Holidays and Broadway Plays

There is a de facto custom in my family (or to be accurate, among my mother, my sister and myself) that ordinates our attendance of a Broadway show on any Jewish holiday with a substantial Chol HaMoed period. I believe this evolved from a time when, due to the demands of school and smaller children (and smaller children in school), it was difficult for my mother to locate a period of time that would be amenable to the late nights, fancy clothing and Manhattan evening traffic that accompany such an endeavor. Although by now these obstacles have shrunk considerably, (attending a play on a school night is less of a parental taboo when you fall asleep before your children do) we still attempt to continue the tradition and so make sure to attend a show at least every Succos and Pesach.

This year, we decided to attend a performance of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a musical freshly minted from Off-Broadway and receiving that alluring kind of secret attention reserved for the truly unique of the Broadway resume. It is currently in previews and opening in May, the fact of which heightened the excitement of the experience for me- somehow, seeing a play in previews gives me the euphorically superior feeling of having discovered something special.

I wasn't remiss in my anticipation- the play was absolutely fantastic. I doubt I've ever laughed so hard, with such genuine mirth (in a theater exhibiting live people) as I did on Tuesday night. It would take far too long to explain each distinct dynamic of the show, but everything from the dialogue to the setting to the lyrics was just brimming with a refreshingly pure sense of fun. Additionally, it is staged in a very small theater, so the experience is very intimate and has a distinctly improvisational aura about it. (For example, they select four people from the audience to be part of the Spelling Bee, and these people remain onstage until they legitimately miss a word. Apparently they have had several audience members go unpredictably far in the "competition," but they also have a list of fail-safe obscurities to ensure the play can eventually reach it's designated conclusion.)

Unfortunately, as in most things today, "Spelling Bee" includes a distinct infusion of unnecessary lewdness. It wasn't overwhelming (it mostly consists of one girl struggling the fact that her parental figures are both men, and a boy dealing with... puberty issues- although this in particular is given it's own song and is severely distasteful) but it is certainly significant enough, in my opinion, to restrict children under 13-14 from attending.

Overall though (and I do feel somewhat guilty in saying this) if you are aware of these issues from the start, "Spelling Bee" can truly be a fun and energetic experience. I do recommend it as a play that adults in particular should be able to appreciate. It has such a fresh, unique giddiness about it, that you almost can't help walking out with a smile.

"J" Ne Peux Pas Attendre Pour Vous Montrer

I just love influencing my friends. It's a hobby I've come to engage in regularly of late. Certainly it is far from easy (they are a brilliantly stubborn bunch, and require increasingly clever tactics to elicit their defeat) but to be honest, any victory would not be a sliver as exhilarating if it lacked the preceding battles.

When I do emerge successful, my bone of contention can yield truly unprecedented results. Case in point: My dear friend J, who will follow the trend and be known online by her first initial only, has begun her own blog. In this instance, the struggle was not even so drastic- I merely beseeched her to pay a visit to Ink as Rain. So imagine my bemusement and elation when I visited my comments and found a link to what J has deftly entitled "Skating Pencil." J is a wonderfully earthy and perceptive writer, and I urge you to habituate her endeavor- it will surely be worth your while.

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and meaningfull Pesach (and/or a nice warm week!) Oh yes, and the above title is courtesy of "AltaVista Bable Fish Translation." I speak not a word of French.

Non-Partisan Natural Narcotic

People watching is always an entertaining hobby, but it is a particularly fascinating study in the springtime. Spring is, I think, the only time of year people venture out of doors in full honesty, without attire driven airs or agendas. Winter intrinsically stifles individuality by necessitating layers of insulation, while in summer all clothing is manipulated by an subconscious desire to avoid heatstroke (from a temporarily non-judgmental position, of course.) Fall, although more potent a competitor, primarily marks the return of inhibition and subtlety, not the freedom of spring.

Spring is something special. She calls you near, coaxing and innocuously coy, until you stand spellbound within her grasp. She envelopes you in a perfect embrace, slips you into a state where every sensation is so utterly pristine that you almost can't breathe. And then, when you least expect it, spring carefully removes your shell, in an act not of exposure but of removing a burden you have carried too long to remember.

It is incredible to watch people thus affected. There is an easy, rolling grace to their steps and a contentment in their stature. They dress as themselves, shedding any costumes donned for public approval. And most miraculous of all, their eyes focus naturally upwards, reveling in the pure, heady boon they don't recognize.

It's That Time of Year

My mother and my sister are among those fortunate fellows who are blessed with the ability to clean. They can stare down closets without batting an eye, organize hurricanes of paper, and stuff so much clothing into one garbage bag you'd think they were on a shopping spree. That's not to say they aren't pack rats in their own fashion, but somehow things get thrown out all the same.

As for myself, I keep everything (literally), and then I forget about it. My dresser is crammed with anything from third grade class notes to cheap favors from parties I probably didn't want to attend to begin with. I have teddy bear mugs stuffed with odd pieces of broken jewelry and unsharpened pencils, dolls I bought years ago, artfully arranged once and then left to gather dust, and dozens of souvenirs I bought on pre-historical family trips. All of which would be novelty rather than hazard if I didn't know for a fact that there are countless seditious packages of sweets burrowed slyly within my self-inflicted labyrinth.

And now it's Pesach, and I have to pick through it all again. That is, if I can get back into my room- Sister has taken it upon herself to clean today. Then I have to tackle my knapsack, which in and of itself could fuel several different horror films and their myriad of sequals.

But that's for another time.

Tide and Time

Sitting on the metal seat
Knees tucked up below her chin
Is my friend
Looking for her future.

Wondering where the past has been
When suddenly we were old enough
To fear what would not sting
Or burn us palpably.

It is not knowing that strikes her
So suddenly somberly thoughtful
We tiptoe an expected line
Who's end is lost ahead.

It is, I think
Like traveling
To a place beyond our scope of thought
Described with love, but futile.

No matter how clearly
They relay what is seen
We lack the ability
Or the will, perhaps, to understand.

And so my friend sits, thus exposed
With me beside her quietly
I feel the torment inside her being
As though it is my own.

But somehow still I am detached
As she has fear where have shadow
And I cannot protect her from
The howling future vacuum.

The Eighty-Four

Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is bliss.

I am ignorant of much, but there is one thing I know. I know my greatest flaw.

I am lazy. Cripplingly, stiflingly, nauseatingly lazy.

I was going to call it procrastination, but why give it the dignity?

Would I be better off if I didn't realize? The result is ultimately the same, I get next to nothing done. The only difference is in the pounding guilt in my head and the growing weight of uselessness in my stomach.

It's so hard to fight laziness. In essence, you are battling your own comfort, your own satisfaction, everything that contents you. You are wrapped in a cocoon of safe, warm, cloying happiness, but inside you squirm with a nervous energy you can't control. And then of course, you begin the arguments, the endless circular bouts of logic and lassitude that go around and around... "I have work to do." "So nu, go do it." "But I don't want to." "Fine, don't do it." "But I have to." "Be quiet maideleh, you've already filled your guilt quotient for today."

And so it goes.

I bring this up today, because today I received an 84 on an English test.

There. I've said it.

I am dazed. I just don't get 84's in English. History? Maybe. Science? Probably. Math? If I'm lucky. But English? No, never in English.

It's entirely my fault, of course. I've been sliding through my teacher's fingers avoiding every stitch of work I possibly could manage. I handed in something like two essays out of seven last semester, and still pulled a 98. Unfair? Very. A brutal mind trap for someone with as little work ethic as I? Unbelievably.

The test was on The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. I didn't read the entire book (wonder why?) but I had a good grasp of the themes and plotlines.

I missed the test day. My teacher was not happy.

So I took it home over the weekend to finish, and to my utter astonishment and delight, I actually did. I put it off for a few hours, but at eight o'clock I sat down and answered the questions. It wasn't difficult. Themes, check. Symbolism, check. Characters, check...

So imagine my surprise when my teacher handed back my paper with a decidedly guilty aura and the news that on two questions I had failed to elaborate satisfactorily on the emotional aspects of Gregor's transformation and it's ramifications.

Missing emotional subcontext? Me?

So that is the tale of my English eighty-four, a grade that will live, if not infamy than certainly in bemusement.

I am almost happy I that I received that grade, though. It's a release. The worst has happened, and I am still here, and writing to boot.

Gam zeh ya'avor?

No.

Gam zu l'tovah.

What I've Noticed

Various things I have observed since spring has set in.

1. Authority pressure to go outside is less, but the resulting guilt when you don't is greater.

2. There is only one flower in our garden. It is blindingly yellow, and sitting in the middle of a bush. I guess the free spirits always come first.

3. Being outside without a coat feels like floating.

4. I have trouble walking when I have to concentrate on the weather.

5. Baseball isn't a game, it's an antidepressant. (Yes, even for Mets fans.)

6. I have a strange strain of writer's block, which is why I am writing so many lists. I feel like I've used up my mental stocks of poetry- I keep reaching for one, but the cupboard is bare. I am itching to write a poem right now...

Silent Light

Daylight savings is better than my birthday.

Daylight savings is better than mint-chocolate chip ice cream.

Daylight savings is better than reading.

Blasphemous it may well be, but this time of year elicits all stealthy versions of the truth, and I must confess- Light gives me an exhilaration that cannot be rivaled by any distractive entertainment. I'm not quite sure of the reason, as by all appearances nighttime suits me better. I revel in the silent splendor of moonlight, I thrill in getting lost in the inky anonymity of darkness. But somehow, light lends me a kind of freedom unparalleled by any affected midnight disguises. Freedom of movement, freedom of thought, freedom of sight... When it is light, I can move without inhibition or fear, and I can really, really see. Observation is my lifeline, my shelter in places where the press of people overwhelms my senses, and the clearer I see, the stronger I feel. Light does more than highlight the daytime... Light elucidates my mind.

In Anticipation

I have Israel on the brain (as I'm sure you may have noticed), so I have drawn up a rough list of must-read books that will probably be released while I am away. I rely upon the goodness of my sister's reading glasses to transfuse me at her earliest convenience with;

-A Feast for Crows, by George RR Martin
-The Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan
-The Bonehunters, by Steven Erickson
-The Will of the Empress, by Tamora Pierce
-A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Twelfth, by Lemony Snicket
-The Blood Knight, by Greg Keyes

Here's to healthy writers and hasty publishers!

Picking Battles

Within the system of education that I have been raised in, it is often common practice among teachers to incorporate into their lessons a caution on the dangers of what is unofficially known as 'the outside world' (Tova Mirvis got that much right, at least.) The more docile of students receive the lecture with a bland, "duly noted" sort of attention, while those of a more... independent nature often seize the gauntlet and engage in eager debate with the teacher. In fact, woe is the woman who attempts to initiate such a dictum without proper preparation, because there are few more stubborn creatures on earth than teenage girls with an ax to grind against an unsatisfactory answer.

For myself, I try to adopt a less tendentious position. In such classroom discussions I often feel like the center of a fulcrum, though I have no illusions that I am half as steadfast as I ought to be. I tend to list more to the position of my peers in practice, though very often my conscience gives me a nudge and whispers, "She really does have a decent point, you know." But full concession is restricted by of a combination of what I hope is honest disagreement and what I admit is the realization of the fact that cynicism feels so sinfully pretty on a seventeen year old ego.