My favorite reads of 2009

"Books" print by Jessica over at pinestreetmakery. Check out her awesome work!

"Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books."

- Kanye West

Oh, 2009. What a year you were. The year that introduced us to "pulling a Kanye" and regretsy.com (one of my very favorite websites). 

This was a year of growth for me - mentally, personally, professionally - though unfortunately not physically, as I still remain just a little over five feet. Happily,  my library grew by leaps and bounds! 

So here, dear readers, is weelittleactress' (drumroll please) Top Ten Books That I Read in 2009 (in no particular order)!

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 

 Okay, please don't judge me for not having read this earlier. I've always been a Wuthering Heights kind of gal, so I had always assumed that Jane Eyre wouldn't really be my style. That is, until my friend Lindsey challenged me with the words "Whatever, Charlotte's better." 


SO, I pulled my copy of Jane Eyre (which had never been opened) off of the shelf and decided to give it a try. 

WOW! Just when I thought that no book could be better than Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre... um... was. Just when I thought that Elizabeth was the strongest of the strong, Mr. Darcy the drooliest of the drool-worthy, Jane kicked Elizabeth in the shin and Mr. Rochester induced a river of droolage. Their complete, gorgeous humanity - their flaws, their honesty, their mistakes - made me fall in love with them. Jane was not only strong and admirable, but relatable. We watch her grow stronger, learn to speak her mind, learn how to get what she really wants from the world. And we watch her do the most difficult thing - walk away from the love of her live - in order to maintain her dignity and her honor. 

Also, I think that the scene where (SPOILER ALERT!) Jane comes back to Mr. Rochester after he has lost his sight is one of the most beautiful scenes ever written - along with the scene where Mr. Rochester disguises himself as a gypsy fortune-teller. A billion bajillion stars!

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

If you are one of the few people in the world who didn't read this book this year, go buy a copy and read it now. It is the definition of "unputdownable,"  the best of the best of young adult literature. The Hunger Games takes place in the future, in a world where every year a child from each district is picked at random to participate in a fight to the death. The children are dropped into what is basically a large wooded pit, where their fight for survival is filmed and watched by the rest of the world. The one survivor remaining at the end of it all wins. Go read it!

• The Death of the Moth and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf

Of all of her works, I think that The Death of the Moth is my favorite piece by Virginia. The image of the moth, using Virginia's paintbrush, is the best little picture of mortality, of the fight for life, that I've ever seen. 

"He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far-off smoke of  houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life."

 We're all moths, fluttering in our little windows, struggling to understand the greatness of the world around us.

• It's Always Something by Gilda Radner

I have been wanting to write a post about how much I loved this book for awhile. Gilda has been one of my heroes since I was a child. I always admired her bravery onstage - there was nothing that she was too embarrassed to do. I didn't realize what a strong person she was until I read her book which, rather than being an autobiography, is mostly about her long battle with cancer. It was painfully honest, sometimes even painful to read, but that's what was always the most beautiful thing about her - her willingness to share, to expose all of life's funny and tragic facets. 

•  Columbine by Dave Cullen

Now, I've already written a whole post about how much I loved this book, but I can't emphasize its greatness enough. Back to the honesty thing, Dave Cullen seems to understand that we can't really face a tragedy until we've faced it honestly. He debunks so many of the myths and stigmas that go hand in hand with the word "Columbine," and reveals how dangerous, how powerful the media and word-of-mouth can be. I read the whole thing in one sitting. 

• The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Alright, there is something very important that you should know about me. I friggin' LOVE Sarah Dessen. I own all of her books and a signed hardcover first-edition of her newest book. She is one of my favorite authors. And guess what? I hadn't read any of her books until this year. Guess what else? Her books are young adult books. The Truth About Forever was the first of Sarah Dessen's books that I read, and it is still my favorite (even though all of her books are excellent and they all deserve a read - especially Someone Like You). Her imagery is lovely, her themes run deep, and her characters are so beautifully human. I wish so much that I could have had her books when I was a teenager, but they're so wonderful that they teach me and move me even in my twenties. Forever deals with grieving, facing loss, taking risks, letting your heart heal and feel after it has experienced the worst that life can offer.

• The Song is You by Arthur Phillips

The second that I saw this book on the shelf, I knew that I had to read it and I knew that I would love it. Another one that I read in one sitting. It's a story about music, about love, and about a love that exists because of and exclusively through music. The two main characters use music to communicate and to speak, revealing their hearts nakedly to each other before they're even able to have a conversation. I was surprised when I didn't see the copies flying off of the shelves at the bookstore. Pick it up - you won't regret it! 

• The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

I expected to hate this book, to tell you the truth. I read it reluctantly as it was chosen for the book club that I was a member of. For some reason, this book carries some kind of repellant stigma. I, however, was completely absorbed. The characters were complex, the story compelling. I expected to find fluff but this book has a gutsy heart. 

• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Of all the great books that I have read this year, this is definitely the greatest and has become one of my favorite books of all time. The dialogue in this book is art, pure and simple, as are the characters. It seems, from the outside, to be a book exposing the realities of suburban disenchantment in the 1950's. While this is definitely true, there is so much more to this book. The opening scene in the theatre is worth the price of the book alone. 

• Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir by Bigfoot (and Graham Roumieu)

Never thought you would see Richard Yates, Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf, and Bigfoot in the same book list, did you? What can I say? I like funny things - and this book is definitely, definitely a funny thing. Bigfoot's autobiography (with an introduction written by the Lochness monster) is handwritten and illustrated by Bigfoot himself. Go along for the ride as Bigfoot rises to magnificent heights and then learns that fame is a fickle, fickle friend indeed. 

Here is a particularly touching selection:

"I am not Chewbacca. Me think Chewbacca jerk. He no can act. He ride Bigfoot coat tails. he think he cool, but he not. He phoney loser with no class. He all messed up on crack me think. People think me Chewbacca sometimes. No! Me have job. Bad wookie. Bad." 

And there are no words more appropriate to ring in 2010.

Here's to a whole new, book-filled year!

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance & Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride

"Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon."

- Donald Miller

 
Recommended tea: Celestial Seasoning's Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride

I remember the moment that I fell in  love with God.

I was born and raised in the South, which means that I was also born and raised in the church. A Southern Baptist church, to be precise. Believing in God was like believing in the sun - it's always there, why question it? 

Then, as the story always goes, I grew up. I moved away from the safe, cozy bubble that never asked questions into a world where questions filled every second of every day - (dun dun duuuun) college!

It didn't help that one of my very first college courses was centered around examining and questioning images of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, in cinema, in art, and in our cultural makeup. 


I remember the first paper that I wrote for that class. One sentence, and I quote, said, "My God is bigger than facts!"


To which my professor replied, in red ink, "um...what!?" 


In a matter of weeks, my faith went from being the center of who I was to being virtually nonexistent. I had trouble justifying everything that I used to believe with everything that I was starting to learn in class. It felt like a knife, stabbing me over and over again, slowly chipping away at the thing that had made me... me.


But then, one day in class, we read Matthew 22:37-40:

Jesus replied:  "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

"Mind" - that tiny little word made all the difference in the world. Could it be that this examining, this questioning, was exactly what I was called, as a Christian, to do? Could it be that God wanted me to ask questions? To use the mind that he gave me? To reason and to think?


All of this time, I had thought that examining my faith under a microscope was wrong. Turns out, it's what I was called to do all along.

That's when I fell in love with God.

Elna Baker writes about all of this in her new autobiography The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. Now, I have been looking forward to this book for awhile. Last year, after coming home from a grueling day at the bookstore, I sat down to listen to NPR with my husband and happened to catch one of Elna's stories, Babies Buying Babies. This story follows Elna's journey as a recently graduated theatre major who takes a retail job in a kids' store in order to support herself.

"Holy shnikes," I thought. "That's...um... me."

So I went to Elna's website, where it said something a long the lines of "Hey! Elna has a book coming out soon and the title is a really long, complicated one that you won't be able to remember when you get to the bookstore, and also one that booksellers will hate you for not being able to remember."

I searched, using all the high-tech (ba-dum-bum-CHING!) bookstore tools that were available to me as a bookseller.

"Um...New York...Mormon...Dance...Singles"

"Search Results: 0"

"Mormons... in New York... Dancing"

"Search Results: 0"

Needless to say, I jumped for joy when, about a year later, I found Elna's book on the shelf and realized that it was, in fact, real and not something that I had dreamed or hallucinated. It took me about a millisecond to buy it and about a few hours to read the whole thing.

Not only is Elna a recently graduated theatre major who takes a retail job in a kids' store in order to support herself, but she is also a Mormon living in New York City.

And I thought being a Christian at an Episcopalian university was hard.

I loved this book even more than I thought I would (which was a lot). Elna's honesty is enlightening and refreshing, and I found myself wanting to be her best friend so that we could write shows and plays and be actors and Christians and friends and, ya know, cool stuff like that.

But what I liked most about her book was how empowering it was. She loses 80 pounds, she goes on adventures, she stands up for herself, she makes out with a Hollywood star that she calls "Warren Beatty" but who isn't actually "Warren Beatty" (and, for the record, I think it's Sam Shepard... hey Elna if you read this and you want to be my friend you could TOTALLY tell me who it really was. Cool? Cool).

Elna is someone who loves her life and lives it - truly lives it. She seizes opportunities, she says what she thinks, she takes risks. And she does all of these things because of - not IN SPITE of - her faith.

In spite of all of the white noise, all the madness, there is that still, small voice inside. The voice that encourages you to seek, to ask questions, to strive for the best, to strive for the truth. To love your life, to love the world, to love others. The voice that says, "I'm here, and I understand."

It always makes me think of Sylvia Plath's words (as out of context as they may be),

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am."

Hey! Look at this!

• Elna Baker's website
• This American Life
• Blue Like Jazz

Twilight, Wuthering Heights & Celebration Love

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger"

- Emily Brontë

 
Recommended tea: Love & Tea Company's Celebration Love

Recently, I was visiting the old bookstore where I used to work. 

Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you know that the newest movie in the Twilight saga New Moon just came out. Seriously,  you would HAVE to be living under a rock because everyone on the planet who owns some kind of business is using the success of Twilight and the release of New Moon to sell sh*t. And it is exactly that - sh*t! 

New Moon 3-D puzzle balls:

Sneakers (care of regretsy):

BAND-AIDS!

The dress that Bella wears in the new movie (which is actually really cute...did I say that?):

 

So, obviously, no one can resist jumping on the Twi-wagon (twagon?) to make a buck... not even (gasp) Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Emily Bronte?!

I walked into the bookstore, expecting to see hundreds of mass-market copies of New Moon, tables dedicated to it, vampire merchandise galore (which I did) ...but THIS? The classics re-released, endorsed by Bella and Edward?

And then I thought "Holy crap... is it true? Are people REALLY not reading these books anymore?"

In this day and age, does Shakespeare need Stephenie to sell?

So, after I stopped twitching and regained consciousness, I thought "Hey, Stephenie... Suck it! I just bought an awesome new version of Wuthering Heights with cover art by Ruben Toledo (see the picture at the top of this post... GORGEOUS!) and I'm gonna read THAT and NOT New Moon (more like New Schmoon) and you're not getting any of my money and I'm gonna show you HA!"

So I started reading Wuthering Heights, what I have been told is Bella and Edward's very FAVORITE book of all tiem for reelz guyz, for the first time in a long, long time. 

Guess what I realized? Cathy and Heathcliff... um... not much healthier than Bella and Edward.

Edward is a vampire. Heathcliff digs up Cathy's corpse (years after she has died) and cuddles it.

Bella hangs out with Jacob for awhile (I assume?). Cathy MARRIES someone else.

Bella tries to kill herself so that she can see Edward. Cathy...um... actually kills herself. Albeit in a roundabout way, but she does. AND, she kills herself just to piss Heathcliff off.

And then Heathcliff prays that she will not go to heaven, but stay on earth as a ghost, haunt him, and drive him mad so that they won't be separated (you would think that if they loved each other THAT much they would've found a way to be together... yes? But I digress).

So yeah, Bella and Edward are in an abusive relationship (yes, this has been confirmed). But if Bella and Edward are in an abusive relationship... Cathy and Heathcliff? They're on a whole other level of abusive that hasn't even been named yet. Like, worse that Jerry Springer abusive if you really think about it.

So what's the deal here? I was thoroughly, honestly confused with myself. Why, you ask?

Because I friggin LOVE Wuthering Heights. I eat it up. I think Heathcliff (that JERK Heathcliff) is super duper dreamy. 

And at the same time I loathe a book like Twilight because I'm afraid it will send young girls the wrong message about relationships.

So what sets the two apart? What makes one a classic and one brain candy? What makes one thrilling and the other sickening?

I could think of only two explanations:

• Emily Bronte is a darn good writer. Stephenie Meyer is not.
  

Emily: "My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."

Stephenie: "Fall down again, Bella?'
'No, Emmett, I punched a werewolf in the face.'" 

(need I say more?)

• Heathcliff and Catherine are equals in their relationship. 

Yes, Heathcliff, like Edward, yells at the girl he loves and tells her what to do. But you know what? Catherine yells right back! She doesn't say, "Okay, now will you please chew my food for me because I lack the ability to do anything myself? Oh! And did you remember that I'm clumsy?"  

Other than abusive relationships, there is one other thing that they have in common. These books - Twilight, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet - reinforce the idea that there is such a thing as enduring, everlasting, life-shattering love. Love that makes everything else unimportant.  We all want to believe that there is something bigger out there - that there is that one person who will make all of the trivial things... trivial. In Wuthering Heights, the power of their love destroys them and (almost) everyone around them. In Twilight, I think it destroys Bella and her ability to be a free-thinking, powerful woman.


So yes... to me, even though there are similarities, Twilight still equals suck and Wuthering Heights still equals awesome. But the way my heart leapt watching Cathy and Heathcliff made me understand why, to some people, Twilight equals awesome.

But, on a completely different note, these new "Twi-classic!" covers brought something else to my attention. 

If Stephenie Meyer hadn't told these girls to read these classics, would they ever have done it?

How many of us Twi-haters have so often said, "GRR, Stephenie! We hate you! Why are you making our poor children read crap when they should read literature?" 

But I think the reality (albeit, the sad reality) is that these children would be reading crap regardless of whether or not Twilight had even been published. And that crap would probably not make them want to read Wuthering Heights or Pride & Prejudice. This crap does. They could be using their gazillions to endorse thousands of things, but to endorse some of the best books of all time? Books that these pre-teens would otherwise have no desire to read? That's pretty awesome.

Stephenie, I still hate your books, but you've definitely earned some points with me. 

Now go roll around in your pile(s) of money. 

Hey! Look at this! 

• Nightlight: A Parody 
• Kristen Stewart bites her lower lip a lot
  

Kathy Griffin's Official Book Club Selection & Get it Going

"I do not want to die until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me, until the last small twig has grown."
- Kathe Kollwitz

 
Recommended tea: The Republic of Tea's Get it Going

Please excuse my absence from this blog. I do not have a note from my parents or from my doctor. But I think that my excuse is as good as that: I've been in a play. Well, I've been in a few plays the past couple of months. Needless to say, it has been taking up most of my time (and sanity... in a good way!).

Speaking of acting, you know, it's not easy doing that... acting, I mean. It's hard enough when you're in college and you're doing a crazy uncomfortable scene and you have an acting teacher yelling "step dance! STEP DANCE!" during your scene. It's even harder when you live in a city that isn't New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Of course, I'm sure living in those cities is challenging enough, and presents other challenges that I'm not even aware of, but what's challenging about living here is that there isn't as much professional work to be done. There are three, maybe four major theatre companies in town, and if you don't get cast in a show with them then it's up to you to piece together work here and there. 

What's even harder about that is when you're 5'1", not exactly skinny (something I'm working to change), and 23 years old but look 15. Somehow, there's something about that that just doesn't scream "ingenue!" or "Lady Macbeth!" It can be frustrating, it can be gut-wrenching, but it can also be breathtaking. There's nothing like that moment onstage when you're doing a scene with another actor and you're both completely, 100% invested. I've never done drugs, but I would imagine that it's a lot like that. It's what I breathe for, walk for, live for. Without it, I don't think I'd be able to speak. It is, hands down, the love of my life - and I would walk across the Sahara Desert to perform if that's what it took.

So what do you do when you have the drive, the passion, but no acting job?

What an act of providence that at this point in my life I would pick up Kathy Griffin's Official Book Club Selection. I have always loved Kathy for her honesty. I think that the most important thing about being an artist is being as honest as you can in whatever arena you choose. Not only is Kathy honest about the people around her, which is fantastic and deliciously SCANDALOUS! (exclamation point!), but when things happen in her personal life, she is honest and forthcoming about those, too. She doesn't just talk about celebrities in her book. She talks about her past - dark moments in her past. She talks about love, her losses, her embarrassments, her heartbreaks. She isn't afraid to be honest about herself.

What I didn't realize until reading her book is that Kathy is also a PRO. She has studied her craft, she has worked hard, and she never stops working hard. She attended the LEE STRASBERG INSTITUTE. Yes, the Lee Strasberg that reinvented "the method" and taught Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Marlon Brando. Yes, the Lee Strasberg that every serious actor has studied. She also studied with the Groundlings, the Olympics of comedy, and was a cast member there for a long time.

But this is the part that really hooked me. Kathy is a short gal, like myself. Not Brooke Shields. She doesn't scream "ingenue!" or "Lady Macbeth!" but she is EXTREMELY passionate about what she does. She knows that she's the Rhoda, not the Mary. What's more, she doesn't WANT to be the Mary (but who would prefer to be Mary when RHODA'S around? If you would, I don't think we can be friends). So what did she do when Lorne Michaels wouldn't give her a job on SNL? Or when she couldn't get the roles that she wanted? Or when audiences didn't know how to respond to her particular brand of comedy?

She blazed her own path.

She, along with Janeane Garofalo and some others, started a weekly comedy act called "Hot Cup of Talk." They brought a timer onstage, set it to 15 minutes, and when the timer buzzed your act was done and it was time for the next person to come onstage. You could perform whatever material you wanted  for 15 minutes, but you couldn't go over your time and you could never repeat the same material twice (NEVER - not even months or years later).

Soon, audiences started taking notice. This was the gig - the gig she created herself - that got her noticed. She knew what her strengths and weaknesses were, and when she didn't see an available avenue in the entertainment industry she MADE ONE! Not necessarily for "fame," but because she had drive, energy, and the desire to work. People couldn't deny or ignore her talent, because she found the venue that suited it best instead of pretending to be something or someone else.

Kathy made people see that being different was an advantage.

Kathy, you are my hero. 

I will always believe that hard work, creativity, passion, commitment, and intelligence are the most important qualities in an artist. I respect artists who own those qualities, and Kathy is one of them. 

AND I believe that when you are passionate about what you do, you will find a way to do it regardless of the opportunities presented to you. That is success - finding a way to do what moves you.

So stop sitting around, waiting for someone to hand you your dream job! Assess your strengths and weaknesses. What can you do to better yourself? What can you do to make yourself stronger? It's time to take things into your own very capable hands and show the world your beautiful uniqueness. 

Be a Rhoda in a Mary world! 


Hey! Look at this!

• Kathy Griffin's Official Website 
• Kathy Griffin's Twitter 
• See Kathy on Tour! 
• My Life on the D-List - Kathy's Brilliant EMMY award winning reality show!
  

Kew Gardens & Sweet Chamomile

"Words, words, words..."

- Hamlet 

Recommended tea: 

Celestial Seasonings' Sweet Chamomile Organic Herb Tea  

Okay, there's something that you should know about me if you don't know it already - I have MAJOR anxiety problems. Major. Like, so major that one time I had to go to the hospital because I thought that I was having a heart attack. 

It was a panic attack. So, anyway - note this

A few years ago I was in a car wreck. I wasn't hurt, my car wasn't hurt, but I did spin 360 degrees on the highway before going into a ditch and barely missing a cop who had pulled someone over.

Ever since this incident, I have trouble driving. Usually I'm okay to drive - I just get a little nervous or tense. When I  have to drive long distances, it can get pretty bad. But if it starts to rain? That is when the panic attacks rear their ugly heads 

(or when I am in a cubicle, but that's another story for another time...)

At the moment, I am rehearsing two shows simultaneously. One I am rehearsing 45 minutes from my apartment. The other I am rehearsing an hour and a half from my apartment. The second one is also going to be performed a few states away. Needless to say, this requires a lot of driving. 

And what happened today? It rained like the devil. I turned on my air conditioning, because the cool air calms me down. Unfortunately this fogs up the windows, so I had to turn on the heat so that I could see. It went back and forth like this until it started raining so hard that I couldn't see at all, regardless of whether the windshield was foggy or not.

So I reached down, pushed a random button on my iPod, and hoped that it would play something to calm me down.


Is it just me, or does the iPod seem to know exactly what you need to hear exactly when you need to hear it? What did my iPod play? A recording of someone reading Virginia Woolf's short story Kew Gardens. This particular Woolf story I hadn't yet read. 

This is the first sentence:

From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end.

I've never really believed in magic or spells, but it was as if these words held some incantatory power. Like when you listen to Shakespeare - essentially, it doesn't matter what the speaker is saying because their words are so beautiful. I felt the anxiety drain out of my shoulders, through my fingertips. I drove through the rain like Fred Astaire dancing. Easy, simple, beautiful. 

Yet again, Virginia's hands reached through the pages (or in this case, the speakers) and held mine. She helped me. Maybe she saved me. What I do know for sure is that she took something terrifying and made it awe-inspiring.

I had a fantastic English teacher in high-school - probably the best English teacher on the planet. His favorite phrase was "the beauty of language and the power of words." He had us memorize it. This phrase was on every test, every quiz. It was taped to his door and stapled on his bulletin board. 

"The Beauty of Language and the Power of Words."

My mind went immediately to that phrase. Really, this moment proved to me that spells, magic, incantations - all of those things are actually real. Words are that powerful. Language is that beautiful. Like a witch's brew, words can be deadly when you use the right recipe - the right combination. They can also give you life. The Psalms in the Bible are like that to me - they are so beautifully written, so powerful, that the words alone can make you feel God's presence, regardless of what God may be up to at the time. 

As an actor, I make my living analyzing words. I use them to discover my character, to create, to awaken something in myself. The playwright uses his words to inspire truth and honesty in the actors and in the audience. The right combination can make a whole audience of people burst into laughter, simultaneously. Or gasp, simultaneously. There is nothing like being onstage, speaking the perfect combination of syllables, feeling the power that those words give you, feeling what they do to you and to the audience.

Words are so precious. Words are so powerful. And yet, we don't think about what we say. We don't take the time to make our conversations beautiful. Or even honest. Words can be like weapons in the hands of serial killers or sociopaths - we don't always understand how dangerous and how powerful they can be or what they can do to other people. 

Words are our most powerful asset. Words are our best friends. Words are our greatest enemies. I think we live in words. I think God lives in words. 

How do you use yours?

Fancy Nancy & Fancy Tea Sandwiches

"My family is posh! That's a fancy word for fancy."

- Fancy Nancy

Recommended tea: Nick Jr.'s Fancy Tea (Sandwiches)

I've been acting my whole life. I have a degree in theatre. I've played roles in plays by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Moliere, Oscar Wilde, and Jean-Claude van Itallie. I've even won a few awards (the keyword there is "few"). 

Now, saying all that, I would like to confess, here on my knee before high heaven and you, that playing Fancy Nancy today at the bookstore where I work was probably the most challenging thing I've ever had to do.

I, the wee little actress herself, found myself in the back room, wearing a feather boa, a tiara, and fairy wings, shaking in my sparkly high heel shoes.

Then, I heard the dreaded words (it wasn't difficult - 14 little girls shouting at the same time is surprisingly loud) "FANCY NANCY, COME OUT AND PLAY!!!!"

Showtime!

I ran out in my little high heels. "Bonjour! Bonjour!" 28 eyes widened and fixed themselves on me. 

Me: Can anyone tell me what "Bonjour" means?

Little Girl: My favorite color is pink, purple, red, blue, yellow, and turquoise.

Me: Really? Well... um... Ooh, la la! What's your name?

Little Girl 2: (shoves handful of popcorn in her mouth)

Me: Oh... emmm... let's read a story!

It was at this point that I realized that my hands were shaking.

"Why? whywhywhywhywhy?" I thought. I've done this about a billion times. I have a degree. Did I mention that I have a degree? Let me say that again - I have a degree. In theatre.

Then, as I started to read the story, and the room fell silent, and the cameras started flashing, I realized it - I was terrified of disappointing those little girls. 

I remember the awe that I experienced as a child when I fell in love with my first storybook characters. They were my heroes, the foundation for who I would want to become later. What would it have been like to discover that Jo March was just too overbearing? Or that Anne Shirley was a little too clingy? To discover that they were... human? I think that I would've been a little disappointed, to tell you the truth. 

But that's the beautiful thing about reading, isn't it? Our minds are so powerful, so beautifully made, that this world that a book creates inside of our heads can never be duplicated. Real life will never be as good - maybe good in different ways, but not in the exact way that you imagine. My Anne Shirley will be different from your Anne Shirley, and there are INFINITE Anne Shirleys flying around out there in the minds of little girls. No two will be the same.

So THAT was why the pressure was there! How could MY performance, regardless of my credentials, live up to the hopes and the dreams of a room full of girls with huge imaginations and even more admiration? 

Amazingly - miraculously, even - I didn't have to worry about that. The second I walked through the door, the girls loved me and I could feel it. When I finished reading the story and asked them if they wanted to have their nails polished, they all rushed towards me in a mighty frenzy, fingers outstretched, hugging me and grabbing at my necklaces. 

Little Girl Three: I have a cat!

Me: Really? I have two cats!

Little Girl Three: Me too!

Little Girl Four: Thank you for letting me come to your party, Nancy.

Little Girl Five: This is my invisible dinosaur. He has a purple polk a dot body, a pink face, and a blue tail.

I had nothing to worry about. Children's imagination muscles are so strong that they are constantly living in "suspension of disbelief" mode - the mode that we work so heard to create in the theatre business. All I had to do was be there and listen, and their imaginations did the work. 

The day ended with me sitting on the floor eating invisible spaghetti that one of the girls made for me (with sugar, vegetable soup, mustard, and ketchup on top). Then we danced and twirled, hugged, shed a few tears, and said goodbye. 

This is why I act. This is why I read. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." There is so much more to this world than what we can see with our eyes. 

I think kids are really the ones who have it all figured out.

Hey! Look at these!

• Visit Fancy Nancy's Site
• Have a Fancy Nancy Party!
• Nancy is a kindred spirit

The Scarlet Letter & Dream by the Fire

"I have often wondered...why high school kids almost invariably hate the books they are assigned to read by their English teachers." 

-Stephen King

Recommended tea: The Republic of Tea's Dream by the Fire Red Tea 

If the picture above isn't instantly recognizable to you, you obviously didn't read The Scarlet Letter in high school. I remember cracking that book open, spending hours trying to read it, wishing that I could be watching The Real World instead. 

When we talked about it in class, nothing jumped out at me. Nothing about it seemed extraordinary. To me, it was a long, overly verbose book that a teacher made me read to make me suffer and to learn to do what I was told, no matter how painful.

Years and a college degree later, I heard a segment on NPR. It was a part of their incredible "In Character" series, which explores the most influential and memorable characters in American fiction. Some of these were Harriet the Spy, Cookie Monster, Darth Vader, and Hester Prynne. 


Now, some of you might be thinking "WHY would they talk about cookie monster?" 


I hate to admit, MY honest reaction was "WHY would they talk about boring ole Hester Prynne?"


And then, they read a selection from the book:


...she took off the formal cap that confined her hair; and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with at once a shadow and a light in its abundance and imparting the charm of softness to her features.


Not too shabby, huh? Actually, to be specific, in the NPR segment they had John Updike read this selection, which he recited from memory, and which, he said, still makes him cry.


"Well, maybe I should try reading that sucker again," I thought to myself. Then, I saw that The Scarlet Letter was going to be released with a new cover:

 

You can't tell in this photo, but the "A" actually GLEAMS in the light.

I decided that it was time to give Hester and Mr. Hawthorne another chance. I gave away my old high school copy in favor of the new gleamy version, deciding that it was vital to see it with completely new eyes.

I was surprised by how instantly I fell in love with it. Actually, it was this specific moment in the first chapter that made me fall in love with it. Hawthorne describes the prison, saying:

The rust on the ponderous ironwork of its oaken door looked more antique than any thing else in the new world.  Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era... But, on the one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.

Holy crap. Our high school teachers were right!

This isn't the first time I've re-read a book that I hated in high school. When I read To Kill A Mockingbird in school, it went through and over my head. This year I read it again, laughing and sobbing my way through it. Now, it's one of my favorite books, and I think of Scout as one of my best fictional friends.

But, let's not forget that when I read it in school, I hated it. And I'd venture to say that most of us did. Something doesn't seem right about this picture. Am I alone on this one? Teachers were literally showering us with beautiful language and amazingly human stories. In one ear, out the other, to the back of our dusty closets. 

Why do we hate the books that we were forced to read in high school? Maybe the keyword there is "forced." Is it because we were told to read them, and being a teenager means hating being made to do anything? Is it because we weren't mentally or emotionally developed enough to appreciate them? Is it because our teachers didn't take the time to help us understand WHY these books are important?

Most (NOT ALL) of my experiences with reading in high school were like this:

Teacher: Read this.

Student: Why? 

Teacher: Because it's important. 

Student: Why is it important? 

Teacher: Because I said so. 

Student: Is it good? Will I enjoy it? 

Teacher: That's not the point. The point is it's a classic and that means you need to read it so that you can get into a good college.

This, of course, is probably not even close to what actually happened. But for some strange reason, when you're in high school, that's the way it feels - like someone is trying to force you to appreciate something antiquated that has nothing whatsoever to do with who you are. 

You lose the wonder that reading gave you as a child and all of a sudden reading is a chore.

How is it possible that all of this amazing literature was before our very eyes, and we were completely blind to its beauty? 

Maybe you can't be forced to appreciate art. Art's beauty lies in its ability to entice you, to draw you in, to make you look twice and ask questions. Art speaks to you in its own time, when you're ready to listen to it. But Art loses it's power when it is shoved under your nose. The whisper of a painting or a novel is much louder than the shout of the lesson plan or the report card. 

Also, in high school you might feel sorry for a character like Hester Prynne, but you lack the hindsight - the memories, the scars, the good and bad choices you've made - to be able to meet Hester and ache  WITH her. 

As a child, I looked at Hester and thought "The moral of this story is that we shouldn't judge anyone. The End. Give me my test score."

As an adult, I look into Hester's eyes and realize that we are the same.  She isn't a character - she is my friend, my sister, my neighbor.

Hester is me. Hester is you. Hester is all of us.

Take a moment to consider all of those classics you skimmed through at the last minute, the night before the test - Great Expectations, Moby Dick, Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights - a whole treasure trove of books screaming, "Please, give me another chance! I promise that I have something valuable to say! We can relate to each other!" 

Without the test looming after you reach the last page, these books have a new, alluring, shiny glow. Dig them out of the closet, approach them with newer, wiser eyes, and learn why your English teacher gave them to you in the first place.

...and then, give your English teacher the opportunity to say, "I told you so!"

Hey! Look at this!

• A teacher's guide for connecting The Scarlet Letter and Laurie Halse Anderson's YA novel Speak
• NPR's In Character series 
• Ruben Toledo Reimagines the Classics