Gedney Checks In! (like Dunstin Checks In, but no monkeys, and no Jason Alexander)

I feel bad because Mark sent me a message on facebook telling me, among other things, that I had become distant. He is right. I've been having weird dreams lately, and to boot I feel like my sleep patterns have been off. I don't know how stuff like that affects you guys, but dreams involving real people and weird sleep cycles warp my perceptions for a while, so everything gets warbly. When that happens, I make a little cocoon of movie channels, chocolate, and my cats and don't come out for a little while. I think I'm slowly reemerging.

I've been turning Dubliners and Kafka over a little bit in my mind, and am slowly working through To the Lighthouse. A few things I'm thinking of:
-the parentheticals of deaths in To the Lighthouse. Why? How else could the deaths have occurred? Would that have lessened or increased their impact?
-the gore of Kafka on the Shore, it's explicit and straightforward languages. The phrase "rock hard cock" comes to mind. How is this different/similar to the deaths in Woolf.
-the darkness in Dubliners. Can we put a finger on the mechanism of melancholy Joyce creates? Stories I'm thinking of in particular:
An Encounter
Araby
Eveline
Clay
A Painful Case
The Dead

I'm not asking these to initiate a purely literary discussion, but rather to look at why these works function the way they do, flow the way they do. Also, I love Lily in To the Lighthouse. I just reread her scene with Mr. Ramsey in The Lighthouse section. "What beautiful boots!" I also think the entire section in Time Passes works so well for what we may be exploring.

Also, not on our reading list, but something I discovered while I way this weekend was a little book called Novels in Three Lines by Felix Feneon. They are true stories that were anonymously published in the French Newspaper Le Matin, but they're quite violent and cheeky. IE:
A criminal virago, Mlle Tulle, was sentenced by the Rouen court to 10 years' hard labor, while her lover got five.

Nurse Elise Bachmann, whose day off was yesterday, put on a public display of insanity.

Since childhood Mlle Mehnette, 16 had harvested artificial flowers from the tombs of Saint-Denis. That's over; she's in the workhouse.

A certain madwoman arrested downtown falsely claimed to be nurse Elise Bachmann. The latter is perfectly sane.

Caged, tortured, and starved by their stepmother, the three little daughters of Joseph Ilou, of Brest, now rescued, are skeletal.

Finding her son, Hyacinthe, 69, hanged, Mme Ranvier, of Bussy-Saint-Georges, was so depressed she could not cut him down.

Seventy-year-old beggar Verniot, of Clichy, died of hunger. His pallet disgorged 2,000 francs. But no one should make generalizations.

"To die like Joan of Arc!" cried Terbaud from the top of a pyre made of his furniture. The fireman of Saint-Ouen stifled his ambition.

The guys who wrote these was an anarchist and a publisher. Very private.

Thoughts on our project, and I'm just throwing them out there as honestly as I can:

I think, for simplicity's sake, I would prefer for us to work with Pig Iron this summer. From my end, to go to Europe and back while trying to get a job would be more difficult than getting a job in perhaps New Haven or coming back home, then going to Philly, then coming back to the West coast. Because both of you are going abroad, that might not be the case. Also, and again Asa this is not because I don't trust you, but I know Pig Iron, I know and admire their work, and I know they're really supportive of me and Asa and our trying to make new theater together. I don't know anyone in Poland except for Gey Pin, and I feel like I still don't quite know what we'd be doing in Poland. These are, again, my inclinations, and I can be persuaded.

Additionally, I've been thinking about the work we've been talking about doing, and I wonder if it wouldn't be better if we still do the reading we've planned on, but maybe use songs/text with which we aren't nearly as familiar, and thus don't have many prior attachments or associations with them. Already when I read Emily Dickinson, I have this grandiose idea of what it could be, this over-mystified idea of what her poems are about. I think we should challenge ourselves to find text that really makes us dig and investigate, and isn't something that we've been in love with or fascinated by forever.

We can talk about this tomorrow via phone, of course, and I can't emphasize enough that over the past few years at Wesleyan I hadn't found people I really felt I wanted to collaborate with. Then you two came along, and I finally feel like I won't necessarily leave Wesleyan without some really good friends who are also really great collaborators.

Many hugs, much love,
G.B.

Merry Christmas, Europe

Hello my friends,

I have entered the grey zone trying to contact the polish. It is complicated.

"What do you mean a group?"

"I'm sorry, I can't give you_____'s email"

Or, most commonly, no reply.

No, not really, it's just been Christmas. But doubt is also very good, it's really important, I think, good seeds for new things.

So yeah. Working on that, I will get back ASAP.

You both got the news from Gey Pin, yeah?

Anyways, we should talk on the phone soon.

Love

Asa

Poets – Ranier Maria Rilke, Poland and Summer, Advent & Other Holidays

My dear friends.

I have been thinking that something that keeps coming up is poets. So maybe we want to do a play about poets, or a poet? Poets have lives that are full of good twists, difficult spots.

Both Emily Dickinson and Ranier Maria Rilke had extremely interesting lives, with depressions, spiritual leaps, imprisonment, reactions to the war torn world. T.S. Eliot is also fascinating, although maybe more known and less sensitive and impressionable. Rilke journeyed extensively but always felt imprisoned. Dickinson literally was imprisoned. Both were obsessed with death in different ways. I don't know what to say exactly, but I think there's something significant here.

Maybe we want to do something with these people? I really love both of their work and think that maybe they have something to teach us.

Rilke is best in Stephen Mitchell's translations. I will get you this for some winter advent holiday.

Did you guys ever do Advent Spiral? This is a very beautiful ceremony that comes from early christianity, really pre-Christian pagan traditions.

http://www.waldorffamilynetwork.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/adventspiral2003.jpg

It's also a Waldorf thing. Candles are placed in apples and brought into the center and lit, then brought out. I think it was something that got deep in me, influenced me a lot. If Annie sees this she'll know...


Speaking of which, there are some things.

Grotowski Texts:

Holiday
Tu Es Le Fils De Quelqu'un [You are someone's son]
Performer

All are really good and important for different reasons.

Another word about Holidays, look at this:

http://free.art.pl/teajty/pliki/english/etresc.php?go=4

Very interesting Cultural Lab in N. eastern poland. Doing interesting work with carols, carolling in the old sense. Check it out.

Good 'ol:
http://www.grotcenter.art.pl/

Maisternia Pisni:

http://www.maisternia.com.ua/site/index.htm

A good way to see what they're about besides the DVD Claudia has is to read Sergey's "Krai" although it's translated pretty poorly. In the photos section are photos of Brzezinka
and area around, which is the forest base.

I wrote Nini from ZAR, so we'll see if that can happen (or something), if you guys are still interested in going to Poland.

I think what would be great is if we could go somewhere and sing for a while – this could happen with Village Harmony, or with ZAR, possibly, and then see some theater in Poland and do some work sessions together to learn training, etc.

Also, next semester I am starting to learn the harmonium, and I'd definitely like to start playing with this in singing – it's really absolutely the most helpful thing in learning to sing together in multi voice.

Also, on wednesday at 1 pm at well being house I am performing Indian music, come if you like, there are lots of people performing so no pressure.

I know this week will be crazy, but let's find some time to just talk and hang out some time soon. I have house things tomorrow night until 8 or 9 but I'm free after.

I am also making mixes for you guys.


Love

Asa