Churches

I was raised Catholic. Staunch, strict Catholic. And I haven't practiced it in years and I miss the Church immensely. It gave a structure and meaning to my life. I was what is known as a fish on Friday Catholic. I just did what I was told and didn't question anything. When I got to the age where I questioned everything, the Catholic Church has a way of just crumbling. The Church doesn't cotton to questioners, and I, to this day, question everything.

So, I've been wandering in the wilderness for a good thirty years and more.

But, I still have a special love for churches, they just aren't what some others might call churches. Funny story, once I lost a script and I asked an astrologer friend who practices horary astrology where it was. (You can ask a horary astrologer any question, even where a lost article is, and by consulting star and planetary charts they can tell you where it is.) She struggled, and I ultimately found it on my own. It was on a bookshelf where I had other scripts; it had just fallen behind the other ones. I told my astrologer friend that I had found it, and she said she couldn't come up with an answer because the charts kept pointing towards a church. I told her I wish she had told me that in the first place, because the charts were dead on. I think of the theater as my church. When I'm in a theater, it's as if I am in church.

Anyway, I have other places in the world where I feel like I'm in church. First Encounter Beach on Cape Cod, the entire beach, is one of those places. The top of Bondclift in the White Mountains is another. And today, I showed Sue another one.

The Buddha room in the MFA is so peaceful. Sometimes I go there and sit for hours. Just letting everything fall away. And I love every Buddha in that room, for different reasons. One is so calm and serene. Another one reminds me of my father.

Celtics win; arts lose

The Celtics took NBA championship last night here at Boston. I guess it was a blowout.

I didn't watch it. As a matter of fact, I haven't watched one Celtic's game in a long time. Funny, the last time was over two years ago. I had gotten some tickets somehow and Sue and I went. It was maybe our first date.

It was a pretty day, so we met at my old apartment, took the T in to Boston. There was a David Hockney exhibit at the MFA that we both wanted to see but, the sweet thing that she is, Sue thought I was too broke to afford the museum, so suggested we just walk around Boston. Sue wanted to see where all that literature had been set, so we walked around Charles Street and Beacon Hill, and just talked.

Then we went to the Celtic's game, but not before Sue wanting to go to Hilton's Tent City--a girl of my own heart, I thought! We both pretty much got bored at the same time somewhere in the first half of the game, and then what has become SOP for us, we look into each other's eyes to get a bead on what the other one is thinking. We both knew and we got up and left.

Yesterday I was at the bank and the teller (yes, an actual humanoid and not an ATM) asked me if I was all ready for "the game"?

"There's a game?" I asked. I knew, but didn't care, and the teller actually gave me kind of a snotty roll of her eyes. Let's just keep our minds on the business at hand, namely my bank account, shall we?

I wish I were part of it (well, no, I don't; I really don't.) It's not the 1980's anymore and I'm not standing up on a table in a bar in Montreal writing, "Larry Byrd rules" on the ceiling. But it seems it was the place to see and be seen. Bill Billichick was there with his hot gf, and Steven Tyler, and Joey Kramer, Aerosmith's drummer. I don't think Jack was in the crowd, though.

So, last night, even if I hadn't had something else to do I wouldn't have watched. But instead I was in Cambridge hanging around actors and directors and writers.

The Celtics are champions, the Red Sox are champions, and the Patriots are step-children because they went 16-0 and then lost big in the Super Bowl. They didn''t win everything, they didn't win it all, so they aren't as good. I guess that's the way it goes in our world.



A few years back I was watching a middle school production of Cinderella that was riddled with horribly long scene changes (one lasted well over a minute), fumbled blocking, and missed lighting cues. And the members of the audience--most of whom of course were related to the kids on stage--were so accommodating. And I thought to myself, first of all, most of the people in the audience wouldn't know a technically good show if it fell on their heads. And second, if these sort of miscues and haphazard play were on a football field, basketball court, or baseball field, a lot of these people would be singing a different tune. They'd be a helluva lot more critical.

I'm not saying the arts should take the place of sports. I'm saying the arts should occupy the same place in our minds that sports do. I find it reprehensible that people know the nuances of the fast break, but don't understand the nuances of a well-rehearsed theater ensemble. I think it's absolutely mind-boggling that people don't understand Impressionism, or even what it is if they see it.

A 3-4-5 double play makes my knees go weak. So does a breakaway (in the Tour de France, peeps, not on the parquet floor) or a slant over the middle for a first down. But there are so many other things in this world, and the problem is most people can't absorb the world in its entirety.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Spent most of the weekend at the MFA in Boston. Saturday seeing the members only preview of the Edward Hopper exhibit.

Sunday for The Yatra Trilogy. "Each of the films in this cinematic pilgrimage highlight Southeast Asia’s most dazzling and spiritual monuments." Unfortunately, the films aren't dazzling and spiritual, it's the monuments the films are about that dazzle, and there is a difference, especially when you're sitting through hours of this stuff. And while I was really interested in the topic, I thought to myself how many times I've heard my daughters talk about how boring school is. Why can't these pedantic stiff necks show a little life, a little love for their topic, a little excitement and God, can I say it?--entertainment?--when talking about something?

Hopper was cool, at least the paintings and prints. But the audio tour was an absolute joke. So basic it was hilarious, and embarrassing. The best part was something they swiped from an exhibit in New York--I think it was from the Met, but don't hold me to that, and Wim Wenders commenting on Night Hawks.

Boston will always be this little podunk town compared to New York, but what's just so funny, and annoying, is how Boston is just so full of itself. For two days I wandered through the MFA with Sue, and I didn't see a single soul who I thought, hey, that person looks kind of cool to hang around with. The entire viewing public looked like a bunch of stuffy white people (don't recall seeing a single brother.) No laughing allowed; this is all so serious...it's Art, damnit, with a capital A.