The Ten Questions

...by Bernard Pivot that host James Lipton asks every one of his guests on The Actors Studio:

1. What is your favorite word?
Beautiful.

2. What is your least favorite word?
Killed.

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
The movies, because they combine every art form I'm interested in separately (painting, dance, fashion, architecture, literature, music) into something new.

4. What turns you off?
Intolerant, mean, hateful, condescending or entitled behavior, and anyone's attempt to acquire my freedom.

5. What is your favorite curse word?
Motherf*cker.

6. What sound or noise do you love?
Rain on the roof at night.

7. What sound or noise do you hate?
Ambulance or police sirens.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Movie director or cinematographer, or circus performer.

9. What profession would you not like to do?
Heavy manual labor (garbage collector, ditch-digger).

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"Rachel, my dear, I am extremely surprised to see you here, considering you are an atheist and YOU don't believe in Heaven. Please, enjoy a cigarette."

PERFORMANCE PIECES

From Nohegen performance, 2006, as Jean-Fromage, wife of Crisco, the famous French installation artist.

This section will grow as I'm able to adapt video documentation to viewing on the web.

"Vows" piece from Anti(dote)Wedding

View on ExposureRoom

Anti(dote)Wedding Performance and Exhibition, August 14, 2009


"Death of Orpheus," from Metamorpheus, 1990.

View on ExposureRoom

My Dream of Linda Montano in the Purple Chakra (1998)

Once upon a time I dreamed my husband and daughter and I were in a toy store shopping for stuffed animals that resembled Beatrix Potter's drawings of Peter Rabbit. When we left the toyshop we noticed a brass plaque that read, "Antiques and Imports" and a corridor that led around the corner.

We found ourselves in a dim entrance hall that seemed to lengthen and broaden as we walked into it, like a Cinerama movie effect. We saw antique furniture, Turkish rugs, floor lamps and crystal chandeliers in the distance in a beautiful room down the corridor, but we could only see them dimly, since the room wasn't well-illuminated and dusk was falling. When we entered the room full of antiques we felt it was alive, trembling with a slight breeze, and a few autumn leaves twirled in the air currents surrounding a huge chandelier -- very Jean Cocteau. My husband said, "This is someone's home, not a shop," and, for an instant, I felt embarrassed. Then we heard a woman's voice in the distance call, "I'm coming!"

A woman very like Linda Montano wheeled herself into the room in an ornate Victorian wicker wheelchair. She reminded me somehow of Miss Havisham from Dickens' Great Expectations. She seemed very eccentric and smiled mischievously. Three serene young students in black turtleneck sweaters attended Linda in her wheelchair. Linda said, "So, you've come to see the beautiful things," and beckoned for us to follow her.

Then we were in a tiny kitchen. One of Linda's smiling young attendants stirred an ambrosial concoction of stewed peaches simmering in a black cast iron cauldron on the stove. Linda turned to me and said, "You must do exactly as I say, and you must always remember to clean up everything that needs cleaning up."

With those words, she impishly dumped the peaches onto the Turkish-carpeted floor. I knelt with a dishtowel to clean up the mess, but it vanished magically into thin air. Linda laughed a delightful, tinkling laugh.

Linda said there was a movie theatre deep in the recesses of her home and she invited my daughter and husband to wait for me there. A movie was playing that they had very much wanted to see, so my husband and daughter went in. I could then see inside the theatre from outside, as if it were made of glass or I was God, and I observed my daughter happily watching the movie with other members of the audience, munching away on a sack-lunch sandwich I had prepared for her earlier. My husband sat with another male spectator on a bench like you'd find at a bus stop turned at an oblique angle from the movie screen, reading a newspaper, as if he were slightly bored.

Outside in a little plaza, Linda taught me a beautiful song, and, as I sang it, I began to rise magically into the air. I rose into the branches of a frozen tree where icy crystals from chandeliers shimmered. I was overjoyed that I could fly, but then discovered with horror that my beloved bulldog was frozen among the tree's highest branches, his eyes lifeless and glazed over with frost.

Linda called out to me from below, "Sometimes you'll be afraid!" and kept singing the beautiful song. I took my dog from the tree's limbs and he immediately warmed and wiggled to life in my arms as we flew among the branches.

But then, a real-life noise outside my window woke me up. The melody of the song Linda taught me rang in my ears for a few seconds longer -- a little, short mantra of a song, like beautiful, magical tinkling bells.

Linda Montano: 7 Hours Sounding the Chakras (1997)

7 Hours Sounding the Chakras

Performed by Linda M. Montano and Ellen Fullman

Sunday, April 27, 1997

The Candy Factory, Austin, Texas

Chakra 1: Sex Red Perineum Dutch

4:28: It has begun. Light drizzle outside. It seems there are fears of technical problems this year. One of Linda’s microphones keeps going dead. Yesterday Linda made the rubbing tears from her eyes gesture to show the technical people she was sad when there was trouble. I hope Ellen and the three guys who are making the sound have it all worked out today. I don’t see how Linda can do this kind of work if she can’t trust the electronic things. It’s hard enough without having to worry about that.

The long-string instrument sounds now are quiet, tentative and sporadic. Linda is also quiet, just a low hum at this point. It seems really relaxing right now. Just now a layer of processing came on and the technology involved in the piece this year becomes evident. It started off gently and low-tech. Now the first layers are building up – harmonic, but Linda like a low ghost outside. Now the first reverb on the reader. Ellen playing percussively like some kind of oriental instrument. I don’t feel like I’m here yet. I’m ready to be here and want to be here, but I’m still distracted by the logistics of getting everything set up. Always I’m afraid I’ll forget what to do next, or who or what comes next, although the instructions are so simple. This time we are changing chakras at seven minutes after the hour, not on the top of the hour, and that’s a little harder to keep track of. The Dutch is kind of choppy and percussive. I think I hear the names of people I almost recognize. Linda is very quiet and only a low melodic moan right now – like the wind outside on a cold winter night or the Theremin in a horror movie. Pleasant – opening now – vibrating – like peering into the center of a red poppy as it opens in time-lapse scientific films.

Now Linda is really quiet. I can’t tell if she is really into this yet. I feel like I am protecting her. I had the image of a nun who sits by the bedside of a patient in some turn-of-the-century hospital or asylum when I sat down. Maybe it’s because Linda’s in a baby bed this year – I somehow feel it is my job to protect her and watch over her during this meditation. I had a fear the baby bed might not support the weight of an adult – probably because I always had the desire to get into the baby bed myself when my children were small. I thought – or knew very well – it would break. I did get in the playpen, though. My children never liked baby beds or playpens – like jails. I remember the scary iron hospital baby bed when Alexander had pneumonia and they wouldn’t even let me pick him up due to his high fever and he held out his little arms to me through the bars.

She is sitting upright now – lotus position. Alton helped me get her to the bed. She is wearing a long wild-woman wig with x’s taped over her eyes, orange polka-dot sari, orange socks. I could turn and look at her if I wanted to, I suppose. She has a homemade pastel afghan with her in the crib – mainly yellow. Alton is high and vertical – very beautiful white courtly costume, like Casanova, powdered wig, high white heels, ruffles.

Now there’s a ghostly, almost celestial angelic singing, space-age hurtle, buzz of long-string instrument, Sputnik feedback. Linda’s voice treble and tentative, small sounds, intimate, random, like when you turn over in bed. Now she’s going into a repetitive tunnel-like sound that escalates and echoes in on itself – loud – drowns out the Dutch – ebbs and dissipates now in the distance – concentric circles like drops of rain in water puddles.

Ellen’s patterns emerging now. It got really intense for a moment, then tapered down. Echo of Henk’s voice. I keep thinking I hear words I understand: "outside," and, once, "hotel."

Space mice. A kind of chewing sound, like diddling with the strings on the end of the guitar that’s not made for playing – that part that can’t be tuned. I always wanted to play instruments the wrong way; I wanted to play the piano from the inside, rather than using the keyboard and felted mallets of the machinery. I always wanted to crawl inside a grand piano and play it like a harp, play the guitar upside down. Five or seven minutes to go in clearing this one – I’m starting to get here now.

Linda’s screaming as if being tortured on the longstring instrument. She’s screaming like someone falling off a cliff in a movie, falling into a well that goes on to Eternity.

Chakra 2: Security Orange Pelvis Polish

5:07: It’s weird hearing Bogdan in Polish – knowing him for ten years now, but never having heard him speak in his own language. There’s a giggling coming from Linda, and also the sound of something going noisily down the drain – like a whirlpool of water, very moist and slippery. One of the sound men came to check the level of Linda’s microphone. I can hear her, but I don’t know if others can. I keep thinking I hear Bogdan saying things I understand: "I believe," "Possible." It seems as if he’s either reading a book about theology, or refuting theology. Again I seem to hear names in English that I recognize. Now Linda is taking off, swooping, coming back down, like a bird taking flight in stages – housetop, treetop, powerline, sky. Transitions. Now Bogdan seemed to say, "If you are even here," and Linda’s sound is very small circles, like colored pebbles in a stream. Small sounds, encapsulated, then bursting into more tortured cries – the needing sound – like you need water, or for the dentist to stop hurting you – now dying down and very small again, but repetitive, like the links in a chain, primarily breathing that rises to clarify into a treble tone. I’m starting to feel all here now. Delay happening and echo of voice, very dramatic. Strings clang like the percussion in a movie underscoring some horror. Now the instrument sounds like a violin – definitive, authoritative, now a shimmer. I turned to look at Linda; she’s holding the bars of the crib and rocking back and forth like a child who’s waiting for you to come get him/her out of the bed. Just waiting, not howling yet, making small sounds to comfort herself – now widening into a louder and more melancholy sound. "Find me." Now some kind of guttural, threatening sounds. "It’s elusive." Halfway through this chakra now, Bogdan sounds very patient and understanding. Linda is quieting down, just "Hmm?" or "Um-hmm." Ellen just broke a string on the instrument, and that was dramatic – a heavy clamp fell on the floor – then she moved over to the middle register which sounds the most like strings. I feel another layer of voices in the electronic mix at the far end of the room – spaceman talk, not Linda, jabbering like the voices of workmen heard down a sewage pipe when you’re a child and playing hide-and-seek. Linda’s voice constant and brown now, like an earthly grounding. Wide strip going harmonic. I don’t know who the spacemen are – like they are part of an intercepted transmission – space party line. Linda celestial and falling from time to time, then high up, like someone climbing a tree or going out onto the balcony of a high building. Maybe it’s Bogdan who’s the spaceman. Maybe somehow it’s his own delay they’ve made so scratchy and metallic. Something else just flew off the instrument – very exciting when that happens. She restrung the broken string and now the pattern we hear is tuning. "Distance." "Poco-poco." People are coming and going from the space. I see Gloria is here. So far, all the train connections are working. I have so little "business" to do this year. I feel remarkably empty and feel no need. I like the feeling this year of being "in service" or "of service." I like to show the icons when it’s time. I like the feeling of serving and then disappearing; that’s possible with strangers, but impossible with family members. With family, resentment sometimes rises. With strangers, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event and you can easily extend yourself charitably. With family, it’s twenty-four hours, seven days a week – harder work. Some roaring sounds from Linda – getting fiercer, resolving on same note instrument plays.

Chakra 3: Courage Yellow Solar Plexus Chinese

6:18: Linda had to go to the bathroom, and Alton was nowhere to be found, so I took her. Luckily Hud was in a mental state where he could help me. Scary, trying to get her out of the baby bed when I wasn’t expecting it. What will coming out of the piece do to her torque?

A big scream – first for a long time. She was bouncing up and down on the mattress, and now it’s getting serious. A screaming roar, enraged, filling the space, expanding, now a sort of resolution, a kind of heartbeat, then sonic reverberation. These are scary sounds, the kind of feral, demonic possession sounds that really rattled me last year. These sounds are excruciating, make your hair stand on end. Chinese sounds so polite – swishy and contained like reeds at the edge of water – sailboat at sunset gliding over a lake, like a see-saw negotiation, a pleasant give-and-take. Now Linda and the instrument more and more make call and response – instrument sounds, Linda growls at the tone, polite Chinese makes a falling pitter-patter pattern over all of it, like rain. But there’s static at the back of the room, a metallic rattle. Linda’s voice low, almost masculine and like the sound of a wheel, string shimmer. I feel like I hear voices outside, loud ones in the front room. Linda’s students performing? The most intense sounds so far – hacking, phlegmatic, the terminal smoker’s cough, now shrill and quieter, one tone. "Where are you?" The teasing, playful hide-and-seek question of a child, like a song suddenly remembered from childhood. I thought Gloria said, "Say how kind?" Starry planetary music ascending, twinkling high above. Linda very calm. Sounds loop a pattern and blink like little space signals, like red lights on a radio tower. "You shall teach." "Should be told." As with Bogdan, it’s odd to me to hear Gloria read Chinese, since I know her well and never heard her speak Chinese before. Linda is very quiet, only rocking slightly in her crib, saying "No, no," with her head, now nodding, "Yes," slight panting like breathing in labor or having sex, rhythmic, relaxing. I think I could go to sleep. Stereophonic-harmony-tone is split in two. She’s making the mattress bounce like slow repetitive sex. Can’t tell if the sound of the mattress itself is what’s being amplified. Victor is next – the only one I’m truly worried about showing up since he didn’t come to rehearsal yesterday. Linda said she talked to him and he will for sure be here. That was the bad chakra last year, when the woman was late and I was so angry at her. This sound is good, a slinging, as Linda makes "No, no" head. Locust-like incessant whisper fills the room – the "schwa" of Chinese and Ellen plays her response, wind picks her up and she sails. Very quiet now, only wind, laughter from somewhere, footsteps on floorboards, witnesses in loud shoes. It’s getting dark outside. Good – now I see Victor. Dark wind forest. When I sit back down, the piece of paper with the orange word "fabric" is always back in the chair when I come back. I don’t know what it means. I folded it up and put it in a bag, not mine – Gloria’s? – that appeared by chair and now it’s back. The performers out in the front room are very loud. "Woo-woo" -- they look like Marie-Antoinette sexy wig flower-festooned nymphs out of some kind of crazy Watteau painting.

Chakra 4: Compassion Green Chest Spanish

7:07: I think I am going to eat some bread. The sound has established a groove, dark blue, comforting. Linda’s rocking and singing a "la-la" song – or is it a Church chant? Reverberates like in stone cloisters and I almost think I hear a distant rock guitar. The tawdry girls are back with candles. There was a profoundly beautiful passage just a minute ago – Linda was in a rare place with her voice. I thought I heard "This is the lost boy. This is the lost man." There is too much frivolous noise going on out front in the performance room. It needs to be quieter, but maybe that’s the lesson for me to learn during "compassion." They are definitely putting themselves out there in a playful way, but it intrudes on the sacred space the meditation’s created. Alton’s standing up here at the front, tall, white, vertical, like some kind of authoritarian French clown. I don’t know if Linda’s aware of anyone’s presence or even what she hears, for that matter. Don’t know if she’s tranced out now, or what. I am definitely more aware of mundane details this year – no profound thoughts coming to me. I guess I’m emptied out from all I’ve recently been through, and therapy. My left shoulder has been itching all through this chakra. Now a procession of Alton and the girls and a guy with a video camera. "Is it enough?" I understand Victor to say. It sounds like part of a recognizable composition on the instrument right now – like something for the cello, with a classical meter. Linda floats on top of it all, spacey and celestial. The strings have laid down a basketweave rhythm and Linda weaves in and out of the spaces. The tortured, quivering voice of an old lady joins in sometimes. The sound men are able to keep the sound in the room for a long time, filling the space, stretching it out until it fills up the entire area, like pulling on the edges of something to stretch it. Linda now singing a sweet, high, childish Ave Maria on top of everything. This is really a beautiful moment, the most transcendently beautiful so far. She answers herself with a few notes in a low register, low and sustained, like monks. It’s like monks and nuns singing back and forth between hillside monasteries and convents with a valley in between them. I hear the sound of a tinny transistor radio, and here come the girls again.

Chakra 5: Communication Blue Throat French

8:07: Linda is at a low, moaning spot, and Danielle’s voice sounds like two sometimes. Now Linda’s set up a pant, a sawing of breath. She’s all wrapped up in the afghan now, horrible cough again, clearing, clearing. Now quiet except for space laser sounds coming out of the processor. I think they need to punch up the reader’s microphone. There is a guy standing over my shoulder reading what I am writing. Strange – no one has ever come so close to the space where Linda is before. He is looking at everything and all the equipment. Linda is probably not even aware he is here. He smiled, not threatening, except he was a male presence and made me think weird thoughts about what would I do if he tried to do something to Linda, what would I do to protect her. Of course anything can happen! She’s using her hands over her mouth and screaming. The sound reverberates off the long wires. Sounds pretty scary right now. Linda dropped out – just the sound of French now, just a single, sporadic note from the instrument. Then an adrenaline high-pitched string like a fear reaction comes out of left field. Linda is really screaming now, a kind of strained, distant muffled scream, like screams heard through a pillow if someone’s trying to muffle them. It’s getting to be pretty hypnotic now. More childhood terror screams. This is really intense. She whistles, then screams. I think I smell Mentholatum as she’s screaming – why is that? Definitely a menthol smell. Is it really in the space, or is it a nervous system hallucination from the meditation? Sounds like there’s a train in the distance. I feel I am getting numb. Danielle was saying "blue" and "pink." My mind is wandering. I thought I might write to some people from inside the meditation this year, but it isn’t happening. Linda is very still, in yoga position, sound rolling out of her. What must it be like for her? I can’t imagine. Long string instrument again sounding like a violin – short, bowing gestures. Linda saying, "Oh, nonononono," it sounds like. It must be terribly hard to do this kind of work, so consummately private and the opposite of dramatic. Seems like it would be nearly impossible to share this work – needs witnesses, to honor her teacher? It’s sounding like ghosts in a haunted house now. Whatever the mint smell is – she’s coughing and screaming now, as if she’s in agony. I can taste the mint in my mouth. I thought I heard someone knocking outside the window. Someone comes in wearing very loud shoes. Linda is very quiet, reader’s voice doubled. Time is crawling for me now.

Chakra 6: Intuition Purple Forehead Japanese

9:07: Linda is up in a frequency only bats could hear. The Japanese is soothing, and there’s a drumming coming from somewhere – probably part of the processing. It keeps startling me because it sounds like someone’s knocking. I see Luke, but not Anastasia. Guess she decided to stay home. Probably tired. Linda was screaming, "What?" and it echoed dozens of times.

Chakra 7: Joy White Top of Head Spanish

10:07: The readers’ voices predominate now; the instrument is like quiet, sporadic bowing, like wind blowing against a rusty roof. Linda laughs and it gets picked up into echo and becomes a pained sobbing – so hard to tell if it’s laughing or crying – then screaming – more bowing instrument – then laughing so hard she has a coughing attack. I like it when the sound bounces up against itself, the echo and the sustained, real-time voice. "You people," "you women," "the rhumba," "the flowers," "the fruit." Spanish, like French, is bad because I just have to force my mind to agree not to try to figure out the words’ meanings, just let them wash over me instead. Hard to tell if the two readers are reading together, or separately. I see someone down on the floor in the long-string area: Ellen is lying on the floor playing on her side. I keep thinking I hear horns – maybe pre-recorded? Now celestial Linda voice like an orchestra tuning up to the violin. "The happy," "the kisses," "the house," "the dreams," "the shadows." Only a little over half an hour to go. I feel like I’m going mad now, not that I’m being cleared. My costume hurts me, my hair hurts me, my stomach hurts me, my brain hurts me. I hear the chanting quality again in Linda’s voice – sustaining a tone into what seems to be eternity. Funny that one of the last images I’ll see in this space is of a two-headed woman, since the two readers are wrapped and pinned together with one long scarf. Funny, because it was here in this space that the two-headed woman was born during the soap. Linda laughs breathlessly and the long-string instruments sounds strangely like a bandoneon playing a tango for an instant. Low hum from Linda like a diggerydoo – sounds like a man because the computer is dropping her pitch. Sounds like those ancient instruments you swing in a circle over your head – bull roarer? The voice of the gods? I could tell, when I walked the whole length of the instrument before that I’m nearly tripping now, feeling far, far from normal. Anti-gravity, buoyant, but also goofy. I can taste that my breath smells bad. I need coffee. I wonder what the weather is like now. Could it be raining? What will happen when this is over? Will it end up making a crescendo, or will it just end abruptly and in a random way? Linda laughs, trails off. The readers are amazing reading in unison. How do they know what they will say next? They can’t have rehearsed yet they seem to read in unison. Now Linda is soaring above the readers and the instrument sounds like sobbing. I want to close my eyes so badly and just let it wash over me, but I know I’ll go to sleep if I do. This final passage is just washing over everyone here – as if there’s a kind of unity. Hard to imagine how it will end. Ellen must have an eye on a clock, unless she’s just responding to Linda for seven hours and doesn’t know or care. It would be cheesy if there was a big, theatrical finish, a swell, a flourish. Maybe Fate will just take care of it quietly.

"Oh, yes, we can stop them."

Linda Montano: 7 Hours Sounding the Chakras (1996)

7 Hours Sounding the Chakras

Performed by Linda M. Montano and Ellen Fullman

Sunday, February 11, 1996

The Candy Factory, Austin, Texas

Chakra 1: Sex Red Perineum

4:15: Kerthy is telling her sexual history and the meditation has begun. When Linda is really moaning, it shakes the platform like winds outside the window during a thunderstorm -- Wuthering Heights ghosts while you try to sleep in a bed. There are about twelve people here watching right now; most of them are young, college-age, one older, sterling-haired woman smiling -- a devotee of Linda's perhaps? Kerthy is topless with a big red costume like the Birth of Venus clamshell. The long string instrument makes a drone that is really beautiful and soothing at this point -- wonder how it will sound to me in eight hours? I realized the wires remind me of the overhead wires in the train stations when you pull into Milan or Rome. It's like Ellen's playing power lines, like telephone wires down a highway, walking along like a tightrope walker, never looking down. When Linda coughs it sounds like a nineteenth century tuberculosis asylum, clearing, clearing, clearing. Now she is howling again like a wolf outside a cabin in the forest -- fire burning and safe and cozy inside. These sounds are terrifying and it reminds me of that 1950's horror movie where the scientists are inside a kind of metal igloo and the abominable snowman is outside in the arctic cold.

I don't know any of the people here. I can't see Kerthy except for her red hood. I can only see Linda's back, draped in lace, and one of her feet in a yellow sock. This would be a good chakra from which to write my valentines. Too bad I already finished. Luke -- this passing thought is for you -- great sex last night, hope I don't bleed all over myself up here -- I am your mushy bloody-hearted valentine. If they autopsy me they'll find a combo heart/uterus organ, my mythical organ, sacred heart of uterus. My babies came from in there -- that's why I don't want a hysterectomy, ever. The pace calmed down now, stilled. Kerthy's talking about menstruation now, about her mother's repressed sexuality. Can't think who I should write to during this chakra -- probably this is the least subtle one.

4:45: Kerthy's been talking about people who prey on children sexually. I can't get comfortable, still feel kind of theatrical. I feel like adjusting my bra straps. It feels like I'm on a train or a transatlantic fight -- the way you feel like nobody's watching you, yet somebody could be. You will be known to the stewardess for an instant when she brings the drinks -- you can squirm all you want because you're unknown to everyone so it doesn't make any difference, but it's possible someone could be looking at you at any given minute. Maybe you sense a glance directed at you, or did you imagine it, or did you wish for it because you're bored?

Linda was making an apelike noise, like gorillas beating their chests and it got real intense for a while. Now more of the feral sounds and the storm raging outside the cabin door. It must be hard to sound or talk or read for an hour. The noise level in here rises and falls, there's a dynamic. There's a correlation between what Linda and Ellen do, and sometimes it feels like the noises Linda makes are in response to the reader, like she's illustrating. Now the reader, Kerthy, is so quiet I think the microphone went out, or else she's just radically changing her sound level in contrast to Linda and Ellen. If the microphone is broken, I guess I need to try to fix it when I go down there in ten minutes -- or will Ellen? I have no idea what Linda would want done. Now Kerthy sounds like someone talking on the telephone in another room and you don't know if you should listen any more. When it's amplified, you know you have permission. The loss of the mike is melodramatic -- makes me feel like an unwilling voyeur -- very tense about what Linda would want me to do about it. I have no idea, hope Ellen will come out and do something. Any second the alarm will go off and we will see what ...

Chakra 2: Security Orange Pelvis

5:30: The microphone was broken. Linda had to stop the meditation and give us instructions about incense and lights. I feel guilty I couldn't psychically figure out what to do. Ellen had to do additional sound checks and it was disruptive. The reader, Steve, is talking about money and so I decided to clean out my purse and balance my check book. Not feeling anything now, really, like an airplane or bus ride, like getting started on a journey and being disrupted by road construction or the car breaking down. Again, the telephone line and power line analogy. Why do I feel like I'm on a train -- the sound? I can feel motion, vibration, through the platform and chair. This hour is really going slower. Stress about the breakdown of equipment, inability to intuit what Linda wanted and not knowing how to do what she asked. Also this chakra is money and security, obviously where a lot of my issues are. I can't get comfortable during this one; I was sneezing and my butt hurts even though this chair is great. I'm not feeling this chakra like the first. It's not as hypnotic. The reader is some kind of professional actor/writer, where as Kerthy was way more a real person "just talking" after the first few warm-up minutes. Seems like he prepared all of it, like a stand-up comedian, not like it's just moving through him. Now there is a nice hypnotic hum going on from Linda and the long-string instrument. For a few seconds it was like a hive, buzzing like flies or bees. Linda is doing things with her breath. Reader is saying the smell of green apples alleviates stress in men and I think of Luke; he buys green apples at the grocery store. Linda is hot now, riding a wave, surfing on top of the musical tones, like jazz on a long train ride. All the delay just dropped out and now it's really quiet, except for the reader's words. He has ten minutes left, he seems to be changing gears. I like this pen, I am acutely aware of the sound it makes, scratching against the paper, percussive to me -- no one else can hear it. Ellen is changing to a different register of the instrument -- more treble. Sounds like a harmonica now. The "music" is really beautiful at this moment, the combination of Linda's vocalizing and the strings.

Chakra 3: Courage Yellow Solar Plexus

6:30: Scott is the reader, talking about how people say he's courageous because he is living with AIDS, about how he feels fear and how he wants people to remember his body in face of the profound physical changes the illness may (will, his word) eventually bring. Talking about his show Tuesday and introducing a female alter-ego who is shameless. He said hard in describing this feminine persona. "Don't leave, don't leave," he says at intervals. When Scott did a performance with us for Minimum Wage two years ago it seemed at the end of the piece he was saying bye-bye, with a childlike hand gesture, receding into darkness. I did so much crying about Scott's death the afternoon of that dress rehearsal, in some ways I feel that I am already cried out. If he dies of AIDS, is he leaving us, or are we leaving him? He says he views death as a challenge, a change of venue. He's asked us not to look at him now. I was running my fingers through my hair, trying to detangle it; seems to be a movement that has something to do with the long-string instrument. He says he's afraid, he wants to walk out the back door. He says he's not sure how safe he feels, how much he trusts the audience. This is pretty tough. Lots of spaces between the words now, hard work moving through fear. He says just the affirmation that he feels fear makes the door swing open on it.

6:45: Dark outside now. Linda is panting. Now she is screaming, really drowning out Scott's talking. Ellen is making a Sergio Leone lost guitar sound down low on the strings. Scott says he wants to swear, he feels angry. Maybe it's the Clint Eastwood movie sounds -- he says he feels helpless. Should he tell ghost stories now? Sounds seem to be coming from the wall behind us, Mexican guitars in the storage area I know is hidden behind that door, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly -- feels like the close-up sequences when Sergio Leone shows the slits of the gunfighter's eyes. Scott says he is afraid of the audience's gaze and wishes we wouldn't listen to him either. I am hungry now. Should I eat potato chips, or will Scott feel it's disrespectful? If I just did what I needed to take care of myself, I would eat them. People will think I am just white trash and totally out of it, like a big ol' Anna Nicole Smith.

Chakra 4: Compassion Green Chest

Luke, I'm writing to you from within Linda's meditation. Do you think I'm hard-hearted? Do you think I'm heartless? Everyone else seems to think I'm tender-hearted, but you probably know better. I have been heart-sick and heart-broken both because of my love for you. This happened years ago. Do you really understand that you broke my heart? Maybe we shouldn't be together after that tragedy happened? What becomes of the broken-hearted? Nothing special. You just live until it's time for you to die someday.

You will always be a very important person in my life because you broke my heart. You are the last I will ever allow to do that. I continued to love you past the heartbreak, but everything was changed. We have a lot of memories, both you and I and us together. All the hurt and trauma wiped out a lot, like boxes of irreplaceable photographs kept in an unsafe place, like that book of our wedding photos you let get ruined.

I had a terrible dream. Linda says I need to talk to you about it. My problem is, I feel that you haven't taken very good care of my love. I feel angry, just like I do when Anastasia leaves the hard-earned money clothes I buy for her lying crumpled on the bedroom floor where they get lost and dirty and trashed. I feel that, when we met, because you did not know me very well, you did not understand the value of my love, the purity, the intensity, that it was diamonds, not cubic zirconia. And eventually, because you were young, you left my love out in the weather, didn't take care of it, and it was damaged, rained-on, trashed (Annie) and your moving out of the Harris Avenue house when Anastasia was a baby.

What I have had since that time is a broken heart. The scar tissue, glue, whatever it was that put it all back together, is what makes my heart seem so hard to you now. It's not still broken, it's mended, repaired. My heart is just not any more made of one intact piece. It's no longer a single, intact unit, pure, in its original state. I feel I have not been taken care of, that I have been left mostly to fend for myself and have grown wild, not tame.

This chakra is green, compassion, and it seems to be releasing the most stuff in me so far. I feel terrible that I cannot be a silent martyr. I know what you want and need and it is usually within my power to give it to you. But because I feel that you have not taken care of my love properly, I won't, because the inequity of the situation would then be so vast. If I did that, I would have to be dishonest, to act like I was just living to give to others without any return, like a saint, when that isn't my true impulse. I just always wanted an equal romantic relationship. I have to keep my heart so closed, so shielded now, for my own survival.

Beverly is talking about what you have to do to keep your heart healthy. Where was I up to now and how did we suddenly get here? She is talking about weight loss and post-menopausal women. This is getting a little too pragmatic for me.

7:45: Over four hours into this meditation. I can definitely make it. It's not a problem being here. I don't need to pee and I am not even thinking about smoking. I guess I could read now. I have more than enough to do. I could definitely just sit here the whole time, with nothing to do, no water or writing. It is doing enough just to be here.

Chakra 5: Communication Blue Throat

8:20: Danielle is French and this is the most hypnotic section so far. Her words are usually incomprehensible to me, but then a random word will cross my airspace that I understand -- like free association. It's very beautiful, just the cadence of her language. Ellen was playing on a section of strings that sounded to me like an accordion. Maybe I'm hallucinating now, who knows, just the combination of French words and the melodic tones. I have so much respect for both Linda and Ellen. I don't know how they can go at it physically and spiritually, non-stop, with such energy, for seven hours.

I see someone I know, finally, after 8 p.m. I ate potato chips for a while during the third chakra and now I'm hungry again for real. I don't feel a real need to pee, and I don't seem to be bleeding all over myself. Linda really seems to have established a groove; Ellen, too. They are into a seamless rhythm now, barely interrupted by changes in readers. I hope Linda is content with the lights and that everything is non-disruptive for the duration. I felt so bad about the microphone breaking. Hope the lights are now the way she wanted them.

Sometimes, for a moment, I think Danielle is reading in English because I understand every word. But as soon as I formulate that thought, she's speaking in French again. Like when you dream you are falling and when you think of it, the thought jerks you awake. The French is moving me faster on this journey. It feels like when you are on the Paris metro going from one end of the line to the other at night, underground; you pull into many different stations, but you don't get off.

Chakra 6: Intuition Purple Forehead

9:20: The reader was nearly ten minutes late! I can't believe it. I was so angry I didn't know what to do, felt it was a terrible disrespect to the work Linda was doing. She is a young, beautiful Hispanic woman and she clicked her heels all the way over to the microphone like a flamenco dancer when she finally arrived, put her car keys down noisily, totally casual, like she was at a poetry spew in some smoke-filled bar. I wanted to deck her. Where did Linda find this woman? Unless I am sadly mistaken, this woman is reading off a list of food items in Spanish. I am sure she said tortillas, manteca, leche, bolitos. For all I know, she's reading a menu from a Mexican restaurant -- that's how mad I am! It seems painful to be here now. My anger is making me totally uninterested in this reader. I'm not nervous or anything at all now. Starting to want to go home and smoke and eat something. I don't think Linda is in the same trance-like space she was earlier -- probably she was conscious of the reader's absence and that may have brought her down to a more earthly space. Actually, she had said that after 9 p.m. she might be in the guru mode, so maybe that was the lesson of this reader being late, to create a conflict. I would be so angry, if it were me. I'd demand some kind of explanation, but really, there isn't one. What a dis. I asked Linda for some kind of contingency plan and she didn't give me one, said it wouldn't happen. I had an intuition something like this could happen, and this was the one reader unknown to me. I'm getting irritable. Only twenty more minutes, and then Alton, who has been here the whole time. Linda must be wiped out -- I cannot imagine where she is the day after these vocal feats and spiritual expenditures. I would definitely sleep all day the next day. Won't her throat be sore? The reader is getting quieter and quieter. I am not getting anything out of this chakra, except anger and frustration. Ellen came and stood by the staircase for a few minutes. She must be very tired from walking along the instrument. Aren't her fingertips sore? Linda's sound is much quieter on this reader -- more sporadic -- more silences between passages. Ellen now seems to be resetting the computer. Linda is doing high-pitched, almost silent screaming. I wonder if that helps clear? If so, I did a lot of that work as a girl growing up. God, I would love to go to sleep now. Fifteen minutes left of this reader. I am going to set the alarm and maybe I'll close my eyes.

Chakra 7: Joy White Top of Head

The next day. I didn't write at all during the last chakra. When I blew the whistle and came down, the reader, Angeles, who had been late in the first place, wouldn't stop. She turned her panther eyes on me but it had no effect. I touched her arm, and still she wouldn't stop, so I stood very, very close to her and stared at her and then said, "Thank you," once again. Alton had been there all day, and I couldn't believe she was going to go over after she had been late in the first place. But when Alton wafted in, all in white, he immediately seemed to take it all to another place. The last thing I remember is him talking about getting ice cream as a child, childhood memories of his grandmother. Then I was somewhere else, somewhere between waking and sleeping, not needing to pee or eat or smoke, and I just stayed there the whole hour. I was actually surprised that I got back to a hypnotic space after the disruption of the late reader and my anger. I had set the alarm, and I needed it to remind me the time was up at 11. During the last hour I had that feeling you get when you masturbate for a long time without stopping, alternately numbed out, but flipping over to extreme sensitivity and rawness every few minutes; that feeling that you can't possibly come again, but then you somehow recharge and the next orgasm almost startles you. That's very much the place I felt I was in during the last hour, and also I experienced a visual sensation like everything was haloed in white light, like when you are sleep-deprived or have been concentrating very hard for a long time on some pains-taking mechanical task.

When I helped Ellen take Linda down from the platform, Linda suddenly turned into Bisma from Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits for me. I had the impulse to get down on my hands and knees to help her into her shoes, like a religious devotee. Linda seemed weak and light and frail. I felt absolutely drunk once the performance was over, and I was even slurring my speech when I tried to speak to Linda or the others. That was the wildest sensation of the entire seven hours, and one I was not prepared for. I was actually afraid to get into my car and drive, for fear I would get stopped for drunk driving and be unable to explain.

The next day I was absolutely euphoric, feeling I had been blessed to be in the position I had been in during those seven hours. It was a great challenge for me not to do the easiest thing, which would have been just to be theatrical, to switch into drag queen mode. It was much, much harder just to be there, to fight my own impulse to perform. I felt I learned something about being an active watcher, something I always try very hard to do and put a lot of energy into, because it's something I believe in so much. I felt like I was a scapegoat or surrogate for the audience members, a symbol of them. I learned so much although it is difficult to put what I learned into words. I have such an abiding respect and devotion for Linda and Ellen and their work.

ARTIST'S BOOKS

Marie-Antoinette (2006)

An homage inspired by Sofia Coppala's 2006 film by the same name. Although I have always been interested in Marie-Antoinette, and the guillotine.

Fabric, commercial scrap-booking paper, commercial stationery, magazine pictures, color photocopies, ribbon.

Fifty: The Story of My Life (2004)

1954
December 14 I am born
with the mark of Cain and a piece of
glass in my arm
bundle sticks and bind them
with grass or wild rye
collect rocks
draw on the sidewalk with chalk
act out stories
with my grandmother, Mimi
fear tornadoes
swing
play dress-up and have
tea parties with my dolls
watch Captain Kangaroo
on television
go to church
spend Saturday mornings
with my father
at the hardware store
covet tiny plastic objects
at the dime store
and in gum ball machines
Blue Northers, dust storms
the carbon black plant
my father's photographs
tell stories of Germany.
Cherry, Flopsy, Teensy Lou, Ouiga
and my rooster
bury dolls and treasures
in the back yard
dig them up later
climb trees
fear window peepers
and insane escaped convicts
blow soap bubbles
with a wooden spool
Mother reads Heidi to me
Childcraft books
Daddy recites
Edgar Allan Poe poems to me
at bedtime sometimes
the public library
Daddy wants to sail to the Galapagos
and I am afraid
he will leave us behind
draw pictures
learn to read
learn to write
fall in love with Elvis
the Li'l Abner comic strip
learn to shoot bottles
with my father's rifle at the
city dump
learn to swim, not drown
kindergarten
aspire to join the circus
as a trapeze artist
Mother and Mimi sew my pretty dresses
dawning understanding of class,
socioeconomic status, race
religious precocity coupled with
deep existentialist doubt
admiration of movie showgirls
write and illustrate stories
Psycho
piano lessons
my sister's birth
chicken pox
learn to ride a bicycle
break my nose
in a playground accident
Daddy dies in a car wreck
1964
my blue transistor radio
scary crank phone calls
dear diary
mother goes back to college
measles
glasses
braces
draw pictures
The Addams Family on television
the Beatles
leave Borger
tonsillectomy
become the new girl at school
Motown music
my troubles with math begin
early puberty brings breasts,
bad skin and other problems
ghosts and poltergeists
the high dive at the
public swimming pool
Jane Eyre
choir
Ouija boards and seances
The Sound of Music
Western Auto guitar
The Diary of Anne Frank
Tennessee Williams plays
Vogue magazine
make-up, high heels, stockings
anorexia
become the new girl again
get ears pierced
ballet class
Degas
community theatre
debate and drama at school
write poetry
research the silent movies to the point of
obsession
haunt antique shops
junior high misfit persecution
read the Encyclopedia at lunch
Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet
quit attending church
quit ballet and piano lessons
teach myself Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata
Satie's Gymnopédies, Chopin études and
nocturnes
first boyfriend
fascination with gypsies
The Great Gatsby
my high school integrated
by the National Guard
become friends with Karen and
Michael
become a member of the
band of outsiders at school
research F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald,
Sarah Bernhardt and Isadora Duncan
write letters to Lillian Gish
get replies
high school theatre
thrift store shopping
repeated violations of
school dress code
study French
accused of witchcraft and levitation
the Rolling Stones
Nabokov
Flannery O'Connor
near-death drowning experience
The Little Prince
Bonnie and Clyde
Cabaret
aspire to a career on the stage
and to move to Paris
Mother says I am a romantic
learn to type at Mother's
insistence
Viet Nam War continues
classmates are drafted
early graduation
leave Abilene for college
see the ocean for the first time
Roe v. Wade ends friends'
backstreet abortions
lose my faith
work an inventory of bad jobs
especially in offices and bars
first readings of philosophy
and feminism
Anaïs Nin's journals
drop out of college
move to Santa Fe
letter and journal writing
1974
first marriage
brief return to college
become friends with Donna
first tattoo on 21st birthday
become friends with Silvetta
cats Mick and Bianca
divorce
change name
disco contests, disco lifestyle
model
more ear piercings
photography
become friends with Bae
introduction to foreign movies while
working as a projectionist at an art house
paint murals
French and Russian novels
usher for opera
get a compliment from
Greer Garson
get assaulted in my own home
aspire to write
remarry first husband
pregnancy
read lots of books about
child development
read Levi-Strauss
birth of Nicholas
breastfeeding
learning to be a mother
move back to Texas
dawning realization of the challenges of
balancing motherhood and artistic pursuits
start smoking
divorce
marry second husband at Cadillac Ranch
move to Austin
go to work for UT
Dia de los Muertos imagery resonates
custody battle with first husband over Nicholas
pregnancy
birth of Natasha by c-section
1984
crime novels and film noir, Hitchcock
sleep deprivation
stress
breast-feeding
mothering, mothering, mothering
death of Mimi
take children to see the ocean for the first time
at Galveston
second husband departs
become a redhead
return to college
cat Minette
discover lithography and performance art
get burglarized repeatedly
teach myself to play accordion
meet Suze
study with and work for Carolee Schneemann
second husband returns
graduate from college
continue to work for UT
Hard Women and performing
mothering, mothering, mothering
performing
dogs Frida and Diego
collaborations with
Linda Montano
weather childrens' puberties
attempt to balance work, mothering, art
art always gets the short shrift
write memoirs at forty
New Orleans
Tuscany, Milan, Rome, Venice, Paris
start making artist's books
Minette's death
depression
Jungian therapy
vampires are glamorous
become friends with Shane
meet Pina Bausch
Nicholas goes out on his own
insomnia
research Voodoo
start making dolls
second husband departs
difficulty sleeping in a bed
divorce
Voodoo vévé tattoo
Natasha graduates from high school
"roots" trip with Natasha to the Panhandle
and Santa Fe
Natasha starts college
honky-tonking often feels like
going to church ought to
swallows and Carmen libretto tattoo
nose piercing
stabbed heart tattoo
Frida loses an eye
return to original hair color
anemia
big job
Diego's death
2004
Dublin, London
Milan, Venice, Vienna
I have a great time wherever I go
Frida's death
female trouble
dog Buster

At fifty, I am the sum total of all this.
Like a snail, I carry my house
of experiences and passions with me.
This inventory has been an interesting
exercise in selecting landmarks.
My life has been molded mostly by my
interactions with the people and animals
I have loved, a strong impulse to make art and
my response to the art others have made.
I have already lived much longer than I
thought I would when I was young.
My childhood seems more tangible to me
than the decades that came afterward.
I have had thirty-two addresses
that I can now recall.
In fifty years I have managed to overcome
my fear of abandonment
but I am still no good at math.
The days are whizzing by now;
time accelerates.
Thank you for crossing paths
with me on my journey.

Heartbreak Book (2000)

The Divorce Book (2000)

Front cover detail and back cover.

Free Souvenir of Las Vegas (1994)

Book fabricated from pages of pamphlets and brochures found in Las Vegas, business cards from sex industry workers and color photocopies of my own photographs inside casinos. Vellum overlay pages with writing give a kind of "prophylactic" feel to some pages.

Snapshots from the Landlocked Land (1994)

In which The Borger Stories and The Abilene Stories were originally contained.

Little Red Art/Life Manifesto (1993)

(Click to enlarge)

Rachel Fashion Beauty Dolls (1993)

Photographs of me by Ellen Felsenthal, photo collages using magazine pages, hand-coloring and color photocopies.

Mother and Child (1986)

A suite of Madonnas, pen and ink, 8 x 10" panels.

TRAVELOGUES

Hundreds of photographs made during these trips and many sketchbook pages are available for viewing at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diebuechsepics/

Siracusa (Ortigia), Sicily (May/June 2008)

Sicily!

Everything went fine getting from my hotel to Victoria Station to Gatwick. Squalling kid next to me on the two hour flight. Striking blue-eyed older man, my driver, there to meet me with a sign. One hour drive from Catania: first through a terrain that looked much like Texas, and I got momentarily depressed. Looks a little like Mexico, but better kept. Love to see the ancient, deserted Italian farmhouses and I want to stop and explore them. Olive trees, orange trees, vineyards everywhere!

To hotel, a tiny cute one, and after some grappling with the tiny lift, to the desk where nice Frederick holds forth. Maybe a dozen rooms here at this small hotel on the marina?

Siracusa: definitely still Italy in its architecture, but maybe a bit more Spanish/Moorish. But the ocean is near and Siracusa sits on a natural harbor -- no beach -- marina with fishing boats and yachts. The waterfront seems to pander to families: rides for children, toys, balloons, ice cream for sale.

I was afraid to wander too far until I got my bearings, but made it to the Duomo where a wedding was ending. Grabbed a seat at the café across the way to watch. First impressions: bridal party gaudy, prom-like dresses with lots of sparkles, black, red. Again, rather like Mexico. Women are pretty stocky and short here -- nothing like the elegant Lombards of northern Italy. No one seems very dressed up -- the shopkeepers, at least. It feels very relaxed here, very Southern. Loads and loads of English and Germans "on holiday." Frederick indicates the ancient drama festival brings many people here this time of year. Tomorrow and the next day are Sicilian Independence holidays. Makes me think of The Leopard. Narrow, winding streets, blackened, blasted crumbling architecture -- very picturesque. And always, the ocean visible at the light end of the dark, winding streets. Many of the older women I saw at the wedding actually looked like drag queens doing Elizabeth Taylor. Lots of red and black dyed hair. A little too-protracted eye contact and cruising by some of the local men, but nothing like what I used to experience in Italy when I was younger.

So far, a huge price relief from London. E3 buys Campari and soda and a plate of cute finger sandwiches, olives and pistachios. Love that about Italy in the late afternoon.

Plan to crash soon and get up early. Wow! Sunday morning in Sicily! I'll go loiter outside the church and people watch. The tap water here is salty. I can't get soap to lather. Just went outside to rooftop terrace: everyone headed over the bridge into Ortigia on foot and motorcycles for Saturday night.

+ + + + + + +

I set the alarm and got up early. I was the first in the hotel for breakfast, served outside on the rooftop terrace by a dark guy with crazy bedhead, sleepy eyes, gold teeth and bracelet. Charming spread of local breads and pastries and fruit. But I swear it's nearly impossible to get sufficient quantities of the excellent coffee of Europe. One cup and you're cut off. They never offer a second. Then out for a long walk before anyone but ancient men and their little dogs were out. It starts off cool but shows signs of becoming a real scorcher later. Narrow streets, more like alleys, I look up to see incredible balconies full of cactus, bougainvillea, geraniums. I always love to see the ghostly, deserted apartments and flats in the midst of the occupied ones. You young men tearing down alleys on motorcycles without helmets pose a threat to life! Had a second cup of coffee across from the Duomo after a couple of hours, assuming I'd get to see families going in. No: just a few old ladies inside. Relic of someone in a side chapel. Lovely, cool and quiet church. Took an alley into a nearby courtyard, discovered a glass case containing a Cinderella coach, just like in Renoir's film The Golden Coach. Strolled the labyrinth that is Ortigia window-gazing: lots of coral jewelry, some of it really lovely and expensive. I wish I could buy an Italian fan; saw some pretty ones in a perfumer's window. Colorful ceramics here in Sicily, like Talavera. Seems to be a local folk craft. And Sicilian horse cart miniatures with pom-pom decorations. Walked all the way to what I was told was the local swimming spot, but too many loud young men there for me. Passed a lively fish market.

Oh! There was a Sicilian puppet museum I toured. Cool papier maché marionettes about a yard tall, some with glass doll eyes. Not slick craftsmanship, very powerful. From what I could tell, this marionette theatre was the project of two guys starting about 1950. Followed signs to workshop, closed on Sunday. Cool painted canvas backdrops for the puppet plays: lots of knights, princesses, Turks or Ottomans, dragons. A high point.

Kept walking for three more hours. Saw a real-life Sicilian horse cart hired by a family for a tour. Poor horse. Hard to tell if it cares or not, pulling the cart over the cobblestones. Took off away from the Duomo, browsing the side street shop windows. Sunday lunch time: dishes clanking, voices alternately singing or arguing, tiny old ladies all in black standing in their doorways, shrines high up in the walls, laundry hanging off balconies and across streets, delicious cooking smells. I must admit these Sicilians don't look much different from Romans. There's certainly not the emphasis on bella figura here as elsewhere in Italy, though. People are dressed very casually, and men who are not tourists actually wear shorts here, and espadrilles or driving shoes. I saw several gekkos sunning themselves today, and some truly trampy looking women, too. I hope U.S. television isn't responsible. Went back to the Duomo about 1:00 p.m., passed well-dressed families in cafes by that time. By late afternoon, went back to hotel to take a cool shower and enjoyed a documentary on Marcello Mastroianni on television. Waiting now for my host to come pick me up for dinner.

The only things I've coveted but won't spend my costly Euros on is branch coral jewelry with silver settings. My hotel has branch coral painted around the room numbers -- charming.

Today was my host's son's first Communion. Saw little girls today in elaborate white dresses -- must have been the day for it. Thought for a moment a boy was hauling a huge religious icon on his back, but it turned out only to be a folding table.

+ + + + + + +

The skylight over my bed shows me a gray sky...it looks threateningly like rain today in sunny Sicily.

A nice dinner last night of fresh tuna and a ricotta/pistachio dessert at a bistro owned by one of my host's foodie friends -- which coincidentally I had noticed when I passed it earlier in the day.

Horrible, loud, crass group of American librarians are on the terrace for breakfast this morning. As always, I hate to be shaken out of my Dream Europe by the sounds of harsh American English. Siracusa really has its share of tourists -- a place like Santa Fe, I fear, with an economy dependent on tourism. William indicates there are few prospects for the youth of this sweet place, so they move away to the mainland after university.

If it rains I don't know what I will do today. Since it's a festa, the school decided to close and so I am on my own again until someone comes to fetch me for the Greek theatre this evening. I find I naturally walk away from the harbor here. The water and boats have limited appeal for me and no one is fishing, swimming or doing anything interesting in the marina. William indicates there are nearby beaches and fishing villages, but not here.

It really is dark and threatening. I guess I can always duck in one of the many churches and do some drawing today.

11:00 p.m.
I'm really tired, so this will be short. Another day of strolling around through a kind of dicey area where I saw a fully naked, fully grown man hammering away at something on his balcony. Nice salad at lunch facing the marina. Picked up to go to ancient Greek theatre. Incredible. Orestes/Agamemnon cycle. Fabulous staging, incredible harpies! Delivered back to hotel starving at 10 p.m. (no dinner) and went back out in search of a gellato. The locals here don't really come out until about this time, anyway. Stumbled on an incredible orchestra concert taking place on the steps of the Duomo to celebrate Italian Independence Day. Sat in cafe opposite, not believing my good fortune to be there that night. They played, and I am not kidding, along with selections from Cavalleria Rusticana and Carmen, a Moriccone medley. And, yes: they really did end with the theme from The Godfather!

+ + + + + + +

My last day in Siracusa was a very long, wonderful one. Spent the day at the study center, saw the catacombs, student apartments, met all the faculty and staff, strolled a little more, had several coffees, returned to hotel exhausted to take a quick shower and nap while waiting for the late dinner Lucia and William arranged in my honor. Great dinner at nouvelle cuisine place, prosecco, great food, great conversation about Italian Neorealism cinema, cultural differences, Italian history, child-rearing, universities, Garibaldi and D’Annunzio.

Walked back one last time past the harbor, yacht lights twinkling in the distance. I should have drawn the moored boats, I guess, from the view from the hotel terrace. Saw a guy come off a boat -- I suppose he lives on it -- and saw his dog whine and yelp as his master walked away down the pier with his backpack. Lots of dogs on boats. Lots of cats hiding in the shade and eating the pasta people leave out for them.

Yesterday during a coffee at the Duomo, saw another wedding. The couple were both in their late fifties and it was certainly neither's first trip to the altar. Surprisingly, no children or grandchildren were there as witnesses. The bride's bouquet was artificial.

I really loved Siracusa, or more specifically, Ortigia. On the way to the Catania airport I saw from the car window wonderful beaches and seaside hotels and villas -- about half an hour's drive from Siracusa.