Christopher Bodan

1:30 am 43 degrees

Bill Cain is not Marc Norman or Tom Stoppard. He's not Arthur Miller either, and I'm pretty sure the problem with Equivocation is that he wants to be all of them.

The Seattle Rep production of Equivocation is the same one that premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, though apparently with some cuts and rewrites. That's pretty standard these days, but I feel confident in believing that what we saw on stage tonight really is what the author intended us to see, and indeed, presented in its most polished form yet. This forces me to believe that, if we saw what Cain wanted us to see, then Cain didn't know what he wanted to write.

Broadly, the play follows imagined events of late 1605 and 1606, as the final Gunpowder Plot conspirators are being rounded up and executed, when Sir Robert Cecil approaches William Shagspeare (the spelling used in the play, presumably to make shortening it to "Shag" logical and, well, it's the least of the sins) about writing a stage version of the Plot's official account. Mayhem ensues. We go through several attempts as Shag uncovers holes in the "official" story, interviews and becomes emotionally involved with some of the conspirators, and tries to deal with both the separate interests and personalities within his acting company and with his emotionally dead relationship with his daughter Judith, who's in London with him for some reason.

This could have Shakespeare in Love about Macbeth, it could have been The Crucible with the Gunpowder Plot ham-handedly standing in for 9/11 instead of McCarthyism, or it could have been about the relationships among the actors and their families in difficult times, but it wasn't. It tried to be all of these things and succeeded in being none of them.

The play touches on the volatile times, the struggle between incompatible loyalties to religion and the crown, the difficulties of living in a suspicious and authoritarian state, all without really dealing with any of those things or giving them any context. Michael Wood makes an excellent point that one of Shakespeare's great strengths as a writer is his ability to portray right on both sides of an argument. Richard III not withstanding, Shakespeare generally reserved his cartoon villains for his comedies and kept his histories more balanced. Cain does not even attempt this.

I mention The Crucible. I really enjoy that play. I shouldn't, considering how I feel about didactic art, but I do, and I enjoy it because you can watch that show and see a story of abused power and suspicion and damning pride and forgiveness that comes too late, and it's beautifully done. If you happen to know about the period and why Miller wrote it as he did, that only adds to the experience, but you can have the experience without that knowledge. Equivocation lacks that quality.

I enjoyed the performance. I thought the cast was quite good, and the technical execution perfectly fine. (I occasionally had moments of complaint - "Why isn't he lit, dammit?" - but they were few and minor.) J________ and I talked, both during intermission and after the show, and she's pretty firmly of the opinion that the play is written for a very particular audience: one with sufficient play-going savvy to understand and follow the rapid changes of scene and setting with virtually no or minimal changes on stage, one familiar enough with King Lear and Macbeth to make the thematic connections between them and the other relationships on stage, and one either unfamiliar enough with the time period to not understand the writing's historical problems or simply willing to remove historical context from what is ostensibly a historical piece in the interests of making a point. She's right. There's nice bits here and knowing winks that are funny to Shakespeare/theatre people, but we listened to people at intermission who were completely at sea, and that's not good writing.

There's an argument to be made that the play is, as the billing says, about telling the truth in difficult times, about Shag finding a way to tell the truth of things through Macbeth without coming right out and saying it (he equivocates), but frankly, that's not what I saw on stage. What I saw was, over and over again, people saying that "truth" isn't and can't be in "stories", that Shakespeare's other plays lack it and that he wants one that's "true". That's a lie.

What I saw on stage was a show so desperate for the audience to get a particular message that it damn near winked at us. If Cain had been honest, he would have stipulated that Robert Cecil's last speech break the fourth. Any pretense that this is a story and not an essay dies right there. Stories reveal truth to us by putting honestly-drawn human beings up before our eyes (holding the mirror up, something the play mentions more than once and first dismisses and then uses as an argument against art revealing any truth) and letting us take from the story what we need to take. Anyone producing something just to make a point is missing the point.

And really, I think, this is the problem: Cain is trying to make a point. If he'd quit trying to "say" something and just tell us the story, he might have succeeded.

9:45 48 degrees

This hasn't been the smoothest year. I started it out on reduced time at work, then got officially laid off before January had ended. Sucky, but okay. At least they cashed out my Paid Time Off. I get settled in, I get the unemployment rolling, I get into a groove with the extra writing time...and then I go back to work.

Okay, okay, not really complaining about that. The kind of emotional up-and-down started then, however. "We've got work for now, but we don't know for how long." That little chorus got old fast. It was never wrong or badly meant, but after skating along the edge of that for a while, you forget that it really is a long way down. We really were always looking at limited work, but that's easy to overlook when another packet of it just keeps dropping outside your door a bit before you run through the last batch.

Even over the summer, when things got thin, they found work for me; however unpleasant - and those of you who know me know what I was complaining about. But it picked up again, sure enough. I think the rest of the team was on a reduced schedule for about a week, maybe 10 days. I suppose it's something too that the company worked to find me something I could bill for.

The summer was no picnic for other reasons. M___'s hospital stay was considerably worse for him and E________, obviously, but watching that roller-coaster from unfamiliar sidelines was no easy task. Between that and the deteriorating work situation, it felt more like something to get through and finish rather than something to make the best of. Truthfully, I do miss Fox Soccer Channel, but that's about it.

Of course, that wasn't the only problem. J______ had her job yanked out from under her and then partially returned. That was a fun ride. She remains on a reduced schedule, and fortunately hasn't been rearranging the furniture from boredom for awhile. That could change tomorrow, I realize, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

So here we are with the work finally gone for real. HP has offshored the majority of their document production, Siemens doesn't have any immediate projects, and nothing's in the offing for months at least. Time to fire up that unemployment again. Thank the Goddess we paid of the largest part of our debt in the spring. That helps. Still, we're moving into the really expensive part of the year with her on half-time and me on no-time. And now I've got to get back into the groove of doing stuff with my time while hoping desperately to end that groove as soon as possible. Yuck.

Yeah, not the best time. Still, not the worst year I've ever had. There's still the potential for things to even out. And not everything's bad. M____ is recovering. The regular, Friday D&D game continues enjoyable. A___ got his EMT certification. B____ went back to school. E___ is getting married in April. And the season of soccer with the Sounders has been a hands-down blast (some of the asshats surrounding us notwithstanding). Very much looking forward to next season. So there's some balance there. I could do with a little more on the plus side, though. Winning the lottery, for example. That would balance things nicely. :)

11:50 56 degrees

Tonight in Kansas City (Kansas), the Seattle Sounders FC secured their place in the MLS playoffs. They're only the second expansion team in league history to do this in their first season. (The Chicago Fire did it in 1998). This is tremendously satisfying.

At some point I'll take some time and sort out how I feel about soccer in general and the game in the US, but the point here is that something unexpected and amazing has occurred. We've already got tickets to the playoff game that will be here. Whether or not Seattle makes it to the final (Chicago actually won the cup that year, but there might be a good reason for that), it's still a tremendous accomplishment for a brand-new squad, and frankly has been a wonderful ride for us.

Also, I'm not sure I'll ever actually be able to cheer for Cologne now, simply because this is so damn catchy. (Oh, you want a translation? Fine. If you saw this on my wife's post, I do not apologize.)

Minus the technology, this was my adolescent though process. I have to admit, I still think this way sometimes. Objectively, I'm not sure I was all that wrong, really, since I did have occasion to interact with girls and get stomped on. My suspicion is that some conversations really would have gone like this, but most would not. Hindsight being, in my case, about 30/40 I'm still not sure, but I suspect much of it was in my head. Even some of the girls who made fun of what I was reading were really just trying to come up with better conversation. I like to think that some things really are as we remember them, though.

*sigh* Oh well. At least another day has come where XKCD perfectly articulates one of my thoughts.

10:15 58 degrees

The Matrix is still a good film. Too bad they never made any sequels.

It does almost make me want to run a Mage game. Almost. More the the "almost", I think.

I've discovered Facebook. I'm not sure I like it. It feels too casual, like a thousand passing, light conversations. That sort of superficiality is easy to fall into. You run through a hundred comments and feel like you've accomplished something. You've certainly done a lot of work, but you still haven't really accomplished anything. Says the man who let another night go by without hitting word count. :)

I'll hit it tomorrow, and the days to follow. I will.

12:45pm 69 (according to weather.com, but it feels cooler)

Tomorrow night we get on a plane to Boston. From there we jump puddles to Augusta and drive to Bar Harbor, where my family awaits. I've not seen them for over a year. I'm almost sadder about that than I am excited about seeing them, and it's a curious emotional state to find myself in.

I think perhaps it has to do with the venue. I've never been to Maine, despite decades on the East Coast, and I've wanted to see it for some time. My brother lived there for a year, and his descriptions sounded awesome in a very rural kind of way. Bar Harbor abuts Acadia National Park, which we will see and doubtless love. It's just not home. We haven't been home for long, and it certainly hasn't been enough to recharge. The trip will be good but not as relaxing as it could be.

It also irks me a bit, I suppose. The logic is all on their side, of course, since we're the only West Coast residents. Obviously we should be the ones traveling, and I'm not suggesting that everyone over there should pack up and fly here for what is in essence my brother's wedding reception just because I don't feel like leaving my house. That said, we've lived here seven years as of last Friday. We, together or separately, have been back east I think four times. My brother's come out twice (once with the now ex- and once with the now current sister-in-law), and my parents have come out once. In seven years. I feel like we've done our part on the visiting front, but I'm getting tired of the expectation that the onus of visiting falls on us because we moved away. Maybe that's just in my head, but I think the numbers back me on this.

*sigh* Anyway. It'll be good to see everybody and to take in a coast and mountains and trees different than what I see every day. I just hope to return the favor someday soon.

I have learned to watch my words when I'm tired or otherwise less in control of myself. What is introspective to me rapidly becomes maudlin or melancholy to others. Saying nothing keeps me from over-explaining or excessively reassuring, or my friends from being concerned.

...

Anyway.

June 30, 2009

It's a waxing moon, a good time for changes. Not necessarily a time for good changes.

That's a bit cynical, and truth to tell, not entirely accurate. All meaningful change comes with a degree of pain and adjustment. Mostly, I think one's view on it is determined by how one feels about the particular pain and adjustment involved. How do you feel about what you've gained and lost? I'm starting to understand that there are different kinds of loosing.

It took me a long time to realize that the things I most value are things I can't hold or dust or play with. (Well, J's the obvious exception, of course, though she rarely stays still very long for the dusting.) This seems trite, I know, but it's one thing to hear it and know it and another to understand it. I find I would not trade away most of my experiences because they have made me who I am, and I rather like that guy. I do like physical things (but not, in truth, dusting them), and I appreciate books and a nice table and a good computer and such. I like the quality of life such things provide. Sure as hell beats sleeping on the street and many levels in between here and there.

And yet, there are times when I look at all these things in need of dusting and think of Fight Club. "Sooner or later, the things you own end up owning you." Still, that's not the problem. It's not about acquisition or ownership, it's about the comfort and security the things represent. It's about the resources to acquire the things, rather than the actual acquisition, and that's the rub. I find I like resources. I like the chance to not worry about money.

But how many people really don't worry about money? You don't worry about money so long as you stay within your means, as long as you know the money will keep coming. And so you worry about staying within your means and keeping the money coming. That's really worrying about money. It's something to keep in mind, but the moment it ceases to be only a part of your thinking and comes to dominate your thinking, you're lost. The moment you're driven by fear of losing what you have, you're ruled by your fear. That's no way to live.

Still, most people live that way, they live that way their whole lives and never know anything better. I've done it, I admit it. Hell, I'm doing it now. It's one of the things that has kept me from submitting stories like I should, that's kept me from finishing so many of them. It's taken me a long time to recognize it, but I hope it doesn't take me nearly as long to fix it. I'm tired, being afraid wears you out, but it's the fear I'm most tired of. I don't want to be afraid anymore. I don't want to lie awake at night feeling my stomach cramp and fighting hot flashes. It's going to hurt, and there are things I'll have to lose, but that is the story of life: pain and loss and the most beautiful miracle in all creation. I think what I'm starting to fear most is contentment. I want to be happy, and enjoy a degree of comfort, but I think I'm done with letting that be enough.

A waxing moon. Good time for changes.

The days have stretched long, and I have turned wearing with the dearth of darkness. Leaves in full green, grass reaching high (again), and the sun drives off both clouds and shadows. The king grows strong. *sigh*

Not that I'm complaining, really. I suppose I've always been a dark half sort of fellow. I always preferred the autumn. In the east, this meant cooling days and longer nights, breezes and turning leaves and the promise of snow. It meant a relief from the heat and humidity that characterizes so much of memory. I think of mists and harvests and fog and soft lights when you want to keep reading because it's too early for bed.

I still get a charge out of the change of seasons, especially from summer to autumn. Even out here where the summer does not oppress the crispness of the air, the returning clouds, the sudden sharpness in the breeze, all give me rush. It's remarkable to me how much my mood improves and my energy. I find myself setting goals by it; "I don't want to spend another autumn in this job," things of that nature.

It's funny, though, that this year I've perked up with the sun. I suppose I always do to some extent - the spring is, after all, the time when school ended, when the camping season began in earnest, when I found I had time to waste in ways of my choosing. Still, it's unusual for me in some ways. I suppose I might finally be acclimating to living out here and finding relief as the clouds recede. Well, we'll see. Come August, I always get to a point where I long for clouds and rain.

This post has sat for way too many days, so I'm going to put it up now. I hoped to come up with something to tie the whole thing together at the end, but you'll just have to settle for my random ramblings. :)

Found something that I thought interesting and thought the people I know who loved movies more than I do would find still more interesting. What cinched it for me was the last paragraph (as is only proper), but you need to see the whole thing to appreciate it.

Around 11 hours of work today. Not as much as some, I know, but I like having a job where I go home after 8 or so. Thus the ugh.

Writing still coming slowly, still a struggle. I still can't say exactly why.

No, for those curious souls, we did not see the bear the other night.

I'm also feeling like I'm fighting something off, possibly the kind of nasty chest cold that's circulated at the office, but it's hard to tell it apart from some of my more common reactions the ungodly pollen counts this year.

On the whole, well, ugh. I'll get over it, really. And at some point, I'll post something other than me complaining. I promise.

Friday, May 1st.

Happy Friday. Happy May Day. Happy Beltane.

Tired; can't seem to get to sleep before 11:30 (minimum) and can't seem to stop waking before 6:30. Miss J (home soon!). Miss something resembling my routine, which I find ironic since I seem to enjoy minor chaos so much. I suppose the emphasis needs to be on 'minor' and specifically as it fits into a larger pattern. The universe is layers of order and chaos superimposed on each other. I don't see any reason to live any other way.

That said, I need a little more order. I need to set about a half dozen things to rights, and then I can proceed on my merry, chaotic way. Until then, everything is slightly skewed and out of joint.

For those looking for a bit of levity in a growing crisis, this should help; at least, it helped me.

Right. Back to it.

Okay, I had decided (some weeks ago now) to wait a bit before posting again. Basically, I had put up the last entry in a fit of happiness regarding the Sounder's first game, and I didn't want the next few entries to be "Yeah! Soccer!!!1!". So I figured I'd wait. Obviously, I proved too successful at this. So, do what I'm doing: don't think of it as failing to update, think of it as overachieving.

Or something.

At any rate, Project: Recovery has had its sputtering start, and the old rhythm is coming back. I don't know why it's so hard, or so slow, but it is. Persistence, child. This too shall pass.

Like the subject line says.

First game, and quite a good start for a season and a franchise. It's been tried before here, several times, but this seems like a solid effort, and I sincerely hope it succeeds. And not just because I've got season tickets. Yeah, okay, sure that's part of it, but I also find myself appreciating other aspects of the franchise.

What I've always hated about "local" sports teams is that they're not "local" really. Yes, a number of players put down roots and buy car dealerships and such, but for the most part, the players are professionals moving from one company to another. The guy who plays for Pittsburgh for a year and then moves to Cleveland and then to Boston doesn't care much about any of those places. And why should he? Likewise, the franchises are business, plain and simple, and their first concern is business, not the local community. Said community isn't even really their customers, per se, as the money most large sports teams makes comes from sources other than tickets. There are notable exceptions, but by and large, "local" sports teams aren't much more "local" than the "local" Citibank branch.

This incarnation of the Sounders is something of an exception to that, or promises to be. True, the stand-out player this evening was a guy from Columbia named Fredy Montero. And the big name that has people talking certainly isn't from around here. But Kasey Keller the goalkeeper is a local boy (well, Lacey, but that's close enough), and in my mind that bodes well. Additionally, one of the co-owners has some ideas about team management that I found fascinating and that seem to be in place. Moreover, the team has a stated goal (restated by the majority owner before tonight's game) of giving people coming up through regional youth soccer programs a shot at joining the roster. Honestly, those things answer most of my issues. I'm left with a strange feeling of being unable to gripe about a major sports team in a larger sense. It's...unsettling, in a way, because I find myself without reasons not to just sit back (or stand, as we did for much of the night) and enjoy the game.

Which I did. This came as a give from ironymaiden for Yule in 2007. She got me a chance to buy tickets. I bought tickets probably nine months ago; something like that. We set the time aside, planned the day, etc., but none of it was real until I stood eight rows from the field and felt the breeze swirl through the stadium. It wasn't a spectacular game. New York played unevenly, and though they challenged well at the top of the second half, it dropped off after about fifteen minutes. The Sounders are still a little rough around the edges, and it took a bit for them to find their rhythm together. On the whole, however, I had a blast. I'm looking forward to doing this again next weekend and, I suppose, just enjoying it.

ETA: They fired off silver streamers before the start of the game. I nearly had J convulsing when I told her to take cover from the Thread.

At ironymaiden's suggestion (nay, insistence) I provide you with possibly one of the most awesome I have seen in a long, long time. Sure it's "extreme", but please don't hold that against it. Better with sound, but quite good without.

I mean, Pong. Seriously.

Blech.

It's morning, I'm at work, and the headache has already begun. Things do, I've noticed, even in the passive: "Subject" "Verbs". Sometimes things accomplish tasks simply by doing what they do normally. Fluorescent lights, for example, hum. Hum, lights, hum. They also creep around the edges of my vision and grind into my eyes. Light has a way of doing that. I used to know a welder who explained why they wear the wrap-around masks for some things rather than goggles. He said the worst pain he'd ever experienced was after a few hours of wearing the wrong eye protection. Even though he was directly protected from the light, enough of it seeped through his peripheral vision to leave him in bed for a few days. I recall he mentioned some screaming.

Clouds cover, apparently. Just by their nature, that's what they do. Normally I have no objection to this, but today it means that they're not letting any sunshine in through the windows to cut the fluorescents. I'm tired, because I can't seem to get to bed before 11:00 (my fault) or to sleep past 6:30 (NOT my fault), which only adds to the unhappy. Now I'm just being cranky. And critique tonight, which means I probably won't get my desired two hours writing on this evening either. *sigh* Last night was cleaning, and it was very good, but J is right; if I don't get the chance to force stories out through my fingers I get unpleasant.

Okay, so that's out of my system. Sorry folks. This is a journal after all, however public. All right, coffee and then back to the grind.

Just a few more hours and I can put a bullet into this work day. I've got stuff to do, people! Critiquing, writing, fluttering over not-as-well-as-she-could-be wife. You know, Stuff. (Okay, so I don't 'flutter' well, but you get the idea.)

*Sigh* This 'paying bills' crap is for the birds.

Someday we'll stop making movies about Nazis. I mean, they're outstanding villains; they're undilutedly evil, no argument. That means they tend to get overused, though. I'd kind of like to see villains act evil without being evil by unconscious definition. Just looking for a little variety, that's all.

Anyway...Oscars mostly good.

And, it looks like Nathan Fillion has a new show. Still not enough to make me watch TV.

And now a musical number. Ignore what I said above the last comment.

Winter is winding down, which makes me think I should use this icon while it's still thematically appropriate. As further evidence of the season progression, we went to Carkeek Park on Saturday, where J took many pictures. We followed a trail up towards the school that borders the park and got a picture of the first robin either of us had seen this year. Then we walked through the lower meadow towards the sound and saw a million of the little buggers digging through the damp soil for worms. People forget that birds are omnivores. We had an excellent time and did not exhaust the park's potential. It reminded me that I miss trees. Seattle is remarkably green, and I couldn't live here otherwise, but I'm not a city boy. I grew up with regular outings to woods, and we haven't done that since we moved, really. Rickett's Glen was an easy drive from where we lived in PA, and we visited often. Outrageously beautiful. We're both reticent about camping in the NW, since we don't know the local flora and fauna like we did the ones we grew up with, but it's getting to the point now where we're going to overcome that through desperation rather than preparation I think.

So, I wrote a story this week. I haven't started and finished a story quite this way for a good long time, and I enjoyed it. I'm not sure it's particularly good, but it's done (revising excepted) and that's going to have to be enough for now. It's a good step, and that pleases me.

Chocolate croissant = not worth it. Not bad so much as not good. Nuts. Funny how something small like that can throw a wrench into an otherwise pleasant day. Oh, wait.

Sigh.