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Posts Tagged ‘The Tempest’

Beau and Arrow – BAM

Monday, March 1st, 2010

So last night I went to see The Tempest at BAM and it was amazing! The theater is so Brooklynesque, as in it’s mostly brick and needs a renovation job badly (it’s a landmark), but somehow immediately felt like home. I read The Tempest a few years ago for my college Shakespeare class, but there is just no comparison to seeing a live show. The set design was probably the most exciting part of all, with the characters wading in a shallow pool of water, and the island consisting of a circle of sand in the middle of the stage. At one point, and perhaps the best point, Caliban is introduced to the stage by eerily rising up from beneath the sand, writhing and deliberately ugly. I totally just gave away the best part, but my sister gave away another thing to me, so I’ll let you in on it. As everyone was getting seated prior to the show, a haggard man is sitting with the orchestra to the side, purportedly reading his notes. As the 7:30 showtime finally hit, we soon found out he is Prospero! He rises from his chair and puts on his robe and belt and boom! (or should I say BAM) the play started. Geniussss. Also genius, Bank of America is the play’s sponsor. Double BAM!

I finished Chelsea Handler’s Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea this weekend. Mostly picked it up because of all the hype and it pretty much delivered. Reminded me of another collection of essays, Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake, which I read last month and thought was hilarious. They’re both funny, witty, quick-reads, and recommended for when you’re not in the mood to think that hard. Also, I’m thinking if I ever actually write a book, this is probably what it would look like. Short, autobiographical stories about nothing. (Ahem, my blogs, ahem).

Short autobio story of the day: I lost my cell phone at a restaurant last week and I was convinced that I left it in the bathroom and someone stole it. I had the entire staff on alert, and we even went through the garbage where the manager said people oftentimes hide things to pick up later (drug deal, hello!). This accusatory inclination was the direct result of a previous stolen cell phone fiasco, in which I used my observational skills to pinpoint the perpetrator and was ultimately reunited with my beloved Blackberry. As I tried to imagine what my life would be like without my phone, I was left with many question marks and much uneasiness. Technology is ridiculously irreplaceable, therefore unreliable, but my dependence on the little gadget is immense, my love for it, irrevocable. I found it on the floor face down under my table, and only because my metro card, which fits perfectly behind my phone case, was peeking out of the camera hole, showing a bit of white in the darkness. Catastrophe avoided! Lesson semi-learned.

Rachel Lily

Beau and Arrow – Labyrinths

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

I go to a lot of book clubs because my thesis is on my book clubs so yes, you will be hearing a lot about them. I went to another one on Monday night, my “shoeless” book club (because shoes are not allowed). An eclectic bunch in socks and slippers, roaming around a gorgeous downtown apartment talking about the selected literature of the month. This time, the topic was Borges, a true giant in the literary world, a visionary thinker, and one of the smartest guys who ever lived. He’s basically a walking encyclopedia, and his works are dense and complicated, and make you do what all great literature should make you do – THINK. But more importantly, and we discussed this in our book club, Borges seems to really make you want to write. So my tip of the week: if you’re having writer’s block, pick up Library of Babel and in the words of The Matrix (whose themes are interspersed throughout Borges’ works and which just so happens to be my favorite movie) “Free your mind.”

My fiasco of the week occured just prior to the Shoeless Book Club. After picking up 12 copies of the next meeting’s book (Shakespeare’s The Tempest! Now featured in BAM), I got on the Q train and took it one stop over to Canal Street. Over the past few months I have used the train probably more times than my whole life combined, all thanks to HopStop.com. The problem is, in this case, HopStop wanted me to make a left on said “unnamed road.” I walked on, with my 20 lbs of books in on hand, pocketbook in the other, looking for a dark alley? A random cross street? Possibly a direction-giving angel?

I sought out the angels on every corner. I gave my look of desperation to many strangers on the street, hands turned over in confusion, and pleaded with them –  “Hudson Streeet?!” Two women on separate occasions attempted to show me where we were on their cell phone GPS, possibly more concerned with showing off that they actually had this technology and not that the map was reading off to me like an obscure dialect of Swahili. Admittedly, directions are my biggest weakness. The one thing I can rely on is that my instincts are almost always dead wrong. Oftentimes, if my insides say “Go right!”, I will make the L shape with my left hand and go left. Other strangers were equally unhelpful, pointing in directions where the road was ending, and/or not knowing we were in Manhattan. Two old ladies in matching puffy jackets who didn’t speak English to save their lives, tried to reason with me. “Hud-son Street,” I mouthed slowly. “Ah, Hudon swaygegda,” one said while making a vertical sweeping motion with her hand. I am pretty sure they were sending me to the Hudson River. And one guy was equally flustered, “I dunno maybe SOHO?!” His attitude and accent sounded strangely familiar, and upon his asking if I was from the Jewish Syrian community, I confirmed this recognition. It’s a small world after all?

I called my sister half in sobs, “I’m lostttt!”
“Where are you?” she asked. “Where am I?!” I shouted to the nearest New York stranger. Luckily, I was a block away from my destination, and my disaster was finally at a close. 40 minutes of agony later I was at the Shoeless Book Club ready to discuss Borges’ Labyrinths. Labyrinths. Haha very funny (=sarcasm).

Adios!

Rachel Lily