November 30, 2018

Some time given over each day to locating the new place the cats have chosen to defecate. This is a disorder I didn’t expect so soon.

Tumultuous days. J with Title IX proves an unexpected ally, or rather proves that justice is her goal rather than the automatic preferment of females. She helps me rebuff my “anonymous” attackers (they were never anonymous to her) and advises me that legal action may be the best recourse. I assume, as I always do, that the attack is over, and legal action may not be necessary, however much it is deserved. Both sides revile her, one for doing too little, the other for doing too much. That I’m not fired–or even inconvenienced–infuriates one side. That I am bothered by this at all infuriates me. I told her I understood how she could not win, and will not add to her afflictions. Attacked also by a local Trans woman (and former student, whom I evidently failed) who took correction of a personal error on her part as an attack on transgendered people everywhere. I told her she should learn the meaning of “transphobic” before she used it in a discussion that had already left her in the dust. She went ballistic. She has the charming idea that she can get me in trouble, get me fired, end my reign of terror over those in my power, and that it won’t matter that everything is a lie, because it is the age of Me Too and the woman must be believed.

Sang for World Aids Day and the hanging of the Quilt at the Masonic Lodge. Sparse, dedicated crowd. Useful chorus rehearsal, Barry in the next seat furiously refusing to acknowledge my existence. People don’t realize how quickly determination becomes absurdity.

I’m fighting with too many people. I’d let it be a lesson to me if I had been the active agent in any of the encounters. I merely turn and strike back after repeated blows. Something I do infuriates people. Certain people. An onlooker may see me doing it on purpose. I don’t think so.

Semester coming to a close faster than I anticipated. I have met with my last class. I think it is all well and everyone learned joyfully, but wait for the complaints to come in from one who was looked at funny or thought she heard a wrong tone from the front of the class. It is like China’s Cultural Revolution, Rule by Those with the Least Understanding. I do sort of see the attraction. How wonderful to explain away starvation because the dish was not set before you in the way you had imagined.

November 26, 2018

Ancient personal messages popping up on my Face Book account. That it, too, should be haunted would be no surprise. Hours spent in High Five reading Robert Penn Warren.

November 25, 2018

Naomi Tutu, our latest addition to the clergy, gave the benediction in Tswana. She said, “You may not understand, but God will.”

November 24, 2018

Bright and dingy alternation.

On the drive from Georgia I tormented myself for a while thinking of all the clothes my mother made me– knitted sweaters, shirts, jackets– which I scorned and which I would give anything to wear now. Many of them were quite terrible. I should have praised them and worn them anyhow. I was too young. I didn’t know what I would one day wish I had done. If I had only not squirmed when she tried to measure me. If I had not wept with embarrassment when she tried to get me to wear them to school. One does everything wrong.

Freddie Mercury died today.

Tremendous full moon in the morning light. Long talk with Colin at High Five. He is the one earnestly writing and reading Proust and Rilke in the mornings at the café. I gave him a book, and so he knows me a little. He is writing a Proustian epic wherein he turns his unpublished  poems into fiction. He wants to found a Press when he gets his finances in order. He is both very sweet and socially maladroit–probably somewhere on the autism spectrum. He is more attractive than you think when you’re brushing by with your coffee, trying not to be noticed. I was grateful, after all, for his company.

Actually got some writing done in the hotel room. Transcribing now. . . .

November 23, 2018

Gray day after Thanksgiving, Maud sitting on the keyboard, making it hard to type. Lived in the Hyatt Place in Alpharetta for two nights. I like it there, feel vaguely at home. There’s a stair at the back that leads to a cinema, which I used one evening to see Bohemian Rhapsody, to which I was looking forward but which turned out to be mildly boring. Tried another evening to see the new Harry Potter spin-off, but the guy behind the counter (who looked like he loved everything Potter) said it was horrible and not to waste my money. Thanksgiving merry. Saw the new fire pit, the new pond, beat all three nephews in their turn at chess. Trying to remember the last time I’d played chess. We played on the set I got one Christmas when I was a child. Caught up on lives and projects. D & D have girlfriends who seem right for them, and careers taking shape more conventional than their uncle might have wished for them.  I was a pretty conventional kid moving secretly toward the Wild. The stories of most are the other way around. Daniel has a dog, who lingers in memory as a dumb, sweet kid, down near the floor. The story is that Daniel wanted to move with Michaela to Colorado, but David could not live without him, and told him so, so now they’re all getting a house together. What a beautiful story! I hope all the ends of that are joy and mercy.  Thought more than I needed to about my blackguard student, considering how one determined liar can do a lot of damage. I believe I am almost finished thinking about that now. Time is short, and must be used only for the best.

November 21, 2018

Calm Wednesday, preparing for the drive to Atlanta.

It’s pretty certain my attacker is Z, from many classes, who, ironically, I thought of as a kind of pet, whose always-radical but not always adept poetry I fostered and encouraged. Completely blindsided. I knew it was she beating on my house, but I’d put that down to an undergraduate prank, essentially endearing. Before all the gods I do not know how I settled in her mind like this. Never having done or said or thought any of the things I’m accused of doing or saying or thinking, I search my conscience for some crumb that might have led to this disastrous road. Emotional imbalance on her part is the explanation, but there is still the question of how it chose me as its obsession. I make the mistake of placing these things, for a little while, at the center of my life. I’ll have 4 hours on the road to Atlanta to mull it over. Lori confides that the same thing happened when Trans students invented a campaign against her, which someone, for a while, had to take seriously. How much energy are we meant to spend dealing with our students’ emotional imbalances? Are these accusations ever legitimate? Perhaps I need to hear of a legitimate one, to leaven the mocking anger in my heart. I still must deal with the observation that a handful of people hated or hate me to the point of public demonstration, and I do not know exactly why. Or even approximately why, other than that I have spoken the truth to them. On the other hand, I do not recall a very public or very vehement demonstration of love. Maybe the lovers are subtler. Maybe the fault is in me, in which case it is also hidden from me.

But I feel better this morning than I did last night.

November 20, 2018

Four bears, one big and three adolescent, tumbling through garbage cans on Graceland as I drove home from choir. They were cute, but I might not have thought so had I been a pedestrian. Some crisis approaches with the bears, and I will be sad when it happens.

Unexpected ally in my sadly renewed fight with the harpy from my former class, Jill, the Title IX director, who is on my side. It is just for her to be so, but I didn’t expect it, and so I revise my attitude. I can understand being vilified for a stand one actually has taken, but to be vilified for statements never made, for attitudes and convictions antithetical to those one actually possesses is strange indeed. All could have been avoided through inquiry and patient dialog, but something in the present atmosphere makes it seem better to explode in instant indignation– whether righteous or absurd doesn’t seem to matter. To be indignant is itself righteous. Reason and Truth have a hard time maneuvering around Indignation. Had to block my first friend on Facebook, who based an extended tirade against me on a misreading of a sentence. Suggesting she go back and understand the sentence didn’t help, somehow. Some of us do not have time for this. Some of us have work to do. On a note: I realize that the woman who was running up to my house at night and beating on the window is the same one who cannot give up her baseless hatred of me. Hope her wasted time never comes back to her. But, I myself have hated with a pure white flame. I believed my hatred based on fact, but perhaps it didn’t look that way from all sides. So, I am not going to pretend to too much innocence. 

November 19, 2018

Student reading Sunday afternoon. Dreary, Unrehearsed, and therefore inaudible. Terrible self-indulgent fantasies, with two invigorating exceptions. Sigh. Are we proud of this?

Tobi at Red Hen alerted me that someone had “edited” my Wikipedia page. I found there the most shocking and insane libels, practically hysterical in the level of vilification. Of course I know who wrote it, riding the same hobbyhorse that failed her last year. Just don’t know what to do about it. The charges in some cases are extreme enough to be funny. I am trying to laugh it off. But if even one person thinks this of me, however insane, I am perplexed.

Went early to the Racquet Club to lift weights, reconfirming my gradual return to vitality. Prayed last night to relieved of some of the old harassments. Maybe that prayer was answered. But, then there is the big new one. Does it never end?

November 18, 2018

Gleaming winter morning, Maud rumbling beside me like a little vanilla thundercloud..

Saturday was mostly given over to the 74th Annual  Asheville Christmas Parade. I’ve dodged such things in the past as devourers of time, but I have felt a slow return of vitality, and I wanted to put that to the test. It was, in fact, a devourer of time, but also fun, me waving from our float at the crowd, many of whom I knew, many of whom called my name. Arrived early to help decorate the float, but the men who usually take care of that had it so under control that all I did was hand them things. The parade was quite long, maybe as many in it as watching it. I ended up walking across downtown, first from north to south, then from west to east, the whole time measuring how much better my stamina is than it had been. In the evening we returned to sing for the Treelighting Ceremony. In the past the Vance Monument has been the tree, but it’s too phallic and too Confederate, so the spindly deciduous trees of the Square joined a giant plastic Snowflake as The Tree, lit elegantly (and rater gaily) in purple.  I hadn’t realized what an honor was given to the Asheville Gay Men’s Chorus in being the official and singular voice of the Treelighting. The city’s recording catches my solid bass on the carols. Sweet day all in all. My soreness in the morning came from working a body that had not been worked very much since Ireland last July. On some days, one fights back on all fronts.

November 16, 2018

Cancelled the morning class because the students had, cheerfully and forthrightly, not looked at the material.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses in a thin adaptation at the Carol Belk on campus. It was student directed, and the direction was actually its strong point, providing passages of humor and, in one case, loveliness. But because of the quality of training they receive once they arrive, or maybe because of the quality of student attracted to the program, UNCA student actors and productions seldom rise even to the level of an outstanding high school. You could see they were doing what they were told to do, and having a good time, but the magic never hits. It’s never theater, though it may have its virtues as pedagogy. It’s always the department showing its stuff, never art. Casey and Cody in the past were exceptions, but they came perfected.  What does the drama faculty think watching it? Do they think they have done their job?

November 15, 2018

Luke Combs, who used to sit beside me in the All Souls choir, won Best Newcomer at the Country Music Awards. Astonishing.

Body covered in deep scratches. Looks like I’ve been fighting with a wildcat, but it must be me, probably in my sleep. Time to look to the fingernails. 

Looks like Magnetic is going to do The Assassins’ Garden. Surprises me (it being complicated) but ooo-rah!

Made it through rehearsal with flying colors and some voice left. What is more, for the first time in a very long time I felt like going out afterward. Went to Little Jumbo for a few cocktails, chatted with Lauren, a former student, who is now a trapeze artist. Liked the atmosphere. Came home and was asleep practically before the door shut behind me.

November 14, 2018

Here’s what the Weizenblatt website says about Night Wings:

David Hopes is an award-winning poet, playwright, novelist, actor, singer, painter, and professor – not necessarily in that order.  He works back and forth between the visual and oral, between narrative and mystical, to create different forms of art that are evocative and compelling.  Weizenblatt Gallery will exhibit a variety of his paintings from November 7 – December 14, with a reception for the artist on Wednesday, November 14, from 6-8 pm.

David Hopes is Professor of English at UNC Asheville.  He holds a Masters degree from Johns Hopkins University, a Masters in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in British and American Literature from Syracuse.  Most would know him as a writer, whose most recent book of poetry, Peniel, is available from Saint Julian Press, and whose first novel, the prize- winning The Falls of the Wyona, is due in the spring of 2019 from Red Hen Press.  His plays have been done locally at the Magnetic Theater as well as in New York, Houston, Lost Angeles, Seattle, Cincinnati, Atlanta, and London.  Hopes’ most recent exhibit of paintings –”Works on Wood”– was held this summer at the Flood Gallery in Black Mountain.

This exhibit, “Night Wings”, are experiments, often rough in appearance.  Hopes combines canvas, plywood, drywall, scraps from torn-apart furniture, and whatever else is handy and appropriate, along with traditional acrylic and oil paints to create multi-layered images.  Several works address themes from the Bible or mythology.  Many use birds as symbols or metaphors.  They reward your long contemplation.

Can’t tell if it damns with faint press, prepares its audience for a mess, what?

On opening night he whole region is under a Winter Storm Watch. The weather is truly awful. I expected no one to appear, but in fact some did, most notably and pleasingly a number of Mars Hill students. SS and the Kostanseks appeared out of the darkness, and one of my Cantaria buddies. Interesting things were said about the paintings. None sold. The prospect of hauling them all back up the winding stair in December is almost unbearable. As soon as I left the building I was struck with agonizing muscle cramps in the chest, which interfered not only with driving but with breathing. Hobbled into the Sunoco for Gatorade. There the clerk suggested bananas, but added that she could eat neither banana nor broccoli anymore because when she was pregnant they made her sick and now she throws up even at the smell of a banana. 

November 13, 2018

Wintery cold, rain continuing. California is afire. Made chili. Suffered several publishing disappointments on each of the last several days. Cable TV doesn’t work. Kitchen faucet leaks. The department has had four retirements and no replacements. The yellow iris is a ghost in the back garden.

November 12, 2018

Maud the Cat has taken to coming upstairs and sitting on the desk as I write. This is a new thing, and sweet. I’ve noticed of these cats more than the others how habits change through time. Maud puts her paw out, reaching toward one, without ever completing the gesture.

Driving dark winter rain.

Triumphant discussion of Cantos LXXXVIII, XC, XCI.

November 11, 2018

Armistice Day. The saddest war of all wars, in some ways. Of course the Orange Abomination declined to stand in the rain to honor our sacrificial dead. He has done six hundred things any one of which would have sunk a politician at any other time. Absolutely unaccountable.

November 10, 2018

Since I couldn’t speak and there was no point in trying to sing, I went to the studio and painted well, inspired by the blank walls occasioned by my show.  Began paintings in a quite new style. Frustrated that the masses arrayed for the Studio Stroll weren’t coming upstairs, I closed up and drove to Mars Hill to take photos of my show. The gallery was, of course, closed, and some sort of dance contest going on in the auditorium. One girl in a gaudy costume carried two gigantic trophies. Ate lunch at the hillbilly sub shop. A different world. She seemed very happy. Worked the last several hours on Poets in Their Youth, which is finally near completion.

A great wind blew open the glass door in the kitchen, and for a while, until I came downstairs and found it, there was a gaping hole into the stormy night. The cats gathered in the living room as far away as they could get. I explored the rooms to make sure nothing of the night had come in.

November 9, 2018

Back to the doctor to get a valise of prescriptions. Got pneumonia vaccine, and my body turned into an ache. Why do they tell you that can’t happen, when it does? The winter hoarseness sets in. Teaching The Cantos this morning was, therefore, interesting.

Somehow photos of Jesse as a soldier made their way into my Facebook account. Heart staggers with, now, irredeemable loss. I have been more loyal–or desired the chance to be more loyal–than anyone ever wanted me to be.

Mitchell County students in an uproar over Parkway’s Shakespeare’s Complete Works: Abridged because it references drinking, suicide, and at one point two men kiss. I doubt that this was a spontaneous demonstration, but part of the Culture Wars, encouraged by parents and teachers. I want to walk on stage and scream, “Have you read the BIBLE lately???”

November 8, 2018

Extra paintings taken off my own wall and to Mars Hill, to fill one great gallery wall, though another is still and permanently black. I do not paint enough. I look like a hobbyist. But the show looks good, I think, distinctive and arresting. I doubt that there will be a review, but I brace myself in case. Praying to the gods that things sell so I don’t have to haul that back up the winding stair.

Jim Nave came yesterday to interview me for WPVM. We spoke first of how we have known each other for at least thirty years. “I know what you were going to say before I asked the questions,” he said, “and I wanted you to say exactly that.” He recited “Prufrock” by heart during the interview– posing, but impressive. Later he said, “I memorized it, but I don’t understand it.” He talked about his friendship with the Hustons, John and Angelica and the lot.  We sat on my picnic table and recorded my crows and my babbling pond for ambiance. I admit that I do not know what will come of anything.

Hoarseness. Sometimes I can speak; sometimes I cannot.

Letter from Blackmore, who’s kept better tabs on my life than I have myself.

The election? Better than one feared, worse than one hoped. It still amazes that, given the choice between a bologna sandwich and a plate of vomit, some people choose the vomit, resentful that no one offered steak.

Students panicky after the second exam. One student with a grade of 51 and some of the most clueless answers I have ever read insists that she was in class and attentive every day. I check the record, and she is right, at least about attending. Why does she then understand nothing? I admit it’s a mystery, and bid her merely to try again.

Picked up my dry cleaning and the dry cleaning lady told me about her son, who had cancer. He recovered, but when he did he was addicted to the opioids they gave him for pain. Eventually she had to evict him. “The drugs were worse than the cancer,” she said. 

November 5, 2018

Gunpowder Plot Day. Doesn’t seem such a bad idea.

The Brahms Requiem went well last evening–well from my seat, and well from all I could hear around me. Kyle seemed content (and spent) at the reception afterwards.

Helped my 8 AM class through “The Waste Land.”

The thing I was sure I could not accomplish–setting up my show at Mars Hill–is accomplished, though I was right in one way: I could not have done it myself. Leland and Jack stepped in and did 95% of the work. My gratitude went feebly expressed because it is inexpressible. The show looks good in that austere room. I didn’t bring enough work, so stuff robbed from my own walls gets run up tomorrow afternoon. I believe this show is more important than I have allowed myself to say. How many artists get shows in the Weizenblatt? I hope somebody goes to see it.

November 4, 2018

Morning spent rehearsing Brahms. It was about as much high culture as I or my voice could stand, but it went well, and our esteemed director had no cause for a melt-down. Sam has come to sit beside me, and his accuracy and my rich low range make a good combination. Spent the afternoon sleeping and working on a play, then out in the evening to see The Misanthrope at the Magnetic. The Moliere was re-written to be about a rock star, Alceste, and his cronies. The actors delivered the couplets admirably, but that sort of thing reduces after a time to seeing how close the adaptation is to the original (maybe because it charted no territory of its own), and waiting for the rhyme, either to applaud or disapprove it. I did enjoy being out, though, and the actors were worth watching. Unfortunately, the hyena was there (she seems to be a volunteer at the theater now) and everyone’s pleasure was compromised. I flirted with a man in the row behind me, but realized I was just too tired for that to have any outcome, so made my way out into the dark. They had Prosecco, but I could hardly stand.

That must have been the right choice, for I slept exquisite sleep and woke feeling sounder than I have in a while. Erotic images at waking, which I have learned to take as a good sign. I do fear tomorrow, for I literally do not have the strength to move my paintings and set up a show, and yet that is what must be done. I don’t often leave things to fate; this I am. I have been taking as much iron as I dare, and mounted the steps of my study this morning without having to pause to catch my breath. 

November 3, 2018

What must be remembered before all is the canary yellow iris now blooming in the back yard. Is it an autumn bloomer, or one bewildered by the weather? In any case, it makes the world go around it like the axle of a wheel. It gleams out there long after the rest is dark.

The flu shot that couldn’t give me the flu has in fact given me the flu.

Staggered out last night. The streets were full because Bob Dylan was at the Civic Center. Driving up the ramp of the parking garage, the van in front of me hit the wall, stopped, tried again, continued hitting it until it had torn its front bumper loose. It drove away in front of me dragging the bumper. Stopped at the Yacht Club. Everything there was festive, happy, Dionysian, and I reminded myself for the hundredth time that I must go out more. Went on to the BeBe for the opening night of the opening production of SS’s new theater. We’d read the play in class, and it is always interesting to see how a production unfolds differently from one’s initial imagining. The staging was right–even the roughness of opening night contributed to the basement-in-Berlin ambiance.When people sang it was at its best. I did enjoy the night. My student Elliott attended with his stunningly beautiful Asian partner. What a couple they made!

November 2, 2018

Yesterday was an interesting day. I was so exhausted after planting the peony (and rooting up some mints) that I was, for once, truly alarmed. Friday morning there came a kind of haze over my eyes, and every gesture sapped my strength. It was difficult to draw a complete breath. I went to school, and while I was lecturing (on theater after Webster) I kept losing my thought, losing the word, and twice had to grip the desk to keep from collapsing. In my mind were Mike Herhold, who told me of the by-pass surgery he had to have, and Mark, the nurse in Cantaria, who said exhaustion like mine (I briefly referred to it once) is likely linked with heart problems. I cancelled my afternoon class. I convinced myself that I would go into the hospital and have a risky surgery and get some sort of horrible hospital infection and the surgery wouldn’t work and I’d been a slow decline and there would be no one to take care of me. . . . even came home before going to MAHEC and got my phone charger, trying to think of whom to call to take care of the cats, etc.  Of course, it was the least of all things it could be. My circulatory system is fine. My hemoglobin is dramatically low. Had I stopped taking the iron pills? Yes, because I thought they were doing no good. Apparently they were. My self-inflicted terror came to nothing and I sat in my car weeping with relief. I did get a flu shot (they were very insistent) and though they assured me the critters were dead, I got, for an evening, the muscle ache associated with flu. But I took iron pills and made it to rehearsal, which I had almost decided not to do. I was watching the evening news when the haze fell from my eyes. 

We read through “At the Creche” by Jon David and me. It is beautiful.