April 1, 2010
Proctoring an exam for my poetry students, I found myself writing furiously, completing the first scene of a play. The conversation is two professors talking about having sex with students, so I see where my mind had wandered. Tom had remarked that I never write about being a teacher. So, now I do, and it’s risque right out of the gate.
Endgame in drama class. It could be King Lear if it were only about something.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
March 31, 2010
Great crooked moon in the northwest when I passed Beaver Lake in the dark of the morning.
Moved the flat rock bearing the bird bath, and found under it the white coils of peony shoots, creeping palely sideways, trying to find the light. They’re already taking on color and aiming upward. I felt as good discovering and freeing them as if I had opened the Bastille. After running this morning I packed dirt into the canyons left by the plumbers. The damage to the flowers in front may be less than I feared (if still more than I wanted) Red peony feathers are coming up even in the raw trench. Huge fronds of the crown imperial rising, not yet blooming. We are about a month behind from last year.
Received a check from NC Stage for The Beautiful Johanna. The approximate sum I lost, as producer, was $3400; I think it best not to follow too precise an accounting. I plan to give most of the proceeds back to the theater, so that digs a hole rather more than $4400 deep. Better weather might have doubled the intake. Might not have. Was it worth it? In most ways, yes. As the playwright, yes. As a friend to my lovely cast, crew, and musicians, yes. As a citizen of the Asheville art world, I’m not so sure. I didn’t realize what an opportunity for hysteria in the Mountain Xpress comments page it was going to provide the local arts wannabes. But those who got something from it got something, and that’s what theater is for.
Found two reviews and an interview in Metabolism. I’d forgotten I’d given the interview, and assumed the reviews were never written. But there they were. I couldn’t really tell if they were favorable or not, but I was honored by the serious and intelligent analysis both UNCA students gave the production. I was proud to have been part of their education as scholars. It was like being the track upon which two champion runners won their first race.
Rush to the studio to paint as much as I can, exploring the nuances of egg tempera. I don’t know why it never caught with me like this before. Like painting with beautiful mist, or liquid silk.
Discussion with Mark Ramont of Ford’s Theater about Earthly Power. He probably understands that everything is frustrating, nothing is satisfying, everything is an affront except “yes.”
Great crooked moon in the northwest when I passed Beaver Lake in the dark of the morning.
Moved the flat rock bearing the bird bath, and found under it the white coils of peony shoots, creeping palely sideways, trying to find the light. They’re already taking on color and aiming upward. I felt as good discovering and freeing them as if I had opened the Bastille. After running this morning I packed dirt into the canyons left by the plumbers. The damage to the flowers in front may be less than I feared (if still more than I wanted) Red peony feathers are coming up even in the raw trench. Huge fronds of the crown imperial rising, not yet blooming. We are about a month behind from last year.
Received a check from NC Stage for The Beautiful Johanna. The approximate sum I lost, as producer, was $3400; I think it best not to follow too precise an accounting. I plan to give most of the proceeds back to the theater, so that digs a hole rather more than $4400 deep. Better weather might have doubled the intake. Might not have. Was it worth it? In most ways, yes. As the playwright, yes. As a friend to my lovely cast, crew, and musicians, yes. As a citizen of the Asheville art world, I’m not so sure. I didn’t realize what an opportunity for hysteria in the Mountain Xpress comments page it was going to provide the local arts wannabes. But those who got something from it got something, and that’s what theater is for.
Found two reviews and an interview in Metabolism. I’d forgotten I’d given the interview, and assumed the reviews were never written. But there they were. I couldn’t really tell if they were favorable or not, but I was honored by the serious and intelligent analysis both UNCA students gave the production. I was proud to have been part of their education as scholars. It was like being the track upon which two champion runners won their first race.
Rush to the studio to paint as much as I can, exploring the nuances of egg tempera. I don’t know why it never caught with me like this before. Like painting with beautiful mist, or liquid silk.
Discussion with Mark Ramont of Ford’s Theater about Earthly Power. He probably understands that everything is frustrating, nothing is satisfying, everything is an affront except “yes.”
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
March 29, 2010
Auditions for my playwriting class’s one-acts were not only successful, but bewilderingly so, drawing from pockets of the community I never imagined was paying attention. We had 3 African-Americans, which is 3 more than I have ever had at an audition before. My students responded with courtesy and high spirits, and I was proud of everyone. The plays themselves are, judged as a whole, better than they had ever been. One would not have anticipated this by looking at the playwrights. I too favor the attractive, the exotic, and must learn, repeatedly, that they do not necessarily produce the most interesting work. Flamboyant spirits sometimes expend all their energy on flamboyance.
Despite protestations to the contrary, J disappears. I think of him, and turn away from the thoughts with defeat and sadness. You cannot make people want what they do not want.
Exhaustion like a second skin . . . .
Auditions for my playwriting class’s one-acts were not only successful, but bewilderingly so, drawing from pockets of the community I never imagined was paying attention. We had 3 African-Americans, which is 3 more than I have ever had at an audition before. My students responded with courtesy and high spirits, and I was proud of everyone. The plays themselves are, judged as a whole, better than they had ever been. One would not have anticipated this by looking at the playwrights. I too favor the attractive, the exotic, and must learn, repeatedly, that they do not necessarily produce the most interesting work. Flamboyant spirits sometimes expend all their energy on flamboyance.
Despite protestations to the contrary, J disappears. I think of him, and turn away from the thoughts with defeat and sadness. You cannot make people want what they do not want.
Exhaustion like a second skin . . . .
March 28, 2010
Dark morning, something Renaissance on the CD. The end of Voices had been bothering me. Cocteau helped me, and I rewrote it last night into something far more– well, far less plot-dependent, less specific to a moment which, one day, will have to be explained.
My right arm blossoms with poison ivy picked up while hacking the thickets between the terrace and the street
Dark morning, something Renaissance on the CD. The end of Voices had been bothering me. Cocteau helped me, and I rewrote it last night into something far more– well, far less plot-dependent, less specific to a moment which, one day, will have to be explained.
My right arm blossoms with poison ivy picked up while hacking the thickets between the terrace and the street
Sunday, March 28, 2010
March 27, 2010
Days slip away in the journal, but that it because I was seized with a fit of poetry unparalleled since I sat in the woods writing The Glacier’s Daughters, and maybe with the same vehicle: the adoption of a flexible and accommodating form.
Replanted the leaning lilac. Its swelling green buds suggest the operation was a success.
Saw Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, and thought it very beautiful– except for a real-world envoi which seems to involve Alice (who is given Charles Kingsley for a father–how many people got that?) in the British China trade– one of the blackest evils of colonialism.
Some inconclusive minutes in the studio; hard labor in the garden, mostly trying to fill the ravine left by the plumbers. The vine gets my vote for the most tenacious item in Flora’s armory. Planted a big lilac to replace the one I destroyed (though it has leaves coming anew from the sides of its stalks), creeping phlox, and another ground cover I forget the name of, but which promises flowers of scarlet.
Returned to the studio in the evening. DMcD is afraid of me. I painted in egg tempera. It went well, and I counted the day, finally, as not wasted, in that regard. Watched Cocteau’s The Testament of Orpheus. It was wonderful. It featured Picasso, Yul Brynner, Jean Marais. I wonder if everyone notices how much fun Cocteau is having.
Days slip away in the journal, but that it because I was seized with a fit of poetry unparalleled since I sat in the woods writing The Glacier’s Daughters, and maybe with the same vehicle: the adoption of a flexible and accommodating form.
Replanted the leaning lilac. Its swelling green buds suggest the operation was a success.
Saw Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, and thought it very beautiful– except for a real-world envoi which seems to involve Alice (who is given Charles Kingsley for a father–how many people got that?) in the British China trade– one of the blackest evils of colonialism.
Some inconclusive minutes in the studio; hard labor in the garden, mostly trying to fill the ravine left by the plumbers. The vine gets my vote for the most tenacious item in Flora’s armory. Planted a big lilac to replace the one I destroyed (though it has leaves coming anew from the sides of its stalks), creeping phlox, and another ground cover I forget the name of, but which promises flowers of scarlet.
Returned to the studio in the evening. DMcD is afraid of me. I painted in egg tempera. It went well, and I counted the day, finally, as not wasted, in that regard. Watched Cocteau’s The Testament of Orpheus. It was wonderful. It featured Picasso, Yul Brynner, Jean Marais. I wonder if everyone notices how much fun Cocteau is having.
March 22, 2010
Two crows fucked on the wire outside my front window. I took this as a propitious sign.
Driving back from Waynesville I caught a small herd of deer grazing at the side of the road. They looked enormous against the dark wood, lit by the fleeting mechanical eyes.
In the Hobby Airport, a giant, muscular black man with a cell phone. I assumed he was a football played. Then there was a tiny old white woman he was pushing in a wheelchair. He was calling her “grandma,” and running to fetch her coffee. I thought, “I love America.”
Went downtown to see W Tower’s film, the name of which I forget, but which was far and away the best local film I have ever seen, shapely and mysterious, well-acted, the camera work like a good art film, still and evocative. The camera loves Cody’s face. I hope he took note of that. A handful sat in the BeBe with me watching. I’ve been in a theater with scores watching the really bad ones, and there is something to be understood from that fact, but I fear to know what.
Congress passes Obama’s healthcare bill. I’m sure it’s flawed in many ways–it is hysterically anti-woman-- but, however flawed, it is a triumph over the forces of selfishness and the astonishing deficit of compassion in the Republican party. I’ve always thought a one-payer system like Sweden’s was inevitable, and everything else but corporate greed’s stalling tactic, though in fact I don’t know enough of the subtleties to be sure. If it reboots his Presidency, if it upholds the weak and humbles the proud, then I am for it.
Poking around in my poetry files, I find many–as many as 200–poems which have never been published. Most, I think, have never even been put into the mail.
Two crows fucked on the wire outside my front window. I took this as a propitious sign.
Driving back from Waynesville I caught a small herd of deer grazing at the side of the road. They looked enormous against the dark wood, lit by the fleeting mechanical eyes.
In the Hobby Airport, a giant, muscular black man with a cell phone. I assumed he was a football played. Then there was a tiny old white woman he was pushing in a wheelchair. He was calling her “grandma,” and running to fetch her coffee. I thought, “I love America.”
Went downtown to see W Tower’s film, the name of which I forget, but which was far and away the best local film I have ever seen, shapely and mysterious, well-acted, the camera work like a good art film, still and evocative. The camera loves Cody’s face. I hope he took note of that. A handful sat in the BeBe with me watching. I’ve been in a theater with scores watching the really bad ones, and there is something to be understood from that fact, but I fear to know what.
Congress passes Obama’s healthcare bill. I’m sure it’s flawed in many ways–it is hysterically anti-woman-- but, however flawed, it is a triumph over the forces of selfishness and the astonishing deficit of compassion in the Republican party. I’ve always thought a one-payer system like Sweden’s was inevitable, and everything else but corporate greed’s stalling tactic, though in fact I don’t know enough of the subtleties to be sure. If it reboots his Presidency, if it upholds the weak and humbles the proud, then I am for it.
Poking around in my poetry files, I find many–as many as 200–poems which have never been published. Most, I think, have never even been put into the mail.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
March 20, 2010
Most perfect Equinox. I rose in the dark and finished Voices. Though I had planned other things, when I saw how the day would be, my thoughts turned to the garden. At first I wrought nothing but destruction, destroying, I think, a lilac in yesterdays attack on the terrace bushes, and in trying to clear out vines in one corner, cutting my spade into the white, surprisingly thick roots of my first peonies. So I went and bought a white peony and a white tree peony, a japonica for the shade, bleeding heart, low woodland iris, golden alyssum for the blaze of sun, and planted them all.
The Lieutenant of Inishmore at HART this evening. It’s a farce with mayhem, gruesome and hilarious. They did McDonough proud: it would be hard to imagine the piece better acted, more efficiently directed, the satire more readable even to those innocent of the cause.
Picked up Gerald Clarke’s biography of Judy Garland in Houston. Fascinating, but I’m sorry I read it. She was selfish and destructive to a degree no talent excuses, and her life was no worse than what she had earned. So much for over the rainbow.
Most perfect Equinox. I rose in the dark and finished Voices. Though I had planned other things, when I saw how the day would be, my thoughts turned to the garden. At first I wrought nothing but destruction, destroying, I think, a lilac in yesterdays attack on the terrace bushes, and in trying to clear out vines in one corner, cutting my spade into the white, surprisingly thick roots of my first peonies. So I went and bought a white peony and a white tree peony, a japonica for the shade, bleeding heart, low woodland iris, golden alyssum for the blaze of sun, and planted them all.
The Lieutenant of Inishmore at HART this evening. It’s a farce with mayhem, gruesome and hilarious. They did McDonough proud: it would be hard to imagine the piece better acted, more efficiently directed, the satire more readable even to those innocent of the cause.
Picked up Gerald Clarke’s biography of Judy Garland in Houston. Fascinating, but I’m sorry I read it. She was selfish and destructive to a degree no talent excuses, and her life was no worse than what she had earned. So much for over the rainbow.
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