The Foundation for Jewish Culture and Brooklyn Playwrights. Collective Present a Staged Reading of: To the Orchard
Winner of a 2007 Foundation for Jewish Culture New Play Development Grant By Les Hunter
Directed by Jamie Winnick With. Maria McConville, Peter Treitler,* David Storck, and Lisa Wilkinson*
*Appearing as a courtesy of Actors. Equity Association.
Monday, May 12, 2008
7:30pm - 9:30pm
National Comedy Theater
"The vision, the ‘democratic vista,' is not metaphorical, it is a social necessity. A political philosophy rooted in elation would have to accept belief in a second Adam, the re-creation of the entire order, from religion to the simplest domestic rituals. The myth of the noble savage would not be revived, for that myth never emanated from the savage but has always been the nostalgia of the Old World, its longing for innocence. The great poetry of the New World does not pretend to such innocence, its vision is not naïve. Rather, like its fruits, its savour is a mixture of the acid and the sweet, the apples of its second Eden have the tartness of experience. [...] For us in the archipelago the tribal memory is salted with the bitter memory of migration." Derek Walcott, "The Muse of History" I think the recurrently resurrected argument that "Americans are deciding whether or not they are ready for a white woman or a black man President" is bogus. So simple to say because it easily reinforces the (falsely) imminently secure belief in a "white" man as the standard and sensible answer, the intuitive authoritative figure for this position of power, particularly as this position of power continues to be socially infused with religious, even divine meaning. But time is up on this charade.
Four graduate students at a conference table. “It’s a mobile truss system,” William explains, “as of today we have about a quarter of where we want to be. We have a five-year goal to have the truss complete, all four sides…a grid.” They all have a meeting agenda in front of them. Moments earlier I barged in on their meeting; ten minutes late, out of breath and bearing post-Valentines chocolate as an act of contrition.
Dental work is what I went home for, for nearly a month. In this month of March. What I went home to do. Sort of. I'll be 25 this June, so my mother's much more expansive health insurance than mine will expire in its application to, coverage of my broke-ass (are you all aware of how bad our dental insurance is? Holy God, I didn't know how nearly worthless it is until I had to deal with a succession of dental procedures, some of which are not worth using our ‘coverage' for, at least in my situation, and most of which our coverage does not cover...). I also had not seen my father for about 15 months. With the exception of a brief lunch date the day before a trip to Cuba last May that left him, well, worried about my political, social ‘sympathies,' ‘leanings,' drives and affiliations. During which I had to subtly remind him that while I may be inclined toward risky propositions, if they are worthwhile beyond a short-term angle of vision, I am not drawn toward, like, breaking laws, inclined to embark upon what I would qualify as self-destructive acts.
"'Heimlich'?...What do you understand by ‘heimlich'?" "Well,...they are like a buried spring or a dried-up pond. One cannot walk over it without always having the feeling that water might come up there again." "Oh, we call it ‘unheimlich'; you call it ‘heimlich'." --from The "Uncanny," Sigmund Freud (1919)
Technically, Michigan is a space. A big one, too. Spanning over 97,000 square miles, it is the 11th largest state in the U.S. I lived in Michigan for most of my life. If pressed, it appears that I know--that I have access to--the space of it. I spent years hiking along the scraggly dunes of Lake Michigan. I am intimate with its sand and clay, the acres of C.C. Camp-planted pine forests, the best places to hunt morel mushrooms and where along Bear Creek (pronounced "crick") bald eagles nest. I also know the cityscapes; I've lived and worked in two of Michigan's three major cities. I drive like a New Yorker across its freeways now, slipping in between the aesthetically-uninspired brick buildings that erupted in the 60s and 70s, but the surfaces of these roads remain the same familiar washed grey crisscrossed by a deep black from the tar sprayed into its cracks.
It was one of those "you had to be there" moments. It was art imitating life imitating art. The "Piled Higher and Deeper" (PhD) comics of Jorge Chan has a graduate student following of almost religious proportions, and to see him live, to witness as he presents an audio/visual extravaganza of topical humor straight from the pages of his strips is, well, moving.
Let's just put it right out there. This issue of the GradMag is racy-it's the sex issue, what did you expect? This will be addressed directly, head-on; we will not only release the elephant in the room but we shall entice it to rampage. Here we go:
Climax, cunnilingus, shaft, grannies, trannies, bears, furries, milf, dilf, bdsm, bukake, bbw, the horizontal tango, the wild-thing, the beast with two backs, gettin' it on, making love, I call it messin' with the kid.
I know I should tell her but I didn't. We've a pretty open relationship and (well, not that kind of open, but...) I've never told her anything that she reacted to in anger or disgust. But this is something outside the general confessions and disclosures one lover confesses or discloses to the other. This is secretive, it's scary, it's uncertain. It sinks deep into the heart of control and being out of control and relinquishing control and taking control in a partnership. Sex Addiction is something a few people have heard about (remember Halle Berry's ex-husband?) but the majority of these people are usually left wondering, What's the problem? 
I had been sitting on the floor of the family room in a two story house in Coram, New York with my 22 month-old nephew coloring in Dora's hair green, the only crayon that had survived his wrath, when the news came on. The house serves as a sign for my sister and her husband that they have left behind the struggles of the working class and stepped towards providing their two young children with a middle class childhood full of dance recitals, music lessons, and organized sports, symbols of stability and opportunity. On the large screen TV a newscaster droned on about the baffled reactions of most Americans across the country in response to the Jena 6. My nephew, after losing interest in coloring, danced in front of the TV. His dirty blond curls that formed a frizzy halo over his head imposed themselves over the images of people rallying in Jena, LA.
Its two pm right now, a beautiful day for the season: sunny, crisp. Sadly, I won't see it. Instead, I'll be working in my office until well after dark (which is, what, like 4pm now?) and I'm already thinking about the long trek from the Humanities Building where I'm located to my car nestled somewhere in "Siberia"--the name I have for the parking lot across the street from Wang. The reason I'm thinking about this commute already isn't that its cold, really, or that it's a long walk, but rather because it'll be dark, I'll be loaded down with about 30 pounds worth of laptop & accessories, student papers, books, and bulky winter clothing--and the parking lot is really just a scary place.
