Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Writer's Remorse

Does anyone recognize this?  I just got two poems accepted by a certain publication (whose editor had rejected them four months ago, but never mind--she contacted me, so why ever not?).  These are both poems I have shopped around for more than a year, and I think one of them is quite good.  Now that it/they will appear in print, I am wondering hard if I could have placed it in a 'better' publication, higher up on the writers' food chain.  Remember that it has not been picked up despite my sending it out some ten times.  Is there no end to the vanity of wanting to be published?

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

All this and an ISBN too


I just learned that my chapbook submission to Pudding House's annual chapbook contest is a finalist, which means that they are going to publish it.  This is a breakthrough for me.  The weird thing is, now that I am at last going to have a chapbook out there, what crosses my mind mainly is that I know so many poets who have at least one chapbook published.  It reminds me of how I felt getting my doctorate nearly 30 years ago:  before I achieved it, the Ph.D. seemed so far off and wonderful, the sign of entering another plan of existence; once I had it, it seemed that everyone I knew had one.  I think that there is some external truth to this:  when you're aspiring, you tend to spend time with others going after the same thing; once you've succeeded, you continue to tend to spend time with people interested in the same activity. 
Anyhow, the chapbook is entitled "Eggs Satori", and I am told it will be coming out in the first half of 2011.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Thanks, Mr. Johnston--Magic Flute in Pomona,matinees next three Saturdays!

Pamina and her warm-hearted mother, the Queen of the Night, getting stuck by a pin during costume repair.  (Aneta Augustyn and Keiko Clark)                 
  


Tickets on sale at:   http://www.repertoryoperacompany.org/
(and they're just $30, and the space is air-conditioned)

Shout out to Mr. Johnston, wherever you are

I have the task and privilege of singing in the chorus of the Repertory Opera Company's production of The Magic Flute.  Very fine principals, piano reduction marvelously and tirelessly played by Brian Farrell, and gifted staging by LizBet Lucca.  Here are some scenes from the (approximately) women's dressing room:

Papageno (John Hansen) and Pamina (Aneta Augustyn), bff.
:

Papagena, pre- (Christina Linton) and Aneta Augustyn (Pamina)

Papageno (John Hansen) and Papagena, definitely pre- (Christina Linton)

Sprites and chorus members:  Lauren Jorgensen, Crystale Mineros, Sara Blanton, Eddie Sayles, Becky Broyles, and some folks' backs (sorry)


The Queen of the Night dresses her own wig, while one of her armored Ladies helps Papagena with her post- gown (Keiko Clark, Coril Prochnow, Christina Linton), and a sprite waits (Destinie Dominguez).

The other two armored Ladies, horribly beweaponed and at the ready (Ariel Pisturino and Debbie Dey).