Friday

Woke up to a dark, wet, and now, blustery morning.  A month's worth of rain in two days.  And I need to clean up my garden today and tomorrow.  It's my own doing of course, I was hoping things would ripen a bit more (tomatillos, for one), and I haven't had time to get back since last Saturday.

On Tuesday (the nicest day of the week), took the ferry out to Bainbridge to visit with friends, I think it's been four years (!) since I've seen any of them.  Caught the boat home as the sun was dropping low, fog lingering, water calm, and a relatively quiet ferry ride.  Gliding back toward the city, only an outline in the fog, but always visible, as was the Mountain, there was a sense of sailing into the unknown, like being at the edge of the known world: serene, yet desolate, and a pervading sense of melancholy, that took me a day to shake, even though I walked off the ferry to go have dinner with another group of friends.  Ah, maybe it's the weather, the time of year, the season of Scorpio, the silence, the sense of impending loss (real or imagined.)  Again, the idea of what am I waiting for, why am I holding my breath?

Cooked dinner for some college students on Wednesday, and by the time that was over, the melancholy had lifted.  The result of action, I think; and giving.  We made chili.  It was edible, but would've been improved by more salt, and a longer cooking time.  Also, we made way too much.

Did my first "activation" of the sculpture work last night.  I watched the second group, they did the same pieces, I think.  Watched to see how they determined when to take it off, you do everything at the same time.  Also, I found I wanted mostly to look at the people, and not at the form itself, had to train myself to look at the overall shape.  I'm signed up again on Saturday, as part of a public lecture.

There are a ton of shows I want to see, lot of friends doing work right now.  I really need to get off my butt and audition.

Cheers.

Home from another show

Home really late again. Just saw my favorite live band (The Model Rockets) at the Sunset Tavern (again, this week). They totally killed it. Not enough people there, but I think it was an enthusiastic crowd, non-the-less. They're not actually together as a band anymore, I think they reunited for a fan's birthday, two of them live in other states, though, they said they are recording a single tomorrow. I started going to their shows around 1994 or something like that. My friend had seen the listing and told me about it, so I met her and another friend there. I'm really glad: they are just SO GOOD live.

Earlier in the evening had gone to another of the Northwest New Works festival showcases at On the Boards, the second studio weekend. I did like it more overall than the studio showcase last week, and I think it's because there was more narrative, though admittedly, haven't a clue what the last piece was about. Makes me wish they'd put a short blurb in the program about the pieces. Again, a bit of a pet peeve of mine, it's like you have to be in the know to get it, and I find the idea of that a little pretentious and off-putting. Do you want to build up and audience for the work or just have people pretend to get it, to like it? Just saying. Give people a chance. Go ahead and educate your audience a little bit. You don't have to spell it out in full, but a couple of sentences about the work would be helpful both for the audience and for focusing the work in general (that kinda' goes for everything.) It's not unheard of, lots of artists do it. Even posing a question. Put a seed in my mind. I was living in my own universe for a while, so I'm probably out of touch with what issues people are concerned about. Makes me feel dumb to not understand it. Don't think I'm alone in this. And I think it would add to the enjoyment and the connection with your audience. Without context, it's just people moving in space, interesting, maybe even beautiful. With context, I then know what you wanted to communicate, that you did want to communicate something. 

We come together speaking in different tongues. We want to connect. Make an inroad.  Please.

But three out of four I mostly understood because of the narrative context. The fourth had some narrative, but it made it somehow more confusing....like I don't necessarily get what the women in their underclothes in the background had to do with the headlights attracting oppossums and killing or injuring them. Was it about objectification? Identity? I don't know. (Some really cool physicality in it though.) A friend is seeing it tomorrow, I'll ask her about it later. She explained something else to me that I didn't get last week and it made more sense. But, in spite of my minor irritation, had an enjoyable night.  I love the diversity of creativity that goes into all the works, and all the time and energy and talent that is involved in putting something like this together, both from those on and off of the stage.

(Oh, and we are not five-year olds. We are not; and yet the words are there for me, but I can't say anything either, so much time...with each passing year fewer and fewer words. But to finally get it off of my chest I'll say it here: I'm sorry.  It was a really bad year for me. I didn't have it in me. That may or may not make any sense, but the apology is sincere.)