Out back, Baby Prairie is dropping its leaves. What once were flowers are now seed heads. All types, too, from tufty and fluffy to stiff, prickly things that might as well be thorns. We 21st century denizens sometimes talk about the prairie as if it were a meadow, or the sort of tall-grass plains that cover so much of the west. But real Midwest prairie was tough stuff, and tall. You could get cut up and scraped. People got lost in it. Lost in the weeds.
True, nobody’s likely to get lost in Baby Prairie. It’s barely a hundred feet square.
Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s get un-lost. Let’s go to the theater! At the end of November, Hostos Community College will be producing The Shout, and in the spring, Illinois Wesleyan will put the same piece on its feet. I’m very gratified. That this piece remains relevant suggests that we, as a society, have a long way to go on several crucial fronts, but I certainly appreciate that once again, The Shout will tread the boards.
So, if you’re anywhere near the Bronx (Hostos) or Bloomington-Normal (Illinois Wesleyan), grab a seat! Catch the show!
Oh, and this just in: a St. Louis company, First Run Theatre, will be staging a new ten-minute piece of mine, “The Polar Bear Gambit.” Late January 2020. Click HERE for details.
Prose-wise, I’ll have a new short story appearing late in 2020 in a really fun magazine, but this hasn’t been formally announced yet, so for now I must remain on the down-low. Very hush-hush. Stay tuned.
Finally, my thought for the day: the more ambitious I am, the less time I have to be unambitious. Yes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” (and I assume that too much work has a deleterious effect on all genders, not just poor Jack), but sometimes, work is what the mind and body crave, whether it’s chopping up a fallen tree, which I did last week, or chopping into a novel to find its beating heart.
“Work, for the night is coming.”
And so is winter.
Onward!