What I did on my summer vacation...

Look you, and behold, and be afraid. 'Tis my 17 fellows, brothers and sisters and bloody conspirators who did enact upon the misty Pennsylvanian night the story of a Scot gone wrong, and his "fiendlike queen"; of Weird Sisters of suburban upbringing, who did paint themselves green and toss dry ice chips into their smoky abyss, conjuring hell's breath under thundrous skies; of the righteous Thane of Fife and his 'venging blade; of feckless murderers and their noble victim; of falsely accused princes, their betrayéd father's corpse still warm as they flew to British haven; of ghosts of kings yet to be; of a red-painted set and and an uplit entrance; of lavender filter and duelling tartan; of that fleet flicker of theatrical elementasia, burning a bardic nova for an hour and 45, with a snack of whole-wheat cheddar bunnies at the Interval.

Direct Shakespeare? I asked myself. Why not take a risk. The play's the thing, after all, even after I spent two merciless nights with the red pen, Sweeny Todd-style, slicing entire scenes, chunks of scenes, even gutting individual speeches. It was literary surgery, and as I dug out Macbeth's extra flesh, I fretted it would still be too long.

The noble Banquo, back from the grave to stir things up.

'Twas not, and chiefly due to my actors' hard work on the text, 'cause when you're making good by the story, time doesn't matter. Also, Macbeth is one of those plays, a scholarly friend pointed out to me, that lends itself to maximum spectacle, and we were able to pull out a few stops, particularly with the top of Part II.

Just a few ladies in the woods doing God's work...

 Not all of my design elements made it into the performance--due to a rainstorm/electronic tragedy that afternoon, deserving of its own five-act play--but for "Eye of newt, toe of frog..." I think we nailed it.

It's these little tastes of  truth, if you will, that sew together the gossamer quiltwork that is live theatre. The scene above could only happen on this night, with the actors holding nothing back, and only when the rains permitted it, having cleared up just hours prior. Costume, makeup, the sound effect of whistling wind, lighting, haze, dry ice, artists.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow

 And truth was also achieved with much less hoopla. The quiet truth of Ernesto Renda, for example, who brought humility and a measured pride to the title role, one of the most ambitious in the canon.

Lady Mac, near her end.

 And the uncontained truth of Maya Olivia Baker-Pettersen, a searing Lady Macbeth portrayed by a young woman not yet out of high school. Watch for her on larger stages, I'll warr'nt.

Lay on, Macduff!

In the end, the butcher was dispatched by a grief-hardened Macduff as embodied by a fierce Cullen Denton, who gamely tried on all the emotive hats and fight choreography tossed at him by his maniacal director.

Malcolm exults in the birth of a new Scotland

Everyone in the ensemble contributed to this night; everyone stretched their wings from rehearsal to performance. I was immeasurably proud of them all.

Pick a Card, Any Card...

Back at work and trying to make sense of the soon-to-be changing leaves, I'm falling back on the one thing we can count on in life: utter chaos. Or, at least, attempts at organizing chaos, which is more or less how we spend every waking moment as humans.

When I have some time on my hands, as sometimes happens in stagehandery--one waits until one is needed after all--I like to play with the Next Blog button. It takes you to what appears to be a randomly selected blog, but damned if there isn't some subtle connection. Crafting blogs will tend to take you to other crafting blogs, and vampire fan fiction... well, you get the point. Subsequent clicks of Next Blog from the same starting point, however, "navigate" you to a completely different site. Some talented people at Blogger no doubt spent considerable time and effort "crafting" the interior logic of this nifty algorithim, and I'd just like to shake their hands. To wit: I'd hoped that when I Next-Blogged myself from these pages, I'd find another slightly deranged, wack-a-doo blog like my own. What invariably happened, though, is that I wound up reading the zealotry of Korean born-again Christians.

So instead, I've used other people's blogs as a starting point.  Here are a few tidbits to brighten your day, found through "random" connections, in some way, to three blogs I like. Again, note that like fingerprints, these three-click results are unique. I played bossa nova in the background while I mixed down this World Wide Meatloaf. If you'd like to do the same, press play for your convenience.



First map: Start at the Live Nude Poems, and hit Next Blog three times. Apparently, the poetical tastes of my man Rusty shares tonguespace with cartoon-like art, as manifest in our combined blogging consciousness. Here's a neat print from Rusty's far-flung Internet cousin, Enzo Avolio:

We are all birds of a feather, n'est-cs pas?

If you start from Nothing Profound's Out of Context and click your heels three times, you wind up at To the Moon and Back, which gives fair warning: "This blogger is a purpose-driven wife." Here you'll find what appears to be a lot of biblical meditation as well as obligatory child documentation and, as an extra bonus, book reviews, like one sporting this fine fellow:

And for our next trick, starting with the greatest cycling blog in the multiverse, BikeSnob, which put the "meh" in "meh-ta," my three clicks got me to this guy:

Now... I'm not being mean, folks, because mean people aren't liked, but I must at least unfold the irony board here. I would be doing no one any favors if I didn't point out that this gentleman is probably exactly the kinda guy whom BikeSnob delights in skewering. Also, he's not updated his blog since last January. Is this where the Things He Thinks About end? I, for one, hope not.

Note that this little "meme" only seems to work for sites driven by Blogspot, and then again, only when the blogger in question keeps the Next Blog button within their design scheme. You WordPress folks, you do fine work, but you just don't seem to have an interest in quantum mechanics. Damn shame.

That's all I got for a Thursday, and you know what? That's plenty. Thanks for reading, and please bear in mind: If it ain't Thursday, it sure ain't Thanksgiving.

Also: If no matter where you click, you invariably land upon born-again Koreans, land softly. It might just be God's way of saying, Keep the Faith.

A Late-Summer's Morning Cleaning...

Scots-Irish in Pa...

For the second summer in a row, I took the progeny to the arts camp where I spent 11 summers as a much younger fellow. And I can tell you, few things are more gratifying than working with kids. They're usually quite willing to plow into the snowbank of the unknown, scooping their own path as they go and not caring if their mittens get wet or if they run out of gas.

This year, there was very little homesickness for my particular little shaver, and he sampled a piu-piu platter of camp, with great relish: saxophone and drums and ceramics and horse riding and lighting and photography and camera-op and performing, as Donalbain, in his Dad's production of Shakespeare's Macbeth. 'Cause, y'know, what screams ambition, murder, and madness upon the Scottish heath more than 21st-century American kids?

The production was, in part, a 32-year vindication. When I was in grammar school, I rehearsed the same play; that production was struck down not by Birnam stilting its way into Dunsinane, but rather when chicken pox ripped a virulent swath across the Fifth Grade. The language--and the play is loaded with some of the bard's greatest stuff--stuck with me all these years, and when I volunteered to direct my first Shakespeare this summer I thought, Why the hell not? What role did I have in 1978? The one my son played three nights ago. Go figure.

As most theatre people know, even thinking the title of said play will bring horrible misfortune upon one's immediate line of sucession and their dogs. I had thought we enjoyed a protective shield on our magic mountain top in the wilds of North-Central Pennsylvania. Guess again. Our lighting system had an unfortunate encounter with the midday rains on our day of performace, and we did our final dress rehearsal in an indoor proscenium space, as opposed to the triple outdoor stage where we had rehearsed. "Don't worry about where we are right now, just listen to your scene partner and settle into the language," I told the kids. And by God they did -- making up new staging on the fly, and without their props, which were still drying in the back of the house.  Suddenly, the scenes took flight, and the cast was finding new moments, new readings, new truths. via language more than 400 years old! I couldn't have been more pleased by a rehearsal driven inside by the weather. By dinner, the rains let up, but the electrical wheel had to be re-invented in order to get the show up on its original space. But persevere we did, and to great effect. Witches, haze, a strong night wind, dry ice for Double, double toil and trouble, fighting with wooden broadswords and some immensely talented children made for serious theatre magic. Nothing's perfect, but man, there were some spine-tingling moments.

For my transitional and background sound cues, I found some chaps you ought to check out: They're called Albannach, and their stuff was ideal for our bloody purpose. The set was fun, too. Historically, I have the most artistic difficulty when it comes to set design. As fate willed it, the Outdoor Platform needed some overhaul and the new boards that were laid in needed paint.  Why not red? a voice asked, adrift in my creative oblongata. It was the kickstart I needed, and I'll soon post photos of the finished project from that most fair and foul day.

I am a blessed human to have the opportunity to direct strange and wonderful children in the woods--just like some lucky folks did with me, 20-some years ago. Making time for the things that are most important in one's life is a lesson that can't come soon enough. For me, it was two years ago when a bunch of us who were campers in the 80s descended upon our summer haven for a reunion weekend.

The place still radiates magic, cliche though that is to type--46 years and going strong--and every year brings a medley of new and old. Some highlights from this summer were vegetable parades (featuring the yields of the camp's own organic gardens)

 with impromptu songs before dinner, a visiting dance company that developed new work during a brief residency and presented it to the camp, again before dinner, and a marvelous quilt, made by campers and shown off in the Dining Hall.

I also oversaw quite a few radio shows at the low-power FM station operated by the camp, and one show typified, I think, the aesthetic of the Ballibay kid. The show was called "It's Nerdtastic!" and glorified all the things that might drive someone under the floorboards at your standard American high school.

But at Ballibay, those kids are rockstars. And given that one of the camp's most popular programs is the Rock program, that metaphor can sometimes be literal!

And so back into the fray of the mundane for me. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow: 8 a.m. workforce worhip. Bills, laundry, local politics, househunting, culinary adventure...and hopefully more frequent contributions to this blog. The last three weeks have given me enough creative fodder to feed an imaginary wild turkey out back, supplying a periodic plucked feather quill and a good dose of nature's humor when I need'st jarring from the everyday. Seriously. Have you ever really spent time with one of those mothers up close? Ugly!

Thanks very much for reading, and please bear in mind that just because Ben Franklin came up short with his candidate for the national bird doesn't mean we can't chase them with a scattergun every spring and fall, like God, and no doubt Wil Shakespeare, intended.

Loss and Renewal

I recently lost someone in my life whom I cared for, and it was a reminder of how fragile human relationships can be. It's made my blogtastic raison d'etre of Zany Optimism particularly difficult to maintain through the swelter of mid-summer here in the Northeast. It's one of the sole downsides of being alive, really, how we hurt one another, through happenstance, or intent. Hell, famously observed, is other people.

But... as long as we're throwing around metaphorical reference to the everlasting, so is "Heaven." If only for parallel periods of time, we are also capable of such love and beauty and goodness and ..... oh look, there goes a flock of puppies helping a tubercular great-granny across a poppy-strewn super highway.

Sorry. It's Sadie Hawkins Day, and Pollyanna just asked me to do the rhumba.

Straight up, folks. I got no special abilities here to get from point-sunrise to point-sunset, barring ritual handshakes with my homies at KlaxoGlithSmine. But what I can tell you is this: If we didn't know where we'd been, there'd be no way to know where we are. Forget where we're going, for now, because we'll eventually get there, maybe even tomorrow, and look! If that new air conditioner suddenly breaks down, don't fret. I brought a box fan, 'cause I'm cool like dat. No power? Let me fan thee with our thick copy of vanities, an urban palm frond. When my strength's gone, I'll write poems about ice cubes, some of them good. Later, our children will show up to take us on a northerly vacation. If we have no children, we'll chill out to the rhythms of the kids next door. They are joyful, too. Go ahead and see if they're around. I'll wait.

Besides, it'll get cooler of its own accord soon enough, and my favorite season will be upon us, the autumn months. Few things are as reliable as the snap of October air. (We are blessed in the northeast with four, distinct seasons. Love them, for they are inevitable.) And then snowy winter. I have two fantastic old-school sleds that need their blades sharpened. And then wet, and then hot, and then cool, and then cold again. One could almost set one's clock to it. God knows what they do in Los Angeles...

This month the secret to life was wiped from the map. (well, Duh. That's why it's a secret, fool.) This morning, however, I woke up to try again. Why not? I was born to try. And I aim to.

Free French

“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.”



Now there was a guy who knew a thing or two about living--Blaise Pascal, the French mathmetician, philosopher and badass theologian. Born in the summer, died in the summer, never made it to see age 40 and still made an impact on Western culture with his inventions and writings. 1623-1662


"A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” -- Paul Valery, essayist and critic, who graced this good earth from 1871-1945. Abandon hope, all ye who attempt the periodic poem. Takes a patient hand to create such imperfection...

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be” -- Marcel Pagnol,  Film Auteur, 1895-1974.

Seen any of his flicks? Me, neither, but we could catch a screening on my birthday. It's coming up, and I'm available.

“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”  --- Voltaire, Frenchiest French Philosopher and Writer ever, 1694-1778.

Yes, it's Bastille Day, or at least for another 45 minutes. I'm squeezing one in, under deadline tonight.

This was the day, in 1789, when the Marquis de Launay learned that it's generally not a good idea to piss off a crowd of pike-wielding siegers, unless one doesn't value one's head. A good number of the aristocracy suffered the repercussions of that day in the weeks that followed, and of course, it marks the beginnings of the modern French republic.

So here's to the French. We love to hate them, we like their cheese. They subsidized our own Revolution (merci!) and they host the world's greatest bike race every summer as well. And they produce the best mimes.

And who would vous want defending your Maginot Line more than these guys? Crepes all around, s'il vous plait.

Thanks for reading. And please remember that just because you can, does not necessarily mean that you should.

An Elegy for Lance

Written after Stage 8 of the 2010 Tour de France

http://www.versus.com/

Welcome back to earth, Pilgrim.

Hard truth in les Alpes. You're 38,
of sound mind, but broke bike,
supplanted, slashed up in torn Spandex.

And just the other day,
seven years' good luck
buckled on Belgian pavé.
Time to let the ribs stick to waffles?

Will the boss take the backseat?

Or maybe upholster a sidearm,

in a clumsy swat, like Jordan

with a bat. Time to rest.

For the French press of hot blood pursuit
 (pas cafe au lait)

They never get old, unlike Ullrich, the Badger, Pantani bought the farm.

Even the Man of the World took a shotgun to the face
He's still pissed off about it.

Recently a Mennonite has ruined
even a bowl of cold cereal in your hotel room.
And so welcome back. You are a water-bottle cage
for the other guy. Again.
You are more like us, now.

Graham Watson