I'm staying in an ancient farmhouse in New York State, several miles from Bard College, 90 miles North of New York.
It's astonishingly peaceful here.
It's the first time Amanda and I have actually lived somewhere, without any other people in the house, somewhere that wasn't a hotel, in about 18 months. It's really good. This morning we went for a five mile walk, and we talked the whole way. So much to catch up on.
It's the calm before the storm of course, as she's going to spend the best part of the next 14 months on the road with her band, and we'll catch each other as we can. I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to live for most of that time (current front runners are London, New York and San Francisco, for the curious).
Amanda is working with the Bard theatrical/performing arts department and her band, all under the direction of Michael McQuilken, to build make and sculpt the tour they're going to be doing. Somewhere in there she got MIT involved and so now has a lot of very strange high tech stuff that has never been let out of the lab, including the ability to play people as instruments. She's doing a couple of test shows for the public before the tour, on Sept 5th and 6th.
I finished a quite long, and very late, short story the other day, rather to my surprise. I nearly gave up on it a few times along the way, but didn't want to disappoint the people who were waiting for it. I sent it to the editors nervously. They loved it, and so (to my relief) have the few other people I've shown it to.
The story has a title that keeps changing, but is more or less something to do with the image above (borrowed from here).
I want to read it aloud to an audience to find out what really works and what doesn't, as I do the second draft, and to see what I need to fix. I think it's going to be somewhere between 50 and 60 minutes long to read aloud. Depending on how long it is I may read a few other things to make up the time to about 70/80 minutes. (Any requests?)
I talked to Bard, hoping for an empty classroom and a few students with time on their hands.
They gave me their biggest theatre, the Sosnoff, on Wednesday the 5th of September at 6 pm. (Details here.) It's in the amazing Richard B Fisher Centre for the Performing Arts building.
It's completely free to get in. You are, after all, guinea pigs.
Bard will be seating on a first come first served basis, but 900 seats is a lot of seats to fill, so you should be able to get a seat, if you come. (If you're coming from far away, get there earlier.) (Also, if you are hesitating, please come.)
If anyone's already going to see Amanda and the Grand Theft Orchestra that night (doors open at 7:30) wants to come and see me first, I will definitely finish in time for that. (They'll be in a different theatre about 100 feet away.) (You can reserve tickets for the Amanda show here. And if you don't want to see me, or can't make it, she'll also be performing the following night.)
Edited to add a picture from our walk this morning.
It's astonishingly peaceful here.
It's the first time Amanda and I have actually lived somewhere, without any other people in the house, somewhere that wasn't a hotel, in about 18 months. It's really good. This morning we went for a five mile walk, and we talked the whole way. So much to catch up on.
It's the calm before the storm of course, as she's going to spend the best part of the next 14 months on the road with her band, and we'll catch each other as we can. I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to live for most of that time (current front runners are London, New York and San Francisco, for the curious).
Amanda is working with the Bard theatrical/performing arts department and her band, all under the direction of Michael McQuilken, to build make and sculpt the tour they're going to be doing. Somewhere in there she got MIT involved and so now has a lot of very strange high tech stuff that has never been let out of the lab, including the ability to play people as instruments. She's doing a couple of test shows for the public before the tour, on Sept 5th and 6th.
I finished a quite long, and very late, short story the other day, rather to my surprise. I nearly gave up on it a few times along the way, but didn't want to disappoint the people who were waiting for it. I sent it to the editors nervously. They loved it, and so (to my relief) have the few other people I've shown it to.
I want to read it aloud to an audience to find out what really works and what doesn't, as I do the second draft, and to see what I need to fix. I think it's going to be somewhere between 50 and 60 minutes long to read aloud. Depending on how long it is I may read a few other things to make up the time to about 70/80 minutes. (Any requests?)
I talked to Bard, hoping for an empty classroom and a few students with time on their hands.
They gave me their biggest theatre, the Sosnoff, on Wednesday the 5th of September at 6 pm. (Details here.) It's in the amazing Richard B Fisher Centre for the Performing Arts building.
It's completely free to get in. You are, after all, guinea pigs.
Bard will be seating on a first come first served basis, but 900 seats is a lot of seats to fill, so you should be able to get a seat, if you come. (If you're coming from far away, get there earlier.) (Also, if you are hesitating, please come.)
If anyone's already going to see Amanda and the Grand Theft Orchestra that night (doors open at 7:30) wants to come and see me first, I will definitely finish in time for that. (They'll be in a different theatre about 100 feet away.) (You can reserve tickets for the Amanda show here. And if you don't want to see me, or can't make it, she'll also be performing the following night.)
Edited to add a picture from our walk this morning.
Authors. You can't give them away.
Labels: Bard College, short stories, spindles