Multiple Personality

When I was a kid, I saw the film version of Sweet Charity. I also saw Thoroughly Modern Millie somewhere in that same childhood-blur period. And I did one of those inexplicable childish juxtapositions, where the fact that there were elevator scenes in both Charity and Millie blended together in my head. So I remember that Shirley MacLaine met this guy in the elevator (true for Charity, and for Julie Andrews in Millie) and they tap-danced to make it run (false for Charity) and they wound up together and lived happily ever after (true for Millie, really false for Charity). And when I saw Sweet Charity again as an adult, I was utterly shocked at how it ended. (Sorry if this is a spoiler for you; stop reading if you want to rent it and have it be a surprise).

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I love this interview…especially Colbert’s new clown lyrics.

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I’m not ready to do a full, brainiac analysis of the finale of Lost, but I have to say this one thing: This show does something that I don’t recall any other piece of storytelling doing…and it was exemplified as this extraordinary finale unfolded. Seldom — to never — have I had the experience of being deeply emotionally connected with a story while I have no idea what-the-hell is going on.

Thank you, Lost. You’ve expanded the horizons.

I’ve just discovered something that will take me a while to process.

It seems there’s this guy in England who talks in his sleep. He’s apparently quite mild-mannered during the day (he’s ENGLISH, okay?). But his wife writes down everything he says in his sleep. And she posts them on this blog.

Here are a few samples:

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Jason Mraz has written something quite wonderful about equal rights on his blog.

I like it so much that I’ve decided to reprint it in full right here. Enjoy:

As a straight man I really have nothing to gain by standing up for equal rights for Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual, and/or my Transgender friends. Except for the fact that I have many friends who are still subjected to hurtful comments by a society that hasn’t yet embraced fully the nature of… nature.

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OMG, I love love LOVE this!

I do enjoy Alanis, and I’ve always liked this song…but it has always bugged my butt that none of the freakin’ references is actually IRONY. Finally…a voice in the wilderness has literally responded…or responded literally…whatever…

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An occasional, abbreviated list of writing that I have gratitude for:

1. Tiny Kushner — Yesterday I got to see this collection of Tony Kushner short plays for the second time. It might’ve actually been more impactful than the first time. Three out of five of these plays are wise almost beyond words, the acting (at Berkeley Rep) was uniformly brilliant, and the director, Tony Taccone, is my new favorite person to pay excessive homage to. But I shouldn’t stray too far from the utter, scary excellence of Tony Kushner. I love this guy so much.

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I realize that Mad Men has its season finale next week — thus making what I’m about to say true for an extremely short window of time — but I can’t remember when another night of television has been filled with such a confluence of great work.

To start with the humblest of the blessings, there’s The Amazing Race, which does everything good that a reality show could do (acknowledging the limitations therein). I won’t again analyze why this show is so relentlessly watchable, but I will say that it’s the one guilty pleasure I don’t feel guilty about.

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An occasional, abbreviated list of writing that I have gratitude for:

1. Californication, Season Two — I remember wondering, as I sat down with the DVD box of the first season, whether this was just gonna be all salaciousness and aren’t-we-naughty?-ness. But by the end of the 12 episodes I had been won over by the earnestness of the characters, in the midst of all their apparently uncontrollable compulsions and preoccupations. Season Two has nailed the point, as it were, even more substantively. It is interesting how the first episodes of this season — wherein our horndog hero goes monogamous — are much more stifled and problematic in tone than the subsequent episodes. And by the end of this 12, I find myself considering all the sex and espionage just the particular language that these rarified travelers speak in. Not unlike the elusive but decodable speak of those wretches in The Wire or them Shakespeare characters. And the sweetness underneath all the screwing — not necessarily a part of the screwing, but lurking there nonetheless.

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If you have 20 minute to waste, I’ve found something utterly demented, in a premeditated kind of way. I guess you could call it premedemented.

Yoplait has a site where you can choose one of two different soap stories, performed by one of four different “troupes.” I have no idea if these are actual amateur acting companies, or just people hired to act like bad actors…but it’s pretty funny. Especially if you watch the “Global Investment Group Trust Players” after the other groups. The guy in the glasses is kind of a riot.