Madden, the former associate artistic director at the Mark Taper Forum in LA for 15 years and now a visiting artist at UCSD, has also been thinking about Orpheus, the ancient myth of the Greek poet and rock star who could tame wild beasts with his lyre skills but who loses his love Eurydice to the underworld god Hades.  Madden combined her interest in surfing culture and the tale of Orpheus into a new musical called simply Surf Orpheus. It's currently being produced by the Theater and Dance Department at UCSD.  I recently went to a rehearsal of Surf Orpheus and took some photographs.

As you can see, it's a visually rich production with complicated moving set pieces and a big cast.  Madden partnered with noted choreographer Jaques Heim of Diavolo Dance company in LA and acclaimed composer Bruno Louchouarn to create the look and sonic world of Surf Orpheus.  A number of things stood out at rehearsal, not the least of which was the dedication of the undergraduate acting students, technical crew, and stage management team.  It's really quite amazing that UCSD supports a production of this scale at the undergraduate level. 

You can hear Corey Madden and Bruno Louchouarn talking about Surf Orpheus on These Days today.  The musical opens tonight, Tuesday, May 13th and runs May 17th.  Performances take place at the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theater on the La Jolla Playhouse campus.

Water for Elephants: A Review

by Aaryn Belfer

“Either there’s been an accident or there’s roadwork, because a gaggle of old ladies is glued to the window at the end of the hall like children or jailbirds. They’re spidery and frail, their hair is fine as mist. Most of them are a good decade younger than me, and this astounds me. Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.”

So says nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, the curmudgeonly yet loveable protagonist who you can’t help but root for in Sara Gruen’s novel Water for Elephants.

The circus is in town and the tents are going up just outside the convalescent home.  Inside, the home’s residents have gathered by the window with walkers and wheelchairs, jockeying for the best view. Most of them are excited about an upcoming outing to the circus, which promises freedom from the bland, antiseptic confines of their day-to-day routine. But for Jacob, the circus view and the failings of his aging body spark a wellspring of memories that pour out during his less lucid moments. Or they may be his clearest moments. Both may be equally true.

Just ten days shy of sitting for his Cornell University Veterinarian’s license, a family tragedy changes 23-year-old Jacob’s life. Devastated, shocked and alone, Jankowski abandons school and hops a train to anywhere, though he soon discovers he’s jumped aboard a circus train. He’s immediately given grunt work which could keep him from getting “redlighted,” otherwise known as being thrown from the train in the black of night. But once Uncle Al, the resourceful and unscrupulous Ringmaster, learns of Jacob’s education, he’s promoted to circus veterinarian.

Gruen, the author of Riding Lessons and Flying Changes, peels back the thick canvas curtain lifting illusion and revealing the complex, ugly and often disturbing underbelly of 1930’s circus life. There’s the fat lady, the dwarf and the kinkers. There’s the burlesque performer who aims to take Jacob’s virginity. There are the hardened rubes---with names like Camel, Blackie and Cecil---second and third class citizens next to the privileged performers who get to dine at tables with fresh linens. And of course, there are the animals---dozens of them---characters in this story as much as the people: Horses, giraffes, lions, orangutans, zebras, snakes, llamas and one very special elephant.

Life on the road seems always to be on the verge of spinning out of control. Uncle Al is unpredictable and backstabbing and can’t always pony up for wages come payday. August, the animal trainer is a “paragon schnitzophonic” who’s broad mood swings and violent outbursts inevitably seem aimed at Jacob.  August is also blindingly jealous of anyone who so much as sneezes in the direction of his beautiful wife, Marlena. Without giving away too much, it’s safe to say that Jacob comes down with a real nasty cold. Anyway, Water for Elephants is a love story. A love-of-life story.

Told through flashbacks, Jacob’s narrative shifts between his days spent in the Depression-era circus and those in old age home, where he actually suffers from depression. Without losing rhythm, the two distinct stories complement one another as Jacob grapples with the process of dying, relives his past, and decides his own future. Gruen’s diligent research of circus culture rings true throughout the book, as does her portrait of what it is like to be old.  She has successfully created a novel that is heart-wrenching, thrilling, excrutiating, romantic and funny. You will be turning the pages with fervor right up until the very end.

On Sunday, I spent the day at the grand opening of The New Children's Museum.  Culture Lust has decided it's the coolest new digs in San Diego.    The concrete and steel "green" building designed by local architect Rob Quigley finally came to life this weekend after much anticipation.  The place was packed all day Sunday - honestly, I didn't detect a lull in the three hours I was there.  Kids were smiling and concentrating at every turn.  In fact, the only kids I saw crying were the ones who didn't want to leave.  I overheard many a parent promise to return the following weekend as a pacifier.  If I were a betting woman...and sometimes I am...I'd bet those weren't empty promises.  I personally can't wait to go back, and I don't even have children!

I took some pics of kids interacting with the opening exhibit Childsplay for your viewing pleasure.

Culture Lust favorites at The New Children's Museum:  Brian Dick's No Rules Except...Yard.  You may think I like this piece because of the ellipsis in the title... I obviously love ellipsis.  But this piece has ellipsis and mattresses and chaos and tire pillows!  What's not to love? I also liked Mark Mulroney's Shadow Puppets and Nick Rodrigues' Porta-Party - it's a booth shaped like an iPod with a disco ball inside and an iPod full of music - you get inside and dance, groove, booty shake, what have you.  I'm thinking about commissioning one for my office at KPBS. 

A Defense of the Short Story, by Seth Marko

As a bookseller, I often hear the following refrain: “I don’t want that. I hate short stories.” To me, this is pure crazy talk. David Sedaris, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chuck Klosterman, and Nora Ephron are all fabulously successful based on their short writing pieces. So what gives? While I can understand not wanting to “get involved” with a story that isn’t novel-length – your emotional investment may be disproportionate to the number of pages available –  but to just dismiss what could be a potentially life-changing experience seems, well, too dismissive. Wouldn’t reading an eloquent, beautifully written short story that hits you like an emotional freight train be more worth your time than some forgettable, throw away, pulpy thriller you picked up in the airport?  I don’t mean to sound so righteous, it’s just that I feel passionately about this overlooked, kicked-around, stepchild of a genre and I feel it could use some love. Thankfully, a gentleman named Nam Le has written a brilliant collection of shorts called The Boat that just may change the way we all read (or don’t read) the short story.

The Boat is composed of seven stories, each set in vastly differing locales – Colombia, Iowa, the South China Sea - that are thematically tied together in such a way that you almost miss it at first glance. Each appears unrelated to the others, yet the emotional toll of living life manages to breathe on every page, creating a thematic bridge. I know, “emotional toll” doesn’t sound like much fun, but in the hands of Le, the raw emotional power shines through in a way I have seldom encountered.

In the opener, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," our character shares the same name and resume as our author.  Nam Le was born in Vietnam, raised in Australia, and has earned a fellowship from the Iowa Writers Workshop. (The real life Le has also won the prestigious Pushcart Prize.) In fact, this piece turns out to be one of the strongest of the collection, and sets a remarkably dramatic, emotional tone for the rest of the book. Fictional Nam has been working fruitlessly on his final short story for the Iowa Writers Workshop. A friend tells him to use his family’s experiences to break out of his writer’s block: “Just write a story about Vietnam.”  Another friend adds “ethnic literature is hot.” But it takes a tense visit from his estranged father to help Nam see the obvious story right in front of him, just aching to be told, or so he thought.

In "Meeting Elise," a self-absorbed artist with failing health prepares to meet the daughter he has never known, while trying to ignore his secret fear of soul-crushing rejection. In "Halflead Bay," an Australian teenager struggles mightily with the pain of…well…being a teenager.  He also has to balance a family life teetering on the edge of collapse due to potential poverty and the looming death of his ill mother.  The Boat, the final story in the collection, packs perhaps the most emotional wallop. Young Mai faces starvation and death on a fishing trawler transporting people out of war-torn Vietnam, where she meets a child who alters her perspective and forces her to make a terrifying decision.

Again, I know that these summaries seem grim, to say the least.  But Le has the skill to craft these stories into something other than raw misery. Each protagonist ends up learning something about themselves that challenges their assumptions.  As emotionally heart wrenching as some of the tales can be, the characters undergo soul-defining, identity-cementing experiences – the kinds of experiences we all long for. The resulting book is the best collection of shorts I have read since Robert Olen Butler’s Pulitzer winner, A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain.  It’s truly a breath of fresh air for the genre. Long live the short story!

Tom was on vacation last week and must have missed our movie conversations.  When he and his wife rented a movie from Netflix, an interesting conversation followed and Tom sent Culture Lust these thoughts on movie myths, anti-male conspiracies, and reveals that his wife wins all their arguments!

Gender, Parenting, and the Great Anti-male Hollywood Conspiracy

By Tom Fudge
 
Mythology and its many stories make us believe that certain things are true and right. This has been the case throughout human history. All that’s changed is the medium. Myth was communicated orally, then scripturally. Today it’s done cinematically.

The myth of the movie cowboy has instructed us in matters of independence and self reliance. Disney movies have influenced gender roles and our relationship with animals. In fact, I don’t think we would have an animal rights movement without Walt Disney. Several generations of Americans were traumatized by the murder of Bambi’s mother and it didn’t take long before some of them created PETA.

I was thinking of the power of Hollywood myth-making as I was watching a movie that my wife got from Netflix. It’s called Dan in Real Life.  It stars Steve Carrell and Juliette Binoche in a story where the main character is a single Dad (Carrell) with three daughters. The Dad seeks to have a romance with a woman (Binoche) who, he later learns, is dating his brother.

As I watched this movie I saw that it contained a subplot that some members of the so-called men’s movement strenuously object to. I’m referring the portrayal of the main character’s wife. “What portrayal?” you’ll be wondering if you’ve seen the movie. She’s dead, and he’s a widower. But that’s just it.

If she were alive she’d be right there caring for her kids. Death is the only thing that will pull a woman away from her children and her maternal duties. Call it the Sleepless in Seattle supposition.

Men, on the other hand, will abandon their kids for a multitude of trivial reasons. It’s a movie myth, the guy advocates say, that holds women on a pedestal and portrays men as being no different from the male mountain lion that seeks out females in order to copulate but then gives no thought to his offspring.

I raised this subject with my wife, which some people might have advised me not to do… not just because she’s a female and a mother but also because she’s an ex-lawyer who tends to win all the arguments. Upon hearing my description of the male advocate point of view, she rolled her eyes and said they’re way off base. (She didn’t actually roll her eyes, but it makes a better story to say she did).

The main character in Dan in Real Life was a widower, she explained, to serve the convenience of romantic storytelling. If he had been divorced, there would be an ex-wife in the picture, making things complicated. How do you write her into the story? You could ignore the fact that she exists, but that would put a strain on the story’s credibility. Besides, if the male romantic lead had been divorced, he might be messed up. He might have issues. No… much more convenient just to kill off the Mom and let the single Dad be free to follow his bliss.

If we can assume, just for the sake of argument, that there IS a left-wing, anti-male conspiracy of filmmakers that assumes only death will separate a woman and her children, a notable exception was the recent movie Juno. In Juno -- which was written by a woman, incidentally -- the teenage girl at the center of the story was abandoned by her mother. She lived with her father and her stepmother, both of whom were decent, loving people. 

Juno did break the rules of conventional film making because it tried to tell a story that was a real slice of life. Movies don’t often do that, nor do all movies succeed in making a real contribution to American mythology. They only do that if they speak to us in a way that we find meaningful and true. 

I guess those male advocates I was referring to were both right and wrong. (I’m not making this stuff up. There really is a men’s movement and I’ve interviewed some of their members). They’re right to say it’s a cliché that women never abandon their kids. But they’re wrong if they think that’s the only story movies ever tell.