May 27, 2011

Slow morning rain. This helps me because it narrows the possible activities of the day. It also rejoices my garden, which has entered the phase of giganticism: a huge patch of pale heal-all gobbles the end of the sidewalk; hollyhock and foxglove and, especially, great mullein aim skyward, already taller than me. Mint, mallow, anemone and cobra-lily extend their several empires. Whenever Carolyn has certain guests (her family, I think), they whoop on the walk and shriek “poison!”–by which they indicate poison ivy-- and lament that they will probably come away with cases of it, the leaves having jumped out and engaged them at distance. She in fact has no “poison.” What they are shrieking about is Virginia creeper. Somehow this infuriates me.

The five singing birds on the wires above the front yard is actually one mockingbird, effusing, overflowing.

Senior exit interviews. I’m indicated by name only once, to accuse me of being inflexible and therefore a tribulation to non-traditional students who have work and lives outside of class. Had I been writing my own critique, I would have lamented exactly the opposite, that my standards seem to dissolve before each petition, each excuse. The oddest thing to me is the cry for us to teach them what they could learn better on their own. I was always grateful to have a field of study in which I was the vanguard, and my professors could follow or not, as they pleased.

Two of my paintings will hang at a show Upstairs in Tryon. They are both very strange, and I thought I would win the prize for strangeness, until I saw some of the other included works, farther off the edge and deeper into the abyss than mine.

Ended the day at Steve DeGhelder’s review Prime Ribbing at the new Altamont Theater. I think it may have been inaugural night for the whole enterprise, but it was certainly opening night for the play. It’s a satiric review, genuinely witty and funny and professional all through. S’s encyclopedic knowledge of musical theater gave him the perfect vector every time. The Altamont, which I haven’t seen since it was a gutted shell, turned out elegantly. The theater part is small, but they seem to have found a style (cabaret) which will suit it.