November 17, 2015

Didn’t mention that R brought his handsome head and his charming daughter to my studio during the stroll. Showed him how I’d been using his discarded canvases.

Video of white men encountering members of a certain tribe–somewhere–for the first time. I wondered at fifty thousand years of living exactly the same way– rather like the elves of Middle Earth. Noted secondly that the boldest of the natives was–not withstanding the bone in his nose– handsome.

Handsome (that word again) black beetles with orange geometric markings have been clustered at my front door, probably because the porch is white and faces south. When my sister was here, a dragonfly fluttered and shone at the door. Wonder where they go in the cold. Some few of each tribe must survive it.

Here is a note from She-ville, a local feminist paper:

 Magnetic Theatre takes on tragedy with 'Washington Place' 
 
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on New York City’s Lower East Side in 1911 has become one of the most notorious tragedies in the history of industry, but no one knows much, if anything, about the lives of the young women caught up in the conflagration.
Magnetic Theatre’s production, Washington Place, imagines those women, “bringing us their passions, hopes, songs and laughter in an effervescent, moving world premiere,” according to a press release.
"The audience around me were looking around at each other as though we needed to give a standing ovation but none of us could move at that moment...we didn't have the heart." Jean Cassidy

    After lecture yesterday my student Rees said, “I want to shake your hand.”
    Shaking, “Why?”
    “Because I saw your play. It totally changed my mind about the theater.”

Briefly chatted with Peg on campus. Mentioned that I had been hurled into the outer darkness Humanities-wise.
    “Who would do that?”
    “B.”
    “Oh. I’ve heard nothing good about him.”
    Nor was she going to, from me.

Completely re-invented my Christianity lecture in light of Paris, focusing on the historical moment when religion turned exclusive, when it became ponderable to kill for worshiping the wrong god. No other Humanities prof would have done this. What a fool that man is. An imp and a fool about whom one has heard nothing good.

Trying to find a cure for the perpetual throat-fog. It affects nothing but singing, but singing is all I do these days.

Sensational playwrights meeting last night. Two of them are already masters of the craft of dialogue. Another has the high seriousness of O’Neill.

 Cough, drink coffee, cough.