Michael Clark Choreography

Oh or this one

Which one of these pictures should we use for For Artists Only if any?

Good Circles in Beijing Opera

I had an inkling that Wallace Shawn was strange and amazing but didn't know until now just how strange and amazing

"You know, the food wasn't bad - some sort of chicken - but I was having trouble breathing, and I was finding it difficult to hear properly. The person sitting on my left seemed to say his name was something like Sentimental-Melting-Custard-Face Mouth-Droop, and on my right there was a woman who seemed to call herself something like Pudding Poodle-Face. The discussion of lawnmowers was so uninteresting that I realized Robin had planned the party with a bad intent"

Wallace Shawn - Grasses of a Thousand Colors

Oh Life

From an Associated Press report, discussing the history of balloon boy's father:

Over the years, Richard Heene has worked as a storm chaser, a handyman and contractor, and an aspiring reality-TV star.

I am a bit naive, perhaps, but I didn't understand one could "work" at becoming a reality TV star.

*Furthermore and personally, the story became a lot more interesting when it was about a hoax. Why up in arms! We love hoaxes!

Yesterday, and this morning

Yesterday, in swatting my alarm clock, going of beside my bed, my alarm clock that had brayed for an hour already, off and on, intermittently with swatting, yesterday, in swatting my alarm clock I swatted a glass that held red wine the night before onto the floor and it shattered. Well, I thought, I could learn many lessons from that sequence of events.

Yesterday I put pasta and a homemade sauce onto a stove to heat up. I returned to my room and became involved in my computer and its inability to load video. When I remembered the pasta, cooking on the stove, it was too late. The individual tubes of penne were black. Not a little black but a lot black. The sauce was indistinguishable from the pan. I thought about scrubbing the pot, but the inside is teflon.

This morning I got a coffee. When I was at the coffee shop, filling my coffee with a little two percent milk, a daughter said to her mother, no less than half a foot away from me, "I want boots like that." Her mother made a grimace like she had swallowed something very unpleasant. "What," her daughter said, "you don't like those boots?" Her mother shook her head quietly and gravely, as if in recognition that my hip was nearly touching her thigh, but unable, in the end to tell a lie.

For Artists Only Residency at The Bushwick Starr.

Starring Hannah Heller, Julia May Jonas, Meghan Ritchie and Jon Lundbom on guitar. From a residency at The Bushwick Starr, May 2009.

For Artists Only will premiere in entirety at the Ontological Hysteric Theater this December, 2009.

Help support the production! Learn how to give at www.nellietinder.org/donate

New Trends

In order to have some posting whilst I'm in graduate school, I'm going to start putting up some exercises we do in class.  Here's the one from today: 

REVELATIONS (please excuse this title).

 

WOMAN: I’m at an airport bar in JFK and I’m waiting for a flight to London England. They’re playing a song by a band that I thought only I knew.  I read a take out menu, over and over and over again.

MAN: I’m in Mexico City, at an airport bar after we’ve stood in line for customs for over and hour, before realizing that we didn’t need to be in a line at all. I think I expect rules to be followed with understanding that flights must be caught by those who must catch them.  But that day I understand for the first time, really, that officials are not always official and that hordes happen not because of moral failings on the part of those waiting but rather because some systems are still deeply flawed. The airport bar in Mexico is fluorescent lit and dingy.  I sit smoking and drinking and realize that I had behaved unconscionably at my grandparent’s birthday party nine years ago.

WOMAN: I am in a cocktail bar with a beautiful group of friends.  I’m sitting with my brilliant companion and he is holding my hand.  There is a taste in my mouth because I puked at the restaurant before the cocktail bar to make room for cocktails. My brilliant companion sits talking to a man whose hair used to be brown, but in the two years I’ve known him has flecked with gray so that now I would describe him as having gray hair rather than brown.  I think to myself, there was that one time, one year ago that Peter finished his film and I don’t think I asked enough questions about it, nor did I ask to see it. I raise my head like a baby with no neck control and plop it on my precious darling’s shoulder and my mouth lines up with his lobe-less ear.  I’m afraid to speak because even though my beloved loves and reveres me, there’s a desire to maintain an ounce of dignity, as I’ve seen the best of loves squandered by dignity’s demise. Save it till you’re sick or ancient says me to me

MAN: I am eating French cut lamb chops in the summer on a front lawn in a Midwestern suburb, gnawing on bones and drinking red wine.  There is a story of how in the mid 1970’s two men, far older than me, took a five mile jog after drinking 5 gin and tonics in the St. Louis July heat.   One of the men left his blonde family for another woman but his wife, who my mom says is a tiger, got him back.  I thought about how we think in stipulations when we are young: once this goes, that goes – once this happens nothing will be the same, once trust is lost the foundation is shattered and I realize this is wrong.  Really you just set up a system with another person whose rules are thank the lord based on your mutual individualities and you try, best you can, to stick to that system.  But what the system is never matters, as long as you always maintain belief in the truth of that system and never question it, not once ever.

WOMAN: I am in the South of France drinking pastis, trying to pretend I won’t have to see all of you in the morning.

MAN: I am in Germany in the backseat, drinking beer, in the hopes that it will make speaking less of a chore.

WOMAN: I am in Denmark eating pizza and you tell me I am eating too much pizza.

MAN: I am in Sweden, drinking corny Swedish cocktails at a party in a shanty-town, dancing in the basement with you to a remix of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

WOMAN: I must say your jazz concert was better because of the whiskey.  The whiskey drinking was dramatic, I’ll admit with hands held high, but it had been a long time since I’d allowed myself to be overly-dramatic.  It felt nice, although I should have used logical thinking to realize that in hindsight I would regret drinking whiskey dramatically for you.  You played very beautifully - at the time I thought you played like you were underwater.  When you finished you walked up to me and kissed me, and even though I my head was spinning, I still thought the kiss was a little OTT.

MAN: Over the top.  Like a scene in the movie you love when you’re fifteen because it portrays adults acting like teenagers in blue-lit bars.  But when you grow up to the age when you are that adult it is not that you’ve lost your illusions but more that you realize that cool bars don’t look like that and those adults in those movies don’t ever get anything done. 

WOMAN: After we kissed, which although exciting, was, as aforementioned, a little uncomfortable, I walked home and on a busy street staggered and fell.  A man offered to walk me home because I staggered and fell  - but I didn’t take him up on it, the falling had sobered me sufficiently and for the rest of the walk home I made it a point to walk with a deliberate mind in a straight line.

MAN: Jesse, you were a beautiful girl, and although I am a sensitive enough man to enjoy when I don’t go home with someone, rather than when I do, you’re the one woman I look back on with regret for turning down. 

When we danced at the birthday party you held my suspenders in your hand and you looked at me with plaintive doe eyes and you had the most beautiful, thick, sandy blonde hair and a little compact body and you were even intelligent and I wish we had entangled.

Jesse I want to explain.  I didn’t go home with you only because I was having a very personal revelation during that birthday party.

I was having a very personal revelation that there was a kernel of my mind that could remain untouched no matter what.  That there was a part of me that could not get obliterated or changed no matter how much I wanted something.  There was a part of my mind that always had complete control.  It was a wonderful, feeling, Jesse, and you functioned (I admit it now) as a bit of a test case, that evening.  I drank beer after beer and never lost that kernel of mind – you held my suspenders while we were dancing and I never lost that kernel of mind – we all French kissed, the four of us, remember, just for fun, a four-way kiss, and I maintained that kernel of mind.  Partly I knew, I had foreshadowing, Jesse, that what you were so attracted to was, in fact that very revelation of mind - that un-touch-ability made me completely attractive to you.

I knew that in the morning, should I lose that access to the unbreakable mind I knew that you would be disappointed. I also knew I would have to fall in love with you, just for a little bit, to make myself feel like things were right.  And I admit I was thrilled with your obvious feeling of torment when I ran my fingers through your hair as a way to say goodbye.  If it makes you feel any better, Jesse, you’ve become a regular character in my masturbation fantasies: dancing and holding on to my suspenders with your smooth skin, compact body and sandy-blonde hair.

WOMAN & MAN: I have done nothing at all except booze my heart quiet.  I bought the Origin of Species yesterday.  I only remember one thing: blue-eyed cats are always deaf.  I bought Moby Dick today.  That’s more like the real thing.  White whales and natural piety.  I sleep more and more – 10 hours at a stretch. I wish it were 20.  I haven’t opened my mouth except in bars & groceries since you left: to haughty bartenders and black-souled grocers.  About going I don’t know.  I suppose I must go home. 

MAN: My life.

WOMAN: Yes love?

MAN: My copy of Samuel Beckett letters is waterlogged.  You spilled something yellow all over my book of Samuel Beckett letters.  You know how important to me are the letters of Samuel Beckett.  I use a bookmark instead of dog-earing the pages.  I underline in pencil using a ruler and erase the marking when I can’t remember particularly why I’ve underlined in the first place.  Remember when I bought Samuel Beckett at the book store?

WOMAN: I remember my love.

MAN: Remember how the bookstore clerk told me nobody was interested in the Samuel Beckett letters except for me? 

WOMAN: I remember my love.

MAN: The letters of Samuel Beckett are my thing!

WOMAN: I know.

MAN: You spilled something yellow over my thing!

WOMAN: I’m sorry.

MAN: What is the yellow something?  Why did you spill it on the letters?

WOMAN: Last night, sweetheart, you were working so late at the office.  You remember?

MAN: I remember, I was -

WOMAN: You kept calling me to tell me that you would be later.  I understand.  I’m no tyrant, I’m not a hysteric.  But nonetheless and irregardless - I couldn’t help this rage from welling up.  From the very pit of my being up to the top of my head, overwhelming me.  And we hadn’t been able to spend time together in such a long time.

MAN: You were busy with –

WOMAN: Not blaming. Not blaming.  I am not blaming you.  But I was angry, like I said I could feel the rage welling up.  So I went to our liquor store and bought a bottle of bourbon and poured a big glass.  This was for us, for our relationship, so I wouldn’t stew in my wrath, so I could greet you with the sweetness you deserve.  And I settled onto our couch with our blue silk down throw wrapped around and between my legs.  And I picked up Samuel Beckett and I was so happy.  And I drank my first glass of bourbon very quickly.  Then I got up and microwaved some cheddar over some tortilla chips and that didn’t turn out as delicious as I had hoped but I was still happy.  And after I ate that I poured myself another glass of bourbon.  I was so comfortable, I mean, really, how often in this life are you really comfortable? I was really enjoying the way Samuel Beckett expressed himself and I was no longer the least bit angry at you so my plan was working.

MAN: You were drunk.

WOMAN: Darling, please. I was happy.  Who knows how long I was there, engrossed, reading the letters, drinking the bourbon, receiving text messages from you saying you were still held up due to computer glitches, who knows how long I was there before I spilled a large the glass on my –

MAN: My!

WOMAN: On your book.  So there.  I confess that is the mystery of the yellow waterlog on your hardcover of Samuel Beckett, solved.  Would you like a new one?  I’ll buy a new one – and I’ll copy all your markings in with a pencil.  I’ll get you a new one, not now, because I haven’t any money for discretionary spending.  But soon I’ll get you a new one.

MAN: When I came home you were asleep in bed and I couldn’t budge you.

WOMAN: I couldn’t wait up all night.

MAN: I felt so badly.  I thought you must have been so tired.  But the truth is you were drunk.

WOMAN: I was, in fact, both drunk and tired.

MAN: You don’t have to buy me a new Samuel Beckett.  I can make due with waterlog.

WOMAN: I absolutely do have to buy you a new Samuel Beckett. 

MAN: You were drinking to avoid me.

WOMAN: I was drinking to commune with you.

MAN: It’s a false communion.

WOMAN: I disagree.

MAN: Anyway you were asleep.

WOMAN: If you tell me you weren’t relieved I’ll call you a liar.

MAN: Relieved? 

WOMAN: You were relieved that I was asleep. 

MAN: I was not relieved.  I missed you.

WOMAN: You were tired.  And you were relieved that you could go to bed without me groping you, you could smoke out the window without a second word from me, you could come in to bed and I’d fold into you silently, smelling pleasantly of bourbon, and you could go to sleep.

MAN: You’re right, I was relieved.

WOMAN: We’re not made to love each other constantly.

MAN: I was relieved. You’re right.  I was relieved.

WOMAN: If I stopped I feel like I’d start watching lots of television or internet videos.  I’d start getting excited about ice cream like a five year old child.  I’d hope that all my clear-headed idle hours would result in some sort of break-through inspiration, but I tend to think that I’d spend it muddle-headed, obsessing about how I can numb the sense fields that feel like they’re exploding out from my skin by eating pudding until I pass out. 

My temporary solution is to keep myself busy with activity until late enough in the day – then I have a hot shower and two cigarettes and read for an hour past my bedtime.

I also try to think about how great it is to be alive.  I feel it when I’m walking down the street alone.  Walking down the street alone I admire my fellow human race baldly.

 

WOMAN: I crashed into the television.

MAN: You did what?

WOMAN: I crashed into the television.  At the Gallestern’s House.

MAN: When?

WOMAN: At the college football playoffs.

MAN: How?

WOMAN: Cheryl and I were doing these cheers for the buck-eyes.  That’s what the Ohio team is called – buck-eyes.  We were making shapes with our bodies, you know with O you raise your hands up and puff out your elbows and you make an O, with H you spread your legs and raise your arms like your torso is the middle of the H, with I you send your hands up into the air like a needle and keep your legs very close to one another, the with O again…you know.

MAN: Yes.  You were making letters with your bodies.

WOMAN: In between making letters with our bodies we did kick lines.  Cheryl and I were doing a kick line and my foot caught on a planter, which ricocheted me into the big screen television, which fell over –

MAN; On top of you?

WOMAN; No the other direction.  It fell over in the other direction and crashed.

MAN; Did it break?

WOMAN; No, thankfully.

MAN; Are you okay mom?

WOMAN; I have a bruise on my elbow.

MAN: Were you drinking?

WOMAN: I had a glass and a half of red wine or so.

MAN: So you were sober.

WOMAN: I was loose.

MAN: Ha you were loose?

WOMAN: I was loose.

MAN: But you’re okay now.

WOMAN: I’m okay.

MAN: Do you feel.  Um.

WOMAN: What.

MAN: Do you feel shame?

WOMAN: No, not so much, I don’t feel so much shame.

MAN: Obviously the first thing you notice is the smell, which for some reason always reminds me of yogurt covered raisins but obviously is nothing like that because it is rental car smell, not yogurt covered raisin smell. Then you notice pavement for miles and miles, because the ugliest landscape you’ll ever see is the miles of pavement surrounding an airport in mid-western America.  You pass strip malls and hear histories about times when people were here or there and when this was a farm or that was a malted shop or some other olden time kind of place.  Then you pull in to this half urban landscape with boarded up buildings and restaurants you don’t want to go to with names like “Subs for Dinner.”  You turn onto a chunky gravel road with tiny and poor-looking but well-kept houses.  The house you turn into is not very well-kept, though, there are holes in the driveway and the grass is tufting all over the place and the tree in the front is half dead and half overgrown.  The door is painted with too thick black paint, and you stand there a long time before it creaks open.  The whole car ride everyone was cheerfully bickering but there was an ominous feeling which feels even heavier as you wait for the door tp creak open.  And when it does you can barely look at the woman who opens your door.  You look at her sideways and try to be sweet, but you can’t help but see that her shirt is stained and her toenails are overgrown and poke holes through her sneakers.  You look at pictures and your eyes glaze over the carpet, which, green originally, takes on the spirit of a wetland marsh, mossy with places that squelch with unexplainable wetness, She is always gripping you, the woman you find it hard to look at and so you stare at a particular errant tuft of hair that decorates a mole above her eyebrow.  You had said that you wouldn’t drink at all this trip, you were taking a break, you were drying up.  You had said that to your wife and she called you a fool, but after an argument she said it would be fine if that’s what you wanted to do and you said yes, it is, that is what I want to do.  But then it is lunch  time and you sit in a kitchen covered in filth and the knife leaves dirt markings the cheddar cheese cuttings that you put in your sandwich with black lettuce and tomatoes that seem dusted in wet powdered sugar.  You try out of politeness to eat but then gag on the white bread sandwich and eventually stick it in your pocket and despite the long drawn out argument you had with your wife in which you asserted your spiritual need for a dry land, despite all you set out to do on this trip, when the man of the house enters and drags out the box of wine and offers you a Six-Flag Great Adventures pint glass full of it, despite everything you were trying to do and stay away from and assert and control, you cannot help but accept the pint glass, and you hold your nose without holding your nose, the way you learned to do internally when you were a child and drink the wine down in almost one gulp.

 

Novelty Court - The Love You Save May Be Your Own

“The Love You Save May Be Your Own,” the Jackson Five’s exhuberant warning against being a slut came on the radio.  V-neck began to sing, softly to himself, jangling his shoulders up and down.  Jem closed her book and smiled at V-neck, because she was making friends with all walks of life and she loved this Jackson Five song and because Michael Jackson recently died.  Turn it up!  (She was the only one in San Marcos).  V-Neck turned the radio up and she bopped, slice in her hand, biting and chewing on the beats.  So it was that her slice dwindled to crusts by the time of the musical breakdown, and s her diet root beer dry by the coda, and she laid down money and packed her bag by the fade of the song. 

V-neck gave her the change with a smile and Jem thought their interaction, she, an artistic female with him, a  - an artisan, had gone very well.  She waved goodbye, exited the glass door into the spring sunny street. 

 

When she counted her change she realized he had bought her one of her slices of pizza and her heart sank.  She hated when her relationship with service people got taken to another level, as was indicated when one started getting things for free.  It had killed her relationship with many an establishment.  She liked to be nice to her coffee slinger or bartender, but she couldn’t understand what she was supposed to do once they had, through, giving her something for free, solidified their relationship into one of tangible camaraderie.   Friendliness was one thing, friends was another.  What was the protocol?  Should she start to find out details about their life so that she could ask them pointed questions?  How is the dog?  The apartment?  Your car?  Were they asking for something from her, i.e. some romantic or sexual promise?  Now that they had paid for one thing once, would they pay for it every time?   Or would every time become an awkward farce of putting out money only to have it be dismissed away with sometimes hard to read gestures?  Should she sometimes insist on paying?  She was never flush enough to not appreciate when she got things to free, so she couldn’t come to that interaction in an unbiased, neutral way.  In essence, it created a messy situation that overwhelmed her and prevented her interaction.  

 

However, she gratefully considered, V-Neck at San Marcos had not announced that he was paying for a slice, and, in fact, perhaps he had simply given her the wrong change.  Always turning it into something about you, Jem, she admonished herself: maybe he was just absent-minded, thinking about some Sophia or Maria he had necked in a car.  Now why the girl was named Maria or Sophia and she had used the word “necked” in her mind was a racist idea that Italians were somewhat of a vintage species – belonging to the 50’s and 60’s world of The Godfather and Goodfellas – not modern participants of culture.  But then again, certainly anyone who works in a pizza place in some way seems from a different time.  It is an arcane business, shoving slabs of dough into ovens in plain sight for all the world to see.  After all, San Marco’s and others wer able to make pizza during the blackout of 2002 when all the rest of the other restaurants and food service places bemoaned the spoilage.  Electricity Independent  Furthermore, Maria and Sophia were common enough names.