Day 5; 6; 7: Samoens

APOLOGIES FIRST: for the double send of the lqst dispqtch; qnd for the odd spelling here! I am using a French keyboard; and the sun is in my eyes:

From Chapelle dAbondqnce we walked rqther easily up through forest; past a fine waterfall; then scrambling up stony paths through woods and finally across snow patches to a col and down through alpages -- pastures peopled if that is the word by nice Abondqnce cows -- and ultimatlely to the Refuge de Bassachaux; where we had a nice roo, to ourselves overlooking the terrace: Good dinner; comfortable bed; fine breakfast.

Yesterday; day 6, oh; theres the commq*a; was a bit harder especially at the end. It began easily enough with a stroll along a flat dirt road leading to Switwerlqnd; cuckoos appropriqtely singing in the forests below the trail. Once across the frontier (nonexistqnt) we found a gite, alas not yet open; where a number of wo,en wwere preparing the opening twà dqys hence: wqshing tables (we were not allowwed to sit at them), wiping down telephone books (no kidding), and such. Uncomprehendingly we walked on past the Lac Vert and up to a col overlooking fine alpages; different cows here; flora too:

We met our Austrian *again, a young 50 very slender vegetariaqn and very strong and pleasant who hqs walked many trails and is preparing the aPPqlachian pacific crezt and rocky ,ountain: a brqve femme:

Then back into Franbce for q difficult descent through pasture on rutted stony trqil; stepping carefully and descending steeply; to the refuge mines dor - there really zere gold mines here: A fine room agqin and a nice dinner; also q ga,e of boules before dinner:

This ,orning rqther harder; cli,bing to a steep col; then dozn dozwn down to Samoens: where ze perhaps stay long enough to ,aster this da,n keyboqrd:

Donùt count on it

Day 4: Chapelle d'Abondance

Chapelle d'Abondance, June 24--

Let's see: where was I? Oh yes: up early yesterday to watch the cows brought in for milking. One man and three dogs invited them down from the flowery pastures to the milk-barn. All three dogs looked the same to me, black and white, border collies or whatever.

One was the one who always snapped at the water when you washed your handss or filled your bottle at the trough; very annoying. Another, apparently younger, was on a long rope held by the gardien; maybe he was in training.

The cows looked at me curiously, then turned back to their own path to the barn. They're red and white, short-horned, of the Abondance breed, established during the 19th century: there's a plaque telliing me all this here in town, with a nice statue in open ironwork of a cow.

Anyhow after breakfast we ascended the pasture without much trouble, stopping to rest now and then, and then came to Pas de la Bosse at 1816 meters. From there a fine view back over last night's chalet to the pass from which we'd descended yesterday -- I'm sorry I can't post photos from this folding computer! -- and a pleasant view forward: for there, in the distance, lay Chapelle d'Abondance and, I assumed, a hot bath.

But first the long descent, and just now those hurt far more than the climbs. At first it was easy enoough, on switchbacks on dirt cowpaths. Halfway down we made some kind of mistake and lost the path.

We had to bushwhack through vegetation reaching almost our knees, thick lush growth hiding stones and marmot-holes. This is hard on the ankles, but ultimately we rejoined the rutted switchback path, not that much better.

The vegetation! Dozens of varieties of wildflower: gentians, orchids, buttercups, trollius, wild rose, violets... and dozens more we don't identify. The fragrance is wonderful: it's like walking past a gigantic open honeyjar.

At the bottom of the steep descent we entered a forest of evergreens, leading to a place apparently being "developed" into summer chalet country; and then we walked down through a sort of educational nature reserve with panels describing tle local flora and fauna, finally coming to town.

We were hot, tired, footsore, and hungry, and stopped at th firs hotel: La Gentianette, I think. We showered and changed an went to the next hotel for lunch -- omelette fines herbes and a green salad for me -- and then relaxed. We have a swimming pool, a sauna, a Turkish bath, and a room with a nice balcony and A BATHTUB!

The town's a bit depressing to me; I see it as four or five fine old stone buildings surrounded by new stuff built in the last forty years, the transition from locally sustainable agricultural economy to globally dependent leisure industry. Judging by the number of cars in the lots, and the number of closed sporting-goods shops, the previous economy may return.

We're here for a rest day; tomorrow we resume the march. I've seen a number of GR5 walkers today, on our own stroll back from the supermarket a couple of miles down the road. There'll be company.

Day 4: Chapelle d'Abondance

Chapelle d'Abondance, June 24--

Let's see: where was I? Oh yes: up early yesterday to watch the cows brought in for milking. One man and three dogs invited them down from the flowery pastures to the milk-barn. All three dogs looked the same to me, black and white, border collies or whatever.

One was the one who always snapped at the water when you washed your handss or filled your bottle at the trough; very annoying. Another, apparently younger, was on a long rope held by the gardien; maybe he was in training.

The cows looked at me curiously, then turned back to their own path to the barn. They're red and white, short-horned, of the Abondance breed, established during the 19th century: there's a plaque telliing me all this here in town, with a nice statue in open ironwork of a cow.

Anyhow after breakfast we ascended the pasture without much trouble, stopping to rest now and then, and then came to Pas de la Bosse at 1816 meters. From there a fine view back over last night's chalet to the pass from which we'd descended yesterday -- I'm sorry I can't post photos from this folding computer! -- and a pleasant view forward: for there, in the distance, lay Chapelle d'Abondance and, I assumed, a hot bath.

But first the long descent, and just now those hurt far more than the climbs. At first it was easy enoough, on switchbacks on dirt cowpaths. Halfway down we made some kind of mistake and lost the path.

We had to bushwhack through vegetation reaching almost our knees, thick lush growth hiding stones and marmot-holes. This is hard on the ankles, but ultimately we rejoined the rutted switchback path, not that much better.

The vegetation! Dozens of varieties of wildflower: gentians, orchids, buttercups, trollius, wild rose, violets... and dozens more we don't identify. The fragrance is wonderful: it's like walking past a gigantic open honeyjar.

At the bottom of the steep descent we entered a forest of evergreens, leading to a place apparently being "developed" into summer chalet country; and then we walked down through a sort of educational nature reserve with panels describing tle local flora and fauna, finally coming to town.

We were hot, tired, footsore, and hungry, and stopped at th firs hotel: La Gentianette, I think. We showered and changed an went to the next hotel for lunch -- omelette fines herbes and a green salad for me -- and then relaxed. We have a swimming pool, a sauna, a Turkish bath, and a room with a nice balcony and A BATHTUB!

The town's a bit depressing to me; I see it as four or five fine old stone buildings surrounded by new stuff built in the last forty years, the transition from locally sustainable agricultural economy to globally dependent leisure industry. Judging by the number of cars in the lots, and the number of closed sporting-goods shops, the previous economy may return.

We're here for a rest day; tomorrow we resume the march. I've seen a number of GR5 walkers today, on our own stroll back from the supermarket a couple of miles down the road. There'll be company.

Day 3: Chalet de Bise

But it was a harder day than I anticipated. Up about five to see the dawn and take photos, then write with a first coffee -- black, in a bowl, with sugar, okay. Then, at seven, our real breakfast: cafe au lait, bread butter and jam. Not very nourishing for the kind of thing we're doing.

You can't really complain about the Refuge du Dent d'Oche, though: everything's brought in weekly by helicopter, and the gardien makes a trip three times a week to Bernex for bread and such,carrying everything up on his back. Incredible.

We packed up and set out, climbing to the summit of the Dent d'Oche fairly easily, then descending along narrow fairly level footpaths at the edge of the precipice -- the north side of the Dent being virtually vertical -- then rounding the top to descend along an arrete, a spine of small-to-midsize exposed rock falling away on each side quite steeply.

A ridge, in fact, descending at say thirty degrees. Often we were helped by cables attached to the rock: you give up using your walking sticks, hold them both in one hand, grab the cable with the other (left in this case), swing away from the rock to the next footing, then quickly slide your hand further along the cable for the next operation.

This is fairly exhausting, but more normal descent, on scree, cobbles, and occasionally exposed soil, often stepping down six to ten inches at a step, is tiring in another way. Yesterday I was concerned about Mac; today about myself. Quadriceps and knees complained bitterly as we stepped down hundreds of meters on frustrating switchbacks, and then we were faced with another chimney, shinnying up between two stone surfaces, again with a cable to help, only to resume the switchbacks.

Ultimately all this led us to -- the GR5, the trail we intend to take south to Nice. First there was a climb of some hundreds of meters up switchbacks like those we'd just descended to a pass which seemed to define a new area: we were leaving the influence of Lac Leman and entering a different kind of Haute Savoie, a kind more like the Chartreuse we know from thirty years ago.

A beautiful green lake beckoned to us down off the path, but visiting it would have required otherwise unnecessary descents and climbs. Didn't take long to decline that invitation.

Instead we continued, walking into a herd of at least forty bouquetins, most of them adults with long, elegantly curved horns. I suppose they might have looked menacing, but I just walked forward, parting the herd.

Next came a much gentle descent, but one which took us across occasional patches of snow, unfamiliiar footing to me but rather pleasant. We found our way next up to the Col de Bise, another demarcation, and below us but oh so far away was the day's goal, the Chalets de Bise.

One of the two chalets is a refuge run by the Alpine Club, its sleeping facilities similar to those at Dent d'Oche but less spartan. We were first to arrive so were given three lower bunkss at the end of the row, under a window.

We were invited to wash our clothes if we liked, and finally I had an opportunity for a sponge-bath. We washed the clothes in cold water in a trough, leaving a few moss-stains in my pants which in any case now have a good-sized tear on the seat -- I must have slid on something unknowingly.

And we had a decent lunch, at two o'clock, a big salad with bacon, egg, walnuts, croutons and of course lettuce, good lettuce; and a bottle of local white wine.

The Canadians arrived shortly after us, in good cheer but just as tired, and joined us for lunch; we'll dine with them in a minute. Tonight a storm is promised: good. It'll clear the air. But tomorrow may rain, and we have to walk in it for three hours or so to get to Le Chalet d'Abondance. We'll see how it goes.

Day 2 : Dent d'Oche

This second day started well, proved difficult later, ended oddly, at least in my experience. I rose at six to do some writing and thinking; no one stirred; even the parrot was relatively sedate.

At seven, though, we were served a hearty breakfast: the usual croissant, sliced baguette, and coffee au lait, plus orange juice and, later, two fried eggs and big rashers of ham.

We went then down into Bernex, following first a paved road, then a grassy and stony mulepath. We had to wait only five minutes or so for the village store to open, where we found some dry sausage sticks, apples, and peanuts for the day's lunch, and a bottle of water for me.

Across the street the tourist shop was open, but their only hats were heavy winter felt affairs and one straw sized, I think, for Charlie McCarthy; so I bought some sunscreen and let it go at that.

We walked up the asphalt road, infrequently traveled, to Trossy and beyond, finally arriving at Fetiuere where the cafe would open in an hour, at eleven; but the manager saw our disappointment and gave us three coffees and welcome chairs on the terrace -- gratis!

Then began the real day's walk. At first we were in a forest, and the way was packed earth, occasionally a bit muddy, over loose stones. Quickly this led to a harder way, crossing the contours and climbing sharply, many more loose stones but still shaded.

Then we heard sheepbells ahead, and dogs barking, and came upon a small flock just moved into a paddock within temporary electric fence and guarded by two nervous sheepdogs. Now we were in full sunlight, and remained so generally for the rest of the day -- a warm one.

The way continued to climb but began to alternate between climbs and contours, rising above the forest and leading into high pastures with here and there a small herd of heifers, finally to a promising fromagere, an ancient stone building where cheese was made -- closed, of course, the tables and chairs fenced off in a most unfriendly manner, and a prominent sign

Le maison n'a pas des toilettes
Voir la Dame Nature

There was however a long concrete trough with two jets of cold water streaming into it, and here we rinsed our hands and soaked our head-scarfs and rested.

Now we were joined by a number of other walkers, solitaries, couples, and two or three families with children. The path splits here at the Chalet d'Oche, and we took the left, climbing through high pasture on a steep stony trail with many switchbacks.

Always we wondered how we would come to the day's goal, the Refuge du Dent d'Oche, always out of sight the other side of a prominent rock outcropping. Would we round that outcropping on the left or the right?

Neither, it turned out; there is a narrow way, a sort of chimney, in a cleft; and here we no longer walked, we scrambled, often hauling ourselves up hand over hand with the help of chains and cables thoughtfully pinned to the rock.

It was exhausting, but it led to a magnificently placed refuge, its small patio providing views over the whole of Lac Leman and the Alps, Mont Blanc a challenging distant mysterious white presence beyond all.

The Refuge accommodates 60 guests in three "dortoirs," big common rooms with box-beds, really only thin mattresses on the floors, set side by side in rows. There's one toilet, a Turkish affair; you hang onto a rope with your left hand to steady yourself and keep he door closed in front of you as you do your business.

There is no running water, though a bucket of cold water is thoughtfully provided just outside the toilet door for rinsing one's hands. Otherwise there is no way to clean up here.

But the view is splendid. Henry and I climbed to the summit, maybe twenty minutes away, and found a chamois there, grazing quite near the handful of visitors who seemed stunned and silenced by the view -- and inspiring it certainly is.

Dinner was soup, pasta, slabs of roast beef, cheese, and canned fruit cocktail, with a glass of red wine and many of cold water. And then, a little before ten, I retired, to sleep pretty well.

1 Bernex

Creusaz, Friday, June 20--

Definitely a difficult day today though a short walk, no more than twelve km I think. We landed in Geneve about ten am after a long afternoon walking perhaps five miles, a long evening eating a fine dinner, and a five-hour sleep, all in Amsterdam where we'd arrived yesterday morning on an overnight flight from San Francisco.

Train into Geneva, tram to the French train station at Eaux Vives -- a badly outmoded and ill-maintained place, but serviceable. Then an odd hour at Evian-les-Bains, making a reservation for tonight's bed and dinner and finding out how to walk here.

The walk was hard. No more than ten miles, but a considerable gain in elevation, from Evian at about 460 meters to here at 1170, or 3800 feet. Nothing compared to what we'll be doing, but hard given lack of sleep, jet lag, fairly high temperatures, and grades up to 20 percent.

The sleepy vacation resort town of Evian-les-Bains gave way to suburbs; these quickly becoming more rural. Our roads climbed and curved among fields and woods, often with surprising vistas over Lac Leman, always the distant mountains challenging us.

Now and then you come to a hamlet, with only a few of the old buildings to recall their original peasant economy; now nearly all buildings are from the last twenty years or so, in the prefab linconlog chalet style, nicely set about with gardens and potted flowers -- weekend or vacation houses, no doubt: this is ski country.

We are in Haute Savoie; the cows are wearing their delicious bells; the hills are incredibly green, the air soft and sweet. Our gite will not be terribly expensive and gave a decent dinner: trout, french fries (boy did we want that salt!), fresh crisp delicious lettuces, fine ice cream with magnificent whipped cream.

Tomorrow will be even harder than today, but we must do it -- and so to bed.

Travel

TO THE IMAGINISTS LAST NIGHT, there to see a production called Travel, conceived and produced by its entire cast. To the point, since I leave Wednesday for my Long Walk.

The Imaginists is/are an amazing group. I've written about them before here: among other things, we've seen them do a truly memorable Antigone, an intense, resourceful Crucible, a fascinating production of Pirandello's Tonight we Improvise, and, earlier this year, a magnificent Winter's Tale.

In between repertory like this, The Imaginists produce work conceived and developed collectively by the actors. Last night's Travel was in this line, and was particularly to the point, since the company itself is traveling -- leaving the loft workshop they've used for the last six years for a better, bigger, more flexible space a few miles south, in Santa Rosa. (Information about the new space here.) And while recent productions have been away from the loft, in parks or wineries or Healdsburg's own Raven Theater, Travel was produced in the loft itself, the audience on three sides.

The piece is choreographed theater, rarely verbal. I suppose it's somewhere between charades and tableau vivante. I think of it as living sculpture. These actors use their entire bodies sculpturally, expressing in gesture, movement, and even in static position a rich, complex, deeply human something -- something that I hesitate even to name or describe. You get an idea of this in the photo above: a representation of Io, seduced by Zeus and then given the form of a heifer. This Io is costumed, of course; costumes were not a part of Travel. But the kind of chthonic and ancient awareness Io represents, a knowledge-of-something-profoundly-human-but-certainly-not-verbally-expressible, was quite present in Travel, as it had been in Antigone several years ago, and was revealed to be in Arthur Miller's masterpiece The Crucible.

Have I mentioned that the cast is composed of school children? (As we used to call them: "children" comes increasingly resistingly to the vocabulary these days.) The Imaginists, directed by Brent Lindsay and Amy Pinto, have as their chief goal the development of strong and imaginative community theater; and they know the best way to build a theatrical future is to engage young people in the project. All the productions I've mentioned, including this Travel, have been performed by actors not yet eighteen. (Well, one turned eighteen last night.)

And they've absorbed their demanding repertory and developed the means to reproduce its revelations in their own collectively developed work. On one level, I suppose you could say Travel is no more than a series of skits, each the concept of one or another of the actors, all on the central theme of travel, strung together like the coaches of a passenger train, or the benches of a bus, whose occupants momentarily seem to have a common destination. (And that destination becomes all too apparent toward the end, when even members of the audience are involved in it.)

But "skit" suggests mere entertainment, and this work goes beyond that. There's something almost unnervingly profound about nearly everything these Imaginists do. The work is often abstract, but always meaningful, however elusive. Travel continues in the Healdsburg workshop tonight and tomorrow (June 13 and 14). The next production, Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, opens later this month: I'm sorry my own travels will prevent my seeing it.

Another day, another walk

IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL HERE. We think about that every day, of course. Gratitude is increasingly the most pressing order of the day's business, and we have much to be grateful for. Here you see, in the distance, the house Lindsey grew up in -- well: that she lived in from aetat. 14 to 22, not counting time out while attending college. It's on Eastside Road about three and a quarter miles north of our mailbox. (If you have Google Earth you can pinpoint it: 38°33'40.92" N 122°50'47.52" W; 95 ft. elevation.)

Fifty-odd years ago, when I first saw the place, it was in mixed production: 300 head of dairy cows or so; extensive prune orchards; hay fields and pasture. No grapevines. The vines in the middle right in this photo occupy the space of the family orchard: apples, plums, apricots, peaches. There were oranges near the house (that may be one there, now I think about it, below the gable).

Ten years before that there was the remains of a tennis court behind the house, beyond that huge satellite dish you can see: for at the turn of the century, the last century I mean, this was the Hotchkiss Ranch, the home of Helen Hotchkiss's parents. What? You haven't heard of her? She was perhaps the pioneering woman tennis player, the first, as I understand it from reading her memoir, to have thought of "playing like a man": that is, aggressively. She was a champ, and changed her world.

I walked past the old ranch, as we call it, today, on an eight-miler from our house in to Healdsburg. Eight miles = kilometers, two and a half hours walking, maybe fifteen minutes resting. Not bad for ninety-five-degree heat, but my feet hurt...

Flower Alphabet

YESTERDAY I READ THIS POEM in a year-old annual brochure from the local Community Foundation and it knocked, as they say, my socks off:

Flower Alphabet

Another flower
blossoms on the
coming of spring,
dandelions or
even roses, all
flowers starting to
gain beauty.
High above
I gaze down on
justice and nature,
kind and natural
lands filled with
majestic flowers.

No flower left
on Earth ugly,
pacing themselves, a
quilt of
roses even
sunflowers pace
toward the best
udder place.
Vegetables or fruit such as
watermelon. The hum of flowers like a
Xaxaphone.
Your flower white and black a
zebra's majestic flower.

--Mike Nicol

I confess it was only the word "udder' that woke me up and made me realize what was going on here; even the title hadn't alerted me. What a careless reader I can be! But "udder" isn't out of place, not here on Eastside Road, or in Windsor, either, where the poet was (at the time of writing the poet, last year) a sixth grade student at Cali Calmécac Charter School. Many of the fields hereabout are worked by cows, some of them dairy cows.

We have a field full of -- not cows, but Mariposa lilies, also known as Mariposa tulips, or golden nuggets. Calochortus luteus. I always thought they were named for Mariposa county, thinking they must have been particularly plentiful there: but it's simply named for the butterfly (mariposa in Spanish), which it resembles.

I don't know much about wildflowers. I don't know much about Cali Calmécac Charter School or, for that matter, Mike Nicol. I called the school; last evening Nicol called me to give me permission to reprint the poem here. I asked if he was still writing. Yes, he said, but not so much poetry these days; he's working on a novel.

This is the kind of thing gives one hope for the future. Justice and nature, kind and natural lands! What a line!

A hard day's walk

Mt. Saint Helena in the distance across the dry fields south of Windsor

UF: IT'S GETTING HOT, over ninety degrees today. I decided I needed to walk, though, so set out at about 9:40, walking over our hill and through the neighbor's vineyard, east about three-quarters of a mile to Starr Road, then north about the same and east about the same and north about a mile and a quarter to Windsor River Rd., then east maybe two-thirds of a mile to the local café, Café Noto.

It's Sunday, and nearly summertime, and there were a few joggers and cyclists out. At one point I was overtaken by a team of runners. How far you running? Oh, about sixteen miles. A few minutes later another runner came puffing along not really trying to catch up.

Well, I'd done four miles in 90 minutes, so I took a half-hour in the café, read my e-mail, and determined that I could not send any. Hmm: there are still obstacles to be overcome if I'm going to be blogging from the Alps later this month.

It was a nice rest, among more cyclists and runners; but then it got hot, and after another two and a quarter miles to Eastside Road I decided against going to Healdsburg & came home instead, another four and a quarter miles, arriving home totally exhausted at 2 pm. Totals, ca 10.5 miles in 4 hours. Going in to Healdsburg would have added another 3.3 miles, and then the same back, for a total of 17 miles! I'll save it for another day...

Guitar in the home

THE GUITAR, that ideal instrument: wood, steel, brass; a body famously like a woman's; a voice capable of insinuating melody or resonant depth. No other instrument, barring the human voice, is so chthonic.

And the place to hear it is in camera, in a room, where its subtle richness is uncompromised by artificial amplification. Last night we heard it thus: friends gave a dinner musicale for thirty guests or so, having received the opportunity to do so in turn as a Christmas present -- from people who had in turn received a similar gift at their wedding.

A gift that continues to give, like music itself or, for that matter, the guitar. Talk about added value!

The guitarist was Gyan Riley, of whom we've heard so much lately. The son of Terry and Ann Riley, his face mediating theirs and their sweet expressions of ggod humor and intelligence, he plays with authority undamaged by excessive pride or vittuosity. He's there to serve the music, whether a Bach suite or Bonfa's "Black Orpheus" -- which supported a thoughtful, idiomatic improvisation.

He played music of his own,too, fascinating etudes investigating various technical challenges. I liked tham; occasionally they suggedted things he must have been exposed to growing up in a sophisticated, globally aware family: much more often they were quite himself, imaginative, accomplished, beguiling.

Walking in the woods

ANOTHER SUNDAY HIKE, preparing for the long walk beginning later this month. Off we went, Mac and Henry and I, to a local state park, there to leave the car in a $4 parking lot and tackle a really nice hike. Much of it was among trees, Douglas fir for the most part. Since we were off in a distant end of the park, accessible easily only by paying to park, we had the trail pretty much to ourselves.

There was the occasional "mountain bike," which I confess to having gradually evolved a prejudice against; and two or three times we met a couple of equestrians. Somehow the horses, and their riders, are less irritating, less "unnatural," than the bikers. They're slower, for one thing, and considerably more visible.

We climbed and descended and strolled along fairly level stretches, among the forest, in open fields which would clearly have been marshland at other times, and conversed, and worked our feet. Lunch: bread, salami, apple, walnuts, dried apricots, cookies. Then more walking.

Turkeys, cougar scat, woodpeckers, Mariposa lilies, buttercups. Eight miles; four hours. A nice rehearsal.

The Eastside View

YES, I KNOW: the little Milhaud survey is to be completed. I'll probably get back to that in a few days. It's been a busy time, partly with the trip to Los Angeles last week, partly with the sudden arrival of Spring, followed, apparently, by an early Summer. Here's what it looks like, from our ridge, where I walked this afternoon with my 30-pound backpack (I'm in training).

In spite of a very slight rain a few days back, the hills have turned brown — we Californians prefer to call it "golden." The vineyard beyond our house is irrigated, of course; and so is Lindsey's garden, within our hedge. The field this side the hedge is mown and green; it's below our leach-field, which keeps it green.

My own little vineyard over on the left hasn't really been irrigated yet; I always want to let it go dry, but usually give in out of sympathy by midsummer — though this time I won't be here to watch it fry.

On Monday we watched a specialist take down the dead stone pine that used to stand beyond the workshop, at the right of the house; and now I'm worrying about the corkscrew willow to the left of the driveway gate. You can see the left half is far behind the right, downhill half: I think that's the result of ground squirrels, of all things; they've turned that field into Swiss cheese, and the willow's roots are getting mostly air rather than nutrients and water. Well: a willow doesn't belong there.

Today we saw a hawk carrying a snake, always a good omen, though hard on snakes. We like snakes: they eat ground squirrels. We like our foxes, bobcats, owls, coyotes, for the same reason. There aren't enough of them. And now that we're surrounded by vineyards the damn squirrels have probably all moved over here onto our place, safe from irrigation, discing, spraying, and all that.

Don Juan

Glendale, May 21--

MOLIERE'S DON JUAN is truly a wonderful play; if it's neglected here, it's probably because of Mozart and Da Ponte, who did even more with the theme. That's unfair, of course; no one plumbed the depth of the human conditions more, conditions in the plural, than Mozart and Da Ponte. But Molière has some fun with it, and uses it to make some points still well worth considering.

And it made a splendid end to our tour of theater here: five plays in seven days, three of them first-rate, two of them problematic, as noted earlier. We saw it at A Noise Within, the Glendale repertory company we've visited twice annually for a number of years. In the past we've seen other French rep here: Racine's Phaedra, Ubu Roi, Feydau's A Flea in her Ear, Molière's School for Wives and The Miser, Marivaux's The Triumph of Love -- not bad for six seasons. All these productions were truly excellent: together with productions of Euripides, Gozzi, Chekhov, and Ibsen, they persuade me that Noise Within is at its best with theater in translation, however loyal they may be to their Shakespeare survey and their American rep.

We'd seen a version of Don Juan quite a while ago, in 1994, when le Theâtre de la jeune lune brought their adaptation to Berkeley Rep. It was diverting and enterprising: but, like the Figaro we saw there a few weeks ago, it was heavily adapted; deliberately folded into both Da Ponte's version and George Bernard Shaw's. I'd read the original to prepare for that, and revisited it again this last week, in an ancient two-volume edition (Paris, 1873). Noise Within performed a translation by Richard Nelson: except for some judicious cutting (notably in Molière's opening panegyric to tobacco) it was quite faithful to the original.

What always interests me about the Don Juan story is its moral (and ethical) ambiguity. He's hard on women, there's no doubt about it: but that's mainly because of two things: their vulnerability to pregnancy (and, it must be added, STDs), and the considerable apparatus of disapproval society has constructed to keep women from developing their own lives. I'm not a feminist, you may have noticed: but I think I see some misogynist elements in the attitudes we bring to this Don Juan business.

Any good treatment of the theme has to deal with this, from Molière's, the earliest I've studied, to John Berger's, the most recent. (His novel G (Booker Prize, 1972; some useful reader-comments here) provides quite a different take, considering the seduced as well as the seducer.) Indeed the legend has distant roots, having to do with the genetic value humanity received from sexually hyperactive males: the most dominant presumably transmitted their material to the majority of the next generation, insuring strength and versatility among the progeny, assisting the survival of the species.

(And recent investigations have shown, I recall reading somewhere, that women are unconsciously attracted to one kind of man when they're receptive to fertilization, a very different type when they're thinking of settling down. You want an alpha male to conceive by, apparently, but a more supportive sort to provide for the ensuing family.)

Molière considers much of this, if only between his lines. He also has a lot to say about the societal aspect. The comments on tobacco and medicine and religion are still funny and perhaps jus as pointed; Don Juan's long speech on hypocrisy is as relevant today as it must have been in 1665. (The continuing strength of theatrical social commentary never fails to amaze and impress me: from the Greeks and the Romans, through Shakespeare of course and Molière, to Beaumarchais and Da Ponte and on to Chekhov and Ibsen and so on, theater has constantly re-invented social commentary, irony, protest.)

This Don Juan was directed by Michael Michetti, whose only previous Noise Within outing was with As You Like It in 2006. That struck me at the time as the best Shakespeare we'd seen here, and we'd seen a lot; this strikes me as equally good; I hope Michetti takes a more prominent role within this company.

Two other Noise Within debuts: the tall, handsome, romantic Elijah Alexander as Don Juan; the evocative, deft, extremely funny JD Cullum as Molière -- I mean, Sganarelle, the Leporello-figure, Don Juan's valet. Each was right on the mark, and their ensemble made a third character as inevitable and fascinating as the two who produced it.

I liked Libby West as the lovestruck, regretful, ultimately quite touching Elvira; and Abby Craden, a fine ingenue Charlotte (Zerlina to Mozart fans); and Kyle Nudo as her Masetto-Pierrot. Elvira's brothers were Stephen Rockwell and Dale Sandlin, lithping in the Cathtilian manner, hilarious. The supporting cast was beautifully scaled and ably performed, and the sets -- designed by Michetti -- were evocative.

Test transmission

Here's a test transmission from the TX using the folding keyboard, much as I propose to do this summer from the Alpwalk.

Mission, not quite accomplished

Glendale, May 18--
WE SEEM TO HAVE STRUCK A PATTERN: a good play, a problem, a good one, another problem. Today it was an earnest political play, The Mission (Accomplished, adapted by Charles Duncombe from Heiner Müller's 1979The Mission. Müller (1929-1995) was an East German playwright clearly in the Brecht succession; The Mission (Der Auftrag) is a play about the failed insurrection the French Revolutionaries stirred up in Jamaica in 1794; Duncombe is a co-director of the City Garage company in Santa Monica, and his adaptation consisted of framing devices alluding to our Iraq invasion and Abu Ghraib.

The production kept reminding me of The Living Theater's political productions of the 1960s. I suppose it's nice that the flame still burns, that there are those in the theater world who respect the enterprise, passion, and commitment of Judith Malina and Julian Beck, and that theater as political propaganda can still work. But the fact is, there were only fifteen or eighteen of us in the audience; full frontal nudity has lost its politically expressive force, and we've all been lectured at repeatedly and are ready for more reasoned exposition.

Nor did it help that the three ladies (like the Three Ladies of all those operas) were treated more as set-pieces than characters, or that they broke into barefoot heartbeat flamenco to underline a point; or that passages meant to be tender and intimate seemed more like illustrations in a 1970s improve-your-marital-life handbook.

There were some fine portrayals by male actors, notably Troy Dunn as Dubuisson, Dave Mack as Sasportas, and Bo Roberts as Galludec: but Frederique Michel's direction didn't allow them to develop their characters or modulate their lines. Too bad; Müller's verse, in this uncredited translation, sounded as if it might have been affecting.

I'm glad I saw the production, I think. But I wouldn't want to see it again.

Taking measure

Glendale, May 17--


MEASURE FOR MEASURE TONIGHT: what an amazing play! We saw it at the small, community Eclectic Company Theatre: several of the actors were Equity, but the stage was small and somewhat improvised, the company rather uneven. I couldn't entirely agree with the director's take on Shakespeare's intention -- in a program note he suggested the play was a "satire," that the Immortal Bard had been uncomfortable writing the comic pages, and he pared a good bit of that stuff -- but we were certainly persuaded by his pacing and pointing of the two and a half hours that remained.

It's a difficult play, a "problem play." The Duke puts his cousin on the throne but hangs around in disguise to see what will happen. The cousin, given power, is corrupted. People are jailed and sentenced to death. The virgin agrees to sacrifice her honor to save her brother. Disguised as a friar, the Duke weaves a complex plot. In the end justice prevails.

Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, I learned in college; but several of them are really different workings-out of a small number of themes, and Measure for Measure belongs with The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and (in a curious way) Hamlet, all different views of the Lead Character as Playwright idea. It's tempting, then, to think the ideas in this play, weighted with questions of ethics and justice, are ideas that particularly haunted Shakespeare, who lived in a time of questionable political ethics, a time of global imperialism and reckless human and economic adventure.

Not so different from our own, and the director, Morgan Nichols, took pleasure in the fact that David Bardeen, who played the villainous Angelo, bore a physical resemblance to John Ashcroft. His corruption grows slowly, softly, but steadily, tumescent; he's as much a victim of it as is his victim.

Laura Lee Bahr was the victim, Isabella, in a beautifully scaled and detailed performance, fully fleshed out, good-humored, patient, alert: the role grows to rival Portia and Viola. Oded Gross was an interesting Duke, off to a tentative start where more authority seems needed, but deliberately emphasizing the disengagement this artist-figure must convey as he retires behind the plot he has set in motion -- while still steering it, like the Don Alfonso of Mozart's Così fan tutte.

There were nice performances elsewhere: especially Christine Krebsbach's Provost and Kerr Seth Lordygan's Lucio. Lori Meeker's costumes were effective, as were Nichols's sound cues. Ultimately it was Shakespeare himself, as usual, who turned in the greatest performance. Measure for Measure is a great play, complex and difficult as ethics, direct and inevitable as difficulty. Like so much great art, it's completely relevant to our time. It's good to see it honored at this level.

Mannered Shakespeare; shapely Messiaen

Glendale, Friday, May 16--
LAST NIGHT'S PLAY at A Noise Within -- The Night of the Iguana -- was so good, tonight was bound to be a disappointment. The odd thing was, tonight's flaws were last night's virtues. Geof Elliot, who was such a superb Shannon last night, was a mannered Falstaff. I mentioned yesterday that I disagreed with Variety's complaint that the Tennessee Williams play was "overwrought and undermodulated": that exactly describes tonight's Henry IV, Part 1.

The problem, far as I'm concerned, was the direction. Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott direct a good many of NW's plays. Since Geoff Elliott also takes a number of the leads, NW risks seeming almost a vanity company. We've been coming here for years, so we obviously like it; NW isn't, of course, simply a vanity company. But.

The first half of the evening -- the first two acts of the play -- suffered the most. Interesting, virtually all my complaints have to do with things heard: Laura Karpman's music cues are overblown and uninteresting, and further compromised by the cheap-sounding synthesized "orchestration." Much more serious were problems with declamation and accents.

The biggest problem was Elliott, who singsonged and chanted and declaimed and orated Falstaff's lines to the point that fascination with the vocal delivery overtook every other dimension of the role. Too bad, because physically and intellectually it was an interesting portrayal of a difficult part.

Beyond that, J. Todd Adams, as Hotspur, twisted his lines through an accent that may have been aimed at Scotland but seemed to mediate between Virgina hill country and the Beatles's Liverpool. You never really knew where you were. And that too was too bad, because he was otherwise remarkably good in the role.

Robertson Dean was an understated, dignified Henry IV, thank heavens; and Freddy Douglas was a marvelous Hal, youthful, hesitant, observant, aware, ultimately blossoming into the future king. Steve Weingartner was a complex, rewarding Percy, and other roles were ably taken by Eric J. Stein and Apollo Dukakis.

Best of all, perhaps, was the Bardolph of William Dennis Hunt, who looked like Bert Lahr starring in a goofy Michael McClure play. Come to think of it, Noise Within should let him do exactly that.

EARLIER TODAY WE HEARD a concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the newish Gehry-designed concert hall. Peter Serkin was on hand, a late replacement for an ailing pianist, and the piece that had most attracted us to the concert, Leos Janacek's Concertino for Piano and Winds, had been scrubbed; but the substitution was Olivier Messiaen's "Petites esquisses d'oiseaux" (Little Sketches for Birds), for solo piano; Messiaen's last composition for that medium, one I hadn't heard before, and a beautiful, perfectly persuasive piece.

It was a perfect complement to the other Messiaen piece, Oiseaux exotiques for piano, winds, and percussion, a much earlier piece which also manages to avoid those aspects of Messiaen that to my mind weaken much of the rest of his music: exaggerated sentimentality, unpersuasive mysticism, swoopy postWagnerianism.

Serkin played both pieces magnificently, separating pitches and phrases out of complex aggregates of sound, finding the true music in the bright, percussive piano writing; and in Oiseaux exotiques both the musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their music director, Christoph von Dohnanyi, supported both Serkin and the composer with real distinction.

Beethoven's Eroica Symphony sounded out quite well -- we were sitting behind the orchestra, seats I always like, and which in this case helped further differentiate the important differences between first and second violins, seated opposite one another in this hall. The interpretation was unremarkable and straightforward.

The Night of the Iguana

ON A TRIP TO LOS ANGELES back in 2002, having a spare evening on our hands, we noticed Noël Coward's Hay Fever was playing at a theater in Glendale, and we went to see it. It was so good we returned the next year for the full season, because the company, A Noise Within, not only does plays in repertory, but schedules them in such a way that if you're careful you can catch three plays in four days twice in the year -- usually in late November and mid-May.

We've been back every year since, often with a friend or two, and we've rarely been let down. We've seen some interesting plays, including Moliere, Racine, Feydau; Ibsen, Chekhov; Shakespeare a couple of times each season; and American notables: Inge, Wilder, Miller. We've seen Euripides and we've seen Beckett. And many of these productions have been very good, right up there with what you see in Ashland, for example, but in a small thrust-stage theater where nearly every image is a close-up.

Last night we saw The Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams's study of repressed obsession and expressed craziness in a seedy 1940 Mexican beachfront hotel. Play, production, and performances are all three memorable: it was as good a night in the theater as I can remember enjoying, anywhere, any time.

Much of this is because of Geoff Elliott's absolutely riveting portrayal of the lead, Shannon: his voice, face, gestures, pacing, visual expression all completely on the mark in every second he's on stage -- which is virtually the entire evening. His emotional and physical range are encyclopedic. But masterly as his individual performance is, he's always part of the ensemble. His portrayal, and those of the rest of the cast, are utterly persuasive: but in nearly every case the interactions among the cast, the moments of brittle or pungent or suddenly tender contact, seem to take on life themselves, becoming extra, unseen personages, enriching Williams's essentially poetic drama.

Deborah Strang was a marvelous widow Faulk; her own story, greatly described but barely plumbed by the script, becomes as big a component as that of Shannon. Jill Hill played the ultimately strong female character, Hannah, with considerable resourcefulness, carefully attuned to the long line of the evening.

The production has been faulted as "overwrought and undermodulated," but I don't agree. It's often loud and always detailed, but though high-keyed, both Williams's script and Michael Murray's direction seem to me both accurate and evocative. It's a Big Evening of theater, full and strong. Only two performances remain, on the afternoon and evening of May 25.

Morgen

NO; IT'S NOT A LOVELY SONG by Richard Strauss I'm thinking of this morning. A glance at Language Lab this morning turns up some comments on a subject even dearer to my heart: procrastination.

'Morgen, Morgen, nur nicht heute,' sagen alle faulen Leute
("Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today, all you lazy bastards say") is my quick translation.)

Mom used to mutter that under her breath as she moved among the strawberries, the tomatoes, the chickens, the firewood, the tall grass under the clothesline; as she dealt with snarling piglets, truculent sons, and an errant husband. I never really knew what it meant: I never did learn German.

Poor Mom: in those days our life was tenuous, a study in improvisation and, well, procrastination. There were some things could be postponed only so long, like feeding and milking; but most things could be postponed indefinitely, displaced by the unforeseen arrival of more urgent matters.

As the twig, so the tree. Upstairs from the study is the loft, an architectural mistake for me though undoubtedly useful to many. Here we stash things. There's more than one paper bag labeled "To Do On Return." There are piles of read books, most of them fairly recently read and awaiting their next orders -- annotate? summarize? shelve? deaccession (that dreadful word)?

Well, the hell with all of it. We're off today for a week in Los Angeles, seeing plays, hearing a concert or two, seeing friends. Tonight, it's The Night of the Iguana at A Noise Within. If I get around to it, I'll tell you about it tomorrow.