So I'm Not the Only One Too Late to Buy My Own Name.Com

I'm not aware of a community of Anne Elliotts, but there are a lot of us out there. My hubby suggested I buy the domain theotheranneelliott.com.

From today's Wall Street Journal, check out Andy Jordan, who reaches out to the other Andy Jordans. Ha!

The 500-Word Memoir

I entered Opium Magazine's 500-Word Memoir contest and managed to make the short list! I may not have a book-length memoir in me, but I could manage 450 words. I just wanted to support Opium, with my last-minute entry, since I have benefited from their terrific parties in the past. And now, not only this needed shot in the arm, but my net-friend Clifford Garstang is on the list too. Congrats, Cliff!

My story is about the 1972 Republican convention. I started it in Lynda Barry's class, on the assignment to list ten American presidents. So now you know it's not fiction. Yes, I really did shout, "Four more years!" I was caught up in the moment. I was also in first grade.

My politics have changed. My brother's too. For the better, I hope.

Support Opium. Watch their Literary Death Match TV. It's hilarious. And don't hesitate to comment...

This One Throws Me into Melancholy and Questions

I rented Godspell as part of my research for the new novel, where I delve into the folk Christianity of the 70's. Boy, I did not expect my reaction. At first I could not stop laughing. How goofy, the hippies painting on their clown faces and roller skating and playing their slide whistles! How fun to see it in the NYC landscape I know well now, these songs I learned backward and forward when I was a kid, a kid who had never seen these big landmarks in person. There's Lincoln Center! There's Central Park! Bethesda Fountain! Look at the angel, immortalized again (and more ironically) in Tony Kushner's Angels in America!

Then I start freaking a little. I mean, it's really goofy, and I realize that I was drawn in by the clown thing when I was little, the white fluffy-headed Jesus with his Superman shirt and pompom shoes and painted-on tears. The language is a little opaque, and I didn't understand it, not really, the way I didn't understand Shakespeare or hymns or the liturgy or even the Gospels I heard weekly in church. (And the songs in Godspell use the words from the Episcopal hymnal...) But the slapstick is what I lived for, back then, that's what I understood: the mime stuff, the happy-hippy feeling. Was this a big part of my religious indoctrination? And if so, what, exactly, did I learn?

For one, I got the basics of the parables. But I couldn't watch them now. Too much clowning, too much overlay. I had to fast-forward through the silly voices and hey-kids-lets-put-on-a-show thing.

And then there's this number, "All For the Best," filmed on Manhattan rooftops, including a finale on the unfinished World Trade Center. I'm feeling vertigo, and sorrow, watching the fast vaudeville-style dancing up there, too close to the edge, and the song's lyric: "don't forget that when you'll get to heaven you'll be blessed."

Did I believe in heaven? Was this part of my kid theology? Do I now? And do you have to die to find it? Or, as I would rather think, is our life on earth so full of possibility that it might just be heaven already?

Just seeing the towers brings flashbacks of my own daily walk through those buildings, fixtures of my landscape for the years I worked downtown, and the day I stood below and watched them burn and fall, watched people fall too. The film uses the towers as a symbol of wealth and what you "can't take with you." The antithesis of heaven. The message, which I did get when I was little: wealth and luck on earth mean nothing. But is that too pat? How has the meaning of this film changed, now that the city has, now that we've lost our happy-hippy innocence? Or our Wall Street business-as-usual innocence?

Does this mean I shouldn't be grateful for my good luck? My wealth, relatively speaking, in the global scheme of things? It does bring home one thing--it's all fragile. Jobs, things, and people come and go. What can I hang onto? Should I even try?

Or, is that what makes it heaven, life here? That it is fragile? Is heaven allowed to be fragile?

I rented Jesus Christ Superstar too, which was a much better fit for my current state of mind. Judas is the guy I identify with. The one who resists the groupthink. It's not enough to just follow and trust. You have to think about what you're doing, independently, even if doubt is a part of that process.

Groupthink at its Most Passive-Aggressive

This incident is giving me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. In Cambridge, of all places, monologist Mike Daisey had to stop his performance while a group of 80+ self-righteous, smug people got up and walked out. One of them had the audacity to step onstage and pour water on Daisey’s handwritten outline, effectively halting the show while Daisey’s crew cleaned up. It is one of the weirdest acts of deliberate cruelty I have seen in awhile. The obvious question—did these God-appointed asswipes premeditate this whole thing?

Or, did they simply not research the production before bringing their school group, then panic, fearing parental complaints? If that's the case, way to set a good example for the students. I mean, there's a preview link on American Repertory Theater's website. Daisey's colorful language (which is mild, by HBO standards) is right up front. If these kids are so tender and virginal, wouldn't it be worth a few minutes with YouTube before purchasing tickets?

I read a summary of the incident on Return of the Reluctant and, not being familiar with Daisey’s work, I thought, so, must have been something wild, eh? Like yams on a naked butt? Or Jesus in piss? Or Jesus in chocolate? Or self-mutilation? Or cross-dressing? Or machines made of dead animals?

Nope. He used the word “fucking.” That’s IT. And even that’s a guess. You can watch the incident here, and guess for yourself. It’s actually hard to tell why these people were being so passive-aggressive and rude, and none of them had the courage to dialogue with Daisey and explain exactly why they were walking out. Anyone else feeling a little faint? I mean, back in the 80’s everyone actually was doing weird shit. A few folks still are (and still move me to tears) . But Daisey seems like a regular guy. AND, his performance appears to be a genuine, candid, almost innocent inquiry into our culture, the kind that anybody can relate to. At least I thought they could.

Daisey handled it with aplomb. He initially reacted in anger, charging through the already-elastic fourth wall, then appeared to relax, and managed to use humor to put his paying viewers at ease. He put me at ease too, by the end of the clip. The stage crew kept their heads and cleaned up quickly. But on his website, he admits to being rattled, and even afraid of his audiences now. I would be too.