Looking at Art Through Rose-Colored Glasses @ SF Theater Pub

When I rate movies on the IMDB, it's rare for me to give them a score below 7 out of 10; and I can't remember the last time I wrote a negative review on this blog. Yes, it's true: I have a tendency to "round up" my opinions of works of art from neutral to positive, or to give people an A for effort rather than an A for achievement. But I'm not sure if that actually does anyone any favors.

In my latest Theater Pub column, I discuss my tendency to "convince myself that I really liked something, when I might have felt only mildly positive about it." Which might be a defense mechanism -- it means that I don't have to own up to my disappointment and my ennui, and that I avoid feeling like a crotchety old crone.

Check it out, and feel free to post about your own experiences in the comments. I'd like to remain positive and optimistic -- but I'd also like to know how to be more honest with myself and with others.

Sortes Virgilianae for the 21st Century

"Sortes Virgilianae" (Virgilian lots) is an ancient method of bibliomancy — opening up a book to a random passage, and taking it as your fortune — using The Aeneid for its text. I think I first heard about it via one of Lauren Cerand's tweets; she's also written about it in a blog post here. As with most things Lauren Cerand writes about, it struck me as highly sophisticated and a very good idea, and I filed it away for future reference.

I was feeling a little blue the other night, and decided that perhaps some sortes virgilianae was in order, to reveal my fate and perhaps perk me up. But my copy of The Aeneid is packed away in a box in Oregon, and my classics-major boyfriend is out of town, so I can't ask to borrow his copy. Moreover, though I love books and refuse to own an e-reader, I wondered if the act of opening a physical book can ever be perfectly random. Aren't most books bound so that they fall open to certain pages more easily than to others? Also, how does language and translation come into it? If I performed this trick with an English-language copy of The Aeneid, could I truly be said to be doing "sortes Virgilianae"? If my translation were corrupt, would my fortune be corrupt too?

Fortunately, we live in a fascinating era, and so, herewith, I provide six easy steps for doing Sortes Virgilianae in the 21st century, using only your computer and an Internet connection:

1. Go to the Random Number Generator (www.random.org) and generate a random number between 1 and 12.
2. This is the book of The Aeneid where your fortune will be found. Go to the Latin Library's Virgil page and click on the designated book.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see how many total lines (t) are in this book.
4. Use the Random Number Generator again, to generate a random number between 1 and t.
5. Scroll up till you find the line that the Random Number Generator has designated. Highlight and copy the line.
6. Paste the text into Google Translate (yes, it can handle Latin), and read your fortune.

When I tried this on Tuesday night, the Random Number Generator directed me to Book 10, line 770: "Obuius ire parat. Manet imperterritus ille." Translation, courtesy of Google: "Prepares to meet. Undaunted he abides."

I think this is why The Aeneid is so popular with practitioners of bibliomancy: it is an epic poem full of people doing noble and heroic deeds, and therefore, full of inspiring lines like "Undaunted, he abides." At any rate, receiving this line as my sortes virgilianae on Tuesday night did much to boost my spirits and buck me up.

There ought to be a sortes virgilianae app that automatically performs the 6 steps above, but this procedure will do for now.

Greek mythology isn't brain surgery... or is it?

From Rivka Galchen's article on Elmhurst Hospital, The New Yorker, May 13, 2013:

A young, very dark-skinned patient was jogging lightly up and down the hall. His brain appeared to be herniating out of his skull and, indeed, it was, because he had had a portion of his skull removed, with the goal of safely accommodating brain swelling. [...] The swelling goes down; the piece of skull bone, having been stored in the patient's thigh, is eventually returned to its proper location.

So wait. If you have brain swelling, first they cut your skull open, then they store a piece of it in your thigh? OH MY GOD, THIS IS LIKE ATHENA AND DIONYSUS IN ONE.

It's enough to make me want to get a swelled head.

Questions, Reactions, Explorations of Race in Theater (new Theater Pub column)

Who'd have thought that a madcap, farcical comedy would prove to be one of the more controversial plays in New York? But when a Filipino-American actor wrote a blog post revealing that he had been passed over for the role of a "tribal chief" in favor of a white performer, it caused a stir on Facebook and Twitter.

Despite reading the actor's post and thinking I'd probably boycott this play if I ever got the chance to see it, I unwittingly ended up buying tickets to the show, and saw a preview when I was in New York last week.

Of course, I had to write about the experience -- my thoughts, my questions -- for my new Theater Pub column. What should I have done when I realized that I had bought tickets to a play whose casting reflected values that I do not agree with?

Feel free to post your suggestions in the comments of my Theater Pub post. The comments also contain a more straightforward review of the show in question (The Explorers Club by Nell Benjamin) as well as brief thoughts on the other play I saw while in NYC -- Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

A Decade of Loving Arcadia (and Septimus) @ SF Theater Pub Blog

I am really, really proud of my latest Theater Pub column. In it, I write about seeing ACT's production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia exactly ten years after I read the play for the first time, and having So Many Feelings.

If you've ever experienced a decade-long love for a work of art, wondered if a staged production of your favorite play would live up to your expectations, or just had a massive crush on Arcadia's Septimus Hodge, this one is for you.

I was also glad to finally take the opportunity to write about one of my favorite plays, and my biggest literary crush of all time, at length. Here are some links to other, briefer posts I've written that have to do with Arcadia:

• Arcadia on the brain (May 30, 2009)
• Inspiration's Promise, Fulfilled (March 23, 2009)
• A rolling stone in Arcadia (October 18, 2007) -- I reused a bit of this in the conclusion of my new Arcadia essay

East Coast Girl (at least for a week)

Tomorrow, I'm traveling to New York for a week to attend my 5-year Vassar reunion (where did the time go?!), catch up with East Coast friends, see some Off-Broadway theater, avoid getting attacked by cicadas... you know, the usual.

There'll probably be no new posts while I'm away (well, except for a link to my new Theater Pub column when it's up). But I do hope to have some fun adventures, and to share them here once I've returned home!

Song for the moment, a.k.a. New Favorite Song: "East Coast Girl" by Cayucas.



When I first heard this song on the radio, a couple of months ago, I liked it a lot, but I also thought "This band sounds like they are trying to out-Vampire-Weekend Vampire Weekend." Turns out I'm not the only person who thinks that: the good people of Pitchfork have come to the same conclusion regarding Cayucas' musical style. Unlike the snooty Pitchforkers, though, I'm not so bothered by the way that Cayucas sounds like a breezier, less substantial version of one of my favorite bands. Music need not be epic or groundbreaking to have value, and it's hard to hate such summery, charming indie-pop.

I bought Cayucas' album, Bigfoot, the week it came out, and listened to it while I was on my way to a hipster barbecue in the Mission District. The sun was shining. I was wearing cut-off jean shorts. I rode the J-Church train past Dolores Park and saw San Francisco's golden youth spread before me, day-drinking and sunbathing on the grass -- full of beauty and promise and entitlement and absurdity. And with Bigfoot playing in my ears, it was a perfect moment.

This isn't to denigrate "darker" or more ambitious music -- in fact, I love the way that Vampire Weekend's new album, Modern Vampires of the City, deals with twentysomething angst and despair and "the nagging pressure to make the most of their finite youth." Goodness knows, I've been feeling a lot of that lately, as the realization "Marissa, you graduated college five years ago" sinks in, deeper and deeper. But sometimes you need an antidote to such negativity: lilting music that speaks of summer fun, a weekend reconnecting with old friends and celebrating the good things that have happened in the last five years.

That's what I hope Reunion will be like, at least.

Are Bad Reviews a Badge of Honor? (new Theater Pub column)

My new Theater Pub column is up, over at the usual place. In this one, I investigate the attitude that bad reviews are a badge of honor, and the somewhat related attitude that there's a direct correlation between a work of art's "shock value" and its merit.

I titled this column "Greet Me with Cries of Hate," after the famous last line of Camus' The Stranger. And if you read the comments section, you'll find that this post was greeted with... well, not cries of hate, but definitely more of a rebuke than my columns usually provoke. I accept the criticism, and hope that I won't lose friends over it. That'll teach me not to base columns on conversations that I have with people after I've drunk a glass of wine or two...