Parade day

[randy_byers]

I woke up in a crappy mood yesterday, but nonetheless I got a fair bit done in the morning, including some writing, hurrah. As usual, I started off with breakfast at Roxy's, and the streets of Fremont were already lined with chairs and blankets that people were laying down in anticipation of the Solstice Parade. It was raining. I was in a crappy mood. Let's call the whole thing off?

The neighbors were setting up down by Nectar, which was too jammed with people for my taste, so when time I wandered down Albion to the same intersection where I've watched many an edition of the parade. The rain had relented, but I was irritated by all the people being people -- saying stupid things, wanting to walk through the space where I was standing, and having a good time when I was not. I had also come down late enough that I missed the nude bicyclists but early enough that I had to wait 45 minutes for the parade to get there. Still, after all that, the parade was the usual fun and worked a bit of magic on my mood. Probably the standout float was a Yellow Submarine, with a full complement of Blue Meanies and Beatles (including one cross-dresser, of course) singing songs from the movie. There was also a pretty great Shakespeare puppet advertising Shakespeare in the Park. I spotted Sarah, who used to be a barista at Bulldog but quit to focus on her acting career -- which includes doing Shakespeare in the Park this summer. Before she quit she invited me to come see Romeo and Juliet, in which she's playing Lady Capulet. Sounds like fun.

After the parade I went to the neighbors' for a BBQ. (This meant I had to miss jackwilliambell's tiki birthday party, for which I apologize, but it seemed like a good day to stay close to home.) The other guests this year were other parents and children from the school the neighbors' daughter attends. With my crappy mood and all, I was dubious about hanging out with strangers, but it was fine. The mothers were all a kick in the pants, in fact, full of bawdy good humor and good-natured flirtation. It was interesting to watch them parenting, as well, as the various kids went through their various spats and stumbles. Other than the almost chilly weather, it was a perfectly pleasant way to spend a few hours out on the back deck. Probably good for me to get out of my comfort zone and rediscover that I can do just fine out there, even if the lives these people lead and responsibilities they deal with are far beyond my capacity. I guess the charismatic drunken uncle role I've learned to play comes in handy in other situations too.

After the BBQ I watched Julie Taymor's Titus (1999) all the way through for the second time (the first was in the theater -- a special showing at the Cinerama with Taymor in attendance). This is her adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and I can't say I like the story much. I've never read the play or seen another production, so I can't really compare the movie to anything. It's visually gorgeous, and there are a number of powerful scenes. However, the villains are so over the top that I find them very hard to take, and Titus is just about as difficult as Lear to sympathize with. The only truly sympathetic character is Lavinia, and even she is a bit unfeeling in her comments to the Goths just before they exact their revenge on Titus against her. Still, an amazing scene when she begs Tamora to kill her rather than let her sons rape her. But the series of savage atrocities wears on me as it goes on. Terrible people doing terrible things to each other, and a villainous Moor giving mwa-ha-ha speeches worthy of a comic book. Not sure what to make of the final image either. New day rising? Whence this sense of hope and renewal? Well, I give Taymor a lot of credit for taking on such a challenging, difficult project as her calling card in the film world.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

The final set-piece is the boy trying to climb out of the trap of "terrible people doing terrible things to each other", and the whole power of that scene depends on the awful slowness of it, you can almost feel the drag on him of the reality he is trying to leave behind, it's so slow, so difficult to escape the trap one finds oneself in, everything depends on continuing the march away and out, no matter how thick the molasses of karma, how crushingly relentless the gravity of samsara...

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

And yet the breaking sun suggests the attempt is successful, and it's hard to connect that to anything in the play itself. I suppose it can stand for catharsis too. (I remembered the ending very differently: a guy riding out of the arena on a motorcycle. Does that happen too? Already I can't remember. I didn't remember the boy playing with the toys at the beginning either. Is it possible she re-edited after the showing we saw at the Cinerama? I suppose I should watch the making-of featurettes on the DVD.)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I think that's the film that left so appalled at its visual atrocity (despite being magnificent) I actually wished I hadn't seen it.. the image of the daughter's handless arms has never left me.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Worse, they've attached twigs where the hands were, making her a kind of scarecrow. It's an unforgettable image, for sure.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Being in a less-than-optimum-Enjoyment mood for an Event such as the Solstice Parade sometimes happens. If it happens _too_ often, you might have cause for concern -- most of those things really don't change much (and hence the Novelty Factor diminishes), but I think we do tend to change, and that Orson Scott Card had one thing (though perhaps no more than that) right -- we really do _need_ to struggle against Entropy/Apathy. (It will win, in the Cosmic Long Run, I suppose, but delaying its immediate triumph is possible, important, and rewarding, on the personal level.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I think I'm just going through a grumpy period right now. All part of the midlife crisis, I suppose. Maybe I'm turning into a grumpy person, who knows? I'm hoping Lao Tzu will help me regain my balance. Meanwhile I got some more writing done this morning, and it was actually fun, dang it.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, recent Studies have shown that grumpy people both live longer and have a better quality of life, though (IMHO) grumpy-but-with-a-good-sense-of-humor-&-relative-importance may be vital to this, so maybe you don't need to be especially concerned about going through a Grumpy phase.

I'd go outside, now, to chase the kids off my lawn -- if I had a lawn, or if the kids in this neighborhood ever played outdoors any more. As it its... Maybe I'll go and take the Afternoon Nap. What can I say? I'm getting even more self-indulgent, and stayed up until 3 AM reading Peter Bowen's _Notches_ -- vulgar, violent (for my taste) and disturbing on several levels, but also totally Absorbing -- and four hours' sleep is no longer adequate.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

The only time I can halfway get away with four hours of sleep is at a convention. I'd say a nap is definitely called for. I'd love to go down to the Street Fair for a cajun salmon sandwich myself, but it's raining again. Hopefully we'll get enough of a break in the next couple of hours that I can sneak a visit between showers. Otherwise I'm going to be very grumpy indeed! (Maybe you could try yelling at the kids to get *on* your yard?)

[mcjulie.livejournal.com]

We saw Titus right after seeing A Midsummer Night's Dream with Kevin Klein and Michelle Pfeiffer, and concluded that a good movie of Shakespeare's worst play was preferable to a bad movie of one of his best.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Hm. I actually really like that version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but I suspect I'm easily amused. (Love Kevin Klein's melancholy Bottom.)

Is Titus Andronicus considered Shakespeare's worst play? Is that why Taymor took it on? I think I need to do some reading about it.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

An amusing tidbit from the Wikipedia entry on the play: "Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom has claimed that the play cannot be taken seriously and that the best imaginable production would be one directed by Mel Brooks."