Things I Learned This Week

The Gleaners, Rushdie, Barrios, Herb Albert, and My Name is Inigo Montoya

I missed a day, but Spring Break has already started, so what am I even doing here!?! How is the MFA search going? Well…. so far three acceptances, two waitlists, and too many rejections to count. But life goes on, and I get better and better. Decision time is near. Headed to San Miguel de Allende for a few days of respite, but in the meantime, here’s some facts I picked up along the way.

Learned what it means to glean. "The Gleaners" is by Jean-François Millet, painted in 1857, depicting three peasant women gleaning after the harvest. This is a little art history 101, but regardless, I knew of this painting but did not know that in France it’s legal to enter private farmland after it’s been harvested and take what’s left. There is an excellent documentary called The Gleaners and I about the history of gleaning in France and the evolution of what that means today. Highly recommend.

Salman Rushdie is really, really funny. Every year, I attend the San Antonio Book Festival luncheon, and this year, he was the speaker, talking about his book Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder which chronicles his attack onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in 2022. It’s about what happened and its aftermath and is also a love story about his (fifth) wife, Eliza, who was by his side through the recovery. The book is so far so good, but as a person speaking onstage about a horrific act, he’s filled to the brim with levity and humor. Was an afternoon well spent.

In Shakespeare, we read Gregg Barrios’ critically acclaimed two-act drama I-DJ. A San Antonio writer, Barrios passed away a few years ago, and now I’m sorry I never got to know him. The play is very loosely written around Hamlet, but it covers the gay scene in Los Angeles from the point of view of a Chicano during the height of the AIDS crisis. It is also written around the musical history of A&M Records, founded by Herb Albert of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. It’s a fabulous play, but going face to face with Whipped Cream and Other Delights took me right back to my childhood, as that risqué album cover was mandatory elementary school fodder for anyone my age. Sadly, in the play, Barrios reveals that it was actually shaving cream and not whipped cream they used to make the iconic image, which is kind of a bummer.

I took my sister to a screening of The Princess Bride, which was followed by a Q&A with Cary Elwes who played Westley. Man, that is a perfect movie. And it was awesome to see it in a performance center with people totally into it, reacting to the screen. Plus, Cary is a charming delight, with lots of great stories about Andre the Giant and his epic farts. Pro tip: the next time you encounter Wallace Shawn on the street in New York (which, if you spend any time there, you inevitably will), under no circumstances say to him INCONCEIVABLE. The dude is sick of it, but apparently, Mandy Patinkin doesn’t mind exclaiming, “My name is Inigo Montoya…” so have at it!

Quote of the week?

“To be or not to be: a Dane or a Dame? That is the question! Whether 'tis nobler in mind to endure the shitty masses who look askance at deviations from the norm, and cannot comprehend the peccadilloes of those who in their lives do not conform to the method of those squares who nightly would bare buck and grunt and sweat atop a frigid wife, from such calamity, Oh fates, spare me, from such a dreary life.”

— Gregg Barrios from I-DJ

‘Til Tuesday! (Maybe... but it is Spring Break and Mexico!)

Burgin

(I’m finishing college at 50+, follow along and read my story here.)