Tag Archives: Drama

The Baboon Congress

Steerage Song

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Today’s guest post is by Beth-Ann.

Early this month, Dan Chouinard and Peter Rothstein premiered a musical docu-drama (Peter’s word) telling the story of immigrants who traveled through Ellis Island. Steerage Song is a powerful homage to what is lost and gained by immigrants.
Beautiful voices sang the words from Emma Lazarus’ poem inscribed at the Statue of Liberty

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

And like John McCormack in this video the talented cast sang about the Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.

I was moved by this production for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that I am from an immigrant family. All of my great grandparents, my grandmother, and my son are immigrants. They came from Ireland, Russia, Germany, Austria , and Korea to this foreign land where they learned a new language, new jobs, and how to add their potatoes, kreplach, and kimchi to the melting pot that is America.

I am also a migrant. I was born in Japan on American soil and didn’t come “home” until I was 9 months old. Since that time I have lived in Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. I think this Land of 10,000 Lakes in My Isle of Somewhere.

We are all immigrants and some of us are migrants too.

What has been your family journey lit by the lamp at the golden door?

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An Historic Announcement

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Last night, during a time when there happened to be a lot of commotion on TV about some sort of impending major news announcement, I made the shocking discovery that there was a tick attached to my dog’s neck.

This tick was literally sucking the blood out of my longtime, faithful canine companion and was possibly spreading diseases that could eventually cause great discomfort and serious illness. I instantly made it my top domestic priority to remove this tick, even though the activity on TV was growing more frantic and all the major news anchors were urgently demanding my attention.

Seeking guidance provided by several intelligence specialists on various websites, I considered many options for the successful removal of this disgusting leech. After careful consideration, I implemented a strategy that employed tweezers, a flashlight and some rubbing alcohol. The tick was determined to hang on, but through persistent, constant pressure without any sudden jerking or twisting, the blood sucking beast was separated from the bone chewing beast, and I was able to gain control of the entire body of the offender, head included. I now have it in my possession though I have no idea what I can do with it that is both appropriate and dignified.

I immediately applied alcohol to the wound to discourage infection.

The Canine

I am relieved that the tick has been removed, but this does not mean that we can now be blasé about ticks. In fact, we must remain extra vigilant. I know I will, even though my dog will probably charge into those bushes again in spite of my efforts to make her stay on the path whenever we visit our local park.

Many people are going to claim credit for this achievement, and many deserve thanks for a remarkable success. Makers of tweezers, rubbing alcohol and Q-tips performed their duties bravely and with professionalism. Having the proper tools and proceeding with patience and focus led to this most appropriate outcome.

The Offender, Pickled

No thanks to the guys who suggested using peanut butter, garden shears and blow torches. Sometimes the decision to skip a particular strategy is as important as the decision to go forward with another one.

I usually don’t think of the death of another creature as a cause for celebration, but in this case the eventual outcome was just and necessary. As a result of our careful conduct of this operation, I entirely missed whatever all the TV fuss was about, but last night I slept peacefully, secure in the knowledge that at least one parasite had been removed from circulation.

What’s the most memorable historic announcement that you’ve witnessed, and why?

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Upstaged by Animals

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Many thanks to Barbara, Anna, Clyde, Jim, Beth-Ann, Sherrilee, and tim – the guest bloggers who kept the conversation going in my absence. I spent a large part of the week with my family in New York City, getting my annual dose of subway grit, crowded sidewalks and car horn serenades.

We also saw some shows. One day had an “Animals in Wartime” theme, starting with a performance of “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo”, Rajiv Joseph’s intense take on the madness and brutality surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Robin Williams played the tiger. In a brilliant bit of misdirection, he played the role like a tiger who was trying to look and sound enough like Robin Williams to get Midwesterners like me to buy a ticket. It worked! The rest of the play featured a lot of shouting, gunplay and profanity. It asked big, insoluble questions, like “How much control does God really have over a crazy world?” and “How long would I have to stand by the stage door to get Robin Williams to sign my program?” The whole experience was unsettling and thought provoking to a much greater degree than the classic musical revival that was our fallback option for the Wednesday matinee. Though to be fair, each play was set in an environment where “Anything Goes” pretty much sums up the rule of law.

The second play in our “Animals in Wartime” drama series was “War Horse”, a transplant from the National Theater of Great Britain. This one is based on a book by Michael Morpurgo with an ambitious goal of presenting World War I as seen from a equine perspective. That’s a tough assignment, but fascinating and meaningful on multiple levels, chiefly because the Great War was hell on horses. The development of barbed wire made cavalry charges suicidal, and artillery shells finished the grim job. This was another drama full of loud voices and gunfire, but it had something more – a huge heart and an amazing technical and artistic achievement in puppetry. Handspring Puppet Company created the life sized horses at the center of this show. “Joey” and “Topthorn” are each operated by three people. To call them technicians or anything less than actors would be unfair, since the trio that animates each puppet collaborates to bring a fully realized character to life.

I’m sorry I don’t have video of the actual performance, but if you get a chance you should try to see this show. There are some You Tube videos of the horse puppets in action at promotional events, including this one at an English racetrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwu_d0xRhdI

Before technology made it possible to create virtual characters on a computer, one of the only ways to depict a non-human or exaggerated personality was with a puppet. From ventriloquist’s dummies like Charlie McCarthy and Howdy Doody to Shari Lewis’s Lamb Chop, Soupy Sales’ bodiless dog leg named White Fang and Jim Henson’s Muppets, our culture has a host of icons who can only move with the help of a hand up their back.

Name your favorite puppet.

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Don’t Panic!

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Today is the anniversary of the first broadcast of the first radio installment of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. I mention it only because I know some Trail Baboon regulars are fans of the author and the series, which went on to include books, TV shows, movies, more radio shows, a video game, lots of websites and who knows what else.

But it started as a for-ears-only experience.

The online description of the beginning states it thus: “Despite a low-key launch of the series (the first episode was broadcast at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 8 March 1978), it received generally good reviews and a tremendous audience reaction … for radio.”

I love the “… for radio” part. Who listens to radio at 10:30 on a Wednesday night? For drama? Comic, science fiction drama? In Britain in 1978, the answer was “just enough.”

The video and film versions never quite measured up to the original, for me. But then I’m biased in favor of “the theater of the mind”, where some say the pictures are better but it’s also true that you automatically edit out any mind-pictures that don’t measure up – perhaps an unfair advantage for the creaky old medium.

This You Tube non-video offers the first ten minutes of the first episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnJFo2hSe7Q

Shortly after this clip ends, the world is destroyed. Not a bad first step along the way to starting something new.

I can only guess that Adams did not expect this project to draw the cult following it did, or to take up so much of his limited time on Earth. He died of a heart attack at age 49.

Clearly “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” is an example of something with modest beginnings that became much grander and infinitely more complicated. So hurrah for modest beginnings!

What have you done that met with unexpected success?

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Deeds, Good and Otherwise

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The day after the day of thanks, the thanks continue to roll.

I have extra servings of gratitude for the guest bloggers who gave me a respite from the day-to-day task of posting. Joanne, Sherrilee, Renee, tim, Jim and Madislandgirl created a peaceful open space so I could take the time to visit my geographically distant, much loved, well aged parents.

Online work is famously portable, but my folks live in a backwater section of the Internet, near the intersection of Windows 95 Street and Dial-Up Avenue. I could have continued the blog from there but it would have been a slow, brutal chore. Also, one of the things you should not have to endure in your ‘80s is to wonder why your 55-year-old kid still shuts himself away in a room for hours at a time, working on God Knows What. Instead, I got to hang out with them, completing Autumn chores around the house (gathering leaves, cleaning bird baths, etc.), having meals together and watching several different flavors of CSI on TV. No wonder our senior citizens are so worried. The world is full of brutal murderers and crazed serial killers!

And now comes Black Friday, the day when Common Sense gets a knife in the back from yet another variety of CSI, a miserable little wretch everybody known as the Consumer Spending Index. This CSI used to put up impressive numbers every Day After Turkey Day, but following a string of disappointing years he’s got the cold desperate look of a guy down to his last screaming headline. Door Buster Deals! Low Price Shockers! Nothing is too outrageous. The plan is audacity itself – to compel hard working people who already have the day off and could remain in bed until noon to get up in the middle of the night instead, to swarm over department stores for unbelievable bargains. Even Discount Tires has a Black Friday special, which has got me wondering if my wife would prefer her packages under the tree to have a directional or asymmetrical tread pattern.

And it works! This morning just after 2 am I gave my son a ride to his retail sales job at the mall. Long lines of shivering people had formed outside Best Buy and Kohl’s. Parking lots at the major outlets were populated with idling cars. Sound the alarm! Just like Macbeth, Macy’s murders sleep!

MACBETH 

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more! 
 Macys does murder sleep,” the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of Ladies Charter Club Cashmere Crew-Neck Sweaters, only $39.99 before 10 am on Friday alone!

LADY MACBETH 

What do you mean? Who was it that thus cried?

MACBETH
It was the owl that shriek’d, or some Tribune. The Star, perhaps, or the News of Duluth, formerly the Herald. It was a sorry sight.

LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought to say a sorry sight. Such sales will make us mad! Summon again the page!

MACBETH
All great Neptune’s ocean will not wash this ink clean from my hand. I am afraid to think what I have seen. Look on’t again I dare not.

LADY MACBETH 

Infirm of purpose! 
 Methinks the doors are already open and the surfeited clerks do mock their charge with snores. Give me the plastic daggers. I’ll gild the aisles of Macy’s withal; 
 That which hath made them drowsy hath made be bold; what hath pinched them hath given me fire. Hark!

What would Shakespeare write about today?