So. People are arriving one by one.
And everyone is sniffing around.
There is that friendly: "how do you do, where do you come from, oh how interesting" tentative hedgy thing that we all do. Yes, of course. The diplomatic, let's give everyone a chance because after all we don't know anything about them yet and we are going to spend a whole year (or more) with them after all, thing. And when asked by my friend, Lily, about one of these new arrivals I usually say: “He seems nice… kind of reserved”, or “she seems funny...”
But Lily will have none of this. She demands: "Cross, or Tick?"
A cross being an "X", a tick, a check mark . She mainly gives crosses straight off, but allows that they might redeem themselves later--others have (I haven't asked, but I have a feeling that when we first met, I may have been a cross).
So I have picked up her method:"I just met so and so. Definitely a tick!"
She looks suspicious. She asks a few questions.
"Mmm. Sounds like a cross to me."
But I have learned how to count to ten in Swedish and to say the equivalent of "Break a leg" in Spanish. It really translates into: "Lots of Shit".
So there's that.
Not sure, but I may have a gig next weekend...AT THE LOGGER!
A local band is playing, and one of my classmates is guest starring, and I might be playing with her. So I guess I would be a guest of the guest star.
Anyway...It would be the debut of my new solo uke name: Ukelingus
What do you think? Too risky for a single girl in a logging town?
(Last week Lily took the album cover photo: me in my cowboy hat looking wistfully into the distance)
Today read our clown plays that we based on Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. Reflections that came up in discussions:
Clown is a passage to mystery, a doorway to the unknown.
The violence of our proposals-- like what Lecoq says about the violence of a falling leaf: The leaf loses nourishment, starves, and is cut off from the tree--torn away by the wind. The tree abandons it, and each year leaves come, only to be abandoned.
Clown Guru: "There is an advocacy for the vehemence of the work, no matter how gentle, how silent."
He likens this to maintaining "soft" on a flute or a violin. You can not do this by being tentative. For the flute--the support must be greater, for the violin, you must maintain a constant pressure.
And this is how we play dynamically.
And this is in all theatre.
They want to change the name of the school back to Dell'arte School of Theatre--take the "Physical" out. Carlo (our founder) hated that they added the "Physical" in the first place, because it denied the inclusion of the metaphysical.
But, for me, it is to never forget...
Fart jokes.
And so yes, there are blackberries and trails along the levee, and friendly people and pancakes...
But there is also this:
Four cop cars (four!) and neighbor cuffed and pressed against the hood of one. They search his home, his car, confiscate his wife's botony books.
His children ride over to our parking lot on their bikes--dirty-faced and hopeful. "Our daddy's in a cop car, and they're going through our stuff".
The children know what to do.
Spooky Nell and J. play dodgeball with them, and Freddy runs around laughing and screaming.
So. I guess this is it. The year I'm found out.
You know...that feeling like you've been faking your way through everything in life: every job you've had, every accomplishment, every paper you've written...and that one day you're going to be found out?
Well, no, you probably aren't part of the Fakers' Club.
A friend told me that his father was the Vice President of the Bank of New York for many years. Every day he went to work, hoping that they wouldn't find out.
Jimmy the Fish, a fellow faker, wants to put up anonymous signs at the school.
"Fakers' Club Meeting, 6pm, Wednesday".
But of course we wouldn't show up.
First day of school.
Played well with others.
Teacher brought cookies.
"In the first year you were learning to become available, so that you could be caught by the work. This year you must be an owner of the work."
This morning--about 8 a.m.-- while I was editing my research paper on Hopi clowns, I heard screaming from the downstairs apartment. It's Spooky Nell's birthday today. (The middle Brit child, who last year was famous for morbid musings and lying in the middle of the road). I can only assume that she woke up and found her presents and decorations which were previously hidden in my apartment.
When I popped in to say hi on my way to the Second Sunday Grange Pancake Breakfast (!), it looked like Christmas morning--decorations, and wrapping everywhere, the parents collapsed on the bed. They had to reenact their live Jack-in-the-Box for me--Mum wound up a cardboard box, everyone sang, and then Finn jumped (naked) out of it.
For $3.25 you get pancakes (or toast), two eggs any way you want, sausage or ham, coffee and juice. I was waited on by three middle-aged men, and two girls under 10. I met a woman named Elaine--a 12 year resident, and then was joined by my new friends and neighbors--an organic farmer and an HSU student. I was tempted by the table of cookies and daffodil bulbs.
Afterwards I got a tour of my neighbors' house (they plan to move that back shed, and put in a deck) and went home with a bagful of tomatoes.
And now the academic homestretch. Have to edit my paper on "The Congress of Clowns and other Russian Circus Acts", and finish my 20 page journal on "Mounting an Original Work", and my three-person clown play based on Artaud's "Theatre and It's Double".
Clown Factoid for the day: In 1959 Nikita Khrushchev called a conference of circus clowns, ciritcs and government officials because he found that the circus was lacking in satire.
Things I missed about Blue Lake:
The morning view of green hills gripped in fingers of fog.
The smell of fennel as I run on the levee (okay didn't do much running last time).
My English classmate, Jimmy the Fish, and his incredible family of five--my neighbors (In our parking lot is a trike covered in a cardboard box, painted red with a cardboard ladder and bell and a star on the front that says: Rescue Finn--enough said.)
Blackberry pickin.
The automatic wave and smile I get from every trucker on the road.
The head-bob of acknowledgement from even the teenage dudes that pass you on the street because to not do this in this tiny town would be just...weird.
The Logger Bar. (Brenda, the bartender cut her hair. Ty, the other bartender, gets everyone to leave at closing by hugging and kissing them, one by one. Last night at the Logger I met Carlotta and she showed me her new toe ring and told me how much she missed her Daddy).
The second Sunday Pancake breakfasts at the Grange.
The Saturday farmer's market that lasts through November (Okay, that's in Arcata).
White Cranes and Blue Herons and those big Hawks.
There are things I don't miss about Blue Lake...but I won't get into that now.