Sunday, April 4

Bugger all, I seem to have deleted a post. One thing this blog has shown me is how much time I spend gobbling up stories via every possible delivery system. Theatre, movies, CDs, TV, chomp chomp gulp gulp gulp. Which means that the accidentally deleted post probably represented two or three plays read,at least one movie seen, two or three hours of TV, novels both read and heard, and what else?

Well. On with it.

Read: two what I guess you would call "Chick Lit" mystery novels--?--by Harley Jane Kozak, who is a friend of a friend. One higher-aspiring novel called The Wife's Tale that I noticed in the New Arrivals shelf of the library and started reading while waiting for someone to help with a donation. I only mention this because I almost never read contemporary novels. I'm not snooty or unsnooty or counter-snooty about it, I just don't usually pick up new fiction. New non-fiction, yes, old fiction, yes. But everything in this paragraph is new fiction, and I read it, and I liked it.

Re-read a lot of Artaud for theatre history class, which is mostly like reading Artaud for the first time, even after many readings. Reading for classes is light right now, for both students and me, by design. Other things afoot. Have my directing students working with a play called Antigone's Red by Chiori Miyagawa, which is full of mystery and dread and love.

To refresh for a class where I was playing student, listened to some of Mansfield Park in two different versions, and am here to recommend Juliet Stevenson over the other reader. (Duh, but I think I should get points for being open-minded enough to look into it.) Finished the week by finally watching the 1999 movie, which was ambitious, daring, and maybe a bit confused, but also quite thrilling.

Listened to some Wodehouse round the edges as I was waiting for my Austen CDs to arrive. And am now listening to Bridget Jones's Diary. Both make me chortle, and I don't mind saying so. (Actually, Barbara Rosenblat, who is the Bridget Jones reader, is one of the best I've ever heard.)

Watched Fantastic Mr. Fox with the family. Full of surprises, I thought. Good weird and delightful.

Light on TV, just an episode of Lost with Ryan I think.

Saw Philadelphia Story at a local community theatre because a friend was in it. She was darling and vibrant. Rest of the show not great, but it's a play that kind of fascinated me--I think partly because it's probably harder to communicate to a cast and via them to an audience than any Restoration Comedy. Interesting challenge.

Saw 4:48 Psychosis with my directing class. It is hard to see Sarah Kane, hard even to get up the will to commit to going to see her, and then also hard to see what's actually being done when one's head is so full of what it might be. Well, The Theatre and Its Double. This production was simple, courageous, tightly put together but with room to breathe and grieve. Very, very glad I went, and with the people I went with.

That's all I can remember. Some things lost to memory, no doubt, but the point is made that I am a glutton for entertainment, narrative, and ideas. Actually, I feel OK about all of it, high-, low-, and middle-brow, but think it might be good to be a little more deliberate in my consuming. For that matter, it might be good to get the hell through Omnivore's Dilemma for once and for all.

"Pages of O.D. read: 12 (v.bad!)"