"The Girl in the Black Helmet"

 

Last night, I reread Kenneth Tynan's article about Louise Brooks, "The Girl in the Black Helmet," in the August 29th issue of the New Yorker, a kind of greatest hits selection of old articles.  This was a profile from 1979.  I don't remember when I first read it, but I certainly know more about Brooks now than I did then.  I remember being more interested in the fact that she wound up in upstate New York than anything else.

I have seen "Pandora's Box," the G.W. Pabst film (with Brooks' remarkable performance), ad I've read (and taught), Frank Wedekind's plays "The Earth Spirit" and "Pandora's Box."  I certainly understood why Wedekind's plays weren't produced in the German Empire in the 1890s; plenty of sex, prostitution, a Jack the Ripper-like serial killer, and a lesbian countess.  The film's screen play is not identical, but the broad strokes are the same.

The other reason that I feel like I know Brooks better, is that I've been fortunate enough to twice be a playwright-in-residence at the Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.  Eleven miles to the east of Independence is Cherryvale, Kansas, where Brooks was born in 1906.  I find it difficult to wrap my mind around Brooks coming from such a small, rural place, that looks like it could be anywhere.  I suppose Brooks was a thing unto herself.    

New Poem from Berlin

In the August 11 & 18 issue of the New Yorker, there's a poem by Bertolt Brecht. It doesn't say where or when he wrote it, the poem has no title, there is no mention of the original German.  The poem was translated by David Constantine, who's not a German translator I'm familiar with.  But the more I read the poem, the more I like it.

"Send me a leaf, but from a little tree
 That grows no nearer your house
 Than half an hour away.  For then
 You will have to walk, you will get strong and I
 Shall thank you for the pretty leaf."

Mumbai

There is the oddest description of animal cruelty I've ever read in the February 23rd issue of the New Yorker (link above, but you have to register to read it in the archives). Katherine Boo writes a Letter from Mumbai about the airport slums juxtaposed with the opening night of "Slumdog Millionaire." In describing the daughter of the man who owns the local whore house, Boo writes about her brother "who was ugly and liked to make lizards smoke cigarettes before setting them on fire." And I thought the kid I heard about who executed cats on a scaffold was weird.

“The Eureka Hunt”

Check out the July 28th issue of The New Yorker. There’s an article by Jonah Lehrer about how the brain arrives at eureka moments. He interviews Mark Jung-Beeman who’s a neuroscientist at Northwestern University. Two of their finding really resonated with me. That there is indeed a reason you get ideas in the shower- relaxation is key. And that your brain half-awake, first thing in the morning, is “open to all sorts of unconventional ideas.” I’ve always felt like I write better earlier in the day. The above link is unfortunately only to an abstract.