An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

As I sat in a meeting yesterday, iPhones and iPads and MacBooks began pinging with the news. We began clicking and connecting, Googling and tweeting. So we learned about Jobs’ death not just through Apple devices, but in a weird sort of way, through Jobs.

A day to dream about new self-educated, exacting, visionary leaders who will come forward and inspire us.

More accurately, since I was listening to it as an audiobook, I found it impossible to remove my earpiece.  In fact, I bet I walked ten more miles than usual last week just to justify my added listening time.  Good for exercise, and great for a tantalizing, challenging, inspiring, and sometimes troubling story of a Pakistani terror plot. Oh, what a terrible reductive waste of a description that is.  Read it, and then tell me what you thought about it.

I’ll be there with Jill Vexler and the Letters to Sala exhibition

Our host:  Adam Shapiro, Dean of Students

Golda Och Academy

1418 Pleasant Valley Way

West Orange, NJ 07052

973-602-3690

Tony Kushne

Letters to Sala by Arlene Hutton will open at Rollins College on February 11, 2011…and Tony Kushner will be there a few months later.  OK, so we’re not exactly on the same page, but we’re close!  Either way, I’d love to see you in  Winter Park Florida.

I will be there as Scholar in Residence (thanks, Rollins!) and giving a couple of talks and attending the performances.  Playwright Arlene Hutton (the Nibroc trilogy) and director Eric Nightengale — a mighty pair — will be there too.

The play is  sort of based on my book, Sala’s Gift.

Sort of, because Letters to Sala was first conceptualized by the distinguished director Larry Sacharow, before my book was even published.  Larry introduced me to Arlene Hutton, and the first expression of their collaboration was performed at the opening of the Sala Garncarz Kirschner Collection at the New York Public Library. Marion Seldes, Wendy Vanden Heuvel, and Nina Sacharow were the first actors.  Sadly, we lost our friend Larry soon afterwards, much much too young.

The first production was at Suz Classen’s wonderful Invisible Theatre in Tucson, and since then, it has been performed in about a dozen different places…Rollins College will be very special, because it is Arlene Hutton’s alma mater, because she and Eric will be introducing some wonderful new ideas for this production, and because my parents, Sala and Sidney Kirschner, will be joining us on February 14 for the matinee performance.

It occurs to me that I should take Tony Kushner’s picture off this post.  Nah, he looks so appealing!  I’ll have to post some others of the play and its actors.

Elisabeth and Matt

Happy Fourth of July…..

I read it in the New York Times….

Wedding 2010 has arrived!