So…

Posted on by Dale

The question arises, what have I been up to? I clearly have not been blogging.

Mostly that’s because I don’t have a lot to say. Actually, I might have a lot to say, but none of it is very coherent these days. Much tumbling through the brain, large galactical dust clouds, but no planets forming.

However, I can report on my latest acquisition(s).

First and foremost, I have bought a painting by Dianne Mize, my painting instructor from GHP in 1970. She and I have agreed never to mention how many years ago that was, and I’ll thank you to do the same.

Here’s the painting:

click to see Dianne’s original blog post

Dianne had sent me an invitation to the exhibit opening at the Tekakwitha Gallery in Helen, GA, but since it was November 1, the Saturday evening performance of Coriolanus at NCTC, I couldn’t go. When she sent an email saying the show had been held over until Christmas, I made plans to get there.

Ginny readily agreed to my idea of returning from Virginia via Helen so we could stop to see Dianne’s work. I had already decided that I would just pick one and charge it, so when Ginny offered to make me a Christmas present of whatever one I wanted, I accepted.

I also considered this painting:

click to see Dianne’s original blog post

It was a tough choice, obviously. I may have to have the cows later. I chose the landscape because of its subject matter. I love places like this. It reminds me of a couple of places from my life, and each of them was from a time of great happiness.

One is Snake Creek over on Parks Avenue. When I was a child, we would play there constantly, plashing in the water and running through the “woods” in that narrow strip that runs along the curve of the street. It was and is a beautiful green space.

Another is a park on the outskirts of Athens by the river. I didn’t get to go there a lot, but I remember one time, the spring of my junior year, when Kevin Reid, Cathy McQuaig, and I went for an afternoon picnic there. Kevin had become my closest friend after showing up that semester, he had dropped out of Griffin High School and just come on to UGA, and all three of us were close from working both in the costume shop and in Period Dance.

Kevin and I were a lot alike: young, precocious, serious, ferociously curious, intense readers. I know I was in love with him, and he with me, in the way young men are that verges on the physical. (Jobie, remember that piece I read out loud this summer? It was Kevin that gave my reading that passion.)

He’s dead now, of AIDS, back in the late 80s I think. I didn’t know this until last year when Ginny and I went to LA and had a reunion of a bunch of UGA theatre folk from that time. I had put together a video of all the Period Dance photos, and when we came to one of Kevin, that’s when someone told me of his death. It still hurts me, as I type this even, how I lost touch with him, and then lost him entirely.

As we sat by the river that afternoon in 1975, we knew we were enjoying a halcyon moment, and we even verbalized it. I think we knew that we would lose each other to Time, and we hugged our happiness to us even as the sun set.

That’s why I bought the landscape.

I like Dianne’s impressionistic style, her loose brushwork, and her sure sense of palette. I especially like her methods of working, and they are methods, which frustrates me when I am unable to develop similar methods for my own work in music.

However, I’m not going to whine. Let’s talk about what I am working on rather methodically, and that’s the labyrinth. I haven’t done anything since earlier in the week, of course, and now it’s raining, but I am beginning to see the endgame here.

I shall finish the curves on the pathway this week, working Tuesday and Thursday on that task. Tuesday afternoon, I order the topsoil, and with any luck will have that to play with this weekend. On Thursday, I will seek out stonecutters here in town, one of those granite countertop concerns over on the bypass, to see if they can cut the stones around the center in a more precise circular pattern. I also developed a fantasy today of checking out a four-foot piece of granite for the centerpiece. That wouldn’t be expensive at all, I’m sure.

With any kind of luck, I may have the labyrinth finished, if not this weekend, then the next. I will also be working then on coordinating the mise-en-scene of the entire backyard into something whole: columns, lighting, sculpture maybe? I don’t know. As Marc says, it seems I’m determined to become the Howard Finster of College Street.

Labyrinth, 11/24/08

Posted on by Dale

Today I worked on splitting the paving stones using an arcane process explained to me by a video on Lowe’s website.  It took only an hour and a half to do the three arcs you can see here. 

The good news is that it won’t take me very long to finish the curves.  I even found a reliable source for soil today.

The bad news is that I’m annoyed I didn’t try this earlier; I could have been done. Still, it’s easy to do and doesn’t look bad at all.

I have all these leftover stones, about 340.  Here’s what I’m thinking: buy a drill press, drill holes in them, drive rebar into the ground at the cardinal points of the compass around the labyrinth, and then stack the stones in a kind of rusticated column.  Could be pretty spooky in the firelight.

However, my calculations have just shown, and I’m double-checking them as we speak, that if I use all the stones, my columns will be fourteen feet tall.  I’m thinking maybe no on the height.  But eight feet tall could be cool.  And top them with ceramic sculptures or something.

A lovely bit of snark

Posted on by Dale

I just had to share this, and I will share it on my Facebook page just to broaden its distribution:

from one of my favorite Evil Liberal Blogs™, Eschaton:

I’m so old I can remember when spending $8 billion to give more health care to kids would spook the bond markets so badly that it just couldn’t be done.

Stuff like this reminds me of why I hate Republican governance.

It’s official

Posted on by Dale

I am hereby canceling the Quiet Strength meditation series. Trying to jumpstart my writing was a good idea, but merciful heavens what a truckload of treacle that book is!

Just scanning ahead to find a topic to write about this morning, again, trying to get something out of my head and onto the page, was enough to cause permanent pursing of the lips and raising of the brows.

  • People-pleasing
  • Crisis and pain in relationships: relationships are like crabs; they have to shed their shells to grow; and then they’re vulnerable… ::shivers down the spine::
  • Men as brothers: actually quotes Whitman and encourages us, as we are “trained to pursue women,” to “actively pursue friendships with men.” Come onto the raft, Huck, honey. (Yes, I know, but icky!)
  • Wordless language: I talk to the trees.
  • The True Work: SHA, anyone? How about a podcast sitcom?
  • Wounds into gifts: bang that drum, honey.
  • Zaniness: “one of the most endearing qualities of men is our zaniness”
  • Search for the sword
  • Removing my armor
  • Side-by-side intimacy
  • Body wisdom and sexuality
  • Howling

And we’ll leave it at that.

Gay marriage

Posted on by Dale

Open letter to religious opponents of gay marriage:

First of all, when you say that “God ordained that marriage is between one man and one woman,” do us all a favor and say, “I believe God ordained that marriage is between one man and one woman.”

This keeps the debate over the topic a little clearer, because then others who might still be thinking about which way to think about it have the opportunity to reflect that you might also believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, or that God hates shrimp.

And I know you’re not given to thinking about ambiguities, but you really need to mull over this idea: with California’s Proposition 8, you restricted the right to marry to heterosexuals. The problem is that when a right is given only to part of the population, it is no longer a right, it is a privilege. And you remember what your parents told you about privileges. That’s right, you have to earn them. And they can be taken away by the Authority Figure who grants them. “It’s not a right, it’s a privilege,” remember? So by converting the right to marry into a privilege reserved for only a portion of the population, you have just stripped all of us of our right to marry.

Hope this doesn’t make your brain hurt too much, but remember: no pain, no gain.

Meditation: The false self

Posted on by Dale

I’m bored in a hotel, so I’ve picked up an old draft of a post of one of those wounded warrior meditations. Sorry.

Part of my problem with my source material is that so much of it smacks too much of “such a worm as I,” albeit in a new agey way, which probably makes it even worse. Take today’s topic. Please. [/rimshot] The point seems to be that “as boys, we learned we had to find out who others wanted us to be,” and then we had to become that person. “Now,” though, we’re ready to become our “authentic” self.

Feh.

I know that a large part of growing up is figuring out what societal norms are, and we ignore those norms at our own peril. I’m sure most of my male readership, and probably the female as well, knows all too well the pain of not conforming. If I cared what my bucking those norms has cost me in my life, it would probably drive me mad. What, don’t you think, as I do, that one of the reasons NCTC never gained traction amongst the power elite in this town is because it was led by me? And I was, well, just a little bit off?

Who among us does not understand that we are many selves, that our true “self” is this amalgamation, did you know that amalgamation was synonymous with miscegenation many years ago?, of selves, and that we do not, can not show our “true self” to anyone because there’s not a single such persona to be shown?

Yes, I show different “selves” to different people. I share different things with different people. I’ve told things to Marc that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with Jeff, and heaven knows Jeff and I have chatted about things in ways that would raise others’ eyebrows, and none of you knows the things I’ve told Ginny and withheld from you. And above all, there are the things that I’ve told no one, haven’t even put into private blog posts.

(Did you know there was such a thing? If you’re not the creator of a website, there could be all kinds of blogposts you never see, like little ghosts drifting between your reading, gazing knowingly out at you in your ignorance of the full measure of your host. So… back to your reading.)

So do I have a secret self? Dern tootin’. Does that make my public selves false? I cannot think how. I’m thinking that our wounded warriors have a problem with self in the first place. Grownups in the Lylesian sense don’t worry about that. (We worry about people finding our private blogposts.)

Labyrinth, 11/5/08

Posted on by Dale

I worked this afternoon on changing the right-angle turns to the curves I had originally planned.

I think it works better, although I’m going to have to work on balancing them out a bit.

It becomes more and more obvious that I am going to have to rent a wet bandsaw to cut the stones for the curves and for the central circle. I have to do that soon, before the dirt is delivered, and I’d like to get all that done before Thanksgiving. Hm… rental for the Monday before, dirt spread that week, seed planted on the weekend. It’s not going to be lush and green for the Lichtenbergian annual meeting, but it will be finished in every real sense.

I like having a plan.

Next?

Posted on by Dale

The question arose, after Coriolanus, what next?

Other than “sit in my backyard and watch the fire with a life-giving beverage in my hand,” I hadn’t given it an awful lot of thought. But ideas have been bubbling up in my head.

I’m still fascinated by puppets and would love to use them in something. See, as an example, Blair Thomas and Company. The drawback is the time and money; as Thomas says, “It’s such a tall order to spend the time that puppetry needs. If you take shortcuts, it’s the worst-case scenario, and the puppets are treated as props.”

The works of Brecht spring to mind, especially The Good Woman of Setzuan or The Caucasian Chalk Circle. I really like Good Woman/Person and its challenge to morality, and it would be fun to develop either of those scripts.

I’d be really interested in looking at some stuff that I do not understand, and here I can give as an example of the works of Charles Mee. Mee has put all his scripts online, free for the taking/manipulating/deconstruction, and I don’t understand the theatrical impulse behind most of them. So let’s do one. As Picasso says, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

(Although this script by Mee is pretty powerful.)

There’s always Shakespeare. The Tempest could be fun, and of course King Lear is the Everest of them all. Or we could go all the way obscure and look at Timon of Athens or King John or Henry VIII.

I will now ramble.

I’d be interested in just developing something in that way that Marc knows how to do but I don’t.

I really liked performing in the park, the theatre not so much. I felt alive in the park, and merely observed in the theatre.

While the idea of doing a School for Scandal with the Lacuna gang brings a smile to my face, I am no longer excited by the idea of making costumes.

I liked working with all men. It will feel odd to have women in the group.

When I look at stuff like Charles Mee or photos of other company-developed pieces, I often think that I don’t have anything to say in such a piece.

I am also skeptical of the power of non-narrative pieces. I want to be convinced otherwise.

I like the idea of looking at the Neo-Futurists for real.

We could set aside a short period, three or four weeks, Wednesdays only, and study a text, then quit. Ideas and lines of energy might emerge, and that would be fine. Or not.

I need to work on music.

The audacity of hopelessness

Posted on by Dale

Here’s a news story for you. Go read it. I’ll wait for you.

Rick Davis is breathtaking in his Orwellian manipulation of the language. Here’s my brief analysis of what he’s doing to the public:

“John McCain held the Bush administration’s feet to the fire more than anyone else for the first four years of the administration.”

Okay, that’s an easy one. Surely even the most brain-damaged nutjob realizes straight out that there’s been another three and a half years of Bushdom, during which McCain voted with the Current Occupant’s desires 90% of the time. These votes include voting to authorize the administration’s torture policies; kill the new GI Bill; authorize unwarranted surveillance; kill expansion of SCHIP; you name it, he’s voted with the White House position. (If I were a real blogger, I’d link to all those votes.)

“…he has attacked Sarah Palin and thrown the George Bush card back on the table.”

“The George Bush card”? Really?? The sitting President, the leader of McCain’s party, is now equivalent to Willie Horton?? It’s an amazing admission on Davis’s part that the past eight years of Republican governance have been an appalling disaster. He cannot possibly have meant that.

“If you bring up his association with William Ayers or Rashid Khalidi it’s, ‘Oh boy, that’s off limits; you can’t do that,’ but they can prosecute a campaign with hundreds of millions of dollars with no accountability.”

William Ayers? ::sigh:: A mischaracterized relationship with no discernible influence on Obama’s thinking or policies. A bogeyman. Rashid Khalidi? A completely falsified characterization, outright lies as to who Khalidi is and what he stands for. A racial bogeyman.

And notice the asymmetry of the sentence: two scary people = …? The natural end of that equation should be the aforementioned George W. Bush, but Davis can’t go there, can he? So he just tapdances. And notice too the awful awfulness: “prosecute… millions of dollars… no accountability.” Just what accountability does U.S. law, and here I’m thinking of the 1st Amendment, provide for campaigns, Rick? What accountability is Obama evading that McCain is adhering to? (vid. sup., re: Ayers, Khalidi)

“You have to wonder what his version of America is going to look like when people who disagree with him get attacked over and over again,” Davis said.

This is a stunning statement, absolutely gobsmacking. It’s a direct dogwhistle to the people who sincerely believe that Obama intends to establish a police state and round up all “right-thinking” people after his election. Crazy? Absolutely, but I’ve read their blog posts and the unhinged comments thereunto. These people are completely panic-stricken about the coming black power/Islamic/socialist destruction of our country. One is reminded of the recent research on the conservative brain being motivated by fear.

The statement is also a damnable hypocrisy, given the hell-for-leather tar and feathering the Republican party has been engaging in since Newt Gingrich passed out his little pamplet of labels to use against liberals. In this campaign alone, remember flag pins? Saying the Pledge? “Hate America”?

Not only all of the above, but Obama just aired a 30-minute infomercial in which he didn’t mention John McCain, or even the opposing side, even once. Can you imagine a 30-minute McCain production doing that? I didn’t think so.

In short, Rick Davis’s got nothing but LOLPreznents: “Hugely successful campaneing: ur doin it wrong.” Only four more days, my friends.

An open letter

Posted on by Dale

Dear Republicans:

When you ask me why I’m voting for the socialist, and I reply that the nation cannot afford more Republican governance, your next line is not, “Well, they were all part of it.”

Your next line is, “I like where our country is after eight years of Republican governance, and I’m voting for McCain so we can keep going down this road.” Try saying it out loud.

Just try.

Sincerely,
Dale