:: Mental Kudzu ::

A wonderful time was had by all last night in Hickory at the Taste Full Beans coffee house where Mule poets read their work and shared the caffeine buzz with each other. Thanks to Scott Owens for all his preparations, thanks to Poetry Hickory and thanks be to Helen Losse for her hard work and determination.

Two YouTube videos, made by Jess Carty, are available. In the first video, Helen Losse reads her work, followed by Scott Owens reading a piece of creative non-fiction that I wrote years ago — it’s a description of my paralegal days when I worked for Michael Fox in Greenville NC. It begins at 3:52, if you want to skip ahead for my genius… ahem…
Video #1

Video # 2

Let’s get the ball rolling here, guys. It’s time for a website… and what a year for Dave Eggers! He writes the screenplay for “Away We Go” AND, get this, AND “Where the Wild Things Are”. He is truly a staggering genius.

Away We Go

Release Date: June 5, 2009 (NY, LA)
Studio: Focus Features
Director: Sam Mendes
Screenwriter: Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida
Starring: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney, Chris Messina, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Schneider, Carmen Ejogo, Jim Gaffigan, Josh Hamilton, Melanie Lynskey
Genre: Comedy, Drama
MPAA Rating: R (for language and some sexual content)
Official Website: Not Available

International Physical Theatre Lab
with the Russian theatre director and teacher Sergei Ostrenko

April 27 – May 2, 2009
MALTA

The Lab will take place in Malta (part of EU) situated in Southern Europe in the Mediterranean Sea. Located south of the Italian island of Sicily, Malta is only a couple of flying hours away from most major European cities. Accommodation in the resort & spa hotel (5 nights) and meals are provided for participants.

The Lab is open to professional performers from different creative genres and techniques inspired by Physical Theatre as a bold, vibrant and multidimensional approach to contemporary theatre performance. The process includes intensive practical training and discussions.

If you would like to know more… http://www.iugte.com/projects/PhysicalTheatreLab.php

About Malta: http://www.iugte.com/projects/Malta.php

I have a new idol. He’s Steve Gerberich. The Incredible Amazing Artist. Go ahead and click. His website is almost as much fun as his art.

And his sprockets and rockets are in Durham until January 5, 2009. We’ll be headed that direction in the next week or so. What fun!

“Holiday Springs and Sprockets”
The Museum of Life and Science
433 Murray Avenue, Durham, NC
November 2008 – January 2009
http://www.ncmls.org/

I think my work
is a mixture of:
1 cup Duchamp
3 teaspoons Calder
2 tablespoons Kienholz
1/2 cup Cornell
1 pound Rauschenberg
and a sprinkle of Tinguely

Letter to R
#1

Okay, it is just me now. Some instant verse for you:

I hear the carwash noise of dishes coming clean,
Agitating towels,
A loose vent cover as the heat swooshes behind me on the couch.

Both dogs sigh
Roll over in their sleep
As Thisbe the brain-damaged eldercat

says “mer… mmmm… mer”

###
Your HipMama piece was extraordinary. Thank you for including our Mule in your bio. I love it when ya’ll do that. I knew it would be tough times for you then, and the best I could do was send cards while in Costa Rica. Not much, just a little — but you did know I was thinking of you, right?

I am recovering from this. Even before it is over. I dream of Momma dying – every night with scenes of how I am to cope, of how she reacts – it’s as if she’s watching herself slowly stop breathing and telling me how to manage what is next. Each time I am surrounded by laughter. The hardest part is losing, piece by piece, 91 years of her.

C4 has stepped into my place at Britthaven – in a way I did not think possible. Every day she goes and teaches Momma how to pull herself up and get into the wheelchair, how to go to the toilet. How to clean her dentures. She paints Momma’s fingernails with bright pink polish. Puts sparkly barrettes in white halo-hair. At night, she lays out Momma’s nightgown, and sets aside tomorrow’s clothing. Everything matches… she tells me button-down Oxford shirts command respect and Momma’s in a pink one today.

Emmett is entranced with Grandma’s new apartment. Assisted-living. It is Assisted-Living. Jane has created two remarkable little boys. The medivac helicopter lands in a field outside Mom’s window and he gets to stand on a chair, eating a DumDum sucker, (Ollie’s at pre-school) as he watches “the patient, Nana… see? First there is a patient who must go to a hospital… to see the doctor but this patient does not ride in Mommy’s car like FarFar did when he had an accident…” and all this is accompanied by rowdy hand gestures, facial expressions worthy of Douglas Fairbanks or Rudolph Valentino, and dripping chin sugarsyrup. Boys with stay-at-home Mommies learn how to love more easily, I think. He’s two but recently became E3 and that is…

sublime.

Oliver arrives from nearby Montessori School. As he waves to the chopper while they cross the parking lot, the helicopter flashes its lights on him. Grandma lives in the best place in the world. At four and two, all eyes are on eyes. He pats hands of wheelchair-bound residents and has learned to use the Purell by himself, squirting just enough and then getting on with the visit. He sits in my lap while Grandma sleeps and we watch TV on the Blackberry. What will his number be?

I want to do bad things to you.

If you don’t have HBO, you are missing the best thing to hit TV since Carnivàle. We were not fans of The Sopranos, not into crime family fandangos. But True Blood? Oh my. What a totally delicious hour of television. And there’s more to come! Listen to Rusty Truck for some great sounds and get yourself some HBO dammit. We got ours from Suddenlink for $1.95 a month when we got our internal wiring insurance-service contract dealeeooh.

Been working my little artistical fingers to the primordial bone, preparing for the Beaufort County Arts Council show. This 3D piece [working title "Watergate"] is yet unfinished. As you can see, frame detailing has begun. The text on the vintage tape measure? “Plastic-coated fiberglass Made in Japan” Nice bit of memorabilia.

Meanwhile, the MiL contributed some clothing to our stash. The grandballoons decided it was a free-for-all and began to don every item in the box, including spangle bedazzle purses. Two- and four-year-olds look just swell in fancy clothes, regardless of the intended gender of the wearer.

Mom had a bad evening the day before this fashion spectacular. She’d “lived too long” and didn’t know why she was “still here.” Having the boys come over and entertain us for an hour gave her the purpose.

We’re all here for a reason. Families need to laugh together. When I was a kid, we’d camp at Lake Ouachita with my sister and her brood in one campsite and Dad’s Airstream in another. Hammocks, beer, and questionable literature (Daddy read John D. MacDonald paperbacks, loved that Travis McGee).

We’d have a campfire at night, sit around it – nudging the logs with our toes and melting our tennis shoes. My parents would talk about the 1930s in Cincinnati, stories of past-characters like a guy called Flatcoat and what it was like to be in college during the Great Depression. And, when I was in high school, we’d all laugh at that generation of grandballoons and their antics.

Which is the circle I’m traveling around today.

Sahara
Arabian
Great Victoria
Rub'al Khali
Kalahari
Syrian
Chihuahuan
Thar
Great Sandy
Gibson
Sonoran
Mohave
Atacama
Namib
Gobi
Patagonian
Great Basin
Kara-Kum
Colorado
Taklamakan
Iranian