Sugar-Lips

I have an ongoing joke with a friend of mine in which, during our email banter, we challenge each other to come up with the most ridiculous terms of endearment for the other. I don't really know how this got started, but when he would address our emails to "sugar lips" or "love-muffin," I couldn't resist. Even though I know it's a silly joke, it never ceases to put a smile on my face. It reminds me of this article I once read by Garrison Keillor- which he referenced when he recently appeared with the Progressive Forum (where I met him).

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/10/18/keillor/

I finally have the maturity to appreciate the charms of the good ol' South- it only took me the greater part of three decades to do so. People sometimes observe that I don't sound like I'm from Texas, but I used to receive that comment all the time. Less so now. Why? Because I no longer strain to neutralize my Southern accent- I've even grown to kind of like the drawl that occasionally slips into my speech. More than that, I like how I feel when I call someone "sweetie" or "darlin" or "sugar." And I like meaning it when I do.

PS: Even those voting for Obama or Hillary might call you "precious."

Terms of endearment

Why do Southern folks elect regressive, warmongering politicians but still call you "sunshine" when they serve your coffee?
By Garrison Keillor

Oct. 18, 2006 I was misunderstood growing up and have often been misunderstood since, but then so is everyone else. People are busy, and you can't expect them to drop everything and try to understand you. If you want to be understood, practice kindness and mercy. Kindness is seldom mistaken for anything else. Small kindnesses reverberate a long time in people's hearts.
A woman checking I.D.s at the airport saw me coming the other day and said, "Good morning, sunshine." She didn't know me from Adam. She glanced at my driver's license and said, "Have a good flight, darling." This was in the South, of course -- in Austin, Texas, to be exact. Northern women would no sooner address a strange man as "sunshine" than they would ask if you wanted to see their underwear. But that woman's "sunshine" shone on me for the rest of the day, and a week later I still remember it. Like I remember old waitresses in diners who addressed everyone as "love." "Care for more coffee, love?" Yes, dear. And you left a quarter tip instead of a dime. Fifteen cents for a little endearment.

On the flight from Austin, I sat next to a black woman my age from Alabama who was in a chatty mood. I said, "You've seen a lot of history in Alabama." She said, "And it isn't over yet." We got to talking about Dr. King and his family, and she blurted out, "I just cannot forgive those children of his for never giving their mother a grandbaby. Four healthy children. I don't know their sexual orientation, but you would think that one of them could've produced one baby for Mrs. King to hold. She died without ever getting those babies to hold in her arms. Do you have grandbabies?" I said I have two. "I've got two," she said, "and every time I look at them, that's me. They're the continuation of me." She patted my hand. "I am going to pray for your grandchildren. Tell me their names." So I did. When the plane pulled up to the gate in Chicago, she touched my knee and said, "It was good talking with you, darling."

Up here in the north, a man wouldn't touch a stranger on the knee or address her as "darling," lest he be reported to the Attitude Police, but once in Nashville, Tenn., a lady said to me, "Sweeten up to me now," meaning "Give me a squeeze," so I did, of course. She smelled of lavender and talcum and lemons. Everyone craves a little sweetening now and then, but in Minnesota we don't squeeze easily or address each other as "darling."
I went to a big dinner of diehard liberals in Texas and was darlinged left and right and sweetied and even occasionally precioused, but if you were among Democrats in Minnesota, you might think you were at a meeting of Mormon actuaries. We offer a cold handshake and a thin smile, and that's all you get from us. We are wary of the big grin and the shoulder squeeze, the trademarks of the con man, and we resist being drawn into friendly banter with strangers for fear we'll end up with a truckload of aluminum siding or a set of encyclopedias.
We're burdened by the need to be cool. When I was in college, I read Kafka and Camus and tried to write like them, in flat, non-American English, as if writing under the influence of a migraine, until it slowly dawned on me that I was missing the basic experiences that had formed them. Enduring high school is not the same as growing up Jewish in Prague or fighting in the French resistance. I had no solid basis for being cool in that existential motorcycle James Dean absurdist chain-smoking hero sort of way, so I gave up being cool and settled for being pleasant. And now I see teenagers locked up in iPods, looking sour and sleepy and hostile, and I hate to see them reliving that part of my life.

If we can't talk to strangers, if there is no public life in America, then it's no wonder politics is so out of whack. And yet in the South, which has produced the most regressive politicians this side of Sudan, who are proud of bad government and lousy wars, in which a disproportionate number of young Southern men die, you keep running into the friendliest people on earth. Explain that to me, sunshine. Sweeten up here and tell me why these good people keep electing those dreadful idiots.
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(Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.)

Houston Press Review: Loving 'Love Loves a Pornographer'

Thanks, DL!!!

Loving Love Loves a Pornographer
Nova Arts Project surprises with a wicked Victorian comedy-of-manners parody

By D.L. Groover
Published: April 17, 2008

Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex
2201 Preston, 713-623-4033

Details:
Through April 26. $15-$30.

It takes a few minutes to become acclimated to Nova Arts Project's immaculate staging of Love Loves a Pornographer, Jeff Goode's wicked parody of a late Victorian comedy of manners. This isn't because the satire is odd and edgy — it's downright classical, if truth be told — but because we don't expect something quite like this from the avant-garde troupe, certainly not after its surreal tempOdyssey, wacky, CSI: Denmark-inspired Hamlet or crazy-quilt Oedipus3. Goode's beguiling sex comedy begins with an obsequious butler, a fine old English country house and fine English landed gentry, who seem to have crash-landed from an unknown play by Pinero, Shaw and, most assuredly, Wilde. Epigrams, waistcoats, dueling pistols — this is not typical Nova territory. But once we shake our head clear of expectations, allow the radiant cast to work its definite magic and relax into Goode's extremely funny play, we're bathed in first-class entertainment all the way. Love is the cleverest play on either side of the bayou this month.

A prolific playwright, Goode has unbridled humor, an ink-blot view of the world and an absolute love of words — qualities that serve him perfectly in Love, his loving, anachronistic tribute to, and parody of, Oscar Wilde. It's difficult to spoof Wilde, since his arch style pricked his own society and class. Of course, Wilde's shallowness and pretense hid great depth, but he wasn't about to say so. Goode takes Wilde's basic tenets — superficial characters, witty dialogue, mistaken/misplaced identities, sublimated sex, tony language – and flicks them with his own brand of body English. Love never falters or loses momentum, it just moves faster and more furiously, making the plot funnier as it becomes more convoluted and improbable. This is a neat trick for any writer, and Goode pulls it off brilliantly. Wilde is definitely smiling.

Love is no slavish imitator, though, and pulls some neat tricks all its own. Fennimore, the Butler, sits offstage at a table loaded with props and reads a newspaper when not "on." Daughter Emily wears proper Victorian garb, yet sports sneakers and striped socks. Earl, Emily's American fiancé, wears 21st-century casual. A child's crayon drawing is talked about as if it were a Gainsborough, and Fennimore uses a TV clicker to announce the act titles. These delectable postmodern deconstructions cheekily add to the fun. The play almost pops in 3-D.

Any detailed description threatens to deflate this finely crafted confection by revealing its numerous twists and surprises, but here are some basics — believe it or not, they're interconnected. Lord Cyril Loveworthy (Seán Patrick Judge) supplements his income by writing pornography under a pseudonym. His nemesis, Reverend Miles Monger (Timothy Evers), the influential literary critic of the Times of London and a sanctimonious prig, might be on intimate terms with Lady Lillian, Cyril's wife (Jenni Rebecca Stephenson). Out of jealousy, might Cyril be dallying with Millicent, Monger's lovely but frustrated wife (Melissa Davis)? Daughter Emily (Katrina Ellsworth) has returned from travels in America not with a genuine earl, as was expected, but with Earl (Bobby Haworth), a questionable mountain man who sells unsavory literature in Flagstaff, Arizona. Mrs. Monger may have committed suicide in the garden, but the guests spend time arguing over who has the proper social standing to investigate. Fennimore (Wayne Barnhill) is chastised for swooning when he should leave that to his betters.

Of course, in plays like this, no one is ever who they seem, and reversals and surprises are a matter of course. Goode keeps us guessing — and listening. Timed to perfection, the words, barbed and dangerous, or flighty and shallow as the clueless characters spouting them, swirl like clouds. Love is intricately structured to allow the witty Wilde-like throwaways their deserved position front and center, such as Lady Lillian's wonderful "No married woman should be left alone with a firearm. The temptation is simply too great." Or Monger's: "Money should never be earned, when it can be inherited."

Under Rob Kimbro's faceted direction, the cast of seven is a dream. Judge is particularly effective in relaying Lord Loveworthy's commanding tone and haughty sense of entitlement. But it is Evers, as the smug Monger, who steals the show with his marvelously twitchy performance. Encased in costumer Kiza Moore's straitlaced greatcoat, with hair combed straight down, glasses nailed to the very tip of his nose, and those long bony fingers constantly on the prowl over his watch chain, he's a George Cruikshank illustration come to life. Self-righteous and proud of it, his dirty little secret drives the play, and Evers takes the wheel with glee.

Amazingly smart and very funny, Love Loves a Pornographer has class, style and wit. The comedy, whose world premiere was only five months ago, proves that new, fresh theater doesn't have to be dumbed down to work like gangbusters. It just has to be good — or better, Goode.

Houston Chronicle review for 'Love Loves a Pornographer'

Ingenious wordplay drives Pornographer

By EVERETT EVANS
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Sometimes you can pinpoint the exact moment when a play irrevocably pulls you into its corner.

With Jeff Goode's Love Loves a Pornographer, getting a nifty Houston premiere courtesy of Nova Arts Project, it's this inspired bit of verbal lunacy:

"Your latest creation elicits illicit elations."

Goode's playful homage to drawing room comedy has already rhapsodized about "savage enravagements" and tossed off wry epigrams such as "A man should take pride in his livelihood, however shameful." Not to mention the priggish antagonist who, described as "rakish," defends himself with this choice retort: "In my entire life, I have never been rakish with so much as a leaf-strewn lawn."

Yet for me, it was that "illicit elations" line that put the play over the top. Despite a few lulls here and there and a sense of winding down near the close, Pornographer can be recommended for the sheer merriment of its ingenious wordplay and the fun this cast generates delivering it. It's the heightened language that's supposed to sound like stage talk, not everyday talk.

Premiered in December by Los Angeles' Circle X Theatre Company, Pornographer starts out as a tribute to, or spoof of, Victorian drawing room comedy as epitomized by Oscar Wilde. Yet midway, it acquires a more modernist bent — as if a play by John Guare or Christopher Durang or Paul Rudnick had wandered in and mingled with the earlier model.

Famed novelist Lord Cyril Loveworthy and his wife, Lady Lillian, entertain the Rev. Miles Monger, who also happens to be the Times of London's lead literary critic, and his wife, Millicent. Lord Loveworthy, whose writing is respected but not sufficiently lucrative, tries to blackmail Rev. Monger into a favorable review of his next book. Lord Loveworthy needs the boost so that he can finance the wedding of his daughter, Emily.

Emily arrives with the man she plans to marry — not "an earl" as her parents had misunderstood, but Earl, a scruffy bookseller Emily met in Flagstaff, Arizona. While the other characters are steadfastly British and Victorian in speech and attire, Earl is thoroughly contemporary and American. Before long, other anachronisms creep into the scene. One character leafs through an issue of Vanity Fair. Another sips not from a teacup but a can of soft drink.

The thunderbolt is the revelation that Earl's bookstore specializes in erotica. "Earl is a pornographer" Emily announces, the punchline just before intermission (at which the butler faints dead away.) The second half is (as the butler announces) "a series of shocking revelations." All pertain to which of the other characters are secret readers of the star author whose work Earl sells, or have secretly written those books, or even secretly inspired the whole series through real-life experiences recounted in a diary.

Was every Victorian a secret hedonist? As one character observes, "You make this licentiousness sound almost medicinal."

An exercise in theatrical style, Pornographer marks a change of pace for the young Nova Arts group. Director Rob Kimbro generally keeps things crisp, brisk and light of touch. Apart from a few hesitant moments (and remember, many of these lines are a mouthful), this team gives the play a capable rendition.

Sean Patrick Judge makes Lord Loveworthy sly, condescending and morally slippery. Given many of the script's most potentially tongue-tangling lines, he handles them with authority. Timothy Evers makes an amusing foil as the stuffy, stodgy Miles Monger — prim, prudish and sourly disapproving.s

Jenni Rebecca Stephenson brings haughty confidence to Lady Loveworthy. Melissa N. Davis' Millicent Monger is particularly appealing, indefatigably cheery with an unabashedly saucy streak.

Bobby Haworth's laid-back Earl Kant seems to have wandered in from another play, continent and century, which is exactly the point. Katrina Ellsworth shows daughter Emily's increasing iconclasm and rebelliousness.

As the butler, Wayne Barnhill, formerly of Infernal Bridegroom, has a droll way of being unflappably obliging to his "betters" yet at the same time mocking them.

You might say that while Love Loves a Pornographer is not quite Wilde, it's certainly very Goode.

LOVE LOVES A PORNOGRAPHER

• When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, through April 26
• Where: Nova Arts Project, at Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex, 2201 Preston

• Tickets: $15-$30; 713-623-4033

http://www.novaartsproject.com/

Must Love Library Cards

So, I posted a link on Facebook that started an amusing exchange...

LINK:

Essay About Love and Literary Taste - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/books/review/Donadio-t.html?em&ex=1207022400&en=be66964abe7c5f54&ei=5087__
(Among the bookish, even casual literary references can turn into romantic deal breakers.)

COMMENTS:

Linda at 2:31pm Mar 30
i JUST read this article this morning and thought it was wonderful. yes yes, so true. :)

Jenni at 2:38pm Mar 30
when i meet attractive, funny men, i secretly cross my fingers, hoping they don't list dan brown and james patterson among their favorite authors... ;)

Linda at 2:42pm Mar 30
HA! i love it! i just usually hope not to get an empty stare when i mention Isabelle Allende or Pablo Neruda...

Jenni at 2:46pm Mar 30
neruda is fair... but i would be a little lenient with allende. unless, of course, said date is from peru.

Linda at 3:04pm Mar 30
true, however Allende does tend to get more of a response then Neruda... go figure! maybe i just don't date enough South Americans. hmmm...

Natalie at 5:55pm Mar 30
You were among the people I thought about when I stumbled upon this little gem. There are the obvious red flags--personally, I think Left Behind tops the Da Vinci Code on that front--and then there are high-brow red flags. Like Ulysses. The only reason to read that in public is to be seen.

Victoria at 2:28pm Mar 31
Absolutely true! Thank you for sharing :)I am just thankful when someone has hear of Pushkin. Forget about reading anything by him. Surprisingly enough, many people have never heard of the great poet.

Colby at 10:48pm Apr 1
I hate to be the contrarian here, but there is, in my opinion, a bit of hypocrisy in writing off someone as shallow, incompatible, or undeserving solely on the book they are carrying around or list as their favorite. So some guy reads Da Vinci Code, Ulysses, or any other book you deem to be pablum, does that truly identify him? Are you not engaging in a hasty generalization? Or even the obvious question: how does your taste become a red flag, why are you able to determine that Pushkin knowledge is a good thing, or more importantly good art? Basically, what I am saying is that some of us didn't have the opportunities to read what you, or the rest of the world, consider necessarily or important to have read. From a Rawlsian perspective I would have you consider what if I rated your appeal based on your philosophical readings or lack thereof--that would seem a bit unfair would it not? And don't worry if you don't know who Rawls was, I won't hold it against you. ; )

David at 11:16pm Apr 3
this guy wants to sleep with one of the three women above.

Colby at 12:34am Apr 4
C'mon Dave I have heard better ad hominem from the kids over at Digg. But seriously, I hate it when yet another qualification is prescribed for men, to which we must contort ourselves. I have no doubt that if Brad Pitt read only Choose Your Own Adventure books, swearing that they were the best literature since Cervantes--even though Alan Bloom himself would recoil--that Rachel Donadio wouldn't be turning him away. That is all I wanted to point out. But if you would care to retort with more of your engaging repartee then be my guest.

Jenni at 2:37am Apr 4
haha- play nice, boys.

ok- now, colby, be fair- dave's comment is funnny. AND a logical retort to your comment.

i also think it's fair that you point out the injustice in dismissing a date if he hasn't read the right book. as a girl who has dated the musician who liked the 'right' composer, the writer who liked the 'right' author, the actor who liked the 'right' playwright, i will agree that none of these things serve as a consistent and reliable indicator of compatibility. i will also posit that dating artists is perhaps the first step towards misguided... i digress.

i would never count it against someone, friend or date, if they didn't, for example, have an affinity for faulkner. i've recommended 'the sound and the fury' to many who haven't made it past the fourth page. however, there is some merit in a comparison of tastes. if a guy lists 'dumb and dumber' and 'van wilder' among his favorite movies of all time- and then, claims john grisham as the second coming- it's quite likely that we operate on different wavelengths. not a value judgement- just divergent sensibilities. (if, on the other hand, he likes 'harold and kumar' and anne rice- we might be workable.) hell- i love 'joe versus the volcano' and read the whole series of star trek TNG books... would you suggest for a second that it wouldn't be a deal-breaker to some?

and regarding all the notable fiction valued by us women- we KNOW that the average joe is recommended some of the best books (excepting machiavelli and vonnegut) by the women in his life. (i am exaggerating, but is this so wrong?) for instance, just the other day, i spotted 'snow falling on cedars' on the bookshelf of one of my favorite guy friends. did he pick that book up of his own volition? doubtful. was it recommended to him by some cute girl? probably. OR his sister. i am OK with this.

then, there are those guys who read the NYer for fun. they are a breed in and of themselves. the self-identified intelligentsia. (i know this, b/c i subscribed for a year so that i could feel smarter and impress at cocktail parties with my academic soundbytes- only to become frustrated that i could never make it through an issue before the next one arrived.) the ones who DO indeed make it through every issue either teach for a living, are wealthy hypochondriacs (thus spending an inordinate amount of time in high-brow doctors' offices), never get laid, or are the type to hitchhike across the country desperately posing for the freedom and seeming effortlessness of kerouac. and believe me, i ain't knocking- i raise my glass to you, mr. chain-smoking-beret-wearing-beat-cum-emo-man! (they make good fantasies, since they are generally passionate and at the mercy of any woman who can pay for their pearl beer.)

and you're right- rachel donadio and harold bloom deserve kudos. they are both exceedingly brilliant and well-read and have managed to function in real life. procreate even. yay for them! you already know my stance on this, colby- must i remind you? we need more supermodels and PHDs to spawn- let's even out this gene pool once and for all!

where am i going with this, you might ask? i don't even know.

all i know is that i think it's kinda hot when a guy wants to recite poetry to me...IF it's good. IF it's his- even better. (IF it's good, that is.) IF it's bad, it makes me want to slap him. and not in a good way. cliched? absolutely! but kind of like large-breasted blondes in bikinis...

if said guy looks like eric bana with glasses, he could be reciting dr. seuss or shel silverstein and it would STILL be kinda hot. (Horton Hears a Who's your daddy?!)

and are you trying to dismiss 'choose your own adventure' books?! they were the bedrock of my elementary literary escapades! i only started denouncing 'baysitter's club' and 'sweet valley high' as pedestrian when i reached middle school and got in trouble with miles for tossing those books out the 2nd floor classroom window. (100% true story. the teacher couldn't bring herself to give us detention, since i think she found the whole affair pretty amusing.)

i leave on this note: i do not consider myself well-read. i only know what i like. i do not judge on the basis of exposure or lack thereof- nor do i damn anyone for an appreciation of a little drivel now and again. open-mindedness and a willingness to expand one's literary horizons is, however, a plus. my bookshelf is respectable, but not impressive by any means. still, if given the choice, i take dave eggers over james patterson. (if he were a few inches taller and unmarried, it'd be even better.)

...and if anyone takes this seriously, they should review the literary genre of satire.

gute nacht!

-jenni "lady love" rebecca

(figured i'd throw in a little rawlsian of my own)

and a quote to grow on:

"Just because the f*cker's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda!"
-Brad Pitt in Se7en