Yourgrau, Huckabees, Synchronicity

I woke up this morning feeling just zonked, which is a medical term that means someone had flipped my autoplilot switch and I couldn't get myself back to normal. Workshop's got me exhausted, and my body is punishing me for wearing it down (or giving me permission to rest, depending on how you look at it) by making me sick. So I'm playing hookie tonight.

I saw I Heart Huckabees on Tuesday. Fantastic movie--I can't recommend it enough. It starts out like an absurdist play and then slowly moves into something much more human and worldly without violating the world it's created in its opening scenes. Anyway, I thought it was wonderful, fun, beautiful, inspiring.

And Barry Yourgrau has a new Web site, which should have information about where he's doing readings. If you're not familiar with his work, Barry Yourgrau writes flash fiction stories--maybe a page or two in length--that read like someone narrating his dreams to you. My favorite description of his work, so far is:

"reading barry yourgrau is addictive, like putting peanuts in your nose & they turn into these spaceships or something"-- roy blount jr

And that's really him in a nutshell. His writing has inspired mine a great deal. In my senior directing class, I tried to create a play, based on his book, The Sadness of Sex (the film version of which is on IFilms, and you can see my pale attempt to imitate his style in "Plum Wine". My Korpervelt series of stories (which will be on my Web site when my Web site is up and running) takes a lot of what I get out of his writing and superimposes my own fantasies, dreams, etc. onto it. At least, they came from a place that was very much inspired by his works.

Anyway, check out the link to his site on my sidebar. There's lots of links to articles about him and where and when he will be reading. If you live in NYC, I recommend you see one. That means you, Kim.

Life's had a weird synchronicity to it recently. I've been dreaming lots of dreams about my Amanda, not fun dreams either. I keep having dreams where we leave each other. Or tell each other to go away. But there's always some sort of warmth in all of it. And while that's happening, the Universe has been answering my request for new people and for people who knew the old me by sending new people to me left and right and sliding people from back in Philly into my life here. Which has made me happy.

I still have no Internet at home. Soon, hopefully, I'll have my WiFi up and running but until then, I'm limited to writing at work. Which means I'm not going to be entering as much as before.

It also means I leave at five. Which is what I'm going to do right...now.