June 13, 2011
The roofers are busy on Carolyn’s house just outside my study window, so I have to be careful how I curse at the printer and the Internet.
Grueling Sunday just past, singing for three services and the last full Cantaria rehearsal before the dress, and then the concert. Anxiety over missing the studio stroll dissipated because I couldn’t have mounted those broiling stairs anyway. Vomited during Cantaria (no one knew) and, when I finally came home, tightness in my chest hinted to me that I was having a heart attack. Even when I found that the tightness in my chest was exactly that, a cramping muscle that I worked out with my fingers, anxiety did not fully pass away. I slept fine, but with a strange dream. I was following somebody in my car in Cuyahoga Falls, when I missed a turn. The streets were very wide and made of red brick. I was backing up to make the right turn, when I saw an accident happening in my rearview mirror. A convertible car flipped over and a teenage boy came tumbling out. I backed up to help him, but he had turned into a talking cat. The cat was incoherent, but apparently not badly hurt. The owners of the cat came up and assured me he was OK, and then we went driving all together, where, I am not sure. When I woke this morning I was still anxious about how I felt, so I did what I did after my heart surgery when I was feeling iffy. I went to the Y and ran flat out for 1.8 miles before I finished off jogging, then did an impressive weight set. Clearly I was not having a heart attack, and I feel better now than I have in days. I think the discomfort was pure anxiety, about the day, and more distantly about Cambridge, for which everything is almost, but not quite, ready.
The roofers are whistling along to my CD. They do not know they are whistling Lassus.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
June 12, 2011
Relatively hellish day at the studio stroll yesterday; nevertheless, the fact that duties at church will keep me largely away from today’s round fills me with disappointment and anxiety. The hope of selling one piece at my ludicrously deflated prices is so tempting, such a seal on otherwise invisible effort, that I can barely resist abiding for hours in heat and boredom to allow it. Some interesting visitors–mostly kids, and Ed K, and Erica–but mostly hours of furtive painting and glancing out of my windows toward the real action. Did revise Michael Furey. Our parking lot was taken up with vendors, which infuriated me. This one weekend there should be no vendors but us.
Linda home with happy tales of the Caribbean cruise with the boys. Both found girlfriends, who themselves were best friends. They were love sick all day yesterday, the day of the parting from their new friends. It is dear and sweet only from this perspective. I remember it, and from that perspective it is agony. It is the first agony. I remember coming home from camp with that feeling, the two prongs of love and bereavement, only it was over a boy, and could not be spoken of, and all that emotion had to sink down inside and remain–but for poetry–mute. And in fact, that same week, lovesick and inarticulate, I wrote my first poem.
They won’t need take such a life-determining step.
The more I steep in the words just written, the more I understand one of the pivotal moments of my life– from the perspective of vocation. THE pivotal moment. Like Apollo plaiting Daphne’s branches, I came to art through thwarted love. My situation was more complicated that Apollo’s, though, for though he could sing directly of the thing lost, it would be decades before anyone could sing outright my song, and decades before I would know how to do it. All those pages of ancient poetry prepared one for something different. Whether the needful indirection was glory or tragedy cannot now be known. I think both.
Andy took the very day they returned to slap Linda with a subpoena to appear in court, where he intends to cut child support for his sons. He is an envious, warped, hypocritical creep, always going on mission journeys but damaging anyone who is actually within his grasp. Linda’s nature is excessively merciful. I heard myself hissing over the phone like some demon, “take the bastard for all that he’s worth.” But some do deserve to be taken for all they’re worth.
Relatively hellish day at the studio stroll yesterday; nevertheless, the fact that duties at church will keep me largely away from today’s round fills me with disappointment and anxiety. The hope of selling one piece at my ludicrously deflated prices is so tempting, such a seal on otherwise invisible effort, that I can barely resist abiding for hours in heat and boredom to allow it. Some interesting visitors–mostly kids, and Ed K, and Erica–but mostly hours of furtive painting and glancing out of my windows toward the real action. Did revise Michael Furey. Our parking lot was taken up with vendors, which infuriated me. This one weekend there should be no vendors but us.
Linda home with happy tales of the Caribbean cruise with the boys. Both found girlfriends, who themselves were best friends. They were love sick all day yesterday, the day of the parting from their new friends. It is dear and sweet only from this perspective. I remember it, and from that perspective it is agony. It is the first agony. I remember coming home from camp with that feeling, the two prongs of love and bereavement, only it was over a boy, and could not be spoken of, and all that emotion had to sink down inside and remain–but for poetry–mute. And in fact, that same week, lovesick and inarticulate, I wrote my first poem.
They won’t need take such a life-determining step.
The more I steep in the words just written, the more I understand one of the pivotal moments of my life– from the perspective of vocation. THE pivotal moment. Like Apollo plaiting Daphne’s branches, I came to art through thwarted love. My situation was more complicated that Apollo’s, though, for though he could sing directly of the thing lost, it would be decades before anyone could sing outright my song, and decades before I would know how to do it. All those pages of ancient poetry prepared one for something different. Whether the needful indirection was glory or tragedy cannot now be known. I think both.
Andy took the very day they returned to slap Linda with a subpoena to appear in court, where he intends to cut child support for his sons. He is an envious, warped, hypocritical creep, always going on mission journeys but damaging anyone who is actually within his grasp. Linda’s nature is excessively merciful. I heard myself hissing over the phone like some demon, “take the bastard for all that he’s worth.” But some do deserve to be taken for all they’re worth.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
June 11, 2011
Dawn before the summer gallery stroll. I think I’m as set up for I as I need to be.
Good production of The Glass Menagerie at NC Stage. Amanda was flawless. Some directorial or interpretive eccentricities, though new things must be tried so modern classics don’t become a kind of Chinese opera of received interpretations. JC and I did a panel discussion afterwards about the gay playwright. That was not the forum to get into it, but, if asked, I would have said that the time of the “gay playwright” is passed and I am not one. . . except for being gay and a playwright. . . a difficult concept to explain. What I aim for is an art where a gay character’s sexual identity is no more an issue than it is for Macbeth or Henry Higgins. The time of the how-heroic-it-is-to-come-out play or the we-are-all–girls-beneath-the-skin musical where the paramount of self-realization is to put on a bustier is gone, and I squirm when I have to sit through them. It’s like a black troupe thinking it must put on a minstrel show. Anyhow, we got through it, and had a drink across the street among all the rowdy 20 somethings. ID’s were being checked. The enormous tattooed bouncer scorned mine and said, “you’re great.” Those little daily heartbreaks. . . . .
Dawn before the summer gallery stroll. I think I’m as set up for I as I need to be.
Good production of The Glass Menagerie at NC Stage. Amanda was flawless. Some directorial or interpretive eccentricities, though new things must be tried so modern classics don’t become a kind of Chinese opera of received interpretations. JC and I did a panel discussion afterwards about the gay playwright. That was not the forum to get into it, but, if asked, I would have said that the time of the “gay playwright” is passed and I am not one. . . except for being gay and a playwright. . . a difficult concept to explain. What I aim for is an art where a gay character’s sexual identity is no more an issue than it is for Macbeth or Henry Higgins. The time of the how-heroic-it-is-to-come-out play or the we-are-all–girls-beneath-the-skin musical where the paramount of self-realization is to put on a bustier is gone, and I squirm when I have to sit through them. It’s like a black troupe thinking it must put on a minstrel show. Anyhow, we got through it, and had a drink across the street among all the rowdy 20 somethings. ID’s were being checked. The enormous tattooed bouncer scorned mine and said, “you’re great.” Those little daily heartbreaks. . . . .
Friday, June 10, 2011
June 9, 2011
The Saharan weather seems to have been good for the hydrangeas, which are blazing acid blue in the gray-yellow dawn.
Strangely healing dream. I was ranging over wide, rolling meadows when I came to a small forest, and in it a stone cave or grotto. At the mouth of the cave was a toad. The toad seemed very large sometimes, very small at other times. I picked the toad up, and carried it to house, and set it down in the anemone thicket on the terrace, where I thought it might be happy. At that moment began the most beautiful and soothing rain.
The Saharan weather seems to have been good for the hydrangeas, which are blazing acid blue in the gray-yellow dawn.
Strangely healing dream. I was ranging over wide, rolling meadows when I came to a small forest, and in it a stone cave or grotto. At the mouth of the cave was a toad. The toad seemed very large sometimes, very small at other times. I picked the toad up, and carried it to house, and set it down in the anemone thicket on the terrace, where I thought it might be happy. At that moment began the most beautiful and soothing rain.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
June 7, 2011
Continuing heatwave/drought has me in the garden hosing and hosing, just hours before withering for some of my beleaguered charges. Rained for maybe a minute yesterday afternoon. Pulling gigantic weeds with roots big as my wrist. Dig down with the trowel and twist. Tiny tiny mosquitos leave wounds the size of nickels. It’s a jungle out there.
DJ and I watched A Room with a View and sighed for Florence.
Obsessed with finishing the revision of Night, Sleep, and the reworking of Love and War, now both, for the moment, accomplished. I can record life when it’s just life, but when I’m writing, hard, that energy gets sapped, and there is nothing on these pages to remember the hours by.
Continuing heatwave/drought has me in the garden hosing and hosing, just hours before withering for some of my beleaguered charges. Rained for maybe a minute yesterday afternoon. Pulling gigantic weeds with roots big as my wrist. Dig down with the trowel and twist. Tiny tiny mosquitos leave wounds the size of nickels. It’s a jungle out there.
DJ and I watched A Room with a View and sighed for Florence.
Obsessed with finishing the revision of Night, Sleep, and the reworking of Love and War, now both, for the moment, accomplished. I can record life when it’s just life, but when I’m writing, hard, that energy gets sapped, and there is nothing on these pages to remember the hours by.
June 4, 2011
People come to my studio as I paint. They ask if it’s disturbing me, but it never is. I like it. A bunch of kids come from the Asheville High photography club. They are so cute I don’t know what to do with myself. One kid sees me dipping my paint into the turpentine I pour into condiment jars and says, eyes wide with astonishment, “You paint with pickle juice?” Couple from Durham, NH yesterday. She interprets one canvas as my analysis of the conflict between Muslims and Jews. The title?: A Dream of Florence.
Finished the rewrite of Night, Sleep. It is 25 pages longer than its previous form. I thought I had been mostly taking things out.
Late afternoon. One whole read-through of Night, Sleep was dedicated to removing the word “had.” Chopped out 103 instances, and probably missed a number.
People come to my studio as I paint. They ask if it’s disturbing me, but it never is. I like it. A bunch of kids come from the Asheville High photography club. They are so cute I don’t know what to do with myself. One kid sees me dipping my paint into the turpentine I pour into condiment jars and says, eyes wide with astonishment, “You paint with pickle juice?” Couple from Durham, NH yesterday. She interprets one canvas as my analysis of the conflict between Muslims and Jews. The title?: A Dream of Florence.
Finished the rewrite of Night, Sleep. It is 25 pages longer than its previous form. I thought I had been mostly taking things out.
Late afternoon. One whole read-through of Night, Sleep was dedicated to removing the word “had.” Chopped out 103 instances, and probably missed a number.
Friday, June 3, 2011
June 2, 2011
Blast of heat, four days or so now. I don’t mind so much, but there is no keeping the gardens sufficiently watered.
Madly rewriting and revising Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers.. I don’t know why I have such a feeling of urgency; it’s not like anybody is waiting for it with hands outstretched. I’m amazed at how skeletal the earlier version was, a framework upon which a story was barely hung. I’m glad I hadn’t sent it out.
Chris offered me a ticket to Angie’s Coppelia at the Wortham, so I went. Sarah was Swanhilda, and outstanding at it. Her long strong arms lift her performances. The evening was magical in many ways. The corps was entirely children, but I’m not enough of a connoisseur for that to have made a difference. Have been reading Apollo’s Angels, so the history of this ballet and ballet in general was in my head as I watched. There was far more peasant girls prancing around on market day than I have a stomach for, but when it actually got to the story, it was told with dispatch and power. What I noticed last night was that the acting was excellent. A narrative was in fact being delivered without words. Mime and pantomime have bad names in the theater, and I suppose in many ways they should, but my mind was full of the possibilities of telling a story with the body alone, or using the eloquence of the body far more than it is on the modern dramatic stage. Why couldn’t actors and dancers have the same training in acting? The training of actors (I mean stage actors now) today is dismal, competing schools that glorify themselves to the detriment of the art. Screaming and slow-talking and emoting and God knows what. Can pantomime (in the balletic, non-idiotic sense) get back into the mix? One saw that the story ended with the violation of the doll; the fact that there was a whole act after that has historical significance, in that when this dance was born people were more interested in the spectacle of all those pretty girls showing their legs on stage than they were in the story. Modern dance had–but seems to have dodged–the opportunity to tell the story with power and skip the endless wedding dances. It went somewhere else, forgot half the things it has the power to express. I think this is what Yeats was groping for when he turned to the No.
The Asheville audience was, as ever, infantile and ignorant. How can a “city of the arts” have such barbaric audiences? The blue gleam of smart phones never quite left the theater–I wish my life were so momentous that I could never be parted from it for a second–and there came the dreaded, inevitable standing ovation, which is awarded here as an ignorant reflex and not for any special achievement. The theater was full of children, which is good in so many ways, but also surrounded one with squirming and petitions to go to the bathroom. Ran into Lyle and Alison. Alison looked like a movie star.
Ran into Susan, who was with a woman whose kids were playing in the Pack Square fountain.
Kelly gave me lettuce from her garden. Russell gave me a copy of his CD. He has one of those pure, American, young male Sunday-school going voices that one listens to partially with the conviction that listening will make one a better person.
Blast of heat, four days or so now. I don’t mind so much, but there is no keeping the gardens sufficiently watered.
Madly rewriting and revising Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers.. I don’t know why I have such a feeling of urgency; it’s not like anybody is waiting for it with hands outstretched. I’m amazed at how skeletal the earlier version was, a framework upon which a story was barely hung. I’m glad I hadn’t sent it out.
Chris offered me a ticket to Angie’s Coppelia at the Wortham, so I went. Sarah was Swanhilda, and outstanding at it. Her long strong arms lift her performances. The evening was magical in many ways. The corps was entirely children, but I’m not enough of a connoisseur for that to have made a difference. Have been reading Apollo’s Angels, so the history of this ballet and ballet in general was in my head as I watched. There was far more peasant girls prancing around on market day than I have a stomach for, but when it actually got to the story, it was told with dispatch and power. What I noticed last night was that the acting was excellent. A narrative was in fact being delivered without words. Mime and pantomime have bad names in the theater, and I suppose in many ways they should, but my mind was full of the possibilities of telling a story with the body alone, or using the eloquence of the body far more than it is on the modern dramatic stage. Why couldn’t actors and dancers have the same training in acting? The training of actors (I mean stage actors now) today is dismal, competing schools that glorify themselves to the detriment of the art. Screaming and slow-talking and emoting and God knows what. Can pantomime (in the balletic, non-idiotic sense) get back into the mix? One saw that the story ended with the violation of the doll; the fact that there was a whole act after that has historical significance, in that when this dance was born people were more interested in the spectacle of all those pretty girls showing their legs on stage than they were in the story. Modern dance had–but seems to have dodged–the opportunity to tell the story with power and skip the endless wedding dances. It went somewhere else, forgot half the things it has the power to express. I think this is what Yeats was groping for when he turned to the No.
The Asheville audience was, as ever, infantile and ignorant. How can a “city of the arts” have such barbaric audiences? The blue gleam of smart phones never quite left the theater–I wish my life were so momentous that I could never be parted from it for a second–and there came the dreaded, inevitable standing ovation, which is awarded here as an ignorant reflex and not for any special achievement. The theater was full of children, which is good in so many ways, but also surrounded one with squirming and petitions to go to the bathroom. Ran into Lyle and Alison. Alison looked like a movie star.
Ran into Susan, who was with a woman whose kids were playing in the Pack Square fountain.
Kelly gave me lettuce from her garden. Russell gave me a copy of his CD. He has one of those pure, American, young male Sunday-school going voices that one listens to partially with the conviction that listening will make one a better person.
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