With great difficulty I tore myself away from work on the additional documents I have collected about Charna Rieger and went to two very different, yet very similar storytelling performances. This afternoon I went to a Rakugo performance. This is known as Japanese sit down (as opposed to stand up) comedy. Katsura Koharudanji first gave a talk about many of the aspects of Rakugo, then gave a wonderful performance. Normally this particular art form uses puns and in-jokes intelligible only to the Japanese speaker. Katsura san, who is giving performances around the country for a month, although speaking in Japanese with English surtitles, has tailored his monologue for English speaking audiences. I found him delightful.

This evening I went to a more serious performance, Benjamin Bagby, reciting and singing Beowulf in middle English or Anglo Saxon with surtitles. Again a fabulous performance. Bagby’s voice is perfect for the music he creates.

So, here were two performances from entirely different times and places, with entirely different intentions and very different stories. But the similarities were striking. Both men sit alone on the stage, one on a raised cushion, the other on a small bench. Rakugo uses only a fan and a handkerchief as props, with music provided occasionally by a drum and samisen. Bagby provided his own music using an Anglo Saxon harp, no other props. But both performances are highly stylized and must take years of study to perfect. Both performers were able to hold their audiences in an amazing way. I was glad I made Grandma wait.

This morning it looked like I was going to be snowed in, but now the sun is shining and the snow on the driveway is melting. This leaves me very conflicted. I should go over to the health club and work out. Now I have no excuse for not going. I made myself a second cup of tea and I’m thinking about it. I’m still working on the book. I feel like I’m on a roll and I don’t want to be interrupted, but, the truth is I’ll use any excuse not to exercise.

I never used to let the weather slow me down. But I’ve decided that one of the perks of old age is that I don’t have to keep going all the time. I have classes on Tuesday and Thursday from 11 am to 5:15. It’s a long day, and I’ve begun to mind it. On Tuesday, I decided I did not have to go to the last class. Mostly, it was because I was worried about the computer. My network crashed on Monday night, and, another perk of old age, I went to bed without fixing it. But I worried all day Tuesday. So I cut my class, came home early, set it up again and everything seems to be working. Today I resolved to go to that class. I sat in the library until 3:15. It’s cold out and occasionally snowing, but the sun was shining when I walked out. By the time I walked one block of the necessary three, the weather had changed completely. There was a fierce wind and some nasty gusts of snow. I stopped in the Cathedral to put up my hood and a scarf around my neck and walked out to a nasty storm. So I went a half block back to the bus stop and within seven minutes I was on my way home. The sun came out again before I got back here. I should have gone to class, but that’s the perk of being old.

Now that my classes are finished for the year I am able to go back to thinking about making books. I plan to work on two of them at once: if I get stuck on one, I can work on the other. I want to make a tunnel book and a book about my grandmother, Charna Rieger. I’ve been thinking about both of these for some time. When you make a book one of the first things you have to do is choose a size for the book. The first book I made was six inches high by eleven inches wide. It was not a good size; the binding is awkward. The tunnel book is easy. It will be the size I want to make the photographs. The subject is the fountain at the David Lawrence Convention Center,
and there will be no additional text. My grandmother’s book is more difficult. I find myself very drawn to that very wide shape, an almost two to one ratio. This morning, in the shower, I finally figured out what was going on. (I get my best, or deepest ideas in the shower or driving.) That two to one ratio gave me space for a nice size photograph and room for text. It’s not the same as a 35mm slide, but it feels like it. And I’ve spent years working with slides.

Now that I know, I should be free to pick a different size for my grandmother’s book, something more suitable to what I am doing.

My tulip tree still fascinates me. During the late spring as the flower petals withered, small green buds appeared. I’ve circled some of them in this picture.
Eventually all the flower petals were gone and the green buds turned brown. Now the leaves are gone and the brown buds have become brown flowers all over the tree. I’m waiting to see what happens next.

Last night, about 11:30, I looked out at the backyard and, to my amazement, it was lit by moonlight again. The moon is on its way to being full, but it’s not there yet. I had no idea it would give so much light. This time the shadow of the house was larger so the moon was further south. The maple tree was lit. Most of the leaves have fallen from the larger trees giving the moonlight access to the little tree, which still has not lost any leaves. I think it is a magical tree, nourished by moonlight in autumn. I am also amazed that it has taken me 72 years to notice how much light the moon gives back to the earth.

The book is almost finished, enough so I can show you some of it. This is the cover.
The birds are bone beads, colored with black tea and glued. There are also some round bone beads along the spine. These two pages have accordion fold images glued inside, more pictures of the back yard.

I used some translucent pages as chapter separations.

This is another Darcy weekend. Steve went to something in New York and Robin and Charna went to Chicago to see Eli. I’m here with Darcy. It’s cold and rainy and she doesn’t want to go out. Does this mean I get up in the middle of the night to let her out? Life is always uncertain when I’m taking care of my granddog.

Trader Joe’s opened a new store next to my health club. Today was maddening. Obviously, this was a big event in Pittsburgh. There is a huge parking lot for an almost empty strip mall, the health club and TJ’s. It was filled. The health club was empty. All those people were shopping with Joe. I’m sure the rush will end and I’ll be able to park again, but I’m not sure having them so accessible is good for my health. They have some lovely things, but not much that I should be eating.

Eighteen of my 24 pages are now in place. I have plans for three more pages; not sure what I’ll do with the other three. I made a big mistake when I started putting in pages on Tuesday night. It’s hard to explain, but the way I was doing it, I would have had to fill 48 pages. I just don’t have that much to say about my backyard. So I woke up very early yesterday morning and started undoing the book. What a mess! I’m hoping to get this finished over the weekend so I can start on the next one.

I have spent three more days trying to create my movable image and I’ve decided to quit. I understand the mechanism, but the problem is getting the images in the right places. I’ve been using Adobe Illustrator to draw my templates. That makes it much easier, but I found, not surprisingly, that what you see is only an approximation of what you get. I don’t have enough space to get it right. Because I have already determined the size of my book I am constrained in what I can do. I would have to make the images too small in order to allow for the necessary slop, or should I say, lack of precision. I am continuing to work on the book. I finished 14 of the probable 24 pages. I just will not have a movable page.