Month: April 2016

Lovers and Madmen Have Such Seething Brains

~ nfreim ~ Leave a comment

Today marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. (The speculation is that William was born and died on the same day. His baptism was on April 26, so the theory is that he was born on the 23. Nice story, anyway.) I admit, I wish I was fabulously wealthy – in which case I would have gone to England to join in the celebrations there.

 

Instead, the cat I’m watching had her kittens today, and I will content myself with giving them all Shakespearean names. (Yes, I know, when they go off to their fur-ever homes, they may get new names like Mr. Meowington or Miss Kitty Soft Paws or Bob. But we each must celebrate as best we can.)

 

I suppose it’s not a surprise that I love Shakespeare since I’m a) a theatre nerd and b) a book nerd. But I owe my first experience with the bard to my eighth grade literature teacher, Mrs. Tucker.

 

At my school we had one teacher for English (grammar, sentence diagramming, paragraph structure, etc.) and another for literature. I already liked Mrs. Tucker because she was the teacher who did the school plays. (Bragging digression – the first time I auditioned for her (for the lead role), she asked if I was planning to audition for any other characters. I said yes, for the secondary role. She asked which I’d rather have. I said the lead, and she told me not to bother auditioning for the other part. Yes, she’s partly to blame for my eventual theatre major, too.)

 

The last project for the year was reading a play. Mrs. Tucker got all of us our own copies of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the class read through it, acting out various scenes. It was a fantastic introduction to Shakespeare, and absolutely made him more interesting. Because plays are best when performed. That’s their purpose in life. I’m sounding like Phoebe on Friends worried about trees fulfilling their Christmas destinies, but it’s true. Plays yearn to be acted out. If all they wanted to do was tell a story for someone to read, they’d be a novel or a poem.

 

So my first encounter with Shakespeare was the way Shakespeare is best experienced. And it had a lasting effect. I spent that summer before high school over at the public library reading Shakespeare. The library had a whole collection of the plays bound individually in blue cloth covers. I read a few of the romances and the comedies. I’m certain that I did not get everything that the plays were saying. But I enjoyed them anyway.

 

By this point, I think I’ve read or seen about 80% of his canon. Not all of them recently – and I’m feeling like I should go back over some of them again. It’s been long enough that I could get an additional layer from another read.

 

I’ve been to the Shakespeare festival in Cedar City, Utah, and it’s a magnificent place. The festival makes a point of including at least one play each season that is less often performed. (That’s how I saw King John.) One of my goals in life is to have enough income to take a trip to a Shakespeare festival (preferably Cedar City or Ashland) every year.

 

And I was in a production of Midsummer – a fairly good production for a high school play. I was the most important insignificant fairy. The one at the start of Act Two, who has a conversation with Puck. I had more lines than all the fairies with names put together (take that, Moth, Cobweb, Peaseblossom, and Mustardseed!).

 

“Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough briar,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander everywhere”

 

I still remember that fondly, even though I doubt I was all that good, I wanted to be Hermia, and it was a long time ago.

 

But thanks again to Mrs. Tucker for walking us all through the play. I know not everyone fell in love with William the way I did. But it had a powerful impact on at least one kid. (Probably part of my desire to be a teacher, too – this idea that I could help show kids new and wonderful works of literature just like she’d done for me.)

 

And thanks to Will for writing such timeless pieces that have meant so much to me over the years.

 

But I know I have not really experienced Shakespeare since I have not read him in the original Klingon.

 

When the Levee Breaks

~ nfreim ~ Leave a comment

Today I’m thinking about the body. That thing so many of us take for granted. Until there’s a problem, at which point we start noticing and bemoaning its state.

 

Those of us who have had health issues (of varying kinds) come to have a different relationship with our bodies. Sometimes love, sometimes hate, sometimes both. We worry about it, occasionally to the point of absurdity, feeling a bit betrayed that we suddenly cannot rely on this machine in which we are forced to travel. It seemed so reliable, we think, and there is no trade-in program . . .

 

But the complexity of the way the body functions is what fascinates me. The way an injury to my back can radiate and have so many other effects is a sobering reminder (and metaphor) of how interconnected the parts of us – and life – are.

 

I’ve studied a bit (not enough – though a polymath is never done studying!) on topics like massage, reflexology, yoga, acupuncture, pilates, dance, and plain ol’ stretching. We use our bodies more freely when we are younger. Then we grow older and become more body conscious (or self-conscious) in some ways (does this make me look fat?) – and less aware in others (did I do anything that would count as exercise today?). Too many hours spent hunched over computers and desks or slumped on a couch take their toll on us. We often forget little things – like how good it feels to stretch.

 

Dogs and cats do this often – stretching out their bodies in luxurious ways to sleep or unkinking their backs after being still for a while. There’s a reason that yoga pose is called downward dog. Stretching helps us to function, yet many of us could stand to do a bit more of it.

 

When we stretch out our muscles, it helps us be more aware of how the parts of the body work together. Stretching the hamstrings loosens the legs, which helps the back, which helps the arms and neck, which helps the face and head (starting to sound like the old lady who swallowed a fly, but the chain of interaction is valid – and much easier on the digestion). I am both intrigued and alarmed by how a lower back injury can cause shooting numbness down my upper arm.

 

And it’s not just a physical connection but a mental one as well. When we have too much emotion swirling around in our minds, our bodies respond by forcing liquid out of our eyes. Somehow, our bodies evolved to make the eyes the sluice gates for the levees in our heads, and tears help prevent the dams from breaking. How odd we are that our bodies push this overflow of sentiment (good and bad) out through a tiny opening in the eye – and that it relieves the pressure and makes us feel better (at least, usually/ eventually).

 

Crying is, in fact, a necessity. It is too often looked down upon – either as something “girls” do or something that men should not do – when it is just a physiological reaction, one that helps keep the body functioning. Yes, it can be embarrassing and inconvenient, but occasionally we need to do it. Letting the tears flow can help not just our mental but our physical state. After an intense crying session, our bodies feel deflated, wrung out like a soggy tissue, because we have pushed out some of the tension rippling through us.

 

That has to happen, on occasion. The tension we build up from stress – physical, mental, and emotional – has to find release somehow. If we don’t start to pay attention when our bodies are giving us headaches, backaches, indigestion, sleeplessness, exhaustion, etc., the body will rebel. “No, thank you, I’m not going to work today. You’ve been treating me like garbage, and so today I’m shutting down. Good luck with everything. No, don’t back talk to me – you brought this on yourself.” And so we sob, or rage, or sleep for 15 hours, something to let the body have a momentary respite.

 

Do we learn our lesson? Well, we humans are pretty stubborn – and convinced of our own importance. Most of us probably continue on with our lives, telling our whiny body to suck it up when it starts to feel run down.

 

Why does taking care of our own needs feel so selfish? Isn’t this like being on a plane – secure your oxygen mask before helping others?

 

I’m guilty of this, too. So what do we do?

 

Take time for ourselves. Sit. Observe. Stretch. Meditate. (Lots of people get put off by that last one, but even a walk outside watching the wind in the tress can be meditative.) And breathe!

 

Deep breaths can help us be present in our bodies. Long ago in an undergrad voice class, our professor had us breath in through our noses and exhale through our mouths while visualizing the air coming out different parts of our bodies. (Yes, this is starting to sound like Bull Durham and “breathing through your eyelids” like the lava lizards of the Galapagos Islands – this class was shortly after the film came out – maybe my prof was a fan.)

 

No, we didn’t think the air was actually going out our legs or fingers. But it mainly served to draw our attention to various parts of our bodies – looking for tension and being aware of our physical state. And I still do that – particularly during a difficult physical therapy session – trying to visualize the air dispersing through my body can distract me a little from the pain.

 

On that note, I think perhaps I’ve been sitting at the computer for too long. I should go stretch my body and breathe through my eyelids – just like the lava lizards.

 

 

“Life Is But a Series of Choices.”

~ nfreim ~ Leave a comment

I’m trying to catch up on a few shows – okay, a bunch of shows – that are stored up on my dvr. Just never enough time during the semester to keep up with these things! And not enough space/capability to record all the shows I want to see, let alone those I have a passing interest in perusing.

 

This week I caught up on the third season of Sleepy Hollow, and I found myself thinking, “What just happened?” In the penultimate episode, Joe gets killed off. Never mind that Pandora supposedly cured him of the wendigo infection a mere two episodes earlier. But I was annoyed at the death for two reasons.

 

One, the couple (Joe and Jenny) were finally making it work. I know, however, that a moment of happiness is the sweet spot to tv writers. Is the couple happy? Then kill one to underscore that life is tragedy and misery. Honestly, it’s like every television show gives its reins over to the ghost of Kafka or Nietzsche.

 

Two, I thought it was a cheap way to undercut an interracial relationship without killing off the black partner. I admit I missed some of season 2, but the relationship between Jenny and Joe never struck me as a big deal; they were just together. I liked that the couple seemed to be more about being a couple than about being an emblematic pairing that “proved” something. But as Joe died, I realized, “Hey, there goes the interracial couple.”

 

(And yes, I’m one of those people who think that the latest FF movie wimped out by not making Sue and Johnny both black. I get the idea of the “it’s a blended family, and there are lots of those, why should we have to explain it?” argument. But I still think it was a wimpy choice. Just cast them both as black – don’t tell me there aren’t some fantastic actresses who could have played that part. They might not have wanted to, considering the script, but I digress.)

 

The death of Joe Corbin (which also seems cheap – now that I think about it – since his father was killed off in the first episode – did he even make it past the second commercial break?) quickly became overshadowed (or maybe I was one of the only ones who felt it didn’t work well) by the death of Abbie Mills in the final episode of the season.

 

This death is problematic is multiple ways, too. Killing off a lead is a risky proposition. Like many people on social media, I agree that the chemistry between the leads – Abbie and Ichabod Crane – was a large part of what made the show worth watching. Mysteries to be solved, bad guys to be caught (or defeated in the supernatural sense) – that can be found on a myriad of programs. I know; I watch some of them. But the mystery of the week will not carry viewers through. It’s the characters that we care about.

 

Ichabod Crane: That building used to be a livery stables.

Abbie Mills: Yeah? Well, now it’s a Starbucks. Where they make coffee.

Ichabod Crane: And that building is also a Starbucks?

Abbie Mills: Yep.

Ichabod Crane: Well, how many are there?

Abbie Mills: Per block?

Ichabod Crane: Is there a law?

 

The interplay of the two witnesses (as they discover they are) was the main draw. Yes, I also like freaky supernatural stuff (I’m a mythology and folklore buff – yes, I’ve watched Supernatural since the beginning), but I like the actors and the characters. The story lines are not always so great, but I kept coming back to the show because of the people.

 

Abbie Mills: You dropped your gun.

Ichabod Crane: It was empty.

Abbie Mills: You only fired one shot.

Ichabod Crane: There are more?

 

And I especially enjoyed the fact that they were a team and yet not love interests. (So maybe I should be thankful one got killed before the writers could go down that road?)

 

A number of viewers have already taken to the internet to proclaim that without Abbie, the show is not worth watching any more. (To be fair, a fourth season has not been announced yet. Perhaps we won’t get one.)

 

But the larger problem that is also being discussed on social media is the significance of killing off the black female lead, not the white male lead. One fan even pointed out that reducing the character’s purpose to having been a guide for Crane further robs her of identity and agency. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/04/12/after-a-shocking-death-on-sleepy-hollow-fans-are-questioning-how-the-show-treats-characters-of-color/)

 

Fans are still talking about how Captain Irving (Orlando Jones) was treated poorly before he left. And that both endings for both characters were tepid at best. I have to go with that; for a show that had some great writing over the seasons, Abbie’s death was kind of uninteresting and anti-climactic. I was surprised that she actually died because the tension level seemed so meh at that point.

 

My reaction could also be colored by decades of reading comics, knowing that a character is only as dead as the current writer wants him/her to be. A new writer can retcon anything.

 

The furor over her death seems amplified by some other recent deaths of lesbian characters on shows like The 100, Vampire Diaries, Jane the Virgin, and The Walking Dead. I don’t watch all these shows, so I don’t have firsthand knowledge, but apparently there have been 10 lesbian/bisexual deaths so far in 2016.

 

This stands out mainly because there are so few of these characters on television. A report by GLAAD in 2015 says that there were 35 regular characters who were LGB – out of around 881 characters total. That’s four percent. (http://www.glaad.org/whereweareontv15)

 

So when 10 of those characters get killed off, there goes nearly a third of the group.

 

While these numbers are focusing on sexual orientation, I don’t imagine it’s that far off from racial minorities. As Viola Davis pointed out when winning her Emmy, there aren’t many roles to choose from. Maybe a dozen leading parts for minority women? Two dozen? How big does a part need to be to be considered a “lead”?   Does Cam on Bones count as a lead? I’m not sure on the specifics of that.

 

Now I’m starting to wander over new territory that I should probably read up on more before I begin spouting off about it. So I’ll wrap up.

 

I can understand the impulse to kill a core character. What Joss Whedon fan doesn’t? But the death needs to be well written and earned. Abbie’s departure seemed more about shock value (and maybe contract negotiations) than any profound moment of storytelling. As I say, though, I’m a comics fan. My brain immediately started working on possible ways to bring her back.

 

Hey, if it worked for Jean Grey, why not Abbie Mills? Where’s Kurt Busiek when you need him?