In this season, I finally start to be interesting in my press releases. I think, since I really had nobody to talk to, I was beginning to go a bit nutty. So it goes. Well, without further preamble...
Letters from the Joseph Summer
Summer 2002
5-27-02
Ladies and gentlemen,
Quite an odd matter has crossed my path recently.
I am settling into my summer life here in West Virginia. Meanwhile, I am surrounded by "theatre people." Each of these people has an "irrefutable" vision as to which is the superlative drama, and to prove points, these people pass their token plays around.
In this manner did I come across a play by Henrik Ibsen, titled THE RIGHTEOUS ONION BISCUIT. You guys know that I am not Mr. Ibsen's greatest fan, however, this play quite eerily mirrors the experiences of my beginning time in Zapadnoy Virgini'i. Observe this scene from the first act:
GEOFFREY: Hi.
OTTO: Greetings, young man. How are you today?
GEOFFREY: You know, this week has been such a blur that I do not know exactly what has happened.
OTTO: Oh, well then, since I am your brother's step-niece's personal physician's dog groomer's taxidermist, and am aged forty-three and still bear a slight grudge against David Lynch for the ending of "Twin Peaks" (the grudge being the cause for my baldness and my incessant napkin arrangement) perhaps I should recount, in perfect detail, everything that has happened to you in the past week.
GEOFFREY: That would be quite helpful, and perhaps hearing such basic background information will add a certain degree of significance to the events of my life that will occur in the next two hours, plus intermission.
OTTO: What are you talking about, intermission? This isn't a play.
GEOFFREY: It's a metaphor, you amalgamated toaster pastry. People will be quoting it for centuries to come.
OTTO: You're getting rather strange, Geoffrey, and it's not very comforting. You must get rid of these illusions that you are the master of literature that Henrik Ibsen is.
GEOFFREY: That's true, Henrik Ibsen is a supergenius, and in the generations to come, and I am not fit to clean his rain gutters.
{The two characters sit for a moment in reflective silence as a large banner flies in and out behind them. The banner reads "Vote HENRIK IBSEN for the Nobel Prize, whenever it gets around to being established."}
GEOFFREY: No, I don't remember a thing, could you please remind me?
OTTO: You had your first taste of choreography, and that was rather interesting, because, having all the dancing grace of an arthritic penguin, you alternated between laughing your butt off and then falling on it.
GEOFFREY: Ha ha ha. Did I say that? It is quite funny, even though "Laughing your butt off" is an American English idiom, and we're speaking Swedish. Aren't we?
OTTO: Darned if I know. I don't pay a lot of attention.
GEOFFREY: I just wish I knew why I was so tired.
OTTO: Could it perchance be because you have been rehearsing lines, blocking, and music for two shows simultaneously for twelve hours a day (with the knowledge of the eventual third show for which to take up all the same labors soon enough) for the past week?
GEOFFREY: Yes, I think that's it. So, if you don't mine, I'm going to take a nap now.
OTTO: No, that's not it. I can tell. You're not really tired, you're just annoyed at having been boarded at in such a location as requires either lenghty travel to your workspace or the usage of a $1.25 toll booth. You travel the road between the two place four times a day, and you are hightly aggravated that you must either spend half your supper break on the road or whittle away your earnings ten bits at a time.
GEOFFREY: Yes, you have seen right through me. I am quite annoyed at that.
OTTO: Why would you lie to me about something like that? Could it be because you're overcome with shock about having been assigned a wife for one of the plays?
GEOFFREY: It couldn't have been that.
OTTO: Oh, of course not, not given the glowing terms with which you have described the actress.
GEOFFREY: I don't seem to remember saying anything on the subject.
OTTO: Didn't you say, shortly after working with her in a session to provide back-stories for your characters, that it was a delight to work with somebody as dedicated to details and analysis in the theatre as you were.
GEOFFREY: Oh yes, of course.
OTTO: Nor do I think it is the fact that you were, shortly after you had adjusted yourself to your bitpart wife, issued a matching daughter. However, it might be the stress of having been put into a double quartet to sing "Just Before the Battle Mother." Or the stress of having had to use so many perfect tenses.
GEOFFREY: No. Those are both things that I enjoy.
SKIPPY: I have always avoided perfect tense, myself.
OTTO: Psst. How long has he been in the scene?
GEOFFREY: It doesn't matter. I'm quite happy to be acting professionally and I have even set up a checking account in West Virginia.
OTTO: Why would you do that, aren't we in Sweden.
{Banner flies in and out again.}
GEOFFREY: By the way, in answer to your first question, I'm fine.
There it is, a scene from Ibsen's obscure play, THE RIGHTEOUS ONION BISCUIT. I recommend you check it out. Actually, these to characters never show up again. They just provide exposition for the story of Skippy's fifth cousin, Skubi Dubidu, who, in the course of the play, must overcome the obstacle of being the only left-handed carrot peddler in a village of Spanish-speaking window-washers in order to hire a German belly dancer to drive his cat to the psychiatrist twice a week (however, in the end, it turns out he just needs to use a different type of coaster to prop open his windows.) You know, same-o same-o.
For those of you who have an honest affection for the works of Ibsen, I apologize for my scrap of parody. You may take comfort in knowing, though, that I am wearing my SIGNAL LAMPOON shirt.
'Ats about it for now.
And really, that's enough.
"More than," some might venture to say.
Although that would really be pointless.
I mean, it's not like I can hear them.
I'm in West Virginia.
Commentary: Yes, there it is, that insanely long Ibsen joke. My hatred for Ibsen has since softened, thanks to Arthur Miller and his wonderful adaptation of Enemy of the People. This was one the first email to use extended dialogue, which would become a staple of later seasons. However, I wouldn't have the dialogue serve as the body of the email for another two years, when I put out Season III's "DZ - 015". Lookit: Here in this email, I actually have respect for the woman who played my wife. Yeah, that'll last.
Sun, 02 Jun 2002
A short letter. I'm on a friend's computer, as I have been for the past two press releases, and so I must try to be concise (remember me in your prayers) until Peter gets his computer fixed and I can start being interesting again. (My readers cough, "Again?")
Here are some of the things I'll go into more depth on in future epistles:
West Virginia landscape
The commercial homoginization of America
The various causes of the Civil War
Today's hot-dog eating contest
The fact that I am understudy for the lead role in HATFIELD'S AND McCOYS
Boom-O
Yokels
Peter's computer problems
A little kid with a big head
My age
The humorous possibility of fireflies getting caught in my beard on the night of a performance. (Shoot, there's nothing more to say on that. Just imagine it. Tee hee.)
My partner in crime
Ice chests.
The psychological ramifications of the first paycheck
The snows of yesteryear rewrought into an orange sherbet push-up pop
All these things shall be discussed in the future, complete with my Edward Hopper Man touch to everything. And yes, there shall be Gershefnefield Ambisiduloskidrov and Garrison Keillor.
In the meantime, I'd just like to tell everybody that there is an interesting program here at TWV called SECOND STAGE. SS is basically set up to entertain the entertainers. Anybody can sign up to direct a play (up to an hour and a half, of personal choice) which will be performed for the cast after a performance. I really want to go out for this, but I don't know which play I would like to do. Several of you have heard me talk about plays I would really love to be involved in in some shape or form, but, as some of you also know, I can never remember something when it applies. So please, drop me a line if you know something I would like to do. This latter imperative is pointed particularly at Mary Crouch, who always seems to insist that she knows exactly what I'm thinking--or what anybody is thinking--shoot, she insists she is thought itself.
Every week I think of dozens of things I want to write about, but I always forget when I sit down to write them. This is why my emails have been so short lately. (Half of my readers burst out laughing. One fifth of my readers curl up in the fetal position and cry. One third of my readers begin phrasing their threatening letters. One fourth of my readers seek tutoring in math.)
So, I shall write on these other things in the future. Dere be plenty of fodder there for weeks to come.
Commentary: I'm sure my readers look back on these days and smile. The days when my emails were only abou 7k habitually, and this one was even shorter to boot. That math joke gets recycled a fair bit, I'll tell you.
6-10-02
"I hate reading great swatches of text on a computer screen."
Johnny Wink, said at some point in every class
"Sorry, Dr. Wink, sorry, Dr. Wink, sorry, Dr. Wink..."
Jeffrey Villines, thought after every press release
Ladies and gentlemen, and recent subscibers who have been thrust into the world of my press releases against their will simply because I have come across their email addresses. Vwee hee hee!
Peter's computer is fixed, so I am writing this one from the comfort of what may arguably called my living room. (Actually, if you argue well enough, it could be called my left nostril, but that's neither here nor there.) WHOOP! SEGUE!
Apologies to my Texan friends who may be reading this (as opposed to the ones who receive it and delete it immediately, fearing that the size of the letter will crowd their email accounts and, having done that, spill over into their living rooms and start rearranging their furniture) but Texan superlatives sincerely annoy me. The superlative is the worst thing you could possibly use (and I never use irony, either). My roommate is a Texan, and although a good guy, he can be annoying with his superlatives.
PETER: The President's daughter goes to my school.
JEFF: I live in Tornado Alley.
PETER: Wichita Falls has the most tornadoes in the country.
ANYBODY IN THE CAST: Dang, it's hot.
PETER: Last December, it got to 120 Fahrenheit in the shade, and I had to melt tar to roof the entire campus.
COMPANY LADIES MAN, ON GETTING SLAPPED: Wow, she's strong.
PETER: Texas women are plenty strong. When I was born, I came out sideways; my mother didn't even scream.
And, in keeping with this, we got a Texas sized virus on the computer (Holy peregrine falcons, Batman, we're back at the original subject!) Hitting buttons at random didn't work. Mindlessly suggesting to check the alternator didn't work. Cracking it open and saying "I could fix this before they started putting them goldurn computers in 'em" had no effect, either. And so we, as men, made the ultimate sacrifice (yes, a Texas superlative sized sacrifice) and... yes... paid somebody else to do it.
Dept. of Superlatives
c/o Everybody involved
But noone who cares
The "grown-ups" receiving this may now put on their chuckling shoes:
The other day, backstage, my "daughters" were talking about riding the bus to school. My "oldest daughter" (I'm getting along a lot better with children, but my "oldest daughter" is as grating as cheese sometimes) commented that she does not ride the bus, but "travels first class."
JEFF: My Senior year in High School, I walked to school.
HER (age 13): Why are old people always talking about when they walked to school?
JEFF: Old people! Old people? How old do you think I am? I'm only twenty!
HER (age 13): That's old!
LEE (age 29): Shut up! Shut up! Just stop right now!
And then at another point, I was talking to my other daughter, who, although the same age as the other, is the youngest one, by virtue of being short.
HER (headphones on ears): What sort of music do you think I listen to?
JEFF (thinking "Backstreet Boys," "N'Sync," and other signs of the Apocalypse): Oh, the everyday stuff, I guess.
HER: No, I actually listen to old rock.
JEFF (Thinking "Monkees," "Simon and Garfunkel," and so forth): All right!
HER: Yeah, like from the early nineties.
But we fogies got our revenge at the hotdog eating contest! The whipper snappers had spastic metabolisms and easily expandable stomachs on their sides, but we the apparently sage had prestretched stomachs and the uncanny ability to completely disregard everything we know about the composition of the hotdog. They sent in their best, a big-headed kid named David Bush, and we answered with James Cantu! Game, set, match. The Greaybeards won, 8.5-4.
Another James Cantu story: He and Josh Jenatta (who will be our title character in JOSEPH) were on the TWV tour during the year, and during that time, kept trash talking each other about who had superlative tennis skill. To make a short story shorter, James won, and Josh had to give him a pair of his shoes and call him "Daddy" for the rest of the summer.
As I said in the last letter, I am understudy for the lead role in HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS: Devil Anse Hatfield, the leader of that clan. The man who currently holds the role is a nice man named Steve Bush, who has played it for the past twenty years. He has historically not missed a performance. However, this is not his real job. During the year (and yes, even during the summer) he's head technician at the local TV station. He works hideous hours and lives off of cigarettes and coffee, and our musical director told me that every year it is more and more likely that his understudy will have to go in for him, especially this year, his doctor having told him to cut back.
Well, I think that's more than enough for now.
Commentary: Another recurring theme, my understudying for Steve Bush. To date, I have never gone on for him. There have been a couple of close scrapes. Hee hee hee, I still give Cassie a hard time about that Early 90s business. Now, I'm not Anti-Texas, and I should clarify that before I start getting hats in the mail. I just get frustrated at the habit, usually noted in Texans (but by no means are they sole proprietors of it) of swearing grace to their homeland, to the extent that it precludes finding beauty anywhere else.
6-17-02
I hear that my friend and roommate, Aaron Cardona, has decided to take Russian as a foreign language.
Mwa ha ha ha...
Wait, were you kidding? No?
Mwa ha ha ha! One down!
By the way...
Hi.
I write you after a thirteen day work week, the last six of those days having been PRODUCTION.
Yep.
There's not really much to write about this week (here the readers start organizing themselves for the [too late to worry about spelling correctly] howlelooyah chorus.)
Hm.
There still have not been any fireflies stuck in my beard. Oh well, there's still two months left. I did get a mosquito in my beard. (It's not as nasty as it sounds--outdoor drama plus having to lie on the ground as a dead man plus beard equals, well, I don't know, but I still don't like Gertrude Stein). It met a swift besquishening, which will be the punishment of any mosquito, flea, or kitten that tries to infiltrate my beardy goodness.
Commentary: Not very interesting. This was a tiring week, and so I didn't have the energy for a proper press release. However, it's worth saving just for the following, which appeared in the same mailing:
If my roommate should learn Russian
If my roommate should learn Russian
If my roommate should learn Russian
If my roommate roommate roommate
Should learn roommate learn should learn to learn
And learning learns to learn and learning learn
And Russian learns my roommate learns my roomate
Should Russian learn Russian and my roommate learn Russian
And my Russian rushes a learned roommate
Besquishening the kitten with Napoleon...
That's boring even for me. I'm stopping now.
6-24-02
Week number five in West Virginia.
So far, I have been doing quite well. Scott Holsclaw (my theatre professor) came in to see the show last night. He came on a Hatfields night, which makes me happy, because that's my favorite show of the two we have already been doing. In any event, after five weeks of relative quarantine up here, it was good to see a familiar face. One that was actually there, I mean, as opposed to one my unfortunate hallucinations brought on by drinking too much sour milk.
Although I'm using the time I now have, I am also awaiting the return to school. For those of you who do not know, I've already written a few articles for when my column starts back up next semester. (Notice, I said "WHEN!" Mwa ha ha ha ha ha! Mwa ha ha! Mwa ha ha ha hack sputter wheeze ha hack cough cough ha! Being evil is difficult on the throat.)
GA: Didn't you use that joke already.
What does it matter? When you consider the size and volume of letters that I send out, remembering which jokes I have used more than once is like having memorized how many uses of "the" there are in a Russian novel.
GA: There aren't any articles in Russian.
Something strange happened the other day: Somebody in cast actually described my humour in favorable terms. Somebody made a joke and Raven Peters said "You see, you don't have that highbrow humour like Jeff."
So now that we're back in rehearsals (do you remember when I was talking about that?) I'm basically clocking in at ten and clocking out at midnight. It's not really as bad as it sounds, because there are a couple of hefty breaks thrown in between the rehearsal and the night's performance, but still, I'm out of the flat most of the day. Monday, though, is my day off. Mih nyeh rabotam v ponedyelniki. We don't work on Mondays. Monday is like Saturday, Sunday, and Christmas all rolled into one with a dash of the Fourth of July, boil till softened, add a generous helping of National Kitten Lover's Day and serve with a side of Thanksgiving garnished with Mickey Mouse's birthday. I remember logically proving to Stephanie Haynes that there was, physically speaking, no such thing as Monday. She conceded that Monday is anathema because it is the day of returning to work. She stated that if we returned to work on Tuesday, everybody would hate Tuesdays. I am developing a friendly hatred of ftornik (Tuesday), I and I keep thinking, as I wake up every Monday, "What Would Garfield Do?" The answer is, of course, go back to sleep and dream of lasagna.
Mmmmm... Lasagna....
"Harry, every day, give yourself a present. It may be a fifteen minute nap at the office, it may be a new shirt from the men's store, or it may be a steaming hot cup of coffee." --Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks
Commentary: Yup. Another letter. A few of my professional theatre friends tossed me some kudos for the Monday bit.
7-4-02
Those of you who know me (which should be all of you, come to think of it) know that I go through these seasons of monomania--times when there is one pasttime on my mind and all segues lead to it. My college friends nod as they remember how The Tick gave way to Space Ghost gave way to Twin Peaks gave way to Man of La Mancha, and so forth, on down the line. During the summer, my shifts are much less spastic. I have one craze for the entire summer, and that keeps hold.
For instance, the summer after my sophomore year was the summer of Capek. Intending to write a one-man play about Karel Capek (which I cannot do until I've read more of his writings) I did massive research (at least as massive as the puny Van Buren Public Library would allow) into his life, his philosophies, his friends, and general facets of Czech life.
The summer after my junior and senior years were two volumes of the summer of Arthurian Legend--volume one was reading, and I devoured all the Arthurian books I could find. Volume two was writing, when I wrote over thirteen hundred lines of my verse novel about Gawaine, only to decide it had strayed from the point, and start completely over.
Last summer, the summer I worked in the factory, was, as anybody who was on my mailing list all too vividly remembers, the summer of complaining.
This summer is the Summer of Vonnegut. Yes, the book arrived, and it is beautiful. I paid just eight dollars for it (a little more with postage) and I was worried about the condition it would be. I knew it would be hard back and that it boasted six titles and that was all. I feared the binding might have been worn, or worse, that the books would have been abridged. Oh, my friends, let me tell you about this fine volume. Dust jacket, almost flawless, and bright orange (which should make Mr. Cardona happy.) Binding, leather. Gilt lettering. Complete and unabridged.
People, on hearing just how little I paid for it, ask if I got it at ebay. I laugh at them. Ebay is for amateurs. www.alibris.com and www.abebooks.com Those are the places. They are networks of used book stores all over the world.
But enough about that.
What is the point of stamp-collecting.
Further proof for those of you who think I have been taking Russian too long. Apparently, "keeping fives" on a chair means saving it for somebody who had been sitting there while he gets up and gets a hot dog or something along those lines. It's a new term to me, and was explained at this picnic. Well, after the man returned and resumed his seat, it was my turn to get some food, so I asked him to "keep fives" on my seat. As I stood up, he then jokingly asked a woman named Pat if she wanted to sit there. My first thought was that, in Russian, this is a pun.
Aaron, you will want to take Russian, just so you can understand this.
Everything between the lines of asterisks is completely true. Just take that as written. I know I josh around with you guys quite frequently in my anecdotes--I'll start speaking on a point, then I'll provide examples. The first two are always real, and then they begin getting absurd. But let me tell you that the fact I am about to disclose to you bears no embellishments. And, if you are squeamish, you might wish to skip to after the asterisks.
The company grieved recently as Ewell Cornett, one of the composers to HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS past away recently. Last Saturday night, when we performed that same show, our House Manager, Shannon, walked up to where a couple of us were sitting and made the following announcement.
SHANNON: Ewell's daughter is here tonight.
BOB: Oh yeah?
SHANNON: Yeah. And she brought a little bit of Ewell with him.
BOB: She brought his remains?
SHANNON: Yes. It's all in his will. She's going to disburse the ashes around the theatre after tonight's show.
BOB AND I: Hm.
SHANNON: But that's not all. She's only going to disburse half after the show. The other half she has asked to be mixed with the black powder and used in the shotgun blanks for tonights performance.
There it is. There it is.
I saw the black powder being mixed myself. I saw it poured into the shells that were marked RIP EC. The shotguns were quiet that night, because it was only about a sixty percent mixture of black powder.
*****
In HONEY AND THE ROCK, I was assigned two children, as some of you might remember. Cassie, the girl who plays my youngest daughter, goes down in history as the first child "of mine" that I have been able to stand. In CHRISTMAS CAROL, the Crachit children were intolerable, and the only one I could stand was actually three years older than me. In THE NERD... Hm. What can I say about Chris? What about "Chris, come out of that demon." But I actually get along with Cassie.
It is O-fishal, I will be dancing in the Joe Show. Get your tickets to see me fall on my tuccus.
Commentary: Hehehe, the famous Ewell Cornett incident. The list of monomanias was interesting. And I need to sit down and break my record again, some time. Er, stand up and break my record, I mean.
7-8-02
Week Seven has drawn to an end, and with it, the first half of my contractual obligation.
Seven more weeks, and I shall return to the Land of Opportunity, the Natural State, the Undisclosed Third Nickname--Arkansas! Not that I'm homesick, but the instant messaging, the emails, the phonecalls (albeit I've never been home when one of you guys tried) have not been remiss.
As I have mention, I have shifted from "The One who Knows Russian" to "The Russian." It's interesting to see how far this reputation goes. Cast members ask me for translations of random words (some of which I am able to supply.) Our musical director, Tim Waugh, just last night gave me some Russian sheet music of a piece by Rakhmaninov. But what really surprized me was when I got a note from one of our higher-ups, informing me that there would be two Russian children at one of our performances, and asking me if I could speak to them after the show. Everybody else, onhearing this, asked me if I was going to sit next to them and translate the show for them. I thanked them for their unwarranted faith in my abilities, just as I thanked the kind Americans, hosts to Anton and Posha, who asked me if I could explain to them what the play was about.
An eight and nine year old stomped me. Of course, they have been speaking this language exclusively for eight and nine years respectively, and I have only been muddling through it for two semesters.
However, I find an interesting side effect of having two semesters of college Russian, two years of high school Spanish, and twenty years of everywhere else English, is the development of something I call "Roosko-spanglish." Those who have studied Spanish with an English background know all about Spanglish, which is evident when you see signs that say "Mexican Restaurante" or hear "Attencion K-Mart Shoppers." Roosko-spanglish allows for such phrases as "Brrr! It's ochyen frio in here."
Some of you might remember when I mentioned the Second Stage program over here. Well, I was a little confused on things, and I found that it's best to keep with short plays. I've decided to do a staged reading, but not necessarily a full-fledged production, of my closet drama "The Perfectly Sane Dialogues."
The Understudy list has come out for the Joe Show. Once again, I am understudy to longtime veteran Steve Bush. In this show, he plays the father to Joseph, so this makes me, his understudy, Jacob Junior or, if you will, Israel Lite.
Well, I don't really know if I have any fun little tidbits to pass along.
Dah ponedyelnika!
Commentary: I snipped this one up a bit, but I held on to most of it just because it introduces Roosko-spanglish. Not that I mention Roosko-spanglish anymore, it's just that I continue to use it. In fact, up until recently, whenever I had to mix some English into my Russian, I would always make sure to inculde a little Spanish there, too. This is not because of some linguistic cry of equality. No, I just couldn't think of what to call the mixed language without any Spanish in it. Roosklish? Sounds clumsy. I recently settled on Angrooski, a little reminiscent of the Asiatic Engrish.
7-16-02
You dear, patient souls who have not yet blocked my address,
Another Tuesday letter. I'm currently in the middle of our second thirteen day work week here in the land of land. Last night (or rather, this morning) we finished rehearsal for The Joe Show and shall tonight have the opening.
Ever since I came here (eight weeks down, six to go) I've been having this recurring dreamer (at least once ever fortnight--a little more I think) that involves some form of barber procedure. The first couple times I had this dream, it was that I had shaved (I have not shaved in three months) and lately it's been milder, just a haircut (I have not had a haircut in five months). In any case, this frightened me, because my contract stipulates that I have to have the approval of my directors before I have such an operation done. Right before I woke up each time, I thought "Great googley moogley, I'm gonna get fired!" (Although not necessarily with that phrasing.)
I just finished rereading T. Coraghesson Boyle's THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE (and am now thoroughly enjoying ALL THE KING'S MEN) and as I sat at rehearsals, enjoying the fine quality first edition I had bought cheaply from my friends at Alibris, every once in a while, there would be a passage I felt had to be read aloud. In one such passage, Dr. Kellogg was ruminating on some of his problem patients, and thinks specifically of a certain treatment he was administering at the time. Somewhere in that paragraph, came up the phrase "an effacacious cure of chlorosis." Rich Jagunic, the director for The Joe Show, was ambling by at just about the time that those words of Mr. Boyle passed my lips. He stopped and repeated them, then appeared to be in such a rapture of words that he immediately brought to mind the Pair of Peripatetic Professors who amble about our campus, memorizing sonnets at each other, and who can still allow themselves to fall in love with the very shapes of words.
The novel ALL THE KING'S MEN (by Mr. Robert Penn Warren) brings with it a few memories of its own. Last semester, several denizens of the English department (Ms. Crouch, Beer Nutt, and myself [a rather frightening triad of zealous English majors] included) got a chance to see a wonderful stage play of that novel.
A week from today, my mother and brother shall be arriving here to see the shows.
When I started telling people that I was going to be acting professionally in West Virginia (sometimes this was done by twisting my fingers into the shape of the initials of that name, causing some people to think they were about to be killed by a Vulcan street gang) I would get a wide range of comments. The most common were A) the land is beautiful up there, and B) there's a lot of hicks. (Have I mentioned this before?)
The English majors shudder, thinking of the deep structure of that sentence.
Well, perhaps there shall be more next week.
I really should carry a small pad with me, and jot down all the things that occur to me to add to the press release.
Commentary: Doodley-poop! Was I ever so concerned about getting a friggen' haircut? Look closely, kids, this is one of the few references to Mary Crouch as an English major.
July 22nd , 2002
Happy Kartofyel, everybody!
That's right. For those of you who don't know--I'm French. It's a fairly recently development, and everybody was fairly shocked. NI! "Villines" comes from "Villaumes" of "Villon" or something like that. I declared myself French because, having a suitemate predominately Irish, a roommate noticeably Mexican, and lackey obnoxiously German, I noticed that I was lacking in something.
After I first saw LE CITE DES ENFANTS PERDUS, I went to the lunch table and declared that that movie had made me proud to be French. Now, I'm happy to proclaim that the same director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, has done it again. AMELIE. Yes, it's a French film, and quite a lot of people have been talking about it. I find that upsetting for pretty much the same reason that I'm not currently reading LORD OF THE RINGS.
I'm happy that the RINGS movies have gotten people to read the books (despite the fact that I quipped cynically, "Every once in a while, a movie comes out that not only reminds people that they know how to read, but tricks them into thinking that they actually do.") but right now, so many people are reading the books because its popular. I remember being a geek for reading those in junior high! I read the books on their own merit, and would happily revisit them, but not until the hype from the movies has died down in a few years. I refuse to be lumped with the likes of those who dumped my copy of TWO TOWERS in the trash shortly after I finished it.
Is this a stupid reason to eschew a book? Yes. I'll admit. However, remember that I have already read those books. This is probably one of those ideas I'll abandon soon, though, just as I abandoned, without a trace of its former existence, my "hatred" of Dickens.
Independent and foreign films are an odd place for me, though. There are so many people who profess to love them, simply because it makes them appear more intelligent. Oh well, I guess it's the same thing as Boy Scouts: You get two dozen boys in a troop, and maybe two of them sincerely hold the principles of Scouting. And those are the ones you put troops together for.
But I'm rambling.
What? O, what a horrible dream. I just had a dream that I had written an email that didn't make any sense and made me out to be a pernickety doofus.
Well, we opened The Joe Show, and it's going well. I'm excited about that, but I'm even more excited about "The Perfectly Sane Dialogues." What excites me most is how excited my cast is. They're all eager to get to work on this interesting exploration of circular logic.
Auditions were fun. It was nice being on the other side of the fence--seeing people doing their best, fighting for places in our plays.
At the time of auditions, I had not yet had the scripts printed. However, I felt it was necessary to hear how the women auditioning would deliver a certain line (and I think those who have read PSD in any of its forms know which one that is.) So I gathered them all in a line and passed down a piece of paper, on which was written
"I don't want to hear your patriarchal rationalizations, you Bolshevik anarchist nazi!"
I'm happy with the cast I picked, and am even happier that the entirety of that cast accepted roles.
Well, my mother and brother will be here tomorrow. Yay!
Ni!
Well, there are plenty of things I want to say, but I'm waiting until my family has seen the shows, so that I don't give anything away.
Commentary: Wow. Look at all those random 'Ni's. To think that my style was ever that spastic. The City of Lost Children is still fricken awesome. So there.
7-29-02
I'm having a bit of a difficult time getting into this email--
"We gotta get into this planet."
"I'm sorry, Zaphod, I'm just not into it."
"No, into it, INTO it. The Magratheans all lived under ground, y'know."
"Why, did the surface become too polluted or overpopulated?"
"No, they just didn't like it very much."
So, due to my outofitedness, this press release shall probably be a short one.
"The Perfectly Sane Dialogues" goes well. The cast is enjoying it. I foresee a little problem with the props, but it should all shape up nicely.
In the first part of the Joe Show, several members of the chorus (myself included) were told that we were just random Biblical people. Several of us adopted Biblical identities. Since the length of my costume requires that I lift my skirt up off the ground to move about better, I determined I am Elijah. I miss being around people who would get that joke.
Before I left for West Virginia, Scott Holsclaw told me two things, both of which ended up wrong. The first was that outdoor drama doesn't use much makeup, if any. Well, I have been using just as much makeup as I would in an indoor stage, but that's perfectly fine. Like Jonathan White, I like seeing the imperfections of my face disappear beneath a layer of foundation. I wonder if I spelled Whiteboy's given name correctly... oh well. The second thing that Scott told me was that I would be playing parts closer to my own age.
Hee hee hee hee. Hwa hwa hwa hwa.
Guess what, faithful fans---I'm once again playing an old man. Senator John B. Floyd is--OLD! Not just old, but the director told me (I did not even mention that I had the ability) to play the Senator as some sort of Foghorn Leghorn. Yep, the Colonel is back. Oh well, I don't mind playing old men all that much. Cyrano is not exactly young, nor is Fagin, nor is Lear, nor is Quixote.
The reason my emails have been so relatively short this summer is because I want to be able to have some "fresh" anecdotes to tell around spastic dinner tables.
Commentary: Oh yes, my oft complained "Old Man" typecast. I was not free from the benighted White Shoe-Polish of Age until An Enemy of the People.
8-6-02
Hello.
"I've just decided to switch our Friday schedule with our Monday schedule, which means that the test we take every Friday over what we've learned during the week we'll now take on Monday before we've learned it. But seeing as how today is Wednesday, it doesn't matter in the slightest, do I make myself clear?"
Week eleven has drawn to a close, which surprised me, because I did not know what a "to a close" looked like until Week eleven drew it.
Bad pun, bad pun.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, you know you've missed him for the past couple of months, here, fresh out of quarantine, making a special guest appearance, your favorite sadistic Leprechaun and mine, Gershefnefield Ambisiduloskidrov!
THWAP!
Thank you.
Last Wednesday saw the first ever production of my closet drama "The Perfectly Sane Dialogues." It went swimmingly. It was beautiful hearing words I had written coming to life, let alone hearing laughter accompany them. I did not wish to be in it, but so few men auditioned that I was forced to take the role of the Psychiatrist. Ladies and gentlemen, as if these names mean anything to you, I present you with, the cast:
DURMOND Brad McKenzie
RECEPTIONIST Kim Bowler
DENTIST Bob Skidmore
JUDGE Raven Peters
PROSECUTOR David Tieche
PSYCHIATRIST Jeffrey R. Villines
BROTHER JOHN Peter Hamilton
Some of you had written me and ordered me to send you guys video tapes of this hoodledihoo, and I informed each and every one of you that there is a man who is known to tape every performance of this nature.
Guess when he had his day off.
It was looking like I wasn't going to be able to provide video tapes, but I have lately found out that one of my cast members had his roommate in the audience with a camcorder, so it looks like I'm going to get a copy after all. No promises, though.
Even if I don't get a copy, something beautiful has come of it. People from two different colleges have asked me if they could do it for their respective nights of student-directed one-acts. Another cast member ordered me to get this mammajamma published.
I feel my cast did a wonderful job, and they all seemed to be in tune with the rhythm of the characters. Although Kim did well as the Receptionist, though, I still feel that there is one who could have played her better, and that is Jenny Burke. Jenny, if you're reading this (and that if should be rather unnecessary, since she is my sister) I want you to know that you're still going to be the Receptionist when I get the short film off the ground.
NARRATOR : Erin Shirl
DURMOND: Jarrod Morris
RECEPTIONIST: Rebecca Akin
DENTIST: Kyle Thomas
JUDGE: Nic Carbonero
PROSECUTOR: Kendra Scattergood
PSYCHIATRIST: Jonathan White
BROTHER JOHN: Rushing Mayes.
I was proud of the entire process. It was a real turnaround point for Jarrod, and I do not mean to be obnoxious when I say that. But the fact is that, until PSD, he never got a chance to take a leading role. After that, when the faculty saw what he could do, he flourished, eventually netting the lead in An Enemy of the People (and I had the opportunity to play Peter to his Thomas Stockmann). As I write this, on the seventeenth of November, 2004, Jarrod's wedding is about a month away. Congratulations, little brother; I'm proud of you.
8-13-02
Beloved, we are gathered here today to mark the passing of week twelve. Week twelve is survived by the two remaining weeks, week thirteen and chetirnadtsati nedyel.
One of the things TWV does during the main year is a marionette tour that goes around to schools and entertains the tots. This year's marionette story is a combination of several fairy tales that involve the Wolf. Auditions were held for the voices of this doodlefoodle, and I got a spot on the team and a twenty-five dollar bonus. We record tomorrow, I think. I'm the voice of Peter (as in Peter and the Wolf [Piotr i vol]) and the cat (tozhyeh v "Piotr'eh i vol'yeh").
Something interesting about being in plays in which there are narrators (this fairy tale thing and the Joe Show) is that every time the director has a direction for one of them, I still find myself answering to "Narrator." INTO THE WOODS never dies, I guess.
BAKER: I thought you had died.
MYSTERIOUS MAN: Not completely. Does anybody?
We disappoint/
We disappear/
We die, but we don't./
We disappoint/
In turn, I fear/
Forgive though, they won't.
Sorry about that, that's just one of my favorite songs from that particular musical. I've been waxing nostalgic from time to time lately. Why? you ask. Because nobody wants a scuffed nostalgic.
A lot of my spare time (contain your jealousy and incredulity, please) has been spent in cleaning out my email account. I've been teetering dangerously on the edge of receiving a letter from MSN which reads, "Hey, cracka, you back off on that email or I'll put your name on the Montgomery Ward mailing list" for the past few months, so I finally decided to do something about it.
I erased all records of the existence of Montgomery Ward.
Some of you say, "Montgomery Ward has been out of business for years."
Proves my point, which is doubleplusgood.
But after my excursion into revisionist history, I went ahead and transferred the body of email from several of my oldest penpals over into Word Documents. Looking back through all those old emails, seeing the things that had been important to me, soforth soforth, brings to mind those famous words from that famous soap opera:
"Like sands through an hourglass, so run granuals of an equally fine powder through an hourglass of similar proportions."
That soap opera was, of course, "Rock 'n Roll Jeopardy."
I saw a wonderful movie last night, VANILLA SKY. Oh, how wonderful to add another twig to that nest in which I have built a nice summer home, a home painted with the most brilliant pastel shades of black and white--surrealism. Good times.
"So you designed this mansion yourself?"
--"Yeah, I wanted a place just like Xanadu, only without the dorky name."
"What do you call it?"
--"'Fort Awesome.'"
Wow. That's it? Just three or four pesky trivialities, garnished with quotes from "NewsRadio" and an Orwell reference? I'm afraid so.
Commentary: He he he, NewsRadio.
8-19-02
"Jeff?"
--"Yes?"
"This is Mum. I was just calling because I noticed that this was your pentultimate week, and I just thought I'd call you and say 'penultimate.'"
--"That sounds like something I would do. Penultimate, penultimate, penultimate."
The penultimate week has ended. Now, I sally forth into my final week here in the Land Which I am Repeatedly Told is Not Texas. Some interesting things this week.
For those of you who have not worked in outdoor drama, there is this thing called "rain pace." Rain pace basically means, "Get your butt in gear so we can finish this show before it starts raining." Basically, you have to cut out all dramatic pauses and make completely different decisions so the show will be shorter.
In HATFIELDS AND McCOYS, there's a song called "Bad Blood," which is shortened drastically on wet nights because the dancers shouldn't be out there prancing around on a slippery stage.
I have no problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is when, on rainy nights, entire scenes are cut out, not for safety reasons, but because the Techies don't want to go home too late. Is this a necessary evil in outdoor drama? I don't know; I don't even like rain pace. But I know this much: this shall continue to bug me until either I stop doing outdoor drama or I stop caring. I don't know if I'll ever do the former, but I pray I never do the latter--when I do, that's the time to fold up shop.
As you know, I'm understudy for Steve Bush, the lead in HATFIELDS. The other night, as I was putting on my Senator Floyd makeup (brushing snow white(c) into my hair is getting really annoying) Aaron Stapleton, one of our techies (and one of the three Arkies in the company) came up behind me and said, "Do you know your lines?"
HE: Your Devil Anse lines. Do you know them?
ME: Tolerably well.
HE: You're going in for him.
ME: What?
HE: You're going in for him.
ME: Are you kidding?
HE: Would I *$&% with you about something like this?
ME: Yes. (such a rhetorical question only works if you have a reputation for earnest dealing)
Apparently, Mr. Bush was having some dizzy spells up there on stage. Orders, as confirmed by the Assistant Stage Manager and the Techincal Director, were that I was to go in for him at that moment, which was sometime in the middle of the second act.
Of course, it didn't happen. Steven refused to take a break, and he went ahead and finished the play. That man works too hard. I know it sounds merely like a disappointed understudy when I say this, but he shouldn't push himself like this. Before he even shows up to the theatre, he's worked a full day at the television station.
Peter had a friend from Texas in for a couple days, and last Thursday, we had to take him to the airport. For those of you who do not know, the airport is in Charleston, about an hour away from here. I asked if I might tag along for, in South Charleston, there is a place--a place of magic and wonder--a City of Gold it has been my dream to reach for a few years. Yes, my friends, I speak of no place other than Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
Several gas stations and grocery stores around here sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but I have learned from several reputable friends that the first Krispy Kreme doughnut (as this was to be) is best to be one straight off of the conveyor belt. And so, I contained my drool every time I drove by a Quik-E-Mart bearing their green, white, and red logo (the colors of Christmas), and bided my time until I would be able to get to Charleston, where lies the only Krispy Kreme in the state.
Many of you know just how distrustful I am of superlatives, so when I kept hearing that Krispy Kreme was the best house of doughnuts, I was wary. But, oh, my brothers...
When I walked into the bakery and saw the conveyor belt, my difficult sense of smell flashed into existence. What is more delightful than the smell of freshly baked pastry? Waiting with tempered patience in line, I had a chance to see all the beautiful doughnuts as they weaved their way around the production line. If they are not bought in the bakery before they get to the end of the line, they are boxed up to be sent off to the gas stations and grocery stores. These beauties are made whenever the doors are open; they do not sit around in the display cases.
We ordered a dozen glazed, then, having received our order, left. I want to straggle behind, and have that first one there in the store, but we were already in such a place that we would be late for call, so we headed back to the car. As soon as I was in my seat, I opened the box and saw the twelve halos of fried dough packaged with trademark inneficiency. I chose a hearty one and raised it to my erratically working nostrils. Finally, when I could delay it no longer, I bit into it.
Oh, if the poetry of Shakespeare could be fried in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, it would be done at Krispy Kreme. There was a minute degree of resistance offered to my teeth by the glazed shell of the doughnut, but it soon passed, and I felt the baked radiance of the doughnut in my mouth soon enough. Oh, my friends, flowery do I speak, but even then I cannot describe accurately this taste sensation. Hie ye all forth to Krispy Kreme doughnuts!
Postscript: Yes, Mary, I know just how unhealthy doughnuts are, but as says the last couplet in "Matinee Tragedy,"
"And of course, like all, I lamented it was so / But, ye gods, Mr. Durmond, what a way to go!"
Commentary: There it is, the last email I have for the season, and one which was a great favorite of my subscribers. Mmmm... I could do with some Krispy Kreme right about now.
