but recovering from the Great Thanksgivingstravaganza 2011 took awhile. Ahem. Back to normal, or something like it. This weekend, I’m going to return to Łódź and Wrocław, to see (1) Teatr Cinema’s “RE// MIX / PINA BAUSCH” show, their latest piece, a tribute to the dance-theater directographer Pina Bausch, as part of the Łódź Theatrical Meetings; (2) Teatr Pieśń Kozła’s “Lear Oratorio,” THEIR latest piece, based on, of course, King Lear. It will be an intense 1-2 punch of travel, but at least going to Łódź first breaks up the journey a bit.

“I never told the students I was sick (although some of them figured it out). However, being sick, I was unable to be anyone other than my unadorned self in the classroom. It became easy to admit that I didn’t have all the answers, and I felt a new compassion both for people caught up in the legal system and for students facing struggles in their own lives. Sitting in a chair, speaking in such a weak voice that students sometimes had to ask me to repeat myself, I received the highest teaching evaluations in my twenty years on the job. And yet, I had to let it all go. When you are as chronically ill as I am, you have to make some very hard choices. Ironically, people may think you’re giving up, when in fact you are simply giving in to the reality of your new life.”

– Toni Bernhard, from her book How To Be Sick. Her blog, “Turning Straw into Gold,” on the Psychology Today website, discusses Buddhism and chronic illness.

Here’s an excerpt from an article I wrote about the two Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk readings coming up in Los Angeles on 11/29 and 12/1:

“Sikorska-Miszczuk bases the world of her plays, in part, on the Polish town of Jedwabne, which has had its deeply upsetting history — the Poles attacked the Jews of the town during the Nazi invasion — extensively publicized and explored in Jan Gross’ book Neighbors, Tadeusz Slobodzianek’s play Nasza Klasa (Our Class), and the reporting of Anna Bikont (mentioned below), among many others.

With so many other writers searching for factual accounts relating to Jedwabne, Sikorska-Miszczuk’s work takes a different tack: it makes frequent use of surrealism, breaking the fourth wall, self-referentiality, and acerbic irony…”

You can read the entire article here, and find more information about the 11/29 reading on Ghost Road’s website.

“The system doesn’t easily support those wishing to improve their lives, especially those raising children in the process. I’d like to think that we still live in a country where dreams come true, where education is open to all who are capable and hardworking. But what I had to do was almost impossibly difficult, and the degree of shame and cognitive dissonance I carry around is palpable.

Without food stamps, housing assistance, subsidized student loans, and Medicaid, there is no way I could have made it through graduate school. Today all of those programs are under threat. To kill those supports is to kill the dream entirely for some people, and to be another voice telling smart young women to just give up and accept the limitations their backgrounds imposed upon them.”

– Rachel Wagner in the Chronicle of Higher Education: “Bootstrapping My Way into the Ivory Tower.” Via DG on FB.

Yesterday: new article, which I finished in a burst of crazy activity at the Ratusz Arsenal Starbucks by waking up early…and Polish test. Today: finishing off the last article before Thanksgiving (I hope!), meeting with the translator again, trying to open a Polish bank account (long-long-long-delayed), trying to find a pie tin, and generally trying to buy all the ingredients needed for the potluck Thanksgiving I’m co-hosting this Friday. I’m planning in advance in case I can’t find anything–we have already heard that pumpkin puree will not be easy to come by. I’ll put up the menu-in-progress here soon, but we’re doing all the basics plus a tofurkey and a walnut pie.

It’s cold outside, but not snowing, and still pretty enjoyable to move around town.

This is a double-post from Facebook but I wanted to save these images for the blog, as well. My folks are up north visiting my brother, and they traveled northwards to visit Davis (their alma mater) and see old friends. They decided to also go to the general assembly meeting of Occupy Davis, on Monday the 21st. Here are pictures. I’m really glad they went–I wish I could have been there.

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Debarking at Łódź.

In making preparations to return to Łódź twice in two weeks in early December–once for Teatr Cinema’s Pina Bausch/ReMix show at the Łódzkie Spotkania Teatralne 2011, and the week after that for CHOREA’s new show–I realized I still hadn’t put up the images from my last trip. I think that’s in part because I had such a good time visiting Łódź that I haven’t really processed that I’m not still there. But here they are–in slideshow format, the lazy man’s way of not writing captions. From train station to theater to evening puppet parade to the next train station.

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In a gallery format below the “more” link, if that is easier for anyone. Same pictures.

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