September 6, 2024

More muscle gardening in the bamboo island. Transplanted peonies, put in St John’s wort, wondered why I took so long getting to a task which is not, after all, THAT demanding. 

Avl GMC is NOT invited to sing at Pride. We’ve sung at every Pride march from the first on; it is an absurdity for us NOT to sing at an event we helped to establish. Our performer’s application got misplaced or mishandled in some mysterious way, and we are replaced by the Community Chorus. The Pride Committee is now all lesbians, and the byzantine political strategies of lesbians are in full, and incomprehensible, application. I get through this life trusting that the people who rail against the patriarchy do so with full, if covert, understanding that there is a much, much worse alternative. 

Another mass shooting in Georgia. After every murder of children and teachers there’s an outcry to “harden” the schools and make psychological counseling available. That’s up there with “thoughts and prayers” as futile and hypocritical gestures. There is one simple solution– everybody knows it-- and everybody who does not spin his compass instantly to it should be removed from public responsibility. Remove the guns. No guns, no mass shootings. It really is that simple. Grumpy or alienated or infuriated people will just have to grow out of it or sublimate like the rest of us, and not lay to waste a generation– all too easy with an assault weapon ticking away in the closet. The saddest and most twisted mind in the world will not cause harm if there’s no weapon in its hand. Make mayhem exert a little effort. No one has a need or a right to possess assault weapons: this includes the police. Maybe there were second amendment concerns at one point, but constant abuse has worn that away. Abuse a right, lose a right, especially one not by any stretch of the imagination “unalienable.” Maybe we will have to fight the government or the police one day, but their firepower will perpetually overwhelm our own so that only the ballot box will be our viable weapon. I LOVE the idea of standing behind a barricade fighting against tyranny, but I know I’d lose. Move on to another way. We’re not concerned that children are being murdered. Not enough to stop it. We simply don’t care. This is not a canard but a truth repeatedly established. If you do not advocate reasonable gun control, you countenance the continued murder of innocents. If there were another solution, it would have appeared. We want it to stop by some magical operation when enough blood has been shed. We’re running through a munitions factory with lighted torches in our hands crying about safety. The solution is known, immediate, simple, inevitable. The last hundred school shootings have not been accidents. 

*

From Sidney in NYC:

SJB:

I am clearing out a decade of Emails.

This one has made my day, dear David.

It is Bitter Sweet (Noel Coward's spelling) as I am think of our deceased designers, Michael Hottop and Carrie Robbins. They were with us 100%.

SJB2ND

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 01:50:31 PM EDT, <davehopes@aol.com> wrote:

Just wanted to say that I think your directing for LML is bold and visionary. The parts that strike me particularly include the bed scene, which you have taken further than I feared we might, and justified the appellation of "gay play," It shows more of their relationship than the words could. The dancing scene between L and J, is touching and beautiful. You have taken the extremes of emotion (when people howl and cry) exactly to the limit, but never over, so it is cutting and agonizing. I am very happy and very grateful. See you tonight.

I remember writing this because I was infuriated by the over-acting, the edges blurred and the borders crossed. It was a way of exorcising my disappointment before we met again face-to-face