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Performance
Jazz Joints:
Painful memories become art in Side Man.
Books
Taking the Outside In:
Molly Gloss' historical novel satisfies. PLUS: Booknotes.
Gardening
Moving On:
The most forward-looking, hopeful thing we can do now is to plant something.
Morsels
Alpha Raves:
Mini-reviews of area dining spots.
Jazz Joints
Painful memories become
art in Side Man.
By Aria
Seligmann
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Gene (Mike Hawkins)
and his wife, Terry (Kathy LaMontagne).
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It's been a tougher than usual retrograde Mercury. The can opener,
vacuum cleaner and VCR broke within days of each other. A friend who was coming from
Finland for a years overdue visit can't get a flight out of his country. We're supposed
to make sense out of bombs dropping and food packets making up for it. At last Friday's
opening of Side Man, the usual chatty opening-night gatherers were subdued,
and when a friend I'd been looking forward to talking to mentioned Sept. 11, I couldn't
think of a single thing to say.
Warren Leight, Side Man's Tony-award-winning author, couldn't
think up the words to tell his story for 20 years. So much pain and emotion overlaid
them that the notes just wouldn't flow, 'til one day it all clicked into some sort
of rhythm and out spewed his autobiography: his parents' dysfunctional marriage and
equally screwed up divorce, his jazz musician father's dispassionate existence, save
for when he was onstage with lips pressed against trumpet; his mother's disheartening
insanity.
Twenty-nine-year-old Clifford Glimmer (Jesse Lally) is the narrator,
on his way to the West Coast to pursue his painting career. Before he goes, he bids
farewell to the father he hasn't seen since he kicked him out of his mother's house
five years before. Thus ensues the memory play, Clifford's wandering in and out of
scenes evoking his father's life as a side man, a for-hire jazz musician during the
1950s; a time when jazz went from popular to passé.
By entering that life and trying to understand it, Clifford undergoes
the necessary catharsis to leave behind his painful childhood and begin his own artistic
life. There is no question the story is Leight's own healing journey.
Side Man explores relationships: husband/wife; father/son;
bandmates/friends. While Clifford's parents, Gene (Mike Hawkins) and Terry (Kathy
LaMontagne), are angry, bitter and ultimately, apart, they still love each other,
even though neither was ever cut out to be a decent spouse.
The bandmates, Al (Richard Leebrick), Ziggy (Greg Foote) and Jonesy
(John Muellner), are as tight as bandmates can get; they do everything together:
collect unemployment, smoke dope, drink, dine and even share the same woman.
The ensemble work by these actors is quite good; each character
is actually a caricature: the womanizer, the lovable goofball, the junkie. The woman
they share is Patsy (Marla Norton), the local diner's waitress. Norton turns in a
believable, sincere performance as the woman who leads Clifford in and out of each
scene, offering compassion and understanding, as surely she does to each of the musicians
no one else puts up with at least as long as she can stand them.
Kathy LaMontagne is good as Terry, bringing her to the point of
insanity. It's a very difficult role and she almost seemed to break character at
a moment of sheer hysteria but recovered to portray a woman beaten down, boozing,
bloodied by her husband's emotional abandonment.
While the script calls for some distance between Gene and Clifford,
director Mike Fisher chooses to expand that relationship and show a stronger father/son
connection throughout. To make it work, however, Jesse Lally and Mike Hawkins need
to pick up the energy and keep the momentum going, even though it's clear Clifford
and Gene are both low-key characters.
Gene is obviously a mellow guy, detached from the rest of the world
save for his music and his buddies. But Hawkins doesn't manage to show Gene's passion
for music; his performance is too low energy and so low volume that many of his lines
were lost, making the action very difficult to follow for those not familiar with
the script.
For those who can hang in there and follow the plot, the exploration
of relationships is quite profound, as is the mystery of how the love of any two
people: father/son, husband/wife, bandmates/friends, can remain, even though everything
around them changes.
Leight teaches a grand lesson for now; he reaches back into a 20-year
struggle with his own dark past to find words that shed light, managing to turn a
time of deep pain into a piece of lasting art.
Side Man continues at Lord Leebrick Theatre through Oct.
27.
Back to Top
Taking the Outside
In
Molly Gloss' historical
novel satisfies.
By Cecelia Hagen
WILD LIFE by Molly Gloss. Houghton
Mifflin, 2001. Paperback, $13.
Molly Gloss's new book, Wild Life, is a genre-buster. A
mixture of adventure-fantasy novel, historical fiction, make-believe ironic memoir
and tall tale, this generous, lyrical book is about the surprises that the human
spirit harbors and reveals at the breaking points in our lives.
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2001 Oregon
Book Award Finalists
Literary Arts Announces List
Hazel Hall Award for Poetry
Judge: Maxine Kumin
Karen Braucher of Portland, Sending Messages Over Inconceivable
Distances, The Bacchae Press
Tom Bremer of Portland, Just Once, Lynx House Press
Dorianne Laux of Eugene, Smoke, BOA Editions, Ltd.
Ralph Salisbury of Eugene, Rainbows of Stone, University of Arizona
Press
Floyd Skloot of Amity, The Evening Light, Story Line Press
H.L Davis Award for Fiction
Judge: Dorothy Allison
Barry Lopez of Finn Rock, Light Action in the Caribbean,
Alfred A. Knopf
Phillip Margolin of Portland, Wild Justice, HarperCollins
Mark Jude Poirier of Portland, Goats, Talk Miramax books
Doe Tabor of Eugene, Do Drums Beat There, New Victoria Publishers
Molly Best Tinsley of Ashland, Throwing Knives, The Ohio State University
Press
Frances Fuller Victor Award for Literary Nonfiction
Judge: Kathleen Norris
Larry Colton of Portland, Counting Coup, Warner Books
Chanrithy Him of Eugene, When Broken Glass Floats, W.W. Norton &
Co.
Lauren Kessler of Eugene, The Happy Bottom Riding Club, Random House
Sidner Larson of Eugene, Captured in the Middle, University of Washington
Press
Jennifer Lauck of Portland, Blackbird, Pocket Books
Angus L. Bowmer Award for Drama
Judge: Doug Grissom
Dori Appel of Ashland, Lost and Found
Timothy E. Craig of McMinnville, Oregon Dawn
Charles Deemer of Portland, Seven Plays
Nancy Masaitis of Portland, Awe and Wonder
Barbara Pongracz of Lake Oswego, 3rd Time's the Charm
Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Readers
Judge: Carol Otis Hurst
Virginia Euwer Wolff of Oregon City, True Believer,
Atheneum/Simon & Schuster
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A fourth-generation Oregonian, Gloss makes a habit of delving into
unexpected territory in her work. Previous books include Jump-Off Creek about
a woman going it alone on a homestead in Eastern Oregon and The Dazzle of Day,
which describes a band of Quakers who colonize a new planet. Wild Life digs
deep into each area it touches, giving the reader a satisfying and educational journey
into a world that, in the end, looks very much like our own.
Set in southwest Washington at the turn of the 20th century, Wild
Life describes the daily life of its unconventional protagonist, Charlotte Drummond.
Charlotte supports her five sons by writing pot-boilers that are "more profitable
and less arduous to write" than the fine literature she admires. She also keeps
a journal, and her story is presented to us mainly through this very personal record
of her thoughts and adventures.
Interspersed with the journal entries are newspaper clippings and
bits of Charlotte's published and unpublished writings that give us a glimpse of
the world of 1905 Washington and show us how Charlotte's work was influenced by her
observations and experiences. Charlotte describes herself as "a woman of queer
and scandalous habits." She enjoys eliciting derisive hoots from the local farmers
when she dresses like a man and pedals her trusty bicycle into town. But her writing
reveals a thoughtful woman who resents being hemmed in by boundaries that she can
only partly transcend.
When her housekeeper's granddaughter goes missing in the deep woods,
rumor has it that the girl was snatched by a giant wild ape. Charlotte refuses to
accept the woman's lot of "Waiting for Word." Instead, she journeys upriver
to join one of the rough-and-tumble search crews. When severe storms separate her
from the others, her real adventure begins. In spite of her stamina and courage,
Charlotte weakens and begins to imagine or does she really see? a family of the
fabled mountain creatures. Even in this state, she keeps her diary: "I shall
be glad if no one reads this, for I must write what cannot be written. [M]y only
help is in these pages, where I take myself to heal grievous wounds."
The wounds she refers to are more psychic than physical. In the
end, the wisecracking and sometimes not compassionate Charlotte is transformed by
her adventures into a woman with a much greater understanding of life, her own wildness
and the "unthinkable voids" in the human heart. Her writing improves. As
the granddaughter who writes (to her sister) at the beginning of the book says, Charlotte's
writing and her reputation "turned a corner" after she returned from the
woods.
The book's rich textures exist because Gloss performed copious
research, which she referred to in a recent phone interview as "endless, endless
book learnin'." Wild Life shows you exactly what a Northwest logging
camp looked like nearly 100 years ago, how it operated, what the social expectations
were. But even more enjoyable than its authenticity and her craft is the stunning
imagination at work in this book and the eloquent, lyrical voice in which the story
is told.
Gloss will read from Wild Life at 7:30 pm Oct. 11, upstairs
at the UO Bookstore, which will be open until 9 pm every Thursday. Gloss will read
a new short story, "Lambing Season," at 7 pm Nov. 20, upstairs at the Eugene
Public Library, along with poet Maxine Scates, who will read from recent work.
Book Notes:
Mollie Gloss reads from Wild Life at 7:30 pm Oct. 11, UO Bookstore (upstairs).
...Karla McLaren, author of Emotional Genius, will read and conduct
a workshop from 6-9 pm Oct. 12 at Amazon Community Center (344-0620). $30/$15 students,
seniors. ...Native American (Menominee) poet, artist and activist Chyrystos
reads at 2 pm on Oct. 14 in Mother Kali's Books. ...Eugene writer Leslie What
and poet Jane Bailey read at 7 pm Oct. 16 upstairs at the Eugene Public
Library. ...Oregon poets Bill Deemer, Jeff Meyers, Judith
H. Montgomery, Primus St. John and George Venn will read from their
work to launch the Poetry in Motion project at noon on Oct. 16 in the park blocks
at PSU, Portland. ...Poet Susan Wood, whose latest collection, Asunder,
was selected last year for the National Poetry Series, reads at 8 pm on Oct. 18 in
the Knight Library Browsing Room, UO. ...Chen Mei reads from her work, Come
Watch the Sun Go Home, at noon on Oct. 22, Knight Library Browsing Room. ...Alison
Clement will read from her novel, Pretty Is As Pretty Does, at 7:30 pm
Oct. 23 in Knight Library Browsing Room. ...Martin Prechtel, author of The
Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun: Ecstasy and Time, reads at 7 pm Oct.
25 in Tsunami Books. ...Oregon Book Award finalists read at 7:30 pm Oct. 26
in Tsunami Books (see box.) ...A Halloween book signing of Dead on Demand: The
Best of Ghost Story Weekend features many local writers at 7 pm on Oct. 27 at
Barnes & Noble. ... Weekly open poetry readings at 5 pm Oct. 13 and Oct. 27 at
Tsunami Books. ...Paula Prober (Ten Tips for Women Who Want to Change the
World Without Losing Their Friends, Shirts or Minds) reads at 7:30 pm Nov. 1,
UO Bookstore. Tango dancing will follow. ...CALYX celebrates its 25th Anniversary
Gala beginning at 6:30 pm Nov. 1 in Corvallis. Tickets are $25. (541) 753-9384. ...Featured
reader Robert Benefiel reads poetry at 5 pm Nov. 3 at Tsunami Books. ...Patricia
Hampl reads at 8 pm on Nov. 8 in Gerlinger Alumni Lounge, UO. ...James Welch
reads Nov. 8, time and place TBA ...2001 Oregon Book Awards presented at 7:30
pm Nov. 8 at the Scottish Rite Center in Portland. Tickets are $15. Former award
winner Peter Ho Davies will preside. Call (503) 227-2538.
Back to Top
Moving On
The most forward-looking,
hopeful thing we can do now is to plant something.
By Rachel
Foster
Lodged as it is between summer and fall, September is a slow month
in the garden. It is too dry to plant, too soon to cut things down. Like many people
who were spared the loss of a friend or family member on Sept. 11, I was ready, after
a week or so, to try to move on with my life. I wished I had something more physical,
less mentally demanding to do than the handful of design jobs I had lined up for
September. I wanted to work outside. Then, exactly two weeks after the first plane
hit the World Trade Center, I awoke to the sound of rain. Serious, soil-restoring
rain. I took it as assurance that fall is on the way and life will indeed go on.
I imagine people have been finding solace in gardening for as long
as there have been gardens. Gardening has so many dimensions. It offers the comfort
of mindless yet useful tasks like weeding, that you can do even with a head full
of tears. It provides the oddly comforting perspective that comes from working in
and around nature, which doesn't need you at all. At the same time, it gives ordinary
people opportunities to work with nature to create extraordinary beauty. Gardens
also offer the comfort of endless small memorials: the grave of a pet, the shrub
you planted the week you lost a friend, the plant you received as a gift from an
old lady up the street who will, as a result of her trouble and generosity, be remembered
as long as you live.
Best of all, gardening looks forward, as well as back, and autumn
is a forward-looking season. I always think of October as a beginning in the garden
year. There are so many things you can do in October, while the weather is pleasant
and the soil is workable. Constructing paths and arbors, making flower beds and new
compost heaps, renovating lawns, or simply routine stuff like cutting down plants
so you can weed and mulch and make things tidy for winter and ready for next spring.
All these things are more easily done now than in the soggy (we should hope!) days
of March and April. But the most forward-looking, hopeful thing we can do now is
to plant something. Sow some sweet peas. Buy some daffodil bulbs. Or plant a tree.
There is no surer statement of faith in the future than that.
It's not difficult to plant a tree, especially if you choose a
specimen you can handle easily. Small trees are good value anyway, because quite
often they grow faster, initially, than big ones. Dig a hole that is the same depth
as the root ball and about three times as wide. If you dig a deeper hole, the tree
may sink after planting, and that would not be good. Even on a small tree you should
be able to find a point at which the trunk flares out into the root system. That
flare should remain visible at ground level. If the depth looks right, untie and
loosen any burlap and push it to the bottom of the hole. Replace the soil and pack
it down with your hands so there are no air pockets. Then water thoroughly, and mulch
if you like. Early next spring, spread a cup of all-purpose organic fertilizer over
the root area.
Another cheering thing to do in fall is to put something green
in any container that's going to be outside in full view all winter. Empty tubs look
desolate, and small evergreen shrubs and trees are often on sale in October. There
are many possible choices, from inexpensive baby arbor-vitae to winter-flowering
camellias, full of buds. Plants I've particularly liked in containers include an
Australian shrub with small, leathery leaves and reddish stems (Drimys lanceolata,
from Bloomer's), distinctive rhododendrons such as 'Golfer' and the upright R.
racemosum, various dwarf forms of Hinoki cypress and, of course, boxwood.
If your tubs have any protection from the elements, you might add
a few pansies or violas. Otherwise, how about a few small bulbs? Crocus and glory
of the snow (chionodoxa) work nicely. When the leaves die down, you can put the little
bulbs in the garden. Other, showier bulbs like to grow in containers, too. Some like
it so much you will want to leave them there for a few years. Lilies, in particular,
are crazy about life above ground, as long as it provides plenty of space and the
loose soil and excellent drainage they crave. If you have a 14-inch container that
isn't doing anything much and you've never grown lilies in a pot, and I urge you
to try it. I don't think you will be disappointed.
Back to Top
Alpha Raves
Mini-reviews of area
dining spots.
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Glenwood Cafe.
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Alpha-Bit
10780 Highway 126, Mapleton, 268-4311
Overheard at Alpha-Bit: "Good is a judgment call, but perfect is a state of
mind." After a windy, damp day in the sand, this is a great place to rise above
judgment. Good, cheap coffee, rosehips tea, hearty flavorful meals, homemade pies
with whipped cream or Prince Puckler's ice cream, conveniently located 14 miles from
the coast.
The Alpha "intentional community" opened this restaurant
in 1972, with arts and crafts and books for sale surrounding the tables. The food
brings nutrition and flavor together in pleasant and unusual ways: bio-diverse salads,
falafel flavored Alphaburgers.
10 am-6 pm Sun.-Th., 10 am-9 pm Fri., 10 am-10 pm Sat. $
Broadway Market
200 W. Broadway, 685-0790
New Frontier's latest effort mixes up vegetarian and carnivorous deli selections
in an attempt to catch that downtown lunch crowd. The feel is eco-urban-industrial,
loud, busy, smelling like a soon-to-be-sated appetite.
Your best bets are the sandwiches, or a bowl of soup if you're
in a hurry and the place is crowded. Try big flat bowls of creamy butternut squash
or complicated minestrone. The deli cases are filled with fancy salads and chicken
skewers, prawns in various sauces, lasagnas, or a popular Chinese Tofu Noodle salad.
Perhaps the nicest part is wandering the rest of the store for
a soda, some chips, a fresh fruit or some Euphoria chocolate: local items in a convenient
setting.
7 am-9:30 pm M-F, 7 am-8 pm Sat.-Sun. $
The Glenwood Restaurant
2588 Willamette St. & 1340 Alder St.
687-8201, 465-3860
Often with bustling atmospheres, Eugene's two Glenwood restaurants feature nearly
identical menues of American cuisine, and that means international. Dig a Mediterranean
scramble, scarf an Asian stir-fry or gum a burrito at either of their two locations.
One could weight-lift the menus. Meat-eaters and vegetarians are both held holy,
and exceptional service outweighs the short wait on crowded weekend mornings. The
Eggs Benedict is the best in town, as is the tomato-cheese soup. No reservations.
Outside seating available, barring torrential rains.
6:30 am-9 pm weekdays, 7 am-9 pm weekends. Breakfast available
until 5 pm everyday. $$
House of Noodle
860 Pearl Street, 686-1114
Upon entering, a variety of smells awaits: fish sauce, lime juice, mint, sizzling
meat. Asian diner decor, lunch crowd packing the booths, a couple laughingly picking
noodles off their baby.
This is co-owners Michelle Tran and Matt Pham's first restaurant
venture, but he's been cooking in the family restaurant in L.A. for a lifetime and
seems to know the value of freshness and service. They opened about two months ago
with plenty of Vietnamese dishes and a couple of Chinese favorites.
The most popular dish is the Pho, or beef noodle soup, with optional
meat, and fresh garnishes including beautiful purple-stemmed basil, jalapeno, and
lime. The lemon grass chicken is also very nice and full of spice, as are the (non-vegetarian)
fresh salad rolls with mild peanut sauce.
11 am-9 pm M-Sat., 11 am-6 pm Sun., take-out. $$-$
EDITOR'S NOTE: Morsels is a new feature that tries to capture the
atmosphere as well as the cuisine at our favorite places to eat in and around Eugene,
all in 100 or so words. Suggestions? Call Ben or Marina at 484-0519.
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