What to do with all these damn animals?
So, at the end of the twelve days of Christmas, the object of the true love’s affection has graced her with twelve partridges, twenty-two turtle doves, thirty French hens, thirty-six calling birds, thirty-six geese, and thirty-five swans. This is not to mention the hordes of lords leaping, the cascades of maids milking (and all of their cows), and the other houseguests (pipers and drummers). People can be sent to hotels. But what does one do with one hundred and seventy-one birds? My true love didn’t happen to include a bird sanctuary on this gift list, did he?
So we’ve hit that time of year, which for me means great cultural conflict. Christmas is an American, not just a Christian tradition, and as such, one from a different background must decide to either ignore the onslaught or be charmed by it. When I was younger, there were never any issues with me sitting down and watching Charlie Brown kill his flimsy tanenbaum, or with Rudolph having a Holly Jolly Christmas. With the passage of time, my parents have become less tolerant of the holiday, believing it to be a part of the American culture that corrupted me. For myself, I enjoy the season. I like snow. I like some of the songs. I enjoy the gift-giving process.
My significant and I exchanged gifts yesterday; I gave her a cubic zirconium tennis bracelet [1], Michael Caine’s book “Acting on Film,” and four plays by Woody Allen. (She already has a bird.) She got me third-row center seats for Steppenwolf’s upcoming production of “Glengarry Glen Ross.” I love my girlfriend.
Went to see the Neo-Futurist’s production of “H20” last week with my sister, which was a mostly-wordless examination of love and relationships in which the actors drank a lot of water, and what they didn’t drink, they threw into their faces to the tune of Three Dog Night’s “One.” In the course of the show, Heather Riordan and Sean Cooper discuss sex onstage, using metaphors and stage tricks in order to avoid having to actually make out with each other. At one point, they used the old locker room index-finger-into-the-fist gag.
Later, when Sean and Heather decided to make each other jealous, I was pulled out of the audience to be Heather’s metaphoric finger fuckbuddy. This was by far the strangest thing to happen to me last week. But I was rather thrilled to do anything onstage with Heather Riordan, who was nice enough afterwards to send me an email letting me know how much she liked my unsuccessful audition for Too Much Light.
The Living Room Project–the small collection of writers and actors with whom I meet weekly, is now online!
http://www.thelivingroomproject.com
I have two poems up on the site, hope to add some prose and short plays.
Been in an artistic funk for a few weeks. Nothing written, only gestating. A large part of why I hadn’t touched this journal in nearly a month. Trying to figure out if I’m going to plow ahead with “The Accident God” or “The Blind Cathedral.” Probably the former, snce it requires less factual research (the latter is about the construction of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square.)
Currently, I am listening to a CD I had long ago lost, and finally decided to replace. In the last month, I have had two missing CD’s replaced, which I like. Cubby gave me his copy of Fiona Apple’s “Tidal,” which he wasn’t too crazy about; and while I am stricken as to how anybody could dislike the album enough to just give it away, I’m not complaining. I also went out and repurchased Soul Coughing’s “Ruby Vroom,” because it is not a music collection that doesn’t include at least a little Soul Coughing. I find it interesting that a few of the lyrics from this 1994 album are slightly uncomfortable after the events of recent years…
“Schools he bombs, he bombs,” – from “Sugar Free Jazz,” slightly reminiscent of Columbine, and…
“A man flies a plane into the Chrysler Building,” – from “Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago.”
In any case, that brings my total of missing CD’s down to five:
“Trainspotting” – soundtrack
“Romeo + Juliet” -soundtrack (volume one)
“To the Teeth,” – Ani DiFranco
“Living in Clip,” – Ani DiFranco (and I’m really ticked about these two)
“The Downward Spiral,” – Nine Inch Nails
This no longer counts the three Morphine CDs I had stolen from my apartment senior year, since those I replaced a long time back.
Anyway. I must return to work. Happy Holidays, Constant Readers.
[1] Why do they call it a “tennis” bracelet, anyway?
Creative Control 