Indy II

"Gracias."

-- the end of all Indianapolis International Airport's announcements, which are done in English and then in Spanish

--

After wrangling with and succumbing to the airport's Boingo scam, I'm back online.

There's an hour before we board. As I told my sister, whom I will see in a matter of hours, I'm surrounded by fogies and farners.

The MegaBus got me to Indy, and I had only a vague idea that I needed to head west on Washington to find a Green Line stop to shuttle me to the airport. Along the way, I stopped at the Pita Pit and grabbed a gyro pita with hummus. I took it to go and dragged my suitcase to the Circle Center, where I sat in the shadow of the Civil War memorial and ate my pita and took a few pictures. (I'll upload them later.) There was a car show but not many people. Some teens wearing lanyards ignored me as I wiped sweat from my forehead and crouched on the steps, delaying the inevitable dragging of the suitcase to the Green Line stop.

It wasn't far, and it didn't take long. The next time I travel so much by bus, I'm going to pay my fare online in advance or (this is more practical) just plan to have exact change. Paying the airport shuttle fare with a credit card is just ridiculous. The driver refused my twenty with reluctance, then asked for plastic. I handed it over and as she swiped it, I felt awkward just standing there so I said, "That's the thing about ATMs, huh? They always give you large bills."

"Hm."

--

Got to the airport and, having checked in yesterday, breezed past the check-ins and made straight for the bar. Enjoyed an overpriced Jack and coke and watched some tennis on the high-def. Buzzed, I breezed again, this time to security, where I extracted my plastic baggie of liquids, chucked my Aquafina bottle, took off my belt and shoes, and removed all electronics from my bags. (I had to be reminded about the shoes, but otherwise I was prepared, having paid attention when I watched Up in the Air.)


The seats are filling around me. I need to read or something.

Indianapolis

“They love my little mustache

They love a man in uniform.”

- Ben Folds, “Rent-A-Cop”

--

8:15AM

I was just kicked out of a public restroom in the mall. I was evicted while evacuating.

The bus stopped at my apartment’s corner. The machine ate my five and I had to get change from two Latinas who boarded after me and who stared suspiciously when the driver told them to give their cash to me. I sat in the nearest seat, tucking my briefcase under and hooking a finger into the handle of the suitcase. Halfway towards downtown I realized I should have hefted the suitcase onto the rack beside the door, but the vacant and judging eyes of the other passengers held me to my place.

I got off at 4^th and Vine, a block east of where the MegaBus will pick me up and take me to Indianapolis. Awkward and conspicuous, I entered the Starbucks there, stuffed my stuff in a corner, and ordered coffee. I’m drinking it now. My phone buzzed to remind me of the time. I got up and returned to the sidewalk.

This suitcase was with me years ago when last I flew on a trip to Scotland. When the black case slid out of the flaps and down the ramp and onto the revolving oval of Baggage Claim, I saw that something black and spindly had been taped haphazardly to it. When it got to me, I saw: the towing handle, the kind that retracts into the back of the bag, had popped out of its holes and some handler had made good by going for the packing tape. (There. All better.) Fast forward to today. My luggage transport options are to bend in half as I walk like a hunchback with the de-armed suitcase in tow, or to lug it around. If I lug it, I rock as I walk. If I bend over, it can roll. To rock, or to roll?

Starbucks inexplicably didn’t have a bathroom, so I walked to the mall lobby that doubles as the pick-up zone for MegaBus. I knew the food court there, and its restroom. I was impatient on the down escalator. Sbarro, Chick-Fil-A, Cajun and Japanese portals. Tall white faux-marble columns. A dry, greening, metal fountain like the ruined bastion of modern art in the center of an army of shiny tables. No one was there, of course, except for an old man reading the funnies and not laughing. Restrooms in the corner—I beelined. At the entrance, leaning on a bar and watching his watch, was the mall cop, a thin-mustached young guy who took one look at me and my big black bag and straightened his posture. (Terrorist?) I smiled. “Good morning,” we said, cowboys in some vacant modern saloon.

I’ll spare the in-stall details. An old man—maybe the same guy who was reading the funnies—tried the door, peeked through the crack. “Excuse me.” Shortly after he found a throne of his own, the mall cop’s voice came reverberating around us: “Two minutes.”

I didn’t know what that meant. I chose to ignore it, returning to my reading.

Later, as I washed my hands, the mall cop’s image appeared in the mirror like Dracula behind me. “Two minutes,” he repeated.

“Cool,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

The mall cop disappeared and then reentered. “I don’t mean to be a dick,” he said. “But sometimes guys sleep in here.”

“No problem.”

I took everything back into the food court, where the old man had been replaced by an old lady reading a magazine at a different table. I sat at a table at the foot of the escalators, extracted my laptop, and started typing this entry. A few minutes later, the mall cop swaggered by and told me to have a nice day. Then the Mexican workers who run the Japanese portal arrived, eyeing me with confusion like I was a redecoration they didn’t like.

Just now, a bald, older mall cop descended the escalator like a god. He’s been adjusting a sign (PLEASE KEEP ESCALATOR LANDING CLEAR) for two minutes. He walked away.

The changing of the guard is complete.

--

“In a cold place

You know well.”

-

The Good, the Bad & the Queen, “Northern Whale”

--

9:15AM

Aboard the MegaBus. Fifteen minutes to go.

The driver and a loader checked me in and took my suitcase. I took a seat but then saw a sign (THIS BUS HAS FREE WIFI AND 110V POWER OUTLETS) that moved me. Amidships there’s a pair of table with seats facing inward. I sat across from a speckle-skinned blond woman who sneered when I put my briefcase across from her. An obese hipster girl—also a blond—across the aisle offered to share her table. I thanked her but started to get situated anyway, only to realize that the outlet in the ceiling is so far from the table that the adapter box would be dangling precariously from the power cord at eye-level of the speckle-skinned blond. “On second thought,” I said, and switched to the port side, which for some reason is raised about two feet higher than starboard. My power outlet doesn’t seem to work, but the obese hipster blond—who also has about a dozen piercings just in her face, including the unfortunate Chicago Bulls-esque circular nose ring—offered to switch out whenever my battery drained. I bet she’s really nice, but I doubt we’ll actually talk on this two-hour journey.

The speckle-skinned blond turns out to be a snob. Her cell phone rang—loudly—and she hissed at it, “Jesus Christ.” She answered and demanded that the other person buy “the good gazpacho.” The other person apparently asked what gazpacho was and she huffed and explained. When she hung up she took out her Food & Wine magazine. She’s reading it now. She flips her pages as if she wants people to hear the progress she’s making.

From where I sit, with the obese hipster blond on my left and the snobby speckle-skinned blond on my right, I perceive them as two circles in a Venn diagram: what is different between these two? What is alike? I imagine they buy food in the same places—Whole Foods, the Findlay Farmer’s Market, organic and “green” restaurants that serve everything with feta and/or balsamic vinaigrette—and vote for the same politicians. But the snob does these things for the sake of snobbery, for the privilege of informing others what the difference is between good and bad gazpacho. This mindset has come to define her, and she never intended for that to happen, but well, here she is. Her devotion to obscure organic food, fine wines, and trendy outfits has become her job, a vocation she loathes but maintains for its benefits.

For the hipster blond, she is still redefining her mindset. She sees the poor argument for liberals across the aisle and thinks, “You’re no different from them anymore, you know.”

Most of the other passengers are opting for the upper deck, but I’m content to remain raised two feet on the bottom level. I ride upper deck if I’m a tourist, because that’s the best spot for photos. But on this trip, I’d like to sink, to stay in the womb, to sleep.

--

“I went lookin’ for my darling

I went lookin’ for a sign

And I found her in the morning

Somewhere in the back of my mind.”

- Belle & Sebastian, “Wrong Love”

--

9:40AM

A problem emerges with the whole typing-on-a-bus thing: the table wiggles and the laptop vibrates, turning the simple act of typing into a game of whack-a-mole. I keep hitting backspace. The screen fills with doubled words and I feel like I’m watching a Danny Boyle film.

I’ve ridden MegaBus before, for a one-day trip to Chicago when my sister finished Navy boot camp. My memory of that ride is cloudy because it began on a rainy day after a stressful week of touring and an especially stressful day wherein a co-worker was fired. I was the road manager of that tour, and as such I had known about the imminent termination for almost the entire week.

So when it finally happened, when the bosses showed up in the rain to help us load out and sequester the target and give him the news, when he added teardrops to raindrops and wordlessly grabbed his things from the van where the rest of us sat in silence and watched as he refused a ride home and marched, proud in his shame, towards the nearest bus stop…after all this transpired there was a tremendous release. The van was silent for a time. Another actor said to be honest with her: “Did y’all know this was gonna happen?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okay.”

They drove me to the mall and dropped me off. I waved and sat near an old couple and their red luggage. I sat for a long time, thinking about the firing. The bus came and I boarded without thinking about it. I watched trees and grass fields and creeks and dwelled on the firing, on the knowledge.

--

“Well I’ve been thinking about

And I’ve been breaking it down

Without an answer.”

- Monsters of Folk, “Dear God (Sincerely M. O. F.)

--

10:02AM

Right now, on the highway and looking out the window across the aisle, the ghost reflection of our side of the bus appears superimposed on the scenery. It makes me doubly aware of our velocity, our bullet trajectory westward, because the trees in the window and the trees in the glass blur past at different speeds. It is like being on a train.

The coffee has cooled in the cup, but its work is still good. The wi-fi cuts in and out, and right now it’s out. I had hoped to upload these entries to my travel blog, but I guess I’ll have to wait.

--

“Don’t tell the people that they gotta go.”

- Michael Franti & Spearhead, “Hey Now Now”

--

10:44AM

Stopped at a fueling station. I’d call it a gas station, except that it sounds more adventurous to say fueling station, and because it is more of a place for huge tankers to refuel than it is for small cars to fill a tank. A Risinger semi truck has pulled up beside the bus and Humpty-Dumpty climbed out of the cabin. The snobby blond has her bare feet up on the seats across from her.

She naps.

When we pulled up the driver announced the stop as “our lunch break,” telling us that if we wanted food, we should get it to go. “We aren’t stopping for a long time. Twenty minutes.”

Because I’m not a fan of peeing in moving vehicles, I’ve been holding it for a while. I joined the exodus for the promised land of the fueling station restroom. The urinal pad had 6/18 markered on it. I’m refraining from buying station food (McDonald’s and Subway are the only non-packaged options) because I’m really going to try to save money on this trip. So far today I’ve only bought bus fare and a small coffee. We only have another half hour or so until Indy, anyway.

My hunger can fester.

Once in Indy, I need to grab lunch and get on the airport shuttle, which hopefully isn’t any more than a few blocks from the drop-off. There are three hours between disembarking the bus and boarding the plane. If I read the Indy bus schedule correctly, I will have only about half an hour’s playtime in the city before I have to get onto another vehicle. For now, it’s nice to be still.

An old black woman came down from the upper deck and took a seat. “Excuse me,” said another elderly woman, “there were two young men sitting there before.”

“Anyone sitting there?” the old black lady asked.

“No.”

“I don’t care about them. They can find another seat.”

“Oh,” the other woman said, as if she’d just been flicked on the nose.

“They’re my grandkids,” the old black lady explained, and laughed.

The other woman went to the back door, where the two young men were about to board. “Sir,” she told them, “I tried to save your seat. But she—”

One of the young men looked into the bus. “That’s my Grandma,” he said. “It’s cool.”

Now the two elderly ladies are conversing—I’d say talking, but there’s a wonderful lyrical formality to the way old people speak, especially old women, that is more like an exchange of pleasantries and blithe information than trivial chitchat—about their respective trips. Both are staying on the bus until it reaches Chicago. The old black lady hasn’t said what she’ll do there, but the other woman will be staying in Chicago until July, when her sister will drive her out to Iowa for a few weeks. “I just turned 70 a week ago,” she says, “but I stopped working a long time before that.” She was a secretary and then a teacher. The old black lady still works in hospitals.

More of the older folks from the lower deck are returning. They make hooting sounds as they step inside, and I can hear them panting as they shuffle to their seats. One of the old ladies welcomes them—“You made it back!”—as if the trip from bus to bathroom to counter to bus again was an epic journey. I smell McDonald’s.

My focus drifts elsewhere. Humpty Dumpty has returned to his chariot. He has what looks like a Turkish bazaar tattooed on his left arm and what is definitely a naked mermaid on his right. Inside the shop, a mechanical female voice announces that the bus to Indianapolis and Chicago is leaving. The bus driver returns and announces, “Load it up!”

Just as I’m starting to wonder how many people get left behind at this stop each year, something in the bus whirs up like a quiet siren (the sound is not unlike the wwwwooooo of the Enterprise just before she warps), and we are back on the road.

Next stop: Indianapolis, Indiana.

Twit

"my daughter is the best for this kind of thing. her name is T***** D****. she is 13 years old and she loves to sing and dance and act out her favorit sences from her favorit shows on disney channel. she dosent dare to mess up on anything. i jsut wanted to let you know tyhat im the best mom because i have the best teenager for this kind of thing thank you. if you want to call or text me my # is ***-****." [sic]


-- an actual email I received from a stage mother


--


"And don't, don't forget to write me
Don't forget your family."


-- The Seedy Seeds, "Dandelion," Count the Days


--


On my way to Chipotle for a lunch burrito, I found myself caught (once again) at the intersection of Madison and Ridge, which is choked by construction. It's been this way for weeks now. It turns five-minute drives into half-hour delays; that's a lot of wasted hours, folks.


And I guess I shouldn't mind, let alone complain (construction happens), except that it's so obviously a poor use of resources. Two patrol cars, manned by bored cops, flank a drying platform of newly poured cement, obliterating a the left-turn and center lanes. A neon green-vested man aims a powerful water hose at the pavement, cleaning out the grooves separating gutter from asphalt. He sprays and sprays, but the road is on a slope and he is spraying uphill, so any grime that muds and flows simply pools six feet away and eddies its way down again. It's almost existential, watching him do this while I'm waiting in inchworm traffic.


Guarding all of this stand maniacal hordes of orange cones and barrels, sentries under summer's sun.


--


As always before long trips, I'm racking up listening material. Here are my latest additions:


Spoken Word
- This American Life: Stories of Hope and Fear
- This American Life: Crimebusters + Crossed Wires
- The Hatchback of Notre Dame: More Car Talk Classics
- Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris
- Stars: Fresh Air with Terry Gross
- Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye
- NPR Driveway Moments: All About Animals
(maybe this should have been called the NPR section)


Music
- Pink Martini, Splendor in the Grass
- Monsters of Folk, Monsters of Folk
- The Frames, Dance the Devil...
- Quincy Jones & Bill Cosby, The Original Jam Sessions 1969
- Fol Chen, Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made
- Feist, Let It Die
- Loose Fur, Born Again in the USA
- Belle & Sebastian, The BBC Sessions
- Bjork, Volta


Soundtrack
- Where the Wild Things Are
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- There Will Be Blood
- Slumdog Millionaire
- The Incredibles
- Mark Twain
- Snakes on a Plane


--


Tomorrow begins the trip. I can't wait to see Seattle and the sisters.


The walk from my apartment to the Megabus pick-up point is 3 miles, now that the blue bridge is out of commission. I'm thinking about taking the Tank instead, just because I don't want to lug around heavy brief- and suitcases for an hour.


The bus frightens me, not gonna lie. One of the stops is right at my corner. Most mornings there are three or more folks squatting on the porch, eyes left, waiting. Most of my fear is unfounded, I'm sure, but you can't live in Cincinnati without hearing horror stories: random stabbings, casual theft, general odiousness. I'm a tiny guy with nerdy glasses and bags obviously packed for a vacation; but if little old women can clutch their bags and smile from the window seats, I guess I can give it a try.


--


I've only been on Twitter for three days, but already it's starting to make sense. Analyzing any internet networking site is like explaining a joke, so I won't analyze it. Still, before joining I always wondered what the appeal was--what made Twitter anything more than a page full of Facebook status updates?


I'm inclined to think of it as just a simplified Facebook, a place where users could share statuses without getting bogged down by profiles, apps, etc. All things considered, I use Facebook more and thus prefer it. But because my Twitter connections are more limited (without the sprawling friends list created by obligation and popular frenzy) I find myself restraining myself more and updating less. I get the impression that I have yet to "get" Twitter.


I don't think this restraint is universal--some Twitter friends update so often that it just calls attention to the ridiculousness of telling the internet what you're doing. And anyway, this has all been said before.


Just like pretty much everything else on Facebook or Twitter. Like a twit, I repeat what others have said and call it mine. Shoot, like an actor.


--

One day to go.

Vendors

Strange French food

"Here in Cologne
I know I said it wrong."

-- Ben Folds, "Cologne," Way to Normal


--

For fingers on the pulse of Cincinnati, some interesting links:

http://www.urbancincy.com/2010/05/cincinnati-enquirer-abandoning-city-interests/
http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2010/06/21/daily36.html

I guess what gets me about only okaying 20 mobile street vendors is that a lot of existing ones will obviously be out of work. This seems like a shifty ploy by the city to squeeze money out of people who are poor already, employed by literally the smallest of small businesses. The local NPR's report this morning hinted that the city would soon take control of the vendors entirely.

Also, it's an easy way to cut down the street vending industry, which arguably helps downtown restaurants. Then again, most of those restaurants aren't really competing with the vendors, who sell hot dogs and lemonade slushies and such. How is a diner selling coffee and eggs, or a Mediterranean bistro, or a sit-down chili joint, competing with the guy with the aluminum cart across the street?

Seems to me, the vendors handle the visitors, fans and families who just want to eat, who don't want to stop and eat. Restaurants get the locals, who are probably sickened by the idea of "street food" anyway.

Vendors have always had to fend for themselves.

Not that it affects me in any way, but I think it's a pointless decision. You want to control the real commerce on the streets, tackle the real problem? Go after the drug dealers, not the food vendors. Give the dealers 20 permits to use. Get your hands in something that matters.

Or, you know, don't. Just leave it alone.

--

Also: Salt of the Earth, an "upscale comfort food restaurant" near work, is really terrific. Co-workers have been prompting a visit for months. Just had their roast beef sandwich and blue cheese cole slaw. Delicious.

Oh, and I also had a scrumptious macaroon, the first of my life. Now I know why the Victorians wrote plays about macaroons.

--

As a college senior, once I realized I was going to have to cook for myself on a regular basis, I started doing so to practice. Sometimes I'd invite people over to up the ante. It was largely a performance--flirting with enticing recipes, really trying to impress. I'd spend a whole week thinking about what I'd make on Friday night.

That changed when I actually moved out on my own. Granted, a house with seven women isn't the greatest place to perform culinary experiments, but whenever the place was vacant and the kitchen was empty I tried my hand. Sometimes the results were good, and sometimes I just pretended they were. (One bizarre concoction combined Ramen soup, rice, peppers, garlic, chicken, beer, and honey. It tasted very, very weird.)

As my living situation improved, so did my cooking. While a sad budget makes for elemental meals, I'm still proud to make my own stuff. I went through a meatloaf phase, buying and baking a pound of ground beef per week. (This was back when I was trying not to eat carbs.) I went through a cabbage phase. I'm just now emerging from a cream of chicken phase.

Now that I'm trying to fast like an Orthodox, the restrictions are much more, well, restricting. No meat, fish, wine or animal products of any kind on Wednesdays and Fridays. And technically, since we're in the Apostle's Fast right now, devout Orthodox are fasting for the entire month.

I asked my priest about it a few weeks ago. "We are in the middle of a pretty strenuous fast," he said. He looked at me. "You...heh, you just do the Wednesdays and Fridays for now. Once you get that, you can do more."

Wednesdays and Fridays, that's all. It's been a challenge. The main results have been a) I go to Chipotle at least twice a week now, b) I try to eat fruit a lot more, and c) Thursday is my "oasis day," the day I can splurge and glut myself. It's the feast between fasts.

--

Two days until Indianapolis and Seattle. With vague plans in the works, including an excursion of sibling appeasement to wherever they filmed the Twilight movies, I'm starting to pack my bag and my carry-on. Megabussing to Indy, then flying to Seattle. Got a week in the Pacific Northwest before a leisurely road trip back to Omaha and my parent's 25th Anniversary, a renewing of the vows ceremony. Gotta get my new suit's pants hemmed at some point.

I will wake early on Saturday. I will drag my bags across the river to a downtown corner and wait. And if possible, I will buy something from a street vendor.

Pants

"I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill."

-- Wallace Stevens, "Anecdote of the Jar"

--

I left my pants in Maryland.

Highlights from the foray eastward included: a ragtag bunch of weighty street fighters practicing WWF moves on each other in the trees lining the National Mall, and the crowd's disgust at the sudden appearance of a large (and long) butt crack; an Australian lying in the grass to take a picture of a traveling stuffed wombat with the Capitol in the background; the never-ending and creepy FDR memorial (notice that this statue seems to force picture posers to stand between the president's legs); overhearing nonsense on the subway; being refused Athenian beer at a Greek diner because it was 1:30AM.

And yes, seeing Johnny, Ari, Zachary, Gabe, Caity, Tony and Chase.

The return trip included the impressive Appalachian vistas of West Virginia and regular Virginia, a banter-filled tour of the Blackfriars playhouse in Staunton (thanks to Chase for the connect), a long-awaited but worth-it lunch at a Mediterranean joint, and the gorgeous blond southern belle who waited on Zach and me at a Cracker Barrel.

--

Last week, on Nick T.'s advice, I checked out some albums by Gillian Welch, whose heartfelt Appalachian songs are really beautiful. Revival is my favorite of the ones I listened to.

Just picked up another, self-titled album called God Help the Girl. The CD has a list of tracks that fooled me as I read them--I thought they were liner notes or a short introductory poem:

Musician, Please Take Heed

Perfection as a Hipster

Come Monday Night

The Music Room Window

I Just Want Your Jeans

I'll Have to Dance with Cassie

A Down and Dusky Blonde

But it's not. It's just the last half of the track names.

Another album I've got playing in my car, All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, by Explosions in the Sky. It's a rock symphony, entirely instrumental, very powerful.

--

Last week's CYPT Prep was a huge success. It was good to be lead instructor and coordinator on that one.

I wrote about them before, but it is worth revisiting just because it was the culmination of a yearlong process of trial and error.

The first group we had, in October 2009, numbered out at 25 kids. We went for originality and improvisation, trying to create a new show written by the kids. It was a near disaster: rambunctious kids weighed down discussions, lethargic kids simply sat out activities. The second time, in February 2010, we tried for an evening of scenes where each child worked on a scene and a monologue twice a week, for five weeks. There were so few kids that each one got plenty of attention, but overall the scope seemed curbed. Kids got bored.

But this time, we had 31 kids and 3 instructors who used plenty of material and resources. There was more to to work on (we added a whole dance class), and there were more places to go (we split them up into three groups by age and used various backstage areas as "classrooms"). By constantly changing locale and material, we kept ourselves in the driver's seat while at the same time keeping them interested.

We didn't get overwhelmed, and they didn't get bored, and nobody got disappointed. Like I said: success.

--

Came back to work yesterday and it was like the first day of school: busy, confusing, and awkward. I've since whittled down my Inbox from 70 emails to 35, though the 15 voice mails I transcribed from the machine are mostly still unanswered. Workshops all week, every morning a drain, every afternoon a toil.

The thing I most appreciated about working for the Covedale--if only for a week--was that they stood beside and behind me. A parent complained when I put some pressure on his daughter to memorize her lines and she in turn told her father she had been "kicked out of the program." My boss's response was, "Sir, that simply did not happen. I know Chris, and I know that's not what he said." Later, when the irate father called to note that "stories are changing at home," we all felt vindicated.

We laughed about it later, after the performance was over and the pizza was mostly devoured and the parents had taken all the children away.

Not to make too fine a point on it, but at my regular job I am regularly, almost routinely, overstepped and sold out by bosses. Parents complain and I am scapegoated. They go up the chain of command where they find sympathetic ears. It was nice to have a change of pace--again, if only for a week.

Tigers

"Then imitate the action of the tiger."

-- Henry in King Henry V, by William Shakespeare

--

Zach just called. He's about ten minutes away.

My car's in the shop, getting its plugs replaced. A good mechanic is hard to find. The honest ones are sometimes hard to trust.

This time tomorrow we'll be somewhere else, somewhere between here and there. Washington, DC, folks. Been a few years since I've been there, and it'll only be a few hours till I'm there again. Seeing the Thurows, Caity W., and perhaps other folks. Spread the word. Reunion is imminent, and most welcome.

--

Tonight, the showcase for the Covedale Young People's Theatre Prep. Thirty-one kids, in only four days, memorized and perfected 5 Aesop's fables, a 10-minute play, 4 scenes from contemporary plays and musicals, 11 commercials, 12 standard monologues, 8 Shakespearean soliloquies, AND an entire dance number from Newsies.


I'd call this one a success.

--

The Shakespeare group, the eight oldest students, has been awesome. It's made the stressful and difficult job of "lead instructor" nothing short of theatrical bliss. One kid, Michael, really got into King Henry V, the "Once more unto the breach, dear friends" monologue. We went through it line by line. He asked about tone. We talked about tone. And poetic diction. Then I asked him, "Can you think of any situation where you've heard people talking like this?"

"Like a football coach?"

"Awesome, yes."

And from there, he has built. These are middle-school kids, folks. Michael is 12, I think, and he's performing Shakespeare--not just reciting words, but delivering them as lines. Anyone who tells you that middle-schoolers aren't intellectually ready to tackle Shakespeare really means to say that they aren't willing to take the time to teach it.

For Michael, it took four days. He and the others perform tonight at 6pm. Then, pizza party.

And then, DC.

Romans

"Peter was a Judaizer."
"Not like the Far Right."
...
"What does Bishop Ware say? 'I have been saved, I'm being saved, and I hope I shall be shaved'--sorry, not shaved. Saved."

-- quips from last night's Bible study

--

Romans are everywhere.

My sisters have both become involved with Romans. My littlest one appears to be in a casual relationship with a guy named Roman. My middle one has just secured lodging with a group of Navy friends...one of whom is named Roman.

And last night, I attended the first summer Bible study at Christ the Savior-Holy Spirit, of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

--

It's been awhile since I've sat with people to discuss a text. There have been the poetry nights, yes, those anthologies of discussion, and in the adaptation of plays you talk about diction and plot, but nothing like those memorable college classes where everyone sat--including the professor--together in a small space, some infinite depths of text to explore, a simultaneous learning.

We began last night, after Vespers.

There were a dozen, at first. More came after we had secured tables and chairs in the basement, and we unfolded more of both as needed. The plastic tables were embossed on the ends: LIFETIME. The partitions were movable, set on wheels, half tall as real walls, and we spread them as our study grew.

--

How much is there to say about the epistle? Plenty, but not here--the life of the church is in the reading and the discussion, and all that. Some tidbits, though:

1.) Paul never went to Rome. Except, that is, when he was arrested and beheaded there. The epistle is the only one he sent to a church he did neither founded nor visited.

2.) Romans is long. Like the Roman army, it is large and formidable. Those who know the text well speak familiarly of the climactic fall and rise of chapters 7 and 8. I'm sad to say I'm not well-versed enough to comment.

3.) Peter was not the first Pope. Not even the first bishop of Rome, and who it actually was even Roman Catholics will admit is still unknown. Interestingly, Paul never once mentions Peter in the entirety of the epistle.

4.) Peter pissed off Paul. At Antioch, Paul felt Peter had undermined and betrayed him. While they operated to accomplish the same things, they were radically different (and apparently they really were radicals) in their approaches. Peter was ultra-conservative; Paul was incredibly liberal. Paul's position probably has something to do with #5:

5.) Paul was, above all other apostles, incredibly passionate. In the words of Fr. Steven last night, Remember, Paul had constantly had to defend his apostleship. He wasn't one of the original Twelve, and his experience with Christ is an entirely firsthand account.


Other things can be said, too--I was interested that Martin Luther's "faith alone" concept is a blending of two separate verses. Paul quotes Habakkuk: "The just shall live by faith," to which Luther adds the word "alone." That phrase appears nowhere in the New Testament except in the book of James, who only used the phrase to say that "faith alone without works is dead."

Yowza. No wonder Martin Luther considered James heretical and wanted his book stricken from the Gospel.

--

My boss has taken her byline off the adaptation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which ArtReach will tour next year. This means the play will be written by me, and me alone. My gratitude exceeds words--it will be my first solo project as a professional playwright.

And it's Huck Finn.


At the moment, I'm wrestling with it: How to approach the last 25 minutes of this play? There's a lot of blood and darkness in the story, and this adaptation has to be elementary school-friendly. We can deal with Tom getting shot in the leg, and maybe even Huck's famous "All right then, I'll go to hell." But the deaths?

Then there's the basic question of time. Forget content for a moment. To involve the Duke and the King, set up Jim's capture, bring in Tom Sawyer, play out the failed escape plan, and then to explain such a speedy and complicated resolution--it's gonna be tough.

I don't want to ravage the text. But I also don't want to bore the kids with a superficial rendering of what is truly an amazing, iconic story.

I guess this is what artists call "working."

Littluns

"Amazing Grace," by Deborah Woodall

"The audience was stunned
It was appalling
But it's not appalling what they saw
I saw it in a movie once."

-- The Seedy Seeds, "The Push," Count the Days


--

Today, a 13-year-old sent me an email from her iPad. A mom informed me that she and her daughter will leave the country for two months on an extended vacation while the husband/father does business in exotic environs of the world. And my little sister didn't know what a "medley" was.

We're letting the next generation down, folks.

--

Today, I will do my favorite workshop, "Art Alive!" Seventeen kids at the Harrison Branch of the Cincinnati Public Library will learn about art. We will ask of a number of paintings the 5 W's, ending with "Why?" We will learn how to bring art to life by incarnating it. And the paintings shall become flesh.

"The Walk," by Marc Chagall

Workshops are very self-styled here. We have a basic format that all our teaching artists follow, but we adapt whenever possible. No two classes get the same exact session, because no two classes have the same exact kids. That sounds like lip service, but really, it's not. Workshops add variety to this job.

Most kids have never had to look at paintings this way, with a critical eye. When I tell them the title of this Chagall is "The Walk," I can see their minds chewing on the question begged: Why is it called that if the man is standing still and the woman is flying?

Why, indeed.

I love blowing their minds. For the What section, I show them three paintings in rapid succession: "It's Poppin' Baby, Can You Feel It?" by Marcus Glenn; "Three Women Playing Musical Instruments," by Anonymous; and Picasso's "Three Musicians." The subject in all three paintings is the same: each depicts a musical trio. But now we can discuss How these depictions were made, and Why the painters chose to use radically different styles to show the same What.

"It's Poppin' Baby, Can You Feel It?" by Marcus Glenn

"Three Women Playing Musical Instruments," by Anon.

"Three Musicians," by Pablo Picasso

At the end of the workshop, they split into groups and I pass out paintings they've never seen. They have to analyze a painting on their own, answering the 5 W's and preparing to act it out. It is theatrical education at its best:

Who are they? Characters.

What are they doing? Action.


When and where? Setting.


Why? Motivation, style.

--

Anyways, I'm off to said workshop, to help save a generation from technology, entitlement and ignorance. When I return, I'll have to draw a banana.

Poirot

"If you had a tattoo that wouldn't matter

If you had a shaved head that would be cool

If you came from Spain or Japan or the back of a van...

I'd say now I'm getting somewhere,

I'm finally breaking through..."

-- Jason Robert Brown, "Shiksa Goddess," The Last Five Years

--

Had to work on a Sunday, and had to pee after work. Stopped on my way back from Sawyer Point at the library on Scott St., hoping to relieve myself in a place where you don't feel obligated to buy something just because you need to use the restroom. Maybe I would pay my fines, too--who knows?

The restroom has one stall and one urinal and both were occupied. I don't make it a point to be very observant in bathrooms, but I noticed the guy at the urinal was old, well-dressed, and (so it appeared, anyway) not peeing. He heard me enter and craned an ear in my direction, as if to say, "Hold on, I got this." I stood in the corner to wait it out. He bent his knees, wiggled his shoulders, took deep breaths. He sounded frustrated: the air came slowly in and was blown out so fast it whistled. He jounced his johnson.

I wanted to tell him that there really was no hurry, that I'd held it for two hours and could easily go a few more minutes. The back of his neck was red. He gave up and a hand searchingly came up to flush. It was automatic, but he fumbled with it anyway, until it started to go on its own and he stepped back. I kept looking at the floor and as the flushing water slowed to a trickle, I stepped up. I knew if I just went it would be like taunting him, the poor old guy, so I maintained until I heard the sound of damp paper towels hitting a trashbag and the creak of the bathroom door.

--

Tattooed a bunch of kids down at KidsFest today and puppeted a parrot named Poirot. I get my kicks whenever I can, especially at these free-for-all days: standing in a booth for hours, peddling theatre brochures and snagging parental interest by hooking the kids:

"Who wants a Children's Theatre tattoo? You, buddy? Can he have a tattoo, Mom?" (Mom nods.) "Great, have a seat. Let's see your arm. How old are you? Seven, huh, so are you going into second or third grade? Third! Wow! Have you ever been to The Children's Theatre? No? Well, here's a brochure..."

And so on.

The kicks I got were mainly through the parrot, which I picked because TCT is doing How I Became a Pirate in the fall. I pecked at heads, clamped the beak down on impertinent fingers, squawked at the insolent ones who just walked up and smacked the parrot upside the head. But this, too, became automatic, a senseless string of questions and comments, delivered of course in a glottal parrot voice:

"What's your name?" (Kid mumbles and you don't hear the name.) "That's a cool/pretty name. Would you like to pet my head?" (Kid pets head.) "That feels so nice. Would you like to scratch my chin?" (Kid refuses.) "Pretty please?" (Kid starts to cry; the charade is over. To mom:) "Oh, poor guy, I think the parrot scared him. Well, here's a brochure..."

And so on.

--

When we were taking our stuff down so the next booth occupiers could set up, a woman from our sponsoring organization approached me. We introduced ourselves. She said, "So what's next for you on this Sunday?"

I hadn't thought about it, so I said the most interesting thing I could think of. "Probably gonna read The Brothers Karamazov." After a beat, I added, "I'm very excited."

"Really?" she said, her sunglasses masking her. "That doesn't sound too exciting. It's so sunny."

I mumbled something about maybe doing that reading in a park, and she nodded and changed the subject.

--

Not to spite her, but I think I will go to a park with my book, actually. It beats all on days like today. With a quartet of busy weekends coming up (camping, DC, then two weeks in Nebraska) and then the mad rush of summer camp, shows and auditions extending into August, I figure I only have about three weekends to myself left here. Big move coming up; big river keeps on flowing. Gotta rest on your raft when you get the chance.

Narrative

"It's all about the food with them."

-- Rick, the Kentucky barber who cut my hair this morning

--

Been staying late at work the last few weeks. Overtime hours, as of June 1, no longer count for anything here, but at the very least it's an opportunity to use the internet and--especially at 5pm on a Friday--to do so in peace. Right now, the only sounds are of puttering motors outside and the slosh of the break room dishwasher. I'm not even playing music. For now, silence is golden.

Got a haircut this morning at Rick's, my favorite place for that sort of thing. At Rick's, the only employee is Rick, and his hours--no joke--are:

Monday - Wednesday - Friday

9:30ish to 5:30ish

Rick just got back from a trip to Michigan, and we talked about it while he buzzed and clipped at what has been growing on my head since mid-March.

He asked what was going on later that day, and I told him I was teaching a workshop at Starfire again. I told him how I hadn't expected adults to be so childlike even if they had mental disabilities, and that I wanted to do something out of the ordinary with them today, something we didn't do the last time I went. He told me about his sister-in-law, who has Down's syndrome, who is one of those semi-mythic people who can tell you whether May 23, 1905 was a Thursday or a Friday (it was actually a Tuesday).

"She's amazing," he said. "And you know what the key is? Food. It's all about the food with them. My sister-in-law literally has a friend who she calls every night just to tell each other what they had for dinner. One says, 'Hi, I had spaghetti,' and the other says, 'Oh, I had pizza,' and they hang up. They just love talking about food."

"Why do you think that is?" I asked, keeping my head still.

"Something to look forward to."

--

Sometime when I was at Hillsdale, I must have been in line at the dining hall when I had a minor epiphany: a lot of foods, at least in America, are between yellow and brown/red on the color spectrum. This includes most soups and sauces, along with anything made from grain or flour. It even applies to most fruits. I don't know why it is, but you don't see many purples or blues. Greens, yes. But not many others deviate from the "warm colors," and in general we don't find black foods appetizing at all; black is the color of burnt or rotten.

Yellow seems to be the color of appetite, of carbs.

--

A few weeks ago, I had a Mark Twain workshop at the Cincinnati Art Museum. One of the activities was to have the kids create their own pseudonym--and that's all that was in the study guide notes. Very open-ended, and very uninteresting in itself. I stole a stack of yellow papers and two dozen markers from the copy room and brought them along. I had them share the markers. They were first to draw what they most liked to do, then brainstorm related words that could function as names on the same sheet of paper.

For example, one boy drew a baseball player and brainstormed words like "out," "play," "diamond," "home run," and "bat." His pseudonym? Homer Unn.

The papers and markers stayed in my backpack for a long time after, not because I was sentimental about it but just the opposite: I kept forgetting to return them to the copy room.

All that goes to say: I had a bunch of markers and yellow papers in my backpack after my haircut was done.

--

They sat in a wide circle. I had a volunteer pass out the papers and placed the markers on a table in the center of the room; they were allowed to take one marker at a time, returning it when they finished, and they should raise their hand if they wanted another piece of paper.

They were to use their imaginations to turn their pieces of paper into their favorite foods. I demonstrated first, coloring a sheet green and then folding/crumpling it into a rough broccoli shape. I wanted them to make their projects as three-dimensional as they could, which in my opinion is more creative than drawing a picture of the food. We would later play a sort of charades game, acting out the eating of the foods while everyone tried to guess what each was.

I wish I'd brought my camera. There were a lot of pizza slices (minimum folding and it stays two-dimensional); one old man grew frustrated but settled for creating a whole personal pizza, folding in the corners to suggest a circle. A lady showed us the layers of a cheeseburger before stacking it and taking a bite. She also tore short, thin strips into French fries. Two other women made ice-cream by wadding up the paper and using a bunch of markers for sprinkles and asking for more paper to make the toppings; one had a fudge brownie beneath it and the other nestled nicely into a waffle cone. A young man made a fish and pretended to eat it tail-first. Someone took their time forming some mac'n'cheese, and another dared to attempt spaghetti. One of the guys who chose pizza folded his slice lengthwise and informed us, "New York style," how he eats his pizza.

--

From a barbershop to a children's theatre to a center for mentally handicapped adults, this was a day when a lot of things came together: advice on the food approach, leftover items from the copy room, and a room of creative minds.

Makes me wonder a little about how we piece our lives together. We justify our past by seeking a narrative in it, something that says, See? You were always this kind of person, these are your tendencies, you are this kind of character. This is the method for job interviews (this is your experience, these are your goals) and relationships (these are your exes, notice their flaws and avoid them in the future), and I'm sure plenty of other categories. But isn't the idea of those categories also part of the puzzle? When I was at this bad point in my life, I worked at a job I didn't like and turned out to hate who I dated. The idea of a bad part of life, separate from a worse or better present, is also categorical. I used to be that way, now I am this way.


What I wonder now is how to turn categorizing into improvising. Quickly recognizing that small accidents can lead to small victories. What object left in the car is going to rescue me later? What will I find in my pockets tomorrow? What old acquaintance will hire me in a few months? Have I already seen the face of the woman I will marry?

And so on.

I know this whole line of thinking eventually leads to folly, but in moments of reflection (i.e., blog time) I think it's good to seek out our narratives. We can't read them objectively, we'll scan over key words and kick ourselves later, but it's good to see how the threads are lining up, to analyze the data, to search for our own coincidences. We can't always share them with each other--fewer things can be more boring than listening to or reading a person's idiosyncratic life story--but it is sometimes more revealing to share it with yourself anyway.

My dad once told me, "You aren't who you think you are, and you aren't who other people think you are. You are who you think other people think you are."

That just might be true. At the very least, looking for my narrative makes me believe I'm trying to see myself through eyes of the Other. And as with many things, within that Other, is Order.