Criticizing Criticism: A Manifesto of Sorts

Lately, I've been asking the big "why" of more than a couple of shows I've seen: that is, "Why do this production?" But there's just as easily another question beneath that, and that's applicable to me: "Why review this production?" and along with that, what is a review, what's criticism, and what's a blog. Those of you browsing the "blogosphere" have probably come across various meditations on this theme before, but I'll do my best to address them all with this mini-manifesto, engaging with some recent reads (including an old post of Garret Eisler's, something heartfelt from Martin Denton, and some wit from Howard Kissel) and building toward a more communal ideal, where the line between artist and audience and art and criticism isn't so wide.

I love Martin Denton, and what he's doing over at nytheatre.com and his personal blog (which is attached to the intriguing, but still-in-progress indietheater.org):

No matter how terrible or misguided or perverse a show seems to be, always remember: they didn’t do it just to annoy you. Anyone who works in Off-Off-Broadway knows how hard it is to get a show up—any show. Almost everyone involved is doing the work for no money, and finding time to do it around day jobs and other responsibilities. They’re running on passion—that’s why I love OOB so much. These artists are compelled to tell us something. Try to figure out what it is. Give them room to say it.

This is from his commentary on the NY IT Awards (and don't forget to vote): even this comment on criticism itself is filled with passion and genuine love, which is where the reviewer has to come from. However, the one caveat to Denton's post above (applicable to Broadway and more and more to Off-Broadway) is that while they may not do it to annoy you, there are quite often financial reasons creeping in that lull both the subject material that's produced and cull a certain type of performance.

That's why it's so important to see new work, the kind that is still willing to be rough and risky, and why we should make it a point to go in blind: for the experience and the love, rather than simply to make notes on a play. Denton says he doesn't write things down during a show because he doesn't want to abstract the experience: one way to know how much I'm enjoying a show is to look and see how much I'm writing down. (The true value of a press kit is not needing to take factual notes.) I disagree that what's happening in the audience has relevance to the show (especially with the rudeness of ringtones), but this here's a pretty accurate job description (can we standardize it?) of a reviewer: "(a) have the experience, and then (b) report honestly and articulately about it."

Nobody's questioning Isherwood's paper proselytizing ability; it's when they feel he's been dishonest with judging the work, or when he's veered from critiquing the experience to making moral (or otherwise) judgement calls that he gets slammed by his readers (as with the infamous assessment of Adam Rapp's Essential Self-Defense). On the other side is the danger of those with too little experience: although Cynthia Ozick writes her April 2007 Harper's essay to talk about literary bloggers, theater bloggers are only one remove away:

Less innocent is the rise of the non-professional reviewer on Amazon--though "rise" suggests an ascent, whereas this computerized exploitation, through commerce and cynicism, of typically unlettered exhibitionists signals a new low in public responsibility. Unlike the valued book club reviewer, who may be cozily challenged by companionable discourse, Amazon's "customer reviewer" goes uncontested and unedited: the customer is always right. And the customer, the star of this shoddy procedure, controls the number of stars that reward or denigrate writers....Most customer reviewers, though clearly tough customers when it comes to awarding stars, are not tough enough--or well-read enough--for tragic realism or psychological complexity. Amazon encourages naive and unqualified readers who look for easy prose and uplifting endings to expose their insipidities to a mass audience.

These are the people who have an experience, but have no experience from which to write more than the flimsiest of visceral responses. These opinions are valid, but only when weighed in aggregate: on their own, featured as they are, they are often too personal to engage the work, and as Ozick points out, too exclusive to provoke commentary (which is why I will always have comments turned on). So to add another another items to Denton's admirable start: (c) a reviewer must be looking to add to the discussion which the piece itself, in its creation, has already sparked.

This is what I think Garrett was getting at when he reviewed Linnea and wondered "if it was even worth reviewing at all."

Exposing the flaws of prominent productions that are taken seriously by others is an essential function of criticism. (See Richard Gilman's famous contrarian essay "On Destructive Criticism.") But something like "Linnea" seems the result of some part-time theatre enthusiasts (no doubt with serious ambitions) who are just not ready for prime time. I'm all for letting them hone their craft out of the public eye until they have something really ready.

There's a reason New Theater Corps refuses to publish bashes of shows: we're simply not interested in beating a dead horse, nor are we interested in promoting one. Our reviews are aimed at pointing out shows that get limited exposure and helping audiences find the shows that would catch their eye, if only their eye was focused on it. Here's the fourth function of a reviewer then: imagine the finest story ever, written on a grain of rice. It is (d) the reviewer's job to be the magnifying glass for a show, to serve as an after-the-fact amanuensis who is more interested in highlighting talent than shutting it down.

It is Howard Kissel who makes the greatest case for reviewing:

[W]hether or not their ultimate judgments are sound, they ought also make their prose lively. It doesn't help the theatre when readers are sent to shows that are boring, but it's even less help if their writing is mundane. Whether praising or panning a show, the critic's basic job description is to make the art itself sound exciting.

Yes, here's the essential final part of reviewing: to be art in of itself. Not just a magnifying glass, but (*d) a mirror too, one that encompasses not only the play, but also the critic, one that continues the experience from the page to the stage and to the people.

Many reviews are written with an eye to scoring intellectual points rather than simply informing the reader whether or not he'll have a good time. In fact, many reviewers do not like to see themselves as consumer advisers. They are writing about an art form and want their observations to be treated seriously, not simply as a matter of thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Nothing is as easy as Caesar's ominous verdict makes it look: we should treat the plays we see with the utmost of respect, as if they were gladiators themselves, men and women who should live, regardless of whether we ourselves were merely entertained. As Kissel reiterates: "it's much easier to write a negative review than a positive one," so let's keep with Denton's first comment and remain honest, above all else, which leads us to the final ideal (e) that a reviewer exercise thought and care and -- dare I say it -- love. To go back to Ozick for a moment:

What is needed are critics who can tease out hidden imperatives and assumptions held in common, and who will create the contentious conditions that underlie and stimulate a living literary consciousness. In this there is something almost ceremonial, or ceremoniously slow: unhurried thinking, the ripened long (or sidewise) view, the gradualism of nuance.

So, a distilled manifesto of what I will do my best to become as I continue this metamorphic journey as a critic:

(a) I will look the experience first and then
(b) be honest, always, about it.
(c) My goal is to add to the community, to
(d) magnify the artistic experience, and
(*d) to mirror the work with as much craft as possible in the review.
(e) Finally, to linger in that moment, to nourish with love, not hate.

To do these things, to spring forth not just stale commentary but living, breathing text on what has blown our mind or percolated our soul or resonated in our being . . . that's exciting. That's worth reading. To do these things is to be a real writer, interpreting the world through the narrator (or critic's) lens, the author's (hopefully experienced) viewpoint, and to make our work counterpart to theirs: to use Ozick's beautiful closing phrase, to make our work a "ghostly twin" to theirs.

Plagiarize This!

Last week was a big week in Greek drama for me, and it resurrected the idea of plagiarism once again, as in: is it wrong for an artist to steal if it changes the work? I'll stress: my qualifier is that the new is different than the old, that you don't just add a line about cellphones to Alcestis and slap your name on the play as "Adapted by." How can it be wrong to play with text in theater if one of the things we celebrate is the way in which directors find ways to play with shows?

It comes down to money and ego, but remember that the words are out there. Just because you find them first doesn't mean you own them, especially when those words are a product of the experiences born out of this life. But if I can go out and write a better Harry Potter book than J. K. Rowling, if I can convince people to read it, why don't I have the right to do so? Theoretically, it won't hurt her capital unless my product is genuinely better (or achieves the odd sort of social popularity of cumulative advantage): in either case, I've a right to do so.

The triggering thought extends back to the controversial Harper's article of February 2007 in which Jonathan Lethem steals text (only to credit it in the end notes) to make a verbal collage on the subject of plagiarism. He's linked different ideas in a new way, and hence elevated the individual thoughts and methods, in much the same way that we vaunt the ability to "tag" things on the Internet and to explore the heretofore unseen connections between what's out there. In medicine, in sports, in history, in pretty much anything but art, this is an incredible boon: doctors making realizations about their differential diagnoses, coaches and trainers coming up with new strategies, historians making new realizations from the multiple angles . . . only in the "creative" arts is it a bad thing that we're scanning books onto the Internet or spinning off ideas to invent something new. I want to put James Tyrone in a play I'm working on: why not?

There's another article in that Harper's issue that was somewhat overlooked, and that was a joint piece between artist Joy Garnett and photographer Susan Meiselas as to who had the right to use a picture of "Molotov Man." Well, all Meiselas did was snap the camera at the right moment, to do what some cultures still believe to be "soul stealing" and then develop the print and find a willing publisher. What makes her the owner of that moment in life, then? An artist is really just in the right place at the right time: as Steve Martin writes in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the best artist is really just open to receive the idea at the moment it happens. In this case, Joy catches the reflection of genius off another person's "work" and in turn she adopts it. In this case, the controversy actually causes a whole cadre of netizens to adopt the art, and suddenly we're swimming in beautiful new works. And how can anyone possibly find that a bad thing?

Maybe I'm naive, but the artist is a filter. He or she (and gender is really irrelevant here) experiences the world and then creates something from those experiences. But the world is the universe and everything in it. Including plays, photos, advertisements, and so forth. The idea that work should be kept out of the public domain for x years is only more ridiculous in the medical community. But wait, you ask: if not for the protection of rights, why would anybody struggle so hard to create at all? Well shit, I say. If you're in this to make money and not because you love what you're doing, then you're in the wrong business. This will, inevitably, lead me into the class discussion that's come up on other blogs, but rich or poor, if you're striving to create from a commercial aspect, your work is already tainted by a need to succeed, and a fear of experimentation (or of succeeding at your experiment only to have someone take the next logical step off your experiment before you can).

The commercial world works so hard to force things into the public domain: lights flash, bells whistle, and smells drift at us through almost every orifice. When we succumb and allow the world to transform us, we should then be careful in our most intimate, free-thought moments of creation to then partition ourselves from all that is not truly "public domain" once more? I liked OEDIrx, but didn't like Orestes 2.0. Both, however, gave me thoughts for my own ideas (which is why there's no such thing as a bad night at the theater): why can't I use them? Chuck Mee was recently subverted himself, in the brilliant transFigures. Why shouldn't they use him? Notice how all this reviving hasn't stopped anyone from doing straight classics, like Prometheus Bound (to their own detriment), see how The Polish Play hasn't ended the career of Macbeth (this version itself being an adaptation) or Ubu Roi.

I'm a big supporter of the thoughts of the masses over the thoughts of the few, and when you limit anything, you come close to ruining it. Obviously, you shouldn't call something Beethoven or Samuel Beckett if you've altered their originals . . . but remember, it's when we try to call their adapted work something else (without permission) that we get into trouble as artists. Look at how the blogosphere works. I see a post that inspires me, I link to it and post about it. Someone else reads mine (and perhaps back to theirs), and then write their own. Suddenly there's discussion; suddenly there's something new. Nothing is wrong, everything is sacred. Go ahead, plagiarize this. You must.

An Intimate Look

I've noticed a growing slant in my reviews, and I want to honestly air it. If you perform a show in a small, cramped space -- if you use the audience for part of the performance -- if there's not so much distance between the stage and the first row -- I'm probably going to be more interested in your show. Now, it's not a bias: I still like highly theatrical Broadway shows that rely on distance and space, but that's an aesthetic type of show, like the heavily stylized Coast of Utopia, which I connected to more on a visual than emotional level. But I can't help but think that Well did so much better off-Broadway than on because it had an easier time connecting (filling a smaller house, too), and that one of the reasons I liked Macbeth: A Walking Shadow better than the Public's version was that I felt more implicit in the show.

My basic take is that shows have compensated for the ebbing fourth-wall in theater by simply increasing the comfort zone between audience and actor. What it results in is an audience that has the luxury of tuning out; an audience of observers, but no more activists. I like that the Neo-Futurists of Too Much Light Make the Baby Go Blind will pull you up on-stage, and that if you mess with them, they'll mess with you. I like that in volume of smoke, Isaac Butler made us implicit in the theatrical tragedy of 1881 by placing his actors (who played audience members) right next to us in the audience.

I saw Howard Katz and Los Angeles within the same month, and liked the latter, less professional production more. Why? Because in the cramped underbelly of The Flea, with a suffering girl slumped over the divider, her head practically in my lap, I'm more alert, more sympathetic, and more interested in the work. I'm active, whereas with Marber's play, I was admiring the acting, sure, but also drawn to the noisy old man beside me who kept fidgeting with something in a plastic bag. Alfred Molina is far more entertaining than old men with mysterious packages (usually), but proximity is a huge factor in personal investment.

If we really are becoming more apathetic theatergoers, we need to get more invested in our shows. Hard to ignore a show that's being performed in a bathroom, an elevator, or a train. (Or, as in The Sublet Experiment, in someone's house.) This upcoming interactive play I'm seeing, Accomplice: New York, promises to mix theater with life. Rotozaza's Five in the Morning as PS122 uses audience members, or something. From what I heard about Hell House, it was a very lively experience. Maybe I'm just too young to sit idly in my chair and appreciate a show; maybe I need to depreciate in age before I can do that. Or maybe it's really just about restoring that connection between the stage and the audience, about remembering that we're all really, when it comes right down to it, on the same stage, all together, all one.

The Beauty of Being Wrong

Earlier in the week, I questioned all of the new plays that seem to be cropping up with scripts, but without performers. I asked whether or not these were works of theater, or if there was some sort of requirement that would distinguish the people begging for change on a crowded subway car from the people begging for change on a crowded subway car who called themselves actors. Well, I'm still wondering if it's fair to call certain shows theater, like the glib and impactless An Oak Tree, but I would like to rescind my pre-buzz commentary on Doublethink, which I've since seen.

Simply put: it's theater if it is a performance meant to illustrate something -- be that a moral, a story, an emotion, or an idea -- to an audience and given that the performance isn't meant for personal gain (i.e., a con game). If a show is produced simply to make money, the greatest impetus for performance is removed from the equation: that is, the why of performance: why this show, why this night, why, why, why. To use the two examples I keep swinging about: An Oak Tree told a rather bland story that constantly kept both the audience and performer at arm's end, more like inviting someone to read off of cue cards than asking them to use their confusion and personality to join a more involved process (the upcoming NBC show, Thank God You're Here, tries to mine the neuroses of comedians for laughs). Doublethink, on the other hand, already starts on the high note of a social experiment: we have the intimate privilege of seeing how two actors interpret the same directions, whereas they, seperated by a screen and blinded by floor lights, washed out in the dark, can only follow those directions to the best of their ability (it appears to be very freeing).

In An Oak Tree, there was very little direction (beyond Tim Crouch's stifling control), and the theatricality didn't extend far beyond Crouch's shiny coat and shinier pate. Rotozaza, on the other hand, have not only sleekly produced a lot of intricate technical effects for Doublethink, but they've managed to keep the actors engaged directly in their world, wheras Crouch kept releasing his guest from theirs. One thing to consider: I've only see one night of either performance, and for all I know, An Oak Tree was better with another performer, and Doublethink could be bombing right now, as I type this. But I maintain that Doublethink is grounded in true theatrical conventions, whereas An Oak Tree is a manipulative stage-show, like a bar-mitzvah magician, and that the former is true theater because of its encompassing vision, whereas the latter is failed hypnotism because of its limited goals.

I'll continue trying to define theater, here, as I continue to see shows as often as I can: if any of you out there have genre-bending recommendations, please make them, and let's all see if we can find the trust, communication, and committment of Doublethink as we go about seeing and recording as much as we can about theater as humanly possible.

Why Nobody Listens to Critics

The more I write reviews and the more I read them, the more attuned I am to the selective presentation of press clippings and quotes. I understand that a lot of reviews tend to be mixed, and the publicist obviously has a need to protect his client from the snarky asides, but when you're reduced to quoting one word ("Great") or when you're deliberately misrepresenting the original content . . . at what point do we stand up, wave our arms around, and shudder? Now more than ever, I'm convinced we need some sort of aggregate theater system that eliminates (or at least provides a second opinion to) the fictitious quote-mongering out there.

Here's an example:

PRESS: "An indestructible global blockbuster! It will probably run forever!"

NEW YORK TIMES (Jason Zinoman):

“Be,” the latest low-budget spectacle trying to tap into the seemingly inexhaustible tourist market for banging on trash cans in unison, seems like a collection of loose parts stitched together to create an indestructible global blockbuster. Produced by the Israeli company Mayumana, it starts with elements of “Stomp” (like drumming on one’s chest), throws in some from “Blue Man Group” (giant tubes) and then adds sex appeal. It will probably run forever. (I just hope I’m not quoted on the front of the theater.)

Let's be honest: with the latter quote, Zinoman was begging for it. But the first part? Dishonest exclamations. Mind you, I enjoyed the show. I wasn't blown away by it, but I wouldn't advocate against it (like Isherwood against Rapp). This is why people should just go to the theater more regularly, to be surprised: then all this nonsensical buzz wouldn't matter.

At the 032607 blogging panel, one of the questions that was raised was in reference to the quid pro quo symbiosis of the critic and publicist. I ask that question again, as critics routinely allow themselves to be misrepresented: can anything be done to stop such indebtedness?

Surprise, Surprise

Riffing off a lovely post by the Playgoer, I wonder if anybody goes to the theater to be surprised any more. In part because I'm trying to win a race, in part because I'm an editor and a critic, and in part because I just love theater, I rarely know anything about the show I'm going to see on any given night. Have a cool poster or postcard? (Orestes 2.0) Nice; I'm game. Are you a theater company that I trust, like The Flea? (Smoke and Mirrors) Dope; I'm there. Discount offer? (Serendib) Sweet. I don't know what I'm going to get, but it hardly matters at affordable off-off and off-Broadway theaters. I admit, when I'm shelling out full-price to see Spring Awakening, I consider what I may or may not have heard about it, but even then, I don't want to know what happens in the show itself. (The gimmicked audience and needless use of meta elements on the chalkboard, ugh; everything else, anachronistic staging, yes!)

The only way my guerrilla audience tactics work is if you accept one reasonable premise: there is no such thing as bad theater. There are awful shows, but even those evoke something in you (and I actually find passable theater, or bland theater, to be far worse). And if you're at all involved in the arts, as a writer, director, amanuensis, whatever: it's a learning experience. You may see a production that gets everything wrong . . . except for one shining moment of stagecraft, and that's what lives in you and fills you. Yes, you've got to have passion for this to work; but why should we as an audience be any less receptive than we expect the actors to be? (Amendment: if you're torn between two shows, neither of which runs past the evening in question, there's nothing wrong in doing a little research; you'll feel more content with your choice, rather than restlessly wondering about the other show you're missing.)

The other advantage toward being surprised is that you lose preconceived notions. Nothing kills live theater more than stale expectation. If you've read a play before seeing it, or you've seen other productions, you should do your best to block those from your mind: we ask the actors to treat each night like it's their first, and we should do the same from our seats. I consider myself a critic, but I have very little patience for comparative analysis (and even less for those who preface their reviews with showoffy references to past productions). What's important is the immediate, visceral response (which is why blogs have such a future) -- as a person -- and what follows are the deep-seated thoughts and observations about why that work affected you as it did, or where you feel things could've been improved (in technical relation, perhaps, to other work).

I love theater. That should be enough.

I Know My Calculus: It Says NYC Plus Theater Equals Naught

So, Robin Pogrebin reports from the NYT today that Signature Theater will not be moving into the new Ground Zero Arts Center (which would make it the second theater in the neighborhood, right after the sleek, wave-of-the-future 3LD Performing Arts Center). The reason, according to Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff is "because of the cost and complicated logistics of having the two institutions share a confined space." That cost, by the way?

Estimates of the performing arts center’s cost were approaching $700 million, city officials said. Under the new plan, the center and a new Signature Theater are expected to come in at about $350 million combined.

I'm assuming the unspoken $350 million are going toward the Joyce Theater, a center for dance that will remain there. I'm happy for the Joyce Theater, though I'm not a dance enthusiast, but why is it okay to spend that much on one theater, and not that much for Signature? (And I won't even mention the other two companies that were dropped from the roster. Well, okay: one of which, the Drawing Center, seems to have been ousted for "controvserial programming," which sounds a lot like censorship to me.) I've got a better question: why do we need to spend $350 million dollars to build a theater? If you've already given up the dream for erecting a cultural mecca to counter the bleak terrorism of nineeleven, what does it matter? Certainly the artists themselves, who have worked in far nastier off-Broadway spaces than the current location of the Signature Theater, can deal with a less-than-perfect (and cheap) building.

Nor do they really need that much money to make a brilliant building. I mentioned 3LD earlier:

In August 2002, Three-Legged Dog committed to a 20-year lease on the space at 80 Greenwich Street from the building's owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. By last August, the group managed to raise $3.1 million toward the $4.6 million arts complex. The largest contributor has been the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs through the support of Alan J. Gerson, City Council Member, District 1. Other contributors have been the Luesther T. Mertz Advised Fund of the New York Community Trust, Booth Ferris Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Non-Profit Finance Fund. Critical financing has been provided by FJC, the Fund for the City of New York, and the Alliance of Resident Theaters, New York.

Their space looks phenomenal, the ticket prices are affordable, and they did it for $4.6M. You're telling me that it costs sixty times that to move three blocks north into what is more-and-more looking like just another high-rise office habitation? Hell, if the city is that bad at negotiating contracts, we should give all our property over to the MTA: they know how to contract things out (although their station-work on Cortland Street slips past their February 2006 deadline).

Here's an irony though:

[T]he city hopes to move the Signature to Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway, cater-corner to 7 World Trade Center. Fiterman, part of the Borough of Manhattan Community College, was heavily damaged by falling debris on 9/11.

This, of course, is the former residence of 3LD, so at least one theater company seems to have benefitted from the transition. In some ways, this may end up being a boon for Signature Theater, which needs to move out of their current Tenth Avenue theater by 2011 (a real loss for the neighborhood) -- it's not like this new cultural center will be ready in time, given the boondoggle of the last five years. Either way, someone should let them know: their website still has hope for the WTC district.

End note? Stop mistakenly equating theater with luxury: we don't need to hemmorage cash to put on a good show, and some of the most inventive work is made from its mother, necessity. On Broadway, producers don't seem to understand how to make a show for less than an ever-ballooning billion dollars (hyperbole, lest I get hate mail from equally snarky producers), so let's please cut the crap folks, and use some common business sense.

So Easy, Even A Monkey Could Do It!

Last year I covered a much-hyped show that I was most unimpressed with. An Oak Tree was mind-numbing gimmickry: one actor who knows the script, and another--who has never read or seen the show--doing a cold reading off a clipboard. I'd love to hear what James Urbaniak got out of his personal experience performing the play at random, but as a casual observer, all I could think was that I could do that. I've performed, and I don't think I'm a terrible actor, but trust me: if I think I can do something, you aren't doing a very good job.

While browsing Culturebot (yes, Guitar Hero is a fantastic game), I read hype about an upcoming show at PS122 in the form of twin shows called Doubletalk and Five in the Morning. The picturesque charm described in the synopsis doesn't sound all that bad, but have you noticed how many theater companies are relying on intrigue to get people to the theaters lately? Even fantastic multimedia shows that I loved, like HERE's Stanley (2006) or 3LD, which is mounting the upcoming Losing Something, can't keep from hyping the gen-re-defining technologies going into the performance, as if that's the reason to see a show. When I had the pleasure to speak with Mark Russell on an episode of Theater Talk, I spoke honestly that I thought the appeal of his Under The Radar Festival at The Public would be the lure of seeing an expertly curated open-house of out-of-city performers, bringing new (but professionally culled) works to the stage. I wasn't disillusioned at the festival either: I saw more of Canadian Daniel MacIvor's narrative-bending work and puppetry that seemed a natural evolution of the past. So yes, we all want to see something new, but it has to be more than new -- and this should go without saying -- it has to be good, too.

Yes, But Is It Theater?

Which brings me back to the act-by-numbers approach of this new theatrical rage. I've seen happenings, or even flash-mobs, that involved the audience in a carefully planned theatrical experience, usually without them even being aware of their participation. But to put that same concept on a stage, and then to try to think outside the box, when you are, by nature, usually in a black-box theater . . . heavens, what are you doing?

Is all this post-post-drama even theater? Isn't that the same as saying (as we have with art) that all we need to do is exhibit something on a stage for it to be theater? The two shows at PS 122 have sets and, as with An Oak Tree, use silent audio devices to feed their characters text, so you can make the argument that there's still creativity. It's not quite improv: there are scripts. But it's not a reading. And it's not technically acting (any more than going about life is). So what is it?

032607

Welcome back to the official relaunch of my actual blogging. If you're looking for reviews, you want to go back to my archival site, That Sounds Cool. But hey, so long as you're here, why not stay and check out the view? I've left the remnants of my stalwart-but-rapidly-staling rants below from when this place was called Verify This; the name of the site now speaks for itself. I don't believe in mixing blogging with criticism, so this will be the site where I make comments on my comments, and on the selected musings of others. As for the title of this post, the rather cryptic string of numbers refers to the inspiring date for this relaunch: a little blogging symposium moderated by David Cote on behalf of the Summer Play Festival salon series, with special guests like Isaac Butler, Garret Eisler, Cara Joy David, and George Hunka. (And by "guests like," I mean those specific people, specifically.)

The observations of the evening were what you'd expect, but they did shed some light into the conflict-of-interest debate that wound up removing two prominent bloggers from the gaping freelance staff of the New York Times, and the usual questions about the purpose of blogs and the use of complimentary tickets boomed throughout the attic studio. One clarification: I don't get free tickets for Show Showdown, the four-person blog/chronicle/race to see the most shows in 2007. If they were offered, I would certainly take them, although I would never pander to a publicist to maintain a sycophantic relationship. (I do receive tickets through New Theater Corps, the Theater Talk-sponsored blog for young critics for which I currently serve as editor, and occasionally through my own site and my own connections.) I consider the work we do at Show Showdown to be a valuable, albeit snarky and unprofessional, asset to anyone looking to see what's out there, and while the gimmicky nature of the site may explain why it is one of the first blogs to have been featured in the Arts & Leisure section, the work there is genuine and produced out of a real and undeniable love of theater. Blogs tend not to make money: after listening to the evening's panel, if not for love, what then?

The one worry I had was listening to how Cara Joy David had received industry "threats" because of her non-libelous and column-like posts. Does Michael Riedel get the same? Is an "insider" or a "journalist" not allowed to have an opinion outside of the news? Heck, they wouldn't be human if they didn't. (There are, for the record, many alien news anchors.) It's one thing for an artist to write to a critic and discuss a comment or review (some more vividly than others) -- and in fact, the panelists seemed to welcome raging debates on their sites or via more ignorable e-mail -- and it's another to use the leverage of excompensation, like some Pope of Theater, against freethinkers and freer writers.

I also wanted to address an issue that didn't come up at the salon, and this was the necessity of blogs to review certain shows. Theater, especially off-off-Broadway theater, the kind that doesn't get coverage in even the local media, is the most transitory art form out there. As a happening, that's fine, but as the product of hard work, it drives me nuts that there is often no record of the fine theater being produced every day. A network of hardworking bloggers can help point out some of the overlooked gems the city has to offer, and the rapid response times allowed by online publishing allows the word to get out almost instantaneously. I'm a big fan of Isaac's process-oriented musings of theater craft, and I check Garret's journalism (vulturized from other writers or not) religiously, but don't leave legitimate review-oriented sites out of the blogosphere.

It's a pleasure to be back, folks. I hope you'll stick around for a while.

Aaron vs. The Last Month

How like me. I make a New Year's Resolution (note the emphatic use of capitalization) to write more frequently and then I completely cease to do so. Okay, I may have been tied up (not literally; the last thing I need is for this site to somehow become cross-referenced by a wacky porn index, as I often find when Googling myself), but that's no excuse. Never mind that I've been writing a review every other day, working overtime at my job, and setting up an alternate blog to archive all my work at (http://thatsoundscool.blogspot.com). And forget, for a moment, that I've started writing short stories again, you know, so that at least the creative juices are flowing, if not absolutely spilling out all over the place. I should've been more dedicated to posting these rants here, not because I'm vain enough to think anyone reads them, but to ensure that when I become more popular there is plenty of material for people to blackmail me with. I'd hate to leave the little people empty handed.

But none of this really explains what I have against the last month. After all, I was on TV, wasn't I? I made a nice little cameo appearance on Theater Talk, for which I have been an active member of the New Theater Corps (http://newtheatercorps.blogspot.com). That's a positive investment on my criticism work, and it looks like it all turned out pretty good. Or so says my vanity, coupled with my ego. So why exactly am I railing against The Last Month (again, emphasis intentional)?

Perhaps it's because I was derailed for a while thanks to some lovely food poisoning. I don't know what I ever did to Thai food, or to the Spice restaurant chain (I swear, I only ever recommended the place), but they got me pretty good. I'm glad I lasted through the season premier of "24," but only just. Ironically, or perhaps allegorically, that's how long my little fit lasted. And there must've been a ticking clock, because every hour or so, I'd take a "commerical break" over at the bathroom. I'm not sure if food poisoning does the same thing as a colonoscopy or enema (nor am I entirely sure what those nasty sounding words are, I just like using them), but I'm as clean as I'm going to get.

The whole dreadful experience also made me reconsider my stance on alcohol, as did a rather random conversation with a former EIC (not the one who's been helpful in my job search), who, eerily enough, memorized a column I wrote on the subject. Let me just say: God save the Queen. For the record, he's probably reading this, too. God save you too, and good luck in your new job. Digression aside: my new stance on alcohol is that I really, seriously, definately don't need it. Beer in particular, it just does nothing for me. Aside from its wacky ability to make me blackout and do stupid things, I'm better off without it. Which leads me to a slight problem: what exactly do you DO, in terms of hanging out at local establishments, if you don't drink? I should mention also that I hate coffee and tea, so a lounge isn't much better. And we've already seen what hanging out in local restaurants accomplishes.

All of this has been a little too personal for me, despite my keeping romance (i.e. the lack thereof) out of it. I think the real reason for my anger against the Last Month is that nothing really happened in that entire month worth ranting about. Well, you know the old salt: when the news isn't happening, it's time to make the news. See you all next month: it's time for me to Make a Difference (ibid).

Aaron on Writing

I love the New Year. Full of promise, full of hope, and a shot that cries out twenty-four times across the world. That twenty-four-fold ringing in reminds me, for some reason, of perspective. That we all experienced the same thing--a new year--but all had different experiences of it; in fact, we even celebrated it at different times (because there's no one correct viewpoint). And it reminded me, as I made my resolutions (drunken, but still truthful), of just how much I love writing.

Think of it: we all live in the same world, and we all see something different. The goal of writing is not to assert a definite (that's why everything must eventually come down to opinion; even a news piece assumes certain societal facts, e.g., that a murder is wrong). The goal of writing is to allow the reader another viewpoint, a look into someone else's soul. Bias, therefore, is the most essential requirement for original fiction: it is when we lose sight of our internal prejudice that we create the most bland and un-compelling fiction. The homogeneity of writing is a terrible prospect; give me my Wallace, give me my Rushdie, my Auster, my Coover. Let no two writers be the same.

That said, everybody knows that I want to eventually start a "fucking" literary magazine. Not just fiction, but lots of edgy opinion pieces, ones preaching a more aesthetic view of the news and a more original interpretation of the world, rather than just the crusty essay prose that passes for compelling reading today. (Note: there's nothing wrong with Harper's or Atlantic Monthly, but I'd like to see the boundaries pushed also.) I was talking with one of my friends, another Aaron, about The Nation, and we discussed their approach to certain topics: lots of individually slanted pieces espousing the same thing in myriad ways. The only problem with The Nation is that their small sampling of the infinite viewpoints comes entirely from the left. (Granted, there are very few intelligent, edgy, conservative writers, which I think is very telling, but it'd be nice to see them attempt a little panache in their prose.)

Let's stop trying to deny our inner voice, our true writers. Let's conform only enough for people to still get a general impression, and screw them beyond that. There's no write way to right something, and if you udnreastnd waht I'm wirintg (or think you understand), what else really matters? Ultimately, you're the writer: you decide what my words mean, no matter how clearly I delineate them. "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy cow." Pretty clear. But you'll decide how brown or quick the fox is, how high he jumped, and if the cow was just lazy or hung-over. Let's work our minds, let's challenge ourselves: let's write! Happy New Year!

Aaron vs. Celebrity
I saw an advertisement for FOX's upcoming "Skating with Celebrities" and no, it's not a spoof of "Dancing with Celebrities" (which in turn, is not a parody of anything, not intentionally, at least). And as the episode ended, I realized that I really didn't know any of the celebrities. Which begs the question: What constitutes a celebrity? Are you a star simply because you were once on Full House? It seems to me that there has to be more to it than that, otherwise there's probably just as many celebrities as there are ordinary people.

According to the dictionary (that little read source), you need to be a widely known person. Being a former anything disqualifies you, as you are currently nothing. That is, off the radar. Negligible. Absent. In fact, if we're tuning in to watch just out of disbelief that you are actually still alive, you are anti-celebrity. Next time, hire yourself some paparazzi (an ugly necessity to maintain that image), and stay in that artificially created spotlight. I mean, I was a child model (that is, I was in a single print advertisement); should I qualify? (The answer is: Yes. But that's another story.)

No, a celebrity is maintained by making the personal image synonymous with their work. That's why high-profile musicians have such high-profile stories. All the rappers have their feuds, all the teeny-boppers have their... well... their "teeny-boppers," and all the rock bands wear their hearts on their sleeves, chests, ass-checks... wherever the ink fits, really. Unless an actor throws a phone at someone every now and then, we tend to forget the films they've been it: the principle is, we have to be interested equally in the person and their work for them to become celebrity.

Now, I admire that one of the contestants is a rehabilitated drug-addict (that is, literally, a former child-actor). But his sad story is no different from that of Alonzo Bodden, who won (on an untelevised episode) the final Last Comic Standing. Nor that of some of the contestants on other reality TV shows. But are any of these people necessarily celebrities? I could pull some other names out of hat, friends of mine, and you'll either know them or not. What makes them a celebrity, rather than an actor, or a comic, &c, is whether you know them before I mention them. There's just too many people out there who have all performed at one point or another for them all to be celebrities. FOX needs to be honest about their schadenfraude-ing duties and just label this "Cheap Laughs."

Honestly though, we should just know people for their accomplishments, not for their status. Elvis is an iconic name, just like Jesus, but I really don't know the work of either. Should I call these people celebrities? And if I respect them just for the bankability of their name, isn't that far worse than honoring their legacies and messages? I know at least with the latter of those two icons, many people have forgotten the point because they've gotten wrapped up in the mythos, the "celebrity." Let's also think about these celebrities: they're all actors, media whores already. What about some Nobel laureates performing? What about John Ashbery?

We're lost in the pop-pop flash of the glitzy media. We want to quantify fame so that we can strive to achieve and own it, as if there were some logarithm we could perform to achieve it. And failing that, we want to laugh at those who had an opportunity for stardom, but lost it. In doing so, we inadvertently fall prey to the biggest paradox of them all: we can't see what happens to someone after their fifteen minutes are up without extending their fame. So we'll never get to see what happens when the fame falls away. And we'll go on chasing those celebrity ghosts, those people that never were or never deserved to be, from channel to channel, always indulging the hope that one day, that will be me (I mean . . . us).

Aaron vs. Legislative Wordplay

You Republican raconteurs, you. Your conservative chicanery of inelegant (yet elegant) nonsense phrasings is no surprise after Bush first elucidated "fuzzy math" (and fuzzier English). Now that I've managed to get that out of my system (at least for one sentence), here's an idea I came up with. The current political engine works is quite adept at calling a spade anything but a spade (how about "rathbon"?), so let's not be left behind in the lurch (ditch, gulf, &c). In the spirit of Paul Auster, who once let a madman propose a world in which each object had a one-to-one relationship with its name ("City of Glass"), let's come up with some new names, and skirt all the bull-ocracy.

The example I'd like to choose is "abortion." Both sides of the issue have taken positive-sounding names ("The Right to Choose" versus "The Right to Life") and put their own unique on what is essentially the same issue (though the way they talk, it's hard to see, let alone hear). It's a heavy-handed subject, but what I find most astonishing are the ways in which each party chooses to describe the act itself. I've never seen such graphic descriptions of violence (we allow this on TV) as some of what I've heard. Babies vacuumed out of their mothers, still wailing with the sound of silence from unformed trachea, non-existent vocal cords, absent lungs. The malicious cutting up and disposal of embryos and the black marketeering for the stem cell market, as if people enjoy handling so much meat (and yes, some people do). They've (the anti-abortioneers) really vilified the subject. The other side, not surprisingly, talks of painless procedures and acts of mercy. They find ways to make a teenager's sluttishness look like victimization and come up with the most ridiculous of excuses. Yes, accidents happen, and I accept that. However, I don't believe that people's privates have a magnetic attraction that somehow causes the one to fall atop the other purely through the miracle of science. There's got to be a little willpower, or barring that, some blood vessel expansion. That comes first ("then," as the nursery rhyme for the modern age goes, "comes marriage, then more sex, then comes ____ with the baby carriage," and if you're really lucky, love, eventually*).

I fear that all of this banter may have distracted from my actual stance on abortion. --Good. What I actually think about it is irrelevant; we're only judging words today, and how they're used to make a point. So my solution to the whole abortion problem is to call it something else (much like the GLBT community is currently dealing with "union" instead of "marriage"). What I mean is, let them ban abortions. You'll just go in for some perfectly legal cosmetic liposuction. If that's a little too edgy a concept (think Nip/Tuck**), just call it something else. Some word that they haven't banned yet. Because once they have to start defining exactly what it is that you're not allowed to do, a battle will be able to be fought on clear grounds, without all this ginger-stepping that allows one term to mean so many varying things. Our government can't agree on what "torture" means, nor "warfare" or "terrorism" for that matter. And as long as we allow them to use such generic and non-descriptive terms, they can continue to avoid the issue.

So let's forgo the wordplay, let's stop playing Scrabble. We can still agree to disagree, but let's at least agree on what we're disagreeing about. Otherwise, we'll never really solve anything. We'll just be generating a lot of hot air.*** And really, you don't want to be a rathbon, do you?

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*It occurs to me that "Love Eventually" might make a far better movie than "Love Actually." If you'd like to purchase a treatment or script, my contact information is on the link to the right.
Let's just come up with another name for abortion, okay?
**And please, Ryan Murphy, don't ever let the advertisers dictate to you on how to sell your product. This season may be notoriously awful, but you shouldn't have to censor yourself because the hot-dog vendors hawking products on the sidelines of your episodic drama are pulling out.
***And the last thing a country with Global Warming (or, more specifically, the fact that our own environmental actions are destroying Nature itself, and I'd be more specific if I knew the actual science behind it--again, the avoidance of strict terminology allows this country to avoid taking responsibility for what they call "cutesy science") needs is more hot air.

Aaron vs. Private Schools

First off, if it is possible to be without bias on a subject . . . I don't have that restraint. I hate the concept of a private school. And second, so far as research or experience goes to back that statement up: I have none. I went to a public elementary school, a public middle school, a public high school, and a public college. Never mind that the middle school was M.S. 54, a specialized program (Delta) for the more scholastically apt (N.B. and ignore that I was not initially accepted), and forget that my high school was the academically elite and studiously sterilized Stuyvesant (N.B. and again, excuse that I passed the entrance exam by only three points). The fact of the matter is; I never paid for a higher (or even lower) education, and I know nothing about private schools, let alone Catholic schools (save the stories our parents tell us to help them sleep better at night). I know of people who have attended these once-removed-from-reality edifices (facades, really) of education. That’s about the extent of my knowledge.

Of course, having a basis for an argument is irrelevant (or so many Catholic schools, not to mention our Ultimate Administration of governance), so let loose the gripes of wrath. A friend of mine (Sharon) recently informed me that her hometown (Sparta) had gained a moment of infamous popularity thanks to an MTV headline. Well, let me be the first to congratulate her and then to tell her that there is such a thing as bad press. So far as I know, Sparta was a country in ancient Greece (a place far removed in time and place), and the current one, located somewhere in the ambiguous smog of New Jersey, should be the next Afghanistan on our list. I just don’t see the point in having a second Sparta, especially one that’s going to have such inept policies.

As for the policy itself: Pope John XXIII Regional High School’s principal, the Reverend Kieran McHugh has mandated that students can no longer have websites (including web-logs or Facebook-type pages) . . . for their own protection. “If this protects one child from being near-abducted or harassed or preyed upon,” says McHugh, “I make no apologies for this stance.” However, should a child be far-abducted or wholly snatched, that’s apparently not only their own problem, but part of the “unspoken” policy. The real reason, obvious to the rest of the world (a group whose brains are not stifled by the unbearable rigidity of mitres), is that students were bashing their terrible school (well, d’uh), over the Internet. That, in itself, is against school policy: now students will face expulsion for simply posting mundane chatter on the Web. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for clearing up the worthless chat and chattel, but this is a First Amendment violation.

Not so, apparently. You see, this is Private School. Normal laws don’t apply there. It’s all bendy. Because students sign a charter for the right to pay money to attend such a luxuriant home of learning, they constrict themselves to special rules. To rules which could eventually (and legally) include other restrictions or requirements, such as an inability to question religious faith and the necessity of theological workshops (brainwashing). Fantastic, no? That we can send our students to places that could make it a requirement for their pupils to learn fanaticism, the MacGyver way to make bombs from anything, and the strict training of suicide bombing. Yes, I’m taking the extreme here, but aren’t we just sanctioning the right of religious (or even just private/exclusive) schools to mandate their own policies, ones that they see fit to preserve a better tomorrow? We cannot let such one-dimensional stupidity exist. Where would the Intelligent Design be in that?

Meanwhile, Pope John H.S. insists that their policies are not only just, but for the safety of the students. If you’re going to ban the Internet because of the potential for stalkers, why not ban the Street? Or those suspicious black SUVs? Or how about just banning crime? I mean, what’s one blanket statement compared to another? In any case, the whole problem with private school is that each is essentially a country onto itself, one that is adjunct but separate to our government. One that creates a specialized kind of thinking, a disjoined type of student: one separate and possibly more than equal. Private schools, to put it bluntly, scare me.

I’d like to imagine that parents would be wise enough not to send their students to a school that teaches farther and farther from the norm. But parents are easily frightened, and would rather authoritatively clamp down than risk their fragile students in a “danger” school. And I understand that there are some very real problems with safety in certain public schools. But the more we restrict our young, the more resentful we make them, and the more likely they are to be incapable of tolerance or understanding of other social situations, even. Schools are a paradigm of the world’s social makeup: if a student makes it through school only because they’ve avoided danger, or because they’ve been surrounded by the comfortable ideology of the like-minded, how will they ever deal with the angry voices of the rest of the country? The answer: they won’t. They’ll continue to clamp down, and the whole cycle will continue.

Private schools enable the minority to pretend they’re the majority; they allow the suppression of normal student development; they bleed parents as a preface to the gouging of college; and they don’t really—in my opinion­—make the least bit of difference on how smart your child will be. After all, I’m a public school baby, and look how I turned out. Bitter, resentful and full of trenchant barbs: a model citizen. So get behind me, the poster child for public schools, and run from all that is wholly unholy: private (especially religiously private) schools.

Aaron vs. Gift Cards

Ho, ho, ho . . . 'tis the season for giving, or so they say. I certainly wouldn't know, what with being the broke critic that I am (and a soullessly bankrupt person besides). Plus, I'm quite embittered, or so they say; so don't bring any of those prostitutional chants of goodwill around my block, I don't want them.

But if you would like to give me a gift this year, please send cash. Why go through all that hard work picking out something you think I'll like only to have me then go through all that hard work returning it? Unless it's something you made yourself (where the thought really does count), I'm perfectly fine using holiday donations to go shopping for myself. I'm a big boy now, all growed up.

Let's get something clear though. If you can't think of something non-commercial to get me, but you don't want to be so thoughtless as to give me cash, don't get me anything. A gift card is pure evil, distributed in various plastic denominations.

First off, you can't return it. Second, it's impossible to spend EXACTLY the total value of the card, so at some point, I'll have to waste my hard-earned money. Third, why should my choices be limited to the confines of one store? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of Democracy? Where's my personal freedom of choice? Let's be honest: these gift cards don't accrue interest and I'm not likely to need $100 worth of books at Barnes & Noble at any given time. (Not that I won't spend it; I'm a bibliophile.) Chances are, when I see an item I really want, I probably won't even have the gift card with me. Cash is a bit more liquid, you'll have to agree.

Now, Sharon, a friend of mine, pointed out a new form of gift currency going around on courtesy of American Express. It's basically a pre-paid debit card, insured and all. But then you're spending extra cash on a middle-man instead of just paying me off for your happy holiday. Plus, then all my transactions are visible to the public, and last time I checked, drug dealers didn't accept plastic. Not really a problem for me; I'm just saying. . . . Anyway, I suppose you could always take that debit card to the bank and make a full withdrawal, but then again, I suppose you could've just given me cash to begin with. I can imagine the awkward conversations already: "So, son, what did you spend your credit on?" "Well, Dad, I bought some cash." "Cash?" "Cash. Merry Christmas."

What, are you worried that I'm going to take your cash and use it to buy other people belated presents? Relax, I could just as easily do that with your gift cards, let alone your actual crummy presents. Look, you can trust me: and if you can't, I'm not quite sure why you're giving me a gift at all. (Unless it's a payoff, some sort of money-laundering thing. Again, I'm not really a product of the underworld, so I don't know anything about that.)

So this holiday season, don't get cutesy, don't try to be sweet. Nothing warms the soul like some cold, hard cash. Or a hot cocoa. With marshmallows. But hey, don't go getting any funny ideas. Give me the money, I'd rather buy my own!

Aaron vs. Analysis

There is nothing like a semi-philosophical debate about the purpose and nature of analysis to sober one up. (You can try singing the previous sentence to "There is Nothing Like a Dame" but I don't think you'll get any further than I did.) In any case, it's practically a rule (going hand in hand with the whole 'not eating' thing) that every self-proclaimed artist have a manifesto. At the least, it's something bulky enough to burn for heat when the power goes out; at the most, should you ever make it, it's something strong enough to justify your success. So here's mine.

I believe the reader is just as much a writer as the author, and unless both are fully involved in the creative process, it's just literary masturbation (one-handed).

It takes two to tango, folks, and I'm sick of the chick-lit or junk novel, the light beach reads or glorified (and simplified) crime novels that tell you everything up front. An author's job should be to put words on a page - words that move him or her - and, as a teacher of mine once said, to let them live. Most readers, especially the stupid ones (but hopefully the smart ones), are just going to put words in your mouth (or is that page?) anyway. That is, everybody has a unique perspective, their own slant on language, and it's a guarantee that nobody will see exactly what I meant to be seen. So as I figure it, why even have a fixed image anyway? Just write something that's aesthetically pleasing, something that lives, that fits the premises (or doesn't, if that's the point), and allow the reader to take it with them.

Which brings me to the bane of my existence: Analysis. Considering how strongly I feel that a writer's work should be ambiguous, aesthetic, and enjoyable (so as to encourage personal thought), the idea that we should pick apart existing works and proclaim one solitary meaning (or pick apart the interpretations of others) is offensive. If you want to make an annotated version, that is, to research terms and to look for anagrams and wordplay, that's fine, because you're just pointing out an author's cleverness for stupid people. However, if you also want to explain what the purpose of each character was, to say that Quilty or H.H. was a double of the other (I have lapsed into Lolita here), I think you're mad. You know why? Because it doesn't matter. Even the annotated notes don't really matter. I should get whatever I get from the book when I get it. If I need Cliff Notes to understand it (as we're frequently training our students to use), it didn't have any effect on me, and we should move on to the next book. It's not necessary (or even conducive) that we understand every sentence, every phrase, or even every idea. Nor do I see how sitting about writing about this or that is going to add any value to this world. If you think the author was using a certain theme, and you liked it, good. Write a story that uses that theme.

Let me take a step back: the conversation originated with poetry. I made a comment that John Ashbery's poetic standpoint was very appealing to me. He writes poetry that's meant to be experienced, straight through, without mulling over lines or re-reading. If you miss something, you miss it, that's part of the experience (just like seeing a movie on the big screen, where you can't rewind). The very act of missing something will redefine what you even get from the poem, and if it's only one word, one phrase or a single image or idea (or even nothing); you've still gotten at least that from it. You don't walk away empty handed. Of course, to then try to analyze one of Ashbery's poems would be redundant. You'd be experiencing it out of context, as it wasn't meant to be read (just like Shakespeare is meant to be performed). If you want to justify historical references that are oblique (again, annotations, not commentary), then append away. That's why the appendix is that thing we don't need. The point being: poetry and fiction should move you WITHOUT an explanation. If you get moved my studying it, then you're attracted to analysis, not the work itself, and that's a whole other kind of sad: second-hand transfusions.

Now, lest I be construed as shitting in my own pool, let me clarify that there's a difference between analysis and criticism. Analysis, to me, is a deadening effect: it involves a thesis and, like many scientists in the Bush Administration, requires looking purely for the lines that support that thesis, while ignoring all other comments (or trying to explain them). That's no good, nor can it possibly be accurate. In fact, the only way to truly analyze something would be to go line by line, at which point you'd have just rewritten the novel itself. Why pick out themes and what not, just for the sake of illustrating what the "deeper" meaning was? If all I can do is float on top of the water, knowing there's treasure at the bottom isn't going to help me. And seeing pictures of the divers going under, that's just living vicariously through analysis.

Criticism, on the other hand, is a lively and opinionated affair. We're not trying to prove a point with arts criticism, not really. If there's any analysis, it's meant to be one-sided (and acknowledges that). We're just trying to say: hey, don't (or do) see this (read this) and here's why (why not). It's not meant to explain something to the reader: it's meant to convey an emotional reaction that one person had. In many ways, at its best, criticism should be like a creative piece itself. Refreshing, aesthetic, full of images and wordplay: enjoyable to read. There's no need for a plot summary; the point is to be visceral, not superficial. Or at least, so I believe. I can still remember Harry Knowles's "Fucking The Monster" review of Sphere (I met him at a conference once, when I was first starting out as a critic): not a single word about the movie, but damned if I didn't want to never see the film after reading the review. It's color commentary, edgy and productive, that gets me going, that justifies what we do.

Along those lines, I guess if people wrote "color analysis," I might be more interested. But too often, I find analysis to be derivative of the product, and criticism to be its own separate animal. Analysis is indirect in getting to the point; criticism should be short, sweet and a direct response. Which leads me to a rule: Analysis is always wrong, Criticism is always right. Analysis presumes to be fact-based and supported, but the text it uses is liquid and subject to constant interpretation, so it's no more supported than a leaf in a tsunami. Criticism is an opinion, and despite what some bad teachers may say, your opinion can't be wrong. Q.E.D.

Now, before this gets any more analytical (and self-defeating, to the point where I need to excoriatingly criticize myself to get back on track), let me just wrap things up, a plea to all writers, critics, scholars and creative geniuses:

There is only Write and Wrong. Wrong is Wrong. So just Write. (Period)

Aaron vs. Public Transportation

This is not a love/hate relationship I'm in: Emotion has nothing to do with it. This is S&M, plain and simple. I, like many others in the vice-tight grip of the dystopic MTA, am a submissive; I smile as police interrogate me; I laugh when trains reschedule and delay with capricious delight; I contort myself into sardine tubes and jockey for position; and yes, I pay for this abuse. I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. I can't.

That said, I look for ways to bite back. I rip that MetroCard through the reader, I punch through the turnstile, and I ram myself against the doors. And all the while I'm conscious of saving money (i.e. taking the bus so as to be able to transfer for a train within two hours), all the while, I'm thinking of ways to take that Card and shove it. It's a pretty passive resistance, but how else to deal with the illusory practices of the MTA.

Case in point: the MetroCard. Tokens used to be art; intricate and beautiful, they combined form and function. Ah, listen to me, gushing like some combination of Art History major and schoolgirl. Now we have these ugly plasticine devices that no doubt have conveniences for the ninja (no coins jingling means extra stealth), and moreso allow the MTA to sinisterly monitor our use (or abuse) of the sytem. And what they've done is to adapt the economic policies of this country, focusing their reparational attentions on the big hubs rather than the unsightly stations and train lines that the majority don't populate. Don't be fooled by the Wonkian design: this MetroCard is no golden ticket. It will get you where you're going, eventually, but it'll cut corners and punish you at every turn. On second thought: perhaps not so different from the Chocolate Factory, from which children fall down disposal chutes or are pumped through chocolate funnels.

Point the second: the Price. I'd never really paid attention to it until I started working a regular midtown job, but $2 dollars a ride is the kind of extortion that chips away at you, like acid-reflux or one of those other livable illnesses. Still, that's not infuriating so much as the Unlimited scam, for which you'll pay $27 or $76 for a week- or month-long pass. Consider how much these rates are inflated by how much you'd pay normally: you get a special rate of six rides for every $10 spent, so you'd need to ride 14 times to get your money back over the week. That's also assuming you don't lose the card: while it's not designed to be lost (like the iPod "Pico"), accidents do happen. And yet, if you're addicted to travel and keep your wallet tight (and your MetroCard tighter), I guess it's okay. Still, look at all the people lost and confused (no, not tourists). "Where are you going?" I'll ask, and they'll just scowl and walk away, or maybe reply, their eyes dulled with the subterranean glare, "Anywhere. Anywhere but here."

Which is interesting: to get where we want, we must be where we least desire to be, most notably during rush hour. Now, we don't have it as bad as Japan (where pedophiles justify their existence) and we're far more efficient than Russia, cheaper than London and open later than our US counterparts, but man, we don't live there. We live here, and we should really only shit in our own backyards. Anywhere else would just be rude.

One final thought though: despite the supplicant population of transients (our modern boxcar residents); despite the tactless graffiti (I guess the real artists of the street have been hired); despite the tumultuous passage of this metallic phallus through the vaginal underbelly of the city (thanks Freud); it's better than taking a cab. (Marginally relevant anecdote: I've only ever been hit by a car while in a cab. BY another cab. I guess you could say it was a auto-erotic moment, cab-on-cab action.) And, lest I shit all over those yellow bugs, my emergency egress, at least it's not a Pedi-Cab. Because for all the gouging of the MTA, at least they're practical. And God, despite what you may have heard, hates the ridiculous.

Aaron vs. Heights

Gosh, no, I haven't forgotten about all of you. But it's been busy at e-casa de Riccio, as I put my cyber-shop in order and my electronic affairs together. Now, in my new job as a freelance proofreader/copyeditor, I have gotten to see some exoticly mundane locations. It's funny, but being up more than twenty stories tends to elevate your perception of things. Forgive the pun: the height must've gone to my head. It takes a while to adapt to the literal pressure.

Take for instance, Central Park. I never really appreciated how scenic the whole thing looks, how urbane - a paradoxical word for the forested area of the urban jungle - the greenery is, sitting in the shadow of this concrete prison. But day after day, I'm looking out at this page from another book, and it makes me almost want to waste my time walking through it. Such a shame things are rarely as close as they appear, and like my stance on God, the moment I should grasp the beauty of the thing, it will become complete inaccessible by definition. In other words, I might go back and row around the pond because that's what I'm good at, I might play some softball, but I'm certainly not going to rusticate in Sheep's Meadow.

But that's not all I see: the shadow starts at the base of Central Park, but as the day slips forward in subtle incriments, all of "uptown" looms its scabby self at me. You ugly hideous beast, I love you. Which makes me forget for a moment, as I lean out to wrap you in my arms (you sweet embraceable you), that I'm quite high up. When I was younger, in a teen traveling camp, we used to dare each other to lean against the thin-seeming glass, that vitreous substance, and peer down into the ant-occupied minuret, "look ma no hands" free. What a frightening and exhilirating feeling.

Much like the experience of soaring on a rollercoaster. Of the few things my brother has ever done (intentionally or not) to better my life, his "chicken-call" convincing was How I Learned To Love The 'Coaster (or Dr. Rollerlove). In that bizarre black twist that defines my life, the way I finally justified the needless thrill was the reminder that if I died, I'd most likely be dying with many other people, and therefore, the embarassment of a premature death would be far less obvious. This same philosophy enabled me to fly to England; I guess it's the same philosophy that lets us live our anonymously famous lives.

This has been a wobbly ranting narrative so far, and it's not likely to get any saner. Suffice to say, I'm intoxicated with the feel of actually having a purpose (read: a job that I love), and maybe it's not just the oxygen-rich air that's doing it to me. Everything just seems better from way up here. But if you're wondering why you don't see me, relax, I like to stay far away from the edge.

Aaron vs. Barnes and Noble

I have found Hell. It is not, as previously recorded, located somewhere between here and digging to China. Nor, as hypothezied by deconstructionalists, is it located in our celestial orbit to counterbalance the fraudulent notion of heaven. Furthermore, Hell is most definately not merely a state of mind, as the Freudulent would have you believe. No. Hell exists. Right here, on Earth (but not, as pessimists assert, Earth itself): at any of your local Barnes and Noble/Borders/Local Booksellers.

I refer, of course, to the Young Adult Fiction section. I recently journied through the munificent tiers of books in search of a GRE review book, having decided that such a course of action might be the inevitable conclusion to my job search. After frightening myself initially by picking up the specialized "English" GRE review book (which trains one to recognize classical authors by style alone), I started to flee the ominous and omnipresent stacks, only to collide with this self-made Hell.

First off, I never realized there were so many Chicken Soups for the Soul. Apparently we're all very sick people (we would be, to write these books to begin with), and more so, we can be segregated into extremist factions, from the Christian Right to the Libertarian Right to the hardcore street toughs (who I'm sure have better things to do than read... this, at least). I'm still waiting for Chicken Soup for the Chicken Soup Reader's Soul, or Chicken Soup for the Illterate Soul, or, as my good friend Zack pointed out, Chicken Soup for the Fetal Soul. These, I'd like to affirm, were the best of the section. To the left: illustrated diet books for young teenagers. The kind of glitsy girl-talk pink and posh covered journals that assert, in glam-speak, with like every other word, exactly what it's like, like, to be a girl, like, trying to have, like, a body... and junk. Frightening. Almost as frightening as, to its right (to it's FAR right): The O'Reilly Factor for Kids. Did I mention the brainwashing children's version of the Left Behind series, forty books long and growing? (That's more than Animorphs, and only slightly less than Goosebumps.)

And on the opposite side: popular television show serial novels, set in the Buffyverse or thereabouts (not that there's anything wrong with that) and the modern day Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew equivalents. Yes, I'm talking about the pulp teen spy novel. But they used to have more tact: now they come right out and say "These are ordinary kids. Like you. They dress... like you. But then they go and do dangerous things." Wow. Way to make me feel, even more, like I wasted an integral part of my childhood. Good thing that section's not nearly as long as the wall-to-wall collection of Manga (Japanese comics, read back to front). I remember when these were merely a novelty item: hard-to-find and harder-to-sell, we were assured of only getting the best Japan had to offer. But then we got the culture shock of Tamogotchi and the Fad Market, and all of a sudden, every single pisspoor comic was ported over here. No more Ranma 1/2: instead, we get comics that are a sixteen of that, in other words, Ranma 1/32. For those who don't know, Manga, like most Teen novels, work in decompression: rather than telling a story concisely, they span out simple sentences over multiple pages to convey exaggerated shock and recycle the same sight-gags over and over again. It's much like reading a children's book, but again, we were in the Young Adult/Teen Fiction section. No wonder nobody likes to read any more. Look at the choices we're offering them.

No, this was a horrific example of what the market has been driven to; the same place that The New Yorker informs me many newspapers have been driven to. Despite the writer's general intelligence, they are forced to cater to their audience, in other words, to write not for themselves, but for those who might actually buy the paper. This has resulted in a lot of dumbing down, in other words, the creation of Hell in every bookstore. If we stop writing for the smart, we cease to give people the ability to read anything smart. Stupid becomes the new median, and I hestiate to think what lies beneath being retarded and stunted.

Save us, oh Jesus-for-Kids. We need your almighty miracles, as depicted in at least half a dozen Manga, to rectify the brand new sins of a greedy and intolerable market. For we, or at least I, are surely in hell now.

Aaron and the Homeless

Every other street, or neighborhood, ought to have one. I say this in response to the approach I’ve seen taken down on Houston by a more compassionate and understanding neighborhood. There’s a homeless man who lives – yes, resides – in a chair that sits outside a local Ray’s Pizza. He sleeps there, sheltered by the pizzerias’ awning, reclining against the wall and with this feet stretched out, back supported by a rickety chair. He has a large aluminum can hung around his neck, like a pasta sauce container, stripped of all recognition, and, for all purposes, is no more scruffy or banged up than the can itself. The community allows him to reside there, without calling on the police to catch him for loitering, even allows him to use the bathroom during operating hours to stay somewhat clean, and in return, he helps out around the neighborhood with small tasks. I have seen him, occasionally, sweeping the streets or delivering for the pizzeria. He seems sweet, not at all belligerent, and contributes to the neighborhood, becoming a staple rather than an eyesore, actually serving to give the place some LITERAL character.

Now, as a long time resident of Manhattan, I recognize that there’s a homeless problem. It’s one that seems insurmountable, and no long-standing solution has ever been offered. But how about something like this as a start? This neighborhood has not offered him a place to live, not welcomed him in with open arms: but they haven’t repelled him with pitchforks and fire either. Instead, they tolerate his presence – in fact, they, in cooperation with him, have found a way for both to benefit. I don’t mean to imply that the homeless are lesser creatures than the residentially-endowed or that they are a situation to be “tolerated” or “dealt with,” but merely that, in a city where being homeless is very much a social stigma, this seems to be a mutually beneficial fit. One that other neighborhoods with a charitable streak might want to consider.

We have all these people sleeping, unprotected and alone on the street. I’m not suggesting that we correct that overnight, but why not invite these people to sleep – one to a block – in our neighborhood? Find people who, due to circumstances are reduced to living on the street, and give them a halfway street on which they can rest a little easier. In a charitable cooperation, this person might be assured of three square a day, and a somewhat sheltered place to sleep, in return for which he/she might protect the premises (a living alarm) or help out with minor reconstruction/chores around the area. It costs us very little to help those who are suffering, but at the same time, it’s no surprise that we are more compelled by the intimate than the anonymous. Having a familiar face, a sort of outdoors doorman, might encourage the mutual relationship to grow: the homeless might be able to eventually better their situation through cooperation with local businesses (e.g. finding work) and hopefully, with legal employment and good relations with the surroundings, move up.

This is a serious topic, I understand, and I know that I don’t have quite the eloquent words to describe this. I also know that not all homeless people would take kindly to a relationship like this, one which, to some, would seem degrading and demeaning. And this is not a case of beggars not being choosers, because the moment a beggar loses the right to choose is the moment they lose their self-respect, the last ounce of their essence and self. What I’m saying is that it is difficult to find the appropriate methodology, and rather than having the current parasitic and defiling relationship, a more symbiotic approach, one cleaned up more than mine, seems like a good solution to an honest problem.

I post this here just because of the raw amount of homeless people I have seen recently, and the gentle way with which I have seen certain people treat them. People who have called them by their first name, or given sandwiches directly rather than money, as if they were children going off to school. Giving up a little curb seems a small sacrifice to enter into an overall more empowering relationship with the world and our community: and maybe I’m just in a naively inspired mood (for what is inspiration but naïve?), but couldn’t the residents of the Houston area have hit on something crucial and key?