November 6, 2009
Waiting to go to LL’s opening at the Pump. Comforting sounds of the washing machine, of a distant radio, of a cat walking on the debris of the desk.
Phone call from the Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s Playfest, saying that Edward the King is a “finalist”. I wasn’t here to get the call, but the last word the caller said was “congratulations,” so I assume it is well.
First run-through of Hamlet last night. I don’t know how my desire that it be good cushions and tampers with my perceptions, but I’m pretty sure it’s better than it might be, better than it was when I began watching rehearsals. Adam is spectacular, though an audience who saw him last night might not think so. He experiments; he dares; he tries new things, which is exactly right, but a person watching at this point might interpret all that as lack of coherence. He’s electrifying to be onstage with. The intensity of his listening is almost violent. You check yourself to make sure what you have to say is worthy of all that concentration. The Ghost does not wear glasses, so Hamlet’s visage fades in the stage light to a pale oval out of which two dark eyes blaze like coals. Some of the scenes–the massive court scenes–are probably not salvageable, presided over by an inept king and a lusterless queen. Some characters, though they do everything right (or at least nothing wrong) are still tedious. I can’t explain that. R & G are funny, and, indeed, all the soldiers and guards are engaging, very contemporary, very brotherly. The last sene with Horatio holding the dying Hamlet is the one point in the play which, now, can be called stunning. Some scenes will be agony every night; others I will anticipate from the wings with ever-renewed delight. I hope mine is among the latter for somebody. My spooky reverb ghost voice has not yet functioned properly.
Rushed through the winding darkness to meet Mickey at the Usual, but she was gone. Talked with her on the phone. Asheville has lost her forever. I went to bed far too late, rose far too early. As night falls, I sit trying to recall what I did with all the light.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
November 4, 2009
An eventful and productive day. Also one dominated by three friends and their phone calls. J has moved to Tennessee to give his marital turmoil space to cool. I would have advised him not to volunteer the truth, but he did, and a word uttered is like red wine spilt on white cloth; it can never be recalled, it can never be as though it hadn’t happened. Truth sometimes can hurt widely and deeply while retain very little of what one might call virtue. Getting it off your chest is putting it one someone else’s. I say all of this in the abstract. The thing on my mind is that he is absent and unhappy, and I miss him. I look at the objects he left in the studio and I am bereft. It perplexes me why I am the last to know everything about this, that I learn incidentally by a rumor or a random phone call, but I will accept his explanation that he dreads my bad opinion.
JP called months ago and I ignored him, remembering the trouble that surrounds him and all his deeds. He called again, sounding vulnerable and–well, interesting–so I called back. I know far more about his last decade or so than he imagines I do–having been contacted by business partners and detectives when his ship was sinking-- and I listened to hear if he had turned over the least new leaf, if truthfulness had found even a toehold in his narrative. Negative, sorry, sorry to say. I do believe his mother died, but other than that, it is likely that every single statement, anecdote, detail is false. The time I know him to have been in prison he filled with tales of traveling, living in California, association of some sort with the Marines. Does he suppose I live under a rock? Perhaps he is so pathological he doesn’t care whether his lies are believed, so long as he has the freedom to tell them. He does remain, however, interesting.
JS, at the other extreme, phones from U Va that he is seeking work with a group of attorneys in Harlem who protect those vulnerable and friendless people– Harlem Neighborhood Defenders-- and would I mind recycling my earlier recommendations for him. “Fine,” I say. What I mean is, “You are the most upright soul I know personally, and I would lobby Satan if I thought it would open a path for you.”
Bade goodbye to my old studio, locking the door behind me for the last time. I felt bad. I felt I had failed it. My imagination is too anthropomorphizing for my own good.
An eventful and productive day. Also one dominated by three friends and their phone calls. J has moved to Tennessee to give his marital turmoil space to cool. I would have advised him not to volunteer the truth, but he did, and a word uttered is like red wine spilt on white cloth; it can never be recalled, it can never be as though it hadn’t happened. Truth sometimes can hurt widely and deeply while retain very little of what one might call virtue. Getting it off your chest is putting it one someone else’s. I say all of this in the abstract. The thing on my mind is that he is absent and unhappy, and I miss him. I look at the objects he left in the studio and I am bereft. It perplexes me why I am the last to know everything about this, that I learn incidentally by a rumor or a random phone call, but I will accept his explanation that he dreads my bad opinion.
JP called months ago and I ignored him, remembering the trouble that surrounds him and all his deeds. He called again, sounding vulnerable and–well, interesting–so I called back. I know far more about his last decade or so than he imagines I do–having been contacted by business partners and detectives when his ship was sinking-- and I listened to hear if he had turned over the least new leaf, if truthfulness had found even a toehold in his narrative. Negative, sorry, sorry to say. I do believe his mother died, but other than that, it is likely that every single statement, anecdote, detail is false. The time I know him to have been in prison he filled with tales of traveling, living in California, association of some sort with the Marines. Does he suppose I live under a rock? Perhaps he is so pathological he doesn’t care whether his lies are believed, so long as he has the freedom to tell them. He does remain, however, interesting.
JS, at the other extreme, phones from U Va that he is seeking work with a group of attorneys in Harlem who protect those vulnerable and friendless people– Harlem Neighborhood Defenders-- and would I mind recycling my earlier recommendations for him. “Fine,” I say. What I mean is, “You are the most upright soul I know personally, and I would lobby Satan if I thought it would open a path for you.”
Bade goodbye to my old studio, locking the door behind me for the last time. I felt bad. I felt I had failed it. My imagination is too anthropomorphizing for my own good.
November 3, 2009
Moon rode with me all the night.
Election day. I was first at the polls at the community center, with the moon blazing in a sky that had turned the subtlest shell pink.
The exhaustion of the weekend hit yesterday. Wanted to totter home after class, except that I didn’t want to get into the habit of tottering home after class, so had drinks at the Usual with DJ, where, in no time, I slid into hysterical laughter mode. Should have gone to bed right off. Extremely complicated and extended dreams once I did get to bed. At the end I think I was the subject of some bizarre psychoanalysis.
Ancient memory: We’re still in the house on Goodview, and Mr Houck has come to pay a visit, for some reason. I arrive home to find him just leaving the house. He and I carry on a brief conversation, and when he goes, my mother comes inside in a rage and begins beating me with the plastic handle of a fly swatter. I have no idea what I did, and when I say “What did I do?” she says, “You know very well what you did.” In the midst of the beating I consider, very cooly, that it is unjust, and that I am perfectly capable of taking the switch away from her and ending it right there. I also consider, very cooly, that doing so would change our relationship and my status as “child,” maybe forever, so I forebear until she wears herself out. I still have no idea what the issue was. . . unless. . . as I sometimes think. . . Mr. Houck had arrived to seduce my mother and I had made some–quite unknowing– comment too close to the mark. Parents have no idea how far children will go to suffer them.
Cassie Rutledge, a former student of radiant cheer and sweetness, was found dead in her apartment. I looked at her obituary online, and amid all those who were 80 and 90, her details rung like a leaden bell.
Buncombe County elections: the bad is that Robin did not make good on her gallant write-in campaign. The good is that Cecil Bothwell won and not-quite-sane Mumpower lost.
Moon rode with me all the night.
Election day. I was first at the polls at the community center, with the moon blazing in a sky that had turned the subtlest shell pink.
The exhaustion of the weekend hit yesterday. Wanted to totter home after class, except that I didn’t want to get into the habit of tottering home after class, so had drinks at the Usual with DJ, where, in no time, I slid into hysterical laughter mode. Should have gone to bed right off. Extremely complicated and extended dreams once I did get to bed. At the end I think I was the subject of some bizarre psychoanalysis.
Ancient memory: We’re still in the house on Goodview, and Mr Houck has come to pay a visit, for some reason. I arrive home to find him just leaving the house. He and I carry on a brief conversation, and when he goes, my mother comes inside in a rage and begins beating me with the plastic handle of a fly swatter. I have no idea what I did, and when I say “What did I do?” she says, “You know very well what you did.” In the midst of the beating I consider, very cooly, that it is unjust, and that I am perfectly capable of taking the switch away from her and ending it right there. I also consider, very cooly, that doing so would change our relationship and my status as “child,” maybe forever, so I forebear until she wears herself out. I still have no idea what the issue was. . . unless. . . as I sometimes think. . . Mr. Houck had arrived to seduce my mother and I had made some–quite unknowing– comment too close to the mark. Parents have no idea how far children will go to suffer them.
Cassie Rutledge, a former student of radiant cheer and sweetness, was found dead in her apartment. I looked at her obituary online, and amid all those who were 80 and 90, her details rung like a leaden bell.
Buncombe County elections: the bad is that Robin did not make good on her gallant write-in campaign. The good is that Cecil Bothwell won and not-quite-sane Mumpower lost.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
November 1, 2009
Two autumn images: A jay is flying amid the golden leaves, his blue against the yellow a scream louder than his voice. In the back alley, an orange spotty cat walks in a tunnel of gold, fallen gold leaves, gold leaves still on the trees. Overhead the crows are cawing at him, but he struts on, as if their opposition were proof of his being.
We had supper at Scully’s last night, and watched all the downtown people come in their costumes. I was happy being in their midst.
Mozart’s Requiem this afternoon. I think it was beautiful. I remember at this moment Barry’s “Tuba miram,” his voice, even with me standing behind him, flowing out like honey and ruby. The performance was unusually sensual to me, the singing physical, strenuous, rewarding, like an excellent work-out. I learned something about singing tonight, though I am not sure I am ready to give it a definition. It is something in addition to what I have allowed it to be. If it weren’t so late and I so tired I could think of something better, but now I stop with, “it is like sex.”
Two autumn images: A jay is flying amid the golden leaves, his blue against the yellow a scream louder than his voice. In the back alley, an orange spotty cat walks in a tunnel of gold, fallen gold leaves, gold leaves still on the trees. Overhead the crows are cawing at him, but he struts on, as if their opposition were proof of his being.
We had supper at Scully’s last night, and watched all the downtown people come in their costumes. I was happy being in their midst.
Mozart’s Requiem this afternoon. I think it was beautiful. I remember at this moment Barry’s “Tuba miram,” his voice, even with me standing behind him, flowing out like honey and ruby. The performance was unusually sensual to me, the singing physical, strenuous, rewarding, like an excellent work-out. I learned something about singing tonight, though I am not sure I am ready to give it a definition. It is something in addition to what I have allowed it to be. If it weren’t so late and I so tired I could think of something better, but now I stop with, “it is like sex.”
Halloween Wedding
October 31, 2009
I should stop writing “dark of morning,” for the sake of variety, though it almost always is.
Eventful Friday behind me, eventful Saturday looming on the horizon. I met composer Nathan Shirley; we rehearsed briefly, then went down to WCQS to perform live on the radio. When I signed on to this project I assumed Nathan was somebody’s kid brother (he in fact is) and the project was a bit of a vanity. Shirley turns out to be, so far as I can judge, an important modern composer, a piano virtuoso the likes of which–with all quirks and excellences–I had never met before, though one reads of them in the New Yorker. He and DK were finding flaws in the studio piano I would not have noticed given fifty tries. The music he has written for Poe’s “Annabelle Lee” and “The Black Cat” seems to me a cross between Prokofiev and silent matinee piano, with Liszt looking over everybody’s shoulder, and I mean that in the very best way: dramatic, often meltingly lovely, the themes intelligent, passionate, and clear enough for me to recognize untutored, and build my understand of. Were I to criticize, I’d say the compositions are too momentous for the pieces they are meant to accompany. They should stand alone. It could be that Shirley is simply not good at choosing texts. It could be that the rest he has written is so majestic that the tone he took with Poe’s bonbons is really just right. It was fun to read the pieces on stage with his music. Poe’s first person narratives make for a good read. The gods worked things out so that the searing pain in my foot distracted my body from its urge to cough. When the light turned from me to him, I stood on one foot and coughed as gently as I could upstage. There is a DVD which I did not see; I hope all of that escaped notice. The soprano, who had voice problems and flubbed twice before getting in the groove, will not be going unnoticed. I though he would allow her to start over, as she clearly wished to do, but Shirley went plunging forward. I don’t know what the etiquette of such things is. But I will remember this event. Shirley is the real deal, completely contemporary music that rewards the listener fully.
When I came home from reading that horrible story, I fondled the cats with extra gentleness, to make it up to them. Poe’s reputation does confuse me. He’s like an actor who substitutes panting and flinging his arms about for real emotion. Inventive, I’ll give him that.
Gigantic rehearsal for the Mozart Requiem. Orchestra, soloists sound great. Perhaps we do too, but who can tell from the midst of it? It’s hard to sell the notion that the reflexive, grimly determined correction of mistakes is not the way to greatness, yet that the case. It’s also hard to sell the notion that over-rehearsing is not the cure for imperfection, but, once again, it is the truth. The Buddha says “do nothing.” Imperfections fall away when not too hard beleaguered. Understanding comes the moment it is unbidden.
Joe and Tiff’s wedding was sweet. I felt so comfortable with their families that I stayed through the reception to the point that people were rising and going away. I am usually the first to go. Got along especially well with the bride’s furniture-moving dad, who, with two daughters, was dewy-eyed with joy at getting a son. The bride and groom wore black for Halloween. The little ring-bearer, maybe three years old, was a lesson in correct behavior, for the natural is always correct. He sensed the occasion was extraordinary, so adopted a strange little walk as he approached the stage. When he got on stage, he passed the rings off to the best man to hug the knees of the groom, whom he loved.
I should stop writing “dark of morning,” for the sake of variety, though it almost always is.
Eventful Friday behind me, eventful Saturday looming on the horizon. I met composer Nathan Shirley; we rehearsed briefly, then went down to WCQS to perform live on the radio. When I signed on to this project I assumed Nathan was somebody’s kid brother (he in fact is) and the project was a bit of a vanity. Shirley turns out to be, so far as I can judge, an important modern composer, a piano virtuoso the likes of which–with all quirks and excellences–I had never met before, though one reads of them in the New Yorker. He and DK were finding flaws in the studio piano I would not have noticed given fifty tries. The music he has written for Poe’s “Annabelle Lee” and “The Black Cat” seems to me a cross between Prokofiev and silent matinee piano, with Liszt looking over everybody’s shoulder, and I mean that in the very best way: dramatic, often meltingly lovely, the themes intelligent, passionate, and clear enough for me to recognize untutored, and build my understand of. Were I to criticize, I’d say the compositions are too momentous for the pieces they are meant to accompany. They should stand alone. It could be that Shirley is simply not good at choosing texts. It could be that the rest he has written is so majestic that the tone he took with Poe’s bonbons is really just right. It was fun to read the pieces on stage with his music. Poe’s first person narratives make for a good read. The gods worked things out so that the searing pain in my foot distracted my body from its urge to cough. When the light turned from me to him, I stood on one foot and coughed as gently as I could upstage. There is a DVD which I did not see; I hope all of that escaped notice. The soprano, who had voice problems and flubbed twice before getting in the groove, will not be going unnoticed. I though he would allow her to start over, as she clearly wished to do, but Shirley went plunging forward. I don’t know what the etiquette of such things is. But I will remember this event. Shirley is the real deal, completely contemporary music that rewards the listener fully.
When I came home from reading that horrible story, I fondled the cats with extra gentleness, to make it up to them. Poe’s reputation does confuse me. He’s like an actor who substitutes panting and flinging his arms about for real emotion. Inventive, I’ll give him that.
Gigantic rehearsal for the Mozart Requiem. Orchestra, soloists sound great. Perhaps we do too, but who can tell from the midst of it? It’s hard to sell the notion that the reflexive, grimly determined correction of mistakes is not the way to greatness, yet that the case. It’s also hard to sell the notion that over-rehearsing is not the cure for imperfection, but, once again, it is the truth. The Buddha says “do nothing.” Imperfections fall away when not too hard beleaguered. Understanding comes the moment it is unbidden.
Joe and Tiff’s wedding was sweet. I felt so comfortable with their families that I stayed through the reception to the point that people were rising and going away. I am usually the first to go. Got along especially well with the bride’s furniture-moving dad, who, with two daughters, was dewy-eyed with joy at getting a son. The bride and groom wore black for Halloween. The little ring-bearer, maybe three years old, was a lesson in correct behavior, for the natural is always correct. He sensed the occasion was extraordinary, so adopted a strange little walk as he approached the stage. When he got on stage, he passed the rings off to the best man to hug the knees of the groom, whom he loved.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
October 29, 2009
Staggering with exhaustion, hobbling around on one sore foot. . . Cloudy moon. . . vast, brooding dark of the forest between here and Haywood County.
Heartened by Hamlet rehearsal tonight. Horatio has become wise and beautiful. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are funny. Everyone has taken a step forward. Adam is by turns antic and agonized, exploring the role with the perfect actor’s intelligence. I sat and listened to scenes tonight, Hamlet’s soliloquies, the Player’s speech about Pyrrhus, and I was struck, as if I had not been before, not only with the greatness of the play, but with the greatness of the individual lines, of lone words spoken with power. The play is a stone palace hung with purple. It is a sea pounding on a craggy shore. It is the shadow of the hunting bird passing over bare stone. I writhe with sorrow that one might not write like that now, that the world must be remade for one to write like that now. I come home and sit at the keyboard trying to conjure again that vast music. Oh, yes, it can be done. Who would listen? Who could bear it?
Staggering with exhaustion, hobbling around on one sore foot. . . Cloudy moon. . . vast, brooding dark of the forest between here and Haywood County.
Heartened by Hamlet rehearsal tonight. Horatio has become wise and beautiful. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are funny. Everyone has taken a step forward. Adam is by turns antic and agonized, exploring the role with the perfect actor’s intelligence. I sat and listened to scenes tonight, Hamlet’s soliloquies, the Player’s speech about Pyrrhus, and I was struck, as if I had not been before, not only with the greatness of the play, but with the greatness of the individual lines, of lone words spoken with power. The play is a stone palace hung with purple. It is a sea pounding on a craggy shore. It is the shadow of the hunting bird passing over bare stone. I writhe with sorrow that one might not write like that now, that the world must be remade for one to write like that now. I come home and sit at the keyboard trying to conjure again that vast music. Oh, yes, it can be done. Who would listen? Who could bear it?
October 28, 2009
Shining blue autumn. I was at the gym in the still-dark, and when I finished and went out to my car, the hills hedging in Woodfin were a gleam of gold and scarlet, not the vulgar blaze of two weeks ago, but subdued and elegant.
Changed plans because of the beauty of the day, and dug in the garden, burying a new shipment of bulbs I didn’t remember buying, nor did I know what everything was from the Latin names printed on the bags. I trusted that small bulbs made small plants and large, large. The lilies I knew. All their beds I lined with shredded paper, much of it from misprinted or discarded manuscripts. I like the idea of one creation feeding another. Th worms like the paper and the flowers like the worms.
Received the water bill from the city, and supposing it’s all finished, it was less than the least I had imagined. Huzza!
Sudden odd flash of the imagination–I guess it was the mention of worms above. I had died and was at the Gate, and somewhat to my surprise, it swung open for me into paradise. I was shown an image of me picking a worm up off the pavement and throwing it safely back into the dirt. That had made the difference. In the vision, or day dream, I was sobbing, barely getting out the words, amazed and grateful and astonished, I was saved by that?
Shining blue autumn. I was at the gym in the still-dark, and when I finished and went out to my car, the hills hedging in Woodfin were a gleam of gold and scarlet, not the vulgar blaze of two weeks ago, but subdued and elegant.
Changed plans because of the beauty of the day, and dug in the garden, burying a new shipment of bulbs I didn’t remember buying, nor did I know what everything was from the Latin names printed on the bags. I trusted that small bulbs made small plants and large, large. The lilies I knew. All their beds I lined with shredded paper, much of it from misprinted or discarded manuscripts. I like the idea of one creation feeding another. Th worms like the paper and the flowers like the worms.
Received the water bill from the city, and supposing it’s all finished, it was less than the least I had imagined. Huzza!
Sudden odd flash of the imagination–I guess it was the mention of worms above. I had died and was at the Gate, and somewhat to my surprise, it swung open for me into paradise. I was shown an image of me picking a worm up off the pavement and throwing it safely back into the dirt. That had made the difference. In the vision, or day dream, I was sobbing, barely getting out the words, amazed and grateful and astonished, I was saved by that?
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