Lautes Licht

Just to let any reader know, I have a show opening up on Thursday entitled "Lautes Licht" at the Shunt Lounge, London Bridge Station. (quite literally, it is directly under London Bridge Station, in these neat old vaults) It requires audience participation to work--you, the emancipated spectators you are, get to set the light levels, thereby telling the characters how to play! Make them run! Make them dance! Make them create beautiful music! You may have fun, you may feel cruel...you may step back and see that somehow all these separate performances seem to relate to each other, and tell you a very individual story. Take a moment to set the action and enjoy your show, then let another guest take a turn. Be sure to watch while your friends conduct their own pieces--you might see something new.

It runs Thursday through Saturday, May 27-29 and June 3-5. All shows start at 8pm but will have a variety of performance times and durations (at least 2 1-hour runs each night, as it relates to concurrent pieces in the space). Tickets to the Lounge are £10, £5 concession for students, the elderly, and the unemployed on Thursday and Friday. There will be loads of other performances, art installations, demonstrations, and opportunities to drink and be merry all through the night.

I acknowledge that most readers of this blog do not live in the UK. I won't be heartbroken if I don't see you.




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As with most of the work I'm up to these days, Licht is a proposition. An experiment, both for me and for you. It is an opportunity for you to see exactly what you want to see, and an opportunity for me to see if you enjoy that. Does the power to control the action excite you? Scare you? Disappoint you? Why?

Lautes Licht (in English, Loud Light) is also a study of the musicality of language. Our multi-national cast will be speaking and singing in a variety of tongues, playing instruments, and communicating visually, each performer on his and her own. I'm excited to see if you find narrative and meaning emerging from the juxtaposition of their actions the way I have. The performers in the space will change regularly throughout the night, so be sure to come back often to try new configurations, new levels, and new stories!

4 Legged Poop Machines and other garden poems

I love cats.

I hate other people's cats.

My cat would never think of pooping in my vegetable garden.

As with other people's cats, my cat poops in other people's yards.

Because, hey, you don't shit where you eat.

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I hate snails.

I hate other people's snails.

They hate snails too.

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Greenfly, greenfly, scourge of courgettes

You gave the zucchini a disease.

My birds don't eat you.

I used insecticide.

A plant died.

Garden Update

Three of my aubergine plants have been eaten down to the stalks. There's still several more so I'm not too upset, but I can't imagine what ate them. Several of the stakes in that bed have been uprooted and some of the plants have been banged about, so I can't help but think it was one of my neighbors' vile cats. They use my backyard as a town square/toilet and no amount of shouting or chasing after them has convinced them that they're not welcome. I need a super-soaker.

My courgette plant looks sick. It is flowering prettily and regularly but the leaves are not in good shape. I keep popping off the ugly ones, and it keeps having fewer leaves. Oof. It might have a disease. I'll see what the fruit looks like, if it produces any. It lives in a pot and has garden-center soil, and it was really big and happy until I put it outside. But there was no room inside--it got so big it blocked the skylight from the seedlings.

Tomatoes are looking healthy but not getting bigger, but it has been stupidly cold out--apparently this is the coldest, grayest May in 20 years. We actually caved and put the heat on tonight. This is ludicrous. I am very, very unhappy with the weather.

Spinach plants are growing and happy. They were getting eaten by bugs so I sadly had to invest in some anti-bug, which I didn't want to do, but it was either that or not have any for me. I hate bugs. And British weather. And my neighbors' cats.

I'm not sure if I like gardening.

comment moderation: oh

Wow. I just found a 3-month long queue of comments waiting to be moderated. I may have forgotten I turned it on. And here I was thinking nobody read my blog or loved me. Whoops.

Thanks for the helpful tips regarding the garden: what I've been doing so far is starting seedlings in my study under a big skylight, then putting them outside when I (hope) think that they're big enough to fend for themselves. I've got several tomatoes and aubergines out in the ground, and so far I haven't exactly murdered anything.

Since the beginning of April I've noticed that the sun was reaching the ground over the fence in the morning and has been staying there at least half of the day. We had a good two weeks of warmth and sunshine in the middle of the month (I went out without a jacket one day!) and, hopeful and excited, I put a bunch of plants out. As of this past weekend, however, it's returned to early March conditions--cold, cloudy, and bleurgh--and the more delicate plants got a bit of a shock. I went out and apologised with tomato fertilizer and stakes and they're perking up a little.

I've been chasing caterpillars and snails away from my edible leaves--Lisa, I had no idea how much of a blight they are until I started gardening in this climate! Guh-Ross. At least snails come with handles. I've been keeping the concrete around my potted plants unappealingly salty and it seems to be keeping them at bay. I don't know if that's a tested method or not. Any recommendations for keeping munching bugs away? I don't have much money for fancy nets, chemicals, or laser beams, and want to be sure my spinach will still be edible for humans.

My soil is fairly penetrable for roots and spades and is pretty wormy, so I think the kids will be able to spread out and get comfortable. I have a beautiful burst of bluebells in bloom, but the minute their show ends I intend to pull them and leave more room for growth. They spread like wildfire and I'm sure I won't catch them all, so I'm not hugely bothered about preventing their performance next year.

The potato plants are huge. I should probably look and see what to do with them soon. They seem very happy both in their gro-bag and the ground, and seem to be about an inch taller and leafier every few minutes. No flowers yet, but awesome.

I've started some cilantro and basil in the study. My mom said she'll be impressed if I can get basil to succeed from seed. I'm not sure what will make it difficult, but they look like they're working hard at getting bigger. Aww.

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I'm glad you don't remember the ring going missing. We tried to remain calm. I eventually found it in its little box, in its little muslin bag, in a black bodega bag filled mostly with crumpled receipts and snipped pricetags at the end of mom's bed. (Ben and Ben turned the house inside-out looking for it. Amusingly mine went up to the game room in search of it and found uncle Chet, hat-over-eyes, hiding out. He lifted the hat, asked, "what's gone wrong now?" and, informed of the ring, neatly replaced it.)

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I've gone through the house and filled every mouse-sized hole and gap I've been able to find and cleaned up the poop. There's one area in the back of the closet-under-the-stairs where the floorboards miss the wall by about two inches all the way across, and i've been unsuccessful in my attempts to cover it, so I resorted to traps, and eventually poison--I don't think I've killed any (these mice have been around this house longer than I have and have defeated other occupants) but I think it may serve as an un-welcome-mat.

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School has been insane. I'm not entirely sure what I'm studying anymore. I want to hide. More specifically, I want to hide in a prop shop and spend a month making fake trees and breakaway furniture and try to think about what I want out of my education.

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Ben makes good corn bread...for a limey.