Some Traumas

--On Monday, I went to jury duty, and was selected for questioning by the judge. The experience was not one that I would like to repeat, and not in that ho-hum-jury-duty-is-so-boring-let-me-get-out-of-it kind of way. I'm going to write the entire experience up in the coming week or so. But for now, I'll only say that I've never felt so powerless.

--Then Ed McMahon died. And I felt sad for the whole world of entertainment, even though I don't know anything about Ed McMahon, not really. He hosted the blooper show with Dick Clark that we watched seemingly every Saturday night at my grandparents house, the one with the little cartoon sweeping men.

--Then Farah Fawcett died of cancer. Gail, who sells jam at the Greenmarket, told me about watching Farah's video documentary on television on Thursday night. Gail was shaken by it, and I felt sad for both of them. I felt sad for all the striving, the work, the courage, the hope, and then, turns out, it's not enough.

--Then I had to go to South Williamsburg to deliver some dumb paperwork, and the person I was there to meet got into an argument with someone he worked with, and fired him right on the spot. In front of me. Without apologizing. This was after he said that, "We should hire a temp, pay him nothing, and treat him like dirt because I don't think anyone has the balls these days to sue" and "Mushroom clouds are beautiful, don't you think?"

--Then Michael died. I felt nothing, really, except vague loss. And, of course, the curious tinge of not knowing the whole story, wondering how long it would take for all the details to emerge. But then that's how everything was with Michael--mysterious and unsettling. Even his music, the extraordinary transcendence of those eternal songs, seem to be made out of genius, soul and light.

--Last night, I took to watching great Tony, Emmy, and Oscar acceptance speeches on YouTube until 2:30 in the morning. Then I cried, and felt happy.

Open Letters, Vol. 8

Dear Modernity,

Oh, Modernity, you bitter mistress, you taught me so much over the weekend.

Actually, you didn't teach me anything concrete, nothing I could say for sure--which, in itself is its own kind of modernity--you just brought up a whole new set of questions. Socrates would say that is teaching, but you know, whatevs.

First, on my Twitter feed, I watched as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore began complaining about their neighbors. Then I watched as very slowly, the story got picked up by various "news" outlets and broadcast all abouts the interweb. It was the first time I was able to see one of those celebrity stories from beginning to end. What started as something rather vacant and light suddenly became a news story, and people were quoting the Tweets and talking about how Ash and Demi were feeling. Who really knows how they were feeling? The machine took something and chewed it into bits.

And second, me and some other gay boys (plus a real live lady) sat around on Saturday night drinking beer and watching dumb videos on YouTube. We watched the one where the guy pukes on the morning news show, the one where the Swedish lady pukes on that morning show, the one where the lady falls and really hurts herself while trying to stomp grapes, the one where the lady falls on the Segway, the farting aerobics instructor, the farting newscaster, Sue Simmons and her important question, the gay/blind hiker, the weather man with diarrhea, and many, many others. How did we miss this typo?

Kip suggested that this was the current version of sitting around the campfire telling stories. It was pretty remarkable, in a way, all of us sitting in a circle, passing around the laptop, calling up one crazy narrative from YouTube, and turning the computer around so everyone could watch together. It didn't feel vacant, which you might presume.

I'm not the kind of person who bemoans how technology and modernity are keeping us apart from one another, but I'm not foolish enough to believe that things like YouTube and social networking websites are actually bringing people closer together--perhaps in an organizing sense, in a mobilizing sense, but never making quality interaction among people, surely. Right? Maybe? Instead, I think it's some unknown mixture of the two. Our language is becoming these videos, truncated for cultural ease--like that joke about the prisoners telling jokes in prison*. Our consciousness is becoming the translation of Twitter feeds.

Help us, I want to scream. But, to whom? And from what?

Sincerely,
Lee

*Let me know if you want to hear that joke.

Spectacular!

I've always liked using 'spectacular' as a noun. For the last few weeks, I've been inciting jealous fits in many of my peers, upon sharing (confessing? bragging?) that I'd be seeing the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with my boyfriend and my favorite lesbians. I've been here almost 11 years and I'd never seen it -- and upon hearing months ago that Laura & Amy were also itching to take part, I got us a chunk of second mezzanine tickets.

Radio City Music Hall is probably my favorite venue in the entire city -- it's just the most beautiful space, and it remains the largest indoor theater in the world. I learned last night that it was designed to look like a sunrise as seen from an ocean liner. How smart is that? Small details that make it unique: the ramped entrance, the oval lobby, the curtain--okay, not so small, as it's also the largest in the world.

The show itself is....how can I explain that I never wanted it to end, and yet I needed it to stop. One huge number after another, Rockettes in costume after costume, the huge stage elevators, ice skating, an LED screen as wide and tall as a city block, fireworks, Flying by Foy, plushy bears doing bits from The Nutcracker, and (with help from that screen,) an infinite number of Santas dancing off into oblivion. Oh, and then there's the whole sheep, camels, Christchild, procession scene -- including the most lush blue curtain I've ever seen, like insanely beautiful draping. Then big finale where the song lyrics are projected onto the beaming gold walls of the theater and that part where the mylar ribbons explode into the space. There's no time to rest, to catch your breath. Plus, there's a 3D movie at the opening, with glasses tucked inside your program.

It's not bad -- it's actually fantastic. But it's garish, saccharine, and I guess in the end what makes it a little grating is the fact that every number essentially runs at the same speed. There's only one level here, and it's balls-out, breakneck. Theatrically, it sort of goes on an on, and then when it's over, you want intermission and another 90 minutes. The whole thing is so baffling.

Here's a couple of clips from the evening. The first is one of the Rockette's opening numbers -- there seemed to be a few different opening numbers, the first of which has them all dressed like S&M-ish reindeer, tethered by velvet rope to Santa's sleigh. Then, the second clip is part of the Million Santas number, what you see coming down from above is a rack of handbells.