March 19, 2010
Went to a reading at the university last night. Writing more fine than it was engaging. The interest was in the belle-ness of the lettres. Meaning tended to fade into the glow. Hilarious and informative talk-back afterwards, our students rather astonishingly well prepared with insightful queries.
Rose before light for my work-out at the Y. When I was finished, the sky was a gray silk, here and there shot with lilac and flamingo. I sat over bitter coffee in Mountain Java and wrote three scenes– all the way to the last scene, which was made at the same time implicit in my head– of Voices. Left from there to the arboretum where, to honor the glorious day, I hiked in the silver and blue forest. Sat down at a table outside the pavilion and wrote a poem. Stopped by Jesse Israel’s and dropped a hundred dollars on a golden peony and a fall-blooming scarlet camellia. Planted them, but also took a fit of brush-clearing, on the terrace, down at streetside, and the sad remnants of the deceased (except for a few shoots at the bottom) rhododendron. Scratched up heroically and poked viciously in the eye by the resistant foliage. Visited Ben, whose magic hands did their work. In less than an hour I’m off to St. Matthias to hear Dido and Aeneas. In short, an almost absurdly productive day.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
March 16, 2010
My sister phones that our Aunt Daisy is dead. Daisy was the one of my father’s sisters whom we knew best. She would take the bus down from Cleveland to visit us. I remember her young, tanned, vital, and the first vivid example of what I recognized as full-bore female sexuality. She was not like the rest of her women in her family; the ones I knew were frigid and frowning and churchy. She was bouncy, gossipy, happy, full of talk about men and her work at the GE plant. She rode the bus. She saved me once from drowning in Lake Erie. She was like a big sister sometimes, sometimes like a movie star, a whiff about her of a wider world. She stole her own sister’s husband away, a drama of which I was ignorant at the time., though I knew there was a feud between her and Aunt Alice. When relatives began to die and we began to go to their funerals, she was my favorite among them, though I was sad to see her become a grown, married woman, standing in the kitchen with her hands folded in front of her like everybody else. I don’t know that she ever laid eyes on me as a grown man. In any case, farewell. You are probably better remembered than you imagined.
My sister phones that our Aunt Daisy is dead. Daisy was the one of my father’s sisters whom we knew best. She would take the bus down from Cleveland to visit us. I remember her young, tanned, vital, and the first vivid example of what I recognized as full-bore female sexuality. She was not like the rest of her women in her family; the ones I knew were frigid and frowning and churchy. She was bouncy, gossipy, happy, full of talk about men and her work at the GE plant. She rode the bus. She saved me once from drowning in Lake Erie. She was like a big sister sometimes, sometimes like a movie star, a whiff about her of a wider world. She stole her own sister’s husband away, a drama of which I was ignorant at the time., though I knew there was a feud between her and Aunt Alice. When relatives began to die and we began to go to their funerals, she was my favorite among them, though I was sad to see her become a grown, married woman, standing in the kitchen with her hands folded in front of her like everybody else. I don’t know that she ever laid eyes on me as a grown man. In any case, farewell. You are probably better remembered than you imagined.
March 15, 2010
Rainy Monday, the end of a break that I am not ready to end. I left everything go, of course, and now am faced with a necessary whirlwind of activity.
The American Guild of Organists sponsored a program with a group called Friends of the Groom at the Cathedral last night. The room was packed to overflowing, and the program proved to be simple–“childlike” is the term–and sophisticated at once, an outstanding afternoon of inventive religious theater and organ music. One expected. . . something else, I suppose, but what one got was better. I was moved to distress by the complicated thoughtfulness of a life–my life-- that could be founded upon simple faith, and the music and the dramatic scenes allowed me a vision of something simpler, more immediate, less subtle and regretful. Unfortunately, I could not sustain the uplift past the sleep of the night, and I am my old anxious self in the morning, but maybe a little calmed and modified, in ways even I don’t yet notice. Now, which jacket to put on, how much money to put in my pocket, what face to arrange for the day .
Rainy Monday, the end of a break that I am not ready to end. I left everything go, of course, and now am faced with a necessary whirlwind of activity.
The American Guild of Organists sponsored a program with a group called Friends of the Groom at the Cathedral last night. The room was packed to overflowing, and the program proved to be simple–“childlike” is the term–and sophisticated at once, an outstanding afternoon of inventive religious theater and organ music. One expected. . . something else, I suppose, but what one got was better. I was moved to distress by the complicated thoughtfulness of a life–my life-- that could be founded upon simple faith, and the music and the dramatic scenes allowed me a vision of something simpler, more immediate, less subtle and regretful. Unfortunately, I could not sustain the uplift past the sleep of the night, and I am my old anxious self in the morning, but maybe a little calmed and modified, in ways even I don’t yet notice. Now, which jacket to put on, how much money to put in my pocket, what face to arrange for the day .
Sunday, March 14, 2010
March 13, 2010
Troubled dreams, though they seem mostly to be about a messy kitchen.
Pale lavender crocus in the grass.
Woke remembering catching myself singing “Zueignung” in the airport.
My father’s birthday. He would have been 91.
Excellent painting in the studio yesterday. Except a woman came in and watched me for a long time before I noticed her. I thought that was kind of romantic, until she said, “Do you know where I can find the glassblowers?”
Zack left me a guest pass to Bela Fleck at the Orange Peel. It was very crowded, but curiously not too crowded, for there was no jostling or impatience, and people had enough room to dance to the music in their little spaces. African pop music is, evidently, very low-key, homely, gentle. I did enjoy the feel and the happiness of the crowd, and now and then shoulders would part and I could see there were people on stage. I really am remarkably short. Wandered from the Orange Peel to the New French Bar, where I had a drink and chit-chat with the owner and with Cyrus, a former student, whose band was playing later than I would be able to endure. When I left the bar the rain was torrential, and I shambled back to the car trying to raise a shoulder against the oncoming spears of cold rain. I’d love Home as much as I love Away if I got out more.
Some bird outside sounds like the ringing of a phone. I’ve risen twice to answer.
Albee asked me how many plays I had written. I counted this morning for my own information: 35 full length, 37 one-act or shorter, as of today.
Evening: Eventful day. I painted through the morning. As I left the studio and drove W. Haywood, I was flagged down by a prostitute with money in her hand. A prostitute with money out, offering it to me, was peculiar enough that I stopped, and agreed to give her a ride to Hill Street, to the Hillside Projects. She wanted me to wait for her outside the crack house, but I declined. Never got the money. I checked the car to see if anything was missing when she left. It wasn’t. Had to account for my loathing of her. It wasn’t her profession, for which I have a kind of cautious respect. It was her, the idea she had that squalor was the real life of which other lifestyles were but deluded postponements.
Coffee with Cody, back from Texas to do a little theater here before he tries New York, as I think he should. It was a fascinating meeting. I understood better (or for the first time at all) some of the things that happened during Crown of Shadows. He is elusive but attractive to me. His elusiveness is not intentional, but because our minds work in very different ways. He has the makings of a great actor. He sees more obstacles to the fulfillment of that potential than anyone else would, perhaps more than are actually there. I think I could write great parts for him. He said dealing with my works was difficult for him. “Why?” I ask. He answers, “Because you write real people.”
Just returned from the wedding of Chall and Lucia at the Diana Wortham, presented as a play about their meeting and courtship. It was unique and delightful in every way, and I pray launches them into a land of enduring milk and honey. I was going to say they set the wedding bar very high, but my actual belief is that nobody around here will dare follow in their footsteps.
Troubled dreams, though they seem mostly to be about a messy kitchen.
Pale lavender crocus in the grass.
Woke remembering catching myself singing “Zueignung” in the airport.
My father’s birthday. He would have been 91.
Excellent painting in the studio yesterday. Except a woman came in and watched me for a long time before I noticed her. I thought that was kind of romantic, until she said, “Do you know where I can find the glassblowers?”
Zack left me a guest pass to Bela Fleck at the Orange Peel. It was very crowded, but curiously not too crowded, for there was no jostling or impatience, and people had enough room to dance to the music in their little spaces. African pop music is, evidently, very low-key, homely, gentle. I did enjoy the feel and the happiness of the crowd, and now and then shoulders would part and I could see there were people on stage. I really am remarkably short. Wandered from the Orange Peel to the New French Bar, where I had a drink and chit-chat with the owner and with Cyrus, a former student, whose band was playing later than I would be able to endure. When I left the bar the rain was torrential, and I shambled back to the car trying to raise a shoulder against the oncoming spears of cold rain. I’d love Home as much as I love Away if I got out more.
Some bird outside sounds like the ringing of a phone. I’ve risen twice to answer.
Albee asked me how many plays I had written. I counted this morning for my own information: 35 full length, 37 one-act or shorter, as of today.
Evening: Eventful day. I painted through the morning. As I left the studio and drove W. Haywood, I was flagged down by a prostitute with money in her hand. A prostitute with money out, offering it to me, was peculiar enough that I stopped, and agreed to give her a ride to Hill Street, to the Hillside Projects. She wanted me to wait for her outside the crack house, but I declined. Never got the money. I checked the car to see if anything was missing when she left. It wasn’t. Had to account for my loathing of her. It wasn’t her profession, for which I have a kind of cautious respect. It was her, the idea she had that squalor was the real life of which other lifestyles were but deluded postponements.
Coffee with Cody, back from Texas to do a little theater here before he tries New York, as I think he should. It was a fascinating meeting. I understood better (or for the first time at all) some of the things that happened during Crown of Shadows. He is elusive but attractive to me. His elusiveness is not intentional, but because our minds work in very different ways. He has the makings of a great actor. He sees more obstacles to the fulfillment of that potential than anyone else would, perhaps more than are actually there. I think I could write great parts for him. He said dealing with my works was difficult for him. “Why?” I ask. He answers, “Because you write real people.”
Just returned from the wedding of Chall and Lucia at the Diana Wortham, presented as a play about their meeting and courtship. It was unique and delightful in every way, and I pray launches them into a land of enduring milk and honey. I was going to say they set the wedding bar very high, but my actual belief is that nobody around here will dare follow in their footsteps.
March 11, 2010
Purple crocus on the back terrace.
I receive a copy of Frank and my Cyclamen from ECS Publishing, my first published musical collaboration. I receive from Harold Bloom a hardback of The Sublime, which includes my essays on Whitman, Rilke, Shelley, my first bound-in-a-book literary criticism. I look at literary criticism like a neglected part of the yard, rich and promising, but it seemed I always had something better to do than tend to it. Plus, compared even with poetry and theater, the tides of fashion that tug at literary criticism are absurd and exhausting. But still, I look at the book and push new projects from my mind, quell excitement till a better time.
Spent yesterday working out and revising Bronzino’s Gaze according to impressions from the reading.
Purple crocus on the back terrace.
I receive a copy of Frank and my Cyclamen from ECS Publishing, my first published musical collaboration. I receive from Harold Bloom a hardback of The Sublime, which includes my essays on Whitman, Rilke, Shelley, my first bound-in-a-book literary criticism. I look at literary criticism like a neglected part of the yard, rich and promising, but it seemed I always had something better to do than tend to it. Plus, compared even with poetry and theater, the tides of fashion that tug at literary criticism are absurd and exhausting. But still, I look at the book and push new projects from my mind, quell excitement till a better time.
Spent yesterday working out and revising Bronzino’s Gaze according to impressions from the reading.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Houston 5
March 9, 2010
Intermittent sleep last night. I’d slept the sleep of inexplicable exhaustion through most of the afternoon, and I was revved up from the reading. It was one of those times when the acceptability of the prelude left no clue of the excellence of the main event. The reading of Bronzino’s Gaze went over spectacularly well. I was standing in the lobby beforehand when Edward Albee walked in with a protégé. Thankfully he did not remember me from before, and I set quick flame to earlier impressions, and we started over in a little huddle in the lobby. I mentioned that I have acted almost all of his plays, most recently Virginia Woolf, and that gave us something objective to talk about. “That is, of course, George’s play,” says he. He was sharp, engaged, luminously anecdotal. His protégé is writing a dissertation on Albee as Teacher, and had scars and evidence of a tracheotomy, as well as beautiful hair. It is terrifying to have Albee in the audience for one of your plays, but the terror had an excited edge. It turned out that he liked it very much, and at the talk-back defended it against opinion-givers whose opinions he thought misguided. When the dramaturg repeated my question of what speech or monolog could be left out, Albee said, “I’ll be damned if I know what it is.” The lyricism of my language was praised (I was sitting there thinking it was far too dry) and when the term “blow job” was objected to, Albee said to the objector, “You’re just upset because the blow job wasn’t live and performed on stage.” In any case, a far more satisfying outcome than I expected in the middle of the afternoon.
“What do you have coming up?” says I to Edward Albee. “Oh,” says he, “ a play called Me, Myself, and I in New York in September.” I said “I will be there.” And I will.
Nick, the young man sent to pick me up at the airport, was told to look for “Your dad, with red hair.” I found that rather dear.
Evening: There was snow on the north sides of the mountains as we approached Asheville. Everyone in Houston, when told I was from here, said, “Oh, that is beautiful country, isn’t it?” The arty ones said, “That’s really getting a name for itself as a center for the arts.” Does everyone believe this, or is it just what one says?
I have the feeling that my time in Houston was wildly successful. I’ll stop at that, no analysis, no second thoughts.
Intermittent sleep last night. I’d slept the sleep of inexplicable exhaustion through most of the afternoon, and I was revved up from the reading. It was one of those times when the acceptability of the prelude left no clue of the excellence of the main event. The reading of Bronzino’s Gaze went over spectacularly well. I was standing in the lobby beforehand when Edward Albee walked in with a protégé. Thankfully he did not remember me from before, and I set quick flame to earlier impressions, and we started over in a little huddle in the lobby. I mentioned that I have acted almost all of his plays, most recently Virginia Woolf, and that gave us something objective to talk about. “That is, of course, George’s play,” says he. He was sharp, engaged, luminously anecdotal. His protégé is writing a dissertation on Albee as Teacher, and had scars and evidence of a tracheotomy, as well as beautiful hair. It is terrifying to have Albee in the audience for one of your plays, but the terror had an excited edge. It turned out that he liked it very much, and at the talk-back defended it against opinion-givers whose opinions he thought misguided. When the dramaturg repeated my question of what speech or monolog could be left out, Albee said, “I’ll be damned if I know what it is.” The lyricism of my language was praised (I was sitting there thinking it was far too dry) and when the term “blow job” was objected to, Albee said to the objector, “You’re just upset because the blow job wasn’t live and performed on stage.” In any case, a far more satisfying outcome than I expected in the middle of the afternoon.
“What do you have coming up?” says I to Edward Albee. “Oh,” says he, “ a play called Me, Myself, and I in New York in September.” I said “I will be there.” And I will.
Nick, the young man sent to pick me up at the airport, was told to look for “Your dad, with red hair.” I found that rather dear.
Evening: There was snow on the north sides of the mountains as we approached Asheville. Everyone in Houston, when told I was from here, said, “Oh, that is beautiful country, isn’t it?” The arty ones said, “That’s really getting a name for itself as a center for the arts.” Does everyone believe this, or is it just what one says?
I have the feeling that my time in Houston was wildly successful. I’ll stop at that, no analysis, no second thoughts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)