More Links and Non-Sequiturs

Now my feet turn the corner back home
Sun turns the evening to rose
Stars turning high up above
You turn me into somebody loved.

I've got the Weepies on my brain. It's a catchy tune. Won't leave my head.

I am wearing jeans that I bought in 1997. I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed or proud of this fact. It means, of course, that I have not done laundry in many, many weeks. I remember very vividly standing in the dressing room of an Esprit outlet store deciding to buy them. I was on a road trip of some sort, I think from Atlanta back to Winston.

Back when I used to drive.

Back when I used to buy things.

Some fun links:

Our Backstage Review. I was happy with it.

In the interest of full disclosure, there were several negative reviews posted on various online review sites about the show. I don't feel like linking to them. It's just so funny the way people take this show so personally - people bothered by the portrayals of school teachers (both my parents were career educators and Shawn is a full time public school teacher - you cannot find two people with a greater respect for the teaching profession - but, ummm, it's a joke?).

Or people who question the show's "authenticity" ("Eighth graders wouldn't really talk that way"). We weren't exactly going for kitchen sink drama here. Or realism for that matter.

One critic noted: "The tongue-in-cheek style that pervades the show fails to capture how very serious adolescence seems when you're in the middle of it."

But why on earth would we WANT to ACTUALLY relive adolescence? We had to do it once already. The fun is looking back on it with the recognition that none of it really does matter. At thirteen you have an infinite amount of time to reinvent yourself. That's the beauty of it.

Maybe you can still reinvent yourself at thirty-one. Maybe I should be listening to myself more.

This little interview with Shawn and Joe also cracked me up. I love the Bill Finn story.

Several years ago when I was an assistant-assistant-something at the O'Neill Festival while on summer break from school I cornered Bill Finn in the little pub on the grounds where everyone drinks very cheaply.

"Why in 'Love Me For What I Am' in IN TROUSERS does the wife sing that she met Marvin in 'the can'. I don't get it. Was he in the women's room or was she in the men's room?"

Mr. Finn looked equal parts baffled and trapped. I don't think he had any intention of analyzing IN TROUSERS lyrics that evening.

"Umm. They were at a party? There was only one bathroom?" He responded and fled, far far away from the little musical theater dork who was processing all of this in her head, convinced that she now possessed the Rosetta Stone necessary to making Finn's early, quirky, but beautiful work, cohesive.

I've told you all before that I am at heart a big musical theater dork.

I shared the news excitedly with B. We analyzed and reanalyzed his response all night.

We do laugh about this now.

Oh! If you haven't already, go see my friend Josh's show. It's really wonderful and funny and moving and smart.

I saw him along with the regular Wednesday night crew last night at Tunni's (minus one Miss MB). He is doing great, and I cannot be more happy or proud of him. We talked about Family Feud and intimate situations involving stuffed animals. Then Jer got there and we talked about how everyone we went to school with is having babies now.

These things do happen.