December 8, 2010

Purple in the east. Choosing poems to read at Pulp tonight, a process harder than I remember it being in the past. Attended the festive opening of The Magnetic Field last night. I think back on the venues and institutions I was there for the openings of. Dear Lord, sic transit, and all that. The Magnetic Field has an urban feel to it, as though it were something nestled among the skyscrapers Uptown in New York. It’s not what one expects in this part of the world, and that adds to its boldness. The kitchen looks serious. The crowd was a slice of old theatrical Asheville, and not what I expected, but comforting to be amid again. The opening show was a piece–apparently an episode to an annual event– called the Bernstein Family Christmas. Technical glitches were to be expected in what was, because of the snow, a dress rehearsal, and the overall effect was uneven, but when it hit–as in the Tom Waits rendition of the dreidel song–it was transcendent. It was the first sketch comedy I have seen locally that was real theater, genuinely funny, with no need for the Asheville phenomenon of the pity guffaw. I admired the actors. I can do a comic role on stage, but I think if I were like that, like they were on stage always at the far edge of plausibility, I would be terrified.