Before I forget, and before I crash to sleep....
Just a few thoughts on LAST weekend -
- Banana Bread. Casey had posited the idea of making banana bread as a weekend activity upon discovering over-ripe bananas available for said bread in his kitchen. We were then-on determined to bake banana bread that weekend. But first, we went on Saturday afternoon to see 14.
Friday evening Casey and I spent with Danielle at Aeoshe, where we ate delicious sushi with the gift certificate provided by my thoughtful grandmother, and we ran into many Cornellians. We saw the sophomore theatre crowd, fresh from their auditions at Riverside for the internship Casey, Danielle and Matt had last year, and Danielle told me that they'd made a very unprofessional show of themselves with immature, rude, and disruptive behavior during auditions. How embarrassing for Cornell... Reminds me of Kaleigh's presentation story in Mark's Play Analysis class. Anyway they didn't get the internships so no worries there. Moving on. We also ran into Nedah and Matt (speak of the devil) out on a fancy schmancy date together (goodness did they look beautiful) before the theatre.
I spent the Friday night before skimming books on climate and medieval agriculture in the lobby of the theatre building while Casey was in rehearsal and most everyone else in the theatre building was seeing 14. It was a sold out show. Eventually I thought that perhaps I should ensure that Saturday matinée tickets would still be available, and there were only 3 left! goodness! So I immediately bought two. Glad I did.
The show on Saturday was AMAZING. The premise of the show is about how one remembers the past, and how that's not always exactly how things happened. "This is a true story, full of lies." But the plot was about the life of John Cameron, one of the acting professors at U of I. As a young closeted gay man in denial John was raised Mormon, and attended BYU. (this all really happened, by the by, more or less.) There he voluntarily participated in an electroshock experiment. Unofficially the gist of the experiment was to cure homosexual urges in male students via electroshock aversion therapy. It was hard to hear how it all proceeded. Cut to the present (sort of, 2000) where he has grown to an openly gay professor of English. He is contacted by a woman writing an article about the treatment of gay people in the Mormon religion. He had always remembered the experiment a certain not-so-bad way until she told him that the church was actually denying that any such experiment existed at BYU, and that 2 of the 14 boys that also participated in it, afterward committed suicide. As he reexamines the past in context of the new information, it becomes clear just how detrimental to his life his experience as a homosexual eventually excommunicated from the Mormon church really was. In an attempt to move on in his life he confronts the past quite literally in almost a subconcious time-travel like manner, where he can see just how much pain this experience has inflicted upon him (as the older version of himself gets the shit beaten out of him by the younger in-denial version of himself) culminating in the older version strangling the younger in a moment of peace and realization. It was SO heart-wrenching. Danielle thought that last bit was "unnecessary!!!" (though not really) because it was SO SO SAD and emotional. SUCH a rich play. I don't know that I have ever enjoyed anything at U of I more than that performance. I think the last thing I enjoyed THAT much had to have been something in England. It was just an incredible experience that was at once hysterically humorous and also heart-wrenching.
I love watching plays with Danielle. She lets me let go and enjoy the hell out of something by laughing as loud and as freely as I want to. I hope actors like that and don't find people like us disruptive.
"Mormonism is like the Iggy Pop of Christianity... On the fringe, but influential." HAH.
When we got out of the performance it had SNOWED. like serious serious snow. I took a picture of Casey clearing off the snow through the window of the car. It was an interesting (read: scary and slidey) ride home. The great part was when Casey got a little stuck going up a hill and David Cox and friend leapt out of their car behind us to push his car out. Good friends.
When we got back to Casey's apartment it was quite clear that there would be NO driving out to get banana bread supplies, as close as HyVee is. But we were determined, as I said before. We BUNDLED and Casey had me put plastic bags over my feet in my shoes to keep them warm and dry (omg did it work like a charm) and we headed out in the idk, 1-2 feet of snow with the enthusiasm of children. Casey was amused by my energy. I was SO entertained by the deep winter wonderland that I was TREKKING through to get to HyVee that I couldn't stop jumping in the snow and kicking it and laughing. We pushed each other into the deep snowbanks, and then stood up immediately to brush it all off so we wouldn't get all wet and freeze! My shortcuts failed miserably. Haha. It was such a great adventure! And it really wasn't that cold! We surprised the workers at HyVee when we said we'd walked there. Haha.
The bread was absolutely delicious. I ate it all week remembering what a great experience it had been fetching the supplies and making it.
There. "Memory captured."
- Banana Bread. Casey had posited the idea of making banana bread as a weekend activity upon discovering over-ripe bananas available for said bread in his kitchen. We were then-on determined to bake banana bread that weekend. But first, we went on Saturday afternoon to see 14.
Friday evening Casey and I spent with Danielle at Aeoshe, where we ate delicious sushi with the gift certificate provided by my thoughtful grandmother, and we ran into many Cornellians. We saw the sophomore theatre crowd, fresh from their auditions at Riverside for the internship Casey, Danielle and Matt had last year, and Danielle told me that they'd made a very unprofessional show of themselves with immature, rude, and disruptive behavior during auditions. How embarrassing for Cornell... Reminds me of Kaleigh's presentation story in Mark's Play Analysis class. Anyway they didn't get the internships so no worries there. Moving on. We also ran into Nedah and Matt (speak of the devil) out on a fancy schmancy date together (goodness did they look beautiful) before the theatre.
I spent the Friday night before skimming books on climate and medieval agriculture in the lobby of the theatre building while Casey was in rehearsal and most everyone else in the theatre building was seeing 14. It was a sold out show. Eventually I thought that perhaps I should ensure that Saturday matinée tickets would still be available, and there were only 3 left! goodness! So I immediately bought two. Glad I did.
The show on Saturday was AMAZING. The premise of the show is about how one remembers the past, and how that's not always exactly how things happened. "This is a true story, full of lies." But the plot was about the life of John Cameron, one of the acting professors at U of I. As a young closeted gay man in denial John was raised Mormon, and attended BYU. (this all really happened, by the by, more or less.) There he voluntarily participated in an electroshock experiment. Unofficially the gist of the experiment was to cure homosexual urges in male students via electroshock aversion therapy. It was hard to hear how it all proceeded. Cut to the present (sort of, 2000) where he has grown to an openly gay professor of English. He is contacted by a woman writing an article about the treatment of gay people in the Mormon religion. He had always remembered the experiment a certain not-so-bad way until she told him that the church was actually denying that any such experiment existed at BYU, and that 2 of the 14 boys that also participated in it, afterward committed suicide. As he reexamines the past in context of the new information, it becomes clear just how detrimental to his life his experience as a homosexual eventually excommunicated from the Mormon church really was. In an attempt to move on in his life he confronts the past quite literally in almost a subconcious time-travel like manner, where he can see just how much pain this experience has inflicted upon him (as the older version of himself gets the shit beaten out of him by the younger in-denial version of himself) culminating in the older version strangling the younger in a moment of peace and realization. It was SO heart-wrenching. Danielle thought that last bit was "unnecessary!!!" (though not really) because it was SO SO SAD and emotional. SUCH a rich play. I don't know that I have ever enjoyed anything at U of I more than that performance. I think the last thing I enjoyed THAT much had to have been something in England. It was just an incredible experience that was at once hysterically humorous and also heart-wrenching.
I love watching plays with Danielle. She lets me let go and enjoy the hell out of something by laughing as loud and as freely as I want to. I hope actors like that and don't find people like us disruptive.
"Mormonism is like the Iggy Pop of Christianity... On the fringe, but influential." HAH.
When we got out of the performance it had SNOWED. like serious serious snow. I took a picture of Casey clearing off the snow through the window of the car. It was an interesting (read: scary and slidey) ride home. The great part was when Casey got a little stuck going up a hill and David Cox and friend leapt out of their car behind us to push his car out. Good friends.
When we got back to Casey's apartment it was quite clear that there would be NO driving out to get banana bread supplies, as close as HyVee is. But we were determined, as I said before. We BUNDLED and Casey had me put plastic bags over my feet in my shoes to keep them warm and dry (omg did it work like a charm) and we headed out in the idk, 1-2 feet of snow with the enthusiasm of children. Casey was amused by my energy. I was SO entertained by the deep winter wonderland that I was TREKKING through to get to HyVee that I couldn't stop jumping in the snow and kicking it and laughing. We pushed each other into the deep snowbanks, and then stood up immediately to brush it all off so we wouldn't get all wet and freeze! My shortcuts failed miserably. Haha. It was such a great adventure! And it really wasn't that cold! We surprised the workers at HyVee when we said we'd walked there. Haha.
The bread was absolutely delicious. I ate it all week remembering what a great experience it had been fetching the supplies and making it.
There. "Memory captured."