LISTENING IN LITERATURE -- "THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD"

The neighbors are talking, sitting in on judgment. That, on the surface, is what leads Janie Crawford to tell her life story to her best and oldest friend, Phoeby Watson, in Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Janie tells her friend, "Ah don't mean to bother wid tellin' 'em nothin', Phoeby. 'Taint worth the trouble. You can tell 'em [the neighbors] what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just the same as me 'cause my tongue is in my friend's mouf." 

Maybe Phoeby's defense of her friend will get the neighbors to stop their petty gossip, but it doesn't matter so much. "They sat there in the fresh young darkness close together. Phoeby eager to feel and do through Janie, but hating to show her zest for fear it might be thought mere curiosity. Janie full of that oldest human longing--self revelation." That, rather than cutting the grapevine short, is the deeper motivation for Janie talking.

"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches," writes Hurston. And Janie says, "Ah know exactly what Ah got to tell yuh, but it's hard to know where to start at." The neighbors are only judging Janie for her recent absence from the town, and for her wearing overalls that day. But why she was gone and why she is wearing overalls is merely a small branch of the tree of her life--it can't be justified, or at any rate explained, without following that branch down to the trunk and finally the roots of the tree. So Janie goes back to her childhood.

"Phoeby's hungry listening helped Janie to tell her story. So she went on thinking back to her young years and explaining them to her friend in soft, easy phrases while all around the house, the night time put on flesh and blackness." 

Janie recounts the story of her family and her various relationships. There's a pretty good summary on Wikipedia here. Suffice it to say, it's dramatic stuff--two unsatisfying marriages followed by love with man named Tea Cake. Tea Cake gets rabies from a dog bite during a hurricane, attacks Janie in a rabid fury, Janie kills him in self-defense, she is put on trial and acquitted, and returns to Eatonville, Florida, where the neighbors gossip about her and where she tells her story to Phoeby. The book becomes the telling of this story, but occasionally the scene returns to Phoeby and Janie sitting together, and we recall that this is a story being told to someone else.

Janie has lost her love; has been judged and acquitted by a jury; has been judged and gossiped about by her neighbors. But by the end of her tale, Janie has revealed herself. And no less important, Phoeby has given her a full hearing. "There was a finished silence after that so that for the first time they could hear the wind picking at the pine trees."

(It's no coincidence, perhaps, that Zora Neale Hurston was an anthropologist and folklorist, and herself an expert in listening to people's stories, voices, and accents. No wonder she could reproduce them so well on the page. Visit the official Zora Neale Hurston website for audio of Ruby Dee reading from the first chapter of "Eyes.")  

LISTENING IN LITERATURE -- FRANKENSTEIN

Poor Dr. Frankenstein. Busy on a doomed mission, chasing his rogue monster over frozen seas of ice!  

It is in this terrible terrain where -- in Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" -- we first encounter the, how to say, mad scientist who created a man out of the body parts of the dead. But this all comes later. 

First we meet Robert Walton, a young Englishman who, in an effort to give his life purpose, is arranging an expedition to the North Sea. In St. Petersburg, Russia, he starts recruiting a ship's crew, and within months is off. However cheered he may be by the start of his journey, he is lonely and friendless, as he reports to his sister in letters back home. The situation worsens when his ship gets stuck in ice -- being stranded out in the middle of an icy nowhere with only your crew (whom you respect but have little in common with) is maybe not the best situation for making new friends. From his ship, Walton spies a fearsome figure skating across the ice on a sleigh. Later, his ship is happened upon by a weary man who, as it turns out, is chasing the man, or rather the creature, who had sledded by not long before. That second man is Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who in time unfolds his dreadful tale to Robert Walton. Walton is delighted to have a friend, and Victor Frankenstein is relieved to have someone to unburden himself to. After all, he's got a thing or two to unload: as we learn over the course of the book, Victor created a man out of corpses, and that creature went on to kill innocents, which compelled Victor to follow him to the ends of the earth to stop him from causing any more destruction.

The novel, in this way, is framed by listening -- Robert listens to Victor carefully, and acts as a set of ears for the reader; we listen to this story through him. As Robert bends his ear towards Victor, so are we inclined to bend our ears towards the novel. (In a sense, the reader takes the place of Robert's sister Elizabeth, the silent recipient of his letters. It's yet another layer of listening in the book.) But the fact of the story being told through someone else is more than just a literary device. Robert's open ears give Victor a reason to tell of his awful adventures; any person who was less ready than Robert, or could not hear the tale, or did not want to hear it, or thought ill of Victor for his actions, or disdained him -- such a person could not draw the story out of Victor, or at the very least could not relate it with such sensitivity. But that's not the best part of it. In Robert we have a sorely lonely man stuck in the ice on a make-or-break mission; perhaps he is more likely to listen to whatever reasonably intelligent company comes along! Besides, he gets to hear a fantastic story he can tell at dinner parties the rest of his life ("Didn't I tell you about the time I met the mad scientist?").

But Victor is an attentive listener as well, as Robert reports: "Yet, although unhappy, [Victor] is not so utterly occupied by his own misery but that he interests himself in the projects of others. He has frequently conversed with me on mine, which I have communicated to him without disguise. He entered attentively into all my arguments in favour of my eventual success and into every minute detail of the measures I had taken to secure it." Granted, Robert says that before Victor actually tells his story, so maybe Victor does end up being pretty self-absorbed. But I like to think not: here's a mad scientist whose life's work has gone terribly amuck, and he goes on a wearisome and possibly fruitless quest to destroy the monster he created. And yet, from the very start, he is not so totally self-absorbed as to ignore the concerns of those around him. I'd venture that we all know people who get wrapped up in their own worries; well, they've got nothing on Victor Frankenstein! We should all be so responsive in our interactions.

(P.S. One last thing I want to mention. I was surprised to learn that, in contrast to the grunting monster of movie Frankensteins, the creature in the book is extraordinarily sensitive and articulate. All he wants in the end is some companionship. And who can blame him for that? Certainly not Robert Walton, who himself started this story saying how much he wanted a friend.)

ROMAN SKASKIW ON "NARRATIVE AND MEMORY AT WAR"

Here's a fantastic piece by former infantry officer Roman Skaskiw, on "Narrative and Memory at War." It's the last of a five-part New York Times series called "Retelling the War," in which veterans of the Afghanistan and/or Iraq wars reflect on recent war movies "The Hurt Locker" and "The Messenger," and on the larger topic of war and narrative. (Photo of Skaskiw is from the NYT website.)

Skaskiw's piece has special insight on the ways that life and life-story are intertwined. He cites a passage from a short story by Isaac Babel: "A well-thought-out story doesn't need to resemble real life.  Life itself with all its might tries to resemble a well-crafted story." He says that his own life has tried with all its might to resemble the story of a hero or a victim, regardless of what his own feelings and experience may be. I encourage you to read the whole piece. 

INSIDE STORIES PODCAST 17: STEPPING BACK IN TIME WITH FORD'S THEATRE

DOWNLOAD THE NEW EPISODE ON iTUNES HERE, OR LISTEN ONLINE HERE. 

Abraham Lincoln is perhaps our most storied president. Of course one of the most legendary aspects of Lincoln is, alas, his assassination. From the shooting in Ford's Theatre, to the fact that his killer was an actor, to the place of the murder in national history and lore, this murder is, among other things, the stuff of theater. It's only fitting, then, that Ford's Theatre would memorialize Lincoln in a walking tour that takes participants back to the time following the assassination. In this episode of the podcast, you'll hear segments from the walking tour, and a bit of conversation with actor Matthew McGloin, who led the tour when I went on it last year, the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. (The photo above by Mark Ramont is from Ford's website, it's of Kip Pierson, another actor who leads the tour.) The tour is called "Investigation: Detective McDevitt," and was written by Richard Hellesen. For more on this and another Ford's tour called "A Free Black Woman: Elizabeth Keckly," click here.

Btw, Ford's is still a working theatre, with a mission to celebrate the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and to explore the American experience through theatre and education. The box where Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd were seated on April 14, 1865 has been cordoned off, and is draped with flags. There is Lincoln memorabilia in the lower level of the theatre. Here's the current season of shows, and here's a cool virtual tour of the theatre, with click and drag panorama photos of the interior. 

A LITTLE HIATUS

Hello readers and podcast listeners -- 

I've been remiss in posting the last couple weeks, dealing with some family matters. Check back around the beginning of March for new posts and podcast episodes. Thanks for sticking with me!

Paul

BEHIND THE NEWS

Here's a hilarious short video from the BBC's Charlie Brooker, on "How to Report the News." Nicely pops the bubble of the local news, with its inane prefab format. Just plug in a few specifics of whatever issue is being covered, and you've got yourself a news story. 

This also reminds me of Andy Schocken's early 2000s film "Live at Five," a half-hour "newscast" -- really a brilliantly edited assemblage of local news footage from stations around the country. Every clip is totally familiar: the mindless patter of the anchors, news reporters standing in front of unlit buildings to provide "on the scene" coverage, weather reporters out in the snow to tell us it's snowing, and -- most of all -- the relentless and disproportionate focus on cute animals, fires, car accidents, and the weather. How I wish that film were online! 

"NEW ROUTES TO COMMUNITY HEALTH" -- DISPELLING "TET CHARGE" AND OTHER PROBLEMS

Project SALUD: "Fronteras del Amor" from Latinos Progresando on Vimeo.

"Tet charge," I just learned, is a Haitian Creole expression for "a lot of problems in your head," as Renald Raphael puts it. Perhaps "overload" would be another way of translating it. Raphael works with Twa Zanmi (Three Friends), a community health program for Haitians in the Boston area. And "tet charge" is how he says (in this video) many Haitian immigrants explain away their depression and anxiety. "People will continue to work, do their business, it is a way of life." In other words, it's just "tet charge" -- as if that were a normal state of affairs. And since mental health is such a taboo issue among Haitians, says Raphael, few will discuss it. That's why his group is producing a telenovela, or soap opera, to get in under the radar of viewers. It's harder to protest when you're being entertained, rather than lectured to or evaluated. (The work-in-progress doesn't seem to have quite the high-pitched drama of, say, General Hospital; but then, what do I know? I don't speak the language, and there are no subtitles. Besides, I don't think General Hospital has a psych ward.)

Twa Zanmi is one of eight groups around the country that comprise "New Routes to Community Health," an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Benton Foundation that brings together immigrant, media, and other community-based organizations to improve immigrants' health. They work on everything from domestic violence, to gang activity, to mental health, to STDs and other questions -- among Latino youth, or elderly Vietnamese, or Somalis of any age.  Depends on the project. Another effort is "Project Salud," a group of Latino youth in Chicago who create these funky telenovelas of their own, as the video above details. The young actors seem to relish jumping into these thoroughly soapy circumstances and into the characters they are given to play. I can't blame 'em. Being somebody else for a little bit might just do the trick to dispel tet charge. Or more.

GROUNDHOG DAY -- WHAT HAPPENS AFTER HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

 
To my mind, one of the enduring mysteries from movie-dom is this: What happens after the ending of the film "Groundhog Day"? 

On the surface of things, the answer is pretty obvious. TV weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) and his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) fall in love and live happily ever after. But the falling in love is a little lopsided, and I wonder if Phil ever tells Rita why.  

Here's the scoop. For the fourth year in a row, Phil is assigned to cover the Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania. He hates the gig, hates the town, and wants to split right after the festivities are over. Problem is, a blizzard comes in and traps Phil, along with Rita and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot) in town. Phil wakes up the next day, and it's Groundhog Day all over again. Same thing the next day and the day after that, as Phil finds himself caught in a time-loop, repeating Groundhog Day, February 2, over and over -- always waking up to the same horrible song ("I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher) on the clock radio. Everybody else is experiencing it for the first time, only for Phil is the day stuck on repeat. 

At first Phil is confused, then exhilarated by being able to act without consequences, then is driven to despair by his being unable to seduce Rita, much less make her fall in love with him, in one day's time. (The mordantly funny clip above is from Phil's worst moment of dejection.) Finally, after untold repetitions of Groundhog Day, he changes his bitter, selfish ways and uses the repetions to his advantage -- to learn French, to learn piano, to learn about everyone in town, and -- cue the cheesy soundtrack music -- how to love. His generosity and warmth and talents finally impress Rita, but in the meantime, Phil has learned that the point is not to "get" her but to live in the moment. This being a happily-ever-after movie, however, Phil not only gets to become a Zen master, but also escapes the time loop he's been trapped in and, presumably, wins Rita's heart as well. 

Now, Phil has learned about and fallen in love with Rita over the course of countless repetitions of the same day. Rita, however, is not stuck endlessly reliving a single day (or maybe she is, it's just in Phil's world), and has had only 24 hours to learn anything about Phil. She is impressed and happy, but is not the type to fall in love so quickly as all that.

So, the big question -- no doubt equal to the grand existential puzzles like "Why are we here?" -- is this: Does Phil tell Rita what happened, namely that he's been stuck repeating Groundhog Day for so long

Up until now, I've been torn mightily about this question. On the one hand, it seems obvious that of course he would tell her -- if they're going to live happily ever after, then "forever" is a pretty long time to keep that kind of important information secret. And then, does she believe him? Or would the revelation spoil the mystery of their love? Besides, Phil could make a mint off of a bestselling novelization of his life. 

On the other hand, how do you begin to say something like that? And if Phil doesn't tell her, what is she to think of the fact that Phil fell in love with her in what appears (to Rita) to be about as much time as it takes to do your grocery shopping and get your emissions checked? What kind of co-dependent fool becomes smitten so easily, and can you trust his feelings? 

Well, stop the presses: after seeing the film about a half-dozen times, I have come to the conclusion that Phil does tell Rita what happened. He gives a clue near the end of the film, when various townspeople thank Phil for one or another favor he's done for them that day (why not? he knows so much about everything going on, he might as well help a few folks out), Rita asks him what's going on. He says, "Would you like the long version, or the short one?" Before he can tell her, they are interrupted. That, in my professional opinion, is enough of a sign that he'll tell her in time.

Why take such pains over a seemingly small question like this? Well, clearly the indication is that Phil and Rita will live happily ever after -- but the clear blue sky of that happiness is clouded by the lopsidedness in their relationship and the question about how it got there. In any story, what happens before and after and around the contours of any story is a mystery -- and viewers (and readers) are left to wonder what lays outside. Except for now. About this movie. With just the one question. Take that, people who love ambiguous endings!

I sincerely hope I haven't killed the pleasant mystery by providing what I consider is the answer to film's greatest mystery. This is like Rosebud, only more so. Oh hey, one last thing. As you may have read, Punxsutawney Phil (the real life groundhog) has predicted 6 more weeks of winter. He has got to be stopped! (Phil Connors agrees, in the clip above.)

INSIDE STORIES PODCAST 16: SELECTIONS FROM "WORD OF MOUTH"

DOWNLOAD THE NEW EPISODE ON iTUNES HERE, OR LISTEN ONLINE HERE. 

Let us first state the obvious: George King is a pretty cool-looking cat. Wouldn't you say? That's him in the photo. I hope I look as cool as him when I grow up. Well, I hope that right now I look even half as groovy as him, but I have some serious doubts. Anyway, George King & Associates is an ad hoc group of filmmakers producing nonfiction films, television and radio programs; they also create informational and educational media for commercial and nonprofit clients.

Not long ago, I heard about George from a friend we have in common -- a friend who, when I told her about "Inside Stories," said I might be interested in a radio documentary series George produced in 1987. The three-part series is called "Word of Mouth," and it features great folks like Studs Terkel, Jackie Torrence, Corey Fischer and others, all talking about "Why Do People Tell Stories?" "Where Do Stories Come From?" and "Who Is Telling Stories Today?" 

George was kind enough to let me draw selected clips from the series for this new episode of "Inside Stories." I think you'll find it a blast from the past -- partly because some of the people in it have died, and because it totally predates the digital era; but I suspect you'll also find that it resonates today, thanks to its prescient, or in some cases timeless, qualities. For example, some of the speakers in the program talk about a renaissance of storytelling, and this is back in 1987! I've heard that same sentiment expressed repeatedly in the last 10-15 years -- with This American Life, and The Moth, and storytelling nights around the country. And that's not counting the many other ways we tell stories in everyday life. So please check out what the people in George's program have to say -- you may just be reminded that good storytelling never goes out of style.

Download the podcast episode on iTunes, listen online, or you can also listen to the complete "Word of Mouth" series on the website of George King & Associates.

ANGLES ON ALLEN GINSBERG'S HOWL

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night..."


The first thing that strikes one upon reading Allen Ginsberg's epic 1955 poem "Howl," is that it really doesn't rhyme. It would have been much better had the poem started "I find the best minds" or "I saw the raw minds," or if it had paired "destroyed by madness" with a phrase such as "annoyed by sadness." Don't you think?

Okay, that's a ridiculous criticism. But perhaps only slightly more ridiculous than the criticism leveled against the publisher of the infamous poem in a 1957 obscenity trial. The attorney for the prosecution asked a professor testifying in defense of its literary merits to define the opening lines (cited above). The response, "Sir, you can't translate poetry into prose. That's why it's poetry." 

Seems obvious to me--the richness of any poetic or other artistic work lies in large part in its openness to interpretation. But then, given how many so-called Biblical "literalists" insist on a certain reading of scripture, this is clearly not a widely agreed-upon point. That's what makes it all the more exciting that "Howl," its author, and the obscenity trial against its publisher City Lights are the subject of a new film of the same name by multiple Oscar- and Emmy-winners Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. (Between them, they've made "The Times of Harvey Milk," "Common Threads," and other films on gay themes. The new film premiered at Sundance last week, and should be in theaters later this year.)

The interpretability of language -- poetic, political, and/or otherwise -- is evident in everything from the reaction to President Obama's speeches to legal arguments over the Framers' intent to any work of literary criticism. To see this issue dramatized by these filmmakers is pretty damn cool. And all the more so because at the film's center is, as film critic B. Ruby Rich writes in this insightful article, a pretty explicit poem, even by today's standards. For me, its explicitness is not just because of its ultra-homosexual nature ("who copulated ecstatic and insatiate and fell off the bed," in one of the cleaner passages), or its talk of mental illness and drug use. Rather, it's because the poem contains so many jagged urban images -- fantastic and surreal but so utterly recognizable that they lead you, the reader, to see them incarnated in everyday life.  

And how to dramatize an issue like literary criticism? The filmmaking duo of Epstein and Friedman have ingeniously woven together four strands: Ginsberg's original reading of the poem, dramatizations of the obscenity trial and an ultimately unpublished interview Ginsberg gave to a Time magazine reporter, as well as animated sequences. (Ginsberg is played by James Franco, in the clips above.) I was fortunate enough to be at a staged reading of the work-in-progress a couple years ago, in San Francisco, and the mix of storytelling styles -- even in the roughest of forms -- was thrilling. I haven't yet seen the finished film yet, but this earlier incarnation was a look into the value of art in the form of a courtroom drama.

My one quibble with the project at the time was that the drama was not as pitched as it could be; that's not only because we know (or can deduce) the outcome of the trial -- of course 1950s straightjacket culture did not constrain this thunderous, bursting poem -- but because the prosecution's side was so patently weak. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman are documentarians, so they're hardly ones to alter source material like that. As exciting as the amalgam of styles was, I found myself wanting the anti-Howl side to be pumped up a little bit, so there would be at least some question about who would win. Even lacking this suspense, however, the staged reading and samples of the animation pointed to a film that would allow this electric poem and its historical moment to charge viewers more than 50 years later.