May 5, 2017

Bach on Spotify.

The rain has been long and doesn’t seem to be finished yet. Was trapped in the downpour last night, and coming home in it rammed into something in front of the theater. Whatever it was (maybe just the curb) seemed to have done no damage. Saw Stupid Fucking Bird at the Magnetic: an example of what can happen when a cast is comfortable with each other, with the script, with the director, and rolls like thunder from lights up to lights down. Impeccable direction; inspired acting. I think I was meant to like the script (a comment on The Seagull) better than I did. If it were done in alternation with the actual Chekhov, maybe? It is, in fact, just about as good as a pastiche/satire/commentary can be, yet therefore falling short of the power of a work that attempts the creation of a whole world. Most modern art is commentary on art that already exists, remakes, reboots, endless cinema series, plays made from movies, plays commenting on other plays. . . Original voices are thereby disadvantaged. The original is always more terrifying than another layer added to the known. Still, the fact is that I LIKE commentaries. . . myself adding to the sadness, I suppose.
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The House passes the punitive repeal of Obamacare. It’s hard to imagine the Senate coming to its senses in time to sink this rat-infested ship, but miracles do happen. The one and only reason for the hatred of the Affordable Care Act is hatred for President Obama, a hatred so clearly racist and classist even the attempt to deny it should mortify. It is the hatred of the little for the great, of the mean and greedy for the generous, of the trifling for the far-sighted, of those born in privilege for those who seized status by their own efforts. It is the hatred of the plantation owner for the slave who did not pull his forelock at the front door. Never did I expect to see such gleeful war of the rich against the poor, of power against the powerless. Paul Ryan smirking and grinning over having done incalculable harm to incalculably many may be the most sickening image in American politics, ever. What is most terrifying is that these half-men aren’t even ashamed. They’re playing to their cronies. They’re little boys doing mischief to earn the approbation of little boys as wicked and ignorant as they. I am praying to all the gods that the attention of all the gods is upon them, now.

The attention from St Julian Press for Peniel seems genuine. I’m waiting for a shoe to drop–either one-- but at the moment, I am sanguine and, from the tip of one abyss to the another, joyful.

May 6, 2017

Bitter cold for May. The upstairs window was open, and I can scarcely sit here and type. As long as it keeps raining I shall not fear a freeze.

Cutting up my old choir robe and turning it into art. Richmond and I inhabited the studio at the same time yesterday. He is, surprisingly, a bit of a chatterbox. We laughed. It was convivial. I left smiling.

Vetting St. Julian. It seems to be as presented. One shoe, at least, will not drop.

May 4, 2017

The terrible anniversary.

The Great Comet gets twelve TONY nominations. I can walk into a room and say “I am part of that.”

Lovely slow rain on the garden. I went to the studio, and after an hour painted over or rubbed out what I had done. That, too, happens, and it is well. K phones to offer me a show at the Weizenblatt Gallery at Warren Wilson, for a year from now. Happy with that; even decided what I will make.

The toad tadpoles arrive from Ohio. So tiny. I feel tender toward them pouring them into the immense and frog-haunted pond.

May 3, 2017

Days go by in a gray sheen, and I’m hard put to write anything here. Other days are a calliope, the tail of a peacock, an intersection of rainbows, and I despair of getting everything down even half as it was lived.

Rehearsal better last night. I think I have achieved my brief but not insignificant character. The green hills between here and Waynesville are a kind of paradise. I stand and stare into the creek that flows by the theater, in full contentment.

My session with K changed in the middle. He said he was hot and asked to take his shirt off and I said “sure.” He is beautiful. It was like being in the presence of a god. I could feel the hairs of his body on my body, feel when he pressed part of himself against my hand. It was amazingly sensual, without being–and I considered this even at the time– especially erotic. I left glowing and feeling precious.

Leaps forward in the garden. Assembled my compost bin, but considering the rate at which I produce compost, it may never be usable. Inspired to buy tomatoes and eggplants, and planted them. Bought a companion for my surviving paw-paw. The red-neck at the nursery had never heard of paw-paw and kept asking me to spell and repronounce it to make sure he got it right.

Today I assembled–with only a few mistakes–the mail-order arbor, and bought two kinds of purple clematis to twine over it, and jessamine to twine over a portion of the garden wall.  Talked with a warbler in the dead dogwood.

When I came home last evening a rabbit sat in the middle of the yard. He sat yet when I was inside turning on the lights, still, silent, as though he were waiting to worship at the rising of the moon. It was a sacred moment. I take this rabbit for the guardian spirit of my garden at least for this season. I asked that he might not eat the eggplants, but what will be shall be.

Prayed before sleep the one prayer that God seems willing to answer. For whatever reason–perhaps that– was joyful all this day.

May 2, 2017

Bought my sickeningly expensive ticket to Ireland. Did–alone of all of us–poorly at rehearsal last night, calling twice “line” in a scene where I have five lines. Steve bought beautiful flapper dresses for the girls.

May 1, 2017

Lost the actor playing George to an equity gig in Maine. Lovely Daithi takes his place, me feeling secret joy in it. Last day of classes, ramming through Modernism, reading the last of what turned out to be a disappointing season of poetry– much self-revelation, only three bothering with much skill. But those three have a future. All is well with one more semester. What, again, with the students who sat and did nothing, who appeared without so much as casting a shadow? One student wrote one poem (a fair one) and said nothing in class. What to do with her? Deep rain. The satisfying plop of a fat frog in the water when I pass the pond.  Orange and scarlet roses in bloom. Rejections one or two a day. . . . never does the rage slacken (you’d think it would after constant bombardment), never do the nerves stop shuddering.

April 30, 2017

Benefit for Loving Food at the Greek Orthodox church last night, nestled in a woody corner of Montford. We arrived very early, so I sat on a bench and stared into a sizeable bit of woods that begins at the edge of the playground. Did we do well? There was such din and distraction that doing well was mostly irrelevant. Two basses, three tenors, six baritones, and the panic belonged to the baritones. Sigh. Maud lies on my foot, squirming and rumbling.