January 28, 2009
Irish music on the CD.
Monday the Egypt lecture went well, and my playwrights, meeting for the first time, were good-looking and eager. If I look at the right things in my life, I conclude I am the luckiest man in the world. I midwife the imagination of the young.
At Tuesday’s Titus rehearsal we did real work and made real progress. It is still, distressingly, a cacophony of Herods, each trying to top the other in sheer volume. Gregory dropped out of the loudness race by deciding the make his Saturninus a whining brat-- a stroke of genius. I can’t tell if J’s vision is aided or hindered by his kindness. Certainly he puts up with things I would not, but perhaps he is confident that all will come to the straight and harmonious when it must. When Tamora is passionate, not a single syllable is intelligible.
A very strange thing happened at the Y today. When I’m on the treadmill or the cross-trainer, I usually watch one of the TVs or scope out the other people in the gym, but this time I closed my eyes and meditated, running lines for a while, but mostly trying to concentrate on breath of rhythm, or whatever image came into my head. When I opened my eyes I had run the fastest mile of my life. Though still in tortoise range for the world at large, it was blinding speed for me, better than when I was a kid, better than when I was in Syracuse and actually dared to call myself a runner. Nor did I feel spent afterwards, as I usually do, but exhilarated, and ready for the weights. I don’t know what kind of phenomenon this was, one-of-a-kind or the beginning of a new era for me. I suppose I won’t know until I return to the gym and give it another try. I still feel good now, as though I had just left the Y shower, steamy and pumped. And righteously drowsy.
Wore a tie-dye shirt to senior seminar. I was surprised by the sensation it caused. Zack said, “We just didn’t think you were a tie-dye kind of guy.” I’ve already spent too much time wondering what on earth that could mean.
I think the sky this evening was among the most beautiful I have ever seen. It was stormy, and ribbons of multi-colored clouds streamed like banners from the north. The hill opposite my window was lit shimmering gold, while the sky above was pale blue and sapphire blue and agate and flamingo. The richness of it escapes description. That something escapes description is a thing I almost never admit.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
January 25, 2009
Kenneth Y reports that my inaugural poem appeared in the Hendersonville Times-News on the sports page, marked “advertisement.”
Saw Slumdog Millionaire at Cinnebar the other night. You feel good at the end even though most of what happened in it was just horrible. Like life, I suppose. Its assertion that some things happen not out of reason or as a return for effort, but just because “it is written,” is the truest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
An Ellet classmate writes on my wall in Face Book:
Really enjoyed the pictures and seeing you in a different persona than I experianced in HS. Many moons have past and your still the invirgorous soul with his own set of rules and living your life as you feel! Good for you David. What a joy to have you as a former classmate who has touched so many lives around the country with your acting talents . Please post your schedule so those of us may be enlighted with your craft! Hope your in good health and have the faith in your heart to thank him daily. My best to you and your family!
Live Life with Passion!
Terry Lee
It is touching. . . though odd. Many of my high school classmates remember me as a “free spirit” with my own rules, while I remember myself as a calculating conformist, steering a careful course between would and ought. Maybe more of what I actually felt broke through than I intended. This same person wrote me a kind note at the death of my father.
Speaking of father, ten times I’ve prepared–before thinking– an explanation for him of the workings of the Prius, imagining him fascinated by it, and praising me for buying one.
Dreamed vividly before morning of doing a performance in a distant city, staying at a vast hotel, and realizing I had forgotten my tuxedo. Getting a tuxedo there was an unimaginable ordeal, not because nobody would help, but because everybody was too helpful, measuring just so and offering me infinite choices in style and accessories. I woke and the dream was interrupted, but hours later, when I fell asleep briefly during the sermon, the bit of dream was exactly where I had left off dreaming the tuxedo dream.
Strange perception in church this morning. We were singing a hymn in which God asks the soul if she will surrender to him, go where he leads her, without asking why or where. At one time my soul could have answered “yes’ to this. But I have been fighting for my own road so long, I wonder if I am still able to take another. I wonder even if I remember where the road was supposed to lead. I think, though, if the Voice said “do this,” I would do it. I would be relieved to have a guide instead of slashing through the underbrush on my own all the time, unable to see ten feet ahead. Any time, Driver, take the wheel.
Kenneth Y reports that my inaugural poem appeared in the Hendersonville Times-News on the sports page, marked “advertisement.”
Saw Slumdog Millionaire at Cinnebar the other night. You feel good at the end even though most of what happened in it was just horrible. Like life, I suppose. Its assertion that some things happen not out of reason or as a return for effort, but just because “it is written,” is the truest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
An Ellet classmate writes on my wall in Face Book:
Really enjoyed the pictures and seeing you in a different persona than I experianced in HS. Many moons have past and your still the invirgorous soul with his own set of rules and living your life as you feel! Good for you David. What a joy to have you as a former classmate who has touched so many lives around the country with your acting talents . Please post your schedule so those of us may be enlighted with your craft! Hope your in good health and have the faith in your heart to thank him daily. My best to you and your family!
Live Life with Passion!
Terry Lee
It is touching. . . though odd. Many of my high school classmates remember me as a “free spirit” with my own rules, while I remember myself as a calculating conformist, steering a careful course between would and ought. Maybe more of what I actually felt broke through than I intended. This same person wrote me a kind note at the death of my father.
Speaking of father, ten times I’ve prepared–before thinking– an explanation for him of the workings of the Prius, imagining him fascinated by it, and praising me for buying one.
Dreamed vividly before morning of doing a performance in a distant city, staying at a vast hotel, and realizing I had forgotten my tuxedo. Getting a tuxedo there was an unimaginable ordeal, not because nobody would help, but because everybody was too helpful, measuring just so and offering me infinite choices in style and accessories. I woke and the dream was interrupted, but hours later, when I fell asleep briefly during the sermon, the bit of dream was exactly where I had left off dreaming the tuxedo dream.
Strange perception in church this morning. We were singing a hymn in which God asks the soul if she will surrender to him, go where he leads her, without asking why or where. At one time my soul could have answered “yes’ to this. But I have been fighting for my own road so long, I wonder if I am still able to take another. I wonder even if I remember where the road was supposed to lead. I think, though, if the Voice said “do this,” I would do it. I would be relieved to have a guide instead of slashing through the underbrush on my own all the time, unable to see ten feet ahead. Any time, Driver, take the wheel.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
January 24, 2009
Yesterday was extremely social. Jason and I had coffee together in the morning, then went to the studio where we assured each other that the room was much too cold to work in yet. He set up all my light fixtures–which I had actually moved up there for storage, but no matter–and replaced all my incandescent light bulbs with those twisty energy-saver ones. He fussed at me at breakfast for drinking sugar-laden hot chocolate. He applauded my recent faithful return to the YMCA with enthusiasm. All this makes me smile inside. I’m not used to anybody taking care of me. Moved my lap top into the smaller studio, where I can make a stab, at least, at creativity in an unaccustomed space. Jason notes that I would work better there if I fixed it up a little–it looks exactly as it is, the rummage left from my moving my painting studio upstairs–but the fixing up impulse in me is exhausted for the moment.
Jason’s exhortations, added to others in the past, led me to buy a Blackberry, which I am still wrestling into submission. The man at the phone store was a self-declared nerd, and showed me how I could download, among other things, boxing and racing games, and the ancient, Ur-version of Donkey Kong. I passed, but accepted the website in case I changed my mind. Nathan the phone man said I sent out joyful vibrations. I was glad of that.
Departmental wine and cheese in the Common Room. We are convivial without being exactly friendly. That must be right for us.
DJ and Kyle and I joined MP at Scully’s, to comfort him, or perhaps help him celebrate, his temporary return to bachelorhood. Afterwards, DJ and I scooted around to Commerce Street to take in a little of the Asheville Fringe. In the past I have not sought out local Fringe festivals, assuming them to be a sort of salon des refuses, where works which maybe shouldn’t have seen the light of day, do. I’m not sure that’s not the case, but I had not added into the mix the question of fun. The evening was great fun, belly-laugh and jaw-cracking smile fun–whatever vibration it had artistically. An earlier show ran over at the BeBe, so DJ and I had beers at the Thirsty Monk, which I liked, and which was full of former students, now drunkenly and rather contentedly unemployed. The show we saw was Chall’s production of Rock Saber, by Julian Vorus. I’d seen Vorus’ work at No Shame and thought it of exceptional promise. Part of the charm of Rock Saber is that it starred buddies of mine, each of whom covered himself in a kind of glory, playing to the hilt caricatures of the drugged-out life of the 5th-rate rock and roll band. The piece had exuberance to recommend it, a sort of boyish energy and gleeful vulgarity which sailed it out and over any criticism that it really wasn’t about anything, much. Gleeful vulgarity is one of my favorite things, and I laughed practically from beginning to end. Vorus has great talent. His verbal skills are superb, but he needs a vision worthy of those skills; he needs some shade of Cervantes or Voltaire peering over his shoulder, guiding him to something more lasting than the peal of laughter. Not that there’s anything wrong with the peal of laughter.
Commerce Street was alive with kids, not only at the BeBe for the plays, but down the street at a café, whose hundreds–or at least dozens-- milled around in the bright light inside and spilled out into the street in their costume shop clothes and their earnest expressions. It was beautiful. I will keep to myself that it was lovelier than Galway or Leicester Square, places I thought couldn’t be surpassed in youthful celebration. Students have mentioned the café, in such a way as to make me think it is dedicated to poetry. Obama’s inauguration and the crowd outside the poetry café on Commerce Street have been the best things so far this year, the things that give me a smile with a foundation of steel.
Yesterday was extremely social. Jason and I had coffee together in the morning, then went to the studio where we assured each other that the room was much too cold to work in yet. He set up all my light fixtures–which I had actually moved up there for storage, but no matter–and replaced all my incandescent light bulbs with those twisty energy-saver ones. He fussed at me at breakfast for drinking sugar-laden hot chocolate. He applauded my recent faithful return to the YMCA with enthusiasm. All this makes me smile inside. I’m not used to anybody taking care of me. Moved my lap top into the smaller studio, where I can make a stab, at least, at creativity in an unaccustomed space. Jason notes that I would work better there if I fixed it up a little–it looks exactly as it is, the rummage left from my moving my painting studio upstairs–but the fixing up impulse in me is exhausted for the moment.
Jason’s exhortations, added to others in the past, led me to buy a Blackberry, which I am still wrestling into submission. The man at the phone store was a self-declared nerd, and showed me how I could download, among other things, boxing and racing games, and the ancient, Ur-version of Donkey Kong. I passed, but accepted the website in case I changed my mind. Nathan the phone man said I sent out joyful vibrations. I was glad of that.
Departmental wine and cheese in the Common Room. We are convivial without being exactly friendly. That must be right for us.
DJ and Kyle and I joined MP at Scully’s, to comfort him, or perhaps help him celebrate, his temporary return to bachelorhood. Afterwards, DJ and I scooted around to Commerce Street to take in a little of the Asheville Fringe. In the past I have not sought out local Fringe festivals, assuming them to be a sort of salon des refuses, where works which maybe shouldn’t have seen the light of day, do. I’m not sure that’s not the case, but I had not added into the mix the question of fun. The evening was great fun, belly-laugh and jaw-cracking smile fun–whatever vibration it had artistically. An earlier show ran over at the BeBe, so DJ and I had beers at the Thirsty Monk, which I liked, and which was full of former students, now drunkenly and rather contentedly unemployed. The show we saw was Chall’s production of Rock Saber, by Julian Vorus. I’d seen Vorus’ work at No Shame and thought it of exceptional promise. Part of the charm of Rock Saber is that it starred buddies of mine, each of whom covered himself in a kind of glory, playing to the hilt caricatures of the drugged-out life of the 5th-rate rock and roll band. The piece had exuberance to recommend it, a sort of boyish energy and gleeful vulgarity which sailed it out and over any criticism that it really wasn’t about anything, much. Gleeful vulgarity is one of my favorite things, and I laughed practically from beginning to end. Vorus has great talent. His verbal skills are superb, but he needs a vision worthy of those skills; he needs some shade of Cervantes or Voltaire peering over his shoulder, guiding him to something more lasting than the peal of laughter. Not that there’s anything wrong with the peal of laughter.
Commerce Street was alive with kids, not only at the BeBe for the plays, but down the street at a café, whose hundreds–or at least dozens-- milled around in the bright light inside and spilled out into the street in their costume shop clothes and their earnest expressions. It was beautiful. I will keep to myself that it was lovelier than Galway or Leicester Square, places I thought couldn’t be surpassed in youthful celebration. Students have mentioned the café, in such a way as to make me think it is dedicated to poetry. Obama’s inauguration and the crowd outside the poetry café on Commerce Street have been the best things so far this year, the things that give me a smile with a foundation of steel.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
January 21, 2009
Can scarcely type for shivering, having just come in from the cold, from a Titus rehearsal made exhausting by too many directors.
The Inauguration is still the talk of friends and airways. For ths first time since Clinton I can bear to think about politics. For the first time since Bobby Kennedy I am joyful about politics.
Inaugural Poets was a triumph last night. Cantaria was excellent; the Dead Poets were sublime; the Provost was inspiring; the featured poets were each worth a listen, and most of us considerably more than that. I haven’t been thanked so much in recent memory. It was a good thing, and I am happy to have done it. Our little voices sounded at the opening of an age.
IN CELEBRATION OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BARACK OBAMA.
The Inaugural Poets
Humanities Lecture Hall, UNCA
7:30
January 20, 2009
UNCA
House Music by GREENWAY (Tom Dolce, CoCo Palmer-Dolce, Wind Motika)
Greetings from Walt Whitman
Greetings from the City of Asheville: Robin Cape, Asheville City Councilwoman
Greetings from Jane Fernandes, UNCA Provost
Inaugural Poem by Rick Chess
Inaugural Poem by Sebastian Matthews
Inaugural Poem by Ann Dunn
Music by CANTARIA, the men’s chorus of Asheville, directed by Michael Porter
Inaugural Poem by Gary Hawkins
Inaugural Poem by David Hopes
Inaugural Poem by Allan Wolf
Music and Poetry by THE DEAD POETS (Allan Wolf, Tom Tracy, Alex Alford)
Inaugural Poem by Glenis Redmond
Inaugural Poem by Gary Ettari
Inaugural Poem by Laura Hope-Gill
Valediction: Stephanie Hickling, "Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Wheldon
Johnson
With special thanks to Asheville Public Radio, WCQS
When I came home tonight, a big opossum was on the back stoop. I took him by surprise, and he was the perfect picture of indecision, not knowing whether to run or to freeze. I said, “Sweetheart, I have to get to the door. You’re all right. It’s all right.” My voice seemed to unfreeze him, and he scuttled off the stoop to the edge of the light, where he turned and watched me disappear into the house. Such pity I felt for a creature cold and stupid and frightened in the great cold dark of the world. Heaped my cats’ dish with food, in case that would somehow even things out. Threw cat food onto the front porch, on the off-chance he would waddle around the house and find it there.
Can scarcely type for shivering, having just come in from the cold, from a Titus rehearsal made exhausting by too many directors.
The Inauguration is still the talk of friends and airways. For ths first time since Clinton I can bear to think about politics. For the first time since Bobby Kennedy I am joyful about politics.
Inaugural Poets was a triumph last night. Cantaria was excellent; the Dead Poets were sublime; the Provost was inspiring; the featured poets were each worth a listen, and most of us considerably more than that. I haven’t been thanked so much in recent memory. It was a good thing, and I am happy to have done it. Our little voices sounded at the opening of an age.
IN CELEBRATION OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BARACK OBAMA.
The Inaugural Poets
Humanities Lecture Hall, UNCA
7:30
January 20, 2009
UNCA
House Music by GREENWAY (Tom Dolce, CoCo Palmer-Dolce, Wind Motika)
Greetings from Walt Whitman
Greetings from the City of Asheville: Robin Cape, Asheville City Councilwoman
Greetings from Jane Fernandes, UNCA Provost
Inaugural Poem by Rick Chess
Inaugural Poem by Sebastian Matthews
Inaugural Poem by Ann Dunn
Music by CANTARIA, the men’s chorus of Asheville, directed by Michael Porter
Inaugural Poem by Gary Hawkins
Inaugural Poem by David Hopes
Inaugural Poem by Allan Wolf
Music and Poetry by THE DEAD POETS (Allan Wolf, Tom Tracy, Alex Alford)
Inaugural Poem by Glenis Redmond
Inaugural Poem by Gary Ettari
Inaugural Poem by Laura Hope-Gill
Valediction: Stephanie Hickling, "Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Wheldon
Johnson
With special thanks to Asheville Public Radio, WCQS
When I came home tonight, a big opossum was on the back stoop. I took him by surprise, and he was the perfect picture of indecision, not knowing whether to run or to freeze. I said, “Sweetheart, I have to get to the door. You’re all right. It’s all right.” My voice seemed to unfreeze him, and he scuttled off the stoop to the edge of the light, where he turned and watched me disappear into the house. Such pity I felt for a creature cold and stupid and frightened in the great cold dark of the world. Heaped my cats’ dish with food, in case that would somehow even things out. Threw cat food onto the front porch, on the off-chance he would waddle around the house and find it there.
January 20, 2009
Inauguration Day. My Face Book friends’ notes are all about how happy everybody is for a beginning more pure and total than any of us remembers. I was too young for the Kennedy glow. This is my moment in the politics of joy.
Gilgamesh stepped aside for Barack Obama in my Humanities class today. It was better to be glued to CNN, taking in history as it was made. I did share my observations about the evident differences in governing style between the two men, as proof for my thesis that the human condition really does change. The inaugural poem was disappointing. No, it was actually bad. I expect every poem read tonight in the Humanities Lecture Hall to be miles better.
Fluffy snowflakes directly out of the north.
Inauguration Day. My Face Book friends’ notes are all about how happy everybody is for a beginning more pure and total than any of us remembers. I was too young for the Kennedy glow. This is my moment in the politics of joy.
Gilgamesh stepped aside for Barack Obama in my Humanities class today. It was better to be glued to CNN, taking in history as it was made. I did share my observations about the evident differences in governing style between the two men, as proof for my thesis that the human condition really does change. The inaugural poem was disappointing. No, it was actually bad. I expect every poem read tonight in the Humanities Lecture Hall to be miles better.
Fluffy snowflakes directly out of the north.
Monday, January 19, 2009
January 19, 2009
Our poet laureate cancels her appearance at the Inaugural Poets. I want to fire back, “You’re not that sick, be there!” but such things are not done, or done less often than they should be.
Some reaction to my poem on the radio this morning. Ken Youngblood hears it and asks to publish it in the Hendersonville paper. Turns out he’s actually paying to have it done–
Jason says that my water jar is frozen solid in our be-wintered studio.
Blocking for Titus begins, with J unable to say a line without directing everybody. It’s not that he’s wrong (except for the bit about directing other actors, which is always taboo) but that in wanting it set first time through he’s subverting a process which might reveal something better than the obvious. Though there is competence, there is nothing of discovery in J’s approach. Jason plans to block three scenes; we get through one.
Re-wrote The Handsomest Man in the World.
Gentlest snow.
Our poet laureate cancels her appearance at the Inaugural Poets. I want to fire back, “You’re not that sick, be there!” but such things are not done, or done less often than they should be.
Some reaction to my poem on the radio this morning. Ken Youngblood hears it and asks to publish it in the Hendersonville paper. Turns out he’s actually paying to have it done–
Jason says that my water jar is frozen solid in our be-wintered studio.
Blocking for Titus begins, with J unable to say a line without directing everybody. It’s not that he’s wrong (except for the bit about directing other actors, which is always taboo) but that in wanting it set first time through he’s subverting a process which might reveal something better than the obvious. Though there is competence, there is nothing of discovery in J’s approach. Jason plans to block three scenes; we get through one.
Re-wrote The Handsomest Man in the World.
Gentlest snow.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
January 18, 2009
Kyle’s birthday at Mela’s. I’ve never eaten there that I haven’t thrown up violently afterward (not its fault, but the spice’s) and last night was no different, for I initiated the bathroom of a new (for me) bar around the corner, the Vault (which I like), and when I was finished I felt better, and drank my 7-Up and listened to the Pretenders and the conversations of my friends, and afterwards I convinced DJ (rather surprisingly) to accompany me to No Shame Theater, which was the worst it’s ever been, but still a crowd-pleaser, and everybody (me included) left laughing by the pale remembrance of the disintegrating moon. Casey was in one piece that was touching and rather lovely (that’s one out of fifteen), and Nathan’s song would have been brilliant had anybody heard it. Adam sells the piece he’s in no matter how awful. He like Liza Minnelli, but with brains. I was glad I went. I’m not even that tired, and woke when the light of the aquarium snapped on, a subtle signal if ever there was one.
Kyle’s birthday at Mela’s. I’ve never eaten there that I haven’t thrown up violently afterward (not its fault, but the spice’s) and last night was no different, for I initiated the bathroom of a new (for me) bar around the corner, the Vault (which I like), and when I was finished I felt better, and drank my 7-Up and listened to the Pretenders and the conversations of my friends, and afterwards I convinced DJ (rather surprisingly) to accompany me to No Shame Theater, which was the worst it’s ever been, but still a crowd-pleaser, and everybody (me included) left laughing by the pale remembrance of the disintegrating moon. Casey was in one piece that was touching and rather lovely (that’s one out of fifteen), and Nathan’s song would have been brilliant had anybody heard it. Adam sells the piece he’s in no matter how awful. He like Liza Minnelli, but with brains. I was glad I went. I’m not even that tired, and woke when the light of the aquarium snapped on, a subtle signal if ever there was one.
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