I was reprimanded by my buddy Marisa through a comment on the last post. It lovingly reads, "I wish you blogged more, punk." That was 11 days ago, but I am only getting it right now because, as she points out, I have not been keeping up with this blog. My last post on Old Man Ira was a little over a month ago.
But I have been blogging. I have actually been more rigorous in my posts than ever before. But not here. Old Man Ira, I am afraid, was something of a starter blog.
So, if you are still periodically looking to this blog for my wheres and whats, then you should definitely check out http://darkknightdramaturgy.wordpress.com/ as it has been where I've been writing since September 8.
And sorry, Marisa, for not sending out a memo!
Punk.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
me and my red pen
This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
-Winston Churchill
-Winston Churchill
At the age of 26, after having finished six years of university, after having written a thesis and gotten some minor things published, and after having taught Writing 1 for four semesters, I am taking my first non-fiction writing course since AP English, senior year of high school.
Okay, it's not a writing course: it's a copyediting course. And work is paying for it. But still.
I am writing this entry because I am avoiding doing my homework. HOMEWORK! My current assignment is to read Chapter 14 from The Copyeditor's Handbook, "Grammar: Principles and Pitfalls." It's not bad actually; I wish I had known about it so I could have assigned it.
Having never taken a writing course (other than playwriting), I am learning a lot of little things, and, yes, as a writer I really do geek out over them. This whole concept of notional agreement (which formally disregards formal agreement by relying on the meaning of what is being said rather that the words being used) BLOWS MY MIND.
Rachel is sitting next to me, working on a real writing assignment. She is struggling to get started, and asks for advice. I read over the prompt: basic, beginning of the semester, let's see how loose I can get them to go (is this phrase a subjunctive?!), assignment. Write about anything from the perspective of anyone but yourself in a detail-oriented style. I turn off the student inside me (careful, you sick bastards) and turn on the teacher and go to work, with 5 pages left in Chapter 14: the preposition section.
"The more pressing issue for copyeditors is to ensure that the author has selected the correct preposition."
Soon I get to do a worksheet!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
in appreciation of articulation
The human body evolved over eons into an intricate machine whose expected fuel is fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, meat, and, since the last Ice Age ended ten thousand years ago, a modicum of wheat, corn, and rice. Food was abundant only seasonally, while migration or at least nomadism was a way of life. In the epochs before domesticated meat sources, those centuries of hunting wild prey with spears and traps, the body's metabolism adapted to store any caloric surplus in the form of fat--which could be broken down during subsequent starving times into fuel again.
That plan remains the evolutionary strategy of all the human bodies now making their way though our entirely different contemporary world. Reduce the greens in that body's intake, add dairy and processed carbohydrates, make meat a daily part of the diet, shovel in sugar and oils, provide a steady supply for the appetite, and on top of all this turn the hunter-gatherer into a mostly sedentary being, and the result is both unfortunate and predictable. The machine stores fat to its own detriment, while the body's strategy for nomadic survival becomes a fatal anachronism. Evolution did not anticipate nine to five. Evolution has no reply to TV.
From Stephen P. Kiernan's Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System (which I am reading as part of my research for Jane Anderson's Quality of Life, in which we explore the topic of Right to Die)
That plan remains the evolutionary strategy of all the human bodies now making their way though our entirely different contemporary world. Reduce the greens in that body's intake, add dairy and processed carbohydrates, make meat a daily part of the diet, shovel in sugar and oils, provide a steady supply for the appetite, and on top of all this turn the hunter-gatherer into a mostly sedentary being, and the result is both unfortunate and predictable. The machine stores fat to its own detriment, while the body's strategy for nomadic survival becomes a fatal anachronism. Evolution did not anticipate nine to five. Evolution has no reply to TV.
From Stephen P. Kiernan's Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System (which I am reading as part of my research for Jane Anderson's Quality of Life, in which we explore the topic of Right to Die)
off the job training
I did not know this morning that tomorrow I would be a student again, but today I found myself registering for UC Berkeley's Extension course down the street from where I work at A.C.T. in the heart of San Francisco. Tomorrow at 6:30 p.m., I will be sitting in a computer room learning the finer points of copyediting. And, yes, I am excited.
I have actually really been wanting to learn Spanish so I don't have to read Hispanic / Latino / Mexican / etc. plays in translation. I searched Craigslist for a used Rosetta Stone (Tangent: This was before Mr. Phelps started promoting Rosetta Stone with that stupid "I like to do everything fast" commercial. If the pool at the 1972 Olympic games had been as deep as the pool in China's Cube, and if the swimmers wore the same Speedo LZR Racer suit that they wore this summer, Mark Spitz would still not have been able to win eight medals because there weren't eight medals to be won), but all of the deals sounded sketchy--the kind of sketchy that means that either a) the program wouldn't work properly or b) I would be caught up in some FBI sting operation targeting this guy named Sam:
I have been in the business of selling these for 3 years now. I am aware
that others on craigslist is selling stuff for cheaper but in all
honesty, I can bet those are not authentic. I can sell burned stuff for
even $50 and make more then what I make on authentic stuff but I care
for my customers and don't want them to get in trouble!
You have to be very carefull with
non authentic rosetta products as there is a license as a copied one
will work anywhere from 3 days to 6 months as rosetta will then see a
duplicate of the license being used and will blur it as the disk will
then read as disk error and there is a good chance rosetta will issue
you a $1000US fine as I can give you contacts of people who have got
these fines.. the sellers of copied rosetta don't care for the buyers
as they are trying to make a quick buck! If you have any problems with
my rosetta products I promise to give even 10 times your money back!
Please let me know
thanks kindly
Sam
So I didn't buy from Sam. I learned that you can access some verion of Rosetta Stone through the library here, but it won't work on my computer yet. All this is to say that I am in no way opposed to becoming a student again, even a student of Chicago Manuel editing rules.
Monday, September 8, 2008
musings of a sore throat in september
It is an ugly day. San Francisco, realizing it should be autumn now, has covered itself with a wet blanket of fog that, unlike its frequent fog, has lasted throughout the day. I think it too is moody that it doesn't really get autumny here. My boss took last week off, finally having someone she could trust with the office (me!), only to get slightly sick with a soar throat. We both joked (when we spoke the one time I called her so that she could explain to me what a House Board is and what my role should be in acquiring the information for said House Board) that it was just her immune system's way of saying, Yeah, well if you can take a break so can I; I've been holding this ship together with chewing gum and paper clips for two years while you went full speed. So screw you, I'm going to Vegas.
But now I too have a soar throat, meaning that it was not just a psychological-turned-physiological phenomenon. And we are out of juice. And it is an ugly day.
I dropped a commission last Thursday. Horrible, isn't it? Someone is actually willing to pay me to write a play, and I tell them to go screw. Criminal. But they didn't meet my terms (my terms begin that I, not they, would own the end product). And I could have probably negotiated, but they were only giving me a month to write the thing, and, honestly, I was sick of dealing with it. Too much going on here.
But now I too have a soar throat, meaning that it was not just a psychological-turned-physiological phenomenon. And we are out of juice. And it is an ugly day.
I dropped a commission last Thursday. Horrible, isn't it? Someone is actually willing to pay me to write a play, and I tell them to go screw. Criminal. But they didn't meet my terms (my terms begin that I, not they, would own the end product). And I could have probably negotiated, but they were only giving me a month to write the thing, and, honestly, I was sick of dealing with it. Too much going on here.
Stage direction: As he writes this last bit about the commission, a bright pink post-it should slowly fall from the notes from the project in questoin, notes he has tucked between two magazing holders. The post-it should fall like a spray painted leaf, and when it lands the words, "Luis = Warrior" and "Nesto = Serious", should be visible to remind him that he had put some thought into it. He will be left with the question, Should I throw this note away just like I threw the commission away? Or should I save it as a reminder? Should I save it for some future play when I need two brothers, one who is fighting for change and one who is too serious about his future to disrupt the status quo.
I dropped the commission and then preceded to waste my weekend. I have never been good with spare time. Rachel says I need to learn how to relax. I tried to relax by watching Arrested Development on Hulu, and then moseying through episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Very different shows, both good and bad for very different reasons. I kept trying to tell myself that I was relaxing, but I kept retorting, you aren't relaxing, you twit, you're wasting time.
Time I should spend doing what exactly, I ask.
To which I scoff, Time you should be figuring out how you are going to spend your time.
You twit.
Time I should spend doing what exactly, I ask.
To which I scoff, Time you should be figuring out how you are going to spend your time.
You twit.
Monday, August 25, 2008
this message will inevitably self destruct at some point in the future whether you read it or not
I am a reluctant nihilist. I do not embrace this. I do not rejoice in my nihilism (though maybe I do wear it around my neck like a pet albatross), and that I look to the distant future and see nothing but void does not give me a sense of liberty or freedom. The literally inconceivable absence of myself forces me to turn to other options: the breathing of the cat passed out around my feet; a thought on a script I read earlier that day; memories; the near future. Anything. Even writing about it is not thinking about it. Writing about it does not create the panic because I am choosing words. I am carefully crafting sentences to convey a meaning so that I can avoid feeling what is behind that meaning.
Life is a defense mechanism.
I have had many MANY a conversation with the faithful about my envy of their security. Do not mock it, their devotion to a higher power: how can you accuse them of being illogical when they live their lives in comfort and promise? I think missionaries would find me endlessly frustrating: a willing convert whose ______is too stubborn to accept what his______would like to accept. You cannot CHOOSE to believe in something. The question, How can you believe in something, is no more difficult to answer than, How can you not believe in anything? Maybe we should be using "may": How MAY you believe in that? Who let you? What opened you up to it? Where can I get some? Do they sell it at Walgreens?
And yet this is not a sad post for me. I have been grappling with this on some level since I was 13 and in the affirmation program of my church and we were told that we get to decide what to believe in. A great gift, not to be forced into a doctrine; but no doubt a burden to those of us who took it seriously. So this is not a new conversation I am having with myself.
And here's the kicker: the flip side to nihilism is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON NOT TO BE HAPPY. If nothing matters, than misery is just as worthless as happiness. And yet happiness is just so much more enjoyable.
This was going to be an entry about my new life in San Francisco. It tried really hard to be, but fell to a false start. I am thinking about moving my conversations related to theater over to the Dark Knight blog, but that idea stresses me out. That idea makes it seem like I should take it more seriously. And should one take a blog seriously?
Life is a defense mechanism.
I have had many MANY a conversation with the faithful about my envy of their security. Do not mock it, their devotion to a higher power: how can you accuse them of being illogical when they live their lives in comfort and promise? I think missionaries would find me endlessly frustrating: a willing convert whose ______is too stubborn to accept what his______would like to accept. You cannot CHOOSE to believe in something. The question, How can you believe in something, is no more difficult to answer than, How can you not believe in anything? Maybe we should be using "may": How MAY you believe in that? Who let you? What opened you up to it? Where can I get some? Do they sell it at Walgreens?
And yet this is not a sad post for me. I have been grappling with this on some level since I was 13 and in the affirmation program of my church and we were told that we get to decide what to believe in. A great gift, not to be forced into a doctrine; but no doubt a burden to those of us who took it seriously. So this is not a new conversation I am having with myself.
And here's the kicker: the flip side to nihilism is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON NOT TO BE HAPPY. If nothing matters, than misery is just as worthless as happiness. And yet happiness is just so much more enjoyable.
This was going to be an entry about my new life in San Francisco. It tried really hard to be, but fell to a false start. I am thinking about moving my conversations related to theater over to the Dark Knight blog, but that idea stresses me out. That idea makes it seem like I should take it more seriously. And should one take a blog seriously?
i'm writing again i'm writing again i'm writing again so stop nagging my brain and let me write again
Write something.
Write anything.
Sneeze in your hand and wipe the snot on the page.
Anything to start.
Draw a line around the snot.
Oh that's a nice shape.
Looks kind of like a flower.
Maybe you should write about a flower.
You like flowers.
You were a gardener once.
You bought a calathia for your bathroom. Though those don't flower.
Flowers remind me of vampires. Cue vampire segue:
I am reading Twilight that new book (with vampires) that is supposedly the next Harry Potter. It's not the next Harry Potter. It's not a smart book. It's an easy book. It is the kind of novel that makes me think that I could write a novel. In like three weeks. I actually started. In my head. To write a novel. I think the problem a lot of writers have is that they are trying to be good; when I write my novel, I am going to do like Stephenie Meyer did it: to make enough money to pay for maintenance on her mini-van. She needed to make 10,000 bucks; she got a book deal for 250,000.
Okay, I don't know where I heard that, but I definitely heard that. I just tried to find a link to some evidence that this is truly what happened, and came up shorthanded.
Sometimes I am in the mood for that kind of book; other times I read one sentence and am disgusted with myself and more disgusted with how it really is just up to a publisher to decide what becomes popular.
I have often thought that becoming famous isn't all that difficult: you just have to find someone who wants to make you famous who has the power to make you famous. That's it. That simple.
Write anything.
Sneeze in your hand and wipe the snot on the page.
Anything to start.
Draw a line around the snot.
Oh that's a nice shape.
Looks kind of like a flower.
Maybe you should write about a flower.
You like flowers.
You were a gardener once.
You bought a calathia for your bathroom. Though those don't flower.
Flowers remind me of vampires. Cue vampire segue:
I am reading Twilight that new book (with vampires) that is supposedly the next Harry Potter. It's not the next Harry Potter. It's not a smart book. It's an easy book. It is the kind of novel that makes me think that I could write a novel. In like three weeks. I actually started. In my head. To write a novel. I think the problem a lot of writers have is that they are trying to be good; when I write my novel, I am going to do like Stephenie Meyer did it: to make enough money to pay for maintenance on her mini-van. She needed to make 10,000 bucks; she got a book deal for 250,000.
Okay, I don't know where I heard that, but I definitely heard that. I just tried to find a link to some evidence that this is truly what happened, and came up shorthanded.
Sometimes I am in the mood for that kind of book; other times I read one sentence and am disgusted with myself and more disgusted with how it really is just up to a publisher to decide what becomes popular.
I have often thought that becoming famous isn't all that difficult: you just have to find someone who wants to make you famous who has the power to make you famous. That's it. That simple.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Day 1
A young Hamlet whines of nunneries outside my 7th floor window. Elizabeth admits that this is one of her pet peeves, and when I start writing for the Publications portion of my Publications and Literary Associate gig, when these external recitations compete with my internal experiments, it will probably become one of my pet peeves as well. But for now I can only giggle. I work in an office where on any given day one might hear Juliet bitch out her nurse on the 7th floor patio.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Damn you USPS!
I built my bookcases on Monday. After days of Craigslist games -- The Waiting Game; Cat and Mouse; Bullshittm; etc. -- we caved and went back to Ikea to get some bookcases named after some guy named Billy. And they are lovely, and now all my books and comic books and encyclopedia collection (The DC Comics Encyclopedia; The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology; A Dictionary of Angels; The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft) have been freed from their boxes.
Some books were not so lucky. Of the seven boxes I sent media mail, only six arrived unmarred: the seventh sadly had broken open en route and only a third of contents made the trek: Sylvia Plath's Ariel was unsurprisingly a trooper though her friend Sappho was left behind. God smiled down upon The Five Gospels and A Dictionary of Angels, but surprisingly did not favor my collection of Horton Foote plays. I don't know all that was lost, and all you bibliophiles out there know my heart is breaking.
If anyone sees Horton Foote having a tea party with Sappho somewhere in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, let me know: I'll send Paula Vogel and Richard Rodriguez to come rescue them.
Some books were not so lucky. Of the seven boxes I sent media mail, only six arrived unmarred: the seventh sadly had broken open en route and only a third of contents made the trek: Sylvia Plath's Ariel was unsurprisingly a trooper though her friend Sappho was left behind. God smiled down upon The Five Gospels and A Dictionary of Angels, but surprisingly did not favor my collection of Horton Foote plays. I don't know all that was lost, and all you bibliophiles out there know my heart is breaking.
If anyone sees Horton Foote having a tea party with Sappho somewhere in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, let me know: I'll send Paula Vogel and Richard Rodriguez to come rescue them.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Pilgrimage
I'll begin in the middle of things as it seems like an epic.
Kansas is beautiful. It's supposed to be boring and monotonous, isn't it? It was last time I did this drive when I was coming back from Colorado with my family when I was, what, 16? 15? Maybe earlier. Earlier, I think, because I bought that t-shirt in Durango that I wore through high school (and college), but I was old enough to sample dad's samples at the microbrews. But maybe it was middle school because I remember being poolside at our hotel and calculating the chances that I had with random girl A. That was a middle school mindsent, and a middle school mindset cannot appreciate Kansas. Or was that Arizona? Maybe I was in high school...but still had a middle school mindset.
It is the second shift on Day 1 and I am driving Defne's 1994 Ford pickup through Kansas with the windows down and I think I understand America.
It is the third shift on Day 1 and we are driving north around Denver towards Ft. Collins where we will spend the night at a hotel that allows pets with the sun setting behind the mountain range and I think I understand much of art history.
It is the first shift on Day 1 and I am driving Rachel's 2008 Honda Fit which she bought off the lot yesterday afternoon from a charming salesman who used to be a highway patrolman and has a niece in PT school. He doesn't bullshit us about the price or the trade-in. It's a hatchback: Rach has beamed over hatchbacks since I have known her. I am driving towards Kansas City, MO without cruise control because we are supposed to let the engine relax periodically. I am hoping that this zippy car has the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. With 5 cats in the back seat yelling in my ear, I am hoping I have the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. I wonder what the ramifications would be for removing a cat's larynx.
It is Sunday and we are finally moving towards San Francisco. Last Wednesday we drove from Chicago to St. Louis to pick up Rachel's new Honda Civic, which will arrive from the manufacturer by Friday at the latest. St. Louis is not on the way from Chicago to San Francisco unless there is severe flooding in southern Iowa. I enjoy returning to St. Louis more every time I return to St. Louis. Family, yes of course; but the trees. St. Louis doesn't have a lot of height to it. Not like Chicago's apartment filled skyline. In St. Louis, the trees are often the top of the civilized world. At least in the parts of St. Louis I frequent. I am missing a staged reading of a play I wrote for a company I adore in Chicago, but I will be able to attend the opening of a site-specific piece I wrote for a young company in St. Louis.
On Thursday, we take Defne (who is our roommate in SF if I neglected to mention it) to Blueberry to visit with old friends who prove to be very much the same as when we left a year ago. Time moves slowly in that bar if it moves at all. Delightful for us now that we are on the outside, but obviously frustrating for some of our friends who are tired of the stasis. Breaking stasis is difficult, especially when it pays well and the drinks are half off.
Friday comes and still no car. The manufacturer is in Ohio. If the car were coming from overseas, then the dealer who sold Rachel the car (Randy Borth, whom we have dealt with before and who is a straightshooter and an all around great guy...there are some lovely car dealers in this world, let the record show) would have been able to track every leg of the journey. But as the car is coming from Ohio, we are at the whim of the trucking union, who is apparently is not required or expected to communicate with the car dealers. We begin to panic because we wanted to leave Friday, Saturday at the latest, Sunday as a worst case scenario. I am driving the Fit through Wyoming (first shift Day 2) when Randy calls Rachel to tell her the Civic finally arrived.
I am not sure about Utah. Utah has exits off the highway that don't seem to go anywhere. You exit, the road bends, and then the concrete ends. Other exits lead to towns which appear to be merely a short series of trailers. Utah confuses me. Wyoming is beautiful, and it is interesting to me that the state lines are not as arbitrary as I imagined. Wyoming is marketable; Wyoming is a cigarette ad. Ten minutes into Utah, and you stop imagining cowboys and start wondering where people buy milk. You drive for an hour and a half at 80 mph on the same straight highway going between one mountain range and another, congratulating yourself for filling up your gas tank at the last station, listening to the Bible Station explain Revelations and Jezebel because it is the most interesting of three stations and because it couldn't hurt to have God on your side out here seeing as the wilderness seems to be God's thing. I am driving the truck again. It is not as comfortable or as fun as it was on Day 1.
Utah shifts into Nevada without much fuss. We stay in a small city ~100 miles outside of Reno where we get a roll of nickels with our hotel (motel?) room and are encouraged to eat at one of the 7 or 8 casinos on our block. We do. I win a dollar in nickels before losing them.
We get into San Francisco at 2pm on Day 3. Our keys don't work because they apparently fixed (changed) the locks, but luckily the third floor had burst a pipe over the weekend and workmen were around the building with keys and they let us in so that we can let our cats (little troopers) out of their crates. Earlier in the day, Linus had finally had enough and succeeded in expanding a small hole in the carrier he shared with Mabel into a hole large enough for him to jam his head through and subsequently shimmy his body out of. But they survived. We survived.
Tips for moving from the Midwest to California:
1) Burger King has the best vegetarian options of the fast food chains. They also have cheesy tots.
2) Gas is cheaper in Wyoming.
3) Go through Kansas. Skip most of Utah.
4) Drive an old pickup with bunk air conditioning.
5) You could do it two days if you had to...two really long days.
Kansas is beautiful. It's supposed to be boring and monotonous, isn't it? It was last time I did this drive when I was coming back from Colorado with my family when I was, what, 16? 15? Maybe earlier. Earlier, I think, because I bought that t-shirt in Durango that I wore through high school (and college), but I was old enough to sample dad's samples at the microbrews. But maybe it was middle school because I remember being poolside at our hotel and calculating the chances that I had with random girl A. That was a middle school mindsent, and a middle school mindset cannot appreciate Kansas. Or was that Arizona? Maybe I was in high school...but still had a middle school mindset.
It is the second shift on Day 1 and I am driving Defne's 1994 Ford pickup through Kansas with the windows down and I think I understand America.
It is the third shift on Day 1 and we are driving north around Denver towards Ft. Collins where we will spend the night at a hotel that allows pets with the sun setting behind the mountain range and I think I understand much of art history.
It is the first shift on Day 1 and I am driving Rachel's 2008 Honda Fit which she bought off the lot yesterday afternoon from a charming salesman who used to be a highway patrolman and has a niece in PT school. He doesn't bullshit us about the price or the trade-in. It's a hatchback: Rach has beamed over hatchbacks since I have known her. I am driving towards Kansas City, MO without cruise control because we are supposed to let the engine relax periodically. I am hoping that this zippy car has the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. With 5 cats in the back seat yelling in my ear, I am hoping I have the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. I wonder what the ramifications would be for removing a cat's larynx.
It is Sunday and we are finally moving towards San Francisco. Last Wednesday we drove from Chicago to St. Louis to pick up Rachel's new Honda Civic, which will arrive from the manufacturer by Friday at the latest. St. Louis is not on the way from Chicago to San Francisco unless there is severe flooding in southern Iowa. I enjoy returning to St. Louis more every time I return to St. Louis. Family, yes of course; but the trees. St. Louis doesn't have a lot of height to it. Not like Chicago's apartment filled skyline. In St. Louis, the trees are often the top of the civilized world. At least in the parts of St. Louis I frequent. I am missing a staged reading of a play I wrote for a company I adore in Chicago, but I will be able to attend the opening of a site-specific piece I wrote for a young company in St. Louis.
On Thursday, we take Defne (who is our roommate in SF if I neglected to mention it) to Blueberry to visit with old friends who prove to be very much the same as when we left a year ago. Time moves slowly in that bar if it moves at all. Delightful for us now that we are on the outside, but obviously frustrating for some of our friends who are tired of the stasis. Breaking stasis is difficult, especially when it pays well and the drinks are half off.
Friday comes and still no car. The manufacturer is in Ohio. If the car were coming from overseas, then the dealer who sold Rachel the car (Randy Borth, whom we have dealt with before and who is a straightshooter and an all around great guy...there are some lovely car dealers in this world, let the record show) would have been able to track every leg of the journey. But as the car is coming from Ohio, we are at the whim of the trucking union, who is apparently is not required or expected to communicate with the car dealers. We begin to panic because we wanted to leave Friday, Saturday at the latest, Sunday as a worst case scenario. I am driving the Fit through Wyoming (first shift Day 2) when Randy calls Rachel to tell her the Civic finally arrived.
I am not sure about Utah. Utah has exits off the highway that don't seem to go anywhere. You exit, the road bends, and then the concrete ends. Other exits lead to towns which appear to be merely a short series of trailers. Utah confuses me. Wyoming is beautiful, and it is interesting to me that the state lines are not as arbitrary as I imagined. Wyoming is marketable; Wyoming is a cigarette ad. Ten minutes into Utah, and you stop imagining cowboys and start wondering where people buy milk. You drive for an hour and a half at 80 mph on the same straight highway going between one mountain range and another, congratulating yourself for filling up your gas tank at the last station, listening to the Bible Station explain Revelations and Jezebel because it is the most interesting of three stations and because it couldn't hurt to have God on your side out here seeing as the wilderness seems to be God's thing. I am driving the truck again. It is not as comfortable or as fun as it was on Day 1.
Utah shifts into Nevada without much fuss. We stay in a small city ~100 miles outside of Reno where we get a roll of nickels with our hotel (motel?) room and are encouraged to eat at one of the 7 or 8 casinos on our block. We do. I win a dollar in nickels before losing them.
We get into San Francisco at 2pm on Day 3. Our keys don't work because they apparently fixed (changed) the locks, but luckily the third floor had burst a pipe over the weekend and workmen were around the building with keys and they let us in so that we can let our cats (little troopers) out of their crates. Earlier in the day, Linus had finally had enough and succeeded in expanding a small hole in the carrier he shared with Mabel into a hole large enough for him to jam his head through and subsequently shimmy his body out of. But they survived. We survived.
Tips for moving from the Midwest to California:
1) Burger King has the best vegetarian options of the fast food chains. They also have cheesy tots.
2) Gas is cheaper in Wyoming.
3) Go through Kansas. Skip most of Utah.
4) Drive an old pickup with bunk air conditioning.
5) You could do it two days if you had to...two really long days.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
words are words
Taking a break from a marathon playwriting binge, my lower back is getting sore sitting in Argo's wooden chairs. I am sitting with a view out the window, which has been surprisingly unproblematic. I used to peoplewatch. I guess I still do but maybe with less intrigue...hunger? I don't get distracted by them as they walk by anymore, and I'm not sure that is something to be proud of. Have I finally shaken off whatever tendencies that encouraged some random neighbor to suggest to my mom that she put me on ritalin when I was 3, which my mother promptly, and smartly, rejected. Or have I just lost interest? Has cynicism taken over?
Or do I people watch differently? I watch out the window and I see bodies -- some attractive, some less so -- and clothing. I adore our era of clothes, at least in my neighborhood. There is this hodgepodge rebellion against the trendiness of whatever label is big right now. People wear what they want and wear what looks good on them. An eclecticism of colors and styles and fits.
And then there is the blogosphere. This is the first time I have ever used this word: blogosphere. An atmosphere created by electronically reserved ideas. It's funny that my blog spellcheck doesn't even acknowledge it's a word. Now we people watch from the perspective of the people we watch.
Or do I people watch differently? I watch out the window and I see bodies -- some attractive, some less so -- and clothing. I adore our era of clothes, at least in my neighborhood. There is this hodgepodge rebellion against the trendiness of whatever label is big right now. People wear what they want and wear what looks good on them. An eclecticism of colors and styles and fits.
And then there is the blogosphere. This is the first time I have ever used this word: blogosphere. An atmosphere created by electronically reserved ideas. It's funny that my blog spellcheck doesn't even acknowledge it's a word. Now we people watch from the perspective of the people we watch.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
rushed
I feel the decaffinated starbucks surging through my veins like a bobsledder on acid. That is how desperate I am for time: coffee at 8pm on a work night. I will fall asleep maybe around 3 if at all. Decaffinated starbucks is, for a tea drinker, like plugging your heart to a car battery.
But I need the time. A project that was proposed a month ago was reproposed three days ago as a larger project with a sooner deadline...namely the same deadline as the other commission I have been working on. Namely this sunday. 45 to 60 minute play in 6 days. Go!
And quickly it becomes clear that plays are like children. And you don't want to have a favorite, but you kind of do...or maybe it is just that the younger one has so much promise and possibility and needs more nurturing and love and is just, frankly, a whole lot cuter than the older grungier child with her problems and hidden tatoos that you don't even want to think about. She won't change and she doesn't care what you think because she is her own independent preteen. So getting her to put on a dress to go to the theatre: an exercise in manipulation, coddling, and bribery.
I have this shirt that barely has any thread left; fits like cobweb. It was my dad's old Wilson baseball tee. She finally got me to stop wearing it because it really wasn't a shirt anymore. But it took her like three years. And I only have three days to make my preteen play presentable.
But I need the time. A project that was proposed a month ago was reproposed three days ago as a larger project with a sooner deadline...namely the same deadline as the other commission I have been working on. Namely this sunday. 45 to 60 minute play in 6 days. Go!
And quickly it becomes clear that plays are like children. And you don't want to have a favorite, but you kind of do...or maybe it is just that the younger one has so much promise and possibility and needs more nurturing and love and is just, frankly, a whole lot cuter than the older grungier child with her problems and hidden tatoos that you don't even want to think about. She won't change and she doesn't care what you think because she is her own independent preteen. So getting her to put on a dress to go to the theatre: an exercise in manipulation, coddling, and bribery.
I have this shirt that barely has any thread left; fits like cobweb. It was my dad's old Wilson baseball tee. She finally got me to stop wearing it because it really wasn't a shirt anymore. But it took her like three years. And I only have three days to make my preteen play presentable.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sunshine Melody
This I learned from Italy:
Sunny Sunday. Comfortable t-shrit. Old jeans with the holes at the knees. Stop at the store: two apples, a croissant, hunk of gouda, some gypsy brand salami, and a bar of chocolate (Veritas Chocolatier's espresso & milk chocolate fittingly).
Grab a knife. Grab a drink.
Grab two scripts off my desk -- one rehearsing at the theatre; one I'm revising for a commission -- and head to the lake.
Nothing but sun and our sea of a lake. A few couples walk their dogs. Some fishermen. A guy who shows up when I do with his guitar. Same mission; different weapons.
But the sun cannot cut the cold, and I last 30 minutes before the chills impede my turning of the pages.
When does this damn city warm up!
I mean, honestly.
Back to the apartment and two sleeping cats surprised I'm back so soon. Open the blinds. Let in the sun.
A picnic on my coffee table.
Sunny Sunday. Comfortable t-shrit. Old jeans with the holes at the knees. Stop at the store: two apples, a croissant, hunk of gouda, some gypsy brand salami, and a bar of chocolate (Veritas Chocolatier's espresso & milk chocolate fittingly).
Grab a knife. Grab a drink.
Grab two scripts off my desk -- one rehearsing at the theatre; one I'm revising for a commission -- and head to the lake.
Nothing but sun and our sea of a lake. A few couples walk their dogs. Some fishermen. A guy who shows up when I do with his guitar. Same mission; different weapons.
But the sun cannot cut the cold, and I last 30 minutes before the chills impede my turning of the pages.
When does this damn city warm up!
I mean, honestly.
Back to the apartment and two sleeping cats surprised I'm back so soon. Open the blinds. Let in the sun.
A picnic on my coffee table.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Words
Maybe it is because of my new job that I found myself in the script aisle at Borders. I did not go there to buy scripts; with the potential impending move -- still not completely finalized because of a scholarship complicating matters that my homework-crazed ladyfriend is too busy to wade through -- buying scripts that will just add to the weight of boxes that not nine months ago made the walk from the moving truck to our apartment door unbearable...it seems counterintuitive. I went to buy Juno and the new Ludo CD. Which I bought. Along with August: Osage County (which I have since read; a wonderful amalgamation of Buried Child, King Lear, and some other flavor that I just can't define...a sprinkle of Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf maybe?...or maybe it's just Letts himself...maybe great playwrights are like prime numbers) and Three Days of Rain (which I mayhaps will read after I cook some dinner).
But my new job is...well...a departure from what I know about theatre. In fact, in my first 4 days on the job, it has had very little to do with theatre other than it is on the fourth floor of a building that houses two theatres in a cubicle surrounded by people who are in someway responsible for the general functioning of those theatres. That is not to say it's a bad job: as Interim Education Coordinator -- filling a position on short notice and no training when it was left vacant by its former occupant -- I will be dealing with students and teachers (which I have done before and miss) and seeing to the theatre's interns (which also reminds me of my teaching days when fresh-eyed freshman would ask my advice on what to do with their lives as if I had lived any myself at the ripe old age of 25). But it is not what I signed up for; not in the long run.
But, I signed up for it for the next few weeks. Which is why I wake up in the middle of the night fretting over transforming revised Word documents into PDFs and sifting through the applications for the next Education Intern -- "I trust you" says the boss -- when I have only been in the Education department for 4 days and have little idea what makes for an exceptional Education Intern and am wondering if I, in good conscience, can sign someone up for multiple months of free labor in an environment that does not value their interns as students to the extent to which they like to pride themselves or to the extent, I think, they probably should considering the free labor aspect of the deal...
August: Osage County works because it is big, but not out of control. It has thirteen characters and requires a whole house of a set, but by dividing the set into a dollhouse of segmented rooms and by allowing storylines to fade out of focus for periods of time, Letts is able to build a larger story out of smaller components. It's like the backside of Big Ben -- which is actually the bell not the clock but oh well: the world sees a big time piece clicking through the days effortlessly; but inside the Clock Tower hide lesser cogs and gears working in perfect collaboration. I am not saying the play appears effortless, nor would I argue that it is perfect. But it is certainly worth celebrating...
I would rather be talking scripts that study guides.
But it has been only four days. By the end of next week I will know how to comfortably convert files into other files. I will learn how to use TypePad. I will know how to work Tessitura. I will have met the teachers. I will have interviewed applicants. I will have asked my boss for a $30 expense fee per intern to give them an opportunity to take someone in the business out for lunch so that they can understand a little better how the theatre world of Chicago works. This time next week I will understand my new job, and I will be comfortable with it.
And I will be back on the couch, reading another play, wishing I was dealing again with the words.
But my new job is...well...a departure from what I know about theatre. In fact, in my first 4 days on the job, it has had very little to do with theatre other than it is on the fourth floor of a building that houses two theatres in a cubicle surrounded by people who are in someway responsible for the general functioning of those theatres. That is not to say it's a bad job: as Interim Education Coordinator -- filling a position on short notice and no training when it was left vacant by its former occupant -- I will be dealing with students and teachers (which I have done before and miss) and seeing to the theatre's interns (which also reminds me of my teaching days when fresh-eyed freshman would ask my advice on what to do with their lives as if I had lived any myself at the ripe old age of 25). But it is not what I signed up for; not in the long run.
But, I signed up for it for the next few weeks. Which is why I wake up in the middle of the night fretting over transforming revised Word documents into PDFs and sifting through the applications for the next Education Intern -- "I trust you" says the boss -- when I have only been in the Education department for 4 days and have little idea what makes for an exceptional Education Intern and am wondering if I, in good conscience, can sign someone up for multiple months of free labor in an environment that does not value their interns as students to the extent to which they like to pride themselves or to the extent, I think, they probably should considering the free labor aspect of the deal...
August: Osage County works because it is big, but not out of control. It has thirteen characters and requires a whole house of a set, but by dividing the set into a dollhouse of segmented rooms and by allowing storylines to fade out of focus for periods of time, Letts is able to build a larger story out of smaller components. It's like the backside of Big Ben -- which is actually the bell not the clock but oh well: the world sees a big time piece clicking through the days effortlessly; but inside the Clock Tower hide lesser cogs and gears working in perfect collaboration. I am not saying the play appears effortless, nor would I argue that it is perfect. But it is certainly worth celebrating...
I would rather be talking scripts that study guides.
But it has been only four days. By the end of next week I will know how to comfortably convert files into other files. I will learn how to use TypePad. I will know how to work Tessitura. I will have met the teachers. I will have interviewed applicants. I will have asked my boss for a $30 expense fee per intern to give them an opportunity to take someone in the business out for lunch so that they can understand a little better how the theatre world of Chicago works. This time next week I will understand my new job, and I will be comfortable with it.
And I will be back on the couch, reading another play, wishing I was dealing again with the words.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Goodbye Bountiful. Goodbye.
Lois and Hallie hold their stare a little longer tonight. The audience probably doesn't notice, but this isn't their third time seeing Trip to Bountiful in as many days. The staredown itself is a rather new, rather lovely, invention. It is a moment of reconciliation. It is a careful negotiation of power. Mrs. Watts offers her daughter-in-law the pension check -- the object of much consternation; her daughter-in-law takes it only to hand it back to her.
Oh here, you hold the check; but don't go and lose it before we get back home.
Sometime last week (or maybe it was only Friday?), Lois began teasing Hallie with the check in this moment. Ever so slightly. Almost lovingly. Maybe lovingly. Since the success of that experiment, it has tempered slightly but the stare remained. And today -- closing -- Hallie held it. A second maybe two. Not wanting to let go. Not wanting this amazing run of an amazing show to be over. You would only notice it if you had seen the show about ten times. Or maybe you had to be in the van on the ride from the rental apartment to the theatre when Hallie laments the show's end and becomes -- some suggest uncharacteristically, but I don't know her well enough -- sentimental.
I found myself getting uncharacteristically sentimental during this afternoon's performance of a show I'd seen twice already this weekend and close to a dozen times over the course of its run. Every moment was final. I would not hear these words I had come to memorize any time soon. All the old heartaches that broke during the opening resurface: when Meghan talks about Robert (I guess any name he had I think was nice), when Devon acknowledges that he thinks his life is a failure, when Lois says goodbye to her house. These aren't characters anymore. They're friends. And then it is over. Lois gives a quick hug and is in a car to the airport, where she will catch a flight to LA, where she will be picked up by another car and driven to some HBO set. The crew immediately begins taking things down. We go to a brief closing party, and then it is goodbyes.
And earlier today I started moving in to my new desk in the Education Department for a 10 week stint as Education & Outreach Coordinator. I am the cheerful nomad of the Goodman's 4th floor.
I'm in the hallway outside Horton's apartment, walking with him to the elevator. He has more spring in his step than when he arrived in February; Hallie found him a damn fine yoga instructor. He forgets his cane, not because he turned 92 in March, but because he doesn't use his cane in the apartment anymore. I joke with Frank's 5 year old daughter that I'm aging backwards, but with Horton it might actually be true.
We're on the way to the theatre for one last show. He begins to get nostalgic, sad that his gem of a play will soon be over.
I say to him, all things must end, with a pleasant smile.
So they say, he replies with an equally pleasant smile.
So they say.
Oh here, you hold the check; but don't go and lose it before we get back home.
Sometime last week (or maybe it was only Friday?), Lois began teasing Hallie with the check in this moment. Ever so slightly. Almost lovingly. Maybe lovingly. Since the success of that experiment, it has tempered slightly but the stare remained. And today -- closing -- Hallie held it. A second maybe two. Not wanting to let go. Not wanting this amazing run of an amazing show to be over. You would only notice it if you had seen the show about ten times. Or maybe you had to be in the van on the ride from the rental apartment to the theatre when Hallie laments the show's end and becomes -- some suggest uncharacteristically, but I don't know her well enough -- sentimental.
I found myself getting uncharacteristically sentimental during this afternoon's performance of a show I'd seen twice already this weekend and close to a dozen times over the course of its run. Every moment was final. I would not hear these words I had come to memorize any time soon. All the old heartaches that broke during the opening resurface: when Meghan talks about Robert (I guess any name he had I think was nice), when Devon acknowledges that he thinks his life is a failure, when Lois says goodbye to her house. These aren't characters anymore. They're friends. And then it is over. Lois gives a quick hug and is in a car to the airport, where she will catch a flight to LA, where she will be picked up by another car and driven to some HBO set. The crew immediately begins taking things down. We go to a brief closing party, and then it is goodbyes.
And earlier today I started moving in to my new desk in the Education Department for a 10 week stint as Education & Outreach Coordinator. I am the cheerful nomad of the Goodman's 4th floor.
I'm in the hallway outside Horton's apartment, walking with him to the elevator. He has more spring in his step than when he arrived in February; Hallie found him a damn fine yoga instructor. He forgets his cane, not because he turned 92 in March, but because he doesn't use his cane in the apartment anymore. I joke with Frank's 5 year old daughter that I'm aging backwards, but with Horton it might actually be true.
We're on the way to the theatre for one last show. He begins to get nostalgic, sad that his gem of a play will soon be over.
I say to him, all things must end, with a pleasant smile.
So they say, he replies with an equally pleasant smile.
So they say.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
in the air
Today was one of those raw days, or at least it started out as one. It started out like that mosquito net that normally surrounds you, that normally dulls the world ever so slightly (not necessarily in a malevolent way, but as the softest subtlest defense mechanism that comes standard on all models), had been lifted. I woke up to a song on NPR (it must be Sunday) that was sung by Nina Simone three days following MLK's assassination: Why. "A song written for today, for this hour."
Folks you better stop and think Because we're heading for the brink. What will happen now that he is dead.
So I guess this vulnerability to the worlds psychic waves was understandable. Maybe I should start waking up to music rather than to the news. Maybe it will make me less...analytical?
Also, it was beautiful outside. One of the first days that one could reasonably call Springlike. I now subscribe to the folklore surrounding Chicago winters...it is not so much that they are cold (thought they can be), but that they are interminable. And some days the cold feels downright English: wet and invasive, like a fog of ghosts walking around the city sticking their ethereal hands into your chest just for ghoulish shits and giggles. Dead jerks.
But today was blissfully sunny. Rachel is in San Francisco looking at CCA where she got accepted to the Graphic Design MFA program...it is sunnier more often there...and their winters are considerably shorter...it is an enticing proposition indeed. Old friends from St. Louis are picking up and moving to Portland. They are encouraging in more ways than one. They have a successful business making and selling stunning artwork online (that's their work above). They are the heroes of Etsy.com, an online market place of craft. They're actually where I got the idea for darkknightdramaturgy. The internet is not going away, and we are the generation to assimilate this tool into society (or adapt society to incorporate this tool).
I am reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on orders from a friend. This too might have contributed to the rawness. I didn't think I would like it: I imagined it to be much too self-helpy. But it is surprisingly delightful. Well maybe the delightfulness is not surprising. Gilbert is like a less academically-grounded Joan Didion: where Didion relies on structurally mesmerizing tangents and allusions (brilliantly), Gilbert prefers metaphors and other figurative tricks. It is easy, and enjoyable. I guess the surprise is that it is intriguing. Even inspiring.
In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.
It was one of those days when you could see cleverness floating just above your head, waiting for you to pluck it. Everything was in sharper focus. Clarity. It would have been a good day to write, but I didn't have the time unfortunately.
So I simply enjoyed the rush.
Folks you better stop and think Because we're heading for the brink. What will happen now that he is dead.
So I guess this vulnerability to the worlds psychic waves was understandable. Maybe I should start waking up to music rather than to the news. Maybe it will make me less...analytical?
Also, it was beautiful outside. One of the first days that one could reasonably call Springlike. I now subscribe to the folklore surrounding Chicago winters...it is not so much that they are cold (thought they can be), but that they are interminable. And some days the cold feels downright English: wet and invasive, like a fog of ghosts walking around the city sticking their ethereal hands into your chest just for ghoulish shits and giggles. Dead jerks.
But today was blissfully sunny. Rachel is in San Francisco looking at CCA where she got accepted to the Graphic Design MFA program...it is sunnier more often there...and their winters are considerably shorter...it is an enticing proposition indeed. Old friends from St. Louis are picking up and moving to Portland. They are encouraging in more ways than one. They have a successful business making and selling stunning artwork online (that's their work above). They are the heroes of Etsy.com, an online market place of craft. They're actually where I got the idea for darkknightdramaturgy. The internet is not going away, and we are the generation to assimilate this tool into society (or adapt society to incorporate this tool).I am reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on orders from a friend. This too might have contributed to the rawness. I didn't think I would like it: I imagined it to be much too self-helpy. But it is surprisingly delightful. Well maybe the delightfulness is not surprising. Gilbert is like a less academically-grounded Joan Didion: where Didion relies on structurally mesmerizing tangents and allusions (brilliantly), Gilbert prefers metaphors and other figurative tricks. It is easy, and enjoyable. I guess the surprise is that it is intriguing. Even inspiring.
In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.
It was one of those days when you could see cleverness floating just above your head, waiting for you to pluck it. Everything was in sharper focus. Clarity. It would have been a good day to write, but I didn't have the time unfortunately.
So I simply enjoyed the rush.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Passing Go
It is difficult to start again. Like picking up in the middle of a conversation you left off a month ago. Or like writing a letter to that friend you said you were going to call last November and even worked out which day that week you would have time to sit down and actually talk for an hour or so. But you never called. And now you think about what you would say if you did call; you think about this about once a week; the hole of silence becomes deeper and harder to climb out of. You want to say something to make up for the lost time. Make the wait worth it. You want to catch them up on the last 8 months (jesus have I been in Chicago that long; three seasons?; I watched my first Cubs game today [or at least part of it: the exciting part as it were when they were tied and then they weren't and then they were tied again -- I turned it off before they lost]; that was weird) but you don't know where to even start because the person they knew made way for this new person that you are.
I've lost many a friend this way.
Rachel may be moving us to San Francisco, and that impending possibility and the fact that I actually have a full-time job for the time being (I'm not at risk of not paying rent) is driving me into treading-water-mode. Don't pursue any new projects because you don't know how long you can commit or if you are going to need to get a better paying job to afford the move; don't pursue any new friendships because you don't know how long you can commit or if you are going to have to break them off as soon as you've started them: nobody needs another long-distance burden; start evaluating; start prioritizing; start distancing.
It is a shitty way.
I've lost many a friend this way.
Rachel may be moving us to San Francisco, and that impending possibility and the fact that I actually have a full-time job for the time being (I'm not at risk of not paying rent) is driving me into treading-water-mode. Don't pursue any new projects because you don't know how long you can commit or if you are going to need to get a better paying job to afford the move; don't pursue any new friendships because you don't know how long you can commit or if you are going to have to break them off as soon as you've started them: nobody needs another long-distance burden; start evaluating; start prioritizing; start distancing.
It is a shitty way.
Monday, March 10, 2008
while I wasn't writing my script reports
me: that food fight video is f-ed up in the best possible way though i wish i hadn't been eating when i watched it
rachel: me too
me: i am still trying to unpack it
rachel: i had to pause it for a while because i was eating
me: i think it will take a few more viewings
rachel: yeah it's pretty loaded
me: to really understand the symbolism
yeah
are the pretzels Germany?
they are right?
rachel: i guess so
i mean, they killed the matzha
me: right
rachel: matzah
me: and then the croissants were obviously france
yeah
i'll need to rewatch
which means its awesome
rachel: you can dedicate a blog entry to figuring it out
me: I SHOULD
Sent at 3:16 PM on Monday
rachel is offline. Messages you send will be delivered when rachel comes online.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
A reading of this play I didn't write?
I inadvertently had my first Chicago reading today. On January 22, I was offered one of the oddest jobs: ghost-rewriting another playwright's play. In this play, three goddesses come down to save the planet from, firstly, environmental destruction, and then, secondly, a nuclear holocaust. They intend to do this by inspiring three activists to do...well to do what they are already doing...only better. They want to convince them to embrace their inner "god" or "poet", as the original playwright put it. Only these gods accidentally allow human emotion to consume them and they fall in love with the humans they are attempting to assist. Whoops.
Not my thing really. Although, I realized half way through the ghost-written rewrite -- for which I would receive no credit or royalties but had attached to it a commissioning fee that would pay my rent for the three months to follow -- that I started my own playwriting experiments with gods, goddesses, and spirituality. My first full-length play was about a son and a father in the afterlife who could travel to visit the living on a horse; one of my first completed one-acts was about the three Fates and what happens if they just quit; an early ten-minute play for a 24 hour play festival examined a couple in the Elysian fields. So I can deal with that crap. Mythology's just my cup of tea.
Activism though? Really? Me? I'm fairly moderate. More over, I'm a libra. The idea of getting passionate enough to do, well, just about anything seems foreign to me, as did writing a play about characters who are passionate enough to fight. But I did it and it's done and I've been paid and after Monday's meeting with the original playwright and his staff (his alter ego is the President of the Center for Cultural Interchange), I don't have to have anything to do with it...
Except I probably will. There was a reading today. I hadn't been invited: this was either a) an oversight, b) a decision based on the assumption that I would not want to come because I wouldn't be paid for my time and because it says quite clearly in my contract that I will have no association with the play after Monday's meeting, or c) a decision based on the idea that it would be easier to criticize the play if I was not present. But Chicago's off-loop theatre scene, though vast, talks. And word got 'round.
I talked to Lois Smith about what to do. She is the lead in the Goodman's Trip to Bountiful and one of the lovely actors I am driving around as part of my current day-job as the Company Manager's assistant. I asked Lois if I should warn them that I was coming or just show up. Just show up, she said. I forget her reasoning. It was something simple and true and I wish I could remember it. So this morning at 11am I just showed up.
I was surprised to learn my name is attached to the script. I thought that part of our contract was that it wouldn't be. I don't know if I feel strongly either way...or maybe I feel strongly both ways. Of course I would like to get some recognition for the changes I made, and believe me I changed quite a bit. All of the character development, the majority of the dialogue, and a few key plot points. The intentions of the script and the basic structure of the original plot are all that really survived. And I am pleased with it. I am pleased with what I did to it within the parameters that surrounded me.
But at the same time it is not a play I would have written, and I am not sure how I feel about people thinking that it is a play that I would have written. It is didactic, but also campy. It requires 10 actors. These rules made for a fun exercise, but they are frankly not my style.
This was clear in today's reading. Oh yes, there are problems with the script still. Thankfully we had one of the most helpful talk back sessions I have ever experienced. Critical but constructive. Honest but polite. And articulate. Incredibly articulate. Many talkbacks consist of people wanting to blather about themselves. "Well I liked that a monkey popped out of the microwave because that reminded me of this time my husband..." "I hated when she kissed that boy because I would have never kissed that boy because his eyes aren't pretty." But the few audience members who accepted the invitation that I never received were brilliant: this isn't working and here is why. That can't happen because then it betrays that. I liked the old beginning from the last draft because this, this, and this...
So now I have these ideas on how to fix it. But it's not my play anymore. And not how a director's production is not his production anymore once the show opens and it becomes the actors' play. I mean legally it's not my play anymore. If it ever was...
So odd. So so odd.
Not my thing really. Although, I realized half way through the ghost-written rewrite -- for which I would receive no credit or royalties but had attached to it a commissioning fee that would pay my rent for the three months to follow -- that I started my own playwriting experiments with gods, goddesses, and spirituality. My first full-length play was about a son and a father in the afterlife who could travel to visit the living on a horse; one of my first completed one-acts was about the three Fates and what happens if they just quit; an early ten-minute play for a 24 hour play festival examined a couple in the Elysian fields. So I can deal with that crap. Mythology's just my cup of tea.
Activism though? Really? Me? I'm fairly moderate. More over, I'm a libra. The idea of getting passionate enough to do, well, just about anything seems foreign to me, as did writing a play about characters who are passionate enough to fight. But I did it and it's done and I've been paid and after Monday's meeting with the original playwright and his staff (his alter ego is the President of the Center for Cultural Interchange), I don't have to have anything to do with it...
Except I probably will. There was a reading today. I hadn't been invited: this was either a) an oversight, b) a decision based on the assumption that I would not want to come because I wouldn't be paid for my time and because it says quite clearly in my contract that I will have no association with the play after Monday's meeting, or c) a decision based on the idea that it would be easier to criticize the play if I was not present. But Chicago's off-loop theatre scene, though vast, talks. And word got 'round.
I talked to Lois Smith about what to do. She is the lead in the Goodman's Trip to Bountiful and one of the lovely actors I am driving around as part of my current day-job as the Company Manager's assistant. I asked Lois if I should warn them that I was coming or just show up. Just show up, she said. I forget her reasoning. It was something simple and true and I wish I could remember it. So this morning at 11am I just showed up.
I was surprised to learn my name is attached to the script. I thought that part of our contract was that it wouldn't be. I don't know if I feel strongly either way...or maybe I feel strongly both ways. Of course I would like to get some recognition for the changes I made, and believe me I changed quite a bit. All of the character development, the majority of the dialogue, and a few key plot points. The intentions of the script and the basic structure of the original plot are all that really survived. And I am pleased with it. I am pleased with what I did to it within the parameters that surrounded me.
But at the same time it is not a play I would have written, and I am not sure how I feel about people thinking that it is a play that I would have written. It is didactic, but also campy. It requires 10 actors. These rules made for a fun exercise, but they are frankly not my style.
This was clear in today's reading. Oh yes, there are problems with the script still. Thankfully we had one of the most helpful talk back sessions I have ever experienced. Critical but constructive. Honest but polite. And articulate. Incredibly articulate. Many talkbacks consist of people wanting to blather about themselves. "Well I liked that a monkey popped out of the microwave because that reminded me of this time my husband..." "I hated when she kissed that boy because I would have never kissed that boy because his eyes aren't pretty." But the few audience members who accepted the invitation that I never received were brilliant: this isn't working and here is why. That can't happen because then it betrays that. I liked the old beginning from the last draft because this, this, and this...
So now I have these ideas on how to fix it. But it's not my play anymore. And not how a director's production is not his production anymore once the show opens and it becomes the actors' play. I mean legally it's not my play anymore. If it ever was...
So odd. So so odd.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
My two brains: 5 Rehearsals in Ink
It is fitting that I first embraced my doodling addiction in Jami Ake's Shakespeare class Freshman year of undergrad. I should say that I shouldn't have even been in this Shakespeare class, it being an upper level course, and I being a lower underclassman; I would later find out, furthermore, that this 300 level English course could not and would not count towards my 200 level English requirement, and that I would have to take one of the survey courses I was avoiding by focusing on the bard. The bogus logic of academia.
I have been drawing since preschool, and though I don't know this for sure, I assume that I have been doodling since at least high school if not middle school. But it was while debating Desdemona and talking about the twin-cherries in Midsummer's Night Dream, that I first started using two notebooks: one for note-taking, and one (now far more interesting to revisit) for doodling. This was much more practical than it was artistic: my doodles had begun to dominate my notes when they shared the page, and I wouldn't hesitate to draw over the fact that Shakespeare was born in -----------.
As I simultaneously pursued a drawing/woodcutting minor and a psych minor, my artistic brain and my analytical brain strengthened in unison. Great, right? Right. Sure: I think so. But with this, like the valley between two active volcanoes, the divide between these two brains became more pronounced. They can work together, sure. There was no fall-out. No schism. They are like brothers who play well together; but they are also like brothers who both constantly want dad's attention and when dad is playing frisbee with the analytical brain, the artistic brain is jumping up in down in the window until dad finally turns his attention to him, leaving the analytical son alone in the backyard wishing his frisbee was a boomarang. Pretty soon the analytical son drops the frisbee altogether and chases after his brother and father, leaving the frisbee forgotten and unattended, lost in the tall grass for eternity.
To drop the metaphor, my brain wanders to whatever play I am working on or an idea for a woodcut, and once the artistic brain starts wandering, the analytical brain takes its cue and starts wandering as well: revisiting conversations and memories; breaking a part a play I read yesterday; etc. And then Jami asks me what I think of Claudius's prayer to heaven and whether I think words without thoughts ever to heaven go, and I sink and try not to think about the huge intellectual crush I have on this professor and how if I open my mouth I will prove that I have no idea what she's talking about, and I quickly stumble my way to an empty answer that sounds good to everyone but her and my friend Kim because they know it's bullshit just like I know it's bullshit.
The solution has been to doodle. I don't know what the denotation of doodling is, but for me it is a drawing without intention. It is a drawing that is more interested in being visually appealing than meaning anything. No truths are sought. No great mysteries are uncovered. And if you happen to spill coffee on it, so much the better. For me it is a way to engage my needy artistic son while I am playing frisbee with the analytical son. Over this last week, this trick has come in handy. We are at the stage in rehearsals where I am (as dramaturg) most valuable listening to the language of the play and making sure the actors are communicating the intentions of their characters. Greg and Libby - the directors for Girl in the Goldfish Bowl and the director for The Misanthrope - can worry about shape right now, and I will start worrying about it when we move into runs. And at that point my two brains can play together all they want; but not yet.
Of course it appears rude. It looks like I'm not listening at all when I am engrossed in a doodle, but in reality if I am doodling I am listening intensely. If I'm not doodling, then you should wonder where my mind has wandered to.
Rachel had to make a trip the paper store for school, and she gave me some of her scraps of some super swank paper! Delicious. My bank account is thankful she did not take me with her.
Doodles from a week of rehearsal:
Journey To
Dragon
Acorn
Three Wise Men
Systems
I have been drawing since preschool, and though I don't know this for sure, I assume that I have been doodling since at least high school if not middle school. But it was while debating Desdemona and talking about the twin-cherries in Midsummer's Night Dream, that I first started using two notebooks: one for note-taking, and one (now far more interesting to revisit) for doodling. This was much more practical than it was artistic: my doodles had begun to dominate my notes when they shared the page, and I wouldn't hesitate to draw over the fact that Shakespeare was born in -----------.
As I simultaneously pursued a drawing/woodcutting minor and a psych minor, my artistic brain and my analytical brain strengthened in unison. Great, right? Right. Sure: I think so. But with this, like the valley between two active volcanoes, the divide between these two brains became more pronounced. They can work together, sure. There was no fall-out. No schism. They are like brothers who play well together; but they are also like brothers who both constantly want dad's attention and when dad is playing frisbee with the analytical brain, the artistic brain is jumping up in down in the window until dad finally turns his attention to him, leaving the analytical son alone in the backyard wishing his frisbee was a boomarang. Pretty soon the analytical son drops the frisbee altogether and chases after his brother and father, leaving the frisbee forgotten and unattended, lost in the tall grass for eternity.
To drop the metaphor, my brain wanders to whatever play I am working on or an idea for a woodcut, and once the artistic brain starts wandering, the analytical brain takes its cue and starts wandering as well: revisiting conversations and memories; breaking a part a play I read yesterday; etc. And then Jami asks me what I think of Claudius's prayer to heaven and whether I think words without thoughts ever to heaven go, and I sink and try not to think about the huge intellectual crush I have on this professor and how if I open my mouth I will prove that I have no idea what she's talking about, and I quickly stumble my way to an empty answer that sounds good to everyone but her and my friend Kim because they know it's bullshit just like I know it's bullshit.
The solution has been to doodle. I don't know what the denotation of doodling is, but for me it is a drawing without intention. It is a drawing that is more interested in being visually appealing than meaning anything. No truths are sought. No great mysteries are uncovered. And if you happen to spill coffee on it, so much the better. For me it is a way to engage my needy artistic son while I am playing frisbee with the analytical son. Over this last week, this trick has come in handy. We are at the stage in rehearsals where I am (as dramaturg) most valuable listening to the language of the play and making sure the actors are communicating the intentions of their characters. Greg and Libby - the directors for Girl in the Goldfish Bowl and the director for The Misanthrope - can worry about shape right now, and I will start worrying about it when we move into runs. And at that point my two brains can play together all they want; but not yet.
Of course it appears rude. It looks like I'm not listening at all when I am engrossed in a doodle, but in reality if I am doodling I am listening intensely. If I'm not doodling, then you should wonder where my mind has wandered to.
Rachel had to make a trip the paper store for school, and she gave me some of her scraps of some super swank paper! Delicious. My bank account is thankful she did not take me with her.
Doodles from a week of rehearsal:
Journey To
Dragon
Acorn
Three Wise Men
Systems
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
While you were drying.
My clothes are in the drier. Drier. Weird word. Makes you have to make a weird shape with your mouth. "Dry" is fine because you can let it go, but the noun-ifying suffix "er" forces you to make an odd loop because you silently must return to a closed position. Drier. Almost necessitates mumbling. I'm probably overthinking this.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Primary Lament
Damn. Reading Bellwether State Fervently Seeks Choice Who Can Win in the Fall in today's New York Times makes me disappointed in myself for my political laziness. I am still registered to vote in the great state of Missouri (the Libra of the US). Which would be great if I didn't live in Chicago. Or if I had gotten my shit together to vote absentee on Tuesday. As it happened, I procrastinated by watching clips about the debates, reading articles about the rise of McCain (yay!) and the demonization of teary-eyed Hilary, and following who won what states and trying to figure out how the point system works. And I never registered in Illinois. And I never called in to get a Missouri ballot sent to my Illinois apartment.
I honestly believe in this Presidential election, which I could not say about the last election because I didn't believe in Kerry because I didn't believe Kerry and I only voted for Kerry because Bush is, well...Bush is, how do I put this...Bush embodies the worst of politics: secretive, obstinate, inarticulate, closed-minded...we could continue because we all have continued and by this point we are all preaching to the choir because the choir is overflowing the church.
But the world is watching this election as we here in the states are (maybe even closer than some here in the states are). They see it as a reflection of what we value and what relationships we want to foster with Europe and the Middle East and China and Russia. The next president could bring the world together even before yo (apparently the new genderless pronoun?) takes office because of the message we will send by electing yo. By electing Obama or Clinton, we will announce to the world, We agree with you: Bush fucked it.
Damn. I should go home to vote. Because: Bush fucked it. I could catch the megabus. $20 down. $20 back. 10 hours on a bus. Lose time on rewriting that commission. Miss rehearsal. Miss rehearsal again, I should say, since I am going to the opening of Talking Pictures on Monday. I guess I could skip the opening.
God that's a lot of work though! But I guess not as much work as the Revolutionary War.
Damn.
I honestly believe in this Presidential election, which I could not say about the last election because I didn't believe in Kerry because I didn't believe Kerry and I only voted for Kerry because Bush is, well...Bush is, how do I put this...Bush embodies the worst of politics: secretive, obstinate, inarticulate, closed-minded...we could continue because we all have continued and by this point we are all preaching to the choir because the choir is overflowing the church.
But the world is watching this election as we here in the states are (maybe even closer than some here in the states are). They see it as a reflection of what we value and what relationships we want to foster with Europe and the Middle East and China and Russia. The next president could bring the world together even before yo (apparently the new genderless pronoun?) takes office because of the message we will send by electing yo. By electing Obama or Clinton, we will announce to the world, We agree with you: Bush fucked it.
Damn. I should go home to vote. Because: Bush fucked it. I could catch the megabus. $20 down. $20 back. 10 hours on a bus. Lose time on rewriting that commission. Miss rehearsal. Miss rehearsal again, I should say, since I am going to the opening of Talking Pictures on Monday. I guess I could skip the opening.
God that's a lot of work though! But I guess not as much work as the Revolutionary War.
Damn.
Friday, January 25, 2008
T-shirts are like tattoos that you can take off.
I have gone through many phases: DVDs, CDs, plays, board games, coffee table books, comic books. These phases consist of me spending way too much money collecting these goods so that I have them in case I need them. For instance, I bought Team America before I had seen it because I knew that I wanted it for my collection. Bad call. I bought a Tales of the Weird -- a mesmerizing book with gritty illustrations about strange occurrences throughout history -- which I have only flipped through. I have never played Risk, but I own it. These binges usually last a month or so. The comic book addiction was a little longer, and I have weaned myself off them only gradually (I am down to 3 series that I am following: Powers, Scott Pilgrim, and Priest [not to be confused with Preacher]).
T-shirts, however, are not a phase. They are a philosophy. Rach likes to remind me and inform my.her friends that my high school wardrobe consisted of gray t-shirts, jeans (often with paint on them; often with holes in therm), and a black-hoody. Which I don't deny, though I do defend the practicality of this aesthetic. But I also had a military green shirt with a tri-colored emblem in the middle of it that said Durango, from Durango Colorado. I wore this shirt until it broke. I loved that shirt. What I liked about it was the following:
1) It was aesthetically pleasing, but not overly complex.
2) It's meaning was open to interpretation.
3) Nobody else where I lived had it.
These have been rules I have tried to follow with my t-shirts ever since. I have complicated them from time to time, sure. I went through a Khol's video-game oriented T-shirt phase (and I still have 2 or 3 from that period that I wear). And my current trend is narratives: t-shirts that you have "read" to get. Like the design above, which my sister just bought me (though she doesn't know it yet because she actually gave me a gift certificate. And she gave it to me last October. Whoops!)
If you are interested in awesome t-shirts, I highly recommend two sites:
This pick is hardly a surprise for anyone who digs t-shirts, but I want to give it a shout out because they have awesome stuff.
I was introduced to Etsy by my friend Ashley who used to work at Blueberry Hill and is one of Etsy's greatest success stories. Etsy is a website for independent artists to sell their wares. Including, of course, t-shirts! CHECK IT OUT!
If you don't wear t-shirts, start. And if you don't take your t-shirts seriously, you should!
Power to the T!
when it rains
For one of my Comprehensive Exams in Spring of 2006 I wrote:
In Victor Hugo’s 1827 Preface to Cromwell...he proposes that God did not create humans as a perfect species; thus, it is inappropriate and, for that matter, untruthful for dramatists to ignore the unpleasant side of human behavior. Classical dramatists have focused too much on the ideal soul and not enough of the corporeal body with all of its passions, impulses, instincts, and desires. That is not to say that the concept of human frailty was completely absent from the history of dramatic texts, but such moments were masked and hidden. Such ugliness was purposely pushed to the back of the viewers [sic; shit] mind in order to emphasize human spiritual nobility. The solution Hugo proposes is a "comedy" in which the sublime and grotesque compliment each other.
This fascinated me. Ever since that fateful day I took my first playwriting class with Carter (Lewis), I have been drawn to the dark, to the cynical, and to, though I didn't know this at the time because I would not learn about his theories for another four years, Hugo's concept of the grotesque. One of my first plays for Carter centered around a son and his dad: both were dead, and the dad had no affection for his son and in fact blamed him for getting in the way of his dreams. The they returned to the land of the living and "got mom." Happy stuff right? When Carter first met my mom, he said something along the lines of "Boy your son is morbid." My mom was a bit perplexed (probably still is). "He's seems like such a happy grounded person."
Though perversely flattering, I'm not sure Carter's description was necessarily true. I would not characterize myself as "abnormally susceptible to or characterized by gloomy or unwholesome feelings," but I would certainly agree that I am intrigued by gloomy and unwholesome feelings. Maybe its the sincerity of them? Maybe its their complexity and the unseen backstory. Maybe its the potential energy I fancy they have: energy that at any moment might break through its casing and explode into a glorious white light. There is something honest and human about the struggle. "I find happy people suspect," a character in one of the plays I am currently dramaturging explains.
And I do too. But it's kind of exhausting. And I'm not sure its healthy to think happy people are just sad people in hiding.
I have for a long time now (half a year?) been trying to bring more unabashed, unsoiled happiness into my writing. If you read the two "Towers" entries, that was what that exercise was about: transforming ugly tragedy into hopeful tragedy. Which is still tragedy. I realize this. I'm a work in progress.
But this week I decided I wanted to bring more happiness into my every day life, not just my writing. My outlook. It was a good week for this apparently because a good many things happened that made looking on the bright side of life that much easier:
0) Rachel made me join a gym. I forgot how good it feels when your muscles ache.
1) I'm in rehearsal for Girl in the Goldfish Bowl with a company I adore, with a director I trust, with a cast I believe in, and a play that surprises me every time with its lovely articulation of a painful situation (oh yes, it is VERY grotesque indeed!). Furthermore, we have been nomads due to some contractional mishap with New Leaf's normal rehearsal space, and we have been rehearsing at the Heart of Gold which is an amazing artist Commune with incredible digs. The kind of digs any artist who has ever gotten his hands dirty would want to live in. We return to the New Leaf space tomorrow, and everyone is thrilled. But I'll miss the Heart of Gold. It makes me happy that places like that exist.
2) I landed my first free-lance writing gig: I will be ghost-rewriting a play for a local non-profit. The "ghost" part of this means that I will not get any credit or future residuals, but the commission fee makes it worth my while. Let me put into practical terms: two months' rent! I asked advice from every professional dramaturg I'm friendly with, and I was introduced to some I hadn't previously known, and they were so generous with their time and their thoughts. Dramaturgs rock.
New T-shirt: Dramaturgs Rock.
3) The Goodman called yesterday, and they need a personal assistant for Horton Foote when he comes in for a festival of four of his plays. If you don't know who Horton Foote is, you're not alone. He is American Theatre's best kept secret: he is a 91 year old playwright who has been writing since the 40s. He adapted To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, but I am only telling you that so that you can say "Oh yeah I know those!" because he is above all else a stellar playwright. I have no business liking his work. It is not like the theatre I usually enjoy because it is simple: chronological, straight-forward, no frills, storytelling. He's just so damn good at it.
4)
Philip Boehm, Return of the Bedbug (Upstream Theater)
Joe Hanrahan, Soldier Boy/The Little Frenchy Files (After Midnight)
Andrew Michael Nieman, Veil of Silence (Veterans for Peace)
Dan Rubin, Demons…and Other Blunt Objects (HotCity Theatre)
James Russell Wax, Insignificant Others (Hydeware Theatre)
It has been a good week. A blessed week, my mom said, quoting the woman from the metrolink.
I am now going to go buy a couple lottery tickets.
In Victor Hugo’s 1827 Preface to Cromwell...he proposes that God did not create humans as a perfect species; thus, it is inappropriate and, for that matter, untruthful for dramatists to ignore the unpleasant side of human behavior. Classical dramatists have focused too much on the ideal soul and not enough of the corporeal body with all of its passions, impulses, instincts, and desires. That is not to say that the concept of human frailty was completely absent from the history of dramatic texts, but such moments were masked and hidden. Such ugliness was purposely pushed to the back of the viewers [sic; shit] mind in order to emphasize human spiritual nobility. The solution Hugo proposes is a "comedy" in which the sublime and grotesque compliment each other.
This fascinated me. Ever since that fateful day I took my first playwriting class with Carter (Lewis), I have been drawn to the dark, to the cynical, and to, though I didn't know this at the time because I would not learn about his theories for another four years, Hugo's concept of the grotesque. One of my first plays for Carter centered around a son and his dad: both were dead, and the dad had no affection for his son and in fact blamed him for getting in the way of his dreams. The they returned to the land of the living and "got mom." Happy stuff right? When Carter first met my mom, he said something along the lines of "Boy your son is morbid." My mom was a bit perplexed (probably still is). "He's seems like such a happy grounded person."
Though perversely flattering, I'm not sure Carter's description was necessarily true. I would not characterize myself as "abnormally susceptible to or characterized by gloomy or unwholesome feelings," but I would certainly agree that I am intrigued by gloomy and unwholesome feelings. Maybe its the sincerity of them? Maybe its their complexity and the unseen backstory. Maybe its the potential energy I fancy they have: energy that at any moment might break through its casing and explode into a glorious white light. There is something honest and human about the struggle. "I find happy people suspect," a character in one of the plays I am currently dramaturging explains.
And I do too. But it's kind of exhausting. And I'm not sure its healthy to think happy people are just sad people in hiding.
I have for a long time now (half a year?) been trying to bring more unabashed, unsoiled happiness into my writing. If you read the two "Towers" entries, that was what that exercise was about: transforming ugly tragedy into hopeful tragedy. Which is still tragedy. I realize this. I'm a work in progress.
But this week I decided I wanted to bring more happiness into my every day life, not just my writing. My outlook. It was a good week for this apparently because a good many things happened that made looking on the bright side of life that much easier:
0) Rachel made me join a gym. I forgot how good it feels when your muscles ache.
1) I'm in rehearsal for Girl in the Goldfish Bowl with a company I adore, with a director I trust, with a cast I believe in, and a play that surprises me every time with its lovely articulation of a painful situation (oh yes, it is VERY grotesque indeed!). Furthermore, we have been nomads due to some contractional mishap with New Leaf's normal rehearsal space, and we have been rehearsing at the Heart of Gold which is an amazing artist Commune with incredible digs. The kind of digs any artist who has ever gotten his hands dirty would want to live in. We return to the New Leaf space tomorrow, and everyone is thrilled. But I'll miss the Heart of Gold. It makes me happy that places like that exist.
2) I landed my first free-lance writing gig: I will be ghost-rewriting a play for a local non-profit. The "ghost" part of this means that I will not get any credit or future residuals, but the commission fee makes it worth my while. Let me put into practical terms: two months' rent! I asked advice from every professional dramaturg I'm friendly with, and I was introduced to some I hadn't previously known, and they were so generous with their time and their thoughts. Dramaturgs rock.
New T-shirt: Dramaturgs Rock.
3) The Goodman called yesterday, and they need a personal assistant for Horton Foote when he comes in for a festival of four of his plays. If you don't know who Horton Foote is, you're not alone. He is American Theatre's best kept secret: he is a 91 year old playwright who has been writing since the 40s. He adapted To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, but I am only telling you that so that you can say "Oh yeah I know those!" because he is above all else a stellar playwright. I have no business liking his work. It is not like the theatre I usually enjoy because it is simple: chronological, straight-forward, no frills, storytelling. He's just so damn good at it.
4)
For release after 12:00 pm, Friday, January 25, 2008:
NOMINEES FOR THE THIRD ANNUAL KEVIN KLINE AWARDS ANNOUNCED
Twenty-four theater companies in the St. Louis area receive 118 nominations in 22 different categories
Forty-five different productions receive nominations; twenty-five productions receive multiple nominations
Outstanding New Play or MusicalNOMINEES FOR THE THIRD ANNUAL KEVIN KLINE AWARDS ANNOUNCED
Twenty-four theater companies in the St. Louis area receive 118 nominations in 22 different categories
Forty-five different productions receive nominations; twenty-five productions receive multiple nominations
Philip Boehm, Return of the Bedbug (Upstream Theater)
Joe Hanrahan, Soldier Boy/The Little Frenchy Files (After Midnight)
Andrew Michael Nieman, Veil of Silence (Veterans for Peace)
Dan Rubin, Demons…and Other Blunt Objects (HotCity Theatre)
James Russell Wax, Insignificant Others (Hydeware Theatre)
It has been a good week. A blessed week, my mom said, quoting the woman from the metrolink.
I am now going to go buy a couple lottery tickets.
Monday, January 21, 2008
When you run around a track that is 12 laps to the mile you begin to question the validity of the track and the mile as points of reference
I joined a gym today. Well, actually yesterday. I joined yesterday. I went for the first time today. It went well. My lungs hurt, but in that good way that lets you know your scrubbing the bile off the walls and making them more efficient.
Back in St. Louis I had a gym, but since I moved here money has been tight and time has been limited and I didn't make it a priority since in the beginning when it was not 3 degrees outside I was exercising on the lake path and biking to the Goodman, but then I got nailed by a car door and it got cold and I hung my bike up in the downstairs bike storage room, and then I started to look for a job and so I didn't have the time or the mental energy to consider joining a gym since that involves research and comparing and budgeting and I could still just run outside, but then it got REALLY cold and the ice on the ground made running legitimately dangerous rather than just uncomfortable.
Then Rachel got back from Louisville, walked us into Bally Fitness, pulled her little Siren trick where she says something and I immediately agree to steer my ship into the cliffs (this happens more times than I let on), and now we are proud owners of a joint gym membership.
On Friday I was out with Tim and Annie (and the Goodman interns who just finished and Willa & Misty [our coordinators]) at a dive bar up in Andersonville where they serve a spiced alcohol drink from Germany (?) called glug. I had many glugs. I recommend you drink glug. On a night that is 3 degrees warm but feels like negative 20, you need to drink glug.
Tim and Annie told me that there is a theory that if you avoid 5 foods you can eat whatever else you want and remain healthy: soda, "sweets", fried food, pastries, and chips. I have given up soda before, and I don't eat fried food often anyway. I don't buy chips -- Unless you count tortilla chips. Are we counting tortilla chips? -- but I'll eat them when they come with a sandwich. I mean I'm not going to waste them. But do pastries include bagels? And sweets? Really? All of them? That seems a bit outrageous.
I mean, I want to be healthy, and I want to live as long as I'm able to live; but at some point you have to determine where the line is between living and subsisting. And while I am deliberating on this matter, I am going to go enjoy some Spicy Chex Mix.
Which is delicious.
Back in St. Louis I had a gym, but since I moved here money has been tight and time has been limited and I didn't make it a priority since in the beginning when it was not 3 degrees outside I was exercising on the lake path and biking to the Goodman, but then I got nailed by a car door and it got cold and I hung my bike up in the downstairs bike storage room, and then I started to look for a job and so I didn't have the time or the mental energy to consider joining a gym since that involves research and comparing and budgeting and I could still just run outside, but then it got REALLY cold and the ice on the ground made running legitimately dangerous rather than just uncomfortable.
Then Rachel got back from Louisville, walked us into Bally Fitness, pulled her little Siren trick where she says something and I immediately agree to steer my ship into the cliffs (this happens more times than I let on), and now we are proud owners of a joint gym membership.
On Friday I was out with Tim and Annie (and the Goodman interns who just finished and Willa & Misty [our coordinators]) at a dive bar up in Andersonville where they serve a spiced alcohol drink from Germany (?) called glug. I had many glugs. I recommend you drink glug. On a night that is 3 degrees warm but feels like negative 20, you need to drink glug.
Tim and Annie told me that there is a theory that if you avoid 5 foods you can eat whatever else you want and remain healthy: soda, "sweets", fried food, pastries, and chips. I have given up soda before, and I don't eat fried food often anyway. I don't buy chips -- Unless you count tortilla chips. Are we counting tortilla chips? -- but I'll eat them when they come with a sandwich. I mean I'm not going to waste them. But do pastries include bagels? And sweets? Really? All of them? That seems a bit outrageous.
I mean, I want to be healthy, and I want to live as long as I'm able to live; but at some point you have to determine where the line is between living and subsisting. And while I am deliberating on this matter, I am going to go enjoy some Spicy Chex Mix.
Which is delicious.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
daybreak semicolon
Tomorrow I will wake up and I will be a freelance dramaturg (production and development), a playwright, a writer, and a literary manager (in search of literature to manage). Tomorrow I will wake up and my professional aspirations will be focused towards these ends. Tomorrow I will wake up and I will stop dallying, stop equivocating, stop leaving my options open. I will stop lamenting the roads I did not take and remember why I took the road I took.
Tomorrow I will be what I want to be when I grow up.
Tomorrow I will be what I want to be when I grow up.
identity theft
jogging back home along the lake there is a man about your make about your build about your height almost in every way your like except that he is wearing jogging clothes and is back home whereas you just returned from rome to the southern coast, near nice. and also different between you and him is the confection you are carrying back kim. she waits for you on rocks watching as the sailboats dock watching everything but the clock not really caring when you arrive if you arrive at all but she thanks you for the pastry and kisses you politely before gently pushing you out of her view: i can always see you. i can always see you.
last night you left your window open and the breeze danced with the thin drapes and tickled your back through the thin sheet and reminded you in every dream that time trots along while you sleep. kim is dreaming of ireland and she is dancing with her dad and she rolls over and smacks you in the chest and then laughs because she meant to hit her dad who was teasing her about her haircut. she doesn't wake but you wake enough to count the constellations over the Riviera. you find orion after whom you named your cat who is staying with friends until you return to chicago.
last night you left your window open and the breeze danced with the thin drapes and tickled your back through the thin sheet and reminded you in every dream that time trots along while you sleep. kim is dreaming of ireland and she is dancing with her dad and she rolls over and smacks you in the chest and then laughs because she meant to hit her dad who was teasing her about her haircut. she doesn't wake but you wake enough to count the constellations over the Riviera. you find orion after whom you named your cat who is staying with friends until you return to chicago.
identity theft
along the southern coast of france is a man wearing your pants wearing your shirt wearing your shoes wearing everything that you would choose. he is wearing your woman on his arm and wearing your dreams. along the southern coast of france is a man who took a chance to take a risk to make a leap to take the plunge into the deep deep dark unknown and that's why he has flown to a europe you will never see. he slides into your bakery drinks your coffee and brings your woman a morning snack where she is resting on the shore alone. not thinking of you. thinking of the sea. mystery. you sit and peer out your window at the lake. what did you forsake. what did you forsake.
down by the lake you're jogging in new jogging clothes you bought at Macy's because they were on sale after christmas and you needed some jogging clothes because you're out of shape old man and you're getting fat old friend because all you do all day is sit at a computer and it's february 13 and this is the first time you've exercised since before thanksgiving because sometimes life's too busy. your jogging clothes don't keep the cold out. your jogging clothes don't hide the rolls on your stomach or ease your breathing and you stop to let your bleeding lungs hack themselves open so they can gasp some air down and your lightheadedness makes you momentarily delusional and you find peace in the fact that you are about die. because it would be easier than jogging back home and making dinner and washing the dishes and watching history's mysteries before going to bed at 11 remembering how little you accomplished that day or that weekend or that year. i'm 39 years old, you'll think, and tomorrow i will be older.
down by the lake you're jogging in new jogging clothes you bought at Macy's because they were on sale after christmas and you needed some jogging clothes because you're out of shape old man and you're getting fat old friend because all you do all day is sit at a computer and it's february 13 and this is the first time you've exercised since before thanksgiving because sometimes life's too busy. your jogging clothes don't keep the cold out. your jogging clothes don't hide the rolls on your stomach or ease your breathing and you stop to let your bleeding lungs hack themselves open so they can gasp some air down and your lightheadedness makes you momentarily delusional and you find peace in the fact that you are about die. because it would be easier than jogging back home and making dinner and washing the dishes and watching history's mysteries before going to bed at 11 remembering how little you accomplished that day or that weekend or that year. i'm 39 years old, you'll think, and tomorrow i will be older.
unemployment
I remember sitting on a bench near this open lot near my parents' house which was at the time of that sitting my house too because I lived there still. Just sitting and staring at the sky until my eyes filled up with those floaty things that look like chromosomes or amoebas or something microscopic and very well might be something microscopic which -- because of the lack of additional environmental input -- the eye can focus on (or not focus on) because it's not doing anything else at that particular moment. I sat there watching them float across my line of vision for a long time. If I moved my eyes, they would slide a bit. That's how I knew they were mine.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Looking at the bookshelf behind me, I realize that I still haven't read The Decameron and realize that I still want to.
This is what blogs are good for! I told Jess at dinner that I had not had coffee for 3 weeks when, in fact, it has been (let's see Dec. 31 minus Dec. 6, plus the Jan. 3, divide by 7 days) 4 weeks. In other words a whopping month!
This victory would be sweeter if I had not made concessions: on a tip from my mom I have had a few cups of decaf (but NOT Starbucks decaf because that's not really decaf) and on a tip from Rachel's mom I have recently started drinking tea on a regular basis. And I don't avoid chocolate. HELL no.
But by most accounts I am succeeding. My sister decided in 5th grade that she would never utter a curse word and to my knowledge she never has. And she's 22 now. (We share the stubborn chromosome.) But if I don't use her as a bar, I'm doing pretty well.
I'm procrastinating (another thing blogs are good perhaps). Or maybe I am warming up before getting to work on one of many potential projects I could tackle this evening. Or maybe I am cooling down after a long day of research at the Goodman. I am nearing an end of my internship which is a shame because I believe in the Goodman (and Unitarian's don't throw the phrase "I believe in" around on a whim) and in what they are trying to do and what they are planning to do. It would be lovely if they had room in their budget for me but they don't so oh well. Time to pack the saddlebags and make sure Ol' Rusty is properly shoed.
***
When you have a lot in front of you to do those things you have to do commiserate and decide amongst themselves that what they want to do is build a wall out of themselves so that when you try to focus on any one of them you cannot help but see the whole wall. And it is easy to step over a stone, but much more difficult to climb a wall. Different muscles. Thus sending your Grandmother's Christmas present is interwoven with writing a recommendation for an old student which is interwoven with researching Veteran Legions in 1962 Canada.
And so the metaphor of wall building and the metaphor of weaving are mixed at last.
We all knew it was only a matter of time.
This victory would be sweeter if I had not made concessions: on a tip from my mom I have had a few cups of decaf (but NOT Starbucks decaf because that's not really decaf) and on a tip from Rachel's mom I have recently started drinking tea on a regular basis. And I don't avoid chocolate. HELL no.
But by most accounts I am succeeding. My sister decided in 5th grade that she would never utter a curse word and to my knowledge she never has. And she's 22 now. (We share the stubborn chromosome.) But if I don't use her as a bar, I'm doing pretty well.
I'm procrastinating (another thing blogs are good perhaps). Or maybe I am warming up before getting to work on one of many potential projects I could tackle this evening. Or maybe I am cooling down after a long day of research at the Goodman. I am nearing an end of my internship which is a shame because I believe in the Goodman (and Unitarian's don't throw the phrase "I believe in" around on a whim) and in what they are trying to do and what they are planning to do. It would be lovely if they had room in their budget for me but they don't so oh well. Time to pack the saddlebags and make sure Ol' Rusty is properly shoed.
***
When you have a lot in front of you to do those things you have to do commiserate and decide amongst themselves that what they want to do is build a wall out of themselves so that when you try to focus on any one of them you cannot help but see the whole wall. And it is easy to step over a stone, but much more difficult to climb a wall. Different muscles. Thus sending your Grandmother's Christmas present is interwoven with writing a recommendation for an old student which is interwoven with researching Veteran Legions in 1962 Canada.
And so the metaphor of wall building and the metaphor of weaving are mixed at last.
We all knew it was only a matter of time.
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