October 31, 2010
Must praise Halloween in New York. The dark, quite streets of Long island City were haunted by ghouls and princesses, and Times Square around midnight was carnival, joyous and absurd, everybody talking at the top of their lungs for delight. Ever corner was a theater and ever gaggle of black girls or team of white boys in borrowed uniforms was an act.
Somewhat unintentionally, yesterday was museum day. Started with the Met, where I wrote in the sunny hall of all the broken statues. Concentrated on portraits, and came away with the lingering mirth of Raeburn’s The Drummond Children. All those masterpieces. . . sometimes the abundance is nauseating; yesterday it was a field of flowers. On to the Guggenheim, which had by far the most satisfying show I’ve ever seen there, Classicism and Chaos, I think, gleaming with Marc, Kandinsky, Nolde, Leger, Kirchner, all the moderns who had not abandoned painting.
Went to the theater to see if I could exchange my A Life in the Theater tickets so I could see Cody. Under a sign saying Absolutely No Refunds or Exchanges they exchanged them, so off I went to the Irish Center on Jackson Avenue in Queens to see the play called Wake. How quiet the streets were there! You could cross one without looking. Ghosts and fairies walked to parties somewhere looking quite ghostly and isolated. The theater– an Irish social hall-- was all very casual, and the actors were clumped up in the main room getting ready, and I talked with beloved Cody for a time, hiked off and found an Irish bar, threw one down with a guy who was rooting for Texas in the World Series because they were the ones who had beaten the Yanks. The play was three hours long, it turned out. This becomes an issue because it was also not very good. The first 20 minutes were electrifying, because they were brave and poetic, and in fact the whole piece was brave and poetic, but the plot was a skein of threads dropped on a carpet, the structure was chaos, the playwright far, far too in love with her material to have thought it through. But what it also signified was the depth of acting talent in the city, for whatever else, the actors were every second committed, “on”, expressive, working to professional standards. Plus, they had memorized all those peaks after peaks of marshmallow. There was a lot of shouting when all the passions were meant to be on display, but that too was over-thought, and misdirected into a torment of crescendoes, each trying to top the last. I suppose real family quarrels go like that, but real family quarrels aren’t so damn literary. Plus, by that time I’d lost track of both characters and issues and didn’t know who was being petulant and who was being reasonable. Was proud of Cody out there, handsome and professional. He had one long aria when he was trying to marry a woman he didn’t love, for the sake of his dead friend who did love her, and it was virtuoso, and, beyond that, real.
Then it was Times Square on the first night of Halloween. I thought “somebody should write a play about this,” but then I realized that somebody was, right there as I was watching.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
NY NY 2
October 30, 2010
Pale morning. I’m hoping NY’s bout with winter is over until I leave. Elisabeth’s performance was wonderful last night. It’s a tiny theater and I was on the front row, and if she recognized me I hope it was a comfort to her. 59E59 is three theaters piled on top of each other in a sort of cement box, a lovely idea, I thought, and the fact that each hosts something new and daring is brilliant, Had I known about it I would have spent all my entertainment dollars there.. I wish I hadn’t noticed with such grim clarity that Plath’s oven was electric.. Happy with my own part. My face was expressive, but way uglier in close-up than I hoped. Sprint then down to the Playwright to meet MA and Owen, who were late too so it didn’t matter. That bar was too crowded with pirates and zombies and Lady GaGas, so we came here to the lounge at the Paramount, which is very elegant, though it cost $120 for drinks for three. Great bliss talking with my boys, who were sunny and allusive and full of ambitions and ideas, the perfection of what UNCA turns out. I haven’t been able to talk about art and ideas like that since . . . I don’t know. It’s as sad commentary, considering what I do for a living. Their criticism of UNCA is that the professors let students have their own heads too much, and sometimes classes dissolve into sessions of undirected sharing. Some of the professors are not dedicated to the pursuit of truth, but more to the pursuit of good evaluations. I didn’t ask them to specify.
I will not get tickets ahead of time ever again. It causes one to miss so any immediate opportunities.
Pale morning. I’m hoping NY’s bout with winter is over until I leave. Elisabeth’s performance was wonderful last night. It’s a tiny theater and I was on the front row, and if she recognized me I hope it was a comfort to her. 59E59 is three theaters piled on top of each other in a sort of cement box, a lovely idea, I thought, and the fact that each hosts something new and daring is brilliant, Had I known about it I would have spent all my entertainment dollars there.. I wish I hadn’t noticed with such grim clarity that Plath’s oven was electric.. Happy with my own part. My face was expressive, but way uglier in close-up than I hoped. Sprint then down to the Playwright to meet MA and Owen, who were late too so it didn’t matter. That bar was too crowded with pirates and zombies and Lady GaGas, so we came here to the lounge at the Paramount, which is very elegant, though it cost $120 for drinks for three. Great bliss talking with my boys, who were sunny and allusive and full of ambitions and ideas, the perfection of what UNCA turns out. I haven’t been able to talk about art and ideas like that since . . . I don’t know. It’s as sad commentary, considering what I do for a living. Their criticism of UNCA is that the professors let students have their own heads too much, and sometimes classes dissolve into sessions of undirected sharing. Some of the professors are not dedicated to the pursuit of truth, but more to the pursuit of good evaluations. I didn’t ask them to specify.
I will not get tickets ahead of time ever again. It causes one to miss so any immediate opportunities.
Friday, October 29, 2010
New York New York
October 29, 2010
Nineteenth floor of the Paramount Hotel, with its teensy spaceship rooms. To my joy, my window looks down onto 8th Avenue, and most directly onto the Playwright Pub and Restaurant. All the scurrying shapes. . . all the yellow taxis. The water pressure ir minimal, but I guess if I were water I wouldn’t want to haul myself up 19 floors either. Flight uneventful (though, of course, delayed). The bus from Newark got tangled in a wilderness of its kind at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Somehow everybody got through.
Caught first preview of Neat LaButte’s The Break of Noon at the Lucille Lortel in Christopher Street. The play was not very good. Indeed it was kept from being seen-it-coming-a-long-way-off crap only by LaButte’s skill at dialogue, which makes you think, for a while, that something might actually be happening. A sensational premise (a guy survives an office massacre and becomes a prophet) wasted. But it must be said that David Duchovny puts in a thoroughly believable, nuanced, affecting, even majestic performance. His TV work has been concealing a truly fine actor. The acting in general was quite good. The producer joked that last night’s performance would differ from all others because it was the first premiere and changes would be made. Unfortunately, the things that can be changed need not be changed. The thing that needs to be, probably cannot.
Muscular Hispanic boys were doing gymnastics on a scaffold. My cabbie got honked at as he took pictures with his cell phone.
The play was not only disappointing but quite short, and I went to the brink of drunkenness in a bar next door, which was either gay or African American, maybe both. They dude next to me related how Bedford Stuyvesant is now a quiet and safe place to live. The free hors d’oeuvres were magnificent.
At midnight I was at one of those little tables on Times Square, eating my tuna fish salad. I was happy.
Meeting with my director in a café on Broadway and 86th. I took the train early because I’ve had so little time to explore the Upper West Side. Lovely, stately, quiet as New York counts that quality, an old Jewish neighborhood where the kids were screaming and laughing at recess at the Yeshiva. Spectacular (if eclectic-to-the-point-of-hideous) memorial to the Union dead of the Civil War. Standing there I received inspiration for the third part of my Lincoln trilogy. The trip was worth it if only that should happen. The golden leaves of the locusts gave all the scene royalty. A sprig of kudzu flourished in the little rose garden against Riverside Drive. I wonder if anyone in authority knows that?
I didn’t want the meeting with SB to be too business-like, but he did steer the conversation immediately to The Loves of Mr. Lincoln. What can I say? I expected him to say that they had dropped the project, but he was horrified at the thought. It seems to be in a suspension zone, not as near to realization as I had hoped, much nearer than I had feared. Much uncertainty comes from their determination for find a “star” to play Lincoln. “We’ve sent it to two people so far and they LOVED it.” What does that mean in ordinary speech? If they loved it then why– well, anyway, I came from the meeting neither elated nor distressed, so I suppose that is well enough. I hoped the meeting would be like someone kicking a stone at the top of a hill, which ends up in a landslide, but we’ll see. SB has done a lot of work on the script, and made suggestions that are actually useful.
On to MOMA, where there is now an important exhibit of Abstract Expressionism. I came away muttering to myself, “that Jackson Pollock is just not a good painter.” Compared to people in the room with him, Pousset-Dart, Klein, de Kooning, etc, he is their inferior in every measure but reputation. There’s no denying the power of the drip paintings, but whatever excuse we make for them, they APPEAR to have been made by simply throwing paint around, an accusation made by the public against most modern painting, and a perception modern painting seems to want to canonize by accepting Pollock as its god. It’s a kind of counter-Reformation which says, “we are going to make our orthodoxy that which you despise most, and we are doing so BECAUSE you despise it.” One might interpret this another way, as “We hate the tradition of our art so much that we will apotheosize someone who seems not to have profited from one lesson of its thousand years of striving.” It is an odd fact that no one has ever revolutionized an art form by intending to. The A-Es simply tried to hard, and though some of the work stirs my soul, the school is–even now– a moment in history only, not the paths ages, or even decades, will tread.
Nineteenth floor of the Paramount Hotel, with its teensy spaceship rooms. To my joy, my window looks down onto 8th Avenue, and most directly onto the Playwright Pub and Restaurant. All the scurrying shapes. . . all the yellow taxis. The water pressure ir minimal, but I guess if I were water I wouldn’t want to haul myself up 19 floors either. Flight uneventful (though, of course, delayed). The bus from Newark got tangled in a wilderness of its kind at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Somehow everybody got through.
Caught first preview of Neat LaButte’s The Break of Noon at the Lucille Lortel in Christopher Street. The play was not very good. Indeed it was kept from being seen-it-coming-a-long-way-off crap only by LaButte’s skill at dialogue, which makes you think, for a while, that something might actually be happening. A sensational premise (a guy survives an office massacre and becomes a prophet) wasted. But it must be said that David Duchovny puts in a thoroughly believable, nuanced, affecting, even majestic performance. His TV work has been concealing a truly fine actor. The acting in general was quite good. The producer joked that last night’s performance would differ from all others because it was the first premiere and changes would be made. Unfortunately, the things that can be changed need not be changed. The thing that needs to be, probably cannot.
Muscular Hispanic boys were doing gymnastics on a scaffold. My cabbie got honked at as he took pictures with his cell phone.
The play was not only disappointing but quite short, and I went to the brink of drunkenness in a bar next door, which was either gay or African American, maybe both. They dude next to me related how Bedford Stuyvesant is now a quiet and safe place to live. The free hors d’oeuvres were magnificent.
At midnight I was at one of those little tables on Times Square, eating my tuna fish salad. I was happy.
Meeting with my director in a café on Broadway and 86th. I took the train early because I’ve had so little time to explore the Upper West Side. Lovely, stately, quiet as New York counts that quality, an old Jewish neighborhood where the kids were screaming and laughing at recess at the Yeshiva. Spectacular (if eclectic-to-the-point-of-hideous) memorial to the Union dead of the Civil War. Standing there I received inspiration for the third part of my Lincoln trilogy. The trip was worth it if only that should happen. The golden leaves of the locusts gave all the scene royalty. A sprig of kudzu flourished in the little rose garden against Riverside Drive. I wonder if anyone in authority knows that?
I didn’t want the meeting with SB to be too business-like, but he did steer the conversation immediately to The Loves of Mr. Lincoln. What can I say? I expected him to say that they had dropped the project, but he was horrified at the thought. It seems to be in a suspension zone, not as near to realization as I had hoped, much nearer than I had feared. Much uncertainty comes from their determination for find a “star” to play Lincoln. “We’ve sent it to two people so far and they LOVED it.” What does that mean in ordinary speech? If they loved it then why– well, anyway, I came from the meeting neither elated nor distressed, so I suppose that is well enough. I hoped the meeting would be like someone kicking a stone at the top of a hill, which ends up in a landslide, but we’ll see. SB has done a lot of work on the script, and made suggestions that are actually useful.
On to MOMA, where there is now an important exhibit of Abstract Expressionism. I came away muttering to myself, “that Jackson Pollock is just not a good painter.” Compared to people in the room with him, Pousset-Dart, Klein, de Kooning, etc, he is their inferior in every measure but reputation. There’s no denying the power of the drip paintings, but whatever excuse we make for them, they APPEAR to have been made by simply throwing paint around, an accusation made by the public against most modern painting, and a perception modern painting seems to want to canonize by accepting Pollock as its god. It’s a kind of counter-Reformation which says, “we are going to make our orthodoxy that which you despise most, and we are doing so BECAUSE you despise it.” One might interpret this another way, as “We hate the tradition of our art so much that we will apotheosize someone who seems not to have profited from one lesson of its thousand years of striving.” It is an odd fact that no one has ever revolutionized an art form by intending to. The A-Es simply tried to hard, and though some of the work stirs my soul, the school is–even now– a moment in history only, not the paths ages, or even decades, will tread.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
October 27, 2010
Rain. Good and ample rain.
Bill Greg calls from SART to report that I won the commission to write a play for them based on the life of Zebulon Vance. I get to wallow in ignorance until next week when I meet with the historians the grant demands. We all agreed I shouldn’t be forming my own ideas until I talk with them.
Rain. Good and ample rain.
Bill Greg calls from SART to report that I won the commission to write a play for them based on the life of Zebulon Vance. I get to wallow in ignorance until next week when I meet with the historians the grant demands. We all agreed I shouldn’t be forming my own ideas until I talk with them.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
October 26, 2010
My spider is gone, her web a sing thread whipping in the breeze.
The house hunt has become traumatic to a degree I wouldn’t have anticipated. I’ve seen two properties that I like, and letting them go (I have already refused one of them) is painful to me, and yet I can’t commit. It’s not money. BB&T allowed me to think I can have anything I want. But the question is, what do I want? Do I want to live like a hermit on a mountain, more isolated than I already am, however surrounded by acres and square feet? I sat in my house last night pretending that the night was the night of a mountain ten miles away from anybody, and I was, frankly, anxious. I called the tree guys to cut down the gloomy hemlocks on either side of the back yard, thinking that if every possible square inch of this property were lit and tillable, I would be content. In any case, my package from the nursery came, and I planted two kinds of lilies and two kind of fritillaria.
Some of this day has been brilliant, some has been (such as now) gloomy.
My spider is gone, her web a sing thread whipping in the breeze.
The house hunt has become traumatic to a degree I wouldn’t have anticipated. I’ve seen two properties that I like, and letting them go (I have already refused one of them) is painful to me, and yet I can’t commit. It’s not money. BB&T allowed me to think I can have anything I want. But the question is, what do I want? Do I want to live like a hermit on a mountain, more isolated than I already am, however surrounded by acres and square feet? I sat in my house last night pretending that the night was the night of a mountain ten miles away from anybody, and I was, frankly, anxious. I called the tree guys to cut down the gloomy hemlocks on either side of the back yard, thinking that if every possible square inch of this property were lit and tillable, I would be content. In any case, my package from the nursery came, and I planted two kinds of lilies and two kind of fritillaria.
Some of this day has been brilliant, some has been (such as now) gloomy.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
October 23, 2010
Met TB at 5 Walnut last night, to take in that venue’s unique charm and to catch up a little. TB was looking good, with what he describes as a “Big Boy” haircut suiting him fine. I enjoy his company. I cannot foresee what his plans to go to TISCH will come to, but we did consider my applying as well, and our living together as freshman roommates. Charming thought, but more exhausting than charming. What he remembered most fondly from our cohabitation in New York were my outbursts of profanity.
Ran into Kathy, late of the Usual Suspects, on the street. She and Les are opening a wine shop on Broadway. Less stress than a bar, for sure, and nights home.
Lovely high round moon over downtown Asheville, happy people on the street.
Disappointing news from the provost and the academic appeals committee, which, deliberately I suppose, misrepresented my response concerning the young woman dissatisfied with her grade. Doesn’t matter much, but it does matter some. There’s a world of difference between seeking the good and avoiding the blame, and that difference remains unaccounted for in this matter.
Oklahoma at the Thomas Wolf. I stuffed envelopes and handed out programs for free entrance. I have never seen so many wheelchairs, so many walkers. Good looking kids with lovely voices. I sat considering the virtues of predictability, a quality which I have left rather under-explored.
Met TB at 5 Walnut last night, to take in that venue’s unique charm and to catch up a little. TB was looking good, with what he describes as a “Big Boy” haircut suiting him fine. I enjoy his company. I cannot foresee what his plans to go to TISCH will come to, but we did consider my applying as well, and our living together as freshman roommates. Charming thought, but more exhausting than charming. What he remembered most fondly from our cohabitation in New York were my outbursts of profanity.
Ran into Kathy, late of the Usual Suspects, on the street. She and Les are opening a wine shop on Broadway. Less stress than a bar, for sure, and nights home.
Lovely high round moon over downtown Asheville, happy people on the street.
Disappointing news from the provost and the academic appeals committee, which, deliberately I suppose, misrepresented my response concerning the young woman dissatisfied with her grade. Doesn’t matter much, but it does matter some. There’s a world of difference between seeking the good and avoiding the blame, and that difference remains unaccounted for in this matter.
Oklahoma at the Thomas Wolf. I stuffed envelopes and handed out programs for free entrance. I have never seen so many wheelchairs, so many walkers. Good looking kids with lovely voices. I sat considering the virtues of predictability, a quality which I have left rather under-explored.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
October 22, 2010
One orange bachelor button seed fell into a crack between bricks on the porch stairs, and now blooms there in proud and lonely splendor. My spider continues her tenancy on the porch. Will she die when winter comes? I suppose so, though some must live in order for there to be spiders in the spring. Does she think of this blazing autumn as a lingering twilight for her and her race? Is she capable of melancholy?
The theme for today’s house hunt was inaccessibility: roads impossibly steep and unpaved on which my little Prius spun her wheels hopelessly, narrow ways with precipices on either side, hideous botches of architecture mercifully hidden in the high forest.
One orange bachelor button seed fell into a crack between bricks on the porch stairs, and now blooms there in proud and lonely splendor. My spider continues her tenancy on the porch. Will she die when winter comes? I suppose so, though some must live in order for there to be spiders in the spring. Does she think of this blazing autumn as a lingering twilight for her and her race? Is she capable of melancholy?
The theme for today’s house hunt was inaccessibility: roads impossibly steep and unpaved on which my little Prius spun her wheels hopelessly, narrow ways with precipices on either side, hideous botches of architecture mercifully hidden in the high forest.
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