A Little of Living Blog

The above video is one of five "preludes" to each of the parts of The Living Blog: Apocalypse, the theatrical piece written, designed, and directed by the very capable Barry Cavin, the Chair of the Division of Visual and Performing Arts at my home institution. Barry recorded all the film, edited it, as well as having written and performed the music. He is sickly talented. The one thing I can hold against him is that he is a graduate of Belmont University, a place I had to leave under a shroud of scandal and rumor, but we won't go there, as that's about me and not Barry.

Yes, the imagery here is fetishized, but it's also a sincere retrieval of beauty, which is a trick to pull off in a work of political theater. Of course, I could never enjoy this particular piece because I was backstage, about ready to heave or blank out, as I had a gazillion lines in the first act. Let's just say the stage manager had set up a betting pool before each show on exactly how many lines I would drop in the first act.

The actress in the piece is the tremendously gifted Katelyn Gravel--we do hate her for how talented and lovely and positive and happy and intelligent she is. As I said earlier, her character shoves my character's sorry carcass off stage at the end, kind of like toe-ing away some scum from the floor. Below is that moment for your viewing pleasure:

This image was taken by Taylor Broderick, who played "John" in the production. Taylor's full of talent as well, but we won't talk about him today. While it's been over a week since we closed the show, it still stays with me. We may have an opportunity to perform it in Fort Myers and Naples, assuming that Barry can work his magic. As ever, I'm hugely indebted to him for this amazing experience.

Okay, the thing that gets me about the image of me is that I can't get over how vein-y my dome is. It's a little bit like those scary guys in the original Star Trek pilot. You know, the brainiac race--the Talosians--that evolved so incredibly that they no longer took delights in their bodily functions, so naturally they had to capture and imprison humanoids so that they could watch them mate. One might draw a parallel to what happens to English professors, but we won't go there either.