Do I wake or sleep?

Well, the glow from that didn't last too long because we got our final grade--and I got only an A-. I'm not happy about this, needless to say but there's not much I can do about it. (Or I should say, will do--I despise grade grubbers.) My midterm grade dragged down my average a bit--I got a B/B+ on it (I don't know for sure because the TA made a mistake grading it--he added incorrectly) which definitely had its affect. But my papers were A and A-, and my class participation was A+++. I'm guessing my final was an A- but only just--it had to have been on the A/A- bubble.

What's annoying is how little class participation apparently matters--there were many incidents where I pointed out stuff he'd never considered, and he seemed genuinely impressed/thoughtful. Examples below:

*The first day of class, he was talking about different justifications for battle tactics--sometimes you do the right (or wrong) thing not because you're adhering to the laws/customs of war, or because you're bad, but because it's most expedient. (Example: Richard I slaughters the garrison at Acre. One tactical explanation might be because he's about to march, and he doesn't want to have to feed/guard an extra 300 prisoners.) He talked about the cherem in Deuteronomy, the charge to "kill them all," and we were suggesting various reasons for that. Root out infidels? Protect yourself? And afterward I said to him--what about a genetic/biological urge, like when new head lions kill all the cubs of the former head lion? He said that had never occurred to him.

*When we first started looking at the Bayeux Tapestry, he was comparing the texts (which had Harold as Guy's prisoner) with the imagery on the Tapestry, which shows Harold on a horse, riding with Guy through a crowd. He saw that as a contradiction--then I suggested "perhaps Guy was trying to humiliate Harold?" He literally stopped talking when I said that, to think it over, and then said he'd never thought of that. (What flashed through my mind was the Palm Sunday hym "In lowly pomp, ride on to die" and Aslan's scourging before the Stone Table in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.)

*I even sent him extra stuff he requested! (He'd talked about a WWII incident which brought to mind a Richard III Mad magazine history thing in a book--I mentioned it to him in an email and he said "you must copy that for me." So I brought it back from my visit home Easter break and scanned & emailed the piece to him.)

And the A- for the first paper annoys me, because all he wrote was:

Well done; I learned a lot. You managed to keep this nicely focused on the question of honor/gender. When we get around to chivalry, you will see better how this fits in! - ajk

And the final exam REALLY annoys me, because of how difficult it was to study for. The midterm was the same way--we had to be prepared to identify one obscure passage out of the 1000+ pages of primary sources that we've studied? Are you mad? Let me tell you, after reading six of them in a row, all of those early Christian apologists start to sound alike! The study session for the final--you could feel the fear in the air. NO ONE knew what "reverse identifications" were supposed to mean. You can't just tell your class "go over everything" with a history exam--we studied thousands of pages. My exams for Roman History and Medieval Intellectual Life, though difficult, were approachable.

Grrr...well, I must console myself by saying:

*My average is still a pure 4.0 (because I had an A+ for Roman History).

*I looked up his reviews on Culpa (a Columbia-only Rate Your Professors kind of thing). Apparently he has a rep for being a tough grader--one reviewer said their class average was a C. Yikes!

*Also, I had an illuminating meeting with him during office hours a few weeks ago. More about that later but I know he likes my work.

I'll just have to chalk this up to: difficult grader. The CULPA review said that he was very stingy with full As. I had a professor at Sweet Briar like that, I got a string of A-minuses on paper after paper. Naturally on the one subject that didn't excite me that much (Their Eyes Were Watching God, not one of my favorite books although it is certainly worth reading)), I finally got a full A! (What's even weirder is that I dreamed I would.)

LORD, am I glad this semester is over! Between this class and non-stop drama-queen nonsense during the whole Macbeth debacle (months of months of drama-queen nonsense, though after that was all resolved, the show ultimately turned out very well), I am completely exhausted. Can't wait for a whole summer in which I can just bake in the sun (while perusing primary sources from Columia's delicious libraries) and play softball.

...forgot to mention, Nick's fights are GREAT. Really, really kickass--they seriously look dangerous. The best is the final one between Macbeth and Macduff--I felt like Jerry's wife in Slings and Arrows last night!

Last night Christine, our producer for Macbeth, had a fundraiser/benefit for the show at the Irish Rogue. I had such a great time--to start off, Duncan gave me an AMAZING (late) birthday present...a bottle of pumpkin-infused VODKA!!! That he'd made himself! I was absolutely thrilled--can't wait to try to make Pumpkin Alexanders or something else equally amazing with that! Seriously, one of the best presents I've ever gotten. I'm always so impressed with good gift-givers--Rachel is another good gift-giver, she has exquisite taste for one thing. Intimidatingly good taste. My friend Ashley is another.

Anyway, so that made me very happy. The entertainment was a series of acts, mostly musical except the first was a VERY strange conceptual comedy act that did not go over at all. I felt kind of bad for the girl--I think something like that plays better in a dedicated environment (like a comedy club or a nightclub), rather than a long room in a bar with people crossing back and forth, talking, playing pool, etc. Anyway, Duncan also performed, and I read a poem ("Death of a Naturalist," by Seamus Heaney). I actually wasn't too thrilled with my reading of it--I'm not sure what didn't quite work, just that I felt like I was yelling or something--but I got several compliments so as long as someone liked it, it's all good. One performing duo was also a little off--our sound designer and his wife performed a couple of songs in...some kind of costume. He was dressed as a pimp but I'm not sure what she was, and they sang some kind of song about being a "criminal." Hmm. But there was another duo who sang Lionel Richie's "Hello" as a tribute to Glee and their harmony was great!

But best of all--they had a raffle, and guess who's the proud owner of a NEW COACH SCARF? ME, that's who! I'd bought several tickets and had missed the 3-day membership at Chelsea Sports by just one digit. Then when they started to read off the winning number for the Coach scarf I crossed my fingers and everything else, and Duncan pointed to me and said "if I win this, you're getting it." AND THEN THEY READ MY NUMBER!!!!!! I literally squealed aloud and danced up to Christine--it was like winning Miss America!

Who's the proud owner of a brand new cashmere Coach scarf?

ME, that's who!

Then to top it off, one of the performers had been involved with the Planet Connections Festival and pulled me aside and said some very nice things indeed about my performance as Puck. Terribly sweet--she said she'd "voted for [me] and everything." I love delayed compliments.

I have to say, I'm really liking Christine. She's the producer and she's also playing Lady M. So far I've been very happy with her leadership and she's such a non-diva--we taped the voiceovers for the apparition and she voiced Apparition #3 (the one about "til Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane"). Andrew asked if I had any feedback, and I talked to her about the stuff in Shakespeare's Advice to the Players. She LOVED it, really welcomed the feedback and then later on texted me for the name of the book. It's such a great book, so helpful.

Really, the only disappointing thing about the evening was that I never got to play any pool!

Epiphany: what I need is 26 ounces. I had a long glorious weekend of softball--one game on Saturday, TWO on Sunday--and yesterday, had access to a lighter bat than I've been using for the U-Chicago games, the lightest of which is 28 ounces. However yesterday I played with a 26 ounce bat, with great results--I hit it out of the infield not just once but several times. Woo hoo! So now I have to go out and buy one. And I WILL.

The Chicago game Saturday suuucked. Ah well, they're nice people anyway, and I have fun. Ken Scudder was there. I had to run from that to interviews for Macbeth staff--we had one delicious moment where an SM interviewee (who did NOT impress me, she couldn't even tell us the name of the director of her current show, supposedly at the Fringe) had just left, and the next applicant (for costume designer) told us she knew the other one, she was a total whackjob and had been fired from a show about a month ago and had held costume pieces hostage, if you can believe it. When the costume designer was trying to get them back, they arranged some sort of meeting and the crazy one got there but wouldn't answer her phone or respond to texts, she just circled the CD from a distance for like an hour--finally the CD guessed who she was (she didn't know her from sight) and just went up to her, "are you Crazypants SM?" Weird!

So yeah, two games on Sunday. One was organized by my friend Eric, who does this every year. I first played with this group of people last year and we ended up having several more games on successive Sundays--it only petered out in early October. So it was a lot of the same people this year, including this one player who annoyed me mightily last year--a big guy who was a terrible athlete but really clueless about it and kind of self-satisfied in what I interpreted as a "I'm a guy, so by definition I must be a good athlete" way. (I remember his actually mansplaining how to throw last year to one of the girls who didn't play much, and I had to turn away to keep from laughing out loud. I mean, he cannot throw. At all.)

Again, I need to make it clear--I have no problem with people who aren't athletic--I am very patient with people who are bad but are trying, and I can certainly empathize with that. There are plenty of things I don't do well, and I am thankful for whatever help people can give m,e. But don't push yourself into a position you can't do--don't insist on playing first when right field or some other position would be better. It's the entitlement that gets to me which, as I said, I identified as male, which is interesting in light of recent developments as you'll see!

So this year, most of the same people are back--including this one. When I first caught a glimpse I was thinking "Whoah, he really looks effeminate this year"--long legs, curvy, very feminine-looking. As we're warming up one of the other players, a guy named Dave, says something about "that one that was a dude last year"--my jaw dropped open. Yep. He's transitioning. I never picked up that possibility from him last year, he was annoying but he seemed pretty straight. Anyway so we pick teams and of course he's--well, she's--on my team AGAIN. Every single game last year, same story. And when we're deciding positions, she insists on playing first AGAIN. She says she has "limited mobility" and that's the best position for her. Sigh. So we start the game and it's the same story. She muffs even easy throws. Our shortstop got so frustrated he stopped trying for any plays at first--at one point the SS (his name was Kyle) actually started to throw it to her and then stopped and just held onto the ball. And I don't blame him. Finally the captain (afore-mentioned Dave) reassigned her to catcher but she complained about that and eventually insisted on being moved back to first, and by that point, Dave had given up. Kyle got pretty pissed and started firing some very hard throws to first. Again, I can't blame him.

After the first game, Eric and some others were going to go get some beers, but I wanted to play the second game which was starting shortly. One of the first-game players joined me. The second game was made up of Brown players (my U-Chicago team is part of an alumni league and we've picked up Brown players who invited us at the Saturday game) and we were playing Georgetown. Solid game with great playing, a very efficient game, as Dave said (he wandered over to watch the game). Afterward Dave, a couple of the Brown players and I went to Jake's Dilemma for beer, nachos and wings. This place is great--Sunday nights they have $3 PINT drafts. Of premium beers! YUM.

Anya and I went over to Tesse's last night to watch the People's Court. Oh. Mah. Lord. Julie does NOT come off particularly well in this and actually a part of me (a small part) felt kind of bad for her, she seemed...vulnerable. She walked in, smiled (!) at the court spectators as though it were an audition or something and then as Rachel said seemed very confused about where to stand. Catherine and Michael, our stage manager, came in and Catherine just seemed more believable and authoritative from the start. Julie blamed the lack of cohesiveness in the show on Catherine, laid it all at her feet, was saying the show wasn't ready to go up, and she didn't want to be associated with a bad show. (Julie has always been very concerned about that sort of thing--you'd think someone who is so self-conscious would avoid casting themselves in roles for which they're way too old, like Hermione and Andromache.) Here's the deal--right before the plug was pulled, the show was very underblocked, and I was a little worried, I couldn't understand why we were still going so slowly. Catherine seemed to like readthroughs a lot--that's all fine and good, but when we're two weeks from opening, we need some blocking. And readthroughs are just a first step, we had done no text analysis, VERY important with the witches. (Especially since they'd cut the crap out of it--I started calling it Macb--. Why do people always want to cut Macbeth? It's the shortest of the tragedies as it is, guys! Why would you want to cut any of that spooky shit? The only thing you should cut is that stupid Hecate scene which Will didn't even write, and which adds nothing.)

However, the things that were good, were really good. David, our Macbeth, was terrific--God, was he good. During the readthroughs I would just watch him, and when he killed young Siward and sneered "Thou wast of woman born"....brrr! So good. He was so good, he made her better, and as I've said, Lady Macbeth is a character who is fundamentally, in every way, Julie's complete opposite, and she's not a good enough actress to play someone so different. But still David was pulling her along. The fights were good. Most of the rest of the cast was good (there was one weird dude who played the Porter who I couldn't stand, kept making these weird familiar remarks to me and Lori and Michelle. Naturally he's the one person who sided with Julie). As underblocked as the show was, we still had TEN DAYS left, plenty of time for a well-cast show to fall into place. So maybe Catherine wasn't quite as on top of things as she could've been--but ultimately that is Julie's responsibility as Producer. She should've kept a firm hand at the reins, especially after she'd fired the first director, her weird friend Lew. Listening to her blame Catherine for everything was frustrating--Julie, I've produced. I know what it's like. The buck stops with you. The director is there to direct, but ultimately you're what holds the show together.

So the judge ruled for Catherine--the amount was a little odd, I guess at first Catherine had filed for a smaller amount (like $150 or so), then the judge let her adjust it to a larger amount (the full amount of her negotiated director's fee, $450 or something). Catherine also sought reimbursement for the money she'd paid out for rehearsal space--you could tell the judge wanted to give her that but she didn't have any paperwork or emails to back it up, so she just got the $450.

What the hell was Julie thinking? I mean, it was tacky enough to yank the production but to stiff everyone? She claimed that everyone else had been paid, including the actors--uh, no we didn't! I just don't get why she went through all of this. Just pay the money. What you did was really, really poor form--you're just compounding it by being so cheap. Just pay the money. Afterward when they interviewed her, she said she thought it "wasn't right" that Michael, who is suing her separately, should be allowed to testify. What? Just stop it, Julie. The interviewer tried to get her to declaim some Lady Macbeth but she wouldn't. (GOD, would that have been comedy gold!) When Michael and Catherine came out, Michael made a point of saying the production had been remounted a few months later with "a lot of the same cast" (the production at the Workshop Theatre) and it was very good.

At our chocolate-infused convo on Saturday, Michelle and Lori also mentioned something I hadn't known before--Julie's cancellation of Macbeth had nothing to do with money, or any sort of health or family emergency or anything like that. Are you ready for this?

She said she wasn't going to put on a show where she looked bad, where she gave a bad performance.

Yep, you heard it here, folks. It was All. About. Julie. Juliejuliejulie. She spit on the hard work, love and dedication of some 20+ performers, techs, a director, etc. All because she was going to look bad,* in the part she cast herself in (and hadn't learned the lines for yet).

And by the way, this was all confirmed by Michael, our SM. I had a long, illuminating convo with him last night. He also said that the theater is FULLY PAID FOR--so she didn't save any money by cancelling the show. She paid thousands of dollars for an empty theater, plus she still has to pay the director, the fight choreographer, the photographer, etc. She is committed to ALL of that expense. And she still cancelled the show. My mind was reeling--in fact, I was literally reeling when Michelle and Lori repeated what Julie had given as her reason. I stood up in my chair and said "Wait, wait--you're telling me this whole mess was about her performance?" I was jumpstumbling backward, waving my hands, so angry I couldn't speak for a few seconds. After Wednesday, I didn't think I could get any angrier--I was wrong.

*Michael said they'd had a photo shoot Tuesday, the night before the boom fell, and it was weird. Julie, in the photos as Lady Macbeth, insisted on looking "pretty." Insisted on it, got very upset when Catherine said that wasn't as important as, you know, communicating the essence of the play. Julie is really messed up about looks--Tracy and I also joke about how Julie would fawn on me and talk about my looks in this weird, you-look-like-the-classic-shiksa-so-by-definition-you-MUST-be-beautiful way. I don't mean *I* think that--I think *Julie* thinks that, I think she has the classic self-hating Jewish stereotype going on. Last fall she talked about wanting to convert to Episcopalianism. Not because she has any particular pull towards it--I don't think she has the slightest clue of what our belief system entails. She wanted to convert because Episcopalianism treats women well. She thought Judaism devalues Jewish women and seems to exalt shiksa women (HER words, NOT mine)--she gave as an example the fact that at her temple, she keeps seeing Jewish men with non-Jewish wives. I didn't even know how to respond to this, especially because I get this sense she thinks of my denomination as one big country club where the Beautiful People all sit around and sip martinis and eating pate. Julie, there are actually some beliefs involved, and it would be nice if you wanted to join us because you too believe in them. It sucks if you feel devalued where you worship, but I don't necessarily think that has anything to do with Judaism per se. Tracy hit it on the head when she said mockingly "Oh Clara, if I convert to Episcopalianism, will I look just like you?"

And of course, Julie still hasn't contacted any of us individually since that glib email she sent out Wednesday. Hasn't apologized, hasn't tried to explain (not as though she could), hasn't sent us checks to cover our expenses (although she will have to do that for the Equity actors, at least). Michael said when he called Clare Patterson (our sweet little Baby Macduff/Fleance), she was completely crushed; she said "this was my first New York show..."

I can't say I hate Julie. I will say, I have nothing but contempt for her now, and I have no sympathy for her writhing mass of insecurities and weakness and...garbage.

But--this too shall pass. I have other plans; Macbeth will go on.

I had an old pumpkin in my freezer from last fall that I froze, planning eventually to process it into puree. I meant to do it earlier this winter, but finally got around to it tonight! I defrosted, chopped, blended and poured, and now I have 5 neat little 1.25 cups of puree suitable for making pumpkin bread or pie. (Or pumpkins Alexander!) Yes, it's out of season but who doesn't love pumpkin pie any time of year?

Now I have to look over my Macbeth scenes for tomorrow (first working rehearsal). No rest for the weary...jumping from New York in 1830 to murderous murderous Scotland...(or Alba--I wonder if the characters in Macbeth spoke any Gaelic?)