Process LXXIX

The week before Thanksgiving, always brief and yet fully-lacked, consisted of playing Emcee for the annual writing contest (our first writing contest matinees since 2019) and preparing for a train ride to Minnesota which unfortunately did not come to pass. Our eldest arrived in town with a terrible stomach bug, and so they and my wife remained at home while the boy and I caught an impromptu flight to the Twin Cities, to spend the holiday with my brother and his family.

I also took in-between moments an opportunity to further edit After Roe, and think a lot about my final revision for creative non-fiction. To that end, my brother and I drove to Vermillion, the birthplace and final resting place of the woman we believe is our grandmother. It was a poignant, instructive and also inspirational visit. That night I also had the opportunity to meet some new relatives, which is to say they were new to us.

We also toured Paisley Park, and later, we paid our respects at George Floyd Square. It was a full weekend, thoughtful and productive.

And it brings us to the final week of classes for the semester, and for my degree. Like, really. That’s it. Monday night my playwriting workshop professor and I met at a local joint to have wings, talk about new pages, and plans for the future.

Thursday I turned in the final draft of my creative nonfiction essay, sticking the landing this afternoon around one p.m. That’s right, with four hours to go I had finally figured out how to end.

After class we headed to Lockview on Main Street to eat a lot of cheese and to unwind a little – not that the class had been stressful. A classmate asked if it felt anticlimactic and I said quite the opposite, I was very happy with my paper, and the entire class. It feels good to go out on top.

What’s next?

Days of Awe

From American Public Media ...
My brother and I closed the evening at Sweeney’s Saloon in the Selby/Dale neighborhood. Legend has it Sweeney’s was a favorite haunt of August Wilson’s during his time in St. Paul, a place for him to drink, smoke and write. The owner would turn the lights up when Wilson would come in so he could see better to do his work.

If this legend is so, I have to imagine things have changed a great deal in this neck of the woods. Last night it was a very popular place, packed with college students and hipsters, not the kind of place I could imagine anyone being able to concentrate and compose anything like Two Trains Running.

We sat at a table outside, enjoyed a local beer, and had a nice long talk. For me, this was the best part of the trip.

This morning was the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon, The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America®. The race began at 8 AM, and at 10 AM the family and I walked two blocks to Fairview and Summit in time to catch the first few runners. It’s a bright, cool day today, perfect for running. I did not bother bringing my kit this trip, thought my time would be better spent available to my brother, but I did wonder out loud if I might not try the "Full Cleveland" this May.

Maybe you are not aware I also keep a running blog.

Church services at the Unity Church-Unitarian began at 11 AM. I joined Denny and Julie in marriage there in August, 2006. (Didn’t know I could do that, did you?) As a celebration of the High Holy Days, the theme for this morning was forgiveness. It was a painfully well-timed homily.

First step of forgiveness:
We must all give up hope of a better past.
It is a question we ask in The Crucible residency. What is forgiveness? Why is forgiveness necessary? Is it necessary? Who is the benefactor of forgiveness, those who give or those who receive it? Can you forgive and not forget?

“I forgive myself, I forgive you. We begin again in love.”
On our way to the airport, my brother gave me a tour of the MPR studios. It’s a very large, impressive facility, the central nervous system of NPR affiliates around the state, their news, classical and popular music stations. I think I am going to become a die-hard, online fan of The Current 89.3.

And now I am waiting at the gate, informed that my flight took off from Hopkins, and then abruptly turned around for a “maintenance issue.” My departure from MSP is in question, but I have a coffee, cash for dinner if I want it, and a very large book.

LATE UPDATE: Touching down at CLE, 12:30 AM.

We are brothers.

Two Trains Running @ Penumbra Theatre

Penumbra Theatre was founded in 1976 by Lou Bellamy in the Shelby/Dale neighborhood of St. Paul to "create a forum for African-American voices." That is where my brother and I headed last night for opening weekend of August Wilson's Two Trains Running.

Before he died in 2005, August Wilson created ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, chronicling the African-American experience through the prism of the Hill District. Each play represents one decade of the twentieth century. While I am shy to admit I have (until last night) read merely one of his works (Fences) by the end of the 2011-12 season I will have seen three, including Gem of the Ocean at Karamu and Radio Golf at the Play House.

Penumbra was responsible for Wilson's first professionally produced play, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills, and their relationship with Wilson remained strong throughout his life, and continues today, as the company decided following his death to produce the entire Pittsburgh Cycle, offering one or two of the works every season since 2007.

The facilities of Penumbra are very warm and welcoming, and the auditorium seats 250 but feels very intimate and close. The set for Lee's Restaurant circa 1969 was strikingly realistic.

While I was engaged by the entire ensemble, I most enjoyed sharing three hours in the same room as Abdul Salaam El Razzac (b. 1944) in the role of Halloway, a disciple of Aunt Esther, a man who has lived to the age of 65 by minding his own business. At turns kindly or fierce, this 6'5" grey-domed man in a comfortable suit keeps the top from blowing off Lee's ... or casually (but pointedly) makes his way out when he can't.

El Ra (as he is known to his friends) was born Allen Johnson II in Cleveland. Yes, he performed for Karamu, and graduated from East Tech High, the child of a postman and a "public servant." Right out of high school - during the Vietnam War - he joined the Air Force, moving to the Twin Cities after his service.

El Razzac means "service."

See: "Radio Golf" at Cleveland Play House

Sources:
Penumbra website
Star Tribune: The Mellowing of El Ra
Wikipedia

Twin Cities

Great playwright (with Chekhov.)
Yesterday evening my brother Denny, who lives in St. Paul, rode his bike home from his job at Minneapolis Public Radio. He knew his wife was planning a birthday surprise for this weekend (my brother turned fifty last week) but he was not expecting to find me sitting on his back stoop, drinking a beer.

The Twin Cities has been Denny's home for over twenty years. I have been fortunate enough to have visited several times. Minneapolis and St. Paul coexist as models of a modern American metropolis. Lots of local, urban business, a thriving arts scene, gorgeous new uses for the majestic riverfront, and a couple of kooks.

For this morning my sister-in-law Julie proposed a tour of the new (2006) Guthrie Theatre, located on the banks of the Mississippi. I have seen some fun alternative theater in Minneapolis, most notably at the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival, but also at The Jungle, the Bryant Lake Bowl, and the Theatre de la Jeune Lune, which is no longer with us. The only I have ever stepped foot into the former Guthrie space by the Walker Arts Center was twenty-five years ago in 1986 to see The Rainmaker.


I was a little astonished to walk into the main theater space, and discover it was a near-replica of the original, or at least to my memory. Apparently they narrowed the angle at which the audience is arranged around the thrust stage. With seven hundred seats, it remains an intimate environment in which to see a show.

But that's not where we're are going to see a play tonight.


This afternoon Denny and my niece Ariel took me to O'Gara's Bar and Grill at the corner of Snelling and Selby, which is significant as the site of the barbershop owned by Carl Schulz, the father of Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz.


Little Red Haired Girl.
To be continued ...