March 29, 2008

Black Swan reading of Elisabeth’s Mr Medea at the Arts Council. The writing was good, though the play wasn’t, yet. There was surprising interest from the community and from my students. If E were disappointed by the reception of the piece, she could comfort herself by flying out the next day to open I Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath in London. AG was there, and I was surprised by how much I had missed him.

Sunnyspot mails me a contract for Edward the King which gives them exclusive rights–renewable-- for a year after the opening in New York for $100. I won’t complain, because at some point I decided on a life in which one didn’t complain about that sort of thing, but this doesn’t relieve me of the suspicion that maybe I should complain about it, that perhaps my casual approach to these matters not only keeps me poor, but sends out a vibration of amateurism. We are all children of our upbringing, and mother was proud to teach me that if you do the best work you will be rewarded in something close to proportion, and that upright effort is preferable to cunning. It was tragic to subscribe to that notion as I have done, but maybe it would have been worse not to.

DJ and I go to see the Punch Brothers at Grey Eagle. Very sophisticated music from men presenting themselves as down-home Bluegrass pickers. Outside of Ireland I almost never go to hear a band in a bar, and I ought to, more, adding a night to the week in which to do so. It is wonderful to be part of a large gathering in Asheville where you know not one person. Actually, I did know one person, but without a chance meeting with him I might have preserved my conviction of perfect anonymity. Green fried tomatoes lay like warm ballast in our guts.

After E’s play, conversation with MA in Hannah Flannagan’s about God and Faith. An evil spirit in the shape of a local preacher has got him partially in his power, and each time we speak I have to bat away something the preacher has said, in the name of converting MA to Christ, which makes God seem small and wicked, a sniper with his bead drawn on you at every moment. Preacher’s notion of "belief" and mine are so radically distant that it’s difficult to imagine them as part of the same Faith. My notion is that belief is an adjunct to and outcome of love. His is that God is a broken high-voltage cable and belief is a kind of rubber boot you put on to protect against him. His image has one advantage, in that it includes a fair degree of predictability: God is always dangerous, always ready to catch you in a moment unprepared. I have to account for the confounding nature of an iridescent personality.

Hesitant student journalist from the Blue Banner came to interview me about Edward. The article appeared and, surprisingly, it is the most accurate, the most what-I-really said of any piece ever done on me.

Distant thunder. It is still dark, but I had a clear day in my mind. With one rumble all is changed.