new blog

hey kids!
please visit my new blog for artwork, http://www.thornbook.blogspot.com
i will be putting up drawings and such as often as i can.

music head

today i'm going to the gym for the first time in 9-10 weeks. i'm not particularly out of shape because i've been running around so much. and i was never that in shape to begin with anyway. in other words, there wasn't a lot of shape to lose.
my friend peter hedges has a new movie out-- dan in real life. peter graduated from NCSA as a drama major 3-4 years before i did, and came back my senior year to create a theatre piece for us, which was one of my favorite college experiences. it was called a report on the solar system and we got to smash pies in each others' faces at the end. (i smashed mine a little hard and still feel guilty about hurting shad's nose.) peter went on to have his novel, what's eating gilbert grape? directed onscreen by lasse hallstrom (i got to go to the sneak preview), had several plays produced in new york, and continued writing screenplays. pieces of april came out i guess almost four years ago now. i'm happy for him, he's doing so well. i may try to see dan in real life today.
i have been downloading a lot of new music lately.
ANTIBALAS - security
ART OF NOISE - (who's afraid of) the art of noise?
AT THE DRIVE-IN - relationship of command
ELVIS COSTELLO - spike
EURYTHMICS - ultimate collection
GEORGE HARRISON - all things must pass
IRON & WINE - the shepherd's dog
JOHN DOE - a year in the wilderness
JOHN LENNON - mind games
JOSE GONZALEZ - in our nature
MEKONS - natural
MEXICAN INSTITUTE OF SOUND - pinata
MICHAEL JACKSON - thriller
PYLON - gyrate (plus)
RADIOHEAD - in rainbows
TV ON THE RADIO - young liars EP
VAN MORRISON - common one AND st. dominic's preview
YOUSSOU N'DOUR - rokku mi rokka
and
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK - the darjeeling limited
i guess i've spent a lot of money on music these last few weeks. i don't even feel like going to barnes & noble anymore. what's happening to me?!?!?!?

another opening...

the royal family opened tonight. it went well! a few flubbed lines here and there, an overturned coffee urn well-played comedically, a very appreciative audience (i counted 64 ticket stubs)... not bad for halloween.
i was very proud of them, and i am thoroughly exhausted.

the monster show

who would have known that such a souffle of a show, such a lighthearted, airy romantic comedy, would be so much work?!?
i have been yelling at the kids a lot. but on wednesday we had our first four-hour rehearsal and they finally started stepping it up a bit. thursday was good too. on friday, two students left the theatre for unexplained reasons and i had to yell about that ("what do i have to do-- cut my arms off and throw them at you?!?!?"), but at the beginning of the week i decided to start giving it all up to jesus, and that was a good decision. it's their show. let them do what they will.
fortunately, i have my brother-in-law danny, who is a home builder, and he has been the channel through which a lot of the immense set has been built. today we had a tech day in which we got all the remaining flats put up and painted, doors hung, trim glued on, stencil designs painted on flats, chairs and tables acquired, props organized, tickets printed, portraits gathered, sound cues solidified, hats made, hairstyles agreed upon, makeup bought and experimented with, more painting, painting, painting, and the list goes on...
it's been really satisfying work. the dedicated kids break my heart, just a little bit more than the undedicated ones who suddenly show an interest when they realize "hey-- this might be something after all!"
and once again, i'm thrilled for opening night.
they open on wednesday. more to come.

more small steps

yesterday i bought 5 gallons of rose-colored paint, 2 gallons of red mahogany stain, a stencil to do wallpaper designs with, exacto blades, tape, and a few other items. in the evening we got started painting the flats. i also got a golden brownish paint for the floor.

mind-numbingly delicious

i just glutted myself on reality tv shows.
first i watched two episodes of 'queer eye' back to back (the first one made me cringe, the second sappier one made me cry-- but just a little). then the season finale of 'top chef.' i had missed the first half of it last week when it aired, so i got to see it tonight.
when it was all over my brain had melted out my ears. it took me a minute to get up. no, i mean a full minute. try it, it's a long time.
i'm worried about our play. the kids are so exhausted. school is too intense. we have so much to do in such a short time. in brief moments i'm comforted by the thought that we pulled under milk wood out in eight short hours... but royal family has so many demands that we haven't even thought of yet.
small steps: today we began using the actual sound effects for the doorbell, buzzer, and two phones. also, we got some plywood cut for the siding on the stairs.

hooray for fall, hooray for theatre

cool mornings... october is here!
my theatre arts two class did a staged reading performance of dylan thomas's play for voices, under milk wood, the past two evenings. we had only four class periods and one evening rehearsal to put it together, which amounts to a grand total of eight hours, and considering that shortness of preparation time, i think it turned out pretty well. the students were focused, enthusiastic, and for me, a delight to watch. with the exception of one student who actually removed her cell phone onstage and texted something into it, everyone took the performance seriously and brought something unique to his or her parts. it was moving to watch them, and it came at the end of a somewhat stressful week.
students are stressed right now in my world. too much work, too many activities, too many deadlines, just too many expectations being piled on them in general.
our play is coming up and we only have a handful or two of rehearsals to get everything done. today we are going up to school for a saturday work day, in which i hope to accomplish a lot. my brother-in-law, one of the kindest people i've ever met, will be there to help us, so that's a real cool thing. we need to get two nine-foot platforms up, build and set up two staircases, and frame and face several wall units. if we do those things, these things will be icing on the cake: paint the walls, stencil, paint the floor, create the fireplace, create the doors, and figure out a way to make styrofoam look like molding.
hooray for the theatre!

update

the pillowman closed this past sunday. it's one of the best theatre experiences i've ever had. i was never anxious before going onstage. though i'd get slight butterflies, i was never worried about dropping lines or things going wrong. i imagine this lack of anxiety was a result of feeling comfortable with my fellow actors as well as the fantastic script we had to work with. every night i was able to play with the lines, changing inflection, experimenting with pauses in different ways, drawing out a moment of eye contact or discovering a new area of realization. this play renewed my faith in myself as an actor.
this past saturday i attended a luncheon of the constance allen heritage guild, a local women's club, and was given an award, along with about 14 other local educators, called the yellow rose of texas education award. i was very honored, as most of the other honorees were at least 50 years old and had been in education for many years. my mom and dad came, as well as one of my bosses at work, two of my past teachers, and the man who nominated me.
now i turn my attention fully to our production of the royal family and i attempt to build this magnificent set and collect these magnificent costumes. i have no idea how i'm going to pull it off, but in actuality, i never do; so, this is nothing too different.

the best $20 i ever spent

last year during south pacific i was sitting in my office at around 6 pm and was reminded of the existence of Nerds Ropes. for those of you who haven't had the pleasure, Nerds Ropes are long strips of chewy stuff covered in Nerds candy. i suddenly had an overwhelming craving for a Nerds Rope. so i asked one of my students if she would go to the store and get me one. she said sure. as i looked in my wallet, i realized i had only a twenty dollar bill. the moment of decision had arrived: either forego the craving, or plunge in. i chose the latter.
"take this twenty," i tasked her, "and buy as many Nerds Ropes as you can."
she and two friends presently returned with two plastic shopping bags full of Nerds Ropes, 81 of them to be exact, which we proceeded to enjoy and disseminate.
it was the best twenty dollars i ever spent.

labor

school starts.
play rehearsal for the royal family.
classes.
performances of the pillowman.
friend beth visited.
discussion of acting.
she gives me a note that i try, and it works.
day off for labor day.
look at this.
cough and congestion.
feelings of gratitude while washing dishes.
later, sinking self-hatred over scrambled eggs.
i let it pass.
and worry hovers like smoke i blow away.
on a student's MySpace, he has cited me as one of his heroes; i find out by chance.
i update my own space.
i stay up till 2:30 am.

an attractive, adventurous option

summer of 2007 is drawing to a close.
i've had one of the best summers of my life, i think.

in june:
-i was in a play. rabbit hole reminded me that i have a wealth of emotional reserves inside that are very strong and readily available;
-i joined a gym, and to my surprise actually enjoyed working out, for the first time in my life;
-i finished my sketchbook of altai drawings, self-published them at kinkos, and distributed them accordingly;
-i went to a bitchen pool party and played water volleyball with jockish aplomb;
-i visited friend beth and new friend von in austin, and my brother and sis-in-law in waco;
-i cleaned my apartment for the first time in months (whew).
in july:
-i went to france (did i mention?);
-i started rehearsals on another play. the pillowman is reminding me that i have something in common with everyone in the world;
-i took another healing trip to austin;
-i slept as much as i wanted to;
-i spent fun times with friend marc.
in august:
-i watched the rain create a makeshift swimming pool in the grass-patch outside my window while i sipped coffee in my cozy cave;
-i started on a new set of drawings, inspired by some affirmations i put together for myself, aided by a cool person named mary;
-i house-sat and dog-sat at my parents' place, watching old dick cavett interviews with famous comedians;
-i had a great healing visit with von, during which we went to the mcnay and to a rock shop, and made a good dinner using one of jean-jean's recipes;
-i saw a good movie called golden door;
-i enjoyed a clean-up day at school with some of the advanced theatre students;
-i started paying more attention to my diet, eating healthier food;
-i finally read dave eggers's a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

and of course i met quite a few wonderful people this summer: thad, asia, forrest, michele, von, mary, rick & odile...
but i think mostly what i learned, and am learning, in addition to continually discovering my personal power, is the way to make each day last longer. now this might sound like a dubious ability, because many people on our earth don't want their days to be longer; after all, the phrase "it's been a long day" generally connotes a feeling of strife and exhaustion. but i'm learning that a long day is one where you're awake for it, engaged in it, actually living it and not coasting on auto-pilot. i haven't always wanted this, and sometimes i still don't-- sometimes i just want to disappear into my couch with the tv on and let the day go by like so much annoying pageantry... i'm learning, however, that being awake and engaged is an attractive, adventurous option, if i'm willing to go there.

france part five

FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE
after three days in paris, we checked out of our lovely hotel and dragged our bags through the metro to the train station, where we sat and waited for a couple of hours for our train to arrive. (we got there really early, to avoid lateness.) while at the train station i did some lovely people-watching. we ate sandwiches and sipped drinks. i left one of my little books of sketches there on purpose (see footnote below).
our train ride to nantes, heading in a southwesterly direction, was taken on the smoothest train you've ever felt. it was more like a glide than a ride. more people-watching (inside our 16-person cabin) ensued. two little girls cried as they left people they loved (friends? family?) and set off to nantes with their grandmother. in another 4-seat section, two kids bickered over toys while their mother reprimanded them occasionally. one little girl (9 or 10 years old) played with her barbie in a hilarious fashion, complete with voices and facial expressions. i liked it when she pulled the barbie's bikini top off then screamed, acting out the part of the barbie, who was outraged to be naked.
one of our hosts, rick, who grew up in corpus, met us at the train station in nantes. he was an old friend of fran's from college. he talked a lot, mostly about himself and his ideas, which i found slightly irritating at first; then i realized he was intelligent and interesting, and i gave in and listened to him gladly. he drove us to the home he shared with his french wife odile and their two daughters chloe and emma, in a tiny town called st. julien-de-concelles. we spent six days staying in their garage apartment on a patch of farmland that has been in odile's family for generations. it was so beautiful there, with amazing flowers (hydrangeas, passion flowers, calla lilies, portulaca, roses...) and a full veggie garden, from which we ate each evening. (the potatoes needed nothing... no salt, no butter... oh my gosh...)
rick and odile had an interesting relationship. at first i thought they were really on rocky ground with each other, like verging on divorce. their verbal interaction was intense and aggressive. i found myself embarrassed, afraid i was witnessing their collective downfall. later, however, fran assured me that they have always related to each other this way-- it's them. it's the way they interact. no imminent downfall to be worried about. after fran told me that, i felt a lot better and could freely observe their aggressive interaction, without fear.
while in our idyllic french country retreat, we did many fun things:
mont st. michel is a fortress/church/monastery/village that dates back to the 10th century. we walked all through it, marveling at room after room in this almost labyrinthine structure, full of sacred ghosts and shadows. its sheer size is almost too much for the brain to handle. up above, in the abbey prayer garden, for a second i thought i'd been there before, and for a couple of hours i wished i lived there again.
before visiting mont st. michel, we ate at the relais du roy. though it was elegant and the food was sublime, i felt uncomfortable at this restaurant. maybe it was my weak grasp of french. maybe it was the brisk, intimidating waitstaff. or maybe it was the camembert, whose flavor resembled gym socks.
we also visited a gorgeous, glamorous fortified port town called st. malo. we walked on the beach, out to an island, collected rocks, marveled at the view, soaked in the atmosphere, and then strolled down a cobbled street of the town, which was lined with stores containing high-ticket items. this place was destroyed during the second world war by the americans, and was rebuilt, stone by stone, in subsequent years.
finally... our small tour of the city of nantes came toward the end of our stay in france, so wasn't quite as extensive as it otherwise would have been, since we were a little exhausted. we didn't catch a rugby game; however, we did visit the cathedral (under renovation) and had a droll tour of it (all in french, but we could tell it was funny by the middle-aged tour guide's eyebrows and how they rose on the clever bits); and we walked through some of the castle. we sat outside at the incredibly ornate cafe la cigale (the cicada) and had tea and cakes of various kinds. nantes is the sixth largest city in france and has a sort of combination small-town/big-city feel to it, cosmopolitan yet not out of touch with its roots.
but in the final analysis, perhaps my most memorable moments were spent with fran and zoe and our hosts rick and odile around the dinner table each evening: simple, delectable dishes brought out at random, new stuff, leftovers, fresh from the garden, how do you make this?, oh it's simple, just some garlic, parsley and olive oil, put it in the oven for twenty minutes, talking about stuff, religion, capital punishment, vegetarianism, family, mushrooms, homosexuality, college friends, insurance, wine... all the things that matter in life.
my bottle of cointreau, bought at the paris airport with my last 20 euros, was manufactured in the town of angers, which was actually just "down the road" from where we stayed in st. julien-de-concelles. it arrived home safely, in the wayward bag (remember, the one that had apparently been attacked by dogs?), and is now resting in my refrigerator.
and though this is the end of my five-part blog series, make no mistake: i'll go back to france.

FOOTNOTE: i made a book of small sketches, based on photos i had taken in russia, and decided that i would leave one of my sketchbooks in a random place in paris. though i probably should have given one of them to the stranger making eye contact in the subway, i didn't think of it in time; so i had to leave the sketchbook under a bench in the paris train station. it was both a practical attempt at spreading my work around the world as well as a symbolic gesture of european artistic aspiration. i'm hoping to develop a website soon which will exhibit my burgeoning collection of drawings. i'll keep you posted on that.

interviews

at the end of last school year, in may, the seniors were preparing their 'senior video' (a tradition in our department) and decided to interview my colleague and myself. i found out this weekend (quite by accident) that these interviews have been posted on YouTube. my colleague speaks first, then i. click here.

france part four

MUSEUMS, CHURCHES & CEMETERY:
we decided not to try going into the louvre. given our time constraints we felt that our hours would be more usefully spent in other historic places, such as the musee d'orsay, which contains a mind-blowing amount of famous, priceless art. housed in an old train station (built in 1900), the museum is almost completely lit by overhead skylights, which gives the atmosphere a bright, even, and serene quality immediately as you walk in.
some of picasso's drawings were especially enthralling to me, on a purely technical level-- later drawings where he depicts his model as a voluptuous young beauty and himself as an old lecher or a beast. the van gogh area of the passing exhibit was teeming with people, which was annoying because it was almost impossible to really appreciate the art in that kind of crush; on the other hand, it made me happy to think how happy these artists would be to know that people were still flocking to the work, discussing it passionately, gazing at it, deriding it, drawing parallels and puzzling out odd choices. the place was like a beehive. i've already mentioned manet's 'olympia' and 'portrait of emile zola' right next to it. the latter includes a portrait of the former, as art aficionados will know. we also enjoyed looking at works by degas, cezanne, klimt, munch, cassatt, monet, renoir, courbet... and i was a little mesmerized by cordier's 'sudanese negro' sculpture, which seemed so alive as i walked by it.
the other paris museum we visited was the pompidou centre, which is built 'inside-out,' with a sort of scaffolding exoskeleton and tube-like exterior escalators. at first glance it looks like a building you'd see in a dream, a place full of unpredictable contents, a place you can't wait to go into. this museum was established by french president georges pompidou, a modern art lover, in the early seventies. inside are five or six floors of modern art. we visited a really cool children's installation, where kids got to choose four or five images from a computer screen (eiffel tower, apple, peace sign, heart, skull, etc.), have their picture taken, and have all the chosen images stack themselves one by one like a totem pole on a large screen, each accompanied by a different sound effect, topped by the child's picture and a sweeping harp glissando at the end. the modern art on the top floor of the museum was copious, diverse and absorbing-- sculpture, painting, photography, video... it was yet another treasure trove of human expression, worthy of hours of lazy strolling, gawking, grinning and discussion.
which takes us to the churches.
notre dame, as i mentioned, was a little hectic, which didn't necessarily detract from the experience, since one expects notre dame, naturally, to be overrun with tourists. i took some good pictures of the beams of light coming down through the staggeringly gorgeous stained glass windows into the dark atmosphere of the cathedral.
sacre coeur was less hectic, and the main reason for this was that there was a service going on at the time of our mid-morning visit. as we climbed the final set of stairs to the church, jesus looked down at us from his alcove over the front entrance. inside, the priest was praying and the nuns were singing. the atmosphere was hushed. the church was full of light, the almost modern-looking windows emitting tranquil shades of color. the nuns' voices rang beautifully in the cathedral. i was moved by something that has occurred to me before: small humans, producing all this beauty, trying to understand the mystery of this existence, deciding to spend their time in an activity called worship. it sounds like an analyzation when put into words, but at the moment it was a feeling in my heart that stabbed me a little, which i was ready and grateful for.
by the time we got to pere-lachaise cemetery, it was about 3:45 pm. we strolled on the paths and i for one felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of gravestones around us. how would one ever find anyone's grave, without a guide? fran wanted to find abelard & heloise; i made my desire for moliere known. but at 4:15, as we were sitting on the curb taking a brief rest, a man drove up to us in a golf cart and said we needed to leave, that the cemetery was closing.
someone made eye contact in the subway-- a lover from a future life. back at the hotel we ate cheese and bread, drank wine, and smoked cigarettes on the balcony before turning in. i listened to people on the street below: walking, singing, screeching... alive!

france part three

P A R I S :
our hotel was in lovely walking distance to notre dame. just walk that way down rue cardinal lemoine, cross the bridge and look to your left. it was raining intermittently. fran fired up her first paris cigarette. on the bridge we looked to our left and there it was. i remembered my few-hours' layover in 1991 when i was on my way to russia. i wrote this in my journal then:
"I am sitting in a park next to Notre Dame. It is so beautiful and cool here today... This is my life! This is how my life is unfolding. Children begin running all around me."
i felt happy to have another chance in paris, since the last visit had been so brief. it was also nice to experience it with friends instead of alone.
notre dame, immense and full of relics and tourists, with its luminous windows and intricate carvings and massive arches, was a little bit of a circus. from there we hopped on a riverboat and began wending our way toward the eiffel tower. if i thought notre dame was a circus, then the eiffel tower was definitely disneyland. first of all, that thing is quite huge-- you know how some people get disappointed when they see the statue of liberty for real; they're like, 'i thought it would be bigger.' well, i didn't feel that with the eiffel tower. people were teeming under its legs, standing in long lines waiting to get to a leg, each of which contains an elevator. when we finally got through the line, and up to the 'second' level, we had to exit the elevator and stand in another line in order to get to the top of the tower. the quarters were generally crammed; people with claustrophobia wouldn't do well here; all around us american, german, spanish, french voices. up top the view was nice and everything, and it was a little staggering to think how high we were. 'look, there's the pompidou!' said fran. 'look at the clouds!' said andy. 'i'm freezing!' said zoe. and it was cold up there.
coming down from the top was equally fraught with lines and cramped standing room. once we got back down to level two, and were waiting for the elevator to go all the way down to the bottom, a cold, sideways rain began to whip through the waiting area. some of us opened umbrellas. people squealed and giggled in different languages. and when the elevator came, there was a bit of a crush. fran almost got caught behind a guard rail, as did a small spanish child next to me. but we made it down safely.
i, for one, was happy to have my feet back on french soil after that. and then on french water as we rode the riverboat back to the notre dame stop, where we got off the boat and walked back to our hotel.

france part two

my renegade suitcase arrived the next evening with huge rips in the nylon fabric. it's unclear what happened to it; looks like it was attacked by wild dogs. in any case, nothing inside was damaged except, strangely, a little eraser i bought with a picture of the eiffel tower on it, which was pulverized beyond recognition. delta provided me with a brand new nylon suitcase... but not with a new eraser, alas. mostly, i was relieved that the 1000 ml bottle of cointreau i bought at the duty-free shop in paris wasn't cracked.
anyway, to get back to our trip:
we spent three days in paris and then took a really fast, smooth train west to another city called nantes, which is not too far from the west coast of france. at the train station in nantes we were met by one of our hosts, fran's old friend rick (who is from corpus), who took us back to the house he shares with his french wife odile (another old friend of fran's) and their two daughters. the house is on a little farm in a community about 20-ish miles from nantes, called st. julien de concelles. there we did the following things:
-stayed in a garage apartment
-learned some french
-met emma (5) and chloe (16)
-watched zoe and emma play and fight
-relaxed
-had amazing meals, all very simply prepared
-drank great wine
-picked vegetables from the garden
-took walks
-took pictures
-had interesting discussions
-listened to birds in the trees during the day and the complete silence at night
-played with the dog pistache
-traveled to the coast and saw mont st. michel, st. malo, a small coastal town called pornic (great ice cream!), and toured a bit around the city of nantes, which has a real live castle and a gorgeous cathedral
...and much more!
people in the states had warned me about the snotty attitude of the french toward americans. we didn't run up against this at all. my attitude is that if you maintain a modicum of respect and politeness, awareness of customs, you will be treated in kind. i certainly found this to be true. once, in the train station, i asked a man in a uniform, "bon jour, m'sieur. parlez-vous anglais?" and he turned to me and said, "do you speak french?"
he had a wry french expression on his face as he said this. i continued with my question in english and he was perfectly helpful. i learned that the "bon jour" is a very important component in terms of manners. people want to be addressed properly, starting with a hello. doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it? actually it made me more aware of interactions i had when i got back to the states, and how common it is for employees and customers never to say "hello" to each other at all. if there's no "hello," it's all about the product; ideally, if there's a "hello," it's about people instead. would you rather your life be about products, or people? just asking.
the last time i was in europe i was in russia, so i couldn't help comparing my french experience to my russian one. it's a given that i love the russians and always will; at the same time, i found the french to be much more civilized, humane, and genteel. they care about the quality of each moment; there's beauty everywhere you turn; there's a relaxed sense of pro-human advancement. in russia (at least when i was there), i saw people struggling under the weight of life; their voracious partying was direct evidence of the hardships they felt. france has produced a milder person, someone who doesn't spend all his time fighting against a system, but who moves functionally within it, for the most part.
it would be interesting to compare how the arts are affected as a result of this difference in climate. is it really true that people tend to create more interesting art when they are oppressed in some way? i found myself wondering while i was in paris, "what is the theatre like here?" unfortunately i didn't have time to find out.
(just to reiterate: i will always love russia and russians. but the contrast was interesting.)
in car drives, rick and i had good discussions. we talked about music, movies, school, china, insurance companies... he told me about france's health care policy, and talked about how the united states could improve theirs.
imagine my sense of synchronicity when, three days after my return to the united states, i saw michael moore's new movie, sicko, which takes apart american health care and even compares it to france's. the point was driven home, back home. it seems to me that those french are doing a lot of things right.
next entry: more about paris!

france part one

hi y'all,
i went to france. i thought i was ready to come home but i'm kinda depressed to be back.
i went with my friend fran and her 8 year-old daughter zoe. we spent three lovely days in paris first, at a hotel called the royal-cardinal, on the rue des ecoles in the latin quarter. none of us spoke french, but we all felt bad about it so the obnoxious american factor was at least tempered with some stuttering attempts at rudimentary french. in paris we did the following things:
-ate at a few cafes
-got caught in a downpour or two
-went to notre dame
-rode on a riverboat up and down the seine
-climbed the eiffel tower (yes, there was an elevator-- we didn't actually climb it)
-drank wine that we bought at a tiny store next to the hotel
-sat on the hotel balcony smoking and waxed romantic about the beauty of paris (it's f-ing beautiful there)
-bought souvenirs
-went to montmartre and sacre coeur
-feasted our eyes on beautiful paintings at the musee d'orsay (manet's 'olympia' being one of the highlights... also, there was a picasso/van gogh/cezanne collection passing through...)
-visited gift shops (i bought a musee d'orsay catalogue which is now lost in my luggage, more on that later)
-sat in the pyramid courtyard at the louvre
-rode a ferris wheel (zoe)
-saw young lovers kissing in the street
-rode the metro
-visited the pompidou centre (it, itself, was a structure of art, and it was jam-packed with art)
-ate crepes
-watched birds
-went to the pere lachaise cemetery to see famous graves (abelard & heloise, moliere, gertrude stein and alice b. toklas are all buried there, among many other noteworthies) but it closed shortly after we arrived so we mostly just strolled there and soaked in the atmosphere
-bought a new watercolor set
-walked over bridges, gazed at the water
-used the ATM
-went to the luxembourg gardens but they were closing just as we arrived
-got lost a little
-visited sylvia beach's store shakespeare & co. but it wasn't open (its hours are 12 to 12, isn't that the coolest?)
it did rain a bit in paris, and the sky was mostly overcast, but it was still breathtaking. so many beautiful buildings, the seine, the light, the trees. everything. i will go into more detail and ruminate over the rest of the trip in subsequent entries...
as for my luggage, it's all back except one suitcase which had my whole bag of souvenirs and gifts in it... i'm hoping it will show up today... stay tuned.

beauty

beauty is gilda radner as lisa loopner making a theatre of people sing along to "the way we were."

monday

friend marc and i drove out to kerrville last night to meet friend ET and watch trout fishing in america. we sat on grass, drank expensive lone star, watched jugglers, looked at people. three songs into trout fishing's set, a huge storm cloud rolled into the kennedy outdoor theatre and the wind started whipping dust into everyone's eyes. trout fishing kept on; there wasn't much rain, just scattered ice-cold drops; the electricity went out for a second and we lost one of the mics for a song and a half, but trout fishing kept on. as soon as they finished their set the rain started coming down a little bit more, but soon let up again. marc and i walked around in the slightly surreal atmosphere then drove back home.
legs are aching like hell as a result of working out with new friend thad.
inspired to download some richie havens today. ET was wearing a richie havens t-shirt.

the bomb of gnarly confetti

hey wow, it's summer. and i have had a week of pure relaxation, culminating in a crescendo of enjoyment!
i have slept in late, drawn, listened to music, washed dishes, thrown shit out, cleaned my dining room table off, repositioned my computer for more effective usage, pet my cat, sat on my back porch smoking, lifted weights (yeah really!), made new friends, rehearsed a play, drank margaritas with a friend, cried, laughed... jeez, it's all been lovely.
and as the crescendo, this morning i woke up at 5:45, having had a night of creatively-charged dreams. all this positive creative energy enthusing through my dreams all night. i mean it's not stopping! it's flowing! it's going!
i even found myself down on the floor studying a bug with my cat. this was at 5:53 this morning. we looked intently at this bug. and it put me on a level to see the bottom shelf of my bookshelf, upon which was sitting a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, and i'm reading that now.
reading it reminded me of the existence of mcsweeney's, upon which i found this pretty funny list.
ps. i can't take credit for "culminating in a crescendo of enjoyment;" that's from the tracey ullman show, circa 1993.