Dear Milo,

Many stores in Poland are closed on Sundays. The streets were very quiet–the people who were out and about in the morning seemed to have a sort of devil-may-care skipping-church demeanor, compared to the usual seriousness. I may have been imagining that, though. The Biedronka (ladybug) grocery store was only open for a few hours. I went in and got groceries for the week for about 37 zlotys. (That’s less than $15.)

It was a gray day, with intermittent rain. This was the view out the window–I tried to take it when the clouds were as ominous as possible. This is at about 8 PM.

See how the winds of change do blow the clouds hither and thither?

I avoided the clouds, stayed in and did more laundry (you go through a lot of clothes when you work out as much as I was doing in the two SOTG workshops!). I did some freelance work. A lot of writing happening in this down time.

And (drumroll) I spent a few hours uploading films from ANTHOLOGY I to Parallel Octave’s YouTube channel. Some time tomorrow or the day after, you’ll be able to see 6 of the 8 films online. This is the kind of thing that takes a lot of time, but is well worth it. There’s no speeding it up. You just have to say to yourself, “Well, I’m waiting for the video to upload.” Like watching water boil.

Speaking of watching water boil, I also finally some more few pictures of the temporary apartment and the view from my window, while I was making dinner. They follow.

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Caro Milo,

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I haven’t learned anything. If there’s another thing I’ve learned, it’s that it never gets easier. If there’s one thing I’ve learned–see thing 1.

The blog has been silent for the past week while I’ve been taking G2’s workshop with SOTG. Although I have many thoughts on the exercises we did, they aren’t thoughts that are ready to share. Instead, on a quiet day off–all my friends from the workshops have departed Poland, the apartment is empty, and silence blankets me in Wroclaw–I thought it would be a good time to talk some about the Nowy Horizonty film festival and the idea of failure in the arts.

(SILENCE)

How do you feel about that? I feel about it roughly the way I do about the idea of someone beginning a yoga class by saying “We’re going to focus on core strength today.” Spinach!

[animated jpeg of cheerleaders: F! A! F-A-I! F-A-I-L-U-R-E! FAILURE! FAILURE! WHAT’S THAT SPEEEEELLLLL…? FAILURE!]

My friend D has been in town from Berlin for the past week, too, and while he was here we saw two movies at Kino Helios as part of the festival; “The Seventh Bullet,” a Soviet Western directed by Ali Khamraev, and Lost in La Mancha, which probably needs no introduction, but is a documentary about Terry Gilliam’s failed attempt to film Don Quixote.

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Friday, July 29, 2011

Dear Milo,

Good afternoon. I write, shamefully, from the newly installed Starbucks on the Rynek, an hour before I am to meet D. I shouldn’t be at Starbucks, but it is a cafe where I feel no embarassment about camping out with a laptop for hours. The behaviors seems impolite at some of the other, nicer cafes here.

It will be really good to see D. Fans of Parallel Octave know D. as one of the founders and core group members (and everyone’s favorite bicycle philosopher). He has traveled, of his own volition, from Berlin to participate in the next 5-day workshop intensive with me. I am impressed by his fearlessness. We are going to have a coffee at Lulu Belle before the fun (pain) begins—“Radical Actor Training,” led by G2. It will be good to see him.

Earlier today, I had salad with J. (US Artists Initiative founder, person responsible for bringing me to Wro. the first time) at a Spanish restaurant, and got a list from her of chorus-oriented directors I might seek out to interview. Earlier, spent the morning reviewing my texts for the workshop—Tamora from Titus (“Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?”) and Olivia from Twelfth Night. The Olivia is one I have known in my bones for a long, long time, since those scenes (“In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom?”) were part of my childhood acting work at the Theatricum (an outdoor theater in Topanga Canyon in LA.)

I have an hour here, and it’s time for some catch-up blogging on the last two days of G.’s workshop and the day off. It will lack some detail. But I need to do it and be done with it. As a measure of the extent to which things have deteriorated around here, today’s quotes will be from Trey Anastasio. Don’t say I didn’t—well, don’t say I did, either.

ANASTASIO: […]Musicians come and go and they’re stewards of the music for a brief period of time. But once the music plays—it’s really between Beethoven and the listener at that point. The musicians are there to get their goddamn hands off of it. All that training! Thousands of hours! Sight-reading every day! All so they can get the hell out of the way because nobody gives a crap about them at all. The less you notice them, the better it sounds. I mean, it was the highest level of art in music that I’d ever seen, and it was performed by people who had spent countless hours of work just to be invisible.

BELIEVER: In music, you never notice that quality anywhere more than in the orchestra.

ANASTASIO: And the challenge of getting ninety people to play together! Try getting four people to play together.

-Trey Anastasio, interview w. Ross Simonini for The Believer. Via Longreads.

Yes, yes, yes.

So, the past few days. Here goes. These will be rushed recaps, because when I’m three days off blogging, that’s how it happens.

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for getting me through the screening and the last week of Polish class. Final exam yesterday; diplomas and singing party today; back to Baltimore tomorrow, where ParOct performs at the Creative Alliance; and then to Poland next Wednesday.

A longer post is in the works, but for now, here’s the info on the performance Sunday:

Parallel Octave
conducting an open session with the audience
on a selection from Ron Allen’s short play X RESTRUNG CORTEX
this Sunday, July 17 @ Artscape,
at High Noon, for One Hour,
as part of High Zero / Worlds in Collusion,
in the AIR-CONDITIONED COMFORT of
the University of Baltimore Student center, 5th floor (SE Corner Mt Royal & Maryland)
Admission: Free

The official blurb on the site says “Experimental Greek chorus sings unusual texts,” which is true, but we are going to sing them in collaboration with the audience, as usual. And I will distribute Purim noisemakers to everyone who attends. We’ll play selections from the ANTHOLOGY I video, too.

Longer blog update forth-hopefully-coming after this weekend.

Tickets on sale now for the screening of ANTHOLOGY I tonight at the Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave. 7 PM. Tickets: $10. (410) 276-1651.
More information here and here and here.

Still from Adam Gray's film, "The Space Between Her Eyes and Mine," based on Hart Crane's poem "My Grandmother's Love Letters."

PRESS:
Baltimore Fishbowl
Music director Joe Martin interviewed at WYPR’s The Signal
Baltimore Urbanite

Another still from Adam's Hart Crane film.

EVENT PROGRAM

I: Opening short films:
by Jimmy Joe Roche, Meg Rorison & Julia M. Smith

II: Screening of ANTHOLOGY I,
a collaborative short film based on the poems of Stevens, Yeats, Herrick, Dickinson, Robinson, etc.,
including films, by these directors:
Jake Appet, Alice Bever, Ryan Edel, Adam Gray, Marie Ilene, Meg Rorison, Danny Schwartz, & Val Smith.

III: Audience Parallel Octave collaboration session
with Adam’s film of “My Grandmother’s Love Letters,” by Hart Crane.
(Kazoos will be provided at the event but other instruments and voices are greatly desired.)

IV: Live performances by Cricket Arrison, Bethany Dinsick, and Forks of Ivy!

So much news! We have trailers on YouTube, we have new press, we have an updated event listing! More info/tix: (410) 276-1651, or on Facebook, or the Creative Alliance site. Friday, July 8th, 7 pm. Be there or be an indignant desert bird.

The ten-second teaser, “Penguin Strike”:

The longer trailer, “Penguin Strike II: The Second Coming”:

Both videos were created by ANTHOLOGY I editor Ryan Edel from his short film “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” based on “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats.

We have more press, including a fab new blog post by Rachel “Fab” Monroe on Baltimore Fishbowl!

PRESS:
Baltimore Fishbowl
Music director Joe Martin interviewed at WYPR’s The Signal
Baltimore Urbanite

We have an updated program:

EVENT PROGRAM

I: Opening short films:
by Jimmy Joe Roche, Meg Rorison & Julia M. Smith

II: Screening of ANTHOLOGY I,
a collaborative short film based on the poems of Stevens, Yeats, Herrick, Dickinson, Robinson, etc.,
including films, by these directors:
Jake Appet, Alice Bever, Ryan Edel, Adam Gray, Marie Ilene, Meg Rorison, Danny Schwartz, & Val Smith.

III: Audience Parallel Octave collaboration session
with Adam’s film of “My Grandmother’s Love Letters,” by Hart Crane.
(Kazoos will be provided at the event but other instruments and voices are greatly desired.)

IV: Live performances by Cricket Arrison, Bethany Dinsick, and Forks of Ivy!

More info/tix: (410) 276-1651
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=172135622844128
http://www.creativealliance.org/events/eventItem2610.html
http://www.paralleloctave.com

I have made it to the final round of the Fulbright competition to go to Poland to study for a year with Song of the Goat (Teatr Pieśń Kozła). Here are a couple of quotes from an interview with their artistic director, Grzegorz Bral, from their UK tour of their recent Macbeth (video here):

“We are doing something very strange. If people come and see our Shakespeare, it will have nothing to do with the kind of Shakespeare they are used to. We don’t destroy the text. On the contrary we are trying to find aspects of it that are normally not used – we’re finding the musicality of it. It’s a certain vision of him, as a writer, as being like Mozart or Bach. He is a composer. He composes our feelings. Even the line ‘Which one of you have done this?’, has an incredibly powerful music.”

[…]

“Greek tragedy,” Bral reminds us, “was very much based on music. We know that there were particular notations above the words showing precisely the vocal structure and nature of the piece. The words were not just information – they had a very particular musicality. What we’re trying to do is find a musicality that speaks to us now.”

Needless to say, this all plays in rather well to all of the Greek chorus interests that I have had in my life for a long time.

Making it to the last round means there’s still paperwork to be done. Health screenings, visas, final approvals, etc., etc. But it looks as if the odds are good that I will be in Poland soon, starting late this summer, and staying for about a year.

I am grateful beyond words to everyone who made this possible for me, especially friends here in Baltimore, there in Wroclaw, and the organizers of the US Artists Initiative from the Grotowski Year 2009 of Arden2.

I remember the first time I saw TPK perform, in 2009–I knew that something was happening to me, and that I would not be able to stop myself from trying to follow these people’s work. Well, something has happened, and I am going to try. We’ll see what more happens.

On a B.C. radio show the man asked me, coffee way up to his mouth, what are the books you’ve liked recently? Christopher Dewdney’s A Palaeozoic Geology of London Ontario. Only I didn’t say that, I started stumbling on the word Palaeozoic…Paleo…Polio…and then it happened on Geology too until it seemed a disease. I sounded like an idiot. Meanwhile I was watching the man’s silent gulps. The professional silent gulping of coffee an inch or two away from the microphone. Unconcerned with my sinking “live” all over the province.

– Michael Ondaatjie, from his poem “Pure Memory/Chris Dewdney,” in the book of his I just got for class: The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems. It’s been a big surprise–it’s far and away my favorite of the books we’re reading, so far.

"And a scene it was: amorous, rivalrous and incestuous; at once an avant-garde and — much like the New York art world at present — an avant-garde in reverse. Poetry was pushing into prickly new territory, while art was revisiting old ground, although with some new moves. What made the situation at Tibor de Nagy distinctive was that almost everyone was collaborating, artists and poets alike. "

– NYT, on Tibor de Nagy Gallery: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/arts/design/21tibor.html?_r=1&ref=arts