Sunday, August 27, 2006

Saturday, August 26, 2006

The Introspective Adventures of Pancakes Dunst!

#26

Paging Luigi Pirandello!

Just who is Pancakes Dunst? That’s what Pancakes Dunst wants to know. On a holiday retreat at an experimental theater workshop, the cleverest girl in the world comes face to face with her greatest foe of all time: her own public persona. How can one girl overcome the collective perception of millions? Her workshop mentor, legendary director Caleb Buono, tells her to look inside herself for motivation. “Your author will tell you what to do,” he insists. But the only thing Pancakes wants to do is get off the stage as soon as she can. “You’re only running away from yourself!” Buono calls to her. Pancakes knows it’s true, but she still can’t stop running. . . .

Friday, August 25, 2006

un paraguas rojo

(Beacon near Oxford St., Somerville, MA)

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Pre-Nup

The press release from Lorinda St. Genome’s publicist claimed that the dazzling Broadway actress and her children’s book–author fiancĂ© Emiliano Dunst wanted to keep their wedding small. Judging from the crowd that packed St. Bartolome’s Cathedral on Saturday afternoon, “small” as applied to celebrity wedding guest lists has come to mean “no fewer than three hundred.”


At least for all their troubles, their wardrobe extravagances, and their two-and-a-half hours waiting in the pews, the guests were treated not only to a theatrical spectacle of pomp and circumstance, but also to several incidents of high drama and histrionics. At the end of the day, only the wedding’s lack of requiring a ticket for entry quashed the rumors of the event’s being an exercise in experimental theater.


Even before the wedding march resonated throughout the hall from the cathedral’s 150-year-old pipe organ, the venue’s rafters reverberated with noise as the popular Hollywood actor Charles Mongol arrived with a last-minute declaration of love for the bride. One could hardly resist contrasting the similarities between Mongol’s performance on Saturday and his Oscar-nominated turn as Sidney Belew in last year’s Dawn’s Breaking. In the movie, his character’s wedding-day scene features restrained passions and a heartbreaking emotional revelation. Mongol’s real-life attempt at sabotaging his former flame’s wedding, however, was punctuated by poor diction, a profuse flop sweat, and a pitiful, sob-soaked voice that escalated in pitch as often as it did in volume. In addition, as most of the onlookers later agreed, the entire speech “came totally out of the blue. We all thought Charles was far too basic to have feelings that deep and tortured.”


In any event, Mongol himself seemed well convinced of his own complexity that afternoon. Calling to attention the crowd of astonished guests, Mongol delivered an impassioned, occasionally lucid speech that appeared to be fueled as much by alcohol as by romantic convictions. “We’ve shared the stage,” he said at one point. “We’ve shared our lives too. At one time, we did. And I can’t just let her go . . . and be shared with somebody else. No, sirree.”


Those nearest the actor tried to silence him with as little fuss and embarrassment as circumstances allowed, but he waved them off and poured forth an even louder exclamation of his romantic intentions. Within a few minutes, he had the horrified assembly in the thrall of his public address. If he sensed that he faced one of the most hostile audiences of his life--the friends and family of the bride and groom--he gave no indication of it in his performance.


As might be expected from a bride-to-be awaiting her cue, and in particular from the incomparably proper Lorinda St. Genome, the lady in white let Mongol have the scene to himself. Yet soon the groom, his anger visible in his eyes, led his best man and a small army of ushers to confront Mongol. In keeping with his reputation as a well-known child advocate, Emiliano Dunst checked his rage and attempted to reason with Mongol.


The inebriated actor fled at that point, clearly identifying Dunst as the enemy. Drawing, no doubt, on his scant two weeks of stunt training in preparation for the recent remake of The Seven Samurai, Mongol leapt into the pews and attempted to scamper across their seatbacks. But it was not to be. If perhaps Strategic Strike Squad Seven had not wrapped filming more than ten months earlier, Mongol might have retained enough nimbleness and athleticism not to have then collapsed awkwardly into the crowd, fracturing his wrist, splitting his lip, and providing tabloids around the globe with the week’s most obvious headline photos.

return of the land shark

(Mass. Ave., Porter Square, Cambridge, MA)

Friday, August 18, 2006

somerville julie

(Julie's Nails, Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville, MA)

Thursday, August 17, 2006

fugitive shoes

(Mass. Ave. at Prospect, Central Square, Cambridge, MA)

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Prom Night

The lights swirled through the living room: across the high ceilings, over the hardwood floors, up the wall yellow walls. Blue, red, and white kept sweeping over the pale moon of Kelly’s face as she reclined against me on the couch. On the love seat on the other side of the room, the colored lights described the contours of Adam and Debra.

I nodded in their direction so Kelly would look their way. The two of them were locked into some precoital position, though both still remained fully clothed in their formal wear.

“The tux is rented, Adam,” said quietly. “They charge more if you return it soiled.”

Debra, as usual, took it upon herself to deflect my sarcasm. “Ha ha,” she muttered in monotone. “Sounds like the voice of experience talking.”

The CD had finished the near-silent track it had been playing, and I heard the disc changer engage to rotate the next selection into place. The warmth of Marvin Gaye’s voice soon filled the room. But I could hear the dissonant interjections of police radio transmissions from outside. And some man began protesting loudly, if only semicoherently, about his rights.

“Can you see anything of what’s going on?” I asked.

Adam’s head lifted slightly. “Not really. I think they’re arresting him.”

I heard car doors slamming, engines being engaged. The dancing lights departed in groups as the vehicles moved away, and soon the room was almost completely dark.

blonde

(Dillon's, Boylston St., Boston, MA)

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Monday, August 14, 2006

bright blue, back bay

(Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA)

flipbook

(Brookline, MA)

Sunday, August 13, 2006

conjugates of "to drink"

(The B-Side, Hampshire St., Cambridge, MA)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

My Musical Resume by Debbie Naples

1963–present: bang various pots with wooden spoon

1964–1980: sing Broadway show tunes and Negro spirituals in family car

1966–1974: learn almost the entire musical score to My Fair Lady

1967: play kazoo, self-taught

1967:have kazoo confiscated due to complaints from Italian grandmother

1967–1969: perform with Our Lady of Peace school choir

1967–present: get in trouble several times for banging drums too hard in local music stores

1968: attempt but fail to whistle Andy Griffith Show song

1969: steal father’s harmonica, play it, break it

1969: sing in several variety shows with father (including Broadway hits “Okalahoma,” “Stop the World I Want to Get Off”)

1970–1973: perform with Lordship School Choir, sing two solos

1971: receive tin whistle from Irish grandmother

1971: lose tin whistle when Mother throws it out the window of family car

1972: enroll in flute lessons, 5th grade

1972: get dismissed from flute lessons when teacher realizes I can’t read music

1972: join 5th-grade recorder club without knowing how to read music

1973: acquire own harmonica

1974: learn to read music from Mother

1974–1976: sing soprano with Johnson Junior High school choir

1975 pass out on scaffolding while practicing with Johnson Junior High choir

1976: play with brother’s trumpet

1976: am forced to take free piano lessons at prep school while others play baseball outside

1976–1980: sing soprano with Lauralton Hall school choir

1978: abandon piano for swim team

1978: play and break sister’s clarinet

1980: sing with Fairfield University chorus 4 times, quit due to snobbish behavior of all involved

1980–1982: take guitar lessons

1980–1983: sing in car alone frequently

1982: guitar teacher dies, guitar lessons end

1985: discover significance of Brandenburg Concertos

1985: date man who has FCC license

1986: attend Run–DMC concert

1987: watch drag queen sing selections from La Boheme in F-train station, Greenwich Village

1990: purchase recorder at Costco, learn to play “The Jungle Book”

1994–2002: make repeated visits to Sam Ash Music, New Haven, Connecticut, to ask questions regarding conga drums

1994: learn lyrics to song “4 Wet Pigs”

1997: assist in rewrite of My Fair Lady to My Fair Roshi, spring Zen retreat

1997: perform in My Fair Roshi

1997: have recurring dreams about playing violin

1999: try to learn Italian with singing language tape, create reputation at office

2000: receive guitar for birthday

2000: play new guitar only in secret, mixing Bob Dylan and Elton John’s lyrics

2001: refuse to participate in karaoke e of any kind

2002: memorize a few of MC Solaar’s greatest hits in French

2003: acquire copy of Macintosh Garage Band musical editing software and accidentally call it “Garbage Can”

2003: write own music with free loops from software and force friends to listen

2003: acquire copy of SoundTrack editing software

2003: use SoundTrack to chop up parts of Broadway musical Hair and make new rap tunes

2006: program cell phone mix tracks for exclusive rings


(Debbie Naples is a dabbler in many things. She lives all over the place, but recently admitted to keeping house in Connecticut.)

blanco

(Shay's, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA)

rojo y azul

(Shay's, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA)

verde

(Boston Common, Boston, MA)

Friday, August 11, 2006

el pajaro tejano

(S. Congress St., Austin, TX)

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Sunday, August 06, 2006

the gibson girl's aquatic hero

(Mayor's Compound, West Dennis, Cape Cod, MA)

yup

(Hampshire St., Cambridge, MA)

Friday, August 04, 2006

Working Title, part 3

[previous chapter]

Over here in the editorial side of our building, it’s all about servitude at the lower levels. Paying your dues. Biding your time. Faxing this amendment to the contract. Following up on details that you know damn well nobody ever remembered to do in the first place. Plotting your superiors’ downfall and your own rise to power.


Okay, not every second of every day. But sometimes the coup can’t come soon enough.

Sure, there might be some real opportunities . . . eventually. But in the meantime, what’s with the implication that my overlords are overburdened? Because they’re just not, as far as I can see.

And whenever they start to seem so, they just drop a few things off with me or Karen. “Here, I need these by the end of the day.” Then they scurry back into their offices. If I could unload my burdens as easily as that, I’d have time to take care of my personal business all day too. But I’m at the bottom of the hill. There’s nowhere for stuff to go once it’s with me. I either do it or . . . I do it.

There is one other option . . . but it’s very bad form and I’m not yet crazed enough to fall back on it. But I’ve heard a story about one of my predecessors, a woman from a few years back who started out here as an assistant editor—

(Oh, and please make the distinction between me—an editorial assistant—and the position just above me—the assistant editor. The similarity of the names confused me at first, but the crucial difference is the word “assistant.” I’m an assistant, nothing more. Karen is an editor, nothing less. For all the rest of the office, we’re virtually indistinguishable. To anyone who has moved up and dropped the word “assistant” from his title, the most important characteristic Karen and I share is our underling status. Much to her chagrin, I’m sure.)

So anyway, this assistant editor was thought to be a whiz in the office. She signed books, completed mounds of tedious paperwork, filed all manner of documents, contracted for use of text and photos, and much, much more. And she did it all with a smile and without utterly sacrificing herself to living in her office over the weekends and deep into the night. She was probably going to be promoted up to a full-fledged editor when she suddenly quit and moved to London with her fiancee.

So Karen, who had just started here as a college intern, got stuck clearing out this woman’s cubicle to make way for whomever they hired next. And then they found it: a frighteningly large cache of paperwork that had never actually been completed. Disorganized stashes of files that had had only the slightest work done on them. It was such a mess that nobody knew what to do with it. It implied that the company had published all sorts of stuff without a real permission having been cleared on it. Copyright information had never really been filed. The Library of Congress had never received paperwork on scores of already published titles. About the only thing this woman had kept up with, more or less, were contract payments. If she hadn’t done at least that much, she would have been found out a long, long time before. Nothing will turn up a payment oversight quicker than a literary agent’s whining complaint about money he’s owed.

Even better, though, was that there was yet another oversight yet to come to light. They finally pieced this together months after the secret slacker had left (with, strangely, no solid lead to her whereabouts except a P.O. box for her final paycheck and tax forms). Then the calls and letters started pouring in, wanting to know what Curate’s Egg Press was doing about the query letters, proposals, and unsolicited manuscripts still in the office. Still in the office? No, they weren’t that. They were just never replied to. Worse, they were nowhere to be found. As far as anybody could tell, this woman had just tossed them out. “No wonder she always kept such a neat desk,” one editor remarked. Uh, yeah. I can’t believe no one notice what an anomaly that was in the first place. They should have been suspicious from the get-go.

Whatever. I’m off to lunch. Y’know, it’d be nice—especially since we have such a small staff—if somebody would ask me to do lunch with them. The first day I was here, Carrie took Karen and me out to eat, and I thought, “Well, this is cool. I guess now that I’m officially in the salaried workforce, I get to enjoy lunches out at nice spots occasionally.” But that was the first and, so far, the last time such a thing happened. Karen usually just tends to bring pretty wilty-looking salads in Tupperware tubs and eat at her desk. So I’m on my own. No literary lunches for me. I can’t wait to find out how many other illusions of mine they’ll shatter at this office.

Still, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if there were someplace close by I could go. But our offices are tucked back in a weird industrial area here. It’s two miles to the nearest safe-looking eating establishment. Maybe I’ll get brave and try the sandwiches from the Roach Coach that serves the workers in the printing plant on the other side of the lot. Or I could try the barbecue place with the permanently blacked-out windows on the next block. But for now I’ll go with fast-food standbys. At least if I get served something bad there, I might have a chance at getting some compensation. These other places, I might just end up on the menu.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Wednesday, August 02, 2006