Dispatch From Spain: Meat is Gross |
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by Elisa Albert, March 3, 2008 |
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Wish you were here: Produce on sale in TeruelHola from Teruel, Spain (please don't call it "te-roo-ell" like an Ugly American, okay? Roll that "r"!), where I'm living, off and on, this spring. My beloved got a Fulbright, and I'm along for the ride, my understanding being that when you have the chance to live in a random mountain town in the middle of Spain, you do so. Just 'cause.
It's a cool town. Around Valentine's Day, when I got here, they were having their annual, massive festival de Los Amantes, which is about a medieval Romeo & Juliet (Isabel and Diego) who basically love each other a lot and both wind up dead as a result. There's a story, but it's convoluted. Romantic!
Hundreds of people were hanging out in full costume and roasting shit over open flames and selling tinctures. There was even a "Jewish quarter" with actors playing the three Jewish families who apparently lived here before they met their various heinous fifteenth-century ends. We hesitated before exclaiming "Somos Judios!" and were met with blank stares.
Anyway, it's far away from home. There are none of the global chains that have invaded many an international metropolis. It's quiet and chill. No one speaks English. There's a café in town that serves little cups of the thickest, crazy-good spicy hot chocolate, which you consume with a little spoon.
A fine romance: Isabel and DiegoBut it's also kind of far away from home and no familiar chain stores and no one speaks English and really quiet and ever so slightly depressing (I mean, if one were prone to depression in the first place, which I wouldn't know anything whatsoever about; I've got serotonin to spare). Ah, life: the bad in the good and the good in the bad. I know you've got to roll with travel, and that the discomforts and compromises required can yield enormous rewards. But it invariably takes me a little longer than I'd like to get into the swing of that.
And the food. The food has been a problem. I'm a hard-core vegetarian. (Skip the next few lines if you hate airtight conviction.) I think eating animals is completely amoral. It requires an inexcusably willful ignorance. It's totally irresponsible in light of our current environmental quandary, and it's just plain disgusting in general. (It also, for you self-identified Torah freaks, goes absolutely against the spirit of the laws of Kashrut. Like, one thousand million percent.)
And since the diet here consists almost exclusively of animal products (giant bloody rumps of dead pig hanging in every third store window, along with ubiquitous sausage, which in combination make me think fondly back on my first eye-opening read of The Sexual Politics of Meat) eating has been a challenge. I kid you not, they sell Pringles con Jamon in the supermarket. It's made me reflect on the many ways our food choices mark and distinguish and separate us. And how eating restrictions can be a powerful statement of personal ethics and priorities. And how adherence to personal ethics can be a pain in the ass. And also, how much I miss Perelandra in Brooklyn Heights.
Spanish boots of Spanish pleather: It's tough being veggie in SpainThankfully, after a few days of extremely crankily (sorry, babe) subsisting on bread and cheese and potatoes in some kind of orange mayo-sauce (they're not huge on greens, either), my beloved found me not only a little produce market, but an honest-to-goodness health food store to boot! (Now that, Los Amantes, is love... and no one wound up dead). I wandered the aisles caressing the tofu and green tea and seitan and olive oil soap in a trance. Life's been much improved ever since.
It's really hard to appreciate badass 15th century Mudejar architecture when you're hating on an entire country's eating paradigms, you know?
Related: From Krakow, With Love
Ben Katchor Creates A New Kind of Musical Theater |
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| 'The Slugs of Kayrol Island' is wildly inventive | |
by Elisa Albert, February 26, 2008 |
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Ben Katchor: He's not just good at drawing!Having long been a fan of his graphic work (or "picture stories",
as he calls them) in The Jew of New York and Julius Knipl, Real Estate
Photographer, and having seen his previous foray into musical
theatrical collaboration (The Rosenbach Company) on a particularly
awesome date a few years back, I already had some darn warm feelings in
general towards the prodigiously talented Ben Katchor. In Treatment: Part Three |
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| Tahl, Emily and Elisa watch HBO's latest and talk about their feelings | |
by Elisa Albert, Emily Gould, February 8, 2008 |
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In Treatment: Is it ok that we're standing this close?Previously: Part One, Part Two
Emily Gould: Ok, I'm caught up now -- have you seen the episode where he goes to see his own therapist yet?
Elisa Albert: Amazing. Yes. And truly it was the reason for continuing to watch.
Loved especially how Paul challenges and tests her in much the same way
as he is continually challenged/tested by his own patients. Was such a
primal scene. And Diane Wiest i've adored since "Parenthood". Anyone?
But since then, nothing. I can't watch. Not, like,
emotionally-can't. Literally: can't. My frickin' cable is
malfunctioning and the benevolent support team at TimeWarner has
offered me a fourteen-hour window sometime next month when they may or
may not come and possibly fix it. (And what, pray tell, am I supposed
to do to occupy myself during said fourteen-hour window if my cable
isn't working?)
What's sadder: that my cable has been out for two days or that I'm sad
that my cable has been out for two days? I'm having some feelings
about my feelings. Help.
In
the absence of anything else to talk about, I will therefore resort to
base gossip: Britney's therapist? The one who got her committed? As
identified in all the rags as one Dr. Deborah Nadel of Santa Monica?
Only slightly off point, but guess what? Totally my high school
shrink. Which explains. So. Much.
Emily: Ha! Have you ever had the conversation with any of your shrinks about
what it would take to get committed? I never had until recently. I had
been hedgy about spitting something out (uh, uncharacteristic, n'duh),
and she was like "why did you hesitate?" and I was like, "I was
thinking that would be the one thing I could say that would make you be
ethically obligated to call the men in the white coats to cart me
away." She laughed -- I mean, she didn't GUFFAW, but she definitely
CHUCKLED -- and was like "that will never happen."
I have to admit, I was sort of disappointed.
Anyway, I have
only seen one episode of 'In Treatment' post- Paul's visit to Diane
Wiest, who is aging really well. I found that it was harder to take
him seriously now that we know all his fallibilities. Not to ruin it
for you, but his next visit with Laura, his responsible-adult-in-charge
facade kinda cracks.
Anyway, I'm sorry about your cable! I didn't have cable -- or TV
for that matter -- for four months recently and it was sort of
cleansing. Towards the end, though, I stopped having anything to talk
to anyone about. Don't let that happen to you.
'In Treatment' With Jewcy, Part Two |
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| Tahl, Elisa and Emily watch HBO's latest and talk about their feelings | |
by Elisa Albert, Emily Gould, January 31, 2008 |
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Previously: Part One
Elisa Albert: "Dude,
one of the things I've been, ah, addressing in therapy is my tendency
to open right up and overshare immediately, without demanding my trust
be earned, etc. so that i not infrequently wind up having my emotional
ass handed to me by pretty much whoever. So screw that, I'm not
sharing deep/dark secrets.
(Maybe tomorrow.)
Emily's right about the in-love-with-shrink cliche, but it's such a
rich cliche, as cliches go. I don't think it's necessarily even a
carnal love thing; the prospect of another human being who is de facto always on your side, who validates your feelings and does not judge,
and with whom you are free to be absolutely honest = LOVE. Especially
in contrast to the difficulties of a two-sided relationship in which
one must compromise, take responsibility, and maintain a
sometimes-uncomfy level of vulnerability.
You know how some Christians describe Christ's love? Perfect, whole,
accepting, forgiving. The closest thing I can imagine is my favorite
shrink (I've had a few over the years, as geographical-shifts
necessitate). And let's not forget: you only see this person once a
week. The less you see someone, the easier they are to love. (Who's
fucked up now, hombres?)
Anyway, I've heard the kashrut for such things is that the therapy
relationship stops, two years must pass, then the therapist/patient can
run off together and live happily ever after. Until each begins
therapy with someone new..."
Emily Gould: "I agree with Elisa, Tahl: expecting us to air our dirty laundry just because we're watching a show about therapy? Come on. (Maybe I'll show you one dirty sock, but I'm not about to spill my guts. They're not nearly as interesting as Blair Underwood's character's guts! He killed some children!)
Anyway, maybe I'm immune to the charms Laura's shrink-love storyline cause I've never felt that way about a therapist. Even though mine validates my feelings etc, I've never thought of her as nonjudgmental. I worry a lot about her approval, actually! And the approval of ... pretty much everyone else, including anonymous strangers! Actually, that's one of the things we talk about. Hmm.
What did you think of last night's episode? I guess we're meant to be anticipating the moment when the fighter pilot character's bluster breaks down and he shows a human sliver of guilt for what he's done. Last night, though, seemed to just be about laying the groundwork for this moment, and I have to admit, it didn't hold my interest. I did enjoy the moment towards the end when he flat-out asked his therapist for advice and was frustrated when he was denied. Doesn't he understand that therapy is all about getting the input you need to figure out what you need to be doing on your own? Or was the therapist ethically remiss -- should he have given him the potentially life-saving input he needed? Of course, the stakes weren't really that high for the audience. After all, we know he won't fly back to the scene of his crime and be harmed -- after all, he has to show up for next week's session."
Family drama: Mike Leigh's new playImprov-happy filmmaker Mike Leigh's new play, "Two Thousand Years," is currently in previews at The New Group @ Theatre Row in New York. Originally staged on London West End, it's Leigh's first new play in twelve years, and was shaped according to his traditionally collaborative method, in which actors work together to flesh out their characters and the relationships that drive narrative.
The results are riveting, if not always seamless. At the center of the alternately sad and raucous family portrait is Josh: only son, pudgy math geek with zero direction, and (wait for it) budding Orthodox Jew. Seemingly overnight, Josh has become religious, sending his (educated, secular) parents, sister, and grandfather reeling. It's a family like so many other contemporary Jewish families: they know they're Jews, they feel inexplicably Jewish, but they don't observe Judaism in any tangible or practical way. They can't fully articulate why, and perhaps they know it's illogical, but religion makes them uncomfortable. Israel has resonance, Kibbutz ideology has resonance, the Holocaust still carries that dutiful, if beleaguered, capital "H", but beyond those vagaries lies... what, exactly? Leigh himself recently told Time Out New York he's a "Jew who doesn't bother to be a Jew very much."
This ambivalent sort-of-identity (or lack thereof?) is, according to the BBC, "the heart and soul of the play, and Leigh uses it to also address contemporary issues that impinge on the family such as the Israeli-Palestine question, the failure of the kibbutz ideal, the war on Iraq, and even the recent New Orleans hurricane."
All well and good, but what makes the play really worth seeing (and it's oh-so-worth seeing) is the inherent hilarity of the inter-familial relationships portrayed. They're not the cliché, vaguely-Jewy brand of hilarity, however. Merwin Goldsmith's Grandpa is alone worth the price of admission. And! Wrecked actress Natasha Lyonne, best known these days for her disturbing, severely unkempt public appearances in lower Manhattan, makes her New York stage debut as Tammy, Josh's freewheeling but well-adjusted younger sister.