Day 13-15
Sunday, May 4th - Day 13
Another riveting morning of laundry. Essential, but tedious for sure. Took a shower and changed into the last of my clean clothes.
Delicious banana pancake, two pieces of bacon, and this omelette with salsa (it actually was kinda spicy which was a very welcome surprise). Great morning chats as usual. Talked a little about my run-in with Macaulay You Know Who after briefly discussing Fred From Fame (and how he’s a jerk).
Had to trek back to my cabin for my travel mug, cause how else will I guzzle coffee all day? I’ve switched to decaf. I was kinda vibrating those first few days here.
I ran into Diane at the library. Chatted about how it must be nice to have a friend join you here. Pleasant and unexpected.
Then we watched this sort of extraordinary thing unfold outside the window. Probably a mating ritual of some kind, but it looked like a straight up flock of turkeys flocking each other up. It went on for kinda a while. See more here.
I’ve started working on my toft play again. I think I’m going to try to do a presentation that’s twenty minutes…just to hack out the general shape of the thing. I have puppets coming in the mail (two rabbits) and I think I’m going to do a shadow puppet for the old crone who gives Mary the idea to do this. I was humming a new tune this morning about getting well soon.
Something like, “get well soon. stop staring at the moon, you lunatic. stop focusing on the clock. how it sucks you dry like a tick.” etc.
I’ve been trying to figure out my connection to this material and it does feel like I wish I could pull ugly things out of my body. I wish I could show people certain feelings, certain memories as objects and have them suddenly get it. I also feel like it’s a twisted gnarly path to accepting pains in your body, traumas its been through, futures it can never have. I’m having trouble connecting how she killed these rabbits to any kind of positivity. But at the same time, there are things in my life that I’d probably do well to make fun or funny cause this constant pity party is just not nourishing me anymore.
I wrote a bit of the crone section. I think maybe she’s imagined? Like maybe the whole play is about overcoming some mental illness, maybe it’s being trapped in your own time…like the Alice Childress quote again. “Not ahead of your time, but choked during your time.”
I kept taking breaks to get more coffee. Observed a bit of Jessica’s grounding exercise. Felt a little guilty for not joining in, but I haven’t been in the flow of writing the way I’d like to be. I signed up to present the Mary Toft idea on my last night here. Maybe that’s insane. Only time will tell. I want to give it a go while I’m here with these resources.
I wrote a little bit of in seine too (the dog who kept pushing kids into the Seine to get reward steaks). I thought initially maybe it would only be a monologue, but now it feels like a longer morality play maybe. Do all dogs go to heaven? Even this one?
I watched the rest of Cronenberg’s Crash. Interesting the way cars become our exoskeletons, and the only way to experience intimacy becoming these collisions…these intense brushes with death. It was bleak…the highways becoming arterial. Clogged or shockingly empty. Loved the fascination with the James Dean and Jane Mansfield crashes too. These violent ends usurping their creative accomplishments to these devotees. The destruction of boundaries (sexual ones sure, but also existential ones) is intriguing. The ending made me feel pretty deeply sad. We are in this constant flirtation with death and sometimes it’s disappointing that death isn’t engaging with our fascination.
I’m not really sure where to begin with dinner. It was teriyaki chicken, a hot pot soup, noodle salad. Then dessert was freshly made fortune cookies with a twist. The twist was each cookie had either a riddle within it or the answer to a riddle. Mine was “You ‘go’ on red and ‘stop’ on green” and then of course, my beloved Mariam, who was sitting directly next to me held the riddle “How is a watermelon different from a traffic light?”
Aaron held a short presentation of an original piece called “Videogame Vespers.” It was frenetic, brutal, and playful. Written very aggressively for violin with these brief interludes of “Winner!” or “Loser!" It was kind of a banger, but more than that, fun to consider the world of high-minded (artistic) performance vs the more private achievements and performance of gaming. Cool to see them presented with the same level of reverence.
We made some popcorn and grabbed a few Pacificos before walking to the library to screen Mariam’s film What We Left Unfinished. This film was a fascinating exploration of unfinished Afghan films, the history of the Afghan film industry throughout the many shifting regimes, and lots of compelling figures of that industry. They had cushions and pillows to cushion the actors’ falls, but they used REAL BULLETS. Very cool to cozy up with a group in the small screening room.
Walked home in the rain. The flashlight kinda made it look like hyper-speed in Star Wars (is that what it’s called? hyper-speed?)
Work from this day:
Monday, May 5th - Day 14
Only another seven days here. What the actual fuck?
Woke up at around 5 AM. Started playing The Parent Trap and went back to sleep with the sweet nothings of “A vineyard. A what-yard?” Woke up again with my alarm and the sounds of Meredith Blake smacking sticks together to scare animals away. Trudged to Pan’s Cottage in my still damp clothes from last night. A quick shower then off to breakfast. Another riddle…about a fire at the circus. It was “in tents.”
Egg sandwich for breakfast. Light chatting about Alamo Drafthouse, theatre in Ireland, rainy days, HBO shows, and those extraordinary riddle cookies from last night. Still marveling at that.
Then off to the library. I think I need to maybe plan out what I want to achieve in this last week. Doing the Toft show on my final night is interesting…does this mean I’ll be saying goodbye in drag makeup at dinner? Weird. Perhaps on brand.
Lots of texting with Tyler about Pamela Anderson. Now I’m sending out nothing but good vibes to the universe. Pam, I need you to do my play. That would be so cool. OK, Circle, Send.
Today I want to finish maybe two more scenes. I should have the costume arrive today for the performance, so maybe at lunch, I’ll try her on. I’m going to take a quick coffee break then settle in to really attack these pages.
OK…so that wasn’t exactly what I expected it to be. I spent a lot of time compiling a collection of my plays on the themes of bugs, objects and elements. It’s a little over 60 pages long. Maybe I can shop this around to independent publishers?
Also I wrote a lot more pages of in seine…got some good ideas about how it could be a morality play or about this dog dying and going to hell. Things are getting interesting there. Watched a little of All Dogs Go to Heaven…it was not as inspirational to my process as I hoped.
When I arrived at Bond for dinner, Erik was hard at work crafting up margaritas. Squeezing those limes. Said a quick hello to new arrival Daniel. Tonight we had mole chicken and the margs were strong…very strong. Stumbled over to Erik’s presentation…lots of cool ideas about intuitive pathways and painting grass to encourage people to walk in nature. Very playful work and he had a robot!
The margs kinda propelled me back to my studio. I got the first package for my toft project…a little judge hand puppet. Had a couple beers in my studio (and sipped on some mezcal too shhh, don’t tell anyone). I did some improvised work with the puppet…then I read a bit of the play aloud and recorded it. Maybe it’ll be fully lipsynced?
Wrote some more of my deepest darkest secret while listening to Aqua. Then I fumbled my way to bed and fell asleep to The Parent Trap.
Work from this day:
new pages of my deepest darkest secret
Tuesday, May 6th - Day 15
So definitely had a bit too much to drink last night. Also a little frightened to look over exactly what I created during that drunken state, mainly because it felt like I was being totally brilliant which is a surefire sign that it was probably hot garbage.
Saw some tire tracks on my hungover way to breakfast (thought of Erik’s grass painting paths). I had a waffle, bacon, an omelette, potatoes, and Camille brought me a seltzer (!!because we had a chat about how much I love La Croix!!!). There was another riddle about a buddhist ordering a hot dog… “Make me one…with everything.”
Looked over the stunning looks from the Met Gala. Walked a bit in the rain. I need the rain to stop. It’s been days. It’s boring. Let’s do something new like sunshine. I looked over Charlie White’s book American Minor…which had these great photographs of teen magazine covers interspersed with portraits that had been crumpled up. I forget which day it was…but his book Monsters really popped off the shelf and I leafed through that in a single standing. The images are powerful, they are arresting and disconcerting. The magazine covers make me wonder if this is an aspiration of Mary Toft’s…to be a teen idol, but she’s 26 going on 36. I wonder what scintillating headlines we could come up with in relation to her story. Maybe 20 headlines? One for each minute?
I pulled out my writer’s block card deck. Pulled a few cards to help me start. One said to consult the news. So I went to the part of the library with the newspaper and discovered that the local Rite Aid is closing today. Forever. Now I understand why the makeup section was so empty. It wasn’t a weird New Hampshire thing. It’s a Rite Aid is permanently shuttering thing. Now it’s less of a liminal space to me. I don’t like that my first thought was where am I gonna get beer for my last weekend here, but we trust that I’ll figure that out.
I also browsed the Police logs…these were really interesting. The range of crimes / local concerns.
Lunch was shrimp gumbo with fresh kiwi and this green thick soup. I had a lot of water because my body was still screaming at me from last night. I collected my stuff from the library. Not feeling inspired today. Maybe it’s the hangover. Maybe it’s anticipating that I leave in a week. Someone still has Goddess of Tears checked out. No one has said a word to me about it. I’m so afraid someone has taken it and thrown it into the woods.
I went to take a nice long nap. Then I took a weird pre-dinner shower. I ran into Chie outside Bond and she offered me these cool Japanese rice crackers. Then she invited me to her studio! I may do my Monday presentation there. She showed off the big white walls (I’m thinking of doing shadow puppetry and it is sort of perfect). She also has this weird indoor window! I said…this is kind of perfect because the moon is a character in my play. Chie then was like, “maybe I could be the moon!” This is such a great idea.
Since it’s both our last night at MacDowell…we also thought maybe we could do a big party after. So no pressure. My play has to get the party started. Chie shared this neck stretching tool with me. Showed me her drawings as well as the space I could draw if I come by to do a little light drawing. We walked back to Bond where dinner was PULLED PORK, MAC & CHEESE, COLESLAW (in honor of newly minted Pulitzer nominee COLE ESCOLA), and dessert was this brownie cake with strawberries.
After dinner there was a presentation at Jessica’s studio about her work with the Saguaro cactus. (On the way there, Tyson, Kyuri, and I talked about haunted house, Halloween, and costumes…I want to do Halloween at MacDowell…and dress up as a tick who’s dressed up as Dracula…a multi-layered bloodsucker.) She played some music transcribed from the vibrations of the cactus. Talked about the region where they live. How the music they make changes depending on how much water they’ve had. Then she read a little about her journey to the Saguaro…her writing is poetic and philosophical. There was this super cool section where she said “crash” then flipped a page, “crash” then flipped a page, etc. She created the sensation of ocean waves with the turning of pages! So freakin’ cool.
Walked back to the main hall with new arrival Daniel. Talked a bit about my work in connection with Jessica’s. Then I opened my mail. My bonnet has arrived. My witch fingers too. The dress is not much to look at. It’s perfect. The shoes are also very plain. I took it all back to my studio with the intention of working, but no. More sleep.
Work from this day:
Just a lot of thinking and drinking water