Friday, September 18, 2009

Kew Gardens & Sweet Chamomile



"Words, words, words..."
- Hamlet 

Recommended 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?




Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Fancy Nancy & Fancy Tea Sandwiches


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


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!


Monday, September 7, 2009

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
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!



Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Reading Rainbow & Cherry Apple


"When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, 'Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.'"
- Virginia Woolf


Recommended tea The Republic of Tea's Cherry Apple

My mom has been a teacher for over 30 years. She loves helping children discover that reading is wonderful, and that it is something that they can do well. 

Some mornings, my mom would arrive at her school a little early. There would be parents there, with their little children, before the school had even been unlocked. 

"Why?" I asked her.

"Because the kids haven't eaten anything all weekend. They get all of their food at school because their parents can't afford to buy it for them."

Forget about buying picture books at $17.99 a pop - some of these parents can't even afford to buy their children food. When our nation is made up of five year olds who have to focus on keeping their stomachs from growling, and parents who have to focus on feeding their kids, how can we expect them to focus on learning? Or even excelling? 

Imagine, then, my lack of surprise when I learned that Reading Rainbow had been cancelled. Lack of funds is stated as the reason for the cancellation, but the Wall Street Journal adds, "Pointing to changes in educational programming funding... the Department of Education and PBS are spending more money on teaching kids how to read, not on teaching them to savor the act itself."

Our children aren't learning how to savor the act of reading. They're not making it that farNow, apparently, we're happy if we can just get them reading at all. 

Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal had another article on their website called "Good Novels Don't Have to Be Hard Work." The article talks about how modern readers are putting down James Joyce and (blasphemy!) Virginia Woolf in favor of Stephenie Meyer. 

Lev Grossman writes, "You'll find critics who say they have bad taste, or that they're lazy and can't hack it in the big leagues. But that's not the case. They need something they're not getting elsewhere. Let's be honest: Why do so many adults read Suzanne Collins's young-adult novel 'The Hunger Games' instead of contemporary literary fiction? Because 'The Hunger Games' doesn't bore them."

But is that really why? Are we putting away Woolf and Joyce because we're bored, or is it because our culture is slowly but surely being trained to turn our brains off? To do what we think is easy instead of trying to do what might be a little more difficult? To focus on just learning how to read instead of learning how to savor it? 


My BFF (BFF here is a technical and absolutely appropriate term) Lindsey pointed out that this might seem like I'm implying that young adult literature is not valuable. Lindsey is usually right about most things, so I definitely take her opinions to heart. 


I can't stress this enough:  The Hunger Games is brilliant, and young adult literature is incredibly valuable! 


If you haven't read The Hunger Games, I encourage you to do so (then read the sequel Catching Fire!). It is thematically challenging and thought-provoking. I do not have a problem with The Hunger Games or with young adult literature. 


What I DO have a problem with, however, is the generalization that contemporary literary fiction (in the article he sites Woolf and Joyce specifically) is a "boring," and therefore not valuable, genre. In fact, I have a problem with anyone saying that any literary genre should be completely ignored in favor of another genre.


I adore young adult literature. Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors of all time (read The Truth About Forever and Someone Like You right now), right up there next to Ms. Woolf, and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. But that's exactly my point - that Sarah Dessen and Virginia Woolf and Laurie Halse Anderson belong NEXT to each other on the shelf rather than having one on the shelf and one in the wastebasket. 


Teachers should say to their students, "I'm glad that you enjoyed Twilight. You should try Pride and Prejudice" or "You should try Wuthering Heights." 


Teachers should NOT say to their students, "Wuthering Heights is boring. Never read it. Here's Twilight."

There is something intoxicating - miraculous, even - about discovering not only that you can do something difficult, but you can do it well. It is vital in our development as intelligent, well-rounded human beings. Similarly, there's something divine about picking up a complex piece of literature and ANALYZING it. Go ahead and hate it, or go ahead and love it - but the important thing is to read it in the first place! And after you read that classic, read a biography. Then read a young adult book. Then read a science fiction novel. Then read a book of poetry. 


Just don't buy into the idea that your brain is too small to handle or appreciate any collection of words. OR the idea that every book doesn't have something valuable to teach you. Sometimes, that takes digging - but the dig is worth it.


As a child, there is nothing better than that moment when the words on the page turn from gibberish into WORDS! When "C" and "A" and "T" become "cat!" 


When faced with the task of reading for the first time, it seems daunting. It doesn't make sense (much like, some would argue, Joyce). But you keep picking away at it, syllable by syllable, and after all of the trying, nothing is more rewarding than the moment you realize that you can actually do it (much like, some would argue, JOYCE)! 


I remember running into my living room, waving my picture book over my head like a flag, yelling "I CAN READ! I CAN READ!" It was like finding Narnia at the back of the wardrobe. I felt the same way after I read The Iliad for the first time. 


A whole world that I had never seen before was now opening itself up before my very eyes. The world where I would meet my best friends - Anne (with an "e") Shirley, Jo March, Harriet the Spy, The BFG... and later Hector, Lizzy Bennet, Atticus Finch, and Orlando. Can you imagine being deprived of that world?


Similarly, as an adult, there is nothing better than wrapping your whole brain around a difficult  or different book and discovering that you can relate to it or that it stirs something in you. It's like trying sushi for the first time - it seems crazy at first, but once you get your first taste you wonder how you lived without it. 

We're accepting value meals instead of home cooked meals, e-mails instead of letters, and Cliff's Notes instead of the full text. Now, we're even accepting the idea that books that hurt our heads are not worth picking up.

When did we forget what life was about? When did we forget how to savor, and start doing just enough to squeak by? When did we lose faith in our brains and our ability to make the unknown knowable?

Reading equals freedom. Reading equals empowerment. Reading lots of different things equals tolerance. Loving reading equals loving life.

What will the world be like when no one loves reading?

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