Blogcritics Author: Elvira Black

Elvira's Adventures in Cyber-Speed Dating

Elvira Black — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 20:46:18 EST

American men may be emotionally dysfunctional -- but New York City guys are downright Seinfeldian in their deal-breaking demands.
Part I: Women Don’t Even Need to Read this Crap—They’ve All Lived It!Well, it’s official. My boyfriend of nine years and I have broken up by mutual agreement. I am a long-term relationship type of person — I lived with my first serious boyfriend, whom I met in college, for 20 years, and with boyfriend number two for...

Welcome to New York City (Sort Of)

Elvira Black — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 14:08:04 EDT

You can still fulfill your wildest dreams in New York City, but if you're a newcomer, you would best tread lightly.
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,...

Intelligent Design: Is it "Intelligent?"

Elvira Black — Thu, 6 Sep 2007 07:56:21 EDT

Can one reconcile contemporary science with a belief in a humanoid "creator?" Aye, there's the rub.
My parents had me late in life — my mom was 42, and I was their only child. My dad taught me to read at an early age, and I devoured every book I could get my hands on. Most of my cousins were five to ten plus years older than me, and I inherited a lot of their hand-me-down books. This was fine with me as well as my parents — save for...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Book Review: A Practical Handbook for the Boyfriend by Felicity Huffman and Patricia Wolff

Elvira Black — Thu, 31 May 2007 19:17:23 EDT

On the dust jacket of this delightful book are two caveats: "Boyfriend not included" and "The thing is, he’s not going to buy this book, so you’ve got to buy it for him." Aye, there’s the rub: for I suspect most guys would sooner put knitting needles in their eyes than read, let alone buy, a how-to book on how to be a better boyfriend — precisely for the reasons outlined in the book itself.More’s the pity, but women who read this book will likely find themselves nodding their heads in agreement throughout. The authors — Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives fame and producer Patricia Wolff — make no bones about their central premise that "Men are from Mars, women are from Bloomingdales." Their claim that "women have more neurons connecting the right and left sides of their brain than men do — four times as many, in fact" lays the foundation for this hilarious study of socio-sexual dissonance. (For any naysayers out there, it’s easy to find hard evidence of the male/female behavioral dichotomy even in the most mundane of circumstances, like the supermarket aisle. A new study I just stumbled upon concludes that men have a lot of trouble grocery shopping because they get overwhelmed by all the choices and - who would have thought? - hesitate to ask for help.) In any case, those extra connective female neurons do help explain why women are such an eternal puzzlement to men, and the authors do their best to help boyfriends navigate the complicated, often convoluted female emotional terrain. In Chapter One, "All Women Are Crazy," the authors take pains to explain why the "crazy" cliché — the flip side of "all men are jerks" -- is not (exactly) true. Women are an everlasting mystery to men, they claim, because "reality is relative," and women’s reality is very, very different than men’s. Thus, statements like "I don’t want presents for my birthday" should be translated to read: "Get me something anyway — surprise me!" while "No honey, I’m fine" actually means "You’ve really made me sad/angry/upset, and let’s have a really long talk about it."The book does, indeed, cover the gamut of issues large and small (but for women, as the authors assert, the small can be huge), from meeting to cheating to farting to toilet etiquette to "the tragedy of unruly nose hairs" and everything in between. "Do I Look Fat?" gets a chapter all its own ("When guys have a gut, they rub it affectionately and give it a nickname. No woman has ever named her thighs"), while Chapter Five, "When Do You Become a Boyfriend, and Who Decides?" is summed up in two succinct words: "She does." Dreaded man-clichés are also covered: the chapter on "I Need Space" examines in quip-crammed detail why "your girlfriend will panic when she hears these three little words, in much the same way you panic when you hear 'male pattern baldness.'"Conversely, the authors have a good understanding (for a woman) of how the more straightforward male mind works, and their sensible advice is laced with plenty of empathy for the virtual minefield a boyfriend with good intentions must attempt to navigate. Considering that women can deconstruct any relationship with a laser-like intensity that would put Derrida or a rabbinical council to shame, the authors succeed in presenting their premises in delicious, bite-size servings, with plenty of diverting sidebars, lists, and cheat sheets like "What’s Sexy to Your Girlfriend" ("bringing her a cup of coffee in the morning" and "keeping an eye on her when you are at a party" both make the short list) and "Ten Things You Should Never Say on the First Date" (e.g. "You look a lot like my mother"; "You have beautiful legs; they’d look great wrapped around my neck") to help the "medicine" go down, as well as terrific illustrations and retro-style graphics throughout. Stereotypical? Perhaps, but think classic comedy routine by a man (or woman) riffing on the differences between the sexes and you’ve got the gist. Even if your boyfriend is one of those rare breeds who loves to clean, hates sports, and can outtalk you (like mine), there’s plenty of essential truth in the hyperbole presented here, along with some sobering (and even scary) messages.Those men who sneak a peek at their girlfriend’s copy of the Handbook when no one’s looking will also uncover examples of the darker side of women’s wrath, like the girlfriend scorned who snuck into her ex-boyfriend’s place and used his toothbrush as a rectal thermometer. It’s also a given that a girlfriend’s girlfriends will know everything — and I do mean everything — about the most intimate details of the relationship. And the authors caution that your bad-boyfriend words, deeds, or hubris may come back to haunt you later (give your… er… member a cute name, and you may run the risk of encountering your ex in a bar and "being greeted with: 'Well, if it isn’t Mr. Wondernoodle!'") But despite the levity, the basic message of the Handbook is a sensible one — a little research into the labyrinthine workings of the female mind, along with the ability to listen (or fake it really well) and to understand the significance behind even "simple" words and gestures that show you’ve been listening (and care) can reap huge rewards for a boyfriend in training. Furthermore, the authors encourage men to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em; if it’s clear things are not working out, make a clean break (but not on a Post-it, Sex and the City-style). Women have been trying to understand and predict the behavior of men as long as men have pondered the enigma that is Woman, the difference being that how-to books like He’s Just Not That into You and The Rules, along with countless women’s magazine articles, are openly (even desperately) perused by women everywhere. Since men typically eschew any guidelines for navigating a road trip, let alone their love life (after all, "Moses was lost in the desert for forty years," because "he wouldn’t stop for directions"), the most the typical girlfriend can do is hope that their boyfriend sneaks a furtive peek at this book when she’s out (competently) grocery shopping — and be too hooked to stop reading (at least until she gets home).

Elvira Black is a "retired" New York writer blogging for her own amusement here on BC and at Shithouse rat. Elvira's real estate obsessed doppelganger, Elvira Dark, can be found at All things New York--designed for anyone moving to or visiting this one of a kind, kickass city.

Passport Purgatory!

Elvira Black — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:34:10 EDT

With all the terrorist threats from within and without, it is somewhat ironic to me that I, a taxpaying citizen born in the United States with no criminal record or even a traffic ticket to my name, would encounter significant snafus when trying to get a passport to travel to Amsterdam this month for a vacation.I’d planned the trip several months before, but shortly after submitting my passport application on April 17, I decided to postpone my May 14 trip indefinitely since I’d just spent a bundle moving to my new coop — plus which my boyfriend had balked at going in the first place. It turned out to be a wise move on my part.Granted, I should have applied earlier, but supposedly if one paid extra for rush service, one could obtain a passport in about two weeks' time. I had an old passport which I’d received without incident years ago for my first and, thus far, last trip abroad to England, but it was still packed away somewhere — who knows where — and was likely expired in any case. So I went to the post office, submitted the required forms and documents, and waited for my passport to arrive via prepaid express mail within about two weeks.A fortnight later, on May 1, I received a call from the National Passport Center in New Hampshire which was processing my application. A woman informed me that the ID I’d submitted was not sufficient to establish my identity. I’d provided a New York State non-driver’s ID, which I thought was identical for all intents and purposes to a regular driver’s license. I’d certainly gone through hell to procure it a few years ago — having been compelled to do so after my bank insisted that it was now needed to open an account or withdraw funds — due, of course, to post-9/11 precautions. It had served me well since I’d obtained it, and I assumed it was as good as gold as far as establishing that I was, indeed, who I purported to be. Granted, the photo was horrible, but better mortified than stuck at the bank with no cash with a dumb look on my non-identifiable face. The postal worker who processed my form two weeks before had enclosed a photocopy of my New York State ID along with an original copy of my birth certificate (which she assured me would be returned when I received my new passport) and sent my application out via express mail. In any case, the woman on the phone this fine May morning informed me that I needed to submit five more forms of ID with my signature or photo, and rattled off many possible examples of same. When I asked why my ID was not sufficient, she said she didn’t know — that was something the passport analyst determined. She said that a letter with full details would be sent out to me, but had no more information as to why I’d been “singled out” for this special scrutiny.Later that day, I began to get a funny feeling that maybe this had been a phony call. It just didn’t make any sense to me, since I’d heard and read nothing about extra ID being required for a passport. When I checked the US Department of State’s website, I could find nothing to that effect. Furthermore, many of the links which were provided for more information did not work — at least not on my computer on that evening. I suspected that many other fellow citizens anxious to finalize their vacation plans abroad had been jamming up the site; perhaps, I thought, it was simply overloaded with inquiries.I had caller ID, so I checked the number the woman had called from that morning and called it back. I got a message saying this was a nonworking number, and to check the number and dial again. The message did identify the number as the New Hampshire Passport and Visa Center.There was a central number I'd received when I applied for my passport to check on one’s application status, but of course due in part to an incredible number of applications this year and this season, I couldn’t get through that night. Everyone and their uncle, cousin, and half-brother’s dog was trying to do the same thing, and after going through all sorts of automated options, endless recorded entreaties to use the website, assurances that extra staff were working virtually nonstop to process applications, and finally being put on hold to talk to the next available agent, the service eventually just hung up on me after two attempts to get through. Still imagining the worst, I starting searching the web for info on identity theft. I even called the local precinct. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected foul play. Bad enough I’d had to submit my original birth certificate along with my application, but now it seemed like someone was intent on getting enough ID to take over my identity. I thought perhaps the postal worker who took my application was involved in some elaborate mail fraud scheme, and planned to call the Bronx postmaster first thing next morning for good measure.Overreacting? Perhaps, but it’s funny how many things can look suspicious in the wee hours — especially in an era when unscrupulous thieves can steal not just your money but your identity itself, while nefarious “homegrown” but foreign born terrorists posed as ordinary citizens while plotting to kill American servicemen and women in the name of jihad at Fort Dix as I waited on perpetual hold that night.As luck and better timing would have it, I called the passport information number again early the next morning and actually got through to a human being. To my relief, I found out that this was indeed a legitimate request, and quite routine at that. I asked the undoubtedly harried woman who took my call why nothing I’d seen online or off had indicated anything about additional ID being needed. I also wondered why my non-driver’s license State ID was not acceptable. I pointed out that this system was making more work for her, me, and everyone else who got stuck in this potentially nail-biting situation. She was sympathetic, but did assure me that the request was legit. As for the non-working number message from the New Hampshire center, she said undoubtedly that was due to the fact that everyone would be calling there nonstop if they had access to it.I got my letter from the National Passport Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire via “express” mail on May 4. It provided a brief list of some of the documents I could submit in photocopy form to help established my identity. Required were at least five personal documents with either name/photo (and issue date) or name/signature (with issue date.) But that wasn’t all. Though no one had told me about this additional little wrinkle, also enclosed was a three page “Supplemental Information Sheet” which asked for:The name, address, phone number, and date and place of birth of my mother, father, and all brothers and sisters and spouse (if married);Names, addresses, and phone numbers of two references who had known me at least five years;The name, address, and attendance dates of all schools I had attended in the US and abroad;Complete addresses for all my residences for the last ten years;The name, address, and phone number, with supervisor’s name, for all employers for the last ten years. And finally, for applicants not born in the US, there were two additional lines provided to list when and where they first arrived in the United States. This seemed rather “underwhelming” to me, somehow. I could have thought of a lot more incisive and detailed questions to ask of visitors leaving our country in this day and age in light of the fact that I was being put through quite the wringer myself for the privilege of visiting the Van Gogh museum and perhaps taking in a few windmills.After all, it wasn’t as if I was applying for a new job or another coop; I just wanted to visit a nice, peaceful city in the Netherlands for two weeks when the tulips were in bloom, and possibly see some West End plays in London if I decided to stay an additional week or two.My conclusion? This little incident seemed just another example of my firmly held belief that the world has gone completely crazy in general, and that our security priorities are decidedly topsy-turvy in particular. Not only do I feel unsafe living in post-9/11 New York, USA, due to national security threats both internal and external, but in addition to having to be vigilant against the specter of identity theft, I can’t count on my own government to even establish my identity in the first place. In fact, it’s not hard to imagine just how easy it could be for someone to steal my identity and be off to Amsterdam on my dime in less than a week’s time while I’d still be stuck here in identity limbo. It certainly seems like a piece of cake compared to obtaining a passport from my own government -- while a pizza delivery man with murder on his mind obtains access to one of our nation's strongholds with no trouble at all.

On Postmodernism: A Pomo Primer

Elvira Black — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:38:58 EDT

Doubtless there are many folks who either don't know what postmodernism (aka pomo) is, and/or frankly don't care. And some may disagree with me when I assert without reservation that we are in the midst of the full flowering of pomo, just as the turn of the last century saw some of the finest examples of primo modernism in all its "shock 'n' awe," experimental glory.Furthermore, the modernist era is as "over" as the Renaissance or Romanticism before it, though their influence echoes through the centuries that survive them. It's hardly coincidence, for example, that Jesus is still typically envisioned as blond haired and blue eyed--for that one can thank the Renaissance masters who made him over in their ideal artistic image centuries before we were born. Just as the great modernists looked back to the era before for anti-inspiration so they would know what to rebel against (for instance, the art Academy, in the case of the major painters of the 20th century), so pomo could not have taken root and thrived without its precursor, modernism - which arguably existed in its purest form from the mid-19th to mid-20th century. The great clarion call of modernism was, first and foremost, to be shockingly "original"--discarding and rejecting all that had gone before in a mad frenzied dash to come up with the next new, pure creation. Thus, the impressionists were soon "trumped" by the Dadaists and surrealists; who were in turn "supplanted" by the cubists and Abstract Expressionists; who were done one better by the Pop artists; from which sprung the artists who took advantage of the new "anything goes" climate by becoming minimalists; and finally outdone altogether by the conceptual artists (with a nod to the Dadaists and Marcel Duchamp), for whom a work of art could be anything from a roll of toilet paper mounted on a gallery wall to a pair of "artistes" in a rocky rowboat serving one lump or two/cream or lemon to their audience on the Hudson riverbank as part of a New York art world "tea party" to a dog turd wrapped in a silk blanket. By the end, "art for art's sake" made it more and more difficult to define where art stopped and the mundane and commonplace began, and even who could be deemed an "artist" to begin with. Perhaps this is one reason why reality television and blogging are such popular genres now; as our media becomes more and more accessible and democratic to all, everyone has the potential to become a star.By the time the 1960s and '70s hit, some of the selfsame modernists had rendered themselves so avant garde that they actually became harbingers of the pomo era to come. One of the great pomo ironies is that these masters of modernism sowed the seeds of their own "destruction" (or more precisely, deconstruction), by way of their own modernist prescience. Thus, Warhol's famous saying that "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes" was not only amazingly accurate, but would further reinforce the anti-elitist, tongue in cheek concept of "high" modern art which both gained Warhol untold fortune and fame and paved the way for the pomo age to come. But what is pomo anyway? To me, the recipe for pomo has a few essential historical/cultural ingredients: Immersion in the ways and means of modernism - even if one was born after it Unless one is Amish or perhaps a "fundamentalist" anything, exposure to television, movies, and other mass/popular media makes it well-nigh inevitable that one will have seen a film such as Casablanca or A Streetcar Named Desire; perhaps read the poetry of T.S. Eliot or Yeats or works by (or at least a review or cliff notes or wiki article about) F. Scott Fitzgerald or Virginia Woolf; viewed an old episode or I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver on Nick at Nite or TV Land, or heard a cover song by the Beatles or a composition by Gershwin (even if by way of a soundtrack snippet in a car commercial). The millions of bits and pieces, flotsam and jetsam, and other ephemera of the modern era gone by are already hard wired into our collective unconscious in an unavoidable way. Making the old "new" againIf one indulges, even for argument's sake, my assertion that modernism is dead, how then can one be original in the pomo era? Simply put, by taking elements from the treasure trove of the modern age gone by, rearranging them, digesting them, and "regurgitating" them into something that is as "original" in form as it is "derivative" in ingredients. There are only so many foodstuffs available to the contemporary chef, but s/he can concoct countless "new" culinary delights from the same selfsame ingredients which the classic French or Italian chef had at their disposal. Thus, the pomo chef can asssemble a new creation by paying due homage to his or her predecessors, but with the benefit of technologies that make it easier to refine and recreate the classic regional cuisines with a pomo presentational twist. New technologies and media Art, politics, and culture have been with us almost as long as death and taxes, but it is the media which determines the "means of production" and dictates, in large part, what it will be possible to create. There were actors before the advent of film and television; musicians before the recording studio; classical "realist" portrait painters before photography; and writers before the computer or even the humble typewriter. But a cave artist had a more limited toolbox than a Renaissance master with a rich palette of paints and canvas did, or a pop artist like Warhol who used silkscreen technologies to more striking effect than the mere wielding of a brush.A medieval scribe would have a more rarefied and elitist readership than the modern novelist or screenwriter, and his creations would take much more time to produce or reproduce for a "mass" audience to boot. "The (mass) media is the message"One of the hallmarks of modernism was the freedom the artist had to explore and even help invent the rapidly emerging mass media, along with the fact that our media, in turn, became more and more of a "mass" and democratic one. The classical university education of centuries past included a knowledge of Latin topped off with a post-grad European grand tour, but this was available to only a select, privileged few. A modern university education became available to thousands, and then millions more; Latin now exists mostly as a curiosity save for the words that derived from its ancient roots into our modern lexicon; and modern air travel makes the European tour accessible to those of even modest means and frequent flyer miles. Modern art of the century past was nevertheless relatively elitist, particularly in its earlier years, as "high" art was often not yet marketable to the "average," untutored and "uncultured" citizen of the day. The poetry of Ezra Pound, with its arcane references to classical mythology and Latin phraseology; the stream of consciousness of Virginia Woolf; the subtle intricacies in instrumentation and composition of Mahler; and the first ventures into cubism by Picasso were much more the product of an artistic elite class, and "needed" interpretation by critics who could decipher its intricacies "properly." But as new technologies developed, media became more available to those of all classes, and thus popular culture took full flower with the advent of radio, film, and television. Some classicists and high modernists might have looked askance at the "low," more democratic art forms of television and popular film, but technology soon rendered it an unstoppable force, and the public rapidly evolved into the most powerful "critics" in the lucrative new mass media "marketplace," where millions could now readily "consume," interpret, and evaluate a new or old cultural "product" with the click of a remote. No university degree or mastery of foreign languages or knowledge of art history was necessary; one need only have eyes and ears (and later, only a p.c. and a modicum of manual dexterity) to access and "thumbs up/down" the attractively packaged, heavily advertised offerings of the brave new cultural world in one's own individual way. The digital revolution and the InternetBy the same token, modern-day, "high" pomo is largely a by-product of the digital age of the latter part of the 20th century which followed fast on the heels of the modern, electronic age of the first half. By this time, even the poorest modern family had a television and a stereo system. The remote control, cable TV, CDs and DVDs, TiVo, the iPod, and last but not least the personal computer gave the consumer more and more personal control over what portions of the cultural marketplace he or she chose to "consume," as well as in what order or permutation, and mass marketing technologies gave one an embarrassment of riches to choose from.From the 1940s to the '60s and beyond, "high" art took a back seat to "low"/popular culture, and the critic's voice was often drowned out when a box office hit could survive even the most scathing of critics. The Beatles, Andy Warhol, graffiti art, rap poetry, tacky Japanese horror flicks, and romance novels thrived due to overwhelming popular, if not always critical, demand. And our pomo culture is an omnivorous beast--just as we have an unlimited choice of cuisines from haute French to McDonalds, each individual can devour both low culture and high alike in one sitting--perhaps an appetizer of Godilla vs. Mothra followed by a main entrée of The 400 Blows - depending on individual appetites and media availability. The latter, in turn, is now limited only by the vagaries of technological glitches and personal preference--one's computer crashes, there's "nothing" on TV, the video store didn't have the movie one coveted, one wants to stay home and veg out on Saturday night. But as the technology continues to refine itself, these obstacles become more and more infrequent. Computer technology is now much more bug-proof, and one can always put on a DVD if nothing's on cable or have a movie and dinner delivered courtesy of Netflix and the local pizzeria's website without leaving one's couch.In fact, we have become so "at one" with our technologies that we are dependent on them in the same measure as we now take their presence for granted. A blackout can induce near-psychosis due to "sensory deprivation;" lost files can mean one has to start one's novel over from scratch; and any interruption or slowdown of internet accessibility can paralyze a corporation or an individual in a flash. The "death" of the "Artist" One lit crit movement of the modern elite/intelligensia did portend pomo's imminent reign. The French structuralists and deconstructionists of the '70s (when modernism was on the wane) working chiefly in the realm of lit crit, began to separate the art from the artist, and the text from the writer in a dispassionate, sometimes irreverent fashion. A text might be picked apart or dissected to examine its internal contradictions or self-referents - in a kind of literary psychoanalysis of the art text itself, divorced in some part from its creator. The writer lost "ownership" of his or her work as soon as this mostly French critical coterie got a hold of it, for they could interpret a text beyond the purview of what an author had, at least consciously, intended to say. A personal example might be relevant here. I had a very tough time "getting" structuralism and deconstruction in grad school, until I began to discover the joys of metacriticism. Not that I labeled it as such at the time, but I became fascinated with the way in which writers might refer to the act of writing itself, or unwittingly lay bare some deeply personal obsession via their novels. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of pomo, as I finally realized, was the transparency of the means of production.Rather than being a creative mystery known only to the artist, the dawn of the pomo era allowed us to, despite what the Wizard said, "pay attention to the man behind the curtain." and what s/he was producing and how. The magician was stripped of his trade secrets, especially in the latter decades of the last century. The artist became less of a revered "genius" and more "just us folks" with the advent of the paparazzi and reality TV shows such as the Osbournes. Our ruthless mass media will voraciously unveil the foibles and dirty laundry of anyone in its path, from the president down to the most humbly hapless prole on Jerry Springer. And all of us in the pomo era can and do deconstruct our culture on an everyday basis with a jaundiced, ironic, dispassionate, irreverent eye. Thus even those who missed Beatlemania can now compare and contrast an early Beatles demo with the finished marketed product, just as a foodie can see exactly how their favorite chef creates their culinary masterpieces via the Food Network or the ways in which they may sink or swim via reality programs such as Bravo's Top Chef. Pomo "time travel"One other crucial element of pomo is this: one could no longer see or hear the modern works of the past through the virgin eyes and ears of those who had seen or heard it for the first time decades before. Those "youngsters" who did not live through Beatlemania cannot know what it was really like to hear "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" for the very first time, and unlike those culturally naive, wide eyed yokels who first saw Picasso's Guernica a half century or more after its creation we pomo folk are far too jaded and media saturated to be "shocked" and astounded in the same way this work messed with the synaptic pathways at the time it was first revealed to the public. Like cultural time travelers, we can watch Leave it to Beaver and recognize its erstwhile tackiness from the vantage point of our own pomo era and the historical context of the fifties. One cannot fully know the historical impact one's era will have as one is living through it; it is only in retrospect that one can more dispassionately evaluate it within the larger, more omniscient context of all that came after. The "beauty part" of pomoAnd finally, pomo has helped bridge the generation gap which plagued parent and child alike during the baby boomer era. I have more in common with contemporaries who are young enough to be my children (if I had had any) than my older relatives did and do with me. There are some things that just don't translate from my aunt's cultural lexicon to mine. I didn't live through the Depression, and they can't even turn on a computer. They didn't attend college during the era of sex, drugs and rock and roll, and I never experienced what it was like to gather around the radio during WW II to listen to FDR's fireside chats. But my "spirtual" sons and daughters grew up, as I did, with television; are well steeped in the culture of pop music, recreational drugs, and a liberal college education (in many cases); and now embrace the internet as avidly as I do. Moreover, the Internet also brings together the world as a global community, and makes research and access to local and international cultures and artifacts of the past and present almost instantaneous. Letter writing and memoranda in the form of email is back with a vengeance; academic research involves a few keystrokes or mouse clicks rather than hours perusing the card catalog and the dusty tomes in a library reference room or threading spools to project grainy images onto a dirty screen in the microfilm vaults; and one can converse in real time with others from across the globe and have access, along with millions of others, to the latest scandal du jour video clip from YouTube. If one is unfamiliar with the cultural significance or poetry of Ezra Pound, for example, instant enlightenment is a mere hyperlink or Wikipedia article away. By contrast, those who are not plugged into cyberspace have been rendered culturally illiterate. My eighty-something aunts are as cut off from the emerging digi-pomo culture as someone without a TV would have been from the pop culture phenom of the past century - not to mention their now limited access to the burgeoning online marketplace, in a culture where virtually every product has an accompanying website.Likewise, a Luddite professor, doctor, lawyer, or real estate broker will be hobbled professionally as long as they continue to cling to their outmoded, albeit "modern," ways of doing business. With the help of the internet, a student may in some senses surpass his or her teacher; a doctor may know less about a new medication or medical development than his patient/health care "consumer;" and a layman may discover more about legal specialties or the state of the housing market than his or her own attorney or broker. But once this tool for mass literacy is mutually adopted, the potential for meaningful, informed debate, collaboration, cooperation, and conversation is instantly brought into play. The age of elitism, non-disclosure, and professional "mystery" in letters, medicine, and most other professions is coming to a close. There are no sacred cows in politics, business, or the arts anymore--at least in the pre-pomo sense.Everyone can be a "critic," an instant "expert," or a forewarned, forearmed consumer. Of course, it does not follow that sufficient talent, temperament, and training, both formal and informal, are not still necessary in order to truly master any professional or artistic field of endeavor, but the prior chasms between generations, professions, classes, races, and nationalities have been duly narrowed thanks to this wondrous new tool. Triumph and Tragedy in CyberspaceIn short, the true defining mark of pomo -- the great technology of our era, our version of the steam engine and the light bulb and the television set -- is the internet. Cultural democracy has come to its most logical, or even illogical, conclusion as I write this. Whereas modernism sometimes blurred the line between art and everyday life, artwork and artifact, high and low culture, and even artist and non-artist, now every cultural consumer can become an instant "artist" as well.Anyone with a computer and the proper software can be a published author, a homespun "record producer," or a citizen journalist or filmmaker. Via the internet, we can share the same means of production as the most gifted artist does. Many erstwhile "professions" have thus been rendered endangered, or even obsolete--from the printing press to the movie or recording studio to the publishing house. Our fin de siecle, pomo-drenched era represents the greatest example to date of a true cultural democracy, for better and worse. With this one amazing tool, one has all the components to make an infinite number of new recipes from the trash bins and treasure troves of the modern era just past. All these and more are literally at one's fingertips. But it goes without saying that, as with virtually any phenomenon, there is a dark side to all this wondrous technology. Just as the modern era produced nuclear fission and the specter of nuclear annihilation, so our new digital technologies have helped globalize warfare and made terrorism into a sometimes remotely controlled endeavor. Our pomo enemies often wear no uniforms and eschew the now-quaint code of traditional warfare; one leader's word from a remote hideout in the desert can be spread to billions of followers; propaganda and The Big Lie (e.g. the Holocaust never happened) can be disseminated like a virus instantaneously throughout the globe via the blogosphere; one cartoon can incite millions to riot; and political pundits can make or break a candidate overnight with one cleverly ferreted-out secret or snarky meta-analysis. One other facet of pomo which is both beautiful and sometimes devastatingly ugly is that it creates the potential for anyone to be an instant "expert" and cultural evaluator -- or pundit and critic, if you will -- and every voice has the potential to be heard by many others far and wide. There are an infinite amount of modern and premodern ingredients at our disposal to create an unlimited amount of derivatively original pomo recipes based on unoriginal ingredients.Bob Dylan endures as one of the most audaciously innovative songwriters of the sixties, but his work has been arguably improved and refined by the minions of fellow artists who have covered him--most with benefit of superior production technologies and better singing voices. Thus, "Mr. Tambourine Man" is a very different song as performed by Dylan, unaccompanied save for his trademark acoustic guitar and harmonica, than the same composition created anew by the Byrds, with its heavenly vocal harmonies and innovative guitar riffs. Hearing Johnny Cash's rendition of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage" or Nine Inch Nail's "Hurt" is the kind of musical revelation that can make even the most jaded pomo pop afficianado sit up and take notice. In any event, there's a lot that to be said about pomo, and I fully intend to do so in this series, "On Postmodernism." Unlike eras past, our pomo sensibilities and digital technologies allow us to more coolly evaluate the modern era just past juxtaposed with the pomo era as it unfolds before our eyes. In any case, a much more irreverent, breezy, tongue in cheek--in other words, pomo--introduction to pomo can be found in part 1 of this series, "Pomo for Dummies," but future posts will go into much more detail than the limitations of space or attention span merits here. In essence, the way I see it, the pomo era makes it possible for all of us to switch back and forth with ease between the dialectic of audience and performer, cultural producer and consumer, public blogger and commenter/critic--or simultaneously a bit of both--all in the same breath or keystroke. And for that, I for one am eternally grateful.

Theater Review: Five by Tenn - Five Landmark Plays by Tennessee Williams, New York

Elvira Black — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:16:25 EDT

Legendary playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was the kind of larger than life, tormented American artist who tried to transcend human suffering through the magic of his craft. As Tom in his groundbreaking 1944 play The Glass Menagerie put it, by combining memory with “artistic license,” Williams attempted, time and again, to turn back time and erase the wounds his sister endured at the hands of their mother after he left them behind for New Orleans’ French Quarter in his late twenties. But both mother and sister lived on, in body and spirit — as well as metaphorically via stage and screen — for many decades to come. Williams grew up in a complex new century -- one which, despite its new technological wonders and scientific breakthroughs, often left the individual unable to confront the dark undercurrents of life. Despite the new “science” of psychoanalysis, with its franker examination of such “vices” as homosexuality, Oedipal conflicts, addiction, and sexual desire, most of Williams’ contemporaries were simply not culturally evolved enough to digest the truth about life’s seamy underbelly served up on a tarnished platter. Williams was as just as much a product of this repressed sensibility -- if not more so -- thanks to his genteel Southern background and early Episcopal upbringing. Thus, one of the great conflicts of his life and work was the attempt to reconcile the sacred and the profane elements that coexisted in himself and in all of us. Like other great artists who endured great pain, Williams did not suffer in silence. Via his plays, he gathered together the lemons he had accrued in life and concocted vast pitchers of lemonade palatable enough for audiences of any age to eagerly ingest. Granted, he may have taken surreptitious swigs from a bottle of fine Southern bourbon under cover of the serving tablecloth, and those who were mature and aware enough to take the unvarnished truth were welcome to join him and consume the undiluted drink he offered for those who could stomach it.Emily Arrington in Thank You, Kind SpiritWilliams himself probably realized that some of his work was quite ahead of its time. The playwright, who died in 1983, left behind an incredible legacy which seemed to include every manuscript he had ever written. The sheer quantity of his offerings is formidable indeed — for this was a man who wrote through triumph and tragedy, lean years and great. All of these obscure or even undiscovered works lie safe within the private libraries of various university collections throughout the country. In the year 2000 - the start of the new millennium - eleven plays by Tennessee Williams were discovered in an archive at the University of Texas at Austin. Although the finished manuscripts had been typed and emended in the author’s own hand, they had never been published or performed. Though the reasons why these eleven works had never seen the light of day may remain a mystery, it is hardly surprising that so many producers, directors, actors, and dramaturges have eagerly chosen to breathe life into these newly discovered works. Typically, with each new production, a few of these old yet new plays have been debuted, usually as part of other lesser-known Williams one-acts.Following in this new tradition, director John W. Cooper presents to the New York stage two virtually unknown Williams plays along with three others — all but one written before Williams’s first major work, The Glass Menagerie, galvanized 20th century theater when it opened in Chicago in 1944, and then again in New York in 1946. With Five by Tenn, Cooper has chosen to premiere Thank You, Kind Spirit (1941) and Why Do You Smoke So Much, Lily? (1935) for their first New York City run, along with three other rarely performed early one-acts: Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let me Listen (1945), Hello From Bertha (1939), and The Lady of Larkspur Lotion (1941). Taken together, this brilliant staging presents a portrait of a young Williams and introduces the enduring themes from which he would later fashion all his major plays. More delightful still, Five by Tenn audiences will encounter the earliest examples of some of the major prototypes which continued to dominate the playwright's later works. In 1941, the then-30-year-old Williams composed Kind Spirit and Larkspur, envisioning them as part of an evening of one-acts to be set in New Orleans. The set was to be entitled Vieux Carre, after the French Quarter where the young playwright first came to live in 1939. Like narrator/protagonist Tom in The Glass Menagerie, Williams fled St. Louis to escape the “coffin”-like atmosphere he had endured while living there with his mother and sister. Having completed his degree at the University of Iowa, he left behind his schizophrenic sister Rose in the charge of their manipulative, controlling mother and went to seek his fortune in the Vieux Carre, then a haven for fellow writers, painters, and other bohemians seeking refuge during an economically depressed, socially repressed era in American culture. Like The Glass Menagerie — written a year after Williams’ parents agreed to subject Rose to a prefrontal lobotomy that left her incapacitated and institutionalized for the rest of her life — Vieux Carre was a “memory play.” The protagonist was the Author, and just as with The Glass Menagerie’s Tom (named after the playwright, whose given name was Thomas Lanier Williams III), the Author clearly presented himself as both writer/narrator and character. Thus, the on-stage Author was the young, twenty-something writer newly arrived in 1939 New Orleans. The offstage author is the older and perhaps wiser — or at least, more wizened -- Williams who composed Vieux Carre in his mid-sixties. Although it hardly garnered rave reviews at its New York premiere in 1977, Michael Ramach, managing director of Milwaukee's Theater X, which staged a revival of the play in 1997 and who knew the playwright for decades, noted that Williams considered Vieux Carre to be his masterpiece. Although Vieux Carre was ultimately produced as a full length play, all the one-acts of Five by Tenn contained the major themes which would again weave their way through most of his later plays. Nevetheless, a crucial distinction remains, for Vieux Carre was completed decades after Williams first conceived of it, while the plays of Five by Tenn were composed during Williams’s earliest years as a writer. The author's maturity lent greater depth and coherence to the themes revisited in Vieux Carre and served to temper and soften some of the guilt-steeped subject matter which had obsessed him from youth onward.For instance, the fourth play presented, Why Do You Smoke so Much, Lily? was written in 1935, when the young playwright, still then in his twenties, was, like his youthful character Tom, a firsthand witness to an already tragically dysfunctional family psychodrama. This metaphysical new staging, however, sets the time in the 1920s, when Williams would have been either a young boy or teenager.By the time a much older Williams had authored 1977’s full-length Vieux Carre, Mother DuClos -- the central character in 1941’s Thank You, Kind Spirit — had been wholly replaced by the now fully "in control" Author who acts as both character and narrator of the play. He is, of course, none other than Williams himself, who first came to New Orleans’ French Quarter in 1939 at the age of 28, first to work for the WPA, but mainly to try to make a name for himself as a writer. All the scenes in Vieux Carre take place at the same boarding house where Williams first resided when he arrived, and are populated by the misfits and lost souls who rent rooms there along with the lonely, conflicted, and struggling young Williams. However, for this inventive new staging, Mother DuClos (featuring a command performance by Natalie E. Carter) inhabits the Author’s dual role as central protagonist and author/master of ceremonies. Rather than a writer recalling his youth from the viewpoint of the 30-year-old Williams who wrote Kind Spirit in 1941, or the 60-something elder statesman of the theater who wrote Vieux Carre in 1977, Mother DuClos and her lost parishioners reside in “an abandoned building in New Orleans” in the 1960s following an unnamed disaster. This decade was one of the most trying times for Williams both personally and professionally. His secretary of over 15 years, Frank Merlo — who had been lover and emotional support system to him since 1947 when he wrote A Streetcar Named Desire — died of cancer in 1963. This “abandonment” plunged Williams into a decade-long episode of deep depression, and few if any plays of critical “substance” were subsequently produced — at least publicly -- until 1977’s Vieux Carre. In this production, the events recounted in the other four plays featured in Five by Tenn are not culled from the brief period during which Williams resided at this run-down boarding house on Toulouse Street, but rather span the four decades from the 1920s through the 1950s — a vast window of time which takes Williams and the audience from his earliest youth to an incredibly successful and productive early middle age. Thank You, Kind Spirit is the first play presented, and Mother DuClos, likeVieux Carre’s aging author, transcends her role as this plays’s central character as her presence weaves itself in and out of the four plays to follow. A true spiritualist in the Creole tradition of the old French Quarter, her “power” flows from a combination of devout Catholicism (Williams converted to Catholicism as well) and the spells and incantations of voodoo (Glass’s Tom also wished to become a “magician” who could eradicate the pain he brought to others when he broke free from his family). The “magic” is that of the author’s own making; the “spirits” Mother DuClos conjures up are the family, friends, and acquaintances of Williams’ own life; the “voodoo” is evidenced in the characters thus conjured up, transformed and enhanced by the writer’s memories, and colored in both bright and somber tones via his artful imagination. Natalie Carter as Mother DuClos in Thank You, Kind Spirit along with, from left, Emily Arrington, Joyce Feurring, Michael Culhane, Lennard Sillevis, Trish Montoya, Sylvia Mincewicz and Candice Palladino.Is this African American “mother” figure a true medium or a fraud? A kindly soul or a charlatan? A righteous woman or yet another lost soul trying to mask the depravity hidden beneath a saintly facade? Does she really channel the spirits, does she really hear the voices? And what will become of her — yet another deluded, ultimately tormented Williams character — in the end? The answer to that at first seems inevitable; like her author, she seems destined to remain both victim and healer, saint and sinner, compulsively trying to mend the “unmendable” past and attempting over and over to reconcile all her sins of omission and commission. Mother DuClos and her small circle of followers remain seated at stage left in the same abandoned room in the old Quarter throughout the play. Alternately singing and prophesizing, Mother entreats the “Kind Spirit” to not only conjure up the ghosts of those who have inhabited this room in the decades before her, but to help her channel the visions that will bring hope to the hopeless and abandoned congregants who now huddle around her. Among these is the “Second Young Woman,” played with consummate southern belle guilelessness and charm by Sylvia Mincewicz, who wants to know when her husband, who has left, in typical Williams style, without warning or explanation, will at last return home from his drunken wanderings. After much chanting and incantations, Mother is possessed by the Spirit and tells the Second Young Woman that her husband will return to her—around Christmastime, or perhaps a little before—presumably after his debauches have at last left him penniless and repentant. Her word can (perhaps) be trusted, since as the de facto Author, she does in fact hold the fate of all characters, past and present, in her hands. Brenda Bell, Natalie E. Carter and Sylvia Mincewicz in Thank You, Kind SpiritBut there is one perennial skeptic in the crowd — the Woman in Rear (played with wry and biting sarcasm by Joyce Feurring), who, sitting closest to the audience in the front of the stage, makes periodic cynical asides to no one and anyone in particular as to the dubiousness of Mother’s claims. Mother, in turn, senses an “unkind presence” in her midst, one who will exact her full revenge by the end of the evening. As Mother and Second Young Woman thank the Kind Spirit for his/her guidance, Mother passes the basket around and continues singing until she hears the echoed voices of “spirits” who intone over and over: “Talk to me… talk to me like the rain and let me listen.” As the thunder and the rain beat down outside the lone window, the second play opens. Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let me Listen(1945) -- written one year after his first breakaway success The Glass Menagerie and two years after his sister Rose’s botched lobotomy — here takes place in the same room in the 1950s. A man (played on alternate nights by Daniel Kipler and Chris Ford) and a Woman (played by Nina Covalesky/Elizabeth Clark) carry on a “dialogue” that chiefly consists of alternating, poignant, poetic monologues. The Man has returned after days of drunken debauchery, the details of which are hazy to him since most of them were experienced while in a blackout. The Woman has been sitting and waiting for his return in a passive, vegetative state. She has not eaten, and, like a fragile, fading southern rose, has remained there -- silent, helpless, and alone -- with only water to drink and the rain beating relentlessly outside. The play opens with the Man languishing on the bed and the Woman sitting stiffly in a chair. In between his own monologues, he alternately entreats his lover to come to bed and to “talk” to him “like the rain” and let him “listen.” Nina Covalesky and Daniel Kipler in Talk To Me Like the Rain and Let Me ListenAnd talk she does — in almost neverending torrents. And listen he does -- to her sorrowful, poetic soliloquy as she reveals that she wants to “go away” to a place by the sea where she can live alone in a room where the rain casts cool shadows on the walls. All her expenses will be taken care of and her kind, motherly landlady, who will have a daughter, will tell her how her daughter is doing when the Woman stops by to collect her mail. She will sometimes venture into town, anonymous and undisturbed, perhaps strolling by the sea or occasionally attending a movie where she will sit silently in the darkness amongst strangers and immerse herself in the fictional lives of the characters on the screen. A year will pass, and then a decade, and finally she will look in the mirror and see with little surprise that her hair has turned white and she has lived there for half a century. One day she will go to the sea and fade away, having wasted away over time to almost nothing, getting thinner and thinner and more and more ethereal until she ceases to exist at all. In addition to being an apparent referent for the now isolated, lobotomized Rose, Talk is a direct precursor to a character who will later appear in Vieux Carre — a young, tubercular woman in an adjoining apartment who stays alone and sick in her room while her drug addicted, reprobate husband comes and goes at will. At the end of the play, the Author must decide whether to stay and help the woman to escape or abandon her and the insane, soul-killing atmosphere of the boarding house and its inhabitants, just as Tom/Williams did in Menagerie. Parts of this theme will emerge yet again in Suddenly, Last Summer when young Catherine Holly is encouraged to talk — with the aid of a truth serum -- to the psychosurgeon who has been summoned by her aunt in an attempt to silence her insane “rantings” (concerning a terrible incident that led to her homosexual son’s death by cannibalism) with a lobotomy. Hello from Bertha (1939) is for the purposes of this production also set in the 1930s and was written during the same year Williams came to the French Quarter for the first time. Like most of Williams’ plays, its R-rated material is cloaked behind its G-rated language — mild enough so that the children who sat near me could, along with their parents, enjoy an all-American family night of entertainment together — with the children perhaps taking the language literally while the parents saw through to the obvious implications between the lines. As the play begins, we see Bertha (superbly played by Kay Bailey, complete with languid southern lilt and fitful drawl), an ailing, aging drunk (and/or prostitute), lying prone on a bed in a fitful near sleep, plagued by a relentless “sick headache.” She is soon disturbed by Goldie, her landlady/madam played with delightful, spiteful maliciousness by Margaret O’Connor, who insists that she must vacate the bed, the room, and the building at once because the space is needed for the “other girls” who can still pay their rent (or cut) to her. Bertha entreats her to leave her be and let her nurse her hangover from the night before, but Goldie declares her intention to call the authorities and have Bertha taken to a mental institution where she will be fed and housed at no charge, and she can rest and “recover” from her drunken, half-insane ravings without worry or bother to anyone. Goldie, like Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar and countless other Williams villains, relentlessly, meticulously delivers Bertha of her most cherished delusions by declaring her to be a worthless, insane, immoral drunk and worse. Williams, who believed that people were destroyed by others’ attempts to thwart their fragile dreams and silence the truth (via wanton cruelty, lies, or even psychosurgery if necessary), presents Goldie as both heartlessly brazen “truth” teller and instrument of Bertha’s imminent confinement. As with so many other desperate Williams’ heroines, the play ends with Bertha -- who has by this time reluctantly crawled out of bed and half-sat, half-writhed on the floor in torment -- sitting huddled and defeated, descending into madness as she cries out for her savior/ex-lover/brother/john/pimp/father to rescue her, demanding that a fellow tenant/prostitute (the lovely, cynically resigned Jovanka Clares) take a letter she dictates for him. The would-be recipient is a man she still loves and once “worked for” in another town, and Bertha, like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, feels confident that he will send for her at once when she hears of his plight. The play ends as she waits for the authorities to come, once again declaring her undying, unrequited love for her long-lost would-be savior. Why Do You Smoke So Much, Lily? written in 1935 when the author was in his early 20s, is staged for this production in the 1920s, when Williams would have been either a young child or teenager -- way too young to escape his dysfunctional home environment. In it, Mrs. Yorke (played brilliantly by Susan Capra) is The Glass Menagerie’s Amanda incarnate, while Lily (played on alternate nights by Christie Booker and and Christina Christman) is her bookish, somewhat defiant but helpless teenage daughter. The young Williams is not a participant in the action here, but rather a “silent” observer of the psychotic dynamic between a controlling, deluded “fading southern belle” of a mother and her deeply troubled young sister. (It is worth noting that despite William’s unabashed exploration of the depths of human suffering and “vice,” the only thing that could possibly offend a 2007 audience was the fact that Lily chain smoked onstage, and caveats were posted in the lobby and in the program to that effect.) The Turtle’s Shell Theater is a small venue, and I was seated in the front row, no more than a foot or two from the front of the small stage where Booker's fidgety, twitching, tightly wound Lily was so close that I could have easily grabbed a cig from her crumpled pack and joined her as she puffed away throughout the play. This intimate staging served the production well, since one could not help but feel that one was, like the young Williams, a silent and powerless observer who was nevertheless a mere arm's length away from the action and the characters being brought to life. As the “unseen, unheard” child, Williams would forever remain the third inhabitant of that same “room” in his memory — desperately but helplessly invested in the events unfolding and their ultimate outcome.Mrs. Yorke, who is seen preparing for an evening out as the play opens, will leave Lily mercifully alone to her own devices — in this case, her cigarettes and her books — for a few hours. Nevertheless, she can’t resist nagging Lily not only about her compulsive smoking but about her apparent refusal to engage the attentions of suitable young men. She reminds Lily of the opportunity she missed on a recent cruise which was also attended by a number of charming young bachelors. Lily, however, was well aware that these bachelors were eminently unsuitable since they were, in fact, all homosexual. Still fuming, literally and figuratively, as her mother closes the door and exits the apartment, Lily hurriedly extinguishes her last butt, impulsively rises from her chair, and slowly and with great relish deposits the contents of her overflowing cup/ ashtray all over the front of the stage. After sitting in front of her mirrored bureau and bemoaning her fate for awhile, she eventually returns to her chair at stage right. Exhausted by her ruminations, she begins to hear echoed voices of her mother admonishing her about her smoking and other failings, and endures a hellacious hallucination of her mother, who abruptly appears in red backlit silhouette at the front door, writhing around suggestively in what looks to be a decidedly un-genteel negligee. Lily then passes out, but awakens again when her mother returns from her night on the town, and once again, Mrs. Yorke’s litany on the vices of smoking and the virtues of social interaction are repeated ad infinitum as the play ends. The final play presented is The Lady of Larkspur Lotion (1941). Also originally designed to be incorporated into Vieux Carre (as indeed it is, well over three decades later), it concerns another Bertha-esque character -- also broke, also during the Depression -- whose ersatz "faded southern belle" composure is disrupted when her landlady, one Mrs. Wire, barges in demanding the back rent on pain of immediate eviction. Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore (in a truly remarkable performance by Rebecca Street) is clearly another precursor to Blanche in Streetcar. Here, in an unsuccessful yet poignant attempt to weasel her way out of paying the rent, she complains to Mrs. Wire that she is unaccustomed to an abode that not only is infested with cockroaches, but big flying ones at that. Declaring that her rooming house has no more cockroaches and fewer bedbugs than any other in the Quarter, Mrs. Wire again demands her back rent at once on pain of immediate eviction. This landlady is, in fact, the self-same Mrs. Wire who will appear in Vieux Carre, who is in turn modeled after Williams’ own landlady who held court in that same shabby boarding house in the Quarter back in 1939. It was said that she was so maniacal that she would sleep in the corridors in order to prevent her tenants from engaging in their “immoral” pursuits, and was once said to have dug a hole in the floor and poured boiling water onto the occupants of the room below after suspecting them of engaging in unsavory activities. Barbara Ann Davison does justice to the role as the stocky, bespectacled, relentlessly moralistic and materialistic landlady, hell bent on getting her back rent at any cost.Despite Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore’s fluttery tales of refinement and delicacy and gentlemen admirers, Mrs. Wire takes great relish in mocking her aversion to flying roaches when she spies a bottle of larkspur lotion, used at that time to treat lice and presumably pubic crabs as well, on Mrs. Moore’s dresser. A veritable Stanley Kowalski in a cheap dress, the rude, crude Mrs. Wire makes no bones about shattering the delicate fantasies and vulnerable sensibilities of not only Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore, but none other than the Author (here, the Writer, played on alternate evenings by Leon Fallon and Vincent Oppecker). In this penultimate scene of the night, he wanders by casually from next door, still in his robe and doubtless recovering from a drunk the night before. He tries to protect Moore from the slings and arrows of the outrageous Mrs. Wire, but receives only scorn as well as a demand for his back rent for his trouble. Vincent Oppecker as The Writer in The Lady of Larkspur LotionNevertheless, the Writer (played with a charming mixture of self-deprecating charm and impotent chivalry by Leon Fallon on that particular night) makes a noble case for the alcohol fueled fever dreams which both these kindred souls cling to — in her case, for a Shangri La to come; in his case, for fame and fortune which will surely follow as soon as he completes his great American novel in progress. In any case, as he tells Mrs. Wire, even if these dreams never come to fruition, they are still entitled to cherish these “harmless” fantasies in the face of the cruel realities they face in the Quarter. As the play ends, this neo-prototype of Blanche meets the Author face to face, and they comfort each other in their mutual dreams of glory still to come. The denoument to Five by Tenn returns the audience to the same corner of the stage where Mother DuClos and her flock have sat silently in darkness throughout each of the four previous plays. Now, a final lost soul comes to join this hapless group in the person of the Little Girl, played alternately by Grace Manzo and Emily Arrington. On the night in question, ten-year-old Manzo gave a touching performance as a sweet young girl who, like Laura, walks with a slight limp. As Mother proceeds to evoke the Kind Spirit with her preaching and incantations, the “unkind presence” at last emerges as the Woman in the Rear confronts Mother openly, declaring her to be a fraud and a sham, a drunkard and a scam artist with illegitimate children of undetermined parentage. The local priest is summoned and handed a carton, and the whole congregation proceeds to dismantle all the mementoes in Mother’s ramshackle room — the tattered pictures and trinkets, the voodoo-like paraphernalia, the collection basket. When the Woman in Rear finally grabs the last item — Mother’s crucifix — from the wall, Mother collapses in despair with cries of “My Jesus! Don’t take away my Jesus!” followed by soft, incoherent African-tinged utterings. At long last, Mother is left alone with the Little Girl, who in her innocence declares her unconditional love and faith in Mother. With Manzo’s dark hair and slightly dusky complexion, it is at least possible that she may indeed be Mother’s very own daughter. As she haltingly approaches her with her gently limping gait, the two embrace and Mother and “daughter” both declare their thanks to the Kind Spirit — perhaps the Mother, perhaps the Little Girl, perhaps Williams himself, perhaps all of the above — for permitting them to at long last give and receive the love and tender understanding they have always craved. The audience is left with an enduring Williams-esque mystery. Is the Kind Spirit male or female, black or white, Williams or DuClos, the Writer or the Young Girl -- or perhaps even the audience itself? One thing seems certain. In Mother DuClos, Williams has at last reinvented himself as the savior he most wanted to personify, namely, the loving mother he and Rose never had. In DuClos are combined the elements of the sacred and profane that made up so much of Williams’s major themes and characters, as well as Williams himself. At long last, Williams/DuClos can confound the boundaries of time and reinvent memory, morphing into the Savior who will not “abandon” his sister to confinement and doom, and the Mother who will protect her young charge from all harm. And the Little Girl in turn, in her still-pure innocence and faith, can forgive the Mother/Author their trespasses as S/He at long last returns, with the help of Vieux Carre Voodoo, to rescue all “three” from an eternity of despair. The spirit of Williams permeates these one-act plays, at least in a metaphorical sense, and perhaps a more literal one as well. Never a stickler when it came to adaptations of his films or plays to fit the more prudish mores of the time, many have noted that Williams would unabashedly change an ending from sad to happy for a screen adaptation or even amend an actress’s monologue if she found difficulty with it. By the same token, Williams would likely have no qualms about a production of his earlier works from the viewpoint of a more worldly, 21st century perspective. “No play of mine is ever finished,” he once declared, “even after production.” Williams' work continues to endure, as revivals of his plays continue apace worldwide and seasoned and aspiring actors alike continue to take on his greatest roles. A new digital century seems custom made for further discoveries of yet-undiscovered work, as the Internet makes it easier than ever to unearth the “inventory lists” of even the most obscure collections. So, too, in the small space of the Turtle's Shell Theater -- a mere stone’s throw away from the Broadway venues where his greatest works were performed -- one can almost discern the ghost of Williams still abroad. Some of the great actors and actresses who brought his characters to life have attested to the fact that he seemed delighted with virtually every new production and adaptation of his work. One can almost imagine spying him in the audience -- his shoulders, perhaps, shaking with laughter as he occasionally talks back to his own characters -- as friends and colleagues sometimes caught him doing when he first saw another of his works realized on stage, screen, or television. Williams would doubtless be pleased with this postmodern rendering of his earlier works, which pays posthumous homage to his self-declared masterpiece Vieux Carre. In fact, a spate of recent postmodern takes on William’s works also pay homage to his enduring influence. One of the most ambitious and masterful of these is the award winning film by the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. His widely-acclaimed All About my Mother is a veritable homage to, and retelling of, A Streetcar Named Desire with a brilliant postmodern twist. In this film, William’s “love that dare not speak its name” is allowed to shout for all to hear, as the director openly explores such erstwhile “forbidden” topics as transvestitism, gay fatherhood via an impregnated nun, AIDS, drug addiction, and all the other “dark” themes which ran so surreptitiously throughout Williams’ work. Perhaps Almodovar’s final dedication at the end of the film might also be aptly applied to Williams’s life’s work as well:"To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother."Natalie E. Carter and Emily Arrington in Thank You, Kind SpiritFive by Tenn is presented by Turtle Shell Productions, The Terrapin Troupe, and Off the Leash Productions and is directed by John W. Cooper, founder and artistic director of Turtle Shell Productions. Turtle Shell Productions aspires to create theater with a focus on current issues, ethics, culture, and history. It provides a safe haven where youth and artists may grow in their craft and develop practical skills, while collaborating on productions that celebrate the universal truths of human experience and inspire the community.PRODUCTIONDirector John W. Cooper is an award winning actor as well as producer, artistic director and founder of Turtle Shell Productions, which has produced over ninety plays, including an acclaimed presentation of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke in 2004.Co-producer Jeremy Handelman is Founder of Off the Leash Productions and is a playwright, filmmaker and video editor. Off the Leash Productions recently concluded a very successful New York production of Mr. Handelman’s play The Bronx Balmers.Stage Manager: TaShawn “Pope” JacksonAssistant Director: Patrick MillsDramaturge: Scott McCreaScenic Designer: Ryan ScottCostume Designer: A Christina GianniniLighting Designer: Eric LarsonSound Designer: Roman BattagliaDialect Coach: Karla NielsonFive by Tenn: Five Landmark Plays by Tennessee WilliamsRemaining shows run through March 25, 2007Monday & Wednesday through Saturday at 8 PMSunday at 3 PMThe Turtle’s Shell TheaterAt the Times Square Arts Center, 4th floor300 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036Tickets: $18 available from SmartTix(212) 868-4444

Should the "N" Word Be Banned? Part 2

Elvira Black — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 09:16:17 EST

When I posted my original “N” word article here some two weeks ago, I didn’t anticipate that it would merit a sequel. As it was, the gist of the original premise seemed preposterous if taken literally. Of course, no one could “ban” a word here -- this is America, and that kind of thing just isn’t done. Indeed, though a few who perhaps didn’t read further than the title didn’t realize that the question was, in essence, a rhetorical one, the piece did generate hundreds of comments. Some of these, along with my replies, were longer than the original piece itself. But most of what was discussed veered from the original question and onto other related concerns such as the state of bigotry -- both black and white -- in 21st century America. One of my “theories” was that some young African-Americans who bandy this word around so freely and publicly are akin to disenfranchised Muslim youth who both despise the country they live in but are perfectly free to criticize it. Unlike other Americans (with the exception of Native Americans, who of course used to call our country home), African-Americans were originally brought here against their will as slaves. Other Americans originally arrived as immigrants who came here eagerly and voluntarily in search of better opportunities for themselves and their children. As such, they tended to embrace the “American dream” with fervor, and many flourished and gave their children the best that their new country could offer in terms of education and opportunity. American-born children of immigrants are generally very well assimilated from the get-go, and many, in fact, can’t wait to emerge from their parents’ “ghettos,” eschew the old ways, and embrace their status as full fledged Americans on a par with their peers. However, there are some -- and only some -- young blacks who are, in essence, not fully “assimilated” and still reside, both physically and mentally, in a ghetto which they voluntarily embrace, at least to some extent. Those who eschew education as the purview of the “white man” and relish bandying about a word which has such horrible connotations for all Americans has resulted in a tragic, self-defeating cycle. Moreover, the fervently held belief of some African-Americans that there is no such thing as black racism and that they are still left wholly out of the socioeconomic loop is, in my opinion, a strictly 20th century concept. Elders who still pass this self-destructive, counterproductive belief system on to their children are, in essence, harming them grievously and compromising what could otherwise be a bright future, albeit a future with some struggles and challenges along the way.We also discussed the extent to which well-meaning whites still harbor racism in their hearts, and the ways in which our culture still reinforces this. We discussed the extent of opportunities for all Americans, as well as some still existing roadblocks for African Americans. We also discussed the unique historical interactions between blacks and Jews, and the anti-Semitism, mutual resentment, and misunderstandings which still permeate some hearts and minds. But what, then, of the original question -- should this word, so rife with horrible connotations, be “allowed” to continue as part of our everyday lexicon? Some new developments in the past few days have convinced me that this sequel is worth pursuing, for now the question has indeed taken on a much more literal slant. From Reuters on March 1, 2007:New York City symbolically banned use of the word nigger on Wednesday, the latest step in a campaign that hopes to expunge the most vile of racial slurs from hip hop music and television.The City Council unanimously declared a moratorium that carries no penalty but aims to stop youth from casually using the word, considered by most Americans to be the most offensive in the English language.The New York City measure follows similar resolutions this month by the New York state assembly and state senate, and supporters of the ban are taking their campaign to The Recording Academy, asking it not to nominate musicians for Grammy awards if they use the word in their lyrics.The article also notes that many young New Yorkers and rap artists use the word as a “term of endearment or as a substitute for black, angering some black leaders who consider those who use it as ignorant of the word's hate-filled history in slavery and segregation.”The campaign against use of the “n” word has gained momentum since comedian Michael Richards of “Seinfeld” fame “spewed it in a racially charged tirade” at the Laugh Factory, a Los Angeles comedy club. Richards has since apologized, and the Laugh Factory has now banned comedians from using the word in their acts there. Councilman Leroy Comrie, a sponsor of the moratorium, “also asked TV network Black Entertainment Television to stop using the word in its shows. Representatives of BET did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”As for the Grammy issue, Ron Roecker, vice president of communication for the Recording Academy, stated: "They are not going to be supportive of something that excludes someone simply because they are using a word that is offensive." Similarly, comedian Chris Rock, when asked about the City Council move in a Reuter’s interview, responded: "What, is there a fine? Am I going to get a ticket?" "Do judges say, '10 years, nigger!'"Rock said politicians were trying to divert attention from real problems: ‘Enough real bad things happen in this city to worry about how I am going to use the word.’Meanwhile, at historically black Stillman college in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a four day conference was held last week to discuss the racial slur. Organizers said the goal of the event is to challenge the use of the n-word "through the use of intelligent dialog and a thorough examination of black history."Andrew Hacker, a political science professor at Queens College and author of "Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal," said just getting rid of the word wouldn't stamp out racism."I really think that as far as white people are concerned, the word is almost on its way out," said Hacker, who is white. "That said, there are a lot of white people who still in the privacy of their own minds think the word even if they don't use it because they regard black people as genetically inferior and that word categorizes that."Kovan Flowers, co-founder of AbolishTheNWord.com, said striking the word from use would help set an example for other races."We can't say anything to Hispanics, or whites or whoever unless we stop using it ourselves," he said. "It's the root of the mind-set that's affecting why people are low, from housing to jobs to education."Rapper Tupac Shakur was credited with legitimizing the term "nigga" when he came out with the song "N.I.G.G.A.," which he said stood for "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished."Stillman English professor Alisea McLeod said she doesn't buy it."It's hogwash. What this is really indicative of is a heart problem," she said. "What is coming out of mouths is what is coming out of souls. These are not words that are uplifting and I think (they) point to a bigger problem — a lack of self-love."After reading of these new developments, I visited the aforementioned website, AbolishTheNWord.com. This excellent site has separate pages devoted to black history and the diabolical origins of the “n”word, as well as an entreaty to others to educate rather than argue. Among the items available via the website are flash cards with information on the word’s origins and intent to pass out to folks rather than confronting them when they bandy the word around in public. But the most devastating feature of the site was the intro video, which made any mere words one could utter regarding the ugly legacy of this slur pale in comparison. Please check it out by clicking on the screen below to visit AbolishTheNWord.com.So what, then, is the answer to the original question posed? To me, the answer seems clear -- not to “censor” or “ban” the word, but to virtually abolish it by educating young people, one by one, about what the word actually symbolizes within the context of black history and the arduous 20th century struggle for civil rights -- until it becomes as obsolete in current usage as, say, “talking picture,” “78 rpm,” or “photogravure.” The “N” word, though it will always be with us, deserves in this brave new century to be relegated chiefly to the history books, rather than to trip freely off the tongues of young people who are unaware that those who sold, lynched, and tormented their ancestors in the century just past used it all too well -- not as a term of endearment, but as a weapon with which to relegate another race to the status of subhuman pariah. Rather than make it "illegal" to utter the word, why not just make it "improper?" In time, the "N" word may even all but vanish from our everyday lexicon and our collective unconscious like a long ago 20th century nightmare.For to passively stand aside -- as the "N" word continues to be uttered so ubiquitously in our cities, towns, and streets -- would be, as the kids themselves might put it, strictly “old school.”

Adventures in Real Estate, Part 2: The Lawyer Who "Phoned It In"

Elvira Black — Sat, 3 Mar 2007 19:36:07 EST

Selling and/or buying a home can be an aggravating, time consuming, and expensive endeavor which typically involves working with a team of “professionals,” all with their hands out for their cut. There are real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, and real estate lawyers to contend with, just for starters. As in all professions, some are good, some are bad, and some are just plain evil, greedy bastards. For the past seven years, I've known where I wanted to move as soon as my ex-boyfriend and I could finally agree to sell our old place. It’s a great coop complex in the Bronx near my current boyfriend BG. I’d first seen it advertised when I picked up one of those free “real estate books” they had in a kiosk on Fordham Road. The two page ad blew me away right then and there.A few years passed, and I became manic and almost bought a place there — even put down a hefty deposit and signed a contract. But I realized that paying a mortgage as well as maintenance, though do-able, would be more of a stretch than I’d feel comfortable about, and I was able to get my deposit back.But S, the guy I dealt with at the coop’s management company, remembered me when I called him again after we’d finally put our Manhattan coop on the market last fall. He told me to call back when we went into contract, and call I did.Soon enough S showed me the home of my dreams. I got all my paperwork in order. I was paying cash, so no mortgage hassle was involved. He did a credit check, and informed me that I had an A-plus score. S had a list of several lawyers he worked with on contracts and closings, and gave me two names to choose from. I called B and we got down to business, or so I thought. B’s fee was relatively modest, especially compared to the lawyer we retained for the closing of our place downtown. But that lawyer met with us in his office and sat down with us for at least an hour and went over the contract line by line. He was friendly, courteous, and a pleasure to work with. No so with B. He, too, was pleasant enough at first, but seemed to need to justify his fees by exaggerating the importance of his role. In any case, I expected contracts to be sent to me in short order. Unlike our lawyer for the sale of our place, B did not meet with clients for contract review. Rather, he would messenger me my copy, I would review it, we would discuss any questions I had by phone, and I would messenger it back to him. Nevertheless, quite a bit of time went by with no contract in sight. When I finally called back S after a week or more to tell him that I hadn’t received the paperwork yet, he was, and I quote, “shocked.” Though B had told me that the seller’s attorney hadn’t sent him anything yet, according to S he just hadn’t bothered to send a messenger to pick the papers up from the seller’s lawyer.Another problem was that B seemed to have some vested interest in convincing me that I could not have the speedy closing S had assured me of from day one. Since S obviously had clout with the coop board, he'd assured me from the get go that he could arrange for them to meet with me for my board approval asap after the contracts were signed. But during every conversation I had with B — which involved numerous calls and messages to him, all in an effort to find out where my contract was — he insisted on telling me that there was no way I would close that quickly. Although coop boards often meet only once a month or even less frequently, during which they review potential buyers' financials and schedule the requisite board interview prior to closing, this situation was different. S had been working there for years, and could get deals done in record time by surrounding himself with a competent network of lawyers and mortgage brokers who knew the process for this particular building backwards and forwards and could close a deal in weeks rather than months. And he had enough clout with the board to get a meeting set up for me to be interviewed within a week’s time or so. After two more phone messages and one e-mail to B, I finally reached him late that week and he once again took pains to assure me that I would likely not close any time soon. I again explained that S had said I would, and he then advised me to “reach out” to S about the matter. In turn, I told him I had last spoken to S shortly before I called B and that he had once again assured me that all would go as planned. He gave me the usual tired "professional" schpiel about having been in the business for years, etc. etc. but finally grudgingly said fine, if you’re ready to close, it’ll happen.Meanwhile, the contract was still not in my hands. Though S told me B definitely had it at this point, B said he wouldn’t get it till Monday. He needed time to “review it,” so he would send it Monday and we could probably go over it on Tuesday.When I first spoke with B, he told me upfront that he had to review all contracts before sending them out. This gave me considerable pause, since most real estate contracts are pretty standard as far as I know. In fact, I’m pretty sure he could recite the while thing in his sleep. When I talked to S again after this convo, I asked him what possible motive this man would have for trying to throw a monkey wrench into the works on what should have been a no-brainer transaction. S couldn’t imagine why, and we both noted that how soon I closed was really none of B’s concern. I had to conclude that in an effort to prove to me that he was worth his fee, he had to try to make me believe that he was all-knowing and that the process was fraught with red tape and mystery. In point of fact, he was simply lazy all the way around: too lazy to meet with me and go over the contract in person; too lazy to schedule a messenger to pick up the contract; and too lazy, dishonest, and deceptive to send me the crucial papers in a timely fashion. After e-mailing B as S then suggested, I sent this e-mail to S:Hey S:Thanks for getting back to me. Just to reiterate, if I don't get the contract Monday as expected, I wish to terminate my non-professional non-relationship with Mr. C, and have you recommend another more competent attorney for this very simple job. S, as I said, he is too lazy and lackadaisical to even meet with me in person. He's also pretending that he needs time to "review the papers" before he sends them to me. Excuse me? This is not some exotic contract, is it? He could recite it in his sleep!So my patience has worn thin. I'll give it til Monday, and then I'm out. PS -- Since he was too lazy to send me a written retainer agreement to sign, I don't owe him a penny, do I? He should be paying me for the aggravation. Sorry -- just had to vent and make my feelings very clear on the matter.I don’t know if B actually bought his own bullshit, but I don’t really care. I called S back later that day and said I didn't want to wait till Monday after all -- I wanted another lawyer now. I met with my new lawyer in S’s office that Tuesday since Monday was a Federal holiday, went over the contracts with him, had my questions and concerns addressed with courtesy and dispatch, and signed the papers, which were promptly sent back to the seller's attorney.When I returned to my boyfriend BG’s place that evening, there was a Fedex package waiting for me. It was the contracts from B — a day late and a dollar short. S believes in working with others who can get the job done efficiently, but any endeavor can only be done as efficiently only if other the key players cooperate and do their share as part of the team. One of my most fervent wishes -- aside from a speedy board approval -- is that S will think twice before offering B’s “services” to any more hapless buyers down the line.

Should the "N" Word Be Banned?

Elvira Black — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 14:42:03 EST

On February 1, the first day of Black history Month was ushered in with a bit of local media brouhaha here in New York when Queens Councilman Leroy Comrie, hip-hop artist Kurtis Blow Walker, and other community leaders headed a press conference calling for a symbolic, non-binding resolution urging New Yorkers to stop using the "n" word. Though no one could possibly imagine this could be made into a real law (just for starters, the First Amendment implications would be huge) it did give people of all races ample food for thought. Black spokesmen such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have spoken out for decades about racism in America. Bill Cosby has been very open about the willful rejection by many black youths of education as a way out of poverty and the peer pressure faced by those who study hard and are mocked by their peers for “acting white.” The point we are at now in America, Jackson and Sharpton claim, is that most whites feel that racism is now a non-issue, while many blacks know it’s just been pushed under the “PC” surface. The frustrating thing about this underlying, even unconscious, racism is that it’s so insidious that white people don’t even realize they are still bigoted. So if Black History month is to live up to its name, it seems logical to assume that the implications of the “n” word, its role in racism, and the black struggle for equal opportunity are vital issues to explore. Bringing this topic into the light of day has considerable merit to it, especially since young people who use the word as a term of affection seem unaware of the negative historical connotations. They didn’t live through the civil rights movement and may be unaware that some dedicated people, black and white, died for this noble cause. They may have little clue as to the horrible and shameful history of discrimination, segregation, lynchings, redlining, and slavery that decimated the black family unit and perpetuated a tragic cycle of multi-generational poverty. The repercussions of this appalling American legacy are still being felt today. Save for the equally-oppressed Native American, all Americans' roots lie elsewhere. Our ancestors fled oppression and lack of opportunity in the old country and braved the journey to the new land with its siren song of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free.” The crucial difference between African Americans and other "immigrants" is that blacks were brought here against their will in the service of oppression rather than liberation. Conversely, the vast waves of European immigrants who began to arrive in earnest at the turn of the twentieth century personified the typical road to assimilation taken by those from other countries and cultures who come here.My grandparents, for instance, came from Eastern Europe and settled, like so many others, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan early in the last century. My grandfather worked hard to support his wife and five children, but died at a very young age, leaving my non-English speaking grandmother to care for her American-born children in a cramped walk-up tenement. In order to survive, my mother and her older brother had to complete their high school degrees at night so they could work during the day. My grandmother insisted that everyone finish high school, as she knew this was necessary in order to move ahead and succeed in America. Like many children of new immigrants, my mother, aunts, and uncles wasted no time in trying to escape the ghetto life they had been born into. As fully assimilated Americans, they wanted to move out of the old neighborhood at all costs. My mother and her youngest sister were especially adamant about this. When they double dated, they didn’t want their dates to pick them up from home. They broke from their Orthodox Jewish religious traditions, spoke perfect English, and succeeded in fulfilling the American dream in earnest. Only one of my aunts — an Orthodox Jew — still lives in the old neighborhood (what my other aunt also refers to as the “schtetl”). Like some others of her generation, she chose to stay in a working class co-op development that had been designed by Jewish union leaders early in the century to provide the working and middle class with decent, affordable housing and an escape from the cramped tenements a block or two away. For decades — until a discrimination lawsuit changed all that — the massive high rise co-ops up and down Grand Street on the East Side were, indeed, virtual Jewish enclaves. In this safe haven, American-born Orthodox Jews could escape the pressures of full assimilation and retain their essential “Jewishness” without shame or apology. As a result, it is quite easy to tell at first sight (and sound) that my aunt is Jewish. She talks and looks like a stereotypical Jew, though she worked for years in a mostly Chinese school district as a secretary and got along with everyone. But until recently, time really did stand still — at least culturally — on Grand Street. When my mother and her siblings were growing up, successive waves of immigrants from all corners of the globe had also come to America for a better life. The newer arrivals were looked down on by those who had come before them as “greenhorns,” or country bumpkins — a source of derision and embarrassment to their more established brethren. The Irish were among the first wave in, followed by Italians and Jews. Later came Puerto Ricans, and later still came Hispanics from other parts of the globe. German Jews in particular had assimilated and thrived personally and professionally in their homeland, but were forced to flee when the Nazis refused to recognize them as Germans first and Jews second. But when they arrived here, they wasted no time in assimilating, and looked down their noses at the throngs of eastern European Jews who came after them. They wanted nothing to do with these "greenhorns" who represented all the stereotypes they — and their new fellow Americans — abhorred. The same can be seen in some Hispanic neighborhoods today. American-born Puerto Ricans may look askance at new arrivals from the Dominican republic who “bring down the neighborhood” — refusing to learn English and clinging to their old culture. But the history of African Americans in this country is a very different one. Unlike some other ethnic groups who band together and start new businesses here by pooling resources and setting up new arrivals with funding and support, African Americans have little in the way of this kind of community unity. Despite their incredible cultural contributions to our country, even at the height of the Harlem Renaissance they still faced discrimination and segregation. The cycle of crime, poverty, lack of education and accessibility to resources is still a huge problem, despite a sizeable and thriving black middle class. It is this successful middle class that represents the loudest voices in this clarion call for an end to the “n” word, which is still embraced by many black youths. It serves as a source of shame for those who have worked so hard to gain a foothold in the larger society by education and hard work. It could certainly be argued that bringing this hot topic to the forefront can only be a good thing. The recent brouhaha over Michael Richards’ disastrous stand-up routine where he used the “n” word to retaliate against hecklers demonstrates how it is still acceptable for a black person to use this word but not a white person. Though there are many who abhor the use of the word by any race at any time, the use of the “n” word as a form of affection is rampant among today's black youth as well as entertainment figures. By openly challenging this, it is possible that a form of positive “social engineering” can be put into play, similar to the anti-smoking campaign.By refusing to run cigarette commercials, asking for ID from young smokers, running scary anti-smoking ads, raising taxes on cigarettes, and banning smoking in most public spaces, many smokers have quit and doubtless many young kids who would have once thought it “cool” to smoke now realize that it is not. As a result, even the most rampant partier who spends each weekend high on X at a local rave may eschew cigarettes. It’s too expensive, there’s no buzz to speak of, and it’s bad for your health. What’s the point? Though most teens are still too young to wrap their minds around their own mortality, for many, smoking is still an outdated relic, no longer useful in order to be “cool” with peers. By the same token, by rendering the use of the “n” word politically incorrect, many impressionable youth may start to think twice before bandying this word around quite as freely as before. Now that the problem has been put out in the open and addressed, some young people will no doubt take heed, learn more about the horrible legacy of this slur, and realize that it is not only a source of shame to their elders but also one reason why many black youths still haplessly play into the self-destructive role of the unassimilated “greenhorn” within the great American melting pot. But still and all, is there any merit to using the “n” word amongst one’s peers, or in the privacy of one’s own home? In a word, I say yes. As a Jew, I would be livid if someone addressed me as a “dirty kike.” Yet among my friends, Jewish or no, I might privately label an unscrupulous landlord, real estate agent, mortgage broker, or lawyer with this epithet. Of course greed and avarice are universal traits, but when a fellow Jew lives up to all the horrible stereotypes we have struggled so long to rise above, it makes me feel that these bad apples give my people a bad name. Jewish humor has a rich tradition based in large part on the tragedies of persecution throughout the centuries. Much of this humor is self-deprecating, and stems from the struggle of the perpetual outsider attempting to come to terms with an often hostile gentile world. So when I talk in private to my non-Jewish friends and one of them tells me of a Jewish businessman who took advantage of them, I have no qualms about referring to him as a “dirty kike.” When my disabled friend was recently led on a wild goose chase by a Jappy Westchester real estate broker motivated only by greed and gaining “points” for showing as many apartments as possible -- no matter how unsuitable -- after reeling folks in with an alleged "teaser" ad, I made no bones about privately referring to her as a “Jew bitch.” As a matter of fact, just yesterday, I fired the Jewish attorney who was supposed to handle the contract and closing on my new co-op after this shameless shmuck proved himself to be a lazy, lying, self-important, condescending sack of shit. And of course, “kikes,” at least to my mind, can come in all colors of the rainbow — it’s the stereotype of the cheap, greedy, unscrupulous shyster of any race or creed that’s in play here. I often joke with my non-Jewish friends about the culture shock of living with a non-Jew. I praise my boyfriend’s uber-Goyishness, and the fact that he can repair things and is not afraid to get his hands dirty, while I, the coddled Jewish princess, must hire movers, get my air conditioning professionally installed and my walls painted by experts rather than friends. (The old joke applies well here. Question: what do Jewish wives make for dinner? Answer: reservations.) Meanwhile, my boyfriend has worked on oil slicks in the wilds of Louisiana, lived in New York City shelters when his luck ran out, gone to Mexico with his friend on a roll of dimes and a raised thumb at 16, moved to New York City in the crime-filled ‘70s and lived in areas I would never have ventured into if you paid me, done back-breaking day labor, worked as a garbage man, a janitor, a cook, an art supply salesman, a messenger, a house painter, and so on.Since his parents could not afford to send him to college, and having grown up on Air Force bases since his dad was a career Air Force man, he volunteered for the army at 17 rather than wait to be drafted. His MO was medic, for he wanted to help people rather than kill them. Fortunately, he got a “million dollar wound” in AIT — he rebroke an arm that was already damaged badly enough that he should never have been allowed in in the first place.My goyishe boyfriend’s adventures are something I can only admire. As a New York female Jewish baby-boomer, I was expected to go to college, never had a job that got my hands dirty, would never join the military or do day labor, and can hardly figure out how to turn on the TV without help. In a word, we complement each other beautifully. Although he is highly intelligent and largely self taught — he knows more about American history, for example, than I will ever hope to know, thanks to reading on his own — and a talented portrait artist, I am still the Jewish “brains” and he the goyish “brawn” in the relationship. We have arrived in the 21st century with much of our old prejudices behind us. We now have a female Speaker of the House, a black female secretary of state, a conservative black supreme court justice, and a wildly popular black presidential candidate who just might win. What all these incredible people have in common is that they, like women and other erstwhile persecuted groups, had to work doubly hard to prove themselves, and be both extremely qualified and beyond reproach in order to gain entry into what was formerly the sole purview of white Christian males. I believe that on the whole, white Americans are immensely gratified when they see a black professional who is virtually “whiter” than they are. It alleviates guilt, confirms that the American dream is truly open to all, and reinforces the beauty of our assimilated, yet multicultural society. What is still left to be done is to convince disenchanted black youth that rather than embrace their “blackness” to the detriment of themselves and their community, it would be far more productive to work within the system, educate themselves, struggle and work hard, and prosper as full fledged Americans. Those who drop out of school; dress, act, and talk “ghetto;” use the “n” word publicly and continually; and eschew the rewards of embracing the “white” culture do themselves a grave disservice and exacerbate what is still a grave national problem. African Americans, I maintain, are the non-immigrant “immigrants” who are still struggling with assimilation and self-loathing generations after they were brought here against their will. Our greatest challenge lies in convincing them that it is in their best interests to leave the “n” word out of public discourse, and limit it mostly to private usage. They can still “own” the slur, but the time has come to stop embracing it publicly as some sort of self-destructive, self-hating badge of honor. Perhaps this call to ban the “n” word, though of course nearly impossible to enforce, is the best message we could possibly convey to our still-largely "unassimilated" black youth.