artifact

I thought it was nothing serious because we only met through the distance of several friends and he was, in any case, late. I waited for him at a table in the restaurant, watching other people order and get and eat their meals. After that, I waited on what the restaurant insisted on calling "the terrace," where I could see people turning on the headlights of their cars and driving away into the night. It was the end of summer, and everything was warm. Even the metal chair that was slowly printing itself on the backs of my legs was warm.

It was too warm to move, too warm to leave, and I didn't feel like calling him, so I just sat. The chair was made for leaning forward in conversation and not for sitting, and the thought floated into my head, far away in the warm haze, that it might be uncomfortable enough to leave a bruise.

My phone rang. I thought about leaving it on the table. Lateness was an indication of something, a clue to consider, but I was too warm to care.
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This was in the first two pages of the notebook that I just dug out from under my bed to sacrifice to the dull duty of to do lists. The fragment stands alone. There are no notes to connect or extend it. It's the very first thing I wrote when I started thinking about a story that was going to be about the twelve dancing princesses.

And then I became obsessed with the idea of summer, and my own physical reactions to alcohol, and dancing as a mode of transportation, and the difference between getting lost and losing oneself on purpose, and the story in my head--the one that hadn't been written yet, but was gathering shape and heft and would soon be so solid that I would be less and less able to see it as anything else--changed. And now it's weird to read this artifact from the other story, the one I decided not to write.

Sunday Movie: "untitled" by Heather McCalden

My friend, Heather McCalden, has made a small dance film. She is one of the most ravishing people I know, and you should watch it. The dancing and concept are by Heather. The camera work is by Sonia Reiter.

brief and recently read

Some short fiction that I've read online and enjoyed of late, and can now recommend with enthusiasm unbridled:

"The Tenth of December"
by: George Saunders
(from The New Yorker, October 2011)

Please persist at least to the bottom of the first page. I started this story several times and was put off by the sudden immersion in the inexplicable make believe of a flailing kid. But, by the end of the story, by the ninth page of frozen pond, sickening man, and ever more flailing kid, I had tears all over my face. You need to read this.

"Nicholas Went Looking for the Mayor's Right Hand"
by: William Alexander
(from Zahir, July 2010)

This story reminds me of Lloyd Alexander, who was one of those authors who furnished the rooms in my head when I was a kid. Except this is darker, crueler, and more unsettling (and I mean to say those words in a tone of admiration).

"Snow"
by: John Crowley
(from Lightspeed, November 2011)

Romantic, in a depressed and hollowing way. It carries its skill lightly and tells the story with a refreshing lack of coyness (which isn't what I expected once I had read the first few paragraphs and understood the basic idea). Smooth and beautiful to read.

"The Ghost of a Girl Who Never Lived"
by: Keffy R. M. Kehrli
(from InterGalactic Medicine Show, October 2010)

Keffy is a friend of mine, but for some (inexcusable) odd reason, I bookmarked this story to read when it came out and then completely forgot about it. It's very good, completely distressing, and punches right at the tender obsessions of memory and endings (as, now that I look at my list, all of these stories do) that preoccupy the back of my head.

"iTime"
by: Ferrett Steinmetz
(from Redstone Science Fiction, October 2011)

Here is the thing about Ferrett: he is one of my Clarion classmates, so I admire him as a writer and comrade, but some of his stories absolutely do not touch me at all. And then some of them are just so very appealing, so clearly written and straightforward in emotion. They go down easily and stick. I catch myself thinking about them often and remember them clearly, which is a sign of great affection.

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And here are three stories that I read in print. I really think you should read them (I loved them to excess), but after a lazy search, I could not find them online, so you will have to search them out yourself.

"The First Several Hundred Years Following My Death"
(Shawn Vestal, Best American Fantasy 3)

"The Duck"
(Ben Loory/Stories for Nighttime and Some for Day)

"The Wolves of St. Etienne"
(A. D. Jameson/Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 27)

in the theater, #1

The San Francisco Chronicle featured our piece today. And tonight is opening night. We'll be here through Sunday. If you come, say hello! There will probably be Q&A sessions after each show (except the 8 PM show on Saturday since we have a 9:30 show as well... and will need the intervening half hour to strip off our costumes and hang them in front of some fans to dry. Glamourous, I know...), so you'll get to see us hastily stuffed into normal people clothes and dripping makeup off our noses.

certain delights

Since I have a few hours before heading to the theater, I wanted to make up for the disgruntled flavor of my last post by sharing some things that have recently delighted me.

1. "Section Eight" by Kapowski

Kapowski - Section Eight by jrimler

I believe this is from a new album that they're working on. Which is called "Boy Detective." Which reminds me of "The Girl Detective" by Kelly Link, which points me to...

2. "The Girl Detective" by Kelly Link, as interpreted by the artists of The Ninth Letter

Watching this video interpretation of Kelly's bizarre and amazing story reminds me of listening to my mom read The Story of Doctor Dolittle to me when I was sick in bed. The story passes through my ears and the strange or inexplicable parts of it float through my head like a vivid, inevitable parade.

3. "Break ton Neck"

This FANTASTIC video from Alex Yde features dancer Arthur Cadre. It is amazing and will probably make you fall just a little bit in love.


Break ton Neck from Alex Yde on Vimeo.

4. "Sophia" by Laura Marling

Sometimes, I get completely fascinated by the individual weirdness of certain voices, to the point where I can't even hear the actual words they're singing.

5. "The Way He Does It" by Jeffrey Ford

This short story from Electric Velocipede is utterly clever and wicked. It pricks your curiosity, rings it up to unbearable levels, and then renders it completely beside the point. Brilliant.

on manners and luxury deferred

I have a weakness for fine cosmetics. Not that I wear them always, or buy vast quantities. As a dancer, I spend most of my days in the studio, working up a state of sweaty dishevelment that renders the application of expensive pigments and concoctions pointless. But, when I do have the occasion to paint my face, the whole point of it, for me, is the pleasure of doing so. Heavy cases that snap shut. Velvety powders and finely cut, nearly invisible spangles. Pigment that screams. Pencils that draw on skin like warm butter. Scents that are clean, or dusty, or flowered. I don't have the sort of money that one splashes about ridiculously, or throws out the window, but I am an enthusiast of sybaritic pleasures when taken in restrained doses, and there are certain things (fripperies, or foolishness, or everyday joys?) that I indulge in. Good notebooks. Beautiful shoes. Cashmere sweaters. Nice cosmetics.

Which is all to explain why I was in the cosmetics department of Barney's New York in downtown San Francisco yesterday afternoon. And why I am writing the following letter.

Dear Barney's New York (in San Francisco):


Yesterday, I arrived in your cosmetics department. I knew exactly what I wanted. I picked up a bottle from a shelf and walked to one of your many cash registers. I stood behind a customer (the only other) and waited while one of your sales people rung her up. The process wasn't particularly slow, but I had time enough while standing there to notice three more of your sales people, dressed in black and impeccable lipstick. I had time to notice how they emerged from behind their respective counters and looked at me. I had time to notice how they gazed at my torn jeans and flannel shirt, the bottle of lotion in one of my hands, and the scruffy wallet in my other. I had time to notice how they very definitively turned their backs to resume their conversation. I had time to notice how they did not ask if I desired help. I had time to notice how they did not offer to let me pay for what I wanted to buy. I had time to notice how, when another woman came in, coiffed and sleek in a business suit, they clicked their heels across the floor and buoyed her up with questions and suggestions and fluttering hands.


Let us be frank. I, too, have worked in shops. I have even worked in very nice shops. I have worked in shops where, on a Sunday morning, I have sent a woman away with ten thousand dollars in t-shirts and sundresses and a very decent purse because she wanted someone to help her pick out clothes for a cruise. I am familiar with the judgments made on customers. The jaded assumptions of who will be difficult, who will be a pleasure, who will fling open their wallets, who will not. But I was never so confident in my psychic ability to assume my assumptions were anything like fact. And didn't your parents, or Jiminy Cricket, or your own dear heart ever force upon you a hoary old chestnut about doing to others?


But, wait! How can I know that those women were not very busy? How can I know there was no pressing matter calling them away from me, a customer, with my wallet out and in my hand? 


Because, dear Barney's, it has happened before. Do not fear! You are not alone. I have visited other shops scruffy and bare-faced. And I have visited them (and you) when I have dressed with an eye to looking pretty, and have put on makeup and pulled back my hair. Condescension, rudeness, and my apparent invisibility are always more likely in the first case. And (isn't it funny?) the kindness, accommodation, helpfulness--the manners, if we are still being blunt--have always been more in evidence in the second. 


Now, I realize that the item I wanted to purchase was comparatively small. My lotion (Malin + Goetz) is $45 per 4-ounce bottle. A bargain of insane proportions when considered next to this $335 pot of cream. But, I go visit you every few months to pick up my lotion, and sometimes a lipstick, or a candle, or an eye shadow I can't resist. These purchases make me happy. I rarely regret them. I make the assumption that one does with habitual pleasures, that I will, sometime soon, return for more.


Dear Barney's. I would like you to know that I put the bottle of lotion back on the shelf. I put my wallet back into my purse. I walked up the stairs and away from your sleek, golden treasure cave. And now I have a new assumption in my head. 


I highly doubt that you would like to hear it.


Best regards,
Megan


P. S. There is a salesperson I would like to make certain you know this letter does not apply to. Jonathan (with the glasses) is impeccably kind, constantly nice, and absolutely helpful. Unfortunately, yesterday he was not there. Too bad for me.

a show and a suggestion

(the YBCA Forum, where we're performing)

In a bit less than a week, I'll be performing with Liss Fain Dance in "The False and True Are One" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The cast happens to include my sister, Shannon, and Carson, who is one of the dancers we're collaborating with on Sharp & Fine Project #1 and a very good friend. The piece is unusual. It combines Liss's choreography--which keeps a whole-hearted commitment to clarity and full, aesthetically aware movement--with short stories by Lydia Davis, an actress (the sweetly indomitable Nancy Shelby), an original score, and a set and structure that try their best to diminish the distance that buffers the audience from the labors of the stage.

The stage is divided into five spaces: four rectangles of varying size for the dance and a raised platform for Nancy. Screens of translucent, shifting blue and green hang between the spaces, and the audience is encouraged to move itself at will. They can stand right up against the dancing space, separated only by common sense (beware the high-flung leg) and modesty. They can walk away from one dancer and walk toward another. They can sit down, or get into staring contests, or install themselves right next to Nancy and listen intently as she reads about women turning into cedar trees, girls turning into stones, and a certain cedar of Lebanon (I have puzzled over that line an absurd number of times when I hear it in rehearsal and have only just now remembered to look it up. My favorite sentence in the Wikipedia article mentions that "the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh designates the cedar groves of Lebanon as the dwelling of the gods.")

(the Yerba Buena Gardens)

I've seen other installation-type dance pieces and work that shakes off the traditions of the proscenium, but I think this piece is interesting because of the way it refuses to turn away from movement that is both rigorous and appealing in its prettiness. There are no histrionics, overt aggression or invasions of privacy. I don't think it's necessarily better than pieces that build on those things, but I do think it's gentler and more welcoming.

The company has been putting up video interviews with some of the artists. Here's mine:



The False and True Are One
November 17-20
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum
Tickets available HERE. (general admission $25, seniors and students $12.50)
Also on Goldstar HERE. ($12.50, plus Goldstar fee... which I can't remember the amount of)

Come! We'd love to see you there!
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Malinda LaVelle, a friend of mine who is a daring, hilarious, and brilliant choreographer (and fabulous woman!), just launched a Kickstarter for a new piece that she's working on with five amazing dancers. "Urge" will explore "our untamed appetites" and be performed at two different San Francisco venues in 2012. Malinda's work is unsettling and funny, and it doesn't shirk the obligation of powerful art, which is to make you feel more like a human being. Please head over to Kickstarter and take a look!