Udderly Amazing October 16, 2008

If anyone needs a refresher course on how awesome I am, you’re in for a treat.  Monday night I had an audition at Theater Downtown for their rendition of “A Christmas Carol.”  Now, you might ask, ‘Kindra, are you an actress?’  And my answer for you is no.  Neither actress, nor dancer, nor singer.  I just decided that I wanted to be in a play, and so I set up an audition time and memorized a monologue and gave it a shot.

 

Now, I’d like to tell you this story ends with me killing my monologue, giving them their best performance of the night, and signing me on the spot.  Unfortunately, for me, the story does not go that way.  At all. 

 

So my monologue was from a scene in “Rent” where one of the characters is leading a protest type performance, and she’s giving this crazy, off the wall, ridiculous speech in front of a huge crowd.  Here’s the speech:

Last night I had a dream.  I found myself in a desert called Cyberland.  It was hot.  My canteen had sprung a leak, and I was…thirsty.  Out of the abyss walked a cow.  Elsie.  I asked if she had anything to drink.  She said:  “I’m forbidden to produce milk.  In Cyberland we only drink Diet Coke.”  She said: “Only thing to do is jump over the moon.”  “I gotta get outta here.  It’s like I’m being tied to the hood of a yellow rental truck.  Being packed in with fertilizer and fuel oil.  Pushed over a cliff by a suicidal Mickey Mouse.  I’ve gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta find a way to jump over the moon.  Only thing to do is jump over the moon.”

Then, a little bulldog entered.  His name, we have learned, was Benny.  And although he once had principles…he abandoned them to live as a lapdog…to a wealthy daughter of the revolution.  A one, two, three “that’s bull,” he said  “Ever since the cat took up the fiddle that cow’s been…jumpy.  The dish and the spoon were evicted from the table and eloped.  She’s had trouble with that milk and the moon ever since.  Maybe it’s a…female thing ‘Cause who’d wanna leave Cyberland anyway? Walls ain’t so bad.  The dish and the spoon, for instance, they’re down on their luck, they come knockin’ on MY doghouse door and I say, ‘Not in my back yard, utensils.  Go back to China.

 

I know this might seem a bit ambitious for a first time actor, but I practiced and practiced and had gone over it so many times with voice inflection and hand gestures and everything, that I just knew there was no way I could mess it up.  And boy was I wrong.  I got so nervous that I forgot my lines halfway through and literally just froze and could not think of a single thing to say.  And while this may not have been too terrible if the first half of my performance had been awesome or if I at least ended on a sentence that could have been a closer, but no.  I freeze up on the line that goes ”maybe it’s a female thing,” and the hand gestures I practiced to go along with that line are me grabbing my boobs.  So here I am, standing in front of what I’m presuming are 3 professionals in the acting/producing business, grabbing my own cleavage and staring at them blankly with nothing to say.  Awesome.  And while the boob grab might have worked in my favor had the panel consisted of 3 college-aged males, it instead consisted of a 70 year old lady, a 20-something girl who was a little rough looking and definitely wasn’t someone I’d want to meet down a dark alley, and a 70 year old man, who, I might add, had his zipper down.  All the way down.  I’m talking legs spread under the table, zipper down, fly hanging wide open for all the world to see.  And I happen to notice this right after they’ve told me to just stop where I froze up and forgot my lines.  So now I’m nervous, freaking out, and can’t figure out where to put my eyes because the only place I can think to look is at Grandpa’s crotch!

 

The moment passes after what seems like a bagillion seconds.  Grandpa then asks me if I am going to audition to sing with the carolers that will sing before and after the show.  I explain to him, very emphatically might I add, that I am definitely not a singer and have no intentions of singing in any choir.  I think my words even included “you do not want me singing…trust me!”  So Grandpa asks if I know any Christmas carols, and then asks me to sing Joy To The World for him.  On the spot.  Just like that.  After I just got done saying that I can’t sing.  I see no way out of this, so I start singing Joy To The World with him conducting me like an orchestra, waving his hands frantically above his head.  I finish (after what seems like another eternity), and his reply is (with a nod of the head) “Decent.  Nothing too spectacular, but it was O.K.”  Great!  Thanks!  Didn’t I JUST tell you that I CAN’T SING?!?!?!  What did you expect?!  I’m not Mary Freaking Poppins! 

 

So Grandpa finally released me back into the world, and I ran, literally, ran as fast as I could out of the theater.  I didn’t even slow down or look back until I had reached the corner the parking garage was on.  And when I finally looked at the time, I had to double check and make sure my phone wasn’t broken because my never-ending, eternity long audition really was less than 15 minutes.  And that includes the time it took for me to walk to and from the parking garage, and sign in and fill out paperwork.

Like I said…sheer amazingness.  Be looking for me on Broadway pretty soon.  My big break is coming.

 

The Lost Boy October 8, 2008

The Lost Boy

 

A Foster Child’s Search for the Love of a Family

 

By: Dave Pelzer

 

ISBN: 978-1558740515-5

 

Genre:  Self-Help/Psychology/Inspiration

 

Intended Audience:  Anyone over 13 who wants to read this book will get something out of it.  The writing style leads me to say this book is best read by middle school or high school age, but the story and message are timeless and relevant to adults as well.

 

Summary:  A sequel to A Child Called “It,” this book follows the storyline of a young boy living in an abusive family and the struggles he endures throughout his childhood.  His mother verbally, physically, and sexually abuses him, and when he’s nine years old, gets the opportunity to escape the hell that he called home.  Pushed into the foster care program, David starts to experience life without abuse, but it turns out to be more difficult than he thought.  He is shuffled around from home to home, never settling anywhere for long enough to call home or make any friends.  He starts rebelling, doing poorly in school, and drawing attention to himself in any way possible, including fighting and stealing.  This novel explores firsthand the struggles children in America face everyday, and is an extraordinary tale of how one boy beat the odds and overcame his past.

 

Review:  This novel is something I am extremely passionate about, so my rating may be a bit higher than the book should actually deserve.  With that being said, the story is heart wrenching, and it makes you just want to reach out and give David the love he’s looking for.  The actual writing itself is sub-par and could use some improvement, but the author still draws you into the story and brings out the emotion and horror of the situation.

 

Rating:  3.5 out of 5

Without Reservations October 8, 2008

Without Reservations

 

 

The Travels of an Independent Woman

 

By:  Alice Steinbach

 

ISBN:  0-375-75845-3

 

Genre:  Memoir/Travel

 

Intended Audience:  If the byline gives any clues, it’s safe to say this book is intended for the female audience.  More specifically, I would say the female audience between the ages of 45 and 75.

 

Summary:  The book is a memoir or travel diary, encompassing the author’s travels throughout Europe.  The story starts with Steinbach realizing her unhappiness of living alone, single, with an empty nest minus cats.  She decides to do something “drastic,” and plans this trip of self-searching across Europe.  She takes a sabbatical from her job as a reporter, and sets off on her adventure, which includes stays in towns across France, England, and Italy, but never really settling anywhere for an extended period of time.  Her journey includes stories of her past, discovering new things about herself, and even finding new love.

 

Review:  I feel the author failed with this potentially moving book in several ways.  First, she starts off the novel by going back in time 6 years to the actual trip to re-tell the story.  It struck me as odd why she would wait such a long time to write the novel, when a travel diary is something you want to be fresh and full of that excitement and emotion from the recent adventure.  I think she lost a lot of the feeling and emotion of the novel because of this.  Second, she never really explores any one topic in great detail, and I think the fact that she was constantly on the move in her travels had an affect on this.  She didn’t leave herself time to dwell and discover because she was only in a place long enough to get situated before she was up and moving again.  I feel like the reader doesn’t ever fully get the chance accompany Steinbach on the journey, and is instead an audience listening to the highlights.  The third reason I think the author failed the reader is her lack of closure.  Her shallow stories could have been overlooked by a strong finish or lesson towards the end, but there was no real conclusion or closure to the novel.  I feel I’m more tuned in to the outcome of the story by the “conversation with Alice…” question and answer session in the Reader’s Guide than I am by the author’s writing itself.  Combine these with the author’s tendency to fluff with over-expressive adjectives and lengthy descriptions, and I think it’s safe to say the book was abysmal.

 

Rating:

0.5 out of 5

 

 

Vaya con Dios October 7, 2008

It’s Important to Find Your Own Spiritual Home

By Veronica Chambers

When I was eight years old, my mother took me aside and said, “Go where you find God.  And if you are ever in a place where you don’t feel God, even if your father and I take you there, you have my permission to leave.”  Granted, this was an esoteric conversation to be having with a third grader, but my mother rarely talked to me as if I were a child.  I had been a latchkey kid since I was six, responsible several hours a day for my three-year-old brother.  My mother and I had serious conversations about fire safety; how to keep myself safe is a stranger approached me in our bleak, impoverished neighborhood; and how, even though she really wanted to be around when I came home from school, I had to learn to trust my gut and make my own decisions.  There wasn’t any other choice.  The God conversation was different.  At a time when everyone I knew regularly made references to heaven and hell, my mom-a deeply conservative Panamanian immigrant-let me know that when it came to God and choosing the role of religion in my life, I could do no wrong.

          In the fourth grade, I decided to become a Lutheran. My best friend was a Lutheran.  My mother had no problem with this.  She told me, “Vaya con Dios” (Spanish for “Go with God”), as I sauntered off to the Lutheran church on Sunday mornings.  And when I came home, she listened intently as I told her about the story of Martin Luther and how he had nailed his 95 theses to the doors of the Wittenberg Castle Church.  “Vaya con Dios,” she said as I wrote out my protests of her rules, regulations, and punishments and taped them to the refrigerator door. (No TV for a week?  Was she kidding?)

          One day, shortly after my confirmation as a Lutheran at age 13, I headed home from church early and ran into my mother coming out of a Spanish Mass at the nearby Catholic church.  I was shocked.  When I left for church most mornings, my mother was dressed in a nightgown.  When I came home in the afternoon, she was often wearing denim shorts and a tube top and listening to Celia Cruz while lovingly cleaning the glass étagère and coffee table in our living room.  I thought nothing happened between the time I left the house and when I returned.

          “What are you doing here?” I asked, as indignant as if I had caught her in the midst of an affair.

          “I’m a Catholic,” my mother answered.

          “Since when?” I asked.  I thought there was nothing about my mother that I did not know.

          “All my life,” my mother said.

          “And what about me?” I asked.

          “You’re not Catholic,” my mother answered.  “You’re a Lutheran.”

          We walked home together in a silence that was, for me, thick with unspoken questions.  I wasn’t yet old enough to figure out what to ask.

          Over the years, I came to understand that my mother had found Catholicism old-fashioned.  Yet she regularly attended lunchtime Masses near her office, and Spanish Mass was a familiar treat, full of the language of her patria, home country.  In time, I shifted from the Lutheran Church to the Presbyterian Church, where I was married and recently baptized my baby daughter.  My mother is still a loyal but questioning Catholic.  My brother became a Muslim, and my favorite aunt is a Buddhist.  When we get together as a family, we pray with the rare harmony of people who truly believe that God is where you find Him, Her, Them.

          After September 11, a good girlfriend called me.  As a child, her father had declared that religion was a sham and the family would never attend church.  In the days after the towers fell, my friend wanted desperately to join a group in worship but didn’t know where to go.  Her father had closed religion off to her, and every time she thought about entering a church, she heard his voice.  Even in her 30s, she felt spiritually paralyzed, as though she would betray him if she became a believer herself.

          Now that I’m a new mom, I realize the rare gift my mother gave me: She taught me that spirituality is important and made it my choice.  Although I take my daughter to church, keep a Bible by her crib, and swaddle her in praise songs, I am looking forward to the day when I can tell Flora what my mother told me.  “Vaya con Dios,” I will say-wherever you find Him, Her, Them, that’s where you should be.