"Wild" Adventures, part deux

The dread Title Confusion strikes again... read this post first to enhance your reading experience.

Scene: My office, this afternoon. The IT guys are trying to fix a problem with my computer, so I've wandered over to a neighboring cubicle to chat.

CO-WORKER 1: Did you do anything fun yesterday?

ME: Oh, yeah, I went to go see Into the Woods with a friend.

CO-WORKER 2: How was it? I heard it was really good.

ME: Well, my friend and I are both theater people, in fact she actually played Little Red Riding Hood this summer, so we probably have waaay too many opinions about it, but--

CO-WORKER 1: What's it about?

CO-WORKER 3: It's about Little Red Riding Hood?!

ME: Yeah, it's based on the Sondheim musical--

CO-WORKER 2: Basically, it's about this woman who really hates her life, nothing is going right for her--

ME: (thinking, This is a rather unique way of looking at Into the Woods, but I guess it kind of describes the Baker's Wife, or Cinderella...)

CO-WORKER 2: --she just divorced her husband and is fucked up on drugs, so she decides to take this big hike through the wilderness--

ME: What?! No... not Wild... Into the Woods! The fairy-tale musical!

(General laughter at Co-Worker 2's expense)

"Wild" Adventures

Scene: My local Indian-food joint, 9:30 PM on a Saturday night. I have a habit of going there for a late supper and feeling like the modern-day equivalent of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks." I am eating Mutter Paneer and reading Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild, thoughtfully sent to me by my mother last week.

SERVER: You know he dies in the end, right?

ME: (assuming this is the standard joke my server makes whenever he sees someone reading a book in the restaurant) Ha ha...

(Then it occurs to me that my server might actually be a literature-lover who has fallen prey to the dread Title Confusion.)

ME: You know, this isn't actually the book where he dies in the end.

SERVER: What?

ME: That one is Into the Wild -- about the kid who goes to the Alaskan wilderness and dies there. This one is just Wild. It's a memoir, by a woman, about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail -- so you see she couldn't die in the end, or there wouldn't be any book!

SERVER: Oh gosh! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean -- I wasn't even thinking about that other book--

ME: It's OK... I thought it was funny, how their titles are similar.

SERVER: It's just something I always say when I see people reading.

Nu-pieds au parc

Fragment of my conversation at dinner this evening.

FRENCH GUY #1: ...dessert in the park. (To me) Hey, wouldn't that be a good title for a play? Dessert in the Park?

ME: Hmm... I don't know... There's a play called Barefoot in the Park...

FRENCH GUY #1: Barefoot in the Park? What's that about? No, don't tell me. To me--to me, Barefoot in the Park--sounds like a guy who, he is barefoot in the park because his wife was about to discover him in the apartment of his mistress, and he had to run out of there as fast as he could, and he didn't have time to put on his shoes.

ME: (Laughing) That is so French... No offense, but that's like the classic French farce scenario, right? Feydeau--

FRENCH GUY #1: So that is not the play, Barefoot in the Park?

ME: No, what it's really about is this free-spirited girl who marries a kind of buttoned-up guy, so she's the one who goes barefoot in the park--

FRENCH GUY #1: Ah yes. The clash of cultures...

ME: Lifestyles...

FRENCH GUY #1: ...East Coast businessman and California hippie--

ME: Yeah. The play is from the '60s so, you know, the hippie thing was just starting out.

FRENCH GUY #2: I still think Dessert in the Park is a better title.

FRENCH GUY #1: Yes!

FRENCH GUY #2: Because Barefoot in the Park--"barefoot" is not a very pretty word, in English, is it?

FRENCH GUY #1: And Barefoot in the Park--that's too plain. There is no ambiguity.

FRENCH GUY #2: But Dessert in the Park, that makes you curious. It leaves you with questions. It could be food, right, the dessert they are having--

FRENCH GUY #1: "Dessert" is a good word--

FRENCH GUY #2: Or it could be sex.

Overheard: The "Cyberspace is Taking Over" Edition

(In shuttle van from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. A middle-aged man from San Francisco is telling a young man from Israel what he needs to know about the Southwest.)

SAN FRANCISCAN: Santa Fe is really unique. It doesn't look like any other US city.

ISRAELI: Oh really?

SAN FRANCISCAN: No. Well, I guess these kinds of buildings might look familiar to you--you're probably used to seeing adobe houses, in Israel. But you don't really find them in the rest of the country.

ISRAELI: The material these buildings are made of--that's called adobe?

SAN FRANCISCAN: That's right, adobe.

ISRAELI: Like the software?

All I Want for Christmas is a New Holiday Song

Ever since Love Actually came out, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" has been hard to avoid during the holiday season--making it exponentially more popular than any other Christmas song from the last 20 years.

It's a bouncy tune, and Mariah really sells it, but all the same, I wondered whether it had the staying power to become a holiday classic. It feels so commercial and the title is so obvious; also, I didn't know whether people liked it for the song itself or for Mariah's performance of it.

Well, yesterday I witnessed a major milestone in the unstoppable march of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" toward holiday ubiquity. On the street corner outside my office, at lunchtime, a brass band--probably fifteen people total--oompahed their way through "All I Want For Christmas Is You." Instrumental. No singing.

So this proves that the tune has become popular, and recognizable, and evocative of holiday cheer, even when it's divorced from the lyrics. And so I'm afraid we'll be hearing it even more in years to come. What do you want to bet that Mannheim Steamroller's next Christmas album will feature "All I Want For Christmas Is You" orchestrated with lute, recorder, and 80s-style synths? When that happens, we'll know the song is really here to stay.

Overheard: The "Hitchcock May Not Have Said This, But I Bet He'd Agree With It" Edition

"Filmmakers love San Francisco because it's like a beautiful woman: It has no bad angles."

--Middle-aged man waiting for a table outside the House of Nanking restaurant, a few weekends ago

Image: Kim Novak (and San Francisco) in Vertigo. Photo from the very cool 1000 Frames of Hitchcock Project.

Overheard: The "If You're That Jaded, Maybe You Do Belong in New York" Edition

Geary Street bus, about 4 PM this afternoon. It is over 90 degrees outside and very sunny, though thankfully not humid.

GIRL #1: If it has to be this hot outside, I wish I was in New York City.

ME: Thinking of New York City when the temperature is above 90...the oppressive East Coast humidity...the crushing crowds of people...the dirty littered streets...the way that the subway platforms become like grubby saunas...ugh ugh ugh, thank God I'm not there.

GIRL #2: Why?

GIRL #1: Because you're always exited when you're in New York. But this is just San Francisco. Ho hum.

Overheard: The "Usually I'd Agree With This, But Not in San Francisco" Edition

Market Street, about an hour ago. Two cops stroll past me, chatting. One says to his buddy:

"If you cain't tell the difference between a man and a woman, then you've got some serious problems."

Sunday in Manhattan

Sunday. My first NYC day in nine months, and the first stirrings of fall weather in the air. I got out out my black leather blazer that made me feel so Manhattan-chic when I wore it to the city during high school.

Of course there's always something to do in New York--both what you plan and what you just stumble upon. Last time I was in the city, last December, I had a really great stumble-upon moment, which I'll blog about sometime. But this Sunday was pretty good, too. First, near Grand Central Station, the Mexican Day Parade was going on. Crowds of people dressed in red, white, and green--some from head to toe. Sombreros and banderas on sale in front of the Public Library. Since I was near the start of the parade route, things were very chaotic, so didn't stay long.

One of my favorite parts of city is "Library Way," the bronze plaques with quotes about books, libraries, learning, set in the sidewalk on 41st Street, leading up to the Public Library. One of them is by Tom Stoppard:

and I always pause a bit reverentially before it. (Go here and scroll down for a link to all the plaques. Beautiful stuff.)

When I got to Times Square, everything north of 42nd Street was blocked off. There seemed to be a crowd, and big echoing loudspeakers... "It's Broadway on Broadway" said a policewoman to a group of curious passerby.

Now, I faithfully check playbill.com, but it had slipped my attention that there would be this huge Broadway-promoting concert the day I was in the city. I set out to find the way into the barricaded area. Had to walk over to 8th Avenue, and then up to 46th or 47th... and as I entered that massive crowd in Times Square, I couldn't even see the stage, but I heard the singing, a huge brassy chorus of "New York, New York," and the confetti machines perched atop billboards and buildings were going like mad, and the semi-autumnal sunlight hit me in the eyes, and... New York, I'm back! I wanted to shout.

This was the final number of the concert (which explains the big chorus and the confetti) so soon I was filing out of Times Square again, snapping photos with my camera, the confetti drifting down only to get swept up... When I returned to Times Square about 4 hours later, there was no trace of it.


I continued on down 42nd Street to Playwrights Horizons--a nice, new theater building, with hanging banners printed with quotes from plays they have produced, which, again, just thrill my heart. I had to stop myself from snapping photos of everything (I got into that habit in Paris).

At the play I was sitting next to some girls my age or a little younger...college freshmen or sophomores, I'd guess. Those of you who are sick of Hollywood actors with no stage experience getting cast in the lead roles of Broadway shows, I have to tell you it's not going to change anytime soon, not when it leads to scenes like this one:

GIRL 1: (Reading her playbill, sees the Roundabout's ad for Pygmalion starring Claire Danes) Look, Claire Danes is gonna be on Broadway!
GIRL 2: Ooh, when?
GIRL 1: "Previews start September 21." That's soon!
GIRL 2: I love Claire Danes!
GIRL 1: Me, too! We should get tickets.
GIRL 2: Pygmalion...is that like Pygmalion and Galatea, the myth?
GIRL 1: I don't know.
GIRL 2: We should totally go!
GIRL 1: Totally!

I wanted to lean over and say "It's Shaw's play that got adapted into My Fair Lady," but refrained. Hey, at least these girls are getting excited about theatre, and Pygmalion's a good play to know, regardless of who's cast in it.

On my train back to Poughkeepsie I absolutely loved the way the conductor talked--with a West Indian accent, old-fashioned words and phrases, and an old-fashioned sort of concern for his passengers and human decency. Saying things like "I do beseech you, do not leave your belongings on the seat next to you" and "Please do not annoy your fellow passengers, everyone has the right to a pleasant trip," and "Let us all be on the good side of courtesy, folks!"

It's nice to hear that message, since even though I love New York, it can be a tough place. I honed some of my big-city survival skills living in Paris for 4 months this year, but it's still nothing like New York. In Paris, I feel, you can afford to be leisurely--there is always time for an espresso or a crepe, and if you don't like the looks of one café there's another on the next corner. But in New York, if you don't want to eat in Times Square because it's too crowded, you go two blocks over and you're in Hell's Kitchen and there's nowhere good to grab food before your matinée. Or, you arrive at Grand Central Station at 6:45 to find your train leaves at 7:10 and you need to eat something and the restaurants in the basement are already closing down for the night. In New York you cannot afford to be aimless or indecisive, or else the city will defeat you. So, despite my love for it, I don't know if I could live there. And yet I don't know of any other place in the world that has so much wonderment packed into so small an area.

My 8-Year-Old Cousin Should Really Have His Own Blog

But since I doubt he does, he'll just have to make a guest appearance on mine.

P. is my godfather's youngest child. Actually, he is the youngest son of a youngest son of a youngest son. Maybe that's what makes him so magical?

He is eight years old and just discovering that life is unfair. We all have to realize this at some point, and he's doing it younger than most. (I think I was in junior high before I realized this. But that's what junior high will do to ya.) He's realized that the first two months of school are always "a waste, cause you're just going over what you did last year" and that learning cursive handwriting is also a waste. He rails against the practice of pricing an item $10.99 instead of $11. "They're tryin' to make you think it's cheaper so they can just get all your money! But it's not ten-ninety-nine, it's eleven, and everyone knows it's a trick! I know only one person who would fall for that--a BABY! Because they don't know any better!"

He hates the long lines at the amusement park, how you can give the carnie your ticket and he'll still make you wait for a few cycles of the Ferris wheel to go around. It's like, he has just realized that as an 8-year-old kid, he really is powerless, subject to the whims and rules of every adult. Even worse, most ADULTS are powerless at times, in the face of queues, bureaucracy, marketing gimmicks, etc... and he's not taking this lightly.

His philosophy: "I wish life was like a buffet. Or a soda machine. Cause you put in your money, and then you choose. Put in the money, and then choose. That way you can figure out what you want and you don't get choiced too early. But no, it's not like that. Life is never like a buffet." (I love the way he talks. "Get choiced"--maybe you've never heard it before but you know exactly what it means.)

Here on this earth, we have to make our choices blindly and then pay the price. And P. has just figured this out.

But yet, he is not cynical, he is not being pessimistic on purpose, and he is certainly not having spoiled, angry tantrums about the world's unfairness. He just sees things clearly and tells 'em like he sees 'em. Sometimes I think he has more integrity than most of the adults I know.

Other favorite comments:

"Nuns are kinda like vampires. With the black capes."

"Peach rings are my major weakness. If I left my peach rings out on my balcony overnight the birds would eat them and get high on the sugar and start tap-dancing."


This kid knows his movies! He talks with great authority about the plots of Transformers, Ratatouille, and Harry Potter 5 before he'd even seen them. He can analyze a movie preview like a very astute 21st-century kid. And then analyze life like an uncorrupted prophet. "He's been here before," says my dad to my uncle. I don't know if I believe in that stuff. But I'm certainly glad he's here now.