Pants

"I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill."

-- Wallace Stevens, "Anecdote of the Jar"

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.