Thursday, December 4, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Elizabeth Banks is from here
Originally published in The Berkshire Eagle, October 21, 2008
From Pittsfield to the big screen
City native stars in two films opening this month
By Jessica Willis, Berkshire Eagle Staff
PITTSFIELD — She's the ingenue of both sex comedies and date movies, and for her next acts, Elizabeth Banks is presidential and pornographic.
The 34-year-old actress and Pittsfield native is starring in two films opening this month: In "W.," directed by Oliver Stone, Banks plays first lady Laura Bush, and in Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," she plays a chick who tries to pay off her debts by shooting a homemade dirty movie with her buddy.
"W." opened in theaters Friday, and "Zack and Miri" opens Oct. 31.
Banks is a veteran of almost 40 films and television shows. Her career gained momentum in 2002, when she had a small role in Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can." In 2003, she played the wife of Jeff Bridges' lead character in "Seabiscuit."
But it's "W." that has local movie-goers buzzing at the moment. During a weekend matinee at the Regal Cinemas, audience members at the Berkshire Mall theater could be heard whispering, "She's from Pittsfield!" and "That's her!", when Banks appeared as Laura Bush in the character's first scene.
Banks' range as an actress was evident years ago, when she was a drama student at Pittsfield High School, one of her former teachers said.
"There were depths she revealed at an early age," said Ralph Hammann, who has taught a theater program at the high school since 1976. "I could say to her, 'Liz, take the stage,' meaning, the space is yours.
She would know what to do, instinctively."
In a phone interview yesterday, Banks said she's always loved studying people and reading historical fiction. The chance to play the first lady played to both interests.
"When I read the part, I thought, 'This is a drama student's dream come true.' ... Because there's a reality there, and I had to get things right," Banks said.
A learning process came with playing Laura Bush.
"(Laura Bush) is an enigma. I tried to figure out who this woman is," Banks said.
"There were a couple things (I discovered about Laura Bush) that I hung on to for the character," she continued. "I learned that (Laura Bush) felt that her job description was to take care of the emotional and psychological health of the president of the United States. Part of her job was to set aside her own feelings."
Hammann stays in touch with Banks, and says she regularly returns to Pittsfield. When she's home, she visits her high school's drama department.
Banks said what she misses about Pittsfield is "the four seasons."
"Fall is my favorite time of the year," she said. "I miss swimming, canoeing, and jumping off waterfalls in the summer."
She said she also misses the "french fries at Patrick's Pub."
Hammann has a lasting image of the young actress, then known by her birth name, Elizabeth Mitchell, taking command of the female lead in the school's 1991 production of the musical "Man of La Mancha."
Banks played the dual role Aldonza/ Dulcinea, the "earthy slattern" who appears, to the hero Don Quixote's demented eyes, as a virginal angel, Hammann said.
Even when the unexpected happened, Banks stayed in character; during one performance in the steaming-hot theater, someone opened the smoke vents to let in some cool air.
"And then we had a thunderstorm, and it was raining onstage," Hammann said.
The stage set included risers set at precarious angles, and there were puddles forming. Banks was unfazed.
"She didn't miss a single step," Hammann marveled.
Hammann added that his former protégé's wholesome beauty has caused her to be "typecast to a degree," and sometimes her intelligence is overlooked.
"I think as she gets more roles people will discover how much there is to her," Hammann said.
In a recent Associated Press interview, Banks admitted that she "always felt like a character actor in a leading lady's body."
Indeed, her co-star in "Man of La Mancha" remembers Banks as an actress with "a billion characters at her disposal.
"What makes me proud is her fearlessness," said Scott Wichmann, 35. "She shifts gears between comedy and drama, and she's not afraid to look goofy."
Wichmann graduated Pittsfield High School in 1991, a year before Banks. Now working as a stage actor in the Henley Street Theater Company in Richmond, Va., Wichmann said he was thrilled by his classmate's meteoric rise.
"The other day, in the span of one hour, I saw (television) ads for three different movies (Banks) was starring in," he said, referring to "W.," "Zack and Miri," and the upcoming screwball comedy "Role Models."
Banks' father, Mark Mitchell, said his daughter may never have taken to the stage or screen had it not been for a bad accident during a softball game.
When young Liz was a middle school student at Reid, she broke her leg in two places sliding into third base, Mitchell said.
"Before that, she was more into sports than acting," he said, during a telephone interview from his home on Brown Street, where Banks grew up. Mitchell, 59, works in Pittsfield.
Banks recalled that incident, too: "I broke my leg and I couldn't play sports. I found out they were doing 'Jesus Christ Superstar' (at Reid). I got to play Pontius Pilate, because I could wear a robe over my walking cast."
Mitchell and Banks' mother, Ann, separated years ago; they were divorced in the 1990s. Ann also has a home on Brown Street.
Mitchell described his daughter as someone who worshipped superstar artists like Madonna, and loved attention.
"Early on, we all knew we had a star," he said.
From Pittsfield to the big screen
City native stars in two films opening this month
By Jessica Willis, Berkshire Eagle Staff
PITTSFIELD — She's the ingenue of both sex comedies and date movies, and for her next acts, Elizabeth Banks is presidential and pornographic.
The 34-year-old actress and Pittsfield native is starring in two films opening this month: In "W.," directed by Oliver Stone, Banks plays first lady Laura Bush, and in Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," she plays a chick who tries to pay off her debts by shooting a homemade dirty movie with her buddy.
"W." opened in theaters Friday, and "Zack and Miri" opens Oct. 31.
Banks is a veteran of almost 40 films and television shows. Her career gained momentum in 2002, when she had a small role in Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can." In 2003, she played the wife of Jeff Bridges' lead character in "Seabiscuit."
But it's "W." that has local movie-goers buzzing at the moment. During a weekend matinee at the Regal Cinemas, audience members at the Berkshire Mall theater could be heard whispering, "She's from Pittsfield!" and "That's her!", when Banks appeared as Laura Bush in the character's first scene.
Banks' range as an actress was evident years ago, when she was a drama student at Pittsfield High School, one of her former teachers said.
"There were depths she revealed at an early age," said Ralph Hammann, who has taught a theater program at the high school since 1976. "I could say to her, 'Liz, take the stage,' meaning, the space is yours.
She would know what to do, instinctively."
In a phone interview yesterday, Banks said she's always loved studying people and reading historical fiction. The chance to play the first lady played to both interests.
"When I read the part, I thought, 'This is a drama student's dream come true.' ... Because there's a reality there, and I had to get things right," Banks said.
A learning process came with playing Laura Bush.
"(Laura Bush) is an enigma. I tried to figure out who this woman is," Banks said.
"There were a couple things (I discovered about Laura Bush) that I hung on to for the character," she continued. "I learned that (Laura Bush) felt that her job description was to take care of the emotional and psychological health of the president of the United States. Part of her job was to set aside her own feelings."
Hammann stays in touch with Banks, and says she regularly returns to Pittsfield. When she's home, she visits her high school's drama department.
Banks said what she misses about Pittsfield is "the four seasons."
"Fall is my favorite time of the year," she said. "I miss swimming, canoeing, and jumping off waterfalls in the summer."
She said she also misses the "french fries at Patrick's Pub."
Hammann has a lasting image of the young actress, then known by her birth name, Elizabeth Mitchell, taking command of the female lead in the school's 1991 production of the musical "Man of La Mancha."
Banks played the dual role Aldonza/ Dulcinea, the "earthy slattern" who appears, to the hero Don Quixote's demented eyes, as a virginal angel, Hammann said.
Even when the unexpected happened, Banks stayed in character; during one performance in the steaming-hot theater, someone opened the smoke vents to let in some cool air.
"And then we had a thunderstorm, and it was raining onstage," Hammann said.
The stage set included risers set at precarious angles, and there were puddles forming. Banks was unfazed.
"She didn't miss a single step," Hammann marveled.
Hammann added that his former protégé's wholesome beauty has caused her to be "typecast to a degree," and sometimes her intelligence is overlooked.
"I think as she gets more roles people will discover how much there is to her," Hammann said.
In a recent Associated Press interview, Banks admitted that she "always felt like a character actor in a leading lady's body."
Indeed, her co-star in "Man of La Mancha" remembers Banks as an actress with "a billion characters at her disposal.
"What makes me proud is her fearlessness," said Scott Wichmann, 35. "She shifts gears between comedy and drama, and she's not afraid to look goofy."
Wichmann graduated Pittsfield High School in 1991, a year before Banks. Now working as a stage actor in the Henley Street Theater Company in Richmond, Va., Wichmann said he was thrilled by his classmate's meteoric rise.
"The other day, in the span of one hour, I saw (television) ads for three different movies (Banks) was starring in," he said, referring to "W.," "Zack and Miri," and the upcoming screwball comedy "Role Models."
Banks' father, Mark Mitchell, said his daughter may never have taken to the stage or screen had it not been for a bad accident during a softball game.
When young Liz was a middle school student at Reid, she broke her leg in two places sliding into third base, Mitchell said.
"Before that, she was more into sports than acting," he said, during a telephone interview from his home on Brown Street, where Banks grew up. Mitchell, 59, works in Pittsfield.
Banks recalled that incident, too: "I broke my leg and I couldn't play sports. I found out they were doing 'Jesus Christ Superstar' (at Reid). I got to play Pontius Pilate, because I could wear a robe over my walking cast."
Mitchell and Banks' mother, Ann, separated years ago; they were divorced in the 1990s. Ann also has a home on Brown Street.
Mitchell described his daughter as someone who worshipped superstar artists like Madonna, and loved attention.
"Early on, we all knew we had a star," he said.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tori Amos' Strange Little Worlds
Previously published in the New York Press, November 8, 2001
Tori Amos
by Jessica Willis
There are two extreme examples of what can happen when a woman covers a man’s song. Depending on how she chooses to approach the song, the outcome seems to be either vitality or death. One extreme is Patti Smith, who pressed "Gloria" into her own prayer book, but essentially kept the song as is: a manchild’s cry about his sweet young thing. "And I’m gonna tell the world I just made her mine." The "him"s didn’t become "her"s just ’cause she was a Patti from Jersey. Greasy male yearning was claimed by the greasy gal, and suddenly it was okay for the rock bitches to be just as bent as the boys.
The other extreme is Karen Carpenter, the Ophelia of AM, cowering in curlers upstairs and eating out of a dog bowl while Patti was making like Sinatra. Karen took the Beatles’ "Ticket to Ride" and switched all the genders to suit her femininity (and keep the Carpenters safe for AOR, presumably). When she demurs that "the boy that’s drivin’ me mad is goin’ away," her change-up is almost imperceptible. But when she sings a good-time guy line like "I think I’m gonna be sad," it’s terrifying coming from her gifted, empty mouth. Don’t do it, Karen! Don’t be sad! The Carpenters made the big money as one of the most popular recording acts of the 70s, but something tells me Karen’s heart and soul died a long time before her body did.
I ask you: Which one goes on, widowed, grizzled and still unable to sing worth a damn, but sourly wearing the mantle of warrior priestess? And which one starved to death, angel-voiced, and became an American joke?
I want to insert Tori Amos and Strange Little Girls, her new album of covers (all of the songs were written by men), into this spectrum. But Tori won’t go for it. A creamy girly girl with a taste for catharsis and a hotline to the music of the spheres, beatific of visage, riddled with song, a proud survivor of horrors that would make lesser women reach for the toilet seat (see "Me and A Gun," her dry-eyed a cappella rendering of a rape, from 1991’s Little Earthquakes), Tori’s Strange Little Girls neither take back the night nor do they lay down and die. "I don’t think [Strange Little Girls] exists between either of your poles," she tells me during a phone call from a tour stop in Detroit. "I tried to create a pantheon that would hold many archetypes of women."
This is Tori’s irritating, gently evasive way of saying she is not the performer of the songs. It might be her hands on the keys and her delicate voice full frontal, but a different facet of womanhood performs each track. The album art features Tori made up and fabulously bewigged as androgyne (for Joe Jackson’s faggot opus "Real Men"), metal mallchick (for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions’ "Rattlesnakes") and as a satiny sylph for her beauteous version of Tom Waits’ "Time," in which she plays the role of Madame Death, the kindly Jane Black who leads the rum bums out of the rain ("so close your eyes/This won’t hurt a bit...it’s time").
I doubt Strange Little Girls will earn Tori any new fans, but if rock classicists hear her cover of Neil Young’s "Heart of Gold," exploded out into a harpy dirge, she’ll definitely get some more enemies. "Well, let ’em cry," she says breezily. "You’re not looking for a heart of gold. You’re looking for a doormat. Fuck. That." Tori claims that the archetypes who perform this song are twin girls, "and they’re their own hearts of gold for each other."
"It’s interesting that you cut out the line ‘and I’m gettin’ old,’" I add.
"Oh, it’s in there," she warns.
Ditto with her bawling take on the Beatles’ "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," which Tori eviscerates, covering it with snippets from a radio broadcast about Lennon’s death. She overleaps the overdone heroin subtext and goes straight for the Second Amendment. To my dismay, the vocal chimes in on the "Mother Superior" lyric and gnaws its way out from there. It’s just about the only song on the album where my classicist hackles are raised and I wanted her to take a more literal read of the original. "The song was written by a man who didn’t know he was going to be killed by a gun," she says. "In some states it’s easier to get a gun than it is to get a driver’s license."
10cc’s "I’m Not in Love" putters along to an electro-heartbeat. Tori sings cautiously, starkly: "it’s just a silly phase I’m going through." It’s very obvious here that a girl is singing a guy’s song. I tell her that 10cc took its name from the amount of semen that’s ejaculated by the average male.
"Oh, that’s funny. I just picked it because it was a song that guys slowdanced with other girls to while their girlfriends were at home. Well, you know what? I’m not in love, either! It’s a dangerous tango."
"I can’t believe that at this phase of our evolution as a species we’re still on this gender thing, Tori. It seems pretty...dated."
"Well, I was thinking that two years ago, when this brushfire philosophy of male rage reared itself in the West. Grunge male rage wasn’t directed with malice and rage toward bitches and faggots."
Hence the cover of Eminem’s "’97 Bonnie and Clyde," which peabrains have already called "shocking" but I’ll just call plain old cinema. Tori sings it from the point of view of the cardiganed mommy, trying to make do, who is now slit-throated and dead in daddy’s trunk. She’s trying to console her frightened daughter. It’s the Hitchcocky arrangement, the really tense strings interspersed with Tori’s weak, tender voice that propel the song. "I did it without changing a single one of [Eminem’s] words," she says. "Some men had empathy for the father in the song. But no one ever asks about her. And she was the only one who wasn’t dancing."
What is arguably Strange Little Girls’ best track is Tori’s absolutely sinister cover of Slayer’s "Raining Blood." As synth chopper blades fart and slowly fade overhead, Tori lays into her Bosendorfer from the scorched ground. If you never believed that Slayer, despite the hair and insane bpms, was a group of really pious guys who fear the shit out of God, you’ll believe it once you hear Tori’s rendition. When Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King wrote "Awaiting the hour of reprisal/Your time slips away" and describe what’s coming out of "a lacerated sky," they were talking destruction on a grand scale, the end of mankind, the day when everyone in the dirt pops up and salutes a dour Judge. But when Tori wrangles it, it’s about clitorectomies. Well, that’s what she says.
"When a woman sings it, I hear one woman dying. A wise woman. A witch." I try.
Tori doesn’t say anything.
"I hear...menses?"
"Yes. Yes." Tori says quietly. "We’re gonna crawl into this huge vagina in the sky."
Dear, sweet menstrual mommy Tori, with her bouquet of personal vendettas and her feminist art that is still jammed in the 70s, back when artist Judy Chicago made a photolithograph of herself from the waist down pulling out a bloody tampon, and a series of drawings that equated rejection with "having your flower split open." This sounds like ur-Tori logic. She’s been grooming her own version of this rosy rage since she started playing covers in the piano bars–what Tori fanatic can forget her line in "Precious Things," from Little Earthquakes: "he said you’re really an ugly girl/But I like the way you play/And I died/But I thanked him." And when she sings this, tremulously, full of stoppered hatred, the ugly girls in the audience wail like they’re being penetrated for the first time.
And now she’s back on the cover circuit. Sort of. She’s not playing for tips no more, and Tori isn’t ugly to anyone. She has legions of ugly fans, and she hugs them wholeheartedly, one by one, at in-store appearances. As a preadolescent, she "started at funerals and weddings," she remembers. "I was cheaper than the organist." By the time she was 13, she was a pro on the piano bar circuit.
"I bet in the piano bars you couldn’t have busted out with ‘Raining Blood.’"
"No, but there was a lot of room to move in piano bars. A lot of the waiters were gay. I was playing in DC and Tip O’Neill, who was speaker of the House at the time, would sit next to me on the bench and ask for ‘Bye Bye Blackbird.’"
"You need to know the premise of all of this," she continues. "I’m a new mommy. There’s some things you only tell your mother. I respected the songs and their male fathers. And then there’s some things you never tell your mothers. That’s why I needed my Laboratory of Men to–
"Your what?"
"My group of male researchers, or control group," she explains patiently. For all her ethereal silliness, all her worlds within worlds, her songs as babies, Tori sounds very Lady Professor at the end of the day. She makes a point of speaking slowly and lucidly, like she’s used to being misunderstood.
"I had to know what men listen to after they make love. It’s never what I think."
Tori Amos
by Jessica Willis
There are two extreme examples of what can happen when a woman covers a man’s song. Depending on how she chooses to approach the song, the outcome seems to be either vitality or death. One extreme is Patti Smith, who pressed "Gloria" into her own prayer book, but essentially kept the song as is: a manchild’s cry about his sweet young thing. "And I’m gonna tell the world I just made her mine." The "him"s didn’t become "her"s just ’cause she was a Patti from Jersey. Greasy male yearning was claimed by the greasy gal, and suddenly it was okay for the rock bitches to be just as bent as the boys.
The other extreme is Karen Carpenter, the Ophelia of AM, cowering in curlers upstairs and eating out of a dog bowl while Patti was making like Sinatra. Karen took the Beatles’ "Ticket to Ride" and switched all the genders to suit her femininity (and keep the Carpenters safe for AOR, presumably). When she demurs that "the boy that’s drivin’ me mad is goin’ away," her change-up is almost imperceptible. But when she sings a good-time guy line like "I think I’m gonna be sad," it’s terrifying coming from her gifted, empty mouth. Don’t do it, Karen! Don’t be sad! The Carpenters made the big money as one of the most popular recording acts of the 70s, but something tells me Karen’s heart and soul died a long time before her body did.
I ask you: Which one goes on, widowed, grizzled and still unable to sing worth a damn, but sourly wearing the mantle of warrior priestess? And which one starved to death, angel-voiced, and became an American joke?
I want to insert Tori Amos and Strange Little Girls, her new album of covers (all of the songs were written by men), into this spectrum. But Tori won’t go for it. A creamy girly girl with a taste for catharsis and a hotline to the music of the spheres, beatific of visage, riddled with song, a proud survivor of horrors that would make lesser women reach for the toilet seat (see "Me and A Gun," her dry-eyed a cappella rendering of a rape, from 1991’s Little Earthquakes), Tori’s Strange Little Girls neither take back the night nor do they lay down and die. "I don’t think [Strange Little Girls] exists between either of your poles," she tells me during a phone call from a tour stop in Detroit. "I tried to create a pantheon that would hold many archetypes of women."
This is Tori’s irritating, gently evasive way of saying she is not the performer of the songs. It might be her hands on the keys and her delicate voice full frontal, but a different facet of womanhood performs each track. The album art features Tori made up and fabulously bewigged as androgyne (for Joe Jackson’s faggot opus "Real Men"), metal mallchick (for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions’ "Rattlesnakes") and as a satiny sylph for her beauteous version of Tom Waits’ "Time," in which she plays the role of Madame Death, the kindly Jane Black who leads the rum bums out of the rain ("so close your eyes/This won’t hurt a bit...it’s time").
I doubt Strange Little Girls will earn Tori any new fans, but if rock classicists hear her cover of Neil Young’s "Heart of Gold," exploded out into a harpy dirge, she’ll definitely get some more enemies. "Well, let ’em cry," she says breezily. "You’re not looking for a heart of gold. You’re looking for a doormat. Fuck. That." Tori claims that the archetypes who perform this song are twin girls, "and they’re their own hearts of gold for each other."
"It’s interesting that you cut out the line ‘and I’m gettin’ old,’" I add.
"Oh, it’s in there," she warns.
Ditto with her bawling take on the Beatles’ "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," which Tori eviscerates, covering it with snippets from a radio broadcast about Lennon’s death. She overleaps the overdone heroin subtext and goes straight for the Second Amendment. To my dismay, the vocal chimes in on the "Mother Superior" lyric and gnaws its way out from there. It’s just about the only song on the album where my classicist hackles are raised and I wanted her to take a more literal read of the original. "The song was written by a man who didn’t know he was going to be killed by a gun," she says. "In some states it’s easier to get a gun than it is to get a driver’s license."
10cc’s "I’m Not in Love" putters along to an electro-heartbeat. Tori sings cautiously, starkly: "it’s just a silly phase I’m going through." It’s very obvious here that a girl is singing a guy’s song. I tell her that 10cc took its name from the amount of semen that’s ejaculated by the average male.
"Oh, that’s funny. I just picked it because it was a song that guys slowdanced with other girls to while their girlfriends were at home. Well, you know what? I’m not in love, either! It’s a dangerous tango."
"I can’t believe that at this phase of our evolution as a species we’re still on this gender thing, Tori. It seems pretty...dated."
"Well, I was thinking that two years ago, when this brushfire philosophy of male rage reared itself in the West. Grunge male rage wasn’t directed with malice and rage toward bitches and faggots."
Hence the cover of Eminem’s "’97 Bonnie and Clyde," which peabrains have already called "shocking" but I’ll just call plain old cinema. Tori sings it from the point of view of the cardiganed mommy, trying to make do, who is now slit-throated and dead in daddy’s trunk. She’s trying to console her frightened daughter. It’s the Hitchcocky arrangement, the really tense strings interspersed with Tori’s weak, tender voice that propel the song. "I did it without changing a single one of [Eminem’s] words," she says. "Some men had empathy for the father in the song. But no one ever asks about her. And she was the only one who wasn’t dancing."
What is arguably Strange Little Girls’ best track is Tori’s absolutely sinister cover of Slayer’s "Raining Blood." As synth chopper blades fart and slowly fade overhead, Tori lays into her Bosendorfer from the scorched ground. If you never believed that Slayer, despite the hair and insane bpms, was a group of really pious guys who fear the shit out of God, you’ll believe it once you hear Tori’s rendition. When Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King wrote "Awaiting the hour of reprisal/Your time slips away" and describe what’s coming out of "a lacerated sky," they were talking destruction on a grand scale, the end of mankind, the day when everyone in the dirt pops up and salutes a dour Judge. But when Tori wrangles it, it’s about clitorectomies. Well, that’s what she says.
"When a woman sings it, I hear one woman dying. A wise woman. A witch." I try.
Tori doesn’t say anything.
"I hear...menses?"
"Yes. Yes." Tori says quietly. "We’re gonna crawl into this huge vagina in the sky."
Dear, sweet menstrual mommy Tori, with her bouquet of personal vendettas and her feminist art that is still jammed in the 70s, back when artist Judy Chicago made a photolithograph of herself from the waist down pulling out a bloody tampon, and a series of drawings that equated rejection with "having your flower split open." This sounds like ur-Tori logic. She’s been grooming her own version of this rosy rage since she started playing covers in the piano bars–what Tori fanatic can forget her line in "Precious Things," from Little Earthquakes: "he said you’re really an ugly girl/But I like the way you play/And I died/But I thanked him." And when she sings this, tremulously, full of stoppered hatred, the ugly girls in the audience wail like they’re being penetrated for the first time.
And now she’s back on the cover circuit. Sort of. She’s not playing for tips no more, and Tori isn’t ugly to anyone. She has legions of ugly fans, and she hugs them wholeheartedly, one by one, at in-store appearances. As a preadolescent, she "started at funerals and weddings," she remembers. "I was cheaper than the organist." By the time she was 13, she was a pro on the piano bar circuit.
"I bet in the piano bars you couldn’t have busted out with ‘Raining Blood.’"
"No, but there was a lot of room to move in piano bars. A lot of the waiters were gay. I was playing in DC and Tip O’Neill, who was speaker of the House at the time, would sit next to me on the bench and ask for ‘Bye Bye Blackbird.’"
"You need to know the premise of all of this," she continues. "I’m a new mommy. There’s some things you only tell your mother. I respected the songs and their male fathers. And then there’s some things you never tell your mothers. That’s why I needed my Laboratory of Men to–
"Your what?"
"My group of male researchers, or control group," she explains patiently. For all her ethereal silliness, all her worlds within worlds, her songs as babies, Tori sounds very Lady Professor at the end of the day. She makes a point of speaking slowly and lucidly, like she’s used to being misunderstood.
"I had to know what men listen to after they make love. It’s never what I think."
Sunday, August 3, 2008
When the lightning strikes
Previously published in The Berkshire Eagle, July 30, 2008
by Jessica Willis
LENOX — The New Jersey man who was struck by lightning at Tanglewood on Sunday afternoon is in stable condition, his wife said yesterday.
Sang Jough, 40, was taken off a respirator on Monday and is now breathing with the help of an oxygen mask, said Mari Homma-Jough, also 40.
"He's conscious, we can communicate, but he can't speak very clearly," Homma-Jough said.
Jough was transported to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y. after receiving initial treatment at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield.
Homma-Jough said the lightning strike that left her husband unconscious and "technically (not) breathing" was truly unexpected; as the couple and their two children made their way onto the Tanglewood grounds, there hadn't been any previous flashes of lightning.
"If there had, we probably wouldn't have walked through the gate," she said.
Homma-Jough recalled that her husband was walking ahead of the others, followed by son Peter, 10, daughter Sarah, 7, and she took up the rear.
Sang, who is six feet, two inches tall, was holding an umbrella over himself and Peter, and they were hurrying toward the Shed.
"Suddenly, the sound of thunder came down in front of me," Homma-Jough said. "It came out of nowhere. The next moment, my son and husband were lying on the ground."
She said Peter quickly got to his feet, but Sang was lying face down, "totally knocked out," and smoke was coming from the back of his head.
"It was like watching a cartoon," Homma-Jough said. "I thought, 'You've got to be kidding.'"
And then she screamed for help.
Police and rescue crews came very quickly, Homma-Jough said, and she noted that law enforcement, ambulance crews, Tanglewood, and BMC did a wonderful job responding to the event.
Homma-Jough said that Peter had been holding the family's umbrella up until a few minutes before they walked in the gate, and Sang took it from him just moments before he was struck.
"I'm grateful for that," Homma-Jough said. "If (the lightning strike) had happened to my son, I'm not sure he would have made it."
Sang is very healthy, a regular at the gym, and he doesn't get sick, Homma-Jough said.
His strong constitution may have contributed to the fact that doctors couldn't detect any "internal burning" at this point, she added.
That lack of internal trauma is a positive sign, according to Ron Hayden, the chief of emergency medicine at BMC, who said that the lightning probably passed over Sang's umbrella and over the surface of his body.
"A direct hit can go through you and come out another part of the body," Hayden said. "When you get entrance and exit holes, you're probably toast."
Hayden also said Sang's direct hit was less common than a "proximity hit," where a nearby lightning strike "superheats" the air.
"People will look like they've been sunburned," Hayden said. "If they're wearing jewelry, they'll be singed (on that part of their body)."
Blown-out eardrums and burned corneas, along with symptoms that mimic a stroke, are not uncommon in victims, Hayden said.
Lightning strikes, which can carry 2,000 to two billion volts of electricity, often stop a victim's heart, but in most cases, the heart will start up again on its own, Hayden said.
The body's instinct to breathe may remain shut down, Hayden said, so CPR — which a deputy sheriff immediately administered to Sang after the strike — is essential for victims who have a pulse but are in respiratory arrest.
The Joughs were visiting Tanglewood from their home in Westwood, N.J., and she said Peter, who is a violinist, and Sarah, who is a pianist, were so thrilled to be attending a live performance of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 7" and Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto," two of their favorite pieces.
"We had been planning the trip since April," Homma-Jough said. "And then it was all gone."
by Jessica Willis
LENOX — The New Jersey man who was struck by lightning at Tanglewood on Sunday afternoon is in stable condition, his wife said yesterday.
Sang Jough, 40, was taken off a respirator on Monday and is now breathing with the help of an oxygen mask, said Mari Homma-Jough, also 40.
"He's conscious, we can communicate, but he can't speak very clearly," Homma-Jough said.
Jough was transported to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y. after receiving initial treatment at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield.
Homma-Jough said the lightning strike that left her husband unconscious and "technically (not) breathing" was truly unexpected; as the couple and their two children made their way onto the Tanglewood grounds, there hadn't been any previous flashes of lightning.
"If there had, we probably wouldn't have walked through the gate," she said.
Homma-Jough recalled that her husband was walking ahead of the others, followed by son Peter, 10, daughter Sarah, 7, and she took up the rear.
Sang, who is six feet, two inches tall, was holding an umbrella over himself and Peter, and they were hurrying toward the Shed.
"Suddenly, the sound of thunder came down in front of me," Homma-Jough said. "It came out of nowhere. The next moment, my son and husband were lying on the ground."
She said Peter quickly got to his feet, but Sang was lying face down, "totally knocked out," and smoke was coming from the back of his head.
"It was like watching a cartoon," Homma-Jough said. "I thought, 'You've got to be kidding.'"
And then she screamed for help.
Police and rescue crews came very quickly, Homma-Jough said, and she noted that law enforcement, ambulance crews, Tanglewood, and BMC did a wonderful job responding to the event.
Homma-Jough said that Peter had been holding the family's umbrella up until a few minutes before they walked in the gate, and Sang took it from him just moments before he was struck.
"I'm grateful for that," Homma-Jough said. "If (the lightning strike) had happened to my son, I'm not sure he would have made it."
Sang is very healthy, a regular at the gym, and he doesn't get sick, Homma-Jough said.
His strong constitution may have contributed to the fact that doctors couldn't detect any "internal burning" at this point, she added.
That lack of internal trauma is a positive sign, according to Ron Hayden, the chief of emergency medicine at BMC, who said that the lightning probably passed over Sang's umbrella and over the surface of his body.
"A direct hit can go through you and come out another part of the body," Hayden said. "When you get entrance and exit holes, you're probably toast."
Hayden also said Sang's direct hit was less common than a "proximity hit," where a nearby lightning strike "superheats" the air.
"People will look like they've been sunburned," Hayden said. "If they're wearing jewelry, they'll be singed (on that part of their body)."
Blown-out eardrums and burned corneas, along with symptoms that mimic a stroke, are not uncommon in victims, Hayden said.
Lightning strikes, which can carry 2,000 to two billion volts of electricity, often stop a victim's heart, but in most cases, the heart will start up again on its own, Hayden said.
The body's instinct to breathe may remain shut down, Hayden said, so CPR — which a deputy sheriff immediately administered to Sang after the strike — is essential for victims who have a pulse but are in respiratory arrest.
The Joughs were visiting Tanglewood from their home in Westwood, N.J., and she said Peter, who is a violinist, and Sarah, who is a pianist, were so thrilled to be attending a live performance of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 7" and Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto," two of their favorite pieces.
"We had been planning the trip since April," Homma-Jough said. "And then it was all gone."
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Chemical veil
I don't use chemicals on my lawn or in my garden, but I get my daily overdose of pest-killer in the form of dipotassium phosphate, one of the ingredients in my Price Rite coffee creamer. The compound is also used to control fungal plant diseases on turf, ornamental plants, and non-bearing fruit and nut tree crops. However, the EPA does NOT approve dipotassium phosphate for pesticidal use on food or feed crops. Apparently Price Rite coffee creamer doesn't count as a food, even though humans swallow it. (http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/biopesticides/ingredients/factsheets/
factsheet_176407.htm)
factsheet_176407.htm)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Philippe Petit
Previously published in The Berkshire Eagle, March 23, 2008
GREAT BARRINGTON -- Standing a quarter mile above the sidewalks of
lower Manhattan, he shot a steel cable from one roof to the other,
stepped over the edge, and took a 45-minute stroll in the void. In
doing so, the 24-year-old Frenchman became an icon.
Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between twin towers at the World
Trade Center in August 1974 certainly ranks as one of history's most
awe-inspiring feats of trespassing, and Petit will discuss the World
Trade Center event, and his other high-wire walks, at a free lecture
at Bard College at Simon's Rock on Tuesday.
Although the walk took place almost 34 years ago, the feeling has
stayed with him.
"I was the happiest man on Earth," the 58-year-old Petit recalls now,
at his home near Woodstock, N.Y. "I was elated to be offering the
world my dream."
The event took more than six years of planning, and Petit took every
minute detail into account, from the businessman and construction
worker disguises he and his helpers would wear so they could gain
access to the roof, to wind currents and the subtle swaying motion of
the skyscrapers.
"Uncertainties," says Petit, had been "completely eliminated" from
the act.
"I'm not attracted to risk," he added. "Risk is too dangerous, too
stupid. Walking on the wire is very intense."
Before the World Trade Center, Petit had one "giant illegal walk" on
his résumé: dancing, jumping, and yes, reclining on a wire between
the spires of Notre Dame cathedral, Paris, 1971.
How can he appear so relaxed when a three-quarter inch steel cable is
the only thing separating him from disaster?
"I'm in love with height," Petit said. "I feel very good up there.
I'm half-human, half-bird."
In the decades since his star turn in the muggy air 1,350 feet above
lower Manhattan, he has performed at the Eiffel Tower and the Opéra
in Paris, and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan;
he's the artist-in-residence at the latter.
All in all, Petit has performed 50 high-wire walks on five
continents, and getting older has been a change for the better, he
said.
"I lean on a lifetime of knowledge," Petit explained.
In 2001, Petit was working on "To Reach the Clouds," a book about the
World Trade Center high-wire walk, and after the Sept. 11 attacks,
the way he thought about the Twin Towers was forever changed.
"During the many years of preparation [for the World Trade Center
walk], I thought of them as my towers," Petit said. "Now, they're our
towers."
"To Reach the Clouds" was published in September 2002.
Generations later, Petit's performance is still resonating. A
documentary about the planning and execution of the World Trade
Center walk made the rounds at the Sundance Film Festival this year.
"Man on Wire" won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize in the
World Cinema Documentary category.
"[The film] has taken on a life of its own," Petit marveled.
A performance at Easter Island in the South Pacific is in the works,
but at this point, the planning is in "the paper stage," he said.
There's also a new book, a feature film, and an event in New York in
the works, but Petit is staying mum about the details.
Regarding his upcoming talk at Simon's Rock, Petit said he hated
school as a youngster, and his lack of a classical education helped
foster his intuitive thinking.
Petit says he chooses to "grab pieces of knowledge and glue it
together in a ridiculous way, like a child," and he wants to share
his way of creating with the students.
"Do they have a 'Breaking the Rules' course at Simon's Rock?" Petit
asked. "If not, we'll change it!"
GREAT BARRINGTON -- Standing a quarter mile above the sidewalks of
lower Manhattan, he shot a steel cable from one roof to the other,
stepped over the edge, and took a 45-minute stroll in the void. In
doing so, the 24-year-old Frenchman became an icon.
Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between twin towers at the World
Trade Center in August 1974 certainly ranks as one of history's most
awe-inspiring feats of trespassing, and Petit will discuss the World
Trade Center event, and his other high-wire walks, at a free lecture
at Bard College at Simon's Rock on Tuesday.
Although the walk took place almost 34 years ago, the feeling has
stayed with him.
"I was the happiest man on Earth," the 58-year-old Petit recalls now,
at his home near Woodstock, N.Y. "I was elated to be offering the
world my dream."
The event took more than six years of planning, and Petit took every
minute detail into account, from the businessman and construction
worker disguises he and his helpers would wear so they could gain
access to the roof, to wind currents and the subtle swaying motion of
the skyscrapers.
"Uncertainties," says Petit, had been "completely eliminated" from
the act.
"I'm not attracted to risk," he added. "Risk is too dangerous, too
stupid. Walking on the wire is very intense."
Before the World Trade Center, Petit had one "giant illegal walk" on
his résumé: dancing, jumping, and yes, reclining on a wire between
the spires of Notre Dame cathedral, Paris, 1971.
How can he appear so relaxed when a three-quarter inch steel cable is
the only thing separating him from disaster?
"I'm in love with height," Petit said. "I feel very good up there.
I'm half-human, half-bird."
In the decades since his star turn in the muggy air 1,350 feet above
lower Manhattan, he has performed at the Eiffel Tower and the Opéra
in Paris, and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan;
he's the artist-in-residence at the latter.
All in all, Petit has performed 50 high-wire walks on five
continents, and getting older has been a change for the better, he
said.
"I lean on a lifetime of knowledge," Petit explained.
In 2001, Petit was working on "To Reach the Clouds," a book about the
World Trade Center high-wire walk, and after the Sept. 11 attacks,
the way he thought about the Twin Towers was forever changed.
"During the many years of preparation [for the World Trade Center
walk], I thought of them as my towers," Petit said. "Now, they're our
towers."
"To Reach the Clouds" was published in September 2002.
Generations later, Petit's performance is still resonating. A
documentary about the planning and execution of the World Trade
Center walk made the rounds at the Sundance Film Festival this year.
"Man on Wire" won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize in the
World Cinema Documentary category.
"[The film] has taken on a life of its own," Petit marveled.
A performance at Easter Island in the South Pacific is in the works,
but at this point, the planning is in "the paper stage," he said.
There's also a new book, a feature film, and an event in New York in
the works, but Petit is staying mum about the details.
Regarding his upcoming talk at Simon's Rock, Petit said he hated
school as a youngster, and his lack of a classical education helped
foster his intuitive thinking.
Petit says he chooses to "grab pieces of knowledge and glue it
together in a ridiculous way, like a child," and he wants to share
his way of creating with the students.
"Do they have a 'Breaking the Rules' course at Simon's Rock?" Petit
asked. "If not, we'll change it!"
Monday, March 3, 2008
Somebody versus somebody else in the what's it called bowl
Previously published in The Berkshire Eagle, January 31, 2008
Super Bowl -- so what?
Yes, they're out there, lurking among you: The furtive, clueless few
who don't know when the game starts, don't know who's playing, and,
perhaps worst of all, just don't care.
Take, for example, Marylou MacDowell, 57, of Pittsfield, who "never
not ever" cared about the Super Bowl, and who said that sports were
only on her radar when she personally knew one of the athletes who
was taking part in an event.
"I find [professional sports] really, really boring and repetitive,"
MacDowell said. "They keep playing the same game."
Could MacDowell at least name the teams playing in Sunday's epic
battle?
"Yes," she replied. "The Patriots and someone from New York." That
would be the Giants, who actually play their home games in New
Jersey.
In previous years, MacDowell was known to hold an "Un-Super Bowl"
party in her home on the night of the big game, and instead of wings,
beer, and several couch-loads of rowdy acquaintances, MacDowell had a
formal sit-down dinner for six of her closest friends.
And the Un-Super Bowl television entertainment? Well, it wasn't men
in helmets and spandex. After an elegant meal, MacDowell and her
guests watched "un-footbally" schlock films. The only rule? The
movies had to be about men who cross-dressed, or made by men who
cross-dressed.
"We went through all of Ed Wood's films," MacDowell said, referring
to the angora and pearls-wearing, grade-Z movie director. "We also
saw 'Lobster Man From Mars,' stuff like that."
Matt Rock, a 44-year-old landscaper from the town of Washington, said
he'll buck the trend Sunday and will watch "Modern Marvels," his
favorite show on The History Channel.
"I've watched one game since the strike," Rock said, referring to the
NFL players' strike of 1987.
Why has it been that long?
"[The players] are way overpaid now," he said. "I'd rather watch a
nonprofit sport, where their hearts are into it. Football is a big
industry now."
A long-standing resentment of the Super Bowl is just one reason why
Rachel Purcell, 47, of Ashley Falls won't be tuning in.
"The Super Bowl always delayed my favorite [television] shows," she
said.
Purcell, the manager of Crystal Essence, a holistic gift store on
Railroad Street in Great Barrington, noted that the game might mean
more to her if it solved world problems -- "maybe if the United
States and Iraq were the two teams," she mused.
Purcell's co-worker, Kate Mulligan, 33, was perplexed about the
actual date of the Super Bowl.
"Didn't the Patriots already win?" she asked. "Or is it coming up?"
When told that the game is Sunday, Mulligan shrugged and grinned. "I
love watching guys watch football. It's tribal."
She also said she would be more likely to be excited by the Super
Bowl if she actually attended the game.
So if someone offered Mulligan two tickets to Sunday's game in
Arizona would she go?
"No, I'd sell them and pay my mortgage," she replied.
Super Bowl -- so what?
Yes, they're out there, lurking among you: The furtive, clueless few
who don't know when the game starts, don't know who's playing, and,
perhaps worst of all, just don't care.
Take, for example, Marylou MacDowell, 57, of Pittsfield, who "never
not ever" cared about the Super Bowl, and who said that sports were
only on her radar when she personally knew one of the athletes who
was taking part in an event.
"I find [professional sports] really, really boring and repetitive,"
MacDowell said. "They keep playing the same game."
Could MacDowell at least name the teams playing in Sunday's epic
battle?
"Yes," she replied. "The Patriots and someone from New York." That
would be the Giants, who actually play their home games in New
Jersey.
In previous years, MacDowell was known to hold an "Un-Super Bowl"
party in her home on the night of the big game, and instead of wings,
beer, and several couch-loads of rowdy acquaintances, MacDowell had a
formal sit-down dinner for six of her closest friends.
And the Un-Super Bowl television entertainment? Well, it wasn't men
in helmets and spandex. After an elegant meal, MacDowell and her
guests watched "un-footbally" schlock films. The only rule? The
movies had to be about men who cross-dressed, or made by men who
cross-dressed.
"We went through all of Ed Wood's films," MacDowell said, referring
to the angora and pearls-wearing, grade-Z movie director. "We also
saw 'Lobster Man From Mars,' stuff like that."
Matt Rock, a 44-year-old landscaper from the town of Washington, said
he'll buck the trend Sunday and will watch "Modern Marvels," his
favorite show on The History Channel.
"I've watched one game since the strike," Rock said, referring to the
NFL players' strike of 1987.
Why has it been that long?
"[The players] are way overpaid now," he said. "I'd rather watch a
nonprofit sport, where their hearts are into it. Football is a big
industry now."
A long-standing resentment of the Super Bowl is just one reason why
Rachel Purcell, 47, of Ashley Falls won't be tuning in.
"The Super Bowl always delayed my favorite [television] shows," she
said.
Purcell, the manager of Crystal Essence, a holistic gift store on
Railroad Street in Great Barrington, noted that the game might mean
more to her if it solved world problems -- "maybe if the United
States and Iraq were the two teams," she mused.
Purcell's co-worker, Kate Mulligan, 33, was perplexed about the
actual date of the Super Bowl.
"Didn't the Patriots already win?" she asked. "Or is it coming up?"
When told that the game is Sunday, Mulligan shrugged and grinned. "I
love watching guys watch football. It's tribal."
She also said she would be more likely to be excited by the Super
Bowl if she actually attended the game.
So if someone offered Mulligan two tickets to Sunday's game in
Arizona would she go?
"No, I'd sell them and pay my mortgage," she replied.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A few moments before the Hyannis Half Marathon, 2/24/08
Getting ready for 13.1 miles of cold and clear running weather on Cape Cod.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
I can so ski Mad River Glen...at least some of it
Mad River Glen. I've only wanted to ski here for 30 years, and I finally made it. On Jan 3rd, Thursday, we made the trek up 7, and by late afternoon we had reached Waitsfield. The sun disappeared and it was -11F by nightfall. Burning cold. Lucky for us, Friday morning was in the teens--balmy, and we finished the ride up (and I do mean up) route 17 after a night in the annex at the Mad River Barn. Swerving up and around the hill I got my first look at the wall that is General Stark Mtn. At its base a collection of very unassuming yellow outbuildings, and I was struck with two welcome sensations: Fear and vertigo. Relief. Triple fuels for this skiier. Oh. My. God. I am out of my league. Finally! I had reached Mecca.
This is me after a great lesson with Leigh and some more clumsiness negotiating the moguls on the Canyons.
Skiing: expensive, dangerous, time-consuming, euphoria-inducing. Like an IV drug habit, but...not.
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