Congratulations must be paid to the Colorado Rockies.

In particular, I must congratulate my friend Brian -- friend in the sense that I don't know him, but he is the host of my favorite podcast, "Coverville" http://www.coverville.com/. Yeah, I'd do that hidden text thing if I knew how.

Okay, so with that endearing talent I have for bringing nearly every topic you can think of back to me, myself and I --

so there I was, home from work about 1:15 (don't ask -- that thing I said about the RSS? And November? Not exaggerating). So when you're somewhere you don't want to be until that hour and you get home, do you scrub things and virtuously hit the hay? Not if you're too wired with outrage, man! So you turn on the t.v. And so it came to pass that I was probably the only woman on the East Coast of the United States independently and willingly watching the Rockies clinch the NLCS, which occured at 1:38 a.m. eastern time.

Funny thing -- my second novel, "Nobody On, Nobody Out" -- remember that one? No, of course you don't. My first one was published. My second one was not. It was the autobiographical one like the kind people wrote before they wrote memoirs instead, was about a night in the life of a teenage girl in an alcoholic, motherless, baseball-obsessed family of men. On the night in question, the longest game in the history of baseball is being played. The game is seen and heard on the radio as various degrees of teenage drama unfold.

This is based on a game large in the legend of my childhood, between the St. Louis Cardinals and (I think?) the New York Mets. It ended around 1:20 -- I remember it being a contest of wills among my stepsiblings and I. We all fought to stay awake and keep company my constantly Cardinal-enraged father, Job-like in his baseball sufferings. The next day, at breakfast, we confessed, shamefully, the exact hour of our capitulation to sleep. Dad, grim-jawed (if you want anything done right, you've got to do it your goddamn self!) , had stayed true to the end, alone in the kitchen, rattling his ice before the quavering dogs, snapping off the radio with his trademarked hand-grenade click of the dial. I don't remember how that game ended, only that the game seemed as though it would never end.

Later I learned that in the American League, it is possible to call a curfew if the game goes past a certain time (typical! pansies!) So in the unpublished novel (editors? agents? Bueller?), I made the game an American League game, and brought back to life the St. Louis Browns and created as their rival a team in Denver. The Rockies. The Denver Rockies.

And a year or so later, the Colorado Rockies. And for that reason, if not for their wholesome image and nice-seeming fans, I'm on their side.

Labels: Coverville, great never--published second novels, the Colorado Rockies

posted by Elizabeth at 1:05 AM   0 Comments Links to this post

I saw Michael Clayton and I haven't meant to post so much about movies, but I liked this one. My first reaction upon seeing the ads was, of course, "Hey, no one who looks like George Clooney works in my law firm." (Apologies to all the men in my law firm, but, hey, you know.) But the film itself explains why that is so. It's a realistic depiction of the life, without reality doing that dull-down thing that reality can do.

These characters don't stroll the corridors of power in Cole-Haans, working out, barking orders and arriving home in time to cook their overachieveing but affectionate teenagers healthy gourmet meals. No, they labor, estranged from all that really matters, in overcrowded conference rooms, pawing through document boxes, snarling at each other and living out the law firm version of the Henry Kissinger-attributed axiom that "the politics in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so small." (I may have misquoted that, but my knowing that quote at all was so novel to my snobbish future boss that it led to my first full-time job in a law firm. And no, I'm not a lawyer, so don't start.)

So the characters sweat and swear and fight for tiny pieces of turf; they are compromised, indebted, immoral, besieged, bitter, and starved for the beauty of life. Real law firm. Nice set design, by the way!

The audience, when I saw it, was full of the kind of people you don't want to be associated with -- the kind the studios don't make movies for, the kind the nightly network news caters to. But they were there. On opening weekend. I'm just sayin'. And there were marketing researchers there as well. As someone who works in marketing (there, I've said it), I believe it is my moral obligation to fill out marketing surveys, but on this one ("you want to see more movies like Michael Clayton made?") I have to admit I lied I little. I portrayed myself as a younger and hipper version of myself. But then, who doesn't?

That same weekend, I saw Hamlet by a dear little repertory company which performs the classics. I (geek alert!) love a good Hamlet. I've been a Hamlet fan since I was thirteen, which, as you might imagine, made me way popular in high school. The problem is, a year after my father died, I treated myself to a trip to England, where I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet at Stratford-upon-Avon, with Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet and gosh, it kind of ruined me for life. That production was perfection. My subsequent Hamlets (six? seven?) have been so forgettable I've forgotten them. This dear little rep's production is at least straightforward, but it lacks the heart and grieving of the RSC production which so spoke to me then.

How are these two entertainments tied together? Hollywood A-list film and tiny little production of a classic?

The nagging, nasty pull to do the right thing when doing so will undo your whole life. Because not to take arms against that sea of troubles will kill you, but so will the alternative. And the importance of honoring the dead -- no, not just the dead, but the lost ones who taught you how to endure.

So, yeah. See Michael Clayton. Support your demographic! And take a look at Hamlet again.

Labels: Hamlet, law firms, Michael Clayton

posted by Elizabeth at 8:31 PM   0 Comments Links to this post