she’s baaaaaaaaack

cari amici,

mes amis. i know it has been a unforgivably long time since last i wrote. i know. i know.

“but kippy, i missed your charming dissertations on all manner of quotidian life!”
“but kippy, where have you been? lahore? jakarta? stockholm”
“but kippy, i had nothing fun to read on the world wide web for the last two point five months!”

all i can say is that i am sorry and that it displeases me. as we all know, my web log is a project i like to dip in and out of. the instant it becomes work is the instant that i start acting like a jerk… wink!

allora, things have settled down a bit for me. it was, to say an understatement,  a busy spring. saw some great theatrical feats, including this, and of course popped over to omaha for the very great, great plains theatre conference (aka the gptc) as well as dallas for the theatre communications group’s annual extravaganza. not to mention humanimal coverage at the humana festival in louisville, ky (jelly).

there were remarkably few bran muffin’s at this year’s tcg conference

i was also in austin for a bit of time. ooh that city of my soul! how i dream of living in some bungalow, attending some crummy day job but feeling free-free-free. i imagine that if i were to live in austin i’d do yoga regularly and learn to play some instrument. perhaps i’d finally become a great gook and have the time to learn arabic or russian or japanese. and yet, i wonder. do i dream of the land of tacos, sunshine and bicycles simply because the mind needs a place to escape to? it is important to dream…

yesterday, for example, i found myself at tortilla flats, a mainstay in my new york city jeuness, in the late afternoon. (as a youth i recall being appalled and amused at a particular brunch to see on the menu, “coffee? no! taquilla? si!”) anyhoo. yesterday i sat around a table of old friends and new… and it felt an awfully like being in austin. there was ample sunshine, a gentle southwesterly breeze–a zephyr, if you will–and actors sounding off. the food wasn’t nearly as good as in austin, but the company and tasty margharitas transported me on a kind of mental vacation.

reeeeelax

allora, can one change one’s dreamland escape? i love il bel paese, for example, but don’t dare dream of returning there for good. then again my tongue could never totally convince others that i was indeed italiana. not to mention how my freckles belied a certain mediterranean spirit!

in ogni caso, i look forward to a new york summer. with jaunts upstate and of course to my true homeland, cape cod.

ooh but how i adore this place

ciao for now and ci sentiamo presto,
kippy

foolishness and fools and pranks and ghouls!

mes amis,

on this first day of april, and my favorite of holidays, i have had to result to pranks over g chat and not the kind of usual fooling antics i like to get up to.

ho ho ho!

in my youth i recall a rainy april first in which i pleaded with my mother to come and pick me up from my job-ette after school. the job was at my pediatrician’s office and i filed files. every now and then i’d see a student from my high school and pretend i didn’t know him or her. it was not very thrilling. the florescent lights. the manilla files. the alphabetization.  but enjoyable to earn some pocket money and of course a scary glimpse into work life to come.

a fine film (and actor!)

my mother arrived in her white station wagon, ‘the rust bucket’ downstairs at the doctor’s office and i got in making sure to slam the car door with dramatic flourish. “what’s wrong?” my nervous mother asked. “just drive,” i said. she obeyed turning the wheel and hitting the gas pedal. we drove a few blocks in the raid before my mother pleaded, “what happened?”

i described an invented scenario. in it my boss, the rotund wife of one of the doctor’s in the office cooperative with a nimbus of gray hair but menacingly mellifluous voice, called me into her office and complained that i had a bad attitude and  wasn’t filing quickly enough. i told my mother that had retorted to name calling. “i said, ‘you’re fat and i quit!” my mother nearly drove off the road.

putting the car in this toon!

“april fools!” i said before cackling like the young wit i once was. ooh the salad days of one’s youth! today my mother and i spoke on the phone and there was no fooling. just catching each other up on facts and stories and thoughts.

in other news i was most amused by this recent reading in the telegraph about oscar wilde. indeed:

“The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer. Make some sacrifice for your art and you will be repaid but ask of art to sacrifice herself for you and a bitter disappointment may come to you.”

i have recently donated some pocket money to this worthy project, the hotel colors on kickstarter.  i encourage you to do the same!

a bientot mes amis,
kippy

san patrizio, fake laughter at the theatre and other ruminations

mes amis–

greetings from skibbereen, the most southerly town in ireland.

it was most curious to be here for the festa di san patrizio. when i have experienced green themed days in the past it has most often been in the U.S. and i have oft had rather knee jerk reactions.

heh heh

c’est vrais. i confess… in my youth i was a bit repulsed by people who celebrated their irish heritage. why was this? i have never had the same aversion to other groups of people celebrating their distant homelands. not in the least! i love a bastille day and a puerto rican day parade. i guess it seemed that st. patrick’s was a holiday of oppressors (though historically speaking the irish have been a rather oppressed group!) o, the misguided thinkings in one’s youth! perhaps the corny decorations are what truly horrify me (and these are surely the American icing on an Irish cake)

terrifying!

i guess i prefer to keep my heritage as a personal matter. after all, i am an international citizen of the world! why should i let my bloodlines limit my self expression? that said, i have come to have to appreciate st. patrick’s day. and even the people who celebrate it. i love how it is all encompassing it can be and how, with a wink and a smile, people of all stripes can sport green and feel festival.  it was a most authentic experience to be here in ireland for it. even more so .. i have come to appreciate the great land of ireland, which i am finally proud to call a distant homeland (among my many others!)

ma quanto e bello!

in other news, i caught two wonderful theatrical shows before i left for the land of ire. the flick by the illustrious and lustrous annie baker and a raisin in the sun. they were both rather delightful experiences.

in attending the flick, my companion and i thought the curtain was an hour earlier than it really was. as a result we had plenty of time to amuse and bemuse ourselves in a local diner. i ran into old friends and new ones. a community experience! i was most vexed, however, by some of the audience members at the show. the play is hilarious and heartbreaking… but it is not the stuff of a comedian’s stand up set! while many of the lines were dangerously dark and packed with punch it seemed like an unnatural reaction to guffaw like a hyena.

there was one young man in front of my companion and i who was really slapping his knee and throwing back his head in a most exaggerated manner. don’t get me wrong: far be it from me to prevent laughter. it is the medicine of life! but the laughter of this particular young man rang false to me. it seemed as though he was trying to prove something with his loud chortles… how he really “understood” the play or how he “got” the humor. kudos if he did (you’d have to be a dummy if you didn’t) but alas,  some of the lines got drowned out by this holligan’s outbursts.

remarkably, later in the show an elder-of-the-state leaned over to her elder date and loudly whispered, “the glass menagerie, this is not.” i was touched by the old fashioned grammar and syntax of this statement. nor did i take it to be a negative judgement of the play. the flick is certainly not the glass menagerie: and thank heavens! they are both wonderful and wonderfully different plays. the young man of the loud guffaws snapped his head toward the elder-of-the-state who had uttered this remark and shushed her. really shushed  her!

i was incensed! if you are going to laugh like a maniac at least let others have the occasional comment exchange. in any case, the flick was excellent. the performances were tip top and the language brought me to the teetering edge of the void more than once. i look forward to ms. baker’s next contribution to the american theatre.

speaking of american classics, a raisin in the sun was truly wonderful. i dont know why i was somewhat dragging my feet a bit. perhaps it felt like going to eat broccoli since it is such an american classic (and one that i was hitherto unfamiliar with). a fine, fine play with a great production at the huntington theatre in boston. so sad that lorraine  hansbury didn’t live a longer life.

classic, elegant and beautiful!

if you are around in the clinton hill district ce soir i advise you check out the inaugural Hi-Lo performance series at JACK. that theatre space draws a delightfully eclectic mix of people and artists and i, for one, look forward to the start of what is sure to be a fine ongoing series.

kippy

i’ll be there… will you?

 

 

 

 

buon festa delle donne

happy festa delle donne.

to women round the world

ciaaooo

i fiori della festa delle donne!

i would love to know… why l’8 di marzo?

curiously,
kippy

 

 

 

 

 

b-ratedly yours

mes amis–

il y a beaucoup de temps that i don’t write.

je sais, je sais.

fugit hora, memento mori

i have been re-acclimating to human life after my time at the ant colony better known as macdonalds. i encourage everyone to apply. it was a delightful experience and one i hope to repeat before i die! the sledding wasn’t half bad either.

scivolare!

allora? where does this leave us.

i have been shy of the theatre of late but am hoping to get back on the band wagon with some posts about various art ongoings. but one must rest in order to feel resplendent. my hibernation will soon conclude and i am sure i will then back to the web logs.

in the meantime, i gift to you a new blog titled “b-rated.”

80-89

i caught wind of this blog at the end of 2012 (a b-rated year if ever there were one!). yes, mes amis, life is not just made of As and A+s… life is made up of second bests and almost could haves. this blog celebrates the second tier and those courageous enough to admit preferring a silver medal to a gold. i try to avoid most B-rated eateries in nyc but what can one do? they do crop up now and again. and often the pull of nostalgia is too great to fight.

C grades are rare… there is a C-rated dining establishment below the office-i-frequent-mondays-through-fridays (the poetic justice is too juicy that i will avoid all quips and snips) and let me tell you: chef yu, despite it’s C or perhaps because of it, continues to bustle.

in any case, i do hope that the B-rated blog staff gets its act together to post more often than on a quarterly basis. you’d think they were as lazy as literary folk! heh.

kippy

white smoke

amici miei–

the pope is abdicating?? ma che cosa?

i remember st peters square…

e veramente enorme

and all the pilgrims who flooded the city after the last pope died.

e stato cosi!

and i was there when the white smoke started to billow, and this dude popped out from behind a curtain.

papa ratzinger

a presto,
kippy

a repentence

mes amis—

greetings from old hampshire.
it snows heavily here.
so does my heart.

this morning at breakfast i experienced another run in.

there was lively chit chat about the zodiac. as people sipped their coffee and cut apart their french toasts, they called out the various attributes to their respective signs.

i may have been a ring leader in all of this. it is true. coaxing people on to tell their birthdays and then saying, “ah, capricorn.” or “oh, virgo, nervous but organized.”

finally someone asked, “what’s your sign kippy?”

“gemini,” i proclaimed and raised my right hand in a vertical fashion in front of my face, like a priest about to make a blessing. “split personality,” i explained. as i split myself in two, thus making visual the split personality of a gemini, i hummed a jaunty little ditty.

google image results for “gemini” are terrifying

the ditty is of an olden nature and inspired by the nintendo games of my youth. it is a tune that i believed best represented aurally a siamese twin. there was laughter round the table as i completed my song and dance move. then, the young man to my right, a virgo, asked, “did you just sing a racist song?”

i was mortified and maudlin. what could be said? i had not intended in the least to be racist—only to signify the split personality of a gemini with what i thought would be an appropriate tune!!!—and yet there it was. an accusation that i could not deny for wouldn’t denying wrong doing render my actions all the more culpable? “yes,” i said in a soft grave tone. “i am racist.”

i am truly vexed and perturbed. if i had been less flustered i would have perhaps been able to link the song to the nintendo game. but wouldn’t that be just as problematic? (passing the blame to a corporation.) perhaps i could have varied the notes in the song? would that have made the jingle less culturally specific?? and yet would the dance and song have then been less enjoyable? i do not know. surely we should enjoy a little less if it means not being racist, right? oh but how dreary! there seems to be no way to win.

what can be done to rectify this? i fear ever making a song and dance again and offending. i wasn’t thinking: the force to make the song and dance move was stronger than i was and yet i now see my actions were reproachful.

what to do? what to do? i would like to repent but how? and to whom? surely it would be exaggerated to gather those who were together at the table and express the magnitude of my feelings and thoughts on this topic…? n’est pas? they would say, “kippy, you are over reacting.” yet the accusation of being racist is one i do not take lightly.  perhaps i just need to let it go; let it melt into the snow. but i feel a tundra in my heart every time i think back to the yogurt and the fruit and the coffee and that song. ooh eternal spirits, forgive me!

those casual cruelties (not to mention causalities)

mes amis—

greetings from a snow-dust laden and laced new hampshire. i’ve only a few things to report.

1. there is some snow on the ground.

2. despite the above fact, it is not quite bone chillingly cold.

3. i wore my moon boots and attended the petite dejeuner offerings this morning.

4. i consumed both yogurt and freshly cut fruit as well as a tasty greek omelet that was not ostentatious in size but, quite perfectly suited for my hunger.

5. there was talk of music—pop and otherwise—with the various hilarious terms thrown around. subdominent line, resolving flip flop, bidledee bip bop. I pointed this out with aplomb and demonstrated the absurdity. thank heavens the playwright to my left rolled his eyes and said, “ooh go speak italian and tortellini!” there were chuckles.

har har har

6. a doctor sitting across from me explained her project—a non-fiction book about triage in disaster areas. she then asked, “what are you working on?” i blushed, for i feel that my project is not of equal social importance! and yet i feel the soul is perhaps the most important thing to keep enlivened and alive! (and i should very much hope my project revolves around the enhancement of the soul.

7. i made the requisite jokes about my project, master of deflection that i am. the young musician asked: “how are you writing a musical without the composer?” i responded, “i just am.” then, feeling further ashamed and wanting to lighten the mood, i proclaimed, “i am writing fake song demos that i know will change!”

8. at this point an older poet entered, her boots fresh with snow. the staff lady who accompanied her said, “the coffee is there.” we were crowded at the table and said hello.

the table was groaning!

9. the heated conversation about pop music and subcontinental music lines continued, something about what make a song catchy. (i wanted to proclaim, “a song is catchy if it is tuneful and with fine rhythms!” but my lack of knowledge/correct vocabulary in the area, and my previously embarrassing statements and proclamations prohibited me from further chime ins.

10. i realized the older poet, new to this bizarre colony with its own unspoken codes and customs, sat alone at a table across the room.

da sola

11. i was overwhelmed. we at my table had said, “welcome” but in fact, we had enacted no welcoming gestures, merry with our conversation as we were.

12. i sprang from my seat and approached the poet. “would you like to come and sit with us?” i asked. “we are crammed but can easily make some room for you.”

13. she smiled, between nibbling a muffin. “yes,” she said. we walked over to the table and some room was made and we sat down.

14. the lively pop music conversation continued. it would have perhaps been exaggerated to turn to the new person and ask questions. but i could not help but wonder, “have we learned so little from the ways of youth and cafeterias?” … “have we forgotten the feelings of anxiety of arriving new to a colony like this?” … “where is our education ? our manners? our fundamental kindness?”

15. in conclusion, i hasten to add that mine was a heroic act. or even all that kind. i was simply and overwhelmingly shocked by the rudeness of les autres and felt the need to correct it as best i could. i can only hope to blame the incident on the early hour of the day, the slow in take of caffeine and the lively music conversation, for i know that my fellows at the table are not such delinquents but kindly awkward people in and of themselves (much like me…!)

16. at any rate, i hope the new poet feels welcomed. when i arrived it was at a more social moment (cocktail hour) and i politely refused the martini i was offered. still, it is nice to have that social interaction when being new to a group…is it not?

well hello

ciao for now,
kippy

journaling di nuovo

my friends and fellow citizens—

greetings from a land where the earth is frozen but the heart and mind are afire…! i am enjoying a sojourn at a country estate where other artists work on various projetti. as for me, i am relaxing and basking. long walks, long naps and reading reading reading.

plus, I have been keeping a record of my state of mind and (lack of) activity with a notebook. si, amici miei, I have been journaling di nuovo! as a youth I kept a journal—never a diary mind you!—and it is a most pleasant thing to do. better to get all your worries and frets out on paper than have a turmoil of the tum!

a personal journal!

i also find that putting pen to paper has a kind of ancient and olden feeling. to see my dear chicken scratch move across a page… to marvel as the pen’s ink catches a glint in the low evening light…these things bring a small joy to me—however small they may be.

moreover, as I write down my thoughts and observations—and yes feelings too—I sometimes realize: oh kippy, you are such a tom petty! a woe written down from a few days past seems not so tragic in the present.

i have also been deeply engrossed in a biography about wittgenstein. my studies of philosophy were entirely continental so reading this analytic mumbo jumbo both fills me fear and dread. yet, on an interpersonal level i have great affection for this fellow, even if he is also confouding.

anyhoo, time to make the donuts! (yes, i am doing a small kitchen stint here at macdonalds!)

i dream of a gluten-free versione

a bientot,
kippy

mac bowel

mes amis—

life is nothing if not a series of strange coincidences, n’est pas? i write to you from a colony .. no not a penal one but an artistic one! macdonalds is the oldest artist colony—not to mention fast food chain—in the united states. or does that distinction go to the in and out burger? at any rate, one can feel the ghosts of past artisti! thornton wilder, i tip my hat to you. now get me a happy meal. gluten free bun. and step on it!

c’est delicieux!

anyhoo. imagine my surprise when no sooner had i dropped my bags in my “monday music” studio to discover the names of playwrights, poets and composers past. there on the “tomb stone” as they call it (always macabre at old micky d) was the name “C. Dale Young.” i shrieked and lept off the bed in both surprise and delight.

john hancocks of macdonald fellows

in my salad days i was on the staff of my college’s art and literature magazine. my matriculation to stylus was more a reflection of my hope to overtake the magazine than a genuine interest in art and letters. alas. i would succomb to stylus even attempting to make it good. after all, it was the only group of misfits who would have me. in my final year as editor-in-chief, i relished my authority even though i did none of the actual work. leave that for the grammarians. this kippy still don’t know her commas from her colonoscopies!

semi colon

anyhoo. one day there was some kind of lecture convening. i arrived rumpled and late. no surprise there. to my intrigue the speaker was not the typical BC fare but a handsome man of ambiguous ethnicity sporting a fine suit. he intoned instead of spoke. perhaps i misrecall him as pompous in my head. i cannot know. i just remember being enraptured. he informed his audience that he was a poet and a doctor. “I don’t know why people always act so surprised,” he declared. “I see poetry and medicine not as mutually exclusive tracks but subjects that work with each other.”

i leaned in. might i be able to do incongruous things with my life too? C. Dale Young was an accomplished man of medicine and of letters (he had recently published a poetry collection). might i one day do something, anything with my life? ooh the hope of youth! the lecture’s lasting impression on my impressionable brain creates a nice confluence of coincidence pour moi as I attempt to write my own poetics here at macdonalds. now, where’s that happy meal?

–

the day is a misty gray one and i am anxious to dig in. but what of it and how of it? how to dig when the weeks lay ahead, sprawled out like a lover on a bed? i don’t want to get everything done at once. nor do i want to stress myself out over the making of the art, bien sur! the yoga felt good this morning but can I keep this up? perhaps I should have brought my water colors…’twould have been a welcome distraction.

i suspect my moon boots will be getting a lot of good use.

the finest footwear

i do hope that the snow doesn’t all melt. i’d rather have a cold snap, long johns and all, and feel winter proper than be in the wilderness of global warming with mucky downtrodden fields. but these are just one colonist’s wishes.

a bientot,
kippy