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Arrive approximately 7:00pm at apartment/hotel. Clearly people live in this building full-time (“I’ve lived here five years and never taken the elevator,” one resident confessed), but we pickup our key from a “concierge” in another building; the one across the pedestrian bridge from the Sunrise Suites, our temporary home. The apartment smells like a hotel. A distinctly Floridian odor of sun-baked mildew.

As we head out for dinner, we weave through a parking lot full of white vans decorated with competitive messages and symbols. Each one ends up looking the same. The relay-race from Miami to Key West supports the Florida Special Olympics and hosts hundreds. Many of the runners at the Sunrise Suites wear tall striped socks and mill aimlessly. In addition to the literary conference going on, the tours, cruises and themed retreats, a 199 mile race stops here. Key West is full to the brim with visitors who want to have a good time.

On nearly every downtown corner, large groups of strapping young lads built like Hemingway roam like big cats, and I wonder, is everyone here to do something? Has anyone come to Key West to relax, or is it the kind of place fun looks tiring? The “rummies” look a wee bored, cigars fashioned listlessly in their lips. And fun-havers everywhere, stepping over obstacles, have their eyes fixed upon the next bar. Occasionally I witness a tourist stop to sniff out a particularly gorgeous scent in the air (which is where Key West gets truly interesting): ocean air, roasting meat, cigars rolled in the Cuban tradition. These are the real charms of Duval Street. The lights and shops are only a glint in her vast sparkling eyes.  

Leonard Bernstein was born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where his family ran a bookstore. He studied in Boston and Cambridge, as well as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In New York City he became known as a producer, in Vienna and Israel he was touted as one of the world’s greatest conductors; it was Tanglewood, however, to which Bernstein would “come home” to perform the work, and foster the friendships, that helped shape who he was as a person.

Cynthia Woods, Music Director of the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra and acclaimed international guest conductor, sheds light on the importance of Place in Leonard Bernstein’s life and career.

While Bernstein had long standing associations with many orchestras and areas–New York, Vienna, Israel–his lifelong relationship with Tanglewood, Massachusetts, stands out as one of the most defining places and experiences of his life.

Leonard Bernstein was accepted into the Tanglewood program in 1940 by Serge Koussevitzky, the iconic conductor and director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at that time. Bernstein had already finished his studies at Curtis with Fritz Reiner, another major influence, but it would be his time spent studying with Koussevitzky that would shape the public persona that everyone would come to know; the flair for the dramatic, the commitment to new music, and a love of teaching became principals that defined him for the rest of his life. It would also be at Tanglewood that first summer where Bernstein would meet another of his greatest friends and musical influences, Aaron Copland.

Bernstein maintained a relationship with Tanglewood for the rest of his life, eventually taking over for Serge Koussevitzky, teaching young conductors and composers, and leading the BSO in their summer season. It would also be at Tanglewood that he would “come home” to give his final concert. On August 19, 1990, Bernstein gave his final concert, almost collapsing on stage from a coughing fit, forcing himself to continue on and giving one of his greatest performances. All of his friends and family say that he knew it would be his final performance. He would die a few weeks later on October 14, 1990.

The Cambridge Symphony Orchestra is playing A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein, Sunday November 13, 2011, at 4:00PM at the Somerville High School on Highland Avenue.

The program includes the Overture to Candide, an operetta composed by Bernstein in 1956, based on the satirical novella by French philosopher Voltaire; a sweet and compelling orchestration of West Side Story, which premiered on Broadway in 1957; and in excellent contrast, Symphony No. 3 by early Romantic composer, Robert Schumann.

Please join us for a beautiful program and a historical, musical tribute to Leonard Bernstein—the places that influenced him, and indeed, the places influenced by him.

Please enjoy an accompaniment to Literary Traveler’s November 5th article by Veronica Hackethal, Becoming Dostoyevsky. This addition of Behind The Article is packed with existential quandaries inspired by the man himself. 

Literary Traveler: You give the impression that being unwary is especially dangerous in Russia? Why do you think that is, and do you think it’s a theme of Dostoyevsky’s work?

Veronica Hackethal: The word “unwary” seemed best to describe my experience of a winter-time dawn in St. Petersburg. During night, we are asleep, unwary of the world around us. The December dawn creeps over St. Petersburg, encroaches so gradually that if you don’t have a clock, it can be difficult to realize that dawn is occurring. This can be very disorienting.

I think that being unwary (thoughtless, unalert, unmindful) is dangerous in and of itself, not just in Russia but everywhere. Someone who is unwary is indeed asleep. Not having a sense of oneself, one’s relationship with the larger world, and the effects of one’s actions on others is a very dangerous state of being. One cannot, then, predict one’s actions to future events, or even to one’s own behavior.

While I’m not sure if being unwary is one of Dostoyevsky’s main preoccupations, I think it is connected to one of his major themes: catharsis through introspection. It is through introspection that one gains self-awareness and takes responsibility for oneself and one’s actions. I think this is a major theme of Dostoyevsky’s existentialism.

An example is Raskolnikov’s reaction to having murdered the pawn broker. Though he had rationally thought out the murder beforehand, he was unaware of the power of his conscience, unaware of his irrational reaction to having committed the act. Through introspective wandering, he grapples with his conscience, and takes responsibility for his actions. It is through the compassion of Sonia’s love that redemption is ultimately found, another of Dostoyevsky’s major themes. In The Idiot, he wrote, “Compassion is the chief and perhaps the only law of human existence.”

LT: Where do you think the Underground Man exists in contemporary literature and art? Can we suffer from existential crises today, considering our propensity toward technology, specifically technologically expressed human emotion?

VH: You mean “Do I still exist if no one responds to my facebook posting?” Just kidding. Regarding Dostoyevsky’s influence on existentialism in contemporary writing, where do I begin? Some consider Notes from the Underground to be the first existentialist novel. Its descendants include Camus’ “The Stranger”, Sartre’s “Nausea”, Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man” and Richard Wright’s “The Outsider.” Films like “Clockwork Orange”, “The Matrix”, “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, and “Up in the Air” all contain elements of existentialism. Then there is the Theater of the Absurd: Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and Sartre’s “Huis Clos”. And don’t forget Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead”. More recent books that contain elements of Dostoyevsky’s existentialism include “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera, and my recent favorite “Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shteyngart.

I think that Dostoyevsky predicted the existential crises from which we suffer today. In his later work, one of his preoccupations was with science and technology: the accoutrements of modernity are inadequate substitutes for religion, love and human understanding. I wonder if the rise of religious fundamentalism is a backlash to the inability of science and technology to assuage the irrational in us. There is alienation and loneliness in connecting virtually with others. But I wonder, do issues of existentialism even register with us anymore? Are we too overloaded with information, rushing too much to keep up with the mundane (e.g. bullet-point top ten lists) to question the meaning of our lives?

LT: I’ve never been to Russia, is it equally stark and opulent? Can you characterize your trip through St. Petersburg in a passage from one of Dostoyevsky’s novels or essays?

VH: I suppose my essay could be considered a light-hearted nod to Dostoyevsky’s wandering, introspective characters, like the narrator in “White Nights”, Raskolnikov in “Crime and Punishment”, or Stavrogin in “The Possessed”. Here I am wandering aimlessly, almost dreamlike, in this unknown city where I can’t speak the language and where I don’t know anyone. Do I really exist as I thought I had? How do I define myself? Much of independent, solo travel is like this. At such times, the insights into oneself and others are particularly valuable.

I think the following passage from “White Nights” sums up the alienation and loneliness of suddenly becoming a wandering outsider, a foreigner in a society into which I’d plopped down by way of Aeroflot:

“For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances? I was acquainted with all Petersburg as it was; that was why I felt as though they were all deserting me when all Petersburg packed up and went to its summer villa. I felt afraid of being left alone, and for three whole days I wandered about the town in profound dejection, not knowing what to do with myself. Whether I walked in the Nevsky, went to the Gardens, or sauntered on the embankment, there was not one face of those I had been accustomed to meet at the same time and place all year. They, of course, do not know me, but I know them. I know them intimately, I have almost made a study of their faces…”

That said, Russia is beautiful, and I encourage readers to visit! In the last decade, many of the buildings neglected during Communism have been spiffed up. My jaw dropped when I saw the extravagant buildings along Nevsky Prospekt. The Bolshoi recently reopened after a six year, billion dollar renovation. The Hermitage, Mikhailovsky, and Stanislavsky theaters all sparkle. So, I would say the word for Russia today is opulent. What is stark about Russia is past history, Soviet times, and the sky during winter. The food can also be a bit wanting.

LT: Please briefly elaborate on the significance of a crossroads in Dostoyevsky’s life and work with a historical or literary example.

VH: Aside from living at a physical crossroads during the last years of his life, Dostoyevsky lived at a time of rapid change, a crossroads of history, when Russia was deciding whether to turn toward the rationalism, industrialization and modernism of the West, or to conserve the traditional Russian culture embodied in the mysticism and faith of Russian Orthodoxy. Cross roads are places of transition, liminal zones, and are dangerous places in many cultures. Dostoyevsky’s preoccupation with crossroads as opposite extremes can be seen in the dualities he develops in his writing, the themes of Western materialism vs. Russian spirituality, rational vs. nonrational, sacred vs. profane. Many of Dostoyevsky’s characters grapple with such dualities; they live at crossroads, in a metaphorical sense. These themes can be seen in the moral struggles of The Brothers Karamazov. The patricide can be taken to symbolize the death of the tsar and traditional Russian society. Ivan’s atheism/rationalism is juxtaposed with Alyosha’s faith, while Dmitri grapples with the guilt produced by his sensualist/materialist ways.

Sweden has a long tradition of Scandinavian laws that attempt to enforce social harmony. Literary Traveler and author of our latest article, Andrew Buswell, discuss how art can shed light on a country’s darkest secrets.

Literary Traveler: Do you think the islands of Sweden appear to divide the country’s society, and do you believe crime is partially the result of modern sensibilities clashing with a historical disposition?

Andrew Buswell: I don’t think Stockholm is hugely different from any other city in the respect that it has different areas heavily populated with either a different culture or different class. For centuries, classes and cultures have stuck together in quarters of major towns or cities. The origins of such violent crime that we see from time to time, could be said to come from a state more interested in creating a socialist heaven for itself than for the people. Whilst many are in agreement with measures brought in, there some who disagree. These people are often don’t dealt with or listened to. It seems to be a “one way or the highway” kind of system; however the political pendulum is beginning to swing slightly. Just look at the recent coalitions [government parties that aim to cooperate] being formed.

LT: Do you think the global success of the Millennium Trilogy is based on the characters, who were mostly based on people Larsson had contact with, or that the intrigue the novels have created around underground culture? What do you think draws a reader into the story?

AB: The characters Larsson created are very strong personalities that can be endearing, inspiring you to read on and discover about them. Knowing that they are partially based on reality makes it all the more intriguing and compelling, as the trilogy is such an unbelievable tale. Herein lies the key to the Trilogy’s success: the fact that something so unimaginable is actually happening around us is incredible. The domino effect of global interest and intrigue has served to bring many important issues to light. For example, there are now conspiracy theories floating around the web and global media motivated by discovering the extent of the problems facing Sweden (if they are actually serious). For latecomers to the novels, this is surely one of the reasons they’re drawn to the books.

Personally, it was a simple recommendation. After reading about 20 pages I had forgotten who had made the recommendation in the first place, because I was gripped for the next few months in the whole trilogy. Months of conjuring up images of the main players was only satisfied again by Lisbeth Salander’s character in the film version.

LT: What inspired you to travel to Sweden? Do you recommend any sites that are particularly relevant to the Millennium Trilogy?

AB: Well, my travels date back over ten years now, when my brother first moved to Stockholm. I’m a regular visitor to the capital (roughly thrice yearly) now. I was an addict before the Larsson novels and even more so since reading them. Beyond the complex layers of society represented in the books, which are apparently either at war or crumbling apart, I enjoy being a tourist strolling around the streets of Sodermalm (where a lot of the action takes place).

Sodermalm has taken on new significance, as I imagine Salander’s view from her new apartment near the Mosebacke bar, or how Blomqvist would have fit into the distinctly arty area of Bellmansgatan, had he actually lived there. There are a number of sites all in the south side of the city. It would be a fitting end to a day to sip a pint in Kvarnen, where Salander’s friends play regularly in their band Evil Fingers.

LT: Have you bore witness to Sweden’s ‘dark side’? Do you believe art serves to unite society, and do you think it can avoid derision considering Sweden’s long-held goal to protect its unique culture?

AB: Sweden’s model society is famous across the world and the goal of this society is to provide its citizens with the best quality life, and in many cases it does so. The maternity and paternity laws, for example, allow children and both parents to be together for extended periods of time (at the state’s expense). Whilst some people consider Sweden’s alcohol laws Draconian, they at least attempt to put a lid on all day drinkers. Whether this pushes people into binge drinking is a different matter entirely.

They are all laws well laid out, adhered to and governed and maybe this is where the bouts of extremism come from, groups unwilling to accept the odd law in three. Although I haven’t personally bore witness to its dark side, the recurring assassinations (Olaf Palme is one) and acts of violence speak for themselves.

In this way, I believe the arts can only be a positive influence. Yes, it highlights inadequacies in the so-called utopian society of Europe, but it helps make people aware that not everything is perfect.

American playwright and Nobel laureate Eugene O’Neill endured certain themes in his life and work. O’Neill’s depression and alcoholism may have provided him insight into the human condition and as Victor Walsh, author of our latest article calls it, our “inner struggle.” But suffering, we learn here, has a foil. O’Neill made a sanctuary at San Francisco’s Tao House in the care of his abiding partner Carlotta, thus writing some of literature’s most lasting dramas. Literary Traveler Editor-at-Large Jennifer Ciotta and Walsh discuss:

Literary Traveler: Eugene O’Neill suffered greatly in his life as you discuss in your article. Why do you think it’s a common theme for the literary greats to endure great suffering (alcoholism, suicide, drug addiction, etc.)? Do you think it makes them better writers?

Victor A. Walsh: Suffering is part of the human condition. Writers suffer no more, no less than others. O’Neill once said that he could continue to be a drunk or become a writer. He chose the latter, and it rescued him from a self-destructive life and most likely early death. It gave him a purpose, direction.

Great personal suffering does not make better writers. It can, however, provide them with new insights or ways to tell a story. Writing is not an act of sudden inspiration; rather, it flows from struggle, from painstaking, unrelenting commitment. Look at O’Neill’s life at Tao House. He wrote from four to five hours every morning without exception, undisturbed and alone in the silence of his upstairs study. He mulled over his manuscripts; he lived and relived them, edited and revised them with Carlotta’s assistance.

O’Neill came of age when western literature was in the throes of revolutionary change due to the shattering impact of modern urban-industrial and cultural changes. Since the time of Chekhov, Strindberg, Nietzsche, Conrad and Dostoevsky, all of whom O’Neill read intensely, the main currents of European and American literature have dealt with victims, not heroes; with mankind’s inner struggle over identity and place.

LT: Without Carlotta and her influence, would O’Neill have had the literary success he did?

VW: I doubt it. As Carlotta once put it, “I did everything but write the plays.” She was his protectress, the guardian of his creative life at Tao House. O’Neill was enormously dependent upon her. He refers to her as his “mother and wife, and mistress and friend — And collaborator!” in his dedication to Mourning Becomes Electra.

The center of the marriage at Tao House was O’Neill’s writing. Carlotta saw in Eugene the potential for greatness. That is what drew her to him — their unbreakable bond even after the collapse of their marriage. The actor Charlie Chaplin, who married O’Neill’s daughter Oona, once remarked that Carlotta had “to be all sufficient to a man of genius, to cut him off from everybody and minister to his genius,….”

LT: Have you heard reports of O’Neill haunting Tao House? It seems O’Neill might have left a part of his soul there because he loved Tao House so much.

VW: Travis Bogard tells an interesting story about the time he spent alone at Tao House waiting for friends whose arrival had been delayed by a late afternoon storm blowing down the San Ramon Valley. The house and grounds darkened rapidly, and Bogard built a fire in the living room fireplace. The house, he said, “was not haunted. Whatever ghosts there were — the ghosts of the four haunted Tyrones — had left the house when its master did.”

“What I found,” he continued, “is hard to describe — an extraordinary silence for one thing, and I felt a sense of protection, as if the house were a caretaker, guarding my well being,…”

Tao House is a special place. Although not haunted by O’Neill’s presence, it connects us to his time. Enclosed by high white brick walls on a remote hilltop outcrop, it tells us who O’Neill was: a man who sought refuge from the din of modern life, who found his ‘final harbor’ where could at last face his own ghosts.

Please read Victor Walsh’s article: Tao House, Eugene O’Neill’s “Final Harbor”.

Mid-March was the beginning of a false-Spring in Boston, Massachusetts. The sunshine was warm and the breezes didn’t bite, but when the sun went down the trees shook, the yards flooded, and the streets reflected Winter-cold light. Following the worst of the storm, poet Gary Snyder came out from California to warm our hearts.

As the recipient of the 10th Annual Robert Creeley Award, Snyder graciously accepted an emotional introduction by Creeley’s widow, Penelope. He slowly laid his hands flat on the podium, and I immediately felt let down by the bright fluorescence of the high school auditorium and Snyder’s small stature. But when he began to read, my heart soared: he was a mountain.

Snyder read some of Creeley’s poems and even granted his interpretation of one. Snyder reading his own work was extraordinary to witness, as the genuine hippies around me rocked their heads in an odd caustic yet welcome remembrance. No one needed much prodding to laugh or relish Snyder’s words, but he offered plenty; loose rocks of inflection and emphasis made slip the truly funny, evocative moments. But the tender chuckle that emitted from Snyder’s shoulders was so spirited, the forced-nature of old jokes quickly eased and then came to a stop altogether when Snyder finished the hour reading with his latest poetics.

He interrupted his own poems to share anecdotes about a temple in Japan and a novice monk. He talked about haiku, and that he doesn’t write them. Structure like that he supposed, isn’t built into the American poet. An important contribution to New American Poetry, Snyder’s work often sounds like traditional Native American storytelling strung with psychedelic Zen chimes.

Snyder grew up on the West Coast on farm land, and learned how to appreciate nuances in nature. He expanded upon experience by reading about Eastern culture. In his twenties, he lived in Japan, traveling throughout South-East Asia to study, to fall-in-love and to ‘Listen to the Wind,’ as his dharma name denotes. By the time he moved back to California, he had built a foundation for artists, philosophers and politicians to climb from.

It’s clear Buddhism and his environmental philosophy prepared Snyder for the “here and now.” In this place, if only for an hour, busy people sit and listen to stories of trees and rivers, animals and mountains, beards and braids. As Snyder wrote in the poem “Civilization,” though, “Those are the people who do complicated things.”

After I finished Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, I put my hand over my heart and wept. After that, I ordered a dress-form and a swath of gold leather online, dumped all my paints, pencils, brushes and duck cloth onto the floor, called my grandma, and downed a glass of chocolate milk.  My erratic behavior somewhat resembles Smith’s lifestyle in New York City in the 60s, process of creation and collaboration with artists passing in and out of the Chelsea Hotel, and travel-induced writing style. Smith’s Romantic, serious phrasing, reminiscent of the French poetry she obsessed over, would seem contrary to her rock and roll vibe if she weren’t so sweet natured.  Instead, it comes off strong and declarative, a sharp anchor in a world of excess.

As Patti Smith is a voice on behalf of our environment and human rights, her warm words peal apart the most sensitive passages of her life so we can observe the moist-letters and slimy rocks of our own. My desire to create since reading Just kids is springier and takes greater form, because my fascination with beauty is shared.

Smith’s friendship with Mapplethorpe was saturated with sad comforts and colors. Before he died, Smith promised Mapplethorpe she would write their story.  The friendships they shared with New York artists helped produce art and joy where dirt and disease once was. Smith is an incredibly believable character–she travels and grows, sours and butterflies in a categorically common way. She quickly harps on regular frustrations like her day job, then graciously extends her hand when we can’t believe her luck. Mapplethorpe was on her arm throughout it all.

While reading, I kept a list of names, ideas or art work I wanted to remember:

Robert Mapplethorpe
Godard
Brian Jones
Midnight Cowboy
Williams Burroughs (Lee Burroughs)
Anthology of American Folk Music
Crazy Horse
Anna Kavan
Virgil Thomas
Arthur C. Clark
Oscar Wilde
Dylan Thomas
Thomas Wolfe–”You Can’t Go Home Again…”
The Golden Bough
Tim Bukley
Ossie Clark, designer
Wages of Fear (film)
Banny Fields
Water and eucalyptus leave for floors
Of Human Bondage
Jackie Curtis
Ray Roussel, Locus Solus
Gautier Michaux
Thomas de Quincey
Gregory Corso
Bobby Neuwirth–Don’t Look Back, “Bring It All Back Home,” Dylan
Patty Waters
Clifton Chenier
Albert Ayler
Blonde on Blonde
Genet
Arthur Rimbaud

 

Friday, March 5 marks the release of Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland.” After checking out the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA in New York at the end of January, I predict a scrawling, blubbering, rubberized, colorized interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s hallucinatory Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Burton’s muse Johnny Depp plays a rouge-enhanced The Mad Hatter, Burton’s partner-and-muse Helena Bonham Carter bursts as The Red Queen, and Alan Rickman rolls languish as The Caterpillar.

It was easy to imagine how Charles Dodgson, who wrote “literary nonsense” under the Carroll pseudonym, influenced Burton’s work as we walked down museum-white hallways of edible stripes, chomping hoses, and sordid baby dolls. But Burton doesn’t liposuction the books he makes into films, he builds a lard house out of them and then lights it on fire to fuel his own eager, weird intellect.

I wonder how Carroll, back in the 1860s fueled his stories; when I was in school, a math teacher told my class he wrote in opium dens. His diaries, however, indicate he was simply liked children. He concocted labyrinths of hazy yet distinct and heightened rhetoric—the kind of sophisticated, wacked-out language kids get, because their impulses detect non-sense and their minds read pleasure.

It’s with that feeling Carroll and Burton capture the sensory part of our collective brain, the pleasure center—stories that blow open the prolific, complex chapters of our childhoods tend to not forget the simple joys in life.

I can’t wait to see what Burton has done on film with the story of Alice In Wonderland. It’s a place we can fall into and feel like kids.  

In The Catskills was originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1910. Tomorrow, the publishing house is re-releasing John Burroughs selected writings about his home in the Catskills and his observational travels through them.

When I moved out to Boston from Buffalo, I thought I would work for an established publishing house like Houghton Mifflin, live in the city and eat fresh-baked croissants wearing leather gloves. Things turned out differently, and I learned what I really love about Boston is its extraordinary proximity to well-preserved trails, ponds, trees and mountains. How fortunate I am to have forged a relationship with these things, the way I thought I only could with French baked-goods.

Burroughs wrote from the bark of this kind of personable environmentalism; one which illustrates self-reflection in nature while proposing each element is worth conserving in and of itself. His work was highly acclaimed and has inspired many travel- and nature-writers to highlight a light-footed love of their own backyards as well as the grandest mountains.

My own backyard is small, but my appreciation for the nature around me is far and wide. Burroughs influence has asked us for a century, “Look up at the miracle of the falling snow”–sometimes more lovely in the city lights.

An adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” comes out in theaters today. Directed by Jodie Markell, the story examines the lust and longing of Fisher Willow, a tenacious, sometimes foolhardy young woman living in the South. I picture Fisher as the kind of woman who shatters glasses, slaps faces, and kisses while sobbing. She isn’t very tough, but she likes to think she is. She’s well-traveled and flighty.

The kind of woman who lives on the verge of insanity, who won’t define right and wrong, whose radical values are affirmed after many exciting trials, in light of her bright eyes, long legs and sophisticated intellect. The story is totally romantic.

I call it romantic because this character is one I always dreamed of being. As a child, my imagination was encouraged but I didn’t have the kind of nomadic, liberal, or unfortunate upbringing that creates moody musicians, free-thinkers or bad-asses. Of course now I believe character traits like that can stem from any background. I also believe there is no way to fake sexy-crazy.  I hope actor Bryce Dallas Howard’s plays Fisher Willow with sincere formidably; because to fake that kind of misunderstood sadness is a disservice to sad people. Tennessee Williams’ would know.

“Youth In Revolt,” adapted from C. D. Payne’s 1993 novel Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, is directed by Miguel Arteta and comes out today.

Payne, born in Akron, Ohio in 1949, lived in the mid-West until college, when he moved to Boston to attend Harvard. He graduated with a degree in History, then moved to California to edit, proofread and publish, among other things.

Director Arteta, known for his quiet, thought-provoking work like “The Good Girl,” suspends Payne’s protagonist Nick Twisp, played by Michael Cera, in a heady yet lovelorn light. Nick is often baffled and gaffed by the adult characters in the story, especially his mother and her boyfriend, who propose a vacation to a cabin-in-the-woods, which turns out to be an old trailer-in-the-park.

The setting matters to the audience because it reflects the disappointment Nick feels by being young and not getting what he longs for. What Nick wants more than anything, of course, is sex. When he meets Sheeni, a girl with her own high-school-age fantasies (French culture), he creates an alter-ego, François. Like a fantasy, Nick and Sheeni’s intelligent, well-versed dialectic creates a crisp, funny, retro foreground to juxtapose the background.

“Youth In Revolt’s” story travels outside the characters’ physical world as we become aware of the exciting potential of hip, bright young-love. The family retreat and the campfire coziness of the woods is a fun way to see through the run-a-muck mind’s-eye of a young guy obsessed with sex, but more importantly who values intellectual, world-travel-friendly dreams.