20 June 2005: In The Blue and Silent

Yes, two entries today (this one's the second; the first is here). After all that time not writing, now I can’t shut up.

Back on May 21st, I went to Bonky and Fandango's wedding, at the water's edge in Ocean Beach in San Francisco. I was one of the groomsmen (charged by Bonky with the task of "tackling him if he tried to bolt" - but he didn't). My fellow groomsmen were Dreamy, Chasterus, Dr. Kenosha (Bonky's little brother, still babyfaced but not actually little anymore, who is now a physician with a family practice in Oberlin, Ohio), Wonderboy, and Omega 7. Argus officiated. A huge reception in Golden Gate Park followed, and then, after Bonky and Fandango drove off into the sunset in the RV that they now live in, the groomsmen, the minister, and other distinguished guests continued the party at Dreamy's apartment in the Castro and at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant. It was a beautiful day in every way.

Reconnecting with Dreamy recently has been especially nice; we met a couple of years ago, recognized one another as brethren, and didn't really follow up on the getting-to-know-each-other thing; it wasn't time yet. Now, apparently, it's time. We hung out a lot at the wedding, and then the following weekend he came to see the final Requiem for a Friend performance, and we hung out afterward. We have plans to hang out further, as our busy lives allow.

Hanging out on the beach before, during, and after the ceremony, I got the worst sunburn of my entire life, on my head and face. Over the course of the next few days, all the skin on my head and face peeled off, mostly in the shower, in a way that reminded me of the "Comfortably Numb" scene in the car on the way to the final concert in Pink Floyd The Wall. The process completed itself the day before the first of my two Requiem for a Friend performances, so I got to perform with brand new skin, which was obviously the way it was meant to work out all along.

The Requiem for a Friend performances went very well; the house was packed both nights, and the audiences dug it. On May 29th, the final performance, Sherpa invited the performers and the audience to hang around after the show for a Q&A session. One impressed audience member said that the way I moved in the performance reminded her of the movements of the Autistic children she used to work with. I explained that I was, in fact, Autistic; this led to a bit more conversation on the subject, a nice opportunity to bring a bit of neurodiversity awareness to a very friendly and receptive crowd. It was a nice moment.

The final Requiem performance was also the final bit of filming that that needed to be done for The Greater Circulation; Sherpa hosted the wrap party for the film the following night. Now it's in post-production, being edited and such; the public premiere is scheduled for November 1st. (I'm not currently on the Greater Circulation web page because I'm a supporting character rather than a major character. I was a major character in the Requiem performance piece; in the film, an entirely fictional story about the creation of the Requiem performance, my character is more minor, because he participates in the performance but not in the plot that occurs around the performance - indeed, the defining trait of the character is his asocial "I'm-just-here-to-move" approach; he never even speaks. I have no idea which bits of footage I'm in will end up fitting into the final cut; depending on how Sherpa's vision evolves during the editing process, I could end up being onscreen for twenty seconds, or twenty minutes, or anywhere in between.) It's going to be a great film; watch this journal for the announcement of the premiere this Fall.

The original plan of me playing an animated Egyptian statue that haunts Rilke's fevered dreams was discarded as the plot evolved, by the way - the character I'm playing is a modern-day human, at least to about the same extent that I'm a modern-day human.

Back in my February 5th entry, which mostly discusses the beginnings of the work of which I'm now enjoying the integration and first fruitions, I wrote about my father's hobby of burning compilation CDs of songs around particular themes, and about the “autobiographical” one he’d done called 100 Years of Solitude (mentioned again in The Inanna Dialogue, Part Five). One of the projects that I did as part of my integration-of-the-latest-work process this week was my own “autobiographical” compilation CD, entitled In the Blue and Silent. I’ll burn a copy of it for anyone who burns me a copy of their own similarly-themed compilation. So far, that’s my father and Kensei (a talented up-and-coming Shusekai student and clever creative person who gave me a copy of her CD a while back).

By one of them there peculiar coincidences, my father’s 100 Years of Solitude CD, my CD, and Kensei’s CD all include the song “Desert Rose,” by Sting. Odd.

In other news, Ozy and Millie is my new favorite comic strip.