Just in time for the Holidays

A guilty Christmas pleasure

Over at Parabasis, they’re fessing up to repeat viewing of various Yuletide chestnuts. As I stated there, my personal fave is the 1962 TV special, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. This hour-long musical version condenses Dickens’ classic tale admirably. Apart from some odd dramaturgical concessions, like changing the order of the ghosts, the teleplay sticks amazingly close to the original 1843 language, lifting entire passages from the novella.




Of course the show wasn’t the first to deploy this stock-in-trade, nor was it was last – as my own adaptation attests. The animation influenced not only my text, but also the composer’s – Rick Lewis and I share our admiration for this cartoon that has, in subtle ways (?), made it into our own version.

In order to insert Mr. Magoo into the TV version, the authors invented a framing device in which Magoo is on his way to the Broadway opening of a brand new staging of the holiday classic – starring himself. After some folderol concerning getting ready to go on stage, the fable begins and we disappear into its absorbing narrative. But we’re reminded of the frame at every commercial break, when curtains close upon the action and the cartoon audience applauds! At end, as the myopic Magoo takes his final bow, he trips on the stage riggings, causing the set flats to collapse – thus literally “bringing down the house.”

The frame doesn’t do much for the story except explain Mr. Magoo’s presence in it, but there’s something charming about the old-fashioned opening and closing of curtains, and the frequently iterated reminder that this story is being presented specifically to you – no sleight of hand, finally, no suspension of disbelief. It’s a redemptive story of goodness willing out just in time, and you don’t need movie magic to believe in it.

Years ago I bought the DVD, which is still wrapped in cellophane. Every year I brandish it, but my partner scowls and points out that there is no end of life-or-death football to witness on TV. This year, however, when we’re all but snowed in and could use a spiritual makeover, I feel certain I will prevail.

Obiter Dicta

A recent read that has continued to haunt me (not a random choice of clichés, as you’ll see) is Julian Barnes’ absorbing new non-fiction work, Nothing To Be Afraid of. As soon as I heard of the book I knew I’d get my hands on it ASAP and devour it, because the whole project is something I’ve thought of doing myself. I.e.: Mr. Barnes has taken 244 pages to explore his worries, hopes, ideas about -- and general sense of outrage over -- the fact that he will one day die.

Even the title evinces his ambivalence; he notes that that the titular statement, so often offered the dying as a fortificaiton against mortal terror, reveals its ambiguities with a mere shift in emphasis: “there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Precisely, Mr. Barnes says. It’s that “nothing” that scares us.

Not that the book’s a blustery rodomontade about staring death down. Actually, just as you’d expect from the fabulist’s fiction, he brings great brio and self-deprecating humor to his task, as though faintly embarrassed to be admitting to his thanatophobia in the first place.

Since I share his dread, I thought the book was a great read, from start to finish. Here’s just a taste of it:

“Do we create art in order to defeat, or at least defy, death? To transcend it, to put it in its place? You may take my body, you may take all the squidgy stuff inside my skull where lurks whatever lucidity and imagination I possess, but you cannot take away what I have done with them. Is that our subtext and our motivation? Most probably—though . . . it’s pretty draft. Those proud lines of Gauthier’s I was once so attached to—everything passes, except art in its robustness; kings die, but sovereign poetry lasts longer than bronze—now read as adolescent consolation. Tastes change; truths becomes clichés; whole art forms disappear. Even the greatest art’s triumph over death is risibly temporary. A novelist might hope for another generation of readers—two or three if lucky—which may feel like a scorning of death; but it’s really just scratching on the wall of the condemned cell. We do it to say: I was here too.”

Keeping the inevitable at bay is not the only reason to write, or paint or compose or what have you. But isn’t some element of that always present, however sublimated it may be? I'm grateful to Julian Barnes for this humorous, well-considered circumnavigation.

The Novel That Predicted Portland

Thank you, Ms. Cynthia, you of Culture Shock fame, for bringing a fun Scott Timberg article to my attention that recently ran in The New York Times. Essentially the piece is a thoughtful review of the ‘70s classic cult favorite Ecotopia, a speculative work of fiction written by Ernest Callenbach. Some credit the author with kick-starting a barrow full of ideas that we are increasingly adopting.

Like what? At one point in his article, Mr. Timberg asks:

"So what has 'Ecotopia' given us?

"A great deal, thinks Professor Slovic of the University of Nevada, including the bioregionalism movement, which considers each part of the country as having a distinct ecological character to be cultivated. The green movement’s focus on local foods and products, and its emphasis on energy reduction also have roots in “Ecotopia,” he said. In fact, much of Portland, Ore., with its public transport, slow-growth planning and eat-local restaurants, can seem like Ecotopia made reality."

Apparently the novel’s influence has been so osmotic that I was unaware that the term “Ecotopia” originated with it. Today it’s used to refer to the Pacific Northwest in general, and occasionally it’s also bandied about as the region’s future name, reserved for when it finally gets fed up with the U.S. and secedes from the Union.

The other name you hear in this regard from time to time is “Pacifica.” Did you know that Oregon has legislation on the books that allows for an initiative process that could authorize secession? So do Washington and California. Hmmmm…….

Stopping by Portland on a snowy evening

Got to love Portland. In this town, Halloween decorations start going up around September 1, and in many households, don’t go away for months. They just coexist with the Christmas trappings. So that now, in mid-December, with snow straight out of central casting falling all over the town, you walk past porches festooned with fir garlands….and pumpkins still holding down the front steps. Many windows still have construction paper witches taped to them – but now the witches share the honor with cut-out snowflakes.

It’s an apt macaronicism, since St Nicholas was originally the Catholic Church’s recuperation of an old folk figure that seemed a tad too Satanic for post-medieval tastes.

Anyway, here in Portlandia, autumn has definitely given way to winter; it’s beginning to look a lot like the Solstice, everywhere you go. In fact today I’m staying indoors and working at home, partly thanks to night-long migraine episode, but partly because the weather outside is frightful. And in between script reports, press announcements and responding to email, my favorite way to heat the house is cooking.

Lunch was a velvety carrot soup, perfect for cleaning out your fridge and also for watching those dire weather forecasts on streaming video. If you want to make it yourself, you’ll need:

· 1-2 tablespoons butter
· 1-pound carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
· 1/2 cup chopped onion
· ¼ cup (or more) shallots
· 3 cups chicken broth
· 1/2 cup orange juice
· 1 tablespoon orange zest
· 1 tablespoon brandy
· 2 teaspoons of bonnes herbes and/or herbes de Provence, crushed

So:

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add carrots and onion; sauté until onion is soft, about 8 minutes. Add broth; cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat, uncover, and simmer until carrots are tender, 10 minutes or so.

Puree soup in blender (I used an immersion blender) until smooth. If you used a conventional blender, return soup to pot now. Stir in orange juice, brandy, and crushed herbs. Simmer 5 minutes for flavors to blend, then season to taste with salt and pepper.


Notes:
This made just enough for James and I, but we eat supersized portions, alas. For friends or normal people (quick! what’s the literary reference there?), or as a first course, you could probably serve four.

We had garlic bread with this – with impunity, since no theatergoing is possible tonight.

If by some miracle you still have fresh tarragon, I bet that that would make a terrific replacement for the dried herbs. Would make a good garnish, too.

BTW: haul in one of those leftover pumpkins from the porch, roast is and substitute it for the carrots in the recipe, and you'll be ready for New Year's Eve in no time.

Almost Famous, starring MrMead

Tuesday evening I was on KGW, briefly, repping PCS on a Christmas Carol promo. Here it is, if you're interested. I am not. Interested in seeing it. Ever ever. I'd rather be waterboarding than listening to the sound of my own voice, much less seeing my mouth acting in concert with it.

Sounds like vanity, I know, but really it's more like a self-esteem issue. As long as I'm not confronted with hard evidence to the contrary, I can go around town assuming I look like this.



But it takes only one errant glance into a reflective storefront window to be reminded that I actually look more like this.



Capisce?

Nevertheless, here's the clip, if you dare:

http://www.kgw.com/video/thesquare-index.html?nvid=311829

Where was I.

O yes. I was talking about myself.

Forgive me for my neglect, dear fellow traveler. I know you’ve been waiting for me to finish this post for a week. In the interim, much has happened, including the opening of our retooled, freshly re-tinseled A Christmas Carol.

Excuses aside (I mean, being busy never seems to slow down the good peeps of Culture Shock), last week, as you’ll recall, I was tracing the genealogy of my own aesthetic origins, and came to realize I owe it all (such as it is) to . . . Walt Disney. Or rather, Disneyland. That’s right. For all my high-mindedness, my earliest notions about what theater should be were shaped by a corporate entity that built its fortune through pillaging Western civilization’s folk myths and figures. Well, figurines: Snow White, Cinderella -- Paul Bunyan, for mercy’s sake. Abraham Lincoln, even.


Case in point: as a little boy, I remember being captivated by a new attraction in “the park” called The Enchanted Tiki Room. This was and is an event of vaguely Polynesian inspiration in which animatronic birds of festive plumage preen, sing and burble away. Even as a kid I knew the content was corny, but the experience was….complete.

First we were admitted to an enclosed holding area outside the “hut” where the experience was to take place. As I recall, every feature of this pen was part of the experience, even the trash bins. There was a water feature made from bamboo pipes that emptied noisily into a pool; if you peered into the water, you saw that the pool’s bottom was littered with the partly submerged skeletons of lizards or anyway something of reptilian persuasion.

In due course we got to shuffle into the hut itself, and we (la familia) seated ourselves on one of four sides of a small square. Looking around, I saw gruff-looking tikis surrounded the playing area like they were guarding it. Above, thatched roof; behind, walls and windows shuttered with reeds. The hut seated maybe 80 spectators.

Then the show started with the famous nonsense of robot parrots waking up and cajoling the audiences with canned dialogue and mortifyingly twee treacle (“let’s all sing like the birdies sing / tweet tweet tweet tweettweet”). But the good part was the conclusion. On some cue I no longer recall, the parrots’ were yanked up and out of sight, and the tikis – which we all assumed to be mere set dressing – woke up. Bug-eyes gaping madly, wooden mouths moving up and down, these fearsome gods intoned some guttural, driving incantation (probably my first inkling there was more to music than Herman’s Hermits, Petula Clark and Papa Haydn). The tikis worked themselves up to a frantic crescendo, and at the very climax the lights went out (someone always shrieked at this), and the hut was lit only by flashes of faux lightning, which enabled you to see rain running down the windows.

As the thunder died out and we filed out of the place, I had no trouble belaying my critique of the material in favor of the experience I just had. And in years to come, through my early years at Storefront and on to my subsequent career as a groovy performance artist, it was some time before I realized my debt to the Tiki Room. The salient qualities were:


1. The performance surrounded its audience.
2. There was surprise (presumed inanimate objects lurching into performance).
3. Several senses were assailed at once.
4. The performance began upon admittance to the area, started long before the “actors” and persisting after they had exited.

Years later now, I’m more often in the position of enabling others to create their performative work than I am in doing it myself. But these things still inform my understanding of what makes an affective and memorable experience for audiences – which is, in sum, to transform them from passive spectators to participants.

Portland is rich in artists who espouse these same views, whether avowedly or not. But that’s a different post altogether……