June 8, 2017

Knee agonized, walking like an old man, the study stairs almost impossible without the rail by which to haul myself up. I think arthritis? A blood clot? Slept on it funny night after night? Then I thought, “it’s the shoes!” It’s always the shoes.  Felt some relief the instant I put new shoes on, though perfect restoration is a ways off. Terrible feeling taking a curtain call Monday morning and hardly able to make it across the stage.

June 7, 2017

Session with K- whose secular name is revealed to be C. He talked of being a TV commercial star and a performer in Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. He said of the Cirque du Soleil, “it’s not anything like you think,” which I contradicted in my heart, because I hadn’t any particular preconceptions. Much gentleness, much stimulation, much talk at cross purposes. He is stupid and kind. Stupid trying to be cunning is, sometimes, off-putting. As sensuality without sexuality is, after a certain point, perverse. One short play finished yesterday, the ending of another discovered at the café this morning. Relief in my heart over that like a physical truth.

June 5, 2017

Matinee for Haywood County school children. They were a good and attentive audience, and gave honest reactions to what was going on onstage– which is to say, they laughed when Myrtle was slapped and when Gatsby lay down in his swimming trunks and when everybody was shot. Spiritual upheaval leveled off by the dailiness of things . . .

June 4, 2017

Somebody broke into the shed last night. They took whatever was on the top two rows of shelving, but, to be honest, I don’t remember what that was. All the stuff I actually use is still there.  A drill. A giant tarp.  A machete. Maybe the machete’s being in the wrong hands is a little alarming.

The music from the original Godzilla drives through my head. It is actually quite motivating.

Went downtown for the Asheville Contemporary Dance recital at BeBe. Had a rum and coke at the Vault on my way. The recital was quite good. I thought that if it were in a studio in New York, it would fit in, would be treated as a peer among the best. Asheville is lucky that way: we have some art that is the equal of any, some of it innocent of its own achievement, and some that is so undervalued by its audience that it is almost laughable. I ran through my mind how exactly it is that one enjoys modern dance. Pleasant movements of pleasant bodies? Delight in abstract patterns, or in personal bravura?  If I choreographed I would never be able to pull completely away from the narrative, as both these choreographers did. Are the movements symbolic? Not always, nor does the same person or the same gesture always represent the same thing. Is a particular gesture or expression meant to evoke or suggest a particular emotion? Does it, or is it merely the hope of the artist that it might? I think it’s probably naive to ask for meaning, but I am always looking for it. I suspect the human mind in general looks for meaning and pattern, and will never be completely satisfied without. Stopped at a place called Athena’s, which I discover two weeks before it closes to make way for an expansion of Tupelo Honey. Downtown was thronged, and there was one customer beside myself in Athena’s. Stopped at Sovereign Remedies on the way back to the car, and then, for I forget what reason, at Ingle’s. Let me advise against drunk grocery shopping, especially when you’re hungry. To summarize, a grand night like grand nights of old.  Must get out more. Must get downtown more. Meet new people. I feel better in every way than if I had not.

Matinee in a few hours.

June 3, 2017

Sultry end to the day. Sent out manuscripts, mostly, and repaired some in order to be sent out. Had temper tantrums. Went to the studio and met a patron who bought the small Blue gray gnatcatcher on cardboard, and Bronze copper, a butterfly I had painted just that morning. I sent him off with copious warnings that it was wet and to be careful. Big, sweet kid, from Swannanoa, now living in Raleigh. He wanted the butterfly because his mother, when she was dying, told him to remember her whenever he saw a butterfly.  I’d painted it just that morning, having not in several years painted a butterfly. God is mostly a brat, but sometimes the timing is just right. Dance tonight, downtown in time for a drink . . . .

June 2, 2017

Movie night with the boys, the new King Kong, which, like the latest Godzilla, assumes the monster to be a sacred guardian misunderstood. This is a leap forward, and I am glad to see it in my lifetime.

Good painting (mostly the revision of a big old work) and heroic weeding in the garden. Got back into the market, after having sold all but four or five of my positions, expecting the market to crash. That it can shrug off the Trump indicates either madness or confidence; anyway, I’m back in at nearly the old levels, though I have, for the first time, whopping savings accounts– just in case.

Back to HART tonight, our first meeting after the Review. We’ll see what the mood is. Promised to go to C’s dance recital; bought the ticket, so now I must.

June 1, 2017

Parent’s anniversary.

Working on a new play. Twenty pages and I don’t yet know what it’s about. Painted in the AM. Returned to find G hard at work on my lawn, after I’d almost given up on him. The grass was long and the thatch now is heavy. He weed-whacked a bee-balm and a clump of sorrel, but in most things he’s exemplary, so the lips were sealed. Another client had him dig up a sizeable rhododendron because one of its branches was dead. He gave it to me from the back of his truck, and I have planted it, hoping lying in the sun for a couple of hours with its root ball drying won’t be fatal. I want this one to grow. I want orphans and rescues to prosper. Watered it copiously. Watered the new coreopsis at the edge of shriveling.

Z’s conversation topic during our session was, oddly, playwriting. He allowed me to enrich my conviction that to set out to “make a statement” in a piece is always fatal, even (or especially) if that statement is itself praiseworthy.