Silesian Shockspur

The Polish title is Romeo i Julia (Yulia), which seems typically Polonocentric, like "Prince Karol" (Prince Charles), "The Master and Małgorzata," etc. but in fact makes sense, since somehow the name Julia/Yulia is more womanly than the pretty, sugary miniature "Juliet," and after all Shakespeare's Juliet is more mature than most real-life teenage girls, even if many of them are far advanced beyond their male classmates, and more mature than most characters in the play, if not in all Shakespeare.

In Silesia, if you want to see classical repertory theater, you have to get up early-- most of the performances are at 10 AM to accommodate school outings. The production I saw, a year and a half ago, was definitely geared for the callow youths who made up most of the audience-- heavily cut, with techno music in the ball scene and the family enmity represented visually as a soccer-fan feud. Nice touch-- I would have liked for them to use specific local teams rather than nations (I think it was Italy and Germany), something of which I have in fact long dreamed, but I understand that doing so could carry prohibitive security risks. A more daring, surprising, and surprisingly refreshing update was having the "Balcony Scene" ("Romeo, Romeo, wherefore are thou Romeo?") staged rolling around on the floor ("in bed"), as pillow talk. This touch, and the casting choices, accentuated Juliet/Yulia's sophistication relative to Romeo and the rest, though another choice that seemed to me revolutionary, presenting Juliet's farewell to the nurse as a tantrum, with the nurse still onstage, rather than a soliloquy as in the text, counterbalanced that effect by revealing a previously hidden childishness just before the end. Inexplicably and unforgivably, the line where she notes that Romeo's lips are still warm was cut, as was the existential-hipster element in Mercutio (he was reduced to the "class clown"-- I was nonetheless pleased that he got the biggest applause at the end). And strange to say but I missed Prince Escalus at the end, with the line "All are punished."

Foxes have holes, but the Man of Steel...

Did Lex Luthor just take over the phone company here in Poland? That's what it looks like, as they've been phasing out Superman-friendly phone booths with brutal dispatch. I suspect what's really behind it is the traditional Luthorian "Let's beat up the poor!" ethos. It's certainly not practical considering the ferocious frosts here.

Snoop's Got It

Ever seen the animated special "It's Magic, Charlie Brown"? I hadn't either but found it at Video World, the last remaining outpost of DVD (and video!) rental in Gliwice, and rented it as part of a serious effort this month to engage more actively with the Polish language-- OK actually I decided to rent it before seeing that it had no English audio (was kind of inspired by a recent essay on the more famous classic 60s and 70s specials in Slate magazine, as well as a general vogue for comics and cartoons among my friends, family, random internet crushes etc. lately) but found the slog worthwhile-- in fact it's the first American cartoon dubbed in Polish (or another language) where not only did the foreign sound not jar, but I barely even noticed its foreignness. Of course they got some things wrong, like remember how the voice of Peppermint Pattie was so obviously a dude (come to think of it, wasn't Peppermint Pattie just a bad idea generally-- or was it some kind of sick genius to have this almost Highsmithian stalker-psychopath hanging around)? Well, in this one Charlie Brown's voice was obviously a lady, but somehow that didn't irk. I also was somewhat shocked by Charlie Brown's own rather sociopathic behavior in Magic, when invisible (anticipating Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man, which title is easy to confuse with the much different Glimmer Man); and then his atypically un-Christian stance at the end. Did Schulz know about this? Still, it was kind of fun.

Virgin Mary sighting... or not... ?

I left my iron standing on the ironing board for a few days (not plugged in) and noticed that it made this nice reflection (I'd say shadow but this was rather an illumination, not darkness) on the wall that looked kind of like the Virgin Mary. Or was it Penguin Opus?

Pluses and minuses

The local supermarket in my neighborhood used to be a branch of PLUS, a low-end German affair that was stylish in a Starsky and Hutch (70s TV original not Ben Stiller & Owen Wilson movie) kind of way. It's now been replaced, at this branch and all others in Gliwice if not in Poland, by Biedronka, a low-end Portuguese affair that's unstylish in a Barney's Funhouse kind of way. But the Yugoslavian or whatever nacho chips are better, and so is the (Portuguese) wine, so who's complaining? Yesterday was the grand gala opening, full of yellow balloons-- which reminds me of that wonderful song by Jan and Dean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uInJQO1NiDI&feature=related, speaking of unstylish :)

Is that what Keats meant?

I've been listening to Echo and the Bunnymen a lot lately. I really like the song "Over You" (second on the 1987 "Grey Album"), which has a chord progression very similar to the quintessential 80s one-hit wonder Modern English's one hit "Melt With You," familiar to some from the film Valley Girl with Nicholas Cage as Hollywood's fantasy of a "punk rocker." The progression is similar, but simpler, like some of the notes are left out, so it doesn't tug as hard on the heartstrings, and can be enjoyed more. Unheard music sometimes really is sweeter...
UPDATE: Or is it just because we fill in the other notes in our head, or just feel their absence, that we're able to say "No, the more low-key, less aggressively plush & romantic melody is better"?

The Importance of Being There

I finally saw Being There the other night-- great movie, although the masturbation scene was embarrassing and overdone. The highlight, for me, was the disco remix of Also Sprach Zarathustra which plays as Chance walks down the street. When I rented the movie, I was surpised that the girl at the counter hadn't heard of it, as she had previously told me she was a big fan of Easy Rider and old movies in general. Another store employee had seen it, however, and said it was a very good "film with a moral." But is it, and if so, what is that moral? For example if you look at the imdb comments (I know you're not really supposed to do that, but I get a kick out of it sometimes) it seems pretty clear that people generally fall into one of two camps: they either treat it as a Forrest Gump / Rain Man type triumph of the human spirit (I think this may have been what the video store guy had in mind, as he said something i didn't hear that made the girl ask "Oh, like he's kind of autistic?") or an equally simplistic but opposite i.e. cynical parable about how "In our age of TV sound bites, a COMPLETE IDIOT can become President!"
Both of which seem to me not quite right, although I think the latter is considerably closer to the mark.
On the other hand, in a "diavlog" on my favorite website, www.bloggingheads.tv, Ann Althouse once compared the Dalai Lama, when he made what she thought were some simplistic comments about the nature of desire, to Chance. And there is perhaps something Buddha-like (in the way that "all dharmas should be regarded as dreams"), and in that sense Gump-like, and not idiotic at all, about Chance.
The Polish title, by the way, "Wystarczy Być," means "It's Enough to Be," or "Being is Enough," which would appear to give the moral as something like Woody Allen's "90% of success is just showing up."
Interesting to compare Being There with The Omen-- two paranoid 70s scenarios with an innocent/empty non-hero who at the end is just about ready to rule the world.