Because it’s October.

Plus it’s my birthday.

Witch’s Hat, by Robin Williamson


certainly the children have seen them
in quiet places where the moss grows green

coloured shells jangle together
the wind is cold the year is old the trees whisper together
and bend in the wind they lean

next week a monkey is coming to stay

if I was a witches hat
sitting on her head like a paraffin stove
I'd fly away and be a bat
across the air I would rove

stepping like a tightrope walker
putting one foot after another
wearing black cherries for rings

Three things I want you to see at Wordstock

Full disclosure: these are three events I planned, so of course I consider them must-sees. They’re all omnibus occasions -- panel discussion/reading events, designed to extract maximum performance value out of each sojourn. Check it out.

Voices from Another Portland
Saturday, 2pm, Wieden + Kennedy Stage
Remember last June when I gushed over my favorite summer book, Portland Queer? Now meet five of the book’s contributors, as they read from their stories and wax philosophical over writing about Portland places and experiences as viewed through a different lens.

Editor Ariel Gore assures these writers – Marc Acito, Jacob Anderson-Minshall, Wayne Flowers, Colleen Siviter and moderator Dexter Flowers – are writers who love to perform and/or are performers who love to write. Sounds heady!


Stages of Playwriting
Sunday, 2pm, McMenamins Stage
Our three guests – Marc Acito, Storm Large and Cynthia Whitcomb – have all had recent hits on Portland stages that are now primed to wow audiences on the national scene. These writers will talk about the many advantages of workshopping homegrown work – including the support of local collaborators, an avid fan base, and most importantly, fellow writers (all three participate in the Big Brain Trust). Plus this panel is moderated by bon vivant Floyd Sklaver, so what’s not to like?

And yes, that is indeed Storm in the photo at right -- because I will stop at nothing to attract people to these panels – all dolled up as Gretchen Lowell, the dangerously fetching antiheroine of Chelsea Cain’s novels. (Chelsaa, you know, is also appearing at Wordstock: Sunday, 1pm, Colubmia Sportwear Stage.)


Border Crossings
Sunday, 3pm, McMenamins Stage
First of all, this discussion is moderated by Portland media goddess Dmae Roberts, okay? And then her guests are Marilyn Chin, Canyon Sam, and redoubtable Portlander Polo Catalani. Together they’ll discuss the tricky business of how you represent other cultures in writing without casting them in the dubious distinction of being exotic or resorting to other forms of orientalism. This is bound to be a lively discussion.

Saturday, by the way, is my 2nd annual 75th birthday. So show up for me, why don’t you.

Hellzapoppin’: Wordstock opens!

For you kids, Hellzapoppin’ was a riotously popular revue, in its heyday, that changed all the time. It was understood anything could happen at any time. You know it better through its descendant, the ancient TV show, Laugh-In.

But never mind, because that’s not what this post is about. The old title was also once a synonym for a constantly revolving kaleidoscope of activity, and today, on the eve of Wordstock’s opening, that describes things pretty well. With over 160 authors participating, it’s a thrilling advent.

Probably you know that you can get the weekend schedule of authors speaking, reading and teaching at the Wordstock website, but did you know that meanwhile a cavalcade of coterminous activity is happening all over town?

One must-see event is Chicago’s celebrated 2nd Story troupe, the company that “combines high-energy performance storytelling with live music and delicious wine.” What better way to inaugurate a festival celebrates the spinning of tales, right?

Doug Whippo from 2nd Story on Vimeo.

But wait, there’s more. Naturally you know Live Wire!, the live radio event that “isn’t just a show, it’s a happening.” Well, Saturday night at the Aladdin brings us the 5th Live Wire! Wordstock Extravaganza at the Aladdin Theater, starring a glittering bevy of Wordstock guests including Sherman Alexie, Richard Dawkins, Chelsea Cain, Candy Tan and more.

Both events are sure to be popular, and as a die-hard Portlandian you know that Live Wire! always sells out, so don’t wait for hell to freeze over. Get those tickets now.

Playing hooky

Entre nous, even whilst feverishly preparing for Wordstock, I have managed to sneak in a novel by a writer not appearing in this year’s festival. (Hopefully you’ll meet him at future fests.) You may know the divine Mr. M already from his theater assays: several Marivaux translations to his credit, for instance, plus the book for the Broadway musical version of The Triumph of Love, to name just a few things. So naturally when I learned that University of Wisconsin Press was publishing his first novel, I was all over it.

And my fanaticism was rewarded. Sugarless is a sparkling, beguiling sucker punch. It starts out as an edgy, nervously funny high school romp. Then the author gradually lures you into more dangerous waters. And even as Rick (the story’s young protagonist) achieves his pyrrhic victory, the story becomes unexpectedly poignant.

Serendipitously, Sugarless comes out a time when Fox’s musical juggernaut Glee is attracting huge audiences. But this book – which mines a different high school refuge, the speech department and its myriad contests – focuses less on the reactions of the rest of the student body (who are well nigh irrelevant in this miniature terrarium) and more on the internecine rivalries between Rick and his competitors.

Obviously this is a great book for anyone who endured the rigors of less than mainstream glory during high school: glee club, chess club, the drama department, et al. But anyone who came of age sexually during this period – which is to say, I think…all of us? – will respond to Rick’s misadventures with a sympathy that’s sometimes aggrieved, more often amused, and most often with wry commiseration.

I loved this book, and I think you will, too.

"Everyone's Waiting."

Some weeks ago I watched just enough of the Emmy Awards to hear a notion iterated several times -- that we’re currently enjoying a new golden age of television. Maybe they say stuff like that every year, for all I know, but this time the phrase struck me as more than mere pro forma puffery.

It started years ago with the ascendancy of cable – and with cable’s savvy predilection for hiring playwrights to craft its narratives, mind you. First HBO got hot, which spurred Showtime and others to catch up, and at long last even broadcast got with it, albeit within the confines of its métier.

I’ll never forget what a revelation it was when The Sopranos debuted in 1999, and how astonishing it was that HBO struck gold again two years later with Six Feet Under. Fodder for a different post is my conviction that neither series quite surpassed the miracles of their first years out, but never mind.

Both series also gave us conclusions that are still discussed, debated and admired today. I must have watched SFU’s final episode dozens of times now. And let me warn you right now, if you have not seen it, read no further if you don’t want to know what happens. In an act of awesome prestidigitation, the writers reversed the show’s very premise (or extended it): a saga that started every episode of the previous six years showing you someone’s death now extended that convention into the future, showing us the possible demise of each of the main characters.

At first viewing, I was puzzled. Why was the make-up so obviously overdone? Why the soft focus, and the nervous oscillation between the sentimental and the cavalier? But returning to the conclusion again made it clear that we were not seeing the characters’ “real” deaths at all. Instead we witnessed a projection of the story’s youngest protagon, Claire, as she broke ranks with the Fisher family to literally drive off into the vast desert that separated her past from her future.

All right. But why do those closing six minutes continue to affect me so much? My chest gets tight as I think about it even now. And what I think … is that the story of the Fishers ends at a defining moment, for Claire, that we have all experienced at least once (and some of us, several times): a moment when you know that the entire rest of your life in some sense spools out from that moment. So naturally Claire projects herself into the future. It all lies before her. Her life. And the endpoint that gives that life its poignancy, perhaps even its very meaning.

Not for nothing is this last chapter entitled “Everyone’s Waiting.” In the context of the episode, I think Keith says this to Claire, meaning that the family is waiting to see her off on her journey. But as so often with the show’s breathtaking writing, the phrase has multiple reverberations. Yes, everyone’s waiting to die. But also, some of us like to feel that those who have gone before us are waiting for us to catch up. In Claire’s final seconds of life, the camera scans the photographs on her wall to remind us of everyone we ever met through this story. Claire is the sole survivor, just about to join their ranks at last.

***

But wait, there's more. Something that stuns me about the series ending is that it speeds up as it goes along, giving you the vertiginous feeling you already know so well – that each year goes by faster than the one before, and that all too soon your hoard of days will be exhausted. Contributing powerfully to this sense of time overtaking you is the austerely opulent, understated and yet overpowering song that scores the sequence, “Breathe Me,” by Sia.

Here it is. Watch it again, and just try to resist the undertow. I wonder if television has ever had a better marriage of form and content.

Because a body can't kvetch all the time

Another interim post, while I attempt to recover from Portland’s last-gasp heat snap before autumn sets in for real (tomorrow, reportedly).

Here’s a fun little de-stresser, which comes to me via the redoubtable Isaac Butler of Parabasis fame: the iNudge. It's okay, don’t thank either one of us. It's satisfaction enough to know I've wasted your time....if you happen to be a raving Type A workaholic. Not that I know anybody like that.

Have I lost the will to blog?

Let's hope this latest miasma is temporary. Because two posts in two weeks hardly cuts the ice. Cuts the mustard? Cuts the cheese.

To tide you over till I can nudge myself off the Couch of Desuetude and back to the Desk of Quiet Improvement, here is part two in a continuing series A Moment's Hesitation: