October 31, 2017

All Hallow’s Eve. I thought of the best Halloween of my life, It must have been– what? 1971. George and Denny and Kit and a few others of us ran to the Hiram graveyard, because we knew we would never see a Halloween like that again, under a full moon, the night clear as steel, us friends and, though we never put the name to it, lovers. I knew as I ran there that there would never be another one like it, and I was right. I’m running there now in my memory, but with an odd perspective, ten feet above the sidewalk, as if a I were a giant, or a floating spirit, and the round moon looks directly in my face.

The Halloween of 5th grade, I think it was, when I was getting to go out at night in my costume, when my father stopped me and said I was not going to trick or treating that night, but instead I was going to work in the garden.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“But, it’s already dark–“
He hit me in the mouth and trotted me out to the tiny garden beside the house and showed me what he wanted me to do. I had no idea what I had done. I had no idea what was on his mind. I sat against the wall and sobbed, drawing myself in so the trick or treaters wouldn’t see me, nor I them. I felt the joyful spirits of the night drawing away from me all around. It was the worst night of my life up to that point. It was too dark to do anything he said, so I just sat until it was time to come in.  I wouldn’t have hated him had there been something to balance nights like that, but there was nothing which quite fit into the balance.

I am going to see a run-through of my play. I have not been home on Halloween to give out candy in thirty years.

October 30, 2017

Spent a few minutes at tech rehearsal, which was no more chaotic than it needed to be. By and large, the things which could be under control were. Several things looked great, including Q on stage. Left because I was not going to be able to see much that night. Tech is ever hell. Odd pale blob of moon.

October 29, 2017

Dream at morning. I’m involved in a vast battle in semi-darkness. I’m moving from one place to another on the battlefield, when I encounter a soldier with pale skin and dark hair. He seems stunned and frightened. I ask him what’s wrong, and he says his head hurts so much he can’t move. I begun to rub his scalp and temples, and he relaxes. The battle is far away, so when he falls asleep in my arms, I let him. At some point, though, I get up and rejoin the action.  Later on, a group of officers approaches me and asks me to come with them. As we go, I learn that the soldier I comforted was the emperor, and my job from now on is to massage and comfort him when his headaches come upon him. The dream ends before I have decided what I think of that.

One more crate of bulbs arrived, and got into the ground before yesterday’s hard and bitter deluge.

Lunch after church with student M, who is off to Durham, UNCA’s education department having failed him. Very bright young man, very good company. He had some disturbing criticisms about one of my colleagues–not totally unexpected, but rather worse than expected. What to do? I will not “tattle,” and direct confrontation NEVER works in the elliptical South.

Movie after lunch with DJ and Russell. Snow flew in the air as I drove.

October 28, 2017

Q follows me to my office to talk about the plays I sent him, seriously and at length, his having considered them more deeply than anyone who was not involved in actually producing them– which he, in fact, longs to do. He repeats that his perspective is that of a born director, which explains, he says, why I sometimes don’t see things as he does. But weaknesses he indicates are weaknesses I’ve seen or suspected myself. He says my plays are “small” in that they arise and develop from quite tiny moments or perceptions. Considering what he’s seen, that’s true, and interesting, since I never intended or really thought of it before. He says they are like jewels which a director must “open up” and into which introduce light. An audience may not perceive them as “real” unless this light is introduced. This part I don’t understand. I say so, adding that’s it’s probably one of those things I’d have to see in action to comprehend. He plays off You Tube music he has chosen for Night Music, though I have pointed out that, this time, somebody else is directing the show. He dances around the room, humming the tunes. I confess to him that I have done everything I could to “director-proof” my plays–and actor-proof them to some degree– guiding firmly away from the most egregious of possible misinterpretations. He suggests it is exactly this strategy, being successful, which necessitates the intervention of a director. I don’t get it. Willing to believe it. Will keep watching.  In any event, this is the longest conversation I’ve ever had with anybody about the actual substance of my dramatic work. I never had a mentor in playwriting, having commenced that life in isolation, perhaps even in secret. Have talked with directors, of course, but most of that talk was operational, how to achieve the production rather than purely what I intended by the work. I took this as a kind of compliment, an indication that my vision was trusted. In New York, SB asked me what I meant by certain things, but never made one structural or interpretive observation. SS seemed to trust me and move forward with minimal soul-searching. This is to say that on one level I find all this attention–and from a twenty year old–perplexing, but of course on another, beguiling. So far it’s entirely theoretical. My habit is to, for the most part, stand back and let actors and directors do their work, as I would do with him if he were actually directing, saying “Ah!” when, for better or for worse, I got his point.

Interview with the Dean concerning our new Chair. I never met her before, but sensed immediate sympathy. We even talked to each other a little in German. I said  Es tut mir leid, dass wir uns noch nie getroffen haben, and she answered in German, probably without having noticed. I made clear I would make an awful chair; she made clear (or semi-clear) that the MFA in creative writing is a done deal. Satisfaction all around.

Love the sound of my little gas heater hissing away in the corner.

J had the idea we should meet at the AC Hotel Capella rooftop on Friday night, and so we did, and it was immensely festive. I need to write on my wall where I see i every day, “Go out and party.”

 Montford’s female Othello opens the same day as my play. It is a terrible conception, a terrible idea, one that, from the root up, cannot succeed except to hack a colossal vision into one thin stick of political pleading. Of course, no one will dare say it.

My inner clock, upset by Ireland, is only now back on course. It is still dark and already I have accomplished much. Must plant. Must paint. Must----

October 27, 2017

Somewhat to my surprise, a carton full of books, my books, arrives at the door. I open it, trembling with excitement. I think that the print is too pale, but then I think I think that just so the gods will turn their envy elsewhere.

One orange rose, like a distant sun, still hangs above the front garden.

We seem to have acquired an actual Asian actor, and a good one, so it is said, which allows us to dodge the whole white-person-playing-Asian issue. I think it’s a silly issue, but am, alas, not the only person in the world.

October 26, 2017

Cold bright days. Good classes, though I hear myself asking, “What were we meant to do today?” the material of two of those classes pretty much running neck and neck. Students leap up to give impromptu lectures on plot structure. I ask myself, why don’t I give lectures on correct plot structure? Because I believe that great writing can be analyzed but not anticipated– improvised but almost never made from a menu. People want the check list, though, the things which, if they do, shall render them a masterwork. 

Council approves plans for a luxury hotel in the River District, right next to the Phil Mechanic. Impossible to imagine how this is not the end for us.

Had postcards made for Peniel.

October 23, 2017

Sweet M chatted with me through my late morning office hours. It was almost absurdly pleasant, like watching a movie of somebody else’s life. Have begun to receive benign visitations and know not why, and do not ask why lest they become self-conscious and creep away.

Maud seems to have disappeared, though she can be nowhere but in this house.

My beautiful designer wants to make a statement about racism out of the fact that our Japanese characters are white people with masks on. In fact, our Japanese characters are white people with masks on because we have no Japanese actors. I think we could say that and be done, but perhaps I’m missing a larger point.

October 22, 2017

Peniel’s official release day is November 17. Just now getting excited, as the numbers of things that could go wrong diminish toward zero. In its genre, this book is unanswerable. Gave my first copy to Evan in thanks for his blurb.

Yesterday evening planted tiger lilies and golden loosestrife. I always garden in the morning, so gardening in the evening seems melancholy and elegiac. One is called at by different birds.

Days of blazing autumn brilliance.

Dropped in at the Magnetic for a production meeting. Six grown people sitting around extending their energies toward the realization of your play is very exciting. Returned for a rehearsal, and was on the cusp between happy and relieved. The music is sounding very good. There is a bit of wandering about on stage– if that Is a directorial problem or a problem of nerves and an early run-through I’m not certain. Much obliteration of lines, and yet much achievement of lines. This early on I’ll look at the bright side.  M always has troubles with paraphrasing, which I don’t mind unless they’re my words. But, I was happy, and, again, amazed that people put so much labor into realizing my play. Brought vivacious Q to them, and they were happy, as I knew they would be.

Went to the studio, but there was no inspiration, and I just sat for a while. R had destroyed the window by prying it open, and then just left without repairing it or trying to close it at all. Sigh. One is ill-prepared to be the only adult all the time.

Put in a bed of yellow wake-robin, telling myself it’s the last planting of the year.

October 19, 2017

Turned on the upstairs heater with minimal struggle. Brahms beaten down in the evening. Zach ill, so no massage. Some progress on my Zoo story. Uranium down a couple of actors. Which worries are mine? Ate at Gan Shan Station, and one of the servers came up and confirmed my name, and said, “I knew that was your profile out here.” He is Dustin, my son when we did Amahl and the Night Visitors years ago, whom I went to see in Into the Woods at his high school. I was hurt because I thought we had a relationship, which simply disappeared after that. Apparently it did not disappear at all. It went to Africa. It fathered children. It started to manage a restaurant. Prototype of Peniel appears in the mail. it is perfect.

October 18, 2017

A black-capped vireo sports in my yard.  Merry little thing, fluffing his feathers in the cool sunlight.  God thinks this makes it all OK, and it very nearly does.

October 17, 2017

RC decided not to continue as chair, me fighting the inclination to think of the department as falling apart. It is, in way, but mostly through pressure from outside that wants educational institutions to stop being educational institutions and start being corporations. It’s ruination, but if there’s something little D can do about it, I haven’t thought of it. Such things are usually gotten through by sheer cussedness, but the portion of cussedness in our department seems to be limited to me now. I say things like “Let’s just ignore it,” or “Let’s just not do it,” which I know, absolutely, work and had worked in the past, and I get blank stares of incomprehension. Same with my classes: “What? We actually have freedom of will????” If it were only half terror and half delight it would be well, but is mostly terror. We planted Merritt’s dogwood tree in the upper Quad. I was invited to push the memorial plaque into the ground, which I did with such vehemence that it broke. Well, an anecdote for all. . . . 

October 16, 2017

In the wake of, I suppose, the latest Hollywood scandal, women started a Face Book campaign where everyone of them who has been molested or hurt or raped or diminished by a man writes in their space, “Me too.” At the end of the day I sit reeling from the sheer numbers. I never understood. Women live different lives from what we do, lives full of uncertainty and terror, sometimes buried terror, sometimes terror on the surface, that I am, or was till now, incapable fully of apprehending. They are in danger from us at every turn. It is the most shocking thing. The angrier of them hiss “You should have known,” and perhaps one should, but I didn’t. Part of my dumbfoundment is that two times I have been accused of “harassment” and it was by entitled brats who not only lied but were vague enough to keep their lies interesting until I was able to say, publicly, to their faces, “what exactly was it that I did?” and that ended it. Personal experience made me suspect a raft of mean-spirited innuendo that the light of day would not sustain. But, no, this is something completely different, cavalier brutality and collusion and inhumanity of a proportion I am still not able to comprehend. I love men. I am in the habit of defending us from what I think of as the irrational edge of self-serving Feminism. But not here, not this. I feel like Dante crying out “Who would have thought death had undone so many?” We are brutes and I can’t understand why. The hatred for men I have heard in the rhetoric of some women is not, as I had thought, insane. It is in some senses not even enough. It is the most confusing and distressing moment. It is also the fiftieth time this month I have cried out “What can I do to help?” and no answer has come back. I suppose, to begin with, find out where I too am brutish and stop it.  I think I’m innocent of this, but I probably am not. Maybe that slob Weinstein will end up as a kind of accidental angel.

Good classes, I think. My intro to creative writing class calls me “David,” as no class in 34 years has done. Have no idea what I think of it, but I hope it’s affection. Spent one class listening to presentations and staring at the beautiful neck of the man in front of me.

October 15, 2017

Purple blossoms cover the eggplant vines, which I did not have the heart to pull out just yet.

Seized by cramps mounting the stairs to the study. Could barely move up or down. Cursed all the way, clawing the wall, to the sink. If I were God I would not do those things which leave him open to such vituperation.

October 14, 2017

Rose before the light, had coffee and began a new story at High Five. Sat on the terrace, where at first my only light was the red neon OPEN sign. A rat emerged and gleaned a little in the darkness, looking elegant, looking like a wild animal. It was still barely light when I picked up the shovel and finished planting almost all that had been left unplanted: the second sassafras, ferns, trillium, windflowers.  The day was a little poisoned by thoughts of The Boy, and the ways in which his actions are parallel to those of our President, being mitigated some by their smallness.

As for our President, the game is now to see how long he can last, how many stupidities, blunders, arrogations, cruelties (any one of which would have sunk any other politician in my lifetime) can be piled one atop the other until his rotten party is finally moved to act. Is this the most interesting time in American politics? Watergate was interesting, but somehow less riotously absurd than this.

Cantaria concert at the UU in Hendersonville. I think it went well. It felt like it went well. I was in whole voice nearly to the end. Exquisite white wine at Avenue M afterwards.

October 13, 2017

Days of school alternating with days in the garden, both leaving me exhausted. Restored much that I allowed be gobbled up by grass during the summer. Transplanted struggling acanthus. After trying for several years, and futilely planting bare sticks that mail-order nurseries claimed were sassafras, I finally found the real thing at Reems Creek, and bought me two. The sassafras makes me unaccountably happy. The sweaty burly nurseryman was inexplicably to my taste. 

My story of disappointment in Vienna has been accepted for publication.

Good classes, except when giving presentations, my students refuse to attempt pronunciation of foreign words. “You’re the specialist now,” I want to shriek, “say the damn words correctly!” Students are not taught boldness; they are taught resentment, which looks similar, sometimes, but is really very different.

Do the ones who do badly actually not know they’re doing badly?

Fury over the impossible form the New School sends in order for us to get our pittance of honorarium. Necessary forms are literally unavailable. A tentacle of the bureaucrafication of the whole world of education, where nothing, now, can be accomplished without a blizzard of steps and paperwork necessary only because someone is being paid to require it. Even as every advancement at UNCA is hedged about with sidesteps and blind alleys, jackals which must have their little bite. Almost fainted when I actually got my travel reimbursement this morning. I’d given it up in my heart because one document they said they required did not exist and never had existed. Assumed that would be the end of it. 

The postcards for Uranium 235 arrived, and they were well.

Good choir rehearsal, all Brahms. Cantaria rehearsal at which I never quite lost my temper, and that is notable.

October 10, 2017

Downtown for an interview at BRPR with M, who turns out to be cute and compact, new to the area, and a singularly good interviewer. He had done astonishing research about me and was able to ask insightful questions. I had misjudged the occasion of the interview, thinking it was and being prepared for the usual PR about Uranium 235.  It was much deeper and more personal than that. I hope I wasn’t flummoxed.

Arrived downtown early, and sat on Pack Square watching a guy making gigantic soap bubbles with an apparatus he had. Some sailed over the roofs. The sky was gray so the bubbles seemed like pearls, subtle and subdued.

October 9, 2017

Transcribing the play I began in the Paramount and sliding toward drunkenness Sunday morning in Newark airport. Harder than usual to decode my own scribbles.

Another huge gardening day. Drove to Jesse Israel and rescued half priced ferns to plant behind the pond. Great digging, awaiting plants coming through the mail. Even after two days’ of deluge, the ground was not sodden–just pleasantly damp. Yellow jackets patrolled the ground, singly, or a few together. They looked forlorn and vulnerable. I didn’t know if they were looking for food or for a place to burrow in for the winter. My loosening up yards of soil may gave them choices, if the latter.

October 8, 2017

For a couple of years now I have been afflicted with floods of mucous, which kept me from sleeping (or would have, if anything could) at night, and damaged my throat so that it was sometimes impossible to sing, or even to speak. Coughing, cataclysmic sneezing. Couldn’t find a medication or a cause, until I realized that it happens only in the winter, before I turn on the furnace (which I had blamed for drying out the house and my throat), but after I get out my winter sleep covering: an Afghan Dale knitted (or crotcheted, or whatever you do) years ago. Am I allergic to that? Slept without it last night; am mucous free this morning. Part of the sensation is deep relief, part irritation that so many months were lost to so inconsequential a thing. Did Dale know what he was doing? An ex-boyfriend’s revenge, like those blankets soaked in smallpox that the whites gave to the Indians?  

Afternoon: warm, hurricane-driven rain, so like the temperature of human skin that though to the eyes it appears to be raining hard, the body barely feels it.

October 7, 2017

Arose in the dark to sing for the Buncombe County Democratic Ladies at the Renaissance. I support their politics, but they were the worst conceivable audience.

Another day of heavy gardening, redigging the “blue” garden after a summer’s neglect, planting what present themselves as “tree lilies.” We’ll see. Dug around an acanthus and a rose , which are of the few survivors in that part of the garden.

A vireo– I think, sparrow sized, pale beneath and slate gray above– swept across the top of my pond, either gathering insects there or outright fishing.  

Party for L’s 65th– festive, but for me too many people in too small a space. I promised to approximate a painting he had seen in the Democratic Ladies’ auction and liked, only that painting was bad and mine won’t be. All society that doesn’t have something to do with the arts is beginning to wear on me.

October 6, 2017

Dream that a man I admired handed me his sword to polish. Spent the rest of the  dream trying to find the right polish, trying to find a place to work where I wouldn’t be disturbed. Dedicated the day to heroic gardening, and though I started out tired, I got no tireder. A great raft of iris into the ground and mulched.

October 5, 2017

Handel from the radio downstairs. The morning was supremely beautiful, silver against silvery blue. Last night spent singing Brahms and having cocktails afterward: a kind of paradise.

Coffee with SS, much new information about the situation at the Magnetic. I am amazed by my capacity to, with a whirlwind thundering about me, sense nothing, anticipate nothing, fail to see the herd of dinosaurs rocking over the hill. Part of it is innocence, I hope.

Planted two more expensive tree peonies, where I will see them this spring when I walk out the front door.

October 4, 2017

W opened his book tour at Lipinsky, and did a reading with support from balladeers and other storytellers. I rejoice in it all; he is the last person on earth whom success will make an asshole. About fifty alumni rushing up to say how they remember me and how I changed their lives. My first thought, “is someone paying them to do this?” But my second thought was otherwise.

October 3, 2017

Return to classes, triumphant, I think, except that my voice was ruined by the winter flux, which seems to be better this morning. Shelley in one class, Keats in another, the writing of poetry in the third. Discussion of comprehensive exam grades. No failures in our batch.  Night Music rescheduled for February. Uranium 235 proceeding apace, but lacking men. What with two plays and one book, almost too many details to keep up with: a situation long dreamed-of.

Of all the people I know in New York– who were warned by Face Book that I would be there–none bothered to look me up. Some made excuses– “Oh, that weekend is SO crazy. . . I’ll be out of town. . . “ One deals with the truth that nobody wanted to bother.

Tom Petty is dead– a year younger than me.

So, the big Scribner’s New School reading– the take away is that even in that august company I am the best, or at least among the best, and among the few who entirely “get it,” who get what a poet should be and do and for what reasons. And I am surely among the most obscure. What to do with that truth? If I thirty years ago I could have thought of anything but “soldier on,” I would have done it.

October 1, 2017

Stroll Sunday morning from the hotel to Columbus Circle in the clear autumn light. The Trump-stench hovers over that part of town, but it could almost be forgotten. Horse carts moving up 8th Avenue for their day’s work by the Park. People lament this, but the horses looked happy and fulfilled to me. Huge controversy in Spanish in the shuttle going to the airport. The people behind me were angry that things were scheduled so that they would wait five hours in the airport. They wanted to be taken back to their hotel and be picked up later. Finally, no. I wanted to ask them if they hadn’t, as I had, scheduled themselves. Multiple bloody Marys in the Newark airport.  Wrote on my new play.