Popcorn, Darkover, divas, and masters

It's 1:00am. Jeff has finished his popcorn and is watching his tape of the Miami Hurricanes game. I just finished my umpteenth rereading of the Darkover novel, The Forbidden Tower, after a dinner of beans & rice and salad.

Improv went well. I am starting to find that balance between Deep Work and the classical transmission of the art. You can teach ballet any way you want, as long as the dancers' turnout is impeccable. Same with Improv -- you can teach any way you want, as long as the actors' acceptance of impulse is impeccable.

Kris is flying up from California for an extended Diva sesh tomorrow. Radmila has been painting a lot; I'll post her site when it's up. I look forward to the swift interplay, the discoveries.

I have begun to clean. This is a million-nibble task, but even those first 6 hours have made a difference. I don't mean clean like vaccuum. I mean clean like unearth the white art table from its three-foot sedimentary pile of paintings, papers, and books. Weed through thousands of books. Throw away three dumpster's worth of belongings. I don't mean clean, I mean purge.

For seven years, the gods murmured ceaselessly to me about theatre. I went nowhere without my cohort of rustling advisors, mostly Russian, mostly dead.

Since living at the Odin, they have fallen silent. Eugenio said this would happen. That after years of working for your silent Other, your Master -- one day the Master is no longer in the room.

I miss having the Master in the room.

When Joseph Lavy talks about Grotowski, he often says things I have never heard. For years, I wondered what book he read them in. It was only recently I realized -- those are lineage transmissions. Things his teacher, Jairo Cuesta, Grotowski's assistant, said. Or that Grotowski said, when Joseph studied with him that summer at Irvine.

Not everything is in a book.

When it was my turn to lead Boom Chicka Boom today, I relaxed and fled, into the private cathedral of myself. I shut my eyes and let the song wash through me. It was my longing for the song that called it. I sang on the heels of its shadow. At the end, the whole room was singing beautifully.

In NonActors, we're doing the Scottish play. In Bombay, Jyothi has painted her hands with a fort and a peacock. In Duvall, John is driving a Chevy truck while his own is in the shop, and loving it.

Kipley's cathected mom's advice is getting me through a lot these days. I find, "Fine, mom. All careers are difficult," incredibly reassuring.