The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Drama--Ruined

I was given the opportunity to interview Lynn Nottage, author of Ruined, the play that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The Kennedy Center and the Enough Project present a staged reading of Ruined

Lynn Nottage takes her 2009 Pulitzer-prize winning play, Ruined, on the road

The Fight of A Lifetime

Today's celebrity athletes are not the only ones to triumph over adversity only to find that self-discipline the greatest battle of all:

Washington Post's Wil Haygood to Discuss His Book on Sugar Ray Robinson-10/19

Making Due

One dreary morning a few weeks ago, I got up and stumbled (if one can stumble while driving) over the DC's Half Street inspection station to get my car inspected, as was required by DC law. Other state, like Virginia, license various gas stations to inspect cars. But not DC. One and all must make their way to Half Street where you exit your car and walk through an adjacent building where windows allow you to watch as your car goes down the line, being subjected to various tests.

I chose a 6:15 am slot because the lines were allegedly shorter then and I didn't see how I'd fit it in during the day, what with work and all. The attendant who came to inspect my car chided me for being less than awake, as if we all should be bright-eyed at that hour. He was at work. I was not.

I'd recently had an oil change and gotten my brakes checked, so I felt confident about my car's ability to pass inspection...and yet it did not. Why? Because of a damaged windshield wiper blade. On Facebook, a friend would later point out that DC road are filled with cars that lack doors and radiators, yet mine failed because of the wiper blade.

This joke later served as a kind of prediction when I learned that to trim the budget DC had nixed the inspections all together. Now people really can drive around in cars held together by rubber bands because the city will not be regulating this aspect of their lives.

I got the new wiper blade in anticipation of returning for the follow-up inspection before learning that the inspections were ending. Since I tend to get philosophical about every and anything, so I try to look at it as a call to go for a higher standard. I'd been making do with that wiper blade for so long, I didn't notice it anymore.

Guiding Light

When I heard earlier this year that Guiding Light, TV's oldest soap opera (one of the few that made the crossover from radio waves to television and still survived), was going to end I felt a little twinge.

And since I've been so busy, I missed the final day (last Friday), so I felt an even bigger pang then. To me Guiding Light and Gramma are always linked. My grandmother watched Guiding Light on a regular basis and for years after she died, I did too. Even when my mother abandoned the show and questioned why I watched it, I stayed true. In college, my friend watched Young and the Restless. Gramma watched Y&R too, so I joined them because it was a social experience, but Guiding Light was still #1 in my heart.

Later, I learned Spanish and got hooked on novelas while studying abroad in Costa Rica. When I got to graduate school, I found classmates who liked novelas too, so I was in good company.

These days, I can't make the time to watch novelas or soap operas...well, I do watch Ugly Betty, which is a hybrid--an American nighttime soap that has some characteristics of a novela...but on the very rare ocassions that I do catch a soap opera or see a novela, the melodrama is more apparent than it was when I was younger. But I do not despise or make fun of them as some people do because I recognize the power of story. I once heard someone refer to wrestling as a "male soap opera" and in a way it is. The wrestling federation recognized that even those who were dying to see violence, still wanted a story arc to put the fighting in context.

And so it is is with the struggles of life. We tell ourselves stories to make sense of it all. Sure, there is something manipulative in the way that a soap opera will leave you hanging a bit to get you to return, but isn't that what the best storytellers do anyway?

Gramma and gone. Guiding Light is gone. But the power of storytelling remains.

Gone Fishin'

Well, not really...I've never fished in my life. But I am taking a break.

Isn't It Ironic, Don'tcha Think?

So I've been watching Ugly Betty, Season 1 on DVD (I didn't get hooked on it until the second season) and recently saw an episode where there was controversy because Mode, the magazine where Betty works, wanted to slim down photos of an actress. In real life, it is doubtful that the actress would be there in the room as the editors are discussing what "cuts" to make, but on the show it makes for good drama. The actress didn't feel so great about this, but the editors assured her that there were taking her great look and making even better.

If art is not reflecting reality as it really is, then it tends to be prescient...so I couldn't believe that just today the editor of Self magazine (a publication that in essence is supposedly encouraging its female readers to believe in themselves) were quoted saying that they altered Kelly Clarkson's image to make her look her 'personal best' (which sounds A LOT like what the Mode Editors said on Ugly Betty) and that magazine covers aren't supposed to look real since they are inspirational/aspirational (something else that was said on the show).

They'd like you to think that that doctor photos to give you something to aim for, when really the photos are doctored so that you'll want to buy more products--either because you are "inspired" or because you feel lousy and hope that more stuff can improve your look.

Rest in Peace?

So I must have been doing a pretty lousy job of representing myself because the other day someone after I greeted someone I hadn't seen in quite a while, she said, "Are you working?" Um...when am I NOT working? I replied that I am always working and that I've never had the luxury of not working. Not sure what gave her the impression that I might not be working...I think the last time I saw her, I might have been hunting for additional contract work, but I work as I hunt.

After this exchange, someone else came up to me to express their condolences over the dying newspaper industry.

Here I am a lady of leisure who is connected to a moribund industry. If only I had known earlier that I had a such a restful existence...

Potpourri

After reading about Peggy Cooper Cafritz's amazing collection of art by African American artists, I was saddened to hear that Cafritz lost a lot of that art in a fire at her home. The good thing is that she was not home at the time. I had no idea that such a great patron of artists lived in my area and I think it is amazing that she is determined to keep collecting.

***

I wrote about an Asian movie that has been referred to as a 'Chinese Sex and the City' the other day. Really, it wasn't like Sex and the City at all, but we need easy categories to give people some frame of reference. Of course the "women in the city" genre is nothing new, movies like Three on a Match took on that topic in the 1930s.

99 Bottles of Un-American Beer

OK, so I haven't checked the news for the latest up-to-the-minute report on what happened when President Obama met with Henry Lewis Gates and the cop who arrested him. It is quite possible that there was a brawl, but I doubt it.

What bothers me is all the fuss over the beer being served. Come on, really. Yeah, it is the American way (or perhaps simply the human way) to make everything about you and insert yourself into every and any situation, but all this whining about the fact that American beer was not on tap was ridiculous. People like what they like and if Obama and his guests favor beer that isn't American, so what? Um, hello...the bigger agenda was a symbolic gesture towards healing race relations.

Plus, Obama was being a good host. If you are inviting people over to diffuse a tense situation, it only makes sense to ask what they prefer, rather than serve them some vetted drink that still would not have passed everyone's standards. If Obama could have had them drop by for a round at his neighborhood pub (something he could not do), he would have bought them whatever beer they wanted.

What They Said

I'm no language purist. I follow the rules and at the same time take delight in breaking them now and again because languages are fluent organisms, not stagnant sets of rules. Still, even I have to admit I was surprised and rather taken aback when poet extraordinaire Celia White pointed out that according the Merriam-Webster, it is now okay to use "they" as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun. A rousing discussion ensued on Facebook about the pros and cons of this ruling.

If you are thinking, what does that mean, then let me tell you that if you have been diligently using "he or she," "he/she" or my personal (non)favorite "s/he," you can now use M-W to back you up when you just go for "they". If you don't know (or would rather not say) the gender of the person doing whatever, you can use they.

Lots of folks already did this and probably think that M-W is late and lame for finally just accepting it.

What can we expect from a world where young men can proudly wear their pants below their derrieres, belting them into this auspicious place? Pants dip further down, language slides into chaos, but I'm sure we'll all survive just the same.

We Got Driving While Black...How About Living or Being While Black?

OK, so I really don't have anything brilliant or particularly moving to say about Skip Gates being arrested on suspicion of breaking into is own home, except to say that it is a damn shame.

Starbucks Giveth and Then Taketh Away (Or, No cake for you!)

I was so excited when I learned that Starbucks added a gluten-free menu item. Now Starbucks is pulling the gluten-free Valencia Orange Cake from its menu. They just put it up there in May.

I got this news from Facebook. Then I learned on Twitter that the reasoning for this brilliant move was that "people" said the orange cake wasn't really nutritious and that it was more of a treat. Umm...who goes to Starbucks looking for health food? If you have to avoid gluten, you have plenty of healthy things to eat. What you want is easy access to some baked goods.

One day I hope that places like Starbucks can have more than one gluten-free menu item. Starbucks decided to replace the CAKE with a fruit/nut bar. Really, money must come into play somewhere here. I can't believe that they just up and replaced the cake because it was too much of a treat.

Say My Name

I met Jamie at an amusement park one summer. He was mysterious and all I ever really learned about him was his name. (Well, that plus the fact that he was rather forgetful.)

Standing in line for some ride or another, I saw a teenage boy with the word "Jamie" tattooed on his neck. And me, being me, said: "Hey Jamie."

"How did you know my name?" he replied.

Imitation of Life

Yesterday, I was talking film on Examiner.com--


Where iterations of the classic film Imitation of Life differ and coincide

If you've never seen either version of Imitation of Life, they are worth renting or netflixing or streaming, or whatever it is you do to see movies.

Scenes from the Sculpture Garden

Sitting on bench at Jazz in the Sculpture Garden provides plenty of entertainment...



All Responses are Not Answers
Woman: I didn't realize there'd be so many people here.
Man: It is a district.

Who Will Watch the Children? (Or Babysitting for Beer)
I shared a bench with a woman who was content to sit and listen to the music. Until a man with two kids in tow showed up and started talking to her. He struck up a conversation with her about general topics and then asked her where she'd gotten her beer. After she told him, he started to get up and asked her if she'd mind watching his kids while he want to get a beer. She seemed to consent, although she did not explicitly say she would.

When he returned, he resumed the conversation, and handed her a beer.

Do the Clothes Make the Man?

So after attending an open rehearsal and the theological discussion, I finally saw King Lear starring Stacy Keach--

Modern Setting Makes King Lear More Relevant

The DC Green Machine Gains Momentum

Just today I read that the mayor of DC signed a law that will mean we must pay 5 cents for every disposable plastic bag we take out of a store. I'm not sure if this will mean that those of us who bring our own bags will no longer get the 5 cent discount, but I have until January to reap the benefits of this practice without question.

What is does mean is that I will probably end up buying plastic bags to line my wastebaskets...

I've said before that it ain't easy being green and...well the green-ness comes in one way and goes out another.

But the folks at the grocery store near me have now gotten on the bandwagon.
The last time I was in the grocery store the bagger said, "This is one of those green bags." Being quite tired and therefore much more literal than usual, I wondered what he was talking about. The cloth bag I'd brought was off-white. And then I realized what he meant.

"Yup, she's saving the Earth," said the cashier in mock earnestness. The three of us chuckled.

"Well, I'm saving 5 cent, at least," I replied.

All's Well that Ends Well...

I am big nerd (in a literary way) and I love that now I can go to literary lectures and discussions without them having to take notes or feeling like I had to ingest it all to get a good grade as I did in college. The Shakespeare Theatre Company had a theological discussion called "King Lear: A Family Divided," which I attended and wrote about for Examiner.com--

King Lear...with a Happy Ending?

Wipe Your Mouth on the Welcome Mat

So I know that everyone does not have the same sense of humor and I try to make room for the things that other people think are funny, even when I don't agree...(ok, obviously I'm about to contradict myself here)

But when I take a leap of faith in the common sense of other folks and ask someone to hand me a paper towel, I do not find it funny when that person pretends to wipe their mouth on it first. In order to carry out the pretense, you practically, well, wipe your mouth on it. And I get pissy when I point this out and get some b.s. about how I don't get the "humor" because I 'didn't grow up with a brother, did I?'

As a matter of fact, I did grow up with a brother...on who has the decency not to wipe his mouth on a paper towel before handing it to me (or who at least has the sense not to let me see him if he were to do such a thing).

If you don't know enough about me to know that I have a brother, then maybe you don't want to joke with me. And maybe I need to only entrust such a delicate mission to someone that I know and trust.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

August Wilson's Radio Golf

This past weekend I ushered so I could see Radio Golf, the last play in August Wilson's 10-play cycle about the African-American experience. He did a play for each decade and Radio Golf covers the 1990s. This play covers the 1990s. I've been seeing quite a few plays lately, and I am always amazed at how a few people and a few props can keep me mesmerized for a couple of hours. It starts with the words on a page, but then with the direction and the acting, the lights, the costumes, they've created a different world that audiences get to step into for a bit.

But back to Radio Golf--many have wondered what Wilson would have thought of Barack Obama's presidency. Of course there is no real way of knowing, but in Radio Golf, he has one character say that a Black mayor or Black CEO will not erase all of Black folks' problems, win us automatic acceptance or make everything alright.

Radio Golf is an amazing play and you can read more (but not too many) details about it on my Examiner.com blog:

Radio Golf illustrates the tension between "progress" and preserving our connection to the past

Tutu Much

Without knowing that I would, I ended up passing through downtown DC just as a Beyonce concert was letting out. If you don't know, Ms. Sasha Fierce (Beyonce's alter ego) is known for her fierce costumes and her fans follow suit. I saw lots of interesting outfits, but nothing tops the tutu.

I saw a woman at the train station who had on a tank top and a teeny tiny rainbow-colored tutu, drawers and nothin' else. She was working it though. Strutting proudly, as though it was no big deal to be almost walking around just wearing underwear. A fellow passenger on the escalator and I exchanged looks at dismay. It was like a car wreck--you want to look away, but you can't.

(Then I thought about how if she were on the beach, wearing what amounts to underwear is no big deal. So it is allowed in our society, but there is a time and a place for everything...and I'm not used to seeing people on Metro in their underwear.)

After we all exited the escalator, she ran into people she knew who said, "Girl, what are you wearing?!"

A defiant "You see it don't you?" was all she said before she started talking about the concert.

The Third Wheel's the Charm (Or if you can't get your own date, why not unwittingly sit in on someone else's?)

So I met a friend last night for a free outdoor movie--great weather, no rain( finally), not too muggy, all in all a good night to be out and about. This friend is an inclusive sort of person, so I mentioned it to a few other people, in case they wanted to join us. For her part, she at first said that "this guy X might come." That was when we first met up. We got to talking about other things and she casually mentioned that she hadn't really met X before, they'd been trying to connect and hadn't before now and she mentioned the movie to him. So it was kind of a blind date. A blind date in which I would kind of be a participant.

I am a lot better at just rolling with it than I used to be, so it was what it was. He was hungry before the movie started, so he went to get food and offered to bring back ice cream for us both. I was happy to participate in that. Overall, though, I don't know if it was quite what he'd expected...had she told him she was meeting me at the movie or just that she was going to the movie? I couldn't tell. But hey--blind dates are supposed to have an element of surprise, right?

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Luv Ya Tomorrow
I was trying (and mostly kinda sorta succeeding) at posting three times a week, but now I am reducing frequency to 2x a week--so you can now look forward to my wit and wisdom on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

See you tomorrow/Hasta mañana :-)

What is the Point?

"We are all like the butterfly in the amazing, unexpected magnitude of our effect. Even when we feel most helpless, when events we cannot control or prevent pile up, even in our most bitter brokennes, we do have our role in the working out of the great plan."
-Madeline L'Engle

Can I Get a Witness?

I was browsing a table near the front of a bookstore (remember those?) that posts a guard near the front door. In this bookstore, the guard was a black woman. In walks another black woman with two non-black friends.

"Tell them," she demands of the guard. "Tell them how long it takes for us to get our hair done. We can't be in an out in an hour."

The guard chuckles and confirms that we do indeed go through a lot to get our hair did.

For more on this topic see:

I Wanted a Cut and Color and All I Got Was This Lousy Story

King Lear Rehearsal

I saw an open rehearsal for King Lear starring Stacy Keach this past weekend.
And (now don't be all insanely jealous) I passed by the stage door on the way to me car, so I got to shake Keach's hand.

This version is set in 1990's Yugoslavia, with Keach playing Lear as an Eastern European dictator-type.

(Some of) the play's the thing at King Lear rehearsal


(Image courtesy of The Shakespeare Theatre Company)

Commerce

This past weekend some friends had a Pimps and Ho's party that I declined to attend and a male friend offered to treat me to dinner, later saying something like, "If I pay for dinner, you'll put out?" I was pissed. He apologized profusely, saying it really was a joke and that he kids like that with other women (some of whom I know).

And there you have it: commerce.

(A lot of times, I edit out (meaning never write about) such foolishness, but I think you're grown enough to handle it.)

Business Savvy (or Scenes from a CVS)

We've had a lot of rain lately in DC. The good thing is that it has rained mostly on the weekdays, leaving the weekends sunny and beautiful.

Yesterday, there was a man outside of CVS hawking umbrellas for $5. "They got them in there for $8.99, but mine are $5," he told passers-by.

I went into CVS where a stockroom employee taunted the cashier as customers waited in line. "Why you workin' so hard?" he kept repeating, trying to goad the cashier into something. The cashier laughed it off.

Then the umbrella man came in as I got to the register. "I see these your umbrellas are $10," he noted aloud. The cashier smiled and nodded. "I'm glad to see that," Umbrella-man continued. "Mine a $5." He turned and walked out of the store back into the rain, satisfied.

Remote Possibility


Dear Gentle Reader,

That is how Miss Manners or one of those advice columnists likes to start their responses, but of course you haven't really asked me anything...but, I will tell you that I still cannot find the remote for my DVD player. But I am calm. Today's news about a plane that went missing makes worrying over a lost remote seem foolish.

Earlier today, I read in a book that the key to finding lost things is knowing where to look. Depending on your mood, a statement such as this will either seem trite or seem like it is pure genius. Of course knowing where to look helps when looking for lost things. At the same time, is this 'where' an actual physical space...or is it where as in the kind of places to look. Who knows? In the book, the protagonist drops this nugget of wisdom as she recalls how her mother, who is growing more and more feeble-minded, couldn't find something. Yet, she recounts this tale as she is looking for something much more crucial: her father, whom she has never met. She bought her mother a new spatula. She wasn't able to replace her father in the same way.

I'm getting all philosophical here. Really, I just want to find the remote.

ca·coph·o·ny

: harsh or discordant sound : dissonance 2 ; specifically : harshness in the sound of words or phrases

This was the word that came to mind the other day when I sat on a bench in the train station trying to read. Two little girls were invented their own clashing songs based on the electronic sign that tells you when the next train is coming. One kept repeating the minutes left over and over, changing as the sign changed. The other had some riff on the destination. I added a silent sigh to the symphpony.

Then I felt bad. They were just keeping themselves entertained and were not doing any harm. If anything, their train station melodies were very creative. I still wanted to read ( and couldn't because it was too hard to block them out), but as the train came I looked over an smiled at them.

Later that day, I was walking down the street when several emergency vehicles were screaming at the top of their lungs (as if they really had them). One added a horn into the mix because the likely stunned and confused car drivers weren't really getting out of the way.

That's it, I thought. Cacophony.