"He did not steal, but emulate!"
-- Denham, praising Cowley (qtd. in John Ciardi's How Does a Poem Mean?)
--
Today was full of lifts and drops.
Fit at least twenty wooden chairs and two retro-orange sofas into the back of a van. Had to rework it a few times, but got them in. The others were on the loading dock, making mummies of upended desks with packing wrap. Also loaded those chairs and sofas into the children's theatre's storage shop. It was a hot day.
Some air-conditioned reprieve, though, at the Mercantile Library in downtown Cincinnati. Took apart a metal bookshelf lacquered with fifty years. Took a vice grips to the last stubborn bolt and tasted success. Fished out hardware from a toolbox, capped the ends of bolts with rusted nuts. Discovered the floor rotten, dissolved into black dust beneath. All this, in a library ripe for renovation.
There were white busts of presidents and writers, removed from their pedestals and conferring with each other on shiny table tops. And bookshelves, of course, heavy with paginated wisdom. And midget doorways in the middle of walls and stairways which led to nowhere. It was a lovely place, and now the theatre owns one of its old bookshelves.
--
The bookshelf, chairs and desks, all saved from the auction or the heap. When we first got to the loading dock, as the trucked backed up, we stood at the rim of a wide dumpster. Piled against one end were fifty desk-and-chair units, all crome and red and yellow and mint and fading in the sun, waiting for another kind of truck. Not going to a needy school, but to the dump.
And in the warehouse: caged and packaged mattresses of every floral pattern and color, wasting, asleep on top of themselves, or warped from months leaning against a concrete wall, all of them wrapped in industrial plastic like oversized happy-meal toys. Made, but apparently not ready. Rumor is they will be moved and burned, and soon.
And in that library, books with cures. But eleven floors up from the shoppers with handbags and homeless men with beards and flannel shirts. Shelves coming down in pieces. And in a few days, renovators will rope it all away--the busts, the books--to save the floor.
--
On the ride back to the office, one woman joked that we should all get eight hours for the day. Said we were being used as manual labor.
Yes.
Another said we are such a wasteful society that it makes her sick. Said this after seeing a man, standing in the bed of a packed pick-up, heave a file cabinet from that great height into a starved dumpster.
Yes.
And yet another said that the theatre is stigmatizing itself with poverty. Asking for desks, chairs, and bookshelves that successful businesses are tossing out. Asking for decorations to use for fund-raising dinners. Asking the public to support the theatre, if not with money, then with furniture, buildings, and food--
That it is somehow wrong for the theatre to be poor, desperate, and humble.
No.
6.30.2009
Quotes
"The theatre is spacious because its illusion can reach into all dimensions of space and time. The stage is a space in which anything can be imagined."
-- How Does a Poem Mean?, by John Ciardi (on Ben Jonson's term, "spacious theatre")
--
First, something that came to mind while I was in a self-evident position:
I find it kinda funny,
I find it kinda sad:
That the things I've read while pooping
Are the best I've ever read.
--
And second, some really great things I read today:
"Art without mind is horrid." (Kant, qtd. by Ciardi)
"The least one should expect of poetry, is that it find for itself a language (or a diction) better than the reader could improvise." (Ciardi)
"Good writing tends to present evidence rather than judgments." (Ciardi)
"One's very expectation of what language can accomplish is enlarged in the process of seeing it so well used." (Ciardi)
Now, I can't exactly provide language "so well used" here (or anywhere, really), but Ciardi's got it down. Readers smell bullshit as soon as they read it; it's right in their face.
-- How Does a Poem Mean?, by John Ciardi (on Ben Jonson's term, "spacious theatre")
--
First, something that came to mind while I was in a self-evident position:
I find it kinda funny,
I find it kinda sad:
That the things I've read while pooping
Are the best I've ever read.
--
And second, some really great things I read today:
"Art without mind is horrid." (Kant, qtd. by Ciardi)
"The least one should expect of poetry, is that it find for itself a language (or a diction) better than the reader could improvise." (Ciardi)
"Good writing tends to present evidence rather than judgments." (Ciardi)
"One's very expectation of what language can accomplish is enlarged in the process of seeing it so well used." (Ciardi)
Now, I can't exactly provide language "so well used" here (or anywhere, really), but Ciardi's got it down. Readers smell bullshit as soon as they read it; it's right in their face.
6.29.2009
Interviews
"To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet..."
-- "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T. S. Eliot
--
A story in pictures:
-- "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T. S. Eliot
--
A story in pictures:
--
And now, the same story, with words:
Through hair, I dared to eat a peach--
That is, I (sort of) grew a beard.
Moustached, I looked just like a douche
And now I've shaved it off. It's weird.
--
And lastly, the same story, with a quip:
I have a job interview today. The hair had to go.
And now, the same story, with words:
Through hair, I dared to eat a peach--
That is, I (sort of) grew a beard.
Moustached, I looked just like a douche
And now I've shaved it off. It's weird.
--
And lastly, the same story, with a quip:
I have a job interview today. The hair had to go.
6.28.2009
Goettafest
"All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
--
Goethe is not goetta. But both are relished with some grilled cheese and toasted bread.
--
The Goettafest yesterday claimed the Mainstrasse. So many shops in open boxes erected with sticks and rope and sheets. Faded tables. Wide-eyed artisans selling wares. Lots of objects colored yellow and dark red and blue, sayings painted on wood, tie-dye curtains advertising football teams, local colors.
Teresa bought some butterfly earrings, laminated wings secured with hooks; five bucks a pair. In breezes, they spin on her earlobes like fishing lures.
Bought nothing myself (no cash until July 1) but saw much. Gorged on a "goetta chedda" sandwich, dipping it into a flood of ketchup, and watched dogs subjugate one another despite leashes. While eating, chatted with an old couple dressed in white who said our sandwich looked good. Said it was. Asked about the shops. Said they were interesting. The exchange was halting, sporadic, and altogether cheery, with a valued economy of words, no talk inflation. Old people have mastered silence, bolstered their quips. Measured diction. They're all saints and poets.
It was a Saturday of Saturdays.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
--
Goethe is not goetta. But both are relished with some grilled cheese and toasted bread.
--
The Goettafest yesterday claimed the Mainstrasse. So many shops in open boxes erected with sticks and rope and sheets. Faded tables. Wide-eyed artisans selling wares. Lots of objects colored yellow and dark red and blue, sayings painted on wood, tie-dye curtains advertising football teams, local colors.
Teresa bought some butterfly earrings, laminated wings secured with hooks; five bucks a pair. In breezes, they spin on her earlobes like fishing lures.
Bought nothing myself (no cash until July 1) but saw much. Gorged on a "goetta chedda" sandwich, dipping it into a flood of ketchup, and watched dogs subjugate one another despite leashes. While eating, chatted with an old couple dressed in white who said our sandwich looked good. Said it was. Asked about the shops. Said they were interesting. The exchange was halting, sporadic, and altogether cheery, with a valued economy of words, no talk inflation. Old people have mastered silence, bolstered their quips. Measured diction. They're all saints and poets.
It was a Saturday of Saturdays.
6.26.2009
Movement
"JOE. Stew, this place was a bomb way before the one that dropped in here tonight. I may not be a genius, but I know what I know, and this is not the time and place for a theatre. All you had to do was look at--or crawl over--the face of the guy who ran the place. Heartbroken and bitter.
STEW. He dedicated his life to this.
JOE. Exactly. And we survived, and he didn't. Whatever they gave us we lived through it: poison, sterilization, DDT, you name it, we beat it; not by jerking each other off in the name of theatre. This place? On the evolutionary scale, it thrived for maybe a second. Less.
STEW. But that's why we'd do better.
JOE. Stew, we're talking survival of the fittest, not survival of the artistic!"
-- The two post-apocalyptic roaches in "Joe and Stew's Theatre of Brotherly Love and Financial Success," by Jacquelyn Reingold
--
It's official: this children's theatre is moving its office space.
The decree came down yesterday (or the day before) after negotiations with our current landlord fell through. We lease the second floor of this building from a local technology/parts business. Rent, we were told, had been raised by 40%. After some back-and-forth with the higher-ups downstairs, the raise had dropped to 10%. In the meantime, our directors had selected a new office location that would match--not raise--our current rent, freeze it for five years, and remodel the interior to our specifications.
This, friends, is a significant victory for TCTC.
--
The current home discourages our existence: We are at the butt-end of a bad street, across from what might be an insurance building, around the block from some major construction. Parents often complain that the children's theatre is in such an incovenient and unsafe part of town. The new location is fifteen minutes up a highway (triple that in the afternoons) in a much more mainstream environment. Rather than splitting floors with a failing computer company, we will share a shell with a growing realty group.
Additional perks include a bigger parking lot and paid maintenance crews.
--
Plans for the big move are under way. Pre-move movement is scheduled for next Tuesday, when caravans of TCTC staff will move a bunch of free furniture out of storage and into our summer camp facility.
While lifting heavy things in the doldrums of summer isn't an appealing thought, the end goal is. Theatre folks love to play at martyrdom, but a few worldly comforts never hurt anyone. Even fervent saints kneel on pillows.
And of course, we're thinking of the children.
--
The cat is out of the pad. Moved back out this morning.
We had a climactic tussle after she squeezed past my ankles into my bedroom, bounding onto my pillows and making a dash for the open closet door. I pursued. She sprang over my hamper and under my desk. I scampered. She balked at the closet again and I sprawled. The welcome mat in the foyer flew sideways in folds as she skated past onto the hardwood kitchen floor, where she settled under the dining room table. I shut doors to cut off exits. I knelt and out of the kitchen she went. And so on, through the living room and into the bathroom, where I finally snagged her between tub and toilet.
By that time I was so uppity from the chase that I had no idea what to do with this cat in my hands. Her heart chugged inside her and her lungs buffeted beneath the fur. I set her on the floor and she plodded away, tail raised in flippant poise.
--
This week has seen a world in flux, talks of entrances and exits: power plays of this stage. Players should always remember to have fun. As Stoppard wrote, "Life in a box is better than no life at all."
Movement implies purpose, of one sort or other. But before you exit, figure out where you're going.
STEW. He dedicated his life to this.
JOE. Exactly. And we survived, and he didn't. Whatever they gave us we lived through it: poison, sterilization, DDT, you name it, we beat it; not by jerking each other off in the name of theatre. This place? On the evolutionary scale, it thrived for maybe a second. Less.
STEW. But that's why we'd do better.
JOE. Stew, we're talking survival of the fittest, not survival of the artistic!"
-- The two post-apocalyptic roaches in "Joe and Stew's Theatre of Brotherly Love and Financial Success," by Jacquelyn Reingold
--
It's official: this children's theatre is moving its office space.
The decree came down yesterday (or the day before) after negotiations with our current landlord fell through. We lease the second floor of this building from a local technology/parts business. Rent, we were told, had been raised by 40%. After some back-and-forth with the higher-ups downstairs, the raise had dropped to 10%. In the meantime, our directors had selected a new office location that would match--not raise--our current rent, freeze it for five years, and remodel the interior to our specifications.
This, friends, is a significant victory for TCTC.
--
The current home discourages our existence: We are at the butt-end of a bad street, across from what might be an insurance building, around the block from some major construction. Parents often complain that the children's theatre is in such an incovenient and unsafe part of town. The new location is fifteen minutes up a highway (triple that in the afternoons) in a much more mainstream environment. Rather than splitting floors with a failing computer company, we will share a shell with a growing realty group.
Additional perks include a bigger parking lot and paid maintenance crews.
--
Plans for the big move are under way. Pre-move movement is scheduled for next Tuesday, when caravans of TCTC staff will move a bunch of free furniture out of storage and into our summer camp facility.
While lifting heavy things in the doldrums of summer isn't an appealing thought, the end goal is. Theatre folks love to play at martyrdom, but a few worldly comforts never hurt anyone. Even fervent saints kneel on pillows.
And of course, we're thinking of the children.
--
The cat is out of the pad. Moved back out this morning.
We had a climactic tussle after she squeezed past my ankles into my bedroom, bounding onto my pillows and making a dash for the open closet door. I pursued. She sprang over my hamper and under my desk. I scampered. She balked at the closet again and I sprawled. The welcome mat in the foyer flew sideways in folds as she skated past onto the hardwood kitchen floor, where she settled under the dining room table. I shut doors to cut off exits. I knelt and out of the kitchen she went. And so on, through the living room and into the bathroom, where I finally snagged her between tub and toilet.
By that time I was so uppity from the chase that I had no idea what to do with this cat in my hands. Her heart chugged inside her and her lungs buffeted beneath the fur. I set her on the floor and she plodded away, tail raised in flippant poise.
--
This week has seen a world in flux, talks of entrances and exits: power plays of this stage. Players should always remember to have fun. As Stoppard wrote, "Life in a box is better than no life at all."
Movement implies purpose, of one sort or other. But before you exit, figure out where you're going.
6.25.2009
Pas
"'I am not,' he said gravely, 'a talented religious person,' and in seeking words to go on, found himself possessed by shame and fear. 'I think,' he said in a strained manner, 'that I came to God not because I loved Him, but because I did not.'"
-- "The Magic Barrel," by Bernard Malamud
--
Big celebrities died recently in a trio: Ed McMahon before today's Farrah Fawcett and this afternoon's Michael Jackson. Of the three, the last takes precedence in the news, on Facebook, and on "Larry King Live." (I don't watch LKL, but I saw the last bit today.) King's broadcast this evening, as a matter of fact, centered around Jackson's death, or more accurately, the few meaningless encounters King had with Jackson. The twice-removed tribute lasted a good fifteen straight minutes.
King's show ended with the hasty addendum, that his condolences were also with Fawcett's family. A blessing and a curse, I'm sure: for a loved one's death to be passed up in the wake of a larger name.
Not that this is anything new. When Princess Diana died in a car crash, news of Mother Teresa's quiet death escaped global news. And when Robert Goulet died, Heath Ledger took the forefront. (Bea Arthur lucked out, kicking the bucket with no one else around to steal the thunder.) Cynical? Maybe.
Americans seem only to conjure phony sympathy for those with the biggest names. The fame of a name is the game. Speaking of Diana... Americans treat celebrities the way Brits treat royalty. In lieu of God-ordained rulers, we have God-given talent holders, and we worship talent over discipline, gifts over skill. Especially this younger crowd.
Death is never a terribly happy thing. But the Facebook emotions are just ridiculous. None of my FB friends, I'm certain, knew Jackson or Fawcett well, and so mourning their loss is not exactly appropriate. "It's the end of an era," one friend writes, years after Jackson's last successful album. "I'll miss you, Mikey," writes another. Also: "Michael will live forever in my heart," "This is how I'll remember Michael," and "Stop laughing, people! Michael Jackson was people, too!"
Seriously?
Say your uncle died. How would you feel if a million people heard about it and showed up at your family's home to weep?
I think most people would tell the secondhand mourners to get the hell out.
--
That said, I committed some FB faux pas today.
I logged on just as news hit that MJ had been hospitalized. So when I saw people's statuses proclaiming (and bemoaning) his death, I wrote the following:
OK, let's be accurate, folks. Michael Jackson has merely had a heart attack and been taken to an LA hospital, where he fell into a coma. He's NOT dead. But I think it's pathetic that the LA Times ran this headline over their main story, "Twitter abuzz with speculation after Michael Jackson is rushed to hospital." Odd priorities, perhaps? The Twitter rumormongers get mentioned BEFORE the whole he-might-be-dead thing?
Now, fair enough. I shouldn't have joined the fray with my own amateurism. But, within ten seconds, three "friends" had posted on my wall that CBS, CNN, and the Times had updated their stories to include that he had, in fact, died.
In the time it took for me to write my pith, the man of whom I spoke passed.
--
Another faux pas: My witty sister set as her status, "And so it goes." I gave a sarcastic reply, quoting the Billy Joel song of the same title, adding later that I knew she meant Vonnegut. (Joel himself would have deferred to the phrase's origin, Slaughterhouse-Five.)
And then one of my sister's friends corrected me, saying that it was a Vonnegut reference. He had seen the abridged version of my comment and assumed I had missed the boat. The haste with which we make decisions quickly becomes the waste with which we make them.
Kids these days...
--
All of this makes me regret that I've been so active on the ol FB lately. The Internet craves opinions made haphazardly, premature premonitions, prophetic stupidity.
Or, more precisely, people use the Internet to satisfy the same cravings. Myself included.
We all want to stay current, to have the latest information as soon as possible. We live in a fast-paced world; this and much more has been said.
Does anyone else think we've lost something? There used to be a time when you may not have found out about a friend's death until you asked about that friend's well-being. "Oh," would come the reply, "you haven't heard."
"No, I haven't."
"He/She's passed on. Happened about a month ago."
"Oh, dear."
And your sympathy would be genuine, your surprise warranted. The news had taken longer to reach you, and it had sharpened with time. And this death was not just a conversation piece; it was a solemn reminder that we all hit the same brick wall at the end of the joy ride.
Nowadays, if you don't know immediately, you become the object of instant, public ridicule.
--
I feel like I sound like an old man.
After all, I berate the Internet whilst I blog: a mammoth hypocrisy.
But I still believe that this outlandish outpouring is little more than when the cheerleaders all get sad when the Homecoming queen breaks up with her boyfriend. It's the same appropriation of emotion. Those closely associated with greatness will claim the same pains, and those distantly associated will claim closer association, and thus, the pains. It's the dumb human belief that even if we are not "important" or "popular" ourselves, that concerning ourselves with "important and popular" things and people makes us appear so.
I'm not saying I never do it. I'm just saying that it's dumb.
And I'm done.
-- "The Magic Barrel," by Bernard Malamud
--
Big celebrities died recently in a trio: Ed McMahon before today's Farrah Fawcett and this afternoon's Michael Jackson. Of the three, the last takes precedence in the news, on Facebook, and on "Larry King Live." (I don't watch LKL, but I saw the last bit today.) King's broadcast this evening, as a matter of fact, centered around Jackson's death, or more accurately, the few meaningless encounters King had with Jackson. The twice-removed tribute lasted a good fifteen straight minutes.
King's show ended with the hasty addendum, that his condolences were also with Fawcett's family. A blessing and a curse, I'm sure: for a loved one's death to be passed up in the wake of a larger name.
Not that this is anything new. When Princess Diana died in a car crash, news of Mother Teresa's quiet death escaped global news. And when Robert Goulet died, Heath Ledger took the forefront. (Bea Arthur lucked out, kicking the bucket with no one else around to steal the thunder.) Cynical? Maybe.
Americans seem only to conjure phony sympathy for those with the biggest names. The fame of a name is the game. Speaking of Diana... Americans treat celebrities the way Brits treat royalty. In lieu of God-ordained rulers, we have God-given talent holders, and we worship talent over discipline, gifts over skill. Especially this younger crowd.
Death is never a terribly happy thing. But the Facebook emotions are just ridiculous. None of my FB friends, I'm certain, knew Jackson or Fawcett well, and so mourning their loss is not exactly appropriate. "It's the end of an era," one friend writes, years after Jackson's last successful album. "I'll miss you, Mikey," writes another. Also: "Michael will live forever in my heart," "This is how I'll remember Michael," and "Stop laughing, people! Michael Jackson was people, too!"
Seriously?
Say your uncle died. How would you feel if a million people heard about it and showed up at your family's home to weep?
I think most people would tell the secondhand mourners to get the hell out.
--
That said, I committed some FB faux pas today.
I logged on just as news hit that MJ had been hospitalized. So when I saw people's statuses proclaiming (and bemoaning) his death, I wrote the following:
OK, let's be accurate, folks. Michael Jackson has merely had a heart attack and been taken to an LA hospital, where he fell into a coma. He's NOT dead. But I think it's pathetic that the LA Times ran this headline over their main story, "Twitter abuzz with speculation after Michael Jackson is rushed to hospital." Odd priorities, perhaps? The Twitter rumormongers get mentioned BEFORE the whole he-might-be-dead thing?
Now, fair enough. I shouldn't have joined the fray with my own amateurism. But, within ten seconds, three "friends" had posted on my wall that CBS, CNN, and the Times had updated their stories to include that he had, in fact, died.
In the time it took for me to write my pith, the man of whom I spoke passed.
--
Another faux pas: My witty sister set as her status, "And so it goes." I gave a sarcastic reply, quoting the Billy Joel song of the same title, adding later that I knew she meant Vonnegut. (Joel himself would have deferred to the phrase's origin, Slaughterhouse-Five.)
And then one of my sister's friends corrected me, saying that it was a Vonnegut reference. He had seen the abridged version of my comment and assumed I had missed the boat. The haste with which we make decisions quickly becomes the waste with which we make them.
Kids these days...
--
All of this makes me regret that I've been so active on the ol FB lately. The Internet craves opinions made haphazardly, premature premonitions, prophetic stupidity.
Or, more precisely, people use the Internet to satisfy the same cravings. Myself included.
We all want to stay current, to have the latest information as soon as possible. We live in a fast-paced world; this and much more has been said.
Does anyone else think we've lost something? There used to be a time when you may not have found out about a friend's death until you asked about that friend's well-being. "Oh," would come the reply, "you haven't heard."
"No, I haven't."
"He/She's passed on. Happened about a month ago."
"Oh, dear."
And your sympathy would be genuine, your surprise warranted. The news had taken longer to reach you, and it had sharpened with time. And this death was not just a conversation piece; it was a solemn reminder that we all hit the same brick wall at the end of the joy ride.
Nowadays, if you don't know immediately, you become the object of instant, public ridicule.
--
I feel like I sound like an old man.
After all, I berate the Internet whilst I blog: a mammoth hypocrisy.
But I still believe that this outlandish outpouring is little more than when the cheerleaders all get sad when the Homecoming queen breaks up with her boyfriend. It's the same appropriation of emotion. Those closely associated with greatness will claim the same pains, and those distantly associated will claim closer association, and thus, the pains. It's the dumb human belief that even if we are not "important" or "popular" ourselves, that concerning ourselves with "important and popular" things and people makes us appear so.
I'm not saying I never do it. I'm just saying that it's dumb.
And I'm done.
6.24.2009
Snips
"So I've heard you know how to write it,
does it mean you're good at putting things on paper?
Rumors say that you're very sorry.
Oh no you're not sorry, no you're not."
-- "Tonight I Have to Leave It," from Our Ill Wills, by Shout Out Louds
--
Whenever someone passes my cube, my hand instinctively goes for the mouse, to nudge the computer out of screen saver. Black screens do not equal productivity, people; gotta wake those hard drives, too.
Good times, bad times. Mostly shocking myself every time something thumps the desk--my hand, a pad of paper, the stapler--and the acoustic guitar standing sentry in the corner hums a warning discord, the gentle strum of slumber disturbed. The phone gurgles every once in a while.
Today, it spat: a local chamber of commerce madam called, lobbing peevish complaints. She waged a passive-aggressive war and it all ended with a most peaceful truce. Phones returned to cradles with clicking calm.
I think pissy people should stay off the phones. The ear is a poor battlefield, the assailants faceless behind the numbers.
--
There's a cat in my apartment.
She is brown fluff, a queen six inches from the ground. She likes to sprawl sideways and stretch, arching, frozen in cat yoga, until her head, isolated, scans the room for the nearest spectator, the closest potential petter. She rolls, mews, traipsing over cords and under tables where shadows graze and brood with her. Her narrow, slitted eyes are like two Korean dancers, zeroing in perfect unison, focused, with the arrogance of grace. She enjoys my foot and wraps her tummy around my ankle when I stand still. She follows me around my small flat otherwise.
I still don't like cats, but this one's okay. I am a misanthrope to felines generally; some exceptions impress me.
does it mean you're good at putting things on paper?
Rumors say that you're very sorry.
Oh no you're not sorry, no you're not."
-- "Tonight I Have to Leave It," from Our Ill Wills, by Shout Out Louds
--
Whenever someone passes my cube, my hand instinctively goes for the mouse, to nudge the computer out of screen saver. Black screens do not equal productivity, people; gotta wake those hard drives, too.
Good times, bad times. Mostly shocking myself every time something thumps the desk--my hand, a pad of paper, the stapler--and the acoustic guitar standing sentry in the corner hums a warning discord, the gentle strum of slumber disturbed. The phone gurgles every once in a while.
Today, it spat: a local chamber of commerce madam called, lobbing peevish complaints. She waged a passive-aggressive war and it all ended with a most peaceful truce. Phones returned to cradles with clicking calm.
I think pissy people should stay off the phones. The ear is a poor battlefield, the assailants faceless behind the numbers.
--
There's a cat in my apartment.
She is brown fluff, a queen six inches from the ground. She likes to sprawl sideways and stretch, arching, frozen in cat yoga, until her head, isolated, scans the room for the nearest spectator, the closest potential petter. She rolls, mews, traipsing over cords and under tables where shadows graze and brood with her. Her narrow, slitted eyes are like two Korean dancers, zeroing in perfect unison, focused, with the arrogance of grace. She enjoys my foot and wraps her tummy around my ankle when I stand still. She follows me around my small flat otherwise.
I still don't like cats, but this one's okay. I am a misanthrope to felines generally; some exceptions impress me.
6.21.2009
History
"Poetry lies its way to the truth."
-- John Ciardi, How Does a Poem Mean?
--
Woke up this morning and my joints ached from so much sleep. There's a passage in No Country for Old Men where Sheriff Bell quotes his father, who said that there was nothing that could set a man's mind at ease like waking up and not having to wonder who he was. Or something like that.
There's a lot of talk these days about what makes you you. Whether it's what you do that defines who you are or who you are that defines what you do, or where or when or why you do it. I don't think it's really a question. It's just one group of folks seeing one circle on the Venn diagram and ignoring the cleft crossover and refusing to see the other circle altogether, the other folks doing the same just on the other end. It's a hockey game without goals but every player a goalie.
Thing is, it all doesn't make much difference when I log onto my online bank account and realize I need another job. That a man--even a young man in a destitute city--can't live on part-time alone.
So I opened old annals, looking for phone numbers I forgot years ago. Job histories. Names of managers, supervisors, co-workers who said I could have folks give them a call in the future. Addresses. Dates of employment, causes for cessation of such. Responsibilities. Duties.
Condensed all of it into a single Word document. All of it, since bussing tables with Mexicans and redneck white boys and database searches for insurance company moguls and watching delinquents spoil even younger minds and pulling for trap shooters in their fifties before the leap to theatre work, exclusive acting and publicity terms, laid out in two neat columns. Thirteen jobs at eleven employers, in eight years. It's what I've done. Seeing that. Seems so trivial and yet I did that every day.
I haven't needed this kind of generic information about my past since I last applied to an entry-level, non-specific job. Sophomore year of college. Three years ago, and a college degree in between then and now.
The last four jobs on the list, or the first four I ever had, bother me the most. The information is sketchy at best. Had to get all the street info from the internet, sometimes from websites that haven't been touched since 2005. One of the companies has completely changed names, and how do you report that on a job application? Not that the employment history section will allow me to go back that far. All for the best, anyway. Don't even remember two of the supervisor's names, and another I heard was thrown in the can two years ago for tax evasion and unreliable accounting practices--I can remember getting paid from that one with wrinkled bills in envelopes with our names on them, every Saturday, come in and count your ones, double-check our figures, boys. The underside of Nebraska recreation.
Arranged like that, the newest job first and the first job last, and looking at it in that order, is like doing a dance in reverse. Tracing origins with tenuous thread. Soupy tracks.
Makes me wonder what I'm building with all this, whether I've ever gotten past the foundation stage, whether I'm still pouring it. Sticking bricks in at random, lathering on the yearly paste with hourly haste, fiscal dreams inside the seams, amassing wages throughout the ages.
--
Well.
Steakhouses open at four and it's three-thirty-seven. I've sat too long already.
-- John Ciardi, How Does a Poem Mean?
--
Woke up this morning and my joints ached from so much sleep. There's a passage in No Country for Old Men where Sheriff Bell quotes his father, who said that there was nothing that could set a man's mind at ease like waking up and not having to wonder who he was. Or something like that.
There's a lot of talk these days about what makes you you. Whether it's what you do that defines who you are or who you are that defines what you do, or where or when or why you do it. I don't think it's really a question. It's just one group of folks seeing one circle on the Venn diagram and ignoring the cleft crossover and refusing to see the other circle altogether, the other folks doing the same just on the other end. It's a hockey game without goals but every player a goalie.
Thing is, it all doesn't make much difference when I log onto my online bank account and realize I need another job. That a man--even a young man in a destitute city--can't live on part-time alone.
So I opened old annals, looking for phone numbers I forgot years ago. Job histories. Names of managers, supervisors, co-workers who said I could have folks give them a call in the future. Addresses. Dates of employment, causes for cessation of such. Responsibilities. Duties.
Condensed all of it into a single Word document. All of it, since bussing tables with Mexicans and redneck white boys and database searches for insurance company moguls and watching delinquents spoil even younger minds and pulling for trap shooters in their fifties before the leap to theatre work, exclusive acting and publicity terms, laid out in two neat columns. Thirteen jobs at eleven employers, in eight years. It's what I've done. Seeing that. Seems so trivial and yet I did that every day.
I haven't needed this kind of generic information about my past since I last applied to an entry-level, non-specific job. Sophomore year of college. Three years ago, and a college degree in between then and now.
The last four jobs on the list, or the first four I ever had, bother me the most. The information is sketchy at best. Had to get all the street info from the internet, sometimes from websites that haven't been touched since 2005. One of the companies has completely changed names, and how do you report that on a job application? Not that the employment history section will allow me to go back that far. All for the best, anyway. Don't even remember two of the supervisor's names, and another I heard was thrown in the can two years ago for tax evasion and unreliable accounting practices--I can remember getting paid from that one with wrinkled bills in envelopes with our names on them, every Saturday, come in and count your ones, double-check our figures, boys. The underside of Nebraska recreation.
Arranged like that, the newest job first and the first job last, and looking at it in that order, is like doing a dance in reverse. Tracing origins with tenuous thread. Soupy tracks.
Makes me wonder what I'm building with all this, whether I've ever gotten past the foundation stage, whether I'm still pouring it. Sticking bricks in at random, lathering on the yearly paste with hourly haste, fiscal dreams inside the seams, amassing wages throughout the ages.
--
Well.
Steakhouses open at four and it's three-thirty-seven. I've sat too long already.
6.20.2009
Revue
"I'm so pretty
oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and bright."
-- "I Feel Pretty," from West Side Story, by Bernstein/Sondheim
--
The following is a lengthy, pretentious, and somewhat meandering review of a show I saw last night. Theatre savvy folks, enjoy; others, good luck. Or break a leg, rather.
--
Saw some Sondheim last night--or rather, saw a revue of Sondheim. Side by Side. I'm beginning to loathe reviews as an entity. Now I'll say from the get-go that I saw this one for free (much of my theatre is free these days, helps to know folks) and that a friend and co-worker was in it and stole the show. I want to make it clear that I love her talent and there were some jazzing moments among the rest of the cast.
However.
The idea of a revue as a concept bothers me. Side by Side was created when some folks who liked Sondheim's music but apparently didn't want to stage one of his full shows took the easy road by excerpting their favorites out of their rightful places and string them all into a two-act show. That's a basic review of revues, really. You cut and paste and take what you want and leave all established characters and plot behind. The result is little more than an excuse to get some good singers together and hear some good songs, well-sung. (Which is the definition of a good concert, which is theatrical, but essentially lacking theatre.)
The good thing about doing this is, you can then have a little night music without A Little Night Music. You can still have an enjoyable show that includes many of your favorite tunes without the challenge and pressure of the show behind the tunes. Also, you can perform a show like Side by Side with whatever cast you have--last night, they had one man and three women (but why they kept working on their laptops and talking on cell phones in a classy bar in the nighttime, that's beyond me). You can have basically up to ten in the cast. You can do it with minimal set, concert-style, or you can do what was presented last night: You can pretend it's a musical rather than a revue. You mistake the thing for what it is not.
This is fatal. It kills the revue, the cousin to musical theatre, and it stabs at theatre itself.
Here's my deal. If you want to have a night of songs you like, fine--have a concert. If it takes the form of a revue, fine, have a revue. But don't take a revue and assign characters and contrive a plot concept that doesn't work. If you try to weave this tangled web, you end up stuck in your own muck, and the poor actors can't save it.
Musicals are essentially plays with musical interludes that allow more expression and virtuoso talent than "straight" theatre. A character can break from reality to express emotion otherwise inexpressible: "Through the majesty of song," as Mr. Burgundy says. These expressions of emotion only make sense given the plot and character established by the playness of the musical.
When you strip a musical of its plot and characters, as in a revue, you strip the songs of their emotional clarity. So when the middle-aged woman in Night Music sings, "Send in the Clowns," she can wring tears from eyes because she is both comforting and rejecting a former lover. But when the same song appears in Side by Side, the song stands on its own, in a magical kind of void that is mysterious, alluring, and captivating, if done properly. The fact that we don't know this woman's back story has a universal effect on the song, and the audience pays more attention to the music because it is in the lyricism that we discover the story. The song is a vignette, a tiny glimpse, and we can really scrutinize it, and perhaps love it.
However.
When the song is taken out of the void, exhumed through feint and finagle, the song remains confusing and the emotion expressed is dull and aimless, like the worst kind of arrow. And that's what happened last night. The temptation to take the revue and make it back into the musical is a strong one, but one which ought to be resisted at every turn. Last night, song by song, side by side, they fell short of the target. Again, I enjoyed certain moments, bulls-eyes in the storm of thundering arrows, and some songs transcended the nonsense and became stellar.
But those were thanks to the singers, not to the direction or the concept.
--
I'm done.
oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and bright."
-- "I Feel Pretty," from West Side Story, by Bernstein/Sondheim
--
The following is a lengthy, pretentious, and somewhat meandering review of a show I saw last night. Theatre savvy folks, enjoy; others, good luck. Or break a leg, rather.
--
Saw some Sondheim last night--or rather, saw a revue of Sondheim. Side by Side. I'm beginning to loathe reviews as an entity. Now I'll say from the get-go that I saw this one for free (much of my theatre is free these days, helps to know folks) and that a friend and co-worker was in it and stole the show. I want to make it clear that I love her talent and there were some jazzing moments among the rest of the cast.
However.
The idea of a revue as a concept bothers me. Side by Side was created when some folks who liked Sondheim's music but apparently didn't want to stage one of his full shows took the easy road by excerpting their favorites out of their rightful places and string them all into a two-act show. That's a basic review of revues, really. You cut and paste and take what you want and leave all established characters and plot behind. The result is little more than an excuse to get some good singers together and hear some good songs, well-sung. (Which is the definition of a good concert, which is theatrical, but essentially lacking theatre.)
The good thing about doing this is, you can then have a little night music without A Little Night Music. You can still have an enjoyable show that includes many of your favorite tunes without the challenge and pressure of the show behind the tunes. Also, you can perform a show like Side by Side with whatever cast you have--last night, they had one man and three women (but why they kept working on their laptops and talking on cell phones in a classy bar in the nighttime, that's beyond me). You can have basically up to ten in the cast. You can do it with minimal set, concert-style, or you can do what was presented last night: You can pretend it's a musical rather than a revue. You mistake the thing for what it is not.
This is fatal. It kills the revue, the cousin to musical theatre, and it stabs at theatre itself.
Here's my deal. If you want to have a night of songs you like, fine--have a concert. If it takes the form of a revue, fine, have a revue. But don't take a revue and assign characters and contrive a plot concept that doesn't work. If you try to weave this tangled web, you end up stuck in your own muck, and the poor actors can't save it.
Musicals are essentially plays with musical interludes that allow more expression and virtuoso talent than "straight" theatre. A character can break from reality to express emotion otherwise inexpressible: "Through the majesty of song," as Mr. Burgundy says. These expressions of emotion only make sense given the plot and character established by the playness of the musical.
When you strip a musical of its plot and characters, as in a revue, you strip the songs of their emotional clarity. So when the middle-aged woman in Night Music sings, "Send in the Clowns," she can wring tears from eyes because she is both comforting and rejecting a former lover. But when the same song appears in Side by Side, the song stands on its own, in a magical kind of void that is mysterious, alluring, and captivating, if done properly. The fact that we don't know this woman's back story has a universal effect on the song, and the audience pays more attention to the music because it is in the lyricism that we discover the story. The song is a vignette, a tiny glimpse, and we can really scrutinize it, and perhaps love it.
However.
When the song is taken out of the void, exhumed through feint and finagle, the song remains confusing and the emotion expressed is dull and aimless, like the worst kind of arrow. And that's what happened last night. The temptation to take the revue and make it back into the musical is a strong one, but one which ought to be resisted at every turn. Last night, song by song, side by side, they fell short of the target. Again, I enjoyed certain moments, bulls-eyes in the storm of thundering arrows, and some songs transcended the nonsense and became stellar.
But those were thanks to the singers, not to the direction or the concept.
--
I'm done.
6.19.2009
Grated
"They say freedom
Oh, freedom
Is just another place to hide..."
-- Ben Harper and The Blind Boys of Alabama, "Where Could I Go"
--
For desk music:
- The Ladybug Transistor, The Albemarle Sound
- The Last Shadow Puppets, The Age of the Understatement
- Led Zeppelin, IV
- Ben Harper and The Blind Boys of Alabama, There Will Be A Light
--
Picked up some coconut for some ice buko for the office party, but in a sad oversight got the grated coconut instead of the shredded. So now instead of languid strips of coconut like ringworms preserved in jars (or for a more appetizing image, instead of coconut linguine noodles under a sugary white soupy drink), there will be craggy chunks of coconut, the texture of a malt.
And I added bananas too soon to the fruit salad. Best to wait til the last minute on those. They brown quickly, even in the fridge, even under orange juice.
Added some rum and amaretto to make them forget.
Oh, freedom
Is just another place to hide..."
-- Ben Harper and The Blind Boys of Alabama, "Where Could I Go"
--
For desk music:
- The Ladybug Transistor, The Albemarle Sound
- The Last Shadow Puppets, The Age of the Understatement
- Led Zeppelin, IV
- Ben Harper and The Blind Boys of Alabama, There Will Be A Light
--
Picked up some coconut for some ice buko for the office party, but in a sad oversight got the grated coconut instead of the shredded. So now instead of languid strips of coconut like ringworms preserved in jars (or for a more appetizing image, instead of coconut linguine noodles under a sugary white soupy drink), there will be craggy chunks of coconut, the texture of a malt.
And I added bananas too soon to the fruit salad. Best to wait til the last minute on those. They brown quickly, even in the fridge, even under orange juice.
Added some rum and amaretto to make them forget.
6.18.2009
Engineering
"I understand
you've been running from the man
that goes by the name of the Sandman.
He flies the sky
like an eagle in the eye
of a hurricane that's abandoned."
-- America, "Sandman"
--
The blinds are pulled on the north side of the building, but there's no doubt it's raining outside. The room is tinted gray, the colors a little flatter. The calendar on my desk shows half of June's days slashed, and the bright yellow highlighter strokes are turning green, gangrening.
When the cat's away, the mice will have in-office drinking parties. I'm bringing the fruit salad and some buko, a coconut milk drink I stole from the Philippines.
--
This afternoon, I teach a workshop that doesn't exist yet, vaguely titled "Teen Acting." Word on the phone is, teenagers are mounting a play for the kindergarten kids at a library out in the boonies.
The play is an adaptation (which also doesn't exist yet) of Where the Wild Things Are. I'm hoping they already have the script and parts assigned. In my blueprint of theatre games are some staples from Misdirection!:
- Whoosh-Whoosh-Whoa
- Zip-Zap-Zop
- Bippity-Bippity-Bop (and that finishes the hyphenated games)
- Freeze
- Welcome to the Machine/Complete the Machine
- Can I Stand in Your Place?
- Say the ABCs
- ABX
- Half Life
If there are any I missed that you think I should incorporate, I'm open to suggestions. Gotta build this staircase somehow.
--
How Does a Poem Mean? is rocking my shit. I wish I'd read the book ten years ago; might have laid a better foundation for a life of reading than Ms. Johnson's pseudo-Socratic method of having us engineer questions about diction and theme and engineer answers about diction and theme as we sat at desks pushed together, smelling everyone else's educated sweat, books open but their lines of magic blurred and curbed by speaking them aloud and we "learned about literature" while she graded spelling tests in the corner. Huck Finn almost died before us on our desks, etherized by us amateur word surgeons.
Ciardi is the English teacher you never had. He tells you that if you nail down a poem, it cannot fly. So put down the hammer, he says. Take the nail and carve into the wood the word possibility and leave it alone.
--
Listened to the opera Ainadamar this morning, all ninety or so minutes of it. It is about Lorca, whose Blood Wedding we read in Theatre History class. (He strikes me as a sort of Spanish Oscar Wilde...with a lot of pessimism thrown into the mix.)
The opera is very fine, with a lot of flamenco-based rhythms and some twinges of Arabic song, giving it a frenzied, almost atonal quality. It feels like revolution. And there are some dramatic gunshots in the score as well. Always a plus.
Can't wait to see this one...for free. I know people.
you've been running from the man
that goes by the name of the Sandman.
He flies the sky
like an eagle in the eye
of a hurricane that's abandoned."
-- America, "Sandman"
--
The blinds are pulled on the north side of the building, but there's no doubt it's raining outside. The room is tinted gray, the colors a little flatter. The calendar on my desk shows half of June's days slashed, and the bright yellow highlighter strokes are turning green, gangrening.
When the cat's away, the mice will have in-office drinking parties. I'm bringing the fruit salad and some buko, a coconut milk drink I stole from the Philippines.
--
This afternoon, I teach a workshop that doesn't exist yet, vaguely titled "Teen Acting." Word on the phone is, teenagers are mounting a play for the kindergarten kids at a library out in the boonies.
The play is an adaptation (which also doesn't exist yet) of Where the Wild Things Are. I'm hoping they already have the script and parts assigned. In my blueprint of theatre games are some staples from Misdirection!:
- Whoosh-Whoosh-Whoa
- Zip-Zap-Zop
- Bippity-Bippity-Bop (and that finishes the hyphenated games)
- Freeze
- Welcome to the Machine/Complete the Machine
- Can I Stand in Your Place?
- Say the ABCs
- ABX
- Half Life
If there are any I missed that you think I should incorporate, I'm open to suggestions. Gotta build this staircase somehow.
--
How Does a Poem Mean? is rocking my shit. I wish I'd read the book ten years ago; might have laid a better foundation for a life of reading than Ms. Johnson's pseudo-Socratic method of having us engineer questions about diction and theme and engineer answers about diction and theme as we sat at desks pushed together, smelling everyone else's educated sweat, books open but their lines of magic blurred and curbed by speaking them aloud and we "learned about literature" while she graded spelling tests in the corner. Huck Finn almost died before us on our desks, etherized by us amateur word surgeons.
Ciardi is the English teacher you never had. He tells you that if you nail down a poem, it cannot fly. So put down the hammer, he says. Take the nail and carve into the wood the word possibility and leave it alone.
--
Listened to the opera Ainadamar this morning, all ninety or so minutes of it. It is about Lorca, whose Blood Wedding we read in Theatre History class. (He strikes me as a sort of Spanish Oscar Wilde...with a lot of pessimism thrown into the mix.)
The opera is very fine, with a lot of flamenco-based rhythms and some twinges of Arabic song, giving it a frenzied, almost atonal quality. It feels like revolution. And there are some dramatic gunshots in the score as well. Always a plus.
Can't wait to see this one...for free. I know people.
6.17.2009
Tunes
"Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead."
-- Ben Franklin
"Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead."
-- The Pierces, "Secret"
--
Picked up The Pierces CD because of the title, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge. Two sisters singing neo-feminist tunes, a sort of heavier, dancier version of The Ditty Bops. Good stuff.
--
Also listening to:
- Orange Juice, The Glasgow School
- Jazz Side of the Moon, The Music of Pink Floyd
- Oasis, Don't Believe the Truth
- Pink Floyd, Animals
God, how I love the library.
--
Got the car registered in Kentucky. At the DMV, a middle-aged woman in a blue sweater moved like a tortoise and ate granola from a Tupperware and punched computer keys like it was a yoga, so much control and slowness of movement.
Then she told me I have to get a Kentucky driver's license. Said if I get pulled over with a Kentucky title and registration but a Nebraska license, the police can have my car towed. I think this is a lie, or at least a secondhand exaggeration.
--
Started to watch The Omen remake last night, but the agony ended less than twenty minutes in. I simply can't bear Julia Stiles' acting. It's just bad. And poor Mia Farrow and Liev Schreiber, trying to compensate for bad writing with stillness. Just too bad.
Jury's still out on 30 Rock, Tina Fey's latest attempt. Watched the pilot and "The Aftermath" after the Omen flop.
--
This weekend has a friend's summerstock Sondheim show and a possible Led Zeppelin tribute concert.
-- Ben Franklin
"Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead."
-- The Pierces, "Secret"
--
Picked up The Pierces CD because of the title, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge. Two sisters singing neo-feminist tunes, a sort of heavier, dancier version of The Ditty Bops. Good stuff.
--
Also listening to:
- Orange Juice, The Glasgow School
- Jazz Side of the Moon, The Music of Pink Floyd
- Oasis, Don't Believe the Truth
- Pink Floyd, Animals
God, how I love the library.
--
Got the car registered in Kentucky. At the DMV, a middle-aged woman in a blue sweater moved like a tortoise and ate granola from a Tupperware and punched computer keys like it was a yoga, so much control and slowness of movement.
Then she told me I have to get a Kentucky driver's license. Said if I get pulled over with a Kentucky title and registration but a Nebraska license, the police can have my car towed. I think this is a lie, or at least a secondhand exaggeration.
--
Started to watch The Omen remake last night, but the agony ended less than twenty minutes in. I simply can't bear Julia Stiles' acting. It's just bad. And poor Mia Farrow and Liev Schreiber, trying to compensate for bad writing with stillness. Just too bad.
Jury's still out on 30 Rock, Tina Fey's latest attempt. Watched the pilot and "The Aftermath" after the Omen flop.
--
This weekend has a friend's summerstock Sondheim show and a possible Led Zeppelin tribute concert.
6.15.2009
Crisps
"For swich lawe as a man yeveth another wight,
He sholde hymselven usen it, by right;
Thus wole oure text."
-- Chaucer, in the "Introduction to the Man of Law's Tale," The Canterbury Tales
--
Baba Brinkman, creator of the world Fringe sensation The Rap Canterbury Tales, has released a new album, Apocalyptic Utopian Dreams in the Western Wilderness. It's for free download, for I don't know how long, at this link. It's the product of a productive sabbatical of sorts; Baba is finishing a tree-planting trip in British Columbia as I type this.
The names of his associates is almost enough to bolster interest. Handles like Miss Cherry on Top and Smoky Tiger.
--
I'm saving some dough and spending some words on drafting a possible Cincinnati Fringe show for next year.
My current brainstorm melds Middle-English with Led Zeppelin lyrics. Something about adolescent searches and Anglo-Saxon dissolutions. It's a bit fuzzy. Most of my projects never crisp.
Any other (better) ideas? Anything intellectual, challenging, bizarre, nerdy, new and rough'n'cheap is fair game.
--
Crisp, by the way, comes partly from the Middle- AND Old-English word, curly, which has an obvious modern derivative. I think that's funny.
He sholde hymselven usen it, by right;
Thus wole oure text."
-- Chaucer, in the "Introduction to the Man of Law's Tale," The Canterbury Tales
--
Baba Brinkman, creator of the world Fringe sensation The Rap Canterbury Tales, has released a new album, Apocalyptic Utopian Dreams in the Western Wilderness. It's for free download, for I don't know how long, at this link. It's the product of a productive sabbatical of sorts; Baba is finishing a tree-planting trip in British Columbia as I type this.
The names of his associates is almost enough to bolster interest. Handles like Miss Cherry on Top and Smoky Tiger.
--
I'm saving some dough and spending some words on drafting a possible Cincinnati Fringe show for next year.
My current brainstorm melds Middle-English with Led Zeppelin lyrics. Something about adolescent searches and Anglo-Saxon dissolutions. It's a bit fuzzy. Most of my projects never crisp.
Any other (better) ideas? Anything intellectual, challenging, bizarre, nerdy, new and rough'n'cheap is fair game.
--
Crisp, by the way, comes partly from the Middle- AND Old-English word, curly, which has an obvious modern derivative. I think that's funny.
6.14.2009
Reign
"'Apolitical' is not an ugly word."
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in an Introduction to Thornton Wilder's The Ides of March
--
Finished Blood Meridian this morning. I fell asleep reading it, and as soon as I awoke, I had to get to it. There comes a point when a book just needs to be finished. Either it has dwelt on you for too long (or preyed on you), or you have just grown tired of looking past the current book at the other titles sitting sideways on the bookshelf like a group of close friends who weren't invited to the party; whatever the reason, it just has to be done.
For me, that point usually comes around sixty pages to the end. That's when I figure I've got an hour's worth of reading left, give or take. An hour is not too much to ask.
The book, of course, was worth it. The climactic gunfight is simple and brilliant, transported from the town to a dried up riverbed crowded with boulders, and the so called enemy is like a twisted reflection in the mirror. The judge's speech is the cynic's Bible, infused with Emerson and transcendental self-interest. The final four chapters, word-wise, are wondrous.
--
Today, rain came with an hour's harbinger of massive clouds. I had to cross the river. The car started and then the rain did, and it came down in clumps and dumps, spasmodic waterfall spray from an immense white ceiling.
White everywhere. As I ascended the bridge a bus came toward me and it probably didn't know it but it was straddling the middle yellow line. I missed it by a narrow margin. The water sloshed off the windshield with each wiper swipe, blades of rubber against Pyrex shield to make slices of sheets of water. White everywhere, I saw, looking east, looking west. Beyond the bridge I saw nothing but white. I wondered for a moment whether I would touch down on the other end in the city or in some abscessed fantasy world portaled here by the storm.
A pair of yellow lights blinking like astonished viper eyes appeared in the invisible wall, and the bridge ended and other colors returned.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in an Introduction to Thornton Wilder's The Ides of March
--
Finished Blood Meridian this morning. I fell asleep reading it, and as soon as I awoke, I had to get to it. There comes a point when a book just needs to be finished. Either it has dwelt on you for too long (or preyed on you), or you have just grown tired of looking past the current book at the other titles sitting sideways on the bookshelf like a group of close friends who weren't invited to the party; whatever the reason, it just has to be done.
For me, that point usually comes around sixty pages to the end. That's when I figure I've got an hour's worth of reading left, give or take. An hour is not too much to ask.
The book, of course, was worth it. The climactic gunfight is simple and brilliant, transported from the town to a dried up riverbed crowded with boulders, and the so called enemy is like a twisted reflection in the mirror. The judge's speech is the cynic's Bible, infused with Emerson and transcendental self-interest. The final four chapters, word-wise, are wondrous.
--
Today, rain came with an hour's harbinger of massive clouds. I had to cross the river. The car started and then the rain did, and it came down in clumps and dumps, spasmodic waterfall spray from an immense white ceiling.
White everywhere. As I ascended the bridge a bus came toward me and it probably didn't know it but it was straddling the middle yellow line. I missed it by a narrow margin. The water sloshed off the windshield with each wiper swipe, blades of rubber against Pyrex shield to make slices of sheets of water. White everywhere, I saw, looking east, looking west. Beyond the bridge I saw nothing but white. I wondered for a moment whether I would touch down on the other end in the city or in some abscessed fantasy world portaled here by the storm.
A pair of yellow lights blinking like astonished viper eyes appeared in the invisible wall, and the bridge ended and other colors returned.
6.12.2009
Slashes
"Why don't you take a good look at yourself and describe what you see,
and baby, baby, baby, do you like it?
There you sit, sitting spare like a book on a shelf rustin',
ah, not trying to fight it."
-- Led Zeppelin, "Misty Mountain Hop"
--
No workshops, no emails, no phone calls today. Been here two hours and distraction is the name of the game.
Been reading out of The Arbuthnot Anthology of Children's Literature, assembled by May Hill Arbuthnot. Stories written to stir a child's mind are stirring mine, too.
It's just one of the books I took to work at the Children's Theatre. I chose them not only to impress colleagues but for actual usability. These are the titles, on spines slanting sideways on the shelf like slashes of many widths:
- The Arbuthnoth Anthology of Children's Literature, ed. May Hill Arbuthnot
- The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp
- Acting Power, by Robert Cohen
- The Complete Play Production Handbook, by Carl Allensworth
- The Viewpoints Book, by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau
- Accents: A Manual for Actors, by Robert Blumenfeld
- To the Actor, by Michael Chekhov
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki
- Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
- Take Ten: New 10-Minute Plays, ed. Eric Lane and Nina Shengold
- Experimental Theatre, by James Roose-Evans
- Three Plays (The Skin of Our Teeth, Our Town, and The Match Maker), by Thornton Wilder
- Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
and, of course,
- The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
Now, I'm a sucker for books I'll never read, but I can honestly say that on the work shelf are books which I've either read many times or of which I've read large enough sections to fake having read the whole thing. The one exception is the Anthology; hence, my daily dose of poems, tales and morality yarns.
Interestingly, a lot of Yeats in this book.
--
Watched the famous Glengarry Glen Ross last night. Superb acting, the dialogue just great, classic, gritty Mamet. I think I could watch Al Pacino get pissed off and yell sarcasm at people for days and not get bored.
Favorite line:
"You ever take a dump made you feel like you'd just slept for twelve hours?"
Also been sailing through the second season of Arrested Development. So fun and fresh a show I have not seen.
--
I mark the days as I finish them on the big white desk calendar. Blue-lined boxes slashed with yellow highlighter streaks: days done.
In the lower-right corners, drawn boxes with numbers of hours in them. This is how I count the ways, count the days, count the stays. The lazy daze.
and baby, baby, baby, do you like it?
There you sit, sitting spare like a book on a shelf rustin',
ah, not trying to fight it."
-- Led Zeppelin, "Misty Mountain Hop"
--
No workshops, no emails, no phone calls today. Been here two hours and distraction is the name of the game.
Been reading out of The Arbuthnot Anthology of Children's Literature, assembled by May Hill Arbuthnot. Stories written to stir a child's mind are stirring mine, too.
It's just one of the books I took to work at the Children's Theatre. I chose them not only to impress colleagues but for actual usability. These are the titles, on spines slanting sideways on the shelf like slashes of many widths:
- The Arbuthnoth Anthology of Children's Literature, ed. May Hill Arbuthnot
- The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp
- Acting Power, by Robert Cohen
- The Complete Play Production Handbook, by Carl Allensworth
- The Viewpoints Book, by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau
- Accents: A Manual for Actors, by Robert Blumenfeld
- To the Actor, by Michael Chekhov
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki
- Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
- Take Ten: New 10-Minute Plays, ed. Eric Lane and Nina Shengold
- Experimental Theatre, by James Roose-Evans
- Three Plays (The Skin of Our Teeth, Our Town, and The Match Maker), by Thornton Wilder
- Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
and, of course,
- The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
Now, I'm a sucker for books I'll never read, but I can honestly say that on the work shelf are books which I've either read many times or of which I've read large enough sections to fake having read the whole thing. The one exception is the Anthology; hence, my daily dose of poems, tales and morality yarns.
Interestingly, a lot of Yeats in this book.
--
Watched the famous Glengarry Glen Ross last night. Superb acting, the dialogue just great, classic, gritty Mamet. I think I could watch Al Pacino get pissed off and yell sarcasm at people for days and not get bored.
Favorite line:
"You ever take a dump made you feel like you'd just slept for twelve hours?"
Also been sailing through the second season of Arrested Development. So fun and fresh a show I have not seen.
--
I mark the days as I finish them on the big white desk calendar. Blue-lined boxes slashed with yellow highlighter streaks: days done.
In the lower-right corners, drawn boxes with numbers of hours in them. This is how I count the ways, count the days, count the stays. The lazy daze.
6.09.2009
Opera
"Now they are
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars..."
-- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood"
--
Taught two workshops this morning (second group was older, better, more suited to games and the ensuing calm), an hour both ways, in the deep woods east from Cincinnati. Apparently we passed George Clooney's house along the way. The creep. Figures he would live on the Ohio River.
The kids who wear the crappiest clothes will surprise you most. The one with the solemn looks, too. If you just pay them a little attention, they flick the switch back to ON and you realize that they didn't mean for the room to stay so dark; they just dared to ask the question, Why turn the light on if no one's around anyway?
So it was good.
--
Lunched with the office staff at a quaint rich condo, up in the Kentucky hills facing the city skyscrapers. Nature's answer to nurture.
There was a harp by the deck and huge windows and we could see the whole city skyline and also some of the shoreline, such as it is. The spinach salad with cranberries and vinaigrette was good, as were the tiny chocolate thimble cups of pudding. I couldn't help but feel out of place, with my casual work shirt, unironed khaki pants and loafers, not to mention my early-twenties-ness.
But it was good anyway.
Turns out, our hostess saw one of my performances in the traveling group. Said she enjoyed it. I can remember the day she showed up and asked if my boss was around. I thought that weird. Little did I know that within two months I would be asking her how she makes her delicious Asian slaw.
--
Got back to the office and had thirty emails from parents wanting to schedule auditions. About two dozen more came in while I was responding to the initial thirty. All of them, the best child performers I will ever see, or hear about. They have all received standing ovations at school functions. They have all taken classes. They all believe this is something they want to do, now, at the ripe old age of...nine.
Some highlights from these:
- A father says his daughter is an athlete and she's willing to abandon her teams for a role on stage. Says she wants to audition. Says, too, that he thinks it's "a long shot, anyway," but is willing to patronize--er, support--her in her new desires.
- A mother says her daughter will come to the audition, but will not sing. She can't sing in front of people. Says it makes her nervous.
- A mother asks if I can recommend some dance/singing/acting instructors in the area. Told her I just moved here myself, really. Also referred her to the phonebook.
--
While dropping a major deuce, I picked up a copy of Forbes, their "Culture Edition." It had a Van Gogh on the cover and many stories about art and how rich folks own most of it. Theatre didn't make the cut, though: They hit paintings, sculptures, and all the rest of the tangibles.
Opera made it. They talked about this really humble mezzo and how she sings at these ritzy dinner parties in front of black grand pianos and talks about being from Kansas before singing "Over the Rainbow."
But theatre and dance--na-ah. It's coming down, folks. It's coming down.
--
Going to the opera tonight. Seeing a dress rehearsal of The Marriage of Figaro, which I've only seen spoofed.
And that one part of Amadeus.
Recently also got a call-back from the same company, asking me to play a Spanish matador in the background for act four of Carmen. The billboards for the show say, "Make it your first opera." It was, almost. I can't make the rehearsals and half of the performances, but gosh darn it, it was nice to be asked.
This one will be fun, I'm sure. I just hope they can sing faster.
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars
child stars..."
-- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood"
--
Taught two workshops this morning (second group was older, better, more suited to games and the ensuing calm), an hour both ways, in the deep woods east from Cincinnati. Apparently we passed George Clooney's house along the way. The creep. Figures he would live on the Ohio River.
The kids who wear the crappiest clothes will surprise you most. The one with the solemn looks, too. If you just pay them a little attention, they flick the switch back to ON and you realize that they didn't mean for the room to stay so dark; they just dared to ask the question, Why turn the light on if no one's around anyway?
So it was good.
--
Lunched with the office staff at a quaint rich condo, up in the Kentucky hills facing the city skyscrapers. Nature's answer to nurture.
There was a harp by the deck and huge windows and we could see the whole city skyline and also some of the shoreline, such as it is. The spinach salad with cranberries and vinaigrette was good, as were the tiny chocolate thimble cups of pudding. I couldn't help but feel out of place, with my casual work shirt, unironed khaki pants and loafers, not to mention my early-twenties-ness.
But it was good anyway.
Turns out, our hostess saw one of my performances in the traveling group. Said she enjoyed it. I can remember the day she showed up and asked if my boss was around. I thought that weird. Little did I know that within two months I would be asking her how she makes her delicious Asian slaw.
--
Got back to the office and had thirty emails from parents wanting to schedule auditions. About two dozen more came in while I was responding to the initial thirty. All of them, the best child performers I will ever see, or hear about. They have all received standing ovations at school functions. They have all taken classes. They all believe this is something they want to do, now, at the ripe old age of...nine.
Some highlights from these:
- A father says his daughter is an athlete and she's willing to abandon her teams for a role on stage. Says she wants to audition. Says, too, that he thinks it's "a long shot, anyway," but is willing to patronize--er, support--her in her new desires.
- A mother says her daughter will come to the audition, but will not sing. She can't sing in front of people. Says it makes her nervous.
- A mother asks if I can recommend some dance/singing/acting instructors in the area. Told her I just moved here myself, really. Also referred her to the phonebook.
--
While dropping a major deuce, I picked up a copy of Forbes, their "Culture Edition." It had a Van Gogh on the cover and many stories about art and how rich folks own most of it. Theatre didn't make the cut, though: They hit paintings, sculptures, and all the rest of the tangibles.
Opera made it. They talked about this really humble mezzo and how she sings at these ritzy dinner parties in front of black grand pianos and talks about being from Kansas before singing "Over the Rainbow."
But theatre and dance--na-ah. It's coming down, folks. It's coming down.
--
Going to the opera tonight. Seeing a dress rehearsal of The Marriage of Figaro, which I've only seen spoofed.
And that one part of Amadeus.
Recently also got a call-back from the same company, asking me to play a Spanish matador in the background for act four of Carmen. The billboards for the show say, "Make it your first opera." It was, almost. I can't make the rehearsals and half of the performances, but gosh darn it, it was nice to be asked.
This one will be fun, I'm sure. I just hope they can sing faster.
6.07.2009
"Every game ever invented by mankind is a way of making things hard for the fun of it. The great fun, of course, is in making the hard look easy."
-- John Ciardi, How Does a Poem Mean?
--
Found an old volume at the library, a jacketed hardcover edition of the above-quoted book, a favorite of Dr. Reist's. Sometimes, going through the text, I feel like I have heard all this before, and that instead of continuing on I merely need to recall a portly old man in sleeve garters offending us all. Scrawled Greek on the chalkboard, or crude etchings, prayerful obscenities.
I really miss those classes.
I sometimes consider going back to school, not for the degree or job security but for the fun of it. There was fun in the playpen, if I remember rightly. And what are my occupation's studies, the things I learn for work, if not the same pen games but with less lofty and more frivolous ends?
--
Ciardi suggests that we abandon the easy question, "What does a poem mean?" and substitute for it the difficult one, "How does a poem mean?" It is not a finding of meaning but an understanding of how meaning works, how the pieces fit together a certain way, and why they do not fit together in a different certain way, or in an uncertain way altogether.
Anyways: old hat for English readers, I'm sure, especially from Hillsdale. Still, Ciardi's analysis of Frost, Carroll and (so far) some old lyrical ballads returns me to my studies, and not just of poetry.
--
So, for life:
Alas, the Tony Awards are on television tonight, and we've been invited to a friend's apartment for it. The birth of dinner parties. I used to watch and read plays about couples preparing to go to a party or a dinner with friends and hating the preparation, hating the others there. And I always wondered why those couples kept going to these things if they didn't like doing it.
Or, put another way, if you weren't going to watch the Tony Awards until you were invited to do so, why are you doing it?
I'm learning.
--
I noticed today how many different bird calls I can hear from my apartment. Maybe it's because I'm up three levels. Elevated to the canopy deck, the sounds of the streets are far away and the sounds of the sky are close at hand: planes sometimes rattle my walls, the wind makes something in the kitchen creak, and birds twitter just outside the windows.
The other night, I took a book out to the fire escape outside the bathroom window. I brought a flashlight because it was dark and a cigarette because I found it. As I smoked and tried to read, a bat flew past my face and my whole body flinched and I hooted in dumb surprise and the thing came back for another go.
And yesterday, smoking another cigarette I found (the remains of a lost habit), I sat on the porch and read. Bees kept pestering me and finally I looked up. There stood a tree, ten feet from the porch, its wide branches petering out to thin twigs and frail leaves. And at the very tips, golden flowers like balls of pixie dust, hundreds of them posted throughout the tree, and some of them caught the sunshine and made a half-halo around the silhouette, and bees latched onto these dust balls and festooned themselves with pollen and flew away. At least thirty bees that I could see, a score and a half of little black and yellow angels sucking on heavenly nectar.
--
Those bees make it all look easy, their interpretive dances and free flight. It means that everything will be okay.
How does it mean that?
-- John Ciardi, How Does a Poem Mean?
--
Found an old volume at the library, a jacketed hardcover edition of the above-quoted book, a favorite of Dr. Reist's. Sometimes, going through the text, I feel like I have heard all this before, and that instead of continuing on I merely need to recall a portly old man in sleeve garters offending us all. Scrawled Greek on the chalkboard, or crude etchings, prayerful obscenities.
I really miss those classes.
I sometimes consider going back to school, not for the degree or job security but for the fun of it. There was fun in the playpen, if I remember rightly. And what are my occupation's studies, the things I learn for work, if not the same pen games but with less lofty and more frivolous ends?
--
Ciardi suggests that we abandon the easy question, "What does a poem mean?" and substitute for it the difficult one, "How does a poem mean?" It is not a finding of meaning but an understanding of how meaning works, how the pieces fit together a certain way, and why they do not fit together in a different certain way, or in an uncertain way altogether.
Anyways: old hat for English readers, I'm sure, especially from Hillsdale. Still, Ciardi's analysis of Frost, Carroll and (so far) some old lyrical ballads returns me to my studies, and not just of poetry.
--
So, for life:
Alas, the Tony Awards are on television tonight, and we've been invited to a friend's apartment for it. The birth of dinner parties. I used to watch and read plays about couples preparing to go to a party or a dinner with friends and hating the preparation, hating the others there. And I always wondered why those couples kept going to these things if they didn't like doing it.
Or, put another way, if you weren't going to watch the Tony Awards until you were invited to do so, why are you doing it?
I'm learning.
--
I noticed today how many different bird calls I can hear from my apartment. Maybe it's because I'm up three levels. Elevated to the canopy deck, the sounds of the streets are far away and the sounds of the sky are close at hand: planes sometimes rattle my walls, the wind makes something in the kitchen creak, and birds twitter just outside the windows.
The other night, I took a book out to the fire escape outside the bathroom window. I brought a flashlight because it was dark and a cigarette because I found it. As I smoked and tried to read, a bat flew past my face and my whole body flinched and I hooted in dumb surprise and the thing came back for another go.
And yesterday, smoking another cigarette I found (the remains of a lost habit), I sat on the porch and read. Bees kept pestering me and finally I looked up. There stood a tree, ten feet from the porch, its wide branches petering out to thin twigs and frail leaves. And at the very tips, golden flowers like balls of pixie dust, hundreds of them posted throughout the tree, and some of them caught the sunshine and made a half-halo around the silhouette, and bees latched onto these dust balls and festooned themselves with pollen and flew away. At least thirty bees that I could see, a score and a half of little black and yellow angels sucking on heavenly nectar.
--
Those bees make it all look easy, their interpretive dances and free flight. It means that everything will be okay.
How does it mean that?
6.06.2009
D-Day
"I always liked to hear about the old timers. Never missed a chance to do so."
-- Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
--
Friday night last night and my girlfriend was out of town.
I was running late on my way to the Esquire, the indie cinema a little south of the University. The move theater is on Ludlow, a Bohemian sector with an Indian sensibility, a place where you can see an indie flick, grab some high-quality Indian food, and walk into a shop whose windows are plastered with reminders that Americans killed Indians by the thousands. The Esquire's rustic marquee fits in perfectly. Clean-cut freshman students as well as loving old couples walk along this strip with equal pleasure. The students chatter and the old folks walk stroll in silence.
I parked three blocks away with two minutes to go and ran across a bank parking lot. Seems odd, running to stay on schedule with oneself. I wasn't meeting anyone there, but I ran anyway.
A five-person queue at the box office and I panted a little while I fished out my expired student ID and seven bucks. (Student discount is four bucks and Hillsdale doesn't put expiration dates on cards.) It was seven o'clock exactly, and I was about to be late.
When it was my turn, I stepped up. "One student ticket for Harvard Beats Yale 29-29."
--
Got past the concession lines for the 7:15 feature and made my way around drab-colored corners to the back of the theater, where the film was playing. As I walked in, I heard an old man's voice and thought, Shoot, it's started already. I even missed the previews. In I went and stood for a second, transfixed, confused, before I darted to the nearest chair and sat.
An old man in a dark blue blazer and tie with a gold pin in it stood in the center aisle, his hands on the two seats on either side of him. He leaned forward as he spoke. Scattered throughout the other seats sat three elderly couples, the men on the left, the women on the right with their arms gently resting in the crooks of their husbands' elbows.
I was the only person there under age 60.
The old man spoke and no movie showed on the dark screen behind him. "It was a tumultuous time," he said, a rough, huffy voice that surely once could scream but now was reduced to the low rumble of storms that had come, gone, and passed. "We all remember seeing Martin Luther King on TV; he was assassinated that year. In 1968. And I'll never forget where I was when I heard Bobby Kennedy was shot. Cleaning dishes at work, and one of the girl waiters came back into the kitchen and just yelled it out, 'Bobby Kennedy's just been shot!' And down in Miami and up in Chicago were the riots. So the nation was in confusion, all of us wondering where we stood on all these issues. But."
He looked behind him as if to make sure the movie screen was still there. "But at least at Hahvid, the one thing we all agreed on...was football." Some of the old timers and their wives chuckled at this. "Yale, too, from what I understand. We could all disagree on all these social, uh, political issues, but what did it matter when your quarterback was scrambling on the field? Nothing. Didn't matter. All you cared about--all you could care about--was the game. Always the game. This game in particular."
--
He talked for another twenty minutes and no one minded. He summarized the game upon which the documentary is based, and they seemed to know the story, anyway. I, who didn't know the story and wasn't there for the game--I, the only one in that place who didn't--listened, fascinated. It was like I had walked in on a private viewing for the Yale and Hahvid alums in Cincinnati.
After he finished, he sat, and the film began. It was surprising how low-budget and amateurish, frankly, the movie quality was, but it had the same nostalgic effect my own home videos have on me. Even though it's poor quality, at times embarrassingly so, the stories, the happenings on the weathered faces, the stories within the story, all work a sort of power over me. I get the feeling that I could have watched that movie forever, just listening to story after story.
Poets at open-mic nights say they are perpetuating the oral tradition of Homer. They slam their politics and anguish down while others sip coffee and snap. The young instructing the young.
That's not the oral tradition. This was. The old timers recalling names and information and history and making it all personal. Saying I-was-there, and this-meant-this. Amazing, that some of the men in the film looked so sad but could get so happy remembering the game, as if the last forty years of their lives had not lived up to that day, that in four decades nothing so miraculous as a lucky fumble had ever occurred. You can look right through the folds and wrinkles on the skin of their faces and see youngsters goofing off in old yearbooks, hear the jokes they told. The games they played and the legends they made.
George W. Bush getting arrested for leading the charge to tear down goal posts. Mythical quarterback names and sideline exchanges. Untimely injuries and the regret that followed--one man, confessing that he took So-and-So out of the game on purpose and tearing up from aged guilt. About a football game, all of it, just about a football game. But with sages and socrateses like these, no wonder a sports documentary can wax philosophical.
And Tommy Lee Jones among them. Talking about his Hahvid roommate, Al Gore, playing with brand-new touch-tone telephones. And Jones, just having done a film about the passing of time, the loosened grip of the old timers.
--
Today is D-Day and my girlfriend is still out of town.
At risk of sounding like a prosaic patriot, I have to write a simple thank-you to the old timers. We wouldn't be there without them.
-- Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
--
Friday night last night and my girlfriend was out of town.
I was running late on my way to the Esquire, the indie cinema a little south of the University. The move theater is on Ludlow, a Bohemian sector with an Indian sensibility, a place where you can see an indie flick, grab some high-quality Indian food, and walk into a shop whose windows are plastered with reminders that Americans killed Indians by the thousands. The Esquire's rustic marquee fits in perfectly. Clean-cut freshman students as well as loving old couples walk along this strip with equal pleasure. The students chatter and the old folks walk stroll in silence.
I parked three blocks away with two minutes to go and ran across a bank parking lot. Seems odd, running to stay on schedule with oneself. I wasn't meeting anyone there, but I ran anyway.
A five-person queue at the box office and I panted a little while I fished out my expired student ID and seven bucks. (Student discount is four bucks and Hillsdale doesn't put expiration dates on cards.) It was seven o'clock exactly, and I was about to be late.
When it was my turn, I stepped up. "One student ticket for Harvard Beats Yale 29-29."
--
Got past the concession lines for the 7:15 feature and made my way around drab-colored corners to the back of the theater, where the film was playing. As I walked in, I heard an old man's voice and thought, Shoot, it's started already. I even missed the previews. In I went and stood for a second, transfixed, confused, before I darted to the nearest chair and sat.
An old man in a dark blue blazer and tie with a gold pin in it stood in the center aisle, his hands on the two seats on either side of him. He leaned forward as he spoke. Scattered throughout the other seats sat three elderly couples, the men on the left, the women on the right with their arms gently resting in the crooks of their husbands' elbows.
I was the only person there under age 60.
The old man spoke and no movie showed on the dark screen behind him. "It was a tumultuous time," he said, a rough, huffy voice that surely once could scream but now was reduced to the low rumble of storms that had come, gone, and passed. "We all remember seeing Martin Luther King on TV; he was assassinated that year. In 1968. And I'll never forget where I was when I heard Bobby Kennedy was shot. Cleaning dishes at work, and one of the girl waiters came back into the kitchen and just yelled it out, 'Bobby Kennedy's just been shot!' And down in Miami and up in Chicago were the riots. So the nation was in confusion, all of us wondering where we stood on all these issues. But."
He looked behind him as if to make sure the movie screen was still there. "But at least at Hahvid, the one thing we all agreed on...was football." Some of the old timers and their wives chuckled at this. "Yale, too, from what I understand. We could all disagree on all these social, uh, political issues, but what did it matter when your quarterback was scrambling on the field? Nothing. Didn't matter. All you cared about--all you could care about--was the game. Always the game. This game in particular."
--
He talked for another twenty minutes and no one minded. He summarized the game upon which the documentary is based, and they seemed to know the story, anyway. I, who didn't know the story and wasn't there for the game--I, the only one in that place who didn't--listened, fascinated. It was like I had walked in on a private viewing for the Yale and Hahvid alums in Cincinnati.
After he finished, he sat, and the film began. It was surprising how low-budget and amateurish, frankly, the movie quality was, but it had the same nostalgic effect my own home videos have on me. Even though it's poor quality, at times embarrassingly so, the stories, the happenings on the weathered faces, the stories within the story, all work a sort of power over me. I get the feeling that I could have watched that movie forever, just listening to story after story.
Poets at open-mic nights say they are perpetuating the oral tradition of Homer. They slam their politics and anguish down while others sip coffee and snap. The young instructing the young.
That's not the oral tradition. This was. The old timers recalling names and information and history and making it all personal. Saying I-was-there, and this-meant-this. Amazing, that some of the men in the film looked so sad but could get so happy remembering the game, as if the last forty years of their lives had not lived up to that day, that in four decades nothing so miraculous as a lucky fumble had ever occurred. You can look right through the folds and wrinkles on the skin of their faces and see youngsters goofing off in old yearbooks, hear the jokes they told. The games they played and the legends they made.
George W. Bush getting arrested for leading the charge to tear down goal posts. Mythical quarterback names and sideline exchanges. Untimely injuries and the regret that followed--one man, confessing that he took So-and-So out of the game on purpose and tearing up from aged guilt. About a football game, all of it, just about a football game. But with sages and socrateses like these, no wonder a sports documentary can wax philosophical.
And Tommy Lee Jones among them. Talking about his Hahvid roommate, Al Gore, playing with brand-new touch-tone telephones. And Jones, just having done a film about the passing of time, the loosened grip of the old timers.
--
Today is D-Day and my girlfriend is still out of town.
At risk of sounding like a prosaic patriot, I have to write a simple thank-you to the old timers. We wouldn't be there without them.
6.05.2009
Patrons
"His skin was pale and his eye was odd."
-- Sweeney Todd, by Stephen Sondheim
--
I'm sitting in a library lobby, facing the front doors. To my left, the stairs up to the children's room. To my right, an overweight, sour-faced, short-haired library policeman, at his own desk, labeled, "POLICE." Above me, some windowpanes and behind the greasy glass, the backs of computer towers. Behind me, an old man reads The Encyclopedia of Superheroes and looks up from his reading and squints at me and his eyes linger.
There's a book on display at the table before me. The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
Beside it, a beach chair and umbrella (slices of blue, pink, gold and lime green) with an easel. On the wall adjacent, a black poster with bold white letters: BOOKS WITH BITE. There are bite marks in the corner of the second B, both the O's, so they look like partially covered boobs, or damaged donuts. In the B's, the holes are filled in white, and they look like the ass of someone bending over, seen from the top.
A woman dressed for the cold--thick, Nepalese coat, hat, long yellow scarf--huddles over the pile of books she carries. A boy with shaggy hair murmurs to me and drags away the chair to my left.
And the librarian at the front desk has a voice for the three-card monty and laughs like Philip Seymour Hoffman.
--
Meandering among all of this like a beast in a labyrinth, a young man swaggers. His arms swing wide. He moans from somewhere inside, like cries for help heard in a cave. The noise is noxious above the whispers, typing and data machines whirring. He limps and loses the limp.
He tosses his hair and shakes his head, fending off invisible flies.
He passes the policeman's desk and clicks his heels and snaps his arm in a sharp Nazi salute. The policeman eyes him with caution.
The young man laughs and it is like a gurgle. He goes upstairs to the children's level, and I do not see him again.
--
A dude in a black band T-shirt drops a penny on the brick floor, bends, and picks it up.
Another hugs the shelf of DVDs, one arm around the side, the other fondling the plastic cases.
A mother reads an application form to her teenager, who lays his head on the table, one ear up, one ear down.
--
A priest stands at the copy machine, dropping dimes in the vending machine attached, copying birth certificates, death certificates. He looks about him at the patrons, and he keeps a middle finger on the copier lid, pressing down. The pile of trifolded documents grows on the policeman's desk, and the fat man in uniform doesn't seem to notice. He is typing. The priest eyes him with caution and hits the green button. He stuffs the copies in a big brown envelope and rocks on his feet, left, right, left. The policeman clears his throat and looks at the priest. The clergyman bends to the change dispenser and the coins slide and clink as he fingers them out. As he leaves the library, he steps into the sun and puts on sunglasses. He looks both ways, and disappears.
-- Sweeney Todd, by Stephen Sondheim
--
I'm sitting in a library lobby, facing the front doors. To my left, the stairs up to the children's room. To my right, an overweight, sour-faced, short-haired library policeman, at his own desk, labeled, "POLICE." Above me, some windowpanes and behind the greasy glass, the backs of computer towers. Behind me, an old man reads The Encyclopedia of Superheroes and looks up from his reading and squints at me and his eyes linger.
There's a book on display at the table before me. The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
Beside it, a beach chair and umbrella (slices of blue, pink, gold and lime green) with an easel. On the wall adjacent, a black poster with bold white letters: BOOKS WITH BITE. There are bite marks in the corner of the second B, both the O's, so they look like partially covered boobs, or damaged donuts. In the B's, the holes are filled in white, and they look like the ass of someone bending over, seen from the top.
A woman dressed for the cold--thick, Nepalese coat, hat, long yellow scarf--huddles over the pile of books she carries. A boy with shaggy hair murmurs to me and drags away the chair to my left.
And the librarian at the front desk has a voice for the three-card monty and laughs like Philip Seymour Hoffman.
--
Meandering among all of this like a beast in a labyrinth, a young man swaggers. His arms swing wide. He moans from somewhere inside, like cries for help heard in a cave. The noise is noxious above the whispers, typing and data machines whirring. He limps and loses the limp.
He tosses his hair and shakes his head, fending off invisible flies.
He passes the policeman's desk and clicks his heels and snaps his arm in a sharp Nazi salute. The policeman eyes him with caution.
The young man laughs and it is like a gurgle. He goes upstairs to the children's level, and I do not see him again.
--
A dude in a black band T-shirt drops a penny on the brick floor, bends, and picks it up.
Another hugs the shelf of DVDs, one arm around the side, the other fondling the plastic cases.
A mother reads an application form to her teenager, who lays his head on the table, one ear up, one ear down.
--
A priest stands at the copy machine, dropping dimes in the vending machine attached, copying birth certificates, death certificates. He looks about him at the patrons, and he keeps a middle finger on the copier lid, pressing down. The pile of trifolded documents grows on the policeman's desk, and the fat man in uniform doesn't seem to notice. He is typing. The priest eyes him with caution and hits the green button. He stuffs the copies in a big brown envelope and rocks on his feet, left, right, left. The policeman clears his throat and looks at the priest. The clergyman bends to the change dispenser and the coins slide and clink as he fingers them out. As he leaves the library, he steps into the sun and puts on sunglasses. He looks both ways, and disappears.
6.03.2009
Pronunciations
"See the child."
-- First line of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
--
Last day of ArtReach today. We lie sequestered on the gymnasium floor, sleeping behind our backdrop while children stretch out for gym on the other side. We hear their chants: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten--"
It is rainy and humid and the gym doors are both open to help the air flow.
A teacher just came back and handed me a paper-clipped bundle of thank-you letters from the kids who saw this morning's show. Their innocent appreciation is the best: crayon markings outside of lines, a slight feeling of wax to the touch and a heavier sheet of paper, their names scrawled between scribbles. Pencils and crayons. Magic wands.
--
I don't know. I always expect some feeling of finality, a just assessment of the past as it culminates in this day of threshold-crossing, the sense that this transition is happening to someone else. I expect that out-of-body feeling, that sensitivity to moments.
I don't feel that. I feel like I have been sitting in an uncomfortable chair for far too long, watching the same movie. The thought of taking the van back to the office is chorish, not cathartic. It's just the next thing. I'm glad to move on, but I don't feel like I'm moving on at all.
I don't mind.
--
I may be hired also by an accounting firm downtown. As a secretary/accountant, I guess. They have me learning QuickBooks 2009 right now.
If I can land a part-time arrangement with them, I can make serious bank. The next few months could drastically improve my financial sitch. So, I am back in college mode, reading the books and watching online tutorials. Maybe I'll even call an accountant friend or two for tips. Basically, as long as I perform well at the interview and show that I can use the program--or learn quickly how to use it--I've got the job. Another steady job.
Sometimes, life needs legitimacy.
--
Went to a Catholic workshop last night. Had to; in order to lead workshops at Catholic schools, I am required to go through this course. I expected a lot of Do's and Don't's of teaching privately-schooled kids, but it turned out to be a discussion of two short videos about sexual abuse.
Of children. It was rough.
I watched the videos and got distracted by the horrible overacting. It was shot like a documentary but the actors seemed so overwrought, so insincere. It was awkward, because they were talking about such sensitive stuff. Then I learned that only one of the people in the films was a paid actor. They were all really the folks who went through all that, and they were asked to write their own experiences out, memorize them as lines, and recite them as dramatically as they could for the camera. Therapy meets Catholic cinema. Like I said, it was rough.
The facilitator of the event was a nun in plain clothes (mom jeans and a flannel shirt) who pronounced "question" with a kind of grinding slur, so that it sounded--ironically enough--like the word "Christian."
Question. Christian.
--
Sometimes, life needs pronunciation.
-- First line of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
--
Last day of ArtReach today. We lie sequestered on the gymnasium floor, sleeping behind our backdrop while children stretch out for gym on the other side. We hear their chants: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten--"
It is rainy and humid and the gym doors are both open to help the air flow.
A teacher just came back and handed me a paper-clipped bundle of thank-you letters from the kids who saw this morning's show. Their innocent appreciation is the best: crayon markings outside of lines, a slight feeling of wax to the touch and a heavier sheet of paper, their names scrawled between scribbles. Pencils and crayons. Magic wands.
--
I don't know. I always expect some feeling of finality, a just assessment of the past as it culminates in this day of threshold-crossing, the sense that this transition is happening to someone else. I expect that out-of-body feeling, that sensitivity to moments.
I don't feel that. I feel like I have been sitting in an uncomfortable chair for far too long, watching the same movie. The thought of taking the van back to the office is chorish, not cathartic. It's just the next thing. I'm glad to move on, but I don't feel like I'm moving on at all.
I don't mind.
--
I may be hired also by an accounting firm downtown. As a secretary/accountant, I guess. They have me learning QuickBooks 2009 right now.
If I can land a part-time arrangement with them, I can make serious bank. The next few months could drastically improve my financial sitch. So, I am back in college mode, reading the books and watching online tutorials. Maybe I'll even call an accountant friend or two for tips. Basically, as long as I perform well at the interview and show that I can use the program--or learn quickly how to use it--I've got the job. Another steady job.
Sometimes, life needs legitimacy.
--
Went to a Catholic workshop last night. Had to; in order to lead workshops at Catholic schools, I am required to go through this course. I expected a lot of Do's and Don't's of teaching privately-schooled kids, but it turned out to be a discussion of two short videos about sexual abuse.
Of children. It was rough.
I watched the videos and got distracted by the horrible overacting. It was shot like a documentary but the actors seemed so overwrought, so insincere. It was awkward, because they were talking about such sensitive stuff. Then I learned that only one of the people in the films was a paid actor. They were all really the folks who went through all that, and they were asked to write their own experiences out, memorize them as lines, and recite them as dramatically as they could for the camera. Therapy meets Catholic cinema. Like I said, it was rough.
The facilitator of the event was a nun in plain clothes (mom jeans and a flannel shirt) who pronounced "question" with a kind of grinding slur, so that it sounded--ironically enough--like the word "Christian."
Question. Christian.
--
Sometimes, life needs pronunciation.
6.01.2009
Bravado
"It's in our nature."
-- José González
--
I didn't know José González was from Sweden. He's also got a PhD in the works, suspended on account of his music fame. Thus spake Wikipedia.
Last time I listened to the Argentinian Swede, I was on a friend's couch in Lexington, KY, listening to the acoustic passion and trying to figure out how many more days--at minimum--I had to stay in Cincinnati. I felt tethered to the city by a flimsy wire, a contract I'd signed halfway through my last semester because I was a little desperate to show off that I could get a real acting job right out of college. False bravado, an opening gambit of knights before pawns, of buying property before passing Go. The visit to Lexington was a brief reprieve, and I had to be back the next day, but there were eight or so Strongbows between the drive and sleep and me, and so, with little regard for musicians let alone geniuses, as I watched my friend flick and float her hands to the music, I simply nodded and pretended that I, too, had a direct pipeline to God.
The things we do. Now that I've found his CD anew, oddly wedged between "Popular" and "Alt. Rock" at the local library, and now that I've listened to it again, I genuinely dig it.
--
In a related case, another friend told me about this band, Eagles of Death Metal, and their awesomely-titled album, Death by Sexy. I nodded that time, too, maybe even winked at someone else at the table and shrugged. History repeats itself; humans make themselves creatures of habit; habits revisit unkempt haunts.
I listened to that album all day today and I like it, too. I've even recommended it to my sister. Borrowed suggestions are best, like referenced advice.
--
I once stood in front of a group of people and toasted the idea of being ourselves, and not preparing faces to meet the faces that we meet. This was after a girl toasted the same group, pretending to know all of us in some way. I was a little drunk. I thought I was being noble, devoted to this idea of honesty and rawness, like a painted masterpiece proud of its scar.
But here I am, importing songs into my library as if it were my idea. Passing on borrowed knowledge. The things we do.
After that toast, I bided time and treaded inside water for about ten minutes before I excused myself from that fancy feast and ran to rehearsal, around the corner and down a block. I was directing, and I had to pee before I got to the room. I was late. I sat on the couch with five friends and one stranger, all peeved, and tortured them with their own words for an hour before apologizing and sending everyone away. I sat there. There is a mirror in that green room, and I looked at myself in it. I was still wearing nice clothes and I smelled like alcohol and I wondered what the hell I was going to do after I left this covered hovel of a college.
--
Tomorrow, I go back to an office job. I get my own cubicle, as I've said before. And there is a fridge and a coffee pot with accustomed customers, and I will join their ranks and try to keep my head low, below the partitions that separate our stations. Rumors abound. Backs are bitten by unknown nouns, formless serpents, invisible jaws. Microcosmic conflicts, little patches of turf so ruggedly defended, all admist the whir of quiet machines and under the watchful eye of nonseeing puppets and dragons on posters. I go to the other side of the desk.
I become the desk, in fact.
The last office job I had afforded me many minutes for leisurely blogging and tremendous thumb-twiddling practice sessions. Sometimes a bathroom break to stave off the boredom, and while I sat on the toilet lid with my pants up I could stare out the marbled window and imagine sleeping in a park, or sinking my bare feet into cold lake water. I go back to that bathroom tomorrow.
I don't exactly know what I'll be doing tomorrow for five hours, other than nodding and pretending to love the bureaucracy, but the not-knowing almost suits me more than the need to know. Tell me tomorrow. For now, let me nod and sleep.
-- José González
--
I didn't know José González was from Sweden. He's also got a PhD in the works, suspended on account of his music fame. Thus spake Wikipedia.
Last time I listened to the Argentinian Swede, I was on a friend's couch in Lexington, KY, listening to the acoustic passion and trying to figure out how many more days--at minimum--I had to stay in Cincinnati. I felt tethered to the city by a flimsy wire, a contract I'd signed halfway through my last semester because I was a little desperate to show off that I could get a real acting job right out of college. False bravado, an opening gambit of knights before pawns, of buying property before passing Go. The visit to Lexington was a brief reprieve, and I had to be back the next day, but there were eight or so Strongbows between the drive and sleep and me, and so, with little regard for musicians let alone geniuses, as I watched my friend flick and float her hands to the music, I simply nodded and pretended that I, too, had a direct pipeline to God.
The things we do. Now that I've found his CD anew, oddly wedged between "Popular" and "Alt. Rock" at the local library, and now that I've listened to it again, I genuinely dig it.
--
In a related case, another friend told me about this band, Eagles of Death Metal, and their awesomely-titled album, Death by Sexy. I nodded that time, too, maybe even winked at someone else at the table and shrugged. History repeats itself; humans make themselves creatures of habit; habits revisit unkempt haunts.
I listened to that album all day today and I like it, too. I've even recommended it to my sister. Borrowed suggestions are best, like referenced advice.
--
I once stood in front of a group of people and toasted the idea of being ourselves, and not preparing faces to meet the faces that we meet. This was after a girl toasted the same group, pretending to know all of us in some way. I was a little drunk. I thought I was being noble, devoted to this idea of honesty and rawness, like a painted masterpiece proud of its scar.
But here I am, importing songs into my library as if it were my idea. Passing on borrowed knowledge. The things we do.
After that toast, I bided time and treaded inside water for about ten minutes before I excused myself from that fancy feast and ran to rehearsal, around the corner and down a block. I was directing, and I had to pee before I got to the room. I was late. I sat on the couch with five friends and one stranger, all peeved, and tortured them with their own words for an hour before apologizing and sending everyone away. I sat there. There is a mirror in that green room, and I looked at myself in it. I was still wearing nice clothes and I smelled like alcohol and I wondered what the hell I was going to do after I left this covered hovel of a college.
--
Tomorrow, I go back to an office job. I get my own cubicle, as I've said before. And there is a fridge and a coffee pot with accustomed customers, and I will join their ranks and try to keep my head low, below the partitions that separate our stations. Rumors abound. Backs are bitten by unknown nouns, formless serpents, invisible jaws. Microcosmic conflicts, little patches of turf so ruggedly defended, all admist the whir of quiet machines and under the watchful eye of nonseeing puppets and dragons on posters. I go to the other side of the desk.
I become the desk, in fact.
The last office job I had afforded me many minutes for leisurely blogging and tremendous thumb-twiddling practice sessions. Sometimes a bathroom break to stave off the boredom, and while I sat on the toilet lid with my pants up I could stare out the marbled window and imagine sleeping in a park, or sinking my bare feet into cold lake water. I go back to that bathroom tomorrow.
I don't exactly know what I'll be doing tomorrow for five hours, other than nodding and pretending to love the bureaucracy, but the not-knowing almost suits me more than the need to know. Tell me tomorrow. For now, let me nod and sleep.
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