The black dog has me

I miss this book

After an insightful day, I suddenly find myself in a black mood just as its time to post. I am worried about money, behind on my tasks, not moving physically NEARLY enough, and I miss the Starbucks journal with an almost physical ache. I haven't been there since rehearsals started.

the black dog has me
i cannot sit imprisoned
staring, typing, still

hot sluicing water,
a stretch, toothpaste, dreamless sheets --
standing's a relief

not a good day, my
body says -- no jumps, no twists,
no recess, gym, play

I get to teach!

Both my Bellevue Community College classes are a go. We need a certain minimum number of sign-ups, and earlier this week it was looking iffy. Thanks to Scott, as well as friends, former students, and THEIR friends, Improv begins Saturday and Acting for Non-Actors on Tuesday.

I can't wait to see what this quarter brings. An 8-week class is an exponential space. Because I am kinesthetic, it is not until I am in the presence of the actors and can feel who they are, that it suddenly gets clear to me what we could ACTUALLY do -- these particular people, in this one particular moment. Another quarter, even with the same people, would be different; we all have moved.

Thelonius

So at dinner break today -- we're now on a noon-to-10pm, six-days-a-week rehearsal schedule -- five or six of us were standing around the piano.

"Do you know Summertime?" asks the gospel singer.
"I have it in my book at home," said the piano player.
"How about My Funny Valentine?"
"That's in my book, too."
"What DO you know, without your book?"
"I know Thelonius Monk."
(silence)
"It goes like this."

Well, Monk was one of the most out-there, dissonant, intellectual jazz pianists that ever lived. Every flat-note, wrong-note, clash-key, two-keys-next-to-each-other- jangling you can think of, he wrote into his music.

Some people consider it the utter essence of jazz. Like me, when I was in college, and hell-bent on becoming the jazz musician's jazz musician. (I always want to be the something's something; right now, I want to be the director's director.) So anyway, he starts playing this Monk tune, and I know it. I start scatting along with him. "Ba-DEE-ba-doo-BAHHHH, dah-bee-DOO-BOP!"

After the theme, he heads off into wild improvisation. We join in -- drums, sticks, bells, taiko -- in a freeform jam. The singer rolls her eyes, laughs, and starts singing, improvising gorgeously over top of it all. When we finish, there's a short silence.

"You don't know Summertime, and you know THAT. You can PLAY, huh."

Our piano player, who works in a holistic garden store and heads up his own jazz piano trio when he isn't acting, grins and nods.

Winds, maps, Iceland

I dreamed last night that I was in a small boat on green swift waters. It was a wild, sunny day. I had laid anchor not too far from shore. Eugenio was there -- standing on a rock, or in his own boat. Behind him was a high bank of virgin country, dense with trees.

"This is --" he yelled, over the wind and the waves. I couldn't make out if he was saying Iceland or Greenland, but I could see it was beautiful. I knew it was where the winds are born, the winds that shudder through Torsminde and Holstebro. Eugenio knew how to get there.

I nodded, lifted anchor, and was swiftly carried out of earshot. As the dream dissolved, I was turning to start my outboard motor.

===================

A perfect dream. My theatre is Theatre of the Wind. In real life, I am travelling inward, upstream, to the source of the winds. Eugenio is an enigmatic guide. The more clearly he speaks about art, the less I understand him, and the more correct it feels.

I have always loved the confusion of Iceland and Greenland. Iceland sounds forbidding, Greenland sounds welcoming. I have heard they were deliberately named to be the opposite of their true natures -- that Iceland is, in fact, so beautiful the the explorers decided to keep it secret.

That also feels correct. I can't tell if I am headed into one of my most desolate periods, or my most fertile. Or if, like the dream, and Iceland, it is both at once.

In real life, I look helpless -- being swept away on a swift currents of debt and danger -- but in actuality, I have a motor which I am about to start. In the dream it was a new motor, white with a red stripe like Ben's truck which is well-maintained and dependable. In the back of my mind, it is a life with Ben's stability and ease that I am about to create.

I woke up eager to make a map.

Wheatfield with crows

Van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows"

He painted this a week before he died. The Van Gogh museum says,

In Auvers, Van Gogh painted a large number of landscapes with wheatfields, all on unusual, elongated canvases (50 x 100 cm). He wrote to his brother Theo about two of these works:

"They depict vast, distended wheatfields under angry skies, and I deliberately tried to express sadness and extreme loneliness in them.”

But these pictures also had a positive side:

“I am almost certain that these canvases illustrate what I cannot express in words, that is, how healthy and reassuring I find the countryside.”

Van Gogh is like Chekhov. I love that he can be so miserable, and yet so serene in Nature. I feel like that at my kitchen table all the time.

When it is your
flowering time, open heedless --
let Bach rain through you

In all the ocean
world, this is your turtle chance
to be born human

let's go down to the
church, and see has Mabel made
her cornbread today

My housemate is home

Been a while. He was gone a few weeks, then I left for several weeks with my mom's surgery, then he house-sat again. We have missed whole phases of each other's growth.

As delicious as it is to live alone, I do better with another human around. It keeps me socialized. I orient. I have perspective. I do the dishes and take out the garbage. I belong to a society, however small, and I feel responsible to it.

For years I lived in large group houses -- 14 people, 12 people, 10 people. You actually have more privacy in the big ones. One of them had been named "The Home Pride Association" by one of the founders. The whole two years I lived there, I kept wondering why she named us after a brand of bread.

Action springs from art

Woke up glad. I think it's the poem from yesterday. For me, great action always begins with making art. If I'm painting, my kitchen will be cleaned soon. If I'm writing poetry, my bills will get paid and the laundry washed. After writing the poem, I printed out 200 pages of Improv warm-ups, exercises, games, and guidelines for class, and assembled my notebooks.

I'm off to clean and sesh. Have a great day.

Koi swim upstream like salmon

I teach next Saturday. I am teaching Acting For NonActors, and Improv. I bought my notebooks today. I spend the week prior writing and honing.

When I find that thing that makes me shiver, so big and true that I'm afraid to do it -- that's what we'll do in these classes.

When I get back in the studio, my whole life falls back into shape.

You would not believe how big this next step is for me, or how far back I am in starting it. I am like a long-jumper who is backed way up, ready to start that explosive sprint. I am backed so far I'm not even in the stadium any more.

i have forgotten
my name -- the empty floor and
actors are long gone

slingshot, my spine bones
scatter along the peremptory
Way like stones

koi swim upstream like
salmon -- those who reach the summit
become dragons

i, an old clawed frog,
have slid back to fat fishhood;
ineluctable

wings lift from the depths
spattering droplets; grunting
skyward-climbing pig

a fish cannot
imagine a dragon; or a
dragon, cherubim

have some hot tea with
me in this marigold cup
from Poland -- persist

A poet, a wanderer, a software queen

Polish coffee from LightnessOfBeing (pic by Piotr Chlipalski)

New blogs to check out:

LightnessOfBeing - Natalie, a film student in Warsaw, Poland

YearOfLeisure - a Seattle woman who has saved up to travel the world for one year, starting in 2 weeks.

Eeksy Peeksy - a Polish person who writes poetic short dreamlike entries, and collects blogs by timezones

Promethee - my foray into reading in French. He's got pix, likes music, and writes short entries. J'ai l'espere -- I have the hope.

Grouchy Owl - cool American/Pakistani girl living in Pakistan with an ORANGE! website

Guess What Happened To Me Today - my friend Juliet's blog; met her through JJ (Piccadilly), when she put a pin in my guest-map. Another Amsterdam girl.

Software for your head - my friend Michele, who is writing a white-hot series on revolutionary project management, and posting them here. We're up to essay 3. Read them in order; she's writing them that way.

Blogwise - a site that lets you search BY COUNTRY! Invented and run by 22-year-old college student Sven, out of his room in England. He's not going to need a resume when he graduates; he can just ask his 14,000 friends for references.

A beak of directors

We have three directors in Bart's rehearsals. Dorothy, his Assistant Director, sits to his right. I sit behind him, an Observing Director, And Matt, a part-time Observing Director, sits to his left. We form a little half-circle. Bart spends a lot of time on his feet out with the actors, so sometimes we talk.

It's the first time I have experienced this, a community of directors.

With three of us, we are an entity unto ourselves. Dorothy is young, quiet, tiny, meticulous, conscientious, and has always worked in theatre. Matt is twice as big as she is, young, with a massive face and black glasses, incredibly quick. He looks like a law student and office-manages a law office as his day job. And me, I'm sort of the -- well, my actual image is I'm the biggest woman in a gospel choir, the one who can sing. I'm middle-aged, heavier and slower than them, and more experienced. I share the quick mind of Matt, and the soulfulness of Dorothy, but they outpace me in their own Gifts and experiences.

We make a terrific combo.

This is what got me onto that "gaggle of geese" site, by the way. I was wondering what you call a group of directors. We are not naturally groupy people. We tend to be prickly, sharp, possessive, mistrustful. Oldest-Child in spades. It's the same quality I have found in ice hockey captains or program managers, for that matter -- anyone who captains 30-to-75-to-250-person teams. The 13 program managers in our then-Kids group at Microsoft looked like a Benetton ad -- white, black, asian, indian, male, female, young, old, deaf, hearing. "A Council of Eagles," I thought.

That's what theatre directors remind me of. Since we are not fully formed yet, I thought I'd call us a Beak of Directors. Beaked, peremptory, but still in the nest.

Three is a fantastic number. You can cast any three women as the witches in Macbeth, and it always works. There is enough mystery in any woman to make three an infinitude. (This isn't true for the Furies, by the way; you actually have to cast for the Fury quality, and get the ages kind of right.) Once, bored at a choir concert, I studied all 200 singers to see who I would cast as the witches. I chose two men and a woman. I do think you have to have at least one woman; you need that far-side-of-the-moon quality.

Three is the number of graduate directors Yale School of Drama takes.

I had the urge a year ago to set up a Director's Lab. Now I feel even more that it is a good idea. It needs money, time, and planning -- but even with just the three of us, I can feel how rich it would be. We all like good writing. Matt likes modern absurdists; I like old masters; Dorothy likes original works and musicals. We're all smart, all competent, all learning. It would be fun. That's the bottom line -- it would be fun to make theatre, observe each other's rehearsals, laugh and talk and share. We'd get better so much faster. Even if we just took classes from each other, it would be fantastic. Matt can teach Durrenmott, I'll teach Chekhov, Dorothy can teach Original Works.

It's ironic that the people who receive the best directors' education -- get exposed to the widest variety, experience the most techniques, can tell you what works -- are the actors. Directors rarely see each other's work.

A blessing of unicorns, a sneak of weasels

For those of you who love words, check out this page. It's the most complete listing I've found of collective nouns -- a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions.

This site is in the UK, so the language is old, sharp, austere, heraldic, saxon. Among my favorites --

a murder of crows
an unkindness of ravens
a stare of owls
a doylt of swine
a fesnying of ferrets (or, equally good, a business of ferrets)
a tabernacle of bakers
a neverthriving of jugglers
a cortege of mourners

Enjoy.

The three Furies

I saw a one-man show last night at the Intiman called Love and Taxes. It's by Josh Kornbluth. It's the story of him doing his comedy act, getting in tax debt, falling in love, and his taxes spiraling into scary heights with penalties and interest. I won't give away the ending except to say it ends well, the journey is fascinating, and he walks away philosophically changed, now a believer in how citizens' taxes uphold our society.

A good ride.

After the show, they had a 3-person talk-panel. Josh, who had just done the show; Bart, artistic director of the theatre; And Bill Gates, Sr., himself a wealthy man and retired lawyer, who has recently written a book on why wealthy people SHOULD pay estate taxes; apparently their rate has currently been cut, or drastically reduced. Whatever, the bent of the conversation was, "Taxes keep our government working, our society functioning, and we should pay them. We have a good life, and that comes from how we govern ourselves." It was spiced with thoughts like, "The US government is the biggest venture capitalist in the world; they fund the universities, research, the internet, the human genome project -- things too big for any one entity to fund."

Bill Sr. got the first question. He began answering, then said, "I'm talking too long." "Personally, I don't think it's possible to talk too long," said the performer, joking but serious, who had just talked to us for two straight hours.

It was mostly a Q and A period. The 450-seat theatre still had about 300 people in it, as it became essentially a town hall. I love that Bart does this with the Intiman. I have been in that same theatre when it was hosting a memorial service for Anthony Lee, a murdered actor. I have not seen this before in America -- where the theatre is a house of the community for things other than story.

Anyway -- it was fascinating to watch and hear these three men on stage. Young, middle-aged, old. Performer, director, lawyer. Jewish, Jewish/Catholic, Christian. Hawaiian shirt & black jeans, well-fitting black suit, expensive silk blazer & slacks. Round wide eyes, deep-set dark eyes, milk-blue patient smart eyes in a web of wrinkles. All three are white, male, married, fathers, smart, thoughtful, active.

I kept having the hit of looking at the three Furies -- Clotho, who spins and dyes the threads of men's lives; Atropos who weaves it; Lachesis who cuts it.

By trying to feel them as the Furies, I could feel how different male energy is from female. It gave me an appreciation of maleness. Men DO things -- they build and make and achieve, they work hard, and they are beautiful.

These were three very different men trying to make sense of our civilization and our government, all actively working to improve it. Seeing statesmanlike effort and thought, in live humans on a stage, melted a little of my fear and wariness about all things political. Plus I could see -- there's nothing special about any of these men. One just had horrendous tax problems and is trying to keep his comedy shows going. One has a baby and is trying to keep his theatre alive. One is old, and only has enough energy to write his books and keep his Foundation going.

It's not easy for anyone, that's what I saw. You just do your work, and keep at it.

Most of the questions went to Bill Sr., of course. The silence for him was thicker than the silence had been during most of the performance.

One of the questions was, "How do we change people? Most are so cynical about our government. How do we make them see what our taxes uphold?" Josh said, "I do this show." Bart said, "As a storyteller, I believe in the power of story and of human interaction. Tell each person you meet." Bill Sr. said, "Keep having meetings like these. And work to change the laws."

"How do you define wealthy?" someone asked. "I define it very precisely," said Bill Sr. "It's right where the tax laws start shifting to not pay the same rate (or perhaps it was the same estate tax rate) as everyone else. It's at 7 million dollars per household."

When he was talking about the way of life our government makes possible, he said, "Warren Buffett would not be where he is today if he had been born in Bangladesh. Nor would my son, for that matter."

What struck me about Bill Sr. was how directly he took and answered each question. This was a strong quality in all three men, actually.

I don't want to recap the whole talk. I was just struck with the power of a theatre as a town hall. And with the force of three men who each, as Katagiri Roshi would say, are making positive effort for the good.

Quick hello

Had a good talk last night. I almost said good fight, but maybe it's more like good authentic interaction. Whatever, I woke up cheerful.

Off to rehearsal. My classes start in less than two weeks, I can't wait. Hope your day goes well, I'm off to mine.

Missing the Odin on its 40th birthday

I am homesick for the Odin today. Their 40th birthday party starts next week, with a two-week marathon of conferences & papers on "What Is A Theatre Laboratory," plus guest performances & workshops. They sound exhausted and happy. They have been saving and planning for years to be able to hold this event.

In Bart's rehearsal, we did the funeral today. Wilder gives us Kurasawa gorgeousness. I'm sure those umbrellas are still in my psyche.

My last day at the Odin, Else Marie took photos for me. She is in her 60s, one of the original actors who has now become their digital video guru.


Else Marie and me outside the Odin


Julia, Frans, me, Iben in the bibliotek

As is traditional for the person whose birthday or special occasion it is, I made lunch for the company my last day. Cheeses, Italian salami in white paper, grapes, bread, wine, chocolate. The person of honor sits in Eugenio's place at the head of the table. He was in Paris, we had said goodbye the day before.


Me in Eugenio's place at my going-away lunch


Iben, Sigrid, Kai, and the other end of the table

The young actors, with whom I had been working on Chekhov, made me dinner and a cake that night. They turned off all the lights and entered, the cake suspended on a swaying litter from a pole they bore over their shoulders as in a feudal castle. They were singing an ancient Danish song in 4 voices, in the dark, lit only by two massive candles guarding the cake.


Mia and my cake

There are not many theatres ever, on earth, like the Odin. I hope so very much one day to have one.

There is not one Happy Birthday song in Danish; there are several. The guests sing whichever one they like. And then another, and perhaps one more before the toasts begin.

What he said

This one's on politics. My friend, Kipley, has said pointedly and succinctly what I feel. I'm taking the liberty of borrowing his Sunday post, and reposting it here.

September 19 - This entry will contain strong language and political opinions unrelated to my acting career or "making it" in New York.

I've been desperately trying to figure out what appeals to voters about George Bush. They'll tell you it's his Christian values, or his strong leadership, or his ability to keep America safe. I say, that's a load of crap. You want to know my opinion? You do? Okay, well... here it is:

I believe the majority of people in this country are not morons. I do believe that. And I believe that the majority of people in this country are able to see through propaganda, no matter how determined the Bushies are to lie about pretty much everything they've done. And I keep hearing that people want to see a positive campaign, which again... I think is bullshit. I think people say they want a positive campaign, but really they'd rather see an extended Jerry Springer episode.

I think the fact that Bush still has any support at all after...

- failing to prevent the 9-11 attacks despite being warned ("Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within The US")
- failing to finish the job in Afghanistan before diverting our war machine to Iraq, which required lying to the world to justify saying they were going in only with UN resolution and then "flip flopping" on that one
- failing to plan for the aftermath based on the fact that there would be dancing in the streets
- telling the nation it would cost $1billion where it's actually cost us $120 billion thus far and counting
- trying to prevent the 9-11 commission from being formed and then "flip flopping" on that one
- opposing the formation of the Department of Homeland Security and then "flip flopping" on that one
- moving from the biggest surplus in the history of our nation to the biggest deficit in the history of our nation
- being the only president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs on his watch
- dismantling environmental protections that a solid majority of Americans support
- presiding over an increase in the numbers of people living in poverty
- presiding over an increase in the numbers of people without health insurance
- this list goes on and on...

After all of this, the fact that anyone at all supports Bush tells me that right now, people don't care about honesty, character, Christian values, positive vision, intelligent leadership, or anything else they might claim is important to them. I believe that underlying support for George Bush is based on a desire to have a mean motherfucker in office.

I suspect that many of those who support him don't care that George Bush has been a terrible president by most historical standards. It's going to take decades to undo the damage he's caused our country. I have a feeling that Americans are frightened and pissed off, and they want a belligerent asshole leading the way. It doesn't matter that the majority of people think that the country is headed in the wrong direction.

I'm starting to think that on some deeper level, Bush supporters want someone to do their dirty work but be absolved of any responsibility down the road. "Gasp! You mean they LIED to us?! Well, gee, I would never have supported him if I knew he was lying! Gee whiz!" I think this is the unspoken contract between George Bush and many of his supporters. He's not particularly Republican, he's not particularly Christian. And yet these two groups support him, claiming that he's the embodiment of both. It's a wink and a nod, "Just tell us what we want to hear and despite the record, we'll vote for you."

I also suspect that George Bush is the answer to a lot of people who are threatened by a liberal, democratic set of values. For those who believe that everyone should NOT have equal rights, George Bush is the answer. For those who believe life in the womb is sacred, but life in a jail cell is not, George Bush is the answer. For those who believe that justice is important only when they get their way, George Bush is the answer.

The sheer beauty of George Bush is that he appeals to people's most selfish qualities and offers no apology. He embraces the coarsest, most brutal and offensive qualities with glee, and in so doing, he makes it okay for everyone else to do it. It's much easier to say "fuck the world, this is what we're doing" than it is to actually build a solid case and create a consensus. But that doesn't solve the problem, that only makes it worse in the long run. And that's most definitely not an American value.

What I fear people fail to understand is that the beast you create will eventually turn on you. It's all peaches and cream to have a bully in the White House when you just want to go out and blow some stuff up, send a message to the world. But don't kid yourselves that this president is actually looking out for your best interests. His record on domestic issues that should matter... really, truly sucks ass.

And that's Sunday's Op-Ed from Kipley.

Kipley sounds like Arthur Miller to me, the playwright who spoke against McCarthy, and later, did a worldwide letter campaign which singlehandedly got Augusto Boal out of the Brazilian prison where he was being tortured to death. Less formal, perhaps, but not less cogent.

America feels like Berlin just before World War II. The same bleak desperate black-humored cabarets, the same twankling music, the same gumboots in the street, the same erosion of liberties, the same thuds starting to be heard in back alleys. For the first time, I think about emigrating. Not for a job, or a lark, or a visit; for good.

Natalie's permission

I took Natalie my copy of Writing Down the Bones to autograph. It was a long line, so discussion time was brief.

"Natalie."
She looked up.
"I want to make a play, based on your texts."
"Yeah, okay," she says, thinking it over. "Go ahead."
"Do you want to see it when I'm done?"
She thought for another moment. "Sure, why not."

I left her my business card, took Bones, and left.

That easy.

Argentinian tango

So I'm having dinner and a sesh with Radmila. We head over to catch Natalie's book-signing, eat, then out to Argentinian Tango. Radmila has been tangoing for years, has made the pilgrimage to Buenos Aires, and can tango with the best of them. Or the Seattle best, anyway.

I take my notebook. Turns out, tango is a communal activity. Most of the dancers in this ballroom overlooking the city lights, know each other. Everyone dances with everyone else.

Argentinian tango is a swoony, swayey dance, done with high gorgeous heels and twankling accordion music that sounds like Berlin just before the war. I'm not dancing, I'm writing and watching, wearing sneakers, jeans, and a sweatshirt. Every so often one of the beautifully dressed dancers sits by me and points out some of the fine points.

But ladies and gentlemen -- I got asked to dance three times. Even more miraculously, I laughed, took off my glasses, and said yes. One was a gentlemanly mercy dance, one was with Radmila, and one was with an older woman who wanted to hold me a LIT-tle too close. I have never tangoed before. But I have to say, I had a blast. It was like being a kid. You don't know the steps, everyone can see you don't, but you just go play anyway.

Twah-twahhhh-twa-twahhhhhhhhhh, twank
twah twahhhh twa twahhhhhhhhhh...

I felt a lot lighter coming home. It's been a long time since I went somewhere as just me. I'm always carrying my invisible Big Dream, my Theatre To Be. Tonight I wasn't even carrying my keys.

Natalie Goldberg is in town!

[CORRECTION - Her 7pm signing is at University Bookstore, not the Barnes & Nobles at UVillage; sorry.]

Hey! I keep forgetting to let you know -- Natalie Goldberg, one of my favorite writers, a buddhist, and one of my personal heroes, is doing a book-signing in Seattle TODAY ONLY, Monday 9/20. She signs at Elliott Bay Bookstore downtown at 5pm, then at the University Village Barnes & Nobles at 7pm.


Natalie Goldberg

She is here to promote her latest book, The Great Failure: A Bartender, A Monk, And My Unlikely Path To Truth.

It's not as good as her landmark Writing Down the Bones or its follow-on, Wild Mind, but it's the right next book for her to have written. It's kind of the "What's under that" volume 2 of her autobiography, begun in the fantastic Long Quiet Highway.


The book that put her on the map

Recently she has begun painting as well. I believe an artist is reflected in everything they create, no matter what the medium. Her paintings are as vivid, intimate, and bold as her writing.


"Ohio Buckeye", a painting she did in 2002

Ahhh... actors

Man, is it nourishing to watch good actors work. Bart and Kate took a lot of time casting this show, and boy can you see it. Our Town is an ensemble piece, but everyone's not on stage all the time. It's more like each person is a color in a painting. They come on -- yellow! -- and are gone. They talk to Doc Gibbs -- turquoise! Actors who are formidable before they walk on... become more interesting during their scene... and carry the play off with them when they go... open the whole piece up. It's like we're in Wyoming. There are great winds blowing through this piece, and each actor is a wind.

Plus Bart is really getting a handle on theatricality. The people are luminous, substantial, yet not rooted to the earth -- they are shimmery icons in space. A scene is a two-person shimmer. Four years ago he couldn't do this. They were icons, but earthbound ones. Pretty great to experience a rehearsal room like this. And there is an ease in the room. He's not tense, we're not tense, everyone's sort of soft and easy. Not touchy-feely soft, but there's-plenty-of-time, we're-ahead-of-schedule, that-looked-good, let's-do-the-next-bit soft.

Eugenio Barba, Joseph Lavy, and Robyn Hunt create this in their rehearsals as well. It must be a hallmark of getting your directing practice down.

Mastery is efficient.

There are a few actors who are more featured in the text; but even their scenes are relatively short. Yet when two excellent actors tangle, four lines seems as rich and subtexty as most people's entire scenes. There are no throwaway lines, and the whole room goes silent. Twenty-six people in the room today, and no one moved during the Drugstore scene.

Tomorrow is our dark day, then back at it on Tuesday.

A precious communal organism

Spent 5 hours last night looking for jobs and graduate programs on the web. I have an unexpectedly solid feeling about this game company my friends are setting up. It is exactly the kind of right-place-at-the-right-time surprise that have marked so many of my favorite jobs. You don't see them coming, you just are alert enough to grab them when they appear.

It's eerie. I am deeper than ever with theatre. When Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavski took the Moscow Art Theatre company to tour Europe in the early 1900's, they did it with wagons and horses -- and periodic trains. The only reason we ever got to see them at all in America is because producer Morris Gest paid all their expenses. Without Gest, we would never have seen realistic acting. Or, had sitcoms or movies like we do today.

It illuminates again what a precious communal organism a theatre is. Who was responsible for it? Was it Stanislavski, who was revolutionising acting? Moskvin, who was luminous with the new techniques? The company, which all together simply WAS the work? Nemirovich-Danchenko, who was ceaselessly getting them money, negotiating, arranging, keeping the company alive? The stranger in America who paid for them to come over?

It's like that Russian fairytale about the stump in the meadow. "This is my stump," says the ant, "I live here." "This is my stump," says the bird, "I nest here." "This is my stump," says the bear, "I rub my back here." "This is my stump," says the man, "I own this field." Whose stump is it?

Gotta go. Time for rehearsal. Thornton Wilder is such a good playwright, the text can carry the play. You don't find that very often.

Underwater

Margaret on her backyard bench in Atlanta


Tree in the background

Margaret is my friend from high school -- Margie Knowles, for readers who knew her then. She now has triplets. They live on the edges of the hurricane. This is what the edges look like, with 8 inches of rain a day.

In an eerie resonance, I had woken up this morning from a nightmare involving flooding. I wonder if torrential water is in the collective unconsciousness. Or maybe only in those parts of the world turning toward rain. In Australia it's heating up, heading toward the hot summer day of Christmas.

I read once a quiltmaker saying that all artists tend to work in the colors of the Nature around them. Australian art is in browns, rusts, reds, oranges. Pacific Northwest art is greens, browns, blues. Scandinavian art uses blues, greys, and whites.

Mastery includes efficiency

What is striking to me about these rehearsals is the master director/master-creative-team-who-have-worked-together-for-years efficiency. A lot gets done, without much fuss. We've had music, live sound effects, and singing since day one. A day of read-through, a day of text-work, and in two days the whole first act is staged. Early. We got out an hour early yesterday, because we had finished the act, gone back and run & touched a few places that needed it, and were done.

Too long to sit

I feel sad. I've hit my "This is TOO LONG to sit in someone else's rehearsals" wall that happens in Equity rehearsals. It's a combination of sitting still, which is hard, plus the fact that rehearsals are great places to think about my life. The realizations pile up and suddenly I want to go DO my life.

In high school, I never got around to applying to college. Summer was blissfully filled by my band and boyfriend. But in fall everyone left for college and I realized -- I FORGOT TO SET UP MY LIFE. I hung around and went back for a post-grad year at high school. That is what it feels like to be at the Intiman again, after having been to the Odin. In high school, I picked a college the next year, and bounded off. I'm hoping the pattern will repeat, and some great leap awaits.

Today, listening to two young directors talk about which MFA programs they were applying to, I got a wave of that "forgot to set up my life" feeling again.

What's a girl to do? Somke self-care, of course -- hot dinner, hot bath, early bed, extra sleep. See y'all tomorrow.

Love what you love

I love theatre. I forget how true this is, until I walk back into a rehearsal room. I love all its aspects: story, people, groupwork, excellence, striving, fabrics, music, movement, light, space, movement, time, myth. Even when it's someone else's production, I am highly nourished by it. Everything in that room interests me. It is medieval enough for me -- paper, fabric, touch, word, hand-made-ness. The laptops and fiber-optics are adjunct, the human body & spirit is the focus.

I am acting dramaturg for this production. Our play takes place in New Hampshire, 1901 - 1913, so we need to know what life was like back then. Using an idea I saw at Yale School of Drama, I made a visual wall of reference -- huge photos of people in 1910, blown-up xerox copies of 1900-1920 household & kitchen items, enlarged articles of what an ordinary person would need to know -- how to diagnose a disease; how to identify the plants to make the medicine yourself; how to cook for the sick; basic cooking & canning; choosing and training a horse; bee-keeping; sheep; chickens; cattle; domestic animals; mechanical; the toilet (cosmetics & barbering); miscellaneous (young ladies, avoid drunk young men).

I am relearning the impact of visual communal information. This same info, in handouts, would not be used nearly as often as when it is displayed on a wall. On a wall, it seeps into our group consciousness, and can be referenced during rehearsals. "How DID they grind coffee? Did they have percolators yet?" To the wall we go.

Some people just love being around cars. Or boats. Or in the woods. For me, it's a theatre.

Diaspora

The Sports Games Studio at Microsoft got dissolved a few weeks ago. So my friends are in that "Your job now is to find a job" phase that MS supports. It is a fantastic time to talk with them. They are earning their salary, they have a task to do -- but their days have unaccountably filled with ( ( ( t i m e ) ) ), which they are normally starved for.

They are losing weight, building decks, cleaning their garages -- kind of a gentle, drawn-out snow day. The spring, for this period, is not wound quite so tight.

What I'm liking about it is, I'm getting to experience the reflective, unhurried side of them. The "I'm stepping back and thinking about my life" side. When 75 people at once suddenly go slack, it becomes clear that our normal drivenness is a choice; this is a game we all decided to play, and have suddenly decided not to.

I also like it because I am looking for a job right now, so it gives me a bunch of instant peers.

Now, in the mix, there's also the anxiety and purpose that comes of having to find a job in 6 weeks. It's not all rosy. But most of my friends are artists, and artists make stuff, and people who make stuff usually find work.

Hmm. It occurs to me that my software brain knows everything my theatre brain needs -- I just need to get them communicating, instead of switching paradigms. There is something delicious about living in both sides of the paradox. Gotta go.

Zipping the rehearsal lip

A few posts ago, I talked a bit about rehearsal. I chose innocuous moments, like chatting in the green room about shoes. But still -- if a rehearsal room is closed, it needs to stay closed in all dimensions.

It occurs to me that I should get cleaner in writing about my own rehearsals, too; ask the actors' permission before I post.

For years, I'd come home every night after rehearsal and be so excited I would spend hours writing a long email about it -- which I then sent to myself. I made a folder called "Not-Sents", just for these.

Anyway, that's the scoop. Our Town is selling like mad, though. If you plan to see it -- and you should, I recommend anything Bart Sher directs -- reserve your ticket soon. 206-279-1900, at the Intiman, opening Oct 8th.

Task coach

I've been reflecting. I think "life coach" isn't quite the right term; it's more like a "task coach." A support you hire when you need to get some really specific stuff done and you're ready to do it. Life is a mysterious complicated thing. Organic growth is not linear or clear; it makes surprising jumps.

Living with my goals over 24 hours, I can feel which ones are rock-solid and which ones are not. The solid ones are all about stewardship and immediacy: Body, Money, Cleaning, & Theatre -- but the short-term, already committed theatre, of Bart/Akropolis/teaching. Those I know I want to and am going to do.

I think it boils down to, I'm as jazzed as ever about having a Life Coach. It's a very honed tool that will do wonders to get some of my big things achieved -- big things where I have been stuck. It's like a lever. But -- for me, anyway -- it's not the right tool for every situation, or every life goal. I also need to allow room for the forest to tangle and grow, for things to go sideways.

Ahhh, sweet paradox. This feels right.

Just a closer walk with thee

I have worked on plays with Bart (director), Caitlin (costumes), Peter (sound), Chris (sets & lights), and Kristin (actress, Bart's wife) for almost five years. I'm not part of the creative team, but yet I have grown to have a place. Sometimes I help. Sometimes I just write in my notebook. My therapist would say, our immune systems have accepted each other.

Sitting in the green room with Kristin, discussing Prada shoes and 1901 kitchen stoves, we yak while one of the child actors belly-leaps like a fish around the floor, showing us how to break-dance. "I can do it BACKWARDS!" he announces cheerfully, vanishing behind the sofa to end triumphantly with one black-sneakered foot waving in the air. Sometimes plays don't seem so important.

I want to sing hymns. We had some hymn-humming during the read-through today, which, indeed, restoreth my soul. I am craving hours of four-part harmony. Just a closer walk with thee. When Elvis was stressed... or relaxed... or happy... he'd go off to the piano and sing spirituals. It was like the musician's musician's jam, just the studio guys, singing to god because they liked singing to god.

That's me. Bless god from whom all blessings flow. Holy holy holy. Swing low sweet chariot. Love lifted me. Shall we gather at the river.

Sometimes in therapy when it gets hard, or I'm stuck or unhappy, my spirit has nowhere to go but into song. I'll start singing, or ask for a song and then make up harmony. My therapist is a musician, he's always happy to sing. That's the feeling I have right now -- I don't want to type back and forth with you, I want to stand in the same room and sing. Sing anything. You sing and I'll improvise a harmony. And then let's have a midnight snack and sit around the fire and sing some more.

O brother let's go down, down to the river to pray...

100 things, 3 at a time

JJ has invented a new twist on the 100 Things About Me. She's sprinkling them out, 3 at a time, in her regular posts. Iterate and improve. I love this structure.

Good things come in threes... or more

You know how some days -- or some rehearsals -- nothing goes right? And other times, everything does? I've been having one of those blessed days.

1. I met with a Life Coach, Nancy Colasurdo, whom I met through Kipley. Although she lives in New York, she is open to working by phone. She's a writer/television producer/Artist's-Way-specialist, with creative & business savvy. Very practical. Think personal-fitness-trainer, but for your goals. The first sesh is free. If you click with each other, and you decide you want to do this, you sign up for a paid 12-week course, meeting with her (phone or in-person) once a week. You come out of the first sesh with 3 goals that jazz you. Mine are:

1. INVITING THE WEALTH: Secure a surprising, formidable, lucrative job with nights and weekends free.
2. CLEARING THE SPACE: Body in dancer shape, shining house & grounds.
3. WALKING TOWARD GOD: A theatre book and building

2. Heard from a small company looking for a VP/office manager. Cool gig, coming in that roundabout word-of-mouth way that has led to some of my best jobs in the past. They're a small 30-person tech company. I wrote the CEO, will talk with them next week.

3. Heard of a small game startup, founded by several of my friends. Told them the job I'd ideally like, will wait to hear back if that's an option.

4. Heard from an ex-manager that business is picking up, might have work for me. This is particularly cool work, similar to theatre.

So, no sooner did I clearly state what I wanted, then the universe sent me Bam, Bam, Bam -- three possibilities. Now, these are all Maybes.... but they're all surprising, formidable, and lucrative. And I was upfront with all of them about my theatre self, so I'm going in aimed toward nights & weekends free. Woohoo!

Who knows what the universe has in store for me. I just keep saying "Yes" and "I can start October 25th" and keep walking forward.

And now a friend is taking me to dinner. Plus I heard through the grapevine that another friend might want me to direct a play for them. And Bart's Our Town rehearsals, which I'm observing, start tomorrow. It just keeps getting better. I better write the Starbucks CEO tonight, while I'm feeling big, farsighted, and nourished. And finish Akropolis's audience development plan.

Off to dinner.

Oh wait -- in "You Know You're An Extrovert When..." category, my friend Kris wrote back saying, "Loved the 100 Things list. There were only 4 I didn't know." I'm sure there are easily 60 things I don't know about her. She has that introvert "I need time to commune with myself" quality, whereas I have that, "Let's find some people so I can commune" one.

Cheers.

That beautiful empty book

Ric has an empty book too beautiful to use. So do I. For me, half the time it stays empty. A quarter of the time I'll start, dislike what I've done, and abandon it. The other quarter, I actually fill them.

My quick hits --

1. Leave it empty, something to aspire to.

2. Descarify it. Like, buy another book more beautiful than this. Or a second identical one to use for practice, test out pens on, etc.

3. Iterate. Just keep coming back to the same page with different color pens, cut-out pictures, crayons... it'll add up and get cool.

4. Start on the computer, then cut and paste. Write or draw on it after it's in.

5. Just write. 100 pages of anybody's handwriting is incredibly compelling. It's like they've made a spell of power.

Green is the new white

Color matters more than I realized. Here's version 2, in green.


The whole set (smaller than real life)


Some new ones, full-size


Some old ones "greened" up

Icon fest

The evolution of my icons. Read top left to bottom right, like a book.

I have met the public and it is me

Well, due to my not understanding how IP addresses work, it turns out * I * am about a third of my readership.

I'm on a dialup, and the first few times I checked, it happened that my IP addresses all had the same first few prefixes. I set sitemeter to Ignore that, and forged ahead. Four months later, I realized -- I get assigned a new IP address EVERY time I connect. That sameness of those prefixes was a fluke.

All those AOL readers? Mostly me. That high percentage in the Pacific Standard timezone? Me. Those huge spikes in the Page Views? Me, me, me.

My new routine is to log into sitemeter first, Ignore, then blog.

Cool clock

If your computer is connected to the internet all the time, here is a cool (free) clock site for you -- clocklink.com. You can make a clock for your webpage or desktop. It's a little Flash app. Hard to see how they make money out of this; their custom clock is very pricey. Maybe it's a labor of love. Anyway, check it out. Thanks to EB for turning me on to this.

Safe 100

There are a lot of safe entries on that list. To the exact degree to which it's not personal, plain, or vulnerable, I am bored. It's the first or second level of truth, not the fourth or seventh.

UPDATE
Well, I left it up for 12 hours, took it down, and went to dinner. Then I edited and reposted. I'll consider it a living post, and periodically replace things. Overall it still sounds a little braggy and a little desperate, but hey. That's definitely part of me. Over time it'll soften down and get more real.

100 things about me

I got this idea from November Child's 100-list.

1. I am kinesthetic.
2. I want an ensemble theatre company; in beautiful spacious buildings like an old farm; in Nature; in America, Poland, or Denmark; that is self-supporting; where everyone is paid a living wage plus benefits plus a 1-month paid yearly sabbatical; that creates many kinds of things; and whose people are working consciously on greatness as well as theatre, that is, on the metalevel as well as the direct level; with great tech support, designers, actors, staff, angels, community, and board. And maybe one or two partner theatres, as well.
3. I have a good sense of smell.
4. I want to net $10 million a year profits after taxes from my books, plays, screenplays, theatre, and other creative works. Multiple revenue streams. Rentals, royalties, investments. Compounding wealth. Support specialists -- attorney, accountant, financial planner, bookkeeper, housekeeper, yardkeeper, personal assistant.
5. I drive an '88 Acura Legend with 186,000 miles.
6. I love introverts.
7. I love ISTJs and INTJs, and am inspired by NF-NF interaction.
8. I am an ENFP with ENTP rising, enneagram 8, Taurus, Rooster, Amiable-Expressive, Controlling-Promotor, mezzo, right-handed, right-brained, right-footed, left-eyed, left-hockey-shot, switch-hitting Ideation/Futurism/Independence/Adaptive/Achievement-skilled Summer.
9. I don't see well, even with my glasses.
10. I read fast. A book a day.
11. I have been to Russia, Hungary, Poland, Wales, Denmark, Norway, France, England, Canada, Australia.
12. I lived in Australia for 2 years, making videogames for Microsoft.
13. I have designed software for 19 years at PARC, Apple, Microsoft.
14. I have done theatre for 7 years (overlapping with software).
15. I am 47, 5'5", with brown hair, hazel eyes, and out-of-shape build.
16. I played in a men's ice hockey league for 8 years, was in a dance company for 2 years.
17. I am fluent in American Sign Language, passable in French.
18. My dog and my brother's pony both had one blue eye and one brown.
19. I grew up on a lake across from a 30-acre woods.
20. I was a fantastic pianist at the end of high school. I could sightread at tempo, an 8-part vocal score with piano accompaniment. THAT skill was gone in about eight weeks.
21. I had my own jazz band and composed for it.
22. I once smoked marijuana -- last year -- and turned into a raving introvert kinesthetic. I couldn't talk and just lay around feeling the couch fabric with my fingertips. If this stuff were legal, I'd be all over it.
23. I secretly am almost constantly talking to god.
24. I can tell the energy of a space very accurately.
25. I read sort of zig-zaggy. I takes me two zigs and one zag to grab all the text on a paperback page. Part of my brain sweeps ahead gathering paragraphs, while another part follows, shuffling & parsing. In the foreground, obscuring the text, I'm seeing a full-color movie of the story.
26. My mother lived alone on a tiny south sea island, 80' x 40', for 5 years in her 50's.
27. My brother lived on his 85' fishing boat , a longliner in Alaska.
28. My father could remember everything he ever read, and scored perfect 99's on his GRE test. He carried the scores in his wallet.
29. My father was red-green color-blind.
30. I have taken 5 years off from corporate life, in my 40's. This has transformed me.
31. I have seen a great therapist, Jim Rapson, for 7 years.
32. My therapist played Hamlet and is a songwriter/jazz pianist.
32. I grew up without a television. I am more of my mother's generation -- the 70-year-olds -- than of my own. Even in theatre. "I see a play in camera angles in my head," said a director friend. "I can shut my eyes and know if they're telling the truth," I said. I hear a play first.
33. I have a niece and two nephews. My brother wanted kids since he was five.
34. I am a catalyst. People who have regular seshes with me, change.
35. I have had some amazing sex. I keep erasing this sentence, or replacing it with more detailed ones, but you'll just have to trust me on this.
36. I love rain.
37. I watch a video every 2 to 4 months, regular tv about the same.
38. My fingers don't bend backwards.
39. I remember exactly how people move, but not their clothes or faces.
40. I teach acting at Bellevue Community College, sometimes in a room with a green rug, sometimes in a room with linoleum.
41. I can shoot a bow and arrow. I can make a bow out of hazelnut branches.
42. I love listening to people tell stories.
43. I love acoustic finger-picked guitar, or two-to-three women singing acapella harmony.
44. I am a shadow-Jew, raised-atheist, nyingma buddhist.
45. I have taken the bodhisattva vow.
46. I have touched the Dalai Lama's robes. I have a yellow flower petal from him.
47. I have touched the Stanley Cup.
48. I read Rumer Godden's In The House of Brede twice a year for 21 years.
49. I think Theodore Sturgeon is a witch, a god, a savant.
50. I have big breasts. Well, actually, right now while I'm out of shape, they are fricking huge. I secretly am really enjoying this phase. When I get back in shape everything else will improve, but this ultra-voluptuousness will vanish. I'm enjoying it while it's here.
51. The picture on my blog is 5 years old.
52. I am learning about money and financial stewardship.
53. I dream in color.
54. I love travelling alone.
55. I don't like most videogames. This is a shameful secret, given that I've spent much of my adult life making them. But it's true. The covenant of game-designers is a lot like the covenant of theatre-makers: it is a craft and practice of devotion. I respect the craft, love the hotness & edginess of it, but am heart-blind to many of the products.
56. My favorite dinner is spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and coke.
57. I am ashamed about the coke.
58. When there was that talking elephant in Russia, back in the early 80's, my housemate late in a drunken house-party tried to phone him. The operator said no one was allowed to talk to the elephant, and that by far the majority of callers had been American. The elephant's name was Batir. The zookeeper in the newspaper claimed the elephant could say, "Batir is a fine fellow" and "It is time to feed the elephant now." "Anyway," said the Russian operator, "How do you know that I am not the elephant?"
59. I majored in Piano then Dance, then I dropped out. Eventually I ended up with a Rhetoric degree. But only because Xerox PARC would double your pay if you graduated.
60. Three books I recommend to anybody are Lost In Place, by Mark Salzman; Catapult by Jim Paul; and Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg.
61. I rehearsed Macbeth's three witches in a florist shop at midnight , with the lights out and moonlight pouring through glass walls from the parking lot. The First Witch owned the shop, and covered the floor with petals for the witches to roll in.
62. I had the conspirators kill Caesar by singing him to death. They were scarier than the witches.
63. I blocked my first play by writing it out as an orchestral score.
64. I founded a Vision Team. Now I'm on a Dream Team, Diva Team, Ocean Team, and one just called The Team. They're all a little idle at the moment.
65. I had a deaf boyfriend for 5 years. That's how I got into hockey. He wanted an interpreter, and I got bored with watching.
66. I was in a long-term relationship with another man for 15 years. Among many other good things, this taught me that the ability to fix things is next to godliness.
67. When I am stressed I count things.
68. When I am stressed, I look at Nature.
69. When I lived at the Odin Teatret, I kept escaping to the smoky internet cafe in town. I was such a regular that one night when they were closed, they let me in anyway, without a word. The place was dark and uncharacteristically silent, filled with teenage Danish guys on computers.
70. When I get to heaven, my dog, my pony, and my dad will be waiting for me, plus Stanislavski and Chekhov. Chekhov won't have tuberculosis.
71. There was a restaurant in my hometown called The Poor Boy In And Out.
72. I secretly think this is my first time around, so they are giving me a sweet life.
73. I like artichokes, pomegranates, and extra-sharp cheddar cheese.
74. I crave complexity. I love learning curves & ethics.
75. Illuminated manuscripts make me shiver.
76. I have a recurring dream that I am at an artist's house. He has a bookshelf full of his own hand-made books. I spend the whole dream looking at one spread. When I wake up, I can make it. Who thought up that spread? I feel I stole it from him.
77. I dreamed I was Arnold Schwarzenegger for 16 years.
78. I identify with every character in Terminator 2.
79. I tell the same stories again and again.
80. I get myself a book and a chocolate for Christmas.
81. I always wanted to go to MIT. It is full of my type of people, problems, possibilities, power. But I don't want to do all that math work. I just want to contemplate mathematics.
82. I turned down Yale School of Drama for their directing MFA, in the middle of my final audition. It was right after Odin, and I realized the Odin was closer on my path. And that I'd need the tuition money to start a company. They laughed and agreed.
83. I asked Eugenio if I could join the Odin. He said no but I can visit.
84. I want to give myself a present when I turn 50. A big, door-opening, life-changing present. I spend many pleasurable hours considering what this might be.
85. October and November are my best months. I am incredibly smart then. In those restless winds, I am sensual, abandoned, intuitive, and can accomplish anything.
86. I want to observe Kama Ginkas and see Leonid again.
87. I want to become fluent in Polish, conversational in Russian, Danish, and Italian.
88. I can't usually understand what they're saying, in songs. Literally, I can't make out the words. I hear a string of vowels wrapped around rivery consonants.
89. Left to myself, I wake up at noon, kick in at 4, rev up at 7, and am at my peak from 10pm till 3am. This is as regular as clockwork.
90. I love Chekhov.
91. We had secret compartments in our walls when I was little, filled with guns, ammo, and firecrackers. The firecrackers were to let us know if the house was on fire, since my dad was hard of hearing and wouldn't hear a fire. My dad built our house, so they were designed in from the start.
92. I am dying to live in Eastern Europe; Poland, or Denmark.
93. My favorite color is red. My lucky number is 17. My favorite keys are D minor and F major. I am superstitious.
94. I like to listen to the same song over and over.
95. I have a patent on a high-end real-time video-editing system.
96. I wrote Apple's book, Hypercard Stack Design Guidelines.
97. The book won an Award of Excellence from the Society for Technical Communication. I was all proud until I learned a) this is their 3rd-place prize, and b) the book I had lost to, in 2nd place, was The Citrus Industry: Volume III.
98. My housemate Jeff is a 33-year-old INFP ex-quarterback with eidetic audio recall. And he's another artist, so home is a nourishing spiritual haven. I am getting used to living with people again.
99. I live in the woods. Tall cedars and poplars, lots of dandelions, blackberries, and brush. Leonid calls this my dacha, a Russian retreat house in the country.
100. I want a fun high-paying job, with a new knowledge-base, in a small company or small group, with a great team, fat pipes, excellent tech support, great benefits, on the Eastside -- or possibly a surprising location -- with a workload that leaves nights and weekends free. I want to find it in September, get it in October, and start in late October, as soon as Our Town opens. I want it to be a surprising, formidable, lucrative step forward.

Mood icons

I was having mood-icon envy. So I made one. This is where I am today. "Looks like a Medusa with money hair," said my housemate. I'll start sprinkling these in my posts.

Boleslawiec Polish pottery

Ceramika Artyzstyczna teapot

I love this fat, strong, vibrant, truthful pottery. Boleslawiec has many potteries, and Ceramika Artystyczna is the oldest and best. The pottery is hand-made. The older designs remind me of Polish theatre, which is just as hand-made, as penetratingly truthful. Even mainstream theatre in Poland resonates with that other-worldliness, that matter-of-fact nondenial of truth. It is a company which still lives in myth.

"I am hard man," a Polish artistic director once said to me. "I am not nice. So at my company, I surround myself with nice people. So I can be me."

That is a Polish-tasting thought. It makes me think, I need to surround myself with hard people, with realists. So I can be me.

At home I drink from fat-bellied tea mugs ("gentlemen's mugs," the Polish site calls them) to remind myself to make theatre as good as this pottery. As earthy, as spiritually clean.


Their old logo


Their new logo

They do a lot of their designs by stamping. Having carved my own eraser-stamps for years, I find that familiar.