Frank worked with the only two actors that we had available tonight, and I painted the set, two rolling stairway units. Carol dropped by to help paint, because (she said) she was bored at home. We got the painting done surprisingly easily; Carol can be high-maintenance at times.

This was the first time that I'd worked with Rosco colors. Frank and I scavenged half a can of black from the paint shelves, and I thinned it 1-to-1 with water. The first coat went on to the unit's lauan very blotchy and drippy, and I was afraid we'd have to go to Plan B. But then we brushed a second coat in, and worked over the streaky bits, and now it looks pretty darn good. At least good enough for something that should disappear in front of the black traveller.

posted: 10:52:09 PM  

Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography

This book consists, if we are to believe its introduction, of papers once in the possession of Lemony Snicket. Mr. Snicket is the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, the grotesquely comical nine-volume chronicle of the hapless Baudelaire children (Violet, Klaus, and Sunny); he also has an unclear relationship to a certain Daniel Handler.

In Unfortunate Events, the children are beset by the shadowy and murderous Count Olaf, and the present volume tries (though not very hard) to elucidate the Count's story. "Elucidate" is a word which here means "to make all the more incomprehensible by piling on red herrings and silly, irrelevant facts."

Humor even leaks into the book's front and back matter. From the copyright notice:

No part of this book may be used, reproduced, destroyed, tampered with, or eaten without the written permission except in the case of brief, possibly coded quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews, and subpoenas.... Send help at once. All rights reserved. Wouldn't you rather read about ponies?

As it has an index, the book has something in common with other unclassfiable, off-kilter works of fiction like Pale File, by Vladimir Nabokov, The Centaur, by John Updike, and House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. In this index, one chain of Sees begins with "anagrams, see false names," "false names, see disguises," and ends with "doom, overall feeling of, ix-211." You've probably guessed that this book has 212 pages, and the last two are burned.

J. D. Salinger, another master of transparency, is honored by allusion, and film critic Pauline Kael appears in an anagrammatic shroud.

The book is illustrated with drawings by Brett Helquist and photographs by Julie Blattberg. Other photographs in the book, a kind of found art rescued from family albums, contribute to the book's creepy, zany charm.

posted: 10:44:37 PM  

Hawk Moon, short stories, poems, and monologues by Sam Shepard

This material dates from 1981 and before, and shows Shepard discovering his narrative voice, or perhaps voices. Shepard's way with imagery is outstripped by his gift for incident and black humor. "'The City of Hope'," the strongest piece in the collection, is an example: it's a three-page story about Jaimie Lee, a kid who cares for greyhounds at a cancer research lab. Stricken by the thought that the animals will be sacrificed, he releases them from their kennels and leads them away, pacing them at 40mph in his '51 Chevy.

"Can a 1/2 Ton Fly?" takes place somewhere in the remote northwest, where the humor is its blackest. Inebriated Native Americans roll their pickup off a rising drawbridge, while unnamed tourists look in aghast. It's funnier than it sounds.

"Running Out of Trouble (1964)" is a sharp study in monologue of a particularly obsessive neurosis.

The poems in this volume, however, are regrettable.

posted: 10:06:05 PM