OK, doing a show is a rollercoaster affair! One day up, the next day, down. Or both up and down on a given day. Rehearsal last night was wild, finally. Rehearsal tonight was VERY good. Lots of energy, good energy. I love watching these kids work. I would like to join them and not direct. However.
More later. But I had to qvell. I am kvelling. Do I know how to spell this? Oh, no. But I definitely know what I mean. kvelling, qvelling. You know. glowing, praising.
That's me, that's all today.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
It is 8:37 in the evening, and I've just finished my Out on a Limb contact folder with my hotmail account, sending everyone this blog address. I'm exhausted, alternating between feeling I have absolutely nothing more to give my cast, and being completely excited by the work we're doing together! So typical. This is always the way it is with creative energies. You just never know.
But these things I know -- I'm driving home tomorrow and will see my cat, do some house cleaning, some swimming at my health club, rehearse the music for my Tuesday night rehearsal with the chorale -- yea, I do love to sing! -- and just generally hang out and prepare for the coming rehearsals.
Saturday, give the midterm exam to my students at NECC, then swim, then ... I'm going to NYC one week after "Out on a Limb" is over! Oh, the Museum of Modern Art!!!! I can't WAIT!
And friends.
OK, I'm so outta' here!
But these things I know -- I'm driving home tomorrow and will see my cat, do some house cleaning, some swimming at my health club, rehearse the music for my Tuesday night rehearsal with the chorale -- yea, I do love to sing! -- and just generally hang out and prepare for the coming rehearsals.
Saturday, give the midterm exam to my students at NECC, then swim, then ... I'm going to NYC one week after "Out on a Limb" is over! Oh, the Museum of Modern Art!!!! I can't WAIT!
And friends.
OK, I'm so outta' here!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Poems, etc.
Today another writer expressed curiosity about my work. I damned near tripped over myself getting to the disc with my one-woman show, "Old Bitch Dog," on it, and also found a piece from "Midwest Mournings" to put here as well. What the hell -- it's my BLOG, they're my particular arrangement of words expressing my most specific and sometimes whacked out thoughts and feelings. So, here goes nothin'! And hope you like it!
Opening monologue from my one woman show/performance piece, last given a reading at LaMama's Le Galleria in the Village, before I left NYC.
(LIGHTS UP ON A SET THAT WORKS AS BOTH THIS WOMAN’S APARTMENT AND STREETS OF NEW YORK. SOMEWHERE ON THE STAGE IS A MUSICIAN WITH APPROPRIATE INSTRUMENTS – GUITAR, DRUMS, ETC. – AND THE PERFORMANCE IS SCORED AS APPROPRIATE, ESPECIALLY WITH PERCUSSION. PLAY WITH THE RHYTHMS OF THE TEXT. THE SET SERVES AS INSIDE/ OUTSIDE. THE WOMAN IS PACKING. THE SET IS APPROPRIATELY STREWN WITH BOXES, BOOKS, CLOTHING, DISHES, LARGE AND SMALL OBJECTS, ETC.)
WOMAN: I had it with this burg, know what I mean? Live in this burg long enough, you learn. You walk the streets of this burg, you run into a lotta’ weirdos, know what I mean? Like the thrill is gone.
I lived here a lotta’ years. I finally had enough. I walk on Broadway, some kid with a snake standin’ on the corner, got a fuckin’ snake, I tell ya, wrapped around his neck like some feather boa, only this ain’t no boa. It’s an albino Burmese python. Guy stands there strokin’ the snake with his hands, folks stop to watch and talk to this guy with the snake.
He says he fed that snake thirteen rats last week. Bought the rats at the pet shop. Coulda’ done this burg a big favor and picked the rats up offa’ the streets, but no, gotta’ buy the rats at the pet shop. Feeds the snake live chickens too, must make those Santerria folks mad, know what I mean? Feedin’ chickens to a snake.
So I walk away from the guy with the snake, and I’m lost in my thoughts, I get home, turn on the television. I see some talk show. They got these journalists and politicians talkin’ about California, and this politician, she says, ‘Well, you know, Charlie, here in California we re-invent ourselves every ten or twenty years.’
Reinvention! You know what we do here, lady, every day of the week? We survive, that’s what we do in this burg.
Cause life in this burg be an old bitch dog,
Old bitch-in-heat dog
That stands like a sentry in Columbus Circle
and growls at the traffic
Moving aimless through the lights.
She is a perfect reflection of the city
And an embodiment of my mood, of all that is wrong,
She is some symbol placed there as a message to me.
I think this today as the bus moves among the cars,
Takes the turn wide and rumbles on down Broadway.
Big old dog showin’ me what it’s like, naked in the rain,
Snow on the way, winter without end in New York City,
Strangers here, everybody runnin’ in packs,
Talking about individuality and different,
Do your own thing, New York, pack dog, do your own thing,
All but the lead dog stare at assholes all day long.
What’s the deal, anyhow?
Seem to me like that bitch dog know but she ain’t tellin’.
Got to find out for myself.
Wanna find something out, only two places to go – inside or outside.
Inside maybe I’m weeping or laughing,
And on the outside, it’s just another keep-your-ass-covered day.
____________________________________________________________
And the following prose poem is part of a big mess presently titled "Midwest Mournings," which is a collection of (1) my aunt Catherine's detailed memories of her early childhood on the Welte farm in rural Woodbury County, Iowa; (2) my poems/excerpts from the family calendar of the past 15 or so years, and finally (3) my own rememberings and just stuff. Here it is.
Eating watermelon, I chew on my childhood.
I hear again mother's story
Of the depression:
"There were so many watermelons," she tells me.
"We made pickles. Then,
We took the wagonloads of watermelon into town and just gave them away.
Nobody had the money to buy them. And folks were hungry.
I am small. My mind's eye is large, filled with wooden wagonloads of watermelon
On the streets of Danbury, Iowa, in the 1930s,
My mother's bowl-cut hair swinging
While she rides the pony with her brothers and sister, there are four of them in the photo,
Four on the pony.
I want to make it five, hop on and ride away into the pictgure and its past with them!
"Finally," she concludes,
"We ate only the hearts and left the rest of the watermelons in a wagon
to rot, down by the creek.
Wagonloads of watermelon rotting in the sun,
Hearts ripped out and consumed by the hungry family.
Enthralled, I listen, too, to my godmother's story of the ring she has put on my little finger,
The marcasite glistening around the cameo.
"I got it in the Italian pavilion of the Chicago World's Fair,"
She explains,
"In 1933."
"I took violin lessons," she continues,
And Leone played the piano.
"Your mother sang."
The stories go on.
All the doin's of the Welte girls in their growing
So pretty, so well put together, so of-a-piece and polite.
"Then what happened?" I want to know.
"Why, then the Depression happened, girl, and we didn't do anything!"
So that's Kay today. More later.
Opening monologue from my one woman show/performance piece, last given a reading at LaMama's Le Galleria in the Village, before I left NYC.
(LIGHTS UP ON A SET THAT WORKS AS BOTH THIS WOMAN’S APARTMENT AND STREETS OF NEW YORK. SOMEWHERE ON THE STAGE IS A MUSICIAN WITH APPROPRIATE INSTRUMENTS – GUITAR, DRUMS, ETC. – AND THE PERFORMANCE IS SCORED AS APPROPRIATE, ESPECIALLY WITH PERCUSSION. PLAY WITH THE RHYTHMS OF THE TEXT. THE SET SERVES AS INSIDE/ OUTSIDE. THE WOMAN IS PACKING. THE SET IS APPROPRIATELY STREWN WITH BOXES, BOOKS, CLOTHING, DISHES, LARGE AND SMALL OBJECTS, ETC.)
WOMAN: I had it with this burg, know what I mean? Live in this burg long enough, you learn. You walk the streets of this burg, you run into a lotta’ weirdos, know what I mean? Like the thrill is gone.
I lived here a lotta’ years. I finally had enough. I walk on Broadway, some kid with a snake standin’ on the corner, got a fuckin’ snake, I tell ya, wrapped around his neck like some feather boa, only this ain’t no boa. It’s an albino Burmese python. Guy stands there strokin’ the snake with his hands, folks stop to watch and talk to this guy with the snake.
He says he fed that snake thirteen rats last week. Bought the rats at the pet shop. Coulda’ done this burg a big favor and picked the rats up offa’ the streets, but no, gotta’ buy the rats at the pet shop. Feeds the snake live chickens too, must make those Santerria folks mad, know what I mean? Feedin’ chickens to a snake.
So I walk away from the guy with the snake, and I’m lost in my thoughts, I get home, turn on the television. I see some talk show. They got these journalists and politicians talkin’ about California, and this politician, she says, ‘Well, you know, Charlie, here in California we re-invent ourselves every ten or twenty years.’
Reinvention! You know what we do here, lady, every day of the week? We survive, that’s what we do in this burg.
Cause life in this burg be an old bitch dog,
Old bitch-in-heat dog
That stands like a sentry in Columbus Circle
and growls at the traffic
Moving aimless through the lights.
She is a perfect reflection of the city
And an embodiment of my mood, of all that is wrong,
She is some symbol placed there as a message to me.
I think this today as the bus moves among the cars,
Takes the turn wide and rumbles on down Broadway.
Big old dog showin’ me what it’s like, naked in the rain,
Snow on the way, winter without end in New York City,
Strangers here, everybody runnin’ in packs,
Talking about individuality and different,
Do your own thing, New York, pack dog, do your own thing,
All but the lead dog stare at assholes all day long.
What’s the deal, anyhow?
Seem to me like that bitch dog know but she ain’t tellin’.
Got to find out for myself.
Wanna find something out, only two places to go – inside or outside.
Inside maybe I’m weeping or laughing,
And on the outside, it’s just another keep-your-ass-covered day.
____________________________________________________________
And the following prose poem is part of a big mess presently titled "Midwest Mournings," which is a collection of (1) my aunt Catherine's detailed memories of her early childhood on the Welte farm in rural Woodbury County, Iowa; (2) my poems/excerpts from the family calendar of the past 15 or so years, and finally (3) my own rememberings and just stuff. Here it is.
Eating watermelon, I chew on my childhood.
I hear again mother's story
Of the depression:
"There were so many watermelons," she tells me.
"We made pickles. Then,
We took the wagonloads of watermelon into town and just gave them away.
Nobody had the money to buy them. And folks were hungry.
I am small. My mind's eye is large, filled with wooden wagonloads of watermelon
On the streets of Danbury, Iowa, in the 1930s,
My mother's bowl-cut hair swinging
While she rides the pony with her brothers and sister, there are four of them in the photo,
Four on the pony.
I want to make it five, hop on and ride away into the pictgure and its past with them!
"Finally," she concludes,
"We ate only the hearts and left the rest of the watermelons in a wagon
to rot, down by the creek.
Wagonloads of watermelon rotting in the sun,
Hearts ripped out and consumed by the hungry family.
Enthralled, I listen, too, to my godmother's story of the ring she has put on my little finger,
The marcasite glistening around the cameo.
"I got it in the Italian pavilion of the Chicago World's Fair,"
She explains,
"In 1933."
"I took violin lessons," she continues,
And Leone played the piano.
"Your mother sang."
The stories go on.
All the doin's of the Welte girls in their growing
So pretty, so well put together, so of-a-piece and polite.
"Then what happened?" I want to know.
"Why, then the Depression happened, girl, and we didn't do anything!"
So that's Kay today. More later.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Friday Night Meanderings
Tonite I'm alternating reading student blogs and looking at my notes for Saturday's class. I got out my calendar and began to grasp that in about two weeks, I'm going to be VERY busy -- rehearsing at Wayne State during the week, then back home to teach my class Saturday morning, then back to Wayne State on Monday, maybe even Sunday. I have to think about my cat and where to leave him.
I also have to begin reading for the Wayne State project. But I'm SO excited! We'll have a great time, I know we will. The weather channel is reporting damage at HIgh Island, Texas from Humberto. We're so far inland here. I miss the ocean.
I can't wait to go to NYC in November! The Museum of Modern Art, old friends, my birthday spent in Manhattan! What could be better? Not much!
This is too much like a diary and not much like writing. I want to sit and write poems. That will be what I do Saturday afternoon. Sunday -- swim, write, read, visit with JMac on Sunday evening. This will be a good weekend.
I'm outta' here. Diaries suck.
I also have to begin reading for the Wayne State project. But I'm SO excited! We'll have a great time, I know we will. The weather channel is reporting damage at HIgh Island, Texas from Humberto. We're so far inland here. I miss the ocean.
I can't wait to go to NYC in November! The Museum of Modern Art, old friends, my birthday spent in Manhattan! What could be better? Not much!
This is too much like a diary and not much like writing. I want to sit and write poems. That will be what I do Saturday afternoon. Sunday -- swim, write, read, visit with JMac on Sunday evening. This will be a good weekend.
I'm outta' here. Diaries suck.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
First Day of the Fall Semester
OK. It's nearly 8:30 a.m., and I still have to copy and staple the syllabus and calendar. That's ok. My house is looking good these days. I'm definitely ready for the autumn semester, and -- wouldn't you know it! -- the air this morning feels decidedly autumnal! I slept without the a/c last night, breeze blowing soft across the foot of my bed.
The cat came in, complained about his empty food dish and then, after I filled it, ate two bites and wanted out again. I don't blame him. Great morning! My moonflower has nearly 20 blossoms in various stages of getting-ready-to-bloom.
I haven't read The New York Times or the Washington Post yet this morning, so this is a poor example for my students.
But I'll get there.
Now, have to complete my preparations for class.
More later.
The cat came in, complained about his empty food dish and then, after I filled it, ate two bites and wanted out again. I don't blame him. Great morning! My moonflower has nearly 20 blossoms in various stages of getting-ready-to-bloom.
I haven't read The New York Times or the Washington Post yet this morning, so this is a poor example for my students.
But I'll get there.
Now, have to complete my preparations for class.
More later.
Friday, July 27, 2007
watching television
It's Friday night, 9:49 p.m. central time; I am watching "Clear and Present Danger" for the umpteenth time. I love it. I also love, and I mean LOVE, the Bourne films with Matt Damon.
Yesterday, I fell at the Health Club; later, I went to Mercy Medical Center and was examined by a doctor. Nothing broken, she said; and your body will hurt in different places in the next few days, she said; the bruising is deep and will take several days to surface; keep it iced; here is 800 mg. ibuprofen; here is Tylenol w/Codeine. You are released.
So, I left. Took forever to get the prescriptions filled. I was so angry and frustrated about my situation -- having fallen -- and by the folks cutting down the trees at the health club, and about EVerything! -- that I drove down Peirce Street crying in the car, the air-conditioned car.
I finally got the prescriptions filled, bought groceries and went home.
I hurt this morning. My hips hurt today. I didn't fall on my hips, but they hurt. I ate today; I ate a healthy sandwich; I ate cinnamon roll; I ate three ears of corn; I ate those damned peanut butter and chocolate cookies that Vicki brought to class yesterday. Jesus! Now I feel thick and like a failure.
I will watch a bit longer, then go to bed, take a Tylenol and drift away to sleep and not get up till I wake up. No alarm tomorrow.
I'm going to the city tomorrow.
Goodnight for now. I've had enough. Long week. More later.
Yesterday, I fell at the Health Club; later, I went to Mercy Medical Center and was examined by a doctor. Nothing broken, she said; and your body will hurt in different places in the next few days, she said; the bruising is deep and will take several days to surface; keep it iced; here is 800 mg. ibuprofen; here is Tylenol w/Codeine. You are released.
So, I left. Took forever to get the prescriptions filled. I was so angry and frustrated about my situation -- having fallen -- and by the folks cutting down the trees at the health club, and about EVerything! -- that I drove down Peirce Street crying in the car, the air-conditioned car.
I finally got the prescriptions filled, bought groceries and went home.
I hurt this morning. My hips hurt today. I didn't fall on my hips, but they hurt. I ate today; I ate a healthy sandwich; I ate cinnamon roll; I ate three ears of corn; I ate those damned peanut butter and chocolate cookies that Vicki brought to class yesterday. Jesus! Now I feel thick and like a failure.
I will watch a bit longer, then go to bed, take a Tylenol and drift away to sleep and not get up till I wake up. No alarm tomorrow.
I'm going to the city tomorrow.
Goodnight for now. I've had enough. Long week. More later.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
OK. I'm sitting in the computer lab at the community college working with my students and helping them set up their blogs. This is a good lesson for me in patience. I have very little. I woke this jdgaanderson@hotmail.com
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