"Here comes the sun
And I say it's all right."
-- The Beatles, "Here Comes the Sun"
--
More snow, more days off. That's four days this week, and with the weekend coming up, we're in the middle of a six-day weekend, or what's called a vacation. Not that we're complaining. I've logged more movie hours in the last few days than I did over Christmas.
Been prepping for those Chicago auditions, too. We leave in about half an hour, to slicker northern roads, harder lake winds. But it's my kind of town, and tonight we sample its deep-dish pizza, either at Chicago's or Giordano's, or at another deep-dish nook. Then it's some critiquing in a lofty loft, and an early crash on a friend's couch, futon, or inflatable. Out-of-towners, especially auditionees, cannot be picky about where they drop their heads. You're just grateful for a tiny little spot, a niche, that can be yours for a few hours.
Really, that's how acting feels sometimes. This small, too tiny space of stage, these few lines, this action between the scene changes--this is mine. It's not much, and it need not be much. You made the decision long ago to accept scraps from the Masters' table, and these auditions are crowds of cats and dogs, sitting, sitting, sitting, waiting patiently for the go-word, when the treat falls from the hand, the crumb from the napkin, to catch and savor and swallow anything we can get. You've given yourself to the feast, and there is joy in the devouring.
1.30.2009
1.29.2009
Sheets
"Where is the horn that was blowing?"
-- Theoden, in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
--
Where are the snowplows? It's another snow day today.
That's three days in a row now. Three days, and the city again sinks into idleness and ice.
In many places (some main roads included), no plow shovel touched asphalt. The city is--quite literally--covered in ice now, the consequence of two days without adequate plowing. The snow falls, the rain freezes on top, forming a layer of ice on top of packed snow; then, more snow falls in the night, and then from sunrise to sunset (a solid eight hours, maybe more) the top of this new layer of snow melts; it freezes over night.
We are standing on the top of a wedding cake: snow, icing, snow, icing. Someone dig in, please.
Got stuck twice last night on the way to a friend's house. One same alley, two different drifts.
--
Reuters UK has a fantastic video page. Watch the union that will surely beget an Indian werewolf. Or something.
-- Theoden, in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
--
Where are the snowplows? It's another snow day today.
That's three days in a row now. Three days, and the city again sinks into idleness and ice.
In many places (some main roads included), no plow shovel touched asphalt. The city is--quite literally--covered in ice now, the consequence of two days without adequate plowing. The snow falls, the rain freezes on top, forming a layer of ice on top of packed snow; then, more snow falls in the night, and then from sunrise to sunset (a solid eight hours, maybe more) the top of this new layer of snow melts; it freezes over night.
We are standing on the top of a wedding cake: snow, icing, snow, icing. Someone dig in, please.
Got stuck twice last night on the way to a friend's house. One same alley, two different drifts.
--
Reuters UK has a fantastic video page. Watch the union that will surely beget an Indian werewolf. Or something.
1.28.2009
Revolution
"It is true that behavior cannot be legislated, and legislation cannot make you love me, but legislation can restrain you from lynching me, and I think that is kind of important."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Speech at Oberlin College," October 22, 1964
--
The snow hit Cincy hard yesterday and last night. Two separate storms, one giant dump. A series of Level-2 and -3 winter emergencies all across the Tri-State, and 40,000 people without power--people, breathing warmth into hands cold and hard as porcelain, baking with the gas oven open just to make kitchens bearable, or lying under folded blankets to contain body heat. There is no driving to warmer climes, no cars idling in driveways or around corners, no cars at all, on the roads, anywhere, besides plows and patrols.
Drivers will be ticketed in Cincinnati today if there is no emergency drawing them out of their homes. The roads are empty but of walkers, puffy with layers and hats. Almost every business, and certainly every school and daycare, is closed today, a white, gray, and blue day, a snow day.
--
Stranded in the stuff last night at my girlfriend's house, we watched movies all day. I ventured out once, before driving was outlawed. I felt like some kind of rogue frontiersman, leaving for an hour to hunt and scrape the ice on wood, but in fact I just needed to run home, shower, charge my phone, and change my socks. The side streets were worse, of course, and there are alleys too narrow for plows, but too deep for toddlers. The city is an icebox frozen shut, the people as stuck as uncracked cubes in a tray.
--
Late, we left the cold apartment for the Esquire Theater on Ludlow. Our cinema treat of the evening: Revolutionary Road, the reunion flick for Winslet and diCaprio.
Something about the trailer's soft-focus clips made me think it was a movie to warm a bunch of twentysomethings out on the desolate town, but the movie is harder than you think. It was unnerving, challenging, and agonizing, and I loved every minute: Mendes' finest work since American Beauty.
And the brief graces of Michael Shannon's performance, a small but poignant, sharp cheese grater of a role--he plays Kathy Bates' son, and trust me, you can't miss him--was something to blog about. The essence of a fool in a Shakespearean tragedy: the hand that holds the mirror and smacks you with your own warped reflection.
We got back and threw frozen sheets of ice like Frisbees from a stoop. One of mine almost hit a car, another broke into a million pieces of ice and made divots in the snow like salt.
After the movie, I lay in bed, awake for hours. No man on that screen is admirable, yet they are all imitable; in that dark time in the cinema, I realized with confusion and revulsion that I knew these men, that I had felt as they had felt, and seen what they had seen...to an extent. It troubled me, in the simplest sense of the word, disturbed and upset me. It did not anger me to see myself in these characters, nor did it frighten me, but it did shake me. Someone had dropped a stone into the creek, and I was a bug on the surface of the water, suddenly in storm, rolling in ripples. I felt overwhelmed by the shambles of manhood I had witnessed, and in my baffled introspection, I asked myself how never to become like that. As Ciardi's poem might ask, Was I the lion? or his teeth?
--
Today, there is of course no work. We have watched more movies. My girlfriend has made a variation of puppy chow which she calls "puppy poop." (She has replaced the Chex with Special K, and the frosted lump simply melts in your mouth like a rose crumbling in your hand. Delish.)
Inside two sets of socks, my toes feel nothing but cold and the seeming heat of wrinkles. They are like cracked posterboard, bent but unfeeling.
We threw a cat onto the snow, though. That was fun.
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Speech at Oberlin College," October 22, 1964
--
The snow hit Cincy hard yesterday and last night. Two separate storms, one giant dump. A series of Level-2 and -3 winter emergencies all across the Tri-State, and 40,000 people without power--people, breathing warmth into hands cold and hard as porcelain, baking with the gas oven open just to make kitchens bearable, or lying under folded blankets to contain body heat. There is no driving to warmer climes, no cars idling in driveways or around corners, no cars at all, on the roads, anywhere, besides plows and patrols.
Drivers will be ticketed in Cincinnati today if there is no emergency drawing them out of their homes. The roads are empty but of walkers, puffy with layers and hats. Almost every business, and certainly every school and daycare, is closed today, a white, gray, and blue day, a snow day.
--
Stranded in the stuff last night at my girlfriend's house, we watched movies all day. I ventured out once, before driving was outlawed. I felt like some kind of rogue frontiersman, leaving for an hour to hunt and scrape the ice on wood, but in fact I just needed to run home, shower, charge my phone, and change my socks. The side streets were worse, of course, and there are alleys too narrow for plows, but too deep for toddlers. The city is an icebox frozen shut, the people as stuck as uncracked cubes in a tray.
--
Late, we left the cold apartment for the Esquire Theater on Ludlow. Our cinema treat of the evening: Revolutionary Road, the reunion flick for Winslet and diCaprio.
Something about the trailer's soft-focus clips made me think it was a movie to warm a bunch of twentysomethings out on the desolate town, but the movie is harder than you think. It was unnerving, challenging, and agonizing, and I loved every minute: Mendes' finest work since American Beauty.
And the brief graces of Michael Shannon's performance, a small but poignant, sharp cheese grater of a role--he plays Kathy Bates' son, and trust me, you can't miss him--was something to blog about. The essence of a fool in a Shakespearean tragedy: the hand that holds the mirror and smacks you with your own warped reflection.
We got back and threw frozen sheets of ice like Frisbees from a stoop. One of mine almost hit a car, another broke into a million pieces of ice and made divots in the snow like salt.
After the movie, I lay in bed, awake for hours. No man on that screen is admirable, yet they are all imitable; in that dark time in the cinema, I realized with confusion and revulsion that I knew these men, that I had felt as they had felt, and seen what they had seen...to an extent. It troubled me, in the simplest sense of the word, disturbed and upset me. It did not anger me to see myself in these characters, nor did it frighten me, but it did shake me. Someone had dropped a stone into the creek, and I was a bug on the surface of the water, suddenly in storm, rolling in ripples. I felt overwhelmed by the shambles of manhood I had witnessed, and in my baffled introspection, I asked myself how never to become like that. As Ciardi's poem might ask, Was I the lion? or his teeth?
--
Today, there is of course no work. We have watched more movies. My girlfriend has made a variation of puppy chow which she calls "puppy poop." (She has replaced the Chex with Special K, and the frosted lump simply melts in your mouth like a rose crumbling in your hand. Delish.)
Inside two sets of socks, my toes feel nothing but cold and the seeming heat of wrinkles. They are like cracked posterboard, bent but unfeeling.
We threw a cat onto the snow, though. That was fun.
1.27.2009
Reisted
"Chris, are you one of those kinky Christians?"
-- The Rev. Dr. John Reist's second question to me when we first met, after asking my name
--
That email I rattled off to the funny little guy in that funny little town? Already got a reply. Now, to reproduce all of the hilarious message would be a violation of privacy--and Reist already has enough reason to distrust technology--but there are a few gems which need appraisal (no edits have been made on my part):
- "i'M OFF TO MY hEMINGWAY SEMINAR!! finding the lost generation-- I just messed up my lc/uc key!!!!"
- "An animal house is what a college becomes when the students lose interest in the faculty."
- "Yo Hey whoa man [signed] Sad bear."
That second is in response to this quotation from Mr. Ciardi, "A university is what a college becomes when its faculty loses interest in students."
-- The Rev. Dr. John Reist's second question to me when we first met, after asking my name
--
That email I rattled off to the funny little guy in that funny little town? Already got a reply. Now, to reproduce all of the hilarious message would be a violation of privacy--and Reist already has enough reason to distrust technology--but there are a few gems which need appraisal (no edits have been made on my part):
- "i'M OFF TO MY hEMINGWAY SEMINAR!! finding the lost generation-- I just messed up my lc/uc key!!!!"
- "An animal house is what a college becomes when the students lose interest in the faculty."
- "Yo Hey whoa man [signed] Sad bear."
That second is in response to this quotation from Mr. Ciardi, "A university is what a college becomes when its faculty loses interest in students."
1.26.2009
Ciardi
"He really wants someone to pet him.
The trouble is: his teeth won't let him."
-- John Ciardi, "Why Nobody Pets the Lion at the Zoo"
--
I'm reading as much by poet John Ciardi as I can. These are why, so far:
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=181364
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=23183
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176403
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176396
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176393
- http://harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/ciardi.php
And, maybe against better judgment, I rattled off an email to Dr. Reist about him. Something about the poet's deadly whimsy and cynical faith made me think it ought to be quoted somewhere between how he met his wife, and why Asian women make good mistresses.
The trouble is: his teeth won't let him."
-- John Ciardi, "Why Nobody Pets the Lion at the Zoo"
--
I'm reading as much by poet John Ciardi as I can. These are why, so far:
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=181364
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=23183
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176403
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176396
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176393
- http://harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/ciardi.php
And, maybe against better judgment, I rattled off an email to Dr. Reist about him. Something about the poet's deadly whimsy and cynical faith made me think it ought to be quoted somewhere between how he met his wife, and why Asian women make good mistresses.
Logs
"Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly-fallen silent shroud of snow."
-- Simon and Garfunkel, "I Am A Rock"
--
The two S&G quotations are coincidental; I haven't been listening to the old tunes lately. Picked up an Aqualung CD, though, along with albums by the Pet Shop Boys and Ben Harper. In the cold, new music is fresh and warm, like muffins for the ears. In the cold, songs you know can be stale and dismal, like the frigid wind, the sodden snow.
The white stuff came back to Cincy last night, and another half-foot is on the horizon, waiting for nightfall. Under the clouds and swirling mists, under the moonlight, my girlfriend and I will cross the river (in a car) and snare some crabs for our dinner (in Joe's Crab Shack). We tried for seafood on Saturday night, but speakers spilling "Cotton Eye Joe" and "YMCA," as well as a hour-and-a-half wait behind toasted, toasting Kentuckians, deterred us until tonight. Quietude is necessary for crab consumption.
Speaking of Kentucky, I hear that to the native folk (cue banjo), "Appalachia" is the name of the mountains, pronounced Apple-AY-shuh. The native folk themselves? Apple-Ashen. Or Apple-[H]atchin'.
--
The ArtReach blog I started months ago for the Children's Theatre finally got a thumbs-up from the head office. See http://artreachcincinnati.blogspot.com/ for news on the road.
--
Got a haircut today, too: Less hair means a colder head. Got to keep down with your headshots, you know... And incidentally, auditions in Chicago are on Saturday. Renting a car, grinding songs and monologues in the hallways, deep-dishing with Sharon on Friday night, and in general keeping warm in a cold, cold land. New music is on the docket, but old friends.
On a freshly-fallen silent shroud of snow."
-- Simon and Garfunkel, "I Am A Rock"
--
The two S&G quotations are coincidental; I haven't been listening to the old tunes lately. Picked up an Aqualung CD, though, along with albums by the Pet Shop Boys and Ben Harper. In the cold, new music is fresh and warm, like muffins for the ears. In the cold, songs you know can be stale and dismal, like the frigid wind, the sodden snow.
The white stuff came back to Cincy last night, and another half-foot is on the horizon, waiting for nightfall. Under the clouds and swirling mists, under the moonlight, my girlfriend and I will cross the river (in a car) and snare some crabs for our dinner (in Joe's Crab Shack). We tried for seafood on Saturday night, but speakers spilling "Cotton Eye Joe" and "YMCA," as well as a hour-and-a-half wait behind toasted, toasting Kentuckians, deterred us until tonight. Quietude is necessary for crab consumption.
Speaking of Kentucky, I hear that to the native folk (cue banjo), "Appalachia" is the name of the mountains, pronounced Apple-AY-shuh. The native folk themselves? Apple-Ashen. Or Apple-[H]atchin'.
--
The ArtReach blog I started months ago for the Children's Theatre finally got a thumbs-up from the head office. See http://artreachcincinnati.blogspot.com/ for news on the road.
--
Got a haircut today, too: Less hair means a colder head. Got to keep down with your headshots, you know... And incidentally, auditions in Chicago are on Saturday. Renting a car, grinding songs and monologues in the hallways, deep-dishing with Sharon on Friday night, and in general keeping warm in a cold, cold land. New music is on the docket, but old friends.
1.25.2009
Advancement
"People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening."
-- Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"
--
The Telegraph reports that the musical performance at President Obama's inauguration was mimed. Because of cold and weather, said musicians Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, the risk of actually playing their instruments was too great--that the strings could have broken, or that the sounds just wouldn't have been their best. I guess when the world watches you perform, you can't risk actually performing.
--
Been reading a lot by the Rev. Dr. King lately, brushing up on my Civil Rights Movement history. Not just for the current show, but also to know the tree from its roots, the river from its source. There are some who would rather see the river flowing than its source trickling, but not me. There's too much silt in the water as it falls from the peak. Maybe it's the liberal-arts education talking; whatever the reason, I find I am more apt to favor someone or something if I know where it came from.
Most things are pure at their beginnings.
And what I find in the writings of Dr. King, in his 1963 book Why We Can't Wait, is a blasting rhetoric, a pure and mighty stream. Having read his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," as well as some of his more notable speeches, I was prepared to read some powerful stuff. His prose does not disappoint.
A big part of what made me start reading up on the Civil Rights Movement, though, was a growing skepticism of the present version of the story. It seems that more silt has joined the river than I thought.
For instance, after our first performance of Coretta Scott King, the questions began to center around conspiracy theories of Dr. King's death and the NAACP. One of the actors in our group, an African-American, said--rather confidently--that Dr. King worked closely with the NAACP, that it was founded by black people for black people, and that it was conceived in the 1960s after the initial bus boycott. None of the above are true, though when I contradicted her (backstage, of course--you don't want to argue about such things on stage, especially in front of an audience of about fifty black folks who apparently love the NAACP), she dismissed me thus: "Yeah, I don't think that's true."
Ironically, on February 20, 2009, the NAACP will celebrate its centennial. She was sixty years off the mark, and yet because I am not black, she did not believe me, as if the history of the civil rights struggle could only be known by the descendants of those who struggled, as if knowledge of such things is contained in melanin, or genes.
Also ironically, Dr. King clashed repeatedly with the NAACP, and after the organization was kicked out of Alabama, he formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in its place. And in just a few years, they accomplished more than the NAACP did in half a century.
--
And a final bit of irony: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons, now the supposed mouthpiece for African-Americans all over the country, was begun by a big group of white people in New York. And of its three initial founders, two were Jewish.
(Remember Lee Alcorn?)
In the expansive river of time, the silt covers up many gems, indeed.
--
Even with this weight of knowledge, though, or despite my innate desire to perform, I would still hesitate to call Mr. Perlman or Mr. Ma to task about their questionable artistic ethics, or my fellow actor about her questionable version of history. Isn't that sad?
There is something about the austerity of an artist, or the power of a people, that scares the truth from the righteous man's mind. In the grip of awe or the feeling of smallness, the concern for truth seems puny, spurious--not that big of a deal. But dammit, I think it's a big deal to know the truth, whether it's about the sounds coming from an instrument or about how an organization began.
To know a river, you must know which direction it is headed; to know that, you must know the location of its source. Even the mightiest of rivers can flow backward. It is in that sort of confusion that silt settles to become mud: fixed, foundational, and still false.
People hearing without listening."
-- Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"
--
The Telegraph reports that the musical performance at President Obama's inauguration was mimed. Because of cold and weather, said musicians Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, the risk of actually playing their instruments was too great--that the strings could have broken, or that the sounds just wouldn't have been their best. I guess when the world watches you perform, you can't risk actually performing.
--
Been reading a lot by the Rev. Dr. King lately, brushing up on my Civil Rights Movement history. Not just for the current show, but also to know the tree from its roots, the river from its source. There are some who would rather see the river flowing than its source trickling, but not me. There's too much silt in the water as it falls from the peak. Maybe it's the liberal-arts education talking; whatever the reason, I find I am more apt to favor someone or something if I know where it came from.
Most things are pure at their beginnings.
And what I find in the writings of Dr. King, in his 1963 book Why We Can't Wait, is a blasting rhetoric, a pure and mighty stream. Having read his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," as well as some of his more notable speeches, I was prepared to read some powerful stuff. His prose does not disappoint.
A big part of what made me start reading up on the Civil Rights Movement, though, was a growing skepticism of the present version of the story. It seems that more silt has joined the river than I thought.
For instance, after our first performance of Coretta Scott King, the questions began to center around conspiracy theories of Dr. King's death and the NAACP. One of the actors in our group, an African-American, said--rather confidently--that Dr. King worked closely with the NAACP, that it was founded by black people for black people, and that it was conceived in the 1960s after the initial bus boycott. None of the above are true, though when I contradicted her (backstage, of course--you don't want to argue about such things on stage, especially in front of an audience of about fifty black folks who apparently love the NAACP), she dismissed me thus: "Yeah, I don't think that's true."
Ironically, on February 20, 2009, the NAACP will celebrate its centennial. She was sixty years off the mark, and yet because I am not black, she did not believe me, as if the history of the civil rights struggle could only be known by the descendants of those who struggled, as if knowledge of such things is contained in melanin, or genes.
Also ironically, Dr. King clashed repeatedly with the NAACP, and after the organization was kicked out of Alabama, he formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in its place. And in just a few years, they accomplished more than the NAACP did in half a century.
--
And a final bit of irony: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons, now the supposed mouthpiece for African-Americans all over the country, was begun by a big group of white people in New York. And of its three initial founders, two were Jewish.
(Remember Lee Alcorn?)
In the expansive river of time, the silt covers up many gems, indeed.
--
Even with this weight of knowledge, though, or despite my innate desire to perform, I would still hesitate to call Mr. Perlman or Mr. Ma to task about their questionable artistic ethics, or my fellow actor about her questionable version of history. Isn't that sad?
There is something about the austerity of an artist, or the power of a people, that scares the truth from the righteous man's mind. In the grip of awe or the feeling of smallness, the concern for truth seems puny, spurious--not that big of a deal. But dammit, I think it's a big deal to know the truth, whether it's about the sounds coming from an instrument or about how an organization began.
To know a river, you must know which direction it is headed; to know that, you must know the location of its source. Even the mightiest of rivers can flow backward. It is in that sort of confusion that silt settles to become mud: fixed, foundational, and still false.
1.20.2009
Progress
"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."
-- attributed to St. Augustine
--
Despite differences of opinion and perspective, of motive and foresight, I am inspired by Barack Obama. 1968-2008: A true example of how much can change in forty years, if you live in as wonderful a nation as this. Tasteful and forceful, his inauguration address has caused even a skeptical conservative like me to realize just how petty a lot of my opinions really are. With the same spirit that I deride the liberal media and remain wary of most of Obama's proposals, I must also turn the peering lens on myself, looking closely into the mirror and seeing the fault of a too-narrow mind, a dangerous form of righteous bigotry (or bigoted righteousness).
All that goes to say: I didn't hate Bush, and I don't hate Obama. As commander-in-chief, our highest executive office holder, and a far-left liberal, he still has my admiration and respect. I hope the support he has gathered is tempered by a sense of humble responsibility and respect for the principles and virtues that make this country great.
--
People have shed tears at every performance of Coretta Scott King, and their cumulative drops have dampened and weighed on my heart. Any way you look at this day, history is in the making.
-- attributed to St. Augustine
--
Despite differences of opinion and perspective, of motive and foresight, I am inspired by Barack Obama. 1968-2008: A true example of how much can change in forty years, if you live in as wonderful a nation as this. Tasteful and forceful, his inauguration address has caused even a skeptical conservative like me to realize just how petty a lot of my opinions really are. With the same spirit that I deride the liberal media and remain wary of most of Obama's proposals, I must also turn the peering lens on myself, looking closely into the mirror and seeing the fault of a too-narrow mind, a dangerous form of righteous bigotry (or bigoted righteousness).
All that goes to say: I didn't hate Bush, and I don't hate Obama. As commander-in-chief, our highest executive office holder, and a far-left liberal, he still has my admiration and respect. I hope the support he has gathered is tempered by a sense of humble responsibility and respect for the principles and virtues that make this country great.
--
People have shed tears at every performance of Coretta Scott King, and their cumulative drops have dampened and weighed on my heart. Any way you look at this day, history is in the making.
1.19.2009
Heats
"Writing your own headlines
Ignoring your own deadlines..."
-- Cake, "Open Book"
--
Pulled the laundry out of the dryer. The buttons of the jeans were like molten steel, burning jolts to the fingertip. The zippers were worse.
Some of my clothes take a longer time to dry than others. I can think of two or three sweaters that just don't seem to retain moisture, almost like the non-porous surface of finished furniture. Other articles, like wadded socks and wrinkled old jeans, hold back their water stores like libertarians in log cabins, grudgingly giving it up if the dryer jostles it around enough. And some shirts I have will dry quickly on the torso but remain limp and damp in the sleeves; the only way to dry these completely is to hang them near a window or vent.
I wish I rose more easily in the morning, and I wish laundry dried more quickly.
--
Yesterday we restarted the tour, glitches notwithstanding. Today is a day off, and Wednesday is our first overnight.
Tomorrow, Inauguration Day, finds us at a Kentucky library in the afternoon, four hours after the intense celebrations of the city will have begun. Already people quote Dr. King--"Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"--as they lay hail to the upcoming chief. Facebook statuses in laud of the Illinois politician are already making me queasy, not because of the man, but because of the vast horde of smiling people behind him.
The voice of millions of people cannot be wrong? I adamantly proclaim this assertion a lie: big, bold, and gnarly, like a wart on a witch's nose, it sways those millions into ecstasy and delirium, a testament to the tipped scales of the so-called levelheaded in this country.
But what can I do? Mine is only one voice, a closeted conservative voice in a sea of a million--and remember, millions of people cannot be wrong.
Ignoring your own deadlines..."
-- Cake, "Open Book"
--
Pulled the laundry out of the dryer. The buttons of the jeans were like molten steel, burning jolts to the fingertip. The zippers were worse.
Some of my clothes take a longer time to dry than others. I can think of two or three sweaters that just don't seem to retain moisture, almost like the non-porous surface of finished furniture. Other articles, like wadded socks and wrinkled old jeans, hold back their water stores like libertarians in log cabins, grudgingly giving it up if the dryer jostles it around enough. And some shirts I have will dry quickly on the torso but remain limp and damp in the sleeves; the only way to dry these completely is to hang them near a window or vent.
I wish I rose more easily in the morning, and I wish laundry dried more quickly.
--
Yesterday we restarted the tour, glitches notwithstanding. Today is a day off, and Wednesday is our first overnight.
Tomorrow, Inauguration Day, finds us at a Kentucky library in the afternoon, four hours after the intense celebrations of the city will have begun. Already people quote Dr. King--"Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"--as they lay hail to the upcoming chief. Facebook statuses in laud of the Illinois politician are already making me queasy, not because of the man, but because of the vast horde of smiling people behind him.
The voice of millions of people cannot be wrong? I adamantly proclaim this assertion a lie: big, bold, and gnarly, like a wart on a witch's nose, it sways those millions into ecstasy and delirium, a testament to the tipped scales of the so-called levelheaded in this country.
But what can I do? Mine is only one voice, a closeted conservative voice in a sea of a million--and remember, millions of people cannot be wrong.
1.16.2009
Days
"Mm-mm-mm these dreams
Keep me goin' these days."
-- Jim Croce, "These Dreams"
--
It is seventy degrees in my room and seven degrees outside. My girlfriend's roommate showed us her middle finger last night; the blood had drained from the cold skin cylinder, leaving it numb. Cars everywhere start on the third or fourth try, after clearing so many engine throats.
It is cold in Cincinnati.
--
We have finished rehearsals for Coretta Scott King, and are enjoying two days off before a very sparse and calm-looking tour. Two consecutive four-day weekends in February.
Before February, with its Valentine's Day and (hopefully) warmth, there are the Illinois Theatre Association auditions in Chicago at the end of this month. Preparing is today's project: Headshots copied and printed, resumes glued to the backs, all of these packed into envelopes and shipped off, priority, to the art farts in Chi-Town.
Can't wait to start cutting and gluing with these icicle fingers, these glacial digits.
--
I dreamed that I was an old woman in church last night, stuck in a bathtub. Weird stuff happening in dreams lately. (Was I being baptized? I don't get it.)
--
My tiny room smells like vanilla and orange. I ate an orange, and the vanilla is from the air freshener my mom gave me. It plugs into a wall. It's science.
Keep me goin' these days."
-- Jim Croce, "These Dreams"
--
It is seventy degrees in my room and seven degrees outside. My girlfriend's roommate showed us her middle finger last night; the blood had drained from the cold skin cylinder, leaving it numb. Cars everywhere start on the third or fourth try, after clearing so many engine throats.
It is cold in Cincinnati.
--
We have finished rehearsals for Coretta Scott King, and are enjoying two days off before a very sparse and calm-looking tour. Two consecutive four-day weekends in February.
Before February, with its Valentine's Day and (hopefully) warmth, there are the Illinois Theatre Association auditions in Chicago at the end of this month. Preparing is today's project: Headshots copied and printed, resumes glued to the backs, all of these packed into envelopes and shipped off, priority, to the art farts in Chi-Town.
Can't wait to start cutting and gluing with these icicle fingers, these glacial digits.
--
I dreamed that I was an old woman in church last night, stuck in a bathtub. Weird stuff happening in dreams lately. (Was I being baptized? I don't get it.)
--
My tiny room smells like vanilla and orange. I ate an orange, and the vanilla is from the air freshener my mom gave me. It plugs into a wall. It's science.
1.03.2009
Hertz
"Leave at your own chosen speed."
-- Bob Dylan, "It Ain't Me Babe"
--
"It's just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there."
-- Andy Rooney, "Youth," from A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney
--
Andy Rooney's "An Essay on War" is one of the finest writings on war I've read, and he published it over thirty years ago during the Vietnam War. Most sources say it's an anti-war piece, but I don't know if I agree; at the same time, though, it's surely not a pro-war essay. I think, and this is why I love it so much, it is simply a war essay. It is about the thing--not about the position one takes on the thing. I guess it has gotten the label "anti-war" because CBS refused to air it in 1971.
Whatever his actual stance on the Vietnam War, or the current one for that matter, Rooney's thoughtful and clipped prose make for a genial read about a divisive topic. He sticks to the truth. War creates many opinions but retains its quality and trait, and those things with which people of all opinions would agree, are Rooney's prime focus. Good stuff, quick stuff: Ideal for an afternoon doo.
All in all, Rooney doesn't get as much credit as he ought to get. His writings from the middle part of the 20th century are fantastic.
--
So the big trip has come. A late lunch with the fam and then a rental car trek across the country and down to Cinci. We reserved a Ford Focus and wound up with an '08 Chevrolet Cobalt, which actually has a little bit more trunk space. An open backseat for naps while the other drives, and plenty of home-prepped road snacks to sweep back tides of hunger. And good music. That's one thing I can definitely say for Sharon: Every time she pops in a CD, skips to a track and says, "Have you heard this song?" I find another band I like. She ought to know, after all, because she has one of those new 120GB iPods, three-fourths full.
She'll need that music, too. She's driving the first leg, an after dinner ramble through the PM hours and finishing around midnight. We may stop for Vaults, too.
--
Ajax is frustrated, and he doesn't seem to know why. He lays down on the arm of the long sofa in the family room, on his side, the pink skin of his belly growing and shrinking with each lengthy breath. He stares at nothing until you walk into the room. He notices you. He drops his head again, and would fall asleep except that he keeps his eyes open. He is waiting for something to happen.
--
My room, once again, is relieved of my criticals. I've scoured dressers this time, looking for nostalgia and finding it: an old Mark Kistler imitation sketch of a cave and a civilization of elves and a dragon; an old oven glove I began in seventh grade as a Mother's Day gift but never finished (guess what she's getting this year?); a few old essays about the use of syntax in Poe, Hawthorne and Orwell; and, yes, my old paperback copy of A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney. It's all in packs and boxes now, and those are in the car, and the car is in the garage. And I am in my room, seeing the white walls and the old stuff tacked to it.
Pizza's ready; I'll head upstairs. We'll leave at our own chosen speed.
-- Bob Dylan, "It Ain't Me Babe"
--
"It's just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there."
-- Andy Rooney, "Youth," from A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney
--
Andy Rooney's "An Essay on War" is one of the finest writings on war I've read, and he published it over thirty years ago during the Vietnam War. Most sources say it's an anti-war piece, but I don't know if I agree; at the same time, though, it's surely not a pro-war essay. I think, and this is why I love it so much, it is simply a war essay. It is about the thing--not about the position one takes on the thing. I guess it has gotten the label "anti-war" because CBS refused to air it in 1971.
Whatever his actual stance on the Vietnam War, or the current one for that matter, Rooney's thoughtful and clipped prose make for a genial read about a divisive topic. He sticks to the truth. War creates many opinions but retains its quality and trait, and those things with which people of all opinions would agree, are Rooney's prime focus. Good stuff, quick stuff: Ideal for an afternoon doo.
All in all, Rooney doesn't get as much credit as he ought to get. His writings from the middle part of the 20th century are fantastic.
--
So the big trip has come. A late lunch with the fam and then a rental car trek across the country and down to Cinci. We reserved a Ford Focus and wound up with an '08 Chevrolet Cobalt, which actually has a little bit more trunk space. An open backseat for naps while the other drives, and plenty of home-prepped road snacks to sweep back tides of hunger. And good music. That's one thing I can definitely say for Sharon: Every time she pops in a CD, skips to a track and says, "Have you heard this song?" I find another band I like. She ought to know, after all, because she has one of those new 120GB iPods, three-fourths full.
She'll need that music, too. She's driving the first leg, an after dinner ramble through the PM hours and finishing around midnight. We may stop for Vaults, too.
--
Ajax is frustrated, and he doesn't seem to know why. He lays down on the arm of the long sofa in the family room, on his side, the pink skin of his belly growing and shrinking with each lengthy breath. He stares at nothing until you walk into the room. He notices you. He drops his head again, and would fall asleep except that he keeps his eyes open. He is waiting for something to happen.
--
My room, once again, is relieved of my criticals. I've scoured dressers this time, looking for nostalgia and finding it: an old Mark Kistler imitation sketch of a cave and a civilization of elves and a dragon; an old oven glove I began in seventh grade as a Mother's Day gift but never finished (guess what she's getting this year?); a few old essays about the use of syntax in Poe, Hawthorne and Orwell; and, yes, my old paperback copy of A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney. It's all in packs and boxes now, and those are in the car, and the car is in the garage. And I am in my room, seeing the white walls and the old stuff tacked to it.
Pizza's ready; I'll head upstairs. We'll leave at our own chosen speed.
1.02.2009
Lilliputians
"Everything starts today."
-- Guster, "Keep It Together"
--
So. Second day of the year, already pushing against the resolution, To be happier in spite of. Happiness, so I have been told, is not the fleeting feeling of joy but rather the state of living in accordance with virtue, which is fixed. Good grace. Not sure if it necessarily "looks on tempests and is ne'er shaken," but it's a good start to, well, a good start.
Speaking of starts, though... Woke up on the couch this morning (relatives have taken over my room) to sounds of snarl and gurgle, staring into unseeing eyes, just out of reach of unfeeling hands. My aunt, this poor person's mother, was nowhere in the room, and my cousin desperately needs to be either sedated or watched at all times. Her needs and sensations are foreign to me; I cannot help her, and if I tried, I would only do her accidental harm. Relatives rarely pack light; they rather pack heavily, their hordes of baggage dangling from every limb, like Gulliver if he had uprooted the Lilliputian cords and run home, with tiny men still hanging on with tiny killer grips. These tiny men are the infinite little nuisances--conversation pieces better left untouched, odd odors, and sometimes, a severe mental handicap--that land from their swinging journey to infest your house for a time. They squat, they scurry, they surprise you as they roam about. They are foreign to you, brought here from an unknown land by a not-so-welcome ally. You bring your own when you visit them, too, but maybe they are better at ignoring yours than you are. Nobody's perfect, after all.
So. In spite of all that this morning, I calmly restored the living room to order and went upstairs to finish sleep. Since the incident, I have accepted the apology from my aunt, clemency towards the unaware Lilliputian who woke me up. Good grace, perhaps. (Laurence J. Peter, author and teacher, says, "Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are," and I think he is right, except that it is also a subtle kind of hammer, a soft but ebbing blow that dizzies you with your own height, nauseates you with your own musk. It is the anti-Me, the super-ego's finest weapon.)
--
Headshots today, for sure. The rental car is waiting for tomorrow, when my sister and I begin the sojourn eastward through the night, racing to meet the dawn.
Ajax, with his furry eyebrows and horse eyes, woke me from second sleep this morning, making a strange noise from the inside of his nose, a self-straining sort of sound. He whined. He pawed my face, trying to open it, waking it up. He relayed the same message to my sister, who is also amused and annoyed by his cuteness. We toyed with him, the early rising puppy, our sweet revenge for an hour of lost shuteye. He could hear the relatives' dog on the linoleum downstairs, thick claws clacking and big legs thumping, and he wanted out, too. (Mimetic desire, in its most reduced form.) He whined, this time at the door, digging at the jamb. We tried to pet him but he recoiled, aghast, and stared at us. It took a solid ten minutes for us to figure out that he wanted to go pee.
So the dog knows what it wants and can't communicate it to us: Our own Lilliputian, too small to understand fully, to be understood fully.
--
I feel sometimes like I am the opposite of all that, unable to communicate my wants for another reason. It's not that I don't know the language--perhaps I stupidly believe I know it too well to be humbled before its use--but that I don't know what I want. Too many cords, too many soldiers, tugging, swaying me down. Too much subtlety, not enough substance; too much drama, not enough direction; too many words, not enough worth.
So. For today: Headshots, shopping, and more grace. The persona non grata understands the same as Valjean's rector, that in matters of grace, mercy and forgiveness, there is no wrong end of it. There is only right, and there is no end: A perfect circle rather than a line segment or a ray. Find the circumference of it from an arc, the area from its radius.
After all, I needed to be awake anyway. It was almost eight.
-- Guster, "Keep It Together"
--
So. Second day of the year, already pushing against the resolution, To be happier in spite of. Happiness, so I have been told, is not the fleeting feeling of joy but rather the state of living in accordance with virtue, which is fixed. Good grace. Not sure if it necessarily "looks on tempests and is ne'er shaken," but it's a good start to, well, a good start.
Speaking of starts, though... Woke up on the couch this morning (relatives have taken over my room) to sounds of snarl and gurgle, staring into unseeing eyes, just out of reach of unfeeling hands. My aunt, this poor person's mother, was nowhere in the room, and my cousin desperately needs to be either sedated or watched at all times. Her needs and sensations are foreign to me; I cannot help her, and if I tried, I would only do her accidental harm. Relatives rarely pack light; they rather pack heavily, their hordes of baggage dangling from every limb, like Gulliver if he had uprooted the Lilliputian cords and run home, with tiny men still hanging on with tiny killer grips. These tiny men are the infinite little nuisances--conversation pieces better left untouched, odd odors, and sometimes, a severe mental handicap--that land from their swinging journey to infest your house for a time. They squat, they scurry, they surprise you as they roam about. They are foreign to you, brought here from an unknown land by a not-so-welcome ally. You bring your own when you visit them, too, but maybe they are better at ignoring yours than you are. Nobody's perfect, after all.
So. In spite of all that this morning, I calmly restored the living room to order and went upstairs to finish sleep. Since the incident, I have accepted the apology from my aunt, clemency towards the unaware Lilliputian who woke me up. Good grace, perhaps. (Laurence J. Peter, author and teacher, says, "Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are," and I think he is right, except that it is also a subtle kind of hammer, a soft but ebbing blow that dizzies you with your own height, nauseates you with your own musk. It is the anti-Me, the super-ego's finest weapon.)
--
Headshots today, for sure. The rental car is waiting for tomorrow, when my sister and I begin the sojourn eastward through the night, racing to meet the dawn.
Ajax, with his furry eyebrows and horse eyes, woke me from second sleep this morning, making a strange noise from the inside of his nose, a self-straining sort of sound. He whined. He pawed my face, trying to open it, waking it up. He relayed the same message to my sister, who is also amused and annoyed by his cuteness. We toyed with him, the early rising puppy, our sweet revenge for an hour of lost shuteye. He could hear the relatives' dog on the linoleum downstairs, thick claws clacking and big legs thumping, and he wanted out, too. (Mimetic desire, in its most reduced form.) He whined, this time at the door, digging at the jamb. We tried to pet him but he recoiled, aghast, and stared at us. It took a solid ten minutes for us to figure out that he wanted to go pee.
So the dog knows what it wants and can't communicate it to us: Our own Lilliputian, too small to understand fully, to be understood fully.
--
I feel sometimes like I am the opposite of all that, unable to communicate my wants for another reason. It's not that I don't know the language--perhaps I stupidly believe I know it too well to be humbled before its use--but that I don't know what I want. Too many cords, too many soldiers, tugging, swaying me down. Too much subtlety, not enough substance; too much drama, not enough direction; too many words, not enough worth.
So. For today: Headshots, shopping, and more grace. The persona non grata understands the same as Valjean's rector, that in matters of grace, mercy and forgiveness, there is no wrong end of it. There is only right, and there is no end: A perfect circle rather than a line segment or a ray. Find the circumference of it from an arc, the area from its radius.
After all, I needed to be awake anyway. It was almost eight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)