2:17

waking up at one-thirty in a cold sweat
angry and confused and cursing
shirt soaked
in need of urination
as i crawl back into bed
it's cold in my room
and i remember my mortality
at first with complete horror
where is my cat?
i remember my solitude
at first with desperation
i lay quiet and exhausted
i almost go back to sleep
but stay awake
comfort myself with a tapestry
of entertaining computer images
until my eyes begin to close...

marginal and primary

seems i spend quite a bit of time thinking (not to say worrying) about how to get through to my second period class. found a new way of dealing recently which has seemed to help so far -- approaching students individually and quietly instead of spending too much time speaking to the entire class in a loud voice. tonight i watched a movie called OT: our town about a compton high school putting on the first play done in twenty years. i thought about all the advantages i have, working in a relatively well-to-do school in a hifalutin texas school district; but i also recognize the apathy that comes along with this money and privilege. something about the compton school is much more clear, much more black-and-white, whereas i am working every day with a lot of grey areas. the leisure time and the catering that my students have access to cheats them out of a sense of urgency or vitality for most of their activities and actions. there are rarely any severe repercussions; there is rarely anything very interesting. watching OT: our town sets my wheels in motion about how i can inspire my own particular clientele. updates to follow.
SEAGULL is going well. i managed to block acts one and two this week, and today we ran through both acts, working and reworking scenes and "beats." it was a blast.
this weekend i am going to fran's pumpkin-carving party.

patchen poem

here is a kenneth patchen poem i chose at random.

The Continual Ministry of Thy Anger

The kill of loose-voiced reason...
Oil of heaven falling
On the sweat of towns...
What cold is,
Grass,
The ages of mankind, what gains light
And is a prey in my tusky sleep, what puts
Me at rage
Or to love
And to die.

Health to the lonely one,
Art in his teeth
Like a flaming star.
Death to the profane,
Who wears his art like a shoe
To take him into easier places.
For what the cold is, and grass, and men,
And to sleep, and to be angry, and to love,
And to die,
Artists do not know;
But art knows,
And is always waiting, and clean.

loss of steam

i allowed more than a week to go by without posting, and that's irritating.
SEAGULL auditions start today after school.
i had a long weekend, but managed to not do laundry or the dishes.
i don't feel rested.
i did finish my translation, and i changed the litter box, and i watered the plants.
i saw THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP a second time.
there is so much to be done at work-- one-act play manual to be read, play to be cut, letters to be written, lesson plans to be lesson planned, children to be educated...
last friday i stood backstage during the production of TWELFTH NIGHT and watched the backstage action for a while. quiet, energized movements, careful whispering, preparations, entrances and exits... to me it was so much more interesting to watch them backstage than it was to watch the play. there was so much more going on. it was like the audience was seeing the play version and i was seeing the movie version. i still love theatre, but there's a hidden cinematic element to it that i appreciate more and more. like the backstage scenes in cassavetes' OPENING NIGHT: actors preparing, scenery getting moved, curtains rising, the sounds of the audience, the artificiality of the stage voice juxtaposed with the real whispers of those waiting in the wings. those are the best scenes in that movie.
i looked at the wikipedia entry for georges perec, the author of LIFE: A USER'S MANUAL, which i excerpted in my first entry. this picture is killin' me.

chaika

auditions for my school production of chekhov's seagull will happen in just over a week, on october 10. the play has thirteen characters, two of which have no lines (the cook and the maid), and one of which has several lines that go something like this: "yes, sir." (yakov.)
with the help of an original russian script, my russian-english dictionary, and tom stoppard's translation (which starred meryl streep, philip seymour hoffman, natalie portman and kevin kline in central park several years ago), i am making my own translation/adaptation of the play. i have translated russian poems before, but i've never undertaken a project like this. though my russian vocabulary is okay, my grammar leaves more to be desired, so it often takes a while to figure things out. that's where stoppard's translation comes in handy. usually what i do is take a guess, then check myself against his version.
i started out with act four and went backwards. like, i started with the last speech of the play and actually worked backwards speech by speech or line by line. why did i do that? for fun, and also to throw myself off, so i would be less tempted to fabricate lines i knew were coming. backwards, i was translating it with less anticipation. i finished acts four and three like that. yesterday i finished act one. now all that remains is the eleven pages of act two.
the "adaptation" part comes in with my idea to bring the seagull into suburbia 2006. i don't usually care for plays which are taken out of their proper time and put into a modern context, but with this particular play, i feel like i know it well enough to experiment with it. names of russian towns ("yelets") are being changed ("jersey city"). all references to living in "the country" are being changed to living in "the suburbs." because chekhov's characters are mostly intelligentsia, this change from semi-luxurious summer home (complete with parks, avenues and servants) to run-down apartment building (complete with ambulance sirens and planes flying over) does actually make a big difference in how the characters interact. rather than boredom caused by excess, the contemporary version posits boredom caused by sheer suburban banality. it also changes some of the language so that it doesn't sound so dated (though don't get me wrong-- i love dated), so that students of this generation are more able to identify with it. i was going to provide an example, but when i started trying to find one it struck me as presumptuous.
maybe the whole thing is presumptuous. purists--if there are any left, and i doubt they would come see this anyway--would shudder. on the other hand, i love chekhov just as much or more than anyone i've ever met. so why not try it? so far it's a blast.