Wednesday, December 28, 2005

shaped for theatre, laptop fixed

I saw a play at the Intiman this week. Sitting in the third row of those sharply slanted Epidaurean seats, I felt my whole soul uncrumple. I forget, when I am out of theatre, how perfectly I am shaped for it.

How can one be upheld by wind? By faith?

John has fixed my laptop. "It's temporary," he warns. "You've only got a few months till the chip on that graphic card fries completely." This is how bad it is: you fix it by shoving THROUGH the keyboard to reseat the chip in its socket. Put your fingers on the 6, the 7, and the Y keys. Press sharply to reseat the chip.

He also restored the computer to a date before it got the virus. Voila. All problems fixed. I am coming to you live from May 15, 2005.

This makes a huge difference:
I am writing this post AT HOME.
Not at Kinko's with the meter running. Not at work with every security program watching & recording. Not at my ancient Win95 desktop, which crashes every few hours and can't open most internet sites. Now you know why there's been such a sharp dropoff in my blogging the last few months.

Monday, December 19, 2005

my Alaskan family


My brother and his family at Crow Pass

This is my brother and his family. (Click to enlarge.) He moved to Alaska, fell in love with it, and never left. My sister-in-law is a 5th-generation Alaskan. I love this picture.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Diabelli Variations, reflections, art

I am listening to Piotr Anderszewski play Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Or, as Beethoven termed it, Diabelli Transformations.

I am reflecting on why yesterday's meeting at work had such an impact on me.

The reason is, it felt like theatre.

We walked into a high-ceilinged room, with dusk falling, and lights turned low. The room was especially clean, with neat rows of chairs. A soft light glowed from the project screen, ready for the demos. Along the left side sat narrow tables with billows of white cloth, humous, olives, carrots, red peppers, sandwiches, and cheese -- my group has a lot of vegetarians, including our leader -- and brilliant small Christmas lights twinkling among the feast.

What felt like theatre to me was the
cleanliness
intention
light
beauty
spirit-nourishment
Someone had created, out of space and shadow, a glowing emptiness for us to walk into. It was the space that made us beautiful. And the steady accomplishments listed in our slides.

Work has seemed long and charcoal-grey the last two months. I needed that beauty.

Piotr, this pianist, was born in Warsaw, speaks fluent French, decent English. He is now playing Variation 18, Poco Moderato. He was 29 in this recording. He has a touch like Horowitz -- unbelievably delicate. I believe he hears Beethoven as if it were Chopin -- as if every note had that much meaning, that much sorrow against the joy, that much tenderness. I hear Beethoven newly, through his ears.

Where have I gotten the idea that art is not an acceptable way to spend my life?

Thursday, December 15, 2005

this year I need Christmas

We had our holiday party today at work. It was our regular Casual Games product unit meeting, but specially catered with little white lights wound around our food and a special cloth under them. It was a "just us" meeting -- what we've done the last 6 months, what we're planning for the next 6. It reminded me of the Odin Teatret. A homey matter-of-fact celebration, after a year of hard work, in our own tall-ceilinged room off the cafeteria, with the sky & trees dusking behind us. Nothing is of exaggerated importance, but it all gets tended to. Like a cared-for farm.

I liked the lights and the beauty. My spirit is thirsty for this. I am grateful for all we have done, and all we are doing. I love being in this group; it's values are aligned with mine. I like how well we work with other groups, how long-sighted we are. I like working in a group where actual elders are running it. It is comforting, to have the big roots laid straight, the big snarls untangled; to be in a group of people striving for wisdom, as well as for watering the seedlings and making sure the cows get fed today.
Light the candles, sing the song
winter's come and summer's gone
Mary's babe in straw is laid
Li Po surfs the wind's mad glade

To clean the kitchen before dark
is the spirit's surest mark
Every broken heart can mend
with sleep and help, with caring friend

Monday, December 12, 2005

my doves, what I'm doing, Akropolis poster, Fate

Here's what I am doing.

1. Working a lot.

2. Cleaning.

3. Facing and catching up on finances.
Like straightening a crook in my spine.

4. Writing my theatre book.
I see everything dumbly through the lens of the book. How does this black dog with blue eyes relate to the book? How do purdah and Indra and peacocks and dust relate to the book? How does Jarlsberg cheese on a blue earthenware plate relate to the book? How does Chance's singing about his dead mother, with Sid on guitar, me on low harmony, the whole Cherry Orchard cast joyously joining the chorus, and Leonid, uncomprehending and exhausted, asleep in the next chair, relate to the book?

4. Assistant-directing Leonid's production of The Seagull.
Rehearsals are Jan-Feb, then a year of twice-weekly performances, starting in March. Lower Depths follows, March-May, then it joins Seagull in repertory for the year. Performances are home performances, in the big house on Capitol Hill where rehearsals are held.

5. Working with Lyon & Charlotte to help produce the year of performances.

6. Helping produce Leonid's Japanese company's tour in April.
They are coming from Tokyo to do three performances of a Chikamatsu play -- "the Japanese Shakespeare," says Paul -- and a collaborative rehearsal of Seagull, where the Tokyo actors speak Japanese and the Seattle actors speak English. Leonid has had this company of 70 actors for 5 years.

7. Looking forward to Bart's Richard III at the Intiman this summer.

It feels good to be weaving theatre again through my life. Like the silver thread in a sari, and like its green silks too.

Working with Lyon, writing my book, changing my habits -- this is the leading edge of my theatre work, somehow: inconclusive, erratic, weak, blind, true.

"My doves, he says," said Wes, laughing as he interpreted Leonid's first words. "My doves." Wes laughed again.

Jennifer Lavy was given one of the Polish Laboratory Theatre's incredibly rare Akropolis posters. Black woodcut printing on light brown paper, nearly 50 years old. It lay on their grand piano, as quiet and full of power as its twin which hangs at the Odin.

Like Leonid said, when describing how he came to Seattle the first time:
It is Fate. Like all acts of Fate, it is not a coincidence.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

what I'm reading

The Timeless Way of Building
Rebel Without A Crew: The making of El Mariachi by Robert Rodriguez
The Man Who Was Magic
Writing Down The Bones
Chinese Calligraphy: From Pictograph To Ideogram: The History of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Charaters