Ne vouz faites pas de souci

I am obsessed with the artist Sophie Calle. I was first exposed to her in an exhibition at Mass MOCA in 1999 and I have been hungry for more ever since.  That exhibition included photographs and diary entries from a stint where she pursued a monochromatic diet (i.e. she ate only pink food for a week, followed by only white food…), photographs and writing from a stint as a maid in a Paris hotel (primarily of the personal effects she encountered in the rooms she ‘cleaned’), and photographs and writing collected by a private investigator who Calle had entreated her mother to hire to follow Calle.  Other work I’ve been fascinated by since then includes a late 1980s phone booth installation in lower Manhattan where she offered snacks, pillows, dimes, and positive aphorisms for passersby looking for some TLC and/or connection.  

On Friday I visited the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest uptown forher latest exhibition, “Rachel, Monique,” which is inspired by the loss of her mother. The exhibit presents a variety of elements; photos, audio, diary entries, and a video: Couldn’t Capture Death. On this video, you see the last chest expansion, and then, several minutes later the rituals of letting go: stunned stillness, checking for pulse and breath, tender kisses on the cheek, ultimately – one version of the spiritually ineffable.

Ever since I was first exposed to Calle – I felt a deep artistic kinship with her. We are both insatiably curious about strangers’ private lives, and especially the clues people’s personal effects tell us about them.  Like Calle, I prefer an immersive installation experience in my art, rather than a traditional ‘framing.’ I am also interested in excavating the deepest depths of my and my collaborators’ personal lives and psyches for public consumption.  I am influenced by her playfulness and sense of humor, as well as her willingness to probe and confront the most challenging feelings and concepts through art.  

detroit and america

Dina just sent me this article because we've been talking about the play Detroit, by Lisa D'Amour... I'm so glad she did. It's a long piece but so moving and so important. And it has great pictures.

I have some people from Michigan, from Saginaw and Flint. And one of my best friends is from Detroit. And I loved the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. So, I'm really interested in Detroit. Also because it is potent. It is a real place that is also a reflection of empty promises and corruption and really terrible thinking. 

The article also reminded me of the fascinating recent profile of Theaster Gates in the New Yorker.  I'm so happy these people exist in the world and they're at it every day doing their good work.

I'm also really glad I wanted to hyperlink Lisa's name. It made me do a little internet-stalking and I learned more about Lisa from her website. I knew I really liked her world view and way with language and all that from reading (and seeing the production of) Detroit. Now I know we are also very kindred. She recently did an installation called Nest that was part environmental installation, part devised theater piece, part social inquiry. I also have my Nest... that endeavored to engage similarly.  And she wrote and directed a theater piece called "Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea" for Swoon's moving installation of homemade barges a few years back. I love Swoon and that project especially. I wish I could have seen the show.

Ahh, theater... ephemeral as neighborhoods. 

holding on to the balloon

Next week's I'm going to see Daniel Kitson's show at St. Ann's Warehouse. I'm really excited. I loved the last show of his that I saw. (In December 2011 or January 2012?)
Last week I was very wobbly-hearted and in one more inspired moment I cracked open one of Pema Chodron's books. When I originally read the book it was speaking to me about heartbreak and heart ache in terms of romantic love.  This time I was not reading it that way. This time I was reading into it of potential loss. The passage that struck me most was:
Inspiration and wretchedness are inseparable. We always want to get rid of misery rather than see how it works together with joy.  The point isn't to cultivate one thing as opposed to another, but to relate properly to where we are. Inspiration and wretchedness complement each other. With only inspiration, we become arrogant. With only wretchedness, we lose our vision.  Feeling inspired cheers us up, makes us realize how vast and wonderful our world is.  Feeling wretched humbles us.  The gloriousness of our inspiration connects us with the sacredness of the world.  But when the tables are turned and we feel wretched, that softens us up. It ripens our hearts.

Fortunately, the loss did not happen. My heart did soften though. And even my brain I think, in a good way. A little less rigid.

Also, there will be loss. Inevitably. Impermanence. Forever. But at least loss makes us value what we have. Or it can.

foot falls

In the Summer of 2004 Oscar Olivo and I made a piece together called Radio Sintesi (simultaneous translation) that we performed in my studio at Nest. It included an excerpt from Beckett's Footfalls. I played May, or Amy as she is referred to later, and he played my mother. He lay on the floor in a hospital gown and I was also in a hospital gown, and socks. It was done in almost total darkness as the sort of prologue to what went on to become a very chaotic piece. (The piece used a matrix of sections and several bells and timers and 'chance', and also included me ACTUALLY washing the audience member's feet whilst wearing a bubble wrap plastic bag on my head and speaking fake Asian languages. There were also 14 televisions and 14 vcrs (this was a long time ago) between the 'audience' and the 'playing space' in a low, crumbling-ish wall. Each television had a super long cord plugged into it and each of the 14 audience seats had a headset through which the audience could listen to the audio, and watch the video, on one of the screens. The video footage consisted of a combination of major life events in my family (birthday parties, prom, weddings, etc), Oscar and I talking about culture, and also just very casually sort of gossiping about life. He had just recently been diagnosed at that point, and though he was a spry 22 year old, mortality weighed heavily on both of our minds. Today, that section of time feels so close. I can imagine walking through the side door to the building (68 Washington Street) and entering that whole world. I can remember the smells and the sounds and the angst I felt and the freedom too.
One of the reasons all of these memories came flooding back is that I went to see Hoi Polloi's production of Beckett Solos (Cascando, Footfalls, and Rockaby) tonight. Alec Duffy directed and Leila Goldoni performed. Julian Rozzell, Jr. lent his voice to the first play, a radio play. The major thrust of Mimi Lien's scenic installation was the tinfoil paper that covered the walls, (or is that a permanent element of Jack, HP's new theater?), but it wasn't two-dimensional, it looked like half-eaten mounds of ice cream or a volcano-speckled lunar landscape. Leila Goldoni is 77 and starred in Cassavetes' Shadows among other films. As she told us in the casual conversation after the performance, she was also a dancer and is a "very physical person." She talked about how her modern dance background meant she was used to abstract things and didn't need a play to be linear. She felt like she really got Beckett, when you 'look at the words on a page it looks crazy' but 'when you come off the page' it's alive. Knud asked her about the first time she saw a Beckett play and she said it was 1959, at the old Beverly movie theater in LA. Waiting for Godot. She loved it. She also met Groucho Marx and told that story too. About how he said she was very funny and she asked him if she could be a comic and he said, :no! You're too beautiful. Nobody can laugh at a beautiful woman!"
Anyway, I loved the production. It made me think of so many things and also gave me so much room to explore in my own head. You could check in and check out. I love that about the repetition in Beckett. The rhythm.
It also made me think so much about the last two weeks. My close-up window onto the cycle of life. Time with an 89 year old and time with a 1 year old. Both blood relatives. As my mom pointed out, in many ways, these two ladies are struggling with the same basic physical things.  Of course, the hardest part about aging, when your mind doesn't go, is that you know you are helpless. You have all of your faculties, all of your self-consciousness, all of your ego, all of your pride, all of your wisdom, and none of the physical strength or stamina you used to have. You lose the ability to feed yourself. To clean yourself. To dress yourself. To do all the things you know how to do.

we are all earthlings. we are all made of the stuff of stars.

This video is extraordinary. It's the first time I've heard astronauts speak so freely about the feeling of transcendence. Of one-ness. It made me think of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's discovery in the 1920s, that we are all made of the stuff of stars... and it made me want to go back to that play I've been working on forever. Cecilia and the Universe.

I'm still here and I still love music videos

Sometimes I think this place should be re-named 'my favorite things my favorite people send me.' This is no exception. (Thank you Erica.)

You may have heard about that video with Shia Labeouf? This is not that.
This is a Sigur Ros music video / dance film / mind trip.
It is beautiful and grotesque, sexy and sterile. It is both very complex and very simple.
Okay, enough words. Cue the music and the wings and the fur-feathers.

Sigur Rós - Fjögur píanó from Sigur Rós Valtari Mystery Films on Vimeo.

So, music videos. I love that music and movement and the visual rule and story is secondary. Gravy almost. I love that because the music world is so effing cool and sensual a music video feels successful if it is
a) an emotional experience
b) dynamic in rhythm, tone, color, or something else entirely
c) things don't have to make sense.

Music video's legacy is so young and so modern that there's no interest in realism or naturalism at all. I love that. I love music videos.

A few of the ones that stand out in my mind are November Rain, of course, Aphex Twin, Right Now by Van Halen, No Rain by Blind Melon, so many Nirvana ones... hmmm, was the golden age of the music video the mid 90s or was that just when I was watching MTV? What are the kids watching now?

Beyonce's had some gems, obviously. Who else?
Elephant Gun by Beirut -- also, like this featuring the choreography and performance of one Ryan Heffington. I got to work with Ryan once. On a dance film. God that was fun.

my favorite things

The experience of watching this is, for me, almost as good as going on a picnic at the beach, falling in love, playing catch, or dancing. The section around 4:11 really slays me.
Also, the story of how this film/video project came to be is powerful and unusual. A happy accident. Why did Michael Chesterman's mother have these films? And thank goodness for Colleen.
And also, as always, for Stella.

Were I a tree

Caleb told me Robert Creeley wrote this poem for his dear friend Pen, who had passed away a few years before. He sent it in response to a piece I shared with him by Roger Ebert called I Do Not Fear Death.

PICTURES
1
This distance
between pane of glass,
eye's sight —
the far wavering green edge
of trees, sun's
reflection, light
yellow — and sky there too
light blue.

2
I will sit here
till breeze, ambient,
enfolds me and I
lift away. I will
sit here as sun
warms my hands, my
body eases, and sounds
grow soft and intimate
in my ears. I will sit
here and the back of the house
behind me will last
disappear. I will sit here.

3
"Harry's gone out for a pizza.
Mabel's home all alone.
Mother just left for Ibiza.
Give the old man a bone?

Remember when Barkis was willing?
When onions grew on the lawn?
When airplanes just cost a shilling?
Where have the good times gone?"

4
If one look back
or thinks to look
in that uselessly opaque direction,
little enough's ever there.

What is it one stares into,
thinks still to recover
as it all fades out—
mind's vagary?

I call to you brutally,
I remember the day we met
I remember how you sat, impatient
to get out.
"Back is no direction...
Tout passe?"
Life is the river
we've carried with us.

5
Sun's shadows aslant
across opening expansive
various green fields down
from door
here ajar on box tower's
third floor—
look out on
wonder.
This morning.

6
I never met you afterward
nor seemingly knew you before.
Our lives were interfolded,
wrapped like a present.
The odors, the tastes, the surfaces
of our bodies were the map—
the mind a distraction,
trying to keep up.

I could not compare you to anything.
You were not like rhubarb
or clean sheets—or, dear as it may be,
sudden rain in the street.
All those years ago, on the beach in Dover,
with that time so ominous,
and the couple so human,
pledging their faith to one another,
now again such a time seems here—
not to fear
death or what's been so given—
to yield one's own despair.

7
Like sitting in back seat,
can't see what street
we're on or what the
one driving sees
or where we're going.
Waiting for what's to happen,
can't quite hear the conversation,
the big people, sitting up front.

8
"Death be not proud... "
Days be not done.
Air be not gone.
Head be not cowed.

Bird be not dead.
Thoughts be not fled.
Come back instead,
Heart's hopeful wedding.
Face faint in mirror.
Why does it stay there?
What's become
Of person who was here?

9
Wet
water
warm
fire.
Rough
wood
cold
stone.
Hot
coals
shining
star.
Physical hill still my will.
Mind's ambience alters all.

10
As I rode out one morning
just at break of day
a pain came upon me
unexpectedly—
As I thought one day
not to think anymore,
I thought again,
caught, and could not stop—
Were I the horse I rode,
were I the bridge I crossed,
were I a tree
unable to move,
the lake would have
no reflections,
the sweet, soft air
no sounds.
So I hear, I see,
tell still the echoing story
of all that lives in a forest,
all that surrounds me.

[Thank you Caleb for sharing this hauntingly beautiful poem.]

tea-time

by Paul Octavious (thank you Stella)

"... como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si..."

This piece premiered in Wuppertal in June 2009. It was the final piece Pina Bausch created.

I remember feeling so much grief when Pina passed away (also in 2009). I wrote on here about it, it was the same week Dorrit Hoffleit (astronomer) passed. Tonight I saw Danztheater Wuppertal perform Pina's final piece at BAM. It was revelatory. It was the most minimal set of any of her work that I've seen live, though of course the design was very considered and simple and powerful. (It was a vast white floor that periodically, surreptitiously, broke apart like land masses turning to islands. Plate tectonics. Swaths of splintered darkness amidst the light.) Also, her sense of humor. She makes me laugh so much.
And the most beautiful women. In gowns but with their hair down-- and all that that suggests.
The piece began and ended with a woman on all fours. Down stage right at a 45 degree angle. Her hair cascading over the back of her head and falling on the floor. Men came and lifted her, working together they maintained her exact position even as she was over their heads. The only difference was whenever they lifted her she would bark like a dog. When she returned to the floor, she was silent and placid again. Pina consistently achieves my favorite possibilities of performance:
- evoking giant themes (the need for love, for intimacy, for emotional security, for freedom) with the lightest touch
- the sense of 'losing' your mind, of elevating the body, the spirit, the animal above the cerebral, the psychological
- humor in the most imaginative constructions
- communion/community

Thank you Pina. Always and forever.

silent movie

Since I'm in California film is even more on my mind than usual. The 2-dimensional spectacle afforded by the car window speeding along freeways or winding through canyons and parks (one of the most common surnames for neighborhoods in LA) or even just stopped in traffic at all of these intersections of abutting and wildly divergent paths and populations-- it's no wonder so many people feel like filmmakers here. We are all gathered at the fountain of inspiration and every standstill is a potential frame in a future story. I love being in different cities because the physical geography of the place lays out like a map in my brain and my brain in turn shifts its own patterns and processes to mimic the shape of the city itself. I feel like my coding mechanisms shift from vertical orientations to wide and flat sprawls of information and memories and thoughts with pockets of room around them to breathe in. I sit in large rooms in large houses or hike in canyons with vistas stretching from mountains to the sea and without another human being in sight and the thoughts in my head un-stack each other too and the little thoughts that might have been towards the bottom of the pile, or maybe just kept being piled on top of, those thoughts can suddenly stretch out and unpack their insides and exist with all the space they need again. It feels expansive here. I feel expansive. Two of my film-world heroes passed away recently and I want to share a few details about them here. Chris Marker was an 'experimental' filmmaker-- experimental in the sense that he tried things that no one had ever tried before to marvelous and powerful effect and was a major force in modern cinema-- passed away yesterday in Paris. He was 91. His full obituary is here but my favorite part is at the end: "Mr. Marker gave one of his final interviews-- in 2008 to the French magazing Les Inrockuptibles-- through the virtual medium of Second Life. In response to a question about pseudonyms as masks, he said: "I'm much more pragmatic than that. I chose a pseudonym, Chris Marker, pronounceable in most languages, because I was very intent on traveling. No need to delve further." (He was 87 at the time of this quote.) His objective as an artist was to: "capture life in the process of becoming history." Another hero of mine, Andrew Sarris, passed away in June at the age of 83. I had the pleasure of taking Sarris' Modern Film class at Columbia where every Friday 10 or so of us would gather in the screening room at Dodge and make our way through great and sometimes obscure films from the likes of Bunuel, Rohmer, Resnais, Kurosawa, Varda and Godard. Each viewing would be followed by an animated conversation and we were tasked with writing a paper in response as well. Sarris was one of the first professors to offer encouragement about my attention to detail, or maybe his attention just made me feel more special than other professors because I admired him so much. He loved to provoke contentious debate in the class-- and was just as happy to hear how much somebody hated a film as how much they liked it. Like many of my favorite teachers and artists-- he seemed nostalgic for the late 50s - early 70s, when, I get the sense anyway, art mattered so much more to people. [From his NYT obituary:] “We were so gloriously contentious, everyone bitching at everyone,” Mr. Sarris recalled in a 2009 interview with The New York Times. “We all said some stupid things, but film seemed to matter so much. “Urgency” — his smile on this point was wistful — “seemed unavoidable.”

rainy monday

I just went for a great run in the rain.I know for a fact I've said this before but since it's still true-- sometimes running in the rain is a good time for a cry. That's okay. Crying is okay. It's good to feel things. Life is really incredible sometimes. And people. Like this girl. And her basil plants. And her big, big heart. You have to sort of lean in because she's really quiet. But it's worth it.

jump jump jump

The past week and a half have afforded me a bunch of extremely wonderful and one truly horrible occasion to reflect on life and death and babies and peanuts and growing up and expressing oneself. Colt Coeur did our (2nd annual!) free play-making workshop with Brooklyn middle school students and over the course of a week 18 original plays were created... and all kinds of other magic that can be quantified occurred too. The other thing is too sad to talk about and there's no silver lining so I'm not going to try and slap one on there. When in Boston I also got to visit with 6-week old Carys and 4 year-old Callum though. They are my "bee's knees" ... even though I don't know what that means exactly. Callum is doing a lot of counting and some basic addition and he kept pointing out that Carys "isn't even 1 yet... she's just zero." My sister likes to say how much Carys likes this or that outfit, or this or that 'jumping' activity, which I find really funny and endearing. Carys can't talk yet but she does look really happy in all the outfits and when my sister lifts her up quickly and says, "Jump jump jump." She has already changed so much since she was born. Callum was also asking me how old I would be when he is 40 and if we would ever be the same age. I said no because I didn't want to confuse him. The he said "I'm going to have a bigger life than you," which, when pressed, seemed to mean that he is going to live longer because he is younger than me. He explained, "not everybody dies at the same time... that's silly." When I started to look a little sad thinking about how old I'll be when he will be 40, he immediately offered, "We'll still have a long life together." Which is so true. And for that I am grateful. Steven Levenson sent me this today and I love it.

two messages I believe in.

watch this:


That made my eyes tear up. For me, sixth grade was the worst. I felt really, really alone and weird and like there was something wrong with me. The boy in the trailer breaks my heart because I just know he is going to the best and coolest kind of person ever if he can just get through the next 5-7 years. I wish he could know that I care about him. And think he's so much cooler than the a-holes behind him on the bus. I wish he could know that everything really is going to get better.

Around the time I was in 6th grade (really from 2nd grade through 6th grade) I loved to listen to a storybook on tape every night as I was falling asleep. I listened to the same one over and over. Which was also the book that was the first book I read aloud but I'm not going to say what the title of it was because you might become distracted from the point I'm really trying to make, about how wonderful it is to listen to someone tell a story in the dark. I listened to this as I was falling asleep the other night and I recommend it highly. Will has a great voice, a sort of ambiguously regional but extremely local-feeling radio station voice, and also a great voice in the other sense. listen here. (I especially recommend the interview/play that starts a little over 18 minutes in.)

Tree of Life

by Terrence Malick.
I just watched it and loved it.
For many reasons but the chief of which is it's economy of words. It is a rich and beautifully-told story about a boy, his dad, their family, and the evolution of the universe, the Earth, animals, etc. In that spirit, less is more words-wise tonight.

"It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later"

I didn't write that. Daniel Kitson wrote that. That is why it's in quotes. (Today is the day that websites like Google and Wikipedia are protesting the proposed legislation to censor and monetize the sharing of information online. Like many bills, these bills make it sound like you are a bad person if you oppose them (i.e. No Child Left Behind... no ones wants to leave a child behind). In fact, the titles of the bills don't fully do them justice: Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. Since today is a day of awareness re: these bills I thought it was important that I use the quotes. Also, I believe in giving credit.
(My nephew Callum loves pirates which I was an eensy bit worried about until we went to see Peter Pan and I saw that in the version he was familiar with Smee rejects the violent and scary traditional life of a pirate for life in London with the Darlings.)
Right now I want to give Daniel Kitson a whole lot of credit. I saw his show of that title last night at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn and laughed and cried and thought about so many, many things. Despite the fact that it is one man speaking alone on a stage (albeit a stage brought to life with simple, beautiful bulbs hanging from varying lengths of red string (?)) telling the stories of two individual lives-- it was extremely theatrical. It was not a love story. He told us that up front. And the life 'stories' were not told from beginning to end nor imbued with too strong a point of view. Instead, Mr. Kitson described the ordinary and extraordinary events that make up a life. There was one point of intersection between the two of them-- but it was not a major event in either of their lives. They each fell in love, had children, had some struggles, and passed on. Their names were William and Caroline and I wept when Mr. Kitson described the moment each of them died. In fact, I felt that massive bowling ball heaving in my chest feeling at one moment, the love I had for Caroline had grown so big, and so full, and here it was being snuffed out. I really, really recommend you go see this show. It is very, very special.
Also, Daniel Kitson's present-ness throughout was exquisite and rare. When one older patron got up towards the beginning of the 4th quarter Daniel interrupted his story to say, "Oh, well, that's a shame." He was looking at the man but since the man was walking up the stairway and had his back to the stage and was probably trying to disappear anyway... he didn't respond. The front ofthe house then made a 'sad sack' kind of "awwww" sound, like they felt badly for Daniel. To which he promptly responded, "well, that's not the right sound." He went on to say he was feeling shame for calling out the poor guy who was leaving and he was mad at himself for doing so. It was very interesting how different Daniel seemed in his speech when he was performing very talking to us, for example, about the 'necessary bits of admin' at the top of the show. Outside of the story, or in moments of hiccup within the stories, he stutters. In the story, he speaks fluidly and perfectly. Last night he stumbled on the word 'father' (to which he commented, 'hmm, never had trouble with the word father before) and "ladybird/ladybug." Though he may have said something to suggest that that one was written in. Not entirely sure. And not sure I need to know either. Ahh, the great expanse of unknowing.
Will Eno told me this show was his recommendation of the year and I agree with him in the play category. My favorite musical of the year is Once. Which is opening on Broadway in March I think. Go see that too. It too is revelatory.
Also, thank you to Stella, Katya, Caleb, Jonathan Fielding, Michelle Stern, Ray Levin, Annie Baker, Amy Herzog, and Melissa Wells for sharing the experience. It felt good to share it with you.

egg-timer writing

It is now November. My voice is back and I even got a new speckled notebook. (Wider notebooks are better for lefties than the 'journal' size I had been using. More room for my clenched pen-in-hand-fist and more wide open space.)
I am trying to write more. And read more. And exercise more. And love more. And work more always of course. And live a balanced life more... AHHH-- it's so hard to do everything more without sleeping less. And I am also trying to sleep more. It is a conundrum.
I just read this article though and I loved it.
It has to do with ALL of the problems I just mentioned. But really, they aren't problems. This is just 'my circle.' As Lynda Barry would say, "Good, good, good."

the world expands

I love it when two entitites I love converge. This happened just now when I was reading Stephen Elliott's mind-explodingly-excellent Daily Rumpus column, dove down a wormhole of a link towards some object of his desire named Sugar, and then happened upon a post said Sugar had written about a project Colleen Wainwright is doing. Who is indeed, an old friend and fellow performer from the Ken Roht LA days (which continue to exist of course, just without me.)
Colleen's project was a success, and from the looks of it, WriteGirl is thriving.

if thr r childrn, thr mst b a fUtr, rt?

Just finished Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, from which the title for this post comes. I had been putting off inevitable turning of the last few pages as much as possible-- suddenly the work-reading I'm doing on my Kindle was a means to avoiding the end of this transcendent work of fiction.

You: Transcendent... really? Is that hyperbole?
Me: No. At least not for me.

I chose a perfect sun-dappled rock along a river for my final reading spot. I had just spent 25 minutes swimming against the current, and 5 minutes returning to my point of origin, and I felt that somehow that experience was the perfect preparation. Reading this book has felt like coming home. An abstract home yes, but a home nonetheless. She so elegantly weaves together so many of the ideas I've been obsessed with for as long as I can remember-- and is as inventive with her medium (using powerpoint and text messages at points to help tell the story)-- it is no surprise the book won the Pulitzer. It has also been refreshing for me for other reasons. The book I was reading was an actual book which I purchased in an actual independent bookseller in lenox, massachusetts. She is a writer whose stories I've loved to run away with since I was 17, and this was my August reading-- a tradition I've savored since I was lugging 10 picture books home from the local library to spend the summer with.

The book, like almost all of my favorite forms of art, weaves together a polyphony of characters and relationships in the most surreptitious way.
Tangent: Ms. Sydelle Gomberg taught my ballet class the word in 1988 and I will never forget it. She wanted us to move our arms, to do our ports de bras, like we were gently pulling a twig through the water, making figure 8s with it, letting the buds at the end of the branch form 'S's, and do our best not to disturb the rest of the water. I liked that metaphor then and now.
It deals with the struggle between youth/innocence and age/knowledge/corruption as well as how curiosity and adventure can be both excellent and dangerous. It raises a ton of brilliant questions about technology, the 'information age,' sound versus music, and silence. It also got me thinking a lot about aging, and change and what change means at different points in a person's life. I kind of want to read it all over again.

Also, I saw Another Earth a few weeks ago and loved that too. Bravo to Mike Cahill and Brit Marling and the 2 or so other people involved. Yay for books, plays and movies that are tackling the metaphysical while also being really accessible and entertaining.

Clear eyes, full hearts...

I'm borrowing the locker-room chant from Friday Night Lights to convey my pride at the students at Codman Academy (founded by my mom!) and their work with the Huntington Theater Company.

I love this video documenting their first time working on the plays of August Wilson. (In the past they've always done a Shakespeare play.)

High School Students Perform August Wilson from Chris Lovett on Vimeo.