gypsycarol: November 2010

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Eli Wallach

I read in the NY Times that Eli Wallach, at 95, just got an Oscar! How gratifying to find he is still alive and acting! I remember the excitement of that first Broadway show when we arrived in New York, Teahouse of th August Moon. Eli was the poignant and funny star, a combination that was his forte. I don't recall the story, but a gracefully slow and turning dance by a Geisha sticks out in memory. Eli must have been in hundreds of things since then, some of which I have had the luck to see in movies or on television. Salut to Eli!
Half a century ago, after selling our Seattle house, our little family moved east and quickly spent the entire profit on tickets to on and Off-Broadway plays. Sometimes, when we felt flush, there were even meals at popular restaurants. Four years later, returning west, we were required to rent for a time and money was tight. But we never regretted those trips from New Jersey to Manhattan. Musicals were the thing; we saw them all, even My Fair Lady -- $50 for two tickets. And dramas, comedies, an opera now and then, a Myra Hess concert at Carnegie Hall, Three-Penny Opera in a run-down building with two fire trucks parked at the curb . . . Who wouldn't trade practical for the wealth of such memories?
Machvaia believe that what goes around comes around. Have these experiences anything to do with the passion of my grandson, Marcus Ho, who is a marvelous, if not yet Eli famous, actor in New York?

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Born in Spokane, Washington, the first decade of my life I lived downtown in the hotel my father managed. There, my friends were retired musicians, artists, dancers, and I even had trendy lessons in elocution. We moved to a tough urban neighborhood and then to a house in the suburbs where there was a swimming pool and places to ride a bicycle. School bored me and my grades were mediocre, until I began at the University of Idaho. At seventeen, I found I loved learning – I had always read – the Friday afternoon beer fests, and joined Alpha Chi Omega. I married, had two children, divorced, and, with a passion to understand people, what they are like, how they behave, and why. I went to graduate school at the University of Washington in anthropology. In Seattle, I met the inimitable Lola and began fieldwork with the Machvaia Roma. An elusive people, they piqued my curiosity. I dove into their world and became the Outsider/Insider. They called me The Djuhli. Recent publications? Lola’s Luck: My Life Among the California Gypsies and the Church of Cheese: Gypsy Ritual in the American Heyday.

Now I live again in Seattle near my family and far from Gypsies. For forty years, studying, living with, writing about the Machvaia Roma was my mission. Although I still feel part Machvanka, nearly all my dearest friends have moved along to the Other Side and, to get the Gypsy news, I must phone their children and grandchildren.

Several mornings a week I do aerobics at the local YMCA, row there on occasion with one sister, visit the Asian Art Museum with another, walk at the nearby zoo, Green Lake, or in the new habitat restoration wetlands at Magnuson Park, drive my at-work son crazy with questions about computer glitches, read The New Yorker cover to cover, shop the Coop every Tuesday for organic produce with my daughter, check out used DVDs for sale at Scarecrow – I like French movies – and work the crosswords in the NY Times.

Machvaia rituals, beliefs, and the cultural supports that kept them together are eroding. After generations in American society they have lost many of their traditions and knowledge of their past. It is my wish to preserve their history and help bridge the gap between the two worlds. They have entrusted me with their friendship, and I honor them the best way that I know how- by telling their stories. I hope those who read my blog will share some of my fascination for the people I studied and gain a modicum of compassionate regard for the Gypsies among us.