Talkin' 'Turgy

Drive dramaturgy

Lobby displays. They always take longer than you expect. There are always extra trips to Kinkos and CVS. But in the end, they usually look really cool. Such is the life of a dramaturge. And tomorrow we get to deliver a lecture about the joys and wonders of being a dramaturge. Actually, as of tonight, my dramaturging work for OU is done. I did Macbett last quarter, Spring Awakening last week and How I Learned to Drive this week. All very different shows, with different directors and interesting products. All I can say is that I love the Kinkos paper cutter and my handy jar of rubber cement.

One of the Spring cases

Treats

The following things have made my day:

• the puppy chow I made to take to Cali.
• showering until the hot water runs out to loosen up tight muscles (no amount of stretching can hit the spot like a hot shower)
  
• Tim Gun wearing a leather jacket
• Blowing off film class
• and this picture, which is hot (if blurry)
• 

Now I need to take advantage of no classes tomorrow and my penchant vampire hours to finish my film paper, do more rewrites on my presentation, and be generally productive. Maybe some more 2AM yoga.

Hot property

It's so weird when it happens. And I love it.

When I got home from Theory (ah Materialists), I was greeted by two emails, one right on top of the other. Both were titled "Good news" which at first made me think it was just accidentally sent. Nope. Two different sources had "good news" for me. I opened the one that arrived most recently, from Wisconsin. I have been awarded the UW Recruitment Fellowship, which involves tuition+fees+insurance+a very generous stipend (especially for Madison). Additionally, I was awarded the Vilas Admission Award of $600 for moving expenses! Dude!

Then I opened the next email in queue, this one from UCSB. The multidisciplinary committee has named me a UCSB Regent Special Fellow, which involves a 5-year package. The first two years involve a nice stipend and insurance (and presumably tuition+fees); the next three have a guaranteed TA-ship. And if I have done the math correctly, it would be enough to live in Santa Barbara. Yikes!

I have options! Very attractive options, in fact.

I have visited Wisconsin, met people, and I really like their program. I will be heading out to see UCSB this weekend, which should give me a better idea of the "vibe." The idea that in a week, I could potentially make a decision kinda blows me away.

on iTunes: new Goldfrapp

Damn jealous

I want to be Saoirse Ronan right now. She is only like 13 and she gets to sit in a gorgeous gown next to the extremely hot James McAvoy. Who not only is hot, he has an accent.

OK. I really am doing work.

Quality couch time

By Friday, I am usually pretty wiped. It generally involves a pre-fives nap and then I'm good. This Friday, I got home at 5.30 and pretty much did not get off the couch for 24 hours except to go to the bathroom and make a bowl of cereal.

After teaching on Friday, I spent the better part of the day running around trying to finish the Spring Awakening display, which involved not only the dramaturgical display, but also 20 huge production photos (and bios). Just trying to make it fit, let alone, making it look good was quite a challenge. In the end, I was very pleased with the result. I would be even more pleased if anyone actually looked at it.

Skipped the opening and a dance concert and Gator in favor of the couch. Smoking Fairy came over and we watched TV. I lounged. I finally watched Motorcycle Diaries. Started catching up on sleep. It was horribly indulgent, but so nice.

Now I have to get back to work. Finished composing my lecture (sitting on the couch), dragged my butt off to do some dishes and laundry. Now I just have to read Materialist theory and completely revamp my presentation for my mini-conference on Saturday. At UCSB. But no pressure or anything. I just keep reminding me that they can't UN-accept me.

Snow sounds

Usually snow means quiet. Sleet means a snare-like patter.

Tonight snow was noisier. Like the sound of tires and engines trying to crawl up a snow-covered road that still hadn't been plowed after 4" in as many hours. Or the sound of drunk undergrads sledding down Jeff Hill. (Ha. If I didn't have a pile of work or holes in my boots, I would be sledding down my super-secret hill. It requires as much steering, but a lot less people/moving targets.) It is also the sound of my whiny minion trying to mooch a ride home so she wouldn't have to walk.

Today, I cleared off my car to do the laundry that should have gotten done two days ago (the car has since been covered all over again - you can't even tell it was clear and moving 6 hours ago). All I can say is that it is clean. It is still in piles in my bedroom to be reckoned with. Of course I didn't get as much as I had hoped done. Still need to finish the Spring display, ideally without putting pushpins through peoples' eyes. Tonight, I am camped out to work on my lecture for Monday. And that's just the stuff that is (over)due.

on Pandora: "Passing the Heat" - Cold War Kids

Deep-fried, bacon-wrapped Panda

In case just eating Chinese or Japanese food at China Panda wasn't sufficient, there is discussion of the wonders of taking carnivore to new heights.

The argument: It would be interesting.
The downside: Endangered, would involve hunting in the forests of China, no one would ever speak to you again besides other sickos who thought it was cool.
The quandry: Cows would be extinct if they weren't so tasty. Does that mean that pandas are endangered because they aren't tasty, or because they are tasty, but no one talks about it?
Corollary: How does mistreatment of cows lead to massive beef recall? I mean, were the farmers talking smack about the cows' moms or something? Does excessive stress of being a cow taint the beef? Can you waterboard a cow? How fast will PETA beat me up for asking these questions? What happened to "happy cows come from California"?
(the whole wisconsin blizzard cows moving to california seems to be a rather relevant commercial to me of late.)
Solution: just about anything deep-fried and/or wrapped in bacon is tasty, ergo, bring on the panda.

There was also some discussion about the color of panda skin (tiger skin is striped, but polar bear skin is black), but since I prefer my chickens skinless, I don't think it's much of an issue. Oh, and the whole part about never actually being within 5' of a panda, at least not without a thick helping of plexiglass.

These are the weird things that become acceptable dinner conversation when everyone has either been locked in a dark theatre for 24 hours this weekend or locked in a death-match with the Judith Butler book till I got a break, which meant writing a paper. I think we need to get out more. And probably become vegetarians.

Me and the Sandman need to have a chat

Yes, that timestamp is correct. It is 5.30AM. Dammit.

So I have been dealing with crazy fatigue for ages now, especially recently. It's like I can't keep my eyes open or my mind focused for any length of time. I have spent alot of time supine. I feel like I am barely getting any work done.

Now, for the second night/day in a row, I have been fully awake past 5AM. What the hell? Last night I was wrestling with Judith Butler, who I still don't understand, but at least I can say I read it. Tonight, I composed a super rough draft of a tango presentation. I am awake, but not super motivated to continue doing work, since I haven't even let myself leave the house because I had Sunday deadlines. So on one hand, I want to take advantage and get some work done, but the rest of me is worked-out. And if I start reading, I will probably just fall asleep, which only enforces my already well-entrenched Pavlovian response. I should just go to bed, but what is the point since I am not sleepy. Grr.

I am also hungry, but 5.30AM is not exactly prime eating hour. I don't feel like cooking; I'm out of cereal; and Athens is a Cinderella town. And really, at this hour, healthy food just isn't appetizing. It would have to be something awful, fattening and damn tasty. (I'm thinking fried breakfast food, or pie, or fries - something you can get at a greasy spoon. Or the taqueria by Kallisti's, which while open is also about 8 hours away, at which point my food options will have expanded considerably). Merf.

The tango paper kinda got me fired up. I love my topic, and I love all the directions I can take it. I pretty much burped out 7 pages of text off the top of my head. Dude! That said, it's hard to streamline. And that 7 pages represents most of the tango info I own readily. Which makes the prospect of writing a detailed, analytical thesis way daunting. 7 pages was easy, but 7 times 7 pages will be a fight, since I feel like I have made the major thrust of my argument already.

Ruffling my green & gold feathers

My inbox has of late been flooded with different emails generated from Williamsburg regarding the resignation of current President of the College of William and Mary. They trouble me. And the more I read from Williamsburg and even outside, the more troubled I become.

I won't even try to give a chronology of events, because it's difficult to find any account that isn't colored by one side or the other. So instead, here is what troubles me specifically, but in no particular order.

1. UCAB - the student programming group tried to bring a touring show - The Sex Workers Art Show - to the College. As many as 20 student groups joined in to host. The idea was to use art to dialogue about the practice of prostitution. Since I haven't seen the show, I can't say what it looks like. But the BOV and some administrators sought to either prevent or severely censor it because it involved sexuality. So students were prevented from spending their own money on something they wanted. A violation of First Amendment rights.
   
2. Censorship in general, but especially of art, scares the bejezus out of me. Art is a personal expression of reality. It can be a commentary. Theatre (including performance art) takes a point of view. The idea is to make people think, as well as be aesthetically affected. As an artist, I take responsibility for my own agenda, but also for my opportunity to have one. To me, this is right up there with book burning.
3. As an academic, I appreciate that academia is an environment for learning, experimentation. A safe place for discourse. But this action effectively politicizes and poisons the environment, because it limits discourse.
4. The BOV and the Virginia House of Delegates have used this to target William and Mary, and its funding. Even though this very same show has been hosted at other public universities in the Commonwealth. Why is William and Mary being targeted?
5. The President of the College was told that his contract would not be renewed at the end of the year, so he resigned. Given the timing, and the fact that he advocated other controversial events (Wren Cross), I can't help but see this as ideological. He was offered hush money by the Commonwealth to not speak candidly about this. Yikes!

• a subset to this: many students and faculty have staged protests. But faculty were told explicitly that if they participated in any kind of strike that they would be terminated!
• my spin on the Wren Cross - the beauty of the Wren Chapel isn't specifically it's religiosity as much as its wood paneled history and quiet. To which anyone should feel welcome. It's not like he destroyed the cross, he just said that groups could request for it to be displayed or not based on their event.
  

I need to start writing letters. But I thought I would practice here first.

Call me a blazing liberal artist, but, to quote Grey's Anatomy, "SERIOUSLY?!"

Hark (loudly) upon the gale (of political interference)!

on Pandora: "Falter" - Heather Derby

Hee hee

Yesterday, about the most exciting thing that happened to me yesterday was looking at pictures of the very first Beagle to win at Westminster. Uno is such a cutie, I love me some beagles, and I love that it wasn't another damn poodle. Other than that, I dealt with a crappy email from a director, and a surprisingly GOOD and interesting film class. Probably because the regular guy wasn't teaching and didn't pick out the film.

(from www.dentonrc.com)

Today, I have been wrestling with the tautologies of Judith Butler. I'm sure there is something brilliant in there, but I just haven't really found it. And when I need to take a break from the theory, I research my trip to Santa Barbara. Yeah California!! All while munching on baked yummies from the Domestic God and my sister.

My weird jollies

Don't ask why I take such delight. And don't judge.

1. Why am I kinda excited about getting a chest x-ray? I mean, I've never had one done before, but I think it will be cool. They are checking for abnormalities in my lymph nodes since apparently I had mono at one point and maybe it's back.
2. I diagnosed hemachromatosis in the first 2 symptoms. I'm so cool. I wonder if I could write about the impact of disease/epidemic on theatre....
3. I love driving in the snow. Had to run to the Kro because I was out of milk and discovered that it was snowing. I deliberately took the side streets because they weren't cleared yet! And was annoyed to see the plow/salt truck. But that is also tied to my sense that some people are snow-wusses and salinization disturbs me.
4. While I generally don't like cold, blustery weather, it makes me feel oddly homesick for Chicago. It also gives me a chance to show off my mad layering skills and how NOT to get blown into a car.

Now if I could get the fridge to stop doing the death-rattle, I'd be an extra happy camper.

Deconstructing the Patriarchy

This quarter, I have been reading alot of theory for various classes. Fortunately, these only complement each other. This week in Theatre Theory, we got to read Feminist/Queer Theory, which rolls nicely into my performativity readings for my Body class, one of which I posted. It turns out the the author of that piece, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, was one of my mentor's mentors! And he affirms that she is just as amazing as I suspected.

While I know very little formal theory, I feel that I have been exposed to feminist and queer theory, which made today's discussion fun. And even better than my dapplings is the fact that my mentor's area of expertise is Queer Theory! We have already tentatively made plans to continue the conversation, which was lively, energized and all over the map. More than the other theories, gender theories inform or can be seen everywhere, from heterosexual relationships to videogames.

Personally, I love the idea of "queer" as the non-normative. Which my brain reduced to seventh grade, where no matter who you were, you felt out of place somehow, trying to "fit in" or to "be normal". "Normal" is an enforceable fantasy, and queer is more inclusive, not limited to a narrow concept of sexuality, but general experience of the world, which is patriarchical. And more than anything it seems that gender theories are more interested in creating an awareness of how we participate in society, regardless of its structure. Are we complicit? Do we play roles? How do we generate identity?

This is what I love about grad school - feeling your brain expand or explode as it tries to absorb new ideas. Or even more exciting, how those new ideas change perceptions of old ones.

Another epiphany - if the whole teaching/PhD thing doesn't work out, I could be a dramaturg on medical shows, which blend some of my favorite things - geeky research, practical application and medicine/disease. And to celebrate/corroborate, there is a Mystery Diagnosis marathon on tonight!

sorry no photos. While very stimulating, things of late haven't been exactly photogenic.

on iTunes: Radio Tango Argentino

Academia makes me laugh

From an article questioning JL Austin's concept of language as performance:

"To begin with, while 'I dare you' ostensibly involves only a singular first and a singular second person, it effectually depends as well on the tacit requisition of a third person plural, a 'they' of witness - whether or not literally present. In daring you to perform some foolhardy act (or else expose yourself as, shall we say, a wuss, 'I' (hypothetical singular) necessarily invoke a consensus of the eyes of others. It is these eyes through which you risk being seen as a wuss; by the same token, it is as people who share with me a contempt for wussiness that these others are interpellated, with or without their consent, by the act I have peformed in daring you.

'Now, these people, supposing them real and present, may or may not in fact have any interest in sanctioning against wussiness. They might, indeed themselves be wussy and proud of it. They may wish to actively oppose a social order based on contempt for wussitude. They may simply, for one reason or another, not identify with my contempt for wusses. Alternatively they may be skeptical of my own standing in the ongoing war on wussiness..."

Parker, Andrew and Eve Kesofsky Sedgwick. Performativity and Performance. Routledge: New York.

I love academics like this. The same authors earlier expressed a subtle contempt for Derrida who I loathe. And at the same time mix in a touch of the "Meow" game from Supertroopers. I can't wait to be an academic when I grow up!

on Pandora: "Don't You Fall"- The Church

Car nurse

In case this whole PhD thing doesn't work out, I have an excellent future in automotives or differential diagnosis.

Last night, I was trying yet again to muster the energy and enthusiasm to tackle a few performance theory articles, Smokin' Fairy called me. He needed a paper clip. About 20 minutes, a couple paper clips, wire hanger and a sprawl of tool-like junk later, we were performing an ectomy on his sealed headlight. I held the flashlight, various tools while Smokin' Fairy put his mad video-game skills to use fishing out a small reflector. While I did not personally fix the patient, my possession of the right tools helped. And after many cold nights doing "mechanics" with Papa, which involved holding a flashlight absolutely still for long stretches broken up only by runs for more paper towels, I found this experience a bit more productive. If nothing else, because I never understood the need for half a roll of paper towels.

Afterwards, we celebrated our victory over Japanese technology and Chinese New Year while watching Lost/working on grades. I watch Lost with him; he watches Mystery Diagnosis with me, and laughs when I start calling it ahead of time. Sadly, I totally missed the plague diagnosis on House tonight, because the sleeplessness totally threw me off.

on iTunes: "1-2-3-4" - Feist

Disparity

Having done the whole "applying to schools" thing as many times as I have, certain patterns have developed. After busting ass in December, you get to relax and not worry too much in January. Not so this year, since UCSB contacted me so early. Thick envelopes are acceptances; thin envelopes are rejections. Except I got a thin acceptance from Wisconsin today. And after getting as many rejection letters as I have, getting acceptance letters at all is out of the ordinary.

And getting all of your blood work back normal or negative is supposed to be a good thing. Only for me, it's just more frustrating. Oh well. Coffee is on sale. And it's an excuse to eat cheeseburgers.

on Pandora: "Fireworks" - The Whitest Boy Alive

Umbrella

This past couple of days have had some wild weather. Super-windy, lots of raining. Oh, and it's like 60F outside. But as a former resident of Chicago, I know how to handle an umbrella in the rain, and to appreciate any warm where I get it. But hiking up the hill this morning, I was bummin' that I didn't still have my sunflower umbrella. When I moved to Chicago, I stored the sunflower in favor of something more compact and sidewalk-friendly. So I wore my hat to mitigate the grumpy. Because I am locked in battle with the Sandman. And the fact that I had my annoying film class only made the grumpy worse. But it's ok, because I have tomorrow off, and Project Runway is on.

Cheeseburgers and tsetse flies

My body is officially pissing me off. Enough that I was willing to sit in the Health Center for a couple of hours, surrounded by a bunch of kids with da sniffoos, who all had to call home about it. (Seriously, it was a 1hr wait for TRIAGE!) Now that I have given blood (like 5 vials), I am combating possible anemia with a bloody cheeseburger.

So it seems like since Wednesday, I have become sidelined by the sleepy. For the past while, I have been dealing with fatigue, which I have been managing with coffee, naps and yoga. But suddenly it has become an actual issue. Things are not getting done because I am too tired to move too far from the couch. And I don't have the attention or focus to do any reading, which is a bummer since I have lots of reading (theory) to do. As a grad student, it's pretty much my job. And requiring a 90 minute nap after wimping out after a 45 minute low-impact yoga class. It's bullshit!

Since there are no tsetse flies in Ohio, it's still unknown why me and my bed have become such good friends. But I finally caught the attention of a doctor who was willing to order up a bunch of tests and has a diagnostic plan in place. We'll see if she finds anything interesting. Meanwhile, I make another pot of coffee and fight through some Elaine Scarry.

Tango events

Friday and Saturday provided me with events to inspire me to do more work on my thesis. Shame I have been positively narcoleptic since Wednesday night.

The music department regularly offers concerts with the Symphony. This year there has been a series called "Con Ojos Americanos". And on Friday, the featured piece was Astor Piazzolla's Four Seasons. The concert started with Mozart, which at first annoyed me until I realised what a nice contrast it was to the Argentine. The Four Seasons was excellent, a little tweaky since their seasons are reversed. It was distinctly Argentine, despite the lack of bandoneon or percussion.

Last night, the theatre history department (all 3 of us) got together to eat pizza, drink Malbec and watch tango. It was marvelous! We sipped wine and chatted all over the place. I felt exceptionally cool as I realised how much I actually know about tango, and watching other people watch it.

Now I eat brownies and try to get inspired to do more work.

Bacon-wrapped Fridays

Theme this week: Wrapped in bacon. Because if it's bacon, it's good. I made my chicken, which was a big hit. After S. carved it and turned the drippings into gravy, like magic. It ended up more like dip, since we are classy like that. Watched Smokin' Fairy lick the cheesy-bacon dip spoon. E. brought bacon-wrapped everything, shrimp, lil smokies, hot dogs filled with cheese and onions, etc. Mmmmmm. I was just disappointed that I had to leave as they were starting Clue.

Had to give the other MA crap for being lame and not coming out to play, especially since she promised to make my chicken a bacon jumper. Which is a brilliant mental image, and somehow much less freaky than the provisional acceptance letter I got from UCSB. Now I am chillin' at home, having seen the episode of What Not to Wear that my mom was convinced was my doppelganger. In my defense, she buys alot of my "offending" clothes, and my clothes (regardless of source) fit me.