my tribute, over a year later (part 1)
i miss Spalding Gray, very much. all i can do right now is visit his site and wonder how i can get copies of his work since it's almost impossible to find them (they're often sold out).
i've read "impossible vacation", and found it disturbing yet i could relate. i've read it only once, and have been afraid to re-read it for it was so intense in some places it scared me. but now, i think i'm ready to revisit the book. it definitely will provide new insight this time around.
i've got a tape cassette copy of "monster in a box" that i bought at a used bookstore which i listen to often, specially during road trips, and i worry that i'm over-listening to it, for, being a cassette, it could fall apart any time now. if it were a book, it would be well worn and would have to be kept together with tape. one of my favourite lines from that monologue..."i found i was least able to help him. i had a boundary issue, and his insanity was seeping into mine!!!" this line makes me laugh and cry every time because i can relate to it on so many levels - especially when it comes to how i often view my relationship with my mother, who, unlike Spalding's mom, has not committed suicide, but did get breast cancer years ago and i found i couldn't be there for her in any way at all during a time when she was facing her own mortality. i was paralyzed by my own fear and couldn't handle it. "impossible vacation" is the monster he refers to in "monster in a box". "monster in a box" is about his experience writing "impossible vacation", which is a story "about a man who couldn't take a vacation", essentially an autobiographical work about how his mother's suicide affected him later in life. when i first saw the movie "monster in a box", i could not figure out why that movie spoke to me in a deep way. i couldn't figure it out, all i knew, is that everything he said resounded within me. it was funny, it made me laugh, but at the same time, it touched me in a way i couldn't understand.
i was at the palace of fine arts one saturday morning a few months after i first saw "monster in a box". i think i was pregnant with one of the kids, and i had to go to the restroom in the lower floor. i noticed a table with books near the theater in the museum. there was some kind of book signing. i looked at the title... "slippery slope" by spalding gray. i thought i had missed it, because no one was there. when i stepped out of the bathroom and was walking back to the galleries, the table was no longer empty. there he was, spalding gray, sitting behind the table, ready to sign books. i looked at him wide eyed. i wanted to approach him, extend my hand and say, cool as can be, "hello mr. gray, i'm a great admirer of your work". R said, go say hello. but i couldn't do it. i was star struck. my heart was racing, and i was paralyzed to one corner of the hall behind the relics from egypt near the museum cafe. he looked my way, and all i could muster was a smile... it probably looked more like a grimace, like i ate something that smelled unpleasant. there were no crowds, no photographers, just spalding with his books ready to sign. to this day i wish i had gone up to him, grabbed a book and asked him to sign, like i did when i saw josh braff read at the bookstore near my work couple of weeks ago. i wish i had courage. i sorely regret this.
a couple of years later, spalding was performing "swimming to cambodia" at ACT. i had to see it, just had to! and i did. got the nosebleed tickets, but i didn't care. i had to see him perform live. and it was just as amazing as i expected it to be, even more. but i felt there was something amiss. i couldn't figure it out. i thought maybe it was because i had expectations, which were met, by the way. but still. something felt wrong. he opened up the monologue with the story of about the car accident he was in during a trip to ireland. it was a horrible accident, and had left scars on his face as well as injured him badly. he was not the same man after that accident.
it was no secret that he saw psychotherapists and had been in treatment for years and years. his mother committed suicide, depression and mental illness and alcoholism runs in his family. he was always struggling with that monster, and the monologues allowed him a kind of therapeutic release. he talked about his family, his life, his fears,his neurosis during the monologues. he talked about talking about monologues, what the monologues did for him. he was very open and honest, and i found this absolutely refreshing, for in his honesty about the pain he experienced in life and his inabilities to cope at times, he revealed to me a way to keep my head above water. i was beginning to understand my own dark truth, even though i did not know it yet, and his work became one of the things that saved my life.
i've read "impossible vacation", and found it disturbing yet i could relate. i've read it only once, and have been afraid to re-read it for it was so intense in some places it scared me. but now, i think i'm ready to revisit the book. it definitely will provide new insight this time around.
i've got a tape cassette copy of "monster in a box" that i bought at a used bookstore which i listen to often, specially during road trips, and i worry that i'm over-listening to it, for, being a cassette, it could fall apart any time now. if it were a book, it would be well worn and would have to be kept together with tape. one of my favourite lines from that monologue..."i found i was least able to help him. i had a boundary issue, and his insanity was seeping into mine!!!" this line makes me laugh and cry every time because i can relate to it on so many levels - especially when it comes to how i often view my relationship with my mother, who, unlike Spalding's mom, has not committed suicide, but did get breast cancer years ago and i found i couldn't be there for her in any way at all during a time when she was facing her own mortality. i was paralyzed by my own fear and couldn't handle it. "impossible vacation" is the monster he refers to in "monster in a box". "monster in a box" is about his experience writing "impossible vacation", which is a story "about a man who couldn't take a vacation", essentially an autobiographical work about how his mother's suicide affected him later in life. when i first saw the movie "monster in a box", i could not figure out why that movie spoke to me in a deep way. i couldn't figure it out, all i knew, is that everything he said resounded within me. it was funny, it made me laugh, but at the same time, it touched me in a way i couldn't understand.
i was at the palace of fine arts one saturday morning a few months after i first saw "monster in a box". i think i was pregnant with one of the kids, and i had to go to the restroom in the lower floor. i noticed a table with books near the theater in the museum. there was some kind of book signing. i looked at the title... "slippery slope" by spalding gray. i thought i had missed it, because no one was there. when i stepped out of the bathroom and was walking back to the galleries, the table was no longer empty. there he was, spalding gray, sitting behind the table, ready to sign books. i looked at him wide eyed. i wanted to approach him, extend my hand and say, cool as can be, "hello mr. gray, i'm a great admirer of your work". R said, go say hello. but i couldn't do it. i was star struck. my heart was racing, and i was paralyzed to one corner of the hall behind the relics from egypt near the museum cafe. he looked my way, and all i could muster was a smile... it probably looked more like a grimace, like i ate something that smelled unpleasant. there were no crowds, no photographers, just spalding with his books ready to sign. to this day i wish i had gone up to him, grabbed a book and asked him to sign, like i did when i saw josh braff read at the bookstore near my work couple of weeks ago. i wish i had courage. i sorely regret this.
a couple of years later, spalding was performing "swimming to cambodia" at ACT. i had to see it, just had to! and i did. got the nosebleed tickets, but i didn't care. i had to see him perform live. and it was just as amazing as i expected it to be, even more. but i felt there was something amiss. i couldn't figure it out. i thought maybe it was because i had expectations, which were met, by the way. but still. something felt wrong. he opened up the monologue with the story of about the car accident he was in during a trip to ireland. it was a horrible accident, and had left scars on his face as well as injured him badly. he was not the same man after that accident.
it was no secret that he saw psychotherapists and had been in treatment for years and years. his mother committed suicide, depression and mental illness and alcoholism runs in his family. he was always struggling with that monster, and the monologues allowed him a kind of therapeutic release. he talked about his family, his life, his fears,his neurosis during the monologues. he talked about talking about monologues, what the monologues did for him. he was very open and honest, and i found this absolutely refreshing, for in his honesty about the pain he experienced in life and his inabilities to cope at times, he revealed to me a way to keep my head above water. i was beginning to understand my own dark truth, even though i did not know it yet, and his work became one of the things that saved my life.
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