17 October 2006 | Ball
A few nights back I saw a play written by a friend. I’d seen the play years ago, in a different production, and had read it before that and had loved it. It’s a beautiful play. Poetry, of a kind.
This time it was lousy, mostly, because the lead actor was lousy. There are only two actors in the play, and only the lead speaks, so if the lead is lousy, the play is lousy. Although maybe the lead wasn’t that lousy, really; maybe he was so-so or mediocre or some word or phrase meaning less than good but not that terrible. I don’t know. I just know I felt for him because he was trying so hard to make it good, but for one reason or another it wasn’t very good and he had to know this.
The problem was, he entered too agitated, leaving little room for increased agitation later in the play. So all his agitation was at the same high level throughout, with little dynamic variation. It’s an easy mistake to make. Afterwards I wondered if I should mention this to him, but of course I didn’t—I didn’t even speak to him—and instead got out of there as quick as I could without making it seem like I was hurrying out.
During the play, I kept thinking about a poem I heard long ago at a poetry reading in the West Village. The poem was by a man named Chris Brown who is probably dead now, because he was already quite ill at the time and because it was so long ago. It was a simple poem. Chris and a woman, evidently his girlfriend, are walking through the park when they stop to watch a Little League baseball game. A ball is hit to the boy playing second base, and the boy fails to catch it.
The ball rolls through his legs, read Chris. What pain.
10 October 2006 | Happy
I’m going to a show tomorrow. I mention this in part because I don’t go to many shows these days. In fact I can’t think of the last show I went to.
Okay, I just remembered: it was Letter Purloined.
As much as I enjoyed Letter Purloined, the seats were uncomfortable, or I was uncomfortable sitting, and this more than anything is what I remember about it: being uncomfortable.
Actually, no, this isn’t true: I remember how the actress who played the queen/psychiatrist would say uh-huh, and the way the king would recite his poetry, his hand cupped over the crown of his head, and many other things as well—enough to choke a horse, if a horse could swallow memories—but my point is that I rarely go to shows and yet I am going to one tomorrow.
Nearly everything about this show makes me happy. It is one of those things you know you will love and cannot wait to have happen, except that, in another sense, you don’t really want it happen, because then it will be over and you will no longer have it to look forward to.
Anyway, if you’re around tomorrow (around meaning: in New York City and otherwise unoccupied), you should join me. The show has a highfalutin title—Inquiry Towards the Practice of Secular Magic—but don’t let that fool you. Here’s all you need to know:
Wednesday, October 11, 7pm
Pioneer Theater
East 3rd Street (between Avenues A and B)
More info
Please note: The show includes the three-minute film, Michael Barrish Screen Test, which, despite my previous vow to the contrary, I have decided to see.
02 October 2006 | Villain
David said that Oblivio sounds like a comic book hero whose superpower is making people forget. I laughed, imagining a gang of bad guys thwarted by absentmindedness—they hold weapons in their hands but cannot remember how to use them.
Or should it be the other way around—Oblivio as a villain whose weapon is forgetfulness?
I like this better, for evil, like love, proceeds from memory. In the absence of memory, there is no evil. Tsunamis aren’t evil, nor are piranha. You need a person for evil, someone capable of connecting the present to the past and future.
