August 10, 2019

Downtown to the theater last night. I’d been drinking grape juice all day, and that backfired on me just as I found a spot n the top level of the Rankin parking garage. Made it to NC Stage, just barely, praising the Powers that they were open. Wandered, refreshed, through the streets to the drumming circle at the park. All was lovely, all those people drumming and trance-dancing in the dapple of shade and sun. Tourism does overheat everything downtown, but still pleasure comes out on top. Every cop in Asheville–at least every cop assigned to Downtown on Friday night–is blond and chubby. It looked like a family reunion. They stand in 3's and talk to one another with their backs to the crowd. Had cider at Thirsty Monk. Attended theater at the Sublime, which has the most committed and gung-ho audience in town. Even before the lights went down they had a stake in the evening. I liked the performances, lively and skillfully directed, and the monologs, without particularly liking the play. If a student asked me, “Is unity and provocation enough for a play just to imagine an event and have everyone sitting around talking during that event,” I would likely say “yes,” though it never seems, in the event, to work. Young playwrights don’t do plot very well. Sometimes it’s but a string on which to hang pearls of observation or bravura speechifying. But, last night, it WAS bravura speechifying, so one remained rapt. Outstanding chorus work. In ways impossible to explain, the performance was just right for the quality of the night on the city streets. Energy various enough to contain any state of mind. Stopped homeward at Little Jumbo, where I met Caitlin and Tom, vacationing here from Charleston. He is trying to write a novel and she does PR work, for among others, Rhubarb here in town. I told them about the play and told them to come tonight. Who knows if they will. I told them about The Falls of the Wyona and they said they were anxious to read it.Came home and, since the trend was set, sipped gin until however it was I ended the night.

Letter from Governor Cooper thanking me for Wyona and saying how anxious he was to read it.

Letter from. . . somebody. . . congratulating me for 35 years of service at UNCA. There was even a certificate.

Letter from the Dean saying she agreed with Lori on her evaluation of “excellent” for last year. She didn’t mention my faculty record, which contained a full page blasting her for letting Title IX run rampant.

Thunderstorm–the third today–hit just as I was typing “rampant.”