All posts by Laura Grey

History

The Strength That Comes from Acknowledging Frailty

Watercolor on paper by Laura Grey
Watercolor on paper by Laura Grey

I have a deep fascination with history and historical objects that make the past more accessible and understandable to us today. I often incorporate them into my art, writing and home environment. Not a day goes by that I don’t consider how the past (either my own or the time before my existence) has shaped me. I’m always asking myself how I can bring the things and the knowledge of the past into the light and share its importance and meaning with those around me who may not know how many wonders have been created, shared, discovered and often lost. I incorporate bits of history into my world wherever I can. I fear the idea of people losing what has gone before, or failing to notice connections and patterns that could help them avoid repeating the same errors others have already made. I’m also saddened when people live without context, unaware of their place on the continuum of history.

I think each day of the people and relationships I have lost, and of the sadness I feel about the fact that part of my history died with them, too. But I also feel grateful that I have given my own child a context for her life and mine so that I can continue to enjoy my relationships with those who have gone before us by relating their stories to my daughter and letting them become touchstones and stories and elements that bind my past to her future.

Something I’m so glad to have learned along the way is that one’s relationship with people who have died (or who have simply disappeared from our lives, if not from the world) doesn’t end with their death; we can still learn from and about them, change the way we feel about them, and grow in our understanding and acceptance of (or sometimes anger toward) them long after they’re gone. My relationships with my own very difficult parents have changed a lot in the 13 and 20 years since their respective deaths. I’m grateful that despite the finite nature of their own histories, they are still a part of my ongoing history. They live on through me. People can even have meaningful relationships with those who died before we were born. Yes, those are one-way relationships, but they can still teach and inspire and help to form us, and I find that so comforting. I love that both my mother and my long-dead grandmother are living presences in my daughter’s life through the stories that I share about them. Their history becomes part of my daughter’s own life.

I suppose studying history also reminds me of how fragile and temporal we and all of our creations are, and how even the greatest among us is or was human and flawed, scared and mortal, too. Perhaps that’s why I so love cemeteries and memento mori paintings and mourning jewelry. That fascination sounds morbid, but it’s not, really. It’s not a love of death that I feel when I see such things; it’s a love of the touching human reminders people build to those who have moved them and shaped them. These are reminders to be grateful, to make the most of what exists now, to share and expand on love, to express what should be expressed, to recognize how fleeting it all is, and to acknowledge just how much power each of us has to affect others, power that we don’t like to admit that we hold because it’s scary to think of wasting such a precious thing the way we all do every day.

In the 1970 film Patton starring George C. Scott, General George S. Patton shares the following, haunting thought, which has always stuck with me: “For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph — a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”

I think one of the great discoveries that has come with time for me has been learning what tender little people we all are inside, and that even the most assertive and confident-seeming among us has doubts and failures and awkward unguarded spots that the armor doesn’t fully cover. There is comfort in that, not just because it humanizes great characters, but because their successes actually seem greater when I consider that they were accomplished by life-sized people who had to navigate the world just as I do, yet they found ways to do great things despite their very human limitations. They weren’t giants walking the earth, they were humans stuck in failing bodies challenging themselves to think in fresh ways and act where others only pondered. Knowing that the people I most admire are not immune from human frailty helps me to feel more compassion for them, and sometimes for myself.

Theater

David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow”

Speed the Plow

Recently I had a front-row seat at a performance of David Mamet‘s play “Speed-the-Plow” in London. The play has only three performers: Richard Schiff, best known for his role as Toby Ziegler in TV’s The West Wing; British actor Nigel Lindsay (the Jewish terrorist Levi in HBO’s exceptional miniseries Rome), whom I knew was British before the play began but whose American accent, gestures and delivery were so perfect that I doubted my own ears and eyes; and Lindsay Lohan, the ostensible star of the show, whose solo headshot graces every poster for the play.

Despite some early bad press over botched previews in which Lohan embarrassed herself by being unable to remember her lines, London reviewers have been pretty kind to her. Her role of Karen, a temporary secretary, was first performed on Broadway in 1988 by Madonna. Lohan was perfectly adequate in the first act of the show, but was painfully outclassed by her two costars—they knew better how to deliver Mamet’s rapid-fire but sometimes awkward dialog. Lohan was featured more prominently in the second act, when she was completely overshadowed by Schiff. She began speaking at an intensity level of about eight and kept her delivery right there throughout the act, never pulling back and leaving herself no way to build drama, and delivering her lines in awkward ways that showed a lack of forethought about the meaning of her words, which made them feel especially stagey. By starting out at that level of energy and earnestness, she left her performance nowhere to go. She missed all the dramatic dynamics that would have given her room to move and would have made her speeches feel more like actual dialog. She remembered her lines, but delivered many of them unnaturally, underscoring the difficulty some actors have with Mamet’s idiosyncratic rhythms and old-fashioned phrases.

David Mamet is a much better writer of male than female dialog, emphasizing as he usually does a particularly hardboiled hypermasculinity, so poor Lohan was already at a disadvantage. (Think of Alec Baldwin’s famously testosterone-fueled “steak knives” speech from Glengarry Glen Ross and you’ll get an idea of Mamet in his element.) Schiff reacted beautifully in every moment, with subtle emotions flickering across his face and just the right body language to make me feel like he was hearing those words for the first time. The third act brought Lohan back onto the scene only briefly, while Nigel Lindsay and Schiff got to share the powerfully angry chemistry of two middle-aged men engaged in a career-defining battle of wills. Their scenes together were compelling as they bantered back and forth in the way of jaded, hardnosed, behind-the-scenes players in the movie business, their strength and status shifting hugely during the course of the story. These men are “actors’ actors,” the sorts of performers who react perfectly naturally in the moment and make their costars look better in the process. Their mastery disappears into the seeming effortlessness of their performances.

Lohan was not bad, but she didn’t show the discipline required to have learned the lines well enough to seem to forget them, as the best actors do. Hers was not a subtle performance. And while there’s a great deal of macho bombast in the two male performers’ roles, they also have to show range and vulnerability behind their cynical posturing. The opportunity to see whether Lohan crashes and burns in live performance may fill the seats (and there were certainly many young female fans of hers in the audience and around the stage door waiting for her as I passed it after the play), but what made the evening worthwhile was the skill shown by her extraordinarily talented costars.

Film & Television, Music

Taylor Swift: Deeper Than You Think

taylor

Recently I saw Taylor Swift interviewed on The Graham Norton Show, and she was charming and poised though she seemed a bit ditzy. She held her own, though, when John Cleese repeatedly and rudely interrupted her; she waited patiently as he totally derailed her interview and stole her segment after having had a whole segment of his own, and then she moved on with professionalism and courtesy. She has excellent manners, I thought.

The following day I heard an interview with her on NPR that showed evidence of the articulate, tactful young woman that I’d heard in previous interviews. I was impressed by her self-awareness and by her respect for and deep understanding of her primary audience demographic: teen and preteen girls. The interviewer said, “You have a huge platform among a very vulnerable, impressionable set of the population. And I wonder if you think about turning your lens outward, turning it away from the diary page, and sending a broader message to girls who would be really receptive to hearing about big ideas and the big world that’s outside. … Do you ever think about writing about other experiences, things that might turn girls away from themselves in a different way?”

Swift replied: “We are dealing with a huge self-esteem crisis. These girls are able to scroll pictures of the highlight reels of other people’s lives, and they’re stuck with the behind-the-scenes of their own lives. There’s nothing that’s gonna turn girls away from themselves at age 12. I think that it’s really important that I speak about things in interviews that I’m passionate about. I have brought feminism up in every single interview I’ve done because I think it’s important that a girl who’s 12 years old understands what that means and knows what it is to label yourself a feminist, knows what it is to be a woman in today’s society, in the workplace or in the media or perception. What you should accept from men, what you shouldn’t, and how to form your own opinion on that. I think the best thing I can do for them is continue to write songs that do make them think about themselves and analyze how they feel about something and then simplify how they feel. Because, at that age — really at any age, but mostly that age — what can be so overwhelming is that you’re feeling so many things at the same time that it’s hard to actually understand what those emotions are, so it can turn to anxiety very quickly. I’m 24. I still don’t feel like it’s a priority for me to be cool, edgy, or sexy. When girls feel like they don’t fit into those three themes, which are so obnoxiously thrust upon them through the media, I think the best thing I can do for those girls is let them know that this is what my life looks like. I love my life. I’ve never ever felt edgy, cool, or sexy. Not one time. And that it’s not important for them to be those things.”

Impressive.

History, Literature

In Flanders Fields

flanders

 

In Flanders Fields

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

One of the most-often-quoted poems of what was for many years known as The Great War, “In Flanders Fields” was written by Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae in 1915. The poem was inspired by the funeral of McCrae’s friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. “In Flanders Fields” was first published on December 8, 1915 in the London-based magazine Punch. The poem refers to the red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers. The popularity of the poem led to the remembrance poppy becoming one of the world’s most recognized memorial symbols for soldiers who have died in conflict.

 

History, Literature

Dulce Et Decorum Est

owen

To my mind, Wilfred Owen’s account of a mustard gas attack, “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” is the greatest of First World War poems. The title comes from an ode by the ancient poet Horace, who said “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”: It is sweet and right to die for your country. Owen’s account questions the sweetness and rightness of death in battle.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Owen died just before the end of the war. His parents received news of his death on Armistice Day.

Music

The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn

Video

I first heard Dan Tyminski sing this song in concert with Alison Krauss and Union Station, the fabulous bluegrass band for which he is a guitarist and singer. Their version is exceptional, but this video of Tyminsky playing with a different assortment of bluegrass musicians features some excellent Irish flute playing that isn’t found in the version he recorded with Alison Krauss. It’s fascinating to hear the way Celtic music and bluegrass stylings complement each other. This beautiful musical marriage makes good sense, since the roots of bluegrass include Scottish, Irish, English and Welsh music as well as the later influences of African-American musicians and even touches of jazz, all of which did so much create the musical and linguistic richness of the American South.

This song is based on a traditional American tune believed to go back to the mid-19th century. It goes by several different names, including “A Lazy Farmer Boy,” “Harm Link” and “The Young Man Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn” (which was recorded by Pete Seeger for Smithsonian Folkways)

Oddments

Let Us Be Tender, Too

Sunrise-Detail2

“Sunrise” (detail) by Laura Grey

You never know what’s truly going on in the hearts of the people around you, or how much trouble or sadness they may be carrying. They may smile or joke, they may look happy or appear productive, but we all carry our burdens around with us, and some of these are much heavier than they appear. We may be private or shy or feel unsafe letting the world see how fragile, hopeless or sad we feel. Life can play horrible tricks on us, and our lives can be turned upside-down in a heartbeat, yet often we walk on, trying not to let others see the extent of our wounds. So let us be gentle with each other and ourselves. Let us give each other the benefit of the doubt. Assume that others’ lives are tougher than we know, and try not to judge others too harshly when they respond to us with more upset and sadness than seems reasonable. Life is unreasonable; hearts get broken; people are tender. Let us be tender, too.

Music

Regina Spektor, My Personal Pop Star

Video

Way back in 2006, before YouTube ruled the world, I had a year’s subscription to Paste, a magazine that arrived each month with a new CD full of indie songs and music videos created mostly by people I’d never heard of. I popped the CD into my laptop and half-watched a few forgettable videos while doing other things. Then I found myself captivated by a charming video made on a shoestring for a musician I’d never heard of before: Regina Spektor.

The song, “Us,” from her 2004 album “Soviet Kitsch,” became an instant favorite for my daughter and me, and we became immediate fans. We enthused about and shared her music with friends before anyone we knew had heard of her, and when she came to Seattle we got bought tickets to her show as quickly as we could. Her concert was wonderful, and shortly thereafter we began hearing her voice in cafes, trendy boutiques, then on the radio.

Since then she’s become so well known that you can even hear her voice in television ads or singing “You’ve Got Time,” the theme to the exceptional Netflix series “Orange is the New Black.” Now she’s everyone’s darling, and for so many reasons: her wit, her joy, her quirks, the occasional Russian phrase that rolls out of her mouth, the frequent classical Russian influence on her beautiful piano playing, and the endless surprises in her lyrics, her vocal fillips and her expressive playing.

Regina was born in the USSR and moved to New York with her family as a child to escape Communism and antisemitism. The influence of her heritage is never far from her playing, but it’s wonderfully intermingled with her Manhattan upbringing. My daughter and I feel like Regina is our old friend, our discovery, our pal, and the warm, funny, sweet way she has of engaging with fans during her concerts and on her Facebook page makes us feel even more like she is our own personal star. But you know what? We’re willing to share her with the rest of the world, too.

Music

Harry Nilsson, The Disciplined Wildman

Video

In the early 1970s, Harry Nilsson’s pure, beautiful voice was everywhere. He had a great way with a popular song and he composed tunes that were alternately heartbreaking (“Without You”),  intense (“Jump Into the Fire“), bubble-gum sweet (“Me and My Arrow,” and the theme to “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father“), tender (“The Moonbeam Song“), silly (“Coconut“) and generally wonderful. One of his biggest hits was a song he didn’t compose but which he turned into an international hit with the plaintive simplicity of his voice: “Everybody’s Talkin‘,”  the theme to the 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy,” turned him from a composer  into a huge star. Nilsson was a famously rowdy and seemingly totally undisciplined mess, a huge drinker and taker of drugs who stayed up for days on end carousing with friends like John Lennon and Ringo Starr. But then he could stumble into a recording studio after having been up all night shouting and smoking and filling his body with poisons and pour out a pitch-perfect performance of a song like “Without You” in a single take. When you listen to this song, pay attention to his extraordinary phrasing: each line unspools in one long, beautiful phrase without a single breath: “No I can’t forget this evening / or your face as you were leaving / but I guess that’s just the way the story goes” is so heartbreakingly effective when delivered as one single, aching, perfect thought. Nowadays it’s rare to hear even the most athletic 20-year-old having enough breath control to hold a phrase that long without breathing between words, and sometimes even breathing between the syllables of a single word, losing continuity, feeling and the meaning along the way. Nilsson always had a soft spot in his heart for pop standards sung by trained musicians, and while he lived like a rock star, he sang with the warmth, control and sweetness of a midcentury balladeer. His story is beautifully told in the 2006 documentary “Who Is Harry Nilsson . . . And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?“

Music

Kesha Deconstructed

Video

Why am I featuring a video by Kesha (formerly styled Ke$ha), the pop star who famously brushes her teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels?

She cultivated a wasted party-girl persona when she first made it big, so you could be forgiven for thinking that she’s just a trashy, yodeling Valley Girl, or a rapping, adenoidal lightweight, or that her songs are indeed catchy but too full of drunken, sneering bad-girl behavior to merit much attention.

But don’t underestimate her talent or her power; Kesha has sold over 60 million albums around the world, and she began her music career as a back-up singer and pop song composer in her teens. She earned her first recording contract at 18 after growing up in a Nashville suburb learning about the business from her mother, a country music songwriter. Kesha cowrote every song on her first two albums and has written for other artists including Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears.

For several years I thought of her music as a bit of dumb fun providing bouncy background beats on my car radio when I need a mindless dance club-style lift, and I still see much of her music that way. No harm in that. But then I heard the spare, dark and moody version of her nightclub anthem “Blow” from her “Deconstructed” EP and gained a whole new respect for her.

Kesha usually relies on dirty sass and frequent vocal fry crackles along with a sort of grubby, drunken energy to make her songs stand out. In the deconstructed version of “Blow,” Kesha’s intense, breathy vocals are front and center and backed up by keyboard riffs brimming with tension and delicious dissonance. The song begins with a muffled, distorted piano and the layers of vibrating echo build menacingly behind her anxious, slightly frantic soft vocals. I think it’s a beautiful surprise from a totally unexpected source. Give it a listen.