March 14, 2009

Piercing chill, wet, wintery. Becky Stallings has been in a terrible accident on Patton Avenue and is not expected to live. Her guide dog, also injured, as been put down. Yet, well done thou good and faithful servant.

Cocktails (which for me was sparkling water) with Jason last night. His offer of friendship is so inclusive, energetic, straightforward, that what I consider to be my own fairly direct manner looks suspicious and circuitous in comparison. Like the Irish, he intends what he says and is best taken at his word. I have a better friend than I know now how to accept. I pray for the grace to grow into him.

I didn’t intend to spend this afternoon with him and Merlin, but it ended up that way, in the clammy studio with Merlin painting one of his superheroes and supplying the audio (Biff! Bam!) while he painted. Patiently Jason is teaching me the “secrets” of the old Masters– which as he says are not secrets at all but fairly well documented and reproducible. Underpaint, glaze, scrape, glaze, repaint, glaze– it goes against my own furious pace and haphazard planning–which I am pleased to call “inspiration”-- but the results are pleasing and I will go with it until I lose patience or it becomes my way as well as his.

Writing on The Sublime for Harold Bloom. Memorizing Proof.

In response to economic stress, Asheville Community Theater has decided to do nothing but comedies and musicals. I wish there were some way to punish choices like that, but surely they wouldn’t be made if they didn’t make, or if someone didn’t think they made, good, it temporary, financial sense. I doubt they’re losing sleep knowing I will not darken their door while this obtains. Does a cultural institution which resigns its duty to its community deserve to endure? I suppose you could make the argument that if it compromises today and survives, it may do some good in the future. But the argument can also be made that there are no ends but means, and to be lost on the path means that the goal too is inevitably lost. Why shouldn’t a theater do nothing but light comedies and musicals? Why shouldn’t a meal be nothing but desserts? When you build a house, why shouldn’t it be all gingerbread and decoration, without any of those nasty and difficult foundations? In addition to all that, the idea that Legally Blond or Cats is more “entertaining” that Proof or Doubt or Hamlet is reflexive, under-examined and not supported by experience. The entertainment is more passive–rather like a force feeding–but I don’t see how it is greater. Watching a DVD and playing a round of tennis are both, potentially, “fun,” both “entertaining,” but to choose the DVD as “better” is not really a preference, but a form of resignation. I tell the Powers, “If I had a million dollars I could make it all come out right.” So far the Powers have not responded.