Spirited Woman Blogger Team

Guest Blogger - Mary Rose Betten - The Dark Has Its Own Light

Mary Rose Betten is a playwright, poet, retired character actress, and three-time Clio award-winner. Recently her 41-year marriage to her husband, "the theologian" ended, suddenly. Her life has been filled with road blocks, humor and courage. Back by popular demand, she has added a fourth post to her series. It is about her determination to be an actress.

An aspiring actress in New York I exaggerated by padding my bra, shoulders and resume. Outright lying true, but I had this habit of eating to maintain.

Like my first stand-up comic appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show I had never appeared in a nightclub. Oh, I’d done “open mikes,” at the world famous Duplex cabaret in Greenwich Village with: Dick Cavet, Rodney Dangerfield, Jay Leno and Richard Prior appearing on the same night. Of course they did their five minutes and I did mine but come on, technically I “appeared” with them, just later in the evening, okay, early in the morning, so the place was almost empty but I was there.

Ultimately open mikes, landed me The Tonight Show! Unknowns  come on last, if there’s time remaining you come on. Behind curtains you wait, kleenex in arm pits. First clue you’re not going on? Tonight Show theme music swells. Home you go, back you come, ready you stand, curtains open, claim that couch,  from his desk Johnny asks,  “Where are you appearing?”

“Oh,” I fabricated “The Duplex.” Appreciative of the national plug, the Duplex booked me. My act resembled an eulogy but hey, I was appearing, actually appearing, so people exited when I entered yet I was appearing wasn’t I?

On to Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, next big break; Dean Martin’s Comedy Hour selected to film my five minutes at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas billed as an up and coming star on national TV. I sent telegrams to every casting director in the known world. Minutes, just seconds, nano-seconds before my segment aired, President Nixon came on national TV to resign, casting my face on the cutting room floor. A new president, sure, but it took me a year to pay for those telegrams.

Royal Wedding - Red, The Color of Good Fortune

I don’t have a TV, so I only saw pictures of the royal wedding in the newspaper. I don’t really follow the royal family, so I didn’t know whether there was anything special to look for. But my eyes immediately fell on Prince William’s (does he have a last name like we all do?) red outfit. I don’t think any of the royal grooms ever wore red before (correct me if I’m wrong).

For Chinese, red is the color of good fortune, and yellow is the color of emperors. That’s why during the new year we set off red fire crackers, post red lucky couplets sprinkled in gold flecks, and give away lucky money in red envelopes with gold borders. Red is the color of good fengshui. Did William – or his wardrobe advisors -- pick red because of fengshui?*

There have been so many disastrous royal unions, not just in recent years, but all the way back. Adultery was common not because either, or both, let their hormones run wild in all four auspicious directions, but because marriages were not based on love, but politics. To marry off a princess was to solidify the relationship between two countries. In Chinese history, two women were married off to remote “barbarian” lands to build good relationship with northern invaders who were considered violent, offensive, and coarse by the Chinese. Imagine the future of their marriage – if there was any.

But sometimes there was romance in spite of all this. In the 2,500 year old Shijing, or Book of Songs, a famous line states “Let me hold your hand and grow old with you.” Now, when couple marries, Chinese like to write this couplet as a blessing. Another well-wishing saying is “In old age, let’s raise our tray to our white brows.” The tray was to hold tea or wine, raising high the tray was to show love and respect to each other.

This time it seems that the young royal couple’s union is based on true love. So I wish them to keep holding their hands till their brows turn white.

- Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
Click here to read more of Mingmei's posts.

*(no actually - it is the ceremonial uniform of the Colonels of the Irish Guards in the British Army, Buckingham Palace - which he is).

Is this a Good Story for the Nursing Home?

Call me a Pollyanna if you want, but I think about nursing homes differently than most people. Everyone who knows me knows I am a storyteller—tried and true. As a result, when I picture myself as a nursing home resident, I don’t imagine myself rocking alone in a corner waiting for someone to come visit. In fact, I envision the opposite. I imagine myself sitting on the edge of a chair with a group of residents around me, enthralled with my retellings of my life adventures. Because of my outlook, a few years ago I began basing my choices in life around one question: Will this be a good story for the nursing home?

My husband called me recently from work. He had just heard Wynton Marsalis was coming to town with his fifteen-piece jazz orchestra. The tickets were expensive, but regardless, he wanted to take our sixteen-year-old son—a drummer who usually tries to pretend he does not have parents. My practical inner-voice shouted, “Don’t even think about it!  All your socks have holes, your nightgown looks like it’s been through the shredder, and the lawn needs to be reseeded.” But I knew better. So, I asked myself the same question I always do: Will this be a good story for the nursing home? The answer was obvious. Life is all about experiences, not things. Wynton Marsalis was one of the best jazz musicians in the world. My husband bought the tickets.

A few weeks later, we walked into the performing arts center—our son a few steps behind us—still pretending he had never seen us before in his life. As I handed my ticket to the usher, she gasped. “Oh, you have wonderful seats,” she exclaimed, “We opened up the choir loft for the first time ever.” I turned to look at my husband who shrugged. He had bought three of the last seats, but had no idea where they were located. As we trudged up the stairs, I imagined us sitting behind the orchestra, with no view of Wynton or any of his band members. When we reached the door of the choir loft, this time, it was me who gasped. Our seats were literally fifteen feet from where Marsalis would sit. I could hardly contain myself.

A June Date with Mystery in New York

New York, New York, it's a wonderful town! - From a 1944 musical, On the Town, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

If you read my Spirited Woman post called All is Mystery, you'll know that I finally discovered a theatrical troupe that performs old radio shows. And you'll know that this discovery fulfills a lifetime dream of mine -- to have the two scripts my parents wrote for the radio show The Shadow in 1944 performed before a live audience.

To recap, in an online discovery, I found the mystery bookstore Partners and Crime, which is located in Greenwich Village in New York City. I learned that on the first Saturday of every month, the Cranston & Spade Theatrical Troupe performs old radio shows -- specifically, The Shadow. The shows are complete with actors, sound effects, and organ music and are performed before a live audience, in a small room in the bookstore that can be reached only by entering through a secret bookcase. Marvelous! 

My parents' shows will be performed, one show at 6 p.m. and one show at 8 p.m., on Saturday, June 4, at the mystery bookstore, and I plan to be in the audience.

I haven't been in New York since 2000, and, even though I was born smack-dab in the center of Manhattan, I rarely come back to my real "hometown." So this is a big deal for me.

The excitement is beginning to build as I plan the trip -- finding the best value in an airline, and the right hotel or B&B to stay in. I searched for years, and this is the right time and the right place for my parents' scripts to come to life. June 4 will be a real red-letter day for this native New Yorker!

Linda Jay Geldens, www.LindaJayGeldens.com
Click here for more of Linda's posts.

Dance Your Way Around the World

Well, Paula Abdul's new TV competition, Live to Dance, made a pretty strong debut! As an '80s kid, I can't help but cheer her on in her new role as producer. Go Paula!

I have to admit that I'm a sucker for a good dance show. I never miss an episode of Dancing with the Stars, and my all-time favorite movies include the Japanese version of Shall We Dance, the British film The Tango Lesson and Australia's Strictly Ballroom. It's my love of dance, and not my adeptness at it, that has inspired me to drag my husband to dance lessons more times than he would care to remember. We've practiced the basic steps to the waltz and night-club two-step until we're blue in the face without improving our technique much. Still, it's so darn fun.

So combining our (my) love of dance with our love of travel, it shouldn't be surprising that when we last went to Oaxaca, Mexico, we enrolled in a Salsa class and tried our hands (or... errr... feet) at that, too. What about you? Do you love to shake your Spirited booty? Have you given any thought to traveling to Argentina to try a little Tango? Or how about a trip to Brazil, for example, to learn the Samba? Well, think about it because traveling for the sake of learning something new, in this case a new dance, can be a rich experience. Here are a few ways to approach it:

1. GO WITH A TOUR. There are many passionate dancers out there offering tour packages for like-minded travelers. All you have to do is Google the name of the country (or State/Provence) plus the kind of dance you want to learn and the word "tour." It looks like this: Argentina+Tango+Tour. I did this, and I just love the description of Becka's Tango Tours. A nine-day tour costs between $2800 and $3200 per person and includes just about everything (dance lessons by professional Tango dancers, sight-seeing, accommodations) except airfare and some meals. A tour can give you the security of a pre-planned schedule, other guests to practice your dance moves with, and guidance for all your activities. Always remember when signing up for a tour with an independent tour company to ask for references and check out the good standing of the company by doing your homework (more on how to do that in another post).

Do You Have True Grit?

As the movie theater darkened one recent afternoon, I reached into my popcorn bucket and sighed. Earlier, the family had voted and I had lost. During the balloting and what seemed to be an unfair twist of fate, the dog had accidentally raised her paw when it was time to select the movie - innocently casting the deciding vote. Never a fan of westerns, I was now about to sit through a two-hour remake of True Grit. My husband touched my arm and leaned over to whisper in my ear, “Isn’t this great?” Westerns are his favorite—mine are comedies (obviously). My daughter moved restlessly in her seat next to me. Like me, she preferred comedies. So there we sat—my 16-year-old son and husband thrilled beyond belief while my daughter and I began looking for an escape route that wouldn’t set off the movie theater fire alarm.

But as 14-year-old actress Hailee Steinfeld (who played Mattie Ross) began to “wow” us with her amazing talent, we suddenly became enraptured with her character’s true grit as she began a journey across the prairie to avenge her father’s death with the help of two unsavory characters. As Mattie traveled into hostile Indian territory on horseback with only a drunken United States marshal and an egotistical Texas Ranger as her companions, she courageously faced one dangerous situation after the other. From gunfights to dead bodies hanging in trees to lethal snake bites, Mattie Ross surprised everyone—including all the men who surrounded her—with her seemingly endless bravery.

As the movie credits rolled, I began to think about all the times in my life when I had displayed true grit. It had bubbled to the surface on the top of a mountain in the California High Sierras one Memorial Day weekend when I was trapped in a blinding snowstorm, along with my boyfriend, with nothing between me and the elements but a thin sweater and a jean jacket. As we managed to find our way down the mountain, I dug deep, clenched my teeth, and found my will to live. My true grit showed itself again when I lost my second baby to a miscarriage at thirteen weeks. As I grieved during the months after my loss, I relied on my true grit to lead me out of the darkness to the bright light of hope once again.

Sex and the City 2 - From Manolos to Louboutins

The day has finally arrived…Sex and the City 2 is on the big screen. My girlfriend and I were discussing our feelings about the sequel because we both have some reservations about the actual story. Neither of us have seen it yet - but we both decided we will approach it as an adventure, a very stylish one. I remember when SATC first aired on HBO and although the "girls" were fashionable from the start, their ensembles weren’t so over-the-top. As the show progressed and evolved into two movies, we are given lots of fashion eye candy.

Patricia Field, SATC’s wardrobe stylist, pieces together bold and daring outfits that maybe 2% percent of women in the world would actually wear on a daily basis. I do love how Ms. Field celebrates spirited womanhood with her styling and gives us ideas on how to incorporate something exquisite or outrageous into our daily dressing.

One accessory that she put on the map and into women’s vocabulary is Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals. We watched Carrie Bradshaw charge up her credit cards or spend her last dollars on a new pair of Manolos. What Field brought for young women today is the message that you can dress up a plain outfit with fabulous accessories, especially if they’re Manolos. The two pairs I remember from SATC series are the turquoise blue suede strappies that Aiden’s dog Pete chewed on when he moved in with Carrie and the jeweled silver, open-toe d’Orsay’s that were stolen from Carrie because her friend asked her to take off her shoes before entering her home during her baby shower.

I remember those jeweled silver heels vividly because during that time of my life I could afford a $150 shoe but not a $495 heel. Luckily for me, Steve Madden happened to make a knock off of that particular Manolo Blahnik and I was happy to plunk down my money to emulate Carrie’s happiness. I wore those babies out.

Other designer names were introduced season after season on SATC like Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin. Louboutin mania seemed to spring up out of nowhere and every actress on the red carpet was donning Loubotin’s red sole high heel. Red carpet, red sole…coincidence or cleverness? I must admit, as soon as I could start affording Mr. Louboutin heels I went crazy. The very first pair I bought was in Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City while on business. Saks had just renovated their shoe salon and I couldn’t wait to breathe it in. Riding the elevator up to the fourth floor was heart pounding. As the doors slid open I heard music that one might hear when the gates to heaven open. I literally felt like I was having an out-of-body experience seeing all those gorgeous shoes.

Cannes Film Festival Features My Favorite Designer Emilio Pucci

This May, as always, the 2010 Cannes Film Festival held at the Palais des Festivals et des Congres was a star-studded event. The goal of the festival, held in Cannes in the South of France, began as a unique way to discover and promote new talent to the overall film making industry and the world.

An interesting fact: In 1963, Olivia de Havilland was named the first female president of the festival. Decades before, she costarred in the epic film Gone with the Wind along with movie legends Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

Over the years Cannes has become a red carpet landscape for designers to showcase their exquisite gowns much like the Academy Awards held in Los Angeles. Some of our favorite spirited actresses pulled out all the stops with their dress choices for this year’s festival.

Showstoppers included the elegant Kate Beckinsale, a svelte Salma Hayek, glowing Jennifer Lopez, fresh Rachelle Bilson, edgy Michelle Williams and sophisticated Ellen Barkin. The crème de la crème were Camille Belle in a sleek one shoulder navy dress by Gucci, Cate Blanchett poising in a piece of art designed by the late Alexander McQueen, and Eva Longario Parker in Emilio Pucci gown that had a train a mile long (or so it seemed).

How fitting to wear Emilio Pucci, especially during the start of beautiful summer weather. Did you know his first designer line was swimwear?

I’m a huge fan of this designer and love that he never strays from his true aesthetic in his designs. You can spot Pucci inspiration in today’s designers from BCBG to Trina Turk amongst many others. Pucci’s patterns exude playfulness and spirit for every woman at any age to enjoy.

Pucci formally known as Marchese di Barsento (November 1914 – November 1992) was a Florentine Italian fashion designer and politician. He and his eponymous company are synonymous with geometric prints in a kaleidoscope of colors. Initially he used his knowledge of stretch fabrics to produce a swimwear line in 1949, but soon moved onto other items such as brightly colored, boldly patterned silk scarves.

All is Mystery

Lately my spirits have been going through a severe test of faith, as readers of my posts will realize. But something happened yesterday that has restored my faith in miracles! Sometimes you just cannot fathom when -- and how -- you will encounter a breakthrough that will suddenly allow you to satisfy a long time intense desire.

Perhaps you read my Spirited Woman post Mystery Writers. It talked about the murder mysteries that my parents wrote for the radio when I was a kid in New York in the 1940s. Among the famous shows my folks wrote for were: The Shadow, Mr. and Mrs. North, Famous Jury Trials, and Grand Central Station.

I have never been able to locate audio versions of  the two Shadow scripts my parents wrote,"Flames of Death" and "Death in the Tomb." The dialogue is so wonderfully campy and often amusing, the characters -- particularly Lamont Cranston, The Shadow -- are so larger-than-life, the story plots are so riveting.

For years, I've been mildly obsessed about finding a theatrical group to bring the two scripts to life, but without success.

OK...fast forward to yesterday, May 18, 2010. I was searching for a poetry bookstore online at AbeBooks when I suddenly discovered the Partners & Crime Bookstore in the West Village in New York City. At their wonderful site - www.crimepays.com - I discovered that the bookstore has a theatrical troupe that performs old-time radio shows -- most specifically, The Shadow -- in front of appreciative live audiences! Eureka!

I immediately e-mailed the Artistic Director of the WWOW Radio Mystery Hour, which is produced by the Cranston & Spade Theatre Co. at the bookstore. He e-mailed back with words that are music to my ears -- "We would love to do your parents' scripts"!!!

Not sure when the productions will happen, but whenever they do, I hope to be in the audience to cheer and clap for a longtime dream that is finally coming true!

Linda Jay Geldens, www.LindaJayGeldens.com
Click here for more of Linda's posts.

Fashionably Dancing Your Way to Radiant

I look forward to Monday night TV because I truly enjoy the ever popular Dancing With The Stars. It’s the perfect inspiration to get me moving during the week. I’ve recently gone back to the dance studio to get my cardio on. I’m not one for exercise, I fully admit this, but if it’s disguised as something fun, then I’ll do it. As our bodies go through different stages as we age beautifully and gracefully, we need to remember to keep our circulation pumping.

Dancing is very fashionable right now and many dance studios have created classes for spirited women who are novices to former dancers. I thought my first time back would be intimidating but it wasn’t. The instructors make everyone feel at ease and remind the class that you’re suppose to be enjoying yourself, that dancing is fun.

Three very hot dance workouts for women are ballroom, Zumba and pole dancing. Since I live in LA, I'm going to mention some local studios you might want to try.

Balliamos Dance Studio in West Hollywood offers beginner ballroom classes throughout the week. Salsa Thursdays are great for socializing and learning the sassy, sultry dance. The rest of the week consists of your other ballroom techniques: Swing, Tango and Samba. You don’t even need to bring a partner because they’re usually plenty of people who come on their own that you can pair up with.