Airport

hello, friends,

i'm sitting in the san francisco airport, having cleared security and a very official united airlines check-in woman. the only snafu thus far was that she "mentioned" that since my passport expires at the end of october, i "might" have a "problem" getting into japan. potential trouble, right?

i am asking for the lot of you to light candles on the hope that the universal love and truth that is volanskyism will allow me to clear customs.

i'll keep you posted.

the lovely and talented liz engelman last night coined a new nickname for me in honor of my trip: volansake. i like it.

i'll leave you with a great joke i heard courtesy of aaron posner, friend and (terrific) director.

guy walks into a bar, where he's the only customer. bartender draws him a beer and says, "i've got some stuff to do in the back. i'll be out in a few minutes."

so the guy takes a sip and hears a voice say, "you are looking really handsome today." he looks around, confused. takes another sip and then hears the voice say, "you've lost weight and you are mighty trim." now he's feeling like there's something in the beer, or he's on candid camera, so he looks around a bit, but sees nothing. then he hears the voice say, "you are a smart, intelligent and significant man." he's freaking out a bit, when the bartender returns. he tells the bartender, "i don't mean to sound like i'm crazy, but i think i'm hearing voices." the bartender says, "are they saying nice things?" the man, astonished, says "yes!" the bartender nods and says, "complimentary peanuts."

cracks me the heck up. thanks, aaron, for the great laugh.

i'm going to head to my gate now, so i wish you all well. i'll see you in about 14 hours...

peacelovegodbless,
volansake

Big trouble in little...

hello, friends,

i thought i was done posting for today.

i wandered up to my room here at the beautiful hotel mayflower (www.sfmayflowerhotel.com) to change before walking around san fran. i went to close my window and out fell my cellphone. in the time it took me to get out of the room with my key and down the 3 flights of stairs, it was gone. some bastard walked off with it.

the good people at cingular were kind enough to sell me another phone and reprogram my voicemail, but all of my numbers are lost. as i'm not traveling with my palm pilot, i now feel like a finger or so has been cut if. if you could, please email me your phone number so i can begin the reprogramming process.

when the proprietor of the mayflower saw my distress and heard my story, he handed over a bottle of california white wine, a wine glass and a bottle opener.

so there i was thinking that all of san francisco was out to get me and i was proven wrong.

enjoy the rest of your day, wherever you may be. and remember that ancient adage: hold onto your cellphones.

peacelovegodbless,
volansky

San Fran

hello, friends,

first, let me thank those of you who emailed to comment on this blog, offer some suggestions and additional links and wishing me well on both the trip and on the blog. i so appreciate it. i feel so lucky to have such a wonderful group of family and friends.

i've added a couple more links. www.thewreckingball.ca was added on the advice of michael petrasek, a great literary agent in canada. it is run by jason sherman, a playwright you all should know, and some of his cohorts up north. smart, smart stuff with a mission to "bring the headlines to the theater." michael said it was "right up my alley" and he sure was right.

witty, sassy and smart playwright carrie luft suggested www.thenonist.com for their gentle (and not-so-gentle) guidance on blogging, while keeza gave a shout-out from her own blog, www.themonkeehaus.blogspot.com. her site offers some great stories from the 2004 campaign trail, as well as her heroic efforts to educate the masses about truth and social security.

finally, here is a link to my friend nicholas quinn rosenkranz's recent testimony to the house judiciary committee on the subject of international law's impact on our own consitution: http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings.aspx?ID=121. you can also navigate to both his written testimony and the video of the session. he's truly one of the smartest people i know (and you all know that i think i am the smartest person i know) and though we disagree often on a variety of political, legal and social issues, he's still the bees knees. you'd be wise to read it, and then dig up his articles for the harvard law review (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=490125). intelligent, accessible stuff.

he also likes sushi and reminded me of: http://www.kamehachi.com, our favorite chicago haunt yummy.

i've been here in san fran for about a day and a half and i have to admit, it sure is swell to be someplace where it is not one million degrees. it's perfect here, and the company (those excellent ATHE and LMDA folks) is superb. tonight is "dramaturg's night out," which offers us all the opportunity to catch up on each other's lives and work. special thanks to dj hopkins for playing host.

my session this morning on "when dramaturgs come knocking: dramaturgy in a liberal arts session" went fantastically well. amy cook of UCSD talked about HAMLET in the bush of africa, while robyn quick of towson discussed national student dramaturgy through KCACTF. richard pettengill provided perhaps the most amusing moment of the session in his talk on THE TEMPEST at lake forest college, when he recounted a student's passionate declaration: "we do not read books! we use the internet!" i'm certain i'll be thinking about that for days to come. finally, amy steele talked about a fascinating production of THE EXONERATED at the alley theater in houston, where the production featured two acts, with act one being the play and act two being a post-show discussion featuring members of the legal and political communities along with recently exonerated individuals. all of these presentations were just aces.

i talked briefly about my experience at washington college in which michael harvey of the business department (see www.nutsandboltsguide.com for a bit about michael and his other projects...) and i joined our theater and business students around the marvelous book by lee devin and rob austin, ARTFUL MAKING (www.artfulmaking.com). i'm still processing our success and failure on our experiment, so keep an eye out for upcoming blog postings about ways different fields of study/interest can collaborate using dramaturgy.

i head to japan tomorrow on an 11AM flight. i am a little nervous, as i've mentioned, and feel profoundly underprepared. i've put my trust in my brother rob, which may or may not be a good thing. he's bound to be an exciting and...um...unique guide for my time on hokkaido.

some of you have asked if i will be heading to the mainland. at this moment, i doubt it. i have little interest in tokyo (hey, i saw LOST IN TRANSLATION...), as i get easily distracted by shiny objects. i had thought about going to hiroshima or nagasaki (on the advice of jason franklin) but ultimately, i don't think it is possible. there is both a pull and a rejection on going, this being the 60th anniversary year and all.

but who knows where i'll go?

i miss philly, my house and of course little cordelia already, but i know that, at least in the case of the latter two, jessica hogan has it all under control. she and cordy have established a really funny and remarkable relationship with one another, so if you are in the neighborhood, stop in and share the love.

finally, on the topic of my little brother. i have shamelessly stolen his signature signoff, "peacelovegodbless." i am indebted to him for passing it along.

i'll sign off for now. i'll see you all in japan!

peacelovegodbless,
volansky

And They're Off...

hello, friends,

well, i finished up an amazing two weeks with the 2005 playpenn conference. for those of you in a position to hire artists in theaters, please take a look at each and every playwright, director, designer, actor and dramaturg. and those interns could use jobs, too! hats off to paul for excuting a remarkable vision.

after a cocktail with some of the artists and after the commission panel, i came home panicked about what to bring to japan. fortunately, michael and jason put their special skills to work and somehow it all got done. they also offered counsel on how and where to pack arthur for the trip.

so, i have a fair amount of anxiety about this trip. i don't speak the language at all (and we all know how much i love to talk), i don't really know where i am going and i frankly don't know what to expect once i get there. i mean, we all know how much i love sushi (http://www.shiroihana.com and http://www.sushinyc.com/show_rest.asp?restid=249), but wow.

i also get to revisit a bit with myself. i have often wanted to go back to the monastery (www.benetlake.org), but just haven't found the time to do it. this is, hopefully, going to be like that trip.

off to pack the last of the items: notebook with the playwriting book in it, files for the fall classes, the latest draft of my flu play, and some drama department stuff. i also have MIDDLESEX and ron chernow's biography ALEXANDER HAMILTON (http://www.washcoll.edu/wc/news/press_releases/05_05_08_chernow.html)

it's nice to know that i'll have some friends coming along. and if you like what you are reading, please spread the word. i look forward to hearing from you on the journey.

peacelovegodbless,
volansky

here's where i stand...

hello new friends. i began this blog on the suggestion of michael, who asked for some email updates during my time in japan. i thought that was a swell idea, so here we are.

i am also curious as to how many and what kind of people will actually be interested in anything i have to say. i wonder, too, if this blog will reveal any insights into the larger context of the world. we'll just have to see, eh?

as far as the "news" goes, play penn (hey, visit this website: www.playpenn.org for more information) is going along spendidly. "my" two playwrights, jt rogers (jt: if you send me the reviews of the andre gregory-loving play, i'll post them) and jordan harrison (jordan: send me the link to your journal) are just really superb, with two provocative plays. i'll just say that between them, i'm in the middle of "gendercide." come see the plays to find out what that means.

i head to japan on sunday morning (with two days in san fran at www.athe.org) . lots to think about and do before i go, but i was able, this evening, after watching "the daily show" (http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml), articulate some goals for the trip:

1)walk in nature, hike moutains with hot tubs on top
2)experience buddhism
3)bond with rob

in the meantime, i hope you all will be able to hold to your schedule as i have. wake up, make griggs coffee (they deliver! 707 Claire RdMontoursville, PA 17754-1011 (570) 368-8924), do a little reading on the websites* featured on the sidebar and ponder another day on this earth.

(*if you'd like to feature YOUR site for review, do send me a link)

please visit often, tell your friends. let's start a revolution together.

peacelovegodbless,
volansky

the rove story

hello again, friends,

many folks in the past couple of months have asked for this story to be reprinted. some of you have even suggested that i send it to "the new yorker." i can't do that, but perhaps one of you might...

with all of the schmoozing powers i could summon, i arranged in april for me to have cocktails with karl rove, just before he talked at washington college as part of the richard harwood lecture series. granted, there were 70 people also invited, but i feel fairly confident that i made an impression on “bush’s brain.”

in the interest of "full disclosure," the topic of the talk was "politics and a polarized press in the age of bush." i should also say that i was in full "cocktail party mode" and was NOT as heavy-hitting as i should/could have been. i finnagled this invite to investigate how those in power use it in social settings. so, beat me about the head if you'd like -- i was there to play.

before i begin the play-by-play (which, for the record, is all ENTIRELY true), i have to tell you all that, when i returned home after the talk, i was met by THREE emails from the SGA president-elect, who is a drama major and who i have in class. the topic of each email was "you rattled him, i don't know how you did it, but you rattled him." so, i have a small sense of accomplishment.

okay, so i was hanging around the cocktail party (sidebar: not enough food, but the "jumbo shrimp" was swell...) and THE MAN HIMSELF walked in. he was cool and cavalier and was with his female handler, as well as the dashing john harwood, our gracious host and son of the deeply respected (and dead) dick harwood, late late of the washington post. rove wandered around a bit, shook the hands of some serious white haired rich republicans and was introduced to a number of the students who were there. i was with one of my favs, a senior drama/poli sci major from india. my colleague introduced her to rove and she and another student talked a bit until a bossy, schmoozy white haired insinuated herself into the conversation, bringing along an underage daughter (student and drinking). i stood behind rove for a while and when i sensed a break in the conversation, the following ensued:

mv: (tapping "the architect" on the back) thank you so much for coming to chestertown, mr. rove. i have to say, it was all i could do to physically restrain myself from grabbing your ass.

rove: who are you?!

mv: i'm michele volansky. i'm an alum, a dramaturg and a faculty member here at washington's college.

rove: what do you teach (sidebar: he wouldn't let go of my hand...)?

mv: drama.

rove: well, that makes sense. you are a drama queen. (turning to handler) make sure she is ALWAYS in my line of sight.

mv: so, my question is this -- do you have an inside line on who will be elected pope? (rove then grins, wiggles his eyebrows and nods his head) well, i guess you won't tell the likes of me...

he then moves along, gesturing that i remain in his field of vision (i am NOT making any of this up), shakes some more hands and then comes back to me.

rove: i want to make sure i always know where you are. so, stay in front of me, will you?

there's some more schmoozing and i then i think that i should have him sign something, so i go over to him and say:

mv: will you sign my invite?

rove: for you, anything.

so, he signs my invite, which i have in my possession. it says, "you scare me. karl rove"

i say to him: i could sell this on ebay, you know.

rove: you should. it's a free country.

mv: well, it is NOW. what about later?

he is then hustled away.

the talk goes on. he lies about no child left behind, social security and the "oppositional press"

as i said before, i didn't ask a question.

but, he was sitting on the edge of the stage, i walked by and waved. he grabbed my hand again, shook it and said, "it was a great pleasure meeting you, michele. good luck with everything."

that's all i got.

if anyone wants to see the signature, let me know.

he is truly impressive. and completely and utterly satanic. he's so good.

those of us in this crowd have a LOT of work to do before we find someone as clever as he is to orchestrate my 2020 presidential campaign.

so, friends, get to work.

peacelovegodbless,
volansky

don't i look smart?