Go On and Hate Me: The Remarkable Handling of Pity in Jean Rhys’ Voyage in the Dark

I have a craft essay on Jean Rhys’ “Voyage in the Dark” now up at Fiction Writers Review:

“My violent objection to the notion of “unlikeable characters” began in fall 1996, in a UC Santa Barbara literature seminar. I was 20 years old and on the edge of a near-suicidal breakdown, having thrown myself for a full year at Eric, my elusive not-quite-boyfriend, while also fighting repressed childhood memories of my father’s sudden death. The professor for “Readings in the Novel” was an avuncular, brandy-voiced novelist from the Caribbean–what a lovely, safe escape from my obsessions this class would be. Then, on the second day of class, in walked Eric. Painful honesty compels me to report that I hoped this marked a fateful new chapter for us, and I adjusted the strap of my tank top to reveal more shoulder.

Fortunately, Eric was a lazy, mostly absent student. Did he show up the day we discussed Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark? I feel like he did, but back in those days I lived with an illicitly thrilling and demented sensation that Eric was always with me, so it’s hard to remember.

What I remember best is the other students’ reaction to Voyage in the Dark’s narrator, Anna Morgan, a stand-in for Jean Rhys’s younger self, and a girl who, ahem, throws herself shamelessly at her lover and longs to die, while fighting repressed childhood memories of her father’s sudden death. “She’s pathetic,” the other students said. “She’s just a victim.” “There’s nothing you can like about her. She just seems like a waste of time.”

They weren’t just talking about Anna. They were talking about me.

I burned with shame but also with a vague sense of vindication, because I knew that Rhys’s third novel, published in 1934, was not just good. It was great. Most people know Rhys for Wide Sargasso Sea, her final novel, which resurrected her reputation in 1966 after she had disappeared from the literary world for more than two decades. Wide Sargasso Sea, a “prequel” to Jane Eyre set in Rhys’ childhood West Indies, is more academia-friendly, laced with “inter-textuality” and featuring a “colonialist setting.” But Voyage in the Dark is better.”

Click here to keep reading.

Screaming Essays that Sing

I reviewed Elena Passarello’s “Let Me Clear My Throat” for the Rumpus:

“Confession: I spend a lot of time hanging out in a dive piano bar in Oakland, and I can just imagine Elena Passarello, author of a quality new collection of essays about the human voice, walking in. A former actress and winner of the 2011 Stella Screaming Contest (a quirky credit she leans on a little too hard in her book), she’d set her Scotch on the piano and quietly size the other singers up. She’d meekly wait her turn, but as soon as that mike got in her hands, she’d suck in enough breath to power a category five hurricane. Then she’d sing from the gut with the same brute voice you will hear on the page when she analyzes “ripped to shit phonemes” or describes Robert Plant’s flat F in the fifth octave as “a double backflip of sex and longing that nails its ten-point landing, twice.”

If Elena Passarello walked into the Alley, I’d think, I sure hope that annoyingly loud girl will do her thing, get her rocks off, and leave.

But Passarello on the page is another matter, an informative, insightful, inviting guide to the bizarreness of our vocal being. I picked up her new collection, Let Me Clear My Throat because I wanted to learn about the complex physiognomy of the voice—this full-body instrument of larynx, epiglottis, cords, sinuses, diaphragm, lungs, and more. And I found Passarello’s essays a wonderfully literary way to gain this education, while absorbing the life tales of a few great crooners, actors, and sportscasters besides.

Her essays on singers strike me as especially smartly structured. She builds her consideration of Frank Sinatra’s genius, titled “Teach Me Tonight,” upon the sections of a guide to popular singing published in the forties by Sinatra’s vocal coach: Preface, General Instructions, and Mouth Positions UH, AYE, EE, and OO. Did you know that Sinatra created his style by modifying Bing Crosby’s “plucky AH” into an UH sound? That, as Passarello writes, “The sonic thrill of any yodel is a vocal byproduct that Sinatra learned to mask early on: the rough ‘break’ in the voice as it pops from chest to head” on an EE? That, after a strep diagnosis, Sinatra “spent a week of vocal rest in an oxygen chamber, miming hand signals to his valet” and that he “suffered a ‘submucosal hemorrhage’ onstage at the Copa”?

Perhaps Passarello is strongest when connecting the blood-and-sinew science of singing to the emotional self-sacrifice of artistry.”

Click here to keep reading.

Rounding the Bend

On New Year’s day here in Swannanoa, North Carolina, my husband Dave and I turned to each other and said in unexpected unison, “Kind of overwhelming.”

We meant the taking stock, how much had changed. Never would we have thought, two years ago, that we would drop everything and move from California to North Carolina—after just three months of dating—so that I could accept my first job teaching writing to undergraduates at Warren Wilson College. Never would we have thought that we would marry almost as soon as we’d hauled our crate of books and clothes and records (and more books) into the attic apartment on the edge of campus. Never had we guessed that marrying—putting on a suit and a dress and driving down to the Buncombe County Court House—would feel as natural and easy as reading together beneath a beech tree in the sunshine (which is how we spent our first day of married life). Never could I have imagined the wild and free-spirited students who would bring peeing puppies to class, or turn in drafts of such intense insight that I had to stop them in front of the dining hall to babble in admiration. Never did Dave expect that he would paint full-time in a studio in Asheville’s River Arts District, that during his evenings home he would become (to my taste buds) a gourmet chef. Never had we pictured ourselves, on a typical night off, canning homemade preserves before settling in to watch a documentary on Louise Bourgeois.

But when Dave and I spontaneously symphonized about being overwhelmed, we were mostly thinking—with impatience and trepidation—about 2013, the year ahead.

I came to Warren Wilson on a one-year fellowship; I stayed an extra year to fill in for a professor on sabbatical, and to serve as interim director of the undergraduate creative writing department. The time has been well-spent: I’ve become an experienced writing teacher, I’ve written many new stories and essays and nearly completed revisions on a novel, I’ve built relationships with students whose work I believe in, I’ve taken classical voice lessons and joined a church choir. But after this spring semester—which starts January 22nd and is sure to pass in a blur—it’s time to come home.

Home to Oakland. And to my Bay Area life: Grace Cathedral, the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, art modeling, the San Francisco Ballet and LevyDance and Scott Wells and Dancers and LINES and ODC and all the other Bay Area dance companies I adore. Time to come home to my beloved piano bar, The Alley, to Rod Dibble, the Alley’s 80-year-old piano player, a modern saint, to my best friend Elizabeth and my 94-year-old singing sidekick Harold, to my mother and my brother and to Dave’s family, too.

I won’t be coming back to a full-time job, and even though I’m terrified about health care, I’m happier freelancing. I’m not sure how Dave and I are going to piece everything back together. I do know a few things:

–I’ll be sharing an office at the Writers’ Grotto, and teaching there when the crowded classes lineup allows.

–I’ll be teaching a summer course for Stanford Continuing Studies’ Online Writers Studio, a gig I especially love.

–I’ll be writing about Bay Area dance again, for various outlets. I hope to build back up to a steady dance criticism practice.

–I’ll be modeling for artists again. I miss many of the artists I got to know, so much.

–I’ll be returning to Grace Cathedral, my spiritual home.

–I’ll be spending my nights singing at the Alley, as much as possible.

–I’ll be working on new short stories, and keeping my discipline of regular fiction writing hours.

Thrilling, overwhelming—but Dave and I have our trust and our teamwork. In the meanwhile, I’m nervous and excited about the Advanced Nonfiction class I’m teaching at Warren Wilson this semester (textbooks: James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son, Marguerite Duras’ The Lover). I know astonishing pages from my Warren Wilson students await. And on the other side: home. See you there.

Fiction Techniques for Literary Journalism

I had such an inspiring time at UC Berkeley’s “East Meets West” journalism conference that I’m still thinking about it a month later.

I taught a workshop on “Fiction Techniques for Nonfiction Writers,” in which we read Jo Ann Beard’s ever-astonishing and instructive personal essay “The Fourth State of Matter” and analyzed her way with 1) controlled release of information, 2) character vs. narrator point of view, 3) zoom out to external or “cosmic” POV, 4) image, 5) organic form and–the big driver of all these–6) theme.

I sent the workshop participants a list of recommended further reading–essentially, a shortlist of the books and articles that had informed my teaching–and it now occurs to me that I might as well also post it here. In brief:

Rachel’s recommended reading:

Charles Baxter, “The Art of Subtext” (book)

Peter Turchi, “You and I Know, Order Is Everything”:

http://fictionwritersreview.com/essays/you-and-i-know-order-is-everything-from-the-2010-awp-panel-what-to-say-and-when-to-say-it

Ellen Collett, “Inflection and the Narrative Voice: The LAPD Teaches Creative Writing”:

http://www.ellencollett.com/pdfs/EHC_Writers_Chronicle_dec_2010_lr.pdf

Eileen Pollack, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Theme,” AWP Writers Chronicle, May 2010 (email me if you would like a PDF)

Vivian Gornick, “The Situation and the Story” (book)

And finally, Peter Turchi’s excellent list of resources:

http://www.peterturchi.com/resources.php#top

East Meets West Narrative Journalism Conference

I’m excited to briefly return West in November to teach a workshop at the East Meets West conference for literary journalists at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Just check out this lineup:

Monika Bauerlein (Mother Jones)
Alan Burdick (The New Yorker)
Thomas Curwen (The Los Angeles Times)
Adam Hochschild (To End All Wars, Bury the Chains)
Nina Martin (San Francisco magazine)
Vanessa Mobley (Broadway Books)
Peggy Northrop (WorkReimagined.org, Reader’s Digest)
Evan Ratliff (The Atavist)
Danielle Svetcov (Levine Greenberg Literary Agency)
John Tayman (Founder and CEO, Byliner.com)
Oscar Villalon (Zyzzyva)
Bill Wasik (Wired)
Ted Weinstein (Ted Weinstein Literary Management)

And many other great writers and editors–full details here.

Losing Things

I have a new personal essay published today on the beautiful and intellectually adventurous site Berfrois. The essay is, loosely, about art modeling, lost rings, nakedness, reconciliation to death, and identity. I hope you might enjoy. You can read it here.

Get in Front Performance Gala

Anyone who attends San Francisco Ballet knows that the dancers regularly do spectacular and inspiring things at the War Memorial Opera House, but we aren’t often aware of the feats they accomplish off-stage. In their spare time between company class, rehearsal, a packed performance season, and touring, SF Ballet soloists Garen Scribner and James Sofranko—both touched by cancer diagnoses within their families—decided to produce a benefit for the Cancer Prevention Institute of California. The first-ever Get in Front Performance gala on June 6th sold out the Herbst Theater and raised $100,000 for cancer research. Besides this service to public health, the show provided an ancillary service to the Bay Area dance scene by bringing together 33 dancers who truly rank among this country’s top artists, representing 11 local companies.

San Francisco Ballet was represented in abundance, and its stars were dependably astonishing: Yuan Yuan Tan and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba in the uber-elegant opening duet of Helgi Tomasson’s Bach suite “7 for 8;” Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada in a tender section of Christopher Wheeldon’s “Within the Golden Hour;” Sarah Van Patten giving a thoroughly felt rendition of the climactic “I Can Dream Can’t I?” solo from Paul Taylor’s “Company B,” a role in which her awareness of the wartime gravitas shaping the work’s context is unparalleled. Frances Chung and Matthew Stewart also pitched in, lending artful commitment to a sturdy if generic post-modern duet by Sofranko.

The standouts from other companies shone just as brightly. Katherine Wells of Robert Moses’ Kin was the evening’s greatest highlight, lending virtuosic fluency to Moses’ signature hip-hop inflected ballet language in the 1998 solo “Doscognio,” which had her squiggling her knees and rolling her spine to the strains of Chopin’s sonata for cello and piano. AXIS Dance Company’s Sonsheree Giles and Rodney Bell also burned themselves into memory with their extraordinarily intimate duet from Alex Ketley’s “To Color Me Different.” And the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company closed the evening with a densely layered section from her recent “Light Moves,” with Ryan T. Smith sphinx-like, imperturbably balanced.

Then, too, there was the evening’s major discovery: tall, outrageously supple Babatunji Johnson, in a roiling solo by former LINES Ballet dancer Maurya Kerr. The costuming—street-ready black trousers paired with red T-shirt and green vest—was perhaps more inspired than the choreography in the way the clothes made Johnson’s tip-toe twistings appear spontaneous and casual.

It was also pleasing, symbolically, to see Smuin Ballet in an excerpt from former SF Ballet leader Michael Smuin’s “Tango Palace,” and to feel that any old rifts had been fully healed. Also donating their talents were members of Ballet San Jose, Zhukov Dance Theater, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, LINES Ballet, and ODC/Dance. I left the performance feeling we must be in a golden age of Bay Area dance. The evening was a total success, and I hope it will become an annual event.

Savage Jazz and Menlowe Ballet

It was good to continue catching up with the Bay Area dance scene at the June 1st performance of Savage Jazz Dance Company’s “Dances for Oakland” at Laney College, especially with Menlowe Ballet sharing the program. This new company, based in Menlo Park, is led by Michael Lowe (hence the troupe’s punny name). Lowe was a star at Oakland Ballet during that company’s glory days of reconstructing Ballets Russes masterpieces, and proved himself a serious talent in choreography with his early pieces for Oakland Ballet about a decade ago. But then Oakland Ballet began the wild ride of its many foldings and pale reincarnations, and Lowe lost his vehicle.

He’s back strong now. In “Plague,” an eight-dancer suite set to a hodge-podge of string music (including, it must be said, some overly trod pieces by Arvo Part and Christopher Tye), the Menlowe Ballet stacks up beautifully against local chamber ballet groups such as Company C Contemporary Ballet, and even Smuin Ballet. The dancers, many longtime Lowe disciples, dance with sharp, controlled intention. Their stylistic consistency and ensemble synchronicity is especially impressive for such a recently formed group. They move as one school of sleek, muscled fish.

“Plague” was not my favorite ballet I’ve seen from Lowe, but it called upon all his skills, and I especially enjoyed the steps’ driving rhythm and syncopation, and the flashes of inventive folksy arms. Lowe has a gift for making his phrases just novel enough to be interesting, not so dense that the gestures lose meaning. And he always constructs his ballets around a narrative arc. This time the vague story revolved around an imposing man-creature in the form of broad-shouldered Damon Mahoney, who seems to both terrify and enchant the women, especially Mariko Takahashi in black. The partnering had Mahoney clutching the women by their necks. In an especially memorable phrase, Takahashi lunged her head towards the waiting vice of Mahoney’s hands, like a magnet resisting the charge, and then lost her battle against the attraction right as Mahoney retracted his hands, so that she flung her whole body upon his chest.

Like Lowe, Reginald Ray Savage is tremendously skilled at identifying talent and forging committed artists. The public Oakland School of the Arts is fortunate to have him at the head of their dance program. I can only imagine the demands on his time and energy teaching high school students, but it makes sense that he would not have much space left to develop his choreography, as seemed the case Friday.

Savage Jazz Dance Company’s Jarrod Mayo.

The smattering of pieces on display mostly called upon stock gestures—reaching to the sky and trembling, hands held in prayer. Formal development was scant. It was entertaining to note the influence of George Balanchine’s tense duets from “Agon,” recast with Savage’s vocabulary of turned-in lunges.

The standout exception was the closing “Meetings Along the Edge,” in which the pulsating music of Philip Glass apparently inspired greater structural inventiveness and some memorable hand-wagging motifs. The dancers, always high-octane, went into overdrive. Young Jarrod Mayo uses every muscle at all times, with the result that he can freeze in the air and slash through space with equal joyous force. He is something special, to be sure—and anyone entranced by him owes great thanks to Reginald Ray Savage for guiding the beauty of his dancing into the world.

San Francisco Ballet School 2012

I’m very happy to be back in the Bay Area for summer break, and even happier to see the next generation at San Francisco Ballet School’s Student Showcase. My report for the Chronicle:

“One measure of an international ballet company’s muster lies in how many of its dancers were trained at the troupe’s own academy, and by this accounting, San Francisco Ballet is looking better and better. Fully half of the Ballet’s members now are graduates of the San Francisco Ballet School.

Still, this proportion might strike you as low, given the thrilling and precocious artistry on display Wednesday at the first of three Student Showcase performances. (The program repeats Friday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Novellus Theater.) And the debt to Lola de Avila – who has directed the school for 13 of the last 20 years and is now returning to Spain to run the famed school her mother founded – is clearly immense. Her imprint could be seen everywhere, in what was easily the finest Ballet school showcase I’ve witnessed in a decade of relishing this elevated dance recital.

The opening class demonstrations make your heart melt at the sight of all those rosy-cheeked, long-limbed little ones, but those drills also demonstrated the school’s emphasis on arms and epaulement – the nuanced shading of the head and neck angles – for the girls, and juicy feet for the boys. These foundations proved firm in the second-act excerpt of that bedrock Romantic ballet, “La Sylphide.” Beneath the soft, rounded arms of those sweet forest fairies must lie solid technique and steely strength.

The corps girls were superb. And Lacey Escabar, as the titular Sylph, was a sensation. She had the gentle curves, the dandelion-in-the-wind buoyancy, but most impressively she had dramatic maturity.”

Read more here.

PS: About two years ago, Pointe Magazine asked me to choose one talented SF Ballet School girl to profile, and I picked Lacey. What a talent. Delightful to see her develop.

Every time a man (or I myself) gives way to vanity, every time he thinks and lives in order to show off, this is a betrayal. Every time, it has always been the great misfortune of wanting to show off which has lessened me in the presence of the truth. We do not need to reveal ourselves to others, but only to those we love. For then we are no longer revealing ourselves in order to seem but in order to give. There is much more strength in a man who reveals himself only when it is necessary. I have suffered from being alone, but because I have been able to keep my secret I have overcome the suffering of loneliness. To go right to the end implies knowing how to keep one’s secret. And, today, there is no greater joy than to live alone and unknown. My deepest joy is to write. To accept the world and to accept pleasure—but only when I am stripped bare of everything. I should not be worthy to love the bare and empty beaches if I could not remain naked in the presence of myself. For the first time I can understand the meaning of the word happiness without any ambiguity. It is a little different from what men normally mean when they say: “I am happy.”

–Albert Camus, notebooks, 1937

(With the additional thought that in the Christian and many other religious ethics, “those we love” equals–ideally and in attempted practice–everyone. So that what matters is not really to whom we reveal ourselves, but how and why.)