The Elusive Lion, Part II

YOU CHOSE A (The pre-med track)
You are about to graduate with a BS in biology. You have been accepted into Tuskegee University's esteemed veterinary program, but your heart rebels. You still want to be a lion tamer. Do you A) go to vet school, B) Get an entry-level job at the local zoo, or C) take time off, maybe travel a bit

GO!

YOU CHOSE B (Drama major)
You are about to graduate, and have become a promising makeup artist and stage manager. You are known for your abilities to soothe even the most tempermental and neurotic of your fellow students. You have a chance to further your study at Syracuse University in New York, but you sometimes wake up in a cold sweat with foggy dream lions still padding through your mind. One day, the circus comes to town, and you finagle a backstage pass through your department. On your way to the makeup trailer, you see an apprentice lion tamer in shiney black boots and a shiney red shirt. In the dust-filtered light of backstage, he/she walks with a faint limp and his/her heavily lined eyes pierce you smokily. Your head swims and you are besotted.
The head makeup artist is a sassy man named George. He is desperately short-handed and offers you a job. Do you A) go to Syracuse, B) Accept George's job offer, even though it doesn't pay all that well, and run away with the circus, or C) try for an internship at the local equity theater

GO!

YOU CHOSE C (Research lion taming)
After two years of toiling for a pittance at the local zoo and writing fruitless letters to self-professed lion tamers, you simply go to the circus and snoop around in back until you spot the lion tamer. He is old and cantankerous, but he likes the looks of your calloused hands. "You've got heart, kid," he says, and takes you on as his apprentice. Two years after that, you are still cleaning animal cages for a pittance, but now you are learning the basics of lion taming, and you get to wear a shiney shirt. One night after the show, you go to feed the tigers and find that Cleo, the youngest, is sick from having swallowed a tube of greasepaint. In her pain and confusion, she slaps you with her massive paw, sending you reeling into a pile of hay with blood gushing from your wounded thigh. You and Cleo both recover, but the experience haunts you. One night backstage, you exchange glances with a kid your age. He/she is wide-eyed and has college written all over him/her. You go to the room you share with Frances, the trapeze artist, and wash off your makeup. You look at your face in the mirror, framed between Frances' drying tights and a picture of your mother, and wonder if you might have been better off staying in school. Do you A) Hang up your shiney shirt, go back home and apply to schools, B) Decide to step up your felinology game and take correspondance courses in veterinary science, or C) Stay with the circus, but ask your boss to let you work as a dresser while you get your head together.

GO!

A full time job, like life itself, is a fundamental limitation on time. The trick is to balance necessity with desire, and somehow realize your selfhood within the context imposed upon you. Optionals include trying to exert control over that context, stirring up a stimulating mess (forbidden romance, for example) or trying to pretend you're not there at all. Things go better if you sleep enough, eat well and bathe.

My friend, Betsy, had a wonderful notion yesterday: Wouldn't it be grand if life were like the Choose Your Own Adventure series? Do y'all remember those? Let's try one out, just for kicks:

You have just graduated from high school. You have been accepted into a decent state school, but your heart rebels. You have always dreamed of being a lion tamer. Your parents want you to start a pre-med track. Do you A) start a pre-med track B) delare yourself a drama major or C) defer enrollment and secretly begin to research lion taming.

GO!

Baroquenhearted

To be an artist, one must suffer, but how much? Why is it so psychologically wrenching to sing baroque music? I'm not sure if I even like baroque music enough to be wrenched that way. The same way I don't know if I like Seattle enough to scrape and scurry in order to live here. My heart is full of questions.

Back in Seattle Again

I've been in Salt Lake all week, where the weather was heavenly fine. I am very sorry that I didn't have enough time to visit more of my friends, and if you are reading this, fuming, know that I wanted to. The funny thing is that I don't have many people at all to hang out with here, because all my fabulous popularity is somewhere I'm not.

Anyway, I absconded with all kinds of business casual wear this time. Sweaters galore...without moth-holes, even! I have a little concert tomorrow, then I start my job in earnest. I still don't really feel like I live here, and I wish I had a private space for practicing. I wish I were a little bit taller. I wish I were a baller. But at least I know a German medieval scholar; I think I'll call her.

Last night, we were given tickets to ballet! ...but not just the ballet, the preview/gala for the coming season, including a free glass of champagne at intermission! Also an extremely rare, if not unique, chance to see Seattle residents decked out in full regalia. Not an REI logo in sight. The show was a great treat. One of the dances was the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev). Maillot's choreography (which I had never seen) was rather naturalistic; the dancers were believably teen-agey. I can't wait to see the rest of it! My favorite dancer, however, was Carla Körbes, who was awfully expressive. Luckily, they post press releases about the casting online, so I can be sure to see her again.

At last, I have The Item. Olive Sayce's Poets of the Minnesang is the book for me! Not only is it a beautiful edition, but Sayce describes each poem and gives its metrical form. Besides that, there is a concise and well written introduction in which she describes genre, development and sources. Finally ...hold on to your hat... there is a glossary of Middle High German terms in the back. Oh man.

In other news, I spent most of the day trying to absorb all of my new receptarian duties. Millions of little things must I do. Today was Friday, which brought papercliply fun in sending out birthday cards and setting out candy for the people who picked up their paychecks. I have to say in favor of this job, there is a certain aura of freshness that hangs about the idea of temporary employment. (I hope I still think that in December, when I'll be locked in the tower for all the hours that the sun is (or isn't) out...)

The Temptress, Part I

I have been hired as a secretary at the temp office! Good god. I have to be there at eight tomorrow. The thing about having a real job is that it reminds one of what one would rather be doing, thereby whittling one's mind to a fine point of will during one's off hours. If one is not too knackered. The other good thing about this (apart from staying out of debtors prison) is that I can memorize lyrics while I walk to work. To be an artist, one must walk!...or so I've heard.

Sunday Morning with Sid and Nancy (and George Foreman)

The people downstairs have been keeping strange hours lately. They were up until at least 2 last night, and yet they were grilling a rack of ribs by 10 this morning. They are devoted barbecutionists. The fellow often expedites the readiness of the charcoal by focusing a blowtorch upon it. Perhaps to procure spices, they go in and out of the apartment, slamming the door for all it’s worth. They sounded upset last night, but this morning’s conversation involved the continual dialing of the wrong number to reach someone called Ernie (who would surely have perished if not for the intervention of our neighbor), and the virtues of George Thorogood.

In other news, there is a hint of fall in the air. The weeping willow by the window now sports a cheery festoon of yellow, and I noticed a leaf falling past by face at the farmer’s market today. I like the fall. Maybe it’s my introverted Norwegian coming to the surface, but I think it’s easier to think clearly when the weather is cool, better still if it’s raining. (I also think that there are ways of learning and improving that don’t really involve clear thinking. That kind might better be called a “letting in” of the world, if it must be called anything.)

Yesterday, we drove towards Mt Rainier. Faced with a breathtaking scene, it seems like it ought to be possible to enter, break open and taste a landscape as if it were a nectarine. But rather than consuming, one is consumed; you cannot observe a whale that has swallowed you. Anyway, we came upon a lake with clear water. Sunk to the bottom were fallen trees, stacked spookily in the basin like ghostly bodies.

Oh, the fun of doing some scholarly research with no grown-ups about! Ironically, this makes me want to do solid work. Heh. I had a dream that I'd pulled together a vast group, and we were reading through stuff for the first time. Everybody was improvising astoundingly well! I was trying to take notes on what they were doing, but it was all I could do to keep up. My thought was: we need good publicity for this! So, that was a nice dream. I'm sure that's just how it will go, too.

Sing up, my golden cock, and I will feed you grain

On it goes. I have been reading German verse a-plenty, usually in goofily rhymed English translation. From this, I have gleaned poems by topic, for to spice the tale of Iwein and his lion. Predictably, most of them are about love, so I must still search for poems of jousting, storms, evil dictators and lions. If only I could find a poem about a stormy beast who slays an evil dictator with a lance! Argh. I have a nice bibliography of music sources and have begun to search for settings of my chosen verses. But today is labor day, and so I am blocked from laboring. Instead, I am at a cafe, watching the cool people walk to and from the totally cool Bumbershoot festival, from which we hear the nightly roar of adoring fans. (Oh, to be a rock star! If only people called out for medieval German song like that!) Also the impotent rage of some bum who Leared it up in the general direction of the poor baristas just now. There are lots of crazy homeless people in Seattle, I'm sorry to say.