Tytania Strange

This is my subconscious life. I was dreaming that I was staying at the Overlook Hotel from The Shining which was in California for some reason. I was annoyed that it was looking pretty shabby and also, the bartender was bitching about bringing me a refill for my Diet Coke which really annoys me when I'm dreaming that I'm paying $400 a night for a crappy room, or, possibly, hallucinating in an empty hotel. So, I finally get my drink and decide to go upstairs where OH MY CRAP it's that suicidal old lady ghost and she's going to kill... oh wait, never mind, it's only Lady Gaga without any makeup on. And this is why I had to quit drinking Diet Coke before bed.

I was going to continue reviewing Hush, Hush chapter by chapter, but I have run into some snags. Firstly, this book is so dull that even making fun of it really isn't all that entertaining. Secondly, today the studio was full of flies (yes, it was really gross) and my copy of Hush, Hush proved to be the best fly-killing weapon available. There are now 7-8 dead flies squashed against the window, where I have left them as a warning to all of their little fly friends. The covers of Hush, Hush are now covered in fly guts and the book is looking even more unappealing than it was when I bought it. So, having read the entire book, I will do my best to sum up. At length.

I don't remember the narrator of The Great Gatsby ever describing his own looks. We don't need him to tell us what he looks like. We learn enough about his character to imagine him for ourselves. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout talks about wearing overalls rather than dresses but she doesn't tell us what color hair she has or whether she has freckles. We don't need to know. The overalls tell us enough. In fact, great authors tend to limit physical descriptions to characters that we won't ever know well enough to build a clear image of who they are. We hear more about what Gatsby's near anonymous guests are wearing than about Daisy's wardrobe. At one point, she wears a white dress which is meant to express more about the setting than the people involved.

So, when Nora, the heroine of the book tells me that she is smart or that she has curly hair and long legs or is wearing a navy blue sweater, I am left bored and uninterested. Who cares if Nora's hair is curly? The narrator of Rebecca doesn't even share her name, and yet we can imagine her pretty easily. Why do we need to know about Nora's hair? We need to know because Nora is meant to be just like Becca Fitzpatrick, whose picture is on the dust jacket with the exact same auburn-ish curly hair as her heroine. In fact, Nora is so like the author that she doesn't act at all like the high school kid that she's meant to be and I'm left wondering if this story was meant to be about college students or twenty-somethings and some editor said "Put 'em in high school because teen girls will eat that crap up!"

Nora lives in Maine. Maine would actually be a cool location for a supernatural mystery. You have harsh New England weather, sparse population, and communities that are primarily maritime which would be a fertile ground for ghost stories, lovers lost at sea and the like. Sadly, that's not the Maine where the author has set her book. Nora lives in an 18th century farmhouse, you know, because of all the farming in Maine. In fact, the environment up there was so harsh that the first colonists couldn't survive most likely because they couldn't make farming work. Not unless you're planning on farming pine trees and blueberries. That's not to say that an 18th century farmhouse couldn't exist, it would just be quite a rarity. An 18th century sea captain's house would make more sense, but what the heck. I think Nora goes to a restaurant that has a lobster roll special, and that's about as much New England atmosphere as you get. This Maine is foggy like the Pacific Northwest with no mention of Maine's harsh weather. There's also a Mexican restaurant that serves actual Mexican food which is amazing given that I can't get decent Mexican food in New York City much less Boston or places further north. Know what you can get in New England? Clam chowder. Every frickin' restaurant serves clam chowder every single day of the week. Even the franchised places like Chili's and TGI Friday's have clam chowder. If there's a Mexican restaurant in Maine, you can bet your ass that they have clam chowder.

So Nora of the curly hair in not New England is a high school student. Despite being a minor, she is almost completely unsupervised because her mother is constantly going out of town for her work. Her mother cannot take a job closer to home because then she would not be able to afford the payments on the 18th century farmhouse. My god, what a materialistic asshat. It's only a damn house. What kind of person loses a husband and then neglects her only daughter for the sake of holding onto prime real estate? A mother who needs to be kept conveniently out of the way so her teen daughter can live like an independent twenty something, duh! Nora doesn't appear to have a job or an income of her own but she can afford to eat out constantly and to shop at Victoria's Secret. Another teenaged character was providing an apartment for his girlfriend until her untimely death. The hero hangs out in bars. I could buy it if they were all college students, but it seems pretty far-fetched for high school kids.

The story begins in biology class which for some inexplicable reason is being taught by a coach rather than a professor. Yes, it's almost exactly like Twilight, only with a heavy dose of sexual harassment. The hero is a total creeper by the name of "Patch." Oh the names in this book, the hideously misguided names. There's a 16th century nobleman named "Chauncey" which seems rather unlikely given that a quick Google search will tell you that Chauncey is a Middle English name. Oops. So, Patch harasses Nora for a while and Coach allows it because, as we discover much later, Patch worked his fallen angel mojo to set that up. It doesn't speak well of Patch, but not one single thing Patch does in the entire book ever speaks well of Patch. Patch is a complete ass clown. Nevertheless, Nora drives out to some dive bar in the middle of the night to track Patch down because if you have to choose between being potentially raped and murdered versus failing one Biology assignment, you should definitely go with getting yourself violated or perished. They banter and Patch is still an asshole.

The secondary characters include Nora's friend Vee who is described as fat over and over, only in more polite terms. This is done so that Nora can emphasize over and over how slim she is compared to Vee who is tall, blonde and constantly overeating. Nora and Vee have some sort of sick, passive-aggressive relationship where Vee embarrasses Nora by ham-handedly pushing her at men, while Nora lets Vee act as a decoy so she can be almost murdered by Nora's spectacularly inept enemies. Seriously, these people make Voldemort look competent. There's a "nice guy" love interest named Elliot who is less nice than he seems and considerably more interesting than Patch. Elliot has a friend named Jules who is tall. In fact, the amazing tallness of Jules is emphasized over and over but means nothing to us because tallness is not a personality trait and no one else is especially tall. Frankly, you might as well suspect that Jules is the spawn of Galadriel and Elrond because those elves are all pretty tall.

Of course, no teen girl's fantasy is complete without female antagonists because we all know how much other women suck. So, outside of Vee who really should have reason to hate Nora's stupid, self-centered ass, there's Marcy, the cheerleader. Cheerleading- perpetuating pure evil since the 1950's. There's also Patch's ex-girlfriend who shows up pretending to be the high school shrink. Seriously, I will never understand why the psycho ex is considered romantic. Men who have psycho exes are men who have such crappy taste in romantic partners that they gravitate to psychos. It doesn't exactly speak well of your heroine when she's next on that list, yanno?

I can't really explain how pointless the plot is without giving it all away. Granted, you have to be an idiot to miss the fallen angel image on the cover of the book and that is the only clue you need. Patch fell from grace because he had a relationship with a mortal woman. Yes, that should not bode well for his future with Nora but no one ever points it out. Angels don't feel or something like that, so Patch finds Chauncey, the improbably named Nephilim and possesses his body for two weeks during the Hebrew month of something or other. Oh yes, Chauncey the French guy from 1565 knows the Hebrew calendar because they were so culturally inclusive back then. Whatever Patch does in Chauncey's body is so incredibly unpleasant that he's out for revenge. His revenge plot is to murder Nora before Patch can do it because if Patch kills her, he gets a human body... or something.

Look, it makes no sense. In a way, it's all a big pile of unfortunate implications. Patch fell for getting it on with a mortal chick. Chauncey is half angel. Nora has a birthmark that matches a mark that Patch has. So, is she Patch's descendant? Well, the book only says that Patch has to kill a descendant of his Nephilim vassal, but that's retarded. Or has Chauncey been protecting his descendants from Patch for years, but if that's the case, why is he trying to kill Nora? And why doesn't he say so? There's an interesting plot somewhere in the background that we never ever see because the author is so busy boring us to death with Patch and Nora's boring as Hell antics.

It's very obvious that either Jules or Elliot must be Chauncey, otherwise the third person prologue would be pointless. Since Jules hides every time Patch is around, the answer to that one is obvious. in the meantime, Elliot turns out to have the spectacularly improbable back story of having been a high school kid basically supporting some chick in an apartment. And where are the parents? I can buy that Jules is on his own and probably has the resources to fake a history but the Elliot doesn't. That's the whole point of Elliot's involvement with Jules- he's doing it to get money and power that he doesn't have. So, again, where are the parents slaving away to send Elliot to this prep school full of rich kids? What do they have to say when his girlfriend turns up dead? How do they feel about Elliot's out of the blue transfer to Nora's school? Did they notice that their kid was providing an apartment for his girlfriend?

The angels all have the power to mess with people's heads. They use this power to gaslight Nora. That's pretty much it. They also kind of suck at using their powers. I mean, why make someone think you just tried to kill them? What's the point of that? Why make someone think you trashed their bedroom when it would be more interesting to trash the room and then make people think that you didn't. And why does the room get trashed? So they can steal an article that Nora printed off the internet. You know, because she can't just go print another copy. These people are morons. Jules is planning to kill Nora but despite having a scrillion chances, he just messes with her. What is wrong with this dumbass? Patch needs Nora to love him enough to want to die for him, so he makes her think that he's trying to kill her? Then he says that he was trying to kill because, what, he read the instructions on his curse wrong? "Oh crap, I thought it said she has to die unwillingly instead of willingly. Dammit!!!"

So, for twenty eight out of thirty chapters, Nora keeps getting almost murdered by the moron twins. Patch's angel ex-girlfriend ends up nearly beating Vee to death because she, like the characters in most operas, is immediately fooled when Vee and Nora switched jackets. If only they'd had a couple of tiny masks, they could have convinced them all that they'd both disappeared completely and been replaced by wacky mask-wearing foreigners. Patch keeps inviting Nora to dangerous places and she keeps going because creepy stalkers are so hot.

Then, at long last, Jules and Elliot actually kidnap Vee and Nora ends up following them into the high school. You know, like the ending of Twilight only it's a high school rather than a ballet school. Jules messes with Nora's mind and she finally decides to kill herself, more to spite Jules than to save Patch. Well, let's face it, all the options suck. I'm going to kill you so that you can't kill yourself? Great. Just. Great.

Then Nora wakes up in the hospital, just like Bella. Patch has refused to accept her sacrifice. I'm a little unclear on how that one works. I mean, either she was fatally injured or she wasn't. Or are we supposed to believe that some higher power stepped in and fixed things in which case, where the heck was a higher power back in chapter one? Why didn't it step in and fix things earlier? Why did innocent people have to die so that Patch and Nora could get their shit together? Why are they okay with this?

Elliot also survives because he was such a gosh darn nice guy despite letting Jules kill his girlfriend and then letting her family think it was a suicide and being complicit in the murder of some random homeless woman.

Since Patch refused to become human, he has been turned into a guardian angel. So, let's get this straight, Patch falls from grace for getting jiggy with some mortal chick. Then he manages to get his wings back... so he can get jiggy with some other mortal chick. So, how does this work exactly? It doesn't. It's completely lame. I don't know what the hell is wrong with the people who keep claiming that the mythology of this book is all cool. None of it makes sense. NO. SENSE. AT. ALL.

I could make a better case for the bad guys to be the heroes of this book. Maybe Jules is so horrified by the naughty things that Patch does in his body that he is willing to sacrifice his own relative to stop the horror. Maybe Jules is, in some way, trying to protect Nora from some far worse fate that might befall her for snogging around with the spawn of hell. It would make way more sense than "He's a complete asshole who is alternately trying to kill me and trying to molest me, but true love makes it okay!!!" Look at me, I'm practically read to fanfic this damn thing just to inject some kind of logic.

So, my advice to you is, don't bother reading Hush, Hush. if you really want to be bored to tears by some YA fiction just buy a copy of Twilight. Sure, Twilight sucks, but at least it's the first of it's genre. Stephenie Meyer's world is a lame, teen fantasy but that's miles better than being a poorly conceived ripoff of someone else's teen fantasy.

On Wednesday, I was asking my students if I had failed somehow because I try to teach them to be fabulous people as well as fabulous performers but somehow they missed that memo. Then behold, on Thursday they were complete angels. There was kindness and sharing. There was joy over costumes and love all around. The show went well and they were amazingly cute and did a fantastic job and the world is as it should be. I have no idea if this is because I did something right or Wednesday was just a miserable, hot and crabby day. All I can say is that once the kids had made peace, they absolutely glowed together. Mission accomplished.

Next week will be the last in the current 4-week session. We start up a new session after that, which will be sparse for me, but that's okay. I'll live. I'm planning next year's camps with more lead time, so we can actually advertise this time around. As everyone keeps saying "ZOMG if I had known about this awesomeness, I'd have signed up!!" Well, it's time for them to know. 

This evening, I went to a performance of Aladdin which featured two of my students. No, this isn't Disney's Aladdin. This is a play for kids with different music and more characters, although the Disney influence is in there. My students were the villain and one of the featured ladies in waiting to the princess. They were both awesome and their singing was some of the best in the show. I was very very pleased.

Next week, I'll see another student in Oklahoma. I bought tickets today, after putting it off for a week because between seeing shows and rehearsing a show, and directing a show, I have no life. I angst over whether I will end up with conflicts between my schedule and the kids' events, since it would not be the first time I've been too overbooked to see them. Trouble is, it means a lot to them if I show up, so that means I have to make the effort and put off Harry Potter for another weekend.

Dog found. The neighbors took him in for the night and then brought him to the vet whose number was on his tags. The vet called my sister and now the baby is home safe and crazy.

ZOMG, you guys, the Titanic is sinking!

Why is everyone so negative? We shouldn't dwell on things like sinking! The Carpathia is still afloat!

Hey, how would you guys arrange these deck chairs?

These deck chairs are all wrong for this deck!

I prefer blue deck chairs on this deck.

Only a moron would say that. Everyone knows that this deck is for red chairs only!

Like it matters. There haven't been any decent deck chairs since 1953.

Actually, I saw a really great deck chair last year.

You don't know what you're talking about. That deck chair doesn't come close to living up to all the hype.

Look, nobody asked you about the quality of the deck chairs. We were just talking about arranging them.

Who gave you the right to tell us whether or not we can talk about deck chairs?

Given the fact that we're all about to drown, who gives a shit about deck chairs anyway?

I think we should all pull together and donate for some new deck chairs!

Why should we pay for deck chairs? The Titanic should supply us with the chairs.

I like the chairs on the Carpathia better anyway. I'm going to buy them more chairs. They're not sinking, after all.

You should be grateful for the Titanic! You're really mean!

I think we should have both red and blue deck chairs on this deck.

I've always hated this deck.

I like coming to this deck, but I don't arrange chairs here. My chair-arranging skills are better suited to another deck.

Ummm... guys, have you noticed that all the chairs are kinda sliding to the other side of the deck...

Duh, didn't I tell you that these deck chairs suck? If they were better chairs, they wouldn't be sliding!

People don't appreciate good deck chairs anymore. There's no emphasis on chairs in the schools.

I blame recliners. Recliners made people stop appreciating deck chairs.

I'm going over to the Lusitania, see ya suckers!

The Lusitania sucks. I'd rather be on the Titanic.

OMG did you see the way they arranged the deck chairs on the upper deck?

The upper deck sucks.

I hate those chairs.

I love those chairs!

The lower deck has better quality chairs.

I think the lower deck is underwater right about now.

Why do we have to talk about being underwater? It's depressing!

We're all going to be underwater because we're freaking sinking, you guys! I'm getting in a lifeboat.

Good! More chairs left for me!

I'm getting a purple chair!

There are no purple chairs. Chairs are always blue or red.

Actually, I heard that the important chairs can be purple, but you have to be on the upper deck for that.

I think we just lost some chairs, guys.

You can't lose chairs! Deck chairs are supposed to be on the deck! You can't take deck chairs off the deck!

Has anyone else noticed that this deck has gotten really crowded? I don't think we have room for more chairs.

That's because half this deck is covered in water. There's less deck to put chairs on.

Which school is the best for arranging deck chairs?

Did you see who won the deck chair competition?

It's rigged. They always pick the same deck chairs.

Holy crap, one of the smoke stacks just fell over and crushed the upper deck!

Well, that deck was mismanaged, They shouldn't have been so close to the smokestacks!

Does anyone remember what happened to the person with the purple chair? I don't see them around anymore.

They messed up their deck chair by arranging it wrong.

No has arranged deck chairs properly since the 1970's. I remember that one chair...

Remember the green chair? There will never be another green chair!

Holy crap you guys, our deck is going under! This is it! We're finished!

Well, it wouldn't have gone under if we had that green chair.

No, the green chair ruined it for the blue chairs.

No one asked you for your opinion about the green chair.

So, how should we arrange these deck chairs?

*glug*

Dear neighbor:

Believe me, when my dog barks like a maniac, it annoys me as much as it does you. I don't relish having to chase my dog down every ten minutes. I'd actually be feeling sorry about the dog being such a pain if you hadn't called me "sweetheart" informed me that I could "kiss your ass" or said that my dog "wasn't long for this world." This would be me documenting the exchange, by the way. As for telling me to "go to law school" I'm assuming that you aren't aware that my dad, the owner of said dog, is a lawyer and I actually did study pre-law for two years.

Sadly, I'm afraid that going to law school would be rather time consuming and expensive, but I did take your advice to heart. I decided to look up the noise regulations in my area. According to the law, my dog is allowed to bark non-stop for up to ten minutes or intermittently for up to thirty minutes but, and here's the kicker, if someone is trespassing, threatening to trespass or otherwise provoking the dog, then the dog can bark her head off forever. So, all those times you've yelled and threatened would count as provoking the dog which pretty much negates any claim you can make about the noise. It also means that I can report you to the police without having to worry about my dog getting into trouble.

Needless to say, I will be letting my dog out for nine minutes at a time or so. When I have you dragged off, I want to make sure there's a minimum of fuss on my end.

So, thanks for the advice and I'm looking forward to our next chat!

Sincerely,

Tytania Strange

I honestly cannot tell you whether I love this like woah or hate it with the burning hatred of a thousand hate filled suns that are feeling very very angry indeed?

On the one side, Jude Law is the perfect Watson. He's actually like the Watson from the books, rather than the loser Watson we usually see in the movies. You can believe him romancing the occasional damsel in distress. I can also see Robert Downey Jr. in his role, even if he is channeling Johnny Depp's performance in From Hell. But then there's... everything else...

We have the video from this year's ice skating recital. As one of my students pointed out, everything is crazier when there's ice skating involved. Kids dressed up as monsters? Not so crazy. Kids dressed up as monsters wearing ice skates and attempting to skate in a straight line? Wackier than Walter the Wackjob winner of the Worldwide Wacko award.

There are also moments when the kids pull it together and rock their icy little world. The Harry Potter drill team was totally awesome. The finale torch-wielding mob scene in Frankenstein on ice looked really cool. That being said, the crazy moments are more fun to talk about.

Back in the day, my sister and I both figure skated. Mom forced us. We were dragged kicking and screaming and plopped onto the ice, not because Mom thought we had any talent at all or harbored any hopes of us being any good at it, but because she was sick of seeing us sitting in front of "the boob tube" all day long. As far as she was concerned, all the kids' programming was nothing but ads for toys and crap (and she was right about that, hello Rainbow Brite Show, My Little Pony Show and ZOMG Gummi Bears!!!) So, we get shoved into skating lessons. Eventually, we even sort of practiced because you had to pass the tests in order to get onto the skating teams that all your friends were on or to get a SOLO IN THE YEAR END RECITAL.

Today, the solos are more planned out and set. That doesn't mean you don't occasionally end up with a teenager dressed as a sexy sexy monk skating to a song about getting high because that still totally happens and did totally happen. Oh, ice skating, never stop being that insane. These days you have to be a Freestyle level 7 or 8 or something to get a solo and they only give out a few. When we skated as kids, you only had to be a level 4 and they had different solos every night for 3-4 shows. Yes, the skating recital was so long that it took 3 or 4 nights. It was like Lord of the Rings only with skating and sparkles and pop music.

When my sister finally was eligible for her very own solo, she decided that she wanted to skate to music from the Disneyland Electric Parade. She had this super cool Mickey Mouse outfit that a costumer had made for her (she had helped out on a show and she got a custom made costume in lieu of pay.) Then either she or Mom came up with this brilliant idea that it would be super cool if she came out of a light parade float. Nevermind that none of us had any experience making any kind of a float, not even a float that you pull along in a wagon. We'd all seen behind the scenes specials and it was all about chicken wire right? So my sister or my mother or both of them decided to make a giant mushroom float.

When you think about it, a giant mushroom is not the ideal project for a first time builder of electrical parade floats. Those things are complicated. They have engineering and stuff. We had chicken wire and Christmas lights. My dad flat out refused to be involved, which only made my mom more determined to make the thing work. So she assembled fabric and lights and chicken wire into... you have to know where this is going... a giant, glowing penis.

I said nothing about the penis because I am not crazy. I already knew that you do not get in between Mom and her figure skating stuff. Believe me, I tried. I bruised my freakin' tailbone and she sent me right back out onto the ice because that's how hardcore Mom is. You don't leave practice for anything that doesn't require an immediate trip to the emergency room. The more Dad talked about the giant penis, the more Mom insisted that it looked like a mushroom and we were just being mean. It was a MUSHROOM dammit.

And that, my friends, is how my sister ended up dressed as an ice-skating Mickey Mouse birthed from a giant, skating, glowing penis.

About three years later, Mom watched the home video (for old time's sake) and face-palmed.

Only in an ice skating recital, guys, only in an ice skating recital. If the performances didn't always hit during my busiest seasons, I would go to that recital every year in the hopes of watching a team of teenaged Dr. Frankenfurters performing a tribute to The Rocky Horror Picture or my own contribution, a skating Horatio Caine using the sunglasses of justice to track down the reindeer who ran over grandma. Only in an ice skating recital, you guys, only in an an ice skating recital.

In response to this bit of chicken soup for the musician's soul:

Yes, music is about as close as we can get to real magic. It has power that is hard to explain, but it's there nonetheless.

The power of music does not, however, put food on the table. Hence, I'll add:

As your children are sitting on the street corner, playing for tips because they are so far above mere entertainers who get paid, they can take comfort in their higher purpose. When they go home to their tiny studio apartments, which they share with roommates, and ponder whether cockroaches can be used as a source of low-cost protein, they will be filled with the inner joy that comes of knowing that they are better than everyone else in the whole world... even if no one else in the whole world is inclined to agree. So, don't think for one  minute that the armloads of cash you will be forking over to us for the next four or more years will be a waste. Always remember that delusional is special because they both end in "al." Thank you.

I'm an entertainer. Entertainment is a glorious thing. Entertainment is the thing that takes us to another, better place for a few seconds or a few minutes or a few hours. Entertainment is such a powerful force that people are practically willing to worship those who provide it and that's why everyone and their siblings is trying to squeeze into the field.

But I don't believe for one second that I'm special or magical or higher than thou because mine is the butt in front of the audience. Entertainment is all about the communion between the performer(s) and the people out there experiencing the performance. The magic only happens when we reach out to them and connect with them. The magic only happens when we're willing to strip our souls bare so that the world can see what we're made of and can experience what we're creating. Anything less and we're a bunch of  assholes making a spectacle of ourselves, no matter how much we're getting paid to do it. Know what's even worse? No one is fooled by our bullshit, not for one single second. It's everyone's worst nightmare, standing buck naked in front of a jeering crowd... a jeering crowd armed with iphones so they can share photos and comments in real time. Welcome to the internet age.

So, if you are driven to give of yourself for the sake of bringing a little brightness into people's lives for a second or a moment or an hour, then you're one of the blessed. You will come away feeling full every time you share your talent.

Professional music, it's like joining the Peace Corps only there's no health plan and you don't get nearly as much credit.