14 書香人物 P E R S O N A L I T Y & B O O K S SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2009 • TAIPEI TIMES

SUNDAY PROFILE [ HARDCOVER: UK ] Manu Chao’s

Left: Playwright . “When I was in high school, Colombian tour other people were reading romance novels,” she says. “I was reading the Ted Bundy books.” Photo: NY Times News Service

Forget flak jackets, when singer Manu Below: and Annie Parisse in Gina Chao toured Columbia by train he took Gionfriddo’s play Becky Shaw ��������������������������last month ���������������at Second Stage fire-breathing dragons, an ice museum Theater in . Photo: NY Times News Service and his journalist father to record it all

By Duncan Campbell The Guardian, London

Few musicians would allow a journalist to accompany their band through one of the world’s most dangerous countries. Even fewer, one suspects, would be happy about their father being that journalist. But Manu Chao is not just any musician, and his father, Ramon, is not just any journalist — so perhaps it should surprise no one that they ended up together on a legendary 1993 tour of Colombia by train, carrying not just musicians, acrobats and tattooists, but a fire- eating dragon and an ice museum as well. Ramon’s account of that Onstage, talking about journey, The Train of Ice and Fire is published in English on Feb. 9. For Manu’s growing army of admirers, the book provides a The Train of Ice and Fire magical-realist insight into how ambition and crime his music has developed. For the By Ramon Chao tour, Manu and his then band, 256 pages Playwright Gina Gionfriddo, who also writes for television’s ‘Law & Order,’ considers herself Mano Negra, took a special train across the country, performing Route Publishing ‘an absolute encyclopedia of true crime’ free at stations for people unable to afford the concerts. By PATRICIA COHEN A 50-strong Colombian-French to London. To judge by the book, NY Times News Service, NEW YORK team constructed the train out the father, now 73, seems to have of a functioning locomotive and indulged in more rock ’n’ roll erial killers are really not that a blind date by a well-meaning co-worker, wacky her premise might be.” where the Pulitzer Prize winner Paula decommissioned carriages and off behavior than the son. Although interesting,” Gina Gionfriddo Andrew (Thomas Sadoski). The date is The two met at the O’Neill Playwrights Vogel teaches. they went, ignoring all warnings he had never taken drugs and did “S remarked matter-of-factly. She with Max (David Wilson Barnes), the Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Is playwriting something anyone can of kidnappings and worse. not even smoke cigarettes, he was picking at a salad in the back of a acerbic adopted brother of Andrew’s new Center in Connecticut, which staged a learn? “I think things like structure you Part of the plan was to could not resist some marijuana Midtown restaurant about a block away wife, Suzanna (Emily Bergl). workshop production of her first play, can learn,” she said. “If you have a tin ear pay homage to Gabriel Garcia cake on offer on Christmas Eve. from , where she Writing about the debut of Becky Shaw After Ashley, in 2003, and presented for dialogue, though, it’s tough.” Marquez’s One Hundred Years “I was in the clouds and totally has just come from a rehearsal for her this spring at the Humana Festival of New Rapp’s Finer Noble Gases. “Hers was by It is Gionfriddo’s feel for dialogue of Solitude, by taking a slab of out of it for two days. Manu said, new play, Becky Shaw. American Plays at the Actors Theater far my favorite play there,” he said. that has gotten her noticed. Rene Balcer, ice to Aracataca, the town on ‘Honestly, Papa, I can’t leave you Gionfriddo considers herself “an of Louisville, Charles Isherwood of the Gionfriddo first became interested the head writer and executive producer which the novel is based. Ice is a anywhere.’ On another occasion, absolute encyclopedia of true crime” — a New York Times called it “a thoroughly in theater at Georgetown Day School in of Law & Order and its spinoff Law & key theme in the book, from the when I got a tattoo, his reaction handy characteristic for someone who enjoyable play, suspenseful, witty and Washington, where she ended up after Order: Criminal Intent, hired Gionfriddo opening sentence: “Many years was the same. But I think he writes for television’s Law & Order — and infused with an unsettling sense of the a “loathsome” stint in Catholic school. after reading After Ashley. later, as he faced the firing squad, really liked the fact that I came.” in her experienced eye, crimes motivated potential for psychic disaster inherent in Even then the stories that fascinated her “She really has an ear for the dialogue Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to Music runs in the family. by money, power and status are the most almost any close relationship.” were about crime. of everyday Americans and the quirki- remember that distant afternoon Ramon was a child prodigy, a compelling and transgressive. At a recent rehearsal the cast had “When I was in high school, other ness of everyday Americans,” Balcer when his father took him to classically trained pianist who left “I feel we’re so squeamish about class gathered in the third-floor studio at people were reading romance novels; I said, “the kind of people you see being discover ice.” Clearly, the journey Spain to study at the Conservatoire in this country,” she said. “It’s more taboo Second Stage to go over Max and was reading the Ted Bundy books,” she interviewed on Nancy Grace.” As it turns needed someone to write it down. in Paris. “My father thought I than sexuality.” In her new work there is a Becky’s awkward first encounter in the said. out, Balcer has hired a number of play- “What you write must be would be the next Mozart but I crime — a robbery — but social ambition newlyweds’ apartment. Peter Dubois, “I’ve never been sure if it was the wrights, many of them women. “I think accessible to everyone,” Manu wanted to be Cervantes,” he says. provides the engine and the theme. the director, waved a list, compiled by anxiety that violence would be done women write crime better than men do,” told Ramon. “You mustn’t use Did he inspire Manu? “When I was For readers of Victorian literature, Gionfriddo, of 19th-century novels about to me or that I would do violence,” she he said. “Men tend to play it safe, relying too many literary references. 10 or 11, he tried to make me play the name Becky Shaw brings to women trying to push their way into a added, noting that the very thought of on an old-boys’ network. Women feel Your last novel was too ornate. I the piano but I preferred football,” mind another famous social climber: new class or position. He wanted the being locked up in prison could start her freer. They swing for the bleachers.” couldn’t finish it.” says Manu. Thackeray’s Becky Sharp. There are entire cast to have a copy of the list. hyperventilating. If her gender has been a boon on The train traveled through The 1993 tour did, in the lots of Becky Sharp-like characters in “Books about ruin coming to women “That’s the sophisticated explanation,” television crime dramas, it hasn’t helped territory contested by FARC end, split the band, some of 19th-century literature, Gionfriddo says, for jumping their class have been written she added. “I may just be a ghoul.” in the New York theater world, in guerrillas and the army, attracting whom departed before the final and for the most part they are vilified for 200 years,” Dubois explained. Later By the time she went to Barnard Gionfriddo’s view. She, along with dozens the curiosity of both — plus concerts. Manu returned to Paris and punished for refusing to stay in their he said, “I think there’s something really College in New York, she had settled on of other female playwrights, recently spectators in their thousands, and disheartened, and went on to place. Thackeray’s Sharp is described as amazing to get a sense that this story that acting as a career. protested the relatively small number stowaways. Manu was impressed form his new band, Radio Bemba. “monstrous” and “serpentine.” “There’s a we’re telling has a long literary history.” New York offered a welcome if harsh of plays by women that are produced by the resilience of his audience. He nearly recruited a new band need for women to be put in their place” He then talked to the actors about dose of reality. In an acting class the in New York. Producers, directors and In the book, he recounts spending member in Colombia — a street for being too aggressive, Gionfriddo said. the scene. “Fighting is a healthy, living students were lined up and the professors perhaps audiences, she said, seem much time with Bogota’s street kid, Rondelle, who could sing and “People like Becky Sharp and Hedda impulse,” he said. “Suzanna and Max went down the row, declaring what sort more willing to accept unappealing male children: “Life’s hell for them. But dance brilliantly. Gabler are boldly out there, aggressively share that, whereas Andrew sees it as of parts each person could play. “I wasn’t characters than unappealing women. despite everything, they’re more The Latin-American trying to get stuff,” she continued. unhealthy.” Gionfriddo pointed to one of the ingenue,” Gionfriddo recalled. “I In Becky Shaw there are plenty of cheerful than you or me. They’re connection continues. Manu’s Though they were a product of their era Suzanna’s lines about her mother: “If she could play the ethnic teenager.” unappealing characteristics to go around. 12 years old, drugged to the gills new single, La Vida Tombola, (“Today they would have been Anna fights with me, she’s OK.” A job at Primary Stages gave her Gionfriddo remembers the varying ways and not one of them’s a virgin. is featured in Maradona, a Wintour,” she said), even now “I do think Every night Dubois and Gionfriddo, another view of how directors analyzed audience members at Humana reacted When they go to sleep at night, documentary about the Argentine we recoil from people who do that.” who met in graduate school, get together actors, often dismissing or choosing to the characters. Is Becky a victim or they don’t know if they’re going footballer, about to be released In Gionfriddo’s play, which opened over drinks to discuss the day’s work and someone for vague, indefinable reasons. a manipulator? Is Andrew nurturing or to wake up — a plastic bag over on digital download. Father on Thursday, there are no consummate possible revisions. “I figured out very quickly that I annoying? Is Max brutally honest or the head, in the boot of a car, and son have an enduring villains or heroes. “I wanted my Becky The playwright Adam Rapp, a friend didn’t have what it takes,” she said about just brutal? Gionfriddo found that often over the mountain and, pow, a involvement in Radio La Colifata, to be a figure that is out of her class and of Gionfriddo’s, considers her work acting. But she was intrigued by the viewers’ romantic history was a guide to bullet in the head.” which translates as “Radio trying to break in,” she said. “I didn’t to have both edge and insight. “She process of getting a play into shape. whom they considered good or bad. Ramon was stunned by what Loony,” and broadcasts live from want her to be a viper, just someone who certainly writes about savagery and the After graduating from college, she The play is “a journey of moral they saw of the country during a mental hospital in Buenos at 35 made a lot of mistakes and didn’t way we co-opt each other and destroy worked as an off-off Broadway general discovery,” she said, and the characters the tour. “It is hard to believe Aires. Manu will be appearing on have many options.” each other and pretend to love each manager and met the playwright Mac are “people who are wrestling with their that there is so much violence the radio station again this year, In the play the seemingly forlorn Becky other. She does that so well,” he said. Wellman. He read some of her work and best and worst selves, and who keep in such a friendly, affectionate perhaps recounting the tale of (Annie Parisse) is brought into a muddle Yet, he added, “Her characters still root urged her to go back to school to study lapsing into something they don’t want people,” he says, on a recent visit that train of ice and fire. of family relations when she is set up on their feet on the ground no matter how playwriting. She did, attending Brown, to be.”

[ PAPERBACK: US ] Bedroom reading: How to have sex after having kids Columnist Heidi Raykeil and sex therapist Ian Kerner discuss why sparks fade from bedrooms of new parents and offer practical tips for what to do about it

BY PAUL NYHAN struggles and tell parents what to learn about it, not just learn parents reclaim intimacy. The Paul Nyhan: Conventional wisdom turn into fighting about not having NY Times News Service, SEATTLE they can do about it. about the way our wives want us one-time preschool teacher holds that most dads don’t read sex — because that doesn’t make It’s a cliche, a running joke, and Their advice is timely in an age to learn about it,” said Kerner, a isn’t a psychologist, but her first parenting books. How do you get us hot. yet a reality for many parents that dominated by the idea of yummy married father with two sons. book, Confessions of a Naughty this on his bedside table? PN: Are you and your husband once a baby is born a couple’s sex mommies and sexy celebrity For example, he suggests Mommy: How I Found My Lost Heidi Raykeil: I guess you get it beyond embarrassment about life starts dying. parents — with full-time trainers. that when dads talk about the Libido, resonated with parents. through their wives, though you your sex life? I mean you put a lot It’s a problem that generations Instead of simplistic New Age disappearance of regular romps It started seven years ago, hope that their wives pick it up out there. of moms, dads, columnists, advice, Raykeil and Kerner offer in the hay, they’re helping — not when Raykeil mentioned her dying and leave it open on the bedside HR: You know there is actually a counselors and talk-show hosts practical tips for parents who live hurting — their marriages. sex life during her weekly mothers table and they pick it up out of lot that we keep private. There are have debated. Yet questions in the real world of dirty diapers, “I can’t help but think the guy group. Initially, other moms curiosity or desperation. just some … moments I will never remain about how to keep the post-pregnancy pounds and little who speaks up about the lack of met her admission with silence, PN: I like this idea [from Kerner] share. passion once baby makes three. or no free time. They speak to sex, and tries to initiate, is really but then it sparked a spirited that a husband who asks his wife PN: Parents have little time. What Now Seattle’s own chronicler dads and moms by dividing each fighting to save the relationship,” conversation. After that Raykeil for sex is a white knight trying to one step can they take to begin of sex and marriage, Heidi chapter into “What Moms Want he said. noticed there wasn’t a lot out save the marriage. reigniting their sex life? Raykeil, gives her take in Love Dads To Know” and “What Dads Raykeil counters some of there on the topic, so she began a HR: I appreciate Ian’s depiction HR: After the kids go to bed, grab in the Time of Colic: The New Want Moms To Know.” Kerner’s arguments in exchanges column that led to her first book. of that, and I can see where he a bottle of wine and talk openly Parents’ Guide To Getting It on This isn’t necessarily a book that sometimes read like radio talk “It was completely accidental is coming from, and I do think about their sex life. Again. Raykeil offers a refreshing for SNAGs (sensitive New Age show banter. But the two often Love in the Time of Colic: The New because no one else was doing it,” it is important to fight for the If you really have only one thing to twist by giving equal time to the guys) because Kerner and Raykeil are on the same page, agreeing Parents’ Guide Raykeil said. relationship. do, I would say check in. views of dads and moms. write about typical fathers — guys that “sex matters … a lot” in a To Getting It on Again Seattle Post-Intelligencer PN: My question to you guys is, PN: OK, you’ve written two books In 260 pages, Raykeil and her who may not always share marriage. By Heidi Raykeil and Ian Kerner family reporter Paul Nyhan talked “How are you initiating?” about sex after baby. What’s next? co-author, New York sex therapist their feelings with their wives In recent years, Raykeil with Raykeil about why she wrote HR: Saying it has been six days, HR: Oh, my gosh — Oprah? I don’t Ian Kerner, explain and debate — a group the publishing industry emerged as Seattle’s modern 260 pages the book, which will be released two hours and 30 minutes since know. I have to take a little breath why sparks fade from bedrooms largely has ignored, Kerner said. version of Dr Ruth, a hip, witty Collins LivinG on in bookstores on Jan. 27, and we last had sex is not the right and figure out some child care and of new parents, detail their own “New dads need a place to go mom dedicated to helping how it might help dads. way to initiate sex. So it doesn’t move on from there.