Saturday Scrap Bag

     Writing:  When new poems, or even the desire to write them, aren't forthcoming, I usually revise. Revising is a creative act, after all, and a craft in itself. It's best done, I think, after a good amount of time has passed since you wrote the last draft of a poem, and since you last read it, even years after; then you can be truly objective. Sometimes it happens that, when you do finally read it again, a kind of horror fills you, and an involuntary "Yech!" escapes your lips. That's happened more times than I care to admit. But the horror is motivating. So I have been revising, as my previous post attests.

    

     Reading:  Since the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice  has just passed, I decided to reread it. It's been quite a long while since I last read it, so it's practically fresh to me, even though I've watched the BBC mini-series many times in the interim. On this reading, I find myself comparing Austen's dialogue to Andrew Davies' adaptation of it—the parts of speeches he chose to leave out, the parts he kept word for word—and also the bits of narrative that Davies converted into dialogue. I guess I'm fascinated with the whole adaptation process. What I find amusing, and not in a good way, is when screenwriters claim to want to preserve the "spirit" of a work but, with all their mucking about, trying to make it "fresh" for a modern audience, they actually manage to squash every bit of the spirit out of it, thus defeating their own purpose. They throw period vernacular out the window, and impose all sorts of social, political, and sexual innuendoes on the work that, more often than not, the author never implied. Davies, thankfully, is not one of those writers. He has indeed preserved the spirit of Pride and Prejudice, by respecting Austen's own words and staying as close as possible to them. He lets Austen speak for herself. This is one of the reasons his adaptation has become a true classic.

     Watching:  I never get tired of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Like the BBC Pride and Prejudice, the combination of great writing and fine ensemble acting keeps the show fresh. My mother absolutely loves it. Whenever we have a quiet afternoon, there's nothing she likes better than to watch three or four episodes (I have the whole series on DVD). I have almost every episode memorized, but that doesn't diminish my pleasure in the least. So The Mary Tyler Moore Show  will stay in my DVD library, alongside Frasier, as my "go to" TV series.

     Looking:  I've fallen in love with the Copenhagen Interior School of painting. Before I even knew about that school, or the artists belonging to it, I was drawn to the simplicity of composition, domesticity of subject, and muted palette, that characterize it and the artists' work. I particularly love the paintings of Carl Holsøe and Vilhelm Hammershøi.

"Woman in Interior" by Carl Holsøe

 

"The Poetry of Silence" by Vilhelm Hammershøi

 

     Wishing:  Apparently, Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow, so spring will soon be upon us. I was so wishing for a longer winter and more genuinely cold days, anything to postpone what I fear will be another insupportably hot and dry summer. But maybe (God willing) we'll get more rain!



The Power and Frailty of Concentration

     I recall a scene from The Mary Tyler Moore Show in which Mary is trying to write a fast-breaking news bulletin and get it on the air in the two minutes left of air time; but her boss, Mr. Grant, is hovering over her shoulder, paralyzing her concentration. Of course, the story doesn't make it onto the news.

 

(Here is the entire episode; the scene to which I refer is near the start.)

 



     I know how Mary felt. Though I'm not a journalist, I did have to face a looming deadline once, when I was working at Houston Grand Opera. Someone, who shall remain nameless, was asked to write a piece in the program for Lucia di Lammermoor and, having put it off till the day of the deadline, he asked me to write it instead. I had about an hour before galleys went to the printer. We were in the middle of a staging rehearsal for which I was playing, but they excused me; so I locked myself away in the conference room and dashed off what was, I thought, a pretty decent piece about the ornamentation in Lucia, with special emphasis on the extended flute cadenza in the mad scene. It's amazing how adrenaline (or white-knuckled fear) can heighten one's powers of concentration. I don't know if I could have written a better piece, were I given more time.

     One would think that writing a blogpost is a more relaxed endeavor, since if there are deadlines they are only self-imposed, e. g., my "Music Monday" or "Saturday at the Opera" series; but even so, one may play fast and loose with them, even skip them, as I sometimes have. I have no boss hovering over my shoulder, no printer waiting (a human printer, that is). Yet, when inspiration sparks and the juices are flowing, my mother's call to dinner is an unwelcome interruption, and I'm afraid I tend to snap my response at her with the terseness of a Thomas Carlyle without the genius. My poor mother.

     Speaking of Carlyle -- Helene Hanff, in her delightful book Q's Legacy, says that he could write nowhere but in his "inner sanctum," built at the tippy-top of his house to his exacting specifications, which included soundproofing. Since Carlyle was Carlyle and I most certainly am not, I don't wonder that I'm able to write my little posts at the computer, which is situated smack-dab next to the living room television. At the moment, the TV is off, but if it were on it would make me no never mind. I have no critics to worry about, and my readership is somewhat (ahem) smaller than his. So I just clickety-clack away while Alex Trebek reads out one clue after another.

     In another of Hanff's books, can't remember which, she says that Bernard Shaw could write virtually anywhere -- in trains, cafés, etc. That's comforting to know, in the sense that brilliance -- or, in the case of us lesser mortals, competence -- need not always be coddled like a frail flower in order to bloom. Heck, I've written drafts of poems in coffee shops, doctor's waiting rooms, even McDonald's, some of my best poems, that eventually saw print. Just think of what gems I could produce in an environment like Carlyle's inner sanctum ....

     More than likely, I'd spend most of the day staring out the window and emerge at dinnertime not having written a thing. Concentration does not a genius make. But I'd settle for mere competence.

Confessions of a Frasier Junkie

     My name is Leticia and I'm a Frasier-holic.
     I guess it all started last summer when I found myself watching DVDs of The Mary Tyler Moore Show over and over again, until I reached the point where I needed another fix, something new to satisfy my craving for well-written, intelligent comedy delivered by an ensemble of actors of the highest calibre.

(a scene from The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 5, "Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasting School")

     I stopped watching primetime network TV when I moved to Houston to work for the Houston Grand Opera. My erratic schedule, which of course involved a lot of nights, plus the fact that the recording function on my VCR wasn't working, for years rendered me virtually unable to watch primetime shows. I suppose I could have bought a new VCR, but I was too busy throwing away my money on frivolous things like food and rent. Consequently, I missed out on the whole Frasier phenomenon the first time around. By the time it ended its run on NBC, I was inside the monastery walls in Lufkin. Suffice to say, I really wasn't aware of Frasier, not even after I left the monastery and the show went into syndication. My first awareness of it was a few years ago, when one of my sisters and her husband referred to another sister and me as "the female Frasier and Niles." Of course, I had no idea what was implied by that comparison, and I didn't bother to ask at the time. When I finally did find out, I was frankly flattered to be likened to one of the greatest characters ever created for television, Niles Crane.
     Several months ago, at one of our Sunday family lunches, the subject of Frasier somehow came up.    
     "I've never seen it," I confessed.
     "What?!" exclaimed one of my sisters. "Oh, Let, you would love it. It's so consistently well-written, and there are lots of references to opera and classical music."
     Later that day, I posted on Facebook: "Can you believe, I've never seen Frasier." I received an onslaught of comments from my former opera colleagues: "OMG, you really need to watch it!" "They talk about opera all the time!" "I just LOVE that show," and so on.
     Okay. True to my nature, instead of tuning in to whatever channel airs Frasier reruns, I bought the first season DVD through Amazon. I wanted to watch it from the beginning and in order, because, like Niles, I'm an obsessive-compulsive. After watching the first few shows, I was hooked -- big time. At long last, a show I could really sink my teeth into, one with sophisticated writing, literate yet laugh-out-loud humor, superlative acting, and the most amusing pooch ever to grace the small screen. Of course, the love story of Niles and Daphne has become a television legend all its own, being by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, sweet, titillating, and downright frustrating -- and oh, sooooo gratifying when the two of them finally declare themselves to each other.
     For whatever reasons, I still don't watch primetime network TV. I'd rather spend those hours before bedtime watching a movie or reading a book. And frankly, Frasier has spoiled me for any other sitcom. I don't see myself ever tiring of its brilliance. But this is the kind of addiction I'm not ashamed to admit. I am a Frasier junkie -- and justifiably proud of it.

(a scene from Frasier Season 6, "I. Q.")