Suddenly all I want to do is listen to Flight of the Conchords. And I don’t even have the HBO.
Author: admin
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Suddenly (Flight of the Conchords edition)
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Already there
At the airport today, the Aloha Airlines employees were wearing Hawaiian shirts and lovely flowers in their hair, all designed to send the message: “You’re already there.”
And I was struck by the idea that a flower in someone’s hair can be all it takes to lift your feet, to change the temperature, to shift your sense palette and drop you on the far side of a wearying journey,
And then later on, I’m waiting to go through security, and I’m looking around at some of the smiling folks, blissed out, and I thinking, “You bastards! You’re already there!”
Me, I’m off to Boston. Would it have been too much trouble for the JetBlue employees to sport Samuel Adams wigs? -
Call for Auditions and General Exhortation of Theater Folks: Mankind’s Last Hope
This fall (specifically, late October/early November), Virago Theatre will be staging an evening’s worth of sitcom good-times that I cowrote with an old pal. The aim is to film it, 3-camera-style, before a live studio audience. You can read all about the show, including a character list and a little more background on the show’s premise, here.
If you’re a Bay Area actor or theater person and you’d be interested in learning more, and either working on the production or auditioning for a part, consider yourself formally exhorted to drop me a line. -
Travel blog postscript: #1
I have a few notes from our trip that didn’t make it into the heart of the travel log. I’ll be posting them here over the next few days because, quite frankly, these are important observations, too important for me to keep to myself.
For example, here’s one:
Is it possible that the wall of traffic we hit when we entered Luxembourg was part of a coordinated effort by Luxembourgians to give travelers the impression that Luxembourg is a really really big country (that is, one that takes a long time to drive across), when in fact it’s quite tiny?
Could it be that they’re under state orders to take to the road at 9 am and drive slowly until 5 pm before returning to their extremely tiny homes? I mean, is there any chance at all that this is exactly what’s going on?
Because, if so, that would be crazy. -
My One-Word-Review of Harry Nilsson’s “Nilsson Sings Newman”
Poffertjes. (and I mean that as a compliment)
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“About-creativity.com, I choose you!”
Woke up this morning to find that some wonderful human being over at Yahoo had selected us as Yahoo Picks’ “Pick of the Day.” If you’ve discovered this site through that review, welcome!
The artist interviews to-date include: poets Kim Addonizio, Maggie Nelson, and Bob Holman, web innovator Ze Frank, musicians Jonathan Coulton and Van Dyke Parks, choreographer Natalie Marrone, authors Lemony Snicket and DyAnne DiSalvo, visual artists James Warren Perry and Tucker Nichols, clown and playwright Jeff Raz, standup comic and sitcom writer Howard Kremer, cartoonist Dan Piraro, columnist Jon Carroll, and screenwriter/director John August. Scroll down to peruse the interviews from most recent to least-most-recent.
You can also subscribe to future interviews — I’ll be posting a new one every week or two. Upcoming interviews include comic book creator (Mage/Grendel) Matt Wagner, musician Adrian Belew, and World of Warcraft storyteller Chris Metzen.
Thanks a lot for dropping by. If you get a chance, be sure to leave a comment to let us know what you think,
-Cecil -
An Interview with Kim Addonizio
Photo credit: Joe Allen.
Kim Addonizio is the author of three books of poetry from BOA Editions: The Philosopher’s Club, Jimmy & Rita, and Tell Me, which was a finalist for the 2000 National Book Award. Her latest poetry collection, What Is This Thing Called Love, was published by W. W. Norton in January 2004. A book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure, was published by Fiction Collective 2. She’s also coauthor, with Dorianne Laux, of The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton). And her new novel, My Dreams Out in the Street, has just been published by Simon & Schuster.
Addonizio’s awards include two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, a Commonwealth Club Poetry Medal, and the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award. She teaches private workshops in Oakland, CA.
Kim Addonizio on the Web: kimaddonizio.com, My Dreams Out in the Street, What Is This Thing Called Love
Cecil Vortex: When did you first start to identify yourself as a writer?
KA: I remember my first unfinished work. I wanted to write a novel when I was around nine. I wrote ten pages. It was a mystery, I think. I don’t remember why I stopped — probably because it was too hard. I remember writing a short story at fifteen and being eager to show it to my dad, who was a sportswriter.
CV: Do you remember what drew you to writing poetry?
KA: I wrote down my feelings in lines in high school and after, but it was hardly poetry. I seriously started trying to write it in my late twenties. I think poetry drew me to it — I think I was always meant to find it.
CV: How has your creative process changed since then? -
Here we go again…
I’ve been wondering lately how my kids will be affected by these times. How will it shape their view of politics and patriotism to go through their early years with an unpopular war, with a President so widely disliked and distrusted by people in both parties, one who seems to have, well, obvious contempt for the rule of law? What kind of people will an era like this breed?
Oh yeah, I realize. “A doi now,” as we used to say. It’s me. My gang. Folks born in the mid-to-late ’60s, with Vietnam and then Nixon on TV alongside Romper Room and the Electric Company. I guess, for better and/or for worse, times like these breed folks sort of like us.
