Sasquatch

 

June 3, 2023

Intensive gardening. Planted devil’s poker, and acanthus which Jesse Israel ordered special for me. Watered. Done with all that before noon. Painted in the early afternoon. Still developing the image of wild animals at Stonehenge, sort of. 

Thought I’d go to the theater tonight, but the offering at M (I know by the trailers) is the theatrical equivalent of rap music: one dimensional, uplifting, morbidly self-referential and self-congratulatory, artless in all ways, good and bad. A featured scene begins with beaming actors each intoning, “My favorite teacher was–” The question of diversity is addressed by importing black actors to valorize black experience to a (one supposes) white audience. This is, I grant, better than some other possible offerings, but is it what is wanted? Needful? I feel it is in large measure condescending. Can I trust my judgment in that regard?  There’s no attempt at discovery, but pure and direct didacticism, from stage to house, a lecture with–it seems–music. I go to a play to see a PLAY. M is backing off from that and staging energetic, loose-limbed, skit-night collaborations. I have no general criticism of that, except that it is not what I want to see. We emerge into Theater of and for Overexcited Lesbians. I suppose it rightly belongs to those who do the work. 

Watched a program before bed about Sasquatch and plesiosaurs in Alaskan lakes, and no matter how stupid I thought it was, I lay awake for a while listening to every sound outside.