Back from WFC & the triumphant Interfictions 2 debut week, I've now been to a few of the first rehearsals for the new cast of this year's production of my Golden Dreydl for Vital Theatre, The Klezmer Nutcracker, and done a number of revisions to the script - some during the rehearsal itself: on Saturday, Sara, the Fool and I did improv on their lines until we got something we all liked. Most of the cast are genuine dancers - there will be many entrances on pointe, my friends, with pirouettes galore, this year! The Queen of Sheba will OWN every 9-yr-old in the audience when she does her Arabesque . . . . Sara & the Fool are "merely" tumblers - watching them egg each other on to cartwheels with a "Comaneci Finish" was pure bliss! - they have great chemistry together already, and what's more, they Get the Fantasy . . . When the director asked, "So, how does the Fool know that the Peacock was supposed to be guarding the Demons?" (See? I told you I was revising lots!), one said, "Well, he's mythic - he just does!" and the other, "It's a small Land; all the magical people know each other." Mwa! The ensuing discussion made me pontificate on the fact that Fantasy has to work on 3 levels, all at once: the Mythic, the Metaphoric, and the Real. (As Delia pointed out when I told her: This means that [all together now] Fantasy is Harder!)

I missed this morning's rehearsal, but the Production Manager, Leah, faithfully sends out a Daily Report. To give you some sense of how groovy this year's show will be, I present here the bit on
Costumes/Wigs & Make-Up:

1. [We just lost a cast member, who got a job with a touring production, so] L-- will replace V-- as the Autothith in the riddle scene.

2. Now that we’ll only have one toy in the first scene we’ve decided to ditch the Transformer and just have a dinosaur-type creature.

3. Luke would like to play the Guardian of Flame as a very short person with shoes on his knees, is it possible to get him some knee pads for rehearsals?

4. The Carob Man’s costume will need a pocket for his carrot.

La, la, la (Sing:) . . . There's no business like show business!

And now I really must go type up the revisions I promised for tomorrow.

You didn't think I was blogging because I didn't have something more important to do, did you?

The Interfictions Auction is up & running, with 6 fabulous pieces, and a new one every day!

I have bid on several. But there is one piece I seriously want, and do not intend to lose.

Can you guess which one?

As you may know, I'm a co-founder, currently serving as President, of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the support, and promotion of interstitial art: literature, music, visual and performance art found in between categories and genres – art that crosses borders.

We have just published our second anthology of original writing, Interfictions 2, edited by Delia Sherman (deliasherman) & Christopher Barzak, and we're celebrating with a multi-city chain of readings, signings, and musical collaborations.

TOMORROW (Friday) night we kick off the East Coast jam! I hope you can join me there: ( NEW YORK CITY )

This is Brian's baby: He enthralled KGB audience a few months back with a a words/music mix, and I can't wait to see what he does with the potent combo of all those Interfictions writers + his band. Here's a sample of some of Brian & band's past improv readings.

It really is art without borders.

Not in NYC? No fretting: Brian & a bunch of writers & musician pals are doing another show in Boston next Friday, Nov. 13th at Lily Pad in Cambridge!

Tonight at 7 pm I'll be at Borderlands Books, celebrating the Book Birthday of Interfictions 2 with a reading/signing by book co-editor deliasherman, and authors Anna Tambour, Ray Vukcevich & Amelia Beamer. We'll follow it up with a Q&A, so bring your deepest interstitial questions for us to answer!

What's our craziest Book Birthday present so far? Gotta be the listing of Interfictions 2 in the Amazon.com Top 10 SF&F Books of 2009!

And the IAF Auction is in full swing . . . new work going up every day! You'll want it, trust me.

This morning was the first rehearsal for the new production of my Klezmer Nutcracker. I blush to say I've been Tweeting it, including a rehearsal photo, over at:
http://twitter.com/EllenKushner

I should say more here, but I have to go finish packing for World Fantasy Con in San Jose & SF/CA (you'll find my schedule in an earlier post), and then do my best to get to tonight's Interstitial Arts Salon run by the mad bad ktempest, who also has to pack for WFC but somehow manages to do it all, not excluding a wonderful page previewing the Auction. Some people.

The story is finished. It's told in alternating paragraphs from two points of view, Alec's & Sofia. I couldn't resist throwing them up on http://www.wordle.net to see how they'd come out:








I apologize for torturing you with unpublished work. I'll let you know as soon as it's sold. And I'm hoping to talk Delia into reading it with me in counterpoint when we do our NYRSF reading here on Dec. 8.)

Today is the 13th Anniversary ofdeliasherman's & my first ("illegal") wedding in Cambridge, MA. "Lace Anniversary." She's in a big house in a small town in Mexico on writer's retreat. I hope they have lace there. I'm going to dinner with a friend at our fave Chinatown noodle dive. Bliss.

Also bliss that this is the first night I am coming home without a serious deadline hanging over my head (except packing for WFC, I guess. But that doesn't involve getting words to line up and do tricks). I will Skype Delia, and maybe watch something stupid on TV.

It's hilarious that we seldom observe our anniversary anymore - after all, we have so many: the Legal Event (August 24, 2004, officiated by Rabbi Cherie Koller-Fox in our backyard after our annual clothing swap/barbecue); the First Kiss (after years of circling each other, being friends . . . this is a Moveable Feast, as it occurred on the first night of the Lowell Folk Festival. Yes, Cambodian street food, a Zydeco Marching Band and roots music under the stars can drive you to undreamed of feats of romantic daring as you sit in the driveway preparing to say good-night) . . . . The original wedding was a huge do, at Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, a former records room with a marble floor & carved archways & a balcony. We had nearly 300 guests from all corners of both our lives. It was a perfect blue clear New England autumn day - very much like today in NYC, actually! We handed out press-on tattoos with our wedding sigil (oak & ivy intertwined, like the ring in this UserPic, my wedding ring). There was a great deal of food and music and dancing - we called it a "Party with a Ceremonial Interruption" on the invitation. And so it was. I remember smiling so much and for long that my face actually hurt at the end of the day. I'm smiling now.

[Friday] Saw some amazing talent at Vital's KlezNut auditions today. Now, because of various schedule conflicts, the director, choreographer & I won't meet up until 8pm to make final choices ... at a mutually (in)convenient anonymous midtown Starbuck's. The Glamorous Life!

[Followup]: Most of our first picks have said yes! It's going to be a glorious, glamorous cast - all the women (except Sara) are also ballet dancers, so this year's production will feature some major toe shoe action. Swoon. The woman playing the Dreydl Princess did her kind of like a pantomime boy, very cheeky & swaggering - I'm in love! The Peacock is an amazing combo of Marilyn Monroe & Rosalind Russell, and moves like a dream - hilarious! As my director muttered to me: "She gets what you put in every line of that speech" -- "And a little extra!" I added.

First rehearsal is this Weds., and last night I turned in what I profoundly hope but greatly doubt will be my last set of revision. Performances will run Dec. 5- Jan. 3, all daytime this year, I think.

Here's where deliasherman & I will be during World Fantasy Con in San Jose next weekend:( EK/DS WFC Schedule )

. . . and then we go to San Francisco for a Group Author Signing at Borderlands Books on Monday night Nov. 2 - do come and make us feel loved! - followed the next day by what promises to be a memorable INTERFICTIONS reading/signing on the official pub day of IF2 (!!): Tuesday, Nov. 3rd, also at Borderlands, featuring Amelia Beamer, Delia Sherman, Anna Tambour, and Ray Vukcevich.

UNMITIGATED RAPTURE!!!! not only did my dimwitted online researches & subsequent guesses prove to be unexpectedly right on, but our MD friends Eric & Elka just walked me through the entire accident, diagnosis, procedure & recovery so I can put the details right in my story. We did it on Skype, with lots of hand gestures. I am a Happy Writer.

Many readers will now hate me more than tongue can tell, as I proceed to torture Alec & Richard nearly to extinction. (The guy Alec is working on is but a Simple Villager, not Richard. Tho' E&E pointed out that it's also a lovely way to kill a man with a sword.)

mwa ha.

No, I'm not going to post the new scene* - but here's their description of how the medical bits work:

( DRAINING BLOOD OR AIR FROM THE CHEST )
* * *
*I gotta go to Boston tom'w for my Sound & Spirit talk at MGH on Weds. 1pm (wow - haven't been that person in a while!). Must revise this now before I go to bed!

Thanks for your many helpful suggestions for Alec's surgery (last post)! I think I may go with an emergency laryngotomy (instructions here - though this comes closer to what I'd first imagined - but how does it work? My deepest thanks to thumbelinablues for the invaluable resource! I still owe her a bottle of wine, and banjo strings). Meanwhile, thought you might enjoy seeing the "placeholder" version of the Surgery Scene; this is what I wrote when I was deep in the story and wanted to get the emotions and the rhythms right, before tackling the actual physical crisis. The revised version will be altogether different, so I figure it's OK to put this up here now. Also, I think it's a very prettie piece of writing, and I'm annoyed that I can't actually use it . . . . At least, this way, someone will see it! This scene occurs halfway through the story. Or maybe towards the end.

( Outtake: The Man with the Knives )

The story I'm frantically trying to finish on time, "The Man with the Knives" (about Alec on Kyros) needs, of course, a scene where he shows up and blows everyone in Sofia's village away with an unexpected feat of emergency surgery. My father's specialty is research & rheumatoid arthritis - but surely he knows enough to help me out? Particularly since he has a big collection of antique medical books. So: Phone call:

EK: . . . So anyway I've found a field manual from the Civil War online, but I'm not sure I understand what it's saying. [ADDED] Can I do something with crushed ribs and letting out a hematoma?
Dad: OK. Well, what century does this occur in?
EK: Sometime between 1500-1800
Dad: That's a little before the Civil War. [Discussion interrupted. Dad will call back later.]

EK emails Dad:
http://books.google.com/books?id=w2o-AAAAIAAJ&dq=field+hospital+surgery&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=H6vSSq2MMcvelAfRuLipCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11&ved=0CC0Q6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=rib&f=false

p. 107 "When the lungs are wounded . . . . "
??
earlier in chapter - trephining?

Dad to EK:
Yes!

Trephining is good.
From Wikopedia:
"Evidence also suggests that trephanation was primitive emergency surgery after head wounds[2] to remove shattered bits of bone from a fractured skull and clean out the blood that often pools under the skull after a blow to the head. "

Have him trephine to evacuate a subdural hematoma.
DAD

And so it goes. We just had a lovely talk about scalp wounds. Any surgeons out there?

Or even someone who can quote Patrick O'Brian chapter & verse? I betcha anything Stephen Maturin does cool surgery I could steal. Scalpels only, if possible, please. A drill would simply ruin the scene.

deliasherman has blogged our latest theatrical outing - my comments (of a memoirish nature) are below her post, and I'm not going to copy them here!

How am I? you may be wondering; and howbout them deadlines? Aherm. Yes. Am running KlezNut revisions back-to-back with a Riverside story that a rather prestigious, high-profile, high-paying anthology has allowed as how they'll take a look at if I can get them a final draft in 2 wks. You do the math. We're bringing actors in for a reading of the revised script on Weds., so I'd better get as much story done as I can before then. 'Bye, now!

(Took yesterday off to hang out with beloved nephew AJ who drove down from college for a weekend in NYC - why he wanted to spend an entire day eating & walking in Central Park with ageing aunts is - well, it's nice, that's what.)

My friend (and fellow IAF Board Member) Deborah Atherton is working on a book on work and Creativity - check out the blog! I feel like this post* was written just for me (and this one - Coffee and Creativity - maybe just for coffeeem & terriwindling...?)

*" . . . what happens when that OTHER kind of habit becomes part of your day to day: the habit of not ever having enough time to paint, write, pick up the camera, invent a new recipe or compose a song? We have all been there – even those of us who make our living as writers or artists – the days speed by us, filled with appointments, business, family concerns . . . .It’s easy to edit creativity right out of your life. . . . You feel – oh just a little tired of yourself and the people around you. . . . Perhaps the most unfair thing about possessing a creative spark is that it demands to be used."

Each week they put a new story up on the Interfictions Annex. And each week I think, Aha, this one's my favorite!

Ron Pasquariello's "The Chipper Dialogues" is so short that if I quote you all my favorite passages, I'll have almost the whole thing up here! Suffice it to say that it's a conversation, in haiku, between a man & his beloved dog. Samples:

A human in a rush.
Dog, a leash, a row of trees.
Hurry @#$%& dog.

Morning ritual –
A tree sniffed. A leg lifted.
Thus, each tree I bless.

or

To take cares away,
The prescription: Hold cute dog.
Rub belly, throw kiss.

Lo, a prescription
Take two biscuits. Feed to dog.
Call him in the morning.

If you like the story, please help spread the word about the Annex! You can also leave a comment on the IAF Blog here.

Spent today doing revisions on KLEZMER NUTCRACKER, while a golden NYC autumn day unrolled outside my window. Have I mentioned that deliasherman is the most brilliant script doctor who ever lived? Insights, that girl has! She shared them with me before sloping off to enjoy the Medieval Fair at the Cloisters.

Some people can write for 3-6 hours every day. I seem to be more of the "write all day every 3-6 days (or weeks)" school.

I have, however, cracked most of Act 2, I believe.

Here are two scenes from last year's performance: Tante Miriam's entrance' (played by yr obdt in a swoopy cloak) and the Glorious Peacock scene.

The show will be mounted again by NYC's Vital Theatre Co., running from 5 Dec - 3 Jan. The script will be somewhat improved - and I'm told there will be more dancing (some possibly involving small children from Harlem). Auditions are at the end of this month.

I'll be off-line for the next 24 hours, observing the fast of Yom Kippur. If you've always wondered what the heck it was all about - or if you're Jewish and dislike YK because you think it's all about guilt and suffering, I humbly invite you to go here:

http://www.wgbh.org/programs/programDetail.cfm?programid=226

and listen to the program that is currenly featured (and will be archived alphabetically in the complete list of shows) called THE DOOR IS OPENED.

I think it's some of the best work I've done. It explains how I feel about the high holiday traditions this time of year, as a time of contemplation and an opportunity for connection and renewal.

May you & yours have a sweet and a healthy & a happy new year! Even if you're not Jewish, there's something about the fall that always seems to say New Beginnings . . . . Enjoy, and be well.

. . . oh, and we've moved the Auction Deadline for mailing art to Oct. 2.

I've just posted all the lovely info here.

I know there's a lot of talent out there - if you've been wanting to get more involved with IAF, and have coding/photoediting skills, and/or brilliant organizational/leadership abilities, now's the time to get involved with the IAF AUCTION, a limited-time project that should end in December.

Trip home was easy, as these things go, and we arrived safe back in NYC last night. But in the car to Heathrow, Delia announced that she felt a cold coming on - her timing, as always, excellent, as getting it the day before would have been dreary, and we would have missed a delightful final morning at the British Museum! God, I love that place. I remember when it was a bunch of old things in badly-lit cases - and the loo paper was strangely non-absorbent and stamped "Property of HRM the Queen," and I still loved it. It's a museum of stuff, of the artefacts of cultures. There are, truth be told, only so many paintings I can look at. But I can look at Stuff all day. Especially Stuff with Context & Explanations, and reconstructed Saxon war helmets and Assyrian bronze-and-cedar gates. There's an entire section on Roman Britain. As in, "Here are things we found/dug up that people had/used in Roman Britain." An entire section. Oddly enough, the docent there had never read Rosemary Sutcliff. We hope she will, now.

So deliasherman spent most of today in bed, only rousing herself to see whether all the china we bought in Portmeirion had arrived intact. I don't know how she did it; I believe she has what Justine Larbalestier would term a Packing Fairy. We bought a lot - at the Seconds shop, where its flaws are undetectable & its prices at Target levels. You will be delighted to learn that if you're ever at dinner here with 11 other people, your plate will match theirs - as much as Portmeirion Botanics ever do: you might get the Spanish Gum Cistus, or the Colchicum, or the Aloe . . . And I should add here that it wasn't that many plates; we had most of the service already, as she'd acquired it in her Last Life in a Suburban Victorian mansion). So far, so good. She really is a packing genius: wrapped sweaters in & around them, plus the many grams of raw wool we bought in Wales to give our felting friend. Amazing.

What did I do today (besides make her cups of tea with honey)? I seem to have spent ridiculous amounts of time online, urging people to go and look at the new stories in the Interfictions Online Annex. Which you should do now. Don't forget to play F. Brett Cox (aka parttimedriver)'s soundtrack to "Nylon Seam" as you read it. And if you have a music box that plays "Sing a Song of Sixpence" handy while you read glvalentine's "To Set Before the King," so much the better.

I also went to the grocery, and made a very nice Moroccan chicken stew.

Castle Gwydir even better than we could imagine. The place I always lived in my dreams. Photos to come. Judy printed "Dulce Domum" out for me & made corrections in stone room by candlelight before retiring to curtained bed. Photos to come. Now sitting in only internet cafe in Llandrwst, eating jacket potato having finished typing in & sending detailed corrections to Jonathan for ECLIPSE 3. I hope he & the Night Shade guys don't gang up to lynch me when we meet up at WFC next month. I hope it's a good story. I hope Delia can make it out of the tiny little parking space by the cafe I made her back into. I hope we get to Portmeirion before everything closes, and that they've saved us a pretty little cottage in that crazy village.

Guys behind me drinking cappucino & speaking Welsh. It's a fine life, if you remember to drive on the left side of the road.