THIS IS NOT A WAGON

It may appear as if I have fallen off the reading wagon... alas, I assure you that appearances are deceiving! Let me explain...

Whilst I have not been keeping up with my BOOK a week regimen in the last little while, I have been on another adventure known as PURE CREATIVE RESEARCH!!! Yee-haw.

I've been hired by CalArts to direct the US premier (!) of a truly bizarre opera from 1965 called "Loving" by a rather hip cat named R Murray Schafer who coined the truly awesome term "schizophonia"... and as I was brought onto the project rather late, I've been busting my arse trying to get familiar enough with the piece and do enough research to make some fundamental decisions regarding the design and production of this epic piece of avant-art-visual-musical-poem theater.

I've been reading about Abelard and Heloise, Eros, Vanity, Ishtar, Carl Jung's theories on the Anima & Animus, Botticelli's Primavera and all sorts of varied and sundry visual research and inspiration, from the light works of James Turrell to the fashions of 1965, Beach Blanket Bingo, Jean Luc Godard, and the world's smallest drive in movie theater.

In the midst of all that, I'm working my way through William Irvin Thompson's The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light, which has THE BEST FRIGGIN' TITLE THAT I'VE EVER HEARD!!!!

I'll probably have some exciting things to share after tomorrow, which is the first major/official production meeting for the opera. It's happening after a 2 1/2 hour design meeting wherein we shall try to come to some sort of same-page consensus on the look, feel, function, form and aesthetic of this wild and weird piece of work. :-)