The Forgotten Farmers

-Does the date 21. December mean anything to you?
-No.
-On this day was born I.V. Stalin.
-Better if he hadn't been born.

Moscow street interview on Radio Rossiya, 21. December, 1991

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(Governor Tom's Note: "The Forgotten Farmers" is one of the poems I wrote for a poetry workshop in Prague in May and June of 1999. It was part of the masters of creative writing program at USC, from which I graduated that December. It was inspired by a lot of the reading I did in my spare time during high school on Stalin's iron grip on the Soviet Union from 1929-53, and in particular the systematic and very effective famine he inflicted on Ukrainian farmers.)

________________

I.

Hoe in hand, you battle the black earth,

A torn rag, and your children,

On your back.

Your sun-leathered skin is a sponge of sweat,

Stinging your hands' handle-torn blisters

Until they scream.

Your agony yields the waves of wheat,

Which flood your land with an ocean

Of gold.

Streams of sunlight, through dirt-painted panes,

Illuminate the earthen corners

Of your homes.

II.
A man invades these homes, his stiff grin

Half-buried under a Georgian

Mustache.

He steals your harvest just as casually

As he strolls down your streets

In his soft, Caucasian boots.

The only harvest you have now is your brethren's

Blood muddying the soil beneath

Your skeletal toes.

The flesh of your wife droops on her frame,

And your children's bellies

Swell.

A sea of red washes away any trace

Of your existence, and all those

Who would have mourned.

The Chocolate Monster

(Governor Tom's Note: "The Chocolate Monster" is a short story I wrote for fun about a dozen years ago, when I was still an undergrad at Temple U. I've gone through several computers since then, and the old WordPerfect file still lives. During my first three years at Temple I worked part-time at night in the candy department of a local department store. This joint had every kind of chocolate known to humankind, and no mistake. Working in a veritable choc fest inspired me to compose the below tale. I hope you enjoy it.)

________________

After combing his hair, he put on his glasses and trotted downstairs, backpack over one shoulder. Frank Sipp was a nineteen-year-old college sophomore, undecided in major. To the casual observer he looked frail, only five feet six inches, and quite thin. In the kitchen his mother Paine, still in her sleep clothes—T-shirt and boxers—was standing at the island typing furiously on her laptop, a partially eaten chocolate doughnut and a cup of coffee next to it. She was tall for a woman, a couple inches over six feet, her sandy blonde hair resting on her shoulders, and at one time slim enough to pass for a model. But after having Frank, her hips and buttocks had suffered the inevitable swell. It never made her bitter, though. Having a family had always been much more important. Now divorced, something which could make her very bitter at times, Paine was an upper level computer programmer who had arranged it with her senior vice president to work out of her home. After years of pushing a mouse at a workstation in the firm, always surrounded by the buzz of activity and sometimes panic, especially toward the end of deadlines, she never forgot to thank God for this new privilege. Her long arms extended forth to the laptop, her fingers dancing on the keyboard.

The morning sun had yet to find the kitchen. Her already-pale face was made yet whiter by the monitor’s glow. "'Morning, Mom," Frank said as he poured himself a glass of orange juice. She grunted in response. "Got any other doughnuts besides chocolate?"

She hammered in a few more lines before making a quick backward gesture toward the table without turning away. "Yeah there’s a couple jellies in the box if you want them." Frank went over and helped himself to one. "I’ve just got to....damn it!"

"What is it?" he said with a mouthful of doughnut, looking over his mother’s shoulder.

"The more type-os I make, the longer it’ll take to get this done."

"You mean you actually made a type-o? Isn’t that the first one in five years?" he joked. She said nothing, her fingers clicking along monotonously. "You realize I don’t understand a word of what you’re typing?"

"Yeah, well, this just happens to be what keeps us going, Frankie," she said. She never lost a beat on her typing while she spoke, something which made Frank slow his chewing as he admired. "If I didn’t know any of this stuff, I wouldn’t be able to afford this house and my car and your car and pay the bills. Now if I can just finish this program by tomorrow, I’ll be ahead of deadline. That means a bonus, kid."

He finished off the doughnut and headed for the front door. "Yeah, well, I still don’t know what it means."

"Don’t get me started, punk," she said, looking at him for the first time, her eyes glazed by staring at the screen. "I’ll make you eat one of those chocolate doughnuts."

"Not if you don’t want me to throw up all over the house," he countered. Her calling him "punk" was actually in good fun. They had started this playful word-fighting when Frank was in elementary school and had gotten revved up by the mind-numbing action flicks he’d catch on television.

"I made your father eat a chocolate doughnut once," she said. "He hates chocolate as much as you do. That’s where you get it from. I think he’s held that incident against me ever since. Hell, for all I know, that’s the real reason he wanted a divorce."

Frank had his big blue coat on. "I’ll see you later, Mom," he said, opening the door. "Be sure to get that program done so you can get the bonus. I really do need a new car."

"You pissant."

He commuted to campus every day, from southern New Jersey into Philadelphia, and every day he’d get to class earlier than those dwelling in the dorms. His first class, English literature from Reconstruction to the twentieth century, wasn’t set to start until nine. It was only twenty after eight. He always welcomed the free time, though. It would allow him to go over his notes or prepare for any tests or quizzes imminently due from other classes. And at the very least he’d be able to chat with any of his friends who happened to get there early. The campus was still quiet except for the monotonous brushing sound from the janitor sweeping the grounds outside the library as he passed. The fifteen-story arts and sciences building loomed ahead, its shadow welcoming him with a chill. He speed-walked to escape the February cold, his face and especially ears feeling like they were being poked at by knives whenever the wind acted up.

He had crossed the street and was passing the buildings which were before the arts and sciences school when he heard a rustling sound from between two of them, starting low and then growing in volume, as if whatever it was gained momentum as it moved. The sound stopped abruptly. "Help me," came a voice from the same place. "Help!"

Frank stopped and frowned at the black gap where the voice came from. "Who’s in there?"

"Help me, please!" The voice was a girlish whine.

"Who’s in there?" Frank repeated, approaching the alley until he could look inside of it. At first all he could see were scattered piles of junk and cardboard, but on further inspection he could make out a pair of eyes staring at him from under a cardboard sheet. His mouth dropped open, and he took a couple more steps toward the alley. "Are you okay?"

"No, get me out of here," the girl whined. "I’m hurt and I can’t move. If I don’t get out of here, I’ll freeze to death."

"Hold on, I’ll be right there," Frank said, hurrying into the alley. No sooner was he within its walls than the thick aroma of chocolate attacked his senses. His stomach churned, and he would have fled in an instant if his conscience hadn’t kept him on his current course. He kept his eyes on the girl’s, whose own eyes grew wider the closer he got, as if she were shocked he was making this effort. He was in the process of reaching out to her when the cardboard sheet flew up into the air and the owner of the eyes stood up.

Frank stopped, and so did his breath. Instead of a little girl getting to her feet to welcome his aid, something much different emerged. His heart threatened to invade his throat as he looked up at the eyes, over a yard above him. The dark brown figure before him was thin, but muscular, the head a block silhouetted by the sun. The chocolate scent was so potent he felt like he was swimming in it, his eyes blurring in the pool. Behind the thick veil of chocolate was another smell just as unpleasant, a rotting stench. Before his legs listened to his fear, a three-fingered hand encompassed his throat, squeezing tight and lifting him into the air until he was even with the block, its form distorted by Frank’s tears.

"You’re so kind to help," the thing said with its true voice, neither a male nor a female one. It sounded like it was coming from a pipe, echoing within its walls before it found the outside air. As the tears fell away, Frank could now see the features of its face. It was a gnarled mass of what could only be chocolate, twisted together in bands of no particular order or pattern. The eyes were a pair of pale spheres, the mouth a crooked hole out of which its frosty breath crept when it spoke. "For just a moment I thought I’d have to blow my cover and chase you." Frank tried to speak, but all that came out was spit. The thing’s grip cut off his oxygen, making speech impossible. Instead, his fear further urged his body to take action, and he managed to pry the thing’s grip loose enough to free himself. Upon landing, he backed up toward the alley exit, never taking his eyes off the thing, his wobbly legs threatening to buckle. "I love it when the prey tries to resist. It makes things so much more fun."

"What the hell are you?" Frank heard himself say behind the thundering of his heart.

"A fair question," it replied. "Although ultimately a useless one since five minutes from now you’ll be well on your way to my bowels. But I’ll oblige you because I can. I am a Navda Nax, one of a carnivorous breed of predators, much like the lion or the leopard. Unlike them, though, my breed peoples the wild of the cities rather than the savannas. No human has been able to chronicle our race because, simply, no human has seen us and lived to tell the tale. We’re indiscriminate in the flesh and blood we consume, pleased just as much by a hag than a whore."

"And you’re made out of....?" The odor was making Frank so nauseous that he couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

"Something that tastes sweet to you humans. I know, I find it perverse myself. Then again, humans are made out of material that tastes divine to us so you figure it out." It bent down and pulled out a long red stick which was fatter on one end, strands hanging off it. After looking at it for a few seconds, Frank realized it was a human leg almost stripped of its skin. The thing put its mouth to it and, with a wet ripping sound, tore a piece of flesh from it. Frank closed his eyes to the smacking of its mouth. "Not much flesh left on this one," it said while chewing. "Just bone and tendon, but those are too tough. This thing’s pretty much used up." It threw the leg down, where Frank noticed the remains of its owner sticking out from the cardboard. Like the leg, it was mostly skeletal except for the coat of muscles and tendons it still wore. Even the eyes were hollowed out. The corpse gazed at Frank with a bloody, black, open-mouthed stare. He turned away and placed a hand on his stomach to keep from vomiting. "I’ve succored everything from this one that could give me pleasure. That’s why I need you. And don’t bother resisting. This one tried to fight, too, like a lot of them. But as you can see, it got her nowhere."

Just as his nausea was ebbing, Frank saw the black form rush him in the corner of his eye. He was in the motion of turning away from it with the intention of fleeing the alley, but one of its tri-fingered hands had him by the throat again, its grip much tighter than before. The pain was blinding, his brain felt like it was going to pop. He couldn’t even feel himself lifted in the air again, certain that at any moment the bones in his neck would be crushed to powder. He managed to open his eyes to slits, the tears mutating the vision of the block-head before him. It opened its mouth to welcome its next meal, the hot chocolate breath tainted by the decay pouring onto Frank’s cold, trembling, tear-striped face. Just beyond the heavy breathing he could hear shouts mixed with laughing. It wasn’t coming from the monster. "Damn," it breathed. "Much against my will I’ll have to release you for my own sake. But don’t fear. Your day will come soon. And those who you tell about me will die, too, ensuring our place in mystery. It would be vain of you to ignore me."

The monster let him go. Since Frank didn’t know he had been in mid-air, his legs folded flimsily beneath him and he landed on his buttocks. He wasted no time in wiping the tears away and regaining his stance, but when he was up the monster was gone. The alley was vacant, just him and the wind. The laughing and shouting was louder this time, coming from somewhere close to the alley. Frank walked out, rubbing his sore neck while spotting the source of the noises. Two crippled students were racing each other in their wheelchairs to the doors of the arts and sciences school, one of them gaining a significant lead as Frank watched. A noise came from the alley, and he spun around with a start expecting to find the chocolate monster coming at him again. But all he saw was one of the cardboard boxes, partly ripped, collapsing on itself. He heard other voices around him, startling him and his overly aroused nerves. He looked at his watch and saw it was approaching nine. His fellow students and their teachers were making their daily pilgrimages to the classrooms, wearing their suitcases and backpacks and the tired faces they tried to cure with caffeine. The monster had been afraid of being discovered by more people, and left Frank with the promise that if he told of it, he and whoever knew would be killed. Frank had no problem believing it. If there was a whole race of those things, the word of him could be spread amongst themselves.

With his neck sore to the point of stiffness and his stomach still threatening to revolt, Frank decided to forgo his classes. He ambled back to his car slowly and without much dedication to the path. On his way home he stopped at a mall a couple miles short of his house. The huge parking lot was still mostly vacant, the stores in the mall having just opened. He shut off the engine and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes and rubbing them to massage the throbbing. He tried to move his neck, but it was still difficult without the needle-sharp pain. He was hoping this had all been a nightmare: the monster, the chocolate that made its skin, its breath, the flayed girl, and the pain wreaking havoc on his body. When he opened his eyes he’d be in his bed, the red digital reading six-fifty-nine, a minute before the alarm was set to go off. The familiar clicking of his mother’s fingers dancing on the keyboard would themselves dance their way up the stairs and into his ears.

He opened his eyes. Bird droppings splattered on his windshield. It was so ridiculous he couldn’t help but laugh. He unlocked his seat and leaned backward until he was invisible to anyone outside. He closed his eyes again and massaged the lids until—whether it was on account of lack of sleep or the energy it took to keep his wits when confronting that beast or the shock or a combination of the three—he passed out.

Not even in the oblivion of unconsciousness was he safe. The nightmare of the monster was so potent he could smell it, the chocolate stench stirring up his stomach like the volatile acid pit it was. He was in the alley again and the beast was coming at him, snarling its promises that he would die. "No human sees a Navda Nax and lives to tell about it," it boasted in his dream just as it had done in real life. When Frank turned to flee the alley, there was no way out, only more wall. "You can’t escape!" cried the echoes from the monster’s pipe. "I will nourish myself on your flesh!"

"No! Let me out!"

"There’s no way out! You will die! Anyone you tell about me and my race will die! I will nourish myself on you, and you’ll be gone!"

"No!" Frank shouted at the top of his lungs, shooting up in his car seat as if a spring had been released from behind. Inside the compact car his shout was especially loud. His ears rang for over a minute afterward. At the same time he could hear more screeching. At first he thought it was still him and that his vocal chords had thinned into this feminine wail because of his previous shouting. Then he looked out the window and saw the little girl who was doing it, no more than three years old, weeping on her mother’s leg because her mother had refused to buy her something in the mall.

He was still panting from his dream, wiping the coat of sweat off his forehead. His car digital read one-thirty. He’d been asleep for almost four hours. In the meantime his little black car had absorbed every ray the sun had to offer, suffocating him under his winter coat. He opened his door and put his feet on the pavement, the frigid air a wonderful welcome. He rubbed his head in his hands, the vision of the Navda Nax vividly clear in his mind. There was a whole race of them, he knew. Did they populate all the cities of the world or just this country? Even if it was the latter, Frank couldn’t see a good side to it. And of course no one would believe him if he spoke of chocolate-crafted creatures who fed on humankind. He’d be sent to a rubber room in a hurry.

An elderly couple walked by his car on the way to the mall, frowning at him. He looked around and saw the lot really had swelled in car population. He drove home before attracting any more attention.

When he got there, his mother was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor in front of her laptop, rocking back and forth, her arms crossed, the soft hum of the laptop the only sound in the house. If Frank didn’t know her, he would have thought she was autistic, but he knew this was one of those rare moments of block. It was best not to bother her.

"Hi, Frank," she mumbled without looking at him as he put away his coat. "How’d it go?"

"Fine," he said, going into the kitchen and pulling out a can of soda. He tried as best he could to squeeze the image of the monster out of his mind. Talking to his mother would help. "Stuck again?"

"Isn’t it obvious?" She stopped rocking and looked at him. "Have any tests today?"

"Nope," he said after taking a gulp. "None at all."

"Classes going okay?"

"Yes." This conversation wasn’t working. The monster wasn’t going away.

"Grades are stable?"

"Yeah, Mom." The chocolate stench stained his memory sugar-brown, and his neck hurt, making the memory constant and vivid. Not only was talking to his mother not helping, it was irritating.

"You’re still not in danger of any C’s?"

"No."

"You’re sure? Don’t be a pissant."

"God damn it, Mom, I’m sure," he said, his voice raised as the irritation began leaking hot and bubbly through his impatience. "My grades are fine. Why can’t you leave me alone?"

"Frankie, I’m just checking up on you," she said. "You know I care about your school. I want to make sure everything’s okay."

"Everything’s fine," he said coldly, walking past her and heading up the stairs.

"Frank, wait," she said. He stopped reluctantly on the bottom step as she got up and went over to him. "What’s the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. What’s the matter?"

"Nothing’s the matter."

"Something happened today, Frank. What was it?"

"Nothing, Mom. I’m fine."

"Big liar."

"Can I go up now?" he almost yelled. He could feel his face growing red.

"Hey," she said, putting a cold hand on his arm. "Don’t be mad at me. I’m not mad at you. So we both have had bad days so far. Big deal. We’ll get over it, right?" He remained tight-lipped, simply nodding. "Come here." She wrapped him up in her arms. "I just want to know how you’re doing, that’s all. I know I’ve been a little inattentive lately, I’ll admit it. I’m just trying to get this thing done. Tell you what. I’ll make your favorite tonight. Fried chicken. Sound good?"

"Yeah." On any other day that would have sounded heavenly, but food was the last thing on his mind right now. The voice of the monster promising to nourish on Frank’s flesh echoed inside his head. "Sounds great."

"You don’t have to work at the store tonight, do you?" Frank had a part-time job at an electronics store in a plaza down the road.

"No, I’m off tonight and tomorrow."

"Well invite some friends over, play one of your computer games or something."

"I don’t feel like it," he said. "I’m tired, Mom." That was a lie, of course. After having passed out for four hours in his car and experiencing the worst nightmare he’d ever had, sleep was the last thing he wanted right now.

"Okay, honey," she said, kissing him on the forehead. "Get some sleep." She let him go, and he climbed up the steps. "And then get your homework done. Deadbeat."

"You’re the deadbeat," Frank said, playing along, deciding this was the best thing for his fear. "Get your shit done so I can get that new car."

"Watch it, junior."

Since Frank hadn’t gone to any classes, he didn’t have any homework to do. He decided to look on his English syllabus and try reading some assignments ahead of time. He didn’t feel like self-learning any future statistics lessons (although his mom would have no doubt ardently protested such an attitude), he didn’t like his Spanish class (nor its elderly and arrogant teacher), and golf required little, if any, work outside of class. But when that hefty literature book was open before him, the tall pages packed with its tiny poetic print which Frank would have to read at least three times before grasping any meaning from it, he discovered the concentration required for such a task was not with him today. Every time he set to a stanza, he’d hear the voice of that bony beast raging in his head. It would be vain of you to ignore me, it had said, and Frank knew it was true. Even if he went back to campus tomorrow and avoided that alley, it would be in vain. No matter how long he avoided confronting the monster, it would only delay the inevitable. No one saw a Navda Nax and lived, it had said, and Frank knew the monster meant it. He wanted so bad to tell his mother about what happened, to make her feel his fear and help console it and squeeze it out of him with her long, strong arms, but that would only put her life in danger, too. The monster had guaranteed it. His heart felt like a weight sinking in his chest as he arrived at the cold realization that tomorrow he would have to confront the monster, and only one of them was going to live.

His heart fell further when he couldn’t think of how he could fight such a thing. There wasn’t a gun in the house, and a knife seemed futile against that. He started to sweat a little, fidgeting in his seat as the situation became more and more hopeless. He forgot his literature book was even there.

That evening Paine fulfilled her promise and made a plateful of drumsticks, chicken wings, and breasts, all fried. Normally Frank would have devoured the drumsticks first, but tonight he could barely get through half of one. His mom dropped the wing in her hands, then wiped each finger firmly and deliberately. She was clearly put off. "What’s going on here, Frank?"

"Nothing."

"Don’t start this again. You come home and you’re grumpy. Now you won’t eat. I know something’s wrong."

"I guess..." His mind raced for a lie. "I’m just tired, Mom. I obviously didn’t get much sleep last night. It’s okay. My homework’s all done. I’ll go to bed early tonight."

"You sure that’s the problem?"

"Yeah."

His mom stared at him, a smile just on the tip of her mouth but not quite there, an expression Frank knew. She knew something was amiss, but she also knew to respect his privacy if he insisted. "Okay. I’ll save the chicken. You can have some tomorrow if you want."

"Thanks."

"In the meantime," she said, collecting their plates, "I must battle on with this program or the V.P. is going to eat me up alive."

Frank was about to get up but stopped. He stared at his mother. "What did you say?"

"I said if I don’t get this done, not only will I not get a bonus, but my butt’ll be in a sling."

"No," Frank said. "You said your boss would eat you alive."

Paine tittered. "That was just a figure of speech, Frankie." She laughed again. "Are you sure you’re all right?"

"No," he said. "I’m exhausted and need to get some sleep before I fall down." He left the kitchen in a hurry.

Up in his room he closed the door, turned off the lights, and splayed himself out on his queen-size, his stomach sick with revelation and desperation. There was revelation because he just learned from his mother the only way he would be able to defeat the monster: with his mouth. The monster even admitted that it was made out of material sweet to the human tongue, just as humans were tasty to them. His battle plan had been right there all along. The desperation came from the fact that the monster had a much better chance of devouring Frank than Frank did it, not to mention that it was made of a food that was among Frank’s least favorite. He winced at the thought of eating so much of it. The two conflicting feelings played a tug-of-war in his mind and body. His nausea regrew as the conflict created an acidic vortex in his stomach. But the vortex turned out to be an ally. Instead of sucking down Frank’s hopes, it swallowed his fear. No matter how much he hated chocolate, he knew he had to do it. It was that simple. It was either face up to one of his ultimate pet peeves, or let that pet peeve eat him alive. There wasn’t much more to think about.

Just as he became comfortable in the darkness, the sound of his mom’s fingers tap-dancing on the keyboard resounded from below and lulled him to sleep.

He was up and out of bed before the sun, showering and dressing with the hustle of a Marine. As he collected his backpack and shot down the stairs, he could hear his mother tapping away inside her room.

It was all he could do not to speed on his way to school, and when he finally got there, his car digital read twenty before eight. Usually by this time he’d still be getting dressed, his mind and body moving with the pace of a pair of snails. But the anticipation pumped in him a fuel he’d never felt before, pushing his nerves to their limits. He could feel them quivering on the edges of their sensory strings, driving his legs forward until he reached the alley where the sun never shone.

It was empty. There was no sign of the monster. He took a couple of steps into it. Even the smell was gone, just the raw rankness of the rubbish spilling out of the dumpster and the rodents which thrived within it. He went in further toward the back where the torn cardboard was. The girl’s body was gone. Had it all been a dream? Had all of yesterday been a dream he dreamt last night and now today was really yesterday? He looked all around, studying the ground should the monster be hiding itself under any trash, ready to spring up as it had before. He grew irritated, his fueled motivation going unsatisfied.

Then a scent permeated the air. It was so strong that it melted the chill around him and burned his nostrils. It was the stench of ground, roasted cacao seeds, the sugar, and the marriage of the two: chocolate. His stomach grew restless at the smell, and he turned around with the intentions of escaping it. That’s when the monster landed on the ground before him, blocking the alley exit. He cursed himself for not having looked above. It didn’t matter now, though. The monster was here, just as he wanted it. There was no time for second thoughts, he knew, swallowing hard. It stood before him with its eyes wide and lidless, looking as if it were in a constant state of shock. The crooked hole of a mouth formed what he guessed was a smile, and its fingers curled and pointed in the air like snakes about to inject venom. He tried not to breathe through his nose to avoid getting sick from the smell, and to ease the anticipation of the palatal displeasure he would have to endure when trying to eat a nine-foot chocolate bar.

"It was wise to come back, child," it said. He could hear the satisfaction in its voice. "You’ve saved me a lot of time by coming back. You’ve also saved the lives of those who live with you. Very brave. Extremely stupid, but brave. I was positive I was going to have to hunt you down."

He racked his brain for something to say, but he was concentrating too much on blocking out the smell. The monster tilted its head to one side in wonder.

"Have you lost your tongue in the last twenty-four hours?"

"Just come get me," he said, not quite believing he’d said that.

"What?" Its disbelief was quite evident.

"Don’t you have ears? I said come get me. You want me? I’m here." His heart felt like it was going to explode through his chest.

It took a few steps closer. "Oh my poor boy. You haven’t lost your tongue, you’ve lost your mind."

"I’m not the kind of prey you’re used to," he said, opening his arms in surrender. It was all he could do to keep from hyperventilating, something which would uncover his dread. "I’m not the type that resists. Take me! I’m here!"

It shrugged. "If you are content, then so am I." With lightning speed it reached out and grabbed his neck, the soreness of which had already started to heal overnight but which was reignited by the monster’s grip. It pulled him to within inches of its face, its features distracting his concentration from not breathing through his nose. He cringed and almost lost his bile as the smell overwhelmed him like a thick waterfall. The monster’s tongue, deep brown and cocoa, glided along its upper lip in anticipation of its imminent meal.

That’s when Frank struck. With a quickness and ferocity so sudden and strong that not even the monster could repel it, he closed his jaws tight on the tongue. The squeal that came from deep within its pipes startled him, almost jolting him out of the monster’s grip. His face tightened and cringed in disgust as he chewed. It was tough at first, the chocolate not nearly as forgiving as he’d hoped, but that only fueled him further. Soon enough he was biting off chunks, swallowing some, spitting out the rest, bit by disgusting bit. In its panic the monster forgot the use of its hands, letting Frank go and jerking its head from side to side in an effort to shake him off. But he’d already grabbed hold of the neck and managed to work his way around to the back where he felt less vulnerable.

He stopped to get air only for a second, taking in a lungful before planting his teeth as deep as he could into the top of the beast’s back. It was even tougher than the tongue, and for a split second the terrifying thought plagued Frank’s mind that his plan wouldn’t work. Despite its appearance of edibleness, the chocolate was more rock than candy. His fuel pumped even more, though, heating up until his face was beet-red and, with all the strength he had, he sank his mouth into the sweet, foul flesh. As he ate his way down, chewing and swallowing as much as he could but spitting out even more, he could hear the high-pitched wails, like a brass horn tuned by a lunatic. It reached back with its hands, and one of its serpentine fingers slashed open a gash in his winter jacket, a blow which would have surely done significant damage to his arm if it had been bare. Seeing the white innards of his jacket arm stick out only pushed him further to the task. Having created a gash of his own down the center of the back, he reached into the crooked crevice and broke off more pieces, inciting more blows from the oral horn. No kind of blood poured out, no warm liquid it needed for life, just cold, dry innards. It tried to slash at his arms again, but Frank caught one of its wrists in his hand. Quickly, before the monster had the time to pull away, he bit off one of its fingers, releasing it from his mouth and biting off another. He only let the monster reclaim the use of its arm after biting off the third and final finger.

It still shook its body from side to side in a vain effort of defense, but Frank could feel the motion getting weaker. Over half of the back was flayed when the Navda Nax collapsed to its knees–its once ear-shrieking howls now reduced to whimpers–before falling forward on its front. Now on top of it, in a dizzying rapture and his stomach filled with what felt like poisoning weights, he maniacally tore the rest of the skin away, throwing the chunks behind him should it suddenly have the thought and strength to attempt reclaiming them. The inner workings were displayed neatly before him, the dark chocolate tendons, the milk chocolate muscles. Deep within that system, he knew, was some type of heart. Even if there was no blood to pump, all forms of life had a core, something on which the system depended in order to survive. With both hands quaking with the thrill of the moment, he tore up the innards, dug deep inside, the ice cold chocolate resisting his invasion with its stony solidity, until he felt something round. With both hands he pulled it out, the bowling ball-sized organ which still shook in his grip like a fish out of water, trying to escape its captor so it could dive back into the warmth of its home. He wasn’t content with just throwing it away should this thing somehow cheat the death he’d just given it to reclaim its core. He closed his eyes, stopped breathing through his nose and, as quick as he could, ate the heart. Once finished, his mind reeling in revulsion at everything he’d consumed, he walked up to the head and stomped on it. Even with the heart gone and with the little Frank knew about the Navda Nax–which was almost nothing–he didn’t want to take any chances. At first nothing happened. It felt like he was stomping on a rock, but after further attempts it cracked. Soon the cracks led to openings, and finally the head was squashed under his heel.

Sweating profusely, his mind spinning so fast he had to close his eyes, his stomach so sore it felt like a bag of boulders, Frank leaned against a wall and slid down onto his buttocks. When he opened his eyes, the bricks in the building before him were moving around, shifting positions and in doing so creating odd shapes out of the concrete lines between them. He turned his head away, but it was too late. In one long clumpy waterfall of brown acid, he regurgitated all of the chocolate. No sooner did it splash down on the ground than it began flowing like a little flood toward the sewer drain in the center of the alley. The spinning in his head slowed after expelling the foulness, the concrete lines slowly returning to their right positions.

He got to his feet, his stomach muscles sore, his head throbbing, but his spirits strengthened by victory. He proceeded to stomp the monster’s corpse into bits and pieces and throw them all into the dumpster, watching them disappear into the mountain of garbage piled high above the rusty rim.

Walking out of the alley, he could feel the sticky chocolate staining his face and teeth. If someone saw him now, they’d surely think he was out of his mind. He just laughed. His watch read ten after eight, still a full fifty minutes before class, plenty of time to find a bathroom and wash his face, then go back to his car to get his backpack. Classes hadn’t even started yet, but he knew it was going to be a fine day.

When he got home that afternoon, his mother wasn’t home, and he feared the worst. She hadn’t finished her project in time for the bonus. He went upstairs and sat at his desk, intending to turn on one of his computer games but not able to concentrate. He’d only been there a few minutes before he heard the high-pitched whine of the engine outside, and then it died. He went down to meet her, her face solemn as she walked in. Under the winter coat she was dressed in a turtleneck and slacks, the clothes which meant she actually had to go to the firm today. "Hi, Mom." It was all he could think of saying. She didn’t say a word, her eyes looking directly into his as if he’d done something wrong. "How was your day? Mine was great." She remained silent for a few moments longer. Then, very slowly, subtle at first but then growing, a smile divided her face.

"You are looking at one helluva bonused woman, darlin’."

"You did it!" He ran into her arms.

"Frankie, if I look at a computer screen one more time, I’m gonna die," she said, holding his head against her chest.

"Yeah, right. You always say that. At the end of every project you say that and the next thing you know you’re right back at it."

"I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, you pissant," she said, backing out of the hug and playfully jabbing him in the shoulder. "My eyes have about had it with my laptop." She pulled him back into her arms and rested her head on top of his. "But it was worth it because I won. I won, Frankie."

"Yeah, Mom," he said, closing his eyes against the cotton comfort of her turtleneck. "I won, too."

Last Remaining Seats: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

'Bout two months ago, 'round the time I joined the Opera League of Los Angeles, I also joined the Los Angeles Conservancy, a membership-supported nonprofit dedicated to restoring and preserving old residential and commercial buildings around the city as well as the county. Among their big projects right now is Bringing Back Broadway. Yes, L.A. has a Broadway too. And yes, I know you didn't know that. A lot of Angelinos don't even know that, which I think is what bugs the Conservancy. You see, there's about a seven-or-so-block stretch of Broadway downtown, from around second street down to ninth street, that features the single largest concentration of pre-WWII movie palaces on the planet, about a dozen theaters in all. A lot of them are either empty shells or have been converted to retail space. Or a little of both. Broadway in general is mainly known these days as a Latino shopping district. That's not a bad thing. The Conservancy's not out to displace anyone, but these once stunning theaters have devolved from gems to blights on the landscape. Their ultimate goal over the next several years is to have Broadway cater to multiple demos, not just shoppers. It used to be THE magnet in L.A. for movie lovers. Why can't it be that again? Well, it can, and it will. And that'll precipitate a ripple effect, bringing in more restaurants and retail and what have you. They're even gung-ho about bringing back the old Broadway streetcar system a la Portland and Seattle.

The Conservancy helps promote the Broadway cause with a movie program every summer called Last Remaining Seats. Every Wednesday night for six weeks (late May to early July) they'll screen an old classic in one of the Broadway theaters whose restoration is complete. This year they've got three up and running, each of which will show two flicks: the Los Angeles Theatre (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Young Frankenstein), the Million Dollar Theatre (Mildred Pierce and El Rey del Barrio), and the Orpheum (Goldfinger and silent comedy classics).

Tonight was the first night, with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at the Los Angeles. I'd only been to Broadway once. Back in April 2005 I saw Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins in concert at the Orpheum. I remember being taken with that theater's splendor and extravagance, but I had no idea that the Orpheum was one of a frickin' dozen such theaters up and down that street that are in the midst of a renaissance. What turned me on to all this--the Broadway cause and the Conservancy in general--was a cover story in the January/February issue of Westways, the free magazine for California Auto Club members. The history related in the article was fascinating, of course, but it was the photography that, well, caught my eye. The two photographers responsible for that story, Robert Berger and Anne Conser, were given free tickets to these Last Remaining Seats screenings. Conservancy head Linda Dishman pointed them out in the audience tonight. That article must've inspired a ton of people. Lin said that five out of the six screenings have already sold out. Mind you, these theaters hold something like two thousand people. Of those 12,000 movie tickets, about 11,000 have already sold.

Before anyone came out to talk last night, they showed a Betty Boop short from the thirties, which marked the first time I'd ever seen on the big screen the inspiration for what still seems a very popular Halloween costume. After that, Linda Dishman came out and gave a spiel, the gist of which was: "If you're already a member, thanks a bunch! If you're not a member, you can sign up in the lobby after the show." Lin was followed by Jose Huizar from the L.A. City Council, who's become the Conservancy's champion in City Hall. He related how on Sundays during his childhood he could hop on a bus from his East L.A. home to Broadway and catch a Bruce Lee triple feature at the Los Angeles for a dollar. And finally you had film critic Leonard Maltin come out and give us a little spiel about the Conservancy, how he and his wife are members, and about the film itself.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released in the summer of 1953. It was adapted from a 1925 novel by Anita Loos. It was a wafer-thin little tome cobbled together from a bunch of short stories Anita wrote for Harper's. The novel was an instant hit and was made into both a film and a play early on. Eventually it was adapted into a hit Broadway musical, which was the direct inspiration for the 1953 movie version. The Broadway musical, by the way, put Carol Channing's career on the map. She played Lorelei, the character Marilyn Monroe plays in the film. For the movie version, Judy Holliday was offered the Lorelei part first, but she didn't think it was right for anyone but Carol. Marilyn had no such inhibitions. With all due respect to Carol, I think Marilyn nailed the part. At first she seems to be confirming the dumb blonde stereotype, but as the movie goes on, it becomes quite clear that her sense of comic timing is acute. Jane Russell's earthiness and no-nonsense attitude is Marilyn's perfect compliment. Before the screening, Leonard Maltin said the two of them got along famously during the shoot. And when you see the film, it's obvious that those two as well as everyone else was having a ball. It was one of those deals where going to work was a vacation.

I won't spill too much of the plot. Actually, come to think of it, there isn't much plot to speak of, but somehow that doesn't matter. I mean, there is a plot. It's very simple, and it's just enough. Indeed, this film is a perfect example of how less really can be more, story-wise. You've got these two hotties from Little Rock, Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, who go on a cruise ship to Paris. Lorelei's sort of already engaged to this wealthy goofball whose father is dead set against the union. Dorothy, meanwhile, is happily single and takes great advantage of her bachelorette status with the men's Olympic team, who also happen to be passengers on the same ship. Things get a little hairy when Lorelei meets this elderly diamond magnate named...wait for it...Piggy. The way MM says that word "Piggy", man, I don't think I've ever heard anyone in my life sound so sexy and hot and yet so God damned hilarious in my entire life. Anywho, so there they all are, on their way to Paris. By the time they get there, Marilyn's got to go to court for trying to pilfer Piggy's wife's diamond-encrusted tiara. There's a lot more in the way of shenanigans, not to speak of hilarious repartees and one-liners, but I'll leave you to enjoy them for yourself. Speaking of diamonds, you know that song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend?" This is where it originated. Well, more specifically, it originated with the Broadway musical.

This was the first time I'd seen this flick, and I'm glad I got to do it in a packed house of two thousand other peeps. I don't think I've ever seen a flick with so many people before. It was a really cool vibe. Everyone was ready to laugh. Now and again there'd be a scene or some dialogue (usually something from Marilyn if it wasn't one of Jane's needle-sharp retorts) that had us rolling on our two thousand asses so much we wouldn't hear the subsequent dialogue.

The only gripe I have is that there wasn't a snack counter. I abstained from dinner so that I'd be starving for a granddaddy-sized popcorn...only to discover that not only do they not serve snacks, they don't allow food in the theater at all. I guess it makes sense. I certainly hope that if and when this palace becomes a regular first-run theater again, all of that will change. So all I could do was sustain myself on their $2 bottled waters (all proceeds supporting the Broadway revival, of course). Suffice it to say that by the time I got home a few minutes ago, I was about ready to devour a buffalo.

Here's a few more tidbits about the Los Angeles. It was the last of the twelve theaters to open. Construction was completed in January 1931. Its design style is French Baroque. The first movie shown there was Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. Among the celebrities in attendance that night was Albert Einstein. No, that's not a joke. E=MC squared himself. In addition to the umpteen levels of seating, the Los Angeles also features a couple levels below. You've got a ballroom, a lounge, a chunk of space that was originally a restaurant. That basement lounge, by the way, has a periscope with prisms and whatnot that projects the movie on a screen so that people can relax downstairs and not miss any of the movie. Meanwhile, back up top, you've got a soundproof crying room above the loge for parents to take their wailing little dumplings. And there's an electronic gizmo that the ushers use to keep track of which seats are available. All of these amenities, by the way, were here when the theater opened in '31. Did I mention that they don't make them like they used to? Now you know what I mean.

Here are some photos of the joint I snapped with my Blackjack II. One of these days I need to get a real honest-to-God digital camera so I can get better pics.

This was the view from my seat (first balcony, front row, left side).

I caught a pre-show cocktail at the Broadway Bar. Cool joint. To the right you can see part of the Orpheum, where the Last Remaining Seats series will show Goldfinger on June 11 and silent comedy classics on July 2.

Opera League Seminar: Puccini

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini was born in 1858, which makes this year his sesquicentennial (I don't get to use that word nearly enough). To mark the occasion, Los Angeles Opera is staging four Puccini operas throughout the year. The first two will be the final two of the 2007-2008 season: Tosca this month, followed by La Rondine in June. The next two will kick off the 2008-09 season in the fall: Il Trittico and Madama Butterfly. That Madama Butterfly, man. This'll be the third time L.A. Opera's staged that sucker in the last five years. I saw it those first two times and I suppose I'll see it again. Even if you don't know or don't care much for opera, you can't go wrong with Puccini. The man's music is gorgeous, especially the music from Butterfly, as well as Tosca and La boheme. The latter was just on the L.A. Opera stage last fall. Like Butterfly, they throw it up there every couple years. Also like Butterfly, La boheme as well as Tosca are not only considered Puccini's masterworks, but are also considered staples of the operatic repertoire. In other words, if you can only see one opera in your whole life, any of those would be a terrific choice.

I like how, for the four they picked, they balanced it out with two of his very well-known works with two lesser known pieces. Puccini composed both La Rondine and Il Trittico when he was in his late fifties, well past his prime. As for the trio of masterworks, he churned those out in his late thirties and early forties. He completed Il Trittico the year he turned sixty, and that was the last opera he completed. He started another piece called Turandot but wasn't able to finish it before succumbing to throat cancer a month shy of sixty-five. Our man Giacomo was a chain cigar smoker. It should be noted, though, that his not finishing Turandot didn't stop others from finishing it for him. A younger Italian composer named Franco Alfano wrote the last bit. Turandot had its big premiere a year and a half after Puccini's death. Here's one interesting tidbit. Puccini's handwriting was so God-awful that poor Franco, when reading it over to decide how to conclude it, had to use a magnifying glass. He did so much damage to his right eye that once Turandot was finished, dude was practically blind in that eye. But not permanently. He had to spend something like three months indoors with as little lighting as possible. We've all heard about suffering for your art, but suffering for someone else's art?

Now about Il Trittico (Italian for The Triptych), it's actually not one opera but a trio of one-act pieces shown consecutively. The first is called Il tabarro (The Cloak), about a love triangle that turns bloody. Then you've got Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica), about a cloistered nun hiding a pretty important secret. That one also ends on a kind of downer note. And finally, to lighten things up before you head out for your post-opera dinner, is the romantic comedy Gianni Schicchi. That has a pretty famous aria called "O mio babbino caro" ("Oh, my dear daddy"). For the L.A. Opera production this September, William Friedkin will direct the first two. Have you heard of him? He's primarily a film director whose career blasted off on a tailfire of pea soup in the early seventies with The Exorcist. He's actually directed stuff for L.A. Opera before, but the man directing Gianni Schicchi is a first-timer when it comes to opera. That piece will mark the opera debut of none other than Woody Allen. Yes, that Woody Allen. Should be interesting, no?

Here's how today's Opera League seminar worked. It took place at a part of the opera house I'd never been before: the fifth floor. The first four floors are all seating for the auditorium. I've been on most of those. In fact, speaking of Puccini, the one and only time I was cheap enough to get a fourth-level seat was to see Turandot in June of 2002. That sucked. Not the opera, the seat. I'll never do that again. You're literally looking straight down at the stage from a mountaintop. You can't see much beyond the stage's front third, so that at times a bunch of action is going on out of sight. Since then, my seat has almost always been in the orchestra ring.

The fifth floor features a bunch of offices and meeting rooms, as well as a huge banquet hall overlooking the Music Center plaza. The banquet hall is where today's event took place. From 9:30 a.m. until around 10, the 80 or so League members who showed up were afforded a pretty nice breakfast spread: cereal, fruit, bagels, pastries, and mucho coffee, which I desperately needed. Seriously. No sooner did I walk in and hand the guy my ticket than I made a B line for the caffeine. You have to understand that to get up early enough on a Saturday morning so that I can get downtown by 9:30 in the a.m. is something I'm simply not accustomed to. While slurping down the hot black stuff, I got to know a couple of the bigwigs on the Opera League board. First I chatted up League treasurer Edmund Shaff, a big rotund guy in his sixties with teeth and a voice stained with nicotine. Ed was quite the jovial chap. He laughed a lot and seemed thrilled to be talking to an Opera Leaguer under fifty. "Get involved!" he said. Uh, excuse me? Aren't I here giving up the first half of my Saturday? What Ed really meant, though, was that I should take advantage of all the League's volunteer opportunities. I assured him that, yes, I filled out the volunteer form that came with my welcome package back in March. Among the things I said I'd do was chauffeur opera stars to and from LAX and their hotel. No joke, that was listed as one of the opportunities. I can't wait to see if they take me up on that.

I also met this gal called Millard, Brita Millard. Always smiling like Ed, while gazing at me through those specs that are thicker than the White House columns, ol' Brita is one of the directors on the Opera League board. Her German accent gave her away in about five seconds. Having studied German for many years and having been over there a couple times, I couldn't resist asking her where exactly she was from. Brita's from Salzburg and immigrated to the States in '89. When she was still living there, she helped run the Mozart Festival every year, an event I'm frothing at the mouth to go to for obvious reasons. I related to her my brief but awesome visit to Salzburg in the summer of '99. I'd been too late for the Festival, but I did get to see the house Mozart grew up in. Just to show you how minuscule our world really is, Brita was a volunteer at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA two weeks ago (she works at UCLA during the week). She was one of the ticket takers and ushers at Moore 100, the venue I was at for the Future of News panel. The gal was probably the one who scanned my ticket for Pete's sake. And now here we were, conversing on the top floor of the Dorothy Chandler about what a cool place Salzburg is.

It was around 10 or so that we all took our seats for the first part of the seminar, a lecture by Michael Hackett. Mike's a fiftysomething guy with snow-white hair whose bread and butter job is professor of theater at UCLA. I've seen him before as one of the guys who gives pre-performance lectures in the mezzanine lobby one hour before the opera starts. On this morning he spent about an hour and fifteen minutes anatomizing Tosca. Before I get to the stuff he talked about, let me give you the gist of what Tosca is about.

It's set in Rome during the summer of 1800. The main character is, you guessed it, a gal called Tosca, Floria Tosca. She's a very famous singer. Her boyfriend is this painter named Mario Cavaradossi (please say that extremely fast five times before reading on). Mario's life gets complicated right off the bat for a couple reasons. First, when he paints, he uses models. Tosca doesn't dig that. To call her the jealous type doesn't do justice to her volcanic temper. And then you've got this guy called Angelotti, an old pal of Mario's who's just escaped from jail. Mario agrees to let Angelotti hide out at his villa, an act which invites the attention of Rome's police chief, a flaming prick called Scarpia. His tracking Angelotti is actually second fiddle to his goal of wooing Tosca. He doesn't just fancy Tosca. Dude's head over heels in love with the diva. He'll do anything--and I mean anything--to get her in the sack. All of this is established in act one.

Act two is nothing less than action packed. Scarpia's men apprehend Mario and bring him to Scarpia's place just as the prick is sitting down to dinner. Scarpia asks him where he's hiding Angelotti, but of course Mario won't give in that easily. And so Scarpia's men take him away and torture him. Tosca arrives per Scarpia's invite. They have supper while Mario can be heard screaming in utter agony in the next room. Tosca's obviously beside herself and wants to know the score. Scarpia's like, "If Mario doesn't spill the beans, he's a goner." Mario never does, but it becomes a moot point. When Scarpia's men corner Angelotti back at Mario's villa, the dude kills himself. Scarpia then arranges for Mario to be executed. Tosca's like, "Oh come on, man! Just let Mario and me leave the country, and everything'll be cool." And then Scarpia goes, "If you let me rape you, you and your boyfriend can take off." Tosca finally agrees. Scarpia says he'll arrange for a mock execution for Mario. Just as he's approaching Tosca to rip her dress off, she whips out this dagger and stabs him to death.

And now we arrive at the third and final act. We're on the roof of the local prison, the Castel Sant’Angelo. Mario's waiting to die. He doesn't know about any mock execution. Tosca shows up with the letter Scarpia signed saying the execution's a phony. She's accompanied by some of Scarpia's pals, who don't know he's dead. They go through the whole execution thing with the firing squad. Here's the thing, though. It's real. Scarpia never meant to spare Mario. So Mario gets blown away. Tosca, once again, is beside herself. Just then, some cops come in and tell the others that Tosca killed their boss. When they try to apprehend her, she says "Screw it!", runs up to the top of the parapet, jumps off and dies. The end. Cheerful, eh? Take my word for it, though: The music is awesome. When I see it over Memorial Day weekend this year, it'll be my second time. You can appreciate the music that much more if you go in already knowing the plot.

Tosca premiered in January 1900, about a month after Puccini turned forty-one. It was an instant hit. The opera was adapted from a French play from 1887 called La Tosca by Victorien Sardou (operas, like movies, are either original stories or adaptations). Puccini saw it when it first came to Milan and wanted to adapt it into an opera immediately. Sardou, however, sold the rights to some other composer. After a few years, this composer decided he could do nothing with it, so the rights reverted to Sardou. By this time Puccini had lost interest. It took none other than Giuseppe Verdi, another Italian musical giant, to convince Puccini to do it. At this point Puccini was knee deep in La boheme. Once that was in the can, he set to work on Tosca. So you see? Again, just like movies today, it could take forever and a day to get an opera off the ground.

To warm us up to Puccini, Mike played this radio recording from 1907, when Puccini was paying a visit to New York. Puccini said a bunch of stuff in Italian, in the middle of which he said in English, "America forever!"

Mike had some interesting stuff to say about the piece. From my point of view as a film buff, he started with a terrific hook: Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. He said that Rome wasn't just a setting, it was another character. Trying to imagine Tosca without Rome is like trying to imagine North by Northwest without Mount Rushmore. Can't be done. The reason for this is the opera's religious subtext. Rome, as we all know, is a city with a history as layered and complex as they come. This includes a pre-Christian history. Specifically, the opera's constant tug-of-war raging beneath the surface involves Dionysus (also known as Bacchus, the god of wine and fertility) versus Apollo (god of light, healing, music, poetry). In other words, it's partying and having fun versus rigid formality. What with Rome being home to Vatican City, part of this history has to do with the Pope putting the kibosh on anything bacchanalian. Mike mentioned this one Pope--I think his name was Gregory--who prohibited anyone and everyone in his domain from playing wind instruments. Apparently wind instruments symbolize Dionysus. As for the opera, you've got Mario, who we first see painting a portrait of Mary Magdalene. And then you've got Tosca, who's got a penchant for wearing red (a Dionysian color) and drinking wine. And of course Tosca and Mario seem destined to have children together, what with fertility being another big Dionysian theme. Who screws it up? That asshole Scarpia, the rigid Roman police chief.

Mike said that paintings of Christ can usually be described in Apollonian versus Dionysian terms. The vast majority of them tend to be Apollonian. That is, very formal and clean, with Christ on the Cross looking very thin and frail in his usual crucified pose. Once in a while, though, someone comes along and does a more Dionysian portrait of Christ. Mike's prime example of that was the painting The Entombment by Peter Paul Rubens, a Flemish painter of the Baroque style from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It shows Christ after the Crucifixion. He's being carried into the tomb by his mom Mary as well as John the Evangelist, who's decked out in a brilliant red robe (there's that color red again). In this one, Christ isn't skinny or frail at all. He's actually quite toned. And the wound in his abdomen, per Mike, looks like a vagina-shaped slit. I never would've thought that had Mike not pointed that out, but now that he mentions it, it does. And it's also in the dead center of the painting.

So anyway, the Dionysian versus the Apollonian: This is the struggle going on under the surface. Tosca shows that pre-Christian religion was still extant in nineteenth century Rome. Mike even went so far as to say that he doesn't buy that Tosca's death at the end is the end of her. Instead, the way Puccini sets it up, you never really see her body. She jumps off the rampart, but then what? Mike said something like she passes into the eternal, which I think means she goes to Heaven and lives happily ever after in the afterlife. He even said that the wound on Christ in The Entombment could be understood to be the opening to the eternal. I don't know, that seems a bit of a stretch, but he was very sincere in that interpretation.

Another thing he talked about was torture and its distortion of reality. If you recall, act two features Scarpia forcing Tosca to have dinner with him while they (and we) listen to Mario being tortured next door. As part of his lecture preparation, Mike looked up the definition of torture on both Wikipedia and Amnesty International. In both cases, torture is described as the eroding away of your higher senses, so that your sense of reality is distorted. Since the torturing of Mario is happening as the result of orders from Scarpia, a significant agent of the police state, Mike said that Puccini's implication was that not just torture, but a police state as a whole, can distort reality. Remember that this opera takes place in 1800, when Napoleon was doing his thing. Also remember that Puccini wrote this circa 1900. It wasn't long until fascism reared its ugly head.

After talking about all the thematic stuff, Mike then talked about some of the performance history. Going back to the original play of 1887, he said the first person to play Tosca was none other than French actress Sarah Bernhardt. Sarah was perhaps the most famous actress of her day, starring in productions all over the world. As her career progressed, she took on roles that were less vocal and more conducive to miming. Sometimes she'd drive audiences crazy by having her back to them while making gestures or what have you. That's why La Tosca was up her alley. There's that scene in act two where Tosca goes for the knife to stab Scarpia. Mike said that kind of drawn-out sequence is perfect for someone who's more into physical performance. Tosca slowly makes her furtive way to the knife while Scarpia drones on about raping her. One interesting tidbit about Sarah as Tosca. Even after the opera came out, the original play continued to tour widely. In 1905, when Sarah was sixty-one, she traveled with a production of La Tosca to Rio. When she jumped off the rampart at the end, she injured her leg. Talk about a nagging injury, after ten years gangrene set in and she had to have the leg amputated.

One more performer Mike talked about in connection with Tosca was someone from the 20th century whom he got to see on stage. Chap's name was Corelli, Franco Corelli. He was an Italian tenor whose heydey was the fifties, sixties, and early seventies. He passed away in 2003. Mike was only twenty-one when he first saw Franco on stage. At first he didn't like him at all. His singing style rubbed Mike the wrong way. He thought Franco was trying too hard to force the emotion or something. It was only much later when Mike discovered that Franco, despite his fame and stature in the opera world, suffered from a stage fright that was no less than paralyzing. He'd sweat so many buckets before a production that he'd have to swab his pits and, yes, his crotch, before going on. After he learned that, combined with the fact that he slowly but surely got used to Franco's performing style anyway (Franco was hard to avoid if you were an opera regular back then), he became one of Franco's biggest fans. For Tosca, Franco usually played Mario. He also did other Puccini stuff, such as Turandot. Oh, and he even played Mario in a film adaptation of Tosca back in the fifties.

And that was pretty much all Mike had to say. It was a quarter past eleven by now. We were given a fifteen-minute breather to relieve the ol' bladder as well as nibble a bit more on our way to getting coffee refills. At 11:30 or so a guy about Mike's age came on stage. This guy's name was Allan Edmiston. His official role is moderator for Opera League events. His day job is associate clinical professor of cardiology at USC. When he's bored, he serves on the leadership committee of the Wagner Society of Southern California. Man, before today, I had no idea there was a friggin' Wagner Society. Suffice it to say Allan loves his opera.

He was joined on the stage by a very elegant and well-dressed elderly gal named Victoria "Vicky" Hillebrand. When I say elderly, I mean she's ninety-six. She'll turn ninety-seven in August, God bless 'er. A long-time L.A. Opera patron, Vick was here this morning to talk about her former boss, an American opera star named Dorothy Kirsten. Dorothy, a New Jersey native, was a contemporary of Franco Corelli. Born a year before Vicky, Dorothy passed away at age eighty-two around Thanksgiving of '92. If you were around in the fifties and sixties, even if you didn't like opera, she was a hard name to avoid. Just like today, even if you're not into the whole opera thing, you may recognize names like Luciano Pavarotti or Placido Domingo. Well, right. Dorothy was of that stature. Our gal Vicky began working for her in 1950, and soon enough they became fast friends. Vicky stuck with her to the end.

And so this morning from 11:30 until a little past 12:30, Allan basically interviewed Vicky on what life was like with Ms. Kirsten. Honoring Dorothy Kirsten was especially apropos at this seminar because she made a name for herself doing tons of Puccini stuff. For instance, when she made her debut at the Met at age thirty-five, it was to play Mimi in La boheme. And the role she performed the most throughout her career? The title character in Madama Butterfly, which she performed at the Met some 280 times. And yes, she did Tosca quite a bit. Here's an interesting tidbit. Her final performance at the Met was Tosca. It was on December 31, 1976. The conductor for that performance was a little-known twenty-nine-year-old named James Conlon...who today just happens to be the resident conductor for L.A. Opera. James is a kool kat. He's a little guy who's always wearing a tux with long coattails. Sometimes he makes an appearance at the pre-performance lectures, where the guest lecturer (e.g. Michael Hackett) will interview him about the piece that's about to be staged. He's a great interviewee because his answers are both very detailed and delivered in plain language so that any opera virgins in the audience won't be too intimidated. Anyway, so James was only twenty-nine, and he was the one to conduct Dorothy's final opera. Dorothy also performed with Placido Domingo when that guy was much younger and just starting out. Placido, by the way, besides being a world-famous singer himself now, also serves as L.A. Opera's general director. So look at that. Dorothy Kirsten's connections to my fair city's resident opera company are manifold.

One thing Vicky wanted to be sure to point out early on was that Dorothy was quite the versatile singer. Besides opera, she dabbled in pop tunes. She did stuff with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nelson Eddy, and Perry Como. Vicky played us a radio recording of a duet Dorothy did with Ol' Blue Eyes. In fact, Frank gave a pendant to Dorothy with his name engraved in it. After Dorothy passed away, Vicky inherited it. She was wearing it at the seminar this morning. That's kind of, I dunno, amazing maybe?

Vicky also brought some DVDs showing Dorothy doing her thing. The first one was this talk show appearance she made in the seventies. The host asked her if she'd sing an aria for everyone. So Dorothy, dressed in a conservative sort a woman's suit, stood up in front of the audience and belted out this gorgeous aria from one of Puccini's masterworks. I think it was from Madama Butterfly. Anyway, amazing. Gal was in her sixties, mind you, and she just got up and melted your heart as if she were a diva in her prime. Two other clips Vicky showed us were from the Ed Sullivan Show. One had Dorothy and Franco Corelli doing a duet from Tosca, with Franco as Mario and Dorothy as you-know-who. It was gorgeous really. Vicky told us that even though Dorothy and Franco were both five-five, for that Ed Sullivan appearance Franco was standing on a platform so that he'd look tall and strapping next to his leading lady. The other Ed Sullivan clip featured Dorothy and this other gal singing a bit from Madama Butterfly. Whereas the set for the clip with Franco was spare, for Butterfly the set was done full out as if it were a real performance. And Dorothy and the other gal were decked out in their costumes and make-up and could easily've passed for Japanese. Dorothy was unrecognizable. These clips were well chosen, as they demonstrated in spades just what this woman was capable of.

Indeed, she even made a pair of Hollywood movies, both in the early fifties just as Vicky started working for her: Mr. Music and The Great Caruso. Speaking of Hollywood, guess who Dorothy's costume designer was for all her operas? Edith Head. That name ring a bell? Edith is the most legendary costume designer, like, ever. She worked in theater and opera as well as movies. Get this: Edith scored so many Oscars for costume designing that, to this day, no other woman has racked up as many trophies. In any category. This was the woman who dressed Dorothy.

One piece of trivia Vicky shared about Dorothy's personality was that she was positively terrified of flying, which of course explains why she wasn't big on touring. The thing about opera is, if you want to make it as a singer, you can forget about putting down stakes anywhere. Seriously, if you ever go to an opera, flip through the program and check out the performers' credits. It's quite common to see that they've performed at places like Tokyo, San Francisco, New Mexico, London, Munich, Milan, Paris. No kidding, and all in the same one- or two-year span sometimes. Well, that eventually didn't work for Dorothy. In her early fifties she did a three-city tour in the Soviet Union (Moscow, Leningrad, and Riga) playing the role of Violetta in Verdi's La traviata. Besides the fact that it was unbelievably cold (Vicky said it was below freezing pretty much the whole time), it meant a ton of flying. When Dorothy got back to the States after that, she was like, "No more."

And that about did it for today's Puccini seminar. It was quite a full morning as you can see. And definitely a fulfilling one. This was only my second seminar since becoming an Opera Leaguer, and already I've learned a ton. The free food hasn't hurt either.

Here some photos I snapped with the ol' cell camera. In the first one, that woman in green is Opera League President Dorothy Wait.