Glen Hirshberg's Blog, page 3
July 19, 2015
Grace Notes
Sure, writing about music is like dancing about architecture...except when it's this writing. I was scouring my shelves last week, looking for something gorgeous and sad and suffused with color, just to remind me that such sensations existed while I hunched in what has become my personal no-shadows corner of the Jury Assembly Room, and I found this book. Which my dad apparently found for me, in 1998--there's one of his loving little inscriptions in the front--and which got forgotten about in the to-read piles during one of our moves.
Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty.
It's about an Irish woman composer dealing with being an Irish woman composer, and also a single mom, and island resident, a lapsed Catholic. Not much happens, except living. Hard relating, sweet and fleeting surprise moments of grace. And then the music comes. This is just a snippet of the description of the first performance of the piece our protagonist spends most of this hushed, beautiful novel dragging out of herself:
"It began with a wisp of music, barely there--a whispered five-note phrase on the violins and she was right back on that beach with her baby. If the audience thought themselves mistaken she would be well pleased. Did I hear that correctly? Like the artist's hand which moves to begin a drawing but makes no mark. Preliminary footering--throat clearing. Then the phrase repeated an eyelash louder. I did hear something...But the pause is longer, seems interminable before the music begins again. Is it over? they should be saying. Or have they not started yet. The phrase repeats a third time on the violas. They sound like violins with a cold. Yes, it has started, that there is something there is undeniable...starting friction has been overcome and now the phrase unravels..."
You can get it at Powells.
Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty. It's about an Irish woman composer dealing with being an Irish woman composer, and also a single mom, and island resident, a lapsed Catholic. Not much happens, except living. Hard relating, sweet and fleeting surprise moments of grace. And then the music comes. This is just a snippet of the description of the first performance of the piece our protagonist spends most of this hushed, beautiful novel dragging out of herself:
"It began with a wisp of music, barely there--a whispered five-note phrase on the violins and she was right back on that beach with her baby. If the audience thought themselves mistaken she would be well pleased. Did I hear that correctly? Like the artist's hand which moves to begin a drawing but makes no mark. Preliminary footering--throat clearing. Then the phrase repeated an eyelash louder. I did hear something...But the pause is longer, seems interminable before the music begins again. Is it over? they should be saying. Or have they not started yet. The phrase repeats a third time on the violas. They sound like violins with a cold. Yes, it has started, that there is something there is undeniable...starting friction has been overcome and now the phrase unravels..."
You can get it at Powells.
July 17, 2015
Twelve Angry Glen: Jury Duty and the Imagination
A brief break from the (hopefully amusing) whining and ranting and goofing for this observation.
It has only just now hit me why this experience is so challenging. Not just for me, but for everyone, because it strangles one of our most fundamental--and most instinctive--social impulses:
Being on a jury confronts us with a remarkable situation, overflowing with complicated characters, profound questions and very real emotional consequences.
And then forbids us, from the first moment of the trial--"Do not discuss this case, do not form an opinion, try not even to anticipate forming an opinion or fashioning a vision of events"--from turning it into a story. Even for ourselves.
It has only just now hit me why this experience is so challenging. Not just for me, but for everyone, because it strangles one of our most fundamental--and most instinctive--social impulses:
Being on a jury confronts us with a remarkable situation, overflowing with complicated characters, profound questions and very real emotional consequences.
And then forbids us, from the first moment of the trial--"Do not discuss this case, do not form an opinion, try not even to anticipate forming an opinion or fashioning a vision of events"--from turning it into a story. Even for ourselves.
Twelve Angry Glen and the Kindness that Kills
Once again not sure whether to take this as lovely or devastating, but I appear to have advanced yet another rung up the ladder toward permanent fixture at the coffee shop near the courthouse where I've been interred--er, doing my civic duty--in the jury box since...no, I can't write it. A while. Let's leave it at that.
But today, the lovely ladies behind the counter didn't just have my usual coffee waiting for me when I reached the front of the line. They waved me past the line entirely. "Oh, no, Hon, you just come on up, we've got you..."
But today, the lovely ladies behind the counter didn't just have my usual coffee waiting for me when I reached the front of the line. They waved me past the line entirely. "Oh, no, Hon, you just come on up, we've got you..."
July 16, 2015
Yelena Zhelezov
This sounds like one of those high-concept performance ideas that will prove so much more fun to hear about than hear: a Belorussian-born Israeli citizen living in Los Angeles doing a radio show in which she watches a film (often a Soviet-era piece never translated into English or shown in the west) and describes what she sees, frame by frame.
But just trust me...you should hear it. There is something immediately surreal and disorienting about having our primary mode of sensory intake stripped away and then fed back to us through our other senses. Even the plainest and seemingly most translatable of dramatic images--an estranged husband and his wife's lover driving in a charged silence through a landscape on their way to a Soviet factory to fix a crane--accrue new sensations, fresh emotional turns and twinges. And in every episode, tension tightens as we wait for the moment when our narrator Yelena Zhelezov's dispassionate veneer cracks at last, and she bursts out laughing at what she's describing, or what she can't--because we can't see it? because, in the end, our experiences are less like one another's than most of us, and especially most artists, assume or hope?-- get across to us.
Every time that moment comes, I want to hug her. And I laugh with her, even though I'm not experiencing what she is, only her experience of it, as expressed through her second (third? fourth?) language.
A singular delight, maybe. The kind of delight perhaps best experienced under headphones in the closest thing to a shadowy corner of a fluorescently lit jury assembly room at lunch, maybe, and therefore a particular pleasure to me, this summer. But some of you are going to love this...
But just trust me...you should hear it. There is something immediately surreal and disorienting about having our primary mode of sensory intake stripped away and then fed back to us through our other senses. Even the plainest and seemingly most translatable of dramatic images--an estranged husband and his wife's lover driving in a charged silence through a landscape on their way to a Soviet factory to fix a crane--accrue new sensations, fresh emotional turns and twinges. And in every episode, tension tightens as we wait for the moment when our narrator Yelena Zhelezov's dispassionate veneer cracks at last, and she bursts out laughing at what she's describing, or what she can't--because we can't see it? because, in the end, our experiences are less like one another's than most of us, and especially most artists, assume or hope?-- get across to us.
Every time that moment comes, I want to hug her. And I laugh with her, even though I'm not experiencing what she is, only her experience of it, as expressed through her second (third? fourth?) language.A singular delight, maybe. The kind of delight perhaps best experienced under headphones in the closest thing to a shadowy corner of a fluorescently lit jury assembly room at lunch, maybe, and therefore a particular pleasure to me, this summer. But some of you are going to love this...
Twelve Angry Glen: Glen Fought the Law, and the Law Won
SPOILERS....SPOILERS...SPOILERS...
(note: all comments in quotations below are the opinion of TV COMMENTARY, and are posted here simply for discussion purposes)
Excerpts from today's scathing TV COMMENTARY review of the "admittedly riveting" penultimate episodes of this summer's most provocative and controversial "communal torturefest," "Glen Fought the Law, and the Law Won" :
"Look, people. Even at the kill-John-Snow, Red-Wedding, Let's-Make-Even-the-Innocent-Citizens-of-Broadchurch-Pedophiles school of new television nihilism, they teach you to leave glimmers of hope. If only so that the showrunners can dash them that much harder, later. But this...this "show," this communal torturefest passing as entertainment...
"I will admit--I'll give them this--I didn't see those twists coming. I mean, the Filipino fellow juror actually finishes telling Glen all 522 of his personal encounters with the supernatural to date, smiles with satisfaction, and before Glen can so much as smile, weakly; back, pat him comfortingly on the arm, launches into the story of every day--every single momentous moment--EVERY SINGLE ONE--of his adventures teaching his son to drive ('Well, we started out on Woodley, and took a left. We went two blocks, but only two, because I wanted him to turn right. Then we turned right...)'
"And then there's that ending, which you're damn right I'm going to spoil for you, because if the writers of this 'show' are going to be that nasty to us, I'm going to be nasty back. Because people, the world isn't cruel. It isn't out to get us. It's just the world. And this kind of reveling in the shit...the very idea that people would go through all these weeks, and then get led down a corridor, shown into a room with even harsher fluorescents, no windows, and--as if anyone would ever dream such a thing, let alone manufacture them--even LESS comfortable chairs, smile sadly...and lock the door..."
(note: all comments in quotations below are the opinion of TV COMMENTARY, and are posted here simply for discussion purposes)
Excerpts from today's scathing TV COMMENTARY review of the "admittedly riveting" penultimate episodes of this summer's most provocative and controversial "communal torturefest," "Glen Fought the Law, and the Law Won" :
"Look, people. Even at the kill-John-Snow, Red-Wedding, Let's-Make-Even-the-Innocent-Citizens-of-Broadchurch-Pedophiles school of new television nihilism, they teach you to leave glimmers of hope. If only so that the showrunners can dash them that much harder, later. But this...this "show," this communal torturefest passing as entertainment...
"I will admit--I'll give them this--I didn't see those twists coming. I mean, the Filipino fellow juror actually finishes telling Glen all 522 of his personal encounters with the supernatural to date, smiles with satisfaction, and before Glen can so much as smile, weakly; back, pat him comfortingly on the arm, launches into the story of every day--every single momentous moment--EVERY SINGLE ONE--of his adventures teaching his son to drive ('Well, we started out on Woodley, and took a left. We went two blocks, but only two, because I wanted him to turn right. Then we turned right...)'
"And then there's that ending, which you're damn right I'm going to spoil for you, because if the writers of this 'show' are going to be that nasty to us, I'm going to be nasty back. Because people, the world isn't cruel. It isn't out to get us. It's just the world. And this kind of reveling in the shit...the very idea that people would go through all these weeks, and then get led down a corridor, shown into a room with even harsher fluorescents, no windows, and--as if anyone would ever dream such a thing, let alone manufacture them--even LESS comfortable chairs, smile sadly...and lock the door..."
July 12, 2015
12 Angry Glen: The Jury Duty that Never Ends
This week...only on this summer's longest running smash dramagedy, "Welcome Back My Glens, to the Jury Duty That Never Ends"...
Glen finds a parking space...
A faulty security screening forces a full search of all of Glen's belongings. The culprit turns out to be the metals in the local water, now prevalent enough to trigger the scanner...
The counsel for the defense suffers a setback in his efforts to master the projection device, when the crafty prosecution team secretly unplugs an extension cord...
The prosecution calls a devastating expert witness to show that, based on the people present and the fact that they were speaking and moving on the night of the incident, air was indeed breathed by several of the parties. The defense objects on relevance, is overruled, asks to submit new evidence, is allowed, but then denied because he can't get the new photo to display on the projection device...
Glen finally notices, to his astonishment, that he really is the third-tallest person on the jury, a circumstance so unlikely that it finally awakens him to the conspiracy that will lead to this season's most shocking revelation...
And the kind ladies at the coffee shop, noting the creeping despair on Glen's face, slip him a free banana muffin with his daily lunchtime coffee. Which he can't eat, because of his weirdo adult-onset cinnamon allergy...
Glen finds a parking space...
A faulty security screening forces a full search of all of Glen's belongings. The culprit turns out to be the metals in the local water, now prevalent enough to trigger the scanner...
The counsel for the defense suffers a setback in his efforts to master the projection device, when the crafty prosecution team secretly unplugs an extension cord...
The prosecution calls a devastating expert witness to show that, based on the people present and the fact that they were speaking and moving on the night of the incident, air was indeed breathed by several of the parties. The defense objects on relevance, is overruled, asks to submit new evidence, is allowed, but then denied because he can't get the new photo to display on the projection device...
Glen finally notices, to his astonishment, that he really is the third-tallest person on the jury, a circumstance so unlikely that it finally awakens him to the conspiracy that will lead to this season's most shocking revelation...
And the kind ladies at the coffee shop, noting the creeping despair on Glen's face, slip him a free banana muffin with his daily lunchtime coffee. Which he can't eat, because of his weirdo adult-onset cinnamon allergy...
July 10, 2015
Jury Duty v. Comic-Con
Up early this morning, reading about all you summer people doing summer things. Going to Readercon. Comic-Con. Walking the Spanish Steps. Swimming, somewhere. Being with your loved ones.
And then...the moment that changed everything.
(What? No, not the trial ending. Trials don't end. Don't be ridiculous)
But the moment of revelation, the paradigm shift, when I finally understood. The lack of parking and cars blaring at each other over spaces; the 30 to 40-minute wait in the security line to get in; the uniformed officials happy to answer any question you might have (except or until you actually ask one); the perpetually fouled bathrooms; the godawful or simply nonexistent food; the standing, standing, standing; all those cool, sketchy people (you'll see what I did there in a sec) strolling the halls, all dressed up, more than a few sporting weapons so sleek and dark and heavy, you'd swear they were real.
That's when I realized it. That's when I knew.
Being on jury duty? It's not keeping me from Comic-Con. It IS Comic-Con...
And then...the moment that changed everything.
(What? No, not the trial ending. Trials don't end. Don't be ridiculous)
But the moment of revelation, the paradigm shift, when I finally understood. The lack of parking and cars blaring at each other over spaces; the 30 to 40-minute wait in the security line to get in; the uniformed officials happy to answer any question you might have (except or until you actually ask one); the perpetually fouled bathrooms; the godawful or simply nonexistent food; the standing, standing, standing; all those cool, sketchy people (you'll see what I did there in a sec) strolling the halls, all dressed up, more than a few sporting weapons so sleek and dark and heavy, you'd swear they were real.
That's when I realized it. That's when I knew.
Being on jury duty? It's not keeping me from Comic-Con. It IS Comic-Con...
July 7, 2015
The Library in Jiaojiehe
Oh, alright, Li Xaodong. I'm willing to accept a proposal from you to build my writing room. But I need it soon, yeah?
The New York Times article about this architect.
The New York Times article about this architect.
Colored in Feininger
Yet another advantage of having made a Kate: being dragged and cajoled, fussing and mumbling, from a jury duty-induced malaise, a lingering sense of things-that-should-be-done, out of the house to the art, Spent the afternoon slipping down Feininger alleys into Van Gogh gardens, vanishing through an Agnes Martin grid with some Klee-people. Came home colored back in...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
July 6, 2015
Further Installments of 12 Angry Glen the Jury Duty
This week…ONLY on this summer’s hottest new summerlong drama…Glen’s daughter secretly devours all the plums and most of the trail mix, dooming him to the courthouse cafeteria…
Juror #6 (Glen’s haunted Filipino friend) HEARS A NOISE, and investigates…Glen realizes that that foam-coated, Fisher-Price-looking device the Court Reporter is allegedly recording on is actually an Enigma machine…or else a Fisher-Price pretend-typewriter…
The counsel for the defense takes a brave step closer to mastering the document projector…A climate-change scientist enlists Glen as a trial subject to determine whether long-term exposure to fluorescent lighting really does cause jaundice,eye-twitching, and/or skin flakes…And, in the stuff Glen can’t talk about, more tragic, desperate people get more tragic and more desperate…Don’t miss one thrilling Facebook update, during which, in less than three minutes, Glen encapsulates events that somehow took NINE HOURS to unfold…All this and more. Only on "12 ANGRY GLEN." The drama where Glen turns twelve…
Juror #6 (Glen’s haunted Filipino friend) HEARS A NOISE, and investigates…Glen realizes that that foam-coated, Fisher-Price-looking device the Court Reporter is allegedly recording on is actually an Enigma machine…or else a Fisher-Price pretend-typewriter…
The counsel for the defense takes a brave step closer to mastering the document projector…A climate-change scientist enlists Glen as a trial subject to determine whether long-term exposure to fluorescent lighting really does cause jaundice,eye-twitching, and/or skin flakes…And, in the stuff Glen can’t talk about, more tragic, desperate people get more tragic and more desperate…Don’t miss one thrilling Facebook update, during which, in less than three minutes, Glen encapsulates events that somehow took NINE HOURS to unfold…All this and more. Only on "12 ANGRY GLEN." The drama where Glen turns twelve…
