For a brief stretch of pavement on the Brooklyn Bridge,
the taxi fare was the same as the time, like the supreme
convergence of man and universe,
like every choice I ever made
had moved me toward those thirty meters.
I brightened at the thought of you.
A plague of Swedish Fish,
flopping over the armrests of chairs.
Grapes fermenting on high shelves.
Handstands in bathtubs.
Whiskey, and whiskey, and whiskey.
Maybe it was the Adderall that made you attractive.
The energy, the brightness, the quickness.
The disassociation that someone like me could
mistake for wit.
The way you peel your bathing suit down,
just a little bit, evading the tan line.
The way you disappear.
The way you never say goodbye, not really.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Back!
Returned from Greece! It was a marvelous trip. Granted, the jetlag hit me really hard this time--most likely, I was also suffering from a real lack of sleep the three weeks prior. (Not, "most likely," but "actually.") One day, we slept until nearly two in the afternoon, which, if any of you know me, you know is completely unheard of.
We did not, as Laura begged us, go to an olive plantation. We did, however, eat lots and lots of fried cheese, tzatziki, and various grilled meats and other lovely items. The sad part was that, well, the Greek food in my very own neighborhood--across the street--is better. But okay, the restaurant across the street from me is an expensive, upscale Greek place, and we found those restaurants, but couldn't really afford to eat in them every night. But--you can't beat the places we ate for the atmosphere, and the view. OMG, the views. I am not complaining. I was happy with everything--when you eat at the tourist restaurant, you get tourist food. I was just so glad to be doing something else for a while.
I'm going to write up the trip, of course. One thing about my brain that I find a little annoying is how I have to process everything via writing. So, while I'm laying in the bed at 3:00am having insomnia on Santorini and starting at the tiny blinking light on the wall, I have to think about what I might write about the tiny blinking light. I can't ever turn it off. Last night, at my grocery store, I walked past the Greek aisle and had a weirdo freak-out moment. Where am I? It was all again unfamiliar, and yet familiar. Having had that alphabet, those shapes, all around me for so long--and then here I was back in my real life, and there they were again. There's an image, I thought. (This reminds me of what I always tell people about writing, that having ideas is not the problem.)
Bless being on vacation. Bless being home.
We did not, as Laura begged us, go to an olive plantation. We did, however, eat lots and lots of fried cheese, tzatziki, and various grilled meats and other lovely items. The sad part was that, well, the Greek food in my very own neighborhood--across the street--is better. But okay, the restaurant across the street from me is an expensive, upscale Greek place, and we found those restaurants, but couldn't really afford to eat in them every night. But--you can't beat the places we ate for the atmosphere, and the view. OMG, the views. I am not complaining. I was happy with everything--when you eat at the tourist restaurant, you get tourist food. I was just so glad to be doing something else for a while.
I'm going to write up the trip, of course. One thing about my brain that I find a little annoying is how I have to process everything via writing. So, while I'm laying in the bed at 3:00am having insomnia on Santorini and starting at the tiny blinking light on the wall, I have to think about what I might write about the tiny blinking light. I can't ever turn it off. Last night, at my grocery store, I walked past the Greek aisle and had a weirdo freak-out moment. Where am I? It was all again unfamiliar, and yet familiar. Having had that alphabet, those shapes, all around me for so long--and then here I was back in my real life, and there they were again. There's an image, I thought. (This reminds me of what I always tell people about writing, that having ideas is not the problem.)
Bless being on vacation. Bless being home.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Greece!
--Currently engaging myself in the anxiety of feeling unprepared for my vacation to Greece. We leave tomorrow. I found myself, perhaps foolishly, reading a little here and there on various travel sites about what to do and see, and, not surprisingly, became overwhelmed. Luckily, I am not one of those people who needs to do and see everything to feel satisfied. Whatever we do, fine, hooray, it's not work and it's not my regular life! Success!!
--I have been so out of it, so tired with show and syrup and work and such that I managed to get on the train tonight, headed to see my friend Jamie in her dance performance and whoops, I went to the wrong venue and thus missed it. Oh well. Sorry, Jamie.
--On my walk through the East Village, (on my way to the wrong venue) there were two places, two separate street corners, where huge dumpsters had been set out to accommodate all the NYU kids moving out of the dorms. Parents with cars were tossing stuff into them at one end, and people were fishing through them at the other. "Look, Brian," said one young woman, holding up a tacky fake chandelier, broken and dirty, "I totally won this in the lottery that is right now!"
--I haven't seen the new Star Trek movie yet. I am contemplating going to tonight's 11pm show. Okay, I've talked myself into it.
See you when I get back from Greece!!!!!
--I have been so out of it, so tired with show and syrup and work and such that I managed to get on the train tonight, headed to see my friend Jamie in her dance performance and whoops, I went to the wrong venue and thus missed it. Oh well. Sorry, Jamie.
--On my walk through the East Village, (on my way to the wrong venue) there were two places, two separate street corners, where huge dumpsters had been set out to accommodate all the NYU kids moving out of the dorms. Parents with cars were tossing stuff into them at one end, and people were fishing through them at the other. "Look, Brian," said one young woman, holding up a tacky fake chandelier, broken and dirty, "I totally won this in the lottery that is right now!"
--I haven't seen the new Star Trek movie yet. I am contemplating going to tonight's 11pm show. Okay, I've talked myself into it.
See you when I get back from Greece!!!!!
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Things My Upstairs Neighbors Must Have Recently Acquired
-Trampoline.
-Pony.
-Bowling lane.
-Half-dozen semi-retired Irish step dancers.
-Chain-gang.
-Carpenter stilts for a two-year old insomniac.
-Visit from the Harlem Globetrotters.
-Landmines.
-Sack of Anvils.
-Night School of Continuing Education for Overweight Men Majoring in Jackhammering.
-Balrog.
-Living-room parking spaces for earth-moving machines.
-Semi-precious stone quarry.
-French Hotchkiss H-39 tank.
-New dumb insults which you scream at your wife in other languages.
-Large heavy objects that want to crash to the floor over and over.
-Even heavier objects that you thought couldn't get any heavier.
-Pony.
-Bowling lane.
-Half-dozen semi-retired Irish step dancers.
-Chain-gang.
-Carpenter stilts for a two-year old insomniac.
-Visit from the Harlem Globetrotters.
-Landmines.
-Sack of Anvils.
-Night School of Continuing Education for Overweight Men Majoring in Jackhammering.
-Balrog.
-Living-room parking spaces for earth-moving machines.
-Semi-precious stone quarry.
-French Hotchkiss H-39 tank.
-New dumb insults which you scream at your wife in other languages.
-Large heavy objects that want to crash to the floor over and over.
-Even heavier objects that you thought couldn't get any heavier.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Vestal, Cracked Ice, & Other Details
First: "Swine Flu Spreading" is the leading headline on the newspaper that the man next to me is reading, coming home from a reading/signing by Vestal McIntyre at McNally Jackson books, on Prince Street--one of the world's great writers, at one of the city's great indie book stores. The audience is mostly friends, other writers, gay guys from around, a certain kind of community that feels right, even a regular maple syrup customer that I introduce myself to, officially, even though I've known him (in a certain limited context) for the last few years. He recognizes me, but doesn't know from where, and I explain. Vestal is fabulous; he is disarming and casual, and also willing to go there with it. The room laughs, cheers, quiets, listens. Everyone lines up for his signature. I get Kip to take a picture of us together. The book is great--what I've read of it on the train ride home, only a few pages. I'm going to take this one slowly, carrying it around a while, reminding me of itself in my bag, on my bedside, in my brain.
Then: The show is going well--more than well, great--big houses, small houses, it doesn't really feel any different. The circus plays this way--a few thousand people at some parks, then 25 people at others. It doesn't change your performance, but it does change them. More is better only because they feel more together, they function as a singular unit more cohesively. Smaller audiences are usually more shy, less fluttery, somewhat serious. This is part of the fun, actually. You don't really see people in Prospect Park, or Tompkins Square. But East New York, or Marcus Garvey, when you can really hear their individual squeals and squawks--that's pretty fucking fantastic.
A couple of reviews have been posted--only one of them what you might call a "rave." The first was so utterly off the mark, and so (I hope) unconsciously homophobic and classist that it made me think that perhaps the reviewer really enjoyed the show, despite himself, but in the end, felt outside of it, like he did not belong, and that colored everything. Perhaps understandibly. The next reviewer that came seemed to simply enjoy the show a lot more, really got what we're trying to do up there, but still said it lacked a something. I'm interested in reviews only in that they say a lot about the reviewer. And, also, how they can--if you do it right--let them become a point of dialogue between yourself and the theater you've created. You get to think about things differently, and ask yourself questions, think about images, essentially hear the show differently.
Next idea: There was a small item in the New Yorker about a woman who called the police because, she said, someone had broken into her house and vomited on her stove. The police reported that it was kitchen grease. I'm stealing this idea for my new novel--but turning it around slightly, like writers always do. I've been feeling so grateful lately, I'm trying to funnel that into the work--hoping that it infects the pages in some virulent way that it actually brushes off onto the readers fingers. I think about these kinds of things when I write--the physical nature of writing is so ephemeral, the nature of "having readers" is so obtuse, so outside of you, that I try to imagine a more direct link.
Finally: This whole Swine Flu thing feeling so strangely silly to me, the hyperspeed with which the news latched onto it, the hysteria--and yet people are dying. Aren't they? And reading my friend's book, seeing how he's poured himself out, more grown up than his first book of stories, but still so totally him. And being reminded, in such a fantastic way, how good theater feels, being a part of something hilarious, campy, draggy, fun, and loose.
I want all this to circle back around, be more cohesive. All these ideas feel like they have something to do with each other--performing, Swine Flu, vomit, audiences, books and readers. I don't know exactly what it is, but something is saying to me It doesn't have to be so difficult.
Then: The show is going well--more than well, great--big houses, small houses, it doesn't really feel any different. The circus plays this way--a few thousand people at some parks, then 25 people at others. It doesn't change your performance, but it does change them. More is better only because they feel more together, they function as a singular unit more cohesively. Smaller audiences are usually more shy, less fluttery, somewhat serious. This is part of the fun, actually. You don't really see people in Prospect Park, or Tompkins Square. But East New York, or Marcus Garvey, when you can really hear their individual squeals and squawks--that's pretty fucking fantastic.
A couple of reviews have been posted--only one of them what you might call a "rave." The first was so utterly off the mark, and so (I hope) unconsciously homophobic and classist that it made me think that perhaps the reviewer really enjoyed the show, despite himself, but in the end, felt outside of it, like he did not belong, and that colored everything. Perhaps understandibly. The next reviewer that came seemed to simply enjoy the show a lot more, really got what we're trying to do up there, but still said it lacked a something. I'm interested in reviews only in that they say a lot about the reviewer. And, also, how they can--if you do it right--let them become a point of dialogue between yourself and the theater you've created. You get to think about things differently, and ask yourself questions, think about images, essentially hear the show differently.
Next idea: There was a small item in the New Yorker about a woman who called the police because, she said, someone had broken into her house and vomited on her stove. The police reported that it was kitchen grease. I'm stealing this idea for my new novel--but turning it around slightly, like writers always do. I've been feeling so grateful lately, I'm trying to funnel that into the work--hoping that it infects the pages in some virulent way that it actually brushes off onto the readers fingers. I think about these kinds of things when I write--the physical nature of writing is so ephemeral, the nature of "having readers" is so obtuse, so outside of you, that I try to imagine a more direct link.
Finally: This whole Swine Flu thing feeling so strangely silly to me, the hyperspeed with which the news latched onto it, the hysteria--and yet people are dying. Aren't they? And reading my friend's book, seeing how he's poured himself out, more grown up than his first book of stories, but still so totally him. And being reminded, in such a fantastic way, how good theater feels, being a part of something hilarious, campy, draggy, fun, and loose.
I want all this to circle back around, be more cohesive. All these ideas feel like they have something to do with each other--performing, Swine Flu, vomit, audiences, books and readers. I don't know exactly what it is, but something is saying to me It doesn't have to be so difficult.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Cracked Ice at PS122
I'm seen, briefly, in this brilliant new play by the infamous, adored, and heroic Jennifer Miller. Be there, or be there.
The world premiere of:
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS TO REGULAR PERFORMANCES:
Use code "FF12" to buy single tickets for only $12
Use code "FF241" to buy two or more tickets for only $10 each!!!
(2 for $20, 5 for $50, and so on.)
TICKETS FOR BENEFIT PERFORMANCE:
Benefit performance tickets are ONLY AVAILABLE at the AMOK website. Tickets are $50, $75 or $100 and include a post-show reception with the cast and creative team, as well as exclusive AMOK schwag!
The world premiere of:
"CRACKED ICE
or THE JEWELS OF THE FORBIDDEN SKATES!"
A new play by Jennifer Miller
with additional text by Deb Margolin
In this glittering theatrical extravaganza, the infamous juggling duo, The Liberty Sisters, have been fleeced by an evil ponzi schemer. Sybil and Statua Liberty embark on a mad-cap tour of revenge...but they aren't the only ones after the greedy crook. Mistaken identities, missed opportunities, star crossed lovers and variety hall numbers all combine to bring East Village high camp back home. It's tragedy, it's farce, it's mystery, it's mayhem...it's "CRACKED ICE or JEWELS OF THE FORBIDDEN SKATES!!"
April 25-May 10
Performance Space 122 -- First Avenue and 9th Street, NYC
Performance Space 122 -- First Avenue and 9th Street, NYC
Wed-Sun at 8pm
With additional late show, Sat, May 9 at 11pm.
Special performance to benefit Circus AMOK! on Sunday, May 3 at 8pm.
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS TO REGULAR PERFORMANCES:
Use code "FF12" to buy single tickets for only $12
Use code "FF241" to buy two or more tickets for only $10 each!!!
(2 for $20, 5 for $50, and so on.)
TICKETS FOR BENEFIT PERFORMANCE:
Benefit performance tickets are ONLY AVAILABLE at the AMOK website. Tickets are $50, $75 or $100 and include a post-show reception with the cast and creative team, as well as exclusive AMOK schwag!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Baser Drives
From Jon Raymond's story "Young Bodies," in his new collection "Livability:"
"They remained side by side. Bryan's body was as still as a statue. Kendra was too humiliated to close her eyes. What kind of person refused a blowjob? What kind of superior asshole did he think he was? She had asked nothing from him. She only wanted to know he was human. She wanted to know that he had a dick, and baser drives, like everyone else. The last thing she wanted was his pity, but that seemed to be what she'd gotten. She never should have told him her father drove a cab."
Saturday, April 18, 2009
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