Saturday, February 6

Listened to Where Men Win Glory through the 5th disc (of 11), then had to give it back to the library as someone else had it on hold. Now I'm back in the hold queue at #19. It's very good. Rich in information and, although you sense Krakauer's admiration throughout, doesn't hold back on revealing Tillman's more regrettable tendencies and acts. Good, efficient rundowns on the development of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, of the 2000 recount, of the Bush administration's unconscionable lack of response to intelligence leading up to 9/11. Way too much football for me--I would have been happy to collapse several of the descriptions of specific games into a sentence ["Pat continued to excel at football." "They played in the Sun Bowl, which is a big deal."] But all in all, as I said earlier, the writing is really good, and much more elegant and persuasive than Into the Wild.

Last Sunday, I saw Introducing . . . Playwrights West at CoHo Theatre, but "saw" is something of an understatement as I also directed it and wrote one of the eight short plays. What I really thought: an exciting and successful evening. Because we chose not to have a theme or unifying gimmick (a choice I was squarely in favor of till I was drafted to direct), there wasn't quite the satisfying roundness of some other similar evenings I've been involved with, but I think even that worked. And, although I expected I'd be shakey and out of body all night because of perceived high stakes (our company's first public event) and minimal preparation (one 4-hour rehearsal!), I actually managed to enjoy both the show and the champagne schmoozing afterwards. Lots of dear friends there, which was nice. And I've been getting lovely thank-yous and kudos (for the company and me personally) all week, which is also nice. I do want to flesh out my piece just a little and then I might start submitting it--although probably the effort would be better spent on anything else, as it is a 9/11 play, and those are Uncool.

Saw boom last night at Theatre Vertigo. Good play with a terrific premise: A nebbishy biology grad student has invited a young woman (herself an undergrad in journalism) to his basement lab/apartment for sex. Fairly quickly, it's revealed that he believes a comet is going to hit the earth and end life for everyone above ground. Then a comet does hit the earth and end life for everyone above ground, and he tries (repeatedly, over many months) to convince her to restart the human race with him. There's also a narrator/puppet master/docent who works the special effects and provides commentary, as the boy/girl story is actually being played out in a sort of natural history museum, many (many) years in the future. I felt like it the script could have used one more go to integrate the two levels of reality, but that also may have been directorial and/or production limitations. Anyway, fun. Saw it with Maddie, Libbi, and Case.

Re-read (for classes) Camille and A Doll's House.

Reading on Kindle: The Omnivore's Dilemma. Not sure how I feel about the Kindle. Haven't entirely embraced it yet, but it's handy in some cases. What I like best (so far) is that it will save bringing more square inches of stuff into my home. It won't do the same for my office, as I generally need actual physical books to read from in class, lend to students, make copies, and so on. Omnivoreis great, anyway.

Listening to in the car: Mansfield Park read by the wonderful Juliet Stevenson (whom I've met!). It is delicious, and has the same effect that all the Rex Stout had for the several months when he was my car buddy--a good boost every time I drive! As much as I was admiring and even enjoying the Krakauer book, it wasn't fun. This is fun.

Watching: Lost. I also watched Leverage this week since my friend Matt was on it, but it turned out he only had about 4 seconds of screen time. A show that is partly addicting and partly annoying, and is filmed here in Portland, which makes it be fun to spot actors and locations.