Heirlooms

How to describe Pop?

Pop was my dad's grandfather, my great grandfather. I never met him. He died before I was born, but one of my earliest memories is of him, of sitting on a bench in a train station next to a man telling me he's my great grandfather. I've seen pictures of Pop, and I'm pretty sure it's him in my memory. That memory might just be there because of the world of stories about Pop that live on.

Pop spent most of his adult life working in glass. He was kind of a rennaissance man, so he applied himself to several trades; he worked at a specialty bookbinding house for a while, he painted, he etched glass, he cooked. He invented the ravioli recipe my family traditionally makes for Christmas dinner every year. When my father was a teenager, Pop took him and his cousins on trips up to NYC, down to Trenton, to Boston, to Washington, D.C., and cultivated a real love of travel in them. My mom describes him as the most complete gentleman she ever met.

I've always liked the stories about Pop. Like I said, I never met him, but since I became an adult, I've always felt like some part of him was a part of me.

Today, I got home and found an unexpected package at my door. I opened it, and found these inside:



These were decorated by Pop. He etched the Rs onto them (R for Rossi, of course). They are the only two left in the world, and my father gave them to me, because he said my Christmas gift this year reminded him of Pop and of the spirit of experiment, invention, and artistry that Pop had.

I can't think of a time I've felt more honored. I can't think of a gift I'll cherish more.

Acting and Workshop

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Since I'm a state employee, I have the day off, and I plan to use it to its fullest extent. Whatever that might be. At the moment it means taking the chance to work on a project I've been meaning to get to and updating you on my life.

Last Wednesday, I auditioned for the Anatomy Collective's spring show, The Prometheus Myth, which is a movement/puppetry-based show in development around, well, the Prometheus myth. It was one of the most fun auditions I've had in a while and as such would have been worth going to in and of itself. I got a call from them on Saturday, and they told me that I've been cast. I'm looking forward to it. The show looks to be great fun, and the people doing it are neat, so I'm stoked. First rehearsal is on Wednesday.

My Strange Dreams...
The Strange Dreams of Nobody in Particular is my contribution to Tantalus's summer. I've been promising for a while that I'd talk about it here, but have been avoiding it because I'm not really sure where to begin. So I figured I'd just choose a place now and get it all out. Sorry for the information dump.

Strange Dreams...is going to be a serial show to be performed in its complete form over the run of a weekend. So Thursday will be one part, Friday will be the second, Saturday will be the third. The complete version will take a mosaic narrative structure, which will mean that an audience member can conceivably take in only one night and still leave feeling as though she has seen a complete show, or she can see all three nights and see a larger, richer show. Each show is like the tiles in a mosaic: each can stand on its own as a simple thing of beauty, but taken as a whole, they fit together as a large and intricate story.

At its core, Strange Dreams... is about storytelling and the simple type of theatrical magic that comes with listening to a good story told well. Spectacle in this piece will be minimal and largely peripheral, and the audience will be asked to use their imaginations to a degree not often asked of a modern, movie-going audience.

Since I've never created a show of this type, and since I've never seen a work of serial theatre, this piece poses several major challenges. Marketting is one of them. How to get an audience to come back several nights in a row? The other big problem is structuring the shows so that they can both stand alone and fit together.

I didn't know how to do this, so for the past month and a half, I've been in workshop with Tantalus folks and some trusted friends, exploring the art of storytelling and developing ways to tell a large story using several smaller stories. In the past two weeks, we took the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and wrote stories around the negative space of Orpheus and Eurydice. Some of these stories intersected directly with Orpheus and Eurydice's story, some were far reaching, but related to the story. The idea was to use the negative space surrounding Orpheus and Eurydice to paint a picture of the myth itself. We played with this method for two weeks and then applied a structure, based in a nine-card tarot reading, to the whole thing. The first row of the nine cards dealt with the past. The second with the person that the reading is being done for. The third is the future.

We assembled stories in this way, wrote a few new ones and adapted old ones to better fit the tarot structure. On Thursday, we presented the findings of the workshop to some close and trusted friends in the form of the nine-story telling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. I have to say, I was impressed with what we created. The workshop presentation wasn't the show we're going to perform, but it was an impressive piece of theatre in itself. From the comments my friends made and from their suggestions, I've learned a great deal about how we need to approach Strange Dreams... in order for it to work. We still have miles to go before we can even think of sleeping, but it was a very successful workshop and for the first time in a while, I'm absolutely confident that Strange Dreams... is going to be an amazing show.

Finally, what this workshop has renewed in me is the sense that there really isn't any excuse for bad theatre anymore. The show we presented at the workshop was put together in two weeks with no script, no costumes, no props, no money expended, just five people working hard and playing with their imaginations, and what we ended up with was an hour-long show I'd be proud to present at a festival. Given that, I can think of no excuse for creating a bad show. Just something to chew on for a while.

PS...
If there's anyone reading who is skilled in brazing metals and would be willing to share some of that knowledge with me firsthand, please let me know. I'm at a bit of a loss with a project I'm working on at present. Thanks.

The Mud Queens are Back, and There's Gonna Be Trouble

I love the Mud Queens of Chicago. Aside from the fact that they've brought back the timeless art/sport/giddy thrill of watching women writhe around semiclothed (and often not so much clothed) in mud, not only do they practically give away their shows for the low price of five dollars (which buys you bands, mud wrestling, and a kick ass party), they make you feel good about watching seminaked (and often not so much semi) women kick each other's asses, because all of the profits go to support The Young Women's Empowerment Project.

Fuck yeah.

Show Me Your Package, Mr. President

U.S. says opens some private mail in terrorism fight

"U.S. officials can open personal mail arriving from abroad as part of the fight against terrorism, and do so when they deem it necessary to protect the country, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said on Monday.

"News of the little-known practice follows revelations that the government approved eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without judicial oversight after the September 11 attacks, which sparked concern from civil liberties advocates and some lawmakers who called for congressional hearings. "

Let's be perfectly clear on one thing, here: The government did not approve eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without judicial oversight. The Bush Administration approved it. When you say that the government approved these things, it indicates that Congress had a notion that this was going on and that proper checks and balances were observed.

They weren't, as indicated by the countless congressmen who were apalled to find out what was going on.

One of those thoughts I probably shouldn't share...

If orgasm is, as the French put it, le petit mort, the little death, then I have committed suicide countless times.

Happy New Year

What the title says. I've got nothing more to say than that. Hope you all have a good one, full of love and prosperity and...um...various foodstuffs.