"The Music Man"
Her boundary lines had fallen on
pleasant places. You can have
anything you want here in Southern California,
although she was told that a flock of ravens
landing on your hair means you will be forever lonely.
She had the keepers shoot them, just in case.
Here was a warren of small rooms just for her,
for Portofino-on-Wheels, the sun tan people
who came to work on her.
There was a table for bread in the kitchen.
They said, here, south below LA,
April had been the driest month in history.
She felt sorry for April, people
talking about it like that, with disdain, a sneer.
Was there no one on April’s side? For being dry?
She felt dry inside. She walked the square of her room.
No time to throw away dead flowers. Call Arturo.
No time to pick fresh ones. Call Luis.
But she did nothing all day, so who stole her time?
Anna hired the local Oracle to come talk to her.
He said we keep searching, we keep dreaming,
we are lost in a crowd. To this elegance of language, she
thought she should compliment his way of thinking,
but she heard that hectoring raven again.
She wanted the change of sky that comes with the relief of dawn.
She yelled downstairs, ordering a pizza. Anna put on her silver lipstick,
telling him she could not sleep without pills.
The Wise Man spoke of the Vestal Virgins, tending the flame
in the temple all night, every night, and Anna’s pure skin, large eyes,
showed she might be descended from them
He then said her body was a temple of God.
He wanted her to read about this.
No, she didn’t get books. They were all too sad. Too depressing.
He said she should travel to the cathedrals of Europe.
She’d been there
and thought Europe needed a good coat of paint.
He wanted her to learn about the women in history.
She wouldn’t mind seeing Northern Sweden where the sun never sets.
He told her in the winter the sun never rises.
Anna yelled downstairs, she wanted a side of fries with that.
How did she find these weirdos? Taking them in,
taking up her valuable time.
Grace Cavalieri. From Anna Nicole , A Menendez publication, 2008.
Despite the fact that I live in what some people might call the boonies, I do have access to and interest in the larger world of pop culture. One of the things that I find fascinating is the cult of celebrity — our continued and frantic obsession with the rich and famous.
This is nothing new. With the advent of photography in the mid-19th century, it became possible to reproduce the actual images of both the celebrated and the infamous; by the 1880s, collecting cabinet cards, photographic prints mounted on decorative cardboard mats, was very popular, much in the way teenagers collected posters of rock stars in the 1970s. In addition to royalty and heroic figures of the day such as Florence Nightingale and General Gordon, the late Victorians collected the pictures of and followed the exploits of the so-called "PBs" — Professional Beauties like Lillie Langtry , who were the Paris Hiltons of their day, famous for being famous. (Screwing around with the Prince of Wales helped Langtry get press exposure, too, although it was considered bad form to actually mention the affair.)
The Jersey Lily – Lillie Langtry
In the 1890s and early 20th century, young men (and sometimes, on the sly, women) collected cigarette cards, small premium cards included in a pack of cigarettes printed with the images of famous actresses like Lillian Russell , Billie Burke , and Anna Held (These images also were reproduced on "silks" – brighly dyed rectangles of material that now command top dollar at auctions and on Ebay. And here’s a juicy tidbit for you: Florenz Ziegfeld, creator of The Ziegfeld Follies , carried on torrid affair with Held while married to Burke.) Throughout the 20th century, we continued this obsession with celebrities through movie and fan magazines. In the 1920s, fans avidly followed the scandal of film comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle , who was accused of raping "actress" Virginia Rappe at a wild Hollywood party; Rappe died of peritonitis from a ruptured bladder. After three trials, Arbuckle was acquitted of all charges, and the jury took the unusual step of issuing a formal apology to him, but his career was ruined and he died in 1933, a broken man.
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
In 1958, movie diva Lana Turner’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, was charged with stabbing Turner’s violent mobster boyfriend, Johnny Stampanato. The coroner’s inquest, which was filmed, featured Turner’s dramatic (and some say histrionic) testimony on behalf of Cheryl. The stabbing was ruled justifiable homicide. It was, as they say, a media sensation.
Lana testifying. See also Frank O’ Hara’s poem, "Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed!)"
In the 21st century, we’ve brought this obsession to new heights of voyeurism. There are myriad TV shows like Entertainment Tonight and TMZ, and just a few weeks ago, People magazine paid a reported $15 million for the rights to the first photos of Brad and Angelina’s twins. (I don’t even need to use their last names, do I?)
One of the most tragic figures of recent times was Anna Nicole Smith. The public was fascinated with her blowsy beauty and her over-the-top behavior. (She had to have married that old guy for the money, right? And what did they actual do in bed?) It was like watching the proverbial slow-motion train wreck — you knew it was coming, but you couldn’t turn away. And when she died of an overdose in her Bahamas bedroom, there was much tsk-tsking and what-did-you-expect commentary. No one seemed particularly inclined toward compassion for a woman who, despite her notoriety, had had a pretty miserable life.
Poet Grace Cavalieri has attempted to move beyond the Barbie doll of the tabloids to find the voice and heart of this troubled woman. Her most recent book, Anna Nicole , creates an interior life for Smith. It also poses some important questions: what happens to someone who is swept up in our cultural obsession for glamour and fame but lacks the self-awareness or street-sense to understand what is happening? In a way, Cavalieri’s Anna is not unlike Willie Loman — a character whose limitations all but doom her to failure. She is clueless. She longs for love and happiness, but confuses exploitation with affection. She knows enough to feel sad and lost, but not enough to find her way.
And what of us, the audience? What does it say about us that we relish this kind of story? In Smith’s case, there was no mercy for the fallen — instead, there was a certain satisfaction in her fall: We knew all along; what else did you expect from that kind of woman? How dumb can you be? But Cavalieri’s Anna reminds us that her life and death probably reveal more about us as a culture than they do about her as an individual. The book and Anna’s story close with this poem:
"Postscript"
The stage is a very small place.
It only covers our lives.
The light comes down the center
making walls that we can walk through.
Do you hear the bird outside
not afraid to go unanswered?
The air is a real veil
where layer lifts to song.
It was bound to happen to dear Anna,
wearing her heart like a bowl
where people dropped offerings, a warm egg,
a polished stone, to watch a pink nipple opening.
Roads melted to a fold of rock
going in two directions, turning to mist,
as the audience, poor sewers, hemmed
coats for her ghost children.
for more about Grace Cavalieri, click here.