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Zombieland
February 9, 2010
You’d think we would be done with zombie movies for a while, but no, after a rather hard day, I am stuck in a strange haze watching Zombieland. The zombies are ugly disgusting revolting creatures and Woody begins to lay waste on their ugly carcasses, he shoots to kill, he wallops them. It’s strange one whole section of the film is shot at Magic Mountain although in the movie it’s called Pacific Playland. Odd, that Magic Mountain allowed their space to be used, and it’s pretty obvious where it is, you drive into Los Angeles, you drive north and then there are all the very obvious roller coasters and so on, but they didn’t use the name? Funny.
Anyway, Woody is a hoot, although by the end the whole thing becomes ridiculous, there are only two of them trying to rescue two girls and there are hundreds of zombies and they just effortlessly kill them all. Well, they sweat a little bit, but hardly. There’s some sort of relationship thing going on in the background of all the killing and mud and zombies and craziness, but it isn’t really important. Woody consumes a lot of the energy of the movie with zest. He loves Twinkies and spends a lot of the movie amid the zombie killing which is funny because I think Woody is obsessed with health food in real life. If you have nothing to do, and you are feeling insane and having a fairly wretched day, this is a good movie. Really good.
Brendan Constantine
February 9, 2010
Brendan Constantine is a Red Hen poet who read last night at the Geffen Playhouse along with the famous Wanda Coleman and Albert Goldbarth. The audience was filled with people who love Red Hen and that’s always a plus for me. Sholeh and Barry, Larry Bridges and Rex Wilder, my dear friend Jackie who holds my heart in her hands, and so many others. It warmed my heart. Michael Constantine, the famed actor was there, to cheer his brilliant son. I wanted very much for Brendan to read the shoe poem and he didn’t, so now I will have to book him for another reading.
If Brendan didn’t exist, you would have to have to invent him. Especially in Hollywood. He has an electrifying presence that makes you want to scream, dance and cry for your mother even if you don’t like your mother, I don’t, but in a good way, not an unseemly way, that would be another possibility, no Brendan just makes the crowd want to take off their pajamas and he inspires the kind of crowd that would have arrived in pajamas in the first place.
I think Brendan’s very serious about poetry that journeys from the crawlspace of the mind to the madness of the planet. These poems take steps and then they begin to fly like crazy people dancing only it has a purpose, it has music and loveliness, but there’s wild in there. And lonely and sadness and immensely great writing. Brendan is going to become one of the most important poets of this time space. And he’s who I hope all my poets will be. He works hard, he does a lot of reading, and he’s nice to us at Red Hen. Ah, gratitude in a writer toward their editor and press! Such a great thing. I think I’ll have Brendan sainted except that I’ve spoken with his girlfriend, and I get the vague suspicion he may not be eligible. Maybe knighthood. Knighthood it is.
Geffen Playhouse and the Glass Orchestra
The Geffen reading tonight was fantastic. I don’t feel like a princess, but I wish I did. I am working tirelessly for the press, no writing time for me. I ran 5 miles this morning. Health issues so no March marathon for me. Maybe I’ll have to wait until fall to do a marathon.
Here’s something I wrote when I was more optimistic about being a princess.
The Glass Orchestra Play for Immortality
When I die, fit me with glass slippers,
say, She was a princess.
Fill your glass, drink red wine.
Leave sediment on the bottom.
Play instruments. Let elephants
play the glass orchestra.
Put glass cicadas on my tongue
like the Chinese so I will taste life again.
Make me a shroud of woven glass
like that of Napolean.
If you have fed me arsenic,
I will be preserved for a thousand years.
Lower me into water in a glass
bottomed boat. Let fishes see me.
Give me champagne so when I wake,
I will toast my entry into the next life.
Say you were like sand, ash and lime from which
glass emerges under immense heat like something
otherworldly. My face will be something
you see through, play the glass orchestra.
Every note making me larger than. Immortal.
They will say, She died. They will say, Who was she?
The music will go on. My music. While champagne flows,
you’ll remember me then, my face, my voice.
The Female of the Species
February 7, 2010
What an amazing play. Great acting. Absolutely the most stunning dialogue, the writing was zing zing, like Chinese ping pong. This is a play to relish a play to roll around your tongue and laugh with your friends about afterward. I haven’t had this much fun at a play since the last David Mamet play. Annette Bening just makes acting look like an Olympic gymnast makes the flips and jumps look like child’s play. God, it was beautiful.
The funniest coolest play and as a writer and publisher, it pulled me right into the questions I ask myself every day. What does it mean to be human, to be a feminist, to be a writer, to be a publisher, to be an editor? All good questions. To which there are no good answers. Here’s one good answer. The female of the species is usually right, and if she isn’t right, she should be. Go see this play, don’t miss it for the world.
Red Hen Press at the Geffen Playhouse
February 6, 2010
Red Hen Press and the Poetry Society of America have an amazing night coming up at the Geffen Playhouse on Monday night at 7:30 with Albert Goldbarth, Wanda Coleman and Brendan Constantine. We are going to rock this town. All three poets are outstanding performers of their own work, the only one I haven’t met is Mr. Goldbarth, but I hear great things, and I trust he won’t let me down or I will have to call the thousands of people who told me he is outstanding. Brendan is a legend in his own right, a fantastic poet who makes people chill in their shoes and Wanda’s reputation reaches back into the streets and alleys of Los Angeles like palm trees and sunshine and dirt and children’s shoelaces untied after school as they run home through the streets of Watts. You want to hold her poems and you feel your hair curl.
