Train of Love

December 11, 2012 — Leave a comment

I’m a bit behind with the chronicles, as I’ve been wandering various German and French cities for the past few days. But I’ll try and post a few journal-type entries I’ve been keeping while riding trains and sitting in cafes.

December 8th, 2012. 9:45 AM

Aboard the Franz Kafka Express to Munich

Dropped off in Dejvicka by Patty, then used my last Prague Metro ticket on the subway to Hlavni Nadrazi rail station.  Quiet Saturday morning in Prague. A few female tourists with their bags rolling behind them, me with this huge suitcase (it’s all I had, and didn’t have time to buy a smaller one.) I have named it Bill the Pony.IMG_0746

Bought breakfast in the station: pastry with Nutella, my European favorite. Wander a bit, see the old abandoned station building, sitting atop the new long low boring one. Watch the departures board, wait for the platform. #3 is displayed and away I go.

Older train, slow, mostly compartments of six seats. A white plastic version of the Hogwarts Express. I have a reserved seat. Old Czech man in there as well. Face reminds me of guys back home. Bull-necked and barrel-chested, uses a cane to navigate the corridor. Pulls rosary beads from his pocket from time to time, prays silently to himself.

Young skinny guy with no luggage rides the first leg, but disappears (along with his noticeable body odor) once the conductor starts checking tickets.

Pass through leafless woods, brown and grey, dusting of snow on the ground. Small, run-down villages, reminders of the old days. Revolutions come and go here, but not a lot changes, I imagine. Mountains appear to the south, far away. Snow gets heavier, forest gets thicker, evergreens still giving off a dull color.

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Cross the border into Germany, the old bull gone from the compartment, replaced by a mother and a daughter examining boxes of Christmas chocolates. Then another young brunette woman, then two more speaking some far Eastern European language join us in the compartment. Five gorgeous women and me, rattling along southern Germany, dozing here and there, the sun glinting off the solar panels on the roofs of barns and houses as we make our way to Munich.

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The Swell Season

December 9, 2012 — Leave a comment


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My time in Prague was brief, but incredible.

Prague has this annoying association still attached to it, one of those cities that young backpackers always go on and on about. “You gotta go, man. Prague is amazing.” I avoided it until now partly for that reason. But it is the site of Vaclav Havel’s Velvet Revolution, part of that fall-of-the-Iron Curtain era of history that I’m so fascinated with. And ever since a family I knew from my 5th grade days moved there this past summer, I had vague plans to travel there to finally see it for myself. And with school wrapping up, and my time living overseas coming to an end, I made it the first stop on the Last Tour.

I was able to see Ian’s school, a small British-style international school that, aside from the small class sizes and some cosmetic differences, didn’t seem that much different than what we were doing back home. The teachers are all ex-pats, travelers from around the world looking forward to teaching in a foreign country for a few years before they eventually move on. I looked into something like this several years ago but couldn’t quite pull the trigger.

For three days I wandered the city, spent time with Ian and his family, and ate heavy meals and washed it down with a few good Czech beers. The language barrier was only a small inconvenience; Czech is a difficult language to understand, but there are enough people here that speak English, and you get by.

The city is gorgeous, but here and there you see echoes of the former Communist past. Gloomy, boxy buildings made to service the proletariat but add little to the grandeur of the older architecture. The older folk carry that heavy, resigned grumpiness that comes from being occupied by an oppressive power for decades.

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When you teach fifth grade, you get the kids for a short nine months, three seasons and then you pack them off to the junior high and you say goodbye. Most of the time you never see them again, occasionally some stay in touch, but even that fades in time. But if you’re lucky, sometimes you build a relationship with a few that last for years and years. Sometimes, you even get to go to a wedding.

For a few days, Haroosh and I were reunited with an old friend, on the other side of the world, and I can only hope that it isn’t the last time I see Ian and his family. That last day of school, where everyone says teary goodbyes to the little community created within four walls of a classroom, gets worse and worse every year. Too many goodbyes, too many good kids you don’t want to part from. Limelight offered the chance to sustain a relationship for years and years, but now that’s gone too, a swell season of my life that has given way to a new, more uncertain one, but still full of promise and potential.2012-12-05 16.22.20 2012-12-06 11.46.13 2012-12-06 19.20.03
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A Quick One (While I’m Away)

December 7, 2012 — Leave a comment

Flew to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, the other day to see a former student and his family who relocated here this past summer.

I have slept well and eaten even better. Longer post soon, but for now, enjoy some Mikulas  action!

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An Angel and a Devil riding the Prague Metro.

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Prague’s awesome Astronomical Clock. I want one.

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Christmas markets in Prague.IMG_0722

Eatin’ some Trdelnik. You can really taste the cylindricalness!IMG_0713Nothing says Christmas like some good old medieval torture!

 

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316

December 4, 2012 — 6 Comments

When I first arrived in Dublin, I had nothing. Just a suitcase of clothes, a handful of books, and a laptop connecting me to back everything back in the states.

I had just moved out of my house of seven years. Packed everything up, sold some old bookcases and a decent couch, had a farewell party, and mentally started from scratch.

Needless to say, I was a bit emotional and discombobulated. I was in a foreign country, and needed a home.

For the first couple of weeks I lived in Dublin, Jack and Paddie gave me that home.

I had been inside “316” once before, after a wedding for Donal and Issy back in 2010. We ate and drank and sang songs late into the night. It was one of the best nights of my life, and I secretly hoped I would have the chance to experience something like it again.

Jack and Paddie are both retired educators, and had a spare room, and graciously offered to put me up until I found an apartment I liked. For nine nights or so, I ate with them, talked teaching with them, and stayed up very late drinking French wine and Guinness with them.


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(Delicious AND affordable!)

Paddie offered up ideas about helping out in area schools, and Jack and I made vague plans to catch a Hurling match sometime in 2013. When I wasn’t apartment-hunting, or sometimes sleeping past breakfast (ahem…it uh…took me a while to adjust to the new time zone), I helped organize a garage and silently took notes while Jack prepared delicious dinners night after night.

Eventually I found a place near the university and moved in, but it was a bit of a disaster. I rushed into renting a place, and later discovered it was horribly damp. (It was a basement flat.)

Passports shouldn't do this.

Passports shouldn’t do this.

A month later I found a new place, so all’s well that ends well on that story.

But back to 316.

(That was what everyone called Jack and Paddie’s place. Homes often get names over here, I’ve noticed. One of the little things I love.)

I had wanted to take Jack and Paddie out for dinner some evening, as a thank you for everything they had done for me during my stay at 316. But they were busy, as it turned out they were in the process of selling their home of 31 years. It was time to pick up sticks and live in the country a bit.

And so I headed back to 316 for one more night of singing and farewells.

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I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of the evening, but it was quite wonderful, and I felt very lucky to have been there for the final gathering in their home. 316 had a long history of hosting extended visitors, and I was one in a long list of people who temporarily called it their home. Kind of like Sam Gamgee getting Ring-bearer status even though he had barely carried the thing.

Paddie gave me a big hug when I walked through the door, and soon I had a glass of wine in my hand. Many familiar faces from the last party were there, telling stories and laughing about the long history they had with 316. Jack worked his magic in the kitchen and piled food onto our plates.

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And as the sky grew dark, everyone gathered in the front room for one more round of songs. I got to join in on the chorus of “Wild Mountain Thyme”, one of my favorites, and dug out John Prine’s “Paradise” again, at Donal’s urging. Guitar in hand, smiling and saying “I got your back on this.”

Lots of sweet, sad songs, and a meaningful goodbye to an important piece of many peoples’ lives.

DSC_0101I’ve started to think a lot about “what I learned” while I was over here. Sure, I learned the difference between semiotics and phenomenology, and read the complete works of Anton Chekhov, and I can now navigate the Dublin bus system like a pro. But really, I think, the most important thing I’ll take away from here is that there need to be places like 316 in peoples’ lives. A warm, inviting home that welcomes you with a big hug and leaves you with a full belly and an even fuller heart.

I used to love having parties, and hosting people in my home. But the place I have now is small and cramped and after a while I stopped inviting people over, and I also stopped wanting to invite people over.

My time spent in 316 woke something up in me. When it comes down to it, I think this whole trip has really been about me finally growing up and getting serious about life, and I would like nothing more than to one day have a place like Jack and Paddie’s. A home full of song and life and good friends and family sharing a few moments together. The light in the window for weary travelers. That would be a good life.

Farewell, 316. You belong to the ages now, but I won’t forget what I learned while I was there. And I’ll be back for that hurling match, Jack.

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(Most of these photos were taken by my good friend, and very talented photographer, Elisa, and are used with her permission. Thanks, ‘Lis.)

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The Barber of Blackrock

December 4, 2012 — Leave a comment
UCD, Blackrock campus. Had most of my classes in the building on the left.

UCD, Blackrock campus. Had most of my classes in the building on the left.

Today I turned in my last assignment for the four courses I took at UCD this past term, along with my official notification of withdrawal from the university. Now I’m done.

The fact that I’m leaving very soon really started to sink in today. Very mixed feelings right now, and I had a lot of “oh that’s the last time I’ll walk into that shop, or down that road” thoughts.

I stopped in to see my local barber one final time, to get a buzz on the head and a good trim on the beard. He’s a super-nice guy, and we always chat about theatre and Irish mythology and music. He was supposed to go to Chicago last month, and I had even written up a list of great restaurants and jazz clubs for him to check out, but something about an Aer Lingus strike canceled his plans. Maybe next year, he said.

I probably could have saved money by purchasing a set of clippers and doing it myself, but I still like to visit the barber, and I’m glad I found such a great one here in Blackrock. Gonna miss that guy.

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Hobbit bus!

I wandered around the village, and then took a long walk over to Stillorgan to search for a cheap and smallish suitcase, but no such luck. Gonna spend the next twelve days doing some traveling. Too long to just pack everything in my backpack, like my last trip, and so I’ll have to drag the monster suitcase all over Europe with me.

First I’m headed to Prague to see a former student and his family from my teaching days, then Munich for a night, then Strasbourg, France, then up to Paris for a couple of nights, then the Eurostar to London to meet up with everyone from my MA group for a final weekend theatre binge. Trains, trains, and more trains, and I can’t wait.

It’s back to Dublin on Sunday evening, and then I’m home for good on the 19th, via Chicago. And then Christmas, which I’m looking forward to spending with my family. First time in my life that I’ll be “coming home” for Christmas. It’s a nice feeling.

But all of this traveling isn’t giving me much time to say farewell to Dublin or the people I know here, and that’s frustrating, to say the least. Time isn’t on my side right now, and I couldn’t afford to wait any longer to fly home. Prices jump pretty bad the closer you get to Christmas. For a while I considered sticking with the original plan, which was to do Christmas here with some friends, but it just feels right to be home. You go home for Christmas.

So it’s all coming fast, and my head swims and my heart aches with the constant push-pull that I’m feeling right now. I feel like I did everything I could, theatre-wise, while I was here, but I certainly didn’t get to “live” enough. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s better to leave now, while the fire is still bright, instead of lingering on for another six months, where (gasp!) I might have actually gotten sick of living here. Maybe bittersweet is good, because it means that my time here was worth it, and that I still look forward to returning again someday. And it certainly will be a lot cheaper.

One of my students asked me the other day if this meant the last of the 4-T Tales. I don’t think so; obviously I have a few more travel stories to tell over the next couple of weeks, but hopefully I’ll continue this thing one way or another when I come back. Less travel and theatre, and more teaching and tech. We’ll see.

UCD, Blackrock Campus.

UCD, Blackrock Campus.

As always, to be continued…

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The Final Performance of A Prairie Home Companion

November 28, 2012 — 1 Comment

A Prairie Home Companion, 1987

Sometime close to when I graduated high school, my Uncle Doug played me a tape of the final performance of Garrison Keillor’s public radio show A Prairie Home Companion, which currently broadcasts new episodes most Saturday evenings on WBEZ radio in Chicago.

Yep, you read that right. The final performance. And the show is still going strong.

How can a show that is still on the radio have a last show? And wait: wasn’t there also a movie about the “last” broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion?

Yep. I’ll explain all of that “last show” business in a minute.  First, I need to tell yet another story about how much of a nerd I am.

While most of my friends were listening to Bon Jovi, Guns ‘n Roses, or the more alternative stuff like The Pixies (and eventually Nirvana and Pearl Jam), I went through a phase where I listened to that last show almost constantly. Filled with old folk and gospel tunes and goofy radio bits and Stevie Beck, the Queen of the Autoharp, and I couldn’t get enough of it. Like I said: I’m a real nerd like that.

There were other reasons I fell in love with that last show. I started listening to it less than two years after I had returned to Illinois, after living down in Florida for a few years. It was filled with this warm celebration of everything I loved about the Midwest. The dry humor, the lack of pretension, the simple directness and honesty of it. This is the last show, Keillor said, and we’re gonna spend the next two hours singing sweet sad songs about endings and goodbyes and no one can do anything about it. Heck, we’ll even go over the two hour time limit if we want!

Keillor likes endings. As do I. Endings are important, goodbyes are important. They put a proper punctuation mark onto an event. My folks got divorced around that time, and during my grief at the ending of what I knew of as family I romanticized small towns and Lutherans and tried so very, very hard to find meaning and comfort in my tape-of-a-tape copy of that last show.

Keillor delivering the News from Lake Wobegon in 2012.

I lost that copy of Uncle Doug’s tape of that final show a long time ago. but thanks to the miracle of the internet, found it on iTunes. And hearing “Brownie and Pete” after so many years just about wrecked me. (Yes, it’s sweet and sentimental, but it’s also got Chet Atkins and Leo Kottke playing on it, for crying out loud.) It’s so good to hear those songs again, and it takes me right back to the last time I was away from home, living in a foreign city, spending my days in class and my nights watching old black and white films by John Ford and Wim Wenders, wondering what I was going to do with my life.

Out you two pixies go, through the door or out the window!

It’s been a quiet week here in Dublin…

It got down below freezing for the first time last night here in Dublin. The roads were slick, and Linus took a bad tumble off his bike. On our last day of class, people were talking about Christmas, and our upcoming trip to London. I’ll be leaving a week from today for Prague, to see an old student and his family, and then I’ll wind my way through Europe and its many Christmas markets for one last tour until I join everyone on the Embankment sometime on the 13th.

Limelight’s getting ready to put on their yearly radio production of It’s a Wonderful Life, a show I directed and even performed in for a number of years. I’ve started listening to Vince Guaraldi and The Chieftains and The Waitresses, and that brutal version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland, with the original lyric “someday soon, we’ll all be together/ if the Fates allow/ Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow…”.

I’m eating yet another meal made from packaged pasta, thanks to a refrigerator that died last Saturday. I’m looking over the last of my assignments, and hoping I have the drive to write a decent research paper, when all I want to do is tell stories on this thing.

I’m looking at an empty corner of my apartment and picturing a small tree that could have gone there. And I’m starting to think about home, and the Midwest, and my family and my friends. And I’m realizing that I miss it a great deal. When I got here, I tried to not think about home too much, lest I get too homesick. And I put it out of mind, in a sense. I lived my life here, and I tried not to look back.

Like Keillor, I ended my show, and I moved far away, looking for something different and exciting. And I have seen many things and enjoyed moments I couldn’t have if I was back in Oswego. And I know those will continue, in the years to come, as I return to visit and explore and catch up with dear friends. But now it’s time to head home, and get back to doing what I do best.

Keillor ended his show in his mid-40s, when he married a former exchange student from his high school and moved to Denmark to start a new life. He lived there for three years before returning home, divorced, but back on the air with a new, New York-based radio show called “The American Radio Company of the Air.”

Three years later he renamed it “A Prairie Home Companion” and moved it back to St. Paul, Minnesota. He knew what he did best.

 

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Black Friday

November 24, 2012 — 2 Comments

Or, The Forgotten Penny

There’s this old Christopher Reeve film called Somewhere in Time. Overly-romantic thing about a playwright who travels back in time and falls in love with Jane Seymour. I watched it on cable a couple of times in the early 80s, because duh, it had Superman in it, and hey, time travel!

There’s no magic machine that gets him back to turn-of-the-century Mackinac Island, just positive thinking. He dresses himself in an old-timey suit, removes all traces of modern day from his hotel room, and wills himself back to the same hotel room in the year 1912. It’s a bit flimsy, in terms of science fiction, but really, how many time travel films are there that feel “realistic?”

So he falls in love with the beautiful lady, and despite a few dramatic obstacles, things are going pretty well for him. Towards the end, Jane Seymour playfully teases him for his “old-fashioned” suit (he didn’t get the fashion quite right, you see), and he’s bragging about how awesome it is, with all these cool pockets, and then BAM: he pulls out a 1979 penny, stares at it in horror and disbelief, and he’s immediately shocked back to the present. And as hard as he tries, he’s never able to will himself back to 1912. Game over.

Why am I talking about this decades-old time travel film, when I actually spent Friday watching a far superior (but no less romantic) time travel film?

Well, no matter how hard I try and ignore it, I have to acknowledge my own forgotten penny.

When I started putting this whole journey together, I knew it would be very expensive, and would require certain financial arrangements to be put into place, otherwise I would be drowning in student loan debt for the next ten years. So I took a gamble, hoping that I would get my mortgage refinanced, my car paid off, and I would have a decent raise waiting for me once I completed the new degree.

Even when I arrived here in July, I was already worried that I wouldn’t be able to pull this off. No one wanted to refi my mortgage, since it was so underwater. I had to rent my place out for significantly less than what I pay per month, and therefore had to sell my car in order to have enough money to make up for the difference. I thought about pulling the plug, but people urged me to stay, saying the usual business of “Live your dream!” “It’s ONLY money!” ‘You’ll regret it forever if you don’t do it!!!”

So I put that metaphorical penny in a side pocket, and I forgot about it, and I got on with my life over here. And I’m glad I did. The past five months have been an amazing, unforgettable experience, and I am glad that I went ahead and stayed.

But. The penny is still there, folks. And after crunching the numbers, and looking at what’s coming down the road, I am simply not going to have enough money to afford living over here for another semester. The “back home” account is vanishing fast, and the cost of paying for the whole degree is going to destroy me, financially. The first two segments in the repayment plan, the refi and the no-car-payment, are gone, and its looking like I’m going to have a significantly reduced raise. (I can’t really get into that, because it involves contract negotiations with my school board and my union, and this is not the place to discuss that.)

I don’t like talking about the specifics of the whole money thing, but whenever I talk about this with people, they go back to those default statements of “It’s only money, Brian, live the dream!!!” And I really don’t appreciate hearing that. I don’t think people quite realize the cost of this project, so let me put it to you like this: because I had to sell my car last summer, once I come home I’ll have to buy a new car. Obviously. So I’ll have a new monthly  car payment for the next five years.

Now: to pay for this student loan, I’ll have to pay, per month, the equivalent of three more cars. For the next ten years. Let that sink in a bit. Three more car payments, for the next ten years, on a single teacher’s salary that isn’t going to be going up much over the next few years.

Now do you understand the seriousness of this a bit more?

The next reaction may be, “But Brian, what about the degree? Won’t this all be for nothing if you don’t get the degree?”

And this is where it gets interesting. Because the answer is No.

I already have a Master’s Degree. In terms of salary schedules and raises, that’s the main hurdle you need. After that, it’s just about credit hours. And regarding getting certified for teaching theatre, after this semester I’ll have enough credit hours to get my theatre endorsement. I don’t need any more classes after this.

Actually, what I need are additional certification classes that I need to take back home. At this point, spending the other two thirds of the student loan is just gravy. And here’s another thing: I took four courses this fall, and all that’s left are two more classes (Rehearsal Techniques, which I think I’ve got down, and another theory class that I can live without), and the big thesis (which I have absolutely no desire to write, to be perfectly honest.) And there’s no guarantee that the state of Illinois, or my school district is even going to accept all of these credit hours. They get funny when it comes to foreign credits.

This is starting to get complicated, and I’m sure some of you are skimming through some of this. So let me summarize by saying this: there are no real downsides to finishing after this semester, except for one that’s probably pretty obvious: I would be coming home early, and leaving the life I’ve been living over here behind. And I would have to say a very difficult good-bye to a wonderful group of friends.

But in the end, that was going to happen anyway. Whether it’s in July or May or the end of December, it’s gonna happen. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life living here. I suppose I had some vague and naive notions of carving out something more permanent here, but the simple facts are these: there aren’t any jobs over here, and I don’t think I really want to do that anyway.

I’m a Midwesterner, and I think I want to remain a Midwesterner. My family and my friends and my life are there. And my job is there. And it’s a job worth returning to, despite all of the stress and chaos that has enveloped it lately. I’m a teacher, and I’m anxious to get back to doing what I do best. And if I want to make a move to a different teaching position, I have to get moving on those other classes that I have to take back home.

So there it is. This is something that I’ve been pondering for a long time, so please don’t think this is a rash decision I’m making. I have looked at all sorts of different scenarios, but they all end up with the same conclusion: this adventure ends next month.

And I’m okay with it. It’s been an amazing and life-altering experience, living in Dublin these past months. I walked away from everything that I knew and I started over in a foreign land, taking the time to learn new ideas about theatre, and of course, I spent a lot of time with some amazing people. That’s easily been the best part about being here. And it makes me more than a bit sad to be leaving it all earlier than I expected.

But while it makes me sad, it doesn’t make me depressed, and that’s an important difference. Sure, I was pretty down in the dumps yesterday, as I came to this final decision after mentioning it my friends the other night, but today I woke up with a clear idea of what’s to come. I’ve been quietly putting some plans into place, and I’ll be fine. It’ll be a bit rough at times, since I won’t have a full-time job or a house to go back to for a bit, but I have a plan. And it’s time to get to work on the next great journey my life will be taking, and I am optimistic and excited about where it will take me.

To be continued…

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Thor’s Day

November 23, 2012 — Leave a comment

And on Thor’s Day, we celebrated the First Thanksgiving.

Just imagine Issy sitting at the table instead of taking the picture.

There is no Thanksgiving in Ireland. Nor in most of Europe, from what I can gather. It is not a uniquely American holiday, but there is certainly something very American about Thanksgiving.

Its origins lie in that old chestnut about the Pilgrims and the Indians sitting down together to celebrate being best buds, but we all know that it’s a lot more complicated than that. But no one wants to dwell on the ill-treatment of the Native Americans by our ancestors, so….HEY! FOOTBALL!

We gather together to eat ourselves silly, collapse in front of the TV, then get up and do it all again a few hours later. (In my family, there can often be multiple celebrations to attend in a single day.) And the foods are these weird combination of things that shouldn’t be mixed together, but are, and are delicious. (I still don’t go near 24 Hour Salad, though.)

These are all the standard traditions and ideas of Thanksgiving that everyone mentions in Articles About Thanksgiving, so I won’t try to analyze it any more, because I’m trying to write something unique about the holiday. And this is the interesting part: I gathered together my Irish, English, and Italian gang of friends to celebrate a proper American Thanksgiving, hoping some new insight would be gleaned from their experience as First Timers, but it just confirmed everything that’s already been said about the holiday.

Eat too much? Check. Everyone brought food, and we tried a bit of everything during the three-course meal. (Well, except for the vegetarians.) They all had to go to work the next day, and everyone still seems to be stuffed from the night before, according to their Facebook status updates.

Marvel at the strange foods? Check. I made green bean casserole for them, which they found bizarre before even seeing it. When I took it out of the oven, I was puzzled by how runny it was, and then we realized that over here, their cream of mushroom soup cans aren’t condensed. So no proper thick, gooey, delicious casserole for us, but it was still somewhat edible.

The last of the sort-of Key Lime pie.

The foods I did get right were Grandma’s cranberry relish, which is served cold, as a nice palate-cleanser. I also made a variation on what we call an “Eagle Brand” pie, which is basically a Key Lime pie, made from graham cracker crust and condensed milk, but is also very, very delicious. And incredibly sweet. I think I gave everyone at the table diabetes last night.

It was all very typical, but at the same time it was one of the best Thanksgivings I’ve ever had. For my entire life, I’ve been an attendant at Thanksgiving, and the other big holiday gatherings like Christmas and Easter. I’m the Bachelor Uncle Guy with the Small Townhouse who doesn’t have to host, or make any food, doesn’t have any signature dishes, just bring a little wine, make a few jokes, then get cranky/lonely/sleepy. It can be rough for the personality when you’re a permanent guest at life’s major celebrations.

But thankfully, for once, last night, I was able to be the host. I got to invite people into my home, carve the turkey, pour the wine, and make the toast. This was Thanksgiving on my terms, and it was an incredible experience.

I don’t mean to come across as selfish or arrogant, mind you. (I’m looking at those previous sentences, with all of the “I”s and “my”s, like I’m a toddler who won’t let anyone else play with the blocks.) My students and actors may be used to seeing me as the Man with the Plan, but in the real world, more often than not I’m just shuffling along, riding in the passenger side of life. It’s what happens when you remain a single guy living within 25 miles of your hometown. You don’t get the chance to create your own traditions.

And so last night, we held the First Thanksgiving, in a small apartment just outside of Dublin. Linus and Arianna brought wine and starters, Elisa made two kinds of potatoes AND made the gravy AND helped me cook the turkey AND made French Onion dip, because she thought it would be something I would like. (No one’s heard of it over here, but Elisa grew up partly in Canada, so she’s able to tap into that North American cultural tradition thing better than the rest. Did I mention the cheesy potatoes?) Ken arrived on his magical transforming bicycle and made dream bars, and Donal and Issy honored the occasion by presenting me with a smallpox blanket and a bottle of whiskey. (It wouldn’t be an Irish Thanksgiving without them poking a little fun at the tragic legacy of the Native Americans.)

Smallpox blanket and whiskey!

I was short on cutlery, had barely enough wine glasses, no proper serving spoons, and we Frankensteined my dining table and my small desk together for the feasting. Linus sat in an office chair and questioned the thick slices of turkey I had carved. (Not sure if I carved them too thick, or if they carve turkey really thin over here.) And I played good American music like Wilco and June Carter Cash and John Prine.

Through the miracle of modern technology we were able to have my family “join us” from Sandwich for a few minutes, and my two worlds briefly became one. And while I haven’t talked about my family too much on this site, I hope they know that I missed them greatly, and I tried to honor them in my own small efforts, with relish and Eagle Brand pie. And I thought about them often.

But for now, I am here, and it is important to stay focused on the here, instead of the “back home.” I’ll be back there soon enough, but I need to enjoy every single moment I can of living in Ireland, because it ain’t gonna last forever. It’s been an incredible journey, in many ways, and for the experiences I’ve had, and the people I’ve shared them with, I am especially grateful on this Thanksgiving Day.

A few more photos…

Starters! i.e. appetizers.

A view from the other side: Mom and Grandma talking to us via Skype.

I have LEFTOVERS!

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Woden’s Day

November 21, 2012 — Leave a comment

On Woden’s Day¹, I made preparations for a great celebration.

But first, we shall talk about wisdom. Today’s class was about preparing our major research paper for the fall term. How to structure it, what to keep focus on, what to take out, proper documentation of sources, etc. etc. We have six questions to choose from. It only has to be 3,000 words or so, and I’ve already written one that long on The Merchant of Venice². Plus, the short play I’ve been working on is over 3,000 words, so another 3,000 word essay shouldn’t be too much trouble. Except.

Except this is the one where we have to get really theoretical and academic, with twenty different sources, and that might prove difficult for me. A lot of the people in the course did an undergrad at UCD in drama, and so they have a fairly deep background in theatre theory. Me? Not so much. I’m not sure if this is a difference between American and European traditions, but in my theatre world, we never got around to talking about Foucault or Pavis, or semiotics vs. phenomenology very much. We just did it, and had our own ideas of what “theory” is.³ Maybe we learned this stuff in some of the undergrad theatre courses I had, but darned if I can remember it now.

The other day one of the girls in the course referred to me as the “father figure” of the group. That could either be a compliment or a little sting at my age. I’m not the oldest member of the class, but I’m on the far side of it. So if I’m the Father Figure, then I should have a bit more wisdom about this whole theatre-theory-thing, right? It’s more than a bit frustrating that I don’t seem to “get” what they’re talking about as fast as the others. But when you talk to people in private, it turns out most of them don’t grasp it any more than I do (for the most part.) I mean, I’m not an idiot. I can be insightful about what Foucault was talking about in Discipline and Punish, but it tends to be more about the education world than the stage. (Once again, the teacher side of me wins out in the argument…)

Maybe the wisdom I have is in the part of my brain that says, “Okay, we can talk all day about psychological verisimilitude, or whether or not something is ‘Beckettian,’ but in the end, isn’t it about whether or not the show was any good? It either worked, or it didn’t.” And more specifically, in the youth instructional theatre world wherein I ply my trade, it’s mostly about, did the kids have a positive experience, did they learn something, and did it contribute in some small way towards them becoming a good person? Did it add to their first glimmers of wisdom?

Maybe that’s too simplistic of a view on it, but that’s what my gut tells me.

Footnotes!

¹Woden is also known as Odin, the All-Father of Norse mythology. He hung from the World Tree, Yggdrasil, for nine days and nine nights to gain wisdom. And he also lost an eye…for wisdom. Wisdom’s important when you’re the All-Father.

² I turned in this essay a month ago, and haven’t yet found out my grade. I’d really like to know how I’m doing as far as my academic writing goes, because I’m pretty rusty with it. So seeing how I did would be helpful. Formative assessment, people…it’s important.

³ My theories of theatre tended to be, “Let’s just make it up as we go”, and “I’m tired of seeing the same shows done over and over again, so let’s write our own”, and “Let’s just poke fun at everything about this world.” I cite these examples:

Celebrating “50 years” of Limelight. As if we started in 1960 and dressed like NASA engineers. 

Let’s just make up a bunch of crazy Christmas skits and not really rehearse them too much. Yeah, THAT’LL go great! (Um, it didn’t.)

First show! About D-Day! Written by a 5th Grader! (And it was AWESOME.)

And of course, Lumberjacks. A musical based on a backstage wisecrack. More please.

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Tiu’s Day

November 20, 2012 — 3 Comments

The Two-Headed Mr. Fauth, created by Emily, a former student.

A few years ago I started really feeling the pressure and stress and consequences of trying to teach 5th grade all day, and run a big theatre company on the nights and weekends, directing shows and overseeing others and preparing for our yearly massive summer season. It got so bad that I actually took a couple of weeks off from school to rest and recharge, lest it all lead towards me turning into some sort of lunatic. (Well, any more than I already am.)

I referred to the two careers I had, and the war between them, as The Two-Headed Mr. Fauth. The teacher, Mr. Fauth, and Brian, the director. I loved doing both, but they were taking its toll. In the summer of 2011 I stepped down from running Limelight, but couldn’t stay away from the stage, electing to direct a pair of shows at a local junior high. I went with a pair of shows I had directed in the past, to save creative energy, but I felt like I was cheating a bit by recycling sets and ideas from the past.

And that brings me to Dublin, where I’ve taken a break from being Mr. Fauth to concentrate on developing skills as a theatre director, to add tools to the toolkit, as they say. And it’s been a great experience, but it still doesn’t solve the lingering equation: which one am I going to be?

Tonight I wrapped up my fall director’s project: a staged read of Chekhov’s The Proposal. Not his most famous (or even his best work), it’s a 20-minute farce about two people who let petty arguing and their shallow principles stand in the way of their potential happiness as a married couple. Tonight went very well, and I’m happy with the results, for what they were. (It was an exercise, not a proper “show”, so no real sets or lights or anything like that.) And I found I had to “teach” a lot more about theatre than I would have imagined, and it was gratifying to see that my skills were needed.

My goal is to leave this place with that great war settled, or at least at a cease-fire. Being away from the classroom has quickly made me realize how at home I am in it, and I’m anxious to get back to doing what I do best. And theatre? Well, I have deeper thoughts on my relationship with trodding the boards, but we’ll save that for another post. I suppose the easiest solution is to figure out how I can teach theatre full-time, and merge the two heads, but that has its own hurdles as well.

To be continued…

The sky as I left for my director’s project.

 

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