Barbara Hammer and eating popcorn

The day started out ordinarily enough. All I was trying to accomplish was to record my writing classes  from the yearly schedule in to my Georgia O'Keefe (1887-1986) paintings datebook. Which took several hours of meticulous careful work - interrupted  by many phone calls. The home care nurse to change their calls to monthly instead of weekly - given that I am nearly better I expect this is a good idea. The technician to tell me they don't have any extra-tall seat backs in stock right now for the electric chairiot ....hmmmm. To try to get a yearly bus pass for me and the chairiot instead of special transportation subsidy - it's too complicated to explain, call back in March. My GP to tell me she is on it with the bone density tests, but despite recent boney events, she is worried I don't qualify, there is not a box to tick for me - even if treatments leave me with the bones of a 60 year old. A different nurse to make a time for a monthly injection - the one that leaves me with the bones of a 60 year old. The new supervisor, of the home care workers came by in person to meet me. Now don't get me wrong I am mighty grateful for health care and whatever kind of assistance I receive, and the people who give it. I just never realized how complicated my life is in one day! 

barbara hammer with camera  as younger and older woman

Come evening time, things got way more fun! I went with  two friends (the same two as from the chairiot coast adventure) to the movies! We were going to see the Barbara Hammer (1939 - ) touring retrospective show Making movies out of sex and life. I saw some of her movies in the 1980's in Aotearoa. The fact she has been making experimental films - some 80 in 40 years is remarkable  reason enough to get dressed up on a winter night and head out in to the sleet. I had tried quite hard online the night before to find out how to buy tickets in advance with no success. All information said tickets at the door, doors open at 6pm. I wasn't taking any chances, we were there at 6pm on the dot. There were already 20 or so people waiting in the freezing cold of the ticket line up. The show was sold out in advance, the ticket booth was not open and would not be open until 6.45pm, no we could not go inside in the meantime. Things looked grim. It was starting to snow.

We did not have any of the mysteriously reserved tickets, nor the yellow arm bands of the many participating organizations. My charming companion miss brain face stuck close by one of the organizers of a group she has participated in, stuck like glue. Miraculously one arm band appeared   - we each insisted the other should go in, and then two spare yellow arm bands materialized, very very grateful! Alas no more could be found, our faithful companion was sick of standing around in the cold, and had been wanting to see the movie The King's Speech for some time, she would just make a 7pm screening at a nearby cinema. She graciously departed for it post haste.

barbara hammer smiling

 I schmoozed a little on my way in to the theatre, my companion, miss 80, thoughtfully found us seats at the back just in from the aisle. While I was off chatting with a friend, my companion discovered the black jacket on the seat next to us belonged to none other than the filmmaker herself, Mz Barbara Hammer. They chatted and became instant buddies. I was very excited to meet her, we talked some about filmmaking, our common history of cancer, the Guerrilla Grrls and having your career pick up when you are 80! (She is 71). She was so down to earth and approachable. How typical of a filmmaker to sit at the back -  you can observe unnoticed your audience's reaction to your work - which is always fascinating to see. 

After introductions, we watched Dyketactics (1974), No No Nooky TV (1981), SYNC TOUCH (1987), and A Horse is not a metaphor (2008), the latter about her journey with ovarion cancer.  There were times I wanted to take both her, and my companion's hands, knowing what each had been through as survivor, and witness, but I was too shy. At the end of the show before Mz Hammer was called down the front for an illuminating Q and A, she turned to us and said, 'I bequeath you my popcorn'. If I had been a different kind of person I would have kept it and sold it on e-bay. But I am not, and so I did as she had intended in giving it to us, and ate it!

Hammer! book cover

Barbara Hammer is a great public speaker, warm, almost theatrical. I was very interested in her decision on noticing her early work was picked up by lesbian audiences but not mainstream art houses, to make work not focused on lesbians and women in her mid career work - and it was then picked up by galleries. Her later work bringing it all back in to focus. She answered audience questions with honesty and gusto. Finished by reading from her recently published memoir Hammer! Making movies out of sex and life, a beautiful piece to her partner, in the lyrical repetitive style of Gertrude Stein. Alas all her books were sold out in the foyer, so words about that remain for another day.

of Desires book cover

Our faithful companion arrived to transport us home through the falling snow, having thoroughly enjoyed her movie The King's Speech, it made her weep and learn much. On the way home we picked up the mail, which included a debut book of poetry from my dear gay compatriot Billy Darlington. We were all a little giggly from the evenings wondrous events, so we ate pancakes and honey with lemon, when that was not enough we moved on to fruitcake with sherry and read aloud from Billy Darlington's book of Desires, appropriately enough starting with the erotic poem 0359.

SMELT LIKE BURNT TOAST TO ME

I had a meeting in the afternoon. When I sat down on the bus I could smell burnt toast. Which worried me a little. I heard if you are having a stroke sometimes you can smell burnt toast. When there isn't any there. I glanced around the bus for toast, but couldn't locate any. I looked out the window to see if my vision was blurry. It was. Turns out they hadn't cleaned the windows for about three weeks.

I had stroke on the brain, I'm a bit young for it, although you can have one at any time, even children! My friend who is more of an age, got her words all jumbled the other day, while we were at the beach eating chips. So I started my are you having a stroke quiz. How many fingers am I holding up? Follow my finger with your eyes. Say 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'. Okay that one's cheating thats a typing exercise to get you to use as many as fingers and letters as possible. She got as far as 'the quick brain face'. Hmmm, are you feeling peculiar? The things that were coming out of her mouth were so nonsensical neither of us could look at each other without both laughing until we cried. Okay focus, she said quite distinctly, 'I am a lunatic going somewhere to cannibal-apple'. Close but no cigar. Coincidently in written form this particular symptom is called Paragraphia. She returned to 'normal' in a few minutes. Maybe a TIA - transient ischemic attack. Lasts 1 - 5 minutes, a 'mini stroke', causes no lasting damage, unless you have a lot of them or go on to have a stroke. I'm keeping an eye on her.

It's been windy lately, but not too cold. I've taken to wearing my favourite long woolly cardigan out of doors, instead of just in the privacy of my own home. A spinal injury last year has caused me to add a lumbar roll of late to my accessories. The one with the waist strap so I don't leave it behind on the bus. I caught sight of myself reflected in the window of the bank on the way home from the bus stop. In my woolly hat and all I looked like a scarecrow, with a piece of string tied around my waist. All I needed was my gumboots and a net, and I was good to go - whitebaiting that is! Toast and fritters anyone?

I had to smarten up if I was going to make it out to the arts organization AGM tonight. Miss b-f now fully recovered helped me work out a more suitable outfit with a better shirt, a long coat, and an attache case to invest my lumbar roll when not in use. Which was quite a lot of the time, because the chairs at the AGM were the folding kind which don't even have a back part where your lumbar spine is! That didn't stop me discussing dessert recipes with my fellow artist, and eating a lot of the homemade vegetarian pizza. I brought Miss b-f home two pieces of the leftover pizza, all the way on the bus, between two plates.

But to the person eating burnt toast on the bus. Cut it out! I nearly had a stroke!

GUERRILLA GIRLS – having a career after 80

I have just realized, the women writers/artists I have written about so far, Jane Rule, Janet Frame (and Jacquie Sturm), Renee, Marta Beckett were all born between 1924, and 1931, they all had pretty impressive careers, but in reference to being a woman artist and having your career pick up after you are 80 years old...A link to the Guerrilla Girls art activists. Women on a mission, with history, actions, and merch. I did get to see them perform in Canada in 2000 and have my picture taken with them and everything, they were fabulous! They were in Montreal recently for December 6 2009.

RENEE – you can’t really explain humour

You can't really explain humour. It is different in different locations, even if you are all (allegedly) speaking the same language. I have just finished re-reading Renee's (1929- ) book of comic writing Yin and Tonic (1998). Makes me laugh so hard! She has urban and small town NZ down to a T. Whether it be her frustration and successes in having some female garden gnomes made because previously all garden gnomes were male which she found ridiculous! Her priceless satirical gardening, cooking, ironing or pet care tips; taking the piss out of the media, dealing to heterosexism, ageism and sexism; or reminiscing about the good old days of political protest, womens groups, and writers parties. She has it going on!

I think my favourite story is: New Zealand's greatest pastime

'No it's not rugby, racing or beer. It's not sex, going out to restaurants, or reading books. It's not going to the theatre, opera, or ballet, It's not even bowls.
This pastime is indulged in by people of either sex, with people of their own or the other sex,and takes place both in the privacy of their own home and/or on the streets. It is enjoyed by people of any age. It is not a special feature of any culture, a plank of any political party or religious group. It is not confined to a certain class or income bracket, or whether you have or have not had children, a mammogram or cervical smear, or been tested for AIDS.It doesn't matter if you do it in the latest Porsche or in a rusty old Ford Falcon stationwagon. Policemen do it, drug dealers do it. Politicians do it, so do poets. Women do it, men do it, kids do it. Even animals have been known to do it. Hands up anyone who has moved house in the last five years.'

I believe I worked out once I have moved 60 times in my 4 decades and then some!

Or maybe it's her hilarious take on the invisibility of women over sixty in: To tell or not to tell, that is the answer

'You are party, from the next booth, to the discussion between two cheerful-looking men. One of them becomes aware that you would possibly overhear. You smile as though you have recently been discharged in to the community.'The old girl okay' the friend asks? 'Can you count to 100 backwards?' asks the first one. You nod and let a dribble of flat white run down your chin. They shrug and go back to discussing whether it should be a car accident or a drive by. You wait until they've gone, and then you attempt to solve the moral dilemma: should you tell someone? And if so what will you say?'

But then again theres What to do when I tell you I have breast cancer...

'Do not tell me about your auntie who died recently of breast cancer. Or I might tell of the sudden death by strangulation of someone who told someone who had a breast cancer that their auntie had recently died of a breast cancer.
Remember a lump is a lump is a lump, so do not ask me how big the lump is.'

Or the classic Touring:

'Then they turn to you and say, 'How would you like to be introduced?'
As the ghost of Marilyn Monroe, Queen Salote. Winner of Dominatrix of the Year Award. How about something about the books and plays I've written? Ugh, Ugh.
For some reason they expect you to be a good sport. Haven't they heard, that writers are never good sports? If they were good sports they wouldn't be writers, they'd be flight attendants.
And you'll eat all the asparagus rolls, won't you, because asparagus rolls give the writer indigestion.
Book signings. If you're very lucky one person might turn up for the book signing, and if you talk in a lively animated fashion they might stay round for two hours so it doesn't look as if no one loves you. Or maybe they'll just think you've gone off your medication, and run like hell.'

Part of her bio from the NZ Book Council/Te Kaunihera Pukapuka o Aotearoa reads: 'Renée, feminist dramatist and fiction writer, was born in Napier, of Ngati Kahungunu and Irish-English-Scots ancestry.She left school and started work at the age of 12; has worked in woollen mills, a printing factory, a grocery-dairy, and as a feature writer and reviewer; and completed a BA at the University of Auckland in 1979.

Renée has described herself as a ‘lesbian feminist with socialist working-class ideals’ and most of her writing is a direct expression of that conviction. She has been involved with community theatre, the Broadsheet Collective, PEN, radio shows, programme organisation for the Globe Theatre in Dunedin, and with script writing for TV. She started writing for the stage at the age of 50.'

See it's never too late to write! Renee has written 14 plays, 8 novels, short stories and poetry; a textbook Lets Write Plays (1998) and taught creative writing. For sure I saw her drama performed at the Dunedin Women's Festival (1989?) at Otago University. I think probably it was Born to Clean, and also maybe Secrets, and/or Setting the table. It was unforgettable, I can still picture the character in her floral pinny franticly cleaning, setting the table, and washing her hands over and over again. It was about sexual abuse, real, and unnerving, I felt quite sick after, yep it was that good! I am pretty sure I saw her perform with the legendary Hens Teeth womens theatre/comedy troupe in Wellington in the 1980's sometime, and man were they funny! Mostly I have been aware of her wry and status quo busting novels like Willy Nilly (1990), Daisy and Lilly (1993), and Does This Make Sense to You? (1995). Her work was some of the first local writing published by a lesbian with lesbian characters, along with Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Tahuri : Short Stories. (1989)

AMARGOSA: MARTA BECKETT – a state of mind

Sigh, feeling all dreamy and peaceful and quietly inspired, watched one of my favourite movies again the other day, AMARGOSA. Came out in 2000, about the then 76 year old, painter, dancer, actor, musician and theatre restorer Marta Becket (1925- ). At the age of 42, in 1967 she left the bright lights of dancing in a chorus line on Broadway in New York behind and moved to the desert in Death Vally Junction, California. Where she restored and painted murals on the walls and ceilings of an old run down theatre for six years, which became the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel. The murals of people's who had previously lived in Amargosa, provided her with an audience while she composed her, often humorous, dance, ballet and theatre performances, working much of the time alone. The walls, and Marta couldn't be more alive!

She seems so true to herself and her artistic vision, has such a clear way of both understanding and describing these. Singular in her dedication, disciplined, quirky flamboyant, and funny. Marta tells a story of seeing a play set in a senior citizens home, which had a special chair and when when each person sat in the chair they would tell their dreams, and the others would listen intently. She says 'Somehow people laugh at old persons dreams, they even laugh at dreams, until they come true, then they don’t laugh anymore.'

Amargosa is beautifully shot and musically scored, it opens with the spine tingling scene of the sun slowly rising over the mountains in the desert,the wild horses who live there, Marta walking, and these words:

'It begins with a distant notion, a plaintive whisper of the heart, it comes in the flash of an epiphany, or through a deeper unexplainable longing. It is the recognition of conception, the understanding that a new idea has been formed. It is embracing the dreamscape which is imagination, and having the courage to go there. For those who accept a life of self exploration through willfull acts of creation, the journey offers the ecstasy of all that is possible along with the agony of unattainable perfection. It is a solitary road in to the unknown self, and offers no destination but the journey. But for those who follow it does lead somewhere, and such a life will never be uninteresting. One such road led a woman from the urban confusion of a broken childhood, across the flatirons of midlife, to a deserted crossroads in the badlands of an uncertain future. But it is here, amongst the rubble of another time, in a place abandoned by hard men and harder gods. She makes the path by walking, in a state of mind, called Amargosa'.

Sigh.......