Saturday, May 14, 2005

 

Those X-Ray Specs Don't Really Work Either

I wonder how disappointed the guy was who came to this site while googling for:

photoshop how to remove clothes off women

Sir. Sir.

posted by Dan 1:08 PM
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Friday, May 13, 2005

 

Ebert Like Me

Isaac at Parabasis is thinking something-hard about reviews and reviewers. Somethin-hard thinking makes me brain hurt, but I thought I'd use the opportunity to make a confession that relates to the topic: I am Parker Wilson.

Okay, I'll give you a moment to right yourself, after falling out of your seat. What, you didn't fall out of your seat? Surely you remember Parker Wilson, Shout magazine's distinctive theatre reviewer from 2000-2001? Oh, you don't even remember Shout magazine. Ah well...

Originally, Shout was a downtown New York gay culture magazine. You'd think that would've soared high in NYC, except that there were 20,507 other gay culture periodicals in NYC. So the sky was a bit full of that feather. While the owner waited for the mag to die so he could write it off sought an alternative format for the title, he stumbled across the idea of a free, downtown NYC culture guide, of which there were a mere googolplex.

Somehow, my buddy Ben ended up as the editor. Our iron bond of friendship was formed in the hot furnace of...okay we took acid together in college. In any case, he gave the job of theatre reviewer to my friend Lynne, and then when she got sick of it, he offered the job to me.

I had a big idea for my proposal. It reminds me of what Isaac advocates: I wanted my column to examine the artistic principles at work in the shows I saw, and use this as a jumping-off point to examine their ramifications in our culture. I wanted to avoid the routine laundry-list structure of a review. My columns would serve as an ongoing rumination about the state of the art. Oh yeah, and it would be funny.

You can imagine how well that went over when I pitched it. The thing is, Ben told me, what the magazine needed was a reviewer. Hipster readers needed to know the scoop on this or that yam-fest, and they wanted to know quickly. They were no different as consumers than the Times or Post subscribers. If readers wanted cultural ruminations, and they didn't, then they would pick up a copy of Heady's Brainsplartation Quarterly.

Okay then, Proposal B. I would be a reviewer. Oh, how I would be a reviewer, a reviewer conjured out of nothing, a phony reviewer, a fraud. Since I had no real qualifications, and since I'm a private person anyway, I would make a character that deserves to be a cultural critic even less than I did. In a way, the rejection of my initial idea was a relief. I didn't want to put myself up as some kind of Big Thinker anyway. I go off-line when the conversation gets too rarified. This way, I could make fun of reviewers without actually having to -- y'know -- set a better example, that's too hard. It's easier to be funny if I'm just writing a character. Thus was born Parker Wilson.

Parker was an investment banker by day, and a theatre critic by night. The reviews were standard, except told through the prism of his fictional life. He went to see this show with his new girlfriend. He went to see that show with his mother (he had big issues with his mother). In one of my favorite columns, he took his elderly boss to see a musical improv Scooby-Doo parody. He was completely disconnected from all culture and yet desperate to be a part of it. He was soft -- the kind of a man you poke in the stomach and your finger sinks in half-an-inch too far. He never had an opinion he wasn't willing to change. He would find a silver lining to a bullet through the brain. He was deeply disappointed with the world. He wrote reviews because it allowed him to measure things out a little. He was a character I enjoyed writing.

Don't bother to pooh-pooh the idea as sophomoric. Numerous wags have done so already. It was sophomoric, and delightfully so. It amused myself, my wife, Ben, and the six or seven other people that got the joke. I found pleasure from seeing a press release or poster that featured a quote by Parker. I wrote features for Shout under my regular name, so I wasn't trying to disguise my relationship with the magazine. It was just a way that I could do something that both interested me and served the purpose of the company. My job was to describe what the show was and how the reviewer felt about its various aspects. I did so. I'm sure Isaac would probably want to murder Parker Wilson, but Parker Wilson took great delight in his duties.

Trouble started early. I got tickets to shows by phoning press agents. One I spoke to was particularly friendly, and mentioned he'd be at the evening's performance. He looked forward to meeting Parker Wilson. I therefore did what any red-blooded coward would do: I made my wife pretend to be Parker. This was just absurd, as he already had spoken to me on the phone and knew I was a guy; but my wife has a whiskey voice, and somehow I deluded myself into believing that the press agent wasn't really paying attention. The look on his face when he shook Julie's hand was priceless, though. I mean, really, what do you say in a lobby full of customers when the person you're depending on for a good notice is not the gender you expected? You smile, and behind that smile, you question everything you've ever believed. As time went on, Parker Wilson was my wife, or myself, or a random friend that accompanied me to the show. It became part of the game. Who is Parker Wilson? Eventually that press agent caught on, and God bless him for having a sense of humor about it.

I knew that it couldn't last. My plan had been to gauge the wind, and when I felt the chill of cancellation, to have Parker take his leave or die in a final installment. Ben the editor was even more of a weirdo than I was, and eventually he was canned or left. In either case, the curtain fell on Parker to quickly to get in his final bow. It was easy come, easy go; I was sorry for the loss of income and an outlet for my own peculiarities, but not distraught.

Re-reading the columns today, I still find them entertaining. Many people have asked me why -- given an opportunity to write something meaningful -- did I not at least try. My answer is that reviews are a form of entertainment, in the reality-TV mold. They take place not in reality but a reasonable facsimile thereof. They may give you a couple of notions but no real thoughts. They can be cruel like The Apprentice or charming like Trading Spaces, but they are ultimately store-bought chocolate and should not get uppity like Toblerone.

Perhaps part of Isaac's dilemma is due not only a lack of serious critics, but that reviewers mistake themselves for critics. It doesn't take a great brain to say, "I didn't like the costumes." It takes a great brain to examine the costumes in terms of the issues of the play, the historical context, the political ramifications, their relationship to the audience, etc. It may take more than five hundred words just to give those costumes their due study. It would take a great mind and a greater writer to make the reader appreciate all that; to understand that yes, these things do matter, it is worth looking a little deeper at art, and the enrichment and growth of our culture do matter.

That may be a little beyond my capabilities; but I never forgot -- unlike John Simon -- that I am a mere song-and-dance man.

posted by Dan 1:14 PM
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Walk With Gregory and Muffy

Scott Olmstead is one of the best comic directors I've ever known. His latest project is a mock walking tour (or should I say mocking tour! ha! so funn OW DON'T HIT). Anyway, it's a phony walking tour. The hilarity pours over the streets of NYC.

He's started a blog for it, www.walkwithgregoryandmuffy.blogspot.com. Not much up yet, but there's a creepy photo of Scott, and that's worth the half-calorie you spend clicking the link.

The show will be on "sometime in August". Watch this space for details.

posted by Dan 10:31 AM
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Thursday, May 12, 2005

 

The False Servant

Plimpton good. It would have driven Hunka into fits. Cleanses the earth under 13th Street of the travesty that was...erg...Happy Days... the less said about that show, the better my ulcer.

Sitting in our seats before the show, my wife and I had that experience common to denizens of NYC's off-off universe:

WIFE:
Oh look, Jesse Pennington's in this. I was in that Irish show at NYU with him.

ME:
Oh, he's really good. God, he was just a kid when that went up.

(Silence as we acknowledge that "the kid's" career has gone marvelously better than the wife's.)

Very frustrating. Very frustrating as a husband to know that your wife's dream of playing Sonya in Uncle Vanya are slipping by. As writers, we often poo-poo the projects initiated by actors so that they might play this or that role; we slap on the "vanity" sticker. But damned if I didn't want to jump out of my seat and book a theater then and there.

Actors -- like any artist -- want to touch that greater universe; because of the nature of their art, they're granted a small window in which to do it. Writers can practice until the end of their days. Actors generally get their best shot between 25 and 29. Writers can operate without anyone. Actors require vast multitudes of cash and manpower to have their crack at the canvass.

This is, of course, a microscopically small burden. Any reasonable unit of measurement for happiness finds my wife and I blessed beyond measure. It's the irony of prosperity that enough is still never enough.

Jesse was hilarious, by the way.

posted by Dan 2:05 PM
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Wednesday, May 11, 2005

 

A Love Note

Dear Cold Virus:

What a memorable twenty-four hours we've had. I haven't spent that much time in bed with someone since my wife and I first got it on. Not that I want to put any pressure on our relationship! Right now, I just want someone to keep me warm at night...very, very warm...

I'd like to thank you for your refined manners. Civility is a casualty of our modern age, and I appreciate a tip of the stovepipe hat toward a gentler time. You waited to call, demurely, at my doorstep; not only until I completed my year's work for grad school, but also until I finished a Mother's Day weekend with my in-laws. Then, and only then, did you kick in my front door. Don't think I didn't appreciate that, Cold Virus, as you stuck your knee in my neck.

Oh, memories! Was it three weeks ago that we first met, when you visited my daughter? I thought she just puked from food poisoning. But really, you were incubating all for me, me! It's like one of those romantic stories the old couples tell in When Harry Met Sally. With puke.

You showed me wonderful visions, Cold Virus, fever-induced visions of mighty dragons that slowly peel my skin from the muscle fabric. They say that love is pain, and I don't know if it therefore stands that pain is love, but if it does...well, I won't embarrass you with overt declarations of my passion. I know how private you are, otherwise why would you make it impossible for us to leave my apartment?

But Kar Wai Wong said in Chong Qing Sen Lin (or perhaps it was my friend Pretense O'Filmbuff), relationships have an expiration date. I'm afraid ours has reached it. I know that if you linger too long in one embrace, you waste away; and I want you to live! So I offer you freedom. Find another, perhaps the very next co-worker that touches this keyboard. Adieu, adieu!

posted by Dan 10:18 PM
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