February 27, 2016

Mediocre day at the studio, though I redeemed what was at first amiss. Saw at play at UNCA about the Los Angeles riots of 1992. It did not compel. It was not well done, but saying that I add immediately that it’s exactly the kind of thing that a department like ours should be doing. Maybe it could not have succeeded, however well done. Art can reveal truth or be itself the truth, but it is a poor vector for making a specific or deliberate political point. Plays used or created as arguments or indoctrination never work, however noble the intention. Though having said that, the intention to force a work of art to function other than as itself is never noble, but a kind of usurpation, or at best a fatal misunderstanding. Changing the gender of a character to make a point is always wrong and always fails in everything but making that particular point. Grinding the corners of a play to make it fly to a specific target is always ruination, even if the target is achieved. Plays about real events work when they are plays, maybe, but never when they are a pastiche of voices taken from the actual event. That is something else. That is a re-hash of a news broadcast, at best a reminder, at worst a parody.
   
The new chancellor and the new provost are now attending events at the university such as play productions, which is a palpable and laudable improvement over recent memory.

February 26, 2016

Chat with T over coffee at the High Five. He has been working on a script for twenty years, and when he receives a critique, he rewrites, landing each time further from his original conception. He long ago stopped writing from the heart and began to seek the trade secret, the popular incident or tone that would get him past the gatekeepers. Then he wants me to tell him why what worked for them is not working for him. I cannot tell him where to turn. When neither purity not calculation works, what road is to be sought? Of course, someone hearing me would hear the same words, the same tone, though I am canny enough never to seek advice. I am at once my own worst and best critic.

February 25, 2016

Torn over whether I should be ashamed at the way I allow exterior things to determine my course, or furious with the world for its perversity in maiming those things so predictably, so gratuitously. Whole days go by in which not one single thing goes well, and in which several things go worse than anyone could have expected. I am not the variable, but the victim. I do let myriads go, but after a certain point it is not well to let the universe think it is doing justly, or even sanely. All bullies must at last be confronted, and if I knew how to confront this one– beyond roaring under my own roof like a speared bull-- I would do it.

February 24, 2016

Trouble with my Android (which could have been solved by pressing the start button, which I did not recognize) drove me early evening to the Mall, where the phone boy (Jesse) solved my problem in the twinkling of an eye. To calm myself down, I had coffee at the Barnes & Noble café. The café was peopled by retarded adults being patiently read to, or coloring with deep concentration in their coloring books, each petal a different paradisal and unblemished color. It did calm me down. It made me ashamed of the pointless turbulence which seems to mark my days.

February 23, 2016

The house sale saga drags on and on, heading toward its 26th month. When someone says, “I’ll sign this by such-and-such a time” or “I’ll bring the papers by tonight,” I expect that will happen, or if it doesn’t, that I have been subjected to a lie and a betrayal. This is clearly not the case with my counterpart. What does he think? A promise or an agreement to him seems merely part of a wide flux of possibilities, which he may or may not honor, and may alter without notification. Not one single item between us has gone according even to W’s schedule. Long ago I stopped suggesting deadlines, knowing he would ignore them in order to make sure he was in control. This much he admitted himself. But how does missing your own deadlines indicate control? You are above even yourself? Every day the attorneys send me something new to sign or initial, necessitated by the changing wind’s of W’s fortune. Everyone agrees the terms are madly favorable to him, and yet he keeps working every angle. Nothing can turn this into a good memory. My rage is out of proportion to the moment, but not to the history of the exchange.

Some painting, disappointing at first, but good before I left the studio. Retired almost mad with frustration, on all fronts.

February 22, 2016

Byrd in church, then Cantaria. Working hard on a revision of The Falls of the Wyona.
  
H takes it as scientific fact that the pyramids were built in 30,000 BC and were originally a kind of battery for making energy. All discussion of that pretty much stops there.
  
Long dream of wandering through Ireland. I bought a diving tank along the roadside, and carried it through yellow fields all the way to Sligo. I was sitting in an outdoor café in Sligo gloating over my good fortune in scoring the tank when the dream ended.
  
Trip to the studio to save Lupe, who had locked his keys inside. For five seconds on the phone you think of every excuse not to go, but in the end you know you must go.

February 21, 2016

Saturday was one of those days that makes me feel I should retire, for it was so full and calm and accomplished. Would every day be like that if I retired? Early morning writing at home and at the High 5, breakthroughs in both theater and fiction. Then off to Depot Street for a self-guided tour of the new studios I had not yet seen. Then up to my own studio to paint until the throbbing in my shoulder was too great. Not much more than half the day was used up, and I had accomplished mightily. A children’s play was running in the Magnetic. I listened for a moment, glad I was not a parent, for that moment was enough to set my nerves on edge. Good for eight year olds; bad for me.
   
Yellow crocus in the lawn. Purple fists of hyacinth punching through the dirt.