A Cities' Dessert

My wife and I saw the Actors' Playhouse production of Jon Robin Baitz' play Other Desert Cities (http://actorsplayhouse.org/mainstage.htm) Sunday afternoon--amazing. Brooke Wyeth (Erin Joy Schmidt, in a standout performance among standouts) returns home after six years, trying to prove herself not to be a one-book wonder.

She, her brother Trip (Antonio Amadeo), mother Polly (Barbara Bradshaw), father Lyman (J. Kenneth Campbell) (both rock-ribbed Palm Springs Republicans), and aunt Silda Grauman (Lourelene Snedeker)--and the specter of a missing sibling--get together for a Christmas as if by Edward Albee and David Mamet. Brooke has gotten herself out of writer's block by writing what she knew, trying to exorcise her damage (which Schmidt portrays precisely)--focusing on the center of her damage... and perhaps causing more damage in the process.

I'm not going to strive for any more of a classic review, just lay out some impressions. I was viscerally, physically, affected by this play. I had a band of tension around my midsection throughout the whole first act. So affected that at one particular moment of vulnerability--and rejection--I immediately felt physically nauseated. I had to swallow quickly once or twice, and I really thought I might throw up. And, just before the end of the first act, one character's anger, yelling and door-slamming--I felt it in my body.

For me, the second act wasn't a visceral experience, mostly. (Unfortunately?) It was very emotionally intense, however--and it tied the play up in a very satisfying way.

I've seen some amazing local theatre over the years--The Pillowman at GableStage; August, Osage County (and Urinetown) also at Actors' Playhouse; All My Sons at Palm Beach Dramaworks; Jitney (for example) at M Ensemble; The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret and The Drawer Boy at Thinking Cap; and Infinite Abyss's Hedwig and the Angry Inch--just for example.

But never have I felt a play in my gut as I have with this one.

Other Desert Cities runs until January 10th. My South Florida friends: Go see it, if you possibly, possibly can.

(Edit 2013/02/04: I added a short paragraph about the second act.)

 

"F*ck your gender!"

I just saw Thinking Cap Theatre's production of The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret, at Empire Stage in Fort Lauderdale. My short review: Really f*cking good.

Not to give away any secrets, but the play is intended to f*ck with your notions of gender roles and identities--look at the title! It does so in a mostly comedic way, though some of it might make you uncomfortable if you think gender is a binary--which is some of what playwright Mariah MacCarthy sets out to do. (Some of it will--and should--make you uncomfortable regardless.) And a play production that accomplishes that--messing with gender roles in a funny but not demeaning way--takes a creative, talented, good cast, and excellent direction and design.

This Thinking Cap production delivers. The actors? They just rock. From the simplest role in the play to the most complex (and really, none are simple), the cast is tremendous. Most of the roles in the Cabaret represent a stereotype--often a necessity in storytelling. With a little help at first, then, with each actor's own mad skills, each character goes from a role straitened by stereotype, at least in the audiences' minds, and becomes unique. There are some characters in the play that I would be friends, or even friendly, with, and some, not so much. But at various points during the evening, I made some sort of emotional connection with every actor on that stage. As for the direction and technical aspects of the play, they were invisible--clear as glass. Making it look that easy... is very hard.

"I laughed. I cried. It was much better than 'Cats.'" Ah, T.S. Eliot, what did he know? Gimme a little f*cking informative entertainment, any time.

Thinking Cap Theatre:

http://thinkingcaptheatre.com/

http://www.facebook.com/ThinkingCapTheatre

(P.S. HT for the title to my good New College friend Eli, who first told me "F*ck Your Gender!" many years ago.)

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Bob Berring on the Structure of Law

This is an excellent video on the structure of the law.



I think what Prof. Berring is addressing at the end is the way that technology interpenetrates society as it, and society, progress. As Edelcrantz (the librarian of the Royal Academy of Turku, Finland, by the way) noted all the way back in 1796, technology follows a path of (as Stephen Jay Gould put it) punctuated equilibrium: technology and culture stay the same for a long time, then change rapidly. (Of course, one can also make the argument that what we're seeing lately is merely the exponential growth of technology; the pace of technological growth, the slope of the curve, is merely becoming steeper.)

Or, as I quoted in the chapter of my undergraduate thesis that explained what hypertext was (back in 1994), with respect to the social acceptance of technology,

It often happens, with regard to new inventions, that one part of the general public finds them useless and another part considers them to be impossible. When it becomes clear that the possibility and the usefulness can no longer be denied, most agree that the whole thing was fairly easy to discover and that they knew about it all along.

- Abraham Edelcrantz (Abraham Niclas Clewberg), A Treatise on Telegraphs (1796), quoted in Holzmann, Gerard J., and Björn Pehrson, "The First Data Networks," Scientific American, v. 270, no. 1 (January 1994): 124-129.

Gnocchi alla Romana--semolina gnocchi

Goody! I found a recipe for semolina gnocchi. Lots of work, though.

Semolina gnocchi--from about.com.

Becco, or Italian (mono)mania

As I said on Facebook, microblogging the New York trip, good Italian food is thin on the ground in South Florida. That's one reason B. and I went to dinner three times at the same restaurant in New York, Becco, in the Theater District, on Restaurant Row, owned by PBS celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich.

As I see it (and B. might disagree), there are four basic reasons we went to Becco so often (well, add a fifth).

First, the good food. There's nothing exotic about the dishes at Becco--the ideas for dishes are common ones, or variations thereof. Pollo al limone, for instance--a common dish, exceedingly well executed. Although our first night there, one of the pasta dishes was an exquisite semolina gnocchi, sauced with a cream sauce, then baked or broiled. Marvelous! (I must see if I can get a recipe.) The key is the execution, which at Becco was impeccable.

Second, the great prices. Becco is comparable in price to the restaurants--good ones--in South Florida. In fact, Michael's Genuine Food and Drink, a touchstone of our Miami fine eating experience, is, while excellent, comparable in quality to Becco--and probably half again as expensive.

Third, the fabulous service. Becco just takes care of its customers. An example: on our last night, Saturday, Halloween, the resaurant was quite busy. My entrée was late arriving, to the point where Marie, our waitress, at one point came by and asked if I was okay. (I was a bit restive, understandable under the circumstances.) Angelo, one of the floor managers that evening (and dressed as a quite creditable Burgess Meredith-era Penguin), without asking me, noticed my restiveness and inquired with the chef about the status of my entrée. He then came over--again, this was without being prompted--and told me that my entrée would be ready in a few minutes--which it was. Excellent.

A fourth reason dovetails (Dovetonsils?) with the above reasons. As those of you who know me well know, my father went to medical school at the University of Bologna (Italy), and my mother lived there with him for a time. My mom was a good cook before she went there, and when she came back, she had been schooled in the dark arts of Northern Italian cuisine. (Bolognaise lasagna has, I believe, two different sauces: Bolognaise ragú and what can best be described as a Bechamel sauce on steroids.) As a result, I know a little bit about Italian food, good Italian food. Becco delivers on this. The semolina gnocchi were a standout, but all their pasta, even the dishes we didn'tlike so much, were well executed. All the entrées we ordered were first-rate. My salmon filet the second night was on a bed of braised cauliflower so good that I ordered a side order--and we ate it all--with my hanger steak the third night. And I don't even like cauliflower. As our waitress Marie said, Becco is very good at making tasty vegetables (another dark art).

The fifth reason is simple: when dinnertime rolled around, B. and I were (I trow) so exhausted that picking a restaurant became a chore.

Well, picking Becco for dinner was never a chore. Becco has my highest recommendation.

A Clarification

In my last blog post, I wrote "So anyway, don't let your FFB (frum--Orthodox Jewish--from birth) status discourage you--kosher Indian vegetarian is out there."

All I meant by that was that few frum-from-birth Jews have eaten, and enjoyed, Indian food. As B. and I demonstrated, it's not impossible to instruct frum-from-birth Jews in the joys of Indian cuisine.

New York (Food) State of Mind

Well, back from the 212 in the 954. Tired and a bit loopy, and Big Things afoot tomorrow.

But there are two things that deserve blogging about while they're still fresh-ish in my mind, both about food--Indian cuisine.

I had two Indian meals in New York, not a large number for a week. But both meals were special. First, we took the daughter of our friends, herself a friend, who goes to Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women, and keeps kosher, out to Madras Mahal, what I had thought was the only kosher Indian restaurant (vegetarian) in New York. The food was serviceable, about a 7 or a 7.5 on a 10 point scale. B. and I agree that our local Indian vegetarian restaurant in South Florida, Udipi Café (which unfortunately is not kosher) gets about a 9.5. In any case, our friend's daughter loved it, loved Indian food (Which she had not had before), and pronounced it the best meal she'd had in Manhattan.

But imagine my surprise: there is another kosher Indian restaurant two doors down from Madras Mahal, Pongal. It's Zagat rated, but I see from the reviews that it may not be as good as Madras Mahal. Oh well--an embarrassment of riches. So anyway, don't let your FFB (frum--Orthodox Jewish--from birth) status discourage you--kosher Indian vegetarian is out there.

Oh, my goodness. My goodness gracious. There's a kosher Indian fleishik (meat) restaurant in South Florida, in North Miami: Thai Treat/Bombay Café (same seating, same kosher supervision, etc.). I'm excited, very, at the thought.

Just a quick note: the other meal was also vegetarian, vegan actually, and was from a street cart in Washington Square Park (at W. 4th and Sullivan), right across from NYU's law school. It was a simple dosa, with sambar and coconut chutney, and it was to die for. Thanks go out to Thiru Kumar, the Dosa Man. If you're in the area, hungry for inexpensive, excellent Indian food, go see Mr. Kumar. Or call him--he sometimes runs out of items--at 917-710-2092.

Well, enough excitement--and drooling over Indian food--for one night. TTFN!

Bob Berring on Reference

An excellent video of Bob Berring on reference work:

http://nsulaw.typepad.com/novalawcity/2009/10/bob-berring-on-reference-.html

I think Berring is advocating for mindfulness on the reference desk, about which more anon.

New York, New York

Hully gee, but it's been a long time since I posted a blog entry.

Well, dear readers, exciting things are happening. I'm in New York, sitting in the New York Public Library's (NYPL) main branch reading room in Bryant Park. I just got an NYPL library card! (Well, a Visitor's Card--I don't think I can check out materials.) B. and I leave New York tomorrow, which would be sad, but... on Monday I start a job at an excellent academic library, at the closest law school to my home.

Wow. About the job, much more than that I do not know. No thirty, as we journalists say. It's temporary, and probably part-time, and the duties are nebulous. But I can't wait.

Ummm... impressions of New York. Why do New Yorkers have a reputation as being rude and unfriendly? I love New York (obvious enough--you can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the boy). But I also love New Yorkers. They're polite, friendly, and cheerful. They don't suffer fools gladly, but they make allowances (sometimes wide ones) for tourists.

Broadway. I keep swearing (or affirming) that I will start blogging about everything we see, on Broadway and elsewhere. But that particular to-do item never bubbles to the top. Well, here are my brief impressions of the three shows we've seen this trip.

Next to Normal: Strong meat. A musical, and not a typical one, about a mother with bipolar disorder (almost certainly bipolar I disorder, for those of you that know the difference and/or care). My quick take is that the show does a great job of showing the ramified nature, and interactions of, brain chemistry and environment. On some level, it's all chemistry (whether you're a reductionist or not). Sometimes, the causes of mood are difficult to tease from the skein of life. Other times, the causes of mood are as obvious as a scream.

The Royal Family: Great fun, but also with its serious elements. About a family based on the Barrymores, it shows that actors are both like the rest of us, and very much unlike some of us. As big a theater buff as I am, I appreciated this distinction. I also understand why The Royal Family is such a popular show with insiders--it's very much like a 1930's version of 30 Rock.

Wishful Drinking: Before I saw this, I thought well, although not often, about Carrie Fisher. Now, I love her. It's true, as one review said, that she's less confessing about her own self than taking a created character (the one that played Princess Leia) and confessing from that perspective. But that self is quite entertaining, and extremely revelatory. Two more points. First, her show (from my lawyerly perspective) is a tribute to two black-letter rules of U.S. law: you can't defame the dead, and truth is an absolute defense to an action for defamation. Second, as she says in the show, if you name something, and own it, it takes much of the power away from that thing.

Well, I have an article (on library job interviewing) to pull, reading to do, and a lunch appointment with a friend of B.'s who is here for the same conference that brings us to New York. A quick 570 words--in 25 minutes, no less!

Later, gentle readers--but hopefully not this much later.

George Carlin, R.I.P.

I really like this Carlin quote from an interview he did with the Miami Herald in late 2006, quoted in his obituary in the Herald.

Unlike many comedians who "turn it off" when they're not on stage, Carlin's humor wasn't an an act. In an interview with The Miami Herald in late 2006, Carlin ripped through rapid-fire rants that weren't rehearsed, but sounded so.

On his tendency to skewer human behavior, Carlin explained:

"I like people one at a time -- I don't like the f------ grouping. It's when they group that bothers me -- the clotting. People-clotting is what causes the trouble. As soon as it's about eight or 12 guys, they start having a fight song or a f------ slogan, or they give themselves a name and buy baseball hats, or they get jackets with their name on it and they wear little arm bands, and pretty soon they got a list of people they don't like, and pretty soon they're marching over in the park -- and it's a f------ danger. Groups are a danger.

"They sacrifice their individual beauty for the sake of the group. And the loss of the individual is tragic."

Here's the link to the full obituary: http://www.miamiherald.com/511/story/580353.html.