3/30/2011

A night at the opera

Last night I had the privilege of attending a dress rehearsal for Opera Prometheus's* production of Glück and Calzabigi's Orfeo ed Euridice (I mention the librettist because I are one myself). What a fun evening!

First, I must stress that the singing was superb. In particular, this production's Orfeo, alto Silvia Colloca (and yes, I checked, in the current-day near-total absence of castrati in the opera world, the role is now sung by an alto or a countertenor), has a room-filling voice of terrific versatility, gorgeous tone, and jaw-droppingly accurate pitch. I was also captivated by the solid sound of the chorus — just a handful of people who somehow managed to sound in turns like a mourning crowd and the voices of Baroque insanity in Orfeo's head.

The score itself is a banquet of Baroque, actually, but a relatively spare version of it: the program notes mention that Glück wrote in reaction to the overly florid, showy, perhaps even overwrought aesthetic that had been gathering speed at the time. His efforts in this case resulted in some very rich, yet clear, writing that sits in an exciting place between the Baroque and the emerging Classical style.

The staging, too, was quite spare — in fact, downright abstract. Costumes were all-white for the leads, all-black for the chorus; the set was one sofa. The blocking relied a bit too heavily on the Measured Tread With Vacant Stare approach for my taste, but on the whole it did the job of suggesting Orfeo's inner state as the story progressed. (As they sang in Italian, which I don't speak, I found this a boon to my efforts to follow the specifics of the plot. I'm told there will be surtitles during the performances.)

The band was, alas, the weak link in this production, with some all-too-evident intonation problems in the strings, and a certain lack of responsiveness to the conductor's requests. According to the program, we were missing the violist and the bassist; perhaps their presence will add the energy and depth that will help the violinists stay more on track.

In all, a really fun evening with some kick-ass singing by a new company that deserves your support!

*Their web site is really worth checking out, if only to read their COOL, COOL manifesto!

3/24/2011

A good couple of days

I love to teach. I can't explain it; I just do. Sometimes you never, ever find out whether you did a damned bit of good. Sometimes you find out years, even decades, later that something you don't even remember saying changed someone's life. And sometimes you can see miracles right before your eyes.

I'm doing three lots of teaching at the moment: tutoring in writing academic English, with non-native-speaker doctoral candidates; a workshop for adult beginning writers of science fiction and fantasy; and after-school tutoring for kids in refugee families who are in the process of resettling here in Wollongong. So, obviously, I don't expect one day to be just like the last (not that it ever has been, in my case). Even so, I was surprised twice this week by fabulous, widely different, and yet eerily similar Cool Teaching Moments.

In the first, one of my adult beginners got inspired during some down time at work by a handout I'd given the class about how to format a manuscript. He emailed me a story he'd just tossed off, and it was hilarious and brilliant and just plain fun and just plain good. I don't claim any credit for it: I hadn't set it as an assignment, I hadn't given any specific guidelines for that type of story — he could very easily have written it during that downtime even had we never met. But what I can (and will) claim credit for is being able to let him know that I thought both he and his writing are important, which perhaps gave him the space to try new (and bloody brilliant) things in his writing, and to show them to me. That's a lot for any writer, inexperienced or multi-Hugo-winning, in my opinion.

Today was the second. A high-school girl had been assigned the writing of a myth-type story to "explain" the particular geological formation she was researching (in her case, the Twelve Apostles). She speaks four languages fluently, but none of them is English. Her English is pretty good, don't get me wrong, but she's not particularly comfortable in it. The thought of writing a full-page story was daunting her to the point of immobility. I didn't really know what to do: I could easily have written it for her, of course, but just as of course, I didn't want to. In desperation, I started off with the idea I start pretty much all my writing courses with: "What problem does this character have? How is he going to solve it?" For each plot point she had originally jotted down, I pressed: "Why are they doing this? How does it help them solve their problem?"

"I don't know, Miss*."

"What are some of the reasons they could be going down the hill?"

"I don't know, Miss."

I gave her a couple of examples. "Maybe they could be looking for food. Or running away from something that's trying to eat them. Or running away from a wizard. You can pick one of those."

Soon, I would add, "What else could they be doing? Uh-huh, that would work. What else? What else?"

Suddenly, instead of "I don't know, Miss," or something that was a tiny variation on the thing I'd just said, out of nowhere I got a really major and truly excellent plot twist: "Or they could have taken the wizard's magic stick."

You know how sometimes it feels like someone's scooped you up and flung you up into the clouds for a brief, shining moment? That's what that felt like.

Teaching is cool.


*For my American readers: Aussie schoolkids address their teachers as "Sir" and "Miss" (regardless of marital status). This is a custom I find entirely attractive, and I yearn (alas, most likely in vain) for its adoption in American schools.

3/21/2011

This writer's neck of the (very damp) woods

It's been a while since my last blog post, but (as you could probably surmise) that's been because tons has been going on. Lots of editing, lots of friends' shows and gigs to see, lots of writing, lots of teaching, a bit of camping, and not enough fencing.

The camping, in particular, was supposed to be relaxing — a writer's retreat for me — but it ended up being a bit more intense than I thought. I arrived at the absolutely deserted campsite late on Friday afternoon and cheerily set up my tent (I am a cautious — nay, timid — camper and chose my spot carefully, avoiding both several large anthills and many overhanging branches) and boiled the billy*. The flies were numerous and enormous, but seemed to be leaving me more or less alone. Dinner was a stew I had cooked and dehydrated some weeks before, and I had high hopes for its tastiness. Alas, the rehydration process, while more or less effective, left the stew a tad bland (where did all the flavor go???), and the meat still leathery. Serves me right for eating meat on a Friday in Lent. Minor stressor (number 1).

As the sun started to go down, it occurred to me that the mosquitoes probably wouldn't do me the same courtesy as the flies in leaving me alone, and I retreated into the tent to listen to the radio and do some writing. The story I was working on began to be a bit of a tear-jerker (stressor number 2). Then the rain started — minor stressor (number 3), because I'd done a modification on the tent a while back to correct a design flaw that allowed rain to get in, and I hadn't used the tent in the rain since. Luckily, it seems I'm a frickin' genius at tent modification, and all was well. As the evening wore on, a few more campers materialized, but everyone was considerately quite and kept distances.

The next day I awoke in a leisurely fashion and made myself the traditional camping-morning Milo by setting up the stove and billy just outside the tent door without bothering to leave my sleeping bag. After a similarly leisurely morning lounging in the tent and reading a book, I got ready to sit outside to write. But oh! Remember how I was so benevolent toward the flies for leaving me alone? They had had an unaccountable change of heart. Holy hell, they hurt when they bit. And left blood seeping down one's leg. For some reason they absolutely loved my knees. Stressor number 4, and not a minor one, either. Into the tent for most of the day. (I did emerge for a short bushwalk later, which I enjoyed hugely — the flies did not follow me along the hiking trail for some reason.)

The words came slowly, but one by one my electronic distractions ran out of battery and I was driven to listening to the sluggish murmurs in my own skull. More words came, and a few more. Additional campers arrived, and kept on arriving, and I realized to my horror that this was a long weekend in the ACT (where the campsite was). Some of them were not so quiet. Some of them did not keep their distance.

The next morning I woke at 6 — I was a woman on a mission. No time for the billy or a leisurely wakeup: I had to pack up the campsite and head into Tuggeranong for a fencing tournament. (Yes, it was all very Xena Warrior Princess.) Everyone at the tournament should be grateful that there was a locker room/change room with a shower. Once I'd cleaned up, I watched the morning competition for a while, then got ready for my own event (novice women's foil). The gym was bloody hot. Oh, it was hot. I forgot to drink enough water. My focus flagged in the end, and I did not do as well as I had hoped. (Stressor 5, and a lesson learned.) Despite this, I find it very fun to fence people I've never met, and I talked to some very interesting people and made a friend or two, which was part of the point. Fencing draws an extraordinarily wide variety of people: geeks (here is where I raise my own hand), highly competitive athletes (here's where I put my hand down), hobby fencers, social fencers, fencers looking for spiritual and mental development — pretty much everyone is there for a different reason. Fascinating.

Home that evening, after treating myself to a heavy and comforting meal at the Paragon in Goulburn (locals despise it, apparently, but I love it, and it is always, always exactly the same, yesterday, today, and forever).

Since then it's been a dizzying whirl of editing, writing, teaching, and going to performances. It's been raining torrentially and steadily for four days here, and I'm starting to wither from overwatering and lack of sunlight. Not to mention the increasing mold aroma, clammy clothing and sheets, and deep reluctance to open a packet of anything, because of the certainty that it will instantly turn revoltingly soft.

Houston and I have been working on yet another 10-minute opera (our second), so I'll keep you posted as to whether and when this and the first get produced.

It sure is raining out there. Yup, it sure is.

*For those who don't know, a billy is a lightweight can-shaped cooking pot. For those who know what a billy is but think it's only in songs, nope. It's a camping essential in these parts.

3/04/2011

This is both sad and alarming.

It is no exaggeration to say that Clarion South turns people from wannabes into writers. I, and dozens more from the four Clarion South workshops that have run to date, have been the beneficiaries of an astoundingly successful — and yes, life-changing — magic formula for making people the most fabulous writers they can be.

Today, however, the Clarion South team (and they are heroes, one and all) has announced that Clarion South is on hold indefinitely, as they have run out of options for a workshop venue cheap enough that most writers have at least a chance of affording it. The cheapest option, they posted on their site, would still require a doubling of the tuition fee.

Yes, it is possible to be a good writer without going to a Clarion. But being a Clarionite is something special. First, it fast-tracks you through what would probably be the equivalent of a good undergraduate creative-writing degree, or even master's-level.

Second, it gives you an undeniably intense experience of what it is to be a writer, all day, every day, with every moment consumed by writing, talking about writing, critiquing others' writing, learning how to market your writing, writing, writing, writing. By the end of that, you know whether you can hack the writing life (and whether you should).

Third, it puts you in touch with some of the giants in the field. There's no guarantee they'll read your story, gasp, and phone their own agent right away about you. But it could happen. And even if it doesn't, they're the sages at whose feet we all sit, and they got to be sages by being both really really good at what they do and really really generous with their time and skill.

And finally, it gives you sixteen people who are in your life forever. More than friends. People you can lean on like a wall. People who will find you when you are wandering in the Great Writing Desert and share their water with you. Maybe even their chocolate. We writers like to tell ourselves and our non-writing friends that we are solitary people, and maybe we are. But there are moments in the lives of even the most solitary people when being alone is just wrong. And the Clarionite always has buddies who understand.

I have no answers for the heroes who run Clarion South. I don't have much money. I don't know Brisbane and can't suggest venues. I have no gift for wheedling generous sponsorships and grants out of corporations and foundations. Maybe if I, and others, tell people how important Clarion South is — and that it's the only workshop of its kind in the entire southern hemisphere — the word will spread and a solution will emerge.

3/01/2011

The return of the village

It occurs to me that back in the old days, when we all lived in villages, everybody knew everybody's business. All their business. The bad thing about this was that there was an undercurrent of shame — or at least the fear of shame — to everybody's daily lives. You did what was expected, because there was nowhere to hide. (I grew up in a very small town, and while it wasn't exactly like living in a village of olde, it was still pretty claustrophobic that way.)

The good thing, though, was that people had a sense of responsibility. They knew their actions had consequences. They knew that the rules and the shame were there to put the brakes on rampant selfishness and sociopathic behavior. You felt bad, you bloody got over it. You didn't run away from your responsibilities, or act out in hurtful and destructive ways, just because things got tough.

I just noticed some photos up on Facebook from a particular party I'd been to. I was in a couple of them. Nobody asked if they could post a photo of me. Just...there they were. If I had been doing anything stupid, there it would be, irrevocably, passed from screen to screen to screen with a few careless clicks, searchable to anyone who knew my name. Bad news? Invasion of privacy, culture of shame reborn? People living in persistent pain because they find the thought of getting help humiliating? Or good news — the rebirth of responsibility with the fall of anomymity?