Sue Lange's Blog, page 8

My Tattoo

Here’s a  thing I did when the publisher asked me to send in pictures of my tattoo. Kinda weird. I guess.

Click on the image, when you get to the blog where the video is posted, scroll down.

Cheers.

Coming up: Potty Mouth

On March 29th, the Reading Theater Project (RTP) will be holding a staged reading of my trilogy, Potty Mouth. This includes three short plays: Ingenue, The Glass Ceiling, and The Process. The common thread is that they are all conversations that take place in a bathroom.

Last night the director, Christine Cieplinkski, held auditions at the T.E.A. Factory in Reading. I have to say, I’m really excited about what I saw. Everyone read quite well and I can see that these actresses are going to “get it.” Really gratifying to see actors having fun with the roles. They are meant to be fun, even silly at times, though the subject matter is actually serious. I can’t wait to see the final versions.

The reading will be held at the T.E.A. Factory (580 Willow Street, Reading, PA) on Saturday March 29th (8pm) Tickets are $10. There’s lots of free parking at the T.E.A. Factory, and there might even be some munchies. Do stop by!

Questions? Let ‘em rip. Or, contact RTP (vicki@readingtheaterproject.com)

Art in Manhattan: postponed to March 1.

Due to dicey weather, this trip has been rescheduled for March 1. I don’t believe we have a bus available, though. Too bad. We had a full load and now I’m not sure what we’re going to do.

Watch the skies for info.

Previous post: I’m pleased to announce that I will be performing with the Reading Theater Project at Ceres Gallery in Manhattan on February 15th. (No, that is not me doing my act there in the picture.)

This is a really cool project that’s coming together nicely. Five of us actor/writers have put together a group of sketches that relate to Pamela Roule Shields’ highly provocative installation entitled “One Body.”  Here is part of Shields’ statement about her work:

“It is time for women to define their own sexuality – to take back their bodies, their lives. The body – the physical body – is at the core of women’s struggle for independence and freedom. What better and more basic way to declare independence than with your own body. Frank depiction of a woman’s sexuality is still taboo. Taboos are enforced through the use of shame. Nothing could be more deep-rooted and controlling than instilling internally a shame of your own body and your own natural, normal sexuality.”

Shields works in Charcoal and what I’ve seen so far is gorgeous. The subject matter might be unsettling but the rendering is amazing. Look at the knuckles on that hand. Beautiful stuff.

We’ll be at Ceres Gallery (547 West 27th Street, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001) on Saturday, February 15th. There’s no cover charge, but do call to make a reservation so they know how many seats to rent: 212-947-6100. The gallery opens at noon, we’ll be performing at 3pm. I believe I’m going on first, so get there early if you’re going.

If you’re from the Reading area, consider taking the Bieber bus with us. They’ve reduced the fare for this trip to $30, which is quite a savings. Normally it’s close to $60 for a round trip. We’ll be leaving at 8am at the Tea Factory (lots of parking there). The website says the deadline to sign up is Jan. 10th, but I happen to know there are still a few seats left, so don’t hesitate. Information is at the RTP website: http://readingtheaterproject.com/productions/

See you there!

Sue Lange

Art in Manhattan

I’m pleased to announce that I will be performing with the Reading Theater Project at Ceres Gallery in Manhattan on February 15th. (No, that is not me doing my act there in the picture.)

This is a really cool project that’s coming together nicely. Five of us actor/writers have put together a group of sketches that relate to Pamela Roule Shields’ highly provocative installation entitled “One Body.”  Here is part of Shields’ statement about her work:

“It is time for women to define their own sexuality – to take back their bodies, their lives. The body – the physical body – is at the core of women’s struggle for independence and freedom. What better and more basic way to declare independence than with your own body. Frank depiction of a woman’s sexuality is still taboo. Taboos are enforced through the use of shame. Nothing could be more deep-rooted and controlling than instilling internally a shame of your own body and your own natural, normal sexuality.”

Shields works in Charcoal and what I’ve seen so far is gorgeous. The subject matter might be unsettling but the rendering is amazing. Look at the knuckles on that hand. Beautiful stuff.

We’ll be at Ceres Gallery (547 West 27th Street, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001) on Saturday, February 15th. The gallery opens at noon, we’ll be performing at 3pm. I believe I’m going on first, so get there early if you’re going.

If you’re from the Reading area, consider taking the Bieber bus with us. They’ve reduced the fare for this trip to $30, which is quite a savings. Normally it’s close to $60 for a round trip. We’ll be leaving at 8am at the Tea Factory (lots of parking there). The website says the deadline to sign up is Jan. 10th, but I happen to know there are still a few seats left, so don’t hesitate. Information is at the RTP website: http://readingtheaterproject.com/productions/

See you there!

Sue Lange

Waking up in Baltimore

Here’s a bit I posted on the Book View Cafe blog a month ago. BTW: I’m no longer waking up in Baltimore.

I keep waking up in Baltimore. Not literally, of course. It’s just post-REM sleep confusion: those first moments of daze before you are fully awake in the morning when the heat in your room is turned up too high. You dream/imagine many wonderful scenarios for yourself. For several moments you really do believe you are a Turkish queen, Cuban revolutionary, or newly wed in Monaco. Lately I’ve been waking up as a peasant in Baltimore.

It’s because of the confluence of two great events in my life: I’ve just moved from the country to the city, and for several weeks I’ve been watching back-to-back episodes of The Wire.

You remember The Wire: heroin trade, corrupt government, people asking if their hair looks good just before they get whacked. The latter was a running joke towards the end. It was always said by a person with French braids. The joke being once your hair is thusly subdued it will always be perfect. In ten years it will look exactly as it does now. It even stops growing because the tight braids prevent breakage. You don’t need new hair, so your body doesn’t send out the hormones that incite growth.

Considering how lazy I am and carefree life is in French braids, I’m surprised I’ve never had it done. I think the cost for doing white people hair puts me off. It’s prohibitive. Nobody wants to do white people hair because it’s unruly and smells funny. It’s just too expensive for the likes of me, lazy as I am.

At any rate, with my head filled with scenes of B’more when I go to bed at night in a place without stars to guide me, my navigational system got out of whack. I continue to wake up in Baltimore.

Tonight I start binge-watching Breaking Bad. I hope I like waking up in Albuquerque.

Sue Lange

An Evening with Inspector Clouseau

Here’s a post from the Book View Cafe blog that was published back in November. Since this post me and my man cave have moved into my own apartment but it’s fun in a where-were-you-a-month-ago way so I’m posting it anyway.

So I’m living in the inbetween. Most of my stuff’s in storage in a barn belonging to my pal, Liz. She’s graciously allowed me to park at her place while I get my proverbial head together. I keep only the barest necessities with me inside the house as I wait for the head to congeal. I have my laptop and my man cave.

That’s a joke, of course. I call the wide-screen TV with the five speakers for Surroundsound, the man cave. The barn is damp and I was concerned for the man cave’s health, so I brought it inside. Against Liz’s better judgment, I set it up in the living room, converting the tastefully decorated space complete with period furniture, lace doilies, and a baby grand into, I don’t know, a man cave, I guess you’d call it.



I never watch it. I hate TV. But a week ago I discovered a hole in my schedule. A vacuous vacancy. Having a moment with nothing to do is not just a sin, but dangerous, considering the idle hands/devil’s playground equation. I made a trip to the barn behind the house and dug through a few boxes to find a movie. I had little luck. The only thing I found was a broken box of microwavable Orville Redenbacher’s with a single envelope of mouse-chewed product, and a movie: the original Pink Panther. We cooked up the popcorn and settled in for an evening with Inspector Clouseau.

I had forgotten how bad this movie was. 60s/70s humor at its worst. Peter Sellers with only Blake Edwards to steer the ship. Where was Stanley Kubrick when we needed him? About a quarter of the way in Liz decided she’d had enough and excused herself to bed. It was 8:30. It was that bad.

I apologized, but hung in for the duration. I needed to know how this clunker had found its way into a fairly pristine DVD collection that included the likes of Wertmueller, Wong Kar Wai, Fellini, Bergman, and Mike Myers.

I figured it out towards the end. There’s this fabulous après skin scene in an Italian resort. Everyone’s in the lounge. There’s a fire in the grate, angora sweaters, Laura Petri pants, David Niven, and Robert Wagner. Oofa. It was cozy in a hip kind of way. Out of nowhere a slim, Laura Petri lookalike starting singing Mancini’s It had Better be Tonight, with mariachi boys on the side. The patrons gave her undivided attention as she sashayed through the crowd. At one point she did five seconds of choreography with the boys shaking the maracas. The crowd was on its feet. They bought her drinks when she was done, showered her with gifts of jewelry and lift tickets.

Back in the 70s, the day after I had first watched that film, I signed up for singing lessons. I wanted that singer’s life. I’d get to wear cool clothes, hang out with boys that could dance, do one-song gigs at night, and hit the slopes with handsome ski pros during the day. Life would be great once I learned to sing.

Then I grew up. Reality hit like a cold blast of Alpine air. You need a thousand-song repertoire if you want to get gigs that pay. And there are no Mancini gems in the set list. If you don’t play the painfully overplayed hit songs from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the only applause you’ll hear is when the Yankees score up on the TV above the bar.

When you’re a musician, you don’t get to ski, swim, canoe, or even take a walk around the block. You have no time. You’re allowed two activities. You can practice and when you’re done with that you can rehearse. That’s it. And hiring three guys to play maracas? You’re lucky if you can afford a drummer and a bass player.

Get real. Get a job. Leave the singing to professionals.

Sue Lange

Reviewing Yelp

Does anyone ever review review sites? I don’t know, but I suspect that if they did, Yelp’s would look like this:

15 Reviews for Yelp

Yelp is the best reviewing site out there. Thank god for Yelp. Without it I wouldn’t know where to eat, what car to buy, or what school to send my kids to. Thank you Yelp!

Don’t wast ur time if u follow yelp advis u will fall into abis and never get ot.

I hate yelp.

I love yelp.

The food was excellent, but the service was slow and the waitress snaped.

TripAdvisor is better.

Most of the advis is gud, but they cud use

I used to use Yelp. When they first started the reviews were spot on. But ever since they started advertising, the service has gone downhill. I’ve been disappointed several times after patronizing places with four or five star ratings at Yelp. I no longer use this site.

I found your picture on the Internet and would like to talk to you. When can we meet?

I would have given Yelp five stars but five star reviews imply perfection. Five stars should be reserved for only exceptional service. Four stars is almost as good as five stars and likewise implies exceptional service with perhaps only a tiny flaw. Again, the rating should be used only rarely. Because of that, three stars is actually a good rating. Not just good, but the best anyone should expect. If you do your job and people are happy with your service, you should expect a three star rating and be content. A four or five star rating implies an extraordinary effort. For instance, say I was shopping for weightlifting equipment. Maybe Yelp sent an agent to my house and gave me a live infomercial on the best exercise gear to buy. That would be worth five stars. Or perhaps Yelp can personalize any experience I might have to the point of knowing what I want to do before I do it. Say it’s the end of the day on a Tuesday and I’m looking for a suitable afterwork activity. Yelp knows that in my office, Tuesday is the new Monday. My boss finally made it into work, having called in yesterday after a lost weekend inside a booze bottle. He had a blistering hangover and was locked in his cubicle all morning with a glass of Alka Selzer in his hand and a cold pack on his head. He was unavailable to help with the orders I screwed up last week until mid-afternoon. When he finally emerged he took out whatever his boss had visited upon his head on me. Yelp knows what my Tuesday was like and finds the appropriate mindless evening entertainment for me to escape to. It will purchase iMax tickets for me and I will then spend a therapeutic evening with the latest 3d-blockbuster movie. If Yelp could do that, I would be happy to give it a five star rating. For now, though, it will receive three stars. And it should be happy with that. The rest of the world seems satisfied with a three-star existence. Why can’t Yelp be as well?

Yelp is the best reviewing site out there. Thank god for Yelp. Without it I wouldn’t know where to eat, what car to buy, or what school to send my kids to. Thank you Yelp!

Yelp is the best reviewing site out there. Thank god for Yelp. Without it I wouldn’t know where to eat, what car to buy, or what school to send my kids to. Thank you Yelp!

Yelp is the best reviewing site out there. Thank god for Yelp. Without it I wouldn’t know where to eat, what car to buy, or what school to send my kids to. Thank you Yelp!

Yelp is the best reviewing site out there. Thank god for Yelp. Without it I wouldn’t know where to eat, what car to buy, or what school to send my kids to. Thank you Yelp!

Yelp is the best reviewing site out there. Thank god for Yelp. Without it I wouldn’t know where to eat, what car to buy, or what school to send my kids to. Thank you Yelp!

The above is not a real review of Yelp, but it would be if Yelp reviewed Yelp.

Sue Lange

P.S. The above essay was posted at BVC a couple of weeks ago, just so you know.

How I Learned to Love The Bomb

Now that the wall’s been torn down, the number of ICBMs downsized, and the Soviet Union reduced to bits of istans, we’re safe from nuclear annihilation. I think it’s time for us to step back and take a clinical, if not loving, look at The Bomb. Like how we do with stories of the Vikings and the Huns, let’s get past the horror so we can admire the genius.

With that in mind, I recently enjoyed two books on the subject: Manhattan Project, by Stephane Groueff; and Now it Can be Told, by none other than General Leslie M. Groves, the dude who oversaw the development of The Bomb. Both books were first published in the 60s and it shows. The content and style portray unapologetic worship of the achievement. That was appropriate at the time, I suppose. We were still reeling from the 50s, that most pro-American of decades.

I was fascinated with these accounts detailing the struggle to invent the first nuclear weapons. Only in America could that have been done. This monumental project required a country with a huge amount of money and numbers of people, as well as a unique governmental structure.

And just what is that unique American system? It’s something I’d never realized before: America, the shining light of democracy, can revert to a monarchy when called upon to do so. General Groves’ was nothing short of a king. Certainly he had to grease wheels, work with personalities, and trade favors, but isn’t that what the great kings—the ones we remember—do? Groves ruled like an autocrat. He got what he needed when he asked for it, an he rarely had to invoke the name of his boss. He was feared, tolerated, hated, and respected. He was like Hoover at the FBI only without the garter belt.

It could only have happened in America. The closest anybody else was getting at that time was Germany. But Groves relates a conversation Hitler’s scientists had while under guard as the war was winding down and they’d been rounded up. They were eavesdropped on—didn’t know anybody was listening—and so were candid about what they had been doing and their speculation about what we were doing. Apparently what they’d been doing was chasing their tails, trying to get a sustained reaction long after Fermi had accomplished that in Chicago. Heisenberg said a bomb was impossible. They were shocked when they heard about Hiroshima. Despite the conversation that Heisenberg had had with Niels Bohr, the Germans were not headed toward nuclear weaponry. Nuclear fission would never work as a weapon, Heisenberg had asserted. They were considering it for a source of power only.

Reading the account of how The Bomb came into being, I understand Heisenberg’s reaction. Whole industries had to be invented to enrich Uranium, i.e. increase the 235 to 238 ratio. Plants had to be built and towns like Oak Ridge, Hanover, Los Alamos, begun and populated. Hundreds of thousands of engineers, scientists, plant workers, floor sweepers, designers, had to be recruited and put to work. Nobody knew what they were working on. Security was a nightmare. Plants were built before the processes that would be used in them were invented. All because Groves had a tight, tight deadline. Nobody was even sure it was going to work and still they all went balls-to-the wall to make it happen. People lost sleep, hair, and spouses in the process.

I am amazed by the chutzpah. It’s true Bohr should never have recommended it, Einstein shouldn’t have promoted it, Roosevelt shouldn’t have ordered it, and Truman shouldn’t have pressed the button. But I can’t help but admire the effort, the shear audacity of the idea.

We are of course paying for it as we try like hell to reduce the stockpile. There are some things that we should just not engineer.

On the other hand, how bad can it be? So what if a what a bunch of backward people ruled by an inbred family over on the far side of California (which is going to drop off into the ocean any day anyway, so who cares) is doing?

Yes, I’m being sarcastic. Read the books, admire the accomplishment, write your congresspeople to rid the Earth of every last one of these toys.

Sue Lange

This essay was first posted on the Book View Cafe blog a couple of weeks ago.

What Kind of (fill in the blank) Are you?

Harpers Magazine has an article that may be the funniest thing I’ve read in decades. It was a transcript from a town meeting in Colorado. The citizens were discussing an ordinance that declared open season on any drones that flew over the town’s air space. As I understood it, it was a gimmick to attract hunters to the area and earn some tourist dollars.

The idea alone is pretty funny, but the discussion that ensued was priceless. There was the expected flak about mistakenly shot down remote-controlled toys; who’s going to pay for damages to homes; do we have an attorney to help us when the U.S. Air Force starts prosecuting us for shooting down government property. All fun stuff.

In the midst of the hilarity, though, was a most illuminating moment. It went like this:

“Man #7: …The drone program in the United States is under attack from the left. This kind of shenanigans and ridiculousness over drones in Deer Trail only fuels their side. This is not a conservative move here…”

What I see from that statement is somebody making a case for or against an issue based on whether or not it has been declared liberal or conservative. We’re not going to think about an issue, we’re just going to let the pundits decide for us how we should feel about it. Apparently privacy is a liberal issue. Conservatives don’t care about it.

Deep down in the soul of every American is supposed to be an individual. That’s our birthright. Maybe the only one we get considering how anti-socialism-minded we are.

If you don’t want the government spying on you, you should say so regardless of what others on the “other side” think. Why are we afraid of aligning ourselves with people that usually hold different world views than our own?

Are people truly 100% conservative? What does being a conservative mean anyway? I thought conservatives were the greatest adherents to the legend of the individual American. If you can never disagree with people that usually tell you what you want to hear, then that independent spirit is mere fiction.

If you make your choices only on what the party, or the pundit, tells you to choose, you have no more independence of spirit than, well, the people that change their behavior because they have spy planes flying over their homes.

Sue Lange

This essay was first posted at Book View Cafe a couple of weeks ago. Ta!

And Now For Something Completely Different…

A few writers and I got together and decided to start an ad agency to supplement our income. We put together an ad for the brave new drink known as Jetstream Soda.

Take a look and let us know what you think. Don’t hold back.

Sue Lange

Jetstream Soda Rep/Northeast

This ad was first posted at the Book View Cafe blog a few weeks ago.