hpayp nwe yaer

yet again i wonder how i've spent my year.
have i made the most of it?
my resolutions weren't fully met.
but i did become certified teacher man.
i put two plays together from scratch and produced them with my students.
in some ways i may have increased the love and beauty in the world, and i'm sure about a few ways i've taken love and beauty out.
new resolution: i am free, nothing fetters me.

PS. favorite album of 2006:
joanna newsom, YS

advice

if your foot falls asleep, shake it violently before standing up.
if your ballpoint pen is broken, buy seven more and hide them under your bed. use them one at a time, only as needed.
if you become jealous frequently of persons living or dead, stare in the mirror and repeat to yourself "I'll soon be dead," over and over.
if your legs are wooden, cut them off and burn them in the woodstove downstairs. make sure they burn completely. sit nearby and feel the heat.
if your hair is greasy, wash it in the sink.
if the music you listen to depresses you, stick your head out the window and watch the droplets from your wet hair fall down to the sidewalk below, making little splatters on the concrete.

break

officially on holiday till january 2.
i'll be doing some sleeping, some drawing, some movie-watching. today i will watch the devil & daniel johnston -- finally! i will also be cutting sam shepard's a lie of the mind into a 40-minute UIL one-act play.
how do i deal with the holidays? do as little shopping as possible, and quickly. look at pretty lights. eat cakes.
can you tell i just woke up?

big

it's been a big week. long days packed with events. every day i was at school till at least 9 pm.
orchestra concert, choir concert, band concert, play.
a local actor killed himself this week. he was excessively talented, funny and charming, and was a close friend of one of my students. she was quite torn up about it. her birthday was our closing night, so her parents brought a huge cake and everyone sang to her afterwards.
then this weekend we went to austin for a speech tournament.
if i got paid by the hour... well, i won't go there.
today i'm lying in bed with my cat and my computer.

flying art

it was a glorious closing night. i sat in the audience. finally we had an audience that wasn't afraid to laugh-- and it made such a difference in the play!
no wonder chekhov called it a comedy-- that's how it works best.
what a revelation!
interesting people came, too... mikki's mom (for the second half), my fine arts supervisor, one of the middle school theatre teachers that many of the kids had, some good parents, a nice little group of high school teachers,...
anyway, it was a satisfying ending to the adventure. the kids gave me one of the posters that they all signed. i am glad it's over, but i think i'm really gonna miss this one.

art

i bought a painting today.
about a month ago i noticed a flyer hanging outside the school library, and it pointed to a small area inside the building where students exhibit their work. these paintings struck me. i don't think i have the words to describe them at the moment that wouldn't seem reductive... but i could say the following: graffiti, oils that look like spray paint, tendrils, chaos.
the painting i bought is called "the trip," and features close-ups of two robot-like creatures with flailing arms, from one's mouth there's an electical cord spiralling, and behind the other one there's a proliferation of flowers, a couple with sad faces similar to the robot they're growing behind. it's painted on a canvas that has been layered with pages from a phone book, so that's the background. i have it up on my wall where the kandinsky was, and even though it's a drastic change from those peaceful, mellifluous circles, i think it's a good place for the painting.
the artist's name is gilbert martinez, and he's a high school senior. i tracked him down through a couple of my students and finally met him for the first time two days ago. he's kind of small and quiet with a very round, listening face and round eyes. olive complexion. he's planning to go to the art institute of chicago next year. he reminded me of, as silly as this sounds, a little picasso. when he handed me the painting today, he said it was his first masterpiece, and that he was having some trouble parting with it. that's when i told him that the painting would always be his; i was just keeping it for him.
in the meantime i'm thrilled to have it.
the play was strange tonight, but the kids seemed happy. so important to keep in mind what ET told me about letting it go, letting them do what they will. when it comes right down to it, the students' experiences are what really matter. tomorrow is closing night.

drama teacher speaks

terocious, thanks for asking.
the students are doing a wonderful job. we've had three shows now and each audience is a little larger than the last. everyone in the cast seems to be enjoying the performances. nina and constantin get better each night. last night i saw nina incorporate some nuances that were really stunning. the actor playing trigorin told me yesterday this was his favorite play he's ever done.
i'm straining against something, some wall i'm not sure how to get through. i don't understand it quite yet, but i think it has to do with my ego. my self-involvement factor is pretty lethal, in many imaginable ways. and there's a degree of perfectionism that blinds me.
i need to wake up!
barry, i remember once when your brother and i put up some siding on the schoolhouse. we did it poorly just to get through it, some of the panels were crooked. when you came out and saw it your face showed confusion and disappointment. i didn't understand why it mattered. i'm sorry.

opening night again

i love theatre. tonight our seagull opened. there were a few flubs, it wasn't perfect, everyone did a wonderful job, and i went home feeling really empty.
why?
maybe just the first pangs of post-partum depression. after working on this play for so long it may be difficult for me to come to terms with this phase of the process.
but sitting in the audience, giving up control, hearing reactions of those around me, wincing through the mistakes, smiling at the surprises... i wouldn't trade this experience for anything.
one of the moms was even crying at the end, because she was moved by the play.
i wish i were better at publicity, and could fill a theatre. seagull isn't much of a crowd-pleaser, at least not on this side of the atlantic... but i'm hoping we'll have fuller houses these next five performances.

pascal

"If there are not infinite chances of losing compared to winning, do not hesitate. Stake it all. You're obliged to play, so renounce reason if you value your life."

-Blaise Pascal

dad thing

freda paws me gently for attention.
tonight my dad said something to me that he'd never said before. in the restaurant parking lot, he emphatically said, "you're doing good. you're doing good." i believe he meant i was doing well, but grammar nitpicking aside, i think he was exhorting me, and the slightly declarative way he said it made me do a double-take.
i had to agree with him. "yeah, i am," i said, raising my eyebrows in disbelief. despite my hellish second period class, various chemical dependencies, still being single at 38, and increasing bitterness against humanity, i'm doing great. my job is the most rewarding and challenging (and painful) job i've ever had. i'm learning like crazy. there's an active dynamic going on.
but there's also a feeling that a foundation is being laid for me right now-- not career-wise, necessarily, but a personal stability i'm beginning to find on a day-to-day basis. i'm not sure if i truly believe this last statement. maybe i'm trying to convince myself of it by writing it down.
my dad grows emotionally softer with each passing year. he has begun speaking about his feelings more. but the directness and sureness he spoke with tonight was something different, and i think the way i listened to him was different too. better.
today i like growing up.

fey

i've been walking to work more because the weather is finally cool. it feels great, and i live so close that even if i'm tired after school i still enjoy the little jaunt home. the ipod helps spice things up of course. yesterday while walking i felt very youthful.
later, after my bones had a chance to settle and i had filled my belly with tacos, i lit a smoke (yes, occasionally) and went to get my mail. as i walked from the mail kiosk back to my apartment i felt very old.
a friend told me when i was nineteen that i seemed more like forty. she didn't go into detail about that comment, so i've never known what she meant. maturity? restraint? early mid-life depression? i did take it as a compliment at the time, not sure why. now that i'm almost forty (have about a year and a half to go) i should know what it feels like to be forty. or does that mean i'm sixty now?
my second period class was eerily well-behaved this week. maybe they slashed my tires.
on an interview, dick cavett referred to john huston as fey. my aunt used that word to describe me once, so i looked it up. interesting.

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.

class, and no class

i don't want to put limitations on anyone. i may draw conclusions about you based on your behavior, but i am more than ready to be surprised by you.
on friday my second period theatre class challenged me. they challenged me all week by not doing their assignment, the conflict-objective monologue, which was due monday. i think only six of them did it on time. on wednesday quite a few more monologues trickled in, for partial credit. on friday there were six to eight more. one of them was david, a classic case of ADHD, who in one of his journals hypothesized that i must be on drugs ("no one is that calm"), and in his conflict-objective monologue not only pointed out one student's jewishness in a semi-offensive way, but also inferred that i was gay. i took it with a grain of salt and gave a little speech about having a classroom where it is safe to be exactly who you are, regardless of color, disability, religion, or sexual orientation-- but the dynamic in that class is complicated. a lot of apathy, a lot of chaotic energy, some good students who are mostly quiet. it could be an amazing class if i could figure out how to orchestrate it. a bit after david's monologue, i saw that joe was listening to his ipod. when i asked him to hand it over, he was resistant and questioned me. i said, "i'm the teacher, you're the student, it's the rules, hand it over." he eventualy gave it to me, muttering "fucking asshole" under his breath. i don't think anyone else heard it. my way of dealing with that was to open up a discussion about our class and to ask them for comments on what was going on. i quickly learned that this was a mistake on my part, as the critical comments began to fly. "why are we spending so much time on these monologues?" "you're too uptight." "why can't we sit where we want to?" "why can't we chew gum?" "you're not strict enough." tons of conflicting messages began to soar through the air like arrows carelessly aimed at my heart. i eventually called the conversation to a halt, in order to get back to the business at hand. toward the end of class i talked to joe about his comment and how unfair and damaging it was. he apologized, and i will be semi-interested to see if he changes at all.
it took me a while to detox after class. maybe my willingness to hear their critiques (as misguided and infuriating as most of them were) will have some positive effect on those in the class who actually do care. one kid john gave me a letter stating that he thought the way i was running the class was perfect just as it was. that was appreciated.
how will i handle them on tuesday? i have some ideas-- a time at the beginning of class to let out hidden aggressions physically-- to engage these emotions and express them through bodies and voices. maybe some music during warm-ups would help, though i've found that music usually just opens up more possibilities for offensive critiques. maybe i can relate more personal stories, things that happened to me when i was their age that they'll be able to relate to. as always, i relucantly accept the challenge.
i want to be surprised by them. i find myself in that difficult place between severity and submission. i have already drawn judgments on the ones who have shown resistance in the mask of apathy. but god, how i would love it if something in my class allowed them to drop that mask and they just surprised the hell out of me.

where is the line?

today i slept in. got up around 10? didn't have to look at the clock so didn't really pay attention to the time. watched a back issue of "project runway" where they're in paris. then i went to see my brother play tennis. he's in a tennis league and was in a tournament. it was fun watching him play, even though he lost. later we met our parents for dinner, then went to half price books. i got a play by horton foote called the last of the thorntons i think. couldn't pass it up.
then we went and saw a movie called half nelson. it's about a high school history teacher who has a drug problem. he becomes close to a student after she finds him high on crack. my brother and i are both high school teachers. he teaches math and i teach theatre. the film struck us each in different ways. as we left my brother said "i wouldn't want to sit through that again. it was too realistic for me." i felt a little indignant at this statement, not really understanding what "too realistic" means, especially when applied to this movie. not long ago i had the realization that my personality is partly based on things that i have to suppress. i wondered what i would be like if there had been less suppressions in myself and my life. a different person in many ways. being a teacher means you have a certain responsibility to be "upstanding" or "virtuous" for your students. there is merit in this thought. but half nelson speaks of a wholeness in people and specifically in one teacher, a wholeness which ironically reveals brokenness.
i thought of a conversation i had with fran last week about brokenness, and how that seemed to be one of the most integral human qualities you could possibly identify. how much of my brokenness am i allowed to show my students? how much of my wholeness (brokenness) is helpful for them, and where is the line when it becomes too much wholeness (brokenness) and it is no longer helpful for them? in the film there's a short scene in the classroom where the teacher is teaching yin/yang, duality within the whole. strangely, the concept of yin/yang came up in my class this past week too, in response to a journal prompt we had called "things that annoy me." why is conflict important?, i asked. someone said, if there were no sadness, there would be no possibility for happiness. as a teacher i have been put in a position to hide myself. i think that i reveal more of myself than most, but i also have fears about misleading the students, or being too much a "friend" instead of a teacher.
i have no answers for any of this, but i was inspired by half nelson and would recommend it for any teacher who wants to strive to bring his or her authentic truth to the classroom. i will continue to understand what this means, and i will strive to be honest and as true as i can, because anything less is a cheat.
this link was at the end of the credits for half nelson: www.dialectics4kids.com

new shoes and unfunny comedy

one of my students works at a shoe store in an outdoor mall here. i went to visit him at work last night because he told me he was saving a pair of shoes for me that he thought i might like. he even went so far as to photograph the shoes on his phone so that i could see them. so, last evening when i left school at 6:30, i went to his store and tried the shoes on. they're dark tan leather, very plain, with the seam down the center, with a flat rubber sole. there's something hilarious about them, because of their sheer unassuming utility. i bought them. he used his employee discount.
that same student had loaned me a cd: david cross's "it's not funny," long ago, before the summer, and it had sat on my desk for months. when i got home with my new shoes last night, i listened to it, finally. cross's humor is designed chiefly to shock (racism, abortion and poverty jokes), but he also expresses himself very well in regards to our government, putting into words a certain level of incredulity about the current administration that i think we all feel. it was satisfying to listen to him. i did laugh out loud two or three times while listening to the cd, but mostly i sat and quietly appreciated it, feeling vicariously vindicated in some small way. cross's unfettered criticism of our country, though i wouldn't say it gives me hope, makes me appreciate freedom of speech, and how important and precious it is.

letting go now, letting go now, letting everything go now

going to budiful buda this weekend for another speech tournament.
a lot of the kids aren't prepared. many of them started memorizing their pieces on wednesday.
so much for my new hackneyed motto: quality over quantity.
i'm seeing it as an opportunity to ... (deep breath in through nostrils, then out) let go.
one duet team is doing lanford wilson's burn this, the eighties vehicle for joan allen and john malkovich. when i was in college the rumor was that the joan allen part was written for one of our guest teachers, who was a close friend of lanford wilson's. she was a movement teacher who did weird esoteric exercises with us, like sitting completely still while saying "now you get taller and now you get shorter and now you get taller and now you get shorter..." there was another one where you'd have to stand at the bottom of an imaginary pit and look up at the sky. and of course the soothing voice of relaxation, which is the title of today's entry.