Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Last night while waiting for the split peas to mushify themselves into soup we started watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I'd seen the film version of Edward Albee's play several years ago at my apartment in Portland (back when I lived on the same block as Holocene!), but my new flatmate, who is a history teacher, pumped me up with a discussion of all of its historical, political, psychological themes and references (George and Martha Washington, the Cold War, fear of communism, Freudian elements, the war between the sexes, etc.) which had largely gone over my head before. Movies, like poems, you sometimes have to go over twice before you glean their meaning - the first time they just kind of wash over you. After seeing it for the second time last night I can definitely add it to my list of favorite movies.

I first read some of Albee's play back in college while going through my hardcore Virginia Woolf / Bloomsbury phase. (When I finally make it to England, I'll definitely be making pilgrimmages to Woolf /Stephen sites such as the River Ouse, Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, Hogarth House, Charleston, etc.) Imagine my disappointment when I discovered it actually has absolutely nothing to do with Woolf! In fact the title seems to be meaningless, although I was thinking about it and came up with a theory - Woolf was childless her entire life and often felt she wasn't a fully successful woman because she'd never created a life. Since the movie is filled with references to babies and children (who are never seen, only talked about), it seems the choice of title may be a sly reference to Martha and George's predicament, with the weird theme of their imaginary "son" who dominates much of the dialogue in the second and third acts without ever actually solidfying into a flesh-and-blood being.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is filmed in gorgeous, high-contrast black and white that bathes everything in a silvery, gelatin-plate luminescence. The cinematographer (Haskell Wexler) uses an extreme wide-angle lens in many of the close-up shots that adds a grotesque, funhouse-mirror effect that accentuates the dramatic tension of the action. It's a brilliant, drunken trainwreck of a movie. Fun for the whole family! My flatmate says, "This was Albee's attempt to lift the veil on American family life and show the ugly truth beneath it." Interesting, because that's the same premise of some of my other favorite films as well, such as Blue Velvet and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Strange bedfellows?

I love the way Liz Taylor plays Martha, but Sandy Dennis as Honey aggravates me. I want to take her weak little wrists and just break them. Interesting how when someone takes vulnerability to an extreme, it brings out your sadistic impulses - you want to hurt them, because they seem to be calling for that response from you. I tend to admire strength in women and vulnerability in men. Although sometimes the opposite in both cases, as well.

I think I want to write a play in a similar style about the Castro District, where I was job-hunting yesterday. About its evolution / transformation over the years from working class neighborhood (named after one of the Spanish missionaries, lots of Irish immigrants) to gay ghetto beginning in the 60s, and finally into its current sad state of utterly gentrified yuppiegaiety.

I'd still work there, though.

Art: it's on your plate and in your yard

I'm relieved/pleasantly surprised to be seeing rooms in the Mission / Castro / Upper Market area of the City that I should be able to afford. I was originally aiming for N. Oakland/Berkeley area, but if I can live right in the City, why not? Of course, it'll be a room, not an apartment, but that's fine to start until I get my college-grad job and can move on up.

My conception of the boundaries of art and creativity has been expanding lately, as a result of living here, and seeing Cousin's landscaping work, the way he's built an empire of real estate here in this tropical paradise, the way he takes flowers from the yard and arranges them into beautiful living indoor sculptures. Five acres of land are a giant green canvas to him. Although I have been painting, I'm beginning to look beyond the edges of a canvas and thinking of new forms of creativity. I'm starting to understand Warhol's statement that "business is the best art." I made an experimental stir fry last night out of things left in the crisper and it came out good, and I thought "this is art, and it's art you can eat." It's more useful than a painting on a wall, although of course, it also has a much shorter shelf life, so there's the trade-off, I suppose. The little tree Cuz trimmed into a martini (complete with pimento-stuffed olive on a giant toothpick) at the Hana house is art, on a larger scale than I've thought of before.

Now when I look at paintbrushes and palettes I'm starting to see garden shears, sickles and weed-eaters instead.

Joseph Pilates / U.S. of Ant / copies of my book finally!

Finally got the printed copies of my book today! Apparently they had been sitting at the printshop for weeks now without me ever receiving notice – go figger. If you would like to buy one, they’re $5! If I sell just 20 copies at that price I can make back my printing costs. The book is called “What I Really Want Is.” It is a diverse collection of writing, some of it more than a decade old, most of it newer. Email anthonyletigre@gmail.com to order.

Did pilates today for the first time, a DIY session, just following the instructions in the book I checked out yesterday called Pilates For Men. After just one session I have a really good feeling about this. I learned that Joseph Pilates (photo above) invented these postures and exercises to help soldiers wounded in World War I recover. I plan to do pilates every day from now on, plus I’m still doing my regular exercises – 120 pushups a day (and I’m doing them RIGHT now, which means they’re harder, but I’m also starting to have a chest for the first time, in a skinnyboy way), yoga postures, various other stretches. My body is going through an adjustment period that will be a little rough. I abruptly quit drinking, stepped up my exercise regimen in a big way, started taking a heavy barrage of detox vitamins AND eating healthier all at the same time. It’s gonna pay off, though. I predict by the time I leave for Maui I’ll already look and feel trimmer and healthier.

Treated myself to some new underwear from Ross today. I hardly ever buy underwear.

Just watched an episode of The U.S. of Ant on Netflix, where Ant discovers that there are homosexuals living apparently contented lives in Montana. Wonder of wonders! I gather Ant is something like the Byron Beck of the Logo network: glib, makes every hackneyed joke you can think of, can’t think outside the gay box, but that’s what they’re paying him for, I suppose. He is good at talking to people, making them loosen up, getting them to laugh. Can’t stop thinking about sex even for 30 seconds, of course; that’s what his identity is based on. I’m sure he’s a decent enough guy, though, and it was nice that he didn’t just profile gays in the Castro or something overwhelmingly obvious like that.

Milk and snow

Early afternoon yesterday I was starting my day slow when all of a sudden I looked outside and it was snowing! Again! Big, thick flakes coming down heavy. At that very moment I had just decided to go and see Milk, finally, and had a half hour to get to the Fox Tower before it started. I lashed on my hiking boots and dashed to the MAX station and got to the theater just as previews were starting. (A MATINEE is $8.25 now? Jesus allmighty, being a journalist has spoiled me.)

So, then, Milk. It’s not Brideshead Revisited, but it’s pretty good. (They’re verrrrry different films anyway, so that’s not a fair comparison, but it’s on my mind since I finally got my DVD copy of Brideshead a couple days ago! I’m watching it with Dylan on the 20th, the day before I film Art Police.) Sean Penn does a great job as Milk. James Franco is hot, although his character suddenly disappears about halfway through the film with no explanation that I heard, only to reappear just as suddenly closer to the end. Next to Penn, Josh Brolin’s performance may be the best in the film, albeit in service of the “villain” of the film, the guy who shoots Milk. (Hard to believe this is the guy who played Mikey’s older brother Brand in The Goonies so long ago!) There was a subplot involving Milk’s latino lover that was pretty annoying, the character is written as an obnoxious, childish drama queen who locks himself in a closet at a party because people aren’t nice to him – ugggh. The best scenes were the ones in which Milk speaks to and connects with his crowd in the Castro after some police action or political upheaval that has them buzzing like a stirred ant-pile. A lot of the script was kind of melodramatic and contrived, and I think I understand why Gus has shied away from being overtly political for so long – it doesn’t suit him. He’s much more at home being literary and cinematic and poetic – I have that same sensibility, actually. Music or films that are stridently political never lift me as high as peoples’ personal narratives when they have an elegiac quality to them (and I’m back to Brideshead!) I am interested in individual human response and experience and politics smashes all that flat and says “individuals are not important, what is important is the larger picture.” But it isn’t hard to see how Milk fits into a moment in history that’s happening right now and it’s obviously a labor of love on Van Sant’s part.

After the movie I went home (cold rain now, snow gone), surrendered to Taco Bell, then interviewed Kevin Reedy, the author of The Best Nonreligious Quotes Ever. I can tell when I conduct a smashing interview and this one was smashing. Totally smooth, no awkward moments, I had my questions prepared, but left the script when we just started talking, and I was able to effortlessly switch between asking him questions and relating my own experience to his responses. I said he needs some quotes from Andy Warhol and Virginia Woolf for his website and that I would pick some out and submit them. (I also suggested “Nothing is funnier than humor” for the humor section which is MINE!) They printed their book P.O.D. through LightningSource and I picked his brain a little about that, so in addition to getting what I needed for the article, I gleaned some more advice that I can use for my own book.

Joel came over to buy my DVD player and we ended up watching a 3-hour movie, one of his favorites: The Right Stuff, from 1983. It really didn’t look that old, if I was guessing I’d think it was made in the 90s. It’s definitely a guys’ film, or rather a boys’ film: reminded me of being a lot younger, like in the Mt. Rainier days. The script and acting both went awry at certain points, but it won a bunch of Oscars for things like editing and score and other technical things, and it deserved them. I’ve heard it described as “the intelligent man’s Top Gun.” Sam Shepard looks like a melange of four other celebrities – Matt LeBlanc from Friends, Val Kilmer, and a couple others whose names escape me. Ed Harris has the youthful face and glowing blue eyes of a baby or a little boy even though he’s a balding man. Anthony called to say he and J. have left Bora Bora and will be in San Fran now until shortly before I leave Portland, he said while they were away their dog attacked their neighbor’s dog and tore part of its ear off and other damage and I said, “So your dog won?” but I really wish they were cat people, I hate aggressive, violent dogs and I sure am gonna miss Lucy, even on Maui.