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.

Memorials

"She got no dirty little fingers

Bloodshot eyes are gone

Tell me I'm wrong."

-- The Black Crowes, "Twice as Hard"

--

Looked up that song because it came on the radio when I was between the bank and work. Upon finishing a left turn, I heard the opening guitar, and after it played a few seconds I was about to switch to CD when the song proper began with a rift shift that sounded a lot like the sliding in Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying." I like Zeppelin, and I like bands that sound like Zeppelin. I let it play. The lead singer even sounds like Robert Plant. I couldn't make out many lyrics but I told myself to remember the ones I could, so as to Google the song when I got to the office.

Later, at my desk, I promptly forgot those random lyrics when I saw the red light on my phone (could be one message, could be twenty, I still haven't checked), the inbox's fifty new emails with subject lines listed in boldface, the barrage of How was your vacation's and Glad to be back's.

All this goes to say, I'm grateful for 92.5 FM The Fox's website. Specifically, the "What Song Was That?" feature, which I guess isn't unique to this station but was anyway very useful this morning. I am now resolved to visit the library on my way home to look for the band's 1990 debut album. Thanks, 92.5 FM.

--

A check was waiting on my desk. My last reimbursement for gas (a teaching artist drives a lot). I separated what was perforated and flipped over the receipt slip, usually saved for no real reason, and made a to-do list. It's been awhile since I've been in my cube. I don't know what I have to do, but I know there's a lot of it.

We're replacing a study guide activity with a whole worksheet about bananas in an attempt to get a corporate sponsor--you guessed it, a produce company--to underwrite a show. Parents are emailing like nuts about the summer camp and auditions in August. I'm performing at KidsFest in three days and have no material chosen.

Someone made me a PBJ and I ate the quadrants while clicking through now-irrelevant emails.

--

On the drive to Pennsylvania, I saw an Ohio road sign heralding our approach to two towns. The sign read:

FLUSHING

BETHESDA

I think this would make a phenomenal punk band name.

--

My grandma is in better spirits than we were led to believe. She was not taciturn or snippy, did not make territorial comments about fruits in the fridge--in fact, on the bookend days of our visit, she poured me some of her 8th Continent, which was delicious and tasted like pudding. However, her health is just as bad, and maybe worse, than what we expected. Shortly after we got there, she went upstairs to get my dad's baby bracelet and returned five minutes later wheezing and leaning on everything.

A few months ago, she went into the doctor's office to ask about the strange lump on the left of her neck (not cancer, thank God), and in the ensuing checkups medics discovered a whole mess of problems that need solving.

The most formidable of which is that three of her heart valves have apparently stopped working. She needs surgery, and she needs to be able to go under during it. She's been passed from doctor to doctor and clinic to clinic all over east PA, being told over and over that her chances of surviving such a surgery are slim. A lifetime of smoking and never winning the lottery, the recent death of her husband, the ever-weakening determination not to become a burden...of course we would come and visit, do some landscaping and get her out of the house.

We took her to Grandpa's grave on Memorial Day, which was hot under a harsh sun. She laid a single pink rose on the stone.

She gave my little sister a brass otter figurine she had received from Grandpa years ago. She gave me his pristine collection of Churchill works, too: six beautiful red hardbacks that would make certain Hillsdalians salivate.

My aunt is officially a lesbian now, at least in my mental classification; I met her wife. They share my grandma's basement and have been waging a war with the back yard for a year now. With health issues ravaging the household, they were in no condition to landscape the patio or clear the shelter house. We took care of it, at least until Nature continues its work.

--

It rained only once and we napped in a stuffy spare room.

Conversations were telling. When my dad's family members saw me reading The Brothers Karamazov, they told me--with pride--that they had just bought the latest James Patterson novel. My aunt regaled me with stories that took place in every airport I could think of, chronicles of her exploits as a traveling salesperson. I was sure they were the sorts of people who would listen to NPR every day; they weren't. They have strong opinions about the oil spill and whether we should be in Iraq. My father, an Air Force veteran, nods and does his best to inform and opine without debating.

--

Both my dad's and mom's sides of the family are scattered worldwide. We have Filipino relatives in the native islands and Germany and Missouri. My dad's brothers and sisters mostly stayed in the northeast, but a few strayed into the South. We don't see extended family much. And while the dimensions of these relatives changes with each sparse visit, our knowledge of them and their lives shifting like globs in a lava lamp, the general impression remains of people who have been tested and brought down by life; who are resigned to getting by if and when they can; who pick their battles with wizened, tired ease; who find intense joy in laughter and storytelling. Most smoke and hate themselves for it, or else they drink. My grandfather died from alcoholic pneumonia--while laid up in a veteran's home he drank a beer that filled his lungs.

Without trying to sound self-righteous, I feel many times that some people would never take care of themselves unless others would first care for them. It's not a matter of initiation, imitation or incentive, but of self-worth, of believing in one's own potential as a person, of stepping back from the cliff of self-pity.

My family sits and listens and observes and cooks and cleans and judges. And we hate ourselves for judging, because what separates also relates.

--

Aside from all this, there were genuine moments of childhood-esque fun. Riding a mower. Building fires. Watching "River Monsters" on cable and shaking our heads at the size of river sharks. Drinking 8th Continent and loving it.

In the Orthodox tradition, there is the beautiful idea that when humans, almost entirely ignorant of God, learn more about Him, they love Him more. I think this can work or not-work depending on your point of view, the stuff you choose to read, etc. It seems to be true for people who are devoted to worldly aims: the botanist who becomes enamored of leaves, the linguist who learns his tenth language, the professor who has had tenure for so long he can't count the years.

Maybe this is true. The more you live, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you love; and so, the more you live, the more you love. Or maybe it's a matter of can's: The more you can live, the more you can love.

I think it works or doesn't work with family, too. And even if it doesn't work, I don't regret this Memorial Day weekend at all.

Way

"I'm asking everyone around me
How to live my life
I know the answers I keep hearing
But I listen close each time."

-- Rooney, "Help Me Find My Way," Calling the World

--

At the end of season three of The Wire, McNulty trades the detective life for the beat cop life. He talks with old ladies sitting on stoops and laughs at kids who live on the block. The smile on his face is so shocking, because it's the first time you see him happy. He's been good at his job, but he's hated it. It was almost simply matter of finding out where he wanted to be, not what case he was working or how.

Earlier in the series, a woman at a community meeting says she misses knowing who the cops were, and having them know who she was. McNulty, it seems to me, makes amends.

I watched the end of this episode on Friday morning. Driving to work, the wheels started turning in my head. Am I where I want to be?

The answer is no. So then, where do I want to be? That is the question. The answer is, I'm moving back to Nebraska in September. I will be there for a time. For how long, and while doing what--this is on my mind now.

Maybe I'll start the Children's Theatre of Omaha someday.

--

After lunch, I am meeting with an Orthodox priest. I scheduled this meeting for one o'clock so I could miss the Monday staff meeting. His name is Fr. Steven. I don't know what I want to ask him, but I do know I want to get to know him. Or I want him to know who I am.

It's a bit like buying a car. I don't need him to tell me that I need a car, or that one car in particular is the car for me. I think I already know what I want; I just need to know how to get it.

What I think I already know is: I want to become Orthodox.

--

Talked with my dad last night. My Grandma's not doing well in Pennsylvania, and she will have to go into surgery soon. My family is planning to drive to see her, and I'm planning to come along. The only question is, when.

Whens abound. Friends want to meet on weekends this summer. The possibility of a camping trip in Kentucky. Going to visit Johnny and Ari in DC before they leave the country in July.

Schedules from all sources, GoogleMapped itineraries, money for gas. And it's because where you want to be is around friends and family. Location, location, location.

--

This post kinda sucks. I've been blogging less often. I might be out of practice.

--

Went to a tea party on Saturday to read a book and teach British tea manners to twenty eight-year-old girls in frills and white gloves. They betrayed their age despite the finery with chocolate smeared on cheeks. I had our costume designer make me an ascot for the occasion. As an actor instructing girls on how to float their hands and converse like dainty Englishwomen, I probably came across as a very gay man.

This is a very singular time in my life, in a very pluralistic kind of way.

Starfire

"Mistakes on the part of nature
The living proof of what they're calling love
On certain sideway streets
Where things that don't match meet."

-- The New Pornographers, "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk"

--

I want to get this down while it's fresh:

Next door to this building is a center for those with disabilities. They call themselves Starfire. Their parking lot is separated from ours by a healthy thick hedge, so that generally we forget who our neighbors are. Occasionally we'll see teachers and volunteers leading small groups on outings (little more than slow processions up and down the street--and I mean slow in terms of speed: they are so fascinated by the flowering of grass or the color of the sky they forget to keep up with the group), but that's about it. Our spheres of influence don't really mix: us with the talented kids, them with the mentally-challenged adults.

In terms of visual surroundings, the eye is much more quickly taken in by the attractive dance studio across from us, or the unsightly autism center on the other side. Our building itself is rather drab at the moment, mostly obscured from the road by trees and lacking a sign announcing our presence. Behind us, there is an annex to the parking lot with a storage shed, and beside that, an open field of tall grass which was partially converted into a fenced-in playground.

Relatively speaking, it's an isolated location. We like it that way, to be honest; a certain comfort comes with anonymity, a sort of assurance that keeping your head low is evidence of good judgment and humility. Other arts organizations find themselves on busy streets with lots of foot traffic, and there they thrive. We thrive in near obscurity.

All this goes to say: Before today, I had never been next door.

--

The workshop is "Self-Esteem through Self-Expression," and I've done it dozens of times. It's our most popular one; it's always a hit. It's basic: we use five tools of an actor--voice, body, imagination, focus, and cooperation--to boost self-esteem through fun, interactive games. I have another SESE workshop this evening, actually, with a local Girl Scout troupe.

I've never done it with mentally-challenged adults. I leave our building and walk across our parking lot, past the hedge, and am surprised to find an impressive little building next door. I do not know why exactly I'm surprised. I walk in the front door and step into a wide-open reception area, where I meet two teachers and one of the students (do I call them students, patients, or just "them"?) who enthusiastically greets me with a handshake. They lead me down the hallway to another wide-open area, this one populated by stuffed chairs on wheels and movable plastic tables scattered into faintly discernible sections. I realize this is the miscellaneous room, the space for activities and group meetings. Or visitors. Surrounding this space are conference rooms of various sizes, some in use and some empty and dark. There is some kind of seminar going on in the largest one.

We move the chairs into a rough circle. We get started. I am immediately struck by lack of conformity in this group of ten, aged 30-50: some slouch, staring at the ground; some sit on the edge of their chair, hands folded, smiling expectantly; still others study my person, every expression and gesture noted with almost dreadful attention.

We do a voice warm-up, sirens, and while everyone stands, not everyone participates. We do a physical warm-up, crazy 8's, and not everyone keeps up. We sit down and I take out a brown square piece of fabric. This is for the imagination game, which is much like charades. We will pass this sheet around and transform it into different things, and the others must guess what we have made. I begin by swaddling the cloth into a baby shape, swinging it gently in my arms.

"Baby!" they cry, delighted. I pass it off to a wide-eyed older woman who seems to smile eternally. She folds and unfolds it a few times before inspiration strikes--she folds three sides inwards to make a door shape with the edges. She holds it up proudly. A teacher guesses that it is the building we are in. The woman squeals and giggles: "Yes!" And we pass it on. And on, and on.

This game never fails. No matter what the group, I find that everyone is easily captivated by every fold, every crease, every rotation of the sheet. As an observer I am always fascinated by not only what they create but how they go about it. What strikes me most today during this game is the care with which they handle the fabric. Such deliberate folds, conscientious matching of corner to corner, constant thinking and rethinking. Children fold quickly and callously, depending more on giving hints to the group through physical action than by sculpting the fabric. Not so today. They take two to three minutes each just to create their object.

A man in an Elmo T-shirt takes his turn. He folds diagonally twice and lays it on the floor. We stare and ponder. "It is home plate?" I offer. He says no and chuckles. A teacher asks if it is a slice of pizza. No. The other teacher asks if it is an ice-cream cone.

"No," he says. "It's a triangle." He chuckles, relishing his joke.

One man surprises me most. He is the first to leave his chair and step into the center of the circle. He lays the fabric down like a picnic blanket, spreading hands across the surface to smooth out ripples. Once it is flawless, he folds two sides towards each other, halving the diameter. It is a rectangle. He takes one of the short sides and folds it in a few inches, giving the impression of a pillow on a bed. Then he holds up his hands ("Don't guess yet, watch this"). He kneels beside the sheet. He crosses himself three times and folds his hands to pray.

"Bed!" But he shakes his head. He repeats his motions, crossing himself and praying. "Praying by your bed." He shakes his head. He repeats his actions a third time.

We're all at a loss. "Coffin," he says.

--

After we finish, I am led back to the office by one of the teachers and one of the participants, who reintroduces himself as Steve.

Steve is the one who made a sheet into a coffin. He shakes my hand.

I am sure I will not forget his name.

Struck

"Nearly everyone struggles with the mania for a time; the wise conquer it, the foolish make up the comic opera choruses, the unimportant road companies, and the stage-door-keeper's list of 'extra ladies and gentlemen.' From every class and walk of life, from every town and city troop the victims, abandoning their vocations and their homes, as though they had heard the witching notes of a siren song. They come with high hopes and bright dreams...they besiege the agencies, and the managers, and the teachers of acting until their dreams fade, or their money runs out, or they are smitten with realization."

-- Channing Pollock, in his essay "Stage Struck," originally published in The Footlights Fore and Aft


--

Friends in and of the theatre, I have just read a depressing article about people who perform. Granted, the essay comes to us from 1911, and its main target is the advent of crappy vaudeville, but consider the following and see if you are as struck as I was by sad truth:

In nine cases out of ten the mania to go on the stage is prompted by pure desire for glorification. Love of excitement, the fallacious notion that the profession is one of comparative ease and luxury, may be alloying factors, but the essence of the virus is vanity.

In the course of time [the mediocre actor] even begins to arrogate to himself the heroic virtues of the characters he impersonates. It is sweet to see one's name on the cover of a novel, sweet to scrawl one's autograph in the lower left-hand corner of a painting, but O, how doubly and trebly sweet to meet one's own image lithographed under a laudatory line and posted between advertisements of the newest breakfast food and the latest five cent cigar!

Of dramatic schools the number is legion, but only those conducted by dishonest adventurers promise employment to the enrolled student.

This system [in which actors are selected by agency managers] is undeniably hard, and perhaps unjust to the beginner, but...the investor in drama has the fullest right to minimize his risk.

[The theatrical profession] is the one vocation in which the worker must begin again every year.... Unless he has made a prodigious hit--and prodigious hits are very rare--he finds himself no farther advanced next June than he was last September.

Lost to his best friends and companions, travelling at all hours of the day and night, grateful for board and lodging that would not be tolerated by a domestic servant, the player with a small road company has ample reason to repent his choice of career.

No person can possibly succeed on the dramatic stage without the foundation of genuine talent and a superstructure of culture and education.

--

Regardless of what Pollock wrote 99 years ago, I'm back at work, trying to finish the script for the Mark Twain show which I will perform tomorrow morning. I will drive almost three hours, almost straight east, and almost clearly understanding what it is I will say and do in front of "~400ish" students.

After carpooling to Hillsdale, we spent more than a weekend there. Despite a predictable keynote speech, commencement was a solid ceremony, running under three hours this year thanks to the quick name readings from Dr. Moreno. That morning at the Palace, we constructed a sort of commencement bingo sheet; while we heard no slighting of China, we observed everything else on the list. The college President is delightfully predictable in his consistency, especially as pertains to remarks about female students getting married to slovenly male students, throwing out non sequitur statements (this year's: "I just tried snuff for the first time this week") and interjecting Hillsdalian beatitudes that are too simple to be disputed ("You also believe in beauty").

The real joy was found, as always, in company. Saw Reist and grabbed lunch with Jackson. Listened to Evan playing keyboard while Seth demanded, repeatedly, "Play 'Trolley.' " Smoked--a lot. Stole beers at Econ's place. Arrived on Friday night to a party where everyone seemed to A) have a bottle of liquor and B) be thrusting said bottle at you. Grabbed coffee at the Coffee Cup, Palace, and the newly reformed Broad Street Market. Walked most everywhere. Ran almost all the way to Baw Beese on Saturday. Enjoyed everything.

Joke of the weekend, I think, goes to Zach, who informed us that militant abolitionist John Brown was a chronic masturbator.

"He calls it 'bleedin' Kansas.' "

We must have laughed for ten minutes.

It was a lot for three days and nights. But good, good, good.

--

Attended Orthodox Liturgy at Holy Ascension in Albion. It's the definition of beauty, its congregation the epitome of charity. Seeing professors and students and other folks worshiping together before a white iconostasis in a room with only a few pews in the back--feeling so implicit in worship and organic within form--it was too memorable an experience to cheapen here, but I will say this: If I had attended while I was at Hillsdale, I would have become Orthodox by now.