Red Carpets

I was nominated for a Helen Hayes award.

Isn't that totally insane?

I'll do a play-by-play of the evening when I'm not so tired. Celebrating too late and temping too early makes Jane a very tired and cranky girl.

Leap Year

This wants to be a long-ish update. We'll see how that goes.

I am exhausted.

Do I have to update on everything? No, right? I can make my own rules?

I'm at a different temp job. The last one ended rather unceremoniously with a phone call mid-week at 4pm one day from my temp agency announcing that it would be my last day there, that the organization I was working at had decided to completely phase out that position.

Really?

Yes.

Really, really?

That's what they said...

I still think it had something to do with my hussy wardrobe.

This new job is truly temporary, which is good, and remarkably mindless, which is also kind of good.

Did I ever talk about SWIMMING IN THE SHALLOWS? The show opened, reviews were great, there are two weekends left so buy your tickets now if you want to see it.

Swim, swim, swim, swim, swim.

FIVE FLIGHTS also opened, and I think has been a good experience for everyone involved. It is a tricky little piece, but complex and delicate and funny and beautiful. Come see that as well. It's somewhere between workshop production/fully produced as far as design and whatnot, but that works well for the piece.

My parents were in town this weekend. They had planned a visit a while ago, when this was supposed to be my completely free month thinking we'd finally have a visit where I wasn't running from one place to the next the whole time. Not so much. But we had a great time, they saw SWIMMING, THE HOSTAGE and FIVE FLIGHTS (they swore they wanted to see a show each night) and we had some fabulous meals. Highlights were Heritage India and the new Napa 1015 on H Street. We also strolled through Old Town and they hit up the National Gallery.

Oh, and it's silly that I didn't give the big news to start with. I'll put it in its own post. It seems wrong to bury it.

Don't get excited. It's not any of that kind of news.

Where I Become Catholic for a Moment

Dear St. Anthony,

Your help for a moment? My charger? I know I had it Monday, surely I did. Where now? Vanished from me? I know the charm wears off to the world, my friends, my colleagues when I've lost my charger AGAIN.

And perhaps while you're at it: the eighteen single earrings gone missing in the past five years? The time to get through the show multiple times before people come to see it? My sanity? The ability of my ipod to function normally?

That's it. Hail Mary etc. etc.

Yours truy,
Me

Purple

In honor of Valentine's Day I have a huge heart shaped bruise on my ass.

That's dedication.

Three nights ago I tried to go downstairs to get a glass of water in the middle of the night, and in an attempt to step over the cat who was folded into the little stair landing, I over shot my mark and slid down the last eight stairs.

Ow.

This is the problem with not putting my glasses on. Lousy depth perception.

Anyway, happy day to you and yours. Here's to friends, loved-ones, and everything in between. More updates soon, I hope.

Monday and Tuesday

From Saturday's Washington Post "Style on the Go" p.C-12

Monday and Tuesday [February 11-12]
Theater J is hosting readings of Atlanta playwright Janece Shaffer's "Brownie Points," which follows the difficult interactions among high-strung mothers who take their daughters on a retreat for Girl Scouts. Race, class, and personalities come to a head on the trip.

Brownie Points
by Janece Shaffer
Featuring Jen Plants, Aakhu Freeman, Carolyn Michelle Smith, Nanna Ingvarsson and Allyson Currin
7:30 PM - February 11-12

Theater J performances at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center in the
Aaron and Cecile Goldman Theater
1529 16th Street, NW
Washington, DC
Parking: There is a lot next to the center ($5) and at 1616 P Street, between 16th and 17th ($4 with validation at front desk)

RSVP a reservation at 202-777-3210
Tix also available the night of the staged readings at the box office.
Discussions with the playwright, director and cast will follow.

Tell them you are my friend and the tickets (normally $15) are free.

Jew-Day-Ism

I got to Farragut North yesterday morning and realized that I had a picture of Ari Roth prominently displayed on my lapel.

No wonder people were looking at me like that.

Alas, I was only able to stay for 2/3rds of Ari’s roast, which it too bad because what I saw was really very entertaining. My favorite quote? From Ari’s daughter: “I mean, where would Theater J be without the use of child labor?”

Someday we’ll be able to put Skye to work. Maybe she can start writing grants next year. Maybe she’d do a better job.

I then bolted over to the hill to watch a run through of SWIMMING IN THE SHALLOWS. Which opens this weekend.

Tonight and tomorrow: rehearsal for FIVE FLIGHTS.

Then over the weekend I’ll be rehearsing a reading for Theater J: BROWNIE POINTS. Come see it next Monday or Tuesday if you can.

Anyway--I guess because of the roast and because I was catching up on EV’s comics over at Jewcy last night--I’ve been thinking a lot about “jewish humor”. Whatever that means.

I am so impressed by Eli’s artistic and writing prowess; always have been. And for that alone his comics are fun to look at. But I’m also fascinated by the comment threads that most of them incite. For one, unless you are some degree of an insider in that community it is nearly impossible to tell who is being serious and who is being sarcastic in their reactions. Some of the responses drip so heavily with urban-hipster-cooler-than-thou irony that it’s like they’re written in code. But the ones that do, sometimes, I think, seem serious—what riles them up? Usually it’s Israel. Almost always it’s Israel. Even the Holocaust is becoming less off-limits. Not Israel.

Transition: is Jewish humor an outsider art? Sometimes. Certainly not always. Jewish comics have for decades traversed the boundaries of faith to reach non-Jewish and secular audiences. But this made me laugh: several members of my cast attended the roast as well. When we were discussing the separate skits one of them asked about the “Jews-having-more-mucus” joke.

Me: “Huh?”
Him: “Well, the song about ‘You Got Some Phlegm”…?’”
Me: “Yeah. I thought it was just a joke about Ari being a hippy-folk-singer type in his college days. And an excuse for Steve to wear a big Jew-fro wig.”
Him: “Hmmm. I thought maybe there was a stereotype that Jews have a lot more mucus than non-jews. I figured I’d just never heard it.”

Not that I know of. Anyone?

This got me thinking about how easy it is to misinterpret an idea or a word or a concept that exists in one culture/language/identity, especially when trying to apply it to another culture/language/identity. It made me think again about the whole “shiksa” discussion I had with Callie about a year ago. Her interpretation of the word gives it an unquestionably negative, offensive tone. However, many people in this country—Jews and non-Jews alike—don’t put that weight on it, as evidenced by the many innocuous uses we find of the word in pop-culture and the media. Then it is interpreted to mean, simply, “non-Jew”. If it takes on a negative tone, it is usually because of the context in which it is used as in, “I can’t believe my son is dating a shiksa!” In this context, many words can take on a negative quality: Substitute “Blonde”, “Libertarian”, or “West Virginian”. None of these things are innately bad things--they are undesirable, potentially, only in the eyes of the beholder.

The blogger 40-Questions has an interesting discussion on the matter over here.

Actually, what I find most relevant about his argument is the very fact that Shiksa is a Yiddish word. 40-Questions’ tribulations of hunting down words in his Yiddish dictionary speak volumes: Yiddish is a language pieced together from many languages, cultures, and locales. It is passed from one generation to the next. It has evolved and changed and grown and shifted, like any language, but perhaps even more so since for so much of its history there was no one purporting to be a definitive expert on the language. So what means one thing in one household may mean something rather different in the home next door. Such is the nature of an inherited language. And that is the beautiful, amazing, and wonderful thing about Yiddish.

His other examples made me laugh though. I am quite sure I have misused “putz” once or twice myself. Which kind of makes me one.

Skin

So, this isn’t working out too well. This whole keeping-up-with-everything and continuing to blog about it. I’m thinking it’s becoming too much. Or it has already become too much.

What, what, what, what, what. So much.

Highlights:

*Saw LIFE’S A DREAM. Lovely work all around.

*Saw the INKWELL project, OK. Really beautiful writing and so many interesting things going on. It generated a lot of provocative conversations, which to me is a great compliment to a theatrical piece. Also got to spend a little time with CP and HPMelon, though everyone was a little bit too sick and a little bit too tired. Seems to be the trend these days.

*That night I was sitting on a bench at H Street talking with Jackie and I told her about my recent WHAT NOT TO WEAR obsession. I also told her that I thought I’d be a perfect candidate but C wouldn’t nominate me because he doesn’t believe in TLC Television like I do. So she said “I’ll nominate you” and I said, “Really, really, do!” and then when I saw her three days later I said, “Remember the other night I tried to get you to nominate me for WHAT NOT TO WEAR” and she said “I did nominate you. You wanted me to. Did you not want me to?” And I think it is truly amazing and wonderful that she really did it. I am keeping my eyes peeled for random market researchers now, really I am.

*I had dinner again at Café 8 on Barrack’s Row. The joint was jumping. Hurrah.

*Saw a run through of SWIMMING IN THE SHALLOWS before they head into tech over at Catalyst. Seriously, this is going to be very funny stuff folks. Do not miss it.

*Have been working on another Adam Bock project (Yes this qualifies as a minor obsession. What can I say. He rocks.) The folks finishing the honor’s year over at the Theater Lab have arranged to put together a showcase project so we will be presenting two weekends of FIVE FLIGHTS. More information on that to come.

*Saw Sweeney Todd. Was surprised that Tobias was a child, but apparently that was the original intent of the story. I enjoyed it, though I have to say I missed the effect that truly rich, full vocal tones bring to this music. The actor-singers weren’t BAD singers; they just weren’t singers, so you get that thin, tinny vocal effect like in Moulin Rouge. It’s not bad it’s just different. Some of the different I liked, some I did not.

*Went up to NY for a quick 10 hours (no joke). Saw Benjamin make his NYC Cabaret debut. It was fabulous. He is fabulous. Tears. Laughter. Tears. Laughter. Hellos. Catch-ups. Memories. Good-byes. Ben’s tiny white kitty. Alarm clocks. Travel. Back to dc.

Lowlights:

*Have been locked out of the house for two days. Remedying that tonight. Our enormous mottled kitty is going to be really pissed off.

*Was informed by one of my “supervisors” at this new “temp job” that she had been asked to talk to me about their “dress code”:
Me: Am I not dressy enough?
(I’d been digging through my closet to resurrect my temp clothes circa 1998, which are pretty awful but really quite conservative. And they seemed to fit in with everyone else’s choices.)
Her: No, it’s not about dressiness…
Me: …?
Her: It was reported that at some time yesterday there was a line of skin showing between your pants and the bottom of your shirt.
Me: …?
Her: We are a conservative organization. We can’t show skin. No shirts with sleeves above the elbow. Nothing low cut. No exposed midriffs.
(Let it be known that I had worn two shirts that day, one layered over the other to assure that nothing would ride up or down. Two shirts. I checked. Nothing was exposed.)
Me: Hmmm. I must have been stretching to reach for something. And a line of skin showed, huh. Like for a minute. And someone reported me. Huh.
Next week I’m wearing a burqua.