Elfaba, Richard the III, and the Secret Identity of SNAC

I'm still thinking some about WICKED and the idea that Elfaba was forced by society to be "wicked" because of her greenness. Of course, she wasn't really wicked, not like the title character of Shakespeare's RICHARD THE THIRD. Shakespeare chose to use "tragedy" to describe the play RICHARD III, something he didn't do with most of historic plays. Richard's tragedy, according to the bard, was that he was forced to become "wicked" because he was so ugly. The beginning of the play features a soliloquy by Richard that I love. In it he declares both his amorousness and his ugliness. He says he is, "cheated of form by dissembling nature/ Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world. . . so lamely and unfashionable/ That dogs bark at me as I halt by them. . ." He describes his deformed self in other ways too, and finally concludes ". . . since I cannot prove a lover. . .I am determined to prove a villain." If he can't get the girl, he won't be the hero, and he goes about being absolute awful (killing kids for ex.) for 5 acts and eventually dying shortly after saying, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

Which brings me to the major point of the posting: Does being drastically different from the norm really cause "wickedness," or is this old theme better in the literature than in the living? It seems to me that people who I have known who are in someway physically different, or perceive themselves as being so, are usually quiet, reserved, and lacking in confidence. Perhaps, unhappy, but not made evil by the world. Of course, Elfaba had magic and Richard III was a king. And they always say, power corrupts.

I was scrolling through some old posts and came upon one of my TWILIGHT rants. A 14 year old girl had responded to it very logically and interestingly. She blogs from a family blog and refers to herself as SNAC. She says I taught her mom a long time ago. I'd love to know just who this secret responder is. You are a good thinker, young lady, and if you have a blog, you must love to write.

That was WICKED!

I refuse to use some stupid pun like WICKED was "wicked good" or "wicked amazing" to open this ode to the Stephen Schwartz/WinnieHolzman musical, although I guess I just did. We saw it last night from our seats in the 5th row, center. I don't know if I've ever spent a quicker or more enjoyable 2 an 1/2 hours in a theatre. To experience WICKED is to "defy gravity" in that the performance is so elating and uplifting.

I could marvel at the music, the book, the chorus, the sets, the costumes, and the special effects, all deserving of marvel, but I think I'm just going to marvel at the leads, Donna Vivino as Elfaba and Stefanie Brown as Galinda or Glinda, depending on which scene you might be discussing. First to Elfaba (named for L. Frank Baum), the girl who was born green, and as a result scorned and mocked; and, as a result of the scorn and mockery, toughing it out on the outside while pining for normalcy on the inside. Donna Vivino was "fantastarocian." Very green, hair pulled tightly back, dressed not to please, she was beautiful to me from the beginning and grew more beautiful as the story unfolded. Her voice can break your heart or knock you over. Her glare can scare the toughest Oz guard, and her smile melt you. (This is not a reference to melting by water.) I can't imagine anyone looking better or more capable in a pointy witch hat.

Stefanie Brown, understudy to both Glinda and Nessarose, how can you go back to the chorus after being the consummate good witch? My Lord, Stefanie you are so funny, so sweet, so intentionally vacant, and with the voice of an occasionally raucous angel. You must be a special person and a special talent to go from flying in a bubble to dancing in the second row smoothly. You were "awesomocian!"

I know that a lot of people go to WICKED multiple times because they so love the experience. I'd love to go again, too, but, should we do so, I know, that however fine the female leads may be, I'll always feel that Donna Vivino and Stefanie Brown are the real Elfaba and Glinda.

A Call from A.J.

I started today in a great way with a call from A.J. Spiridigliozzi. A lot of people who often or occasionally read my blog know A.J., but his name is new to some of my older friends. Suffice it to say that A.J. is one of my favorite people from my 33 years of teaching. To begin with he's a terrific guy and a loyal friend from a wonderful family. We count his mother and father as true friends. He's also a dedicated single dad with a terrific 3 year old named Noah. Joyfully A.J. was recently engaged to an ENGLISH TEACHER! There's a man with great taste.

When A.J. was in high school, he was in all things theatrical and musical. Lazar Wolf in FIDDLER, Harvey Johnson in BYE, BYE BIRDIE, Val (the "I've got it!! We'll do a show.! Guy) in BABES IN ARMS, and ABEL FRAKE, hog farmer extraordinaire in STATE FAIR. (That's A.J./Abel pictured at center in the photo at the top.) On the fall stage he was the tragi-comic Mercutio in ROMEO AND JULIET, but most memorable to me, the romantic, fearless adventurer Tanner in the first play that I wrote and directed, A GIRL OF TWO WORLDS.

Now, A.J. is a drama teacher at a big high school in Arkansas. He teaches, directs, acts, and is occasionally involved in improv. So when our phone rang at 8:30 this morning, and it was A.J., I was thrilled. We talked for 10 minutes or so, including mention of his beloved, Cinderella-Jets, and he told me about the musical that he is directing now called BACK TO THE EIGHTIES. He said to me, "You know when I'm working on a musical, I often say to myself, 'what would Mr. Ellstrom do here?' " That's one of the nicest things a great and talented friend could say to me. I got a drop of tear in my eye and a half a lump in my throat, wiped my eye, swallowed the lump, and smiled. I love you, buddy!

The Word for the Day is Cuckold

I have been bemoaning the weather for the last few weeks, and I guess nature heard me and decided to remind me that there is beauty regardless of the glooming. In the fall, I posted a picture of our burning bush all red and full. When I went out this morning and saw how nature had painted our red plant white, I had an "aha" moment. Hey, nature, sorry I've been complaining. "You are one good Mother!"

Why the title? Because I had used the line from ROMEO AND JULIET to complain, I decided to search out something Shakespearean to celebrate nature forever bright. But I came upon the poem that follows from LOVE'S LABOURS LOST that I remembered from college. It's such a beautiful poem, yet it contains Shakespeare's amazing ability to make us laugh, especially when his jokes are just a trifle off-color. So I decided to use it. The word for the day: A "cuckold" in Elizabethan times was a husband whose wife was unfaithful to him.

Spring

When daisies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

'Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,

When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

'Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

I Missed The Hoodie Memo

"Hoodie" is a word whose arrival I somehow missed. I know when I first heard the word. It was nearly 8 years ago. So it's been around for a long time, yet for some reason the spell check for Blogspot doesn't recognize it as a real word. So I'm not the only one to miss its arrival. I wonder where the word came from, and how such a unique word found its way into everyday vernacular.

Let me step back about 8 years to the time I first heard the word. It was 2002, a couple months before I retired, and right after SOUTH PACIFIC closed. On the Monday or Tuesday following the musical, a sweet, soft-spoken freshman named Maria, her surname is lost somewhere in the last 8 years, came into my classroom during 10th period and said, "Mr. Ellstrom, I left my light blue hoodie in the orchestra room on Saturday, and it's gone now." I had no idea what she was talking about, but she said "hoodie" with such matter-of-factness that I was apparently embarrassed to ask just what a hoodie was. Instead, I took her down to the costume room where all the left behind stuff was piled up and helped her look. And I found it, too. I saw in the pile a light blue hooded sweatshirt, picked it up and said, "Is this it?" "Yes," she smiled. So she had her hoodie back, and I knew what one was. As I walked back to my room, I thought about this interesting, new, sort of cutesy kind of word I had learned. "Hoodie!" What a perfect name for 14 or 15 year old girls to be calling their little light blue sweatshirts. "That is the cutest hoodie ever!" they would say while shopping in American Eagle or Aeropostale.

Of course, as often seems to happen, after you hear a word for the first time, you start to hear it constantly. That's what happened with "hoodie." Now, almost everyone I know uses the word. And that's weird because it sounds like a word that should describe the clothing of some little kid, not the wardrobe choice of a 50 year old, beer-bellied plumber, who wears his jeans disastrously low.

Why do I bring this up now? This morning I was watching the local news, when the description of a burglary or murder or something awful suspect came up. The news anchor described the fellow as big, tattooed, and dangerous, wearing blue jeans, a black wool cap, and a dark blue "hoodie!" That word just knocked the scare factor out of that description.

I think this weekend I'll do a little Google searching for the origin of the word "hoodie." If I find out just where it came from, I'll let you know.

Here comes the sun. . .

Praise the Lord, the sun is out! There is nothing more uplifting than a shining interruption to the dismal gray of January! I won't even have to turn my "Day-Light" on today.* I need something to blog about besides the sun, though, so I think I'll do "Boots." Back in the summer, I raved against the ubiquitous flip flop. I don't feel that way about boots, at all. Boots are cool. Back when I was in college, I had desert boots and leather boots to wear with my jeans. I must admit that when I was in junior high and watched Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" on the late movie, I thought it might be cool to wear engineer boots. But guys aren't apparently into boots, anymore. Young women, though, are boot freaks. Their boots are nice--furry and non-furry, leather and suede. The only ones that give me pause are the high-heeled boots, because I can't imagine balancing on them. Case in point: We were at the dome on Sunday watching SU dispatch USF. Several rows below us sat a rather short, early 2o-ish, young lady, wearing boots with pretty darn high heels. We are in the last row of the 200 level, so people with seats below, have to climb the stairs up past us, when they go out. Twice the aforementioned young lady was sent on beer-runs. She was greatly challenged negotiating the high concrete dome steps on her way up to get the beer. She stepped carefully. The tiny heels on one of her boots wobbling each time she raised a foot and stepped up to the next level. But on the way back, with a tray of 4 sloshing beers in her hands, the descent was wobbly enough so that our entire section turned in trepidation to watch her negotiate the steps down. Once one of her heels nearly buckled, but an aware woman to her left reached up and steadied her. Never have I seen such heel wobble. Our entire section was far more entertained by the booted woman's coming and goings than by the basketball game. Why wear such boots, I had to wonder. But I suppose the answer is simple. This season the "wobble" is the price of fashion.

*The Day-Light is an amazing invention for those, who like I do, suffer from seasonal light deprivation syndrome or whatever it's called. The Day-Light brings the sun inside. I have it on for ambient light all the time on gray days when I'm working. It really works on boosting energy and warming your soul. Too bad they're expensive.

When Mallard Fillmore Really Rankles

I often enjoy reading "Mallard Fillmore." I like the fact that its conservative message is on display right next to the liberal strip Doonesbury. But this comic from last week really bugged me, because I think it's dangerous. It would be so easy to believe that "global warming" isn't happening, or, if it is, that it's simply nature's evolution. Take that route and it's easier to sleep at night. No worries about the ice caps or future generations or polar bears, even. Even the term "global warming" is misleading because people think that a cold winter like we are having worldwide, somehow disproves it existence. "Climate change" is the term that must apply, and it comes in both hot and cold varieties. It troubles me, too, that the people who make their billions screwing up the environment, are only too thrilled to support the contention that this is just nature doing some sort of environmental clean up! I don't think those super rich really believe the line they feed. They're far too smart. And I don't think the Mallard Fillmore cartoonist really believes it, either. He's far too smart, too.

Whatcha "Mean," Girl?

Always on the search for blog ideas, I sat in the doctor's office this morning and gathered some dust. In reality, my time spent wasn't bad. I was out at about 10:00 from a 9:15 appointment. Sitting in one of the little exam rooms, where you sometimes feel you have been misplaced, I started my way through a pile of "healthy" magazines as I waited. In the Table of Contents of a Disney produced magazine, I think, was an article about bullying, and because "bullying" is high on the list of My 7 Deadly Sins, I decided to read it. When I turned to page 20, I discovered the bullies in the article were girls rather than boys.

So, I read the article. It wasn't long. It also wasn't terribly illuminating, either, but it contained a thought that has troubled me for years. The article suggested that "teenage girl bullies" are artists of manipulation, very capable of causing adults to see them as acolytes of Little Mary Sunshine, while their peers feared them as bullying scourges. I hate to get manipulated almost as much as I hate bullying. What has troubled me for a long time is just how often, over the years I taught, did I get manipulated into believing that a snotty spirited girl was a sweet natured kid.

Boy bullies are generally up front and clumsy about it. They're awful and rough and wedgie-driven. A couple of them, who I, in retrospect, think might have been steroid-driven, were dangerous. Certainly, most didn't try to manipulate anyone into thinking they were goody-two shoes. Suggesting such a thing would have been worth a couple noogies.

Girl bullies, I guess, are secretive and sly and even more effective as a result. People don't wish to believe it. After all the word "bully" has a masculine origin. I'm also not sure who is better at not ratting out the bullies, boys or girls. There is an effective code of silence for both sexes.

I'm almost done with this minor ramble, this examination of appearance vs. reality. Since retiring, I've talked to a bunch of young people after they graduated, and found out about some of the GAP and Abercrombie-uniformed bullies I missed over the years. I'm sure I missed a bunch starting way back in 1969. I'm mad about being manipulated. Sorry for being dumb.

"Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of words! I get words all day through; first from him, now from you!"

The words of the title are from the lovely lips of Eliza Doolittle in Lerner and Loewe's MY FAIR LADY. Sometimes, researching for my blogs is more fun than writing them. Today I'm blogging about words and expressions that people would like to remove from our language. I knew immediately that I wanted to use Eliza's words for my title, so I searched them out so I could be exact. Then while searching for a "word" image, I discovered this beautiful poster of a young woman wrapped up warmly in words, which, of course, people who love to read and write are. I only wish it was a larger image. Though I will never be sick of "words," there are a few words and expressions listed below, along with a few from FACEBOOK friends, that I have had quite enough of.

My votes for assassination or at least excoriation (isn't "excoriate" a great word. It means "verbally flay") include "fer sure," "to die for" refering to something tasty, "space" in refering to a room (pardon me, I have to go to the bathspace), and "BIG TIME!" Kim Varner Jeffries offer up "true dat," Lora Evans Farber-"crib" as a reference to a living "space," and Nancy Lenzen Davis adds "mega dittoes" and "nuf said." Dr. Paul Werner, D.D. S. suggests the extraction of "awesome," while nurse and novelist Susan Sherrell would scratch out "Yeh, right," the extended "Hello-o-o-o" (or however the hello you would spell it), and "Don't even go there!" Bob Washbon is sick and tired of "it is what it is," and Jamie Pittman would forever end the insertion of "like" wherever it isn't needed. That's a goodly list for publication on the blogosphere, and "blogosphere" is another word that should be forever lost in cyberspace, along with the word "cyberspace." Enough said, and wasn't "nuf said" excoriatable, too.

Jamie Pittman offered up an expression I've known forever, which must be new and obnoxious to him. The term is a "Johnny Come Lately," refering to someone who jumps on the bandwagon or whatever, tardily. I decided to research the expression and discovered that it was first used in the USA in the 1830's in reference to a sailor added late to the crew of a ship. That's interesting, but in my search, I found this fantastic website called www.mindlesscrap.com. I entered "Johnny Come Lately" and it took me to a page that started with the "I's." The first "I" expression? "I don't give a rat's ass!" You gotta love a website with a page that begins, "I don't give a rat's ass!"

Why Christmas Token Creation Cannot Be Left in the Hands of the Chinese

Just a brief blog moment to point out what occurs when sacred things like our Santa coffee mugs are outsourced to the Far East. The mug shown above was an actual Christmas gift my daughter and her husband received. It was made in China. Perhaps, the Chinese feel we are so wrapped up in Christmas that we ought to "marry it!" Somehow I doubt that. What is also frightening is that the people who gave the mug to Jan and Chris didn't notice anything was wrong with it.