No worries about cross-posting; as with my Twitter, I try to limit overlap. On the other hand, this Tumblr will probably have stuff like one-off movie costume commentary QTT movies I abandon (like the one I tried where Alec “Maud’Dib” Newman is a stockbroker-slash-jazz-pianist and Amy Adams stands on the street corner and sings with him every night even though They Are Strangers and He Must Find Her and I just couldn’t, you guys, seriously), which this LJ probably won’t have. So, if you’re dying for a picture of that movie that I scribbled all over in MS Paint, tune in to Tumblr! (It deserved it. It was awful.)

In other news I couldn’t discuss until now, I got called up for jury duty! I heard a lot about the importance of being fair and unbiased, and then they piped in Fox News all day long. (Oh, court system, you’re a gas!) I didn’t get chosen for an actual jury because I had past circumstances that rendered me ineligible, etc. However, I was one of the last called for this jury, so I got to watch the selection process for a good long time. Turns out, you can practically see a Sims diamond appearing over the heads of those who will eventually be chosen.

Unrelated anecdote: I was walking home last night, catching up with my parents, and a cab did an illegal U-turn in the middle of the intersection and nearly hit me (like, “I had to jump backwards to avoid being struck by his rear-view mirror” nearly). I proceeded to give him an incredibly loud and colorful* explanation of pedestrian right-of-way; he sheepishly tried to take his foot off the brake and roll out of the situation (hilariously), but was too nervous to actually hit the gas, so I just walked alongside him until I was finished.

Then I remembered I had been doing the Nun Point with my phone hand, and my parents were still on the line.

* I would like to pretend this was badass-profanity colorful, but it was mostly, “Do you know what a WALK sign looks like? It looks like someone walking! Like I’m walking after you right now because YOU ARE TRYING TO ROLL AWAY FROM ME.”

The Musical Theatre Neighbors are having their first afternoon party of spring. They have foregone the usual show tunes, however, and are instead dancing very seriously to what sounds like 1993-era house techno…all six of them. It’s like when Middleman went to the debauched sorority party, and it was two dozen extras holding balloons and red cups and vaguely shimmying. Cool it down there, you Dionysians!

(Oh, Musical Theatre Neighbors, Never change.)

I don’t tend to go to live theatre. It stresses me out. I get nervous for the performers to the point that I can’t enjoy the show because I am terrified that some disaster will occur. WHAT IF SOMEONE MESSES UP OH GOD?

(I trace this back to my mom taking me to see Annie Get Your Gun as a traveling production when I was maybe seven years old, and the bird not falling from the cage when Annie shot it, so there was this long horrible silence while everyone waited for the bird to fall before they started up again, and then later the bird fell down in the middle of a musical number and it landed on someone’s head and they had to pretend it didn’t happen, BUT IT DID. I have been to live theatre since, but I will never forget the horrible, horrible sound of the fourth wall breaking.)

On the other hand, Cate Blanchett.

Was I a fool? No. I was going to stand in line with my friend and get tickets no matter how many trips it took.

Trips it took: one. (I’ve never had such good ticket karma!) We bought tickets off a couple who couldn’t make their actual performance night. The seats said, “Cushion,” which they explained meant on the stage. We had no idea what this meant, and wondered where the hell we’d end up. We figured – behind some plywood.

What they meant by “on the stage”: TWO FEET FROM THE SET. OH MY GOD. We were so close to the stage that if anyone had dropped a prop at any point, it would have landed on my foot. During the curtain call I kept making eye contact with Cate Blanchett, because she was so close it was like being at a cocktail party with her, only she’s the most amazing actress of all time and you’re a dork with a dusty ass from sitting on the floor.

(P.S. I was wearing a black dress over pants, which I thought might be unfashionable, but turns out to be the best thing ever when you’re sitting on the ground for three and a half hours. Oh dowdy fashion sense, never leave me!)

How I feel about Tennessee Williams in general: Merp. I mean, iconic, but heavy on the melodrama and not so kind to the ladies, so I have mixed feelings.

How I feel about A Streetcar Named Desire in particular: I first saw it as a play-within-a-movie that Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken did in “Who Am I This Time?” which aired on PBS or something when I was a teeny person. I managed to scrounge a DVD of years later and watch regularly because I’m a huge nerd. In it, Susan is a mousy phone rep at a bank in the 60s, and Christopher is the totally socially inept hardware-store employee who comes to life onstage, and they’re part of a community-theatre production of Streetcar with her as Stella and him as Stanley, and I remember watching the little scenes of them rehearsing and thinking, “Wait, what the hell is this?”

And that’s how I felt about every version of this play I had ever seen right up until the lights went out in the Harvey Theatre.

How I felt about Streetcar Named Desire after that: …ooooooooh, I get it.

See, Blanche DuBois has the capacity to be SUCH a terrible character, a vicious caricature of the Southern Belle who loses her looks and slowly becomes a laughingstock, and lives in a dreamworld because the play told her to seem as fragile as possible. (In more than one version I’ve seen, Stanley ends up positioned as the play’s hero, which, no thank you.)

This production positioned Blanche as a scrapper, a fighter who will use any weapon she can find, sometimes until the gun is empty, and even then she keeps firing.

Why this works:: Cate Blanchett. There are no words. Her performance is gripping and exhausting and funny (her Blanche is self-aware, and it’s awesome), and by the last few scenes no one in the theatre was moving. I don’t think anyone was BREATHING.

Trying to describe her performance beyond that is pointless; she’s an absolute genius in her craft, and has the luminousness you always hear about in Empire magazine profiles but dismiss as hyperbole (not hyperbole, OMG), and she completely overshadowed everyone else on the stage. Not because she upstaged them, but because you just can’t not look at her, because whatever little thing she’s doing is so completely absorbing that you’re afraid to miss something.

The good news is that Joel Edgerton, who made a total upgrade from “Gawain in that terrible King Arthur movie” to “Acting with Cate Blanchett,” was a great Stanley. In any other production he would have been the focal point; he brings to life the part of Stanley that’s threatened and awash in a world where he never feels adequate, and has no trouble conveying the magnetism that draws Stella to him. (The stage directions must have read exclusively, “And Then Stanley Takes Off His Shirt,” is all I’m saying.)

The thing is, so much of the play hinges on that first meeting between Stanley and Blanche; it sets the tone for the entire struggle that follows. Most of the time that moment, for one reason or another, doesn’t work – Stanley barrels her over and we lose a heroine, or Blanche’s vibe is wrong, or something.

This time, when he came in the door of the dingy, cramped apartment set and clapped eyes on Blanche, the theatre was SILENT, because they recognized each other immediately as a pair of people just barely holding it together in a zero-sum game, and for the first time I felt that little ping of inevitability that this play needs to play out as a Greek tragedy and not a soap opera.

(There was also a lot of heat, and not the flirty desperate-Blanche thing that sometimes happens, but that thing where every time they’re close to each other on the stage you hold your breath.)

Watching Cate slowly fall apart, and Stanley trying to pull her apart because he Just Has To, was tense and amazing and basically the best version of this play ever, and I count the movie.

Also, it was EXHAUSTING. We were so close that every facial expression registered, which was amazing, but it also meant three hours of sensory overload, and by the end of it everyone in the stage seats was so gutted that we all sort of had to stumble up to clap. (Plus, our butts were numb. That is a long play, and those are thin cushions.)

If you have time to run to Brooklyn and stand in the ticket line, there seems to be a regular degree of success there, and it is absolutely worth the price of admission. Go. GO GO GO GO GO.

I have to made a totally-biased mention of “Gilded Cage,” a necklace by Chris Fisher based on my Annex story “To Set Before the King”.

I love the choice of charms, the color scheme, and the fact that it’s a collar necklace, which fits beautifully with the themes of the scene.

I’m extremely flattered to have two artists who were inspired by my story (the other one was the best kid’s toy ever, Bee with Cleaver), and I love to see all the things inspired by other stories. Definitely check it out if you can – there are some lovely things to snag and/or ogle!

First, this sign in the little village where we spent the first couple of nights.

That sign says PICNIC FORBIDDEN. Sure, they know it’s a picturesque meadow beside a river, but if you lay down ONE gingham tablecloth, they will take you OUT. France is not kidding about this. It will TURN THIS MEADOW AROUND RIGHT NOW.

And now, Rouen.

This is what the road to Rouen looks like:

Spindly trees overgrown with mistletoe, a chilly rain either falling or just about to fall, and nothing else for miles. Normandy: most elegant apocalypse ever.

And now, Rouen! A town so badass the clock only needs one hand.

Rouen was a bustling medieval city back in the day, and a lot of those buildings are either still hanging in there from back in 12mumbletymumble or are designed to look like it:

Here, a rare picture I took that actually came out:

The covered well at the center of the courtyard of Aitre St. Maclou, the plague cemetery that’s now an art school. School wasn’t in session the day we went, so it was stone quiet. While I was taking pictures, a tourist family bustled in, looked around, went suddenly quiet, and shuffled quickly out. (It’s a little creepy once you know the place used to be stuffed to the roof with bodies, I guess.)

Photo Interlude! These are pictures my sister takes when she goes to France:

These are the pictures I take when I go to France:

You guys, it’s The Warriors. I JUST MISSED THIS SCREENING.

Non-Photo Interlude: Between the two of us, there’s not one decent picture of the Gros Horloge (from the French: Enormous Astronomical Clock with Only One Hand Because Back Then People Only Needed to Be Vaguely On Time Since You Only Lived to Thirty-Five Anyway, So Why Sweat the Small Stuff). The only picture I managed of it was taken during the Great Norman Earthquake of 2009, so that was a bust. Please know it exists and it is very lovely.

Down the street from the Gros Horloge is a McCafe. Say what you will about the demons of globalization, and there is a lot to say, but that place had free Wi-Fi and it was open past 5pm, so, +2 McCafe.

For the curious, here’s what a cup of coffee or a hot chocolate looks like in a French McCafe:

Not pictured: the tiny chocolates that came on each saucer. (France: not messing around.)

Empty cups:

Clockwise from top left: coffee plus chair makes your hair stand up; cake plus time makes you happy; cake plus a muffin makes you very happy; coffee plus giving someone the Vulcan Nerve Pinch makes you super happy.

On our way out of town we saw a carnival that had been set up on the riverbank. Because I was with my sister, it meant one thing: Ferris wheel.

[Redacted: picture of me looking like an idiot on a Ferris wheel.]

From the Ferris wheel, you had a good view of the city…shrouded in fog as the rain came pouring down, so that’s a no-go. What we did get a view of was this little bugger:

It doesn’t look like much, except that you go down it in little teacup-style cars one at a time, and after the first turn they spin uncontrollably, and squeals of delight turn to genuine screams as the passengers realize they are on a trip of vomitous horror. Yay, Crazy Mouse!

This is not the last you’ll see of this carnival; the pictures from the next day are amazing. (Never fear, this probably will not go day by day, mostly because I can’t keep anything straight more than 72 hours after the fact.)