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:
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!
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 Bowlwith 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 Musical
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am a dramaturg and playwright in San Francisco working in A.C.T.'s publications and literary offices. Visit darkknightdramaturgy.wordpress for the more intelligent posts.
