Saturday I took the train into NYC to perform in a show at The Tank called American Decameron. This show was a collection of monologues given by several people - mine was about how I'd found a book at the local Goodwill that had previously been owned by a classmate of mine, Waylon Lenk. My monologue went something like this:
"I was perusing the woo-woo section of the used book shelf at a local second hand store this afternoon and came across a most interesting book: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Plays by Women. Oooo! Now this is a truly fascinating collection, but what really struck my curiosity is the previous owner of this book had crossed out the book's previous owner's name and written his own name in large Capital letters on an inside page. Jeez, that name sounds really familiar but I cannot place this mystery man. Where have I seen that name before? I really am cudgeling my brains about this because I know that name from somewhere. But where? Is he that Cambridge spy who defected to the Yukon over the Norwegian moose scandal a few years back? Didn't he co-author that novel about Florentine artifact smugglers who got embroiled in a VAT scam with what's his name? Or was he the director of the vintage classic motion picture movie Gidget Goes to Hell and its sequel Gidget Goes All the Way and Gidget Goes Down...to Rio?
I am at a loss. If you know who this guy is, give me a shout. I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to donate this ultra-fantastic book of restoration plays, and if you find him, tell him he can have the book back for a nominal fee. Now, I'm not talking blackmail or anything, so don't get your knickers in a twist over this matter. It's just that used book stores don't give books out for free, especially ones that have been autographed by famous people..."
The term is finally winding up here at Stony Brook and I have been packing all my stuff in fairly-easy-to-ship boxes and sending them out to Washington in batches. I'm down to only a few projects still due for my classes; one is a Powerpoint presentation on Ibsen's "The Master Builder" due the end of this week and another is a performance in "American Decameron" at a place called The Tank in NYC on May 14th. I am performing two monologues - one of them is a video that will be broadcast during the show; it can be viewed here: Invisible. I called it Invisible, partly because most women over 40 are invisible to men and partly because the character is...well...dead...It was inspired by something Linda Shaffer told me years ago from when she worked in a funeral home.
And here's a puppet head I built for a raggedy puppet to be used in "American Decameron"
Apparently it lost its head in Korea somewhere. It was fun to build it a new one out of paper clay and styrofoam. Here he/she is next to a buddy puppet who had somehow managed to keep his head screwed on tight.
And here are some flip-flop socks I managed to finish last week.
They are only one-tenth as cool as the Easter socks Tini knit and sent to me!
The flowers are in bloom here on Long Island; here's the view from my basement apartment window
