Hocus Pocus was really formative for me

"Hallowe'en." Vintage holiday postcard, late 19th-early 20th century. The New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection.

Halloween is among my favorite holidays, and not because I love to dress up.  I have a deep and abiding passion for the monstrous, the creepy, and the outright terrifying.  Nothing makes me happier than to spend October curled up with the scariest books and movies I can find.

Previous years’ favorites have included Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” this true life account of a night in a haunted house from Southern Literary Messenger, “Some Zombie Contingency Plans” and “The Wrong Grave” by Kelly Link, John Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, silly/sublime tv show The Vampire Diaries, Neil Gaiman’s “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire” and The Graveyard Book, and Guillermo del Toro’s tremendous film El Espinazo del Diablo, just to choose a few.

It’s been rough trying to squeeze in a month’s worth of horror between classes and work, but I’ve still managed to dip into a few things.  So what am I loving this year?

The Wolfman, which is an enjoyable remake of the 1941 original that deposits all of our contemporary quirks and weirdnesses on the Victorian setting. I liked it primarily because I always like stories in which the supernatural gets all up in your science and rationality and sends it straight to hell.

Edith Wharton’s After Holbein.  Okay, I’m not done reading this yet, but Wharton is big around Skinny House these days, so we’re including it.

The Halloween episode of Community, quite possibly my new favorite episode of the show. Star Trek + zombies = forever win.

(And I will tell you what I did not love: Jennifer’s Body.  I was ready for the feminist horror to film to end all horror films, a complete revolution in the genre, and the positing of ultimate female power, finally, at last.  Instead I got a lurid display of female jealousy and the same old chicks-are-totally-crazy bullshit.  Serious disappointment, to say the least.)

And now that we’ve carved pumpkins and gotten a taste of serious autumn chill, we’re ready for trick-or-treaters and then the rapid descent into winter depression.

But first!  I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention All Hallows Read, a new tradition in the making, in which we all give each other spooky books on or around October 31.  I gave my mom The Graveyard Book this year, but as it’s my signed first edition, I’ll be asking for it back.  Still, I think this could be much fun in the years to come.  (Don’t know if you could tell, but I can never get enough of sharing scary books.)

Happy Halloween, y’all!

Library blogging: Marathon Community Reading Brings Saint Augustine to Life

Join the Confessions Alive! marathon reading of St. Augustine’s well-known work, hosted by Falvey Memorial Library, in partnership with the Villanova University Classical Studies Program, the Office for Mission and Ministry, and the Villanova Center for Liberal Education. The day-long public reading will begin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010, in Falvey Memorial Library’s first floor lounge.

University President Rev. Peter Donohue, O.S.A., will commence the reading at 9 a.m. It will continue until midnight, with refreshments available to participants throughout the day.

“St. Augustine’s Confessions is a milestone in the history of autobiography.  It is a narrative, not just theology. Hearing it aloud is helpful,” explains Outreach librarian and theology professor Darren Poley.  “Events of this kind encourage people to understand great works of literature and truly do make ancient texts more accessible.”

Continue reading at the Falvey Library news blog.

Treats in Center City

I spent this morning getting 6 vials of blood drawn, but only after the nurse took about 10 minutes digging around in my arm, trying to pierce my vein.  Not my biggest idea of fun — don’t let the tattoos fool you, I am terrified of getting stuck.  Yeeuch.

Obviously a morning this terrible needs to be compensated for in a spectacular way.  Mine? A ticket to the Philadelphia Orchestra to hear Ravel’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, followed by a trip to the Naked Chocolate Cafe.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I know pretty much nothing about classical music.  But NPR is my occasional friend, and I’ve been in love with Pictures since I heard it one morning on a much-too-early drive to work.  This rendition didn’t disappoint, but I did wish for more volume.  I like to feel like the decibels are punching me in the gut.

The rooftop garden at the Kimmel was actually open today, so I got a chance to go up and take a peek.  First thought: the elevator ride is scary but makes for an awesome view.  (Design Philadelphia is setting up something rad-looking in the yard next to the Broad Street Ministry; I really want to know what it is!)  Second thought: the garden is much less of a garden than I thought, but it’s still really neat.  Trees in the sky!

The rooftop garden was warm, but the street was windy and chilly.  When it’s cold, I live on hot chocolate.  I’d read about the Naked Chocolate Cafe, and knew I just had to stop by and try their wares.  I got a petit Aztec hot chocolate (mixed with nutmeg, cinnamon, and other spices) done in a European style (incredibly thick), and I picked up a chocolate and vanilla cupcake for later.  The place is decadence to the extreme — my total bill for the 2 items was 6.75 + tip — but oh so worth it.

Next time: I’m going to attempt to eat actual food at an actual food restaurant in Center City.  Suggestions are welcome.

Fan culture and the transformation of everything

If there’s one thing grad students are known to have, it’s heaps of spare time just lying around.

Yeah, right.

But every single moment not spent nose-deep in book after endless book should be, I believe, spent doing something else just as worthwhile.  (Okay, sometimes those worthwhile things are, like, watching Gossip Girl until 2 a.m.  But still.)

In the past couple of months, I’ve gotten involved in something I’m deeply passionate about, but something I don’t talk about a lot on here.  It’s called the Organization for Transformative Works, and I think it’s kind of a big deal.

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms.

Fandom has been a direct part of my life for over 10 years (and even longer when you account my childhood amongst Trekkies), though I may not talk about it a lot.  It has provided me with hours of entertainment, support when I needed it, a chance to do some good in the world, and a ton of wonderful friends around the world.

Right now, though, it’s time to give back.  The OTW does what they do out of love, but it does not happen inexpensively.  Servers cost money, legal reform costs money, publishing academic work costs money.  Many of us donate our time to the OTW — which, I can tell you, is a fun and mutually beneficial experience — but time alone can’t make the organization run.

So if you’ve ever experienced the sheer joy of fandom, or created a fanwork, or enjoyed a fanwork, or if you believe in open access to intellectual property in the spirit of transformation, think about donating a few dollars.  We’ve got a lot more battles to fight, a lot more projects to create, and a lot more fun to share with the fannish world.

Where are all the Halloween scares?

There are few things I drag my lazy self out of the house for, but Shakespeare is usually one of them.  I did, after all, work at a renowned Southern Shakespeare theatre for 8 years.

So was the Wilma’s Macbeth worth the train ride to Center City?  Well, yes and no.

Yes, because it featured some stunning visuals: the weird sisters crawling up and down the walls, the variable and emotional use of lighting throughout, the Birnam Wood reveal.  And no, because none of these interesting visuals translated into an emotional affective experience.  Yes, because the Wilma’s space is beautiful and worth seeing; no, because a fantastic space alone can’t make up for a lack of connection with the audience and the other actors onstage.  Yes, because Lady Macbeth’s unraveling was compelling to watch; and no, because, aside from the “Out, damn spot” scene, neither she nor anyone else on the stage seemed to have much business performing Shakespeare.

The Wilma had never tackled the Bard before, and to be honest, it shows.  Nearly every actor threw out their lines like grand pronouncements — they seemed to be eternally conscious that were Doing Shakespeare.  But the poetry of early modern theatre works best if you treat it like normal language, as the actors of PAC’s The Duchess of Malfi did.

I thought at least seeing Macbeth around Halloween-time would be a good, spooky theatre-going experience, but the play is strangely bloodless.  The production outright ignores the text when Banquo appears at the banquet scene: though Macbeth plainly calls his visage “gory,” the Wilma’s Banquo was spotlessly clean, attired in white, and not even very scary.  I haven’t seen a better Halloween production to recommend (I hear Carrie is getting panned), but I can tell you the creep-factor just isn’t here.

Macbeth is evidently popular enough that the Wilma has extended its run until November 13th.  But really, I’d recommend saving your $30+ and renting yourself a scary movie instead.

Summertime in Fishtown

My previous post (the title of which is totally what I’m naming my Atlanta memoirs, btw) got me thinking about urban art projects and city ephemera.  Luckily, I live in a neighborhood in Philly with scores of both.

When I first moved here, in the midst of the hottest August ever, my favorite thing in Fishtown was the summertime mural under the 95 overpass.  The celebration of “Vacation” and “Chillin’” seems a little silly now that the air has gotten crisp, but when the temperatures were pushing 100 degrees everyday, the shade and the bright colors under that overpass really made the difference.

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I was really hoping the mural would be a seasonal exhibit kind of thing, but who knows?  We may still be looking at “Summertime” all winter long.

And for photos of my other favorite Philly mural project, check out A Love Letter For You.  I used to see these everyday as I rode the MFL out to 69th Street, and I miss them now that I’ve given up on the environment and started driving.

Goodbye to the Whale Wall (& Other Atlanta Stories)

Checking my Google Reader for the first time in months brought some sad news: the Whale Wall will soon be no more.

The girls at Pecanne Log, my all-time favorite Atlanta blog, have a posted a nice little tribute.  They’re right that the mural was kind of crappy and weird, but so were most of my favorite things about Atlanta.

The Whale Wall is one of those things I saw once and then could never seem to find again, convincing me that I’d made it up on some overly-hot summer night.  I don’t generally do a lot of hallucinating while riding my bike, but you know how the memory makes strange things seem stranger.

The parking garage the mural used to adorn had some of the coolest ramps to ride — tight corkscrews spanning several stories — and there really was one sweaty summer evening where we rode up and down them till we nearly puked.  Getting up to the top is fun, but I was so dizzy I nearly took a spill off the side.  Imagine if the Whale Wall was the last thing you saw before you died.  Getting down again the correct way was much harder since we had to fight the downhill momentum, keep to the tight turns, and not stop pedaling, then thread the needle between giant concrete pillars with our heads still spinning.

I don’t think I managed to find my way back to the Whale Wall once in the intervening 5 years, until exploring downtown this summer.  That was the day we learned about the Hustler’s 10 Commandments, What the Chicken?, and the awesomeness of mixing giant beers at the CNN Center with running in the fountain at Centennial Olympic Park.

Library blogging: Auschwitz and After

Each year, the Alfred F. Mannella and Rose T. Lauria-Mannella Distinguished Speakers Series presents a lecture on Italian history and culture. This year’s lecture, on Jewish-Italian author and Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi, will be given by Nicholas Patruno, Ph.D., at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010, in Falvey Memorial Library’s first floor lounge.

Dr. Patruno, professor emeritus in the department of Italian at Bryn Mawr College, was initially “surprised,” he says, when asked to write a book on Primo Levi. He took up the challenge, though, because he ranks Levi as “among the most important writers of post-World War II Italy and, internationally, among the most important writers of the 20th century.

Continue reading at the Falvey Library news blog.

In which the PMA doesn’t disappoint

I have a tight 2-year schedule in which to fit in all my Philly culture before moving on to the next grueling step of my education.  It’s my goal to hit all the major things I possibly can.  Being that I’m probably the biggest museum nerd around, the Philadelphia Museum of Art had to be one of the first things on my list.

It would’ve been so easy to be let down.  Just the weekend before, I had hiked about 10 miles around the Met with bff Justin.  It’s hard to compare anything to that, but the PMA held its own quite nicely.  The outside is, of course, epically gorgeous (and host to like 10 couples taking wedding photos at a time).  The inside is impressively large, and, though not tremendously well-laid out, still a lot of fun to wander through.

 

From Jasper Johns' American flag series

 

My museum style is casually haphazard at best — I didn’t know till I stumbled upon it that the PMA has one of Van Gogh’s sunflowers.  I wouldn’t say they hold many other truly iconic works, but many of my favorite artists do grace the walls, from di Chirico to Jasper Johns.  The only real let down were the strangely dark and boring Manets (nothing like my all-time favorites, Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère and Olympia), especially since they had no explanatory text to help me situate them within his career.

For being a pay-what-you-can first Sunday, the museum was wonderfully uncrowded, and there was much more to see than could fit into 1 day.  I’m not sure it’s worth a membership, but a monthly-or-so first Sunday visit could definitely figure into my future.

Bonus Philly experience: afterward, we headed down to Reading Terminal Market, where I was introduced to the joys of DiNic’s.  I wish I had reason to stop by more often, because there are several more restaurants and vendors I want to check out.  (No way am I missing the upcoming Harvest Festival, though.)  Extra bonus points for a truly hideous piece of “art” found on the street during our walk.  It’s like the 80s threw up Pepto and pearls all over some kid’s woodshop experiment.  I wish more things like this awaited me every time I left the house.

Friday afternoon highbrow interlude

If there’s one most exciting thing about the highbrow Philadelphia culture scene for me, it’s the student subscription service offered by the Philadelphia Orchestra.  For $25, students can get one ticket to as many shows as they want for the whole season.  That’s a whole lot of orchestra performances for less than 1 ticket would usually cost.

On Friday afternoon (ah, the life of a grad student), I took advantage of this deal for the first time, and hauled myself down to the Kimmel to see Dutoit conduct.  “The Starry Night of Romeo & Juliet” included excerpts from Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet ballet and a Dutilleux piece inspired by Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  Both are exceptionally beautiful pieces of music in their own ways, and were a joy to hear.

But the real treat of the show was watching my favorite classical pianist, Jeremy Denk, play Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1.  Sitting down towards the front, I didn’t have a great view of his hands, but the sheer joy in his face went a long way to making up for it.

I’d love to wow all 6 of you reading this with a detailed analysis of the music and the performances, but the truth is I’m a total classical music n00b.  The only things I know, I read in Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise, just like every other 20-something affecting a greater cultural knowledge than she actually possesses.  So all I can say is, Jeremy Denk is a dreamboat (and runs the best blog ever), the Philadelphia Orchestra is pretty darn good, and you can’t beat $25 to visit the gorgeous Kimmel Center multiple times in a season.

Next time: 2 things!  I won’t wear the dress that shows all the tattoos — oh my, the blue hairs had some nasty looks for me — and hopefully the skylight garden will be open so I can go revel in its amazingness.