Just when I think I'm out...

...I'm not sure I want to leave Iowa City anymore...

...I'm kinda scared and kinda sad...

...And it's all because I'm having such a good summer right now.

Sydonia Bollman

Mere moments after posting the previous entry, it received a mysterious comment...
Who are you, Sydonia Bollman, and what does your cryptic message mean?

Lyrics for Track 2 (Real Records)

A pop star parade
Passed through today
And in this crowd it is a sin
If you do not try your best to fit right in so
Throw on thick rims
Look really grim
Learn the hymns and shake your limbs
As if you just had a stroke and all you do is mope now that the
Old days are over
Move over rover
'cause there's a new kid on the block today
And he's making his friends by taking yours away
That American spirit you toke
Just went up in smoke
Now what kind of bloke are you?
Since you pawned off your identity to buy those new hip shoes
"Semen stains the" "heavy metal drummers"
"Rapture rapes the muses" and it murdered Joe Strummer
Musicians lost the wheel, they're busy driving Hummers
Pushing the biggest hits to buy the summer
You noticed this if you believe in evolution
You know that change is good so "you want a revolution"
Don't sequester yourself in an institution
If you want rid of this musical pollution
Thinking for yourself
Is good for you health
Don't buy ideas off the shelf
Of the wealthiest tycoons who operate in stealth
Don't let them goad us
Download and mold us
Share the wealth and spread the nectar
Of the awesome truth detectors who are making real records.
La la la lalalalalalala
La la la lalalalalalala
La la la lalalalalalala
La la la lalalalalalala...

22

22

22?

Idea for a Movie

THE TALL MAN
a myth of the west

A lousy mayor and the town's newsperson face off in a showdown. Everything is in fluid, dusty slow motion. We hear each click of the cogs in the town's clock as if they were the slow declaration that many seconds have gone by. Every click we cut between the two men standing off. Click. Click. Click.
Flashbacks tell us how we got there in the first place. They tell the story of the lousy mayor and his lousy brain trust. Like a series of short stories. At the end of every arc, we cut to the slow motion stand off, each time introducing a townsperson. They each have their own arc, their own reason to root for one or the other. Click. Click. Click.
The climax. The clicks turn into a slow whirrrrrr and the first toll of the noon bell. They fire...

N'Olens

Yo yo, got back from the big NO
Didn't bring a camera, which shows to go
that, no, I don't got no pictures, so
in order to show y'all I gotsta type.

I promise I'll never do that again. I just got back from New Orleans today. Loveliest city I've seen all week. Going there makes me glad I'm leaving IC. It was nice to be surrounded by things you normally find in your community, like, for instance, HISTORY and A SENSE OF COMMUNITY. Maybe I'm bitter. Just a little?

Evan Prizant, whose name you will all know before he turns thirty, guided Di and I around the various shady streets and local public houses. Bars in NOLA dont close. Ever. Which is sweet. We came down paciffically to see his staging of Sheila C's CRUMBLE: LAY ME DOWN JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE. It was worth the thirty+ hours of driving. We also saw a play about the poet Everett Maddox, which was colaboratively written in a timely manner concerning the "fall of New Orleans."

A note. That city is older than the U.S.A. To say it's been mortally wounded is assinine. And defeatest. Scars make a town beautiful. Forests don't grow without forest fires.

Di and I had a great time. We got t-shirts. Made Quesadillas. Ate lotsa ice cream.

speekinawich...

The Boy With No Imagination

So I'm thinking about this story idea. Lemme know if it's at all good.

I'd set up a world that is full of fantastic things. People can do magical stuff, bend reality, anything they put their minds to, literally. Everyone uses their imagination to the point where the world around them is fundamentally altered by their every thought. In this world is THE BOY WITH NO IMAGINATION, who is the only "normal" person in a society full of gods. How do they treat him? How does he deal with this? How does this make him better/worse than all other people?

Just chewing it over. More to come.

ARRGHH!!!

Finals WEAK!
LAST finals EVER!!
HOW I HATE FINALS WEEK!!!!!!
Less complaining later.

GRAD SCHOOL NEWS

ALAS!

I was not accepted into Brown's Literary Arts graduate program. This was to be expected. I think I would have to be some sort of playwriting savant in order to get into a program like Brown right after undergrad. The only sad part to this whole story is that I won't get to have two easy years of writing and teaching anytime soon. I didn't have my hopes up to get accepted, but if I had one flight of fancy it was over the possibility of TAing a playwright's workshop for a bunch of talented undergrads. Perhaps this is a sign from the cosmics that I'm not quite ripe yet. Or perhaps, instead, graduate school is not right for me, and I should just go out there and put work up somehow on my own. In any case this short stack chips on my side of the poker table isn't getting me down.

HUZZAH!

There's a whole world of oppertunity open to me now. I have the energy and the ardor to go out there and make a mark on the world, and I never really needed a graduate program to make that happened. Now is my chance to be young, green, naive and brave, and I'm going enter a prolific period of writing no matter where I end up. All I need is a home, a place filled with friends and collaborators who want to change the world. Besides, I learn best when I do it myself.

Now if I could just find a job...

NYC2k6 II

Saw ZOMBOID! Very cool, as I now assume that all Richard Foreman plays are. Still, a bit of a let down from The Gods Are Pounding My Head. That show still has me reeling. The Film/video project was interesting nonetheless, and the cast did a great job of being strange.
Suppose I were to postulate...that theatre can be unintelligeably intelligeable?

Saw Carl perform with Braxton's ensemble. Fucking phenomenal. 13 players, 36 instruments. More on that in the next entry.

Most importantly...
...SAW EVAN MAZUNIK! That man is sooooooo supergroovy! I gave him a big hug. God, I need to do some soundpainting again. Maybe that's what's been missing in my life these past few years.

More entries soon. Hopefully I will have grad school news as well.

NYC2K6

Saw "The Hills Have Eyes". Scary scary scary. Good good good. Not as good as Haute Tension though.

Saw Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Everyone was awesome except for Mr. Sloane. Must read some more Joe Orton. Alec Baldwin was unexpectedly stageworthy.

Saw Sweeney Todd. Ten actors. No orchestra. New arrangement. Sweet set design. Awesome acting. Damn solid production. Although I usually loathe musicals, I dream of working on a show like this in some capacity. Probably the best thing I've had a chance to see on Broadway. This, of course, is tempered by the fact that I've only seen four plays on broadway now. Coincidentally, I saw Democracy in the same theatre.

Saw The Emperor Jones. Damn. By far the bravest peice of theatre I've seen in a long while. Kate Valk played the title character in blackface. I think that O'Neil is rather irrelevant today, but this production made his confusing and racist play worth seeing.

This trip to NYC has thus far been discombobulating, but worth it. Although there was more safety, comfort and rest in the last trip, I like this one better.