t like it. And she wondered aloud “why are you in a book club if you already know what the book is about?”
Why indeed.
Me, I love to discuss the entertainment I ingest. Whether great or terrible, if it makes an attempt to break the bounds of what is possible in reality, then I’m all in.
This week, for example, I got to see Shakespeare in the Park (I haven’t seen one of these in years because of their new lottery system—but my lovely young people decided to do me a favor and waited in line five hours to get tickets! of course waiting in that line means lying around on a picnic blanket in Central Park, so it isn’t much of a burden).
The play was Romeo and Juliet and the director Saheem Ali decided to set it in Nueva Verona - a border town where Spanish is all but illegal. About half the lines were in Spanish but since we’d all grown up with R&J we only missed the famous English words in a nostalgic way, not in any way that kept us from comprehending the emotions. In fact witnessing key moments in a language I don’t speak made the acting carry the weight of the scene — an impressive feat, revitalizing a show I’ve seen a thousand times. And how fascinating that it wasn’t considered cultural appropriation.
When you fall in love with another culture, is it appropriate to share that love in public?
I ask, because about 20 people walked out before the show ended. Those that stayed got to see an extraordinarily romantic full moon rise over the production—and after the final curtain, got to witness a 25 yr anniversary renewal of vows that raised more questions than it answered. (Why did the woman so adamantly utter “partner and wife” when the celebrant clearly asked her to repeat the more poetic “partner in life”?)
I wish that couple —and you— renewed partnership with the people you love.
Writing News
Working with a publicist is light years better than working alone! I love it!
Entirely unrelated to that publicity campaign, a few days ago my friend Irena Alperyte finished my short story collection A FLASH OF DARKNESS and asked if she might translate some of the stories into Lithuanian.
Reader, I said yes — and one is already placed in a well-known Lithuanian literary journal and is coming out on July 10th! That is the quickest turnaround I think I’ve ever seen in the literary world. The equivalent of those FIFA t-shirts celebrating wins the day after the game.
I’ll tell you more about the publication next week when it is definite; right now we are discussing word choices. Translations are fascinating. Also I might hear about the second and maybe even third stories. Three — already with literary journals and getting close to print! How crazy would it be to have stories in three of Lithuania’s literary magazines all at once?
Also this week: after Romeo and Juliet (which was a truly outstanding production, politics aside), I saw Giulia the Poison Queen of Palermo.
AND I wrote a review that got picked up by Counter Arts!
Also, I needed a frivolous palate cleanser after reading The Argonauts at the same time as The Audition - too much parenting-angst couched in flower strewn sentences. So I took myself to see Supergirl. My daughter and I texted a good hour afterward with back and forth comments on the movie, the message, the character development, the way it portrays 23 yr olds, the background characters, costumes, fight sequences. Truly it’s nice to have her around, even though she’s babysitting this weekend so we can only text. We mostly discussed how this movie makes girl-violence as common as the guy-violence when Tom Cruise is in an action movie. Should it be different? Should both be different? Who ARE we as an audience, really? Are we just watching dog-fighting without wondering if anyone is taking care of the combatants?
Speaking of this weekend: for me America’s 250 has been all Tall Ship Tours, Midshipmen and Fireworks. Young George Washington aside, I’m not doing much by way of art. (It was an interesting film, joyous in its way. I was seated beside a 30ish guy from Fairfax, Virginia who was wiping tears from his eyes at the profundity. Me? I enjoyed it just fine though it didn’t change my life) I am, however, delighted to be living in this land of Independence. Hope you got to see some Fireworks! It was impossible to choose which river to stand near for the Macy’s display here in NYC, but the Hudson won out - truly my vantage was terrific and the display was perfect.
Random Final Thought
Did you see in the news that the people doing the flood abatement in Lower Manhattan caused a flood? True story! The Broadsheet reported it.
And while we’re at it, at the Alamo Movie Theater there was a brilliant slide explaining that the theater fully recognizes the irony of asking patrons to use their cellphones to report patrons using their cellphones.
Good stuff.
Go eat watermelon and pie and reflect on the concept of liberty.
Booming and sparkling as always! 🥰
This was/ is all interesting!
And great about the Lithuanian magazines!