Category: Creativity

Creating something every day for 365 days

Cleaning up (Day 281/365)

Posted on by Dale

No, not cleaning up at home. I’ll probably do that tomorrow. Today I cleaned up in my office at school.

I’m getting a Promethean board in the media center, and it involves a wholesale turning-upside-down of the entire media center. I hope it’s worth it. Part of what’s involved is moving where I work, on a table out in the media center, over to where the Promethean board is going to be.

Since I haven’t really used my office (nor the old Mac on the desk) in a couple of years, I decided that I would move my desk over to my new workspace rather than the library table I’ve been using. To do that, of course, I had to tidy up.

I began yesterday, hauling stuff off the shelves and throwing away tons of outdated stuff: Beginning Internet for Teachers; Using Filemaker 3.0; The Mac Demystified (don’t know why I had that one); old school improvement frameworks; the QCC; that kind of thing.

Today I continued, consolidating materials and tossing. It’s great fun. I am reminded of Wallace Stevens’ “Peter Quince at the Clavier,” among other Stevens’ poems, in which he uses the garden as a metaphor for creativity. He usually makes one of two points: first, the universe is a chaotic mess, a wilderness, and we humans organize as much of it as we can into gardens, and creative people are always looking for an exit from the garden, so that we can find more wilderness to organize. His second point is that gardens die and must be torn out and replanted in order to continue to be gardens.

So before I can move ahead into the wonderful future (?) of the Promethean board, I have to in many ways remove some of the old. This was certainly true of the technology stuff I’ve been throwing away.

84 days to go.

A logo (Day 280/365)

Posted on by Dale

Mindful of the issues of using the complete title of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, I began playing with ideas today in PhotoShop. (Yesterday I downloaded four or five new fonts to play with as well, although this particular font is one I already had called Fifteen36.)

That’s one solution, although I would want a much fatter (though still elegant) background font.

Looking at it now, here’s an idea: make the A Visit to lengthened, stretched into the distance, like William Blake’s Inn‘s shadow.

I downloaded the video that Jonathan shot last week. The sound is not the best, but our two staged works come across quite well. The music actually stands up to inspection. I can’t wait to hear it for real, one way or the other, with a chorus that has been rehearsed by someone who knows what they’re doing. (Dragging on “never part day from night” there… tsk, tsk…)

Small cleanup (Day 279/365)

Posted on by Dale

Just small stuff tonight: I went through my piano/vocal score that I used in January and last week and made all the corrections in the files that I’d been marking in the score. This included things like the missing word “boots” in the soprano line in Milky Way, or the inexplicable use of the word “mouse” instead of “cat” who guards my doors in Postcard. Others were more subtle, like using a Finale plug-in to add courtesy accidentals throughout Milky Way. (You’re welcome, chorus.)

Otherwise, nothing really strenuous tonight. There are some details from the Arts Commission meeting that I want to track down before discussing them here, but that was about it for the day.

Workshop, 5/8 (Day 278/365)

Posted on by Dale

We met to debrief the backers audition, congratulate ourselves, and prepare for the next phase.

We discussed whether to call the production A Visit to William Blake’s Inn or, as I had printed out in various fonts on the wall, William Blake’s Inn. I pointed out that we were talking three separate works here: Nancy’s book, my song cycle (both entitled A Visit...), and the stage show, the title of which was up for grabs. There was something to be said for separating the stage show from the other two.

Also, I pointed out that it’s nearly impossible to get the entire title balanced typographically. I know, since I’ve had to do it on flyers, post cards, posters, all kinds of things. There’s just no way.

However, Marc suggested making the logo such that William Blake’s Inn was the major visual component, with A Visit to not as noticeable above it. His point was that he hated to lose the idea of “a visit” in the title. We agreed with that. We also thought perhaps a professional graphic artist might have more flexible ideas.

I filled everyone in on what I knew about the Cultural Arts Commission’s role at this point, which is not much. We have a volunteer to head up the project, although whether she has volunteered to be über-producer or just the Scotland coordinator, even I am not clear. The Commission meets tomorrow, so we’ll know more then.

We defined what our role was going to be in this venture: we propose the budget; we workshop the piece and develop the script and visual materials; we work with the designer(s); we cast the show; we rehearse the show; we produce the educational materials for schools (book studies/music).

The organizing committee’s roles: produce the show; find space and resources; organize volunteers; raise money; pay bills; publicize the show; handle the Scotland connection; handle the Willard exhibit;

We think we really need to hire a technical director (TD) to supervise (and perhaps design) the sets and costume construction. We will need to pay the musical director. We should pay the director, though I blush to say it. We will need a real lighting designer and a sound engineer.

I’ve already defined the next three phases somewhere, but I’ll restate them here. During Phase 1 (Aug. 2007-May 2008), Lacuna will workshop the show and propose the budget; the Organizing Committee (WBOC) will begin organizing, raising money, lining up space and resources. During Phase 2 (Jan. 2008-Oct. 2008), Lacuna will design the educational materials and assist with the construction of costumes, etc.; WBOC will continue to raise money, begin to publicize, line up the Scotland and Willard things, start the construction process. During Phase 3 (Aug. 2008-Oct. 2008), Lacuna will audition and rehearse the show; WBOC will publicize and organize whatever needs to be done leading up to opening night.

All of this is a grand, fuzzy outline which we’ll have to clarify in many, many conversations with the WBOC. So off into Limbo we go!

88 days to go.

Still regrouping (Day 277/365)

Posted on by Dale

Now that last week has settled down, although it’s not completely, still, I’m finding it difficult to stop and think about what we did and did not accomplish.

Clearly, we accomplished our main goal, which was to interest someone, anyone, on the Cultural Arts Commission in heading up the organizing committee. And several people told me that they now understood what the possibilities were in creating a stage work from my song cycle.

On a personal level, I was able to impress quite a lot of people with my music. That’s not unimportant. When we set out on this journey, Marc wondered whether my pushing William Blake’s Inn as I was doing would be indelicate. Previously in my life, I would have agreed with him. (Yes, I was actually quite insecure about my music, and we could politely call it modesty.)

But I have come to the realization that self-promotion is what artists do, if they’re smart. All kinds of examples spring to mind: Beethoven’s mammoth concert in which he premiered his 5th and 6th Symphonies and the 5th Piano Concerto; or Schubert a few years later, finally putting some of his stuff into a concert after friends exhorted him to, but not daring to attend the concert himself; or, God help us, Wagner, terrorizing everyone in a 500-mile radius into doing his music exactly as he wanted it. “Art isn’t easy,” Sondheim reminds us in exactly this context.

So one accomplishment is a healthy self-confidence on my part. (It helps when your singers are complaining a week later that they can’t get the music out of their heads. Of course, the same complaint could be made about “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” or “At the Copacabana.”)

A very interesting thing I learned about our process, and I don’t know that this is an accomplishment or a failure, is how wasteful it can be. We wanted eight Toast Heads (three banners, two pennants, and three band members); we built six (ditching the pennants, the fabric for which had been bought); we used three. We made the band instruments, but didn’t get them finished and didn’t use them, or didn’t use them and so didn’t finish them. We replaced the wooden poles at the last minute because of their weight. The angel’s gown went unused, although we worked with it several ways. The turtle lights didn’t really work, and might have if I had thought of the much cheaper battery-powered tealights rather than the Radio Shack-inspired lights/wires/switches.

Have we learned enough in doing this to control more tightly the expenditures associated with the experimentation? Or is this something we just need to build into the budget?

Another thing I learned was that we have to decide how to handle the actual design and construction process. We brainstormed very well, and we came up with all kinds of visual prompts. But when it comes time to build everything, we will have to hand over to someone working drawings, costume plates, blueprints, all those things which will allow someone else to build our vision.

Do we have designers take our visual prompts and turn them into the drawings for the tech crew? Do we do it ourselves? Or is it going to be more fluid than that?

Those are all the thoughts I can force to the front of my head at the moment. I’m sure I’ll come back to this forum soon with more.

88 days to go.

Regrouping (Day 276/365)

Posted on by Dale

When an event like the William Blake’s Inn backers audition roars through one’s life, it’s like the disruptive force of the Marmalade Man: everything is turned upside down with no time nor energy nor focus to set it right.

So for the past week, the house has gone uncleaned, meals uncooked, items untidied. My life has been disrupted, broken apart by one evening, an important one, but just one evening. Now it’s time to put it back together.

I’ve spent some of yesterday and some of today packing away the Inn stuff: Toast Heads, sunflowers, brushes, hardware, etc. Some stuff has to go back to school. Books need to be shelved. Reference clippings need to be put into the scrapbook.

In some way, it’s like the music to the Epilogue: we’ve reached the end of the journey and need to sort it all out, looking back and cleaning away. And that’s part of the creative process as well, just tidying up and thinking about it all, before beginning the next project.

Not that this one is over, by a long shot. Now the hard part begins, taking it all forward to the world premiere. How many ideas will fall by the wayside? How many compromises will we have to make? How many concepts will be executed in ways that do not match our dream?

That’s tomorrow. Today, I clean up.

89 days to go.

Relay for Life (Day 275/365)

Posted on by Dale

I had never been a part of Newnan Crossing’s Relay for Life team before. I’d supported it, donated to it, but back when I was still at NCTC, there would be a show to take care of, and then I just never motivated myself to get on board.

However, since my friend Mitch Powell’s death last fall and his wife (and my friend) Anne’s recovery, I felt shamed into doing something more active. And so I went to the organizational meeting for the team.

We made plans to raise money via our friends, our students, their parents, anyone we could think of. During that meeting, those who had been part of the team in the past lamented that Ken Chambless, our former PE teacher, had gone to Welch Elementary. Who, oh who, would be our team’s Mr. Relay?

Dale, that’s who. I happily agreed to this position, knowing, and suspecting, nothing. They did mention that Ken had worn Daisy Duke shorts and a feather boa, but since I gathered that the position was essentially a team mascot to attract attention and donations, I figured that I could wear my kilt and a Hawaiian shirt and make a similar stir.

In actuality, it’s not “Mr. Relay,” it’s “MISSter Relay,” and it’s a drag contest. I found this out almost by accident a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. The theme was Hollywood, so I decided on the infamous, iconic Bjork swan dress.

[I almost backed off that particular frock, what with William Blake’s Inn swallowing all my available sewing time. I thought I had my teal dinner gown from the drag ball murder mystery hanging in my closet (heh), but couldn’t find it. Laurel Alford, president of NTC, kindly found it in the costume shop and brought it to me as my backup.]

I spent the week in my media center madly gathering netting and stitching it onto a circular skirt. Yesterday, I painted the swan head (leftover foam from the Toast Heads) and hacked out a slipover, one-shouldered bodice to tuck into the skirt. Voilá, an incredibly ugly version of Bjork’s ridiculous but elegant gown.

Add some makeup (lipstick and nails to match the swan’s beak), Ginny’s Mame wig, and I was good to go.

I have to state at this point that this sort of thing is way outside my comfort zone. Yes, I know, my fellow staff members were astonished to hear that after it was all over, but it’s true. I have never done drag in public before and have in fact avoided it. (The murder mystery was in-house, so to speak.) Part of it has to do with my incredible lack of macho-ness, I guess, and the idea that people will simply purse their lips and raise their eyebrows and make assumptions they ought not to be making. Why I should care, I don’t know, because God knows I don’t give a damn in any other area of my life. Why I can greet a fellow actor with a kiss on the cheeks, or lips, even, in public, but not put on a tacky costume, is perhaps a personal failing I need to look into, but there it is.

So anyway, this pitiful act of bravery, motivated by the unnecessary death of an old friend, had me lining up behind the stage with all the other gentlemen, many of whom had made an sincere effort to look good. I was clutching my Snape cape about me, along with a large purse and a champagne glass filled with ginger beer. We were called onto the stage one at a time, and when it was my turn, I handed my champagne to the announcer, turned my back to the audience, dropped the cape, and swirled around.

The crowd went wild. Quite gratifying. Then we all walked the track for an hour, accosting innocent strangers and demanding money from them. Those guys who had gone with the high heels were soon regretting it; I wore sensible white walking shoes. One more detail: the leotard I wore under the whole thing was lined in the bosom area, so I inserted a dog’s chew toy under the swan’s head. Lo, a boob that squeaked!

Anyway, I hauled in $777, which was not bad, but not good enough to beat BB&T’s Scarlett O’Hara, who came in with $1500.

Another detail: I began hearing bits and pieces early this week that there was talent involved. I could get neither confirmation nor denial , so I went on a search for a karaoke song I could sing. At first, I thought “Sempre libera” from La Traviata would be perfect, but it has a two-octave range and I couldn’t make it work. (That was from an opera karaoke website, believe it or not.) Then I found “The Lady is a Tramp,” but I didn’t know it well enough and didn’t have time to learn it. This was during this week, remember, when I was also preparing the backers’ audition in every non-school moment.

Finally it dawned on me that I could input any song I wanted into Finale and make my own karaoke track. Doh! I quickly picked “I Get a Kick Out of You,” spent Friday morning getting it laid out, exported, and burned. Driving back and forth, I worked out my own special stylings, and I was ready.

And then they didn’t have us do anything! The whole evening ran behind schedule, so they cut our talent. Philistines.

Finally I was off duty, and I quickly changed into my kilt, washed my face, and finally relaxed a bit.

The rest of the night was uneventful, but so cold as to make it most uncomfortable. I finally had to put my jeans back on and wrap up in my cape. Some sleep, but not a lot, and throughout the evening I and everyone around me were occasionally startled by my vivid red fingernails. What a strange way to be reminded that you are alive and conscious.

90 days to go.

The backers audition (Day 273/365)

Posted on by Dale

tThings went well. I’ll post a full report Saturday night after I get through Relay for Life.

update: It’s Sunday morning and my brain is just now emerging from the sludge. Later.

Finally posted Monday night!

First of all, the backers audition tonight was a success. I thought the chorus sounded as good in parts as they’ve ever done, and I think they’d agree with me that we just fell apart on some spots, especially the first number. I have come to hate computerized accompaniment.

Solos were all spot on, mostly because we could follow the accompaniment by ourselves. Coordinating the whole gang was more of an issue.

I thought Denise and Marc set a wonderful tone with A Rabbit Reveals My Room. Marc’s Bear was wonderfully comfortable.

Our staging for The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives worked, although I would love to see it on video. We had a lot of pieces to move around and I’d like to see if it looked cluttered or if it looked intriguing. From the still photos I have, I think it looked as if we knew what we were doing. And of course, the hedgehogs were adorable.

The King of Cats Orders an Early Breakfast and The King of Cats Sends a Postcard to His Wife were solid hits. I was actually accused of enjoying myself a little too much, but the songs are incredibly fun to sing, and present plenty of opportunities for characterization.

Anne’s voice is such an incredible instrument. I’ve told her that every time I write a soprano solo, I’m thinking of her. The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud and The Wise Cow Makes Way, Room, and Believe show her off to perfection.

Two Sunflowers Move into the Yellow Room was a huge hit. First of all, the song is quite lovely in and of itself, and I think our staging astonished everyone. Melissa and Denise sounded quite lovely together. The sunflowers themselves were a clever idea, and the sunflower waltz was a wicked combination of parody of and homage to classical ballet.

All the comments I’ve gotten indicate that Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way is the crowd favorite. It’s a gorgeous piece, of course, but I’m sort of surprised: it’s nearly seven minutes long, with long sections where there’s no singing. Formally, it’s in modified sonata form, but that’s not going to register with 98% of the listeners. I can’t explain its appeal, other than people just thrill to its ultra-romantic stylings.

The rest of the work went well: Malcolm’s Marmalade Man, Mary Frances’s Tiger, and Marc’s Tailor, all hit the mark.

Most importantly, the performance impressed an awful lot of people and opened their eyes to what we’ve been talking about. We have a coordinator from the Cultural Arts Commission who’s willing to take on the project, more about which later. That was our major goal in staging the evening, so whatever weaknesses qua weaknesses were evident, they are completely irrelevant.

92 days to go.

D-1 (Day 272/365)

Posted on by Dale

More swan dress, more netting. More gathering of dozens of yards of material. More dirty words under my breath. But it’s getting closer.

However, I had begun to suspect that I was not being told the entire story on the Relay for Life drag show, so I did some emailing around to find out the whole truth. It was as I suspected: there is a talent portion. I have tracked down a karaoke version of “Sempre libera” from La Traviata, but whether I can get it transposed in time for me to learn it is another story.

I tracked down a green cummerbund for the Rabbit (and a gold bowtie for the King of Cats), so that’s my last stab at getting ready for tomorrow night.

Bette copied me on email to the Cultural Arts Commission, outlining all the food quotes she’s pulled from the book to decorate the refreshments table with. I forwarded it to Nancy; I think we amuse her.

And finally, huzzah! Tonight’s rehearsal was great! All of us were there, and what a difference that makes: the music sounded as good as it ever has. And the staging is startlingly good. I think people are going to be surprised, delighted, and impressed.

93 days to go.