sox win

I married into Red Sox Nation. Nancy grew up in Greenfield, MA, wilds of the Berkshires and her father is a stone Boston fanatic. By birth I'm a Cardinals fan, but it was good to see the boys sweep the Rockies last night. I'm just imagining someone from London trying to decipher all that.

Glorious weekend up near New Paltz at Sheila and Norma's place, perfect fall weather, smoked pork by the plateful, hi-larity abounding. Smoked pork. Deserves its own sentence.

Sheila is a brilliant actress, performer and writer and as all who know her know, also a confirmed pyromaniac. If it can be burned, Sheila has probably burned it. So when we go up to their little place by the river up there in the woods, we let it burn, baby. They have a big fire pit out in the side yard and it gets very tribal. Saturday night the women all sensibly went to bed around 11:00, leaving me and a lonely bottle of single malt to guard the fire. Sat there and stared into those flames for an hour, alone, darkness all around me. Anyone watching would have thought "Time to call the authorities. Do it now while he's still planning the rampage. Quickly now. Call the police." But I was wishing no harm or foul, I was getting down to the bottom of a few things. How much did we lose when we stopped staring into fires all night? Seriously. Settles the mind in a very distinct and beautiful way.

Sunday we took a forced march into New Paltz and fell into one of those effortless quip-fests that can occur when naturally funny people relax and start laughing. Highlights include the concept of a "front-heiney" (can't go into that here), snakes on bicycles and Norma and Sheila's tandem monkey walk. Oh man. Two good people who know how to live.

Anyway, to work. Lots of writing due this week, god help me. Meeting tomorrow with Elena to talk about the Overlord project, phone meeting with Susan out at St. Annes. Have to find a big space, ideally a proscenium theater, to work on this thing for two weeks in January/February. Any ideas, please do tell. We've got some money, but I'm really looking for a place we can use for free. Imagine that.

Also, check out Zack Mannheimer's latest post, it's a good read, questioning the idea of a meaningful"community" of New York theater artists. He's at www.zmannheimer.blogspot.com.