A view on the arts from a hilltop among corn fields in central Ohio. Award-winning playwright, poet, journalist, music critic, actor, and storyteller Mark Sebastian Jordan chronicles the perils of being an artist in small town America.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Had a great poetry reading last Saturday night at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Wooster. It was a powerfully attentive crowd. A lot of them loved it. And I think a few just as strongly didn't like my stuff, but was very respectful about that, which is cool. My work does seem to polarize folks!
Invoking Christopher Marlowe was received very warmly, Agnus Dei got a stunned silence of about 15 seconds at the end, and Covenant closed strong.
Nice too, thanks to the reading, I've now been invited to speak at the U.U. church in Bellville in September. I'm going to talk about Louis Bromfield, natch.
What a night! I attended a poetry reading in Bellville at Pumpkin Hollow Antiques this evening. It was a difficult choice, as the excellent T. M. Gottl and Kate Westfall were reading over in Marion, which I have been encouraged to visit. But Mansfield poet Mark Hersman talked me into hitting Pumpkin Hollow and I'm glad I did.
Poet and poetry professor David Baker (Dennison U) accompanied a group of his students which Hersman had invited to read. This was the second time I've heard some of them, and they were even better than previously, more assured. And, happily, Baker read a new work of his, which was powerfully good. Having him in the room and not reading one of his works would be like having Itzhak Perlman in the room and not getting him to play his violin.
As for me, I had trouble deciding what to read for open mic. I finally settled on "Invoking Christopher Marlowe," a seasoned piece I wrote 18 years ago but have never read in public. I thought that with a bunch of students on hand who were sure to get the references to Marlowe's scandal-worthy behavior and appreciate both the humor and the seriousness of the poem. Well, you know, you don't always know what a performance is going to be like, at least not until those last moments before you start. As my reading slot approached, I felt my heart rate picking up, and as Hersman was introducing me, I got this extraordinary tingling feeling... and then...
WOW! I don't know that I've ever been as ON as I was reading that poem tonight. I felt like I was pouring energy out of me like a force of nature-- I couldn't even keep my voice steady. But I knew I piqued their interest when I described the piece as part exercise in iambic pentameter, part scientific experiment to see if I could conjure up a dead poet's soul from the devil. I didn't even suspect just how much humor I would be able to wring out of that piece in the first few stanzas... Yes, they are sassy and swaggering, but they are also witty as hell, and this crowd was eating it up with a spoon, especially the students, who were sitting up in front. And when the flip over to seriousness came toward the end, they were 100% with me-- you could have heard a speck of dust drop in that room. And the ovation was big and boisterous. I had no idea just what I tapped into in that piece. I can tell now, that one's going to be one of my "greatest hits," along with "Orpheus Hell," "Agnus Dei," and "The History Waltz."
And, even more happily, I got a featured gig at a reading in Wooster, Met a fan who begged me to never leave Knox County, and a woman who said she was going to suggest me as a speaker to the Wayne County Public Library. Not bad for reading one poem, eh?
So, for what it's worth, here is the poem. But don't forget to hear me read it sometime, too!
Saturday, 9:12 a.m.I check my email, but forget to check the weather forecast.
Saturday, 2:00 p.m.I attend a family reunion at an outdoor park. Having so much of my gene pool in one place prompts Mother Nature to attack with the biggest, nastiest thunderstorm of the year, as we huddle under trees. Despite some near hits, we survive.
Saturday, 6:42 p.m.I try to check my email. The computer works fine, except that I can no longer connect to the internet. I follow the troubleshooting recommendations and check to see if the cables are securely connected. They are. It still doesn’t work. There’s only one thing left: Call technical support.
Saturday, 6:43 p.m. Spend most of the next four hours in dread of what is to come.
Saturday, 10:36 p.m.I begin searching the computer for info. All the technical support information on the computer is geared toward getting help online. The vein in my right temple begins channeling Lewis Black.
Saturday, 11:23 p.m.I locate a number in a booklet which came with the computer.
Saturday, 11:24 p.m.Wrong number. I call my friend Dan to see if he knows the number. Dan says to just call the 1-800 sales number and surf my way through their system, and I’ll get there eventually. I call the 1-800 sales number. I begin surfing through the voice-activated menus. I reach the menu for tech support. My problem does not match any of the options. I say “other.” I am put on hold while a recording tells me, “Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line, and a technician will answer your call in the order it was received.” They then proceed to blare a horrifically distorted recording of “smooth jazz” (with, in this case, “smooth” meaning, “powered by Ex-Lax”). Every so often the music stops, making me think I’m about to get a live person. Then I hear “Your call is important to us….”
Sunday, 12:10 a.m.It occurs to me that the brand name of the computer rhymes with “hell” for a reason. Holding the phone for an hour aggravates my carpal tunnel, so I put down the handset and turn up the volume. Every time the screeching smoothy jazz stops, I pick up the handset. But it is still only the recording. I begin saying mean things to the recording, and am now channeling Lewis Black in both temples.
Sunday, 12:24 a.m.Begin shouting and screaming rather vicious things at, about, and to the recorded message.
Sunday, 12:57 a.m.Become Lewis Black and try to strangle recorded voice on the telephone. Finally, slam phone down and sulk until sleep comes three hours later.
Sunday, 4:44 a.m.Dream about being on hold, waiting for a technician named Godot.
Sunday, 10:39 a.m.Call technical support again. Get message, “Your call is important to us…” I hold.
Sunday, 11:17 a.m.My call is answered! The technician says, “Hello, my name is Steve,” but he sounds like that fakir in the movie All Of Me with Steve Martin, who goes around saying “Put Edwina back-in-bowl,” in a thick accent and flushing the toilet every time the phone rings. He’s now my technician, and I must call him “Steve.” He says his service will cost $99.00. I give him my credit card number. He asks if my cables are connected securely.
Sunday, 12:53 p.m.“Steve” concludes that I have a problem, but not one that he can fix. He suggests I call my Internet Service Provider.
Sunday, 12:54 p.m.I take a break and have a scotch for lunch.
Sunday, 1:54 p.m.I call my ISP. I get a message saying, “Your call is important to us…” I bang my head on the desk until a technician answers.
Sunday, 2:15 p.m.The technician says, “Hay-lo, ma name i’ Loqueesha.” As far as I can tell, she asks if my cables are connected securely. After a long pause I answer, “Yes.” Loqueesha then proceeds to walk me through the same troubleshooting routine as “Steve” did. She concludes that the problem is in my computer, not in my ISP connection.
Sunday, 3:07 p.m.I call Hell technical support again. I find that there are certain words which the voice-activated menu has trouble making out. After doing that for a while to blow off some steam, I finally go into the tech support menu. Now they have forgone badly reproduced music and just replaced it with an antagonizing electronic shriek. I use the hand set to strike myself repeatedly in the forehead.
Sunday, 3:38 p.m.I decide to hang up before I snap and go on a killing spree. I check to see if my cables are securely connected. They are.
Sunday, 4:02 p.m.I go to the office store and buy a new computer. It isn’t a Hell.
I started a song and dance man, thrumming of rhythm, lucid of melody, until I became a singer of the self-same soul, a Po' Daddy Lazarus fretting his hour on a rusting stage.
So then I cubbed a stinking badger: Press it and it mouths page one words, folded, always folded and hacked, though the vigilled can thresh it.
I eat my tongue for lunch as the down-winding tyrants of a once-free empire that sold itself to the sweetest bitters, wander past, honking like oboes passing gallstones.
Well, what of it. Time will tell.
Until then, I shall stride your broken midnights, a harbinger of gates, ours to take, when and only when we as a people step to where we can dare to climb.
Performed this evening in "February Follies" production in Mount Vernon, reading Jake's Moonlight Monologue from my historical drama "Phoebe," about legendary Mansfield, Ohio, eccentric Phoebe Wise. I also made a rare public appearance singing, performing the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah," albeit more along the lines of covers by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright, because I'm a tenor, not a bass-baritone like Cohen. I was nervous in the first verse, clicked into groove in the second and had the audience with me by the third. What an intense song! They were also very closely listening to the monologue. Too bad the crowd was miserably small, thanks to the umpteenth snowfall of the month going on outside. We'll try it once more tomorrow night, though the weather's not slated to be a whole lot better.
Louis Bromfield is coming back. Sure, he'll never return to the top of the literary pile where he briefly reigned in the mid-1920s, because he refused to keep playing the game, had his say, then chucked highbrow esteem after he said what he had to say.
For those who don't know, Louis Bromfield was an American novelist from north central Ohio. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 and seemed poised to become a literary giant. He was a close friend of Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter, Edith Wharton and many others. He helped Ernest Hemingway get his career off the ground. He was a master of characterization and meaningful, textured, perceptive description. But after clawing his way to the top and finding it a hollow, decadent, corrupt place-- and indicting it so in his early novels-- he grew bored with literature. His original life's ambition, to be a farmer, began to return to him.
Amazingly enough, Bromfield had the sheer nerve to throw away a literary career to pursue his other dream. He turned to writing more populist and popular stories, books that would hit the top-ten list and be made into movies. That ended up paying for his country estate, Malabar Farm, where Bromfield delved into farming, land conservation, and ideas of sustainable agriculture that were 50 years ahead of their time.
I am currently writing a play about the life of this quixotic man who could be equally comfortable arguing politics in a French country village with a maharaja from India or talking alfalfa yields with farmers. My play "Louie" will premiere at Bromfield's own estate, now preserved as Malabar Farm State Park, in Lucas, Ohio, in October of 2010. Stay tuned, I'll write more as I continue the script this year.
Welcome to my blog, an eye on the world from deep in the depths of rural Ohio, where I remain one of the select mad few who persist in trying to stage high art in a farm town just because we know how desperately valuable a breath of clean, creative air is to those who want something more out of life than mere survival. New York or London may jadedly toast the flavor of the season in the arts, but out here amongst the fields of corn, art is no affectation. Art is for survival of the soul in these parts.
The territory to be covered here:
Theatre. I am a playwright, actor, director and producer. Theatre compresses and heightens stories in a way that can shake you to your bones, whether comedically or passionately or murderously. Those who are willing to try a little live theatre (and can endure the fact that a lot of theatrical productions misfire) are in for rich rewards.
Poetry. I am a poet publishing my first chapbook in 2010 after years of writing. Verbal chant has been the lifeblood of humanity for at least several thousand years. No reason it should stop now.
History. Yeah, yeah, Santayana and all that. But I'm talking human stories, not lists of dates and names of documents. History haunts all human life.
Literature. Cultivated writing still strikes me as the one of the most astonishing artforms ever created. A good prose writer can capture the experience of a situation better than a photographer, musician, painter, dancer, or anyone.
Music. Music is the most elusive art, the only one that can capture the emotions and experiences that fall between our blunt words and dim images. All love all music, with the exception of musics blatantly written for profit. And sometimes even they are good.
Classical Music. Educated people who know Whitman, Van Gogh, and Tolstoy ought to know Handel, Mahler, and Shostakovich. It is a mistake to leave classical music to the elites. It is the cream of the human experience, and can be claimed by anyone. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that I need every clue, every insight to life that I can find, and the geniuses of classical music had many. Lots of dead European white guys? For a while they were. So? Today's geniuses coming out of that tradition are from all countries, of all colors, and all genders. Every wave starts somewhere. What matters is where it ends up.
So welcome to my hilltop in rural Gambier, Ohio, where I sit overlooking the cornfields that feed the nation and summon dreams.
Author of The Mansfield Trilogy: Ceely, Phoebe, and Louie. Author of several short plays and monologues. Author of the poetry chapbook "The Book of Jobs." Author of the comic history of the United States "1776 and All That"
Performer in the improv comedy troupe Under The Influence.
Winner of awards from The Associated Press, The Case Reserve Review, The Ohio Theatre Alliance, The Ohio State University, The Ohio Arts Council, The Fran and Warren Rupp Foundation, The Mansfield/Richland County Convention and Visitors Bureau, and more.
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