Find the Language

I snapped this photo quickly while waiting for the F Train. I think of this little girl a lot, how she listened and watched with such intensity.

As I might have mentioned, I have been searching for words, trying to be less fearful about putting down the wrong ones. Part of that search led to the discovery of Write Alm's Prompt-A-Day and, as you can see, it took me eight days this November, to sit down with one of the blogging prompts, one that seems so appropriate, it's almost as if it's laughing at and mocking me.

Find the language.

I wanted to yell at the mere suggestion. I'm trying.

It's music that often gets me there, that helps me fall in love with the way words attach to notes and fall from one to the other.

I turn to Sondheim for his playful skip and staccato stutter. There's always something neurotic and cerebral about his lyrics. A Little Priest, which is a song about what to do with a dead body and turning people into pies (yes, really), is particularly genius. I'll never get over how smart this song is. 

I've talked about Fiona Apple, how corporeal her music is, how it seems to rise up from inside her and manifest itself in a wrenching body. I love this amazing video of Hot Knife, which I know is getting around and exciting a lot of people. (That sounds kind of dirty but I don't know how else to explain it. It's just eliciting a strong reaction to her music.)  

I also like singers that tell stories. Josh Ritter comes to mind. Particularly his Girl In the War. 

There are also a few songs whose lyrics I just think are beautiful because they express something so deeply felt. Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and Bob Dylan's I'll Keep It With Mine are two.

I turn to these songs and artists a lot to remind me about language. They remind me what I wish I could say as beautifully, what I might want to say instead, and the rhythm of how to say it.

Nothing to Say

I keep opening blogger and staring blankly at the screen. I have nothing to say, I think. And then I immediately launch into sung dialogue from Sunday In The Park With George, trying to imitate Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, which is really hard for one person to do because their lines overlap one another as they sing:

George: I've nothing to say

Dot: You have many things

George: Well, nothing that's not been said

Dot: Said by you though, George

George: I do not know where to go

Dot: Nor did I

George: I want to make things that count. Things that will be new

Dot: I did what I had to do

George: What am I to do?

This happened about three times before I realized I better just give you this song.

That's all I've got, friends. What do you have to say?

'Phone Rings, Door Chimes, In Comes Company'

I was finally able to see the Lincoln Center production of Stephen Sondheim's Company, not live as I had hoped, but on the big screen. My love for Sondheim runs deep-- I may have mentioned the many acts of crazy I've gone through to see his work. I claim that Company is my favorite musical of all time but I had, uh, never actually seen it (oh the irony).

I've listened to the original cast recording on repeat and watched a wonderful documentary which records the recording of the cast recording, which is 'so totally meta' (long side note: an old film professor's favorite term, but picture it being said in a thick German accent while watching something like Melvin Van Peeble's 'Sweet Sweetback's Baaadasssss Song'-- no really, it's a movie...it exists...now picture me counting three A's and five S's to get the title right in this blog post...)

The documentary (which I recommend) features a young Stephen Sondheim smoking cigarettes in the booth at the studio, advising the actors in between coughs and takes. And all of this, made me feel as if I had seen the musical when I really hadn't.

What I love about Company is the way it captures relationships, the confusion and complexity, through incredible music and lyrics. It's not about the set or the stage. It is about Bobby, the only single man in a group of married friends, and his desperation to find a wife...without actually having to fall in love.

We meet those 'good and crazy people, his married friends' as they navigate confused feelings about their own relationships. How they lose themselves and find themselves through one another. How, when we fall in love, 'everything's different' but 'nothing's changed' or 'only maybe slightly rearranged'. There is fear of being loved too much or not enough. And the idea that sometimes we get on our hands and knees to beg for someone to stay and, when they do, all we want is for them to leave (the same in reverse). These kinds of dynamics are so compelling, so real, I love to see it captured on stage and in song.

It goes without saying that I recommend the musical highly. The cast is what I can only call an 'uber cast' with the likes of Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Patti Lupone, Martha Plimpton...the list goes on. Even if you don't like musicals, there are long scenes of excellent dialogue, more so than in most musicals, I would say. But it is, in my opinion, the lyrics to the songs that make this musical so brilliant.

You do not have to pay hundreds of dollars or go to a major city to see it because it is playing at movie theaters across the country for a very limited time. So, go! Quickly! Run don't walk! And tell me what you think if you do...

Photo credit: zimbio.com

S is for Sondheim

Oh the things I have done for my favorite composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim...

Back in 2001, I waited all day to see Merrily We Roll Along at the Donmar Warehouse. And that was after having waited all day long and been denied once before.

In 2005, I woke up at 5am and hiked up to the Upper West Side, where I sat on the concrete outside of Symphony Space and played 6 hours of 'celebrity' with my friend Daniel, just so I could get in to see Wall to Wall Sondheim, a 12-hour, free concert for Sondheim's 75th birthday.

And just last week, I became the mayor of crazytown yet again. I called the Lincoln Center box office incessantly to see if there had been any cancellations for the sold-out, EPIC, performance of Company, starring people like Stephen Colbert, Neil Patrick Harris, Patti LuPone, and my girl crush Christina Hendricks.

When that failed and Laura at the box office (yes, we were on a first name basis) was sick of hearing from me, I actually went to one of the matinees without any tickets, to badger unsuspecting patrons walking into the theater for an extra ticket.

When all was said and done, there was an option to pay $250 to see it (there had been some last-minute cancellations after all, but only for the expensive seats.) So I stood outside of the theater, debating whether or not this was reasonable, and whether I should dip into my savings or my hard-earned bonus to watch 3 hours of my favorite musical of all time. And just when I had rationalized it, because what is $250 but an expensive flight to Florida or 2.5 unlimited monthly metro cards? I eventually concluded, no, Melissa, this is absolutely NOT reasonable and you must go home.

I did go home but there may or may not have been some tears...

It's true, I'm a Sondeheim fanatic. I don't know what it is about his music that makes me so insane, but I love it. The idea that Merrily We Roll Along, which originally flopped in 1985 after only 25 performances, had such a small chance of being revived and I had a chance to see it. That those wall to wall 12 hours were only going to happen once in a lifetime. That there were only 5 performances of Company with a cast that can only be described as the uber cast. It's all been too much for me to handle.

The good news is that a taping of the uber cast doing Company will be playing at select movie theaters across the country in June. And you better believe that, if necessary, I will be doing something extreme to get tickets.

Is there anyone you will go to extremes for?

Move On

Have I ever told all of you how much I love the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim? I'm not sure I have. Well, I do. I remember, when I was unhappy at an old job I had so many years ago, I used to study Sondheim lyrics. I used to marvel over A Little Priest, from the musical Sweeney Todd, which if you have some time, is worth a look and a youtube search to take a listen. When an enraged barber slits the throat of a man who came in for a shave, there's the question of what to do with the body. Mrs. Lovett, the friendly meat pie maker has a brilliant idea. After all, she needs the meat... :-)

The song turns into a commentary on social order, imagining what different members of society might taste like, and the rhyming schemes and double entendre in the song are nothing short of brilliant.

Today, I was listening to a favorite song from Sunday In The Park With George, a musical about a fictionalized George Seraut painting his masterpiece "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte" (photo above). The lyrics are just what I needed to hear today. So many times we worry about the things we create, we find ourselves stuck.

Here are some excerpts from this beautiful song (from one of only eight musicals ever to win a Pulitzer)

"Stop worrying where you're going, move on.

If you can know where you're going, you've gone.

Just keep moving on."

"Stop worrying if your vision is new.

Let others make that decision . . .they usually do.

You keep moving on.

Look at what you want.

Not at what you are.

Not at what you'll be."

"Anything you do, let it come from you--then it will be new.

Give us more to see."

In my head I always sing: Give us more to read...

Painting by George Seraut

Source: The Art Institute of Chicago

Obsession

Some random thoughts today:

I updated the look of my blog last week and just now got around to announcing it. There is some more information about my writing projects and my work in children's media, which I've been meaning to put on this blog. It's also just a little easier to navigate. I don't really like the sorry picture of the flower blowing in the wind right now (I mean, it's pretty obviously a template) but I'll get around to making that more 'me' sometime soon. So if you're reading this blog through a reader, click on through and let me know what you think!

I've found myself completely obsessed with 3 things in the past week.

1. Tom and Lorenzo. Their blog has me laughing out loud. It's clever and fun, without being mean, which is unique for a pop culture blog. They also happen to review and comment on three television shows that I love: Project Runway, Mad Men and Glee. Their Mad Style commentary is incredible. I have been known to drool over the gorgeous style in that show and I love their smart observations.

2. The discovery that Family Ties has come to the Hub Network. I discovered this at about midnight on Saturday night. Sunday morning, I immediately got a Season Pass on my Tivo and was devastated to learn that the show would not be taping until 2am. So I went to Hulu and watched back to back episodes of the show. I watched an episode in which Alex becomes obsessed with Donna, an unwed expectant mother, and convinces himself he is going to be the father of her unborn child. And an episode in which Jennifer and Steven Keaton grow apart when Jennifer begins to flourish into womanhood. MY GOD, this is the stuff of GENIUS people. GENIUS. I'm not sure what's going to happen to me now that I know this show is airing in reruns. And did anyone realize what a remarkable actress Justine Bateman is? I haven't seen the show since I was about 13 and it never occurred to me how wonderful she is, perhaps because of the big personalities on that show like Michael J. Fox and Meredith Baxter Birney. (Yes, these are the things that keep me up at night. Why was Mallory overshadowed?!)

3. PBS' Great Performances: Sondheim! The Birthday Concert My love of Sondheim runs deep. Since Tivo-ing it, I have watched select performances repeatedly. Especially Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters rendition of Move On. I watched it SIX times in a row and the only reason I stopped watching it was so that I could watch Elaine Stritch's 'I'm Still Here' SEVEN more times . I know...I know... it's sick. I also came to the conclusion that if you want to be a great singer you have to have a really gigantic mouth. People, I can not tell you how much I love Marin Mazzie and Patti Lupone but their mouths are insane. It's like they have been taken possession by a crazy alien. These photos don't even really do it justice.

What are you obsessed with lately? Or am I the only one who gets caught up in things like this?