April 30, 2009
Sweet, still night, so perfect in temperature that the body feels no difference between itself and the atmosphere.
Went to Jubilee for the opening event of the 2009 WordFest. Laura has worked very hard and looked very beautiful. She has a new boyfriend, a bigger, handsomer, not insane version of DD. It was an evening of fulsome introductions and too many announcements. There are three or four poets in the area who should NEVER be asked to “say a few words,” and they are inevitably introducers for events like this. Performance poetry is emphasized here. It used to be that “performance poetry” was code for “bad poetry,” but that is emphatically not the case any more. The attention given to delivery does make mediocre poetry sound good, but it also makes good poetry a golden hammer, a hurled javelin, a white bird singing. Patrick Rosal was the standout of the evening. I would have thought his poetry powerful had he read it with academic restraint; but in fact he read it with the street poet’s ardor, and it damn near made me rise from my seat and hover midair. My students were all around me. I was proud and happy. I read tomorrow, and practically for the first time in my life I think I must do some work to rise to the level of the event.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
April 29, 2009
Brilliant day, reigned over now by a brilliant bow of moon. I rushed around doing errand, but I see by the paint on my thumb that at one point I must have gone to the studio and at least lifted up a brush.
Went downtown to NC Stage to see Caryl Churchill’s A Number. The first thing to be said is that a healthy arts scene is exactly the arts scene which puts on fare like this, for though I didn’t like the play, I’ve spent the whole time between curtain call and now thinking about it, and such contemplation is to be cherished whatever the provocation. If a student handed me A Number as her final project in playwriting, I would give her an A+, praise her to the skies, and assume that she would grow out of it. It’s a five-finger exercise, an empty tour-de-force. I’ve wondered why there aren’t more science fiction plays; now I know. A Number is, I suppose, science fiction, and the flaw evident in the first five minutes is that it’s not about anything real, not about a problem that anybody actually faces. Klingons or orcs could hardly be more far-fetched. The play is all geeky speculation, a three-AM-in-a college-dorm rap, a what-if that I could see very easily coming out of (as perhaps it did) a workshop exercise: suppose for a moment that you had a clone. That’s not really a very promising premise. The natural place for it to go is slapstick: The Patty Duke Show antics, a good solid farce of mistaken identity. For it to rendered into tragedy presupposes a conviction of personal uniqueness–and a purity of determination to enshrine that uniqueness-- that I doubt very many sane people actually possess. One could say it’s about a larger question of identity, but the specific issues raised could only be taken to heart by a neurotic or, as happens in the action, a psychopath. The frivolity of the situation rendered the considerable talent of the actors a little absurd; the drama of the presentation so far exceeded the drama of the material in quality and plausibility that it was hard not to laugh. One misstep from the stage and everyone would have broken up in guffaws. Or, perhaps the tone should have been lighter, and the guffaws encouraged. The one believable character was the last one introduced, an unnamed clone who thought the whole affair was funny, and– healthily–had never blazed a road into his own darkest secrets. NC Stage reportedly sustained a barrage of puzzlement from its patrons concerning this play, and I hope that doesn’t discourage them from doing more like it. Yes, I thought the play was unworkable from several perspectives, but I learned so much from it I feel indebted both as a man and a playwright. I feel at the end of the night that I have had a really satisfying argument. The production was excellent, and insofar as A Number can be well served, it was. Perhaps the artificiality of Churchill’s language could have benefitted from a different kind of stylization, something more Pinteresque. The actors tried to make up for and hide the fragmentary nature of the writing, when it might have served to relish it, even exaggerate it, so that the audience would not waste time looking for something real.
I suppose it could be said that A Number is a send-up of people (or theater) who would take such matters seriously. I doubt it, though. That’s like insisting a deeply boring play is meant as a send-up of boringness.
The cats bat a cough drop across the floor. It makes a sound ten times greater than it should.
Brilliant day, reigned over now by a brilliant bow of moon. I rushed around doing errand, but I see by the paint on my thumb that at one point I must have gone to the studio and at least lifted up a brush.
Went downtown to NC Stage to see Caryl Churchill’s A Number. The first thing to be said is that a healthy arts scene is exactly the arts scene which puts on fare like this, for though I didn’t like the play, I’ve spent the whole time between curtain call and now thinking about it, and such contemplation is to be cherished whatever the provocation. If a student handed me A Number as her final project in playwriting, I would give her an A+, praise her to the skies, and assume that she would grow out of it. It’s a five-finger exercise, an empty tour-de-force. I’ve wondered why there aren’t more science fiction plays; now I know. A Number is, I suppose, science fiction, and the flaw evident in the first five minutes is that it’s not about anything real, not about a problem that anybody actually faces. Klingons or orcs could hardly be more far-fetched. The play is all geeky speculation, a three-AM-in-a college-dorm rap, a what-if that I could see very easily coming out of (as perhaps it did) a workshop exercise: suppose for a moment that you had a clone. That’s not really a very promising premise. The natural place for it to go is slapstick: The Patty Duke Show antics, a good solid farce of mistaken identity. For it to rendered into tragedy presupposes a conviction of personal uniqueness–and a purity of determination to enshrine that uniqueness-- that I doubt very many sane people actually possess. One could say it’s about a larger question of identity, but the specific issues raised could only be taken to heart by a neurotic or, as happens in the action, a psychopath. The frivolity of the situation rendered the considerable talent of the actors a little absurd; the drama of the presentation so far exceeded the drama of the material in quality and plausibility that it was hard not to laugh. One misstep from the stage and everyone would have broken up in guffaws. Or, perhaps the tone should have been lighter, and the guffaws encouraged. The one believable character was the last one introduced, an unnamed clone who thought the whole affair was funny, and– healthily–had never blazed a road into his own darkest secrets. NC Stage reportedly sustained a barrage of puzzlement from its patrons concerning this play, and I hope that doesn’t discourage them from doing more like it. Yes, I thought the play was unworkable from several perspectives, but I learned so much from it I feel indebted both as a man and a playwright. I feel at the end of the night that I have had a really satisfying argument. The production was excellent, and insofar as A Number can be well served, it was. Perhaps the artificiality of Churchill’s language could have benefitted from a different kind of stylization, something more Pinteresque. The actors tried to make up for and hide the fragmentary nature of the writing, when it might have served to relish it, even exaggerate it, so that the audience would not waste time looking for something real.
I suppose it could be said that A Number is a send-up of people (or theater) who would take such matters seriously. I doubt it, though. That’s like insisting a deeply boring play is meant as a send-up of boringness.
The cats bat a cough drop across the floor. It makes a sound ten times greater than it should.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
April 28, 2009
Glorious day follows glorious day, even if glimpsed only in moments between classes. Rehearsal for Theatrical Stimulus Package, what the students are calling their evening of plays, at the Flood last night. I was tired and grumpy and disappointed that so many of the plays were bad–and upset because I had not said ‘these plays are bad,” nor even been certain that I should say such a thing– but when I looked at the class, their eyes were wide, their attention glued so beautifully on the stage, that all was suddenly well. They people who were supposed to profit by it were. Even those whose plays were the worst huddled in corners afterwards, talking about revisions, without my saying anything, which is what I had hoped they would do. Steve had his hair cut very short, and golden glitter sprinkled through it. It was a lovely effect, young Oberon on his bicycle. Stopped with MA and Casey afterwards for drinks at Charlotte Street. Very glad to have done this, for it unwound all tension, we having laughed ourselves silly planning our new musical, inspired by Urinetown, called You Should Suck My Cock. We’re going to suggest it next year as an alternative to The Vagina Monologues.
Almost midnight. The golden wood poppies are in bloom, as is the golden tree peony. Is it purely coincidental that its scent is lemon?
Glorious day follows glorious day, even if glimpsed only in moments between classes. Rehearsal for Theatrical Stimulus Package, what the students are calling their evening of plays, at the Flood last night. I was tired and grumpy and disappointed that so many of the plays were bad–and upset because I had not said ‘these plays are bad,” nor even been certain that I should say such a thing– but when I looked at the class, their eyes were wide, their attention glued so beautifully on the stage, that all was suddenly well. They people who were supposed to profit by it were. Even those whose plays were the worst huddled in corners afterwards, talking about revisions, without my saying anything, which is what I had hoped they would do. Steve had his hair cut very short, and golden glitter sprinkled through it. It was a lovely effect, young Oberon on his bicycle. Stopped with MA and Casey afterwards for drinks at Charlotte Street. Very glad to have done this, for it unwound all tension, we having laughed ourselves silly planning our new musical, inspired by Urinetown, called You Should Suck My Cock. We’re going to suggest it next year as an alternative to The Vagina Monologues.
Almost midnight. The golden wood poppies are in bloom, as is the golden tree peony. Is it purely coincidental that its scent is lemon?
April 26, 2009
The hummingbird feeders went up today.
If the backyard looks like paradise, thanks is due mostly to the wood hyacinths. I am reconciled to the new dogwood, which, if not pink, has huge blossoms of milk white, with a tint of green so subtle it might be te reflection of the trees.
Allowed my snotty cold to keep me home from church, and spent the time writing and finishing the planting of the last few days, which includes zucchini, kale, marigolds. Much weeding and digging up of turf. Lasting war on the wild clematis.
Took The Falls of the Wyona out of moth balls, and am working in joy upon it.
The hummingbird feeders went up today.
If the backyard looks like paradise, thanks is due mostly to the wood hyacinths. I am reconciled to the new dogwood, which, if not pink, has huge blossoms of milk white, with a tint of green so subtle it might be te reflection of the trees.
Allowed my snotty cold to keep me home from church, and spent the time writing and finishing the planting of the last few days, which includes zucchini, kale, marigolds. Much weeding and digging up of turf. Lasting war on the wild clematis.
Took The Falls of the Wyona out of moth balls, and am working in joy upon it.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
April 25, 2009
All winter I raised and lowered a couple of windows in the house to regulate the temperature. This morning a certain gleam of light led me to check, and find that the storm windows had been closed the whole time, and there had been no exchange of air the whole while. I was quite content with the effects of something that made no difference at all.
Colonoscopy yesterday. Immaculate down there. I was supposing that some part of me would be tip-top, and somehow it comes as small surprise that that should be it. Fell asleep immediately, and woke only when one of the nurses touched my hand, when I saw on the screen my own secret self passing rather beautifully, like a tunnel of pink vinyl. The recovery room is a curtained-off space where everyone is supposed to fart as much as they can, because of the air introduced into the gut by the procedure. If I had been less groggy it would have been more hilarious. Whenever an especially loud one ripped, there would be murmurs of acclimation.
Hosted a little theater party last night, DJ, Paul, Jason, Denise and myself. We saw Urinetown at UNCA. The students were full of vitality and exuberance, and acting better than I have seen it there than. . . well, perhaps ever. Cody and Carly were vibrant stand-outs. They have every head-toss and note warble you get from the pros on Broadway, not yet dulled by use. Not one of the many actors was anything but present and engaged every second. Rob’s direction of all those forces was clearly exemplary. When I applauded at the end, it was for them, for effort and honesty and exuberance. The script itself is a load of crap, coiling around and around in many folds of easy irony, genre-loathing, self-loathing, mockery without satire. Cowardly itself, it mocks theater with courage enough to aim at the heart or the mind. It thinks by waving a banner with the word “piss” on it that it wittily subverts the chest-swelling emotions of a show like Les Miserables, which, if not my favorite, leads with its balls and dares all. Urinetown has no balls (if plenty of cheek) and dares nothing except use of the word “piss,” so bold, its authors must have thought, that no further commitment could be expected. “Tyranny is evil” is a stand so easy it hardly counts as a stand. Urinetown presents itself as meta-theater, reminding the audience again and again that it’s but a preposterous musical, so that it cannot be held responsible even for whatever minimal conviction it displays. I had no idea what Urinetown was about until I walked into the theater. Now I think that–not in terms of skill of execution, but in malignancy of concept–it’s the worst that Broadway has to offer. Should the students have bothered doing it? Of course they should: in an effort to conceal an inner emptiness, the show uses every trick in the book, and the kids therefore learned every trick in the book.
Long, sweet, summery day. I worked in the garden until I was sunburned and sore, and quite happy.
All winter I raised and lowered a couple of windows in the house to regulate the temperature. This morning a certain gleam of light led me to check, and find that the storm windows had been closed the whole time, and there had been no exchange of air the whole while. I was quite content with the effects of something that made no difference at all.
Colonoscopy yesterday. Immaculate down there. I was supposing that some part of me would be tip-top, and somehow it comes as small surprise that that should be it. Fell asleep immediately, and woke only when one of the nurses touched my hand, when I saw on the screen my own secret self passing rather beautifully, like a tunnel of pink vinyl. The recovery room is a curtained-off space where everyone is supposed to fart as much as they can, because of the air introduced into the gut by the procedure. If I had been less groggy it would have been more hilarious. Whenever an especially loud one ripped, there would be murmurs of acclimation.
Hosted a little theater party last night, DJ, Paul, Jason, Denise and myself. We saw Urinetown at UNCA. The students were full of vitality and exuberance, and acting better than I have seen it there than. . . well, perhaps ever. Cody and Carly were vibrant stand-outs. They have every head-toss and note warble you get from the pros on Broadway, not yet dulled by use. Not one of the many actors was anything but present and engaged every second. Rob’s direction of all those forces was clearly exemplary. When I applauded at the end, it was for them, for effort and honesty and exuberance. The script itself is a load of crap, coiling around and around in many folds of easy irony, genre-loathing, self-loathing, mockery without satire. Cowardly itself, it mocks theater with courage enough to aim at the heart or the mind. It thinks by waving a banner with the word “piss” on it that it wittily subverts the chest-swelling emotions of a show like Les Miserables, which, if not my favorite, leads with its balls and dares all. Urinetown has no balls (if plenty of cheek) and dares nothing except use of the word “piss,” so bold, its authors must have thought, that no further commitment could be expected. “Tyranny is evil” is a stand so easy it hardly counts as a stand. Urinetown presents itself as meta-theater, reminding the audience again and again that it’s but a preposterous musical, so that it cannot be held responsible even for whatever minimal conviction it displays. I had no idea what Urinetown was about until I walked into the theater. Now I think that–not in terms of skill of execution, but in malignancy of concept–it’s the worst that Broadway has to offer. Should the students have bothered doing it? Of course they should: in an effort to conceal an inner emptiness, the show uses every trick in the book, and the kids therefore learned every trick in the book.
Long, sweet, summery day. I worked in the garden until I was sunburned and sore, and quite happy.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
April 22, 2009
The pink dogwood I bought and planted last year hasn’t pink flowers at all, but small pale green ones. This is a disappointment that cannot even be remedied, as I’m not about to dig up and discard a living tree.
Gave up two theater possibilities to attend a poetry reading at the university last night. For years I’ve done the thing in the city when it has conflicted with the thing on campus, but my trip to Exeter made me think I should try to turn that around for a while. Maybe not. The highly touted poet (a friend of one of my colleagues) was a nice man, surely, but a gawdawful poet. The badness was worse than the wasted hour and missed opportunities: the room was full of students who were begged, coerced, commanded to attend, and now they are confirmed in their notion that poetry is a bore, a kind of spiritual castor oil that nobody likes but everyone takes from time to time. My anger is inappropriate, perhaps, but anger it is. Some poets think–and Iowa is the epicenter of those that think it–that poetry is the translation of everyday experience into striking language. Even when the language is in fact striking, that is not what poetry is, nor is making the audience approve of the poet’s sensitivity and diligence and depth what poetry is for. Last night the poet bragged– I suppose he was bragging–that there was one poem he’d been working on for five months and still hadn’t gotten it right. I wonder if it never struck him in the last five months–or fifty years-- that maybe he had chosen the wrong profession. His wife sat in the front row guiding us by chuckling adoringly in all the right places.
Poetry points forever away from the poet.
Poetry is not the ordinary overwrought, but the extraordinary wrought as simply as possible.
The pink dogwood I bought and planted last year hasn’t pink flowers at all, but small pale green ones. This is a disappointment that cannot even be remedied, as I’m not about to dig up and discard a living tree.
Gave up two theater possibilities to attend a poetry reading at the university last night. For years I’ve done the thing in the city when it has conflicted with the thing on campus, but my trip to Exeter made me think I should try to turn that around for a while. Maybe not. The highly touted poet (a friend of one of my colleagues) was a nice man, surely, but a gawdawful poet. The badness was worse than the wasted hour and missed opportunities: the room was full of students who were begged, coerced, commanded to attend, and now they are confirmed in their notion that poetry is a bore, a kind of spiritual castor oil that nobody likes but everyone takes from time to time. My anger is inappropriate, perhaps, but anger it is. Some poets think–and Iowa is the epicenter of those that think it–that poetry is the translation of everyday experience into striking language. Even when the language is in fact striking, that is not what poetry is, nor is making the audience approve of the poet’s sensitivity and diligence and depth what poetry is for. Last night the poet bragged– I suppose he was bragging–that there was one poem he’d been working on for five months and still hadn’t gotten it right. I wonder if it never struck him in the last five months–or fifty years-- that maybe he had chosen the wrong profession. His wife sat in the front row guiding us by chuckling adoringly in all the right places.
Poetry points forever away from the poet.
Poetry is not the ordinary overwrought, but the extraordinary wrought as simply as possible.
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