| Fan Mail! |
[21 Apr 2007|12:06pm] |
This is better than Christmas.
Last week, I went to the Dryden Middle School to tell stories to seventh graders in an art classroom. We all had a great time, and on Thursday, I got a package of drawings and thank you notes from the kids. I read them all three times over and immediately wrote a response to the class. Seventh graders' drawings are still somewhat child-like, but they are focused in subject matter and very clear. It was so much fun to see their ideas about the stories! And they all wrote appreciative thank you notes with specific things they liked about my work, which always makes me feel great.
This weekend, I'm preparing for my program on the importance of family storytelling for an audience of senior citizens. I did this program a few times in the fall but am coming back to a story about my grandfather as a young doctor in Montana, plus maybe my favorite folktales on the theme. This story is more fiction than fact and it has been years since I've told it.
And meanwhile, the house is still a mess! No change except for the worse in the past two weeks. Taxes are now filed so .... time to clean!
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| Looong to-do list |
[07 Apr 2007|09:14am] |
I've got a very long list of things to do and a really dirty house and lots of great sewing projects. It occurs to me that I ought to go to my office at the college to do grading and a studio at the music school to rehearse; but that still leaves the challenge of doing taxes at home where there are so many things to distract me.
Yesterday night, Diane and I played a game for the first time in months. Sequence is an interesting mix of cards and a board and I'm pretty good at it. I laughed at her dramatic complaints about her bad hand and contributed some of my own drama.
Today she's gone off to hang out with fishing buddies. It's still too cold to fish but they will investigate streams in central PA and look at two tackle stores in the area. My girlfriend, the feminist professor, hanging out with these old fishing guys. I shake my head in awe.
Also, lately I've been interested in graphic novels. I picked up three of the five "Mouse Guard" series by David Petersen -- delightful. I'm interested because I have a story in my repertoire concerning a small brown mouse from a kingdom that is very small. I'd like to develop more of these tiny worlds in stories that are good for K-3 grade listeners.
Okay, am I getting distracted? Gotta go!
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| Here! |
[05 Apr 2007|11:57pm] |
I'm back! February and March were busy months because I was preparing for a rather large storytelling performance and doing a big piece of the promotional work. It went very well, and I know have a 60 minute program that is perfect -- I mean PERFECT -- for Women's History Month.
I traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia to attend a folklore conference. I'm less and less interested in conferences, but really enjoyed a chance to see Historical Williamsburg, which has been transformed by a storyteller into the site of a massive and very thought-provoking drama.
Lately, I've been sinking into little pits of resentment -- darn it! I really do deserve a good-paying, interesting job at this point. I've generally opted for the interesting, but really, do I have to be so darn underpaid?
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| Gratitude for warmth in winter |
[01 Feb 2007|09:40am] |
Now that winter is really here, I really am grateful for central heating. It's clean, steady heat that I don't have to think about. Except in the fall and spring, during the transitional seasons. This year, Diane and I took the trouble to really seal up the house with properly fitted storm windows and plastic coverings for the air conditioners, so the house feels warmer and more evenly warm. What a gift!
And, I might throw in a word of gratitude for hot flashes, which have made it possible for me to lower my thermostat by two degrees this winter!
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| Inching along |
[31 Jan 2007|01:30pm] |
I got together with my friend and fellow storyteller, Regi Carpenter, to work on our combined storytelling show, scheduled for March 11 and March 17. She's working on her father's story of how he and his wife, Regi's mother, met and fell in love just before he went to fight in the Philippines during World War II. She's working on getting at the touch parts of her father's post-traumatic stress. I told her all about my experience in Washington DC, treating it like a story, looking for major themes as I went along, but trying to just stay casual, relaxed and open to any little memory that might pop up.
- invitations, openings, and invitations and openings opening at each point in the trail;
- engaging in action being something like getting up in the morning -- at some point, you just have to do it.
- many women spoke about the regret they had for opportunities they let go by.
- picking just the right sign for me
- those amazing women in hot pink!
- those amazing raging grannies
- the festival atmosphere of it
- how safe I felt in the presence of at least tens of thousands and maybe a lakh of like-minded people.
I've also been thinking about singing The Star Spangled Banner, of all things...with a sense of taking back what I hold dear about this country. This could be a very good idea or a really embarrassing one, but I sang it competently for Sherry Scanza, my voice teacher, and she's been encouraging. Singers don't seem to worry too much about being over the top emotionally.
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| marching in Washington DDC |
[28 Jan 2007|02:18pm] |
I set aside 26 hours of my time to participate in the democratic process, enjoy my free speech rights, and gaining some honest aching feet by marching in Washington yesterday. It was the first time I've ever gone on a march (oh, not quite true: I also marched downtown in Santa Cruz before the start of the first Gulf War, but that was a lark and just around the corner from my house). The weather was beautiful -- sunny and mild. It felt good to shed a few layers during the day. And the mood was festive.
Chartered buses left Ithaca at midnight on Saturday, arrived at a suburban Metro station at around 7 am. I treated myself to a great breakfast at a bookstore cafe in Dupont Circle and then walked to the National Mall, going around the White House and past the big phallic monument to our Founding Father. There were lots of people there -- it felt as if the Mall was filled up.
I took along my tape recorder and plenty of raw tape, and asked lots of women about their experiences doing peace and social action work. There were many who have been going on marches their entire adult lives. Some coming down for the first time ever.
I especially enjoyed hanging out with CodePink, a sea of hot pink hats, shirts, pants, feathered boas, buttons, and banners. Very popular sign there was: "Bush, Pull Out Now" written on hot pink torso-shaped signs. The signs had voluptuous breasts, no arms, legs, or heads, something that made me wince and run for my old-time feminist textbooks. These women were mostly from Chicago and California. Nearby was the "Raging Grannies", mostly from Rochester, Syracuse, and western Massachusetts. They were also a color group in wide-brimmed hats decorated with boas, and they came with re-written songs with new lyrics for the standard American sing-along repertoire. I recorded quite a few of their songs.
I interviewed women throughout the entire rally, and ignored most of the speakers entirely. I did listen to Jane Fonda for a little while, but was always more interested in listening to people talk about their concerns.
I was surprised at the number of signs calling for Bush's impeachment. My reason for joining, aside from the desire to collect stories, was to pressure Congress to make its move against the war. Perhaps impeachment is the only way to stop the idiot from going ahead with his escalation?
I found some supper at a busy burrito place up in China Town, where two other marchers sat next to me. One woman is working on a digital journal process and she asked me to do a little entry for her project; I agreed provided that she also contribute to my project.
At the meet-up point for the bus, I interviewed a few more women, but we were all exhausted. We were back in Ithaca at about 1:30 or so.
It seems that the media mostly paid attention to the presence of Jane Fonda and other prominent speakers. Certainly there were tons of cameras to document the rally. And of course, there are wildly differing estimates for the number of marchers -- the organizers say it was 500,000 and the New York Times brings it in at tens of thousands. I'm thinking 150,000 but what do I know?
I'm not sure we "made a difference" by being there. Maybe the visits to congressional offices on Monday will be more persuading. For many of the women I interviewed, they found it comforting and reassuring to be among people who agreed with their views on the war. I did too.
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| terrible terrible technology urges |
[14 Jan 2007|03:46pm] |
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I've got a terrible itchy urge to spend money on technology.
Oh, why not just buy a new, quieter, snazzier Mac? I could get it on credit for just $23 per month, okay, $25 with wireless keyboard and mouse. Errr, just how big do I need my screen to be?
And why not go ahead a buy that Marantz Digital Recorder PMD 660 with the Oade Brothers' modification for line hiss?
And, of course, a camera. Yes, absolutely.
And hey, how about that new iPhone. Gee, I don't even have a cell phone account, and if I did, it would be with Verizon, but .... hmmm....pretty wonderful and sooo tiny.
Hey! Why hasn't Apple developed a decent electronic book reading device yet? That would be: light weight, small, good memory and battery capacity, for under $150. With a digitial ink display, of course. And no Sony proprietary software to get in the way.
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| Storyteller's Block |
[08 Jan 2007|01:27am] |
Learning a new story is much scarier than performing an old story in front of an audience. My first attempts to verbalize stuff is ... well...just awful. God-awful. Cringe-worthy. And, as I get older, it seems to get worse.
But today I happily explored possible stories for a new program aimed at second through fifth graders and made a great list of what will be a 45 minute program. It needs some more audience participation somewhere, maybe I'll find a couple of riddles to sneak in when things get restless.
Tomorrow, I'll start on my other new program based on a series of interviews with women involved in peace and social action work.
There are certainly plenty of things I can do to put off the first attempts of these stories.
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| Confessions of a Fly Fishing Widow |
[06 Jan 2007|01:12pm] |
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I suppose that I am to blame. Diane was starting to get interested in fishing because she had a boat. I wasn't interested but I did say, "well,- if- I was to do any kind of fishing, it would be fly fishing because my grandpa did fly fishing in Montana."
Mind you, the only fishing that I did with my grandpa was a little stick and a string and a big hook. But I did manage to catch a tiny fish which we ate for breakfast that day.
Visiting my grandparents in Montana over the summer -- well, I'm pretty sure it was just as good as my memories. The clear trout streams with shiny colored rocks and cool blue skies were the stuff of dreams.
My grandfather was a sedate man, being an English professor and philosopher and southern gentleman from a family of preachers and teachers. He mowed the lawn weekly while wearing a button up shirt, narrow dark tie, and fedora hat.
Likewise, he fished in shirt and tie and oil-skin waders, and used an old wicker creel that was dark with fish oils and age. I believe he kept his flies on his fedora brim. His line swerved across the streams like a fine ink drawing.
Maybe that is why I enjoy drawing and painting.
So, Diane explored fly fishing and now it is the only kind of fishing she does. It's just about the only kind of internet "fishing" for her, too. One corner of the house is devoted to fly tying materials; another corner of the guest room is devoted to rods (why so many?); a big part of her brain is always assessing the weather, the water, and whether they're bitin'.
So, I'll admit it: I'm a fly fishing widow. Guess I'll follow her out to the streams with my sketch pad and a fine-nibbed pen.
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| thirty years |
[18 Dec 2006|10:53pm] |
Coming home...an invitation to my Thirtieth college reunion. Gee. So soon?
When I look back, I'm a bit surprised how conventionally I managed my school "career". I went through it in four years, used workstudy grants to gain work experience, and ... graduation? So soon?
And today, my hot flashes have accelerated to being roughly every two hours. So soon?
So, I might just go to that reunion. Maybe I can track down some of my friends from that era.
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| Holiday Parties |
[18 Dec 2006|08:28pm] |
I'm home from an Ithaca College holiday party. This was the second time I attended the party, and again I really enjoyed President Peggy William's home, especially the sun room. The food was also excellent. The rooms were really crowded and noisy but I managed to meet people and have some real conversations.
I was fascinated to learn about the efforts of Brooke Hansen and Jack Rossen of the Anthropology Department to provide the Cayuga Indian nation with a 70 acre organic farm -- their first land. All of the other members of the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois federation) received land for small reservations when New York was settled and the locals burned, pushed, or coerced out of their villages. Brooke and Jack spent their own money to buy the farm. It has now been transferred to the Cayuga people, but they continue to pay the debt for the purchase. On their credit cards!
I'm awed and stunned by this incredible gift. I suggested holding some fundraisers to help pay off the bills or perhaps getting a loan from one of the local banks, but as the land has been transferred, Brooke and Jack no longer have collateral. They are cheerfully teaching extra classes each semester and figure that at some point the bills will be paid.
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[30 Oct 2006|09:07am] |
Diane just started a beautiful page, and it's fun to keep track of our friends dan and Daniel. It's nice to keep a record of one's life...but seriously, who's gonna read all this stuff?
I've been learning to sew a quilted jacket with a complicated process for seams using two strips of bias tape. Slow slow slow, but it will be lovely and warm when I am finished.
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