So I’m sitting on an airplane again, which means that it’s time to write, to try to extract some sense out of the events of the past week (or to impose a narrative upon them, depending on one’s perspective).
***
Yvette greeted me at the door by casually mentioning that she had a rare copy of Norris J. Lacy’s five-volume translation of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle – I own a heavily abridged single-volume reader, but copies of the full text run into the hundreds of dollars. She’s apparently been pushing for her university to order a set for some time (which they finally did, due to a rare surplus), and noted with some amusement that she was to date the only one to check them out.
The Cycle’s interesting to a medievalist (armchair or otherwise) since it represents Malory’s primary source for Le Morte d’Arthur, and a close examination of the text reveals a lot about the dude as a writer: what he chose to use, what he rejected, which word choices he borrowed and which were original, et cetera. The fact that my sister is one of the rare people in my life who gives a shit about any of this is a part of what I enjoy about our visits.
She’s one of the few people – okay, the only person I know – with whom I can have these long, rambling, drunken conversations about Middle English and Latin. And it’s energizing – it’s done a lot to restore my faith in these Marvellous Enquests and Adventures; that there is wisdom, and excitement, and illumination in these aging illuminated manuscripts.
Not that that grants me any insight into how to market these stories. But I’m remembering that pursuing that insight is a worthy goal. Maybe even worth a lifetime. There are certainly worse ways to spend one, before the Dolorous Death and Departing out of This World of Us All.
***
Speaking of long, rambling conversations, it’s also been a pleasure to reconnect with Charlie again – and as a teller with whom I share a lot in common in terms of both genre and style, it’s an opportunity to compare notes on some of the unique problems posed by our adaptations (e.g., how to approach the use and frequency of proper names in the source material).
He was also generous enough to share with me the script for a new show he’s working on – I don’t know how public/private he wants to be with the details, so I’ll be vague, except to say that it’s in the middle of a long development process, and that I think that it’s brilliant – possibly the best thing he’s done.
It’s also, curiously, an epic – an order of magnitude larger than his previous sources – and what’s interesting for me has been watching how he approaches the bulk of material. Whereas my approach has generally been to select individual episodes and expand them, giving their dramatic moments room to breathe, here he’s striving for *completeness*, pounding breathlessly through dozens of episodes at a breakneck pace. They’re both valid and effective approaches, but the differences, I think, are illustrative.
***
I also took the opportunity to check out some shows at the FRIGID Festival, including 3 Sticks’ The Traveling Musicians, which I found to be just fantastically entertaining, the best kind of Fringe mash-up, both a loving homage and a snide ridicule of the Brothers Grimm and the spirit of rock. Watching them, it was strange to think on how our companies first met, dancing together in an empty theatre in Kansas City – a fond memory I was pleased to find they still retain.
Bizarrely, there was a large number of Minneapolitans in the audience, and as far as I know none of us coordinated with each other – we independently and spontaneously chose to descend upon the same place. I spent much of the evening talking shop with Nick Ryan, who spoke warmly of the Festival. It looks like a lot of fun. Plus, hey, New York press always looks pretty impressive on a resume.
***
I actually had a notably positive experience in the city this time round. Several of the locals suggested that this is because the city’s changed a lot in the past decade, but I think the more salient point may be that I have. The subways are crowded? I got my pocket picked in Suva. The bathrooms are dirty? I got food poisoning in Lisbon. The traffic’s lousy? I got run over by a rickshaw in Beijing. The city’s too big? Shanghai is over twice as large. I suspect that the assertion that New York is the greatest city in the world is borne of sampling error.
But the respects in which the city fails to live up to its myth make me, oddly, more affectionate to it. Before, I was overwhelmed – now, I know I’m competent to navigate this place.
***
All in all, a stimulating excursion, both intellectually and creatively. Now, back to memorizing lines…
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