Episode 10- Out of the Watersian Shadows & Into The Light!

As you might have guessed from my last Blog (Episode 9--Springtime in Baltimore, Springtime at Last!), lately I had been feeling that the absurdist, "Watersian" and "Seinfeldian" elements in my life had gotten more than a bit out-of-hand.

When I left town for a very brief overnight visit in NYC two weekends ago, before staying with my folks a few days in Rockland County, NY, I saw this as my big chance to briefly escape such things.

Silly me. I should have recognized that in a place like NYC, avoiding "Seinfeldian" or "Watersian" elements would be a nearly impossible thing for a strange artsy chic like myself to do. Really, how ridiculous--who could escape Seinfeld's spirit in NYC? Plus, what with the two Waters productions running also on Broadway (both "Cry-Baby" and "Hairspray") these days, John Waters' influence is pervasive there too.

Here was my first sign: a block away from a dinner party in the Village for one of my closest friends, I practically stumbled across the set of a new Woody Allen movie-in-the-making starring Larry David (co-creator, head writer & exec producer of Seinfeld, and creator & star of the Seinfeldian HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, for those of you who don't know).

If I really wanted to miss the Seinfeldian-inspired absurdities almost sure to follow, that would have been my cue to skip the party and head for my hotel. Or at least, cut out before the start of the comedy show I was to drop in on thereafter, at which a friend was scheduled to perform.

But I have never, in my life, deliberately skipped a friend's party; nor have I ever willingly missed a performer-friend's show. So really, I do not see what I could have done to avoid a sequence of super-"Seinfeldian" strangeness that did, thereafter, unravel before my eyes.

Even so, it has taken me a while to recover from the NYC stuff.

For a while to be honest, since returning to Baltimore, I have been laying low. Meanwhile, people all around me had been reporting "John Waters" sightings for weeks. In the last few days, these have been increasing to a fever pitch. And lately, so many folks I meet, hang out, or work on community projects with seems to be inextricably entwined not merely in my life, but also in JW's.

I have reason to be cautious. One might say that this is a sort of "Witching Hour for Watersian-inspired weirdness." This period, which started I'd say around April 22nd (John Waters' birthday), lasting at least through the end of Maryland Film Fest (which kicks off Thurs, May 1st & ends Sun, May 4th) is surely when JW's weird influence here is strongest - and when Baltimore is sure to be at its most bizarre.

Well, I have decided I must not hide from my strange Blog-life, or JW's legacy, or from "zany" Baltimore's influence generally, anymore. I could try hibernating at home, but I doubt it would do much good. Somehow, I think, Baltimorean, "Watersian"-inspired strangeness would find me, even hiding under the bed.

And no matter what, I would not miss the Maryland Film Fest for anything.

So I have decided: I will throw caution to the wind.

Rather than hiding, I will meet JW on his own turf: when he presides over his favorite film pick at The Charles Theatre on Friday for the FilmFest. It will be, appropriately enough, Story of Women, a "provocative" French film.

To mark the occasion, I will have with me a sort of posse of some of my favorite gal-pals & female Blog-Superstars. And we will meet and talk with JW, I suspect, of this strange legacy he has passed on to us, and also I would guess of many other queer and peculiar 'Watersian' happenings too.

All in all, I am quite sure the experience will be both Super-Blogworthy & Superstrange.

So please buy your tix early and stop by if you can. And definitely, keep "tuning" in for many more strange, weird, & zany 'Watersian' & 'Seinfeldian' adventures in & around 'artsy, grassrootsy, socially oriented Bmore' to come.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

The pic, as I mentioned, is one a friend took on 4/18 in NYC of Woody Allen directing his new (yet unnamed) movie starring Larry David. We celebrated & drank much wine at my friend Kal's birthday at Le Belle Vie (a really nice, & very reasonably-priced restaurant in the Village) while WA continued to direct & shoot the film about a block away.

So much is going on here in Baltimore right now. I will only try to mention a few important things coming up in the next few days.

First & foremost, there is Maryland's FilmFest. It kicks off with an opening shorts program, hosted by Bmore film legend Barry Levinson, tomorrow night (Thursday, May 1st).

Friday, May 2nd, movies run from 11 AM to 10:30 PM in three locations (Charles Theatre, UB Student Center, & MICA Brown Center) in Mt. Vernon, Baltimore. John Waters will be there to present his "film pick" at The Charles, which will be shown starting at 7 PM. I was there last year for his last pick; that film was phenomenal, and John was charming, easy-going, and incredibly funny. So I have high expectations for this Fri. Buy your tix in advance, I would be surprised if they didn't sell out. Ticket cost: $10.

More wonderful films run Sat & Sunday May 3-4th. To check shedule, view film descriptions, and order tix, go to the MD Film Fest main site. For reviews and more info, visit The City Paper's spread here.

Other big weekend things on my radar:

1) Fri, May 2nd - Sat, May 3rd (11 AM - 8 PM both days) is Flowermart, as usual at Mt. Vernon around the Washington Monument, Baltimore's 91st! For more details see the main site. Stop by & see my GreenCityBaltimore partner Doug Retzler's Paisley Green Roof display at Parks & People's Urban Forest (S of the Washington Monument).

2) Fri, May 2nd (7-10 pm)- "Bicycle/ tricycle art" & live music event at Velocipide Bike Project Opening Reception. "A Study of The Trike" at 4 Lanvale Street, Baltimore. (Exhibit runs May 2-25th.) With performances by Yeveto & Orion Rigel Dommissee. $5 Donation suggested. More info at: http://www.velocipedebikeproject.org/

3) Baltimore's 10th Kinetic Sculpture Race- Sat, May 3rd - race starts with opening ceremonies at the American Visionary Art Museum, on the shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in central Maryland. The eight-hour race covers 15 miles—mostly on pavement, but also including a trip into the Chesapeake Bay and through mud and sand.

4) Sat, May 3rd (10 am - 6 pm) & Sun, May 4th (10 am - 2 pm) - Rock Fight Against Lymphoma & Leukemia - 25 bands - music/ charity event at Huckas at 2324 Boston Street, MD. For more info see: http://www.myspace.com/rockfightpattersonpark (note, event venue no longer at Patterson Park anymore). Donations (I think of $10 pp) recommended.

5) Sat, May 3rd (7 pm) - Baltimore Songwriter's Association showcase of recently released juried CD "Songs from a Charmed City" - a Baltimore Live Music Meetup event at the Unitarian Unviersalists of Fallston! For more info or to sign up, click here.

**Check out our Flickr photos of Doug Retzler's "Visions of a Healthy City" Chalk-In project, one of his & GreenCityBaltimore's contributions to Baltimore's Ecofest (soon to be added to our photo sets here).

GreenCityBaltimore sponsored this to publicize Doug's "Art in Common/ Art for GreenSpaces" initiative, to build support for various eco-friendly & sustainable art projects in parks throughout Baltimore City. More info will be available in the future at www.artincommon.org . Upcoming GreenCityBaltimore events & "green" Baltimore info available at http://www.greencitybaltimore.org/ .

Ecofest on Sat, April 26th was HUGE this year BTW, thanks to all of the GreenWeek organizers, volunteers, participants & sponsors for making it such a great success! Baltimore Green Week events continue through Friday, May 2nd. More details at http://www.baltimoregreenweek.org/ .

Episode 6- Baltimore Barbies, Alcohol, & MLA Launch Parties Don't Mix!

Woke up exhausted this morning after the big (and very well-attended) "Maryland Lawyers for the Arts"- Arts Brief Launch party at Lemongrass and Tsunami (hosted by Smalltimore Events) last night.

Not that I'd had all that much to drink really, but I'd been running myself ragged for 2 weeks straight so I guess 2 'orange crushes' on too little sleep was just enough to do the trick.

I was feeling just a wee bit 'off' when I first arrived at the party actually. Under most circumstances I am really not shy, but occasionally I feel a bit lost when surrounded by too many 'towering' fashionably-dressed people in strange settings (it can be easy to see people as 'towering' when you yourself are not quite 5 feet).

This effect tends to be heightened by sleep deprivation and hunger, so it took me a while to get my bearings last night. Then I found the free buffet, and this helped to improve my mood to a wonderful extent.

After a decent period of scavenging I felt much less cranky & started talking to people, and then I found a few I recognized and some who, for that matter, recognized me.

Among these were Annette, an artist, wife, and publicity agent of one of the Bobwhites (a cool 'art rock' & swing Baltimore band); Jonathan, a MICA student who dreamed up and is directing this fabulous 'Baltimore Sweep Action Parade' March 29th, as well as his Assistant Director, Anna Page; and Natalya, a law student I met at City Paper's 2007 Valentine's masqueRED Ball at Sonar, a cool party with lots of great people, fun music & many interesting 'party favors' of the 'public health' variety (it was to benefit Chase Brexton Health).

Then I met up with Alex, this really positive, energetic & wonderfully imaginative psychotherapist/ teacher/ actress, and we got to talking for a while till we both decided it was time to leave.

When I got home I jumped into bed almost immediately looking forward to a good night's sleep.

I guess all this running around must have affected me strangely, for I had these very peculiar, 'larger-than-life Barbie-filled' dreams. I can't relate too much about these noctural wanderings other than that they were filled with many statuesque, impressively-clad, adult human-size yet also doll-like Barbies, clinking glasses of what I presumed to be alcohol in darkly green-filtered surroundings, speaking to one another in high flute-like voices throughout the night.

When morning broke I struggled but was unable to remember much else, though the source of such dreams is really not hard to place.

When I first saw Alex she was playing the role of a Barbie doll-come-to-life in this truly bizarre, but very emotionally-engaging play at the Fells Point Corner Theatre as part of last year's Baltimore Playwrights Festival. In it Alex, one of two featured 'Barbies,' narrated tales of many child-inflicted tortures suffered, alongside her male counterpart (the similarly-abused 'Ken'), over the years in a really compelling and rather gut-wrenching way. YouTube video of Alex in her 'Barbie' role can be viewed here & on the right side of this Blog.

As a child I never subjected my own 'Barbies' to such abuses. I bought many of them after all with my own money, and treasured them very much in my way. Still I admit that I cast them, at least mentally, in some rather sketchy adult-type 'creative fantasy role-play' scenarios of which Mattell would simply never have approved.

I will say that my Barbies seem to have survived it all in relatively healthy good spirits, as you can see from the photo of one I've included with this Episode.

Normally I don't keep my Barbies in my apartment--not that I don't have my eccentricities, but my apartment is already cluttered enough with miscellaneous 'artsy' ecclectic stuff. For the last 3 decades or so they lived in my parents' basement in Rockland County, NY but lately they (my parents, not the Barbies) have talked of moving so they insisted I keep the Barbies here, in my own storage space.

But as you might observe, 'Golden Dream Barbie' (my childhood favorite) seems to have found a comfortable niche by my window just now hanging out with my jade plant (which is not at all menacing or even fashion-threatening like the ficus I wrote about in Episode 1--the Man Eating Plant, or commented on in Episode 4--Lois Finds Love at The Ottobar with Trixie Little, The Evil Hate Monkey and Scotty The Blue Bunny). She is also hanging out near the 'green Lois' bottle which my cousin Lori found for me a few weeks back. So I might just let her hang out here a while longer, so long as she doesn't see fit to keep 'haunting' my mental meanderings at night.

The 'Bobwhites' will be performing, and some of the band will also be reading poetry (along with some other well-known poets) at a spoken-word CD release event called 'Words on War' Friday, March 7th from 7 pm- 12 am at the Load of Fun Studio (120 W. North Ave). More details at Load of Fun's event calendar here.

Other events of note to take place March 7th include a 'Girls' Night Out' concert, sponsored by the recently-turned-two years' old Maryland indie music community networking organization Static Chain, featuring wonderful Baltimore-based female folk artists (Sahffi, Teporah, Clarissa and Toni Sicola) at Tyson's Tavern from 8 pm- 12 am. For more info, click here.

And two of my condo building-mates are putting on a Choreographer's Showcase event that same night (March 7th) from 8-10 pm at the Constance R. Caplan Dance Studio, Room 163, Mattin Cultural Arts Center at Johns Hopkins (North Charles Street at 33rd Street), it is completely free and all are invited.

More details about the Baltimore Sweep Action Parade to take place March 29th (4 teams 'sweeping' debris from 4 separate Bmore neighborhoods to converge on Mount Vernon Place 3/29, resulting in a public sculpture display to remain in Mt. Vernon Park until 5/20 as part of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance's Festival of Maps exhibition) will be found at http://www.baltimoresweepaction.org/ and will soon be posted to GreenCityBaltimore's Blogsite (http://www.greencitybaltimore.org/) and yahoo group space ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greencitybaltimore/ ).

Copyright 2008 by Lois

Episode 2--'The Goldbergs,' and 'That Other Real-Life Jewish TV Sitcom Family from New York'

If you happened to be in B-town this weekend and desperately tracking my Blog like the other three fervid LoisLife fans ;), you would have noticed 2 things:

1. I did not Blog on Sunday, as I'd promised to do two weeks ago, and

2. there was an especially strong, freezing wind that blew through this Martin Luther King holiday weekend, such as rarely hits Baltimore, even in January.

If you marveled at these strange events, marvel no more! Such things can be explained quite simply. My parents were in town, having "blown in" as it were from the North--from Rockland County, New York, actually--and when they came in, they brought the usual rush of frigid air in their wake.

As is our tradition, my folks came in to Baltimore over the MLK, Jr. holiday weekend and stayed with me over that time. Given that my parents (especially my Mom) are basically a whirling vortex of energy and then some, I am generally, during this time, caught--trapped, some might say--somewhere between the eye and the eye wall of a hurricane.

My Mom loves to say that she is just like anyone else's Mom--but really, there is no one quite like her, she is very much a unique sitcom-type character all unto herself. When my family gets together, it is guaranteed to be a very 'Seinfeldian sitcom-y family experience' in the nature of a Costanza family reuinion. If you've ever watched Seinfeld, you might imagine this to be a tad--well, exhausting, to say the least. And though I meant to Blog yesterday, somehow, when my 'rents left town, I didn't quite feel up to it, needing as it were the entire day just to recover.

Now really I had planned to skip mention of my own real-life New York based Jewish "sitcom type family's" visit entirely, but it occured to me that a connection might be drawn somewhat between my family's visit, this Blogshow, and a certain TV sitcom I just learned about a few days ago called "The Goldbergs." This was a show which aired some time ago, back in 1949.

It was in fact the first TV sitcom ever--the original situation comedy show "about nothing"--long before Jerry Seinfeld dreamed of his or, in fact, before he himself was even the slightest glimmer in his parents' eye. It broadcast the adventures of a fictitious Jewish family residing, at the start of the series, in a lower East side tenement in New York City. And though I am told (for I have never actually seen the show) that it incorporated various stereotypes about Jews, immigrants, and poor people living in such communities, it was nonetheless generally the first show to portray such groups in a positive light.

It was all the brainchild of one woman, Gertrude Berg, a veritable mega multi-media pioneeress who not only created the show but starred in it and carried it through and past the transition from radio to TV for a breathtaking 17-year run, plus managed to spin this off into a Broadway play besides.*

These days some might say that Gertrude had a "face and a body built for radio," but she surely must have been something--she undoubtedly must have possessed a a talent, vision, and personality bold and large enough to sweep all else aside. For Gertrude Berg's TV sitcom was both widely and wildly popular, and it surely paved the way for so much entertainment to come--from Jerry Seinfeld's "little show about nothing" to so many other situation comedies and dramas besides. Not to mention, the sort of multi-media mega-fame that other actress/writer/visionaries (like Oprah, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Rosanne Barre, etc.) since achieved.

And I suppose, in some small way, I, and my my little self-styled "Baltimore Blogshow" with its sitcom type episodes--might be said to be in Gertie's debt too.

So I just wanted to say "Thank you" to Gertie, and for her remarkable achievement in creating this new artform and for daring to use this new media to help bring people together, to accomplish much social good, and help many folks see themselves and those around them, through the combined power and magic of art, humor, and mass distribution of entertainment via new technology, in a bit of new light.

As for my particular "real life TV sitcom-style family," they did leave the greater DC-Baltimore area after taking in many of its primary cultural attractions and highlights: the Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in DC on Saturday, as well as the Sculpture Garden and ice skating rink just outside of it and a movie (The Savages) at Landmark's E Street Cinema not far away, then Cafe Hon and the Poe birthday celebration here in Baltimore on Sunday.**

And while they might have left the city itself, and some of its residents, a bit "shaken and shivering," on the whole I think they left it more or less intact. And they did arrive back safely in New York, as I am sure that my little "Blogshow's audience" will be happy to hear--leaving me, ultimately, free to recover and once again, write.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

*To learn more about Gertrude Berg and other Jewish American entertainers and notables, catch Jewish Americans: Home, airing here on Maryland Public TV at 9 PM Wed, Jan 23rd and on Maryland Public TV-Select Digital at 9 PM Sat, Jan 26th.

**The "spooky Poe headstone" photo I've posted to this Blog was actually taken at last year's Poe birthday celebration. Photos from this year's Poe birthday celebration, which took place Jan 19-20th in Westminster Hall, can be viewed at the 'Meet 4 Fun' social networking website here. To track upcoming Poe events here in Baltimore, click here. Note that 2009 is the Bicentennial of Poe's birthday. Look out for details on the City's, and the Society's, plans for a dizzying array of Poe events to celebrate this momentous occasion in 'the monumental city' as they become available.