My Halloween costume. It's not much of a costume, I admit. What you can't see is that I had on little fake fangs on. I learned something interesting from my experiment with fangs: vampires, if they existed, would have a really hard time wearing lipstick. Because my lipstick kept rubbing off on my fangs. It was not cool.

Also: yay classic ghost costume.

Salome

So I just saw the weirdest opera ever.  Richard Strauss' Salome, at the Met.  I don't know about you, but personally, I just don't associate "The Metropolitan Opera" and "Weird".  Avant-garde?  Sometimes.  Abstract?  Sure.  Gaudy, over-the-top, and spectacular?  That's more like it.  But this one was weird.  And disgusting.

There's not a whole lot of story here.  Salome is a spoiled brat, and she's lingering outside at a big party at her stepfather's palace when she hears John the Baptist ranting and railing from inside his oubliette.  The soldiers guarding the oubliette have been ordered not to let anyone speak to John the Baptist, let alone pull him out of his little prison, but with a bit of bump-and-grind Salome convinces the guy in charge that he can bend the rules just this once.

Here's the weirdest thing about Salome.  It's that Salome herself, history's ultimate femme fatale, isn't the least seductive.  And I don't mean this as a slam against the opera singer, either; the choreography is so awkward it has to be intentional.  She doesn't dance; she jerks around, she squats, she humps the props.  She doesn't seduce the solider; she flashes some flesh in a cheap, vulgar way and he just can't resist.  If that weren't bad enough, there's something childish about her mannerisms which makes the choreography that much more repulsive.  

So out pops John the Baptist.  He's not in a good mood.  The one really fun part of the opera comes next: Salome tells John that he has beautiful white skin and asks if she can touch it.  John says no, you skanky ho, you can't touch my white skin.  And then Salome declares that actually, his skin is digusting and ugly and she doesn't want to touch it.  She starts again on his beautiful red lips, but John's still having none of it, so Salome declares that actually, she never wanted to touch his ugly red lips anyhow.  Etc.  That was cute. 

Eventually spoiled little Salome gets tired of John and sends him back to his oubliette.  Then her stepfather, the tetrarch, shows up.  He's got a crush on Salome; his wife, in tow, keeps telling him how inappropriate this is.  She's wasting her breath.  The tetrarch asks Salome to dance for him, and after several refusals he resorts to bribery: if she dances for him, he'll give her anything she asks for, absolutely anything.  Salome agrees.

Salome has already established her credentials as a provocatrice at this point.  She did a little octopus dance with the soldier to convince him to unearth John the Baptist, wearing a slinky silver cocktail dress, but this time we expect more.  We expect her to pull out all the stops for the Dance of the Seven Veils.  How's that possible?  With a strip tease of course!

No.  Seriously.

And yeah, she takes off the bloomers too.

Interesting, huh?  And while Salome gets nakeder, she's still jerking around on stage in this deeply unappealing, awkward way that makes her look like she's having convulsions.  Or doing aerobics.  Convulsive aerobics.  It's bad.  And weird.

So she finishes her dance and the tetrarch is delighted.  He immediately starts offering her all the riches of his kingdom.  Clearly, he is insane, because these days most guys working minimum wage can afford a classier routine.  But fine, Salome's horrid striptease is worth diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and other such magnificence.

But Salome refuses it all.  She just wants John the Baptist's head on a silver platter.    

Now, you might be thinking the worst is over.  You might be thinking that surely an opera at the Met can't get more risque than an opera singer just past her prime stripping down to the buff on stage.  You might be thinking it can't get much grosser than those aerobic convulsions.  I sure did.  

You would be wrong.

Because once Salome gets John the Baptist's head, she kisses it.  And not just a little peck on the lips, either.  She drops to the floor and rolls around with the head, locked in a passionate embrace with it.  She's singing this thoroughly psychotic song about how she finally gets to touch his white skin and kiss his red lips, as though she can't tell the difference between a live person and a severed head.  Truly, all the previous uncomfortable moments in the opera combined are less uncomfortable than this one.  

The end.

Conclusion: wtf?

Equus

I went to see Equus a couple of weeks ago.   I knew nothing about Equus the play - nothing about the playwright - I only knew that Daniel Radcliffe, little Harry Potter, was in it and at some point, he would prance around on stage naked.

Now, it's true: it's severely creepy for a 27 year old woman to be leering at naked 19 year olds, especially tiny, young-looking naked 19 year olds like Daniel Radcliffe.  I guess there's no getting around it.  And although I wasn't attending in order to ogle him - for pure ogling potential I'm sure I could have found something better - my motives were essentially perverse.   I just wanted to see Bad Harry Potter, the same way spending four years at a Catholic high school makes me giggle at tasteless jokes about Jesus.

Actually, I just looked up perverse and here's the number one definition: willfully determined or disposed to go counter to what is expected or desired; contrary.  So I guess guess perverse really sums it up. 

Here are some observations about my perverse excursion:

1.  There's been so much press about the nude scene, but it's short, the stage is dark, and Daniel Radcliffe is not facing the audience for most of it.  Forget about the nude scene.  What about the scenes when Daniel Radcliffe is twining himself around strapping young men wearing horse-heads and showering them with big, open-mouthed kisses?  If you ask me, those were much weirder.

2.  I didn't bother to find out what it was about before I showed up and, hey, it's kind of depressing and intense.  Go figure.  The playwright said his goal was to try to make sense of a senseless crime - something he heard about, although he never did track down the real event, if it ever occured.  Namely, a teenage boy who blinded six horses at a stable where he had been working, by stabbing them in the eyes.  He comes up with a fairly elegant, and inspiring, answer; too elegant, and too inspiring, if you ask me.  Or maybe I just don't care if there's some sort of indomitable spirit motivating animal torturers; nothing good comes of it, after all.

3.  Sure, I bought the ticket for silly, gimmicky reasons.  But I didn't go see a silly gimmick; I saw a great play.  I walked in with a snicker and walk out enlightened and thoughtful.  What's the lesson there?  That sometimes even your worst instincts can send you off on worthwhile journeys?  Maybe that's not a good lesson.  

4.  I got two Harry Potter actors for the price of one: the main character, the child psychologist treating Daniel Radcliffe, was also the guy who plays Uncle Vernon in the films.  He did a truly fantastic job, really great.  

5.  On the other hand, he also kind of reminded me of what Albus Dumbledore would be like, if he were a 20th century child psychologist treating severely disturbed teenage boys.  Harry Potter Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

6.  Captain Janeway had a role too.  She has nice calves.

Ulysses

So I finally finished Ulysses.  It took about two years, although I put the book down and let it gather dust for half of that.

I've never had a reading experience quite like this one.  When I'd pick up Ulysses, I'd be immediately engaged by the text.  On one occasion, I missed my subway stop - and traveled a fair way into Queens, where I had no desire to be - because I was too busy reading to keep track of where I was.  But, at the same time, after I put the book down I never wanted to pick it up again.  I felt no desire to find out what would happen next.  

I fell in love with Joyce's language, but I detested him at the same time.  It's the first book I've ever read where if I didn't seek out reading guides - chapter synopses just to know what had happened; explanations of the references and style shifts to appreciate the bells and whistles - I'd be completely lost.  Who reads this, without help, and finds it satisfying?  Anyone?  There must be some people, of course, but I don't think I've ever met one.  The people I've met who loved Ulysses all read as part of a college course, with a professor to guide them through.

And, you know, that's pathetic.  It's loathsome.  I love it when a book rewards study and deep attention, but it should be able to stand on its own during a first read-through as well.  It's the literary equivalent of being a chair with three legs - if it topples without props, it's a flawed structure.

But the language is incredible.  I thought it just crackled with vitality, like a live wire.  Words feel solid and heavy, sort of sticking in my mouth and forming shapes on my tongue even when I read silently.  There's so much humor, so much music, so much pure curiosity.  As angry and resentful as I could be while reading, I couldn't for one second deny that it was magnificent - because individual sentences or paragraphs or pages would just be staggeringly beautiful.

But in a way, this wasn't fair at all.  I started reading Ulysses knowing that I wasn't a Joyce person.  I was ready to have my mind changed, but it's kind of lame to start any project with a sneer on your lips.  And I did.  What I gained from reading Ulysses, as much as anything, is the right to not like James Joyce, and to say so without having some convert immediately tell me: "Oh, you'd change your mind if you just read Ulysses."  Well, no, as it turns out, I wouldn't.  

I'd been thinking of starting Middlemarch but I think I need a slightly longer break before embarking on another project book.  

books

So I just returned from Italy - pictures to come, but at the moment I'm pleased to say that I finally finished Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilization and then, as an added bonus, managed to read all of Standard Operating Procedure on the flight back home. Who knew it would be so hard to put down?

The good parts of The Great War for Civilization so far outweigh the bad parts that I can still recommend it wholeheartedly. It feels a little slapdash at times, and the quality is not consistent, but I've come out of it with a much better, much more thorough understanding of a number of conflicts that are often mentioned and rarely explained: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, the war in Algeria, the Armenian genocide, and the first war in Iraq - Desert Storm. All of these really add up to a much better understanding of what's going on in Iraq right now.

For example, here is some information I would have liked to see explained clearly and briefly before:

• Iraq is a majority Shi'i state.
• Iran is a Shi'i state.
• Saddam Hussein belonged to Iraq's Sunni minority.
• Saddam Hussein was a relatively secular dictator, but he heavily favored the minority Sunni population and violently repressed the Shi'i majority.
• The United States supported Saddam Hussein because his oppression of Iraq's Shi'i majority helped contain Iran. The enemy of our enemy was our friend - and Saddam Hussain was an enemy to Iran.
• Now we want democratic elections in Iraq.
• The Shi'i majority never had a chance to develop home-grown political parties and leadership
• Shi'i political parties and leadership in Iraq were developed in Iran.
• Iran has shown great willingness to extend its influence through the support of Shi'i political parties abroad - see: Lebanon.
  
• The United States still hates Iran.
• Conclusion: the US is going to have a hard time accepting democracy in Iraq.

When you really piece it all together, the cause and effect is so clear. And the more information you have, the clearer it becomes.

Maybe I could have read a handful of different books to get all the same information - but it was nice to have one big book as a starting point. And maybe I could have read something that was a little more measured or restrained in tone - but The Great War for Civilization is actually an enjoyable read, and in a book that is so long and so depressing that counts for a lot.

Standard Operating Procedure was in many ways a corrective to The Great War for Civilization. Every word was carefully chosen and the authors, Gourevitch and Morris, work hard to be dispassionate, even-handed, and give the soldiers of Abu Ghraib the chance to tell their own story without interference. At first I wished for a bit more context - I wanted to hear more about the whole conflict, and not just the prison - but by the end I was grateful that the book is so focused. It's not about the Middle East - it's about the United States - and the context is correctly a military one.

I think it would be a shame to spoil the book - and I also think it would be incredibly difficult. It has to be read to be believed. All I will say is that having read Standard Operating Procedure, I will never think about Abu Ghraib in the same way again.

dear reader, I cried

J.K. Rowling's commencement speech at Harvard: The first thing I would like to say is...

I just love her so much.

more politics, apparently

When I read this article, "Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control," about the US trying to cinch a deal to set up 50 permanent bases in Iraq and ensure that American troops would remain immune from Iraqi law, I wasn't surprised. Same 'ol, same 'ol.

Then I read this article, "US issues threat to Iraq's $50 billion foreign reserves in military deal" and I have to say...I was surprised. Not just that we're using incredibly unfair ultimatums to force Iraq to accept the agreement described in the first article; that's pretty low. I almost thought it was worse that the US Treasury vetoed an Iraqi attempt to switch their assets from dollars to euros, "because it would show lack of confidence in the dollar." Proper stewards don't squander the resources they have commited to protect, and certainly not from such pure self-interest.

The Independent is my new favorite paper.