A Luminous Halo

"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end." --Virginia Woolf

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Location: Springfield, Massachusetts, United States

Smith ’69, Purdue ’75. Anarchist; agnostic. Writer. Steward of the Pascal Emory house, an 1871 Second-Empire Victorian; of Sylvie, a 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL; and of Taz, a purebred Cockador who sets the standard for her breed. Happy enough for the present in Massachusetts, but always looking East.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Free Performance

Tonight was the staging of Ezra LeBank's play "Fresh Air" at Thorne's in Northampton. Since we had workshopped the script earlier this year in our Northampton Screenwriters Group, I was interested in seeing it performed. Both Ezra and Cat are very good actors, and lighting, music and props did make it all come together.

After the show, I went over to the Haymarket with friend M to discuss the perfomance. The Haymarket is the only place left in Northampton with the '70s-style ambiance i've always loved. The food's vegetarian; the chairs don't match and neither do the dishes; you bus your own table. Occasionally a street person will come in and drink the leftover coffee in the cups, and nobody cares.

I had forgotten to snap a picture of the stage earlier, so I pulled out my camera and took a shot of M. From out of nowhere came a rather flamboyantly dressed guy and put his arm around her, pantomiming for me to snap the both of them. So I did. He then came around the table and posed with me. M obligingly took our picture. The man introduced himself as Mario, wished us a good evening, and went back to his own table.

Watching Ezra's play was instructive, but M and I concluded that it wasn't really our style. In retrospect, we could have saved ourselves the price of two tickets. In Northampton, you don't have to go to a theater to see a performance.

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