A RAT'Z LAFF

I saw Dionysus in Stony Mountain at the Rachel Browne Theatre on April 3. The play was complex and some reviews have referred to it as intellectual. It features a Stony Mountain inmate named James (Ross McMillan), who questions his psychiatrist's (Sarah Constible) role in the justice system. The play, which was written by Steven Ratzlaff, happens in two acts.

I left the theatre thinking it was a good thing it accommodates only a small audience because I don’t believe Dionysus in Stony Mountain will ever see a sold out performance. The language was complicated, and the sentences (sometimes passages) were lengthy. Many times James simply quoted Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century German philosopher who became of interest to James when he stopped taking his medication. I study playwriting at Prairie Theatre Exchange and I have learned it is unwise to make your audience feel stupid. While I did not necessarily feel stupid when I left, I did not feel like I understood the play.

I read that Ratzlaff is personally interested in Nietzsche’s work and I feel as though he used the play as a medium to expand on his own interests, theories, and ideas. When I try to see it from his perspective, it occurs to me that he may believe that theatre goers will significantly benefit from learning Nietzsche’s work, and some of his own ideas. Unfortunately, a playwright must write for an audience, not for oneself. I mean, I would love to write a play about my cat Dusty and the way she lets me hold her foot when she goes to sleep, and how I use Carbon by MAC to pencil in my eyebrows, and the gap between my two front teeth. Hell, I could even throw in some passages from Fran Lebowitz's Metropolitan Life, but those things are not interesting to everyone. Maybe cats, makeup, dentistry, and New York City generally interest people, but not my own personal thoughts on each one.

I am disappointed because the Canadian justice system and offenders are interests that I pursue outside of learning about them at school or in the news. Before seeing the play, I expected that there was a chance for theatre about this topic to provoke thought and maybe even action on behalf of the audience. 

For me, it provoked regret that I did not stay home and watch Monster for the 31st time.  

I should have stayed home with you, babe.

photo taken from google

MY THOUGHTS ARE EVERYWHERE

Mike McIntyre and Wilma Derksen, the mother of murder victim Candace Derksen, visited Red River College to talk about McIntyre’s book, Journey for Justice: How“Project Angel” Cracked The Candace Derksen Case. 

I have thought about this visit, the book, and crime in general way too much over the last few weeks and I apologize in advance because my thoughts are all over the place.

The book was written concisely, and that worked because it made the read a quick one. The content sounded like fiction, however; particularly when McIntyre drew quotes from conversations Candace’s parents, Wilma and Cliff Derksen, supposedly had in bed. To me, that did not work because it did not sound believable.  

When I ask what makes excellent journalism, I question if what was written was a worthwhile allocation of resources. In my opinion, Journey for Justice: How“Project Angel” Cracked The Candace Derksen Case, was not a worthwhile allocation of McIntyre’s resources as a crime reporter. The Candace Derksen case has received extensive media coverage and Have you seen Candace?, a book about Candace’s disappearance by Wilma Derksen, was published in 1992 and again in 2002. Journey for Justice provoked the same thoughts I had before: What happened to Candace Derksen and her family is a damn shame. Mark Grant is a freak. 

The book covered the overwhelming amount of support the Derksens received following Candace’s disappearance. This is another reason I found it to be a poor allocation of McIntyre’s resources as a crime reporter. Knowing so many people dedicated their efforts to the search for Candace and continued to support the Derksens afterwards did not make me think I should be doing my part to help out, because so many people were helping already.  

On the contrary, I think Nick Broomfield allocated his resources effectively when he made Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. It is a documentary film that follows Aileen Wuornos, a hitchhiking prostitute who killed seven men in Florida, in her final months on death row. If I merely read about Wuornos in the news, I would likely find her to be a crazy and terrible person. Watching the documentary provoked me to think about Wuornos as a victim, not a killer. It provoked me to think about why she did what she did (specifically the part where she tried her hardest to describe her family as good people and finally broke down and said if she would have had love and “something decent” in terms of a family, she could have been an “outstanding American.”) Finally, it provoked me to think about what I can do to change things for women like Aileen.   

Journalists can learn the importance of allocating their resources wisely from McIntyre’s book and the Candace Derksen case in general.

My reaction to the book and the presentation at first involved questioning how fulfilling a career as a crime reporter would be to me. I continued to think how reading that book provoked very few new thoughts and no desire to do anything to help find missing children, since so many people, it seemed, already are. It provoked zero desire to help a woman-hating heartless, soulless killer like Mark Grant.  

Yet I want to tell (“crime report”) Wuornos’s story to the whole world after seeing the documentary, and I will never stop believing that she has a heart and soul. But why?

 Candace Derksen asked her mother to pick her up from school on the day she was abducted. When I asked about the value of crime reporting when McIntyre and Derksen came to Red River College, Wilma said reporting on crime can take the blame off the victim. 

Mike McIntyre was only a few years younger than Candace when she was abducted, they lived not too far from each other, and her body was found on his birthday. 

My mother was a victim of domestic abuse and Aileen Wuornos was provoked to kill because she was abused by men all her life.  

The personal is political, right?

GROCERY LIST

When Beverly Rowbotham was murdered, she was wearing an undershirt.

Pathologist Dr. John MacDonald said it in court on Feb. 21. He said her feet were bare, 

and her jean jacket was buttoned at the wrists, and not the front. 

A young and beautiful Bev Rowbotham.  
Probs around my age here.

photo taken from Winnipeg Sun

But the undershirt, to me, is the most painful detail. She must have put it on that day because in October it gets cold. And if Bev Rowbotham could sense a breeze on her back, she could feel the blade on her fingers when she raised a hand to protect her face. 

Thinking about that makes her real to me, despite that I did not know her. It makes what happened to her possible. 

I watched her husband, Mark Stobbe, in the courtroom. He pleaded not guilty, by the way.

Hours later, I was feeling sad and I put on my television. On Golden Girls, Blanche was at a comedy club with Rose and Sophia, and Dorothy performed at amateur night.

Trying comedy was on the do-before-you-die list Dorothy made when she was young. Beverly’s wristwatch washed up on the riverbank. Those things made me think of time. And I am young, so I made a list of my own. 

At the top, I wrote about living in Manhattan and drinking Coke out of a glass bottle. By the bottom I scribbled something about feeling God at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, even though I did that last summer.

Four lines down, I wrote that I want to help free women from violence.

YIKES

I might be fucked for IPPs.

FLYING HIGH AGAIN

Three days before Christmas, I met a woman who traded sex for crack cocaine. She was sitting beside revolving doors in a department store, and outside, it was dark. 

“I need your help,” she said. “I want someone to walk me home.”

There was a haggard canvas bag on her lap and her hands, gloved by cheap cotton, grasped the handle. She told me a Christian had stopped to talk and she supposed she, herself, was a Christian, too.

I sat beside her and asked what was in the bag.

“A bra - I bought a bra at Zellers, oh,” she paused, “you are probably going to laugh, but I bought these, too.” She pulled out a box of Kotex pads. “I am almost too old to get periods, but I got a urinary infection, or something like that.”

I phoned the Biz to walk her home, and the operator said it would be a while. When I hung up, the woman stared at me. Her eye sockets were hollow and her teeth were rotten. Flakes of skin split from cracks in her lips and her fine, blonde hair was tangled.

“You’re beautiful,” she told me. 

I admitted to wearing false eyelashes and she admitted to being an addict. Rather than love, she has known three violent men and Child and Family Services took her son away. When she asked about my parents, I said I only have one. Abuse is a cycle, she said, and the clerk at Zellers was a bitch. I told her most of them are. Honesty, we agreed, is the best policy.

And then she told me a secret. It was summertime in the nineties when she sat in the parking lot of 7/11; her girlfriend asked if she had her pipe and pointed to a pick-up truck across the street.   

“Crack,” she whispered. “I would have done anything for it, so I guess I did.”

When she was telling me that story, her face looked young and sweet. Naive, even.

“If you want to know the truth,” she went on, “I was going to kill myself that night and I was hoping the guy in that truck would do it for me. But I don’t do that stuff anymore, crack and all that. I only smoke cigarettes now.” 

I said Number 7 when she asked what brand of cigarettes I smoke. 

“Number 7,” she repeated. “The best damn smokes.” Half-smiling, I agreed. “Man,” she shook her head, “the best fuckin’ brand.”

“You should quit.”

“You should quit, too.”

So I  asked if she wanted to make that her New Years resolution with me. She bit her bottom lip and nodded. And when the man from the Biz got there, she offered me her hand, but I hugged her instead. It might have been her first, that hug, because she almost did not let me go.
 

Weeks later, I was busy at the department store, and did not notice a woman who was wearing sunglasses, despite it being dark outside, and that her coat was open even though it was cold.

“Hey, help me pick out some stuff,” she slurred.

I got sad when I looked at her, because she was high as a kite and barely who I talked to three days before Christmas. She asked if I knew Kristy as her eyes nearly closed.

“Yeah, I know her.” I lied.

“Can you tell her something?” Tears spilled from her eyes. “Tell her I haven’t quit smoking yet, but I will.”

Needless to say I sobbed the whole way home: Women who trade sex for crack cocaine exist. ‘The answer,’ it seems, does not.

Image from Google

MEAN SPIRIT, BEAUTIFUL MIND.

“That is the compensation for being sixty, it is that you know everything. I know all human things.”

Fran Lebowitz made the above observation on Oct. 14 at the Pantages Theatre in downtown Minneapolis after appearing on stage at precisely eight o’clock. The remark, even if saucy, was pleasant relative to most made throughout the public speaking engagement, during which Lebowitz articulated her thoughts on such topics as the American presidency and J.D. Salinger to an audience that was, perhaps, a little too eager. 

“I encourage average people to have an opinion,” Lebowitz remarked wily. “As long as they do not express it to me.”

Hollow laughter bellowed from an audience made of an array of people: the bespectacled, young thinkers, a man wearing an ill-fitting suit - Jews and Gentiles, women with crew cuts, the well-read; those who feel they identify with Lebowitz herself, even if merely because they are of the opinion that they are of an opinion - regardless of it’s worth to She who stands before them.

Both collections of Lebowitz’s essays convey her observation of the average: houseplants, discothèque etiquette, and those who wear garments adorned by words or pictures. She has written a children’s book and is currently celebrated for professional stagnancy - that is, the will to write nothing at all. The follow-up to Social Studies (1981) has been in - or, more accurately, out - of progression for more than 30 years. Said book, Exterior Signs of Wealth, was not a topic of discussion; Lebowitz herself acknowledged that her deadline regrettably passed some 27 years ago and alas, the book has become old news. She chose instead to discuss current affairs, mostly. The demise of Steve Jobs was one of them.     

“Geniuses do not have retail outlets,” she insisted, deeming Jobs a businessman while rejecting the notion of the inventor as one of remarkable thought.

A discursive speaker, she veered from Jobs, offering a topic that appeared to genuinely amuse her: the cuff links set upon her wrists. Her cheeky smile faded quicker than it appeared and she moved on, noting that she voted for Obama, tourists should be banned from New York City, and she does not believe in forgiveness. 

She poured water to fill one fourth of a glass and as she tilted her head to sip it, grey roots pronounced themselves as modest but present among her otherwise dark, thick hair. Her ring suggested a romantic affiliation of sorts - an interesting detail given that, throughout her career of forty some odd years, she has refused to speak of her sexual orientation and relationship status despite public interest.   

Having survived such events as the Cold War, New York City’s AIDS epidemic, and 9/11, she revealed a desire to be the nation’s memory; she has seen much and seldom forgets. As the event drew to a close, Lebowitz described a love of reading.

“I read everything. If there is print on page, I read it. This is why I leave the flyers downstairs when I get the mail; if they come up with me I stay home all day.”     

In a subsequent question and answer period with the audience, Lebowitz communicated that she did not understand, hear, or care to answer many curiosities; such was the case when a young woman asked her what revenge she was plotting, if any.

“You obviously do not know the definition of the word plot.”

A man in a jean jacket declared that he was going to speak out, despite not having been called upon. Lebowitz agreed to listen to the question and the man asked her to describe her mission statement.

“You are obviously under the impression that I work for you, which I do not,” Lebowitz asserted; her hurried, nasal tone descending to a growl. “I think I’ve had quite enough. Goodnight, everyone.”

She turned, her left leg weaker than her right under bootcut Levis, the arc of her neck exaggerated beneath a suit jacket off Savile Row: applause remained arrested by disbelief as Lebowitz staggered into a wing off stage left to meet, precisely, no one at all. 

Outside the auditorium, aforementioned eager people - myself included, even if reluctantly so - lined up to meet Lebowitz; she was signing books. It was strange, really, to see a shadow cast over her nose - small, broken hairs standing separate from the others on her head. I closed my eyes when I heared her voice so close; the same one had conveyed thoughts that provoked my own, and suddenly, I was afraid.

She was reluctant to shake my hand and she did not stand up after permitting me to be in a photograph with her. My face cannot smile if what I feel is not sincere so it twitched as it pleased, her frizzy hair beside my jawline, while a man I did not know took our picture. I knelt down, so as to be at level with her, and described a wish- an undefeated ambition- to move to New York City and see the world creatively, just as she did many years ago. Looking into eyes wise with age, I asked - hell, pleaded - for advice.

“So you want my advice, huh? Give me that book.”

She created a scrawl before using her index finger to slide my copy of The Fran Lebowitz Reader back across the table.

At 10:14 pm I felt happy to be alone in downtown Minneapolis. I sat on the edge of a plant pot made of stone, and under a streetlight, I opened the book.

For Kristy,

Buy a winning lottery ticket.

Your pal,

Fran Lebowitz

And there you have it: another battle won in what I still consider to be the beautiful mind of Frannie L.; genius, even if merely self-perceived, defeats average person. So maybe she does not know all human things, then; but by believing she did, as she did, the woman herself acquainted me with the New York state of mind. 

kill me.

SOME(THING) TO LOVE

It has been a rather busy week although I must admit, I am very happy.

I love creating shows. I know, very random. But I love it so, so much. Right now, I am working on a play that I hope to have in the fringe next summer, and in my media production class we are working on talk shows and I have been chosen to direct the talk show for my group. I just absolutely love everything to do with both of these things that I am working on: creating and developing characters, writing dialogue, really thinking about how the story should unfold, mapping out scenes, I just love it all. I mostly love the challenge associated with coming up with storylines and events that are going to stay with the audience; that is, something that is going to provoke thought. This is the challenge I am facing right now with my potential fringe show but working through that has been rewarding and I am still in the beginning stages.

As an observer, I am beginning to appreciate, possibly more than ever, the way that a show can make you feel safe. I mean, right now I do not have a lot of time to watch television, and I often find myself feeling a little anxious about all the new things I am being faced with at school and at work and in my life but when I do get to sneak in half an hour here and there, the sense of escapism is profound, to say the least. It really has a way of taking me somewhere else and the great thing about that is that we, as readers and viewers and listeners, can choose where we want to go.

Image from Google

For example, last night I spent some quality time with the girls. Yes, I mean the golden girls. Sophia and Dorothy were playing cards and Blanche had to make a difficult decisions involving her sister who she has loathed for most of her life. Rose, for the first time since Charlie, her late husband, passed away, was 'with' a man and there I was, the fifth golden girl, eating cheesecake with all of them in the kitchen as these things happened. It is this that I want to be able to do for others; allow them to come into a world that, while perhaps not better or worse, is different from their own. As Fran herself says, a book should be a door, not a mirror. I think this absolutely applies to television, broadway, talk, you name it. It applies to show biz.

Speaking of FL, I will be in the same room as her tomorrow. I do not really know what more to say about that as it seems rather surreal and I almost feel afraid that my brain will not be able to absorb quickly and effectively enough to really appreciate her in all of her brilliance.

I guess I'll just keep it simple then;

au revoir winnipeg, bonsoir ma belle Fran.

Not too long now until the latter will read 'Manhattan.'