Contemplative

from Florence

Wiggled Out of This One

Knowing my interest in all things organic and carbon footprint reductionist, Ben, my husband, forwarded this latest missive from Riverside Park Fund (disclosure -- we're proud contributors to this fantastic organization that has truly helped to transform the Upper West Side):

Subject -- Workshop on Indoor Composting with a Worm Bin
"Join the Manhattan Compost Project and Riverside Park Fund to learn how red wiggler worms can turn garbage into a special fertilizer for plants. Worm bin set-up, maintenance, and troubleshooting will be covered during this free workshop. 'Worm condo' and worms can be purchased for the discounted price of $44."

Now, I know Ben is encouraging me to keep at this blog by offering topic suggestions that contain cultural and political metaphors worthy of critique. In fact, he outright said in his email to me, "Darling, I think there's a blog in here; after all, how many cultural or political metaphors can you find in a worm bin?"

But wait a minute. Wait just a minute now. I'm thinking, despite his good intentions, I'm honestly thinking WHAT? Culture and politics be damned. My greatest goal in life as a NY City resident is to AVOID WORM BINS at all costs. A slimy plague on those cosmopolitan wormbinners -- aren't bedbugs, roaches and rats enough???? Yecccchhhhh!!! Have we learned
nothing? Excuse me while I go drink a quart of hand sanitizer!
Thnx but no thnx for the topic suggestion, Ben.
hmmmmpppphhhh
love,
L.

PS By the way, have you asked yourself, is Acorn behind the $44 condo deal?

Confessions of a blogmaker junkie

Yes. OK! The fact is, I am a blog maker junkie. Yup. I like to create blogs. I spend an inordinate amount of time doing this. You know, acquiring a new (free) account, thinking up a cute title, sweating over its description, scrutinizing my photo gallery for the perfect accompanying image, drooling over type colors and fonts, coordinating the whole with the determination and easy confidence of a television fashion consultant. Then, and then, I spend an even greater inordinate amount of time NOT WRITING anything. No posts. No drafts. Nothing. A black hole of internet silence. Leading, naturally, to the inevitable blog indignity -- DELETION. It's kind of like recreational fishing - throwing the darn thing back in the tank before it's even finished pivoting on the hook. Whoa. This has got to stop. For the fact is, I'm a pretty good talker. And a blog is, after all a kind of blah, blah, blahhhhhhhhg. n'est-ce pas? So, bear with me, dear reader (a hideously exclusive group of 1, aka "me") as I endeavor to rectify this situation with an
uncensored, sometimes silly, sometimes serious, but always I hope "authentic" voice on this, leahbarber'sblog, my one and only "keeper" since it's inception, as you can see by the handful of actual "older" posts.

October

June

maximus

a portrait

self portrait

Happy Valentine's Day!

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.

Reason says, Nonsense.
I have walked and measured the walls here.
There are no places like that.

Love says, There are.

Reason sets up a market
and begins doing business.
Love has more hidden work.

-- from Secret Places by Rumi

Putting the THE back in the theaterTHE

It began with a staredown from a rounded man, dressed as a valet, reminiscent of Erich von Stroheim in Sunset Boulevard. He was smoking. A cigarette. And wearing white gloves. Others entered. Marching. Like robots or wackedout marionettes. A coquettish maid. A priest. A coupla lab technicians with bowties. A pale, mustachioed man in dovegray morningcoat... they arranged themselves around their instruments, struck a note, and then, suddenly, within moments, we were IN THEIR WORLD, a raucous, musical, theatrical, filmic immersion in what they themselves call "A concert in human ridiculousness."

The "they" is The RenaldoThe Ensemble. The Renaldo is Aldo Perez, a brilliant postmodern Renaissance dynamo who combines musical virtuosity, philosophy, clowning, and formal theater training with subversive, lusting, burlesque funniness. The Ensemble is a company of like-minded fellow travelers, modernday inheritors of the exquisite Commedia del Arte prerequisites of discipline, blasphemy, and zaniness. Oh, and did I mention TALENT? This is the real deal.

While their characters are all recognizable as Commedia archetypes, silent screen icons and/or characters from Clue, the mystery board game, their approach is intoxicating -- old-fashioned but retooled to reflect a contemporary sensibility for today's media saturated, multi-tasking, fast-paced, image-driven, TV-educated audience. But it's not ironic, or caustic, or jaded, or arrogant. They somehow find a place in the universe's timeline that pulls together the past with the now -- somehow, you feel you've seen and heard all this before and yet it seems radically new. A little unsettling. And very, very funny.

The website: Theaterthe.com and a Youtube site offer glimpses of other pieces, The Curse of the Mystic Renaldo The, and American Hallucinations, and gives a hint of how the group merges media with their live aesthetic. They incorporate original film that looks like a direct appropriation of movies from the past; self-accompany their own act with music derived from hard rock, punk, Sinatra crooning, opera (Jenny Lee Mitchell is an opera-trained, non-diva, clarinet playing, beauty), and junkshop jazz; and engage in the kind of masterful comic play that makes it all seem wonderfully arbitrary and spontaneous. There's also a list of musical instruments including: guitar, piano, tuba, flutes, deer grunter, toys, washboard, bicycle bell, harmonica...and nose flute.

The Renaldo The Ensemble is performing in NYC February 7th at The Living Room and February 13th at The Rockwood Music Hall.

Go Have the Experience THE!

Kudos to 3-Legged Dog (aka 3LD Art and Technology Center), brainchild of Kevin Cunningham, for giving this talented group a creative home.

Happy New Year!