Hmmmm

I was thinking of the comments from an actor who came to the show last night.  He also does some stage clown work.  He’s youngish white male from a traditional background. He was blown away by the female energy he felt coming from the stage.  The thing that is surprising to me is that it is a surprise to anyone.  It’s a small stage, a small audience a dozen performers and a lot of different images.  Except for the point at which I was completely filled with anxiety over the higher stakes of promoting this production and trying to take the troupe to the next level, it is not a particularly ambitious production.  This is not the first time we have filled the stage with women in red noses riffing off cultural images.  Yet, the actor was surprised that he fell “a little bit in love” with all of the clowns even though they were all very different.  None of them presented herself as a proper ingenue or leading lady.  Hmmm.

This morning I googled a bit looking for artist moms and I found some websites and some blogs by and about women who are combining visual art with parenting.  One essay about a documentary film about artist moms described how their art was just as good as the work of male artists in Soho galleries or at the MoMa where less than 5% of the permanent collection is art made by women.  Apparently these women-artist-moms could combine making art and having children, but the aggressive self-promotion of the male art world was the aspect of a prominent art career that these women may have let slide (or they promoted themselves and nobody cared so they stopped wasting their limited energy, or they made compromises by being choosing to raise a family far away from the centers of art and criticism.  Hmmm.

During this Clown Axioms rehearsal process, it was the marketing aspects of the production that threatened to put me over the edge.  Hmmm.

And so I make peace with being unknown because self-promotion is not always worth the stress.

Is that why so many of the successful artists are men while the majority of practitioners are women?

Hmmmm…

things to look forward to

We’re not yet up.  I’ve just gotten to the point where I suddenly realize that the coffee I have consumed this morning is not enough and I must have food now.  However, in the time since we woke up but didn’t get out of bed except to make coffee, we’ve bought tickets to see Barack Obama at the Hammerstien Ballroom on Tuesday October 20 and I have signed up to write a novel next month on the NaNoWriMo website.

Opening night went well

We had a full house and they laughed.

Afterwards I talked for a few minutes with some of my friends, from Jef Johnson’s Clownlab, who came together to see the show.

One of the guys was quite impressed with all the female energy.  He said he fell in love with all of the women and we’re all so different.  It’s not something one sees on stage very often.  (I Wish I’d seen “The Women” on Broadway.)

I didn’t start to feel nervous about the show until I was on the subway platform alone waiting for the train to take me into Manhattan.

Before that it was a regular mommy day.  There was a publishing party in My Kid’s class.  The Husband and I grabbed breakfast together at a diner after the classroom event and before The Husband went to his office.  We had a chance to talk.

Then I came home and got some writing done.  By the time I was finished it was almost time to go pick up My Kid from school.  I got her Girl Scout vest, and then set it down again in my search for something else.  I took My Kid and two friends to Girl Scouts and learned that the mother who had planned to be there as another adult had an emergency so I stayed.  I had to leave before it was over to get something to eat because I hadn’t had lunch and I had planed to eat and go over my notes for the show while My Kid was at Girl Scouts.

After that was over, My Kid and I came home.  I wouldn’t stop at the toy store or anywhere else because I needed to get home to get ready.  We talked to a neighbor mommy and kid we hadn’t seen in a while just as we got to the house.  I ended up taking a shower to wake up.  Then I put on my makeup before I left because the dressing room at La MaMa is so cramped.

The Husband got home after seven and I left at 8:00pm for the 10 o’clock show.

When I returned home at 1:00 am, My Kid was asleep on the couch, still fully dressed.  She had fallen asleep trying to wait up for me.

Nobel Committee to America; Please Be On Your Best Behavior

The world is watching us and begging us to think of others.  That is what the Nobel committee has said so effectively by giving the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama before he has even done anything. 

I fear, that they fear, that we, the self-absorbed people of the United States of America (Congress, lobbyists, protesters, everyone) are going to continue to squabble like kids in the back seat of a car, screaming and crying over who got the biggest piece of candy (or healthcare or bank loans) while Daddy is trying to avoid a freeway accident and Mommy is trying to find the exit on the map of an unfamiliar city on the way to a very important family wedding where everyone is supposed to look pretty, act nice, and for God’s sake behave.

Technology is Failing Us

I woke up at 5:30 am worried about  video tapes that have never been transfered to DVDs

Tonight after dinner, I wanted to upload a photo of myself to go with my bio for the syndicated blog that I am behind on because I got distracted by the PR for the clown show that opens tomorrow.

It’s not going to happen, the uploaded photo, bio and blogpost (which is written and waiting patiently in a file) will not go online again on this day as I had planned–yet again.

The Husband, my tech support, is tired and going to bed now.  He can’t help me anyway now.  His personal laptop is at TechServ awaiting a new part.

My Kid is crying… for a number of reasons; a Band-Aid that’s hard to pull off, a classmate who may not have played well with others, a science lesson which was measurements AGAIN! (instead of chemistry–good luck with that one, you’re in 4th grade!)

“You’re crying like you’ve been left in the woods.” says The Husband.

I am reminded of the fairy tale-themed clown show that I’m in.  It opens tomorrow.  We have the day off after our dress rehearsal last night.

That’s it.

Call it a night.

I feel guilty for beings so self-absorbed as to type on my laptop before everyone else has fallen asleep.

I have to stop now.

Tomorrow is another day.

Tomorrow is opening night.

Clown Axioms at La MaMa in New York City!

In the Dressing Room While Looking in the Mirror and Applying Makeup

Conversation turned to who we used to be: beautiful young women.   Now we are getting used to being invisible in public.  Some of us are tired mothers with altered bodies and neglected wardrobes.  We no longer attract attention of strange men on the street.  Online dating sights are full of men our own age who are looking to date women between 18 and 25.  We are sliding to invisibility in the public world, but we are constantly observed, scrutinized and admired by our children.  One woman’s preschool son demands that she take her hair down and wear it long whenever she pulls it back into a ponytail.  My daughter loves to watch TV with her head on my belly (soft like a pillow and completely devoid of sculpted abs). She also likes to pull on the loose skin at my elbows which I find disconcerting.  Are we attracted to creating our own clown work because we no longer interest (nor do we care about interesting) directors who choose actresses based on youth, beauty and eagerness?

The Red Shoes Fairy Tale is True

While I was running errands yesterday I went into the Barnes & Noble on Court Street and came across an interesting book.  It’s called The Dancing Plague, The Strange, True Story of an Extraordinary Illness, by John Waller.  Full of footnotes, the book must have begun as an academic paper.  It describes a woman in Germany in the 1500’s who one day began dancing in the street and couldn’t stop.  She danced until her feet bled, just like in the fairy tale The Red Shoes.  It was the start of an epidemic and hundreds of people danced beyond exhaustion and some did dance until they died.  That fairy tale developed from a true story.  Freaky.

We have a “red shoes” piece in Clown Axioms.

tick tick tock

Watching the clock…  How much can I get done before I have to leave?  I have two and a half hours before I have to leave for the theatre.  My Kid has Robotics after school today and The Husband is planning to leave work early to pick her up, so I don’t have to leave in half an hour to pick her up.  I have a whole two and a half hours in the apartment.

I should take a shower.  I didn’t get one this morning in the rush to get My Kid to school.  I definitely should not go into a 5 hour rehearsal without having showered today.

I just got back from Trader Joe’s.  I didn’t think I had gotten that much but when I got outside I realized it would be hard to carry the 3 bags all the way from Court and Atlantic to the subway at Jay Street.  So, I called a car service.  I hadn’t planned to call a car.  If I had I would have bought more groceries.  Well, I bought frozen enchiladas, the kind My Kid likes, they can have that for dinner tonight while I’m at rehearsal.  I also got apples, clementines, carrots and mini yoghurts for her lunch.  But, I forgot the maple syrup for her toaster waffles and the fruit bars she said she likes in her lunch.  Me, I’ve been living on Odwalla Super Protein and bananas and coffee for quite some time.  I’m too busy running around to eat. Unless I can sit down with The Husband I’m just not interested.

Enough of this blogging.  I need to get the front room organized enough so The Husband and My Kid can make dinner and do homework (IT’S ALL ABOUT THEM) and I need get together some makeup to put on.  Kendall said there would be a photographer at rehearsal tonight.  I need to draw on some eyes and lips so I won’t be featureless under the stage lights (IT’S ALL ABOUT ME).

IT’S ALL ABOUT TIME.