Halloween girl party!

Why do I agree to these things? Oh yeah...cause it's fun!

Burke

Old photo, new favorite person in the world.

Happy Father's Day

Just missing my dad today. Kind of blue. He was a sweet, smart, loving father, and I'll never have anyone love me that much again. Love you, dad.

NED Fest

We had a throwdown Friday night in Athens, and I've just about recovered enough to write about it. A few months ago Lynda

Lynda shows KO how it all works

said she was thinking about getting Oh OK together to play a benefit for Ingrid, and wanted to know where I thought would be a good place to hold it. She said she was looking into getting some more bands together and maybe have an art auction too. I said to contact Little Kings, which she did, and voila! NED Fest!

Beautiful artwork from Michael Oliveri, Sam Seawright and Andy Cherewick

First of all, Ingrid is our lovely sweet talented FUN friend who is beating breast cancer's ass for the second time.

The Lovely Ingrid

She had it once before in 1995 (is that right, Ing?) and had been cancer-free until this year, when they found something under her arm. She has undergone six rounds of chemo and is facing it all like a total trooper (not moany groney at all!) and since she's way up in Boston, we wanted to do something to help her out, long-distance wise. NED stands for "No Evidence of Disease", Ingrid's goal which she will reach, I have no doubt. So NED Fest seemed appropriate as the title of the party!

Volunteers extraordinaire Rebecca, Amy and Asia

I enlisted KO, planning superstar,

The Lovely KO

and we got Kim too, since she has gallery experience, and we took over the auction/art side of the night, while Lynda focused on bands and t-shirts. We ended up with fourteen artists, 23 works of art, one vacation package, three yoga packages, a book package, two REM collectors' items and two sets of jewelry sent in by two different jewelers. We raised $5000 on the art, door donations and t-shirt sales, plus another $5000 someone donated in an anonymous check.

Sunny, KO, Marianne, Lynda and John, with birdhouse he won

Here are some action shots of the evening:

After the wonderful event at Little Kings, after we finished up the bands and closed the auction and distributed the goods, we went to KO's room at the hotel for an after-party. Of course, things soon devolved into old school craziness which lasted till 5:00 am:

All in all a great success! And only a teeny hangover on Saturday!

Hellooooo

I'm super busy, but wanted to drop in and say hi to my faithful readers. TONS of news but it will have to be posted after my trip to Athens. More later.

"Normal people are so hostile"

That's a quote from Dexter, my favorite show and my ultimate hero. If you've never seen the show, he's a serial killer who only takes out bad guys. But mainly he's incredibly hot, and smart, and just all around fabulous. He often says fabulous things, like the title of my post. It fits today but I won't bore you with details.

Next, to the real world. Last weekend turned out to be a complete blast, only to be followed by this week which has also been amazing. I'm finished for the year! Yippee! All that is left to do is to finish the dissertation and I'm golden. Life is good.

I'm working right now on a chapter on theater and mimesis, focusing on Genet and Artaud in general and Les Bonnes in particular. It's added a whole new dimension to the dissertation, which feels much richer now. If only I could make all the chapters feel like they fit together. But they all seem almost independent of each other. Chapter one covers the traditional murder narrative, the expectations of readers and analyses of a few early stories. Chapter two discusses the Papin sisters, their crime, testimony and trial, looking at how this true crime refuses incorporation into any traditional murder narrative. Chapter three examines the killer and the female as other, beginning with Aristotle's designation of female as monstrous and working towards other types of alterity created by/confirmed in their crime. Chapter four discusses theater and its ability to incorporate this monstrous other into the self, thus being the sole medium able to tell the story of the Papin sisters in a way that captures the essence of the women and their crime. Anyway it's exciting to get back to writing and to leave teaching behind for a while.

Here are a few images from various productions of Les Bonnes. The first is from a Theatre des Halles in Avignon's 2006 production of the play:
I love this set, from Teatro Altrove in Genova, 2008:

And this amazingly beautiful stage set by Alain Ollivier from the Studio-Theatre de Vitry in 1991:

What I would give to be able to actually see this play! Is anyone putting it on anytime soon?

Okay, back to work...

Going to Athens

Cathy and I are heading up to Athens tomorrow. I'm excited but at the same time kind of not. We are going to a huge celebration in honor of John Seawright, a most beloved human being (see here and here,) and a party afterwards. I am happy to see all the people who will be attending, and hope to see my crush there, but there's also the ick factor, also known as "What if Paul and Ugh are there?" I doubt they will be, honestly, but you never know. If there's free booze and the possibility of getting high, Paul just might show. I shouldn't let it bother me; like Cat says, if they are there I will just hold my head high and ignore them, knowing how far beneath me they are. But still, I don't want to have to LOOK AT THEM and have it ruin my day. But my crush will be there, and lots of other fabulous people, so fuck em.

Good things about going to Athens tomorrow:

Cathy

Athenians I love

John Seawright
KO
TStand
Bad things about going to Athens tomorrow:

Paul
Ugh
Okay, the good outweigh the bad. Just pray for me, people, that it turns out to be a drama-free visit, in the spirit of the sweetheart that was John Seawright.