The pledge drive is why I'm blogging at the moment. I'm attempting to watch Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration on Channel 13, but naturally, every time anybody sings three songs, they leap in and start yammering away at you to send them money.
I have been doing absolutely nothing of any interest at all. We did go to Cornwall, Connecticut last weekend for a family party, which was great fun...food and music and endless talk. It was a very small gathering, only about 40 of us or so. Yeah, well, on that side of the family (Matthew's side), that IS a small gathering. The big ones run into the hundreds, because the family keeps track of all its relatives unto the 5th cousins (you think I'm kidding?), and if there's an ACTUAL family reunion, the numbers can easily get up to three hundred or more. I keep track of my brothers- and sisters-in-law and my nieces and nephews, and after that everybody is simply a cousin...if I tried to work out the degrees of cousinship I'd go mad.
I can't get arrested in terms of getting work in movies. One of my straight temp agencies called and wanted me to go do an interview for a long term three day a week gig, which I duly did. They want what I would have called, before it became politically incorrect, a girl Friday type - you know, just run around and do whatever needs doing - but I have a suspicion that I didn't get it. I think they could easily have gotten over the fact that I'm not quite a computer whiz (my Power Point, for instance, is practically non-existent), but my distinct feeling is that I'm too old and experienced for them. Two gals interviewed me, both of them young enough to be my daughters (by which I mean that one was in her forties and the other in her early to mid-thirties), and I had the feeling that they were both shying away from telling someone their mothers' age to go copy five hundred pages of something. As I can't think of anything I want less than a three day a week office job, however flexible it may be, this is perfectly fine with me. I had to do the interview to keep my unemployment (for some odd reason, they want you to look like you're hunting a job), so I was a good girl and dressed up like a grownup and went. Booorrring.
I must say, my family is an interesting group. It's really fairly rare that you attend a family party and sing along with an internationally famous (mainly in Europe) folk singing trio (cousins) and a well-known studio musician (brother-in-law) and discuss another set of cousins who at one point were in (I think) Peru tagging jaguars for wildlife conservation. Peru? Well, wherever the jaguars happened to be. This sort of thing happens all the time. I remember years ago - I don't even think Sarah was born yet - and Matthew and I were looking for his mother for something or other. In the middle of a crowded midtown office building elevator, Matthew turned to me and said, "Oh! I found Mummy. She's in Italy with the Dalai Lama." She was, too. She has also been found exploring underground rivers in Sweden in a wet suit - in her 70's. I always say that in terms of having a good role model for continuing to refuse to get old, she's the best ever.
At any rate, there is nothing happening in my life right now except that at just about exactly this time one week from today I will be boarding an airplane for glorious France! Yay!
Love, Wendy
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Common Sense and Common Courtesy
Frankly, the two things mentioned above seem to have disappeared entirely from the modern world.
I have been following the case of the Harvard scholar, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who recently had a run-in with the cops that got him arrested in his own house, and I think everybody acted like idiots.
Let's start with the neighbor who started the whole thing by calling the cops. Has this person just moved into the neighborhood? Perhaps she's an extreme recluse who never leaves the house (I think it was a "she") and never looks out of the window? I ask because if she was close enough to see the front door of the Gates house, she was presumably aware that a black person lived there, and could also recognize her own neighbor, for God's sake. Has anyone asked if the neighbor is one of these people who call the cops if a stray dog runs by? Yes, I know it was dark, but wouldn't he have had the porch light on to be able to see to open the door? Okay, maybe not...but still...
Next, we go to Professor Gates himself. I will fully admit that it's got to be entirely infuriating to have the police question you about breaking into your own house. And I'm not a black man. However, God knows I've had enough friends who've been stopped for "driving while black," and for that matter, many other pieces of stupidity simply because of the color of their skin.
BUT. Surely common sense and common courtesy would have been of great help in this situation. Bite your tongue, Professor Gates. Since you ARE a highly respected professional in your field, the proper forum for your entirely correct fury would be a scathingly worded letter to the police, with copies to all local newspapers. What you do with the police is you calmly show them your ID, commend them on their prompt response to a report of trouble, and then politely show them the door. Losing your temper and screaming just isn't any kind of useful response here.
Lastly, our gallant police. Once Professor Gates HAD lost his temper, and once you HAD been shown the proper ID, how about a little empathy here? How about, "Sir, please calm down. We're just trying to do our job. We understand that you're very angry about this, and we apologize. Good night, now."
There. Problem solved. Look, I've been a fighter for civil rights for about a million years now, and I do understand (as much as a white child of privilege can) the hundreds of years of indignities that have been suffered. Maybe a little more than most whites, because I'm half Jewish...when I was in my freshman year of high school, our school had limited membership rights at the local country club to swim after school. Except me, because my father was Jewish. So prejudice has indeed given me a flick of its tail in passing, although a minor one (in that I hated that school and didn't want to swim with the girls anyway - I just didn't want to be told I couldn't).
But until we can put this sort of thing - and for that matter, all other human interactions - on a basis of common sense and common courtesy, IT WILL NEVER CHANGE. Think about airports, say. For a change, instead of shrieking at a hapless counter person at the check-in line, try "You must be exhausted. I really hate to do this to you, but could you please..." You will be AMAZED.
Please. Thank you. May I. Do you mind. And the world will get better.
Love,
Wendy
I have been following the case of the Harvard scholar, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who recently had a run-in with the cops that got him arrested in his own house, and I think everybody acted like idiots.
Let's start with the neighbor who started the whole thing by calling the cops. Has this person just moved into the neighborhood? Perhaps she's an extreme recluse who never leaves the house (I think it was a "she") and never looks out of the window? I ask because if she was close enough to see the front door of the Gates house, she was presumably aware that a black person lived there, and could also recognize her own neighbor, for God's sake. Has anyone asked if the neighbor is one of these people who call the cops if a stray dog runs by? Yes, I know it was dark, but wouldn't he have had the porch light on to be able to see to open the door? Okay, maybe not...but still...
Next, we go to Professor Gates himself. I will fully admit that it's got to be entirely infuriating to have the police question you about breaking into your own house. And I'm not a black man. However, God knows I've had enough friends who've been stopped for "driving while black," and for that matter, many other pieces of stupidity simply because of the color of their skin.
BUT. Surely common sense and common courtesy would have been of great help in this situation. Bite your tongue, Professor Gates. Since you ARE a highly respected professional in your field, the proper forum for your entirely correct fury would be a scathingly worded letter to the police, with copies to all local newspapers. What you do with the police is you calmly show them your ID, commend them on their prompt response to a report of trouble, and then politely show them the door. Losing your temper and screaming just isn't any kind of useful response here.
Lastly, our gallant police. Once Professor Gates HAD lost his temper, and once you HAD been shown the proper ID, how about a little empathy here? How about, "Sir, please calm down. We're just trying to do our job. We understand that you're very angry about this, and we apologize. Good night, now."
There. Problem solved. Look, I've been a fighter for civil rights for about a million years now, and I do understand (as much as a white child of privilege can) the hundreds of years of indignities that have been suffered. Maybe a little more than most whites, because I'm half Jewish...when I was in my freshman year of high school, our school had limited membership rights at the local country club to swim after school. Except me, because my father was Jewish. So prejudice has indeed given me a flick of its tail in passing, although a minor one (in that I hated that school and didn't want to swim with the girls anyway - I just didn't want to be told I couldn't).
But until we can put this sort of thing - and for that matter, all other human interactions - on a basis of common sense and common courtesy, IT WILL NEVER CHANGE. Think about airports, say. For a change, instead of shrieking at a hapless counter person at the check-in line, try "You must be exhausted. I really hate to do this to you, but could you please..." You will be AMAZED.
Please. Thank you. May I. Do you mind. And the world will get better.
Love,
Wendy
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Why I Read Newspapers
A rich feast today in, respectively, the NYTimes and the Post.
The Times food section has a wonderful story about a guy who has a cable access channel show called Bronx Flavor. He sounds like an enthusiastic nut case, but those are my favorite people. The story is notable, however, for a quote that encapsulates why I live in New York. The gentleman (who goes by the title Baron Ambrosia) says that he loves getting people to cross racial and cultural lines to find wonderful food and cites this example:
"People have written to me and said, 'I'm West African, and I've never gone to an Albanian restaurant until I saw it on your show.' "
This is spectacular. It also sounds like a great beginning for a joke: "A West African walks into an Albanian restaurant..."
In the Post (perpetrator, many years ago, of the best headline ever - "Headless Body in Topless Bar"), their News of the Weird column mentions that there is now (in Japan, I believe - of course) a device that purports to translate your dog's barks so you can tell if he/she is sad, happy, frustrated or wants to play. Hungry isn't mentioned; I presume that's because with most dogs, it's a given.
I don't think this will ever fly with cats. First of all, there's the problem of getting the cat near the device or the device near the cat. If you have ever owned a cat - sorry, been owned by a cat - you will be well aware that cats go where THEY want to go, which is invariably in the opposite direction of where YOU want them to go.
Secondly, I'm afraid that the translation, presuming the cat deigned to make a noise at all, would run in an endless loop of "You're not feeding me and you're not scratching my belly. Fuck off."
Love, Wendy
The Times food section has a wonderful story about a guy who has a cable access channel show called Bronx Flavor. He sounds like an enthusiastic nut case, but those are my favorite people. The story is notable, however, for a quote that encapsulates why I live in New York. The gentleman (who goes by the title Baron Ambrosia) says that he loves getting people to cross racial and cultural lines to find wonderful food and cites this example:
"People have written to me and said, 'I'm West African, and I've never gone to an Albanian restaurant until I saw it on your show.' "
This is spectacular. It also sounds like a great beginning for a joke: "A West African walks into an Albanian restaurant..."
In the Post (perpetrator, many years ago, of the best headline ever - "Headless Body in Topless Bar"), their News of the Weird column mentions that there is now (in Japan, I believe - of course) a device that purports to translate your dog's barks so you can tell if he/she is sad, happy, frustrated or wants to play. Hungry isn't mentioned; I presume that's because with most dogs, it's a given.
I don't think this will ever fly with cats. First of all, there's the problem of getting the cat near the device or the device near the cat. If you have ever owned a cat - sorry, been owned by a cat - you will be well aware that cats go where THEY want to go, which is invariably in the opposite direction of where YOU want them to go.
Secondly, I'm afraid that the translation, presuming the cat deigned to make a noise at all, would run in an endless loop of "You're not feeding me and you're not scratching my belly. Fuck off."
Love, Wendy
Saturday, July 18, 2009
OUR TOWN!
Don't read this post. Get right off this page and go to the website for the Barrow Street Theatre and reserve tickets for Our Town this instant. GO! I'll wait.
There. Wasn't that easy? And you are about to see one of the most fantastic productions of anything I've ever seen anywhere.
Now, everybody knows Our Town - mainly because it was everybody's senior class play unless you did You Can't Take It With You instead (I did, although it wasn't my senior class play*). You know, the Webb family and the Gibbs family and love and marriage and death and the Stage Manager and all that. Yeah, that one.
I don't think I've seen the play for a good thirty years or so, because, quite frankly, I know it so well and it's so often a deadly damn bore. It tends to get staged the same way every time, for one thing...bare or almost bare stage, lots of miming of things, etc., etc., etc. Which is fine, because that happens to be the way Thornton Wilder intended it to be done. Unfortunately, because of this, people seem to think it'll be very simple to do - which it isn't. The problem is that bad actors (WAY too many of them, starting with the high school senior play kids) are lots more comfortable with costumes and props to play with, and haven't the remotest notion of how to act without them - actually, they're not too hot WITH them either, but the whole thing looks better. Our Town requires spectacular acting, because that's all there is to it.
Boy, does the play ever get its spectacular acting in this production. It's got the usual accoutrements - bare stage, nothing but tables and chairs, modern dress. What this cast does with it is nothing short of miraculous...and there's a surprise in the third act which you'll just have to go and see because I wouldn't ruin it for the world...but when it came up, the whole audience let out a collective gasp of delight.
All in all, it was a production which made me, Caesar, Joe and D.L. - actors all - look at each other and say, "Now will we go home and practice?" The only other thing I've seen in my life that made me say that was a production of a Pinter play which starred Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson...so you can imagine how good Our Town was.
GO SEE IT.
Love, Wendy (who seems to be burbling)
*My senior class play was The Green Pastures, which was written by Marc Connolly in the 1920's to be played by an all-black cast, and we did it in blackface - in 1963. I think we were trying to show solidarity with the civil rights fight, but it was entirely bizarre. You picture it...all these little prep school kids in blackface and white choir robes...and I played De Lawd (of COURSE it was the lead)...did I mention that the whole play was written in 1920's "Negro" dialect? VERY weird...
There. Wasn't that easy? And you are about to see one of the most fantastic productions of anything I've ever seen anywhere.
Now, everybody knows Our Town - mainly because it was everybody's senior class play unless you did You Can't Take It With You instead (I did, although it wasn't my senior class play*). You know, the Webb family and the Gibbs family and love and marriage and death and the Stage Manager and all that. Yeah, that one.
I don't think I've seen the play for a good thirty years or so, because, quite frankly, I know it so well and it's so often a deadly damn bore. It tends to get staged the same way every time, for one thing...bare or almost bare stage, lots of miming of things, etc., etc., etc. Which is fine, because that happens to be the way Thornton Wilder intended it to be done. Unfortunately, because of this, people seem to think it'll be very simple to do - which it isn't. The problem is that bad actors (WAY too many of them, starting with the high school senior play kids) are lots more comfortable with costumes and props to play with, and haven't the remotest notion of how to act without them - actually, they're not too hot WITH them either, but the whole thing looks better. Our Town requires spectacular acting, because that's all there is to it.
Boy, does the play ever get its spectacular acting in this production. It's got the usual accoutrements - bare stage, nothing but tables and chairs, modern dress. What this cast does with it is nothing short of miraculous...and there's a surprise in the third act which you'll just have to go and see because I wouldn't ruin it for the world...but when it came up, the whole audience let out a collective gasp of delight.
All in all, it was a production which made me, Caesar, Joe and D.L. - actors all - look at each other and say, "Now will we go home and practice?" The only other thing I've seen in my life that made me say that was a production of a Pinter play which starred Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson...so you can imagine how good Our Town was.
GO SEE IT.
Love, Wendy (who seems to be burbling)
*My senior class play was The Green Pastures, which was written by Marc Connolly in the 1920's to be played by an all-black cast, and we did it in blackface - in 1963. I think we were trying to show solidarity with the civil rights fight, but it was entirely bizarre. You picture it...all these little prep school kids in blackface and white choir robes...and I played De Lawd (of COURSE it was the lead)...did I mention that the whole play was written in 1920's "Negro" dialect? VERY weird...
Say What?
There's a story on FARK.com (one of my favorite sites ever) today about a Guatemalan man who suffered police brutality in Florida. The police department is trying to get him to sign a release and accept a check for $400 to make the whole thing (caught on video) to go away.
It seems that the Guatemalan gentleman doesn't speak English, and Spanish is his second language (the first being Guatemalan, one would assume). Even so, he has a lawyer who is trying to help, and who remarked: "I do not believe that that release is enforceful."
Wait. WHO doesn't speak WHAT language?
Love, Wendy
It seems that the Guatemalan gentleman doesn't speak English, and Spanish is his second language (the first being Guatemalan, one would assume). Even so, he has a lawyer who is trying to help, and who remarked: "I do not believe that that release is enforceful."
Wait. WHO doesn't speak WHAT language?
Love, Wendy
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Waistcincher Redux, And Other Tales of Woe
It's been a LONG week. Monday night I went to a friend's birthday party in a little bar/cafe in the East Village, and it got very, VERY drunk out. Tuesday, while I was crawling around on my hands and knees moaning gently, thinking of which of my friends I could trust to come over and put me out of my misery, dear old Grant Wilfley called - back to the waistcincher yesterday.
I was in a bit of a terror, because Sarah and I went to see Harry Potter at the midnight showing on Tuesday/Wednesday...and I knew damn well I wouldn't get home until around 3AM (making a 5;30 in the morning bus a fairly ugly idea). Luckily yesterday's shoot turned out to be a night shoot, which worked out perfectly.
I've never been on a night shoot before, and I'm here to tell you that it's great fun. We were out on the actual, purpose-built set in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (which evidently is now my second home), and oh, my God, it's spectacular. I can't describe it to you because I'm bound by a confidentiality agreement, but trust me - you will DEFINITELY want to watch the pilot (comes out in January, I think) to see this.
But oh, dear - I was called for the bus at 5:30 pm, and waltzed - make that staggered - into the house at 6:30 am. At which point I tried to read the papers and discovered that my eyes were closing...so I went to bed, intending to wake up around 4 pm or so and have an enormous meal and try to get myself turned around to be on the same time as everyone else (with a midnight movie on Tuesday and an all-night shoot on Wednesday, I'm no longer sure what the hell day or time it is). Unfortunately, some blithering idiot set up the world's loudest machine of some sort under my window at 9 am or so - when I'd dozed off at 8. So up I got again, NOT awake. Then I ate something and went back to sleep, only to wake up again...so far today, I've gotten about three hours sleep, and I'm dying.
And I ache all over, and I had to turn the air conditioning on. Last night's shoot involved standing and walking around for the whole damn thing, as opposed to the other two shoots, which were sitting. My cute little lace-up boots are just fine for sitting in...not for standing in, I have discovered. I'm just TIRED. And still hot, because of course, since it was warm and humid last night, we were shooting a winter scene, which meant that on top of the dreaded waistcincher, the blouse, and the suit, I was wearing a larger furpiece than my other one and had my hands stuck in a fur muff. By the time they finish shooting this thing, I think they're just going to have to burn those costumes...
But lovely money with night differential AND overtime (12 hours! Yay! Yawn!).
Meanwhile, one of my straight agencies called today, and they want me to do a 12 hour a week straight job, which they assure me is flexible, and will pay 15 bucks an hour. It'll last until November, and IF it comes off, I'll have a nice little weekly addition to the Christmas fund.
I am going to bed, and if I hear one damn noise outside that isn't the usual run of neighborhood shrieks and catfights, I'm going to run down with a bucket of boiling oil. So there.
Love, Wendy
I was in a bit of a terror, because Sarah and I went to see Harry Potter at the midnight showing on Tuesday/Wednesday...and I knew damn well I wouldn't get home until around 3AM (making a 5;30 in the morning bus a fairly ugly idea). Luckily yesterday's shoot turned out to be a night shoot, which worked out perfectly.
I've never been on a night shoot before, and I'm here to tell you that it's great fun. We were out on the actual, purpose-built set in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (which evidently is now my second home), and oh, my God, it's spectacular. I can't describe it to you because I'm bound by a confidentiality agreement, but trust me - you will DEFINITELY want to watch the pilot (comes out in January, I think) to see this.
But oh, dear - I was called for the bus at 5:30 pm, and waltzed - make that staggered - into the house at 6:30 am. At which point I tried to read the papers and discovered that my eyes were closing...so I went to bed, intending to wake up around 4 pm or so and have an enormous meal and try to get myself turned around to be on the same time as everyone else (with a midnight movie on Tuesday and an all-night shoot on Wednesday, I'm no longer sure what the hell day or time it is). Unfortunately, some blithering idiot set up the world's loudest machine of some sort under my window at 9 am or so - when I'd dozed off at 8. So up I got again, NOT awake. Then I ate something and went back to sleep, only to wake up again...so far today, I've gotten about three hours sleep, and I'm dying.
And I ache all over, and I had to turn the air conditioning on. Last night's shoot involved standing and walking around for the whole damn thing, as opposed to the other two shoots, which were sitting. My cute little lace-up boots are just fine for sitting in...not for standing in, I have discovered. I'm just TIRED. And still hot, because of course, since it was warm and humid last night, we were shooting a winter scene, which meant that on top of the dreaded waistcincher, the blouse, and the suit, I was wearing a larger furpiece than my other one and had my hands stuck in a fur muff. By the time they finish shooting this thing, I think they're just going to have to burn those costumes...
But lovely money with night differential AND overtime (12 hours! Yay! Yawn!).
Meanwhile, one of my straight agencies called today, and they want me to do a 12 hour a week straight job, which they assure me is flexible, and will pay 15 bucks an hour. It'll last until November, and IF it comes off, I'll have a nice little weekly addition to the Christmas fund.
I am going to bed, and if I hear one damn noise outside that isn't the usual run of neighborhood shrieks and catfights, I'm going to run down with a bucket of boiling oil. So there.
Love, Wendy
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Peculiar
I opened a fresh pack of cigarettes today, and realized that there was something I intended to mention the first time I saw it a couple of days ago which I find really, really strange.
Now we all know that I am the most die-hard of die-hard smokers. I have gotten quite used to the warnings on packs and the scare articles and all the rest of the non-smoking arsenal. But this one threw me.
I smoke a brand called Basic, which is just that - they're essentially bootleg Marlboros. I opened a pack the other day and it had a little piece of paper stuck in it, which I assumed was another of those "Look! This is what a diseased tongue looks like!" things.
But no. Basic has taken to putting in its packs little slips of paper with jokes and scrambled word puzzles on them, rather like old bubble gum packs used to do. None of these jokes or puzzles have anything to do with cigarettes at all.
I cannot even begin to tell you how confused I am by this. Is it some sort of underground movement to make smoking fun again? Are these little bits of paper imbued with a stealth stop smoking drug? Have the people who make Basic simply lost their collective minds? Or do they also make bubble gum, and are some six year olds about to get a nasty shock when they open that?
Love, Wendy
Now we all know that I am the most die-hard of die-hard smokers. I have gotten quite used to the warnings on packs and the scare articles and all the rest of the non-smoking arsenal. But this one threw me.
I smoke a brand called Basic, which is just that - they're essentially bootleg Marlboros. I opened a pack the other day and it had a little piece of paper stuck in it, which I assumed was another of those "Look! This is what a diseased tongue looks like!" things.
But no. Basic has taken to putting in its packs little slips of paper with jokes and scrambled word puzzles on them, rather like old bubble gum packs used to do. None of these jokes or puzzles have anything to do with cigarettes at all.
I cannot even begin to tell you how confused I am by this. Is it some sort of underground movement to make smoking fun again? Are these little bits of paper imbued with a stealth stop smoking drug? Have the people who make Basic simply lost their collective minds? Or do they also make bubble gum, and are some six year olds about to get a nasty shock when they open that?
Love, Wendy
Help! Aliens Have Taken Over My Brain!
I got up this morning and checked my email, got the papers, read the papers (doing all the crossword puzzles that came my way), ate breakfast (a quarter of a big cantaloupe and some cottage cheese, which makes a nice light breakfast - since I'm going to a street fair and have every intention of eating a humongous sausage and pepper sandwich) and came back upstairs to recheck the email and play solitaire and generally screw around and possibly nap.
So far so good - this is a pretty good description of me on a non-work/non-audition morning. However, something came over me, and I think I'm now being controlled by creatures from the Planet of Martha Stewart.
I have two loads of laundry going - one in the washer and one in the dryer. I folded up and put away (or put on the chair for ironing) all the laundry that was on the bed. I put away all the books that were on the bed. (I have never gotten used to having a whole queen sized bed, so I continue to sleep on "my" side and use the other half for a revolving library.) Then I changed the sheets, spraying the pillows and mattress with Febreze (try this if you haven't...makes the bed lovely to get into on top of nice clean sheet smell). Then I emptied the bathroom trash and took a shower, washed my hair, and poured body lotion all over myself.
HELP! I'M BEING TAKEN OVER BY THE EVIL FORCES OF HOUSEKEEPING!
Love, Wendy
So far so good - this is a pretty good description of me on a non-work/non-audition morning. However, something came over me, and I think I'm now being controlled by creatures from the Planet of Martha Stewart.
I have two loads of laundry going - one in the washer and one in the dryer. I folded up and put away (or put on the chair for ironing) all the laundry that was on the bed. I put away all the books that were on the bed. (I have never gotten used to having a whole queen sized bed, so I continue to sleep on "my" side and use the other half for a revolving library.) Then I changed the sheets, spraying the pillows and mattress with Febreze (try this if you haven't...makes the bed lovely to get into on top of nice clean sheet smell). Then I emptied the bathroom trash and took a shower, washed my hair, and poured body lotion all over myself.
HELP! I'M BEING TAKEN OVER BY THE EVIL FORCES OF HOUSEKEEPING!
Love, Wendy
Friday, July 10, 2009
The Best Shopper In The World
I have been looking for business suits. On the face of it, this would seem somewhat odd, since I'm no longer engaged in anything remotely akin to business...and besides that, nobody wears business suits to business any more anyway. However, the movies and TV, in their own little dream world as always (see previous post), insist on proper business attire whenever they film an office scene - and the only business suits I currently own are A. a bright red one which I can't wear because it stands out too much, and B. a black one which I don't think is all that suitable because it has a (very flattering) slit in the skirt. Oh, yeah, and a pink tweed one which is too light colored to make a movie costumer happy.
So I've been dreaming about enough money to go and spend on suits. Yesterday I went over to The New York City Opera thrift store on East 23rd, mainly to see about evening gowns, which some scenes also require. But finding an evening gown for me is damn near impossible because I don't, at this moment, feel that my upper arms are ready for the light of day. And the only kind of evening dress you can usually find like that is a mother of the bride outfit in beige with sequins.
However, there was a Goodwill next to the NYC Opera store, and I poked my nose in there...and lo and behold. This is evidently a Goodwill where they cater to ladies returning to the work force from welfare or something, because there were tons of suits. And I found a classic navy crepe shawl collared skirt suit for - drum roll - $25. Perfect condition, perfect fit.
Evidently my luck carried over to today, because I went to 6th Avenue and 18th to look for a pale blue shirt to go with my navy suit...I don't know what the hell happened to my nice tucked front blue shirt. Well, no shirts to be found anywhere - but good old Housing Works on 17th had a sale...and I scored a beautiful charcoal gray Eddie Bauer classic pants suit - perfect fit, perfect condition - for (trumpet blare because the drum isn't good enough) - $11.25. You read it right. Eleven dollars and twenty five cents.
I even bought a bathing suit today (sale at Old Navy) because my old one is about to lose its seat altogether from old age. Since there are no one piece bathing suits in the world any more unless you want to pay a hundred bucks (which I don't because I so rarely get near water other than in the shower), I went for a tankini - it's bright red with a bright red and bright purple bottom. Thank God it's for use in France, where nobody gives a damn what you wear...and so many people go topless or everythingless anyway. I figure if you can't hide the elephant, paint it pink.
Hey, can I shop or what?
Love, Wendy
So I've been dreaming about enough money to go and spend on suits. Yesterday I went over to The New York City Opera thrift store on East 23rd, mainly to see about evening gowns, which some scenes also require. But finding an evening gown for me is damn near impossible because I don't, at this moment, feel that my upper arms are ready for the light of day. And the only kind of evening dress you can usually find like that is a mother of the bride outfit in beige with sequins.
However, there was a Goodwill next to the NYC Opera store, and I poked my nose in there...and lo and behold. This is evidently a Goodwill where they cater to ladies returning to the work force from welfare or something, because there were tons of suits. And I found a classic navy crepe shawl collared skirt suit for - drum roll - $25. Perfect condition, perfect fit.
Evidently my luck carried over to today, because I went to 6th Avenue and 18th to look for a pale blue shirt to go with my navy suit...I don't know what the hell happened to my nice tucked front blue shirt. Well, no shirts to be found anywhere - but good old Housing Works on 17th had a sale...and I scored a beautiful charcoal gray Eddie Bauer classic pants suit - perfect fit, perfect condition - for (trumpet blare because the drum isn't good enough) - $11.25. You read it right. Eleven dollars and twenty five cents.
I even bought a bathing suit today (sale at Old Navy) because my old one is about to lose its seat altogether from old age. Since there are no one piece bathing suits in the world any more unless you want to pay a hundred bucks (which I don't because I so rarely get near water other than in the shower), I went for a tankini - it's bright red with a bright red and bright purple bottom. Thank God it's for use in France, where nobody gives a damn what you wear...and so many people go topless or everythingless anyway. I figure if you can't hide the elephant, paint it pink.
Hey, can I shop or what?
Love, Wendy
Dream World
I do love the notions that movies and TV have about New York. There's a call out for Upper East Side pedestrians for a shoot of Gossip Girl on Monday which calls for ages 18-45, high end pastel summer wardrobe. Have you ever been on Upper East Side streets on a weekday in any season? They are almost exclusively populated by 87 year old women with expensively done white hair and little navy blue suits on their way out to lunch with those of their friends who are not yet quite dead. I've never seen ANYBODY under 70 up there.
Love, Wendy
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Department of Pointless Exercises
Well, this was a dull evening. I sat for two hours at my dear old alma mater, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, in the very same theatre in which I played Big Mama in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof back in 1972, and listened to four agents describe in detail how none of us agentless actors were ever going to get an agent without doing a lot of extremely involved backflips. Meet this one, talk to that one, make friends with somebody else...etc., etc., etc., ad infinitem. The only bright spots in the evening were waiting in line to get in and yapping with two great gals of about my own vintage about the problems of the older actor, and the fact that I ran into one of my old castmates from the awful Richard III I did...George, who has the greatest face. He looks like an eagle smelling something rotten. His eyes are rather close together, and he has a great beak of a nose and a somewhat small mouth...and the effect is supercilious but also somehow predatorily birdlike.
I was wrong when I said that the audition which was hunting "names" for all the parts was 7/17 - it's actually tomorrow, and I'm really of two minds about going. I mean, why bother, really? If I do go, it'll be for two reasons - one is that my comic monologue hasn't been taken out for a walk in ages and needs exercise, and two is that I'm quite curious to see if anybody else will turn up at all. Anyway it's right in Union Square, so it hardly requires a huge expenditure of time and energy to get there...and I've really been lazy about auditioning for stage stuff recently. I should go, just for the sake of professional discipline.
I have been both good and bad today. I got up and did my homework - redoing my resume (much less scruffy looking now), writing a letter for a friend who's applying for citizenship and Priority Mailing same, getting my upper lip and chin waxed, and taking the old resumes off the pictures and putting the new resumes on. All very grownup and responsible, do admit. However, between the waxing and the restapling of resumes, I stopped for lunch...economically bad.
It was WONDERFUL. There is a little restaurant on the corner of West 10th and West 4th (for out of town readers, welcome to Greenwich Village, where even the streets are odd) which is just tiny, and in the summer months it's open to the street on two sides. I've been walking by it for ages - I think the name is I Tre Merli, which means (I think) Three Blackbirds, and it's the kind of place where you can just have a cheese or charcuterie plate and a glass of wine, or an actual full meal. Sarah and I and a third friend (Christina, maybe?) had dinner there one night some years back, but I think it was a different restaurant then.
Anyway, it was a beautiful day today, and it just looked right to me. I spent $38 (with tip) on lunch for myself, and it was absolutely worth every single cent. I had a lobster salad, bread with olive oil, and a glass of Cotes du Rhone rose. I LOVE rose, and no one will buy it for me or order a bottle in a restaurant and you can hardly ever find it by the glass, so I was thrilled. And wonderful bread, and flavorful oil, and a huge salad...frisee, mache, avocado, and - wonder of wonders - enough lobster. Usually when you order a lobster salad you get two chunks of lobster. I should think this one had damn near a whole chopped up lobster in it, because there were lovely chunks all through the frisee and mache and it was crowned with the avocado and two whole claws...and a beautiful balsamic vinaigrette.
Heaven. I have never been able to understand women (it's just about only women - men don't seem to care - maybe it's the culture of business trips?) who say they have trouble eating alone in restaurants. (To be fair, they probably don't understand my problem with going to the movies alone.) After years of cooking for other people, I find that there are few things lovelier than a day like today...sitting in glorious silence with my book, ordering exactly what I wanted, basking in the sun through the open sides of the place, sipping my wine, taking my time...and, just for lagniappe, an absolutely gorgeous young waiter (oh, come on...surely I'm allowed some aesthetic admiration).
You know, $38 for an hour of bliss is pretty damn cheap.
Love, Wendy
I was wrong when I said that the audition which was hunting "names" for all the parts was 7/17 - it's actually tomorrow, and I'm really of two minds about going. I mean, why bother, really? If I do go, it'll be for two reasons - one is that my comic monologue hasn't been taken out for a walk in ages and needs exercise, and two is that I'm quite curious to see if anybody else will turn up at all. Anyway it's right in Union Square, so it hardly requires a huge expenditure of time and energy to get there...and I've really been lazy about auditioning for stage stuff recently. I should go, just for the sake of professional discipline.
I have been both good and bad today. I got up and did my homework - redoing my resume (much less scruffy looking now), writing a letter for a friend who's applying for citizenship and Priority Mailing same, getting my upper lip and chin waxed, and taking the old resumes off the pictures and putting the new resumes on. All very grownup and responsible, do admit. However, between the waxing and the restapling of resumes, I stopped for lunch...economically bad.
It was WONDERFUL. There is a little restaurant on the corner of West 10th and West 4th (for out of town readers, welcome to Greenwich Village, where even the streets are odd) which is just tiny, and in the summer months it's open to the street on two sides. I've been walking by it for ages - I think the name is I Tre Merli, which means (I think) Three Blackbirds, and it's the kind of place where you can just have a cheese or charcuterie plate and a glass of wine, or an actual full meal. Sarah and I and a third friend (Christina, maybe?) had dinner there one night some years back, but I think it was a different restaurant then.
Anyway, it was a beautiful day today, and it just looked right to me. I spent $38 (with tip) on lunch for myself, and it was absolutely worth every single cent. I had a lobster salad, bread with olive oil, and a glass of Cotes du Rhone rose. I LOVE rose, and no one will buy it for me or order a bottle in a restaurant and you can hardly ever find it by the glass, so I was thrilled. And wonderful bread, and flavorful oil, and a huge salad...frisee, mache, avocado, and - wonder of wonders - enough lobster. Usually when you order a lobster salad you get two chunks of lobster. I should think this one had damn near a whole chopped up lobster in it, because there were lovely chunks all through the frisee and mache and it was crowned with the avocado and two whole claws...and a beautiful balsamic vinaigrette.
Heaven. I have never been able to understand women (it's just about only women - men don't seem to care - maybe it's the culture of business trips?) who say they have trouble eating alone in restaurants. (To be fair, they probably don't understand my problem with going to the movies alone.) After years of cooking for other people, I find that there are few things lovelier than a day like today...sitting in glorious silence with my book, ordering exactly what I wanted, basking in the sun through the open sides of the place, sipping my wine, taking my time...and, just for lagniappe, an absolutely gorgeous young waiter (oh, come on...surely I'm allowed some aesthetic admiration).
You know, $38 for an hour of bliss is pretty damn cheap.
Love, Wendy
Monday, July 6, 2009
Relaxing - Momentarily
Wow...that was some party on the 4th of July. We went to an apartment on West 60th Street that had this huge balcony with a three sided view of New York...from the 49th floor. It was deeply amazing. And we were right on top of the fireworks barges! What a view! And Saint Tiger Lily's wonderful food, and tons of nice cold beer...a picture perfect 4th!
I had intended to use yesterday as a day of rest (you know, sleeping late, going to bed early and all like that), but I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten to get my Rescue Me fix last week, so I had to stay up until midnight for that. And I woke up early Sunday morning because my hungover body was screaming for greasy food and ice cold Diet Coke. So I woke up this morning and read the papers and then suddenly got sleepy. I thought well, it's only ten thirty in the morning, I can catch another hour's sleep and then bounce off and do things...except that I slept until two this afternoon. Evidently I was still tired.
The week ahead is going to be one constant run. Tomorrow I want to go uptown and poke my nose into Fairway and Zabar's...not for any particular reason, just because I realized last week or whenever it was that I was in that general vicinity (catching a location bus to work) that I haven't been up on the West Side for a while, and I'm not doing anything else in particular. And I love checking out grocery stores...although I don't actually think either Fairway or Zabar's qualifies as a grocery store...grocery temple, maybe.
Wednesday night I'm going to another SAG-produced meet the agent thing, this one on the subject of how to get an agent. During the day tomorrow or Wednesday I've got to redo my resume (it just looks a little scruffy to me for some reason) and work on my monologue for an audition at Equity on Thursday, and on Thursday night I'm going to an Audition for the Agents SAG thing. Then July 17th I've got two auditions at Equity.
One of the July 17th auditions has me irritated before I even get to it. I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but according to Equity rules, you have to hold an audition for every show in New York. Unfortunately, nine out of ten of these shows are cast by agents before they ever hold this "open" audition. So you go to the audition mainly to get your picture and resume in somebody's file. I've heard of a couple of people getting cast from EPAs (that's their name - Equity Principal Auditions), but it's one of those legendary things...you personally never know anyone who's gotten cast that way, it's always a friend of a friend of a friend.
Anyway. this 7/17 audition has its time and date and list of available roles on the Equity online callboard, and after every character name, before the character description, it says "Looking for star names for this role." Um, way to trumpet the fact that you're just going through the motions here, guys. I'm not at all sure how many stars they're going to get at a $665 per week minimum, but still - that should make all of us stay away in droves. I mean, why bother?
However, a bunch of us WILL bother, for the aforementioned resume in the file reason...the thing's being done by the New Georges Company, which I would love to get into...along with most of the other actors in New York. And one never knows!
And today I got to France for Sarah's birthday! (Yes, it WAS a quick trip, wasn't it?) I went to the door to pick up the mail, and there was a check from the IRS for $526.33. Seems I screwed up my taxes in MY favor for once! And that will pay for almost my entire air fare! Now all I have to do is hope to hell they don't suddenly decide to raise the fares a thousand bucks, just for the hell of it, which airlines love to do.
Love, Wendy
I had intended to use yesterday as a day of rest (you know, sleeping late, going to bed early and all like that), but I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten to get my Rescue Me fix last week, so I had to stay up until midnight for that. And I woke up early Sunday morning because my hungover body was screaming for greasy food and ice cold Diet Coke. So I woke up this morning and read the papers and then suddenly got sleepy. I thought well, it's only ten thirty in the morning, I can catch another hour's sleep and then bounce off and do things...except that I slept until two this afternoon. Evidently I was still tired.
The week ahead is going to be one constant run. Tomorrow I want to go uptown and poke my nose into Fairway and Zabar's...not for any particular reason, just because I realized last week or whenever it was that I was in that general vicinity (catching a location bus to work) that I haven't been up on the West Side for a while, and I'm not doing anything else in particular. And I love checking out grocery stores...although I don't actually think either Fairway or Zabar's qualifies as a grocery store...grocery temple, maybe.
Wednesday night I'm going to another SAG-produced meet the agent thing, this one on the subject of how to get an agent. During the day tomorrow or Wednesday I've got to redo my resume (it just looks a little scruffy to me for some reason) and work on my monologue for an audition at Equity on Thursday, and on Thursday night I'm going to an Audition for the Agents SAG thing. Then July 17th I've got two auditions at Equity.
One of the July 17th auditions has me irritated before I even get to it. I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but according to Equity rules, you have to hold an audition for every show in New York. Unfortunately, nine out of ten of these shows are cast by agents before they ever hold this "open" audition. So you go to the audition mainly to get your picture and resume in somebody's file. I've heard of a couple of people getting cast from EPAs (that's their name - Equity Principal Auditions), but it's one of those legendary things...you personally never know anyone who's gotten cast that way, it's always a friend of a friend of a friend.
Anyway. this 7/17 audition has its time and date and list of available roles on the Equity online callboard, and after every character name, before the character description, it says "Looking for star names for this role." Um, way to trumpet the fact that you're just going through the motions here, guys. I'm not at all sure how many stars they're going to get at a $665 per week minimum, but still - that should make all of us stay away in droves. I mean, why bother?
However, a bunch of us WILL bother, for the aforementioned resume in the file reason...the thing's being done by the New Georges Company, which I would love to get into...along with most of the other actors in New York. And one never knows!
And today I got to France for Sarah's birthday! (Yes, it WAS a quick trip, wasn't it?) I went to the door to pick up the mail, and there was a check from the IRS for $526.33. Seems I screwed up my taxes in MY favor for once! And that will pay for almost my entire air fare! Now all I have to do is hope to hell they don't suddenly decide to raise the fares a thousand bucks, just for the hell of it, which airlines love to do.
Love, Wendy
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Huh?
Something has just struck me. I've been sort of watching all the Michael Jackson hoopla (you try to find a way to avoid it). And we're actually getting clear pictures of the children now - without the masks and bodyguards and what all with which they normally appear.
Perhaps there's something I don't know about genetics...there's probably quite a lot I don't know about genetics, notwithstanding the Mendelian chart I had to do in high school. You remember that...two brown eyed people can't have a blue eyed child and all of that. Although actually they can, I think.
The point is that looking at those kids, it doesn't seem to me that there's any possible way they could be Jackson's children at all. And finally, the papers are saying that the sperm might have come from his doctor or somebody. But really, people...before all that plastic surgery and skin bleaching, Michael Jackson was BLACK. Or Negro. Or African-American. Or however you want to say it. His family is BLACK. They have Negroid features - that's not a slur, guys, it's the proper scientific term, so don't yell at me. Negroid, Caucasian, Asiatic...that's the way it's referred to in various scientific studies. But those kids do not have one single feature that looks anything but white bread Anglo-Saxon. This is a physical impossibility. You can have all the surgery and bleaching you like, but it's all outward appearance. It doesn't have anything to do with your basic genetic makeup.
And it brings up another few points. If those kids weren't fathered by Jackson, wouldn't he have had to legally adopt them? Given the completely insane level of scrutiny surrounding his death, wouldn't someone have found adoption papers by now? I have a suspicion that even if you use a surrogate and a sperm donor and pay them both and get them to sign whatever sort of agreement you might sign in a setup like that, you would have to legally register the whole thing somehow so the kids could get Social Security numbers and passports.
I'm just asking...
Love, Wendy
Perhaps there's something I don't know about genetics...there's probably quite a lot I don't know about genetics, notwithstanding the Mendelian chart I had to do in high school. You remember that...two brown eyed people can't have a blue eyed child and all of that. Although actually they can, I think.
The point is that looking at those kids, it doesn't seem to me that there's any possible way they could be Jackson's children at all. And finally, the papers are saying that the sperm might have come from his doctor or somebody. But really, people...before all that plastic surgery and skin bleaching, Michael Jackson was BLACK. Or Negro. Or African-American. Or however you want to say it. His family is BLACK. They have Negroid features - that's not a slur, guys, it's the proper scientific term, so don't yell at me. Negroid, Caucasian, Asiatic...that's the way it's referred to in various scientific studies. But those kids do not have one single feature that looks anything but white bread Anglo-Saxon. This is a physical impossibility. You can have all the surgery and bleaching you like, but it's all outward appearance. It doesn't have anything to do with your basic genetic makeup.
And it brings up another few points. If those kids weren't fathered by Jackson, wouldn't he have had to legally adopt them? Given the completely insane level of scrutiny surrounding his death, wouldn't someone have found adoption papers by now? I have a suspicion that even if you use a surrogate and a sperm donor and pay them both and get them to sign whatever sort of agreement you might sign in a setup like that, you would have to legally register the whole thing somehow so the kids could get Social Security numbers and passports.
I'm just asking...
Love, Wendy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
