Just a quick update on my technological demons:
Day five of no internet at home.
Yesterday somebody cut the phone lines at the cafe I've been using.
I'm on now at another cafe, but leaving soon to get some cleaning done at home.
Can't use school internet, because my bus pass is broken and can't be fixed on weekends. Not that they know how to fix it. Tuesday they will probably give me a fourth bus pass and insist that the other ones were just defective cards. Then I will punch them all in the face.
Tomorrow my home internet should be working again and I can blag more detailedly. About, among other things, the FANTASTIC Eddie Izzard show last night.
By the way, if you owe me money for any reason, I could really use it! I checked my bank account balance this morning for the first time since the internet went away, and it scared me.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Productivity, with gender
I started seriously working today on the lecture series I'm running this year. I'm very excited, as it will combine musicology and hostessing, two of my skills. Hosting, you might correct me to say, but you would be wrong. My abilities are distinctly those of the hostess, baking and cleaning ahead of time, tupperwaring leftovers and cleaning afterward, and making sure everyone is happy and having fun during. Go go gadget gender stereotypes!
Speaking of genderisms, Bitch PhD. linked to a silly little internet widget today that claims to calculate your gender based on your browsing history. I was intrigued, of course, and I clicked the button. My results?
Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 95%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 5%
I had no idea that women were so much more likely to look at gay male pornography! Astounding! Actually, the results seemed largely to be based on my recently frequenting the websites of 1) cable internet providers and 2) cheap airlines/cheap flight tickets. Plus 3), LiveJournal.
Anyway, after that sidebar, I return to productivity. Today I met with someone I have decided to call the Vampire Slayer to discuss the lecture series, compiled a list of 31 notables to possibly invite as lecturers, composed an apologetic letter to a speaker we accidentally forgot about last year, put possible lecture dates into iCal for the whole year, and roughly planned food for the entire series, all between 2:30 and 5:00 PM.
After 5:00 I input my fall schedule into iCal, decided on a way to use up the Mysterious X's strawberry cream cheese frosting, made some substantial progress on Project Wedding Present, figured out what to do about GoddamnFuckingAwfulTimeWarnerCable, and ate all that was left of the delicious salad from last night's dinner on homemade bagel chips. Before 2:30 I had a lovely lunch at Fritto Misto with Fatso and his mother. This was preceded (around noonish) by a lovely conversation with an equally lovely customer service representative at TimeWarnerShitForBrainsCable during which I explained that they needed to stop calling me to schedule an installation, as cable was still connected to the apartment and I couldn't have my new service installed without first disconnecting the old service. How did I know this useful fact? I'd had this conversation with two other customer service reps from TimeSchmuckWarnerCrapfest earlier this week. In fact, one was earlier this day. At 6:15 AM. While I am quite happy about my potentially much faster and slightly cheaper internet service, I am not happy enough to enjoy a 6:15 AM call to set it up. Especially since I had already hashed out the unable-to-install-new-service issues yesterday.
Tomorrow the TimeWarnerCableAssface a few blocks away opens at 8:30. I will be there with proof of not being my old roommate, account info for my new service, and a can of whoop-ass. Just in case.
This productive surge makes up for my several days of just hanging out and having fun with friends. My guilt is assuaged, and I can now have fun this weekend.
ADDENDUM: This post is about eighteen hours late because of my favorite people in the world, my cable internet providers. Read it as posted late last night.
Speaking of genderisms, Bitch PhD. linked to a silly little internet widget today that claims to calculate your gender based on your browsing history. I was intrigued, of course, and I clicked the button. My results?
Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 95%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 5%
I had no idea that women were so much more likely to look at gay male pornography! Astounding! Actually, the results seemed largely to be based on my recently frequenting the websites of 1) cable internet providers and 2) cheap airlines/cheap flight tickets. Plus 3), LiveJournal.
Anyway, after that sidebar, I return to productivity. Today I met with someone I have decided to call the Vampire Slayer to discuss the lecture series, compiled a list of 31 notables to possibly invite as lecturers, composed an apologetic letter to a speaker we accidentally forgot about last year, put possible lecture dates into iCal for the whole year, and roughly planned food for the entire series, all between 2:30 and 5:00 PM.
After 5:00 I input my fall schedule into iCal, decided on a way to use up the Mysterious X's strawberry cream cheese frosting, made some substantial progress on Project Wedding Present, figured out what to do about GoddamnFuckingAwfulTimeWarnerCable, and ate all that was left of the delicious salad from last night's dinner on homemade bagel chips. Before 2:30 I had a lovely lunch at Fritto Misto with Fatso and his mother. This was preceded (around noonish) by a lovely conversation with an equally lovely customer service representative at TimeWarnerShitForBrainsCable during which I explained that they needed to stop calling me to schedule an installation, as cable was still connected to the apartment and I couldn't have my new service installed without first disconnecting the old service. How did I know this useful fact? I'd had this conversation with two other customer service reps from TimeSchmuckWarnerCrapfest earlier this week. In fact, one was earlier this day. At 6:15 AM. While I am quite happy about my potentially much faster and slightly cheaper internet service, I am not happy enough to enjoy a 6:15 AM call to set it up. Especially since I had already hashed out the unable-to-install-new-service issues yesterday.
Tomorrow the TimeWarnerCableAssface a few blocks away opens at 8:30. I will be there with proof of not being my old roommate, account info for my new service, and a can of whoop-ass. Just in case.
This productive surge makes up for my several days of just hanging out and having fun with friends. My guilt is assuaged, and I can now have fun this weekend.
ADDENDUM: This post is about eighteen hours late because of my favorite people in the world, my cable internet providers. Read it as posted late last night.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Return from Witch Mountain
After a loooooong sojourn in the land(s) of my people, I am once more ensconced with my hedgehog in my delightfully purple bedroom in West Hollywood.
Trips home, wherever I may be envisioning home at the moment, are always exhausting. This one was almost seven weeks of exhausting, a longer trip than I had ever taken anywhere in the past. I hit NY, CT, MA, and RI, the tetrastate area that, until last August, basically contained my entire life. It hasn't changed much.
Over the course of these weeks, I stayed in four apartments, one house, one tent, and one hotel. I lived out of two suitcases, two backpacks, and one Ultimate Case of Doom (noted particularly for its face smashing abilities). I saw six relatives, seven ex-coworkers, three former students, and numberless friends. I drank three new Scotches and numberless old Scotches, almost none of which I bought with my own money.
I gained between 10 and 15 pounds. I exercised a total of three times. I slept an average of 5.75 hours a night (I made that number up, but I think it's true). I became uncomfortable wearing most of my clothing again. This is what it is to go home again. This, perhaps, is why you can't.
Now I am back in the eternal sunshine of the spotless complexions, and things are pretty much instantly better. I have slept more, eaten less junk-per-meal, and today I begin my return to exercise as my gym membership restarts with the first of the month. I have papers to write, but they are manageable and enjoyable. I have a lecture series to plan, which I am thrilled to be running, and which promises to be interesting, if nothing else. I have an apartment to myself for the next three weeks, so I can walk around naked and nobody will see or smirk at my sudden loss of physique.
Yes, Los Angeles is imperfect. People here tend to flake out on commitments, arrive hours late for engagements, and spend more time on their appearances than I can stomach. Plus the traffic is nuts. But you know what? It's home, and I'm glad to be in it. It's home that's not exhausting, because it requires no trip to stay here; once I'm here, I'm here for several months. I don't travel to the old country again until mid-December, and that's great. Don't get me wrong; I loved seeing y'all. Loved it. I will love seeing y'all again. But, but, but, and once again but--I love being my own person in my own space, away from the baggage of 24 years in the same small area.
Welcome home, me.
Oh, and the title comes from Alexander Key's children's book of the same name, sequel to Escape to Witch Mountain, one of my favorites from the public library as a child. You should totally read both of them.
Trips home, wherever I may be envisioning home at the moment, are always exhausting. This one was almost seven weeks of exhausting, a longer trip than I had ever taken anywhere in the past. I hit NY, CT, MA, and RI, the tetrastate area that, until last August, basically contained my entire life. It hasn't changed much.
Over the course of these weeks, I stayed in four apartments, one house, one tent, and one hotel. I lived out of two suitcases, two backpacks, and one Ultimate Case of Doom (noted particularly for its face smashing abilities). I saw six relatives, seven ex-coworkers, three former students, and numberless friends. I drank three new Scotches and numberless old Scotches, almost none of which I bought with my own money.
I gained between 10 and 15 pounds. I exercised a total of three times. I slept an average of 5.75 hours a night (I made that number up, but I think it's true). I became uncomfortable wearing most of my clothing again. This is what it is to go home again. This, perhaps, is why you can't.
Now I am back in the eternal sunshine of the spotless complexions, and things are pretty much instantly better. I have slept more, eaten less junk-per-meal, and today I begin my return to exercise as my gym membership restarts with the first of the month. I have papers to write, but they are manageable and enjoyable. I have a lecture series to plan, which I am thrilled to be running, and which promises to be interesting, if nothing else. I have an apartment to myself for the next three weeks, so I can walk around naked and nobody will see or smirk at my sudden loss of physique.
Yes, Los Angeles is imperfect. People here tend to flake out on commitments, arrive hours late for engagements, and spend more time on their appearances than I can stomach. Plus the traffic is nuts. But you know what? It's home, and I'm glad to be in it. It's home that's not exhausting, because it requires no trip to stay here; once I'm here, I'm here for several months. I don't travel to the old country again until mid-December, and that's great. Don't get me wrong; I loved seeing y'all. Loved it. I will love seeing y'all again. But, but, but, and once again but--I love being my own person in my own space, away from the baggage of 24 years in the same small area.
Welcome home, me.
Oh, and the title comes from Alexander Key's children's book of the same name, sequel to Escape to Witch Mountain, one of my favorites from the public library as a child. You should totally read both of them.
Monday, July 21, 2008
My Personal Hat
Today had the potential to be a big day for my family (see my post of a few days ago). Luckily, or unluckily, it wasn't. Dad did not suddenly retire, as his old friend was indeed named interim provost. This doesn't mean that he will stay forever; I don't know how long the interim lasts, and he may still leave after it ends. Mom still may also retire if/when he does. But the change has been postponed, at least for a while.
Instead of earth-shaking life alterations, today has been filled with...cleaning the basement and buying new pants. Small changes. Actually, cleaning the basement is a larger change than you might think; I thought my mom was going to weep when I moved the mattress we store down there from one room to another. Somehow that shook her earth, a reaction I had not anticipated.
Tomorrow I'm off to NYC to see various folks. If you're there, call me! Posting will probably slow down over the next week, as I begin yet another round of travel from LI to NY to Boston and back.
Instead of earth-shaking life alterations, today has been filled with...cleaning the basement and buying new pants. Small changes. Actually, cleaning the basement is a larger change than you might think; I thought my mom was going to weep when I moved the mattress we store down there from one room to another. Somehow that shook her earth, a reaction I had not anticipated.
Tomorrow I'm off to NYC to see various folks. If you're there, call me! Posting will probably slow down over the next week, as I begin yet another round of travel from LI to NY to Boston and back.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
My Professional Hat, Part 2
Cross-posted at Musicology/Matters!
When I tell people over a certain age that I study musicals, they seem to feel obliged to do one of two things. Either they ask me what my favorite musical is (I don't have an answer to that one; sorry), or they tell me, conspiratorially, that they know all the words to West Side Story.
I'm not kidding; all Americans who were aware in 1957 know every last word of West Side Story. This odd tidbit is often used to begin a tiresome conversation about how musicals after WSS have really not lived up to its gold standard, an attitude common even among scholars of the musical theatre (British spelling specially added for extra pretension!). "Why have musicals fallen out of the public consciousness," my despondent yet articulate interlocutors ask; "why are they no longer a part of our collective knowledge?"
Here I can finally respond, "they still are." Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog represents the culmination, for many show fans, of a trend that has been building for over a decade, the parody musical. From The Bitter Suite episode of Xena: Warrior Princess (1998) and Joss' own Once More, With Feeling (2001), to Broadway productions like Urinetown (also 2001), Avenue Q (2003) and the aptly named [title of show] (this past Thursday), there have been upwards of a dozen musicals about being musicals in recent history.
Such a commercially and critically successful phenomenon can only exist when the idea of the musical still has a firm grip on the hearts and minds of at least a significant percentage of the populace. The jokes aren't funny once we've forgotten the language they employ, the language of the musical. Luckily, despite the insistent nostalgia of the over-fifty crowd, we haven't forgotten it. We've just let it grow and develop, as languages will if not policed. Musicals, much to the chagrin of certain older scholars, didn't stop changing when Dick Rodgers finally croaked.
Now to the matter at hand: Dr. Horrible. Unlike most of the other musicals listed above, Dr. Horrible does not explicitly acknowledge its parody status, except in its title. Nevertheless, it clearly plays on commonly recognized tropes of the musical comedy, intertwining them hilariously with those of comics and television. The result is something that cannot truly be slotted into any of the three media, a parodic hybrid that has become characteristic of...The Internet (dramatic thunderclap). Joss has always been a master of the ironic tribute, a form that affectionately satirizes its source material, and Dr. Horrible is no exception.
An example: The Act I finale ("A Man's Gotta Do") recalls, among many other classic musical theater numbers, the opening of Sondheim's A Little Night Music, "Now Later Soon." Each character presents his/her point of view in a solo, then the solos overlap into a trio texture for an exciting finish. Despite the overlap, every word is distinctly audible, and the contrasting personalities show clearly through. Consummate musico-lyrical craftsmanship, demonstrating a knowledge of the traditions of the genre, but capped with Dr. Horrible's exasperated "Balls!," in case the viewers accidentally started taking it too seriously.
This comedic-but-knowledgeable attitude is maintained throughout the musical numbers, with only a few breaks: the opening duet of Act II ("Any dolt with half a brain"), Penny's solo "Here's a story of a girl," the verse of Dr. Horrible's "Look at these people," and much of the final song, "Here Lies Everything." In fact, all of the songs sung by or about Penny are serious, musically foreshadowing her tragic fate and its consequences. Nevertheless, even these somber moments are leavened with...levity, one might say, by the visual accompaniment. The musical comedy is, after all, a comedy.
Or is it? Dr. Horrible is hilarious, of course. But Dr. Horrible isn't a comedy. An English teacher once told me that the difference between a comedy and a tragedy is that a comedy ends with everyone getting married, while a tragedy ends with a stage full of bodies. While this definition is facile, it does provide a way to view Dr. Horrible as a tragedy--Penny ends up dead, Captain Hammer weeping on a therapist's couch, and Dr. Horrible an emotionless shell. Not exactly a happy ending.
Which brings me back to my first anecdote. West Side Story has been hailed as the elevation of the musical comedy to an art form by the replacement of "comedy" with "tragedy." Frivolity is banished, in the end, by tragic death, no matter how defiantly we recall "I Feel Pretty" and forget the gang rivalry that has been tamed into finger-snapping dance routines. Fifty years later, another musical has dared to end without the rousing choral finale, with a lead struck down in the prime of life. Is Dr. Horrible the postmodern West Side Story for the internet age?
I submit that, yes, it does fulfill the same function. For those who grew up on self-aware musicals, television, and comic books; for a generation of pop culture consumers; for any participant in fandom, however tentative, Dr. Horrible can be that touchstone, that pinnacle of cultural evolution. In only 42 minutes. When our grandchildren confess to us that they are getting PhDs in internet memology, we can shake our heads and sigh at the downfall of memes after Dr. Horrible.
Is this paean ridiculous? Am I overstating the importance of an internet meme? Quite possibly. Nevertheless, that's the reaction this sort of thing demands. Either it is dismissed as just another meme among thousands, or it is worshiped as our Savior by thousands. I'm a fan of it, certainly. Just think about how many article possibilities are lurking beneath its smooth, polished surface, a surface that I have not yet begun to scratch!
Scratch away, readers.
When I tell people over a certain age that I study musicals, they seem to feel obliged to do one of two things. Either they ask me what my favorite musical is (I don't have an answer to that one; sorry), or they tell me, conspiratorially, that they know all the words to West Side Story.
I'm not kidding; all Americans who were aware in 1957 know every last word of West Side Story. This odd tidbit is often used to begin a tiresome conversation about how musicals after WSS have really not lived up to its gold standard, an attitude common even among scholars of the musical theatre (British spelling specially added for extra pretension!). "Why have musicals fallen out of the public consciousness," my despondent yet articulate interlocutors ask; "why are they no longer a part of our collective knowledge?"
Here I can finally respond, "they still are." Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog represents the culmination, for many show fans, of a trend that has been building for over a decade, the parody musical. From The Bitter Suite episode of Xena: Warrior Princess (1998) and Joss' own Once More, With Feeling (2001), to Broadway productions like Urinetown (also 2001), Avenue Q (2003) and the aptly named [title of show] (this past Thursday), there have been upwards of a dozen musicals about being musicals in recent history.
Such a commercially and critically successful phenomenon can only exist when the idea of the musical still has a firm grip on the hearts and minds of at least a significant percentage of the populace. The jokes aren't funny once we've forgotten the language they employ, the language of the musical. Luckily, despite the insistent nostalgia of the over-fifty crowd, we haven't forgotten it. We've just let it grow and develop, as languages will if not policed. Musicals, much to the chagrin of certain older scholars, didn't stop changing when Dick Rodgers finally croaked.
Now to the matter at hand: Dr. Horrible. Unlike most of the other musicals listed above, Dr. Horrible does not explicitly acknowledge its parody status, except in its title. Nevertheless, it clearly plays on commonly recognized tropes of the musical comedy, intertwining them hilariously with those of comics and television. The result is something that cannot truly be slotted into any of the three media, a parodic hybrid that has become characteristic of...The Internet (dramatic thunderclap). Joss has always been a master of the ironic tribute, a form that affectionately satirizes its source material, and Dr. Horrible is no exception.
An example: The Act I finale ("A Man's Gotta Do") recalls, among many other classic musical theater numbers, the opening of Sondheim's A Little Night Music, "Now Later Soon." Each character presents his/her point of view in a solo, then the solos overlap into a trio texture for an exciting finish. Despite the overlap, every word is distinctly audible, and the contrasting personalities show clearly through. Consummate musico-lyrical craftsmanship, demonstrating a knowledge of the traditions of the genre, but capped with Dr. Horrible's exasperated "Balls!," in case the viewers accidentally started taking it too seriously.
This comedic-but-knowledgeable attitude is maintained throughout the musical numbers, with only a few breaks: the opening duet of Act II ("Any dolt with half a brain"), Penny's solo "Here's a story of a girl," the verse of Dr. Horrible's "Look at these people," and much of the final song, "Here Lies Everything." In fact, all of the songs sung by or about Penny are serious, musically foreshadowing her tragic fate and its consequences. Nevertheless, even these somber moments are leavened with...levity, one might say, by the visual accompaniment. The musical comedy is, after all, a comedy.
Or is it? Dr. Horrible is hilarious, of course. But Dr. Horrible isn't a comedy. An English teacher once told me that the difference between a comedy and a tragedy is that a comedy ends with everyone getting married, while a tragedy ends with a stage full of bodies. While this definition is facile, it does provide a way to view Dr. Horrible as a tragedy--Penny ends up dead, Captain Hammer weeping on a therapist's couch, and Dr. Horrible an emotionless shell. Not exactly a happy ending.
Which brings me back to my first anecdote. West Side Story has been hailed as the elevation of the musical comedy to an art form by the replacement of "comedy" with "tragedy." Frivolity is banished, in the end, by tragic death, no matter how defiantly we recall "I Feel Pretty" and forget the gang rivalry that has been tamed into finger-snapping dance routines. Fifty years later, another musical has dared to end without the rousing choral finale, with a lead struck down in the prime of life. Is Dr. Horrible the postmodern West Side Story for the internet age?
I submit that, yes, it does fulfill the same function. For those who grew up on self-aware musicals, television, and comic books; for a generation of pop culture consumers; for any participant in fandom, however tentative, Dr. Horrible can be that touchstone, that pinnacle of cultural evolution. In only 42 minutes. When our grandchildren confess to us that they are getting PhDs in internet memology, we can shake our heads and sigh at the downfall of memes after Dr. Horrible.
Is this paean ridiculous? Am I overstating the importance of an internet meme? Quite possibly. Nevertheless, that's the reaction this sort of thing demands. Either it is dismissed as just another meme among thousands, or it is worshiped as our Savior by thousands. I'm a fan of it, certainly. Just think about how many article possibilities are lurking beneath its smooth, polished surface, a surface that I have not yet begun to scratch!
Scratch away, readers.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
My Professional Hat
OK, folks. My job is to talk/write about musicals, so here's my mental regurgitation of Spring Awakening, which I saw this afternoon with my grandmother. A more nuanced paper may eventually include some of these ruminations, but this is my gut reaction, for what it's worth. I must note, in passing, that we chose an unfortunately highly understudied performance to attend; both male leads and one of the supporting males were understudies.
First of all, I did enjoy the show, though not as much as I hoped to. The music was good--not great--but seemed to have very little to do with the show; it felt like a concept album, not a theatrical performance. This could, perhaps, have something to do with the rock concert conceit the whole show toyed with throughout. I don't object to the conceit at all, if it works. It didn't, at least not for me. Part of that may have come from the fact that all of the actors directed their energy and attention toward the orchestra-level audience, ignoring us poor saps in the balcony. (Coincidentally, as I type this, I am listening to Ella singing "Things are Looking Up." This afternoon, they certainly weren't.)
Energy issues aside, the show had some other, more serious problems. Set in 1890s Germany, it deals with the sexual and moral awakening of several teenagers. Two actors play all of the adult characters (listed as "The Adult Women" and "The Adult Men" in the Playbill), putting the focus squarely on the teens and slimming down the cast. This works well, but the adult actors' attempts to differentiate their many roles led to one of the most unfortunate aspects of the show: when they played teachers, they played them as Nazis. Half a century off, folks. Not all Germans are Nazis, especially not the ones who had been dead for decades when Hitler came to power. This characterization was cheap, easy, and inappropriate (Like a Weimar prostitute? No, that was me being equally cheap and easy.). If the point of the show is the repressive nature of parents and teachers, playing them as Nazis bludgeons this point home unnecessarily.
Next big problem: the song "The Word of Your Body." In the first act, the song is a romantic/sexy duet between Melchior and Wendla, two of the three (all heterosexual) leads. In the second act, it reprises as a duet between Ernst and Hanschen, the gays. No problem so far, until one is made aware that the gay duet is purely comic. What was a moment of heightened sexual awareness and tension, a peak of the show, becomes a ridiculous seduction of (ha ha!) one boy by another! What a joke! Not to mention the relative importance of the straight couple, both leads, versus the gay couple, who have only this song. Also not mentioning the fact that the straights actually simulate having sex on stage, while the gays merely, briefly, kiss.
All in all, disappointing. I intended to write a great deal more about the show, hoping to fit it into some trends in modern musicals and popular culture, but I am exhausted. Stay tuned for My Professional Hat Part 2, coming soon, in which I discuss Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and other glorious things.
First of all, I did enjoy the show, though not as much as I hoped to. The music was good--not great--but seemed to have very little to do with the show; it felt like a concept album, not a theatrical performance. This could, perhaps, have something to do with the rock concert conceit the whole show toyed with throughout. I don't object to the conceit at all, if it works. It didn't, at least not for me. Part of that may have come from the fact that all of the actors directed their energy and attention toward the orchestra-level audience, ignoring us poor saps in the balcony. (Coincidentally, as I type this, I am listening to Ella singing "Things are Looking Up." This afternoon, they certainly weren't.)
Energy issues aside, the show had some other, more serious problems. Set in 1890s Germany, it deals with the sexual and moral awakening of several teenagers. Two actors play all of the adult characters (listed as "The Adult Women" and "The Adult Men" in the Playbill), putting the focus squarely on the teens and slimming down the cast. This works well, but the adult actors' attempts to differentiate their many roles led to one of the most unfortunate aspects of the show: when they played teachers, they played them as Nazis. Half a century off, folks. Not all Germans are Nazis, especially not the ones who had been dead for decades when Hitler came to power. This characterization was cheap, easy, and inappropriate (Like a Weimar prostitute? No, that was me being equally cheap and easy.). If the point of the show is the repressive nature of parents and teachers, playing them as Nazis bludgeons this point home unnecessarily.
Next big problem: the song "The Word of Your Body." In the first act, the song is a romantic/sexy duet between Melchior and Wendla, two of the three (all heterosexual) leads. In the second act, it reprises as a duet between Ernst and Hanschen, the gays. No problem so far, until one is made aware that the gay duet is purely comic. What was a moment of heightened sexual awareness and tension, a peak of the show, becomes a ridiculous seduction of (ha ha!) one boy by another! What a joke! Not to mention the relative importance of the straight couple, both leads, versus the gay couple, who have only this song. Also not mentioning the fact that the straights actually simulate having sex on stage, while the gays merely, briefly, kiss.
All in all, disappointing. I intended to write a great deal more about the show, hoping to fit it into some trends in modern musicals and popular culture, but I am exhausted. Stay tuned for My Professional Hat Part 2, coming soon, in which I discuss Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and other glorious things.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Parental insanity
Tonight I arrived back in glorious Huntington, NY. Unlike on pretty much all of my previous visits, my parents had some very interesting news:
My father may be retiring on Monday.
This is a big friggin' deal. My dad has been working at the same place since before my older sister was born. I can't imagine him not working there. Much more than that, I can't imagine him not working. What would he do? There really aren't that many baseball games on non-cable TV. Our dog's been dead for years, and the garden even longer. My sister and I don't live there anymore. He's just given away all of his history books to scholars who haven't spent the last eight years in administration. What in Bob's name will he do all day!?
Here's the sitch, as far as I know it. He's an associate provost. That means that he and two (or possibly now three; I am fuzzy on the recent numbers) other associate provosts report to the capital-P Provost. Actually, I think Associate Provost is also capital-P, but Dad's never been one for that sort of thing. The Provost has been inexplicably fired by the President. Also capital-P. He's definitely one for that sort of thing. Dad loves this Provost; she's been his boss for seven years, and he respects her enormously. If what he said tonight is accurate, then unless the President appoints one of Dad's old friends as interim provost (lower-case p, I'm pretty sure), he'll retire in protest. If one of his old friends gets appointed, he's too loyal to walk out on him/her. (That's not an attempt at gender neutrality; there are two old friends of his in rumored contention, one male and one female.)
My mind is a little blown. If he retires, my mom will definitely consider it also, even though she's never really thought about it before now. She says she can't imagine going into work every day while he stays home. For those of you who know my parents, you must know that this is all crazy. Neither one of them has changed employers in my lifetime. Dad's changed jobs once, going from professor to administrator; Mom has never changed jobs.
I've been trying to get them out of what I see as a rut for a while, and maybe this is the event that'll do it. Who knows. I'm excited and a little worried and generally just stunned. If you know my parents in real life, please don't mention any of this to them. It's probably not something they want repeated yet. I'll keep you updated if you're curious.
My father may be retiring on Monday.
This is a big friggin' deal. My dad has been working at the same place since before my older sister was born. I can't imagine him not working there. Much more than that, I can't imagine him not working. What would he do? There really aren't that many baseball games on non-cable TV. Our dog's been dead for years, and the garden even longer. My sister and I don't live there anymore. He's just given away all of his history books to scholars who haven't spent the last eight years in administration. What in Bob's name will he do all day!?
Here's the sitch, as far as I know it. He's an associate provost. That means that he and two (or possibly now three; I am fuzzy on the recent numbers) other associate provosts report to the capital-P Provost. Actually, I think Associate Provost is also capital-P, but Dad's never been one for that sort of thing. The Provost has been inexplicably fired by the President. Also capital-P. He's definitely one for that sort of thing. Dad loves this Provost; she's been his boss for seven years, and he respects her enormously. If what he said tonight is accurate, then unless the President appoints one of Dad's old friends as interim provost (lower-case p, I'm pretty sure), he'll retire in protest. If one of his old friends gets appointed, he's too loyal to walk out on him/her. (That's not an attempt at gender neutrality; there are two old friends of his in rumored contention, one male and one female.)
My mind is a little blown. If he retires, my mom will definitely consider it also, even though she's never really thought about it before now. She says she can't imagine going into work every day while he stays home. For those of you who know my parents, you must know that this is all crazy. Neither one of them has changed employers in my lifetime. Dad's changed jobs once, going from professor to administrator; Mom has never changed jobs.
I've been trying to get them out of what I see as a rut for a while, and maybe this is the event that'll do it. Who knows. I'm excited and a little worried and generally just stunned. If you know my parents in real life, please don't mention any of this to them. It's probably not something they want repeated yet. I'll keep you updated if you're curious.
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