Do I wake or sleep?

Much of the mythology is just that.

Some highlights:

* The record now shows [Loser No. 1] and [Loser No. 2] hadn't been bullied — in fact, they had bragged in diaries about picking on freshmen and "fags."..."These are not ordinary kids who were bullied into retaliation," psychologist Peter Langman writes in his new book, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. "These are not ordinary kids who played too many video games. These are not ordinary kids who just wanted to be famous. These are simply not ordinary kids. These are kids with serious psychological problems."

* ...The enemies on their list had graduated from Columbine a year earlier.

* [They] didn't target jocks, blacks or Christians.

And this one I think has been known for awhile:

* That story about a student being shot in the head after she said she believed in God? Never happened, the FBI says now.

There's such a need to believe these two savages were retaliating for being bullied--I think it's a kind of rationalization, a need for an clear-cut cause and therefore a way to avert future incidents. I guess it's human nature to want to construct a narrative after such an immense tragedy. I also find it terribly sad that the Cassie Bernall story ("Do you believe in God?") isn't true--her parents probably got some small comfort from what they were told about her daughter's death, that she was essentially martyred, and then it turned out not to be true. On the other hand, I've heard that conservative Christians were using the story to illustrate their belief that America is persecuting Christians--yeah, right. I can see why you'd feel that way, having never been elected President or anything.

The article came out partly because the 10th anniversary is coming up, and partly because a Salon reporter, Dave Cullen, has written a book about it.

I really wish that there were a law, that in order to comment on news articles, you had to pass a basic spelling and punctuation test. It's exhausting, sifting through the comments sections to find the wheat among the chaff.

This is the Fountain of the Four Rivers. After reading Angels and Demons, I had to see this fountain--I love its Baroque gorgeousness! It celebrates water in every way, it is truly joyous to see. Rome is full of beautiful fountains. This fountain is a tribute to the major rivers on four continents--the Danube in Europe, the Nile in Africa, the Ganges in Asia and the Plata in the Americas.



This is the Tiber River at night. Absolutely luminous.



Three coins...like every other visitor to the Trevi (designed by Nicola de Salva), I fell in love with it. Night is the best time to see the fountains--they are lit up beautiful and there are fewer visitors. It's also terribly romantic!

A quick update because I am about to hit the musea and shops. First off, jet lag is KICKING MY ASS. I have been passing out in the middle of the day for random stretches. On the other hand, I was awake at 5 am yesterday and decided to use that time to see the Spanish steps--when it *wasn't* awash in humanity. Score! It was gorgeous.

Been getting some beautiful pictures of the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and the Fountain of the Four Rivers at night. My camera is really coming through, I can't wait to post these (which will probably have to wait until I'm at my brother's).

Yesterday I touched the Tiber River.

I have a question about iTunes--I've been digitizing my old tapes and just converted Jekyll and Hyde. I then uploaded the folder to iTunes and started adding artwork, composer, etc. I noticed that almost right away information was changing on some of the songs--someone remotely had changed or added things like the artist's name, album name, comments. I've noticed this on other songs as well. How can this be? The only other person on my "network" is Lori who wasn't home (and wouldn't do that anyway). Is there some kind of application that automatically uploads my music to an iTunes community of some kind? I take a lot of time to make sure the information in my iTunes is the way I want it, and the last thing I want is a bunch of Jekkie-bots editing it remotely!

I've been rediscovering A Little Night Music lately. I've always loved that score, I always felt its Northern European-ness spoke to me, especially "Every Day a Little Death." Interestingly it's based on a comedy--it IS a comedy--but has such a complex, sophisticated, melancholy core. And the stuff the liebeslieder singers do is amazing--of all Sondheim's many amazing lyrics, I don't think you can top "the hands of the clock turn/but don't sing a nocturne just yet." So clever, it just takes your breath away.

I was reading about it on Wikipedia and looked up the film. They set the film in Austria??? The hell? Why? Austria has no midnight sun, that's a Scandinavian phenomenon--and if you remove that element of the setting, you remove the whole metaphor of "Perpetual Anticipation" which is a BRILLIANT metaphor--why would they gut the story that way? Plus, as I said, the core of melancholy is a Northern European thing (a Scandinavian thing, I should say)--culturally, Germans are not supposed to suffer from depression the way the Swedes are.

So Lori and I had our inaugural party on Mardi Gras and it turned out very well. People started arriving right at 8 when I was, naturally, running behind and trying to get dressed. I put on a lil' black dress with purple, green and gold eyes and lips, and a similarly-colored mask. Lori spent a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and I was parked at the bar making hurricanes. We had a very well-stocked bar this year, thanks to the lovely Susan who contributed no fewer than 5 bottles of high-end rum, including two Mount Gay flavored (vanilla and mango). Mostly I dished out hurricanes--such a simple, albeit delicious, pleasure. Nothing like a hit of dark rum floated along the sweetness of pure corn syrup and red dye no. 5! I did end up making some mixed drinks later on.

Lots and lots of food for lots of people. Guests included Ryan, Kelly, Chris, Rachel, Michael, Tesse, Duncan, Jason, Michael Clay, Griffin, Molly, Adam and a friend of his, Brett, Stefania, my friend Joy, Tim and his friend Matt, Ashley and a friend of hers, my friend Katie from work, two on-floor neighbors, a neighbor who lives above us, our landlord and a friend of his, two Swedish friends of Lori, a couple of Lori's friends who went to Tulane, and many other friends of Lori's whose names I didn't catch. This is the biggest party I've had since I moved to NYC (not the biggest overall though, that would have to have been when I lived with Ryan and Cami--our insane housearming!). Lori and I were estimating how many guests overall--she guessed 50, I think it was fewer than that (maybe closer to 40). We didn't run out of anything--we served King Cake, red beans and rice, crawfish dip, chicken gumbo, and on and on. And nonstop HURRICANES. All backed up by my Mardi Gras playlist of zydeco, blues, Dixieland jazz, with The Big Easy playing in the background. Woo hoo! Laissez les bons temps roulez! Hail Rex!

I had a great time socializing when I could, talking with Tim and his friend (who generally stood in one corner, looking mysterious and talking on their cells--they are G-men after all), chatting with Joy, pulling out my Romeo and Juliet scrapbook and showing it off. It was awesome to see Michael Clay, BTW, haven't seen him since the summer. He's also so good-natured. I got a chance to talk with Molly a bit as well--she wants to do Othello and I was telling her, she could cast herself as Iago.

I brought out the King Cake (which I'd baked that day) and explained the whole custom to everyone and how this was a big thing in New Orleans, and then sliced it up. Michael got the baby. (Sadly, I think Rachel and Kelly had left before King Cake deliciousness. If it makes you feel better, neither Lori nor I got slices either! In general I didn't have that much to drink--I did not have TIME, I was parked at the bar for quite a while.) I actually had several people ask me about the customs of the holiday--the colors, the King Cake, hurricanes (which is a NO thing, not specific to MG) and so of course I took such opportunities to pimp out my beautiful city and mentioned the collection for Tipitina's. Maybe next year I could hang something from the fire escape...I'm also thinking next year a raffle for the Foundation, and maybe adding po'boys to the menu.

At some point (after Kelly had left, unfortunately, 'cause she had on a great outfit), I eyeballed what people were wearing and handed out a couple of little prizes for especially festive outfits. Michael Clay has a purple sweater with a gold hat and something else green, so he won, but our neighbor James had a festive purple argyle sweater. Adam and his friend and Stefania came fairly late, after midnight and stayed QUITE late. After they left (they were the last) Lori and I collapsed and watched a little more of The Big Easy. I finally rolled into bed around 5:00.

We collected $65 for Tipitina's Foundation.

In my continuing obsession with West Side Story, I watched it again this weekend, and surprised myself by bursting into tears in the last scene. Natalie Wood brings it in that scene. (Richard Beymer kicks ass as well.) She is just barely holding herself together when she's pointing the gun at the rest of them--you can hear the tears in her voice, and then when she crumples....aw, man. She just breaks your heart--very emotionally truthful. Great, great job. I think if she hadn't already appeared in Splendor on the Grass that year (for which she got a Best Actress nomination), she might've gotten one for WSS. (You can't be double-nominated within a category.) Another amazingly affecting moment is when the Jets are struggling with Tony's body...and two Sharks step forward to help. WOW. And the way the scene--and the movie--just....ends.

I like picking out the scene when actors win their Oscar. (For example, in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel won with the scene where she's recounting Bonnie's death: "Gimme my baby what you kilt!") For Anita, it's after the Taunting, the staging of which is almost a little too stylized to inspire real terror (almost, not quite--it's still effective). But when she's leaving--THAT'S when the truth hits the fan. The way she says "I have a message for your friend--tell him..." She is THERE, that scene could stand up in any (non-musical) drama.

I used to have (it's at my Mom's now) a novelization of West Side Story which I really enjoyed. It has last names for the characters (Riff Lorton, Maria Nunez), weirdish backstory and a slightly different narrative (Action takes over after Riff dies, not Ice/Diesel).

Although I think Richard Beymer does a decent job as Tony, very invested and sincere, I do wish he seemed a little more...dangerous. Tony is supposed to be a former gang member--it's only been a month since he's left the Jets. I'd also like to see more indications of a true friendship--a long-term friendship--between Riff and Tony. Tony seems so distant from him in their one big scene with just the two of them, and after all, it's Riff's death (like Mercutio's) that maddens Tony into killing Bernardo. This is where the source material is stronger--Romeo and Mercutio have three strong scenes together, scenes where you see how close they are, not just in what they say but how they say it, and it's believable that Romeo would flip out and avenge his friend's death. Tony says to Maria "...Riff was like a brother to me"--we are told this but not really shown it.

I had to go back and watch the Dance at the Gym a few more time. I still LOVE it. Glad Hand is still such a dork ("well, it won't hurt you to try...") and I love it when the promenade stops and you see Ice's girl opposite Bernardo. She gives him the most hilarious look, like "ex-CUSE me?!" I love how everyone freezes, and then the guys all leap forward elegantly and reclaim their women. And then the BEST sequence, the Mambo! God, it is so awesome! There's nothing like seeing a pack of amazing dancers showing each other up, one upping each other with their moves, all cocky. They all look like they're having such a good time in that scene, the characters as well as the actors, especially Riff, he has this big grin on his face. Right now I'm splitting my crush between Bernardo and Riff (I mean the characters, not the actors, although they are fine as well!).

I've decided if I ever do WSS, I want to play either Riff or Anybodys. Yeah, yeah, Maria would be great but Anybodys is such a cool little role, and Riff of course is me, Mercutio :)

Check out the original Broadway cast performing "Cool" on the Ed Sullivan show:



Aren't they amazing?

Another book I'm (re-)reading right now is Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. It came out a few years ago and got terrific reviews, deservedly so. Just a fantastic book. It's from the POV of a girl named Lee Fiora, a middle-class Indiana girl who gets herself a scholarship to the Ault School, a thinly-disguised rendition of Groton (which Sittenfeld herself attended). There is little plot, certainly almost nothing of a narrative arc, although at the end Lee tells us what became of all the characters. It simply goes from term to term--"Freshman Fall," Sophomore Winter," etc. Each term/chapter deals with a cluster of events that may or may not be addressed later in the book. Many of these events are observed by, but don't necessarily involve Lee. It sounds deadly but she's a great character--she hoards information about other people, and ruminates about their lives, their motivations. She's constantly comparing herself to others, generally negatively (she's from a different class, and is not a great student, her scholarship notwithstanding), and yet she's so much...cooler, I guess, than she'll admit. She sounds like someone I would've liked to know at that age.

Sittenfeld's observations of that particular socio-economic and regional class are interesting. At one point, Lee's parents come to visit by which point Lee is acculturated enough that her parents embarrass her. Some of this is typical teenage mortification, and some is framed as "bad" behavior--Lee is a snob. Her father even hauls off and smacks her in the face. This struck me as off--NOTHING would justify hitting your child in the face short of a physical assault. Especially a father? Second--Lee's right. Her father IS a jerk. He's annoying, he doesn't recognize (or care to) when his behavior is inappropriate, he goes out of his way to embarrass Lee. Also, apparently Easterners are perceived by Midwesterners to be less friendly.

The book is compared to other prep school standbys such as Catcher in the Rye (which my dad loved when HE was in prep school, which tells me a lot about my dad!--an idealist inverted) and A Separate Peace. Both of those books are more plot-oriented, more of a journey. There's not much of a narrative arc in Prep except with her "relationship" with Cross Sugarman, a boy she meets and crushes on her freshman year during "surprise holiday," an annual unnannounced holiday. (Mount Holyoke had something similar every October, called Mountain Day. You knew it was Mountain Day when the bells rang longer in the morning and a cheer would be heard across the campus. I remember there was a banner hung from one of the dorms that said "Hey Mrs. K [President], when's Mountain Day?") ANYWAY, I love reading about Lee's little rituals and the details she notices about her thing with him.

Supposedly it's being made into a movie--I really cannot see how. It's a very interior voice, and so little seems to happen! Or perhaps it's that what happens is not the story--it's the ruminations Lee has about the events. They're going to have to have a lot of voiceovers. imdb has lots of speculation about the casting--suggestions include that girl from Twilight (which I only know from the posters, never having seen the movie or read the book) and Leelee Sobieski. The latter is too old, and the former looks too pretty. In my mind, Lee is skinny, intense, typically in an Oxford and jeans, chin-length hair.

I'm reading a couple of interesting books right now. One is Outliers--I borrowed it from the husband of one of my Sweet Briar friends. It's about the context of success--how success is NOT just a matter of hard work and wanting to succeed, but also involves a lot of unexamined circumstantial assistance. Not just things like a good family (wealth, good schools), but even something like the month in which you were born. One case that was quoted in a review I read (this may have been what caused me to want to read the book, as I always want to know more about context, it's like an obsession with me) is how all Canadian hockey players turn out to have been born in the first four months of the year. Something prompted Gladwell to notice this coincidence, and then go back and retrace why all these players might have done so well. The Canadian youth leagues have an annual cutoff date of January 1st. So of the players who are entering the system for the first time, obviously the bigger players--those who have had the advantage of being a few months older, with a few months more muscular development--are more likely to get slotted into the select tracks. They then receive more practice time on better equipment, they progress faster as a result and so the ball starts rolling.

He also looks at cultural legacies, both ethnic and socioeconomic, and how these affect our tendencies toward success. Comparing genius-level IQs from different background, he looks at why one guy with an IQ of nearly 200 is a farmer compared to, say, Robert Oppenheimer who came from a much more elite background but tried to poison his tutor in college. Why did the latter succeed spectacularly while the former is living quietly--not teaching, not researching, not published? Because Oppenheimer was able to talk his way out of being expelled, because he had the necessary skills to negotiate with authority. According to Gladwell, middle- and upper-middle class kids are generally raised to ask questions, to assert their place, whereas children of a lower socioeconomic class are taught to keep their distance from authority--not to question or argue. (I myself noticed this when living in the ghetto building--I remember waiting endlessly for an elevator when several were broken and saying something. One of my co-residents said "there's no use in complaining, nothing'll happen." I said in exasperation "if no one says anything, you're guaranteeing that nothing will ever change.")

Another section talks about why so many feuds (and crimes involving the concept of honor) are concentrated in certain sections of the country (the South, Brooklyn). Apparently cultures of honor tend to originate in specific geographies--typically hill country containing rocky soil, such as Scotland, Sicily, the Middle East. Of course it's difficult to cultivate this kind of land, so instead of growing crops, these inhabitants tend herds. A crop farmer has a different relationship with his neighbors than a herdsman--crop farmers tend to cooperate more, because they need each other more, and also because it's impossible to steal a whole crop. However herders are more vulnerable, and therefore more defensive. And of course most of the South is populated by people of English/Scottish descent--Gladwell argues that even though almost of all of them are many generations removed from that environment, the cultural patterns are still in evidence.

The whole book is fascinating and very readable.