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Monday, July 10, 2006

Aporia, or The Gap

Friends, readers, passers-by:

I am going off line for the rest of the summer. Look for me after Labor Day, here and at some of my haunts like Giornale Nuovo and Laurelines and outside the windows. Since I have several large projects to do before fall and many summery interruptions scheduled--ferryings of children to camps and to workshops and to stays elsewhere, nights at The Pirates of Penzance and Janácek's Jenufa (directed by Jonathan Miller!) and the premiere of Stephen Hartke and Philip Littell's The Greater Good, as well as fêtes for returning Byzantine travelers and more fêtes for visiting twins and for my visiting mother and for visiting people-I-once-knew, and picnics and plays and music on the lawn and the great etcetera (whew!)--I am going to gather my shards and splinters of free time and make an airy chamber of them. Going inside and turning the key, I'll wield the scepter of a pen over a kingdom of paper.

Thank you for coming to visit me here--feel free to wander the remote and disused portions of the Palace. You may find a dusty old stuffed owl, a surprise behind a door, a box of treasure. Who can say, unless the journey has been tried?

I am re-posting the Fried Phoenix below this post, for those who are interested in hard-boiled acceptances, stewed reviews of stories, and meringue links elsewhere.

* * *

July 8 A Night at the Opera

The evening was pleasant and cool, just right for an opera house by a lake. And it was a delicious night at Glimmerglass Opera: Gioachino Rossino’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia / The Barber of Seville, based on one of Beaumarchais’ plays, so fertile for opera. We should all look so good, so joyful, so gleeful, so full of verve and style after nearly two centuries.

I’ve been veterinarian,
Egalitarian,
Heathen comedian,
Pious tragedian,
Orator, poet,
And pirate and prophet,
A man for the ladies
And father of babies,
Drunken and sober,
A husband and sailor,
Banker and brother
And barber and lover.
Diplomat, acrobat,
Teacher of etiquette, me!
Satirist, pessimist,
Surgeon and Calvinist…
Student and swordsman,
Spy and musician…
Spanish economist,
Clockmaker, pharmacist.
I’m Figaro!

--Figaro in John Corigliano and William Hoffman’s The Ghosts of Versailles

18 comments:

  1. Oh, no! OK, I'll grudgingly let you attend to other business, such as your life. But, please DO come see me every single day. Have a glorious rest of the summer, Marly.
    xoxo,
    L

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  2. She's already enmeshed in scribbling. The rest of us are putting on our rose-colored leisure suits.

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  3. Found your blog by way of Miz Laura, and oh my goodness: Words as sparkling as Laura's colors!

    If you need a different respite, feel free to drop by and visit.

    Have a wonderful blog-hiatus, and will browse through quiet corners in the meanwhile.

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  4. Hi Lori--
    Thanks for popping by... It is high praise to be as bright as the colors in Laura's infinite pencil box. I have looked with some curiosity at a lot of her art links, so I'll have to wander over and see yours later. (Not right this minute, because today is formidable!)

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  5. hope you have a great rest of the summer.

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  6. Hello, Miss Susanna of the marvelous hats-- Have a lovely six weeks or thereabouts, and see you in September!

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  7. I suspect I made a comment to the wrong post (my mind is somewhere else today)..but, just be certain you come back. (I am glad the pot boy has gotten everyone into rose-colored leisure suits, sounds festive.)

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  8. Alas, the sterling words of jarvenpa must have fallen into the bottomless moat where such things go...

    Rose-colored leisure suits? I shall have to bang a few pots together and wake everybody up! To work, to work!

    How can one be certain of anything in such a wayward, dangerous world? But I'll try.

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  9. Alas, I look forward to coming in here from time to time. I shall return after labor day to see you then.

    I still have no home computer anyway, so my blog space lies in ruins and tatters. Apple swears a part is back orderd. I asked them "Don't you make the computers? How can you have a part that is back orderd? Can't you just send to where you make them for a part?" Ah well, they promise me some resolution soon. And I do hope it is soon, for school starts in about two and a half weeks. There are pre-school starting things that MUST be done. So I am here at the library, again.

    But, I shall miss you Marly, return soon.

    --Donna

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  10. Oh, I got your book order yesterday... Will send pronto.

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  11. I returned from China to find you've signed off. Happy, happy summering. I'll look forward to September and more Marly magic.

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  12. Welcome home, Connie! Confetti and champagne! Two of my guys just arrived from Turkey and Greece, but I am home with much, much company and many kid-ferryings.

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  13. My goodness, Marly, your family is gadding about! (and returning). Years ago my eldest child spent some time in the Greek Islands (I envied him a great deal, never having made it there myself in all my wanderings). I hope the writing goes well (and the living)

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  14. Hi there, ms. poet-bookseller...

    Got up early and picked raspberries for breakfast and saw my youngest off to the Carolinas. Yesterday another had to be ferried to a distant summer program. So it's a little bit frenzied here, with frolics and arrivals and departures and such.

    "Gadding" is right. Somehow I have reached a grand crescendo of over-scheduled summer. But perhaps I'm getting some work done, here and there, in quiet corners of time.

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  15. Hi Marly,

    Sounds like you are very busy as usual.

    I finally have my computer back. Now the trick is to try to find a way to digitize some of my more recent artwork. I still do all of my photography with my "old" Nikon non didgital camera. If I can get it digitized I am going to put some things up on the web. I have done a few things new this summer.

    I also wanted to let you know I will again be teaching art this next year rather than Language Arts. I have accepted an elementary art teaching position at one school. My case load will be 650 elementary children K-6 and I really can't wait. I am so looking foreward to this change.

    Meantime I am also writing some here and there. I MUST revise two short stories I started this summer.

    So that is the news from me. I am glad you are having a good summer.

    --BQ

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  16. Kitchen confetti (sprinkles and torn-up party napkins), O Queen of Blogs!

    That sounds like a good change--little children at play in an art room will be better than wrestling with words and middle schoolers, I'll bet. It will make a cheerful sound, like pots clashing in the kitchen, and lids banging together with gusto.

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  17. Thank you O Pot Boy.

    I appreciate the kitchen party. Yes I am looking forward to small urchins making creative sounds in an artroom. I myself hope to be able to do some personal artwork as well, and also keep wresting with words on a personal level.

    Again, thanks.

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  18. How about opera reviews?

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Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.